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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wandering Jew, Book VIII., by Eugene Sue
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Wandering Jew, Book VIII.
+
+Author: Eugene Sue
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2004 [EBook #3346]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WANDERING JEW, BOOK VIII. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger and Pat Castevens
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WANDERING JEW
+
+By Eugene Sue
+
+
+
+BOOK VIII.
+
+
+
+PART THIRD.--THE REDEMPTION.
+
+
+I.        The Wandering Jew's Chastisement
+II.       The Descendants of the Wandering Jew
+III.      The Attack
+IV.       The Wolves and the Devourers
+V.        The Return
+VI.       The Go-Between
+VII.      Another Secret
+VIII.     The Confession
+IX.       Love
+X.        The Execution
+XI.       The Champs-Elysees
+XII.      Behind the Scenes
+XIII.     Up with the Curtain
+XIV.      Death
+
+
+
+PART THIRD.--THE REDEMPTION.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE WANDERING JEW'S CHASTISEMENT.
+
+'Tis night--the moon is brightly shining, the brilliant stars are
+sparkling in a sky of melancholy calmness, the shrill whistlings of a
+northerly wind--cold, bleak, and evil-bearing--are increasing: winding
+about, and bursting into violent blasts, with their harsh and hissing
+gusts, they are sweeping the heights of Montmartre. A man is standing on
+the very summit of the hill; his lengthened shadow, thrown out by the
+moon's pale beams, darkens the rocky ground in the distance. The
+traveller is surveying the huge city lying at his feet--the City of
+Paris--from whose profundities are cast up its towers, cupolas, domes,
+and steeples, in the bluish moisture of the horizon; while from the very
+centre of this sea of stones is rising a luminous vapor, reddening the
+starry azure of the sky above. It is the distant light of a myriad lamps
+which at night, the season for pleasure, is illuminating the noisy
+capital.
+
+"No!" said the traveller, "it will not be. The Lord surely will not
+suffer it. Twice is quite enough. Five centuries ago, the avenging hand
+of the Almighty drove me hither from the depths of Asia. A solitary
+wanderer, I left in my track more mourning, despair, disaster, and death,
+than the innumerable armies of a hundred devastating conquerors could
+have produced. I then entered this city, and it was decimated. Two
+centuries ago that inexorable hand which led me through the world again
+conducted me here; and on that occasion, as on the previous one, that
+scourge, which at intervals the Almighty binds to my footsteps, ravaged
+this city, attacking first my brethren, already wearied by wretchedness
+and toil. My brethren! through me--the laborer of Jerusalem, cursed by
+the Lord, who in my person cursed the race of laborers--a race always
+suffering, always disinherited, always slaves, who like me, go on, on,
+on, without rest or intermission, without recompense, or hope; until at
+length, women, men, children, and old men, die under their iron yoke of
+self-murder, that others in their turn then take up, borne from age to
+age on their willing but aching shoulders. And here again, for the third
+time, in the course of five centuries, I have arrived at the summit of
+one of the hills which overlooks the city; and perhaps I bring again with
+me terror, desolation, and death. And this unhappy city, intoxicated in a
+whirl of joys, and nocturnal revelries, knows nothing about it--oh! it
+knows not that I am at its very gate. But no! no! my presence will not be
+a source of fresh calamity to it. The Lord, in His unsearchable wisdom,
+has brought me hither across France, making me avoid on my route all but
+the humblest villages, so that no increase of the funeral knell has,
+marked my journey. And then, moreover, the spectre has left me--that
+spectre, livid and green, with its deep bloodshot eyes. When I touched
+the soil of France, its moist and icy hand abandoned mine--it
+disappeared. And yet I feel the atmosphere of death surrounding me still.
+There is no cessation; the biting gusts of this sinister wind, which
+envelop me in their breath, seem by their envenomed breath to propagate
+the scourge. Doubtless the anger of the Lord is appeased. Maybe, my
+presence here is meant only as a threat, intending to bring those to
+their senses whom it ought to intimidate. It must be so; for were it
+otherwise, it would, on the contrary, strike a loud-sounding blow of
+greater terror, casting at once dread and death into the very heart of
+the country, into the bosom of this immense city. Oh, no! no! the Lord
+will have mercy; He will not condemn me to this new affliction. Alas! in
+this city my brethren are more numerous and more wretched than in any
+other. And must I bring death to them? No! the Lord will have mercy; for,
+alas! the seven descendants of my sister are at last all united in this
+city. And must I bring death to them? Death! instead of that immediate
+assistance they stand so much in need of? For that woman who, like
+myself, wanders from one end of the world into the other, has gone now on
+her everlasting journey, after having confounded their enemies' plots. In
+vain did she foretell that great evils still threatened those who are
+akin to me through my sister's blood. The unseen hand by which I am led,
+drives that woman away from me, even as though it were a whirlwind that
+swept her on. In vain she entreated and implored at the moment she was
+leaving those who are so dear to me.--At least, 0 Lord, permit me to stay
+until I shall have finished my task! Onward! A few days, for mercy's
+sake, only a few days! Onward! I leave these whom I am protecting on the
+very brink of an abyss! Onward! Onward!! And the wandering star is
+launched afresh on its perpetual course. But her voice traversed through
+space, calling me to the assistance of my own! When her voice reached me
+I felt that the offspring of my sister were still exposed to fearful
+dangers: those dangers are still increasing. Oh, say, say, Lord! shall
+the descendants of my sister escape those woes which for so many
+centuries have oppressed my race? Wilt Thou pardon me in them? Wilt Thou
+punish me in them? Oh! lead them, that they may obey the last wishes of
+their ancestor. Guide them, that they may join their charitable hearts,
+their powerful strength, their best wisdom, and their immense wealth, and
+work together for the future happiness of mankind, thereby, perhaps,
+enabled to ransom me from my eternal penalties. Let those divine words of
+the Son of Man, 'Love ye one another!' be their only aim; and by the
+assistance of their all-powerful words, let them contend against and
+vanquish those false priests who have trampled on the precepts of love,
+of peace, and hope commanded by the Saviour, setting up in their stead
+the precepts of hatred, violence, and despair. Those false shepherds,
+supported ay the powerful and wealthy of the world, who in all times have
+been their accomplices, instead of asking here below a little happiness
+for my brethren, who have been suffering and groaning for centuries, dare
+to utter, in Thy name, O Lord! that the poor must always be doomed to the
+tortures of this world, and that it is criminal in Thine eyes that they
+should either wish for or hope a mitigation of their sufferings on earth,
+because the happiness of the few and the wretchedness of nearly all
+mankind is Thine almighty will. Blasphemies! is it not the contrary of
+these homicidal words that is more worthy of the name of Divine will?
+Hear, me, O Lord! for mercy's sake. Snatch from their enemies the
+descendants of my sister, from the artisan up to the king's son. Do not
+permit them to crush the germ of a mighty and fruitful association,
+which, perhaps, under Thy protection, may take its place among the
+records of the happiness of mankind. Suffer me, O Lord! to unite those
+whom they are endeavoring to divide--to defend those whom they are
+attacking. Suffer me to bring hope to those from whom hope has fled, to
+give courage to those who are weak, to uphold those whom evil threatens,
+and to sustain those who would persevere in well-doing. And then,
+perhaps, their struggles, their devotedness, their virtues, this miseries
+might expiate my sin. Yes, mine--misfortune, misfortune alone, made me
+unjust and wicked. O Lord! since Thine almighty hand hath brought me
+hither, for some end unknown to me, disarm Thyself, I implore Thee, of
+Thine anger, and let not me be the instrument of Thy vengeance! There is
+enough of mourning in the earth these two years past--Thy creatures have
+fallen by millions in my footsteps. The world is decimated. A veil of
+mourning extends from one end of the globe to the other. I have traveled
+from Asia even to the Frozen Pole, and death has followed in my wake.
+Dost Thou not hear, O Lord! the universal wailings that mount up to Thee?
+Have mercy upon all, and upon me. One day, grant me but a single day,
+that I may collect the descendants of my sister together, and save them!"
+And uttering these words, the wanderer fell upon his knees, and raised
+his hands to heaven in a suppliant attitude.
+
+Suddenly, the wind howled with redoubled violence; its sharp whistlings
+changed to a tempest. The Wanderer trembled, and exclaimed in a voice of
+terror, "O Lord! the blast of death is howling in its rage. It appears as
+though a whirlwind were lifting me up. Lord, wilt Thou not, then, hear my
+prayer? The spectre! O! do I behold the spectre? Yes, there it is; its
+cadaverous countenance is agitated by convulsive throes, its red eyes are
+rolling in their orbits. Begone! begone! Oh! its hand--its icy hand has
+seized on mine! Mercy, Lord, have mercy! 'Onward!' Oh, Lord! this
+scourge, this terrible avenging scourge! Must I, then, again carry it
+into this city, must my poor wretched brethren be the first to fall under
+it--though already so miserable? Mercy, mercy! 'Onward!' And the
+descendants of my sister--oh, pray, have mercy, mercy! 'Onward!' O Lord,
+have pity on me! I can no longer keep my footing on the ground, the
+spectre is dragging me over the brow of the hill; my course is as rapid
+as the death-bearing wind that whistles in my track; I already approach
+the walls of the city. Oh, mercy, Lord, mercy on the descendants of my
+sister--spare them! do not compel me to be their executioner, and let
+them triumph over their enemies. Onward, onward! The ground is fleeing
+from under me; I am already at the city gate; oh, yet, Lord, yet there is
+time; oh, have mercy on this slumbering city, that it may not even now
+awaken with the lamentations of terror, of despair and death! O Lord, I
+touch the threshold of the gate; verily Thou willest it so then. 'Tis
+done--Paris! the scourge is in thy bosom! oh, cursed, cursed evermore am
+I. Onward! on! on!"[34]
+
+[34] In 1346, the celebrated Black Death ravaged the earth, presenting the
+same symptoms as the cholera, and the same inexplicable phenomena as to
+its progress and the results in its route. In 1660 a similar epidemic
+decimated the world. It is well known that when the cholera first broke
+out in Paris, it had taken a wide and unaccountable leap; and, also
+memorable, a north-east wind prevailed during its utmost fierceness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE DESCENDANTS OF THE WANDERING JEW.
+
+That lonely wayfarer whom we have heard so plaintively urging to be
+relieved of his gigantic burden of misery, spoke of "his sister's
+descendants" being of all ranks, from the working man to the king's son.
+They were seven in number, who had, in the year 1832, been led to Paris,
+directly or indirectly, by a bronze medal which distinguished them from
+others, bearing these words:-VICTIM of L. C. D. J. Pray for me!
+-----PARIS, February the 13th, 1682.
+
+IN PARIS, Rue St. Francois, No. 3, In a century and a half you will be.
+February the 13th, 1832. -----PRAY FOR ME!
+
+The son of the King of Mundi had lost his father and his domains in India
+by the irresistible march of the English, and was but in title Prince
+Djalma. Spite of attempts to make his departure from the East delayed
+until after the period when he could have obeyed his medal's command, he
+had reached France by the second month of 1832. Nevertheless, the results
+of shipwreck had detained him from Paris till after that date. A second
+possessor of this token had remained unaware of its existence, only
+discovered by accident. But an enemy who sought to thwart the union of
+these seven members, had shut her up in a mad-house, from which she was
+released only after that day. Not alone was she in imprisonment. An old
+Bonapartist, General Simon, Marshal of France, and Duke de Ligny, had
+left a wife in Russian exile, while he (unable to follow Napoleon to St.
+Helena) continued to fight the English in India by means of Prince
+Djalma's Sepoys, whom he drilled. On the latter's defeat, he had meant to
+accompany his young friend to Europe, induced the more by finding that
+the latter's mother, a Frenchwoman, had left him such another bronze
+medal as he knew his wife to have had.
+
+Unhappily, his wife had perished in Siberia, without his knowing it, any
+more than he did, that she had left twin daughters, Rose and Blanche.
+Fortunately for them, one who had served their father in the Grenadiers
+of the Guard. Francis Baudoin, nicknamed Dagobert, undertook to fulfil
+the dying mother's wishes, inspired by the medal. Saving a check at
+Leipsic, where one Morok the lion-tamer's panther had escaped from its
+cage and killed Dagobert's horse, and a subsequent imprisonment (which
+the Wandering Jew's succoring hand had terminated) the soldier and his
+orphan charges had reached Paris in safety and in time. But there, a
+renewal of the foe's attempt had gained its end. By skillful devices,
+Dagobert and his son Agricola were drawn out of the way while Rose and
+Blanche Simon were decoyed into a nunnery, under the eyes of Dagobert's
+wife. But she had been bound against interfering by the influence of the
+Jesuit confessional. The fourth was M. Hardy, a manufacturer, and the
+fifth, Jacques Rennepont, a drunken scamp of a workman, who were more
+easily fended off, the latter in a sponging house, the former by a
+friend's lure. Adrienne de Cardoville, daughter of the Count of
+Rennepont, who had also been Duke of Cardoville, was the lady who had
+been unwarrantably placed in the lunatic asylum. The fifth, unaware of
+the medal, was Gabriel, a youth, who had been brought up, though a
+foundling, in Dagobert's family, as a brother to Agricola. He had entered
+holy orders, and more, was a Jesuit, in name though not in heart. Unlike
+the others, his return from abroad had been smoothed. He had signed away
+all his future prospects, for the benefit of the order of Loyola, and,
+moreover, executed a more complete deed of transfer on the day, the 13th
+of February, 1832, when he, alone of the heirs, stood in the room of the
+house, No. 3, Rue St. Francois, claiming what was a vast surprise for the
+Jesuits, who, a hundred and fifty years before, had discovered that Count
+Marius de Rennepont had secreted a considerable amount of his wealth, all
+of which had been confiscated to them, in those painful days of
+dragoonings, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They had
+bargained for some thirty or forty millions of francs to be theirs, by
+educating Gabriel into resigning his inheritance to them, but it was two
+hundred and twelve millions which the Jesuit representatives (Father
+d'Aigrigny and his secretary, Rodin) were amazed to hear their nursling
+placed in possession of. They had the treasure in their hands, in fact,
+when a woman of strangely sad beauty had mysteriously entered the room
+where the will had been read, and laid a paper before the notary. It was
+a codicil, duly drawn up and signed, deferring the carrying out of the
+testament until the first day of June the same year. The Jesuits fled
+from the house, in rage and intense disappointment. Father d'Aigrigny was
+so stupor-stricken at the defeat, that he bade his secretary at once
+write off to Rome that the Rennepont inheritance had escaped them, and
+hopes to seize it again were utterly at an end. Upon this, Rodin had
+revolted, and shown that he had authority to command where he had, so
+far, most humbly obeyed. Many such spies hang about their superior's
+heels, with full powers to become the governor in turn, at a moment's
+notice. Thenceforward, he, Rodin, had taken the business into his own
+hands. He had let Rose and Blanche Simon out of the convent into their
+father's arms. He had gone in person to release Adrienne de Cardoville
+from the asylum. More, having led her to sigh for Prince Djalma, he
+prompted the latter to burn for her.
+
+He let not M. Hardy escape. A friend whom the latter treated as a
+brother, had been shown up to him as a mere spy of the Jesuits; the woman
+whom he adored, a wedded woman, alas! who had loved him in spite of her
+vows, had been betrayed. Her mother had compelled her to hide her shame
+in America, and, as she had often said--"Much as you are endeared to me,
+I cannot waver between you and my mother!" so she had obeyed, without one
+farewell word to him. Confess, Rodin was a more dextrous man than his
+late master! In the pages that ensue farther proofs of his superiority in
+baseness and satanic heartlessness will not be wanting.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE ATTACK.
+
+On M. Hardy's learning from the confidential go-between of the lovers,
+that his mistress had been taken away by her mother, he turned from Rodin
+and dashed away in a post carriage. At the same moment, as loud as the
+rattle of the wheels, there arose the shouts of a band of workmen and
+rioters, hired by the Jesuit's emissaries, coming to attack Hardy's
+operatives. An old grudge long existing between them and a rival
+manufacturer's--Baron Tripeaud--laborers, fanned the flames. When M.
+Hardy had left the factory, Rodin, who was not prepared for this sudden
+departure, returned slowly to his hackney-coach; but he stopped suddenly,
+and started with pleasure and surprise, when he saw, at some distance,
+Marshall Simon and his father advancing towards one of the wings of the
+Common Dwelling-house; for an accidental circumstance had so far delayed
+the interview of the father and son.
+
+"Very well!" said Rodin. "Better and better! Now, only let my man have
+found out and persuaded little Rose-Pompon!"
+
+And Rodin hastened towards his hackney-coach. At this moment, the wind,
+which continued to rise, brought to the ear of the Jesuit the war song of
+the approaching Wolves.
+
+The workman was in the garden. The marshal said to him, in a voice of
+such deep emotion that the old man started; "Father, I am very unhappy."
+
+A painful expression, until then concealed, suddenly darkened the
+countenance of the marshal.
+
+"You unhappy?" cried father Simon, anxiously, as he pressed nearer to the
+marshal.
+
+"For some days, my daughters have appeared constrained in manner, and
+lost in thought. During the first moments of our re-union, they were mad
+with joy and happiness. Suddenly, all has changed; they are becoming more
+and more sad. Yesterday, I detected tears in their eyes; then deeply
+moved, I clasped them in my arms, and implored them to tell me the cause
+of their sorrow. Without answering, they threw themselves on my neck, and
+covered my face with their tears."
+
+"It is strange. To what do you attribute this alteration?"
+
+"Sometimes, I think I have not sufficiently concealed from them the grief
+occasioned me by the loss of their mother, and they are perhaps miserable
+that they do not suffice for my happiness. And yet (inexplicable as it
+is) they seem not only to understand, but to share my sorrow. Yesterday,
+Blanche said to me: 'How much happier still should we be, if our mother
+were with us!--'"
+
+"Sharing your sorrow, they cannot reproach you with it. There must be
+some other cause for their grief."
+
+"Yes," said the marshal, looking fixedly at his father; "yes--but to
+penetrate this secret--it would be necessary not to leave them."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"First learn, father, what are the duties which would keep me here; then
+you shall know those which may take me away from you, from my daughters,
+and from my other child."
+
+"What other child?"
+
+"The son of my old friend, the Indian Prince."
+
+"Djalma? Is there anything the matter with him?"
+
+"Father, he frightens me. I told you, father, of his mad and unhappy
+passion for Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"Does that frighten you, my son?" said the old man, looking at the
+marshal with surprise. "Djalma is only eighteen, and, at that age, one
+love drives away another."
+
+"You have no idea of the ravages which the passion has already made in
+the ardent, indomitable boy; sometimes, fits of savage ferocity follow
+the most painful dejection. Yesterday, I came suddenly upon him; his eyes
+were bloodshot, his features contracted with rage; yielding to an impulse
+of mad furry, he was piercing with his poinard a cushion of red cloth,
+whilst he exclaimed, panting for breath, 'Ha blood!--I will have blood!'
+'Unhappy boy!' I said to him, 'what means this insane passion?' 'I'm
+killing the man!' replied he, in a hollow and savage voice: it is thus he
+designates his supposed rival."
+
+"There is indeed something terrible," said the old man, "in such a
+passion, in such a heart."
+
+"At other times," resumed the marshal, "it is against Mdlle. de
+Cardoville that his rage bursts forth; and at others, against himself. I
+have been obliged to remove his weapons, for a man who came with him from
+Java, and who appears much attached to him, has informed me that he
+suspected him of entertaining some thoughts of suicide."
+
+"Unfortunate boy!"
+
+"Well, father," said Marshal Simon, with profound bitterness; "it is at
+the moment when my daughters and my adopted son require all my
+solicitude, that I am perhaps on the eve of quitting them."
+
+"Of quitting them?"
+
+"Yes, to fulfil a still more sacred duty than that imposed by friendship
+or family," said the marshal, in so grave and solemn a tone, that his
+father exclaimed, with deep emotion: "What can this duty be?"
+
+"Father," said the marshal, after remaining a moment in thoughtful
+silence, "who made me what I am? Who gave me the ducal title, and the
+marshal's baton?"
+
+"Napoleon."
+
+"For you, the stern republican, I know that he lost all his value, when
+from the first citizen of a Republic he became an emperor.
+
+"I cursed his weakness," said Father Simon, sadly; "the demi-god sank
+into a man."
+
+"But for me, father--for me, the soldier, who have always fought beside
+him, or under his eye--for me, whom he raised from the lowest rank in the
+army to the highest--for me, whom he loaded with benefits and marks of
+affection--for me, he was more than a hero, he was a friend--and there
+was as much gratitude as admiration in my idolatry for him. When he was
+exiled, I would fain have shared his exile; they refused me that favor;
+then I conspired, then I drew my sword against those who had robbed his
+son of the crown which France had given him."
+
+"And, in your position, you did well, Pierre; without sharing your
+admiration, I understood your gratitude. The projects of exile, the
+conspiracies--I approved them all--you know it."
+
+"Well, then, that disinherited child, in whose name I conspired seventeen
+years ago, is now of an age to wield his father's sword."
+
+"Napoleon II!" exclaimed the old man, looking at his son with surprise
+and extreme anxiety; "the king of Rome!"
+
+"King? no; he is no longer king. Napoleon? no; he is no longer Napoleon.
+They have given him some Austrian name, because the other frightened
+them. Everything frightens them. Do you know what they are doing with the
+son of the Emperor?" resumed the marshal, with painful excitement. "They
+are torturing him--killing him by inches!"
+
+"Who told you this?"
+
+"Somebody who knows, whose words are but too true. Yes; the son of the
+Emperor struggles with all his strength against a premature death. With
+his eyes turned towards France, he waits--he waits--and no one comes--no
+one--out of all the men that his father made as great as they once were
+little, not one thinks of that crowned child, whom they are stifling,
+till he dies."
+
+"But you think of him?"
+
+"Yes; but I had first to learn--oh! there is no doubt of it, for I have
+not derived all my information from the same source--I had first to learn
+the cruel fate of this youth, to whom I also swore allegiance; for one
+day, as I have told you, the Emperor, proud and loving father as he was,
+showed him to me in his cradle, and said: 'My old friend, you will be to
+the son what you have been to the father; who loves us, loves our
+France.'"
+
+"Yes, I know it. Many times you have repeated those words to me, and,
+like yourself, I have been moved by them."
+
+"Well, father! suppose, informed of the sufferings of the son of the
+Emperor, I had seen--with the positive certainty that I was not
+deceived--a letter from a person of high rank in the court of Vienna,
+offering to a man that was still faithful to the Emperor's memory, the
+means of communicating with the king of Rome, and perhaps of saving him
+from his tormentors--"
+
+"What next?" said the workman, looking fixedly at his son. "Suppose
+Napoleon II. once at liberty--"
+
+"What next?" exclaimed the marshal. Then he added, in a suppressed voice:
+"Do you think, father, that France is insensible to the humiliations she
+endures? Do you think that the memory of the Emperor is extinct? No, no;
+it is, above all, in the days of our country's degredation, that she
+whispers that sacred name. How would it be, then, were that name to rise
+glorious on the frontier, reviving in his son? Do you not think that the
+heart of all France would beat for him?"
