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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Enemies of Women, by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
+
+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 Enemies of Women
+       (Los enemigos de la mujer)
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
+
+Translator: Irving Brown
+
+Release Date: January 1, 2012 [EBook #38458]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: image of the book's cover]
+
+
+
+
+THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN
+
+WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
+
+MARE NOSTRUM (OUR SEA)
+
+BLOOD AND SAND
+
+LA BODEGA (THE FRUIT OF THE VINE)
+
+THE SHADOW OF THE CATHEDRAL
+
+WOMAN TRIUMPHANT
+
+MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
+
+_In Preparation_
+
+THE ARGONAUTS
+
+E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+THE ENEMIES
+OF WOMEN
+
+_(LOS ENEMIGOS DE LA MUJER)_
+
+BY
+VICENTE BLASCO IBAÑEZ
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH
+BY
+IRVING BROWN
+
+[Illustration: colophon]
+
+NEW YORK
+E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+681 FIFTH AVENUE
+
+    Copyright, 1918, by
+    E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+
+    _All Rights Reserved_
+
+    _First printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Second printing        Oct., 1920_
+    _Third printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Fourth printing        Oct., 1920_
+    _Fifth printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Sixth printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Seventh printing       Oct., 1920_
+    _Eighth printing        Oct., 1920_
+    _Ninth printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Tenth printing         Oct., 1920_
+
+    Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+        CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER      PAGE
+
+    I.              1
+
+    II.            28
+
+    III.           71
+
+    IV.           103
+
+    V.            151
+
+    VI.           189
+
+    VII.          260
+
+    VIII.         324
+
+    IX.           371
+
+    X.            450
+
+    XI.           499
+
+    XII.          512
+
+
+
+
+THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Prince repeated his statement:
+
+"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."
+
+He intended to go on but was interrupted. There was a slight stir of the
+heavy window curtains. Through their parting was seen below, as in a
+frame, the intense azure of the Mediterranean. A dull roar reached the
+dining-room. It seemed to come from the side of the house facing the
+Alps. It was a faint vibration, deadened by the walls, the curtains, and
+the carpets, distant, like the working of some underground monster; but
+there rose above the sound of revolving steel and the puffing of steam a
+clamor of human beings, a sudden burst of shouts and whistling.
+
+"A train full of soldiers!" exclaimed Don Marcos Toledo, leaving his
+chair.
+
+"The Colonel is at it again, always the hero, always enthusiastic about
+everything that has to do with his profession," said Atilio Castro, with
+a smile of amusement.
+
+In spite of his years, the man whom they called the Colonel sprang to
+the nearest window. Above the foliage of the sloping garden, he could
+see a small section of the Corniche railroad, swallowed up in the smoky
+entrance of a tunnel, and reappearing farther on, beyond the hill,
+among the groves and rose colored villas of Cap-Martin. Under the
+mid-day sun the rails quivered like rills of molten steel. Although the
+train had not yet reached this side of the tunnel, the whole
+country-side was filled with the ever-increasing roar. The windows,
+terraces, and gardens of the villas were dotted black with people who
+were leaving their luncheon tables to see the train pass. From the
+mountain slope to the seashore, from walls and buildings on both sides
+of the track, flags of all colors began to wave.
+
+Don Marcos ran to the opposite window overlooking the city. All he could
+see was an expanse of roofs with no trace of Nature's touch save here
+and there the feathery green of the gardens against the red of the
+tiles. It was like a stage setting broken into a succession of wings: in
+the foreground, amid trees, isolated villas with green balustrades and
+flower-strewn walls; next, the mass of Monte Carlo, its huge hotels
+bristling with pointed turrets and cupolas; and hazy in the background,
+as though floating in golden dust, the rocky cliffs of Monaco, with its
+promenades; the enormous pile of the Oceanographic Museum; the New
+Cathedral, a glaring white; and the square crested tower of the palace
+of the Prince. Buildings stretched from the edge of the sea halfway up
+the mountains. It was a country without fields, with no open land,
+covered completely with houses, from one frontier to the other.
+
+But Don Marcos had known the view for years, and at once detected the
+unfamiliar detail. A long, interminable train was moving slowly along
+the hillside. He counted aloud more than forty cars, without coming to
+the rear coaches still hidden in a hollow.
+
+"It must be a battalion ... a whole battalion on a war footing. More
+than a thousand soldiers," he said in an authoritative manner, pleased
+at showing off his keen professional judgment before his fellow guests,
+who, for that matter, were not listening.
+
+The train was filled with men, tiny yellowish gray figures, that
+gathered at the car windows, doors, and on the running-boards with their
+feet hanging over the track. Others were crowded in cattle pens or stood
+on the open flat-cars, among the tanks and crated machine guns. A great
+many had climbed to the roofs and were greeting the crowds with arms and
+legs extended in the shape of a letter X. Almost all of them had their
+shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, like sailors preparing to
+maneuver.
+
+"They are English!" exclaimed Don Marcos. "English soldiers on their way
+to Italy!"
+
+But this information seemed to irritate the Prince, who always spoke to
+him in familiar language, in spite of the difference in their ages.
+"Don't be absurd, Colonel. Anybody would know that. They are the only
+ones who whistle."
+
+The men still seated at the table nodded. Military trains passed every
+day, and from a distance it was possible to guess the nationality of the
+passengers. "The French," said Castro, "go past silently. They have had
+a little over three years of fighting on their own soil. They are as
+silent and gloomy as their duty is monotonous and endless. The Italians
+coming from the French front sing, and decorate their trains with green
+branches. The English shout like a lot of boys, just out of school, and
+in their enthusiasm, whistle all the time. They are the real children in
+this war; they go with a sort of boyish glee to their death."
+
+The whistling sound drew nearer, shrill as the howling of a witches'
+Sabbath. It passed between the mountains and the gardens of Villa
+Sirena; and then went on in the other direction, toward Italy, gradually
+growing fainter as it disappeared in the tunnel. Toledo, who was the
+only one in the room to watch the train pass, noticed how the houses,
+gardens, and _potagers_ on both sides of the track were alive with
+people, waving handkerchiefs and flags in reply to the whistling of the
+English. Even along the seashore the fishermen stood up on the seats of
+their boats and waved their caps at a distant train. The quick ear of
+Don Marcos distinguished a sound of footsteps on the floor above. The
+servants doubtless were opening the windows to join with silent
+enthusiasm in that farewell.
+
+When only a few coaches were still visible at the mouth of the tunnel,
+the Colonel came back to his place at the table.
+
+"More meat for the slaughter house!" exclaimed Atilio Castro, looking at
+the Prince. "The racket is over. Go on, Michael."
+
+Under Toledo's watchful eye, two beardless Italian boys, unprepossessing
+in appearance, were serving the dessert at the luncheon.
+
+The Colonel kept glancing over the table and at the faces of his three
+guests, as though he were afraid of suddenly noticing something that
+would show the lunch had been hastily arranged. It was the first that
+had been given at Villa Sirena for two years.
+
+The master of the house, Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff, who sat at the
+head of the table, had arrived from Paris the evening before.
+
+The Prince was a man still in his youth, fresh with the well controlled
+vigor that is furnished by a life of physical exercise. He was tall,
+robust, and supple, of dark complexion, with large gray eyes, and a
+massive face, clean shaven. The scattered gray hairs at his temples
+seemed even more numerous in contrast with the blue-black of the rest.
+A number of premature wrinkles around the eyes, and two deep furrows
+running from his wide nostrils to the corners of his mouth, were the
+first indication of weariness in a powerful organism that seemed to have
+lived too intensely, in the mistaken confidence that its reserve of
+strength was endless.
+
+The Colonel called him "Your Highness," as if Michael Fedor were a
+member of a ruling house, instead of a mere Russian prince. But this was
+when some one was present. It was a habit Don Marcos had adopted in the
+days of the late Princess Lubimoff, to maintain the prestige of the son,
+whom he had known since the latter was a child. In their intimate
+relations, when they were alone, he preferred to call him "Marquis,"
+Marquis de Villablanca, and the Prince was never successful in
+disturbing, by his witticisms on the subject, the precedence thus
+established by Don Marcos in his terms of respect. The title of Russian
+Prince was for those who are dazzled by the lofty sound of titles,
+without being able to appreciate their respective merits, and origins;
+as for himself, the Colonel preferred something nobler, the title of
+Spanish Marquis, in spite of the fact that that title for Lubimoff was
+quite unknown in Spain, and lacked official recognition.
+
+Toledo was well acquainted with Prince Michael's three guests.
+
+Atilio Castro was a fellow countryman, a Spaniard who had spent the
+greater part of his life outside his own country. He affected great
+intimacy with the Prince and, on the grounds of a distant blood
+relationship between them, even spoke to him with some familiarity. Don
+Marcos had a vague idea that the young Spaniard had been a consul
+somewhere for a short time. Atilio was continually poking fun at him
+without his being always immediately aware of it. But the Colonel,
+seeing that it pleased "His Highness" greatly, felt no ill-will on that
+account.
+
+"A fine fellow, good hearted!" the Colonel often said, in speaking of
+Castro. "He hasn't led a model life, he's a terrible gambler--but a
+gentleman. Yes, sir, a real gentleman!"
+
+Michael Fedor defined his relative in other terms.
+
+"He has all the vices, and no defects."
+
+Don Marcos could never quite understand what that meant, but
+nevertheless it increased his esteem for Castro.
+
+The Prince was only two or three years older than Atilio, and yet their
+ages seemed much farther apart. Castro was over thirty-five, and some
+people thought him twenty-four. His face had an ingenuous, rather
+child-like expression, and it acquired a certain character of manliness,
+thanks solely to a dark red mustache, closely cropped. This tiny
+mustache, and his glossy hair parted squarely in the middle, were the
+most prominent details of his features, except when he became excited.
+If his humor changed--which happened very rarely--the luster in his
+eyes, the contraction of his mouth, and the premature wrinkles in his
+forehead gave him an almost ominous expression, and suddenly he seemed
+to age by ten years.
+
+"A bad man to have for an enemy!" affirmed the Colonel. "It wouldn't do
+to get in his way."
+
+And not out of fear, but rather out of sincere admiration did the
+Colonel speak admiringly of Castro's talents. He wrote poetry, painted
+in water color, improvised songs at the piano, gave advice in matters of
+furniture and clothes, and was well versed in antiquities, and matters
+of taste. Don Marcos knew no limits to that intelligence.
+
+"He knows everything," he would say. "If he would only stick to one
+thing! If he would only work!"
+
+Castro was always elegantly dressed, and lived in expensive hotels; but
+he had no regular income so far as was known. The Colonel suspected a
+series of friendly little loans from the Prince. But the latter had
+remained away from Monte Carlo almost since the beginning of the war,
+and Don Marcos used to meet Castro every winter living at the Hôtel de
+Paris, playing at the Casino, and associating with people of wealth.
+From time to time, on encountering the Colonel in the gaming rooms,
+Castro had asked him for a loan of "ten louis," an absolute necessity
+for a gambler who had just lost his last stake and was anxious to
+recoup. But with more or less delay he had always returned the money.
+There was something mysterious about his life, according to Don Marcos.
+
+The two other guests seemed to him to live much less complex lives. The
+one who had frequented the house for the longest period, was a dark
+young man, with a skin that was almost copper colored, a slight build,
+and long, straight hair. He was Teofilo Spadoni, a famous pianist.
+Spadoni's parents were Italian--this much was sure. No one could quite
+make out where he had been born. At times he mentioned his birthplace as
+Cairo, at other times, as Athens, or Constantinople, all the places
+where his father, a poor Neapolitan tailor, had lived. No one was
+astonished by such vagaries and absent-minded discrepancies on the part
+of the extraordinary virtuoso, who, the moment he left the piano, seemed
+to move in a world of dreams and to be quite incapable of adapting
+himself to any regular mode of life. After giving concerts in the large
+capitals of Europe and South America, he had settled down at Monte
+Carlo, explaining his residence there by the war, while Don Marcos
+imputed it to his love of gambling. The Prince knew him through having
+engaged him as a member of the orchestra on board his large yacht, the
+Gaviota II, for a voyage around the world.
+
+Sitting beside the host was the last guest, the latest to frequent the
+house, a pale young man, tall, thin, and nearsighted, who was always
+looking timidly around as though ill at ease. He was a professor from
+Spain, a Doctor of Science, Carlos Novoa, who received a subsidy from
+the Spanish government to make certain studies in ocean fauna at the
+Oceanographic Museum. The Colonel who had spent many years at Monte
+Carlo without running across any of his compatriots, other than those
+whom he saw around the roulette tables, had expressed a certain
+patriotic pride in meeting this professor two months previously.
+
+"A man of learning! A famous scientist!" he exclaimed in speaking of his
+new friend. "They can say all they want now about us Spaniards being
+ignoramuses."
+
+He had only the vaguest notion of the nature of his fellow countryman's
+learning. What is more: from his earliest conversations he had guessed
+that the professor's ideas were directly opposed to his own. "One of
+those heretics with no other God than matter," he said to himself. But
+he added by way of consolation: "All those learned men are like that:
+liberals and free-thinkers. What of it...." As for the professor's fame,
+in the opinion of Don Marcos it was unquestionable. Otherwise why would
+they have sent him to the Oceanographic Museum, large and white as a
+temple, whose halls he had visited only once, with a feeling of awe that
+had prevented him from ever going back again.
+
+On the occasional evenings when the professor would go to Monte Carlo
+and chance to meet Don Marcos, the latter would present him to his
+friends as a national celebrity. In this fashion Novoa had made the
+acquaintance of Castro and Spadoni, who never asked him more than how
+his luck was going.
+
+When the coming of the Prince was announced, Toledo insisted that his
+illustrious friend the Professor should accompany him to the station in
+order to lose no time in introducing him to "His Highness."
+
+"One of our country's prides.... Your Highness is so fond of everything
+Spanish."
+
+Michael Fedor had spent a considerable portion of his life on the sea,
+and felt a certain sympathy for the modest young man, on learning of the
+studies in which he specialized.
+
+They talked for a long time about oceanography, and the following day
+Prince Michael, who was in the habit of entertaining elaborately at his
+table the most divergent kinds of guests, said to his "chamberlain":
+
+"Your scholar is a very fine fellow. Invite him to luncheon."
+
+The guests all spoke Spanish. Spadoni was able to follow the
+conversation, with the little he had picked up while giving piano
+recitals in Buenos Ayres, Santiago, and other South American capitals.
+He had been there with an impresario, who finally got tired of backing
+him, and struggling with his childish irresponsibility.
+
+As they were sitting down at the table, the Colonel noticed that the
+Prince seemed preoccupied with some absorbing meditation. He made a
+point of talking with Professor Novoa, expressing his surprise at the
+slight compensation the scientist received for his studies.
+
+Castro and Spadoni gave their whole attention to their food. The days of
+the famous chef, to whom Prince Michael gave a salary worthy of a Prime
+Minister, were over. The "master" had been mobilized and at that moment
+was cooking for a general on the French front. However, Toledo had
+managed to discover a woman of some fifty years, whose combinations
+were less varied, perhaps, than those of the artist whom the war had
+snatched away, but more "classical," more solid and substantial--and the
+two men ate with the delight of people who, forever obliged to eat in
+restaurants and hotels, at last find themselves at a table where no
+economy or falsifications are practised.
+
+About dessert time the conversation, becoming general, turned, as always
+happens when men are dining alone, to the subject of women. Toledo had a
+feeling that the Prince had gently steered the guests' talk in this
+direction. Suddenly Michael summed up his whole argument by declaring a
+second time:
+
+"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."
+
+And then had followed the long interruption as the train of English
+soldiers, in a whirl of shouts, whistling and hissing, had gone by.
+
+Atilio Castro waited until the last car had disappeared in the tunnel,
+and said with a subtle and somewhat ironical smile:
+
+"The shouting and whistling sound like a mixture of applause and scorn
+for your profound remark. However, please don't bother with such
+inexpert opinion. What you said interests me. You abominate women, you
+who have had thousands of them!... Go on, Michael!"
+
+But the Prince changed the conversation. He spoke of his impressions on
+returning to Villa Sirena after a long absence. Nothing remained to
+recall the former days, before the war, save the building and the
+gardens. All the men servants were mobilized: some in the French army,
+others in the Italian. The day after his arrival he had asked, as a
+matter of course, for an auto to go to Monte Carlo. There was no lack of
+machines. Three, of the best make, were lying as though forgotten, in
+the garage. But the chauffeurs too were at the front; and moreover
+there was no gasoline; and a permit was necessary to use the roads....
+In short, he had been obliged to stand at the iron gate of the garden
+and wait for the Manton electric. It was a novelty for him, an
+interesting means of locomotion. It seemed as if he had suddenly been
+transported into a world he had forgotten, as he found himself among the
+common people on the car. The general curiosity annoyed him. Everyone
+was whispering his name: and even the conductor showed a certain emotion
+on seeing the owner of Villa Sirena among his passengers.
+
+"And the worst of it all, my friends, is that I'm ruined!"
+
+Spadoni stared with wide opened eyes as though hearing something
+extraordinary and absurd. Castro smiled incredulously.
+
+"You ruined?... I'd be satisfied with a tenth of the remains."
+
+The Prince nodded. He reminded one of those great transatlantic liners
+which, when they are wrecked, make the fortune of a whole population of
+poverty stricken people along the shore. Wealth was of course a relative
+thing. He might still have more than many people; but ruin it was for
+him, nevertheless.
+
+"In view of what I am going to say later, I must not conceal from you
+the situation I am in. A few weeks ago I sold my Paris residence which
+my mother built. It was bought by a 'newly rich.' With this war, I'm
+going to become a 'newly poor.' You know, Atilio, how things have gone
+with me, since this row among the nations started. From the time they
+fired the first cannon they sent me from Russia only an eighth of what I
+received in times of peace; later much less. The revolution came and cut
+down my income still more. And, now under Comrade Lenin and the red
+flag, there is nothing coming through at all, absolutely nothing. I have
+no idea whatsoever of the fate of my houses, my fields, my mines ... I
+don't know even what has become of those who were looking after my
+fortune there. They have probably all been killed."
+
+The Colonel raised his eyes to the ceiling: "The revolution!... What
+they need is a master."
+
+"But a rich man like you with reserve funds in the bank all the time,
+can always find some one to make him a loan until times are better."
+
+"Perhaps; but it means practically poverty for me. My administrator told
+me when I was leaving Paris, that I ought to limit my expenses, live
+according to my present income. How much have I?... I don't know. He
+doesn't even know himself. He is balancing my accounts, collecting from
+some people and paying others--I had a lot of debts, it seems.
+Millionaires are never asked to pay their bills promptly.... In short, I
+shall have to live, like a ruined prince, on some sixty thousand dollars
+a year; perhaps more, perhaps less. I really don't know."
+
+Castro and Spadoni seemed to be stirred with longing at the mention of
+such a sum. Novoa looked with an air of respect at this man who called
+himself his friend and thought himself poor with sixty thousand dollars
+a year.
+
+"My administrator spoke to me of selling Villa Sirena as well as the
+Paris residence. It seems that the newly rich would like to get
+everything I have. A complete liquidation.... But I wouldn't listen to
+it. This is my own little nook; I made it what it is myself. Besides,
+life is impossible out in the world. The war has filled it with
+bitterness. Living in Paris is very gloomy. There is no one there. The
+streets are dark. The 'Gothas' make the people of our class worried and
+nervous. It is much better to leave. I thought I would settle down here
+and wait till this world madness is over."
+
+"It is going to be a long wait," remarked Castro.
+
+"I'm afraid so. However, this is an agreeable spot, a pleasant refuge,
+all the more delightful because of the selfish feeling that at this very
+moment millions of men are suffering every sort of hardship, and
+thousands are dying every day.... But after all, it isn't the same as it
+used to be. Even the Mediterranean is different. The minute the sun goes
+down, my good Colonel has to mask with black curtains the windows and
+doors looking out on the sea, so that the German submarines cannot guide
+themselves by our lights.... Dear me! Where are those wonderful days we
+spent here in time of peace, the festivals we used to have, those nights
+on the Gaviotta II when she anchored in the harbor of Monaco?"
+
+A far away look came into Castro's eyes, as though he were in a dream.
+In his imaginings he saw the gardens of Villa Sirena, softly lighted,
+wrapped in a milky haze that settled on the invisible waves like rays of
+reflected moonlight.
+
+The window curtains were crimson, and from them, drifting through the
+warm darkness of the night, came the sound of laughter, cries, the
+sighing of violins, amorous love songs, that told of women's throats,
+white and voluptuous, swelling with desire and the rapture of the music.
+The stars, specks of light lost in the infinite, twinkled in answer to
+the electric stars, hidden in the dark foliage. Walking slowly, couples
+arm in arm disappeared amid the deep shadows of the garden. All the
+women of the day had turned up there sooner or later: famous actresses
+from Paris, London, and Vienna; beauties of the smart cliques of two
+hemispheres, women of high society, smiling the smile of slaves before
+the potentate who could banish their debts with the stroke of a pen.
+Oh, the Pompeian nights of Villa Sirena!...
+
+Spadoni saw, rather, the Gaviotta II, a palace with propellers, which,
+when anchored in the small harbor of La Condamine, seemed to fill it
+completely and to make the yachts of the American millionaires and the
+Prince of Monaco look like tiny things indeed. It was an alcazar, a
+palace of the Arabian Nights, topped off with two smoke stacks, and
+parading over every sea of the planet, its private parlors adorned with
+fountains and statues, its enormous library, its ball room with a raised
+platform, from which fifty musicians, many of them celebrated, gave
+concerts for a single visible auditor, Prince Michael, who half reclined
+on a divan, while the tropical breeze came through the high windows,
+caressing the heads of the officers and chief functionaries of the
+steamer crowding about the openings. The pianist could see once more the
+lonely harbors of dead historic countries, with flights of seagulls
+wheeling against the quiet azure vault; the mighty bays, filled with the
+smoke and bustle of North America; the coasts of the Antilles with
+groves of cocoanut palms, black at sunset against the reddish sky; the
+islands of the Pacific, of hard coral, forming a ring about an inner
+lake.... And that omnipotent magician confessed the loss of his
+wealth!...
+
+The Prince, as though he guessed their thoughts, added:
+
+"It's the end of all that: I don't know whether forever or for many
+years.... And even if things should be the same some day as they were
+before the war, what a long time we shall have to wait!... I may die
+before then.... That is why I am going to make a proposal to you."
+
+He paused a moment, to enjoy the curiosity he read in the eyes of his
+auditors.
+
+Then he asked Castro:
+
+"Are you satisfied with your present life?"
+
+In spite of Castro's good natured, smiling placidity, he started in
+surprise as if indignant at such a question. His life was unbearable.
+The war had upset his habits and pleasures, scattering his friendships
+to the four winds. He did not know the fate of hundreds of persons of
+various nationalities, who had filled his life before the war, and
+without whom he would then have thought it impossible to live.
+
+"Besides, I have less money than ever. I am staying at Monte Carlo just
+for the gambling; and even if I always lose in the end, like everyone
+else, I always keep a tight grip on a little something to live on!...
+But what a life!"
+
+He glanced at Novoa as though the recency of his acquaintance inspired a
+certain suspicion, but immediately he went on, with an air of assurance:
+
+"There is no reason why I should not speak quite plainly. A little while
+ago the Professor told us how much he earned: some hundred dollars a
+month; less than any employee at the Casino. I am going to be as frank
+as he. I live in the Hôtel de Paris: Atilio Castro cannot afford to live
+anywhere else; he must keep up his connections. But there are many weeks
+when I have the greatest difficulty in paying for my room, and I eat in
+cheap restaurants and Italian wine shops, when no one invites me out to
+dine. I pay three or four times as much for my bed as I do for my board.
+Evenings when luck is against me, and I lose everything to the last
+chip, I get along with a ham sandwich at the Casino bar. I belong to the
+same school as the Madrid gambler we nicknamed the 'Master,' and who
+used to say to us: 'Boys, money was made for gambling; and what's left,
+for eating.'"
+
+"And in spite of that, you like good food," said the Prince.
+
+Castro's laments took on a comical seriousness. With the war the good
+old customs had been forgotten. No one kept house; everyone lived in
+hotels, and the proprietors of the luxurious palaces took the scarcity
+of food as a pretext to serve the sort of meals one gets in third rate
+restaurants, scanty and poor. An invitation merely gave one a chance to
+fool one's hunger.
+
+"It has been months, maybe years, since I've eaten as I have to-day, and
+I've sat at the tables of all the big hotels on the Riviera. I had
+ceased to believe that such chicken as you have just served existed in
+the world any longer. I imagined they were dream birds, mythological
+fowl."
+
+The Colonel smiled, bowing as if that were a tribute to him.
+
+"And you, Spadoni?" the Prince went on inquiringly. "How are you
+enjoying life?"
+
+"Your Highness--I--I," stammered the musician, at the sudden question.
+
+Castro intervened, coming to his rescue.
+
+"Our friend Spadoni can always get a free meal at the villas of a number
+of invalid ladies, who live at Cap-Martin and who are mad about music.
+Besides some English people at Nice often invite him. He doesn't need to
+bother about paying hotel bills either. He has at his disposal a whole
+big villa, large and well-furnished: it goes with his job, as watchman
+over a corpse."
+
+Novoa started with surprise at the news.
+
+"Don't be astonished," continued Atilio. "He has the benefit of a
+magnificent house in exchange for looking after a tomb."
+
+"Oh, Professor!... Don't mind him," groaned the musician with the air of
+a martyr.
+
+"But with all these advantages," Castro went on saying, "there is one
+terrible drawback: he is a worse gambler than I. He has a nickname in
+the Casino 'the number five gentleman.' He never plays any other number.
+Anything he can get hold of he puts on five, and loses it. I am the
+'number seventeen gentleman' and it turns out as badly with me as with
+him.... Besides, he has his English friends. Queer ducks! They come from
+Nice every day in a two horse landau, and just as if they didn't get
+enough gambling with the Casino, they set up a green table on their
+knees and take out a deck of cards. They play poker with the Corniche
+landscape, that people come from all over the world to see, right before
+their eyes. And our artist, when he takes a fourth hand with the two
+Englishmen and an old maid, there within the sight of the Mediterranean,
+golden in the setting sun, loses everything he took in at some concert
+at Cannes or Monte Carlo."
+
+Spadoni started to say something, but stopped, seeing that the Prince
+turned to Novoa:
+
+"I shan't ask you," said the Prince; "I know your situation. You live in
+the old part of Monaco, in the house of an employee of the Museum; and
+his lodgings can't be much. Besides, as Atilio was saying, you receive
+much less than a croupier at the Casino."
+
+And looking at his guests he added:
+
+"What I want to propose to you is that you live with me. The invitation
+is a selfish one on my part; I'm not denying that. I intend to stay here
+until the world quiets down, and life is pleasant once more. If my
+Colonel and I were here alone we would end by hating each other. You
+will keep me company in my retreat."
+
+All three remained dumbfounded at such an unexpected proposal. Novoa was
+the first to regain the use of his tongue.
+
+"Prince, you scarcely know me. We saw each other for the first time
+three days ago.... I don't know whether I ought...."
+
+The Prince interrupted him with the sharp tone and imperious manner of a
+man who is not accustomed to considering objections.
+
+"We have known each other for many years; we have known each other all
+our lives." Then he added soothingly:
+
+"It isn't much that I'm offering you. Servants are scarce. There are no
+men except my old valet and those two Italian monkeys that the Colonel
+managed to recruit somewhere. The rest of the service is done by
+women.... But even so, our life will be pleasant. We shall isolate
+ourselves from a world gone crazy. We will not mention this war. We
+shall lead a comfortable existence, as the monks did in the monasteries
+of the Middle Ages, which were refreshing oases of tranquillity in the
+midst of violence and massacres. We shall eat well; the Colonel
+guarantees me that. The Library from the yacht is here. When I sold the
+boat, I had Don Marcos install all my books on the top floor. Our friend
+Novoa will find some volumes there which perhaps he does not know.
+Everyone will do what he pleases; free monks all of us, with no other
+obligation than to repair to the refectory at the proper hour. And if
+the 'number five gentleman' and the 'number seventeen gentleman' want to
+drop in at the Casino, they can do so, and someone will see to it that
+their pockets are kept filled. We must give something to vice, what the
+devil! Without vices, life wouldn't be worth living."
+
+A silent approbation greeted these words of the master of Villa Sirena.
+
+"The one thing I insist on," continued the Prince after a long pause,
+"is that we live alone, as men among men. No women! Women must be
+excluded from our life in common."
+
+The pianist opened his eyes in astonishment; Castro stirred in his
+chair; Novoa removed his glasses with a mechanical gesture of surprise,
+immediately adjusting them once more to his nose.
+
+There was another silence.
+
+"What you propose," said Atilio, at last, with a smile, "reminds me of a
+comedy of Shakespeare. No women! And the hero in the end gets married."
+
+"I know that play," replied the Prince, "but I am not in the habit of
+governing my life according to comedies, and I don't believe in their
+teachings. You can rest assured that I shan't marry, even if it gives
+the lie to Shakespeare and the French king from whose chronicle he got
+the material for his work."
+
+"But what you're attempting is absurd," Castro went on: "I don't know
+what the rest think, but prevent me from...!"
+
+With a gesture he ended his protest.
+
+Then seeing that the Prince had remained thoughtful, he added:
+
+"It is quite evident that you have had your fill!... You have gotten all
+you wanted, and now you want to force on us...."
+
+The Prince, although absorbed in his own train of thought, he had not
+heard him, interrupted.
+
+"Seeing that you can't get along without it.... All right! I have no
+fixed intention of making a martyr of you. Go on being a slave to a
+necessity that is a result more of the imagination than of desire. Now
+that I really know life, I am astonished that men do so many foolish
+things for the sake of a passing pleasure. While you are here you may
+satisfy your whims whenever you like ... but no women."
+
+The three listeners looked at one another in astonishment; and even the
+Colonel, who never betrayed his feeling when his "lord" was speaking,
+showed a certain surprise on his countenance. What did the Prince mean?
+
+"You are not ignorant, Atilio, of what a woman is. In the great majority
+of peoples on this earth there are only females. There are young females
+and old females; but there are no 'women.' Woman, as we understand the
+word, is the artificial product of civilizations which, somewhat like
+hot-house flowers, have reached their maturity with a complex perverse
+beauty. Only in the large cities that have come to be decadent because
+they have reached their limits, do you find 'women.' Not being mothers
+like the poor females, they give up all their time to love, prolong
+their youth marvelously, and scheme to inspire passions at an age when
+the others live like grandmothers. There you have the creatures that,
+personally, I am afraid of! If they come in here, it's the end of our
+society, our tranquil, even life."
+
+The Prince arose from the table, and they all followed suit. Lunch being
+over they all passed into the great hall adjoining, where coffee was
+served. The Colonel looked about anxiously, examining the boxes of
+Havanas, and the large liquor chest with its varied cut glass and
+colored flasks, placed in a row.
+
+While cutting the tip of his cigar, the Prince continued, speaking all
+the while to Castro:
+
+"When you want ... anything like that, all you need do is to choose in
+the vicinity of the Casino. A hundred or two francs; and then,
+good-by!... But the other ones! The women! They work their way into our
+lives, and finally dominate us, and want to mold our ways to suit their
+own. Their love for us after all is merely vanity, like that of the
+conqueror who loves the land that he has conquered with violence. They
+have all read books--nearly always stupidly and without understanding,
+to be sure, but they have read books--and such reading leaves them
+determined to satisfy all sorts of vague desires, and absurd whims, that
+succeed only in making slaves of us, and in moving us to act on impulses
+we have acquired in our own early romantic readings.... I know them. I
+have met too many of them in my life. If women from our social sphere
+mingle with us here, it means an end to peace. They will seek me out
+through curiosity on remembering my past life, or greed in thinking of
+my wealth; as for you men, they will come between you, making you
+jealous of one another and the life that I desire here will be
+impossible.... Besides, we are poor."
+
+Atilio protested, smilingly: "Oh! poor!"
+
+"Poor when it comes to the follies of the old days," continued the
+Prince, "and for love one needs money. All that talk about love being a
+disinterested thing was made up by poor people, who are satisfied with
+imitations. There is a glitter of gold at the bottom of every passion.
+At first we don't think of such things; desire blinds us. All we see is
+the immediate domination of the person so sweetly our adversary. But
+love invariably ends by giving or taking money."
+
+"Take money from a woman!... Never!" said Castro, losing his ironic
+smile.
+
+"You will end by taking it, if you are poor, and frequent the society of
+women. Those of our times think of nothing but money. When their love is
+a rich man, they ask him for it, even if they have a large fortune of
+their own. They feel less worthy if they don't ask. When they are fond
+of a poor man, they force him to receive gifts from them. They dominate
+him better by degrading him. Besides, in doing so they feel the selfish
+satisfaction of the person who gives alms. Woman, having always been
+forced to beg from man, has the greatest sensation of pride, and thinks
+she in turn can give money to some one of the sex that has always
+supported her."
+
+Novoa, cup in hand, listened attentively to the Prince. Lubimoff was
+speaking of a world quite unknown to him. Spadoni, as he sipped his
+coffee, with a vague look in his eyes, was thinking of something far
+away.
+
+"Now you know the worst, Atilio," the Prince went on. "No women!... That
+way we will lead a great life. All the morning, free! We shan't see one
+another until lunch time. Down below is the cove, there are still a
+number of boats. We can fish, while it's sunny; we can go rowing. In the
+afternoon you will go to the Casino; occasionally I shall go, too, to
+hear some concert. Spring is drawing near. At night, sitting on the
+terrace, watching the stars, our friend Novoa, the man of learning of
+our monastery, will expound the music of the spheres; and Spadoni, our
+musician, will sit down at the piano, and delight us with terrestrial
+music."
+
+"Splendid!" exclaimed Castro. "You are almost a poet in describing our
+future life, and you have persuaded me. We are going to be happy. But
+don't forget your permission for the 'female,' and your prohibition of
+'women.' No skirts in Villa Sirena! Nothing but men; monks in trousers,
+selfish and tolerant, coming together to live a pleasant life, while the
+world is aflame."
+
+Atilio remained thoughtful a few moments, and continued:
+
+"We need a name; our community must have a title. We shall call
+ourselves 'the enemies of women'."
+
+The Prince smiled.
+
+"The name mustn't go any farther than ourselves. If people outside
+learned of it, they might think it meant something else."
+
+Novoa, feeling honored by his new intimacy with men so different from
+those with whom he had previously associated, accepted the name with
+enthusiasm.
+
+"I confess, gentlemen, that according to the distinction made by the
+Prince, I have never known a 'woman'. Females ... poor ones, to be sure,
+a very few perhaps! But I like the name, and agree to join the 'enemies
+of women' even though a woman is never to enter my life."
+
+Spadoni, as though suddenly awakening, turned to Castro, and continued
+his thought aloud.
+
+"It's a system of stakes invented by an English lord, now dead, who won
+millions by it. They explained it to me yesterday. First you place...."
+
+"No, no, you satanic pianist!" exclaimed Atilio. "You can explain it to
+me in the Casino, providing I have the curiosity to listen. You've made
+me lose a lot, with all your systems. I had better go on playing your
+'number five.'"
+
+The Colonel, who had listened in silence to the conversation in regard
+to women, seemed to recall something when Castro mentioned gambling.
+
+"Last evening," he said to the Prince, in a mysterious voice, "I met the
+Duchess in the Casino"....
+
+A look of silent questioning halted his words.
+
+"What Duchess is that?"
+
+"The question is quite in point, Michael," said Atilio. "Your
+'chamberlain' is better acquainted in society than any man on the
+Riviera. He knows princesses and duchesses by the dozen. I have seen him
+dining in the Hôtel de Paris with all the ancient French nobility, who
+come here to console themselves for the long time it takes to bring back
+their former kings. In the private rooms in the Casino, he is always
+kissing wrinkled hands and bowing to some group of disgusting mummies
+loaded down with the oldest and most famous names. Some of them call
+him simply 'Colonel'; others introduce him with the title of 'aide de
+camp of Prince Lubimoff'."
+
+Don Marcos stiffened, offended by the waggish tone in which his high
+estate was being mentioned, and said haughtily:
+
+"Señor de Castro, I am a soldier grown old in defense of Legitimacy; I
+shed my blood for the sacred tradition, and there is nothing remarkable
+about my association with...."
+
+The Prince knowing by experience that the Colonel did not know what time
+was, when once he began to talk about "legitimacy" and the blood he had
+shed, hastened to interrupt him.
+
+"All right; we know that very well already. But who was this Duchess you
+met?"
+
+"The Duchess de Delille. She often asks about your Highness, and upon
+hearing that you had just arrived, she gave me to understand that she
+intended paying you a call."
+
+The Prince replied with a simple exclamation, and then remained silent.
+
+"We are starting well," said Castro, laughing. "'No women!' And
+immediately the Colonel announces a visit from one of them, one of the
+most dangerous.... For you will admit that a Duchess like that is one of
+the 'women' you described to us."
+
+"I won't receive her," said the Prince resolutely.
+
+"I have an idea that this Duchess is a cousin of yours."
+
+"There is no such relationship. Her father was the brother of my
+mother's second husband. But we have known each other since childhood,
+and we each have a most unpleasant memory of one another. When I was
+living in Russia she married a French Duke. She had the same desire as
+the majority of wealthy American girls: a great title of nobility in
+order to make her friends among the fair sex jealous and to shine in
+European circles. A few months later she left the Duke, assigning him a
+certain income, which is just what her noble husband wanted perhaps.
+This woman Alicia never appealed to me particularly.... Besides, she has
+lived life just as she pleased.... She has seen almost as much of it as
+I have. She has as much of a reputation as I. They even accuse her, just
+as they do me, of love affairs with people she has never seen.... They
+tell me that in recent years she has been parading around with a young
+lad, almost a child ... dear me! We are getting old!"
+
+"I saw her with him in Paris," said Castro. "It was before the war.
+Later in Monte Carlo I met her, all by herself, without being able to
+find a trace of her young chap anywhere. He must have been a passing
+fancy of hers.... She has been here three years now. When summer comes
+she moves to Aix-les-Bains, or to Biarritz, but as soon as the Casino is
+gay and fashionable again, she is one of the first to return."
+
+"Does she play?"
+
+"Desperately. She plays high stakes and plays them badly, although we
+who think we play well always lose just the same, in the end. I mean,
+she puts her money on the table without thinking, in several places at a
+time, and then even forgets where she placed it. The 'leveurs des morts'
+are always hanging around to pick up the pieces that no one claims and
+when she wins, they always manage to get something of it. She gambled
+for two years with nothing less than chips of five hundred and a
+thousand francs. At present her chips are never for more than a hundred.
+It won't be long before she is using the red ones, the twenties, the
+favorites of your humble servant."
+
+"I shall refuse to receive her," affirmed the Prince.
+
+And doubtless in order not to talk any more about the Duchess de
+Delille, he suddenly left his friends, and walked out of the room.
+
+Atilio, in a conversational mood, turned and asked a question of Don
+Marcos, who was speaking with Novoa, while Spadoni went on dreaming,
+with eyes wide open, of the English lord's system.
+
+"Have you seen Doña Enriqueta lately?"
+
+"Are you asking me about the Infanta?" replied the Colonel gravely.
+"Yes, I met her yesterday, in the courtyards of the Casino. Poor lady!
+If it isn't a shame! The daughter of a king.... She told me that her
+sons haven't anything to wear. She owes two hundred francs for
+cigarettes, at the bar of the private play rooms. She can't find anyone
+who will lend her money. Besides, she has frightful bad luck; she loses
+everything. These are fatal days for people of royal blood. I almost
+wept when I heard all her poverty and troubles, and felt that I couldn't
+give her anything more. The daughter of a king?"
+
+"But her father disowned her, when she eloped with some unknown artist,"
+said Atilio. "And besides, Don Carlos wasn't a king anywhere."
+
+"Señor de Castro," replied the Colonel, drawing himself up, like a
+rooster, "let's not spoil the party. You know my ideas: I have shed my
+blood in the cause of Legitimacy, and the respect that I have for you
+should not...."
+
+Novoa, wishing to calm Don Marcos, intervened in the conversation.
+
+"Monte Carlo here is like a beach, where all sorts of wreckage, living
+and dead, is washed up sooner or later. In the Hôtel de Paris there is
+another member of the family, but of the successful branch, the one that
+is ruling and taking in the money."
+
+"I know him," said Atilio, laughing. "He's a young man of calipigous
+exuberance and wherever he goes his handsome gentleman secretary goes
+with him. He always meets some venerable old lady who, dazzled by his
+royal kinship, takes it upon herself to keep up his extravagant mode of
+living.... Don't know what the devil he can possibly give her in return!
+As for the secretary, he gives him a slap from time to time just to
+assert his ancient rights."
+
+Don Marcos remained silent. He was not interested in the members of that
+branch, not he.
+
+"Also," Castro continued mischievously, "in the Casino before the war, I
+met Don Jaime, your own king at present. A great fellow for gambling! He
+risked thousand franc chips by the handful. He had a lot of money coming
+from somewhere. In the Casino they all used to say that it was sent him
+from Madrid, on condition that he should have no children and allow his
+claims to the throne to die out with him."
+
+"And just to think," murmured Novoa, without realizing that he was
+speaking aloud, "that for both of these families, back there, so many
+men have killed one another. To think, that for a question of
+inheritance among people like that we have gone back a century in
+European life!"
+
+"You too!" exclaimed the Colonel, provoked again. "A scholar, saying a
+thing like that! I can hardly believe my ears!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+At the end of the second Carlist war a Spanish officer, Don Miguel
+Saldaña, had found himself, as a result of the defeat, banished forever
+from his own country and condemned to a life of poverty and obscurity.
+The Madrid papers, without prefixing his name with any slanderous
+adjectives, called him simply "the rebel chief Saldaña." This courtesy,
+doubtless, was intended to distinguish him from the other party chiefs
+who in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, had waged a campaign of pillage
+and executions for five years. Among his own people he was known as
+General Miguel Saldaña, Marquis of Villablanca. The pretender, Don
+Carlos, had given him that title because Villablanca was the name of the
+town where Saldaña had practically annihilated a column of the Liberal
+army. The topographical information of Saldaña's Chief of Staff--a local
+priest who had spent his whole life in doing nothing except saying mass
+on Sundays and spending the rest of the week hunting in the mountains
+with his dog and gun--gave him an opportunity to take the enemy by
+surprise, and he won a notorious victory.
+
+When he crossed the frontier as a fugitive, through refusing to
+recognize the Bourbons as the constitutional rulers, "the rebel chief
+Saldaña" was twenty-nine years of age. A second son in a proud and
+ruined family, he had been obliged to resist the traditions of his house
+which presented for him an ecclesiastical career. When his studies at
+the Military School at Toledo were just finishing, the Revolution of
+1868 caused him to renounce a commission to escape being under orders
+from certain generals who had participated in overthrowing royalty.
+When Don Carlos took up arms, Saldaña was one of the first to volunteer
+his services; and having gone through a military school, and received a
+good education, he at once became conspicuous among the guerrillas of
+the so-called Army of the Center, made up, for the most part, of country
+squires, village clerks, and mountain priests.
+
+Besides, Saldaña distinguished himself for a reckless though rather
+unfortunate bravery. He always led the attack at the head of his men and
+consequently was wounded in the majority of his fights. But his wounds
+were "lucky wounds" as the soldiers say. They left marks of glory on his
+body without destroying his vigorous health.
+
+Finding himself alone in Paris, where his only resource was the
+admiration of a few elderly "legitimist" ladies of the aristocratic
+Faubourg Saint Germain, he left for Vienna. There his king had friends
+and relatives. His youth and his exploits gained him admission as a hero
+of the old monarchy to the circle of archdukes. The war between Russia
+and Turkey tore him away from his pleasant life as an interesting
+hanger-on. Being a fighting man and a Catholic, he felt it his duty to
+wage war against the Turks; and with recommendations as a protégé of
+some influential Austrians, he went to the Court at Saint Petersburg.
+General Saldaña became a mere Commander of a Squadron in the Russian
+Cavalry. The officers conversed with him in French. His horsemen
+understood him well enough when he placed himself in front of his
+division, and, unsheathing his sword, galloped ahead of them against the
+enemy.
+
+Various successful charges and two more "lucky wounds" won him a certain
+celebrity. At the end of the war he had gained numerous friends among
+officers of the nobility, and was presented in the most aristocratic
+drawing rooms. One evening at a ball given by a Grand Duchess, he saw
+close at hand the most fashionable and most talked of young woman of the
+season: the Princess Lubimoff.
+
+She was twenty-two, an orphan, with a fortune said to be one of the
+largest in Russia. The first to bear the title of Prince Lubimoff, a
+poor but handsome Cossack, unable to read or write, succeeded in winning
+the attention of the Great Catherine, who made him the favorite among
+her lovers of second rank. During the years that her imperial caprice
+lasted, the new Prince was forced to seek his fortune far from the
+Court, since the favorites before him had gained possession of all that
+was near at hand. The Czarina allowed him to make his selection on the
+map of her immense Empire; distant territories beyond the Urals, which
+the new proprietor was, like the majority of his successors, never to
+see. With the introduction of the railroad, enormous riches came to
+light in these lands chosen by the Cossack; in some, veins of platinum
+were discovered; in others, quarries of malachite, deposits of lapis
+lazuli, and rich oil wells. Besides, tens of thousands of serfs,
+recently freed by the Czar, continued to work the land for the Lubimoff
+heirs, just as they had before the emancipation. And all this immense
+fortune, which nearly doubled each year with new discoveries, belonged
+entirely to one woman, the young Princess, who considered herself as one
+of the Imperial family owing to the relationship of her ancestor, and
+had more than once given the sovereign cause for worry through the
+eccentricities of her character.
+
+She was an aggressive young woman, capricious and inconsistent in both
+words and deeds, a puzzle to everyone through the sharp contradictions
+in her conduct. She mingled with the officers of the Guard, treating
+them as comrades, smoking and drinking with them and taking a hand in
+their exercises in horsemanship; and then suddenly she would shut
+herself up in her palace for whole weeks, on her knees most of the time,
+before the holy ikons, absorbed in mystic fervor, and loudly imploring
+the forgiveness of her sins. She looked on the Emperor with veneration,
+as the representative of God. At the same time she was known to
+sympathize with the Nihilists.
+
+The courtiers were scandalized whenever they told how she had
+accompanied a girl, whom the police were watching to a wretched house on
+the outskirts of the capital, and had there mingled with the
+revolutionary rabble composed of workmen and students. With them she had
+entered a narrow room, and joined the line passing before a coffin that
+was constantly in danger of being upset by the pushing of the gloomy
+curious crowd. The dead man's name was Fedor Dostoiewsky. The princess
+had scattered a bouquet of the most costly roses on the protruding
+forehead and monkish beard of the novelist.
+
+And in her moments of anger this same Nadina Lubimoff beat the servants
+in her Palace, as though they were still serfs, and forced her maids to
+grovel at her feet. Her irritability and fiery temper turned everything
+upside down, to such an extent that a certain elderly Prince, who by
+Imperial order had been chosen as her guardian, desired, in spite of the
+fact that it would mean to him loss of the management of an immense
+fortune, to see her married as soon as possible.
+
+Nadina Lubimoff inspired a feeling of dread in her suitors. They were
+all afraid that she would answer their request for her hand with a cruel
+jest. Twice she had announced her engagement to gentlemen of the Court,
+and at the last moment she herself had begged the Czar to refuse his
+consent. By this time no one dared propose, for fear of laughter and
+comment. Yet in spite of the freedom and unconventionality of her
+conduct, no one doubted the uprightness of her character.
+
+On seeing her, Saldaña thought of a naiad of the North, rising from an
+emerald river, in which cakes of ice were floating. She was tall and
+majestic, with a somewhat massive figure, like the divinities painted in
+frescos for ceilings. Her skin was of radiant whiteness. The pupils of
+her gray eyes gave out a greenish light, and her silky hair was a faded
+washed-out red. Owing to the marvelous whiteness of her complexion, her
+flesh appeared somewhat soft, but a fresh fragrance emanated from it,
+"the fragrance of running brooks," to use the words of her admirers. Her
+nostrils were rather wide, and in the stress of emotion they quivered,
+like those of a horse, thus recalling her glorious ancestor, the virile
+Cossack of the Czarina.
+
+The ball was nearly over before she noticed the Spaniard. There were so
+many officers constantly at her heels, greeting her cruel jokes and
+vulgar expressions with a smile of gratitude!--Suddenly Saldaña, who was
+standing between two doorways, was startled by a clear but commanding
+female voice.
+
+"Your arm, Marquis."
+
+And before he could offer it to her the young Princess took it, and led
+him off to the buffet in the drawing room.
+
+Nadina drank a good sized glass of vodka, preferring this liquor of the
+people to the champagne which the servants were pouring out in large
+quantities. Then smiling at her companion she drew him into the
+embrasure of a window where they were almost hidden by the curtains.
+
+"Your wounds!... I want to see your wounds!"
+
+Saldaña was dumfounded at the command of this great lady accustomed to
+carrying out her most whimsical ideas. Blushing like a soldier, who had
+lived all his life among men, he finally drew up the left sleeve of his
+uniform, revealing a brown, hairy forearm, with large tendons, and
+deeply furrowed by the scar of a bullet wound received back in Spain.
+
+The Princess admired his athletic arm, with its dark skin, cut by the
+jagged white of the new tissue.
+
+"The other--the others! I want to see the rest of them!" she commanded,
+gazing at him fiercely, as though she were ready to bite, while her
+lips, moist and shining, curved sharply downward.
+
+She had seized his arm with a hand that trembled, while with the other
+she tried to undo the gold cords on the officer's breast.
+
+Saldaña drew back, stammering. "Oh! Princess!" What she desired was
+impossible. It was impossible to show the other wounds to a lady....
+
+He felt on the one visible scar the contact of two lips. Nadina, bowing
+her proud head, was kissing his arm.
+
+"Hero!... Oh! my hero!"
+
+Immediately afterward she drew herself up again, cold and distant, with
+no other sign of emotion than a slight quivering of her nostrils. No
+longer was she tormented by the desire to see immediately those
+frightful scars of which she had heard from some of the comrades of the
+brave adventurer. She was sure of being able to see them to her heart's
+content whenever she pleased.
+
+In a few days the rumor began to circulate that the Princess Lubimoff
+was to be married to the Spaniard. She herself had started the news
+going, without bothering to ascertain beforehand the inclination of her
+future husband.
+
+The arguments with which she justified her decision could not have been
+more weighty. She was blond and Saldaña was dark. They had both been
+born at outermost limits of Europe. These considerations were
+sufficient to make a happy marriage. Besides, the Princess was
+convinced that she had always been fond of Spain, although she would not
+have been able to place it accurately on the map. She recalled certain
+verses of Heine mentioning Toledo, and others by Musset addressing
+Andalusian Marquises of Barcelona; and she used to hum a love song about
+the oranges of Seville.... Her hero must surely be from Toledo, or,
+better yet, an Andalusian from Barcelona.
+
+In vain certain people of the court spoke of the Czar's not allowing the
+match. A great heiress marrying a foreign soldier banished from his
+country!... But the Princess by her very conduct, gave the sovereign to
+understand her will.
+
+"Either I marry him, or I start out as a dancer in a Paris theater."
+
+It was rumored that Saldaña was about to be deported.
+
+"So much the better: I will go and join him, and be his sweetheart."
+
+The old Prince, her guardian, lamented this obstinacy on the part of the
+Court. If it had not been for this opposition, Nadina's caprice for
+Saldaña, like so many of her whims, would have lasted only a few days.
+It was said that perhaps the Emperor, in order to break her will, would
+dispossess her of her vast estates in Siberia. The grandchild of the
+Cossack shrieked in reply that she would kill herself rather than obey.
+
+At last the ruler prudently allowed her to fulfil her desire. In getting
+married she would give up her eccentricities perhaps, and the Russian
+court, so rich in scandals, would have one less.
+
+The wedding journey of the Princess Lubimoff lasted all her life. Only
+twice, for reasons relating to her great fortune, did she return to
+Russia. Western Europe was more favorable than the court of an autocrat
+to her love of freedom. In the first year of her marriage, while in
+London, she had a son, who was to be the only child. She allowed him to
+be called Michael, like his father, but insisted that he should have a
+second name, Fedor, perhaps in memory of Dostoiewsky, her favorite
+novelist, whose character inspired in her a feeling of sympathy, through
+a certain resemblance to herself.
+
+No one succeeded in ascertaining with certainty whether or not Don
+Miguel Saldaña felt happy in his new position as Prince Consort, which
+permitted him to enjoy all the pleasure and magnificence of immense
+wealth. According to Spanish customs, he started out to impose his will
+as a husband and a man of character, to curb the eccentricities of his
+wife. Vain determination! The very woman who at times could be
+sentimental and moan at the thought of social inequalities and the
+suffering of the poor, could, by her fiery impetuosity, reduce the
+stoutest and most firmly steeled will.
+
+In the end Saldaña relapsed into silence, fearing the aggressiveness of
+the daughter of the Cossack. To keep his prestige as a great noble,
+anxious for the respect of the servants and for the consideration of his
+guests, he feared violent scenes that filled the drawing rooms and even
+the stairways of his luxurious residence with feminine shrieks. He did
+not care more than once to see the Princess with one kick send the oaken
+table flying against the dining room wall, while all the porcelain and
+crystal service smashed into bits with one catastrophic crash.
+
+When the Paris architects had carried out the orders of the Princess,
+the family left the castle they were occupying in the vicinity of
+London. A group of rich Parisians, Jewish bankers for the most part,
+were covering the level grounds around the new Park Monçeau, with large
+private dwellings. The Princess Lubimoff had an enormous palace, with a
+garden of extraordinary size for a city, built in this quarter. She even
+set up a tiny dairy behind a grove of trees, and without leaving her
+place she could enjoy the rôle of a country woman, whipping cream and
+churning butter, in imitation of Marie Antoinette, who likewise played
+at being a shepherdess in the Petit Trianon.
+
+At times a wave of tenderness swept over her, and she adored and obeyed
+her husband, pushing her humility to extremes that were alarming. She
+told her visitors about the General's campaigns, and his daring exploits
+back in Spain, a land which inspired in her a romantic interest, and
+which for that very reason she did not care ever to see. Suddenly she
+would cut her eulogies short with a command:
+
+"Marquis, show them your wounds."
+
+As proof of her tenderness, she refrained from getting angry when her
+husband refused.
+
+She always called him "Marquis," perhaps in order to keep the princely
+title for herself alone, perhaps because she felt that he should not be
+deprived of a rank he had gained with his blood. The Marquis never paid
+any attention to this breach of etiquette. His wife had already
+committed so many!
+
+A year after their marriage, when the news reached London that Alexander
+II had been killed by the explosion of a Nihilist bomb, the Princess ran
+about her apartments like a mad woman, and took to her bed after an
+extraordinary fit of anger.
+
+"The wretches! He was so good!... They've killed their own father."
+
+And thereafter when Saldaña entered the luxurious dwelling in Paris, he
+often came across strange visitors, at whom the lackeys in breeches
+stared in amazement. They were uncouth girls with spectacles, and
+cropped hair, carrying portfolios under their arms; men with long hair
+and tangled beards, whose eyes contained the startled expression of
+visionaries; Russians from the Latin Quarter under police surveillance,
+terrorists, who appealed not in vain to the generosity of the Princess,
+and used her money perhaps to make infernal machines which they sent
+back to their country and hers.
+
+When the Prince Michael Fedor recalled his childhood memories, he could
+see his father holding him on his knees and caressing him with his firm
+hands. The child would gaze up at the dark face and large mustache that
+joined Saldaña's closely cropped mutton chop whiskers. He could not be
+sure whether the moisture in those black, commanding eyes came from
+tears; but after he learned Spanish he was sure that the Marquis had
+often murmured, as he smoothed the tiny brow:
+
+"My poor little boy!... Your mother is mad!"
+
+When Michael reached the age of eight, the problem of his education
+caused the Princess to show her motherly concern for a few weeks. One of
+those visitors, who so greatly worried the servants, brought his books
+and his frayed garments from a narrow street near the Pantheon, and took
+up his abode in the lordly dwelling of the Lubimoffs. He was a silent
+young man, given to the study of chemistry, and forbidden to return to
+his country. The very day of his arrival, a secret service agent came
+and questioned the porter of the palace.
+
+"I want my son to know Russian," said the Princess. "Besides, he will
+learn a great deal from Sergueff. Sergueff is a real man of learning,
+and worthy of a better fate."
+
+Saldaña insisted that he should likewise have a Spanish teacher, and she
+raised no objections. All the members of her family had possessed to an
+unusual degree the talent of the Slavs for learning languages easily.
+
+"Prince Michael Fedor," said his mother, "is the Marquis of Villablanca,
+and ought to know the language of his second country."
+
+On this account the General once again sought out his former companions
+in arms who were still scattered in various parts of Paris. The fame of
+his enormous wealth had brought him many requests, even from persons of
+whom he had formerly stood in awe. But although the Princess, who was
+generous to a fault, allowed him the management of her fortune, Saldaña,
+with chivalrous unyielding integrity, felt that he had no right to her
+money, and gradually came to avoid the insistent suppliants. Besides, a
+great change had come over this silent man during his travels through
+Europe. The former soldier of the absolute monarchy was now an admirer
+of England and her constitutional history.
+
+"You see things differently when you travel about," was all he said. "If
+all my fellow countrymen had only seen the world."
+
+One day the new teacher presented himself at the palace. He was twelve
+years younger than Saldaña. He had been under the latter's command
+toward the end of the war, and instead of calling him by his title of
+Marquis or Prince he addressed him proudly, at every opportunity, as "my
+General."
+
+The General had not the slightest recollection of him; but the fact that
+he could give exact details of the last campaign, and had been
+recommended by various friends, did not permit of any doubt as to his
+veracity. He must have been one of those lads who had run away from home
+and joined the Carlist bands, making up those forces of irregulars whom
+Saldaña, unable to tolerate their frequent atrocities, more than once
+threatened with execution en masse. The teacher claimed that the General
+himself had given him a subordinate's commission in the last months of
+the war, owing to his having a better education than his ragged
+comrades.
+
+Thus Marcos Toledo entered the palace of the Lubimoffs.
+
+The solemn husband of the Princess laughed with boyish glee upon hearing
+the story of Toledo's first experiences as an _emigré_ in Paris.
+
+During the first few months, since he did not know French, he used to
+stop the priests in the street, to talk with them in Latin. He eked out
+a miserable existence, giving lessons on the guitar, and lecturing in a
+Polyglot Institute, where the auditors did not pay the slightest
+attention to the subjects discussed, but tried simply to accustom their
+ears to his Spanish pronunciation.
+
+Seven francs and a half, for talking an hour and a half! But Toledo made
+up for the smallness of the compensation in the pleasure it gave him to
+orate about the happy days of Philip II, so much superior to "these days
+of liberalism."
+
+"At present, I have only one ambition, General," he ended by saying,
+"and that is to dress well."
+
+The passion for luxurious display came from his youthful days as a
+guerrilla, when he would steal red and yellow petticoats from peasant
+women in order to make uniforms for himself. In Paris, he did not feel
+so keenly the lack of nutritious food, as he did the fact that he was
+obliged to wear clothes that did not belong to any known fashion.
+
+When he was given quarters on the top floor of the palace, like the
+Russian teacher, and the General had selected various garments for him
+from his large wardrobe, Toledo felt he had realized all the dreams that
+he had elaborated while running about Paris as a persistent agent for a
+thousand unsaleable things.
+
+His fellow countrymen, former comrades in poverty, admired him on
+seeing him all dressed up like a rich man, and often riding in the
+carriage of a Prince. It scarcely seemed honorable that he, a former
+fighter, should occupy a position as a teacher, and he used to say in an
+apologetic manner:
+
+"I am now General Saldaña's _aide-de-camp_. I don't think it will be
+long before we take to the mountains again."
+
+Young Prince Michael admired his Russian teacher, because his mother
+affirmed that he was a great scholar. The boy felt a certain fear in the
+presence of this melancholy sage. On the other hand, Michael Fedor
+treated the Spaniard with an air of friendly and patronizing
+superiority. Toledo made his father laugh, and that was enough to cause
+the son to consider him an inferior being, but one worthy of esteem
+nevertheless, because of his docility and patience.
+
+"Say: is it true that you were going to be a priest?" Michael Fedor used
+to ask Toledo. "Is it true that after you left the seminary you were a
+druggist's clerk?"
+
+"Prince," the teacher replied with dignity, "I am Don Marcos de Toledo.
+My name tells my nobility, in spite of everything that envious people
+may say, and I have a right to use the 'Don' since I am an officer and
+your father, the Marquis, gave me my commission."
+
+In a short time the pupil was speaking Spanish correctly. It seemed that
+he had learned it as rapidly as possible in order to be better able to
+poke fun at his _hidalgo_ teacher.
+
+The father also contributed to the education of the heir of the
+Lubimoffs the one thing he was able to teach. Every morning, after the
+lessons given by the Russian, which left the little fellow with a solemn
+face, Saldaña would wait for him in a large room on the ground floor.
+
+"Prince, on guard!"
+
+And he, who had been the best blade in the Carlist army, and had on his
+conscience the slashing of a skull to the jawbone in a duel during the
+Turkish campaign, smiled proudly when he saw how this eleven year old
+boy stood his ground during the fencing lesson, parrying the hard blows
+and returning them successfully at the least unguardedness on his
+father's part. Michael Fedor was going to be a splendid fighting man, a
+worthy descendant of the Cossack of Russia, and of the guerrilla of the
+Spanish mountains.
+
+But Saldaña was not to enjoy this satisfaction for long. Among his
+various "lucky wounds," which only bothered him slightly with the
+changing of the seasons, there was one which from time to time inflicted
+periods of acute pain. For many years he had carried in his body a
+Spanish bullet which the sawbones of his guerrilla band had been unable
+to extract. When the surgeons of London and Paris attempted the
+operation it was too late.
+
+One morning the General's valet, on entering the room, found him dead.
+
+Michael Fedor never forgot the sorrow he had felt on that occasion, nor
+the sumptuous funeral which the Princess had ordered, equal to that of a
+king deceased in exile. But what he remembered most clearly was the
+extraordinary grief of his mother. She too wanted to die. Her Russian
+maids were once obliged to snatch from her hands a phial of laudanum,
+receiving for their pains a few more blows than usual. Then, with her
+hair streaming down her back, she ran about wailing like a madwoman in
+front of all the portraits of the General. Oh! Her hero! Now she really
+knew how much she loved him....
+
+For several months she received her visitors in a drawing room with
+black furnishings and curtains. Wearing loose mourning garments, she
+half reclined on a sofa in front of a full length portrait of Saldaña.
+His swords, his uniforms, and even a Russian saddle were on exhibition
+in the drawing room, which had been converted into a sort of museum of
+the deceased.
+
+"He died like the man he was!" moaned the widow. "He was killed by his
+wounds."
+
+At this period began the ultimate stage in the rise of Don Marcos
+Toledo. The Russian scholar receded into the background. A part of the
+dead man's glory passed to his humble fellow countryman who had
+witnessed his great exploits. One evening, the Princess, while engaged
+in conversation in the drawing room museum with some noble relatives who
+had arrived from Russia, wept so copiously at the memory of her husband,
+that she decided to leave the room for a moment.
+
+"Colonel, your arm."
+
+Toledo was present in company with his pupil, and looked around with an
+expression of bewilderment. The Princess had to repeat her command in a
+more imperious voice. "Colonel, your arm!" She was speaking to him! For
+some time Don Marcos thought that the new title was a whim of the
+Princess and that some day when he was least expecting it his commission
+as "Colonel" would be withdrawn.
+
+But when the first months of mourning had passed and the widow, tiring
+of solitude, started to resume her social calls, she insisted on being
+accompanied by Toledo, and on introducing him to her acquaintances in
+the aristocratic world.
+
+"He is the aide-de-camp of the dead Marquis," she explained.
+
+The very title he had invented to give himself an air of importance in
+the eyes of his half-starved companions in poverty! Toledo no longer
+questioned the validity of his promotion. Now that the Princess was
+presenting him as her husband's aide-de-camp, he might well be a
+Colonel. And a Colonel he was, even for the young Prince, who at first
+had given him the title to make fun of him, but finally came to call him
+"Colonel" by force of habit.
+
+Toledo's dreams of splendid and showy toggery were now realized
+magnificently. With the Princess he did not need to fear the scruples
+sometimes shown by Saldaña, who hated extravagance and mismanagement.
+The great lady even felt disdain for those who were niggardly in
+availing themselves of her generosity. Don Marcos was enabled to change
+his attire several times a day, and held long conferences with famous
+tailors. He sought personal elegance. He wished to dress like a
+gentleman of distinction, but at the same time to wear clothes of a cut
+that would plainly show that he was accustomed to uniforms: He had in
+mind something like a Napoleonic Marshal obliged to wear a dress suit.
+Through his barber, likewise, he effected a great transformation. He
+imitated the manner in which the General had worn his hair, with a part
+that started at his forehead and ended at the back of his neck, and with
+stray locks hanging down at the temples. His mustache was taught to
+mingle with his side whiskers, in the Russian fashion. In accompanying
+the Princess, he learned to kiss ladies' hands with the grace and ease
+of an old courtier. He also learned to carry on long conversations
+without saying anything, to keep himself in the background, practically
+unseen, while his superiors were talking.
+
+When the Princess, after the first year of mourning, resolutely returned
+to her box at the Opera, Don Marcos attended her, remaining discreetly
+in the rear, like the Chamberlain of a Queen. One evening, during an
+intermission, on passing to the front of her box, the Princess heard
+the Colonel telling an old French general, a friend of the house, about
+the battle of Villablanca.
+
+"And the Marquis said to me: 'Now it's your chance, Toledo: Let's see
+how you can make out with a bayonet charge.' So I bared my sword, and at
+the head of my regiment...."
+
+"He's a true soldier," interrupted the Princess, "a worthy companion of
+my hero.... The Marquis often talked to me about him."
+
+And at that moment she was really sure she had heard the silent Saldaña
+relate the gallant deeds of his aide-de-camp.
+
+The Russian teacher, regarded by Toledo as an unpleasant person who
+would bear watching, soon left the Lubimoff palace. Perhaps he was
+jealous of the Colonel's growing influence; perhaps mysterious reasons
+needed his attention far from Paris. The Princess did not mind in the
+least the disappearance of the scholar. She had forgotten her rebellious
+looking Russians; she stopped giving them money. At present she had
+other interests.
+
+She suddenly evinced a desire to live for some time in London, and for
+this reason, she granted her son's request to be allowed to travel alone
+throughout Europe.
+
+"You're a man now; you will soon be fourteen. Travel, and don't stop at
+expense; always remember that you are Prince Lubimoff.... The Colonel
+will go with you. He will be your aide, as he was for the heroic
+Marquis."
+
+His first trip was to Spain. Michael Fedor wanted to see his father's
+native land. Toledo thought it in point for the young Prince to show
+great admiration for Spain. Michael must remember they were in the
+enemy's country. Toledo was a Carlist Colonel who had refused amnesty,
+and had declined to recognize the reigning dynasty! But they traveled
+for three months in Spain, without being noticed except for the
+largeness of their tips. It is quite true that Toledo avoided coming in
+contact with any of his former comrades. He felt that he now belonged to
+a different world. Inwardly he felt the same change the General had.
+
+As soon as Michael Fedor had recovered from his first enthusiasm for
+bull fighting, they continued their travels across the continent as far
+as Russia, arriving considerably later than the numerous letters of
+introduction sent by the Princess Lubimoff to her relatives. The Prince
+remained there a year, visiting his less distant estates, and making the
+acquaintance of all the great families in his mother's circle of
+friends. The Colonel talked grandiloquently about everything related to
+war with various generals who received him as an equal. Was he not the
+aide and companion in heroic deeds of Saldaña, whom they had known in
+the war against Turkey, when they were mere subalterns?
+
+The former friends of the Princess Lubimoff told her son some unexpected
+news. His mother had announced her forthcoming marriage to an English
+gentleman. She had written to the Czar asking his authorization. This
+news startled no one save Michael Fedor. The times of the wild Nadina
+had long since passed. Her actions aroused no further interest. Other
+young Princesses had effaced her memory with adventures that caused even
+greater commotion. No one save a few of the ladies of the old court,
+when they forgot their cares and interests as mothers, would bring to
+mind the Princess Lubimoff, recalling days of vanished youth, which for
+old people are always more interesting than the present.
+
+When the young man returned to the Paris palace, he found his mother as
+much of a Princess as ever, but married to a Scotch gentleman, Sir Edwin
+Macdonald.
+
+"Some day you will leave me," she said with a tragic note in her voice
+she used on great occasions. "A Prince Lubimoff should live at the
+court, serve his Emperor, be an officer in the Guard; and I need a
+companion, some one to lean on. Sir Edwin is the personification of
+distinction; but don't ever think that I shall forget your father.
+Never!... My hero!"
+
+Michael Fedor saw a gentleman who, indeed, was "the personification of
+distinction"; attentive to everyone, very precise in his bearing, a man
+of few words, who shut himself up for long hours--studying, according to
+the Princess. English politics was his preoccupation, and his one great
+dream was to return to Parliament, which he had been forced to leave by
+defeat at election.
+
+This cold man, with a pale smile and extreme insistence on good form
+even in the most trivial actions, neither displeased Michael as a
+step-father nor appealed to him as a friend. He was an inoffensive,
+somewhat stuffy person, whom Michael grew accustomed to seeing every day
+in his father's former place, and whom he had expected to see sooner or
+later anyhow.
+
+This marriage brought other people to the Lubimoff palace, with all the
+intimacy inspired by relationship.
+
+One of Sir Edwin's brothers had been obliged, like all the second sons
+in wealthy British families, to go out in the world and earn his living.
+After a life of adventure, he had finally settled down in the United
+States, near the Mexican border, and had soon found himself, through a
+marriage with an heiress of the country, much richer than his elder
+brother.
+
+His wife was a Mexican. She owned famous silver mines in the interior
+and vast ranches on the border. She had only one daughter; and the
+latter was in her eighth year when Arthur Macdonald died as a result of
+a fall from his horse. The widow, with her little Alicia, moved to
+Europe. She wanted to live in London, to be near her brother-in-law, Sir
+Edwin, then a member of Parliament, and much admired by the Mexican
+woman as one of the directors of the world's affairs. Later she
+established herself in Paris, as the capital most to her taste, and as
+the place where she could meet many people from Mexico.
+
+The Princess Lubimoff treated her relative well, although her friendship
+suffered sudden changes, often going from extreme affection to sudden
+coldness.
+
+She and Doña Mercedes could talk about mines and vast estates, although
+neither of them had any accurate knowledge of their respective fortunes.
+They estimated their wealth only by the enormous quantities of
+money--millions of francs a year--which their distant business agents
+sent them, and which they spent without knowing just how. There was
+another thing which attracted the Princess, in her moments of good will,
+to Doña Mercedes: she herself was blond, while the Spanish Creole still
+kept traces of Hispanic-Aztec beauty, with a dark, somewhat olive
+complexion, large, wide-open, almond eyes, and hair astonishing for its
+blackness, brilliancy, and length.
+
+But an instinctive rivalry frequently embittered the relations of the
+two multi-millionaires. The Princess was sure that her own wealth was
+far the greater. When Doña Mercedes talked about Mexican silver, she
+mentioned Russian platinum! "What is silver worth compared to platinum!"
+And in order completely to floor her opponent, the Princess would bring
+out her family history. Beginning with the remote Cossack ancestor, who
+almost became the legitimate husband of Catherine the Great, she
+paraded before her Mexican rival generals, marshals of the Emperor's
+household, hetmans, followed by their retinues of half savage horsemen,
+princes and ambassadors. Sir Edwin's wife talked as though she belonged
+to the reigning house, letting it be understood that her famous ancestor
+had played a part in the establishing of one of the Czars. For this
+reason she had always been shown special consideration at court.
+
+Doña Mercedes, inwardly jealous of so much greatness, nevertheless
+smiled a sweet enigmatic smile, as though she were to say, "That is all
+very far away--and perhaps a lie."
+
+Then immediately she would begin talking in her rapid whimsical French,
+a French which she had never been able to free from numerous Spanish
+locutions that still clung tenaciously.
+
+"Mama was an intimate friend of Eugenie.... Don't you know who Eugenie
+is? The Empress, the wife of Napoleon III. When Madame Barrios--that was
+my mother's name--was announced at the Tuileries, the doors were opened
+wide. Papa was one of the men who made Maximilian emperor."
+
+Over against the aristocratic grandeur of the Saint Petersburg court she
+set the image of the Mexican court, of the brief Empire which had ended
+in the execution of the Archduke Maximilian, and the madness of his
+bride, Carlotta. The Emperor endeavored to establish the musty old
+etiquette of the Austrian Court, but the Mexican matrons, when they
+called on the young Empress, said in the frank maternal fashion of the
+colonies: "How is everything, Carlotta?... How do you like the country,
+my dear?"
+
+Moved by a similar frankness, Doña Mercedes would end her discourse by
+saying carelessly:
+
+"Papa, seeing that the Empire was going badly, recognized Juarez as the
+head of the government, and joined the side of the Republic. He did it
+to save our mines."
+
+Then she would talk on for a long time about the Barrios, who, according
+to her, were descendants of the most ancient aristocracy of Spain. All
+the nobles of Madrid were therefore relatives of hers. Everybody knew
+that! As a child she had seen at home a lot of papers which proved her
+right to the title of Marchioness; but owing to the revolutions in her
+country, and her travels, she no longer knew where to find them.
+
+If the Princess referred to the splendor of her palace, the Creole would
+immediately mention her elegant private mansion in the Champs Élysées.
+The arrival of Colonel Toledo, as a valorous adornment giving the
+princely residence military prestige, did not intimidate Doña Mercedes.
+She too had a Spaniard, an Aragonese cleric, who acted as a sort of
+royal private chaplain, and whom she considered a man of science,
+because, bored by his sinecure in her employ, he had taken up elementary
+astronomy, and had set up a telescope on the roof of her house.
+
+Whenever the Mexican lady dared to imitate her entertainments, her
+carriages or her clothes, the Princess Lubimoff would audibly lament the
+fact that Paris was not in Russia, where she might call on the chief of
+police to force this low-bred Creole to show the respect due to her
+superiors. But after these bursts of anger she would feel a sudden wave
+of tenderness for Doña Mercedes. "In spite of your illiteracy," she
+would say, "you are a woman of natural talent and the only one with whom
+I can talk for an hour at a stretch."
+
+Between these two declining beauties, who had seen themselves the center
+of attraction and adoration in former years, there was a common bond,
+something which moved them both like far off lovely music, like the
+cherished memory of youth: It was the daughter of Doña Mercedes, the
+vivacious Alicia Macdonald.
+
+Doña Mercedes seemed to see her own beauty, renewed with fresh vigor, in
+her child. But in this she was mistaken. Alicia added to her dark
+southern splendor the slenderness and slightly boyish freedom of
+movement of her father's race. The Princess, observing the girl's
+independent character, thought she saw herself back once more in the
+days when she was beginning to shock the Imperial Court. This too was a
+mistake. She herself had been able to follow all her most wilful
+impulses, without fear of gossip. She possessed everything. Besides her
+immense wealth, she had the advantages of birth, enabling her to elevate
+any man whatsoever to her own level, no matter how far beneath her he
+might be. Alicia had one ambition; to unite her fortune with a great
+title of the old aristocracy in order to be presented at court. Since
+her fifteenth year this desire had been fixed, calculating design,
+dissimulated under apparent recklessness. From her fairy-story days, her
+mother had talked to her about wonderful marriages, and of princes who
+in former times used to marry shepherdesses, but who were in search
+nowadays of millionaires' daughters.
+
+Michael Fedor felt somewhat embarrassed at meeting this girl in his
+palace. She looked at him so boldly, with such a dominating expression,
+as though everything and everyone should bow before her!
+
+She had beauty of a type more fascinating than conventional. Her
+complexion, slightly tinged with a strange golden orange color, her
+large eyes a trifle slanting, her luxuriant hair, which, fleeing its
+bondage of hairpins, seemed alive and coiling like a cluster of snakes,
+gave her an exotic charm. The rest of her body revealed a modern
+physical education. Her limbs were firm and agile from continued
+exercise and play.
+
+Doña Mercedes seemed to urge Alicia and Michael toward each other from
+the first meeting.
+
+"Don't stand on formality," she said in a motherly way. "You are
+cousins."
+
+Although Michael didn't succeed in making out this relationship, he
+endeavored to treat the young girl in a friendly manner, while the
+Creole mother smiled as she already pictured Alicia with the coronet of
+a princess, bowing before the Czar. Princess Lubimoff was in one of her
+kindly moods; for the moment she did not believe in caste and
+privileges, to the extent that she would again have given money to the
+long-haired individuals who used to visit her. She accepted her friend's
+ambitious projects tolerantly and without comment.
+
+The Prince, meanwhile, was telling the Colonel his impressions.
+
+"Too much of a young lady! I like the others better."
+
+Don Marcos, having been Michael's companion in wide and joyous travels,
+knew whom the boy meant by "the others"; for Prince Lubimoff had begun
+very young to nibble at the grapes of life.
+
+On other occasions it irritated him that, with her unabashed demeanor of
+a foolish virgin, she should seem so much like "the others."
+
+"She's worse than a boy. If you only knew, Colonel, the things she says
+to me!"
+
+As for Alicia she was not wholly satisfied with the young Prince. She
+was accustomed to seeing other men make an effort to be gracious and
+show her flattering attentions, while Michael manifested a haughty
+character, like her own, arguing with her, and even daring to contradict
+her.
+
+Occasionally, accompanied by Toledo, they went out together for a gallop
+in the Bois de Boulogne. All this was torture for Don Marcos, who had
+been a mountain warrior! But his present position called for certain
+duties. So he rode along as well as could be expected from a colonel of
+infantry.
+
+Alicia was a tireless rider. At the residence in the Champs-Élysées,
+Doña Mercedes had frequently been obliged to look for her in the
+stables, where she made herself at home among the hostlers and coachmen,
+and talked with professional authority as she supervised the grooming of
+the horses. Afterwards, when she came back into the drawing room her
+hair would have a decidedly horsey odor. Back in her native land she had
+mounted a horse and clung to it before she knew how to walk. In Paris
+she boldly made her way among the vehicles, knocked down the passersby
+occasionally, and often found her mad gallops intercepted by the police.
+
+The Colonel endeavored to keep up with her. He never said anything, but
+his heart was heavy. The Prince protested against her racing in this
+fashion, which might have been all very well on her native plains. The
+girl's retorts widened the breach between them, with feelings of
+hostility. "No one is going to talk to me like that, not even my
+mother," she said. "I'm old enough to know what I ought to do." She was
+fifteen.
+
+One morning in the Bois, coming to a cross road that happened to catch
+her fancy, Alicia started her horse for the Avenue without consulting
+her companion.
+
+"No, this way," Michael called in a commanding voice.
+
+"I don't like that; this is the way!" she answered aggressively.
+
+The Prince made an effort to cut her off by crossing ahead of her, and
+she spurred her horse against Michael's with a shock that brought the
+two animals to their knees. The Colonel, who was behind them, caught an
+exchange of angry glances, and harsh words. Alicia raised her whip, and
+struck the Prince across the shoulders.
+
+"You do that to _me_!" shouted Michael furiously.
+
+The face of this scion of the old Cossack Lubimoff underwent a rapid
+series of expressions, finally taking an aspect of extreme ugliness and
+savagery. His nostrils seemed to dilate even more than usual. He raised
+his whip and struck, but Toledo had put his horse between the two,
+receiving the tip of the lash on his cheek, which began to bleed. The
+sight of blood and the thought that the blow was intended for her, drove
+the young woman mad with rage.
+
+"Brute! Savage!... Russian!"
+
+This seemed too mild, and she stopped for a moment, to think up a
+greater insult. Her childhood memories helped her; the legend she had
+heard from the half-breeds back in her own land inspired her with a new
+affront, as if Michael Fedor were Fernan Cortes.
+
+"Spaniard!... Murderer of Indians!"
+
+And fearing a new lashing after that supreme insult, she fled at a mad
+pace without stopping until she reached the Arch of Triumph.
+
+After this incident Doña Mercedes lost all hope of her daughter's
+becoming a Lubimoff.
+
+"A Russian Princess!" she said scornfully. "Why, everyone is a Prince in
+Russia!... A mere English baron is better, or a French or Spanish
+count."
+
+Michael was in a mood no more conciliatory when the Colonel lectured
+him.
+
+"I don't want to hear anything more about that wench!" said he.
+
+And the Princess, in one of her petulant moments averred that she
+considered this word the proper one. These relatives of Sir Edwin had
+always seemed to her very ordinary people. Likewise it seemed to her
+very natural that her son should think of going back to Russia to fill
+his station as a Prince. The life of caste and privilege there was more
+suitable to his rank than the democratic ways of Paris, where certain
+American Indians, because they had millions, could imagine they were the
+equals of the Lubimoffs.
+
+Prince Michael remained in Russia until he was twenty-three. His
+military studies were passed brilliantly, according to Toledo, and the
+boy succeeded in distinguishing himself among the most famous cavalry
+officers of the Guard. He took prizes in exhibitions of horsemanship.
+With his revolver he could pot coins held up at fifty paces by his
+comrades. He wielded the sabre with a skill that his Cossack ancestor
+and General Saldaña would have admired. Every morning in the courtyard
+of his Petersburg palace he found awaiting him a life-sized dummy made
+of the firm sticky clay used by sculptors. He would stay for half an
+hour in front of it, going through his exercises. It was not enough to
+be able to strike one's enemy. The important thing was to strike well,
+with the greatest possible depth and force. And the head and limbs of
+the dummy went flying, severed by the steel blade. The study of military
+science was all well enough for those in the infantry or the
+artillery--sons of clerks and merchants!
+
+At first the Colonel was astonished at the magnificence and extravagance
+of Russian life. Finally he came to take it all quite naturally, as
+though he had been accustomed to something similar from his earliest
+boyhood. "My son, remember the name you bear," the Princess used to
+write to the Prince. "Do not disgrace it. Spend according to what you
+are." And the son, without asking her for anything, followed her advice
+faithfully by coming to a direct understanding with the Russian
+administrators. Don Marcos figured that the Lieutenant in the Guard was
+spending something over three millions a year. His racing stables were
+the most celebrated in the capital. Many famous beauties of the court
+and the theaters were on good terms with Prince Michael Fedor. His
+supper parties in the Lubimoff palace or in the fashionable restaurants
+were sought after by all the young men of the aristocracy. To be invited
+to one of them was an extraordinary honor, something like being a member
+of an academy of supermen. It often happened that toward morning on
+nights of such parties celebrated women finished by dancing naked on the
+tables, so that the host "might not be displeased."
+
+Sometimes these celebrations ended in drunken brawls, where wine mingled
+with blood. The Colonel had seen one of these suppers result in a duel
+between two of the guests. It took place in the palace garden, just
+before dawn. One of the men was killed. His best friends carried the
+corpse to the quay of the Neva, and placed a revolver in his hand to
+make it look like a case of suicide.
+
+No: Don Marcos did not care much for those nocturnal feasts. He
+considered them dangerous. On one occasion, a youthful Grand Duke,
+absolutely drunk, amused himself by daubing the Colonel's whiskers with
+caviar, until, tired of such brazen familiarity, the Spaniard in turn
+put his hand in the dish and smeared the other man's august face with
+green. The duke hesitated for a moment whether or not to kill him, but
+finally embraced him, covering him with kisses and shouting aloud, "This
+is my father."
+
+Toledo preferred his own honorable and quiet friendships with General
+Saldaña's former companions in arms; solemn personages who talked to him
+about world politics and future wars. Besides, the Prince's generosity
+permitted the Colonel secret pleasures, less noisy, and agreeably
+unostentatious.
+
+One night, returning to the Lubimoff palace after two o'clock, he saw
+there was a supper party in the great dining hall used on gala
+occasions. Some fifty guests had assembled, and in the course of the
+night many more had arrived. It seemed that the news had spread
+throughout all the pleasure resorts of the capital, attracting all the
+youthful libertines.
+
+Opposite the Prince was seated a Cossack officer, short, lithe as a
+panther, dark skinned, with Asiatic eyes. His wrinkled uniform showed
+signs of recent traveling. Michael Fedor showed him the greatest
+attention, as though he were the only guest. Toledo, being acquainted
+with all the friends of the house, was unable to place this uncouth
+Cossack, who looked as though he had come from some remote garrison in
+Siberia. Some one offered to relieve his uncertainty. He was startled on
+learning that it was the brother of a court lady who just at that moment
+was being much talked about on account of her extreme familiarity with
+Michael Fedor. The two men looked at each other with keen interest,
+exchanging silent toasts in huge glasses of champagne. At the other end
+of the hall arose the ceaseless wail of gypsy violins. Several dark
+skinned girls with striped aprons of many colors were dancing about the
+tables. But in spite of that, Don Marcos, glancing about, felt
+instinctively a note of gloom.
+
+"Leon, the sabres!"
+
+The Prince, after looking at his watch, had arisen and given this order
+to his body servant, who was standing behind him. All the guests rushed
+for the doors forming a jam, like a crowd, pushing and shoving, at the
+entrance to a theater. There was no reason now to conceal their real
+feelings. They were eager for the promised spectacle. The Colonel
+finally found some one who could talk intelligibly.
+
+"He came last night, to ask the Prince to marry his sister. A
+thirty-eight day trip.... The Prince refuses.... It isn't often you'll
+see a match like this.... He's the best swordsman in Siberia."
+
+The garden was covered with snow. It was night, and the uncertain moon
+illumined it with slanting rays, lengthening immeasurably the shadows of
+the trees. More than a hundred men formed in two black masses on the
+borders of the walk. The Colonel noticed the arrival of several
+servants. One was bringing swords; the rest were carrying large trays
+with bottles and glasses.
+
+Michael Fedor bowed to his enemy, his eyes shining with kindliness and
+drink.
+
+"Would you like another glass of something?"
+
+The Cossack thanked him with a gesture, and immediately Toledo saw him
+remove his long coat, the breast of which was adorned with cartridge
+pouches. Then he took off his shirt, and finally remained in nothing
+save his trousers and high boots. Then he stooped, and seizing two
+handfuls of snow, began to rub his wiry body and muscular arms.
+
+The Prince, like many of the spectators, shivered slightly with surprise
+and cold; but nevertheless that the condition of the combat might be
+equal, Lubimoff felt it imperative that he should follow the example of
+his hardy adversary. While he was removing the upper part of his uniform
+several torches were lighted and began to blaze like red stars in the
+semi-darkness of the moonlit garden.
+
+Don Marcos could see the two men face to face. They were bare from the
+waist up. Their breasts shone from the moisture of the recent massage.
+In their hands quivered sabres as sharp as razors.
+
+"Ready!"
+
+Some one was directing the fight.
+
+"Why this is barbarous!" thought the Spaniard. "These men are savages."
+
+He did not dare say it aloud because he was a soldier, and more than
+that, a Colonel; but during the rest of his life he never could forget
+that scene.
+
+They crossed swords, parried, attacked, the Prince with firm poise, the
+other with catlike agility. Toledo could see that their bodies were
+blood red, but at the moment he thought it an effect of the torchlight.
+As they drew near him, circling about in their deadly play, he realized
+that they were actually red with blood. Their bodies seemed covered with
+a purple vestment that was torn to shreds and the shreds quivered at the
+ends as the blood dripped off. Standing out against that warm moist
+garment rose their white arms. The Prince was getting the worst of it.
+Toledo suddenly saw a deep gash appear in his brow; a moment later he
+thought he saw one of his ears hang half severed from the skull. But
+that wild cat from the steppes always sprang free from every sabre
+thrust. No one dared intervene; it was a duel without quarter, without
+rest, with no condition save the death of one or the other combatant. At
+times they came together, forming a single body bristling with white
+flashes in the shadow of the trees; a moment later they appeared apart,
+seeking each other in the fiery circle of the torches.
+
+Suddenly Toledo heard a wild cry of pain, the howl of a poor animal
+caught unawares. The Prince was the only one still standing. A straight
+thrust had slashed his adversary's jugular. Lubimoff stood there a
+moment motionless. Then his superhuman strength, which had sustained him
+until then, left him. With the loss of blood, all the weariness of the
+struggle came over him like a shot. He too tottered and fell, but into
+the arms of friends. There was not a single doctor among the
+spectators. No one had thought of that. They considered the presence of
+one unnecessary in an encounter that could end only in death.
+
+All the curiosity seekers left the garden, following the unconscious
+Prince. A few servants stayed behind, gathered about the body of the
+Cossack. He was lying face downward. With respectful awe they watched as
+his legs quivered for the last time, as the blood slowly emptied itself
+from the neck, and spread out across the snow, in a black stain that was
+beginning to take on a bluish tinge in the livid light of dawn.
+
+At the court, which had already shown frequent alarm over the Prince's
+notorious adventures, this event caused a great stir. Lubimoff's duels,
+his love affairs, his scandalous entertainments, annoyed the young
+Emperor, who had taken it upon himself to improve the morals of his
+associates.
+
+In aristocratic gatherings, the freakish whims of the almost forgotten
+Nadina Lubimoff were brought to memory and discussed again. The young
+Cossack was related to people of influence, and his death contributed to
+the complete disgrace of his sister.
+
+Michael Fedor had not yet entirely recovered from his wounds, when he
+received the order to leave Russia. The Czar was banishing him, and for
+an indefinite period. He might live in Paris with his mother.
+
+"That's all right; so long as they respect his income," was the
+Colonel's only comment.
+
+Arriving in Paris, the Prince was convinced of his mother's insanity.
+That was something he had suspected for some time, from her letters. Sir
+Edwin had died, rather suddenly, three years before, in England,
+following defeat in an election. The palace in the Monçeau quarter had
+suffered an interior transformation that represented a cost of several
+millions. The Princess was devoting all her time to it. The Arabic,
+Persian, Greek, or Chinese drawing rooms, the construction and
+decoration of which had made the fortune of two architects and several
+dealers in doubtful antiques, had just disappeared; while furnishings
+acquired years before as extremely rare pieces had been scattered to the
+four winds as though they were mere rubbish of no value. The palace
+remained the same as before on the outside; but the interior, beginning
+with the stairway, was rebuilt in imitation of a medieval castle. Not a
+single window remained without its stained glass, not a room but was
+shrouded in the vague half light of a cellar. All the conventional
+Gothic known to modern contractors was employed by order of the Princess
+in the restoration of the house. Three stories and one entire wing had
+been torn down to form the nave of a cathedral.
+
+Michael saw advancing toward him a tall austere woman, with long
+transparent fingers, and large, staring, uncanny eyes. She was dressed
+in black, with loose sleeves that almost touched the ground, and with a
+white bonnet fitting close to the head beneath her mourning veils. In
+spite of the fact that she had a rosary at her wrist and talked with the
+air of a martyr, her son imagined that he was looking at an opera
+singer.
+
+The expulsion of the Prince from Russia had caused her neither surprise
+nor sorrow.
+
+"Those Romanoffs have always disliked us. They cannot forget that your
+illustrious ancestor, so they say, used to beat Catherine when he caught
+her with anyone else."
+
+Her thoughts rose above all such worldly considerations. She had never,
+as a matter of fact, taken any stock in religion; but now she declared
+herself a Catholic. She had made no public declaration of conversion, to
+be sure, but she felt she must adopt the belief. Her new and final
+personality demanded it.
+
+"Your father approves of my new stand. Often in the night I have talked
+with my hero. He is glad to see me in the path of truth."
+
+No sooner had Michael Fedor and the Colonel arrived, than they noticed
+the strange visitors who were frequenting the palace. The long haired
+terrorists had been succeeded by numerous fortune tellers, soothsayers,
+clairvoyants, and solemn professors of occult sciences. A plain old
+lamp-stand, which looked as though it might have walked upstairs by
+itself from the concierge's quarters, was jumping about and rapping, at
+all hours, in the bedroom of the Princess.
+
+One day she decided to tell her son the great secret of her life. At
+last she knew who she was; the spirits had revealed to her the knowledge
+of her true personality. In one of her many previous existences she had
+been the most unfortunate and beautiful, the most "romantic", of queens.
+The soul of the Russian princess, Nadina Lubimoff, centuries ago had
+dwelt in the body of Mary Stuart.
+
+"That is why I always had a special liking for the story of the unhappy
+queen. And now I know why, when I saw Sir Edwin in London, I fell in
+love with him on the spot, in the most irresistible fashion. His
+ancestors were Scottish."
+
+Such reasons were to her as unanswerable as all the others which had
+guided her actions. And to pay homage to the queenly soul which was,
+according to all her mystic attendants, reincarnated in her, she was
+going to live like the beheaded sovereign of Scotland, copying the
+Queen's clothes as she had seen them in pictures, converting her palace
+into a mediæval castle, and eating from antique plates nothing but
+Renaissance delicacies, the recipes for which she had employed a
+history professor to discover in ancient chronicles.
+
+Carriages now rarely entered the Court of Honor of the palace. The grand
+stairway was growing mossy between its steps. Not so the delivery
+entrance. There, each day, the professionals of "the beyond" appeared,
+poorly dressed and suspicious looking men and women, who were exploiting
+the Princess, generous as a queen--and was she not one?--under the guise
+of aiding her in the manipulation of the lamp table, and conjuring up
+historic phantoms which, to prove their presence, moved the carpets,
+made the pictures fall from the walls, changed the positions of the
+chairs, and committed other childish deviltries.
+
+Doña Mercedes avoided visiting the Princess. Her simple faith caused her
+to be frightened at queens that last for centuries, and at those halls
+with old furniture that seemed to palpitate with mysterious life. She
+preferred the quiet wholesome conversation of the priests whom she was
+supporting for herself. The Aragonese vicar had allowed himself to be
+snatched away in triumph by another devout millionaire. He had grown
+tired, no doubt, of the excessive ease and idleness afforded him by his
+penitent, and was bored with astronomical observations on the roof of
+the dwelling in the Champs-Élysées.
+
+At present she was offering her hospitality to a Monsignor, a Bishop _in
+partibus_, who directed the widow's money into various pious charities
+of his own invention.
+
+Alicia had married a French Duke, twenty years her senior, and after a
+few months of marriage was causing herself to be very much talked about.
+Doña Mercedes, offended, was punishing her by seeing her very seldom, in
+hopes that such coldness would cause the Duchess de Delille to follow
+the example of her mother. In the meantime, the latter was concentrating
+all her family affection on the Monsignor, a saint, and a man of the
+world, who in the evening, to avoid a discordant note, took off his
+cassock and sat down at table in a tuxedo, while a flock of mechanical
+birds sang and flapped their wings in the large gilded cage in the
+Creole's dining room.
+
+Michael Fedor saw Alicia twice in the Lubimoff palace. She did not feel
+there the uneasiness her mother experienced, and even declared the
+manias of the Princess very original and interesting. Afternoons when
+she was bored, and paid the Princess a visit, she too seemed to believe
+in the lamp table and in the "Queen's" protégés with the mystic
+gestures.
+
+She too consulted them to find out whether she would be happy, and
+especially whether she would be greatly loved, although she never told
+who it was that was supposed to love her. On other occasions she asked
+the oracle, with a note of jealous anxiety in her voice, what a certain
+unknown person was doing at that particular time. The name of the person
+was kept secret, but some months he would be dark and at other times he
+would be blond. She and the lamp table understood each other perfectly.
+
+"I always said that girl was cleverer than her mother," the Princess
+affirmed.
+
+When Alicia first met the Prince, on his return home, she burst out
+laughing, and almost embraced him.
+
+"Do you remember how we used to hate each other? Do you remember that
+day in the Bois when we whipped each other?"
+
+She looked at him with an air of interest, scrutinizing him from head to
+heel without detecting anything of the displeasing youth of former
+times. She knew of his adventures in Russia, his loves, his duels, his
+expulsion. An interesting man! A Byronic fellow! Besides, she had heard
+that he was a bit of a brute with women.
+
+"Come and see me. We must be friends. Remember we are relatives."
+
+Michael scrutinized her also, but with a certain seriousness. He had
+heard a great deal about her since arriving in Paris. During her three
+years of married life the Duke had tried twice to divorce her. It
+weighed on his mind to think that he should be enjoying immense wealth
+just in return for allowing her to bear his name. When he shook hands
+with a friend, he was never sure of the latter's relations with his
+wife. But Alicia had married the Duke in order to be a Duchess, and in
+the end the couple came to a practical agreement. Half of her income was
+to go to the Duke, who was to travel, or, if he wished, reside in Paris
+with a former mistress. Alicia might live as she pleased in her splendid
+white mansion in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and display a ducal
+coronet on her underwear, on her silver, and on the doors of her motor
+cars.
+
+The little horsewoman of the Mexican plains, trained to morning gallops,
+had been transformed into a woman of proud and arrogant beauty. To
+Michael she looked like a California orange, golden, gleaming, wafting a
+strong sweet fragrance.
+
+Inwardly he winced at the gaze of those dark eyes, so enticing and
+fascinating, so provoking and commanding, in full consciousness of
+power.
+
+But no. He remembered that various men whom he disliked, had, according
+to common gossip, already preceded him in falling under Alicia's spell.
+And for the time being he was interested in a French actress, whom he
+had met on the train returning from Russia.
+
+Besides, he suddenly beheld her again in his imagination as she was
+years before. Perhaps she had not changed. She was used to managing men
+with a firm hand, to changing from one to another, as though they were
+post horses. He and Alicia would quarrel at their second meeting. They
+might easily end by coming to blows.
+
+He saw no more of her. New preoccupations changed the direction of his
+thoughts. One day in the street he met a Russian who seemed old and ill.
+It was Sergueff, his former teacher. Sergueff must now have been some
+forty years of age. He looked as though he were in his seventies, with a
+dirty white beard, grayish skin, and a wrinkled almost motheaten face,
+with no sign of life save in the two green holes that marked his eyes.
+From Saint Petersburg they had sent him to a prison in Siberia. He had
+escaped, crossed half of Asia on foot and alone, as far as a Chinese
+seaport, and there he had taken ship for the United States. The story of
+this tour of the world was told in a few words, as though it were a
+single walk on the boulevards.
+
+Michael Fedor took him to the palace. The Colonel seemed dismayed by
+Sergueff's presence, and drew back into his shell. He must remember his
+own connections with nobles of the Russian court! Some of them were
+former generals of police!
+
+The son of Princess Lubimoff talked for several days with the fugitive.
+The memory of his own expulsion from the court caused Michael vaguely to
+sympathize with this man who was likewise an exile. Besides, in the
+depths of his mind something of his mother's character was stirring,
+with all its inconsistencies and hazy vague desires. The officer of the
+Guard listened as attentively as a scholar to the doctrines of the
+revolutionist.
+
+"Why, those men are right!" he exclaimed with the passionate enthusiasm
+that the Princess herself expressed for every novelty.
+
+For the first few days he felt a yearning for martyrdom, a deep desire
+for renunciation, the mystic abnegation of the man of his race. He
+thought of many princes like himself, educated at court, with high
+social positions, who had given away their wealth to live among the poor
+and dedicate their lives to the triumph of truth and justice. He would
+do the same. He would reawaken to true life, and he was sure that his
+mother would approve. General Saldaña had given his blood to
+rehabilitate the past; he would give his to overcome all obstacles in
+the pathway of the future. Times change. The past consists of a certain
+number of centuries; the future is infinite.
+
+But Lubimoff was not a true Russian. No sooner had he decided to carry
+out his mystic determination, than the Latin love of pleasure reawakened
+in him. Life is good, and offers many pleasant things! For him the tree
+of life was still overflowing with sap; there still remained for him so
+many leafy springs, so many fruitful summers! Later, perhaps, when only
+the dry wood remained....
+
+The one positive and immediate result of this resurrection was Michael's
+sense of his own ignorance and of the emptiness of his life. There was
+something in the world besides knowing languages, wielding rapiers, and
+riding horses. Man should seek the realization of his greatness in more
+serious enterprises than love making, duels and betting. Fate, in giving
+him wealth, had exempted him from the harsh necessity of work. But that
+was no reason why he should renounce making his mark in the world, as he
+passed through it, just as thousands of his predecessors had done, and
+as millions of men to come would continue to do.
+
+For the first time in his life Michael sought the comradeship of books,
+and this initial reading stirred him with a new desire. He made up his
+mind to know the world, to see strange countries, to struggle with the
+blind forces, which form the pulsing of the planet, and to live the
+coarse rough adventures of men who go from port to port. His father had
+told him of remote ancestors of the Saldaña family, who had gained
+titles and fortunes by setting sail from humble Spanish harbors,
+swooping out like sea gulls across the gloomy Ocean, in the track of
+Columbus and the Pinzons, in search of new lands of mystery. An ancestor
+of his, disembarking with the aged Ponce de Leon in Florida, in search
+of the famous "Fountain of Youth," had been one of the discoverers of
+the present United States. The first Saldaña to be a noble had obtained
+his title of "don" by founding a city in the neighborhood of Panama. Why
+should he not be a navigator like his forebears, a wanderer of the seas,
+enjoying exotic pleasures, and perhaps succeeding in wresting some
+secret from the blue deep?
+
+Life in that palace which his mother's mania had rendered ugly, was
+becoming uncomfortable and distasteful, and was impelling him to flee.
+The Princess did not make the slightest objection, when informed that
+her son desired to buy a yacht to navigate the seven seas. Let him do
+so, by all means! It was a princely pastime, quite worthy of a Prince
+Lubimoff. They were constantly growing richer. The oil, the platinum,
+all the precious ores of their properties and the products of their
+lands, as large as nations, made up an enormous income. The preceding
+year it had reached the sum of seventeen million francs: a million a
+month! For a single private family it meant unbelievable wealth, and the
+Princess Lubimoff, who had temporarily regained her sanity, modestly
+added:
+
+"But for a queen it isn't much."
+
+In England Michael purchased a sailing yacht, with a sharp bow, bold
+masts, and an auxiliary engine, and gave it the Spanish name for the sea
+gull, the "Gaviota."
+
+His idea was to continue on the ocean the life he had led on land,
+selecting, however, only its most interesting phases. For that reason he
+decided to take Sergueff along. The teacher seemed melancholy, as though
+the comforts and the liberal sums of money which the Prince bestowed on
+him weighed on his conscience like remorse. He had something more urgent
+to do in the world than voyage idly hither and thither in a luxurious
+boat. He disappeared one day, to return to Russia, as though the gallows
+had a fascination for him. Or was it that he preferred, in case of
+better luck than that, to travel once again around the world, but in his
+own manner?
+
+The Colonel, as the aide de camp of the Prince, felt obliged to embark.
+He had never yet left "his boy's" side! But, oh, he was not blessed with
+sea legs, and, much less, with a sea stomach! He was a hero of the
+mountains! They were obliged to send him back to Paris from a port in
+Brazil.
+
+The voyage of the _Gaviota_ lasted for five years. In the second year
+Michael Fedor thought his career as a navigator was about to be
+interrupted. The war between Russia and Japan had just broken out and he
+cabled from a Pacific port, asking for his former place in the Guard.
+The reply was a long time in coming. The Czar was still angry with him
+and kept him in exile.
+
+"So much the better!" Michael finally said to himself in a voice choked
+with anger. He guessed what was going to happen; what was to be the
+final fate of those brave Russians of the sharp sabers, when they came
+to face the astute little yellow men who had silently gone on
+appropriating the most scientific occidental arts of killing.
+
+His adventures in the various ports, his relations with women of every
+race and color, were sufficient to fill his life.
+
+"I am studying geography," he wrote Don Marcos, after inquiring about
+his mother's health. "I am studying the geography of love."
+
+It was not long before he was obliged to interrupt his cruise to return
+to the Princess. The physicians had ordered her away from the Paris
+palace, with its gloomy decorations so stimulating to her obsessions.
+They were sending her to the Riviera to drink sunlight and open air.
+
+And poor Maria Stuart, absolutely _incognito_, went from one large hotel
+to another, occupying entire floors with her retinue of much beaten
+Russian servants and much adored soothsayers and witch doctors. She was
+the despair of the hotel keepers, who were always glad to see her
+depart, though she alone paid more than all the other guests put
+together.
+
+Her son found her looking like a specter in her flowing mourning garb.
+She was weaker and thinner, and her eyes had taken on an alarming, fixed
+stare, which gave one the creeps. Her complexion had lost its former
+whiteness, gradually growing darker as though burned by an inner fire.
+For the moment her sole preoccupation was the construction of a palace
+on the Blue Coast. On French territory, in sight of Monte Carlo, she had
+bought a small promontory, a spur of land and rocks jutting out into the
+sea, a ridge covered with century-old olive trees and gnarled pines. She
+was kept busy quarreling with a stubborn old couple, an aged peasant and
+his wife, who were refusing to sell her the extreme point of the
+headland. She had already spent many thousands of francs on the plans of
+the future palace. Architects, painters, and landscape gardeners were
+constantly working for her, making studies of the historic past, in the
+endeavor to view of the Mediterranean an enormous Scottish castle
+express her imaginings. Her idea was to erect in full as Scotch as could
+possibly be imagined; in short, according to the Princess, it was to be
+"a novel of Walter Scott, done in stone."
+
+Michael was frightened. The sumptuous dungeon in Paris was to be
+repeated in the face of that luminous sea, in one of the most smiling
+landscapes of the earth. Behind his mother's back he talked with all the
+men who were working on the future Villa Sirena, the "Villa of the
+Sirens." The Princess had selected this name, in the conviction that on
+moonlight nights the daughters of the briny deep would come and visit
+her, singing on the reefs beneath her window. That was the least they
+could do for her!
+
+Each day the veil of mystery was opening more widely before her eyes,
+allowing her to see things which for others were invisible.
+
+Don Marcos, who, deserted by his former pupil, had gone back to the
+Princess, likewise received instructions from Lubimoff. He was to
+prevent the unhappy lady from perpetrating such a sacrilege on the
+Mediterranean. But what could the poor Colonel do with that madwoman who
+spent whole weeks without speaking to him, as though she did not know
+who he was!
+
+The Prince returned to his yacht, and a year later being by chance in
+upper Norway on his return from an expedition to the Arctic Ocean, he
+received the sad but expected news. His mother had died, just as she saw
+rising from among the olive trees and pines of the rosy promontory, the
+beginning of huge stone walls artificially blackened like the painted
+panels in the antique shops, and which looked as though they were about
+to fall in ruins from mere age, as soon as they had risen from the
+ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Michael arrived in time to receive the body of the Princess in Paris.
+Before her death her mind had been illuminated by the sudden flare of
+reason which is the signal of the end in cases of serious mental
+disturbances. She had left various papers on which she had noted loans
+made to certain persons, and judicious suggestions for her son in regard
+to the management of the enormous fortune. She wanted to be buried
+beside her husband, her first husband, "the hero," in the Père Lachaise
+cemetery. During the last years she had stayed in Paris, she had been
+seized once more by the craze for building, and had busied herself with
+the preparation of her final dwelling place. Beside the mausoleum of the
+Marquis of Villablanca, whose image, frowning and indomitable, held in
+one hand a broken sword, she had set up another monument no less
+ostentatious with a statue which was supposed to be her exact likeness
+and was nothing less than the semblance of the unhappy Queen of Scots,
+as it appears in the engraving of the Romanticist period.
+
+During the funeral ceremonies, Michael Fedor met again many persons who
+formerly visited the Lubimoff palace, and whom he had thought were dead.
+Doña Mercedes in tears embraced him. She had become extraordinarily
+stout, and the coppery complexion inherited from her Aztec ancestors had
+taken on an unhealthy ascetic pallor. She looked like the Mother
+Superior of a noble convent of nuns. At her side, Monsignor, in his silk
+cassock and with an air of compunction, was moving his lips to save the
+dead woman's soul. "My son! We have all our sorrows." And as she said
+this, the poor lady looked at another woman elegantly dressed in
+mourning who stood there somewhat aloof, in the cemetery, and seemed
+utterly incapacitated by the ceremony which had obliged her to rise
+before noon.
+
+The Duchess de Delille also came forward to meet him, taking both his
+hands and giving him a strange glance.
+
+"Your mother loved me ... really loved me. During these last years we
+saw each other very often."
+
+Michael nodded assent. He knew that already. The Princess Lubimoff had
+been the one loyal friend of this passionate unscrupulous woman, who was
+gradually losing every one's respect. She had defended Alicia when other
+high society women declared open war and closed their doors to her,
+fearing for their husbands' fidelity. As she used to play every winter
+at Monte Carlo, she had been in the company of the Princess up to the
+last moments.
+
+"She loved me more than my mother ever did.... Perhaps she remembered
+that I might have been her daughter."
+
+The Prince walked away, as though annoyed by this allusion. He had heard
+such things about her!... But all during the ceremony he kept seeing her
+in his mind's eye. She was still beautiful, but so strangely beautiful.
+Her skin had lost the golden tinge of ripened fruit, and now was pale,
+the dull white of Japanese paper. Her large eyes, which gave off green
+and yellow glints, stared with disturbing fixity and seemed at the same
+time to have a blank expression, as though covered by an invisible
+spider web. Her least bitter enemies accused her of a certain propensity
+for spirits. She drank all sorts of American mixed drinks like an
+habitué of the bars. Other people attributed her pallor and the
+continual darkly bewildered look in her eyes to morphine, opium and all
+the various liquids and perfumes producing lethargy and creating
+"artificial paradise." The little Alicia of former years was drinking,
+draining it to the last drop from the cup of life in deep draughts.
+
+Michael Fedor thought that he had seen the last of her, but a few days
+later he began to receive letters. He was alone, and must be feeling
+sad, so she was inviting him to come and eat with her, informally, of
+course, as was natural among close relatives. His evasions brought fresh
+invitations by telephone. The Prince, like a person fulfulling a
+tiresome social obligation, finally went one evening to her little
+palace in the Avenue du Bois, one of the numerous imitations of the
+Petit Trianon, which are to be found in various parts of the world.
+
+The Duchess de Delille was proud of this edifice and the tiny garden
+with its sharp, gilded grating, in front of which all fashionable Paris
+passed. Michael was acquainted with the drawing rooms without ever
+having been inside them. The illustrated journals, which cover the
+styles of wealthy social life, had published photographs, in Europe and
+America, of the interior of her residence. Gossip had kept him informed
+of Alicia's strange life. She had suddenly been taken with the mad
+desire of seeing people, of being admired, and of astonishing every one
+by her prodigality. She gave a series of great fêtes, and publicly
+protested because the municipality of Paris would not allow her to
+illuminate the entire Champs Élysées and the Arch of Triumph so that her
+guests might ride up to her very door in a fiery apotheosis. She had
+given a garden party in the Bois de Boulogne, with water sports, and
+dances of sacred dancers, brought from Asia. The buffet supper had been
+prepared for three thousand guests. On another occasion, for a single
+costume ball, she spent a hundred thousand francs, to transform part of
+her residence into an interior of Persian style and the next day she
+began to have the rooms restored to their original state.
+
+Suddenly she would disappear, and people would wink and make malicious
+comments because she left no address. Some new love affair! Hers were
+nearly always wandering fancies, that called for long trips and new
+horizons! Perhaps she was in Constantinople or in Egypt; perhaps she was
+in hiding in one of the large New York hotels. At times such guesses
+were right; and then again the most intimate friends of the Duchess
+could affirm that she had not left Paris. Was not her automobile
+standing in front of the door?
+
+This was another of Alicia's eccentricities. At all hours of the day and
+night, one of her various expensive cars was kept in readiness in front
+of the stairway. Three chauffeurs divided the service between them. They
+stayed in the porter's quarters; and as soon as the bell was heard, they
+had only to put on their gloves, run to the machine, and start the
+motor. She often chose the most extraordinary hours for going out.
+Sometimes it would be just after returning from a ball, then again she
+would get up for a ride after she had gone to bed. Frequently she would
+select the early morning hours which were usually her time of soundest
+sleep.
+
+At times the chauffeurs would succeed each other, week after week,
+without leaving the gate of the mansion. The Duchess did not care to go
+out. She no longer felt her sudden impulses to ride aimlessly about
+Paris, while the city slept, pay unseasonable calls, or glide through
+the woods on the outskirts of the capital at the height of some violent
+storm. Meantime, the autos seemed to age, as they stood there
+motionless, now with their wheels deep in the snow of the courtyard, and
+again with the glass of the wind shield flecked with the tear drops of
+the slanting rain, that swept under the glass covered porte-cochère.
+During all such periods, Alicia, in spite of her restless impulsive
+nature, would be spending whole days in bed, telling her intimate
+friends that to keep one's beauty one must take a "rest cure" from time
+to time. She would entertain her friends at dinner without getting out
+of bed. The table would be spread in luxurious fashion in her large
+bedroom, and lying between the sheets, with the dishes within reach on a
+tiny table, she would laugh and chat for hours with her guests. Months
+would go by without her seeing the outside of her house, while the
+costly objects in her rooms, amassed to indulge her whims, were quite
+forgotten. Her vanity was satisfied, at such times, by the mere fact of
+having constructed a costly jewel case to harbor her idleness.
+
+The Prince met her in a little reception room on the ground floor. She
+was in truth receiving him with absolute lack of ceremony. She was
+dressed in a black tunic of her own invention, a combination of the
+Greek peplum and the Japanese kimono. Her bare arms floated free from
+the soft silk that almost seemed to live, it clung so closely to her
+body. Underneath it, half revealed, were the contours and perfumed
+warmth of her flesh, hidden by no inner veils. Michael glanced at his
+tuxedo and gleaming shirt-front as though his own costume were quite out
+of place.
+
+As she took him to the elevator, which was white and quilted like a
+glove box, he caught a rapid glimpse of the drawing rooms of the lower
+floor, ostentatious, but left in a shadow almost as dark as night; of
+the large dining-hall, deserted, with the furniture covered; of the
+little dining-room in which there were no signs whatsoever of
+preparations.... Where was she taking him?... Was the table set in her
+bedroom?
+
+The elevator passed the second floor without stopping? "We are going to
+my study," said Alicia. "I eat there when I am alone."
+
+The Prince was amazed at the so-called "study," a large room which
+occupied a major portion of the third floor, and in which only one or
+two books in a small book-rack were to be seen. The place was decorated
+in imitation "Far East" style: plain black lacquer furniture, silk
+either of pale shades or of an intense dark purple, and an array of
+frightful idols. A diffused bluish light, like that used in night scenes
+on the stage, descended from the ceiling. A screen, embroidered with a
+design in gold, formed a sort of second more intimate room, the floor of
+which was covered with white rugs of fur, with long, silky hair. Heaped
+about were dozens of pillows of various colors adorned with winged
+reptiles and unheard of flowers.
+
+An exotic, penetrating odor made Lubimoff wince. He knew that perfume.
+And there was a look of severity in his eyes as he glanced sharply at
+the Duchess.
+
+"Sit down," she said. "They are going to serve us."
+
+As the Prince looked about, without seeing any sort of a chair, Alicia
+set him an example, dropping on a heap of cushions. Michael sat down in
+the same fashion, beside a tiny mother of pearl table no bigger than a
+tabouret. On it a lamp with a dark shade let fall a circle of soft
+light. Inwardly the Prince began to feel a boiling of suppressed anger
+as he thought of his evening wasted.
+
+"You must have eaten this way often," she continued, "you have traveled
+more than I. The style of decoration must be familiar to you."
+
+Yes; he knew the style, the original and authentic style, and for that
+very reason he did not care to see it again in imitation. Besides
+obliging him to eat on the floor, there in a house on the Avenue de
+Bois.... What an affectation!
+
+But in a short time his opinion began to change. A poseur she
+undoubtedly was, but affectation had already become a more or less
+natural trait in her, a sort of second nature. He guessed that even in
+its slightest details none of this had been prepared especially for him.
+Alicia lived and ate there when she was alone just as she was doing
+then. She was prey to a desire to be different from other people even
+when no one was noticing her.
+
+The servant in charge of the meal was a copper-colored man with a long
+down-curling mustache. He was dressed in a black tuxedo, with a white
+cloth wrapped around his legs like a skirt. He had long hair, done up on
+his head like a woman's and held in place by a tortoiseshell comb. The
+Asiatic was placing the huge trays containing the food on the floor:
+Some of the dishes were of ancient hammered silver, others of many
+colored lacquer, or of semi-transparent materials made in imitation of
+emerald, topaz, and red sealing wax.
+
+For Michael the meal looked like something a great chef might have
+prepared if he had suddenly gone mad and made up the dishes in the midst
+of his ravings. There was not a single item that suggested the
+harmonious course of an ordinary dinner. The palate acted on the
+imagination, awakening memories of distant travels, visions of far off
+lands. Exotic preserves alternated with hot dishes. Pastry flavored with
+penetrating perfumes was served along with sharp, biting, or intensely
+bitter sauces.
+
+Alicia, half reclining on the cushions, looking at the dishes without
+appetite, extended her hand carelessly toward the most unusual
+delicacies, and those with the most pungent and racy savors. Clearly
+the perversion of her palate was profound. She herself saw to it that
+Michael's glass was always filled. It was a drink of her own invention,
+having a champagne base. It burned and rasped his mouth, paralyzing all
+other sensation with its stinging coolness. It penetrated his nostrils
+with a lingering scent of the rarest flowers and of Asiatic spices.
+
+Speaking of the dead Princess, Alicia came to mention her own mother.
+They were now on terms of open hostility. Her eyes began to gleam with
+defiance as she was reminded of Doña Mercedes, confined in the
+Champs-Élysée residence with her court of clericals, and showing herself
+in public only for the organizing of pious works. She was trying to
+starve her only daughter to death!... And as Michael smiled at this
+explosion of anger, she explained her grievances.
+
+"She gives me hardly anything; a mere nothing: half a million francs.
+And I have to hand two hundred and fifty thousand a year over to my
+husband: a rather expensive lover, whom I avoid seeing. You are really
+rich, my dear, and don't understand such things.... Since the fortune is
+all in her name, she tries to starve me out and keeps her money to
+squander it with the priests.... Poor Señora! She can't find any
+admirers now except that _Monsignor_ and other sponges like him.... And
+I, her own daughter, have to implore her like a beggar for the crumbs
+she gives me, seasoned with sermons.... Oh, if it hadn't been for your
+mother! She really was a great lady: I never lamented my poverty to her
+in vain; she gave me even more than I asked for. You know of course that
+I owe you some money. A little.... I don't know how much. Didn't you
+really know that?... I shall pay you back when I get my inheritance."
+
+And with brutal frankness she expounded her full thought.
+
+"When will that bigot leave me in peace?... Old people ought to make way
+for the young. What fun do they get out of going on living?"
+
+They had finished eating. She went on filling both their glasses with
+her special drink. At first Michael had found it repugnant, but in the
+end he was attracted to its refreshing fragrance which gently troubled
+the senses, like an intoxication with perfumes.
+
+"Of course you use the pipe," said Alicia simply.
+
+He shook his head and thought of the odor which struck him on entering.
+He knew what sort of a "pipe" it was, and gazed about the study. The
+smoking den must be in some hidden corner!
+
+"A man like you!" she went on. "A sailor! And I fooled myself into
+thinking we'd smoke together!"
+
+She even gave him to understand that the hope of being able to give him
+that forbidden pleasure was the principal reason for her invitation. She
+became resigned when she learned that the Prince, vigorous as he was,
+suffered nausea every time he attempted to experiment with that Asiatic
+vice. And while he lighted a havana, Alicia took from a silver case the
+cigarettes which she smoked in the presence of the "uninitiated":
+Oriental tobacco, but heavily dosed with opium. Suddenly Michael was
+convinced of something of which he had a presentiment the moment he
+entered the place, or even earlier, the moment their glances had met in
+the cemetery. He saw her half rising from the cushions, with a
+panther-like contraction of her muscles, as though she were ready to
+spring at him. It was the concentrated impulse of the beast, beautiful
+and sure of its power, unable to wait, and not knowing how to feign.
+
+Alicia had forgotten the demi-tasse she held in her hand, as she sat
+there, looking at him fixedly. The tiny blue electric spark dancing in
+her eyes was something well known to Michael.
+
+It was the offering glance of female silence, inviting violence, and
+mastery. He had encountered that glance often along his path of triumph
+as a conquering millionaire.... He felt he must say something at once to
+break the silent charm of the beautiful witch, who, sure of her final
+victory, was smiling and blowing puffs of cigarette smoke toward him. So
+Michael alluded to her amorous fame, to the great number of lovers she
+was supposed to have had. That might widen the distance between them.
+
+"Ah! You too?" said Alicia laughing, with masculine frankness. "I don't
+suppose your morals are the same as Mamma's! You are not going to read
+me a sermon on my behavior. Although, after all, Mamma doesn't blame me
+for what I do. What makes her angry is the fact that I am not afraid of
+what people say, and that sometimes I am attracted to unknown men of low
+birth. Poor Señora! If I were to have an affair with a king or a crown
+prince, perhaps she'd even let us see each other in her house, and have
+her _Monsignor_ mount guard into the bargain."
+
+She remained silent for a moment. That disturbing glance was still fixed
+on Michael.
+
+"It is true; I have had a lot of men. And how about you? Do you think I
+don't know about your wanderings all over the planet in quest of types
+of women unknown to the novels and capable of giving new sensations?...
+We have both done the same: only it wasn't necessary for me to travel
+around so much to learn just what you have learned.... And you are not
+so absurd as to imagine, as certain men do, that our cases are not to
+be compared because we are of different sexes."
+
+The Prince listened silently as she expounded her ideas. She was deeply
+in love with life, and in return she demanded all that life could give
+her.... The minds of other women were occupied with questions of a
+material nature: desire for wealth, longings for luxury, domestic
+cares.... As for her, she possessed everything; to-morrow held no
+worries for her; not even in regard to her beauty, sustained as it was
+by wonderful health, and seeming to increase in spite of age and her
+prodigal waste of energies.
+
+In her life, made up of caprices, always completely satisfied, even to
+the point of satiety, only one thing interested her, from its infinite
+variety and from its many phases, which might seem to vulgar people a
+monotonous repetition of one another, but which in reality were distinct
+for a mind attuned, as hers was, to exquisite sensations. That thing was
+love.
+
+"Oh please understand me, Michael; don't sit there laughing to yourself.
+You know me too well ever to imagine that I believe in love as the
+majority of women do. I know that a certain amount of illusion is
+necessary to color the material aspect of love; we all lie about it a
+little, and we enjoy the lie even though we know it as such; but way
+down deep, I laugh at love as the world understands it, just as I laugh
+at so many things which people venerate.... I don't want lovers, I want
+admirers. I am not looking for love; I care more for adoration."
+
+She was proud of her beauty. She spoke of Venus as though the goddess
+were a real person. She admired the Olympic serenity with which the
+Deity of Passion gave herself to gods and men, never surrendering her
+superiority even at the moment when she was submitting to the
+domination of the stronger sex. Alicia considered herself a
+super-beauty, belonging to a sphere outside the ordinary limits of vice
+and virtue. She thought herself a living work of art; and art is neither
+moral nor immoral; its mission is fulfilled when it is beautiful.
+
+"Poets, painters, and musicians seek to abandon themselves to the
+greatest number of admirers. They do their utmost to enlarge their
+circle of public worshipers and with feminine coquetry they try to
+attract new suitors. I am like them. I do not need to create beauty, for
+as they say, I have it in myself. I am my own work, but I love glory; I
+need admiration; and for that reason I give myself generously, content
+with the happiness which I apportion, but keeping my public at my feet,
+without allowing myself to be dominated by those whom I seek."
+
+Michael was sure that many artists must have left their imprint on that
+woman's life. It was evident in the words and imagery with which she
+endeavored to express her enthusiasm for her own body. Her pride in her
+beauty was boundless. What were the ambitions of men, compared to the
+satisfaction of being lovely and desired? Only the glory of warriors, of
+blood-stained conquerors, whose names are known even in the remotest
+wilds of the earth, equals the glory that a woman feels in the sense of
+universal power over men.
+
+"To me," continued Alicia, "the truest and most beautiful thing ever
+written is 'the old men on the wall.'"
+
+The Prince looked at her questioningly; so she went on to explain. She
+referred to the old Trojan men in the _Iliad_, who were protesting
+against the long siege of their city, against the blood sacrifice of
+thousands of heroes, against poverty and hardship, all due to the fault
+of a woman.... But Helen, majestic in her beauty, passed before the old
+men, trailing her golden tunic; and they all lapsed into silent
+contemplation, rapt in wonder, as though divine Aphrodite had descended
+upon earth; and they murmured like a prayer: "It is indeed fitting that
+we should suffer thus for her. So lovely she is!"
+
+"I like to see men suffer on my account. How glorious if I might be the
+cause of a great slaughter, like that ancient immortal woman!... I have
+an exultant feeling of pride when I notice that envy and spite are
+whispering behind my back, starting all that gossip that makes my mother
+so furious. Only extraordinary people stir up torrents of abuse.... And
+afterwards, in the drawing rooms, the very same austere gentlemen who
+have seconded all that their wives and daughters have to say against me,
+look at me with sly admiring glances, as I pass; and some of them blush
+in confusion and others turn pale. It is easy to guess that I have only
+to beckon and their silent admiration would.... I too have my 'old men
+on the wall.'"
+
+Michael suddenly realized that while she was talking she had been coming
+gradually closer, from cushion to cushion as she lay resting on her
+elbows. She was almost at his feet, with head held high, endeavoring to
+envelop him in a wave of magnetism from her fixed and dominating eyes.
+She seemed like a black and white snake, twisting forward little by
+little among the cushions as though they were rocks of various colors.
+
+"The only man of whom I have ever thought the least bit, the only one I
+ever considered at all different from other men," she continued in a
+half whisper, "is you.... Don't be alarmed: it isn't love. I am not
+going to invert rôles, and propose to you. Perhaps it is because, as
+children, we used to hate each other; because you never wanted me. That
+is such an unheard of thing in my life, that it alone is enough to
+interest me."
+
+She put her hands on his knees, as though she were about to rise.
+
+"When I saw you in the cemetery, after so many years, I remembered all
+that I had heard about you. Many women whom I know have been sweethearts
+of yours, and I said to myself: Why not I, too? Then I thought of all
+the men who have come into my life, and I added: Why not he?" ...
+
+And now Alicia's elbows were resting on his knees, and as the Prince was
+seated on but two pillows, their lips and eyes were almost on a level.
+As she talked he could feel her breath on his face. It was like the
+breeze in an Asiatic forest, whispering beneath the moon. The spices and
+flowers with which the wine was saturated seemed to float in that
+volatile caress.
+
+Michael tried to avoid her advance, but one of Alicia's hands was
+already on his shoulder. He merely shook his head.
+
+"Don't be afraid," she added, exaggerating the caressing quality of her
+sigh. "There are no embarrassing obligations with me. You may leave me
+when you wish; perhaps I shall be the one to leave you first. I have
+wanted you for the last few days. You must surely desire me as the
+others do.... Let us live this moment, like people who know the secret
+of life and all it can give.... Then if we tire of each other, good-by,
+with no hard feeling and no pining!"
+
+When from time to time in after years the Prince recalled that scene, he
+always felt a certain dissatisfaction with himself. He was sure he had
+seemed brutal as well as ridiculous. In his travels he had approached
+women frequently in the most matter of fact way, often remembering them
+afterwards with some repugnance; yet here he was, rebelling with a
+feeling of offended modesty at the advances of the Duchess. No! With
+her, never! Rising within him he felt the same displeasure that had once
+made him raise his whip in his youth.
+
+He found himself on his feet in the middle of the study, looking
+anxiously toward the door and muttering stupid excuses. "No, I must go:
+it is late. Some friends are waiting for me...." She had gained control
+of herself. She too was standing looking at him with astonishment and
+wrath.
+
+"You are the only one who could do a thing like this," she said, in a
+cutting tone, as they parted. "I see it all clearly now. I hate you as
+you hate me. My whim was a stupid one. You have permitted yourself a
+liberty which no one in the world will ever be able to take again. If I
+were younger than I am I would thrash you again as I did in the Bois;
+but instead, just consider that I am repeating everything I said then."
+
+They did not see each other again.
+
+When the Prince had set in order everything concerning the inheritance
+from his mother, he thought of resuming his voyages, but on a more
+magnificent scale. It was no longer necessary for him to ask the
+Princess for money. He was one of the great millionaires of the world.
+Those who were in charge of the administration of his affairs--an office
+with numerous clerks, almost equalling the government bureau of a small
+state--made the announcement that the fifteen million francs which the
+Princess had received annually would soon be twenty, through the
+development of Russian railways, which allowed more intensive working of
+his mines.
+
+The Colonel was commissioned to have the heavy medieval walls of Villa
+Sirena torn down, and the place replanned according to the Prince's
+tastes. The latter hated architectural resuscitations. He could not bear
+modern buildings patterned to flatter the pride of the rich proprietors,
+after the Alhambra, the palaces of Florence, or the solemn and orderly
+constructions of Versailles.
+
+"The furniture ought to correspond to the period," said Michael, "and
+people ought to live in such houses as they lived in in the century
+which produced that particular style. People living in an ancient house
+ought to dress and eat as in former times.... What an absurdity to
+reconstruct those historic shells, with the interior arranged to suit
+the needs of modern men who are forced to commit an anachronism at every
+step!"
+
+He recalled the project of a millionaire friend of his, a member of the
+Institute, who had built a Roman house on the Riviera, Roman in all the
+exactness of its details. At the house-warming the guests were obliged
+to sleep on corded beds and to eat reclining on couches; and even more
+intimate conveniences were modeled on the principle of hygiene known to
+the ancient Cæsars. Within twenty-four hours they all pretended they had
+received urgent telegrams calling them to Paris, and the owner himself
+after a few months, left his house in charge of a keeper to show to
+tourists as a museum.
+
+Michael was fond of modern architecture, whose cathedrals are machine
+shops and large railway stations. Applied to dwellings it pleased him
+for its lack of style: white walls, a few moldings, rounded corners,
+with no angles whatsoever, so that the dust might be pursued to its
+remotest hiding places, wide openings letting in the breeze and the
+sunlight, double walls between which hot or cold air, and water at
+various temperatures, could circulate.
+
+"Up to the present time," the Prince asserted, "man has lived in
+magnificent jewel cases of art and filth. Modern architects have done
+more in the last thirty years to make life pleasant than the
+artist-builders, so much admired by history, did in three thousand. They
+have declared running water and the bath-room as indispensable, things
+which were unknown to kings themselves half a century ago. They have
+invented the furnace and the water closet. Don't talk to me about the
+magnificent palaces of Versailles, where there was not a single toilet,
+and where every morning the lackeys were obliged to empty two hundred
+vessels for the king and his courtiers. Often to be through quicker,
+they threw their contents out of the majestic windows, and sometimes it
+would fall on the sedan chair and the retinue of a Dauphine or an
+ambassador."
+
+Toledo applied himself to supervising the construction of Villa Sirena
+in accordance with the desires of the Prince, making it a plain white
+building, and without any definite style of architecture. Lubimoff
+himself, at the proper time, would take charge of the artistic touches,
+placing famous pictures, statues, tapestries, or rugs, just where they
+would be most pleasing to the eye. The house was to be a harmony of
+simple, pure lines. The walls were to have heating and cooling systems
+for the different seasons, and running water was to be available in
+abundance everywhere. Each room was to have its electric lights and its
+electric fan.
+
+The Prince found it a much easier task to make over his wandering ocean
+residence. He simply sold the Gaviota, which reminded him of his
+youthful dependence on his family, and went to the United States to look
+into an advertisement. Three years before a certain multimillionaire had
+begun the construction of a yacht, designed to be more luxurious and of
+greater tonnage than that of any European sovereign. As the American was
+about to witness the consummation of this triumph of the democratic
+kings of industry over the historic kings of the Old World, he was
+killed in an automobile accident, and his heirs did not know what to do
+with the leviathan which would only be of use to an immensely rich,
+and, in their opinion, somewhat crazy traveler. They were thinking of
+selling it at a loss to the Kaiser, William II, having decided finally
+to endure his demands as a sharp business man, when Prince Lubimoff
+appeared. A week later on the white stern and bows of the yacht a new
+name in gold letters was displayed, a name that was repeated in addition
+on the life preservers and on the various tenders, the dingies, the
+steam launches, and the motor boats. The American yacht had become the
+_Gaviota II_.
+
+It had the tonnage of a small trans-Atlantic liner and the speed of a
+torpedo boat. Each day the wealth of an ordinary man went up in smoke
+through the _Gaviota II's_ double funnels. During a trip to some distant
+island, the supply of coal gave out. Immediately a collier chartered by
+the Prince, came to meet the _Gaviota II_ in the farthest seas to fill
+the bunkers with fuel.
+
+Quiet harbors came to be illuminated at night, as though the sun had
+risen. When the Prince gave a _fête_, the ship would be a blaze of glory
+from the water to the mastheads, its outline marked by electric bulbs of
+various colors, while powerful searchlights shot out movable streams of
+radiance and drew the waves, the shores, and rows of city houses from
+the depths of the darkness. At other times, the white fire of the
+_Gaviota II's_ monstrous eyes would flash on walls of ice towering to
+the clouds, and seals, penguins, and polar bears would waken from sleep
+frightened by the strange luminous, puffing monster that darted off like
+lightning into the mystery of night.
+
+To be the owner of a floating palace which, when anchoring off large
+cities, drew such crowds of sightseers as rare spectacles only attract,
+was not enough for Michael Fedor. So he created something more
+interesting even than the luxurious salons, and the refinements of
+comfort of the _Gaviota II_: he built up an orchestra.
+
+Sensuous delight in music was for him the most exquisite of emotions.
+When his ears were satiated with the sweetness and melody of traditional
+music, he sought unknown and often bizarre composers, who aroused his
+curiosity; but he always came back to demanding as the _pièces de
+résistance_ of his harmonic feasts, the masters who had been his first
+love, and above all, Beethoven.
+
+Treated as though they were officers, paid to their liking, and with the
+added inducement of being able to see a great deal of the world,
+musicians from every country offered their services to the yacht's
+orchestra. Famous concert players and young composers came in as mere
+instrumentalists. Some were ill, and sought to regain their health in a
+voyage around the world in real luxury and without expense; others
+embarked through love of adventure, to see new lands in this floating
+castle, in which everything seemed organized for an eternal holiday.
+There were never less than fifty of them.
+
+"My orchestra is the finest in the world," the Prince would proudly say
+when his guests complimented him after one of the concerts his musicians
+gave at rare intervals on land.
+
+In tropical nights, beneath the enormous honey-colored moon changing the
+sea to a vast plain of quick-silver, the musicians, seated in evening
+clothes before the rows of music racks illuminated by tiny electric
+lights, would weave on the quiet air, which seemed to have retained the
+first faint cries of the planet at its birth, the most original
+melodies, the most subtle combination of sounds that the sublime rapture
+of artists in god-like inspiration ever created. The music floated out
+behind the boat in the mystery of the ocean, like a scarf unfolding,
+breaking and scattering in fragments, with the smoke of the funnels.
+When the orchestra paused one could hear the distant subdued beat of the
+propellers, churning the foam with a humming sound; and then from time
+to time the slow tolling of the bell calling the men on watch, or the
+cry of the lookout snuggled into the crow's nest on the mainmast,
+reporting his vigilance with the rhythmic intonation of a muezzin from a
+minaret. And the monotonous music of the sea gave an impression of
+night, and of immensity, to the music of man.
+
+At the foot of the companionways, or on the outjutting parts of the
+lower decks, the various officers and officials of the Prince gathered
+to hear the concert in the night. On the prow the sailors squatted,
+listening to the music in religious silence, as is often the case with
+simple men when confronted with something they do not understand, but
+which inspires awe. Aft, the only listener would be Michael Fedor,
+standing at a distance from the music, and with his back toward the
+musicians, watching at his feet, the divided, foaming waters which
+rushed by like a double river far out and away from the boat. As
+occasionally he raised his cigar to his lips, his pensive features would
+appear for a moment in the darkness, lighted by the red glow.
+
+The yacht held another more silent group. Those who succeeded in getting
+on board in the ports always obtained a distant glimpse of a woman or
+two with white shoes, blue skirts, jackets with rows of gold buttons,
+masculine collars and neckties, and officers' caps. No one knew for
+certain how many such women there may have been. The men of the crew
+were forbidden access to the central quarters of the boat, and to the
+upper deck. Some of them, chancing to break the rule through oversight,
+had met the Prince's companions attired in elegant naval uniforms, or
+more lightly clad, like dancers, in elaborate and exotic costumes. At
+the large ports, steam launches landed these mysterious and beautiful
+travelers for a few hours on shore. It was remarked that they dressed
+with modest elegance and that they would speak various languages.
+
+When the _Gaviota II_ returned and anchored in the same harbor she had
+visited the preceding year, those whose curiosity had been aroused found
+that the personnel of the wandering harem had been completely renewed.
+They might occasionally recognize one or two of the former ladies, but
+now their faces wore the placid expression of the odalisque who has been
+supplanted, but is nevertheless contented with luxury and oblivion.
+
+Some years Michael Fedor suspended his travels, during the summer, to
+take up his abode at fashionable beaches. The women who accompanied him
+on his long voyages remained on board, with all the lavish comforts to
+which they were accustomed. At other times he parted with them, as one
+dismisses a crew when a ship goes out of commission, at the end of a
+trip.
+
+Immediately he became interested in women living stay-at-home lives, in
+shore society, and in summer flirtations at famous watering places. He
+would take up his abode in a hotel on the coast, while his yacht was to
+be seen rising from the azure waters, motionless, like a palace of
+mystery and magnificence, the center of all feminine imaginings.
+
+Living in Biarritz he came to know Atilio Castro intimately through
+learning that they were related on his father's side. The Spaniard
+admired the fascination exercised by the Prince, often without wishing
+to do so, on all women.
+
+Never at any period had women been more strongly attracted by luxury or
+felt less scruples in the means of obtaining it than at present. This
+was the opinion of Castro. Lavish display, which in other centuries had
+been within reach of only the very few families, was now possible for
+every one. All one needed to indulge in it was money. Besides, it was
+necessary to take into account present-day progress in material things,
+which has made life easier, but at the same time has increased our
+needs.
+
+"The motor car and the pearl necklace have made more victims than the
+wars of Napoleon," said Atilio.
+
+"These two things are like the gala uniform of women, and those who are
+forced to go without them consider themselves unfortunate and ill
+treated by fate. This twin image has shattered the illusions of maidens
+and the fidelity of wives. Mothers in middle class society, with
+melancholy dejection written on their faces as though they had made
+stupid failures of their lives, advise their daughters: 'If you are
+going to get married, make sure you will get an auto and a pearl
+necklace.' And long after the modest marriage this desire still remains,
+strengthened by maternal advice. Luxury is the one thought, luxury at
+whatever cost. Luxury has been democratized. It is within reach of all,
+obtainable through money, which has no taint, no odor, no sign of its
+origin."
+
+"You are the great provider of the expensive motor car of fashionable
+make and of the rope of pearls," continued Castro. "You are the great
+Sultan of magnificence. Your signature to a check is enough to sweep a
+woman off her feet in a torrent of gold. Make the most of your
+opportunity! The period in which you were born has left you an open
+field for your talents."
+
+And the Prince, who was not at all in need of such advice, went his way
+as conqueror through a world in which the best accredited virtues
+collapsed before his attack. Even sincere resistance finally appeared to
+him to be a clever device for postponing surrender and increasing the
+market value of desire. The millions from Russia were scattered
+broadcast in smaller and smaller subdivisions, maintaining the well
+being and display of many homes, indulging the taste for luxury of
+numerous ladies, and keeping numberless factories busy producing elegant
+novelties of female luxury. A few women felt a sincere interest in
+Michael Fedor for his own sake, because of the mysterious prestige of
+his voyages in a boat which was talked about as though it were an
+enchanted palace; and also because of his adventures with celebrated
+actresses and women of high society, which made him more attractive. But
+once their vanity and curiosity were satisfied, they allowed their own
+self-interest to have a word. "Why should I be any more altruistic than
+the rest?"
+
+They were not obliged to use cunning or round-about phrases in
+formulating their requests. Some at the second meeting, took on a
+melancholy air, and spoke of the sad realities of life. But the generous
+Prince anticipated their desires. He preferred to pay his mistresses and
+dazzle them with splendid gifts. Thus he could regard them as favored
+slaves covered with jewels. In this way also, it was easier to break
+with them: He could go away from them whenever he so desired, satisfied
+with his own behavior, and quite unmoved by their tears and laments.
+From his semi-oriental Russian ancestors he had inherited a great
+sensual capacity, which caused him to be attracted to women, and at the
+same time to feel an inalterable scorn for them. He indulged them but
+could not love them; he adored them, but was stirred to indignation when
+they presumed to be on terms of equality with him. He was capable of
+ruining himself, of braving death for them, but he was ready to thrust
+them aside with his foot if they tried in the least to govern his life.
+The ambitious ones who feigned deep, passionate love for him in the hope
+of marriage, the sentimental ones who tried to interest him with
+psychological subtleties, and those who kept their maternal enthusiasm
+even in adultery, and murmured in his ear how happy they would be to
+have a child who might resemble him, waited for him in vain the
+following day. "Neither deep passion, nor children!" ... Two trails of
+smoke were soon rising from the yacht, carrying its owner to another
+port or perhaps to another continent: or if he wished to flee from a
+city in the interior, he gave orders that his private car should be
+coupled to the first train that was leaving.
+
+These flights were never undertaken without a generous remembrance.
+Michael Fedor's munificence continued for those whom he had abandoned.
+Each year new names were added to his budget, like that of a reigning
+house which allots pensions to its forgotten servants. But the pensions
+of Prince Lubimoff were for the maintenance of luxury and not of life.
+The most modest were over thirty thousand francs a year. The average was
+double that amount.
+
+"Your Excellency: there will have to be a revision," his administrator
+would say.
+
+Michael would examine the list of names, hesitating at a few. He could
+not recall clearly the persons who bore them. Then suddenly he would
+smile, as certain visions were suddenly and attractively awakened in his
+mind. He was immensely wealthy: why not keep up the luxury which was the
+one dream of all of them?... He was not disturbed by the jealous thought
+that his successors would be reaping the benefit of that luxury.
+
+He felt a certain god-like pride in making his generosity felt at all
+times, without letting himself be seen. In Paris a jewelry shop managed
+by a Jew of Spanish origin limited its entire business to the production
+of the Prince's gifts. His gems of high intrinsic value, with no false
+artifices, had a certain family resemblance, a sort of imaginary
+perfume which enabled the women who displayed them to recognize each
+other. When it was least expected, at tea time, in the dining-room of a
+hotel, at an elegant watering place at a dance, two women who had just
+met would gaze at each other's ears and breast in silence, until the
+boldest, blushing imperceptibly under her rouge, would ask simply: "You
+knew Prince Lubimoff too?..."
+
+Atilio Castro felt a deep admiration for his relative, less on account
+of his triumphs than of the iron constitution required to sustain them.
+
+"What a Cossack! A regular Cossack!... He is a true descendant of that
+lover of the Great Catherine!"
+
+Nevertheless, frequently the yacht would hurriedly put out to sea on
+long voyages, without its master being forced to flee from any dangerous
+or entangling passion. He was running away from himself, from his
+perverse imagination and curiosity, which made him seek and allure
+different women, upsetting his peace of mind, without rousing in him any
+real desire. He undertook the most extraordinary voyages, for the sake
+of the bracing air and the sense of restfulness the sea brings. The
+orchestra accompanied him; but the "harem" remained on shore. He had
+gone completely around the globe, following the shortest route; then he
+had repeated this circumnavigation, but over a zig-zag course, to become
+acquainted with all the coasts of the earth. At present he was on going
+on whimsical trips; he was sailing from one hemisphere to another for
+the pleasure of visiting one or another of the small islands which seem
+lost in the Pacific, and are so tiny that on the maps they look like
+mere dots placed after long names traced on the blue colored surface.
+
+Returning from one of these excursions on which he went around the world
+as though it were his personal property, he received by wireless the
+news that Germany had declared war against Russia and France.
+
+He felt no great surprise. He knew William II personally. It was because
+of him that Prince Lubimoff avoided cruising off the coast of Norway in
+summer.
+
+The year following his acquisition of the _Gaviota II_ he had come
+across the Imperial yacht in those parts. The Kaiser, like an officious,
+all-knowing neighbor, came to see him in order to look over the yacht,
+examining it in all its details, giving advice, reviewing the men and
+materials, making a dissertation on the engines and interrupting himself
+to advise certain changes in the uniform of the crew. After a breakfast
+on his own yacht, and luncheon on the Emperor's, Prince Michael had had
+enough of this unexpected friendship. Lohengrin, with his winged helmet,
+white mantle, and both hands on the hilt of his sword, was less
+unbearable than this gentleman with turned up mustache, and wolfish
+teeth, dressed like a sailor, who laughed a false and brutal laugh, and
+(whenever he met on the seas a multimillionaire from America or Europe)
+played the rôle of a man of great simplicity and of an unconventional
+sovereign. Money inspired deep veneration in this story-book hero, this
+mystic with a mind fed on grandeur. Michael had never shared the
+enthusiasm of various snobs for the German Emperor. He smiled at the
+Hohenzollern's theatrical tastes, his war-like bravadoes, and his
+intellectual ambitions which pretended to embrace the whole knowable
+universe.
+
+"He is a comedian," Michael said on receiving the news of the war, "a
+comedian who for a long time is going to make the whole world weep....
+And to think that the fate of mankind should depend on such a man!..."
+
+Michael Fedor considered himself as a being set apart from the rest of
+mankind. He lamented the war as something terrible for the rest, but
+which could not influence his own particular fate. Since a madness for
+blood had descended upon Europe, he would go on sailing distant seas.
+Thanks to his wealth he could keep beyond the margins of the struggle.
+
+But times changed rapidly; life was not the same: all old values had
+lost their significance. In spite of her Russian flag, the _Gaviota II_
+found herself halted by some English torpedo boats and was forced to
+submit to a minute inspection. They could not believe that any one
+should be cruising for pleasure when all the seas had been converted
+into a battlefield. In the latitude of the Azores it became necessary to
+force the yacht's engines to escape from a German corsair.
+
+Besides, fuel was getting scarce. The various coaling stations located
+here and there on the coast were reserved exclusively for the warships.
+Important news kept coming by wireless from far-off Paris, where the
+chief agent of the Prince was located. Communication had been broken off
+between the Paris office and the administrators of the Lubimoff fortune
+in Russia. No money was coming from there, and the French banks, with
+their vaults closed by the _moratorium_, were willing secretly to lend
+money to a millionaire like the Prince, but not in quantities sufficient
+to meet his current needs.
+
+The yacht came to anchor in the port of Monaco, and Michael Fedor, on
+arriving in Paris, almost laughed, as though witnessing some
+preposterous change in the laws of nature. The heir of the Lubimoffs in
+need of money, and compelled to make an effort to obtain it--something
+he had never done in all his life! Here he was having to ask for loans
+at frightfully usurious rates, on the security of his distant and famous
+wealth, which for the first time was regarded somewhat contemptuously!...
+
+When communications were reëstablished in an intermittent fashion
+between Western Europe and Russia--which was practically isolated--the
+administrator of the Prince gave a look of despair. The collections had
+been reduced eighty per cent.
+
+"According to that, I am going to be poor?" asked Lubimoff, laughing,
+the news seemed so unbelievable and absurd.
+
+It was very difficult to send money as far as Paris. Besides the rouble
+was decreasing in value at a dizzy rate. Millions on reaching France
+became mere hundred thousands. Mobilization had left the mines without
+workmen; there was no outlet for the produce; the peasants, seeing their
+sons in the army, refused to pay any money, and even to work. The
+Russian government, to keep as much money as possible at home, limited
+to small amounts the money sent to citizens residing abroad.
+
+"The Czar putting me on a pension!" said the Prince in amazement. "A
+thousand or two thousand francs a month!... How absurd!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But he did not laugh long. His anger against the Russian court, which
+had gradually been growing in his subconsciousness ever since his
+expulsion so long ago from Petersburg, now moved by a selfish impulse
+suddenly flared up. The Czar and his counselors, desirous of
+Russianizing all Eastern Europe, were responsible for the war. They
+certainly might have kept peace with Germany. Why disturb the peace of
+the world, for the sake of a little race of people in the Balkans?
+
+He coolly made fun of certain of his friends who, by devious routes
+across Europe and the icy Northern seas, returned to Russia to regain
+their former commissions in the army. As for him, he had no desire to
+die for the Czar. It made little difference to him whether his country
+were governed by Germans. There were times when he even thought that
+would be preferable, so long as peace were restored rapidly, allowing
+him once more to reap the benefit of his wealth, and resume the life he
+had been leading a few months before, or, as it now seemed, a half
+century before.
+
+The next two years went by for Lubimoff like a nightmare. What sort of a
+world was he living in?... His former friends were disappearing. Some of
+the frivolous women who had made life pleasant for him were not moved in
+the least by the unfortunate events which were happening; but others
+showed themselves to be heroic and self-sacrificing, forgetting all they
+had done before, feeling a new soul developing within them.
+
+The Prince suddenly found himself dragged along by the world happenings.
+A mysterious and irresistible force was pushing against him, causing him
+to lose his balance, just as he was reaching the pinnacle of his life,
+so pleasant, so vast, crowned with a halo of such glory. And now, once
+started, he was tumbling head over heels, of his own inertia, and each
+step he struck as he descended, gave him a harder blow, a more painful
+surprise. How far would this landslide take him?... What would he strike
+at the end of this unheard-of fall?...
+
+His interviews with his Paris administrator seemed to him like something
+taking place in another world, subject to ridiculous laws. These
+conferences always ended with the same order on his part:
+
+"Try and get some money. Ask for a loan.... I am Prince Lubimoff, and
+this cannot last. Whoever wins--it is all the same to me--order will be
+reëstablished, and I shall pay my creditors immediately."
+
+But the administrator answered, with a look of dismay: "Raise money on
+property in Russia?..." Taking advantage of the former prestige of the
+Prince, he had been able to negotiate various loans; but time was
+passing and the enormous interest was accumulating. Lubimoff in spite of
+cutting down expenses and doing away with pensions, was in need of money
+for his current living expenses.
+
+The fall of the Czar gave a ray of hope to this magnate who hated the
+Imperial government. "With the Republic the war will be over sooner and
+we shall come back to the proper order of things." His egoism made him
+conceive of a Republic as a form of government occupied chiefly with
+restoring the wealth of beings of fortunate birth. The meager shreds of
+his fortune which now and then still got as far as Paris were suddenly
+cut off. The fountain of wealth was dry. The crumbling of a whole world
+had dammed its source, and perhaps forever.
+
+"Your Excellency must sell," the administrator was always saying. "You
+must do without everything that is superfluous. We must liquidate in
+time. Who knows how long the present state of affairs may last!"
+
+The yacht was lying idle in Monaco harbor. Almost the entire crew,
+composed of Italians, Frenchmen, and Englishmen, had left it to go and
+serve in the navies of their respective nations. Only a few Spaniards
+remained on board, to keep the boat clean.
+
+The _Gaviota II_ was renamed by the English admiralty, and turned over
+to the Red Cross. When he signed the bill of sale, Michael Fedor felt
+that he was giving up his whole past. The romantic prestige of his mode
+of life was vanishing now for all time; the _Arabian Nights_ palace was
+being converted into a hospital ship.... What a world!
+
+The English millions afforded him a year of respite. The administrator
+paid the huge debts, and he was able to live without economizing, in
+Paris, a Paris nearing the end of its third year of war with
+inexplicable tranquillity, resuming its usual pleasures as though all
+danger were past. Love affairs with two distinguished women, whose
+husbands were called to arms--although they were not at the
+front--caused him to spend a few months, now at Biarritz, now on the
+Riviera, and now at Aix-les-Bains.
+
+His agent disturbed these enjoyments. He was constantly repeating the
+same advice: "You must sell." The Prince's fortune was already like an
+old ship drifting aimlessly. The administrator had stopped the last
+leaks with the money from the most recent sale, but warned him at every
+moment that she was taking in water through new ones.
+
+In the end Michael Fedor grew accustomed to misfortune, accepting it
+serenely.
+
+The sale of the palace built by his mother moved him less than that of
+his yacht.
+
+At the same time his desires had changed. He was beginning to tire of
+love adventures, which seemed to be the only object of existence. His
+fresh and vigorous constitution, which had amazed Castro, suddenly broke
+down. But this was more the result of worry than of physical wear and
+tear.
+
+He felt that he was poor, and was he not accustomed to pay royally for
+his love affairs? Not being able to reward women with luxury, he would
+rather flee in order not to accept from them and be obliged to tolerate
+from them their caprices. He preferred to master his desires, as long as
+he could not satisfy them with all the grandeur of an oriental
+potentate. Besides he was tired of love, and all the pleasant things of
+life a man can find in this world!...
+
+He thought of his friend Atilio, of the Colonel, of Villa Sirena, white
+and shining in the Mediterranean sunlight, among the olive trees and
+cypresses.
+
+"The earth is being swept by the deluge. Perhaps the old lands will once
+more appear; perhaps they will remain submerged forever.... Let us take
+refuge in our Ark, and wait and hope."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+After glancing with satisfaction at the imposing aspect of Villa Sirena,
+the adjoining buildings, and the surrounding groves, the Colonel said to
+Novoa:
+
+"The part you see cost less than what you don't see. There is a great
+deal of money spent under ground here."
+
+Turning away from the residence, Don Marcos pointed to the gardens,
+which lay extended before them in terraces, some on a level with the
+roof of the "villa," others descending like a mighty stairway almost to
+the water's edge.
+
+He recalled the promontory as it was when the late Princess first
+thought of buying it; an ancient refuge of pirates; a tongue of rocks
+wild and storm-swept when the _mistral_ was blowing, with deep caves
+gnawed by the surge, which caused the land above to crumble, and
+threatened to break it lengthwise into a chain of reefs and islets.
+
+"The bulwarks we have had to build!" he continued. "You should have seen
+the stone we had to put in here,--enough to build a wall around the
+whole city!"
+
+There were walls more than twenty yards thick, descending in a gradual
+slope from the gardens to the sea. In places, it was possible to see
+their foundations in the natural rocks which emerged from the water like
+greenish beads always awash in the foam; in other places the masonry
+went down and down until it was lost from view in the watery depths.
+They were like the breakwaters one sees in harbors. They covered the
+original hollows of the promontory, the caves, the inlets that were
+forming, and all the jagged spaces, which had been filled with rich
+soil.
+
+These tremendous works of masonry were Toledo's pride, owing to their
+cost and grandeur. He called his fellow-countryman's attention to the
+proportions of the ramparts, worthy of a monarch of olden times.
+
+"And they are not only strong," he continued, "but look, Professor! They
+are all 'artistic.'"
+
+The blocks of stone had been cut in large hexagons which fitted together
+in a uniform mosaic, each piece outlined by a cement border.
+
+At intervals there were large openings, so that the earth might rid
+itself of its moisture; but each one of these blind windows held some
+sort of wild vegetation, some hardy, aromatic plant, obstinately
+parasitic, spreading downward over the wall and covering it with flowers
+for the greater part of the year. The thick groves at the summit, and
+the long balustrades arched with wine-colored clematis, seemed to exude
+a flowery, green, inferior form of life, pouring it out seaward through
+the gaps in the wall.
+
+"When you see it from a boat below you will appreciate it better. Señor
+Castro says it reminds him of the hanging gardens of Babylon, and of
+Queen Semiramis. He is the only one who would think of such comparisons.
+All I can say is that it meant doing all this! Imagine all the stone. A
+whole quarry! And I wish you could have seen the bargeloads of rich soil
+it took to fill the hollows, level the ground, and make a decent
+garden!"
+
+He grew enthusiastic as he talked about the modern flower gardens
+stretching around the villa and along the iron railing bordering the
+Menton road; and he lavished his praise on their harmonious elegance,
+and the majestic regulation to which the plants were forced to conform.
+That was how _he_ felt a garden should be, like many another thing in
+life: perfect order, a sense of subordination, and respect for the
+hierarchies, each thing in its place, with no individual rivalries to
+cause confusion. But he was afraid to expound his "old-fashioned"
+tastes, recalling the jests of the Prince and Castro. They preferred the
+park, which the Colonel always thought of as the "wild garden."
+
+They had availed themselves of the extremely ancient olive trees already
+on the promontory as a beginning for the park. These trees could not be
+called old, exactly. Such an appellation would have been petty and
+inadequate to their age. They were simply ancient, of no visible age.
+They had an air of changeless eternity about them which made them seem
+contemporaries of the rocks and the waves themselves. They looked more
+like ruins than like trees, like heaps of black wood, twisted and
+overthrown by a storm, or piles of wood, warped and hollowed and
+scorched by some fire long since past. With them also the invisible part
+was more important than the portions exposed to the light. Their roots,
+as large around as tree trunks, went out of sight, wound their way
+through the red earth, and then appeared once more thirty or forty yards
+beyond. Some of the trees had died on one side, only to come to life
+again on the other. What had been the trunk five hundred years before,
+now appeared as a mutilated stump, table shaped, severed by ax or
+shattered by thunderbolt; and the root, showing above the soil, was
+flowering again in its turn, changing into a tree, to continue an
+apparently limitless existence, in which centuries counted as years. The
+hearts of other trees were gnawed away and empty; and these supported
+only half of their outer shell, looking like a tower with one side blown
+out by an explosion; but on high they displayed an almost ridiculous
+crown of foliage, a few handfuls of silvery leaves scattering along the
+sinuous black branches. Below, the gnarled roots which seemed to have
+preserved in their knotted windings the sap that was the first life of
+the earth, embraced a much larger radius on the ground than that
+occupied by the branches in the air. Other olive trees, that were only
+three or four hundred years old, stood erect with the arrogance of
+youth, leafy and exuberant, casting a light, trembling, almost
+diaphanous shadow, like that of frosted glass which swayed with the
+capricious will of the wind.
+
+"His Excellency says that there are olive trees here that were seen by
+the Romans. Do you believe it, Professor? Can it be that any of these
+trees date back to the time of Jesus Christ?"
+
+Novoa hesitated in replying. The Colonel continued his observations as
+they walked along between walls of well-trimmed shrubbery towards the
+end of the park.
+
+"Look: there is the Greek garden."
+
+It was an avenue of laurels and cypress trees with curving marble
+benches, and in the background a semi-circular colonnade.
+
+"I would have liked to plant a great many palms: African, Japanese, and
+Brazilian, like those in the gardens of the Casino. But the Prince and
+Don Atilio detest them. They say that they are an anachronism, that they
+never existed in this region, and were imported by the wealthy people
+who have been building for the last fifty years on the Blue Coast. All
+those two fellows admire is the ancient Provençal or Italian garden:
+olive trees, laurels, and cypresses--but not the huge, funereal
+cypresses with bushy tops, that we use in Spain, to decorate the
+_calvaries_ and cemeteries. Look at them: they are as light and slender
+as feathers. To keep the wind from blowing them over you have to plant
+two or three together in a clump."
+
+They had reached the extreme limit of the park, where the leafiest olive
+trees were growing. They walked along open pathways through high masses
+of wild and fragrant vegetation, whose vigorous vitality seemed to
+challenge the salt breeze. The plants had stiff leaves, and gave out
+strong exotic perfumes. As Novoa breathed in the fragrance, it evoked
+visions of far-off lands; and in truth it seemed almost as though an
+odor of Hindoo cooking or Oriental incense were floating through that
+wild garden. A variety of creepers hung from tree to tree. Though it was
+still winter these natural garlands had already begun to bloom, owing to
+the warm breezes of an early Spring. They stood out with all the gay
+splendor of a courtly festival, against the chaste pale green of the
+olive trees.
+
+"Don Atilio says that all this makes him think of a Mozart symphony."
+
+The deep blue Mediterranean lay at their feet, its slow swells combed by
+a sharp reef that broke the streaming water into clouds of spray. Here
+the promontory divided, forming two arms of unequal length. The shortest
+was a prolongation of the park, carrying the magnificent vegetation
+which flourished on its back, into the very waters. The other descended
+to the sea in a chaos of rocks and loose earth, with no growth save a
+few twisted pines, clinging to the soil, obstinately determined to
+prolong their death struggle. The barren loneliness of this tongue of
+land drew a sad smile from the Colonel each time he gazed at the
+dividing wall. The rugged point was eaten away by the sea with caves
+that threatened to cut it in two. It had no regular place of entrance,
+being separated from the mainland by the gardens of Villa Sirena, and
+shut off by a hostile wall, which represented the inalienable rights of
+ownership, and was a source of constant indignation and amazement to Don
+Marcos.
+
+Doubtless that was why he turned away from it, gazing out toward where
+Monaco lay beyond the rocky cliffs.
+
+"It is lovely, Professor: one of the most delightful panoramas anywhere.
+There is good reason for people to come here from the farthest ends of
+the earth!"
+
+He let his glance rest on the violet colored mountains that, at the
+farthest horizon, projected out upon the sea, like the limit of a world.
+They were the so-called Mountains of the Moors, which, with Esterel
+Point, form a branch of the Maritime Alps, a separate mountain chain,
+which juts into the Mediterranean. In the opposite direction lay a
+portion of the pseudo-Blue Coast, which begins at Toulon and Hyères. But
+this part did not interest the Colonel. What he saw, more in imagination
+than in reality, was a bird's-eye view of the real Blue Coast, his own
+Blue Coast--that of the aristocratic and wealthy people on whom he was
+in the habit of calling, in their elegant villas and expensive hotels.
+
+The Maritime Alps form a giant wall, parallel to the sea. In some places
+they fall steeply toward the Mediterranean with the sharp slope of a
+bulwark, without the slightest break to mask the abrupt descent. At
+other points the incline is gentler, creating waves of stone, miniature
+mountains which stand out above the water, forming capes and placid
+inlets. And on these sheltered shores, from Esterel to the Italian
+frontier, wealthy people, sensitive to cold, arriving in pilgrimages
+every winter, had finally converted the sleepy provincial villages into
+world-famous capitals. Fishing hamlets were transformed into elegant
+towns; the large Paris and London hotels erected enormous annexes on the
+deserted bays; the most expensive shops of the Boulevards opened
+branches in tiny settlements where a few years before every one had gone
+barefoot.
+
+In his mind Toledo went over the undulating line of celebrated places,
+overlooking the sea from the promontories, or nestling in the little
+horseshoe bays to profit more directly by the refraction of the winter
+sunlight from the red walls of the Alps: Cannes, which inspired in him a
+certain awe on account of its quiet distinction--the place where
+consumptives and old people of renown desire to die--Antibes, with its
+square harbor and its walls which, according to Castro, recalled the
+romantic seascapes painted by Vernet; Nice, the capital where people
+come together to spend their money, copying Parisian life; the deep bay
+of Villefranche, the harborage of battleships; Cap-Ferrat and the
+beautiful Point Saint-Hospice, a former den of African pirates, jutting
+out from it; Beaulieu, with its Tunisian palaces, the homes of American
+multimillionaires, who always keep open house, and who had often invited
+the Colonel to luncheon there; Eze, the feudal hamlet, hanging grimly to
+the side of the Alps, and falling in ruins around its decaying castle,
+while down below, the people who fled from it are forming a new town,
+beside the gulf which their predecessors proudly called the Sea of Eze;
+Cap d'Ail, which serves as a sort of portico to the adjoining
+Principality; the Rock of Monaco, carrying on its giant's back a walled
+city; opposite it the dazzling Monte Carlo; and beyond, Cap-Martin, with
+somber vegetation, reserved and lordly, the ultimate shelter of
+dethroned kings; and lastly, close to Italy, pleasant Menton, the
+stronghold of Englishmen, another place for invalids of distinction,
+where every self-respecting consumptive feels obliged to end his days.
+
+"Think of the money that has been spent here!" Don Marcos exclaimed.
+
+Fifty years before, the Corniche railway in successfully finding its way
+through this mountain region had been considered a marvelous piece of
+work; but now for the convenience of winter visitors, the same work had
+been repeated in every direction. Smoothly curving roads, clean and firm
+as a drawing-room floor, extended along the seashore, ascended the
+Alpine heights, passing from crest to crest on lofty viaducts, or
+burrowing the hills in long tunnels. Where the perpendicular rock would
+not allow a ledge to be cut the engineer had made one with buttresses
+many yards high, the bases of which were lost to view in the waves.
+
+A new dream had been added to the many which the blessed in this world's
+goods may realize--the owning of a house on the Riviera! Within fifty
+years, every architectural whim, every possible fancy of rich people
+bent on creating sensations, had covered this shore of the Mediterranean
+with villas, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Venetian, and Tuscan palaces, and
+dwellings of other distinct or indescribable styles. The palm tree was
+imported and acclimated as a native plant.
+
+"Enormous fortunes have been invested here; three generations have been
+ruined, and as many more enriched. When you think what it was a century
+ago, and see what it is now...!"
+
+The Colonel spoke of an Englishwoman's tomb, completely abandoned on the
+extreme point of Cap-Ferrat. She was a forerunner of the present winter
+visitors, a youthful contemporary of Byron, charmed by the beauty of the
+Mediterranean, and by the pathless and practically unexplored mountains.
+On her death, they buried her on the deserted promontory, because she
+was a Protestant. The fishermen and peasants of this lonely coast
+shunned the stranger, denying her the rights of hospitality even in
+their cemeteries.
+
+"This happened less than a century ago. And such poverty as there was!
+The only products of the country were thick skinned oranges, lemons, and
+these olives. The trees are very pretty, very decorative, but they bear
+an exceedingly small pointed olive, all pit. Compare them with ours in
+Andalusia, Professor! And to-day there are millionaires, born right here
+on the Riviera, who have grown rich merely by selling the wretched
+fields of their fathers. The red land, abounding in stones, is bought by
+the yard, even in the most out of the way spots, like lots in large
+cities. When you least expect it, at a turn in the road, you come across
+a miserable hut with a little land around it that takes your fancy. The
+roof of the building sags, and the wind blows through the cracks in the
+wall. The owners sleep with the pig, the chickens, and the horse. This
+same poverty and shiftlessness you find among the peasants almost
+everywhere. You happen to think that you might build up a country home
+there without much expense. Surely the good people won't ask very much,
+no matter how inflated their ideas of value may be! But when you ask the
+price, after much talk, and many doubts, they finally say in the most
+casual manner: 'A hundred and fifty thousand francs, or two hundred
+thousand.' When you protest in amazement they reply, pointing to the
+mountains, the sun, and the sea: 'And the view, monsieur.'"
+
+The red soil of the Alps amounts to little for its power of production:
+it is the situation that gives it its value. And the native has grown
+rich selling, so much per yard, the sunlight, the azure of the
+Mediterranean, the orange color of the mountains and the dazzling glory
+of the clouds at sunset, the shelter of the distant rock which, like a
+screen, turns aside the icy breeze of the _mistral_.
+
+"If you only knew how inexplicably obstinate some of these people are!"
+
+As Don Marcos spoke he turned and pointed out to Novoa the miserable
+strip of land that seemed fastened like a curse to the gardens of Villa
+Sirena. The Princess Lubimoff with all her millions, had not been able
+to buy the tip of that promontory. It belonged to an old married couple
+without any children. "That is their house," he added, pointing to a
+sort of yellowish cube, halfway up the mountain, beside a road that cut
+across the red and black slope.
+
+The Princess, after acquiring the promontory for her medieval castle,
+had considered the acquisition of the small extremity a mere trifle.
+"Give them what they ask," she said to her business agent. And in spite
+of her recklessness with money, she was amazed to learn that they
+refused two hundred thousand francs for a few rocks undermined by the
+waves, and a couple of dozen dying pines.
+
+"I was present at the interviews with the old people. The agent of the
+Princess offered five hundred thousand, six hundred thousand, and the
+couple did not seem to grasp the meaning of the figures. The Princess
+lost her patience, lamenting the fact that they were not in Russia, in
+the good old days. She even talked of engaging an assassin in Italy--as
+she had read in certain novels--to get rid of the stubborn old pair. It
+was just like her Excellency,--but she was really very kind at heart!
+Finally, one day, she shouted to us: 'Offer them a million, and let us
+be done with it!' Imagine, Professor, more than two thousand francs a
+yard; you could buy land at that rate in the business district of a big
+city! We went up to their cottage. They didn't bat an eyelash when they
+heard the figure. The old woman, who was the more intelligent of the
+two, let Her Excellency's lawyer explain what a million meant. She
+looked at her husband for a long time, in spite of the fact that she was
+the only one of the two who was doing any thinking, and finally
+accepted; but on condition that the Princess should erect, on the
+outermost point, a chapel to the Virgin. It was a wish that her simple
+imagination had cherished all her life. Without the chapel, she would
+not accept the million. 'Don't worry, we'll build the chapel!' we said.
+The day set for signing the papers, we found the two old people, sitting
+in the lawyer's office side by side, with bowed heads. The lawyer
+received us, wringing his hands, and looking toward heaven with an
+expression of despair. They would not accept! It was no use insisting.
+They wanted to keep things just as they had received them from their
+forefathers. 'What would we do with a million?' groaned the old woman.
+'We would lead a terrible life!' We tried to talk to her about the
+chapel, in order to persuade her; but they both fled, like people
+finding themselves in bad company, and afraid of being tempted."
+
+The colonel looked once more at the dividing wall.
+
+"Her Excellency being a born fighter, immediately had the partition
+raised before beginning the foundation of the castle. As you see from
+here, the old people can reach their property only by the beach; and on
+stormy days they have to enter the water up to their knees. That doesn't
+matter; from that time on they became more attached than ever to their
+land. They used to come down from the mountains every Sunday, to sit at
+the foot of the wall. By constantly measuring the point they succeeded
+in discovering an error made by the architect, who had been a trifle
+flustered owing to the haste enforced upon him by the Princess. He had
+made a mistake of eighteen inches, and half the width of the wall was on
+the old people's land. The peasant woman, in spite of the fact that she
+had a sort of superstitious fear of the majesty of the law, threatened
+to bring suit even though she might be forced to sell her hut and field
+on the mountain to fight the case. It was necessary to tear down the
+wall, and build it up again, half a yard farther this way. It meant some
+sixty thousand francs lost--nothing for the Princess--and yet I suspect
+at times, that the affair may have hastened her death."
+
+Don Marcos felt that he must pause a moment out of respect for the
+deceased.
+
+"The old woman has died too," he continued, "and her husband comes here
+only from time to time. When he finds that one of his pine trees has
+fallen, through the wearing away of the soil, he sits down close beside
+it, just as though he were watching beside a corpse. At other times he
+spends hours looking at the sea and the huge rocks, as though
+calculating how long it would take the waves to break his property to
+pieces. One afternoon, going on foot from La Turbie to Roquebrune, I ran
+across him near his hut, where he was pasturing some sheep. With his
+long beard he looked like a patriarch; and he is always the same,
+leaning on his staff, with a dirty tam-o'shanter on his head, and a
+rough cape about his shoulders. Besides, he always has a pipe in his
+mouth, though he rarely smokes. 'The million is waiting,' I said in fun,
+'whenever you want to come and get it.' He didn't seem to understand me.
+He smiled with a look of vague recognition, but perhaps he thought I was
+some one else. His gaze was fixed on Monte Carlo, a bird's-eye view of
+which lay at our feet. He must spend hours and weeks like that. His face
+looks as though it were carved of wood, or molded in terra cotta; he
+seldom speaks, and no one can guess the substance of his reflections.
+But I think that every day the same identical amazement must be renewed,
+and that he will die without ever recovering from his surprise. He sees
+the expanse of waters, which is always the same, the eternal hills, that
+never change, the house built by his ancestors, which was old when he
+was born, the olive groves, the mighty rocks ... but that city has
+sprung up, since he was a grown man, from a plateau covered with
+thickets, and burrowed with caves, and it is enlarged each year with new
+hotels, new streets, and more domes and turrets!"
+
+The Colonel suddenly forgot the old peasant. With his fellow-countryman,
+Novoa, he felt quite talkative, and he imagined that his thoughts flowed
+more freely and vigorously, through this contact with a man of learning.
+Besides, he felt a certain pride in being able to talk like an old
+inhabitant, of the many things of which the new-comer was ignorant.
+
+"The fortress you see over there practically belonged to us at one
+time," he went on, pointing to the Castle of Monaco. "For a century and
+a half it had a Spanish garrison. Our great Charles V"--and the old
+Legitimist spoke the name with a note of deep respect--"once slept
+there. And there, too."
+
+Turning, he pointed out on the mountain summit of Cap-Martin the village
+of Roquebrune, huddled about its ruined castle.
+
+"The archivist of the Prince of Monaco is studying the numerous letters
+in his possession written by our great Emperor to the Grimaldi family.
+When the historians of the Principality wish to establish the
+indisputable independence of their tiny land, they cite as the origins
+of the state the treaties signed at Burgos, Tordesillas, and Madrid."
+
+In a few words he went over the history of the little country, which
+came into being around a little harbor. Semitic sailors gave it the name
+of Melkar--the Phoenician Hercules--and the word gradually changed
+into the present one, Monaco. The Guelphs and Ghibellines of Genoa
+fought for possession of its castle, until a Grimaldi, disguised as a
+monk, entered the enclosure by surprise and opened the gates to his
+friends, making the ancient Hercules Harbor an estate of his family for
+all time. "This friar, sword in hand," continued Don Marcos, "is the
+one that figures on both sides of the coat of arms of Monaco. From that
+time on the history of the Grimaldis is similar to that of all the
+ruling houses of those days. They made war on their neighbors, and
+quarreled among themselves, to the extent that brother even assassinated
+brother. The sailors of Monaco plied the trade of corsair, and their
+flag was even used to give distinction to the pirates of other
+countries. The alliance of the Grimaldis with Spain allowed them to use
+the title of Prince for the first time. Charles V addressed them in his
+letters as 'dear Cousins,' and gave them other honorary titles. This
+great rock was of exceeding importance to the Spanish Monarchs who had
+lands in Italy and needed to keep the route safe. The Kings of France
+were very anxious, on their part, to do away with this obstacle and win
+the Grimaldis over to their side. You must realize that for a hundred
+and fifty years the latter kept their agreements faithfully, and that
+during all this time the subsidies that had been promised them from
+Madrid were sent only at rare intervals. Two galleys from Monaco always
+figured in the rolls of the Spanish navy. Only when the decline of
+Austria began to cause us to lose our influence in Europe, did the
+Grimaldis, like people fleeing from a house that is tumbling down,
+abandon us. At that particular moment, Richelieu was making France a
+great power, and they went with him. One night amid thunder and
+lightning, when the garrison, composed for the most part of Italians in
+the service of Spain, were carelessly asleep, the French caught them
+unawares, disarmed them, after killing a few who tried to resist, and
+finally sent the remainder courteously to the Spanish Viceroy at Milan,
+with the notice that the alliance must be considered broken forever.
+
+"The Grimaldis became the liege-lords of France. Later they went to
+Versailles, as courtiers, or served in the King's armies. During the
+Revolution they were persecuted, like all the other princes, and a
+beautiful lady of the family was guillotined. Napoleon kept them in his
+military following as aides-de-camp, and the long peace of the
+Nineteenth Century caused them to return and take up their abode once
+more in their tiny Principality.
+
+"They were so poor!" Toledo went on. "They were obliged to keep up the
+show and pomp of a court, since in a small state where all are
+neighbors, the Prince has to exaggerate formality, in order to hold the
+people's respect. The same expenses must be defrayed as in a large
+nation; the maintenance of courts, administrative offices, and even a
+diminutive army for internal safety. And the whole Principality produced
+nothing but lemons and olives.... You can see for yourself how poor and
+how hard pressed they must have been, not knowing how to raise funds,
+especially since under the rule of Florestan I, the grandfather of the
+present Prince, there was an attempted revolution, owing to the decree
+of the Sovereign that the olives of the country should be pressed
+exclusively in the mills of his estate.
+
+"Later under Charles III, the situation became still more difficult. The
+Principality was dismembered. The two cities, Menton and Roquebrune,
+dependencies of Monaco, full of enthusiasm for the Italian Revolution,
+declared their freedom, and joined the Kingdom of Savoy. Shortly after,
+when Napoleon III acquired the former County of Nice they fell under the
+control of France. And thus Monaco was isolated within French territory,
+with its sovereignty clearly recognized; but a sovereignty that embraced
+only a single city on a rocky height, a small harbor, and a little
+surrounding land overgrown with parasitical vegetation; about as much
+ground as a peaceful citizen might cover in a morning walk. How was the
+tiny State to be maintained?
+
+"It was saved by gambling. Don't imagine as some people do, that the
+idea originated with the Ruler of Monaco. Many German Princes had had
+recourse to some enterprise to support their domains. It is a German
+invention; but gambling on the shore of the Mediterranean, under a
+winter sun that seldom fails, is quite a different thing from gambling
+in Central Europe. At first the business was unsuccessful. They
+established a miserable Casino in old Monaco, opposite the Palace, in
+what is now the barracks of the Prince's Guard. The betting was very
+slight. It was necessary to come by diligence, over the Alpine heights,
+following the old Roman route, and to descend from La Turbie by roads
+that were like ravines. One had to be very anxious indeed to gamble.
+Later the Casino was transferred to the harbor below, where the La
+Condamine district is to-day: another failure. The lessees of the gaming
+privileges went bankrupt, and were unable to fulfill their obligations
+to the Prince. And then the Corniche Railway was put through, placing
+Monaco on the road between Paris and Italy; and all the gamblers and
+idlers of the world came flocking here within a few years. What a
+transformation!"
+
+The Colonel recalled once more the old peasant, who, pasturing his sheep
+on the Alpine slope, spent hours and hours with his eyes fixed on the
+marvelous city, stretching out below, on the very spot that, as a young
+man, he had seen covered with thickets.
+
+"That was the beginning of Monte Carlo. Opposite the rock of Monaco,
+forming the other side of the harbor, there was an abandoned plateau,
+only some sixty years ago. Scattered about the gardens of the Square,
+among the tropical trees, there are still a few scraggly olive trees
+left from those times. They have been spared as relics of the days of
+poverty. Where we now find the Casino, the large hotels, and the most
+elegant tea-houses, there were caves dating back to prehistoric times,
+which in less remote periods served as haunts for thieves. On account of
+the grottoes this wild plateau was nicknamed _The Caverns_. Some of the
+things you have seen in the Anthropological Museum in Monaco, stone
+axes, human bones, etc., came from those caves. And the abandoned
+plateau, in some ten or twelve years, was converted into Monte Carlo,
+the great city of world fame, leaving on the heights opposite in
+obscurity and more or less in oblivion, the historic Monaco, which at
+present is merely one of its suburbs. Monte Carlo has grown so that it
+extends from one end of the Principality to the other; the entire
+national territory is covered with houses, and each year it over-flows
+still farther beyond the boundary line. The French part is called
+Beausoleil. You have only to cross the Square in front of the Casino,
+ascend the sloping gardens, and mount a stairway to the Boulevard du
+Nord, to find one of the rarest sights in Europe. One sidewalk belongs
+to the Prince of Monaco, and the other across the street, to the French
+Republic. The shopkeepers pay different taxes and obey different laws,
+according to whether their show windows are on the left or on the
+right."
+
+Toledo remained thoughtful for a moment.
+
+"The miracles accomplished by roulette!" he continued. "The magic power
+of 'red and black'! They say the Casino is a marvel of poor taste, but
+the walls and ceilings fairly drip with gold, as in a rich church. The
+theater there is the first to produce many operas that become famous
+throughout the world. The countless hotels are like palaces. Monte Carlo
+bristles with domes and turrets like an oriental city. The streets with
+their scrupulously clean pavements, seem like drawing-rooms. There
+isn't a trace of dirt. And think of the gardens! The Alps, here, form a
+wonderful screen; we live in a sunny shelter; almost a hothouse. But at
+times the _mistral_ blows, and it is cold. I don't know how it is
+possible for all those tropical plants that are so fresh and luxuriant,
+and all those trees that originate in a climate as hot as an oven, to
+live here. The poor old olives must be as amazed as I myself at finding
+themselves in such company. 'Trente et Quarante' must be a powerful
+fertilizer! I'm sure that if the gambling were to stop, all this
+tropical vegetation would vanish like a dream."
+
+The silent Professor greeted these words with a smile.
+
+"And what a transformation in the people!" the Colonel continued.
+"Notice the crowd some Sunday; none of them like workmen, all equally
+well dressed! The girls here copy what they see worn by the elegant
+society women; and imagine how many of the latter come here! You never
+see a beggar, nor a man in rags. To be born here means something: one's
+livelihood is assured. The Casino takes care of every one; there is
+always a place for every citizen in the gambling rooms, in the gardens,
+or in the theater; and if not, on the police force, in the
+administrative offices, or in the Prince's household--and the latter is
+paid for with the Company's money too. To achieve the dignity of being
+put in charge of a gaming table is the native's highest ambition. He may
+earn as much as a thousand francs a month, not counting the tips. That
+is more perhaps than you will ever earn, Professor. And he ends his days
+in a little villa he has built on the heights of Beausoleil, where he
+can look after his garden, with a view below of the Casino--the house of
+the Good Fairy that dispenses all blessings. They all have enough to
+live on as long as they know how to keep a silent tongue, and mind their
+own business. An old cab driver, whom I sometimes engage, was bold
+enough one evening to talk quite frankly with me, owing to the fact
+that he was slightly intoxicated. His wife has been for some twenty
+years now in the Ladies' Section of the Casino toilets; his daughters
+work as cleaners; his sons are employed in the theater. They all bring
+in money. Moreover, the old men retire on pay, the sick are not
+forgotten, and the widows and orphans of every employee that dies during
+service are paid pensions. 'It's a great country, sir,' the driver said
+to me, 'the best in the world. Every one can make a living, as long as
+he's wise enough to keep his mouth shut, and not make trouble.' And you
+can depend upon it, they are all discreet. Moreover they watch one
+another, and are afraid of being denounced by their best friend, if they
+talk about the latest scandal, or a gambler's suicide. Among strangers
+not one of them lets on that he knows anything."