+
+"This implies a conspiracy--against the present government--with Napoleon
+II. for a watchword," said the workman. "This is very serious."
+
+"I told you, father, that I was very unhappy; judge if it be not so,"
+cried the marshal. "Not only I ask myself, if I ought to abandon my
+children and you, to run the risk of so daring an enterprise, but I ask
+myself if I am not bound to the present government, which, in
+acknowledging my rank and title, if it bestowed no favor, at least did me
+an act of justice. How shall I decide?--abandon all that I love, or
+remain insensible to the tortures of Emperor--of that Emperor to the son
+of the whom I owe everything--to whom I have sworn fidelity, both to
+himself and child? Shall I lose this only opportunity, perhaps, of saving
+him, or shall I conspire in his favor? Tell me, if I exaggerate what I
+owe to the memory of the Emperor? Decide for me, father! During a whole
+sleepless night, I strove to discover, in the midst of this chaos, the
+line prescribed by honor; but I only wandered from indecision to
+indecision. You alone, father--you alone, I repeat, can direct me."
+
+After remaining for some moments in deep thought, the old man was about
+to answer, when some person, running across the little garden, opened the
+door hastily, and entered the room in which were the marshal and his
+father. It was Olivier, the young workman, who had been able to effect
+his escape from the village in which the Wolves had assembled.
+
+"M. Simon! M. Simon!" cried he, pale, and panting for breath. "They are
+here--close at hand. They have come to attack the factory."
+
+"Who?" cried the old man, rising hastily.
+
+"The Wolves, quarrymen, and stone-cutters, joined on the road by a crowd
+of people from the neighborhood, and vagabonds from town. Do you not hear
+them? They are shouting, 'Death to the Devourers!'"
+
+The clamor was indeed approaching, and grew more and more distinct.
+
+"It is the same noise that I heard just now," said the marshal, rising in
+his turn.
+
+"There are more than two hundred of them, M. Simon," said Olivier; "they
+are armed with clubs and stones, and unfortunately the greater part of
+our workmen are in Paris. We are not above forty here in all; the women
+and children are already flying to their chambers, screaming for terror.
+Do you not hear them?"
+
+The ceiling shook beneath the tread of many hasty feet.
+
+"Will this attack be a serious one?" said the marshal to his father, who
+appeared more and more dejected.
+
+"Very serious," said the old man; "there is nothing more fierce than
+these combats between different unions; and everything has been done
+lately to excite the people of the neighborhood against the factory."
+
+"If you are so inferior in number," said the marshal, "you must begin by
+barricading all the doors--and then--"
+
+He was unable to conclude. A burst of ferocious cries shook the windows
+of the room, and seemed so near and loud, that the marshal, his father,
+and the young workman, rushed out into the little garden, which was
+bounded on one side by a wall that separated it from the fields. Suddenly
+whilst the shouts redoubled in violence, a shower of large stones,
+intended to break the windows of the house, smashed some of the panes on
+the first story, struck against the wall, and fell into the garden, all
+around the marshal and his father. By a fatal chance, one of these large
+stones struck the old man on the head. He staggered, bent forward, and
+fell bleeding into the arms of Marshal Simon, just as arose from without,
+with increased fury, the savage cries of, "Death to the Devourers!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE WOLVES AND THE DEVOURERS.
+
+It was a frightful thing to view the approach of the lawless crowd, whose
+first act of hostility had been so fatal to Marshal Simon's father. One
+wing of the Common Dwelling-house, which joined the garden-wall on that
+side, was next to the fields. It was there that the Wolves began their
+attack. The precipitation of their march, the halt they had made at two
+public-houses on the road, their ardent impatience for the approaching
+struggle, had inflamed these men to a high pitch of savage excitement.
+Having discharged their first shower of stones, most of the assailants
+stooped down to look for more ammunition. Some of them, to do so with
+greater ease, held their bludgeons between their teeth; others had placed
+them against the wall; here and there, groups had formed tumultuously
+round the principal leaders of the band; the most neatly dressed of these
+men wore frocks, with caps, whilst others were almost in rags, for, as we
+have already said, many of the hangers-on at the barriers, and people
+without any profession, had joined the troop of the Wolves, whether
+welcome or not. Some hideous women, with tattered garments, who always
+seem to follow in the track of such people, accompanied them on this
+occasion, and, by their cries and fury, inflamed still more the general
+excitement. One of them, tall, robust, with purple complexion, blood shot
+eyes, and toothless jaws, had a handkerchief over her head, from beneath
+which escaped her yellow, frowsy hair. Over her ragged gown, she wore an
+old plaid shawl, crossed over her bosom, and tied behind her back. This
+hag seemed possessed with a demon. She had tucked up her half-torn
+sleeves; in one hand she brandished a stick, in the other she grasped a
+huge stone; her companions called her Ciboule (scullion).
+
+This horrible hag exclaimed, in a hoarse voice: "I'll bite the women of
+the factory; I'll make them bleed."
+
+The ferocious words were received with applause by her companions, and
+with savage cries of "Ciboule forever!" which excited her to frenzy.
+
+Amongst the other leaders, was a small, dry pale man, with the face of a
+ferret, and a black beard all round the chin; he wore a scarlet Greek
+cap, and beneath his long blouse, perfectly new, appeared a pair of neat
+cloth trousers, strapped over thin boots. This man was evidently of a
+different condition of life from that of the other persons in the troop;
+it was he, in particular, who ascribed the most irritating and insulting
+language to the workmen of the factory, with regard to the inhabitants of
+the neighborhood. He howled a great deal, but he carried neither stick
+nor stone. A full-faced, fresh-colored man, with a formidable bass voice,
+like a chorister's, asked him: "Will you not have a shot at those impious
+dogs, who might bring down the Cholera on the country, as the curate told
+us?"
+
+"I will have a better shot than you," said the little man, with a
+singular, sinister smile.
+
+"And with what, I'd like to see?"
+
+"Probably, with this," said the little man, stooping to pick up a large
+stone; but, as he bent, a well-filled though light bag, which he appeared
+to carry under his blouse, fell to the ground.
+
+"Look, you are losing both bag and baggage," said the other; "it does not
+seem very heavy."
+
+"They are samples of wool," answered the man with the ferret's face, as
+he hastily picked up the bag, and replaced it under his blouse; then he
+added: "Attention! the big blaster is going to speak."
+
+And, in fact, he who exercised the most complete ascendency over this
+irritated crowd was the terrible quarryman. His gigantic form towered so
+much above the multitude, that his great head, bound in its ragged
+handkerchief, and his Herculean shoulders, covered with a fallow goat
+skin, were always visible above the level of that dark and swarming
+crowd, only relieved here and there by a few women's caps, like so many
+white points. Seeing to what a degree of exasperation the minds of the
+crowd had reached, the small number of honest, but misguided workmen, who
+had allowed themselves to be drawn into this dangerous enterprise, under
+the pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, now fearing for the
+consequences of the struggle, tried, but too late, to abandon the main
+body. Pressed close, and as it were, girt in with the more hostile
+groups, dreading to pass for cowards, or to expose themselves to the bad
+treatment of the majority, they were forced to wait for a more favorable
+moment to effect their escape. To the savage cheers, which had
+accompanied the first discharge of stones, succeeded a deep silence
+commanded by the stentorian voice of the quarryman.
+
+"The Wolves have howled," he exclaimed; "let us wait and see how the
+Devourers will answer, and when they will begin the fight."
+
+"We must draw them out of their factory, and fight them on neutral
+ground," said the little man with the ferret's face, who appeared to be
+the thieves' advocate; "otherwise there would be trespass."
+
+"What do we care about trespass?" cried the horrible hag, Ciboule; "in or
+out, I will tear the chits of the factory."
+
+"Yes, yes," cried other hideous creatures, as ragged as Ciboule herself;
+"we must not leave all to the men."
+
+"We must have our fun, too!"
+
+"The women of the factory say that all the women of the neighborhood are
+drunken drabs," cried the little man with the ferret's face.
+
+"Good! we'll pay them for it."
+
+"The women shall have their share."
+
+"That's our business."
+
+"They like to sing in their Common House," cried Ciboule; "we will make
+them sing the wrong side of their mouths, in the key of 'Oh, dear me!'"
+
+This pleasantry was received with shouts, hootings, and furious stamping
+of feet, to which the stentorian voice of the quarryman put a term by
+roaring: "Silence!"
+
+"Silence! silence!" repeated the crowd. "Hear the blaster!"
+
+"If the Devourers are cowards enough not to dare to show themselves,
+after a second volley of stones, there is a door down there which we can
+break open, and we will soon hunt them from their holes."
+
+"It would be better to draw them out, so that none might remain in the
+factory," said the little old man with the ferret's face, who appeared to
+have some secret motive.
+
+"A man fights where he can," cried the quarryman, in a voice of thunder;
+"all, right, if we can but once catch hold. We could fight on a sloping
+roof, or on the top of a wall--couldn't we, my Wolves?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried the crowd, still more excited by those savage words;
+"if they don't come out, we will break in."
+
+"We will see their fine palace!"
+
+"The pagans haven't even a chapel," said the bass voice. "The curate has
+damned them all!"
+
+"Why should they have a palace, and we nothing but dog-kennels?"
+
+"Hardy's workmen say that kennels are good enough for such as you." said
+the little man with the ferret's face.
+
+"Yes, yes! they said so."
+
+"We'll break all their traps."
+
+"We'll pull down their bazaar."
+
+"We'll throw the house out of the windows."
+
+"When we have made the mealy-mouthed chits sing," cried Ciboule, "we will
+make them dance to the clatter of stones on their heads."
+
+"Come, my Wolves! attention!" cried the quarryman, still in the same
+stentorian voice; "one more volley, and if the Devourers do not come out,
+down with the door!"
+
+This proposition was received with cheers of savage ardor, and the
+quarryman, whose voice rose above the tumult, cried with all the strength
+of his herculean lungs: "Attention, my Wolves. Make ready! all together.
+Now, are you ready?"
+
+"Yes, yes--all ready!"
+
+"Then, present!--fire!" And, for the second time, a shower of enormous
+stones poured upon that side of the Common Dwelling-house which was
+turned towards the fields. A part of these projectiles broke such of the
+windows as had been spared by the first volley. To the sharp smashing and
+cracking of glass were joined the ferocious cries uttered in chorus by
+this formidable mob, drunk with its own excesses: "Death to the
+Devourers!"
+
+Soon these outcries became perfectly frantic, when, through the broken
+windows, the assailants perceived women running in terror, some with
+children in their arms, and others raising their hands to heaven, calling
+aloud for help; whilst a few, bolder than the rest, leaned out of the
+windows, and tried to fasten the outside blinds.
+
+"There come the ants out of their holes!" cried Ciboule, stooping to pick
+up a stone. "We must have a fling at them for luck!" The stone, hurled by
+the steady, masculine hand of the virago, went straight to its mark, and
+struck an unfortunate woman who was trying to close one of the shutters.
+
+"Hit in the white!" cried the hideous creature.
+
+"Well done, Ciboule!--you've rapped her coker-nut!" cried a voice.
+
+"Ciboule forever!"
+
+"Come out, you Devourers, if you dare!"
+
+"They have said a hundred times, that the neighbors were too cowardly
+even to come and look at their house," squealed the little man with the
+ferret's face.
+
+"And now they show the white feather!"
+
+"If they will not come out," cried the quarryman, in voice of thunder,
+"let us smoke them out!"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"Let's break open the door!"
+
+"We are sure to find them!"
+
+"Come on! come on!"
+
+The crowd, with the quarryman at their head, and Ciboule not far from
+him, brandishing a stick, advanced tumultously towards one of the great
+doors. The ground shook beneath the rapid tread of the mob, which had now
+ceased shouting; but the confused, and, as it were, subterraneous noise,
+sounded even more ominous than those savage outcries. The Wolves soon
+arrived opposite the massive oaken door. At the moment the blaster raised
+a sledgehammer, the door opened suddenly. Some of the most determined of
+the assailants were about to rush in at this entrance; but the quarryman
+stepped back, extending his arm as if to moderate their ardor and impose
+silence. Then his followers gathered round him.
+
+The half-open door discovered a party of workmen, unfortunately by no
+means numerous, but with countenances full of resolution. They had armed
+themselves hastily with forks, iron bars, and clubs. Agricola, who was
+their leader, held in his hand a heavy sledge-hammer. The young workman
+was very pale; but the fire of his eye, his menacing look, and the
+intrepid assurance of his bearing, showed that his father's blood boiled
+in his veins, and that in such a struggle he might become fear-inspiring.
+Yet he succeeded in restraining himself, and challenged the quarryman, in
+a firm voice: "What do you want?"
+
+"A fight!" thundered the blaster.
+
+"Yes, yes! a fight!" repeated the crowd.
+
+"Silence, my Wolves!" cried the quarryman, as he turned round, and
+stretched forth his large hand towards the multitude. Then addressing
+Agricola, he said: "The Wolves have come to ask for a fight."
+
+"With whom?"
+
+"With the Devourers."
+
+"There are no Devourers here," replied Agricola; "we are only peaceable
+workmen. So begone."
+
+"Well! here are the Wolves, that will eat your quiet workmen."
+
+"The Wolves will eat no one here," said Agricola, looking full at the
+quarryman, who approached him with a threatening air; "they can only
+frighten little children."
+
+"Oh! you think so," said the quarryman, with a savage sneer. Then raising
+his weapon, he shook it in Agricola's face, exclaiming: "Is that any
+laughing matter?
+
+"Is that?" answered Agricola, with a rapid movement, parrying the stone
+sledge with his own hammer.
+
+"Iron against iron--hammer against hammer--that suits me," said the
+quarryman.
+
+"It does not matter what suits you," answered Agricola, hardly able to
+restrain himself. "You have broken our windows, frightened our women, and
+wounded--perhaps killed--the oldest workman in the factory, who at this
+moment lies bleeding in the arms of his son." Here Agricola's voice
+trembled in spite of himself. "It is, I think, enough."
+
+"No; the Wolves are hungry for more," answered the blaster; "you must
+come out (cowards that you are!), and fight us on the plain."
+
+"Yes! yes! battle!--let them come out!" cried the crowd, howling,
+hissing, waving their sticks and pushing further into the small space
+which separated them from the door.
+
+"We will have no battle," answered Agricola: "we will not leave our home;
+but if you have the misfortune to pass this," said Agricola, throwing his
+cap upon the threshold, and setting his foot on it with an intrepid air,
+"if you pass this, you attack us in our own house, and you will be
+answerable for all that may happen."
+
+"There or elsewhere we will have the fight! the Wolves must eat the
+Devourers. Now for the attack!" cried the fierce quarryman, raising his
+hammer to strike Agricola.
+
+But the latter, throwing himself on one side by a sudden leap, avoided
+the blow, and struck with his hammer full at the chest of the quarryman,
+who staggered for a moment, but instantly recovering his legs, rushed
+furiously on Agricola, crying: "Follow me, Wolves!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE RETURN.
+
+As soon as the combat had begun between Agricola and the blaster, the
+general fight became terrible, ardent, implacable. A flood of assailants,
+following the quarryman's steps, rushed into the house with irresistible
+fury; others, unable to force their way through this dreadful crowd,
+where the more impetuous squeezed, stifled, and crushed these who were
+less so, went round in another direction, broke through some lattice
+work, and thus placed the people of the factory, as it were, between two
+fires. Some resisted courageously; others, seeing Ciboule, followed by
+some of her horrible companions, and by several of the most ill-looking
+ruffians, hastily enter that part of the Common-Dwelling house in which
+the women had taken refuge, hurried in pursuit of this band; but some of
+the hag's companions, having faced about, and vigorously defended the
+entrance of the staircase against the workmen, Ciboule, with three or
+four like herself, and about the same number of no less ignoble men,
+rushed through the rooms, with the intention of robbing or destroying all
+that came in their way. A door, which at first resisted their efforts,
+was soon broken through; Ciboule rushed into the apartment with a stick
+in her hand, her hair dishevelled, furious, and, as it were, maddened
+with the noise and tumult. A beautiful young girl (it was Angela), who
+appeared anxious to defend the entrance to a second chamber, threw
+herself on her knees, pale and supplicating, and raising her clasped
+hands, exclaimed: "Do not hurt my mother!"
+
+"I'll serve you out first, and your mother afterwards," replied the
+horrible woman, throwing herself on the poor girl, and endeavoring to
+tear her face with her nails, whilst the rest of the ruffianly band broke
+the glass and the clock with their sticks, and possessed themselves of
+some articles of wearing apparel.
+
+Angela, struggling with Ciboule, uttered loud cries of distress, and
+still attempted to guard the room in which her mother had taken refuge;
+whilst the latter, leaning from the window, called Agricola to their
+assistance. The smith was now engaged with the huge blaster. In a close
+struggle, their hammers had become useless, and with bloodshot eyes and
+clinched teeth, chest to chest, and limbs twined together like two
+serpents, they made the most violent efforts to overthrow each other.
+Agricola, bent forward, held under his right arm the left leg of the
+quarryman, which he had seized in parrying a violent kick; but such was
+the Herculean strength of the leader of the Wolves, that he remained firm
+as a tower, though resting only on one leg. With the hand that was still
+free (for the other was gripped by Agricola as in a vise), he endeavored
+with violent blows to break the jaws of the smith, who, leaning his head
+forward, pressed his forehead hard against the breast of his adversary.
+
+"The Wolf will break the Devourer's teeth, and he shall devour no more,"
+said the quarryman.
+
+"You are no true Wolf," answered the smith, redoubling his efforts; "the
+true Wolves are honest fellows, and do not come ten against one."
+
+"True or false, I will break your teeth."
+
+"And I your paw," said the smith, giving so violent a wrench to the leg
+of the quarryman, that the latter uttered a cry of acute pain, and, with
+the rage of a wild beast, butting suddenly forward with his head,
+succeeded in biting Agricola in the side of the neck.
+
+The pang of this bite forced Agricola to make a movement, which enabled
+the quarryman to disengage his leg. Then, with a superhuman effort, he
+threw himself with his whole weight on Agricola, and brought him to the
+ground, falling himself upon him.
+
+At this juncture, Angela's mother, leaning from one of the windows of the
+Common Dwelling-house, exclaimed in a heart-rending voice: "Help,
+Agricola!--they are killing my child!"
+
+"Let me go--and on, my honor--I will fight you tomorrow, or when you
+will," said Agricola, panting for breath.
+
+"No warmed-up food for me; I eat all hot," answered the quarryman,
+seizing the smith by the throat, whilst he tried to place one of his
+knees upon his chest.
+
+"Help!--they are killing my child!" cried Angela's mother, in a voice of
+despair.
+
+"Mercy! I ask mercy! Let me go!"' said Agricola, making the most violent
+efforts to escape.
+
+"I am too hungry," answered the quarryman.
+
+Exasperated by the terror which Angela's danger occasioned him, Agricola
+redoubled his efforts, when the quarryman suddenly felt his thigh seized
+by the sharp teeth of a dog, and at the same instant received from a
+vigorous hand three or four heavy blows with a stick upon his head. He
+relaxed his grasp, and fell stunned upon his hand and knee, whilst he
+mechanically raised his other arm to parry the blows, which ceased as
+soon as Agricola was delivered.
+
+"Father, you have saved me!" cried the smith, springing up. "If only I am
+in time to rescue Angela!"
+
+"Run!--never mind me!" answered Dagobert; and Agricola rushed into the
+house.
+
+Dogabert, accompanied by Spoil-sport, had come, as we have already said,
+to bring Marshal Simon's daughters to their grandfather. Arriving in the
+midst of the tumult, the soldier had collected a few workmen to defend
+the entrance of the chamber, to which the marshal's father had been
+carried in a dying state. It was from this post that the soldier had seen
+Agricola's danger. Soon after, the rush of the conflict separated
+Dagobert from the quarryman, who remained for some moments insensible.
+Arrived in two bounds at the Common Dwelling-house, Agricola succeeded in
+forcing his way through the men who defended the staircase, and rushed
+into the corridor that led to Angela's chamber. At the moment he reached
+it, the unfortunate girl was mechanically guarding her face with both
+hands against Ciboule, who, furious as the hyena over its prey, was
+trying to scratch and disfigure her.
+
+To spring upon the horrible hag, seize her by her yellow hair with
+irresistible hand, drag her backwards, and then with one cuff, stretch
+her full length upon the ground, was for Agricola an achievement as rapid
+as thought. Furious with rage, Ciboule rose again almost instantly; but
+at this moment, several workmen, who had followed close upon Agricola,
+were able to attack with advantage, and whilst the smith lifted the
+fainting form of Angela, and carried her into the next room, Ciboule and
+her band were driven from that part of the house.
+
+After the first fire of the assault, the small number of real Wolves,
+who, as Agricola said, were in the main honest fellows, but had the
+weakness to let themselves be drawn into this enterprise, under the
+pretext of a quarrel between rival unions, seeing the excesses committed
+by the rabble who accompanied them, turned suddenly round, and ranged
+themselves on the side of the Devourers.
+
+"There are no longer here either Wolves or Devourers," said one of the
+most determined Wolves to Olivier, with whom he had been fighting roughly
+and fairly; "there are none here but honest workmen, who must unite to
+drive out a set of scoundrels, that have come only to break and pillage."
+
+"Yes," added another; "it was against our will that they began by
+breaking your windows."
+
+"The big blaster did it all," said another; "the true Wolves wash their
+hands of him. We shall soon settle his account."
+
+"We may fight every day--but we ought to esteem each other."[35]
+
+This defection of a portion of the assailants (unfortunately but a small
+portion) gave new spirit to the workmen of the factory, and all together,
+Wolves and Devourers, though very inferior in number, opposed themselves
+to the band of vagabonds, who were proceeding to new excesses. Some of
+these wretches, still further excited by the little man with the ferret's
+face, a secret emissary of Baron Tripeaud, now rushed in a mass towards
+the workshops of M. Hardy. Then began a lamentable devastation. These
+people, seized with the mania of destruction, broke without remorse
+machines of the greatest value, and most delicate construction; half
+manufactured articles were pitilessly destroyed; a savage emulation
+seemed to inspire these barbarians, and those workshops, so lately the
+model of order and well-regulated economy, were soon nothing but a wreck;
+the courts were strewed with fragments of all kinds of wares, which were
+thrown from the windows with ferocious outcries, or savage bursts of
+laughter. Then, still thanks to the incitements of the little man with
+the ferret's face, the books of M. Hardy, archives of commercial
+industry, so indispensable to the trader, were scattered to the wind,
+torn, trampled under foot, in a sort of infernal dance, composed of all
+that was most impure in this assembly of low, filthy, and ragged men and
+women, who held each other by the hand, and whirled round and round with
+horrible clamor. Strange and painful contrasts! At the height of the
+stunning noise of these horrid deeds of tumult and devastation, a scene
+of imposing and mournful calm was taking place in the chamber of Marshal
+Simon's father, the door of which was guarded by a few devoted men. The
+old workman was stretched on his bed, with a bandage across his blood
+stained white hair. His countenance was livid, his breathing oppressed,
+his look fixed and glazed.
+
+Marshal Simon, standing at the head of the bed, bending over his father,
+watched in despairing anguish the least sign of consciousness on the part
+of the dying man, near whom was a physician, with his finger on the
+failing pulse. Rose and Blanche, brought hither by Dagobert, were
+kneeling beside the bed, their hands clasped, and their eyes bathed in
+tears; a little further, half hidden in the shadows of the room, for the
+hours had passed quickly, and the night was at hand, stood Dagobert
+himself, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and his features
+painfully contracted. A profound and solemn silence reigned in this
+chamber, only interrupted by the broken sobs of Rose and Blanche, or by
+Father Simon's hard breathing. The eyes of the marshal were dry, gloomy,
+and full of fire. He only withdrew them from his father's face, to
+interrogate the physician by a look. There are strange coincidences in
+life. That physician was Dr. Baleinier. The asylum of the doctor being
+close to the barrier that was nearest to the factory, and his fame being
+widely spread in the neighborhood, they had run to fetch him on the first
+call for medical assistance.
+
+Suddenly, Dr. Baleinier made a movement; the marshal, who had not taken
+his eyes off him, exclaimed: "Is there any hope?"
+
+"At least, my lord duke, the pulse revives a little."
+
+"He is saved!" said the marshal.
+
+"Do not cherish false hopes, my lord duke," answered the doctor, gravely:
+"the pulse revives, owing to the powerful applications to the feet, but I
+know not what will be the issue of the crisis."
+
+"Father! father! do you hear me?" cried the marshal, seeing the old man
+slightly move his head, and feebly raise his eyelids. He soon opened his
+eyes, and this time their intelligence had returned.
+
+"Father! you live--you know me!" cried the marshal, giddy with joy and
+hope.
+
+"Pierre! are you there?" said the old man, in a weak voice. "Your
+hand--give--it--" and he made a feeble movement.
+
+"Here, father!" cried the marshal, as he pressed the hands of the old man
+in his own.
+
+Then, yielding to an impulse of delight, he bent over his father, covered
+his hands, face, and hair with kisses, and repeated: "He lives! kind
+heaven, he lives! he is saved!"
+
+At this instant, the noise of the struggle which had recommenced between
+the rabble, the Wolves, and the Devourers, reached the ears of the dying
+man.
+
+"That noise! that noise!" said he: "they are fighting."
+
+"It is growing less, I think," said the marshal, in order not to agitate
+his father.
+
+"Pierre," said the old man, in a weak and broken voice, "I have not long
+to live."
+
+"Father--"
+
+"Let me speak, child; if I can but tell you all."
+
+"Sir," said Baleinier piously to the old workman, "heaven may perhaps
+work a miracle in your favor; show yourself grateful, and allow a
+priest--"
+
+"A priest! Thank you, sir--I have my son," said the old man; "in his
+arms, I will render up my soul--which has always been true and honest."
+
+"You die?" exclaimed the marshal; "no! no!"
+
+"Pierre," said the old man, in a voice which, firm at first, gradually
+grew fainter, "just now--you ask my advice in a very serious matter. I
+think, that the wish to tell you of your duty--has recalled me--for a
+moment--to life--for I should die miserable--if I thought you in a road
+unworthy of yourself and me. Listen to me, my son--my noble son--at this
+last hour, a father cannot deceive himself. You have a great duty to
+perform---under pain--of not acting like a man of honor--under pain of
+neglecting my last will. You ought, without hesitation--"
+
+Here the voice failed the old man. When he had pronounced the last
+sentence, he became quite unintelligible. The only words that Marshal
+Simon could distinguish, were these: "Napoleon II.--oath--dishonor--my
+son!"
+
+Then the old workman again moved his lips mechanically--and all was over.
+At the moment he expired, the night was quite come, and terrible shouts
+were heard from without, of "Fire! Fire!" The conflagration had broken
+out in one of the workshops, filled with inflammable stuff, into which
+had glided the little man with the ferret's face. At the same time, the
+roll of drums was heard in the distance, announcing the arrival of a
+detachment of troops from town.
+
+During an hour, in spite of every effort, the fire had been spreading
+through the factory. The night is clear, cold, starlight; the wind blows
+keenly from the north, with a moaning sound. A man, walking across the
+fields, where the rising ground conceals the fire from him, advances with
+slow and unsteady steps. It is M. Hardy. He had chosen to return home on
+foot, across the country, hoping that a walk would calm the fever in his
+blood--an icy fever, more like the chill of death. He had not been
+deceived. His adored mistress--the noble woman, with whom he might have
+found refuge from the consequences of the fearful deception which had
+just been revealed to him--had quitted France. He could have no doubt of
+it. Margaret was gone to America. Her mother had exacted from her, in
+expiation of her fault, that she should not even write to him one word of
+farewell--to him, for whom she had sacrificed her duty as a wife.
+Margaret had obeyed.
+
+Besides, she had often said to him: "Between my mother and you, I should
+not hesitate."
+
+She had not hesitated. There was therefore no hope, not the slightest;
+even if an ocean had not separated him from Margaret, he knew enough of
+her blind submission to her mother, to be certain that all relations
+between them were broken off forever. It is well. He will no longer
+reckon upon this heart--his last refuge. The two roots of his life have
+been torn up and broken, with the same blow, the same day, almost at the
+same moment. What then remains for thee, poor sensitive plant, as thy
+tender mother used to call thee? What remains to console thee for the
+loss of this last love--this last friendship, so infamously crushed? Oh!
+there remains for thee that one corner of the earth, created after the
+image of thy mind that little colony, so peaceful and flourishing, where,
+thanks to thee, labor brings with it joy and recompense. These worthy
+artisans, whom thou hast made happy, good, and grateful, will not fail
+thee. That also is a great and holy affection; let it be thy shelter in
+the midst of this frightful wreck of all thy most sacred convictions! The
+calm of that cheerful and pleasant retreat, the sight of the unequalled
+happiness of thy dependents, will soothe thy poor, suffering soul, which
+now seems to live only for suffering. Come! you will soon reach the top
+of the hill, from which you can see afar, in the plain below, that
+paradise of workmen, of which you are the presiding divinity.
+
+M. Hardy had reached the summit of the hill. At that moment the
+conflagration, repressed for a short time, burst forth with redoubled
+fury from the Common Dwelling-house, which it had now reached. A bright
+streak, at first white, then red, then copper-colored, illuminated the
+distant horizon. M. Hardy looked at it with a sort of incredulous, almost
+idiotic stupor. Suddenly, an immense column of flame shot up in the thick
+of a cloud of smoke, accompanied by a shower of sparks, and streamed
+towards the sky, casting a bright reflection over all the country, even
+to M. Hardy's feet. The violence of the north wind, driving the flames in
+waves before it, soon brought to the ears of M. Hardy the hurried
+clanging of the alarm-bell of the burning factory.
+
+[35] We wish it to be understood, that the necessities of our story alone
+have made the Wolves the assailants. While endeavoring to paint the evils
+arising the abuse of the spirit of association, we do not wish to ascribe
+a character of savage hostility to one sect rather than to the other to
+the Wolves more than to the Devourers. The Wolves, a club of united
+stone-cutters, are generally industrious, intelligent workmen, whose
+situation is the more worthy of interest, as not only their labors,
+conducted with mathematical precision, are of the rudest and most
+wearisome kind, but they are likewise out of work during three or four
+months of the year, their profession being, unfortunately, one of those
+which winter condemns to a forced cessation. A number of Wolves, in order
+to perfect themselves in their trade, attend every evening a course of
+linear geometry, applied to the cutting of stone, analogous to that given
+by M. Agricole Perdignier, for the benefit of carpenters. Several working
+stone-cutters sent an architectural model in plaster to the last
+exhibition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE GO-BETWEEN.
+
+A few days have elapsed since the conflagration of M. Hardy's factory.
+The following scene takes place in the Rue Clovis, in the house where
+Rodin had lodged, and which was still inhabited by Rose-Pompon, who,
+without the least scruple, availed herself of the household arrangements
+of her friend Philemon. It was about noon, and Rose-Pompon, alone in the
+chamber of the student, who was still absent, was breakfasting very gayly
+by the fireside; but how singular a breakfast! what a queer fire! how
+strange an apartment!
+
+Imagine a large room, lighted by two windows without curtains--for as
+they looked on empty space, the lodger had fear of being overlooked. One
+side of this apartment served as a wardrobe, for there was suspended
+Rose-Pompon's flashy costume of debardeur, not far from the boat-man's
+jacket of Philemon, with his large trousers of coarse, gray stuff,
+covered with pitch (shiver my timbers!), just as if this intrepid mariner
+had bunked in the forecastle of a frigate, during a voyage round the
+globe. A gown of Rose Pompon's hung gracefully over a pair of pantaloons,
+the legs of which seemed to come from beneath the petticoat. On the
+lowest of several book-shelves, very dusty and neglected, by the side of
+three old boots (wherefore three boots?) and a number of empty bottles,
+stood a skull, a scientific and friendly souvenir, left to Philemon by
+one of his comrades, a medical student. With a species of pleasantry,
+very much to the taste of the student-world, a clay pipe with a very
+black bowl was placed between the magnificently white teeth of this
+skull; moreover, its shining top was half hidden beneath an old hat, set
+knowingly on one side, and adorned with faded flowers and ribbons. When
+Philemon was drunk, he used to contemplate this bony emblem of mortality,
+and break out into the most poetical monologues, with regard to this
+philosophical contrast between death and the mad pleasures of life. Two
+or three plaster casts, with their noses and chins more or less injured,
+were fastened to the wall, and bore witness to the temporary curiosity
+which Philemon had felt with regard to phrenological science, from the
+patient and serious study of which he had drawn the following logical
+conclusion:--That, having to an alarming extent the bump of getting into
+debt, he ought to resign himself to the fatality of this organization,
+and accept the inconvenience of creditors as a vital necessity. On the
+chimney-piece, stood uninjured, in all its majesty, the magnificent
+rowing-club drinking-glass, a china teapot without a spout, and an
+inkstand of black wood, the glass mouth of which was covered by a coat of
+greenish and mossy mould. From time to time, the silence of this retreat
+was interrupted by the cooing of pigeons, which Rose-Pompon had
+established with cordial hospitality in the little study. Chilly as a
+quail, Rose-Pompon crept close to the fire, and at the same time seemed
+to enjoy the warmth of a bright ray of sunshine, which enveloped her in
+its golden light. This droll little creature was dressed in the oddest
+costume, which, however, displayed to advantage the freshness of her
+piquant and pretty countenance, crowned with its fine, fair hair, always
+neatly combed and arranged the first thing in the morning. By way of
+dressing-gown, Rose-Pompon had ingeniously drawn over her linen, the
+ample scarlet flannel shirt which belonged to Philemon's official garb in
+the rowing-club; the collar, open and turned down, displayed the
+whiteness of the young girl's under garment, as also of her neck and
+shoulders, on whose firm and polished surface the scarlet shirt seemed to
+cast a rosy light. The grisette's fresh and dimpled arms half protruded
+from the large, turned-up sleeves; and her charming legs were also half
+visible, crossed one over the other, and clothed in neat white stockings,
+and boots. A black silk cravat formed the girdle which fastened the shirt
+round the wasp-like waist of Rose-Pompon, just above those hips, worthy
+of the enthusiasm of a modern Phidias, and which gave to this style of
+dress a grace very original.
+
+We have said, that the breakfast of Rose-Pompon was singular. You shall
+judge. On a little table placed before her, was a wash-hand-basin, into
+which she had recently plunged her fresh face, bathing it in pure water.
+From the bottom of this basin, now transformed into a salad-bowl, Rose
+Pompon took with the tips of her fingers large green leaves, dripping
+with vinegar, and crunched them between her tiny white teeth, whose
+enamel was too hard to allow them to be set on edge. Her drink was a
+glass of water and syrup of gooseberries, which she stirred with a wooden
+mustard-spoon. Finally, as an extra dish, she had a dozen olives in one
+of those blue glass trinket-dishes sold for twenty-five sous. Her dessert
+was composed of nuts, which she prepared to roast on a red-hot shovel.
+That Rose-Pompon, with such an unaccountable savage choice of food,
+should retain a freshness of complexion worthy of her name, is one of
+those miracles, which reveal the mighty power of youth and health. When
+she had eaten her salad, Rose-Pompon was about to begin upon her olives,
+when a low knock was heard at the door, which was modestly bolted on the
+inside.
+
+"Who is there?" said Rose-Pompon.
+
+"A friend--the oldest of the old," replied a sonorous, jovial voice. "Why
+do you lock yourself in?"
+
+"What! is it you, Ninny Moulin?"
+
+"Yes, my beloved pupil. Open quickly. Time presses."
+
+"Open to you? Oh, I dare say!--that would be pretty, the figure I am!"
+
+"I believe you! what does it matter what figure you are? It would be very
+pretty, thou rosiest of all the roses with which Cupid ever adorned his
+quiver!"
+
+"Go and preach fasting and morality in your journal, fat apostle!" said
+Rose--Pompon, as she restored the scarlet shirt to its place, with
+Philemon's other garments.
+
+"I say! are we to talk much longer through the door, for the greater
+edification of our neighbors?" cried Ninny Moulin. "I have something of
+importance to tell you--something that will astonish you--"
+
+"Give me time to put on my gown, great plague that you are!"
+
+"If it is because of my modesty, do not think of it. I am not over nice.
+I should like you very well as you are!"
+
+"Only to think that such a monster is the favorite of all the
+churchgoers!" said Rose-Pompon, opening the door as she finished
+fastening her dress.
+
+"So! you have at last returned to the dovecot, you stray girl!" said
+Ninny Moulin, folding his arms, and looking at Rose-Pompon with comic
+seriousness. "And where may you have been, I pray? For three days the
+naughty little bird has left its nest."
+
+"True; I only returned home last night. You must have called during my
+absence?"
+
+"I came, every day, and even twice a day, young lady, for I have very
+serious matters to communicate."
+
+"Very serious matters? Then we shall have a good laugh at them."
+
+"Not at all--they are really serious," said Ninny Moulin, seating
+himself. "But, first of all, what did you do during the three days that
+you left your conjugal and Philemonic home? I must know all about it,
+before I tell you more."
+
+"Will you have some olives?" said Rose-Pompon, as she nibbled one of them
+herself.
+
+"Is that your answer?--I understand!--Unfortunate Philemon!"
+
+"There is no unfortunate Philemon in the case, slanderer. Clara had a
+death in her house, and, for the first few days after the funeral she was
+afraid to sleep alone."
+
+"I thought Clara sufficiently provided against such fears."
+
+"There you are deceived, you great viper! I was obliged to go and keep
+the poor girl company."
+
+At this assertion, the religious pamphleteer hummed a tune, with an
+incredulous and mocking air.
+
+"You think I have played Philemon tricks?" cried Rose-Pompon, cracking a
+nut with the indignation of injured innocence.
+
+"I do not say tricks; but one little rose-colored trick."
+
+"I tell you, that it was not for my pleasure I went out. On the
+contrary--for, during my absence, poor Cephyse disappeared."
+
+"Yes, Mother Arsene told me that the Bacchanal-Queen was gone on a
+journey. But when I talk of Philemon, you talk of Cephyse; we don't
+progress."
+
+"May I be eaten by the black panther that they are showing at the Porte
+Saint-Martin if I do not tell you the truth. And, talking of that, you
+must get tickets to take me to see those animals, my little Ninny Moulin!
+They tell me there never were such darling wild beasts."
+
+"Now really, are you mad?"
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"That I should guide your youth, like a venerable patriarch, through the
+dangers of the Storm-blown Tulip, all well and good--I ran no risk of
+meeting my pastors and masters; but were I to take you to a Lent
+Spectacle (since there are only beasts to be seen), I might just run
+against my sacristans--and how pretty I should look with you on my arm!"
+
+"You can put on a false nose, and straps to your trousers, my big Ninny;
+they will never know you."
+
+"We must not think of false noses, but of what I have to tell you, since
+you assure me that you have no intrigue in hand."
+
+"I swear it!" said Rose-Pompon, solemnly, extending her left hand
+horizontally, whilst with her right she put a nut into her mouth. Then
+she added, with surprise, as she looked at the outside coat of Ninny
+Moulin, "Goodness gracious! what full pockets you have got! What is there
+in them?"
+
+"Something that concerns you, Rose-Pompon," said Dumoulin, gravely.
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Rose-Pompon!" said Ninny Moulin, suddenly, with a majestic air; "will
+you have a carriage? Will you inhabit a charming apartment, instead of
+living in this dreadful hole? Will you be dressed like a duchess?"
+
+"Now for some more nonsense! Come, will you eat the olives? If not, I
+shall eat them all up. There is only one left."
+
+Without answering this gastronomic offer, Ninny Moulin felt in one of his
+pockets, and drew from it a case containing a very pretty bracelet, which
+he held up sparkling before the eyes of the young girl.
+
+"Oh! what a sumptuous bracelet!" cried she, clapping her hands. "A
+green-eyed serpent biting his tail--the emblem of my love for Philemon."
+
+"Do not talk of Philemon; it annoys me," said Ninny Moulin, as he clasped
+the bracelet round the wrist of Rose-Pompon, who allowed him to do it,
+laughing all the while like mad, and saying to him, "So you've been
+employed to make a purchase, big apostle, and wish to see the effect of
+it. Well! it is charming!"
+
+"Rose-Pompon," resumed Ninny Moulin, "would you like to have a servant, a
+box at the Opera, and a thousand francs a month for your pin-money?"
+
+"Always the same nonsense. Get along!" said the young girl, as she held
+up the bracelet to the light, still continuing to eat her nuts. "Why
+always the same farce, and no change of bills?"
+
+Ninny Moulin again plunged his hand into his pocket, and this time drew
+forth an elegant chain, which he hung round Rose-Pompon's neck.
+
+"Oh! what a beautiful chain!" cried the young girl, as she looked by
+turns at the sparkling ornament and the religious writer. "If you chose
+that also, you have a very good taste. But am I not a good natured girl
+to be your dummy, just to show off your jewels?"
+
+"Rose-Pompon," returned Ninny Moulin, with a still more majestic air,
+"these trifles are nothing to what you may obtain, if you will but follow
+the advice of your old friend."
+
+Rose began to look at Dumoulin with surprise, and said to him, "What does
+all this mean, Ninny Moulin? Explain yourself; what advice have you to
+give?"
+
+Dumoulin did not answer, but replunging his hand into his inexhaustible
+pocket, he fished up a parcel, which he carefully unfolded, and in which
+was a magnificent mantilla of black lace. Rose-Pompon started up, full of
+new admiration, and Dumoulin threw the rich mantilla over the young
+girl's shoulders.
+
+"It is superb! I have never seen anything like it! What patterns! what
+work!" said Rose-Pompon, as she examined all with simple and perfectly
+disinterested curiosity. Then she added, "Your pocket is like a shop;
+where did you get all these pretty things?" Then, bursting into a fit of
+laughter, which brought the blood to her cheeks, she exclaimed, "Oh, I
+have it! These are the wedding-presents for Madame de la Sainte-Colombe.
+I congratulate you; they are very choice."
+
+"And where do you suppose I should find money to buy these wonders?" said
+Ninny Moulin. "I repeat to you, all this is yours if you will but listen
+to me!"
+
+"How is this?" said Rose-Pompon, with the utmost amazement; "is what you
+tell me in downright earnest?"
+
+"In downright earnest."
+
+"This offer to make me a great lady?"
+
+"The jewels might convince you of the reality of my offers."
+
+"And you propose all this to me for some one else, my poor Ninny Moulin?"
+
+"One moment," said the religious writer, with a comical air of modesty,
+"you must know me well enough, my beloved pupil, to feel certain that I
+should be incapable of inducing you to commit an improper action. I
+respect myself too much for that--leaving out the consideration that it
+would be unfair to Philemon, who confided to me the guardianship of your
+virtue."
+
+"Then, Ninny Moulin," said Rose-Pompon, more and more astonished, "on my
+word of honor, I can make nothing of it.
+
+"Yet, 'tis all very simple, and I--"
+
+"Oh! I've found it," cried Rose-Pompon, interrupting Ninny Moulin; "it is
+some gentleman who offers me his hand, his heart, and all the rest of it.
+Could you not tell me that directly?"
+
+"A marriage? oh, laws, yes!" said Dumoulin, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"What! is it not a marriage?" said Rose-Pompon, again much surprised.
+
+"No."
+
+"And the offers you make me are honest ones, my big apostle?"
+
+"They could not be more so." Here Dumoulin spoke the truth.
+
+"I shall not have to be unfaithful to Philemon?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Or faithful to any one else?"
+
+"No."
+
+Rose-Pompon looked confounded. Then she rattled on: "Come, do not let us
+have any joking! I am not foolish enough to imagine that I am to live
+just like a duchess, just for nothing. What, therefore, must I give in
+return?"
+
+"Nothing at all."
+
+"Nothing?"
+
+"Not even that," said Ninny Moulin, biting his nail-tip.
+
+"But what am I to do, then?"
+
+"Dress yourself as handsomely as possible, take your ease, amuse
+yourself, ride about in a carriage. You see, it is not very fatiguing
+--and you will, moreover, help to do a good action."
+
+"What! by living like a duchess?"
+
+"Yes! so make up your mind. Do not ask me for any more details, for I
+cannot give them to you. For the rest, you will not be detained against
+your will. Just try the life I propose to you. If it suits you, go on
+with it; if not, return to your Philemonic household."
+
+"In fact--"
+
+"Only try it. What can you risk?"
+
+"Nothing; but I can hardly believe that all you say is true. And then,"
+added she, with hesitation, "I do not know if I ought--"
+
+Ninny Moulin went to the window, opened it, and said to Rose-Pompon, who
+ran up to it, "Look there! before the door of the house."
+
+"What a pretty carriage! How comfortable a body'd be inside of it!"
+
+"That carriage is yours. It is waiting for you."
+
+"Waiting for me!" exclaimed Rose-Pompon; "am I to decide as short as
+that?"
+
+"Or not at all."
+
+"To-day?"
+
+"On the instant."