+
+"And supposing one of them were to talk?" asked Novoa. "Or if one of
+them were to make trouble?"
+
+"They would banish him. It is a paternal despotism, and does not dare
+inflict harsher punishments. The police of the Prince make him go half
+way across the street, and put him on the French sidewalk.... Don't
+laugh; it is a cruel penalty. Exiles to other places finally grow
+accustomed to their misfortune, since they live at a great distance, and
+see their native land only in their mind's eye. But a man who is exiled
+here can almost reach out and touch his country with his hand; he has
+only to cross the width of the street. As the land slopes downward, he
+can see his house a few roofs beyond. He sees the smoke from breakfast
+coming out of the chimney, and yet he cannot sit down to his own table;
+the family is at the windows, and he has to talk to them by signs.
+Moreover, and worst of all, he sees that the rest who were prudent go on
+leading their pleasant lives in the shadow of the Casino, while he has
+to seek a new profession at much harder work. His torment becomes
+unbearable, and he finally flees to some distant city, to let a few
+years go by, so he may be pardoned."
+
+Don Marcos began to praise Monte Carlo again; "People who lose their
+money in the Casino always retain an unpleasant memory of it; but where
+can one find a quieter, cleaner, or more peaceful city, with its
+Spring-like climate in mid-winter?
+
+"Everybody comes here sooner or later; lots of rogues, of course; but
+you find famous people too, and you can enjoy society of distinction. I
+scarcely ever gamble, and for that reason I appreciate the beauty of the
+scenery. And more than that: at times I have the satisfaction one feels
+in getting things for nothing; and when I gaze at the lovely walks, when
+I attend the concerts and operas, and enjoy the sweet tranquillity of a
+city in which there are no poor, and no desperate revolutionists, I say
+to myself: 'The gamblers pay for this, and you get the benefit of it.
+They lose so that you may enjoy life.'"
+
+As Novoa smiled again, the Colonel expressed his admiration still more
+glowingly.
+
+"It seems impossible that roulette should have performed so many
+miracles! And there must be others besides those which lie before our
+eyes. Gambling has paid the cost of this delightful harbor of La
+Condamine: a harbor for yachts, with elegant docks that are really
+promenades. It must have had a hand also in the restoration of the
+castle of the Prince. It even helps to develop the spiritual life of the
+place, and increase the prestige of religion. Before roulette came none
+of the clergy were of higher rank than priests. Since the triumph of the
+Casino there has been a Bishop, and canons; and a beautiful Byzantine
+cathedral has been erected, which, according to Castro, needs only to
+have Time darken it a bit. The Sunday masses are one of the chief
+attractions of the Principality. The Nice papers print the program of
+the music that will be sung by the choir, alongside the program of the
+concert at the Casino: '_Canto piano_ of the most celebrated masters,
+the Italian Palestrina, or the Spanish Vitoria.'"
+
+Novoa interrupted him.
+
+"There is the Museum of Oceanography too. That alone is enough to remove
+any taint from the money which has come from the Casino."
+
+He said this with the pleasing voice and the somewhat distracted
+expression that were natural to him; but in his words there was the
+mystic ardor of the firm believer.
+
+The Colonel nodded assent. The Museum which roused the Professor's
+enthusiasm was the work of the Prince, and as for himself, Don Marcos
+felt a deep respect for "Albert," as he called the sovereign familiarly.
+"Albert" had been an officer in the Spanish navy. As a lieutenant
+commander he had sailed the coast of Cuba; in his books he had praised
+the old Spanish sailors, his first masters in the art of navigation.
+What more was needed to inspire veneration in Don Marcos?
+
+"Whenever he attends a ceremony in his Principality he wears the uniform
+of a Spanish admiral. And he is a man of science: you know that better
+than I do."
+
+He gave Novoa a chance to speak. Three-fourths of the earth were covered
+with water, and for centuries and centuries humanity took no interest in
+investigating the mysterious hidden life of the ocean depths.
+Navigators, skimming the surface, went their way, guided by routine
+methods or by fragmentary experience, without succeeding in embracing
+the fixed and regular laws of the atmospheric or ocean currents.
+Science, which has to its credit so many discoveries in a single century
+of existence, halted in dismay at the edge of the sea. The scientists
+in the laboratories only need material for their work, and that is
+easily obtained; but to study the seas, to live on them for years and
+years, is another matter. For that, it was necessary to have ships and
+men at one's disposal, to construct new and costly apparatus, to spend
+millions, to cruise patiently and leisurely here and there over the
+ocean wastes, with no fixed goal, waiting for the great blue depths
+casually to reveal their secrets. That meant a great outlay, with slight
+returns. Only a sovereign, a king, could do that; and that was what the
+former officer in the Spanish navy, on becoming a Prince, had done.
+
+"Thanks to him," Novoa proceeded, "oceanography, which scarcely amounted
+to anything, has become to-day an important study. His yachts have been
+floating laboratories, cruisers of science, which have gradually made
+the first conquests of the deep. With his drifting buoys he has been
+able to demonstrate in a conclusive manner the circular drift of the
+Atlantic currents; with his careful soundings he has brought to light
+the mysteries of deep sea life at various levels of the great body of
+water. Scientists have been enabled to sail the sea and study, with no
+material restrictions, thanks to him. Through his generosity handsome
+books have been published, museums have been opened, and excavations
+have been made in the earth which throw enlightenment on the origin of
+man."
+
+"And all this," the Colonel interrupted, persisting in the admiration
+already expressed, "with the money from the Casino! Gambling has
+defrayed the expenses of the cruisers of science, the coal and men for
+far-off expeditions, the printing of books and journals, the subsidies
+for young men anxious to perfect their scientific training; the
+Institute of Oceanography in Paris; the Museum of Oceanography in
+Monaco, where you are working; the Museum of Anthropology and.... And
+you have to figure that all this is merely a tip left by the
+stockholders of the gambling corporation. Just imagine what the Casino
+produces! And lots of people consider it terrible!"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference where wealth comes from as long as it is
+put to useful purposes," said the Professor, with a note of hardness in
+his voice. "No one asks a government the origin of its funds, when they
+are used for some good purpose. Often they have been extorted with more
+cruelty and violence than those which come from here, where the people
+all flock of their own free will. It is a good thing that the money of
+scheming, foolish people, and of those who feel their lives are empty
+and don't know how to fill them, should be used for once to accomplish
+something great and human. Think what this Prince of a tiny State has
+done for science in the course of a few years. If only the great
+Emperors would devote the enormous forces at their command to similar
+enterprises! If only Kaiser Wilhelm had done the same, instead of
+preparing for war all his life, how humanity might have progressed!"
+
+The Colonel, considering himself a warrior by profession, only half
+admitted the truth of the Professor's words. The sword, the glory won on
+the battle-field, were something after all, and the world would be ugly
+without them, it seemed to him. But he remained silent, not venturing to
+spoil his friend's enthusiasm.
+
+"All the sins on the one hand are redeemed on the other." Saying this,
+Novoa pointed to the huge Casino, with its multi-colored domes and
+towers, rising from the table-land of Monte Carlo. Then tracing with his
+finger an imaginary arc above the harbor, he paused when it pointed to
+the eminence on the left, where, on the cliffs of Monaco, a large square
+edifice rose, the walls of which descended to the water's edge. It was
+the Museum of Oceanography, a fine new building in stone that, in that
+atmosphere so seldom streaked with rain, still retained its waxy
+whiteness.
+
+Don Marcos smiled at the contrast. "Don Atilio says the same thing.
+Every time he gazes at the view from here, he looks at the two buildings
+separated by the mouth of the harbor, and occupying the two
+promontories. He says the one justifies the other, and adds: 'They are
+...' What is it he says?--an antithesis. No; it's something else."
+
+The metallic booming of a gong drifted through the trees from Villa
+Sirena, summoning the guests, who were scattered through the park, or
+had not appeared as yet from their rooms. The Colonel listened with
+pleasure: "Luncheon!"
+
+He gave a last look at the two enormous buildings, one of them bristling
+with sharp and many colored pinnacles, the other plain and square, of
+uniform whiteness. Between the promontories, at the water's surface, two
+new breakwaters meet, closing the mouth of the harbor. At the outermost
+extremity of each is a beacon: one red, the other green.
+
+The Colonel tapped his brow and looked at his compatriot with a smile.
+"Oh, yes, I remember. He says the Casino and the Museum are a symbol."
+
+The little group which Castro had labelled "Enemies of Women" had now
+been in existence two weeks with no disharmony and no obstacles to the
+perfect happiness of the members. Complete freedom was theirs! Villa
+Sirena belonged to them all, and the real owner seemed merely like an
+additional guest.
+
+Arising late in the morning, Castro saw the Prince in a corner of the
+garden with his shirt open at the neck and his bare arms wielding a
+spade. The thing that made the new life complete for him was the
+cultivating of a little garden, and having the gratification of eating
+vegetables and smelling flowers that were the product of his own toil.
+This man who had always been surrounded by a corps of servants to attend
+to all his wants, was anxious now to be self-dependent, and feel the
+proud satisfaction of one who relies entirely on his own hands. Vainly
+he invited Castro to join him in this healthy, profitable exercise,
+which was at the same time a return to primitive simplicity.
+
+"Thanks; I don't care for Tolstoi. As far as the simple life goes this
+is all I want." And he stretched out on the moss, under a tree, while
+the Prince went on digging his garden. They talked for a while of their
+companions. Novoa was in the library, or wandering about the park. Some
+mornings he would take the early train for Monaco to continue his
+studies at the Museum. As for Spadoni, he never arose before noon, and
+often the Colonel would have to pound on his door so that he would not
+be late for lunch.
+
+"He never gets to sleep until dawn," said Castro. "He spends the night
+studying his notes on the way the gambling has been going. He gets into
+my room sometimes when I'm asleep, to tell me one of his everlasting
+systems that he has just discovered; and I have to threaten him with a
+slipper. In his room, among the music albums, he keeps piles of green
+sheets that give each day's plays for a year at all the various tables
+in the Casino. He's crazy."
+
+But Castro took care not to add that he often asked Spadoni to lend him
+his "archives" in order to verify his own calculations; and in spite of
+his making fun of the latter's discoveries, he used to risk a little
+money on them, through a gambler's superstition that attaches great
+value to the intuitions of the simple-minded.
+
+After luncheon, Castro and Spadoni would both hurry off to the Casino.
+The Prince, when not attending a concert, remained with Novoa and the
+Colonel in a _loggia_ on the upper story, looking out over the sea. The
+war had filled that part of the Mediterranean with shipping. In normal
+times the sea presented a deserted monotonous appearance, with nothing
+to arrest the eye save the wheeling of the gulls, the foamy leaps of the
+dolphins and the sail of an occasional fishing boat. The steamers and
+the large sailing vessels were scarcely ever to be seen even as tiny
+shadows on the horizon, following their course direct from Marseilles to
+Genoa, without following the extensive shore line of the Riviera gulf.
+But now the submarine menace had obliged the merchant ships to slip
+along within shelter of the coast. Convoys passed nearly every day;
+freighters of various nationalities, daubed like zebras to reduce their
+visibility, and escorted by French and Italian torpedo-boats.
+
+These rosaries of boats so close to the coast that one could read their
+names and distinguish their captains standing on the bridge, caused the
+Prince and the Professor to talk of the horrors of war.
+
+At times the Colonel entered the conversation, but only to lament the
+difficulties which such a war presented to the fulfillment of his duties
+as steward. Each day his task was becoming more difficult. He was no
+longer able to find anything worth serving at a table like that of the
+Prince, and even so, the prices that he paid roused his indignation when
+he compared them with those of peace times! And the servants! He had
+sent to Spain for some, now that all those from the district were in the
+army; but the hotel proprietors had immediately enticed them away. They
+all preferred to serve in cafés or in places where people are
+continually coming and going, tempted by the chance of getting tips and
+of associating with the white-aproned chamber-maids.
+
+He had improvised dining-room service with the two Italian boys from the
+Brodhigera, whose families were living in Monaco. The older and livelier
+of the two had the name of Pistola, and treated his companion in
+despotic fashion, bullying him with kicks and cuffs when the Colonel's
+back was turned. Atilio, for the sake of the rhyme, had nicknamed
+Pistola's comrade, Estola, and every one in the house accepted the name,
+even the boy himself.
+
+"When you think of the work it cost me to make decent respectable
+looking servants out of them!" groaned Toledo. "And now it seems that
+they are going to be called back to Italy as soldiers. More men off for
+the war! Even these young lads that haven't reached the age yet! What
+shall we do when Estola and Pistola go?"
+
+Many evenings, at the dinner hour, the rules of the community were
+rudely broken. The first to desert was Spadoni. He arrived sometimes
+after midnight, saying that he had dined with some friends. At other
+times he did not return at all. After a few days had gone by he would
+quietly appear, with the serene ingenuousness of a stray dog, just as
+though he had gone out only a few hours before. No one could ever find
+out exactly where he had been. He himself was not sure. "I met some
+friends." And in the same half hour, these friends would be at one
+moment some Englishmen from Nice, or at another a family from
+Cap-Martin, as though he had been in both places at the same time.
+
+Atilio also used to absent himself. A gambling companion had shown him,
+in the Casino, the little cards divided into columns, which are used to
+note the alternating frequency of "red" and "black." Various ladies had
+taken similar documents from their hand-bags, where they lay among the
+handkerchiefs, the powder boxes, the lip sticks, the banknotes, and the
+various colored chips, which are used as money in the gaming. The
+indications all agreed. During the morning and afternoon the "bets" were
+all lost, and the house was winning; but from eight o'clock in the
+evening on, undreamed-of fortune smiled on the players. The statistics
+could not be clearer; there was no possible doubt. And Castro would
+renounce the excellent food of Villa Sirena, satisfied with a glass of
+beer and a sandwich at the bar. Then at midnight he would return in a
+hired carriage, paying the astonished driver with prodigality. At other
+times he would stand in front of the gate fishing in his pockets to get
+together enough to pay for the cab. Fate had lied. Nor, on those
+occasions, would any of the prophets of the little cards have been able
+to lend him a cent.
+
+Toledo muttered protests. This lack of orderly habits made him lament
+once more the scarcity of servants. The help always got up late on
+account of having to sit up and wait at night. For that reason, on the
+nights when all the companions of the Prince were present, the Colonel
+felt the satisfaction of the Governor of a fortress when he sees all the
+posterns locked and feels the keys in his pocket. After dinner they
+would listen to Spadoni. Seated at a grand piano, he would play
+according to his mood or according to the wishes of the Prince. Lubimoff
+was a melomaniac whose musical taste was cloyed, perverted, by an
+excessive refinement. He cared only for rare works, and obscure
+composers.
+
+Castro, who was himself a pianist, at times was unable to hide his
+enthusiasm for the wonderful execution of the Italian virtuoso.
+
+"And just think that after all he is an idiot!" he exclaimed, with the
+frankness of a man who is carried away by his feelings. "All his
+faculties are warped, and narrowed, concentrated on a single purpose,
+music, without leaving anything for anything else. However, what's the
+difference? He's an idiot--but a sublime idiot."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were nights when Spadoni remained with his elbow on the keyboard
+and his brow resting in his right hand, as though completely absorbed in
+music. As a matter of fact, the visions that were then whirling in his
+head, beneath those long locks, were red and black squares, many cards,
+and thirty-six numbers in three rows beginning with a zero. The Prince,
+annoyed by the silence, turned to Castro.
+
+"Tell us something about your grandfather, Don Enrique."
+
+This grandfather had married an aunt of General Saldaña, and although
+Atilio had never known him personally he often talked about him, as a
+curious sort of person who aroused either his admiration or his bitter
+irony, according to the mood he happened to be in. This ancestor was a
+man of warlike temperament and rather perverse enthusiasms, who had
+succeeded in depleting the family fortune, already undermined by his
+predecessors. Related to a great many nobles, he usually would deny the
+relationship if forced to the point, as though it were something of
+which to be ashamed. Other members of the family might take the title of
+nobility if they chose. The motto which had figured for centuries on the
+Castro shield was an accurate summary of the man's character: "To-morrow
+more revolutionary than to-day." For thirty years there had not been a
+successful or abortive insurrection in Spain in which this
+somber-looking gentleman had not had a hand. He was very sensitive to
+insult and a great swordsman. He treated men like a despot and at the
+same time he was ready to die for the liberty of mankind.
+
+"A red Don Quixote!" said Castro.
+
+He remembered having played with the old man's sword, as a child. It was
+a Toledo weapon, inlaid with golden arabesques copied from the old sword
+of the explorer and _conquistador_, Alvaro de Castro, who had been
+Governor of the Indies. But toward the hilt of the blade, where his
+ancestors had been wont to inscribe an expression of fidelity to their
+God and King, Don Enrique had had engraved: "Long live the Republic!"
+Without this knightly sword, he refused to take part in a revolution. He
+had carried it from Sicily to Naples, following Garibaldi to dethrone
+the Bourbons. "To-morrow more revolutionary than to-day!" His companions
+soon appeared to him unspeakable reactionaries, and this caused him to
+seek new doctrines which would fully satisfy his insatiable eagerness
+for destruction and innovation. Finally, this descendant of Governors
+and Viceroys wound up in the "First International." And the most
+extraordinary thing of all was that in his new life he never lost the
+traces of his early education, his arrogance and his knightly ways,
+which caused him to consider the slightest difference of opinion as "an
+affair of honor."
+
+Over a discussion in a committee meeting, he had fought a "comrade"
+laborer in Paris. No sooner had they crossed swords than the workman
+received a cut across the head.
+
+"It is quite just," said the wounded man, wiping away the blood. "The
+Marquis, who has been able to learn the use of weapons, ought of course
+to beat a mere man of the people."
+
+Don Enrique turned pale at the irony, and to restore equality, and
+eliminate his traditional advantages, he raised his sword and gave
+himself a terrible cut across the skull, while the witnesses ran forward
+to seize him and prevent him from doing it again.
+
+After accompanying Garibaldi once more, in the War of 1870, fighting the
+Prussians at Dijon, he was drawn to Paris by the revolutionary movement
+of the Commune.
+
+"I think they made him a general," Atilio said. "He must have suffered
+heavily in that tragic farce. It is certain that he was executed by the
+government troops, and no one knows where he is buried."
+
+Atilio's admiration for his grandfather, whose life had been so
+romantic, was dampened by the thought of his mother. Poor, an orphan,
+and forgotten by her relatives, she had been obliged to marry a man old
+enough to be her father, and led the wandering life, outside of Spain,
+that is forced upon the wives of consuls. Atilio was born in Leghorn,
+and was given the name of his godfather, an old Italian gentleman, who
+was a friend of the Spanish Consul. The memory of his grandfather,
+saddened from time to time the life of his poor, resigned, and devout
+mother. In Rome, visiting Spaniards, all persons of conventional ideas
+who came to see the Pope, would look askance on learning of her birth:
+"Oh, so you are the daughter of Enrique de Castro!" And she would seem
+to shrink, and beg their pardon with her sad, humble eyes.
+
+"I don't disown my grandfather," Castro added. "I would like to have
+known him. The only thing I blame him for is that he left us so poor;
+though his forefathers had already done more than he to ruin us."
+
+On days when Atilio had lost, he was more prone to complain, recalling
+the immense estates of the Castros, gained in the conquests in America.
+
+"To-day there are large cities on the fields given by the king to my
+forefathers. One of my remote ancestors grazed horses, and built a
+colonial country house on land where at the present time you will find
+gardens, monuments, and big hotels. There were hundreds of millions of
+square yards; at a franc a yard, imagine, Michael! I would be richer
+than you, richer than all the millionaires in the world. And I'm only a
+well-dressed beggar. Good God! Why didn't my ancestors keep their land,
+instead of devoting themselves to serving the king and the people? Why
+didn't they do like any peasant who keeps religiously what has been left
+him by his ancestors?"
+
+Other evenings, seated in the _loggia_, the Prince listened to Novoa and
+gazed at the nocturnal scene of sea and sky. There was no light, save
+the veiled gleam from the distant drawing-room. The coast was dark. The
+silhouette of Monte Carlo stood out against the starry background,
+without a single dot of red. There were few street lights in the city,
+and besides, the glass of those few was painted blue. The lamps on the
+stairway of the Casino were shrouded like those of a hearse. The German
+submarine menace kept the whole Principality, as well as the French
+coast, in darkness. Only at the entrance to the harbor of Monaco, the
+two octagonal towers kept on their summit a red and a green beacon,
+which threw out over the water one shifting path of rubies, and another
+of emeralds.
+
+In the darkness, standing and looking at the stars, Novoa talked about
+the poetry of space, about distances that defy human calculations. It
+was impossible for Spadoni to follow this talk with the same attention
+as the Prince and Castro. What did the so-called tri-colored star matter
+to him? The millions and millions of leagues that the scientist spoke of
+merely made him yawn; and through an association of ideas, he became
+absorbed in gambling, mentally, imagining that he was winning fifty
+times in succession, doubling each time.
+
+He wagered a simple five franc piece--the smallest bet allowed in the
+Casino--and at the end of the twenty-fifth bet he stopped as though
+horror-struck. He had won more than a hundred and sixty-seven million
+francs. In only twenty-five minutes! The Casino was closing its doors,
+declaring the bank broken! But this was not enough to bring him out of
+his dream. The marvellous five franc piece remained on the green cloth
+beside a mountain of money which kept growing and growing. He must
+finish the fifty bets, always doubling. He continued for five more times
+and then stopped. He had already won more than five thousand million
+francs. They would have to hand over the entire Principality of Monaco
+to him, and even that would not be enough perhaps to pay the debt. The
+thirty-fifth time the simple "napoleon" had become a hundred seventy-one
+billions of francs. They wouldn't pay him; he was sure of that. It would
+be necessary for all the great powers of Europe to ally themselves as
+though for a great war, and even then perhaps, he, the pianist, Teofilo
+Spadoni, would not accept the credit they might offer him.
+
+He could no longer make the calculations mentally. The twentieth time he
+had been obliged to have resource to the pencil which he used in the
+Casino to note results of the various plays, and to the cards divided in
+columns which were distributed by the employees. The back of the card
+was rather narrow for his winnings, which kept growing so tremendously
+that they had reached fantastic sums. He continued his triumphant
+playing. At the fortieth winning he stopped. Five million million
+francs. Decidedly neither Europe nor the entire world would be able to
+pay him. The nations would have to put themselves up for sale, the globe
+would be put on public auction, the women would all have to sell their
+bodies and give him the proceeds; and even so it would be necessary to
+ask him for several thousands of years in which to pay the debt to him,
+the creditor of the universe, seated on his piano stool as though on a
+throne.
+
+But although he was certain that he was being deceived, since no one on
+earth or heaven could guarantee the bank, he went on playing. There were
+only ten more bets to be made. And when he had made the fiftieth he had
+a sudden stroke of generosity. In his mind he gave the employees of the
+Casino thousands, millions, and millions of millions. For himself he
+only kept the amount that figured at the head of his winnings, and wrote
+on his card:
+
+5,000,000,000,000,000 francs.
+
+Five thousand billions! For fifty minutes' work, that wasn't bad.
+
+Suddenly his attention was attracted by the silence in which the Prince
+and Castro were listening to Novoa, and he fixed his visionary gaze on
+the latter, his eyes still dazzled by the golden whirl of the Vision.
+
+The scientist too was talking about millions of millions, figures which
+words would not express, and was going into detail, repeating dozens of
+ciphers one after the other. He thought he heard the professor surmising
+the age which the sun would reach in time--here an interminable
+figure--the disappearance of the present forms of life, the recession of
+the heavenly body towards an exceedingly remote constellation, and its
+final extinction and death--here another appalling sum.
+
+Spadoni smiled disdainfully. The sun, the constellation of Hercules, the
+hundred million years that it would take for the former to reach the
+earth, the seventeen million years that it would require to lose its
+incandescence, and cease furnishing warmth for life on earth, and all
+the other calculations of the scientist were as nothing, mere nothing!
+If he were to put his money on the green table fifty times more, the
+figures obtained by astronomy would appear paltry and ridiculous beside
+the winnings obtained in an hour and forty minutes. God alone could be
+the banker, and pay with stars as though they were money; and who knows
+if God himself would be able to withstand the hundredth time the five
+franc piece was wagered, always doubling, and if he would not have to
+declare his bank was broken?
+
+Spadoni remained for some time absorbed in inner contemplation of his
+greatness. Coming out of his revery he became aware of Novoa's voice
+which still sounded a note of mystery, before that dark horizon, dotted
+above with the points of light from the stars, and undulating below with
+the phosphorescence of the waves.
+
+The Prince urged him to talk of the sea as the regulator and origin of
+life. The pianist heard it said that the sea covers three-fourths of the
+globe, and, as it represents a large preponderance over the continents,
+the latter, though they consider themselves superior, are dominated by
+the former, just as governments are obliged to yield to universal
+suffrage and respect the strength of majorities. All the great
+atmospheric laws are established, not on the lesser surface of the land,
+which is rough and broken, but on the vast ocean spaces, which allow the
+molecules freely to obey the mechanical laws of fluids.
+
+Spadoni touched Castro on the elbow, and tried to tell him in a low
+voice about the unheard-of winnings that he had just made. But Atilio,
+without turning around, brushed the interrupting hand aside, and went on
+listening.
+
+Novoa was talking about the hot waters which condensed on the globe in
+the primordial atmosphere, and had been precipitated on the crust of the
+earth which was then in formation, dissolving and tearing down
+everything in their way on the new-born surface.
+
+"With the salt that there is in the ocean," Novoa said, "one could
+reconstruct the entire African continent."
+
+The pianist stirred once more in his seat. An Africa made of salt! What
+could you do with it?
+
+"Castro, listen to me," he said in a low voice. "I put five francs on a
+certain bet, fifty times in succession, doubling each time, do you
+know?"
+
+But the latter was not interested, and rejected the piece of cardboard
+held out to him.
+
+Spadoni, offended, shut his eyes, deciding to isolate himself from the
+rest, and not listen to what did not seem to him of any importance. If
+the scientist was going to talk every evening, he would dispense with
+the hospitality of the Prince, and go in search of other friends.
+
+Suddenly, a word caught his ear and drew him from his shell, causing him
+to open his eyes. The Professor was talking about the gold that had been
+washed away by the boiling rains at the creation of the globe, and was
+still present in solution in the sea.
+
+"There are only a few milligrams in each ton of water, but with all that
+there is in the ocean one could form a heap so immense, that, if it were
+divided equally among the thousand five hundred million inhabitants of
+the earth, we would each get an eighty-five thousand pound ingot, or
+some forty tons of gold."
+
+The pianist craned his neck in amazement. What was the Professor saying?
+
+"And," Novoa continued, "according to the value of gold before the war,
+each person's ingot would represent some hundred and twenty million
+francs."
+
+The silence was broken by a whistling sound. Castro turned his head,
+thinking that Spadoni was snoring. Observing the pianist's staring eyes,
+he realized that this was a sigh, of real emotion, an exclamation of
+surprise.
+
+"I'll give my share for a hundred thousand francs in bank-notes," he
+said in solemn tones.
+
+And as the others laughed, he remained with his eyes fixed on Novoa. The
+sea! Who would have thought that the sea!... That scientist knew a great
+deal; and as for himself, with sudden awe and respect, he determined
+that hereafter he would always listen to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One night, Atilio and the Prince were eating alone. On leaving the
+Casino, the pianist had gone off to Nice with some English friends of
+his, who played poker in their landau. Novoa had been invited to dine
+with a colleague from the Museum and would not be back until midnight.
+
+Michael was thinking of his impressions of that afternoon. He had gone
+to the Casino to attend a classical concert, determined to face the
+obsequious curiosity of the employees, and take the risk of running
+across former friends. From the outer stairway to the door of the
+theater he had been obliged to reply to the series of deep bows from the
+various functionaries, some with military caps and gold buttons, others
+in solemn frock coats, stiff and dignified like lawyers in a play. The
+people who were passing through the portico noticed him immediately.
+"Prince Lubimoff!" They all remembered his yacht, his adventures, and
+his parties, and repeated his name like the glorious echo of a
+resurrected past. He had been obliged to hurry through the groups at top
+speed, with a vague stare, feigning absentmindedness, so as not to see
+certain well-known smiles, and certain inviting faces which evoked sweet
+visions of by-gone days.
+
+In the auditorium he looked for a seat where he would be entirely
+inconspicuous, some corner divan, close to the wall; but even there he
+was annoyed by the curiosity of the crowd. Around the leader of the
+orchestra were the most famous musicians, those who prided themselves on
+the title of "Soloists to His Most Serene Highness the Prince of
+Monaco." Some of them had sailed with Prince Michael on his yacht, as
+members of the orchestra. During a pause in the music, the first violin,
+in looking around the room to see if he could recognize any of his
+admirers, discovered Lubimoff, and communicated his surprise at once to
+the other soloists. They all smiled in his direction, and showed on
+their faces that they were dedicating to him alone the music which was
+rising from their instruments. Finally the public began to notice the
+gentleman who was half hidden, and who was gradually attracting the
+attention of the entire orchestra.
+
+When the concert was over Lubimoff left hurriedly, afraid of being
+stopped by certain former women friends whom he had observed in the
+audience. He crossed the portico brusquely, elbowing his way through the
+crowd that barred the way. Here his attention was caught by a person of
+majestic bearing and exclusive showy appearance, with a derby of smooth
+gray silk, a honey colored overcoat with velvet sleeves of the same
+shade, and white gloves and shoes. His gray side-whiskers joined his
+mustache; his hair was parted away down to his neck, and over his ears
+strayed two locks of hair, cut short and dyed and shining with
+cosmetics.
+
+"I thought it was a Russian general or some Austrian of note dressed for
+winter, with an elegance worthy of the Riviera, and I find it's you, my
+dear Colonel. I hadn't seen you outside of Villa Sirena before."
+
+Toledo blushed, not knowing whether to feel proud or annoyed, at these
+words.
+
+"Your Excellency, I always liked to dress well, and...."
+
+"Who was the lady you were talking with?"
+
+"It was the Infanta. She was telling me that she had lost seven thousand
+francs that were sent to her from Italy, and that she hasn't the money
+to pay her living expenses, and...."
+
+"The tall, thin one, with the big cow-boy hat? No, not that one. I was
+asking you about the other."
+
+He had only seen "the other" from behind, but she had attracted his
+attention for the moment because of her svelte figure and her queenly
+carriage.
+
+"Your Excellency," said Don Marcos, hesitatingly, "that was the Duchess
+de Delille."
+
+There was a moment's silence, and as though the Prince had caught him
+doing something wrong, that he must apologize for, he hastened to add:
+
+"She is very kind to the Infanta. She gives her children clothes, and I
+think she even lends her dresses. The daughter of a King! The
+grand-daughter of San Fernando! I am an old legitimist soldier, and the
+least I can do is be grateful that...."
+
+Michael cut his excuses short with a gesture. That was enough: he did
+not want to hear any more. And he turned to Castro. He had seen him too,
+near the entrance to the Casino, talking to another lady.
+
+"And I saw you, too," said Atilio, "but you were in such a rush, going
+along with your head down, making your way like a mad bull. Do you want
+to know who the lady is? Does she interest you?"
+
+Lubimoff shrugged his shoulders; but his indifference was feigned. As a
+matter of fact she had interested him, although slightly. The unknown
+woman was tall and blond, with an air of lithe strength, with the
+freedom of movement of a gymnast or an amazon.
+
+"Well, that's the _'Generala_,'" Castro continued without observing that
+his friend was not paying much heed. "The title of '_Generala_' isn't to
+be taken seriously. It's a pet name. I think the Duchess invented it,
+for I warn you the two are very good friends. She's a 'General' in the
+same way that certain other people are Colonels."
+
+Don Marcos overlooked this bit of irony. Atilio was evidently in a bad
+humor that evening. His nerves were on edge, and he seemed ready to snap
+at any one. He must have lost in the gambling.
+
+"They call her the 'Generala' because of her somewhat masculine
+character, and the brusque way she has of treating people at times. An
+extraordinary woman! A real amazon! She shoots, does gymnastics, swims
+in the rivers in mid-winter, and what's more she has a voice like the
+sighing of the breeze, and looks as though she were going to faint at
+the least emotion, like a timid girl. Do you want to know who she is?
+Her name is Clorinda, a name of ancient poetry, or ancient comedy. I
+always call her Doña Clorinda; it seems as though it would be
+disrespectful if I didn't, in spite of the fact that she is still young.
+Perhaps two or three years younger than her friend Alicia. The two hate
+each other, and they can't live apart. One week each month they clash,
+call each other names, and tell the most horrible tales about each
+other; then they look each other up; 'How are you, my dear?' 'Are you
+angry with me, angel?'"
+
+The Prince smiled at Atilio's imitation of the words and gestures of the
+two ladies.
+
+"Clorinda is an American," Castro continued, "but from South America,
+from a little Republic where her grandfathers and great-grandfathers
+were Presidents, and fighters, and fathers of their country. Her title
+of 'Generala' has a certain basis. Over there in her native land they
+admire her for her beauty and for the great sensation she is supposed to
+have caused in Europe. At a distance, you see, everything is changed and
+seems much greater. Her picture is public property, and figures on every
+package of coffee, and every advertising prospectus in the country. She
+is a national beauty; and when she gets old, there will always be a spot
+in the world where she will be considered eternally youthful. She got
+married in Paris to a young Frenchman, a dreamer, rather ill with
+tuberculosis. That was the very reason why the 'Generala' loved him. If
+she had married a strong, fiery sort of man, they would have killed each
+other in a few days. She is a widow now. I don't think she is very rich;
+the war must have diminished her income, but she has enough to live
+comfortably. I even imagine she must suffer fewer hardships than does
+the Delille woman. She is an exceedingly well-balanced person."
+
+He remained silent for a moment.
+
+"But she has such queer ideas! She is so used to dominating! I met her
+in Biarritz some years ago. I have seen her here often in the gaming
+rooms; we have bowed to each other and had a few conversations which did
+not amount to much. When a woman is placing her stakes she doesn't allow
+compliments that might distract her attention. To-day is the first time
+that I have talked with her at any length. Do you know what she asked
+me, the very first thing? Why I wasn't in the war. It didn't make any
+difference when I told her that I'm neutral, and that the war doesn't
+interest me. 'If I were a man, I would be a soldier,' she said. And if
+you had only seen the look she gave when she said it!"
+
+Lubimoff smiled a bit scornfully at the woman's words.
+
+"In her opinion," Castro went on saying, "every man ought to work at
+something, produce something, be a hero. She adored her poor husband,
+gentle as a sick lamb, because he painted a few pale, washed-out
+pictures, and had been rewarded in some slight degree at various
+expositions. Men like you and me, in her eyes, are a variety of 'supers'
+hired to give life to the drawing-rooms, casinos, and bathing resorts,
+to keep the conversation going, and be nice to the ladies; but we don't
+interest her. She told me so this afternoon once again."
+
+"Does her opinion bother you?" asked the Prince.
+
+Atilio paused for a moment, as though to weigh his words before
+replying.
+
+"Yes, it does bother me," he resolutely answered at last. "Why should I
+deny it? That woman interests me. When I don't see her, I forget all
+about her. Months and years have gone by without my giving her a
+thought. But as soon as I meet her she dominates me.... I want her. I
+know I can't come up to you in such matters, but I've had successful
+love affairs too. But she is so different from the others! Besides,
+there's the joy in conquering, the need of dominating, that you find at
+the bottom of all our amorous desires! Every time we talk together, and
+she makes quite evident, with her bird-like voice and her smile of
+compassion, the distance that separates us, I come away sad, or rather,
+discouraged, as though I had to climb a great height, of which I would
+never reach the top, no matter how hard I tried. To-day I ought to be
+happy; it has been months since I've had an afternoon like this. I've
+played, and look ... look! Seventeen thousand francs!"
+
+He had taken from his inner pocket a bundle of blue bank-notes, throwing
+it on the table with a certain fury.
+
+"I succeeded in winning as high as twenty-six thousand. If there is
+anything in the saying, 'Lucky at cards, unlucky in love,' I was as
+lucky as a despairing lover or a deceived husband. And yet, I'm not
+happy."
+
+The Prince smiled again, as though a self-evident truth had just been
+completely demonstrated. Woman! That Clorinda, that devil of a
+"Generala," was a real "woman." With a few short minutes of conversation
+only, she had turned Castro topsy-turvy, and perhaps would end by
+breaking up the peaceful life--without exciting pleasures but without
+desperate sorrows as well--that the guests at Villa Sirena were leading.
+
+"And you, Atilio," he said in a reproachful voice, "are moved by that
+smooth-voiced virago. You believe in love like a school-boy."
+
+Castro replied in a cold, aggressive tone. The Prince might say whatever
+he liked about him; but to call her a virago!... What right had he?
+Nevertheless he hid the real cause of his annoyance, pretending to be
+hurt by the allusion to his credulity.
+
+"I don't believe in anything; I'm more skeptical than you perhaps. I
+know that everything about us is false, and conventional--all a matter
+of lies that we accept because they are necessary to us for the moment.
+You love music and painting as though they were something divine and
+eternal. Very well; if the structure of our ears were to be modified a
+little, the symphonies of Beethoven would be a regular din; if the
+functioning of our retinas were to change, we would have to burn all the
+famous pictures, because they would seem like so many canvases dirtied
+by a child's play; if our brains were to be modified, all the poets and
+thinkers would become childish idiots for us. No, I don't believe in
+anything," he insisted angrily. "In order to live and understand one
+another, we have to agree upon a high and a low, a left and a right; but
+even that is a lie, since we live in the infinite which has no limits.
+Everything we consider fundamental is simply a matter of lines that have
+been laid down on the canvas of life to mark off our various
+conceptions."
+
+The Prince shrugged his shoulders, giving him a look of surprise. Why
+all this, apropos of a woman?
+
+"Everything is a lie," Castro went on; "but that is no reason why I
+should live like a stone or a tree. I need sweet falsehoods to sing my
+mind to sleep until the hour of my death. Illusions are a lie, but I
+want them near me; hope is another lie, but I want it to walk before
+me. I don't believe in love, since I don't believe in anything.
+Everything you say against it I have known for years; but should I give
+it a kick if it comes my way, and wants to go with me? Do you know any
+dream that fills the emptiness of our lives better--even though it lasts
+only a short time?"
+
+Michael greeted his friend's enthusiasm with a sardonic gesture.
+
+"Do you know why I look younger than I am?" Atilio continued, more and
+more excitedly. "Do you know I shall be young when others of my own age
+have become old men? I pretend to be ironical. As a matter of fact I'm a
+skeptic. But I have a secret, the secret of eternal youth, which I keep
+to myself. Let me tell you what it is. I have discovered that the
+greatest wisdom in life, the most important thing, is to 'while away the
+time'; and I fill the emptiness that every man carries inside him with
+an orchestra; the orchestra of my illusions. The great thing is that it
+play all the time, that the music rack never be empty; once one piece is
+played, another must take its place. At times it is a symphony of love.
+Mine have been beautiful but brief. For that reason I have replaced them
+with another which is endless--that of ambition and the desire for gain,
+whose orbits are infinite like those of the stars in the heavens, and
+like the possible combinations of cards. I gamble. In the whirl of the
+roulette wheel I see a castle that may be mine, a more sumptuous castle
+than any in existence; a finer yacht than the one you used to have;
+endless _fêtes_. Through a pack of cards I can contemplate things more
+magnificent than were dreamed of by the Persian story-tellers. Its
+suites are so many piles of precious gems. Most of the time I lose, and
+the orchestra plays an accompaniment on muted strings, with a funeral
+march of wondrous wild sadness and beauty; but after a few measures,
+the march becomes a hymn of triumph, the dawning of a new day, the
+resurrection of hope."
+
+And now there was a look of pity in the eyes of the Prince. "He is mad,"
+it seemed to say.
+
+"This afternoon," Castro continued, "my orchestra made me acquainted
+with a new symphony, something I had never heard before. While I was
+winning money I did not think a single time about myself, nor about
+palaces, nor yachts, nor parties. I was thinking only of the 'Generala,'
+and thinking of her with real hate, wanting to get revenge. I wanted to
+win a hundred thousand francs--who knows, I may win it to-morrow--and
+spend the whole hundred thousand on a pearl necklace, on leaving the
+Casino, and send it to her anonymously with something like this: 'As a
+tribute of dislike from a worthless, miserable man.'"
+
+A burst of laughter from the Prince woke the Colonel with a start. As a
+good early riser, the latter had gone to sleep in his chair. Observing
+that His Excellency was not paying any attention to him, he slipped out
+of the Hall, as though he had something of more importance to attend to
+than the conversation of the two friends who seemed to ignore his
+presence.
+
+"But what do you find in love?" Michael asked. "For I think you know
+what love really is. All the illusions of adolescence, and all the
+idealism of poetry, are merely winding paths which lead to the same, the
+only goal; the physical act. And aren't you tired of that? Aren't you
+never daunted by the monotony of it?"
+
+There was a certain gloomy intonation in the Prince's voice, as though
+he were lamenting over the ruin of all his own life. He had met hundreds
+of women of the sort that cause a sudden burst of mute desire as they
+pass. Feminine resistance was something unknown to him. More than that:
+women had sought him, coming half-way of their own free will, pursuing
+him with no regard for the conventions and modesty, obliging him, as a
+matter of masculine pride, to overtax his powers with a prodigality that
+made pleasure almost painful. And they were all alike! He understood the
+mirage of illusion in the things that one admires from afar, and has no
+hope of obtaining. It is our curiosity for what is hidden, the desire
+which is aroused by an obstacle, the inner fancies inspired by clothes,
+ornaments, everything which covers the feminine body, giving to its
+sameness the charm of a mystery which is ever renewed. As for him, alas,
+it was as though they all went nude. Nothing could stimulate his
+interest; it was all too familiar.
+
+"Besides," and here his voice grew quieter, "I wouldn't confess it to
+any one else; but love and women make me think of the miserableness of
+human life, the inevitable end, death. Since I've been freed from their
+false seductions, I feel gayer, more sure of myself; I enjoy more
+frankly the passing moment. I don't want to talk to you about the shame
+of those bodies which we claim to be divine. Women are less wholesome
+than men. It was Nature's will. But that isn't what makes me flee from
+them."
+
+He was silent for a moment, but then added shortly after:
+
+"Whenever I am near a woman I can't help but see the image of death.
+When I caress her silky hair, I suddenly seem to feel a smooth, hard
+yellow skull, like those one sees protruding from the ground in
+abandoned cemeteries. A kiss on her mouth, or a nibble at her chin,
+rouses in me a vision of the bony jaw with its teeth, not so different
+from those of the anthropoids in the museums. Those eyes will fade; that
+nose with its graceful curves and rosy quivering nostrils will dissolve
+likewise; the only solid and permanent parts are the black sockets, and
+the grotesque grin of the skull, with its flattened nose. Those swelling
+breasts are nothing more than false padding to hide the ghastly cage of
+the ribs; those legs, which seem to us such wonderful columns, are
+stringy flesh and water that will waste away, leaving bare two long
+calcareous pipe-stems. We imagine we are adoring supreme beauty, and we
+are embracing a skeleton. The image of death fills us with horror, and
+every woman carries one within her, and compels us to worship it."
+
+Now it was Castro's turn to gaze in astonishment. His eyes, fixed on the
+Prince, seemed to say: "He is mad."
+
+"The trouble with you, Michael, is that you've over-enjoyed," he said
+after a long pause. "You make me think of the people who, when they sit
+down to the table, hide their lack of appetite with nausea. The most
+succulent meat for them suggests the horrors of the slaughter house.
+Bread reminds them of the hands that kneaded it, and wine calls up a
+picture of feet reeking with juice in the vintage-troughs. But just let
+their senses awaken, and their physical needs reassert themselves, and
+they see everything in a different light, as though the sun had just
+risen, and they find an indescribable charm in the very things that
+disgusted them. What difference is it to me if a woman has a skeleton
+inside? I have one too, and that doesn't prevent me from taking a great
+deal of joy in the pleasures of life, and considering love as the most
+interesting of all those pleasures."
+
+Castro laughed with affectionate compassion as he looked at his friend.
+
+"Let me say it again, you are satiated; you have the lack of appetite
+and the gloomy vision of a person suffering from a painful indigestion.
+You are still too young for this debility to last. You will recover.
+Your appetite will come back. I hope you won't find the table set
+exactly as in the past, that you will be swept off your feet by some
+obstacle, in other words, that unrequital will make you suffer; and then
+... well, just wait till then!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Don Marcos had never seen the Prince so vexed as he was that morning,
+when he announced that the Duchess de Delille was waiting for him
+down-stairs in the hall.
+
+"You should have told her I'd gone out; any sort of a pretext--a lunch
+at Nice.... There must be some understanding between you. You certainly
+look out for your Infanta!"
+
+The Colonel, flushed with emotion, made an effort to reply to these
+accusations. If the Duchess had now suddenly presented herself, it was
+perhaps because he had refused to take any of her messages for the
+Prince.
+
+As the latter went down to the hall, he ran straight into Alicia, who
+was standing close to a window, and looking at the gardens and the sea.
+Her back was towards him, just as he had seen her coming out of the
+concert. When she turned her head, Michael thought to himself that he
+would surely never have recognized her had he met her anywhere else. She
+was a beautiful woman, but scarcely like the person he had seen that
+last time in the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, with its weird oriental
+nick-nacks and unwholesome perfumes. Several years of her life had
+passed away since then, and yet she seemed fresher, and younger. Her
+eyes had lost the veiled disturbing fire, that made them look larger,
+and gave them a fixed, unnatural stare. The dull, sickly whiteness of
+her skin had taken on color from the sun and the open air. Her airy,
+undulating litheness had become less willowy, giving her person the calm
+tranquillity of bodies that are beginning to crystallize in their
+definitive form.
+
+The Prince, interrupted by Alicia's smiling glance, was unable to
+continue his scrutiny. It seemed from her quiet easy manner as though
+she had been there in that very place only the day before. Moreover,
+Michael suddenly began to wonder how he should start the conversation.
+Should he talk English or French? Should he speak informally as
+before?... She put an end to his hesitation, speaking familiarly in
+Spanish, just as when they were children.
+
+"How hard it is to get in touch with you! Practically impossible,"
+Alicia said as she sat down, after shaking hands with him. "So I decided
+to pay you this visit. It isn't exactly proper for a lady to call on a
+person with such a terrible reputation as you have; but I'm not the
+first one who has come here. There have been lots of others!"
+
+She laughed teasingly as she said this. Immediately she became serious,
+and said timidly:
+
+"I came here on business--a money matter."
+
+Not wanting to take up such a subject at once, she talked about the
+obstacles which had obliged her to come unannounced to Villa Sirena. The
+Prince could have absolute confidence in the fidelity with which his
+"chamberlain" carried out his orders. This Colonel was a nice fellow,
+but there was no approaching him, any more than a ferocious dog, when
+some one tries to make him disobey his master. She had vainly asked him
+to announce her visit; and he had even refused to accept her card for
+his Prince.
+
+"I might have written you; but I was afraid you wouldn't reply, or would
+simply tell me to deal with your agent in Paris. It has been such a long
+time since we've seen each other! Our friendship has been so
+intermittent! So that is why I finally decided last night to come and
+surprise you in your den, with the hope that you wouldn't show me the
+door."
+
+Michael smiled, making a gesture of indignant denial.
+
+"I came about my debt ... the loans your mother made me some time ago. I
+didn't know how much they amounted to. Your agent now says they are over
+four hundred thousand francs. It must be so, if he maintains it. At
+times when I was in straits I asked for something, and the Princess, who
+was such a great lady, kept giving and giving, without either of us
+paying any attention to the amounts. Now I see how tremendously generous
+she must have been."
+
+This was surprising news for Lubimoff. Then he gradually recalled that
+when his mother died she had left a long memorandum of all the loans she
+had made, and that Alicia's name figured among the debtors. But he had
+left the papers in the hands of his administrator, without thinking any
+more about the matter.
+
+He immediately understood the reason for Alicia's visit. His agent had
+wanted to raise some money, and owing to the lack of funds from Russia,
+he was raising all he could in the West: credits ... advances made to
+friends or dependents, guaranty deposits, and even the loans made by the
+Princess, which, according to his express orders, were not to be
+demanded except in case of strict necessity.
+
+The general pressure of circumstances had reached Alicia. For the last
+four months the Lubimoff estate had been sending her letter after
+letter, demanding the payment of her enormous debt. Already the agent's
+last note had become threatening because of her silence. It notified her
+that action would be brought against her in court. The estate was
+holding many of her letters thanking the Princess for the latter's
+generosity. Besides, all the money had been paid by checks cashed by
+the Duchess herself.
+
+"Your administrator is certainly an insolent fellow. The other day I saw
+you in the Casino,--I saw you from behind as you were running away from
+people. You frightened me: I imagined then that you had changed, that
+you were very different from the man I knew, and that we would never
+come to an understanding. Later I thought you mustn't be quite so
+terrible as you seem ... and I came."
+
+Michael, remaining silent, seemed to be saying something with his eyes,
+which were fixed on Alicia. Well, why had she come? What was it she
+wished to propose to him?
+
+She smiled with an expression of cynical amusement.
+
+"I came to tell you that I can't pay now--and perhaps never; to beg you
+to wait, I don't know how long, and to ask you to see that that
+disagreeable fellow who is managing your estate doesn't annoy me with
+his insolence."
+
+And as the Prince made no move, she continued,
+
+"I'm ruined."
+
+"So am I," said Michael. "We're all ruined. The munition makers are the
+only people with any money now."
+
+"Oh! You ruined!" Alicia protested. "With you it is simply a question of
+being hard pressed for the moment. Things in Russia will be straightened
+out some time or other. Besides, you are Prince Lubimoff, the famous
+millionaire. If I had your name, who would refuse me a loan?"
+
+Suddenly she lost the audacious smile which she had worked up for the
+interview. Her eyes grew darker; the corners of her mouth drooped.
+
+"I am really ruined. Look."
+
+She pointed to the triangle of bare flesh visible at the throat of her
+low cut dress. A pearl necklace rested on her white bosom. Michael, as
+she insisted, finally looked at the pearls. False, scandalously false;
+all the luster gone, opaque and yellow as drops of wax. He knew
+something about pearls; he had given away so many necklaces! Then Alicia
+showed him her hands. Two artistically made finger rings, but without
+any jewels, and of slight intrinsic value, were all that adorned her
+fingers.
+
+"This is a last year's dress," she added in a mournful voice, as though
+confessing something most shameful. "They won't trust me any more in
+Paris. I owe so much! Nothing but the hat is new. What woman, no matter
+how poor she might feel, wouldn't buy a hat! It is the most conspicuous
+thing about one,--something that changes all the time; and must be
+looked after at all costs. Luckily, on account of the war, they are not
+using plumes.... I'm poor, Michael, poorer than any woman you ever
+knew."
+
+"And your mother?"
+
+The Prince asked this instinctively, without thinking. A moment later he
+suspected that he had read, some years before, he didn't know where,
+perhaps while he was roving the seas, the news of the death of Doña
+Mercedes. He was not sure; but her daughter removed all doubt.
+
+"Poor señora! Let's not talk about her."
+
+But nevertheless Alicia did talk, but only to lament her mother's devout
+prodigality. She had given millions for the construction of an enormous
+hospital in Spain, on the advice of her Aragonese chaplain, the
+astronomer of the Champs-Élysées. Marble was used in the construction
+for the mere masonry; the garden fence was forged by a celebrated
+Parisian artist who devoted himself to molding bronze statues for
+drawing-rooms. But when the vicar left, tired of such generosity, the
+monster building remained unfinished, and the precious fence lay on the
+ground in pieces, like so much old iron. Later, the "Monsignor" directed
+the worthy lady's funds into other channels. It was necessary to spread
+the faith by means of the "good book," and a new publishing house arose
+in Paris, which was most extraordinary and unheard of. Packages of books
+were stored on mahogany shelves, and the leaves were folded on lacquer
+tables.
+
+"The priests got everything that belonged to me," Alicia continued. "At
+times they egged mamma on to the most absurd outlays of money just for
+the sake of collecting commissions from the contractors. From numerous
+belfries in both hemispheres chimes rang thanks to Doña Mercedes. One
+entire bell foundry was kept going just on mamma's gifts. Besides, she
+was often carried away by a sort of loving weakness for all the saints
+who were not especially famous.
+
+"In her last years she devoted herself to 'launching' saints. Every one
+in the calendar who was little known, or of some unusual name, aroused
+in her the desire to repair a great injustice. She had their lives
+written, churches dedicated to them; and corresponded with the high
+dignitaries of Rome to push many a dead man, who had waited centuries in
+vain for the hour when he should become a Saint."
+
+Lubimoff finally began to laugh at the resentful tone in which Alicia
+spoke of her mother's mystic pleasures. Doña Mercedes was a great one!
+And finally she began to laugh likewise.
+
+"In that way all our income, which was enormous, was spent. She should
+have left me a real fortune, unencumbered, in the bank. A lady that
+spent so little on herself! And nevertheless, I had to pay out huge sums
+for all the orders she had contracted before her death. You can be sure
+the Monsignor and the rest of them are much richer than I."
+
+"How about your mines? And your lands in Mexico?"
+
+The Duchess repeated the same gesture of despair. It was as though they
+did not exist! She was poor, absolutely poor.
+
+"You say you are ruined, and you haven't suffered from the money
+shortage for more than the last two years, perhaps less. I haven't seen
+a cent of my fortune for some time before the war. Every one is talking
+about Russia, and Bolshevism, because it is something that concerns the
+Old World directly. But how about Mexico, and the situation there which
+goes back to the time when Europe was at peace?"
+
+Her lands had been lost as though they were so much personal property,
+that could be transported and hidden. An agrarian revolution, the echoes
+of which had scarcely reached the Old Continent, had swallowed them up,
+suppressing all traces of her former property rights. The half-breeds
+had divided them to suit themselves, to work them, or leave them more
+unproductive than before. To whom could she appeal, if these lands were
+in provinces that were constantly changing hands, and the Mexican
+government had no authority over them?
+
+The silver mines, which for three generations of Barrios had been the
+basis of their fortune, were in a still worse situation.
+
+"One of the so-called 'Generals,' an Indian, has fortified himself in
+the territory where my mines are, and from there he defies the rulers in
+the Capital. They tell me that every month he takes out half a million
+francs in silver bars. He cuts them up in disks, puts his stamp on them
+and makes money thus to pay his men. You can imagine he has plenty of
+followers, with pure silver money, worth more than that of civilized
+countries! They will never be able to put him out; all he has to do to
+create armies for himself is to dig down into what belongs to me. This
+bad joke has gone on now for several years; I, who live in Europe,
+getting poorer and poorer every day, am paying for an endless war on the
+other side of the earth."
+
+In spite of the fact that the Prince had never taken care of his own
+business he wanted to give her some advice. She ought to go over there
+and ask for assistance; she was born in the United States.
+
+"I've already seen to that," she replied. "I have some one in New York
+who looks after my affairs. But would they go to war just on my account?
+Perhaps I shall take the trip later. Not now: I haven't the strength.
+There is something that is bothering me terribly just now, and it would
+be even worse if I were to leave France."
+
+Her eyes began to fill with tears. Her face contracted with an
+expression of pain, and her hand moved toward her purse for a
+handkerchief. Michael recalled the young man that Castro had been
+noticing at Alicia's side during the last few years. Perhaps he was the
+cause of her emotion, and inability to make the trip.
+
+"Love!" he thought to himself. "Love, even now when she's growing old."
+
+He tried to change the conversation and asked about the Duke de Delille.
+He knew that he was at the front; and even thought he remembered a
+report of his being wounded in one of the early battles. Was he still
+alive?
+
+In speaking of her husband, Alicia looked grave, to Michael's great
+surprise. Formerly she used to treat him with a certain scorn. He had
+accepted his wife's freedom, with all its consequences, in exchange for
+an enormous allowance. They lived apart, and although she found her
+independence very sweet, she could not help but feel a sort of feminine
+dislike for her accommodating husband, so little given to tragic
+jealousy. But at present her ideas seemed to have changed, and she
+spoke rapidly as though afraid of noticing Lubimoff smile as she used to
+smile herself, in mentioning the Duke.
+
+"Yes; he joined the service. You know of course that he is some twenty
+years older than I. He was exempted from bearing arms on account of his
+age; but he remembered that he had been an officer in his youth, and was
+one of the first to go. Who would have thought it of a man who didn't
+seem to have any cares, and made fun of everything that didn't affect
+his own selfish pleasures!"
+
+The Germans had picked him up in a dying condition during one of their
+victorious advances at the beginning of the war. He was covered with
+wounds. After two years as a prisoner they had exchanged him as useless,
+and he was living interned in Switzerland, with one arm gone.
+
+"Poor man! He writes me every month. He fishes in Lake Geneva, and
+thinks of me more than he ever thought before. His epistles are almost
+love letters. What a transformation misfortune can make in a character.
+He says that he sees life from a different angle; and hopes that after
+the cataclysm, which will have made us better, we shall be able to come
+together again, and be happy. Oh, if only I could want to!..."
+
+Her tone was ironical as she spoke of this illusionary happiness, but at
+the same time there was in it a note of respect and admiration. The Duke
+whom she had known as a great dowry hunter, accommodating and
+unscrupulous, was forgotten. At present she saw in him only the
+white-haired warrior, the invalid, who according to the doctors, would
+not live long, owing to the operations he had undergone. And she was
+trying to keep up the exile's hopes, replying to his long letters, with
+brief, affectionate notes.
+
+"So it's on account of your husband that you don't take the trip?"
+Michael asked, pretending that he was inquiring in good faith.
+
+Alicia was ruffled by such a supposition. Poor Delille! It was something
+else that was troubling her. Her husband wasn't the only one who had
+gone to war. There were others, who were younger, and had better reasons
+to love life, but who had suffered the same fate. How many hidden griefs
+there were these days!
+
+The Duchess's eyes moistened, and her eyes and lips frankly expressed
+her sorrow.
+
+"It's the little lover; there's no doubt of it," Michael said to
+himself. "It's the young chap Castro saw."
+
+As though she read his thoughts and were anxious to switch them, Alicia
+began to talk once more about the reason for her visit, and about her
+situation.
+
+The Prince nodded when she described to him her amazement at finding
+that wealth was not something infinite and immutable, and that it was
+slipping from her grasp ... slipping and slipping, without her being
+able to do anything to avoid the gradual ruin.
+
+"I sold inopportunely; I took the money they cared to give me, without
+paying any attention to the conditions. All my jewels went; I sold some
+in Paris, others here in this very place. You say you are ruined. No,
+you don't know what it means; but I know all right! I've been
+shipwrecked longer than you; my boat was smaller. I don't want to bore
+you with an account of my poverty. I haven't a house in Paris any more.
+I shall never go back there again, unless my affairs are straightened
+out. The only house I have is a villa here, which I bought in the good
+old days. Don't smile; there are two mortgages on it. Almost any day
+they may put me out of it. It was a very pleasant sort of house before,
+when I had money; but now, with everything so scarce on account of the
+war! There's no coal, and wood is dear; it gets cold at night, and it
+takes a fortune to keep the old furnace going. Besides, I haven't any
+servants except my former lady's maid, the gardener, and his wife who
+does the cooking. For that reason all the rooms are closed, and Valeria
+and I live our lives in two rooms on the first floor. We eat there, and
+sleep there. Valeria is a girl from Paris, a señorita whom I am
+'protecting.' Imagine how poor she must be if she trusts her future to
+me!"
+
+"But you gamble," said the Prince.
+
+Alicia seemed shocked at these words. They sounded like an accusation.
+
+"I play, but what can you expect me to do? I have to do something to
+keep body and soul together, to earn my living. How else could a woman
+like myself do it? I know what you're going to say to me: that I've lost
+a great deal. True; I sold my pearl necklace here, the real one, and a
+great many other jewels; I have lost large amounts, more than I care to
+think of. But at that time I didn't know all I know to-day.... When as
+luck will have it, I haven't much money to play!"
+
+Lubimoff was astonished at the way this woman spoke in all seriousness
+of her present adeptness.
+
+"Besides," she added in a tone of sadness, "what would become of me if I
+didn't play? Surely you haven't forgotten how I was when we saw each
+other last. You must have noticed certain tastes of mine."
+
+Michael recalled the invitation to smoke "the pipe," and the odor that
+filled the "study" in the palace on the Avenue du Bois.
+
+"I put a stop to all that: gambling and something else made me give it
+up. Now I think of it with disgust. That's why I live in Monte Carlo. I
+have a feeling deep down in my heart that fortune will come back in
+search of me here, and nowhere else. Don't you play?"
+
+Michael was annoyed at this question. Hadn't he told her that he was
+ruined? Was he going to follow her example, and make his situation still
+worse by losing the remnants of his fortune?
+
+"Ruined!" exclaimed Alicia. "Your hard times can't last long. This
+Russian business will finally be settled. The great powers have too
+large interests at stake there, not to take a hand in straightening
+everything out. It's this affair of mine that won't be arranged for
+years. The only hope I have is to enjoy a run of luck in the Casino and
+win some two or three hundred thousand francs, and, with that amount,
+wait for things to change."
+
+The Prince shrugged his shoulders. He knew gamblers. This woman,
+dominated by her wild dream, would forget the object of her visit, and
+go raving on about the possible whims of fortune, like Spadoni, or like
+Castro himself.
+
+"And what do you want of me?"
+
+Alicia seemed to wake up, and once more her smile became bold, and
+engaging, as it had been at the beginning of the interview; the smile of
+a petitioner who comes with the firm determination to get what he wants.
+She had already told him at the very beginning what her object was; that
+the Prince's agent shouldn't bother her any more in regard to that
+forgotten debt.
+
+"I shall pay it some day, if it is possible for me.... But you had
+better count on my never paying it at all. Give it up as lost, and tell
+that horrid gentleman not to write me any more."
+
+Michael, fascinated by the simple way in which this woman announced her
+extraordinary desire, imitated the tone of her voice.
+
+"Very well; I shall tell this horrid gentleman not to bother you; to
+forget you."
+
+And he laughed like a child, without paying any attention to the fact
+that his own interests were at stake. The only thing he thought of was
+the expression on the face of his solemn agent when he received such an
+order.
+
+"I always thought you were kind and generous," she said. "Thanks,
+Michael! At times I have had a discussion with the 'General' about you,
+to convince her that you are a big hearted man."
+
+"Oh, so Doña Clorinda is an enemy of mine? Why I've never seen her!"
+
+"She's an extraordinary woman. In her eyes, every man who has a good
+time, and doesn't do wonderful things, is displeasing to her. Only
+yesterday we quarreled for good. Let's not talk about her. I have
+something more to ask of you."
+
+More? The Prince looked at her in astonishment, but Alicia hastened to
+add that what she wanted was some advice.
+
+War had upset their modes of life with amazing rapidity. Social values
+were reversed: the fortunes that seemed most solid were crumbling.
+
+"Things will change, surely? It's impossible for this to last."
+
+"Yes it is impossible," he said gravely.
+
+Both of them seemed to be living in another world, surrounded by the
+senseless visions of a nightmare. To think that they would have to worry
+of money, after it had been, up to that time, a natural part of their
+existence, much as sunlight, air, or water is for every one! To think
+that they should find themselves obliged to pursue it in its flight
+through unknown ways! No, it wasn't logical; surely a passing whim of
+destiny. Their lives would again be the same as before, with the
+regularity of the laws of nature, which seem to swerve at times, but
+finally return to their orderly predestined course.
+
+Being harder pressed, and having suffered economic hardships for a
+longer time, it was impossible for her to adopt the serenity with which
+Lubimoff accepted his momentary ruin.
+
+"Things will change, that's certain; but in the meantime, how can I
+live? You have just freed me from a moral burden by forgetting about
+this debt. I thank you. But I must work, I want to earn some money! What
+is your advice?"
+
+He was astounded. What work could Alicia do? Her question was laughable.
+But there she was, gravely facing him, convinced of her determination to
+work, and expecting illuminating counsel, as though her fate depended on
+him.
+
+Fortunately Alicia herself, unable to bear the silence, began to explain
+her own ideas on the subject. The topsy-turvy state of things at the
+present time justified the wildest plans. A great lady might adopt means
+of support which some years previously would have caused a scandal. She
+knew a number of Russian ladies in Nice who used to give wonderful
+parties in their drawing rooms before the war, and who at present,
+having been reduced to poverty, were devising schemes to earn their
+living in their own way. One was going to open a millinery shop, and
+count on her former friendships to form a circle of customers. Another
+had changed her villa on the Promenade des Anglais into a boarding
+house. She would admit only people of distinction. Allied officers, from
+Colonels up. She intended to treat her boarders like visitors, with all
+the courtesy of a great lady receiving her guests; save that from now on
+every day in the week would be her reception day.
+
+"What do you think of my turning my villa into a boarding house? Could
+you help me with a little money to renew the furniture, and buy whatever
+is lacking? Nothing but aristocratic guests; generals, and retired
+ambassadors who come here in quest of sunlight."
+
+The Prince replied with a burst of laughter.
+
+"Why, you're crazy. They would all make love to you. In a few weeks your
+establishment would be a regular inferno."
+
+Alicia, considering his observation quite accurate, did not insist any
+further. The Russian lady in Nice was old and terrible looking compared
+with her. Besides, she thought it perfectly natural and logical that her
+guests should become enamored of her.
+
+The "General" had suggested another plan to her. She might open a
+tea-room in Monte Carlo, a very elegant one. The attraction of seeing
+her at the counter would draw people. For this she would not need a
+financial backer.
+
+Once more Lubimoff burst out laughing.
+
+"The Duchess de Delille's tea-room! That would be delightful; but once
+people's curiosity had been satisfied the only customers you would have
+would be those who were interested in your charms. No; that's not
+business."
+
+She gave a look of somewhat comic dismay; what was she to do? A lady who
+is anxious for work can find no occupation in a world controlled and
+monopolized by men. She had nothing to fall back on except gambling. It
+was an exciting pleasure which made her forget her worries, and at the
+same time gave her hope. Each day with gambling she opened a window to
+fortune, in case it should deign to remember her. Who knows but what
+some time it might fold its golden wings and alight on a Casino table,
+and allow Alicia's slender hands to caress it, like a tame eagle!
+
+"In the first few months of the war," she continued, "I didn't feel the
+need of anything to distract my mind; the reality of what was happening
+was enough. What anguish I went through! But one gets used to
+everything; the deepest emotions get monotonous if they are too long
+drawn out. One can't live forever with one's nerves at a high tension.
+And this war is so long, and so tiresome! I might have had recourse to
+philanthropic work to take my mind off my troubles; go into a hospital,
+and take care of the wounded. But I've never been clever at such things,
+and I don't want to make a nuisance of myself and be a hindrance, out of
+pure vanity, like a great many other women. Besides, we are in the habit
+of giving orders, and always coming first, and no matter how deeply we
+may feel the spirit of sacrifice, we finally leave, unable to endure
+finding ourselves ordered about by more skillful and useful women, who
+have previously been our inferiors. Take Clorinda for instance; she was
+a nurse the first two years; she was one of the prettiest and most
+interesting with her white dress and her little blue cape. She is
+attracted by everything great; heroism, sacrifices, etc., but she
+finally quarreled with her superiors and gave up her fine rôle."
+
+In gesture and facial expression Alicia seemed to be pitying her own
+uselessness.
+
+"What could I do? I was reduced to worse and worse straits. In Paris my
+creditors were right at my heels, constantly bothering me; that's why I
+came to Monte Carlo, and gambled to forget, and to make a living. There
+is love, an old Academician, a friend of mine, said to me, with a
+selfish motive to be the first to make advantage of his advice. Just
+imagine: real passionate love, wholehearted love, as the only solution
+for the sorrows of life, and at such a time! Oh, if only I could! But I
+feel I'm old, two thousand years old. You are younger, but you can
+count your life in centuries too. Love, for such as you and me!"
+
+At first Lubimoff smiled at the tone of irony and disenchantment in
+which she spoke. Yes, they were very old. The great remedies, useful for
+the majority of people, had no effect on them. They, as it were, had
+become insensible from satiety and weariness. Suddenly the Prince was
+moved by an indiscreet desire. He decided to take advantage of the
+opportunity to ask her a question that had often occurred to him.
+
+"Indeed," he said with masculine frankness, as though talking with a
+comrade, "you still believe in love? They told me about a boy, almost a
+child, whom you used to take everywhere before the war. Really, we are
+beginning to get old," he added with a smile, "and feel we need the
+contact of youth. Was he your lover? Is he the reason for your worries?"
+
+At these questions, the Duchess paled, and seemed to hesitate. Then she
+made an effort to speak. It was evident that she was eager to be
+sincere. But her pallor was followed by a wave of crimson. Twice she
+tried to say something, and finally, mastering her desire to talk, she
+forced a mischievous smile.
+
+"Let's not talk about that. We each have a right to our secrets," she
+said.
+
+And to keep the Prince from relapsing into his curiosity, she went on
+talking about gambling. But he was absorbed in his thoughts, and was not
+listening to her. He had hit the nail on the head; that young stripling
+was her lover, and she was suffering on his account. Perhaps he was
+wounded, or a prisoner. That was the great obstacle which stood in the
+way of her trip; which was keeping her pinned down in Europe, in the
+superstitious belief that we can ward off dangers better if we remain
+close at hand. And she seemed very much in love! Here the Prince gave
+vent to a series of mental exclamations.
+
+"Forty years old, with a past that would fill a book! To feel such a
+powerful, such a youthful passion! Still to believe in love!"
+
+Michael looked at her with an expression that was almost one of hatred.
+Her passion for the boy annoyed him, without his being able to tell just
+why; perhaps because of the indignation which is always aroused by
+people who cling to some harmful lie, accepting it as truth and
+consolation. Whatever the cause, her conduct annoyed him.
+
+This sudden feeling of hostility towards Alicia finally caused him to
+pay attention once more to what she was saying.
+
+"If only I had as much money as I had before, when your mother was still
+alive, and we used to live in Monte Carlo! But at that time I didn't
+know as much as I know to-day about gambling. I used to play just for
+excitement, just to enjoy the sensation of losing, which, as a matter of
+fact, didn't affect me very deeply. I used only chips for a thousand
+francs in betting. I thought it was beneath me so much as to touch any
+others; and besides, I never risked them one at a time. I always staked
+them in a row."
+
+"How much have you lost?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, and pursed her lips disdainfully.
+
+"Who could possibly know? I've been coming here for twelve years or
+more. Even the people in the Casino wouldn't be able to calculate what
+I've given them. In those days, I never used to keep any track of it
+myself. When I needed money I telegraphed to Paris. Besides, I had your
+mother; and I had my own, who usually gave in to my requests, in the
+end. I wouldn't like to know how much I've lost: it would make me
+furious. It must be millions."
+
+The smile of commiseration with which Michael listened to her, seemed to
+make her bolder.
+
+"But at that time I didn't know how to play! Now I must win, and I play
+in a different way. What I need is capital. If I only had a working
+capital!"
+
+This last expression changed his smile into frank laughter. "A working
+capital!" The Duchess would go on talking seriously about her "work."
+She lamented the slenderness of her means. Some thirty thousand francs
+was all the capital she had at her disposal. At times it dwindled in
+alarming fashion: the thirty thousand often shrunk to a single digit.
+Then the ciphers would reappear, and the product of her "work" expand,
+gradually rising above the thirty thousand; but this amount seemed to be
+the fatal number for Alicia, for soon after reaching it her winnings
+would always fall to their usual level.
+
+"Last night I was lucky; I succeeded in winning fourteen thousand
+francs. But last week was bad. Sum total, I'm still at thirty thousand:
+impossible to get any farther. And I don't run any chances, I'm afraid,
+and don't take advantage of the good runs of luck I do have. I ought to
+go on doubling, and doubling. I'm afraid of losing it all on a single
+stake. If I only had a working capital! If I were to go into the Casino
+some afternoon with a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand francs!
+That's the way to master luck. I ought to play big stakes. Imagine me,
+betting a hundred, and even as low as twenty franc chips, like a retired
+money lender! That's the reason fortune doesn't notice me, and passes by
+on the other side."
+
+The Prince shook his head. He refused to help her with her follies.
+Wasn't it better to keep those thousands of francs, instead of losing
+them in no time, as would happen when she was least expecting it?
+
+"You're not a gambler, I know," she said. "You have never felt attracted
+to that sort of pleasure. That's why you don't realize the mysterious
+power of the game, and give advice about something you don't understand.
+If I were to give up playing, I would feel my poverty at once; then I
+would be really poor. While you play, you always have money in your
+hands; you win, and lose, but you never lack the necessities of life.
+And if you lose everything you can still get what you need to start in
+again. I don't know how it is, but a gambler always has plenty of money.
+A single coin puts him on his feet again in five minutes. It's the poor
+man who doesn't play who goes around with empty pockets, without hope or
+means of improving his situation."
+
+Michael continued his mimicry of protest. That was all an old story to
+him; it was the way Spadoni, and even Castro, talked, but with a certain
+added fanaticism, characteristic of women, who, mystics in money
+matters, are always inclined to believe in presentiments and mysterious
+influences.
+
+"Don't count on my helping you to gamble. Besides, I'm poor. At the
+present moment the Colonel must have less cash in the strong box than
+you. I'm almost tempted to ask you to loan me your thirty thousand
+francs."
+
+They both laughed at the idea of this loan. And she had come as a debtor
+to ask his aid!
+
+"I don't know what I can do for you; it's impossible for me to tell just
+what my situation is; but I'll do what I can. Let's have hope: one must
+be patient. These times can't last."
+
+"No; they can't last."
+
+Again the thought of the ridiculousness of their being poor so
+unexpectedly, came over them. But was it logical to think that the world
+would go on in the same normal fashion after such radical divergences
+from the natural order?
+
+They felt drawn together in the solidarity of misfortune; they suddenly
+met, like brother and sister, fallen at the foot of a mountain peak, on
+the heights of which they had previously avoided each other, rudely
+clashing in uncontrollable hostility.
+
+At present Michael had a feeling of being attracted to her, for a reason
+that was absolutely novel. Since his youth he had hated the daughter of
+Doña Mercedes, for her pride, and for the air of overwhelming
+superiority which she maintained even in those moments of love when
+nearly every woman freely humbles herself to take shelter in a man's
+arms like a happy slave. She could give herself only with a manner of
+haughty condescension, as a haughty alms, much as a goddess might come
+to a poor mortal.
+
+And now, seeing her come to him thus simply, to entreat his aid, without
+the rancor of humiliated pride, hiding her fear with friendly merriment,
+desirous of forgetting the past, he felt all his old antipathy melt
+away.
+
+He had always been a protector, a lover in the oriental fashion,
+incapable of caring for any women except those of his harem, who owed
+everything to his munificence, from their slippers to the plumes in
+their turbans, from the jewels that adorned their breasts, to the
+sweetmeats they ate, the pipes they smoked, and the musical instruments
+which accompanied their songs. Alicia did not interest him as a woman;
+neither she nor any other! But he felt the sympathy of comradeship in
+seeing her in need of his protection; somewhat the same feeling that he
+had towards Castro, the Colonel, and the other occupants of Villa
+Sirena. He even thought to himself that misfortune was acceptable, so
+long as it tended to make people show their real character once more.
+This Alicia, so odious to him in early youth, might finally turn out to
+be quite a good friend, now that she found herself freed from the
+influence of vanity and of her bad bringing up.
+
+"You have done enough just in receiving me here," she continued. "I know
+the limitation of my rights: I'm in hostile territory. This is the house
+of 'The Enemies of Women.'"
+
+The Prince pretended not to hear her. Somebody had been talking; perhaps
+it was Castro, who could never keep anything from Doña Clorinda.
+
+They walked through the gardens. Alicia stopped suddenly in front of a
+little piece of cultivated ground, where a few vegetables were beginning
+to spring from the soil.
+
+"This is where you work? I know you amuse yourself working in your
+garden, just as other Russian princes do by making shoes."
+
+So she knew this too? Oh, that tattle-tale rogue of a Castro!
+
+In the Greek garden, one of the marble benches supported by four winged
+Victories attracted her attention, causing her to stop for a moment with
+a pensive expression on her face.
+
+"Do you remember the old man on the bench near the Trojan wall?" she
+suddenly said.
+
+Michael did not know how to answer her question; but after a few moments
+he remembered, as though her fixed stare communicated to him the vision
+of that night in which he had brutally left her.
+
+"How you laughed at me! What a fool I must have seemed! Yes: I was
+unbearable. I was Venus; I was the center of the world; everything in
+existence, people and things, had been created for my special benefit. I
+felt it was my mission to make the world endure my whims, and that the
+world ought to thank me on its knees for paying any attention to it.
+What can you expect! It was youth, and the childish pride of our
+Springtime, which imagines itself eternal. And afterwards! If I were to
+tell you all the disillusionments, and all the sorrows that I
+experienced, even back in the days when I didn't have to worry about
+money! Winter sweeps away all our fancies of Maytime!"
+
+"But you're not an old woman yet!" Michael exclaimed. "You still inspire
+romantic love in young men. You're fooling yourself or trying to make
+fun of me. There are still lots of men who, when they see you,
+would...."
+
+"Perhaps," she replied, "but you, my dear, are not one of them. Confess
+it; I've never pleased you."
+
+The Prince decided not to confess anything, and changed the
+conversation. These allusions to the past annoyed him. Alicia irritated
+him, every time she attempted to revive her charms as a siren of men.
+
+They wandered about for more than half an hour on the various garden
+terraces. From time to time, in passing a clearing in the shrubbery,
+Michael cast a stealthy glance in the direction of the villa. No one was
+at the windows; but he himself felt an inner agitation at this visit. He
+was sure they were spying on him. Atilio, from behind the window
+curtains, was undoubtedly following their promenade among the trees.
+Perhaps Spadoni, who had spent the night at Villa Sirena, was jumping
+out of bed, and losing two hours of sleep, in order to contemplate this
+surprising spectacle. Even Novoa might have stopped reading to look in
+the direction of the garden.
+
+Alicia herself noticed the fact that no one was visible, neither guest
+nor servants. She and the Prince seemed to be walking through an
+enchanted park.
+
+As they went in the direction of the gate they met Don Marcos, who was
+hurriedly coming out of the gardener's lodge.
+
+The Duchess held out her hand to Michael, who kissed it ceremoniously.
+
+"I hope we are to see each other again in the Casino."
+
+He shook his head. The gaming rooms bored him: he had no idea of going
+there.
+
+"I would have liked to meet you there. I'm sure you would bring me
+luck."
+
+For a moment she seemed undecided. She had no thought of returning to
+Villa Sirena, where there was no one but men: she was convinced that she
+was a nuisance there.
+
+"Come and see me to-morrow. The Colonel knows where I live. Come, and
+we'll have a laugh at the way the Duchess de Delille is living. It's
+rather interesting."
+
+She went over to the livery carriage which was waiting for her outside
+the gate. Before getting in she turned to urge him, in a tone of playful
+threat:
+
+"If you don't come, you'll never see me again. I shall think you want to
+break with me, that you think I'm a bore, and don't like me. I shall
+expect you."
+
+As the carriage drove off, she waved farewell.
+
+"It was about time!" Michael exclaimed, on finding himself alone.
+
+It had been a visit of an hour and a half. It had kept him continuously
+at a nervous tension, weighing his words, and avoiding too great an
+expression of friendliness, giving advice without any interest
+whatsoever, and leaving the past in silence. He preferred the confidence
+and lack of restraint of the conversations with his comrades.
+
+On thinking of the latter, his feeling of annoyance returned. How Castro
+would smile, when he sat down at the table! He could hear his voice
+already saying ironically: "No women!" And the first to appear had made
+him as sheepishly obedient as a prior breaking the rule of the monastery
+to receive a Queen.
+
+This worry caused him to speak to the Colonel, who was walking along at
+his side in silence, accompanying him from the gate to the house. Where
+was Castro?
+
+"In the library with Lord Lewis. His Lordship arrived while Your
+Highness was in the garden. He has come to lunch."
+
+He was a nice Englishman! He had taken it into his head of his own
+accord to choose this day, after so many futile invitations! While that
+Englishman was present, Castro would talk of nothing but gaming. And
+Michael went in search of Lewis.
+
+The latter was the son of the great historian, whose country had
+rewarded him with the title of lord. But this title was only to be
+inherited by the oldest son of the family, and no one but Toledo, who
+always exaggerated the importance of his friends, called the second son
+_Lord_ Lewis. He had been in Monte Carlo for twenty-five years, and the
+old employees in the Casino, seeing his bald head sadly bowed above the
+gaming tables, recalled the gentleman of former times, elegant, gay, and
+vigorous. He had come to the Riviera, on one of his Byronic
+"pilgrimages," and there he had remained, not caring to see any more of
+the world. The passion for gambling was the one inexhaustible pleasure
+for this man who had tried them all, and who was bored by the majority.
+
+The real Lord Lewis, a solemn person, who maintained the prestige of the
+family name, had several children, and had served his country in various
+high positions in the Colonies. As for the Colonel's "Lord," he was
+gradually losing all his former connections, and becoming a mere Monte
+Carlo gambler.
+
+"Twenty-five years!" he had remarked with sadness one day to the Prince.
+"And I shall never be able to do anything else! It's too late now to get
+a fresh start. My life is ended, and they will bury me here, I'm sure;
+all that I inherited from my father, and all that several old aunts left
+me will remain here. There have been times, when I saw things as they
+are, and undertook to run away. But when I'm at a distance, I feel
+violently indignant. I remember that I've dropped more than a million
+here, I think that I ought not to resign myself to the loss, and in
+order to recover it, I come back at once to play, and lose again. I
+shall go on doing like that until I die. Besides, there's the
+castle...."
+
+Michael was acquainted with the castle. It was on a peak of the Maritime
+Alps, in sight of Monte Carlo, near the village of La Turbie and the
+remains of the Trophy of Augustus which marks the ancient Roman road.
+
+During his first years of life on the Riviera, the aristocratic Lewis
+had bought for a few thousand francs the ruins of a lordly stronghold
+that possessed the romantic tradition of having witnessed wars with the
+Counts of Provence, and scenes of family violence and murder. The son of
+the Historian, fonder of sport than of literature, considered it a
+matter of filial homage to reconstruct within sight of the Mediterranean
+a castle such as his father had described in telling the legends of his
+country. Part of his fortune had gone into this. The rest had been
+devoted to gambling. "With what I win," he used to say to himself, "I
+shall finish the castle." And since he imagined he would win fabulous
+sums, he started the reconstruction on a gigantic scale, directing it
+himself, according to the architectural fancies he had studied out from
+the drawings of Gustave Doré. The castle had remained half built,
+standing thus for many years. On the one side that was completed, the
+walls displayed huge gloomy-looking windows with stained glass. On the
+side opposite, the timber of the scaffolding was rotting; the unfinished
+walls stood there meeting at right angles, and the wind and rain entered
+the future drawing rooms, for lack of a fourth wall to shut them off.
+They were open to the view like a stage setting.
+
+Whenever Lord Lewis' friends did not meet him in Monte Carlo it was
+because he was out of money, and was staying in his castle, sadly
+contemplating all that remained to be done. He lived in one of the wings
+that was most nearly completed, and passed the lonely hours in fighting
+with his peasant neighbors, the market people, and with every one in the
+district in fact, who considered it a duty to annoy him and exploit him
+in every possible way.
+
+Whenever a remittance of a thousand or two thousand pounds sterling
+arrived from England, he proudly descended from his mountain to the
+Castle. He had a great aim in life, and he felt he must accomplish it.
+This time he was going to triumph! And when, after exciting
+fluctuations--his capital sometimes increasing, as though his hopes were
+about to be realized--he finally lost everything, Lewis would return to
+his refuge on the heights, and to his hermit's life, in hopes of new
+remittances, which were less frequent and more difficult to get each
+time.
+
+The Prince had visited him once, in this new yet crumbling stronghold,
+to invite him on a long voyage on his yacht. But Lewis refused. He must
+continue his duel with the Casino to get back his money; he was under
+obligation to finish his undertaking.
+
+The war had awakened him for a few weeks from the grip of his wild
+dream. His brother had died a few weeks before; but countless young
+nephews still remained. They had given up their comforts and pleasures
+in high society to offer their lives. Some of them, who were in the
+navy, had embarked on small vessels, torpedo-boats and submarines,
+seeking the greatest dangers; others entered the army as officers. A
+niece of his even, delicate in health, had been decorated on the firing
+line, for her sacrifices as a nurse.
+
+"And I, miserable selfish man that I am," he said, in talking with the
+Colonel at the Casino, "go on being a mere Monte Carlo gambler. I ought
+to be out there, where the men are, but I can't.... I can't! My days are
+over; I'm a corpse that eats and sleeps just to go on gambling. Add to
+that the fact that some of my relatives, older than I am, are in the
+army!"
+
+At the age of fifty-four, the consciousness of his moral decay, and his
+continual losses, had embittered his nature. Besides, the evenings that
+luck was against him he kept going out to the Casino bar, seeking
+inspiration in one whisky after another gulped down in haste. Heavy set,
+with square shoulders, a small head, deep blue eyes and a red mustache
+streaked with gray, he reminded Atilio somewhat of a wild boar, perhaps
+because of his aggressiveness and gruffness when he was in a bad humor.
+He gambled with his head sunk between his shoulders, his strong hands
+resting on the green baize, without looking at any one, and without
+allowing any one to talk to him, since it disturbed his calculations.
+The days when things were going wrong, and he was having arguments in
+regard to some doubtful play, with the employees or with those who were
+sitting near him at the tables, Lewis's outburst of rage broke the
+discreet calm of the gaming rooms. He insulted the croupiers, inviting
+them to step outside on the Square, while his biceps swelled like a
+prize fighter's. It was necessary to call one of the principal
+directors to pacify him with all the paternal considerations which a
+steady patron deserved.
+
+This man, who in his youth had believed in neither God nor devil, lived
+a constant prey to superstitions which were Castro's delight. He
+detested strange faces, feeling certain that they exercised on him an
+evil influence. It was enough that he should see one across the green
+table, or behind his seat, to cause him to begin to growl in an
+undertone, until finally he would get up and go out to the bar, with the
+idea that a whisky taken in time would change his luck. His intimate
+friend, the only one who could live with him for several days in
+succession, was a French count, older than Lewis, and who was simply
+called by his title, as though he were nameless, or as though he were
+just naturally "The Count." The latter never gambled, but he was ever so
+wise, in spite of the fact that many people considered him insane! One
+day, thirty years ago, he had stepped out of his house in Paris, saying
+that he was going out to buy some tobacco, and he had not yet returned.
+His wife had died without seeing him, and his children, and countless
+grand-children, who had been born and had grown up during his absence,
+were anxious that he should never finish making his purchase.
+
+While Lewis played, the Count, seated on a divan, quietly read some
+book, without paying any attention to the curiosity of the public, which
+stared at his long white hair brushed back, his enormous wild-looking
+mustache, his round green eyes, gleaming with phosphorescence like those
+of a night hawk. Castro's curiosity was aroused by the Count's books.
+They were always new volumes of the sort that are never seen in any book
+store, and are published by obscure unknown firms; conscientious
+treatises on the nectars and ambrosias of modern life--opium, cocaine,
+morphine, and ether--formulas by which one can enter into direct
+communication with the mysterious powers--spirits, hobgoblins, and
+familiar demons--old books of magic brought to light by up-to-date
+sorcerers.
+
+He never deigned to give his friend advice as to gambling; his thoughts
+were on higher things; but Lewis felt surer whenever he raised his eyes
+and saw him, by chance, reading in a corner. As long as he was there, he
+always won, or at least he did not lose much. His presence was enough to
+conjure the evil power of the infinite number of enemies which the
+Englishman felt were surrounding the table. Besides, he was aware of the
+object which the Count was fondling secretly with one hand, while he
+went on reading.
+
+After he had had the misfortune to lose for several days in succession,
+Lewis would come to him, entreatingly:
+
+"Count, my dear Count, if you would please lend me your Satan's rosary!"
+
+The learned personage would look up, doubtful and hesitating. But since
+it was his best friend who asked for it, he would hand the rosary over,
+which meant that one of his hands would be left without anything to do.
+It was a rosary like any other, with large red beads and black ones to
+mark off the tens. The chief thing about it was the group of objects
+which hung in place of the missing cross: an ivory elephant picked up by
+the Count in India, an authentic coin of the Emperor Constantine found
+in the excavations at Anatolia, and another charm which even Lewis could
+scarcely look upon without a sense of revulsion.
+
+Ill luck was vanquished. At times Lewis had lost while he was secretly
+telling the beads of the diabolical rosary under the table; but he
+always lost less than when he was deprived of the marvelous talisman.
+He only cared to remember how one afternoon, aided by the obscene
+sacrilegious thing so highly prized he had succeeded in winning eighty
+thousand francs.
+
+If he stopped winning it was the Count's fault. He was as fickle as a
+coquette. He would suddenly disappear, repeating the same unexplainable
+flight that had amazed his family. He never left Lewis to go and buy
+tobacco; but if any of the books he bought told about some narcotic used
+in Asia to enable one to see the future, or about a gypsy woman in
+Granada who could kill people by merely wishing and saying a few words,
+then off he would go, accepting as gospel truth the saying of some
+anonymous writer who had never been out of Paris. He never lacked money
+for these mysterious trips: doubtless his family was interested in
+keeping him at a distance. He might be three months or five years in
+reappearing. At last the rumor would reach Lewis that his friend was
+living in Nice or Cannes, and he would then write him frequently,
+inviting him to come over to Monte Carlo. He even used to go after him
+and the Count would allow himself to be brought back with his mysterious
+books and his prodigious rosary, without ever saying a word about what
+discoveries he had made on his trips.
+
+On seeing Lewis, after a year's absence, the Prince was obliged to
+conceal his surprise. Nothing save the clear, quiet, gentle eyes,
+recalled the vanished freshness of the athletic and elegant gentleman.
+He had grown thin in an alarming manner, with the emaciation of illness.
+His skull seemed to have shrunk, and across his baldness strayed the few
+scattered ashen locks that still remained.
+
+A remark made by the Colonel came to his mind. Toledo had made a study
+of the decadence of gamblers. It was when they reached the last limits
+of depression and despair that they began to stoop, to shrivel up, and
+become wrinkled. Lewis' hat was getting too big for him; each day it sat
+farther down on his head until it rested on his ears. His shirt collar
+was also getting larger, as though it were making room for his sorrowing
+heart to take flight.
+
+During the lunch, Lewis, Castro and Spadoni kept up the conversation.
+They talked about gambling and the Casino, but no one dared ask the
+Englishman if he had been winning. He had a superstitious fear of this
+question, as if it brought misfortune. On the other hand, he talked
+about other people's good luck, and the great stakes that had been won
+in a night. He kept in his mind all that he had been told, and all that
+he had imagined he had seen during twenty-five years of life at Monte
+Carlo. An American had gone away with a million; an Englishman had won
+ten thousand pounds sterling with five _louis_ that he had borrowed.
+Thus he went on talking about the wonders that had happened in the
+Casino. And after that could there still be people to assert that all,
+absolutely all, of the gamblers, lose in the end?
+
+With eyes that glistened with astonishment and greed, the pianist
+listened to the tales of the "Dean of the Gamblers." Castro was more
+skeptical. He had heard of these extraordinary winnings, and of many
+others, but had never witnessed a single one of them, although he had
+been coming to Monte Carlo for a good many years. It was true that he
+had seen as much as five hundred thousand francs won in a single night.
+But the next day things had changed, and the winner had lost all his
+gains, and all the money he had brought, into the bargain, finally being
+obliged to ask for the customary viaticum in order to be able to return
+to his country.
+
+"I think," he said, "all these stories are invented by the advertising
+department of the Casino. They tell me they have engaged a popular
+novelist, whose business it is to start a story like that every week, in
+order to encourage the gamblers."
+
+The Prince smiled at this invention of his friend, but Lewis would not
+listen to jokes on such a serious subject, and asserted that he had
+witnessed everything that he related. He was lying unconsciously in
+making this statement. In reality he had seen the same things as Atilio:
+people who won to lose later on; but he felt the need of the
+supernatural and was inclined to believe everything in advance. He had
+the soul of a fanatic, who, when told of a miracle, affirms a few days
+later with sincerity: "I saw it with my own eyes."
+
+Every now and then the Prince would eye Castro, expecting to surprise
+some ironic glance, something which would reveal his impressions in
+regard to the visit he had received that morning. Lewis' presence seemed
+to have obliterated all memory of anything unrelated to gambling.
+
+When the luncheon was over they talked in the hall, over their coffee,
+about those who played for big stakes in the private rooms. The names of
+some of them were spoken of with respect, as though they were masters,
+worthy of admiration.
+
+"So-and-so knows how to play," was the one comment.
+
+The amusing part of it for Michael was the fact that Lewis also figured
+among the masters "who knew how to play," and every one of them lost,
+like those who were "ignorant." Their one merit rested on their ability
+to put off the hour of final ruin, and prolong the annihilating emotion,
+growing old like prisoners in the shadow of the rocky cliffs of the
+Principality.
+
+The Prince looked at Castro once more, as at a clever enemy who is
+hiding his thoughts. He ventured to ask a question.
+
+"And how does my relative, the Duchess de Delille, play?"
+
+Atilio looked at him, with not so much as a mischievous twinkle in his
+eyes, surprised at the interest shown by the Prince. But before he could
+reply, Lewis broke in with an answer. The latter hated women, especially
+at the gaming tables. They were only a nuisance, interrupting the
+calculations of the men, with their nervous looks and gestures.
+
+"She plays like an idiot," he said brutally. "She plays like any
+woman.... The money she's lost like a fool!"
+
+Castro intervened as though desiring the conversation to go no further.
+
+"How about the Count?" he asked Lewis. "Where is he? The Colonel is very
+much interested in him."
+
+Don Marcos gave an exclamation of surprise and reproach. He had formed
+his own opinion of that person a long time ago. He was a crazy man! He
+would never forget the brief dialogue they had had one afternoon in the
+Casino, after Atilio had introduced them. On learning Toledo's
+nationality he had launched into a great eulogy of Spain. Oh, Spain!
+What an interesting language it had! And when the Colonel was about to
+thank him for his extreme politeness, he was dumbfounded by the
+following remark, that took away his breath:
+
+"Because, as you probably know, Spanish is the preferred language of the
+devil, after Latin. The most powerful charms are written in Spanish.
+What wonderful necromancers in Toledo! What learned sorcerers in
+Salamanca!"
+
+The old soldier who had fought for the Most Catholic king was always
+greatly disturbed when he thought of the Count and his rosary. For this
+reason when Lewis declared that he had no idea of the whereabouts of his
+friend, he solemnly replied:
+
+"I know where he is: in a mad house."
+
+Suddenly the roar of a train was heard passing Villa Sirena, accompanied
+by shouts and whistling. They were more Englishmen on their way to
+Italy.
+
+This caused them to take up the subject of the war. Lewis, who had
+imbibed freely at the table, was overcome at once with an intense
+sadness, the talk of gambling having reminded him of the worthlessness
+of his life. His intoxication was of the solemn, melancholy kind.
+
+"Two of my nephews died in the Jutland naval battle. Six of my brother's
+sons were killed in France, in a single afternoon: they belonged to the
+same battalion. They were all young, spirited, and anxious to do
+something. I'm the only man left in the family; I'm the worthless one,
+the old man, good for nothing. It's terrible!"
+
+No one said anything, realizing the shame and despair of this man, who
+seemed to be weeping over the ruins of his aimless existence. Novoa
+nodded slightly, as though approving of his words.
+
+"My family is extinct. And there were so many young men in it! Life is
+strange. Time goes by without anything extraordinary happening, and then
+all of a sudden the hours are like months, the days like years, and in a
+few minutes things take place that usually require centuries. All dead!
+None left but my niece Mary, the nurse. She is here; her superiors
+ordered her away almost by force, to take a rest and recuperate. But,
+anxious to resume her service, she got away to Menton and Nice, where
+there are wounded men. If at least she would only marry! But it can't
+be: she will die like the rest. And I shall remain alone, and be a lord,
+the third Lord Lewis; Lord Lewis the Historian, Lord Lewis the Colonel
+Governor, and Lord Lewis the Wastrel...."
+
+At this point they all stopped him in affectionate protest. The
+misfortune of his family had been extraordinary, but he ought not to
+torture himself like that.
+
+"If you don't mind, Prince," said the Englishman, changing the
+conversation, "some day I shall bring my niece to let her see your
+gardens. She is so fond of such things! She is the only one of the
+family to inherit my father's spirit."
+
+After saying that, Lewis showed signs of desiring to go. It was
+necessary for him to forget, and he knew where oblivion was waiting for
+him. For a gambler like him, it was no more possible to sit still than
+it would be for a drunkard who is thinking of a bar with its rows of
+glasses. Castro and Spadoni exchanged several glances with him.
+
+"What do you say to dropping in at the Casino?" one of them proposed.
+
+And all three disappeared.
+
+The Colonel also left, and the Prince spent the remainder of the
+afternoon talking with Novoa, walking about the gardens, and looking at
+the sunset. Finally, he sat down in the hall under a tall rose-shaded
+floor lamp, to read.
+
+Castro returned alone, long before the dinner hour. He was sad; he
+whistled occasionally. His smile was a savage grin. It had been a bad
+afternoon. He had lost everything! The next day he would have to ask his
+relative for a fresh loan in order to return to his "work."
+
+Once more Michael felt compelled to talk to him about the call he had
+received that morning. It was better to have a frank explanation and
+avoid ironical allusions.
+
+"Yes, I saw her," Castro said. "I watched you from a window while you
+were walking through the gardens."
+
+The Prince looked at him, astonished at his brevity. Was that all he had
+to say? At present he felt he would have preferred his joking.
+
+"What of it if she did come?" at last he said brusquely. "That's
+natural; poor woman! I warn you that you've begun the conquest of an
+enemy."
+
+He had met "the General" in the Casino. She and Alicia had just had
+another reconciliation, and to seal their renewed friendship with a
+fresh burst of confidence, the Duchess Delille had related her interview
+with the Prince.
+
+"Doña Clorinda used to be unable to stand you. She considered you a
+frivolous fellow, a worthless loafer. But now she praises you to the
+skies, because of your cancelling that enormous debt, and proposing to
+help the Duchess. She says you are like a knight of old times, and that
+you are big hearted."
+
+Michael shrugged his shoulders. A lot he cared what Doña Clorinda
+thought! This exasperated Castro.
+
+"Why shouldn't your relatives come here?" he said sharply. "You're
+getting bored living just among men all the time. You don't believe it,
+but it's true. It's the same with all of us. One has to talk with a
+woman from time to time, even if it's only out of friendship. What you
+claimed when you came from Paris is impossible."
+
+"Perhaps you think I'm going to fall in love with Alicia?"
+
+And the Prince laughed for a long time, as though never tiring of seeing
+the funny side of such an absurd supposition.
+
+"You'll find that out later on," Castro replied. "All I have to say is
+that we can't live much longer as enemies of women. Look at the
+Colonel: he's your 'Chamberlain,' your Aide, the man who obeys you
+blindly. Well, even he is deserting you. Just notice: whenever he can,
+he spends his time in the Porter's lodge. He has to talk to the
+gardener's daughter, a little brat he used to see crawling around on all
+fours, but who is sixteen now, and not bad looking. She worked in a
+millinery shop in Monte Carlo, but follows the styles like a young
+society girl. The Colonel keeps her provided with high-heeled shoes,
+short skirts, tams, and smart hats, and buys her imitation amber beads.
+That's how he spends all the money you allow him to take for his
+services. Sometimes he follows her at a distance in the street, admiring
+her seductive outline and her ankles, much in evidence, and always in
+silk-stockings. He patiently cultivates his garden; and smiles like a
+fool when he thinks of his future harvest."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+One Sunday, as he got out of bed, the Prince felt like singing. Perhaps
+he was unconsciously following the example of some birds, which,
+deceived by the Spring-like warmth of a midwinter's day, had been
+warbling in the eaves of Villa Sirena since sunrise.
+
+He looked out of his bedroom window. The Mediterranean, without a single
+sail, stretched away in far-off undulations, to where it met the sky.
+The gulls were wheeling in circles, continually drooping into the water,
+folding their wings, and letting themselves be carried along by the
+waves. The sandy depths, stirred by the swells, gave the blue sea a
+lighter shade, which attained, along the shore, an opalescent hue, like
+that of absinthe. Around the promontory, white luminous foam was
+constantly being churned among the projecting rocks of the reefs.
+
+The Prince heard voices above him. Castro and Spadoni were talking from
+window to window. The mysterious call of the early morning beauty had
+caused them to jump out of bed. They were admiring the sky, which did
+not have a trace of mist to dim the brightness of its farthest reaches.
+The mountains stood out in extraordinary relief: they seemed larger and
+nearer. Above Cap-Martin, the Italian Alps descended to the sea, their
+outlying buttress, at the water's edge, white with the frontier towns:
+Vintimiglia and Bordighera.
+
+Through some freak of the atmosphere, a dense, elongated cloud, like a
+snow-covered island, was floating directly overhead in the clear sky.
+Its whiteness seemed to radiate an inner light.
+
+"I recognize it," Atilio said with a tone of conviction to the musician,
+who did not seem to tire of looking at it. "I have seen it often. When
+the day turns out too bright, the Directors of the Casino are afraid
+that the patrons may be bored by so much sunlight, and the vast expanse
+of azure: blue sea and blue sky. 'Have the big cloud brought out,' they
+order over the telephone. You must have noticed that that cloud always
+appears from behind the mountains. That's where the Casino has its
+storehouses. They don't neglect details here when it comes to
+entertaining their patrons."
+
+Michael heard two exclamations: one of surprise and the other of
+indignation. Next he heard the sound of a window suddenly closed. The
+pianist, not in a mood for joking at so early an hour, was going back to
+bed, to sleep until lunch time.
+
+The Prince hurried through his toilet. He felt the need of getting out
+and going somewhere, as though his gardens seemed too small for him. In
+the distance the bells of Monte Carlo were ringing, and still farther
+off those of Monaco were replying; and the merry pealing of the chimes
+caused the clear brittle air to vibrate like a crystal glass.
+
+He went down stairs slowly, trying not to make any noise, and when he
+reached the gate he breathed freely. He had not met any of his
+companions, not even the Colonel. As though attracted by the Sunday
+morning atmosphere of gaiety which, as the afternoon wears on, changes
+to tiresome ennui, he decided to walk to the city alone.
+
+Outside the gate, a girl was waiting for the street car. She was very
+young; but her feet slanted at a sharp angle on her high-heeled shoes.
+Her skirt, falling scarcely below her knees, showed her well-rounded
+calves. The finely woven stockings revealed the whiteness of her flesh.
+Prominent against the salmon colored silk sweater, was a necklace of
+large imitation amber beads. Her hair, cut short just below the ears,
+fell smoothly from underneath a jaunty velvet tam o'shanter of graceful
+line. The air of profound respect with which she spoke to him made him
+recognize her. It was the gardener's daughter. But at the same time she
+looked at him in a sly way with ill-concealed curiosity, as though her
+eyes made a distinction between the master and the man whom women adored
+and of whom she had heard so many things.
+
+The Prince went on, after speaking to her as he would have to a young
+lady of his own social rank. He was gay that morning, and he laughed
+inwardly as he thought how later on that little bundle of mischief and
+ambition would keep men busy. Then he thought of Don Marcos, and what
+Atilio had told him. Poor Colonel! Imagine a person, at his age, trying
+to tame a young wildcat!
+
+He walked lightly, with a springy step, in the direction of Monte Carlo.
+He passed the villas and the gardens as though contact with the ground
+had given his step fresh vigor, and as though the Spring-like air had
+abrogated to some extent the laws of gravity.
+
+When he reached the city he stopped in front of the steps of San Carlos
+Church. Through the door he could see the twinkling tapers, smell the
+odor of flowers, and hear the droning of the organ, and the voices of
+young girls singing. He felt like a boy once more, buoyant and fresh as
+the morning, and had an impulse to follow the various families, in their
+Sunday best, who were ascending the steps. He was a Catholic through his
+father, a member of the Greek church through his mother, and nothing by
+his own inclination. Suddenly he felt a certain repugnance for the
+cave-like darkness, laden with perfumes, and dotted with lights. So he
+went on, breathing the open air with delight.
+
+"Oh, your Ladyship! Good morning!"
+
+A long, thin female hand shook his with masculine vigor. The brass
+buttons of her khaki colored uniform, like that of an English soldier,
+were gleaming in the sun. The uniform, instead of being completed by
+breeches, ended in a short skirt and tan leather leggings.
+
+It was Lewis's niece. She had spent two afternoons at Villa Sirena
+rambling about the gardens. Once more Michael observed her unhealthy
+emaciation, which was beginning to take on the miserable appearance of
+consumption. Her Sam Brown belt buried itself in her blouse, as though
+failing to meet the resistance of a body underneath the cloth. The face
+under the visor of the military cap was as sharp as a knife. Her skin,
+drawn and lined in spite of her youth, showed all the bones and hollows.
+It was impossible to judge her age: she might have been twenty-five, or
+she might have been sixty. Only the eyes had retained their freshness;
+eyes that still kept the guilelessness of adolescence, and looked one
+squarely in the face with the serene confidence of a virgin sure of her
+strength.
+
+She had gone through the horrors of war, as through a flame that dries
+up and parches everything it touches, and in the end converts it to
+dust. She was like a mummy, burned by the fire of the blazing towns that
+she had seen, and shaken by the tears and moans of thousands of human
+beings. "Think what those ears have heard!" Michael said to himself. And
+he understood the sad expression of the pale mouth which hung wearily
+between two drooping furrows. "And think what those eyes have seen!" he
+continued mentally. But the eyes did not care to remember and smiled at
+him, happy in the present moment.
+
+She had just come out of a large hotel converted into a hospital, and
+was waiting for the street car to go to Menton. More wounded soldiers
+had arrived there, and owing to the scarcity of nurses the doctors had
+been obliged to accept her services. For the present they would not
+bother her any more with solicitude about her health! As she thought of
+the hard work that lay before her, of the long night watches, and the
+fight with death to save so many lives, she was filled with joy. She was
+anxious, as though she were going to a celebration to take the short
+trip as soon as possible, and seeing the car coming, she shook hands
+with the Prince again, with a firm grip.
+
+"I shall go on abusing your permission. Next time I shall pillage your
+gardens even worse. Flowers ... lots of flowers! If you would only see
+the joy they give the poor fellows when you put them beside the beds!
+Some of the doctors are vexed; they think it is silly. But all I say is:
+as long as we have to die, why not die with a little poetry, with
+something around us to remind us of the beauty we are losing. It doesn't
+hurt any one."
+
+Lubimoff went on his way, but his heart was less light. This woman,
+fighting death so generously and so manfully, seemed to have torn away
+the rosy veil that had made his eyes rejoice.
+
+Everything was the same, but of a darker hue, as though he were looking
+at the landscape through smoked glasses. He noticed things which he had
+not observed until then. The large hotels had been converted into
+hospitals. Their porches and large balconies were filled with men
+basking in the sun; men whose heads were white balls, bound with
+bandages that left only the eyes and mouth visible; half finished men,
+as it were, lacking a leg or an arm, like a sculptor's rough models.
+Others were lying motionless, with both legs amputated, like corpses in
+a dissecting room, but still breathing.
+
+On the sidewalks he met soldiers of various nations: French, English,
+Serbian, officers, and a few Russians, who reminded him of the former
+importance his country had had in the war. Every variety of uniform worn
+by the various armies of the French Republic passed before his eyes: the
+horizon blue of the home troops, the mustard color of the soldiers from
+Morocco, the yellow fatigue caps of the Foreign Legion, and the red fez
+of the Algerians and the negro Sharpshooters.
+
+Each one was maimed. This sunny land, with its lovely views of sea and
+sky, seemed peopled with a race that had survived a cataclysm. Elegantly
+dressed officers, with handsome figures, limped along, cautiously
+dragging one leg, or else stepping gingerly on a foot so swathed in
+bandages that it was several times its natural size. Some of them were
+leaning on canes, bent over like old men. Men of athletic proportions
+trembled as they walked, as though their skeletons were rattling about
+in the hollow wrapper of their bodies wasted by consumption. Fingers
+were missing on hands; arms had been cut off until the shapeless stumps
+looked like fins. Under their pads of cotton, cheeks retained the gashes
+made by hand grenades, scars like those left by cancer; the horrible
+cavity of the nose, which had been torn away in some of the men, was
+hidden by a black tampon attached to the ears. The faces of others were
+covered by masks of bandages, leaving nothing visible save the eyes--sad
+eyes that seemed to look with fear to the day when they would have to
+grow accustomed to the horror of a face that a few months before had
+been youthful and now was like a vision in a nightmare. The bodies of
+some were intact, retaining their former strength and agility in all
+their limbs. Seen from behind they had kept all the vigor and
+suppleness of youth. But they walked abreast, holding tightly to one
+another's arms, their eyes lost in darkness, tapping the pavement with a
+stick which had taken the place of the vanished sword, and which would
+accompany them until the hour of their death.
+
+And this procession of sadness and resignation, this grievous masquerade
+comforted by the joyousness of the morning, and feeling love of life
+once more renewed, was coming from the gardens. Others were going in the
+direction of the Casino and its terraces, passing among the Brazilian
+palm trees, with smooth, hollow trunks covered with elephant hide; among
+the cacti, held up by iron supports like a tangle of green reptiles
+bristling with thorns; among the prickly pears as high as trees; among
+the Himalayan fig trees, with towering trunks and wide spreading domes
+of branches which seemed to have been made to shelter the motionless
+meditation of the fakirs; among all the trees that come from tropical
+and temperate America, from China, Australia, Abyssinia, and South
+Africa. A tiny rivulet descended the slope in zig-zags through the
+openings in the green lawn, forming back waters among the bamboos and
+Japanese palms, until it flowed into a miniature lake, bordered with
+foliage, as tranquil, pleasing, and dainty as one of those centerpieces
+in which the water is represented by a mirror.
+
+Michael stopped in the upper gardens to look at the Casino from a
+distance. He had never realized before the fussiness and bad taste of
+the architecture of this building, which was the heart of Monaco. If the
+"gingerbread monument"--as Castro called it--closed its doors, all Monte
+Carlo would be wrapped in a deathly stillness like the loneliness of
+those cities which in former centuries were ports, and now are sleepy
+and deserted, far from the sea, which has withdrawn. It was the work of
+the architect of the Paris Opera House, an ornate, gaudy, childish
+structure, of the color of soft butter, with multi-colored roofs,
+balconied turrets, niches with nameless statues, many tile friezes and
+gilded mosaics. At the corners there were green porcelain escutcheons,
+imitating roughly cut emeralds. The outstanding decorative motif of this
+building, famous throughout the world, was the imitation of gold and
+precious stones.
+
+Owing to the prosperity of the establishment, they had added to the main
+body flanked with four towers, an extensive wing in which the best
+gaming rooms were located. Various green and yellow cupolas of different
+sizes revealed the existence of the latter, rising above the upper
+balustrade. On this balustrade a number of bronze angels or genii,
+entirely nude and with golden wings, had been set up. With black
+extended arms they were offering golden tributes, the significance of
+which no one had been able to guess. Other white or metal statues of
+half nude women were sheltered in the niches in the walls, and the names
+and significance of these were likewise a mystery.
+
+Although the edifice was erected with the pretense of dazzling and
+charming with its gold and soft colors, those who went there paid
+scarcely any attention to its splendors.
+
+"The ones who are arriving," Castro would say, "go in on the run; they
+want to get placed at the gaming tables as soon as possible. The ones
+who are coming out take a gloomy view of everything; and even though the
+Casino were as beautiful as the Parthenon, they would take it for a
+robber's cave."
+
+The Prince looked to the right of the building, where a strip of blue
+sea was visible, with the hairy trunks and rounded tops of a few
+Japanese palms standing out against the blue. There at the entrance to
+the terraces along the Mediterranean rose the only two monuments of the
+city, dedicated to the fame of two musicians from the simple fact that
+some of their works had been played for the first time in the theater of
+the Casino. Carved in marble, Berlioz and Massenet greeted with a vague
+stare in their sightless eyes the cosmopolitan crowd that came to the
+gambling house. "They are honorary _croupiers_," Castro used to say.
+
+"Massenet--that isn't so bad," thought Michael. "He was fortunate, he
+had money, and his gifts were recognized during his lifetime. But
+imagine Berlioz, who spent his years struggling against poverty and
+public indifference, standing guard after death over the Casino's
+millions!"
+
+Next, he looked at the foreground, observing the open Square in front of
+the edifice. There was a round garden in the center. People called it
+the "cheese" and some even particularized and called it the "Camembert."
+
+Around the garden rail and on the benches backing up to it, one could
+observe the living soul of Monte Carlo. Here people gathered, to
+exchange jokes and gossip, ask news from those who were coming out of
+the Casino, and comment on the good or bad fortune of the most
+celebrated gamblers.
+
+In the immediate neighborhood, there were no business houses except
+jewelry stores, branches of the government pawn shop, and millinery
+shops. Women who played small stakes felt like satisfying their longing
+for an expensive hat on coming out of the Casino. Those who needed fresh
+capital to carry out their systems had only to take a few steps to pawn
+their valuables. In the show windows of the jewelry shops, pearl
+necklaces worth a million francs and emeralds worth three hundred
+thousand, were exhibited during the winter, waiting for a buyer; and in
+summer they were sent to the fashionable bathing resorts to continue
+being a mute and dazzling temptation. The jewelers, with Semitic
+profiles, were waiting behind their counters, more for sellers than
+buyers, and calmly offered a fourth of the price for a gem bought in
+that very shop the year before.
+
+From a distance it was easy for the Prince to guess the character of the
+many people who at that early hour were sitting on the benches opposite
+the stairs leading up to the edifice. Here those condemned to misery by
+gambling, and accursed by fate, remained all day, suffering the most
+atrocious torment of living close to the door of the sanctuary without
+being able to enter. They had lost their last cent, and the directors of
+the establishment, who generously send ruined gamblers back to their
+respective countries, had handed over the _viaticum_ to them for their
+return. But they had staked the money given to aid them and had lost;
+and since they were debtors to the Casino they could not reënter it
+until they had fulfilled their obligations. So there they remained,
+stranded in the Square for all time, with the false hope of getting some
+money. None of them had any idea of how or from what source. They
+mingled together there in the companionship of misery, watching for
+fellow-countrymen who were better off, to besiege them with requests for
+a loan; or else they spent their time discussing numbers and colors.
+Perhaps they would succeed in getting together a few francs after
+turning all their pockets inside out, and they might choose, as the
+emissary of their illusions, a comrade who was as poor as they, but who
+had not "_taken the viaticum_" and was free to enter.
+
+Michael saw a crowd of people extending as far as the Japanese palm
+trees, near the Massenet monument. They had just arrived by various
+street cars from Nice. They were all hurrying, anxious to enter the
+motley edifice as soon as possible, as though fortune were expecting
+them in the gaming rooms and might leave at any moment, tired of
+waiting.
+
+He looked at the clock above the façade. It was ten o'clock. The daily
+occupations were being resumed and the devotees who lived in Monte Carlo
+were likewise flocking there, and mingling with the people who had come
+from other places. They all mounted the marble steps, following the
+three stair-carpets held in place by brass rods that glistened in the
+sun.
+
+"And to think that we're at war!" Michael thought. "And many of those
+who have gotten up early to make the trip, and those who live here, too,
+have sons or brothers or husbands, who at the present moment are
+fighting, and dying perhaps!"
+
+Love of life, love of pleasure, and the vain hope of winning, worked
+like an anæsthetic, causing them all to rise above their worries and
+forget, so that they were able to live entirely in the present moment.
+
+This general rush for the opening of the gaming hall disgusted the
+Prince and caused him to halt in his descent of the gentle slope of the
+gardens. It was repugnant to him to mix with the crowd that was
+loitering in the neighborhood of the Casino.
+
+His desire to retrace his steps gave him an idea. "Supposing you go and
+surprise Alicia at her home? She would be so pleased!"
+
+She had been at Villa Sirena twice since her first visit. A chance
+meeting in the street with the Prince, when she was walking along with
+her friend Clorinda, had served as a pretext for another visit to the
+refuge in their beautiful gardens of "the enemies of women." He found
+the "General" less hostile and dominating than he had imagined; but he
+could not understand Castro's passion for her. In spite of her beauty it
+seemed to him that he was talking to a man. They had been accompanied by
+Valeria, a young French girl, who had been a protégée of Alicia's, a
+traveling companion in the days of dazzling wealth, and who now
+accompanied her in poverty, out of gratitude and fidelity. Later the
+Duchess de Delille had returned alone a second time to consult him about
+various projects for her future, all of them lacking in common sense;
+and she had finally accepted a loan of a thousand francs. Luck was
+against her in gambling: she needed new "tools to work with." The
+capital that had irritated her so by never varying, never going much
+above thirty thousand, had finally heard her complaints, and dwindled
+with lightning rapidity, leaving merely a few remnants of its former
+self.
+
+In spite of the Prince's loan the Duchess had complained.
+
+"I'm always the one who is looking you up: you never deign to visit my
+house. How poor I really am!"
+
+Remembering her humble protest, the Prince no longer hesitated. Turning
+his back on the Casino, he began to ascend the sloping streets in the
+direction of the frontier line separating Monte Carlo from Beausoleil;
+streets that displayed names recalling Spring: the Street of the Roses,
+of the Carnations, of the Violets, of the Orchids.
+
+He entered a short avenue formed by a double row of garden fences. He
+caught a glimpse of the houses between the columns of palm trees, and
+the firm leaves of the large magnolias. As he went along he read the
+names of the small estates carved on little plaques of red marble,
+placed at the entrance to the grounds. "Villa Rosa", here it was. He
+pushed open the iron gate, which was ajar, without hearing the sound of
+a voice or the barking of a dog to greet his presence. He saw a small
+garden half deserted, overgrown with weeds at the foot of the untrimmed
+trees, and covering the space that had formerly been occupied by flower
+beds. The rest was more carefully tended, but it was a vegetable garden
+with rectangles of kitchen stuffs intensively cultivated.
+
+Lubimoff approached without meeting anyone. It occurred to him that the
+gardener must have been the man with the dog, whom he had met as he
+turned into the street.
+
+Then he mounted the four steps at the entrance. Here too the door was
+half ajar, and upon pushing it all the way open, he found himself in a
+hallway with stairs leading to the upper story.
+
+There was no one in sight. He tried the doors of the adjoining rooms and
+found them locked. There was not a sound. It was as though the house
+were deserted. But the silence was suddenly broken by a voice floating
+down the stairway. It was a faint voice, singing a slow, sad English
+air. The song was accompanied by a sound of dull blows, as though hands
+were beating and shaping up some large unresisting object.
+
+Michael thought he recognized Alicia's voice. He coughed several times
+without result; he was not heard. He was about to call to let her know
+that he was there, but refrained, through a sudden impulse to play a
+little joke on her. Why shouldn't he surprise her by going up-stairs the
+one part of the house where she was now living, he thought? His
+hesitation vanished. Up-stairs he would go!
+
+From the first landing he saw several doors, but only one was open; and
+it was from that one that the sounds of the song and the thumping were
+coming. A woman bending over a bed, was holding out her arms and
+vigorously shaking up a pillow. Instinctively she felt that some one was
+standing behind her, and turning around she gave an exclamation of
+surprise on seeing Michael in the doorway. The latter was no less
+surprised to recognize the woman as Alicia; an Alicia dressed in an
+elegant but old négligée, with crumpled gloves on her hands, and a veil
+wrapped around her hair.
+
+"You! It's you!" she exclaimed. "How you frightened me!"
+
+Immediately she recovered her composure, and smiled at the Prince, as
+the latter tried to excuse himself. He had not met any one; the gate and
+the door had been open. She, in turn, now excused herself. It was
+Sunday; Valeria, her companion, had gone to Nice to take lunch with a
+family she knew; her maid and the gardener's wife were at mass; the old
+man had gone out a moment before to see some friends.
+
+After these mutual explanations they both remained silent, looking at
+each other hesitatingly, not knowing what to say, but still smiling.
+
+"You making your bed!" he remarked, just to say something.
+
+"So you see. This is rather different from my bedroom in Paris. It is
+hardly the 'study' that I took you to either. Times have changed!"
+
+Michael gravely nodded assent. Yes, times had changed.
+
+"At any rate," she continued, "you must confess that there is a certain
+novelty in seeing the Duchess de Delille, madcap Alicia, making her
+bed."
+
+The Prince nodded again. Indeed it was a novelty: something one could
+not see every day.
+
+Alicia persisted in her explanations. It had not been at all hard for
+her to do housework. She cleaned her room herself, in order to save her
+elderly maid the extra bother. She did not want Valeria to help her.
+They were each keeping their own rooms in order, now that help was
+scarce. Besides, she herself sometimes went into the kitchen, and she
+would have liked to help the gardener cultivate the little garden, just
+for her own pleasure.
+
+"We are living in war times; things are getting dearer every day, and as
+for me, I'm poor. We ought to return to the simple primitive life. But I
+don't dare work in the garden, on account of the neighbors. They watch
+you all the time from their windows. There is a Brazilian gentleman,
+even, who seems to have fallen in love with me."
+
+She herself was proud of her industriousness. Who would ever have
+guessed such qualities some years before in the mistress of the
+luxurious residence on the Avenue du Bois, who was in the habit of
+getting up at three o'clock in the afternoon?
+
+"I owe it all to mamma. She had me educated in a girls' school in
+England, when it was the fashion to substitute domestic work for the
+physical exercise of sports. I think it's called 'Corinthianism.' And I
+feel better than ever. In the old days I had to get up several mornings
+a week with Valeria and Clorinda and go to a tennis club and play until
+I was exhausted. Now, after taking care of my room and helping with the
+others I don't need any exercise. I'm doing poor man's gymnastics."
+
+There was a long silence. Michael looked at the room; a woman's bedroom,
+still in disarray, with clothes lying on the arm chairs, giving out the
+perfume of a fastidious femininity. Through a narrow door he saw a
+corner of the adjoining bath room, where a wet spot had been left on the
+mosaic floor, from the morning bath. An odor of eau de cologne and tooth
+paste hung in the air. From several toilet jars, in disorder, vague
+scents of more precious essences were escaping. Mingling with the toilet
+articles and objects of intimate apparel, he could distinguish cards
+such as are given out to the patrons of the Casino, to mark their plays;
+some with red or blue marks in the columns, others pricked with a hat
+pin, for lack of a pencil. He observed larger cards, with a roulette
+wheel indicating the numbers and colors; and also many books of the sort
+sold by the stationers and at newspaper stands; illuminating treatises
+on "How to win without fail in all kinds of play." On the mantelpiece,
+half hidden by various fashion magazines, was a small roulette wheel, a
+real one, used undoubtedly in studying out and trying various theories.
+On the lamp stand beside the bed the latest copy of the Monte Carlo
+Review was lying open, with statistics of all the winning numbers during
+the past week at the various tables; interesting reading, with
+mysterious annotations which had kept Alicia up perhaps till dawn.
+
+In the meantime she was dexterously causing to disappear everything
+which she considered prejudicial to her appearance since the surprise.
+When Michael looked at her again the old gloves had vanished from her
+hands and the veil was hidden somewhere. Her hair, now left free, was
+black and lustrous, a trifle coarse, perhaps, but it rose luxuriantly in
+large ringlets in disarray.
+
+They prolonged the silence with an embarrassed smile, as though neither
+of them could find a way of relieving the situation.
+
+"Go on with your work," Michael said, somewhat timidly. "Now I'm here, I
+don't want to be in the way."
+
+As though seeing a challenge to her embarrassment in these words, and
+anxious at the same time to show her skillfulness, she bent over the bed
+to continue her work. Michael regained his high spirits at this display
+of confidence. It wasn't chivalrous to allow her to work alone: he must
+help her.
+
+"You! You!" exclaimed Alicia, laughing, as though such a proposition
+seemed to her unthinkable.
+
+The Prince pretended to feel hurt. Yes: he! Wasn't he a sailor, and
+hadn't his adventurous life compelled him to know how to do a little of
+everything? More than once in his explorations in the wilds, he had had
+to make a bed as best he could, wrapped in blankets beside the embers of
+a fire.
+
+He had gone over to the other side of the bed, and was imitating all the
+movements of the Duchess with comic exaggeration. He petted the pillows
+after her, with such violence as to make the bed resound. While she
+lifted it slightly toward her to shake it better, he lifted it
+completely with his strong hands.
+
+"You don't know how! You don't know how!" Alicia exclaimed with childish
+glee.
+
+Then, seeing his fingers seize the linen with a powerful grip, she
+added:
+
+"Good heavens, let go of that: You'll tear the pillow, and just now, in
+these hard times!"
+
+They both laughed, finding this work very amusing.
+
+"Take hold!" she said in authoritative tones, and flung in his face a
+sheet that she was holding at the opposite side.
+
+Michael found himself wrapped in a cloud of filmy linen fragrant with
+feminine perfumes. It was for an instant only, but to him it seemed like
+something extraordinary, of limitless duration, extending beyond the
+bounds of time and space. He had a presentiment that this insignificant
+event was going to be a turning point in his life. He felt his former
+self suddenly awaken with fresh vigor. Perhaps it was the stimulation
+due to continence. He thought of Castro's ironic smile, and of himself,
+living like a hermit there in Villa Sirena, and preaching hostility to
+women! There was a buzzing in his ears; his eyes, momentarily blinded,
+seemed to be gazing on a vast expanse of rosy sky, the pale, luscious
+rose color of a woman's flesh. There was something intoxicating in the
+sudden breath that caused his brain to reel, communicating the sensation
+to his whole organism, as violently as though struck with a lash. When
+the sheet had fallen back on the bed, Michael was deathly pale, with a
+look of intenseness gleaming in his eyes. She thought he was angry at
+the jest, and she laughed mischievously, leaning on the pillow with her
+hands. As she shook with laughter, the lace of her low-necked négligée
+trembled seductively on her breast and shoulders.
+
+Suddenly the Prince found himself on the other side of the bed close to
+Alicia. Finally they both sat down on the edge of the bed, turning their
+backs on the forgotten sheet. He took one of her hands without realizing
+what he was doing. Then he bent so close to her face that one of her
+Medusa-like tresses brushed against his temple. He felt no desire to
+talk, but seeing her eyes, so close to his, he broke the pleasant
+silence.
+
+"You have been weeping!"
+
+The woman protested with a strained smile and grew pale as she stammered
+her excuses. No; perhaps it was the dust shaken up by the cleaning, or
+the effort of working. But he went on studying her eyes which were
+indeed slightly reddened.
+
+"You were crying when I came in," he continued, with insistent and
+troubled curiosity.
+
+Now Alicia's protest took the form of a harsh, shrill laugh, that was
+decidedly forced and unnatural. And by one of those modulations of which
+only great actors know the secret, the burst of her laughter died
+gradually into a sigh, then a groan, until, letting go the Prince's
+hand, she covered her eyes, and hung her head, while a fit of sobbing
+shook her whole body.
+
+She was crying. It was enough that Michael should have discovered her
+recent weeping to cause the tears to rise in her eyes again, renewing
+her former anguish. She gave in to her grief with a sort of cruel
+delight, finding it preferable to the torture of feigning, which his
+unexpected visit had imposed.
+
+The Prince remained silent for a few moments.
+
+"Is it for that young fellow of yours?" he plucked up courage to ask,
+with a shaking voice as though he too were undergoing an unexplainable
+emotion.
+
+She replied with a slight movement of her head, without taking her hands
+from her eyes. It was unnecessary for Michael to see them. He had
+guessed the truth on discovering the traces of tears. It could be only
+for him that she was weeping: the lack of news; the worry of thinking
+that he was a prisoner, far off, suffering all sorts of privations; and
+that perhaps she would never see him again.
+
+"How you love him!"
+
+The Prince was surprised himself at the tone of voice in which he said
+these words. There was a note of despair, envy, and sadness at the
+thought of the passing years, bequeathing to the coming generation the
+haughty privileges of youth.
+
+The guests at Villa Sirena would also have been astonished to hear him
+talk in this fashion. Alicia's surprise caused her to forget all
+precaution as a pretty woman, and lift her head, as she took away her
+hands. Her face was red, her eyes tremulous and overflowing. A tear hung
+from a lock of hair. She realized that she must be looking terrible, but
+what did she care?
+
+"Yes, I love him; I love him more than anything in the world. It is on
+his account that I go on living. If it weren't for him I would kill
+myself. But he isn't what you think. No, he isn't."
+
+With her face so reddened with weeping, it was impossible to detect a
+blush; but her gestures, the expression of her face and the tone of her
+voice, rebelled with shame and indignation against the suspicion of the
+Prince.
+
+She went on talking in a low voice, without daring to look at him,
+hurrying her words like a penitent anxious to get through with a
+difficult confession as soon as possible. On various occasions in
+talking with the Prince, the truth had come to her lips, and at the last
+moment the reticence of a woman still desirous of pleasing through her
+beauty had caused her to conceal the facts. But to whom could she reveal
+her secret better than to Michael? She considered him one of the family:
+he had received her in friendly fashion in her hour of need, when so
+many men had turned their backs on her. Besides, between a man and a
+woman, love is not the only feeling that can exist, as she had thought
+in the days of her mad youth. There were other less violent things, more
+placid and lasting: friendship, comradeship, and brotherly affection.
+
+She paused for a moment, as though to gather strength.
+
+"He is my son."
+
+Michael, who was expecting some extraordinary, some monstrous
+revelation, worthy of her mad past, was unable to restrain an
+exclamation of astonishment:
+
+"Your son!"
+
+She nodded: "Yes, my son." With lowered eyes, she went on talking in the
+same nervous tone, as though she were making a confession. She went back
+over her past. How surprised she had been, how angry, at the cruel trick
+love had played in cutting off the best years of her life! Her
+indignation was like that of the citizens of Ancient Greece who began a
+riot when they learned of the pregnancy of a courtezan who was
+considered a national glory, a beauty whom the multitude came from afar
+to see, when she showed herself nude in the religious festivals. They
+were bent on killing her unborn child, as though it had been guilty of
+a sacrilege. Alicia, too, used to consider herself a living work of art,
+and wanted to punish the sacrilege of her child with death. What
+criminal attempts she had made to rid herself of the shame that was
+throbbing in her vitals! Besides, what tortures she had undergone in her
+efforts to hide it, to go on leading her life of pleasure as before, and
+suffer anything rather than permit her secret to escape! Returning from
+parties where she had seen herself admired as formerly yet always with
+the dread that her secret had been discovered, she would fall into fits
+of homicidal rage and rebelliously curse the being that persisted in
+living within her; and in paroxysms of wild hysteria she would devise
+ways and means of encompassing its destruction.
+
+There were tears in her voice as she recalled these scenes.
+
+"But how about your husband?" Michael asked.
+
+"We separated at that time. He could tolerate my love affairs in
+silence: he could pretend not to know about them ... but a child that
+wasn't his own...!"
+
+She recalled the attitude of the Duke de Delille. He had shown a dignity
+worthy of him. There had been many deceived husbands in his family: it
+had almost become a tradition of nobility, an historic distinction. He
+did not feel dishonored by selling his name in getting married in order
+to increase the pleasures and comforts of his life. His name that
+belonged to him was a tool to work with. But it was impossible for him
+to let that name get out of his family, to give it to an intruder to
+continue the line. His forefathers had had many illegitimate children;
+but it had never occurred to any of his gay women ancestors to introduce
+into the family descendants in whose creation their husbands could
+assume no responsibility whatever.
+
+The Duke had separated from her, granting all her demands save that
+one. It was an adulterous son and it must disappear. And no one, except
+they two and the maid--who was still with her--were to know of the
+birth.
+
+"There were times when I was quite happy," Alicia continued. "I learned
+to know new unsuspected joys. I would suddenly leave Paris: lots of
+people thought I was traveling with some new lover. No; I was going to
+see my little boy, my George; first in London, later in New York, but
+always in a large city. I could live with him, and play at being a
+mother, with a living doll that kept getting bigger and bigger ...
+bigger! Do you remember the night I invited you to dinner? I had just
+come back from one of those trips, and in spite of that, just think of
+the foolish things I said. I imagined myself Venus, or Helen, passing
+before the old men on the wall. And in order to give myself up
+completely to a paroxysm of maternal pride I was thinking of my
+heroines, who were also my rivals. Helen had had children, and men went
+on killing one another for her. Venus had not escaped maternity, and
+gods and mortals continued to adore her in spite of the fact that she
+had a son fluttering about the world. Maternity meant neither abdication
+of rights nor loss of prestige; she could go on being beautiful and
+being desired, like other women, after an incident that had seemed to
+her irremediable. So I went on living my life. Oh, when I think of how I
+sometimes shortened the time that I had intended to stay with him, in
+order to follow some man that scarcely interested me! Now that I haven't
+him, I think of the hours that I might have lived by his side, and that
+were given up to the first male that aroused my curiosity! It's my most
+terrible remorse; it gnaws at my conscience all night long, and drives
+me to gambling as the only remedy. I am certainly to be pitied,
+Michael."
+
+But a fixed idea seemed to dominate Michael as he listened to her.
+
+"And the father? Who is the father?"
+
+The tone of his voice was practically the same as before: a tone of
+hostile curiosity, of aggressive spite.
+
+Another wave of astonishment swept over him when he saw that she was
+shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"I don't know; it doesn't make any difference to me. Other women, in
+like circumstances, fasten the paternity on the man they are most
+interested in. As though you could tell! I haven't picked out any one in
+particular from among my memories. They are all the same. I have
+forgotten them all. My son is mine, mine only."
+
+She had the majestic indifference of the serene and fertile forest that
+opens its blossoms to the pollen scattered through the air like a golden
+rain of love. The new plant springs up. It belongs to the forest, and
+the forest keeps it, without showing any interest in learning the name
+and origin of the wandering source of life borne hither willy-nilly on
+the wind.
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+"One day, on arriving in New York," she continued, "I made a terrible
+discovery. I found my George almost as tall as I was, and strong
+looking, with the serious air of a grown man, though he wasn't quite
+eleven. I'm ashamed to think it; but I mustn't lie: I hated him. Venus
+might have a son, as long as the son remained eternally a little child
+through all the centuries, like one of those amusing babies that are
+dressed in a whimsical fashion, and are the mother's pride and
+amusement. But my own son, with his powerful body, his strong hands, and
+solemn face! It meant that I should grow old before my time; I should
+have to renounce my youth if I kept him by my side! I could never resign
+myself to declaring that I was his mother. And I fled from him, letting
+a number of years go by, without paying attention to anything in regard
+to him, excepting to send the means for his complete education. Oh, when
+I think how fate has punished me for my selfishness!"
+
+She remained silent for a few moments to dry the fresh tears that were
+reddening her eyes and giving her voice a husky resonance.
+
+"He came to Paris when I was least expecting him. The venerable friend
+who was looking after his education there in America, had died. I found
+a man, a grown man, in spite of the fact that he wasn't over sixteen. My
+first feeling was one of annoyance, almost anger. I should have to say
+farewell to youth, and change my mode of life on account of this
+intruder. But there was something in me that kept me from doing anything
+so heartless as to send him back to a foreign country, or off to a
+boarding school in Paris. I grew accustomed to him at once. I had to
+have him in my house. It seemed as though, when I was near him, I felt a
+certain serenity, a deep quiet joy that I never thought myself capable
+of feeling. You don't know what it means, Michael. You could never
+understand, no matter how much I tried to explain it to you. I swear it
+was the happiest time in my life. There is no love like that. Besides,
+we were such good comrades! I suddenly felt as though I were a girl of
+his age again; no, younger than he. George used to give me advice. He
+was so wise for a boy of his age; and I used to do what he said like a
+younger sister. He let his mother drag him along and introduce him to a
+world of pleasure and luxury that dazzled him, after his sober, athletic
+life with a stern educator. And I leaned proudly on his arm, and laughed
+at the false ideas people had of our actual relation. How we used to
+dance, the year before the war, without any one suspecting the true
+nature of the affection that bound me to my partner!"
+
+Alicia paused to linger on these delightful memories. She smiled with a
+far-away look in her eyes, as she thought of the malicious error people
+had made.
+
+"Every tango-tea in the Champs-Élysées found the Duchess de Delille
+dancing with her latest crush! And, Michael, as for me, I was proud that
+they should be making such a mistake. I went on being the beautiful
+Alicia, restored to youth by the fidelity of an adolescent who
+accompanied her everywhere, with all the enthusiasm of a first love.
+This seemed to me a much better rôle than that of the passively resigned
+mother. Besides, what fun we used to have laughing and talking it over
+afterwards when we were by ourselves! Many of my former lovers felt
+their old passion revive again out of a sort of unconscious envy--the
+instinctive rivalry that the man of ripe years feels toward youth--and
+they began besieging me with their gallantries again. George used to
+threaten me in fun: 'Mamma, I'm jealous!' He didn't want any other man
+to be showing attentions to his mother, so that she might belong to him
+completely. On other occasions I myself had better reasons to protest. I
+surprised a greedy look in the eyes of many women of my own class when
+they gazed at him--some with a boldly inviting look, since, being
+younger, they felt they had a right to take him away from me. And he was
+so good! He used to joke with me about these passions that he inspired;
+and tell me about others that I had not been able to guess! You don't
+know what young people are like nowadays, in the generation that has
+followed us. They seem to be made of different flesh and blood. Our
+generation was the last to take love seriously; to give tremendous
+importance to it, and make it the chief occupation of our lives. Now
+they don't understand people like you and me: we seem monstrous to them.
+My son is only interested in one woman: his mother; and in addition to
+her, automobiles, aeroplanes, and sports. All these strong, innocent
+boys seemed to have guessed what was awaiting them...."
+
+As she spoke, the momentary serenity with which she had related this
+happy period in her life gradually vanished. She went on talking in a
+subdued voice, choked from time to time by sobs.
+
+Suddenly war had come. Who could have imagined it a month before? And
+her son was ashamed not to be one of the men who were hurrying to the
+railroad stations to join a regiment. One morning he had overwhelmed her
+with the announcement of his enlistment as a volunteer. What could she
+do? Legally she was not his mother. George bore the name of a pair of
+old married servants who had been willing to play that game of deception
+by posing as his parents. Besides, he was born in France, and it was not
+extraordinary that he, like so many other youths, should have wanted to
+defend his country before he was called to arms by law.
+
+The Duchess lived for a few months in a tiny village in the south of
+France, near the Aviation Camp where her son was in training. She wanted
+to be with him just as long as she possibly could. If only he had become
+a soldier at the time when she was living separated from him, and was
+concealing her actual relation to him! But she was going to lose him at
+the sweetest moment of her life, when she was beginning to think she
+might be at George's side forever.
+
+"It did not take him long to become a pilot. How I hated the ease with
+which he learned to manage his machine! His progress filled me with
+pride and anger. Those young fellows are regular fanatics so far as
+aviation is concerned. It is something that has come into existence in
+their time, and they have seen it grow before their school-boy eyes. He
+went away, and since then I have been more dead than alive. Three years,
+Michael, three years of torture! I've paid dearly for all my past life!
+Though the mistakes that I made were great, I've made up for them, and
+more too. You may well have compassion on me. You can have no idea what
+I'm suffering."
+
+The first year that Alicia had spent alone, she had lived in constant
+expectation of his letters, which arrived irregularly from the front.
+Her joys were few and far between. George had come to Paris only once on
+leave, and had spent half a week with her. At long intervals she also
+received visits from the aviator's comrades, greeting the news they
+brought with tears and smiles. Her son had received the War Cross after
+an air battle. His mother had cut out the short newspaper paragraph
+referring to this event, sticking it with two pins on the silk with
+which her bedroom was hung. She would spend hours staring as though
+hypnotized at these brief lines: "_Bachellery, Georges, aviator, gave
+chase to two enemy planes beyond our lines and ..._"
+
+This "Bachellery, Georges" was her son! It made no difference to her
+that other people were not aware of the fact. Her pride seemed to grow
+because of the mystery surrounding it. The handsome strapping fellow,
+strong, and innocent as the heroes of ancient legend, had been formed in
+her body. All the men whom she had known in her past life seemed more
+and more petty and ugly; they were inferior beings, sprung from another
+race of humanity, the existence of which should be forgotten.
+
+Suddenly a stupid, unforeseen accident plunged her into the darkness of
+despair. One beautiful morning with the joyous confidence of a young
+knight setting forth in quest of adventure, the aviator started out in
+his pursuit machine, rising through the silvery clouds in search of the
+enemy. Suddenly, he noticed some slight motor trouble--due to the
+negligence of the mechanics in getting it ready, a matter of slight
+importance under ordinary circumstances ... and he was forced to
+descend, absolutely unable to continue his flight, and the wind and bad
+luck caused him to land within the German lines.
+
+"A hundred yards this side, and he would have landed among his own
+men.... What can you expect? I was too happy. I had still to learn what
+misery really means! I confess that at the very first I was almost glad,
+with the selfish gladness of a mother. A prisoner! It meant that his
+life would be safe; he wouldn't be killed in an air battle; he was no
+longer in danger of being crushed to pieces or burned to death under his
+broken machine. But later on!..."
+
+Later this security, that placed her son outside the limit of actual
+war, became a source of torture. She envied herself the times when he
+used to go out each day and face death, but still remained free. The
+newspapers talked about the suffering of the prisoners, their being
+herded together in vast unsanitary sheds, and the hunger from which they
+were suffering. The life of ease and comfort which the mother was
+leading was a constant source of remorse. When she sat down at table, or
+looked at her soft bed, or noticed the warm caress of a fire, and saw
+that the window panes were covered with the traceries of frost, she felt
+she was usurping in a shameless manner something that belonged to
+another person. Her boy, her poor boy, was living like a stray dog,
+lying on the straw, with hunger gnawing at his stomach! She had produced
+a human being--she, a miserable woman, who for so many years had
+believed herself the center of the universe, was enjoying all kinds of
+luxuries--and this flesh of her flesh was agonizing under the tortures
+of want such as are felt only by the most poverty stricken.... She
+never could have dreamed that such an irony of fate would be reserved
+for her.
+
+During the first few months she scurried wildly about, with the fierce
+irrational love of the female animal that sees her young in danger. She
+went from one government bureau to the other, taking advantage of all
+her social connections! But there were so many mothers! They were not
+going to open diplomatic negotiations for a woman in her position....
+Every day she sent large packages of food to the offices that had charge
+of prisoners' relief. They finally refused to accept them. The entire
+service could not take up all its time doing nothing but send aid to a
+mere protégé of the Duchess de Delille. There were thousands and
+thousands of men in the same situation as he. And she could not cry out:
+"He is my son!" A scandalous revelation like that would not help
+matters. She kept on sending the packages regularly even if they did not
+go to her George. They would be used to satisfy some one's hunger. She
+felt the magnanimity roused by great sorrow; she made her offerings like
+a mother who, in praying for her child when all hope has been given up,
+prays for other sick children also, feeling that through her generosity
+her prayers may be heeded.
+
+Besides, the suspense was cruel. When the clerks took her packages, they
+smiled sadly. She was practically certain that her shipments of food
+were being appropriated by the guards. All the expensive eatables
+intended for her son were doubtless used by the old German reservists in
+charge of guarding the prisoners, to have a joyous feast, with the
+greedy merriment of fierce mastiffs, toasting to the glory of the Kaiser
+and the triumph of their race over the entire world! Good God! What
+could she do?
+
+At long intervals, after tremendous delays, she would finally get a
+postcard passed by the German censor. There would be four lines,
+nothing more, written as children write at school, under the eye of the
+teacher standing at their backs. But the writing was George's. "In good
+health. We're not badly treated. Send me eatables." She would spend long
+hours gazing at these timid, deceiving lines. For her they acquired a
+new meaning. They told something else: the truth, namely. She recalled
+the stories of dying captives who had come from those torture camps, and
+the lines seemed to stammer with groans of a sick child: "Mamma ...
+hungry. I'm hungry!"
+
+There were times when she thought she would go mad. Everything about her
+brought to memory the image of her George, well groomed, and cared for
+by her with such fond and exaggerated attention. She had looked after
+his clothes, taking an interest in the respective merits of his tailors.
+She had had to endure his masculine protests when she had tried to
+provide him with underwear of fine silk like her own. In the morning she
+used to go and surprise him, as he lay in bed, like a little child, and
+kiss her own flesh and blood, metamorphosed into an athlete. Everything
+seemed to her too mean and poor for that strong fellow, handsome as a
+god of old. She looked after his bed, his dresser, and his person with
+all the passionate fondness of a sweetheart. She inspected his pockets
+in order continually to renew her gifts of money. Her Mexican mines were
+his, and so were the frontier lands, and everything she possessed. And
+later on--she hated to think when--she would see him married to some one
+after her own heart. Then his obscure birth was to be glorified by the
+splendor of enormous wealth. But suddenly the world, losing its balance,
+had been plunged into a furious madness, and this Prince of Fate, whose
+mother, in conference with the chef, had invented gastronomic surprises
+for him alone, was crying from some far off snow-swept plain in the icy
+north:
+
+"Mother ... hungry. I'm hungry!"
+
+"I went to Switzerland three times, Michael. I even proposed that in
+Paris they should provide me with means of getting into Germany,
+offering to go as a spy. But they laughed at me; and they were right!
+What was I going to spy out? My son, of course ... what I wanted to do
+in Germany was to see my son. In Switzerland I met two crippled soldiers
+who had just been exchanged, and came from the camp where George was.
+They knew the aviator Bachellery. He had tried to escape five times. He
+enjoyed a certain fame among his companions in misery for the
+haughtiness with which he faced the cruelest guards. The latest news was
+uncertain. They had not seen him lately. They thought that he was then
+in another prison camp, a punishment camp, farther inland, near the
+Polish frontier, where the refractory and dangerous prisoners were
+forced to undergo a cruel disciplinary régime, and suffer terrible
+punishments."
+
+Her voice trembled with anger as she said this. She could see her son
+dragging a chain, and being whipped like a slave. Oh, if she were only a
+man, and could be left alone for a moment with that tragi-comedian with
+the upturned mustache who had made many millions of women groan with
+sorrow!
+
+"And to think that there have been fanatics who have killed good or
+insignificant kings! And not one of them has lifted a hand to do away
+with the Kaiser! Don't talk to me about anarchists. They are idiots! I
+don't believe in them."
+
+This outburst of wrath vanished immediately. Once more grief and despair
+tore a sob from her. She remembered a photograph she had seen in one of
+the newspapers: the torture called "the post," applied by the Germans in
+their punishment camps; a Frenchman in a tattered uniform, fastened to
+a wooden stake, as though it were a cross, on an open snow-covered
+plain, suffering for hours and hours from the deadly cold. It was the
+death penalty, hypocritically applied, with savage refinements of
+torture. It was impossible to distinguish the features of the poor
+fellow suffering like Christ, with his head falling on his breast. Even
+if it wasn't George, surely he had also suffered the same torture.
+
+"How can I live in such endless anguish! They wouldn't let me go back to
+Switzerland. They held up my passports. I don't know what's happened to
+him. There are times when it seems as though my head would burst. That's
+why I avoid living alone. That's why I gamble, and have to see people,
+and talk, and get away from my thoughts. Since then I've only received
+one postcard from my son, without any date, and without any indication
+as to where he is. It says about the same as the other one. The writing
+is his, and nevertheless it seems to be in another hand. Oh, what that
+writing says! I see him like the other man, like the poor fellow
+fastened to the post covered with rags, as thin as a skeleton.... My
+son!"
+
+Michael was obliged to take both her hands in a strong grip, and draw
+them towards him, holding her up, to keep her from falling on the bed in
+hysterical convulsions. He was sorry that he had come, and, by his
+curiosity, invited a confession that aroused the woman's grief.
+
+As for her, she looked at him with wide-open staring eyes, without
+seeing him. Finally, concentrating with an effort, she noticed Michael's
+emotion. This calmed her somewhat.
+
+"You can be glad you don't know what such torture is like. There's no
+end to it: there's no help for it. When I think of him, I feel as though
+I were going to die. Not to know about him! Not to be able to do
+anything! I ought really to find some diversion and learn to think of
+something else. One must live: one can't be always weeping. But whenever
+I succeed in getting interested in anything, I immediately feel remorse.
+I call myself names: 'You're a bad mother, to forget your sorrows.' A
+day seldom passes that I eat without crying. I'm tormented by the
+thought that he would be happy with what is left from my table, with
+what the servants eat, or perhaps with what they give to the dog! And
+when Valeria and Clorinda see my tears, they can't explain such constant
+grief. They don't know my secret. They think like every one else, that
+it's simply a question of a mere protégé or a young lover. They can't
+understand such despair over a mere man. That's why I gamble so much.
+It's the only thing that really keeps my mind occupied, and makes me
+forget for a time; it's my anæsthetic. Before, I used to play just for
+the excitement, for the pleasure of struggling with fate; and because I
+was flattered by the amazement of the curiosity seekers who watched me
+stake enormous sums with indifference. Now it's on his account--and for
+no other reason."
+
+Alicia's mind reverted to her financial difficulties. As a matter of
+fact, her fortune had been seriously impaired some years earlier, but
+she had always had hopes of some sudden recuperation. Besides, the
+period before the war had been the happiest time of her life. She had
+her son and she lived her life, without any thought of business matters.
+Later her financial ruin had come along with the loss of George.
+
+"If only I had the wealth I used to have! I know the power of money. I
+could have moved men and even governments. I would have written to the
+Kaiser, or to Hindenburg, sending them a million, two million, or any
+amount they asked. 'Now that you are reëstablishing slavery and
+pillaging towns, here is money for you. Give me back my son.' And now I
+would have him back at my side. But I'm poor! If you knew how I love
+money now, just for his sake! I dream of winning big stakes, five
+hundred thousand francs or maybe a million, in two or three days. How
+happy I am when I come back from the Casino with a few thousand francs
+to the good! 'It's to send my poor boy a box with something good to
+eat,' I say to myself. Then I write to the stores, or go there myself,
+keeping in mind the things he liked best. You are rich and don't
+understand how hard it is to get along now, how scarce things are
+getting, and how much they cost! I didn't have any idea of such things
+before, either. And I send him boxes of the nicest things; and I feel
+proud that in my mind I can say to him: 'It's with the money mamma won
+for you ... it's with my work!' Don't smile, Michael. That's what it
+is--work! Besides, what else could I work at? The one thing that worries
+me is how to address these shipments. 'For the Aviator Bachellery,
+prisoner in Germany.' That's all I know, and there are so many
+prisoners! Almost all my shipments must be lost; but some at least will
+reach him. Don't you think he'll get some of them?"
+
+The Prince greeted this anxious question with a vague gesture of
+agreement. "Yes;--perhaps, almost certainly!"
+
+Immediately Alicia showed a certain reassurance. Eight months had gone
+by without her hearing anything about him; but other mothers were in the
+same situation. There was no use despairing. Men who had been given up
+for dead in the early battles of the war were returning home after a
+long period of captivity. Besides, did it seem reasonable to believe
+that a son of hers was going to die of hunger and want, like a beggar?
+
+Lubimoff again nodded assent. "Really, it didn't seem reasonable!"
+
+"There are moments," she said, "when I feel an unexplainable joy, a
+mysterious intuition, that I'm going to receive good news,--the feeling
+I have on the days when I go to the Casino sure of winning,--and do win.
+I wrote to the King of Spain, who is interested in ascertaining the fate
+of prisoners, and who often succeeds in getting them sent back to their
+homes. I have had a great number of friends write to him. If he could
+only give me back my George! At least I expect to learn good news; to
+find out where he is, and convince myself that he is alive. I would be
+satisfied if they interned him in Switzerland, the way they do with the
+seriously wounded, and I would go and live with him. How happy I would
+be if he were in Lausanne or Vevey, beside the lake, like my husband!"
+
+There was a sad, kindly smile on her face as she thought of the Duke.
+
+"Oh, I haven't forgotten him, I assure you. Everything that's left over
+from George's boxes, I send to him by way of Geneva. 'For
+Lieutenant-Colonel de Delille.' Oh, it reaches _him_, without any
+difficulty! Poor fellow! His answers are almost love letters. I send him
+sausages and canned things, in memory of the twenty louis bouquets he
+used to send me when he was courting me. What are we coming to, Michael!
+Who could ever have imagined that everything and everybody would be so
+topsy-turvy!"
+
+Already she was talking more calmly, as though the memory of her son was
+no longer in the foreground of her thoughts.
+
+"Everything seems to tell me I'm going to get good news. Misfortune
+can't last so very much longer. Doesn't it seem that way to you? It's
+like bad luck in play: it finally goes away. The main thing is to save
+your strength in order to resist it. I ought to feel satisfied. I was so
+excited I could hardly sleep last night. I went above the thirty; you
+know: the thirty thousand francs that used to be the limit of my luck.
+Last night I won eighty thousand. Your friend Lewis was furious. He says
+it takes a woman to do a thing like that: to win, playing haphazard,
+defying all the rules."
+
+From the look on the Prince's face she guessed his surprise at her
+merriment following so closely on her recent tears.
+
+"I can't stay by myself. I have such memories! Perhaps you heard me
+singing, as you came up-stairs. It's an English song my son used to
+sing. In the morning I used to go and listen at his door like a
+sweetheart who, while waiting for him to appear, is glad to hear the
+voice of the man she loves. Whenever I'm alone I sing it over
+mechanically; I try to imagine it is George singing, and my eyes fill
+with tears, but with tears of tenderness that are very sweet. While I
+was making the bed it seemed as though I heard him, going back and forth
+in his bedroom, with me waiting and listening in the hall. My voice was
+his voice. That was why I fairly trembled when you came in. For a moment
+I supposed you were he. How wonderful it will be when I see him!... I'm
+sure I shall see him. Misfortune can't last forever. Don't you think
+I'll see him?"
+
+Her closed eyes seemed to smile on a far-off vision of hope. And
+Michael, who had remained silent for a long time, spoke to give her
+encouragement. Poor woman! Yes; she would see her son. At his age a man
+can stand any hardship. He would return; they would both be happy once
+more, talking over their present troubles, as though it had all been a
+bad dream.
+
+"Besides, I will help you. We must get busy and take steps to have your
+son returned to you. I shall write to the King of Spain. I knew him. He
+had lunch on my yacht once when I was in San Sebastian. I have friends
+in Paris, men in politics, and diplomats; I shall write to all of them.
+And if worse comes to worst, and there's no other way out of it, I shall
+try through the medium of some neutral government to get a letter
+through to Wilhelm II. Perhaps he may pay some attention to me. He must
+remember me, and his visit to my boat."
+
+Now it was her turn to look at him fixedly through a mist of tears,
+smiling, at the same time, to express her gratitude.
+
+"How kind you are!" she exclaimed after a long silence. "The day when I
+was in Villa Sirena for the first time I was convinced that I had made a
+great mistake. How little we knew each other! We needed adversity to see
+each other as we really are. First you offered to relieve my poverty,
+and now you are going to try to get me back my son!"
+
+She let herself be carried away by an impulse of affection. Michael saw
+her bend her head, and suddenly felt the contact of her lips on his
+hand. He heard two loud kisses and a voice whispering: "Thanks ...
+thanks." The Prince rose to his feet. He could not tolerate such
+expression of humility. But at the same time she too stood up; their
+eyes were on a level. As though desiring to complete the recent caress,
+she took his head impulsively in her hands, and kissed him on the brow.
+
+A sudden wave of human fragrance, like that which had enveloped him when
+the sheet had been thrown on his face, once more stirred the depths of
+his being. He realized that the caress meant nothing: that it was merely
+a kiss of gratitude, a sudden outburst of feeling on the part of a
+mother expressing her emotion with unusual impetuousness. In spite of
+this, he felt himself dominated by passion, cruel and at the same time
+voluptuous, causing him to reach out his arms to master and embrace
+what he held within reach.... But his hands touched empty space.
+
+Repenting her act, she had stepped back, retreating a few steps. She was
+standing in the doorway, ready to continue her flight, mechanically
+straightening her hair, and drying her tears, as a deep blush spread
+over her features.
+
+"I didn't know what I was doing!" she murmured. "Forgive me. I was so
+grateful to learn that you wanted to help me!"
+
+At the same time she pointed to the balcony. Below, in the garden, the
+voice of the gardener could be heard telling his dog to stop that
+barking all the time at the foot of the stairs, as though a thief were
+inside the villa.
+
+"Let us go," she commanded gravely. "The servants will soon be coming
+back from mass. I shouldn't like to have them find us here in my
+bedroom. They might think...."
+
+Calming down, Lubimoff noted the unconscious modesty, and the evident
+uneasiness with which she said this. He suddenly recalled the woman of
+the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, and her daring theories. Was it
+really the same person?
+
+As they went downstairs she turned her head to talk to him, as though
+she had read his thoughts.
+
+"You must be amused at me. What a change from the Alicia of former
+times! I'm not so bad as I seem, that much is certain, isn't it? Tell me
+you don't think I'm so bad; tell me you think I'm only mad; mad, and
+always unlucky."
+
+She opened the rooms downstairs to show how orderly they looked, but the
+chill of the deserted drawing room, the covers on the furniture, and the
+musty odor, like that of a damp cellar, prompted them to go out into the
+garden and, like two people prolonging their farewell, continue their
+conversation at the foot of the stairway.
+
+The elderly maid of the Duchess, and the gardener's wife who looked
+after the cooking, passed them repeatedly on various pretexts. They
+bowed to the gentleman, with a look of adoration and a pleasant smile.
+They seemed to be saying to themselves: "That nice fellow is Prince
+Lubimoff, the one that's so much talked about." They had often heard his
+name in Villa Rosa, and they both venerated him as a providential being
+who could restore the vanished days of abundance with a mere wave of the
+hand.
+
+Michael thought it best not to prolong his visit.
+
+"Come and see me," she said in a low voice, as she accompanied him out
+to the gate. "Now you know everything. You're the only one who does. It
+will seem very sweet to me to talk with you, and have you console and
+help me."
+
+The Prince spent the next few hours, pensive and silent. So many new
+things had come up all at once! First there had been the revelation of a
+son, whose existence he never could have imagined; next, the untamable
+creature of love changed into a mother; her tears, her silent suffering,
+which she was bearing, like a convict's chain, in expiation of her mad
+past. And the crowning surprise of all had been what he had felt within
+himself, the resurrection of his former being, his new surrender to the
+domination of the flesh, and the double lashing his nervous system had
+received in breathing the perfume of the soft linen and feeling the
+imprint of her lips on his brow.
+
+This latter he wished to forget, and to succeed in doing so he
+concentrated all his attention on the revelations she had made, and on
+her maternal sorrows. Poor Alicia! Finding her impoverished and tearful,
+with no other help than that which he might give, he began to feel a
+lasting affection for her. It was the affection of the strong for the
+weak; a paternal love which did not take into account the similarity in
+their ages, nor the difference of sex; a tenderness made up for the most
+part of a certain sweet pity. He was moved by the memory of the humble
+kiss with which she had caressed his hands. It was the kiss, almost of a
+beggar. Unhappy woman! This was enough to make him feel obliged never to
+abandon her.
+
+Alicia's pride, her desire to dominate, had formerly irritated him.
+Accustomed to protecting women generously without ever submitting to
+their will, considering them in the light of something agreeable and
+inferior, he could not compromise with her haughty character. They were
+both people too strong and domineering to be able to tolerate each
+other. But now everything was changed.
+
+He remembered her as he had seen her in the bedroom, sorrowful, weeping,
+with pearls hanging from the corners of her eyes, which were tragically
+beautiful, as in the images of the Virgin, where Mary is holding the
+body of the crucified Christ on her knees. _Mater Dolorosa!_
+
+But there seemed to be another person within the Prince protesting with
+cold, clear-sightedness against this image. No, she was not the Mother
+of Sorrows. A mother never abandons her son. She renounces all of the
+vanities of this world for him. She gives up her present and her future,
+as though she had no other life than that of her son, part of her own
+flesh. At all hours she gives him the milk of her breast. Moment by
+moment she follows his development, fighting with illness, laughing at
+danger. To love him she does not have to wait for him to grow to the
+full splendor of adolescence. Whereas she...!
+
+She was the _Venus Dolorosa_. Even in the moments of deepest despair she
+maintained her beauty, and her grief seemed a new means of seduction.
+She was a mother; but she continued to be a woman, that terrible,
+destructive woman whom the Prince had always hated. Look out, Michael!
+
+But with a smile of superiority he replied inwardly to this reflection.
+
+"Perhaps I am going to fall in love with her," he said to himself. "I am
+fond of her as I never thought I could be, but only as a friend, a
+companion worthy of pity, one whom I ought to protect."
+
+At lunch time Spadoni did not turn up at Villa Sirena. Atilio had seen
+him at the Casino with some English friends from Nice. They were
+probably lunching together at the Hôtel de Paris to work out some new
+system or other. The last thing they had tried was for the four of them
+to play at different tables, but with the same system of combinations, a
+device that the pianist boasted would prove infallible.
+
+After they had had their coffee, all the guests of the luxurious villa
+seemed possessed by the same restlessness, which would not let them sit
+still.
+
+Castro was the first one to leave, announcing that he was going to the
+Casino. He had a feeling that it was going to be a "great evening." He
+had had his eyes on a _croupier_ who started work at half-past three. He
+knew this man's style of starting the ball. Every _croupier_ has his own
+mannerisms. Some do it with a long sweep, and others with a short jerky
+motion of the arm. This particular one made it fall most frequently in
+seventeen, and that was Castro's number.
+
+Novoa was the next to go, but he was less frank about it. He stammered
+blushingly as he said good-by to the Prince. Perhaps he would spend the
+afternoon with some friends from Monaco. Perhaps he would take a short
+trip on the Nice road as far as Cap d'Ail or Beaulieu. His was the
+embarrassment of a man who does not know how to lie.
+
+The Prince was left alone. He looked at the sea for a while. Then he
+changed windows, and gazed at the gardens. He pressed a button to call
+Don Marcos. He did not know what he was going to say to him but he felt
+he must see him in order not to remain alone. One of the old women
+servants appeared, and announced that the Colonel had gone to Monte
+Carlo.
+
+"He, too," the Prince said to himself.
+
+In order to escape the tediousness of spending a Sunday afternoon alone,
+he took his hat and overcoat. Some power beyond his comprehension was
+impelling him toward the neighboring city. Turning away from the villa,
+he walked through the gardens.
+
+The edifice, thus deserted, appeared larger, and its frowning and angry
+silence seemed to be asking him why anybody had ever been such a fool as
+to waste so much money and material on a box like that.
+
+Along the nearby road, street cars and carriages were gliding, filled
+with city people who were coming out for a glimpse of the smiling sea,
+or of a group of pines, or to find a height that might afford a
+panoramic view.
+
+And he, the owner of the famous gardens of Villa Sirena, was deserting
+all this beauty to go to a city from which others were trying to escape.
+
+Lubimoff recalled the splendid scheme of life he had worked out a few
+months before: a community of lay brethren shut off from the world in a
+spot like paradise: music, astronomy, pleasant conversations, wholesome
+work. And now the monks were running away on all sorts of pretexts, and
+he, who was their prior, also was feeling an unexplainable impulse to
+follow their example. Even Toledo, the faithful admirer of that estate
+which he had considered the best work of his life, seemed to be
+suffering from the same feverish desire to get away.
+
+Near the gate he turned to contemplate his beautiful domain as if to beg
+its pardon. There was a silence like that surrounding an enchanted
+palace. The gardens seemed asleep like dream woods.
+
+He thought he saw at the end of a long avenue a flutter of two large
+birds. It was Estola and Pistola, in afternoon coats too long for them,
+running toward the end of the promontory. It was as though Villa Sirena
+had been constructed for them. They could play with the active joy of
+youth in these gardens, to the envy of those who lingered at the gate
+out of curiosity. As they ran along they were free to trample on rare
+plants brought from the other side of the globe; free to jump from rock
+to rock in search of the little fishes left by the waves in miniature
+lakes in the hollows of the rock, until their coat tails were wet and
+their shoes full of holes--to the despair of the Colonel, who made the
+servants pass in review before him every day.
+
+Michael preferred not to ask himself where he was going. He surely had
+some end in view when he started his walk, but he felt it a nuisance to
+think about it. Suddenly he saw two currents of people coming from
+opposite directions, meeting and mingling, as they both mounted a short
+winding stairway which was divided by two hand-rails, and was covered by
+three red carpets.
+
+He was in front of the Casino. On one side, were arriving the people who
+had just come by train, on the other, those who had been gathered in by
+all the street cars from the towns on the Riviera between Nice and Monte
+Carlo.
+
+That evening a celebrated Italian tenor was singing, and many of the
+people, forgetting their game for the moment, were gathering in the
+theater.
+
+Lubimoff found himself immediately attended by two solemn gentlemen in
+frock coats with black ties and their heads bare. They were two
+inspectors from the Casino.
+
+"We are very sorry, Prince, but everything is full. There are people
+even in the aisles."
+
+But since it was he, one of the two men accompanied him as far as the
+box belonging to the Prime Minister of Monaco. The man who governed for
+the Sovereign Prince recognized him and was anxious to give him the best
+seat, but Michael, disliking public curiosity, preferred to remain in
+the second row.
+
+It was a theater without any balconies. The auditorium was wider than it
+was deep. The rows of comfortable seats were all alike and all sold at
+the same price. The stage was used for concerts and, on rare occasions,
+for plays and operas.
+
+The architect who had built the Paris Opera House had repeated the same
+dazzling display in this hall. There were gold ornaments on every side,
+elaborate moldings, caryatids and immense mirrors. There was not a
+hand's breadth of the wall without its gilded stucco, raised in bold
+relief.
+
+In the hall at the rear above the seats that rose at a decided angle,
+were five boxes, the only ones there were.
+
+They were reserved for the Sovereign Prince and his high officials.
+
+While listening to the singing, Michael examined the crowded mass of
+people, as well as he could, from his seat. He recognized many as he
+gazed over their heads.
+
+Toward the front he distinguished a man with gray hair that was parted
+from the forehead to the nape of the neck, and brushed forward mingling
+with his side whiskers, in an Austrian fashion. It was the Colonel, who
+was listening with a certain air of authority, swaying his head to show
+his approbation of the celebrated tenor. But he was not alone. The
+Prince saw him bend toward a girl with curly hair and a string of large
+amber beads. Oh, the traitor!
+
+There was no doubt about it. It must have been the gardener's daughter.
+That was why he had fled in such a hurry. The milliner's apprentice had
+insisted. She was anxious to hear the singer she had heard the ladies
+talk so much about.
+
+When the huge nightingale had retired to the wings, the Colonel offered
+his protégée a cornucopia full of caramels. Caramels in wartime! An
+extravagance, indeed, that only a lover could allow himself.
+
+In the intermission, the Prince slipped away, for fear that he might
+meet Don Marcos and spoil his aide's pleasant afternoon by his presence.
+Besides, he was not interested in the opera or in the highly praised
+artist.
+
+He crossed the large ante-room with its columns of jasper supporting a
+gallery with balusters surmounted by bronze candelabras. At one end of
+the room the latest news was posted on panels. The Prince read it
+without any curiosity.
+
+Nothing new. The same as ever. The monotonous trench warfare was
+continuing. Ground gained and lost by the yard. There would be no end to
+it.
+
+He slipped out between the groups of people during the intermission,
+taking care that the Colonel should not see him.
+
+Poor Don Marcos! He was walking along gravely and proudly by the side of
+his protégée, who might have been his granddaughter. He glanced with
+hostility at all the young men, while behind his back, she made eyes at
+every passing uniform.
+
+The Prince was obliged to force his way through a motionless compact
+group made up of wounded officers. French, Canadians, Australians, and
+Englishmen. Mingled with them were nurses of various types--some with
+nunlike veils and with a delicate appearance; others with a masculine
+look, having neckties and uniforms with gold buttons, without any
+feminine apparel except their skirts. Some who were older and had short
+hair, red faces, and large shell spectacles had to be examined closely
+before one could be convinced, from their hybrid appearance, that they
+were women. They crowded together in front of the three double curtains
+leading to the gambling rooms. Those who belonged in any way to the army
+or navy of any nation whatsoever were not allowed to pass this limit.
+Soldiers could enter only the theater and the ante-room of the Casino.
+And those people who in their far-off countries had often heard of Monte
+Carlo, finding themselves there by chance of war, were crowding at the
+curtains with childish curiosity, admiring, for an instant, as the
+draperies rapidly opened and closed, the vision of gilded rooms, all in
+a row and filled with people. Afterwards they would withdraw, giving up
+their places to other comrades. At last they had seen it! Now they could
+say they knew all about Monte Carlo!
+
+The employees in their black frock coats opened one of the curtains,
+greeting the Prince as though he were an old acquaintance. It was the
+first time Michael had entered the gaming rooms since his return. It
+seemed to him as though he had awakened miraculously into the world of
+things before the war. Everything that was afflicting humanity remained
+on the other side of the door, as the action of a drama, unreal but
+exciting, remains on the stage of a theater which we leave behind us. He
+found even a certain attractiveness in the architecture of these drawing
+rooms, because of their vague familiarity, recalling the pleasant days
+of his life. He was in the Renaissance hall, but his whole attention was
+taken by the adjoining parlor, the central rotunda of the Casino, called
+the "Schmidt Drawing Room," the one on which all the other rooms
+converge and which seems to be prolonged under the dividing archways to
+the farthest ends of the building.
+
+A pulsing silence arose from the mass of human beings around the green
+tables. Every one was talking in a low voice as though in church. From
+time to time this murmur was broken by a long swishing sound, a noise
+like that of pebbles on the shore swept by a wave. It was caused by the
+rakes of the employees sweeping the green cloth and carrying with them
+the clashing coins and ivory ships--all the spoils of the losings. The
+voices of the _croupiers_, like those of officers giving commands, arose
+above the feverish silence which reminded one of a humming hive.
+
+"_Faites vos jeux. Vos jeux sont faits?... Rien ne va plus._"
+
+The hall gradually lost the suppressed noises which served to accentuate
+its silence. People breathed more naturally, as they craned their necks
+to see better over the shoulders of those in front of them. Some of the
+women were standing on one foot only, with the other raised behind them
+like dancers bending over to touch the ground with their hands. They all
+crowded together, paying no attention to the sex of the persons against
+whom they were pushing. During this pause, marked by long faces,
+frowning eyebrows, drawn mouths, and converging glances, there resounded
+with its noise increased by a diabolical echo, the rattling of the tiny
+ivory ball as it whirled in the grooves along the wooden rim, while the
+colored rows of the roulette wheel kept spinning in the opposite
+direction, like a kaleidoscope. Suddenly there was a sharp click. The
+ball had ended its circular flight, falling into a number. The silence
+was prolonged. The spectators' necks were craned even more. There was a
+nervous clenching of fists. Again there was the sound of pebbles washed
+by the sea. The rakes were sweeping the green table. It was a bad number
+for the players. Whenever a stifled uproar occurred, caused by a hundred
+bosoms suddenly breathing freely, it took the _croupiers_ several
+minutes to resume play. They had to pay the winners and settle disputes
+between those who claimed the same bet. At the end of each play various
+groups at a table would disengage themselves to go over to another; but
+the ring of people always remained compact through the arrival of new
+spectators.
+
+From the central skylight a dim splendor descended. Outside the sun was
+shining on the azure sea. This light was like that of a wine cellar, a
+light, according to Castro, like that of a Hall of Congress. It was a
+yellowish light gold which seemed to increase the magnificence of the
+drawing rooms. The architecture was of the rich and majestic sort that
+attracts the crowd and the newly rich. The columns and pillars of onyx
+and bronze held up a magnificent ceiling, broken by the circular stained
+glass of the skylight. In the four triangles of the vault were statues
+representing _Air_, _Earth_, _Fire_, and _Water_, as though these four
+elements had some relation to the business which gave the vast edifice
+its reason for existence.
+
+Four metal spiders, huge and glistening, completed the heavy
+sumptuousness of the decoration. Where there were no gilded ornaments or
+mirrors, the walls were covered with showy pictures. These paintings and
+all of the rest that adorned the Casino were the object of Michael's
+jests. Some of them were fairly acceptable. The majority appeared very
+ancient in spite of the fact that they were not over forty years old.
+But there was nothing noble about their antique appearance. It seemed
+rather as though they had lain for centuries in scorn and oblivion.
+Atilio accounted for the appearance of these canvases in a way of his
+own. According to him they were the work of various patrons ruined by
+gambling, whom the Casino felt obliged to advertise.
+
+The Prince began to notice well-known faces in this crowd which was
+being constantly renewed, and was changing each moment. The whole world,
+sooner or later passed that way. That floor with its various inlaid
+woods was one of the most frequented spots of Europe. It was something
+like the ancient Roman forum, a point on which all roads of the entire
+world converged. Idlers from the entire globe were attracted to this
+room. They all dreamed of being able to go sometime and risk a coin in
+the great Mediterranean gambling house. Men from other continents
+disembarking in the old world wrote Monte Carlo on the itinerary of
+their travels. But this human river which constantly glided along,
+receiving new waves of arrivals, kept leaving in the crannies of its
+shores, pools of stagnant waters, clogged by uprooted plants and the
+naked trunks of trees.
+
+Lubimoff nodded to certain persons, who looked at him with a sort of
+cordial surprise, as though they were looking at a dead man brought to
+life. An old man, with a short bristling beard on a face pale as a
+corpse, bowed deeply as he passed, without seeming in his humility to be
+offended at not receiving an acknowledgment. He was the man most sought
+after and coaxed by the women who frequented the Casino. He wore a sort
+of black cap like that of a priest, and carried a hat in one hand. On
+his coat lapel was a medal of enamel work with the Sacred Heart of
+Jesus. Atilio and Lewis had also sought him frequently. Michael was sure
+that this man was a friend of the Duchess de Delille and that on more
+than one occasion he had seen her tears. He loaned money at 5 per cent
+(for every 24 hours), and spent the time, he was not busy, watching new
+arrivals from a distance to see if they might turn out to be new
+clients.
+
+The Prince received smiles, also from certain respectable looking women
+who were by no means ugly, though they were stout in some parts of their
+body and slender in others, like persons who have taken a course to
+reduce flesh without obtaining a uniform result. They were seated on the
+divans in the corners, talking among themselves, and watching the groups
+of gamblers, with the air of employees resting after having done their
+duty. They had come to Monte Carlo many years ago with jewels, with
+thousands of francs, and men who endured all the unevenness of their
+tempers and in addition gave them money. And everything had vanished on
+the Casino tables. But they went on clinging to the reef on which they
+had been wrecked--perhaps beyond salvation, living on the jettison of
+many another who had followed the same route, only to be dashed on the
+same rocks and perish. They offered their services to strangers as
+persons acquainted with the mysteries of the house, advising honey-moon
+couples what number they should play, as though they knew the secret.
+Besides they came to the Casino at the opening hour to get the best
+places at the tables and later give up their chairs to wealthy players,
+steady clients, who rewarded them generously if luck favored them.
+
+He met still others also. A number of women passed close to him. They
+were old, but of an age incapable yet of frankly facing the free air and
+the open sunlight. Their appearance of antiquity was accentuated by
+their strange apparel, which recalled no particular style--dresses of
+bright colors that had faded, and which seemed to have been cut from old
+curtains, and smelled like a musty old house;--and monumental hats or
+spherical turbans made of mosquito netting. Some were thin as
+skeletons; others were mountains of living fat; but all of them were
+painted scandalously with vermilion and had blue rings around their
+lightless eyes.
+
+"A _louis_, Prince," murmured the most daring. "I am sure that you will
+bring me luck." As she spoke, her false teeth, too large for her gums,
+rattled; a stench of the grave accompanied the smile on the painted
+lips.
+
+Michael knew who they were, from Toledo's tales. The Colonel, as an
+admirer of fallen royalty, accepted their conversation with melancholy
+deference. One of them had been a sweetheart of Victor Emanuel; another,
+who was older, recalled, with sighs, the days of Napoleon III, and of
+Morny.
+
+They had come to die in Monte Carlo, the last spot on earth able to
+remind them of the splendors of sixty years before; some of them, in
+memory of their vanished jewels, calmly displayed brass ornaments and
+beads of glass. According to a paradox of Castro's, they had died many
+years before, spending the night in the Monaco Cemetery dressing
+themselves with the spoils from other corpses and coming to the Casino
+from force of habit to contemplate once more the scenes of their remote
+youth. The Prince gave them a few bank notes and went out, while they
+ran to gamble this money, after having thanked him for the gift, with a
+death-head grin that was the last remnant of their former professional
+charm.
+
+Suddenly Michael stopped, observing the various parasites who lived by
+clinging to the gearing of the terrible machine and feeding on the
+crumbs it pulverized. He became interested in the crowd which was always
+apparently the same, though always with distinct individuals. There were
+some who walked along leaning on canes, invalids' canes tipped with
+rubber--the only kind allowed in the gaming room for fear of quarrels.
+He noticed flaccid old women slowly hobbling along, paralytic gentlemen
+leaning on the arm of tall, robust fellows in braided uniforms who led
+them in a fatherly fashion toward the roulette wheels and eased them
+into their chairs. A few paralytics arrived at the foot of the stairway
+in little carriages like children's carts, and thence were carried on
+hand chairs through the rooms to their favorite spot. At certain moments
+it seemed as though the gambling hall were a famous health resort, or a
+place of miracles, like Lourdes. They came just as incurable invalids
+come to other places, impelled by a last hope; but in this case the hope
+was not for health. That was the least of their cares. What galvanized
+them here was the hope of fortune, and dreams of wealth, as if riches
+would be of any service to these poor bodies lacking all the appetites
+which make life pleasant.
+
+Mentally the Prince summed up all human passions in two pleasures which
+are the springs of all action--love and gambling. There were people who
+experienced equally the attraction of them both--Castro, for example. He
+himself had been interested only in love and could not understand the
+pleasures of gambling. Whenever he had gotten up from the gaming tables,
+each time with winnings, he had never felt any temptation to return. But
+looking at these ailing people, some of them very aged, at those
+incurables, all of them dragging themselves toward the roulette wheel as
+though toward a miraculous bath, he condoned them pityingly. What other
+pleasure was there left for them on earth? How could they fill the
+emptiness of their lives prolonged so tenaciously?
+
+What he could not understand was the intense attitude, the hard faces,
+of the other gamblers who were healthy and strong. Young men moved among
+the women around the tables with hostile brusqueness, quarrelling with
+them harshly and treating them like enemies. Women suddenly lost their
+grace and freshness, becoming masculine all at once as they looked at
+the rows of cards of _trente et quarante_ or at the mad whirl of the
+colored wheel. Their gestures were those of prize fighters. Their mouths
+were drawn. There was a look of fierceness in their eyes. As though
+warned instinctively of this transformation, no sooner did they tear
+themselves away from the tables than they took out their vanity
+case--the little mirror, the powder, and the rouge--to correct or efface
+the passing ravages of the play. Those of more dignified and normal
+appearance showed themselves at times to be the most reckless. In a
+place where all the women were doing the same as they, gambling had
+something official about it, something worthy of respect; it was
+possible for them to indulge in a vice without fear of gossip, without
+the risk of being criticized.
+
+The Prince smiled as he remembered a story Toledo had told him a few
+days before: the despair of a woman of about forty who came from Nice
+with her two daughters every afternoon, and had finally lost fifty
+thousand francs.
+
+"Oh! If I had only taken a lover," the mother had groaned with tears in
+her eyes. "It would have been better if I had chosen love."
+
+Michael entered the other rooms that had no skylight. The clusters of
+electric bulbs lighting them with senseless splendor made him think of
+the burning sun and the azure sea just beyond those walls of gold and
+jasper.
+
+Above the tables were oil lamps with two enormous shades each one
+sheltering four fixtures which hung by bronze chains several yards long,
+attached to the ceiling. Thus if the electric current was cut off,
+there was no danger of the patrons feeling tempted to appropriate the
+money on the tables.
+
+Occasionally a little bell would sound, rung by one of the employees in
+black frock coat who directed the playing. A chip, a coin, or a bank
+note had fallen under the table. Suddenly with the promptness of a scene
+shifter waiting behind the stage, a lackey dressed in a blue and gold
+uniform appeared, carrying a dark lantern and a hook to rummage about
+among the players' feet until he found the lost object.
+
+The discipline observable in these vast rooms was like that on a
+warship, where everything is in its place and every man at his post. In
+order to make sure that everything was going properly, various
+respectable gentlemen with decorations on their coat lapels, walked back
+and forth among the tables, with the air of officers on duty. Whenever
+voices were raised, these men appeared with rapid strides, to cut short
+the arguments in some tactful manner. When two gamblers claimed the same
+bet, they immediately settled the dispute by paying both. The money
+would finally come back to the house any way!
+
+According to Atilio, the Casino was honeycombed in all directions with
+secret galleries, hidden openings and even trap doors, like the stage
+for a comedy of magic--all these for the sake of immediate service, and
+to avoid any annoyance to the patrons.