+
+"But where will they take me?"
+
+"How should I know?"
+
+"You do not know where they will take me?"
+
+"Not I,"--and Dumoulin still spoke the truth--"the coachman has his
+orders."
+
+"Do you know all this is very funny, Ninny Moulin?"
+
+"I believe you. If it were not funny, where would be the pleasure?"
+
+"You are right."
+
+"Then you accept the offer? That is well. I am delighted both for you and
+myself."
+
+"For yourself?"
+
+"Yes; because, in accepting, you render me a great service."
+
+"You? How so?"
+
+"It matters little, as long as I feel obliged to you."
+
+"True."
+
+"Come, then; let us set out!"
+
+"Bah! after all, they cannot eat me," said Rose-Pompon, resolutely.
+
+With a skip and a jump, she went to fetch a rose-colored cap, and, going
+up to a broken looking-glass, placed the cap very much cocked on one side
+on her bands of light hair. This left uncovered her snowy neck, with the
+silky roots of the hair behind, and gave to her pretty face a very
+mischievous, not to say licentious expression.
+
+"My cloak!" said she to Ninny Moulin, who seemed to be relieved from a
+considerable amount of uneasiness, since she had accepted his offer.
+
+"Fie! a cloak will not do," answered her companion, feeling once more in
+his pocket and drawing out a fine Cashmere shawl, which he threw over
+Rose-Pompon's shoulders.
+
+"A Cashmere!" cried the young girl, trembling with pleasure and joyous
+surprise. Then she added, with an air of heroism: "It is settled! I will
+run the gauntlet." And with a light step she descended the stairs,
+followed by Ninny Moulin.
+
+The worthy greengrocer was at her post. "Good-morning, mademoiselle; you
+are early to-day," said she to the young girl.
+
+"Yes, Mother Arsene; there is my key."
+
+"Thank you, mademoiselle."
+
+"Oh! now I think of it," said Rose Pompon, suddenly, in a whisper, as she
+turned towards Ninny Moulin, and withdrew further from the portress,
+"what is to became of Philemon?"
+
+"Philemon?"
+
+"If he should arrive--"
+
+"Oh! the devil!" said Ninny Moulin, scratching his ear.
+
+"Yes; if Philemon should arrive, what will they say to him? for I may be
+a long time absent."
+
+"Three or four months, I suppose."
+
+"Not more?"
+
+"I should think not."
+
+"Oh! very good!" said Rose-Pompon. Then, turning towards the greengrocer,
+she said to her, after a moment's reflection: "Mother Arsene, if Philemon
+should come home, you will tell him I have gone out--on business."
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle."
+
+"And that he must not forget to feed my pigeons, which are in his study."
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle."
+
+"Good-bye, Mother Arsene."
+
+"Good-bye, mademoiselle." And Rose-Pompon entered the carriage in
+triumph, along with Ninny Moulin.
+
+"The devil take me if I know what is to come of all this," said Jacques
+Dumoulin to himself, as the carriage drove rapidly down the Rue Clovis.
+"I have repaired my error--and now I laugh at the rest."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ANOTHER SECRET.
+
+The following scene took place a few days after the abduction of Rose
+Pompon by Ninny Moulin. Mdlle. de Cardoville was seated in a dreamy mood,
+in her cabinet, which was hung with green silk, and furnished with an
+ebony library, ornamented with large bronze caryatides. By some
+significant signs, one could perceive that Mdlle. de Cardoville had
+sought in the fine airs some relief from sad and serious thoughts. Near
+an open piano, was a harp, placed before a music-stand. A little further,
+on a table covered with boxes of oil and water-color, were several
+brilliant sketches. Most of them represented Asiatic scenes, lighted by
+the fires of an oriental sun. Faithful to her fancy of dressing herself
+at home in a picturesque style, Mademoiselle de Cardoville resembled that
+day one of those proud portraits of Velasquez, with stern and noble
+aspect. Her gown was of black moire, with wide swelling petticoat, long
+waist, and sleeve slashed with rose-colored satin, fastened together with
+jet bugles. A very stiff, Spanish ruff reached almost to her chin, and
+was secured round her neck by a broad rose-colored ribbon. This frill,
+slightly heaving, sloped down as far as the graceful swell of the
+rose-colored stomacher, laced with strings of jet beads, and terminating
+in a point at the waist. It is impossible to express how well this black
+garment, with its ample and shining folds, relieved with rose-color and
+brilliant jet, skin, harmonized with the shining whiteness of Adrienne's
+and the golden flood of her beautiful hair, whose long, silky ringlets
+descended to her bosom.
+
+The young lady was in a half-recumbent posture, with her elbow resting on
+a couch covered with green silk. The back of this piece of furniture,
+which was pretty high towards the fireplace, sloped down insensibly
+towards the foot. A sort of light, semicircular trellis-work, in gilded
+bronze, raised about five feet from the ground, covered with flowering
+plants (the admirable passiflores quadrangulatoe, planted in a deep ebony
+box, from the centre of which rose the trellis-work), surrounded this
+couch with a sort of screen of foliage enamelled with large flowers,
+green without, purple within, and as brilliant as those flowers of
+porcelain, which we receive from Saxony. A sweet, faint perfume, like a
+faint mixture of jasmine with violet, rose from the cup of these
+admirable passiflores. Strange enough, a large quantity of new books
+(Adrienne having bought them since the last two or three days) and quite
+fresh-cut, were scattered around her on the couch, and on a little table;
+whilst other larger volumes, amongst which were several atlases full of
+engravings, were piled on the sumptuous fur, which formed the carpet
+beneath the divan. Stranger still, these books, though of different
+forms, and by different authors, alt treated of the same subject. The
+posture of Adrienne revealed a sort of melancholy dejection. Her cheeks
+were pale; a light blue circle surrounded her large, black eyes, now
+half-closed, and gave to them an expression of profound grief. Many
+causes contributed to this sorrow--amongst others, the disappearance of
+Mother Bunch. Without absolutely believing the perfidious insinuations of
+Rodin, who gave her to understand that, in the fear of being unmasked by
+him, the hunchback had not dared to remain in the house, Adrienne felt a
+cruel sinking of the heart, when she thought how this young girl, in whom
+she had had so much confidence, had fled from her almost sisterly
+hospitality, without even uttering a word of gratitude; for care had been
+taken not to show her the few lines written by the poor needlewoman to
+her benefactress, just before her departure.
+
+She had only been told of the note of five hundred francs found on her
+desk; and this last inexplicable circumstance had contributed to awaken
+cruel suspicions in the breast of Mdlle. de Cardoville. She already felt
+the fatal effects of that mistrust of everything and everybody, which
+Rodin had recommended to her; and this sentiment of suspicion and reserve
+had the more tendency to become powerful, that, for the first time in her
+life, Mdlle. de Cardoville, until then a stranger to all deception, had a
+secret to conceal--a secret, which was equally her happiness, her shame,
+and her torment. Half-recumbent on her divan, pensive and depressed,
+Adrienne pursued, with a mind often absent, one of her newly purchased
+books. Suddenly, she uttered an exclamation of surprise; the hand which
+held the book trembled like a leaf, and from that moment she appeared to
+read with passionate attention and devouring curiosity. Soon, her eyes
+sparkled with enthusiasm, her smile assumed ineffable sweetness, and she
+seemed at once proud, happy, delighted--but, as she turned over the last
+page, her countenance expressed disappointment and chagrin. Then she
+recommenced this reading, which had occasioned her such sweet emotion,
+and this time she read with the most deliberate slowness, going over each
+page twice, and spelling, as it were, every line, every word. From time
+to time, she paused, and in a pensive mood, with her forehead leaning on
+her fair hand, she seemed to reflect, in a deep reverie, on the passages
+she had read with such tender and religious love. Arriving at a passage
+which so affected her, that a tear started in her eye, she suddenly
+turned the volume, to see on the cover the name of the author. For a few
+seconds, she contemplated this name with a singular expression of
+gratitude, and could not forbear raising to her rosy lips the page on
+which it was printed. After reading many times over the lines with which
+she had been so much struck, forgetting, no doubt, the letter in the
+spirit, she began to reflect so deeply, that the book glided from her
+hand, and fell upon the carpet. During the course of this reverie, the
+eyes of the young girl rested, at first mechanically, upon an admirable
+bas-relief, placed on an ebony stand, near one of the windows. This
+magnificent bronze, recently cast after a plaster copy from the antique,
+represented the triumph of the Indian Bacchus. Never, perhaps, had
+Grecian art attained such rare perfection. The youthful conqueror, half
+clad in a lion's skin, which displayed his juvenile grace and charming
+purity of form shone with divine beauty. Standing up in a car, drawn by
+two tigers, with an air at once gentle and proud, he leaned with one hand
+upon a thyrsus, and with the other guided his savage steeds in tranquil
+majesty. By this rare mixture of grace, vigor, and serenity, it was easy
+to recognize the hero who had waged such desperate combats with men and
+with monsters of the forest. Thanks to the brownish tone of the figure,
+the light, falling from one side of the sculpture, admirably displayed
+the form of the youthful god, which, carved in relievo, and thus
+illumined, shone like a magnificent statue of pale gold upon the dark
+fretted background of the bronze.
+
+When Adrienne's look first rested on this rare assemblage of divine
+perfections, her countenance was calm and thoughtful. But this
+contemplation, at first mechanical, became gradually more and more
+attentive and conscious, and the young lady, rising suddenly from her
+seat, slowly approached the bas-relief, as if yielding to the invincible
+attraction of an extraordinary resemblance. Then a slight blush appeared
+on the cheeks of Mdlle. de Cardoville, stole across her face, and spread
+rapidly to her neck and forehead. She approached still closer, threw
+round a hasty glance, as if half-ashamed, or as if she had feared to be
+surprised in a blamable action, and twice stretched forth her hand,
+trembling with emotion, to touch with the tips of her charming fingers
+the bronze forehead of the Indian Bacchus. And twice she stopped short,
+with a kind of modest hesitation. At last, the temptation became too
+strong for her. She yielded to it; and her alabaster finger, after
+delicately caressing the features of pale gold, was pressed more boldly
+for an instant on the pure and noble brow of the youthful god. At this
+pressure, though so slight, Adrienne seemed to feel a sort of electric
+shock; she trembled in every limb, her eyes languished, and, after
+swimming for an instant in their humid and brilliant crystal, were
+raised, half-closed, to heaven. Then her head was thrown a little way
+back, her knees bent insensibly, her rosy lips were half opened, as if to
+give a passage to her heated breath, for her bosom heaved violently, as
+thought youth and life had accelerated the pulsations of her heart, and
+made her blood boil in her veins. Finally, the burning cheeks of Adrienne
+betrayed a species of ecstasy, timid and passionate, chaste and sensual,
+the expression of which was ineffably touching.
+
+An affecting spectacle indeed is that of a young maiden, whose modest
+brow flushes with the first fires of a secret passion. Does not the
+Creator of all things animate the body as well as the soul, with a spark
+of divine energy? Should He not be religiously glorified in the intellect
+as in the senses, with which He has so paternally endowed His creatures?
+They are impious blasphemers who seek to stifle the celestial senses,
+instead of guiding and harmonizing them in their divine flight. Suddenly,
+Mdlle. de Cardoville started, raised her head, opened her eyes as if
+awakening from a dream, withdrew abruptly from the sculptures, and walked
+several times up and down the room in an agitated manner, pressing her
+burning hands to her forehead. Then, falling, as it were, exhausted on
+her seat, her tears flowed in abundance. The most bitter grief was
+visible in her features, which revealed the fatal struggle that was
+passing within her. By degrees, her tears ceased. To this crisis of
+painful dejection succeeded a species of violent scorn and indignation
+against herself, which were expressed by these words that escaped her:
+"For the first time in my life, I feel weak and cowardly. Oh yes!
+cowardly--very cowardly!"
+
+The sound of a door opening and closing, roused Mdlle. de Cardoville from
+her bitter reflections. Georgette entered the room, and said to her
+mistress: "Madame, can you receive the Count de Montbron?"
+
+Adrienne, too well-bred to exhibit before her women the sort of
+impatience occasioned by this unseasonable visit, said to Georgette: "You
+told M. de Montbron that I was at home?"
+
+"Yes, Madame."
+
+"Then beg him to walk in." Though Mdlle. de Cardoville felt at that
+moment much vexed at the arrival of Montbron, let us hasten to say, that
+she entertained for him an almost filial affection, and a profound
+esteem, though, by a not unfrequent contrast, she almost always differed
+from him in opinion. Hence arose, when Mdlle. de Cardoville had nothing
+to disturb her mind, the most gay and animated discussions, in which M.
+de Montbron, notwithstanding his mocking and sceptical humor, his long
+experience, his rare knowledge of men and things, his fashionable
+training, in a word, had not always the advantage, and even acknowledged
+his defeat gayly enough. Thus, to give an idea of the differences of the
+count and Adrienne, before, as he would say laughingly, he had made
+himself her accomplice, he had always opposed (from other motives than
+those alleged by Madame de Saint-Dizier) Adrienne's wish to live alone
+and in her own way; whilst Rodin, on the contrary, by investing the young
+girl's resolve on this subject with an ideal grandeur of intention, had
+acquired a species of influence over her. M. de Montbron, now upwards of
+sixty years of age, had been a most prominent character during the
+Directory, Consulate, and the Empire. His prodigal style of living, his
+wit, his gayety, his duels, his amours, and his losses at play, had given
+him a leading influence in the best society of his day; while his
+character, his kind-heartedness, and liberality, secured him the lasting
+friendship of nearly all his female friends. At the time we now present
+him to the reader, he was still a great gambler; and, moreover, a very
+lucky gambler. He had, as we have stated, a very lordly style; his
+manners were decided, but polished and lively; his habits were such as
+belong to the higher classes of society, though he could be excessively
+sharp towards people whom he did not like. He was tall and thin, and his
+slim figure gave him an almost youthful appearance; his forehead was
+high, and a little bald; his hair was gray and short, his countenance
+long, his nose aquiline, his eyes blue and piercing, and his teeth white,
+and still very good.
+
+"The Count de Montbron," said Georgette, opening the door. The count
+entered, and hastened to kiss Adrienne's hand, with a sort of paternal
+familiarity.
+
+"Come!" said M. de Montbron to himself; "let us try to discover the truth
+I am in search of, that we may escape a great misfortune."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE CONFESSION.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville, not wishing to betray the cause of the violent
+feelings which agitated her, received M. de Montbron with a feigned and
+forced gayety. On the other hand, notwithstanding his tact and knowledge
+of the world, the count was much embarrassed how to enter upon the
+subject on which he wished to confer with Adrienne, and he resolved to
+feel his way, before seriously commencing the conversation. After looking
+at the young lady for some seconds, M. de Montbron shook his head, and
+said, with a sigh of regret: "My dear child, I am not pleased."
+
+"Some affair of the heart, or of hearts, my dear count?" returned
+Adrienne, smiling.
+
+"Of the heart," said M. de Montbron.
+
+"What! you, so great a player, think more of a woman's whim than a throw
+of the dice?"
+
+"I have a heavy heart, and you are the cause of it, my dear child."
+
+"M. de Montbron, you will make me very proud," said Adrienne, with a
+smile.
+
+"You would be wrong, for I tell you plainly, my trouble is caused by your
+neglect of your beauty. Yes, your countenance is pale, dejected,
+sorrowful; you have been low-spirited for the last few days; you have
+something on your mind, I am sure of it."
+
+"My dear M. de Montbron, you have so much penetration, that you may be
+allowed to fall for once, as now. I am not sad, I have nothing on my
+mind, and--I am about to utter a very silly piece of impertinence--I have
+never thought myself so pretty."
+
+"On the contrary, nothing could be more modest than such an assertion.
+Who told you that falsehood? a woman?"
+
+"No; it was my heart, and it spoke the truth," answered Adrienne, with a
+slight degree of emotion. "Understand it, if you can," she added.
+
+"Do you mean that you are proud of the alteration in your features,
+because you are proud of the sufferings of your heart?" said M. de
+Montbron, looking at Adrienne with attention. "Be it so; I am then right.
+You have some sorrow. I persist in it," added the count, speaking with a
+tone of real feeling, "because it is painful to me."
+
+"Be satisfied; I am as happy as possible--for every instant I take
+delight in repeating, how, at my age, I am free--absolutely free!"
+
+"Yes; free to torment yourself, free to be miserable."
+
+"Come, come, my dear count!" said Adrienne, "you are recommencing our old
+quarrel. I still find in you the ally of my aunt and the Abbe
+d'Aigrigny."
+
+"Yes; as the republicans are the allies of the legitimists--to destroy
+each other in their turn. Talking of your abominable aunt, they say that
+she holds a sort of council at her house these last few days, a regular
+mitred conspiracy. She is certainly in a good way."
+
+"Why not? Formerly, she would have wished to be Goddess of Reason, now,
+we shall perhaps see her canonized. She has already performed the first
+part of the life of Mary Magdalen."
+
+"You can never speak worse of her than she deserves, my dear child.
+Still, though for quite opposite reasons, I agreed with her on the
+subject of your wish to reside alone."
+
+"I know it."
+
+"Yes; and because I wished to see you a thousand times freer than you
+really are, I advised you--"
+
+"To marry."
+
+"No doubt; you would have had your dear liberty, with its consequences,
+only, instead of Mdlle. de Cardoville, we should have called you Madame
+Somebody, having found an excellent husband to be responsible for your
+independence."
+
+"And who would have been responsible for this ridiculous husband? And who
+would bear a mocked and degraded name? I, perhaps?" said Adrienne, with
+animation. "No, no, my dear count, good or ill, I will answer for my own
+actions; to my name shall attach the reputation, which I alone have
+formed. I am as incapable of basely dishonoring a name which is not mine,
+as of continually bearing it myself, if it were not held in, esteem. And,
+as one can only answer for one's own actions, I prefer to keep my name."
+
+"You are the only person in the world that has such ideas."
+
+"Why?" said Adrienne, laughing. "Because it appears to me horrible, to
+see a poor girl lost and buried in some ugly and selfish man, and become,
+as they say seriously, the better half of the monster--yes! a fresh and
+blooming rose to become part of a frightful thistle!--Come, my dear
+count; confess there is something odious in this conjugal
+metempsychosis," added Adrienne, with a burst of laughter.
+
+The forced and somewhat feverish gayety of Adrienne contrasted painfully
+with her pale and suffering countenance; it was so easy to see that she
+strove to stifle with laughter some deep sorrow, that M. de Montbron was
+much affected by it; but, dissembling his emotion, he appeared to reflect
+a moment, and took up mechanically one of the new, fresh-cut books, by
+which Adrienne was surrounded. After casting a careless glance at this
+volume, he continued, still dissembling his feelings: "Come, my dear
+madcap: this is another folly. Suppose I were twenty years old, and that
+you did me the honor to marry me--you would be called Lady de Montbron, I
+imagine?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"How perhaps? Would you not bear my name, if you married me?"
+
+"My dear count," said Adrienne, with a smile, "do not let us pursue this
+hypothesis, which can only leave us--regrets."
+
+Suddenly, M. de Montbron started, and looked at Mdlle, de Cardoville with
+an expression of surprise. For some moments, whilst talking to Adrienne,
+he had mechanically--taken up two or three of the volumes scattered over
+the couch, and had glanced at their titles in the same careless manner.
+The first was the "Modern History of India." The second, "Travels in
+India." The third, "Letters on India." Much surprised, M. de Montbron had
+continued his investigation, and found that the fourth volume continued
+this Indian nomenclature, being "Rambles in India." The fifth was,
+"Recollections of Hindostan." The sixth, "Notes of a Traveller in the
+East Indies."
+
+Hence the astonishment, which, for many serious reasons, M. de Montbron
+had no longer been able to conceal, and which his looks betrayed to
+Adrienne. The latter, having completely forgotten the presence of the
+accusing volumes by which she was surrounded, yielded to a movement of
+involuntary confusion, and blushed slightly; but, her firm and resolute
+character again coming to her aid, she looked full at M. de Montbron, and
+said to him: "Well, my dear count! what surprises you?"
+
+Instead of answering, M. de Montbron appeared still more absorbed in
+thought, and contemplating the young girl, he could not forbear saying to
+himself: "No, no--it is impossible--and yet--"
+
+"It would, perhaps, be indiscreet in me to listen to your soliloquy, my
+dear count," said Adrienne.
+
+"Excuse me, my dear child; but what I see surprises me so much--"
+
+"And pray what do you see?"
+
+"The traces of so great and novel an interest in all that relates to
+India," said M. de Montbron, laying a slight stress on his words, and
+fixing a piercing look upon the young girl.
+
+"Well!" said Adrienne, stoutly.
+
+"Well! I seek the cause of this sudden passion--"
+
+"Geographical?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville, interrupting M. de Montbron:
+"you may find this taste somewhat serious for my age my dear count--but
+one must find occupation for leisure hours--and then, having a cousin,
+who is both an Indian and a prince, I should like to know something of
+the fortunate country from which I derive this savage relationship."
+
+These last words were pronounced with a bitterness that was not lost on
+M. de Montbron: watching Adrienne attentively, he observed: "Meseems, you
+speak of the prince with some harshness."
+
+"No; I speak of him with indifference."
+
+"Yet he deserves a very different feeling."
+
+"On the part of some other person, perhaps," replied Adrienne, dryly.
+
+"He is so unhappy!" said M, de Montbron, in a tone of sincere pity. "When
+I saw him the other day, he made my heart ache."
+
+"What have I to do with it?" exclaimed Adrienne, with an accent of
+painful and almost angry impatience.
+
+"I should have thought that his cruel torments at least deserved your
+pity," answered the count gravely.
+
+"Pity--from me!" cried Adrienne, with an air of offended pride. Then
+restraining herself, she added coldly: "You are jesting, M. de Montbron.
+It is not in sober seriousness that you ask me to take interest in the
+amorous torments of your prince."
+
+There was so much cold disdain in these last words of Adrienne, her pale
+and agitated countenance betrayed such haughty bitterness, that M. de
+Montbron said, sorrowfully: "It is then true; I have not been deceived.
+I, who thought, from our old and constant friendship, that I had some
+claim to your confidence have known nothing of it--while you told all to
+another. It is painful, very painful to me."
+
+"I do not understand you, M. de Montbron."
+
+"Well then, since I must speak plainly," cried the count, "there is, I
+see, no hope for this unhappy boy--you love another."
+
+As Adrienne started--"Oh! you cannot deny it," resumed the count; "your
+paleness and melancholy for the last few days, your implacable
+indifference to the prince--all prove to me that you are in love."
+
+Hurt by the manner in which the count spoke of the sentiment he
+attributed to her, Mdlle. de Cardoville answered with dignified
+stateliness: "You must know, M. de Montbron, that a secret discovered is
+not a confidence. Your language surprises me.