+
+Sometimes the invalid fainted at the table or fell dead through too
+violent emotion. Immediately the wall would open and eject two
+attendants with a stretcher who would cause the troublesome body to
+disappear as though by enchantment. Those at the adjoining table would
+scarcely have a chance to be aware of it.
+
+At other times it would be a suicide. Lubimoff knew a table called the
+Suicide Table, because an Englishman had killed himself there in
+melodramatic fashion, shooting himself with a pistol when he had lost
+his last penny. His brains had been scattered in shreds on the green
+baize and on the faces of his neighbors, and even on the frock coats of
+the _croupiers_. There are always people who have no tact, and who do
+not know how to behave in good society! But the attendants emerged from
+the wall, carried away the corpse, and cleaned the blood from the carpet
+and table.
+
+Shortly afterwards, from the oval of people crowding against the green
+table, the consecrated words arose: "_Faites vos jeux.... Vos jeux sont
+faits?... Rien ne va plus._"
+
+The Prince recalled the famous suicide bench in the gardens of the
+Casino. It was all a magazine yarn. No such bench had ever existed. When
+several persons killed themselves on the same bench, the administration
+had its position changed immediately! Besides, the number of suicides
+was much exaggerated. There were two or three each year, no more.
+According to Castro, it was no longer the fad to kill one's self at
+Monte Carlo. It showed an unpardonable lack of taste. The proper thing
+to do was to go a long way off and disappear without making any
+commotion.
+
+Besides the house police were quick to detect those who were in despair.
+Such people received a railway ticket at once and they were advised to
+kill themselves, like good fellows, in Marseilles, or if not so far
+away, at least in Nice or Menton.
+
+Michael was near the "Suicide Table" close to the entrance to the
+private rooms, when he noticed a certain commotion in the crowd. Groups
+were seeking one another to exchange news. The old patrons were moved by
+professional feeling. Something important was going on. The Prince knew
+the meaning of these sudden bursts of curiosity: a player was winning
+or losing in remarkable fashion.
+
+He heard indistinctly a name that brought him to attention.
+
+"The Duchess de Delille--two hundred thousand francs!"
+
+All those who had permission to play in the private rooms hurried toward
+the large glass door which gave access to them. Michael followed this
+living current.
+
+He found himself in an enormous hall with a lofty ceiling. On one side
+four large balconies opened out on the terraces, and the Mediterranean.
+Because of the war they were covered with dark curtains to hide the
+light from within. The wall opposite was adorned with various gigantic
+mirrors. On the ceiling seventeen white, full-breasted caryatids,
+bending under the weight of the roof, supported the wide bands of rock
+crystal, with electrical bulbs, which shed a sort of moonlight.
+
+Those whom curiosity had attracted, passed the first gaming tables with
+an air of indifference. Everybody was crowding around the last, the
+"_trente et quarante_," at the foot of a large picture, in which three
+buxom lasses in the nude against a background of dark trees like those
+in the Boboli Gardens, represented the _Florentine Graces_.
+
+The great phenomenon was taking place there. Craning his neck above the
+shoulders of two sightseers, Michael caught a glimpse of Alicia seated
+at the table with an anxious expression on her face. All eyes were upon
+her. In front of her, were heaps of bank notes and many columns of
+chips. There were the five hundred franc ovals, and the one thousand
+franc squares, "little cakes of soap" as they call the latter, in the
+language of the Casino.
+
+Suddenly she raised her head as though realizing instinctively the
+presence of some one interesting to her. And her eyes fell straight on
+Michael. She greeted him with a happy smile. There was the suggestion of
+a kiss in her glance. And all the people there, with the submission of a
+mob when dominated by enthusiasm or amazement, followed her eyes to see
+who the man was whom the heroine was greeting in this manner. The vanity
+of the Prince was flattered, as it used to be when some celebrated
+actress greeted him from the stage and went on singing with her eyes
+fastened upon him to dedicate to him her trills. Once, when he was a
+boy, a bull-fighter had bowed to him in a friendly way before giving the
+final death thrust in the arena. Alicia seemed to be choosing him as her
+god of luck.
+
+But immediately she fell back into the deep absorption of the play. She
+was not alone. An invisible and powerful person was standing behind her
+chair, bending over her to whisper in her ear some word of unfailing
+counsel, to suggest some unlooked for resolution, some original and
+daring idea. Her eyes, lighted by a mysterious fire, were gazing on
+something that no one else could see. Her mute lips trembled with
+nervous contractions, as though she were talking with some one who did
+not need sound to be able to hear. Michael felt there was a demon-like
+power beside her, the inspiration of the unforgettable hours which
+reveal to artists a masterful harmony, an illuminating word, or a
+supreme stroke of the brush; the inspiration which prompts the final
+slaughter in battle or the decisive move in some business venture, that
+means either millions or suicide.
+
+She had begun to plunge. Her hand carelessly pushed forward a column of
+twelve rectangular chips, with an extra oval one: twelve thousand five
+hundred francs, the maximum amount that could be risked in "_trente et
+quarante_." The crowd, with the idolatry which victors inspire, was
+hoping for the Duchess, as though each one expected to share in her
+winning. They all knew she was going to win. And when as a matter of
+fact she did win, there was a murmur of satisfaction, a sigh of relief
+from that oval of sightseers pressing against the backs of the chairs
+occupied by the players. From time to time she lost, and profound
+silence expressed their sympathy. Sometimes after advancing a column of
+chips, she closed her eyes as though listening to some one who remained
+invisible, and moving her head in sign of assent, withdrew the stakes.
+Once more there arose a murmur of satisfaction, when the public saw that
+she had withdrawn her money just in time, and had scored, as it were, a
+negative triumph.
+
+Many of them computed with greedy eyes the sums amassed in front of her.
+
+"She's in the three hundred thousands already--perhaps she has more--Oh!
+if she would only succeed in making it millions! What fun it would be to
+see her break the bank!"
+
+To these comments spoken in low tones were added the laudatory
+exclamations of a few elderly women who looked at the conqueror with
+adoring eyes. "How nice she is!--a great lady and so beautiful!--Good
+luck to her!"
+
+A dark shoulder over which the Prince was looking moved and the Prince
+saw Spadoni's face close to his. The pianist did not show the slightest
+surprise; as though they had separated only a few minutes before. He did
+not even greet Michael. The astonishment which caused the pupils of his
+eyes to dilate, the indignation and envy that this insolent fortune
+inspired, made it necessary for the pianist to express his feelings in a
+protest.
+
+"Have you noticed, Highness--she doesn't know how to play--she goes
+against all rules, all logic. She doesn't know the first thing about it,
+not the first thing!"
+
+Immediately his eyes returned to the table, forgetting the Prince on
+hearing once more a stifled outburst from the crowd. A little more and
+some of the people would be applauding the repeated triumphs of the
+Duchess. Those who had lost during the previous days, were rejoicing
+with the joy of vengeance. "What an evening! You don't see this every
+day." They smiled and nudged each other as they noticed the coming and
+going of the inspectors, the presence of high officials who strove to
+hide their concern, the long faces of attendants as they returned from
+the head cashier with new packages of one thousand franc chips to pay
+this lady who had swept the table bare of money three times. The news of
+her extraordinary run of luck circulated throughout the entire edifice.
+At that moment the gentlemen of the management must have been discussing
+in their offices on the top floor the bad trick that chance had dared to
+play them. A mood of anticipation and excitement, akin to the whispering
+of a revolution, spread through every nook and cranny. Those who had no
+tickets for the private rooms asked for news from those who were coming
+out, repeating what they had heard with exaggeration born of enthusiasm.
+In the wardrobe, in the lavatories, in the inner corridors, in all the
+subterranean and winding passageways where the servants, maids and
+firemen lived under an eternal electric light, this news shook the
+sleepy calm of the humbler employees. The atmosphere of excitement was
+similar to that which circulates through the half deserted corridors of
+the Chamber of Deputies while in the semi-circle teeming with emotion, a
+Prime Minister is fighting to survive a crisis. The news gathered
+momentum as it passed from group to group with that satisfaction
+mingled with uneasiness which is inspired in employees by the reverses
+of their employers.
+
+"It seems that upstairs a Duchess is winning a million--no: now they say
+it is two millions."
+
+And by the time the news had circulated throughout the entire building,
+the two millions had married and given birth to another. Half an hour
+later they were four millions, according to the lesser servants, who had
+grown old living off gambling without ever seeing it at first hand.
+
+Michael suddenly felt a great wave of anger against the fortunate woman.
+Since her smile of greeting she had not looked at him again. Several
+times her eyes had glanced mechanically in his direction, without taking
+any notice of him. He was merely one of the many curious spectators
+witnessing her triumph. At that moment there were only two things in the
+world, the pack of cards and herself.
+
+Her indifference caused him to feel the indignation of the moralist. It
+did not make any difference to him that Alicia was forgetting him. He
+repeated this to himself several times: no, he did not care about that.
+They were not lovers, nor was there any deep affection between them. But
+how about her son! He remembered that morning a scene with her tears and
+despair. And the mother was there abandoning herself completely to the
+pleasures of chance and with no feeling for anything except her
+perverted passion.
+
+If some one had spoken to her about the aviator who was a prisoner, she
+would have had to make an effort to recall his existence. And a few
+hours before she had wept sincerely on thinking of his imprisonment!
+
+This was too much for the Prince. His sense of dignity could not accept
+this thoughtlessness! He elbowed his way through a crowd of onlookers,
+after freeing himself from Spadoni's shoulder, while the latter as
+though hypnotized, remained with his eyes fixed on the ever-increasing
+treasure of the Duchess.
+
+Lubimoff began to pace the drawing room. He scorned Alicia's
+self-absorption, but lacked the strength to go away. It was necessary
+for him to be near her, perhaps in order to see just how far her slight
+of him would go.
+
+He came across a gentleman who was walking about among the tables,
+beating his hands behind his back and muttering unintelligible words. It
+was his friend Lewis.
+
+"Have you seen how she plays," he said in a tone of anger, as he
+recognized the Prince; "like a fool, like a regular fool! They ought not
+to allow women in here."
+
+All afternoon he had been losing according to rule and experience. He
+did not have enough money left even for his whiskies and had had to
+charge them at the bar. But suddenly he remembered that the Duchess was
+a relative of Lubimoff.
+
+"I am sorry if I offended you, but she plays like an idiot."
+
+And he turned his back to continue his furious monologue.
+
+Don Marcos passing in a hurry without seeing the Prince opened a path in
+the crowd of onlookers with all the authority of a dressy personage. He
+had just left the gardener's daughter in haste. The news had crept
+through the theater causing many of the spectators to give up seeing the
+close of the opera in order to be present at this unheard of run of
+luck, which was for them a spectacle of the greatest interest.
+
+At one of the roulette tables he saw Clorinda who was playing
+cautiously, with Castro standing behind her chair.
+
+"The General" had witnessed the first part of her friend's triumph.
+"She's going to lose: this cannot last," she thought each time. Then
+she had moved away from the table, explaining her attitude to Castro and
+other friends. It was impossible for her to watch Alicia tranquilly as
+she risked such heavy stakes. It was more excitement than she could
+endure.
+
+"I hope she wins a great deal, a great deal, indeed," she added with the
+generosity of a friend. "Poor Alicia, she needs it so much! Her affairs
+are going so badly!"
+
+She had just seated herself at another table with the faint hope that
+luck would remember her, too; but the murmurings which reached her from
+the trente et quarante table, announcing the news of fresh victories,
+made her nervous and she attributed the loss of several twenty franc
+pieces to this cause. When she found she had lost two hundred, she felt
+that she must take her spite out on some one. Atilio, who followed her
+everywhere, was standing there, greeting her expressions of bad humor
+with an adoring smile.
+
+"Castro, go away; don't stand there behind me. You must know you bring
+me bad luck. Go somewhere else."
+
+The Prince observed how his friend, with a look of annoyance, left the
+widow and walked toward the door.
+
+He thought he would follow him. By talking with Atilio, he might forget
+the irritation which the other woman had caused him; but as he went
+toward the end of the room he had a new surprise.
+
+In one of the dimly lighted corners he saw Novoa, who was going to spend
+the afternoon in Monaco or take a walk on the Nice Road. Perhaps the
+latter was true. He might have been waiting for Valeria who was coming
+back from her luncheon party. They must have both been there for a long
+time, in the dark corner, unaware of what was going on about them and
+deaf to people's comments.
+
+The scientist, with his back turned, was unable to see the Prince. As
+for the lady, her eyes were fixed on Novoa with the affectionate
+seriousness of a girl who has taken advanced studies, has the bachelor's
+degree, and is able to understand a man of science. Michael heard a
+snatch of the young professor's conversation.
+
+"And when the glacial currents from the pole reach that spot they take
+the place of the warm waters that rise to the surface...."
+
+He was explaining the formation of the Gulf Stream.
+
+No one could have guessed it from observing the caressing and timidly
+amorous glances behind his glasses.
+
+She was listening with admiring fervor, but Michael, who knew women,
+imagined he guessed her real thoughts. She was weighing, with the
+cunning of a poor girl alone in the world, the possibilities of this man
+as a husband. He was ignorant of everything not to be learned in books,
+and she was calculating the modifications necessary to improve the
+person of this careless male who always wore a necktie badly tied, and
+never pulled up his trousers before sitting down, to keep them from
+bagging in a grotesque manner.
+
+Lubimoff spent more than an hour deeply sunk in an armchair in the bar,
+listening to Castro. The branches of the large trees on the terrace wove
+soft shadows like spider webs on the window panes in the twilight dusk.
+
+Atilio was giving vent to his melancholy by lamenting the meagerness of
+the afternoon tea. On account of the war, burnt almonds and potato chips
+were the only gastronomic delicacies to be offered, in this place
+frequented by the wealthy.
+
+The crowd roused in him the same sad reflections. There were people
+there, but very few compared with the numbers that flocked to Monte
+Carlo some years before. Then they came in limited trains direct from
+Vienna, Berlin, and the farthest parts of Europe. The square in front of
+the Casino was a second _Babel_. Around the "Cheese," people of all
+races walked up and down, speaking every known language. At present the
+absence of the Russians, who were spirited gamblers, was to be lamented,
+and likewise the absence of the Austrians and the Turks. The last
+persons to be attracted by Monte Carlo were the Germans, but Castro had
+seen them come in great numbers during the past few years, applying to
+gambling the same quiet minutely scientific thoroughness of method they
+used in military discipline, the organization of industries, and
+laboratory work.
+
+He was always able to recognize them as soon as they entered the rooms.
+When they sat down at the table they surrounded themselves with books
+and papers: statistics of the most favored numbers of past years,
+manuals on how to gamble, their own calculations and logarithms that
+only they themselves could understand.
+
+"They held on to their money more tenaciously than the rest," Atilio
+continued. "They were as patient and tireless as stubborn oxen; but they
+lost in the end like every one else. Who doesn't lose here--even the
+Casino, that always wins, is losing now. Before the war it brought in an
+income of forty million francs a year. At the present time it clears not
+more than three or four millions and since enormous expenses have to be
+covered, it has had to ask for loans to go on living, the same as a
+State."
+
+Michael observed those who were passing through the bar. There was only
+one man for every ten women.
+
+"That's the war, too," said Castro. "You can see women, women
+everywhere! Before the war, if you recall, even in peace times, the
+proportion of women was always larger. There are fewer men but they play
+higher stakes. They risk their money with more daring; three-fourths of
+the crowd around the tables were composed of women. When women are
+afraid of love, or disillusioned by it, they give themselves up to
+gambling with passionate intensity. It is the only means they can find
+to express their imagination. Besides, when one takes into account their
+love of luxury, which is never proportionate to their means, and
+considers the needs of present day women which were unknown to their
+grandmothers.... Look--look over there." He pointed discreetly to a lady
+advanced in years, modestly dressed and with a face that was daubed with
+rouge, who was being approached with supplicating looks and gestures by
+two other young and elegantly dressed ladies. It was easy to guess that
+they had come in there purely for the sake of discussing some business
+affair, away from the prying eyes in the gambling rooms.
+
+"They are asking for a loan and she is refusing," Castro continued.
+"Perhaps it is the second or third time in the afternoon. This lady is a
+rival of the old man who wears the Sacred Heart on his lapel. He is
+quite a character, that old usurer! He began as a waiter in a café and
+must have some two millions now after thirty years of honorable toil.
+Everything he owns is to be given to the village of La Turbie, which has
+named him its benefactor. He pays for images of Saints and has rebuilt
+the church----. Notice: the lady is softening. They are going to get the
+loan."
+
+The three women had disappeared through the mahogany door leading to the
+women's lavatories. As the loan agent kept her funds in her petticoats,
+it was necessary for her to pull up her skirts to carry on her
+negotiations. Shortly after she came out and walked rapidly in the
+direction of the gambling room. She had to go on watching several women
+to whom she had loaned money, to see if they were winning. The two
+young women followed her with their purses still open, hurriedly
+counting the bank notes they had just received.
+
+Castro, who had suffered the humiliation of similar operations more than
+once, began bitterly to attack the vice which maintained this enormous
+edifice and the whole Principality.
+
+He played to win, played because he was poor; but so many rich people
+came there and risked the foundations of their well being!
+
+"Gambling is a functioning of the imagination. That is why you must have
+noticed that men with real imagination, writers, and true artists,
+seldom gamble. Many of them have caused great scandals by their
+extraordinary vices, reaching the point of monstrosity. But none of them
+have ever distinguished themselves as gamblers. They have other more
+exciting subjects to which they may apply their imaginative powers. On
+the other hand the great mass of human beings feel the charm of gambling
+and the more commonplace the individual, the more strongly is he
+attracted by the fascination of chance. Our acts are guided by the
+desire of obtaining the maximum of pleasure with a minimum of pain and
+effort; and you cannot obtain this better than by gambling. We all obey
+our hopes that do what seems most advantageous. We like to exaggerate
+the probability that what we most earnestly want to happen will occur,
+and we end by taking our desires for reality. Every day those who come
+in here have a feeling of certainty that they will come away taking a
+thousand, twenty thousand, or a hundred thousand francs with them, and,
+as a matter of cold fact, they come away with empty pockets. It doesn't
+make any difference, they will come back the next day, guided by the
+same illusions."
+
+He stopped talking as though depressed by the thought that he was
+painting his own picture. Then he added:
+
+"What is the difference? Without these illusions, which gently stimulate
+the imagination, life would overwhelm us. It is perhaps fortunate for us
+that our hopes are not mathematically exact, that our destiny is largely
+shaped by luck. Besides, life is short. The future is uncertain; if
+fortune is to be ours, should we not prepare the way so that it may come
+swiftly? And what better way than that of gambling? When we put our hope
+in some far-off future time, it is not worth much. If we are to win, let
+it be soon and once for all. Our life is nothing more than a game of
+chance. We are gamblers all, even those of us who have never touched a
+card. Professions, business, and love itself are pure gambles, pure
+luck, a matter of chance. Cleverness and intelligence may cause our life
+games to turn out favorably, but chance still retains its hold on us,
+and the luck of an individual is what is most important. To become rich,
+even in the most stable business enterprises, one must be favored by a
+combination of extraordinary circumstances, a continual run of luck. A
+man never has become rich or celebrated merely on his own merits."
+
+Lubimoff, one of the world's great millionaires a few years before,
+nodded his head at this statement.
+
+"Even Governments keep up the habit of hope in the public by recourse to
+chance," continued Castro. "There are very few that do not authorize a
+lottery. A person who takes a ticket, buys a little hope and the
+possibility, if he has any imagination, of building for a few days every
+kind of wonderful dream, and feeling deeply stirred at the time of the
+drawing. The betterment of our material well-being by means of our own
+efforts is a laborious and difficult task; but there is a way to give
+the humble a certain relative happiness: by giving them hopes of
+becoming rich, of freeing themselves from every kind of servitude, and
+of realizing the ideal of freedom to which they aspire. As a matter of
+principle the State shows itself an enemy of games of chance; and
+considers them immoral because they are based on what is uncertain; but
+all classes of commercial, financial, and industrial operations
+represent chance and oftentimes the ruin of one or two parties. They are
+all games quite similar to the gambling that goes on here." Atilio
+smiled ironically before continuing.
+
+"Let the moralists talk against gambling until they are weary. This much
+is certain. The sums that are played on horse races and in the Casino
+increase each year with rapid progression, more rapidly in fact than
+public wealth. The general improvement in ways of living which is
+developing, exerts no influence toward decreasing gambling. On the other
+hand, the complexity of modern life, with the increase of our needs and
+wants, favors this passion, and even aggravates it."
+
+The Prince interrupted him. He was quite right, perhaps, in what he was
+saying, but what a degrading vice gambling was! The more reasonable
+people allow themselves to be mastered by it and even lose their
+ordinary intelligence.
+
+"That's certain," confessed Atilio. "In gambling our human weaknesses
+and the tendency which we all have towards superstitions are shown most
+clearly. What madness.... Just as though the past could influence the
+present! How many useless efforts to conquer luck! More wealth and
+imagination has been wasted in the invention of new systems in gambling
+than in the attempt to find perpetual motion--and just as uselessly. All
+these wonderful systems lead the gambler infallibly toward ruin with
+more or less rapidity, but always with certainty. And how strong our
+faith is! I feel that it is greater than that of religious martyrs. When
+we think we have a combination which is sure to win, there is no use
+trying to persuade us to the contrary. Nothing can convince us. It is
+curious that the failure of his system and the consequent losses never
+discourage a good gambler. He immediately seizes upon some new
+combination, a true one this time--which will enable him to make a
+fortune--one hope followed by another, and thus he goes on living until
+death overtakes him."
+
+The melancholy of these last few words was brief. Castro seemed suddenly
+to recall something which made him smile.
+
+"How many inconsistencies in the lives of gamblers! They are not afraid
+to risk their money and there is no class of people that is more stingy.
+Notice the women who play most passionately. They are all badly dressed;
+some of them are often careless about their persons. They must have
+money to gamble, and postpone buying necessities until the next day.
+There are men who carry their hats in their arms all afternoon in order
+to save the ten cents which it costs to leave them in the vestibule of
+the Casino. To-day when I came in I saw an elderly gentleman who waits
+for a friend every day standing by the cloak room window. They leave
+their hats and coats together and that way each one has to pay only five
+cents. Later on, at the roulette table, I saw them handling rolls of
+thousand-franc bills."
+
+From the tables people called to the players who were entering the bar:
+
+"Is she still winning?"
+
+They referred to the Delille woman. The various reports did not agree.
+Some of the people seemed indignant: "Yes, she went on winning with luck
+that would make you tired." The enthusiasm of the first moment had
+vanished. There was a note of envy concealed in words and glances.
+Others moved by some selfish sentiment were pleased to point to a
+decline in her marvelous luck. She was losing and winning. Her runs of
+luck were not so frequent as in the beginning, but at all events if she
+were to stop at once, she might well take away three hundred thousand
+francs.
+
+Atilio and the Prince noticed Lewis standing at the bar, drinking the
+whisky which always restored his peace of mind, and permitted him to
+resume the complicated systems that were to give him back his paternal
+inheritance and restore his castle.
+
+They called to him to inquire about the luck of the Duchess. Lewis
+shrugged his shoulders with an expression of indignation and protest. It
+was absurd to win like that, playing so badly.
+
+"She must have the Count's rosary hidden in her skirts," said Atilio,
+gravely.
+
+Lewis was puzzled for the moment as though he took the words seriously.
+Later he blushed like a proper Briton, as he remembered the strange
+ornaments on his friend's rosary. Suddenly he burst into a violent fit
+of laughter. "Oh, Mr. Castro!----" Mr. Castro's supposition seemed to
+him so witty that he laughed till he nearly choked himself coughing, and
+then he decided to get another whisky to regain his serenity.
+
+The two friends returned to the drawing room of the _Florentine Graces_.
+
+The Prince saw Novoa and Valeria on the same divan continuing their
+conversation, but constantly becoming dreamier as they gazed into each
+other's eyes, as though in some deserted spot.
+
+He came near them without their seeing him, and was able to hear some of
+what Alicia's companion was saying.
+
+"I don't know Spain, but I am so interested in it. I adore all of the
+romantic countries where love is everything, and men are disinterested,
+where dowries don't exist, and a woman may marry even if she is poor."
+
+The Prince, in passing, gave the scientist a casual glance of pity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A new personage entered the lives of the dwellers in Villa Sirena. The
+Colonel announced with enthusiasm this friend whom Doña Clorinda had
+introduced.
+
+"He is a Spanish Lieutenant in the Foreign Legion. He lives in the hotel
+which the Prince of Monaco gave up for convalescent officers. His name
+is Antonio Martinez, a very common name which reveals nothing of his
+character; but he is a great soldier, a hero, and I don't know how he
+manages to survive his wounds."
+
+The "General" who kept track of all the soldiers of a certain
+reputation, as soon as they arrived in Monte Carlo, had been anxious to
+meet this Lieutenant, and had taken him under her protection. The
+Duchess de Delille was also interested in him, and the two women, proud
+of being his _marraines_, showed him off in the anteroom of the Casino,
+rented carriages to promenade him around to the most beautiful spots on
+the Riviera, and treated him to the finest war-time foods and pastry
+that they could find. With his lungs injured by German poison gases, he
+had also received a hand grenade wound on his head, and suffered from
+time to time from nervous trouble, which caused him to fall to the
+ground unconscious. The doctors talked despairingly of his condition.
+Perhaps he would live for years, perhaps he would die in one of these
+crises; the important thing was that he should live a quiet life,
+without any deep emotion. And the two ladies, who knew the real state of
+his health, lamented it when he was not present. He was so young, so
+affectionate, and so timid? On the breast of his mustard-colored
+uniform, attached by red ribbons, as a symbol of bravery given to the
+foreign battalions, were the War Cross and the Legion of Honor.
+
+Clorinda, who considered that she had greater rights over him because of
+having "discovered" him, thought for awhile of taking him to live with
+her in order to be able to take better care of him. But as she was at
+the Hôtel de Paris, she did not, like Alicia, have an entire villa at
+her disposal. And the latter, although tempted by her friend's
+suggestions, did not dare to take the convalescent into her home. People
+liked to talk, and she, without saying why, was afraid of their gossip.
+
+In the meantime, they both took the Lieutenant everywhere, protesting
+that, because of his uniform, he was not allowed to enter the rooms of
+the Casino. One afternoon, Doña Clorinda, with all the natural boldness
+of her character, took him to Villa Sirena. It was a shame that the
+handsome building and its vast gardens should be given over to five men
+who did nothing for humanity at all. Often in her imagination, she had
+converted it into a Sanitarium filled with invalid soldiers, with
+herself at the head of it as director and patroness. But her suggestions
+had no effect whatever on the Prince. "A selfish fellow," she said to
+herself, returning to her former opinion.
+
+As long as it was impossible to occupy the Villa with a band of
+convalescents, she took the Spanish officer to show him the gardens,
+without first asking Lubimoff's permission.
+
+The latter was able to see at first hand the hero of whom Don Marcos,
+during the last few days, had talked so much. He saw nothing in him to
+indicate extraordinary deeds. Martinez was a youth, ready to blush when
+forced to tell what he had done in the war. Without his uniform and his
+insignia of honor, he would have seemed like a poor office clerk,
+modest and resigned and incapable of being anything else. His appearance
+contrasted with the deeds which, after much pleading, he would finally
+be persuaded to confess. He was twenty-six years old, and seemed much
+younger, but it was a sickly sort of youthfulness, undermined by wounds
+and hardships.
+
+Lubimoff, who hated the swagger of boastful heroes, felt at first
+disconcerted, and then attracted by the simplicity of this officer. If
+he had not known from Don Marcos the authenticity of his prowess, he
+would have taken no stock in it.
+
+Somewhat intimidated in the presence of the famous owner of Villa
+Sirena, Martinez confessed his humble birth with neither pride nor
+timidity. He was poor, the son of poor people. He had tried to study for
+a career, but the necessity of earning his living had caused him to
+abandon books, trying the most diverse occupations, one after the other.
+It was so difficult to earn one's bread in Spain! After fighting in the
+Spanish campaign in Morocco, he had wandered through various South
+American Republics, struggling all the while against poverty and ill
+luck.
+
+"There where so many common rough people get rich," he said, "all I
+found was poverty, like that in my own country. When this war broke out,
+like many other people, I was indignant at the conduct of the Germans,
+and their atrocities in the invaded countries. At the time I was in
+Madrid. One night some of my café acquaintances agreed to go and fight
+for France. The person who backed down was to pay ten dollars. They all
+repented their decision, except myself. Don't imagine that it was to
+avoid paying the wager. I have my own ideas, and have read more or less.
+I believe in republics--and France is the country of the Great
+Revolution. I entered a battalion of the Foreign Legion, which,
+composed for the most part of Spaniards, was being organized in Bayonne.
+There are a very few left by this time; most of them are dead; the rest
+are living scattered throughout the various hospitals, or else are
+crippled for life. I knew what war was like from mountain warfare
+against the Moors in the Riff country, and without seeking the honor I
+had gotten as far as being a Lieutenant of Reserves in my own country.
+Perhaps that is why they made me a Sergeant in the Legion after a few
+weeks. But it certainly was hard! I had never imagined they would
+receive us with a brass band! France has too many other things to think
+of; but it was sad to see how badly our enthusiasm was interpreted. Men
+called to arms by the laws of their country, and who were obliged to
+fight, looked at us with jealousy and suspicion. The other regiments
+considered us adventurers; or even escaped convicts. 'How hungry you
+must have been at home,' they said to me at the front, 'to have come
+here to be able to get something to eat!' And among us there were
+students, newspaper men, young men from wealthy families, fellows who
+had enlisted with enthusiasm--but let's not talk about that. In every
+country there are vulgar minded people incapable of understanding
+anything beyond their selfish, material wants."
+
+His military experience was confined to trench warfare, endless and
+monotonous, and to short distance attacks. He had arrived late at the
+Battle of the Marne; and he, who imagined that he would take part in
+gigantic combat, involving millions of men and the firing of immense
+cannon, merely witnessed a series of struggles between small forces
+hidden in the earth, and hand-to-hand encounters to win a few yards of
+ground. Life at the Dardanelles was the worst of his memories. He hated
+to think of that horrible campaign. The struggles in France seemed
+rather placid compared to that fighting on a few miles of coast, with
+the sea at their backs and unconquerable lines ahead of them.
+
+After saying this he fell silent, and the Colonel had to insist, with a
+certain paternal pride, that Martinez go on talking.
+
+"Wounds, many wounds," he added simply. "I have lost count of the
+hospitals that I have known in three years, and of the trips I have made
+through France in Red Cross ambulances. When we are not killed outright,
+we are like the horses in bull fights. They patch up our skins outside
+the ring, strengthen us a bit and back we go into the arena, until we
+get the final goring."
+
+Toledo, becoming impatient at the young man's modesty, told the story of
+his wounds. He received some in every period of the fighting. Some
+belonged to modern warfare, produced by fragments of high explosive
+shells, others came from machine guns, and even that cough which
+interrupted his speech from time to time was caused by asphyxiating
+gases. Others were made by knives, by clubbings from gun stocks, by
+flying stones, and even by the teeth of the Germans in night encounters
+and surprise attacks, in which men fought as they did in the infancy of
+human life on this planet.
+
+Prince Lubimoff could not help admiring this slight, dark young man, who
+looked so insignificant. It seemed impossible that a human organism
+could resist so many blows, and that his weak body could sustain so many
+shocks without succumbing.
+
+But Martinez, with the solidarity of all those who face danger, refused
+all personal glory. He talked about the Legion as a soldier talks about
+his regiment, as a sailor talks about his ship, considering it the
+finest of all. He saw the entire war in terms of the Legion. The French
+were all brave. Besides, no one could guess where the enemy would
+attack, and wherever the latter assumed the offensive, they found troops
+that withstood them and kept them from passing. But the Foreign Legion!
+
+"The soldiers who fight at the front are men," he said, "men torn from
+their families through the needs of the country. But we are fighters.
+That is why in the difficult operations, when flesh and blood have to be
+sacrificed, they send us forward. I am always, of course, only one of
+many. But the Legion!... Every six months a new Colonel: He is killed
+and another takes his place, he, too, is destined to die. And how the
+enemy hates us! There is one thing we are proud of. Among the prisoners
+that there are in Germany, there is not a single one from the Foreign
+Legion. Any one of us who ever falls into the hands of the _Boches_
+knows that he is a dead man: we are outlawed. And for our part, well, we
+do our best too!... Even when they insult us from trench to trench, we
+are proud of belonging to the Legion. One night, the enemy opposite,
+hearing us speak Spanish, began to shout in our language. They must have
+been Germans from South America. 'Hey, _Macabros_! Wait till we get hold
+of you, and then!...' They threatened us with the most terrible
+tortures. And they always nicknamed us 'Macabros!' I don't know why."
+
+The Duchess de Delille admired the hero, feeling at the same time a
+certain sense of uneasiness at the horrors which she guessed from his
+words. "The war! When would the war be over?"
+
+The Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders, smiling. People who live far from
+the front were more impatient for peace than those who risked their
+lives in the front lines. They had become accustomed to contact with
+death. The war would last as long as was necessary: five years, ten
+years; the main thing was to win the victory.
+
+But Toledo, fearing that the conversation would get away from his hero,
+insisted once more on his great deeds.
+
+"I'm only one of many," said Martinez. "But as far as brave men are
+concerned, I can recommend the Legion. That is where you'll find them.
+And all have died!... At first we had men from every country. But the
+Americans left as soon as their Republic intervened in the war; and it
+was the same with the Italians and Poles. On the other hand, many
+Russians, when their regiments were disbanded, joined the Legion. There
+is nothing extraordinary to tell about myself. And they have rewarded me
+so highly for the little I have done! Being a foreigner I have two
+ribbons. Besides, I shall never forget the moment when the Colonel, a
+week before they killed him, called me, and said, 'Martinez, the General
+has given me four Crosses of the Legion of Honor for our Legion. One of
+them is yours.' And he put it on my breast in front of a whole battalion
+of brave men presenting arms. It was unforgettable: it was worth a life
+time."
+
+It was the truth. Colonel Toledo affirmed it, nodding his head, his eyes
+wet with tears. Later, with selfish jealousy, Don Marcos tore him away
+from the ladies, who were busy for the moment, talking with the Prince
+and his friend.
+
+Walking through the gardens, the Colonel gazed at his hero with a look
+of tender protection, such as an artist who has exhausted his talents
+gazes at the increasing triumph of a younger, fresher, and more
+successful colleague.
+
+"Youth, youth!" he said. "You, Martinez, belong to the Spain of the
+future; I belong to the Spain of past days, the Spain that will never
+return again. I am convinced that the world is progressing in new
+directions."
+
+The Colonel kept up a frequent correspondence with many Spanish
+volunteers in the Legion. He looked after them with all the affection of
+a _marraine_, sending them chocolate, select edibles, everything that he
+could spare from the Villa Sirena pantry, without impairing the service.
+Some of the letters which came from the front made him weep and laugh.
+One volunteer asked him to send a good Spanish knife, having broken his
+own in a night attack. Another dreamt of a Browning revolver. Who would
+give him a Browning? He had only an ordnance revolver, an undependable
+weapon that had failed him twice in an attack on a trench and had
+prevented him from killing the German who finally wounded him.
+
+With Lieutenant Martinez, the Colonel could let go all his enthusiasm
+and give free rein to prophesies in favor of the Allies.
+
+In the presence of Atilio and Novoa he was less talkative as he feared
+their ridicule.
+
+In order to tease him and make him mad they recalled the enthusiasm of
+the Carlist party in Spain for Germany. Castro even pretended that he
+was surprised that the Colonel was not a pro-German, the same as his
+political friends.
+
+"I am where I belong," said Don Marcos with dignity. "I am a gentleman,
+and belong with decent people."
+
+This was his supreme argument. Humanity was divided, according to him,
+into two classes--the decent and the indecent. It was the same with
+nations, and Germany was not to be counted among the decent.
+
+As a patriot he suffered at seeing Spain outside the struggle, making an
+effort to remain unaware of what was going on in the rest of the world,
+putting its head under its wing, like certain long-legged birds that
+imagine they can avoid danger by not seeing it. Happily, his country did
+not figure among the indecent nations, nor was it any too decent either.
+It was allowing a chance for glory to escape, and this stirred the
+Colonel's wrath deeply.
+
+For the last three months a fixed idea has been disturbing his happiest
+moments. The Allies had entered Jerusalem. What a great joy for an old
+Catholic soldier! But his joy afterwards made him smile bitterly. A
+Protestant nation freeing the sepulcher of Christ for the third time!...
+
+"Imagine, Martinez, if only Spain had been with the decent nations! We
+have missed the chance of obtaining this glory, we who belong to the
+nation that has showed the greatest faith. Even I, in spite of my years,
+would have gone on the crusade. The Spanish entering Jerusalem
+victorious! What do you think of that?"
+
+But the officer replied, with a vague smile, "Yes, perhaps." It was
+evident that the entry into Jerusalem and the empty tomb of Christ made
+very little difference to him. Don Marcos was somewhat disappointed with
+his hero, but he consoled himself with the thought that after all his
+own ideas belonged to the Middle Ages. Decidedly, he and Martinez were
+men of two different periods. "Youth, youth! You belong to the Spain of
+the future; I to the Spain" ... and so on.
+
+Yes; the world was progressing in new directions. He, himself, a few
+days later, worried by the gloomy aspect of the war on the Western
+Front, had forgotten all about Jerusalem. The Germans, freed from the
+peril presented by Russia at their backs, after making peace with the
+Bolsheviki, were concentrating all their troops in France, in order to
+make a drive on Paris. The Allies, facing this overwhelming offensive,
+could count only on their regular forces and those which the recent
+intervention of the United States might bring.
+
+In regard to aid from this latter source Don Marcos held a fixed and
+decided opinion. In the first place he had felt towards the United
+States a certain antipathy which dated back to the Cuban war. They might
+possess a large fleet, because anybody can buy ships if he has money
+enough, and the Americans were immensely rich: but how about an army?
+Toledo believed only in armies belonging to monarchies, with the
+exception of that of France, since in the latter country the glory of
+military tradition was attached to the history of the first Republic.
+
+At the beginning of the war, he had even been irritated by the
+importance which every one had given President Wilson. Both sides had
+turned to him, appealing to his judgment, and protesting against the
+barbarities of the respective adversary. Even Wilhelm II cabled him
+frequently to make a show of sincerity for his frauds, as though he
+considered it important to gain Wilson's good opinion.
+
+"Just as though this man were the center of the Universe! The President
+of a Republic that had only a few thousand soldiers, a professor, a
+dreamer!..."
+
+He understood only heads of States in uniform, their breasts covered
+with decorations, with both hands on the hilt of a sword, and with an
+immense army before them, ready to fight in obedience to orders. And
+this gentleman in a cut-away coat and stiff hat, with eyeglasses and a
+smile like that of a learned clergyman, was now the man on whom the eyes
+of half the world were focused with looks of hope, and he was the
+deciding power that some were anxious to win over and others were afraid
+of arguing with!
+
+Atilio Castro laughed at Don Marcos. He was always out of sympathy with
+the Colonel's opinions, and seemed impressed by this new marvel in
+history.
+
+"Times have changed since your day, Don Marcos. We are going to see
+something new. America, which a century ago was merely a European
+colony, will perhaps protect and save Europe now. In the meantime, we
+are witnessing the curious spectacle of a former University professor
+being the arbiter of the world. What would Napoleon say if he were to
+see this ninety-four years after his death?"
+
+Toledo gloomily assented. Yes; his days had passed. Democracy,
+Republicanism, all these things that had made him smile, as though they
+were something transitory, ineffectual and out of date, were very
+powerful in the present world, and perhaps would finally take charge of
+directing its affairs. Even he felt their irresistible influence. When
+he saw how the President of the great American Republic protested
+against the torpedoing of defenseless ships, the crimes of the
+submarines, and finally declared war on the German Empire, Don Marcos
+affirmed, stammering out a confession:
+
+"This man Wilson ... this Wilson is a decent sort of a fellow."
+
+For him it was impossible to say more.
+
+He approved of the man through instinctive worship of personal power,
+but refused to believe in the military strength of the United States. It
+was a land of liberty, according to him, where all considered themselves
+equals and this made it impossible to create a real army.
+
+The Prince and Castro occasionally talked in his presence of the war of
+secession, the first war in which millions of men had taken part,
+applying, moreover, innumerable inventions, in which all the progress in
+modern armament found its source. Toledo listened, with a doubt inspired
+by distant events. This struggle had been among themselves: militia
+warfare; but to raise an army of millions of men in a country that did
+not have compulsory military service; to transport this army across the
+ocean with all the immense quantity of supplies and munitions, and to
+get them there, besides, in time to save Europe from the great
+danger.... Mere dreams! "What they call over there 'bluff'!"
+
+Don Marcos clung to this word in order to maintain his incredulity. This
+race is accustomed to accomplishing tremendous things; Americans
+conceive of everything on a large scale: cities, buildings, industries,
+wealth; but afterwards they exaggerate considerably when they come to
+advertising and describing what they do. Everybody knew that, and the
+American military forces which were to crush German militarism and
+re-establish peace on earth, although well-intentioned, were nothing but
+one bluff more.
+
+Castro approved of the Colonel's words for the first time, without any
+intention of making fun of him. The President had declared war, but the
+country did not seem disposed to follow him.
+
+"They will probably send money, munitions, supplies, all the immense
+power of their wealth and production. But a big army? Where can they get
+one? How is an immense people accustomed to the volunteer system, and
+living amid the greatest prosperity, going to take up arms? What would
+they gain by doing so?"
+
+But the Prince, who had often been over there, replied with an ambiguous
+gesture:
+
+"Perhaps! But if they really want to enter the war, who knows! Anything
+might happen in that country, no matter how impossible it seems!"
+
+The Colonel was gradually won over by the irrational enthusiasm of the
+general public. Since the beginning of the war, the masses, who believe
+in mysterious predictions and supernatural interventions, had always
+had some favorite people, some nation that it had been the fashion to
+regard as invincible and in which all hopes could be concentrated.
+
+At the beginning it had been Russia, with its millions and millions of
+men, the Russian "steam roller" that had only to advance in order to
+crush Germany. Poor steam roller! When it had fallen to pieces, the
+fickle enthusiasm of the public had turned toward England. Now it was
+America, all the more miraculous and omnipotent because little known.
+
+In all conversations one heard the name of an American, both at elegant
+teas and in humble cafés; the one American well known in Europe: Edison,
+the inventor. He would settle everything. Up to the present time he had
+remained out of sight and silent, but now that his country had entered
+the war they would see something miraculous. In a few hours, invisible
+and implacable powers would crush to bits the invading armies; the
+submarines would burst like shells under a sort of frozen light which
+would pursue them in the ocean depths; the aeroplanes that bombarded
+defenseless cities would be forced to descend, drawn by electric
+magnetism, as a bird is drawn toward the mouth of a boa constrictor.
+Edison, the wonder-worker, meant more to the popular imagination of
+Europe than all the soldiers and all the ships of his country.
+
+And Toledo, who decorated his bedroom with pictures of Joffre and Foch,
+but believed at the same time that St. Genevieve, the patron saint of
+Paris, had intervened in the victory of the Marne, felt attracted by all
+the miracles of the American wizard, announced by every one as something
+sure. Science, being somewhat apart from religion, inspired in him a
+feeling of respect and fear. For this reason he believed blindly in its
+wonders, much as a zealot believes in the immense powers of the devil.
+
+At other times his incredulity was renewed. The war could only be
+determined by troops. Up to that time the forces of both sides had been
+equal; but now Germany was bringing new divisions--those from the
+Eastern Front,--and was preparing the decisive blow. On the side of the
+Allies an equivalent or greater number of soldiers was lacking; they
+needed the last few drops which would fill the glass, cause it to
+overflow and tip the scales. America might do this. But their forces
+were arriving so slowly! The obstacles were so great! A few battalions
+of the regular American army had already marched through Paris. After
+that months went by without the constant tiny stream of reënforcements
+becoming a torrent.
+
+Everywhere on the Riviera, Toledo observed wounded soldiers from various
+countries. Only from time to time was he able to distinguish a few
+American uniforms, worn by men of the Medical Corps, who did not seem to
+have much to do. The newspapers talked about forces from the United
+States that occupied a sector on the front, but they were so few!
+
+"All that talk about a million or two million men before the end of the
+year is mere bluff," said the Colonel. "I know something about such
+things, and it is easier to build a skyscraper with a hundred stories
+than to transport a million soldiers from one hemisphere to the other.
+And how about the great drive that is beginning! And France is worn out,
+after four years of heroism that has drained her blood!"
+
+Every day he walked up and down in the ante-room of the Casino, waiting
+impatiently for the big bulletins which were written out by hand in
+large letters and posted on the panels by the employees. In scanning
+the latest telegraphic dispatches he was looking only for the beginning
+of the offensive announced by the enemy. This menace had shaken his
+faith in the victory, and kept him in a state of constant worry. Oh! If
+only the Americans would come in time, and in enormous numbers.
+
+He felt it his duty to lie unblushingly to the friends who surrounded
+him in the ante-room, asking his opinion as a soldier.
+
+"We will triumph; and William will have to shoot himself."
+
+The question of his shooting himself was the one thing that will be his
+end, in case of a defeat.
+
+"I know the Kaiser very well," he continued. "He is only a Lieutenant, a
+Lieutenant that has grown old, keeping the cracked brain swagger of
+youth. But he has the sense of honor of an officer who, finding himself
+defeated, raises his revolver to his head. You will see that that will
+be his end, in case of a defeat."
+
+"He writes verse, music, and paints pictures, giving his opinion on
+every matter, and making people accept it, like one of those young
+officers who on entering a drawing room of civilians monopolize
+attention with their insolence and conceit, emboldened by the silence of
+the guests, who are afraid of provoking a duel. He is the eternal
+twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant whose hair has grown gray under the
+imperial crown, whose head has been turned a bit by the constant
+triumphs of his personal vanity. But once Fate turns her back on him, he
+will act in the same decisive manner as an officer who has gambled away
+the funds entrusted to his care, or committed other crimes against his
+honor.
+
+"Never fear; the Lieutenant will know how to act when the hour of
+adversity arises. He is a mad man, a vain comedian, but he has the sense
+of shame of a warrior. Let me repeat: He will shoot himself."
+
+And in his imagination he could hear the Imperial revolver-shot.
+
+What disgusted Don Marcos was not to be able to talk about this, nor
+about the danger of the offensive, when he was in Villa Sirena. The
+friends of the Prince lived like guests at a hotel. They never were all
+together except during the early morning hours. They rarely sat down
+together at table. Some power from the outside seemed to attract them
+away from the Villa, driving them toward Monte Carlo. Even the Prince
+often lunched or dined at the Hôtel de Paris, sending word at the last
+minute by telephone.
+
+This domestic disorder was accepted by Toledo as providential.
+
+The service had suffered an unavoidable decline through the departure of
+Estola and Pistola. One morning they appeared, stammering and filled
+with emotion, minus the dress suits which were too large for them. They
+were going away. They were to cross the frontier that very afternoon to
+appear at the Barracks. They had received orders from their Consul.
+
+They did not seem filled with enthusiasm for their new profession; but
+Don Marcos, through a sense of professional duty, tried to buck them up
+with a bit of a speech. He, too, at their age, had gone off to war of
+his own accord. "Respect for your officers ... love them as you would
+your father ... for honor ... for the flag."
+
+The appearance of the Prince cut short his harangue. The two boys kissed
+their master's hand as though they were taking leave of him for
+eternity, and in their confusion they did not know where to put the bank
+notes which were given them. Imagine Estola and Pistola converted into
+soldiers! Even these two boys were being driven along the road of death!
+And the whole thing seemed so extraordinary to Michael, so absurd, that
+while he felt sorry for them, he also felt like laughing.
+
+Half an hour later he had forgotten all about them. The Colonel would
+manage to organize new service with women, now that owing to the war it
+was impossible to get other servants. Besides, he was bored at Villa
+Sirena, and living at Monte Carlo would be something of a novelty for
+him.
+
+The idlers who promenaded around the "Camembert" frequently saw him
+enter the Casino with an absent-minded air, like a gambler who has just
+thought of a new combination. The crowd in the gambling room had also
+seen him approach the tables as though interested in the fluctuation of
+chance, but they waited in vain to see him place a bet, imagining that
+he would play nothing save enormous sums.
+
+His eyes seemed to see in all directions, and no sooner did the Duchess
+de Delille leave her seat to go over to another table, than the Prince
+came forward to meet her, extended his hand and smiled youthfully.
+
+They remained motionless in the spot where they greeted each other,
+gazing into each other's eyes, until, warned instinctively of prying
+glances behind their backs, they went and sat down on a divan in a
+corner, and continued their conversation there. Suddenly, a murmur from
+the crowd around a table would cause her out of professional curiosity
+to leave Lubimoff and to hasten thither.
+
+Alicia would smile the proud bitter smile of a dethroned queen. During
+the preceding day people had talked of nothing save her. Her name had
+traveled as far as Nice and Menton. In the evenings, at the dinner hour,
+families who dwelt permanently in Monaco and who are forbidden to enter
+the Casino, asked for news of her luck. In the cafés and restaurants,
+her name resounded, mingled with those of the Generals who were
+directing the war. In front of the bulletins giving the latest news,
+people interrupted their comments on the coming offensive, asking one
+another, "How did the Duchess de Delille come out yesterday?"
+Afternoons, when she arrived at the Casino, sightseers crowded about her
+to get a better view, and her friends greeted her, proudly kissing her
+hand. It was a silent ovation, consisting of glances and smiles, like
+that which greets the entry of a famous soprano on the stage which has
+witnessed her triumphs.
+
+Her battle with the Casino lasted about two weeks; she won, lost, and
+won again. She began her "work" at three o'clock in the afternoon, and
+remained at it until midnight. The tea hour passed, then the dinner
+hour, without her being aware of it. When the gambling was closed she
+came away, leaning on Valeria's arm, greeting every one amiably,
+exhausted and victorious. Sometimes, like an invalid fed against her
+will, she accepted the sandwiches and a cup of tea which her companions
+brought her at the gambling table.
+
+One night--a memorable one--she had won continuously up to the closing
+hour of the Casino. She counted the bank notes that the head employees
+had given her with a hard, enigmatic smile. There were four hundred of
+them, each of a thousand francs. They protruded from her hand bag and
+from Valeria's. Even her friend, "the General," was obliged to help her,
+by taking care of several packages of them.
+
+"If they hadn't closed I would have broken the bank," she said with the
+vanity of a conqueror.
+
+Clorinda accompanied her in the carriage as far as her house, repeating
+prudent advice: "Don't go on; keep the money. It is impossible to go
+any higher." Valeria, during the course of the evening, kept repeating
+the same words: "It is tempting God to keep on."
+
+But Alicia refused to listen to her. Her inspiration was not exhausted.
+There still remained great things for her to do; and when the time came
+for her to stop, she would be aware of it sooner than the rest.
+
+Michael had been present at this struggle, which had been annoying to
+him. Every afternoon, when he entered the Casino, he called himself
+names, as though he were doing something cowardly. Why did he come to
+witness the acts of that mad woman? She did not seem to be aware of his
+presence! At first a look, a smile, and during the remaining hours she
+had eyes for nothing save the gambling and the _croupiers_. In spite of
+this, the Prince kept coming regularly.
+
+To excuse himself, he recalled certain words which the Duchess had said.
+The day following her first famous winning, she had arisen on seeing him
+enter the room, taken both his hands in hers to speak to him privately.
+
+"You bring me good luck," she murmured in his ear. "I am sure that this
+is so. I have been winning since we became friends. Come, come all the
+time! Let me see you every time I raise my eyes."
+
+She raised them, however, very, very seldom. She had other more urgent
+things to think of. But Michael, to quiet his angry conscience, told
+himself that he was there to keep his word. Besides, who knew but what
+she was telling the truth! The tendency to superstition, common to all
+gamblers, the Casino's surroundings and even Alicia's luck itself, had
+finally influenced the credulity of the Prince.
+
+He tried to avenge himself for these long waits and her indifference by
+looking at her with scornful eyes.
+
+"How ugly she looks!"
+
+Yes, she was ugly, like all the women who gamble and seem to suffer at
+an ever increasing rate, the weight of years crushing out their youth
+under the stress of emotion. Every loss meant another year, every
+winning meant a look of tenseness which spoiled the regularity of their
+features. Michael took a certain joy in noting the wrinkles which fixed
+attention formed about her eyes. Her nose seemed to grow sharp, and two
+deep furrows drew down the corners of her mouth, giving her an
+expression of premature old age. All the little feminine attentions
+disappeared as the hours went by. Her hat tilted to one side; locks of
+hair made an effort to escape, as though disarranged by currents of
+human electricity darting among their roots. She seemed ten years older.
+
+But a second voice within gave forth a different opinion. "Yes, she was
+very ugly, but so interesting!" Surely when she arose from the table she
+would be once more the same Alicia as ever.
+
+One afternoon, on entering the Casino, he had a sense of something
+extraordinary happening. People were talking together, asking news, all
+of them hurrying toward the same table.
+
+His friend Lewis passed him without stopping.
+
+"It was bound to happen. She doesn't know how to play. I expected it."
+
+A little farther on Spadoni came forward to greet him.
+
+"She would never listen to me. She acts on her whims. She doesn't follow
+any system. She is done for."
+
+All the gamblers were talking as though they were lamenting somebody's
+death; but it was a question of hypocritical compunction, inwardly they
+felt a sense of envious triumph on seeing at an end that absurd run of
+luck, which had embittered their evenings.
+
+Lubimoff, thrusting his head between the shoulders of two onlookers, saw
+Alicia at the same time that she raised her eyes. Their glances met. She
+looked at him with dismay, as though lamenting, making him responsible
+for her misfortune. "Why did you abandon me?"
+
+The Prince fled: it hurt him to see her with that humble look of rage,
+like that of a cornered sheep, bleating in pain and defending itself.
+
+At nightfall he returned to the Casino. A few people were still talking
+about the Duchess, but in low tones, with sad gestures, as though
+referring to a dying person. The crowd had thinned about the table. He
+saw Alicia in the same place. Valeria stood behind her chair, with a sad
+face, while Doña Clorinda bent over her friend, talking in her ear. He
+guessed her words. She was pleading with her to come away: next day she
+would have better luck. But she did not seem to hear, and remained with
+her eyes fixed on the few five hundred and a thousand franc chips, which
+were all that remained. Suddenly she lost her patience, and turning her
+head she said one word, nothing more, something very strong, but nothing
+without precedent in that intimate friendship which was broken off at
+least once every week. Doña Clorinda immediately retorted, looking
+daggers, and went away, haughtily and disdainfully, while Valeria looked
+at the ceiling in despair.
+
+Michael fled once more. He was frightened by the expression on Alicia's
+face and the nervous hostility in her voice, which he had not been able
+to hear, but which was easily guessed from the trembling of her lips. He
+wandered about the rooms for half an hour, listening at a distance to
+the words of those who were still talking about the Duchess. One
+afternoon had been sufficient to sweep away all that she had won in
+many successful days. Her misfortune was as extraordinary as her good
+luck had been. She had not won a single bet.
+
+Suddenly he felt the contact of a nervous hand on his shoulder. He
+turned his eyes. It was Alicia, but with an eager gesture, and with an
+expression which was both bold and imploring.
+
+"Have you any money?"
+
+Her voice and the expression on her face were not unknown to Michael.
+Before the war, the Casino had been the scene of his most unexpected and
+dazzling conquests. Women who were very cold and treated him with
+visible antipathy, and women of well-known virtue whose very looks
+repelled all audacity, had approached him with an air of sudden
+decision, requesting a loan, and immediately asking point blank at what
+hour the Prince might offer them a cup of tea at Villa Sirena. He
+thought of the Colonel, who considered gambling the worst of women's
+enemies. It caused them to lose all sense of shame. In a few hours the
+standards built up during an entire lifetime were suddenly demolished.
+In order to go on gambling, they offered of their own free will what
+they had never thought of granting.
+
+The Prince replied, with surprise, at this sudden request. He carried
+very little money on his person: he was not a gambler. How much did she
+want?
+
+"Twenty thousand francs."
+
+She mentioned the figure in the same manner as she might have said a
+hundred thousand or five thousand. It was the same to her at that
+moment. Besides, during the last few days she had lost all sense of
+values.
+
+Michael replied with a laugh. Did she imagine, by any chance, that he
+came to the Casino with twenty thousand francs in his pocketbook, as
+though he were a money lender or a pawn broker?
+
+"Ask for a loan," said the Duchess. "They will give you anything you ask
+for."
+
+He went on laughing at this absurd proposition, but was won over
+immediately by the simplicity with which Alicia formulated her request.
+
+"How about you? Why don't you ask for one?"
+
+Oh, as for her!... In the midst of her proud triumph, she had forgotten
+to pay various debts contracted before her sudden burst of luck. At
+present it was useless to ask. It was a difficult moment for her; every
+one considered her ruined, and incapable of recouping.
+
+"And they are mistaken, Michael; I feel the inspiration of luck. You
+shall see how I get on my feet again after a few days. It is my secret.
+If I tell it to you, fortune will abandon me. Do me this favor! Ask for
+the twenty thousand from that little old man over there who is looking
+at us. He can't refuse you; you are Prince Lubimoff. If you like we will
+form a partnership: I shall share half my winnings with you."
+
+Michael kept on smiling, while inwardly he was scandalized by this
+proposition. Imagine the things in which this woman was trying to
+involve him! He, asking for money from a money lender in the Casino!
+
+But, like certain invalids who do things most contrary to their will, no
+sooner did he leave Alicia with gestures of protest, than his legs
+mechanically took him in the direction of the divan where the old man
+with the short beard, and the badge of the Sacred Heart on his lapel,
+was squatting, with his hat in one hand and a silk cap on his bald head.
+
+"I need twenty thousand francs."
+
+The Prince seemed to be in doubt as he faced this little man, who had
+arisen, surprised and suspicious on seeing that he was talking with so
+lofty a personage. Was it really his own voice that he heard? Yes, it
+was his voice, but he felt a sensation of immense surprise, as though it
+were some one else who was talking. He felt a desire to withdraw without
+waiting for the gnome's reply; but the latter had already responded,
+stammering:
+
+"Prince ... such an amount! I am a poor man. From time to time I do
+favors to distinguished people, two or three thousand francs ... but
+twenty thousand! Twenty thousand!"
+
+He muttered this sum with a groan of torture, but meanwhile his shrewd
+eyes were penetrating Lubimoff like a probe. This look irritated
+Michael, causing him to take an interest in the operation as though his
+honor were at stake. Doubtless, the usurer was thinking about Russia,
+and the disaster of the revolution and of the impossibility of being
+paid this loan even though the great man were to offer all his fortune.
+
+"You must know me," he said in an irritated tone. "I am Prince Lubimoff;
+I am the owner of Villa Sirena. I need twenty thousand francs; not a
+franc less. If you are unable...."
+
+He was about to turn his back on him, but the dwarf humbly restrained
+him, considering useless on this occasion all the excuses and delays
+which he usually made his clients endure, like a slow torture. He
+slipped out between the groups of people, begging "His Highness" to wait
+an instant. Perhaps he did not have the entire sum with him, and was
+obliged to ask for aid from the Cashier of the Casino; perhaps he was
+going to secrete himself for a moment in the lavatories, to take bank
+notes from various hiding places in his clothes, even from his shoes.
+
+Michael felt a discreet hand touch his own, thrusting between his
+fingers a roll of paper. The old man had returned without his seeing
+him come; bobbing up between two groups, small and sprightly, like an
+imp from a trap door on the stage.
+
+"You know the Colonel? To-morrow he will interview you about the payment
+and the interest."
+
+And the Prince turned his back without more words, leaving the usurer
+satisfied with his discourteous brevity. A great gentleman could not
+talk in any other way. He liked to have dealings with men of that sort.
+
+Alicia, who had followed the scene from a distance, came forward to meet
+him, holding out her hands inconspicuously.
+
+"Take it!" Michael's right hand thrust the bank notes forward so rudely
+that the offer was almost a blow.
+
+His shame for what he had just done expressed itself in a confusion of
+protests.
+
+"Women! Of all the fool things I have ever done!"
+
+But Alicia, with the bank notes in her hand, was already thinking of
+nothing but the tables.
+
+"You will see great things. You know we have formed a partnership: you
+get half."
+
+Mastered once more by the invisible demon that was singing numbers and
+colors in her ear, she went away without thanking him.
+
+He also left. He was afraid of meeting the money lender again, and
+having him bow familiarly; he imagined the entire crowd in the rooms had
+followed attentively his interview with the old man and had smiled when
+he received the money.
+
+He left the Casino. He would never come back again: he swore it!
+
+Castro, whom he had seen from a distance gambling at one of the tables,
+returned to Villa Sirena at the dinner hour. He was in a bad humor; but
+he forgot his own misfortune long enough to console himself by relating
+Alicia's mishaps:
+
+"After losing everything in _trente et quarante_, she appeared at a last
+minute with more money: a roll of thousand franc notes. And she, who
+never felt any special inclination for roulette, began to play the
+wheel. And how she played! At first she won a few long shots, two or
+three; but after that nothing: she kept losing and losing! She left
+everything on the table. I did not see her go out, but they told me she
+looked like a corpse, leaning on Valeria's arm. They say she suffers
+from heart trouble. All I say is: it isn't every one who pretends to be
+a gambler that is one; you need a strong constitution. The 'General'
+doesn't play so much, but she is cooler and doesn't lose her head."
+
+Michael slept badly. He was angry with Alicia. Instead of lamenting her
+misfortune he considered it logical. Imagine a woman trying to make
+money! Women can only get it from men's hands, and it is useless for
+them to try and get it for themselves, even by appealing to gambling.
+Gambling also is an enterprise for men.
+
+In the mental twilight when one is half asleep and half awake, the
+Prince, lying on his bed, remembered a scene from his happier days, when
+his yacht was anchored in the harbor of Monaco. It was one night when he
+was coming from a banquet in the Hôtel de Paris. He was slightly
+intoxicated and was leaning in a sort of a mental haze on the arms of
+two pretty women, who, smiling and unsuccessful, were competing to see
+which one would get him. Behind him, like a retinue, came his friends,
+his brilliant parasites, and various women guests, his entire court.
+They had entered the Casino. He was not a gambler; it bored him to sit
+motionless at a table; he considered it childish to get interested in
+the whirling of a little ball of bone, or the combinations of little
+colored cards. There were so many more interesting pleasures in life!
+But that night, proud of his power, he felt a desire to fight a battle
+with fortune. Fortune is a woman, and he was determined to conquer it by
+the power of wealth, as he had conquered many another woman. The rich
+finally defeat even destiny with all its mysteries. He placed in front
+of him an enormous quantity of money to begin the struggle, and fortune
+refused it; or rather, began to give him money of her own, with scornful
+prodigality. The multi-millionaire wanted to lose and he could not. He
+varied his game capriciously, committed voluntary errors, and success
+always came forward to meet him. Finally he grew tired. It was before
+the war, and instead of with bone chips representing a hundred francs,
+they played with handsome gold coins of the same value. In front of him
+he had numerous and dazzling columns of this metal; and packages of bank
+notes.
+
+"Who wants money?"
+
+He began to fling it about in an enchanting rain. All except the most
+aristocratic women came running, tense and pale, swarming around the
+table, struggling for a single _louis_. They shoved one another, rolled
+on the carpet, bruising each other with hands and feet, to gain a single
+drop of this golden manna. Some of them struck and scratched each other,
+while their right hands clutched the same thousand franc note, tearing
+it. Hats rolled about on the ground; the hair of some of the women fell
+down their back, or was scattered in a cloud of false curls.
+
+"Me, Prince! Me!"
+
+And with clutching fingers they danced about him, in a body, as though
+possessed.
+
+"Who wants money?"
+
+The head employees intervened, angry but smiling, seeing who was the
+cause of the disturbance. "Your Highness, please! You are interrupting
+the play! Such a thing has never happened here before." But he continued
+flinging his money, until he had exhausted his winnings--more than sixty
+thousand francs--and the games went on again, with more players than
+before. Every one who had gathered something from the floor or caught it
+in the air, ran to risk it on a card or a number.
+
+Michael dwelt on this memory which was like a triumph. He could repeat
+it any time he pleased; he was sure of it. He recognized that in the end
+every gambler finally loses, and he did not consider himself an
+exception to this rule. But his will dominated fortune at first, and--by
+withdrawing in time before the latter had a chance to recoup with the
+perverse cunning of an untamable female!...
+
+The Prince finally went to sleep thinking of Alicia.
+
+"Poor woman! She doesn't know how to play; Lewis is right: She doesn't
+know how.... How should a beautiful woman know, who has never thought
+about anything save her own person! I must help her. I am a man. Perhaps
+to-morrow ... to-morrow!" ...
+
+The following day, at the breakfast hour, Don Marcos had a great
+surprise which worried him considerably. The Prince, who never bothered
+about money, allowing his "Chamberlain" to make negotiations directly
+with his Paris manager for the house expenses, asked him what amount he
+had at his disposal.
+
+The Colonel made a mental calculation. He did not think he kept just
+then any more than fifteen thousand francs. He was expecting a check
+from the agent.
+
+"Give it to me," Lubimoff commanded.
+
+And immediately, as though suddenly recalling something, he calmly
+mentioned the debt he had contracted the afternoon before. Toledo was
+thoughtful for a moment on learning that he was to come to an
+understanding with the old money lender to return the twenty thousand
+francs and the payment of extraordinary interest, which might double in
+a few days. He recalled the luncheon during which the Prince had
+proposed their present solitary life. Where were the ferocious "enemies
+of women" now? For the Colonel suspected that behind these squanderings
+of the Prince and this sudden passion for gambling, lay the influence of
+some woman. And he who never dared stake more than a few odd coins from
+time to time, thinking of the enormous sums entrusted to his loyalty,
+was deeply worried.
+
+While Don Marcos was on his way to the bank where the house money was
+deposited, the Prince walked about in the neighborhood of the Casino,
+waiting impatiently for the rooms to open. In the morning the crowd was
+very slight and very few tables were operating. Only the most desperate
+gamblers, after spending a sleepless night, anxious to try their new
+combinations as soon as possible, and sickly people who hoped to find a
+good seat vacant, came at that early hour.
+
+Impatiently Lubimoff entered the anteroom, after secretly thrusting into
+a pocket a roll of bills which Toledo handed to him. The employees of
+the first shift were arriving slowly, like clerks entering an office.
+The cleaning women and porters in shirt sleeves had just swept up the
+sawdust scattered on the floor. They all looked at him from the corner
+of their eyes, pointing him out to one another by discreet nudges.
+Imagine the Prince there at that hour, when people of his station in
+life were still in bed! Instinctively they looked all about expecting to
+see some coyly dressed lady waiting to meet him unobserved at that early
+hour. His well-known reputation did not permit them to imagine anything
+save a rendezvous.
+
+It was ten o'clock. The curtains were opened, and Michael entered
+brushing against the first gamblers to arrive, modest timid folk. He
+felt the same nervousness, impatience, and dull anger that he felt on
+the mornings when he had fought duels. He walked with a heavy step; his
+hands kept contracting as though ready to strangle the empty air. At the
+same time he felt the same proud confidence of a marksman, sure of
+hitting the bull's-eye. He defied Lady Fortune before facing her, the
+wench whom he had once conquered. "By God! She would see she was dealing
+with a man this time!"
+
+He jerked a chair away from a hand already stretched out to take it, and
+sat down at a roulette table, between two dirty, badly dressed old
+women, who looked like witches. The employees exchanged looks of
+amazement, eyeing one another discreetly. The Prince betting, and at
+such an hour!...
+
+_"Faites vos jeux!"_
+
+The game began. Michael had no particular combination and had not
+thought of any. His eyes wandered over the thirty-six numbers, but only
+for an instant.
+
+"That's the one," he thought. And he placed all that he could, nine
+_louis_, the maximum, on thirteen.
+
+The ball spun about the mahogany border, and when it finally came to
+rest was greeted with a murmur of amazement. "Number thirteen."
+
+A few thousand franc notes thrust in his direction by the rake of the
+_croupier_ remained in front of the Prince, who sat there impassively,
+retaining a hard willful look. He knew it; he was sure he was making no
+mistake. Thirteen once more.
+
+People looked in amazement. What folly to bet twice on the same number!
+But when thirteen won a second time and the Prince was paid the maximum
+again, a murmur from the crowd applauded the victor. Onlookers came
+hurrying, leaving the other tables devoid of spectators. This was going
+to be as famous a morning in the Casino, in spite of the smallness of
+the crowd, as the most celebrated afternoon and evening, when wealthy
+players fought with luck.
+
+Lubimoff changed his number. It was absurd to go on with thirteen. And
+he placed nine _louis_ on seventeen. The ball spun around. It was
+thirteen once more. He lost.
+
+His look became harder and more aggressive. Dame Fortune was beginning
+to laugh at him for his lack of will power. A conqueror should feel no
+vacillation; it was his fault, for having given up his number. Men like
+him should go ahead, and impose their will, or perish without abandoning
+their first attitude. Thirteen as before!... And it was seventeen that
+won.
+
+For a moment he thought the ground was falling away beneath his feet; he
+seemed to be floating in air, surrounded by mysterious forces that were
+weakening and finally breaking his will. He passed his hand over his
+forehead, as though trying to brush away, far away, his momentary
+weakness.
+
+"The she-devil," he exclaimed, mentally, insulting Fortune, sure once
+more that he was going to enslave her.
+
+And he went on playing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At three o'clock in the afternoon he came out of the Hôtel de Paris. He
+had lunched alone, without paying any attention to the glances he had
+received from other tables, avoiding friendly greetings that might have
+started a conversation.
+
+In his mouth was a fat cigar, and his legs, although perfectly steady,
+inwardly felt a certain voluptuous sensation. The food had been bad; he
+had scarcely touched the dishes; on the other hand he had drunk a bottle
+of famous Burgundy, and several glasses of cordials immediately after
+finishing two cups of coffee.
+
+From the hotel steps he gave a glance of destructive hate at the square,
+the Casino and the Gardens. He thought with satisfaction of the
+possibility of a cruiser belonging to one of the nations which were
+carrying on war on the seas of Europe anchoring in front of that
+gingerbread house, and firing a few shells at it. What a wonderful
+sight! Then, in his imagination, he had a landing party with their
+machine guns disembark, to take prisoner all the people who were filling
+the square, men, women and even children. The world would lose nothing
+by it. What a city of corruption! Why the devil had his mother taken it
+into her head to buy the promontory of Villa Sirena, obliging him to
+live near this den of thieves? He even upbraided the dead Princess, with
+the stern uncompromising morality of every gambler who has just found
+himself tricked.
+
+As he glanced over the gay, well-dressed crowd that he was condemning to
+slavery, he saw Alicia, alone and on foot, on the edge of the sidewalk
+around the "Camembert," looking at the Casino.
+
+"Are you going in?" he said, approaching her.
+
+The Duchess became indignant, as though he was proposing something
+humiliating, something that she had never done before. She enter the
+Casino?
+
+"It's a rotten den, and the employees are rotters, and those who
+gamble--rotters too."
+
+It was all rotten! After saying this they took each other's hands as
+though they had just suddenly recognized each other.
+
+When Michael, still harping on his kind wishes, told her about the
+bombardment and landing party with machine guns that he had been
+enjoying in his imagination, the Duchess almost applauded. As far as she
+was concerned, she would be very glad if they destroyed everything, if
+they even took the sovereign Prince himself prisoner, and if, into the
+bargain, the invaders returned the money she had lost, she could want
+nothing better.
+
+Suddenly, as if these charitable fantasies of Lubimoff told her of
+something, her eyes scrutinized him closely, much like those of a
+suspicious invalid who is able to recognize his own symptoms in those of
+a neighbor.
+
+"You have been gambling."
+
+Michael nodded sadly.
+
+"And you have lost," she continued; "that goes without saying: I don't
+need to ask you. You, gambling!"
+
+But her surprise was short.
+
+"You have been gambling for my sake: I have guessed it. You said to
+yourself: 'I'm going to win what that crazy woman loses; men know more
+than women.' Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy, how grateful I am for your
+friendly intention!... How much was it?"
+
+On hearing the sum she gave him a look of compassion, but smiled
+immediately, as though the comradeship of misfortune made her own losses
+easier to bear.
+
+They remained silent for a moment. Then she explained her presence on
+the square. The night before she had sworn she would never again come
+near the Casino, but habit...!
+
+"I'm alone. Valeria went away immediately after lunch. She goes around
+like a crazy woman on account of that scientist you have at your house.
+They must have made an engagement somewhere. All she talks about is
+Spain, because the women there marry without dowries. As for 'the
+General,' don't talk to me about her: I don't want to hear her name;
+she is dead--dead forever, as far as I am concerned! And I'm so bored
+all by myself; I think of things that make me weep; I go out, and my
+feet take me here without my realizing it."
+
+Then she added with a graceful entreaty:
+
+"Take me somewhere, wherever you feel like. Let's go a long ways from
+here. Where can we go?"
+
+The Prince showed the same hesitation. They continually moved in the
+same circle, from their houses to the center of Monte Carlo, the Casino,
+and seemed lost if they tried to go any farther. The war had done away
+with private automobiles; to go on an excursion it was necessary to get
+a permit in advance. One could find nothing save carriages drawn by
+feeble horses, rejected by the Army.
+
+"Suppose we go to Monaco?" Alicia proposed.
+
+Monaco was in sight, on the other side of the harbor; a street car ran
+from there to Monte Carlo every twenty minutes, and nevertheless she
+made this proposal as though speaking of some remote country.
+
+They had both spent some twenty years there, continually seeing the rock
+which bore on its crest the old city of the Princes; but, as though
+those places were painted on a back drop in the theater, it had never
+entered their heads to go that far. Alicia vaguely recalled a visit to
+the Palace of the Sovereign and another to the Museum of Oceanography,
+without being able to formulate her impressions. Lubimoff also from his
+automobile had seen the garden, the old houses, and a large square, the
+one day that he had visited the Prince of Monaco in his old castle.
+
+They decided on the trip with the glee of school children, and when the
+Duchess went to call a cab, Michael showed a certain hesitation as he
+searched through various pockets.
+
+He had no money. He had dropped it all in the roulette, absolutely all.
+At the hotel he had asked them to charge his lunch, handing over his
+last few francs to the waiter as a tip.
+
+Alicia greeted his worried look with bursts of laughter. Lubimoff unable
+to pay a cabman! Monte Carlo was the only place where you could see
+things like that.
+
+"Poor boy, I'll pay. You can deduct it from the twenty thousand I owe
+you. No; not that, no; it will be a gift. You have given women so much
+money, let me be the first to pay a bill for you. What a luxury! I
+'keeping' Prince Lubimoff."
+
+They had gotten into the carriage, which was beginning to descend the
+slope toward La Condamine harbor.
+
+"How people stare at us!" said Alicia. "They will think I am carrying
+you off by force. The Duchess de Delille, ruined, seduces a
+multi-millionaire Prince to make him her lover and get money out of him
+... and they don't know that I am the one that is paying! Come laugh a
+little. Are you annoyed that I should pay? Don't you think it is
+amusing?"
+
+She talked of her lack of foresight and her folly with a certain pride,
+as though it were something which placed her above people of regular
+habits. The evening before she had been afraid of not having enough
+money left to buy food for the next day. But Valeria had spent the
+morning making valuable discoveries in the closets! Bank notes lost
+among the clothes, Casino chips forgotten among the books, and even a
+thousand franc bill used to wrap up an old cake of soap.
+
+She suddenly stopped enumerating these finds.
+
+"Look! Look!"
+
+They were beside the harbor. She pointed out a lady who was walking
+along the shore, among the tall rose-bay bushes trimmed in the shape of
+trees. It was Clorinda. A gentleman who seemed to be waiting for her
+rose from the bench, and came forward to meet her. They both recognized
+Atilio Castro, and observed how he and "the General" greeted each other,
+and how they continued their promenade together, so absorbed in mutual
+contemplation, that they did not notice the carriage.
+
+Michael smiled slightly. Himself there, beside Alicia, who was causing
+him to commit every sort of folly; and the other man waiting there for
+Doña Clorinda's arrival with all the emotion of a youth! Poor enemies of
+women!
+
+"Don't talk to me about her!" Alicia exclaimed in a rage, in spite of
+the fact that her companion had said nothing. "I hate her.... Think of
+poor Martinez forgotten. She quarrels with me to get him, takes him away
+from me, and then comes in search of Castro, while the other unhappy
+fellow is wandering about Monte Carlo. What a woman! She has done me so
+much harm! She is to blame for everything."
+
+And as the Prince looked at her with a questioning air she explained her
+complaints with a tone of conviction. Her losses which had been so rapid
+and so complete, could not be explained logically. She had won for two
+weeks, and in a few hours had lost everything. How could that be? The
+evening before, as she was leaving the Casino, a respectable friend, an
+Italian Marchioness, a former dancer, who was very wise in matters of
+luck, and who had been gambling for the last thirty years in Monte
+Carlo, had revealed to her the cruel truth: "Duchess, there is some one
+who hates you; an envious friend who comes to your house and has cast an
+evil spell over you. That is the only way to explain what has happened.
+You must drive out the evil luck, turning it back on the person who gave
+it to you.
+
+"So you see it couldn't be clearer: an envious friend who comes to my
+house--Clorinda; it can't be any one else. And no later than to-morrow I
+am going to drive away my bad luck, in the way the Marchioness
+recommended. Other gamblers follow her advice and are very successful."
+
+It was the Three Wise Kings who possessed the power of undoing evil
+spells. It was necessary to cleanse away the rooms which "the General"
+had entered by burning in a small pan gold, incense and myrrh, the three
+presents of the monarchs who had come from afar. She had no gold; it was
+inaccessible on account of the war; but, according to the
+Witch-Marchioness, it would be the same if she burned wheat.
+
+"And at the same time recite a prayer in Italian, a very pretty entreaty
+to the Three Kings, that sounds like a song, that says--that says----"
+
+Unable to remember it, she opened her hand bag. She kept the prayer in
+her coin purse, written in lead pencil on one of the cards furnished by
+the Casino to keep track of bets. Michael looked at the contents of the
+purse with the curiosity always inspired by every object belonging to a
+woman who interests a man. Beside the mussed handkerchief he saw a
+little leather case, and hanging from it a gambler's fetish, a hand with
+the index and little finger extended like horns, to ward off bad luck.
+But beside the hand there hung another golden fetish, of such an
+unexpected, unheard of form, that Michael refused to believe what had
+passed before his eyes like a rapid vision.
+
+Alicia drew back, pushing aside his inquisitive hand: "No, no!" And she
+closed the purse so rapidly that the silver rings almost caught his
+fingers. Blushing and smiling, she held him off, giving him a sly look,
+and at the same time shrinking like a naughty child.
+
+"It is a gift from the Marchioness. The best she knows, to bring luck.
+Mine has gone. That is all you need to know. How curious you are!"
+
+And while she pretended to be somewhat angry in order to avoid new
+explanations, Michael recalled the Rosary of Satan belonging to his
+friend Lewis and its strange ornaments.
+
+The carriage began to ascend the slope towards Monaco. The ships and the
+harbor seemed to sink with each turn of the wheel. Verdant shades cooled
+the road, within sight of the luminous sea and of the yellowish
+mountains, that were taking on a rosy color under the afternoon sun.
+
+Michael explained to his companion the strange features of the
+promontory that serves as a base for old Monaco. On the Southern part,
+among the rocks covered with century plants and prickly pear, the
+vegetation of the warm countries becomes acclimated with a facility that
+if one takes the latitude into account is truly extraordinary. On his
+visit to the palace of the Prince he had found in the warmer moats of
+the fortress, which are like natural hothouses, the same damp sticky
+heat that one finds in the forests of Equador, with their Brazilian palm
+trees that rise many yards in quest of light. On the other hand, without
+leaving the rock, one finds on the northern side, where there is little
+sunlight, ferns from the cold countries, vegetation from the Vosges
+Mountains, which got here no one knows how, and took root beside the
+Mediterranean.
+
+Alicia, not wishing to seem less informed, talked about the San Martino
+Gardens. She had not seen them, but she imagined that they were between
+the Museum of Oceanography and the Cathedral. Valeria had not been able
+to talk about anything else during the last few weeks, and described
+them as though they were the most interesting gardens in the world. She
+had seen them in good company, and this had exerted a strong influence
+on her powers of vision. It was doubtless Novoa who had revealed to her
+this Paradise.
+
+"Supposing we were to meet them!" said Alicia, laughingly.
+
+The carriage passed between two little towers, capped with tiles, that
+marked the entrance to the walled enclosure of Monaco. The harbor lay
+far below, with its boats that seemed so tiny. On the other side of the
+sheet of water shone the cupolas of the Casino and the many Monte Carlo
+hotels, with their multi-colored façades, the windows of their balconies
+and belvideres. It was impossible to make out the people. Automobiles
+were gliding along like tiny insects on the slope that descended to La
+Condamine.
+
+They followed the asphalt avenue, between two narrow dense gardens,
+leading to the Museum of Oceanography.
+
+"Look at them!" said Alicia with an expression of triumph, as she nudged
+the Prince at the same time.
+
+When the latter turned his head all he could see were two indistinct
+forms hiding in a side path.
+
+"It is they, you may be sure," continued the Duchess, laughing. "They
+were walking in the middle of the avenue. Valeria is very quick; she
+turned when she heard the sound of a carriage, and recognized me
+immediately. She hurried the scientist away as though she were dragging
+him along."
+
+She stopped laughing, and her features took on a look of sad solemnity.
+
+"Happy pair! What dreams! We have all gone through the same thing. The
+worst of it is that we want to keep on going in quest of something
+further, when we ought to remain satisfied with what we have."
+
+The Prince nodded, repeating briefly:
+
+"Happy pair!"
+
+His voice sounded like a _requiem_. These successive meetings had made
+him think of the end of the community of which he was the ridiculous
+head. First of all, Castro; then, Novoa. Even the Colonel at that very
+moment was walking up and down in front of a millinery shop waiting for
+the gardener's little girl. Spadoni was the only one left, but his
+loyalty counted for little. As far as the latter was concerned, nothing
+feminine existed except the roulette wheel.
+
+The carriage stopped beyond the Museum of Oceanography, where the San
+Martino Garden began. Alicia paid the driver.
+
+"We must economize," she said gravely. "We shall return on foot."
+
+They followed a network of winding paths, ascending and descending the
+gulleys of the slope. The tiny plateaus had been converted into stone
+lookouts, from which the view embraced an immense expanse of sea.
+Occasionally at dawn one could distinguish the distant profile of the
+Mountain of Corsica. Since the gardens were far above the Mediterranean,
+the horizon line was so high that one seemed to be looking upwards when
+viewing it. The pine trees rose in slender black colonnades and between
+the thin trunks one could see the dark Mediterranean suspended like a
+curtain. Only the murmuring tops of the sharp trees emerged in the
+diaphanous azure of the skies. Below the vegetation was composed of wild
+hardy plants breathing out strong odors, plants that were unaffected by
+the salty exhalations of the sea; prickly pear, lobes of which were
+surmounted by red fruit; small century plants whose twisted blades
+intertwined like tentacles of green pulp.
+
+Alicia admired this garden. According to her it was a maritime garden,
+in harmony with the nearby Museum and the landscape. The trunks of the
+trees seemed like the masts of ships; the plants amassed at their feet
+had the radiating enveloping form of the monsters of the ocean depths.
+Other vegetation of a foreign origin recalled images of warm countries,
+and of distant parts, filled with odors and swarming with crowds of
+yellow and copper-colored men. Through the straight trunks of the trees,
+one could see five schooners, motionless on the horizon with their sails
+hanging.
+
+A train of smoke followed the evolutions of a slim torpedo boat steaming
+around the white, timid flock, like a watch dog.
+
+Looking over the stone balconies one could peer into the ocean to
+enormous depths. The bold red cliff buried itself vertically in the
+waters darkened by shadows, or took shelter behind landslides of rocks
+continually surrounded by foam. On one side Cap-Martin advanced,
+repelling the onrush of the waves, circles of white caps that constantly
+succeeded one another, rising from the azure meadows; still farther on
+lay the Italian coast, showing rose-colored through the melancholy
+afternoon mist, and on the opposite side lay Cap-d'Ail and Cap-Ferrat,
+above whose backs embossed with the green of the seas, and dotted with
+the white of the villas--the golden winding sheet, which was to enshroud
+the dying sun, began to rise.
+
+"Beautiful! very beautiful!"
+
+Alicia displayed a girlish delight. They sat down in view of the sea,
+slowly drinking in the vibrant calm, in which mingled the trembling of
+the pines, the deep churning of the invisible foam, the breath of the
+azure plain, and the rustling of the earth, grazed by rosaries of ants,
+by chains of caterpillars, and by the busy work of the black beetle, and
+at the same time deeply stirred by the awakening of the roots.
+
+From time to time human footsteps sounded on the sand of the winding
+path. They came from invalids or convalescents who were passing through
+the gardens on coming out of the Museum; people from Monaco returning to
+their homes after having taken the sun on a bench; fat housewives who
+kept their knitting in a bag; old men leaning on canes, who perhaps had
+never gone to sea, but who looked like old Genoese sailors. Also a few
+pairs of lovers passed slowly. They would appear at a turning of the
+path with their arms around each other's waists, silent, looking at each
+other, and observing that there was another couple on the bench, they
+unclasped, and suddenly pretended to be carrying on a conversation. As
+soon as possible they gained the nearest turning to resume their tender
+entwining, not without having first greeted the Prince and the Duchess
+with a smile, as though they saw in them another pair of lovers.
+
+"And just to think that we have never come here before!" said Alicia.
+"You, at least, own magnificent gardens; but I, living in a villa which
+is simply a house with a few trees around it and has no other views than
+the opposite building, have been so stupid to have spent the afternoon
+in the Casino, dark and shut in like a wine cellar. How awful!"
+
+She shuddered on thinking of the Casino. It seemed impossible to her now
+that during the very hours when this garden lay stretched out beside the
+sea, with its luminous sylvan splendor she should have been able to live
+in that half light of artificial illumination or in that nasty,
+unwholesome atmosphere.
+
+"There are many beautiful things in the world," she continued, "for
+which money is not necessary. Just to think that if we had not lost we
+would not be here! It is almost better to be poor."
+
+Michael laughed at her earnestness. No; it was not pleasant to be poor;
+but she was right in saying that to enjoy many beautiful things it was
+not necessary to have money.
+
+"We, ourselves," she added, after a long pause, "have known each other
+only since we lost our wealth. Who knows but what if we had been born
+poor we would have understood each other better when we were young! I
+have often thought so."
+
+Of course! And since Michael had been there on the bench, beside her, he
+had been thinking the same thing. Alicia's joy at the splendor of the
+afternoon, her enthusiasm on seeing this rustic garden overlooking the
+sea, far from certain people, without whom she formerly would have
+thought life intolerable, far from gambling, which was the only remedy
+to fill the emptiness of her life--all this flattered and delighted the
+Prince, like a discovery in harmony with his desires. At present he saw
+her in a very different light from that in which he had imagined her in
+former years. And he, too, surely seemed like a very different person in
+her eyes than he had in the past. Before, they had been separated by an
+enormous wall, wealth, that gave rise to pride and eagerness for
+domineering.
+
+He felt the need of going on talking. Something was surging within him,
+causing words to rise to his lips in an irresistible tide.
+
+A voice within seemed to warn him. "You are going to commit some
+monstrous folly. Look out!--You are on the road to mixing up your life
+again----" It was the old Lubimoff in him that was talking; the Lubimoff
+who had recently arrived from Paris to take refuge in his Ark, far from
+the vain longings that make up the happiness of the majority of men; it
+was the stern chief of the "enemies of women."
+
+But the harsh, mournful inner voice awoke no echoing response. The
+Prince despised this phantom that still remained within him, lamenting
+over the ruins it found there.
+
+Up to that moment he had been inhaling with delight the perfume of that
+woman. It seemed to mingle with the perfumes of the afternoon,
+communicating its essence to all Nature. He saw the sky, the sea, the
+trees, and everything in fact in terms of her, as though she filled all
+space.
+
+He, too, had made a discovery that afternoon. He thought with horror of
+the loneliness of Villa Sirena, just as she had been thinking of the
+Casino. These gardens which every one might enjoy, seemed to him more
+beautiful than those he owned, and which every one envied him. How had
+he ever been able to walk around his villa, through its magnificent and
+lonely avenues, when there existed in the world the marvelous pleasures
+of sitting on a public bench beside a woman, or walking close to her,
+with an arm around her waist, like those poor soldiers and sailors?
+
+Once more he heard the voice: "Fine, Prince! In love like a school-boy
+when you're over forty. Go on with your foolishness, if it amuses
+you!... What would the other 'enemies of women' say?"
+
+But he refused to listen to this last protest from the other hostile and
+forgotten half of his personality.
+
+"Our life has been a mistake," he said aloud, with a certain vehemence,
+in order not to show his emotion. "You, too, must realize that I think
+the same--that I acknowledge my error--because I--because I, for some
+time--have been in love with you!... Well, I have said it! Now laugh if
+you like."
+
+She did not feel like laughing. She gave a slight exclamation, looked at
+him for a moment, and turned away as though avoiding the questioning
+glance in his eyes. She had had a presentiment that this was coming,
+sooner or later, but her breath was taken away on actually hearing it!
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+"What is your answer?" the famous Prince Lubimoff, adored by so many
+women, finally asked with timidity.
+
+Alicia looked at him again.
+
+"Aren't you joking? Isn't it a mere whim inspired by the beauty of this
+afternoon--so poetic?"
+
+Michael protested with a gesture. How could she take as a caprice the
+grave decision that he had finally reached after so long and difficult a
+debate within, the way one evolves a truly great decision!
+
+"If I were like most women, I would reply: 'How many women have you said
+the same thing to?' But such a question is stupid. One may have said: 'I
+love you,' to a woman, in all sincerity and some time later repeat the
+same words to another, with still more sincerity. I'm not going to ask
+you to how many you have said what you have just said to me. Perhaps you
+never said it to any one before. To fulfill your desires it wasn't
+necessary to exert yourself, playing a comedy of deep affection: they
+sought you passionately; like a Sultan, you needed only to throw your
+handkerchief as a signal.... But when it comes to me! Remember, Michael:
+as children we hated each other; later on, when I was willing, you were
+not. And now we are beginning to grow old! Now that I possess only the
+remains of what I once was and haven't the same freedom any longer,
+since I have--you know what...! It is absurd, and that is why I laugh.
+No: never!"
+
+It was the Prince's turn to speak. They had hated each other, that was
+true, and now he considered that hate as fortunate. What a misfortune
+for both of them if marriage had united their two enormous fortunes and
+their two prides, more enormous still.
+
+"We would have separated a week later; perhaps the same day," Michael
+continued. "I even suspect that I would have beaten you."
+
+"And I you," said the Duchess. "No place would have been large enough to
+hold us both. It would have been necessary for one of us to give in to
+the other. And neither one of us would have thought of making such a
+sacrifice."
+
+"I might say the same," he continued, "about the night when we dined
+together. I am glad of my absurd and ridiculous conduct on that
+occasion. Had I given in, there would be an invincible barrier between
+us now; we would never have met again, and we would not be here saying
+to each other what we are saying now."
+
+She assented.
+
+"We would not be here, that is certain. You would have kept a frightful
+memory of me; I know very well what I was like then. Neither would I
+have sought you out, even though my life depended on it. Thanks to your
+flight that evening we can still be friends, eternal friends, brothers
+if you like; but why do you talk to me about love? It doesn't belong to
+our age. The time has passed. What do you see in me now that you did not
+when I was young?"
+
+"I see your misfortune."
+
+The voice of the Prince sounded grave and deeply sincere as he said
+this.
+
+He had reflected for a long time, before answering, when he had asked
+himself the same question as Alicia's. He was sure that he had begun to
+love her the day when she had come to Villa Sirena to confess her ruin
+and to ask him to forget her debt to him. Poor Duchess de Delille,
+accustomed to spending millions each year, the proprietress of precious
+mines, and having to live by gambling like an adventuress!...
+Afterwards, beside her bed, seeing her tears, and listening to the great
+secret of her life, the hidden motherhood that had made her weep, he had
+become definitely conscious of this love. During the last few days,
+seeing her victorious in the Casino, his love had been clouded; he cared
+less for her. Later, finding her ruined and sick with sadness, his
+affection was renewed; and to help her, he had even become a gambler,
+he, who was incapable of doing this even for his own salvation!
+
+"You can't understand me; you are a woman. Often in my life, other women
+have said to me, after some unexplainable act of theirs: 'It is useless
+to try: men can never succeed in understanding us.' I say the same: A
+woman cannot understand a man either. I love you now because you inspire
+pity in me, and pity leads to tenderness and tenderness is true love,
+love such as I have never felt before. Each one loves in his own way.
+The majority of women need to feel proud when they love; the person they
+love must arouse the envy of others through being brave, handsome,
+wealthy or talented. Man almost always loves through pity, through
+tender compassion inspired by woman. He never feels more in love than
+when a woman's head reclines against his breast with the abandon of
+weakness; and when his hand is buried in her hair, it finds a tiny
+delicate head--smaller than he had ever imagined--a head that is filled
+with divine words, irresistible charms, and noble impulses, but which
+rarely has that force of thought which makes man superior to her. Her
+adorable arms are not strong enough to protect her. And man, seeing her
+so lovely and so weak, feels his passion increase with pity and the
+desire to protect her."
+
+"No," she said. "Woman, too, knows the meaning of compassionate love. A
+man for whom she feels indifference suddenly interests her, when she
+sees that he is unhappy; and a woman, who hates her lover one day,
+returns to him the next, when she feels that he is in danger. She never
+speaks more tenderly than when she says, 'My poor little boy!'"
+
+The Prince assented with a gesture. That was all very well. But
+immediately he returned to the subject which interested him.
+
+"To-day we both know misfortune; I, as well as you, since I have lost
+what distinguished me from other men, and which I shall never perhaps
+recover. But your situation is still worse; you are a woman, you are
+poorer, and I feel attracted to you and tell you what I never would have
+told you if, shut up within our own pride, we had both kept our former
+places in the world."
+
+He went on talking in a soothing tone almost in her ear, coming closer
+to her, and breathing the perfume of the fur boa around her neck, which
+seemed to have concentrated in itself the perfume of her whole body.
+
+He repeated what he had thought in the nights when he had struggled with
+his former dread; thoughts that he had vigorously resumed shortly
+before, as he was sitting silently by her side in the carriage. He
+talked of the future. They might still be happy; the love he offered her
+was of the quiet, lasting kind; an autumnal love, a love that would be
+for all time, with no dramatic complications, peaceful, tranquil,
+sweetly uneventful, like the long winter evenings beside a fire.
+
+She laughed with a pained expression.
+
+"You forget who I am; you talk as though the past did not exist, as
+though you were not yourself and as though all the stories that weigh
+against my name did not exist. If some one else were to make me this
+proposal, who knows!... I am weary and the thought of a quiet future
+attracts me. But you!... With you it would be impossible: It would end
+disastrously. I prefer that we be friends, without any thought of love.
+It is safer and more lasting."
+
+On seeing his look of dismay, Alicia went on talking. She was not afraid
+of living with him because of what people might say. It is true that she
+had a husband, who now in the throes of a senile passion would refuse to
+grant her a divorce. But what did she care for an obstacle like that, or
+for what people would say about it!... She had done more daring things
+in her life!
+
+"It is simply that I do not want to. Don't ask me why: I could not
+explain it to you; or I should say, you would not understand me. I
+repeat what other women have said to you: 'You are a man, and cannot
+understand women.' No, I don't want to. I shall speak more plainly:
+Another man might succeed in interesting me--I don't know. We are so
+weak! Our wills play us such strange tricks! But with you, no.... We
+know each other too well: It is impossible."
+
+Michael spoke in a tone of sadness and chagrin.
+
+"I don't interest you: that is easy to see."
+
+Alicia once more laughed heartily and with one of her hands she tapped
+those of the Prince which were clasped together.
+
+"Silly! Do you really think I don't care for you at all. If I felt
+indifferent toward you would I have sought you formerly, and would I be
+here with you now?"
+
+He was disconcerted. "Well, then?" And he made an effort to discover
+what obstacle stood in the way of his desire. If it was on account of
+what had happened in her past life, he had forgotten it. He, Prince
+Lubimoff, had had many affairs that it was better not to recall.
+
+"Let's not talk about the past at all. You are a different woman. I
+know what your life has been during the last few years; besides, the
+other morning you told me what you have been since your son began to
+live by your side. I take you from the time you recognized the
+seriousness of life, on seeing beside you a man formed from your own
+flesh and blood. I have forgotten the Venus of former years, the Helen
+of the 'old man on the wall.' I desire you, seeing you as you are
+to-day, the Venus Sorrowful, weeping, suffering and in need of
+consolation and care that will sustain and sweeten life."
+
+She stopped smiling. Her lips trembled with a pitiful expression of
+gratitude; her eyes were moist with tears.
+
+"No," she said in a humble voice. "It is impossible for that very
+reason. My son! How my son has changed me! I know what all this love
+means. We are not two children to be deceived by dreams of purity and
+talk about the soul and heaven, while our bodies are drawn together by a
+natural impulse. If I accept your love, I know what that means at once,
+perhaps before the dawning of a new day. Can you imagine such a thing?
+My son,--I don't know where he is, perhaps he is dead. At least he is
+suffering at the present moment hardships which a beggar woman would not
+allow a son of hers to suffer, and I, in the meantime, abandoning myself
+to a great love, to a passion such that it would absorb all my time and
+thoughts, as though I were still in my early youth.... Oh, no! How
+shameful! I know what love between us fatally demands, and it frightens
+me. I feel powerless in the face of things which formerly seemed to me
+as nothing. You have spoken the truth: I am a different woman."
+
+The Prince regained hope on learning the nature of the obstacle. Her son
+was still alive: he was sure of it, He had written to the King of Spain
+and to influential friends of his in Paris; he had even sent letters to
+Germany through diplomatic channels. They might find him any moment; he
+would succeed in returning him to his mother's side. Why should the poor
+boy stand in the way of both their futures? Her son knew life; the years
+that he had spent with his mother had familiarized him with the
+irregularities which are so common in the world of the fortunate. He
+would not consider it unusual for her, submitting to a marriage that was
+not a lie, to rebuild her life discreetly with a man whom she had known
+since her youth. Besides, he would love him like a younger brother. He
+could count on influential friends capable of helping the boy if he
+wanted to work. When he died what was left of his fortune would go to
+him.
+
+Alicia clasped one of his hands with the tenderness of gratitude. "How
+good you are!" But suddenly she dried her tears, and her eyes shone with
+a glow of energy that seemed to reflect her struggle with herself, and
+she continued, in a firm tone:
+
+"No, no. I don't want to. I am looking to the immediate future: to what
+would happen to us if I gave in to your glowing words; I can see my
+son--or I should say, I cannot see him, I don't know what has become of
+him, I don't know whether or not he is alive. I tell you no. It is
+useless for you to insist."
+
+There was a long silence. A soldier passed with his head bandaged
+beneath his _kepis_ and a flower behind his ear. He was smiling at a
+red-faced girl, who was leaning on his arm. They were both humming a
+tune. The Prince and the Duchess separated slightly on the bench, and
+remained in silence, he, looking on the ground, absorbed and frowning,
+she, with her eyes on the horizon line, following the slow progress of
+the schooners, the sails of which were filling with the breeze that
+announced the coming twilight.
+
+The obstinacy with which Michael kept his eyes riveted on the ground
+caused Alicia to make a mistake. Her ankles showed somewhat owing to her
+posture and her short skirt; trim ankles with the whiteness of her skin
+visible through the meshes of snuff-colored silk.
+
+"You are looking at my stockings?" she asked, her mood suddenly changing
+from sadness to gaiety. "Look. What you see on the side there is not
+embroidery, it is darning. My maid mends them nicely. What can you
+expect? We are poor."
+
+And doubtless, for the sake of amusing her frowning companion, she went
+on to enumerate in gay tones the various difficulties arising from her
+poverty. Oh, the war, with the terrible cost of living! Silk stockings
+were so bad! One got holes in them after putting them on once, and they
+came only at fabulous prices. She preferred to prolong the existence of
+those that she had kept since the days of her wealth, because they were
+stronger. She might say the same of her dresses. It had been two years
+since her wardrobe had received any replenishing, so frequent before.
+
+"We are poor," she repeated, with mock solemnity. "Besides, we are fond
+of gambling, and, like all gamblers, we lose thousands of francs and
+economize on the little things that make life pleasant."
+
+She had been waiting for an enormous stroke of luck after which she
+would stop playing and begin to think again of the wardrobe.
+
+But the Prince, by his gestures and the expression on his face gave her
+to understand how little he was interested in these confidences. It was
+useless for her to try and change the conversation. Michael, offended by
+Alicia's negative reply, was still absorbed in his question. Perhaps
+with another man she would have shown herself more clement.
+
+She realized that she must return to the subject which interested her
+companion, and said with masculine frankness:
+
+"I know what is the matter with you. I am going to forget we belong to
+different sexes and talk to you like a comrade, just as I talked to you
+that night in my study. I know the life you are leading; I know also all
+about the 'enemies of women': a silly idea. What you need, after several
+months of living alone like a maniac, is a woman. Choose from those
+about you; you can find them whenever you like, younger and more
+beautiful than I, who am beginning to see myself as I am. Why do you
+choose me? Why do you disturb my tranquillity, now that I have forgotten
+all about such things?"
+
+The Prince smiled bitterly at the suggested remedy. He had often thought
+of it. The censor that he kept within had repeated the same advice:
+"Find a female, and it will all pass away immediately; a woman who
+inspires only a momentary interest; no women and no love complications.
+Do what you recommended to Castro." He had frequented the Casino with
+the resolute air of a slaughter-house man about to choose his prey from
+the flock. He would glance over the troop of girls in the gambling
+rooms, who kept one eye on the green baize, while with the other they
+watched the men who were walking about behind them.
+
+He felt physically attracted by certain women; by one, because of her
+features, by another, because of her figure or stature, and by some,
+because of their strange ugliness or stimulating irregularity of form
+and feature, which affected his nerves much as sharp or biting food
+affects the palate. He had had only to make a sign or say a brief word
+to many who, seeing themselves noticed by that famous person, smiled
+ready to follow him. But suddenly he felt the dislike which is inspired
+by things repeated to the point of satiety, and by the emptiness of
+what is familiar to the point of weariness. He could not expect anything
+new; he was horrified at the thought of the vain prattle of an unknown
+woman desirous of appearing interesting; of the lies inspired by a
+sudden and false sentimentality; and by the gross animalism of the
+pairing which would end the tiresome preliminaries. No; he couldn't.
+Only once, with a desperate energy of a patient gulping down a
+disgusting medicine, he had followed one of these beautiful animals, and
+shortly afterwards he felt disgusted with his baseness and ashamed of
+his backsliding.
+
+"It is you; you and no one else," he said gloomily. "You, or no one."
+
+Alicia replied in the same grave tone. She knew by experience what this
+meant "We desire with greater eagerness what is impossible for us to
+obtain; we single out as unique whatever is beyond our grasp."
+
+But these reasonings exasperated Lubimoff to the extent of making him
+unjust.
+
+"I know you," he said, drawing nearer on the bench, as he gazed at her
+more closely, with angry, passionate eyes. "I know what you women are
+like; you're all vain and revengeful. You can't forget the evening you
+wanted me and I was not willing, and now you are taking delight in my
+torment; you enjoy making me suffer."
+
+"Oh, Michael!" she interrupted, in a tone of protest.
+
+The Prince continued to express his rancour, and his indignation stirred
+Alicia more than the humble question of a few moments before. It was the
+desperate pleading of a patient who is past recovery and desires to
+return to normal life.
+
+"I love you.... I need you. I'll get you!"
+
+Above the promontory of Cap-d'Ail the orange-colored globe of the sun
+was descending. Its lower edge was already touching the undulating line
+of garden and buildings. For a moment its rays were concentrated in a
+sheaf seen through the colonnade of a pergola, as though showing itself
+through an arch of triumph before dying. A dark azure light seemed to
+emerge from the sea driving the fading gold of the afternoon from the
+gardens.
+
+"No!... No, I won't!"
+
+Alicia's voice suddenly broke the vibrant silence with the tremulousness
+of surprise, and immediately changed to a long gasp, as though something
+were weighing on her lips. Michael had thrown both his arms around her
+shoulders, mastering her, drawing her breast forward, pressing it
+against his own. His lips sought hers, but she made an effort to resist,
+by turning away with a violent straining of her neck. Finally the moan
+of protest ceased. Both heads remained motionless.
+
+"Michael ... Michael!" she sighed, freeing herself for a moment from the
+caress. But a moment later she submitted again to those lips which
+pursued hers so eagerly.
+
+She spoke in a tone of surrender. She was suddenly back in her past
+life, trembling at the contact of all those foreign things which seemed
+absolutely new through long continence. His ardent lips had overpowered
+her, awakened her from a dream that had lasted for years, in a sleep
+longer and deeper than Michael's.
+
+She forgot everything around her. Her eyes were still open but the
+vision of the sea, the golden sunset in the sky, and even the pine
+boughs forming a canopy above their heads, had disappeared from her
+gaze.
+
+Suddenly she saw them all once more, and at the same time she drew back
+her shoulders repelling him.
+
+"No, I won't.... Stop! They might see us. How crazy of us!"
+
+The Prince was an athlete, but his emotion weakened him. Besides, his
+energy was scattered in the double effort of trying to master the woman
+and at the same time of enjoying her caress in the overwhelming fury of
+passion. She bent and straightened several times, with all the
+suppleness of a reptile, finally succeeding in escaping from the chain
+of his arms, as she gave a sigh of weariness and relief.
+
+Lubimoff, coming to himself again, saw Alicia standing in front of him,
+smoothing her disordered clothing, and raising her hands to her hair, to
+her tilted hat and her boa, which was slipping from her shoulders.
+
+"Let us go," she said, with angry brevity.
+
+And the Prince followed her, crestfallen, repenting his violence. After
+walking a few steps, she seemed moved by his silence, which showed his
+repentance, and smiled again:
+
+"It is quite evident that from now on I must not see you alone. I forgot
+that you were a sailor, accustomed to making port in a hurry without
+caring to lose any time." They walked along slowly, in a tranquillity
+like that of the serene twilight.
+
+On leaving the gardens, they found themselves cut off by the Museum.
+Must they return by the way they had come? Michael discovered on one
+side of the building a rustic stairway cut at intervals in the rock, the
+hollows of which were filled with brick steps. It descended to the edge
+of the sea in various flights of stairs, and at the farther end, a walk
+following the edge of the coast led to the harbor.
+
+She hesitated for a moment at the archway of the entrance.
+
+"I warn you," she said, shaking her finger at Michael, "that if you
+return to your old tricks, I shall call for help. Do you promise me
+you'll be good? Word of honor?... All right; go on ahead: I don't trust
+you."
+
+He went ahead down the stairway to explore. The walls of the Museum
+seemed to expand as they continued to descend. Besides the building with
+its roof at their feet, there was a second building below, rising with
+its stone walls pierced by large windows, from the rocky slopes. At a
+turn of the path, the Prince faltered to wait for his companion. She was
+slowly descending, maintaining a distance of several steps between them.
+Her feet were higher than Lubimoff's head, and it was only necessary for
+the latter to raise his eyes slightly to see the stockings the darning
+in which Alicia had explained.
+
+With the lightness of a spring released, he slipped up the various steps
+that separated them.
+
+"Michael! I'll shout!" she exclaimed on seeing him coming, and she held
+out her hands to repel him, trying at the same time to flee.
+
+With his arms he had embraced the lower part of that adorable body. He
+could not climb any further; Alicia's hands repulsed his head with a
+nervous violence. And he in passionate madness pressed his lips to her
+feet and her ankles, kissing her skirts wherever he could reach them.
+
+She was angry at feeling that she could not stir and would be unable to
+escape.
+
+"Let me go! It's ridiculous! Stop!"
+
+The Prince's hat rolled down the steps, knocked off by a blow from her
+slender hands, as, blindly, she defended herself.
+
+This incident brought him to his senses. Yes; as a matter of fact, it
+was ridiculous. And as he saw that Alicia intended to retrace her steps,
+returning to the garden, Michael to inspire her confidence ran down the
+stairway without turning his head, to see whether she was following him.
+
+They met at the edge of the sea, on the wide path that wound among the
+loose rocks bordered with foam, and the nearly vertical walls of the
+cliff. The flat places and hollows in the stone had been made use of, on
+this promontory, that had so few soft surfaces, to construct the few
+houses that sheltered the families of the employees in Monaco. Along the
+upper edge of the cliff appeared the green line bordering the lofty
+gardens and cut at intervals by the old works of fortification.
+
+They were the sloping bastions, with sentry posts, like those one sees
+in old engravings or in stage settings. Huge stone facings with Latin
+letters sang the praises of the various sovereign Princes, who had built
+these costly works of defense, now antiquated and worthless. Lubimoff
+expected to see appear from these sentry posts a grenadier in a white
+uniform with scarlet facings, wearing, above his black mustache and
+powdered wig, a golden miter.
+
+They walked slowly along in the twilight. Above them shone the orange
+light of the setting sun, casting a mild red glow on the jutting rocks,
+the trees, and the white and yellow façades of the buildings. At the
+edge of the sea, the shadow was a deep blue shade, like moonlight
+shadow. The sky, blood-red in the West, was invisible for them behind
+the rocky cliffs of Monaco. They could see it only in the direction of
+Italy, and there it was growing darker and denser every minute,
+preparing for the first luminous piercing of the stars.
+
+They met various fishermen who were returning home loaded down with
+baskets and nets.
+
+Alicia felt worried in certain bends of the path so completely
+deserted. Later, on seeing a house or a passerby approaching, she
+resumed the conversation. What she was afraid of was stopping along the
+way, and sitting down with the Prince on the little parapet bordering
+the seashore. In the meantime they continued walking!
+
+Without protesting, she allowed Lubimoff to put his arm in hers, leaning
+upon it. He expressed such deep humility! He seemed repentant for the
+liberties he had taken; and asked her forgiveness with a pale smile.
+Besides, he talked to her about her son with soothing optimism. All her
+fears were unfounded; her son would return: he was sure of it. She would
+receive good news almost any moment, perhaps that very night.
+
+Her George was a man, and no matter how much he might love his mother,
+some day he would fall in love with another woman whom he would care for
+more deeply, and would build up a separate existence, like all the rest.
+
+"And you, who may still consider yourself young, you, who have the right
+to long years of happiness, do you want to give up everything like an
+old woman? Why? Why be in a hurry about that?"
+
+She bowed her head without knowing what to reply, and her emotion was
+such, that she made not the slightest movement when his arm freed itself
+from hers and encircled her waist. Thus they walked along, closely
+linked, forming a single body, taking step after step mechanically,
+without watching where they were going. With his eyes fixed on hers, he
+closely watched her face, hoping for a glance, or a monosyllable that
+would mean acceptance. Alicia was afraid of meeting those imploring
+eyes, and turned her own away.
+
+"Tell me yes," Michael murmured, "tell me that you will. It isn't for
+nothing that we have met; it is not for nothing that you sought me out.
+We shall rebuild our lives that have been so nearly wrecked by our
+vanity and pride. Let us be, although it is rather late, what we ought
+to be to one another."
+
+"No," sighed Alicia. "I can't.... My son!..."
+
+And immediately afterwards she hastened to murmur, as though repenting:
+
+"Yes; perhaps ... later ... but not now. How shameful! When my mind is
+at ease, when I don't feel this worry that is killing me. I love you; is
+that enough? I love you."
+
+These two words sufficed the Prince. He, who had gone to the farthest
+extreme of domination with so many women without ever feeling satisfied,
+contented himself with these brief words, which sounded in his ears like
+happy music.
+
+Instinctively, his arm dropped below her waist, while his other arm drew
+her head to one of his shoulders.
+
+There was a kiss, a long kiss, without either of them pausing in their
+walk. Alicia offered no resistance, and shortly afterwards, her lips,
+animated by a feverish awakening, responded to his kiss, making it more
+passionate, more vibrant and endless. She no longer felt any fear; they
+were walking along, and it was impossible for her lover to repeat the
+liberties he had dared to take in the garden. Moreover, she inwardly
+confessed, with a certain shame, the delight aroused in her by that
+violence.
+
+"I love you!" she sighed, without knowing what she was saying. "I love
+you; but not that, no! Let us love each other like children. It is
+ridiculous at our age--but so sweet."
+
+At that moment Lubimoff's spirit was like her own. This simple kiss
+seemed to him the greatest pleasure he had ever known. Life opened up
+enchantments of which he had never dreamed. It seemed to him that he
+was gazing on the most beautiful landscape in the world. How
+interesting were the old fortifications! What a great man Albert of
+Monaco was to build that lonely asphalt path, so that he might walk
+along it with his lips pressing the lips of a woman.
+
+They walked along as though they were intoxicated, in a continual zigzag
+between the parapet and the wall of the cliff, their lips pressing,
+their eyes almost touching, as though nothing existed beyond them, and
+they actually imagined that they were walking in a straight line. From a
+distance one would have thought they were two adversaries struggling,
+staggering, as they jostled each other in the fight.
+
+Suddenly mastered by desire, he stopped and refused to go on.
+
+"No, no!"
+
+Her will still shaken by her recent emotion, Alicia protested at this
+danger, but she forced herself to reiterate her refusal.
+
+His lips had separated from hers. There was an aggressive gleam in his
+half-shut eyes. His hands fell upon her hips, and clinched like claws.
+
+"I won't: I told you I won't! Come!"
+
+She struggled in his arms with the agility of a gymnast, and in breaking
+free from his grasp there was a sound of tearing clothes.
+
+"Look, you villain! Look what you've done!"
+
+She was standing motionless, a few steps away, with her fur boa falling
+from one of her shoulders, while at the other she was looking for the
+tear that her dress had just suffered.
+
+Michael, behind her, saw that one sleeve was almost torn away, giving a
+glimpse of her white flesh, and the seductive hollow under her arm.
+
+He repented his violence, and the clumsiness of his hands, which like
+those of a drunken sailor broke what he caressed.
+
+Once more Alicia took pity on his childish embarrassment.
+
+"No, don't worry about that. It is a dress I have had for two years: it
+is so old, that it tears just by looking at it. That is one of the
+inconveniences of walking with a beggar."
+
+But she finally became worried by this tear which was so visible. She
+was going to enter Monte Carlo on foot or by street car. What would
+people say, seeing her in such a state!
+
+"A pin: have you got a pin?"
+
+This request increased the remorse of the Prince. Where could a man find
+a pin? While Alicia was feeling for one without avail, he thought of
+returning to the Museum or scaling the rocks to one of those houses
+where the employees of the Prince live. He would have given a hundred
+francs for a pin--but he remembered that his pockets were empty.
+
+He began to search his clothes while she searched hers, although he was
+certain that it would be useless.
+
+Suddenly he smiled triumphantly.
+
+"Here is your pin."
+
+It was from his necktie! A famous pearl, admired by the women, and which
+he had never been willing to give away, because it was a gift of the
+Princess Lubimoff.
+
+He was obliged to mend the tear at the shoulder himself, sighing with
+vexation.
+
+"You don't know how," said Alicia laughing. "Look out that you don't
+prick me. How clumsy!"
+
+But he finally felt glad of his clumsiness. He had to touch her naked
+arm with his fingers; and he quivered as he touched the soft skin, which
+preserved in its velvety shadows a certain mystery of passion.
+
+"Look out!" she called. "Don't go back to your old tricks: I shall get
+angry. It is all right as it is. Come on!"
+
+She threw her scarf over the clumsy repair, and the pearl, which stood
+out against it, with odd magnificence. They were walking along once
+more, without any new attempted audacities on Michael's part. The last
+incident had made him circumspect. Inwardly he called himself names,
+considering himself a savage, incapable of living among real ladies.
+
+As they reached the last bend they left the azure shade of the cliff.
+Above their heads extended the last angle of the bulwarks, and a stone
+sentry post; across the harbor, with its mouth flanked by two
+illuminated towers, and on the opposite bank rose the heights of Monte
+Carlo, with its huge buildings, and its glistening cupolas, which were
+reflecting the last rosy fire of the twilight.
+
+They both halted instinctively. In the middle of the harbor, the yacht,
+the white yacht of the Prince of Monaco, lay motionless, tugging at her
+buoy. Beside the nearby dock a few latine rigged boats were pitching,
+moving their single mast, and a Spanish steamer, displaying its neutral
+flag, was unloading sacks of rice, and barrels of wine. The presence of
+various groups of men gathered in front of the boat made them prudent.
+They were no longer alone. Once more they had entered the life of the
+City.
+
+"How short the road was!" exclaimed the Prince.
+
+She thought the same. "Yes; how short!"
+
+They could no longer walk together. It was necessary to say good-by
+there, far from the crowd.
+
+Alicia held out both hands.
+
+"Nothing more?" sighed Michael.
+
+The Duchess hesitated a moment. Then, with the agility of a young girl,
+as though she were still the wild Amazon of the Bois de Boulogne, she
+sprang for his open arms.
+
+"There, there, and there!"
+
+There were three rapid fiery kisses, that only lasted for a second;
+three kisses that made Lubimoff think he had never felt one in all his
+life, since he had never experienced the quivering that swept his body
+from head to feet.
+
+"More! Give me more!"
+
+She laughed at his imploring look.
+
+"Enough folly. Another time, who knows!--For the present I am worried
+again. I am afraid to enter my house: I feel terror and hope. Oh, the
+news that I may receive at any moment! Tell me; do you really think that
+nothing has happened to him? Do you think he may come back?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Spadoni entered Novoa's room with the intention of getting him to talk.
+At present he was an ardent believer in the professor's knowledge, and
+seeing him well disposed toward gambling and inclined to meditate on its
+mysteries, he hoped with simple faith that the scientist would discover
+something miraculous, some brilliant idea that would make them both
+wealthy. On that account the pianist arose earlier than he was wont, to
+surprise the professor during his toilet, considering this the proper
+time for matters of confidence.
+
+"The word 'chance,'" said Novoa, "is a term devoid of meaning; or, I
+should say rather, chance does not exist. It is an invention of our
+human weakness, our ignorance. We say that a phenomenon takes place by
+chance when the causes either are unknown to us or seem impossible to
+analyze. We are ignorant of the causes of the majority of things that
+occur and we get out of the difficulty by attributing them to chance."
+
+The musician opened his eyes wide, and his olive features contracted
+with a look of respectful attention. He did not understand the
+scientist's words very clearly, but he admired them in advance, as a
+prelude to revelations which would be more practical, and of immediate
+application.
+
+"Every phenomenon," continued Novoa, "no matter how slight it seems, has
+a cause, and the man with an infinitely powerful brain, infinitely well
+informed of the laws of Nature, would be capable of foreseeing
+everything that might happen within a few minutes or within a few
+centuries. With a man like this it would be impossible to play any
+gambling game. Chance would not exist for him. Having the secret of the
+small causes that at present escape our intelligence, and a knowledge of
+the laws that control their combinations, he would know absolutely
+everything that might arise from the mystery of a pack of cards or from
+the numbers of a roulette wheel. No one could hope to win from him."
+
+"Oh, Professor!" sighed the pianist, in admiration.
+
+Inwardly he prayed that his illustrious friend would go on studying. Who
+knows but what a professor might become that all-powerful person, and,
+taking pity on a poor pianist, allow him to follow in his trail of
+glory!
+
+Novoa smiled at Spadoni's simplicity and went on talking.
+
+"The number of facts which we attribute to chance (and chance is nothing
+but a fictitious cause created by our ignorance) varies, in the same
+ratio as our ignorance varies, according to the times and according to
+the individual. Many things which are chance for an uneducated person,
+are not chance for a man of learning. What is chance to-day will not be
+perhaps within a few years. Scientific discoveries finally diminish
+considerably the domain of chance, just as our ignorance decreases."
+
+The pianist's face beamed with a rapt expression.
+
+"You are a great scholar, Professor, a great scholar!... Don't shake
+your head; I know what I'm saying. I have a feeling of certainty that,
+if you go on studying these important matters, you will find a system
+which...."
+
+The Spaniard interrupted him, pointing to a pack of cards on a nearby
+table. It was easy to guess that he had been studying during the night,
+before going to bed. These cards were for Spadoni evidence of scientific
+studiousness, worthier of respect than all the books from the library
+of the Prince, which lay forgotten in the corners. At present the
+Professor was interested in the mysteries of chance, and Spadoni was
+certain that he would discover something better than anything which had
+been invented thus far by ordinary gamblers.
+
+But his hope vanished at Novoa's gesture of dismay.
+
+"Look at that pack of cards: A few pieces of cardboard and,
+nevertheless, they contain the immensity of the universe! They cause in
+one the feeling of dizziness inspired by the Infinite, just as when you
+look upward with a telescope or downward with a microscope. Do you know
+how many combinations can be made with a pack of fifty-two cards? I
+don't know how to express it: nor will you find the figure in a
+dictionary or an arithmetic, as it is useless, since it lies beyond
+human calculations. Let us coin the word: eighty unidecillions, or the
+figure eight followed by sixty-six ciphers. Two men who began to play
+with a pack of fifty-two cards and played a hand every minute, each hand
+being different, would not be able to exhaust all the possible
+combinations in five million centuries."
+
+There was a long silence, as though the walls of the room had shrunk
+under the weight of these inconceivable numbers. Spadoni bowed his head.
+
+"Now, tell me," continued the Professor, "what can a poor human being,
+with all his calculations of probabilities, do against this infinity!"
+
+And seizing a handful of cards, he let them fall again like a whispering
+rain of colors on the table.
+
+"Everything depends on chance," he added, "or I should say, on error. We
+lose through error and win through it likewise. Our error is the result
+of an infinity of infinitesimal errors due to another infinity of small
+causes, the analysis of which we cannot even attempt. These tiny causes
+are all independent of one another, and since they are directed by
+chance, they operate in one way as readily as in another. When the
+infinitesimal is positive, it causes us to win, when it is negative, we
+lose."
+
+Spadoni nodded his head, although he scarcely understood. The one thing
+clear to him were the infinitesimal errors which cause us to lose. He
+was acquainted with them; they were like microbes, malevolent germs,
+which always clung to him. He wished that his learned friend might
+discover an antiseptic that would put an end to them.
+
+"Besides," said Novoa, "if there are probabilities of winning, these
+probabilities are in proportion to the wealth of the gamblers. A poor
+gambler has less chance of winning than one who has capital at his
+disposal."
+
+"Then, how about us?" the musician asked in a melancholy voice.
+
+"We are the under dogs and were born to be victims. Gambling is an image
+of life: the strong triumph over the weak."
+
+Spadoni remained thoughtful.
+
+"I have seen wealthy gamblers," he said, "who were finally ruined like
+the rest."
+
+"Because they don't stop in time, at the point where the resisting power
+of their capital brings the hour of winning. In life, as well, the great
+devourers, soldiers, multi-millionaires, and rulers, are in turn
+devoured in the final leveling: death. But before that time, they
+triumph through a powerful means that fate has placed in their hands. We
+who are poor, never triumph continuously for a whole day. Trying to win
+a great fortune with small capital is equivalent to wanting to lose that
+small capital."
+
+They both fell silent, discouraged; but Novoa seemed to have suffered
+the contagion of his companion's dreams, and felt the necessity of
+bolstering him up again with some fantastic meditation fit for a
+gambler.
+
+"You know, Spadoni, how much one can win with a thousand francs? Last
+night I undertook to make the calculation."
+
+He pointed to a piece of paper covered with figures which was protruding
+from among the cards. So Novoa was up to the same tricks as the pianist!
+
+"With a thousand francs, doubling each time in forty-three games (some
+four hours), one could win a block of gold a hundred thousand million
+times as large as the sun."
+
+"Oh, Professor!"
+
+They both looked at each other with mystic ardor, as though they were
+actually contemplating this immeasurable block. Beside such a vision
+what did the winnings of a few paltry millions mean?
+
+Toledo was beginning to realize, little by little, the gradual
+transformation of his friend, the scientist.
+
+Novoa was greatly interested in his personal appearance; he had asked
+the Colonel to recommend him to his tailor in Nice; and the Professor
+made frequent trips to the latter city, merely to make purchases.
+
+Besides, he was gambling. Don Marcos frequently surprised him beside a
+table in the Casino, standing and meditating before risking one of the
+few chips which he held tightly in his hand. He seemed dazzled by the
+ease with which he won. The amounts were small, but so large in
+comparison with those which he had received for his previous work as a
+Professor! In half an hour he could win a month's salary. In an
+afternoon he had succeeded in amassing three thousand francs; half a
+year's work at teaching and in the laboratory.
+
+Monte Carlo seemed to him an interesting place and life there a quiet
+relaxation, which stood out above the grave, laborious monotony of his
+previous existence. The Museum of Oceanography could wait; it would not
+move away during his absence from the point on the rock of Monaco. The
+science of maritime zoology was not going to be revolutionized in a few
+months. And when the director saw him with a gay excited look enter,
+from time to time, the quiet silent atmosphere of the Museum, and when
+he observed his gay clothes, and the closeness with which he followed
+men's style, he sadly shook his head. Novoa was not the first. Oh, Monte
+Carlo! The old professors looked with the stern face of prophets at the
+city opposite. Young men who arrived from various places in the world to
+study the mysteries of the ocean, ended by making mathematical
+calculations on the probabilities of roulette.
+
+"Besides, he is in love," said Castro, communicating to Toledo his
+impressions in regard to Novoa. "When he isn't gambling he is with that
+Valeria woman."
+
+They were engaged. The professor, with an air of mystery, had told this
+to all his friends, asking each one to keep the secret. After idle
+gallantries as a student, this was the first, the great love of his
+life. He was worried somewhat by the humbleness of his position. When
+they were married what would Valeria say on learning how little he
+earned as a scientist? But immediately he placed his hope on gambling,
+the undreamt of fortune which at present offered itself each day.
+
+"If this goes on a few months," he told the Colonel, "I will have gotten
+together a tidy little sum before I have completed my studies. Every day
+I lay something aside, and nevertheless I am spending more than ever. I
+must dress smartly like my fiancée."
+
+And Don Marcos replied with an ambiguous smile.
+
+Novoa's happiness was accompanied by a certain pride. He considered his
+future life companion a great lady, of higher intellectual capacity and
+capable of more serious pursuits than the majority of women of her
+class. She was poor, and for that reason accepted a position bordering
+on that of a servant. But seeing her on familiar terms with the Duchess,
+he considered her of as high rank as the latter, and finally blended the
+affairs of both women in a common interest. And since Doña Clorinda was
+at present an implacable enemy of Alicia's, and since Atilio blindly
+espoused the whims and ideas of "the General," a hidden animosity began
+to spring up between the two men, who up to that time had treated each
+other with amiable indifference.
+
+"Women!" murmured Toledo on observing the progress of this dislike. "The
+Prince was right...."
+
+But other more important preoccupations tormented the Colonel. The
+greatly feared offensive had begun. The telegrams from the front were
+brief and bad. The Allies were retreating before the German advance.
+Their lines were not broken, but were wavering, and curving backwards
+under the overwhelming blows of the enemy. Every day dozens of villages
+and great stretches of territory were lost.
+
+Don Marcos, with the bursts of anger of a Polytechnic freshman,
+protested against the lack of foresight of the Generals, mingling his
+complaints with those of the crowd.
+
+"I knew it would come," he said, with a self-sufficient air to the
+groups of idlers in the ante-room of the Casino, where he was listened
+to because of his military title. "The Kaiser has massed in France all
+the troops that he had in Russia. Who wouldn't have expected it? And our
+forces are doubtless inferior in numbers."
+
+The bombardment of Paris finally routed all his ideas of strategy.
+"Lies!" he roared, standing in front of the telegraphic despatches on
+the bulletin board, and reading of the first shells that had fallen in
+Paris. It was impossible: he was ready to stake his word, and was well
+informed as to the range of modern artillery. And on learning the
+existence of cannon that fired more than a hundred kilometers, he was
+disconcerted. "What times we're living in! What a war this is!"
+
+When the ladies consulted him in the Casino or in the Hôtel de Paris, he
+displayed unshakable optimism in the face of the bad news.
+
+"This is nothing: The reaction is going to set in. Our men are
+withdrawing in order to be better able to take the offensive."
+
+But when he was alone his sense of security collapsed, and he could not
+hide from himself that his faith was shaken like that of the rest.
+
+"They will reach Paris, if God does not take a hand," he said to
+himself. "A miracle is necessary, another miracle like that of the
+Marne."
+
+For the good Colonel still firmly believed that the first battle of the
+Marne had been a miracle wrought by Saint Genevieve, by Joan of Arc, or
+some other beatific person able to intervene in human combats, much as
+the false gods sung by Homer had intervened. Did not St. James fight in
+the battles of Spain, whenever the Christians attacked the Moors?
+
+"And the miracle has been rendered worthless," he said bitterly. "It
+will have to be repeated, they will have to begin again, after four
+years of war."
+
+With the bombardment of Paris the population of the Riviera had
+increased considerably in a few weeks. The trains were arriving packed
+with fugitives. The streets of Nice were filled with strangers just as
+in peace times, when the Carnival was celebrated. Monte Carlo found its
+crowds largely increased and new gambling rooms were opened in the
+Casino.
+
+Toledo spent the afternoon and the early evening hours in the anteroom,
+always expecting good news, and accepting the bad with an easy optimism
+which found excuse and justification for everything.
+
+The circle of his friends was gradually increasing. Every day he came
+across well known faces that he had not seen for a long time. He shook
+hands, and returned greetings. "You here!" The cannon firing on Paris
+from an extraordinary distance filled the gambling rooms with a
+well-dressed crowd, almost as numerous as that of peace times.
+
+Don Marcos continued to announce the reaction, the counter-offensive for
+the following day, as though he were in touch in some mysterious way
+with the General Staff. And the anger aroused by the daily failure of
+his predictions was taken out on the gamblers. "What a life, what an
+indecent life! Appetites that know no morals! The selfishness of
+brutes!"
+
+The people around the Colonel seemed to be sorry for a moment as they
+read the bad news. Then, the majority entered the Casino. Perhaps it was
+a lack of thoughtfulness on their part, or perhaps it showed a desire to
+forget, to seek in gambling the illusions of alcohol. But the tiny ivory
+ball whirled tirelessly in the many roulette wheels. The cards did not
+cease to fall in double row on the _trente et quarante_ tables, and the
+crowds around the green boards kept on increasing.
+
+The people were nervous, argumentative, and irritable, and lost their
+manners over a mere gambling incident. The activity on the far-off
+battle line spread like a fierce wind, around the tables; there was an
+aggressive look in the eyes of the women. Every cannon shot fired on
+far-away Paris reverberated like an echo in the rain of money falling in
+Monte Carlo.
+
+When Toledo, the strategist, attempted to put forth his opinions and
+plans in Villa Sirena, he found a less attentive audience than in the
+ante-room of the Casino. The Prince had much more interesting things to
+think of. Novoa displayed a certain selfish joy, as though considering
+this period the best in his life, and the world's misfortunes merely
+something which gave a keener zest to his secret happiness. Spadoni
+listened to war talk as though people were talking of some ancient
+fiction.
+
+As for him, reality was what he wanted, and he interrupted the Colonel
+to tell him about more interesting matters. At present he scorned the
+Casino, and was frequenting the _Sporting-Club_, where there gathered
+the boldest gamblers who preferred to use chips of five thousand francs.
+A Greek, who had been a common sailor in his youth, reigned there like a
+hero of epic legends, admired by the ladies in ball-room dresses and the
+solemn gentlemen in evening clothes who gathered together in that
+aristocratic club. He had learned to read and write after he had grown
+up, but he possessed an immense fortune. The night before, after dealing
+for three hours, he had won a million two hundred thousand francs.
+Spadoni had seen it with his own eyes, and imitated the hero's gestures
+as he rose from the table, with a little wicker basket held in both
+hands, a miserable little basket containing, as so much sweepings, heaps
+of blue bills, and piles of five thousand franc chips. Why should they
+talk to him about Generals and battles? There was a man for you!
+
+Castro had been listening to the Colonel in a silence that augured ill,
+and with a coolly aggressive look. Suddenly, he interrupted the plans of
+strategy of Don Marcos.
+
+"And when are they going to promote you?"
+
+Many of the Generals who at present were celebrated, had been mere
+Colonels at the beginning of the war. It was about time that Toledo was
+shoved up a notch on the Army Register.
+
+And poor Don Marcos, wounded by this cruel jest, replied in a dignified
+manner:
+
+"I am satisfied with what I am, señor de Castro."
+
+He knew perfectly well what he was: a Colonel, and he did not care to be
+anything more. And several times he repeated to himself that he did not
+want to be anything more.
+
+In spite of the fact that at Villa Sirena each one was preoccupied with
+his own affairs, appearing absent-minded when the other guests were
+talking, Atilio's bad humor was making their life in common rather
+unpleasant.
+
+Toledo had a feeling that he knew the reason for this conduct. Doña
+Clorinda was doubtless treating him badly, and he, in turn, was getting
+revenge for these humiliations and vexations by showing himself harsh
+and ironical with his friends. The Colonel had been obliged to calm
+Clorinda when he met her (discussing the news of the war) in the Casino.
+She felt a strong antipathy to every man who was not in uniform, a
+little more and she would have insulted them.
+
+"Slackers! Cowards! If I were a man!"
+
+Although she was not, she felt the need of doing something, and was
+consumed with impatience at not being able to use her energies among the
+whistling bullets at the front. Finally, she found a means of being
+useful.
+
+She decided to leave for Paris. When every one who was able to run away
+from there was hastening to do so, she determined she would go and take
+up her residence in her former house, defying with her presence the
+cannon and aeroplanes of the enemy.
+
+Castro took the liberty timidly to suggest that this sacrifice would
+have no effect. The Colonel added, with his professional judgment, that
+it seemed to him foolish, but she was in no way disposed to modify her
+determination.
+
+The outcome of the war concerned her passionately, and she entered into
+the spirit of it with a nervous vehemence like that which disturbed her
+friendly relationships.
+
+"If the Allies shouldn't win, life for me would be impossible. How those
+miserable wretches would laugh! I would rather die."
+
+The miserable wretches were the friends she had formerly had before the
+war, people of various nationalities who, through pose or through
+personal interest, sympathized with the Germans. The "General" with a
+feeling of pride that inspired fear, really and sincerely wanted to die,
+rather than see triumphant those whom she had chosen as enemies.
+
+"If I were a man!" And Atilio, who sought every occasion to be near her
+in the Casino, or exaggerated the beauty of certain spots, in order to
+induce her to take walks with him there alone, hastened to flee at these
+words, in which he detected an insult.
+
+Later, on finding himself at Villa Sirena, his submission as a lover
+changed to hostility for the rest.
+
+He had discovered that he hated Novoa, or, rather, that logically he
+ought to hate him. Doña Clorinda was quarreling with Alicia, and the
+blue-stocking for whom the Professor felt such enthusiasm was the
+companion and protégée of the Duchess. For that reason he ought to be an
+enemy of Novoa. They were like two men who have never done each other
+any particular harm, but belong to two nations which are at war.
+
+Besides--and he would not have been willing to confess it--the air of
+satisfaction and triumph of the scholar caused him a certain envy. Novoa
+was never squelched nor treated with indifference, it was the woman who
+sought him, making an effort to flatter his tastes, pretending
+scientific interest in things which made no difference to her
+whatsoever: merely for the sake of keeping him under her sway. Happy
+man! And how disagreeable! As always happens when one is beginning to be
+disliked, Atilio discovered, almost daily, various sources of annoyance
+of which he told Toledo.
+
+His friend, the Professor, was trying to make fun of him, and he was not
+disposed to tolerate it. One day Atilio had to wait half an hour at the
+barber's. The Professor was in his chair and using _his_ manicure. Such
+nerve! He was doubtless trying to outshine him, and for that reason he
+even got his clothes from the same tailor in Nice. Another piece of
+insolence! Besides, he didn't know how to wear clothes. And he even
+suspected that, to please his fiancée and the latter's mistress, that
+book-worm was probably taking the liberty of saying mean things about a
+certain lady, and if he ever found it out!...
+
+But the Colonel paid no attention to such threats. The sad news from the
+war made the matters of daily life seem unimportant.
+
+The Germans were continuing to advance on Paris. Under the repeated
+blows of the enemy the retreat of the Allies seemed endless, and
+Toledo's hopes diminished from moment to moment. By this time, he was
+prepared for anything! The invaders had an overwhelming numerical
+superiority!
+
+He had only one hope left. If the aid promised by the United States were
+actually to materialize! Supposing it did not turn out to be a bluff, as
+many people thought! Now in his imagination, all he could see was
+America, its harbors filled with armed multitudes, and the blue surface
+of the ocean plowed by thousands of boats, bringing endless armies to
+land on European shores. And as weeks went by without his dreams being
+realized, he began to give advice to Wilson from the Groves of Villa
+Sirena, or from among the jasper columns of the ante-room of the Casino.
+
+"What is the man thinking of? Why don't they come? If they don't hurry,
+it will all be over before they arrive."
+
+War and discord made their appearance nearer at hand, within his own
+domains, causing him for a few hours to consider the general
+conflagration as a matter of secondary interest.
+
+He never knew for sure who started the row, but one night during dinner,
+he noticed that Castro and Novoa, with studied coolness, were exchanging
+words like sword thrusts. The Prince could not suspect any hostility
+between his two friends, since never in his presence did they depart
+from the usual forms of courtesy. Besides, occupied with his own
+thoughts, he did not realize that the Professor, stirred up, doubtless,
+by Atilio's animosity, had become somewhat quarrelsome. Novoa made a
+slight allusion to the war-like "General," who was talking about going
+to Paris, as though her presence there could have any effect on the war.
+Castro saw in this remark a reflection of the enmity of the Duchess.
+Doubtless, Valeria and Novoa had laughed together over Doña Clorinda's
+enthusiasm. And he turned against Alicia's protégée, calling her a
+penniless blue-stocking, who was always rubbing elbows with great ladies
+though she was only a servant herself! He could not understand
+sentimental love affairs with women of that class. He felt a temptation
+to attack the Duchess de Delille also, but, remembering that she was a
+relative of the Prince, he refrained.
+
+The two men sat there pale and silent, looking daggers at each other.
+
+The next day, Atilio, before leaving for the Casino, called Don Marcos
+aside. Perhaps he would soon have an affair of honor on his hands; and
+could he count on the Colonel as second?
+
+The Colonel drew up to his full height, with a grave frown. Several
+years had passed since he had performed that solemn function, for which
+he seemed to have been born. His last duel dated some eight years back:
+a meeting on the Italian frontier between two gentlemen who had
+exchanged blows over cheating at cards.
+
+His face became even more gloomy as he bowed in sign of consent, raising
+his hand to his breast. Since with Don Marcos every action carried with
+it proper details in dress, he felt that it was impossible to perform a
+certain act without the corresponding costume, and he suddenly
+remembered a certain frock coat, which had long been forgotten in his
+wardrobe, and which he called his "duelling uniform," a black garment,
+of Napoleonic cut, with long tails, which he brought to light whenever
+he was a second and, owing to his military name, was called upon to
+direct a combat.
+
+"I accept. One gentleman cannot refuse another gentleman such a favor."
+
+And he accepted with true thankfulness, thinking how proper it would be
+to take this suit, as solemn as death, from its prison among the
+moth-balls, and give it an airing.
+
+But that same afternoon Novoa came to look him up. The Professor spoke
+timidly, without the elegant indifference of Castro, and with a certain
+sense that he might be acting foolishly. Perhaps he would soon have an
+affair of honor on his hands.
+
+"Since I don't understand such matters, Colonel, you will be my second.
+I have studied along other lines; but when a lady is insulted and when I
+see a young defenseless girl trampled upon, I consider myself as much a
+man as the bravest."
+
+Don Marcos started. No, indeed! His eyes were open to the truth. He
+forgot about airing his frock coat; it might remain in its odorous tomb.
+And since the Professor was less to be feared than the other man, he let
+loose all his wrath on Novoa. Imagine fighting over mere nonsense, when
+millions of men were giving their blood for great ideals! and he, who
+had referred so frequently to his many experiences as a second as heroic
+actions, made a gesture of disgust, as though something offensive to his
+honor were being proposed to him.
+
+A few days later, Novoa spoke to the Prince, with the brevity that ill
+concealed his emotions. He was very thankful to the owner of Villa
+Sirena; he would never forget his pleasant life in that retreat, but it
+was necessary for him to return to his former lodgings. He had important
+work on hand which would not allow him to live far from Monaco; the
+director of the Museum was complaining of his absences.
+
+And he went away, to live in a poor house in the old city, renouncing
+all the comforts and luxury of the mansion in charge of the Colonel.
+
+In spite of such excuses, the Prince expressed his doubts to Toledo. He
+did not clearly understand this flight. Perhaps there were some other
+reasons which he could not guess.
+
+"Yes; perhaps there are," replied Don Marcos, with a knowing smile. "It
+must be a question of women."
+
+Michael nodded. Doubtless, it is on account of Valeria. Living in Monaco
+he felt himself freer to meet the girl.
+
+"Women!" the Prince exclaimed. "What a power they have over us!"
+
+"And what a mess they make of friendships among men!"
+
+Toledo's voice as he said this was as sad as the Prince's had been on
+enumerating to his friends the advantages of living away from women. On
+the other hand, Michael was now himself submitting to a woman's
+domination, and almost envied the scientist returning to his former
+modest life in order to meet the woman he loved more frequently.
+
+As for himself, Michael was less happy. Days went by without his being
+able to repeat his promenade with Alicia in the gardens of Monaco.
+
+"I love you!" she said. "You may believe that I haven't forgotten that
+afternoon. Later on we will take the same trip, but not now, I know how
+it would end. It is impossible for me.... I am thinking of my son."
+
+Michael had no doubt that this was true, but something more than worry
+over the absent one was at the time in her thoughts. She had abandoned
+herself once more to gambling with the money she had found in her house.
+The Prince even suspected that she had sold or pawned the pin with which
+he had repaired the tear in her dress. After giving her the Princess
+Lubimoff's pearl, he had not seen it again. Alicia seemed unmoved at the
+first splendor of Spring.
+
+"Some day we shall go there," she said, when he recalled to her the
+gardens of San Martino, "I promise you. But I must be free from worry, I
+must lose everything or win everything. I must make the most of my time.
+As you see, luck seems to be remembering me again."
+
+She was winning little, but she was winning, and this caused her to
+hope that that sudden burst of good luck which had stirred the Casino,
+would be repeated.
+
+In the evening she withdrew contented. She had three or four thousand
+francs more, but what did that amount to? She lamented the smallness of
+her capital. She wanted to play the "grand jeu" and win back all that
+she had lost. Winning thus little by little, she would never get
+anywhere. If she could only get together again the thirty thousand
+francs, which rose and fell, but always remained faithful!
+
+Michael remained in the Casino for hours at a time near her table,
+watching for a propitious occasion, without being able to obtain more
+than brief conversation when she was resting from the play, or taking
+tea in the bar of the private rooms.
+
+One morning he went to surprise her in her villa. It was ten o'clock. He
+met Valeria who had just put on her hat, and seemed annoyed at this
+visit. Perhaps she was going to Monaco, perhaps her man of Science was
+waiting for her in one of the side streets of Monte Carlo.
+
+"The Duchess has gone," she said, smiling, "she must be in the midst of
+her work."
+
+Among the gamblers the Casino was known as the "factory," and they
+really meant it, when they referred to their worry and scheming around
+the tables as their "work."
+
+Doubtless she had spent a large part of the night figuring, in order to
+be on hand at the Casino, at the opening hour, her eyes still heavy with
+sleep, and without paying any attention to her personal adornment, as
+though there were all too little time for carrying out some wonderful
+combination she had just discovered.
+
+Whenever he met her, the Prince, with a childish rather ill-concealed
+motive, alluded to her son's fate. It was only thus that he could rouse
+her from her preoccupations with gambling, which kept her constantly
+distracted, talking and smiling automatically, like a person walking in
+her sleep.
+
+One day, Lubimoff showed her various telegrams and letters from Madrid,
+Paris, and Berne. Kings and Ministers had taken up the task of finding
+out the fate of the aviator who had disappeared. A promise came over
+from Berlin, through the medium of a neutral nation, to look for the
+young man in every prison cantonment. They suspected that he might be
+confined in Poland, in a punishment camp.
+
+Alicia began at once ardently to measure time, as though the longed-for
+notice might arrive at any moment.
+
+"In Heaven's name, please, Michael! Write, telegraph this very day. Tell
+the gentlemen who have been so kind to send their answer directly to me.
+The telegram or letter might come to your Villa while you are away, and
+I would be hours and hours without knowing anything about it! No, have
+them write to me. Every day, when I go out, I tell my gardener that if
+there is a telegram he should bring it to me at the Casino. Imagine my
+impatience! Tell me you'll do this. Promise me you won't forget!"
+
+The one thing that the Prince was at all able to forget, while he was by
+Alicia's side, was his own personal business. His mind was entirely
+taken up with discovering the forgotten captive, on whom his happiness
+depended.
+
+"The day I learn for certain that he is alive!... you will see then how
+different I am. I shan't bore you with my troubles: you will find a
+different woman."
+
+And as a matter of fact, her smile and her glances, full of promises,
+caused him to see in her once more the Alicia who had walked beside him
+on the path along the seashore, with her lips pressed closely to his in
+an endless kiss.
+
+When he found himself alone, he was assailed by his own troubles and
+worries. He had received news from Russia through various fugitives who
+had just been freed from the persecution of the Revolution. The men who
+formerly administered his estate there had been murdered. The Lubimoff
+palace was being used as the headquarters of a Bolshevist Committee. His
+mines were national property, although no one was working them; his land
+had been divided; various persons of obscure origin, former old clothes
+dealers and liquor merchants, had become the owners of his houses, no
+one knew how. And at the same time that he received this news, which
+made his future so uncertain, he learned other details which embittered
+his pleasantest memories. A great lady of the Court, with whom he had
+had a love affair, the memory of which he cherished, was now selling
+newspapers on the sidewalks; another very elegant lady, who had set all
+the fashions in Saint Petersburg, was sweeping snow on the streets of
+Petrograd, and had lost several fingers by freezing. He could count by
+the dozen friends of his who had been killed; some of them shot with
+revolvers like rats, in the depths of some dungeon, others executed by
+firing squads. Several had perished of hunger, just as years before
+those of the lower classes, who now were taking revenge, had died.
+
+All these horrors aroused his selfish instincts, causing him to take
+fresh delight in his own situation. The world had been plunged into a
+bloody madness. East and west men were rushing about like wild beasts,
+while he remained quietly beside the most smiling of seas, with love and
+desire filling his life, which had been so empty before, and awakening
+anew the ardor and enthusiasm of youth. At the very hour when thousands
+of human beings were dying in crowds, and the whole villages were being
+swept from the surface of the earth, he was living under the sway of a
+woman, and finding his servitude very sweet.
+
+One afternoon, in the bar of the private room, Alicia spoke to him with
+an air of resolution. She must play big stakes. She was tired of
+"working" on small capital, and gaining small returns. Besides, she
+scorned the Casino with its limited bets, its roulette and _trente et
+quarante_, almost mechanical games in which you cannot see the banker
+sitting opposite, but instead mere employees.
+
+"All that gives you the impression of struggling with a formidable
+machine, that functions monotonously, with no imagination, no soul. I
+must play _baccarat_."
+
+She had gotten her thirty thousand francs together once more: either
+enormous winnings or nothing! She preferred to lose everything and end
+it once for all at a single stroke.
+
+"To-night in the Sporting Club. Don't say no: I need you. I have a
+feeling that this is going to be the decisive night for me--and perhaps
+for you. Sit opposite me so that I can see you. Remember that on the
+lucky afternoons you were near me. You will bring me luck. Don't shake
+your head; you will bring me luck, I tell you."
+
+And she said it with such conviction, that Michael could no longer
+withhold his consent.
+
+"Come, you will gain by it: I promise you. You will gain by it, no
+matter what the result. If they clean me out, to-morrow we will go for a
+walk in the Monaco Gardens, as we did before. And if I win--if I
+win,--all you want!..."
+
+She did not need to say any more. The look in her eye and her smile
+filled Michael with enthusiasm. He would see her at the Club.
+
+That night, Castro and Toledo were surprised at seeing the Prince sit
+down at the table dressed, like themselves, in a Tuxedo.
+
+"The Boss isn't staying home," said Atilio to the Colonel. "He too is
+going to the opera."
+
+He went to the Casino theater, to while away the time until midnight. He
+would not have been able to tell for a certainty with whom he talked
+during the intermission, nor with whom he shook hands. He was obliged to
+make an effort several times to recall the name and composer of the
+opera. The music made no difference to him. It was a lulling sound which
+rocked his thoughts to sleep, calming his emotion--an emotion made up of
+hope and of fear.
+
+During the first act, he wanted Alicia to lose everything, absolutely
+everything, thus she would be his more completely, depending absolutely
+on him, in sweet bondage. Later, during the following act he thought of
+Alicia's despair after such a loss. She was full of temperament, and she
+felt the pride of an artist in her play. Perhaps more than the lost
+money, she would lament her personal defeat. No, it was better that she
+should win. But how long the music was lasting! How slowly his watch
+seemed to go! After eleven, when the lobby was lighted and the crowd was
+leaving the opera, Michael got into an elevator, which took him down
+into the bowels of the earth, and then he followed a subterranean
+passageway, the multi-colored stucco walls of which brilliantly
+reflected the electric lights. He was walking along under the square
+front of the Casino, where at that moment many carriages were passing
+back and forth. Another elevator took him up to a large room filled with
+columns. It was the great hall of the Hôtel de Paris. He saw women in
+evening gowns and gentlemen dressed in Tuxedos, the usual crowd of
+fashionable hotel people who put on uniforms for dinner, and then sit
+around in deep armchairs, to digest what they have eaten, looking at one
+another without talking, or else conversing in low tones, as though they
+were in church, until they are overcome by sleep.
+
+He bowed distantly to various friends who arose, on seeing him, to begin
+a conversation. He pretended not to see certain ladies who smiled at
+him, motioning with their heads to call him. He entered another
+elevator, and descended once more underground. He found himself in a
+curving passageway, the walls of which were decorated with Pompeian
+paintings. It extended under two hotels and their gardens. Once more he
+entered an elevator, which brought him above the surface of the ground.
+He opened a glass door. An old lackey, in a blue livery, with knee
+breeches and white stockings, bowed, somewhat surprised at recognizing,
+after a moment's hesitation, Prince Lubimoff. He was in the Sporting
+Club.
+
+He had not entered it for years, since before the war. He was not a
+gambler, and it was only because he had been interested in certain women
+that he had spent his nights amid elegant society in that place which,
+like many others of the same class, was merely a gambling den.
+
+The drawing rooms were too small, after midnight; one walked along
+stepping on the trains of women's gowns. One had to be very dextrous to
+slip through between the various groups. Every one was smoking, the
+women more than the men, and the atmosphere grew thicker and thicker
+with tobacco smoke and the perfumes of the boudoir. The wealthy people
+scorned the crowds at the Casino, considering it a sign of distinction
+to be packed in together in this club. They gambled with their own set,
+considering themselves safe from bad neighbors at the tables, and from
+contact with suspicious characters who were so frequent in the public
+rooms. To get in here, it was necessary to give guarantees; some one
+must vouch for the honor of a person before he could be presented.
+
+The Prince was well acquainted with this brilliant gathering. Here one
+might meet people of royal blood, heirs to thrones, who were passing
+through the Riviera, famous bankers, millionaires from all parts of the
+world, women celebrated for their nobility, their beauty, or their
+jewels, and many famous and aged _cocottes_ and a few, young and fresh
+looking, who were anxious to grow old as soon as possible, as though
+that were a means of attaining celebrity. They had all appeared on the
+stage, at one time or another, in a trained-rabbit act, perhaps, or in
+some wretched dance, or with a song which they sang in spite of the fact
+that they had no voices. They were admitted to the Club under the rather
+vague classification of "artists."
+
+Michael came forward through the atmosphere warm from the crowds and
+heavy with fading perfumes. He still had to watch where he stepped this
+time as he had done on his visit here before. Now, to be sure, women's
+skirts were very short, and their legs were shown uncovered, with a
+placid lack of shame. The war was shortening their skirts, as though the
+women, obliged to run in the open field, had taken as a model the
+ancient Vivandière. But almost all of them, in order not to break
+completely with a majestic tradition, had added to their stylish
+overskirts, a sharp and narrow tail, tongue-shaped, which dragged far
+behind as they walked.
+
+A lady came forward to meet Lubimoff, and it was a moment before he
+recognized her. It had been so many years since he had seen Alicia in
+evening dress! Her gown dated back to pre-war times, but was of rich
+material and the Duchess wore it with the same smartness as in the days
+of her wealth. The long pearl necklace gained an air of genuineness on
+her person, as did her other ornaments. It was evident that she had made
+extraordinary efforts to present a proper appearance on her visit to the
+Club.
+
+She came here seldom, the crowd composed of former friends talked too
+much, disturbing her in her gambling calculations. She preferred the
+Casino, with its large rooms and its motley crowd, talking in various
+languages. She was a proletarian in the matter of gambling: she had a
+superstition that fortune prefers to come where its devotees gather in
+large bands. Her intuition that she would be lucky at _baccarat_, a game
+to be found only here, had persuaded her to abandon her usual custom for
+this one night.
+
+The Prince complimented her on her lovely appearance, her dress, her
+pearls....
+
+"False, scandalously false, my dear," she said, laughing and looking
+about her. "But you know very well that the majority of those worn by
+the other women are no better. Ah, pearls! If all that shine in the
+world were brought together, the sea would not be large enough to have
+produced a tenth part."
+
+She led the Prince toward the bar. She had a favor to ask of him. At
+midnight the game of _baccarat_ commenced: she had asked for "the bank,"
+but the rules of the Club prevented her from getting it. Alas for women!
+Even in gambling they were condemned to a position of degrading
+inferiority. Lost in the common crowd of "ponteurs" they might lose a
+fortune, but they were forbidden ever to hold the bank. The directors of
+this Club and other similar ones doubtless feared that women were more
+given to cheating than men. She, the Duchess de Delille, could not be
+the equal of a Greek sailor, who dealt every evening with unheard-of
+luck, causing the crowd to feel suspicious and think evil thoughts.
+
+"They insist that I get a man to deal for me. He must appear as my
+banker, although every one knows that the capital is mine. I thought
+that you might do me this favor. I like to think of our going together
+into this business which means life or death to me! Besides, I am sure
+of success if you deal. And what an event! How they would bet! Prince
+Lubimoff playing the banker!"
+
+But she did not continue. Michael interrupted her with a decisive
+gesture of refusal. It made no difference what she said. He was
+indignant at the very idea that people should see him seated at the
+green table, playing with money that did not belong to him, and having
+Alicia at his back. Besides, he was sure of losing.
+
+The Duchess hastily left him. Time was flying, and any minute they might
+give out the bank. She believed once more in her good star as she saw a
+young man timidly slipping through the crowd.
+
+"Spadoni! Spadoni!"
+
+The pianist grew pale on hearing her. "Oh, Duchess!" He trembled and
+stammered with emotion. _He_ dealing in the _Sporting-Club_ before an
+elegant opera night crowd, handling thousands of francs, with all eyes
+fixed on him! It was the crowning moment of his career; after that he
+could die happy.
+
+Two players had asked for the bank, the famous Greek and a manufacturer
+from Paris, who had gotten fabulously rich making munitions. Spadoni
+also presented himself, carrying in a purse the fifteen thousand francs
+which were necessary in order to take charge of the bank. Lots were to
+be drawn among the three petitioners. An employee of the Club took a
+wicker basket that held ten numbered balls and after shaking it, threw
+out three on the table: one for each. Alicia mingling with them with
+masculine familiarity, almost clapped her hands with joy. Luck had
+favored Spadoni, the bank was his. But the pianist, respectful of the
+privileges due to genius, showed his sense of profound humility in
+smiles and expressions of face and eyes that seemed to beg pardon of the
+Greek, his rival.
+
+The Greek was a stout man with a figure that almost formed a square,
+with a dark shiny complexion, black mustache and eyes that were somewhat
+slanting, and had a fixed aggressive look, suggesting those of a wild
+boar. His ancestors had been pirates in the Archipelago, and he, finding
+this heroic career cut off, had become a smuggler in his youth. Spadoni,
+somewhat intimidated by the majesty of the great man, stammered excuses
+with his eyes fixed on the Greek's shining shirt-bosom, adorned with
+pearls, and his gray silk vest that covered a heavy paunch. But the
+Greek replied, with an ill-humored grunt, walking away after favoring
+the Duchess with a bow like one of those he had seen on the stage.
+Although he scarcely knew how to read, the Greek was posted on the
+proper way of treating a lady who declares war.
+
+It was twelve o'clock. The gambling stopped at the roulette wheels and
+the _trente et quarante_ tables. The crowd was gathering in the baccarat
+room. The news had gone around: The pianist Spadoni, considered by every
+one as a pleasing parasite, was going to occupy the place that had been
+held on former evenings by the Greek, but in reality the bank belonged
+to the Duchess de Delille.
+
+A triple row of people formed around the table, jamming together to get
+a better view over adjoining shoulders.
+
+Spadoni smiled, but finally the ironic curiosity fixed on his person
+began to make him nervous. Many of those who were gazing on him were
+important personages and had always inspired him with deep respect.
+Fortunately, he felt the Duchess at his back, seated there with an air
+of ownership, and watching him with a look of authority. If he made any
+mistake, the great lady was capable of striking him.... Courage and
+forward march! The _croupier_, sitting opposite to collect and pay the
+bets, was shuffling the cards, before putting them in a small double
+box, from which the banker was to draw them. Poor banker! The crowd,
+considering his elevation something quite extraordinary, was ready to
+laugh no matter what happened. As he sat down in the presidential chair,
+the onlookers considered the pianist's embarrassment very amusing, and
+an unrestrained laughter greeted his appearance in the seat of
+authority. He asked the _croupier_ a question in a low voice, and the
+same explosion of merriment was repeated. The women were the most
+demonstrative as they thought their ridicule might pass over Spadoni's
+head, and reach the woman who had placed him there. The musician's look
+of surprise at this unexplainable hilarity only served to prolong it to
+the point of a general uproar. They all laughed contagiously on seeing
+his comical inability to understand the situation. But a rough voice put
+an end to the merriment.
+
+"Bank!"
+
+It was the Greek. He had seated himself on Spadoni's right, with the
+angry look of a person who is conscious of an enormous injustice and
+feels it is necessary to remedy it. He could not tolerate the fact that
+this grotesque person should occupy the same place in which he had been
+admired every evening. Neither did he consider it admissible that a
+woman should mix in affairs that belong entirely to men. He had the same
+scandalized and astonished feeling of a person witnessing some
+disarrangement in the rhythmic order of Nature. The world was upside
+down: apprentices were trying to be masters; class distinctions were not
+being respected, such nonsense must be stopped once for all. "Cards!"
+
+The Prince trembled. Alicia's fifteen thousand francs were in danger.
+That man was going to prevent the bank from continuing. If the Greek
+were to win, the entire capital bet by Alicia would vanish; if he lost,
+her money would be doubled. But he was sure to win. When a man as lucky
+as he dared do that!...
+
+Spadoni was overwhelmed on hearing the great man's voice. Instinctively
+he turned his eyes in the direction of the Duchess, but withdrew them at
+once, still more overwhelmed by her motionless features and the hard
+look that seemed to strike his shoulder, as though he were to blame.
+
+The double box, quite ready, was awaiting his reach. He dealt cards to
+the right and left, and then drew his own.
+
+The Greek showed his cards, throwing them down on the board. "Eight." A
+murmur of approval arose around the table. The admirers of his good luck
+rejoiced as though it were a triumph of their own. From the opposite
+side he took cards which the _croupier_ offered him, and showed them
+after a previous rapid examination of them. The murmur was now one of
+amazement. Eight again! He was going to win. It was almost impossible
+for the banker to make a higher point than that.
+
+Spadoni, pale, his brow glazed with sweat, turned his cards over. The
+public greeted them with a suppressed exclamation: "Nine!"
+
+The very ones who had laughed at him, considered this result quite
+natural. "Luck always protects the simple-minded."
+
+And as the Greek handed over the fifteen thousand francs to the
+_croupier_, who acted as a depository for the bank, the pianist bowed
+modestly. A few superstitious gamblers considered that the Duchess had
+showed excellent judgment in confiding her fate to this simple fellow.
+
+Alicia's eyes sought Michael in the triple oval of heads. She smiled at
+him slightly. Her features had lost the hard, fixed look with which she
+had faced the exciting moment. She felt entirely sure of her triumph.
+And anxious to amaze the onlookers by her imperturbable calm, she took a
+golden cigarette case and an ivory mouthpiece from her purse and began
+to smoke.
+
+The pianist, after this first moment of success, played with a certain
+assurance. The Duchess, sitting motionless at his back, seemed to
+communicate her confidence to him. He dealt several times successfully,
+and as the money in the bank was considerably increased, the cupidity of
+the gamblers was aroused. Those who laughed at Spadoni's clumsiness, now
+frowned with aggressive interest, taking part in the playing. Thus as
+the capital increased, the stakes grew higher. Every one felt there was
+going to be a great and exciting game. The banker had forgotten the
+Duchess and his own humbleness. He imagined that what he was winning was
+his own; he believed he had discovered the secret mentioned by Novoa,
+which was going to win those fabulous sums, on which his imagination had
+played so often as he wrote dozens and dozens of zeros on a piece of
+paper. What a night! And to think that his friend, the scientist, was
+not there to witness his triumph!
+
+Lubimoff withdrew from the table. It hurt him to see Alicia's forced
+serenity, and her manner of smoking while she watched the progress of
+the gambling with feline eyes. Luck was going to change any moment. This
+mad continual winning could not go on. The Greek was making an effort to
+hide his anger, playing and losing like an ordinary bettor. He could
+not call "bank" until a second deal began after all the cards in the
+double box were exhausted. But he stuck to his original bet with the
+tenacity of a bull dog, convinced that sooner or later he would succeed
+in getting the better of this mockery of chance. He had more money than
+Alicia and her representative, he would be able to hold out against
+fate, and in the end could beat them.
+
+The Prince went to the bar, passing the time by sipping two American
+mixed drinks, which were sweet and bitter at the same time, and heavy
+with alcohol. He wanted to become slightly intoxicated, in order to feel
+himself on the same level with the woman who was appealing so
+desperately to luck.
+
+He found himself alone. The entire Club was huddled together in the
+_baccarat_ room. Michael lamented the fact that Castro was not at the
+Sporting-Club. They would have been able to chat together as they had
+the afternoon that Alicia succeeded for the first time in clutching the
+golden wings of the Chimera. Perhaps his absence was due to an order
+from the "General". He himself had come there dragged by a woman!
+
+A dull murmur came from the gambling room. Shortly afterwards he saw a
+few of the onlookers entering the café, and standing at the bar to
+drink. They were talking in tones of wonder and amazement. Hearing the
+name of the Greek repeated several times, Michael listened. The former
+had shouted "bank" at the beginning of a new hand, when the bank
+contained a hundred and forty thousand francs. No one but that lucky
+fellow was capable of such daring. He drew eight, but the pianist
+immediately showed his cards. Nine once more. And the _croupier_ had
+swept the Greek's one hundred and forty thousand into the bank. What a
+night! And to think that that fool of a Spadoni was the man who was
+doing such wonders!
+
+A few women passed the door of the bar with an ill-humored air,
+gesticulating among themselves. They appeared scandalized and annoyed by
+the Duchess de Delille's good fortune, in spite of the fact that none of
+them had lost a cent in the play. Such luck was unnatural; there must
+have been some cheating. They could not say in what the cheating
+consisted, but it existed undoubtedly.
+
+Later they saw the Greek, followed by two admirers. His face was
+sweating, his shirt-bosom wrinkled, and his vest had worked up, showing
+his shirt between the gray silk points and his belt. He was shrugging
+his shoulders scornfully. The world was upside down: there was no such
+thing as logic any more. That was why the war was going so badly!
+
+And the Greek walked away in the direction of the subterranean passage,
+to return to the Hôtel de Paris. He did not care to see any more of it:
+it was a night for lunatics!
+
+Neither did the Prince care to be a witness, and he remained in his
+armchair, asking for another cocktail. In front of the door he could see
+passing those whom another's good luck had embittered, and were fleeing,
+and those who were arriving, attracted by the news of the event.
+
+He remained alone, like a spectator who stays in the lobby of a theater
+and listens to the far-off pulsing thrills of the audience. Long
+intervals of silence passed. Later, there was a murmur, a sigh from the
+crowd, a buzz of exclamations circulating in low tones. Was Alicia still
+winning? Or was he going to see her appear like the Greek, shrugging her
+shoulders at the absurdity of fate?
+
+He asked for still another glass; and gazing at the spirals of smoke
+from his cigar, he was falling asleep. Suddenly he sat up, imagining he
+had received a sharp blow on his shoulders. It was a mere illusion! He
+was alone. Gazing about him, he noticed the clock. It was two. He stood
+up and slowly walked toward the _baccarat_ room.
+
+The crowd had thinned out, but all those who had remained were taking a
+hand in the play. The enormous sum amassed by the Bank was a temptation.
+No need to fear that the winners would not be paid! Even the mere
+spectators who spend the night on their feet, sharing other people's
+emotion, were risking their money _louis_ by _louis_, hoping that this
+burst of luck which wholly favored the bank, would change in favor of
+the crowd.
+
+The first thing that Michael saw was an enormous heap of thousand franc
+notes, five thousand franc chips, and chips and bills of various
+amounts. It was a fortune. Then he noticed Alicia, sitting motionless in
+her seat, just as he had left her, with the expressionless face of a
+caryatid. Her eyes merely looked mechanically back and forth from that
+heap of wealth to the hands of the banker. She was smoking, smoking. On
+a tray which a lackey had placed reverently beside the victorious woman
+there was a pile of gold-tipped cigarette butts.
+
+She seemed stupefied by her success, by the monotony of her constant
+luck.
+
+The pianist was beginning to display a certain somnolence in his looks
+and in his voice. Mere winning seemed something insipid to him, after
+the flight of that admirable Greek. Similarly other famous gamblers had
+disappeared, as though not caring to authenticate by their presence such
+an absurd run of luck. The only real competitors were some English
+people from Beaulieu, whose automobiles were waiting below. This
+extraordinary game interested them, as though it were some unusual
+sport; they were anxious to fight against the Bank's good luck, with
+British tenacity, merely for the pleasure of overcoming it. The women,
+bony and distinguished looking, with very low necks and long trails to
+their gowns, ejaculated "oh!" in amazement, each time the _croupier_
+with his rake carried off their heavy bets, while the men drew from
+inner pockets of their Tuxedos, new handfuls of bills, greeting their
+defeat with metallic laughter.
+
+In one blow Spadoni lost twenty thousand francs. Lubimoff had the fatal
+presentiment of a sailor who feels beneath his feet the shudder of the
+ship about to be torn open, of the soldier who feels instinctively the
+beginning of his rout.
+
+Another blow; and the bank lost again.
+
+Michael cautiously drew near the chair occupied by Alicia.
+
+"It is two o'clock. It is time to go home," he murmured, whispering his
+words into her hair as he bent over her. "You are going to have a run of
+bad luck: I can feel it coming. Tell Spadoni to get up."
+
+She raised her eyes and looked at him in surprise. She seemed
+intoxicated, unable to make out what he was saying, and showed her
+refusal by a slight shake of her head. She had faith in her own luck.
+
+Fortune saw to it that her confidence was justified. The banker was
+winning again, carrying off all the sums placed on both sides of the
+table. But this did not convince the Prince. He continued to feel
+afraid, and his worry made him brutal.
+
+He went over and stood at Spadoni's back, in order to drop a word to him
+discreetly, while looking in another direction. "You ought to stop at
+once. Call the game off. It's long after closing time anyhow."
+
+The banker turned his face and looked up at him in order to see what
+sage was dropping these words of wisdom from on high. "Oh, your
+Highness!" This discovery was accompanied by a proud smile, evincing
+satisfaction that Prince Lubimoff should have witnessed the greatest
+deed of his life.
+
+And he went on dealing.
+
+Michael grew angry. This idiot, overwhelmed by his triumph, did not
+understand him, and if he did understand him, he was refusing to obey.
+The voice of the Prince, falling with a slow tremor, reached the ears of
+the man below. "Spadoni, you incredible fool of a pianist"--here two or
+three oaths in various languages.--If Spadoni did not obey him at once
+he would jerk him out of the chair with a thud, and give him a kick that
+would send him flying through the windows!
+
+"The last deal!" said the banker.
+
+And when he stopped dealing, many of the spectators breathed freely,
+satisfied and relieved by the end of a game that seemed to have been
+under an evil spell. Others gazed with astonishment and envy at the
+enormous heap of money in the bank, as the _croupier_ put it in order,
+forming bundles of bills, and straightening the various colored chips in
+columns.
+
+The sum ran from mouth to mouth: four hundred and ninety-four thousand
+francs! A little more and it would have been half a million. Rarely had
+such a rapid winning been seen.
+
+Spadoni, as though he were the master of these riches, was putting them
+into a little wicker basket. He was trembling with emotion. He was going
+to walk through the crowd of onlookers carrying this treasure, just as
+on former nights he had seen his hero pass, with the air of a conqueror.
+In comparison with this what did he care for the applause he had
+received as a pianist!
+
+But eager hands snatched the basket from him.
+
+"No! let me! let me!" It was the Duchess; it was no longer necessary any
+more for her to claim indifference. That money was hers. She had become
+transfigured by coming out of her eager trance-like silence. Her eyes
+were shining with a triumphant gleam, her brow was pearled with sweat,
+her cheeks, which were intensely pale, quivered. Carrying the basket,
+with her arms held out before her, she slowly passed among the groups,
+with priestly majesty, walking in the direction of the cashier's cage.
+
+Spadoni remained beside the Prince. He, too, was perspiring, and his
+features were pale with emotion.
+
+"What a night, Your Highness! What a night!"
+
+He looked proudly at every one, but smiled humbly at the owner of Villa
+Sirena. He must make the Prince forget his refusal of moments before,
+and the terrible threats which had been visited upon it.
+
+A moment later Alicia returned to them, carrying a paper in her
+hand-bag.
+
+The pianist's enthusiasm overflowed.
+
+"Oh, Duchess! Divine Duchess!"
+
+He kissed one of her bare arms, then a shoulder. Alicia smiled at this
+public homage. The poor pianist, no matter what he might do, could not
+compromise her.
+
+"Thanks, Spadoni, you may count on my gratitude. Go ahead and decide
+what you want, a house, a yacht, or perhaps a piano with golden keys."
+
+Michael listened in amazement. She was speaking in all sincerity: as
+though her fortune had turned her mind.
+
+But the pianist left them. He felt he must be alone. By the Duchess'
+side he was obliged to share his glory, contenting himself with but a
+fragment of it. And he went off to join the English people from
+Beaulieu, who, proclaiming him the most interesting phenomenon they had
+met in all their travels, were anxious to meet and share a bottle of
+champagne with him.
+
+Alicia and the Prince walked toward the cloak room.
+
+"I have deposited my winnings with the cashier of the Club," she said,
+showing him the receipt. "I am not going to carry so much money home at
+night. To-morrow I shall come to take it to the bank. I need some one to
+accompany me. Send me the Colonel: he is a fighter and must have a
+revolver."
+
+Then, remembering something important, her features took on a grave
+look.
+
+"I need not say that to-morrow we will straighten our account. Don't
+think I have forgotten what I owe you: the twenty thousand francs from
+the other day, and your mother's three hundred thousand. It will all be
+paid."
+
+Michael showed the astonishment which this promise caused him by a
+prolonged laugh. Really, her winning had affected her brain. A piano
+with golden keys for the other man, and now hundreds of thousands of
+francs for him. The fortune recently acquired in two hours seemed to her
+as extraordinary and limitless as her good luck itself had been.
+
+"What I want," he added, in a low tone, ceasing to laugh, "what I want
+from you, you know very well."
+
+She stopped him with a caressing look and a discreet whisper which was
+equivalent to a promise.
+
+They descended the large stairway in the Club, and were standing in the
+vestibule, she wrapped in a silk cape embroidered with gold and adorned
+with rich furs, which recalled her evenings after the opera in Paris;
+he, with his overcoat open and a soft silk-lined hat on his head.
+
+The employees in the vestibule, informed of what had happened in the
+gambling rooms, hurried to the glass door in a hope of a handsome tip.
+"A carriage for the Duchess!"
+
+But she wanted to walk in the silence of the night. She was numbed from
+remaining motionless so long, and felt the need, like every one who
+feels happy, of prolonging the joy of her triumph by a long walk.
+
+She descended the outer stairway leaning on Michael's arm. They passed
+between the drivers and the few chauffeurs who were standing about in
+groups, waiting for the owners of their machines, or for possible
+patrons.
+
+They went down into the cool night air, with their eyes still tired,
+from the splendor of the illumination, their skins hot from the heavy
+atmosphere of the gaming rooms. They both noticed that it was a
+moonlight night, with a sad, waning moon that was beginning to drop
+behind the dark barrier of the Alps. The submarine menace kept the city
+in darkness. At long intervals, pale lamps, the glass of which was
+painted blue, cast above themselves a narrow circle of funereal light.
+
+After a few steps, they grew accustomed to the darkness. In the street
+the ground was divided into two bands, one a pale, dim white reflected
+from the dying moon, the other dark, with the heavy black shade of
+ebony. Instinctively, they walked along the dark sidewalk, as though
+afraid of being seen. They wound along through a curving, sloping
+street, the same that made its way underground by the Pompeian corridor
+and which the Prince had taken a few hours before.
+
+At their backs they could still hear the conversations of the drivers
+hidden by a turn in the street, the voices of the Club servants calling
+by the owners' names for the carriages; the stamping of the horses,
+shaking off sleep as they waited, and the first humming of the motors
+that began once more to function. Michael, who was walking along in
+silence, with a desire to get away from there as soon as possible and
+seek absolute solitude, on seeing her pause, was obliged to stop. She
+had anticipated his thoughts: she did not care to go any farther.
+
+"I must reward you!" she murmured. "I told you that at any event you
+would gain by coming, even though I should lose. There ... there."
+
+Her bare arms, freeing themselves from the silken cape, closed about his
+shoulders, forming a tight ring; submissively her mouth sought his,
+humbly abandoning itself, with a desire of giving happiness.
+
+At the end of the street a sudden illumination flared up, making the
+scene stand out against the shadows, like a flash of lightning. It was
+the searchlight of an automobile. She did not move, she was not afraid
+of being surprised: people were mere phantoms, without any reality
+whatsoever. Nothing existed in the world at that moment save themselves
+and the heap of paper bills, and pieces of ivory guarded in the steel
+vault.
+
+All his life Michael remembered that night. The clocks were doubtless
+mad, turning like his head, which seemed in a whirl, following the
+rhythm of sweet music. He had a feeling that they passed the same place
+several times, going back and forth as they walked, without knowing what
+they were doing. What difference did it make? The important thing was
+that they were together. There was a moment in which they both seemed to
+awaken, finding themselves seated on a bench, in the Casino Square. The
+Prince was sure of it. He had looked at the clock on the façade. It was
+three o'clock! It seemed impossible, he firmly believed that only a few
+minutes had passed since they left the Club. And they were obliged to
+walk away, annoyed by the curiosity of a civilian who was doing police
+duty in war time, a member of the Prince's militia in citizen's clothes,
+with a colored band on his arm and a revolver at his belt.
+
+Once more they walked through the deserted streets or along the public
+gardens, closed at that hour. Her body was thrown back, with her cape
+open, she was hanging limp upon his arm which was thrown about her
+waist, and she offered a tensely drawn throat and an upturned face to a
+rain of kisses. She looked up at her companion, with eyes dreamy with
+love. Her caresses rose slowly and voluptuously in a crescendo, as sea
+flowers and stars arise from the blue depths in search of light.
+
+Replying to the mute appeal of the eyes that were imploring from above,
+she murmured several times, in a faraway voice, as though talking in a
+dream:
+
+"Yes, all you wish ... all you wish!"
+
+More aggressive in his passion, he buried his free arm in the warm
+circle of her cape, drawing her closer to him.
+
+They walked along in a wavering course, imagining they were going in a
+straight line; in certain spots they both stopped at the same time,
+without knowing why. Their loitering caused a commotion in the villas.
+The gardeners' dogs howled furiously at these intruders, thrusting their
+noses against the iron gates. This howling sounded to the lovers like
+barbaric but agreeable music, feeling benevolently toward everything
+that surrounded them, they imagined themselves the lords of creation,
+just as at that moment they were masters of the night. Nothing save
+themselves existed in the world.
+
+Michael, obeying an obscure impulse he did not understand, spoke to her
+of her son. She would recover him at any moment now, and her happiness
+would be complete.... Immediately he repented having awakened this
+memory, which might break the enchantment in which they were living. But
+she showed no emotion.
+
+"Yes, I will recover him," she murmured. "I am sure of it. My good luck
+will not forsake me. It was time, after suffering so long."
+
+And once more she abandoned herself to the present moment. They were
+both surprised to find themselves in the street where Villa Rosa was
+located. After wandering about at random, instinctively they had finally
+come there.
+
+The Prince, emboldened by the long walk filled with kisses and
+abandonment, became urgent.
+
+"Let me come in," he murmured. "No one will see me.... I will go away
+before the break of dawn."
+
+Alicia stopped short as though suddenly awakening. It was her first
+gesture of refusal during the entire night. The gardener was surely
+waiting, perhaps Valeria had not yet gone to sleep. "Oh, no!"
+
+Lubimoff, in desperation, spoke of their walking together to Villa
+Sirena.
+
+"So far!" continued Alicia, growing calmer at every moment, as though
+she were entirely awakened. "Besides, that place is a barracks; a house
+full of men. And that Castro who tells everything to the 'General'! No,
+no, I shall never go there. What madness!"
+
+Michael's look of sadness, his gesture of dismay, touched her. She
+passed her hand over his features with a motherly caress.
+
+"My poor boy: Don't look like that, be patient awhile. To-morrow; I
+promise you that it will be to-morrow."
+
+She, who in former times had dared the most atrocious scandal with
+tranquil lack of shame, hesitated and stammered as she spoke of the next
+day. She seemed like a young girl struggling between love and a fear of
+compromising her future in society.
+
+To-morrow! To-morrow he might come at three in the afternoon.... No, not
+at three; four o'clock was better. Valeria surely would have gone out by
+that time. She would send her maid to Nice to do some shopping; the
+gardener and his wife would be busy outside the house.
+
+"But in Heaven's name, be careful! If you can manage so that the
+neighbors don't see you, it will be much better."
+
+And the famous Prince Lubimoff visibly moved, like a boy planning his
+initiation into love, and prematurely stirred by its mysteries, assented
+to this counsel.
+
+He insisted, in spite of her protests, on going with her to the gate of
+the Villa.
+
+"If you were any one else, all right! It is quite natural that a friend
+should accompany me at such an hour; but you!... I am afraid that every
+one will guess our secret."
+
+It was not until the gate was closed and Alicia's adorable figure was
+lost in the darkness, that the Prince could decide to go away.
+
+He was obliged to walk the long distance to Villa Sirena, and
+nevertheless the road seemed short to him. Memories and promises
+accompanied him. His step had never been lighter, he seemed to be
+advancing through air in which the laws of gravitation had been
+lessened, on a planet wrapped in a perpetual night of springtime, in
+which the air, the dim trees and the objects lost in the darkness about
+him, vibrated with a poetic rhythm.
+
+His sleep was restless, but he arose serene and in high spirits. He
+remembered the errand Alicia had asked him to do. She needed a warrior,
+with a revolver if possible, to escort her in transferring her fortune
+from the Club vaults to the bank. The Colonel, deeply impressed at her
+stroke of luck, went out to perform this task. "Poor Duchess! In the end
+God always protects the good."
+
+Michael spent the entire morning attending to his personal adornment.
+His attempts at leading a simple, country life in retirement at Villa
+Sirena had not made him forget the hygienic care to which he was
+accustomed since his childhood. But now it was a question of something
+more; he wanted to make himself look well, and heighten with exquisite
+and intimate attentions the individuality of his physique, which he
+suddenly felt had been rather roughly treated by time.
+
+He had his old valet go over the wardrobe he had acquired in former
+days. He remembered certain under-garments that had merited women's
+praise. He was as desirous for novelty and seductiveness as a woman
+dressing for a long-awaited rendezvous. Besides, he chose a suit that he
+had never worn before in Monte Carlo, a new hat, and a modest tie. He
+recalled her apprehension, and her request that he should enter unseen.
+
+As he was doing all this, a sinking feeling, of lack of confidence in
+himself, began to assail him. It was the feeling of uneasiness like that
+of a student before examination, like that of a dramatist watching from
+the wings for the fate of his play, like that of a man about to fight a
+duel. He had spent so many weeks desiring without avail! He had
+renounced love so long ago! And the thought of Alicia aroused in him
+both eagerness and terror.
+
+The Colonel returned about noon. He had performed his duties. He told
+the news with modest brevity, as though he had just accomplished
+something very important. Michael almost envied him, because he had seen
+Alicia. "How is she?"