+
+"Oh, my dear friend, if I use the poor privilege of experience--if I
+guess that you are in love--if I tell you so, and even go so far as to
+reproach you with it--it is because the life or death of this poor prince
+is concerned; and I feel for him as if he were my son, for it is
+impossible to know him without taking the warmest interest in him."
+
+"It would be singular," returned Adrienne, with redoubled coldness, and
+still more bitter irony, "if my love--admitting I were in love--could
+have any such strange influence on Prince Djalma. What can it matter to
+him?" added she, with almost agonizing disdain.
+
+"What can it matter to him? Now really, my dear friend, permit me to tell
+you, that it is you who are jesting cruelly. What! this unfortunate youth
+loves you with all the blind ardor of a first love--twice has attempted
+to terminate by suicide the horrible tortures of his passion--and you
+think it strange that your love for another should be with him a question
+of life or death!"
+
+"He loves me then?" cried the young girl, with an accent impossible to
+describe.
+
+"He loves you to madness, I tell you; I have seen it."
+
+Adrienne seemed overcome with amazement. From pale, she became crimson;
+as the redness disappeared, her lips grew white, and trembled. Her
+emotion was so strong, that she remained for some moments unable to
+speak, and pressed her hand to her heart, as if to moderate its
+pulsations.
+
+M. de Montbron, almost frightened at the sudden change in Adrienne's
+countenance, hastily approached her, exclaiming: "Good heaven, my poor
+child! what is the matter?"
+
+Instead of answering, Adrienne waved her hand to him, in sign that he
+should not be alarmed; and, in fact, the count was speedily
+tranquillized, for the beautiful face, which had so lately been
+contracted with pain, irony, and scorn, seemed now expressive of the
+sweetest and most ineffable emotions; Adrienne appeared to luxuriate in
+delight, and to fear losing the least particle of it; then, as reflection
+told her, that she was, perhaps, the dupe of illusion or falsehood, she
+exclaimed suddenly, with anguish, addressing herself to M. de Montbron:
+"But is what you tell me true?"
+
+"What I tell you!"
+
+"Yes--that Prince Djalma--"
+
+"Loves you to madness?--Alas! it is only too true."
+
+"No, no," cried Adrienne, with a charming expression of simplicity; "that
+could never be too true."
+
+"What do you say?" cried the count.
+
+"But that woman?" asked Adrienne, as if the word scorched her lips.
+
+"What woman?"
+
+"She who has been the cause of all these painful struggles."
+
+"That woman--why, who should it be but you?"
+
+"What, I? Oh! tell me, was it I?"
+
+"On my word of honor. I trust my experience. I have never seen so ardent
+and sincere a passion."
+
+"Oh! is it really so? Has he never had any other love?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Yet I was told so."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"M. Rodin."
+
+"That Djalma--"
+
+"Had fallen violently in love, two days after I saw him."
+
+"M. Rodin told you that!" cried M. de Montbron, as if struck with a
+sudden idea. "Why, it is he who told Djalma that you were in love with
+some one else."
+
+"I!"
+
+"And this it was which occasioned the poor youth's dreadful despair."
+
+"It was this which occasioned my despair."
+
+"You love him, then, just as he loves you!" exclaimed M. de Montbron,
+transported with joy.
+
+"Love him!" said Mdlle. de Cardoville. A discreet knock at the door
+interrupted Adrienne.
+
+"One of your servants, no doubt. Be calm," said the count.
+
+"Come in," said Adrienne, in an agitated voice.
+
+"What is it?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville. Florine entered the room.
+
+"M. Rodin has just been here. Fearing to disturb mademoiselle, he would
+not come in; but he will return in half an hour. Will mademoiselle
+receive him?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the count to Florine; "even if I am still here, show him
+in by all means. Is not that your opinion?" asked M. de Montbron of
+Adrienne.
+
+"Quite so," answered the young girl; and a flash of indignation darted
+from her eyes, as she thought of Rodin's perfidy.
+
+"Oho! the old knave!" said M. de Montbron, "I always had my doubts of
+that crooked neck!" Florine withdrew, leaving the count with her
+mistress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+LOVE.
+
+Mdlle. de Cardoville was transfigured. For the first time her beauty
+shone forth in all its lustre. Until now overshadowed by indifference, or
+darkened by grief, she appeared suddenly illumined by a brilliant ray of
+sunshine. The slight irritation caused by Rodin's perfidy passed like an
+imperceptible shade from her brow. What cared she now for falsehood and
+perfidy? Had they not failed? And, for the future, what human power could
+interpose between her and Djalma, so sure of each other? Who would dare
+to cross the path of those two things, resolute and strong with the
+irresistible power of youth, love, and liberty? Who would dare to follow
+them into that blazing sphere, whither they went, so beautiful and happy,
+to blend together in their inextinguishable love, protected by the proof
+armor of their own happiness? Hardly had Florine left the room, when
+Adrienne approached M. de Montbron with a rapid step. She seemed to have
+become taller; and to watch her advancing, light, radiant, and
+triumphant, one might have fancied her a goddess walking upon clouds.
+
+"When shall I see him?" was her first word to M. de Montbron.
+
+"Well--say to-morrow; he must be prepared for so much happiness; in so
+ardent a nature, such sudden, unexpected joy might be terrible."
+
+Adrienne remained pensive for a moment, and then said rapidly: "To
+morrow--yes--not before to-morrow. I have a superstition of the heart."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You shall know. HE LOVES ME--that word says all, contains all,
+comprehends all, is all--and yet I have a thousand questions to ask with
+regard to him--but I will ask none before to-morrow, because, by a
+mysterious fatality, to-morrow is with me a sacred anniversary. It will
+be an age till then; but happily, I can wait. Look here!"
+
+Beckoning M. de Montbron, she led him to the Indian Bacchus. "How much it
+is like him!" said she to the count.
+
+"Indeed," exclaimed the latter, "it is strange!"
+
+"Strange?" returned Adrienne, with a smile of gentle pride; "strange,
+that a hero, a demi-god, an ideal of beauty, should resemble Djalma?"
+
+"How you love him!" said M. de Montbron, deeply touched, and almost
+dazzled by the felicity which beamed from the countenance of Adrienne.
+
+"I must have suffered a good deal, do you not think so?" said she, after
+a moment's silence.
+
+"If I had not made up my mind to come here to-day, almost in despair,
+what would have happened?"
+
+"I cannot tell; I should perhaps have died, for I am wounded mortally
+here"--she pressed her hand to her heart. "But what might have been death
+to me, will now be life."
+
+"It was horrible," said the count, shuddering. "Such a passion, buried in
+your own breast, proud as you are--"
+
+"Yes, proud--but not self-conceited. When I learned his love for another,
+and that the impression which I fancied I had made on him at our first
+interview had been immediately effaced, I renounced all hope, without
+being able to renounce my love. Instead of shunning his image, I
+surrounded myself with all that could remind me of him. In default of
+happiness, there is a bitter pleasure in suffering through what we love."
+
+"I can now understand your Indian library."
+
+Instead of answering the count, Adrienne took from the stand one of the
+freshly-cut volumes, and, bringing it to M. de Montbron, said to him,
+with a smile and a celestial expression of joy and happiness: "I was
+wrong--I am vain. Just read this--aloud, if you please. I tell you that I
+can wait for to-morrow." Presenting the book to the count, she pointed
+out one passage with the tip of her charming finger. Then she sank down
+upon the couch, and, in an attitude of deep attention, with her body bent
+forward, her hands crossed upon the cushion, her chin resting upon her
+hands, her large eyes fixed with a sort of adoration on the Indian
+Bacchus, that was just opposite to her, she appeared by this impassioned
+contemplation to prepare herself to listen to M. de Montbron.
+
+The latter, much astonished, began to read, after again looking at
+Adrienne, who said to him, in her most coaxing voice, "Very slowly, I beg
+of you."
+
+M. de Montbron then read the following passage from the journal of a
+traveller in India: "'When I was at Bombay, in 1829, I constantly heard
+amongst the English there, of a young hero, the son of--'"
+
+The count having paused a second, by reason of the barbarous spelling of
+the name of Djalma's father, Adrienne immediately said to him, in her
+soft voice: "The son of Kadja-sing."
+
+"What a memory!" said the count, with a smile. And he resumed: "'A young
+hero, the son of Kadja-sing, king of Mundi. On his return from a distant
+and sanguinary expedition amongst the mountains against this Indian king,
+Colonel Drake was filled with enthusiasm for this son of Kadja-sing,
+known as Djalma. Hardly beyond the age of childhood, this young prince
+has in the course of this implacable war given proofs of such chivalrous
+intrepidity, and of so noble a character, that his father has been
+surnamed the Father of the Generous.'"
+
+"That is a touching custom," said the count. "To recompense the father,
+as it were, by giving him a surname in honor of his son, is a great idea.
+But how strange you should have met with this book!" added the count, in
+surprise. "I can understand; there is matter here to inflame the coolest
+head."
+
+"Oh! you will see, you will see," said Adrienne.
+
+The count continued to read: "'Colonel Drake, one of the bravest and best
+officers of the English army, said yesterday, in my presence, that having
+been dangerously wounded, and taken prisoner by Prince Djalma, after an
+energetic resistance, he had been conveyed to the camp established in the
+village of--"
+
+Here there was the same hesitation on the part of the count, on seeing a
+still more barbarous name than the first; so, not wishing to try the
+adventure, he paused, and said to Adrienne, "Now really, I give this up."
+
+"And yet it is so easy!" replied Adrienne; and she pronounced with
+inexpressible softness, a name in itself soft, "The village of
+Shumshabad."
+
+"You appear to have an infallible process for remembering geographical
+names," said the count, continuing: "'Once arrived at the camp, Colonel
+Drake received the kindest hospitality, and Prince Djalma treated him
+with the respect of a son. It was there that the colonel became
+acquainted with some facts, which carried to the highest pitch his
+enthusiasm for prince Djalma. I heard him relate the two following.
+
+"'In one of the battles, the prince was accompanied by a young Indian of
+about twelve years of age, whom he loved tenderly, and who served him as
+a page, following him on horseback to carry his spare weapons. This child
+was idolized by its mother; just as they set out on the expedition, she
+had entrusted her son to Prince Djalma's care, saying, with a stoicism
+worthy of antiquity, "Let him be your brother." "He shall be my brother,"
+had replied the prince. In the height of a disastrous defeat, the child
+is severely wounded, and his horse killed; the prince, at peril of his
+life, notwithstanding the perception of a forced retreat, disengages him,
+and places him on the croup of his own horse; they are pursued; a
+musket-ball strikes their steed, who is just able to reach a jungle, in
+the midst of which, after some vain efforts, he falls exhausted. The
+child is unable to walk, but the prince carries him in his arms, and
+hides with him in the thickest part of the jungle. The English arrive,
+and begin their search; but the two victims escape. After a night and a
+day of marches, counter-marches, stratagems, fatigues, unheard-of perils,
+the prince, still, carrying the child, one of whose legs is broken,
+arrives at his father's camp, and says, with the utmost simplicity, "I
+had promised his mother that I would act a brother's part by him--and I
+have done so."'
+
+"That is admirable!" cried the count.
+
+"Go on--pray go on!" said Adrienne, drying a tear, without removing her
+eyes from the bas-relief, which she continued to contemplate with growing
+adoration.
+
+The count continued: "'Another time, Prince Djalma, followed by two black
+slaves, went, before sunrise, to a very wild spot, to seize a couple of
+tiger cubs only a few days old. The den had been previously discovered.
+The two old tigers were still abroad. One of the blacks entered the den
+by a narrow aperture; the other, aided by Djalma, cut down a tolerably
+large tree, to prepare a trap for one of the old tigers. On the side of
+the aperture, the cavern was exceedingly steep. The prince mounted to the
+top of it with agility, to set his trap, with the aid of the other black.
+Suddenly, a dreadful roar was heard; and, in a few bounds, the tigress,
+returning from the chase, reached the opening of the den. The black who
+was laying the trap with the prince had his skull fractured by her bite;
+the tree, falling across the entrance, prevented the female from
+penetrating the cavern, and at the same time stopped the exit of the
+black who had seized the cubs.
+
+"'About twenty feet higher, upon a ledge of rock, the prince lay flat on
+the ground, looking down upon this frightful spectacle. The tigress,
+rendered furious by the cries of her little ones, gnawed the hands of the
+black, who, from the interior of the den, strove to support the trunk of
+the tree, his only rampart, whilst he uttered the most lamentable
+outcries.'
+
+"It is horrible!" said the count.
+
+"Oh! go on! pray go on!" exclaimed Adrienne, with excitement; "you will
+see what can be achieved by the heroism of goodness."
+
+The count pursued: "'Suddenly the prince seized his dagger between his
+teeth, fastened his sash to a block of stone, took his axe in one hand,
+and with the other slid down this substitute for a rope; falling a few
+steps from the wild beast, he sprang upon her, and, swift as lightning,
+dealt her two mortal strokes, just as the black, losing his strength, was
+about to drop the trunk of the tree, sure to have been torn to pieces.'"
+
+"And you are astonished at his resemblance with the demi-god, to whom
+fable itself ascribes no more generous devotion!" cried the young lady,
+with still increasing excitement.
+
+"I am astonished no longer, I only admire," said the count, in a voice of
+emotion; "and, at these two noble instances of heroism, my heart beats
+with enthusiasm, as if I were still twenty."
+
+"And the noble heart of this traveller beat like yours at the recital,"
+said Adrienne; "you will see."
+
+"'What renders so admirable the intrepidity of the prince, is, that,
+according to the principle of Indian castes, the life of a slave is of no
+importance; thus a king's son, risking his life for the safety of a poor
+creature, so generally despised, obeyed an heroic and truly Christian
+instinct of charity, until then unheard of in this country."
+
+"'Two such actions,' said Colonel Drake, with good reason, 'are
+sufficient to paint the man; it is with a feeling of profound respect
+and admiration, therefore, that I, an obscure traveller, have written the
+name of Prince Djalma in my book; and at the same time, I have
+experienced a kind of sorrow, when I have asked myself what would be the
+future fate of this prince, buried in the depths of a savage country,
+always devastated by war. However humble may be the homage that I pay to
+this character, worthy of the heroic age, his name will at least be
+repeated with generous enthusiasm by all those who have hearts that beat
+in sympathy with what is great and noble.'"
+
+"And just now, when I read those simple and touching lines," resumed
+Adrienne, "I could not forbear pressing my lips to the name of the
+traveller."
+
+"Yes; he is such as I thought him," cried the count, with still more
+emotion, as he returned the book to Adrienne, who rose, with a grave and
+touching air, and said to him: "It was thus I wished you to know him,
+that you might understand my adoration; for this courage, this heroic
+goodness, I had guessed beforehand, when I was an involuntary listener to
+his conversation. From that moment, I knew him to be generous as
+intrepid, tender and sensitive as energetic and resolute; and when I saw
+him so marvellously beautiful--so different, in the noble character of
+his countenance, and even in the style of his garments, from all I had
+hitherto met with--when I saw the impression that I made upon him, and
+which I perhaps felt still more violently--I knew that my whole life was
+bound up with his love."
+
+"And now, what are your plans?"
+
+"Divine, radiant as my heart. When he learns his happiness, I wish that
+Djalma should feel dazzled as I do, so as to prevent my gazing on my sun;
+for I repeat, that until tomorrow will be a century to me. Yes, it is
+strange! I should have thought that after such a discovery, I should feel
+the want of being left alone, plunged in an ocean of delicious dreams.
+But no! from this time till to-morrow--I dread solitude--I feel a kind of
+feverish impatience--uneasy--ardent--Oh! where is the beneficent fairy,
+that, touching me with her wand, will lull me into slumber till
+to-morrow!"
+
+"I will be that beneficent fairy," said the count, smiling.
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes, I."
+
+"And how so?"
+
+"The power of my wand is this: I will relieve you from a portion of your
+thoughts by making them materially visible."
+
+"Pray explain yourself."
+
+"And my plan will have another advantage for you. Listen to me; you are
+so happy now that you can hear anything. Your odious aunt, and her
+equally odious friends, are spreading the report that your residence with
+Dr. Baleinier--"
+
+"Was rendered necessary by the derangement of my mind," said Adrienne,
+with a smile; "I expected that."
+
+"It is stupid enough; but, as your resolution to live alone makes many
+envious of you, and many hostile, you must feel that there will be no
+want of persons ready to believe the most absurd calumny possible."
+
+"I hope as much. To pass for mad in the eyes of fools is very
+flattering."
+
+"Yes; but to prove to fools that they are fools, and that in the face of
+all Paris, is much more amusing. Now, people begin to talk of your
+absence; you have given up your daily rides; for some time my niece has
+appeared alone in our box at the Opera; you wish to kill the time till
+to-morrow--well! here is an excellent opportunity. It is two o'clock; at
+halfpast three, my niece will come in the carriage; the weather is
+splendid; there is sure to be a crowd in the Bois de Boulogne. You can
+take a delightful ride, and be seen by everybody. Then, as the air and
+movement will have calmed your fever of happiness, I will commence my
+magic this evening, and take you to India."
+
+"To India?"
+
+"Into the midst of one of those wild forests, in which roar the lion, the
+panther, and the tiger. We will have this heroic combat, which so moved
+you just now, under our own eyes, in all its terrible reality."
+
+"Really, my dear count, you must be joking."
+
+"Not at all; I promise to show you real wild beasts, formidable tenants
+of the country of our demigod--growling tigers--roaring lions--do you not
+think that will be better than books?"
+
+"But how?"
+
+"Come! I must give you the secret of my supernatural power. On returning
+from your ride, you shall dine with my niece, and we will go together to
+a very curious spectacle now exhibiting at the Porte-Saint-Martin
+Theatre. A most extraordinary lion-tamer there shows you a number of wild
+beasts, in a state of nature, in the midst of a forest (here only
+commences the illusion), and has fierce combats with them all--tigers,
+lions, and panthers. All Paris is crowding to these representations, and
+all Paris will see you there, more charming than ever."
+
+"I accept your offer," said Adrienne, with childish delight. "Yes, you
+are right. I feel a strange pleasure in beholding these ferocious
+monsters, who will remind me of those that my demi-god so heroically
+overcame. I accept also, because, for the first time in my life, I am
+anxious to be admired--even by everybody. I accept finally because--"
+Here Mdlle. de Cardoville was interrupted by a low knock at the door, and
+by the entrance of Florine, who announced M. Rodin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE EXECUTION.
+
+Rodin entered. A rapid glance at Mdlle. de Cardoville and M. de Montbron
+told him at once that he was in a dilemma. In fact, nothing could be less
+encouraging than the faces of Adrienne and the count. The latter, when he
+disliked people, exhibited his antipathy, as we have already said, by an
+impertinently aggressive manner, which had before now occasioned a good
+number of duels. At sight of Rodin, his countenance at once assumed a
+harsh and insolent expression; resting his elbow on the chimney-piece,
+and conversing with Adrienne, he looked disdainfully over his shoulder,
+without taking the least notice of the Jesuit's low bow. On the other
+hand, at sight of this man, Mdlle. de Cardoville almost felt surprise,
+that she should experience no movement of anger or hatred. The brilliant
+flame which burned in her heart, purified it from every vindictive
+sentiment. She smiled, on the contrary; for, glancing with gentle pride
+at the Indian Bacchus, and then at herself, she asked herself what two
+beings, so young, and fair, and free, and loving, could have to fear from
+this old, sordid man, with his ignoble and base countenance, now
+advancing towards her with the writhing of a reptile. In a word, far from
+feeling anger or aversion with regard to Rodin, the young lady seemed
+full of the spirit of mocking gayety, and her large eyes, already lighted
+up with happiness, now sparkled with irony and mischief. Rodin felt
+himself ill at ease. People of his stamp greatly prefer violent to
+mocking enemies. They can encounter bursts of rage--sometimes by falling
+on their knees, weeping, groaning, and beating their breasts--sometimes
+by turning on their adversary, armed and implacable. But they are easily
+disconcerted by biting raillery; and thus it was with Rodin. He saw that
+between Adrienne de Cardoville and M. de Montbron, he was about to be
+placed in what is vulgarly termed a "regular fix."
+
+The count opened the fire; still glancing over his shoulder, he said to
+Rodin: "Ah! you are here, my benevolent gentleman!"
+
+"Pray, sir, draw a little nearer," said Adrienne, with a mocking smile.
+"Best of friends and model of philosophers--as well as declared enemy of
+all fraud and falsehood--I have to pay you a thousand compliments."
+
+"I accent anything from you, my dear young lady, even though undeserved,"
+said the Jesuit, trying to smile, and thus exposing his vile yellow
+teeth; "but may I be informed how I have earned these compliments?"
+
+"Your penetration, sir, which is rare--" replied Adrienne.
+
+"And your veracity, sir," said the count, "which is perhaps no less
+rare--"
+
+"In what have I exhibited my penetration, my dear young lady?" said
+Rodin, coldly. "In what my veracity?" added he, turning towards M. de
+Montbron.
+
+"In what, sir?" said Adrienne. "Why, you have guessed a secret surrounded
+by difficulties and mystery. In a word, you have known how to read the
+depths of a woman's heart."
+
+"I, my dear young lady?"
+
+"You, sir! rejoice at it, for your penetration has had the most fortunate
+results."
+
+"And your veracity has worked wonders," added the count.
+
+"It is pleasant to do good, even without knowing it," said Rodin, still
+acting on the defensive, and throwing side glances by turns on the count
+and Adrienne; "but will you inform me what it is that deserves this
+praise--"
+
+"Gratitude obliges me to inform you of it," said Adrienne, maliciously;
+"you have discovered, and told Prince Djalma, that I was passionately in
+love. Well! I admire your penetration; it was true."
+
+"You have also discovered, and told this lady, that Prince Djalma was
+passionately in love," resumed the count. "Well! I admire your
+penetration, my dear sir; it was true."
+
+Rodin looked confused, and at a loss for a reply.
+
+"The person that I loved so passionately," said Adrienne, "was the
+prince."
+
+"The person that the prince loved so passionately," resumed the count,
+"was this lady."
+
+These revelations, so sudden and alarming, almost stunned Rodin; he
+remained mute and terrified, thinking of the future.
+
+"Do you understand now, sir, the extent of our gratitude towards you?"
+resumed Adrienne, in a still more mocking tone. "Thanks to your sagacity,
+thanks to the touching interest you take in us, the prince and I are
+indebted to you for the knowledge of our mutual sentiments."
+
+The Jesuit had now gradually recovered his presence of mind, and his
+apparent calmness greatly irritated M. de Montbron, who, but for
+Adrienne's presence, would have assumed another tone than jests.
+
+"There is some mistake," said Rodin, "in what you have done me the honor
+to tell me, my dear young lady. I have never in my life spoken of the
+sentiments, however worthy and respectable, that you may entertain for
+Prince Djalma--"
+
+"That is true," replied Adrienne; "with scrupulous and exquisite
+discretion, whenever you spoke to me of the deep love felt by Prince
+Djalma, you carried your reserve and delicacy so far as to inform me that
+it was not I whom he loved."
+
+"And the same scruple induced you to tell the prince that Mdlle. de
+Cardoville loved some one passionately--but that he was not the person,"
+added the count.
+
+"Sir," answered Rodin, dryly, "I need hardly tell you that I have no
+desire to mix myself up with amorous intrigues."
+
+"Come! this is either pride or modesty," said the count, insolently. "For
+your own interest, pray do not advance such things; for, if we took you
+at your word, and it became known, it might injure some of the nice
+little trades that you carry on."
+
+"There is one at least," said Rodin, drawing himself up as proudly as M.
+de Montbron, "whose rude apprenticeship I shall owe to you. It is the
+wearisome one of listening to your discourse."
+
+"I tell you what, my good sir!" replied the count, disdainfully: "you
+force me to remind you that there are more ways than one of chastising
+impudent rogues."
+
+"My dear count!" said Adrienne to M. de Montbron, with an air of
+reproach.
+
+With perfect coolness, Rodin replied: "I do not exactly see, sir, first,
+what courage is shown by threatening a poor old man like myself, and,
+secondly--"
+
+"M. Rodin," said the count, interrupting the Jesuit, "first, a poor old
+man like you, who does evil under the shelter of the age he dishonors, is
+both cowardly and wicked, and deserves a double chastisement; secondly,
+with regard to this question of age, I am not aware that gamekeepers and
+policemen bow down respectfully to the gray coats of old wolves, and the
+gray hairs of old thieves. What do you think, my good sir?"
+
+Still impassible, Rodin raised his flabby eyelids, fixed for hardly a
+second his little reptile eye upon the count, and darted at him one of
+his rapid, cold, and piercing glances--and then the livid eyelid again
+covered the dull eye of that corpse-like face.
+
+"Not having the disadvantage of being an old wolf, and still less an old
+thief," said Rodin, quietly, "you will permit me, sir, to take no account
+of the pursuit of hunters and police. As for the reproaches made me, I
+have a very simple method of answering--I do not say of justifying
+myself--I never justify myself--"
+
+"You don't say!" said the count.
+
+"Never," resumed Rodin coolly; "my acts are sufficient for that. I will
+then simply answer that seeing the deep, violent, almost fearful
+impression made by this lady on the prince--"
+
+"Let this assurance which you give me of the prince's love," said
+Adrienne interrupting Rodin with an enchanting smile, "absolve you of all
+the evil you wished to do me. The sight of our happiness be your only
+punishment!"
+
+"It may be that I need neither absolution nor punishment, for, as I have
+already had the honor to observe to the count, my dear young lady, the
+future will justify my acts. Yes; it was my duty to tell the prince that
+you loved another than himself, and to tell you that he loved another
+than yourself--all in your mutual interest. That my attachment for you
+may have misled me, is possible--I am not infallible; but, after my past
+conduct towards you, my dear young lady, I have, perhaps, some right to
+be astonished at seeing myself thus treated. This is not a complaint. If
+I never justify myself, I never complain either."
+
+"Now really, there is something heroic in all this, my good sir," said
+the count. "You do not condescend to complain or justify yourself, with
+regard to the evil you have done."
+
+"The evil I have done?" said Rodin, looking fixedly at the count. "Are we
+playing at enigmas?"
+
+"What, sir!" cried the count, with indignation: "is it nothing, by your
+falsehoods, to have plunged the prince into so frightful a state of
+despair, that he has twice attempted his life? Is it nothing, by similar
+falsehoods, to have induced this lady to believe so cruel and complete an
+error, that but for the resolution I have to-day taken, it might have led
+to the most fatal consequences?"
+
+"And will you do me the honor to tell me, sir, what interest I could have
+in all this despair and error, admitting even that I had wished to
+produce them?"
+
+"Some great interest no doubt," said the count, bluntly; "the more
+dangerous that it is concealed. You are one of those, I see, to whom the
+woes of others are pleasure and profit."
+
+"That is really too much, sir," said Rodin, bowing; "I should be quite
+contented with the profit."
+
+"Your impudent coolness will not deceive me; this is a serious matter,"
+said the count. "It is impossible that so perfidious a piece of roguery
+can be an isolated act. Who knows but this may still be one of the fruits
+of Madame de Saint-Dizier's hatred for Mdlle. de Cardoville?"
+
+Adrienne had listened to the preceding discussion with deep attention.
+Suddenly she started, as if struck by a sudden revelation.
+
+After a moment's silence, she said to Rodin, without anger, without
+bitterness, but with an expression of gentle and serene calmness: "We are
+told, sir, that happy love works miracles. I should be tempted to believe
+it; for, after some minutes' reflection, and when I recall certain
+circumstances, your conduct appears to me in quite a new light."
+
+"And what may this new perspective be, my dear young lady?"
+
+"That you may see it from my point of view, sir, allow me to remind you
+of a few facts. That sewing-girl was generously devoted to me; she had
+given me unquestionable proofs of her attachment. Her mind was equal to
+her noble heart; but she had an invincible dislike to you. All on a
+sudden she disappears mysteriously from my house, and you do your best to
+cast upon her odious suspicions. M. de Montbron has a paternal affection
+for me; but, as I must confess, little sympathy for you; and you have
+always tried to produce a coldness between us. Finally, Prince Djalma has
+a deep affection for me, and you employ the most perfidious treachery to
+kill that sentiment within him. For what end do you act thus? I do not
+know; but certainly with some hostile design."
+
+"It appears to me, madame," said Rodin, severely, "that you have
+forgotten services performed."
+
+"I do not deny, sir, that you took me from the house of Dr. Baleinier;
+but, a few days sooner or later, I must infallibly have been released by
+M. de Montbron."
+
+"You are right, my dear child," said the count; "it may be that your
+enemies wished to claim the merit of what must necessarily have happened
+through the exertions of your friends."
+
+"You are drowning, and I save you--it is all a mistake to feel grateful,"
+said Rodin, bitterly; "some one else would no doubt have saved you a
+little later."
+
+"The comparison is wanting in exactness," said Adrienne, with a smile; "a
+lunatic asylum is not a river, and though, from what I see, I think you
+quite capable of diving, you have had no occasion to swim on this
+occasion. You merely opened a door for me, which would have opened of
+itself a little later."
+
+"Very good, my dear child!" said the count, laughing heartily at
+Adrienne's reply.
+
+"I know, sir, that your care did not extend to me only. The daughters of
+Marshal Simon were brought back by you; but we may imagine that the claim
+of the Duke de Ligny to the possession of his daughters would not have
+been in vain. You returned to an old soldier his imperial cross, which he
+held to be a sacred relic; it is a very touching incident. Finally, you
+unmasked the Abbe d'Aigrigny and Dr. Baleinier: but I had already made up
+my mind to unmask then. However, all this proves that you are a very
+clever man--"
+
+"Oh, madame!" said Rodin, humbly.
+
+"Full of resources and invention--"
+
+"Oh, madame!"
+
+"It is not my fault if, in our long interview at Dr. Baleinier's, you
+betrayed that superiority of mind which struck me so forcibly, and which
+seems to embarrass you so much at present. What would you have,
+sir?--great minds like yours find it difficult to maintain their
+incognito. Yet, as by different ways--oh! very different," added the
+young lady, maliciously, "we are tending to the same end (still keeping
+in view our conversation at Dr. Baleinier's), I wish, for the sake of our
+future communion, as you call it, to give you a piece of advice, and
+speak frankly to you."
+
+Rodin had listened to Mdlle. de Cardoville with apparent impassibility,
+holding his hat under his arm, and twirling his thumbs, whilst his hands
+were crossed upon his waistcoat. The only external mark of the intense
+agitation into which he was thrown by the calm words of Adrienne, was
+that the livid eyelids of the Jesuit, which had been hypocritically
+closed, became gradually red, as the blood flowed into them.
+Nevertheless, he answered Mdlle. de Cardoville in a firm voice, and with
+a low bow: "Good advice and frankness are always excellent things."
+
+"You see, sir," resumed Adrienne, with some excitement, "happy love
+bestows such penetration, such energy, such courage, as enables one to
+laugh at perils, to detect stratagems, and to defy hatred. Believe me,
+the divine light which surrounds two loving hearts will be sufficient to
+disperse all darkness, and reveal every snare. You see, in India--excuse
+my weakness, but I like to talk of India," added the young girl, with a
+smile of indescribable grace and meaning--"in India, when travellers
+sleep at night, they kindle great fires round their ajoupa (excuse this
+touch of local coloring), and far as extends the luminous circle, it puts
+to flight by its mere brilliancy, all the impure and venomous reptiles
+that shun the day and live only in darkness."
+
+"The meaning of this comparison has quite escaped me," said Rodin,
+continuing to twirl his thumbs, and half raising his eyelids, which were
+getting redder and redder.
+
+"I will speak more plainly," said Adrienne, with a smile. "Suppose, sir,
+that the last is a service which you have rendered me and the prince--for
+you only proceed by way of services--that, I acknowledge, is novel and
+ingenious."
+
+"Bravo, my dear child!" said the count, joyfully. "The execution will be
+complete."
+
+"Oh! this is meant for an execution?" said Rodin, still impassible.
+
+"No, sir," answered Adrienne, with a smile; "it is a simple conversation
+between a poor young girl and an old philosopher, the friend of humanity.
+Suppose, then, that these frequent services that you have rendered to me
+and mine have suddenly opened my eyes; or, rather," added the young girl,
+in a serious tone, "suppose that heaven, who gives to the mother the
+instinct to defend her child, has given me, along with happiness, the
+instinct to preserve my happiness, and that a vague presentiment, by
+throwing light on a thousand circumstances until now obscure, has
+suddenly revealed to me that, instead of being the friend, you are
+perhaps, the most dangerous enemy of myself and family."
+
+"So we pass from the execution to suppositions," said Rodin, still
+immovable.
+
+"And from suppositions, sir, if you must have it, to certainty," resumed
+Adrienne, with dignified firmness; "yes, now I believe that I was for
+awhile your dupe, and I tell you, without hate, without anger, but with
+regret--that it is painful to see a man of your sense and intelligence
+stoop to such machinations, and, after having recourse to so many
+diabolical manoeuvres, finish at last by being ridiculous; for, believe
+me, there is nothing more ridiculous for a man like you, than to be
+vanquished by a young girl, who has no weapon, no defence, no instructor,
+but her love. In a word, sir, I look upon you from to-day as an
+implacable and dangerous enemy; for I half perceive your aim, without
+guessing by what means you will seek to accomplish it, No doubt your
+future means will be worthy of the past. Well! in spite of all this, I do
+not fear you. From tomorrow, my family will be informed of everything,
+and an active, intelligent, resolute union will keep us all upon our
+guard, for it doubtless concerns this enormous inheritance, of which they
+wish to deprive us. Now, what connection can there be between the wrongs
+I reproach you with and the pecuniary end proposed? I do not at all
+know--but you have told me yourself that our enemies are so dangerously
+skillful, and their craft so far-reaching, that we must expect all, be
+prepared for all. I will remember the lesson. I have promised you
+frankness, sir, and now I suppose you have it."
+
+"It would be an imprudent frankness if I were your enemy," said Rodin,
+still impassible; "but you also promised me some advice, my dear young
+lady."
+
+"My advice will be short; do not attempt to continue the struggle,
+because, you see, there is something stronger than you and yours--it is a
+woman's resolve, defending her happiness."
+
+Adrienne pronounced these last words with so sovereign a confidence; her
+beautiful countenance shone, as is it were, with such intrepid joy, that
+Rodin, notwithstanding his phlegmatic audacity, was for a moment
+frightened. Yet he did not appear in the least disconcerted; and, after a
+moment's silence, he resumed, with an air of almost contemptuous
+compassion: "My dear young lady, we may perhaps never meet again; it is
+probable. Only remember one thing, which I now repeat to you: I never
+justify myself. The future will provide for that. Notwithstanding which,
+my dear young lady, I am your humble servant;" and he made her a low bow.
+
+"Count, I beg to salute you most respectfully," he added, bowing still
+more humbly to M. de Montbron; and he went out.
+
+Hardly had Rodin left the room than Adrienne ran to her desk, and writing
+a few hasty lines, sealed the note, and said to M. de Montbron: "I shall
+not see the prince before to-morrow--as much from superstition of the
+heart as because it is necessary for my plans that this interview should
+be attended with some little solemnity. You shall know all; but I write
+to him on the instant, for, with an enemy like M. Rodin, one must be
+prepared for all."
+
+"You are right, my dear child; quick! the letter." Adrienne gave it to
+him.
+
+"I tell him enough," said she, "to calm his grief; and not enough to
+deprive me of the delicious happiness of the surprise I reserve for to
+morrow."
+
+"All this has as much sense as heart in it: I will hasten to the prince's
+abode, to deliver your letter. I shall not see him, for I could not
+answer for myself. But come! our proposed drive, our evening's amusement,
+are still to hold good."
+
+"Certainly. I have more need than ever to divert my thoughts till to
+morrow. I feel, too, that the fresh air will do me good, for this
+interview with M. Rodin has warmed me a little."
+
+"The old wretch! but we will talk further of him. I will hasten to the
+prince's and return with Madame de Morinval, to fetch you to the Champs
+Elysees."
+
+The Count de Montbron withdrew precipitately, as joyful at his departure
+as he had been sad on his arrival.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE CHAMPS-ELYSEES
+
+It was about two hours after the interview of Rodin with Mdlle. de
+Cardoville. Numerous loungers, attracted to the Champs-Elysees by the
+serenity of a fine spring day (it was towards the end of the month of
+March) stopped to admire a very handsome equipage. A bright-blue open
+carriage, with white-and-blue wheels, drawn by four superb horses, of
+cream color, with black manes, and harness glittering with silver
+ornaments, mounted by two boy postilions of equal size, with black velvet
+caps, light-blue cassimere jackets with white collars, buckskin breeches,
+and top-boots; two tall, powdered footmen, also in light-blue livery,
+with white collars and facings, being seated in the rumble behind.
+
+No equipage could have been turned out in better style. The horses, full
+of blood, spirit, and vigor, were skillfully managed by the postilions,
+and stepped with singular regularity, gracefully keeping time in their
+movements, champing their bits covered with foam, and ever and anon
+shaking their cockades of blue and white silk, with long floating ends,
+and a bright rose blooming in the midst.
+
+A man on horseback, dressed with elegant simplicity, keeping at the other
+side of the avenue, contemplated with proud satisfaction this equipage
+which he had, as it were, created. It was M. de Bonneville--Adrienne's
+equerry, as M. de Montbron called him--for the carriage belonged to that
+young lady. A change had taken place in the plan for this magic day's
+amusement. M. de Montbron had not been able to deliver Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's note to Prince Djalma. Faringhea had told him that the
+prince had gone that morning into the country with Marshal Simon, and
+would not be back before evening. The letter should be given him on his
+arrival. Completely satisfied as to Djalma, knowing that he could find
+these few lines, which, without informing him of the happiness that
+awaited him, would at least give him some idea of it, Adrienne had
+followed the advice of M. de Montbron, and gone to the drive in her own
+carriage, to show all the world that she had quite made up her mind, in
+spite of the perfidious reports circulated by the Princess de Saint
+Dizier, to keep to her resolution of living by herself in her own way.
+Adrienne wore a small white bonnet, with a fall of blonde, which well
+became her rosy face and golden hair; her high dress of garnet-colored
+velvet was almost hidden beneath a large green cashmere shawl. The young
+Marchioness de Morinval, who was also very pretty and elegant, was seated
+at her right. M. de Montbron occupied the front seat of the carriage.
+
+Those who know the Parisian world, or rather, that imperceptible fraction
+of the world of Paris which goes every fine, sunny day to the Champs
+Elysees, to see and be seen, will understand that the presence of Mdlle.
+de Cardoville on that brilliant promenade was an extraordinary and
+interesting event.
+
+The world (as it is called) could hardly believe its eyes, on seeing this
+lady of eighteen, possessed of princely wealth, and belonging to the
+highest nobility, thus prove to every one, by this appearance in public,
+that she was living completely free and independent, contrary to all
+custom and received notions of propriety. This kind of emancipation
+appeared something monstrous, and people were almost astonished that the
+graceful and dignified bearing of the young lady should belie so
+completely the calumnies circulated by Madame de Saint-Dizier and her
+friends, with regard to the pretended madness of her niece. Many beaux,
+profiting by their acquaintance with the Marchioness de Morinval or M. de
+Montbron, came by turns to pay their respects, and rode for a few minutes
+by the side of the carriage, so as to have an opportunity of seeing,
+admiring, and perhaps hearing, Mdlle. de Cardoville; she surpassed their
+expectations, by talking with her usual grace and spirit. Then surprise
+and enthusiasm knew no bounds. What had at first been blamed as an almost
+insane caprice, was now voted a charming originality, and it only
+depended on Mdlle. de Cardoville herself, to be declared from that day
+the queen of elegance and fashion. The young lady understood very well
+the impression she had made; she felt proud and happy, for she thought of
+Djalma; when she compared him to all these men of fashion, her happiness
+was the more increased. And, verily, these young men, most of whom had
+never quitted Paris, or had ventured at most as far as Naples or Baden,
+looked insignificant enough by the side of Djalma, who, at his age, had
+so many times commanded and combated in bloody wars, and whose reputation
+far courage and generosity, mentioned by travellers with admiration, had
+already reached from India to Paris. And then, how could these charming
+exquisites, with their small hats, their scanty frock-coats, and their
+huge cravats, compare with the Indian prince, whose graceful and manly
+beauty was still heightened by the splendor of a costume, at once so rich
+and so picturesque?
+
+On this happy day, all was joy and love for Adrienne. The sun, setting in
+a splendidly serene sky, flooded the promenade with its golden light. The
+air was warm. Carriages and horsemen passed and repassed in rapid
+succession; a light breeze played with the scarfs of the women, and the
+plumes in their bonnets; all around was noise, movement, sunshine.
+Adrienne, leaning back in her carriage, amused herself with watching this
+busy scene, sparkling with Parisian luxury; but, in the vortex of this
+brilliant chaos, she saw in thought the mild, melancholy countenance of
+Djalma--when suddenly something fell into her lap, and she started. It
+was a bunch of half-faded violets. At the same instant she heard a
+child's voice following the carriage, and saying: "For the love of
+heaven, my good lady, one little sou!" Adrienne turned her head, and saw
+a poor little girl, pale and wan, with mild, sorrowful features, scarcely
+covered with rags, holding out her hand, and raising her eyes in
+supplication. Though the striking contrast of extreme misery, side by
+side with extreme luxury, is so common, that it no longer excites
+attention, Adrienne was deeply affected by it. She thought of Mother
+Bunch, now, perhaps, the victim of frightful destitution.
+
+"Ah! at least," thought the young lady, "let not this day be one of
+happiness for me alone!"
+
+She leaned from the carriage-window, and said to the poor child: "Have
+you a mother, my dear?"
+
+"No, my lady, I have neither father nor mother."
+
+"Who takes care of you?"
+
+"No one, my lady. They give me nosegays to sell, and I must bring home
+money--or they beat me."
+
+"Poor little thing!"
+
+"A sou, my good lady--a sou, for the love of heaven!" said the child,
+continuing to follow the carriage, which was then moving slowly.
+
+"My dear count," said Adrienne, smiling, and addressing M. de Montbron,
+"you are, unfortunately, no novice at an elopement. Please to stretch
+forth your arms, take up that child with both hands, and lift her into
+the carriage. We can hide her between Lady de Morinval and myself; and we
+can drive away before any one perceives this audacious abduction."
+
+"What!" said the count, in surprise. "You wish--"
+
+"Yes; I beg you to do it."
+
+"What a folly!"
+
+"Yesterday, you might, perhaps, have treated this caprice as a folly; but
+to-day," said Adrienne, laying great stress upon the word, and glancing
+at M. de Montbron with a significant air, "to-day, you should understand
+that it is almost a duty."
+
+"Yes, I understand you, good and noble heart!" said the count, with
+emotion; while Lady de Morinval, who knew nothing of Mdlle. de
+Cardoville's love for Djalma, looked with as much surprise as curiosity
+at the count and the young lady.
+
+M. de Montbron, leaning from the carriage, stretched out his arms towards
+the child, and said to her: "Give me your hands, little girl."
+
+Though much astonished, the child obeyed mechanically, and held out both
+her little arms; then the count took her by the wrists, and lifted her
+lightly from the ground, which he did the more easily, as the carnage was
+very low, and its progress by no means rapid. More stupefied than
+frightened, the child said not a word. Adrienne and Lady de Morinval made
+room for her to crouch down between them, and the little girl was soon
+hidden beneath the shawls of the two young women. All this was executed
+so quickly, that it was hardly perceived by a few persons passing in the
+side-avenues.
+
+"Now, my dear count," said Adrienne, radiant with pleasure, "let us make
+off at once with our prey."
+
+M. de Montbron half rose, and called to the postilions. "Home!" and the
+four horses started at once into a rapid and regular trot.
+
+"This day of happiness now seems consecrated, and my luxury is excused,"
+thought Adrienne; "till I can again meet with that poor Mother Bunch, and
+from this day I will make every exertion to find her out, her place will
+at least not be quite empty."
+
+There are often strange coincidences in life. At the moment when this
+thought of the hunchback crossed the mind of Adrienne, a crowd had
+collected in one of the side-avenues, and other persons soon ran to join
+the group.
+
+"Look, uncle!" said Lady de Morinval; "how many people are assembled
+yonder. What can it be? Shall we stop, and send to inquire?"
+
+"I am sorry, my dear, but your curiosity cannot be satisfied," said the
+count, drawing out his watch; "it will soon be six o'clock, and the
+exhibition of the wild beasts begin at eight. We shall only just have
+time to go home and dine. Is not that your opinion, my dear child?" said
+he to Adrienne.
+
+"And yours, Julia?" said Mdlle. de Cardoville to the marchioness.
+
+"Oh, certainly!" answered her friend.
+
+"I am the less inclined to delay," resumed the count, "as when I have
+taken you to the Porte-Saint-Martin, I shall be obliged to go for half
+an-hour to my club, to ballot for Lord Campbell, whom I propose."
+
+"Then, Adrienne and I will be left alone at the play, uncle?"
+
+"Your husband will go with you, I suppose."
+
+"True, dear uncle; but do not quite leave us, because of that."
+
+"Be sure I shall not: for I am curious as you are to see these terrible
+animals, and the famous Morok, the incomparable lion-tamer."