+
+"Beautiful, as beautiful as ever. Somewhat pale, as was natural after
+such an excitement as that of last night! But gay, very happy, talking
+constantly about the Marquis. It is easy to guess that she feels a
+strong affection for him."
+
+They had lunch alone. Spadoni was going out in society, after his
+triumph. Perhaps he was in Beaulieu with his new friends, the
+Englishmen. Toledo had met Castro going into the Hôtel de Paris, where
+Doña Clorinda lived. Doubtless they were having lunch together to talk
+over the winnings of the Duchess. Atilio had even pretended he did not
+understand when the Colonel talked to him about the event. Envy, of
+course! The Prince shrugged his shoulders. People were mere phantoms as
+far as he was concerned, and evil passions were illusions. There were
+only two realities: he and what was awaiting him.
+
+After lunch he dressed with such attention to the minutest details that
+the absurdity of it made him smile. He even changed his tie, after he
+was dressed, looking for another of a quieter color. "Half-past two." He
+looked at himself from head to foot in the mirror: a dark gray suit, tan
+shoes, and a light felt hat with broad brim turned down to protect his
+eyes from the sun. No one had ever seen Prince Lubimoff dressed in such
+a manner. From a distance one might have taken him for one of the
+travelers who visit the Riviera in passing, and come to make the
+acquaintance of roulette at Monte Carlo in an afternoon, and go away
+again immediately.
+
+Three o'clock! He left Villa Sirena. It was a long way and he wanted to
+walk it. The exercise would fortify his will and dispel the doubt which
+was assailing him anew. He thought of how he had performed the same
+supreme intimate act so many times in former years, as something
+ordinary and almost mechanical. His suspicious isolation during the last
+few months seemed to have numbed him. He felt the lack of confidence of
+an athlete who has left off exercising and doubts whether he can summon
+all his former strength again. Fear at the mere idea of a failure
+restored his confidence. Such a thing was impossible! Forward march!
+
+On reaching Monte Carlo, he climbed the long stone steps as far as the
+streets of Beausoleil. He considered it advisable to go out of his way
+thus to carry out in the fullest detail the counsels of prudence that
+Alicia had given him.
+
+He planned to enter her street from above, where there were no houses.
+In this way he would avoid any of her neighbors who at that hour might
+be going down town.
+
+Above the building plots where houses were going up and the stairways
+which were winding down the slope, he could overlook a large expanse of
+sea, and on the shore the groves of the gardens, with a bird's-eye view
+of the huge mass of the Casino, with its green tiles and the yellow
+cupolas of its halls, the wide square, the little circular garden of the
+"Camembert," and around it numerous people the size of ants.
+
+The Prince had a feeling of pity for those pigmies. Unhappy men! They
+were going to gamble, to shut themselves up between four walls, under
+artificial light, with no other dreams than those of money. For him
+something better was awaiting; for a few hours he was going to
+experience the one interesting intoxication of life. Then he laughed
+with pity at a certain lunatic, his double, who had tried to found a
+club group of "women's enemies." Imagine hating love, and trying to live
+without women; poor Prince Lubimoff!
+
+It was now four o'clock. Passing among tiny gardens which seemed miles
+away from a crowded city, he entered Alicia's street. The red roof of
+Villa Rosa was peeping out from among the trees, almost at his feet. He
+kept on descending. His legs trembled slightly, and he stopped for a
+moment to regain his poise, raising his hand to his breast. Rounding a
+bend, all of the street that was built up appeared, straight and gently
+sloping down to where it joined one of the avenues of Monte Carlo.
+
+No one was in sight, and he hastened to slip into Villa Rosa before any
+neighbors appeared. He passed the gardens rapidly, with the air of a man
+afraid of being late at a game of cards. He found the gate half open. It
+was a good sign: Alicia had thought of facilitating his entry.
+
+He crossed the little garden, and thought he saw the frightened face of
+the gardener, peeping over some shrubbery for a moment, then hiding
+again precipitously. There was something strange about that man's
+curiosity and his look of fear. But he was hurrying away, and the Prince
+was pleased at his discretion.
+
+With a flutter of emotion, he climbed the four steps of the door. With
+each one there awoke in his imagination a fresh dream picture, softly
+rose-colored like women's flesh, a sweet unconfessable vision which
+suddenly brought back his past. More with his memory than with his sense
+of smell, he perceived in the atmosphere a well-known perfume, her
+perfume. Everything seemed to be whirling about him with hazy contours.
+There was a buzzing in his ears; desire electrified him drawing his
+muscles taut, just as in his happiest days. And with the bearing of a
+conqueror, he pushed open the door, which was unlocked.
+
+A woman came forward to meet him in the vestibule, a woman whose
+presence caused him to draw back.
+
+Valeria! What was she doing there? What sort of a farce was this?
+
+The young woman tried to speak, and he, too, wished to speak at the same
+time. But neither was able.
+
+Another woman appeared, opening the door abruptly. It was Alicia, with
+her clothes in disorder and her hair wildly streaming. On seeing the
+Prince, she raised her arms and came forward, impetuous and silent, as
+though to embrace him. At last!... What did he care if Valeria were
+present: he did not see her. On the other hand, Alicia seemed different
+to him; taller than ever, and paler, with eyes that suddenly inspired
+fear.
+
+Her arms fell about him, and immediately her whole body seemed to
+totter, bereft of strength. He felt a panting breast against his own;
+her arms were as cold as those of a corpse; a rain of hot tears began to
+bathe his neck.
+
+"Michael! Michael!" Alicia groaned.
+
+It was all she could say. She was choking, the sobs catching in her
+throat as though a strangling lump were fixed within it.
+
+The Prince was obliged to summon all his strength to sustain the inert
+body. A voice sounded in his ear, with the same low monotonous tone that
+is heard in a chamber of death.
+
+It was that of Valeria, who was also weeping, feeling afresh the
+contagion of tears.
+
+"He is dead! He died a month ago!"
+
+And she showed him a little yellow paper that had arrived half an hour
+before: a telegram from Madrid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Spadoni, after greeting Novoa in the Casino square, told him about the
+dreams which were troubling his sleep, and about his disillusionment on
+awakening.
+
+"It is your fault, professor. When we were living together at Villa
+Sirena, I used to listen to the interesting things you knew and talked
+about and then I would go peacefully to sleep. Now I am practically
+alone. The Prince and Castro are unbearably ill-humored; they talk
+scarcely at all and pay no attention whatever to me. As you yourself
+would say, I lead an 'inner life,' always alone with my thoughts; and
+when I spend the night there, I sleep badly, and suffer from dreams,
+which are very wonderful in the beginning, but turn out very sad in the
+end. Oh, what wonderful evenings we used to spend, talking about
+scientific things!"
+
+Novoa smiled. In the eyes of the musician, gambling and its mysteries
+were scientific matters. All the paradoxes that he had taken delight in
+uttering had been stored up in the mind of the pianist as irrefutable
+truths. Novoa tried to head him off by asking for news of the Prince.
+But Spadoni, absorbed in his mania, continued:
+
+"Last night's dream was terrible, and nevertheless it could not have
+begun better. I had the secret of your infinitesimal errors; I had
+mastered the hidden laws of chance and was King of the world. I had a
+special train, composed of a sleeping car, a drawing-room car, a dining
+car, a swimming-pool car, and goodness knows how many special kinds of
+cars! It was a regular palace on wheels that was always awaiting me at
+the railway station, with the engine constantly keeping up steam, ready
+to start at any moment. I got out of the train in all the cities famous
+for gambling, just as a person gets out of an automobile. And seeing me
+coming, the owners of the Casinos, the employees, and even the green
+tables fairly trembled. 'Hurrah for the Avenger!' all those who had lost
+their money shouted in the anteroom. But I passed on, serene as a god,
+without paying any attention to these ovations from the common herd.
+Imagine what it would cost the possessor of the secret of the
+infinitesimal errors to win! My twelve secretaries placed on the various
+tables a million or two, following my instructions. 'Ready, play!' I
+walked about like Napoleon, giving orders to my marshals. In half an
+hour, they declared the bank was broken and the Casino bankrupt. 'The
+house is closing its doors!' shouted the employees, just as in a church
+when the services are over. And on coming out, the same starving
+wretches who had greeted me with acclamations rushed on the guards
+escorting me, with sudden hate, trying to kill me. The place where their
+fortunes were buried was closed to them forever. Now they could not
+return the next day and lose more money with the vague hope of squaring
+accounts. I had taken away all their hopes."
+
+"Exactly," said Novoa.
+
+"Also I had a yacht, which was larger than Prince Lubimoff's; something
+in the nature of a first-class cruiser. And I needed one that size, for
+a band of followers as large as mine. I had with me hordes of
+secretaries, a crowd of strong-arm men whose duty it was to defend me
+and my treasure, and a great number of blasé people, who considered me a
+very interesting person, and followed me all over the globe, like that
+misanthropic fellow who followed a lion tamer from city to city, hoping
+that the wild beasts might some day devour him. There was no longer a
+single Casino functioning in Europe: the one at San Sebastian had been
+turned into a convent; the one at Ostend was being used as a laboratory
+for experiments on oyster culture. In all the bathing resorts and all
+medicinal springs, people became interested exclusively in taking care
+of their health; and when they wanted distraction, they went to the
+promenades and played marbles and other children's games. In the
+meantime I went traveling through the Americas and the South Seas,
+breaking one bank after another, in all the big gambling houses. I was
+followed by journalists who made up another army larger than my own. The
+newspapers and the cable and telegraph agencies announced my arrival in
+advance, making a great stir. 'The invincible Spadoni is coming!' And
+the gaming establishments, feeling their end was near, tried to exploit
+their death agony by selling seats at fabulous prices to every one who
+wanted to witness my triumph. In the United States a steel king, or a
+king of something or other, gave a hundred thousand dollars for a seat,
+in order to follow my irresistible playing close at hand. Never before
+had such a sum been paid to see the long hair of a concert singer or the
+diamonds of a soprano."
+
+"And how about Monte Carlo?" asked Novoa, interested by the gambler's
+wild dreams.
+
+"We are coming to that. I kept Monte Carlo to the end of my trip,
+thinking of the money that I had lost here. The fatter I let the victim
+grow, the greater would be my vengeance. And such business as Monte
+Carlo was doing! Since there was no gambling left anywhere else in the
+world, all the gamblers gathered here from every part of the globe. The
+city had grown, until it reached the summits of the Alps; the forty
+millions that the Casino used to win in favorable years, had now become
+four thousand million. The stockholders were marrying persons of royal
+blood: two Balkan kings were declaring war, quarreling over the hand of
+the daughter of a fourth Vice-President of the company that was managing
+the Casino. The equilibrium of Europe was imperiled: the great powers
+were dreaming of annexing Monaco in the name of ancient historical and
+ethnological rights, since they had all had and still had many people of
+their race living on that tiny piece of land. But suddenly the
+Invincible appeared."
+
+Spadoni, as though still dreaming, looked at the Casino, the Square, the
+entrance to the terrace, and the curving slope of the avenue which
+descended to the harbor. He could see it all, perhaps no differently
+than he had seen it in his imagination.
+
+"What a crowd there was! For six months previously the whole world had
+talked of nothing else. 'Are you going to see the fun?' 'Aren't you
+going?' Cook's Agency had announced in every country of the globe an
+inexpensive trip 'personally conducted' to witness this world event. The
+Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean was giving round trip tickets at reduced
+prices, and all Paris was on hand. The owners of hotels and restaurants,
+out of gratitude, were placing my portrait in the most conspicuous part
+of the dining rooms, which were always filled. The newspapers published
+my biography, and in mentioning my wealth were obliged to break their
+columns, placing a line of zeros clear across the page, and even then
+there was not sufficient space. I forgot to tell you that I found myself
+obliged to establish a bank, just to take care of my treasures. And
+whenever the Bank of London or the Bank of France were pressed for
+money, they sent me a polite note, asking me to get them out of their
+difficulty."
+
+Novoa laughed at the naïve way in which the pianist related his
+greatness. He still seemed obsessed by his dream.
+
+"My yacht was obliged to anchor outside the harbor among other ships.
+There were many trans-Atlantic liners there: four from the United
+States, one from Japan, another from South America, and a few from
+Australia and New Zealand, all filled with travelers who had come from
+the other hemisphere to see Spadoni. After greeting Monaco with a
+twenty-one-gun salute, I sprang ashore amid the hurrahs of the foreign
+sailors. You easily understand that a man like myself could not arrive
+at the Casino seated in a mere automobile. Who hasn't an automobile
+now-a-days! On the dock there was waiting for me a single seated
+carriage which I was to drive myself, but a carriage with gilded wheels,
+drawn by six women, six beautiful women, all of them celebrated, whose
+pictures figured not only in the principal illustrated papers, but also
+on perfumery bottles and cigar boxes."
+
+The Professor was extremely amused. He noticed the satisfaction with
+which the pianist dwelt on this detail of his triumphal entry. The
+degradation of these six elegant and famous women seemed to flatter his
+woman-hating propensities. He spoke with a coolly revengeful look, as
+though witnessing the abject humiliation of his greatest and deadliest
+enemy.
+
+"It was merely a matter of paying the price: and I was not going to
+bargain over a million more or less. The one thing that annoyed me was
+having to choose among several thousand beauties who were clamoring to
+be selected. I was obliged to risk offending many big theater managers,
+business men, and statesmen, by rejecting the many ladies whom they
+recommended to me. A monarch even withdrew the title of Duke which he
+had just given me, because I had refused his favorite 'friend.' All six
+wore the latest frocks designed in the _Rue de la Paix_. The reporters,
+cameras in hand, were taking snap shots of the gowns which were to set
+the latest style. Besides, their harness was covered with pearls,
+diamonds, and every sort of precious stone, and they were careful not to
+injure them, knowing that at the end of their trot they would be able to
+keep the gems as souvenirs. I had a large whip to use on occasion: a
+whip of flowers, to be sure. One must always be chivalrous with ladies."
+
+He smiled ironically. Once more Novoa noted his look of rancorous
+misogyny.
+
+"But inside, the whip was made of sharp steel; and lashing my six
+handsome steeds, we started out. What a long time it took to climb the
+slope making our way through the crowd! The foreigners greeted me with
+acclamations. The sounds of the clicking cameras blended into an endless
+buzzing. Every one wanted to carry away the image of the king of the
+world. I could pick out the natives of the city by their sad faces. The
+men were imploring me with their glances, like miserable captives; the
+women held up their children; the old men fell on their knees. I was the
+conqueror who, in ruining the Casino, was utterly destroying their home
+land, condemning them to poverty and hardship. The square was black with
+people. On getting out of my vehicle, I saw that the steps of the Casino
+were filled with a great delegation. First of all, was Monsieur Blanc;
+next, his general staff of advisors, the principal stockholders, the
+inspectors, and the entire body of _croupiers_, all dressed in black,
+with long alpaca coats of a funereal cut. In the background were well
+known people, whose presence there might move me. In order to recall to
+my mind the fact that I had been a mere pianist, they had waiting for me
+there, baton in hand, directors of concerts and operas, orchestra
+soloists with their instruments; singers--the men with swords at their
+belts, the women with long trains, and all of them painted and bewigged;
+girls from the ballet, with pale pink legs and masses of tulle standing
+out horizontally from their waists. Instructed in advance, they were all
+ready to groan.
+
+"'One word with you, Signor Spadoni.'
+
+"It was Monsieur Blanc who took me aside, and handed me a small paper.
+
+"'Take this and don't go in.'
+
+"I looked at the paper: a check for a million. Humph! What can a man do
+with a million? And on noticing that I was crumpling it, and throwing it
+on the ground, the master of the Casino gave me another paper.
+
+"'Make it five then, and go away.'
+
+"Since this did not move me either, he kept on taking checks from all
+his pockets: ten million, fifteen, forty....
+
+"My twelve counselors came forward with huge purses filled with bank
+notes; my escort cleared the way among the imploring crowd on the
+stairway; my horses were getting impatient, because certain connoisseurs
+had availed themselves of the crowding to take liberties with them.
+
+"'One more word, Signor Spadoni: the last. We will cause a revolution,
+we will dethrone Albert, and give the crown of Monaco to you. If you
+like, you might marry the daughter of an Emperor: with money you can do
+anything. We have it and so have you....'
+
+"'I have told you no! What I want is to get into that Casino, bust the
+whole business, and take away the keys.'
+
+"This threat tore from him the supreme concession.
+
+"'You shall be my partner; I will give you fifty per cent of the
+winnings. Don't you want to? Well then, seventy-five.'
+
+"On seeing that I continued to advance up the stairway without
+listening to him, he raised a whistle to his lips. On his face was a
+look of a Samson, clutching the columns of the Temple. He would rather
+die than see his house bankrupt! A terrible explosion resounded, as
+though the world were being rent apart. They had mined with all the
+high-power explosives of the war, the Casino, the square, and the whole
+city. I was blown off my feet and driven, dazed, up into the clouds, but
+I was still able to see how Monte Carlo was disappearing, and even the
+dock of Monaco, as the sea in one enormous wave, was sweeping over the
+site of the vanished land. And when I came down to earth again...."
+
+"You woke up," said Novoa.
+
+"Yes, I woke up, and on the floor beside my bed; and I could hear
+Castro's voice in the corridor calling me names for having spoiled his
+sleep by my cries. Don't laugh, Professor. It is very sad to dream of
+such grandeur, as though you had had it in hand, and then to find
+yourself as poor as yesterday, as poor as ever, and besides with bad
+luck still clinging to you."
+
+This mention of poverty and bad luck by Spadoni caused Novoa to protest.
+People still recalled his amazing fortune as the banker in the Sporting
+Club. That had been an epoch-making night. Besides, he knew through
+Valeria that the Duchess had made him a handsome present.
+
+"Wonderful Duchess!" the pianist said enthusiastically, "Always a great
+lady. Poor woman, in the midst of her despair she remembered me. 'Take
+this, Spadoni, and I hope you have lots of luck.' She gave me twenty
+thousand francs. If I were to ask her for a hundred thousand she would
+give them to me just the same. And to think she is so unfortunate!"
+
+As the Professor still looked at him questioningly, he continued:
+
+"Well, then; of the twenty thousand francs I haven't even a hundred
+left."
+
+The same evening he had hurried to the Sporting Club to repeat his great
+deeds. He had never happened to have so much capital before, not even
+when he returned from his concert tour in South America. The terrible
+Greek was there, and in spite of the admiration Spadoni paid His
+Eminence, the Helene treated the musician with implacable hostility.
+"Bank!" said the Greek on seeing the pianist in the banker's chair, with
+fifteen thousand! With what remained the musician had struggled along
+for a few days as a mere bettor, and now the Duchess' generous gift was
+merely a memory.
+
+"If she would only return to work! I am sure that I would be once more
+the man I was that night, with her behind me. But who would dare talk to
+her about gambling."
+
+They both lamented Alicia's misfortune. Since the day the telegram
+arrived telling of the death of her protégé, she had been a different
+woman. Spadoni attributed her overwhelming grief over a young soldier
+who did not belong to her family to her excessively kind heart. The
+Professor assented, with an enigmatic air. In her sudden burst of grief,
+Alicia had doubtless let a portion of her secret escape in the presence
+of Valeria, and the latter probably had told Novoa about it.
+
+Then they talked about the isolation in which the Duchess was living.
+
+"It has been a month since any one has seen her," said Spadoni. "People
+are beginning to forget about her; a good many people think she has gone
+away. That's the way Monte Carlo is: quite tiny for those who go to the
+Casino, and rub elbows all day long; enormous, like a great metropolis,
+for those who do not come near the gambling rooms. The Prince frequently
+asks me about her with a great deal of interest. It seems he has not
+been able to see her since the afternoon of the telegram."
+
+Novoa repeated his enigmatic look on hearing Lubimoff's name. He knew
+through Valeria that Michael had gone repeatedly to Villa Rosa, without
+being admitted. And more than that; the Duchess had shuddered in terror
+at the thought of his visit. "I don't want to see him, Valeria; tell him
+I am not in." Colonel Toledo had suffered the same fate; obliged to hand
+his card, sometimes to the Duchess' friend and at other times to the
+gardener. Several letters from the Prince had remained unanswered.
+Alicia showed a firm determination not to see her relative, as though
+his presence might quicken the grief that was keeping her away from
+society.
+
+Spadoni, unaware of all this, continued to praise the Duchess.
+
+"A noble heart! She always has to have some unfortunate person around to
+look after. Since the death of her aviator, she seems to be feeling a
+deep affection for that Lieutenant of the Foreign Legion, the Spaniard
+who is so ill, and who may die almost any moment, like the other man. He
+spends whole days at Villa Rosa; he lunches and dines there; and if the
+Duchess takes a walk in the mountains, it is always with him. He does
+everything but sleep at the Villa! When he doesn't show up for some
+time, she immediately sends a messenger to the Officers' Hotel."
+
+The Professor remained silent, but knew that Spadoni was telling the
+truth. It agreed with what Valeria had been telling. Martinez was
+constantly at Villa Rosa, often against his will. The Duchess needed his
+presence, but nevertheless on seeing him, she would burst into sobs and
+tears. But the poor boy, with a submission born of awe, accompanied her
+in her voluntary seclusion, deeply thankful that such a great lady
+should take an interest in him.
+
+"Doña Clorinda must be furious," continued the pianist, with malignant
+joy such as rivalry among women always aroused in him. "She no longer
+has any influence over Martinez, in spite of the fact that she was the
+one who discovered him. The other woman has cut her out. Weeks go by and
+the 'General' doesn't get a chance to see her Lieutenant; I believe she
+has given him up, as a matter of fact. She criticizes her former friend
+for this monopolizing, which she considers 'dangerous.' They even tell
+me that she accuses the Duchess of flirting with the poor boy, of
+arousing false hopes in him, and of still worse things. Quite absurd!
+Women are terrible when they hate. Imagine! A poor officer--practically
+a dead man...."
+
+Novoa said nothing, so that the pianist would stop talking. He was
+afraid Spadoni might say some awful thing, repeating Doña Clorinda's
+gossip, with the rancorous joy of a woman-hater. Novoa, through his
+relations with Valeria, considered himself a partisan of the Duchess,
+and could not tolerate anything being said against her.
+
+They separated after a few minutes more of inconsequential talk.
+
+That evening Spadoni spoke to the Prince about his conversation with the
+Professor, and it gave him a pretext for repeating what Doña Clorinda
+thought of her former friend. But immediately the pianist repented of
+having done this, seeing the look of wrath which Lubimoff gave him.
+
+"What a cad," thought Michael, "peddling around a lot of female gossip,
+just because he has a grouch against women in general."
+
+He understood how Alicia might feel interested in the soldier. His youth
+and his uniform reminded her of her son. Besides, Martinez was alone in
+the world, a foreigner, a piece of wreckage from the war, a man whom
+every one considered irrevocably condemned to death.
+
+Yet Michael could not avoid an immediate feeling of jealousy toward the
+poor young fellow who was friendless and ill. Martinez was living
+constantly by Alicia's side, while he himself was unable to gain
+admittance to the Villa, even as a mere visitor. Why?
+
+He had spent several weeks making conjectures, and watching for a chance
+to meet Alicia. Since the afternoon when he had held her in his arms,
+drying her tears and restraining her from hurting herself, as she
+writhed in grief, and kissing her on the brow, with brotherly
+compassion, the gate of Villa Rosa had closed behind him forever. "Come
+to-morrow," groaned Alicia on saying good-by to him. And the following
+day Valeria had halted him with the embarrassed look of a person telling
+a lie. "The Duchess cannot receive you. The Duchess wants to be alone."
+And this inexplicable refusal had been repeated each successive day,
+with increasing sharpness. At present the gardener, who was the only one
+who came to answer the bell, talked with him through the gate.
+
+This rejection caused him to commit a great number of childish and
+humiliating actions. He circled about the neighborhood of the Villa like
+a jealous husband, facing the curiosity of the passersby, and taking
+advantage of the most absurd pretexts to disguise the real object of his
+vigil, hurriedly concealing himself whenever the gate opened, and any
+one left the house. This vigilance had only served to arouse his anger.
+Twice Michael had been obliged to hide himself while Lieutenant
+Martinez, erect in the old uniform which the Prince had given him and
+which was rather a bad fit, steadied his weak sick body in a desire to
+appear proud and healthy, and entered Villa Rosa through the wide-open
+gate, as though he were the owner.
+
+One afternoon he had seen them from a distance, the Lieutenant and
+Alicia, in a hired carriage, which was going in the other direction, on
+the opposite side of the street, toward the Heights of La Turbie. She
+was looking after the wounded man, taking him, in maternal solicitude,
+to a spot where he could breathe the upland air. And the Prince might
+just as well have not existed!
+
+In vain he wrote her letters, and his torment was even greater owing to
+the fact that he could not talk openly with his friends. The Colonel,
+obedient to his veiled suggestions, had unavailingly paid several calls
+on the Duchess.
+
+"What unexplainable grief!" said Don Marcos. "It is impossible to
+understand such despair over a young aviator who was merely a protégé of
+hers. Unless, perhaps, he were her...." But his sense of delicacy would
+not allow him to insist on such an ignoble suspicion.
+
+Nor could the Prince talk with Atilio. In the latter's eyes, the
+prisoner who had died in Germany was the same young man he had known in
+Paris before the war: the Duchess' lover, who followed her everywhere
+and danced with her at the Tango teas. Besides, Michael felt afraid of
+what Castro might add, reflecting the "General's" way of thinking.
+
+The latter, at first, on learning of Alicia's despair, had felt like
+forgetting the quarrels of the past, and had gone of her own accord to
+Villa Rosa to console the Duchess. Since the "General" was very
+patriotic, the boy who had died in Germany seemed to her a hero. But the
+sudden monopolizing of the Spanish Lieutenant, and the passionate
+sympathy which obliged Martinez to spend all day with the Duchess,
+renewed Doña Clorinda's cool hostility.
+
+The Prince guessed what she and her friend were thinking, and what
+Castro might tell if he dared talk to him about Alicia. "She has just
+lost a lover, and while she is weeping with theatrical vehemence, she is
+getting ready for another, as young as the first. A crime indeed, since
+poor Martinez is condemned to death, and only prolongs his days, thanks
+to absolute quiet. The slightest emotion means death to him."
+
+Lubimoff could not tell the truth. His secret was Alicia's. Only they
+two knew the true identity of the prisoner who had died in Germany, and
+as long as she kept silent, he must do the same.
+
+One night, the Colonel gave him some interesting news. At nightfall,
+when he was returning from the Casino, he had seen the Duchess de
+Delille from the street car. Dressed in mourning she was getting out of
+a hired carriage, in the Boulevard des Moulins, opposite the church of
+St. Charles. Later she had ascended the steps leading to the place of
+worship: she was doubtless going to pray for her protégé. And Don Marcos
+said this with a certain emotion, as though the visit to the church
+cancelled all the gossip he had been hearing in the previous few days.
+
+Michael had a presentiment that this would be the means of rescuing him
+from his incertitude. He would meet Alicia at the church. And the
+following day, toward evening, he began to walk up and down the
+Boulevard des Moulins, without losing sight of the one church in Monte
+Carlo, the place of worship of gamblers and wealthy people, which seemed
+to maintain a certain rivalry with the Cathedral of silent, ancient
+Monaco.
+
+This continual going and coming finally caught the attention of the
+shopkeepers on the street and of their clerks, girls with hair dressed
+high on their heads in a complicated fashion, who seemed to be dreaming
+behind the counters, waiting for some millionaire to lift them from
+their position of unjust obscurity. "Prince Lubimoff!" They all knew
+him, and his fame was such that immediately a hundred eyes curiously
+sought the object of his promenading. Doubtless it was a woman. On the
+deserted balconies women's heads began to appear, following his
+maneuvers more or less overtly. Window shades went up, revealing behind
+the panes questioning eyes and smiling lips. "Might it be for me?" This
+unexpressed question seemed to spread from one window to the next.
+
+Annoyed by such curiosity, he ascended the double row of steps from the
+tiny deserted square in front of the church, using the same strategy
+there as when he had lurked in the neighborhood of Villa Rosa. He peeped
+into the interior of the sanctuary, dotted with red by a number of
+lighted tapers. There were only two women, within, both of them dressed
+in mourning and kneeling. They were women of lowly fortune, wives or
+mothers of men killed in the war. On returning to the little square, he
+passed the time reading and re-reading the headlines of all the papers
+displayed on the newsstand. Then he started off down a street, turned
+into another, walked across the square with an air of unconcern, and hid
+behind a corner, taking care not to lose sight of the entrance to the
+church. It was not bad waiting there: there were no passersby. The
+traffic on the nearby boulevard was invisible, as though going on in the
+depths of a ditch. Through the low branches of some trees, he could just
+see the roofs of carriages and street cars.
+
+Night fell and she did not come.
+
+The following day Michael returned, but discreetly, so as not to arouse
+the curiosity of the shopkeepers. He remained for long hours in the
+little square in that old part of the city, with none to watch him save
+a melancholy old woman who sold newspapers at a stand that had no
+customers. Nor did Alicia come this time.
+
+The third day, when he was beginning to doubt whether there was any use
+of waiting, Alicia's head and shoulders suddenly appeared above the line
+of the top step. Then her whole body emerged, by waves, so to speak, as
+her feet advanced from step to step. Night was falling. On the façades
+of the buildings on the boulevard, above the green mass of the trees,
+the fugitive sun drew a golden brush stroke along the rows of roofs.
+
+It was his heart that recognized her even before his eyes, just as on
+the day when he had seen her at a distance in the carriage accompanied
+by the officer. He had a feeling of shock at her black bonnet, with a
+long mourning veil falling on her shoulders. The emotion he felt on
+seeing her and the spying habit he had recently acquired, caused him to
+draw back, and she entered the church without seeing him. Ah, now he had
+her! This time she could not escape, he would have a great many things
+to tell her, very, very many! But at the same time he became rancorously
+conscious of the just indictment against her which he had prepared in
+advance; and, in spite of himself, he felt afraid, desperately afraid of
+the possibility that she might meet him with a curt reply, or perhaps
+not speak to him at all.
+
+He allowed a long time to elapse. Then he was torn by the desire of
+seeing her again, even from a distance, and he entered the church, but
+cautiously, trying to avoid a premature encounter.
+
+He advanced between a double row of deserted benches. There in the
+background were the same women who had been there the other day, still
+kneeling, as though their grief were unconscious of the lapse of time.
+In the darkness the pale gold of the altar pieces became gradually
+distinguishable, and two masses of color, two clusters of flags--those
+of the Allied countries, which adorned the high altar. On seeing the two
+praying figures alone in the church, and in motionless silence, he
+thought that Alicia must have fled through an exit of which he was
+unaware. But she appeared from a door on the side, followed by an
+acolyte who was carrying two tapers. Alicia seemed to be watching how
+the tapers were lighted and placed in their sockets in front of the
+Virgin. Then she knelt, remaining in a rigid posture on her knees.
+
+Some time went by. And Michael watched her, as she became, like the two
+poor women, a mere shape in black, motionless in prayer and
+supplication. The only distinguishing features of her person that he
+could make out, were the soles of her elegant shoes, two tiny
+light-colored tongues, which stood out against the black silk of her
+skirt. He could also see her white neck writhing from time to time, as
+though trying to throw off the twining veil of sorrow.
+
+He felt that the rancor which had caused him to desire this meeting was
+vanishing. Poor woman! He knew, and no one else knew, the identity of
+the young man whose death she had come to mourn in this temple. A
+picture of the Princess Lubimoff suddenly arose in his memory, vague and
+covered with the dust of oblivion. The Princess had been insane; but she
+was his mother, and he had loved her so dearly!
+
+Immediately afterward his egotism revolted against this feeling. It was
+natural for Alicia to weep for her son, but it was not natural that she
+should have broken with him without any explanation whatsoever.
+
+Mechanically he advanced toward the high altar, desiring to see her
+closer at hand. A slight movement as she prayed caused him to retrace
+his steps. It was better that she should not recognize him. He
+considered it preferable to wait for her outside the church, with the
+advantage of taking her by surprise, without allowing her time to invent
+excuses to justify her conduct.
+
+It was beginning to grow late, when Alicia came out, running straight
+into Michael Fedor who was blocking her path.
+
+Not the slightest quiver revealed any feeling of surprise.
+
+"You!" she said simply.
+
+She was very pale, and her eyes were red and moist, as though she had
+just been weeping.
+
+Perhaps she had seen him within the church, and was expecting this
+meeting on coming out. The natural manner in which she greeted his
+presence was for him a just disappointment.
+
+He felt he must speak at once, relieving himself of the burden of
+complaint and accusation, which had been gathering within him during the
+preceding days. There were so many, that they clouded his thoughts. But
+Alicia, as though afraid of what he was going to say, came forward and
+began to talk in sad, monotonous tones.
+
+She had been coming to this church several afternoons as she suddenly
+felt the need of leaving Villa Rosa with its terrible memories. Oh, the
+arrival of that telegram!
+
+"Now I am a believer," she announced simply.
+
+Immediately afterward she corrected the statement, rather through
+humility than pride. She wanted to be a believer, but in reality she was
+not. She remembered the mother, poor, simple-minded Doña Mercedes! What
+would she not give to have the confidence in the Great Beyond which that
+good lady had had! That faith, which in former days had provoked her
+laughter, seemed to her now like something superior. What a pity she
+could not feel the resignation of humble souls! The irreligiousness of
+her happy days still remained with her. Those who enjoy the pleasant
+things of life do not remember death, nor do they think of what may be
+beyond. No one feels religious sentiments in his soul at a dance, at a
+banquet, or at a rendezvous with a lover! She had to believe, because
+she was unhappy! She clung to religion as an invalid condemned to death
+by the doctors in whom he believes, implores in despair the services of
+a quack, in whom he has no faith.
+
+"Grief makes mystics of us," she continued. "What I regret is not being
+able to be one in the way that others are. I pray, but resignation does
+not come to my aid."
+
+She revolted against the thought of annihilation at death. That flesh of
+her flesh was rotting in an unknown cemetery in Germany! And was that
+the end? Could it be there was nothing more? Would she die in turn and
+never meet again in a superior existence the son in whom she had
+concentrated all her love of life? Would they both be blotted out of
+reality, like two infinitesimal points, like two atoms, whose life means
+nothing?
+
+"I must believe," she said with all the energy of her maternal egotism.
+"My one consolation lies in the hope that we shall meet again in a
+better world: a world that knows no wars, nor death. But suddenly my
+confidence fails, and all I see is annihilation--annihilation! I am
+greatly to be pitied, Michael."
+
+These words did not move the Prince, in spite of the despair which
+Alicia put into them. His amorous yearning let him think only of the
+present.
+
+"And I," he said in a reproachful tone. "You deserted me in the greatest
+moment of our lives! You are unhappy; all the more reason that you
+should not drive me from you. I can put cheer into your life. I can
+guess what you are thinking. No, no, I do not insist on talking to you
+of love. Perhaps later on, but now!... Now, I want to be your comrade,
+your brother, whatever you want me to be, but at your side. Why do you
+avoid me? Why do you shut your door to me as you would to a stranger?"
+
+And incoherently he continued his laments, his protests, his rancor, at
+her unexplainable estrangement.
+
+"Am I to blame for your misfortune?" he finally asked. "Am I a different
+man to-day than I was the last time we saw each other?"
+
+She shook her head sadly. She could not convince Michael no matter how
+much she might talk; it was beyond her strength to explain her new
+feelings. She seemed dismayed at the obstacle which had arisen between
+them.
+
+"Leave me, forget me; it is the best that you can do. No; you haven't
+changed, my poor boy. What harm could you have done me, you who are so
+kind, so generous? You have helped me to learn the horrible truth; it
+was through you that I discovered it; and although it is killing me, I
+feel that it is preferable to uncertainty. You are not to blame, you
+have done all that I asked you to do. But listen to me, I beg of you: do
+not seek me, avoid meeting me, leave me! It is the last favor I ask of
+you. It is only away from you that I can find a certain peace of mind."
+
+Michael's voice lost its tones of supplication and began to quiver with
+a vibration of anger. How could he be an obstacle to her tranquillity?
+Hadn't he just said that he wanted to be a comrade in her misfortune,
+without desires, oblivious of love, with a sweet dispassionate
+affection, like that of friendship? Now that she was unhappy he felt
+more vehemently a desire to be by her side. What absurd caprice made her
+avoid him?
+
+Alicia looked at him with tearful eyes, which reflected the hesitations
+of her thoughts. Finally she seemed to have made up her mind.
+
+"You haven't changed," she said, in a subdued voice, "but I am
+different. Misfortune has made another woman of me. I do not recognize
+myself. I am dominated by a fixed idea. An absurd one it may well be; if
+I tell it to you, I know that you will protest with holy indignation.
+No; you are not to blame; but it is better for me not to see you. Your
+presence increases my remorse. Seeing you, I feel extraordinary shame, a
+desire to die, to kill myself. I have a feeling of suspicion that it was
+I who killed my son. I remember all that took place between us; and I
+recognize God's punishment."
+
+Lubimoff's anger vanished at these inexplicable words. Automatically he
+took her hands with caressing gentleness, as though they were those of a
+poor sick patient at the height of delirious ravings. She should be
+calm! What was she saying? What remorse was she talking about? Her
+gloved hands, in passive resignation offered no resistance to his touch;
+but suddenly they woke to life, violently freeing themselves from those
+of Michael, as though they had just received a hard shock. "No! No!" And
+the Prince had a sort of feeling that there was a current of repulsion
+between them, something that he had never experienced until then: the
+fear of his person.
+
+He remained so disconcerted and humiliated by this movement of
+withdrawal, that he did not know what to say. She took advantage of his
+silence to go on talking, but as though she did not see the man who was
+standing before her eyes.
+
+"When I remember all that ... what a shame! My son, my poor boy, living
+like a slave, suffering from hunger, being whipped, he, who was so noble
+and so handsome ... and his mother here acting like a young girl, going
+into ecstasies over ideal love, taking poetic promenades through the
+gardens, exchanging kisses. An old woman's romantic fancies. The
+gambling follies might even be pardoned. I thought of him as I played;
+the money was for him; but love!... it seems impossible that I could
+have done all that while my son was a prisoner and I was getting no news
+from him. What diabolical spell was upon me? And God has punished me;
+and if not God, whoever or whatever it may be; fate, a mysterious power
+which makes us expiate our shortcomings, call it anything you like."
+
+Michael attempted to protest, but she went on talking:
+
+"I know what you are going to tell me; but it won't do any good. All
+that you might say I have said to myself again and again, to convince
+myself that my belief is absurd. And what would that prove? All that we
+are not acquainted with is absurd, and we know so little! No; my remorse
+can never be overcome. No matter what you may say will not keep me from
+spending my sleepless nights puzzling things out, and thinking of
+certain dates in my recent life. When I began to be interested in you,
+my son was still alive, and I forgot him. When we were walking through
+the gardens of San Martino, he was perhaps suffering the agonies of
+hunger, and martyrdom, and I like the heroine in a novel, like a crazy
+schoolgirl, was kissing you, and making you promises! Besides, the
+arrival of the telegram the same afternoon that you were going to come,
+seemed like something definitive in my life! Don't you see the
+intervention of a superior power, the punishment for my badness?"
+
+The Prince tried to speak again, but in vain.
+
+"That is why I am avoiding you; that is why I have not replied to your
+letters. You are not to blame; but you mean remorse to me, and your
+presence recalls my crime. Besides, I know myself; I am only a poor,
+weak woman, the very personification of thoughtlessness, and neglect. If
+I were to accept you as a comrade in grief, since I am not indifferent
+to you, perhaps I might give in to what you want. And that would be
+horrible, still more horrible even than what has gone before; one of
+those offenses which people maddened by passion commit against natural
+laws. Don't try to see me; I don't want to see you. If I had been a true
+mother, thinking only of him ... who knows!... Perhaps he would still be
+alive. But some one was bent on punishing me for my unnatural conduct,
+and that some one killed him, so that I might awaken, at the very moment
+when in my shameful love, I felt myself happiest."
+
+Michael no longer cared to say anything. He looked at this woman with
+pity and dismay in his eyes. He recalled the Princess Lubimoff with her
+extravagant beliefs in the mysterious; and of Alicia's own mother, with
+her religious manias. Whatever he might try to say would be useless.
+That absurd and sorrowing conviction of hers had opened a gap between
+them like a gulf that could be bridged over only by time.
+
+The silence of the Prince caused her to lose the nervous exaltation that
+had made her express herself with such fervor.
+
+"Leave me now," she murmured gently. "What could I do for you? I am only
+a woman now; I am an old woman, centuries old, as old as sorrow itself.
+You need a sweetheart, and I am simply a bad mother, a mother tormented
+with remorse."
+
+Her renunciation of the past, and the feeling that she was only a
+despairing mother caused her voice to break with a groan, and at the
+same time her eyes filled with tears. With a timid hand Michael drew
+away the handkerchief that she had raised to her face to hide her
+weeping. He murmured incoherent phrases, with the intention of consoling
+her; but immediately he was mastered once more by anger.
+
+"If you really were alone," he said in bitter tones, "I could wait, and
+perhaps time would silence the after scruples that torment you. But your
+loneliness is a lie. A man enters your house at all hours as though it
+were his own, while I must go away, so that, as you say, you may recover
+your tranquillity."
+
+With a feminine instinct, Alicia had hastened to raise the handkerchief
+to her face again, on feeling herself free from Michael's hand. She felt
+she must be ugly with her watery eyes, her pale lips, and her nose red
+with weeping. But the words of the Prince gave her such a shock of
+surprise, such a desire to refute the offensive supposition, that she
+took the wrinkled batiste from her face.
+
+"You are referring to Martinez? Poor boy!"
+
+He was giving up the gay society of his comrades, their promenades in
+company, and even the parties to which the convalescent officers were
+invited, to come and be bored at Villa Rosa beside a woman who could do
+nothing but weep. When she wanted to come to church she had to oblige
+him to go for an hour or two to join his comrades-in-arms in the
+ante-room at the Casino. The visits of the invalided soldier meant so
+much to her. They were pure charity on his part.
+
+"I dream that he is my son. His age and his uniform aid in this
+illusion. You have never had any children; it is impossible for you to
+know the necessity we feel, when we have lost them, to transfer our
+bereaved affection to other beings, imagining that they look like those
+who are gone. I need to go on being a mother, nor can I be anything
+else; and this unhappy boy never knew his own mother. He has no one in
+the world, and is as much alone as I am. Please, let me enjoy a little
+illusion wherever I can find it. The poor fellow is so grateful for my
+affection! He feels so happy beside me! Remember: he is condemned to
+death, and only maternal care, and pleasant quiet surroundings, can
+possibly prolong his days."
+
+She wanted to accomplish this task, perhaps for a selfish reason, to
+obliterate from her memory, with a great generous deed, all the evil she
+had done before. She wanted him to be her son, a son born of her grief,
+to whom she might devote everything that it was now impossible for her
+to do for her real son.
+
+Now, Michael, too, was silent, realizing the uselessness of insisting
+any further. He knew Alicia's character. Behind her plaintive voice, he
+guessed the resolute will to keep by her side that young man who
+refreshed her maternal feelings and was at the same time a means of
+consolation for the remorse which she had taken upon herself.
+
+The consideration of his powerlessness finally irritated him, made him
+feel a cruel desire to hurt that woman.
+
+"You are doing wrong, Alicia. Society is unaware of your secret. You
+know what people said before about you and your son. You laughed,
+yourself, finding such a mistake amusing. Now the equivocation continues
+with more reason. Many people imagine you have substituted another young
+man for the young man that died."
+
+Alicia lost her sad serenity.
+
+"How disgusting!" she said. "How can they think that. Poor Martinez! He
+is so good! So respectful!"
+
+Then she continued arrogantly:
+
+"Let them say what they like! I want to forget society; let society
+forget me. I am dead as far as people are concerned."
+
+But Michael in his spite still dwelt on the subject.
+
+"The other man was your son, and I knew he was. This man is not, and I
+know the power of seduction that you exercise, even against your will.
+Remember 'the old men on the wall.'"
+
+Wherever she went, men's glances would cling to her rhythmic body; and
+that young man, that queer fellow, would finally....
+
+He was unable to continue.
+
+"You, too!" she exclaimed. "Good-by, don't come after me. I shall always
+think of you; but it is better for us not to see each other. Don't bear
+me a grudge. Perhaps some day!..." And she resolutely turned her back on
+him, and descended the steps toward the boulevard.
+
+The Prince remained motionless for a few minutes. Then he advanced
+toward the top step, but all he could see was a carriage with the hood
+raised, and two horses starting to trot away.
+
+And the meeting with Alicia he had so ardently desired had come to this!
+The feeling of spite caused him to judge himself harshly; he hadn't
+known how to talk. Later he recalled all his reasoning and his
+accusations, and felt amazed at the slight effect they had had on her.
+Yes, indeed, she was a different woman. Some one had changed her; some
+one was to blame for this absurd situation.
+
+He spent a great part of that night reflecting. It did not occur to him
+to blame Alicia. He even repented of his angry words. Unhappy woman! Her
+extreme over-sensitiveness was causing her to find reason for shame and
+remorse in all that she had ever done.
+
+"Besides, women," he continued to himself, "at the least nervous shock
+lose their logical faculty first of all."
+
+He felt a need of concentrating all his anger on some one besides her;
+and Michael, never imagining that he himself had lost his logical
+faculty, put the responsibility for everything on Martinez. The latter
+was the one person to blame. If he had not come between them, Alicia, on
+finding herself alone in misfortune, would have sought once more the
+support of the Prince. What a gift the "General" had made them,
+presenting this adventurer!
+
+His reason vainly argued that it was not the officer who was seeking
+Alicia, but the latter who was keeping him in her home, cutting him off
+from his old friendships. Lubimoff was not willing to give up his spite.
+It was Martinez and no one else who had come between them.
+
+Up to that time he had not paid much attention to the boy whom Toledo
+called the "hero." There were so many heroes at that moment! In his
+hatred he began to strip him of the prestige given him by his deeds and
+his misfortune, Michael saw him without his uniform, without his war
+crosses and his wounds, such as he must have been before the war; a poor
+employee, a business clerk, whose dreams of love had never gone beyond a
+milliner or a stenographer. And this was the interesting personage who
+had the temerity to face him! Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff. What
+intolerable times!
+
+The following day he walked about his garden all morning, resolved never
+to return to Monte Carlo. He was filled with scorn at the thought of the
+tenderness with which Alicia had spoken of her protégé. It was better
+that he should not encounter him. But in the afternoon the loneliness of
+his beautiful Villa weighed on him. It seemed deserted. Atilio, the
+pianist, and even the Colonel were all at the Casino. He, too, decided
+to go, to mingle with the crowd which was dividing its attention
+between the hazards of war and the hazards of chance.
+
+In the anteroom he walked toward the groups who were gathered around the
+bulletin board reading the latest telegrams. The crowd considered the
+news good, since it was not extremely bad as on the preceding days. The
+Allies had stopped the enemy's advance, holding them at a standstill on
+the ground they had just conquered. The bombardment of Paris with long
+range guns was still continuing. And that was all.
+
+There was a man making comments in a loud voice. It was Toledo, who, as
+was his custom every afternoon, was giving a lecture on strategy to a
+semi-circle of admirers. With his back to the Prince, he was spouting a
+stream of clear optimism, with a simple faith that misfortune and
+reverses could not move.
+
+"Now they have nailed them in their tracks: they won't advance any
+farther. In a short time will be the counter-attack. I am sure of it; it
+is clear as daylight to me."
+
+Don Marcos rubbed his hands, and slyly winked one eye.
+
+"And the Americans are coming and coming. There are days when as many as
+ten thousand of them are landed here. A wonderful people! I have always
+said so! That fellow Wilson is a great man. I know him well."
+
+They all listened with delight to this voice of hope that refreshed
+their hearts before they gave themselves up to the strain and stress of
+roulette and _trente et quarante_. He talked with the authority of a man
+who has influential connections, and is informed of everything. "He knew
+Wilson," he had just said so himself. Besides, he was a
+Colonel--although none of them knew in what army--an expert, capable of
+expressing an unfounded opinion. And many of them lost no time in
+hastening to the gambling rooms to repeat his views, as though they had
+just received some inside information.
+
+The Prince withdrew, afraid that his presence might put an end to that
+professional triumph of Toledo, which was repeated every day.
+
+As he walked about the anteroom before entering the gaming halls, he saw
+beside a column, a group of French officers, all of whom were
+convalescents. Denied the permission to go any further, because of their
+uniform, they were standing there, looking with a certain envy on the
+civilians. A few of them were standing erect, without any visible
+infirmity, with the sharp features of an eagle, aquiline nose, bold
+eyes, and wild mustache. Others, with youthful faces, were bent over
+like ailing men, leaning on canes, and wearing wrinkled uniforms much
+too large for their sunken chests. Each time they decided to move their
+legs they made a long pause as though to muster every bit of their will
+power available. Some of them had come to Monaco as incurables, after a
+long captivity in Germany. The rest came from hospitals on the firing
+line. On the faces of all of them was an expression of joyous
+bewilderment at finding themselves in this corner of the earth, that was
+like a Paradise, where people seemed to have forgotten the rest of the
+world, and women's eyes followed them with enigmatic glances, half
+amorous and half maternal!
+
+One of the soldiers raised his hand to his cap to salute the Prince. The
+latter looked at the yellowish color of his _kepis_, then at his uniform
+which was of the same color, and at the multi-colored line of
+decorations. It was Martinez, the lieutenant in the Foreign Legion, who
+was saluting him with a certain timidity, but pleased at the same time
+that his comrades were seeing him on friendly terms with the famous
+personage, who was so much talked about on the Riviera.
+
+Michael returned his greeting mechanically and went on. That moment
+remained fixed in his memory all his life. Age and the discretion that
+accompanies it seemed to fall from him like dry bark from a tree in
+springtime. He felt as though he were back in his youth. For a few
+moments he was the same Captain Lubimoff of the imperial Guards, who had
+trampled on obstacles and braved scandal when any one opposed his will.
+
+He turned to look at the group of officers from a distance. That little
+insignificant Lieutenant, who looked like a bookkeeper, promoted by
+mobilization, was his enemy! It seemed as though he were seeing him for
+the first time. Lost among his companions he appeared even more
+insignificant than when he visited Villa Sirena.
+
+Michael remained motionless, with his glance fixed on the group. "You
+are going to do something foolish," admonished a voice within him. And
+there passed through his memory the image of stern Saldaña, kindly and
+tolerant with the weak, like every one who is sure of his strength. He
+recalled one of his sayings which had never before crossed his mind: "A
+gentleman must be kind and never take unfair advantage of his strength."
+He was sure that his father had said that to him when he was a child.
+But immediately the duality of his inner being expressed itself through
+another voice which was stronger and more imperious, a woman's voice
+like that of the other counselor of his youth: "Spend; don't deny
+yourself anything, put yourself above everybody; always remember that
+you are a Lubimoff." And he saw the dead Princess, not the Mary Stuart
+with her theatrical mourning robes, but the dominating and still
+beautiful woman, the one who had overwhelmed her husband "the hero"
+with her rage, and turned the Paris residence upside down.
+
+Suddenly he found himself near the group of officers, and again his eyes
+met those of Martinez. The latter came toward him with a smile of
+interrogation. Michael realized that he had beckoned to the soldier,
+without being aware of what he was doing, through an impulse of will
+which seemed entirely detached from his reason.
+
+"So much the worse! Let's get through with the business!"
+
+With a certain haste, he took the young man toward the vestibule of the
+Casino as though anxious to avoid the presence of the groups who were
+filling the anteroom.
+
+"Lieutenant, I have something to say to you.... I must ... ask a favor
+of you."
+
+He stammered, not knowing how to express the command which he himself
+felt was absurd.
+
+This vacillation, together with the trembling in his voice, finally
+irritated him.
+
+They stopped beside the glass door at the entrance. Martinez was no
+longer smiling, as he gazed in amazement at the hard look and the pallor
+of the Prince.
+
+"In a word," the latter said resolutely; "what I have to ask you is that
+you pay fewer visits at the house of the Duchess de Delille. If you
+should refrain entirely from going to see her, it would be even better."
+And he paused, breathing with a certain freedom, after having expressed
+this demand.
+
+An expression of amazement gradually took possession of Martinez' face.
+He hesitated for a moment, with his eyes fixed on Lubimoff's. No, it was
+not a jest: the hostile look of this man who had always treated him with
+amiable indifference, the sharpness of his tone, and a certain trembling
+of his right hand, indicated that he had expressed his real thoughts,
+and that behind these thoughts lay enormous depths of hatred against
+him.
+
+His surprise caused him to talk with timidity. He visited the Duchess
+because the lady asked him to come and see her every day. He had often
+felt his assiduity might prove to be a nuisance, but every attempt he
+had made to break off his visits had been fruitless. He scarcely left
+her for a few hours but the good lady had him sent for. She was as kind
+to him as a mother. Suddenly his humble tone vanished. His eyes guessed
+in those of the man who had stopped him something that he himself had
+never imagined. The Lieutenant seemed transfigured, as though rising to
+the same level as the Prince. His eyes shone with the same wild splendor
+as the other man's; his body stiffened with the tension of a spring
+about to be released; his nostrils quivered nervously. The little clerk,
+with his timid bearing, recovered the air of gallant bravery of the
+fighting man. His voice sounded harsh, as he went on talking.
+
+He would go wherever he was asked, wherever he felt like going, without
+recognizing the right of any man to interfere in his actions. The
+Duchess was the only one who could close her door to him. Why did the
+Prince interfere in that lady's affairs without consulting her first?
+
+"I am related to her," said Michael, inwardly hesitating somewhat at
+making use of the relationship which he had often preferred to deny.
+
+They both found themselves on the other side of the entry, on the
+platform above the steps of the Casino, in the open air, opposite the
+groves of the square and the groups of passersby who were walking about
+the "Camembert." They were obliged to stand aside, in order not to
+disturb those who were entering and coming out.
+
+"Besides," continued the Prince, "it is my duty to shield her from
+gossip. I cannot permit that. Seeing you in there at all hours, they
+should suppose...."
+
+He almost regretted these words on noticing the double effect that they
+had on the young man. First he became indignant. Had any one dared
+gossip about that great lady who had been such a saint in his eyes? But
+this protest was accompanied by a certain unconscious satisfaction, by
+childish pride, as though he were flattered, in spite of everything that
+his name should be connected in absurd conjecture with that of the
+Duchess. It seemed that Martinez had just been revealed to himself,
+giving substance and a name to the obscure sentiments that until then,
+in an embryonic stage, had pulsed unrecognized within him.
+
+The jealous mind of the Prince guessed, with keen penetration,
+everything that the other man was thinking, and this added fuel to his
+wrath. What impudence in this little clerk to take up Alicia's defense?
+What a conceited show he was making of his love for her!
+
+"If any one takes the liberty of talking about the Duchess," said the
+Lieutenant, "if anybody dares to gossip because she does me the honor of
+receiving me in her home--the greatest honor in my life!--I will take it
+on my shoulders to punish whoever invents such a lie, no matter how high
+up he may be, no matter how powerful he may think himself to be!"
+
+Lubimoff listened impatiently. Now it was Martinez daring to attack him.
+Those last words had carried a threat for him.
+
+Besides, the Prince felt irritated at his own clumsiness. His imprudent
+action had served merely to open this young man's eyes, and make him
+think of the possibilities of many things which he had never yet
+imagined, and which if he had imagined them, he would have cast aside
+immediately as foolish. And now no less than the Prince Lubimoff had
+elected to show this cheap Lieutenant that, in the opinion of gossips,
+such things were possible.
+
+The tone in which the officer defended Alicia aroused his anger even
+more. He divined in it great pride, the vanity of a poor fellow who had
+known love adventures only in books, and who suddenly found himself in
+supposed relations with a Duchess, as the rival of a Prince. How
+glorious for an upstart!
+
+"Boy ..." said Lubimoff, in a hard voice.
+
+This simple word, which was the term in which waiters were addressed in
+the hotels, was followed by a haughty look of overwhelming superiority,
+which seemed to sweep away everything extraordinary which the war had
+given Martinez: his uniform, his decorations, and his glorious wounds.
+For the Prince the officer no longer existed: there only remained the
+poor vagabond of a few years before, wandering from one hemisphere to
+another in quest of bread. "Boy," he repeated in a tone that brought
+back all the class distinction and social gradations of dead centuries,
+so that the man whom he had accosted might realize the enormous
+separation between him and the man to whom he deigned to give advice----
+
+"Boy, let's come to the point--. And if I were to order you not to
+return to that house? And if I demand that...?"
+
+He was unable to finish the sentence. His threatening voice, harsh as a
+cry of command, roused the indignation of the man in uniform. To have
+faced death for three long years, among thousands of comrades who were
+now lying in the ground; to have learned to set little store on life, as
+something proved worthless at every moment on the battlefield; to have
+stripped himself forever, by dint of frightful adventures and awful
+wounds, of that fear which the instinct of self-preservation puts in
+all beings, only to the end that now, in a pleasure resort, at the door
+of the most luxurious of gambling houses, a man, rich and powerful, but
+who had never done anything useful in his whole life, should dare to
+threaten him!...
+
+"You say that to me!" he said, stammering with rage. "You give orders to
+me!"
+
+Michael felt a hand seize him by the lapel of his coat. It was like a
+bird, tremulous and aggressive, pausing for an instant in its blind
+impulse, before flying upward. He was aware of the blow that was coming,
+and raised his arm instinctively, both hands met as that of the young
+man whirled close to the face of the Prince. The latter, who was
+stronger, seized the ascending hand and held it motionless, in a firm
+grip, while at the same time he smiled in a gruesome fashion. His eyes
+contracted as his eyebrows arched in the smile. They became again the
+eyes of an Asiatic. His nostrils dilated as he breathed like a stallion.
+The remote ancestors of the Princess Lubimoff must have smiled thus in
+their moments of anger.
+
+"Enough: I consider that I have received it," he said slowly, "Name two
+friends to confer with mine!"
+
+And freeing that hand of Martinez, he turned his back on him, after
+making a deep bow. The movements of both men had been rapid. Only one of
+the doorkeepers, with his official cap, standing guard on the platform
+above the steps, had guessed that anything had happened; but his
+professional experience advised him to remain passive as long as there
+were no blows. He imagined that it was merely a dispute over some
+gambling affair. It would all be settled by an explanation, and
+forgotten after a winning! He had seen so many such things!
+
+Prince Lubimoff reënters the Casino. He crosses the vestibule and the
+anteroom holding his head high, but without seeing any one, gazing
+straight ahead, with a faraway expression.
+
+It seems to him that time has suddenly been reversed, causing him to
+return to the past with one bound. He is back in his youth. He walks
+arrogantly. He is surprised that the sound of his firm tread is not
+accompanied by the tinkling of spurs and the metallic scraping of a
+saber. At the same time he begins to see imaginary faces, faces of those
+who disappeared from the earth many years ago: the Cossack who had come
+from a distant garrison in Siberia to avenge his sister; a friend in the
+same regiment as the Prince, who died from a sword thrust in his breast
+after a tumultuous supper, while Lubimoff wept, suddenly awakening from
+his homicidal intoxication; the faces of others who had been present as
+mere witnesses, but who had died and were now resurrected in his memory,
+cold and insensible to remorse and vain regrets.
+
+"The Colonel. Where in the devil is the Colonel!"
+
+He crosses the gambling room, in quest of a gray head, with a straight
+part from the forehead to the back of the neck, dividing the glistening
+hair into two shining sections. He sees it finally rising above the back
+of a divan, between two women's hats, four eyes darkly bordered as
+though in mourning, and cheeks with wrinkles filled with white and
+rose-colored enamel. A terse sentence of the Prince interrupts the
+explanations of the war news with which the Colonel had been thrilling
+the two ladies.
+
+"Colonel, an affair of honor. I intend to fight to-morrow. Look for
+another second."
+
+Toledo seems disconcerted by this order. His first thought flies to
+Villa Sirena. He sees his black frock coat, the solemn vestment of honor
+ready to leave its prison. Then a cloud of doubt obscures this joyous
+thought. A duel! Would it be fitting now that men are fighting in masses
+of millions, giving their lives for something higher and more important
+than personal hatred? His training immediately smothers this scruple. "A
+gentleman should always be at the orders of another gentleman." Besides,
+it is his Prince. And ready to fulfill his mission, he asks the name of
+the adversary.
+
+"Lieutenant Martinez."
+
+Don Marcos thinks he had heard wrong; then he seems to totter and stands
+there looking at his "Highness" in a sort of stupor. Instinctively,
+without taking the pains to disentangle the confused thoughts that
+assail him, he sees in his imagination the Duchess de Delille. Why did
+the Prince ever give up his wise theories on the woman question! He
+recalls, like a happy past, the flourishing days of the "enemies of
+women"! Only four months had gone by, and it seems as though they were
+centuries. A duel right in war time--and with an officer! And that
+officer is Martinez, his hero!
+
+He shrugs his shoulders, bows his head, and makes a gesture denying all
+responsibility as he always does when his Prince, with a hard look on
+his face which reminds Toledo of the dead Princess in her stormy days,
+gives absurd orders.
+
+"Shall I look for Don Atilio? He has had several affairs of honor; he
+knows what it means, and may be able to help me."
+
+The Prince is willing. In the bar of the private gambling rooms, he will
+wait for them both to talk over the conditions of the encounter.
+
+He remains motionless in a deep armchair, opposite a window gilded by
+the light of the setting sun, on which the threads of shadows, projected
+by the moving branches of the trees, weave and unweave. Suddenly it
+seems to him that he is obliged to wait an unreasonable length of time.
+It occurs to him that Castro is not in the Casino and that Don Marcos is
+looking for him in vain. He scarcely remembers the past at all. The
+officer's figure is sunk into a gray mist which falls across his memory:
+it is no longer anything save a vague outline. The one thing that he can
+see, in sharp relief and as though looming close to his eyes, is a hand:
+a hand which is gripping his breast and rising toward his face, that no
+man ever yet had slapped. His indignation causes him to come out of his
+deep fit of distraction. To do that to him! Trying to slap Prince
+Lubimoff!
+
+When he raises his eyes he sees Toledo approaching, but alone, with a
+certain embarrassment, fearing in advance the anger of the Prince. The
+latter, who feels kindly and tolerant since the scene of violence on the
+stairway, guesses what he is going to say to him. He has not found
+Castro and he absolves him with a benevolent smile.
+
+The Colonel speaks:
+
+"Marquis: Don Atilio refuses."
+
+"What!" And at the questioning glance of Lubimoff, who cannot
+understand, and who does not want to understand what he hears, Toledo
+repeats, growing more and more embarrassed.
+
+"He refuses to be your representative. He told me to find some one else.
+He has some ideas of his own that...."
+
+And he hesitates to express these ideas. He stops, in order not to say
+anything which the Prince ought not to hear from his lips: and he
+accepts as a blessing the silence of amazement which comes between them;
+he is afraid to let the Prince recover from the astonishment with which
+this news has overwhelmed him.
+
+As he starts to go away, he proposes something which seems to him a way
+out.
+
+"Does your Highness want me to call Don Atilio? He will surely come.
+Perhaps the two of you talking together...."
+
+And he goes away in search of Castro, while Michael Fedor once more
+becomes motionless in his seat, quite unable to comprehend the
+situation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Prince saw Castro standing by the little table close to his chair,
+with a certain appearance of haste in his look and bearing, like a man
+who is facing a difficult situation, and anxious to get out of it as
+soon as possible.
+
+The Prince invited him to take the nearest seat, but Castro consented
+only to sit down lightly on the arm of the chair, to indicate his desire
+that the interview be brief. Besides, he spoke first, bluntly expressing
+his thoughts, without any preamble.
+
+"The Colonel has doubtless told you my reply. I can't. You know very
+well that I am your friend: you even do me the honor of recognizing me
+as a relative; I owe you a great deal; but what you ask me now ... no!
+It is a piece of foolishness, madness. It all had to end like this!
+There was no other way out of it. I had a presentiment of it some time
+ago. Perhaps you were right when you talked about women as you did, and
+about the necessity of being their enemies--if such a thing is possible.
+But it doesn't do any good to bring up the past: You are no longer the
+Lubimoff who said those incoherent things. As for me I am mad, I'll
+grant you that: but you are even more so than I: and for that reason I
+can't be with you."
+
+Michael looked at him fixedly, without abandoning his silent immobility,
+waiting for him to go on.
+
+"A duel right in war time! Is there any common sense to that? You are
+the gentleman who remains quietly in his home, with all the comforts
+that the present time can allow, without running any risk whatsoever,
+while half of humanity is weeping, starving, bleeding, or dying. And
+just because one fine day you happen to be in an ill-humor--perhaps you
+know why--you want to fight a poor boy who has survived almost by a
+miracle, and who is sick and weak from having done what you and I are
+not capable of doing. You ask me to represent you in such a piece of
+business?"
+
+"He insulted me--he tried to strike me. I caught his hand close to my
+face," said the Prince in a low but rancorous voice from the depths of
+his chair.
+
+This caused Castro to hesitate for a moment, as he had no idea of the
+importance of the clash between the two men. But his hesitation was
+brief.
+
+"There is something that I don't understand and that you are keeping
+silent. The very seriousness of the insult indicates that there was
+something extraordinary on your part. For that poor, respectful, and
+timid boy to dare to strike, and strike a man like you!... What did you
+do to rouse him to such a pitch?"
+
+Lubimoff did not deign to reply. Without abandoning his frowning reserve
+he asked briefly:
+
+"Well, are you going to, or are you not?"
+
+Castro, irritated by this attitude, replied without hesitating:
+
+"It's all nonsense, and I refuse."
+
+Lubimoff still remained motionless at this refusal, but Atilio was sure
+he guessed the Prince's thoughts in the hostile look fixed on him. He
+was accusing him of ingratitude. At the same time he was holding the
+"General" responsible: believing that the latter must have influenced
+his decision. That Lieutenant was so greatly admired by Doña Clorinda!
+
+As though replying to these unexpressed ideas, Atilio went on:
+
+"Do you think I am interested in that boy you are bent on fighting? He
+is quite indifferent to me; I even dislike him, because of the great
+extremes to which certain women go in their admiration of his heroism.
+That is always annoying to those who are not heroes. I think how
+insignificant he must have been only four years ago. If I had met him
+then, I would have found him, I dare say, a book-keeper in some hotel,
+or a clerk in my haberdasher's in Paris. Imagine what a friend! But the
+war has swept over us, turning everything upside down, making some
+emerge, and burying others in the deepest depths, without any certainty
+of rising again. This boy happens to be somebody now. He is of more
+consequence than you or I. He has been of some use; and for me he is
+sacred, in spite of the fact that he inspires envy in me rather than
+admiration."
+
+The Prince finally made a gesture of protest. Then he shrugged his
+shoulders disdainfully, and sank once more into motionless silence. That
+little adventurer worth more than he, because they had punctured his
+skin in a fight or two!
+
+"We would never come to an understanding, even if we talked all the
+afternoon," continued Castro. "I have changed considerably, and you are
+the same man you have always been. I believe that yesterday I came to my
+'road to Damascus.' I feel to-day that I am a different man."
+
+And, through a certain need of expressing his great inner turmoil, he
+went on talking, without paying any attention to whether or not the
+Prince was listening to him.
+
+He had come to his "road of Damascus" near the Monte Carlo railway
+station, beside the tracks. He was with two ladies, in one of whom he
+was greatly interested. (Michael thought once more of Doña Clorinda.) A
+trainload of soldiers was returning from Italy; a somber train, without
+flags and without any branches of trees adorning the doors and windows.
+They were Frenchmen. They had been sent to Italy as reënforcements,
+after the disaster of Caporetto, and now they were being hurriedly
+recalled, to defend their own soil, which was again in danger.
+
+"No songs and no wild merriment; they were all silent, tired and dirty,
+with an epic dirtiness. The cars were more like wild beasts' cages, with
+their pungent odors of the animal ring. The soldiers were young men but
+they looked old, with their bristling beards, spotted uniforms, and
+faces parched by the sun, hardened by the cold, and cracked and chapped
+by the wind. The heat had caused them to remove their blouses, and they
+were in flannel shirts of an undefinable color, drenched with the sweat
+of so many fatigues and so many emotions.
+
+"One could guess that they were the battalion always predestined to
+arrive in time to sustain the hardest shocks; the one that punctually
+appeared in the places of greatest danger, with the heroic resignation
+of the strong, who allow themselves to be exploited, and who not only do
+their own work, but help out all the others who work less. Where had
+these men not fought? On their own soil, and on that of the Allies, and
+perhaps in the Orient, and now, they were returning again to the land of
+their first combats. Just when they were thinking they had accomplished
+everything, they had discovered they had as yet done nothing. In the
+weaving and unweaving of the web of war, it was necessary to begin all
+over again. Four years before, they imagined they had triumphed
+decisively on the banks of the Marne, and now they were returning once
+more to the Marne. Every winter, sunk in the mud, buried in the
+trenches, under the rain, they said to one another: 'This will be the
+last.' And another winter came, and another, and still another on the
+heels of the last, without any noticeable change. This was the reason
+for their fatalistic and resigned demeanor, the look of men who adapt
+themselves to everything and finally come to believe that their misery
+will be eternal, that human times of peace will never return."
+
+Castro stopped talking a moment and paid no attention to the face of his
+friend, which seemed to be asking what all that story had to do with
+him. "We were standing on the edge of an embankment, leaning on the
+barriers, and our heads were on a level with the men huddled in the
+carriages. The long train, the head of which had already reached the
+station, was slowly advancing. The two ladies were waving their
+handkerchiefs, smiling at the soldiers, and calling words of greeting to
+them. Many of the latter remained unmoved, looking at them with eyes of
+sleepy wild beasts. They had been greeted with ovations for four years.
+They knew realities, the terrible realities that lie beyond ovations!
+Others, young or more ardent, aroused themselves at the sight of these
+two elegant women. Electrified by their smiles, they stood erect,
+passing a hand over their wrinkled flannels, and threw kisses, trying to
+recover their gentleness of the days when they were not soldiers.
+Suddenly, one of those who were passing, forgot the women and noticed
+me, also waving my hat to them, and shouting hurrah. He was a sort of
+red-haired, bitter devil."
+
+Castro could still see him, as though his head were peering through one
+of the bar-room windows; perhaps he would be able to see, as long as he
+lived, the whitish parchment of the man's face, drawn across his
+prominent cheek-bones; his red beard hanging from his jaws, as though it
+were a piece of make-up, and above all, his insolent, sarcastic eyes, a
+muddy green color, like that of oysters. He was the soldier who
+criticizes, grumbles, and talks against the officers, while carrying out
+their orders. In civil life he must have been the disagreeable rebel
+who never approves of anything. As his eyes met those of Castro, the
+latter had a feeling of repulsion. He divined the man with whom one
+always clashes in the street, in the cars, and in the theater. And
+nevertheless, he would never forget his momentary meeting with that
+soldier who was passing and was disappearing in the distance, with only
+just enough time to say six words.
+
+He gave the two women a scornful, ironic smile--then another at Castro,
+who was still waving his hat, and pointed to the end of the carriage,
+shouting to him:
+
+"There's still room for one more!"
+
+And that was all he said.
+
+"He said enough, Michael. Since then I keep hearing his harsh voice: I
+shall always hear it, in my happiest moments, if I remain here. And the
+look in his eyes? I understood all the mute insults, the rapid
+comparisons that he made between his misery and my strong, well-groomed
+appearance. For him I was a coward gallivanting with women, when men are
+with men, giving their lives for something of importance."
+
+"Bah! You are a foreigner," interrupted the Prince, who seemed wearied
+by his friend's words.
+
+"I live here; and the land where I live cannot be foreign to me. This
+war is for something more than questions of land; it concerns all men.
+Look at the Americans, whom we all considered very practical and
+incapable of idealism; they know that they are not going to gain
+anything positive; and nevertheless they are entering the struggle with
+all their might. Besides, there is the spirit of the women. Would you
+imagine that the two that were with me laughed at the red-headed
+fellow's insult, considering it very apropos? And don't tell me that
+women are always attracted by the warrior, on every occasion. Perhaps by
+the warrior in peace times, shiny and beplumed. But these fellows now
+look so miserable! No; there is something very lofty in everything that
+surrounds us, something that you and I have not been able to see,
+because of our selfishness."
+
+His listener once more shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of
+indifference.
+
+"And when I think of my meeting yesterday, as I constantly am doing, and
+see the place that that damned redhead offered me jokingly, as though I
+were a woman, and as though I would never have the courage to take it,
+you propose that I arrange for a deadly combat with another of these men
+who consider themselves, not without reason, superior to us! No; now you
+know my answer: I won't accept."
+
+He had left the arm of the chair and was standing, facing the Prince.
+The latter made a gesture of weariness. He was bored by Atilio's words,
+by that childlike story about the train, the red-haired soldier and his
+insolent invitation. That might move Doña Clorinda, but nobody else; he
+had more important things to think about just then. And since he refused
+to do him the favor, he could leave him alone.
+
+"Good-by, Michael!" said Castro, with the conviction that this farewell
+was going to be something more than a momentary parting.
+
+"Good-by," replied the Prince, without stirring.
+
+When he had almost reached the door, Atilio turned back.
+
+"I know what my refusal means, and what it is up to me to do. Good-by
+again. Remember that if you were to ask me anything else...."
+
+But the Prince interrupted his words with another gesture of
+indifference, and Atilio went away, hiding his emotion.
+
+Immediately Don Marcos entered the bar, as though he had been waiting
+on the other side of the curtain for Castro to come out. His
+"chamberlain" had never seemed to the Prince so active and intelligent.
+
+"It is all arranged, Marquis."
+
+As he had felt certain that Atilio would not allow himself to be
+persuaded, he had gone in search of another second. He thought for a
+moment of going to Monaco, to speak to Novoa. Then he remembered the
+professor's relations with Valeria. Such a visit would be equivalent to
+informing the Duchess of the entire affair. Besides, the scientist did
+not know anything about such matters, and was a fellow countryman of
+Martinez. It was quite enough that one Spaniard should figure in this
+affair.
+
+"I have my second," he continued. "It will be Lord Lewis."
+
+In the Colonel's eyes, Lewis was more of a Lord than ever. He was
+thankful for the promptness with which he had granted his request. The
+Englishman was winning money that afternoon, and was in an excellent
+humor. He even got up from his seat, leaving the gambling, to listen to
+the Colonel. He wanted to take him over to the bar, affirming that with
+a whiskey in front of a fellow he can talk better; and Toledo guessed
+from his breath that he had already taken several drinks to celebrate
+his good luck. Lewis was disposed to serve his friend Lubimoff. As far
+as fights were concerned, he was acquainted only with boxing; but he had
+absolute confidence in the Colonel's expert opinion and would support
+anything he might say. Immediately afterwards he had returned to his
+play.
+
+Michael gave Toledo his instructions. It would be an encounter under
+rigorous conditions, like those which he had witnessed in Russia. It
+could be nothing else: he had received a blow. And he said this with a
+sullen voice, quite convinced of the absolute reality of the insult.
+
+As night fell, he left the Casino, avoiding his acquaintances who were
+invading the bar, and obliging him to smile and keep up frivolous
+conversation, while his thoughts were far away.
+
+In all his moments of profound anger, when unable to put his feelings
+into immediate and violent action, his nervous excitation was followed
+by a certain lassitude which caused his muscles and nerves to relax.
+
+It was with a real pleasure that he entered Villa Sirena, finding an
+unwonted voluptuousness in all the details of its comforts. He spent the
+time he was waiting for the Colonel in reading. At nine o'clock he was
+obliged to eat alone. Then he returned to his book, but this time in his
+bedroom, finally lying down, book in hand. He smiled with a smile that
+was almost a grimace, as he thought that his nervous fatigue had caused
+him to stretch out in the same posture as the dead.
+
+He went on turning the pages without losing a single line, and
+nevertheless he could not have told what he was reading. Suddenly, he
+concentrated his attention in an effort to remember. Something had
+happened; something was awaiting him. What was it? "Oh, yes!" And after
+reconstructing in his memory what had taken place that afternoon, and
+imagining what was to take place the following day, he returned to his
+meaningless reading.
+
+The pages melted away like snowflakes; he felt his hand grow lighter;
+the book finally fell on the bed. Instinctively he sought the electric
+button to darken the room, and before completely losing all perception
+of the outer world, he could hear his own first regular breathing.
+
+A light striking against his eyes made him sit up. He saw the Colonel
+beside his bed. The deep silence of the night, which seemed even more
+absolute when emphasized by the sound of the sea, was broken off by the
+panting of a motor-car.
+
+The Prince rubbed his eyes. What time was it?
+
+"One o'clock," said Don Marcos.
+
+Everything was arranged. The meeting was to take place on the following
+day, at two o'clock in the afternoon. It could not be managed earlier!
+There were still a great many things left to be done. The place selected
+was Lewis' castle; an encounter in the principality of Monaco would be
+impossible. All the houses there were close together, without a single
+quiet spot where two men might face each other, pistol in hand.
+
+Lubimoff almost jumped out of bed, so great was his surprise. The choice
+of arms was his, as the injured person, and he had mentioned to his
+representative the saber, the favorite weapon of his youthful duels.
+Toledo, for the first time faced the furious look of his Prince without
+a tremor.
+
+"Marquis," he said with dignity. "It could not be anything else! You
+must remember that this poor young man is a convalescent, almost an
+invalid. I am astonished that he should have persuaded his seconds to
+allow even pistols. His representatives did not want to accept anything.
+They are among those who feel that this duel ought not to take place."
+
+The Prince calmed himself. A sense of equity caused him to accept
+Toledo's decision. That sick fellow was not an enemy worthy of his
+saber; it was necessary to establish a certain equality between them,
+and the pistol would do that, being the only weapon that lends itself to
+surprises and whims of chance.
+
+"At any event I shall kill him," thought Michael, remembering his skill
+as a marksman.
+
+"I must tell your Highness," the Colonel went on, "that all weapons are
+the same to him. This young man and his two friends are well acquainted
+with everything that concerns warfare, but they haven't the slightest
+notion of duelling and the weapons that are used on such occasions."
+
+Then he enumerated the conditions. The distance was to be fifteen
+meters; each one was to fire a single shot, but each might aim and fire
+while he, who was to direct the combat, was counting from one to three.
+With a marksman like the Prince, such conditions would be serious.
+
+Exactly! The Prince found them acceptable.
+
+"Good-night," he said, burying himself in the bed, and pulling the
+coverlet up to his eyes.
+
+Once more sleep overwhelmed him, now that his curiosity was satisfied.
+
+Toledo would have liked to do the same, but he was obliged to fulfill
+the sacred duties of his exalted position, and he went from room to room
+looking through every drawer and climbing on chairs to rummage around on
+the top shelves of the closets. He was looking for a box of duelling
+pistols, that had been given to him in Russia by one of the Generals who
+was a friend of the dead Marquis. When he finally found it, he was
+obliged to spend more than an hour in cleaning the luxurious weapons,
+which had lost their silvery brilliancy in the oblivion of their long
+confinement.
+
+He felt tired, yet at the same time his feeling of importance warded off
+sleep. Was he not the soul of the drama which was being prepared for the
+following day, he alone? Without him, neither his Highness nor Martinez
+could fight. Lord Lewis and the two soldiers who represented the
+adversary were incapable of a single idea, and had to follow him as
+though they were his pupils.
+
+Consciousness of this superiority caused him to recall from
+mid-afternoon to mid-night all his past negotiations and triumphs.
+
+He had gone in quest of Martinez, with a certain hesitation. In spite of
+his old beliefs, he felt Atilio's protests were quite reasonable.
+Perhaps what he said was right, that this duel was a piece of
+foolishness, madness even, on the part of the Prince. But his
+traditional ideas revolted against such scruples.
+
+"Honor is honor." And, hearing the Lieutenant accept reparation by arms,
+with joy, and with a certain haste, as though he were afraid that Toledo
+would repent and withdraw the proposal, the Colonel felt the
+satisfaction of a person who, after long hesitation, becomes convinced
+that he is in the right. Heroic youth, ready to maintain all points of
+honor! Don Marcos found it natural that he should act thus. Martinez was
+from the same land as himself!
+
+For a moment his memory dwelt on the image of the Duchess. Perhaps she
+was the involuntary cause of this clash, and the boy was animated by a
+feeling of vanity. He was going to figure in a duel such as he had read
+about in the story books of his youth; he was going to be a chief actor
+in one of those dreams of high life that seemed to him to belong to
+another world. But the Colonel immediately put aside such speculations,
+which had been suggested by the frank rejoicing with which Martinez
+accepted the challenge, as though it were an invitation to a party.
+
+From that moment on Toledo began to be more and more bewildered. The
+world had changed, changed completely, and he advanced from amazement to
+amazement.
+
+To favor his compatriot, he wanted to know the arms for which the latter
+had a preference.
+
+"I am acquainted with so many!" exclaimed Martinez.
+
+In an attack he had wounded with the point of a saber a gigantic German
+who was threatening him with his bayonet. The thrust had met something
+hard that crunched, and spurted a shower of blood into his face. Then,
+on growing calm, he saw that he had driven the weapon through his
+adversary's mouth, breaking his spinal column. He was also acquainted
+with the revolver, but was not a marksman. He was more expert with other
+weapons: the hand grenade, which reminded him of youthful ball games;
+the machine gun, which he had handled as a mere aid; explosive hurled
+with a sling. He was even fairly skilled in artillery, but trench
+artillery, in loading short range mortars, used in firing torpedoes and
+asphyxiating projectiles into the neighboring trench!
+
+He smiled scornfully when Don Marcos insisted on the fencing formalities
+to be employed with the saber. He had his own style of fencing; to go
+straight up to the enemy and strike first. But in hand to hand fighting
+he preferred the knife. With a revolver he had never bothered about
+aiming. He didn't fire until he found himself close to the enemy, and
+was sure of his shot.
+
+"And the duelling pistol?" asked the Colonel.
+
+"I am not acquainted with it at all. I should like to see one: it must
+be something curious."
+
+Toledo's hesitating glance wandered over the officer's breast, as though
+taking an inventory of his decorations, pausing at the stars that dotted
+the striped ribbons of his War Cross. Each one of them symbolized a
+great deed.
+
+When the Lieutenant presented his seconds, the bewilderment of Don
+Marcos was not relieved. They were two extremely young captains. Toledo
+guessed they were twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. Their uniforms
+fitting very tight about the waist, their kepis of the latest style,
+their neatness and elegance pleased the Colonel, who immediately took
+them to be professional soldiers. They must have come from the school of
+Saint-Cyr; his professional eye could not be mistaken; they were of a
+different stock from humble Martinez!
+
+One of them had had his face burned on one side by German liquid fire:
+the other's face was burrowed with a network of scarlet threads, which
+were the remains of scars. They both limped; one of them, with an
+enormous foot covered with wrappings and shod with a felt shoe, was
+quite frankly leaning on a stick; while his companion, who had a stiff
+leg, wore a trim tiny shoe, displaying a certain vanity also in a
+slender rattan cane, which he really used for support.
+
+Their first words were rather embarrassing for the Colonel and Lewis.
+What was the meaning of this, a civilian daring to insult a soldier who
+was recovering from his wounds? What was the idea in proposing a duel in
+the midst of war? Any one who wanted to die himself or kill someone else
+had only to go to the front, like the rest. But Martinez, who was still
+present, intervened, entering into a rapid discussion with them. Did
+they want to do him this favor he had asked them as comrades, or not?
+Yes, but they were giving their own opinion of the matter. In their
+judgment the logical thing would have been to put an end to the quarrel
+right there on the Casino steps: two good punches at that slacker who
+wasn't going to war and took the liberty of annoying those who were
+doing their duty! They talked like men thoroughly aware of the fragility
+of life, like men who know how easy it is to take another man's life, or
+to lose one's. They laughed instinctively at the importance, the
+ceremonies and the so-called "equities" with which in peace times a
+private encounter is surrounded. But in the end, since their comrade
+insisted on their representing him in this farce, they would do it to
+please him, even though their compliance might get them into the guard
+house.
+
+Scarcely had Martinez withdrawn, when one of the Captains, the one with
+the elephantine foot in a felt shoe, confessed his lack of competence in
+such matters.
+
+"I never saw a duel in Bordeaux. I have no idea what it's like. Before
+the war I was a traveling salesman in Mexico. Wine was my line. I sailed
+with all the Frenchmen who were living there, and by a miracle we were
+not captured by a _Boche_ pirate. I started in as a second class
+private; but I did what I could. If it were a business matter I would
+give my opinion, but in a thing like this!... Perhaps my comrade here."
+Another Martinez! Don Marcos forgot the Captain with the felt shoe. He
+was the Lewis of the opposite side. He concentrated all his attention on
+the Captain with the shiny boots and the toy cane. The latter must be an
+adversary worthy of him. It was a shame that his clear eyes should have
+the ironical expression of a man who makes a joke of everything, and
+that under his red mustache, trimmed short, in the English fashion,
+there should flit a faint look of insolence!
+
+He was born in Paris, as he proudly declared as soon as he started to
+speak; and when Don Marcos slyly sounded him to find out whether or not
+he was an expert in affairs of honor and had witnessed many duels, he
+said in a simple way:
+
+"More than a hundred."
+
+Toledo had not been mistaken. This was the man with whom he would have
+the struggle. Then he thought of the number, and compared it with the
+Captain's age. More than a hundred, and surely he was not over
+twenty-six! He had a presentiment that he was going to be up against
+some famous swordsman, whose glorious name has been momentarily obscured
+by the war.
+
+The Captain and the Colonel were the only ones to do any talking. In the
+beginning the Captain had had an air of jesting, with a Parisian sense
+of humor, at the solemn, high-sounding terms in which Don Marcos treated
+questions of honor. But the Colonel's reserved and persistent
+grandiloquence finally got the better of the other's inclination to
+banter. The young Captain took the same tone as the Colonel, finally
+interested in the affair and recognizing its importance.
+
+At certain moments, the Colonel felt doubtful on listening to the way in
+which his rival formulated amazing heresies, revealing absolute
+ignorance of the great authorities who have codified the laws of
+encounters between gentlemen. And this man had been present at more than
+a hundred duels! Later, Don Marcos was amazed at the promptness with
+which the texts he had cited himself were appropriated by the young man;
+at the ease with which his classics had been assimilated, somewhat
+inverted in meaning, to be sure, the better to sustain affirmations
+contrary to his own.
+
+When the encounter was arranged for in its slightest details, the
+Captain summed up his impressions with a simplicity that made the blood
+of Don Marcos run cold.
+
+"One or both perhaps will be wounded. There is nothing extraordinary
+about that. Who isn't wounded these days? Surgery has made great
+progress; it is quite different from what it was at the beginning of the
+war. If a man doesn't die on the spot, he is nearly always saved.
+Besides, they will put them to bed and they won't remain abandoned on
+the field for days and days, as happens in war."
+
+But the placid expression with which he talked about wounds was clouded
+over, giving way to a grim look.
+
+"I am assuming, of course," he continued, "that no one is killed.
+Because if, for example, my comrade, Martinez, who is as gentle as a
+lamb and of whom I am very fond, should die in this farce, I'll kill
+your Prince on the spot, without any rules whatsoever, the way we kill
+a _Boche_ at the front."
+
+The tone in which he said these words was so sincere, that the Colonel,
+deeply impressed by them, did not observe how strange they sounded in
+the mouth of an expert in the laws of honor.
+
+The conversation became more intimate and cordial as always happens when
+a difficult matter has been settled. Toledo was obliged to tell them
+about his life as a soldier--at least the way he imagined it had been,
+after so many years--and both young men, who had witnessed the combats
+of millions of men, showed the same interest as children listening to a
+strange tale, as he related obscure encounters in the mountains, battles
+that did not even have a name and were remembered only in an exaggerated
+fashion by Don Marcos himself.
+
+The Parisian Captain, elegant and charming, also talked about his past.
+
+"As for me, before the war, I worked in the Box Office of the theaters
+on the Boulevard. I haven't any other position."
+
+Don Marcos had to make an effort to conceal his surprise. Indeed, he had
+seen more than a hundred duels; but in plays on the stage, between
+actors, who draw out the preliminaries of the encounters with
+ceremonious deliberation, in order to prolong the suspense of the
+audience. He should have guessed it on hearing his nonsense! What a fool
+that boy had made of him!
+
+But immediately his eyes fell on the coats of the two young men. The
+same as Martinez: The Legion of Honor, the Military Medal and the War
+Cross, with stars. That of the former ticket seller was even crossed by
+a golden palm.
+
+Ah, indeed! The world had changed. Where were the days of Don Marcos?
+Then he thought of all he had done in his life to increase his own self
+esteem; by appearing in full ceremony at various duels where most often
+no blood was shed. He also thought of what these young men had done and
+seen in less than four years. Their obscure origin brought to his memory
+the various warriors of Napoleon, whose names were celebrated and whose
+origin had been even worse. Some of them had succeeded in becoming
+kings, while these poor Captains once the war was over, would have to
+return, laden with glory, to their former occupations, struggling day by
+day to earn their bread!
+
+They separated, agreeing to meet after dinner, to sign the paper stating
+the conditions of the encounter. They were all four in accord, but on
+mentioning this number, Toledo noticed that there were only three. Lewis
+had witnessed the long preliminaries with a certain impatience, seated
+on a divan in the ante-room of the Casino.
+
+"There's a friend waiting for me. I'll be back in a moment."
+
+And he had entered the gambling rooms, which were forbidden to the
+officers.
+
+The Colonel had no illusions as to the duration of that moment, about
+two hours having passed. After leaving the Captains, he found Lewis at a
+_trente et quarante_ table, with a heap of thousand franc chips in front
+of him. Of course he did not understand what Toledo whispered in his
+ear. He had to make an effort to recall.
+
+"Oh, yes, the matter of the duel! I have every confidence in you; do
+whatever you please, I shall sign what you give me, but I am not going
+to get up, even though they might tell me Lubimoff was dead. What a day
+this has been, my friends! If they were all like this!"
+
+And he turned his back, to make the most of his time, before the flight
+of luck would change.
+
+Don Marcos had dined in the Café de Paris, going over in his mind the
+various articles he should put in the dueling agreement. The
+consideration that they were all relying on his superior knowledge
+caused him to be very exacting with himself. He wanted something concise
+and brilliant which would inspire respect in those boys, who were
+covered with glory. And he spent more than an hour, with the dessert
+dishes in front of him on the table, scribbling over sheet after sheet
+of paper, tearing each one up and beginning all over again on another.
+It was futile work: both signed in the reading room of the Casino,
+hardly giving the eloquent text a glance. As for Lewis he was obliged to
+get him out of the private gambling rooms by every sort of trick, and
+entreaty. The Englishman had forgotten to dine, in order not to offend
+Madame Fortune by his absence, and that stubborn Colonel came and
+disturbed him with his damned affair of the duel!
+
+He signed the document without looking at it; he gave his word to the
+officers that he would come and get them in an automobile to take them
+to his castle. Then he ran away immediately, not without first saying to
+Don Marcos in a gruff tone:
+
+"Until four o'clock, no later! If it isn't all over at four, I'll let
+them kill each other alone and come back here. That's the hour that the
+fine deals commence. To-day's luck is going to continue."
+
+And he fled, smiling with pity on people who were occupied with less
+important things.
+
+On finding himself alone, the Colonel began to make preparations for the
+encounter. He needed a doctor. He would go next morning and find an old
+physician in Monte Carlo who visited the Prince from time to time. He
+needed powder and balls; he proposed to go in quest of them to-morrow
+also. He needed two cases of pistols, and he had only one!
+
+The matter of the two cases he considered essential. The other man's
+seconds did not know where to get theirs. No matter; he would find them
+one. The indispensable thing was that there should be two, so that fate
+might decide which they should use. Without that, the conditions would
+not be equal. And he spent the time until about one o'clock in the
+morning, asking hotel employees, rousing people out of bed, going down
+to the rooms of the Sporting Club, until an American whom he knew gave
+him a note for a certain fellow-countryman, a gloomy, half crazy fellow,
+who lived in an isolated villa on Cap-Ferrat. He thought he would
+conclude this negotiation the following day; and to do so he had rented
+an automobile.
+
+Owing to the lack of vehicles and gas, the cost of the car was enormous;
+but it was necessary owing to the importance of his functions.
+
+But now he was in Villa Sirena, at two o'clock in the morning, slowly
+cleaning the pistols, as though they were fragile jewels.
+
+In the silence of his bedroom, far from mankind, influenced by the
+lonely mystery of the small hours of the night, which puts a certain
+vagueness in things and ideas, he felt an enormous self-aggrandizement.
+No; his world had not changed as much as he thought. The proof was that
+he was there, cleaning weapons for a duel!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On waking up the next morning, the Prince could not find his
+"chamberlain". The rented auto had carried him off at seven o'clock, to
+complete his preparations.
+
+Lubimoff wandered about the gardens, stopping in front of the cages,
+which sheltered various exotic birds. Then with an absent-minded look,
+he followed the evolutions of various peacocks, spreading their tails,
+colored blue and golden, or a royal black, in the sunlight.
+
+His old valet interrupted his promenade. Some men had come with a truck
+to get Señor Castro's baggage.
+
+Michael showed no surprise; they might hand over everything to them that
+belonged to Don Atilio. But the servant added that the same men also
+wanted to take away the little that belonged to Señor Spadoni, news
+which amazed the Prince. He, too! What reason had Spadoni to desert him?
+
+He glanced at the brief note written to the Colonel and signed by them
+both. In his flight, Castro was taking with him the dreamy pianist.
+
+"All right," he thought; "let them all leave; let them leave me alone.
+If they think that by doing so they are going to make me refrain from
+carrying out my intention!..."
+
+Then he resumed his walk.
+
+Only a few hours remained before he would find himself facing that young
+man whom he so hated. He was going coldly to do away with him, so that
+he would not continue to be a nuisance. The conditions planned by the
+Colonel were sufficient for a marksman of his skill to bring down his
+adversary. He needed only a single shot.
+
+For a moment he thought of going to the end of the gardens, where he
+sometimes passed the time shooting. It was a good idea that he should
+practise steadiness of hand--the pistol is full of surprises. Then he
+decided not to, as it seemed unworthy that he should add these
+preparations to his evident superiority. His mediocre adversary could
+not be practising at that time. He had no facilities for doing so in
+Monte Carlo where he had no other friends than his convalescent comrades
+and a few ladies. He, on the other hand!... he held out his muscular
+arm, keeping it rigid for a few seconds with his eye glued on his fist.
+There was not the slightest tremor! He would be able to place a ball
+wherever he wanted. Poor Martinez might consider himself a dead man. And
+not the slightest sign of remorse disturbed the Prince's infernal pride
+in his implacable strength.
+
+His consciousness of superiority was so great and his certainty in the
+result so absolute, that he finally began to feel some doubt, that
+feeling of uneasiness which is inspired by the mystery of things still
+to be accomplished. Suddenly there came crowding into his memory stories
+of combats in which the weak unexpectedly triumphed over the strong,
+through an obscure mandate of inherent justice. He recalled many novels
+in which the reader draws a sigh of relief on seeing that the hero,
+modest and agreeable, placed in danger of death by the "villain," who is
+stronger and wickeder than he, not only saves his own life, but in
+addition kills his adversary, through some happy chance; all of which
+goes to show the existence of some superior and just power which on most
+occasions seems asleep, but at certain moments awakens, giving each
+person what he deserves. Since the time of David, the little barefoot
+shepherd, killing with a stone the huge giant clad in bronze, humanity
+has enjoyed such stories.
+
+Pistols are capricious weapons, and lend themselves to the absurd
+determinations of fate. Might he not fall, with all his skill, at the
+poor Lieutenant's first shot?
+
+He held out his arm again, as before, looking at his clenched first.
+Then he smiled, with the smile of his ancestors, which gave his features
+a Mongolian ugliness. Mere traditional fiction, inventions of story
+writers, to flatter the public in a sentimental love of equality! The
+strong are always the strong. Within a few hours he would sweep that
+nuisance out of the way, calmly and without remorse, the way superior
+men always act.
+
+A roaring sound coming from the railway line drew him from his
+thoughts. It was a trainload of soldiers approaching, like all the
+others, with an ovation of shouts, acclamations and whistling. It was
+rolling along towards Italy, in the direction opposite to that of the
+numerous trains coming to the French front. The Prince walked over to a
+garden terrace, the stone flower-covered wall of which descended to the
+track. The cars seemed to pass of their own will before his eyes,
+showing him one side as they rounded the curve, and then the other as
+they reached another curve, where they were lost to view.
+
+The uniform of these combatants puzzled the Prince for a moment, as an
+unexpected novelty. They were dressed in dark blue serge, with their
+blouses open at the neck, and sleeves rolled up. On their heads they
+wore white caps with the brims turned up all around, like the little
+paper boats that children make.
+
+He finally recognized them: they were sailors from the United States, a
+battalion, sailors from the fleet, going to Italy so that the Stars and
+Stripes might represent the huge republic on the icy summits of the Alps
+and on the hot marshy plains of Venetia.
+
+With the rapidity of mental visions, which reveal, one superimposed upon
+the other but nevertheless distinct, a great number of diverse images,
+the Prince recalled the harbors of North America which he had visited in
+his youth, aquatic beehives, gathering together all the work and riches
+of the earth; monstrous, interminable cities, with populations as large
+as nations, and in which liberty and well-being seemed to have reached
+their highest limits.... And these men were leaving the comforts of a
+scientifically organized existence, their productive business, their
+amply remunerative work, their immediate hopes of wealth, perhaps to die
+for an ideal in the Old World, merely for an ideal, since they were not
+seeking new strips of land nor indemnities for their country! And until
+then, the average person had considered this country as the most
+materialistic, the least poetic and idealist of all nations, calling it
+the land of the dollar!... It was true that unselfish ideals were
+something more than words, since millions of men were coming across the
+sea to give their blood for them!
+
+The sailors, after passing through the city of Monte Carlo, where they
+were greeted with cheers and waving flags, were entering the open
+country, where their shouts faded away with no answering echoes. For
+this reason their attention was attracted by that flowering terrace and
+the man appearing above it. It was like a procession on review: the
+carriages, one by one, came to life as they passed the Prince. From all
+the car windows arms with sleeves rolled up projected, shaking white
+caps. On the car roofs, a few strapping lads were gesticulating, with
+arms and legs extended, while the wind rippled in the folds of their
+dark trousers, above the white leggings. More than a thousand throats
+greeted the solitary man on the terrace with gay whistling, hurrahs, or
+unintelligible cries, which gave vent to the exuberant feelings of those
+youths, hungry for danger and glory, full of joy and curiosity, as they
+passed through an Old World which to them was new.
+
+Lubimoff remained motionless, with his elbows on the railing, and his
+chin in one hand, as though he did not see that pent-up river of men,
+gliding along below his feet. The gay sailors, as they passed, turned
+their heads, repeating their shouts and greetings, as though anxious to
+awaken that human figure, rigid and clinging to the balustrade as though
+forming a part of its decoration.
+
+He had completely forgotten the thoughts and worries of a moment before.
+All he saw was that torrent of young men rushing to meet danger and
+death for certain ideals as simple and beautiful as their blossoming
+youth. They were coming from the other side of the earth with that
+naïve faith that accomplishes the great miracles of history; and in the
+meantime, Prince Lubimoff, who, by dint of seeking after superior ideas
+and exquisite sensations, had finally come to believe in nothing, was
+there at his garden rail, calculating the surest means of killing a man,
+a man who was useful, like those who were passing.
+
+Castro's image arose in his mind. He, too, had witnessed two days
+before, the passing of a train. He recalled the impression so deep and
+powerful that had impelled him to leave Villa Sirena, and break with his
+relative. He could see, just as it had been described to him, the bitter
+look of that red-headed soldier insulting him with scorn.
+
+"There's room here for one more!"
+
+The American sailors continued their whistling, and their exuberantly
+youthful shouting; but it seemed to him that these voices and waving of
+hands said the same as the other man's words, inviting him with ironical
+politeness: "Come; there's a place here for you!" A little later, and
+the voices were dumb, but he could still hear them, deep in his soul,
+like the far-off booming of a bell. He had considered himself a brave
+man, who as a matter of distinction, of sophistication, of refined
+indifference, preferred to keep aloof from things which rouse enthusiasm
+in other mortals. But the far-off tolling of the bell protested, ringing
+in his ear, repeating a single word: "Coward! Coward!"
+
+He walked about the garden in a pensive mood until Toledo arrived in the
+afternoon. They had lunch in a hurry, and the Colonel made several
+recommendations. His knowledge of dueling matters, which has as many
+branches as the tree of science, touched in one of its ramifications on
+cooking. The Prince should not take any wine; since he must keep his
+hand steady. And as the Colonel said this he was praying inside that
+the bullets would all go astray, since both contestants inspired an
+equal interest in him. Some soft boiled eggs, nothing more; and not much
+liquid. At the last moment he should remember to empty his bladder. A
+terrible thing a wound with internal leakage! Nothing escaped the
+Colonel--he thought of everything.
+
+He went up to his room to put on the frock coat he wore at duels. The
+moment for officiating had arrived. He remained hesitating in front of
+the mirror, realizing the lack of harmony between this majestic garment
+and the derby that topped off his appearance. Oh, the war! He smiled at
+the absurd thought of presenting himself thus four years before--it
+seemed like four centuries--in those Paris duels, in which the seconds
+and adversaries felt that it was only decent to go to meet death with an
+elegant, shiny, high hat.
+
+Having omitted this solemn touch, he felt that he might look somewhat
+ridiculous sitting in the automobile beside the Prince, with his long
+frock coat and the two pistol cases on his knees.
+
+The carriage stopped in the Boulevard des Moulins, in front of the
+doctor's house. Wounded soldiers were passing, some with fixed stares,
+tapping the pavement in front of them with sticks, others tottering
+along out of weakness or owing to an amputation.
+
+A woman's voice, smooth and sweet, greeted the Prince. It was the voice
+of an extremely slender nurse, who was walking arm and arm with two
+blind officers. Michael and Don Marcos recognized Lewis' niece. She
+smiled at them, showing them the two strapping Englishmen whom she was
+serving as a guide; two fair-haired Apollos, tanned by the sun, with
+Roman profiles, shining teeth, and lithe bodies, strong and symmetrical,
+but with vacant eyes--like fires that have gone out--and a tragic
+expression on their lips, an expression of despair and protest at
+finding themselves dead in the midst of life.
+
+"They are my two 'crushes'. How do you like them?" She was jesting in
+order to cheer up her companions, with that joyousness and daring of a
+Virgin Dolorosa, passing through the world scattering pale rays of
+Northern sunlight in the ambulances and hospitals. She seemed to be made
+entirely of the same stuff as the sacramental Host, fragile, anæmic,
+white and transparent, like dim crystal. And she went away, guiding like
+children the two blind men, despairing and handsome, whose heads towered
+above her own. A slight pressure of their fingers would have been enough
+to crush that body, like an alabaster lamp, all light, of no more
+substance than was necessary to guard the inner flame and cause it to
+shine through.
+
+"Good-by, Lady Lewis!" said the Prince.
+
+Don Marcos started on hearing his voice; it was a solemn voice such as
+he had never heard, a tremulous voice like a sentimental song in the
+depths of which lay teardrops.
+
+The doctor laid his surgical case on the frayed carpet in the auto.
+There were three such cases now. It was not until then that the Colonel
+decided to relieve himself of the two precious boxes, placing them on
+top of the doctor's.
+
+The car started off up the mountain, by a road that rose in sharp
+zigzags. At the end of each angle, Monte Carlo was revealed, smaller and
+smaller, and more sunken, like a toy city built of blocks with its red
+roof and many ants threading its streets to gather together in the
+Square. On the other hand, the sea seemed to arch its back, constantly
+rising, devouring with its blue rectilinear jaws a portion of the sky at
+each turn in the climb.
+
+On the crest of the hill a huge mass of masonry kept growing more and
+more gigantic; La Trophee, a name which had finally changed to La
+Turbie, the medieval name of the little gray, walled village, which
+huddled about the monument. Two slender columns of white marble flanking
+the rubble-work, and a piece of the cornice were all that remained of
+the proudest of Roman trophies--a tower 30 meters in height, with a
+gigantic statue of Augustus, on its summit, which marked on the Alps the
+boundary between the lands of the Empire and those of the conquered
+Gauls. The auto, leaving the hamlet of La Turbie behind, was now running
+along the ancient Roman road.
+
+"I can see the Legions," Don Marcos gravely murmured.
+
+It was a mania of his. He had never had sufficient imagination to be
+able to see the Legions for himself; but after witnessing in a moving
+picture film a procession of supers, with bare legs and short swords,
+following Julius Cæsar's horse, Roman military life had had no mysteries
+for him, and every time he went up to La Turbie he murmured the same
+words: "I can see the Legions."
+
+A few minutes later he forgot his resurrection of the warlike past to
+point out various buildings, of such a bluish gray color that they
+blended with the hills behind them. It was Lewis' castle. Standing out
+from it, one could see solitary towers, joined to the square mass of the
+buildings by causeways; watch towers flanking the gates; sharp slate
+roofs, with double rows of tiny dormers; roofs that only had the wooden
+rafters, through which one could see, as though the interior had been
+gutted by a fire; walls half built, descending at a right angle like a
+stone carpenter's square riveted to the ground on its long edge.
+
+From a distance the castle might have been taken for an abandoned ruin.
+Lewis, having lost hope of being able to finish it, declared in good
+faith that it was better thus, since it would save him the trouble of
+decorating it with artificial ruins. It looked like some legendary
+fortress, such as those his father, the historian, had described, made
+for gray skies, for moist green forests, and which seemed anxious to
+escape from the sun-baked landscape of scanty vegetation, and to shrink
+from contact with the olive trees, the cacti, and the woody thickets
+covered with coarse flowers.
+
+They got out of the car on a smooth piece of ground, bordered on two
+sides by two buildings, meeting to form a right angle. It was the court
+of honor, the future parade ground of the castle. On the other two
+sides, some walls that rose only a meter above the soil, suggested what
+the courtyard might some day be, if Fortune would only cease being so
+intractable for the proprietor. At the open end of the flat ground was
+another hired car, and beside it the three soldiers.
+
+Lewis came forward to greet the Prince. They had arrived a short time
+before, and as he was in a hurry, he went into conference with the
+Colonel at once.
+
+Don Marcos was the oracle that he must consult in order not to lose any
+time. Might they end this business right here? Would it not be better to
+do it behind the castle, in an orchard surrounded by old olive trees?
+The Colonel, with a pistol case under each arm, was examining the
+terrain. The one thing that really concerned him at first was his own
+person. He felt, indeed, that he looked ridiculous. There were these
+three officers with their uniforms; the Prince, with his dark blue
+street suit; the doctor, dressed like an old man; Lewis, as usual, with
+the wide straw hat, without which he would never dream of taking a trip
+to the castle; and there he was himself wrapped in his large, solemn
+frock coat, which seemed to frighten the very doves, that had taken
+refuge in the gables and the ruined walls.
+
+After taking a glance behind the castle, he decided on the court-yard,
+which was free from trees. He would place the two contestants so that
+their figures would not stand out as targets, against a wall in the
+background.
+
+Lewis, in spite of his haste, felt it necessary to do the honors of the
+house.
+
+"A glass of whiskey?" As they had not given him time to make
+preparations, and as he was now living at Monte Carlo, his cellar was
+exhausted. But he was sure that by looking around a little he could come
+across a good bottle. What respectable house could not produce a bottle
+of whiskey for friends?
+
+"When we have finished, my Lord," said Don Marcos, scandalized at this
+invitation which was an infringement upon solemn regulations.
+
+The four seconds and the doctor were in a room on the ground floor,
+adorned with ancient battle trophies. The two contestants had been
+forgotten in the courtyard, like actors waiting for their turn to
+appear.
+
+Toledo opened the pistol cases, and gave the captains the one he had
+found that morning at Cap-Ferrat. Fate was to decide which of the two
+were to be used.
+
+"It isn't necessary," said the Parisian. "Either one, it's all the same
+to us. Arrange it all to suit yourself."
+
+Don Marcos protested against this irreverent desire to shorten the
+ceremonials. It was all quite necessary; they were there on very grave
+business.
+
+A five-franc piece shone in his hand. What efforts it had cost him to
+obtain that piece of money. Of all the preparations of the morning, that
+had taken the most time and been the most difficult to arrange. Coins
+had disappeared with the coming of the war. One could find nothing but
+paper money, and a five-franc note was of no use in a matter of heads or
+tails! He had been obliged to ask one of the important officers in the
+Casino to hand over that precious disc.
+
+"Heads or tails?"
+
+And the Colonel felt a secret thrill of joy as luck favored his ancient
+pistols. He was beginning to triumph!
+
+The doctor, in the meantime, was looking out of the drawing room door,
+with a certain air of amazement, not to say of indignation. His eyes
+were fixed on the Colonel. Finally, he called Don Marcos aside. Was that
+Lieutenant the man who was going to fight the Prince? He knew the boy; a
+friend of his, an army surgeon had talked to him about the Lieutenant's
+case as an astonishing instance of vitality. It was a disgusting piece
+of foolishness that was being planned: it amounted to murder. Why, that
+boy might fall stark dead before the first shot was fired! They had
+performed an amazingly delicate operation on his skull; it was a miracle
+that he had survived at all, and he might fall dead instantly at the
+slightest emotion.
+
+Don Marcos found an heroic answer, worthy of himself.
+
+"Doctor, for a man like that, fighting is not an emotion."
+
+He then proceeded with slow solemnity to carry out the most delicate
+part of the proceedings: the loading of the pistols. The two captains
+followed with a look of curiosity this operation, which was quite
+strange for them, though they imagined they had seen a whole lot of
+military life. The Parisian almost laughed as he watched how Toledo
+handled the diminutive ivory spoon which contained the charge of powder,
+scrutinizing it carefully before pouring it into the barrel of the
+weapon, with a certain fear of having put a grain more in one than in
+the other. Toledo was sure the heroic jester was making fun of his
+scrupulous precautions. But the Captain would not dare deny his interest
+in the novelty of the ceremony.
+
+Lewis went out to get the automobiles moved away as far as a nearby
+grove, much to the disgust of the chauffeurs. They obeyed reluctantly,
+intending to return, even though they might have to creep along the
+ground, to witness the spectacle.
+
+Toledo left the two pistols on an ancient Venetian table. They were
+ready! No one was to touch them! They were something sacred. Then his
+eyes, falling on the wall in front of him, were lighted with a sudden
+gleam of inspiration; he hurriedly advanced and unhooked two rusty
+swords from a panoply and went out with them into the courtyard.
+
+Deserted by their seconds, the contestants had begun to pace up and
+down, pretending they did not see each other, and each catching the
+other looking at him from the corner of his eye.
+
+They both suddenly found themselves in the situation of the preceding
+afternoon. It was as though no time had passed, as though they were
+still on the top steps of the Casino.
+
+All that the Prince had been thinking over in the last few hours and
+that had followed him until then in his thoughts, with a suggestion of
+remorse, immediately vanished. So this young gentleman was the man who
+had tried to strike him, Prince Lubimoff! He would soon find out what
+such daring was to cost him.
+
+But his anger seemed less violent than on the preceding day, something
+more reasoned, more completely the product of his will; and this
+weakening finally made him angry at himself.
+
+The other man was more instinctive in his rancor. As he looked at the
+Prince, he saw also the sweet image of that great lady, his
+benefactress. It was because the Prince was rich that he had tried to
+trample on him, treating him like one of his serfs, on his far-off
+estates in Russia. All the best things in life had been for this
+aristocrat, and now he was claiming possession of the few scattered
+crumbs, even of happiness that fall to the unfortunate! He did not know
+how to kill a man in these regulated combats; but he was going to kill,
+nevertheless, and felt the absolute confidence in himself that had
+animated him out there in the trenches in the cruelest days of danger
+and success.
+
+The presence of Don Marcos with a sword in either hand disturbed their
+reflections and interrupted their walking back and forth. They both came
+to a standstill. The Colonel looked at the sky, then took several paces
+in different directions. He wanted to fix it so that neither of the
+contestants would have the sun in his eyes.
+
+Finally he proudly thrust one of the swords into the ground. It seemed
+to him appropriate to the character of the place, to make use of these
+ancient weapons. They seemed to him more in harmony with Lewis' romantic
+castle, than two stakes or two cans. But his satisfaction this time was
+of short duration. On raising his eyes, he saw that Prince, and he saw
+Martinez....
+
+Poor Colonel! Up to that moment he had proceeded like a priest
+intoxicated by his own ceremonious words and his own incense, without
+thinking of the person in whose interest they are offered up. He had
+prepared all these formalities with the blind fervor of a professional
+who resumes his functions after several years of inaction, and thinks
+only of his work, forgetting for whom it is being done. He had managed
+everything in accordance with the rites, so that two gentlemen might
+kill each other in compliance with the strictest conventions; but now,
+at the supreme moment, he realized for the first time that these two men
+were his Prince and his Martinez, his fellow countryman, his hero.
+
+He was amazed to think that he had been able to go as far as he had gone
+up to that point. He felt the astonishment of a drunken man recovering
+his reason in the midst of objects broken by him in a fierce delirium.
+He recalled Castro's words and those of the doctor; why had _he_ not
+seen that this duel was a piece of foolishness? Repentance seemed to
+rush upon him. There was a burning sensation in his eyes, which began to
+fill with tears. But now it was too late. He must go on, even though his
+serenity should fail him.
+
+The one thing that he had forgotten in his minute preparations was the
+tape measure, and he saw in this omission an act of Providence. Starting
+from the sword planted in the ground he began to pace off the terrain.
+But they were not paces that he took; they were enormous strides. He
+fairly leaped. Now he was absolutely sure of the ridiculousness of his
+appearance, as his coattails flapped back and forth like wings, as they
+were thrust aside by the vigorous movements of his legs. "Fifteen
+paces." And he planted the second sword.
+
+If he could have had his way, he would have gone to the farthest end of
+the open field; perhaps as far as the place where the automobiles were
+awaiting. Then he looked uneasily at the ground he had measured. It was
+surely over twenty meters; a betrayal! What cowardice! Might God and
+gentlemen forgive him!
+
+Once more he brought out the five-franc piece. He had to decide again by
+chance the position of each contestant. The Parisian captain greeted
+this proposal with a bored air.
+
+"But I told you before to do whatever you pleased!"
+
+Lewis was muttering impatiently under his mustache.
+
+When the coin had marked the position of each one, Don Marcos placed the
+Prince beside one sword.
+
+"Marquis: your hat," he said in a low voice.
+
+Lubimoff, understanding this suggestion, took off his hat, throwing it
+some distance away. His adversary could not fight with his _kepis_ on
+his head. Its yellowish color and the emblem of the Legion embroidered
+on the brim of the cap made him conspicuous in an unfair manner. His
+uniform also worried Toledo, who tried to do away with all the visible
+details on it.
+
+Assisted by one of the captains, he proceeded to strip Martinez of his
+decorations of honor, after placing him beside the other sword. It was
+like a ceremony of degradation. They took off his _kepis_, then his
+medals, the red ribbon that hung from his shoulder, and the dark tan
+strips across his breast and the belt of the same color around his
+waist. The Lieutenant seemed reduced in stature and dignity in his loose
+uniform, without his decorations. The Parisian, always in a merry mood,
+compared him to a plucked bird.
+
+The Colonel felt that it was necessary to repeat aloud the conditions of
+the duel. The Prince knew them and was accustomed to such encounters. It
+was Martinez who needed his suggestions. After he, as the director of
+the combat, should give the word "Fire!" he would slowly count, "one,
+two, three." They might aim and fire in that space of time. "Be very
+careful, Lieutenant!" Don Marcos spoke with tragic solemnity.
+
+"If you fire before the _one_ or after the _three_, you will be declared
+a felon."
+
+The matter of being declared a felon frightened the young man. He didn't
+know exactly what it was, but the Colonel's look as he said this
+terrible word, made a deep impression on him. He no longer thought so
+vehemently of killing his adversary. This desire retreated into the
+background. Nor did he think of the fact that he himself might be
+killed. His one preoccupation was to calculate the time properly and
+obey instructions without bothering about aiming; to fire before the
+terrible _three_; so that he should not be given that horrible
+mysterious name that made his hair stand on end.
+
+Don Marcos entered the castle, and appeared again with the two loaded
+pistols. He gave one to the Prince. The latter did not need any lessons.
+He put the other in the Lieutenant's right hand, and told him how he
+should stand, with his arm bent, holding the weapon high, presenting
+only the narrow side of his body to his adversary. Once more he dwelt on
+his warning. He should be careful not to make a mistake! Now he knew!
+_One ... two ... three...._
+
+He himself stood midway between the adversaries withdrawing only a few
+paces from the line of fire. At that moment he was willing to die, so
+they both might remain unharmed!
+
+He took off his hat solemnly, and with a gesture of profound sadness.
+
+"Gentlemen ..."
+
+During the entire morning, as he walked from one place to another,
+making his preparations, he had not ceased to think of what he would say
+at that moment, working up a superb piece of oratory, brief and
+stirring. He had frequently spoken at duels, meriting the approval of
+the other seconds, retired Generals, and such experts, accustomed to
+formalities of the kind. But the short harangue of to-day was going to
+be his masterpiece.
+
+"Gentlemen ..." he repeated. He hesitated, not knowing what to add, as
+it had all been blotted from his memory. With a stammering voice, he
+went on saying whatever occurred to him, with no attempt at order, and
+without remembering a single word of the phrases which he had so
+carefully polished some hours before.
+
+"There was still time ... a little good will on their part; they were
+both men of courage who had proved their valor ... an explanation at the
+last moment was no dishonor!"
+
+His words were lost in a tense silence. But this silence was not
+absolute. There was somebody behind the Colonel, kicking the ground. It
+was Lewis who was consulting his watch, with a scowl. It was after three
+o'clock; the good series in the Casino had already begun.
+
+The Colonel decided to end his speech. Besides, he was frightened at the
+motionless and rigid figure of his Prince, with his pistol raised. He
+had never seen him so ugly. His face was an earthen color, there was a
+squint in his eyes, and his cheek bones protruded. His features had been
+changed in a moment, as though the savagery of his remote ancestors,
+awakened within, had risen to his face.
+
+"Since there is no possible agreement ..."
+
+At that moment the Colonel thought he had recalled the last part of his
+forgotten speech. But the tread of brilliant words escaped him again,
+and he was obliged to improvise, so he ended in a solemn fashion:
+
+"Come, gentlemen! Honor ... is honor; and the laws of chivalry ... are
+the laws of chivalry."
+
+He heard at his back the murmur of approval. It was the voice of the
+former ticket-seller. "Bravo! Wonderful!" But he did not care to hear
+what he said. You could never tell when that fellow was in earnest.
+
+"Ready?"
+
+The silence of the two adversaries gave the Colonel to understand that
+he might give the words of command.
+
+"Fire!... One ..."
+
+A shot rang out. Martinez, who was only thinking of the terrible three,
+had fired.
+
+He saw the Prince standing in front of him. He looked much taller; he
+could see the black hole of his weapon, and above that hole an eye, with
+a look of cold ferocity, which was choosing a point on his antagonist's
+body to send the obedient bullet. And with unconscious arrogance, he
+turned on his heel, so as to present not his profile, but the whole
+breadth of his body.
+
+The four seconds did not see this. Their eyes had focused on Lubimoff,
+the personification of death.
+
+Time contracts and expands us, according to our emotions. Its measure
+and rhythm depend on the state of the human mind. Sometimes it gallops
+along at a dizzy rate, over the faces of clocks that seem to have gone
+mad; at other times, it collapses and refuses to proceed, and a
+thousandth of a second embraces more emotions than months and years of
+ordinary life. The four witnesses felt as though the hours had been
+paralyzed, and the sun were remaining motionless forever. Time did not
+exist.
+
+"Two!" sighed Don Marcos, and it seemed to him that his lips would never
+cease uttering this word, as though it were composed of an infinite
+number of syllables.
+
+Lewis had forgotten the existence of the Casino; he was conscious only
+of the present. The Captain from Bordeaux, bending forward, was leaning
+on his wounded foot, without feeling any pain; the other officer was
+swearing between his teeth, and shaking his rattan cane until it hummed.
+The doctor, with professional instinct, was stooping over the surgical
+case that lay at his feet.
+
+Lubimoff was going to kill him! All four were sure that he was going to
+kill him. An implacable expression of security, and of ferocious
+coolness, radiated from that man, with arm upraised, so motionless, and
+pitiless. The expression on his Kalmuck face was of such deep fatality,
+his one eye tightly shut and the other open, that they could all see an
+imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the pistol to the breast of the
+man opposite, the road that the tiny sphere of lead was going to follow
+with inexorable accuracy.
+
+Proud of his superiority, the Prince postponed the moment of dealing
+death, with a sort of savage playfulness. He had his enemy in his claws,
+and could toy with him during those three months, that were as long as
+centuries.
+
+In the dizzy coincidence of image whirling through his brain, he could
+see the Princess, his mother, beautiful and arrogant, as she was when
+she recounted to him as a little boy, the greatness of the Lubimoffs.
+Then he saw his father, the General, somber and kindly, saying in a
+rough voice: "The strong man must be kind."
+
+As he thought of his father, his pistol swerved slightly, but
+immediately he corrected his aim.
+
+In his imagination a train was slowly passing. French soldiers. He saw
+Castro and the insolent red-haired fellow who was offering him a seat.
+Another train advanced in the opposite direction, an endless train that
+kept coming from the depths of the ocean. Hurrahs, whistling, dark
+blouses, blue collars, little caps that looked as though made of paper.
+"Good afternoon, Prince!" The luminous smile of a pale Virgin: Lady
+Lewis with her two blind men, handsome and tragic....
+
+His pistol fell. Above it he could see the entire body of his adversary,
+that obscure soldier, condemned to die before long no doubt, from wounds
+received in a land that was not his own, for a cause which was that of
+all men.
+
+"Three!" said the Colonel.
+
+But before he could finish the word, a shot rang out. The grass stirred
+at intervals along the soil as the invisible bullet ricocheted into the
+distance.
+
+The scythe-like stroke passed close to the legs of the Director of the
+combat; but Don Marcos was in no mood to notice such a thing. His
+child-like joy made him run hither and thither. His frock coat seemed to
+laugh as its tails flapped up and down.
+
+He was so happy, that he almost embraced Martinez. The latter must shake
+hands with the Prince, a reconciliation was necessary.
+
+The officer refused to take this advice. He had his doubts about the way
+the combat had ended. The Prince had fired at the ground, and he was not
+going to let him spare his life like that.
+
+"Young man!" said Don Marcos, with an air of authority, "you are new in
+such affairs. Let yourself be guided by those who know more and give the
+Prince your hand."
+
+Immediately he went in quest of Lubimoff.
+
+He saw him standing on the same spot. He had thrown the pistol away and
+was covering his face with his hands.
+
+The only one beside him was Lewis.
+
+"Come, Prince! What's this? Be calm! Perhaps a good glass of whiskey."
+Toledo heard a sob of anguish, the choking of a stifled breast.
+
+Respectfully he drew away one of the Prince's hands leaving his face
+uncovered. At present it was a dull brick red, shiny with sweat and
+tears.
+
+Lubimoff was weeping.
+
+The Colonel recalled the dead Princess in her days of stormy humor,
+when, after an explosion of wrath, she would wring her hands, and ask
+forgiveness, weeping hysterically.
+
+As he gently took his hand, he felt that the Prince was following him,
+meekly without any will of his own. Martinez was waiting a few steps
+away.
+
+"Shake hands. It's all over. Gentlemen are always ... gentlemen."
+
+They shook hands.
+
+And then something unexpected happened which produced a long silence of
+surprise and amazement.
+
+Michael bent forward, knelt down, and raised to his lips the hand he was
+holding in his own, with the same humble gesture that the serfs of the
+Steppes had used in the presence of his powerful ancestors.
+
+Then he kissed it, moistening it with his tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+A week passed, and Lubimoff had not once left Villa Sirena. In his
+conversations with the Colonel--his only companion in this solitary
+life--he had avoided making any allusion to what had occurred in Lewis'
+castle. Toledo, for his part, displayed absolute discretion, as though
+he had forgotten the duel and the strange ending which the Prince had
+given it; but the latter guessed that the Colonel's silence concealed
+many things that might have proved distasteful to himself.
+
+The other seconds had probably told everything. What people must have
+been saying! And fearing the curiosity of society which was doubtless
+repeating his name on all occasions, Lubimoff remained in retirement,
+with the hope of being forgotten. Some one would lose or win an enormous
+sum in the Casino, and that would be enough to make the gossips stop
+talking about him.
+
+His loneliness, however, began to weigh upon him like a fate. He was
+getting tired of walking about his garden all the time. It seemed to him
+narrow and monotonous. Besides, Lewis' niece, abusing her privilege,
+came every afternoon, with a constantly renewed escort of wounded
+Englishmen. She ran about with them through the Avenues, amid the cries
+of the exotic birds, weaving great garlands of flowers for her soldiers.
+Meanwhile he was obliged to hide in the upper stories of the villa to
+escape this child-like joy, which seemed to him to have something gloomy
+and funereal about it.
+
+The nights seemed endless. He thought with wistful longing of the quiet
+evenings with the "enemies of women", when Spadoni used to sit at the
+piano or perform his infinite calculations, always doubling; when Novoa
+would indulge in his scientific paradoxes, and Castro relate the
+adventures of his grandfather "the red Don Quixote." Where were they
+now, those comrades of his dreamy happiness?
+
+Atilio interested him particularly. He had asked Don Marcos about him
+twice, without the latter being very clear in his explanations. The
+Colonel never saw Castro any more in the Casino; he doubtless was
+keeping away out of fear of gambling. The Prince had a feeling that the
+Colonel knew something more, and was refusing to talk from motives of
+discretion.
+
+One morning, the weariness of his imprisonment finally galvanized his
+stupefied will. Why should he not go in quest of those friends? Perhaps
+if he were to take the first step he would succeed in renewing relations
+with them, and re-establish his former life.
+
+As he was going out, the Colonel stopped him to speak again about a
+matter that had occupied their attention the evening before. What reply
+should he give the Paris business agent? The _nouveau riche_ who had
+bought the palace on the Monçeau Park, wanted to buy Villa Sirena also.
+The Prince's manager was transmitting a final offer; a million and a
+half. The man would not give any more, and it was necessary to reply in
+haste, before his caprice should turn toward some other acquisition.
+
+Michael shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter were something of
+no interest to him.
+
+"Tell him I don't want to sell. No--it would be better still not to
+reply at all. We shall see later on; I shall think it over."
+
+On getting out of the street car in Monte Carlo he passed to the right
+of the Casino, and followed the upper Boulevards. First he was going in
+quest of Spadoni, who lived nearest. Besides, the latter would surely
+know better than Novoa where Atilio was staying. Perhaps they were
+living together.
+
+He had a vague idea of the house, through Castro's joking. The pianist
+was "the guardian of the tomb" above the Sainte Dévote ravine.
+
+From the summit of a bridge the Prince saw this ravine at his feet. Its
+sides were covered with gardens, luxurious villas and hotels, and at its
+outlet stretched the smiling harbor of La Condamine.
+
+Sixty years before, the ravine had been a wild spot. It was visited only
+by religious processions coming from the walled City of Monaco to pay
+homage to Sainte Dévote in a little white church, which to-day seemed
+still more diminutive beside the arches of the railway bridge.
+
+In the earliest times of Christianity, a bark without oars or sail,
+guided by the will of God, who had deigned to grant a patron saint to
+the inhabitants of "Hercules Harbor," had grounded keel on those shores.
+
+The bark contained the miracle working body of a Corsican Christian
+martyrized by the Romans. Nobody knew her name, and popular devotion
+called her simply the Sainte Dévote. Once a year, at nightfall, on her
+feast day, a large crowd from the Casino left roulette and _trente et
+quarante_ to watch the sailors of Monaco, to the sound of music, burn an
+old bark in front of the church, thus cutting off all means of retreat
+to the Holy Patroness.
+
+The stony fields, once planted with prickly pear and olive trees, were
+now covered with palaces, as large as barracks. They supported a second
+lofty city, above, which stretched away along the slopes of the Alps,
+and united Monaco with Monte Carlo. The land here, now sold at fabulous
+prices, was a spot so neglected half a century before that any of its
+owners might arrange without interference to be buried on his own
+property.
+
+An obscure officer in Napoleon's Army, born in Monaco, and who had
+succeeded in becoming a General in the days of Louis Philippe, had had
+his tomb built in an olive grove above the Sainte Dévote ravine. Later
+gambling had made Monte Carlo rise above the wild plateau of the
+Caverns; the elegant, new city was spreading out to join old Monaco,
+covering all the land of the principality with buildings, and the tomb
+of the unknown warrior was imprisoned by this wave of great hotels,
+palaces, and villas. The olive grove around the tomb was sold by the
+yard, making a fortune for the soldier's heirs. Between the sepulchre
+and the edge of the ravine there remained a level space, from which one
+could enjoy a view of the splendid panorama. A millionaire from Paris
+had been bold enough to construct over the spot a house in "artistic"
+style, with gardens descending in terraces. He had imagined it would be
+an easy matter to have the General transferred to the cemetery and the
+mortuary chapel demolished. But the dead man was on his own land, and
+could not come to life to cancel the arrangements he had made in his
+will with so little prescience of the extraordinary growth old Monaco
+was to make; as a result there was no power on earth that could demolish
+his last dwelling place.
+
+From the harbor Michael had often, above the heights of the ravine, seen
+this pantheon which was to serve him now as a place for meeting Spadoni.
+It was a simple block of masonry, with white-washed walls, four
+pinnacles at the angles, and a cupola of black tile. From a distance it
+looked like a Mohammedan hermitage, the tomb of some saint of Islam, and
+the similarity was carried out by groups of palm trees in the
+neighboring gardens.
+
+Castro had often made him laugh by telling him the story of the dead
+General and his wealthy neighbors. The owners of the villa could not
+sleep with a dead man on the other side of the wall, and moreover, it
+was a nameless dead man, which made it all the more creepy and
+mysterious.
+
+Nobody could remember the name of this gentleman, who had commanded
+thousands of men, and was still exerting his will power on the living.
+The owners decided to rent the villa with all its elegant furnishings
+for a modest sum, and at first, the ladies who were gambling in the
+Casino, quarreled as to who should get it. How wonderful it would be to
+live in a little palace adorned by famous Parisian decorators, and with
+a magnificent view, all for five hundred francs a month! But the renters
+hastened to give up this bargain to others. Imagine having to pass the
+General's mausoleum at midnight, on returning from the Casino! And think
+of not being able to open one's window blinds without having to look
+that corpse in the face. Besides, the spiteful tongues of the women gave
+each successive tenant the nickname of: "The guardian of the tomb."
+
+Then Spadoni appeared. Castro had a vague idea that the pianist had paid
+the first month's rent, but he was not sure. What he knew for certain
+was that he had not paid any more. The owners, living in Paris, had
+finally accepted the situation, considering the pianist an unpaid
+caretaker for that house, which had come to inspire them with terror.
+
+The Prince descended the wide road between garden balustrades and walls
+of rock broken by tufts of flowers hanging from the crevices. On seeing
+the sepulchre at close hand, he understood why all the tenants had taken
+flight. The General had known how to do things. The pinnacles, as well
+as the iron cross which surmounted the cupola, were adorned with skulls
+and cross-bones; and these funereal symbols, by force of contrast, made
+a still deeper impression because of the green splendor of the adjoining
+gardens under the bright blue skies and the dazzling sunlight, with the
+smiling harbor in the background, and the ruffled surface of the violet
+sea. The gate of the nameless mausoleum had not been opened for many
+years, and the wind had heaped the dirt against the underpinnings.
+Between the iron gate and the walls a thick, wild growth of vegetation
+had appeared, a diminutive forest, in the dense growth of which insects
+made war and devoured one another after sending forth endless flying and
+creeping expeditions against all the neighboring houses.
+
+Lubimoff passed close to the mausoleum in order to reach the entrance of
+the villa, a handsome building in the Tuscan style of architecture. The
+gate was a complicated piece of iron work; the windows had stained glass
+figures; the gray walls were encrusted with marble bas-reliefs, and
+ancient escutcheons.
+
+He knocked in vain with the iron dragon that served as a knocker.
+Finally from an adjoining alley-way, between two walls, appeared a woman
+with dishevelled hair, holding an infant in her arms. It was a neighbor,
+who acted as a servant for Spadoni, when he stayed in the house. The
+arrival of a visitor was an event for her.
+
+"Yes, he is in," she said, "don't you hear him?"
+
+As a matter of fact, Michael had heard the sound of a piano, deadened by
+the thick walls.
+
+The woman, convinced that the artist would never hear the blows of the
+knocker, disappeared around the corner. Shortly afterward, her head and
+the child she was carrying in her arms appeared above the edge of the
+wall.
+
+"Maestro!" she shouted. "A gentleman to see you! A visitor!"
+
+And she came back again, smoothing her skirts as though she had just
+descended a ladder.
+
+The door groaned on its hinges, as it opened, and Spadoni appeared in
+the opening.
+
+"Oh, your Highness!"
+
+There was no expression of surprise in his smile. He greeted the Prince
+as though he had seen him the day before.
+
+Then he guided him through corridors and drawing-rooms, which were sunk
+in deep multi-colored shadow, and smelled of dust and mold. It had been
+many months since the stained glass windows had been opened, or the
+curtains drawn. Spadoni lived his entire life in a single room. Lubimoff
+collided with furniture and curios, as he advanced, almost upsetting two
+huge Japanese vases, and nearly impaling himself on the numerous
+projections in the profuse decoration of a "romantic studio," which had
+been in style twenty-five years before.
+
+They finally returned to the light, a dazzling light that entered by
+three open doors overlooking a terrace bordering the ravine. It was the
+"hall" of the villa, decorated with Hindustanee draperies and divans.
+The Prince saw that Spadoni had excellent quarters in his "tomb". A
+large grand-piano was the only piece of furniture kept clean in this
+dust-invaded room. On the music rack several albums of music in
+manuscript lay opened.
+
+Seeing that Lubimoff noticed them, the pianist gave a look of despair.
+
+His poverty was very great: he was forced to give concerts in order to
+live, and found himself obliged to study the new operas.
+
+He spoke of this labor as though it represented the cruelest imposition
+of inexorable Reality, the greatest degradation in his life.
+
+Various ladies who organized benefits for the soldiers had sought his
+aid. He played for nothing, "out of patriotism", but the good ladies
+always found a way of giving him a fair sum. His poverty was tremendous!
+He was going to the gambling rooms only at long intervals. He hadn't
+enough money to play even the roulette wheel, where the stakes were but
+five francs!
+
+The Prince started to read the titles of the scores, but Spadoni covered
+them up in comic haste.
+
+"Awful rot! You mustn't look at those, your Highness. Here on the
+Riviera, when the ladies are getting on in years, and do not find any
+one to fall in love with them any more, they devote themselves to
+writing love songs or dance music for great spectacles; and the Casino
+accepts their work in order not to offend them. It results that on
+certain days the Monte Carlo Theater becomes the Temple of Musical
+Imbecility. No; it would be better for you to see what we are giving
+this afternoon. It is the work of a millionairess who writes the whole
+thing, music and words."
+
+And he read aloud the titles of various "picturesque scenes": _Dialogue
+between the Butterfly and the Rose, What the Palm Tree said to the
+Century Plant, Prayer of the Grasshopper to Our Father the Sun._
+
+"Fortunately, your Highness, this humiliating situation will not last. I
+have a way out of it--a way out of it!"
+
+And forgetting the piano, the scores, and his musical degradation,
+Spadoni suddenly launched into the world of dreams. He knew the secret
+of the great man, the Greek, who was winning millions at the
+Sporting-Club. He had guessed it, with his own cunning, after worming
+certain data out of a man who accompanied the lofty personage. It was a
+simple combination, like all ideas of genius. For example....
+
+And he reached for a pack of cards which was on the table, lying on a
+number of albums bound in red: The nine Symphonies of Beethoven.
+
+"Oh no--if you please!" the Prince brusquely restrained him, to keep him
+from plunging into that mania for demonstrating.
+
+"I hoped to meet Castro here," he said, in a quiet voice, a moment
+later.
+
+Spadoni seemed to awaken.
+
+"Castro?... Oh, yes! He lived with me for a few days, but he went away."
+
+Still obsessed by his marvelous combination, he talked in an
+absent-minded manner without showing the slightest interest in what he
+was saying. Castro had expressed a desire to live with him; he had told
+him so, late one afternoon in the Casino, and Spadoni had left Villa
+Sirena to accompany him. It was the least a friend could do!
+
+"But when did he go? Where is he?"
+
+"He went day before yesterday, and must be in Paris. A fool trip!
+Imagine, your Highness, during the last few days he had an extraordinary
+run of luck, winning as high as twenty thousand francs. If he had only
+gone on! But he wouldn't! He was in a hurry. He gave me five hundred
+francs, and I lost them immediately; it was very little money for my
+combination. I think he was going to be a soldier; he kept talking to me
+about the Foreign Legion. You can expect almost any foolishness from
+him. A man who is winning and runs away!..."
+
+Then, as though the disordered workings of his brain were functioning
+logically for a few seconds, he added, with a smile of cunning:
+
+"Doña Clorinda also went to Paris. She left two days before him.... Oh,
+your Highness! How I think of what you told us at the lunch once about
+women! I know them, Prince: They are all enemies to be feared."
+
+And he pointed spitefully to _What the Palm Tree said to the Century
+Plant_.
+
+In vain the Prince kept questioning him. The pianist did not know
+anything more, and Castro's fate did not arouse his curiosity. He had
+gone to Paris, to be a soldier, and Spadoni had so many friends,
+already, who were soldiers!
+
+The "General" being a woman, aroused more interest in him; she
+stimulated his love of gossip.
+
+"I think," he said, with a smile that showed his hate for women, "that
+she went away out of jealousy, out of pique. The Duchess de Delille took
+that Lieutenant away from her, though the 'General' had been the one to
+introduce them. It seems even that this Lieutenant has had a duel...."
+
+The pianist grew pale, looking at Lubimoff with an expression of terror.
+His look was like that of a person who is talking aloud when he imagines
+himself alone, and then suddenly notices that some one is listening to
+him. He sat there embarrassed and stammering:
+
+"I don't know ... people tell so many lies!... Women's gossip!"
+
+Lubimoff felt a like embarrassment on realizing that even Spadoni had
+taken up his adventure with delight.
+
+He felt there was no use in continuing the conversation with an imbecile
+like that. He arose, and the pianist, still trembling at his own
+indiscretion, showed similar signs of haste to end the visit.
+
+"And Novoa?" asked the Prince on reaching the outer door. "Has he also
+left?"
+
+No; he was still in Monaco, working at the Museum, when he did not have
+any more urgent business. They met very seldom. How could they see each
+other if he, Spadoni, on account of his poverty, refrained from entering
+the gambling rooms?
+
+"He goes on playing, your Highness; but very badly, with the timidity of
+a novice, and for that reason he loses. He isn't made of the same stuff
+that we are, we who are true gamblers."
+
+And the pianist drew himself up to his full height as he said this, as
+though he had never lost and possessed all the secrets of chance.
+
+"I sent him two tickets for this afternoon's concert: one for him and
+the other for that Señorita Valeria, the Duchess's companion. Poor man!
+Always doing something silly, like a young lover!"
+
+But his smile, which was that of a superior person exempt from such
+humiliations, disappeared, as he realized that once more he was saying
+something offensive to the Prince.
+
+The latter passed close to the tomb again, but without seeing it, or
+even remembering the unknown General. Castro had gone!... Castro wanted
+to become a soldier!...
+
+After going down along the Monegetti road as far as the parade ground of
+La Condamine, he ascended once more the gently sloping avenue that leads
+up to Monaco. After his long seclusion, this walk aroused a certain
+pleasant tingling in his muscles.
+
+Finding himself between the two turrets that mark the entrance to the
+gardens, the memory of Alicia flashed across his brain. There, a little
+farther on, they had gotten out of their carriage; behind the trees was
+a bench on which he first had told her of his love; below, at the edge
+of the rocks, lay the solitary path along which they had passed as
+though treading on air, wrapped in the twilight and with lips joined.
+Then, had come the tearing of her dress, the sweet comical difficulties
+in mending it, and the pearl pin of the Princess.... Only a few weeks
+had passed, and these happenings seemed to belong to another happier
+race of beings, to have taken place on a different planet, bathed in a
+light that was different from the light of earth.
+
+He made an effort to forget. At present he was standing on an asphalt
+square, opposite the steps of the Museum of Oceanography. For the first
+time he noticed the architectural decorations of the white building.
+They had adopted as an ornamental motif the cluster of twisting arms of
+the octopus, the semi-circular striations of sea-shells, the trailing
+filmy umbrella form of the jelly-fish. He observed the sculptural groups
+symbolizing the powers of the Ocean, or the arts of the navigators, he
+read the names carved on the frieze of the edifice, and the titles of
+ships famous for scientific explorations.
+
+He stood there motionless for a long time, seeking a pretext to justify
+his visit. Finally he went up the steps of the building, and found
+himself in a deep, cool shade like that of a Cathedral, but without the
+stale, musty odor of shut-in places, and with a whiff of salt air coming
+from the nearby sea. He knew the stately edifice: on one side was the
+vast hall for the lectures and scientific assemblies, like that of a
+parliament building, with lamp shades of frosted crystal affecting the
+different shapes of animals from the ocean depths; in the middle of the
+vestibule was the statue of Prince Albert, dressed as a sailor and
+leaning on the rail of the bridge of his yacht; on the opposite side and
+on the upper floors, were the collections gathered during the voyages of
+the famous scientific explorer: thousands of fishes and molluscs,
+gigantic skeletons of whales, some _kaiaks_ and fishing implements from
+the polar seas. On the lower floors, under his feet, in that second
+palace which, clinging to the cliff, descended to the sea, were the
+aquaria, where the mysterious creatures of the depths continued their
+lives in crystal cages amid the silver bubbles of running water.
+
+The gate-keeper in a long blue coat, and a _kepis_ with red braid,
+started to offer him a ticket, but paused on seeing that he was stopping
+at the turn-stile, asking for Novoa.
+
+"He went out a moment ago. Perhaps you may find him in the neighborhood
+of the palace. Almost every day, before lunch, he makes the rounds of
+'the rock'."
+
+"The Rock," for the inhabitants of Monaco, is the nickname of the high
+promontory on which Monaco is situated, and "to make the rounds" means
+to follow the circle of gardens and abandoned bulwarks, which, starting
+from the palace of the Princes, returns to it, after completely
+embracing the old city.
+
+Lubimoff followed the outer line of the San Martino gardens. He did not
+dare enter them; he was afraid of coming across the bench where he and
+Alicia had been that afternoon. He entered the City streets, narrow,
+without sidewalks, and paved with wide stones, as in many towns in
+Italy.
+
+The dwellings, which were old and lofty, recalled the time when ground
+was precious on a peninsula narrowly enclosed by its fortifications.
+Some of the houses were pierced by tunnels and at the end of the
+archway, one could see the sunlight and the whiteness of the next
+street. The largest buildings were convents, or religious schools. Above
+the roofs, the bells slowly tolled as in a Spanish village; in the
+streets there were many sacred images lighted by tiny lamps.
+
+When the paving stones resounded with human footsteps, the shutters all
+opened half way. A carriage caused many heads to appear at the windows.
+The few passersby were often canons from the cathedral, Barefoot
+Brothers with a crown of hair about their shaven scalps, or nuns with
+huge starched butterflies on their heads.
+
+Only a little door separated the old city from the other situated on the
+heights opposite, with its Casino, its hotels, its orchestras, and its
+wealthy pleasure-loving crowd. A short ride by street car was sufficient
+to give one the illusion of having suddenly slipped back two centuries.
+Lubimoff recalled the expressions of surprise awakened in people by
+several of these barefoot brothers crossing the Casino Square on their
+way down to Monte Carlo.
+
+He passed under a covered archway that joined two houses. A large open
+space, like a plain, opened in front of him. It was the Palace Square.
+Opposite it rose the lordly dwelling of the Grimaldi, a jumble of
+buildings dating back to different periods, which recalled the palaces
+of certain sovereign princes in ancient Italy. It was of a dark rose
+color, cut by the Archway of the Loggias, and was flanked by towers of
+white stone surmounted by battlements. He knew this edifice likewise. It
+was a mere show-place, and quite uninhabited, since the Prince, during
+his short visits to his domains, preferred to live on board his yacht.
+
+The first thing that attracted his attention was the guard. The soldiers
+of Monaco, old French gendarmes, had gone to the war, and a national
+militia was taking the place of the Prince's army. It was composed of
+actual citizens of the "Rock," where citizens must be descendants of at
+least four generations resident in Monaco. They alone could contribute
+to the ideal defense of the principality, since they enjoyed the
+advantages of belonging to a country, unique in the world, where all who
+were born there, had bread and work assured them, thanks to the Casino.
+
+Lubimoff admired the warlike guard, an old man with a white mustache,
+and stooping, almost humped, shoulders, dressed in a dark tan overcoat
+and a derby hat. A red and white arm band was his entire uniform. On
+his shoulder he carried an ancient gun which because of its
+tremendously long bayonet seemed even more enormous and heavy than it
+was. He might have rested beside a sentry box, painted with the Monaco
+colors; but he preferred to pace incessantly up and down, like a
+squirrel in a cage, looking in every direction to see if any one were
+trying to enter the palace of the absent sovereign. Other men who were
+fathers and even grandfathers, dressed in their Sunday clothes, were
+patiently waiting on a bench for their turn to exercise the honorable
+function.
+
+The most notable thing on this esplanade was the artillery, a collection
+of XVIII century cannon placed there as an ornament, like the panoplies
+of a drawing room. On both sides of the entrance to the palace six huge,
+magnificent cannon, cast in green statue bronze, and chiseled like
+museum pieces, were drawn up in a row. Around their mouths, the metal
+curved backward forming a leafy design like that of a capital on a
+column; the other end was surmounted by a Medusa's head. The barrels of
+these hollow columns were ornamented with the three _fleurs de lis_ of
+the ancient French Monarchy; the handles on each cannon were two
+dolphins, and all the pieces displayed the pretentious motto: _Nec
+pluribus impar_ of Louis XIV, with another more somber one: _Ultima
+ratio regum_.
+
+The Prince smiled at the latter motto.
+
+"These days, artillery," he said to himself, "is no longer 'the last
+argument of kings', but it is of peoples. We have progressed somewhat."
+
+Each of these green cannon had its own name, just as a ship or a
+regiment. One was named _Nero_, another _Tiberius_; farther on _Robust_
+and the _Snorer_ opened their round mouths.
+
+On the parapets enclosing the large square on both sides, other more
+modest, but equally huge and ancient cannon, thrust their mouths out
+upon the harbor or the open sea. The solid balls of these cannon formed
+pyramids, and parasitical vegetation had crept in between these iron
+spheres.
+
+Behind the palace, like the back-drop on a stage, rose the French
+Mountain of the _Tete du Chien_, with the windows in the barracks of the
+Blue Devils, the _Chasseurs Alpins_, gleaming on its rounded summit. The
+Monaco plateau was simply the lowest step in the great stairway which
+the Alps let fall to the sea. Above, clouds were caught amid the peaks,
+covering them momentarily with a shadow ominous of storm. Below, amid
+the rose-colored walls and the white towers of the Grimaldi, rose the
+tropical palms, the cocoanut and plantain trees, giving this Ligurian
+castle the luxurious aspect of Brazilian farm.
+
+Lubimoff was seated between the cannon, on the parapet that overlooks
+the open sea, when he saw Novoa strolling along the bulwarks that rise
+above the harbor.
+
+On recognizing the Prince, the professor hastened forward with
+outstretched hands.
+
+How likable the Professor seemed! His frank manners had never been so
+attractive to Michael as they were then. Novoa was greatly pleased at
+this meeting, attributing it to chance, and the Prince did not see fit
+to mention his visit to the Museum, so that Novoa would now know that he
+had come in search of him.
+
+Mechanically they began to promenade between the row of guns and the
+trees that cast a pallid shade on one side of the Square.
+
+It was Lubimoff who began to talk, questioning Novoa, showing an
+interest in his affairs and greeting his laments with a kindly smile.
+
+The Professor appeared unhappy. This place with its gay, pleasant life
+was fatal for study. To think that back in his own country, he had
+imagined himself making useful discoveries in the mysteries of the
+ocean! The Casino spread its influence in every direction, reaching even
+the Museum of Oceanography. Often, while he was studying the _plancton_,
+a new idea would occur to him as to how he might penetrate the
+mysterious workings of the _trente et quarante_ series. Mornings he
+worked with his thoughts fixed on Monte Carlo; and no sooner did
+afternoon come, than he felt an irresistible desire to go there. It was
+useless for him to invent pretexts to remain there on the "Rock." He had
+lost sums that for him were enormous, and he needed to get them back. He
+was worried at the thought of the money he had received from home as an
+advance payment on the modest fortune inherited from his parents.
+
+"Some days, common sense tells me that I ought to return to Spain, and I
+immediately want to act on that good advice. Unfortunately there are
+certain things that keep me here and shatter my will power."
+
+"I know what you mean," said Michael smiling. "First of all, there is
+love."
+
+Novoa blushed, and then accepted the words of the Prince with a comic
+look of embarrassment. Yes; there was something in that, but love had
+its disillusionments, the same as gambling.
+
+Lubimoff suddenly saw in his eyes an expression like that of Spadoni's.
+He, too, knew what had happened, and in speaking of love immediately
+recalled that absurd duel. But Novoa was a different person, incapable
+of feeling the malign pleasure of gossips, who rejoice in other people's
+shortcomings. Besides, Michael felt that he was very frank, and was
+immediately convinced of this. Quietly, without thinking whether or not
+his words might annoy the other man, the Professor alluded to what had
+occurred at Lewis' castle. He lamented it as something illogical and
+untimely, but had not ceased to be interested in the affairs of the
+Prince on that account. If he had refrained from going to Villa Sirena,
+it was in order not to seem forward. He had often talked with the
+Colonel, asking him to take his best wishes to the Prince.
+
+Then, as though repenting the severity with which he had judged the
+duel, he hastened to explain. The image of Castro passed through his
+mind, causing him to look at his comrade with brotherly tolerance.
+
+"I can understand a great many things. I am not a fighting man like you,
+and nevertheless, I once felt a desire to fight. At present I laugh when
+I think of it; but, in similar circumstances, I would do the same again.
+What power women have over us! How they change us!"
+
+The Prince did not protest on hearing that Novoa supposed him to be in
+love, attributing the duel to a woman's influence. And he continued to
+remain silent, while the Professor, through a logical association of
+ideas, began to talk about Alicia. The kindly simple savant showed a
+keen satisfaction in telling certain news which he thought would please
+Lubimoff.
+
+He felt a similar interest in his compatriot, Martinez. He did not hate
+any one. He had even forgotten the disagreements with Castro, which had
+caused him to leave the comfort and plenty of Villa Sirena.
+
+"That poor Lieutenant is less fortunate than you, Prince: this duel has
+been rather hard on him. I enjoy a certain intimacy with people who are
+close to the Duchess de Delille.... I do not need to say any more: you
+understand that I am in a position to know what is going on in the Villa
+Rosa. Well, then; since the duel, I don't know what has happened, but
+Martinez calls at that house less frequently. Whole days go by without
+his daring to ring at the door. Sometimes he goes there, and a person
+whom you know tells me that the Duchess refuses to see him. At present
+he is a mere visitor, a friend like any other. The Duchess is anxious to
+avoid their former intimacy; she continues to send him little gifts at
+the Officers' Hotel, and to look after his comfort. She sends the young
+lady who is a friend of mine to find out if he needs anything, but she
+receives him only at rare intervals. The lunches and dinners each day
+have come to an end, with that life in common, which would have been
+complete if he had slept in the house. And the poor boy seems sad, and
+full of despair at this change."
+
+The Professor was encouraged in his confidences on noting the pleasure
+with which the Prince received them.
+
+"A certain person," he continued, after some hesitation, "who has spent
+several nights in the street where the Duchess lives--the deuce, a
+certain person! Why shouldn't I tell the whole truth--I, who sometimes
+spend hours in the neighborhood of Villa Rosa, waiting for the young
+lady in question, have surprised Martinez near the house, slinking by
+close to the gate, looking at the windows. Poor boy! And they tell me
+that during the day time, when he is afraid that the Duchess won't
+receive him, he goes by there, just the same."
+
+Lubimoff was stirred by a double feeling: one of rage, at the conviction
+that he had made no mistake: that little soldier boy was in love with
+Alicia; and one of delight on learning that he was not received in the
+house, as before, and was hovering about the neighborhood in vain. It
+was a negative sort of joy for him, but joy at any event, to see that
+youth in a situation like his own.
+
+Novoa, being a man of simple tastes, could not understand love except
+under conventional circumstances, and between people of similar ages;
+and he laughed at this passion of the officer, as though it were
+something exceedingly amusing.
+
+"How absurd! To fall in love like that with a woman old enough to be his
+mother!"
+
+The Prince started on hearing this, looking fixedly at his companion.
+No; the Professor had discovered nothing. He was laughing at his own
+reflections, without any indirect insinuations. No one but Lubimoff
+himself could possibly know Alicia's real secret.
+
+They walked back and forth several times between the cannon and the
+trees. Suddenly, the bells of the churches and convents in Monaco, began
+to ring, answering, through the luminous atmosphere, those of the Monte
+Carlo frontier.
+
+Twelve o'clock! Novoa became restless. He was a man of fixed habits, and
+besides, the Monaco people at whose house he was living were absolutely
+punctual in their meal hours. To think that there was not a restaurant
+in Monaco, where for once he could be extravagant and invite the Prince!
+The latter proposed that he accompany him to the far-off Villa Sirena to
+lunch together. It was so pleasant to be in his company! He gave him
+such interesting news!
+
+"Impossible!" the Professor hastened to say. "I must see some one in
+Monte Carlo as soon as I finish my lunch. They will wait for me."
+
+And the Prince did not insist, guessing that the person referred to was
+Valeria.
+
+A single carriage had taken refuge in the pale shade of the trees. It
+had remained there after bringing some tourists who, on coming out of
+the Museum, preferred to return on foot by the ancient path along the
+fortifications.
+
+Michael got into it, and drove to Villa Sirena.
+
+The rest of the day and a great part of the night passed very pleasantly
+for him. He was going over and over in his memory the news he had just
+heard. It had not been a bad day. He scarcely remembered Castro. Castro
+was in Paris; that was the one thing certain. On the other hand, the
+misfortune of Martinez made him hum gaily to himself, and this unusual
+good humor quite deceived the Colonel.
+
+"All I say is, Your Highness ought to go out, and see people. I was sure
+that to-day's walk would do you a world of good."
+
+The following day, the Prince had an even pleasanter surprise. He had
+finished his lunch, when his valet announced ceremoniously: "Dr. Novoa,
+the professor, to see you, sir."
+
+Michael, having a presentiment that it meant something very interesting
+for him, received the Spaniard with extraordinary effusion, such as
+Toledo had never seen before. "Awfully good of you to come, Novoa! You
+don't mean to say you have had your lunch already? What a regular life
+you Monaco bachelors lead! Well, at least, you'll have coffee with me?"
+
+And the Prince hastily finished his lunch and went into the _salon_,
+where coffee and liqueurs were waiting. The impatience of the visitor to
+talk with him privately was so obvious, that Lubimoff hastened to invent
+an excuse for Don Marcos to go away.
+
+When they were alone, Novoa left his cup on the little table, took
+several puffs at his cigar, as though to summon all his strength of
+will, and finally said in a resolute voice:
+
+"I have a message to give you: a certain person sent me here ... and I
+suspect that I am playing a rather cheap rôle. A man like myself doing
+such errands as this!... Besides, men ought to help one another. You
+who are a real gentleman, may perhaps consent to do something for
+me...."
+
+And the good Professor talked as though he felt himself united with the
+Prince by a sort of professional comradeship, by being in the same
+condition.
+
+Lubimoff, anxious to know the message, gave a look of acquiescence. Yes:
+it was true; he was capable of doing anything for him that he might ask.
+At that moment he felt the savant his best friend. But what was the
+message?
+
+Novoa continued, with a certain hesitation. The day before, after his
+meeting with the Prince, he had seen that young lady ... that young lady
+who is a companion to the Duchess. He had told her everything; a bad
+habit he had, but lovers cannot always talk about themselves.
+
+"We were together at a concert, and this morning she came to the Museum
+to tell me to see you immediately. I refused at first to take the
+message, but you know what women are. Besides, the young woman has a
+mind of her own. To make it short, here I am repeating what I was told."
+
+He was silent for a moment, and after looking all around, he added, in a
+mysterious voice:
+
+"This afternoon, at St. Charles."
+
+On his way there Novoa had been worried by the obscurity of the message.
+What St. Charles was it? A hotel? A promenade? As a resident of Monaco,
+the Professor knew only the Casino in Monte Carlo. The one thing certain
+in his mind was that Valeria's message came from the Duchess.
+
+Michael made an effort to hide the joy which these words gave him.
+Alicia was looking for him! In spite of his satisfaction he felt a need
+of asking for fresh details. Hadn't Novoa been told the time?
+
+"No, Prince. 'This afternoon, at St. Charles'; not another word more.
+The young lady almost became angry because I asked her to make it
+clearer. I told you that when we are by ourselves she can be cross--like
+all the rest. She told me that you would understand the message at
+once."
+
+Lubimoff nodded in affirmation; yes, he understood. What a nice fellow
+the scientist was! At that moment he wished him every sort of happiness
+that men can enjoy. If he had not known Novoa's scruples and his pride,
+he would have asked Don Marcos for all the money there was in the house,
+to hand it to him in handfuls. But since a material gift was quite out
+of the question, he expressed the hope that Valeria, whom he had always
+considered an ambitious climber, would bring happiness and beauty into
+the Professor's life. His satisfaction made him so optimistic that he
+even believed that he had been mistaken in regard to her, and he endowed
+the Duchess' companion with a great number of hidden virtues.
+
+Toledo had returned, and the Prince, who wanted to please Novoa, talked
+to him about Oceanographic explorations, displaying a lively curiosity
+in his questions, though his thoughts were far away.
+
+But this attempt at flattery was wasted. The Professor replied to his
+questions with hesitation. He was in a hurry; some one was waiting for
+him ... doubtless Valeria needed to know the result of his errand at
+once. And the Prince also displayed a certain haste in accompanying him
+to the gate, with the greatest possible show of friendliness. He must
+return often to Villa Sirena; he was his one real friend. What a pity he
+refused to live there, as he had formerly!
+
+When Lubimoff found himself alone, he went upstairs to his rooms on the
+second floor. He was afraid the Colonel would guess the cause of his
+satisfaction. A sensation of pride and triumph mingled now with the joy
+of the first moment.
+
+He thought of his situation, Don Marcos had remained silent since the
+duel, and he, himself, a prey to loneliness, had been in the depths of
+despair, imagining himself the laughing-stock of every one.
+
+Now he could see things clearly, Alicia wanted to come back to him. She
+had fallen in love with him again. Everything showed that: the
+Lieutenant practically expelled from the house, which two weeks before
+he had considered as his own; and his former protectress avoiding him,
+so that his visits were becoming rare. Doubtless, on learning through
+Valeria that her former lover had voluntarily left his retirement in
+Villa Sirena, she was hastening to make an immediate appointment with
+him in haste to resume their former relations.
+
+He congratulated himself on his unexplainable aggressiveness which had
+impelled him to offend Martinez. He, who, in the last few days had
+repented of that mad affair! What had weighed upon him like remorse, was
+perhaps the most sensible and opportune act of his life. Alicia, seeing
+that, mad with jealousy, he was doing something which many people
+considered absurd, fighting for her sake, doubtless felt flattered in
+her vanity, and was looking upon him now with new interest.
+
+"Oh, these women!" thought Lubimoff. "You've got to know them. They have
+an instinctive admiration for the strong. There is nothing like an act
+of brutality at the right moment to conquer them. They take a certain
+joy in yielding to a man who impresses them by violence."
+
+This had been his first happy moment in many, many days. Once more he
+was the Prince Lubimoff who had always had his way, triumphing on
+obstacles, sometimes with his money, but more often with his imperious
+pride.
+
+Satisfied with his rough strength, he felt the need of making himself
+handsome before keeping the engagement. He was thinking of the males of
+the animal kingdom, who in addition to teeth, claws, and spurs, have
+combs, manes, and plumage to fall back on when it comes to inspire a
+sort of mystic slavish admiration in the females. It was the same among
+human beings. Education, laws, and traditions do nothing but disguise
+the barbaric foundations of human nature.
+
+His thoughts were interrupted by something which worried him. At what
+time should he appear at the place indicated. It occurred to him, that
+as no hour was mentioned, it must be the same as that of the previous
+meeting at the door of St. Charles. But he finally was convinced that
+the Professor had forgotten something, and his uneasiness made him keep
+the engagement much earlier.
+
+He spent more than three hours waiting anxiously, wandering about the
+streets in the neighborhood of the church, standing motionless at the
+corners, and changing from one place to another on noticing the
+curiosity of the passersby. He entered St. Charles several times, and
+was always greeted by the same sight: the multi-colored stained glass
+windows growing paler and paler, as the daylight waned, the clusters of
+flags, the altar pieces breaking the shadow with the dull splendor of
+their gold background, and women kneeling and motionless; women who
+seemed the same as on the other occasion, as though weeks had been
+minutes.
+
+With the superstitious feeling of those who wait, he said to himself
+that Alicia surely would not appear until nightfall, and the day seemed
+endless to him.
+
+As night came on he began to doubt.
+
+"She won't come. She must have repented."
+
+He was standing on the corner of a curved and sloping street adjoining
+the church. From there he could observe the steps leading to the little
+square with the sunken boulevard. No one climbed them; all the carriages
+passed without stopping.
+
+Suddenly, he had a sensation that some one was approaching from behind.
+He heard a light step, and on turning his head, he saw a woman in
+mourning.
+
+Suddenly recovering his triumphant joy, he forgot everything: his long
+wait, his doubts and the fatigue of standing there in endless
+expectation. He was so sure of the motive which had induced her to ask
+for this interview, that he went forward to meet her with chivalrous
+cordiality.
+
+"Oh, Alicia!" he said, holding out both hands at once.
+
+But his hands clutched unavailingly at empty space, without finding
+anything to take hold of, and finally dropped in dismay.
+
+Lubimoff felt disconcerted at the expression on the woman's face. All
+the ideas that had been with him until that moment were so many
+illusions. They vanished in an instant, leaving him dismayed face to
+face with reality. Of that reality there could be no doubt. There was a
+look of hardness in the eyes that surveyed him fixedly.
+
+Alicia spoke rapidly, as though she had come on a matter of business
+with a person rather distasteful to her and wanted to end it as soon as
+possible, and be rid of his presence.
+
+There was a money matter between them which had to be settled. She had
+not written to him because, since certain recent happenings, she felt a
+letter was inadvisable. Besides, she could neither go to Villa Sirena,
+nor receive him at her home. For that reason, on hearing the day before
+that Michael, whom she imagined ill, had been seen taking a walk, she
+had boldly made an appointment with him there, so that they might see
+each other for a few moments. That was all.
+
+"Let us talk like business men; business men who are in a hurry and do
+not waste words. I owe you some money and it is impossible for me to
+have any peace of mind until I return it to you: three hundred thousand
+francs which your mother gave me, and what you lent me in the
+Casino--perhaps something more. I have enough to pay you. If you don't
+care to take the matter up, send me Toledo."
+
+Lubimoff stood there dumbfounded at these unexpected words. After making
+this proposal, she seemed anxious to get away. Now she had said all she
+had to say; it annoyed her to remain there with the Prince; she had
+nothing to add.
+
+"No!" said Michael energetically.
+
+So that was why she had called him? And that was all she had to say to
+him, after they had been separated for so long?
+
+His refusal was so resolute, and his pained surprise was reflected in
+his features in such a manner, that Alicia felt it useless to insist.
+
+"Very well; let's not say anything more. I know your character, and I
+know that we would stay here arguing for hours without any result. I
+shall try and find a way to return what belongs to you. Good-by,
+Michael!"
+
+The Prince tried to stop her by gently taking one of her hands, but she
+withdrew it with a nervous gesture of repulsion.
+
+"And you are going away!" he said in a tone of deep discouragement.
+
+The humility in his voice seemed to irritate the Duchess, causing her
+to stop as she was turning away.
+
+"What did you think?" she asked indignantly. "I am surprised at your
+self-absorption, your failure to think of other people. Michael!
+Michael! You'll always be the same; you don't consider any one but
+yourself: nothing counts but your own desires. You've hurt me so much!
+And now you say like a child: 'And you are going away, ...' What, pray,
+did you expect after your despicable conduct? I want you to realize it
+once for all: I despise you. Your presence is odious to me. I despise
+you!"
+
+Poor Lubimoff saw his conduct once more as he had during his days of
+voluntary confinement. Alas! Where were the deceitful dreams that had
+cheered him until then? His sadness, and his repentance were so obvious
+that Alicia softened the tone of her words.
+
+"Perhaps despise is not the word; but I am sure that you fill me with
+pity; pity much like that which I feel for myself. We are two poor, mad
+creatures, Michael: our misfortunes have followed us a long way."
+
+Recalling their lives, Alicia thought of builders who make a serious
+mistake in putting in the foundation of a building, and go on raising
+it, imagining that their work is in a straight line, without observing
+that it is entirely out of plumb, owing to the defect in its base.
+
+"We began wrong. If the world had gone on the same as before, perhaps we
+would have been able to keep on our feet and be triumphant. Our
+surroundings sustained us: we were like children."
+
+But the Universal cataclysm had made them lose their balance forever.
+They were toppling over, with gaps that could never be brought together,
+ready to fall in a heap.
+
+"We belong to another period, and no one can protect our frailty. I
+feel pity for you, Michael; and you must feel the same for me, for me,
+whom you have wronged so deeply!"
+
+The Prince, in spite of his dejected humility, protested. He had been
+imprudent: that was sure. His aggression in the Casino and the miserable
+duel had caused a stupid scandal to be sure. But what irreparable harm
+did she mean, that caused her such profound sorrow? How could his
+madness, which injured him only, making him the object of comments and
+laughter, cause her such despair?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alicia interrupted him with a gesture of impatience, as though she felt
+it impossible to make him understand her thoughts.
+
+"Look," she said pointing to the church door. "Before, I could go in
+there. Remember the last time that we saw each other on this spot. I had
+just been praying, and talking with my son; it was an illusion perhaps;
+but illusions help us to live. And now it is impossible for me; I feel
+remorse where before I found hope. And I have you to thank for this, you
+who took away the last consolation that I had invented for myself."
+
+She no longer looked at the Prince with hostile gaze. Her trembling
+voice, and her moist eyes, were those of a poor woman making an effort
+to hide her emotion. Michael stammered in embarrassment, not knowing
+what to do or say. Had he really been able to do her such an evil turn?
+When? How?
+
+Alicia, deaf to his questions, was thinking only of herself and her
+misfortune.
+
+"I had a son, and I lost him," she went on saying. "He was my hope, my
+one reason for living. The suffering made me look for consolation. What
+would become of us if we did not have the power of deceiving ourselves
+by creating new illusions? And I had a second son, a son whom I
+invented, sad, condemned to die, but young like the other, unfortunate
+like the other, and lacking a mother to bring joy to his last days. I
+wanted to be that mother. I can feel only the sweet, protecting joy of
+maternity; my rôle as a woman is over: all I can see in a man is a son,
+and you take away this last consolation! You robbed me of my poor joy!"
+
+Lubimoff began to understand. Alicia was talking about Martinez; and he
+felt once more the sting of jealousy.
+
+"When we saw each other here the last time I had sought a quiet refuge
+within my sorrow. I was praying for my son in the church, talking with
+him, and telling him how he was a brother in misfortune to one who was
+still alive, but who perhaps would soon go to join him. Then, on
+returning home I found the other, and my illusion was so great, that I
+was able to fuse them into a single person, imagining that time and the
+war were all a dream, and that my son was still alive, and had returned
+from his captivity and was by my side. They do not look alike, I am
+sure, although I avoid looking at George's pictures--but they seem to me
+the same; it is the uniform, misfortune, and nearness to death. Besides,
+the poor boy was so good! He was so timid, satisfied with anything,
+looking at me with the sweet look of a gentle little creature: he who is
+so proud! He venerated me like a being descended from an upper world. I
+was his mother. His words and looks breathed a feeling of deep respect.
+I wasn't a woman to him: I was something like the angels. And you, with
+your crazy interference, have spoiled it all. He is no longer my son: my
+dream has ended. I am obliged to do without his presence, and it is only
+at rare intervals that he finds open to him a house which I had taught
+him to consider his home. Through your fault, this boy, in whom I saw a
+son, is now merely a man, and I, his mother, have become once more a
+woman."
+
+Lubimoff's features became dark and gloomy with an earthly cast, as on
+the afternoon of the duel. He was beginning to understand.
+
+"What did you do, Michael!" she continued in a tearful voice. "You
+aroused the poor boy by your madness. On fighting you, he imagined he
+was fighting for me, and that I was simply a woman. He saw me suddenly
+in a new light, as though he had been asleep until then. I might almost
+be his mother; for women of my class prolong their youth, preserve it
+artificially, and we are still desirable when women of the lower classes
+are already coming to old age. Besides, I understand the element of
+vanity in his admiration, that vanity which exists in all our
+sentiments. To him I am the unknown, the mysterious, a great lady, a
+Duchess, brought by these topsy-turvy days within his reach. Poor boy! A
+few weeks ago he used to laugh in my presence with childlike simplicity,
+and look at me placidly, without the shadow of an evil thought in his
+eyes. He was happy, and so was I; while now...!"
+
+The Prince pictured Martinez pursuing Alicia with his amorous desires.
+"I'll kill him: I must kill him," he said to himself. But this homicidal
+anger lasted only an instant. The various scenes of the duel passed
+through his mind: a vision of himself kissing the officer's hand, in a
+sudden burst of unexplainable humility, which kept returning to torment
+him like remorse. What could he do now? After what had happened there
+was something sacred about the man. And once more he gave himself up to
+his despair, while Alicia went on talking.
+
+"My dream is dead. My son has become my son once more, and Martinez is a
+man like any other. At present it is impossible for me to pray; I am
+ashamed to hold imaginary conversation with my real son. I am assailed
+by thoughts of what I told him; I am overwhelmed when I think that I go
+on talking with the other boy, in spite of what he has said to me, of
+what I read in his glances, and of what I know of his real desires. What
+a wrong you have done me! I lost one son, and can think of him only with
+remorse; I invented another, and you have taken him away from me."
+
+Then, as though complaining of some superior force that had presided
+over her destiny, she added:
+
+"What torture! Not to be able to know quiet friendship, and the tranquil
+days of maternity. Always to have love looming up in front of one! In my
+younger days I considered that the one aim of life was to inspire
+admiration and desire, and now I am punished for that indeed. I sought
+in you a sustaining friendship, and you immediately desired me. I tried
+to deceive my maternal longings by caring for an unfortunate boy who may
+die very soon, and this son of my affections talked to me of love. Is it
+true that women are never able to enjoy the peace and confidence that
+come to men quite naturally?"
+
+The Prince expressed his wishes, with eagerness and hatred in his voice.
+
+"Don't see him: break with him; close your door to him forever. In that
+way you will recover your peace of mind, and I ... I shall be your
+friend, I shall be anything you desire, it will be enough for me that I
+see you."
+
+She greeted his last words with a look of incredulity. Men had promised
+her so often to be friends! Besides, she knew Michael very well, and did
+not take the trouble to reply. The one thing that interested her was his
+advice that she definitely reject the wounded man, and not see him any
+more. Once more her eyes grew moist.
+
+"Imagine driving the poor boy away! There are certain things you can't
+understand; you try to order affections about in the same arrogant way
+that you formerly disposed of people. Do you think I can abandon him? I
+am his mother in spite of everything, and you know very well how a
+mother tolerates and forgives things. The poor boy is not to blame for
+his evil thoughts; it was you who suggested them to him. Besides, it
+won't last; I have hopes that his foolish desires will die out."
+
+The idea of deserting the crippled soldier aroused her pity, giving an
+amorous tone to her words.
+
+"What would become of him! He doesn't know any one: he is alone in the
+world; the other officers are living, in their native land, they have
+families. Before, he could go and see Clorinda; now 'the General' has
+gone away, and I am the only one who remains, the only one! And you want
+me to forget him? You don't know him very well; you are an enemy of his.
+It is such a delight for me to recall the period of his innocence. He
+was like my son; no; there was something more about him; a thankfulness,
+a capacity for veneration concentrated entirely on me, such as I had
+never known before. You forget how his life hangs on a thread. Nor does
+he realize it himself; he does not know the real situation he is in; he
+has illusions of healthy youth; he thinks he will live for many years.
+Poor fellow! How hard it is for me to pretend that I am angry, to reject
+him with indignation because of the desires he feels for me ... me, who
+only want to be his mother!"
+
+This tone of sweet pity wounded her listener. Alicia seemed to feel the
+remorse of a death watch obliged to deny a condemned criminal the
+satisfaction of his last whim. She was lamenting like a nurse who cannot
+give a dying man what he asks for in his last gasps.
+
+Michael felt that he guessed the secret of the last interviews between
+this pseudo-mother and her adopted son. Perhaps she talked to him about
+his health, momentarily refusing to flatter him in his illusions of
+health, revealing to him the danger to which his life was exposed; and
+he, in a suicidal ardor of passion, was perhaps entreating her like a
+child who has placed all his dreams in a toy: "once, just once."
+
+He was convinced that this was the truth of the matter. He read it in
+her eyes, which in turn seemed to guess what the Prince was thinking,
+and she blushed slightly.
+
+"What harm you have done me," she repeated. "I must send him away from
+me, and I can't bear to desert him. It would be a crime if I abandoned
+him to his fate. You don't know what this constant struggle means to me.
+At times I see him hovering around my house; hidden behind the window
+blinds, I look at him, and I can hardly repress my tears. He seems so
+sad! I remember my son, who also lived alone, even more friendless than
+he, and who perhaps became interested in some woman, anxiously desiring
+many things without succeeding in possessing them, and I feel a desire
+to call to him, to shout: 'Since that is your dream, my dear child, your
+last wish in life, take it! Take it, and be happy!' Yet I think of his
+health, I think of many other things, and I restrain my impulse, and
+weep, letting him wander about near my house, imagining himself
+forgotten, though I am thinking of him all the time. Alas! May God give
+me strength! May I not lose my self control! May I continue to resist my
+absurd charitableness! Sometimes I fear I won't."
+
+"Oh, Alicia!"
+
+The Prince uttered the words in a tone of desperation. His presentiment
+was becoming a reality; he could already see that dying youth possessing
+what he had not been able to obtain. There was a look of homicidal
+anger in his eyes.
+
+This hostile expression annoyed Alicia, making another woman of her. The
+harsh look and the cutting tones which had accompanied her arrival
+appeared in her once more.
+
+"Enough said. I came here to return your money. You refuse to take it?
+You refuse? Very well, I will find a way to make you. Good night,
+Michael!"
+
+As a matter of fact, night had fallen, and the Prince saw her disappear
+in the shadows of the street whence she had come: a street dimly lighted
+by a single blue street lamp.
+
+For a moment, he thought of heading her off, humble and entreating. He
+would never see her again: he was sure of that. But at the same time he
+perceived the uselessness of insisting. She wanted him to forget her;
+the interview had merely been to suppress all traces of the past still
+existing between them. And he allowed her to pass out of his sight.
+
+From that day on, the life of the Prince lacked a purpose. Something had
+broken within him: his will had crumbled to dust, enveloping his senses
+in a sort of fog. What was to be done? Not even the narrowest of paths
+remained open to his initiative. Alicia hated him as though he were an
+enemy. It meant good-by for all time! There still remained the other
+man, but the Prince was invulnerable as far as Martinez was concerned.
+
+It was enough for him to think of what had happened in Lewis' castle to
+lose all intention of violence. He cursed his Slavic sentimentality, so
+confused and incoherent, like his mother's, which prevented him from
+going to the end in malice, and causing him to fall, when he least
+expected it, into exaggerated submission. Alas, for his tears of
+repentance! Alas for that kiss on his adversary's hand! If he avoided
+returning to the Casino, it was in order not to meet Martinez and those
+two Captains who had witnessed the incomprehensible conclusion of the
+duel. He no longer had the energy to impose his will; his former
+harshness of character had melted with the catastrophe of his desires.
+
+He shut himself up once again in Villa Sirena, in order not to see any
+one. He hated people, and at the same time he thought with a certain
+terror of the ill-concealed smiles that might greet his passing, and the
+remarks that might be exchanged behind his back.
+
+Don Marcos was the one companion of his loneliness; and Lubimoff, who
+during the first few days exchanged but a few words with him, finally
+came to wish that he would hurry back from Monte Carlo, at nightfall, in
+order to hear the news, which in other days he would have considered
+insignificant. They entered into long conversations on what was going on
+in the Casino, or on the happenings of the world. It was the curiosity
+of a prisoner or an invalid, who takes an exaggerated interest in
+things, as he loses his sense of values, owing to his inability to move
+about in his confinement.
+
+The Colonel was giving less and less importance to the events of daily
+life. All his attention had been focused on the Atlantic Coast and the
+opposite shores of the ocean.
+
+"They keep on coming!" he said, after greeting the Prince. "The
+Americans keep on coming: a regular crusade. There are hundreds of
+thousands of them; there are millions. And to think that a lot of people
+considered the talk of sending armies from America mere bluff!"
+
+He was really indignant at such ignorance, quite forgetting his
+skepticism of a few months before.
+
+"A great country! And that fellow Wilson, what a man!"
+
+At present he believed the American people capable of accomplishing
+anything they set out to do, no matter how extraordinary; but his
+old-fashioned ideas prevented him from feeling sustained enthusiasm for
+anything collective and abstract, without human physiognomy. The former
+partisan of absolute monarchy, preferred individuals: one man to think
+for the rest, and give them orders. And after a few words, his
+enthusiasm for the American democracy began to shrink in scope until it
+rested in concentrated form on the head of Wilson.
+
+"The greatest man in the world!"
+
+His eyes moistened with idolatrous fervor as he read the President's
+speeches; he exhausted all his vocabulary of superlatives in expressing
+his admiration for the personage who had made a great people unsheath
+their swords, disinterestedly, in defense of justice and liberty, and
+who prophesied at the same time a future of peace for mankind, with no
+greedy nations to menace the life of the humble and the weak.
+
+One evening he found a new phrase to express his admiration.
+
+"What a poet!" Lubimoff, in spite of his melancholy, began to laugh.
+President Wilson a poet!
+
+Don Marcos, stammering at the laughter of his Prince, tried to explain
+himself. Perhaps "poet" was not just the word to express his thought
+accurately. But poet he would call him nevertheless, and with good
+reason. A poet for the Colonel was a seer, who says very beautiful
+things about the future of mankind; a prophet who dreams upon his
+heights, embracing with his glance all that the common crowd swarming
+below cannot see; a being who, on speaking, in whatever form he may
+choose, succeeds in making people who are listening blink their eyes
+with emotion, while a shiver runs down their spines.
+
+His tongue became twisted as he said this but above his stammering,
+arose a firm unshakable conviction.
+
+"After all, I know what I mean. For me, he is a poet: a man who has
+wings ... very long wings."
+
+The Prince began to laugh again. Wilson with wings! He imagined the
+President with his high hat, his glasses, and his kindly smile, and
+growing out from each shoulder of his long coat two enormous feathery
+triangles like those of the angels in religious paintings. What an
+amusing fellow the Colonel was!
+
+Then suddenly he became thoughtful, while his features took on an
+expression of great seriousness.
+
+"You are right," he said. "I can see him with wings, wings that are too
+long perhaps. A great thing when it comes to flying, but when one is
+obliged to live among men, and has to walk along on the ground!... I am
+afraid he will drag his wings; I am afraid they will be stepped on some
+day, and that people will find them a great nuisance...."
+
+And they dropped the subject.
+
+The Prince wanted to break the confinement which he had voluntarily
+imposed upon himself. Why should he stay there at Villa Sirena, near
+certain people who constantly occupied his thoughts yet whom he did not
+wish to see? The best thing would be for him to return to Paris as soon
+as possible. The long range cannon was continuing to fire on the
+Capital; almost every week squads of German aeroplanes made night
+excursions about it, dropping explosives. Such a trip offered the
+inducement of danger and excitement to the lonely man, tormented in his
+perfect health by an inactive and monotonous life, which offered nothing
+more stimulating than the irritations to be derived from his recent
+experiences.
+
+Every morning, when he got up, he formulated the same plan: "I am going
+to Paris." But the trip kept being put off from week to week. It was a
+case of abulia, the loss of will power of an invalid, who makes projects
+of active life, and no sooner attempts to carry them out, than he loses
+his strength again, and postpones them indefinitely.
+
+The most insignificant details loomed gigantically before his diseased
+will. He had to go to Nice to make reservations at the Sleeping-car
+Office. He thought of sending Don Marcos; then refrained, considering it
+preferable to go himself. And days went by without his taking the short
+ride preliminary to his Paris trip. Both of them seemed equally long.