+
+A few minutes after, Mdlle. de Cardoville's carriage had left the Champs
+Elysees, carrying with it the little girl, and directing its course
+towards the Rue d'Anjou. As the brilliant equipage disappeared from the
+scene, the crowd, of which we before have spoken, greatly increased about
+one of the large trees in the Champs-Elysees, and expressions of pity
+were heard here and there amongst the groups. A lounger approached a
+young man on the skirts of the crowd, and said to him: "What is the
+matter, sir?"
+
+"I hear it is a poor young girl, a hunchback, that has fallen from
+exhaustion."
+
+"A hunchback! is that all? There will always be enough hunchbacks," said
+the lounger, brutally, with a coarse laugh.
+
+"Hunchback or not, if she dies of hunger," answered the young man,
+scarcely able to restrain his indignation, "it will be no less sad--and
+there is really nothing to laugh at, sir."
+
+"Die of hunger! pooh!" said the lounger, shrugging his shoulders. "It is
+only lazy scoundrels, that will not work, who die of hunger. And it
+serves them right."
+
+"I wager, sir, there is one death you will never die of," cried the young
+man, incensed at the cruel insolence of the lounger.
+
+"What do you mean?" answered the other, haughtily.
+
+"I mean, sir, that your heart is not likely to kill you."
+
+"Sir!" cried the lounger in an angry tone.
+
+"Well! what, sir?" replied the young man, looking full in his face.
+
+"Nothing," said the lounger, turning abruptly on his heel, and grumbling
+as he sauntered towards an orange-colored cabriolet, on which was
+emblazoned an enormous coat-of-arms, surmounted by a baron's crest. A
+servant in green livery, ridiculously laced with gold, was standing
+beside the horse, and did not perceive his master.
+
+"Are you catching flies, fool?" said the latter, pushing him with his
+cane. The servant turned round in confusion. "Sir," said he.
+
+"Will you never learn to call me Monsieur le Baron, rascal?" cried his
+master, in a rage--"Open the door directly!"
+
+The lounger was Baron Tripeaud, the manufacturing baron the stock-jobber.
+The poor hunchback was Mother Bunch, who had, indeed fallen with hunger
+and fatigue, whilst on her way to Mdlle. de Cardoville's. The unfortunate
+creature had found courage to brave the shame of the ridicule she so much
+feared, by returning to that house from which she was a voluntary exile;
+but this time, it was not for herself, but for her sister Cephyse--the
+Bacchanal Queen, who had returned to Paris the previous day, and whom
+Mother Bunch now sought, through the means of Adrienne, to rescue from a
+most dreadful fate.
+
+Two hours after these different scenes, an enormous crowd pressed round
+the doors of the Porte-Saint-Martin, to witness the exercises of Morok,
+who was about to perform a mock combat with the famous black panther of
+Java, named Death. Adrienne, accompanied by Lord and Lady de Morinval,
+now stepped from a carriage at the entrance of the theatre. They were to
+be joined in the course of the evening by M. de Montbron, whom they had
+dropped, in passing, at his club.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+BEHIND THE SCENES.
+
+The large theatre of the Porte-Saint-Martin was crowded by an impatient
+multitude. All Paris had hurried with eager and burning curiosity to
+Morok's exhibition. It is quite unnecessary to say that the lion-tamer
+had completely abandoned his small taste in religious baubles, which he
+had so successfully carried on at the White Falcon Inn at Leipsic. There
+were, moreover, numerous tokens by which the surprising effects of
+Morok's sudden conversion had been blazoned in the most extraordinary
+pictures: the antiquated baubles in which he had formerly dealt would
+have found no sale in Paris. Morok had nearly finished dressing himself,
+in one of the actor's rooms, which had been lent to him. Over a coat of
+mail, with cuishes and brassarts, he wore an ample pair of red trousers,
+fastened round his ankles by broad rings of gilt brass. His long caftan
+of black cloth, embroidered with scarlet and gold, was bound round his
+waist and wrist by other large rings of gilt metal. This sombre costume
+imparted to him an aspect still more ferocious. His thick and red-haired
+beard fell in large quantities down to his chest, and a long piece of
+white muslin was folded round his red head. A devout missionary in
+Germany and an actor in Paris, Morok knew as well as his employers, the
+Jesuits, how to accommodate himself to circumstances.
+
+Seated in one corner of the room, and contemplating with a sort of stupid
+admiration, was Jacques Rennepont, better known as "Sleepinbuff" (from
+the likelihood that he would end his days in rags, or his present
+antipathy to great care in dress). Since the day Hardy's factory had been
+destroyed by fire, Jacques had not quitted Morok, passing the nights in
+excesses, which had no baneful effects on the iron constitution of the
+lion-tamer. On the other's features, on the contrary, a great alteration
+was perceptible; his hollow cheeks, marble pallor, his eyes, by turns
+dull and heavy, or gleaming with lurid fire, betrayed the ravages of
+debauchery, his parched lips were almost constantly curled by a bitter
+and sardonic smile. His spirit, once gay and sanguine, still struggled
+against the besotting influence of habitual intoxication. Unfitted for
+labor, no longer able to forego gross pleasures, Jacques sought to drown
+in wine a few virtuous impulses which he still possessed, and had sunk so
+low as to accept without shame the large dole of sensual gratification
+proffered him by Morok, who paid all the expenses of their orgies, but
+never gave him money, in order that he might be completely dependent on
+him. After gazing at Morok for some time in amazement, Jacques said to
+him, in a familiar tone: "Well, yours is a famous trade; you may boast
+that, at this moment, there are not two men like you in the whole world
+That's flattering. It's a pity you don't stick to this fine trade."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, how is the conspiracy going on, in whose honor you make me keep it
+up all day and all night?"
+
+"It is working, but the time is not yet come; that is why I wish to have
+you always at hand, till the great day. Do you complain?"
+
+"Hang it, no!" said Jacques. "What could I do? Burnt up with brandy as I
+am, if I wanted to work, I've no longer the strength to do so. I have
+not, like you, a head of marble, and a body of iron; but as for fuddling
+myself with gunpowder, instead of anything else, that'll do for me; I'm
+only fit for that work now--and then, it will drive away thought."
+
+"Oh what kind?"
+
+"You know that when I do think, I think only of one thing," said Jacques,
+gloomily.
+
+"The Bacchanal queen?--still?" said Morok, in a disdainful tone.
+
+"Still! rather: when I shall think of her no longer, I shall be dead--or
+stupefied. Fiend!"
+
+"You were never better or more intelligent, you fool!" replied Morok,
+fastening his turban. The conversation was here interrupted. Morok's
+aider entered hastily.
+
+The gigantic form of this Hercules had increased in width. He was habited
+like Alcides; his enormous limbs, furrowed with veins as thick as
+whipcord, were covered with a close-fitting flesh-colored garment, to
+which a pair of red drawers formed a strong contrast.
+
+"Why do you rush in like a storm, Goliath?" said Morok.
+
+"There's a pretty storm in the house; they are beginning to get
+impatient, and are calling out like madmen. But if that were all!"
+
+"Well, what else?"
+
+"Death will not be able to play this evening."
+
+Morok turned quickly around. He seemed uneasy. "Why so?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I have just seen her! she's crouching at the bottom of her cage; her
+ears lie so close to her head, she looks as if they had been cut off. You
+know what that means."
+
+"Is that all?" said Morok, turning to the glass to complete his head
+dress.
+
+"It's quite enough; she's in one of her tearing fits. Since that night in
+Germany, when she ripped up that old hack of a white horse, I've not seen
+her look so savage! her eyes shine like burning candles."
+
+"Then she must have her fine collar on," said Morok, quietly.
+
+"Her fine collar?"
+
+"Yes; her spring-collar."
+
+"And I must be lady's-maid," said the giant. "A nice toilet to attend
+to!"
+
+"Hold your tongue!"
+
+"That's not all--" continued Goliath, hesitating.
+
+"What more?"
+
+"I might as well tell you at once."
+
+"Will you speak?"
+
+"Well! he is here."
+
+"Who, you stupid brute?"
+
+"The Englishman!"
+
+Morok started; his arms fell powerless by his side. Jacques was struck
+with the lion-tamer's paleness and troubled countenance.
+
+"The Englishman!--you have seen him?" cried Morok, addressing Goliath.
+"You are quite sure?"
+
+"Quite sure. I was looking through the peep-hole in the curtain; I saw
+him in one of the stage-boxes--he wishes to see things close; he's easy
+to recognize, with his pointed forehead, big nose, and goggle eyes."
+
+Morok shuddered again; usually fierce and unmoved, he appeared to be more
+and more agitated, and so alarmed, that Jacques said to him: "Who is this
+Englishman?"
+
+"He has followed me from Strasburg, where he fell in with me," said
+Morok, with visible dejection. "He travelled with his own horses, by
+short stages, as I did; stopping where I stopped, so as never to miss one
+of my exhibitions. But two days before I arrived at Paris, he left me--I
+thought I was rid of him," said Morok, with a sigh.
+
+"Rid of him!--how you talk!" replied Jacques, surprised; "such a good
+customer, such an admirer!"
+
+"Aye!" said Morok, becoming more and more agitated; "this wretch has
+wagered an enormous sum, that I will be devoured in his presence, during
+one of my performances: he hopes to win his wager--that is why he follows
+me about."
+
+Sleepinbuff found the John Bull's idea so amusingly eccentric, that, for
+the first time since a very long period, he burst into a peal of hearty
+laughter. Morok, pale with rage, rushed towards him with so menacing an
+air, that Goliath was obliged to interpose.
+
+"Come, come," said Jacques, "don't be angry; if it is serious, I will not
+laugh any more."
+
+Morok was appeased, and said to Sleepinbuff in a hoarse voice: "Do you
+think me a coward?"
+
+"No, by heaven!"
+
+"Well! And yet this Englishman, with his grotesque face, frightens me
+more than any tiger or my panther!"
+
+"You say so, and I believe it," replied Jacques; "but I cannot understand
+why the presence of this man should alarm you."
+
+"But consider, you dull knave!" cried Morok, "that, obliged to watch
+incessantly the least movement of the ferocious beast, whom I keep in
+subjection by my action and my looks, there is something terrible in
+knowing that two eyes are there--always there--fixed--waiting till the
+least absence of mind shall expose me to be torn in pieces by the
+animals."
+
+"Now, I understand," said Jacques, shuddering in his turn. "It is
+terrible."
+
+"Yes; for once there, though I may not see this cursed Englishman, I
+fancy I have his two round eyes, fixed and wide open, always before me.
+My tiger Cain once nearly mutilated my arm, when my attention was drawn
+away by this Englishman, whom the devil take! Blood and thunder!" cried
+Morok: "this man will be fatal to me." And Morok paced the room in great
+agitation.
+
+"Besides, Death lays her ears close to her skull," said Goliath,
+brutally. "If you persist--mind, I tell you--the Englishman will win his
+wager this evening."
+
+"Go away, you brute!--don't vex my head with your confounded
+predictions," cried Morok: "go and prepare Death's collar."
+
+"Well, every one to his taste; you wish the panther to taste you," said
+the giant, stalking heavily away, after this joke.
+
+"But if you feel these fears," said Jacques, "why do you not say that the
+panther is ill?"
+
+Morok shrugged his shoulders, and replied with a sort of feverish
+ferocity, "Have you ever heard of the fierce pleasure of the gamester,
+who stakes his honor, his life, upon a card? Well! I too--in these daily
+exhibitions where my life is at stake--find a wild, fierce pleasure in
+braving death, before a crowded assembly, shuddering and terrified at my
+audacity. Yes, even in the fear with which this Englishman inspires me, I
+find, in spite of myself, a terrible excitement, which I abhor, and which
+yet subjugates me."
+
+At this moment, the stage-manager entered the room, and interrupted the
+beast-tamer. "May we give the signal, M. Morok?" said the stage-manager.
+"The overture will not last above ten minutes."
+
+"I am ready," said Morok.
+
+"The police-inspector has just now given orders, that the double chain of
+the panther, and the iron ring riveted to the floor of the stage, at the
+end of the cavern in the foreground, shall be again examined; and
+everything has been reported quite secure."
+
+"Yes--secure--except for me," murmured the beast-tamer.
+
+"So, M. Morok, the signal may be given?"
+
+"The signal may--be given," replied Morok. And the manager went out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+UP WITH THE CURTAIN.
+
+The usual bell sounded with solemnity behind the scenes the overture
+began, and, to say the truth, but little attention was paid to it. The
+interior of the theatre offered a very animated view. With the exception
+of two stage-boxes even with the dress circle, one to the left, the other
+to the right of the audience, every seat was occupied. A great number of
+very fashionable ladies, attracted, as is always the case, by the strange
+wildness of the spectacle, filled the boxes. The stalls were crowded by
+most of the young men who; in the morning, had walked their horses on the
+Champs-Elysees. The observations which passed from one stall to another,
+will give some idea of their conversation.
+
+"Do you know, my dear boy, there would not be so crowded or fashionable
+an audience to witness Racine's Athalia?"
+
+"Undoubtedly. What is the beggarly howling of an actor, compared to the
+roaring of the lion?"
+
+"I cannot understand how the authorities permit this Morok to fasten his
+panther with a chain to an iron ring in the corner of the stage. If the
+chain were to break?"
+
+"Talking of broken chains--there's little Mme. de Blinville, who is no
+tigress. Do you see her in the second tier, opposite?"
+
+"It becomes her very well to have broken, as you say, the marriage chain;
+she looks very well this season."
+
+"Oh! there is the beautiful Duchess de Saint-Prix; all the world is here
+to-night--I don't speak of ourselves."
+
+"It is a regular opera night--what a festive scene!"
+
+"Well, after all, people do well to amuse themselves, perhaps it will not
+be for long."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Suppose the cholera were to come to Paris?"
+
+"Oh! nonsense!"
+
+"Do you believe in the cholera?"
+
+"To be sure I do! He's coming from the North, with his walking-stick
+under his arm."
+
+"The devil take him on the road! don't let us see his green visage here."
+
+"They say he's at London."
+
+"A pleasant journey to him."
+
+"Come, let us talk of something else; it may be a weakness, if you
+please, but I call this a dull subject."
+
+"I believe you."
+
+"Oh! gentlemen--I am not mistaken--no--it is she!"
+
+"Who, then?"
+
+"Mdlle. de Cardoville! She is coming into the stage-box with Morinval and
+his wife. It is a complete resuscitation: this morning on the
+Champs-Elysees; in the evening here."
+
+"Faith, you are right! It is Mdlle. de Cardoville."
+
+"Good heaven! how lovely she is!"
+
+"Lend me your eyeglass."
+
+"Well, what do you think of her?"
+
+"Exquisite--dazzling."
+
+"And in addition to her beauty, an inexhaustible flow of wit, three
+hundred thousand francs a year, high birth, eighteen years of age,
+and--free as air."
+
+"Yes, that is to say, that, provided it pleased her, I might be to
+morrow--or even to-day--the happiest of men."
+
+"It is enough to turn one's brain."
+
+"I am told that her mansion, Rue d'Anjou, is like an enchanted palace; a
+great deal is said about a bath-room and bedroom, worthy of the Arabian
+Nights."
+
+"And free as air--I come back to that."
+
+"Ah! if I were in her place!"
+
+"My levity would be quite shocking."
+
+"Oh! gentlemen, what a happy man will he be who is loved first!"
+
+"You think, then, that she will have many lovers?"
+
+"Being as free as air--"
+
+"All the boxes are full, except the stage-box opposite to that in which
+Mdlle. de Cardoville is seated. Happy the occupiers of that box!"
+
+"Did you see the English ambassador's lady in the dress circle?"
+
+"And the Princess d'Alvimar--what an enormous bouquet!"
+
+"I should like to know the name--of that nosegay."
+
+"Oh!--it's Germigny."
+
+"How flattering for the lions and tigers, to attract so fashionable an
+audience."
+
+"Do you notice, gentlemen, how all the women are eye-glassing Mdlle. de
+Cardoville?"
+
+"She makes a sensation."
+
+"She is right to show herself; they gave her out as mad."
+
+"Oh! gentlemen, what a capital phiz!"
+
+"Where--where?"
+
+"There--in the omnibus-box beneath Mdlle. de Cardoville's."
+
+"It's a Nuremburg nutcracker."
+
+"An ourang-outang!"
+
+"Did you ever see such round, staring eyes?"
+
+"And the nose!"
+
+"And the forehead!"
+
+"It's a caricature."
+
+"Order, order! the curtain rises."
+
+And, in fact, the curtain rose. Some explanation is necessary for the
+clear understanding of what follows. In the lower stage-box, to the left
+of the audience, were several persons, who had been referred to by the
+young men in the stalls. The omnibus-box was occupied by the Englishman,
+the eccentric and portentous bettor, whose presence inspired Morok with
+so much dread.
+
+It would require Hoffman's rare and fantastic genius to describe worthily
+that countenance, at once grotesque and frightful, as it stood out from
+the dark background of the box. This Englishman was about fifty years
+old; his forehead was quite bald, and of a conical shape; beneath this
+forehead, surmounted by eyebrows like parenthesis marks, glittered large,
+green eyes, remarkably round and staring, and set very close to a hooked
+nose, extremely sharp and prominent; a chin like that on the old
+fashioned nutcrackers was half-hidden in a broad and ample white cravat,
+as stiffly-starched as the round-cornered shirt-collar, which nearly
+touched his ears. The face was exceedingly thin and bony, and yet the
+complexion was high-colored, approaching to purple, which made the bright
+green of the pupils, and the white of the other part of the eyes, still
+more conspicuous. The mouth, which was very wide, sometimes whistled
+inaudibly the tune of a Scotch jig (always the same tune), sometimes was
+slightly curled with a sardonic smite. The Englishman was dressed with
+extreme care; his blue coat, with brass buttons, displayed his spotless
+waistcoat, snowy, white as his ample cravat; his shirt was fastened with
+two magnificent ruby studs, and his patrician hands were carefully kid
+gloved.
+
+To any one who knew the eccentric and cruel desire which attracted this
+man to every representation, his grotesque face became almost terrific,
+instead of exciting ridicule; and it was easy to understand the dread
+experience by Morok at sight of those great, staring round eyes, which
+appeared to watch for the death of the lion-tamer (what a horrible
+death!) with unshaken confidence. Above the dark box of the Englishman,
+affording a graceful contrast, were seated the Morinvals and Mdlle. de
+Cardoville. The latter was placed nearest the stage. Her head was
+uncovered, and she wore a dress of sky-blue China crepe, ornamented at
+the bosom with a brooch of the finest Oriental pearls--nothing more; yet
+Adrienne, thus attired, was charming. She held in her hand an enormous
+bouquet, composed of the rarest flowers of India: the stephanotis and the
+gardenia mingled the dead white of their blossoms with the purple
+hibiscus and Java amaryllis.
+
+Madame de Morinval, seated on the opposite side of the box, was dressed
+with equal taste and simplicity; Morinval, a fair and very handsome young
+man, of elegant appearance, was behind the two ladies. M. de Montbron was
+expected to arrive every moment. The reader will please to recollect that
+the stage-box to the right of the audience, opposite Adrienne's, had
+remained till then quite empty. The stage represented one of the gigantic
+forests of India. In the background, tall exotic trees rose in spiral or
+spreading forms, among rugged masses of perpendicular rocks, with here
+and there glimpses of a tropical sky. The side-scenes formed tufts of
+trees, interspersed with rocks; and at the side which was immediately
+beneath Adrienne's box appeared the irregular opening of a deep and
+gloomy cavern, round which were heaped huge blocks of granite, as if
+thrown together by some convulsion of nature. This scenery, full of a
+wild and savage grandeur, was wonderfully "built up," so as to make the
+illusion as complete as possible; the footlights were lowered, and being
+covered with a purple shade, threw over this landscape a subdued reddish
+light, which increased the gloomy and startling effect of the whole.
+Adrienne, leaning forward from the box, with cheeks slightly flushed,
+sparkling eyes, and throbbing heart, sought to trace in this scene the
+solitary forest described by the traveller who had eulogized Djalma's
+generosity and courage, when he threw himself upon a ferocious tigress to
+save the life of a poor black slave. Chance coincided wonderfully indeed
+with her recollections. Absorbed in the contemplation of the scenery and
+the thoughts it awakened in her heart, she paid no attention to what was
+passing in the house. And yet something calculated to excite curiosity
+was taking place in the opposite stage-box.
+
+The door of this box opened. A man about forty years of age, of a yellow
+complexion, entered; he was clothed after the East Indian fashion, in a
+long robe of orange silk, bound round the waist with a green sash, and he
+wore a small white turban. He placed two chairs at the front of the box;
+and, having glanced round the house for a moment, he started, his black
+eyes sparkled, and he went out quickly. That man was Faringhea. His
+apparition caused surprise and curiosity in the theatre; the majority of
+the spectators not having, like Adrienne, a thousand reasons for being
+absorbed in the contemplation of a picturesque set scene. The public
+attention was still more excited when they saw the box which Faringhea
+had just left, entered by a youth of rare beauty, also dressed Oriental
+fashion, in a long robe of white Cashmere with flowing sleeves, with a
+scarlet turban striped with gold on his head, and a sash to correspond,
+in which was stuck a long dagger, glittering with precious stones. This
+young man was Prince Djalma. For an instant he remained standing at the
+door, and cast a look of indifference upon the immense theatre, crowded
+with people; then, stepping forward with a majestic and tranquil air, the
+prince seated himself negligently on one of the chairs, and, turning his
+head in a few moments towards the entrance, appeared surprised at not
+seeing some person whom he doubtless expected. This person appeared at
+length; the boxkeeper had been assisting her to take off her cloak. She
+was a charming, fair-haired girl, attired with more show than taste, in a
+dress of white silk, with broad cherry-colored stripes, made ultra
+fashionably low, and with short sleeves; a large bow of cherry-colored
+ribbon was placed on each side of her light hair, and set off the
+prettiest, sprightliest, most wilful little face in the world.
+
+It was Rose-Pompon. Her pretty arms were partly covered by long white
+gloves, and ridiculously loaded with bracelets: in her hand she carried
+an enormous bouquet of roses.
+
+Far from imitating the calm demeanor of Djalma, Rose-Pompon skipped into
+the box, moved the chairs about noisily, and fidgeted on her seat for
+some time, to display her fine dress; then, without being in the least
+intimidated by the presence of the brilliant assembly, she, with a little
+coquettish air, held her bouquet towards Djalma, that he might smell it,
+and appeared finally to establish herself on her seat. Faringhea came in,
+shut the door of the box, and seated himself behind the prince. Adrienne,
+still completely absorbed in the contemplation of the Indian forest, and
+in her own sweet thoughts, had not observed the newcomers. As she was
+turning her head completely towards the stage, and Djalma could not, for
+the moment, see even her profile, he, on his side, had not recognized
+Mdlle. de Cardoville.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+DEATH.
+
+The pantomime opening, by which was introduced the combat of Morok with
+the black panther, was so unmeaning, that the majority of the audience
+paid no attention to it, reserving all their interest for the scene in
+which the lion-tamer was to make his appearance.
+
+This indifference of the public explains the curiosity excited in the
+theatre by the arrival of Faringhea and Djalma--a curiosity which
+expressed itself (as at this day, when uncommon foreigners appear in
+public) by a slight murmur and general movement amongst the crowd. The
+sprightly, pretty face of Rose-Pompon, always charming, in spite of her
+singularly staring dress, in style so ridiculous for such a theatre, and
+her light and familiar manner towards the handsome Indian who accompanied
+her, increased and animated the general surprise; for, at this moment,
+Rose-Pompon, yielding without reserve to a movement of teasing coquetry,
+had held up, as we have already stated, her large bunch of roses to
+Djalma. But the prince, at sight of the landscape which reminded him of
+his country, instead of appearing sensible to this pretty, provocation,
+remained for some minutes as in a dream, with his eyes fixed upon the
+stage. Then Rose-Pompon began to beat time on the front of the box with
+her bouquet, whilst the somewhat too visible movement of her pretty
+shoulders showed that this devoted dancer was thinking of fast-life
+dances, as the orchestra struck up a more lively strain.
+
+Placed directly opposite the box in which Faringhea, Djalma, and Rose
+Pompon had just taken their seats, Lady Morinval soon perceived the
+arrival of these two personages, and particularly the eccentric
+coquetries of Rose-Pompon. Immediately, the young marchioness, leaning
+over towards Mdlle. de Cardoville, who was still absorbed in memories
+ineffable, said to her, laughing: "My dear, the most amusing part of the
+performance is not upon the stage. Look just opposite."
+
+"Just opposite?" repeated Adrienne, mechanically: and, turning towards
+Lady Morinval with an air of surprise, she glanced in the direction
+pointed out.
+
+She looked--what did she see?--Djalma seated by the side of a young
+woman, who was familiarly offering to his sense of smell the perfume of
+her bouquet. Amazed, struck almost literally to the heart, as by an
+electric shock, swift, sharp, and painful, Adrienne became deadly pale.
+From instinct, she shut her eyes for a second, in order not to see--as
+men try to ward off the dagger, which, having once dealt the blow,
+threatens to strike again. Then suddenly, to this feeling of grief
+succeeded a reflection, terrible both to her love and to her wounded
+pride.
+
+"Djalma is present with this woman, though he must have received my
+letter," she said to herself,--"wherein he was informed of the happiness
+that awaited him."
+
+At the idea of so cruel an insult, a blush of shame and indignation
+displaced Adrienne's paleness, who overwhelmed by this sad reality, said
+to herself: "Rodin did not deceive me."
+
+We abandon all idea of picturing the lightning-like rapidity of certain
+emotions which in a moment may torture--may kill you in the space of a
+minute. Thus Adrienne was precipitated from the most radiant happiness to
+the lowest depths of an abyss of the most heart-rending grief, in less
+than a second; for a second had hardly elapsed before she replied to Lady
+Morinval: "What is there, then, so curious, opposite to us, my dear
+Julia?"
+
+This evasive question gave Adrienne time to recover her self-possession.
+Fortunately, thanks to the thick folds of hair which almost entirely
+concealed her cheeks, the rapid and sudden changes from pallor to blush
+escaped the notice of Lady Morinval, who gayly replied: "What, my dear,
+do you not perceive those East Indians, who have just entered the box
+immediately opposite to ours? There, just before us!"
+
+"Yes, I see them; but what then?" replied Adrienne, in a firm tone.
+
+"And don't you observe anything remarkable?" said the marchioness.
+
+"Don't be too hard, ladies," laughingly interposed the marquis; "we ought
+to allow the poor foreigners some little indulgence. They are ignorant of
+our manners and customs; were it not for that, they would never appear in
+the face of all Paris in such dubious company."
+
+"Indeed," said Adrienne, with a bitter smile, "their simplicity is
+touching; we must pity them."
+
+"And, unfortunately, the girl is charming, spite of her low dress and
+bare arms," said the marchioness; "she cannot be more than sixteen or
+seventeen at most. Look at her, my dear Adrienne; what a pity!"
+
+"It is one of your charitable days, my dear Julia," answered Adrienne;
+"we are to pity the Indians, to pity this creature, and--pray, whom else
+are we to pity?"
+
+"We will not pity that handsome Indian, in his red-and-gold turban," said
+the marquis, laughing, "for, if this goes on, the girl with the cherry
+colored ribbons will be giving him a kiss. See how she leans towards her
+sultan."
+
+"They are very amusing," said the marchioness, sharing the hilarity of
+her husband, and looking at Rose-Pompom through her glass; then she
+resumed, in about a minute, addressing herself to Adrienne: "I am quite
+certain of one thing. Notwithstanding her giddy airs, that girl is very
+fond of her Indian. I just saw a look that expresses a great deal."
+
+"Why so much penetration, my dear Julia?" said Adrienne, mildly; "what
+interest have we to read the heart of that girl?"
+
+"Why, if she loves her sultan, she is quite in the right," said the
+marquis, looking through his opera-glass in turn; "for, in my whole life,
+I never saw a more handsome fellow than that Indian. I can only catch his
+side-face, but the profile is pure and fine as an antique cameo. Do you
+not think so?" added the marquis, leaning towards Adrienne. "Of course,
+it is only as a matter of art, that I permit myself to ask you the
+question."
+
+"As a work of art," answered Adrienne, "it is certainly very fine."
+
+"But see!" said the marchioness; "how impertinent the little creature
+is!--She is actually staring at us."
+
+"Well!" said the marquis; "and she is actually laying her hand quite
+unceremoniously on her sultan's shoulder, to make him share, no doubt, in
+her admiration of you ladies."
+
+In fact, Djalma, until now occupied with the contemplation of the scene
+which reminded him of his country, had remained insensible to the
+enticements of Rose-Pompon, and had not yet perceived Adrienne.
+
+"Well, now!" said Rose-Pompon, bustling herself about in front of the
+box, and continuing to stare at Mdlle. de Cardoville, for it was she, and
+not the marchioness, who now drew her attention; "that is something quite
+out of the common way--a pretty woman, with red hair; but such sweet red,
+it must be owned. Look, Prince Charming!"
+
+And so saying, she tapped Djalma lightly on the shoulder; he started at
+these words, turned round, and for the first time perceived Mdlle. de
+Cardoville.
+
+Though he had been almost prepared for this meeting, the prince was so
+violently affected by it, that he was about involuntarily to rise, in a
+state of the utmost confusion; but he felt the iron hand of Faringhea
+laid heavily on his shoulder, and heard him whisper in Hindostanee:
+"Courage! and by to-morrow she will be at your feet."
+
+As Djalma still struggled to rise, the half-caste added to restrain him:
+"Just now, she grew pale and red with jealousy. No weakness, or all is
+lost!"
+
+"So! there you are again, talking your dreadful gibberish," said Rose
+Pompon, turning round towards Faringhea. "First of all, it is not polite;
+and then the language is so odd, that one might suppose you were cracking
+nuts."
+
+"I spoke of you to my master," said the half-caste; "he is preparing a
+surprise for you."
+
+"A surprise? oh! that is different. Only make haste--do you hear, Prince
+Charming!" added she, looking tenderly at Djalma.
+
+"My heart is breaking," said Djalma, in a hollow voice to Faringhea,
+still using the language of India.
+
+"But to-morrow it will bound with joy and love," answered the half-caste.
+"It is only by disdain that you can conquer a proud woman. To-morrow, I
+tell you, she will be trembling, confused, supplicating, at your feet!"
+
+"To-morrow, she will hate me like death!" replied the prince, mournfully.
+
+"Yes, were she now to see you weak and cowardly. It is now too late to
+draw back; look full at her, take the nosegay from this girl, and raise
+it to your lips. Instantly, you will see yonder woman, proud as she is,
+grow pale and red, as just now. Then will you believe me?"
+
+Reduced by despair to make almost any attempt, and fascinated, in spite
+of himself, by the diabolical hints of Faringhea, Djalma looked for a
+second full at Mdlle. de Cardoville; then, with a trembling hand he took
+the bouquet from Rose-Pompon, and, again looking at Adrienne, pressed it
+to his lips.
+
+Upon this insolent bravado, Mdlle. de Cardoville could not restrain so
+sudden and visible a pang, that the prince was struck by it.
+
+"She is yours," said the half-caste, to him. "Did you see, my lord, how
+she trembled with jealousy?--Only have courage! and she is yours. She
+will soon prefer you to that handsome young man behind her--for it is he
+whom she has hitherto fancied herself in love with."
+
+As if the half-caste had guessed the movement of rage and hatred, which
+this revelation would excite in the heart of the prince, he hastily
+added: "Calmness and disdain! Is it not his turn now to hate you?"
+
+The prince restrained himself, and drew his hand across his forehead
+which glowed with anger.
+
+"There now! what are you telling him, that vexes him so?" said Rose
+Pompon to Faringhea, with pouting lip. Then, addressing Djalma, she
+continued: "Come, Prince Charming, as they say in the fairy-tale, give me
+back my flowers."
+
+As she took it again, she added: "You have kissed it, and I could almost
+eat it." Then, with a sigh, and a passionate glance at Djalma, she said
+softly to herself: "That monster Ninny Moulin did not deceive me. All
+this is quite proper; I have not even that to reproach myself with." And
+with her little white teeth, she bit at a rosy nail of her right hand,
+from which she had just drawn the glove.
+
+It is hardly necessary to say, that Adrienne's letter had not been
+delivered to the prince, and that he had not gone to pass the day in the
+country with Marshal Simon. During the three days in which Montbron had
+not seen Djalma, Faringhea had persuaded him, that, by affecting another
+passion, he would bring Mdlle. de Cardoville to terms. With regard to
+Djalma's presence at the theatre, Rodin had learned from her maid,
+Florine, that her mistress was to go in the evening to the Porte-Saint
+Martin. Before Djalma had recognized her, Adrienne, who felt her strength
+failing her, was on the point of quitting the theatre; the man, whom she
+had hitherto placed so high, whom she had regarded as a hero and a
+demi-god and whom she had imagined plunged in such dreadful despair,
+that, led by the most tender pity, she had written to him with simple
+frankness, that a sweet hope might calm his grief--replied to a generous
+mark of sincerity and love, by making himself a ridiculous spectacle with
+a creature unworthy of him. What incurable wounds for Adrienne's pride!
+It mattered little, whether Djalma knew or not, that she would be a
+spectator of the indignity. But when she saw herself recognized by the
+prince, when he carried the insult so far as to look full at her, and, at
+the same time, raise to his lips the creature's bouquet who accompanied
+him, Adrienne was seized with noble indignation, and felt sufficient
+courage to remain: instead of closing her eyes to evidence, she found a
+sort of barbarous pleasure in assisting at the agony and death of her
+pure and divine love. With head erect, proud and flashing eye, flushed
+cheek, and curling lip, she looked in her turn at the prince with
+disdainful steadiness. It was with a sardonic smile that she said to the
+marchioness, who, like many others of the spectators was occupied with
+what was passing in the stage-box: "This revolting exhibition of savage
+manners is at least in accordance with the rest of the performance."
+
+"Certainly," said the marchioness; "and my dear uncle will have lost,
+perhaps, the most amusing part."
+
+"Montbron?" said Adrienne, hastily, with hardly repressed bitterness;
+"yes, he will regret not having seen all. I am impatient for his arrival.
+Is it not to him that I am indebted for his charming evening?"
+
+Perhaps Madame de Morinval would have remarked the expression of bitter
+irony, that Adrienne could not altogether dissemble, if suddenly a hoarse
+and prolonged roar had net attracted her attention, as well as that of
+the rest of the audience, who had hitherto been quite indifferent to the
+scenes intended for an introduction to the appearance of Morok. Every eye
+was now turned instinctively towards the cavern situated to the left of
+the stage, just below Mdlle. de Cardoville's box; a thrill of curiosity
+ran through the house. A second roar, deeper and more sonorous, and
+apparently expressive of more irritation than the first, now rose from
+the cave, the mouth of which was half-hidden by artificial brambles, made
+so as to be easily put on one side. At this sound, the Englishman stood
+up in his little box, leaned half over the front, and began to rub his
+hands with great energy; then, remaining perfectly motionless, he fixed
+his large, green, glittering eyes on the mouth of the cavern.
+
+At these ferocious howlings, Djalma also had started, notwithstanding the
+frenzy of love, hate, and jealousy, to which he was a prey. The sight of
+this forest, and the roarings of the panther, filled him with deep
+emotion, for they recalled the remembrance of his country, and of those
+great hunts which, like war, have their own terrible excitement. Had he
+suddenly heard the horns and gongs of his father's army sounding to the
+charge, he could not have been transported with more savage ardor. And
+now deep growls, like distant thunder, almost drowned the roar of the
+panther. The lion and tiger, Judas and Cain answered her from their dens
+at the back of the stage. On this frightful concert, with which his ears
+had been familiar in the midst of the solitudes of India, when he lay
+encamped, for the purposes of the chase or of war, Djalma's blood boiled
+in his veins. His eyes sparkled with a wild ardor. Leaning a little
+forward, with both hands pressed on the front of the box, his whole body
+trembled with a convulsive shudder. The audience, the theatre, Adrienne
+herself no longer existed for him; he was in a forest of his own lands,
+tracking the tiger.
+
+Then there mingled with his beauty so intrepid and ferocious an
+expression, that Rose-Pompon looked at him with a sort of terror and
+passionate admiration. For the first time in her life, perhaps, her
+pretty blue eyes, generally so gay and mischievous; expressed a serious
+emotion. She could not explain what she felt; but her heart seemed
+frightened, and beat violently, as though some calamity were at hand.
+
+Yielding to a movement of involuntary fear, she seized Djalma by the arm,
+and said to him: "Do not stare so into that cavern; you frighten me."
+
+Djalma did not hear what she said.
+
+"Here he is! here he is!" murmured the crowd, almost with one voice, as
+Morok appeared at the back of the stage.
+
+Dressed as we have described, Morok now carried in addition a bow and a
+long quiver full of arrows. He slowly descended the line of painted
+rocks, which came sloping down towards the centre of the stage. From time
+to time, he stopped as if to listen, and appeared to advance with
+caution. Looking from one side to the other, his eyes involuntarily
+encountered the large, green eyes of the Englishman, whose box was close
+to the cavern. Instantly the lion-tamer's countenance was contracted in
+so frightful a manner, that Lady Morinval, who was examining him closely
+with the aid of an excellent glass, said hastily to Adrienne: "My dear,
+the man is afraid. Some misfortune will happen."
+
+"How can accidents happen," said Adrienne, with a sardonic smile, "in the
+midst of this brilliant crowd, so well dressed and full of animation!
+Misfortunes here, this evening! why, dear Julia, you do not think it. It
+is in darkness and solitude that misfortunes come--never in the midst of
+a joyous crowd, and in all this blaze of light."
+
+"Good gracious, Adrienne! take care!" cried the marchioness, unable to
+repress an exclamation of alarm, and seizing her arm, as if to draw her
+closer; "do you not see it?" And with a trembling hand, she pointed to
+the cavern's mouth. Adrienne hastily bent forward, and looked in that
+direction. "Take care, do not lean so forward!" exclaimed Lady Morinval.
+
+"Your terrors are nonsensical, my dear," said the marquis to his wife.
+"The panther is securely chained; and even were it to break its chains
+(which is impossible), we are here beyond its reach."
+
+A long murmur of trembling curiosity here ran through the house, and
+every eye was intently fixed on the cavern. From amongst the artificial
+brambles, which she abruptly pushed aside with her broad chest, the black
+panther suddenly appeared. Twice she stretched forth her flat head,
+illumined by yellow, flaming eyes; then, half-opening her blood-red jaws,
+she uttered another roar, and exhibited two rows of formidable fangs. A
+double iron chain, and a collar also of iron, painted black, blended with
+the ebon shades of her hide, and with the darkness of the cavern. The
+illusion was complete, and the terrible animal seemed to be at liberty in
+her den.
+
+"Ladies," said the marquis, suddenly, "look at those Indians. Their
+emotion makes them superb!"
+
+In fact, the sight of the panther had raised the wild ardor of Djalma to
+its utmost pitch. His eyes sparkled in their pearly orbits like two black
+diamonds; his upper lip was curled convulsively with an expression of
+animal ferocity, as if he were in a violent paroxysm of rage.
+
+Faringhea, now leaning on the front of the box, was also greatly excited,
+by reason of a strange coincidence. "That black panther of so rare a
+breed," thought he, "which I see here at Paris, upon the stage, must be
+the very one that the Malay"--the Thug who had tatooed Djalma at Java
+during his sleep--"took quite young from his den, and sold to a European
+captain. Bowanee's power is everywhere!" added the Thug, in his
+sanguinary superstition.
+
+"Do you not think," resumed the marquis, addressing Adrienne, "that those
+Indians are really splendid in their present attitude?"
+
+"Perhaps they may have seen such a hunt in their own country," said
+Adrienne, as if she would recall and brave the most cruel remembrances.
+
+"Adrienne," said the marchioness, suddenly, in an agitated voice, "the
+lion-tamer has now come nearer--is not his countenance fearful to look
+at?--I tell you he is afraid."
+
+"In truth," observed the marquis, this time very seriously, "he is
+dreadfully pale, and seems to grow worse every minute, the nearer he
+approaches this side. It is said that, were he to lose his presence of
+mind for a single moment, he would run the greatest danger."
+
+"O! it would be horrible!" cried the marchioness, addressing Adrienne,
+"if he were wounded--there--under our eyes!"
+
+"Every wound does not kill," replied her friend, with an accent of such
+cold indifference, that the marchioness looked at her with surprise, and
+said to her: "My dear girl, what you say there is cruel!"
+
+"It is the air of the place that acts on me," answered Adrienne, with an
+icy smile.
+
+"Look! look! the lion-tamer is about to shoot his arrow at the panther,"
+said the marquis, suddenly. "No doubt, he will next perform the hand to
+hand grapple."
+
+Morok was at this moment in front of the stage, but he had yet to
+traverse its entire breadth to reach the cavern's mouth. He stopped an
+instant, adjusted an arrow to the string, knelt down behind a mass of
+rock, took deliberate aim--and then the arrow hissed across the stage,
+and was lost in the depths of the cavern, into which the panther had
+retired, after showing for a moment her threatening head to the audience.
+Hardly had the arrow disappeared, than Death, purposely irritated by
+Goliath (who was invisible) sent forth a howl of rage, as if she had been
+really wounded. Morok's actions became so expressive, he evinced so
+naturally his joy at having hit the wild beast, that a tempest of
+applause burst from every quarter of the house. Then, throwing away his
+bow, he drew a dagger from his girdle, took it between his teeth, and
+began to crawl forward on hands and knees, as though he meant to surprise
+the wounded panther in his den. To render the illusion perfect, Death,
+again excited by Goliath, who struck him with an iron bar, sent forth
+frightful howlings from the depths of the cavern.
+
+The gloomy aspect of the forest, only half-lighted with a reddish glare,
+was so effective--the howlings of the panther were so furious--the
+gestures, attitude, and countenance of Morok were so expressive of
+terror, that the audience, attentive and trembling, now maintained a
+profound silence. Every one held his breath, and a kind of shudder came
+over the spectators, as though they expected some horrible event. What
+gave such a fearful air of truth to the pantomime of Morok, was that, as
+he approached the cavern step by step, he approached also the
+Englishman's box. In spite of himself, the lion-tamer, fascinated by
+terror, could not take his eyes from the large green eyes of this man,
+and it seemed as if every one of the abrupt movements which he made in
+crawling along, was produced by a species of magnetic attraction, caused
+by the fixed gaze of the fatal wagerer. Therefore, the nearer Morok
+approached, the more ghastly and livid he became. At sight of this
+pantomime, which was no longer acting, but the real expression of intense
+fear, the deep and trembling silence which had reigned in the theatre was
+once more interrupted by acclamations, with which were mingled the
+roarings of the panther, and the distant growls of the lion and tiger.
+
+The Englishman leaned almost out of his box, with a frightful sardonic
+smile on his lip, and with his large eyes still fixed, panted for breath.
+The perspiration ran down his bald red forehead, as if he had really
+expended an incredible amount of magnetic power in attracting Morok, whom
+he now saw close to the cavern entrance. The moment was decisive.
+Crouching down with his dagger in his hand, following with eye and
+gesture Death's every movement, who, roaring furiously, and opening wide
+her enormous jaws, seemed determined to guard the entrance of her den,
+Morok waited for the moment to rush upon her. There is such fascination
+in danger, that Adrienne shared, in spite of herself, the feeling of
+painful curiosity, mixed with terror, that thrilled through all the
+spectators. Leaning forward like the marchioness, and gazing upon this
+scene of fearful interest, the lady still held mechanically in her hand
+the Indian bouquet preserved since the morning. Suddenly, Morok raised a
+wild shout, as he rushed towards Death, who answered this exclamation by
+a dreadful roar, and threw herself upon her master with so much fury,
+that Adrienne, in alarm, believing the man lost, drew herself back, and
+covered her fact with her hands. Her flowers slipped from her grasp, and,
+falling upon the stage, rolled into the cavern in which Morok was
+struggling with the panther.
+
+Quick as lightning, supple and agile as a tiger, yielding to the
+intoxication of his love, and to the wild ardor excited in him by the
+roaring of the panther, Djalma sprang at one bound upon the stage, drew
+his dagger, and rushed into the cavern to recover Adrienne's nosegay. At
+that instant, Morok, being wounded, uttered a dreadful cry for help; the
+panther, rendered still more furious at sight of Djalma, make the most
+desperate efforts to break her chain. Unable to succeed in doing so, she
+rose upon her hind legs, in order to seize Djalma, then within reach of
+her sharp claws. It was only by bending down his head, throwing himself
+on his knees, and twice plunging his dagger into her belly with the
+rapidity of lightning, that Djalma escaped certain death. The panther
+gave a howl, and fell with her whole weight upon the prince. For a
+second, during which lasted her terrible agony, nothing was seen but a
+confused and convulsive mass of black limbs, and white garments stained
+with blood--and then Djalma rose, pale, bleeding, for he was wounded--and
+standing erect, his eye flashing with savage pride, his foot on the body
+of the panther, he held in his hand Adrienne's bouquet, and cast towards
+her a glance which told the intensity of his love. Then only did Adrienne
+feel her strength fail her--for only superhuman courage had enabled her
+to watch all the terrible incidents of the struggle.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Wandering Jew, Book VIII., by Eugene Sue
+
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