+He, who had thrice circumnavigated the globe, wearily shrunk at the
+thought of the slowness of travel due to the war. Just imagine sixteen
+hours on a train!
+
+One afternoon, bored by his splendid gardens,--now so monotonous!--by
+the silence of his house,--now so deserted!--and by the increasing
+absent-mindedness of the Colonel, who was always having something to do
+either in Monte Carlo, or in the gardener's pavilion, Lubimoff started
+out on foot toward the City. And he met some one.
+
+He had turned quite mechanically and without thinking in the direction
+of the upper boulevards, near the street in which Villa Rosa was
+situated. When he realized this, he decided to turn back. Just then he
+saw Lieutenant Martinez coming along on the opposite sidewalk, in the
+direction that he himself had been going a few moments before.
+
+The soldier seemed to him taller, stronger, and as it were, surrounded
+by a halo of glory. His uniform was the same, frayed and old looking
+after some years of service; but to the Prince it seemed entirely new,
+even dazzling in its freshness. Everything about the Lieutenant looked
+magnificent and he seemed to illumine the objects about him by mere
+contact. His features perhaps were paler and more angular; but Michael
+imagined that he radiated a certain inner splendor, composed of pride
+and satisfaction. A sort of ethereal mask, enveloping him in astral
+light, made him appear handsome and gave him a new physiognomy,
+Apollo-like and triumphant.
+
+They passed without speaking. The Lieutenant pretended not to see him,
+as Lubimoff's eyes followed him with a questioning glance. What was
+there that was new in this man? The Prince doubted that lack of sound
+health, that perilous condition which worried the doctors so much. It
+was all a lie made up to impress the ladies! He noticed the proud
+firmness of the soldier's step, the jaunty, boyish air with which he
+swung the rattan he used as a cane.
+
+On losing him from sight, he could see him even more clearly. His
+imagination kept vividly recalling certain details over which his eyes
+had wandered carelessly. There was something that stood out in painful
+relief in his memory: a few roses, a little bunch of roses, which the
+soldier was wearing on his breast, between two buttons of his uniform.
+An officer with flowers seemed rather strange! That was what had shocked
+the Prince at the first glance, shocked him so violently that his whole
+vision had been deeply disturbed. Yes, those flowers!...
+
+He spent the rest of the day thinking about them. As he stretched out in
+his bed that night, darkness clarified the maze of thoughts and doubts
+whirling in his brain. He could see it all in a cold clear light. "It
+has happened already!"
+
+He jumped out of bed and turned on the light, pacing up and down his
+bedroom in a fury.
+
+"It has happened already!"
+
+He kept repeating the words with anguished obsession; he repented his
+generosity, as though it were a crime. "Why didn't I kill him?" Then in
+plaintive tones he would repeat his original affirmation, concluding
+that what had happened was irreparable. Then he put out the light again;
+and for a long time, in the darkness, which once more filled the
+bedroom, the curses of the Prince resounded, alternating with fierce
+exclamations of wounded pride and sobs of rage.
+
+The following day his conviction still persisted. The childlike beauty
+of the morning, which always inspires optimism, meant nothing to him.
+How was he to know the truth about that thing which he had suspected and
+feared, but which he never imagined would really come to pass?
+
+A desperate curiosity caused him to spend the entire day in Monte Carlo.
+He met Martinez again. The officer kept on walking, turning his glance
+away in order not to see him; but the Prince imagined he caught a
+fleeting look of generous pity in his eyes, an expression of compassion
+for an unfortunate and inoffensive rival. Again he was wearing flowers;
+doubtless different from those of the day before.
+
+Lubimoff repeated to himself the laments of the previous night: "Yes, it
+had already happened." It was impossible to doubt it. But the thought of
+killing him did not recur, nor did he repent of his generosity. That was
+all so useless now! He merely thought with envy of people in the
+submerged classes of society, who feel the impulses of passion very
+simply, without any disturbing sense of honor and solemn promises. They
+were men who could act regardless of laws and customs. When they wanted
+to kill some one, they went and did so!
+
+He saw that Martinez was thinner than ever, with a feverish look in his
+eyes. Oh, that indefinable something, that suggestion of youthful
+vanity, of triumph and satisfaction, which seemed to radiate from his
+features like a halo of glory!
+
+That evening, Toledo found himself brusquely repelled by his Prince,
+when he tried to tell him about a letter which he had received from
+Paris. The Administrator of the Prince's estate was getting impatient;
+he was asking for a reply from his Highness in regard to the sale of
+Villa Sirena.
+
+"I don't know; leave me alone. The best thing is for me to arrange the
+matter myself. I'll go to Nice to-morrow and see about my trip to
+Paris.... No, not to-morrow: day after to-morrow."
+
+He could not explain to himself why he had conceded that additional day
+to his idleness: it was an instinctive postponement, without any motive
+whatsoever. The following day, after breakfast, he regretted it; but it
+was already too late to find the chauffeur he had gotten the afternoon
+of the duel, and whom Don Marcos had just promoted to the rank of
+"purveyor to his Highness."
+
+Where could he go, and be sure of not coming across the persons present
+so bitterly in his thoughts? Toward the end of the afternoon he went to
+the Casino terraces. There was an open air concert which was attracting
+a huge crowd. It was improbable that Martinez and the woman should show
+themselves in such a gathering.
+
+It seemed as though he were living in peace times; as though he had gone
+back to one of those rare winters which used to attract all the wealthy
+people of the globe to the Riviera. Both terraces were filled with
+well-dressed people. The bombardment of Paris and the attacks of the
+German _Gothas_ were keeping a great many elegant ladies in Monte Carlo
+who formerly would have felt they were losing caste if they stayed on
+the warm coast when winter was over.
+
+Chairs were lacking. A large part of the audience was seated on the
+balustrades and steps. Around the orchestra _kiosque_ there was a mass
+of pleasant colors, formed by women's hats, spring dresses, and
+fluttering fans. Opposite the terraces the sea stretched away between
+the rose-colored promontories. The far-away sails reddened by the
+setting sun seemed like so many flames. Across the violet surface of the
+Mediterranean and the crystal opalescence of the evening sky the music
+fell voluptuously.
+
+Nobody was thinking about the war: that was a calamity that belonged to
+another world, to other skies. Even the convalescent soldiers in
+uniform, who were living entirely in the present moment, breathing the
+salt air, listening to the wail of the violins, and surrounded by gayly
+dressed women, did not seem to remember it. Many eyes were following the
+progress, along the horizon line, of a string of ships strangely painted
+like fabulous monsters, and escorted by several torpedo boats. But the
+lulling music that rang in the ears of the idlers took all significance
+away from the fearful disguise of the boats, and from the cautious
+slowness with which they were gliding along off the Shores of Pleasure.
+
+When, after seven o'clock, the concert was over, the terraces gradually
+emptied. On the benches only a few couples remaining, putting off the
+time of parting by conversing quietly in the silence of the blue
+twilight.
+
+The Prince succeeded in walking from one end to the other of the lower
+promenade without once having to submit to contact with the crowd.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, with a feeling of surprise and pain, as though he
+had just received a blow in the breast. Down the wide steps which joined
+the two terraces, a couple were descending. His instinct recognized
+them even before he could see them clearly. It was a soldier. It was
+Lieutenant Martinez ... and she!
+
+Alicia was dressed in mourning, just as he had seen her near the church;
+but she was walking less resolutely, shrinking and timid, on finding
+herself on that spot which shortly before had been occupied by all her
+neighbors from the city.
+
+They were talking as they slowly descended. Absorbed in the view out
+upon the sea, they did not turn their eyes toward the spot where
+Lubimoff was standing motionless. At the bottom of the stairs they chose
+to walk in the opposite direction, and the Prince was able to follow
+them.
+
+He felt that some extraordinary power of divination was sharpening his
+faculties; a sort of second sight which was enabling him to see and
+study both their faces, in spite of the fact that their backs were
+turned toward him.
+
+Alas, that walk! It was the desire for light and open air, which people
+feel after a sweet confinement. It was the insolent need lovers have of
+displaying their happiness in public, when the joyous hours, through
+monotonous repetition, begin to weigh on them. It was the desire of
+prolonging in the sight of every one the sweet intimacy enjoyed in
+secret and now spiced with the added incentive of being obliged to
+feign, and to hide all real feelings.
+
+Michael considered his intuitions as beyond all question. Of course! It
+was the officer who had proposed that walk. How proud he would be to
+walk in a public place with a celebrated lady, and in full consciousness
+of the new rights he had acquired over her! It was no longer possible
+for him to question the visualization which had made him groan in the
+silence of the night.... It had taken place! It had taken place!
+
+Alicia's appearance dispelled all doubts in advance. She was walking
+along with a certain dismay like a person obliged to go on in spite of
+herself. He could see her invisible features. They were sad, profoundly
+sad, with a melancholy look of the woman who has fallen and is conscious
+of her abasement, but considers it irremediable, the result of an
+irresistible destiny, of a cause beyond the radius of the will's action.
+
+Her head kept bending down to one side toward her companion, for her
+eyes to gaze on him. It must have been the gaze of a willing prisoner
+anxious to forget the pangs of remorse and taking a sensuous
+satisfaction in her shameful slavery. While her soul shrank away at the
+memory, her body was bending under physical attraction to that other
+body, instinctively seeking the contact that was causing her youth to
+bloom again in a new spring-time; a sad spring-time, like all the
+surprises of fate, but sweeter far than the dull gray hours of solitude.
+
+Hate, repugnance, and indignant jealousy caused the Prince to stop. Why
+should he follow them? They might turn their heads and see him. He was
+ashamed at the thought of meeting them. The wretches! There must be Some
+One above to punish such things!
+
+And he left them, walking toward the other end of the promenade in order
+to descend to the harbor of La Condamine.
+
+He was just leaving the terrace when something happened behind his back
+which brought him to a stop. The couples seated on the benches suddenly
+rose and ran shouting in the direction whence he had come. He could hear
+people calling to one another. Some news seemed to be circulating
+through both levels of the garden, bringing people forth from the walks,
+from the clusters of palm trees, and the walls of vegetation.
+
+Lubimoff allowed himself to be carried along by this alarm, and
+retraced his steps. He saw in the distance a noisy mass of people ever
+increasing in size, a group which was being joined by the winding lines
+of curiosity seekers running down the steps. The garden, which a moment
+before had been deserted, was pouring forth people from every opening.
+
+As he drew near the crowd, he could hear the comments of various
+detached onlookers, who were telling the news to the new arrivals.
+
+"A convalescent officer.... He was taking a walk with a lady....
+Suddenly he fell in a heap, as though struck by lightning. There he is."
+
+Yes; there was Martinez, in the center of that human mass, a pitiful
+object, lying on the ground, with his body bent into the shape of a Z:
+his head made a right angle with his breast, and his legs were doubled,
+making another angle. Lubimoff came forward until he could look over the
+shoulders of the first row of stupefied onlookers. A constant sound of
+hard breathing, a rattle like that of some poor beast in the death agony
+kept coming from his foaming lips. In his motionless body, the only sign
+of life was that moan, repeated with clock-like regularity, with no
+change in the tone.
+
+Officers were leaving their women companions to force their way into the
+center of the crowd. On recognizing Martinez, their surprise assumed a
+caressing brotherly expression.
+
+"Antonio! Antonio!"
+
+They bent over him to talk in his ear, as though he were asleep; but
+Antonio did not hear them. One of his eyes was hidden in the dirt of the
+walk; a small pebble was clinging to the eyelid of the other. All one
+side of his uniform was white with dust. The terrible harsh breathing
+was the only reply to their words of endearment.
+
+A military doctor stepped through the crowd. He took hold of Martinez's
+hands, and felt his pulse. A look of helplessness came over the doctor's
+face. The Lieutenant had had many attacks like this one. They could only
+hope that it was not to be his last....
+
+Lubimoff could see Alicia kneeling on the ground, stunned by the shock,
+showing the sinuous curves of her back, under her mourning garments,
+oblivious of everything about her, with her eyes fixed on the man who a
+few minutes before had been walking at her side, talking and smiling,
+convinced that life is happiness, and who now lay stretched in the dust,
+convulsed and inert, a pitiable vessel slowly emptying itself in dying
+gasps.
+
+Suddenly she stood up, with an instinctive sense of danger. She did not
+care to remain in that posture before everybody's gaze. Her large eyes,
+with a blank, frightened look, began to move about over the crowd,
+without however recognizing any one. For a moment they rested on Michael
+and her gaze met his with an expression of anguished entreaty. But the
+Prince, lowering his head, concealed himself behind the front row of
+onlookers, and her eyes went on in their search about the circle, with a
+look that became dull and gray again. She believed, doubtless, that it
+had been an hallucination.
+
+As Alicia remained standing there, people began to point her out. That
+was the lady who was with the officer. Some of them recognized her, and
+repeated her name: "The Duchess de Delille." Through an instinctive
+feeling of repulsion, or a cowardly desire not to get mixed up in any
+"affair," no one spoke to her. She was left alone in the center of the
+crowd, with a look of stupefaction in her eyes, that seemed to ask for
+help, though without knowing just what help.
+
+Willing souls began to take the initiative with an air of authority.
+
+"Air! Give him air!" They began to shove the crowd back in order to
+increase the circle around the fallen man. But the people immediately
+pushed forward again with useless suggestions of aid; and once more the
+space was narrowed, until the feet of the nearest spectators grazed the
+panting lips of the dying man.
+
+A young girl had run of her own accord to the bar at the entrance of the
+Casino and was coming back with a glass of water.
+
+"Antonio! Antonio!" his kneeling comrades vainly called the Lieutenant,
+using all their strength to open his jaws and force him to drink. His
+lips repelled the liquid, and went on repeating the painful moans.
+
+Ladies, attracted by the news, began to arrive from the gambling rooms.
+They all knew the Duchess; and looked at her with a certain hostility,
+after gazing at the dying man. The Prince heard fragments of their
+comment: "A poor fellow rescued from death by a miracle.... The
+slightest emotion.... That woman...."
+
+Beyond the group, park policemen were running about giving orders. The
+stretcher bearers had arrived; the same ones who, according to public
+rumor, were passed by magic through the walls of the Casino to carry
+away the gamblers dying in the play-rooms.
+
+This time the stretcher was absent. The onlookers were separating to
+open the way for an extraordinary novelty. A hired carriage was coming
+across the terraces, which were forbidden to vehicles.
+
+Suddenly Lubimoff saw the Duchess rise above the heads of the crowd. She
+had just gotten into the carriage and was standing in it, with a dazed
+look and the inexpressive features of a person walking in her sleep.
+Perhaps she had done it without thinking; perhaps the military doctor
+had invited her to get in, thinking she was a relative of the patient.
+Several men in uniform lifted the inert body of the officer.
+
+The harsh breathing that rent his chest continued.
+
+And then, in the presence of the crowd, whose eyes were sightless with
+stupefaction, the Duchess proceeded as though she were alone. She had
+just dropped to the seat. She had them lay the corpse-like body across
+her knees, and she herself, as she held Martinez with one arm, laid his
+panting head against one of her shoulders.
+
+The carriage slowly started off in the direction of the officers' hotel,
+followed by a large part of the crowd. The doctor went along on foot,
+telling the driver to go slowly.
+
+Michael saw Alicia pass, upright and rigid in her seat, her eyes wide
+open, with terror, her mouth tense with grief, and holding the dying man
+on her knees. Her attitude reminded him of the Divine Mother at the foot
+of the cross; but there was something impure and shameful in Alicia's
+sorrow that made the comparison inadmissible.
+
+"Oh, Venus Dolorosa."
+
+The Prince was interrupted in his reflections. He felt himself rudely
+shoved aside by a woman in uniform. It was Mary Lewis, running, as fast
+as her legs could carry her, to overtake the carriage. The Amazon of
+Good Deeds always arrived in time to catch up with suffering.
+
+Lubimoff saw how the vehicle slowly drove away with its embroidery of
+people. Its journey as far as the hotel would be endless; all Monte
+Carlo would see it go by.
+
+He felt sad, very, very sad. That officer was his enemy; but death!...
+
+He was not so sorry for Alicia. He smiled a malicious smile as he looked
+for the last time at the carriage and its following, which was
+constantly increasing.
+
+In the line of scandals there was nothing commonplace about this latest
+of the Duchess de Delille.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Two days later, in the morning, Lubimoff saw the Colonel go out dressed
+in black.
+
+He was going to the funeral of Martinez. He and Novoa felt it was their
+duty, as Spaniards, to accompany the hero on his last earthly journey.
+
+On his return he told his impressions, with painful conciseness, to the
+Prince. A few convalescent officers had followed the bier. The Professor
+and he were the only ones in civilian clothes present. In spite of his
+garb, those kindly heroic boys, seeing that he was a Colonel and a
+compatriot of the dead man, had obliged him to preside over the funeral
+services.
+
+The Beausoleil Cemetery lay half way up the slope of the mountain on the
+crest of which La Turbie is situated. On account of the war, it had been
+necessary to enlarge it by several level plots of ground that formed a
+series of terraces. From these esplanades the eye embraced a magnificent
+view: Monte Carlo, Monaco, immediately below that, Cap-Martin advancing
+out over the waves, finally the infinite expanse of sea that rose and
+rose until it mingled with the sky. A monument with a rooster arrogant
+and victorious on its summit held the remains of the combatants who had
+died for France. Don Marcos was still much moved by the speech he had
+delivered, while all stood hushed, at the entrance to this common tomb,
+which was about to swallow up forever the body of Martinez.
+
+"It was a speech for men," said Toledo, with pride, "for men who had
+been crippled in warfare. Nothing but heroes before me! There wasn't a
+single woman at the funeral."
+
+This was the detail that interested the Prince most: "Not a single
+woman." And he asked himself again what could have become of Alicia.
+
+Toward the end of the afternoon, as he was walking about his gardens, he
+saw Lady Lewis coming, preceded by the Colonel.
+
+The Prince took refuge in his house. The nurse was undoubtedly arriving
+with a group of convalescent Englishmen, and wanted to run about among
+the trees and pick flowers. He did not feel he had the strength to
+listen to her chatter, which was like the twittering of a gay but
+wounded bird and was filled with a happiness that persisted tenaciously
+in the midst of grief, and continued even to the threshold of death.
+
+The Prince was going up the stairway to retire to the upper rooms, when
+the Colonel overtook him; but before the latter could speak Lubimoff
+turned on him in a rage. He didn't want to see the nurse! Let her take
+her Englishmen over the gardens; she might go about in them as though
+they belonged to her; but as for himself, he wanted her to leave him
+alone.
+
+"Marquis," said Toledo, "the noble woman has come alone and must talk
+with your Highness. She has something important to say to you."
+
+The Prince and the nurse sat down in wicker chairs out of doors in a
+little open space surrounded by leafy trees. A fountain was laughing as
+great drops of water scattered from its lazy jet.
+
+The greenish light reflected through the grove made Lady Lewis appear
+weaker and more anæmic. What was left of life seemed concentrated in her
+eyes, before taking flight and vanishing like some volatile fluid, into
+space. The Prince was beginning to forget his recent anger. Poor Lady
+Mary! Once more he had a feeling of tenderness and respect for her. Her
+physical wretchedness finally changed his pity into the kind of
+admiration that disinterested sacrifice always inspires.
+
+Accustomed to living amid the deepest sorrows, to witnessing the
+greatest catastrophes, Lady Lewis paid little attention to the
+conventions prevailing in ordinary life and spoke at once, with a
+certain military abruptness, of the reason for her visit.
+
+She was coming in behalf of the Duchess de Delille. She had spent the
+last two days at Villa Rosa, sleeping there in order not to leave the
+Duchess a single moment. First, Alicia's wild despair, followed later by
+a complete collapse, had frightened her. The lady had tried to kill
+herself.
+
+"Poor woman!... She finally grew calm, seeing the true light, and
+realizing the path she must take. I feel satisfied that I've
+accomplished that much by my words."
+
+Lubimoff's questioning glance remained fixed on the English woman. What
+light and what path was she talking about? But there was something that
+interested him more: the motive of her visit, the message that the
+Duchess had given her for him.
+
+Lady Lewis read his thoughts.
+
+"She asked me to see you, Prince; that is her last wish as she leaves
+the world. She begs you to forget her, never to seek her out, and above
+all to forgive her for the harm she has done you involuntarily.
+Forgiveness is what she most ardently yearns for. When I tell her that
+you don't hate her, it will restore the serenity she needs for her new
+life."
+
+Michael had been absorbed in deep thought. Forgive her? Alicia had not
+done him any harm. From himself, from his own desires and
+disillusionments, his sufferings had come. If he had remained faithful
+to the principles he had announced some months before when he hated
+women, he would not have suffered the slightest change in the sensible
+life he had been leading. Besides, where was she? Could he not see her?
+
+This flood of questions was interrupted by Lady Lewis. She continued to
+smile sweetly, but her voice revealed the firmness of an unalterable
+will.
+
+"The Duchess is no longer living in Monte Carlo; I have arranged
+everything in regard to her trip. I am the only one who knows where she
+is, and I shall never tell. Do not look for her; let her go away in
+peace in her quest for truth; think of her as dead ... as others have
+died, as thousands of beings are dying and will continue to die in this
+period of ours, with each day's sun. Forgive and forget. Poor woman! She
+is so unhappy."
+
+Lubimoff understood how futile all his questions would be. His
+curiosity, no matter how strong and subtle, would fail in contact with
+that impenetrable reserve. Alicia had disappeared forever ... forever!
+
+He now felt sadder and lonelier than ever before. As he sat there beside
+this Amazon of human sorrow, he had a feeling of confidence similar to
+that which the Duchess must have felt during those last few days. It was
+a desire to make a confession to her, an instinctive impulse to bare his
+soul, as though from that woman who brought to death beds the
+light-hearted merriment of a bird, might come the supreme counsel of
+wisdom.
+
+The Prince nodded his head, murmuring his assent: "Yes, I forgive her."
+He did not wish the other woman to bear the slightest burden of grief on
+his account. He would shoulder all that, himself. But immediately
+afterward he could not resist the impulse of that anguish to express
+itself. He was himself astonished at the words which, overriding all
+restraint, escaped from his lips.
+
+"I, too, Lady Lewis, am very unhappy."
+
+The nurse did not show any surprise at such a burst of confidence. She
+simply continued to smile, and said laconically:
+
+"I know."
+
+Her smile was changing to a look of sweet pity, of beneficent
+compassion, as though the Prince were a child in need of her advice.
+
+She had guessed his unhappiness long before the Duchess had talked to
+her in the hours of despairing confession. He believed he was unhappy
+through being crossed in love; but actually, this sorrow was only the
+outer shell of another which was deeper and more real, and which
+depended on himself alone.
+
+He had tried to live apart from his fellow-beings, ignoring their
+troubles, selfishly withdrawing into a shell. He had wished, by
+loitering on the margin of humanity which was suffering the greatest
+crisis in all its history, to prolong the pleasures of peace into a time
+of war. One could understand such aloofness in a coward, dominated by
+the instinct of self-preservation; but _he_ was a brave man. One could
+tolerate it in a man who was burdened with children, who constantly felt
+the imperious duty of supporting them, and was afraid on that account;
+but he was alone in the world.
+
+"We are all unhappy, Prince. Who doesn't know grief and death these
+days?"
+
+And she talked in monotonous tones of her own misfortune, as though she
+were reciting a prayer. Her smile, the smile that animated the anæmic
+homeliness of her features with a vaporous light of dawn, gradually
+faded.
+
+Six of her brothers had been killed in one afternoon. They belonged to
+the same battalion and she had received the news of the six deaths at
+the same time. Thirty-two of her relatives were now beneath the ground
+and very few of them had been soldiers in the beginning. Before the war
+they had lived lives of pleasure. They enjoyed great wealth and titles:
+Life had been as sweet to them as to Prince Lubimoff.... But when they
+heard the call of duty!... "No one chooses the spot where he is born; no
+one can decide which his country shall be and what his lineage. We come
+into the world according to the whims of chance, in the upper or the
+lower stories of society, and we mold our lives according to the place
+designated by fate. Neither can any one choose the times he will live
+in. Happy they who are born in peace times, when humanity is wrapped in
+calm, and its prehistoric savagery is slumbering within the shell formed
+by civilization; happy also they who are born into a powerful family and
+find themselves exempted from the struggle of life."
+
+"But when we are born into a period of madness," she continued, "we have
+to resign ourselves and adapt ourselves to it, without seeking to avoid
+the painful burden that falls on our shoulders. It is our duty to suffer
+so that others later on may be happy as our forefathers suffered for our
+sakes."
+
+What grief she had felt on receiving at a single stroke the news of the
+death of all her brothers! She did not consider herself an extraordinary
+being; she was simply a woman like any other. She had wept. She had
+abandoned herself to her despair. Then, an idea kept drifting through
+her mind joyously refreshing her drooping spirits. Supposing men were
+immortal in this life! Then despair would be horrible indeed. If you
+considered that the dead might have saved their lives by keeping far
+from every danger! But no one was immortal.
+
+"Whether you die from a bullet wound or from microbes, makes little
+difference. Only the external circumstances vary, and for many people
+there is a greater fascination in returning to dust in a lightning-like
+manner in the full intoxication of battle, with a generous idea in one's
+mind, than in slowly fading away in confinement between two sheets,
+defiled and degraded by the filth of a material nature beginning to
+disintegrate.
+
+"It is a sort of holy fear necessary, for that matter, to the
+preservation of human life, and it troubles people and makes them hide
+from themselves the terrible truth that waits at the end of every life.
+Sensible people consider it madness to go out in quest of death. It is
+all very well if death is something motionless which sets hands only on
+those who draw near it of their own accord. But if man does not go
+forward to meet death, death, with its hundred-league boots, runs in
+search of man. Who can guess the moment of the meeting? The best thing,
+then, is to scorn it; and not pay it the tribute of constant thought
+which engenders anxiety and fear.
+
+"Besides, death in bed is an unfruitful and sterile death. To whom could
+it be of use, except one's heirs? The other kind of death, death for an
+idea, even for an erroneous idea, means something positive. It is an act
+of energy and faith and the aggregate of such acts makes up the noblest
+history of humanity."
+
+The Prince admired the simplicity with which this woman, who was almost
+in a dying condition, exalted the heroism of life and scorned death.
+
+She had placed her ideal very high beyond the selfish desires which form
+the warp and woof of ordinary lives. If every one were to suit merely
+his own convenience, humanity as a whole would have no reason to
+consider itself superior to animals.
+
+The noblewoman possessed an ideal: to sacrifice herself for her fellow
+beings; to serve them even at the cost of her own life. She was almost
+glad of the war, which had helped her to find her true path. In peace
+times she would have done the same as every woman, linking her lot with
+that of a man, bearing children and building up a family.
+
+"Amorous affection reduces the world to two beings; a mother's love
+finds nothing of interest beyond her own progeny. Only when old age is
+reached and the illusory perspectives of life have faded away, is the
+great truth apparent that people must be interested in every living
+being, ready to sacrifice themselves for every living being. But the
+exalted sympathy of old age is unfruitful and brief."
+
+Mary Lewis considered herself fortunate in having rushed forward in the
+right direction from the first moment, without the long evasions of
+other people, who are late in reaching the truth.
+
+"I have had my romance, like every one else."
+
+She said this simply, but at the same time what blood was left in her
+veins animated her features with a faint blush, as though she were
+confessing something extraordinary.
+
+She had been loved by a scholarly man, a former secretary of her father,
+the Colonial Governor. Only once had they confessed their love.
+Afterwards their life continued as before, both of them keeping the
+secret, postponing the realization of their dreams to an indefinite
+future.... But the war came.
+
+He had hastened, among the first, to enlist as a volunteer: "Mary, I am
+a soldier." And Mary had replied: "That is right." They wrote short
+letters to each other at long intervals. They had more important things
+to do. He did not have the handsome features and the strength of a hero,
+like Lady Lewis' brothers. He even suspected that his bearing was
+scarcely military because of the ungainliness that comes from a
+sedentary life, spent in bending over a writing table. But he did his
+duty, and more than once he had been cited for his cool audacity.
+
+Their desires would now never be fulfilled. Even though she might
+succeed in surviving the war, she would continue her present existence
+in civilian hospitals, in far-off countries scourged by plagues. He
+perhaps would marry another, or perhaps would remain faithful to her
+memory, devoting himself for his part to relieving the pain and sorrows
+of his fellow beings. But they would live apart, going where duty called
+them, thinking constantly of each other, but without meeting, like the
+cultivated monks and passionate nuns of other centuries, who filled
+their lives with spiritual friendships maintained in widely separated
+monasteries and convents.
+
+Once more Michael admired her abnegation. Lady Lewis belonged to that
+small group of the elect, who do not know what selfishness is and long
+to sacrifice themselves for what is good. She was one of that immortal
+line of saintly women who existed before the birth of religion and who
+will continue to flourish just the same when skepticism has finally
+ruined all our present beliefs.
+
+"You are an angel," said the Prince.
+
+"No," she protested; "I am a lover, a great lover."
+
+Lubimoff smiled with a certain air of pity.
+
+"You a lover?"
+
+She went on talking as though her listener's surprise annoyed her. What
+was other women's love compared to hers? They fixed their tenderness,
+their desire for self-sacrifice, on one man only. Beyond him they found
+nothing worthy of interest. She loved all men, all of them, even the
+soldiers of the enemy whom she had often cared for in the ambulances at
+the front. They were mistaken, and if they really were guilty souls and
+wished to continue being so, all she could see in them was their
+physical condition as, threatened by death, they lay stretched out on
+their beds, with their flesh mangled. They were simply unfortunate
+beings, and this was enough to make her forget their nationality.
+
+She wanted her own side to triumph because the other represented the
+exaltation of brute strength, the glorification of war, and it was her
+desire that there should be no more wars. She longed for the time when
+love would rule the whole world!... It was bad enough that men could not
+suppress with like facility, poverty, pain and death, the black
+divinities which seize us at our birth and with whom we struggle up to
+the last moment.
+
+"I love everything that is alive: People, animals, and flowers. Beside
+such love, what is the affection between a man and a woman, which people
+consider the only love and is simply the selfishness of two beings
+setting themselves apart from their fellow beings, and living only for
+themselves? My love is likewise a kind of selfishness. I realize it;
+perhaps it is something worse: pride. If you only knew how gay I feel
+when I have saved from death one of my 'flirts,' one of those poor
+wounded men whom I shall never see again!... No, don't admire me,
+Prince, and don't feel sorry for me. I am merely a poor woman! by no
+means an angel! Moreover, I am very bad; I have my repentances, like
+every one else."
+
+"You, Lady Mary!" the Prince exclaimed again with a look of incredulity.
+That he should have no doubts about it she hastened to relate the great
+sin of her life. Traveling through Andalusia she had seen some boys on a
+river bank who were trying to drown a stray dog, throwing stones at it.
+Mary fell upon them, mad with rage, striking them with her parasol. One
+of the little fellows wept, and blood spurted from his nostrils. This
+unhappy memory had often troubled her in the night. Now she could not
+see a child without caressing it with all the ardor occasioned by
+remorse.
+
+Also she had had quarrels in various countries with drivers who were
+whipping their work animals and with hotel keepers who would not allow
+her to keep in her room lost dogs and cats she found in the streets.
+
+Before the war, her pity had been entirely for animals. Humanity was
+able to defend itself. But now, the butchery of beings in uniforms had
+turned her sweet tenderness toward mankind. They needed love and
+protection more than the poor brutes.
+
+The mention of her "flirts" suddenly brought her back to her duty. At
+that very moment they were tossing, covered with bandages, in their
+beds, and anxiously calling for her presence. Or else they were sitting
+on a bench with motionless eyes turned toward the sun, refusing to take
+a walk until they could feel the gentle support of her arm. "Good-by,
+Prince!" She must go! Her lovers were waiting for her.
+
+As she stood up, she thought again of the reason for her visit and spoke
+once more in the tone that revealed the firmness of her will.
+
+It was useless for him to seek the Duchess. The poor woman after
+entering so many blind alleys in her life, had finally found the true
+path, the one she herself, more fortunate, had discovered while still in
+her youth. The Virgin Dolorosa spoke in a simple, natural way of
+Alicia's past. She knew it all. In the silence of Villa Rosa, the other
+woman had confessed it in despair, without the nurse feeling either
+scandalized or amazed. What did the moral capacity of a mere individual
+mean, when at every moment the world was beholding the most unheard of
+crimes.
+
+"She left this morning and is a long way off--a long way!" said the
+gentle woman. "It is possible that you will never see each other again.
+I will write her that you forgive her. That will afford her the peace of
+mind she needs in her new life."
+
+The Prince was going with her as far as the entrance to his gardens.
+During the walk he began once more to lament his fate. He needed to
+relieve by articulation the despair in which he was left by the refusal
+of the English woman to tell him where Alicia was staying.
+
+"I am very unhappy, Lady Mary."
+
+"I know," she replied. "My misfortunes are greater than yours, but I
+rise above them better."
+
+For Mary life was a sort of balance. In one pan of the scales suffering
+had perforce to fall. No one could free himself from that burden. But
+the spirit must re-establish the equilibrium by placing in the other pan
+something great, an ideal, a hope. She had found the necessary
+counterweight: love for everything alive, sacrifice for one's fellow
+beings, and consequent abnegation.
+
+What did the Prince have to counter-balance the shocks of destiny?...
+Nothing. He went on living the same as in peace times, thinking only of
+himself. He was still just as the great mass of men had been, before the
+war drew them from their selfish individualism, making the virtues of
+solidarity and sacrifice flourish once more in their souls. For that
+reason all he needed to feel desperate was a mere obstacle to his
+desires, a disappointment in love, that should really be an affliction
+only in the life of a mere boy. Oh, if only he could get a high ideal!
+If only he could think less about himself and more about mankind!...
+
+They shook hands beside the gate.
+
+"Good-by, Lady Lewis!" said the Prince, bowing.
+
+If Don Marcos had been present the Prince's voice at that moment would
+have sounded familiar to him. It was the same as on the afternoon of the
+duel, when he met the English woman with the two blind men; a
+beautifully solemn voice which wavered close to tears.
+
+Toledo did not appear until a few moments later, coming out of the
+gardener's pavilion, to meet the Prince, who was returning pensively
+toward the villa.
+
+Lubimoff spoke and gave an order in stern tones.
+
+"I am leaving for Paris. I want to go to-morrow. Make all the necessary
+arrangements."
+
+Then, as he gazed into the Colonel's eyes, he continued in a gentler
+voice:
+
+"I think I shall never return here.... I am going to sell Villa
+Sirena."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Don Marcos is descending the slopes of the public gardens toward the
+Casino Square, in conversation with a soldier.
+
+He is no longer the ceremonious Colonel who used to kiss the hands of
+the elderly and noble ladies in the gambling rooms, and was present as
+the inevitable guest at the luncheons of all the titled families
+stopping at the Hôtel de Paris. There is nothing about his person to
+recall the long velvet lined frock coats, the high white silk hats, and
+the other splendors of his eccentric elegance. He is soberly dressed in
+a dark suit, and there is something rustic about his appearance, which
+reveals the man who lives in the country, enjoys cultivating the soil,
+and feels constraint on returning to city life. He is wearing gloves,
+just as in the good old days; but now it is out of necessity. His hands
+remind him of a certain narrow garden around his diminutive villa, with
+five trees, twelve rose bushes, and some forty shrubs all of which he
+knows individually, by names he has given them. He has been caring for
+them so fondly, and caressing them so often, that his fingers have
+become calloused.
+
+The soldier is also walking along like a country man, looking with
+curiosity in every direction. A stiff mustache covers his upper lip, one
+of those stiff and aggressive mustaches which come out after long
+periods of continual shaving. His uniform is old, faded by the sun and
+rain. The yellowish cloth has the neutral color of the soil. His right
+arm hangs inert from the shoulder and moves in rhythm with his step,
+like a dangling inanimate object. His hand is covered with a glove, the
+rigidity of which reveals the outline of something hard and mechanical.
+The other hand leans on a knotty cane, and smoke is curling from a pipe
+in his lips. On his sleeves, almost mingling with the color of the
+cloth, is the one narrow officer's stripe.
+
+"It has been ten months and twenty days, since your Highness left here.
+How many things have happened!"
+
+The soldier is Prince Lubimoff; but Lubimoff seems stronger, more serene
+and decided than the preceding year, in spite of his artificial arm.
+There are the same gray hairs, scattered here and there, on his head;
+but his mustache, on being allowed to grow, has come out almost white.
+
+The Colonel's side whiskers are like his mustache. With the
+disappearance of his elegance, the touches of the toilet table have
+likewise ceased, and the modest gray, obtained by careful dying, has
+given place to the white of frank old age.
+
+Don Marcos points to the Square toward which they are both going.
+
+"If your Highness had only seen it the night of the Armistice!"
+
+The news of the triumph made every one come running. They descended from
+Beausoleil, they came up from La Condamine, and they arrived from the
+rock of Monaco. For the first time in four years, the façades of the
+Casino, the hotels and cafés, were illuminated from top to bottom.
+
+The Square was overflowing with people. They all seemed to blink as
+though dazzled by the light, after the long darkness in which the
+submarine menace had kept them plunged. Several brass instruments roared
+out the Marseillaise, and the crowd following the flags of the Allied
+countries and, unwilling to leave the Square, kept marching about the
+"Camembert," like moths about a flame.
+
+Suddenly a long dancing line formed, a _farandole_, and it began to run
+and leap, growing at each twist and turn. Every one, in the contagion of
+enthusiasm, joined out; officers grasped hands with privates; solemn
+ladies kicked up their heels and lost their hats; timid girls shouted,
+with their hair flying; the faces of the women had the look of
+enthusiastic madness which is seen only in times of revolution. The lame
+hopped and skipped, the blind imagined they could see, and those who had
+lost their hands held on with their stumps to the serpentine line. The
+Marseillaise seemed like a miraculous hymn, giving every one new
+strength. Peace!... Peace!
+
+In one of its evolutions, the head of the human snake climbed the steps
+of the Casino. The _farandole_ was trying to enter the antechamber, and
+the gambling rooms, to wrap its coils about the crowd, the _croupiers_,
+and the tables. Every selfish activity should cease in that hour of
+generous joy.
+
+"Alas, the gamblers! What a malady gambling is, Your Highness! On
+reaching the Square they took off their hats to the flags, and almost
+wept, as they sang a verse of the Marseillaise. 'Long live France! Long
+live the Allies!' And immediately they entered the Casino to bet their
+money on the same number as the celebrated date, or on other
+combinations suggested by peace."
+
+The gate-keepers, with the air of old gendarmes, concentrated in a
+heroic body to keep off with their breasts, their bellies and their
+fists the turbulent snake dance which was trying to enter the sacred
+edifice. They seemed indignant. When had such extraordinary insolence
+ever been seen? Peace was a good thing, and people might well rejoice;
+but to come into the Casino like a dancing riot, to interrupt the
+functioning of an honorable industry!... And they had finally shoved the
+line of disheveled women down the steps, and the decorated soldiers who
+were suddenly forgetting their infirmities and their wounds were driven
+after it.
+
+The Prince and Toledo arrive at the Square and turn to the left of the
+Casino, toward the Café de Paris.
+
+Lubimoff sits down at a table, at a protruding angle of the sidewalk
+café which people nickname "The Promontory." The Colonel remains on his
+right. He has spent the afternoon with the Prince, and must return home.
+He is no longer so free as before; some one is living with him, and his
+new situation imposes unavoidable obligations.
+
+In his mind's eye he can see, on the heights of Beausoleil, the little
+house he lives in, surrounded by its little garden. It is all his by
+registered public deed. But the fate of his property does not worry the
+Colonel; no one will carry off his walls and trees. What makes him
+nervous is a certain non-commissioned American officer, young and well
+built, who has a mania for walking about the dwelling; and certain
+bright eyes which from a window follow the soldier with a hungry look;
+and certain lips red as cherries, that smile at that American; and
+certain hands which Don Marcos thinks he has surprised from a distance
+throwing down a flower, though their owner shrieks at him in fury every
+day to convince him that he has been imagining things.
+
+Don Marcos is married. A few weeks after the departure of the Prince, a
+great change came into his life. Villa Sirena already belonged to the
+nouveau-riche who was a maker of auto trucks and aeroplanes, and who
+had also bought the Paris residence. The Colonel on giving him
+possession, remembered only to praise the merits of the gardener and his
+family.
+
+Lubimoff, before leaving for the front, had arranged for his
+"chamberlain's" future, assuring him a pension of ten thousand francs a
+year, and also sending him a certain sum with which to buy a house.
+Since the Colonel had set his mind on dying in Monte Carlo, he ought to
+have a little Villa Sirena of his own.
+
+After digging in the garden on his property for a short time, with an
+occasional glance down on the Casino Square, Toledo went in search of
+Novoa. The Professor was his best friend; besides, he was a Spaniard,
+and it was the latter's duty to be of service to him, in the most
+important event in his life. He needed a best man for his wedding. The
+Professor was dumbfounded on being informed that the Colonel was going
+to marry the gardener's daughter. She was young enough to be his
+grandchild! It was tempting fate for a man of his years to expose
+himself deliberately to such dangers.
+
+"You, Don Marcos, as a Spaniard, must remember," said Novoa, "that the
+Saint whose name you bear has a bull with long horns for his emblem!
+Besides, youth has its rights."
+
+"And old age its duties," replied the Colonel, with a kindly air,
+resigning himself to his future.
+
+At present, standing beside the Prince, he stammers with timidity and
+embarrassment. He hates to confess that he must desert him.
+
+"Mado is waiting for me: you see, the poor girl doesn't go out very
+much. She likes to have me take her to the afternoon concerts on the
+terraces. It is five o'clock."
+
+And when the Prince assents, with a slight nod, Toledo rushes off
+precipitously. Then, farther on, he begins almost to run up the slope,
+panting, but without feeling his weariness. He wants to reach home as
+soon as possible, and yet is afraid of doing so. He is sure of Mado only
+when he is within range of her shrieks. He shudders when he thinks that
+he may be "imagining things" again.
+
+As the Prince remains alone, the glass that is before his eyes gradually
+fades away and with it the adjoining tables, and the people seated
+around the "Camembert." His vision contracts, and buries itself deep
+within his mind to contemplate other images of memory.
+
+He arrived in Monte Carlo that morning. Only a few hours have passed,
+and he has seen so much already!
+
+He recalls certain remarks of his friend Lewis; and remarks, made during
+one of the luncheons at Villa Sirena: "Life is strange and uneven as it
+flows along. Time goes by without anything extraordinary arising, and
+then, all of a sudden, hours do the work of months, days are as eventful
+as years, and things happen in a few moments which, at other times,
+would take centuries." How many people have died in the relatively short
+space of time that has elapsed since he last left Monte Carlo!
+
+Lubimoff recalls the brief and exciting period after his arrival in
+Paris: his enlistment in the Foreign Legion; the Commission of Second
+Lieutenant granted him in recognition of his former service as Captain
+in the Imperial Guards; his departure for the front, after distributing
+or investing the million and a half derived from the sale of Villa
+Sirena, his hard life in action, the battles and slaughter accompanying,
+with gruesome prodigality, the advances of the triumphant offensive. He
+recalls his meeting with a member of the Legion who suddenly called to
+him and whom he had some difficulty in recognizing: Atilio Castro!
+Castro had changed. His ironical smile had vanished. He looked on life
+with greater seriousness, and now seemed convinced of the worth of his
+actions. They belonged to different battalions, and they did not see
+each other again, till late one afternoon, after a fight, he came across
+him. The poor boy was lying stretched out on the ground, among other
+corpses. His forehead had been crushed in and his brain was showing
+under the wound! On that face the death grin was a smile of serenity.
+Poor Castro! What could have become of Doña Clorinda?
+
+The Prince's mind wanders from that memory. Other lost friends claim his
+attention. He evokes finally a more recent vision: his arrival after a
+long convalescence in a hospital, in Monte Carlo. On getting out of the
+train, Toledo deeply moved, gazes at his artificial arm, which hides but
+imperfectly the amputation. He had suffered for several months from the
+consequences of a stupid, accidental wound, received ingloriously a few
+days before the armistice.
+
+He ascends the slope to the delightful little home of Don Marcos, which
+will be his own while he remains here. Down below, projecting into the
+sea, the promontory of Villa Sirena meets his eye. It now belongs to
+another man, and he turns his glance away to keep certain memories from
+welling up. In doing so his eyes chance to meet the eyes of Mado,
+Toledo's _señora_; eyes which doubtless consider Prince Lubimoff more
+interesting, with his mustache, his elderly appearance, and his uniform,
+than when he was the elegant master of her parents. Poor Colonel! And
+Michael flees the tempting glance, and the full scarlet lips, which seem
+to challenge him to smile.
+
+After lunch he follows a path which zigzags up the mountain; he sees a
+stone wall, passes through a door, and briefly contemplates a monument
+surmounted by a huge rooster.
+
+Toledo bares his head. Peace to the heroes! Then he points to the
+entrance of the funereal structure.
+
+"Poor Martinez is there."
+
+They descend several steps to another part of the cemetery, lying in
+terraces on the mountain slope. On that level plot the tombs are leveled
+off even with the soil, with slabs of stone protected by low rectangular
+fences of chain, or simply bordered with flowers. An æsthetic instinct
+seems to explain the sparing use of ornaments here. From these mournful
+esplanades of death one can see a great expanse of green coast, dotted
+with the white of villas and towns; the rose-colored Alps, the capes of
+purple rock, the deep intense blue of the Mediterranean, and the soft
+limpid blue of a cloudless sky. And the graves seem to smile at all this
+splendor of Nature.
+
+The Colonel searches among them, reading the names.
+
+"Here, Marquis."
+
+He points to a slab with a simple inscription: "Mary Lewis."
+
+"Just like a bird, your Highness. One morning at dawn they found her
+poor little body dead on the hospital cot. She hadn't cried out, she
+hadn't complained; she departed as she had lived. The nurses say that
+the face was smiling. Her body was as light as a feather."
+
+Around the tomb several wreaths were turning black, as though scorched
+by fire. Toledo seeks among these offerings of the dead woman's
+companions, until he points to a handful of fresh roses, which are
+beginning to decay.
+
+"They must be from Lord Lewis," he goes on to say. "When things go badly
+in the Casino, he comes up to see his niece. Your Highness must know,
+of course, that with the death of Lady Lewis, he is now a Lord--really a
+Lord."
+
+The Prince shrugs his shoulders. To think of human vanities in a place
+like this, which makes all earthly worries seem grotesque!
+
+Don Marcos guesses his impatience, and as they descend two more
+terraces, he goes on explaining.
+
+"The English woman died before the other; that is why they buried her
+farther up. So many people have died in the last few months!"
+
+They reach the last terrace of the cemetery, the lowest one, a square
+field of reddish earth in which there are no slabs, no truncated
+columns, and no fences of chain. Little mounds of earth taking the form
+of a coffin indicate the location of the graves. Some of them have
+wooden crosses. From one of the latter hangs the picture of a young
+soldier in the center of a wreath laid there by his parents.
+
+Two men show their heads and shoulders above the ground and disappear
+from sight again after emptying their shovels. They are opening a grave
+for some one who is soon to come. Michael notices floating up from the
+vibrant, luminous air, the mournful sound of a bell, tolling in an
+unseen church below.
+
+The Colonel insists on explaining.
+
+"It is a temporary grave, without any slab, without any name."
+
+On account of the war, it was impossible to send the body to Paris. It
+will lie here the length of time the law demands, and then the young
+lady, who is her heir, will have her taken to the vault in the Passy
+Cemetery where her mother is buried. He hesitates somewhat as he
+examines the mounds, and finally stops in front of one of them, and
+takes off his hat.
+
+"Here it is."
+
+Lubimoff cannot hide his surprise. "Here?..." He sees a heap of earth,
+without anything to adorn it, without anything to differentiate it from
+the rest, and which inspires in him no emotion at all. He looks
+anxiously at his companion. Hasn't he made a mistake? Are they not
+standing beside the tomb of some poor soldier who died of his wounds?
+
+The Colonel, somewhat offended by the question, repeats energetically:
+"Here it is." He remembers that he was the only man present at the
+funeral. Three nurses, Señorita Valeria, and he, followed the coffin to
+these heights; there was no one else.
+
+Poor Duchess de Delille! Toledo is moved on remembering her unexpected
+death. Lady Lewis had sent her to the front. Having been born in the
+United States, it was fairly easy for her to be admitted to a hospital
+unit with the American Divisions that were fighting at Château-Thierry.
+
+The Prince, listening to the explanations of Don Marcos, recalls a
+confession Alicia once made to him. Her hands were clumsy. Her spirit,
+anxious to do good, weakened at the moment of action through a lack of
+material training. Doubtless for that reason she had been sent back a
+few weeks later to the Riviera, to give her services in a quieter
+hospital than the ambulance stations at the front.
+
+Toledo had not seen her. She was living in the neighborhood of Monte
+Carlo without his ever suspecting it. The first news he had had of her
+was that of her death; a death which leaves the Colonel pensive whenever
+he recalls it. She became infected by a surgical instrument which had
+just been used in an operation. Perhaps it was because of the clumsiness
+of her hands; perhaps ... who knows! Don Marcos believes that the
+Duchess was tired of life.
+
+"A horrible death, Marquis. I did not see her: I am glad I didn't. They
+tell me she was black and swollen. Besides, for several hours she was in
+torture, lifting herself on her head and heels, arching above the bed,
+with the muscles of her body tense with the most atrocious suffering.
+Tetanus! How terrible for a great lady, so beautiful, so elegant to die
+like that! But in the midst of such pain she found the peace of mind to
+dictate her last testament. Señorita Valeria has inherited Villa Rosa,
+and several hundred thousand francs: all that she won that night at the
+Sporting Club. As for your Highness...."
+
+The Prince interrupts him with a gesture. He has known for a long time,
+from the letters of Don Marcos, that Alicia remembered him in her last
+moments, leaving him heir to her silver mines in Mexico, all that she
+possessed on the other side of the ocean; nothing at the present moment,
+but in the future perhaps a fortune, almost as great as that which
+Lubimoff formerly held in Russia.
+
+He remains with his eyes fixed on the grave. On it he sees some fine
+moss, a miniature forest, opening its branches at the breath of spring,
+and among the tiny leaves diminutive flowers are stirring. Several
+greenish black butterflies, spotted with red, are fluttering above this
+murmuring forest of budding life, much as the monstrous prehistoric
+birds fluttered above the first vegetation of the globe.
+
+Michael sees a relation between these insects and the spirit that dwelt
+in the organism now disintegrating a few feet under the ground beneath
+his feet. The varied, clashing colors remind him of the dead woman's
+soul. In the same way a few minutes before, a white butterfly
+fluttering above the flowers brought by Lewis reminded him of the
+child-like and sublime soul of Lady Mary.
+
+At present, sitting in the café, his emotions are greater than in the
+cemetery. He can see events through a veil of memory, spiritualized, and
+free from the sediment of reality.
+
+Poor Alicia! Poor woman, disillusioned of life! The triumphant Venus,
+the Helen of the "old men on the wall," the beauty who was the center of
+the Universe, more eager for admiration than for love, is lying in this
+miserable cemetery, among the bodies of soldiers. Perhaps she
+voluntarily hastened her exit from a world in which she could not find
+her place, defeated by her own actions.
+
+Our lives are nothing more than what we will them to be. We create life
+in our own image; it is useless for us to complain of fate: we are what
+we want to be. It was impossible for Alicia to end her days save in some
+extraordinary manner, in harmony with her previous career. He, too, has
+lived as most men do not live, and he will die a different death from
+them.
+
+He feels neither grief nor resentment. He is surprised that he could
+have hated Martinez and desired this woman with such vehemence. At
+present he feels only melancholy and a deep sadness at the memory of
+those dreams that no longer exist and which are beginning to die a
+second death, in being forgotten by those who knew of them. They have no
+immortality save in the memory of the Prince, a poor memory destined to
+fade away in turn before many years.
+
+In his imagination he attempts to pierce the mass of earth that covers
+the dead body; he makes an effort to penetrate with his vision into the
+densest of the shadows. Only a few months of decomposition have gone by:
+her personality has not yet wasted away completely. He sees her as she
+was in life and at the same time as she is now. Her flesh is
+disintegrating in little putrid rivulets that run down the folds of her
+clothes, blackened and eaten away. She is forced to smile at all times
+in the darkness: she no longer has any lips. Her eyes serve as a refuge
+for the prolific grave flies which engender millions and millions of
+destroyers. And this annihilation of something which existed, thought,
+and loved, is as yet only in its first stages.
+
+After the devourers of the soft parts will come the irresistible
+artisans of the bones. Myriads of micro-scopical workers will plow the
+skeleton, cleaning away the last impurities clinging to the framework,
+undoing the marvelous articulations, scraping away the cement which
+holds the vertebræ together. Some day the lower jaw will loosen, falling
+toward the abdominal cavity, leaving the upper jaw bone, the teeth of
+which knew the splendor of smiles and the caress of kisses. Some other
+day, the skull, as the pivot on which it rests comes apart, will fall in
+turn and mingle with the dust of the ribs and the little bones of the
+feet which mark the rhythm of an undulating walk. Within a few centuries
+revolutions and wars will perhaps bring this skull to the surface. Why
+not? Lubimoff has just seen at the front numerous cemeteries swept away
+by gunfire, with the dead emerging from the earth, raised thus by the
+bursting shells. And when some one, in the future, with the eternal
+curiosity of the Shakespearean Prince takes Alicia's skull in his hand,
+he will not be able to tell whether it belonged to a lady or a servant,
+whether it belonged to a beauty or to a drab.
+
+Michael recalls with ironical sadness all the illusions, all the
+desires, he had in the past, concentrated on this nothingness. He begins
+to feel the need of forgetting the corpse. His eyes, looking within, see
+the diminutive foliage, the gaudy butterfly, and all that nature has
+placed on a nameless tomb. This is what a life which considered itself
+superior to all others has left as the only trace of its existence.
+Perhaps in the corolla of one of the little flowers there is something
+of Alicia's soul, the butterflies sip it, and continue in an intoxicated
+flight above the tombs.
+
+Springtime! The Prince lifts his thoughts above the sorrows of
+individuals. He recalls what he has seen in a corner of the world ruined
+by man's bestiality: cities in ruins; villages that raise their walls
+only a yard above the soil, like towns which have been excavated after a
+cataclysm; barns set on fire; endless fields made sterile, torn apart
+and turned topsy turvy by five years of bombardment; many
+graves--thousands of graves--millions of graves. Women, dressed in
+black, stagger along the roads through the ruins and the funnel-shaped
+chasms opened by the monstrous projectiles. They have lost their
+children, they have seen their husbands executed, and now they are
+exploring the soil in search of their homes that were....
+
+But the Winter-time of war is over; and now the Spring of Peace is here.
+The same hand, touching all things with green, puts little flowers and
+butterflies on the nameless graves, hangs fragrant garlands on the
+fire-blackened walls, spreads a velvet carpet of emerald on the sides of
+the shell holes, makes the birds warble and the insects stir above the
+tombs, and guides the curling creepers over the black wood of the
+crosses, as though trying to change them into thyrsi.
+
+Alas! The earth knows nothing of our sorrows.
+
+The Prince comes out of his abstraction, and sees the Colonel greeting
+him from a distance.
+
+Don Marcos is already back, and with him is _Madame_ Toledo, whose head
+scarcely reaches his shoulder. On the way she looks back several times,
+with the hope of finding herself followed by the American soldier.
+
+On recognizing the Prince in the café, however, she forgets the other
+man, and seems to be entreating him with her eyes to leave his seat and
+to go out with her to the terraces.
+
+The Colonel and his minx disappear in the direction of the terraces, and
+again Michael plunges into meditation. He recalls his talk with Don
+Marcos, shortly before, as they were descending from the cemetery.
+
+Toledo seems inconsolable. According to him the war has not ended
+properly. He appears scandalized at the absurd manner of its conclusion!
+What terrible times these are! The fugitive of Amerongen disconcerts and
+irritates him.
+
+"And imagine me doing him the honor of comparing him to a Lieutenant! I
+considered him man enough at least to blow his brains out!
+
+"For thirty years he has been frightening the world with the rattle of
+his saber, and with his boastful mustache; for thirty years he has been
+calling himself war lord, making whole races tremble at his frown, his
+heroic attitudinizing, and his melodramatic speeches; for thirty years
+he has been preparing millions of men for slaughter, obliging peoples of
+the world to live under arms in the midst of peace. And now, when
+misfortune seeks him for her own, when he considers his life in danger,
+he shamefully flees to a foreign country and deserts his supporters,
+like a merchant going into a fraudulent bankruptcy."
+
+"It is the greatest lie humanity has ever known," the Colonel shouts
+indignantly. "The greatest swindle in history."
+
+It does not prove anything to kill one's self; Don Marcos is well aware
+of that. But in this life there are so many things that do not prove
+anything and which nevertheless are beautiful and logical! The despair
+of those who commit suicide through love does not prove anything either,
+and yet it has inspired the greatest works of poetry and other arts. The
+sailor, who wrecks his ship, kills himself; every man of honor who
+considers his fault irreparable appeals to death, in order that when he
+falls, he may fall in a dignified manner.
+
+"And that Emperor," Toledo continued, "who planned an organized
+slaughter of ten million men, wants to live to a ripe old age. It's the
+most shameless thing I ever heard of!
+
+"Military honor, such as it had come to be understood through the
+various centuries, was unknown likewise to his generals. Those
+specialists in burning towns, those technicians in executing peasants,
+those artisans of terror, on seeing disaster coming, tranquilly returned
+to their castles, like office boys leaving their work.
+
+"Of all these companions of the 'war lord,' the only one worthy of
+respect was a civilian, a manufacturer, a Jew, the munition maker
+Ballin, of Hamburg, who on seeing the Empire ruined, did not want to
+survive it and shot himself. In the meantime the Marshals of the
+strategy that failed, tranquilly begin to devote themselves to training
+their dogs, writing their memoirs, and looking after their health.
+
+"Napoleon, in one of his last battles, stopped his horse over a lighted
+bomb; later he tried to poison himself at Fontainebleau. He courted
+death, and resigned himself to living, like a fatalist, only on becoming
+convinced that death would have nothing to do with him. The other
+Napoleon, the one of Sedan, may have taken refuge in Belgium, abandoning
+his troops much as the sad German Cæsar had done; but ill and fainting,
+on his horse, he nevertheless preferred to gallop along a high road
+swept by gun fire, hoping that a shell would tear him to pieces."
+
+That is the way Toledo understands military honor. That is the way it
+has been accepted in all ages.
+
+Against the Imperial generals, recreants, ready to run in the hour of
+danger, like comedians thinking only of their reputations, his anger is
+implacable. Hemmed in by the Allies, with their lines broken, they might
+have fallen nobly fighting until the last moment. But they preferred to
+beg for an armistice and hand over their weapons, in order that the
+imbeciles who had admired them so greatly might go on believing in their
+divine invincibility, and be sure that if they were retiring to their
+estates it was only out of consideration for internal politics.
+
+"Sorry comedians, like their master, up to the very last moment!" And
+Don Marcos, thinking of the fear these men have made the whole world
+feel for thirty years, cries out in anger:
+
+"Swindlers! Swindlers!"
+
+Once more the Prince comes out of his reverie. Somebody has stopped in
+front of him, and he hears a well known voice.
+
+"Your Highness, what a joy to see you! The Colonel has just told me of
+your arrival."
+
+It is Spadoni: the same old Spadoni, as though but a few hours have gone
+by since his last interview with the Prince; as though it is only
+yesterday that he bellowed with indignation, as he studied at the piano
+_What the Palm Tree Said to the Century Plant_.
+
+He doesn't want to sit down: he is in a hurry; he came just to shake
+hands with his Highness. He will make a point of seeing him later when
+he has more time, in the Casino. He takes it for granted that the Prince
+is going into the Casino. Where else could a decent person go in Monte
+Carlo?
+
+He gives Lubimoff's uniform a rapid glance, and admires his rough
+soldierly appearance.
+
+"I have heard of the great deeds of your Highness; I always used to ask
+the Colonel about you ... a hero!"
+
+Lubimoff has scarcely time to shake his head at this praise. Spadoni
+starts to talk about something more interesting. The war, heroes, and
+all that, are nebulous, meaningless things. He is for reality, and
+begins to talk about a new personage whom he admires, a Portuguese who
+plays big stakes, and whose name, because of his winnings, during the
+last few days, has been filling the gambling rooms.
+
+"I am studying him; besides, he is a friend of mine and I think I have
+his secret. Imagine, Prince...."
+
+The Prince grows uneasy, guessing that he is going to describe in all
+its details the combination of the Portuguese, which he already
+considers his own. But the pianist looks towards the Casino, stammers,
+and finally interrupts his account. Some one is coming and he wants to
+share his secret only with the Prince. He takes his leave with the
+promise that some time he will reveal the precious combination.
+
+Lubimoff thinks of his life during the last few months, his adventures
+as a soldier, of his wound, of all that has happened to him and to the
+entire world, while that musician has remained stationary in Monte
+Carlo, admitting nothing as real save the hovering flight of the Great
+Delusion.
+
+His friend Lewis holds out his hand to the Prince. It is he who, by his
+approach, has stopped the pianist's flow of eloquence. Gamblers, out of
+professional rivalry, avoid telling one another their secrets. Time,
+which seems to have forgotten Spadoni, leaving him the same as when
+Michael last saw him in his "Villa of the Tomb," has laid its claws on
+Lewis, making him older, as though months for him have been years.
+
+He is sad because of the losses he has been suffering, and because of
+his memories. That niece of his was all the family he had! Lubimoff
+knows through the Colonel that he has not inherited anything from her.
+The nurse spent her entire fortune on ambulances and hospitals. Her
+title is the one thing that has gone to Lewis. His prophecy has come
+true: he is now the third Lord Lewis, surnamed "the Worthless," the name
+he gave himself.
+
+He gazes on the Prince for a long time, notices the rigid arm and then
+shakes his left hand effusively.
+
+"You're a man, Lubimoff. You know how to do things."
+
+And in these words there is a reproach for himself. Unable to tear
+himself away from Monte Carlo, he will live here and die here, doing the
+same things over and over.
+
+Nevertheless, this is a great day for him. In the morning he received a
+visit from a friend who is coming to live with him, he does not know for
+how long, perhaps for two days, perhaps for two years; a great friend
+from whom he had had no news and whom he had often imagined dead; the
+Count, the famous Count.
+
+He has come as far as the café with Lewis, who refuses to be separated
+from him; he has shaken hands with the Prince as though he had seen him
+the day before, without noticing his uniform or his mutilation. He sits
+silently in a chair, running his hand through his white, curly hair,
+fixing his round eyes, with a nocturnal fire, on the people who are
+walking about the "Camembert."
+
+Lewis believes he ought to feel happy. What a day of surprise it has
+been! First the Count, and then the Colonel telling him of Lubimoff's
+arrival.
+
+He avoids talking about his niece: he sinks his sadness in the sadness
+of all the rest.... Peace has surprised him: who could have imagined it
+would come so soon, following immediately on the most anxious phase of
+the war?
+
+The Count comes to life at this query.
+
+"Every one," says he. "The great soothsayers, the great ones, announced
+at the very beginning, that the war would end in the Fall of 1918. It
+was well known to everybody. I have always said so. You have heard me
+say so many times yourself, Lewis."
+
+Lewis makes a gesture of surprise. But he cannot doubt the science of
+his learned friend, and prefers to admit that it is he who has
+forgotten. He has such a bad memory! Perhaps, even, he may have
+misunderstood. These guardians of a knowledge of the future never
+express their truths clearly: they refuse to talk like ordinary mortals.
+
+The conversation begins to lag. The Englishman is thinking of the
+Casino. He was just going in when Don Marcos gave him the news of the
+Prince's arrival. He keeps the Count by his side. The Count has just
+returned from a mysterious trip and has the devil's rosary safe in a
+certain pocket of his trousers, constantly feeling in it with his right
+hand.
+
+"Later on we shall see each other at the Casino. I suppose you'll come
+in for a moment. We'll see if luck treats me well to-day after such
+pleasant meetings."
+
+And he goes off with the Count in the direction of the _Palace_ where he
+is destined, as though in prison, to spend the rest of his life.
+
+Lubimoff notices two Italian soldiers who are looking at him from the
+sidewalk around the "Camembert." They are a couple of _bersaglieri_,
+dressed in gray, with little round hats decked out in cock's plumes.
+Noticing that the Prince is looking at them they become embarrassed,
+turn their backs as though ashamed, and walk away, but not without
+smiling first and raising their hands to their much beplumed hats.
+
+The Prince recalls what Don Marcos told him. Oh, yes! They are Estola
+and Pistola, changed into soldiers! They have come on leave to see their
+families. They are going up to the Colonel's house in the evening to pay
+their respects to their former "Lord." They seem taller, and more
+vigorous. A few months of war have been sufficient to transport them
+from adolescence into maturity. In every man there is a soldier!
+
+Just as he is getting up to take a walk around the terraces, he sees
+hurrying toward the café a gentleman who is violently waving to him, and
+then has to stop to fasten his glasses more securely on his nose.
+
+It takes some time for the Prince to recognize him. He guesses who it is
+more by the tone of his voice than by his features. Dear old Novoa! The
+months that have gone by have left a deeper imprint on him than on the
+rest. He is no longer the young man preoccupied with worldly pomp, who
+used to consult the Colonel about the merits of various tailors and
+hatters. He has returned to the slavery of baggy-kneed trousers and
+ready-made neckties. His beard is full grown and bushy. He is still as
+young as ever in his voice, his eyes, and his lively and clumsy
+gestures; but he is dressed, not to say disguised, as an old man.
+
+The Professor is more effusive than the rest on seeing the Prince. He
+keeps blessing the happy chance, which brought Lubimoff to him, through
+his meeting with Don Marcos shortly before.
+
+"If you had waited two days longer, Prince, I wouldn't have had the
+pleasure of seeing you. I am going back to my country day after
+to-morrow. I have had enough now of Monte Carlo. When I think of what
+I've lost here!... Money, dreams, everything."
+
+Michael shows discretion. He suspects his friend has had some unexpected
+disillusionment, some deception, such as one must forget not to be
+continually tormented by it. He remembers Valeria, and sees nothing in
+the Professor's appearance to indicate the slightest trace of contact
+with that lady. He is a ruin, a dry dead tree; the bird that formerly
+sang in the branches must have flown away long since.
+
+Novoa is equally discreet. He looks at the other man's uniform, and the
+sleeve with the artificial arm; but he speaks in a general way, with
+vague regrets, only of what has taken place during the last few months.
+
+"What extraordinary things have taken place! How many friends of ours
+have died! Life has finally become one of those dramas in which one dies
+at the end of the last act."
+
+The Prince guesses that Novoa is thinking of Alicia and in order not to
+give him pain, is refraining from mentioning her. As a matter of fact he
+is indeed thinking of the Duchess, but she is merely a point of
+departure before he comes to the other woman with whom his memory is
+constantly occupied.
+
+At last he speaks, giving full rein to his melancholy. He can tell the
+Prince everything because he is the only man who knows his secret. (He
+has told the Colonel and even Spadoni the same thing, on lamenting his
+misfortune.) And he breaks into despairing recriminations against
+Valeria.
+
+She has become a different woman. She is no longer interested in "lands
+of love," where women marry without dowries. Since the Duchess's death
+she has become a candidate for marriage. Her hand will bring with it
+more than three hundred thousand francs. The Professor has found himself
+jilted and forgotten. How he had grovelled before her when the truth was
+known; what shameful efforts he had made to remedy what he had
+considered at the outset a woman's passing whim! He hates to remember
+moments such as those.
+
+"It is all ended, Prince. At present she is crazy about an American
+officer and will finally marry him. No one counts here except the
+Americans. Everything is for them: even love. The humblest little
+milliner considers herself disgraced if she hasn't a soldier from the
+United States to promenade with in the evening. Every afternoon she and
+the other man dance in the hotels of La Condamine, or right here in the
+Café de Paris."
+
+He stops, as though some one had touched him on the shoulder. He does
+not see any one behind him, but his eyes, wandering over the groups
+sitting at the tables meet something which makes his voice tremble.
+
+"It is she, Prince."
+
+Michael would not have recognized her. He sees two ladies, escorted by
+two American officers, entering the Café. One of them is Valeria,
+dressed with gay and showy elegance, as though anxious to compensate in
+a moment for years of frugality and privation.
+
+Against the soft twilight the café windows begin to gleam with a reddish
+glow. One after another, the large lamps within are lighted. To the
+Prince's ears come the voluptuous wailings of violins.
+
+"Life has changed very greatly since you went away, Prince. Every one
+feels a desperate hunger for amusement. The first thing that peace
+brought back to life was the tango."
+
+Then Novoa begins to think about himself:
+
+"What can I do here? I am poor. Everything I possessed in my country I
+have dropped here in the Casino. I have studied the mysteries of the
+ocean enough. How dearly it has cost me! I have had my little dream, and
+now I am going to resume my ill-paid work back there as a day laborer in
+science."
+
+He thinks once more of her.
+
+"Did you notice?... The poor Duchess, who made her what she is now, is
+lying up there in her grave, and here she is dancing, only a few months
+after her death."
+
+He feels the harsh indignation, the sense of outraged morality, that all
+who have been scorned experience.
+
+His anger grows so strong that he gets up from his chair. He cannot
+remain there. The woman has seen him, and might think that he is
+pursuing her, that he is waiting for her to come out, in order to
+entreat her. Never; he has had enough of certain humiliations which he
+does not care to remember.
+
+He hurriedly says good-by. They will see each other again soon. Don
+Marcos has invited him to dinner at the little house in Beausoleil. The
+Colonel was sure that his visit would please the Prince.
+
+He grasps Lubimoff's hand and does not seem to notice it is the wooden
+one. His eyes and his thoughts are on the café windows, ablaze in mid
+afternoon. Through them the cadenced murmur of the violins is passing.
+As he walks away he still repeats his protest.
+
+"The poor Duchess up there forgotten.... And the other woman. What a
+scandal! I am glad I'm going away soon, and will never see her again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On remaining alone, the Prince leaves his table. Don Marcos is doubtless
+telling the news of his arrival to every one he meets, and Michael is
+afraid that other less interesting persons will appear.
+
+As he walks along he notices something which he had not seen before when
+he was with the Colonel. The United States flag is floating above all
+the buildings. In the city streets there are as many signs in English as
+in French. There are American soldiers everywhere. Lubimoff's uniform
+and that of the other French fighters are lost in the great flood of men
+dressed in mustard color. The light automobiles of the American army
+pass incessantly. They are everywhere. One meets them in the streets, on
+the roads along the coast and climbing the slopes of the Alps like
+buzzing, snorting ants. Everything seems animated by a robust, gay,
+self-confident life, the life of a twenty-year-old boy. The concert on
+the terraces is being given by an American band. The people walking in
+the streets absent-mindedly whistle dance tunes from across the ocean
+and marching songs of the soldiers from the States. People stop in the
+squares to admire the skill of the Americans in shirt sleeves throwing a
+ball and sending it back again after catching it in a kind of fencing
+glove.
+
+Monaco seems to have been conquered by the troops of the Great Republic;
+a good-natured and kindly conquest, which makes the conquered smile. It
+is the same in Nice and everywhere on the Riviera. The Prince recalls
+his brief stay in Paris a few days before. There he saw Americans just
+as here. How many are they? What superhuman power has been able to
+create in a few months this army which though of recent birth, seems to
+fill all space?
+
+A people has just risen above all the peoples of the earth. Never in
+history has such a rise been known. It dominates through friendliness,
+through its generous acts, and by the beneficent strength of its
+activities; not through terror, the base of all greatness in the past.
+
+Lubimoff recalls his doubts of the year before. No one would have
+believed that a people without armies could improvise a military force
+equal to those of old Europe. And in only a few months the United States
+had organized and transported two million men to decide the outcome of
+the struggle, and the world's fate.
+
+Arriving at the last moment, they had liberally given their share of
+dead. In five months of campaign a hundred and twenty thousand Americans
+had perished, a huge proportion compared to the losses of the other
+nations during five years of fighting.
+
+Michael, in his silent enthusiasm, enumerates what has just been done
+for humanity by this great people, which shortly before was considered
+utilitarian and selfish, and which now reveals itself as the most
+romantic and generous.
+
+Two great wars are the most striking incidents in its history: one
+within, for the suppression of slavery; the other, without, to prevent
+the glorification of war, the brutal hegemony of one people over all,
+the exaltation of a mystic imperialism.
+
+For the first time in history, a democracy has intervened in the fate of
+a world through the centuries subjected to the rule of kings. The modern
+republics had until now lived an inner and retiring life. The wars of
+the French Revolution were defensive. The Republic of the Convention
+fought to exist, since all the monarchs wanted to suppress it. The
+American Republic had voluntarily entered the struggle, without being
+threatened by any immediate danger, because of a mandate of its
+conscience, indignant at German crimes, because of the responsibility
+developing upon its greatness, its democratic strength.
+
+Before arming, before intervening in the European crash while living in
+patient neutrality, battles were being won for it. This war was
+different from others. Against Germany, ready through long years of
+preparation for the struggle, and with all its industrial and commercial
+strength mobilized for war purposes, the Allies fought during the first
+few months, as a brave but backward people fights against a modern
+nation. They showed much bravery, and great heroism, sometimes in vain,
+against the blind mechanical force of industrial invention applied to
+destruction.
+
+If this inequality kept diminishing, it was thanks in large part to the
+Republic beyond the sea. Its money barons made enormous loans to the
+Allies; its captains of industry facilitated the manufacture of the
+gigantic equipment demanded by the demon-like progress of military
+science; its ships defying the submarine menace, brought bread which had
+grown scarce in Europe through the war.
+
+And when, its patience finally exhausted, it directly intervened, what
+generosity it showed!
+
+The American combatants fought for simple and robust ideals: the rights
+of the weak to live, the dignity and freedom of mankind, the elimination
+of wars, understanding between peoples, sovereign right ruling the life
+of nations; things which shortly before had made the Old World skeptics
+smile.
+
+All the countries of Europe had frontiers to reëstablish, strips of land
+to claim. The United States of America was not asking for anything, it
+did not want anything.
+
+Each one of the contestants, on thinking of victory, calculated the
+indemnities it should collect to compensate for its endeavors and
+sacrifices. The American Republic spent more than all the other nations.
+The maintenance of each of its soldiers cost it as much as seven
+soldiers from the other countries, and nevertheless, it entered the war
+and withdrew from the war without demanding any particular
+reimbursement.
+
+Lubimoff admired its enormous strength in victory: Never had any Empire
+in the past reached such greatness; not even Rome.
+
+It was the only country, at once both industrial and agricultural, on
+earth. It formed a world apart within the world. It might, without
+suffering, isolate itself from the rest of the Globe; but the world
+would feel a sensation of emptiness if the Great Republic were to turn
+its back upon the other nations.
+
+Its armed citizens were retiring without boasting and without commotion,
+just as they had come, and without asking anything for their great
+endeavor. They would disappear like the fairies and enchanters in
+ancient legends who, after doing good, need to return to their
+mysterious domains.
+
+Years would pass: history would speak of this endeavor, unique in its
+intensity and its generous character, and on the Riviera and in other
+places there would remain of this great world a memory disfigured by
+time. The boys of to-day, grown old, would remember how they learned to
+play baseball from the soldiers who had come from a land of marvels
+beyond the sea, the girls, becoming grandmothers, would yearningly
+recall the American lovers they once had.
+
+The Prince calculates again the greatness of this people, the only one
+capable of still working the miracles, that religions sometimes work in
+the early period of their exaltation.
+
+The Great Republic is the world's creditor. All the victorious nations
+owe it fabulous sums; England is its debtor by thousands of millions,
+and France the same. The smaller countries, Belgium, Serbia, and the
+rest, have been able to live, thanks to its enormous loans. It is not
+all known as yet, years must pass before the full extent of these
+generosities is brought to light. This country, which likes
+advertisement and loud propaganda in its commercial affairs, is modest
+and concise in speaking of its disinterested acts.
+
+"To go on freely living after the cataclysm, humanity is going to need
+America's support, or America's benevolence," thinks the Prince. "The
+political center of the world has shifted. It is no longer in Paris, nor
+is it in London. It remained for a while, trembling unsteadily on its
+base, in Berlin; but now it has leaped across the ocean."
+
+The man, as yet unknown, who in the future is to take his place in the
+White House for four years, professor, lawyer, merchant, or farmer, as
+he may be, will sway the destiny of the world more than all the rulers
+who fill history with the din of warlike glory. His power will be based
+on something more permanent and solid than the strength of armies. It
+will have behind it industry and wealth, which create armies; democratic
+power, which the power of public opinion creates.
+
+The irresistible strength of this power is clearly seen by the Prince.
+
+Germany, in spite of her continual military triumphs in the first few
+years of the war, has finally fallen in defeat. Public opinion was
+against her. The democratic spirit of the entire world rose against the
+spirit of Empire.
+
+This triumph of democracy is beginning to be manifest everywhere.
+
+"There is no longer a single emperor left in Europe," Michael goes on
+thinking. "The vanquished empires want to be republics. All the kings
+are forgetting their ancestors with their divine rights, and are trying
+to have their crowns forgiven them, that they may imitate the simple
+life of a president."
+
+This unexpected attitude of the world gives it a new love of life.
+
+He has realized, for the last few months--since he gave up Villa
+Sirena--that Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff has become an unfashionable
+personage. Perhaps, with the lapse of years, others will be as he was.
+History repeats itself. Times of peace and plenty inevitably produce men
+such as he had been. But at present humanity has been restored by grief
+and sacrifice, humanity is anxious to live, and longs for something new,
+without knowing exactly what, and is working to secure it.
+
+Michael looks on himself with pity. What is he going to do? What can men
+like himself do for their fellow men?
+
+He recalls the luncheon in the little house of Don Marcos. He is still
+offended by the attentions the Colonel shows him at table, cutting his
+meat, looking after him like a child, trying to make up for the absence
+of his arm. It is something disgraceful!
+
+Farewell to Prince Lubimoff!... Even if he still wanted to continue his
+selfish existence, entirely given up to pleasure, it would be impossible
+for him. He is a cripple; he considers himself quite old. No one but
+Mado, who doesn't really know what she wants, would ever notice him.
+
+Besides, he feels poor. For the first time he recalls with a certain
+satisfaction the heritage left him by Alicia. It was not worth anything
+at that moment, but who knows but what some day...! He dreams that
+perhaps those Mexican mines may replace his lost fortune in Russia; and
+then...! He feels a strong desire to regain his wealth in order to do
+good; a longing which is something like remorse. He knows the
+inefficiency of individual effort in remedying human misery: a mere drop
+lost in the ocean, a grain of sand on the beach. But what difference
+does that make? He is satisfied in giving happiness to some fifty
+unfortunate beings, among the hundreds of millions who people the earth.
+
+Then he thinks of his present situation. That very morning he determined
+on his mode of life. He will flee from the poor Colonel, because of
+Mado. Others may take it upon themselves to bring misfortune to Don
+Marcos, but not he! He will take up his residence in Nice, in a Russian
+_pension_ run by an impoverished noblewoman. In the evenings they will
+talk of the days when she was rich, beautiful, and desired; of the
+dances at the Petersburg Court, in which they danced together so often.
+Lubimoff even has a suspicion that one of his duels was over this
+boarding-house keeper.
+
+The remnants of his fortune will bring him a sufficient income to live
+in modest comfort. He will swell the number of wrecks retiring to the
+Riviera, to recall, under the palm trees, their forgotten triumphs. His
+old valet will accompany him in his dethronement.
+
+He already has an occupation to fill his hours. He wants to be a
+contemplator of life. He is glad to have been born in the most
+interesting of periods.
+
+Something is going to happen; something new in history.
+
+The smoke has not yet cleared away from the battlefields. It is a mist
+in which people lose their way and which does not allow them to see the
+complete outline of things. The very actors in the recent drama are
+blind. Years will pass, before the mist rises and vanishes, leaving the
+new world visible.
+
+Will it be the same stage setting as of yore, merely with a few lines
+changed? Will all these bloody efforts to suppress violence,
+selfishness, and pre-historic ferocity as the chief bases of society,
+turn out to have been in vain?
+
+The Prince thinks bitterly of the possible disillusionment. How terrible
+to see primitive bestiality rise again unharmed after a cataclysm which
+has been accepted as a regeneration! How terrible to contemplate the
+failure of so many generous spirits, of so many noble minds, aspiring
+toward the triumph of good, anxious for peace among men, and the sweet
+association of people, working against war as medical societies labor to
+exterminate diseases!
+
+Faith in the future suddenly animates him. The world cannot always be
+the same; great convulsions, when they have passed, never leave the soil
+the same as they found it. Will children always be annihilating each
+other just because their fathers and grandfathers did so? Must they look
+on each other with hostility because they were born on different sides
+of a mountain, a river, or a wood, which politics calls a frontier?
+
+We all have two native lands! The place where we were born, and the
+State to which we belong. Why not generously broaden this conception to
+include a third country? Will not a blessed time come in which men will
+talk as fellow being to fellow being, without thinking whether or not
+History commands them to hate and kill each other? With deep love for
+one's land of birth, cannot they be at the same time citizens of the
+world?
+
+The Prince is leaning on the balustrade, above the terraces and the
+harbor. His pensive walk has brought him thither, without his realizing
+it.
+
+He turns his back on the sea and on the crowd which, after the concert,
+is beginning to thin out there below. The American musicians are passing
+close to him, followed by a swarm of small boys accompanying their
+retirement.
+
+He looks at a gap on the horizon, between the Alps and the promontory of
+Monaco, where the sun has just gone down. Above the reddish expanse a
+star is shining with the brilliancy and luminous facets of a precious
+stone.
+
+Lubimoff is thinking of the ancient fathers of poetry who sang about it
+three thousand years ago. Homer called it _Kalistos_. Sometimes the
+morning star and at other times the evening star, Lucifer, Vesperus, or
+the "Shepherds' Star," it finally received the name of Venus, because of
+its shining whiteness, like that of a diamond on a woman's breast.
+
+The Prince feels the sweet caress in his eyes as he gazes on the soft
+glow of the planet. Its name symbolizes beauty and love. He imagines the
+people who inhabit that celestial point of light lost in space. They
+must be of a purer essence than ours, entirely free from a past of
+primitive animality--ethereal beings, like the angels of all religions.
+
+Then he smiles bitterly.
+
+There is another star shining in the sky, more beautiful and larger than
+that one. It is blue instead of white, a soft blue: the color of poetry
+and dreams. It sparkles, in the dark depths of space, with the
+mysterious glow of the enormous bluish diamonds which Oriental monarchs
+place in their tiaras. Those who contemplate it feel in their eyes the
+velvety dew of divine mystery. Perhaps the poets of other worlds sing of
+it as a chosen refuge and a place of eternal beauty, where only the
+souls of the pure and the elect may go to rest. Perhaps it has given
+rise to religions and is the object of cults, having its altars, as the
+sun had in former times.
+
+And this blue diamond of space, this world of soft light, which the
+populations of other planets contemplate as a poetic star, and as one in
+which all creatures lead a purely spiritual life, is the Earth, our poor
+globe, where twelve millions of men have just died on the battlefield,
+where as many more millions died of the emotion and plagues, which are
+the consequence of war; and where six hundred thousand millions of
+francs have been consumed in smoke, fire, and bursting steel.
+
+Lubimoff remembers his impressions, a few hours before, standing beside
+a tomb which was beginning to be changed at the first halting words of
+Spring. The Infinite does not know us, nor does the very earth which
+maintains us know us either.
+
+We are alone in the infinite, without other support than that of our own
+lives, our own illusions, and our own hopes. Man can rely only on man.
+
+And he repeats what he had said of the earth that morning.
+
+The sky knows nothing of our sorrows.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He slowly turns toward the square.
+
+From all the cafés, restaurants, and hotels, comes the musical rise and
+fall of the cadenced violins. Behind the great windows, reddened by an
+inner light, he see couples passing intertwined, following the rhythm of
+the music. They are dancing, dancing, dancing.
+
+Youth does nothing else. Dancing is a sort of sacred rite, prohibited
+during the war; and people are all devoting themselves in dancing now,
+with the fervor of zealots finally celebrating the triumphs of their
+persecuted religion.
+
+The Prince recalls his recent passage through Paris. He had never seen
+the women better dressed, with so manifest a hunger for pleasure and
+luxury. The tango of the violins on the Boulevard is answered like an
+echo by the tango of the violins all along the Riviera, and at the
+summer resorts which are beginning to open. Woman's dearest wish, at the
+moment, is to dance the latest dance with a fighter from the United
+States!
+
+The nightmare of war has vanished; everything has been forgotten. For
+many people nothing remains to recall the conflict save the uniforms,
+more numerous than formerly in the _thés dansants_.
+
+Michael confines his meditation to this coast, which was always the
+domain of the blessed! For four long years war has turned Monaco upside
+down and filled it with darkness.
+
+His imagination runs up and down the gulfs and promontories. There is a
+cemetery on each. In Mentone thousands and thousands of negroes lie
+under the earth. The combatants from Africa, whose fathers knew only the
+lance and the breech-clout, have chanced to perish like gladiators on
+this shore of European millionaires. In Cap-Martin the English have left
+their dead; in Monaco, there are some of every nationality; in
+Cap-Ferrat, the Belgians sleep, under wreaths already old; in Nice, are
+the bodies of the Americans; and everywhere, from Esterel to the Italian
+frontier, there are Frenchmen, Frenchmen, Frenchmen.
+
+The dead are innumerable. Were they all to rise together, those who come
+to prolong their lives under the palm tree and the olive on the shores
+of the Violet Sea, would flee aghast.
+
+But the aim of life is to live. Life is an endless Springtime, and
+covers everything it touches with the eager moss of pleasure, with the
+swiftly creeping ivy of dreams.
+
+The cemeteries, strikingly white, seem to take on a duller tone, and are
+lost in the smiling landscape, like an unessential note in a song. The
+softness of the skies and the surrounding country changes them to
+gardens. A body occupies so little space and the earth is so large!...
+The hotels which were hospitals, are regilding their signs, disinfecting
+their rooms and sending advertisements to the great newspapers of the
+world. Already people may come and dream between the walls which just
+now shook with cries of pain, or the rattle of death agonies. Music is
+beginning sweetly to moan along the happy coast, amid the murmur of the
+waves and the rustling of the orange trees, of epithalamial perfume. The
+old shepherd of the Alps, who, after sixty years, has not yet recovered
+from his amazement at the Monte Carlo which has arisen there below on
+the once deserted tableland, will see it grow with new palaces and new
+towers, further expanding its opulence like a city of dreams.
+
+The passage of death has made love of life more keen. Every one, seeing
+the black banner of the Adversary vanish in the darkness, finds new zest
+in pleasure.
+
+Lubimoff stops in the middle of the square. It is beginning to grow
+dark. With one ear he hears the musical swing of a dance invented by the
+negroes of North America for the enjoyment of the whites; and with the
+other he hears other negro music, the South American tango. In the
+adjoining streets new orchestras are playing wherever there is a public
+place, café, hotel, or restaurant--with a sign in English at the door,
+to attract the heroes of the hour: _Dancing_.
+
+He gazes at the mountain which forms a background for the square and
+watches over the graves on its slopes. Then he looks on high....
+
+The earth and the sky know nothing of our sorrows.
+
+And neither does life.
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following typographical errors have been corrected by the etext
+transcriber:
+
+slanderous abjectives=>slanderous adjectives
+
+Don Marcos remainel silent.=>Don Marcos remained silent.
+
+confined in the Champ-Élysée=>confined in the Champs-Élysée
+
+rebelliouslly curse the being=>rebelliously curse the being
+
+I suddenly felt as thought I were=>I suddenly felt as though I were
+
+clamly displayed brass ornaments=>calmly displayed brass ornaments
+
+It was all a mazagine yarn=>It was all a magazine yarn
+
+dilate, the indigation and envy=>dilate, the indignation and envy
+
+that that will be his end, in case of a defeat.=>that will be his end,
+in case of a defeat.
+
+eying one another discreetly=>eyeing one another discreetly
+
+changing from sadness to gaity.=>changing from sadness to gaiety.
+
+benificent strength of its activities=>beneficent strength of its
+activities
+
+Michael amost envied him, because he had seen=>Michael almost envied
+him, because he had seen
+
+train was lowly passing=>train was slowly passing
+
+It was so peasant to be in his company=>It was so pleasant to be in his
+company
+
+reality there coud be no doubt=>reality there could be no doubt
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Enemies of Women, by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
+
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+  <head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+<title>
+  The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Enemies of Women, by Vicente Blasco Ibañez.
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
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+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Enemies of Women, by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
+
+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 Enemies of Women
+       (Los enemigos de la mujer)
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
+
+Translator: Irving Brown
+
+Release Date: January 1, 2012 [EBook #38458]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="cb">THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg">
+<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="338" height="550" alt="image of the book&#39;s cover" title="image of the book&#39;s cover" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<div class="bbox">
+<p class="c">WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR</p>
+<div class="bboxx">
+<p><small>THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE</small></p>
+
+<p><small>MARE NOSTRUM (OUR SEA)</small></p>
+
+<p><small>BLOOD AND SAND</small></p>
+
+<p><small>LA BODEGA (THE FRUIT OF THE VINE)</small></p>
+
+<p><small>THE SHADOW OF THE CATHEDRAL</small></p>
+
+<p><small>WOMAN TRIUMPHANT</small></p>
+
+<p><small>MEXICO IN REVOLUTION</small></p>
+
+<p class="c"><small><i>In Preparation</i></small></p>
+
+<p><small>THE ARGONAUTS</small></p>
+</div>
+<p class="c">E. P. DUTTON &amp; COMPANY</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<h1>
+T H E &nbsp; E N E M I E S<br />
+O F &nbsp; W O M E N<br />
+<small><i>(LOS ENEMIGOS DE LA MUJER)</i></small></h1>
+
+<p class="cb">BY<br />
+VICENTE BLASCO IBAÑEZ<br />
+<br />
+<small>TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH<br />
+BY<br />
+IRVING BROWN</small></p>
+
+<p class="figcenter2">
+<img src="images/colophon.png" width="150" height="216" alt="colophon" title="" />
+</p>
+
+<p class="cb">NEW YORK<br />
+E. P. DUTTON &amp; COMPANY<br />
+681 FIFTH AVENUE</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="copyr"
+style="font-size:70%;margin:8% auto 8% auto;">
+<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">Copyright, 1918, by</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">E. P. DUTTON &amp; COMPANY</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan="2"><i>All Rights Reserved</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>First printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>Second printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>Third printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>Fourth printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>Fifth printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>Sixth printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>Seventh printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>Eighth printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>Ninth printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left"><i>Tenth printing</i></td><td align="left"><i>Oct., 1920</i></td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="left" colspan="2">&nbsp;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align="center" colspan="2">Printed in the United States of America</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary="">
+
+<tr><th colspan="3" align="center"><big><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</big></th></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><small>CHAPTER</small></td> <td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td>     <td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a> </td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_028">28</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_071">71</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_103">103</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_151">151</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_189">189</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_260">260</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_324">&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 324</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_371">371</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_450">450</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_499">499</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td> .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; .&nbsp; </td><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_512">512</a></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p>
+
+<h1>THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN</h1>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p>T<small>HE</small> Prince repeated his statement:</p>
+
+<p>"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."</p>
+
+<p>He intended to go on but was interrupted. There was a slight stir of the
+heavy window curtains. Through their parting was seen below, as in a
+frame, the intense azure of the Mediterranean. A dull roar reached the
+dining-room. It seemed to come from the side of the house facing the
+Alps. It was a faint vibration, deadened by the walls, the curtains, and
+the carpets, distant, like the working of some underground monster; but
+there rose above the sound of revolving steel and the puffing of steam a
+clamor of human beings, a sudden burst of shouts and whistling.</p>
+
+<p>"A train full of soldiers!" exclaimed Don Marcos Toledo, leaving his
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>"The Colonel is at it again, always the hero, always enthusiastic about
+everything that has to do with his profession," said Atilio Castro, with
+a smile of amusement.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of his years, the man whom they called the Colonel sprang to
+the nearest window. Above the foliage of the sloping garden, he could
+see a small section of the Corniche railroad, swallowed up in the smoky
+entrance of a tunnel, and reappearing farther on, beyond<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> the hill,
+among the groves and rose colored villas of Cap-Martin. Under the
+mid-day sun the rails quivered like rills of molten steel. Although the
+train had not yet reached this side of the tunnel, the whole
+country-side was filled with the ever-increasing roar. The windows,
+terraces, and gardens of the villas were dotted black with people who
+were leaving their luncheon tables to see the train pass. From the
+mountain slope to the seashore, from walls and buildings on both sides
+of the track, flags of all colors began to wave.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos ran to the opposite window overlooking the city. All he could
+see was an expanse of roofs with no trace of Nature's touch save here
+and there the feathery green of the gardens against the red of the
+tiles. It was like a stage setting broken into a succession of wings: in
+the foreground, amid trees, isolated villas with green balustrades and
+flower-strewn walls; next, the mass of Monte Carlo, its huge hotels
+bristling with pointed turrets and cupolas; and hazy in the background,
+as though floating in golden dust, the rocky cliffs of Monaco, with its
+promenades; the enormous pile of the Oceanographic Museum; the New
+Cathedral, a glaring white; and the square crested tower of the palace
+of the Prince. Buildings stretched from the edge of the sea halfway up
+the mountains. It was a country without fields, with no open land,
+covered completely with houses, from one frontier to the other.</p>
+
+<p>But Don Marcos had known the view for years, and at once detected the
+unfamiliar detail. A long, interminable train was moving slowly along
+the hillside. He counted aloud more than forty cars, without coming to
+the rear coaches still hidden in a hollow.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a battalion ... a whole battalion on a war footing. More
+than a thousand soldiers," he said in an authoritative manner, pleased
+at showing off his keen<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> professional judgment before his fellow guests,
+who, for that matter, were not listening.</p>
+
+<p>The train was filled with men, tiny yellowish gray figures, that
+gathered at the car windows, doors, and on the running-boards with their
+feet hanging over the track. Others were crowded in cattle pens or stood
+on the open flat-cars, among the tanks and crated machine guns. A great
+many had climbed to the roofs and were greeting the crowds with arms and
+legs extended in the shape of a letter X. Almost all of them had their
+shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, like sailors preparing to
+maneuver.</p>
+
+<p>"They are English!" exclaimed Don Marcos. "English soldiers on their way
+to Italy!"</p>
+
+<p>But this information seemed to irritate the Prince, who always spoke to
+him in familiar language, in spite of the difference in their ages.
+"Don't be absurd, Colonel. Anybody would know that. They are the only
+ones who whistle."</p>
+
+<p>The men still seated at the table nodded. Military trains passed every
+day, and from a distance it was possible to guess the nationality of the
+passengers. "The French," said Castro, "go past silently. They have had
+a little over three years of fighting on their own soil. They are as
+silent and gloomy as their duty is monotonous and endless. The Italians
+coming from the French front sing, and decorate their trains with green
+branches. The English shout like a lot of boys, just out of school, and
+in their enthusiasm, whistle all the time. They are the real children in
+this war; they go with a sort of boyish glee to their death."</p>
+
+<p>The whistling sound drew nearer, shrill as the howling of a witches'
+Sabbath. It passed between the mountains and the gardens of Villa
+Sirena; and then went on in the other direction, toward Italy, gradually
+growing fainter<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> as it disappeared in the tunnel. Toledo, who was the
+only one in the room to watch the train pass, noticed how the houses,
+gardens, and <i>potagers</i> on both sides of the track were alive with
+people, waving handkerchiefs and flags in reply to the whistling of the
+English. Even along the seashore the fishermen stood up on the seats of
+their boats and waved their caps at a distant train. The quick ear of
+Don Marcos distinguished a sound of footsteps on the floor above. The
+servants doubtless were opening the windows to join with silent
+enthusiasm in that farewell.</p>
+
+<p>When only a few coaches were still visible at the mouth of the tunnel,
+the Colonel came back to his place at the table.</p>
+
+<p>"More meat for the slaughter house!" exclaimed Atilio Castro, looking at
+the Prince. "The racket is over. Go on, Michael."</p>
+
+<p>Under Toledo's watchful eye, two beardless Italian boys, unprepossessing
+in appearance, were serving the dessert at the luncheon.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel kept glancing over the table and at the faces of his three
+guests, as though he were afraid of suddenly noticing something that
+would show the lunch had been hastily arranged. It was the first that
+had been given at Villa Sirena for two years.</p>
+
+<p>The master of the house, Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff, who sat at the
+head of the table, had arrived from Paris the evening before.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was a man still in his youth, fresh with the well controlled
+vigor that is furnished by a life of physical exercise. He was tall,
+robust, and supple, of dark complexion, with large gray eyes, and a
+massive face, clean shaven. The scattered gray hairs at his temples
+seemed even more numerous in contrast with the<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> blue-black of the rest.
+A number of premature wrinkles around the eyes, and two deep furrows
+running from his wide nostrils to the corners of his mouth, were the
+first indication of weariness in a powerful organism that seemed to have
+lived too intensely, in the mistaken confidence that its reserve of
+strength was endless.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel called him "Your Highness," as if Michael Fedor were a
+member of a ruling house, instead of a mere Russian prince. But this was
+when some one was present. It was a habit Don Marcos had adopted in the
+days of the late Princess Lubimoff, to maintain the prestige of the son,
+whom he had known since the latter was a child. In their intimate
+relations, when they were alone, he preferred to call him "Marquis,"
+Marquis de Villablanca, and the Prince was never successful in
+disturbing, by his witticisms on the subject, the precedence thus
+established by Don Marcos in his terms of respect. The title of Russian
+Prince was for those who are dazzled by the lofty sound of titles,
+without being able to appreciate their respective merits, and origins;
+as for himself, the Colonel preferred something nobler, the title of
+Spanish Marquis, in spite of the fact that that title for Lubimoff was
+quite unknown in Spain, and lacked official recognition.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo was well acquainted with Prince Michael's three guests.</p>
+
+<p>Atilio Castro was a fellow countryman, a Spaniard who had spent the
+greater part of his life outside his own country. He affected great
+intimacy with the Prince and, on the grounds of a distant blood
+relationship between them, even spoke to him with some familiarity. Don
+Marcos had a vague idea that the young Spaniard had been a consul
+somewhere for a short time. Atilio was continually poking fun at him
+without his being<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> always immediately aware of it. But the Colonel,
+seeing that it pleased "His Highness" greatly, felt no ill-will on that
+account.</p>
+
+<p>"A fine fellow, good hearted!" the Colonel often said, in speaking of
+Castro. "He hasn't led a model life, he's a terrible gambler&mdash;but a
+gentleman. Yes, sir, a real gentleman!"</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor defined his relative in other terms.</p>
+
+<p>"He has all the vices, and no defects."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos could never quite understand what that meant, but
+nevertheless it increased his esteem for Castro.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was only two or three years older than Atilio, and yet their
+ages seemed much farther apart. Castro was over thirty-five, and some
+people thought him twenty-four. His face had an ingenuous, rather
+child-like expression, and it acquired a certain character of manliness,
+thanks solely to a dark red mustache, closely cropped. This tiny
+mustache, and his glossy hair parted squarely in the middle, were the
+most prominent details of his features, except when he became excited.
+If his humor changed&mdash;which happened very rarely&mdash;the luster in his
+eyes, the contraction of his mouth, and the premature wrinkles in his
+forehead gave him an almost ominous expression, and suddenly he seemed
+to age by ten years.</p>
+
+<p>"A bad man to have for an enemy!" affirmed the Colonel. "It wouldn't do
+to get in his way."</p>
+
+<p>And not out of fear, but rather out of sincere admiration did the
+Colonel speak admiringly of Castro's talents. He wrote poetry, painted
+in water color, improvised songs at the piano, gave advice in matters of
+furniture and clothes, and was well versed in antiquities, and matters
+of taste. Don Marcos knew no limits to that intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>"He knows everything," he would say. "If he would only stick to one
+thing! If he would only work!"<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a></p>
+
+<p>Castro was always elegantly dressed, and lived in expensive hotels; but
+he had no regular income so far as was known. The Colonel suspected a
+series of friendly little loans from the Prince. But the latter had
+remained away from Monte Carlo almost since the beginning of the war,
+and Don Marcos used to meet Castro every winter living at the Hôtel de
+Paris, playing at the Casino, and associating with people of wealth.
+From time to time, on encountering the Colonel in the gaming rooms,
+Castro had asked him for a loan of "ten louis," an absolute necessity
+for a gambler who had just lost his last stake and was anxious to
+recoup. But with more or less delay he had always returned the money.
+There was something mysterious about his life, according to Don Marcos.</p>
+
+<p>The two other guests seemed to him to live much less complex lives. The
+one who had frequented the house for the longest period, was a dark
+young man, with a skin that was almost copper colored, a slight build,
+and long, straight hair. He was Teofilo Spadoni, a famous pianist.
+Spadoni's parents were Italian&mdash;this much was sure. No one could quite
+make out where he had been born. At times he mentioned his birthplace as
+Cairo, at other times, as Athens, or Constantinople, all the places
+where his father, a poor Neapolitan tailor, had lived. No one was
+astonished by such vagaries and absent-minded discrepancies on the part
+of the extraordinary virtuoso, who, the moment he left the piano, seemed
+to move in a world of dreams and to be quite incapable of adapting
+himself to any regular mode of life. After giving concerts in the large
+capitals of Europe and South America, he had settled down at Monte
+Carlo, explaining his residence there by the war, while Don Marcos
+imputed it to his love of gambling. The Prince knew him through having
+engaged him as a member of<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a> the orchestra on board his large yacht, the
+Gaviota II, for a voyage around the world.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting beside the host was the last guest, the latest to frequent the
+house, a pale young man, tall, thin, and nearsighted, who was always
+looking timidly around as though ill at ease. He was a professor from
+Spain, a Doctor of Science, Carlos Novoa, who received a subsidy from
+the Spanish government to make certain studies in ocean fauna at the
+Oceanographic Museum. The Colonel who had spent many years at Monte
+Carlo without running across any of his compatriots, other than those
+whom he saw around the roulette tables, had expressed a certain
+patriotic pride in meeting this professor two months previously.</p>
+
+<p>"A man of learning! A famous scientist!" he exclaimed in speaking of his
+new friend. "They can say all they want now about us Spaniards being
+ignoramuses."</p>
+
+<p>He had only the vaguest notion of the nature of his fellow countryman's
+learning. What is more: from his earliest conversations he had guessed
+that the professor's ideas were directly opposed to his own. "One of
+those heretics with no other God than matter," he said to himself. But
+he added by way of consolation: "All those learned men are like that:
+liberals and free-thinkers. What of it...." As for the professor's fame,
+in the opinion of Don Marcos it was unquestionable. Otherwise why would
+they have sent him to the Oceanographic Museum, large and white as a
+temple, whose halls he had visited only once, with a feeling of awe that
+had prevented him from ever going back again.</p>
+
+<p>On the occasional evenings when the professor would go to Monte Carlo
+and chance to meet Don Marcos, the latter would present him to his
+friends as a national celebrity. In this fashion Novoa had made the
+acquaintance<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a> of Castro and Spadoni, who never asked him more than how
+his luck was going.</p>
+
+<p>When the coming of the Prince was announced, Toledo insisted that his
+illustrious friend the Professor should accompany him to the station in
+order to lose no time in introducing him to "His Highness."</p>
+
+<p>"One of our country's prides.... Your Highness is so fond of everything
+Spanish."</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor had spent a considerable portion of his life on the sea,
+and felt a certain sympathy for the modest young man, on learning of the
+studies in which he specialized.</p>
+
+<p>They talked for a long time about oceanography, and the following day
+Prince Michael, who was in the habit of entertaining elaborately at his
+table the most divergent kinds of guests, said to his "chamberlain":</p>
+
+<p>"Your scholar is a very fine fellow. Invite him to luncheon."</p>
+
+<p>The guests all spoke Spanish. Spadoni was able to follow the
+conversation, with the little he had picked up while giving piano
+recitals in Buenos Ayres, Santiago, and other South American capitals.
+He had been there with an impresario, who finally got tired of backing
+him, and struggling with his childish irresponsibility.</p>
+
+<p>As they were sitting down at the table, the Colonel noticed that the
+Prince seemed preoccupied with some absorbing meditation. He made a
+point of talking with Professor Novoa, expressing his surprise at the
+slight compensation the scientist received for his studies.</p>
+
+<p>Castro and Spadoni gave their whole attention to their food. The days of
+the famous chef, to whom Prince Michael gave a salary worthy of a Prime
+Minister, were over. The "master" had been mobilized and at that moment
+was cooking for a general on the French front. However, Toledo had
+managed to discover a woman of<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> some fifty years, whose combinations
+were less varied, perhaps, than those of the artist whom the war had
+snatched away, but more "classical," more solid and substantial&mdash;and the
+two men ate with the delight of people who, forever obliged to eat in
+restaurants and hotels, at last find themselves at a table where no
+economy or falsifications are practised.</p>
+
+<p>About dessert time the conversation, becoming general, turned, as always
+happens when men are dining alone, to the subject of women. Toledo had a
+feeling that the Prince had gently steered the guests' talk in this
+direction. Suddenly Michael summed up his whole argument by declaring a
+second time:</p>
+
+<p>"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."</p>
+
+<p>And then had followed the long interruption as the train of English
+soldiers, in a whirl of shouts, whistling and hissing, had gone by.</p>
+
+<p>Atilio Castro waited until the last car had disappeared in the tunnel,
+and said with a subtle and somewhat ironical smile:</p>
+
+<p>"The shouting and whistling sound like a mixture of applause and scorn
+for your profound remark. However, please don't bother with such
+inexpert opinion. What you said interests me. You abominate women, you
+who have had thousands of them!... Go on, Michael!"</p>
+
+<p>But the Prince changed the conversation. He spoke of his impressions on
+returning to Villa Sirena after a long absence. Nothing remained to
+recall the former days, before the war, save the building and the
+gardens. All the men servants were mobilized: some in the French army,
+others in the Italian. The day after his arrival he had asked, as a
+matter of course, for an auto to go to Monte Carlo. There was no lack of
+machines. Three, of the best make, were lying as though forgotten, in
+the<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> garage. But the chauffeurs too were at the front; and moreover
+there was no gasoline; and a permit was necessary to use the roads....
+In short, he had been obliged to stand at the iron gate of the garden
+and wait for the Manton electric. It was a novelty for him, an
+interesting means of locomotion. It seemed as if he had suddenly been
+transported into a world he had forgotten, as he found himself among the
+common people on the car. The general curiosity annoyed him. Everyone
+was whispering his name: and even the conductor showed a certain emotion
+on seeing the owner of Villa Sirena among his passengers.</p>
+
+<p>"And the worst of it all, my friends, is that I'm ruined!"</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni stared with wide opened eyes as though hearing something
+extraordinary and absurd. Castro smiled incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"You ruined?... I'd be satisfied with a tenth of the remains."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince nodded. He reminded one of those great transatlantic liners
+which, when they are wrecked, make the fortune of a whole population of
+poverty stricken people along the shore. Wealth was of course a relative
+thing. He might still have more than many people; but ruin it was for
+him, nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>"In view of what I am going to say later, I must not conceal from you
+the situation I am in. A few weeks ago I sold my Paris residence which
+my mother built. It was bought by a 'newly rich.' With this war, I'm
+going to become a 'newly poor.' You know, Atilio, how things have gone
+with me, since this row among the nations started. From the time they
+fired the first cannon they sent me from Russia only an eighth of what I
+received in times of peace; later much less. The revolution came and cut
+down my income still more. And, now under Comrade<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> Lenin and the red
+flag, there is nothing coming through at all, absolutely nothing. I have
+no idea whatsoever of the fate of my houses, my fields, my mines ... I
+don't know even what has become of those who were looking after my
+fortune there. They have probably all been killed."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel raised his eyes to the ceiling: "The revolution!... What
+they need is a master."</p>
+
+<p>"But a rich man like you with reserve funds in the bank all the time,
+can always find some one to make him a loan until times are better."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps; but it means practically poverty for me. My administrator told
+me when I was leaving Paris, that I ought to limit my expenses, live
+according to my present income. How much have I?... I don't know. He
+doesn't even know himself. He is balancing my accounts, collecting from
+some people and paying others&mdash;I had a lot of debts, it seems.
+Millionaires are never asked to pay their bills promptly.... In short, I
+shall have to live, like a ruined prince, on some sixty thousand dollars
+a year; perhaps more, perhaps less. I really don't know."</p>
+
+<p>Castro and Spadoni seemed to be stirred with longing at the mention of
+such a sum. Novoa looked with an air of respect at this man who called
+himself his friend and thought himself poor with sixty thousand dollars
+a year.</p>
+
+<p>"My administrator spoke to me of selling Villa Sirena as well as the
+Paris residence. It seems that the newly rich would like to get
+everything I have. A complete liquidation.... But I wouldn't listen to
+it. This is my own little nook; I made it what it is myself. Besides,
+life is impossible out in the world. The war has filled it with
+bitterness. Living in Paris is very gloomy. There is no one there. The
+streets are dark. The 'Gothas' make the people of our class worried and
+nervous. It is<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a> much better to leave. I thought I would settle down here
+and wait till this world madness is over."</p>
+
+<p>"It is going to be a long wait," remarked Castro.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid so. However, this is an agreeable spot, a pleasant refuge,
+all the more delightful because of the selfish feeling that at this very
+moment millions of men are suffering every sort of hardship, and
+thousands are dying every day.... But after all, it isn't the same as it
+used to be. Even the Mediterranean is different. The minute the sun goes
+down, my good Colonel has to mask with black curtains the windows and
+doors looking out on the sea, so that the German submarines cannot guide
+themselves by our lights.... Dear me! Where are those wonderful days we
+spent here in time of peace, the festivals we used to have, those nights
+on the Gaviotta II when she anchored in the harbor of Monaco?"</p>
+
+<p>A far away look came into Castro's eyes, as though he were in a dream.
+In his imaginings he saw the gardens of Villa Sirena, softly lighted,
+wrapped in a milky haze that settled on the invisible waves like rays of
+reflected moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>The window curtains were crimson, and from them, drifting through the
+warm darkness of the night, came the sound of laughter, cries, the
+sighing of violins, amorous love songs, that told of women's throats,
+white and voluptuous, swelling with desire and the rapture of the music.
+The stars, specks of light lost in the infinite, twinkled in answer to
+the electric stars, hidden in the dark foliage. Walking slowly, couples
+arm in arm disappeared amid the deep shadows of the garden. All the
+women of the day had turned up there sooner or later: famous actresses
+from Paris, London, and Vienna; beauties of the smart cliques of two
+hemispheres, women of high society, smiling the smile of slaves before
+the potentate<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> who could banish their debts with the stroke of a pen.
+Oh, the Pompeian nights of Villa Sirena!...</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni saw, rather, the Gaviotta II, a palace with propellers, which,
+when anchored in the small harbor of La Condamine, seemed to fill it
+completely and to make the yachts of the American millionaires and the
+Prince of Monaco look like tiny things indeed. It was an alcazar, a
+palace of the Arabian Nights, topped off with two smoke stacks, and
+parading over every sea of the planet, its private parlors adorned with
+fountains and statues, its enormous library, its ball room with a raised
+platform, from which fifty musicians, many of them celebrated, gave
+concerts for a single visible auditor, Prince Michael, who half reclined
+on a divan, while the tropical breeze came through the high windows,
+caressing the heads of the officers and chief functionaries of the
+steamer crowding about the openings. The pianist could see once more the
+lonely harbors of dead historic countries, with flights of seagulls
+wheeling against the quiet azure vault; the mighty bays, filled with the
+smoke and bustle of North America; the coasts of the Antilles with
+groves of cocoanut palms, black at sunset against the reddish sky; the
+islands of the Pacific, of hard coral, forming a ring about an inner
+lake.... And that omnipotent magician confessed the loss of his
+wealth!...</p>
+
+<p>The Prince, as though he guessed their thoughts, added:</p>
+
+<p>"It's the end of all that: I don't know whether forever or for many
+years.... And even if things should be the same some day as they were
+before the war, what a long time we shall have to wait!... I may die
+before then.... That is why I am going to make a proposal to you."</p>
+
+<p>He paused a moment, to enjoy the curiosity he read in the eyes of his
+auditors.<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a></p>
+
+<p>Then he asked Castro:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you satisfied with your present life?"</p>
+
+<p>In spite of Castro's good natured, smiling placidity, he started in
+surprise as if indignant at such a question. His life was unbearable.
+The war had upset his habits and pleasures, scattering his friendships
+to the four winds. He did not know the fate of hundreds of persons of
+various nationalities, who had filled his life before the war, and
+without whom he would then have thought it impossible to live.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, I have less money than ever. I am staying at Monte Carlo just
+for the gambling; and even if I always lose in the end, like everyone
+else, I always keep a tight grip on a little something to live on!...
+But what a life!"</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at Novoa as though the recency of his acquaintance inspired a
+certain suspicion, but immediately he went on, with an air of assurance:</p>
+
+<p>"There is no reason why I should not speak quite plainly. A little while
+ago the Professor told us how much he earned: some hundred dollars a
+month; less than any employee at the Casino. I am going to be as frank
+as he. I live in the Hôtel de Paris: Atilio Castro cannot afford to live
+anywhere else; he must keep up his connections. But there are many weeks
+when I have the greatest difficulty in paying for my room, and I eat in
+cheap restaurants and Italian wine shops, when no one invites me out to
+dine. I pay three or four times as much for my bed as I do for my board.
+Evenings when luck is against me, and I lose everything to the last
+chip, I get along with a ham sandwich at the Casino bar. I belong to the
+same school as the Madrid gambler we nicknamed the 'Master,' and who
+used to say to us: 'Boys, money was made for gambling; and what's left,
+for eating.'"<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a></p>
+
+<p>"And in spite of that, you like good food," said the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>Castro's laments took on a comical seriousness. With the war the good
+old customs had been forgotten. No one kept house; everyone lived in
+hotels, and the proprietors of the luxurious palaces took the scarcity
+of food as a pretext to serve the sort of meals one gets in third rate
+restaurants, scanty and poor. An invitation merely gave one a chance to
+fool one's hunger.</p>
+
+<p>"It has been months, maybe years, since I've eaten as I have to-day, and
+I've sat at the tables of all the big hotels on the Riviera. I had
+ceased to believe that such chicken as you have just served existed in
+the world any longer. I imagined they were dream birds, mythological
+fowl."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel smiled, bowing as if that were a tribute to him.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Spadoni?" the Prince went on inquiringly. "How are you
+enjoying life?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your Highness&mdash;I&mdash;I," stammered the musician, at the sudden question.</p>
+
+<p>Castro intervened, coming to his rescue.</p>
+
+<p>"Our friend Spadoni can always get a free meal at the villas of a number
+of invalid ladies, who live at Cap-Martin and who are mad about music.
+Besides some English people at Nice often invite him. He doesn't need to
+bother about paying hotel bills either. He has at his disposal a whole
+big villa, large and well-furnished: it goes with his job, as watchman
+over a corpse."</p>
+
+<p>Novoa started with surprise at the news.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be astonished," continued Atilio. "He has the benefit of a
+magnificent house in exchange for looking after a tomb."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Professor!... Don't mind him," groaned the musician with the air of
+a martyr.</p>
+
+<p>"But with all these advantages," Castro went on saying,<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> "there is one
+terrible drawback: he is a worse gambler than I. He has a nickname in
+the Casino 'the number five gentleman.' He never plays any other number.
+Anything he can get hold of he puts on five, and loses it. I am the
+'number seventeen gentleman' and it turns out as badly with me as with
+him.... Besides, he has his English friends. Queer ducks! They come from
+Nice every day in a two horse landau, and just as if they didn't get
+enough gambling with the Casino, they set up a green table on their
+knees and take out a deck of cards. They play poker with the Corniche
+landscape, that people come from all over the world to see, right before
+their eyes. And our artist, when he takes a fourth hand with the two
+Englishmen and an old maid, there within the sight of the Mediterranean,
+golden in the setting sun, loses everything he took in at some concert
+at Cannes or Monte Carlo."</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni started to say something, but stopped, seeing that the Prince
+turned to Novoa:</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't ask you," said the Prince; "I know your situation. You live in
+the old part of Monaco, in the house of an employee of the Museum; and
+his lodgings can't be much. Besides, as Atilio was saying, you receive
+much less than a croupier at the Casino."</p>
+
+<p>And looking at his guests he added:</p>
+
+<p>"What I want to propose to you is that you live with me. The invitation
+is a selfish one on my part; I'm not denying that. I intend to stay here
+until the world quiets down, and life is pleasant once more. If my
+Colonel and I were here alone we would end by hating each other. You
+will keep me company in my retreat."</p>
+
+<p>All three remained dumbfounded at such an unexpected proposal. Novoa was
+the first to regain the use of his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"Prince, you scarcely know me. We saw each other<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> for the first time
+three days ago.... I don't know whether I ought...."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince interrupted him with the sharp tone and imperious manner of a
+man who is not accustomed to considering objections.</p>
+
+<p>"We have known each other for many years; we have known each other all
+our lives." Then he added soothingly:</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't much that I'm offering you. Servants are scarce. There are no
+men except my old valet and those two Italian monkeys that the Colonel
+managed to recruit somewhere. The rest of the service is done by
+women.... But even so, our life will be pleasant. We shall isolate
+ourselves from a world gone crazy. We will not mention this war. We
+shall lead a comfortable existence, as the monks did in the monasteries
+of the Middle Ages, which were refreshing oases of tranquillity in the
+midst of violence and massacres. We shall eat well; the Colonel
+guarantees me that. The Library from the yacht is here. When I sold the
+boat, I had Don Marcos install all my books on the top floor. Our friend
+Novoa will find some volumes there which perhaps he does not know.
+Everyone will do what he pleases; free monks all of us, with no other
+obligation than to repair to the refectory at the proper hour. And if
+the 'number five gentleman' and the 'number seventeen gentleman' want to
+drop in at the Casino, they can do so, and someone will see to it that
+their pockets are kept filled. We must give something to vice, what the
+devil! Without vices, life wouldn't be worth living."</p>
+
+<p>A silent approbation greeted these words of the master of Villa Sirena.</p>
+
+<p>"The one thing I insist on," continued the Prince after a long pause,
+"is that we live alone, as men among men.<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> No women! Women must be
+excluded from our life in common."</p>
+
+<p>The pianist opened his eyes in astonishment; Castro stirred in his
+chair; Novoa removed his glasses with a mechanical gesture of surprise,
+immediately adjusting them once more to his nose.</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence.</p>
+
+<p>"What you propose," said Atilio, at last, with a smile, "reminds me of a
+comedy of Shakespeare. No women! And the hero in the end gets married."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that play," replied the Prince, "but I am not in the habit of
+governing my life according to comedies, and I don't believe in their
+teachings. You can rest assured that I shan't marry, even if it gives
+the lie to Shakespeare and the French king from whose chronicle he got
+the material for his work."</p>
+
+<p>"But what you're attempting is absurd," Castro went on: "I don't know
+what the rest think, but prevent me from...!"</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture he ended his protest.</p>
+
+<p>Then seeing that the Prince had remained thoughtful, he added:</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite evident that you have had your fill!... You have gotten all
+you wanted, and now you want to force on us...."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince, although absorbed in his own train of thought, he had not
+heard him, interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"Seeing that you can't get along without it.... All right! I have no
+fixed intention of making a martyr of you. Go on being a slave to a
+necessity that is a result more of the imagination than of desire. Now
+that I really know life, I am astonished that men do so many foolish
+things for the sake of a passing pleasure. While you are here you may
+<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a>satisfy your whims whenever you like ... but no women."</p>
+
+<p>The three listeners looked at one another in astonishment; and even the
+Colonel, who never betrayed his feeling when his "lord" was speaking,
+showed a certain surprise on his countenance. What did the Prince mean?</p>
+
+<p>"You are not ignorant, Atilio, of what a woman is. In the great majority
+of peoples on this earth there are only females. There are young females
+and old females; but there are no 'women.' Woman, as we understand the
+word, is the artificial product of civilizations which, somewhat like
+hot-house flowers, have reached their maturity with a complex perverse
+beauty. Only in the large cities that have come to be decadent because
+they have reached their limits, do you find 'women.' Not being mothers
+like the poor females, they give up all their time to love, prolong
+their youth marvelously, and scheme to inspire passions at an age when
+the others live like grandmothers. There you have the creatures that,
+personally, I am afraid of! If they come in here, it's the end of our
+society, our tranquil, even life."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince arose from the table, and they all followed suit. Lunch being
+over they all passed into the great hall adjoining, where coffee was
+served. The Colonel looked about anxiously, examining the boxes of
+Havanas, and the large liquor chest with its varied cut glass and
+colored flasks, placed in a row.</p>
+
+<p>While cutting the tip of his cigar, the Prince continued, speaking all
+the while to Castro:</p>
+
+<p>"When you want ... anything like that, all you need do is to choose in
+the vicinity of the Casino. A hundred or two francs; and then,
+good-by!... But the other ones! The women! They work their way into our
+lives, and finally dominate us, and want to mold our ways to suit their
+own. Their love for us after all is merely vanity, like that of the
+conqueror who loves the land that he has conquered with violence. They
+have<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> all read books&mdash;nearly always stupidly and without understanding,
+to be sure, but they have read books&mdash;and such reading leaves them
+determined to satisfy all sorts of vague desires, and absurd whims, that
+succeed only in making slaves of us, and in moving us to act on impulses
+we have acquired in our own early romantic readings.... I know them. I
+have met too many of them in my life. If women from our social sphere
+mingle with us here, it means an end to peace. They will seek me out
+through curiosity on remembering my past life, or greed in thinking of
+my wealth; as for you men, they will come between you, making you
+jealous of one another and the life that I desire here will be
+impossible.... Besides, we are poor."</p>
+
+<p>Atilio protested, smilingly: "Oh! poor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor when it comes to the follies of the old days," continued the
+Prince, "and for love one needs money. All that talk about love being a
+disinterested thing was made up by poor people, who are satisfied with
+imitations. There is a glitter of gold at the bottom of every passion.
+At first we don't think of such things; desire blinds us. All we see is
+the immediate domination of the person so sweetly our adversary. But
+love invariably ends by giving or taking money."</p>
+
+<p>"Take money from a woman!... Never!" said Castro, losing his ironic
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"You will end by taking it, if you are poor, and frequent the society of
+women. Those of our times think of nothing but money. When their love is
+a rich man, they ask him for it, even if they have a large fortune of
+their own. They feel less worthy if they don't ask. When they are fond
+of a poor man, they force him to receive gifts from them. They dominate
+him better by degrading him. Besides, in doing so they feel the selfish
+satisfaction of the person who gives alms. Woman,<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> having always been
+forced to beg from man, has the greatest sensation of pride, and thinks
+she in turn can give money to some one of the sex that has always
+supported her."</p>
+
+<p>Novoa, cup in hand, listened attentively to the Prince. Lubimoff was
+speaking of a world quite unknown to him. Spadoni, as he sipped his
+coffee, with a vague look in his eyes, was thinking of something far
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you know the worst, Atilio," the Prince went on. "No women!... That
+way we will lead a great life. All the morning, free! We shan't see one
+another until lunch time. Down below is the cove, there are still a
+number of boats. We can fish, while it's sunny; we can go rowing. In the
+afternoon you will go to the Casino; occasionally I shall go, too, to
+hear some concert. Spring is drawing near. At night, sitting on the
+terrace, watching the stars, our friend Novoa, the man of learning of
+our monastery, will expound the music of the spheres; and Spadoni, our
+musician, will sit down at the piano, and delight us with terrestrial
+music."</p>
+
+<p>"Splendid!" exclaimed Castro. "You are almost a poet in describing our
+future life, and you have persuaded me. We are going to be happy. But
+don't forget your permission for the 'female,' and your prohibition of
+'women.' No skirts in Villa Sirena! Nothing but men; monks in trousers,
+selfish and tolerant, coming together to live a pleasant life, while the
+world is aflame."</p>
+
+<p>Atilio remained thoughtful a few moments, and continued:</p>
+
+<p>"We need a name; our community must have a title. We shall call
+ourselves 'the enemies of women'."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"The name mustn't go any farther than ourselves. If people outside
+learned of it, they might think it meant something else."<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a></p>
+
+<p>Novoa, feeling honored by his new intimacy with men so different from
+those with whom he had previously associated, accepted the name with
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"I confess, gentlemen, that according to the distinction made by the
+Prince, I have never known a 'woman'. Females ... poor ones, to be sure,
+a very few perhaps! But I like the name, and agree to join the 'enemies
+of women' even though a woman is never to enter my life."</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni, as though suddenly awakening, turned to Castro, and continued
+his thought aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a system of stakes invented by an English lord, now dead, who won
+millions by it. They explained it to me yesterday. First you place...."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, you satanic pianist!" exclaimed Atilio. "You can explain it to
+me in the Casino, providing I have the curiosity to listen. You've made
+me lose a lot, with all your systems. I had better go on playing your
+'number five.'"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel, who had listened in silence to the conversation in regard
+to women, seemed to recall something when Castro mentioned gambling.</p>
+
+<p>"Last evening," he said to the Prince, in a mysterious voice, "I met the
+Duchess in the Casino"....</p>
+
+<p>A look of silent questioning halted his words.</p>
+
+<p>"What Duchess is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"The question is quite in point, Michael," said Atilio. "Your
+'chamberlain' is better acquainted in society than any man on the
+Riviera. He knows princesses and duchesses by the dozen. I have seen him
+dining in the Hôtel de Paris with all the ancient French nobility, who
+come here to console themselves for the long time it takes to bring back
+their former kings. In the private rooms in the Casino, he is always
+kissing wrinkled hands and bowing to some group of disgusting mummies
+loaded down with the oldest and most famous names. Some of them<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a> call
+him simply 'Colonel'; others introduce him with the title of 'aide de
+camp of Prince Lubimoff'."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos stiffened, offended by the waggish tone in which his high
+estate was being mentioned, and said haughtily:</p>
+
+<p>"Señor de Castro, I am a soldier grown old in defense of Legitimacy; I
+shed my blood for the sacred tradition, and there is nothing remarkable
+about my association with...."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince knowing by experience that the Colonel did not know what time
+was, when once he began to talk about "legitimacy" and the blood he had
+shed, hastened to interrupt him.</p>
+
+<p>"All right; we know that very well already. But who was this Duchess you
+met?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess de Delille. She often asks about your Highness, and upon
+hearing that you had just arrived, she gave me to understand that she
+intended paying you a call."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince replied with a simple exclamation, and then remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>"We are starting well," said Castro, laughing. "'No women!' And
+immediately the Colonel announces a visit from one of them, one of the
+most dangerous.... For you will admit that a Duchess like that is one of
+the 'women' you described to us."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't receive her," said the Prince resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>"I have an idea that this Duchess is a cousin of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no such relationship. Her father was the brother of my
+mother's second husband. But we have known each other since childhood,
+and we each have a most unpleasant memory of one another. When I was
+living in Russia she married a French Duke. She had the same desire as
+the majority of wealthy American girls: a great title of nobility in
+order to make her friends<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> among the fair sex jealous and to shine in
+European circles. A few months later she left the Duke, assigning him a
+certain income, which is just what her noble husband wanted perhaps.
+This woman Alicia never appealed to me particularly.... Besides, she has
+lived life just as she pleased.... She has seen almost as much of it as
+I have. She has as much of a reputation as I. They even accuse her, just
+as they do me, of love affairs with people she has never seen.... They
+tell me that in recent years she has been parading around with a young
+lad, almost a child ... dear me! We are getting old!"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw her with him in Paris," said Castro. "It was before the war.
+Later in Monte Carlo I met her, all by herself, without being able to
+find a trace of her young chap anywhere. He must have been a passing
+fancy of hers.... She has been here three years now. When summer comes
+she moves to Aix-les-Bains, or to Biarritz, but as soon as the Casino is
+gay and fashionable again, she is one of the first to return."</p>
+
+<p>"Does she play?"</p>
+
+<p>"Desperately. She plays high stakes and plays them badly, although we
+who think we play well always lose just the same, in the end. I mean,
+she puts her money on the table without thinking, in several places at a
+time, and then even forgets where she placed it. The 'leveurs des morts'
+are always hanging around to pick up the pieces that no one claims and
+when she wins, they always manage to get something of it. She gambled
+for two years with nothing less than chips of five hundred and a
+thousand francs. At present her chips are never for more than a hundred.
+It won't be long before she is using the red ones, the twenties, the
+favorites of your humble servant."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall refuse to receive her," affirmed the Prince.<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a></p>
+
+<p>And doubtless in order not to talk any more about the Duchess de
+Delille, he suddenly left his friends, and walked out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Atilio, in a conversational mood, turned and asked a question of Don
+Marcos, who was speaking with Novoa, while Spadoni went on dreaming,
+with eyes wide open, of the English lord's system.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen Doña Enriqueta lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you asking me about the Infanta?" replied the Colonel gravely.
+"Yes, I met her yesterday, in the courtyards of the Casino. Poor lady!
+If it isn't a shame! The daughter of a king.... She told me that her
+sons haven't anything to wear. She owes two hundred francs for
+cigarettes, at the bar of the private play rooms. She can't find anyone
+who will lend her money. Besides, she has frightful bad luck; she loses
+everything. These are fatal days for people of royal blood. I almost
+wept when I heard all her poverty and troubles, and felt that I couldn't
+give her anything more. The daughter of a king?"</p>
+
+<p>"But her father disowned her, when she eloped with some unknown artist,"
+said Atilio. "And besides, Don Carlos wasn't a king anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Señor de Castro," replied the Colonel, drawing himself up, like a
+rooster, "let's not spoil the party. You know my ideas: I have shed my
+blood in the cause of Legitimacy, and the respect that I have for you
+should not...."</p>
+
+<p>Novoa, wishing to calm Don Marcos, intervened in the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Monte Carlo here is like a beach, where all sorts of wreckage, living
+and dead, is washed up sooner or later. In the Hôtel de Paris there is
+another member of the family, but of the successful branch, the one that
+is ruling and taking in the money."<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I know him," said Atilio, laughing. "He's a young man of calipigous
+exuberance and wherever he goes his handsome gentleman secretary goes
+with him. He always meets some venerable old lady who, dazzled by his
+royal kinship, takes it upon herself to keep up his extravagant mode of
+living.... Don't know what the devil he can possibly give her in return!
+As for the secretary, he gives him a slap from time to time just to
+assert his ancient rights."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos remained silent. He was not interested in the members of that
+branch, not he.</p>
+
+<p>"Also," Castro continued mischievously, "in the Casino before the war, I
+met Don Jaime, your own king at present. A great fellow for gambling! He
+risked thousand franc chips by the handful. He had a lot of money coming
+from somewhere. In the Casino they all used to say that it was sent him
+from Madrid, on condition that he should have no children and allow his
+claims to the throne to die out with him."</p>
+
+<p>"And just to think," murmured Novoa, without realizing that he was
+speaking aloud, "that for both of these families, back there, so many
+men have killed one another. To think, that for a question of
+inheritance among people like that we have gone back a century in
+European life!"</p>
+
+<p>"You too!" exclaimed the Colonel, provoked again. "A scholar, saying a
+thing like that! I can hardly believe my ears!"<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p>A<small>T</small> the end of the second Carlist war a Spanish officer, Don Miguel
+Saldaña, had found himself, as a result of the defeat, banished forever
+from his own country and condemned to a life of poverty and obscurity.
+The Madrid papers, without prefixing his name with any slanderous
+adjectives, called him simply "the rebel chief Saldaña." This courtesy,
+doubtless, was intended to distinguish him from the other party chiefs
+who in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, had waged a campaign of pillage
+and executions for five years. Among his own people he was known as
+General Miguel Saldaña, Marquis of Villablanca. The pretender, Don
+Carlos, had given him that title because Villablanca was the name of the
+town where Saldaña had practically annihilated a column of the Liberal
+army. The topographical information of Saldaña's Chief of Staff&mdash;a local
+priest who had spent his whole life in doing nothing except saying mass
+on Sundays and spending the rest of the week hunting in the mountains
+with his dog and gun&mdash;gave him an opportunity to take the enemy by
+surprise, and he won a notorious victory.</p>
+
+<p>When he crossed the frontier as a fugitive, through refusing to
+recognize the Bourbons as the constitutional rulers, "the rebel chief
+Saldaña" was twenty-nine years of age. A second son in a proud and
+ruined family, he had been obliged to resist the traditions of his house
+which presented for him an ecclesiastical career. When his studies at
+the Military School at Toledo were just finishing, the Revolution of
+1868 caused him to renounce a commission to escape being under orders
+from certain<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> generals who had participated in overthrowing royalty.
+When Don Carlos took up arms, Saldaña was one of the first to volunteer
+his services; and having gone through a military school, and received a
+good education, he at once became conspicuous among the guerrillas of
+the so-called Army of the Center, made up, for the most part, of country
+squires, village clerks, and mountain priests.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, Saldaña distinguished himself for a reckless though rather
+unfortunate bravery. He always led the attack at the head of his men and
+consequently was wounded in the majority of his fights. But his wounds
+were "lucky wounds" as the soldiers say. They left marks of glory on his
+body without destroying his vigorous health.</p>
+
+<p>Finding himself alone in Paris, where his only resource was the
+admiration of a few elderly "legitimist" ladies of the aristocratic
+Faubourg Saint Germain, he left for Vienna. There his king had friends
+and relatives. His youth and his exploits gained him admission as a hero
+of the old monarchy to the circle of archdukes. The war between Russia
+and Turkey tore him away from his pleasant life as an interesting
+hanger-on. Being a fighting man and a Catholic, he felt it his duty to
+wage war against the Turks; and with recommendations as a protégé of
+some influential Austrians, he went to the Court at Saint Petersburg.
+General Saldaña became a mere Commander of a Squadron in the Russian
+Cavalry. The officers conversed with him in French. His horsemen
+understood him well enough when he placed himself in front of his
+division, and, unsheathing his sword, galloped ahead of them against the
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Various successful charges and two more "lucky wounds" won him a certain
+celebrity. At the end of the war he had gained numerous friends among
+officers of the nobility, and was presented in the most aristocratic<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a>
+drawing rooms. One evening at a ball given by a Grand Duchess, he saw
+close at hand the most fashionable and most talked of young woman of the
+season: the Princess Lubimoff.</p>
+
+<p>She was twenty-two, an orphan, with a fortune said to be one of the
+largest in Russia. The first to bear the title of Prince Lubimoff, a
+poor but handsome Cossack, unable to read or write, succeeded in winning
+the attention of the Great Catherine, who made him the favorite among
+her lovers of second rank. During the years that her imperial caprice
+lasted, the new Prince was forced to seek his fortune far from the
+Court, since the favorites before him had gained possession of all that
+was near at hand. The Czarina allowed him to make his selection on the
+map of her immense Empire; distant territories beyond the Urals, which
+the new proprietor was, like the majority of his successors, never to
+see. With the introduction of the railroad, enormous riches came to
+light in these lands chosen by the Cossack; in some, veins of platinum
+were discovered; in others, quarries of malachite, deposits of lapis
+lazuli, and rich oil wells. Besides, tens of thousands of serfs,
+recently freed by the Czar, continued to work the land for the Lubimoff
+heirs, just as they had before the emancipation. And all this immense
+fortune, which nearly doubled each year with new discoveries, belonged
+entirely to one woman, the young Princess, who considered herself as one
+of the Imperial family owing to the relationship of her ancestor, and
+had more than once given the sovereign cause for worry through the
+eccentricities of her character.</p>
+
+<p>She was an aggressive young woman, capricious and inconsistent in both
+words and deeds, a puzzle to everyone through the sharp contradictions
+in her conduct. She mingled with the officers of the Guard, treating
+them as<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> comrades, smoking and drinking with them and taking a hand in
+their exercises in horsemanship; and then suddenly she would shut
+herself up in her palace for whole weeks, on her knees most of the time,
+before the holy ikons, absorbed in mystic fervor, and loudly imploring
+the forgiveness of her sins. She looked on the Emperor with veneration,
+as the representative of God. At the same time she was known to
+sympathize with the Nihilists.</p>
+
+<p>The courtiers were scandalized whenever they told how she had
+accompanied a girl, whom the police were watching to a wretched house on
+the outskirts of the capital, and had there mingled with the
+revolutionary rabble composed of workmen and students. With them she had
+entered a narrow room, and joined the line passing before a coffin that
+was constantly in danger of being upset by the pushing of the gloomy
+curious crowd. The dead man's name was Fedor Dostoiewsky. The princess
+had scattered a bouquet of the most costly roses on the protruding
+forehead and monkish beard of the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>And in her moments of anger this same Nadina Lubimoff beat the servants
+in her Palace, as though they were still serfs, and forced her maids to
+grovel at her feet. Her irritability and fiery temper turned everything
+upside down, to such an extent that a certain elderly Prince, who by
+Imperial order had been chosen as her guardian, desired, in spite of the
+fact that it would mean to him loss of the management of an immense
+fortune, to see her married as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Nadina Lubimoff inspired a feeling of dread in her suitors. They were
+all afraid that she would answer their request for her hand with a cruel
+jest. Twice she had announced her engagement to gentlemen of the Court,
+and at the last moment she herself had begged the Czar to refuse his
+consent. By this time no one dared<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> propose, for fear of laughter and
+comment. Yet in spite of the freedom and unconventionality of her
+conduct, no one doubted the uprightness of her character.</p>
+
+<p>On seeing her, Saldaña thought of a naiad of the North, rising from an
+emerald river, in which cakes of ice were floating. She was tall and
+majestic, with a somewhat massive figure, like the divinities painted in
+frescos for ceilings. Her skin was of radiant whiteness. The pupils of
+her gray eyes gave out a greenish light, and her silky hair was a faded
+washed-out red. Owing to the marvelous whiteness of her complexion, her
+flesh appeared somewhat soft, but a fresh fragrance emanated from it,
+"the fragrance of running brooks," to use the words of her admirers. Her
+nostrils were rather wide, and in the stress of emotion they quivered,
+like those of a horse, thus recalling her glorious ancestor, the virile
+Cossack of the Czarina.</p>
+
+<p>The ball was nearly over before she noticed the Spaniard. There were so
+many officers constantly at her heels, greeting her cruel jokes and
+vulgar expressions with a smile of gratitude!&mdash;Suddenly Saldaña, who was
+standing between two doorways, was startled by a clear but commanding
+female voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Your arm, Marquis."</p>
+
+<p>And before he could offer it to her the young Princess took it, and led
+him off to the buffet in the drawing room.</p>
+
+<p>Nadina drank a good sized glass of vodka, preferring this liquor of the
+people to the champagne which the servants were pouring out in large
+quantities. Then smiling at her companion she drew him into the
+embrasure of a window where they were almost hidden by the curtains.</p>
+
+<p>"Your wounds!... I want to see your wounds!"</p>
+
+<p>Saldaña was dumfounded at the command of this great lady accustomed to
+carrying out her most whimsical ideas. Blushing like a soldier, who had
+lived all his life<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> among men, he finally drew up the left sleeve of his
+uniform, revealing a brown, hairy forearm, with large tendons, and
+deeply furrowed by the scar of a bullet wound received back in Spain.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess admired his athletic arm, with its dark skin, cut by the
+jagged white of the new tissue.</p>
+
+<p>"The other&mdash;the others! I want to see the rest of them!" she commanded,
+gazing at him fiercely, as though she were ready to bite, while her
+lips, moist and shining, curved sharply downward.</p>
+
+<p>She had seized his arm with a hand that trembled, while with the other
+she tried to undo the gold cords on the officer's breast.</p>
+
+<p>Saldaña drew back, stammering. "Oh! Princess!" What she desired was
+impossible. It was impossible to show the other wounds to a lady....</p>
+
+<p>He felt on the one visible scar the contact of two lips. Nadina, bowing
+her proud head, was kissing his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Hero!... Oh! my hero!"</p>
+
+<p>Immediately afterward she drew herself up again, cold and distant, with
+no other sign of emotion than a slight quivering of her nostrils. No
+longer was she tormented by the desire to see immediately those
+frightful scars of which she had heard from some of the comrades of the
+brave adventurer. She was sure of being able to see them to her heart's
+content whenever she pleased.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days the rumor began to circulate that the Princess Lubimoff
+was to be married to the Spaniard. She herself had started the news
+going, without bothering to ascertain beforehand the inclination of her
+future husband.</p>
+
+<p>The arguments with which she justified her decision could not have been
+more weighty. She was blond and Saldaña was dark. They had both been
+born at outermost limits of Europe. These considerations were
+sufficient<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> to make a happy marriage. Besides, the Princess was
+convinced that she had always been fond of Spain, although she would not
+have been able to place it accurately on the map. She recalled certain
+verses of Heine mentioning Toledo, and others by Musset addressing
+Andalusian Marquises of Barcelona; and she used to hum a love song about
+the oranges of Seville.... Her hero must surely be from Toledo, or,
+better yet, an Andalusian from Barcelona.</p>
+
+<p>In vain certain people of the court spoke of the Czar's not allowing the
+match. A great heiress marrying a foreign soldier banished from his
+country!... But the Princess by her very conduct, gave the sovereign to
+understand her will.</p>
+
+<p>"Either I marry him, or I start out as a dancer in a Paris theater."</p>
+
+<p>It was rumored that Saldaña was about to be deported.</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better: I will go and join him, and be his sweetheart."</p>
+
+<p>The old Prince, her guardian, lamented this obstinacy on the part of the
+Court. If it had not been for this opposition, Nadina's caprice for
+Saldaña, like so many of her whims, would have lasted only a few days.
+It was said that perhaps the Emperor, in order to break her will, would
+dispossess her of her vast estates in Siberia. The grandchild of the
+Cossack shrieked in reply that she would kill herself rather than obey.</p>
+
+<p>At last the ruler prudently allowed her to fulfil her desire. In getting
+married she would give up her eccentricities perhaps, and the Russian
+court, so rich in scandals, would have one less.</p>
+
+<p>The wedding journey of the Princess Lubimoff lasted all her life. Only
+twice, for reasons relating to her great fortune, did she return to
+Russia. Western Europe was more favorable than the court of an autocrat
+to her love<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> of freedom. In the first year of her marriage, while in
+London, she had a son, who was to be the only child. She allowed him to
+be called Michael, like his father, but insisted that he should have a
+second name, Fedor, perhaps in memory of Dostoiewsky, her favorite
+novelist, whose character inspired in her a feeling of sympathy, through
+a certain resemblance to herself.</p>
+
+<p>No one succeeded in ascertaining with certainty whether or not Don
+Miguel Saldaña felt happy in his new position as Prince Consort, which
+permitted him to enjoy all the pleasure and magnificence of immense
+wealth. According to Spanish customs, he started out to impose his will
+as a husband and a man of character, to curb the eccentricities of his
+wife. Vain determination! The very woman who at times could be
+sentimental and moan at the thought of social inequalities and the
+suffering of the poor, could, by her fiery impetuosity, reduce the
+stoutest and most firmly steeled will.</p>
+
+<p>In the end Saldaña relapsed into silence, fearing the aggressiveness of
+the daughter of the Cossack. To keep his prestige as a great noble,
+anxious for the respect of the servants and for the consideration of his
+guests, he feared violent scenes that filled the drawing rooms and even
+the stairways of his luxurious residence with feminine shrieks. He did
+not care more than once to see the Princess with one kick send the oaken
+table flying against the dining room wall, while all the porcelain and
+crystal service smashed into bits with one catastrophic crash.</p>
+
+<p>When the Paris architects had carried out the orders of the Princess,
+the family left the castle they were occupying in the vicinity of
+London. A group of rich Parisians, Jewish bankers for the most part,
+were covering the level grounds around the new Park Monçeau, with large
+private dwellings. The Princess Lubimoff had an<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> enormous palace, with a
+garden of extraordinary size for a city, built in this quarter. She even
+set up a tiny dairy behind a grove of trees, and without leaving her
+place she could enjoy the rôle of a country woman, whipping cream and
+churning butter, in imitation of Marie Antoinette, who likewise played
+at being a shepherdess in the Petit Trianon.</p>
+
+<p>At times a wave of tenderness swept over her, and she adored and obeyed
+her husband, pushing her humility to extremes that were alarming. She
+told her visitors about the General's campaigns, and his daring exploits
+back in Spain, a land which inspired in her a romantic interest, and
+which for that very reason she did not care ever to see. Suddenly she
+would cut her eulogies short with a command:</p>
+
+<p>"Marquis, show them your wounds."</p>
+
+<p>As proof of her tenderness, she refrained from getting angry when her
+husband refused.</p>
+
+<p>She always called him "Marquis," perhaps in order to keep the princely
+title for herself alone, perhaps because she felt that he should not be
+deprived of a rank he had gained with his blood. The Marquis never paid
+any attention to this breach of etiquette. His wife had already
+committed so many!</p>
+
+<p>A year after their marriage, when the news reached London that Alexander
+II had been killed by the explosion of a Nihilist bomb, the Princess ran
+about her apartments like a mad woman, and took to her bed after an
+extraordinary fit of anger.</p>
+
+<p>"The wretches! He was so good!... They've killed their own father."</p>
+
+<p>And thereafter when Saldaña entered the luxurious dwelling in Paris, he
+often came across strange visitors, at whom the lackeys in breeches
+stared in amazement. They were uncouth girls with spectacles, and
+cropped<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> hair, carrying portfolios under their arms; men with long hair
+and tangled beards, whose eyes contained the startled expression of
+visionaries; Russians from the Latin Quarter under police surveillance,
+terrorists, who appealed not in vain to the generosity of the Princess,
+and used her money perhaps to make infernal machines which they sent
+back to their country and hers.</p>
+
+<p>When the Prince Michael Fedor recalled his childhood memories, he could
+see his father holding him on his knees and caressing him with his firm
+hands. The child would gaze up at the dark face and large mustache that
+joined Saldaña's closely cropped mutton chop whiskers. He could not be
+sure whether the moisture in those black, commanding eyes came from
+tears; but after he learned Spanish he was sure that the Marquis had
+often murmured, as he smoothed the tiny brow:</p>
+
+<p>"My poor little boy!... Your mother is mad!"</p>
+
+<p>When Michael reached the age of eight, the problem of his education
+caused the Princess to show her motherly concern for a few weeks. One of
+those visitors, who so greatly worried the servants, brought his books
+and his frayed garments from a narrow street near the Pantheon, and took
+up his abode in the lordly dwelling of the Lubimoffs. He was a silent
+young man, given to the study of chemistry, and forbidden to return to
+his country. The very day of his arrival, a secret service agent came
+and questioned the porter of the palace.</p>
+
+<p>"I want my son to know Russian," said the Princess. "Besides, he will
+learn a great deal from Sergueff. Sergueff is a real man of learning,
+and worthy of a better fate."</p>
+
+<p>Saldaña insisted that he should likewise have a Spanish teacher, and she
+raised no objections. All the members of her family had possessed to an
+unusual degree the talent of the Slavs for learning languages easily.<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Prince Michael Fedor," said his mother, "is the Marquis of Villablanca,
+and ought to know the language of his second country."</p>
+
+<p>On this account the General once again sought out his former companions
+in arms who were still scattered in various parts of Paris. The fame of
+his enormous wealth had brought him many requests, even from persons of
+whom he had formerly stood in awe. But although the Princess, who was
+generous to a fault, allowed him the management of her fortune, Saldaña,
+with chivalrous unyielding integrity, felt that he had no right to her
+money, and gradually came to avoid the insistent suppliants. Besides, a
+great change had come over this silent man during his travels through
+Europe. The former soldier of the absolute monarchy was now an admirer
+of England and her constitutional history.</p>
+
+<p>"You see things differently when you travel about," was all he said. "If
+all my fellow countrymen had only seen the world."</p>
+
+<p>One day the new teacher presented himself at the palace. He was twelve
+years younger than Saldaña. He had been under the latter's command
+toward the end of the war, and instead of calling him by his title of
+Marquis or Prince he addressed him proudly, at every opportunity, as "my
+General."</p>
+
+<p>The General had not the slightest recollection of him; but the fact that
+he could give exact details of the last campaign, and had been
+recommended by various friends, did not permit of any doubt as to his
+veracity. He must have been one of those lads who had run away from home
+and joined the Carlist bands, making up those forces of irregulars whom
+Saldaña, unable to tolerate their frequent atrocities, more than once
+threatened with execution en masse. The teacher claimed that the General
+himself had given him a subordinate's commission in the<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> last months of
+the war, owing to his having a better education than his ragged
+comrades.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Marcos Toledo entered the palace of the Lubimoffs.</p>
+
+<p>The solemn husband of the Princess laughed with boyish glee upon hearing
+the story of Toledo's first experiences as an <i>emigré</i> in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>During the first few months, since he did not know French, he used to
+stop the priests in the street, to talk with them in Latin. He eked out
+a miserable existence, giving lessons on the guitar, and lecturing in a
+Polyglot Institute, where the auditors did not pay the slightest
+attention to the subjects discussed, but tried simply to accustom their
+ears to his Spanish pronunciation.</p>
+
+<p>Seven francs and a half, for talking an hour and a half! But Toledo made
+up for the smallness of the compensation in the pleasure it gave him to
+orate about the happy days of Philip II, so much superior to "these days
+of liberalism."</p>
+
+<p>"At present, I have only one ambition, General," he ended by saying,
+"and that is to dress well."</p>
+
+<p>The passion for luxurious display came from his youthful days as a
+guerrilla, when he would steal red and yellow petticoats from peasant
+women in order to make uniforms for himself. In Paris, he did not feel
+so keenly the lack of nutritious food, as he did the fact that he was
+obliged to wear clothes that did not belong to any known fashion.</p>
+
+<p>When he was given quarters on the top floor of the palace, like the
+Russian teacher, and the General had selected various garments for him
+from his large wardrobe, Toledo felt he had realized all the dreams that
+he had elaborated while running about Paris as a persistent agent for a
+thousand unsaleable things.</p>
+
+<p>His fellow countrymen, former comrades in poverty,<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> admired him on
+seeing him all dressed up like a rich man, and often riding in the
+carriage of a Prince. It scarcely seemed honorable that he, a former
+fighter, should occupy a position as a teacher, and he used to say in an
+apologetic manner:</p>
+
+<p>"I am now General Saldaña's <i>aide-de-camp</i>. I don't think it will be
+long before we take to the mountains again."</p>
+
+<p>Young Prince Michael admired his Russian teacher, because his mother
+affirmed that he was a great scholar. The boy felt a certain fear in the
+presence of this melancholy sage. On the other hand, Michael Fedor
+treated the Spaniard with an air of friendly and patronizing
+superiority. Toledo made his father laugh, and that was enough to cause
+the son to consider him an inferior being, but one worthy of esteem
+nevertheless, because of his docility and patience.</p>
+
+<p>"Say: is it true that you were going to be a priest?" Michael Fedor used
+to ask Toledo. "Is it true that after you left the seminary you were a
+druggist's clerk?"</p>
+
+<p>"Prince," the teacher replied with dignity, "I am Don Marcos de Toledo.
+My name tells my nobility, in spite of everything that envious people
+may say, and I have a right to use the 'Don' since I am an officer and
+your father, the Marquis, gave me my commission."</p>
+
+<p>In a short time the pupil was speaking Spanish correctly. It seemed that
+he had learned it as rapidly as possible in order to be better able to
+poke fun at his <i>hidalgo</i> teacher.</p>
+
+<p>The father also contributed to the education of the heir of the
+Lubimoffs the one thing he was able to teach. Every morning, after the
+lessons given by the Russian, which left the little fellow with a solemn
+face, Saldaña would wait for him in a large room on the ground floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Prince, on guard!"<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a></p>
+
+<p>And he, who had been the best blade in the Carlist army, and had on his
+conscience the slashing of a skull to the jawbone in a duel during the
+Turkish campaign, smiled proudly when he saw how this eleven year old
+boy stood his ground during the fencing lesson, parrying the hard blows
+and returning them successfully at the least unguardedness on his
+father's part. Michael Fedor was going to be a splendid fighting man, a
+worthy descendant of the Cossack of Russia, and of the guerrilla of the
+Spanish mountains.</p>
+
+<p>But Saldaña was not to enjoy this satisfaction for long. Among his
+various "lucky wounds," which only bothered him slightly with the
+changing of the seasons, there was one which from time to time inflicted
+periods of acute pain. For many years he had carried in his body a
+Spanish bullet which the sawbones of his guerrilla band had been unable
+to extract. When the surgeons of London and Paris attempted the
+operation it was too late.</p>
+
+<p>One morning the General's valet, on entering the room, found him dead.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor never forgot the sorrow he had felt on that occasion, nor
+the sumptuous funeral which the Princess had ordered, equal to that of a
+king deceased in exile. But what he remembered most clearly was the
+extraordinary grief of his mother. She too wanted to die. Her Russian
+maids were once obliged to snatch from her hands a phial of laudanum,
+receiving for their pains a few more blows than usual. Then, with her
+hair streaming down her back, she ran about wailing like a madwoman in
+front of all the portraits of the General. Oh! Her hero! Now she really
+knew how much she loved him....</p>
+
+<p>For several months she received her visitors in a drawing room with
+black furnishings and curtains. Wearing loose mourning garments, she
+half reclined on a sofa in<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> front of a full length portrait of Saldaña.
+His swords, his uniforms, and even a Russian saddle were on exhibition
+in the drawing room, which had been converted into a sort of museum of
+the deceased.</p>
+
+<p>"He died like the man he was!" moaned the widow. "He was killed by his
+wounds."</p>
+
+<p>At this period began the ultimate stage in the rise of Don Marcos
+Toledo. The Russian scholar receded into the background. A part of the
+dead man's glory passed to his humble fellow countryman who had
+witnessed his great exploits. One evening, the Princess, while engaged
+in conversation in the drawing room museum with some noble relatives who
+had arrived from Russia, wept so copiously at the memory of her husband,
+that she decided to leave the room for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel, your arm."</p>
+
+<p>Toledo was present in company with his pupil, and looked around with an
+expression of bewilderment. The Princess had to repeat her command in a
+more imperious voice. "Colonel, your arm!" She was speaking to him! For
+some time Don Marcos thought that the new title was a whim of the
+Princess and that some day when he was least expecting it his commission
+as "Colonel" would be withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>But when the first months of mourning had passed and the widow, tiring
+of solitude, started to resume her social calls, she insisted on being
+accompanied by Toledo, and on introducing him to her acquaintances in
+the aristocratic world.</p>
+
+<p>"He is the aide-de-camp of the dead Marquis," she explained.</p>
+
+<p>The very title he had invented to give himself an air of importance in
+the eyes of his half-starved companions in poverty! Toledo no longer
+questioned the validity of<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> his promotion. Now that the Princess was
+presenting him as her husband's aide-de-camp, he might well be a
+Colonel. And a Colonel he was, even for the young Prince, who at first
+had given him the title to make fun of him, but finally came to call him
+"Colonel" by force of habit.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo's dreams of splendid and showy toggery were now realized
+magnificently. With the Princess he did not need to fear the scruples
+sometimes shown by Saldaña, who hated extravagance and mismanagement.
+The great lady even felt disdain for those who were niggardly in
+availing themselves of her generosity. Don Marcos was enabled to change
+his attire several times a day, and held long conferences with famous
+tailors. He sought personal elegance. He wished to dress like a
+gentleman of distinction, but at the same time to wear clothes of a cut
+that would plainly show that he was accustomed to uniforms: He had in
+mind something like a Napoleonic Marshal obliged to wear a dress suit.
+Through his barber, likewise, he effected a great transformation. He
+imitated the manner in which the General had worn his hair, with a part
+that started at his forehead and ended at the back of his neck, and with
+stray locks hanging down at the temples. His mustache was taught to
+mingle with his side whiskers, in the Russian fashion. In accompanying
+the Princess, he learned to kiss ladies' hands with the grace and ease
+of an old courtier. He also learned to carry on long conversations
+without saying anything, to keep himself in the background, practically
+unseen, while his superiors were talking.</p>
+
+<p>When the Princess, after the first year of mourning, resolutely returned
+to her box at the Opera, Don Marcos attended her, remaining discreetly
+in the rear, like the Chamberlain of a Queen. One evening, during an
+intermission,<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a> on passing to the front of her box, the Princess heard
+the Colonel telling an old French general, a friend of the house, about
+the battle of Villablanca.</p>
+
+<p>"And the Marquis said to me: 'Now it's your chance, Toledo: Let's see
+how you can make out with a bayonet charge.' So I bared my sword, and at
+the head of my regiment...."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a true soldier," interrupted the Princess, "a worthy companion of
+my hero.... The Marquis often talked to me about him."</p>
+
+<p>And at that moment she was really sure she had heard the silent Saldaña
+relate the gallant deeds of his aide-de-camp.</p>
+
+<p>The Russian teacher, regarded by Toledo as an unpleasant person who
+would bear watching, soon left the Lubimoff palace. Perhaps he was
+jealous of the Colonel's growing influence; perhaps mysterious reasons
+needed his attention far from Paris. The Princess did not mind in the
+least the disappearance of the scholar. She had forgotten her rebellious
+looking Russians; she stopped giving them money. At present she had
+other interests.</p>
+
+<p>She suddenly evinced a desire to live for some time in London, and for
+this reason, she granted her son's request to be allowed to travel alone
+throughout Europe.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a man now; you will soon be fourteen. Travel, and don't stop at
+expense; always remember that you are Prince Lubimoff.... The Colonel
+will go with you. He will be your aide, as he was for the heroic
+Marquis."</p>
+
+<p>His first trip was to Spain. Michael Fedor wanted to see his father's
+native land. Toledo thought it in point for the young Prince to show
+great admiration for Spain. Michael must remember they were in the
+enemy's <a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a>country. Toledo was a Carlist Colonel who had refused amnesty,
+and had declined to recognize the reigning dynasty! But they traveled
+for three months in Spain, without being noticed except for the
+largeness of their tips. It is quite true that Toledo avoided coming in
+contact with any of his former comrades. He felt that he now belonged to
+a different world. Inwardly he felt the same change the General had.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Michael Fedor had recovered from his first enthusiasm for
+bull fighting, they continued their travels across the continent as far
+as Russia, arriving considerably later than the numerous letters of
+introduction sent by the Princess Lubimoff to her relatives. The Prince
+remained there a year, visiting his less distant estates, and making the
+acquaintance of all the great families in his mother's circle of
+friends. The Colonel talked grandiloquently about everything related to
+war with various generals who received him as an equal. Was he not the
+aide and companion in heroic deeds of Saldaña, whom they had known in
+the war against Turkey, when they were mere subalterns?</p>
+
+<p>The former friends of the Princess Lubimoff told her son some unexpected
+news. His mother had announced her forthcoming marriage to an English
+gentleman. She had written to the Czar asking his authorization. This
+news startled no one save Michael Fedor. The times of the wild Nadina
+had long since passed. Her actions aroused no further interest. Other
+young Princesses had effaced her memory with adventures that caused even
+greater commotion. No one save a few of the ladies of the old court,
+when they forgot their cares and interests as mothers, would bring to
+mind the Princess Lubimoff, recalling days of vanished youth, which for
+old people are always more interesting than the present.<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a></p>
+
+<p>When the young man returned to the Paris palace, he found his mother as
+much of a Princess as ever, but married to a Scotch gentleman, Sir Edwin
+Macdonald.</p>
+
+<p>"Some day you will leave me," she said with a tragic note in her voice
+she used on great occasions. "A Prince Lubimoff should live at the
+court, serve his Emperor, be an officer in the Guard; and I need a
+companion, some one to lean on. Sir Edwin is the personification of
+distinction; but don't ever think that I shall forget your father.
+Never!... My hero!"</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor saw a gentleman who, indeed, was "the personification of
+distinction"; attentive to everyone, very precise in his bearing, a man
+of few words, who shut himself up for long hours&mdash;studying, according to
+the Princess. English politics was his preoccupation, and his one great
+dream was to return to Parliament, which he had been forced to leave by
+defeat at election.</p>
+
+<p>This cold man, with a pale smile and extreme insistence on good form
+even in the most trivial actions, neither displeased Michael as a
+step-father nor appealed to him as a friend. He was an inoffensive,
+somewhat stuffy person, whom Michael grew accustomed to seeing every day
+in his father's former place, and whom he had expected to see sooner or
+later anyhow.</p>
+
+<p>This marriage brought other people to the Lubimoff palace, with all the
+intimacy inspired by relationship.</p>
+
+<p>One of Sir Edwin's brothers had been obliged, like all the second sons
+in wealthy British families, to go out in the world and earn his living.
+After a life of adventure, he had finally settled down in the United
+States, near the Mexican border, and had soon found himself, through a
+marriage with an heiress of the country, much richer than his elder
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>His wife was a Mexican. She owned famous silver mines in the interior
+and vast ranches on the border. She<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> had only one daughter; and the
+latter was in her eighth year when Arthur Macdonald died as a result of
+a fall from his horse. The widow, with her little Alicia, moved to
+Europe. She wanted to live in London, to be near her brother-in-law, Sir
+Edwin, then a member of Parliament, and much admired by the Mexican
+woman as one of the directors of the world's affairs. Later she
+established herself in Paris, as the capital most to her taste, and as
+the place where she could meet many people from Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess Lubimoff treated her relative well, although her friendship
+suffered sudden changes, often going from extreme affection to sudden
+coldness.</p>
+
+<p>She and Doña Mercedes could talk about mines and vast estates, although
+neither of them had any accurate knowledge of their respective fortunes.
+They estimated their wealth only by the enormous quantities of
+money&mdash;millions of francs a year&mdash;which their distant business agents
+sent them, and which they spent without knowing just how. There was
+another thing which attracted the Princess, in her moments of good will,
+to Doña Mercedes: she herself was blond, while the Spanish Creole still
+kept traces of Hispanic-Aztec beauty, with a dark, somewhat olive
+complexion, large, wide-open, almond eyes, and hair astonishing for its
+blackness, brilliancy, and length.</p>
+
+<p>But an instinctive rivalry frequently embittered the relations of the
+two multi-millionaires. The Princess was sure that her own wealth was
+far the greater. When Doña Mercedes talked about Mexican silver, she
+mentioned Russian platinum! "What is silver worth compared to platinum!"
+And in order completely to floor her opponent, the Princess would bring
+out her family history. Beginning with the remote Cossack ancestor, who
+almost became the legitimate husband of Catherine the<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> Great, she
+paraded before her Mexican rival generals, marshals of the Emperor's
+household, hetmans, followed by their retinues of half savage horsemen,
+princes and ambassadors. Sir Edwin's wife talked as though she belonged
+to the reigning house, letting it be understood that her famous ancestor
+had played a part in the establishing of one of the Czars. For this
+reason she had always been shown special consideration at court.</p>
+
+<p>Doña Mercedes, inwardly jealous of so much greatness, nevertheless
+smiled a sweet enigmatic smile, as though she were to say, "That is all
+very far away&mdash;and perhaps a lie."</p>
+
+<p>Then immediately she would begin talking in her rapid whimsical French,
+a French which she had never been able to free from numerous Spanish
+locutions that still clung tenaciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Mama was an intimate friend of Eugenie.... Don't you know who Eugenie
+is? The Empress, the wife of Napoleon III. When Madame Barrios&mdash;that was
+my mother's name&mdash;was announced at the Tuileries, the doors were opened
+wide. Papa was one of the men who made Maximilian emperor."</p>
+
+<p>Over against the aristocratic grandeur of the Saint Petersburg court she
+set the image of the Mexican court, of the brief Empire which had ended
+in the execution of the Archduke Maximilian, and the madness of his
+bride, Carlotta. The Emperor endeavored to establish the musty old
+etiquette of the Austrian Court, but the Mexican matrons, when they
+called on the young Empress, said in the frank maternal fashion of the
+colonies: "How is everything, Carlotta?... How do you like the country,
+my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Moved by a similar frankness, Doña Mercedes would end her discourse by
+saying carelessly:<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Papa, seeing that the Empire was going badly, recognized Juarez as the
+head of the government, and joined the side of the Republic. He did it
+to save our mines."</p>
+
+<p>Then she would talk on for a long time about the Barrios, who, according
+to her, were descendants of the most ancient aristocracy of Spain. All
+the nobles of Madrid were therefore relatives of hers. Everybody knew
+that! As a child she had seen at home a lot of papers which proved her
+right to the title of Marchioness; but owing to the revolutions in her
+country, and her travels, she no longer knew where to find them.</p>
+
+<p>If the Princess referred to the splendor of her palace, the Creole would
+immediately mention her elegant private mansion in the Champs Élysées.
+The arrival of Colonel Toledo, as a valorous adornment giving the
+princely residence military prestige, did not intimidate Doña Mercedes.
+She too had a Spaniard, an Aragonese cleric, who acted as a sort of
+royal private chaplain, and whom she considered a man of science,
+because, bored by his sinecure in her employ, he had taken up elementary
+astronomy, and had set up a telescope on the roof of her house.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever the Mexican lady dared to imitate her entertainments, her
+carriages or her clothes, the Princess Lubimoff would audibly lament the
+fact that Paris was not in Russia, where she might call on the chief of
+police to force this low-bred Creole to show the respect due to her
+superiors. But after these bursts of anger she would feel a sudden wave
+of tenderness for Doña Mercedes. "In spite of your illiteracy," she
+would say, "you are a woman of natural talent and the only one with whom
+I can talk for an hour at a stretch."</p>
+
+<p>Between these two declining beauties, who had seen themselves the center
+of attraction and adoration in former years, there was a common bond,
+something which<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> moved them both like far off lovely music, like the
+cherished memory of youth: It was the daughter of Doña Mercedes, the
+vivacious Alicia Macdonald.</p>
+
+<p>Doña Mercedes seemed to see her own beauty, renewed with fresh vigor, in
+her child. But in this she was mistaken. Alicia added to her dark
+southern splendor the slenderness and slightly boyish freedom of
+movement of her father's race. The Princess, observing the girl's
+independent character, thought she saw herself back once more in the
+days when she was beginning to shock the Imperial Court. This too was a
+mistake. She herself had been able to follow all her most wilful
+impulses, without fear of gossip. She possessed everything. Besides her
+immense wealth, she had the advantages of birth, enabling her to elevate
+any man whatsoever to her own level, no matter how far beneath her he
+might be. Alicia had one ambition; to unite her fortune with a great
+title of the old aristocracy in order to be presented at court. Since
+her fifteenth year this desire had been fixed, calculating design,
+dissimulated under apparent recklessness. From her fairy-story days, her
+mother had talked to her about wonderful marriages, and of princes who
+in former times used to marry shepherdesses, but who were in search
+nowadays of millionaires' daughters.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor felt somewhat embarrassed at meeting this girl in his
+palace. She looked at him so boldly, with such a dominating expression,
+as though everything and everyone should bow before her!</p>
+
+<p>She had beauty of a type more fascinating than conventional. Her
+complexion, slightly tinged with a strange golden orange color, her
+large eyes a trifle slanting, her luxuriant hair, which, fleeing its
+bondage of hairpins, seemed alive and coiling like a cluster of snakes,
+gave her an exotic charm. The rest of her body revealed a modern<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a>
+physical education. Her limbs were firm and agile from continued
+exercise and play.</p>
+
+<p>Doña Mercedes seemed to urge Alicia and Michael toward each other from
+the first meeting.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't stand on formality," she said in a motherly way. "You are
+cousins."</p>
+
+<p>Although Michael didn't succeed in making out this relationship, he
+endeavored to treat the young girl in a friendly manner, while the
+Creole mother smiled as she already pictured Alicia with the coronet of
+a princess, bowing before the Czar. Princess Lubimoff was in one of her
+kindly moods; for the moment she did not believe in caste and
+privileges, to the extent that she would again have given money to the
+long-haired individuals who used to visit her. She accepted her friend's
+ambitious projects tolerantly and without comment.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince, meanwhile, was telling the Colonel his impressions.</p>
+
+<p>"Too much of a young lady! I like the others better."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos, having been Michael's companion in wide and joyous travels,
+knew whom the boy meant by "the others"; for Prince Lubimoff had begun
+very young to nibble at the grapes of life.</p>
+
+<p>On other occasions it irritated him that, with her unabashed demeanor of
+a foolish virgin, she should seem so much like "the others."</p>
+
+<p>"She's worse than a boy. If you only knew, Colonel, the things she says
+to me!"</p>
+
+<p>As for Alicia she was not wholly satisfied with the young Prince. She
+was accustomed to seeing other men make an effort to be gracious and
+show her flattering attentions, while Michael manifested a haughty
+character, like her own, arguing with her, and even daring to contradict
+her.<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a></p>
+
+<p>Occasionally, accompanied by Toledo, they went out together for a gallop
+in the Bois de Boulogne. All this was torture for Don Marcos, who had
+been a mountain warrior! But his present position called for certain
+duties. So he rode along as well as could be expected from a colonel of
+infantry.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia was a tireless rider. At the residence in the Champs-Élysées,
+Doña Mercedes had frequently been obliged to look for her in the
+stables, where she made herself at home among the hostlers and coachmen,
+and talked with professional authority as she supervised the grooming of
+the horses. Afterwards, when she came back into the drawing room her
+hair would have a decidedly horsey odor. Back in her native land she had
+mounted a horse and clung to it before she knew how to walk. In Paris
+she boldly made her way among the vehicles, knocked down the passersby
+occasionally, and often found her mad gallops intercepted by the police.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel endeavored to keep up with her. He never said anything, but
+his heart was heavy. The Prince protested against her racing in this
+fashion, which might have been all very well on her native plains. The
+girl's retorts widened the breach between them, with feelings of
+hostility. "No one is going to talk to me like that, not even my
+mother," she said. "I'm old enough to know what I ought to do." She was
+fifteen.</p>
+
+<p>One morning in the Bois, coming to a cross road that happened to catch
+her fancy, Alicia started her horse for the Avenue without consulting
+her companion.</p>
+
+<p>"No, this way," Michael called in a commanding voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like that; this is the way!" she answered aggressively.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince made an effort to cut her off by crossing ahead of her, and
+she spurred her horse against Michael's with a shock that brought the
+two animals to their knees.<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> The Colonel, who was behind them, caught an
+exchange of angry glances, and harsh words. Alicia raised her whip, and
+struck the Prince across the shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"You do that to <i>me</i>!" shouted Michael furiously.</p>
+
+<p>The face of this scion of the old Cossack Lubimoff underwent a rapid
+series of expressions, finally taking an aspect of extreme ugliness and
+savagery. His nostrils seemed to dilate even more than usual. He raised
+his whip and struck, but Toledo had put his horse between the two,
+receiving the tip of the lash on his cheek, which began to bleed. The
+sight of blood and the thought that the blow was intended for her, drove
+the young woman mad with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"Brute! Savage!... Russian!"</p>
+
+<p>This seemed too mild, and she stopped for a moment, to think up a
+greater insult. Her childhood memories helped her; the legend she had
+heard from the half-breeds back in her own land inspired her with a new
+affront, as if Michael Fedor were Fernan Cortes.</p>
+
+<p>"Spaniard!... Murderer of Indians!"</p>
+
+<p>And fearing a new lashing after that supreme insult, she fled at a mad
+pace without stopping until she reached the Arch of Triumph.</p>
+
+<p>After this incident Doña Mercedes lost all hope of her daughter's
+becoming a Lubimoff.</p>
+
+<p>"A Russian Princess!" she said scornfully. "Why, everyone is a Prince in
+Russia!... A mere English baron is better, or a French or Spanish
+count."</p>
+
+<p>Michael was in a mood no more conciliatory when the Colonel lectured
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to hear anything more about that wench!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>And the Princess, in one of her petulant moments averred that she
+considered this word the proper one. These relatives of Sir Edwin had
+always seemed to her<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> very ordinary people. Likewise it seemed to her
+very natural that her son should think of going back to Russia to fill
+his station as a Prince. The life of caste and privilege there was more
+suitable to his rank than the democratic ways of Paris, where certain
+American Indians, because they had millions, could imagine they were the
+equals of the Lubimoffs.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Michael remained in Russia until he was twenty-three. His
+military studies were passed brilliantly, according to Toledo, and the
+boy succeeded in distinguishing himself among the most famous cavalry
+officers of the Guard. He took prizes in exhibitions of horsemanship.
+With his revolver he could pot coins held up at fifty paces by his
+comrades. He wielded the sabre with a skill that his Cossack ancestor
+and General Saldaña would have admired. Every morning in the courtyard
+of his Petersburg palace he found awaiting him a life-sized dummy made
+of the firm sticky clay used by sculptors. He would stay for half an
+hour in front of it, going through his exercises. It was not enough to
+be able to strike one's enemy. The important thing was to strike well,
+with the greatest possible depth and force. And the head and limbs of
+the dummy went flying, severed by the steel blade. The study of military
+science was all well enough for those in the infantry or the
+artillery&mdash;sons of clerks and merchants!</p>
+
+<p>At first the Colonel was astonished at the magnificence and extravagance
+of Russian life. Finally he came to take it all quite naturally, as
+though he had been accustomed to something similar from his earliest
+boyhood. "My son, remember the name you bear," the Princess used to
+write to the Prince. "Do not disgrace it. Spend according to what you
+are." And the son, without asking her for anything, followed her advice
+faithfully by<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> coming to a direct understanding with the Russian
+administrators. Don Marcos figured that the Lieutenant in the Guard was
+spending something over three millions a year. His racing stables were
+the most celebrated in the capital. Many famous beauties of the court
+and the theaters were on good terms with Prince Michael Fedor. His
+supper parties in the Lubimoff palace or in the fashionable restaurants
+were sought after by all the young men of the aristocracy. To be invited
+to one of them was an extraordinary honor, something like being a member
+of an academy of supermen. It often happened that toward morning on
+nights of such parties celebrated women finished by dancing naked on the
+tables, so that the host "might not be displeased."</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes these celebrations ended in drunken brawls, where wine mingled
+with blood. The Colonel had seen one of these suppers result in a duel
+between two of the guests. It took place in the palace garden, just
+before dawn. One of the men was killed. His best friends carried the
+corpse to the quay of the Neva, and placed a revolver in his hand to
+make it look like a case of suicide.</p>
+
+<p>No: Don Marcos did not care much for those nocturnal feasts. He
+considered them dangerous. On one occasion, a youthful Grand Duke,
+absolutely drunk, amused himself by daubing the Colonel's whiskers with
+caviar, until, tired of such brazen familiarity, the Spaniard in turn
+put his hand in the dish and smeared the other man's august face with
+green. The duke hesitated for a moment whether or not to kill him, but
+finally embraced him, covering him with kisses and shouting aloud, "This
+is my father."</p>
+
+<p>Toledo preferred his own honorable and quiet friendships with General
+Saldaña's former companions in arms; solemn personages who talked to him
+about world politics<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> and future wars. Besides, the Prince's generosity
+permitted the Colonel secret pleasures, less noisy, and agreeably
+unostentatious.</p>
+
+<p>One night, returning to the Lubimoff palace after two o'clock, he saw
+there was a supper party in the great dining hall used on gala
+occasions. Some fifty guests had assembled, and in the course of the
+night many more had arrived. It seemed that the news had spread
+throughout all the pleasure resorts of the capital, attracting all the
+youthful libertines.</p>
+
+<p>Opposite the Prince was seated a Cossack officer, short, lithe as a
+panther, dark skinned, with Asiatic eyes. His wrinkled uniform showed
+signs of recent traveling. Michael Fedor showed him the greatest
+attention, as though he were the only guest. Toledo, being acquainted
+with all the friends of the house, was unable to place this uncouth
+Cossack, who looked as though he had come from some remote garrison in
+Siberia. Some one offered to relieve his uncertainty. He was startled on
+learning that it was the brother of a court lady who just at that moment
+was being much talked about on account of her extreme familiarity with
+Michael Fedor. The two men looked at each other with keen interest,
+exchanging silent toasts in huge glasses of champagne. At the other end
+of the hall arose the ceaseless wail of gypsy violins. Several dark
+skinned girls with striped aprons of many colors were dancing about the
+tables. But in spite of that, Don Marcos, glancing about, felt
+instinctively a note of gloom.</p>
+
+<p>"Leon, the sabres!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince, after looking at his watch, had arisen and given this order
+to his body servant, who was standing behind him. All the guests rushed
+for the doors forming a jam, like a crowd, pushing and shoving, at the
+entrance to a theater. There was no reason now to conceal their real
+feelings. They were eager for the promised spectacle.<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> The Colonel
+finally found some one who could talk intelligibly.</p>
+
+<p>"He came last night, to ask the Prince to marry his sister. A
+thirty-eight day trip.... The Prince refuses.... It isn't often you'll
+see a match like this.... He's the best swordsman in Siberia."</p>
+
+<p>The garden was covered with snow. It was night, and the uncertain moon
+illumined it with slanting rays, lengthening immeasurably the shadows of
+the trees. More than a hundred men formed in two black masses on the
+borders of the walk. The Colonel noticed the arrival of several
+servants. One was bringing swords; the rest were carrying large trays
+with bottles and glasses.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor bowed to his enemy, his eyes shining with kindliness and
+drink.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like another glass of something?"</p>
+
+<p>The Cossack thanked him with a gesture, and immediately Toledo saw him
+remove his long coat, the breast of which was adorned with cartridge
+pouches. Then he took off his shirt, and finally remained in nothing
+save his trousers and high boots. Then he stooped, and seizing two
+handfuls of snow, began to rub his wiry body and muscular arms.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince, like many of the spectators, shivered slightly with surprise
+and cold; but nevertheless that the condition of the combat might be
+equal, Lubimoff felt it imperative that he should follow the example of
+his hardy adversary. While he was removing the upper part of his uniform
+several torches were lighted and began to blaze like red stars in the
+semi-darkness of the moonlit garden.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos could see the two men face to face. They were bare from the
+waist up. Their breasts shone from the moisture of the recent massage.
+In their hands quivered sabres as sharp as razors.<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Ready!"</p>
+
+<p>Some one was directing the fight.</p>
+
+<p>"Why this is barbarous!" thought the Spaniard. "These men are savages."</p>
+
+<p>He did not dare say it aloud because he was a soldier, and more than
+that, a Colonel; but during the rest of his life he never could forget
+that scene.</p>
+
+<p>They crossed swords, parried, attacked, the Prince with firm poise, the
+other with catlike agility. Toledo could see that their bodies were
+blood red, but at the moment he thought it an effect of the torchlight.
+As they drew near him, circling about in their deadly play, he realized
+that they were actually red with blood. Their bodies seemed covered with
+a purple vestment that was torn to shreds and the shreds quivered at the
+ends as the blood dripped off. Standing out against that warm moist
+garment rose their white arms. The Prince was getting the worst of it.
+Toledo suddenly saw a deep gash appear in his brow; a moment later he
+thought he saw one of his ears hang half severed from the skull. But
+that wild cat from the steppes always sprang free from every sabre
+thrust. No one dared intervene; it was a duel without quarter, without
+rest, with no condition save the death of one or the other combatant. At
+times they came together, forming a single body bristling with white
+flashes in the shadow of the trees; a moment later they appeared apart,
+seeking each other in the fiery circle of the torches.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Toledo heard a wild cry of pain, the howl of a poor animal
+caught unawares. The Prince was the only one still standing. A straight
+thrust had slashed his adversary's jugular. Lubimoff stood there a
+moment motionless. Then his superhuman strength, which had sustained him
+until then, left him. With the loss of blood, all the weariness of the
+struggle came over him like a shot. He too tottered and fell, but into
+the arms of<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> friends. There was not a single doctor among the
+spectators. No one had thought of that. They considered the presence of
+one unnecessary in an encounter that could end only in death.</p>
+
+<p>All the curiosity seekers left the garden, following the unconscious
+Prince. A few servants stayed behind, gathered about the body of the
+Cossack. He was lying face downward. With respectful awe they watched as
+his legs quivered for the last time, as the blood slowly emptied itself
+from the neck, and spread out across the snow, in a black stain that was
+beginning to take on a bluish tinge in the livid light of dawn.</p>
+
+<p>At the court, which had already shown frequent alarm over the Prince's
+notorious adventures, this event caused a great stir. Lubimoff's duels,
+his love affairs, his scandalous entertainments, annoyed the young
+Emperor, who had taken it upon himself to improve the morals of his
+associates.</p>
+
+<p>In aristocratic gatherings, the freakish whims of the almost forgotten
+Nadina Lubimoff were brought to memory and discussed again. The young
+Cossack was related to people of influence, and his death contributed to
+the complete disgrace of his sister.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor had not yet entirely recovered from his wounds, when he
+received the order to leave Russia. The Czar was banishing him, and for
+an indefinite period. He might live in Paris with his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right; so long as they respect his income," was the
+Colonel's only comment.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving in Paris, the Prince was convinced of his mother's insanity.
+That was something he had suspected for some time, from her letters. Sir
+Edwin had died, rather suddenly, three years before, in England,
+following defeat in an election. The palace in the Monçeau quarter had
+suffered an interior transformation that represented<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> a cost of several
+millions. The Princess was devoting all her time to it. The Arabic,
+Persian, Greek, or Chinese drawing rooms, the construction and
+decoration of which had made the fortune of two architects and several
+dealers in doubtful antiques, had just disappeared; while furnishings
+acquired years before as extremely rare pieces had been scattered to the
+four winds as though they were mere rubbish of no value. The palace
+remained the same as before on the outside; but the interior, beginning
+with the stairway, was rebuilt in imitation of a medieval castle. Not a
+single window remained without its stained glass, not a room but was
+shrouded in the vague half light of a cellar. All the conventional
+Gothic known to modern contractors was employed by order of the Princess
+in the restoration of the house. Three stories and one entire wing had
+been torn down to form the nave of a cathedral.</p>
+
+<p>Michael saw advancing toward him a tall austere woman, with long
+transparent fingers, and large, staring, uncanny eyes. She was dressed
+in black, with loose sleeves that almost touched the ground, and with a
+white bonnet fitting close to the head beneath her mourning veils. In
+spite of the fact that she had a rosary at her wrist and talked with the
+air of a martyr, her son imagined that he was looking at an opera
+singer.</p>
+
+<p>The expulsion of the Prince from Russia had caused her neither surprise
+nor sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"Those Romanoffs have always disliked us. They cannot forget that your
+illustrious ancestor, so they say, used to beat Catherine when he caught
+her with anyone else."</p>
+
+<p>Her thoughts rose above all such worldly considerations. She had never,
+as a matter of fact, taken any stock in religion; but now she declared
+herself a Catholic. She had made no public declaration of conversion, to
+be sure,<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> but she felt she must adopt the belief. Her new and final
+personality demanded it.</p>
+
+<p>"Your father approves of my new stand. Often in the night I have talked
+with my hero. He is glad to see me in the path of truth."</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had Michael Fedor and the Colonel arrived, than they noticed
+the strange visitors who were frequenting the palace. The long haired
+terrorists had been succeeded by numerous fortune tellers, soothsayers,
+clairvoyants, and solemn professors of occult sciences. A plain old
+lamp-stand, which looked as though it might have walked upstairs by
+itself from the concierge's quarters, was jumping about and rapping, at
+all hours, in the bedroom of the Princess.</p>
+
+<p>One day she decided to tell her son the great secret of her life. At
+last she knew who she was; the spirits had revealed to her the knowledge
+of her true personality. In one of her many previous existences she had
+been the most unfortunate and beautiful, the most "romantic", of queens.
+The soul of the Russian princess, Nadina Lubimoff, centuries ago had
+dwelt in the body of Mary Stuart.</p>
+
+<p>"That is why I always had a special liking for the story of the unhappy
+queen. And now I know why, when I saw Sir Edwin in London, I fell in
+love with him on the spot, in the most irresistible fashion. His
+ancestors were Scottish."</p>
+
+<p>Such reasons were to her as unanswerable as all the others which had
+guided her actions. And to pay homage to the queenly soul which was,
+according to all her mystic attendants, reincarnated in her, she was
+going to live like the beheaded sovereign of Scotland, copying the
+Queen's clothes as she had seen them in pictures, converting her palace
+into a mediæval castle, and eating from antique plates nothing but
+Renaissance delicacies, the recipes<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> for which she had employed a
+history professor to discover in ancient chronicles.</p>
+
+<p>Carriages now rarely entered the Court of Honor of the palace. The grand
+stairway was growing mossy between its steps. Not so the delivery
+entrance. There, each day, the professionals of "the beyond" appeared,
+poorly dressed and suspicious looking men and women, who were exploiting
+the Princess, generous as a queen&mdash;and was she not one?&mdash;under the guise
+of aiding her in the manipulation of the lamp table, and conjuring up
+historic phantoms which, to prove their presence, moved the carpets,
+made the pictures fall from the walls, changed the positions of the
+chairs, and committed other childish deviltries.</p>
+
+<p>Doña Mercedes avoided visiting the Princess. Her simple faith caused her
+to be frightened at queens that last for centuries, and at those halls
+with old furniture that seemed to palpitate with mysterious life. She
+preferred the quiet wholesome conversation of the priests whom she was
+supporting for herself. The Aragonese vicar had allowed himself to be
+snatched away in triumph by another devout millionaire. He had grown
+tired, no doubt, of the excessive ease and idleness afforded him by his
+penitent, and was bored with astronomical observations on the roof of
+the dwelling in the Champs-Élysées.</p>
+
+<p>At present she was offering her hospitality to a Monsignor, a Bishop <i>in
+partibus</i>, who directed the widow's money into various pious charities
+of his own invention.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia had married a French Duke, twenty years her senior, and after a
+few months of marriage was causing herself to be very much talked about.
+Doña Mercedes, offended, was punishing her by seeing her very seldom, in
+hopes that such coldness would cause the Duchess de Delille to follow
+the example of her mother. In the meantime, the latter was concentrating
+all her family affection<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> on the Monsignor, a saint, and a man of the
+world, who in the evening, to avoid a discordant note, took off his
+cassock and sat down at table in a tuxedo, while a flock of mechanical
+birds sang and flapped their wings in the large gilded cage in the
+Creole's dining room.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor saw Alicia twice in the Lubimoff palace. She did not feel
+there the uneasiness her mother experienced, and even declared the
+manias of the Princess very original and interesting. Afternoons when
+she was bored, and paid the Princess a visit, she too seemed to believe
+in the lamp table and in the "Queen's" protégés with the mystic
+gestures.</p>
+
+<p>She too consulted them to find out whether she would be happy, and
+especially whether she would be greatly loved, although she never told
+who it was that was supposed to love her. On other occasions she asked
+the oracle, with a note of jealous anxiety in her voice, what a certain
+unknown person was doing at that particular time. The name of the person
+was kept secret, but some months he would be dark and at other times he
+would be blond. She and the lamp table understood each other perfectly.</p>
+
+<p>"I always said that girl was cleverer than her mother," the Princess
+affirmed.</p>
+
+<p>When Alicia first met the Prince, on his return home, she burst out
+laughing, and almost embraced him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember how we used to hate each other? Do you remember that
+day in the Bois when we whipped each other?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with an air of interest, scrutinizing him from head to
+heel without detecting anything of the displeasing youth of former
+times. She knew of his adventures in Russia, his loves, his duels, his
+expulsion. An interesting man! A Byronic fellow! Besides, she had heard
+that he was a bit of a brute with women.<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Come and see me. We must be friends. Remember we are relatives."</p>
+
+<p>Michael scrutinized her also, but with a certain seriousness. He had
+heard a great deal about her since arriving in Paris. During her three
+years of married life the Duke had tried twice to divorce her. It
+weighed on his mind to think that he should be enjoying immense wealth
+just in return for allowing her to bear his name. When he shook hands
+with a friend, he was never sure of the latter's relations with his
+wife. But Alicia had married the Duke in order to be a Duchess, and in
+the end the couple came to a practical agreement. Half of her income was
+to go to the Duke, who was to travel, or, if he wished, reside in Paris
+with a former mistress. Alicia might live as she pleased in her splendid
+white mansion in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and display a ducal
+coronet on her underwear, on her silver, and on the doors of her motor
+cars.</p>
+
+<p>The little horsewoman of the Mexican plains, trained to morning gallops,
+had been transformed into a woman of proud and arrogant beauty. To
+Michael she looked like a California orange, golden, gleaming, wafting a
+strong sweet fragrance.</p>
+
+<p>Inwardly he winced at the gaze of those dark eyes, so enticing and
+fascinating, so provoking and commanding, in full consciousness of
+power.</p>
+
+<p>But no. He remembered that various men whom he disliked, had, according
+to common gossip, already preceded him in falling under Alicia's spell.
+And for the time being he was interested in a French actress, whom he
+had met on the train returning from Russia.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, he suddenly beheld her again in his imagination as she was
+years before. Perhaps she had not changed. She was used to managing men
+with a firm hand, to changing from one to another, as though they<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> were
+post horses. He and Alicia would quarrel at their second meeting. They
+might easily end by coming to blows.</p>
+
+<p>He saw no more of her. New preoccupations changed the direction of his
+thoughts. One day in the street he met a Russian who seemed old and ill.
+It was Sergueff, his former teacher. Sergueff must now have been some
+forty years of age. He looked as though he were in his seventies, with a
+dirty white beard, grayish skin, and a wrinkled almost motheaten face,
+with no sign of life save in the two green holes that marked his eyes.
+From Saint Petersburg they had sent him to a prison in Siberia. He had
+escaped, crossed half of Asia on foot and alone, as far as a Chinese
+seaport, and there he had taken ship for the United States. The story of
+this tour of the world was told in a few words, as though it were a
+single walk on the boulevards.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor took him to the palace. The Colonel seemed dismayed by
+Sergueff's presence, and drew back into his shell. He must remember his
+own connections with nobles of the Russian court! Some of them were
+former generals of police!</p>
+
+<p>The son of Princess Lubimoff talked for several days with the fugitive.
+The memory of his own expulsion from the court caused Michael vaguely to
+sympathize with this man who was likewise an exile. Besides, in the
+depths of his mind something of his mother's character was stirring,
+with all its inconsistencies and hazy vague desires. The officer of the
+Guard listened as attentively as a scholar to the doctrines of the
+revolutionist.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, those men are right!" he exclaimed with the passionate enthusiasm
+that the Princess herself expressed for every novelty.</p>
+
+<p>For the first few days he felt a yearning for martyrdom, a deep desire
+for renunciation, the mystic abnegation<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> of the man of his race. He
+thought of many princes like himself, educated at court, with high
+social positions, who had given away their wealth to live among the poor
+and dedicate their lives to the triumph of truth and justice. He would
+do the same. He would reawaken to true life, and he was sure that his
+mother would approve. General Saldaña had given his blood to
+rehabilitate the past; he would give his to overcome all obstacles in
+the pathway of the future. Times change. The past consists of a certain
+number of centuries; the future is infinite.</p>
+
+<p>But Lubimoff was not a true Russian. No sooner had he decided to carry
+out his mystic determination, than the Latin love of pleasure reawakened
+in him. Life is good, and offers many pleasant things! For him the tree
+of life was still overflowing with sap; there still remained for him so
+many leafy springs, so many fruitful summers! Later, perhaps, when only
+the dry wood remained....</p>
+
+<p>The one positive and immediate result of this resurrection was Michael's
+sense of his own ignorance and of the emptiness of his life. There was
+something in the world besides knowing languages, wielding rapiers, and
+riding horses. Man should seek the realization of his greatness in more
+serious enterprises than love making, duels and betting. Fate, in giving
+him wealth, had exempted him from the harsh necessity of work. But that
+was no reason why he should renounce making his mark in the world, as he
+passed through it, just as thousands of his predecessors had done, and
+as millions of men to come would continue to do.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time in his life Michael sought the comradeship of books,
+and this initial reading stirred him with a new desire. He made up his
+mind to know the world, to see strange countries, to struggle with the
+blind<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> forces, which form the pulsing of the planet, and to live the
+coarse rough adventures of men who go from port to port. His father had
+told him of remote ancestors of the Saldaña family, who had gained
+titles and fortunes by setting sail from humble Spanish harbors,
+swooping out like sea gulls across the gloomy Ocean, in the track of
+Columbus and the Pinzons, in search of new lands of mystery. An ancestor
+of his, disembarking with the aged Ponce de Leon in Florida, in search
+of the famous "Fountain of Youth," had been one of the discoverers of
+the present United States. The first Saldaña to be a noble had obtained
+his title of "don" by founding a city in the neighborhood of Panama. Why
+should he not be a navigator like his forebears, a wanderer of the seas,
+enjoying exotic pleasures, and perhaps succeeding in wresting some
+secret from the blue deep?</p>
+
+<p>Life in that palace which his mother's mania had rendered ugly, was
+becoming uncomfortable and distasteful, and was impelling him to flee.
+The Princess did not make the slightest objection, when informed that
+her son desired to buy a yacht to navigate the seven seas. Let him do
+so, by all means! It was a princely pastime, quite worthy of a Prince
+Lubimoff. They were constantly growing richer. The oil, the platinum,
+all the precious ores of their properties and the products of their
+lands, as large as nations, made up an enormous income. The preceding
+year it had reached the sum of seventeen million francs: a million a
+month! For a single private family it meant unbelievable wealth, and the
+Princess Lubimoff, who had temporarily regained her sanity, modestly
+added:</p>
+
+<p>"But for a queen it isn't much."</p>
+
+<p>In England Michael purchased a sailing yacht, with a sharp bow, bold
+masts, and an auxiliary engine, and gave it the Spanish name for the sea
+gull, the "Gaviota."<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a></p>
+
+<p>His idea was to continue on the ocean the life he had led on land,
+selecting, however, only its most interesting phases. For that reason he
+decided to take Sergueff along. The teacher seemed melancholy, as though
+the comforts and the liberal sums of money which the Prince bestowed on
+him weighed on his conscience like remorse. He had something more urgent
+to do in the world than voyage idly hither and thither in a luxurious
+boat. He disappeared one day, to return to Russia, as though the gallows
+had a fascination for him. Or was it that he preferred, in case of
+better luck than that, to travel once again around the world, but in his
+own manner?</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel, as the aide de camp of the Prince, felt obliged to embark.
+He had never yet left "his boy's" side! But, oh, he was not blessed with
+sea legs, and, much less, with a sea stomach! He was a hero of the
+mountains! They were obliged to send him back to Paris from a port in
+Brazil.</p>
+
+<p>The voyage of the <i>Gaviota</i> lasted for five years. In the second year
+Michael Fedor thought his career as a navigator was about to be
+interrupted. The war between Russia and Japan had just broken out and he
+cabled from a Pacific port, asking for his former place in the Guard.
+The reply was a long time in coming. The Czar was still angry with him
+and kept him in exile.</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better!" Michael finally said to himself in a voice choked
+with anger. He guessed what was going to happen; what was to be the
+final fate of those brave Russians of the sharp sabers, when they came
+to face the astute little yellow men who had silently gone on
+appropriating the most scientific occidental arts of killing.</p>
+
+<p>His adventures in the various ports, his relations with women of every
+race and color, were sufficient to fill his life.<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I am studying geography," he wrote Don Marcos, after inquiring about
+his mother's health. "I am studying the geography of love."</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before he was obliged to interrupt his cruise to return
+to the Princess. The physicians had ordered her away from the Paris
+palace, with its gloomy decorations so stimulating to her obsessions.
+They were sending her to the Riviera to drink sunlight and open air.</p>
+
+<p>And poor Maria Stuart, absolutely <i>incognito</i>, went from one large hotel
+to another, occupying entire floors with her retinue of much beaten
+Russian servants and much adored soothsayers and witch doctors. She was
+the despair of the hotel keepers, who were always glad to see her
+depart, though she alone paid more than all the other guests put
+together.</p>
+
+<p>Her son found her looking like a specter in her flowing mourning garb.
+She was weaker and thinner, and her eyes had taken on an alarming, fixed
+stare, which gave one the creeps. Her complexion had lost its former
+whiteness, gradually growing darker as though burned by an inner fire.
+For the moment her sole preoccupation was the construction of a palace
+on the Blue Coast. On French territory, in sight of Monte Carlo, she had
+bought a small promontory, a spur of land and rocks jutting out into the
+sea, a ridge covered with century-old olive trees and gnarled pines. She
+was kept busy quarreling with a stubborn old couple, an aged peasant and
+his wife, who were refusing to sell her the extreme point of the
+headland. She had already spent many thousands of francs on the plans of
+the future palace. Architects, painters, and landscape gardeners were
+constantly working for her, making studies of the historic past, in the
+endeavor to view of the Mediterranean an enormous Scottish castle
+express her imaginings. Her idea was to erect in full as Scotch as could
+possibly be imagined; in short, according<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> to the Princess, it was to be
+"a novel of Walter Scott, done in stone."</p>
+
+<p>Michael was frightened. The sumptuous dungeon in Paris was to be
+repeated in the face of that luminous sea, in one of the most smiling
+landscapes of the earth. Behind his mother's back he talked with all the
+men who were working on the future Villa Sirena, the "Villa of the
+Sirens." The Princess had selected this name, in the conviction that on
+moonlight nights the daughters of the briny deep would come and visit
+her, singing on the reefs beneath her window. That was the least they
+could do for her!</p>
+
+<p>Each day the veil of mystery was opening more widely before her eyes,
+allowing her to see things which for others were invisible.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos, who, deserted by his former pupil, had gone back to the
+Princess, likewise received instructions from Lubimoff. He was to
+prevent the unhappy lady from perpetrating such a sacrilege on the
+Mediterranean. But what could the poor Colonel do with that madwoman who
+spent whole weeks without speaking to him, as though she did not know
+who he was!</p>
+
+<p>The Prince returned to his yacht, and a year later being by chance in
+upper Norway on his return from an expedition to the Arctic Ocean, he
+received the sad but expected news. His mother had died, just as she saw
+rising from among the olive trees and pines of the rosy promontory, the
+beginning of huge stone walls artificially blackened like the painted
+panels in the antique shops, and which looked as though they were about
+to fall in ruins from mere age, as soon as they had risen from the
+ground.<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<p>M<small>ICHAEL</small> arrived in time to receive the body of the Princess in Paris.
+Before her death her mind had been illuminated by the sudden flare of
+reason which is the signal of the end in cases of serious mental
+disturbances. She had left various papers on which she had noted loans
+made to certain persons, and judicious suggestions for her son in regard
+to the management of the enormous fortune. She wanted to be buried
+beside her husband, her first husband, "the hero," in the Père Lachaise
+cemetery. During the last years she had stayed in Paris, she had been
+seized once more by the craze for building, and had busied herself with
+the preparation of her final dwelling place. Beside the mausoleum of the
+Marquis of Villablanca, whose image, frowning and indomitable, held in
+one hand a broken sword, she had set up another monument no less
+ostentatious with a statue which was supposed to be her exact likeness
+and was nothing less than the semblance of the unhappy Queen of Scots,
+as it appears in the engraving of the Romanticist period.</p>
+
+<p>During the funeral ceremonies, Michael Fedor met again many persons who
+formerly visited the Lubimoff palace, and whom he had thought were dead.
+Doña Mercedes in tears embraced him. She had become extraordinarily
+stout, and the coppery complexion inherited from her Aztec ancestors had
+taken on an unhealthy ascetic pallor. She looked like the Mother
+Superior of a noble convent of nuns. At her side, Monsignor, in his silk
+cassock and with an air of compunction, was moving his lips to save the
+dead woman's soul. "My son! We<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> have all our sorrows." And as she said
+this, the poor lady looked at another woman elegantly dressed in
+mourning who stood there somewhat aloof, in the cemetery, and seemed
+utterly incapacitated by the ceremony which had obliged her to rise
+before noon.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess de Delille also came forward to meet him, taking both his
+hands and giving him a strange glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother loved me ... really loved me. During these last years we
+saw each other very often."</p>
+
+<p>Michael nodded assent. He knew that already. The Princess Lubimoff had
+been the one loyal friend of this passionate unscrupulous woman, who was
+gradually losing every one's respect. She had defended Alicia when other
+high society women declared open war and closed their doors to her,
+fearing for their husbands' fidelity. As she used to play every winter
+at Monte Carlo, she had been in the company of the Princess up to the
+last moments.</p>
+
+<p>"She loved me more than my mother ever did.... Perhaps she remembered
+that I might have been her daughter."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince walked away, as though annoyed by this allusion. He had heard
+such things about her!... But all during the ceremony he kept seeing her
+in his mind's eye. She was still beautiful, but so strangely beautiful.
+Her skin had lost the golden tinge of ripened fruit, and now was pale,
+the dull white of Japanese paper. Her large eyes, which gave off green
+and yellow glints, stared with disturbing fixity and seemed at the same
+time to have a blank expression, as though covered by an invisible
+spider web. Her least bitter enemies accused her of a certain propensity
+for spirits. She drank all sorts of American mixed drinks like an
+habitué of the bars. Other people attributed her pallor and the
+continual darkly bewildered<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> look in her eyes to morphine, opium and all
+the various liquids and perfumes producing lethargy and creating
+"artificial paradise." The little Alicia of former years was drinking,
+draining it to the last drop from the cup of life in deep draughts.</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor thought that he had seen the last of her, but a few days
+later he began to receive letters. He was alone, and must be feeling
+sad, so she was inviting him to come and eat with her, informally, of
+course, as was natural among close relatives. His evasions brought fresh
+invitations by telephone. The Prince, like a person fulfulling a
+tiresome social obligation, finally went one evening to her little
+palace in the Avenue du Bois, one of the numerous imitations of the
+Petit Trianon, which are to be found in various parts of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess de Delille was proud of this edifice and the tiny garden
+with its sharp, gilded grating, in front of which all fashionable Paris
+passed. Michael was acquainted with the drawing rooms without ever
+having been inside them. The illustrated journals, which cover the
+styles of wealthy social life, had published photographs, in Europe and
+America, of the interior of her residence. Gossip had kept him informed
+of Alicia's strange life. She had suddenly been taken with the mad
+desire of seeing people, of being admired, and of astonishing every one
+by her prodigality. She gave a series of great fêtes, and publicly
+protested because the municipality of Paris would not allow her to
+illuminate the entire Champs Élysées and the Arch of Triumph so that her
+guests might ride up to her very door in a fiery apotheosis. She had
+given a garden party in the Bois de Boulogne, with water sports, and
+dances of sacred dancers, brought from Asia. The buffet supper had been
+prepared for three thousand guests. On another occasion, for a single
+costume ball, she spent a hundred<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> thousand francs, to transform part of
+her residence into an interior of Persian style and the next day she
+began to have the rooms restored to their original state.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she would disappear, and people would wink and make malicious
+comments because she left no address. Some new love affair! Hers were
+nearly always wandering fancies, that called for long trips and new
+horizons! Perhaps she was in Constantinople or in Egypt; perhaps she was
+in hiding in one of the large New York hotels. At times such guesses
+were right; and then again the most intimate friends of the Duchess
+could affirm that she had not left Paris. Was not her automobile
+standing in front of the door?</p>
+
+<p>This was another of Alicia's eccentricities. At all hours of the day and
+night, one of her various expensive cars was kept in readiness in front
+of the stairway. Three chauffeurs divided the service between them. They
+stayed in the porter's quarters; and as soon as the bell was heard, they
+had only to put on their gloves, run to the machine, and start the
+motor. She often chose the most extraordinary hours for going out.
+Sometimes it would be just after returning from a ball, then again she
+would get up for a ride after she had gone to bed. Frequently she would
+select the early morning hours which were usually her time of soundest
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>At times the chauffeurs would succeed each other, week after week,
+without leaving the gate of the mansion. The Duchess did not care to go
+out. She no longer felt her sudden impulses to ride aimlessly about
+Paris, while the city slept, pay unseasonable calls, or glide through
+the woods on the outskirts of the capital at the height of some violent
+storm. Meantime, the autos seemed to age, as they stood there
+motionless, now with their wheels deep in the snow of the courtyard, and
+again with the glass of the wind shield flecked with the tear drops of<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a>
+the slanting rain, that swept under the glass covered porte-cochère.
+During all such periods, Alicia, in spite of her restless impulsive
+nature, would be spending whole days in bed, telling her intimate
+friends that to keep one's beauty one must take a "rest cure" from time
+to time. She would entertain her friends at dinner without getting out
+of bed. The table would be spread in luxurious fashion in her large
+bedroom, and lying between the sheets, with the dishes within reach on a
+tiny table, she would laugh and chat for hours with her guests. Months
+would go by without her seeing the outside of her house, while the
+costly objects in her rooms, amassed to indulge her whims, were quite
+forgotten. Her vanity was satisfied, at such times, by the mere fact of
+having constructed a costly jewel case to harbor her idleness.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince met her in a little reception room on the ground floor. She
+was in truth receiving him with absolute lack of ceremony. She was
+dressed in a black tunic of her own invention, a combination of the
+Greek peplum and the Japanese kimono. Her bare arms floated free from
+the soft silk that almost seemed to live, it clung so closely to her
+body. Underneath it, half revealed, were the contours and perfumed
+warmth of her flesh, hidden by no inner veils. Michael glanced at his
+tuxedo and gleaming shirt-front as though his own costume were quite out
+of place.</p>
+
+<p>As she took him to the elevator, which was white and quilted like a
+glove box, he caught a rapid glimpse of the drawing rooms of the lower
+floor, ostentatious, but left in a shadow almost as dark as night; of
+the large dining-hall, deserted, with the furniture covered; of the
+little dining-room in which there were no signs whatsoever of
+preparations.... Where was she taking him?... Was the table set in her
+bedroom?<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a></p>
+
+<p>The elevator passed the second floor without stopping? "We are going to
+my study," said Alicia. "I eat there when I am alone."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was amazed at the so-called "study," a large room which
+occupied a major portion of the third floor, and in which only one or
+two books in a small book-rack were to be seen. The place was decorated
+in imitation "Far East" style: plain black lacquer furniture, silk
+either of pale shades or of an intense dark purple, and an array of
+frightful idols. A diffused bluish light, like that used in night scenes
+on the stage, descended from the ceiling. A screen, embroidered with a
+design in gold, formed a sort of second more intimate room, the floor of
+which was covered with white rugs of fur, with long, silky hair. Heaped
+about were dozens of pillows of various colors adorned with winged
+reptiles and unheard of flowers.</p>
+
+<p>An exotic, penetrating odor made Lubimoff wince. He knew that perfume.
+And there was a look of severity in his eyes as he glanced sharply at
+the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," she said. "They are going to serve us."</p>
+
+<p>As the Prince looked about, without seeing any sort of a chair, Alicia
+set him an example, dropping on a heap of cushions. Michael sat down in
+the same fashion, beside a tiny mother of pearl table no bigger than a
+tabouret. On it a lamp with a dark shade let fall a circle of soft
+light. Inwardly the Prince began to feel a boiling of suppressed anger
+as he thought of his evening wasted.</p>
+
+<p>"You must have eaten this way often," she continued, "you have traveled
+more than I. The style of decoration must be familiar to you."</p>
+
+<p>Yes; he knew the style, the original and authentic style, and for that
+very reason he did not care to see it again in imitation. Besides
+obliging him to eat on the<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> floor, there in a house on the Avenue de
+Bois.... What an affectation!</p>
+
+<p>But in a short time his opinion began to change. A poseur she
+undoubtedly was, but affectation had already become a more or less
+natural trait in her, a sort of second nature. He guessed that even in
+its slightest details none of this had been prepared especially for him.
+Alicia lived and ate there when she was alone just as she was doing
+then. She was prey to a desire to be different from other people even
+when no one was noticing her.</p>
+
+<p>The servant in charge of the meal was a copper-colored man with a long
+down-curling mustache. He was dressed in a black tuxedo, with a white
+cloth wrapped around his legs like a skirt. He had long hair, done up on
+his head like a woman's and held in place by a tortoiseshell comb. The
+Asiatic was placing the huge trays containing the food on the floor:
+Some of the dishes were of ancient hammered silver, others of many
+colored lacquer, or of semi-transparent materials made in imitation of
+emerald, topaz, and red sealing wax.</p>
+
+<p>For Michael the meal looked like something a great chef might have
+prepared if he had suddenly gone mad and made up the dishes in the midst
+of his ravings. There was not a single item that suggested the
+harmonious course of an ordinary dinner. The palate acted on the
+imagination, awakening memories of distant travels, visions of far off
+lands. Exotic preserves alternated with hot dishes. Pastry flavored with
+penetrating perfumes was served along with sharp, biting, or intensely
+bitter sauces.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia, half reclining on the cushions, looking at the dishes without
+appetite, extended her hand carelessly toward the most unusual
+delicacies, and those with the<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> most pungent and racy savors. Clearly
+the perversion of her palate was profound. She herself saw to it that
+Michael's glass was always filled. It was a drink of her own invention,
+having a champagne base. It burned and rasped his mouth, paralyzing all
+other sensation with its stinging coolness. It penetrated his nostrils
+with a lingering scent of the rarest flowers and of Asiatic spices.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of the dead Princess, Alicia came to mention her own mother.
+They were now on terms of open hostility. Her eyes began to gleam with
+defiance as she was reminded of Doña Mercedes, confined in the
+Champs-Élysée residence with her court of clericals, and showing herself
+in public only for the organizing of pious works. She was trying to
+starve her only daughter to death!... And as Michael smiled at this
+explosion of anger, she explained her grievances.</p>
+
+<p>"She gives me hardly anything; a mere nothing: half a million francs.
+And I have to hand two hundred and fifty thousand a year over to my
+husband: a rather expensive lover, whom I avoid seeing. You are really
+rich, my dear, and don't understand such things.... Since the fortune is
+all in her name, she tries to starve me out and keeps her money to
+squander it with the priests.... Poor Señora! She can't find any
+admirers now except that <i>Monsignor</i> and other sponges like him.... And
+I, her own daughter, have to implore her like a beggar for the crumbs
+she gives me, seasoned with sermons.... Oh, if it hadn't been for your
+mother! She really was a great lady: I never lamented my poverty to her
+in vain; she gave me even more than I asked for. You know of course that
+I owe you some money. A little.... I don't know how much. Didn't you
+really know that?... I shall pay you back when I get my inheritance."<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a></p>
+
+<p>And with brutal frankness she expounded her full thought.</p>
+
+<p>"When will that bigot leave me in peace?... Old people ought to make way
+for the young. What fun do they get out of going on living?"</p>
+
+<p>They had finished eating. She went on filling both their glasses with
+her special drink. At first Michael had found it repugnant, but in the
+end he was attracted to its refreshing fragrance which gently troubled
+the senses, like an intoxication with perfumes.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you use the pipe," said Alicia simply.</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head and thought of the odor which struck him on entering.
+He knew what sort of a "pipe" it was, and gazed about the study. The
+smoking den must be in some hidden corner!</p>
+
+<p>"A man like you!" she went on. "A sailor! And I fooled myself into
+thinking we'd smoke together!"</p>
+
+<p>She even gave him to understand that the hope of being able to give him
+that forbidden pleasure was the principal reason for her invitation. She
+became resigned when she learned that the Prince, vigorous as he was,
+suffered nausea every time he attempted to experiment with that Asiatic
+vice. And while he lighted a havana, Alicia took from a silver case the
+cigarettes which she smoked in the presence of the "uninitiated":
+Oriental tobacco, but heavily dosed with opium. Suddenly Michael was
+convinced of something of which he had a presentiment the moment he
+entered the place, or even earlier, the moment their glances had met in
+the cemetery. He saw her half rising from the cushions, with a
+panther-like contraction of her muscles, as though she were ready to
+spring at him. It was the concentrated impulse of the beast, beautiful
+and sure of its power, unable to wait, and not knowing how to feign.<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a></p>
+
+<p>Alicia had forgotten the demi-tasse she held in her hand, as she sat
+there, looking at him fixedly. The tiny blue electric spark dancing in
+her eyes was something well known to Michael.</p>
+
+<p>It was the offering glance of female silence, inviting violence, and
+mastery. He had encountered that glance often along his path of triumph
+as a conquering millionaire.... He felt he must say something at once to
+break the silent charm of the beautiful witch, who, sure of her final
+victory, was smiling and blowing puffs of cigarette smoke toward him. So
+Michael alluded to her amorous fame, to the great number of lovers she
+was supposed to have had. That might widen the distance between them.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! You too?" said Alicia laughing, with masculine frankness. "I don't
+suppose your morals are the same as Mamma's! You are not going to read
+me a sermon on my behavior. Although, after all, Mamma doesn't blame me
+for what I do. What makes her angry is the fact that I am not afraid of
+what people say, and that sometimes I am attracted to unknown men of low
+birth. Poor Señora! If I were to have an affair with a king or a crown
+prince, perhaps she'd even let us see each other in her house, and have
+her <i>Monsignor</i> mount guard into the bargain."</p>
+
+<p>She remained silent for a moment. That disturbing glance was still fixed
+on Michael.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true; I have had a lot of men. And how about you? Do you think I
+don't know about your wanderings all over the planet in quest of types
+of women unknown to the novels and capable of giving new sensations?...
+We have both done the same: only it wasn't necessary for me to travel
+around so much to learn just what you have learned.... And you are not
+so absurd as to imagine,<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> as certain men do, that our cases are not to
+be compared because we are of different sexes."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince listened silently as she expounded her ideas. She was deeply
+in love with life, and in return she demanded all that life could give
+her.... The minds of other women were occupied with questions of a
+material nature: desire for wealth, longings for luxury, domestic
+cares.... As for her, she possessed everything; to-morrow held no
+worries for her; not even in regard to her beauty, sustained as it was
+by wonderful health, and seeming to increase in spite of age and her
+prodigal waste of energies.</p>
+
+<p>In her life, made up of caprices, always completely satisfied, even to
+the point of satiety, only one thing interested her, from its infinite
+variety and from its many phases, which might seem to vulgar people a
+monotonous repetition of one another, but which in reality were distinct
+for a mind attuned, as hers was, to exquisite sensations. That thing was
+love.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh please understand me, Michael; don't sit there laughing to yourself.
+You know me too well ever to imagine that I believe in love as the
+majority of women do. I know that a certain amount of illusion is
+necessary to color the material aspect of love; we all lie about it a
+little, and we enjoy the lie even though we know it as such; but way
+down deep, I laugh at love as the world understands it, just as I laugh
+at so many things which people venerate.... I don't want lovers, I want
+admirers. I am not looking for love; I care more for adoration."</p>
+
+<p>She was proud of her beauty. She spoke of Venus as though the goddess
+were a real person. She admired the Olympic serenity with which the
+Deity of Passion gave herself to gods and men, never surrendering her
+superiority<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> even at the moment when she was submitting to the
+domination of the stronger sex. Alicia considered herself a
+super-beauty, belonging to a sphere outside the ordinary limits of vice
+and virtue. She thought herself a living work of art; and art is neither
+moral nor immoral; its mission is fulfilled when it is beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>"Poets, painters, and musicians seek to abandon themselves to the
+greatest number of admirers. They do their utmost to enlarge their
+circle of public worshipers and with feminine coquetry they try to
+attract new suitors. I am like them. I do not need to create beauty, for
+as they say, I have it in myself. I am my own work, but I love glory; I
+need admiration; and for that reason I give myself generously, content
+with the happiness which I apportion, but keeping my public at my feet,
+without allowing myself to be dominated by those whom I seek."</p>
+
+<p>Michael was sure that many artists must have left their imprint on that
+woman's life. It was evident in the words and imagery with which she
+endeavored to express her enthusiasm for her own body. Her pride in her
+beauty was boundless. What were the ambitions of men, compared to the
+satisfaction of being lovely and desired? Only the glory of warriors, of
+blood-stained conquerors, whose names are known even in the remotest
+wilds of the earth, equals the glory that a woman feels in the sense of
+universal power over men.</p>
+
+<p>"To me," continued Alicia, "the truest and most beautiful thing ever
+written is 'the old men on the wall.'"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince looked at her questioningly; so she went on to explain. She
+referred to the old Trojan men in the <i>Iliad</i>, who were protesting
+against the long siege of their city, against the blood sacrifice of
+thousands of heroes, against poverty and hardship, all due to the fault
+of a woman.... But Helen, majestic in her beauty, passed before the old
+men, trailing her golden tunic; and they<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> all lapsed into silent
+contemplation, rapt in wonder, as though divine Aphrodite had descended
+upon earth; and they murmured like a prayer: "It is indeed fitting that
+we should suffer thus for her. So lovely she is!"</p>
+
+<p>"I like to see men suffer on my account. How glorious if I might be the
+cause of a great slaughter, like that ancient immortal woman!... I have
+an exultant feeling of pride when I notice that envy and spite are
+whispering behind my back, starting all that gossip that makes my mother
+so furious. Only extraordinary people stir up torrents of abuse.... And
+afterwards, in the drawing rooms, the very same austere gentlemen who
+have seconded all that their wives and daughters have to say against me,
+look at me with sly admiring glances, as I pass; and some of them blush
+in confusion and others turn pale. It is easy to guess that I have only
+to beckon and their silent admiration would.... I too have my 'old men
+on the wall.'"</p>
+
+<p>Michael suddenly realized that while she was talking she had been coming
+gradually closer, from cushion to cushion as she lay resting on her
+elbows. She was almost at his feet, with head held high, endeavoring to
+envelop him in a wave of magnetism from her fixed and dominating eyes.
+She seemed like a black and white snake, twisting forward little by
+little among the cushions as though they were rocks of various colors.</p>
+
+<p>"The only man of whom I have ever thought the least bit, the only one I
+ever considered at all different from other men," she continued in a
+half whisper, "is you.... Don't be alarmed: it isn't love. I am not
+going to invert rôles, and propose to you. Perhaps it is because, as
+children, we used to hate each other; because you never wanted me. That
+is such an unheard of thing in my life, that it alone is enough to
+interest me."<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a></p>
+
+<p>She put her hands on his knees, as though she were about to rise.</p>
+
+<p>"When I saw you in the cemetery, after so many years, I remembered all
+that I had heard about you. Many women whom I know have been sweethearts
+of yours, and I said to myself: Why not I, too? Then I thought of all
+the men who have come into my life, and I added: Why not he?" ...</p>
+
+<p>And now Alicia's elbows were resting on his knees, and as the Prince was
+seated on but two pillows, their lips and eyes were almost on a level.
+As she talked he could feel her breath on his face. It was like the
+breeze in an Asiatic forest, whispering beneath the moon. The spices and
+flowers with which the wine was saturated seemed to float in that
+volatile caress.</p>
+
+<p>Michael tried to avoid her advance, but one of Alicia's hands was
+already on his shoulder. He merely shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid," she added, exaggerating the caressing quality of her
+sigh. "There are no embarrassing obligations with me. You may leave me
+when you wish; perhaps I shall be the one to leave you first. I have
+wanted you for the last few days. You must surely desire me as the
+others do.... Let us live this moment, like people who know the secret
+of life and all it can give.... Then if we tire of each other, good-by,
+with no hard feeling and no pining!"</p>
+
+<p>When from time to time in after years the Prince recalled that scene, he
+always felt a certain dissatisfaction with himself. He was sure he had
+seemed brutal as well as ridiculous. In his travels he had approached
+women frequently in the most matter of fact way, often remembering them
+afterwards with some repugnance; yet here he was, rebelling with a
+feeling of offended modesty at the advances of the Duchess. No! With<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a>
+her, never! Rising within him he felt the same displeasure that had once
+made him raise his whip in his youth.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself on his feet in the middle of the study, looking
+anxiously toward the door and muttering stupid excuses. "No, I must go:
+it is late. Some friends are waiting for me...." She had gained control
+of herself. She too was standing looking at him with astonishment and
+wrath.</p>
+
+<p>"You are the only one who could do a thing like this," she said, in a
+cutting tone, as they parted. "I see it all clearly now. I hate you as
+you hate me. My whim was a stupid one. You have permitted yourself a
+liberty which no one in the world will ever be able to take again. If I
+were younger than I am I would thrash you again as I did in the Bois;
+but instead, just consider that I am repeating everything I said then."</p>
+
+<p>They did not see each other again.</p>
+
+<p>When the Prince had set in order everything concerning the inheritance
+from his mother, he thought of resuming his voyages, but on a more
+magnificent scale. It was no longer necessary for him to ask the
+Princess for money. He was one of the great millionaires of the world.
+Those who were in charge of the administration of his affairs&mdash;an office
+with numerous clerks, almost equalling the government bureau of a small
+state&mdash;made the announcement that the fifteen million francs which the
+Princess had received annually would soon be twenty, through the
+development of Russian railways, which allowed more intensive working of
+his mines.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel was commissioned to have the heavy medieval walls of Villa
+Sirena torn down, and the place replanned according to the Prince's
+tastes. The latter hated architectural resuscitations. He could not bear
+modern buildings patterned to flatter the pride of the rich proprietors,
+after the Alhambra, the palaces of Florence,<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> or the solemn and orderly
+constructions of Versailles.</p>
+
+<p>"The furniture ought to correspond to the period," said Michael, "and
+people ought to live in such houses as they lived in in the century
+which produced that particular style. People living in an ancient house
+ought to dress and eat as in former times.... What an absurdity to
+reconstruct those historic shells, with the interior arranged to suit
+the needs of modern men who are forced to commit an anachronism at every
+step!"</p>
+
+<p>He recalled the project of a millionaire friend of his, a member of the
+Institute, who had built a Roman house on the Riviera, Roman in all the
+exactness of its details. At the house-warming the guests were obliged
+to sleep on corded beds and to eat reclining on couches; and even more
+intimate conveniences were modeled on the principle of hygiene known to
+the ancient Cæsars. Within twenty-four hours they all pretended they had
+received urgent telegrams calling them to Paris, and the owner himself
+after a few months, left his house in charge of a keeper to show to
+tourists as a museum.</p>
+
+<p>Michael was fond of modern architecture, whose cathedrals are machine
+shops and large railway stations. Applied to dwellings it pleased him
+for its lack of style: white walls, a few moldings, rounded corners,
+with no angles whatsoever, so that the dust might be pursued to its
+remotest hiding places, wide openings letting in the breeze and the
+sunlight, double walls between which hot or cold air, and water at
+various temperatures, could circulate.</p>
+
+<p>"Up to the present time," the Prince asserted, "man has lived in
+magnificent jewel cases of art and filth. Modern architects have done
+more in the last thirty years to make life pleasant than the
+artist-builders, so much admired by history, did in three thousand. They
+have declared running water and the bath-room as indispensable,<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> things
+which were unknown to kings themselves half a century ago. They have
+invented the furnace and the water closet. Don't talk to me about the
+magnificent palaces of Versailles, where there was not a single toilet,
+and where every morning the lackeys were obliged to empty two hundred
+vessels for the king and his courtiers. Often to be through quicker,
+they threw their contents out of the majestic windows, and sometimes it
+would fall on the sedan chair and the retinue of a Dauphine or an
+ambassador."</p>
+
+<p>Toledo applied himself to supervising the construction of Villa Sirena
+in accordance with the desires of the Prince, making it a plain white
+building, and without any definite style of architecture. Lubimoff
+himself, at the proper time, would take charge of the artistic touches,
+placing famous pictures, statues, tapestries, or rugs, just where they
+would be most pleasing to the eye. The house was to be a harmony of
+simple, pure lines. The walls were to have heating and cooling systems
+for the different seasons, and running water was to be available in
+abundance everywhere. Each room was to have its electric lights and its
+electric fan.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince found it a much easier task to make over his wandering ocean
+residence. He simply sold the Gaviota, which reminded him of his
+youthful dependence on his family, and went to the United States to look
+into an advertisement. Three years before a certain multimillionaire had
+begun the construction of a yacht, designed to be more luxurious and of
+greater tonnage than that of any European sovereign. As the American was
+about to witness the consummation of this triumph of the democratic
+kings of industry over the historic kings of the Old World, he was
+killed in an automobile accident, and his heirs did not know what to do
+with the leviathan which would only be of use to an immensely<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> rich,
+and, in their opinion, somewhat crazy traveler. They were thinking of
+selling it at a loss to the Kaiser, William II, having decided finally
+to endure his demands as a sharp business man, when Prince Lubimoff
+appeared. A week later on the white stern and bows of the yacht a new
+name in gold letters was displayed, a name that was repeated in addition
+on the life preservers and on the various tenders, the dingies, the
+steam launches, and the motor boats. The American yacht had become the
+<i>Gaviota II</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It had the tonnage of a small trans-Atlantic liner and the speed of a
+torpedo boat. Each day the wealth of an ordinary man went up in smoke
+through the <i>Gaviota II's</i> double funnels. During a trip to some distant
+island, the supply of coal gave out. Immediately a collier chartered by
+the Prince, came to meet the <i>Gaviota II</i> in the farthest seas to fill
+the bunkers with fuel.</p>
+
+<p>Quiet harbors came to be illuminated at night, as though the sun had
+risen. When the Prince gave a <i>fête</i>, the ship would be a blaze of glory
+from the water to the mastheads, its outline marked by electric bulbs of
+various colors, while powerful searchlights shot out movable streams of
+radiance and drew the waves, the shores, and rows of city houses from
+the depths of the darkness. At other times, the white fire of the
+<i>Gaviota II's</i> monstrous eyes would flash on walls of ice towering to
+the clouds, and seals, penguins, and polar bears would waken from sleep
+frightened by the strange luminous, puffing monster that darted off like
+lightning into the mystery of night.</p>
+
+<p>To be the owner of a floating palace which, when anchoring off large
+cities, drew such crowds of sightseers as rare spectacles only attract,
+was not enough for Michael Fedor. So he created something more
+interesting even than the luxurious salons, and the refinements of
+comfort of the <i>Gaviota II</i>: he built up an orchestra.<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a></p>
+
+<p>Sensuous delight in music was for him the most exquisite of emotions.
+When his ears were satiated with the sweetness and melody of traditional
+music, he sought unknown and often bizarre composers, who aroused his
+curiosity; but he always came back to demanding as the <i>pièces de
+résistance</i> of his harmonic feasts, the masters who had been his first
+love, and above all, Beethoven.</p>
+
+<p>Treated as though they were officers, paid to their liking, and with the
+added inducement of being able to see a great deal of the world,
+musicians from every country offered their services to the yacht's
+orchestra. Famous concert players and young composers came in as mere
+instrumentalists. Some were ill, and sought to regain their health in a
+voyage around the world in real luxury and without expense; others
+embarked through love of adventure, to see new lands in this floating
+castle, in which everything seemed organized for an eternal holiday.
+There were never less than fifty of them.</p>
+
+<p>"My orchestra is the finest in the world," the Prince would proudly say
+when his guests complimented him after one of the concerts his musicians
+gave at rare intervals on land.</p>
+
+<p>In tropical nights, beneath the enormous honey-colored moon changing the
+sea to a vast plain of quick-silver, the musicians, seated in evening
+clothes before the rows of music racks illuminated by tiny electric
+lights, would weave on the quiet air, which seemed to have retained the
+first faint cries of the planet at its birth, the most original
+melodies, the most subtle combination of sounds that the sublime rapture
+of artists in god-like inspiration ever created. The music floated out
+behind the boat in the mystery of the ocean, like a scarf unfolding,
+breaking and scattering in fragments, with the smoke of the funnels.
+When the orchestra paused one could hear the distant subdued beat of the
+propellers, churning the foam<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> with a humming sound; and then from time
+to time the slow tolling of the bell calling the men on watch, or the
+cry of the lookout snuggled into the crow's nest on the mainmast,
+reporting his vigilance with the rhythmic intonation of a muezzin from a
+minaret. And the monotonous music of the sea gave an impression of
+night, and of immensity, to the music of man.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the companionways, or on the outjutting parts of the
+lower decks, the various officers and officials of the Prince gathered
+to hear the concert in the night. On the prow the sailors squatted,
+listening to the music in religious silence, as is often the case with
+simple men when confronted with something they do not understand, but
+which inspires awe. Aft, the only listener would be Michael Fedor,
+standing at a distance from the music, and with his back toward the
+musicians, watching at his feet, the divided, foaming waters which
+rushed by like a double river far out and away from the boat. As
+occasionally he raised his cigar to his lips, his pensive features would
+appear for a moment in the darkness, lighted by the red glow.</p>
+
+<p>The yacht held another more silent group. Those who succeeded in getting
+on board in the ports always obtained a distant glimpse of a woman or
+two with white shoes, blue skirts, jackets with rows of gold buttons,
+masculine collars and neckties, and officers' caps. No one knew for
+certain how many such women there may have been. The men of the crew
+were forbidden access to the central quarters of the boat, and to the
+upper deck. Some of them, chancing to break the rule through oversight,
+had met the Prince's companions attired in elegant naval uniforms, or
+more lightly clad, like dancers, in elaborate and exotic costumes. At
+the large ports, steam launches landed these mysterious and beautiful
+travelers for a few hours on shore. It was remarked that they<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> dressed
+with modest elegance and that they would speak various languages.</p>
+
+<p>When the <i>Gaviota II</i> returned and anchored in the same harbor she had
+visited the preceding year, those whose curiosity had been aroused found
+that the personnel of the wandering harem had been completely renewed.
+They might occasionally recognize one or two of the former ladies, but
+now their faces wore the placid expression of the odalisque who has been
+supplanted, but is nevertheless contented with luxury and oblivion.</p>
+
+<p>Some years Michael Fedor suspended his travels, during the summer, to
+take up his abode at fashionable beaches. The women who accompanied him
+on his long voyages remained on board, with all the lavish comforts to
+which they were accustomed. At other times he parted with them, as one
+dismisses a crew when a ship goes out of commission, at the end of a
+trip.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately he became interested in women living stay-at-home lives, in
+shore society, and in summer flirtations at famous watering places. He
+would take up his abode in a hotel on the coast, while his yacht was to
+be seen rising from the azure waters, motionless, like a palace of
+mystery and magnificence, the center of all feminine imaginings.</p>
+
+<p>Living in Biarritz he came to know Atilio Castro intimately through
+learning that they were related on his father's side. The Spaniard
+admired the fascination exercised by the Prince, often without wishing
+to do so, on all women.</p>
+
+<p>Never at any period had women been more strongly attracted by luxury or
+felt less scruples in the means of obtaining it than at present. This
+was the opinion of Castro. Lavish display, which in other centuries had
+been within reach of only the very few families, was now possible for
+every one. All one needed to indulge<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> in it was money. Besides, it was
+necessary to take into account present-day progress in material things,
+which has made life easier, but at the same time has increased our
+needs.</p>
+
+<p>"The motor car and the pearl necklace have made more victims than the
+wars of Napoleon," said Atilio.</p>
+
+<p>"These two things are like the gala uniform of women, and those who are
+forced to go without them consider themselves unfortunate and ill
+treated by fate. This twin image has shattered the illusions of maidens
+and the fidelity of wives. Mothers in middle class society, with
+melancholy dejection written on their faces as though they had made
+stupid failures of their lives, advise their daughters: 'If you are
+going to get married, make sure you will get an auto and a pearl
+necklace.' And long after the modest marriage this desire still remains,
+strengthened by maternal advice. Luxury is the one thought, luxury at
+whatever cost. Luxury has been democratized. It is within reach of all,
+obtainable through money, which has no taint, no odor, no sign of its
+origin."</p>
+
+<p>"You are the great provider of the expensive motor car of fashionable
+make and of the rope of pearls," continued Castro. "You are the great
+Sultan of magnificence. Your signature to a check is enough to sweep a
+woman off her feet in a torrent of gold. Make the most of your
+opportunity! The period in which you were born has left you an open
+field for your talents."</p>
+
+<p>And the Prince, who was not at all in need of such advice, went his way
+as conqueror through a world in which the best accredited virtues
+collapsed before his attack. Even sincere resistance finally appeared to
+him to be a clever device for postponing surrender and increasing the
+market value of desire. The millions from Russia were scattered
+broadcast in smaller and smaller<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> subdivisions, maintaining the well
+being and display of many homes, indulging the taste for luxury of
+numerous ladies, and keeping numberless factories busy producing elegant
+novelties of female luxury. A few women felt a sincere interest in
+Michael Fedor for his own sake, because of the mysterious prestige of
+his voyages in a boat which was talked about as though it were an
+enchanted palace; and also because of his adventures with celebrated
+actresses and women of high society, which made him more attractive. But
+once their vanity and curiosity were satisfied, they allowed their own
+self-interest to have a word. "Why should I be any more altruistic than
+the rest?"</p>
+
+<p>They were not obliged to use cunning or round-about phrases in
+formulating their requests. Some at the second meeting, took on a
+melancholy air, and spoke of the sad realities of life. But the generous
+Prince anticipated their desires. He preferred to pay his mistresses and
+dazzle them with splendid gifts. Thus he could regard them as favored
+slaves covered with jewels. In this way also, it was easier to break
+with them: He could go away from them whenever he so desired, satisfied
+with his own behavior, and quite unmoved by their tears and laments.
+From his semi-oriental Russian ancestors he had inherited a great
+sensual capacity, which caused him to be attracted to women, and at the
+same time to feel an inalterable scorn for them. He indulged them but
+could not love them; he adored them, but was stirred to indignation when
+they presumed to be on terms of equality with him. He was capable of
+ruining himself, of braving death for them, but he was ready to thrust
+them aside with his foot if they tried in the least to govern his life.
+The ambitious ones who feigned deep, passionate love for him in the hope
+of marriage, the sentimental ones who tried to interest him with
+psychological<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> subtleties, and those who kept their maternal enthusiasm
+even in adultery, and murmured in his ear how happy they would be to
+have a child who might resemble him, waited for him in vain the
+following day. "Neither deep passion, nor children!" ... Two trails of
+smoke were soon rising from the yacht, carrying its owner to another
+port or perhaps to another continent: or if he wished to flee from a
+city in the interior, he gave orders that his private car should be
+coupled to the first train that was leaving.</p>
+
+<p>These flights were never undertaken without a generous remembrance.
+Michael Fedor's munificence continued for those whom he had abandoned.
+Each year new names were added to his budget, like that of a reigning
+house which allots pensions to its forgotten servants. But the pensions
+of Prince Lubimoff were for the maintenance of luxury and not of life.
+The most modest were over thirty thousand francs a year. The average was
+double that amount.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Excellency: there will have to be a revision," his administrator
+would say.</p>
+
+<p>Michael would examine the list of names, hesitating at a few. He could
+not recall clearly the persons who bore them. Then suddenly he would
+smile, as certain visions were suddenly and attractively awakened in his
+mind. He was immensely wealthy: why not keep up the luxury which was the
+one dream of all of them?... He was not disturbed by the jealous thought
+that his successors would be reaping the benefit of that luxury.</p>
+
+<p>He felt a certain god-like pride in making his generosity felt at all
+times, without letting himself be seen. In Paris a jewelry shop managed
+by a Jew of Spanish origin limited its entire business to the production
+of the Prince's gifts. His gems of high intrinsic value, with no false
+artifices, had a certain family resemblance, a<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> sort of imaginary
+perfume which enabled the women who displayed them to recognize each
+other. When it was least expected, at tea time, in the dining-room of a
+hotel, at an elegant watering place at a dance, two women who had just
+met would gaze at each other's ears and breast in silence, until the
+boldest, blushing imperceptibly under her rouge, would ask simply: "You
+knew Prince Lubimoff too?..."</p>
+
+<p>Atilio Castro felt a deep admiration for his relative, less on account
+of his triumphs than of the iron constitution required to sustain them.</p>
+
+<p>"What a Cossack! A regular Cossack!... He is a true descendant of that
+lover of the Great Catherine!"</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, frequently the yacht would hurriedly put out to sea on
+long voyages, without its master being forced to flee from any dangerous
+or entangling passion. He was running away from himself, from his
+perverse imagination and curiosity, which made him seek and allure
+different women, upsetting his peace of mind, without rousing in him any
+real desire. He undertook the most extraordinary voyages, for the sake
+of the bracing air and the sense of restfulness the sea brings. The
+orchestra accompanied him; but the "harem" remained on shore. He had
+gone completely around the globe, following the shortest route; then he
+had repeated this circumnavigation, but over a zig-zag course, to become
+acquainted with all the coasts of the earth. At present he was on going
+on whimsical trips; he was sailing from one hemisphere to another for
+the pleasure of visiting one or another of the small islands which seem
+lost in the Pacific, and are so tiny that on the maps they look like
+mere dots placed after long names traced on the blue colored surface.</p>
+
+<p>Returning from one of these excursions on which he went around the world
+as though it were his personal<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> property, he received by wireless the
+news that Germany had declared war against Russia and France.</p>
+
+<p>He felt no great surprise. He knew William II personally. It was because
+of him that Prince Lubimoff avoided cruising off the coast of Norway in
+summer.</p>
+
+<p>The year following his acquisition of the <i>Gaviota II</i> he had come
+across the Imperial yacht in those parts. The Kaiser, like an officious,
+all-knowing neighbor, came to see him in order to look over the yacht,
+examining it in all its details, giving advice, reviewing the men and
+materials, making a dissertation on the engines and interrupting himself
+to advise certain changes in the uniform of the crew. After a breakfast
+on his own yacht, and luncheon on the Emperor's, Prince Michael had had
+enough of this unexpected friendship. Lohengrin, with his winged helmet,
+white mantle, and both hands on the hilt of his sword, was less
+unbearable than this gentleman with turned up mustache, and wolfish
+teeth, dressed like a sailor, who laughed a false and brutal laugh, and
+(whenever he met on the seas a multimillionaire from America or Europe)
+played the rôle of a man of great simplicity and of an unconventional
+sovereign. Money inspired deep veneration in this story-book hero, this
+mystic with a mind fed on grandeur. Michael had never shared the
+enthusiasm of various snobs for the German Emperor. He smiled at the
+Hohenzollern's theatrical tastes, his war-like bravadoes, and his
+intellectual ambitions which pretended to embrace the whole knowable
+universe.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a comedian," Michael said on receiving the news of the war, "a
+comedian who for a long time is going to make the whole world weep....
+And to think that the fate of mankind should depend on such a man!..."</p>
+
+<p>Michael Fedor considered himself as a being set apart<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> from the rest of
+mankind. He lamented the war as something terrible for the rest, but
+which could not influence his own particular fate. Since a madness for
+blood had descended upon Europe, he would go on sailing distant seas.
+Thanks to his wealth he could keep beyond the margins of the struggle.</p>
+
+<p>But times changed rapidly; life was not the same: all old values had
+lost their significance. In spite of her Russian flag, the <i>Gaviota II</i>
+found herself halted by some English torpedo boats and was forced to
+submit to a minute inspection. They could not believe that any one
+should be cruising for pleasure when all the seas had been converted
+into a battlefield. In the latitude of the Azores it became necessary to
+force the yacht's engines to escape from a German corsair.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, fuel was getting scarce. The various coaling stations located
+here and there on the coast were reserved exclusively for the warships.
+Important news kept coming by wireless from far-off Paris, where the
+chief agent of the Prince was located. Communication had been broken off
+between the Paris office and the administrators of the Lubimoff fortune
+in Russia. No money was coming from there, and the French banks, with
+their vaults closed by the <i>moratorium</i>, were willing secretly to lend
+money to a millionaire like the Prince, but not in quantities sufficient
+to meet his current needs.</p>
+
+<p>The yacht came to anchor in the port of Monaco, and Michael Fedor, on
+arriving in Paris, almost laughed, as though witnessing some
+preposterous change in the laws of nature. The heir of the Lubimoffs in
+need of money, and compelled to make an effort to obtain it&mdash;something
+he had never done in all his life! Here he was having to ask for loans
+at frightfully usurious rates, on the security of his distant and famous
+wealth, which for the first time was regarded somewhat
+contemptuously!...<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a></p>
+
+<p>When communications were reëstablished in an intermittent fashion
+between Western Europe and Russia&mdash;which was practically isolated&mdash;the
+administrator of the Prince gave a look of despair. The collections had
+been reduced eighty per cent.</p>
+
+<p>"According to that, I am going to be poor?" asked Lubimoff, laughing,
+the news seemed so unbelievable and absurd.</p>
+
+<p>It was very difficult to send money as far as Paris. Besides the rouble
+was decreasing in value at a dizzy rate. Millions on reaching France
+became mere hundred thousands. Mobilization had left the mines without
+workmen; there was no outlet for the produce; the peasants, seeing their
+sons in the army, refused to pay any money, and even to work. The
+Russian government, to keep as much money as possible at home, limited
+to small amounts the money sent to citizens residing abroad.</p>
+
+<p>"The Czar putting me on a pension!" said the Prince in amazement. "A
+thousand or two thousand francs a month!... How absurd!"</p>
+
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>But he did not laugh long. His anger against the Russian court, which
+had gradually been growing in his subconsciousness ever since his
+expulsion so long ago from Petersburg, now moved by a selfish impulse
+suddenly flared up. The Czar and his counselors, desirous of
+Russianizing all Eastern Europe, were responsible for the war. They
+certainly might have kept peace with Germany. Why disturb the peace of
+the world, for the sake of a little race of people in the Balkans?</p>
+
+<p>He coolly made fun of certain of his friends who, by devious routes
+across Europe and the icy Northern seas, returned to Russia to regain
+their former commissions in the army. As for him, he had no desire to
+die for the Czar. It made little difference to him whether his country<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a>
+were governed by Germans. There were times when he even thought that
+would be preferable, so long as peace were restored rapidly, allowing
+him once more to reap the benefit of his wealth, and resume the life he
+had been leading a few months before, or, as it now seemed, a half
+century before.</p>
+
+<p>The next two years went by for Lubimoff like a nightmare. What sort of a
+world was he living in?... His former friends were disappearing. Some of
+the frivolous women who had made life pleasant for him were not moved in
+the least by the unfortunate events which were happening; but others
+showed themselves to be heroic and self-sacrificing, forgetting all they
+had done before, feeling a new soul developing within them.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince suddenly found himself dragged along by the world happenings.
+A mysterious and irresistible force was pushing against him, causing him
+to lose his balance, just as he was reaching the pinnacle of his life,
+so pleasant, so vast, crowned with a halo of such glory. And now, once
+started, he was tumbling head over heels, of his own inertia, and each
+step he struck as he descended, gave him a harder blow, a more painful
+surprise. How far would this landslide take him?... What would he strike
+at the end of this unheard-of fall?...</p>
+
+<p>His interviews with his Paris administrator seemed to him like something
+taking place in another world, subject to ridiculous laws. These
+conferences always ended with the same order on his part:</p>
+
+<p>"Try and get some money. Ask for a loan.... I am Prince Lubimoff, and
+this cannot last. Whoever wins&mdash;it is all the same to me&mdash;order will be
+reëstablished, and I shall pay my creditors immediately."</p>
+
+<p>But the administrator answered, with a look of dismay: "Raise money on
+property in Russia?..." Taking<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> advantage of the former prestige of the
+Prince, he had been able to negotiate various loans; but time was
+passing and the enormous interest was accumulating. Lubimoff in spite of
+cutting down expenses and doing away with pensions, was in need of money
+for his current living expenses.</p>
+
+<p>The fall of the Czar gave a ray of hope to this magnate who hated the
+Imperial government. "With the Republic the war will be over sooner and
+we shall come back to the proper order of things." His egoism made him
+conceive of a Republic as a form of government occupied chiefly with
+restoring the wealth of beings of fortunate birth. The meager shreds of
+his fortune which now and then still got as far as Paris were suddenly
+cut off. The fountain of wealth was dry. The crumbling of a whole world
+had dammed its source, and perhaps forever.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Excellency must sell," the administrator was always saying. "You
+must do without everything that is superfluous. We must liquidate in
+time. Who knows how long the present state of affairs may last!"</p>
+
+<p>The yacht was lying idle in Monaco harbor. Almost the entire crew,
+composed of Italians, Frenchmen, and Englishmen, had left it to go and
+serve in the navies of their respective nations. Only a few Spaniards
+remained on board, to keep the boat clean.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Gaviota II</i> was renamed by the English admiralty, and turned over
+to the Red Cross. When he signed the bill of sale, Michael Fedor felt
+that he was giving up his whole past. The romantic prestige of his mode
+of life was vanishing now for all time; the <i>Arabian Nights</i> palace was
+being converted into a hospital ship.... What a world!</p>
+
+<p>The English millions afforded him a year of respite. The administrator
+paid the huge debts, and he was able<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> to live without economizing, in
+Paris, a Paris nearing the end of its third year of war with
+inexplicable tranquillity, resuming its usual pleasures as though all
+danger were past. Love affairs with two distinguished women, whose
+husbands were called to arms&mdash;although they were not at the
+front&mdash;caused him to spend a few months, now at Biarritz, now on the
+Riviera, and now at Aix-les-Bains.</p>
+
+<p>His agent disturbed these enjoyments. He was constantly repeating the
+same advice: "You must sell." The Prince's fortune was already like an
+old ship drifting aimlessly. The administrator had stopped the last
+leaks with the money from the most recent sale, but warned him at every
+moment that she was taking in water through new ones.</p>
+
+<p>In the end Michael Fedor grew accustomed to misfortune, accepting it
+serenely.</p>
+
+<p>The sale of the palace built by his mother moved him less than that of
+his yacht.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time his desires had changed. He was beginning to tire of
+love adventures, which seemed to be the only object of existence. His
+fresh and vigorous constitution, which had amazed Castro, suddenly broke
+down. But this was more the result of worry than of physical wear and
+tear.</p>
+
+<p>He felt that he was poor, and was he not accustomed to pay royally for
+his love affairs? Not being able to reward women with luxury, he would
+rather flee in order not to accept from them and be obliged to tolerate
+from them their caprices. He preferred to master his desires, as long as
+he could not satisfy them with all the grandeur of an oriental
+potentate. Besides he was tired of love, and all the pleasant things of
+life a man can find in this world!...<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a></p>
+
+<p>He thought of his friend Atilio, of the Colonel, of Villa Sirena, white
+and shining in the Mediterranean sunlight, among the olive trees and
+cypresses.</p>
+
+<p>"The earth is being swept by the deluge. Perhaps the old lands will once
+more appear; perhaps they will remain submerged forever.... Let us take
+refuge in our Ark, and wait and hope."<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p>A<small>FTER</small> glancing with satisfaction at the imposing aspect of Villa Sirena,
+the adjoining buildings, and the surrounding groves, the Colonel said to
+Novoa:</p>
+
+<p>"The part you see cost less than what you don't see. There is a great
+deal of money spent under ground here."</p>
+
+<p>Turning away from the residence, Don Marcos pointed to the gardens,
+which lay extended before them in terraces, some on a level with the
+roof of the "villa," others descending like a mighty stairway almost to
+the water's edge.</p>
+
+<p>He recalled the promontory as it was when the late Princess first
+thought of buying it; an ancient refuge of pirates; a tongue of rocks
+wild and storm-swept when the <i>mistral</i> was blowing, with deep caves
+gnawed by the surge, which caused the land above to crumble, and
+threatened to break it lengthwise into a chain of reefs and islets.</p>
+
+<p>"The bulwarks we have had to build!" he continued. "You should have seen
+the stone we had to put in here,&mdash;enough to build a wall around the
+whole city!"</p>
+
+<p>There were walls more than twenty yards thick, descending in a gradual
+slope from the gardens to the sea. In places, it was possible to see
+their foundations in the natural rocks which emerged from the water like
+greenish beads always awash in the foam; in other places the masonry
+went down and down until it was lost from view in the watery depths.
+They were like the breakwaters one sees in harbors. They covered the
+original hollows of the promontory, the caves, the inlets that were
+forming,<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> and all the jagged spaces, which had been filled with rich
+soil.</p>
+
+<p>These tremendous works of masonry were Toledo's pride, owing to their
+cost and grandeur. He called his fellow-countryman's attention to the
+proportions of the ramparts, worthy of a monarch of olden times.</p>
+
+<p>"And they are not only strong," he continued, "but look, Professor! They
+are all 'artistic.'"</p>
+
+<p>The blocks of stone had been cut in large hexagons which fitted together
+in a uniform mosaic, each piece outlined by a cement border.</p>
+
+<p>At intervals there were large openings, so that the earth might rid
+itself of its moisture; but each one of these blind windows held some
+sort of wild vegetation, some hardy, aromatic plant, obstinately
+parasitic, spreading downward over the wall and covering it with flowers
+for the greater part of the year. The thick groves at the summit, and
+the long balustrades arched with wine-colored clematis, seemed to exude
+a flowery, green, inferior form of life, pouring it out seaward through
+the gaps in the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"When you see it from a boat below you will appreciate it better. Señor
+Castro says it reminds him of the hanging gardens of Babylon, and of
+Queen Semiramis. He is the only one who would think of such comparisons.
+All I can say is that it meant doing all this! Imagine all the stone. A
+whole quarry! And I wish you could have seen the bargeloads of rich soil
+it took to fill the hollows, level the ground, and make a decent
+garden!"</p>
+
+<p>He grew enthusiastic as he talked about the modern flower gardens
+stretching around the villa and along the iron railing bordering the
+Menton road; and he lavished his praise on their harmonious elegance,
+and the majestic regulation to which the plants were forced to conform.
+That was how <i>he</i> felt a garden should be, like many another<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> thing in
+life: perfect order, a sense of subordination, and respect for the
+hierarchies, each thing in its place, with no individual rivalries to
+cause confusion. But he was afraid to expound his "old-fashioned"
+tastes, recalling the jests of the Prince and Castro. They preferred the
+park, which the Colonel always thought of as the "wild garden."</p>
+
+<p>They had availed themselves of the extremely ancient olive trees already
+on the promontory as a beginning for the park. These trees could not be
+called old, exactly. Such an appellation would have been petty and
+inadequate to their age. They were simply ancient, of no visible age.
+They had an air of changeless eternity about them which made them seem
+contemporaries of the rocks and the waves themselves. They looked more
+like ruins than like trees, like heaps of black wood, twisted and
+overthrown by a storm, or piles of wood, warped and hollowed and
+scorched by some fire long since past. With them also the invisible part
+was more important than the portions exposed to the light. Their roots,
+as large around as tree trunks, went out of sight, wound their way
+through the red earth, and then appeared once more thirty or forty yards
+beyond. Some of the trees had died on one side, only to come to life
+again on the other. What had been the trunk five hundred years before,
+now appeared as a mutilated stump, table shaped, severed by ax or
+shattered by thunderbolt; and the root, showing above the soil, was
+flowering again in its turn, changing into a tree, to continue an
+apparently limitless existence, in which centuries counted as years. The
+hearts of other trees were gnawed away and empty; and these supported
+only half of their outer shell, looking like a tower with one side blown
+out by an explosion; but on high they displayed an almost ridiculous
+crown of foliage, a few handfuls of silvery leaves scattering<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> along the
+sinuous black branches. Below, the gnarled roots which seemed to have
+preserved in their knotted windings the sap that was the first life of
+the earth, embraced a much larger radius on the ground than that
+occupied by the branches in the air. Other olive trees, that were only
+three or four hundred years old, stood erect with the arrogance of
+youth, leafy and exuberant, casting a light, trembling, almost
+diaphanous shadow, like that of frosted glass which swayed with the
+capricious will of the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"His Excellency says that there are olive trees here that were seen by
+the Romans. Do you believe it, Professor? Can it be that any of these
+trees date back to the time of Jesus Christ?"</p>
+
+<p>Novoa hesitated in replying. The Colonel continued his observations as
+they walked along between walls of well-trimmed shrubbery towards the
+end of the park.</p>
+
+<p>"Look: there is the Greek garden."</p>
+
+<p>It was an avenue of laurels and cypress trees with curving marble
+benches, and in the background a semi-circular colonnade.</p>
+
+<p>"I would have liked to plant a great many palms: African, Japanese, and
+Brazilian, like those in the gardens of the Casino. But the Prince and
+Don Atilio detest them. They say that they are an anachronism, that they
+never existed in this region, and were imported by the wealthy people
+who have been building for the last fifty years on the Blue Coast. All
+those two fellows admire is the ancient Provençal or Italian garden:
+olive trees, laurels, and cypresses&mdash;but not the huge, funereal
+cypresses with bushy tops, that we use in Spain, to decorate the
+<i>calvaries</i> and cemeteries. Look at them: they are as light and slender
+as feathers. To keep the wind from blowing them over you have to plant
+two or three together in a clump."<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a></p>
+
+<p>They had reached the extreme limit of the park, where the leafiest olive
+trees were growing. They walked along open pathways through high masses
+of wild and fragrant vegetation, whose vigorous vitality seemed to
+challenge the salt breeze. The plants had stiff leaves, and gave out
+strong exotic perfumes. As Novoa breathed in the fragrance, it evoked
+visions of far-off lands; and in truth it seemed almost as though an
+odor of Hindoo cooking or Oriental incense were floating through that
+wild garden. A variety of creepers hung from tree to tree. Though it was
+still winter these natural garlands had already begun to bloom, owing to
+the warm breezes of an early Spring. They stood out with all the gay
+splendor of a courtly festival, against the chaste pale green of the
+olive trees.</p>
+
+<p>"Don Atilio says that all this makes him think of a Mozart symphony."</p>
+
+<p>The deep blue Mediterranean lay at their feet, its slow swells combed by
+a sharp reef that broke the streaming water into clouds of spray. Here
+the promontory divided, forming two arms of unequal length. The shortest
+was a prolongation of the park, carrying the magnificent vegetation
+which flourished on its back, into the very waters. The other descended
+to the sea in a chaos of rocks and loose earth, with no growth save a
+few twisted pines, clinging to the soil, obstinately determined to
+prolong their death struggle. The barren loneliness of this tongue of
+land drew a sad smile from the Colonel each time he gazed at the
+dividing wall. The rugged point was eaten away by the sea with caves
+that threatened to cut it in two. It had no regular place of entrance,
+being separated from the mainland by the gardens of Villa Sirena, and
+shut off by a hostile wall, which represented the inalienable rights of
+ownership, and was a source of constant indignation and amazement to Don
+Marcos.<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p>
+
+<p>Doubtless that was why he turned away from it, gazing out toward where
+Monaco lay beyond the rocky cliffs.</p>
+
+<p>"It is lovely, Professor: one of the most delightful panoramas anywhere.
+There is good reason for people to come here from the farthest ends of
+the earth!"</p>
+
+<p>He let his glance rest on the violet colored mountains that, at the
+farthest horizon, projected out upon the sea, like the limit of a world.
+They were the so-called Mountains of the Moors, which, with Esterel
+Point, form a branch of the Maritime Alps, a separate mountain chain,
+which juts into the Mediterranean. In the opposite direction lay a
+portion of the pseudo-Blue Coast, which begins at Toulon and Hyères. But
+this part did not interest the Colonel. What he saw, more in imagination
+than in reality, was a bird's-eye view of the real Blue Coast, his own
+Blue Coast&mdash;that of the aristocratic and wealthy people on whom he was
+in the habit of calling, in their elegant villas and expensive hotels.</p>
+
+<p>The Maritime Alps form a giant wall, parallel to the sea. In some places
+they fall steeply toward the Mediterranean with the sharp slope of a
+bulwark, without the slightest break to mask the abrupt descent. At
+other points the incline is gentler, creating waves of stone, miniature
+mountains which stand out above the water, forming capes and placid
+inlets. And on these sheltered shores, from Esterel to the Italian
+frontier, wealthy people, sensitive to cold, arriving in pilgrimages
+every winter, had finally converted the sleepy provincial villages into
+world-famous capitals. Fishing hamlets were transformed into elegant
+towns; the large Paris and London hotels erected enormous annexes on the
+deserted bays; the most expensive shops of the Boulevards opened
+branches in tiny settlements where a few years before every one had gone
+barefoot.</p>
+
+<p>In his mind Toledo went over the undulating line of<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> celebrated places,
+overlooking the sea from the promontories, or nestling in the little
+horseshoe bays to profit more directly by the refraction of the winter
+sunlight from the red walls of the Alps: Cannes, which inspired in him a
+certain awe on account of its quiet distinction&mdash;the place where
+consumptives and old people of renown desire to die&mdash;Antibes, with its
+square harbor and its walls which, according to Castro, recalled the
+romantic seascapes painted by Vernet; Nice, the capital where people
+come together to spend their money, copying Parisian life; the deep bay
+of Villefranche, the harborage of battleships; Cap-Ferrat and the
+beautiful Point Saint-Hospice, a former den of African pirates, jutting
+out from it; Beaulieu, with its Tunisian palaces, the homes of American
+multimillionaires, who always keep open house, and who had often invited
+the Colonel to luncheon there; Eze, the feudal hamlet, hanging grimly to
+the side of the Alps, and falling in ruins around its decaying castle,
+while down below, the people who fled from it are forming a new town,
+beside the gulf which their predecessors proudly called the Sea of Eze;
+Cap d'Ail, which serves as a sort of portico to the adjoining
+Principality; the Rock of Monaco, carrying on its giant's back a walled
+city; opposite it the dazzling Monte Carlo; and beyond, Cap-Martin, with
+somber vegetation, reserved and lordly, the ultimate shelter of
+dethroned kings; and lastly, close to Italy, pleasant Menton, the
+stronghold of Englishmen, another place for invalids of distinction,
+where every self-respecting consumptive feels obliged to end his days.</p>
+
+<p>"Think of the money that has been spent here!" Don Marcos exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty years before, the Corniche railway in successfully finding its way
+through this mountain region had been considered a marvelous piece of
+work; but now for the convenience of winter visitors, the same work had<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a>
+been repeated in every direction. Smoothly curving roads, clean and firm
+as a drawing-room floor, extended along the seashore, ascended the
+Alpine heights, passing from crest to crest on lofty viaducts, or
+burrowing the hills in long tunnels. Where the perpendicular rock would
+not allow a ledge to be cut the engineer had made one with buttresses
+many yards high, the bases of which were lost to view in the waves.</p>
+
+<p>A new dream had been added to the many which the blessed in this world's
+goods may realize&mdash;the owning of a house on the Riviera! Within fifty
+years, every architectural whim, every possible fancy of rich people
+bent on creating sensations, had covered this shore of the Mediterranean
+with villas, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Venetian, and Tuscan palaces, and
+dwellings of other distinct or indescribable styles. The palm tree was
+imported and acclimated as a native plant.</p>
+
+<p>"Enormous fortunes have been invested here; three generations have been
+ruined, and as many more enriched. When you think what it was a century
+ago, and see what it is now...!"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel spoke of an Englishwoman's tomb, completely abandoned on the
+extreme point of Cap-Ferrat. She was a forerunner of the present winter
+visitors, a youthful contemporary of Byron, charmed by the beauty of the
+Mediterranean, and by the pathless and practically unexplored mountains.
+On her death, they buried her on the deserted promontory, because she
+was a Protestant. The fishermen and peasants of this lonely coast
+shunned the stranger, denying her the rights of hospitality even in
+their cemeteries.</p>
+
+<p>"This happened less than a century ago. And such poverty as there was!
+The only products of the country were thick skinned oranges, lemons, and
+these olives. The trees are very pretty, very decorative, but they bear<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>
+an exceedingly small pointed olive, all pit. Compare them with ours in
+Andalusia, Professor! And to-day there are millionaires, born right here
+on the Riviera, who have grown rich merely by selling the wretched
+fields of their fathers. The red land, abounding in stones, is bought by
+the yard, even in the most out of the way spots, like lots in large
+cities. When you least expect it, at a turn in the road, you come across
+a miserable hut with a little land around it that takes your fancy. The
+roof of the building sags, and the wind blows through the cracks in the
+wall. The owners sleep with the pig, the chickens, and the horse. This
+same poverty and shiftlessness you find among the peasants almost
+everywhere. You happen to think that you might build up a country home
+there without much expense. Surely the good people won't ask very much,
+no matter how inflated their ideas of value may be! But when you ask the
+price, after much talk, and many doubts, they finally say in the most
+casual manner: 'A hundred and fifty thousand francs, or two hundred
+thousand.' When you protest in amazement they reply, pointing to the
+mountains, the sun, and the sea: 'And the view, monsieur.'"</p>
+
+<p>The red soil of the Alps amounts to little for its power of production:
+it is the situation that gives it its value. And the native has grown
+rich selling, so much per yard, the sunlight, the azure of the
+Mediterranean, the orange color of the mountains and the dazzling glory
+of the clouds at sunset, the shelter of the distant rock which, like a
+screen, turns aside the icy breeze of the <i>mistral</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"If you only knew how inexplicably obstinate some of these people are!"</p>
+
+<p>As Don Marcos spoke he turned and pointed out to Novoa the miserable
+strip of land that seemed fastened like a curse to the gardens of Villa
+Sirena. The Princess Lubimoff with all her millions, had not been able
+to buy<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> the tip of that promontory. It belonged to an old married couple
+without any children. "That is their house," he added, pointing to a
+sort of yellowish cube, halfway up the mountain, beside a road that cut
+across the red and black slope.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess, after acquiring the promontory for her medieval castle,
+had considered the acquisition of the small extremity a mere trifle.
+"Give them what they ask," she said to her business agent. And in spite
+of her recklessness with money, she was amazed to learn that they
+refused two hundred thousand francs for a few rocks undermined by the
+waves, and a couple of dozen dying pines.</p>
+
+<p>"I was present at the interviews with the old people. The agent of the
+Princess offered five hundred thousand, six hundred thousand, and the
+couple did not seem to grasp the meaning of the figures. The Princess
+lost her patience, lamenting the fact that they were not in Russia, in
+the good old days. She even talked of engaging an assassin in Italy&mdash;as
+she had read in certain novels&mdash;to get rid of the stubborn old pair. It
+was just like her Excellency,&mdash;but she was really very kind at heart!
+Finally, one day, she shouted to us: 'Offer them a million, and let us
+be done with it!' Imagine, Professor, more than two thousand francs a
+yard; you could buy land at that rate in the business district of a big
+city! We went up to their cottage. They didn't bat an eyelash when they
+heard the figure. The old woman, who was the more intelligent of the
+two, let Her Excellency's lawyer explain what a million meant. She
+looked at her husband for a long time, in spite of the fact that she was
+the only one of the two who was doing any thinking, and finally
+accepted; but on condition that the Princess should erect, on the
+outermost point, a chapel to the Virgin. It was a wish that her simple
+imagination had<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> cherished all her life. Without the chapel, she would
+not accept the million. 'Don't worry, we'll build the chapel!' we said.
+The day set for signing the papers, we found the two old people, sitting
+in the lawyer's office side by side, with bowed heads. The lawyer
+received us, wringing his hands, and looking toward heaven with an
+expression of despair. They would not accept! It was no use insisting.
+They wanted to keep things just as they had received them from their
+forefathers. 'What would we do with a million?' groaned the old woman.
+'We would lead a terrible life!' We tried to talk to her about the
+chapel, in order to persuade her; but they both fled, like people
+finding themselves in bad company, and afraid of being tempted."</p>
+
+<p>The colonel looked once more at the dividing wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Her Excellency being a born fighter, immediately had the partition
+raised before beginning the foundation of the castle. As you see from
+here, the old people can reach their property only by the beach; and on
+stormy days they have to enter the water up to their knees. That doesn't
+matter; from that time on they became more attached than ever to their
+land. They used to come down from the mountains every Sunday, to sit at
+the foot of the wall. By constantly measuring the point they succeeded
+in discovering an error made by the architect, who had been a trifle
+flustered owing to the haste enforced upon him by the Princess. He had
+made a mistake of eighteen inches, and half the width of the wall was on
+the old people's land. The peasant woman, in spite of the fact that she
+had a sort of superstitious fear of the majesty of the law, threatened
+to bring suit even though she might be forced to sell her hut and field
+on the mountain to fight the case. It was necessary to tear down the
+wall, and build it up again, half a yard farther this way. It meant some
+sixty thousand francs lost&mdash;nothing<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> for the Princess&mdash;and yet I suspect
+at times, that the affair may have hastened her death."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos felt that he must pause a moment out of respect for the
+deceased.</p>
+
+<p>"The old woman has died too," he continued, "and her husband comes here
+only from time to time. When he finds that one of his pine trees has
+fallen, through the wearing away of the soil, he sits down close beside
+it, just as though he were watching beside a corpse. At other times he
+spends hours looking at the sea and the huge rocks, as though
+calculating how long it would take the waves to break his property to
+pieces. One afternoon, going on foot from La Turbie to Roquebrune, I ran
+across him near his hut, where he was pasturing some sheep. With his
+long beard he looked like a patriarch; and he is always the same,
+leaning on his staff, with a dirty tam-o'shanter on his head, and a
+rough cape about his shoulders. Besides, he always has a pipe in his
+mouth, though he rarely smokes. 'The million is waiting,' I said in fun,
+'whenever you want to come and get it.' He didn't seem to understand me.
+He smiled with a look of vague recognition, but perhaps he thought I was
+some one else. His gaze was fixed on Monte Carlo, a bird's-eye view of
+which lay at our feet. He must spend hours and weeks like that. His face
+looks as though it were carved of wood, or molded in terra cotta; he
+seldom speaks, and no one can guess the substance of his reflections.
+But I think that every day the same identical amazement must be renewed,
+and that he will die without ever recovering from his surprise. He sees
+the expanse of waters, which is always the same, the eternal hills, that
+never change, the house built by his ancestors, which was old when he
+was born, the olive groves, the mighty rocks ... but that city has
+sprung up, since he was a grown man, from a plateau covered<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> with
+thickets, and burrowed with caves, and it is enlarged each year with new
+hotels, new streets, and more domes and turrets!"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel suddenly forgot the old peasant. With his fellow-countryman,
+Novoa, he felt quite talkative, and he imagined that his thoughts flowed
+more freely and vigorously, through this contact with a man of learning.
+Besides, he felt a certain pride in being able to talk like an old
+inhabitant, of the many things of which the new-comer was ignorant.</p>
+
+<p>"The fortress you see over there practically belonged to us at one
+time," he went on, pointing to the Castle of Monaco. "For a century and
+a half it had a Spanish garrison. Our great Charles V"&mdash;and the old
+Legitimist spoke the name with a note of deep respect&mdash;"once slept
+there. And there, too."</p>
+
+<p>Turning, he pointed out on the mountain summit of Cap-Martin the village
+of Roquebrune, huddled about its ruined castle.</p>
+
+<p>"The archivist of the Prince of Monaco is studying the numerous letters
+in his possession written by our great Emperor to the Grimaldi family.
+When the historians of the Principality wish to establish the
+indisputable independence of their tiny land, they cite as the origins
+of the state the treaties signed at Burgos, Tordesillas, and Madrid."</p>
+
+<p>In a few words he went over the history of the little country, which
+came into being around a little harbor. Semitic sailors gave it the name
+of Melkar&mdash;the Ph&oelig;nician Hercules&mdash;and the word gradually changed
+into the present one, Monaco. The Guelphs and Ghibellines of Genoa
+fought for possession of its castle, until a Grimaldi, disguised as a
+monk, entered the enclosure by surprise and opened the gates to his
+friends, making the ancient Hercules Harbor an estate of his family for
+all<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> time. "This friar, sword in hand," continued Don Marcos, "is the
+one that figures on both sides of the coat of arms of Monaco. From that
+time on the history of the Grimaldis is similar to that of all the
+ruling houses of those days. They made war on their neighbors, and
+quarreled among themselves, to the extent that brother even assassinated
+brother. The sailors of Monaco plied the trade of corsair, and their
+flag was even used to give distinction to the pirates of other
+countries. The alliance of the Grimaldis with Spain allowed them to use
+the title of Prince for the first time. Charles V addressed them in his
+letters as 'dear Cousins,' and gave them other honorary titles. This
+great rock was of exceeding importance to the Spanish Monarchs who had
+lands in Italy and needed to keep the route safe. The Kings of France
+were very anxious, on their part, to do away with this obstacle and win
+the Grimaldis over to their side. You must realize that for a hundred
+and fifty years the latter kept their agreements faithfully, and that
+during all this time the subsidies that had been promised them from
+Madrid were sent only at rare intervals. Two galleys from Monaco always
+figured in the rolls of the Spanish navy. Only when the decline of
+Austria began to cause us to lose our influence in Europe, did the
+Grimaldis, like people fleeing from a house that is tumbling down,
+abandon us. At that particular moment, Richelieu was making France a
+great power, and they went with him. One night amid thunder and
+lightning, when the garrison, composed for the most part of Italians in
+the service of Spain, were carelessly asleep, the French caught them
+unawares, disarmed them, after killing a few who tried to resist, and
+finally sent the remainder courteously to the Spanish Viceroy at Milan,
+with the notice that the alliance must be considered broken forever.<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a></p>
+
+<p>"The Grimaldis became the liege-lords of France. Later they went to
+Versailles, as courtiers, or served in the King's armies. During the
+Revolution they were persecuted, like all the other princes, and a
+beautiful lady of the family was guillotined. Napoleon kept them in his
+military following as aides-de-camp, and the long peace of the
+Nineteenth Century caused them to return and take up their abode once
+more in their tiny Principality.</p>
+
+<p>"They were so poor!" Toledo went on. "They were obliged to keep up the
+show and pomp of a court, since in a small state where all are
+neighbors, the Prince has to exaggerate formality, in order to hold the
+people's respect. The same expenses must be defrayed as in a large
+nation; the maintenance of courts, administrative offices, and even a
+diminutive army for internal safety. And the whole Principality produced
+nothing but lemons and olives.... You can see for yourself how poor and
+how hard pressed they must have been, not knowing how to raise funds,
+especially since under the rule of Florestan I, the grandfather of the
+present Prince, there was an attempted revolution, owing to the decree
+of the Sovereign that the olives of the country should be pressed
+exclusively in the mills of his estate.</p>
+
+<p>"Later under Charles III, the situation became still more difficult. The
+Principality was dismembered. The two cities, Menton and Roquebrune,
+dependencies of Monaco, full of enthusiasm for the Italian Revolution,
+declared their freedom, and joined the Kingdom of Savoy. Shortly after,
+when Napoleon III acquired the former County of Nice they fell under the
+control of France. And thus Monaco was isolated within French territory,
+with its sovereignty clearly recognized; but a sovereignty that embraced
+only a single city on a rocky height, a small harbor, and a little
+surrounding land overgrown<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> with parasitical vegetation; about as much
+ground as a peaceful citizen might cover in a morning walk. How was the
+tiny State to be maintained?</p>
+
+<p>"It was saved by gambling. Don't imagine as some people do, that the
+idea originated with the Ruler of Monaco. Many German Princes had had
+recourse to some enterprise to support their domains. It is a German
+invention; but gambling on the shore of the Mediterranean, under a
+winter sun that seldom fails, is quite a different thing from gambling
+in Central Europe. At first the business was unsuccessful. They
+established a miserable Casino in old Monaco, opposite the Palace, in
+what is now the barracks of the Prince's Guard. The betting was very
+slight. It was necessary to come by diligence, over the Alpine heights,
+following the old Roman route, and to descend from La Turbie by roads
+that were like ravines. One had to be very anxious indeed to gamble.
+Later the Casino was transferred to the harbor below, where the La
+Condamine district is to-day: another failure. The lessees of the gaming
+privileges went bankrupt, and were unable to fulfill their obligations
+to the Prince. And then the Corniche Railway was put through, placing
+Monaco on the road between Paris and Italy; and all the gamblers and
+idlers of the world came flocking here within a few years. What a
+transformation!"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel recalled once more the old peasant, who, pasturing his sheep
+on the Alpine slope, spent hours and hours with his eyes fixed on the
+marvelous city, stretching out below, on the very spot that, as a young
+man, he had seen covered with thickets.</p>
+
+<p>"That was the beginning of Monte Carlo. Opposite the rock of Monaco,
+forming the other side of the harbor, there was an abandoned plateau,
+only some sixty years ago. Scattered about the gardens of the Square,
+among the tropical trees, there are still a few scraggly olive<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> trees
+left from those times. They have been spared as relics of the days of
+poverty. Where we now find the Casino, the large hotels, and the most
+elegant tea-houses, there were caves dating back to prehistoric times,
+which in less remote periods served as haunts for thieves. On account of
+the grottoes this wild plateau was nicknamed <i>The Caverns</i>. Some of the
+things you have seen in the Anthropological Museum in Monaco, stone
+axes, human bones, etc., came from those caves. And the abandoned
+plateau, in some ten or twelve years, was converted into Monte Carlo,
+the great city of world fame, leaving on the heights opposite in
+obscurity and more or less in oblivion, the historic Monaco, which at
+present is merely one of its suburbs. Monte Carlo has grown so that it
+extends from one end of the Principality to the other; the entire
+national territory is covered with houses, and each year it over-flows
+still farther beyond the boundary line. The French part is called
+Beausoleil. You have only to cross the Square in front of the Casino,
+ascend the sloping gardens, and mount a stairway to the Boulevard du
+Nord, to find one of the rarest sights in Europe. One sidewalk belongs
+to the Prince of Monaco, and the other across the street, to the French
+Republic. The shopkeepers pay different taxes and obey different laws,
+according to whether their show windows are on the left or on the
+right."</p>
+
+<p>Toledo remained thoughtful for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"The miracles accomplished by roulette!" he continued. "The magic power
+of 'red and black'! They say the Casino is a marvel of poor taste, but
+the walls and ceilings fairly drip with gold, as in a rich church. The
+theater there is the first to produce many operas that become famous
+throughout the world. The countless hotels are like palaces. Monte Carlo
+bristles with domes and turrets like an oriental city. The streets with
+their scrupulously clean pavements, seem like drawing-rooms.<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> There
+isn't a trace of dirt. And think of the gardens! The Alps, here, form a
+wonderful screen; we live in a sunny shelter; almost a hothouse. But at
+times the <i>mistral</i> blows, and it is cold. I don't know how it is
+possible for all those tropical plants that are so fresh and luxuriant,
+and all those trees that originate in a climate as hot as an oven, to
+live here. The poor old olives must be as amazed as I myself at finding
+themselves in such company. 'Trente et Quarante' must be a powerful
+fertilizer! I'm sure that if the gambling were to stop, all this
+tropical vegetation would vanish like a dream."</p>
+
+<p>The silent Professor greeted these words with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"And what a transformation in the people!" the Colonel continued.
+"Notice the crowd some Sunday; none of them like workmen, all equally
+well dressed! The girls here copy what they see worn by the elegant
+society women; and imagine how many of the latter come here! You never
+see a beggar, nor a man in rags. To be born here means something: one's
+livelihood is assured. The Casino takes care of every one; there is
+always a place for every citizen in the gambling rooms, in the gardens,
+or in the theater; and if not, on the police force, in the
+administrative offices, or in the Prince's household&mdash;and the latter is
+paid for with the Company's money too. To achieve the dignity of being
+put in charge of a gaming table is the native's highest ambition. He may
+earn as much as a thousand francs a month, not counting the tips. That
+is more perhaps than you will ever earn, Professor. And he ends his days
+in a little villa he has built on the heights of Beausoleil, where he
+can look after his garden, with a view below of the Casino&mdash;the house of
+the Good Fairy that dispenses all blessings. They all have enough to
+live on as long as they know how to keep a silent tongue, and mind their
+own business. An old cab driver, whom I sometimes engage, was bold
+enough<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> one evening to talk quite frankly with me, owing to the fact
+that he was slightly intoxicated. His wife has been for some twenty
+years now in the Ladies' Section of the Casino toilets; his daughters
+work as cleaners; his sons are employed in the theater. They all bring
+in money. Moreover, the old men retire on pay, the sick are not
+forgotten, and the widows and orphans of every employee that dies during
+service are paid pensions. 'It's a great country, sir,' the driver said
+to me, 'the best in the world. Every one can make a living, as long as
+he's wise enough to keep his mouth shut, and not make trouble.' And you
+can depend upon it, they are all discreet. Moreover they watch one
+another, and are afraid of being denounced by their best friend, if they
+talk about the latest scandal, or a gambler's suicide. Among strangers
+not one of them lets on that he knows anything."</p>
+
+<p>"And supposing one of them were to talk?" asked Novoa. "Or if one of
+them were to make trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"They would banish him. It is a paternal despotism, and does not dare
+inflict harsher punishments. The police of the Prince make him go half
+way across the street, and put him on the French sidewalk.... Don't
+laugh; it is a cruel penalty. Exiles to other places finally grow
+accustomed to their misfortune, since they live at a great distance, and
+see their native land only in their mind's eye. But a man who is exiled
+here can almost reach out and touch his country with his hand; he has
+only to cross the width of the street. As the land slopes downward, he
+can see his house a few roofs beyond. He sees the smoke from breakfast
+coming out of the chimney, and yet he cannot sit down to his own table;
+the family is at the windows, and he has to talk to them by signs.
+Moreover, and worst of all, he sees that the rest who were prudent go on
+leading their pleasant lives in the shadow of the Casino, while he has
+to seek a new profession at much<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> harder work. His torment becomes
+unbearable, and he finally flees to some distant city, to let a few
+years go by, so he may be pardoned."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos began to praise Monte Carlo again; "People who lose their
+money in the Casino always retain an unpleasant memory of it; but where
+can one find a quieter, cleaner, or more peaceful city, with its
+Spring-like climate in mid-winter?</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody comes here sooner or later; lots of rogues, of course; but
+you find famous people too, and you can enjoy society of distinction. I
+scarcely ever gamble, and for that reason I appreciate the beauty of the
+scenery. And more than that: at times I have the satisfaction one feels
+in getting things for nothing; and when I gaze at the lovely walks, when
+I attend the concerts and operas, and enjoy the sweet tranquillity of a
+city in which there are no poor, and no desperate revolutionists, I say
+to myself: 'The gamblers pay for this, and you get the benefit of it.
+They lose so that you may enjoy life.'"</p>
+
+<p>As Novoa smiled again, the Colonel expressed his admiration still more
+glowingly.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems impossible that roulette should have performed so many
+miracles! And there must be others besides those which lie before our
+eyes. Gambling has paid the cost of this delightful harbor of La
+Condamine: a harbor for yachts, with elegant docks that are really
+promenades. It must have had a hand also in the restoration of the
+castle of the Prince. It even helps to develop the spiritual life of the
+place, and increase the prestige of religion. Before roulette came none
+of the clergy were of higher rank than priests. Since the triumph of the
+Casino there has been a Bishop, and canons; and a beautiful Byzantine
+cathedral has been erected, which, according to Castro, needs only to
+have Time darken it a bit. The Sunday masses are one of the chief
+attractions of<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> the Principality. The Nice papers print the program of
+the music that will be sung by the choir, alongside the program of the
+concert at the Casino: '<i>Canto piano</i> of the most celebrated masters,
+the Italian Palestrina, or the Spanish Vitoria.'"</p>
+
+<p>Novoa interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"There is the Museum of Oceanography too. That alone is enough to remove
+any taint from the money which has come from the Casino."</p>
+
+<p>He said this with the pleasing voice and the somewhat distracted
+expression that were natural to him; but in his words there was the
+mystic ardor of the firm believer.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel nodded assent. The Museum which roused the Professor's
+enthusiasm was the work of the Prince, and as for himself, Don Marcos
+felt a deep respect for "Albert," as he called the sovereign familiarly.
+"Albert" had been an officer in the Spanish navy. As a lieutenant
+commander he had sailed the coast of Cuba; in his books he had praised
+the old Spanish sailors, his first masters in the art of navigation.
+What more was needed to inspire veneration in Don Marcos?</p>
+
+<p>"Whenever he attends a ceremony in his Principality he wears the uniform
+of a Spanish admiral. And he is a man of science: you know that better
+than I do."</p>
+
+<p>He gave Novoa a chance to speak. Three-fourths of the earth were covered
+with water, and for centuries and centuries humanity took no interest in
+investigating the mysterious hidden life of the ocean depths.
+Navigators, skimming the surface, went their way, guided by routine
+methods or by fragmentary experience, without succeeding in embracing
+the fixed and regular laws of the atmospheric or ocean currents.
+Science, which has to its credit so many discoveries in a single century
+of existence, halted in dismay at the edge of the sea. The scientists
+in<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> the laboratories only need material for their work, and that is
+easily obtained; but to study the seas, to live on them for years and
+years, is another matter. For that, it was necessary to have ships and
+men at one's disposal, to construct new and costly apparatus, to spend
+millions, to cruise patiently and leisurely here and there over the
+ocean wastes, with no fixed goal, waiting for the great blue depths
+casually to reveal their secrets. That meant a great outlay, with slight
+returns. Only a sovereign, a king, could do that; and that was what the
+former officer in the Spanish navy, on becoming a Prince, had done.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks to him," Novoa proceeded, "oceanography, which scarcely amounted
+to anything, has become to-day an important study. His yachts have been
+floating laboratories, cruisers of science, which have gradually made
+the first conquests of the deep. With his drifting buoys he has been
+able to demonstrate in a conclusive manner the circular drift of the
+Atlantic currents; with his careful soundings he has brought to light
+the mysteries of deep sea life at various levels of the great body of
+water. Scientists have been enabled to sail the sea and study, with no
+material restrictions, thanks to him. Through his generosity handsome
+books have been published, museums have been opened, and excavations
+have been made in the earth which throw enlightenment on the origin of
+man."</p>
+
+<p>"And all this," the Colonel interrupted, persisting in the admiration
+already expressed, "with the money from the Casino! Gambling has
+defrayed the expenses of the cruisers of science, the coal and men for
+far-off expeditions, the printing of books and journals, the subsidies
+for young men anxious to perfect their scientific training; the
+Institute of Oceanography in Paris; the Museum of Oceanography in
+Monaco, where you are working; the Museum of Anthropology and.... And
+you have to<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> figure that all this is merely a tip left by the
+stockholders of the gambling corporation. Just imagine what the Casino
+produces! And lots of people consider it terrible!"</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't make any difference where wealth comes from as long as it is
+put to useful purposes," said the Professor, with a note of hardness in
+his voice. "No one asks a government the origin of its funds, when they
+are used for some good purpose. Often they have been extorted with more
+cruelty and violence than those which come from here, where the people
+all flock of their own free will. It is a good thing that the money of
+scheming, foolish people, and of those who feel their lives are empty
+and don't know how to fill them, should be used for once to accomplish
+something great and human. Think what this Prince of a tiny State has
+done for science in the course of a few years. If only the great
+Emperors would devote the enormous forces at their command to similar
+enterprises! If only Kaiser Wilhelm had done the same, instead of
+preparing for war all his life, how humanity might have progressed!"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel, considering himself a warrior by profession, only half
+admitted the truth of the Professor's words. The sword, the glory won on
+the battle-field, were something after all, and the world would be ugly
+without them, it seemed to him. But he remained silent, not venturing to
+spoil his friend's enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"All the sins on the one hand are redeemed on the other." Saying this,
+Novoa pointed to the huge Casino, with its multi-colored domes and
+towers, rising from the table-land of Monte Carlo. Then tracing with his
+finger an imaginary arc above the harbor, he paused when it pointed to
+the eminence on the left, where, on the cliffs of Monaco, a large square
+edifice rose, the walls of which descended to the water's edge. It was
+the Museum of<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> Oceanography, a fine new building in stone that, in that
+atmosphere so seldom streaked with rain, still retained its waxy
+whiteness.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos smiled at the contrast. "Don Atilio says the same thing.
+Every time he gazes at the view from here, he looks at the two buildings
+separated by the mouth of the harbor, and occupying the two
+promontories. He says the one justifies the other, and adds: 'They are
+...' What is it he says?&mdash;an antithesis. No; it's something else."</p>
+
+<p>The metallic booming of a gong drifted through the trees from Villa
+Sirena, summoning the guests, who were scattered through the park, or
+had not appeared as yet from their rooms. The Colonel listened with
+pleasure: "Luncheon!"</p>
+
+<p>He gave a last look at the two enormous buildings, one of them bristling
+with sharp and many colored pinnacles, the other plain and square, of
+uniform whiteness. Between the promontories, at the water's surface, two
+new breakwaters meet, closing the mouth of the harbor. At the outermost
+extremity of each is a beacon: one red, the other green.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel tapped his brow and looked at his compatriot with a smile.
+"Oh, yes, I remember. He says the Casino and the Museum are a symbol."</p>
+
+<p>The little group which Castro had labelled "Enemies of Women" had now
+been in existence two weeks with no disharmony and no obstacles to the
+perfect happiness of the members. Complete freedom was theirs! Villa
+Sirena belonged to them all, and the real owner seemed merely like an
+additional guest.</p>
+
+<p>Arising late in the morning, Castro saw the Prince in a corner of the
+garden with his shirt open at the neck and his bare arms wielding a
+spade. The thing that made the new life complete for him was the
+cultivating of a<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> little garden, and having the gratification of eating
+vegetables and smelling flowers that were the product of his own toil.
+This man who had always been surrounded by a corps of servants to attend
+to all his wants, was anxious now to be self-dependent, and feel the
+proud satisfaction of one who relies entirely on his own hands. Vainly
+he invited Castro to join him in this healthy, profitable exercise,
+which was at the same time a return to primitive simplicity.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks; I don't care for Tolstoi. As far as the simple life goes this
+is all I want." And he stretched out on the moss, under a tree, while
+the Prince went on digging his garden. They talked for a while of their
+companions. Novoa was in the library, or wandering about the park. Some
+mornings he would take the early train for Monaco to continue his
+studies at the Museum. As for Spadoni, he never arose before noon, and
+often the Colonel would have to pound on his door so that he would not
+be late for lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"He never gets to sleep until dawn," said Castro. "He spends the night
+studying his notes on the way the gambling has been going. He gets into
+my room sometimes when I'm asleep, to tell me one of his everlasting
+systems that he has just discovered; and I have to threaten him with a
+slipper. In his room, among the music albums, he keeps piles of green
+sheets that give each day's plays for a year at all the various tables
+in the Casino. He's crazy."</p>
+
+<p>But Castro took care not to add that he often asked Spadoni to lend him
+his "archives" in order to verify his own calculations; and in spite of
+his making fun of the latter's discoveries, he used to risk a little
+money on them, through a gambler's superstition that attaches great
+value to the intuitions of the simple-minded.</p>
+
+<p>After luncheon, Castro and Spadoni would both hurry<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> off to the Casino.
+The Prince, when not attending a concert, remained with Novoa and the
+Colonel in a <i>loggia</i> on the upper story, looking out over the sea. The
+war had filled that part of the Mediterranean with shipping. In normal
+times the sea presented a deserted monotonous appearance, with nothing
+to arrest the eye save the wheeling of the gulls, the foamy leaps of the
+dolphins and the sail of an occasional fishing boat. The steamers and
+the large sailing vessels were scarcely ever to be seen even as tiny
+shadows on the horizon, following their course direct from Marseilles to
+Genoa, without following the extensive shore line of the Riviera gulf.
+But now the submarine menace had obliged the merchant ships to slip
+along within shelter of the coast. Convoys passed nearly every day;
+freighters of various nationalities, daubed like zebras to reduce their
+visibility, and escorted by French and Italian torpedo-boats.</p>
+
+<p>These rosaries of boats so close to the coast that one could read their
+names and distinguish their captains standing on the bridge, caused the
+Prince and the Professor to talk of the horrors of war.</p>
+
+<p>At times the Colonel entered the conversation, but only to lament the
+difficulties which such a war presented to the fulfillment of his duties
+as steward. Each day his task was becoming more difficult. He was no
+longer able to find anything worth serving at a table like that of the
+Prince, and even so, the prices that he paid roused his indignation when
+he compared them with those of peace times! And the servants! He had
+sent to Spain for some, now that all those from the district were in the
+army; but the hotel proprietors had immediately enticed them away. They
+all preferred to serve in cafés or in places where people are
+continually coming and going, tempted by the chance of getting tips and
+of associating with the white-aproned chamber-maids.<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a></p>
+
+<p>He had improvised dining-room service with the two Italian boys from the
+Brodhigera, whose families were living in Monaco. The older and livelier
+of the two had the name of Pistola, and treated his companion in
+despotic fashion, bullying him with kicks and cuffs when the Colonel's
+back was turned. Atilio, for the sake of the rhyme, had nicknamed
+Pistola's comrade, Estola, and every one in the house accepted the name,
+even the boy himself.</p>
+
+<p>"When you think of the work it cost me to make decent respectable
+looking servants out of them!" groaned Toledo. "And now it seems that
+they are going to be called back to Italy as soldiers. More men off for
+the war! Even these young lads that haven't reached the age yet! What
+shall we do when Estola and Pistola go?"</p>
+
+<p>Many evenings, at the dinner hour, the rules of the community were
+rudely broken. The first to desert was Spadoni. He arrived sometimes
+after midnight, saying that he had dined with some friends. At other
+times he did not return at all. After a few days had gone by he would
+quietly appear, with the serene ingenuousness of a stray dog, just as
+though he had gone out only a few hours before. No one could ever find
+out exactly where he had been. He himself was not sure. "I met some
+friends." And in the same half hour, these friends would be at one
+moment some Englishmen from Nice, or at another a family from
+Cap-Martin, as though he had been in both places at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>Atilio also used to absent himself. A gambling companion had shown him,
+in the Casino, the little cards divided into columns, which are used to
+note the alternating frequency of "red" and "black." Various ladies had
+taken similar documents from their hand-bags, where they lay among the
+handkerchiefs, the powder boxes, the lip sticks, the banknotes, and the
+various colored chips,<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> which are used as money in the gaming. The
+indications all agreed. During the morning and afternoon the "bets" were
+all lost, and the house was winning; but from eight o'clock in the
+evening on, undreamed-of fortune smiled on the players. The statistics
+could not be clearer; there was no possible doubt. And Castro would
+renounce the excellent food of Villa Sirena, satisfied with a glass of
+beer and a sandwich at the bar. Then at midnight he would return in a
+hired carriage, paying the astonished driver with prodigality. At other
+times he would stand in front of the gate fishing in his pockets to get
+together enough to pay for the cab. Fate had lied. Nor, on those
+occasions, would any of the prophets of the little cards have been able
+to lend him a cent.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo muttered protests. This lack of orderly habits made him lament
+once more the scarcity of servants. The help always got up late on
+account of having to sit up and wait at night. For that reason, on the
+nights when all the companions of the Prince were present, the Colonel
+felt the satisfaction of the Governor of a fortress when he sees all the
+posterns locked and feels the keys in his pocket. After dinner they
+would listen to Spadoni. Seated at a grand piano, he would play
+according to his mood or according to the wishes of the Prince. Lubimoff
+was a melomaniac whose musical taste was cloyed, perverted, by an
+excessive refinement. He cared only for rare works, and obscure
+composers.</p>
+
+<p>Castro, who was himself a pianist, at times was unable to hide his
+enthusiasm for the wonderful execution of the Italian virtuoso.</p>
+
+<p>"And just think that after all he is an idiot!" he exclaimed, with the
+frankness of a man who is carried away by his feelings. "All his
+faculties are warped, and narrowed, concentrated on a single purpose,
+music, without<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> leaving anything for anything else. However, what's the
+difference? He's an idiot&mdash;but a sublime idiot."</p>
+
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>There were nights when Spadoni remained with his elbow on the keyboard
+and his brow resting in his right hand, as though completely absorbed in
+music. As a matter of fact, the visions that were then whirling in his
+head, beneath those long locks, were red and black squares, many cards,
+and thirty-six numbers in three rows beginning with a zero. The Prince,
+annoyed by the silence, turned to Castro.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us something about your grandfather, Don Enrique."</p>
+
+<p>This grandfather had married an aunt of General Saldaña, and although
+Atilio had never known him personally he often talked about him, as a
+curious sort of person who aroused either his admiration or his bitter
+irony, according to the mood he happened to be in. This ancestor was a
+man of warlike temperament and rather perverse enthusiasms, who had
+succeeded in depleting the family fortune, already undermined by his
+predecessors. Related to a great many nobles, he usually would deny the
+relationship if forced to the point, as though it were something of
+which to be ashamed. Other members of the family might take the title of
+nobility if they chose. The motto which had figured for centuries on the
+Castro shield was an accurate summary of the man's character: "To-morrow
+more revolutionary than to-day." For thirty years there had not been a
+successful or abortive insurrection in Spain in which this
+somber-looking gentleman had not had a hand. He was very sensitive to
+insult and a great swordsman. He treated men like a despot and at the
+same time he was ready to die for the liberty of mankind.<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a></p>
+
+<p>"A red Don Quixote!" said Castro.</p>
+
+<p>He remembered having played with the old man's sword, as a child. It was
+a Toledo weapon, inlaid with golden arabesques copied from the old sword
+of the explorer and <i>conquistador</i>, Alvaro de Castro, who had been
+Governor of the Indies. But toward the hilt of the blade, where his
+ancestors had been wont to inscribe an expression of fidelity to their
+God and King, Don Enrique had had engraved: "Long live the Republic!"
+Without this knightly sword, he refused to take part in a revolution. He
+had carried it from Sicily to Naples, following Garibaldi to dethrone
+the Bourbons. "To-morrow more revolutionary than to-day!" His companions
+soon appeared to him unspeakable reactionaries, and this caused him to
+seek new doctrines which would fully satisfy his insatiable eagerness
+for destruction and innovation. Finally, this descendant of Governors
+and Viceroys wound up in the "First International." And the most
+extraordinary thing of all was that in his new life he never lost the
+traces of his early education, his arrogance and his knightly ways,
+which caused him to consider the slightest difference of opinion as "an
+affair of honor."</p>
+
+<p>Over a discussion in a committee meeting, he had fought a "comrade"
+laborer in Paris. No sooner had they crossed swords than the workman
+received a cut across the head.</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite just," said the wounded man, wiping away the blood. "The
+Marquis, who has been able to learn the use of weapons, ought of course
+to beat a mere man of the people."</p>
+
+<p>Don Enrique turned pale at the irony, and to restore equality, and
+eliminate his traditional advantages, he raised his sword and gave
+himself a terrible cut across the skull, while the witnesses ran forward
+to seize him and prevent him from doing it again.<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a></p>
+
+<p>After accompanying Garibaldi once more, in the War of 1870, fighting the
+Prussians at Dijon, he was drawn to Paris by the revolutionary movement
+of the Commune.</p>
+
+<p>"I think they made him a general," Atilio said. "He must have suffered
+heavily in that tragic farce. It is certain that he was executed by the
+government troops, and no one knows where he is buried."</p>
+
+<p>Atilio's admiration for his grandfather, whose life had been so
+romantic, was dampened by the thought of his mother. Poor, an orphan,
+and forgotten by her relatives, she had been obliged to marry a man old
+enough to be her father, and led the wandering life, outside of Spain,
+that is forced upon the wives of consuls. Atilio was born in Leghorn,
+and was given the name of his godfather, an old Italian gentleman, who
+was a friend of the Spanish Consul. The memory of his grandfather,
+saddened from time to time the life of his poor, resigned, and devout
+mother. In Rome, visiting Spaniards, all persons of conventional ideas
+who came to see the Pope, would look askance on learning of her birth:
+"Oh, so you are the daughter of Enrique de Castro!" And she would seem
+to shrink, and beg their pardon with her sad, humble eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't disown my grandfather," Castro added. "I would like to have
+known him. The only thing I blame him for is that he left us so poor;
+though his forefathers had already done more than he to ruin us."</p>
+
+<p>On days when Atilio had lost, he was more prone to complain, recalling
+the immense estates of the Castros, gained in the conquests in America.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day there are large cities on the fields given by the king to my
+forefathers. One of my remote ancestors grazed horses, and built a
+colonial country house on land where at the present time you will find
+gardens, monuments, and big hotels. There were hundreds of millions<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> of
+square yards; at a franc a yard, imagine, Michael! I would be richer
+than you, richer than all the millionaires in the world. And I'm only a
+well-dressed beggar. Good God! Why didn't my ancestors keep their land,
+instead of devoting themselves to serving the king and the people? Why
+didn't they do like any peasant who keeps religiously what has been left
+him by his ancestors?"</p>
+
+<p>Other evenings, seated in the <i>loggia</i>, the Prince listened to Novoa and
+gazed at the nocturnal scene of sea and sky. There was no light, save
+the veiled gleam from the distant drawing-room. The coast was dark. The
+silhouette of Monte Carlo stood out against the starry background,
+without a single dot of red. There were few street lights in the city,
+and besides, the glass of those few was painted blue. The lamps on the
+stairway of the Casino were shrouded like those of a hearse. The German
+submarine menace kept the whole Principality, as well as the French
+coast, in darkness. Only at the entrance to the harbor of Monaco, the
+two octagonal towers kept on their summit a red and a green beacon,
+which threw out over the water one shifting path of rubies, and another
+of emeralds.</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness, standing and looking at the stars, Novoa talked about
+the poetry of space, about distances that defy human calculations. It
+was impossible for Spadoni to follow this talk with the same attention
+as the Prince and Castro. What did the so-called tri-colored star matter
+to him? The millions and millions of leagues that the scientist spoke of
+merely made him yawn; and through an association of ideas, he became
+absorbed in gambling, mentally, imagining that he was winning fifty
+times in succession, doubling each time.</p>
+
+<p>He wagered a simple five franc piece&mdash;the smallest bet allowed in the
+Casino&mdash;and at the end of the twenty-fifth bet he stopped as though
+horror-struck. He had won<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> more than a hundred and sixty-seven million
+francs. In only twenty-five minutes! The Casino was closing its doors,
+declaring the bank broken! But this was not enough to bring him out of
+his dream. The marvellous five franc piece remained on the green cloth
+beside a mountain of money which kept growing and growing. He must
+finish the fifty bets, always doubling. He continued for five more times
+and then stopped. He had already won more than five thousand million
+francs. They would have to hand over the entire Principality of Monaco
+to him, and even that would not be enough perhaps to pay the debt. The
+thirty-fifth time the simple "napoleon" had become a hundred seventy-one
+billions of francs. They wouldn't pay him; he was sure of that. It would
+be necessary for all the great powers of Europe to ally themselves as
+though for a great war, and even then perhaps, he, the pianist, Teofilo
+Spadoni, would not accept the credit they might offer him.</p>
+
+<p>He could no longer make the calculations mentally. The twentieth time he
+had been obliged to have resource to the pencil which he used in the
+Casino to note results of the various plays, and to the cards divided in
+columns which were distributed by the employees. The back of the card
+was rather narrow for his winnings, which kept growing so tremendously
+that they had reached fantastic sums. He continued his triumphant
+playing. At the fortieth winning he stopped. Five million million
+francs. Decidedly neither Europe nor the entire world would be able to
+pay him. The nations would have to put themselves up for sale, the globe
+would be put on public auction, the women would all have to sell their
+bodies and give him the proceeds; and even so it would be necessary to
+ask him for several thousands of years in which to pay the debt to him,
+the creditor of the universe, seated on his piano stool as though on a
+throne.<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a></p>
+
+<p>But although he was certain that he was being deceived, since no one on
+earth or heaven could guarantee the bank, he went on playing. There were
+only ten more bets to be made. And when he had made the fiftieth he had
+a sudden stroke of generosity. In his mind he gave the employees of the
+Casino thousands, millions, and millions of millions. For himself he
+only kept the amount that figured at the head of his winnings, and wrote
+on his card:</p>
+
+<p>5,000,000,000,000,000 francs.</p>
+
+<p>Five thousand billions! For fifty minutes' work, that wasn't bad.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly his attention was attracted by the silence in which the Prince
+and Castro were listening to Novoa, and he fixed his visionary gaze on
+the latter, his eyes still dazzled by the golden whirl of the Vision.</p>
+
+<p>The scientist too was talking about millions of millions, figures which
+words would not express, and was going into detail, repeating dozens of
+ciphers one after the other. He thought he heard the professor surmising
+the age which the sun would reach in time&mdash;here an interminable
+figure&mdash;the disappearance of the present forms of life, the recession of
+the heavenly body towards an exceedingly remote constellation, and its
+final extinction and death&mdash;here another appalling sum.</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni smiled disdainfully. The sun, the constellation of Hercules, the
+hundred million years that it would take for the former to reach the
+earth, the seventeen million years that it would require to lose its
+incandescence, and cease furnishing warmth for life on earth, and all
+the other calculations of the scientist were as nothing, mere nothing!
+If he were to put his money on the green table fifty times more, the
+figures obtained by astronomy would appear paltry and ridiculous beside
+the winnings obtained in an hour and forty minutes. God alone could<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> be
+the banker, and pay with stars as though they were money; and who knows
+if God himself would be able to withstand the hundredth time the five
+franc piece was wagered, always doubling, and if he would not have to
+declare his bank was broken?</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni remained for some time absorbed in inner contemplation of his
+greatness. Coming out of his revery he became aware of Novoa's voice
+which still sounded a note of mystery, before that dark horizon, dotted
+above with the points of light from the stars, and undulating below with
+the phosphorescence of the waves.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince urged him to talk of the sea as the regulator and origin of
+life. The pianist heard it said that the sea covers three-fourths of the
+globe, and, as it represents a large preponderance over the continents,
+the latter, though they consider themselves superior, are dominated by
+the former, just as governments are obliged to yield to universal
+suffrage and respect the strength of majorities. All the great
+atmospheric laws are established, not on the lesser surface of the land,
+which is rough and broken, but on the vast ocean spaces, which allow the
+molecules freely to obey the mechanical laws of fluids.</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni touched Castro on the elbow, and tried to tell him in a low
+voice about the unheard-of winnings that he had just made. But Atilio,
+without turning around, brushed the interrupting hand aside, and went on
+listening.</p>
+
+<p>Novoa was talking about the hot waters which condensed on the globe in
+the primordial atmosphere, and had been precipitated on the crust of the
+earth which was then in formation, dissolving and tearing down
+everything in their way on the new-born surface.</p>
+
+<p>"With the salt that there is in the ocean," Novoa said, "one could
+reconstruct the entire African continent."<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a></p>
+
+<p>The pianist stirred once more in his seat. An Africa made of salt! What
+could you do with it?</p>
+
+<p>"Castro, listen to me," he said in a low voice. "I put five francs on a
+certain bet, fifty times in succession, doubling each time, do you
+know?"</p>
+
+<p>But the latter was not interested, and rejected the piece of cardboard
+held out to him.</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni, offended, shut his eyes, deciding to isolate himself from the
+rest, and not listen to what did not seem to him of any importance. If
+the scientist was going to talk every evening, he would dispense with
+the hospitality of the Prince, and go in search of other friends.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, a word caught his ear and drew him from his shell, causing him
+to open his eyes. The Professor was talking about the gold that had been
+washed away by the boiling rains at the creation of the globe, and was
+still present in solution in the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"There are only a few milligrams in each ton of water, but with all that
+there is in the ocean one could form a heap so immense, that, if it were
+divided equally among the thousand five hundred million inhabitants of
+the earth, we would each get an eighty-five thousand pound ingot, or
+some forty tons of gold."</p>
+
+<p>The pianist craned his neck in amazement. What was the Professor saying?</p>
+
+<p>"And," Novoa continued, "according to the value of gold before the war,
+each person's ingot would represent some hundred and twenty million
+francs."</p>
+
+<p>The silence was broken by a whistling sound. Castro turned his head,
+thinking that Spadoni was snoring. Observing the pianist's staring eyes,
+he realized that this was a sigh, of real emotion, an exclamation of
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give my share for a hundred thousand francs in bank-notes," he
+said in solemn tones.<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a></p>
+
+<p>And as the others laughed, he remained with his eyes fixed on Novoa. The
+sea! Who would have thought that the sea!... That scientist knew a great
+deal; and as for himself, with sudden awe and respect, he determined
+that hereafter he would always listen to him.</p>
+
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>One night, Atilio and the Prince were eating alone. On leaving the
+Casino, the pianist had gone off to Nice with some English friends of
+his, who played poker in their landau. Novoa had been invited to dine
+with a colleague from the Museum and would not be back until midnight.</p>
+
+<p>Michael was thinking of his impressions of that afternoon. He had gone
+to the Casino to attend a classical concert, determined to face the
+obsequious curiosity of the employees, and take the risk of running
+across former friends. From the outer stairway to the door of the
+theater he had been obliged to reply to the series of deep bows from the
+various functionaries, some with military caps and gold buttons, others
+in solemn frock coats, stiff and dignified like lawyers in a play. The
+people who were passing through the portico noticed him immediately.
+"Prince Lubimoff!" They all remembered his yacht, his adventures, and
+his parties, and repeated his name like the glorious echo of a
+resurrected past. He had been obliged to hurry through the groups at top
+speed, with a vague stare, feigning absentmindedness, so as not to see
+certain well-known smiles, and certain inviting faces which evoked sweet
+visions of by-gone days.</p>
+
+<p>In the auditorium he looked for a seat where he would be entirely
+inconspicuous, some corner divan, close to the wall; but even there he
+was annoyed by the curiosity of the crowd. Around the leader of the
+orchestra were the most famous musicians, those who prided themselves on
+the title of "Soloists to His Most Serene Highness the<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> Prince of
+Monaco." Some of them had sailed with Prince Michael on his yacht, as
+members of the orchestra. During a pause in the music, the first violin,
+in looking around the room to see if he could recognize any of his
+admirers, discovered Lubimoff, and communicated his surprise at once to
+the other soloists. They all smiled in his direction, and showed on
+their faces that they were dedicating to him alone the music which was
+rising from their instruments. Finally the public began to notice the
+gentleman who was half hidden, and who was gradually attracting the
+attention of the entire orchestra.</p>
+
+<p>When the concert was over Lubimoff left hurriedly, afraid of being
+stopped by certain former women friends whom he had observed in the
+audience. He crossed the portico brusquely, elbowing his way through the
+crowd that barred the way. Here his attention was caught by a person of
+majestic bearing and exclusive showy appearance, with a derby of smooth
+gray silk, a honey colored overcoat with velvet sleeves of the same
+shade, and white gloves and shoes. His gray side-whiskers joined his
+mustache; his hair was parted away down to his neck, and over his ears
+strayed two locks of hair, cut short and dyed and shining with
+cosmetics.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it was a Russian general or some Austrian of note dressed for
+winter, with an elegance worthy of the Riviera, and I find it's you, my
+dear Colonel. I hadn't seen you outside of Villa Sirena before."</p>
+
+<p>Toledo blushed, not knowing whether to feel proud or annoyed, at these
+words.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Excellency, I always liked to dress well, and...."</p>
+
+<p>"Who was the lady you were talking with?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was the Infanta. She was telling me that she had lost seven thousand
+francs that were sent to her from<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> Italy, and that she hasn't the money
+to pay her living expenses, and...."</p>
+
+<p>"The tall, thin one, with the big cow-boy hat? No, not that one. I was
+asking you about the other."</p>
+
+<p>He had only seen "the other" from behind, but she had attracted his
+attention for the moment because of her svelte figure and her queenly
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Excellency," said Don Marcos, hesitatingly, "that was the Duchess
+de Delille."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence, and as though the Prince had caught him
+doing something wrong, that he must apologize for, he hastened to add:</p>
+
+<p>"She is very kind to the Infanta. She gives her children clothes, and I
+think she even lends her dresses. The daughter of a King! The
+grand-daughter of San Fernando! I am an old legitimist soldier, and the
+least I can do is be grateful that...."</p>
+
+<p>Michael cut his excuses short with a gesture. That was enough: he did
+not want to hear any more. And he turned to Castro. He had seen him too,
+near the entrance to the Casino, talking to another lady.</p>
+
+<p>"And I saw you, too," said Atilio, "but you were in such a rush, going
+along with your head down, making your way like a mad bull. Do you want
+to know who the lady is? Does she interest you?"</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff shrugged his shoulders; but his indifference was feigned. As a
+matter of fact she had interested him, although slightly. The unknown
+woman was tall and blond, with an air of lithe strength, with the
+freedom of movement of a gymnast or an amazon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that's the <i>'Generala</i>,'" Castro continued without observing that
+his friend was not paying much heed. "The title of '<i>Generala</i>' isn't to
+be taken seriously. It's a pet name. I think the Duchess invented it,
+for I warn<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> you the two are very good friends. She's a 'General' in the
+same way that certain other people are Colonels."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos overlooked this bit of irony. Atilio was evidently in a bad
+humor that evening. His nerves were on edge, and he seemed ready to snap
+at any one. He must have lost in the gambling.</p>
+
+<p>"They call her the 'Generala' because of her somewhat masculine
+character, and the brusque way she has of treating people at times. An
+extraordinary woman! A real amazon! She shoots, does gymnastics, swims
+in the rivers in mid-winter, and what's more she has a voice like the
+sighing of the breeze, and looks as though she were going to faint at
+the least emotion, like a timid girl. Do you want to know who she is?
+Her name is Clorinda, a name of ancient poetry, or ancient comedy. I
+always call her Doña Clorinda; it seems as though it would be
+disrespectful if I didn't, in spite of the fact that she is still young.
+Perhaps two or three years younger than her friend Alicia. The two hate
+each other, and they can't live apart. One week each month they clash,
+call each other names, and tell the most horrible tales about each
+other; then they look each other up; 'How are you, my dear?' 'Are you
+angry with me, angel?'"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince smiled at Atilio's imitation of the words and gestures of the
+two ladies.</p>
+
+<p>"Clorinda is an American," Castro continued, "but from South America,
+from a little Republic where her grandfathers and great-grandfathers
+were Presidents, and fighters, and fathers of their country. Her title
+of 'Generala' has a certain basis. Over there in her native land they
+admire her for her beauty and for the great sensation she is supposed to
+have caused in Europe. At a distance, you see, everything is changed and
+seems much greater. Her picture is public property, and figures on every
+package of coffee, and every advertising prospectus<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> in the country. She
+is a national beauty; and when she gets old, there will always be a spot
+in the world where she will be considered eternally youthful. She got
+married in Paris to a young Frenchman, a dreamer, rather ill with
+tuberculosis. That was the very reason why the 'Generala' loved him. If
+she had married a strong, fiery sort of man, they would have killed each
+other in a few days. She is a widow now. I don't think she is very rich;
+the war must have diminished her income, but she has enough to live
+comfortably. I even imagine she must suffer fewer hardships than does
+the Delille woman. She is an exceedingly well-balanced person."</p>
+
+<p>He remained silent for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"But she has such queer ideas! She is so used to dominating! I met her
+in Biarritz some years ago. I have seen her here often in the gaming
+rooms; we have bowed to each other and had a few conversations which did
+not amount to much. When a woman is placing her stakes she doesn't allow
+compliments that might distract her attention. To-day is the first time
+that I have talked with her at any length. Do you know what she asked
+me, the very first thing? Why I wasn't in the war. It didn't make any
+difference when I told her that I'm neutral, and that the war doesn't
+interest me. 'If I were a man, I would be a soldier,' she said. And if
+you had only seen the look she gave when she said it!"</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff smiled a bit scornfully at the woman's words.</p>
+
+<p>"In her opinion," Castro went on saying, "every man ought to work at
+something, produce something, be a hero. She adored her poor husband,
+gentle as a sick lamb, because he painted a few pale, washed-out
+pictures, and had been rewarded in some slight degree at various
+expositions. Men like you and me, in her eyes, are a variety of 'supers'
+hired to give life to the drawing-rooms, casinos, and bathing resorts,
+to keep the conversation<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> going, and be nice to the ladies; but we don't
+interest her. She told me so this afternoon once again."</p>
+
+<p>"Does her opinion bother you?" asked the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>Atilio paused for a moment, as though to weigh his words before
+replying.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it does bother me," he resolutely answered at last. "Why should I
+deny it? That woman interests me. When I don't see her, I forget all
+about her. Months and years have gone by without my giving her a
+thought. But as soon as I meet her she dominates me.... I want her. I
+know I can't come up to you in such matters, but I've had successful
+love affairs too. But she is so different from the others! Besides,
+there's the joy in conquering, the need of dominating, that you find at
+the bottom of all our amorous desires! Every time we talk together, and
+she makes quite evident, with her bird-like voice and her smile of
+compassion, the distance that separates us, I come away sad, or rather,
+discouraged, as though I had to climb a great height, of which I would
+never reach the top, no matter how hard I tried. To-day I ought to be
+happy; it has been months since I've had an afternoon like this. I've
+played, and look ... look! Seventeen thousand francs!"</p>
+
+<p>He had taken from his inner pocket a bundle of blue bank-notes, throwing
+it on the table with a certain fury.</p>
+
+<p>"I succeeded in winning as high as twenty-six thousand. If there is
+anything in the saying, 'Lucky at cards, unlucky in love,' I was as
+lucky as a despairing lover or a deceived husband. And yet, I'm not
+happy."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince smiled again, as though a self-evident truth had just been
+completely demonstrated. Woman! That Clorinda, that devil of a
+"Generala," was a real "woman." With a few short minutes of conversation
+only, she had turned Castro topsy-turvy, and perhaps would end by
+breaking up the peaceful life&mdash;without exciting pleasures<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> but without
+desperate sorrows as well&mdash;that the guests at Villa Sirena were leading.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Atilio," he said in a reproachful voice, "are moved by that
+smooth-voiced virago. You believe in love like a school-boy."</p>
+
+<p>Castro replied in a cold, aggressive tone. The Prince might say whatever
+he liked about him; but to call her a virago!... What right had he?
+Nevertheless he hid the real cause of his annoyance, pretending to be
+hurt by the allusion to his credulity.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe in anything; I'm more skeptical than you perhaps. I
+know that everything about us is false, and conventional&mdash;all a matter
+of lies that we accept because they are necessary to us for the moment.
+You love music and painting as though they were something divine and
+eternal. Very well; if the structure of our ears were to be modified a
+little, the symphonies of Beethoven would be a regular din; if the
+functioning of our retinas were to change, we would have to burn all the
+famous pictures, because they would seem like so many canvases dirtied
+by a child's play; if our brains were to be modified, all the poets and
+thinkers would become childish idiots for us. No, I don't believe in
+anything," he insisted angrily. "In order to live and understand one
+another, we have to agree upon a high and a low, a left and a right; but
+even that is a lie, since we live in the infinite which has no limits.
+Everything we consider fundamental is simply a matter of lines that have
+been laid down on the canvas of life to mark off our various
+conceptions."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince shrugged his shoulders, giving him a look of surprise. Why
+all this, apropos of a woman?</p>
+
+<p>"Everything is a lie," Castro went on; "but that is no reason why I
+should live like a stone or a tree. I need sweet falsehoods to sing my
+mind to sleep until the hour of my death. Illusions are a lie, but I
+want them near<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> me; hope is another lie, but I want it to walk before
+me. I don't believe in love, since I don't believe in anything.
+Everything you say against it I have known for years; but should I give
+it a kick if it comes my way, and wants to go with me? Do you know any
+dream that fills the emptiness of our lives better&mdash;even though it lasts
+only a short time?"</p>
+
+<p>Michael greeted his friend's enthusiasm with a sardonic gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know why I look younger than I am?" Atilio continued, more and
+more excitedly. "Do you know I shall be young when others of my own age
+have become old men? I pretend to be ironical. As a matter of fact I'm a
+skeptic. But I have a secret, the secret of eternal youth, which I keep
+to myself. Let me tell you what it is. I have discovered that the
+greatest wisdom in life, the most important thing, is to 'while away the
+time'; and I fill the emptiness that every man carries inside him with
+an orchestra; the orchestra of my illusions. The great thing is that it
+play all the time, that the music rack never be empty; once one piece is
+played, another must take its place. At times it is a symphony of love.
+Mine have been beautiful but brief. For that reason I have replaced them
+with another which is endless&mdash;that of ambition and the desire for gain,
+whose orbits are infinite like those of the stars in the heavens, and
+like the possible combinations of cards. I gamble. In the whirl of the
+roulette wheel I see a castle that may be mine, a more sumptuous castle
+than any in existence; a finer yacht than the one you used to have;
+endless <i>fêtes</i>. Through a pack of cards I can contemplate things more
+magnificent than were dreamed of by the Persian story-tellers. Its
+suites are so many piles of precious gems. Most of the time I lose, and
+the orchestra plays an accompaniment on muted strings, with a funeral
+march of wondrous wild sadness<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> and beauty; but after a few measures,
+the march becomes a hymn of triumph, the dawning of a new day, the
+resurrection of hope."</p>
+
+<p>And now there was a look of pity in the eyes of the Prince. "He is mad,"
+it seemed to say.</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon," Castro continued, "my orchestra made me acquainted
+with a new symphony, something I had never heard before. While I was
+winning money I did not think a single time about myself, nor about
+palaces, nor yachts, nor parties. I was thinking only of the 'Generala,'
+and thinking of her with real hate, wanting to get revenge. I wanted to
+win a hundred thousand francs&mdash;who knows, I may win it to-morrow&mdash;and
+spend the whole hundred thousand on a pearl necklace, on leaving the
+Casino, and send it to her anonymously with something like this: 'As a
+tribute of dislike from a worthless, miserable man.'"</p>
+
+<p>A burst of laughter from the Prince woke the Colonel with a start. As a
+good early riser, the latter had gone to sleep in his chair. Observing
+that His Excellency was not paying any attention to him, he slipped out
+of the Hall, as though he had something of more importance to attend to
+than the conversation of the two friends who seemed to ignore his
+presence.</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you find in love?" Michael asked. "For I think you know
+what love really is. All the illusions of adolescence, and all the
+idealism of poetry, are merely winding paths which lead to the same, the
+only goal; the physical act. And aren't you tired of that? Aren't you
+never daunted by the monotony of it?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a certain gloomy intonation in the Prince's voice, as though
+he were lamenting over the ruin of all his own life. He had met hundreds
+of women of the sort that cause a sudden burst of mute desire as they
+pass. Feminine resistance was something unknown to<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> him. More than that:
+women had sought him, coming half-way of their own free will, pursuing
+him with no regard for the conventions and modesty, obliging him, as a
+matter of masculine pride, to overtax his powers with a prodigality that
+made pleasure almost painful. And they were all alike! He understood the
+mirage of illusion in the things that one admires from afar, and has no
+hope of obtaining. It is our curiosity for what is hidden, the desire
+which is aroused by an obstacle, the inner fancies inspired by clothes,
+ornaments, everything which covers the feminine body, giving to its
+sameness the charm of a mystery which is ever renewed. As for him, alas,
+it was as though they all went nude. Nothing could stimulate his
+interest; it was all too familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," and here his voice grew quieter, "I wouldn't confess it to
+any one else; but love and women make me think of the miserableness of
+human life, the inevitable end, death. Since I've been freed from their
+false seductions, I feel gayer, more sure of myself; I enjoy more
+frankly the passing moment. I don't want to talk to you about the shame
+of those bodies which we claim to be divine. Women are less wholesome
+than men. It was Nature's will. But that isn't what makes me flee from
+them."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a moment, but then added shortly after:</p>
+
+<p>"Whenever I am near a woman I can't help but see the image of death.
+When I caress her silky hair, I suddenly seem to feel a smooth, hard
+yellow skull, like those one sees protruding from the ground in
+abandoned cemeteries. A kiss on her mouth, or a nibble at her chin,
+rouses in me a vision of the bony jaw with its teeth, not so different
+from those of the anthropoids in the museums. Those eyes will fade; that
+nose with its graceful curves and rosy quivering nostrils will dissolve
+likewise;<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> the only solid and permanent parts are the black sockets, and
+the grotesque grin of the skull, with its flattened nose. Those swelling
+breasts are nothing more than false padding to hide the ghastly cage of
+the ribs; those legs, which seem to us such wonderful columns, are
+stringy flesh and water that will waste away, leaving bare two long
+calcareous pipe-stems. We imagine we are adoring supreme beauty, and we
+are embracing a skeleton. The image of death fills us with horror, and
+every woman carries one within her, and compels us to worship it."</p>
+
+<p>Now it was Castro's turn to gaze in astonishment. His eyes, fixed on the
+Prince, seemed to say: "He is mad."</p>
+
+<p>"The trouble with you, Michael, is that you've over-enjoyed," he said
+after a long pause. "You make me think of the people who, when they sit
+down to the table, hide their lack of appetite with nausea. The most
+succulent meat for them suggests the horrors of the slaughter house.
+Bread reminds them of the hands that kneaded it, and wine calls up a
+picture of feet reeking with juice in the vintage-troughs. But just let
+their senses awaken, and their physical needs reassert themselves, and
+they see everything in a different light, as though the sun had just
+risen, and they find an indescribable charm in the very things that
+disgusted them. What difference is it to me if a woman has a skeleton
+inside? I have one too, and that doesn't prevent me from taking a great
+deal of joy in the pleasures of life, and considering love as the most
+interesting of all those pleasures."</p>
+
+<p>Castro laughed with affectionate compassion as he looked at his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me say it again, you are satiated; you have the lack of appetite
+and the gloomy vision of a person suffering from a painful indigestion.
+You are still too young for this debility to last. You will recover.
+Your appetite will come back. I hope you won't find the table<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> set
+exactly as in the past, that you will be swept off your feet by some
+obstacle, in other words, that unrequital will make you suffer; and then
+<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a>... well, just wait till then!"</p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p>D<small>ON</small> M<small>ARCOS</small> had never seen the Prince so vexed as he was that morning,
+when he announced that the Duchess de Delille was waiting for him
+down-stairs in the hall.</p>
+
+<p>"You should have told her I'd gone out; any sort of a pretext&mdash;a lunch
+at Nice.... There must be some understanding between you. You certainly
+look out for your Infanta!"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel, flushed with emotion, made an effort to reply to these
+accusations. If the Duchess had now suddenly presented herself, it was
+perhaps because he had refused to take any of her messages for the
+Prince.</p>
+
+<p>As the latter went down to the hall, he ran straight into Alicia, who
+was standing close to a window, and looking at the gardens and the sea.
+Her back was towards him, just as he had seen her coming out of the
+concert. When she turned her head, Michael thought to himself that he
+would surely never have recognized her had he met her anywhere else. She
+was a beautiful woman, but scarcely like the person he had seen that
+last time in the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, with its weird oriental
+nick-nacks and unwholesome perfumes. Several years of her life had
+passed away since then, and yet she seemed fresher, and younger. Her
+eyes had lost the veiled disturbing fire, that made them look larger,
+and gave them a fixed, unnatural stare. The dull, sickly whiteness of
+her skin had taken on color from the sun and the open air. Her airy,
+undulating litheness had become less willowy, giving her person the calm
+tranquillity of bodies that are beginning to crystallize in their
+definitive form.<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a></p>
+
+<p>The Prince, interrupted by Alicia's smiling glance, was unable to
+continue his scrutiny. It seemed from her quiet easy manner as though
+she had been there in that very place only the day before. Moreover,
+Michael suddenly began to wonder how he should start the conversation.
+Should he talk English or French? Should he speak informally as
+before?... She put an end to his hesitation, speaking familiarly in
+Spanish, just as when they were children.</p>
+
+<p>"How hard it is to get in touch with you! Practically impossible,"
+Alicia said as she sat down, after shaking hands with him. "So I decided
+to pay you this visit. It isn't exactly proper for a lady to call on a
+person with such a terrible reputation as you have; but I'm not the
+first one who has come here. There have been lots of others!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed teasingly as she said this. Immediately she became serious,
+and said timidly:</p>
+
+<p>"I came here on business&mdash;a money matter."</p>
+
+<p>Not wanting to take up such a subject at once, she talked about the
+obstacles which had obliged her to come unannounced to Villa Sirena. The
+Prince could have absolute confidence in the fidelity with which his
+"chamberlain" carried out his orders. This Colonel was a nice fellow,
+but there was no approaching him, any more than a ferocious dog, when
+some one tries to make him disobey his master. She had vainly asked him
+to announce her visit; and he had even refused to accept her card for
+his Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"I might have written you; but I was afraid you wouldn't reply, or would
+simply tell me to deal with your agent in Paris. It has been such a long
+time since we've seen each other! Our friendship has been so
+intermittent! So that is why I finally decided last night to come<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> and
+surprise you in your den, with the hope that you wouldn't show me the
+door."</p>
+
+<p>Michael smiled, making a gesture of indignant denial.</p>
+
+<p>"I came about my debt ... the loans your mother made me some time ago. I
+didn't know how much they amounted to. Your agent now says they are over
+four hundred thousand francs. It must be so, if he maintains it. At
+times when I was in straits I asked for something, and the Princess, who
+was such a great lady, kept giving and giving, without either of us
+paying any attention to the amounts. Now I see how tremendously generous
+she must have been."</p>
+
+<p>This was surprising news for Lubimoff. Then he gradually recalled that
+when his mother died she had left a long memorandum of all the loans she
+had made, and that Alicia's name figured among the debtors. But he had
+left the papers in the hands of his administrator, without thinking any
+more about the matter.</p>
+
+<p>He immediately understood the reason for Alicia's visit. His agent had
+wanted to raise some money, and owing to the lack of funds from Russia,
+he was raising all he could in the West: credits ... advances made to
+friends or dependents, guaranty deposits, and even the loans made by the
+Princess, which, according to his express orders, were not to be
+demanded except in case of strict necessity.</p>
+
+<p>The general pressure of circumstances had reached Alicia. For the last
+four months the Lubimoff estate had been sending her letter after
+letter, demanding the payment of her enormous debt. Already the agent's
+last note had become threatening because of her silence. It notified her
+that action would be brought against her in court. The estate was
+holding many of her letters thanking the Princess for the latter's
+generosity. Besides, all the<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> money had been paid by checks cashed by
+the Duchess herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Your administrator is certainly an insolent fellow. The other day I saw
+you in the Casino,&mdash;I saw you from behind as you were running away from
+people. You frightened me: I imagined then that you had changed, that
+you were very different from the man I knew, and that we would never
+come to an understanding. Later I thought you mustn't be quite so
+terrible as you seem ... and I came."</p>
+
+<p>Michael, remaining silent, seemed to be saying something with his eyes,
+which were fixed on Alicia. Well, why had she come? What was it she
+wished to propose to him?</p>
+
+<p>She smiled with an expression of cynical amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to tell you that I can't pay now&mdash;and perhaps never; to beg you
+to wait, I don't know how long, and to ask you to see that that
+disagreeable fellow who is managing your estate doesn't annoy me with
+his insolence."</p>
+
+<p>And as the Prince made no move, she continued,</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ruined."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," said Michael. "We're all ruined. The munition makers are the
+only people with any money now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! You ruined!" Alicia protested. "With you it is simply a question of
+being hard pressed for the moment. Things in Russia will be straightened
+out some time or other. Besides, you are Prince Lubimoff, the famous
+millionaire. If I had your name, who would refuse me a loan?"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she lost the audacious smile which she had worked up for the
+interview. Her eyes grew darker; the corners of her mouth drooped.</p>
+
+<p>"I am really ruined. Look."</p>
+
+<p>She pointed to the triangle of bare flesh visible at the<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> throat of her
+low cut dress. A pearl necklace rested on her white bosom. Michael, as
+she insisted, finally looked at the pearls. False, scandalously false;
+all the luster gone, opaque and yellow as drops of wax. He knew
+something about pearls; he had given away so many necklaces! Then Alicia
+showed him her hands. Two artistically made finger rings, but without
+any jewels, and of slight intrinsic value, were all that adorned her
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a last year's dress," she added in a mournful voice, as though
+confessing something most shameful. "They won't trust me any more in
+Paris. I owe so much! Nothing but the hat is new. What woman, no matter
+how poor she might feel, wouldn't buy a hat! It is the most conspicuous
+thing about one,&mdash;something that changes all the time; and must be
+looked after at all costs. Luckily, on account of the war, they are not
+using plumes.... I'm poor, Michael, poorer than any woman you ever
+knew."</p>
+
+<p>"And your mother?"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince asked this instinctively, without thinking. A moment later he
+suspected that he had read, some years before, he didn't know where,
+perhaps while he was roving the seas, the news of the death of Doña
+Mercedes. He was not sure; but her daughter removed all doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor señora! Let's not talk about her."</p>
+
+<p>But nevertheless Alicia did talk, but only to lament her mother's devout
+prodigality. She had given millions for the construction of an enormous
+hospital in Spain, on the advice of her Aragonese chaplain, the
+astronomer of the Champs-Élysées. Marble was used in the construction
+for the mere masonry; the garden fence was forged by a celebrated
+Parisian artist who devoted himself to molding bronze statues for
+drawing-rooms. But when the vicar left, tired of such generosity, the
+monster building remained unfinished, and the precious fence lay on the<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a>
+ground in pieces, like so much old iron. Later, the "Monsignor" directed
+the worthy lady's funds into other channels. It was necessary to spread
+the faith by means of the "good book," and a new publishing house arose
+in Paris, which was most extraordinary and unheard of. Packages of books
+were stored on mahogany shelves, and the leaves were folded on lacquer
+tables.</p>
+
+<p>"The priests got everything that belonged to me," Alicia continued. "At
+times they egged mamma on to the most absurd outlays of money just for
+the sake of collecting commissions from the contractors. From numerous
+belfries in both hemispheres chimes rang thanks to Doña Mercedes. One
+entire bell foundry was kept going just on mamma's gifts. Besides, she
+was often carried away by a sort of loving weakness for all the saints
+who were not especially famous.</p>
+
+<p>"In her last years she devoted herself to 'launching' saints. Every one
+in the calendar who was little known, or of some unusual name, aroused
+in her the desire to repair a great injustice. She had their lives
+written, churches dedicated to them; and corresponded with the high
+dignitaries of Rome to push many a dead man, who had waited centuries in
+vain for the hour when he should become a Saint."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff finally began to laugh at the resentful tone in which Alicia
+spoke of her mother's mystic pleasures. Doña Mercedes was a great one!
+And finally she began to laugh likewise.</p>
+
+<p>"In that way all our income, which was enormous, was spent. She should
+have left me a real fortune, unencumbered, in the bank. A lady that
+spent so little on herself! And nevertheless, I had to pay out huge sums
+for all the orders she had contracted before her death. You can be sure
+the Monsignor and the rest of them are much richer than I."<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a></p>
+
+<p>"How about your mines? And your lands in Mexico?"</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess repeated the same gesture of despair. It was as though they
+did not exist! She was poor, absolutely poor.</p>
+
+<p>"You say you are ruined, and you haven't suffered from the money
+shortage for more than the last two years, perhaps less. I haven't seen
+a cent of my fortune for some time before the war. Every one is talking
+about Russia, and Bolshevism, because it is something that concerns the
+Old World directly. But how about Mexico, and the situation there which
+goes back to the time when Europe was at peace?"</p>
+
+<p>Her lands had been lost as though they were so much personal property,
+that could be transported and hidden. An agrarian revolution, the echoes
+of which had scarcely reached the Old Continent, had swallowed them up,
+suppressing all traces of her former property rights. The half-breeds
+had divided them to suit themselves, to work them, or leave them more
+unproductive than before. To whom could she appeal, if these lands were
+in provinces that were constantly changing hands, and the Mexican
+government had no authority over them?</p>
+
+<p>The silver mines, which for three generations of Barrios had been the
+basis of their fortune, were in a still worse situation.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the so-called 'Generals,' an Indian, has fortified himself in
+the territory where my mines are, and from there he defies the rulers in
+the Capital. They tell me that every month he takes out half a million
+francs in silver bars. He cuts them up in disks, puts his stamp on them
+and makes money thus to pay his men. You can imagine he has plenty of
+followers, with pure silver money, worth more than that of civilized
+countries! They will never be able to put him out; all he has to do to
+create armies for himself is to dig down into what<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> belongs to me. This
+bad joke has gone on now for several years; I, who live in Europe,
+getting poorer and poorer every day, am paying for an endless war on the
+other side of the earth."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the fact that the Prince had never taken care of his own
+business he wanted to give her some advice. She ought to go over there
+and ask for assistance; she was born in the United States.</p>
+
+<p>"I've already seen to that," she replied. "I have some one in New York
+who looks after my affairs. But would they go to war just on my account?
+Perhaps I shall take the trip later. Not now: I haven't the strength.
+There is something that is bothering me terribly just now, and it would
+be even worse if I were to leave France."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes began to fill with tears. Her face contracted with an
+expression of pain, and her hand moved toward her purse for a
+handkerchief. Michael recalled the young man that Castro had been
+noticing at Alicia's side during the last few years. Perhaps he was the
+cause of her emotion, and inability to make the trip.</p>
+
+<p>"Love!" he thought to himself. "Love, even now when she's growing old."</p>
+
+<p>He tried to change the conversation and asked about the Duke de Delille.
+He knew that he was at the front; and even thought he remembered a
+report of his being wounded in one of the early battles. Was he still
+alive?</p>
+
+<p>In speaking of her husband, Alicia looked grave, to Michael's great
+surprise. Formerly she used to treat him with a certain scorn. He had
+accepted his wife's freedom, with all its consequences, in exchange for
+an enormous allowance. They lived apart, and although she found her
+independence very sweet, she could not help but feel a sort of feminine
+dislike for her accommodating husband, so little given to tragic
+jealousy. But at present<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> her ideas seemed to have changed, and she
+spoke rapidly as though afraid of noticing Lubimoff smile as she used to
+smile herself, in mentioning the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he joined the service. You know of course that he is some twenty
+years older than I. He was exempted from bearing arms on account of his
+age; but he remembered that he had been an officer in his youth, and was
+one of the first to go. Who would have thought it of a man who didn't
+seem to have any cares, and made fun of everything that didn't affect
+his own selfish pleasures!"</p>
+
+<p>The Germans had picked him up in a dying condition during one of their
+victorious advances at the beginning of the war. He was covered with
+wounds. After two years as a prisoner they had exchanged him as useless,
+and he was living interned in Switzerland, with one arm gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor man! He writes me every month. He fishes in Lake Geneva, and
+thinks of me more than he ever thought before. His epistles are almost
+love letters. What a transformation misfortune can make in a character.
+He says that he sees life from a different angle; and hopes that after
+the cataclysm, which will have made us better, we shall be able to come
+together again, and be happy. Oh, if only I could want to!..."</p>
+
+<p>Her tone was ironical as she spoke of this illusionary happiness, but at
+the same time there was in it a note of respect and admiration. The Duke
+whom she had known as a great dowry hunter, accommodating and
+unscrupulous, was forgotten. At present she saw in him only the
+white-haired warrior, the invalid, who according to the doctors, would
+not live long, owing to the operations he had undergone. And she was
+trying to keep up the exile's hopes, replying to his long letters, with
+brief, affectionate notes.<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a></p>
+
+<p>"So it's on account of your husband that you don't take the trip?"
+Michael asked, pretending that he was inquiring in good faith.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia was ruffled by such a supposition. Poor Delille! It was something
+else that was troubling her. Her husband wasn't the only one who had
+gone to war. There were others, who were younger, and had better reasons
+to love life, but who had suffered the same fate. How many hidden griefs
+there were these days!</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess's eyes moistened, and her eyes and lips frankly expressed
+her sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the little lover; there's no doubt of it," Michael said to
+himself. "It's the young chap Castro saw."</p>
+
+<p>As though she read his thoughts and were anxious to switch them, Alicia
+began to talk once more about the reason for her visit, and about her
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince nodded when she described to him her amazement at finding
+that wealth was not something infinite and immutable, and that it was
+slipping from her grasp ... slipping and slipping, without her being
+able to do anything to avoid the gradual ruin.</p>
+
+<p>"I sold inopportunely; I took the money they cared to give me, without
+paying any attention to the conditions. All my jewels went; I sold some
+in Paris, others here in this very place. You say you are ruined. No,
+you don't know what it means; but I know all right! I've been
+shipwrecked longer than you; my boat was smaller. I don't want to bore
+you with an account of my poverty. I haven't a house in Paris any more.
+I shall never go back there again, unless my affairs are straightened
+out. The only house I have is a villa here, which I bought in the good
+old days. Don't smile; there are two mortgages on it. Almost any day
+they may put me out of it. It was a very pleasant sort of house before,
+when I had money; but now, with everything so scarce on account of the<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a>
+war! There's no coal, and wood is dear; it gets cold at night, and it
+takes a fortune to keep the old furnace going. Besides, I haven't any
+servants except my former lady's maid, the gardener, and his wife who
+does the cooking. For that reason all the rooms are closed, and Valeria
+and I live our lives in two rooms on the first floor. We eat there, and
+sleep there. Valeria is a girl from Paris, a señorita whom I am
+'protecting.' Imagine how poor she must be if she trusts her future to
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you gamble," said the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia seemed shocked at these words. They sounded like an accusation.</p>
+
+<p>"I play, but what can you expect me to do? I have to do something to
+keep body and soul together, to earn my living. How else could a woman
+like myself do it? I know what you're going to say to me: that I've lost
+a great deal. True; I sold my pearl necklace here, the real one, and a
+great many other jewels; I have lost large amounts, more than I care to
+think of. But at that time I didn't know all I know to-day.... When as
+luck will have it, I haven't much money to play!"</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff was astonished at the way this woman spoke in all seriousness
+of her present adeptness.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," she added in a tone of sadness, "what would become of me if I
+didn't play? Surely you haven't forgotten how I was when we saw each
+other last. You must have noticed certain tastes of mine."</p>
+
+<p>Michael recalled the invitation to smoke "the pipe," and the odor that
+filled the "study" in the palace on the Avenue du Bois.</p>
+
+<p>"I put a stop to all that: gambling and something else made me give it
+up. Now I think of it with disgust. That's why I live in Monte Carlo. I
+have a feeling deep down in my heart that fortune will come back in
+search of me here, and nowhere else. Don't you play?"<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a></p>
+
+<p>Michael was annoyed at this question. Hadn't he told her that he was
+ruined? Was he going to follow her example, and make his situation still
+worse by losing the remnants of his fortune?</p>
+
+<p>"Ruined!" exclaimed Alicia. "Your hard times can't last long. This
+Russian business will finally be settled. The great powers have too
+large interests at stake there, not to take a hand in straightening
+everything out. It's this affair of mine that won't be arranged for
+years. The only hope I have is to enjoy a run of luck in the Casino and
+win some two or three hundred thousand francs, and, with that amount,
+wait for things to change."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince shrugged his shoulders. He knew gamblers. This woman,
+dominated by her wild dream, would forget the object of her visit, and
+go raving on about the possible whims of fortune, like Spadoni, or like
+Castro himself.</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you want of me?"</p>
+
+<p>Alicia seemed to wake up, and once more her smile became bold, and
+engaging, as it had been at the beginning of the interview; the smile of
+a petitioner who comes with the firm determination to get what he wants.
+She had already told him at the very beginning what her object was; that
+the Prince's agent shouldn't bother her any more in regard to that
+forgotten debt.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall pay it some day, if it is possible for me.... But you had
+better count on my never paying it at all. Give it up as lost, and tell
+that horrid gentleman not to write me any more."</p>
+
+<p>Michael, fascinated by the simple way in which this woman announced her
+extraordinary desire, imitated the tone of her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; I shall tell this horrid gentleman not to bother you; to
+forget you."</p>
+
+<p>And he laughed like a child, without paying any attention<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> to the fact
+that his own interests were at stake. The only thing he thought of was
+the expression on the face of his solemn agent when he received such an
+order.</p>
+
+<p>"I always thought you were kind and generous," she said. "Thanks,
+Michael! At times I have had a discussion with the 'General' about you,
+to convince her that you are a big hearted man."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so Doña Clorinda is an enemy of mine? Why I've never seen her!"</p>
+
+<p>"She's an extraordinary woman. In her eyes, every man who has a good
+time, and doesn't do wonderful things, is displeasing to her. Only
+yesterday we quarreled for good. Let's not talk about her. I have
+something more to ask of you."</p>
+
+<p>More? The Prince looked at her in astonishment, but Alicia hastened to
+add that what she wanted was some advice.</p>
+
+<p>War had upset their modes of life with amazing rapidity. Social values
+were reversed: the fortunes that seemed most solid were crumbling.</p>
+
+<p>"Things will change, surely? It's impossible for this to last."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes it is impossible," he said gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Both of them seemed to be living in another world, surrounded by the
+senseless visions of a nightmare. To think that they would have to worry
+of money, after it had been, up to that time, a natural part of their
+existence, much as sunlight, air, or water is for every one! To think
+that they should find themselves obliged to pursue it in its flight
+through unknown ways! No, it wasn't logical; surely a passing whim of
+destiny. Their lives would again be the same as before, with the
+regularity of the laws of nature, which seem to swerve at times, but
+finally return to their orderly predestined course.</p>
+
+<p>Being harder pressed, and having suffered economic<a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a> hardships for a
+longer time, it was impossible for her to adopt the serenity with which
+Lubimoff accepted his momentary ruin.</p>
+
+<p>"Things will change, that's certain; but in the meantime, how can I
+live? You have just freed me from a moral burden by forgetting about
+this debt. I thank you. But I must work, I want to earn some money! What
+is your advice?"</p>
+
+<p>He was astounded. What work could Alicia do? Her question was laughable.
+But there she was, gravely facing him, convinced of her determination to
+work, and expecting illuminating counsel, as though her fate depended on
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately Alicia herself, unable to bear the silence, began to explain
+her own ideas on the subject. The topsy-turvy state of things at the
+present time justified the wildest plans. A great lady might adopt means
+of support which some years previously would have caused a scandal. She
+knew a number of Russian ladies in Nice who used to give wonderful
+parties in their drawing rooms before the war, and who at present,
+having been reduced to poverty, were devising schemes to earn their
+living in their own way. One was going to open a millinery shop, and
+count on her former friendships to form a circle of customers. Another
+had changed her villa on the Promenade des Anglais into a boarding
+house. She would admit only people of distinction. Allied officers, from
+Colonels up. She intended to treat her boarders like visitors, with all
+the courtesy of a great lady receiving her guests; save that from now on
+every day in the week would be her reception day.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of my turning my villa into a boarding house? Could
+you help me with a little money to renew the furniture, and buy whatever
+is lacking?<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> Nothing but aristocratic guests; generals, and retired
+ambassadors who come here in quest of sunlight."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince replied with a burst of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're crazy. They would all make love to you. In a few weeks your
+establishment would be a regular inferno."</p>
+
+<p>Alicia, considering his observation quite accurate, did not insist any
+further. The Russian lady in Nice was old and terrible looking compared
+with her. Besides, she thought it perfectly natural and logical that her
+guests should become enamored of her.</p>
+
+<p>The "General" had suggested another plan to her. She might open a
+tea-room in Monte Carlo, a very elegant one. The attraction of seeing
+her at the counter would draw people. For this she would not need a
+financial backer.</p>
+
+<p>Once more Lubimoff burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess de Delille's tea-room! That would be delightful; but once
+people's curiosity had been satisfied the only customers you would have
+would be those who were interested in your charms. No; that's not
+business."</p>
+
+<p>She gave a look of somewhat comic dismay; what was she to do? A lady who
+is anxious for work can find no occupation in a world controlled and
+monopolized by men. She had nothing to fall back on except gambling. It
+was an exciting pleasure which made her forget her worries, and at the
+same time gave her hope. Each day with gambling she opened a window to
+fortune, in case it should deign to remember her. Who knows but what
+some time it might fold its golden wings and alight on a Casino table,
+and allow Alicia's slender hands to caress it, like a tame eagle!</p>
+
+<p>"In the first few months of the war," she continued, "I<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> didn't feel the
+need of anything to distract my mind; the reality of what was happening
+was enough. What anguish I went through! But one gets used to
+everything; the deepest emotions get monotonous if they are too long
+drawn out. One can't live forever with one's nerves at a high tension.
+And this war is so long, and so tiresome! I might have had recourse to
+philanthropic work to take my mind off my troubles; go into a hospital,
+and take care of the wounded. But I've never been clever at such things,
+and I don't want to make a nuisance of myself and be a hindrance, out of
+pure vanity, like a great many other women. Besides, we are in the habit
+of giving orders, and always coming first, and no matter how deeply we
+may feel the spirit of sacrifice, we finally leave, unable to endure
+finding ourselves ordered about by more skillful and useful women, who
+have previously been our inferiors. Take Clorinda for instance; she was
+a nurse the first two years; she was one of the prettiest and most
+interesting with her white dress and her little blue cape. She is
+attracted by everything great; heroism, sacrifices, etc., but she
+finally quarreled with her superiors and gave up her fine rôle."</p>
+
+<p>In gesture and facial expression Alicia seemed to be pitying her own
+uselessness.</p>
+
+<p>"What could I do? I was reduced to worse and worse straits. In Paris my
+creditors were right at my heels, constantly bothering me; that's why I
+came to Monte Carlo, and gambled to forget, and to make a living. There
+is love, an old Academician, a friend of mine, said to me, with a
+selfish motive to be the first to make advantage of his advice. Just
+imagine: real passionate love, wholehearted love, as the only solution
+for the sorrows of life, and at such a time! Oh, if only I could! But I
+feel I'm old, two thousand years old. You are younger, but you<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> can
+count your life in centuries too. Love, for such as you and me!"</p>
+
+<p>At first Lubimoff smiled at the tone of irony and disenchantment in
+which she spoke. Yes, they were very old. The great remedies, useful for
+the majority of people, had no effect on them. They, as it were, had
+become insensible from satiety and weariness. Suddenly the Prince was
+moved by an indiscreet desire. He decided to take advantage of the
+opportunity to ask her a question that had often occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," he said with masculine frankness, as though talking with a
+comrade, "you still believe in love? They told me about a boy, almost a
+child, whom you used to take everywhere before the war. Really, we are
+beginning to get old," he added with a smile, "and feel we need the
+contact of youth. Was he your lover? Is he the reason for your worries?"</p>
+
+<p>At these questions, the Duchess paled, and seemed to hesitate. Then she
+made an effort to speak. It was evident that she was eager to be
+sincere. But her pallor was followed by a wave of crimson. Twice she
+tried to say something, and finally, mastering her desire to talk, she
+forced a mischievous smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's not talk about that. We each have a right to our secrets," she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>And to keep the Prince from relapsing into his curiosity, she went on
+talking about gambling. But he was absorbed in his thoughts, and was not
+listening to her. He had hit the nail on the head; that young stripling
+was her lover, and she was suffering on his account. Perhaps he was
+wounded, or a prisoner. That was the great obstacle which stood in the
+way of her trip; which was keeping her pinned down in Europe, in the
+superstitious belief that we can ward off dangers better if we remain<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a>
+close at hand. And she seemed very much in love! Here the Prince gave
+vent to a series of mental exclamations.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty years old, with a past that would fill a book! To feel such a
+powerful, such a youthful passion! Still to believe in love!"</p>
+
+<p>Michael looked at her with an expression that was almost one of hatred.
+Her passion for the boy annoyed him, without his being able to tell just
+why; perhaps because of the indignation which is always aroused by
+people who cling to some harmful lie, accepting it as truth and
+consolation. Whatever the cause, her conduct annoyed him.</p>
+
+<p>This sudden feeling of hostility towards Alicia finally caused him to
+pay attention once more to what she was saying.</p>
+
+<p>"If only I had as much money as I had before, when your mother was still
+alive, and we used to live in Monte Carlo! But at that time I didn't
+know as much as I know to-day about gambling. I used to play just for
+excitement, just to enjoy the sensation of losing, which, as a matter of
+fact, didn't affect me very deeply. I used only chips for a thousand
+francs in betting. I thought it was beneath me so much as to touch any
+others; and besides, I never risked them one at a time. I always staked
+them in a row."</p>
+
+<p>"How much have you lost?"</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders, and pursed her lips disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Who could possibly know? I've been coming here for twelve years or
+more. Even the people in the Casino wouldn't be able to calculate what
+I've given them. In those days, I never used to keep any track of it
+myself. When I needed money I telegraphed to Paris. Besides, I had your
+mother; and I had my own, who usually gave<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> in to my requests, in the
+end. I wouldn't like to know how much I've lost: it would make me
+furious. It must be millions."</p>
+
+<p>The smile of commiseration with which Michael listened to her, seemed to
+make her bolder.</p>
+
+<p>"But at that time I didn't know how to play! Now I must win, and I play
+in a different way. What I need is capital. If I only had a working
+capital!"</p>
+
+<p>This last expression changed his smile into frank laughter. "A working
+capital!" The Duchess would go on talking seriously about her "work."
+She lamented the slenderness of her means. Some thirty thousand francs
+was all the capital she had at her disposal. At times it dwindled in
+alarming fashion: the thirty thousand often shrunk to a single digit.
+Then the ciphers would reappear, and the product of her "work" expand,
+gradually rising above the thirty thousand; but this amount seemed to be
+the fatal number for Alicia, for soon after reaching it her winnings
+would always fall to their usual level.</p>
+
+<p>"Last night I was lucky; I succeeded in winning fourteen thousand
+francs. But last week was bad. Sum total, I'm still at thirty thousand:
+impossible to get any farther. And I don't run any chances, I'm afraid,
+and don't take advantage of the good runs of luck I do have. I ought to
+go on doubling, and doubling. I'm afraid of losing it all on a single
+stake. If I only had a working capital! If I were to go into the Casino
+some afternoon with a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand francs!
+That's the way to master luck. I ought to play big stakes. Imagine me,
+betting a hundred, and even as low as twenty franc chips, like a retired
+money lender! That's the reason fortune doesn't notice me, and passes by
+on the other side."</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a>The Prince shook his head. He refused to help her with her follies.
+Wasn't it better to keep those thousands of francs, instead of losing
+them in no time, as would happen when she was least expecting it?</p>
+
+<p>"You're not a gambler, I know," she said. "You have never felt attracted
+to that sort of pleasure. That's why you don't realize the mysterious
+power of the game, and give advice about something you don't understand.
+If I were to give up playing, I would feel my poverty at once; then I
+would be really poor. While you play, you always have money in your
+hands; you win, and lose, but you never lack the necessities of life.
+And if you lose everything you can still get what you need to start in
+again. I don't know how it is, but a gambler always has plenty of money.
+A single coin puts him on his feet again in five minutes. It's the poor
+man who doesn't play who goes around with empty pockets, without hope or
+means of improving his situation."</p>
+
+<p>Michael continued his mimicry of protest. That was all an old story to
+him; it was the way Spadoni, and even Castro, talked, but with a certain
+added fanaticism, characteristic of women, who, mystics in money
+matters, are always inclined to believe in presentiments and mysterious
+influences.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't count on my helping you to gamble. Besides, I'm poor. At the
+present moment the Colonel must have less cash in the strong box than
+you. I'm almost tempted to ask you to loan me your thirty thousand
+francs."</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed at the idea of this loan. And she had come as a debtor
+to ask his aid!</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what I can do for you; it's impossible for me to tell just
+what my situation is; but I'll do what I can. Let's have hope: one must
+be patient. These times can't last."</p>
+
+<p>"No; they can't last."</p>
+
+<p>Again the thought of the ridiculousness of their being<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> poor so
+unexpectedly, came over them. But was it logical to think that the world
+would go on in the same normal fashion after such radical divergences
+from the natural order?</p>
+
+<p>They felt drawn together in the solidarity of misfortune; they suddenly
+met, like brother and sister, fallen at the foot of a mountain peak, on
+the heights of which they had previously avoided each other, rudely
+clashing in uncontrollable hostility.</p>
+
+<p>At present Michael had a feeling of being attracted to her, for a reason
+that was absolutely novel. Since his youth he had hated the daughter of
+Doña Mercedes, for her pride, and for the air of overwhelming
+superiority which she maintained even in those moments of love when
+nearly every woman freely humbles herself to take shelter in a man's
+arms like a happy slave. She could give herself only with a manner of
+haughty condescension, as a haughty alms, much as a goddess might come
+to a poor mortal.</p>
+
+<p>And now, seeing her come to him thus simply, to entreat his aid, without
+the rancor of humiliated pride, hiding her fear with friendly merriment,
+desirous of forgetting the past, he felt all his old antipathy melt
+away.</p>
+
+<p>He had always been a protector, a lover in the oriental fashion,
+incapable of caring for any women except those of his harem, who owed
+everything to his munificence, from their slippers to the plumes in
+their turbans, from the jewels that adorned their breasts, to the
+sweetmeats they ate, the pipes they smoked, and the musical instruments
+which accompanied their songs. Alicia did not interest him as a woman;
+neither she nor any other! But he felt the sympathy of comradeship in
+seeing her in need of his protection; somewhat the same feeling that he
+had towards Castro, the Colonel, and the other occupants of Villa
+Sirena. He even thought to himself that misfortune<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> was acceptable, so
+long as it tended to make people show their real character once more.
+This Alicia, so odious to him in early youth, might finally turn out to
+be quite a good friend, now that she found herself freed from the
+influence of vanity and of her bad bringing up.</p>
+
+<p>"You have done enough just in receiving me here," she continued. "I know
+the limitation of my rights: I'm in hostile territory. This is the house
+of 'The Enemies of Women.'"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince pretended not to hear her. Somebody had been talking; perhaps
+it was Castro, who could never keep anything from Doña Clorinda.</p>
+
+<p>They walked through the gardens. Alicia stopped suddenly in front of a
+little piece of cultivated ground, where a few vegetables were beginning
+to spring from the soil.</p>
+
+<p>"This is where you work? I know you amuse yourself working in your
+garden, just as other Russian princes do by making shoes."</p>
+
+<p>So she knew this too? Oh, that tattle-tale rogue of a Castro!</p>
+
+<p>In the Greek garden, one of the marble benches supported by four winged
+Victories attracted her attention, causing her to stop for a moment with
+a pensive expression on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember the old man on the bench near the Trojan wall?" she
+suddenly said.</p>
+
+<p>Michael did not know how to answer her question; but after a few moments
+he remembered, as though her fixed stare communicated to him the vision
+of that night in which he had brutally left her.</p>
+
+<p>"How you laughed at me! What a fool I must have seemed! Yes: I was
+unbearable. I was Venus; I was the center of the world; everything in
+existence, people and things, had been created for my special benefit. I
+felt it was my mission to make the world endure my whims,<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> and that the
+world ought to thank me on its knees for paying any attention to it.
+What can you expect! It was youth, and the childish pride of our
+Springtime, which imagines itself eternal. And afterwards! If I were to
+tell you all the disillusionments, and all the sorrows that I
+experienced, even back in the days when I didn't have to worry about
+money! Winter sweeps away all our fancies of Maytime!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you're not an old woman yet!" Michael exclaimed. "You still inspire
+romantic love in young men. You're fooling yourself or trying to make
+fun of me. There are still lots of men who, when they see you,
+would...."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," she replied, "but you, my dear, are not one of them. Confess
+it; I've never pleased you."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince decided not to confess anything, and changed the
+conversation. These allusions to the past annoyed him. Alicia irritated
+him, every time she attempted to revive her charms as a siren of men.</p>
+
+<p>They wandered about for more than half an hour on the various garden
+terraces. From time to time, in passing a clearing in the shrubbery,
+Michael cast a stealthy glance in the direction of the villa. No one was
+at the windows; but he himself felt an inner agitation at this visit. He
+was sure they were spying on him. Atilio, from behind the window
+curtains, was undoubtedly following their promenade among the trees.
+Perhaps Spadoni, who had spent the night at Villa Sirena, was jumping
+out of bed, and losing two hours of sleep, in order to contemplate this
+surprising spectacle. Even Novoa might have stopped reading to look in
+the direction of the garden.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia herself noticed the fact that no one was visible, neither guest
+nor servants. She and the Prince seemed to be walking through an
+enchanted park.</p>
+
+<p>As they went in the direction of the gate they met Don<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a> Marcos, who was
+hurriedly coming out of the gardener's lodge.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess held out her hand to Michael, who kissed it ceremoniously.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope we are to see each other again in the Casino."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. The gaming rooms bored him: he had no idea of going
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"I would have liked to meet you there. I'm sure you would bring me
+luck."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment she seemed undecided. She had no thought of returning to
+Villa Sirena, where there was no one but men: she was convinced that she
+was a nuisance there.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and see me to-morrow. The Colonel knows where I live. Come, and
+we'll have a laugh at the way the Duchess de Delille is living. It's
+rather interesting."</p>
+
+<p>She went over to the livery carriage which was waiting for her outside
+the gate. Before getting in she turned to urge him, in a tone of playful
+threat:</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't come, you'll never see me again. I shall think you want to
+break with me, that you think I'm a bore, and don't like me. I shall
+expect you."</p>
+
+<p>As the carriage drove off, she waved farewell.</p>
+
+<p>"It was about time!" Michael exclaimed, on finding himself alone.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a visit of an hour and a half. It had kept him continuously
+at a nervous tension, weighing his words, and avoiding too great an
+expression of friendliness, giving advice without any interest
+whatsoever, and leaving the past in silence. He preferred the confidence
+and lack of restraint of the conversations with his comrades.</p>
+
+<p>On thinking of the latter, his feeling of annoyance returned. How Castro
+would smile, when he sat down at the table! He could hear his voice
+already saying ironically:<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> "No women!" And the first to appear had made
+him as sheepishly obedient as a prior breaking the rule of the monastery
+to receive a Queen.</p>
+
+<p>This worry caused him to speak to the Colonel, who was walking along at
+his side in silence, accompanying him from the gate to the house. Where
+was Castro?</p>
+
+<p>"In the library with Lord Lewis. His Lordship arrived while Your
+Highness was in the garden. He has come to lunch."</p>
+
+<p>He was a nice Englishman! He had taken it into his head of his own
+accord to choose this day, after so many futile invitations! While that
+Englishman was present, Castro would talk of nothing but gaming. And
+Michael went in search of Lewis.</p>
+
+<p>The latter was the son of the great historian, whose country had
+rewarded him with the title of lord. But this title was only to be
+inherited by the oldest son of the family, and no one but Toledo, who
+always exaggerated the importance of his friends, called the second son
+<i>Lord</i> Lewis. He had been in Monte Carlo for twenty-five years, and the
+old employees in the Casino, seeing his bald head sadly bowed above the
+gaming tables, recalled the gentleman of former times, elegant, gay, and
+vigorous. He had come to the Riviera, on one of his Byronic
+"pilgrimages," and there he had remained, not caring to see any more of
+the world. The passion for gambling was the one inexhaustible pleasure
+for this man who had tried them all, and who was bored by the majority.</p>
+
+<p>The real Lord Lewis, a solemn person, who maintained the prestige of the
+family name, had several children, and had served his country in various
+high positions in the Colonies. As for the Colonel's "Lord," he was
+gradually losing all his former connections, and becoming a mere Monte
+Carlo gambler.<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Twenty-five years!" he had remarked with sadness one day to the Prince.
+"And I shall never be able to do anything else! It's too late now to get
+a fresh start. My life is ended, and they will bury me here, I'm sure;
+all that I inherited from my father, and all that several old aunts left
+me will remain here. There have been times, when I saw things as they
+are, and undertook to run away. But when I'm at a distance, I feel
+violently indignant. I remember that I've dropped more than a million
+here, I think that I ought not to resign myself to the loss, and in
+order to recover it, I come back at once to play, and lose again. I
+shall go on doing like that until I die. Besides, there's the
+castle...."</p>
+
+<p>Michael was acquainted with the castle. It was on a peak of the Maritime
+Alps, in sight of Monte Carlo, near the village of La Turbie and the
+remains of the Trophy of Augustus which marks the ancient Roman road.</p>
+
+<p>During his first years of life on the Riviera, the aristocratic Lewis
+had bought for a few thousand francs the ruins of a lordly stronghold
+that possessed the romantic tradition of having witnessed wars with the
+Counts of Provence, and scenes of family violence and murder. The son of
+the Historian, fonder of sport than of literature, considered it a
+matter of filial homage to reconstruct within sight of the Mediterranean
+a castle such as his father had described in telling the legends of his
+country. Part of his fortune had gone into this. The rest had been
+devoted to gambling. "With what I win," he used to say to himself, "I
+shall finish the castle." And since he imagined he would win fabulous
+sums, he started the reconstruction on a gigantic scale, directing it
+himself, according to the architectural fancies he had studied out from
+the drawings of Gustave Doré. The castle had remained half built,
+standing thus for many<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a> years. On the one side that was completed, the
+walls displayed huge gloomy-looking windows with stained glass. On the
+side opposite, the timber of the scaffolding was rotting; the unfinished
+walls stood there meeting at right angles, and the wind and rain entered
+the future drawing rooms, for lack of a fourth wall to shut them off.
+They were open to the view like a stage setting.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever Lord Lewis' friends did not meet him in Monte Carlo it was
+because he was out of money, and was staying in his castle, sadly
+contemplating all that remained to be done. He lived in one of the wings
+that was most nearly completed, and passed the lonely hours in fighting
+with his peasant neighbors, the market people, and with every one in the
+district in fact, who considered it a duty to annoy him and exploit him
+in every possible way.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever a remittance of a thousand or two thousand pounds sterling
+arrived from England, he proudly descended from his mountain to the
+Castle. He had a great aim in life, and he felt he must accomplish it.
+This time he was going to triumph! And when, after exciting
+fluctuations&mdash;his capital sometimes increasing, as though his hopes were
+about to be realized&mdash;he finally lost everything, Lewis would return to
+his refuge on the heights, and to his hermit's life, in hopes of new
+remittances, which were less frequent and more difficult to get each
+time.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince had visited him once, in this new yet crumbling stronghold,
+to invite him on a long voyage on his yacht. But Lewis refused. He must
+continue his duel with the Casino to get back his money; he was under
+obligation to finish his undertaking.</p>
+
+<p>The war had awakened him for a few weeks from the grip of his wild
+dream. His brother had died a few weeks before; but countless young
+nephews still remained.<a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a> They had given up their comforts and pleasures
+in high society to offer their lives. Some of them, who were in the
+navy, had embarked on small vessels, torpedo-boats and submarines,
+seeking the greatest dangers; others entered the army as officers. A
+niece of his even, delicate in health, had been decorated on the firing
+line, for her sacrifices as a nurse.</p>
+
+<p>"And I, miserable selfish man that I am," he said, in talking with the
+Colonel at the Casino, "go on being a mere Monte Carlo gambler. I ought
+to be out there, where the men are, but I can't.... I can't! My days are
+over; I'm a corpse that eats and sleeps just to go on gambling. Add to
+that the fact that some of my relatives, older than I am, are in the
+army!"</p>
+
+<p>At the age of fifty-four, the consciousness of his moral decay, and his
+continual losses, had embittered his nature. Besides, the evenings that
+luck was against him he kept going out to the Casino bar, seeking
+inspiration in one whisky after another gulped down in haste. Heavy set,
+with square shoulders, a small head, deep blue eyes and a red mustache
+streaked with gray, he reminded Atilio somewhat of a wild boar, perhaps
+because of his aggressiveness and gruffness when he was in a bad humor.
+He gambled with his head sunk between his shoulders, his strong hands
+resting on the green baize, without looking at any one, and without
+allowing any one to talk to him, since it disturbed his calculations.
+The days when things were going wrong, and he was having arguments in
+regard to some doubtful play, with the employees or with those who were
+sitting near him at the tables, Lewis's outburst of rage broke the
+discreet calm of the gaming rooms. He insulted the croupiers, inviting
+them to step outside on the Square, while his biceps swelled like a
+prize fighter's. It was necessary to call one of the<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> principal
+directors to pacify him with all the paternal considerations which a
+steady patron deserved.</p>
+
+<p>This man, who in his youth had believed in neither God nor devil, lived
+a constant prey to superstitions which were Castro's delight. He
+detested strange faces, feeling certain that they exercised on him an
+evil influence. It was enough that he should see one across the green
+table, or behind his seat, to cause him to begin to growl in an
+undertone, until finally he would get up and go out to the bar, with the
+idea that a whisky taken in time would change his luck. His intimate
+friend, the only one who could live with him for several days in
+succession, was a French count, older than Lewis, and who was simply
+called by his title, as though he were nameless, or as though he were
+just naturally "The Count." The latter never gambled, but he was ever so
+wise, in spite of the fact that many people considered him insane! One
+day, thirty years ago, he had stepped out of his house in Paris, saying
+that he was going out to buy some tobacco, and he had not yet returned.
+His wife had died without seeing him, and his children, and countless
+grand-children, who had been born and had grown up during his absence,
+were anxious that he should never finish making his purchase.</p>
+
+<p>While Lewis played, the Count, seated on a divan, quietly read some
+book, without paying any attention to the curiosity of the public, which
+stared at his long white hair brushed back, his enormous wild-looking
+mustache, his round green eyes, gleaming with phosphorescence like those
+of a night hawk. Castro's curiosity was aroused by the Count's books.
+They were always new volumes of the sort that are never seen in any book
+store, and are published by obscure unknown firms; conscientious
+treatises on the nectars and ambrosias<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> of modern life&mdash;opium, cocaine,
+morphine, and ether&mdash;formulas by which one can enter into direct
+communication with the mysterious powers&mdash;spirits, hobgoblins, and
+familiar demons&mdash;old books of magic brought to light by up-to-date
+sorcerers.</p>
+
+<p>He never deigned to give his friend advice as to gambling; his thoughts
+were on higher things; but Lewis felt surer whenever he raised his eyes
+and saw him, by chance, reading in a corner. As long as he was there, he
+always won, or at least he did not lose much. His presence was enough to
+conjure the evil power of the infinite number of enemies which the
+Englishman felt were surrounding the table. Besides, he was aware of the
+object which the Count was fondling secretly with one hand, while he
+went on reading.</p>
+
+<p>After he had had the misfortune to lose for several days in succession,
+Lewis would come to him, entreatingly:</p>
+
+<p>"Count, my dear Count, if you would please lend me your Satan's rosary!"</p>
+
+<p>The learned personage would look up, doubtful and hesitating. But since
+it was his best friend who asked for it, he would hand the rosary over,
+which meant that one of his hands would be left without anything to do.
+It was a rosary like any other, with large red beads and black ones to
+mark off the tens. The chief thing about it was the group of objects
+which hung in place of the missing cross: an ivory elephant picked up by
+the Count in India, an authentic coin of the Emperor Constantine found
+in the excavations at Anatolia, and another charm which even Lewis could
+scarcely look upon without a sense of revulsion.</p>
+
+<p>Ill luck was vanquished. At times Lewis had lost while he was secretly
+telling the beads of the diabolical rosary under the table; but he
+always lost less than when<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> he was deprived of the marvelous talisman.
+He only cared to remember how one afternoon, aided by the obscene
+sacrilegious thing so highly prized he had succeeded in winning eighty
+thousand francs.</p>
+
+<p>If he stopped winning it was the Count's fault. He was as fickle as a
+coquette. He would suddenly disappear, repeating the same unexplainable
+flight that had amazed his family. He never left Lewis to go and buy
+tobacco; but if any of the books he bought told about some narcotic used
+in Asia to enable one to see the future, or about a gypsy woman in
+Granada who could kill people by merely wishing and saying a few words,
+then off he would go, accepting as gospel truth the saying of some
+anonymous writer who had never been out of Paris. He never lacked money
+for these mysterious trips: doubtless his family was interested in
+keeping him at a distance. He might be three months or five years in
+reappearing. At last the rumor would reach Lewis that his friend was
+living in Nice or Cannes, and he would then write him frequently,
+inviting him to come over to Monte Carlo. He even used to go after him
+and the Count would allow himself to be brought back with his mysterious
+books and his prodigious rosary, without ever saying a word about what
+discoveries he had made on his trips.</p>
+
+<p>On seeing Lewis, after a year's absence, the Prince was obliged to
+conceal his surprise. Nothing save the clear, quiet, gentle eyes,
+recalled the vanished freshness of the athletic and elegant gentleman.
+He had grown thin in an alarming manner, with the emaciation of illness.
+His skull seemed to have shrunk, and across his baldness strayed the few
+scattered ashen locks that still remained.</p>
+
+<p>A remark made by the Colonel came to his mind. Toledo had made a study
+of the decadence of gamblers.<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> It was when they reached the last limits
+of depression and despair that they began to stoop, to shrivel up, and
+become wrinkled. Lewis' hat was getting too big for him; each day it sat
+farther down on his head until it rested on his ears. His shirt collar
+was also getting larger, as though it were making room for his sorrowing
+heart to take flight.</p>
+
+<p>During the lunch, Lewis, Castro and Spadoni kept up the conversation.
+They talked about gambling and the Casino, but no one dared ask the
+Englishman if he had been winning. He had a superstitious fear of this
+question, as if it brought misfortune. On the other hand, he talked
+about other people's good luck, and the great stakes that had been won
+in a night. He kept in his mind all that he had been told, and all that
+he had imagined he had seen during twenty-five years of life at Monte
+Carlo. An American had gone away with a million; an Englishman had won
+ten thousand pounds sterling with five <i>louis</i> that he had borrowed.
+Thus he went on talking about the wonders that had happened in the
+Casino. And after that could there still be people to assert that all,
+absolutely all, of the gamblers, lose in the end?</p>
+
+<p>With eyes that glistened with astonishment and greed, the pianist
+listened to the tales of the "Dean of the Gamblers." Castro was more
+skeptical. He had heard of these extraordinary winnings, and of many
+others, but had never witnessed a single one of them, although he had
+been coming to Monte Carlo for a good many years. It was true that he
+had seen as much as five hundred thousand francs won in a single night.
+But the next day things had changed, and the winner had lost all his
+gains, and all the money he had brought, into the bargain, finally being
+obliged to ask for the customary viaticum in order to be able to return
+to his country.<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I think," he said, "all these stories are invented by the advertising
+department of the Casino. They tell me they have engaged a popular
+novelist, whose business it is to start a story like that every week, in
+order to encourage the gamblers."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince smiled at this invention of his friend, but Lewis would not
+listen to jokes on such a serious subject, and asserted that he had
+witnessed everything that he related. He was lying unconsciously in
+making this statement. In reality he had seen the same things as Atilio:
+people who won to lose later on; but he felt the need of the
+supernatural and was inclined to believe everything in advance. He had
+the soul of a fanatic, who, when told of a miracle, affirms a few days
+later with sincerity: "I saw it with my own eyes."</p>
+
+<p>Every now and then the Prince would eye Castro, expecting to surprise
+some ironic glance, something which would reveal his impressions in
+regard to the visit he had received that morning. Lewis' presence seemed
+to have obliterated all memory of anything unrelated to gambling.</p>
+
+<p>When the luncheon was over they talked in the hall, over their coffee,
+about those who played for big stakes in the private rooms. The names of
+some of them were spoken of with respect, as though they were masters,
+worthy of admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"So-and-so knows how to play," was the one comment.</p>
+
+<p>The amusing part of it for Michael was the fact that Lewis also figured
+among the masters "who knew how to play," and every one of them lost,
+like those who were "ignorant." Their one merit rested on their ability
+to put off the hour of final ruin, and prolong the annihilating emotion,
+growing old like prisoners in the shadow of the rocky cliffs of the
+Principality.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince looked at Castro once more, as at a clever<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> enemy who is
+hiding his thoughts. He ventured to ask a question.</p>
+
+<p>"And how does my relative, the Duchess de Delille, play?"</p>
+
+<p>Atilio looked at him, with not so much as a mischievous twinkle in his
+eyes, surprised at the interest shown by the Prince. But before he could
+reply, Lewis broke in with an answer. The latter hated women, especially
+at the gaming tables. They were only a nuisance, interrupting the
+calculations of the men, with their nervous looks and gestures.</p>
+
+<p>"She plays like an idiot," he said brutally. "She plays like any
+woman.... The money she's lost like a fool!"</p>
+
+<p>Castro intervened as though desiring the conversation to go no further.</p>
+
+<p>"How about the Count?" he asked Lewis. "Where is he? The Colonel is very
+much interested in him."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos gave an exclamation of surprise and reproach. He had formed
+his own opinion of that person a long time ago. He was a crazy man! He
+would never forget the brief dialogue they had had one afternoon in the
+Casino, after Atilio had introduced them. On learning Toledo's
+nationality he had launched into a great eulogy of Spain. Oh, Spain!
+What an interesting language it had! And when the Colonel was about to
+thank him for his extreme politeness, he was dumbfounded by the
+following remark, that took away his breath:</p>
+
+<p>"Because, as you probably know, Spanish is the preferred language of the
+devil, after Latin. The most powerful charms are written in Spanish.
+What wonderful necromancers in Toledo! What learned sorcerers in
+Salamanca!"</p>
+
+<p>The old soldier who had fought for the Most Catholic<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> king was always
+greatly disturbed when he thought of the Count and his rosary. For this
+reason when Lewis declared that he had no idea of the whereabouts of his
+friend, he solemnly replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I know where he is: in a mad house."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the roar of a train was heard passing Villa Sirena, accompanied
+by shouts and whistling. They were more Englishmen on their way to
+Italy.</p>
+
+<p>This caused them to take up the subject of the war. Lewis, who had
+imbibed freely at the table, was overcome at once with an intense
+sadness, the talk of gambling having reminded him of the worthlessness
+of his life. His intoxication was of the solemn, melancholy kind.</p>
+
+<p>"Two of my nephews died in the Jutland naval battle. Six of my brother's
+sons were killed in France, in a single afternoon: they belonged to the
+same battalion. They were all young, spirited, and anxious to do
+something. I'm the only man left in the family; I'm the worthless one,
+the old man, good for nothing. It's terrible!"</p>
+
+<p>No one said anything, realizing the shame and despair of this man, who
+seemed to be weeping over the ruins of his aimless existence. Novoa
+nodded slightly, as though approving of his words.</p>
+
+<p>"My family is extinct. And there were so many young men in it! Life is
+strange. Time goes by without anything extraordinary happening, and then
+all of a sudden the hours are like months, the days like years, and in a
+few minutes things take place that usually require centuries. All dead!
+None left but my niece Mary, the nurse. She is here; her superiors
+ordered her away almost by force, to take a rest and recuperate. But,
+anxious to resume her service, she got away to Menton and Nice, where
+there are wounded men. If at least<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> she would only marry! But it can't
+be: she will die like the rest. And I shall remain alone, and be a lord,
+the third Lord Lewis; Lord Lewis the Historian, Lord Lewis the Colonel
+Governor, and Lord Lewis the Wastrel...."</p>
+
+<p>At this point they all stopped him in affectionate protest. The
+misfortune of his family had been extraordinary, but he ought not to
+torture himself like that.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind, Prince," said the Englishman, changing the
+conversation, "some day I shall bring my niece to let her see your
+gardens. She is so fond of such things! She is the only one of the
+family to inherit my father's spirit."</p>
+
+<p>After saying that, Lewis showed signs of desiring to go. It was
+necessary for him to forget, and he knew where oblivion was waiting for
+him. For a gambler like him, it was no more possible to sit still than
+it would be for a drunkard who is thinking of a bar with its rows of
+glasses. Castro and Spadoni exchanged several glances with him.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say to dropping in at the Casino?" one of them proposed.</p>
+
+<p>And all three disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel also left, and the Prince spent the remainder of the
+afternoon talking with Novoa, walking about the gardens, and looking at
+the sunset. Finally, he sat down in the hall under a tall rose-shaded
+floor lamp, to read.</p>
+
+<p>Castro returned alone, long before the dinner hour. He was sad; he
+whistled occasionally. His smile was a savage grin. It had been a bad
+afternoon. He had lost everything! The next day he would have to ask his
+relative for a fresh loan in order to return to his "work."</p>
+
+<p>Once more Michael felt compelled to talk to him about the call he had
+received that morning. It was better to<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> have a frank explanation and
+avoid ironical allusions.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I saw her," Castro said. "I watched you from a window while you
+were walking through the gardens."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince looked at him, astonished at his brevity. Was that all he had
+to say? At present he felt he would have preferred his joking.</p>
+
+<p>"What of it if she did come?" at last he said brusquely. "That's
+natural; poor woman! I warn you that you've begun the conquest of an
+enemy."</p>
+
+<p>He had met "the General" in the Casino. She and Alicia had just had
+another reconciliation, and to seal their renewed friendship with a
+fresh burst of confidence, the Duchess Delille had related her interview
+with the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"Doña Clorinda used to be unable to stand you. She considered you a
+frivolous fellow, a worthless loafer. But now she praises you to the
+skies, because of your cancelling that enormous debt, and proposing to
+help the Duchess. She says you are like a knight of old times, and that
+you are big hearted."</p>
+
+<p>Michael shrugged his shoulders. A lot he cared what Doña Clorinda
+thought! This exasperated Castro.</p>
+
+<p>"Why shouldn't your relatives come here?" he said sharply. "You're
+getting bored living just among men all the time. You don't believe it,
+but it's true. It's the same with all of us. One has to talk with a
+woman from time to time, even if it's only out of friendship. What you
+claimed when you came from Paris is impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you think I'm going to fall in love with Alicia?"</p>
+
+<p>And the Prince laughed for a long time, as though never tiring of seeing
+the funny side of such an absurd supposition.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll find that out later on," Castro replied. "All I have to say is
+that we can't live much longer as enemies<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> of women. Look at the
+Colonel: he's your 'Chamberlain,' your Aide, the man who obeys you
+blindly. Well, even he is deserting you. Just notice: whenever he can,
+he spends his time in the Porter's lodge. He has to talk to the
+gardener's daughter, a little brat he used to see crawling around on all
+fours, but who is sixteen now, and not bad looking. She worked in a
+millinery shop in Monte Carlo, but follows the styles like a young
+society girl. The Colonel keeps her provided with high-heeled shoes,
+short skirts, tams, and smart hats, and buys her imitation amber beads.
+That's how he spends all the money you allow him to take for his
+services. Sometimes he follows her at a distance in the street, admiring
+her seductive outline and her ankles, much in evidence, and always in
+silk-stockings. He patiently cultivates his garden; and smiles like a
+fool when he thinks of his future harvest."<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p>O<small>NE</small> Sunday, as he got out of bed, the Prince felt like singing. Perhaps
+he was unconsciously following the example of some birds, which,
+deceived by the Spring-like warmth of a midwinter's day, had been
+warbling in the eaves of Villa Sirena since sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>He looked out of his bedroom window. The Mediterranean, without a single
+sail, stretched away in far-off undulations, to where it met the sky.
+The gulls were wheeling in circles, continually drooping into the water,
+folding their wings, and letting themselves be carried along by the
+waves. The sandy depths, stirred by the swells, gave the blue sea a
+lighter shade, which attained, along the shore, an opalescent hue, like
+that of absinthe. Around the promontory, white luminous foam was
+constantly being churned among the projecting rocks of the reefs.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince heard voices above him. Castro and Spadoni were talking from
+window to window. The mysterious call of the early morning beauty had
+caused them to jump out of bed. They were admiring the sky, which did
+not have a trace of mist to dim the brightness of its farthest reaches.
+The mountains stood out in extraordinary relief: they seemed larger and
+nearer. Above Cap-Martin, the Italian Alps descended to the sea, their
+outlying buttress, at the water's edge, white with the frontier towns:
+Vintimiglia and Bordighera.</p>
+
+<p>Through some freak of the atmosphere, a dense, elongated cloud, like a
+snow-covered island, was floating directly<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> overhead in the clear sky.
+Its whiteness seemed to radiate an inner light.</p>
+
+<p>"I recognize it," Atilio said with a tone of conviction to the musician,
+who did not seem to tire of looking at it. "I have seen it often. When
+the day turns out too bright, the Directors of the Casino are afraid
+that the patrons may be bored by so much sunlight, and the vast expanse
+of azure: blue sea and blue sky. 'Have the big cloud brought out,' they
+order over the telephone. You must have noticed that that cloud always
+appears from behind the mountains. That's where the Casino has its
+storehouses. They don't neglect details here when it comes to
+entertaining their patrons."</p>
+
+<p>Michael heard two exclamations: one of surprise and the other of
+indignation. Next he heard the sound of a window suddenly closed. The
+pianist, not in a mood for joking at so early an hour, was going back to
+bed, to sleep until lunch time.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince hurried through his toilet. He felt the need of getting out
+and going somewhere, as though his gardens seemed too small for him. In
+the distance the bells of Monte Carlo were ringing, and still farther
+off those of Monaco were replying; and the merry pealing of the chimes
+caused the clear brittle air to vibrate like a crystal glass.</p>
+
+<p>He went down stairs slowly, trying not to make any noise, and when he
+reached the gate he breathed freely. He had not met any of his
+companions, not even the Colonel. As though attracted by the Sunday
+morning atmosphere of gaiety which, as the afternoon wears on, changes
+to tiresome ennui, he decided to walk to the city alone.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the gate, a girl was waiting for the street car. She was very
+young; but her feet slanted at a sharp angle on her high-heeled shoes.
+Her skirt, falling scarcely below<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> her knees, showed her well-rounded
+calves. The finely woven stockings revealed the whiteness of her flesh.
+Prominent against the salmon colored silk sweater, was a necklace of
+large imitation amber beads. Her hair, cut short just below the ears,
+fell smoothly from underneath a jaunty velvet tam o'shanter of graceful
+line. The air of profound respect with which she spoke to him made him
+recognize her. It was the gardener's daughter. But at the same time she
+looked at him in a sly way with ill-concealed curiosity, as though her
+eyes made a distinction between the master and the man whom women adored
+and of whom she had heard so many things.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince went on, after speaking to her as he would have to a young
+lady of his own social rank. He was gay that morning, and he laughed
+inwardly as he thought how later on that little bundle of mischief and
+ambition would keep men busy. Then he thought of Don Marcos, and what
+Atilio had told him. Poor Colonel! Imagine a person, at his age, trying
+to tame a young wildcat!</p>
+
+<p>He walked lightly, with a springy step, in the direction of Monte Carlo.
+He passed the villas and the gardens as though contact with the ground
+had given his step fresh vigor, and as though the Spring-like air had
+abrogated to some extent the laws of gravity.</p>
+
+<p>When he reached the city he stopped in front of the steps of San Carlos
+Church. Through the door he could see the twinkling tapers, smell the
+odor of flowers, and hear the droning of the organ, and the voices of
+young girls singing. He felt like a boy once more, buoyant and fresh as
+the morning, and had an impulse to follow the various families, in their
+Sunday best, who were ascending the steps. He was a Catholic through his
+father, a member of the Greek church through his mother, and nothing by
+his own inclination. Suddenly he felt a certain<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> repugnance for the
+cave-like darkness, laden with perfumes, and dotted with lights. So he
+went on, breathing the open air with delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, your Ladyship! Good morning!"</p>
+
+<p>A long, thin female hand shook his with masculine vigor. The brass
+buttons of her khaki colored uniform, like that of an English soldier,
+were gleaming in the sun. The uniform, instead of being completed by
+breeches, ended in a short skirt and tan leather leggings.</p>
+
+<p>It was Lewis's niece. She had spent two afternoons at Villa Sirena
+rambling about the gardens. Once more Michael observed her unhealthy
+emaciation, which was beginning to take on the miserable appearance of
+consumption. Her Sam Brown belt buried itself in her blouse, as though
+failing to meet the resistance of a body underneath the cloth. The face
+under the visor of the military cap was as sharp as a knife. Her skin,
+drawn and lined in spite of her youth, showed all the bones and hollows.
+It was impossible to judge her age: she might have been twenty-five, or
+she might have been sixty. Only the eyes had retained their freshness;
+eyes that still kept the guilelessness of adolescence, and looked one
+squarely in the face with the serene confidence of a virgin sure of her
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>She had gone through the horrors of war, as through a flame that dries
+up and parches everything it touches, and in the end converts it to
+dust. She was like a mummy, burned by the fire of the blazing towns that
+she had seen, and shaken by the tears and moans of thousands of human
+beings. "Think what those ears have heard!" Michael said to himself. And
+he understood the sad expression of the pale mouth which hung wearily
+between two drooping furrows. "And think what those eyes have seen!" he
+continued mentally. But the<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> eyes did not care to remember and smiled at
+him, happy in the present moment.</p>
+
+<p>She had just come out of a large hotel converted into a hospital, and
+was waiting for the street car to go to Menton. More wounded soldiers
+had arrived there, and owing to the scarcity of nurses the doctors had
+been obliged to accept her services. For the present they would not
+bother her any more with solicitude about her health! As she thought of
+the hard work that lay before her, of the long night watches, and the
+fight with death to save so many lives, she was filled with joy. She was
+anxious, as though she were going to a celebration to take the short
+trip as soon as possible, and seeing the car coming, she shook hands
+with the Prince again, with a firm grip.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go on abusing your permission. Next time I shall pillage your
+gardens even worse. Flowers ... lots of flowers! If you would only see
+the joy they give the poor fellows when you put them beside the beds!
+Some of the doctors are vexed; they think it is silly. But all I say is:
+as long as we have to die, why not die with a little poetry, with
+something around us to remind us of the beauty we are losing. It doesn't
+hurt any one."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff went on his way, but his heart was less light. This woman,
+fighting death so generously and so manfully, seemed to have torn away
+the rosy veil that had made his eyes rejoice.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was the same, but of a darker hue, as though he were looking
+at the landscape through smoked glasses. He noticed things which he had
+not observed until then. The large hotels had been converted into
+hospitals. Their porches and large balconies were filled with men
+basking in the sun; men whose heads were white balls, bound with
+bandages that left only the eyes and mouth visible; half finished men,
+as it were, lacking a<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> leg or an arm, like a sculptor's rough models.
+Others were lying motionless, with both legs amputated, like corpses in
+a dissecting room, but still breathing.</p>
+
+<p>On the sidewalks he met soldiers of various nations: French, English,
+Serbian, officers, and a few Russians, who reminded him of the former
+importance his country had had in the war. Every variety of uniform worn
+by the various armies of the French Republic passed before his eyes: the
+horizon blue of the home troops, the mustard color of the soldiers from
+Morocco, the yellow fatigue caps of the Foreign Legion, and the red fez
+of the Algerians and the negro Sharpshooters.</p>
+
+<p>Each one was maimed. This sunny land, with its lovely views of sea and
+sky, seemed peopled with a race that had survived a cataclysm. Elegantly
+dressed officers, with handsome figures, limped along, cautiously
+dragging one leg, or else stepping gingerly on a foot so swathed in
+bandages that it was several times its natural size. Some of them were
+leaning on canes, bent over like old men. Men of athletic proportions
+trembled as they walked, as though their skeletons were rattling about
+in the hollow wrapper of their bodies wasted by consumption. Fingers
+were missing on hands; arms had been cut off until the shapeless stumps
+looked like fins. Under their pads of cotton, cheeks retained the gashes
+made by hand grenades, scars like those left by cancer; the horrible
+cavity of the nose, which had been torn away in some of the men, was
+hidden by a black tampon attached to the ears. The faces of others were
+covered by masks of bandages, leaving nothing visible save the eyes&mdash;sad
+eyes that seemed to look with fear to the day when they would have to
+grow accustomed to the horror of a face that a few months before had
+been youthful and now was like a vision in a nightmare. The bodies of
+some were intact, retaining their former strength and agility in all
+their<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> limbs. Seen from behind they had kept all the vigor and
+suppleness of youth. But they walked abreast, holding tightly to one
+another's arms, their eyes lost in darkness, tapping the pavement with a
+stick which had taken the place of the vanished sword, and which would
+accompany them until the hour of their death.</p>
+
+<p>And this procession of sadness and resignation, this grievous masquerade
+comforted by the joyousness of the morning, and feeling love of life
+once more renewed, was coming from the gardens. Others were going in the
+direction of the Casino and its terraces, passing among the Brazilian
+palm trees, with smooth, hollow trunks covered with elephant hide; among
+the cacti, held up by iron supports like a tangle of green reptiles
+bristling with thorns; among the prickly pears as high as trees; among
+the Himalayan fig trees, with towering trunks and wide spreading domes
+of branches which seemed to have been made to shelter the motionless
+meditation of the fakirs; among all the trees that come from tropical
+and temperate America, from China, Australia, Abyssinia, and South
+Africa. A tiny rivulet descended the slope in zig-zags through the
+openings in the green lawn, forming back waters among the bamboos and
+Japanese palms, until it flowed into a miniature lake, bordered with
+foliage, as tranquil, pleasing, and dainty as one of those centerpieces
+in which the water is represented by a mirror.</p>
+
+<p>Michael stopped in the upper gardens to look at the Casino from a
+distance. He had never realized before the fussiness and bad taste of
+the architecture of this building, which was the heart of Monaco. If the
+"gingerbread monument"&mdash;as Castro called it&mdash;closed its doors, all Monte
+Carlo would be wrapped in a deathly stillness like the loneliness of
+those cities which in former centuries were ports, and now are sleepy
+and deserted, far from the sea, which has withdrawn. It was the work<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> of
+the architect of the Paris Opera House, an ornate, gaudy, childish
+structure, of the color of soft butter, with multi-colored roofs,
+balconied turrets, niches with nameless statues, many tile friezes and
+gilded mosaics. At the corners there were green porcelain escutcheons,
+imitating roughly cut emeralds. The outstanding decorative motif of this
+building, famous throughout the world, was the imitation of gold and
+precious stones.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the prosperity of the establishment, they had added to the main
+body flanked with four towers, an extensive wing in which the best
+gaming rooms were located. Various green and yellow cupolas of different
+sizes revealed the existence of the latter, rising above the upper
+balustrade. On this balustrade a number of bronze angels or genii,
+entirely nude and with golden wings, had been set up. With black
+extended arms they were offering golden tributes, the significance of
+which no one had been able to guess. Other white or metal statues of
+half nude women were sheltered in the niches in the walls, and the names
+and significance of these were likewise a mystery.</p>
+
+<p>Although the edifice was erected with the pretense of dazzling and
+charming with its gold and soft colors, those who went there paid
+scarcely any attention to its splendors.</p>
+
+<p>"The ones who are arriving," Castro would say, "go in on the run; they
+want to get placed at the gaming tables as soon as possible. The ones
+who are coming out take a gloomy view of everything; and even though the
+Casino were as beautiful as the Parthenon, they would take it for a
+robber's cave."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince looked to the right of the building, where a strip of blue
+sea was visible, with the hairy trunks and rounded tops of a few
+Japanese palms standing out against the blue. There at the entrance to
+the terraces<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> along the Mediterranean rose the only two monuments of the
+city, dedicated to the fame of two musicians from the simple fact that
+some of their works had been played for the first time in the theater of
+the Casino. Carved in marble, Berlioz and Massenet greeted with a vague
+stare in their sightless eyes the cosmopolitan crowd that came to the
+gambling house. "They are honorary <i>croupiers</i>," Castro used to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Massenet&mdash;that isn't so bad," thought Michael. "He was fortunate, he
+had money, and his gifts were recognized during his lifetime. But
+imagine Berlioz, who spent his years struggling against poverty and
+public indifference, standing guard after death over the Casino's
+millions!"</p>
+
+<p>Next, he looked at the foreground, observing the open Square in front of
+the edifice. There was a round garden in the center. People called it
+the "cheese" and some even particularized and called it the "Camembert."</p>
+
+<p>Around the garden rail and on the benches backing up to it, one could
+observe the living soul of Monte Carlo. Here people gathered, to
+exchange jokes and gossip, ask news from those who were coming out of
+the Casino, and comment on the good or bad fortune of the most
+celebrated gamblers.</p>
+
+<p>In the immediate neighborhood, there were no business houses except
+jewelry stores, branches of the government pawn shop, and millinery
+shops. Women who played small stakes felt like satisfying their longing
+for an expensive hat on coming out of the Casino. Those who needed fresh
+capital to carry out their systems had only to take a few steps to pawn
+their valuables. In the show windows of the jewelry shops, pearl
+necklaces worth a million francs and emeralds worth three hundred
+thousand, were exhibited during the winter, waiting for a buyer; and in
+summer they were sent to the fashionable<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a> bathing resorts to continue
+being a mute and dazzling temptation. The jewelers, with Semitic
+profiles, were waiting behind their counters, more for sellers than
+buyers, and calmly offered a fourth of the price for a gem bought in
+that very shop the year before.</p>
+
+<p>From a distance it was easy for the Prince to guess the character of the
+many people who at that early hour were sitting on the benches opposite
+the stairs leading up to the edifice. Here those condemned to misery by
+gambling, and accursed by fate, remained all day, suffering the most
+atrocious torment of living close to the door of the sanctuary without
+being able to enter. They had lost their last cent, and the directors of
+the establishment, who generously send ruined gamblers back to their
+respective countries, had handed over the <i>viaticum</i> to them for their
+return. But they had staked the money given to aid them and had lost;
+and since they were debtors to the Casino they could not reënter it
+until they had fulfilled their obligations. So there they remained,
+stranded in the Square for all time, with the false hope of getting some
+money. None of them had any idea of how or from what source. They
+mingled together there in the companionship of misery, watching for
+fellow-countrymen who were better off, to besiege them with requests for
+a loan; or else they spent their time discussing numbers and colors.
+Perhaps they would succeed in getting together a few francs after
+turning all their pockets inside out, and they might choose, as the
+emissary of their illusions, a comrade who was as poor as they, but who
+had not "<i>taken the viaticum</i>" and was free to enter.</p>
+
+<p>Michael saw a crowd of people extending as far as the Japanese palm
+trees, near the Massenet monument. They had just arrived by various
+street cars from Nice. They were all hurrying, anxious to enter the
+motley edifice as soon as possible, as though fortune were expecting
+them<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a> in the gaming rooms and might leave at any moment, tired of
+waiting.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at the clock above the façade. It was ten o'clock. The daily
+occupations were being resumed and the devotees who lived in Monte Carlo
+were likewise flocking there, and mingling with the people who had come
+from other places. They all mounted the marble steps, following the
+three stair-carpets held in place by brass rods that glistened in the
+sun.</p>
+
+<p>"And to think that we're at war!" Michael thought. "And many of those
+who have gotten up early to make the trip, and those who live here, too,
+have sons or brothers or husbands, who at the present moment are
+fighting, and dying perhaps!"</p>
+
+<p>Love of life, love of pleasure, and the vain hope of winning, worked
+like an anæsthetic, causing them all to rise above their worries and
+forget, so that they were able to live entirely in the present moment.</p>
+
+<p>This general rush for the opening of the gaming hall disgusted the
+Prince and caused him to halt in his descent of the gentle slope of the
+gardens. It was repugnant to him to mix with the crowd that was
+loitering in the neighborhood of the Casino.</p>
+
+<p>His desire to retrace his steps gave him an idea. "Supposing you go and
+surprise Alicia at her home? She would be so pleased!"</p>
+
+<p>She had been at Villa Sirena twice since her first visit. A chance
+meeting in the street with the Prince, when she was walking along with
+her friend Clorinda, had served as a pretext for another visit to the
+refuge in their beautiful gardens of "the enemies of women." He found
+the "General" less hostile and dominating than he had imagined; but he
+could not understand Castro's passion for her. In spite of her beauty it
+seemed to him that he was talking to a man. They had been accompanied by
+Valeria,<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a> a young French girl, who had been a protégée of Alicia's, a
+traveling companion in the days of dazzling wealth, and who now
+accompanied her in poverty, out of gratitude and fidelity. Later the
+Duchess de Delille had returned alone a second time to consult him about
+various projects for her future, all of them lacking in common sense;
+and she had finally accepted a loan of a thousand francs. Luck was
+against her in gambling: she needed new "tools to work with." The
+capital that had irritated her so by never varying, never going much
+above thirty thousand, had finally heard her complaints, and dwindled
+with lightning rapidity, leaving merely a few remnants of its former
+self.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the Prince's loan the Duchess had complained.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm always the one who is looking you up: you never deign to visit my
+house. How poor I really am!"</p>
+
+<p>Remembering her humble protest, the Prince no longer hesitated. Turning
+his back on the Casino, he began to ascend the sloping streets in the
+direction of the frontier line separating Monte Carlo from Beausoleil;
+streets that displayed names recalling Spring: the Street of the Roses,
+of the Carnations, of the Violets, of the Orchids.</p>
+
+<p>He entered a short avenue formed by a double row of garden fences. He
+caught a glimpse of the houses between the columns of palm trees, and
+the firm leaves of the large magnolias. As he went along he read the
+names of the small estates carved on little plaques of red marble,
+placed at the entrance to the grounds. "Villa Rosa", here it was. He
+pushed open the iron gate, which was ajar, without hearing the sound of
+a voice or the barking of a dog to greet his presence. He saw a small
+garden half deserted, overgrown with weeds at the foot of the untrimmed
+trees, and covering the space that had formerly been occupied by flower
+beds. The rest was more<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> carefully tended, but it was a vegetable garden
+with rectangles of kitchen stuffs intensively cultivated.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff approached without meeting anyone. It occurred to him that the
+gardener must have been the man with the dog, whom he had met as he
+turned into the street.</p>
+
+<p>Then he mounted the four steps at the entrance. Here too the door was
+half ajar, and upon pushing it all the way open, he found himself in a
+hallway with stairs leading to the upper story.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one in sight. He tried the doors of the adjoining rooms and
+found them locked. There was not a sound. It was as though the house
+were deserted. But the silence was suddenly broken by a voice floating
+down the stairway. It was a faint voice, singing a slow, sad English
+air. The song was accompanied by a sound of dull blows, as though hands
+were beating and shaping up some large unresisting object.</p>
+
+<p>Michael thought he recognized Alicia's voice. He coughed several times
+without result; he was not heard. He was about to call to let her know
+that he was there, but refrained, through a sudden impulse to play a
+little joke on her. Why shouldn't he surprise her by going up-stairs the
+one part of the house where she was now living, he thought? His
+hesitation vanished. Up-stairs he would go!</p>
+
+<p>From the first landing he saw several doors, but only one was open; and
+it was from that one that the sounds of the song and the thumping were
+coming. A woman bending over a bed, was holding out her arms and
+vigorously shaking up a pillow. Instinctively she felt that some one was
+standing behind her, and turning around she gave an exclamation of
+surprise on seeing Michael in the doorway. The latter was no less
+surprised to recognize the woman as Alicia; an Alicia dressed in an
+elegant<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> but old négligée, with crumpled gloves on her hands, and a veil
+wrapped around her hair.</p>
+
+<p>"You! It's you!" she exclaimed. "How you frightened me!"</p>
+
+<p>Immediately she recovered her composure, and smiled at the Prince, as
+the latter tried to excuse himself. He had not met any one; the gate and
+the door had been open. She, in turn, now excused herself. It was
+Sunday; Valeria, her companion, had gone to Nice to take lunch with a
+family she knew; her maid and the gardener's wife were at mass; the old
+man had gone out a moment before to see some friends.</p>
+
+<p>After these mutual explanations they both remained silent, looking at
+each other hesitatingly, not knowing what to say, but still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"You making your bed!" he remarked, just to say something.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see. This is rather different from my bedroom in Paris. It is
+hardly the 'study' that I took you to either. Times have changed!"</p>
+
+<p>Michael gravely nodded assent. Yes, times had changed.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," she continued, "you must confess that there is a certain
+novelty in seeing the Duchess de Delille, madcap Alicia, making her
+bed."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince nodded again. Indeed it was a novelty: something one could
+not see every day.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia persisted in her explanations. It had not been at all hard for
+her to do housework. She cleaned her room herself, in order to save her
+elderly maid the extra bother. She did not want Valeria to help her.
+They were each keeping their own rooms in order, now that help was
+scarce. Besides, she herself sometimes went into the kitchen, and she
+would have liked to help the<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> gardener cultivate the little garden, just
+for her own pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"We are living in war times; things are getting dearer every day, and as
+for me, I'm poor. We ought to return to the simple primitive life. But I
+don't dare work in the garden, on account of the neighbors. They watch
+you all the time from their windows. There is a Brazilian gentleman,
+even, who seems to have fallen in love with me."</p>
+
+<p>She herself was proud of her industriousness. Who would ever have
+guessed such qualities some years before in the mistress of the
+luxurious residence on the Avenue du Bois, who was in the habit of
+getting up at three o'clock in the afternoon?</p>
+
+<p>"I owe it all to mamma. She had me educated in a girls' school in
+England, when it was the fashion to substitute domestic work for the
+physical exercise of sports. I think it's called 'Corinthianism.' And I
+feel better than ever. In the old days I had to get up several mornings
+a week with Valeria and Clorinda and go to a tennis club and play until
+I was exhausted. Now, after taking care of my room and helping with the
+others I don't need any exercise. I'm doing poor man's gymnastics."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence. Michael looked at the room; a woman's bedroom,
+still in disarray, with clothes lying on the arm chairs, giving out the
+perfume of a fastidious femininity. Through a narrow door he saw a
+corner of the adjoining bath room, where a wet spot had been left on the
+mosaic floor, from the morning bath. An odor of eau de cologne and tooth
+paste hung in the air. From several toilet jars, in disorder, vague
+scents of more precious essences were escaping. Mingling with the toilet
+articles and objects of intimate apparel, he could distinguish cards
+such as are given out to the patrons of the Casino, to mark their plays;
+some with red or blue marks<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> in the columns, others pricked with a hat
+pin, for lack of a pencil. He observed larger cards, with a roulette
+wheel indicating the numbers and colors; and also many books of the sort
+sold by the stationers and at newspaper stands; illuminating treatises
+on "How to win without fail in all kinds of play." On the mantelpiece,
+half hidden by various fashion magazines, was a small roulette wheel, a
+real one, used undoubtedly in studying out and trying various theories.
+On the lamp stand beside the bed the latest copy of the Monte Carlo
+Review was lying open, with statistics of all the winning numbers during
+the past week at the various tables; interesting reading, with
+mysterious annotations which had kept Alicia up perhaps till dawn.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime she was dexterously causing to disappear everything
+which she considered prejudicial to her appearance since the surprise.
+When Michael looked at her again the old gloves had vanished from her
+hands and the veil was hidden somewhere. Her hair, now left free, was
+black and lustrous, a trifle coarse, perhaps, but it rose luxuriantly in
+large ringlets in disarray.</p>
+
+<p>They prolonged the silence with an embarrassed smile, as though neither
+of them could find a way of relieving the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on with your work," Michael said, somewhat timidly. "Now I'm here, I
+don't want to be in the way."</p>
+
+<p>As though seeing a challenge to her embarrassment in these words, and
+anxious at the same time to show her skillfulness, she bent over the bed
+to continue her work. Michael regained his high spirits at this display
+of confidence. It wasn't chivalrous to allow her to work alone: he must
+help her.</p>
+
+<p>"You! You!" exclaimed Alicia, laughing, as though such a proposition
+seemed to her unthinkable.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a>The Prince pretended to feel hurt. Yes: he! Wasn't he a sailor, and
+hadn't his adventurous life compelled him to know how to do a little of
+everything? More than once in his explorations in the wilds, he had had
+to make a bed as best he could, wrapped in blankets beside the embers of
+a fire.</p>
+
+<p>He had gone over to the other side of the bed, and was imitating all the
+movements of the Duchess with comic exaggeration. He petted the pillows
+after her, with such violence as to make the bed resound. While she
+lifted it slightly toward her to shake it better, he lifted it
+completely with his strong hands.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know how! You don't know how!" Alicia exclaimed with childish
+glee.</p>
+
+<p>Then, seeing his fingers seize the linen with a powerful grip, she
+added:</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens, let go of that: You'll tear the pillow, and just now, in
+these hard times!"</p>
+
+<p>They both laughed, finding this work very amusing.</p>
+
+<p>"Take hold!" she said in authoritative tones, and flung in his face a
+sheet that she was holding at the opposite side.</p>
+
+<p>Michael found himself wrapped in a cloud of filmy linen fragrant with
+feminine perfumes. It was for an instant only, but to him it seemed like
+something extraordinary, of limitless duration, extending beyond the
+bounds of time and space. He had a presentiment that this insignificant
+event was going to be a turning point in his life. He felt his former
+self suddenly awaken with fresh vigor. Perhaps it was the stimulation
+due to continence. He thought of Castro's ironic smile, and of himself,
+living like a hermit there in Villa Sirena, and preaching hostility to
+women! There was a buzzing in his ears; his eyes, momentarily blinded,
+seemed to be gazing on a vast expanse of rosy sky, the pale, luscious
+rose color of a woman's flesh. There was something intoxicating in<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> the
+sudden breath that caused his brain to reel, communicating the sensation
+to his whole organism, as violently as though struck with a lash. When
+the sheet had fallen back on the bed, Michael was deathly pale, with a
+look of intenseness gleaming in his eyes. She thought he was angry at
+the jest, and she laughed mischievously, leaning on the pillow with her
+hands. As she shook with laughter, the lace of her low-necked négligée
+trembled seductively on her breast and shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the Prince found himself on the other side of the bed close to
+Alicia. Finally they both sat down on the edge of the bed, turning their
+backs on the forgotten sheet. He took one of her hands without realizing
+what he was doing. Then he bent so close to her face that one of her
+Medusa-like tresses brushed against his temple. He felt no desire to
+talk, but seeing her eyes, so close to his, he broke the pleasant
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been weeping!"</p>
+
+<p>The woman protested with a strained smile and grew pale as she stammered
+her excuses. No; perhaps it was the dust shaken up by the cleaning, or
+the effort of working. But he went on studying her eyes which were
+indeed slightly reddened.</p>
+
+<p>"You were crying when I came in," he continued, with insistent and
+troubled curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Now Alicia's protest took the form of a harsh, shrill laugh, that was
+decidedly forced and unnatural. And by one of those modulations of which
+only great actors know the secret, the burst of her laughter died
+gradually into a sigh, then a groan, until, letting go the Prince's
+hand, she covered her eyes, and hung her head, while a fit of sobbing
+shook her whole body.</p>
+
+<p>She was crying. It was enough that Michael should have discovered her
+recent weeping to cause the tears<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a> to rise in her eyes again, renewing
+her former anguish. She gave in to her grief with a sort of cruel
+delight, finding it preferable to the torture of feigning, which his
+unexpected visit had imposed.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince remained silent for a few moments.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it for that young fellow of yours?" he plucked up courage to ask,
+with a shaking voice as though he too were undergoing an unexplainable
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>She replied with a slight movement of her head, without taking her hands
+from her eyes. It was unnecessary for Michael to see them. He had
+guessed the truth on discovering the traces of tears. It could be only
+for him that she was weeping: the lack of news; the worry of thinking
+that he was a prisoner, far off, suffering all sorts of privations; and
+that perhaps she would never see him again.</p>
+
+<p>"How you love him!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was surprised himself at the tone of voice in which he said
+these words. There was a note of despair, envy, and sadness at the
+thought of the passing years, bequeathing to the coming generation the
+haughty privileges of youth.</p>
+
+<p>The guests at Villa Sirena would also have been astonished to hear him
+talk in this fashion. Alicia's surprise caused her to forget all
+precaution as a pretty woman, and lift her head, as she took away her
+hands. Her face was red, her eyes tremulous and overflowing. A tear hung
+from a lock of hair. She realized that she must be looking terrible, but
+what did she care?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I love him; I love him more than anything in the world. It is on
+his account that I go on living. If it weren't for him I would kill
+myself. But he isn't what you think. No, he isn't."</p>
+
+<p>With her face so reddened with weeping, it was impossible to detect a
+blush; but her gestures, the expression<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> of her face and the tone of her
+voice, rebelled with shame and indignation against the suspicion of the
+Prince.</p>
+
+<p>She went on talking in a low voice, without daring to look at him,
+hurrying her words like a penitent anxious to get through with a
+difficult confession as soon as possible. On various occasions in
+talking with the Prince, the truth had come to her lips, and at the last
+moment the reticence of a woman still desirous of pleasing through her
+beauty had caused her to conceal the facts. But to whom could she reveal
+her secret better than to Michael? She considered him one of the family:
+he had received her in friendly fashion in her hour of need, when so
+many men had turned their backs on her. Besides, between a man and a
+woman, love is not the only feeling that can exist, as she had thought
+in the days of her mad youth. There were other less violent things, more
+placid and lasting: friendship, comradeship, and brotherly affection.</p>
+
+<p>She paused for a moment, as though to gather strength.</p>
+
+<p>"He is my son."</p>
+
+<p>Michael, who was expecting some extraordinary, some monstrous
+revelation, worthy of her mad past, was unable to restrain an
+exclamation of astonishment:</p>
+
+<p>"Your son!"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded: "Yes, my son." With lowered eyes, she went on talking in the
+same nervous tone, as though she were making a confession. She went back
+over her past. How surprised she had been, how angry, at the cruel trick
+love had played in cutting off the best years of her life! Her
+indignation was like that of the citizens of Ancient Greece who began a
+riot when they learned of the pregnancy of a courtezan who was
+considered a national glory, a beauty whom the multitude came from afar
+to see, when she showed herself nude in the religious festivals. They
+were bent on killing her unborn child, as<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> though it had been guilty of
+a sacrilege. Alicia, too, used to consider herself a living work of art,
+and wanted to punish the sacrilege of her child with death. What
+criminal attempts she had made to rid herself of the shame that was
+throbbing in her vitals! Besides, what tortures she had undergone in her
+efforts to hide it, to go on leading her life of pleasure as before, and
+suffer anything rather than permit her secret to escape! Returning from
+parties where she had seen herself admired as formerly yet always with
+the dread that her secret had been discovered, she would fall into fits
+of homicidal rage and rebelliously curse the being that persisted in
+living within her; and in paroxysms of wild hysteria she would devise
+ways and means of encompassing its destruction.</p>
+
+<p>There were tears in her voice as she recalled these scenes.</p>
+
+<p>"But how about your husband?" Michael asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We separated at that time. He could tolerate my love affairs in
+silence: he could pretend not to know about them ... but a child that
+wasn't his own...!"</p>
+
+<p>She recalled the attitude of the Duke de Delille. He had shown a dignity
+worthy of him. There had been many deceived husbands in his family: it
+had almost become a tradition of nobility, an historic distinction. He
+did not feel dishonored by selling his name in getting married in order
+to increase the pleasures and comforts of his life. His name that
+belonged to him was a tool to work with. But it was impossible for him
+to let that name get out of his family, to give it to an intruder to
+continue the line. His forefathers had had many illegitimate children;
+but it had never occurred to any of his gay women ancestors to introduce
+into the family descendants in whose creation their husbands could
+assume no responsibility whatever.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke had separated from her, granting all her demands<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> save that
+one. It was an adulterous son and it must disappear. And no one, except
+they two and the maid&mdash;who was still with her&mdash;were to know of the
+birth.</p>
+
+<p>"There were times when I was quite happy," Alicia continued. "I learned
+to know new unsuspected joys. I would suddenly leave Paris: lots of
+people thought I was traveling with some new lover. No; I was going to
+see my little boy, my George; first in London, later in New York, but
+always in a large city. I could live with him, and play at being a
+mother, with a living doll that kept getting bigger and bigger ...
+bigger! Do you remember the night I invited you to dinner? I had just
+come back from one of those trips, and in spite of that, just think of
+the foolish things I said. I imagined myself Venus, or Helen, passing
+before the old men on the wall. And in order to give myself up
+completely to a paroxysm of maternal pride I was thinking of my
+heroines, who were also my rivals. Helen had had children, and men went
+on killing one another for her. Venus had not escaped maternity, and
+gods and mortals continued to adore her in spite of the fact that she
+had a son fluttering about the world. Maternity meant neither abdication
+of rights nor loss of prestige; she could go on being beautiful and
+being desired, like other women, after an incident that had seemed to
+her irremediable. So I went on living my life. Oh, when I think of how I
+sometimes shortened the time that I had intended to stay with him, in
+order to follow some man that scarcely interested me! Now that I haven't
+him, I think of the hours that I might have lived by his side, and that
+were given up to the first male that aroused my curiosity! It's my most
+terrible remorse; it gnaws at my conscience all night long, and drives
+me to gambling as the only remedy. I am certainly to be pitied,
+Michael."<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a></p>
+
+<p>But a fixed idea seemed to dominate Michael as he listened to her.</p>
+
+<p>"And the father? Who is the father?"</p>
+
+<p>The tone of his voice was practically the same as before: a tone of
+hostile curiosity, of aggressive spite.</p>
+
+<p>Another wave of astonishment swept over him when he saw that she was
+shrugging her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; it doesn't make any difference to me. Other women, in
+like circumstances, fasten the paternity on the man they are most
+interested in. As though you could tell! I haven't picked out any one in
+particular from among my memories. They are all the same. I have
+forgotten them all. My son is mine, mine only."</p>
+
+<p>She had the majestic indifference of the serene and fertile forest that
+opens its blossoms to the pollen scattered through the air like a golden
+rain of love. The new plant springs up. It belongs to the forest, and
+the forest keeps it, without showing any interest in learning the name
+and origin of the wandering source of life borne hither willy-nilly on
+the wind.</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, on arriving in New York," she continued, "I made a terrible
+discovery. I found my George almost as tall as I was, and strong
+looking, with the serious air of a grown man, though he wasn't quite
+eleven. I'm ashamed to think it; but I mustn't lie: I hated him. Venus
+might have a son, as long as the son remained eternally a little child
+through all the centuries, like one of those amusing babies that are
+dressed in a whimsical fashion, and are the mother's pride and
+amusement. But my own son, with his powerful body, his strong hands, and
+solemn face! It meant that I should grow old before my time; I should
+have to renounce my youth if I kept him by my side! I could never resign
+myself to declaring<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a> that I was his mother. And I fled from him, letting
+a number of years go by, without paying attention to anything in regard
+to him, excepting to send the means for his complete education. Oh, when
+I think how fate has punished me for my selfishness!"</p>
+
+<p>She remained silent for a few moments to dry the fresh tears that were
+reddening her eyes and giving her voice a husky resonance.</p>
+
+<p>"He came to Paris when I was least expecting him. The venerable friend
+who was looking after his education there in America, had died. I found
+a man, a grown man, in spite of the fact that he wasn't over sixteen. My
+first feeling was one of annoyance, almost anger. I should have to say
+farewell to youth, and change my mode of life on account of this
+intruder. But there was something in me that kept me from doing anything
+so heartless as to send him back to a foreign country, or off to a
+boarding school in Paris. I grew accustomed to him at once. I had to
+have him in my house. It seemed as though, when I was near him, I felt a
+certain serenity, a deep quiet joy that I never thought myself capable
+of feeling. You don't know what it means, Michael. You could never
+understand, no matter how much I tried to explain it to you. I swear it
+was the happiest time in my life. There is no love like that. Besides,
+we were such good comrades! I suddenly felt as though I were a girl of
+his age again; no, younger than he. George used to give me advice. He
+was so wise for a boy of his age; and I used to do what he said like a
+younger sister. He let his mother drag him along and introduce him to a
+world of pleasure and luxury that dazzled him, after his sober, athletic
+life with a stern educator. And I leaned proudly on his arm, and laughed
+at the false ideas people had of our actual relation. How we used to
+dance, the year before the war, without any one suspecting the true<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a>
+nature of the affection that bound me to my partner!"</p>
+
+<p>Alicia paused to linger on these delightful memories. She smiled with a
+far-away look in her eyes, as she thought of the malicious error people
+had made.</p>
+
+<p>"Every tango-tea in the Champs-Élysées found the Duchess de Delille
+dancing with her latest crush! And, Michael, as for me, I was proud that
+they should be making such a mistake. I went on being the beautiful
+Alicia, restored to youth by the fidelity of an adolescent who
+accompanied her everywhere, with all the enthusiasm of a first love.
+This seemed to me a much better rôle than that of the passively resigned
+mother. Besides, what fun we used to have laughing and talking it over
+afterwards when we were by ourselves! Many of my former lovers felt
+their old passion revive again out of a sort of unconscious envy&mdash;the
+instinctive rivalry that the man of ripe years feels toward youth&mdash;and
+they began besieging me with their gallantries again. George used to
+threaten me in fun: 'Mamma, I'm jealous!' He didn't want any other man
+to be showing attentions to his mother, so that she might belong to him
+completely. On other occasions I myself had better reasons to protest. I
+surprised a greedy look in the eyes of many women of my own class when
+they gazed at him&mdash;some with a boldly inviting look, since, being
+younger, they felt they had a right to take him away from me. And he was
+so good! He used to joke with me about these passions that he inspired;
+and tell me about others that I had not been able to guess! You don't
+know what young people are like nowadays, in the generation that has
+followed us. They seem to be made of different flesh and blood. Our
+generation was the last to take love seriously; to give tremendous
+importance to it, and make it the chief occupation of our lives. Now
+they don't understand people like you and me: we seem monstrous to them.
+My son is only<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> interested in one woman: his mother; and in addition to
+her, automobiles, aeroplanes, and sports. All these strong, innocent
+boys seemed to have guessed what was awaiting them...."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, the momentary serenity with which she had related this
+happy period in her life gradually vanished. She went on talking in a
+subdued voice, choked from time to time by sobs.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly war had come. Who could have imagined it a month before? And
+her son was ashamed not to be one of the men who were hurrying to the
+railroad stations to join a regiment. One morning he had overwhelmed her
+with the announcement of his enlistment as a volunteer. What could she
+do? Legally she was not his mother. George bore the name of a pair of
+old married servants who had been willing to play that game of deception
+by posing as his parents. Besides, he was born in France, and it was not
+extraordinary that he, like so many other youths, should have wanted to
+defend his country before he was called to arms by law.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess lived for a few months in a tiny village in the south of
+France, near the Aviation Camp where her son was in training. She wanted
+to be with him just as long as she possibly could. If only he had become
+a soldier at the time when she was living separated from him, and was
+concealing her actual relation to him! But she was going to lose him at
+the sweetest moment of her life, when she was beginning to think she
+might be at George's side forever.</p>
+
+<p>"It did not take him long to become a pilot. How I hated the ease with
+which he learned to manage his machine! His progress filled me with
+pride and anger. Those young fellows are regular fanatics so far as
+aviation is concerned. It is something that has come into existence in
+their time, and they have seen it grow before<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> their school-boy eyes. He
+went away, and since then I have been more dead than alive. Three years,
+Michael, three years of torture! I've paid dearly for all my past life!
+Though the mistakes that I made were great, I've made up for them, and
+more too. You may well have compassion on me. You can have no idea what
+I'm suffering."</p>
+
+<p>The first year that Alicia had spent alone, she had lived in constant
+expectation of his letters, which arrived irregularly from the front.
+Her joys were few and far between. George had come to Paris only once on
+leave, and had spent half a week with her. At long intervals she also
+received visits from the aviator's comrades, greeting the news they
+brought with tears and smiles. Her son had received the War Cross after
+an air battle. His mother had cut out the short newspaper paragraph
+referring to this event, sticking it with two pins on the silk with
+which her bedroom was hung. She would spend hours staring as though
+hypnotized at these brief lines: "<i>Bachellery, Georges, aviator, gave
+chase to two enemy planes beyond our lines and ...</i>"</p>
+
+<p>This "Bachellery, Georges" was her son! It made no difference to her
+that other people were not aware of the fact. Her pride seemed to grow
+because of the mystery surrounding it. The handsome strapping fellow,
+strong, and innocent as the heroes of ancient legend, had been formed in
+her body. All the men whom she had known in her past life seemed more
+and more petty and ugly; they were inferior beings, sprung from another
+race of humanity, the existence of which should be forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a stupid, unforeseen accident plunged her into the darkness of
+despair. One beautiful morning with the joyous confidence of a young
+knight setting forth in quest of adventure, the aviator started out in
+his pursuit machine, rising through the silvery clouds in search of the<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a>
+enemy. Suddenly, he noticed some slight motor trouble&mdash;due to the
+negligence of the mechanics in getting it ready, a matter of slight
+importance under ordinary circumstances ... and he was forced to
+descend, absolutely unable to continue his flight, and the wind and bad
+luck caused him to land within the German lines.</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred yards this side, and he would have landed among his own
+men.... What can you expect? I was too happy. I had still to learn what
+misery really means! I confess that at the very first I was almost glad,
+with the selfish gladness of a mother. A prisoner! It meant that his
+life would be safe; he wouldn't be killed in an air battle; he was no
+longer in danger of being crushed to pieces or burned to death under his
+broken machine. But later on!..."</p>
+
+<p>Later this security, that placed her son outside the limit of actual
+war, became a source of torture. She envied herself the times when he
+used to go out each day and face death, but still remained free. The
+newspapers talked about the suffering of the prisoners, their being
+herded together in vast unsanitary sheds, and the hunger from which they
+were suffering. The life of ease and comfort which the mother was
+leading was a constant source of remorse. When she sat down at table, or
+looked at her soft bed, or noticed the warm caress of a fire, and saw
+that the window panes were covered with the traceries of frost, she felt
+she was usurping in a shameless manner something that belonged to
+another person. Her boy, her poor boy, was living like a stray dog,
+lying on the straw, with hunger gnawing at his stomach! She had produced
+a human being&mdash;she, a miserable woman, who for so many years had
+believed herself the center of the universe, was enjoying all kinds of
+luxuries&mdash;and this flesh of her flesh was agonizing under the tortures
+of want such as are felt only by the most poverty<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> stricken.... She
+never could have dreamed that such an irony of fate would be reserved
+for her.</p>
+
+<p>During the first few months she scurried wildly about, with the fierce
+irrational love of the female animal that sees her young in danger. She
+went from one government bureau to the other, taking advantage of all
+her social connections! But there were so many mothers! They were not
+going to open diplomatic negotiations for a woman in her position....
+Every day she sent large packages of food to the offices that had charge
+of prisoners' relief. They finally refused to accept them. The entire
+service could not take up all its time doing nothing but send aid to a
+mere protégé of the Duchess de Delille. There were thousands and
+thousands of men in the same situation as he. And she could not cry out:
+"He is my son!" A scandalous revelation like that would not help
+matters. She kept on sending the packages regularly even if they did not
+go to her George. They would be used to satisfy some one's hunger. She
+felt the magnanimity roused by great sorrow; she made her offerings like
+a mother who, in praying for her child when all hope has been given up,
+prays for other sick children also, feeling that through her generosity
+her prayers may be heeded.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, the suspense was cruel. When the clerks took her packages, they
+smiled sadly. She was practically certain that her shipments of food
+were being appropriated by the guards. All the expensive eatables
+intended for her son were doubtless used by the old German reservists in
+charge of guarding the prisoners, to have a joyous feast, with the
+greedy merriment of fierce mastiffs, toasting to the glory of the Kaiser
+and the triumph of their race over the entire world! Good God! What
+could she do?</p>
+
+<p>At long intervals, after tremendous delays, she would finally get a
+postcard passed by the German censor.<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> There would be four lines,
+nothing more, written as children write at school, under the eye of the
+teacher standing at their backs. But the writing was George's. "In good
+health. We're not badly treated. Send me eatables." She would spend long
+hours gazing at these timid, deceiving lines. For her they acquired a
+new meaning. They told something else: the truth, namely. She recalled
+the stories of dying captives who had come from those torture camps, and
+the lines seemed to stammer with groans of a sick child: "Mamma ...
+hungry. I'm hungry!"</p>
+
+<p>There were times when she thought she would go mad. Everything about her
+brought to memory the image of her George, well groomed, and cared for
+by her with such fond and exaggerated attention. She had looked after
+his clothes, taking an interest in the respective merits of his tailors.
+She had had to endure his masculine protests when she had tried to
+provide him with underwear of fine silk like her own. In the morning she
+used to go and surprise him, as he lay in bed, like a little child, and
+kiss her own flesh and blood, metamorphosed into an athlete. Everything
+seemed to her too mean and poor for that strong fellow, handsome as a
+god of old. She looked after his bed, his dresser, and his person with
+all the passionate fondness of a sweetheart. She inspected his pockets
+in order continually to renew her gifts of money. Her Mexican mines were
+his, and so were the frontier lands, and everything she possessed. And
+later on&mdash;she hated to think when&mdash;she would see him married to some one
+after her own heart. Then his obscure birth was to be glorified by the
+splendor of enormous wealth. But suddenly the world, losing its balance,
+had been plunged into a furious madness, and this Prince of Fate, whose
+mother, in conference with the chef, had invented gastronomic surprises
+for him alone, was crying<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a> from some far off snow-swept plain in the icy
+north:</p>
+
+<p>"Mother ... hungry. I'm hungry!"</p>
+
+<p>"I went to Switzerland three times, Michael. I even proposed that in
+Paris they should provide me with means of getting into Germany,
+offering to go as a spy. But they laughed at me; and they were right!
+What was I going to spy out? My son, of course ... what I wanted to do
+in Germany was to see my son. In Switzerland I met two crippled soldiers
+who had just been exchanged, and came from the camp where George was.
+They knew the aviator Bachellery. He had tried to escape five times. He
+enjoyed a certain fame among his companions in misery for the
+haughtiness with which he faced the cruelest guards. The latest news was
+uncertain. They had not seen him lately. They thought that he was then
+in another prison camp, a punishment camp, farther inland, near the
+Polish frontier, where the refractory and dangerous prisoners were
+forced to undergo a cruel disciplinary régime, and suffer terrible
+punishments."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice trembled with anger as she said this. She could see her son
+dragging a chain, and being whipped like a slave. Oh, if she were only a
+man, and could be left alone for a moment with that tragi-comedian with
+the upturned mustache who had made many millions of women groan with
+sorrow!</p>
+
+<p>"And to think that there have been fanatics who have killed good or
+insignificant kings! And not one of them has lifted a hand to do away
+with the Kaiser! Don't talk to me about anarchists. They are idiots! I
+don't believe in them."</p>
+
+<p>This outburst of wrath vanished immediately. Once more grief and despair
+tore a sob from her. She remembered a photograph she had seen in one of
+the newspapers: the torture called "the post," applied by the Germans in
+their punishment camps; a Frenchman in a tattered<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> uniform, fastened to
+a wooden stake, as though it were a cross, on an open snow-covered
+plain, suffering for hours and hours from the deadly cold. It was the
+death penalty, hypocritically applied, with savage refinements of
+torture. It was impossible to distinguish the features of the poor
+fellow suffering like Christ, with his head falling on his breast. Even
+if it wasn't George, surely he had also suffered the same torture.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I live in such endless anguish! They wouldn't let me go back to
+Switzerland. They held up my passports. I don't know what's happened to
+him. There are times when it seems as though my head would burst. That's
+why I avoid living alone. That's why I gamble, and have to see people,
+and talk, and get away from my thoughts. Since then I've only received
+one postcard from my son, without any date, and without any indication
+as to where he is. It says about the same as the other one. The writing
+is his, and nevertheless it seems to be in another hand. Oh, what that
+writing says! I see him like the other man, like the poor fellow
+fastened to the post covered with rags, as thin as a skeleton.... My
+son!"</p>
+
+<p>Michael was obliged to take both her hands in a strong grip, and draw
+them towards him, holding her up, to keep her from falling on the bed in
+hysterical convulsions. He was sorry that he had come, and, by his
+curiosity, invited a confession that aroused the woman's grief.</p>
+
+<p>As for her, she looked at him with wide-open staring eyes, without
+seeing him. Finally, concentrating with an effort, she noticed Michael's
+emotion. This calmed her somewhat.</p>
+
+<p>"You can be glad you don't know what such torture is like. There's no
+end to it: there's no help for it. When I think of him, I feel as though
+I were going to die. Not to know about him! Not to be able to do
+anything! I<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> ought really to find some diversion and learn to think of
+something else. One must live: one can't be always weeping. But whenever
+I succeed in getting interested in anything, I immediately feel remorse.
+I call myself names: 'You're a bad mother, to forget your sorrows.' A
+day seldom passes that I eat without crying. I'm tormented by the
+thought that he would be happy with what is left from my table, with
+what the servants eat, or perhaps with what they give to the dog! And
+when Valeria and Clorinda see my tears, they can't explain such constant
+grief. They don't know my secret. They think like every one else, that
+it's simply a question of a mere protégé or a young lover. They can't
+understand such despair over a mere man. That's why I gamble so much.
+It's the only thing that really keeps my mind occupied, and makes me
+forget for a time; it's my anæsthetic. Before, I used to play just for
+the excitement, for the pleasure of struggling with fate; and because I
+was flattered by the amazement of the curiosity seekers who watched me
+stake enormous sums with indifference. Now it's on his account&mdash;and for
+no other reason."</p>
+
+<p>Alicia's mind reverted to her financial difficulties. As a matter of
+fact, her fortune had been seriously impaired some years earlier, but
+she had always had hopes of some sudden recuperation. Besides, the
+period before the war had been the happiest time of her life. She had
+her son and she lived her life, without any thought of business matters.
+Later her financial ruin had come along with the loss of George.</p>
+
+<p>"If only I had the wealth I used to have! I know the power of money. I
+could have moved men and even governments. I would have written to the
+Kaiser, or to Hindenburg, sending them a million, two million, or any
+amount they asked. 'Now that you are reëstablishing slavery and
+pillaging towns, here is money for you. Give<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> me back my son.' And now I
+would have him back at my side. But I'm poor! If you knew how I love
+money now, just for his sake! I dream of winning big stakes, five
+hundred thousand francs or maybe a million, in two or three days. How
+happy I am when I come back from the Casino with a few thousand francs
+to the good! 'It's to send my poor boy a box with something good to
+eat,' I say to myself. Then I write to the stores, or go there myself,
+keeping in mind the things he liked best. You are rich and don't
+understand how hard it is to get along now, how scarce things are
+getting, and how much they cost! I didn't have any idea of such things
+before, either. And I send him boxes of the nicest things; and I feel
+proud that in my mind I can say to him: 'It's with the money mamma won
+for you ... it's with my work!' Don't smile, Michael. That's what it
+is&mdash;work! Besides, what else could I work at? The one thing that worries
+me is how to address these shipments. 'For the Aviator Bachellery,
+prisoner in Germany.' That's all I know, and there are so many
+prisoners! Almost all my shipments must be lost; but some at least will
+reach him. Don't you think he'll get some of them?"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince greeted this anxious question with a vague gesture of
+agreement. "Yes;&mdash;perhaps, almost certainly!"</p>
+
+<p>Immediately Alicia showed a certain reassurance. Eight months had gone
+by without her hearing anything about him; but other mothers were in the
+same situation. There was no use despairing. Men who had been given up
+for dead in the early battles of the war were returning home after a
+long period of captivity. Besides, did it seem reasonable to believe
+that a son of hers was going to die of hunger and want, like a beggar?</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff again nodded assent. "Really, it didn't seem reasonable!"</p>
+
+<p>"There are moments," she said, "when I feel an unexplainable<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a> joy, a
+mysterious intuition, that I'm going to receive good news,&mdash;the feeling
+I have on the days when I go to the Casino sure of winning,&mdash;and do win.
+I wrote to the King of Spain, who is interested in ascertaining the fate
+of prisoners, and who often succeeds in getting them sent back to their
+homes. I have had a great number of friends write to him. If he could
+only give me back my George! At least I expect to learn good news; to
+find out where he is, and convince myself that he is alive. I would be
+satisfied if they interned him in Switzerland, the way they do with the
+seriously wounded, and I would go and live with him. How happy I would
+be if he were in Lausanne or Vevey, beside the lake, like my husband!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sad, kindly smile on her face as she thought of the Duke.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I haven't forgotten him, I assure you. Everything that's left over
+from George's boxes, I send to him by way of Geneva. 'For
+Lieutenant-Colonel de Delille.' Oh, it reaches <i>him</i>, without any
+difficulty! Poor fellow! His answers are almost love letters. I send him
+sausages and canned things, in memory of the twenty louis bouquets he
+used to send me when he was courting me. What are we coming to, Michael!
+Who could ever have imagined that everything and everybody would be so
+topsy-turvy!"</p>
+
+<p>Already she was talking more calmly, as though the memory of her son was
+no longer in the foreground of her thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything seems to tell me I'm going to get good news. Misfortune
+can't last so very much longer. Doesn't it seem that way to you? It's
+like bad luck in play: it finally goes away. The main thing is to save
+your strength in order to resist it. I ought to feel satisfied. I was so
+excited I could hardly sleep last night. I went<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a> above the thirty; you
+know: the thirty thousand francs that used to be the limit of my luck.
+Last night I won eighty thousand. Your friend Lewis was furious. He says
+it takes a woman to do a thing like that: to win, playing haphazard,
+defying all the rules."</p>
+
+<p>From the look on the Prince's face she guessed his surprise at her
+merriment following so closely on her recent tears.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't stay by myself. I have such memories! Perhaps you heard me
+singing, as you came up-stairs. It's an English song my son used to
+sing. In the morning I used to go and listen at his door like a
+sweetheart who, while waiting for him to appear, is glad to hear the
+voice of the man she loves. Whenever I'm alone I sing it over
+mechanically; I try to imagine it is George singing, and my eyes fill
+with tears, but with tears of tenderness that are very sweet. While I
+was making the bed it seemed as though I heard him, going back and forth
+in his bedroom, with me waiting and listening in the hall. My voice was
+his voice. That was why I fairly trembled when you came in. For a moment
+I supposed you were he. How wonderful it will be when I see him!... I'm
+sure I shall see him. Misfortune can't last forever. Don't you think
+I'll see him?"</p>
+
+<p>Her closed eyes seemed to smile on a far-off vision of hope. And
+Michael, who had remained silent for a long time, spoke to give her
+encouragement. Poor woman! Yes; she would see her son. At his age a man
+can stand any hardship. He would return; they would both be happy once
+more, talking over their present troubles, as though it had all been a
+bad dream.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, I will help you. We must get busy and take steps to have your
+son returned to you. I shall write to the King of Spain. I knew him. He
+had lunch on my yacht once when I was in San Sebastian. I have friends<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a>
+in Paris, men in politics, and diplomats; I shall write to all of them.
+And if worse comes to worst, and there's no other way out of it, I shall
+try through the medium of some neutral government to get a letter
+through to Wilhelm II. Perhaps he may pay some attention to me. He must
+remember me, and his visit to my boat."</p>
+
+<p>Now it was her turn to look at him fixedly through a mist of tears,
+smiling, at the same time, to express her gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"How kind you are!" she exclaimed after a long silence. "The day when I
+was in Villa Sirena for the first time I was convinced that I had made a
+great mistake. How little we knew each other! We needed adversity to see
+each other as we really are. First you offered to relieve my poverty,
+and now you are going to try to get me back my son!"</p>
+
+<p>She let herself be carried away by an impulse of affection. Michael saw
+her bend her head, and suddenly felt the contact of her lips on his
+hand. He heard two loud kisses and a voice whispering: "Thanks ...
+thanks." The Prince rose to his feet. He could not tolerate such
+expression of humility. But at the same time she too stood up; their
+eyes were on a level. As though desiring to complete the recent caress,
+she took his head impulsively in her hands, and kissed him on the brow.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden wave of human fragrance, like that which had enveloped him when
+the sheet had been thrown on his face, once more stirred the depths of
+his being. He realized that the caress meant nothing: that it was merely
+a kiss of gratitude, a sudden outburst of feeling on the part of a
+mother expressing her emotion with unusual impetuousness. In spite of
+this, he felt himself dominated by passion, cruel and at the same time
+voluptuous, causing him to reach out his arms to master and embrace<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a>
+what he held within reach.... But his hands touched empty space.</p>
+
+<p>Repenting her act, she had stepped back, retreating a few steps. She was
+standing in the doorway, ready to continue her flight, mechanically
+straightening her hair, and drying her tears, as a deep blush spread
+over her features.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know what I was doing!" she murmured. "Forgive me. I was so
+grateful to learn that you wanted to help me!"</p>
+
+<p>At the same time she pointed to the balcony. Below, in the garden, the
+voice of the gardener could be heard telling his dog to stop that
+barking all the time at the foot of the stairs, as though a thief were
+inside the villa.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go," she commanded gravely. "The servants will soon be coming
+back from mass. I shouldn't like to have them find us here in my
+bedroom. They might think...."</p>
+
+<p>Calming down, Lubimoff noted the unconscious modesty, and the evident
+uneasiness with which she said this. He suddenly recalled the woman of
+the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, and her daring theories. Was it
+really the same person?</p>
+
+<p>As they went downstairs she turned her head to talk to him, as though
+she had read his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"You must be amused at me. What a change from the Alicia of former
+times! I'm not so bad as I seem, that much is certain, isn't it? Tell me
+you don't think I'm so bad; tell me you think I'm only mad; mad, and
+always unlucky."</p>
+
+<p>She opened the rooms downstairs to show how orderly they looked, but the
+chill of the deserted drawing room, the covers on the furniture, and the
+musty odor, like that of a damp cellar, prompted them to go out into the
+garden and, like two people prolonging their farewell,<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> continue their
+conversation at the foot of the stairway.</p>
+
+<p>The elderly maid of the Duchess, and the gardener's wife who looked
+after the cooking, passed them repeatedly on various pretexts. They
+bowed to the gentleman, with a look of adoration and a pleasant smile.
+They seemed to be saying to themselves: "That nice fellow is Prince
+Lubimoff, the one that's so much talked about." They had often heard his
+name in Villa Rosa, and they both venerated him as a providential being
+who could restore the vanished days of abundance with a mere wave of the
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Michael thought it best not to prolong his visit.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and see me," she said in a low voice, as she accompanied him out
+to the gate. "Now you know everything. You're the only one who does. It
+will seem very sweet to me to talk with you, and have you console and
+help me."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince spent the next few hours, pensive and silent. So many new
+things had come up all at once! First there had been the revelation of a
+son, whose existence he never could have imagined; next, the untamable
+creature of love changed into a mother; her tears, her silent suffering,
+which she was bearing, like a convict's chain, in expiation of her mad
+past. And the crowning surprise of all had been what he had felt within
+himself, the resurrection of his former being, his new surrender to the
+domination of the flesh, and the double lashing his nervous system had
+received in breathing the perfume of the soft linen and feeling the
+imprint of her lips on his brow.</p>
+
+<p>This latter he wished to forget, and to succeed in doing so he
+concentrated all his attention on the revelations she had made, and on
+her maternal sorrows. Poor Alicia! Finding her impoverished and tearful,
+with no other help than that which he might give, he began to feel a<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a>
+lasting affection for her. It was the affection of the strong for the
+weak; a paternal love which did not take into account the similarity in
+their ages, nor the difference of sex; a tenderness made up for the most
+part of a certain sweet pity. He was moved by the memory of the humble
+kiss with which she had caressed his hands. It was the kiss, almost of a
+beggar. Unhappy woman! This was enough to make him feel obliged never to
+abandon her.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia's pride, her desire to dominate, had formerly irritated him.
+Accustomed to protecting women generously without ever submitting to
+their will, considering them in the light of something agreeable and
+inferior, he could not compromise with her haughty character. They were
+both people too strong and domineering to be able to tolerate each
+other. But now everything was changed.</p>
+
+<p>He remembered her as he had seen her in the bedroom, sorrowful, weeping,
+with pearls hanging from the corners of her eyes, which were tragically
+beautiful, as in the images of the Virgin, where Mary is holding the
+body of the crucified Christ on her knees. <i>Mater Dolorosa!</i></p>
+
+<p>But there seemed to be another person within the Prince protesting with
+cold, clear-sightedness against this image. No, she was not the Mother
+of Sorrows. A mother never abandons her son. She renounces all of the
+vanities of this world for him. She gives up her present and her future,
+as though she had no other life than that of her son, part of her own
+flesh. At all hours she gives him the milk of her breast. Moment by
+moment she follows his development, fighting with illness, laughing at
+danger. To love him she does not have to wait for him to grow to the
+full splendor of adolescence. Whereas she...!</p>
+
+<p>She was the <i>Venus Dolorosa</i>. Even in the moments of deepest despair she
+maintained her beauty, and her<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a> grief seemed a new means of seduction.
+She was a mother; but she continued to be a woman, that terrible,
+destructive woman whom the Prince had always hated. Look out, Michael!</p>
+
+<p>But with a smile of superiority he replied inwardly to this reflection.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I am going to fall in love with her," he said to himself. "I am
+fond of her as I never thought I could be, but only as a friend, a
+companion worthy of pity, one whom I ought to protect."</p>
+
+<p>At lunch time Spadoni did not turn up at Villa Sirena. Atilio had seen
+him at the Casino with some English friends from Nice. They were
+probably lunching together at the Hôtel de Paris to work out some new
+system or other. The last thing they had tried was for the four of them
+to play at different tables, but with the same system of combinations, a
+device that the pianist boasted would prove infallible.</p>
+
+<p>After they had had their coffee, all the guests of the luxurious villa
+seemed possessed by the same restlessness, which would not let them sit
+still.</p>
+
+<p>Castro was the first one to leave, announcing that he was going to the
+Casino. He had a feeling that it was going to be a "great evening." He
+had had his eyes on a <i>croupier</i> who started work at half-past three. He
+knew this man's style of starting the ball. Every <i>croupier</i> has his own
+mannerisms. Some do it with a long sweep, and others with a short jerky
+motion of the arm. This particular one made it fall most frequently in
+seventeen, and that was Castro's number.</p>
+
+<p>Novoa was the next to go, but he was less frank about it. He stammered
+blushingly as he said good-by to the Prince. Perhaps he would spend the
+afternoon with some friends from Monaco. Perhaps he would take a short
+trip on the Nice road as far as Cap d'Ail or Beaulieu.<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> His was the
+embarrassment of a man who does not know how to lie.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was left alone. He looked at the sea for a while. Then he
+changed windows, and gazed at the gardens. He pressed a button to call
+Don Marcos. He did not know what he was going to say to him but he felt
+he must see him in order not to remain alone. One of the old women
+servants appeared, and announced that the Colonel had gone to Monte
+Carlo.</p>
+
+<p>"He, too," the Prince said to himself.</p>
+
+<p>In order to escape the tediousness of spending a Sunday afternoon alone,
+he took his hat and overcoat. Some power beyond his comprehension was
+impelling him toward the neighboring city. Turning away from the villa,
+he walked through the gardens.</p>
+
+<p>The edifice, thus deserted, appeared larger, and its frowning and angry
+silence seemed to be asking him why anybody had ever been such a fool as
+to waste so much money and material on a box like that.</p>
+
+<p>Along the nearby road, street cars and carriages were gliding, filled
+with city people who were coming out for a glimpse of the smiling sea,
+or of a group of pines, or to find a height that might afford a
+panoramic view.</p>
+
+<p>And he, the owner of the famous gardens of Villa Sirena, was deserting
+all this beauty to go to a city from which others were trying to escape.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff recalled the splendid scheme of life he had worked out a few
+months before: a community of lay brethren shut off from the world in a
+spot like paradise: music, astronomy, pleasant conversations, wholesome
+work. And now the monks were running away on all sorts of pretexts, and
+he, who was their prior, also was feeling an unexplainable impulse to
+follow their example. Even Toledo, the faithful admirer of that estate
+which he had considered the best work of his life, seemed<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a> to be
+suffering from the same feverish desire to get away.</p>
+
+<p>Near the gate he turned to contemplate his beautiful domain as if to beg
+its pardon. There was a silence like that surrounding an enchanted
+palace. The gardens seemed asleep like dream woods.</p>
+
+<p>He thought he saw at the end of a long avenue a flutter of two large
+birds. It was Estola and Pistola, in afternoon coats too long for them,
+running toward the end of the promontory. It was as though Villa Sirena
+had been constructed for them. They could play with the active joy of
+youth in these gardens, to the envy of those who lingered at the gate
+out of curiosity. As they ran along they were free to trample on rare
+plants brought from the other side of the globe; free to jump from rock
+to rock in search of the little fishes left by the waves in miniature
+lakes in the hollows of the rock, until their coat tails were wet and
+their shoes full of holes&mdash;to the despair of the Colonel, who made the
+servants pass in review before him every day.</p>
+
+<p>Michael preferred not to ask himself where he was going. He surely had
+some end in view when he started his walk, but he felt it a nuisance to
+think about it. Suddenly he saw two currents of people coming from
+opposite directions, meeting and mingling, as they both mounted a short
+winding stairway which was divided by two hand-rails, and was covered by
+three red carpets.</p>
+
+<p>He was in front of the Casino. On one side, were arriving the people who
+had just come by train, on the other, those who had been gathered in by
+all the street cars from the towns on the Riviera between Nice and Monte
+Carlo.</p>
+
+<p>That evening a celebrated Italian tenor was singing, and many of the
+people, forgetting their game for the moment, were gathering in the
+theater.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff found himself immediately attended by two<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a> solemn gentlemen in
+frock coats with black ties and their heads bare. They were two
+inspectors from the Casino.</p>
+
+<p>"We are very sorry, Prince, but everything is full. There are people
+even in the aisles."</p>
+
+<p>But since it was he, one of the two men accompanied him as far as the
+box belonging to the Prime Minister of Monaco. The man who governed for
+the Sovereign Prince recognized him and was anxious to give him the best
+seat, but Michael, disliking public curiosity, preferred to remain in
+the second row.</p>
+
+<p>It was a theater without any balconies. The auditorium was wider than it
+was deep. The rows of comfortable seats were all alike and all sold at
+the same price. The stage was used for concerts and, on rare occasions,
+for plays and operas.</p>
+
+<p>The architect who had built the Paris Opera House had repeated the same
+dazzling display in this hall. There were gold ornaments on every side,
+elaborate moldings, caryatids and immense mirrors. There was not a
+hand's breadth of the wall without its gilded stucco, raised in bold
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>In the hall at the rear above the seats that rose at a decided angle,
+were five boxes, the only ones there were.</p>
+
+<p>They were reserved for the Sovereign Prince and his high officials.</p>
+
+<p>While listening to the singing, Michael examined the crowded mass of
+people, as well as he could, from his seat. He recognized many as he
+gazed over their heads.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the front he distinguished a man with gray hair that was parted
+from the forehead to the nape of the neck, and brushed forward mingling
+with his side whiskers, in an Austrian fashion. It was the Colonel, who
+was listening with a certain air of authority, swaying his head to show
+his approbation of the celebrated tenor. But he was not alone. The
+Prince saw him bend<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> toward a girl with curly hair and a string of large
+amber beads. Oh, the traitor!</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt about it. It must have been the gardener's daughter.
+That was why he had fled in such a hurry. The milliner's apprentice had
+insisted. She was anxious to hear the singer she had heard the ladies
+talk so much about.</p>
+
+<p>When the huge nightingale had retired to the wings, the Colonel offered
+his protégée a cornucopia full of caramels. Caramels in wartime! An
+extravagance, indeed, that only a lover could allow himself.</p>
+
+<p>In the intermission, the Prince slipped away, for fear that he might
+meet Don Marcos and spoil his aide's pleasant afternoon by his presence.
+Besides, he was not interested in the opera or in the highly praised
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the large ante-room with its columns of jasper supporting a
+gallery with balusters surmounted by bronze candelabras. At one end of
+the room the latest news was posted on panels. The Prince read it
+without any curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing new. The same as ever. The monotonous trench warfare was
+continuing. Ground gained and lost by the yard. There would be no end to
+it.</p>
+
+<p>He slipped out between the groups of people during the intermission,
+taking care that the Colonel should not see him.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Don Marcos! He was walking along gravely and proudly by the side of
+his protégée, who might have been his granddaughter. He glanced with
+hostility at all the young men, while behind his back, she made eyes at
+every passing uniform.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was obliged to force his way through a motionless compact
+group made up of wounded officers. French, Canadians, Australians, and
+Englishmen. Mingled with them were nurses of various types&mdash;some with
+nunlike<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> veils and with a delicate appearance; others with a masculine
+look, having neckties and uniforms with gold buttons, without any
+feminine apparel except their skirts. Some who were older and had short
+hair, red faces, and large shell spectacles had to be examined closely
+before one could be convinced, from their hybrid appearance, that they
+were women. They crowded together in front of the three double curtains
+leading to the gambling rooms. Those who belonged in any way to the army
+or navy of any nation whatsoever were not allowed to pass this limit.
+Soldiers could enter only the theater and the ante-room of the Casino.
+And those people who in their far-off countries had often heard of Monte
+Carlo, finding themselves there by chance of war, were crowding at the
+curtains with childish curiosity, admiring, for an instant, as the
+draperies rapidly opened and closed, the vision of gilded rooms, all in
+a row and filled with people. Afterwards they would withdraw, giving up
+their places to other comrades. At last they had seen it! Now they could
+say they knew all about Monte Carlo!</p>
+
+<p>The employees in their black frock coats opened one of the curtains,
+greeting the Prince as though he were an old acquaintance. It was the
+first time Michael had entered the gaming rooms since his return. It
+seemed to him as though he had awakened miraculously into the world of
+things before the war. Everything that was afflicting humanity remained
+on the other side of the door, as the action of a drama, unreal but
+exciting, remains on the stage of a theater which we leave behind us. He
+found even a certain attractiveness in the architecture of these drawing
+rooms, because of their vague familiarity, recalling the pleasant days
+of his life. He was in the Renaissance hall, but his whole attention was
+taken by the adjoining parlor, the central rotunda of the Casino, called
+the "Schmidt Drawing Room," the one on<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> which all the other rooms
+converge and which seems to be prolonged under the dividing archways to
+the farthest ends of the building.</p>
+
+<p>A pulsing silence arose from the mass of human beings around the green
+tables. Every one was talking in a low voice as though in church. From
+time to time this murmur was broken by a long swishing sound, a noise
+like that of pebbles on the shore swept by a wave. It was caused by the
+rakes of the employees sweeping the green cloth and carrying with them
+the clashing coins and ivory ships&mdash;all the spoils of the losings. The
+voices of the <i>croupiers</i>, like those of officers giving commands, arose
+above the feverish silence which reminded one of a humming hive.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Faites vos jeux. Vos jeux sont faits?... Rien ne va plus.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The hall gradually lost the suppressed noises which served to accentuate
+its silence. People breathed more naturally, as they craned their necks
+to see better over the shoulders of those in front of them. Some of the
+women were standing on one foot only, with the other raised behind them
+like dancers bending over to touch the ground with their hands. They all
+crowded together, paying no attention to the sex of the persons against
+whom they were pushing. During this pause, marked by long faces,
+frowning eyebrows, drawn mouths, and converging glances, there resounded
+with its noise increased by a diabolical echo, the rattling of the tiny
+ivory ball as it whirled in the grooves along the wooden rim, while the
+colored rows of the roulette wheel kept spinning in the opposite
+direction, like a kaleidoscope. Suddenly there was a sharp click. The
+ball had ended its circular flight, falling into a number. The silence
+was prolonged. The spectators' necks were craned even more. There was a
+nervous clenching of fists. Again there was<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a> the sound of pebbles washed
+by the sea. The rakes were sweeping the green table. It was a bad number
+for the players. Whenever a stifled uproar occurred, caused by a hundred
+bosoms suddenly breathing freely, it took the <i>croupiers</i> several
+minutes to resume play. They had to pay the winners and settle disputes
+between those who claimed the same bet. At the end of each play various
+groups at a table would disengage themselves to go over to another; but
+the ring of people always remained compact through the arrival of new
+spectators.</p>
+
+<p>From the central skylight a dim splendor descended. Outside the sun was
+shining on the azure sea. This light was like that of a wine cellar, a
+light, according to Castro, like that of a Hall of Congress. It was a
+yellowish light gold which seemed to increase the magnificence of the
+drawing rooms. The architecture was of the rich and majestic sort that
+attracts the crowd and the newly rich. The columns and pillars of onyx
+and bronze held up a magnificent ceiling, broken by the circular stained
+glass of the skylight. In the four triangles of the vault were statues
+representing <i>Air</i>, <i>Earth</i>, <i>Fire</i>, and <i>Water</i>, as though these four
+elements had some relation to the business which gave the vast edifice
+its reason for existence.</p>
+
+<p>Four metal spiders, huge and glistening, completed the heavy
+sumptuousness of the decoration. Where there were no gilded ornaments or
+mirrors, the walls were covered with showy pictures. These paintings and
+all of the rest that adorned the Casino were the object of Michael's
+jests. Some of them were fairly acceptable. The majority appeared very
+ancient in spite of the fact that they were not over forty years old.
+But there was nothing noble about their antique appearance. It seemed
+rather as though they had lain for centuries in scorn and<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> oblivion.
+Atilio accounted for the appearance of these canvases in a way of his
+own. According to him they were the work of various patrons ruined by
+gambling, whom the Casino felt obliged to advertise.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince began to notice well-known faces in this crowd which was
+being constantly renewed, and was changing each moment. The whole world,
+sooner or later passed that way. That floor with its various inlaid
+woods was one of the most frequented spots of Europe. It was something
+like the ancient Roman forum, a point on which all roads of the entire
+world converged. Idlers from the entire globe were attracted to this
+room. They all dreamed of being able to go sometime and risk a coin in
+the great Mediterranean gambling house. Men from other continents
+disembarking in the old world wrote Monte Carlo on the itinerary of
+their travels. But this human river which constantly glided along,
+receiving new waves of arrivals, kept leaving in the crannies of its
+shores, pools of stagnant waters, clogged by uprooted plants and the
+naked trunks of trees.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff nodded to certain persons, who looked at him with a sort of
+cordial surprise, as though they were looking at a dead man brought to
+life. An old man, with a short bristling beard on a face pale as a
+corpse, bowed deeply as he passed, without seeming in his humility to be
+offended at not receiving an acknowledgment. He was the man most sought
+after and coaxed by the women who frequented the Casino. He wore a sort
+of black cap like that of a priest, and carried a hat in one hand. On
+his coat lapel was a medal of enamel work with the Sacred Heart of
+Jesus. Atilio and Lewis had also sought him frequently. Michael was sure
+that this man was a friend of the Duchess de Delille and that on more
+than one occasion he had seen her tears. He loaned money at<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a> 5 per cent
+(for every 24 hours), and spent the time, he was not busy, watching new
+arrivals from a distance to see if they might turn out to be new
+clients.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince received smiles, also from certain respectable looking women
+who were by no means ugly, though they were stout in some parts of their
+body and slender in others, like persons who have taken a course to
+reduce flesh without obtaining a uniform result. They were seated on the
+divans in the corners, talking among themselves, and watching the groups
+of gamblers, with the air of employees resting after having done their
+duty. They had come to Monte Carlo many years ago with jewels, with
+thousands of francs, and men who endured all the unevenness of their
+tempers and in addition gave them money. And everything had vanished on
+the Casino tables. But they went on clinging to the reef on which they
+had been wrecked&mdash;perhaps beyond salvation, living on the jettison of
+many another who had followed the same route, only to be dashed on the
+same rocks and perish. They offered their services to strangers as
+persons acquainted with the mysteries of the house, advising honey-moon
+couples what number they should play, as though they knew the secret.
+Besides they came to the Casino at the opening hour to get the best
+places at the tables and later give up their chairs to wealthy players,
+steady clients, who rewarded them generously if luck favored them.</p>
+
+<p>He met still others also. A number of women passed close to him. They
+were old, but of an age incapable yet of frankly facing the free air and
+the open sunlight. Their appearance of antiquity was accentuated by
+their strange apparel, which recalled no particular style&mdash;dresses of
+bright colors that had faded, and which seemed to have been cut from old
+curtains, and smelled like a musty old house;&mdash;and monumental hats or
+spherical<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> turbans made of mosquito netting. Some were thin as
+skeletons; others were mountains of living fat; but all of them were
+painted scandalously with vermilion and had blue rings around their
+lightless eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>louis</i>, Prince," murmured the most daring. "I am sure that you will
+bring me luck." As she spoke, her false teeth, too large for her gums,
+rattled; a stench of the grave accompanied the smile on the painted
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>Michael knew who they were, from Toledo's tales. The Colonel, as an
+admirer of fallen royalty, accepted their conversation with melancholy
+deference. One of them had been a sweetheart of Victor Emanuel; another,
+who was older, recalled, with sighs, the days of Napoleon III, and of
+Morny.</p>
+
+<p>They had come to die in Monte Carlo, the last spot on earth able to
+remind them of the splendors of sixty years before; some of them, in
+memory of their vanished jewels, calmly displayed brass ornaments and
+beads of glass. According to a paradox of Castro's, they had died many
+years before, spending the night in the Monaco Cemetery dressing
+themselves with the spoils from other corpses and coming to the Casino
+from force of habit to contemplate once more the scenes of their remote
+youth. The Prince gave them a few bank notes and went out, while they
+ran to gamble this money, after having thanked him for the gift, with a
+death-head grin that was the last remnant of their former professional
+charm.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Michael stopped, observing the various parasites who lived by
+clinging to the gearing of the terrible machine and feeding on the
+crumbs it pulverized. He became interested in the crowd which was always
+apparently the same, though always with distinct individuals. There were
+some who walked along leaning on canes, invalids' canes tipped with
+rubber&mdash;the only kind<a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a> allowed in the gaming room for fear of quarrels.
+He noticed flaccid old women slowly hobbling along, paralytic gentlemen
+leaning on the arm of tall, robust fellows in braided uniforms who led
+them in a fatherly fashion toward the roulette wheels and eased them
+into their chairs. A few paralytics arrived at the foot of the stairway
+in little carriages like children's carts, and thence were carried on
+hand chairs through the rooms to their favorite spot. At certain moments
+it seemed as though the gambling hall were a famous health resort, or a
+place of miracles, like Lourdes. They came just as incurable invalids
+come to other places, impelled by a last hope; but in this case the hope
+was not for health. That was the least of their cares. What galvanized
+them here was the hope of fortune, and dreams of wealth, as if riches
+would be of any service to these poor bodies lacking all the appetites
+which make life pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Mentally the Prince summed up all human passions in two pleasures which
+are the springs of all action&mdash;love and gambling. There were people who
+experienced equally the attraction of them both&mdash;Castro, for example. He
+himself had been interested only in love and could not understand the
+pleasures of gambling. Whenever he had gotten up from the gaming tables,
+each time with winnings, he had never felt any temptation to return. But
+looking at these ailing people, some of them very aged, at those
+incurables, all of them dragging themselves toward the roulette wheel as
+though toward a miraculous bath, he condoned them pityingly. What other
+pleasure was there left for them on earth? How could they fill the
+emptiness of their lives prolonged so tenaciously?</p>
+
+<p>What he could not understand was the intense attitude, the hard faces,
+of the other gamblers who were healthy and strong. Young men moved among
+the women around<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> the tables with hostile brusqueness, quarrelling with
+them harshly and treating them like enemies. Women suddenly lost their
+grace and freshness, becoming masculine all at once as they looked at
+the rows of cards of <i>trente et quarante</i> or at the mad whirl of the
+colored wheel. Their gestures were those of prize fighters. Their mouths
+were drawn. There was a look of fierceness in their eyes. As though
+warned instinctively of this transformation, no sooner did they tear
+themselves away from the tables than they took out their vanity
+case&mdash;the little mirror, the powder, and the rouge&mdash;to correct or efface
+the passing ravages of the play. Those of more dignified and normal
+appearance showed themselves at times to be the most reckless. In a
+place where all the women were doing the same as they, gambling had
+something official about it, something worthy of respect; it was
+possible for them to indulge in a vice without fear of gossip, without
+the risk of being criticized.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince smiled as he remembered a story Toledo had told him a few
+days before: the despair of a woman of about forty who came from Nice
+with her two daughters every afternoon, and had finally lost fifty
+thousand francs.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! If I had only taken a lover," the mother had groaned with tears in
+her eyes. "It would have been better if I had chosen love."</p>
+
+<p>Michael entered the other rooms that had no skylight. The clusters of
+electric bulbs lighting them with senseless splendor made him think of
+the burning sun and the azure sea just beyond those walls of gold and
+jasper.</p>
+
+<p>Above the tables were oil lamps with two enormous shades each one
+sheltering four fixtures which hung by bronze chains several yards long,
+attached to the ceiling. Thus if the electric current was cut off,
+there<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> was no danger of the patrons feeling tempted to appropriate the
+money on the tables.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally a little bell would sound, rung by one of the employees in
+black frock coat who directed the playing. A chip, a coin, or a bank
+note had fallen under the table. Suddenly with the promptness of a scene
+shifter waiting behind the stage, a lackey dressed in a blue and gold
+uniform appeared, carrying a dark lantern and a hook to rummage about
+among the players' feet until he found the lost object.</p>
+
+<p>The discipline observable in these vast rooms was like that on a
+warship, where everything is in its place and every man at his post. In
+order to make sure that everything was going properly, various
+respectable gentlemen with decorations on their coat lapels, walked back
+and forth among the tables, with the air of officers on duty. Whenever
+voices were raised, these men appeared with rapid strides, to cut short
+the arguments in some tactful manner. When two gamblers claimed the same
+bet, they immediately settled the dispute by paying both. The money
+would finally come back to the house any way!</p>
+
+<p>According to Atilio, the Casino was honeycombed in all directions with
+secret galleries, hidden openings and even trap doors, like the stage
+for a comedy of magic&mdash;all these for the sake of immediate service, and
+to avoid any annoyance to the patrons.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the invalid fainted at the table or fell dead through too
+violent emotion. Immediately the wall would open and eject two
+attendants with a stretcher who would cause the troublesome body to
+disappear as though by enchantment. Those at the adjoining table would
+scarcely have a chance to be aware of it.</p>
+
+<p>At other times it would be a suicide. Lubimoff knew a table called the
+Suicide Table, because an Englishman<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a> had killed himself there in
+melodramatic fashion, shooting himself with a pistol when he had lost
+his last penny. His brains had been scattered in shreds on the green
+baize and on the faces of his neighbors, and even on the frock coats of
+the <i>croupiers</i>. There are always people who have no tact, and who do
+not know how to behave in good society! But the attendants emerged from
+the wall, carried away the corpse, and cleaned the blood from the carpet
+and table.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterwards, from the oval of people crowding against the green
+table, the consecrated words arose: "<i>Faites vos jeux.... Vos jeux sont
+faits?... Rien ne va plus.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince recalled the famous suicide bench in the gardens of the
+Casino. It was all a magazine yarn. No such bench had ever existed. When
+several persons killed themselves on the same bench, the administration
+had its position changed immediately! Besides, the number of suicides
+was much exaggerated. There were two or three each year, no more.
+According to Castro, it was no longer the fad to kill one's self at
+Monte Carlo. It showed an unpardonable lack of taste. The proper thing
+to do was to go a long way off and disappear without making any
+commotion.</p>
+
+<p>Besides the house police were quick to detect those who were in despair.
+Such people received a railway ticket at once and they were advised to
+kill themselves, like good fellows, in Marseilles, or if not so far
+away, at least in Nice or Menton.</p>
+
+<p>Michael was near the "Suicide Table" close to the entrance to the
+private rooms, when he noticed a certain commotion in the crowd. Groups
+were seeking one another to exchange news. The old patrons were moved by
+professional feeling. Something important was going on. The Prince knew
+the meaning of these sudden<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a> bursts of curiosity: a player was winning
+or losing in remarkable fashion.</p>
+
+<p>He heard indistinctly a name that brought him to attention.</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess de Delille&mdash;two hundred thousand francs!"</p>
+
+<p>All those who had permission to play in the private rooms hurried toward
+the large glass door which gave access to them. Michael followed this
+living current.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself in an enormous hall with a lofty ceiling. On one side
+four large balconies opened out on the terraces, and the Mediterranean.
+Because of the war they were covered with dark curtains to hide the
+light from within. The wall opposite was adorned with various gigantic
+mirrors. On the ceiling seventeen white, full-breasted caryatids,
+bending under the weight of the roof, supported the wide bands of rock
+crystal, with electrical bulbs, which shed a sort of moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>Those whom curiosity had attracted, passed the first gaming tables with
+an air of indifference. Everybody was crowding around the last, the
+"<i>trente et quarante</i>," at the foot of a large picture, in which three
+buxom lasses in the nude against a background of dark trees like those
+in the Boboli Gardens, represented the <i>Florentine Graces</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The great phenomenon was taking place there. Craning his neck above the
+shoulders of two sightseers, Michael caught a glimpse of Alicia seated
+at the table with an anxious expression on her face. All eyes were upon
+her. In front of her, were heaps of bank notes and many columns of
+chips. There were the five hundred franc ovals, and the one thousand
+franc squares, "little cakes of soap" as they call the latter, in the
+language of the Casino.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she raised her head as though realizing instinctively<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a> the
+presence of some one interesting to her. And her eyes fell straight on
+Michael. She greeted him with a happy smile. There was the suggestion of
+a kiss in her glance. And all the people there, with the submission of a
+mob when dominated by enthusiasm or amazement, followed her eyes to see
+who the man was whom the heroine was greeting in this manner. The vanity
+of the Prince was flattered, as it used to be when some celebrated
+actress greeted him from the stage and went on singing with her eyes
+fastened upon him to dedicate to him her trills. Once, when he was a
+boy, a bull-fighter had bowed to him in a friendly way before giving the
+final death thrust in the arena. Alicia seemed to be choosing him as her
+god of luck.</p>
+
+<p>But immediately she fell back into the deep absorption of the play. She
+was not alone. An invisible and powerful person was standing behind her
+chair, bending over her to whisper in her ear some word of unfailing
+counsel, to suggest some unlooked for resolution, some original and
+daring idea. Her eyes, lighted by a mysterious fire, were gazing on
+something that no one else could see. Her mute lips trembled with
+nervous contractions, as though she were talking with some one who did
+not need sound to be able to hear. Michael felt there was a demon-like
+power beside her, the inspiration of the unforgettable hours which
+reveal to artists a masterful harmony, an illuminating word, or a
+supreme stroke of the brush; the inspiration which prompts the final
+slaughter in battle or the decisive move in some business venture, that
+means either millions or suicide.</p>
+
+<p>She had begun to plunge. Her hand carelessly pushed forward a column of
+twelve rectangular chips, with an extra oval one: twelve thousand five
+hundred francs, the maximum amount that could be risked in "<i>trente et
+quarante</i>." The crowd, with the idolatry which victors<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> inspire, was
+hoping for the Duchess, as though each one expected to share in her
+winning. They all knew she was going to win. And when as a matter of
+fact she did win, there was a murmur of satisfaction, a sigh of relief
+from that oval of sightseers pressing against the backs of the chairs
+occupied by the players. From time to time she lost, and profound
+silence expressed their sympathy. Sometimes after advancing a column of
+chips, she closed her eyes as though listening to some one who remained
+invisible, and moving her head in sign of assent, withdrew the stakes.
+Once more there arose a murmur of satisfaction, when the public saw that
+she had withdrawn her money just in time, and had scored, as it were, a
+negative triumph.</p>
+
+<p>Many of them computed with greedy eyes the sums amassed in front of her.</p>
+
+<p>"She's in the three hundred thousands already&mdash;perhaps she has more&mdash;Oh!
+if she would only succeed in making it millions! What fun it would be to
+see her break the bank!"</p>
+
+<p>To these comments spoken in low tones were added the laudatory
+exclamations of a few elderly women who looked at the conqueror with
+adoring eyes. "How nice she is!&mdash;a great lady and so beautiful!&mdash;Good
+luck to her!"</p>
+
+<p>A dark shoulder over which the Prince was looking moved and the Prince
+saw Spadoni's face close to his. The pianist did not show the slightest
+surprise; as though they had separated only a few minutes before. He did
+not even greet Michael. The astonishment which caused the pupils of his
+eyes to dilate, the indignation and envy that this insolent fortune
+inspired, made it necessary for the pianist to express his feelings in a
+protest.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you noticed, Highness&mdash;she doesn't know how<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a> to play&mdash;she goes
+against all rules, all logic. She doesn't know the first thing about it,
+not the first thing!"</p>
+
+<p>Immediately his eyes returned to the table, forgetting the Prince on
+hearing once more a stifled outburst from the crowd. A little more and
+some of the people would be applauding the repeated triumphs of the
+Duchess. Those who had lost during the previous days, were rejoicing
+with the joy of vengeance. "What an evening! You don't see this every
+day." They smiled and nudged each other as they noticed the coming and
+going of the inspectors, the presence of high officials who strove to
+hide their concern, the long faces of attendants as they returned from
+the head cashier with new packages of one thousand franc chips to pay
+this lady who had swept the table bare of money three times. The news of
+her extraordinary run of luck circulated throughout the entire edifice.
+At that moment the gentlemen of the management must have been discussing
+in their offices on the top floor the bad trick that chance had dared to
+play them. A mood of anticipation and excitement, akin to the whispering
+of a revolution, spread through every nook and cranny. Those who had no
+tickets for the private rooms asked for news from those who were coming
+out, repeating what they had heard with exaggeration born of enthusiasm.
+In the wardrobe, in the lavatories, in the inner corridors, in all the
+subterranean and winding passageways where the servants, maids and
+firemen lived under an eternal electric light, this news shook the
+sleepy calm of the humbler employees. The atmosphere of excitement was
+similar to that which circulates through the half deserted corridors of
+the Chamber of Deputies while in the semi-circle teeming with emotion, a
+Prime Minister is fighting to survive a crisis. The news gathered
+momentum as it passed from group to group with that<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a> satisfaction
+mingled with uneasiness which is inspired in employees by the reverses
+of their employers.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that upstairs a Duchess is winning a million&mdash;no: now they say
+it is two millions."</p>
+
+<p>And by the time the news had circulated throughout the entire building,
+the two millions had married and given birth to another. Half an hour
+later they were four millions, according to the lesser servants, who had
+grown old living off gambling without ever seeing it at first hand.</p>
+
+<p>Michael suddenly felt a great wave of anger against the fortunate woman.
+Since her smile of greeting she had not looked at him again. Several
+times her eyes had glanced mechanically in his direction, without taking
+any notice of him. He was merely one of the many curious spectators
+witnessing her triumph. At that moment there were only two things in the
+world, the pack of cards and herself.</p>
+
+<p>Her indifference caused him to feel the indignation of the moralist. It
+did not make any difference to him that Alicia was forgetting him. He
+repeated this to himself several times: no, he did not care about that.
+They were not lovers, nor was there any deep affection between them. But
+how about her son! He remembered that morning a scene with her tears and
+despair. And the mother was there abandoning herself completely to the
+pleasures of chance and with no feeling for anything except her
+perverted passion.</p>
+
+<p>If some one had spoken to her about the aviator who was a prisoner, she
+would have had to make an effort to recall his existence. And a few
+hours before she had wept sincerely on thinking of his imprisonment!</p>
+
+<p>This was too much for the Prince. His sense of dignity could not accept
+this thoughtlessness! He elbowed his way through a crowd of onlookers,
+after freeing himself<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a> from Spadoni's shoulder, while the latter as
+though hypnotized, remained with his eyes fixed on the ever-increasing
+treasure of the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff began to pace the drawing room. He scorned Alicia's
+self-absorption, but lacked the strength to go away. It was necessary
+for him to be near her, perhaps in order to see just how far her slight
+of him would go.</p>
+
+<p>He came across a gentleman who was walking about among the tables,
+beating his hands behind his back and muttering unintelligible words. It
+was his friend Lewis.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen how she plays," he said in a tone of anger, as he
+recognized the Prince; "like a fool, like a regular fool! They ought not
+to allow women in here."</p>
+
+<p>All afternoon he had been losing according to rule and experience. He
+did not have enough money left even for his whiskies and had had to
+charge them at the bar. But suddenly he remembered that the Duchess was
+a relative of Lubimoff.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry if I offended you, but she plays like an idiot."</p>
+
+<p>And he turned his back to continue his furious monologue.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos passing in a hurry without seeing the Prince opened a path in
+the crowd of onlookers with all the authority of a dressy personage. He
+had just left the gardener's daughter in haste. The news had crept
+through the theater causing many of the spectators to give up seeing the
+close of the opera in order to be present at this unheard of run of
+luck, which was for them a spectacle of the greatest interest.</p>
+
+<p>At one of the roulette tables he saw Clorinda who was playing
+cautiously, with Castro standing behind her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"The General" had witnessed the first part of her friend's triumph.
+"She's going to lose: this cannot last,"<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a> she thought each time. Then
+she had moved away from the table, explaining her attitude to Castro and
+other friends. It was impossible for her to watch Alicia tranquilly as
+she risked such heavy stakes. It was more excitement than she could
+endure.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope she wins a great deal, a great deal, indeed," she added with the
+generosity of a friend. "Poor Alicia, she needs it so much! Her affairs
+are going so badly!"</p>
+
+<p>She had just seated herself at another table with the faint hope that
+luck would remember her, too; but the murmurings which reached her from
+the trente et quarante table, announcing the news of fresh victories,
+made her nervous and she attributed the loss of several twenty franc
+pieces to this cause. When she found she had lost two hundred, she felt
+that she must take her spite out on some one. Atilio, who followed her
+everywhere, was standing there, greeting her expressions of bad humor
+with an adoring smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Castro, go away; don't stand there behind me. You must know you bring
+me bad luck. Go somewhere else."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince observed how his friend, with a look of annoyance, left the
+widow and walked toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>He thought he would follow him. By talking with Atilio, he might forget
+the irritation which the other woman had caused him; but as he went
+toward the end of the room he had a new surprise.</p>
+
+<p>In one of the dimly lighted corners he saw Novoa, who was going to spend
+the afternoon in Monaco or take a walk on the Nice Road. Perhaps the
+latter was true. He might have been waiting for Valeria who was coming
+back from her luncheon party. They must have both been there for a long
+time, in the dark corner, unaware of what was going on about them and
+deaf to people's comments.<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a></p>
+
+<p>The scientist, with his back turned, was unable to see the Prince. As
+for the lady, her eyes were fixed on Novoa with the affectionate
+seriousness of a girl who has taken advanced studies, has the bachelor's
+degree, and is able to understand a man of science. Michael heard a
+snatch of the young professor's conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"And when the glacial currents from the pole reach that spot they take
+the place of the warm waters that rise to the surface...."</p>
+
+<p>He was explaining the formation of the Gulf Stream.</p>
+
+<p>No one could have guessed it from observing the caressing and timidly
+amorous glances behind his glasses.</p>
+
+<p>She was listening with admiring fervor, but Michael, who knew women,
+imagined he guessed her real thoughts. She was weighing, with the
+cunning of a poor girl alone in the world, the possibilities of this man
+as a husband. He was ignorant of everything not to be learned in books,
+and she was calculating the modifications necessary to improve the
+person of this careless male who always wore a necktie badly tied, and
+never pulled up his trousers before sitting down, to keep them from
+bagging in a grotesque manner.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff spent more than an hour deeply sunk in an armchair in the bar,
+listening to Castro. The branches of the large trees on the terrace wove
+soft shadows like spider webs on the window panes in the twilight dusk.</p>
+
+<p>Atilio was giving vent to his melancholy by lamenting the meagerness of
+the afternoon tea. On account of the war, burnt almonds and potato chips
+were the only gastronomic delicacies to be offered, in this place
+frequented by the wealthy.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd roused in him the same sad reflections. There were people
+there, but very few compared with the numbers that flocked to Monte
+Carlo some years before. Then they came in limited trains direct from<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a>
+Vienna, Berlin, and the farthest parts of Europe. The square in front of
+the Casino was a second <i>Babel</i>. Around the "Cheese," people of all
+races walked up and down, speaking every known language. At present the
+absence of the Russians, who were spirited gamblers, was to be lamented,
+and likewise the absence of the Austrians and the Turks. The last
+persons to be attracted by Monte Carlo were the Germans, but Castro had
+seen them come in great numbers during the past few years, applying to
+gambling the same quiet minutely scientific thoroughness of method they
+used in military discipline, the organization of industries, and
+laboratory work.</p>
+
+<p>He was always able to recognize them as soon as they entered the rooms.
+When they sat down at the table they surrounded themselves with books
+and papers: statistics of the most favored numbers of past years,
+manuals on how to gamble, their own calculations and logarithms that
+only they themselves could understand.</p>
+
+<p>"They held on to their money more tenaciously than the rest," Atilio
+continued. "They were as patient and tireless as stubborn oxen; but they
+lost in the end like every one else. Who doesn't lose here&mdash;even the
+Casino, that always wins, is losing now. Before the war it brought in an
+income of forty million francs a year. At the present time it clears not
+more than three or four millions and since enormous expenses have to be
+covered, it has had to ask for loans to go on living, the same as a
+State."</p>
+
+<p>Michael observed those who were passing through the bar. There was only
+one man for every ten women.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the war, too," said Castro. "You can see women, women
+everywhere! Before the war, if you recall, even in peace times, the
+proportion of women was always larger. There are fewer men but they play
+higher stakes. They risk their money with more daring;<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a> three-fourths of
+the crowd around the tables were composed of women. When women are
+afraid of love, or disillusioned by it, they give themselves up to
+gambling with passionate intensity. It is the only means they can find
+to express their imagination. Besides, when one takes into account their
+love of luxury, which is never proportionate to their means, and
+considers the needs of present day women which were unknown to their
+grandmothers.... Look&mdash;look over there." He pointed discreetly to a lady
+advanced in years, modestly dressed and with a face that was daubed with
+rouge, who was being approached with supplicating looks and gestures by
+two other young and elegantly dressed ladies. It was easy to guess that
+they had come in there purely for the sake of discussing some business
+affair, away from the prying eyes in the gambling rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"They are asking for a loan and she is refusing," Castro continued.
+"Perhaps it is the second or third time in the afternoon. This lady is a
+rival of the old man who wears the Sacred Heart on his lapel. He is
+quite a character, that old usurer! He began as a waiter in a café and
+must have some two millions now after thirty years of honorable toil.
+Everything he owns is to be given to the village of La Turbie, which has
+named him its benefactor. He pays for images of Saints and has rebuilt
+the church&mdash;&mdash;. Notice: the lady is softening. They are going to get the
+loan."</p>
+
+<p>The three women had disappeared through the mahogany door leading to the
+women's lavatories. As the loan agent kept her funds in her petticoats,
+it was necessary for her to pull up her skirts to carry on her
+negotiations. Shortly after she came out and walked rapidly in the
+direction of the gambling room. She had to go on watching several women
+to whom she had loaned money, to see if they were winning. The two
+young<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a> women followed her with their purses still open, hurriedly
+counting the bank notes they had just received.</p>
+
+<p>Castro, who had suffered the humiliation of similar operations more than
+once, began bitterly to attack the vice which maintained this enormous
+edifice and the whole Principality.</p>
+
+<p>He played to win, played because he was poor; but so many rich people
+came there and risked the foundations of their well being!</p>
+
+<p>"Gambling is a functioning of the imagination. That is why you must have
+noticed that men with real imagination, writers, and true artists,
+seldom gamble. Many of them have caused great scandals by their
+extraordinary vices, reaching the point of monstrosity. But none of them
+have ever distinguished themselves as gamblers. They have other more
+exciting subjects to which they may apply their imaginative powers. On
+the other hand the great mass of human beings feel the charm of gambling
+and the more commonplace the individual, the more strongly is he
+attracted by the fascination of chance. Our acts are guided by the
+desire of obtaining the maximum of pleasure with a minimum of pain and
+effort; and you cannot obtain this better than by gambling. We all obey
+our hopes that do what seems most advantageous. We like to exaggerate
+the probability that what we most earnestly want to happen will occur,
+and we end by taking our desires for reality. Every day those who come
+in here have a feeling of certainty that they will come away taking a
+thousand, twenty thousand, or a hundred thousand francs with them, and,
+as a matter of cold fact, they come away with empty pockets. It doesn't
+make any difference, they will come back the next day, guided by the
+same illusions."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped talking as though depressed by the thought that he was
+painting his own picture. Then he added:<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a></p>
+
+<p>"What is the difference? Without these illusions, which gently stimulate
+the imagination, life would overwhelm us. It is perhaps fortunate for us
+that our hopes are not mathematically exact, that our destiny is largely
+shaped by luck. Besides, life is short. The future is uncertain; if
+fortune is to be ours, should we not prepare the way so that it may come
+swiftly? And what better way than that of gambling? When we put our hope
+in some far-off future time, it is not worth much. If we are to win, let
+it be soon and once for all. Our life is nothing more than a game of
+chance. We are gamblers all, even those of us who have never touched a
+card. Professions, business, and love itself are pure gambles, pure
+luck, a matter of chance. Cleverness and intelligence may cause our life
+games to turn out favorably, but chance still retains its hold on us,
+and the luck of an individual is what is most important. To become rich,
+even in the most stable business enterprises, one must be favored by a
+combination of extraordinary circumstances, a continual run of luck. A
+man never has become rich or celebrated merely on his own merits."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff, one of the world's great millionaires a few years before,
+nodded his head at this statement.</p>
+
+<p>"Even Governments keep up the habit of hope in the public by recourse to
+chance," continued Castro. "There are very few that do not authorize a
+lottery. A person who takes a ticket, buys a little hope and the
+possibility, if he has any imagination, of building for a few days every
+kind of wonderful dream, and feeling deeply stirred at the time of the
+drawing. The betterment of our material well-being by means of our own
+efforts is a laborious and difficult task; but there is a way to give
+the humble a certain relative happiness: by giving them hopes of
+becoming rich, of freeing themselves from every kind of servitude, and
+of realizing the ideal of freedom<a name="page_256" id="page_256"></a> to which they aspire. As a matter of
+principle the State shows itself an enemy of games of chance; and
+considers them immoral because they are based on what is uncertain; but
+all classes of commercial, financial, and industrial operations
+represent chance and oftentimes the ruin of one or two parties. They are
+all games quite similar to the gambling that goes on here." Atilio
+smiled ironically before continuing.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the moralists talk against gambling until they are weary. This much
+is certain. The sums that are played on horse races and in the Casino
+increase each year with rapid progression, more rapidly in fact than
+public wealth. The general improvement in ways of living which is
+developing, exerts no influence toward decreasing gambling. On the other
+hand, the complexity of modern life, with the increase of our needs and
+wants, favors this passion, and even aggravates it."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince interrupted him. He was quite right, perhaps, in what he was
+saying, but what a degrading vice gambling was! The more reasonable
+people allow themselves to be mastered by it and even lose their
+ordinary intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>"That's certain," confessed Atilio. "In gambling our human weaknesses
+and the tendency which we all have towards superstitions are shown most
+clearly. What madness.... Just as though the past could influence the
+present! How many useless efforts to conquer luck! More wealth and
+imagination has been wasted in the invention of new systems in gambling
+than in the attempt to find perpetual motion&mdash;and just as uselessly. All
+these wonderful systems lead the gambler infallibly toward ruin with
+more or less rapidity, but always with certainty. And how strong our
+faith is! I feel that it is greater than that of religious martyrs. When
+we think we have a combination which is sure to win, there<a name="page_257" id="page_257"></a> is no use
+trying to persuade us to the contrary. Nothing can convince us. It is
+curious that the failure of his system and the consequent losses never
+discourage a good gambler. He immediately seizes upon some new
+combination, a true one this time&mdash;which will enable him to make a
+fortune&mdash;one hope followed by another, and thus he goes on living until
+death overtakes him."</p>
+
+<p>The melancholy of these last few words was brief. Castro seemed suddenly
+to recall something which made him smile.</p>
+
+<p>"How many inconsistencies in the lives of gamblers! They are not afraid
+to risk their money and there is no class of people that is more stingy.
+Notice the women who play most passionately. They are all badly dressed;
+some of them are often careless about their persons. They must have
+money to gamble, and postpone buying necessities until the next day.
+There are men who carry their hats in their arms all afternoon in order
+to save the ten cents which it costs to leave them in the vestibule of
+the Casino. To-day when I came in I saw an elderly gentleman who waits
+for a friend every day standing by the cloak room window. They leave
+their hats and coats together and that way each one has to pay only five
+cents. Later on, at the roulette table, I saw them handling rolls of
+thousand-franc bills."</p>
+
+<p>From the tables people called to the players who were entering the bar:</p>
+
+<p>"Is she still winning?"</p>
+
+<p>They referred to the Delille woman. The various reports did not agree.
+Some of the people seemed indignant: "Yes, she went on winning with luck
+that would make you tired." The enthusiasm of the first moment had
+vanished. There was a note of envy concealed in words and glances.
+Others moved by some<a name="page_258" id="page_258"></a> selfish sentiment were pleased to point to a
+decline in her marvelous luck. She was losing and winning. Her runs of
+luck were not so frequent as in the beginning, but at all events if she
+were to stop at once, she might well take away three hundred thousand
+francs.</p>
+
+<p>Atilio and the Prince noticed Lewis standing at the bar, drinking the
+whisky which always restored his peace of mind, and permitted him to
+resume the complicated systems that were to give him back his paternal
+inheritance and restore his castle.</p>
+
+<p>They called to him to inquire about the luck of the Duchess. Lewis
+shrugged his shoulders with an expression of indignation and protest. It
+was absurd to win like that, playing so badly.</p>
+
+<p>"She must have the Count's rosary hidden in her skirts," said Atilio,
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Lewis was puzzled for the moment as though he took the words seriously.
+Later he blushed like a proper Briton, as he remembered the strange
+ornaments on his friend's rosary. Suddenly he burst into a violent fit
+of laughter. "Oh, Mr. Castro!&mdash;--" Mr. Castro's supposition seemed to
+him so witty that he laughed till he nearly choked himself coughing, and
+then he decided to get another whisky to regain his serenity.</p>
+
+<p>The two friends returned to the drawing room of the <i>Florentine Graces</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince saw Novoa and Valeria on the same divan continuing their
+conversation, but constantly becoming dreamier as they gazed into each
+other's eyes, as though in some deserted spot.</p>
+
+<p>He came near them without their seeing him, and was able to hear some of
+what Alicia's companion was saying.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know Spain, but I am so interested in it. I adore all of the
+romantic countries where love is everything,<a name="page_259" id="page_259"></a> and men are disinterested,
+where dowries don't exist, and a woman may marry even if she is poor."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince, in passing, gave the scientist a casual glance of pity.<a name="page_260" id="page_260"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p>A new personage entered the lives of the dwellers in Villa Sirena. The
+Colonel announced with enthusiasm this friend whom Doña Clorinda had
+introduced.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a Spanish Lieutenant in the Foreign Legion. He lives in the hotel
+which the Prince of Monaco gave up for convalescent officers. His name
+is Antonio Martinez, a very common name which reveals nothing of his
+character; but he is a great soldier, a hero, and I don't know how he
+manages to survive his wounds."</p>
+
+<p>The "General" who kept track of all the soldiers of a certain
+reputation, as soon as they arrived in Monte Carlo, had been anxious to
+meet this Lieutenant, and had taken him under her protection. The
+Duchess de Delille was also interested in him, and the two women, proud
+of being his <i>marraines</i>, showed him off in the anteroom of the Casino,
+rented carriages to promenade him around to the most beautiful spots on
+the Riviera, and treated him to the finest war-time foods and pastry
+that they could find. With his lungs injured by German poison gases, he
+had also received a hand grenade wound on his head, and suffered from
+time to time from nervous trouble, which caused him to fall to the
+ground unconscious. The doctors talked despairingly of his condition.
+Perhaps he would live for years, perhaps he would die in one of these
+crises; the important thing was that he should live a quiet life,
+without any deep emotion. And the two ladies, who knew the real state of
+his health, lamented it when he was not present. He was so young, so
+affectionate, and so timid? On the breast of his<a name="page_261" id="page_261"></a> mustard-colored
+uniform, attached by red ribbons, as a symbol of bravery given to the
+foreign battalions, were the War Cross and the Legion of Honor.</p>
+
+<p>Clorinda, who considered that she had greater rights over him because of
+having "discovered" him, thought for awhile of taking him to live with
+her in order to be able to take better care of him. But as she was at
+the Hôtel de Paris, she did not, like Alicia, have an entire villa at
+her disposal. And the latter, although tempted by her friend's
+suggestions, did not dare to take the convalescent into her home. People
+liked to talk, and she, without saying why, was afraid of their gossip.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, they both took the Lieutenant everywhere, protesting
+that, because of his uniform, he was not allowed to enter the rooms of
+the Casino. One afternoon, Doña Clorinda, with all the natural boldness
+of her character, took him to Villa Sirena. It was a shame that the
+handsome building and its vast gardens should be given over to five men
+who did nothing for humanity at all. Often in her imagination, she had
+converted it into a Sanitarium filled with invalid soldiers, with
+herself at the head of it as director and patroness. But her suggestions
+had no effect whatever on the Prince. "A selfish fellow," she said to
+herself, returning to her former opinion.</p>
+
+<p>As long as it was impossible to occupy the Villa with a band of
+convalescents, she took the Spanish officer to show him the gardens,
+without first asking Lubimoff's permission.</p>
+
+<p>The latter was able to see at first hand the hero of whom Don Marcos,
+during the last few days, had talked so much. He saw nothing in him to
+indicate extraordinary deeds. Martinez was a youth, ready to blush when
+forced to tell what he had done in the war. Without his uniform and his
+insignia of honor, he would<a name="page_262" id="page_262"></a> have seemed like a poor office clerk,
+modest and resigned and incapable of being anything else. His appearance
+contrasted with the deeds which, after much pleading, he would finally
+be persuaded to confess. He was twenty-six years old, and seemed much
+younger, but it was a sickly sort of youthfulness, undermined by wounds
+and hardships.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff, who hated the swagger of boastful heroes, felt at first
+disconcerted, and then attracted by the simplicity of this officer. If
+he had not known from Don Marcos the authenticity of his prowess, he
+would have taken no stock in it.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat intimidated in the presence of the famous owner of Villa
+Sirena, Martinez confessed his humble birth with neither pride nor
+timidity. He was poor, the son of poor people. He had tried to study for
+a career, but the necessity of earning his living had caused him to
+abandon books, trying the most diverse occupations, one after the other.
+It was so difficult to earn one's bread in Spain! After fighting in the
+Spanish campaign in Morocco, he had wandered through various South
+American Republics, struggling all the while against poverty and ill
+luck.</p>
+
+<p>"There where so many common rough people get rich," he said, "all I
+found was poverty, like that in my own country. When this war broke out,
+like many other people, I was indignant at the conduct of the Germans,
+and their atrocities in the invaded countries. At the time I was in
+Madrid. One night some of my café acquaintances agreed to go and fight
+for France. The person who backed down was to pay ten dollars. They all
+repented their decision, except myself. Don't imagine that it was to
+avoid paying the wager. I have my own ideas, and have read more or less.
+I believe in republics&mdash;and France is the country of the Great
+Revolution. I<a name="page_263" id="page_263"></a> entered a battalion of the Foreign Legion, which,
+composed for the most part of Spaniards, was being organized in Bayonne.
+There are a very few left by this time; most of them are dead; the rest
+are living scattered throughout the various hospitals, or else are
+crippled for life. I knew what war was like from mountain warfare
+against the Moors in the Riff country, and without seeking the honor I
+had gotten as far as being a Lieutenant of Reserves in my own country.
+Perhaps that is why they made me a Sergeant in the Legion after a few
+weeks. But it certainly was hard! I had never imagined they would
+receive us with a brass band! France has too many other things to think
+of; but it was sad to see how badly our enthusiasm was interpreted. Men
+called to arms by the laws of their country, and who were obliged to
+fight, looked at us with jealousy and suspicion. The other regiments
+considered us adventurers; or even escaped convicts. 'How hungry you
+must have been at home,' they said to me at the front, 'to have come
+here to be able to get something to eat!' And among us there were
+students, newspaper men, young men from wealthy families, fellows who
+had enlisted with enthusiasm&mdash;but let's not talk about that. In every
+country there are vulgar minded people incapable of understanding
+anything beyond their selfish, material wants."</p>
+
+<p>His military experience was confined to trench warfare, endless and
+monotonous, and to short distance attacks. He had arrived late at the
+Battle of the Marne; and he, who imagined that he would take part in
+gigantic combat, involving millions of men and the firing of immense
+cannon, merely witnessed a series of struggles between small forces
+hidden in the earth, and hand-to-hand encounters to win a few yards of
+ground. Life at the Dardanelles was the worst of his memories. He hated<a name="page_264" id="page_264"></a>
+to think of that horrible campaign. The struggles in France seemed
+rather placid compared to that fighting on a few miles of coast, with
+the sea at their backs and unconquerable lines ahead of them.</p>
+
+<p>After saying this he fell silent, and the Colonel had to insist, with a
+certain paternal pride, that Martinez go on talking.</p>
+
+<p>"Wounds, many wounds," he added simply. "I have lost count of the
+hospitals that I have known in three years, and of the trips I have made
+through France in Red Cross ambulances. When we are not killed outright,
+we are like the horses in bull fights. They patch up our skins outside
+the ring, strengthen us a bit and back we go into the arena, until we
+get the final goring."</p>
+
+<p>Toledo, becoming impatient at the young man's modesty, told the story of
+his wounds. He received some in every period of the fighting. Some
+belonged to modern warfare, produced by fragments of high explosive
+shells, others came from machine guns, and even that cough which
+interrupted his speech from time to time was caused by asphyxiating
+gases. Others were made by knives, by clubbings from gun stocks, by
+flying stones, and even by the teeth of the Germans in night encounters
+and surprise attacks, in which men fought as they did in the infancy of
+human life on this planet.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Lubimoff could not help admiring this slight, dark young man, who
+looked so insignificant. It seemed impossible that a human organism
+could resist so many blows, and that his weak body could sustain so many
+shocks without succumbing.</p>
+
+<p>But Martinez, with the solidarity of all those who face danger, refused
+all personal glory. He talked about the Legion as a soldier talks about
+his regiment, as a sailor talks about his ship, considering it the
+finest of all. He saw the entire war in terms of the Legion. The French<a name="page_265" id="page_265"></a>
+were all brave. Besides, no one could guess where the enemy would
+attack, and wherever the latter assumed the offensive, they found troops
+that withstood them and kept them from passing. But the Foreign Legion!</p>
+
+<p>"The soldiers who fight at the front are men," he said, "men torn from
+their families through the needs of the country. But we are fighters.
+That is why in the difficult operations, when flesh and blood have to be
+sacrificed, they send us forward. I am always, of course, only one of
+many. But the Legion!... Every six months a new Colonel: He is killed
+and another takes his place, he, too, is destined to die. And how the
+enemy hates us! There is one thing we are proud of. Among the prisoners
+that there are in Germany, there is not a single one from the Foreign
+Legion. Any one of us who ever falls into the hands of the <i>Boches</i>
+knows that he is a dead man: we are outlawed. And for our part, well, we
+do our best too!... Even when they insult us from trench to trench, we
+are proud of belonging to the Legion. One night, the enemy opposite,
+hearing us speak Spanish, began to shout in our language. They must have
+been Germans from South America. 'Hey, <i>Macabros</i>! Wait till we get hold
+of you, and then!...' They threatened us with the most terrible
+tortures. And they always nicknamed us 'Macabros!' I don't know why."</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess de Delille admired the hero, feeling at the same time a
+certain sense of uneasiness at the horrors which she guessed from his
+words. "The war! When would the war be over?"</p>
+
+<p>The Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders, smiling. People who live far from
+the front were more impatient for peace than those who risked their
+lives in the front lines. They had become accustomed to contact with
+death. The war would last as long as was necessary:<a name="page_266" id="page_266"></a> five years, ten
+years; the main thing was to win the victory.</p>
+
+<p>But Toledo, fearing that the conversation would get away from his hero,
+insisted once more on his great deeds.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm only one of many," said Martinez. "But as far as brave men are
+concerned, I can recommend the Legion. That is where you'll find them.
+And all have died!... At first we had men from every country. But the
+Americans left as soon as their Republic intervened in the war; and it
+was the same with the Italians and Poles. On the other hand, many
+Russians, when their regiments were disbanded, joined the Legion. There
+is nothing extraordinary to tell about myself. And they have rewarded me
+so highly for the little I have done! Being a foreigner I have two
+ribbons. Besides, I shall never forget the moment when the Colonel, a
+week before they killed him, called me, and said, 'Martinez, the General
+has given me four Crosses of the Legion of Honor for our Legion. One of
+them is yours.' And he put it on my breast in front of a whole battalion
+of brave men presenting arms. It was unforgettable: it was worth a life
+time."</p>
+
+<p>It was the truth. Colonel Toledo affirmed it, nodding his head, his eyes
+wet with tears. Later, with selfish jealousy, Don Marcos tore him away
+from the ladies, who were busy for the moment, talking with the Prince
+and his friend.</p>
+
+<p>Walking through the gardens, the Colonel gazed at his hero with a look
+of tender protection, such as an artist who has exhausted his talents
+gazes at the increasing triumph of a younger, fresher, and more
+successful colleague.</p>
+
+<p>"Youth, youth!" he said. "You, Martinez, belong to the Spain of the
+future; I belong to the Spain of past<a name="page_267" id="page_267"></a> days, the Spain that will never
+return again. I am convinced that the world is progressing in new
+directions."</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel kept up a frequent correspondence with many Spanish
+volunteers in the Legion. He looked after them with all the affection of
+a <i>marraine</i>, sending them chocolate, select edibles, everything that he
+could spare from the Villa Sirena pantry, without impairing the service.
+Some of the letters which came from the front made him weep and laugh.
+One volunteer asked him to send a good Spanish knife, having broken his
+own in a night attack. Another dreamt of a Browning revolver. Who would
+give him a Browning? He had only an ordnance revolver, an undependable
+weapon that had failed him twice in an attack on a trench and had
+prevented him from killing the German who finally wounded him.</p>
+
+<p>With Lieutenant Martinez, the Colonel could let go all his enthusiasm
+and give free rein to prophesies in favor of the Allies.</p>
+
+<p>In the presence of Atilio and Novoa he was less talkative as he feared
+their ridicule.</p>
+
+<p>In order to tease him and make him mad they recalled the enthusiasm of
+the Carlist party in Spain for Germany. Castro even pretended that he
+was surprised that the Colonel was not a pro-German, the same as his
+political friends.</p>
+
+<p>"I am where I belong," said Don Marcos with dignity. "I am a gentleman,
+and belong with decent people."</p>
+
+<p>This was his supreme argument. Humanity was divided, according to him,
+into two classes&mdash;the decent and the indecent. It was the same with
+nations, and Germany was not to be counted among the decent.</p>
+
+<p>As a patriot he suffered at seeing Spain outside the struggle, making an
+effort to remain unaware of what was going on in the rest of the world,
+putting its head<a name="page_268" id="page_268"></a> under its wing, like certain long-legged birds that
+imagine they can avoid danger by not seeing it. Happily, his country did
+not figure among the indecent nations, nor was it any too decent either.
+It was allowing a chance for glory to escape, and this stirred the
+Colonel's wrath deeply.</p>
+
+<p>For the last three months a fixed idea has been disturbing his happiest
+moments. The Allies had entered Jerusalem. What a great joy for an old
+Catholic soldier! But his joy afterwards made him smile bitterly. A
+Protestant nation freeing the sepulcher of Christ for the third time!...</p>
+
+<p>"Imagine, Martinez, if only Spain had been with the decent nations! We
+have missed the chance of obtaining this glory, we who belong to the
+nation that has showed the greatest faith. Even I, in spite of my years,
+would have gone on the crusade. The Spanish entering Jerusalem
+victorious! What do you think of that?"</p>
+
+<p>But the officer replied, with a vague smile, "Yes, perhaps." It was
+evident that the entry into Jerusalem and the empty tomb of Christ made
+very little difference to him. Don Marcos was somewhat disappointed with
+his hero, but he consoled himself with the thought that after all his
+own ideas belonged to the Middle Ages. Decidedly, he and Martinez were
+men of two different periods. "Youth, youth! You belong to the Spain of
+the future; I to the Spain" ... and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Yes; the world was progressing in new directions. He, himself, a few
+days later, worried by the gloomy aspect of the war on the Western
+Front, had forgotten all about Jerusalem. The Germans, freed from the
+peril presented by Russia at their backs, after making peace with the
+Bolsheviki, were concentrating all their troops in France, in order to
+make a drive on Paris. The Allies, facing this overwhelming offensive,
+could count only on their<a name="page_269" id="page_269"></a> regular forces and those which the recent
+intervention of the United States might bring.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to aid from this latter source Don Marcos held a fixed and
+decided opinion. In the first place he had felt towards the United
+States a certain antipathy which dated back to the Cuban war. They might
+possess a large fleet, because anybody can buy ships if he has money
+enough, and the Americans were immensely rich: but how about an army?
+Toledo believed only in armies belonging to monarchies, with the
+exception of that of France, since in the latter country the glory of
+military tradition was attached to the history of the first Republic.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of the war, he had even been irritated by the
+importance which every one had given President Wilson. Both sides had
+turned to him, appealing to his judgment, and protesting against the
+barbarities of the respective adversary. Even Wilhelm II cabled him
+frequently to make a show of sincerity for his frauds, as though he
+considered it important to gain Wilson's good opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as though this man were the center of the Universe! The President
+of a Republic that had only a few thousand soldiers, a professor, a
+dreamer!..."</p>
+
+<p>He understood only heads of States in uniform, their breasts covered
+with decorations, with both hands on the hilt of a sword, and with an
+immense army before them, ready to fight in obedience to orders. And
+this gentleman in a cut-away coat and stiff hat, with eyeglasses and a
+smile like that of a learned clergyman, was now the man on whom the eyes
+of half the world were focused with looks of hope, and he was the
+deciding power that some were anxious to win over and others were afraid
+of arguing with!</p>
+
+<p>Atilio Castro laughed at Don Marcos. He was always<a name="page_270" id="page_270"></a> out of sympathy with
+the Colonel's opinions, and seemed impressed by this new marvel in
+history.</p>
+
+<p>"Times have changed since your day, Don Marcos. We are going to see
+something new. America, which a century ago was merely a European
+colony, will perhaps protect and save Europe now. In the meantime, we
+are witnessing the curious spectacle of a former University professor
+being the arbiter of the world. What would Napoleon say if he were to
+see this ninety-four years after his death?"</p>
+
+<p>Toledo gloomily assented. Yes; his days had passed. Democracy,
+Republicanism, all these things that had made him smile, as though they
+were something transitory, ineffectual and out of date, were very
+powerful in the present world, and perhaps would finally take charge of
+directing its affairs. Even he felt their irresistible influence. When
+he saw how the President of the great American Republic protested
+against the torpedoing of defenseless ships, the crimes of the
+submarines, and finally declared war on the German Empire, Don Marcos
+affirmed, stammering out a confession:</p>
+
+<p>"This man Wilson ... this Wilson is a decent sort of a fellow."</p>
+
+<p>For him it was impossible to say more.</p>
+
+<p>He approved of the man through instinctive worship of personal power,
+but refused to believe in the military strength of the United States. It
+was a land of liberty, according to him, where all considered themselves
+equals and this made it impossible to create a real army.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince and Castro occasionally talked in his presence of the war of
+secession, the first war in which millions of men had taken part,
+applying, moreover, innumerable inventions, in which all the progress in
+modern armament found its source. Toledo listened, with a doubt inspired
+by distant events. This struggle had been<a name="page_271" id="page_271"></a> among themselves: militia
+warfare; but to raise an army of millions of men in a country that did
+not have compulsory military service; to transport this army across the
+ocean with all the immense quantity of supplies and munitions, and to
+get them there, besides, in time to save Europe from the great
+danger.... Mere dreams! "What they call over there 'bluff'!"</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos clung to this word in order to maintain his incredulity. This
+race is accustomed to accomplishing tremendous things; Americans
+conceive of everything on a large scale: cities, buildings, industries,
+wealth; but afterwards they exaggerate considerably when they come to
+advertising and describing what they do. Everybody knew that, and the
+American military forces which were to crush German militarism and
+re-establish peace on earth, although well-intentioned, were nothing but
+one bluff more.</p>
+
+<p>Castro approved of the Colonel's words for the first time, without any
+intention of making fun of him. The President had declared war, but the
+country did not seem disposed to follow him.</p>
+
+<p>"They will probably send money, munitions, supplies, all the immense
+power of their wealth and production. But a big army? Where can they get
+one? How is an immense people accustomed to the volunteer system, and
+living amid the greatest prosperity, going to take up arms? What would
+they gain by doing so?"</p>
+
+<p>But the Prince, who had often been over there, replied with an ambiguous
+gesture:</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps! But if they really want to enter the war, who knows! Anything
+might happen in that country, no matter how impossible it seems!"</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel was gradually won over by the irrational enthusiasm of the
+general public. Since the beginning of the war, the masses, who believe
+in mysterious predictions<a name="page_272" id="page_272"></a> and supernatural interventions, had always
+had some favorite people, some nation that it had been the fashion to
+regard as invincible and in which all hopes could be concentrated.</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning it had been Russia, with its millions and millions of
+men, the Russian "steam roller" that had only to advance in order to
+crush Germany. Poor steam roller! When it had fallen to pieces, the
+fickle enthusiasm of the public had turned toward England. Now it was
+America, all the more miraculous and omnipotent because little known.</p>
+
+<p>In all conversations one heard the name of an American, both at elegant
+teas and in humble cafés; the one American well known in Europe: Edison,
+the inventor. He would settle everything. Up to the present time he had
+remained out of sight and silent, but now that his country had entered
+the war they would see something miraculous. In a few hours, invisible
+and implacable powers would crush to bits the invading armies; the
+submarines would burst like shells under a sort of frozen light which
+would pursue them in the ocean depths; the aeroplanes that bombarded
+defenseless cities would be forced to descend, drawn by electric
+magnetism, as a bird is drawn toward the mouth of a boa constrictor.
+Edison, the wonder-worker, meant more to the popular imagination of
+Europe than all the soldiers and all the ships of his country.</p>
+
+<p>And Toledo, who decorated his bedroom with pictures of Joffre and Foch,
+but believed at the same time that St. Genevieve, the patron saint of
+Paris, had intervened in the victory of the Marne, felt attracted by all
+the miracles of the American wizard, announced by every one as something
+sure. Science, being somewhat apart from religion, inspired in him a
+feeling of respect and fear. For this reason he believed blindly in its
+wonders,<a name="page_273" id="page_273"></a> much as a zealot believes in the immense powers of the devil.</p>
+
+<p>At other times his incredulity was renewed. The war could only be
+determined by troops. Up to that time the forces of both sides had been
+equal; but now Germany was bringing new divisions&mdash;those from the
+Eastern Front,&mdash;and was preparing the decisive blow. On the side of the
+Allies an equivalent or greater number of soldiers was lacking; they
+needed the last few drops which would fill the glass, cause it to
+overflow and tip the scales. America might do this. But their forces
+were arriving so slowly! The obstacles were so great! A few battalions
+of the regular American army had already marched through Paris. After
+that months went by without the constant tiny stream of reënforcements
+becoming a torrent.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere on the Riviera, Toledo observed wounded soldiers from various
+countries. Only from time to time was he able to distinguish a few
+American uniforms, worn by men of the Medical Corps, who did not seem to
+have much to do. The newspapers talked about forces from the United
+States that occupied a sector on the front, but they were so few!</p>
+
+<p>"All that talk about a million or two million men before the end of the
+year is mere bluff," said the Colonel. "I know something about such
+things, and it is easier to build a skyscraper with a hundred stories
+than to transport a million soldiers from one hemisphere to the other.
+And how about the great drive that is beginning! And France is worn out,
+after four years of heroism that has drained her blood!"</p>
+
+<p>Every day he walked up and down in the ante-room of the Casino, waiting
+impatiently for the big bulletins which were written out by hand in
+large letters and posted on the panels by the employees. In scanning
+the<a name="page_274" id="page_274"></a> latest telegraphic dispatches he was looking only for the beginning
+of the offensive announced by the enemy. This menace had shaken his
+faith in the victory, and kept him in a state of constant worry. Oh! If
+only the Americans would come in time, and in enormous numbers.</p>
+
+<p>He felt it his duty to lie unblushingly to the friends who surrounded
+him in the ante-room, asking his opinion as a soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"We will triumph; and William will have to shoot himself."</p>
+
+<p>The question of his shooting himself was the one thing that will be his
+end, in case of a defeat.</p>
+
+<p>"I know the Kaiser very well," he continued. "He is only a Lieutenant, a
+Lieutenant that has grown old, keeping the cracked brain swagger of
+youth. But he has the sense of honor of an officer who, finding himself
+defeated, raises his revolver to his head. You will see that that will
+be his end, in case of a defeat."</p>
+
+<p>"He writes verse, music, and paints pictures, giving his opinion on
+every matter, and making people accept it, like one of those young
+officers who on entering a drawing room of civilians monopolize
+attention with their insolence and conceit, emboldened by the silence of
+the guests, who are afraid of provoking a duel. He is the eternal
+twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant whose hair has grown gray under the
+imperial crown, whose head has been turned a bit by the constant
+triumphs of his personal vanity. But once Fate turns her back on him, he
+will act in the same decisive manner as an officer who has gambled away
+the funds entrusted to his care, or committed other crimes against his
+honor.</p>
+
+<p>"Never fear; the Lieutenant will know how to act when the hour of
+adversity arises. He is a mad man, a vain comedian, but he has the sense
+of shame of a warrior. Let me repeat: He will shoot himself."<a name="page_275" id="page_275"></a></p>
+
+<p>And in his imagination he could hear the Imperial revolver-shot.</p>
+
+<p>What disgusted Don Marcos was not to be able to talk about this, nor
+about the danger of the offensive, when he was in Villa Sirena. The
+friends of the Prince lived like guests at a hotel. They never were all
+together except during the early morning hours. They rarely sat down
+together at table. Some power from the outside seemed to attract them
+away from the Villa, driving them toward Monte Carlo. Even the Prince
+often lunched or dined at the Hôtel de Paris, sending word at the last
+minute by telephone.</p>
+
+<p>This domestic disorder was accepted by Toledo as providential.</p>
+
+<p>The service had suffered an unavoidable decline through the departure of
+Estola and Pistola. One morning they appeared, stammering and filled
+with emotion, minus the dress suits which were too large for them. They
+were going away. They were to cross the frontier that very afternoon to
+appear at the Barracks. They had received orders from their Consul.</p>
+
+<p>They did not seem filled with enthusiasm for their new profession; but
+Don Marcos, through a sense of professional duty, tried to buck them up
+with a bit of a speech. He, too, at their age, had gone off to war of
+his own accord. "Respect for your officers ... love them as you would
+your father ... for honor ... for the flag."</p>
+
+<p>The appearance of the Prince cut short his harangue. The two boys kissed
+their master's hand as though they were taking leave of him for
+eternity, and in their confusion they did not know where to put the bank
+notes which were given them. Imagine Estola and Pistola converted into
+soldiers! Even these two boys were being driven along the road of death!
+And the whole thing<a name="page_276" id="page_276"></a> seemed so extraordinary to Michael, so absurd, that
+while he felt sorry for them, he also felt like laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later he had forgotten all about them. The Colonel would
+manage to organize new service with women, now that owing to the war it
+was impossible to get other servants. Besides, he was bored at Villa
+Sirena, and living at Monte Carlo would be something of a novelty for
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The idlers who promenaded around the "Camembert" frequently saw him
+enter the Casino with an absent-minded air, like a gambler who has just
+thought of a new combination. The crowd in the gambling room had also
+seen him approach the tables as though interested in the fluctuation of
+chance, but they waited in vain to see him place a bet, imagining that
+he would play nothing save enormous sums.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes seemed to see in all directions, and no sooner did the Duchess
+de Delille leave her seat to go over to another table, than the Prince
+came forward to meet her, extended his hand and smiled youthfully.</p>
+
+<p>They remained motionless in the spot where they greeted each other,
+gazing into each other's eyes, until, warned instinctively of prying
+glances behind their backs, they went and sat down on a divan in a
+corner, and continued their conversation there. Suddenly, a murmur from
+the crowd around a table would cause her out of professional curiosity
+to leave Lubimoff and to hasten thither.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia would smile the proud bitter smile of a dethroned queen. During
+the preceding day people had talked of nothing save her. Her name had
+traveled as far as Nice and Menton. In the evenings, at the dinner hour,
+families who dwelt permanently in Monaco and who are forbidden to enter
+the Casino, asked for news<a name="page_277" id="page_277"></a> of her luck. In the cafés and restaurants,
+her name resounded, mingled with those of the Generals who were
+directing the war. In front of the bulletins giving the latest news,
+people interrupted their comments on the coming offensive, asking one
+another, "How did the Duchess de Delille come out yesterday?"
+Afternoons, when she arrived at the Casino, sightseers crowded about her
+to get a better view, and her friends greeted her, proudly kissing her
+hand. It was a silent ovation, consisting of glances and smiles, like
+that which greets the entry of a famous soprano on the stage which has
+witnessed her triumphs.</p>
+
+<p>Her battle with the Casino lasted about two weeks; she won, lost, and
+won again. She began her "work" at three o'clock in the afternoon, and
+remained at it until midnight. The tea hour passed, then the dinner
+hour, without her being aware of it. When the gambling was closed she
+came away, leaning on Valeria's arm, greeting every one amiably,
+exhausted and victorious. Sometimes, like an invalid fed against her
+will, she accepted the sandwiches and a cup of tea which her companions
+brought her at the gambling table.</p>
+
+<p>One night&mdash;a memorable one&mdash;she had won continuously up to the closing
+hour of the Casino. She counted the bank notes that the head employees
+had given her with a hard, enigmatic smile. There were four hundred of
+them, each of a thousand francs. They protruded from her hand bag and
+from Valeria's. Even her friend, "the General," was obliged to help her,
+by taking care of several packages of them.</p>
+
+<p>"If they hadn't closed I would have broken the bank," she said with the
+vanity of a conqueror.</p>
+
+<p>Clorinda accompanied her in the carriage as far as her house, repeating
+prudent advice: "Don't go on; keep<a name="page_278" id="page_278"></a> the money. It is impossible to go
+any higher." Valeria, during the course of the evening, kept repeating
+the same words: "It is tempting God to keep on."</p>
+
+<p>But Alicia refused to listen to her. Her inspiration was not exhausted.
+There still remained great things for her to do; and when the time came
+for her to stop, she would be aware of it sooner than the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Michael had been present at this struggle, which had been annoying to
+him. Every afternoon, when he entered the Casino, he called himself
+names, as though he were doing something cowardly. Why did he come to
+witness the acts of that mad woman? She did not seem to be aware of his
+presence! At first a look, a smile, and during the remaining hours she
+had eyes for nothing save the gambling and the <i>croupiers</i>. In spite of
+this, the Prince kept coming regularly.</p>
+
+<p>To excuse himself, he recalled certain words which the Duchess had said.
+The day following her first famous winning, she had arisen on seeing him
+enter the room, taken both his hands in hers to speak to him privately.</p>
+
+<p>"You bring me good luck," she murmured in his ear. "I am sure that this
+is so. I have been winning since we became friends. Come, come all the
+time! Let me see you every time I raise my eyes."</p>
+
+<p>She raised them, however, very, very seldom. She had other more urgent
+things to think of. But Michael, to quiet his angry conscience, told
+himself that he was there to keep his word. Besides, who knew but what
+she was telling the truth! The tendency to superstition, common to all
+gamblers, the Casino's surroundings and even Alicia's luck itself, had
+finally influenced the credulity of the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>He tried to avenge himself for these long waits and<a name="page_279" id="page_279"></a> her indifference by
+looking at her with scornful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"How ugly she looks!"</p>
+
+<p>Yes, she was ugly, like all the women who gamble and seem to suffer at
+an ever increasing rate, the weight of years crushing out their youth
+under the stress of emotion. Every loss meant another year, every
+winning meant a look of tenseness which spoiled the regularity of their
+features. Michael took a certain joy in noting the wrinkles which fixed
+attention formed about her eyes. Her nose seemed to grow sharp, and two
+deep furrows drew down the corners of her mouth, giving her an
+expression of premature old age. All the little feminine attentions
+disappeared as the hours went by. Her hat tilted to one side; locks of
+hair made an effort to escape, as though disarranged by currents of
+human electricity darting among their roots. She seemed ten years older.</p>
+
+<p>But a second voice within gave forth a different opinion. "Yes, she was
+very ugly, but so interesting!" Surely when she arose from the table she
+would be once more the same Alicia as ever.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, on entering the Casino, he had a sense of something
+extraordinary happening. People were talking together, asking news, all
+of them hurrying toward the same table.</p>
+
+<p>His friend Lewis passed him without stopping.</p>
+
+<p>"It was bound to happen. She doesn't know how to play. I expected it."</p>
+
+<p>A little farther on Spadoni came forward to greet him.</p>
+
+<p>"She would never listen to me. She acts on her whims. She doesn't follow
+any system. She is done for."</p>
+
+<p>All the gamblers were talking as though they were lamenting somebody's
+death; but it was a question of hypocritical compunction, inwardly they
+felt a sense<a name="page_280" id="page_280"></a> of envious triumph on seeing at an end that absurd run of
+luck, which had embittered their evenings.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff, thrusting his head between the shoulders of two onlookers, saw
+Alicia at the same time that she raised her eyes. Their glances met. She
+looked at him with dismay, as though lamenting, making him responsible
+for her misfortune. "Why did you abandon me?"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince fled: it hurt him to see her with that humble look of rage,
+like that of a cornered sheep, bleating in pain and defending itself.</p>
+
+<p>At nightfall he returned to the Casino. A few people were still talking
+about the Duchess, but in low tones, with sad gestures, as though
+referring to a dying person. The crowd had thinned about the table. He
+saw Alicia in the same place. Valeria stood behind her chair, with a sad
+face, while Doña Clorinda bent over her friend, talking in her ear. He
+guessed her words. She was pleading with her to come away: next day she
+would have better luck. But she did not seem to hear, and remained with
+her eyes fixed on the few five hundred and a thousand franc chips, which
+were all that remained. Suddenly she lost her patience, and turning her
+head she said one word, nothing more, something very strong, but nothing
+without precedent in that intimate friendship which was broken off at
+least once every week. Doña Clorinda immediately retorted, looking
+daggers, and went away, haughtily and disdainfully, while Valeria looked
+at the ceiling in despair.</p>
+
+<p>Michael fled once more. He was frightened by the expression on Alicia's
+face and the nervous hostility in her voice, which he had not been able
+to hear, but which was easily guessed from the trembling of her lips. He
+wandered about the rooms for half an hour, listening at a distance to
+the words of those who were still talking about the Duchess. One
+afternoon had been sufficient to<a name="page_281" id="page_281"></a> sweep away all that she had won in
+many successful days. Her misfortune was as extraordinary as her good
+luck had been. She had not won a single bet.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he felt the contact of a nervous hand on his shoulder. He
+turned his eyes. It was Alicia, but with an eager gesture, and with an
+expression which was both bold and imploring.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any money?"</p>
+
+<p>Her voice and the expression on her face were not unknown to Michael.
+Before the war, the Casino had been the scene of his most unexpected and
+dazzling conquests. Women who were very cold and treated him with
+visible antipathy, and women of well-known virtue whose very looks
+repelled all audacity, had approached him with an air of sudden
+decision, requesting a loan, and immediately asking point blank at what
+hour the Prince might offer them a cup of tea at Villa Sirena. He
+thought of the Colonel, who considered gambling the worst of women's
+enemies. It caused them to lose all sense of shame. In a few hours the
+standards built up during an entire lifetime were suddenly demolished.
+In order to go on gambling, they offered of their own free will what
+they had never thought of granting.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince replied, with surprise, at this sudden request. He carried
+very little money on his person: he was not a gambler. How much did she
+want?</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty thousand francs."</p>
+
+<p>She mentioned the figure in the same manner as she might have said a
+hundred thousand or five thousand. It was the same to her at that
+moment. Besides, during the last few days she had lost all sense of
+values.</p>
+
+<p>Michael replied with a laugh. Did she imagine, by any chance, that he
+came to the Casino with twenty thousand francs in his pocketbook, as
+though he were a money lender or a pawn broker?<a name="page_282" id="page_282"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Ask for a loan," said the Duchess. "They will give you anything you ask
+for."</p>
+
+<p>He went on laughing at this absurd proposition, but was won over
+immediately by the simplicity with which Alicia formulated her request.</p>
+
+<p>"How about you? Why don't you ask for one?"</p>
+
+<p>Oh, as for her!... In the midst of her proud triumph, she had forgotten
+to pay various debts contracted before her sudden burst of luck. At
+present it was useless to ask. It was a difficult moment for her; every
+one considered her ruined, and incapable of recouping.</p>
+
+<p>"And they are mistaken, Michael; I feel the inspiration of luck. You
+shall see how I get on my feet again after a few days. It is my secret.
+If I tell it to you, fortune will abandon me. Do me this favor! Ask for
+the twenty thousand from that little old man over there who is looking
+at us. He can't refuse you; you are Prince Lubimoff. If you like we will
+form a partnership: I shall share half my winnings with you."</p>
+
+<p>Michael kept on smiling, while inwardly he was scandalized by this
+proposition. Imagine the things in which this woman was trying to
+involve him! He, asking for money from a money lender in the Casino!</p>
+
+<p>But, like certain invalids who do things most contrary to their will, no
+sooner did he leave Alicia with gestures of protest, than his legs
+mechanically took him in the direction of the divan where the old man
+with the short beard, and the badge of the Sacred Heart on his lapel,
+was squatting, with his hat in one hand and a silk cap on his bald head.</p>
+
+<p>"I need twenty thousand francs."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince seemed to be in doubt as he faced this little man, who had
+arisen, surprised and suspicious on seeing that he was talking with so
+lofty a personage.<a name="page_283" id="page_283"></a> Was it really his own voice that he heard? Yes, it
+was his voice, but he felt a sensation of immense surprise, as though it
+were some one else who was talking. He felt a desire to withdraw without
+waiting for the gnome's reply; but the latter had already responded,
+stammering:</p>
+
+<p>"Prince ... such an amount! I am a poor man. From time to time I do
+favors to distinguished people, two or three thousand francs ... but
+twenty thousand! Twenty thousand!"</p>
+
+<p>He muttered this sum with a groan of torture, but meanwhile his shrewd
+eyes were penetrating Lubimoff like a probe. This look irritated
+Michael, causing him to take an interest in the operation as though his
+honor were at stake. Doubtless, the usurer was thinking about Russia,
+and the disaster of the revolution and of the impossibility of being
+paid this loan even though the great man were to offer all his fortune.</p>
+
+<p>"You must know me," he said in an irritated tone. "I am Prince Lubimoff;
+I am the owner of Villa Sirena. I need twenty thousand francs; not a
+franc less. If you are unable...."</p>
+
+<p>He was about to turn his back on him, but the dwarf humbly restrained
+him, considering useless on this occasion all the excuses and delays
+which he usually made his clients endure, like a slow torture. He
+slipped out between the groups of people, begging "His Highness" to wait
+an instant. Perhaps he did not have the entire sum with him, and was
+obliged to ask for aid from the Cashier of the Casino; perhaps he was
+going to secrete himself for a moment in the lavatories, to take bank
+notes from various hiding places in his clothes, even from his shoes.</p>
+
+<p>Michael felt a discreet hand touch his own, thrusting between his
+fingers a roll of paper. The old man had<a name="page_284" id="page_284"></a> returned without his seeing
+him come; bobbing up between two groups, small and sprightly, like an
+imp from a trap door on the stage.</p>
+
+<p>"You know the Colonel? To-morrow he will interview you about the payment
+and the interest."</p>
+
+<p>And the Prince turned his back without more words, leaving the usurer
+satisfied with his discourteous brevity. A great gentleman could not
+talk in any other way. He liked to have dealings with men of that sort.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia, who had followed the scene from a distance, came forward to meet
+him, holding out her hands inconspicuously.</p>
+
+<p>"Take it!" Michael's right hand thrust the bank notes forward so rudely
+that the offer was almost a blow.</p>
+
+<p>His shame for what he had just done expressed itself in a confusion of
+protests.</p>
+
+<p>"Women! Of all the fool things I have ever done!"</p>
+
+<p>But Alicia, with the bank notes in her hand, was already thinking of
+nothing but the tables.</p>
+
+<p>"You will see great things. You know we have formed a partnership: you
+get half."</p>
+
+<p>Mastered once more by the invisible demon that was singing numbers and
+colors in her ear, she went away without thanking him.</p>
+
+<p>He also left. He was afraid of meeting the money lender again, and
+having him bow familiarly; he imagined the entire crowd in the rooms had
+followed attentively his interview with the old man and had smiled when
+he received the money.</p>
+
+<p>He left the Casino. He would never come back again: he swore it!</p>
+
+<p>Castro, whom he had seen from a distance gambling at one of the tables,
+returned to Villa Sirena at the dinner hour. He was in a bad humor; but
+he forgot his<a name="page_285" id="page_285"></a> own misfortune long enough to console himself by relating
+Alicia's mishaps:</p>
+
+<p>"After losing everything in <i>trente et quarante</i>, she appeared at a last
+minute with more money: a roll of thousand franc notes. And she, who
+never felt any special inclination for roulette, began to play the
+wheel. And how she played! At first she won a few long shots, two or
+three; but after that nothing: she kept losing and losing! She left
+everything on the table. I did not see her go out, but they told me she
+looked like a corpse, leaning on Valeria's arm. They say she suffers
+from heart trouble. All I say is: it isn't every one who pretends to be
+a gambler that is one; you need a strong constitution. The 'General'
+doesn't play so much, but she is cooler and doesn't lose her head."</p>
+
+<p>Michael slept badly. He was angry with Alicia. Instead of lamenting her
+misfortune he considered it logical. Imagine a woman trying to make
+money! Women can only get it from men's hands, and it is useless for
+them to try and get it for themselves, even by appealing to gambling.
+Gambling also is an enterprise for men.</p>
+
+<p>In the mental twilight when one is half asleep and half awake, the
+Prince, lying on his bed, remembered a scene from his happier days, when
+his yacht was anchored in the harbor of Monaco. It was one night when he
+was coming from a banquet in the Hôtel de Paris. He was slightly
+intoxicated and was leaning in a sort of a mental haze on the arms of
+two pretty women, who, smiling and unsuccessful, were competing to see
+which one would get him. Behind him, like a retinue, came his friends,
+his brilliant parasites, and various women guests, his entire court.
+They had entered the Casino. He was not a gambler; it bored him to sit
+motionless at a table; he considered it childish to get interested in<a name="page_286" id="page_286"></a>
+the whirling of a little ball of bone, or the combinations of little
+colored cards. There were so many more interesting pleasures in life!
+But that night, proud of his power, he felt a desire to fight a battle
+with fortune. Fortune is a woman, and he was determined to conquer it by
+the power of wealth, as he had conquered many another woman. The rich
+finally defeat even destiny with all its mysteries. He placed in front
+of him an enormous quantity of money to begin the struggle, and fortune
+refused it; or rather, began to give him money of her own, with scornful
+prodigality. The multi-millionaire wanted to lose and he could not. He
+varied his game capriciously, committed voluntary errors, and success
+always came forward to meet him. Finally he grew tired. It was before
+the war, and instead of with bone chips representing a hundred francs,
+they played with handsome gold coins of the same value. In front of him
+he had numerous and dazzling columns of this metal; and packages of bank
+notes.</p>
+
+<p>"Who wants money?"</p>
+
+<p>He began to fling it about in an enchanting rain. All except the most
+aristocratic women came running, tense and pale, swarming around the
+table, struggling for a single <i>louis</i>. They shoved one another, rolled
+on the carpet, bruising each other with hands and feet, to gain a single
+drop of this golden manna. Some of them struck and scratched each other,
+while their right hands clutched the same thousand franc note, tearing
+it. Hats rolled about on the ground; the hair of some of the women fell
+down their back, or was scattered in a cloud of false curls.</p>
+
+<p>"Me, Prince! Me!"</p>
+
+<p>And with clutching fingers they danced about him, in a body, as though
+possessed.</p>
+
+<p>"Who wants money?"<a name="page_287" id="page_287"></a></p>
+
+<p>The head employees intervened, angry but smiling, seeing who was the
+cause of the disturbance. "Your Highness, please! You are interrupting
+the play! Such a thing has never happened here before." But he continued
+flinging his money, until he had exhausted his winnings&mdash;more than sixty
+thousand francs&mdash;and the games went on again, with more players than
+before. Every one who had gathered something from the floor or caught it
+in the air, ran to risk it on a card or a number.</p>
+
+<p>Michael dwelt on this memory which was like a triumph. He could repeat
+it any time he pleased; he was sure of it. He recognized that in the end
+every gambler finally loses, and he did not consider himself an
+exception to this rule. But his will dominated fortune at first, and&mdash;by
+withdrawing in time before the latter had a chance to recoup with the
+perverse cunning of an untamable female!...</p>
+
+<p>The Prince finally went to sleep thinking of Alicia.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor woman! She doesn't know how to play; Lewis is right: She doesn't
+know how.... How should a beautiful woman know, who has never thought
+about anything save her own person! I must help her. I am a man. Perhaps
+to-morrow ... to-morrow!" ...</p>
+
+<p>The following day, at the breakfast hour, Don Marcos had a great
+surprise which worried him considerably. The Prince, who never bothered
+about money, allowing his "Chamberlain" to make negotiations directly
+with his Paris manager for the house expenses, asked him what amount he
+had at his disposal.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel made a mental calculation. He did not think he kept just
+then any more than fifteen thousand francs. He was expecting a check
+from the agent.</p>
+
+<p>"Give it to me," Lubimoff commanded.</p>
+
+<p>And immediately, as though suddenly recalling something,<a name="page_288" id="page_288"></a> he calmly
+mentioned the debt he had contracted the afternoon before. Toledo was
+thoughtful for a moment on learning that he was to come to an
+understanding with the old money lender to return the twenty thousand
+francs and the payment of extraordinary interest, which might double in
+a few days. He recalled the luncheon during which the Prince had
+proposed their present solitary life. Where were the ferocious "enemies
+of women" now? For the Colonel suspected that behind these squanderings
+of the Prince and this sudden passion for gambling, lay the influence of
+some woman. And he who never dared stake more than a few odd coins from
+time to time, thinking of the enormous sums entrusted to his loyalty,
+was deeply worried.</p>
+
+<p>While Don Marcos was on his way to the bank where the house money was
+deposited, the Prince walked about in the neighborhood of the Casino,
+waiting impatiently for the rooms to open. In the morning the crowd was
+very slight and very few tables were operating. Only the most desperate
+gamblers, after spending a sleepless night, anxious to try their new
+combinations as soon as possible, and sickly people who hoped to find a
+good seat vacant, came at that early hour.</p>
+
+<p>Impatiently Lubimoff entered the anteroom, after secretly thrusting into
+a pocket a roll of bills which Toledo handed to him. The employees of
+the first shift were arriving slowly, like clerks entering an office.
+The cleaning women and porters in shirt sleeves had just swept up the
+sawdust scattered on the floor. They all looked at him from the corner
+of their eyes, pointing him out to one another by discreet nudges.
+Imagine the Prince there at that hour, when people of his station in
+life were still in bed! Instinctively they looked all about expecting to
+see some coyly dressed lady waiting to meet him unobserved at that early
+hour. His well-known<a name="page_289" id="page_289"></a> reputation did not permit them to imagine anything
+save a rendezvous.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock. The curtains were opened, and Michael entered
+brushing against the first gamblers to arrive, modest timid folk. He
+felt the same nervousness, impatience, and dull anger that he felt on
+the mornings when he had fought duels. He walked with a heavy step; his
+hands kept contracting as though ready to strangle the empty air. At the
+same time he felt the same proud confidence of a marksman, sure of
+hitting the bull's-eye. He defied Lady Fortune before facing her, the
+wench whom he had once conquered. "By God! She would see she was dealing
+with a man this time!"</p>
+
+<p>He jerked a chair away from a hand already stretched out to take it, and
+sat down at a roulette table, between two dirty, badly dressed old
+women, who looked like witches. The employees exchanged looks of
+amazement, eyeing one another discreetly. The Prince betting, and at
+such an hour!...</p>
+
+<p><i>"Faites vos jeux!"</i></p>
+
+<p>The game began. Michael had no particular combination and had not
+thought of any. His eyes wandered over the thirty-six numbers, but only
+for an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the one," he thought. And he placed all that he could, nine
+<i>louis</i>, the maximum, on thirteen.</p>
+
+<p>The ball spun about the mahogany border, and when it finally came to
+rest was greeted with a murmur of amazement. "Number thirteen."</p>
+
+<p>A few thousand franc notes thrust in his direction by the rake of the
+<i>croupier</i> remained in front of the Prince, who sat there impassively,
+retaining a hard willful look. He knew it; he was sure he was making no
+mistake. Thirteen once more.</p>
+
+<p>People looked in amazement. What folly to bet twice on the same number!
+But when thirteen won a second<a name="page_290" id="page_290"></a> time and the Prince was paid the maximum
+again, a murmur from the crowd applauded the victor. Onlookers came
+hurrying, leaving the other tables devoid of spectators. This was going
+to be as famous a morning in the Casino, in spite of the smallness of
+the crowd, as the most celebrated afternoon and evening, when wealthy
+players fought with luck.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff changed his number. It was absurd to go on with thirteen. And
+he placed nine <i>louis</i> on seventeen. The ball spun around. It was
+thirteen once more. He lost.</p>
+
+<p>His look became harder and more aggressive. Dame Fortune was beginning
+to laugh at him for his lack of will power. A conqueror should feel no
+vacillation; it was his fault, for having given up his number. Men like
+him should go ahead, and impose their will, or perish without abandoning
+their first attitude. Thirteen as before!... And it was seventeen that
+won.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he thought the ground was falling away beneath his feet; he
+seemed to be floating in air, surrounded by mysterious forces that were
+weakening and finally breaking his will. He passed his hand over his
+forehead, as though trying to brush away, far away, his momentary
+weakness.</p>
+
+<p>"The she-devil," he exclaimed, mentally, insulting Fortune, sure once
+more that he was going to enslave her.</p>
+
+<p>And he went on playing.</p>
+
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>At three o'clock in the afternoon he came out of the Hôtel de Paris. He
+had lunched alone, without paying any attention to the glances he had
+received from other tables, avoiding friendly greetings that might have
+started a conversation.</p>
+
+<p>In his mouth was a fat cigar, and his legs, although<a name="page_291" id="page_291"></a> perfectly steady,
+inwardly felt a certain voluptuous sensation. The food had been bad; he
+had scarcely touched the dishes; on the other hand he had drunk a bottle
+of famous Burgundy, and several glasses of cordials immediately after
+finishing two cups of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>From the hotel steps he gave a glance of destructive hate at the square,
+the Casino and the Gardens. He thought with satisfaction of the
+possibility of a cruiser belonging to one of the nations which were
+carrying on war on the seas of Europe anchoring in front of that
+gingerbread house, and firing a few shells at it. What a wonderful
+sight! Then, in his imagination, he had a landing party with their
+machine guns disembark, to take prisoner all the people who were filling
+the square, men, women and even children. The world would lose nothing
+by it. What a city of corruption! Why the devil had his mother taken it
+into her head to buy the promontory of Villa Sirena, obliging him to
+live near this den of thieves? He even upbraided the dead Princess, with
+the stern uncompromising morality of every gambler who has just found
+himself tricked.</p>
+
+<p>As he glanced over the gay, well-dressed crowd that he was condemning to
+slavery, he saw Alicia, alone and on foot, on the edge of the sidewalk
+around the "Camembert," looking at the Casino.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going in?" he said, approaching her.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess became indignant, as though he was proposing something
+humiliating, something that she had never done before. She enter the
+Casino?</p>
+
+<p>"It's a rotten den, and the employees are rotters, and those who
+gamble&mdash;rotters too."</p>
+
+<p>It was all rotten! After saying this they took each other's hands as
+though they had just suddenly recognized each other.</p>
+
+<p>When Michael, still harping on his kind wishes, told<a name="page_292" id="page_292"></a> her about the
+bombardment and landing party with machine guns that he had been
+enjoying in his imagination, the Duchess almost applauded. As far as she
+was concerned, she would be very glad if they destroyed everything, if
+they even took the sovereign Prince himself prisoner, and if, into the
+bargain, the invaders returned the money she had lost, she could want
+nothing better.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, as if these charitable fantasies of Lubimoff told her of
+something, her eyes scrutinized him closely, much like those of a
+suspicious invalid who is able to recognize his own symptoms in those of
+a neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been gambling."</p>
+
+<p>Michael nodded sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have lost," she continued; "that goes without saying: I don't
+need to ask you. You, gambling!"</p>
+
+<p>But her surprise was short.</p>
+
+<p>"You have been gambling for my sake: I have guessed it. You said to
+yourself: 'I'm going to win what that crazy woman loses; men know more
+than women.' Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy, how grateful I am for your
+friendly intention!... How much was it?"</p>
+
+<p>On hearing the sum she gave him a look of compassion, but smiled
+immediately, as though the comradeship of misfortune made her own losses
+easier to bear.</p>
+
+<p>They remained silent for a moment. Then she explained her presence on
+the square. The night before she had sworn she would never again come
+near the Casino, but habit...!</p>
+
+<p>"I'm alone. Valeria went away immediately after lunch. She goes around
+like a crazy woman on account of that scientist you have at your house.
+They must have made an engagement somewhere. All she talks about is
+Spain, because the women there marry without dowries. As for 'the
+General,' don't talk to me about<a name="page_293" id="page_293"></a> her: I don't want to hear her name;
+she is dead&mdash;dead forever, as far as I am concerned! And I'm so bored
+all by myself; I think of things that make me weep; I go out, and my
+feet take me here without my realizing it."</p>
+
+<p>Then she added with a graceful entreaty:</p>
+
+<p>"Take me somewhere, wherever you feel like. Let's go a long ways from
+here. Where can we go?"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince showed the same hesitation. They continually moved in the
+same circle, from their houses to the center of Monte Carlo, the Casino,
+and seemed lost if they tried to go any farther. The war had done away
+with private automobiles; to go on an excursion it was necessary to get
+a permit in advance. One could find nothing save carriages drawn by
+feeble horses, rejected by the Army.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we go to Monaco?" Alicia proposed.</p>
+
+<p>Monaco was in sight, on the other side of the harbor; a street car ran
+from there to Monte Carlo every twenty minutes, and nevertheless she
+made this proposal as though speaking of some remote country.</p>
+
+<p>They had both spent some twenty years there, continually seeing the rock
+which bore on its crest the old city of the Princes; but, as though
+those places were painted on a back drop in the theater, it had never
+entered their heads to go that far. Alicia vaguely recalled a visit to
+the Palace of the Sovereign and another to the Museum of Oceanography,
+without being able to formulate her impressions. Lubimoff also from his
+automobile had seen the garden, the old houses, and a large square, the
+one day that he had visited the Prince of Monaco in his old castle.</p>
+
+<p>They decided on the trip with the glee of school children, and when the
+Duchess went to call a cab, Michael showed a certain hesitation as he
+searched through various pockets.<a name="page_294" id="page_294"></a></p>
+
+<p>He had no money. He had dropped it all in the roulette, absolutely all.
+At the hotel he had asked them to charge his lunch, handing over his
+last few francs to the waiter as a tip.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia greeted his worried look with bursts of laughter. Lubimoff unable
+to pay a cabman! Monte Carlo was the only place where you could see
+things like that.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor boy, I'll pay. You can deduct it from the twenty thousand I owe
+you. No; not that, no; it will be a gift. You have given women so much
+money, let me be the first to pay a bill for you. What a luxury! I
+'keeping' Prince Lubimoff."</p>
+
+<p>They had gotten into the carriage, which was beginning to descend the
+slope toward La Condamine harbor.</p>
+
+<p>"How people stare at us!" said Alicia. "They will think I am carrying
+you off by force. The Duchess de Delille, ruined, seduces a
+multi-millionaire Prince to make him her lover and get money out of him
+... and they don't know that I am the one that is paying! Come laugh a
+little. Are you annoyed that I should pay? Don't you think it is
+amusing?"</p>
+
+<p>She talked of her lack of foresight and her folly with a certain pride,
+as though it were something which placed her above people of regular
+habits. The evening before she had been afraid of not having enough
+money left to buy food for the next day. But Valeria had spent the
+morning making valuable discoveries in the closets! Bank notes lost
+among the clothes, Casino chips forgotten among the books, and even a
+thousand franc bill used to wrap up an old cake of soap.</p>
+
+<p>She suddenly stopped enumerating these finds.</p>
+
+<p>"Look! Look!"</p>
+
+<p>They were beside the harbor. She pointed out a lady who was walking
+along the shore, among the tall rose-bay bushes trimmed in the shape of
+trees. It was Clorinda.<a name="page_295" id="page_295"></a> A gentleman who seemed to be waiting for her
+rose from the bench, and came forward to meet her. They both recognized
+Atilio Castro, and observed how he and "the General" greeted each other,
+and how they continued their promenade together, so absorbed in mutual
+contemplation, that they did not notice the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Michael smiled slightly. Himself there, beside Alicia, who was causing
+him to commit every sort of folly; and the other man waiting there for
+Doña Clorinda's arrival with all the emotion of a youth! Poor enemies of
+women!</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk to me about her!" Alicia exclaimed in a rage, in spite of
+the fact that her companion had said nothing. "I hate her.... Think of
+poor Martinez forgotten. She quarrels with me to get him, takes him away
+from me, and then comes in search of Castro, while the other unhappy
+fellow is wandering about Monte Carlo. What a woman! She has done me so
+much harm! She is to blame for everything."</p>
+
+<p>And as the Prince looked at her with a questioning air she explained her
+complaints with a tone of conviction. Her losses which had been so rapid
+and so complete, could not be explained logically. She had won for two
+weeks, and in a few hours had lost everything. How could that be? The
+evening before, as she was leaving the Casino, a respectable friend, an
+Italian Marchioness, a former dancer, who was very wise in matters of
+luck, and who had been gambling for the last thirty years in Monte
+Carlo, had revealed to her the cruel truth: "Duchess, there is some one
+who hates you; an envious friend who comes to your house and has cast an
+evil spell over you. That is the only way to explain what has happened.
+You must drive out the evil luck, turning it back on the person who gave
+it to you.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see it couldn't be clearer: an envious friend<a name="page_296" id="page_296"></a> who comes to my
+house&mdash;Clorinda; it can't be any one else. And no later than to-morrow I
+am going to drive away my bad luck, in the way the Marchioness
+recommended. Other gamblers follow her advice and are very successful."</p>
+
+<p>It was the Three Wise Kings who possessed the power of undoing evil
+spells. It was necessary to cleanse away the rooms which "the General"
+had entered by burning in a small pan gold, incense and myrrh, the three
+presents of the monarchs who had come from afar. She had no gold; it was
+inaccessible on account of the war; but, according to the
+Witch-Marchioness, it would be the same if she burned wheat.</p>
+
+<p>"And at the same time recite a prayer in Italian, a very pretty entreaty
+to the Three Kings, that sounds like a song, that says&mdash;that says&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Unable to remember it, she opened her hand bag. She kept the prayer in
+her coin purse, written in lead pencil on one of the cards furnished by
+the Casino to keep track of bets. Michael looked at the contents of the
+purse with the curiosity always inspired by every object belonging to a
+woman who interests a man. Beside the mussed handkerchief he saw a
+little leather case, and hanging from it a gambler's fetish, a hand with
+the index and little finger extended like horns, to ward off bad luck.
+But beside the hand there hung another golden fetish, of such an
+unexpected, unheard of form, that Michael refused to believe what had
+passed before his eyes like a rapid vision.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia drew back, pushing aside his inquisitive hand: "No, no!" And she
+closed the purse so rapidly that the silver rings almost caught his
+fingers. Blushing and smiling, she held him off, giving him a sly look,
+and at the same time shrinking like a naughty child.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a gift from the Marchioness. The best she<a name="page_297" id="page_297"></a> knows, to bring luck.
+Mine has gone. That is all you need to know. How curious you are!"</p>
+
+<p>And while she pretended to be somewhat angry in order to avoid new
+explanations, Michael recalled the Rosary of Satan belonging to his
+friend Lewis and its strange ornaments.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage began to ascend the slope towards Monaco. The ships and the
+harbor seemed to sink with each turn of the wheel. Verdant shades cooled
+the road, within sight of the luminous sea and of the yellowish
+mountains, that were taking on a rosy color under the afternoon sun.</p>
+
+<p>Michael explained to his companion the strange features of the
+promontory that serves as a base for old Monaco. On the Southern part,
+among the rocks covered with century plants and prickly pear, the
+vegetation of the warm countries becomes acclimated with a facility that
+if one takes the latitude into account is truly extraordinary. On his
+visit to the palace of the Prince he had found in the warmer moats of
+the fortress, which are like natural hothouses, the same damp sticky
+heat that one finds in the forests of Equador, with their Brazilian palm
+trees that rise many yards in quest of light. On the other hand, without
+leaving the rock, one finds on the northern side, where there is little
+sunlight, ferns from the cold countries, vegetation from the Vosges
+Mountains, which got here no one knows how, and took root beside the
+Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia, not wishing to seem less informed, talked about the San Martino
+Gardens. She had not seen them, but she imagined that they were between
+the Museum of Oceanography and the Cathedral. Valeria had not been able
+to talk about anything else during the last few weeks, and described
+them as though they were the most interesting gardens in the world. She
+had seen them in good<a name="page_298" id="page_298"></a> company, and this had exerted a strong influence
+on her powers of vision. It was doubtless Novoa who had revealed to her
+this Paradise.</p>
+
+<p>"Supposing we were to meet them!" said Alicia, laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage passed between two little towers, capped with tiles, that
+marked the entrance to the walled enclosure of Monaco. The harbor lay
+far below, with its boats that seemed so tiny. On the other side of the
+sheet of water shone the cupolas of the Casino and the many Monte Carlo
+hotels, with their multi-colored façades, the windows of their balconies
+and belvideres. It was impossible to make out the people. Automobiles
+were gliding along like tiny insects on the slope that descended to La
+Condamine.</p>
+
+<p>They followed the asphalt avenue, between two narrow dense gardens,
+leading to the Museum of Oceanography.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at them!" said Alicia with an expression of triumph, as she nudged
+the Prince at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>When the latter turned his head all he could see were two indistinct
+forms hiding in a side path.</p>
+
+<p>"It is they, you may be sure," continued the Duchess, laughing. "They
+were walking in the middle of the avenue. Valeria is very quick; she
+turned when she heard the sound of a carriage, and recognized me
+immediately. She hurried the scientist away as though she were dragging
+him along."</p>
+
+<p>She stopped laughing, and her features took on a look of sad solemnity.</p>
+
+<p>"Happy pair! What dreams! We have all gone through the same thing. The
+worst of it is that we want to keep on going in quest of something
+further, when we ought to remain satisfied with what we have."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince nodded, repeating briefly:<a name="page_299" id="page_299"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Happy pair!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice sounded like a <i>requiem</i>. These successive meetings had made
+him think of the end of the community of which he was the ridiculous
+head. First of all, Castro; then, Novoa. Even the Colonel at that very
+moment was walking up and down in front of a millinery shop waiting for
+the gardener's little girl. Spadoni was the only one left, but his
+loyalty counted for little. As far as the latter was concerned, nothing
+feminine existed except the roulette wheel.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage stopped beyond the Museum of Oceanography, where the San
+Martino Garden began. Alicia paid the driver.</p>
+
+<p>"We must economize," she said gravely. "We shall return on foot."</p>
+
+<p>They followed a network of winding paths, ascending and descending the
+gulleys of the slope. The tiny plateaus had been converted into stone
+lookouts, from which the view embraced an immense expanse of sea.
+Occasionally at dawn one could distinguish the distant profile of the
+Mountain of Corsica. Since the gardens were far above the Mediterranean,
+the horizon line was so high that one seemed to be looking upwards when
+viewing it. The pine trees rose in slender black colonnades and between
+the thin trunks one could see the dark Mediterranean suspended like a
+curtain. Only the murmuring tops of the sharp trees emerged in the
+diaphanous azure of the skies. Below the vegetation was composed of wild
+hardy plants breathing out strong odors, plants that were unaffected by
+the salty exhalations of the sea; prickly pear, lobes of which were
+surmounted by red fruit; small century plants whose twisted blades
+intertwined like tentacles of green pulp.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia admired this garden. According to her it was a maritime garden,
+in harmony with the nearby Museum<a name="page_300" id="page_300"></a> and the landscape. The trunks of the
+trees seemed like the masts of ships; the plants amassed at their feet
+had the radiating enveloping form of the monsters of the ocean depths.
+Other vegetation of a foreign origin recalled images of warm countries,
+and of distant parts, filled with odors and swarming with crowds of
+yellow and copper-colored men. Through the straight trunks of the trees,
+one could see five schooners, motionless on the horizon with their sails
+hanging.</p>
+
+<p>A train of smoke followed the evolutions of a slim torpedo boat steaming
+around the white, timid flock, like a watch dog.</p>
+
+<p>Looking over the stone balconies one could peer into the ocean to
+enormous depths. The bold red cliff buried itself vertically in the
+waters darkened by shadows, or took shelter behind landslides of rocks
+continually surrounded by foam. On one side Cap-Martin advanced,
+repelling the onrush of the waves, circles of white caps that constantly
+succeeded one another, rising from the azure meadows; still farther on
+lay the Italian coast, showing rose-colored through the melancholy
+afternoon mist, and on the opposite side lay Cap-d'Ail and Cap-Ferrat,
+above whose backs embossed with the green of the seas, and dotted with
+the white of the villas&mdash;the golden winding sheet, which was to enshroud
+the dying sun, began to rise.</p>
+
+<p>"Beautiful! very beautiful!"</p>
+
+<p>Alicia displayed a girlish delight. They sat down in view of the sea,
+slowly drinking in the vibrant calm, in which mingled the trembling of
+the pines, the deep churning of the invisible foam, the breath of the
+azure plain, and the rustling of the earth, grazed by rosaries of ants,
+by chains of caterpillars, and by the busy work of the black beetle, and
+at the same time deeply stirred by the awakening of the roots.<a name="page_301" id="page_301"></a></p>
+
+<p>From time to time human footsteps sounded on the sand of the winding
+path. They came from invalids or convalescents who were passing through
+the gardens on coming out of the Museum; people from Monaco returning to
+their homes after having taken the sun on a bench; fat housewives who
+kept their knitting in a bag; old men leaning on canes, who perhaps had
+never gone to sea, but who looked like old Genoese sailors. Also a few
+pairs of lovers passed slowly. They would appear at a turning of the
+path with their arms around each other's waists, silent, looking at each
+other, and observing that there was another couple on the bench, they
+unclasped, and suddenly pretended to be carrying on a conversation. As
+soon as possible they gained the nearest turning to resume their tender
+entwining, not without having first greeted the Prince and the Duchess
+with a smile, as though they saw in them another pair of lovers.</p>
+
+<p>"And just to think that we have never come here before!" said Alicia.
+"You, at least, own magnificent gardens; but I, living in a villa which
+is simply a house with a few trees around it and has no other views than
+the opposite building, have been so stupid to have spent the afternoon
+in the Casino, dark and shut in like a wine cellar. How awful!"</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered on thinking of the Casino. It seemed impossible to her now
+that during the very hours when this garden lay stretched out beside the
+sea, with its luminous sylvan splendor she should have been able to live
+in that half light of artificial illumination or in that nasty,
+unwholesome atmosphere.</p>
+
+<p>"There are many beautiful things in the world," she continued, "for
+which money is not necessary. Just to think that if we had not lost we
+would not be here! It is almost better to be poor."</p>
+
+<p>Michael laughed at her earnestness. No; it was not<a name="page_302" id="page_302"></a> pleasant to be poor;
+but she was right in saying that to enjoy many beautiful things it was
+not necessary to have money.</p>
+
+<p>"We, ourselves," she added, after a long pause, "have known each other
+only since we lost our wealth. Who knows but what if we had been born
+poor we would have understood each other better when we were young! I
+have often thought so."</p>
+
+<p>Of course! And since Michael had been there on the bench, beside her, he
+had been thinking the same thing. Alicia's joy at the splendor of the
+afternoon, her enthusiasm on seeing this rustic garden overlooking the
+sea, far from certain people, without whom she formerly would have
+thought life intolerable, far from gambling, which was the only remedy
+to fill the emptiness of her life&mdash;all this flattered and delighted the
+Prince, like a discovery in harmony with his desires. At present he saw
+her in a very different light from that in which he had imagined her in
+former years. And he, too, surely seemed like a very different person in
+her eyes than he had in the past. Before, they had been separated by an
+enormous wall, wealth, that gave rise to pride and eagerness for
+domineering.</p>
+
+<p>He felt the need of going on talking. Something was surging within him,
+causing words to rise to his lips in an irresistible tide.</p>
+
+<p>A voice within seemed to warn him. "You are going to commit some
+monstrous folly. Look out!&mdash;You are on the road to mixing up your life
+again&mdash;&mdash;" It was the old Lubimoff in him that was talking; the Lubimoff
+who had recently arrived from Paris to take refuge in his Ark, far from
+the vain longings that make up the happiness of the majority of men; it
+was the stern chief of the "enemies of women."</p>
+
+<p>But the harsh, mournful inner voice awoke no echoing<a name="page_303" id="page_303"></a> response. The
+Prince despised this phantom that still remained within him, lamenting
+over the ruins it found there.</p>
+
+<p>Up to that moment he had been inhaling with delight the perfume of that
+woman. It seemed to mingle with the perfumes of the afternoon,
+communicating its essence to all Nature. He saw the sky, the sea, the
+trees, and everything in fact in terms of her, as though she filled all
+space.</p>
+
+<p>He, too, had made a discovery that afternoon. He thought with horror of
+the loneliness of Villa Sirena, just as she had been thinking of the
+Casino. These gardens which every one might enjoy, seemed to him more
+beautiful than those he owned, and which every one envied him. How had
+he ever been able to walk around his villa, through its magnificent and
+lonely avenues, when there existed in the world the marvelous pleasures
+of sitting on a public bench beside a woman, or walking close to her,
+with an arm around her waist, like those poor soldiers and sailors?</p>
+
+<p>Once more he heard the voice: "Fine, Prince! In love like a school-boy
+when you're over forty. Go on with your foolishness, if it amuses
+you!... What would the other 'enemies of women' say?"</p>
+
+<p>But he refused to listen to this last protest from the other hostile and
+forgotten half of his personality.</p>
+
+<p>"Our life has been a mistake," he said aloud, with a certain vehemence,
+in order not to show his emotion. "You, too, must realize that I think
+the same&mdash;that I acknowledge my error&mdash;because I&mdash;because I, for some
+time&mdash;have been in love with you!... Well, I have said it! Now laugh if
+you like."</p>
+
+<p>She did not feel like laughing. She gave a slight exclamation, looked at
+him for a moment, and turned away as though avoiding the questioning
+glance in his eyes.<a name="page_304" id="page_304"></a> She had had a presentiment that this was coming,
+sooner or later, but her breath was taken away on actually hearing it!</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your answer?" the famous Prince Lubimoff, adored by so many
+women, finally asked with timidity.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia looked at him again.</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you joking? Isn't it a mere whim inspired by the beauty of this
+afternoon&mdash;so poetic?"</p>
+
+<p>Michael protested with a gesture. How could she take as a caprice the
+grave decision that he had finally reached after so long and difficult a
+debate within, the way one evolves a truly great decision!</p>
+
+<p>"If I were like most women, I would reply: 'How many women have you said
+the same thing to?' But such a question is stupid. One may have said: 'I
+love you,' to a woman, in all sincerity and some time later repeat the
+same words to another, with still more sincerity. I'm not going to ask
+you to how many you have said what you have just said to me. Perhaps you
+never said it to any one before. To fulfill your desires it wasn't
+necessary to exert yourself, playing a comedy of deep affection: they
+sought you passionately; like a Sultan, you needed only to throw your
+handkerchief as a signal.... But when it comes to me! Remember, Michael:
+as children we hated each other; later on, when I was willing, you were
+not. And now we are beginning to grow old! Now that I possess only the
+remains of what I once was and haven't the same freedom any longer,
+since I have&mdash;you know what...! It is absurd, and that is why I laugh.
+No: never!"</p>
+
+<p>It was the Prince's turn to speak. They had hated each other, that was
+true, and now he considered that hate as fortunate. What a misfortune
+for both of them<a name="page_305" id="page_305"></a> if marriage had united their two enormous fortunes and
+their two prides, more enormous still.</p>
+
+<p>"We would have separated a week later; perhaps the same day," Michael
+continued. "I even suspect that I would have beaten you."</p>
+
+<p>"And I you," said the Duchess. "No place would have been large enough to
+hold us both. It would have been necessary for one of us to give in to
+the other. And neither one of us would have thought of making such a
+sacrifice."</p>
+
+<p>"I might say the same," he continued, "about the night when we dined
+together. I am glad of my absurd and ridiculous conduct on that
+occasion. Had I given in, there would be an invincible barrier between
+us now; we would never have met again, and we would not be here saying
+to each other what we are saying now."</p>
+
+<p>She assented.</p>
+
+<p>"We would not be here, that is certain. You would have kept a frightful
+memory of me; I know very well what I was like then. Neither would I
+have sought you out, even though my life depended on it. Thanks to your
+flight that evening we can still be friends, eternal friends, brothers
+if you like; but why do you talk to me about love? It doesn't belong to
+our age. The time has passed. What do you see in me now that you did not
+when I was young?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see your misfortune."</p>
+
+<p>The voice of the Prince sounded grave and deeply sincere as he said
+this.</p>
+
+<p>He had reflected for a long time, before answering, when he had asked
+himself the same question as Alicia's. He was sure that he had begun to
+love her the day when she had come to Villa Sirena to confess her ruin
+and to ask him to forget her debt to him. Poor Duchess de Delille,<a name="page_306" id="page_306"></a>
+accustomed to spending millions each year, the proprietress of precious
+mines, and having to live by gambling like an adventuress!...
+Afterwards, beside her bed, seeing her tears, and listening to the great
+secret of her life, the hidden motherhood that had made her weep, he had
+become definitely conscious of this love. During the last few days,
+seeing her victorious in the Casino, his love had been clouded; he cared
+less for her. Later, finding her ruined and sick with sadness, his
+affection was renewed; and to help her, he had even become a gambler,
+he, who was incapable of doing this even for his own salvation!</p>
+
+<p>"You can't understand me; you are a woman. Often in my life, other women
+have said to me, after some unexplainable act of theirs: 'It is useless
+to try: men can never succeed in understanding us.' I say the same: A
+woman cannot understand a man either. I love you now because you inspire
+pity in me, and pity leads to tenderness and tenderness is true love,
+love such as I have never felt before. Each one loves in his own way.
+The majority of women need to feel proud when they love; the person they
+love must arouse the envy of others through being brave, handsome,
+wealthy or talented. Man almost always loves through pity, through
+tender compassion inspired by woman. He never feels more in love than
+when a woman's head reclines against his breast with the abandon of
+weakness; and when his hand is buried in her hair, it finds a tiny
+delicate head&mdash;smaller than he had ever imagined&mdash;a head that is filled
+with divine words, irresistible charms, and noble impulses, but which
+rarely has that force of thought which makes man superior to her. Her
+adorable arms are not strong enough to protect her. And man, seeing her
+so lovely and so weak, feels his passion increase with pity and the
+desire to protect her."<a name="page_307" id="page_307"></a></p>
+
+<p>"No," she said. "Woman, too, knows the meaning of compassionate love. A
+man for whom she feels indifference suddenly interests her, when she
+sees that he is unhappy; and a woman, who hates her lover one day,
+returns to him the next, when she feels that he is in danger. She never
+speaks more tenderly than when she says, 'My poor little boy!'"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince assented with a gesture. That was all very well. But
+immediately he returned to the subject which interested him.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day we both know misfortune; I, as well as you, since I have lost
+what distinguished me from other men, and which I shall never perhaps
+recover. But your situation is still worse; you are a woman, you are
+poorer, and I feel attracted to you and tell you what I never would have
+told you if, shut up within our own pride, we had both kept our former
+places in the world."</p>
+
+<p>He went on talking in a soothing tone almost in her ear, coming closer
+to her, and breathing the perfume of the fur boa around her neck, which
+seemed to have concentrated in itself the perfume of her whole body.</p>
+
+<p>He repeated what he had thought in the nights when he had struggled with
+his former dread; thoughts that he had vigorously resumed shortly
+before, as he was sitting silently by her side in the carriage. He
+talked of the future. They might still be happy; the love he offered her
+was of the quiet, lasting kind; an autumnal love, a love that would be
+for all time, with no dramatic complications, peaceful, tranquil,
+sweetly uneventful, like the long winter evenings beside a fire.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed with a pained expression.</p>
+
+<p>"You forget who I am; you talk as though the past did not exist, as
+though you were not yourself and as though all the stories that weigh
+against my name did not exist. If some one else were to make me this
+proposal, who<a name="page_308" id="page_308"></a> knows!... I am weary and the thought of a quiet future
+attracts me. But you!... With you it would be impossible: It would end
+disastrously. I prefer that we be friends, without any thought of love.
+It is safer and more lasting."</p>
+
+<p>On seeing his look of dismay, Alicia went on talking. She was not afraid
+of living with him because of what people might say. It is true that she
+had a husband, who now in the throes of a senile passion would refuse to
+grant her a divorce. But what did she care for an obstacle like that, or
+for what people would say about it!... She had done more daring things
+in her life!</p>
+
+<p>"It is simply that I do not want to. Don't ask me why: I could not
+explain it to you; or I should say, you would not understand me. I
+repeat what other women have said to you: 'You are a man, and cannot
+understand women.' No, I don't want to. I shall speak more plainly:
+Another man might succeed in interesting me&mdash;I don't know. We are so
+weak! Our wills play us such strange tricks! But with you, no.... We
+know each other too well: It is impossible."</p>
+
+<p>Michael spoke in a tone of sadness and chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't interest you: that is easy to see."</p>
+
+<p>Alicia once more laughed heartily and with one of her hands she tapped
+those of the Prince which were clasped together.</p>
+
+<p>"Silly! Do you really think I don't care for you at all. If I felt
+indifferent toward you would I have sought you formerly, and would I be
+here with you now?"</p>
+
+<p>He was disconcerted. "Well, then?" And he made an effort to discover
+what obstacle stood in the way of his desire. If it was on account of
+what had happened in her past life, he had forgotten it. He, Prince
+Lubimoff, had had many affairs that it was better not to recall.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_309" id="page_309"></a>"Let's not talk about the past at all. You are a different woman. I
+know what your life has been during the last few years; besides, the
+other morning you told me what you have been since your son began to
+live by your side. I take you from the time you recognized the
+seriousness of life, on seeing beside you a man formed from your own
+flesh and blood. I have forgotten the Venus of former years, the Helen
+of the 'old man on the wall.' I desire you, seeing you as you are
+to-day, the Venus Sorrowful, weeping, suffering and in need of
+consolation and care that will sustain and sweeten life."</p>
+
+<p>She stopped smiling. Her lips trembled with a pitiful expression of
+gratitude; her eyes were moist with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said in a humble voice. "It is impossible for that very
+reason. My son! How my son has changed me! I know what all this love
+means. We are not two children to be deceived by dreams of purity and
+talk about the soul and heaven, while our bodies are drawn together by a
+natural impulse. If I accept your love, I know what that means at once,
+perhaps before the dawning of a new day. Can you imagine such a thing?
+My son,&mdash;I don't know where he is, perhaps he is dead. At least he is
+suffering at the present moment hardships which a beggar woman would not
+allow a son of hers to suffer, and I, in the meantime, abandoning myself
+to a great love, to a passion such that it would absorb all my time and
+thoughts, as though I were still in my early youth.... Oh, no! How
+shameful! I know what love between us fatally demands, and it frightens
+me. I feel powerless in the face of things which formerly seemed to me
+as nothing. You have spoken the truth: I am a different woman."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince regained hope on learning the nature of the obstacle. Her son
+was still alive: he was sure of it, He had written to the King of Spain
+and to influential friends of his in Paris; he had even sent letters to
+Germany<a name="page_310" id="page_310"></a> through diplomatic channels. They might find him any moment; he
+would succeed in returning him to his mother's side. Why should the poor
+boy stand in the way of both their futures? Her son knew life; the years
+that he had spent with his mother had familiarized him with the
+irregularities which are so common in the world of the fortunate. He
+would not consider it unusual for her, submitting to a marriage that was
+not a lie, to rebuild her life discreetly with a man whom she had known
+since her youth. Besides, he would love him like a younger brother. He
+could count on influential friends capable of helping the boy if he
+wanted to work. When he died what was left of his fortune would go to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia clasped one of his hands with the tenderness of gratitude. "How
+good you are!" But suddenly she dried her tears, and her eyes shone with
+a glow of energy that seemed to reflect her struggle with herself, and
+she continued, in a firm tone:</p>
+
+<p>"No, no. I don't want to. I am looking to the immediate future: to what
+would happen to us if I gave in to your glowing words; I can see my
+son&mdash;or I should say, I cannot see him, I don't know what has become of
+him, I don't know whether or not he is alive. I tell you no. It is
+useless for you to insist."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence. A soldier passed with his head bandaged
+beneath his <i>kepis</i> and a flower behind his ear. He was smiling at a
+red-faced girl, who was leaning on his arm. They were both humming a
+tune. The Prince and the Duchess separated slightly on the bench, and
+remained in silence, he, looking on the ground, absorbed and frowning,
+she, with her eyes on the horizon line, following the slow progress of
+the schooners, the sails of which were filling with the breeze that
+announced the coming twilight.<a name="page_311" id="page_311"></a></p>
+
+<p>The obstinacy with which Michael kept his eyes riveted on the ground
+caused Alicia to make a mistake. Her ankles showed somewhat owing to her
+posture and her short skirt; trim ankles with the whiteness of her skin
+visible through the meshes of snuff-colored silk.</p>
+
+<p>"You are looking at my stockings?" she asked, her mood suddenly changing
+from sadness to gaiety. "Look. What you see on the side there is not
+embroidery, it is darning. My maid mends them nicely. What can you
+expect? We are poor."</p>
+
+<p>And doubtless, for the sake of amusing her frowning companion, she went
+on to enumerate in gay tones the various difficulties arising from her
+poverty. Oh, the war, with the terrible cost of living! Silk stockings
+were so bad! One got holes in them after putting them on once, and they
+came only at fabulous prices. She preferred to prolong the existence of
+those that she had kept since the days of her wealth, because they were
+stronger. She might say the same of her dresses. It had been two years
+since her wardrobe had received any replenishing, so frequent before.</p>
+
+<p>"We are poor," she repeated, with mock solemnity. "Besides, we are fond
+of gambling, and, like all gamblers, we lose thousands of francs and
+economize on the little things that make life pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>She had been waiting for an enormous stroke of luck after which she
+would stop playing and begin to think again of the wardrobe.</p>
+
+<p>But the Prince, by his gestures and the expression on his face gave her
+to understand how little he was interested in these confidences. It was
+useless for her to try and change the conversation. Michael, offended by
+Alicia's negative reply, was still absorbed in his question. Perhaps
+with another man she would have shown herself more clement.<a name="page_312" id="page_312"></a></p>
+
+<p>She realized that she must return to the subject which interested her
+companion, and said with masculine frankness:</p>
+
+<p>"I know what is the matter with you. I am going to forget we belong to
+different sexes and talk to you like a comrade, just as I talked to you
+that night in my study. I know the life you are leading; I know also all
+about the 'enemies of women': a silly idea. What you need, after several
+months of living alone like a maniac, is a woman. Choose from those
+about you; you can find them whenever you like, younger and more
+beautiful than I, who am beginning to see myself as I am. Why do you
+choose me? Why do you disturb my tranquillity, now that I have forgotten
+all about such things?"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince smiled bitterly at the suggested remedy. He had often thought
+of it. The censor that he kept within had repeated the same advice:
+"Find a female, and it will all pass away immediately; a woman who
+inspires only a momentary interest; no women and no love complications.
+Do what you recommended to Castro." He had frequented the Casino with
+the resolute air of a slaughter-house man about to choose his prey from
+the flock. He would glance over the troop of girls in the gambling
+rooms, who kept one eye on the green baize, while with the other they
+watched the men who were walking about behind them.</p>
+
+<p>He felt physically attracted by certain women; by one, because of her
+features, by another, because of her figure or stature, and by some,
+because of their strange ugliness or stimulating irregularity of form
+and feature, which affected his nerves much as sharp or biting food
+affects the palate. He had had only to make a sign or say a brief word
+to many who, seeing themselves noticed by that famous person, smiled
+ready to follow him. But suddenly he felt the dislike which is inspired
+by<a name="page_313" id="page_313"></a> things repeated to the point of satiety, and by the emptiness of
+what is familiar to the point of weariness. He could not expect anything
+new; he was horrified at the thought of the vain prattle of an unknown
+woman desirous of appearing interesting; of the lies inspired by a
+sudden and false sentimentality; and by the gross animalism of the
+pairing which would end the tiresome preliminaries. No; he couldn't.
+Only once, with a desperate energy of a patient gulping down a
+disgusting medicine, he had followed one of these beautiful animals, and
+shortly afterwards he felt disgusted with his baseness and ashamed of
+his backsliding.</p>
+
+<p>"It is you; you and no one else," he said gloomily. "You, or no one."</p>
+
+<p>Alicia replied in the same grave tone. She knew by experience what this
+meant "We desire with greater eagerness what is impossible for us to
+obtain; we single out as unique whatever is beyond our grasp."</p>
+
+<p>But these reasonings exasperated Lubimoff to the extent of making him
+unjust.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you," he said, drawing nearer on the bench, as he gazed at her
+more closely, with angry, passionate eyes. "I know what you women are
+like; you're all vain and revengeful. You can't forget the evening you
+wanted me and I was not willing, and now you are taking delight in my
+torment; you enjoy making me suffer."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Michael!" she interrupted, in a tone of protest.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince continued to express his rancour, and his indignation stirred
+Alicia more than the humble question of a few moments before. It was the
+desperate pleading of a patient who is past recovery and desires to
+return to normal life.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you.... I need you. I'll get you!"</p>
+
+<p>Above the promontory of Cap-d'Ail the orange-colored globe of the sun
+was descending. Its lower edge was already<a name="page_314" id="page_314"></a> touching the undulating line
+of garden and buildings. For a moment its rays were concentrated in a
+sheaf seen through the colonnade of a pergola, as though showing itself
+through an arch of triumph before dying. A dark azure light seemed to
+emerge from the sea driving the fading gold of the afternoon from the
+gardens.</p>
+
+<p>"No!... No, I won't!"</p>
+
+<p>Alicia's voice suddenly broke the vibrant silence with the tremulousness
+of surprise, and immediately changed to a long gasp, as though something
+were weighing on her lips. Michael had thrown both his arms around her
+shoulders, mastering her, drawing her breast forward, pressing it
+against his own. His lips sought hers, but she made an effort to resist,
+by turning away with a violent straining of her neck. Finally the moan
+of protest ceased. Both heads remained motionless.</p>
+
+<p>"Michael ... Michael!" she sighed, freeing herself for a moment from the
+caress. But a moment later she submitted again to those lips which
+pursued hers so eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke in a tone of surrender. She was suddenly back in her past
+life, trembling at the contact of all those foreign things which seemed
+absolutely new through long continence. His ardent lips had overpowered
+her, awakened her from a dream that had lasted for years, in a sleep
+longer and deeper than Michael's.</p>
+
+<p>She forgot everything around her. Her eyes were still open but the
+vision of the sea, the golden sunset in the sky, and even the pine
+boughs forming a canopy above their heads, had disappeared from her
+gaze.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she saw them all once more, and at the same time she drew back
+her shoulders repelling him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I won't.... Stop! They might see us. How crazy of us!"<a name="page_315" id="page_315"></a></p>
+
+<p>The Prince was an athlete, but his emotion weakened him. Besides, his
+energy was scattered in the double effort of trying to master the woman
+and at the same time of enjoying her caress in the overwhelming fury of
+passion. She bent and straightened several times, with all the
+suppleness of a reptile, finally succeeding in escaping from the chain
+of his arms, as she gave a sigh of weariness and relief.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff, coming to himself again, saw Alicia standing in front of him,
+smoothing her disordered clothing, and raising her hands to her hair, to
+her tilted hat and her boa, which was slipping from her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go," she said, with angry brevity.</p>
+
+<p>And the Prince followed her, crestfallen, repenting his violence. After
+walking a few steps, she seemed moved by his silence, which showed his
+repentance, and smiled again:</p>
+
+<p>"It is quite evident that from now on I must not see you alone. I forgot
+that you were a sailor, accustomed to making port in a hurry without
+caring to lose any time." They walked along slowly, in a tranquillity
+like that of the serene twilight.</p>
+
+<p>On leaving the gardens, they found themselves cut off by the Museum.
+Must they return by the way they had come? Michael discovered on one
+side of the building a rustic stairway cut at intervals in the rock, the
+hollows of which were filled with brick steps. It descended to the edge
+of the sea in various flights of stairs, and at the farther end, a walk
+following the edge of the coast led to the harbor.</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated for a moment at the archway of the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"I warn you," she said, shaking her finger at Michael, "that if you
+return to your old tricks, I shall call for<a name="page_316" id="page_316"></a> help. Do you promise me
+you'll be good? Word of honor?... All right; go on ahead: I don't trust
+you."</p>
+
+<p>He went ahead down the stairway to explore. The walls of the Museum
+seemed to expand as they continued to descend. Besides the building with
+its roof at their feet, there was a second building below, rising with
+its stone walls pierced by large windows, from the rocky slopes. At a
+turn of the path, the Prince faltered to wait for his companion. She was
+slowly descending, maintaining a distance of several steps between them.
+Her feet were higher than Lubimoff's head, and it was only necessary for
+the latter to raise his eyes slightly to see the stockings the darning
+in which Alicia had explained.</p>
+
+<p>With the lightness of a spring released, he slipped up the various steps
+that separated them.</p>
+
+<p>"Michael! I'll shout!" she exclaimed on seeing him coming, and she held
+out her hands to repel him, trying at the same time to flee.</p>
+
+<p>With his arms he had embraced the lower part of that adorable body. He
+could not climb any further; Alicia's hands repulsed his head with a
+nervous violence. And he in passionate madness pressed his lips to her
+feet and her ankles, kissing her skirts wherever he could reach them.</p>
+
+<p>She was angry at feeling that she could not stir and would be unable to
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go! It's ridiculous! Stop!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince's hat rolled down the steps, knocked off by a blow from her
+slender hands, as, blindly, she defended herself.</p>
+
+<p>This incident brought him to his senses. Yes; as a matter of fact, it
+was ridiculous. And as he saw that Alicia intended to retrace her steps,
+returning to the garden,<a name="page_317" id="page_317"></a> Michael to inspire her confidence ran down the
+stairway without turning his head, to see whether she was following him.</p>
+
+<p>They met at the edge of the sea, on the wide path that wound among the
+loose rocks bordered with foam, and the nearly vertical walls of the
+cliff. The flat places and hollows in the stone had been made use of, on
+this promontory, that had so few soft surfaces, to construct the few
+houses that sheltered the families of the employees in Monaco. Along the
+upper edge of the cliff appeared the green line bordering the lofty
+gardens and cut at intervals by the old works of fortification.</p>
+
+<p>They were the sloping bastions, with sentry posts, like those one sees
+in old engravings or in stage settings. Huge stone facings with Latin
+letters sang the praises of the various sovereign Princes, who had built
+these costly works of defense, now antiquated and worthless. Lubimoff
+expected to see appear from these sentry posts a grenadier in a white
+uniform with scarlet facings, wearing, above his black mustache and
+powdered wig, a golden miter.</p>
+
+<p>They walked slowly along in the twilight. Above them shone the orange
+light of the setting sun, casting a mild red glow on the jutting rocks,
+the trees, and the white and yellow façades of the buildings. At the
+edge of the sea, the shadow was a deep blue shade, like moonlight
+shadow. The sky, blood-red in the West, was invisible for them behind
+the rocky cliffs of Monaco. They could see it only in the direction of
+Italy, and there it was growing darker and denser every minute,
+preparing for the first luminous piercing of the stars.</p>
+
+<p>They met various fishermen who were returning home loaded down with
+baskets and nets.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia felt worried in certain bends of the path so completely<a name="page_318" id="page_318"></a>
+deserted. Later, on seeing a house or a passerby approaching, she
+resumed the conversation. What she was afraid of was stopping along the
+way, and sitting down with the Prince on the little parapet bordering
+the seashore. In the meantime they continued walking!</p>
+
+<p>Without protesting, she allowed Lubimoff to put his arm in hers, leaning
+upon it. He expressed such deep humility! He seemed repentant for the
+liberties he had taken; and asked her forgiveness with a pale smile.
+Besides, he talked to her about her son with soothing optimism. All her
+fears were unfounded; her son would return: he was sure of it. She would
+receive good news almost any moment, perhaps that very night.</p>
+
+<p>Her George was a man, and no matter how much he might love his mother,
+some day he would fall in love with another woman whom he would care for
+more deeply, and would build up a separate existence, like all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, who may still consider yourself young, you, who have the right
+to long years of happiness, do you want to give up everything like an
+old woman? Why? Why be in a hurry about that?"</p>
+
+<p>She bowed her head without knowing what to reply, and her emotion was
+such, that she made not the slightest movement when his arm freed itself
+from hers and encircled her waist. Thus they walked along, closely
+linked, forming a single body, taking step after step mechanically,
+without watching where they were going. With his eyes fixed on hers, he
+closely watched her face, hoping for a glance, or a monosyllable that
+would mean acceptance. Alicia was afraid of meeting those imploring
+eyes, and turned her own away.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me yes," Michael murmured, "tell me that you will. It isn't for
+nothing that we have met; it is not for nothing that you sought me out.
+We shall rebuild our<a name="page_319" id="page_319"></a> lives that have been so nearly wrecked by our
+vanity and pride. Let us be, although it is rather late, what we ought
+to be to one another."</p>
+
+<p>"No," sighed Alicia. "I can't.... My son!..."</p>
+
+<p>And immediately afterwards she hastened to murmur, as though repenting:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; perhaps ... later ... but not now. How shameful! When my mind is
+at ease, when I don't feel this worry that is killing me. I love you; is
+that enough? I love you."</p>
+
+<p>These two words sufficed the Prince. He, who had gone to the farthest
+extreme of domination with so many women without ever feeling satisfied,
+contented himself with these brief words, which sounded in his ears like
+happy music.</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively, his arm dropped below her waist, while his other arm drew
+her head to one of his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>There was a kiss, a long kiss, without either of them pausing in their
+walk. Alicia offered no resistance, and shortly afterwards, her lips,
+animated by a feverish awakening, responded to his kiss, making it more
+passionate, more vibrant and endless. She no longer felt any fear; they
+were walking along, and it was impossible for her lover to repeat the
+liberties he had dared to take in the garden. Moreover, she inwardly
+confessed, with a certain shame, the delight aroused in her by that
+violence.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you!" she sighed, without knowing what she was saying. "I love
+you; but not that, no! Let us love each other like children. It is
+ridiculous at our age&mdash;but so sweet."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Lubimoff's spirit was like her own. This simple kiss
+seemed to him the greatest pleasure he had ever known. Life opened up
+enchantments of which he had never dreamed. It seemed to him that he
+was<a name="page_320" id="page_320"></a> gazing on the most beautiful landscape in the world. How
+interesting were the old fortifications! What a great man Albert of
+Monaco was to build that lonely asphalt path, so that he might walk
+along it with his lips pressing the lips of a woman.</p>
+
+<p>They walked along as though they were intoxicated, in a continual zigzag
+between the parapet and the wall of the cliff, their lips pressing,
+their eyes almost touching, as though nothing existed beyond them, and
+they actually imagined that they were walking in a straight line. From a
+distance one would have thought they were two adversaries struggling,
+staggering, as they jostled each other in the fight.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly mastered by desire, he stopped and refused to go on.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!"</p>
+
+<p>Her will still shaken by her recent emotion, Alicia protested at this
+danger, but she forced herself to reiterate her refusal.</p>
+
+<p>His lips had separated from hers. There was an aggressive gleam in his
+half-shut eyes. His hands fell upon her hips, and clinched like claws.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't: I told you I won't! Come!"</p>
+
+<p>She struggled in his arms with the agility of a gymnast, and in breaking
+free from his grasp there was a sound of tearing clothes.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, you villain! Look what you've done!"</p>
+
+<p>She was standing motionless, a few steps away, with her fur boa falling
+from one of her shoulders, while at the other she was looking for the
+tear that her dress had just suffered.</p>
+
+<p>Michael, behind her, saw that one sleeve was almost torn away, giving a
+glimpse of her white flesh, and the seductive hollow under her arm.</p>
+
+<p>He repented his violence, and the clumsiness of his<a name="page_321" id="page_321"></a> hands, which like
+those of a drunken sailor broke what he caressed.</p>
+
+<p>Once more Alicia took pity on his childish embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't worry about that. It is a dress I have had for two years: it
+is so old, that it tears just by looking at it. That is one of the
+inconveniences of walking with a beggar."</p>
+
+<p>But she finally became worried by this tear which was so visible. She
+was going to enter Monte Carlo on foot or by street car. What would
+people say, seeing her in such a state!</p>
+
+<p>"A pin: have you got a pin?"</p>
+
+<p>This request increased the remorse of the Prince. Where could a man find
+a pin? While Alicia was feeling for one without avail, he thought of
+returning to the Museum or scaling the rocks to one of those houses
+where the employees of the Prince live. He would have given a hundred
+francs for a pin&mdash;but he remembered that his pockets were empty.</p>
+
+<p>He began to search his clothes while she searched hers, although he was
+certain that it would be useless.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he smiled triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is your pin."</p>
+
+<p>It was from his necktie! A famous pearl, admired by the women, and which
+he had never been willing to give away, because it was a gift of the
+Princess Lubimoff.</p>
+
+<p>He was obliged to mend the tear at the shoulder himself, sighing with
+vexation.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know how," said Alicia laughing. "Look out that you don't
+prick me. How clumsy!"</p>
+
+<p>But he finally felt glad of his clumsiness. He had to touch her naked
+arm with his fingers; and he quivered as he touched the soft skin, which
+preserved in its velvety shadows a certain mystery of passion.<a name="page_322" id="page_322"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Look out!" she called. "Don't go back to your old tricks: I shall get
+angry. It is all right as it is. Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>She threw her scarf over the clumsy repair, and the pearl, which stood
+out against it, with odd magnificence. They were walking along once
+more, without any new attempted audacities on Michael's part. The last
+incident had made him circumspect. Inwardly he called himself names,
+considering himself a savage, incapable of living among real ladies.</p>
+
+<p>As they reached the last bend they left the azure shade of the cliff.
+Above their heads extended the last angle of the bulwarks, and a stone
+sentry post; across the harbor, with its mouth flanked by two
+illuminated towers, and on the opposite bank rose the heights of Monte
+Carlo, with its huge buildings, and its glistening cupolas, which were
+reflecting the last rosy fire of the twilight.</p>
+
+<p>They both halted instinctively. In the middle of the harbor, the yacht,
+the white yacht of the Prince of Monaco, lay motionless, tugging at her
+buoy. Beside the nearby dock a few latine rigged boats were pitching,
+moving their single mast, and a Spanish steamer, displaying its neutral
+flag, was unloading sacks of rice, and barrels of wine. The presence of
+various groups of men gathered in front of the boat made them prudent.
+They were no longer alone. Once more they had entered the life of the
+City.</p>
+
+<p>"How short the road was!" exclaimed the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>She thought the same. "Yes; how short!"</p>
+
+<p>They could no longer walk together. It was necessary to say good-by
+there, far from the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia held out both hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing more?" sighed Michael.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess hesitated a moment. Then, with the agility of a young girl,
+as though she were still the wild<a name="page_323" id="page_323"></a> Amazon of the Bois de Boulogne, she
+sprang for his open arms.</p>
+
+<p>"There, there, and there!"</p>
+
+<p>There were three rapid fiery kisses, that only lasted for a second;
+three kisses that made Lubimoff think he had never felt one in all his
+life, since he had never experienced the quivering that swept his body
+from head to feet.</p>
+
+<p>"More! Give me more!"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed at his imploring look.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough folly. Another time, who knows!&mdash;For the present I am worried
+again. I am afraid to enter my house: I feel terror and hope. Oh, the
+news that I may receive at any moment! Tell me; do you really think that
+nothing has happened to him? Do you think he may come back?"<a name="page_324" id="page_324"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p>S<small>PADONI</small> entered Novoa's room with the intention of getting him to talk.
+At present he was an ardent believer in the professor's knowledge, and
+seeing him well disposed toward gambling and inclined to meditate on its
+mysteries, he hoped with simple faith that the scientist would discover
+something miraculous, some brilliant idea that would make them both
+wealthy. On that account the pianist arose earlier than he was wont, to
+surprise the professor during his toilet, considering this the proper
+time for matters of confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"The word 'chance,'" said Novoa, "is a term devoid of meaning; or, I
+should say rather, chance does not exist. It is an invention of our
+human weakness, our ignorance. We say that a phenomenon takes place by
+chance when the causes either are unknown to us or seem impossible to
+analyze. We are ignorant of the causes of the majority of things that
+occur and we get out of the difficulty by attributing them to chance."</p>
+
+<p>The musician opened his eyes wide, and his olive features contracted
+with a look of respectful attention. He did not understand the
+scientist's words very clearly, but he admired them in advance, as a
+prelude to revelations which would be more practical, and of immediate
+application.</p>
+
+<p>"Every phenomenon," continued Novoa, "no matter how slight it seems, has
+a cause, and the man with an infinitely powerful brain, infinitely well
+informed of the laws of Nature, would be capable of foreseeing
+everything that might happen within a few minutes or within<a name="page_325" id="page_325"></a> a few
+centuries. With a man like this it would be impossible to play any
+gambling game. Chance would not exist for him. Having the secret of the
+small causes that at present escape our intelligence, and a knowledge of
+the laws that control their combinations, he would know absolutely
+everything that might arise from the mystery of a pack of cards or from
+the numbers of a roulette wheel. No one could hope to win from him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Professor!" sighed the pianist, in admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Inwardly he prayed that his illustrious friend would go on studying. Who
+knows but what a professor might become that all-powerful person, and,
+taking pity on a poor pianist, allow him to follow in his trail of
+glory!</p>
+
+<p>Novoa smiled at Spadoni's simplicity and went on talking.</p>
+
+<p>"The number of facts which we attribute to chance (and chance is nothing
+but a fictitious cause created by our ignorance) varies, in the same
+ratio as our ignorance varies, according to the times and according to
+the individual. Many things which are chance for an uneducated person,
+are not chance for a man of learning. What is chance to-day will not be
+perhaps within a few years. Scientific discoveries finally diminish
+considerably the domain of chance, just as our ignorance decreases."</p>
+
+<p>The pianist's face beamed with a rapt expression.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a great scholar, Professor, a great scholar!... Don't shake
+your head; I know what I'm saying. I have a feeling of certainty that,
+if you go on studying these important matters, you will find a system
+which...."</p>
+
+<p>The Spaniard interrupted him, pointing to a pack of cards on a nearby
+table. It was easy to guess that he had been studying during the night,
+before going to bed. These cards were for Spadoni evidence of scientific
+studiousness,<a name="page_326" id="page_326"></a> worthier of respect than all the books from the library
+of the Prince, which lay forgotten in the corners. At present the
+Professor was interested in the mysteries of chance, and Spadoni was
+certain that he would discover something better than anything which had
+been invented thus far by ordinary gamblers.</p>
+
+<p>But his hope vanished at Novoa's gesture of dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at that pack of cards: A few pieces of cardboard and,
+nevertheless, they contain the immensity of the universe! They cause in
+one the feeling of dizziness inspired by the Infinite, just as when you
+look upward with a telescope or downward with a microscope. Do you know
+how many combinations can be made with a pack of fifty-two cards? I
+don't know how to express it: nor will you find the figure in a
+dictionary or an arithmetic, as it is useless, since it lies beyond
+human calculations. Let us coin the word: eighty unidecillions, or the
+figure eight followed by sixty-six ciphers. Two men who began to play
+with a pack of fifty-two cards and played a hand every minute, each hand
+being different, would not be able to exhaust all the possible
+combinations in five million centuries."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence, as though the walls of the room had shrunk
+under the weight of these inconceivable numbers. Spadoni bowed his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, tell me," continued the Professor, "what can a poor human being,
+with all his calculations of probabilities, do against this infinity!"</p>
+
+<p>And seizing a handful of cards, he let them fall again like a whispering
+rain of colors on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything depends on chance," he added, "or I should say, on error. We
+lose through error and win through it likewise. Our error is the result
+of an infinity of infinitesimal errors due to another infinity of small
+causes, the analysis of which we cannot even attempt.<a name="page_327" id="page_327"></a> These tiny causes
+are all independent of one another, and since they are directed by
+chance, they operate in one way as readily as in another. When the
+infinitesimal is positive, it causes us to win, when it is negative, we
+lose."</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni nodded his head, although he scarcely understood. The one thing
+clear to him were the infinitesimal errors which cause us to lose. He
+was acquainted with them; they were like microbes, malevolent germs,
+which always clung to him. He wished that his learned friend might
+discover an antiseptic that would put an end to them.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," said Novoa, "if there are probabilities of winning, these
+probabilities are in proportion to the wealth of the gamblers. A poor
+gambler has less chance of winning than one who has capital at his
+disposal."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, how about us?" the musician asked in a melancholy voice.</p>
+
+<p>"We are the under dogs and were born to be victims. Gambling is an image
+of life: the strong triumph over the weak."</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni remained thoughtful.</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen wealthy gamblers," he said, "who were finally ruined like
+the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Because they don't stop in time, at the point where the resisting power
+of their capital brings the hour of winning. In life, as well, the great
+devourers, soldiers, multi-millionaires, and rulers, are in turn
+devoured in the final leveling: death. But before that time, they
+triumph through a powerful means that fate has placed in their hands. We
+who are poor, never triumph continuously for a whole day. Trying to win
+a great fortune with small capital is equivalent to wanting to lose that
+small capital."</p>
+
+<p>They both fell silent, discouraged; but Novoa seemed to have suffered
+the contagion of his companion's dreams,<a name="page_328" id="page_328"></a> and felt the necessity of
+bolstering him up again with some fantastic meditation fit for a
+gambler.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Spadoni, how much one can win with a thousand francs? Last
+night I undertook to make the calculation."</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to a piece of paper covered with figures which was protruding
+from among the cards. So Novoa was up to the same tricks as the pianist!</p>
+
+<p>"With a thousand francs, doubling each time in forty-three games (some
+four hours), one could win a block of gold a hundred thousand million
+times as large as the sun."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Professor!"</p>
+
+<p>They both looked at each other with mystic ardor, as though they were
+actually contemplating this immeasurable block. Beside such a vision
+what did the winnings of a few paltry millions mean?</p>
+
+<p>Toledo was beginning to realize, little by little, the gradual
+transformation of his friend, the scientist.</p>
+
+<p>Novoa was greatly interested in his personal appearance; he had asked
+the Colonel to recommend him to his tailor in Nice; and the Professor
+made frequent trips to the latter city, merely to make purchases.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, he was gambling. Don Marcos frequently surprised him beside a
+table in the Casino, standing and meditating before risking one of the
+few chips which he held tightly in his hand. He seemed dazzled by the
+ease with which he won. The amounts were small, but so large in
+comparison with those which he had received for his previous work as a
+Professor! In half an hour he could win a month's salary. In an
+afternoon he had succeeded in amassing three thousand francs; half a
+year's work at teaching and in the laboratory.</p>
+
+<p>Monte Carlo seemed to him an interesting place and life there a quiet
+relaxation, which stood out above the<a name="page_329" id="page_329"></a> grave, laborious monotony of his
+previous existence. The Museum of Oceanography could wait; it would not
+move away during his absence from the point on the rock of Monaco. The
+science of maritime zoology was not going to be revolutionized in a few
+months. And when the director saw him with a gay excited look enter,
+from time to time, the quiet silent atmosphere of the Museum, and when
+he observed his gay clothes, and the closeness with which he followed
+men's style, he sadly shook his head. Novoa was not the first. Oh, Monte
+Carlo! The old professors looked with the stern face of prophets at the
+city opposite. Young men who arrived from various places in the world to
+study the mysteries of the ocean, ended by making mathematical
+calculations on the probabilities of roulette.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, he is in love," said Castro, communicating to Toledo his
+impressions in regard to Novoa. "When he isn't gambling he is with that
+Valeria woman."</p>
+
+<p>They were engaged. The professor, with an air of mystery, had told this
+to all his friends, asking each one to keep the secret. After idle
+gallantries as a student, this was the first, the great love of his
+life. He was worried somewhat by the humbleness of his position. When
+they were married what would Valeria say on learning how little he
+earned as a scientist? But immediately he placed his hope on gambling,
+the undreamt of fortune which at present offered itself each day.</p>
+
+<p>"If this goes on a few months," he told the Colonel, "I will have gotten
+together a tidy little sum before I have completed my studies. Every day
+I lay something aside, and nevertheless I am spending more than ever. I
+must dress smartly like my fiancée."</p>
+
+<p>And Don Marcos replied with an ambiguous smile.</p>
+
+<p>Novoa's happiness was accompanied by a certain pride. He considered his
+future life companion a great lady, of<a name="page_330" id="page_330"></a> higher intellectual capacity and
+capable of more serious pursuits than the majority of women of her
+class. She was poor, and for that reason accepted a position bordering
+on that of a servant. But seeing her on familiar terms with the Duchess,
+he considered her of as high rank as the latter, and finally blended the
+affairs of both women in a common interest. And since Doña Clorinda was
+at present an implacable enemy of Alicia's, and since Atilio blindly
+espoused the whims and ideas of "the General," a hidden animosity began
+to spring up between the two men, who up to that time had treated each
+other with amiable indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"Women!" murmured Toledo on observing the progress of this dislike. "The
+Prince was right...."</p>
+
+<p>But other more important preoccupations tormented the Colonel. The
+greatly feared offensive had begun. The telegrams from the front were
+brief and bad. The Allies were retreating before the German advance.
+Their lines were not broken, but were wavering, and curving backwards
+under the overwhelming blows of the enemy. Every day dozens of villages
+and great stretches of territory were lost.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos, with the bursts of anger of a Polytechnic freshman,
+protested against the lack of foresight of the Generals, mingling his
+complaints with those of the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it would come," he said, with a self-sufficient air to the
+groups of idlers in the ante-room of the Casino, where he was listened
+to because of his military title. "The Kaiser has massed in France all
+the troops that he had in Russia. Who wouldn't have expected it? And our
+forces are doubtless inferior in numbers."</p>
+
+<p>The bombardment of Paris finally routed all his ideas of strategy.
+"Lies!" he roared, standing in front of the telegraphic despatches on
+the bulletin board, and reading<a name="page_331" id="page_331"></a> of the first shells that had fallen in
+Paris. It was impossible: he was ready to stake his word, and was well
+informed as to the range of modern artillery. And on learning the
+existence of cannon that fired more than a hundred kilometers, he was
+disconcerted. "What times we're living in! What a war this is!"</p>
+
+<p>When the ladies consulted him in the Casino or in the Hôtel de Paris, he
+displayed unshakable optimism in the face of the bad news.</p>
+
+<p>"This is nothing: The reaction is going to set in. Our men are
+withdrawing in order to be better able to take the offensive."</p>
+
+<p>But when he was alone his sense of security collapsed, and he could not
+hide from himself that his faith was shaken like that of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"They will reach Paris, if God does not take a hand," he said to
+himself. "A miracle is necessary, another miracle like that of the
+Marne."</p>
+
+<p>For the good Colonel still firmly believed that the first battle of the
+Marne had been a miracle wrought by Saint Genevieve, by Joan of Arc, or
+some other beatific person able to intervene in human combats, much as
+the false gods sung by Homer had intervened. Did not St. James fight in
+the battles of Spain, whenever the Christians attacked the Moors?</p>
+
+<p>"And the miracle has been rendered worthless," he said bitterly. "It
+will have to be repeated, they will have to begin again, after four
+years of war."</p>
+
+<p>With the bombardment of Paris the population of the Riviera had
+increased considerably in a few weeks. The trains were arriving packed
+with fugitives. The streets of Nice were filled with strangers just as
+in peace times, when the Carnival was celebrated. Monte Carlo found its
+crowds largely increased and new gambling rooms were opened in the
+Casino.<a name="page_332" id="page_332"></a></p>
+
+<p>Toledo spent the afternoon and the early evening hours in the anteroom,
+always expecting good news, and accepting the bad with an easy optimism
+which found excuse and justification for everything.</p>
+
+<p>The circle of his friends was gradually increasing. Every day he came
+across well known faces that he had not seen for a long time. He shook
+hands, and returned greetings. "You here!" The cannon firing on Paris
+from an extraordinary distance filled the gambling rooms with a
+well-dressed crowd, almost as numerous as that of peace times.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos continued to announce the reaction, the counter-offensive for
+the following day, as though he were in touch in some mysterious way
+with the General Staff. And the anger aroused by the daily failure of
+his predictions was taken out on the gamblers. "What a life, what an
+indecent life! Appetites that know no morals! The selfishness of
+brutes!"</p>
+
+<p>The people around the Colonel seemed to be sorry for a moment as they
+read the bad news. Then, the majority entered the Casino. Perhaps it was
+a lack of thoughtfulness on their part, or perhaps it showed a desire to
+forget, to seek in gambling the illusions of alcohol. But the tiny ivory
+ball whirled tirelessly in the many roulette wheels. The cards did not
+cease to fall in double row on the <i>trente et quarante</i> tables, and the
+crowds around the green boards kept on increasing.</p>
+
+<p>The people were nervous, argumentative, and irritable, and lost their
+manners over a mere gambling incident. The activity on the far-off
+battle line spread like a fierce wind, around the tables; there was an
+aggressive look in the eyes of the women. Every cannon shot fired on
+far-away Paris reverberated like an echo in the rain of money falling in
+Monte Carlo.</p>
+
+<p>When Toledo, the strategist, attempted to put forth his<a name="page_333" id="page_333"></a> opinions and
+plans in Villa Sirena, he found a less attentive audience than in the
+ante-room of the Casino. The Prince had much more interesting things to
+think of. Novoa displayed a certain selfish joy, as though considering
+this period the best in his life, and the world's misfortunes merely
+something which gave a keener zest to his secret happiness. Spadoni
+listened to war talk as though people were talking of some ancient
+fiction.</p>
+
+<p>As for him, reality was what he wanted, and he interrupted the Colonel
+to tell him about more interesting matters. At present he scorned the
+Casino, and was frequenting the <i>Sporting-Club</i>, where there gathered
+the boldest gamblers who preferred to use chips of five thousand francs.
+A Greek, who had been a common sailor in his youth, reigned there like a
+hero of epic legends, admired by the ladies in ball-room dresses and the
+solemn gentlemen in evening clothes who gathered together in that
+aristocratic club. He had learned to read and write after he had grown
+up, but he possessed an immense fortune. The night before, after dealing
+for three hours, he had won a million two hundred thousand francs.
+Spadoni had seen it with his own eyes, and imitated the hero's gestures
+as he rose from the table, with a little wicker basket held in both
+hands, a miserable little basket containing, as so much sweepings, heaps
+of blue bills, and piles of five thousand franc chips. Why should they
+talk to him about Generals and battles? There was a man for you!</p>
+
+<p>Castro had been listening to the Colonel in a silence that augured ill,
+and with a coolly aggressive look. Suddenly, he interrupted the plans of
+strategy of Don Marcos.</p>
+
+<p>"And when are they going to promote you?"</p>
+
+<p>Many of the Generals who at present were celebrated, had been mere
+Colonels at the beginning of the war.<a name="page_334" id="page_334"></a> It was about time that Toledo was
+shoved up a notch on the Army Register.</p>
+
+<p>And poor Don Marcos, wounded by this cruel jest, replied in a dignified
+manner:</p>
+
+<p>"I am satisfied with what I am, señor de Castro."</p>
+
+<p>He knew perfectly well what he was: a Colonel, and he did not care to be
+anything more. And several times he repeated to himself that he did not
+want to be anything more.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the fact that at Villa Sirena each one was preoccupied with
+his own affairs, appearing absent-minded when the other guests were
+talking, Atilio's bad humor was making their life in common rather
+unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo had a feeling that he knew the reason for this conduct. Doña
+Clorinda was doubtless treating him badly, and he, in turn, was getting
+revenge for these humiliations and vexations by showing himself harsh
+and ironical with his friends. The Colonel had been obliged to calm
+Clorinda when he met her (discussing the news of the war) in the Casino.
+She felt a strong antipathy to every man who was not in uniform, a
+little more and she would have insulted them.</p>
+
+<p>"Slackers! Cowards! If I were a man!"</p>
+
+<p>Although she was not, she felt the need of doing something, and was
+consumed with impatience at not being able to use her energies among the
+whistling bullets at the front. Finally, she found a means of being
+useful.</p>
+
+<p>She decided to leave for Paris. When every one who was able to run away
+from there was hastening to do so, she determined she would go and take
+up her residence in her former house, defying with her presence the
+cannon and aeroplanes of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Castro took the liberty timidly to suggest that this sacrifice would
+have no effect. The Colonel added, with<a name="page_335" id="page_335"></a> his professional judgment, that
+it seemed to him foolish, but she was in no way disposed to modify her
+determination.</p>
+
+<p>The outcome of the war concerned her passionately, and she entered into
+the spirit of it with a nervous vehemence like that which disturbed her
+friendly relationships.</p>
+
+<p>"If the Allies shouldn't win, life for me would be impossible. How those
+miserable wretches would laugh! I would rather die."</p>
+
+<p>The miserable wretches were the friends she had formerly had before the
+war, people of various nationalities who, through pose or through
+personal interest, sympathized with the Germans. The "General" with a
+feeling of pride that inspired fear, really and sincerely wanted to die,
+rather than see triumphant those whom she had chosen as enemies.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were a man!" And Atilio, who sought every occasion to be near her
+in the Casino, or exaggerated the beauty of certain spots, in order to
+induce her to take walks with him there alone, hastened to flee at these
+words, in which he detected an insult.</p>
+
+<p>Later, on finding himself at Villa Sirena, his submission as a lover
+changed to hostility for the rest.</p>
+
+<p>He had discovered that he hated Novoa, or, rather, that logically he
+ought to hate him. Doña Clorinda was quarreling with Alicia, and the
+blue-stocking for whom the Professor felt such enthusiasm was the
+companion and protégée of the Duchess. For that reason he ought to be an
+enemy of Novoa. They were like two men who have never done each other
+any particular harm, but belong to two nations which are at war.</p>
+
+<p>Besides&mdash;and he would not have been willing to confess it&mdash;the air of
+satisfaction and triumph of the scholar caused him a certain envy. Novoa
+was never<a name="page_336" id="page_336"></a> squelched nor treated with indifference, it was the woman who
+sought him, making an effort to flatter his tastes, pretending
+scientific interest in things which made no difference to her
+whatsoever: merely for the sake of keeping him under her sway. Happy
+man! And how disagreeable! As always happens when one is beginning to be
+disliked, Atilio discovered, almost daily, various sources of annoyance
+of which he told Toledo.</p>
+
+<p>His friend, the Professor, was trying to make fun of him, and he was not
+disposed to tolerate it. One day Atilio had to wait half an hour at the
+barber's. The Professor was in his chair and using <i>his</i> manicure. Such
+nerve! He was doubtless trying to outshine him, and for that reason he
+even got his clothes from the same tailor in Nice. Another piece of
+insolence! Besides, he didn't know how to wear clothes. And he even
+suspected that, to please his fiancée and the latter's mistress, that
+book-worm was probably taking the liberty of saying mean things about a
+certain lady, and if he ever found it out!...</p>
+
+<p>But the Colonel paid no attention to such threats. The sad news from the
+war made the matters of daily life seem unimportant.</p>
+
+<p>The Germans were continuing to advance on Paris. Under the repeated
+blows of the enemy the retreat of the Allies seemed endless, and
+Toledo's hopes diminished from moment to moment. By this time, he was
+prepared for anything! The invaders had an overwhelming numerical
+superiority!</p>
+
+<p>He had only one hope left. If the aid promised by the United States were
+actually to materialize! Supposing it did not turn out to be a bluff, as
+many people thought! Now in his imagination, all he could see was
+America, its harbors filled with armed multitudes, and the blue surface
+of the ocean plowed by thousands of boats, bringing endless<a name="page_337" id="page_337"></a> armies to
+land on European shores. And as weeks went by without his dreams being
+realized, he began to give advice to Wilson from the Groves of Villa
+Sirena, or from among the jasper columns of the ante-room of the Casino.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the man thinking of? Why don't they come? If they don't hurry,
+it will all be over before they arrive."</p>
+
+<p>War and discord made their appearance nearer at hand, within his own
+domains, causing him for a few hours to consider the general
+conflagration as a matter of secondary interest.</p>
+
+<p>He never knew for sure who started the row, but one night during dinner,
+he noticed that Castro and Novoa, with studied coolness, were exchanging
+words like sword thrusts. The Prince could not suspect any hostility
+between his two friends, since never in his presence did they depart
+from the usual forms of courtesy. Besides, occupied with his own
+thoughts, he did not realize that the Professor, stirred up, doubtless,
+by Atilio's animosity, had become somewhat quarrelsome. Novoa made a
+slight allusion to the war-like "General," who was talking about going
+to Paris, as though her presence there could have any effect on the war.
+Castro saw in this remark a reflection of the enmity of the Duchess.
+Doubtless, Valeria and Novoa had laughed together over Doña Clorinda's
+enthusiasm. And he turned against Alicia's protégée, calling her a
+penniless blue-stocking, who was always rubbing elbows with great ladies
+though she was only a servant herself! He could not understand
+sentimental love affairs with women of that class. He felt a temptation
+to attack the Duchess de Delille also, but, remembering that she was a
+relative of the Prince, he refrained.<a name="page_338" id="page_338"></a></p>
+
+<p>The two men sat there pale and silent, looking daggers at each other.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, Atilio, before leaving for the Casino, called Don Marcos
+aside. Perhaps he would soon have an affair of honor on his hands; and
+could he count on the Colonel as second?</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel drew up to his full height, with a grave frown. Several
+years had passed since he had performed that solemn function, for which
+he seemed to have been born. His last duel dated some eight years back:
+a meeting on the Italian frontier between two gentlemen who had
+exchanged blows over cheating at cards.</p>
+
+<p>His face became even more gloomy as he bowed in sign of consent, raising
+his hand to his breast. Since with Don Marcos every action carried with
+it proper details in dress, he felt that it was impossible to perform a
+certain act without the corresponding costume, and he suddenly
+remembered a certain frock coat, which had long been forgotten in his
+wardrobe, and which he called his "duelling uniform," a black garment,
+of Napoleonic cut, with long tails, which he brought to light whenever
+he was a second and, owing to his military name, was called upon to
+direct a combat.</p>
+
+<p>"I accept. One gentleman cannot refuse another gentleman such a favor."</p>
+
+<p>And he accepted with true thankfulness, thinking how proper it would be
+to take this suit, as solemn as death, from its prison among the
+moth-balls, and give it an airing.</p>
+
+<p>But that same afternoon Novoa came to look him up. The Professor spoke
+timidly, without the elegant indifference of Castro, and with a certain
+sense that he might be acting foolishly. Perhaps he would soon have an
+affair of honor on his hands.<a name="page_339" id="page_339"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Since I don't understand such matters, Colonel, you will be my second.
+I have studied along other lines; but when a lady is insulted and when I
+see a young defenseless girl trampled upon, I consider myself as much a
+man as the bravest."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos started. No, indeed! His eyes were open to the truth. He
+forgot about airing his frock coat; it might remain in its odorous tomb.
+And since the Professor was less to be feared than the other man, he let
+loose all his wrath on Novoa. Imagine fighting over mere nonsense, when
+millions of men were giving their blood for great ideals! and he, who
+had referred so frequently to his many experiences as a second as heroic
+actions, made a gesture of disgust, as though something offensive to his
+honor were being proposed to him.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later, Novoa spoke to the Prince, with the brevity that ill
+concealed his emotions. He was very thankful to the owner of Villa
+Sirena; he would never forget his pleasant life in that retreat, but it
+was necessary for him to return to his former lodgings. He had important
+work on hand which would not allow him to live far from Monaco; the
+director of the Museum was complaining of his absences.</p>
+
+<p>And he went away, to live in a poor house in the old city, renouncing
+all the comforts and luxury of the mansion in charge of the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of such excuses, the Prince expressed his doubts to Toledo. He
+did not clearly understand this flight. Perhaps there were some other
+reasons which he could not guess.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; perhaps there are," replied Don Marcos, with a knowing smile. "It
+must be a question of women."</p>
+
+<p>Michael nodded. Doubtless, it is on account of Valeria. Living in Monaco
+he felt himself freer to meet the girl.<a name="page_340" id="page_340"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Women!" the Prince exclaimed. "What a power they have over us!"</p>
+
+<p>"And what a mess they make of friendships among men!"</p>
+
+<p>Toledo's voice as he said this was as sad as the Prince's had been on
+enumerating to his friends the advantages of living away from women. On
+the other hand, Michael was now himself submitting to a woman's
+domination, and almost envied the scientist returning to his former
+modest life in order to meet the woman he loved more frequently.</p>
+
+<p>As for himself, Michael was less happy. Days went by without his being
+able to repeat his promenade with Alicia in the gardens of Monaco.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you!" she said. "You may believe that I haven't forgotten that
+afternoon. Later on we will take the same trip, but not now, I know how
+it would end. It is impossible for me.... I am thinking of my son."</p>
+
+<p>Michael had no doubt that this was true, but something more than worry
+over the absent one was at the time in her thoughts. She had abandoned
+herself once more to gambling with the money she had found in her house.
+The Prince even suspected that she had sold or pawned the pin with which
+he had repaired the tear in her dress. After giving her the Princess
+Lubimoff's pearl, he had not seen it again. Alicia seemed unmoved at the
+first splendor of Spring.</p>
+
+<p>"Some day we shall go there," she said, when he recalled to her the
+gardens of San Martino, "I promise you. But I must be free from worry, I
+must lose everything or win everything. I must make the most of my time.
+As you see, luck seems to be remembering me again."</p>
+
+<p>She was winning little, but she was winning, and this<a name="page_341" id="page_341"></a> caused her to
+hope that that sudden burst of good luck which had stirred the Casino,
+would be repeated.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening she withdrew contented. She had three or four thousand
+francs more, but what did that amount to? She lamented the smallness of
+her capital. She wanted to play the "grand jeu" and win back all that
+she had lost. Winning thus little by little, she would never get
+anywhere. If she could only get together again the thirty thousand
+francs, which rose and fell, but always remained faithful!</p>
+
+<p>Michael remained in the Casino for hours at a time near her table,
+watching for a propitious occasion, without being able to obtain more
+than brief conversation when she was resting from the play, or taking
+tea in the bar of the private rooms.</p>
+
+<p>One morning he went to surprise her in her villa. It was ten o'clock. He
+met Valeria who had just put on her hat, and seemed annoyed at this
+visit. Perhaps she was going to Monaco, perhaps her man of Science was
+waiting for her in one of the side streets of Monte Carlo.</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess has gone," she said, smiling, "she must be in the midst of
+her work."</p>
+
+<p>Among the gamblers the Casino was known as the "factory," and they
+really meant it, when they referred to their worry and scheming around
+the tables as their "work."</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless she had spent a large part of the night figuring, in order to
+be on hand at the Casino, at the opening hour, her eyes still heavy with
+sleep, and without paying any attention to her personal adornment, as
+though there were all too little time for carrying out some wonderful
+combination she had just discovered.</p>
+
+<p>Whenever he met her, the Prince, with a childish rather ill-concealed
+motive, alluded to her son's fate. It<a name="page_342" id="page_342"></a> was only thus that he could rouse
+her from her preoccupations with gambling, which kept her constantly
+distracted, talking and smiling automatically, like a person walking in
+her sleep.</p>
+
+<p>One day, Lubimoff showed her various telegrams and letters from Madrid,
+Paris, and Berne. Kings and Ministers had taken up the task of finding
+out the fate of the aviator who had disappeared. A promise came over
+from Berlin, through the medium of a neutral nation, to look for the
+young man in every prison cantonment. They suspected that he might be
+confined in Poland, in a punishment camp.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia began at once ardently to measure time, as though the longed-for
+notice might arrive at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>"In Heaven's name, please, Michael! Write, telegraph this very day. Tell
+the gentlemen who have been so kind to send their answer directly to me.
+The telegram or letter might come to your Villa while you are away, and
+I would be hours and hours without knowing anything about it! No, have
+them write to me. Every day, when I go out, I tell my gardener that if
+there is a telegram he should bring it to me at the Casino. Imagine my
+impatience! Tell me you'll do this. Promise me you won't forget!"</p>
+
+<p>The one thing that the Prince was at all able to forget, while he was by
+Alicia's side, was his own personal business. His mind was entirely
+taken up with discovering the forgotten captive, on whom his happiness
+depended.</p>
+
+<p>"The day I learn for certain that he is alive!... you will see then how
+different I am. I shan't bore you with my troubles: you will find a
+different woman."</p>
+
+<p>And as a matter of fact, her smile and her glances, full of promises,
+caused him to see in her once more the Alicia who had walked beside him
+on the path along the<a name="page_343" id="page_343"></a> seashore, with her lips pressed closely to his in
+an endless kiss.</p>
+
+<p>When he found himself alone, he was assailed by his own troubles and
+worries. He had received news from Russia through various fugitives who
+had just been freed from the persecution of the Revolution. The men who
+formerly administered his estate there had been murdered. The Lubimoff
+palace was being used as the headquarters of a Bolshevist Committee. His
+mines were national property, although no one was working them; his land
+had been divided; various persons of obscure origin, former old clothes
+dealers and liquor merchants, had become the owners of his houses, no
+one knew how. And at the same time that he received this news, which
+made his future so uncertain, he learned other details which embittered
+his pleasantest memories. A great lady of the Court, with whom he had
+had a love affair, the memory of which he cherished, was now selling
+newspapers on the sidewalks; another very elegant lady, who had set all
+the fashions in Saint Petersburg, was sweeping snow on the streets of
+Petrograd, and had lost several fingers by freezing. He could count by
+the dozen friends of his who had been killed; some of them shot with
+revolvers like rats, in the depths of some dungeon, others executed by
+firing squads. Several had perished of hunger, just as years before
+those of the lower classes, who now were taking revenge, had died.</p>
+
+<p>All these horrors aroused his selfish instincts, causing him to take
+fresh delight in his own situation. The world had been plunged into a
+bloody madness. East and west men were rushing about like wild beasts,
+while he remained quietly beside the most smiling of seas, with love and
+desire filling his life, which had been so empty before, and awakening
+anew the ardor and enthusiasm of youth. At the very hour when thousands
+of human<a name="page_344" id="page_344"></a> beings were dying in crowds, and the whole villages were being
+swept from the surface of the earth, he was living under the sway of a
+woman, and finding his servitude very sweet.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, in the bar of the private room, Alicia spoke to him with
+an air of resolution. She must play big stakes. She was tired of
+"working" on small capital, and gaining small returns. Besides, she
+scorned the Casino with its limited bets, its roulette and <i>trente et
+quarante</i>, almost mechanical games in which you cannot see the banker
+sitting opposite, but instead mere employees.</p>
+
+<p>"All that gives you the impression of struggling with a formidable
+machine, that functions monotonously, with no imagination, no soul. I
+must play <i>baccarat</i>."</p>
+
+<p>She had gotten her thirty thousand francs together once more: either
+enormous winnings or nothing! She preferred to lose everything and end
+it once for all at a single stroke.</p>
+
+<p>"To-night in the Sporting Club. Don't say no: I need you. I have a
+feeling that this is going to be the decisive night for me&mdash;and perhaps
+for you. Sit opposite me so that I can see you. Remember that on the
+lucky afternoons you were near me. You will bring me luck. Don't shake
+your head; you will bring me luck, I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>And she said it with such conviction, that Michael could no longer
+withhold his consent.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, you will gain by it: I promise you. You will gain by it, no
+matter what the result. If they clean me out, to-morrow we will go for a
+walk in the Monaco Gardens, as we did before. And if I win&mdash;if I
+win,&mdash;all you want!..."</p>
+
+<p>She did not need to say any more. The look in her eye and her smile
+filled Michael with enthusiasm. He would see her at the Club.</p>
+
+<p>That night, Castro and Toledo were surprised at seeing<a name="page_345" id="page_345"></a> the Prince sit
+down at the table dressed, like themselves, in a Tuxedo.</p>
+
+<p>"The Boss isn't staying home," said Atilio to the Colonel. "He too is
+going to the opera."</p>
+
+<p>He went to the Casino theater, to while away the time until midnight. He
+would not have been able to tell for a certainty with whom he talked
+during the intermission, nor with whom he shook hands. He was obliged to
+make an effort several times to recall the name and composer of the
+opera. The music made no difference to him. It was a lulling sound which
+rocked his thoughts to sleep, calming his emotion&mdash;an emotion made up of
+hope and of fear.</p>
+
+<p>During the first act, he wanted Alicia to lose everything, absolutely
+everything, thus she would be his more completely, depending absolutely
+on him, in sweet bondage. Later, during the following act he thought of
+Alicia's despair after such a loss. She was full of temperament, and she
+felt the pride of an artist in her play. Perhaps more than the lost
+money, she would lament her personal defeat. No, it was better that she
+should win. But how long the music was lasting! How slowly his watch
+seemed to go! After eleven, when the lobby was lighted and the crowd was
+leaving the opera, Michael got into an elevator, which took him down
+into the bowels of the earth, and then he followed a subterranean
+passageway, the multi-colored stucco walls of which brilliantly
+reflected the electric lights. He was walking along under the square
+front of the Casino, where at that moment many carriages were passing
+back and forth. Another elevator took him up to a large room filled with
+columns. It was the great hall of the Hôtel de Paris. He saw women in
+evening gowns and gentlemen dressed in Tuxedos, the usual crowd of
+fashionable hotel people who put on uniforms for dinner, and then<a name="page_346" id="page_346"></a> sit
+around in deep armchairs, to digest what they have eaten, looking at one
+another without talking, or else conversing in low tones, as though they
+were in church, until they are overcome by sleep.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed distantly to various friends who arose, on seeing him, to begin
+a conversation. He pretended not to see certain ladies who smiled at
+him, motioning with their heads to call him. He entered another
+elevator, and descended once more underground. He found himself in a
+curving passageway, the walls of which were decorated with Pompeian
+paintings. It extended under two hotels and their gardens. Once more he
+entered an elevator, which brought him above the surface of the ground.
+He opened a glass door. An old lackey, in a blue livery, with knee
+breeches and white stockings, bowed, somewhat surprised at recognizing,
+after a moment's hesitation, Prince Lubimoff. He was in the Sporting
+Club.</p>
+
+<p>He had not entered it for years, since before the war. He was not a
+gambler, and it was only because he had been interested in certain women
+that he had spent his nights amid elegant society in that place which,
+like many others of the same class, was merely a gambling den.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing rooms were too small, after midnight; one walked along
+stepping on the trains of women's gowns. One had to be very dextrous to
+slip through between the various groups. Every one was smoking, the
+women more than the men, and the atmosphere grew thicker and thicker
+with tobacco smoke and the perfumes of the boudoir. The wealthy people
+scorned the crowds at the Casino, considering it a sign of distinction
+to be packed in together in this club. They gambled with their own set,
+considering themselves safe from bad neighbors at the tables, and from
+contact with suspicious characters<a name="page_347" id="page_347"></a> who were so frequent in the public
+rooms. To get in here, it was necessary to give guarantees; some one
+must vouch for the honor of a person before he could be presented.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was well acquainted with this brilliant gathering. Here one
+might meet people of royal blood, heirs to thrones, who were passing
+through the Riviera, famous bankers, millionaires from all parts of the
+world, women celebrated for their nobility, their beauty, or their
+jewels, and many famous and aged <i>cocottes</i> and a few, young and fresh
+looking, who were anxious to grow old as soon as possible, as though
+that were a means of attaining celebrity. They had all appeared on the
+stage, at one time or another, in a trained-rabbit act, perhaps, or in
+some wretched dance, or with a song which they sang in spite of the fact
+that they had no voices. They were admitted to the Club under the rather
+vague classification of "artists."</p>
+
+<p>Michael came forward through the atmosphere warm from the crowds and
+heavy with fading perfumes. He still had to watch where he stepped this
+time as he had done on his visit here before. Now, to be sure, women's
+skirts were very short, and their legs were shown uncovered, with a
+placid lack of shame. The war was shortening their skirts, as though the
+women, obliged to run in the open field, had taken as a model the
+ancient Vivandière. But almost all of them, in order not to break
+completely with a majestic tradition, had added to their stylish
+overskirts, a sharp and narrow tail, tongue-shaped, which dragged far
+behind as they walked.</p>
+
+<p>A lady came forward to meet Lubimoff, and it was a moment before he
+recognized her. It had been so many years since he had seen Alicia in
+evening dress! Her gown dated back to pre-war times, but was of rich
+material and the Duchess wore it with the same smartness as<a name="page_348" id="page_348"></a> in the days
+of her wealth. The long pearl necklace gained an air of genuineness on
+her person, as did her other ornaments. It was evident that she had made
+extraordinary efforts to present a proper appearance on her visit to the
+Club.</p>
+
+<p>She came here seldom, the crowd composed of former friends talked too
+much, disturbing her in her gambling calculations. She preferred the
+Casino, with its large rooms and its motley crowd, talking in various
+languages. She was a proletarian in the matter of gambling: she had a
+superstition that fortune prefers to come where its devotees gather in
+large bands. Her intuition that she would be lucky at <i>baccarat</i>, a game
+to be found only here, had persuaded her to abandon her usual custom for
+this one night.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince complimented her on her lovely appearance, her dress, her
+pearls....</p>
+
+<p>"False, scandalously false, my dear," she said, laughing and looking
+about her. "But you know very well that the majority of those worn by
+the other women are no better. Ah, pearls! If all that shine in the
+world were brought together, the sea would not be large enough to have
+produced a tenth part."</p>
+
+<p>She led the Prince toward the bar. She had a favor to ask of him. At
+midnight the game of <i>baccarat</i> commenced: she had asked for "the bank,"
+but the rules of the Club prevented her from getting it. Alas for women!
+Even in gambling they were condemned to a position of degrading
+inferiority. Lost in the common crowd of "ponteurs" they might lose a
+fortune, but they were forbidden ever to hold the bank. The directors of
+this Club and other similar ones doubtless feared that women were more
+given to cheating than men. She, the Duchess de Delille, could not be
+the equal of a Greek sailor, who<a name="page_349" id="page_349"></a> dealt every evening with unheard-of
+luck, causing the crowd to feel suspicious and think evil thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"They insist that I get a man to deal for me. He must appear as my
+banker, although every one knows that the capital is mine. I thought
+that you might do me this favor. I like to think of our going together
+into this business which means life or death to me! Besides, I am sure
+of success if you deal. And what an event! How they would bet! Prince
+Lubimoff playing the banker!"</p>
+
+<p>But she did not continue. Michael interrupted her with a decisive
+gesture of refusal. It made no difference what she said. He was
+indignant at the very idea that people should see him seated at the
+green table, playing with money that did not belong to him, and having
+Alicia at his back. Besides, he was sure of losing.</p>
+
+<p>The Duchess hastily left him. Time was flying, and any minute they might
+give out the bank. She believed once more in her good star as she saw a
+young man timidly slipping through the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Spadoni! Spadoni!"</p>
+
+<p>The pianist grew pale on hearing her. "Oh, Duchess!" He trembled and
+stammered with emotion. <i>He</i> dealing in the <i>Sporting-Club</i> before an
+elegant opera night crowd, handling thousands of francs, with all eyes
+fixed on him! It was the crowning moment of his career; after that he
+could die happy.</p>
+
+<p>Two players had asked for the bank, the famous Greek and a manufacturer
+from Paris, who had gotten fabulously rich making munitions. Spadoni
+also presented himself, carrying in a purse the fifteen thousand francs
+which were necessary in order to take charge of the bank. Lots were to
+be drawn among the three petitioners. An employee of the Club took a
+wicker basket that held ten numbered balls and after shaking it, threw
+out<a name="page_350" id="page_350"></a> three on the table: one for each. Alicia mingling with them with
+masculine familiarity, almost clapped her hands with joy. Luck had
+favored Spadoni, the bank was his. But the pianist, respectful of the
+privileges due to genius, showed his sense of profound humility in
+smiles and expressions of face and eyes that seemed to beg pardon of the
+Greek, his rival.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek was a stout man with a figure that almost formed a square,
+with a dark shiny complexion, black mustache and eyes that were somewhat
+slanting, and had a fixed aggressive look, suggesting those of a wild
+boar. His ancestors had been pirates in the Archipelago, and he, finding
+this heroic career cut off, had become a smuggler in his youth. Spadoni,
+somewhat intimidated by the majesty of the great man, stammered excuses
+with his eyes fixed on the Greek's shining shirt-bosom, adorned with
+pearls, and his gray silk vest that covered a heavy paunch. But the
+Greek replied, with an ill-humored grunt, walking away after favoring
+the Duchess with a bow like one of those he had seen on the stage.
+Although he scarcely knew how to read, the Greek was posted on the
+proper way of treating a lady who declares war.</p>
+
+<p>It was twelve o'clock. The gambling stopped at the roulette wheels and
+the <i>trente et quarante</i> tables. The crowd was gathering in the baccarat
+room. The news had gone around: The pianist Spadoni, considered by every
+one as a pleasing parasite, was going to occupy the place that had been
+held on former evenings by the Greek, but in reality the bank belonged
+to the Duchess de Delille.</p>
+
+<p>A triple row of people formed around the table, jamming together to get
+a better view over adjoining shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni smiled, but finally the ironic curiosity fixed on his person
+began to make him nervous. Many of<a name="page_351" id="page_351"></a> those who were gazing on him were
+important personages and had always inspired him with deep respect.
+Fortunately, he felt the Duchess at his back, seated there with an air
+of ownership, and watching him with a look of authority. If he made any
+mistake, the great lady was capable of striking him.... Courage and
+forward march! The <i>croupier</i>, sitting opposite to collect and pay the
+bets, was shuffling the cards, before putting them in a small double
+box, from which the banker was to draw them. Poor banker! The crowd,
+considering his elevation something quite extraordinary, was ready to
+laugh no matter what happened. As he sat down in the presidential chair,
+the onlookers considered the pianist's embarrassment very amusing, and
+an unrestrained laughter greeted his appearance in the seat of
+authority. He asked the <i>croupier</i> a question in a low voice, and the
+same explosion of merriment was repeated. The women were the most
+demonstrative as they thought their ridicule might pass over Spadoni's
+head, and reach the woman who had placed him there. The musician's look
+of surprise at this unexplainable hilarity only served to prolong it to
+the point of a general uproar. They all laughed contagiously on seeing
+his comical inability to understand the situation. But a rough voice put
+an end to the merriment.</p>
+
+<p>"Bank!"</p>
+
+<p>It was the Greek. He had seated himself on Spadoni's right, with the
+angry look of a person who is conscious of an enormous injustice and
+feels it is necessary to remedy it. He could not tolerate the fact that
+this grotesque person should occupy the same place in which he had been
+admired every evening. Neither did he consider it admissible that a
+woman should mix in affairs that belong entirely to men. He had the same
+scandalized and astonished feeling of a person witnessing some<a name="page_352" id="page_352"></a>
+disarrangement in the rhythmic order of Nature. The world was upside
+down: apprentices were trying to be masters; class distinctions were not
+being respected, such nonsense must be stopped once for all. "Cards!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince trembled. Alicia's fifteen thousand francs were in danger.
+That man was going to prevent the bank from continuing. If the Greek
+were to win, the entire capital bet by Alicia would vanish; if he lost,
+her money would be doubled. But he was sure to win. When a man as lucky
+as he dared do that!...</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni was overwhelmed on hearing the great man's voice. Instinctively
+he turned his eyes in the direction of the Duchess, but withdrew them at
+once, still more overwhelmed by her motionless features and the hard
+look that seemed to strike his shoulder, as though he were to blame.</p>
+
+<p>The double box, quite ready, was awaiting his reach. He dealt cards to
+the right and left, and then drew his own.</p>
+
+<p>The Greek showed his cards, throwing them down on the board. "Eight." A
+murmur of approval arose around the table. The admirers of his good luck
+rejoiced as though it were a triumph of their own. From the opposite
+side he took cards which the <i>croupier</i> offered him, and showed them
+after a previous rapid examination of them. The murmur was now one of
+amazement. Eight again! He was going to win. It was almost impossible
+for the banker to make a higher point than that.</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni, pale, his brow glazed with sweat, turned his cards over. The
+public greeted them with a suppressed exclamation: "Nine!"</p>
+
+<p>The very ones who had laughed at him, considered this result quite
+natural. "Luck always protects the simple-minded."</p>
+
+<p>And as the Greek handed over the fifteen thousand<a name="page_353" id="page_353"></a> francs to the
+<i>croupier</i>, who acted as a depository for the bank, the pianist bowed
+modestly. A few superstitious gamblers considered that the Duchess had
+showed excellent judgment in confiding her fate to this simple fellow.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia's eyes sought Michael in the triple oval of heads. She smiled at
+him slightly. Her features had lost the hard, fixed look with which she
+had faced the exciting moment. She felt entirely sure of her triumph.
+And anxious to amaze the onlookers by her imperturbable calm, she took a
+golden cigarette case and an ivory mouthpiece from her purse and began
+to smoke.</p>
+
+<p>The pianist, after this first moment of success, played with a certain
+assurance. The Duchess, sitting motionless at his back, seemed to
+communicate her confidence to him. He dealt several times successfully,
+and as the money in the bank was considerably increased, the cupidity of
+the gamblers was aroused. Those who laughed at Spadoni's clumsiness, now
+frowned with aggressive interest, taking part in the playing. Thus as
+the capital increased, the stakes grew higher. Every one felt there was
+going to be a great and exciting game. The banker had forgotten the
+Duchess and his own humbleness. He imagined that what he was winning was
+his own; he believed he had discovered the secret mentioned by Novoa,
+which was going to win those fabulous sums, on which his imagination had
+played so often as he wrote dozens and dozens of zeros on a piece of
+paper. What a night! And to think that his friend, the scientist, was
+not there to witness his triumph!</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff withdrew from the table. It hurt him to see Alicia's forced
+serenity, and her manner of smoking while she watched the progress of
+the gambling with feline eyes. Luck was going to change any moment. This
+mad continual winning could not go on. The Greek was making an effort to
+hide his anger, playing and losing like<a name="page_354" id="page_354"></a> an ordinary bettor. He could
+not call "bank" until a second deal began after all the cards in the
+double box were exhausted. But he stuck to his original bet with the
+tenacity of a bull dog, convinced that sooner or later he would succeed
+in getting the better of this mockery of chance. He had more money than
+Alicia and her representative, he would be able to hold out against
+fate, and in the end could beat them.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince went to the bar, passing the time by sipping two American
+mixed drinks, which were sweet and bitter at the same time, and heavy
+with alcohol. He wanted to become slightly intoxicated, in order to feel
+himself on the same level with the woman who was appealing so
+desperately to luck.</p>
+
+<p>He found himself alone. The entire Club was huddled together in the
+<i>baccarat</i> room. Michael lamented the fact that Castro was not at the
+Sporting-Club. They would have been able to chat together as they had
+the afternoon that Alicia succeeded for the first time in clutching the
+golden wings of the Chimera. Perhaps his absence was due to an order
+from the "General". He himself had come there dragged by a woman!</p>
+
+<p>A dull murmur came from the gambling room. Shortly afterwards he saw a
+few of the onlookers entering the café, and standing at the bar to
+drink. They were talking in tones of wonder and amazement. Hearing the
+name of the Greek repeated several times, Michael listened. The former
+had shouted "bank" at the beginning of a new hand, when the bank
+contained a hundred and forty thousand francs. No one but that lucky
+fellow was capable of such daring. He drew eight, but the pianist
+immediately showed his cards. Nine once more. And the <i>croupier</i> had
+swept the Greek's one hundred and forty thousand into the bank. What a
+night! And to think<a name="page_355" id="page_355"></a> that that fool of a Spadoni was the man who was
+doing such wonders!</p>
+
+<p>A few women passed the door of the bar with an ill-humored air,
+gesticulating among themselves. They appeared scandalized and annoyed by
+the Duchess de Delille's good fortune, in spite of the fact that none of
+them had lost a cent in the play. Such luck was unnatural; there must
+have been some cheating. They could not say in what the cheating
+consisted, but it existed undoubtedly.</p>
+
+<p>Later they saw the Greek, followed by two admirers. His face was
+sweating, his shirt-bosom wrinkled, and his vest had worked up, showing
+his shirt between the gray silk points and his belt. He was shrugging
+his shoulders scornfully. The world was upside down: there was no such
+thing as logic any more. That was why the war was going so badly!</p>
+
+<p>And the Greek walked away in the direction of the subterranean passage,
+to return to the Hôtel de Paris. He did not care to see any more of it:
+it was a night for lunatics!</p>
+
+<p>Neither did the Prince care to be a witness, and he remained in his
+armchair, asking for another cocktail. In front of the door he could see
+passing those whom another's good luck had embittered, and were fleeing,
+and those who were arriving, attracted by the news of the event.</p>
+
+<p>He remained alone, like a spectator who stays in the lobby of a theater
+and listens to the far-off pulsing thrills of the audience. Long
+intervals of silence passed. Later, there was a murmur, a sigh from the
+crowd, a buzz of exclamations circulating in low tones. Was Alicia still
+winning? Or was he going to see her appear like the Greek, shrugging her
+shoulders at the absurdity of fate?<a name="page_356" id="page_356"></a></p>
+
+<p>He asked for still another glass; and gazing at the spirals of smoke
+from his cigar, he was falling asleep. Suddenly he sat up, imagining he
+had received a sharp blow on his shoulders. It was a mere illusion! He
+was alone. Gazing about him, he noticed the clock. It was two. He stood
+up and slowly walked toward the <i>baccarat</i> room.</p>
+
+<p>The crowd had thinned out, but all those who had remained were taking a
+hand in the play. The enormous sum amassed by the Bank was a temptation.
+No need to fear that the winners would not be paid! Even the mere
+spectators who spend the night on their feet, sharing other people's
+emotion, were risking their money <i>louis</i> by <i>louis</i>, hoping that this
+burst of luck which wholly favored the bank, would change in favor of
+the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing that Michael saw was an enormous heap of thousand franc
+notes, five thousand franc chips, and chips and bills of various
+amounts. It was a fortune. Then he noticed Alicia, sitting motionless in
+her seat, just as he had left her, with the expressionless face of a
+caryatid. Her eyes merely looked mechanically back and forth from that
+heap of wealth to the hands of the banker. She was smoking, smoking. On
+a tray which a lackey had placed reverently beside the victorious woman
+there was a pile of gold-tipped cigarette butts.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed stupefied by her success, by the monotony of her constant
+luck.</p>
+
+<p>The pianist was beginning to display a certain somnolence in his looks
+and in his voice. Mere winning seemed something insipid to him, after
+the flight of that admirable Greek. Similarly other famous gamblers had
+disappeared, as though not caring to authenticate by their presence such
+an absurd run of luck. The only real competitors were some English
+people from Beaulieu, whose automobiles were waiting below. This
+extraordinary<a name="page_357" id="page_357"></a> game interested them, as though it were some unusual
+sport; they were anxious to fight against the Bank's good luck, with
+British tenacity, merely for the pleasure of overcoming it. The women,
+bony and distinguished looking, with very low necks and long trails to
+their gowns, ejaculated "oh!" in amazement, each time the <i>croupier</i>
+with his rake carried off their heavy bets, while the men drew from
+inner pockets of their Tuxedos, new handfuls of bills, greeting their
+defeat with metallic laughter.</p>
+
+<p>In one blow Spadoni lost twenty thousand francs. Lubimoff had the fatal
+presentiment of a sailor who feels beneath his feet the shudder of the
+ship about to be torn open, of the soldier who feels instinctively the
+beginning of his rout.</p>
+
+<p>Another blow; and the bank lost again.</p>
+
+<p>Michael cautiously drew near the chair occupied by Alicia.</p>
+
+<p>"It is two o'clock. It is time to go home," he murmured, whispering his
+words into her hair as he bent over her. "You are going to have a run of
+bad luck: I can feel it coming. Tell Spadoni to get up."</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes and looked at him in surprise. She seemed
+intoxicated, unable to make out what he was saying, and showed her
+refusal by a slight shake of her head. She had faith in her own luck.</p>
+
+<p>Fortune saw to it that her confidence was justified. The banker was
+winning again, carrying off all the sums placed on both sides of the
+table. But this did not convince the Prince. He continued to feel
+afraid, and his worry made him brutal.</p>
+
+<p>He went over and stood at Spadoni's back, in order to drop a word to him
+discreetly, while looking in another direction. "You ought to stop at
+once. Call the game off. It's long after closing time anyhow."<a name="page_358" id="page_358"></a></p>
+
+<p>The banker turned his face and looked up at him in order to see what
+sage was dropping these words of wisdom from on high. "Oh, your
+Highness!" This discovery was accompanied by a proud smile, evincing
+satisfaction that Prince Lubimoff should have witnessed the greatest
+deed of his life.</p>
+
+<p>And he went on dealing.</p>
+
+<p>Michael grew angry. This idiot, overwhelmed by his triumph, did not
+understand him, and if he did understand him, he was refusing to obey.
+The voice of the Prince, falling with a slow tremor, reached the ears of
+the man below. "Spadoni, you incredible fool of a pianist"&mdash;here two or
+three oaths in various languages.&mdash;If Spadoni did not obey him at once
+he would jerk him out of the chair with a thud, and give him a kick that
+would send him flying through the windows!</p>
+
+<p>"The last deal!" said the banker.</p>
+
+<p>And when he stopped dealing, many of the spectators breathed freely,
+satisfied and relieved by the end of a game that seemed to have been
+under an evil spell. Others gazed with astonishment and envy at the
+enormous heap of money in the bank, as the <i>croupier</i> put it in order,
+forming bundles of bills, and straightening the various colored chips in
+columns.</p>
+
+<p>The sum ran from mouth to mouth: four hundred and ninety-four thousand
+francs! A little more and it would have been half a million. Rarely had
+such a rapid winning been seen.</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni, as though he were the master of these riches, was putting them
+into a little wicker basket. He was trembling with emotion. He was going
+to walk through the crowd of onlookers carrying this treasure, just as
+on former nights he had seen his hero pass, with the air of a conqueror.
+In comparison with this what did he care for the applause he had
+received as a pianist!<a name="page_359" id="page_359"></a></p>
+
+<p>But eager hands snatched the basket from him.</p>
+
+<p>"No! let me! let me!" It was the Duchess; it was no longer necessary any
+more for her to claim indifference. That money was hers. She had become
+transfigured by coming out of her eager trance-like silence. Her eyes
+were shining with a triumphant gleam, her brow was pearled with sweat,
+her cheeks, which were intensely pale, quivered. Carrying the basket,
+with her arms held out before her, she slowly passed among the groups,
+with priestly majesty, walking in the direction of the cashier's cage.</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni remained beside the Prince. He, too, was perspiring, and his
+features were pale with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"What a night, Your Highness! What a night!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked proudly at every one, but smiled humbly at the owner of Villa
+Sirena. He must make the Prince forget his refusal of moments before,
+and the terrible threats which had been visited upon it.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later Alicia returned to them, carrying a paper in her
+hand-bag.</p>
+
+<p>The pianist's enthusiasm overflowed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Duchess! Divine Duchess!"</p>
+
+<p>He kissed one of her bare arms, then a shoulder. Alicia smiled at this
+public homage. The poor pianist, no matter what he might do, could not
+compromise her.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Spadoni, you may count on my gratitude. Go ahead and decide
+what you want, a house, a yacht, or perhaps a piano with golden keys."</p>
+
+<p>Michael listened in amazement. She was speaking in all sincerity: as
+though her fortune had turned her mind.</p>
+
+<p>But the pianist left them. He felt he must be alone. By the Duchess'
+side he was obliged to share his glory, contenting himself with but a
+fragment of it. And he went off to join the English people from
+Beaulieu, who,<a name="page_360" id="page_360"></a> proclaiming him the most interesting phenomenon they had
+met in all their travels, were anxious to meet and share a bottle of
+champagne with him.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia and the Prince walked toward the cloak room.</p>
+
+<p>"I have deposited my winnings with the cashier of the Club," she said,
+showing him the receipt. "I am not going to carry so much money home at
+night. To-morrow I shall come to take it to the bank. I need some one to
+accompany me. Send me the Colonel: he is a fighter and must have a
+revolver."</p>
+
+<p>Then, remembering something important, her features took on a grave
+look.</p>
+
+<p>"I need not say that to-morrow we will straighten our account. Don't
+think I have forgotten what I owe you: the twenty thousand francs from
+the other day, and your mother's three hundred thousand. It will all be
+paid."</p>
+
+<p>Michael showed the astonishment which this promise caused him by a
+prolonged laugh. Really, her winning had affected her brain. A piano
+with golden keys for the other man, and now hundreds of thousands of
+francs for him. The fortune recently acquired in two hours seemed to her
+as extraordinary and limitless as her good luck itself had been.</p>
+
+<p>"What I want," he added, in a low tone, ceasing to laugh, "what I want
+from you, you know very well."</p>
+
+<p>She stopped him with a caressing look and a discreet whisper which was
+equivalent to a promise.</p>
+
+<p>They descended the large stairway in the Club, and were standing in the
+vestibule, she wrapped in a silk cape embroidered with gold and adorned
+with rich furs, which recalled her evenings after the opera in Paris;
+he, with his overcoat open and a soft silk-lined hat on his head.</p>
+
+<p>The employees in the vestibule, informed of what had happened in the
+gambling rooms, hurried to the glass<a name="page_361" id="page_361"></a> door in a hope of a handsome tip.
+"A carriage for the Duchess!"</p>
+
+<p>But she wanted to walk in the silence of the night. She was numbed from
+remaining motionless so long, and felt the need, like every one who
+feels happy, of prolonging the joy of her triumph by a long walk.</p>
+
+<p>She descended the outer stairway leaning on Michael's arm. They passed
+between the drivers and the few chauffeurs who were standing about in
+groups, waiting for the owners of their machines, or for possible
+patrons.</p>
+
+<p>They went down into the cool night air, with their eyes still tired,
+from the splendor of the illumination, their skins hot from the heavy
+atmosphere of the gaming rooms. They both noticed that it was a
+moonlight night, with a sad, waning moon that was beginning to drop
+behind the dark barrier of the Alps. The submarine menace kept the city
+in darkness. At long intervals, pale lamps, the glass of which was
+painted blue, cast above themselves a narrow circle of funereal light.</p>
+
+<p>After a few steps, they grew accustomed to the darkness. In the street
+the ground was divided into two bands, one a pale, dim white reflected
+from the dying moon, the other dark, with the heavy black shade of
+ebony. Instinctively, they walked along the dark sidewalk, as though
+afraid of being seen. They wound along through a curving, sloping
+street, the same that made its way underground by the Pompeian corridor
+and which the Prince had taken a few hours before.</p>
+
+<p>At their backs they could still hear the conversations of the drivers
+hidden by a turn in the street, the voices of the Club servants calling
+by the owners' names for the carriages; the stamping of the horses,
+shaking off sleep as they waited, and the first humming of the motors
+that began once more to function. Michael, who was walking along in
+silence, with a desire to get away<a name="page_362" id="page_362"></a> from there as soon as possible and
+seek absolute solitude, on seeing her pause, was obliged to stop. She
+had anticipated his thoughts: she did not care to go any farther.</p>
+
+<p>"I must reward you!" she murmured. "I told you that at any event you
+would gain by coming, even though I should lose. There ... there."</p>
+
+<p>Her bare arms, freeing themselves from the silken cape, closed about his
+shoulders, forming a tight ring; submissively her mouth sought his,
+humbly abandoning itself, with a desire of giving happiness.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the street a sudden illumination flared up, making the
+scene stand out against the shadows, like a flash of lightning. It was
+the searchlight of an automobile. She did not move, she was not afraid
+of being surprised: people were mere phantoms, without any reality
+whatsoever. Nothing existed in the world at that moment save themselves
+and the heap of paper bills, and pieces of ivory guarded in the steel
+vault.</p>
+
+<p>All his life Michael remembered that night. The clocks were doubtless
+mad, turning like his head, which seemed in a whirl, following the
+rhythm of sweet music. He had a feeling that they passed the same place
+several times, going back and forth as they walked, without knowing what
+they were doing. What difference did it make? The important thing was
+that they were together. There was a moment in which they both seemed to
+awaken, finding themselves seated on a bench, in the Casino Square. The
+Prince was sure of it. He had looked at the clock on the façade. It was
+three o'clock! It seemed impossible, he firmly believed that only a few
+minutes had passed since they left the Club. And they were obliged to
+walk away, annoyed by the curiosity of a civilian who was doing police
+duty in war time, a member of the Prince's militia in citizen's clothes,
+with a colored band on his arm and a revolver at his belt.<a name="page_363" id="page_363"></a></p>
+
+<p>Once more they walked through the deserted streets or along the public
+gardens, closed at that hour. Her body was thrown back, with her cape
+open, she was hanging limp upon his arm which was thrown about her
+waist, and she offered a tensely drawn throat and an upturned face to a
+rain of kisses. She looked up at her companion, with eyes dreamy with
+love. Her caresses rose slowly and voluptuously in a crescendo, as sea
+flowers and stars arise from the blue depths in search of light.</p>
+
+<p>Replying to the mute appeal of the eyes that were imploring from above,
+she murmured several times, in a faraway voice, as though talking in a
+dream:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, all you wish ... all you wish!"</p>
+
+<p>More aggressive in his passion, he buried his free arm in the warm
+circle of her cape, drawing her closer to him.</p>
+
+<p>They walked along in a wavering course, imagining they were going in a
+straight line; in certain spots they both stopped at the same time,
+without knowing why. Their loitering caused a commotion in the villas.
+The gardeners' dogs howled furiously at these intruders, thrusting their
+noses against the iron gates. This howling sounded to the lovers like
+barbaric but agreeable music, feeling benevolently toward everything
+that surrounded them, they imagined themselves the lords of creation,
+just as at that moment they were masters of the night. Nothing save
+themselves existed in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Michael, obeying an obscure impulse he did not understand, spoke to her
+of her son. She would recover him at any moment now, and her happiness
+would be complete.... Immediately he repented having awakened this
+memory, which might break the enchantment in which they were living. But
+she showed no emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will recover him," she murmured. "I am sure<a name="page_364" id="page_364"></a> of it. My good luck
+will not forsake me. It was time, after suffering so long."</p>
+
+<p>And once more she abandoned herself to the present moment. They were
+both surprised to find themselves in the street where Villa Rosa was
+located. After wandering about at random, instinctively they had finally
+come there.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince, emboldened by the long walk filled with kisses and
+abandonment, became urgent.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me come in," he murmured. "No one will see me.... I will go away
+before the break of dawn."</p>
+
+<p>Alicia stopped short as though suddenly awakening. It was her first
+gesture of refusal during the entire night. The gardener was surely
+waiting, perhaps Valeria had not yet gone to sleep. "Oh, no!"</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff, in desperation, spoke of their walking together to Villa
+Sirena.</p>
+
+<p>"So far!" continued Alicia, growing calmer at every moment, as though
+she were entirely awakened. "Besides, that place is a barracks; a house
+full of men. And that Castro who tells everything to the 'General'! No,
+no, I shall never go there. What madness!"</p>
+
+<p>Michael's look of sadness, his gesture of dismay, touched her. She
+passed her hand over his features with a motherly caress.</p>
+
+<p>"My poor boy: Don't look like that, be patient awhile. To-morrow; I
+promise you that it will be to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>She, who in former times had dared the most atrocious scandal with
+tranquil lack of shame, hesitated and stammered as she spoke of the next
+day. She seemed like a young girl struggling between love and a fear of
+compromising her future in society.</p>
+
+<p>To-morrow! To-morrow he might come at three in the afternoon.... No, not
+at three; four o'clock was better. Valeria surely would have gone out by
+that time.<a name="page_365" id="page_365"></a> She would send her maid to Nice to do some shopping; the
+gardener and his wife would be busy outside the house.</p>
+
+<p>"But in Heaven's name, be careful! If you can manage so that the
+neighbors don't see you, it will be much better."</p>
+
+<p>And the famous Prince Lubimoff visibly moved, like a boy planning his
+initiation into love, and prematurely stirred by its mysteries, assented
+to this counsel.</p>
+
+<p>He insisted, in spite of her protests, on going with her to the gate of
+the Villa.</p>
+
+<p>"If you were any one else, all right! It is quite natural that a friend
+should accompany me at such an hour; but you!... I am afraid that every
+one will guess our secret."</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the gate was closed and Alicia's adorable figure was
+lost in the darkness, that the Prince could decide to go away.</p>
+
+<p>He was obliged to walk the long distance to Villa Sirena, and
+nevertheless the road seemed short to him. Memories and promises
+accompanied him. His step had never been lighter, he seemed to be
+advancing through air in which the laws of gravitation had been
+lessened, on a planet wrapped in a perpetual night of springtime, in
+which the air, the dim trees and the objects lost in the darkness about
+him, vibrated with a poetic rhythm.</p>
+
+<p>His sleep was restless, but he arose serene and in high spirits. He
+remembered the errand Alicia had asked him to do. She needed a warrior,
+with a revolver if possible, to escort her in transferring her fortune
+from the Club vaults to the bank. The Colonel, deeply impressed at her
+stroke of luck, went out to perform this task. "Poor Duchess! In the end
+God always protects the good."</p>
+
+<p>Michael spent the entire morning attending to his<a name="page_366" id="page_366"></a> personal adornment.
+His attempts at leading a simple, country life in retirement at Villa
+Sirena had not made him forget the hygienic care to which he was
+accustomed since his childhood. But now it was a question of something
+more; he wanted to make himself look well, and heighten with exquisite
+and intimate attentions the individuality of his physique, which he
+suddenly felt had been rather roughly treated by time.</p>
+
+<p>He had his old valet go over the wardrobe he had acquired in former
+days. He remembered certain under-garments that had merited women's
+praise. He was as desirous for novelty and seductiveness as a woman
+dressing for a long-awaited rendezvous. Besides, he chose a suit that he
+had never worn before in Monte Carlo, a new hat, and a modest tie. He
+recalled her apprehension, and her request that he should enter unseen.</p>
+
+<p>As he was doing all this, a sinking feeling, of lack of confidence in
+himself, began to assail him. It was the feeling of uneasiness like that
+of a student before examination, like that of a dramatist watching from
+the wings for the fate of his play, like that of a man about to fight a
+duel. He had spent so many weeks desiring without avail! He had
+renounced love so long ago! And the thought of Alicia aroused in him
+both eagerness and terror.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel returned about noon. He had performed his duties. He told
+the news with modest brevity, as though he had just accomplished
+something very important. Michael almost envied him, because he had seen
+Alicia. "How is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Beautiful, as beautiful as ever. Somewhat pale, as was natural after
+such an excitement as that of last night! But gay, very happy, talking
+constantly about the Marquis. It is easy to guess that she feels a
+strong affection for him."<a name="page_367" id="page_367"></a></p>
+
+<p>They had lunch alone. Spadoni was going out in society, after his
+triumph. Perhaps he was in Beaulieu with his new friends, the
+Englishmen. Toledo had met Castro going into the Hôtel de Paris, where
+Doña Clorinda lived. Doubtless they were having lunch together to talk
+over the winnings of the Duchess. Atilio had even pretended he did not
+understand when the Colonel talked to him about the event. Envy, of
+course! The Prince shrugged his shoulders. People were mere phantoms as
+far as he was concerned, and evil passions were illusions. There were
+only two realities: he and what was awaiting him.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch he dressed with such attention to the minutest details that
+the absurdity of it made him smile. He even changed his tie, after he
+was dressed, looking for another of a quieter color. "Half-past two." He
+looked at himself from head to foot in the mirror: a dark gray suit, tan
+shoes, and a light felt hat with broad brim turned down to protect his
+eyes from the sun. No one had ever seen Prince Lubimoff dressed in such
+a manner. From a distance one might have taken him for one of the
+travelers who visit the Riviera in passing, and come to make the
+acquaintance of roulette at Monte Carlo in an afternoon, and go away
+again immediately.</p>
+
+<p>Three o'clock! He left Villa Sirena. It was a long way and he wanted to
+walk it. The exercise would fortify his will and dispel the doubt which
+was assailing him anew. He thought of how he had performed the same
+supreme intimate act so many times in former years, as something
+ordinary and almost mechanical. His suspicious isolation during the last
+few months seemed to have numbed him. He felt the lack of confidence of
+an athlete who has left off exercising and doubts whether he can summon
+all his former strength again. Fear at<a name="page_368" id="page_368"></a> the mere idea of a failure
+restored his confidence. Such a thing was impossible! Forward march!</p>
+
+<p>On reaching Monte Carlo, he climbed the long stone steps as far as the
+streets of Beausoleil. He considered it advisable to go out of his way
+thus to carry out in the fullest detail the counsels of prudence that
+Alicia had given him.</p>
+
+<p>He planned to enter her street from above, where there were no houses.
+In this way he would avoid any of her neighbors who at that hour might
+be going down town.</p>
+
+<p>Above the building plots where houses were going up and the stairways
+which were winding down the slope, he could overlook a large expanse of
+sea, and on the shore the groves of the gardens, with a bird's-eye view
+of the huge mass of the Casino, with its green tiles and the yellow
+cupolas of its halls, the wide square, the little circular garden of the
+"Camembert," and around it numerous people the size of ants.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince had a feeling of pity for those pigmies. Unhappy men! They
+were going to gamble, to shut themselves up between four walls, under
+artificial light, with no other dreams than those of money. For him
+something better was awaiting; for a few hours he was going to
+experience the one interesting intoxication of life. Then he laughed
+with pity at a certain lunatic, his double, who had tried to found a
+club group of "women's enemies." Imagine hating love, and trying to live
+without women; poor Prince Lubimoff!</p>
+
+<p>It was now four o'clock. Passing among tiny gardens which seemed miles
+away from a crowded city, he entered Alicia's street. The red roof of
+Villa Rosa was peeping out from among the trees, almost at his feet. He
+kept on descending. His legs trembled slightly, and he stopped for a
+moment to regain his poise, raising his hand to his breast. Rounding a
+bend, all of the street<a name="page_369" id="page_369"></a> that was built up appeared, straight and gently
+sloping down to where it joined one of the avenues of Monte Carlo.</p>
+
+<p>No one was in sight, and he hastened to slip into Villa Rosa before any
+neighbors appeared. He passed the gardens rapidly, with the air of a man
+afraid of being late at a game of cards. He found the gate half open. It
+was a good sign: Alicia had thought of facilitating his entry.</p>
+
+<p>He crossed the little garden, and thought he saw the frightened face of
+the gardener, peeping over some shrubbery for a moment, then hiding
+again precipitously. There was something strange about that man's
+curiosity and his look of fear. But he was hurrying away, and the Prince
+was pleased at his discretion.</p>
+
+<p>With a flutter of emotion, he climbed the four steps of the door. With
+each one there awoke in his imagination a fresh dream picture, softly
+rose-colored like women's flesh, a sweet unconfessable vision which
+suddenly brought back his past. More with his memory than with his sense
+of smell, he perceived in the atmosphere a well-known perfume, her
+perfume. Everything seemed to be whirling about him with hazy contours.
+There was a buzzing in his ears; desire electrified him drawing his
+muscles taut, just as in his happiest days. And with the bearing of a
+conqueror, he pushed open the door, which was unlocked.</p>
+
+<p>A woman came forward to meet him in the vestibule, a woman whose
+presence caused him to draw back.</p>
+
+<p>Valeria! What was she doing there? What sort of a farce was this?</p>
+
+<p>The young woman tried to speak, and he, too, wished to speak at the same
+time. But neither was able.</p>
+
+<p>Another woman appeared, opening the door abruptly. It was Alicia, with
+her clothes in disorder and her hair<a name="page_370" id="page_370"></a> wildly streaming. On seeing the
+Prince, she raised her arms and came forward, impetuous and silent, as
+though to embrace him. At last!... What did he care if Valeria were
+present: he did not see her. On the other hand, Alicia seemed different
+to him; taller than ever, and paler, with eyes that suddenly inspired
+fear.</p>
+
+<p>Her arms fell about him, and immediately her whole body seemed to
+totter, bereft of strength. He felt a panting breast against his own;
+her arms were as cold as those of a corpse; a rain of hot tears began to
+bathe his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Michael! Michael!" Alicia groaned.</p>
+
+<p>It was all she could say. She was choking, the sobs catching in her
+throat as though a strangling lump were fixed within it.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was obliged to summon all his strength to sustain the inert
+body. A voice sounded in his ear, with the same low monotonous tone that
+is heard in a chamber of death.</p>
+
+<p>It was that of Valeria, who was also weeping, feeling afresh the
+contagion of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"He is dead! He died a month ago!"</p>
+
+<p>And she showed him a little yellow paper that had arrived half an hour
+before: a telegram from Madrid.<a name="page_371" id="page_371"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<p>S<small>PADONI</small>, after greeting Novoa in the Casino square, told him about the
+dreams which were troubling his sleep, and about his disillusionment on
+awakening.</p>
+
+<p>"It is your fault, professor. When we were living together at Villa
+Sirena, I used to listen to the interesting things you knew and talked
+about and then I would go peacefully to sleep. Now I am practically
+alone. The Prince and Castro are unbearably ill-humored; they talk
+scarcely at all and pay no attention whatever to me. As you yourself
+would say, I lead an 'inner life,' always alone with my thoughts; and
+when I spend the night there, I sleep badly, and suffer from dreams,
+which are very wonderful in the beginning, but turn out very sad in the
+end. Oh, what wonderful evenings we used to spend, talking about
+scientific things!"</p>
+
+<p>Novoa smiled. In the eyes of the musician, gambling and its mysteries
+were scientific matters. All the paradoxes that he had taken delight in
+uttering had been stored up in the mind of the pianist as irrefutable
+truths. Novoa tried to head him off by asking for news of the Prince.
+But Spadoni, absorbed in his mania, continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Last night's dream was terrible, and nevertheless it could not have
+begun better. I had the secret of your infinitesimal errors; I had
+mastered the hidden laws of chance and was King of the world. I had a
+special train, composed of a sleeping car, a drawing-room car, a dining
+car, a swimming-pool car, and goodness knows how many special kinds of
+cars! It was a regular palace on wheels that was always awaiting me at
+the railway<a name="page_372" id="page_372"></a> station, with the engine constantly keeping up steam, ready
+to start at any moment. I got out of the train in all the cities famous
+for gambling, just as a person gets out of an automobile. And seeing me
+coming, the owners of the Casinos, the employees, and even the green
+tables fairly trembled. 'Hurrah for the Avenger!' all those who had lost
+their money shouted in the anteroom. But I passed on, serene as a god,
+without paying any attention to these ovations from the common herd.
+Imagine what it would cost the possessor of the secret of the
+infinitesimal errors to win! My twelve secretaries placed on the various
+tables a million or two, following my instructions. 'Ready, play!' I
+walked about like Napoleon, giving orders to my marshals. In half an
+hour, they declared the bank was broken and the Casino bankrupt. 'The
+house is closing its doors!' shouted the employees, just as in a church
+when the services are over. And on coming out, the same starving
+wretches who had greeted me with acclamations rushed on the guards
+escorting me, with sudden hate, trying to kill me. The place where their
+fortunes were buried was closed to them forever. Now they could not
+return the next day and lose more money with the vague hope of squaring
+accounts. I had taken away all their hopes."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," said Novoa.</p>
+
+<p>"Also I had a yacht, which was larger than Prince Lubimoff's; something
+in the nature of a first-class cruiser. And I needed one that size, for
+a band of followers as large as mine. I had with me hordes of
+secretaries, a crowd of strong-arm men whose duty it was to defend me
+and my treasure, and a great number of blasé people, who considered me a
+very interesting person, and followed me all over the globe, like that
+misanthropic fellow who followed a lion tamer from city to city, hoping
+that the wild beasts might some day devour<a name="page_373" id="page_373"></a> him. There was no longer a
+single Casino functioning in Europe: the one at San Sebastian had been
+turned into a convent; the one at Ostend was being used as a laboratory
+for experiments on oyster culture. In all the bathing resorts and all
+medicinal springs, people became interested exclusively in taking care
+of their health; and when they wanted distraction, they went to the
+promenades and played marbles and other children's games. In the
+meantime I went traveling through the Americas and the South Seas,
+breaking one bank after another, in all the big gambling houses. I was
+followed by journalists who made up another army larger than my own. The
+newspapers and the cable and telegraph agencies announced my arrival in
+advance, making a great stir. 'The invincible Spadoni is coming!' And
+the gaming establishments, feeling their end was near, tried to exploit
+their death agony by selling seats at fabulous prices to every one who
+wanted to witness my triumph. In the United States a steel king, or a
+king of something or other, gave a hundred thousand dollars for a seat,
+in order to follow my irresistible playing close at hand. Never before
+had such a sum been paid to see the long hair of a concert singer or the
+diamonds of a soprano."</p>
+
+<p>"And how about Monte Carlo?" asked Novoa, interested by the gambler's
+wild dreams.</p>
+
+<p>"We are coming to that. I kept Monte Carlo to the end of my trip,
+thinking of the money that I had lost here. The fatter I let the victim
+grow, the greater would be my vengeance. And such business as Monte
+Carlo was doing! Since there was no gambling left anywhere else in the
+world, all the gamblers gathered here from every part of the globe. The
+city had grown, until it reached the summits of the Alps; the forty
+millions that the Casino used to win in favorable years, had now become<a name="page_374" id="page_374"></a>
+four thousand million. The stockholders were marrying persons of royal
+blood: two Balkan kings were declaring war, quarreling over the hand of
+the daughter of a fourth Vice-President of the company that was managing
+the Casino. The equilibrium of Europe was imperiled: the great powers
+were dreaming of annexing Monaco in the name of ancient historical and
+ethnological rights, since they had all had and still had many people of
+their race living on that tiny piece of land. But suddenly the
+Invincible appeared."</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni, as though still dreaming, looked at the Casino, the Square, the
+entrance to the terrace, and the curving slope of the avenue which
+descended to the harbor. He could see it all, perhaps no differently
+than he had seen it in his imagination.</p>
+
+<p>"What a crowd there was! For six months previously the whole world had
+talked of nothing else. 'Are you going to see the fun?' 'Aren't you
+going?' Cook's Agency had announced in every country of the globe an
+inexpensive trip 'personally conducted' to witness this world event. The
+Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean was giving round trip tickets at reduced
+prices, and all Paris was on hand. The owners of hotels and restaurants,
+out of gratitude, were placing my portrait in the most conspicuous part
+of the dining rooms, which were always filled. The newspapers published
+my biography, and in mentioning my wealth were obliged to break their
+columns, placing a line of zeros clear across the page, and even then
+there was not sufficient space. I forgot to tell you that I found myself
+obliged to establish a bank, just to take care of my treasures. And
+whenever the Bank of London or the Bank of France were pressed for
+money, they sent me a polite note, asking me to get them out of their
+difficulty."</p>
+
+<p>Novoa laughed at the naïve way in which the pianist<a name="page_375" id="page_375"></a> related his
+greatness. He still seemed obsessed by his dream.</p>
+
+<p>"My yacht was obliged to anchor outside the harbor among other ships.
+There were many trans-Atlantic liners there: four from the United
+States, one from Japan, another from South America, and a few from
+Australia and New Zealand, all filled with travelers who had come from
+the other hemisphere to see Spadoni. After greeting Monaco with a
+twenty-one-gun salute, I sprang ashore amid the hurrahs of the foreign
+sailors. You easily understand that a man like myself could not arrive
+at the Casino seated in a mere automobile. Who hasn't an automobile
+now-a-days! On the dock there was waiting for me a single seated
+carriage which I was to drive myself, but a carriage with gilded wheels,
+drawn by six women, six beautiful women, all of them celebrated, whose
+pictures figured not only in the principal illustrated papers, but also
+on perfumery bottles and cigar boxes."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor was extremely amused. He noticed the satisfaction with
+which the pianist dwelt on this detail of his triumphal entry. The
+degradation of these six elegant and famous women seemed to flatter his
+woman-hating propensities. He spoke with a coolly revengeful look, as
+though witnessing the abject humiliation of his greatest and deadliest
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"It was merely a matter of paying the price: and I was not going to
+bargain over a million more or less. The one thing that annoyed me was
+having to choose among several thousand beauties who were clamoring to
+be selected. I was obliged to risk offending many big theater managers,
+business men, and statesmen, by rejecting the many ladies whom they
+recommended to me. A monarch even withdrew the title of Duke which he
+had just given me, because I had refused his favorite<a name="page_376" id="page_376"></a> 'friend.' All six
+wore the latest frocks designed in the <i>Rue de la Paix</i>. The reporters,
+cameras in hand, were taking snap shots of the gowns which were to set
+the latest style. Besides, their harness was covered with pearls,
+diamonds, and every sort of precious stone, and they were careful not to
+injure them, knowing that at the end of their trot they would be able to
+keep the gems as souvenirs. I had a large whip to use on occasion: a
+whip of flowers, to be sure. One must always be chivalrous with ladies."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled ironically. Once more Novoa noted his look of rancorous
+misogyny.</p>
+
+<p>"But inside, the whip was made of sharp steel; and lashing my six
+handsome steeds, we started out. What a long time it took to climb the
+slope making our way through the crowd! The foreigners greeted me with
+acclamations. The sounds of the clicking cameras blended into an endless
+buzzing. Every one wanted to carry away the image of the king of the
+world. I could pick out the natives of the city by their sad faces. The
+men were imploring me with their glances, like miserable captives; the
+women held up their children; the old men fell on their knees. I was the
+conqueror who, in ruining the Casino, was utterly destroying their home
+land, condemning them to poverty and hardship. The square was black with
+people. On getting out of my vehicle, I saw that the steps of the Casino
+were filled with a great delegation. First of all, was Monsieur Blanc;
+next, his general staff of advisors, the principal stockholders, the
+inspectors, and the entire body of <i>croupiers</i>, all dressed in black,
+with long alpaca coats of a funereal cut. In the background were well
+known people, whose presence there might move me. In order to recall to
+my mind the fact that I had been a mere pianist, they had waiting for me
+there, baton in hand, directors of concerts and<a name="page_377" id="page_377"></a> operas, orchestra
+soloists with their instruments; singers&mdash;the men with swords at their
+belts, the women with long trains, and all of them painted and bewigged;
+girls from the ballet, with pale pink legs and masses of tulle standing
+out horizontally from their waists. Instructed in advance, they were all
+ready to groan.</p>
+
+<p>"'One word with you, Signor Spadoni.'</p>
+
+<p>"It was Monsieur Blanc who took me aside, and handed me a small paper.</p>
+
+<p>"'Take this and don't go in.'</p>
+
+<p>"I looked at the paper: a check for a million. Humph! What can a man do
+with a million? And on noticing that I was crumpling it, and throwing it
+on the ground, the master of the Casino gave me another paper.</p>
+
+<p>"'Make it five then, and go away.'</p>
+
+<p>"Since this did not move me either, he kept on taking checks from all
+his pockets: ten million, fifteen, forty....</p>
+
+<p>"My twelve counselors came forward with huge purses filled with bank
+notes; my escort cleared the way among the imploring crowd on the
+stairway; my horses were getting impatient, because certain connoisseurs
+had availed themselves of the crowding to take liberties with them.</p>
+
+<p>"'One more word, Signor Spadoni: the last. We will cause a revolution,
+we will dethrone Albert, and give the crown of Monaco to you. If you
+like, you might marry the daughter of an Emperor: with money you can do
+anything. We have it and so have you....'</p>
+
+<p>"'I have told you no! What I want is to get into that Casino, bust the
+whole business, and take away the keys.'</p>
+
+<p>"This threat tore from him the supreme concession.</p>
+
+<p>"'You shall be my partner; I will give you fifty per cent of the
+winnings. Don't you want to? Well then, seventy-five.'</p>
+
+<p>"On seeing that I continued to advance up the stairway<a name="page_378" id="page_378"></a> without
+listening to him, he raised a whistle to his lips. On his face was a
+look of a Samson, clutching the columns of the Temple. He would rather
+die than see his house bankrupt! A terrible explosion resounded, as
+though the world were being rent apart. They had mined with all the
+high-power explosives of the war, the Casino, the square, and the whole
+city. I was blown off my feet and driven, dazed, up into the clouds, but
+I was still able to see how Monte Carlo was disappearing, and even the
+dock of Monaco, as the sea in one enormous wave, was sweeping over the
+site of the vanished land. And when I came down to earth again...."</p>
+
+<p>"You woke up," said Novoa.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I woke up, and on the floor beside my bed; and I could hear
+Castro's voice in the corridor calling me names for having spoiled his
+sleep by my cries. Don't laugh, Professor. It is very sad to dream of
+such grandeur, as though you had had it in hand, and then to find
+yourself as poor as yesterday, as poor as ever, and besides with bad
+luck still clinging to you."</p>
+
+<p>This mention of poverty and bad luck by Spadoni caused Novoa to protest.
+People still recalled his amazing fortune as the banker in the Sporting
+Club. That had been an epoch-making night. Besides, he knew through
+Valeria that the Duchess had made him a handsome present.</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful Duchess!" the pianist said enthusiastically, "Always a great
+lady. Poor woman, in the midst of her despair she remembered me. 'Take
+this, Spadoni, and I hope you have lots of luck.' She gave me twenty
+thousand francs. If I were to ask her for a hundred thousand she would
+give them to me just the same. And to think she is so unfortunate!"</p>
+
+<p>As the Professor still looked at him questioningly, he continued:<a name="page_379" id="page_379"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Well, then; of the twenty thousand francs I haven't even a hundred
+left."</p>
+
+<p>The same evening he had hurried to the Sporting Club to repeat his great
+deeds. He had never happened to have so much capital before, not even
+when he returned from his concert tour in South America. The terrible
+Greek was there, and in spite of the admiration Spadoni paid His
+Eminence, the Helene treated the musician with implacable hostility.
+"Bank!" said the Greek on seeing the pianist in the banker's chair, with
+fifteen thousand! With what remained the musician had struggled along
+for a few days as a mere bettor, and now the Duchess' generous gift was
+merely a memory.</p>
+
+<p>"If she would only return to work! I am sure that I would be once more
+the man I was that night, with her behind me. But who would dare talk to
+her about gambling."</p>
+
+<p>They both lamented Alicia's misfortune. Since the day the telegram
+arrived telling of the death of her protégé, she had been a different
+woman. Spadoni attributed her overwhelming grief over a young soldier
+who did not belong to her family to her excessively kind heart. The
+Professor assented, with an enigmatic air. In her sudden burst of grief,
+Alicia had doubtless let a portion of her secret escape in the presence
+of Valeria, and the latter probably had told Novoa about it.</p>
+
+<p>Then they talked about the isolation in which the Duchess was living.</p>
+
+<p>"It has been a month since any one has seen her," said Spadoni. "People
+are beginning to forget about her; a good many people think she has gone
+away. That's the way Monte Carlo is: quite tiny for those who go to the
+Casino, and rub elbows all day long; enormous, like a great metropolis,
+for those who do not come near the gambling rooms. The Prince frequently
+asks me about<a name="page_380" id="page_380"></a> her with a great deal of interest. It seems he has not
+been able to see her since the afternoon of the telegram."</p>
+
+<p>Novoa repeated his enigmatic look on hearing Lubimoff's name. He knew
+through Valeria that Michael had gone repeatedly to Villa Rosa, without
+being admitted. And more than that; the Duchess had shuddered in terror
+at the thought of his visit. "I don't want to see him, Valeria; tell him
+I am not in." Colonel Toledo had suffered the same fate; obliged to hand
+his card, sometimes to the Duchess' friend and at other times to the
+gardener. Several letters from the Prince had remained unanswered.
+Alicia showed a firm determination not to see her relative, as though
+his presence might quicken the grief that was keeping her away from
+society.</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni, unaware of all this, continued to praise the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"A noble heart! She always has to have some unfortunate person around to
+look after. Since the death of her aviator, she seems to be feeling a
+deep affection for that Lieutenant of the Foreign Legion, the Spaniard
+who is so ill, and who may die almost any moment, like the other man. He
+spends whole days at Villa Rosa; he lunches and dines there; and if the
+Duchess takes a walk in the mountains, it is always with him. He does
+everything but sleep at the Villa! When he doesn't show up for some
+time, she immediately sends a messenger to the Officers' Hotel."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor remained silent, but knew that Spadoni was telling the
+truth. It agreed with what Valeria had been telling. Martinez was
+constantly at Villa Rosa, often against his will. The Duchess needed his
+presence, but nevertheless on seeing him, she would burst into sobs and
+tears. But the poor boy, with a submission born of awe, accompanied her
+in her voluntary seclusion,<a name="page_381" id="page_381"></a> deeply thankful that such a great lady
+should take an interest in him.</p>
+
+<p>"Doña Clorinda must be furious," continued the pianist, with malignant
+joy such as rivalry among women always aroused in him. "She no longer
+has any influence over Martinez, in spite of the fact that she was the
+one who discovered him. The other woman has cut her out. Weeks go by and
+the 'General' doesn't get a chance to see her Lieutenant; I believe she
+has given him up, as a matter of fact. She criticizes her former friend
+for this monopolizing, which she considers 'dangerous.' They even tell
+me that she accuses the Duchess of flirting with the poor boy, of
+arousing false hopes in him, and of still worse things. Quite absurd!
+Women are terrible when they hate. Imagine! A poor officer&mdash;practically
+a dead man...."</p>
+
+<p>Novoa said nothing, so that the pianist would stop talking. He was
+afraid Spadoni might say some awful thing, repeating Doña Clorinda's
+gossip, with the rancorous joy of a woman-hater. Novoa, through his
+relations with Valeria, considered himself a partisan of the Duchess,
+and could not tolerate anything being said against her.</p>
+
+<p>They separated after a few minutes more of inconsequential talk.</p>
+
+<p>That evening Spadoni spoke to the Prince about his conversation with the
+Professor, and it gave him a pretext for repeating what Doña Clorinda
+thought of her former friend. But immediately the pianist repented of
+having done this, seeing the look of wrath which Lubimoff gave him.</p>
+
+<p>"What a cad," thought Michael, "peddling around a lot of female gossip,
+just because he has a grouch against women in general."<a name="page_382" id="page_382"></a></p>
+
+<p>He understood how Alicia might feel interested in the soldier. His youth
+and his uniform reminded her of her son. Besides, Martinez was alone in
+the world, a foreigner, a piece of wreckage from the war, a man whom
+every one considered irrevocably condemned to death.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Michael could not avoid an immediate feeling of jealousy toward the
+poor young fellow who was friendless and ill. Martinez was living
+constantly by Alicia's side, while he himself was unable to gain
+admittance to the Villa, even as a mere visitor. Why?</p>
+
+<p>He had spent several weeks making conjectures, and watching for a chance
+to meet Alicia. Since the afternoon when he had held her in his arms,
+drying her tears and restraining her from hurting herself, as she
+writhed in grief, and kissing her on the brow, with brotherly
+compassion, the gate of Villa Rosa had closed behind him forever. "Come
+to-morrow," groaned Alicia on saying good-by to him. And the following
+day Valeria had halted him with the embarrassed look of a person telling
+a lie. "The Duchess cannot receive you. The Duchess wants to be alone."
+And this inexplicable refusal had been repeated each successive day,
+with increasing sharpness. At present the gardener, who was the only one
+who came to answer the bell, talked with him through the gate.</p>
+
+<p>This rejection caused him to commit a great number of childish and
+humiliating actions. He circled about the neighborhood of the Villa like
+a jealous husband, facing the curiosity of the passersby, and taking
+advantage of the most absurd pretexts to disguise the real object of his
+vigil, hurriedly concealing himself whenever the gate opened, and any
+one left the house. This vigilance had only served to arouse his anger.
+Twice Michael had been obliged to hide himself while Lieutenant
+Martinez, erect<a name="page_383" id="page_383"></a> in the old uniform which the Prince had given him and
+which was rather a bad fit, steadied his weak sick body in a desire to
+appear proud and healthy, and entered Villa Rosa through the wide-open
+gate, as though he were the owner.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon he had seen them from a distance, the Lieutenant and
+Alicia, in a hired carriage, which was going in the other direction, on
+the opposite side of the street, toward the Heights of La Turbie. She
+was looking after the wounded man, taking him, in maternal solicitude,
+to a spot where he could breathe the upland air. And the Prince might
+just as well have not existed!</p>
+
+<p>In vain he wrote her letters, and his torment was even greater owing to
+the fact that he could not talk openly with his friends. The Colonel,
+obedient to his veiled suggestions, had unavailingly paid several calls
+on the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>"What unexplainable grief!" said Don Marcos. "It is impossible to
+understand such despair over a young aviator who was merely a protégé of
+hers. Unless, perhaps, he were her...." But his sense of delicacy would
+not allow him to insist on such an ignoble suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Nor could the Prince talk with Atilio. In the latter's eyes, the
+prisoner who had died in Germany was the same young man he had known in
+Paris before the war: the Duchess' lover, who followed her everywhere
+and danced with her at the Tango teas. Besides, Michael felt afraid of
+what Castro might add, reflecting the "General's" way of thinking.</p>
+
+<p>The latter, at first, on learning of Alicia's despair, had felt like
+forgetting the quarrels of the past, and had gone of her own accord to
+Villa Rosa to console the Duchess. Since the "General" was very
+patriotic, the boy who had died in Germany seemed to her a hero. But the
+sudden monopolizing of the Spanish Lieutenant,<a name="page_384" id="page_384"></a> and the passionate
+sympathy which obliged Martinez to spend all day with the Duchess,
+renewed Doña Clorinda's cool hostility.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince guessed what she and her friend were thinking, and what
+Castro might tell if he dared talk to him about Alicia. "She has just
+lost a lover, and while she is weeping with theatrical vehemence, she is
+getting ready for another, as young as the first. A crime indeed, since
+poor Martinez is condemned to death, and only prolongs his days, thanks
+to absolute quiet. The slightest emotion means death to him."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff could not tell the truth. His secret was Alicia's. Only they
+two knew the true identity of the prisoner who had died in Germany, and
+as long as she kept silent, he must do the same.</p>
+
+<p>One night, the Colonel gave him some interesting news. At nightfall,
+when he was returning from the Casino, he had seen the Duchess de
+Delille from the street car. Dressed in mourning she was getting out of
+a hired carriage, in the Boulevard des Moulins, opposite the church of
+St. Charles. Later she had ascended the steps leading to the place of
+worship: she was doubtless going to pray for her protégé. And Don Marcos
+said this with a certain emotion, as though the visit to the church
+cancelled all the gossip he had been hearing in the previous few days.</p>
+
+<p>Michael had a presentiment that this would be the means of rescuing him
+from his incertitude. He would meet Alicia at the church. And the
+following day, toward evening, he began to walk up and down the
+Boulevard des Moulins, without losing sight of the one church in Monte
+Carlo, the place of worship of gamblers and wealthy people, which seemed
+to maintain a certain rivalry with the Cathedral of silent, ancient
+Monaco.</p>
+
+<p>This continual going and coming finally caught the<a name="page_385" id="page_385"></a> attention of the
+shopkeepers on the street and of their clerks, girls with hair dressed
+high on their heads in a complicated fashion, who seemed to be dreaming
+behind the counters, waiting for some millionaire to lift them from
+their position of unjust obscurity. "Prince Lubimoff!" They all knew
+him, and his fame was such that immediately a hundred eyes curiously
+sought the object of his promenading. Doubtless it was a woman. On the
+deserted balconies women's heads began to appear, following his
+maneuvers more or less overtly. Window shades went up, revealing behind
+the panes questioning eyes and smiling lips. "Might it be for me?" This
+unexpressed question seemed to spread from one window to the next.</p>
+
+<p>Annoyed by such curiosity, he ascended the double row of steps from the
+tiny deserted square in front of the church, using the same strategy
+there as when he had lurked in the neighborhood of Villa Rosa. He peeped
+into the interior of the sanctuary, dotted with red by a number of
+lighted tapers. There were only two women, within, both of them dressed
+in mourning and kneeling. They were women of lowly fortune, wives or
+mothers of men killed in the war. On returning to the little square, he
+passed the time reading and re-reading the headlines of all the papers
+displayed on the newsstand. Then he started off down a street, turned
+into another, walked across the square with an air of unconcern, and hid
+behind a corner, taking care not to lose sight of the entrance to the
+church. It was not bad waiting there: there were no passersby. The
+traffic on the nearby boulevard was invisible, as though going on in the
+depths of a ditch. Through the low branches of some trees, he could just
+see the roofs of carriages and street cars.</p>
+
+<p>Night fell and she did not come.</p>
+
+<p>The following day Michael returned, but discreetly,<a name="page_386" id="page_386"></a> so as not to arouse
+the curiosity of the shopkeepers. He remained for long hours in the
+little square in that old part of the city, with none to watch him save
+a melancholy old woman who sold newspapers at a stand that had no
+customers. Nor did Alicia come this time.</p>
+
+<p>The third day, when he was beginning to doubt whether there was any use
+of waiting, Alicia's head and shoulders suddenly appeared above the line
+of the top step. Then her whole body emerged, by waves, so to speak, as
+her feet advanced from step to step. Night was falling. On the façades
+of the buildings on the boulevard, above the green mass of the trees,
+the fugitive sun drew a golden brush stroke along the rows of roofs.</p>
+
+<p>It was his heart that recognized her even before his eyes, just as on
+the day when he had seen her at a distance in the carriage accompanied
+by the officer. He had a feeling of shock at her black bonnet, with a
+long mourning veil falling on her shoulders. The emotion he felt on
+seeing her and the spying habit he had recently acquired, caused him to
+draw back, and she entered the church without seeing him. Ah, now he had
+her! This time she could not escape, he would have a great many things
+to tell her, very, very many! But at the same time he became rancorously
+conscious of the just indictment against her which he had prepared in
+advance; and, in spite of himself, he felt afraid, desperately afraid of
+the possibility that she might meet him with a curt reply, or perhaps
+not speak to him at all.</p>
+
+<p>He allowed a long time to elapse. Then he was torn by the desire of
+seeing her again, even from a distance, and he entered the church, but
+cautiously, trying to avoid a premature encounter.</p>
+
+<p>He advanced between a double row of deserted benches. There in the
+background were the same women who had been there the other day, still
+kneeling, as though<a name="page_387" id="page_387"></a> their grief were unconscious of the lapse of time.
+In the darkness the pale gold of the altar pieces became gradually
+distinguishable, and two masses of color, two clusters of flags&mdash;those
+of the Allied countries, which adorned the high altar. On seeing the two
+praying figures alone in the church, and in motionless silence, he
+thought that Alicia must have fled through an exit of which he was
+unaware. But she appeared from a door on the side, followed by an
+acolyte who was carrying two tapers. Alicia seemed to be watching how
+the tapers were lighted and placed in their sockets in front of the
+Virgin. Then she knelt, remaining in a rigid posture on her knees.</p>
+
+<p>Some time went by. And Michael watched her, as she became, like the two
+poor women, a mere shape in black, motionless in prayer and
+supplication. The only distinguishing features of her person that he
+could make out, were the soles of her elegant shoes, two tiny
+light-colored tongues, which stood out against the black silk of her
+skirt. He could also see her white neck writhing from time to time, as
+though trying to throw off the twining veil of sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>He felt that the rancor which had caused him to desire this meeting was
+vanishing. Poor woman! He knew, and no one else knew, the identity of
+the young man whose death she had come to mourn in this temple. A
+picture of the Princess Lubimoff suddenly arose in his memory, vague and
+covered with the dust of oblivion. The Princess had been insane; but she
+was his mother, and he had loved her so dearly!</p>
+
+<p>Immediately afterward his egotism revolted against this feeling. It was
+natural for Alicia to weep for her son, but it was not natural that she
+should have broken with him without any explanation whatsoever.</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically he advanced toward the high altar, desiring<a name="page_388" id="page_388"></a> to see her
+closer at hand. A slight movement as she prayed caused him to retrace
+his steps. It was better that she should not recognize him. He
+considered it preferable to wait for her outside the church, with the
+advantage of taking her by surprise, without allowing her time to invent
+excuses to justify her conduct.</p>
+
+<p>It was beginning to grow late, when Alicia came out, running straight
+into Michael Fedor who was blocking her path.</p>
+
+<p>Not the slightest quiver revealed any feeling of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"You!" she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>She was very pale, and her eyes were red and moist, as though she had
+just been weeping.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps she had seen him within the church, and was expecting this
+meeting on coming out. The natural manner in which she greeted his
+presence was for him a just disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>He felt he must speak at once, relieving himself of the burden of
+complaint and accusation, which had been gathering within him during the
+preceding days. There were so many, that they clouded his thoughts. But
+Alicia, as though afraid of what he was going to say, came forward and
+began to talk in sad, monotonous tones.</p>
+
+<p>She had been coming to this church several afternoons as she suddenly
+felt the need of leaving Villa Rosa with its terrible memories. Oh, the
+arrival of that telegram!</p>
+
+<p>"Now I am a believer," she announced simply.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately afterward she corrected the statement, rather through
+humility than pride. She wanted to be a believer, but in reality she was
+not. She remembered the mother, poor, simple-minded Doña Mercedes! What
+would she not give to have the confidence in the Great Beyond which that
+good lady had had! That faith,<a name="page_389" id="page_389"></a> which in former days had provoked her
+laughter, seemed to her now like something superior. What a pity she
+could not feel the resignation of humble souls! The irreligiousness of
+her happy days still remained with her. Those who enjoy the pleasant
+things of life do not remember death, nor do they think of what may be
+beyond. No one feels religious sentiments in his soul at a dance, at a
+banquet, or at a rendezvous with a lover! She had to believe, because
+she was unhappy! She clung to religion as an invalid condemned to death
+by the doctors in whom he believes, implores in despair the services of
+a quack, in whom he has no faith.</p>
+
+<p>"Grief makes mystics of us," she continued. "What I regret is not being
+able to be one in the way that others are. I pray, but resignation does
+not come to my aid."</p>
+
+<p>She revolted against the thought of annihilation at death. That flesh of
+her flesh was rotting in an unknown cemetery in Germany! And was that
+the end? Could it be there was nothing more? Would she die in turn and
+never meet again in a superior existence the son in whom she had
+concentrated all her love of life? Would they both be blotted out of
+reality, like two infinitesimal points, like two atoms, whose life means
+nothing?</p>
+
+<p>"I must believe," she said with all the energy of her maternal egotism.
+"My one consolation lies in the hope that we shall meet again in a
+better world: a world that knows no wars, nor death. But suddenly my
+confidence fails, and all I see is annihilation&mdash;annihilation! I am
+greatly to be pitied, Michael."</p>
+
+<p>These words did not move the Prince, in spite of the despair which
+Alicia put into them. His amorous yearning let him think only of the
+present.</p>
+
+<p>"And I," he said in a reproachful tone. "You deserted me in the greatest
+moment of our lives! You are unhappy;<a name="page_390" id="page_390"></a> all the more reason that you
+should not drive me from you. I can put cheer into your life. I can
+guess what you are thinking. No, no, I do not insist on talking to you
+of love. Perhaps later on, but now!... Now, I want to be your comrade,
+your brother, whatever you want me to be, but at your side. Why do you
+avoid me? Why do you shut your door to me as you would to a stranger?"</p>
+
+<p>And incoherently he continued his laments, his protests, his rancor, at
+her unexplainable estrangement.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I to blame for your misfortune?" he finally asked. "Am I a different
+man to-day than I was the last time we saw each other?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head sadly. She could not convince Michael no matter how
+much she might talk; it was beyond her strength to explain her new
+feelings. She seemed dismayed at the obstacle which had arisen between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me, forget me; it is the best that you can do. No; you haven't
+changed, my poor boy. What harm could you have done me, you who are so
+kind, so generous? You have helped me to learn the horrible truth; it
+was through you that I discovered it; and although it is killing me, I
+feel that it is preferable to uncertainty. You are not to blame, you
+have done all that I asked you to do. But listen to me, I beg of you: do
+not seek me, avoid meeting me, leave me! It is the last favor I ask of
+you. It is only away from you that I can find a certain peace of mind."</p>
+
+<p>Michael's voice lost its tones of supplication and began to quiver with
+a vibration of anger. How could he be an obstacle to her tranquillity?
+Hadn't he just said that he wanted to be a comrade in her misfortune,
+without desires, oblivious of love, with a sweet dispassionate
+affection, like that of friendship? Now that she was<a name="page_391" id="page_391"></a> unhappy he felt
+more vehemently a desire to be by her side. What absurd caprice made her
+avoid him?</p>
+
+<p>Alicia looked at him with tearful eyes, which reflected the hesitations
+of her thoughts. Finally she seemed to have made up her mind.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't changed," she said, in a subdued voice, "but I am
+different. Misfortune has made another woman of me. I do not recognize
+myself. I am dominated by a fixed idea. An absurd one it may well be; if
+I tell it to you, I know that you will protest with holy indignation.
+No; you are not to blame; but it is better for me not to see you. Your
+presence increases my remorse. Seeing you, I feel extraordinary shame, a
+desire to die, to kill myself. I have a feeling of suspicion that it was
+I who killed my son. I remember all that took place between us; and I
+recognize God's punishment."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff's anger vanished at these inexplicable words. Automatically he
+took her hands with caressing gentleness, as though they were those of a
+poor sick patient at the height of delirious ravings. She should be
+calm! What was she saying? What remorse was she talking about? Her
+gloved hands, in passive resignation offered no resistance to his touch;
+but suddenly they woke to life, violently freeing themselves from those
+of Michael, as though they had just received a hard shock. "No! No!" And
+the Prince had a sort of feeling that there was a current of repulsion
+between them, something that he had never experienced until then: the
+fear of his person.</p>
+
+<p>He remained so disconcerted and humiliated by this movement of
+withdrawal, that he did not know what to say. She took advantage of his
+silence to go on talking, but as though she did not see the man who was
+standing before her eyes.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_392" id="page_392"></a>"When I remember all that ... what a shame! My son, my poor boy, living
+like a slave, suffering from hunger, being whipped, he, who was so noble
+and so handsome ... and his mother here acting like a young girl, going
+into ecstasies over ideal love, taking poetic promenades through the
+gardens, exchanging kisses. An old woman's romantic fancies. The
+gambling follies might even be pardoned. I thought of him as I played;
+the money was for him; but love!... it seems impossible that I could
+have done all that while my son was a prisoner and I was getting no news
+from him. What diabolical spell was upon me? And God has punished me;
+and if not God, whoever or whatever it may be; fate, a mysterious power
+which makes us expiate our shortcomings, call it anything you like."</p>
+
+<p>Michael attempted to protest, but she went on talking:</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you are going to tell me; but it won't do any good. All
+that you might say I have said to myself again and again, to convince
+myself that my belief is absurd. And what would that prove? All that we
+are not acquainted with is absurd, and we know so little! No; my remorse
+can never be overcome. No matter what you may say will not keep me from
+spending my sleepless nights puzzling things out, and thinking of
+certain dates in my recent life. When I began to be interested in you,
+my son was still alive, and I forgot him. When we were walking through
+the gardens of San Martino, he was perhaps suffering the agonies of
+hunger, and martyrdom, and I like the heroine in a novel, like a crazy
+schoolgirl, was kissing you, and making you promises! Besides, the
+arrival of the telegram the same afternoon that you were going to come,
+seemed like something definitive in my life! Don't you see the
+intervention of a superior power, the punishment for my badness?"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince tried to speak again, but in vain.<a name="page_393" id="page_393"></a></p>
+
+<p>"That is why I am avoiding you; that is why I have not replied to your
+letters. You are not to blame; but you mean remorse to me, and your
+presence recalls my crime. Besides, I know myself; I am only a poor,
+weak woman, the very personification of thoughtlessness, and neglect. If
+I were to accept you as a comrade in grief, since I am not indifferent
+to you, perhaps I might give in to what you want. And that would be
+horrible, still more horrible even than what has gone before; one of
+those offenses which people maddened by passion commit against natural
+laws. Don't try to see me; I don't want to see you. If I had been a true
+mother, thinking only of him ... who knows!... Perhaps he would still be
+alive. But some one was bent on punishing me for my unnatural conduct,
+and that some one killed him, so that I might awaken, at the very moment
+when in my shameful love, I felt myself happiest."</p>
+
+<p>Michael no longer cared to say anything. He looked at this woman with
+pity and dismay in his eyes. He recalled the Princess Lubimoff with her
+extravagant beliefs in the mysterious; and of Alicia's own mother, with
+her religious manias. Whatever he might try to say would be useless.
+That absurd and sorrowing conviction of hers had opened a gap between
+them like a gulf that could be bridged over only by time.</p>
+
+<p>The silence of the Prince caused her to lose the nervous exaltation that
+had made her express herself with such fervor.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me now," she murmured gently. "What could I do for you? I am only
+a woman now; I am an old woman, centuries old, as old as sorrow itself.
+You need a sweetheart, and I am simply a bad mother, a mother tormented
+with remorse."</p>
+
+<p>Her renunciation of the past, and the feeling that she was only a
+despairing mother caused her voice to break<a name="page_394" id="page_394"></a> with a groan, and at the
+same time her eyes filled with tears. With a timid hand Michael drew
+away the handkerchief that she had raised to her face to hide her
+weeping. He murmured incoherent phrases, with the intention of consoling
+her; but immediately he was mastered once more by anger.</p>
+
+<p>"If you really were alone," he said in bitter tones, "I could wait, and
+perhaps time would silence the after scruples that torment you. But your
+loneliness is a lie. A man enters your house at all hours as though it
+were his own, while I must go away, so that, as you say, you may recover
+your tranquillity."</p>
+
+<p>With a feminine instinct, Alicia had hastened to raise the handkerchief
+to her face again, on feeling herself free from Michael's hand. She felt
+she must be ugly with her watery eyes, her pale lips, and her nose red
+with weeping. But the words of the Prince gave her such a shock of
+surprise, such a desire to refute the offensive supposition, that she
+took the wrinkled batiste from her face.</p>
+
+<p>"You are referring to Martinez? Poor boy!"</p>
+
+<p>He was giving up the gay society of his comrades, their promenades in
+company, and even the parties to which the convalescent officers were
+invited, to come and be bored at Villa Rosa beside a woman who could do
+nothing but weep. When she wanted to come to church she had to oblige
+him to go for an hour or two to join his comrades-in-arms in the
+ante-room at the Casino. The visits of the invalided soldier meant so
+much to her. They were pure charity on his part.</p>
+
+<p>"I dream that he is my son. His age and his uniform aid in this
+illusion. You have never had any children; it is impossible for you to
+know the necessity we feel, when we have lost them, to transfer our
+bereaved affection to other beings, imagining that they look like those<a name="page_395" id="page_395"></a>
+who are gone. I need to go on being a mother, nor can I be anything
+else; and this unhappy boy never knew his own mother. He has no one in
+the world, and is as much alone as I am. Please, let me enjoy a little
+illusion wherever I can find it. The poor fellow is so grateful for my
+affection! He feels so happy beside me! Remember: he is condemned to
+death, and only maternal care, and pleasant quiet surroundings, can
+possibly prolong his days."</p>
+
+<p>She wanted to accomplish this task, perhaps for a selfish reason, to
+obliterate from her memory, with a great generous deed, all the evil she
+had done before. She wanted him to be her son, a son born of her grief,
+to whom she might devote everything that it was now impossible for her
+to do for her real son.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Michael, too, was silent, realizing the uselessness of insisting
+any further. He knew Alicia's character. Behind her plaintive voice, he
+guessed the resolute will to keep by her side that young man who
+refreshed her maternal feelings and was at the same time a means of
+consolation for the remorse which she had taken upon herself.</p>
+
+<p>The consideration of his powerlessness finally irritated him, made him
+feel a cruel desire to hurt that woman.</p>
+
+<p>"You are doing wrong, Alicia. Society is unaware of your secret. You
+know what people said before about you and your son. You laughed,
+yourself, finding such a mistake amusing. Now the equivocation continues
+with more reason. Many people imagine you have substituted another young
+man for the young man that died."</p>
+
+<p>Alicia lost her sad serenity.</p>
+
+<p>"How disgusting!" she said. "How can they think that. Poor Martinez! He
+is so good! So respectful!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she continued arrogantly:<a name="page_396" id="page_396"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Let them say what they like! I want to forget society; let society
+forget me. I am dead as far as people are concerned."</p>
+
+<p>But Michael in his spite still dwelt on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"The other man was your son, and I knew he was. This man is not, and I
+know the power of seduction that you exercise, even against your will.
+Remember 'the old men on the wall.'"</p>
+
+<p>Wherever she went, men's glances would cling to her rhythmic body; and
+that young man, that queer fellow, would finally....</p>
+
+<p>He was unable to continue.</p>
+
+<p>"You, too!" she exclaimed. "Good-by, don't come after me. I shall always
+think of you; but it is better for us not to see each other. Don't bear
+me a grudge. Perhaps some day!..." And she resolutely turned her back on
+him, and descended the steps toward the boulevard.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince remained motionless for a few minutes. Then he advanced
+toward the top step, but all he could see was a carriage with the hood
+raised, and two horses starting to trot away.</p>
+
+<p>And the meeting with Alicia he had so ardently desired had come to this!
+The feeling of spite caused him to judge himself harshly; he hadn't
+known how to talk. Later he recalled all his reasoning and his
+accusations, and felt amazed at the slight effect they had had on her.
+Yes, indeed, she was a different woman. Some one had changed her; some
+one was to blame for this absurd situation.</p>
+
+<p>He spent a great part of that night reflecting. It did not occur to him
+to blame Alicia. He even repented of his angry words. Unhappy woman! Her
+extreme over-sensitiveness was causing her to find reason for shame and
+remorse in all that she had ever done.<a name="page_397" id="page_397"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Besides, women," he continued to himself, "at the least nervous shock
+lose their logical faculty first of all."</p>
+
+<p>He felt a need of concentrating all his anger on some one besides her;
+and Michael, never imagining that he himself had lost his logical
+faculty, put the responsibility for everything on Martinez. The latter
+was the one person to blame. If he had not come between them, Alicia, on
+finding herself alone in misfortune, would have sought once more the
+support of the Prince. What a gift the "General" had made them,
+presenting this adventurer!</p>
+
+<p>His reason vainly argued that it was not the officer who was seeking
+Alicia, but the latter who was keeping him in her home, cutting him off
+from his old friendships. Lubimoff was not willing to give up his spite.
+It was Martinez and no one else who had come between them.</p>
+
+<p>Up to that time he had not paid much attention to the boy whom Toledo
+called the "hero." There were so many heroes at that moment! In his
+hatred he began to strip him of the prestige given him by his deeds and
+his misfortune, Michael saw him without his uniform, without his war
+crosses and his wounds, such as he must have been before the war; a poor
+employee, a business clerk, whose dreams of love had never gone beyond a
+milliner or a stenographer. And this was the interesting personage who
+had the temerity to face him! Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff. What
+intolerable times!</p>
+
+<p>The following day he walked about his garden all morning, resolved never
+to return to Monte Carlo. He was filled with scorn at the thought of the
+tenderness with which Alicia had spoken of her protégé. It was better
+that he should not encounter him. But in the afternoon the loneliness of
+his beautiful Villa weighed on him. It seemed deserted. Atilio, the
+pianist, and even the Colonel were all at the Casino. He, too, decided
+to go, to mingle with the crowd which was dividing its attention<a name="page_398" id="page_398"></a>
+between the hazards of war and the hazards of chance.</p>
+
+<p>In the anteroom he walked toward the groups who were gathered around the
+bulletin board reading the latest telegrams. The crowd considered the
+news good, since it was not extremely bad as on the preceding days. The
+Allies had stopped the enemy's advance, holding them at a standstill on
+the ground they had just conquered. The bombardment of Paris with long
+range guns was still continuing. And that was all.</p>
+
+<p>There was a man making comments in a loud voice. It was Toledo, who, as
+was his custom every afternoon, was giving a lecture on strategy to a
+semi-circle of admirers. With his back to the Prince, he was spouting a
+stream of clear optimism, with a simple faith that misfortune and
+reverses could not move.</p>
+
+<p>"Now they have nailed them in their tracks: they won't advance any
+farther. In a short time will be the counter-attack. I am sure of it; it
+is clear as daylight to me."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos rubbed his hands, and slyly winked one eye.</p>
+
+<p>"And the Americans are coming and coming. There are days when as many as
+ten thousand of them are landed here. A wonderful people! I have always
+said so! That fellow Wilson is a great man. I know him well."</p>
+
+<p>They all listened with delight to this voice of hope that refreshed
+their hearts before they gave themselves up to the strain and stress of
+roulette and <i>trente et quarante</i>. He talked with the authority of a man
+who has influential connections, and is informed of everything. "He knew
+Wilson," he had just said so himself. Besides, he was a
+Colonel&mdash;although none of them knew<a name="page_399" id="page_399"></a> in what army&mdash;an expert, capable of
+expressing an unfounded opinion. And many of them lost no time in
+hastening to the gambling rooms to repeat his views, as though they had
+just received some inside information.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince withdrew, afraid that his presence might put an end to that
+professional triumph of Toledo, which was repeated every day.</p>
+
+<p>As he walked about the anteroom before entering the gaming halls, he saw
+beside a column, a group of French officers, all of whom were
+convalescents. Denied the permission to go any further, because of their
+uniform, they were standing there, looking with a certain envy on the
+civilians. A few of them were standing erect, without any visible
+infirmity, with the sharp features of an eagle, aquiline nose, bold
+eyes, and wild mustache. Others, with youthful faces, were bent over
+like ailing men, leaning on canes, and wearing wrinkled uniforms much
+too large for their sunken chests. Each time they decided to move their
+legs they made a long pause as though to muster every bit of their will
+power available. Some of them had come to Monaco as incurables, after a
+long captivity in Germany. The rest came from hospitals on the firing
+line. On the faces of all of them was an expression of joyous
+bewilderment at finding themselves in this corner of the earth, that was
+like a Paradise, where people seemed to have forgotten the rest of the
+world, and women's eyes followed them with enigmatic glances, half
+amorous and half maternal!</p>
+
+<p>One of the soldiers raised his hand to his cap to salute the Prince. The
+latter looked at the yellowish color of his <i>kepis</i>, then at his uniform
+which was of the same color, and at the multi-colored line of
+decorations. It was Martinez, the lieutenant in the Foreign Legion, who
+was saluting him with a certain timidity, but pleased<a name="page_400" id="page_400"></a> at the same time
+that his comrades were seeing him on friendly terms with the famous
+personage, who was so much talked about on the Riviera.</p>
+
+<p>Michael returned his greeting mechanically and went on. That moment
+remained fixed in his memory all his life. Age and the discretion that
+accompanies it seemed to fall from him like dry bark from a tree in
+springtime. He felt as though he were back in his youth. For a few
+moments he was the same Captain Lubimoff of the imperial Guards, who had
+trampled on obstacles and braved scandal when any one opposed his will.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to look at the group of officers from a distance. That little
+insignificant Lieutenant, who looked like a bookkeeper, promoted by
+mobilization, was his enemy! It seemed as though he were seeing him for
+the first time. Lost among his companions he appeared even more
+insignificant than when he visited Villa Sirena.</p>
+
+<p>Michael remained motionless, with his glance fixed on the group. "You
+are going to do something foolish," admonished a voice within him. And
+there passed through his memory the image of stern Saldaña, kindly and
+tolerant with the weak, like every one who is sure of his strength. He
+recalled one of his sayings which had never before crossed his mind: "A
+gentleman must be kind and never take unfair advantage of his strength."
+He was sure that his father had said that to him when he was a child.
+But immediately the duality of his inner being expressed itself through
+another voice which was stronger and more imperious, a woman's voice
+like that of the other counselor of his youth: "Spend; don't deny
+yourself anything, put yourself above everybody; always remember that
+you are a Lubimoff." And he saw the dead Princess, not the Mary Stuart
+with her theatrical mourning robes, but the dominating and still
+beautiful woman, the one who had overwhelmed her<a name="page_401" id="page_401"></a> husband "the hero"
+with her rage, and turned the Paris residence upside down.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he found himself near the group of officers, and again his eyes
+met those of Martinez. The latter came toward him with a smile of
+interrogation. Michael realized that he had beckoned to the soldier,
+without being aware of what he was doing, through an impulse of will
+which seemed entirely detached from his reason.</p>
+
+<p>"So much the worse! Let's get through with the business!"</p>
+
+<p>With a certain haste, he took the young man toward the vestibule of the
+Casino as though anxious to avoid the presence of the groups who were
+filling the anteroom.</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant, I have something to say to you.... I must ... ask a favor
+of you."</p>
+
+<p>He stammered, not knowing how to express the command which he himself
+felt was absurd.</p>
+
+<p>This vacillation, together with the trembling in his voice, finally
+irritated him.</p>
+
+<p>They stopped beside the glass door at the entrance. Martinez was no
+longer smiling, as he gazed in amazement at the hard look and the pallor
+of the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"In a word," the latter said resolutely; "what I have to ask you is that
+you pay fewer visits at the house of the Duchess de Delille. If you
+should refrain entirely from going to see her, it would be even better."
+And he paused, breathing with a certain freedom, after having expressed
+this demand.</p>
+
+<p>An expression of amazement gradually took possession of Martinez' face.
+He hesitated for a moment, with his eyes fixed on Lubimoff's. No, it was
+not a jest: the hostile look of this man who had always treated him with
+amiable indifference, the sharpness of his tone, and a certain trembling
+of his right hand, indicated that he<a name="page_402" id="page_402"></a> had expressed his real thoughts,
+and that behind these thoughts lay enormous depths of hatred against
+him.</p>
+
+<p>His surprise caused him to talk with timidity. He visited the Duchess
+because the lady asked him to come and see her every day. He had often
+felt his assiduity might prove to be a nuisance, but every attempt he
+had made to break off his visits had been fruitless. He scarcely left
+her for a few hours but the good lady had him sent for. She was as kind
+to him as a mother. Suddenly his humble tone vanished. His eyes guessed
+in those of the man who had stopped him something that he himself had
+never imagined. The Lieutenant seemed transfigured, as though rising to
+the same level as the Prince. His eyes shone with the same wild splendor
+as the other man's; his body stiffened with the tension of a spring
+about to be released; his nostrils quivered nervously. The little clerk,
+with his timid bearing, recovered the air of gallant bravery of the
+fighting man. His voice sounded harsh, as he went on talking.</p>
+
+<p>He would go wherever he was asked, wherever he felt like going, without
+recognizing the right of any man to interfere in his actions. The
+Duchess was the only one who could close her door to him. Why did the
+Prince interfere in that lady's affairs without consulting her first?</p>
+
+<p>"I am related to her," said Michael, inwardly hesitating somewhat at
+making use of the relationship which he had often preferred to deny.</p>
+
+<p>They both found themselves on the other side of the entry, on the
+platform above the steps of the Casino, in the open air, opposite the
+groves of the square and the groups of passersby who were walking about
+the "Camembert." They were obliged to stand aside, in order not to
+disturb those who were entering and coming out.<a name="page_403" id="page_403"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Besides," continued the Prince, "it is my duty to shield her from
+gossip. I cannot permit that. Seeing you in there at all hours, they
+should suppose...."</p>
+
+<p>He almost regretted these words on noticing the double effect that they
+had on the young man. First he became indignant. Had any one dared
+gossip about that great lady who had been such a saint in his eyes? But
+this protest was accompanied by a certain unconscious satisfaction, by
+childish pride, as though he were flattered, in spite of everything that
+his name should be connected in absurd conjecture with that of the
+Duchess. It seemed that Martinez had just been revealed to himself,
+giving substance and a name to the obscure sentiments that until then,
+in an embryonic stage, had pulsed unrecognized within him.</p>
+
+<p>The jealous mind of the Prince guessed, with keen penetration,
+everything that the other man was thinking, and this added fuel to his
+wrath. What impudence in this little clerk to take up Alicia's defense?
+What a conceited show he was making of his love for her!</p>
+
+<p>"If any one takes the liberty of talking about the Duchess," said the
+Lieutenant, "if anybody dares to gossip because she does me the honor of
+receiving me in her home&mdash;the greatest honor in my life!&mdash;I will take it
+on my shoulders to punish whoever invents such a lie, no matter how high
+up he may be, no matter how powerful he may think himself to be!"</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff listened impatiently. Now it was Martinez daring to attack him.
+Those last words had carried a threat for him.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, the Prince felt irritated at his own clumsiness. His imprudent
+action had served merely to open this young man's eyes, and make him
+think of the possibilities of many things which he had never yet
+imagined, and which if he had imagined them, he would have cast aside<a name="page_404" id="page_404"></a>
+immediately as foolish. And now no less than the Prince Lubimoff had
+elected to show this cheap Lieutenant that, in the opinion of gossips,
+such things were possible.</p>
+
+<p>The tone in which the officer defended Alicia aroused his anger even
+more. He divined in it great pride, the vanity of a poor fellow who had
+known love adventures only in books, and who suddenly found himself in
+supposed relations with a Duchess, as the rival of a Prince. How
+glorious for an upstart!</p>
+
+<p>"Boy ..." said Lubimoff, in a hard voice.</p>
+
+<p>This simple word, which was the term in which waiters were addressed in
+the hotels, was followed by a haughty look of overwhelming superiority,
+which seemed to sweep away everything extraordinary which the war had
+given Martinez: his uniform, his decorations, and his glorious wounds.
+For the Prince the officer no longer existed: there only remained the
+poor vagabond of a few years before, wandering from one hemisphere to
+another in quest of bread. "Boy," he repeated in a tone that brought
+back all the class distinction and social gradations of dead centuries,
+so that the man whom he had accosted might realize the enormous
+separation between him and the man to whom he deigned to give advice&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Boy, let's come to the point&mdash;. And if I were to order you not to
+return to that house? And if I demand that...?"</p>
+
+<p>He was unable to finish the sentence. His threatening voice, harsh as a
+cry of command, roused the indignation of the man in uniform. To have
+faced death for three long years, among thousands of comrades who were
+now lying in the ground; to have learned to set little store on life, as
+something proved worthless at every moment on the battlefield; to have
+stripped himself forever, by dint of frightful adventures and awful
+wounds, of that fear which the instinct of self-preservation puts in
+all<a name="page_405" id="page_405"></a> beings, only to the end that now, in a pleasure resort, at the door
+of the most luxurious of gambling houses, a man, rich and powerful, but
+who had never done anything useful in his whole life, should dare to
+threaten him!...</p>
+
+<p>"You say that to me!" he said, stammering with rage. "You give orders to
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Michael felt a hand seize him by the lapel of his coat. It was like a
+bird, tremulous and aggressive, pausing for an instant in its blind
+impulse, before flying upward. He was aware of the blow that was coming,
+and raised his arm instinctively, both hands met as that of the young
+man whirled close to the face of the Prince. The latter, who was
+stronger, seized the ascending hand and held it motionless, in a firm
+grip, while at the same time he smiled in a gruesome fashion. His eyes
+contracted as his eyebrows arched in the smile. They became again the
+eyes of an Asiatic. His nostrils dilated as he breathed like a stallion.
+The remote ancestors of the Princess Lubimoff must have smiled thus in
+their moments of anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough: I consider that I have received it," he said slowly, "Name two
+friends to confer with mine!"</p>
+
+<p>And freeing that hand of Martinez, he turned his back on him, after
+making a deep bow. The movements of both men had been rapid. Only one of
+the doorkeepers, with his official cap, standing guard on the platform
+above the steps, had guessed that anything had happened; but his
+professional experience advised him to remain passive as long as there
+were no blows. He imagined that it was merely a dispute over some
+gambling affair. It would all be settled by an explanation, and
+forgotten after a winning! He had seen so many such things!</p>
+
+<p>Prince Lubimoff reënters the Casino. He crosses the vestibule and the
+anteroom holding his head high,<a name="page_406" id="page_406"></a> but without seeing any one, gazing
+straight ahead, with a faraway expression.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to him that time has suddenly been reversed, causing him to
+return to the past with one bound. He is back in his youth. He walks
+arrogantly. He is surprised that the sound of his firm tread is not
+accompanied by the tinkling of spurs and the metallic scraping of a
+saber. At the same time he begins to see imaginary faces, faces of those
+who disappeared from the earth many years ago: the Cossack who had come
+from a distant garrison in Siberia to avenge his sister; a friend in the
+same regiment as the Prince, who died from a sword thrust in his breast
+after a tumultuous supper, while Lubimoff wept, suddenly awakening from
+his homicidal intoxication; the faces of others who had been present as
+mere witnesses, but who had died and were now resurrected in his memory,
+cold and insensible to remorse and vain regrets.</p>
+
+<p>"The Colonel. Where in the devil is the Colonel!"</p>
+
+<p>He crosses the gambling room, in quest of a gray head, with a straight
+part from the forehead to the back of the neck, dividing the glistening
+hair into two shining sections. He sees it finally rising above the back
+of a divan, between two women's hats, four eyes darkly bordered as
+though in mourning, and cheeks with wrinkles filled with white and
+rose-colored enamel. A terse sentence of the Prince interrupts the
+explanations of the war news with which the Colonel had been thrilling
+the two ladies.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel, an affair of honor. I intend to fight to-morrow. Look for
+another second."</p>
+
+<p>Toledo seems disconcerted by this order. His first thought flies to
+Villa Sirena. He sees his black frock coat, the solemn vestment of honor
+ready to leave its prison. Then a cloud of doubt obscures this joyous<a name="page_407" id="page_407"></a>
+thought. A duel! Would it be fitting now that men are fighting in masses
+of millions, giving their lives for something higher and more important
+than personal hatred? His training immediately smothers this scruple. "A
+gentleman should always be at the orders of another gentleman." Besides,
+it is his Prince. And ready to fulfill his mission, he asks the name of
+the adversary.</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Martinez."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos thinks he had heard wrong; then he seems to totter and stands
+there looking at his "Highness" in a sort of stupor. Instinctively,
+without taking the pains to disentangle the confused thoughts that
+assail him, he sees in his imagination the Duchess de Delille. Why did
+the Prince ever give up his wise theories on the woman question! He
+recalls, like a happy past, the flourishing days of the "enemies of
+women"! Only four months had gone by, and it seems as though they were
+centuries. A duel right in war time&mdash;and with an officer! And that
+officer is Martinez, his hero!</p>
+
+<p>He shrugs his shoulders, bows his head, and makes a gesture denying all
+responsibility as he always does when his Prince, with a hard look on
+his face which reminds Toledo of the dead Princess in her stormy days,
+gives absurd orders.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I look for Don Atilio? He has had several affairs of honor; he
+knows what it means, and may be able to help me."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince is willing. In the bar of the private gambling rooms, he will
+wait for them both to talk over the conditions of the encounter.</p>
+
+<p>He remains motionless in a deep armchair, opposite a window gilded by
+the light of the setting sun, on which the threads of shadows, projected
+by the moving branches of the trees, weave and unweave. Suddenly it
+seems to him that he is obliged to wait an unreasonable length of<a name="page_408" id="page_408"></a> time.
+It occurs to him that Castro is not in the Casino and that Don Marcos is
+looking for him in vain. He scarcely remembers the past at all. The
+officer's figure is sunk into a gray mist which falls across his memory:
+it is no longer anything save a vague outline. The one thing that he can
+see, in sharp relief and as though looming close to his eyes, is a hand:
+a hand which is gripping his breast and rising toward his face, that no
+man ever yet had slapped. His indignation causes him to come out of his
+deep fit of distraction. To do that to him! Trying to slap Prince
+Lubimoff!</p>
+
+<p>When he raises his eyes he sees Toledo approaching, but alone, with a
+certain embarrassment, fearing in advance the anger of the Prince. The
+latter, who feels kindly and tolerant since the scene of violence on the
+stairway, guesses what he is going to say to him. He has not found
+Castro and he absolves him with a benevolent smile.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel speaks:</p>
+
+<p>"Marquis: Don Atilio refuses."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" And at the questioning glance of Lubimoff, who cannot
+understand, and who does not want to understand what he hears, Toledo
+repeats, growing more and more embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>"He refuses to be your representative. He told me to find some one else.
+He has some ideas of his own that...."</p>
+
+<p>And he hesitates to express these ideas. He stops, in order not to say
+anything which the Prince ought not to hear from his lips: and he
+accepts as a blessing the silence of amazement which comes between them;
+he is afraid to let the Prince recover from the astonishment with which
+this news has overwhelmed him.</p>
+
+<p>As he starts to go away, he proposes something which seems to him a way
+out.<a name="page_409" id="page_409"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Does your Highness want me to call Don Atilio? He will surely come.
+Perhaps the two of you talking together...."</p>
+
+<p>And he goes away in search of Castro, while Michael Fedor once more
+becomes motionless in his seat, quite unable to comprehend the
+situation.</p>
+
+<p class="cb">&nbsp; &nbsp;  *
+&nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; *
+&nbsp; &nbsp; *&nbsp; &nbsp; *</p>
+
+<p>The Prince saw Castro standing by the little table close to his chair,
+with a certain appearance of haste in his look and bearing, like a man
+who is facing a difficult situation, and anxious to get out of it as
+soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince invited him to take the nearest seat, but Castro consented
+only to sit down lightly on the arm of the chair, to indicate his desire
+that the interview be brief. Besides, he spoke first, bluntly expressing
+his thoughts, without any preamble.</p>
+
+<p>"The Colonel has doubtless told you my reply. I can't. You know very
+well that I am your friend: you even do me the honor of recognizing me
+as a relative; I owe you a great deal; but what you ask me now ... no!
+It is a piece of foolishness, madness. It all had to end like this!
+There was no other way out of it. I had a presentiment of it some time
+ago. Perhaps you were right when you talked about women as you did, and
+about the necessity of being their enemies&mdash;if such a thing is possible.
+But it doesn't do any good to bring up the past: You are no longer the
+Lubimoff who said those incoherent things. As for me I am mad, I'll
+grant you that: but you are even more so than I: and for that reason I
+can't be with you."</p>
+
+<p>Michael looked at him fixedly, without abandoning his silent immobility,
+waiting for him to go on.</p>
+
+<p>"A duel right in war time! Is there any common sense to that? You are
+the gentleman who remains quietly in his home, with all the comforts
+that the present<a name="page_410" id="page_410"></a> time can allow, without running any risk whatsoever,
+while half of humanity is weeping, starving, bleeding, or dying. And
+just because one fine day you happen to be in an ill-humor&mdash;perhaps you
+know why&mdash;you want to fight a poor boy who has survived almost by a
+miracle, and who is sick and weak from having done what you and I are
+not capable of doing. You ask me to represent you in such a piece of
+business?"</p>
+
+<p>"He insulted me&mdash;he tried to strike me. I caught his hand close to my
+face," said the Prince in a low but rancorous voice from the depths of
+his chair.</p>
+
+<p>This caused Castro to hesitate for a moment, as he had no idea of the
+importance of the clash between the two men. But his hesitation was
+brief.</p>
+
+<p>"There is something that I don't understand and that you are keeping
+silent. The very seriousness of the insult indicates that there was
+something extraordinary on your part. For that poor, respectful, and
+timid boy to dare to strike, and strike a man like you!... What did you
+do to rouse him to such a pitch?"</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff did not deign to reply. Without abandoning his frowning reserve
+he asked briefly:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, are you going to, or are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>Castro, irritated by this attitude, replied without hesitating:</p>
+
+<p>"It's all nonsense, and I refuse."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff still remained motionless at this refusal, but Atilio was sure
+he guessed the Prince's thoughts in the hostile look fixed on him. He
+was accusing him of ingratitude. At the same time he was holding the
+"General" responsible: believing that the latter must have influenced
+his decision. That Lieutenant was so greatly admired by Doña Clorinda!</p>
+
+<p>As though replying to these unexpressed ideas, Atilio went on:<a name="page_411" id="page_411"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Do you think I am interested in that boy you are bent on fighting? He
+is quite indifferent to me; I even dislike him, because of the great
+extremes to which certain women go in their admiration of his heroism.
+That is always annoying to those who are not heroes. I think how
+insignificant he must have been only four years ago. If I had met him
+then, I would have found him, I dare say, a book-keeper in some hotel,
+or a clerk in my haberdasher's in Paris. Imagine what a friend! But the
+war has swept over us, turning everything upside down, making some
+emerge, and burying others in the deepest depths, without any certainty
+of rising again. This boy happens to be somebody now. He is of more
+consequence than you or I. He has been of some use; and for me he is
+sacred, in spite of the fact that he inspires envy in me rather than
+admiration."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince finally made a gesture of protest. Then he shrugged his
+shoulders disdainfully, and sank once more into motionless silence. That
+little adventurer worth more than he, because they had punctured his
+skin in a fight or two!</p>
+
+<p>"We would never come to an understanding, even if we talked all the
+afternoon," continued Castro. "I have changed considerably, and you are
+the same man you have always been. I believe that yesterday I came to my
+'road to Damascus.' I feel to-day that I am a different man."</p>
+
+<p>And, through a certain need of expressing his great inner turmoil, he
+went on talking, without paying any attention to whether or not the
+Prince was listening to him.</p>
+
+<p>He had come to his "road of Damascus" near the Monte Carlo railway
+station, beside the tracks. He was with two ladies, in one of whom he
+was greatly interested. (Michael thought once more of Doña Clorinda.) A
+trainload of soldiers was returning from Italy; a somber<a name="page_412" id="page_412"></a> train, without
+flags and without any branches of trees adorning the doors and windows.
+They were Frenchmen. They had been sent to Italy as reënforcements,
+after the disaster of Caporetto, and now they were being hurriedly
+recalled, to defend their own soil, which was again in danger.</p>
+
+<p>"No songs and no wild merriment; they were all silent, tired and dirty,
+with an epic dirtiness. The cars were more like wild beasts' cages, with
+their pungent odors of the animal ring. The soldiers were young men but
+they looked old, with their bristling beards, spotted uniforms, and
+faces parched by the sun, hardened by the cold, and cracked and chapped
+by the wind. The heat had caused them to remove their blouses, and they
+were in flannel shirts of an undefinable color, drenched with the sweat
+of so many fatigues and so many emotions.</p>
+
+<p>"One could guess that they were the battalion always predestined to
+arrive in time to sustain the hardest shocks; the one that punctually
+appeared in the places of greatest danger, with the heroic resignation
+of the strong, who allow themselves to be exploited, and who not only do
+their own work, but help out all the others who work less. Where had
+these men not fought? On their own soil, and on that of the Allies, and
+perhaps in the Orient, and now, they were returning again to the land of
+their first combats. Just when they were thinking they had accomplished
+everything, they had discovered they had as yet done nothing. In the
+weaving and unweaving of the web of war, it was necessary to begin all
+over again. Four years before, they imagined they had triumphed
+decisively on the banks of the Marne, and now they were returning once
+more to the Marne. Every winter, sunk in the mud, buried in the
+trenches, under the rain, they said to one another: 'This will be the
+last.' And another winter came, and another, and still another<a name="page_413" id="page_413"></a> on the
+heels of the last, without any noticeable change. This was the reason
+for their fatalistic and resigned demeanor, the look of men who adapt
+themselves to everything and finally come to believe that their misery
+will be eternal, that human times of peace will never return."</p>
+
+<p>Castro stopped talking a moment and paid no attention to the face of his
+friend, which seemed to be asking what all that story had to do with
+him. "We were standing on the edge of an embankment, leaning on the
+barriers, and our heads were on a level with the men huddled in the
+carriages. The long train, the head of which had already reached the
+station, was slowly advancing. The two ladies were waving their
+handkerchiefs, smiling at the soldiers, and calling words of greeting to
+them. Many of the latter remained unmoved, looking at them with eyes of
+sleepy wild beasts. They had been greeted with ovations for four years.
+They knew realities, the terrible realities that lie beyond ovations!
+Others, young or more ardent, aroused themselves at the sight of these
+two elegant women. Electrified by their smiles, they stood erect,
+passing a hand over their wrinkled flannels, and threw kisses, trying to
+recover their gentleness of the days when they were not soldiers.
+Suddenly, one of those who were passing, forgot the women and noticed
+me, also waving my hat to them, and shouting hurrah. He was a sort of
+red-haired, bitter devil."</p>
+
+<p>Castro could still see him, as though his head were peering through one
+of the bar-room windows; perhaps he would be able to see, as long as he
+lived, the whitish parchment of the man's face, drawn across his
+prominent cheek-bones; his red beard hanging from his jaws, as though it
+were a piece of make-up, and above all, his insolent, sarcastic eyes, a
+muddy green color, like that of oysters. He was the soldier who
+criticizes, grumbles, and talks against the officers, while carrying out
+their orders.<a name="page_414" id="page_414"></a> In civil life he must have been the disagreeable rebel
+who never approves of anything. As his eyes met those of Castro, the
+latter had a feeling of repulsion. He divined the man with whom one
+always clashes in the street, in the cars, and in the theater. And
+nevertheless, he would never forget his momentary meeting with that
+soldier who was passing and was disappearing in the distance, with only
+just enough time to say six words.</p>
+
+<p>He gave the two women a scornful, ironic smile&mdash;then another at Castro,
+who was still waving his hat, and pointed to the end of the carriage,
+shouting to him:</p>
+
+<p>"There's still room for one more!"</p>
+
+<p>And that was all he said.</p>
+
+<p>"He said enough, Michael. Since then I keep hearing his harsh voice: I
+shall always hear it, in my happiest moments, if I remain here. And the
+look in his eyes? I understood all the mute insults, the rapid
+comparisons that he made between his misery and my strong, well-groomed
+appearance. For him I was a coward gallivanting with women, when men are
+with men, giving their lives for something of importance."</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! You are a foreigner," interrupted the Prince, who seemed wearied
+by his friend's words.</p>
+
+<p>"I live here; and the land where I live cannot be foreign to me. This
+war is for something more than questions of land; it concerns all men.
+Look at the Americans, whom we all considered very practical and
+incapable of idealism; they know that they are not going to gain
+anything positive; and nevertheless they are entering the struggle with
+all their might. Besides, there is the spirit of the women. Would you
+imagine that the two that were with me laughed at the red-headed
+fellow's insult, considering it very apropos? And don't tell me that
+women are always attracted by the warrior, on every occasion. Perhaps by
+the warrior in peace times, shiny<a name="page_415" id="page_415"></a> and beplumed. But these fellows now
+look so miserable! No; there is something very lofty in everything that
+surrounds us, something that you and I have not been able to see,
+because of our selfishness."</p>
+
+<p>His listener once more shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of
+indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"And when I think of my meeting yesterday, as I constantly am doing, and
+see the place that that damned redhead offered me jokingly, as though I
+were a woman, and as though I would never have the courage to take it,
+you propose that I arrange for a deadly combat with another of these men
+who consider themselves, not without reason, superior to us! No; now you
+know my answer: I won't accept."</p>
+
+<p>He had left the arm of the chair and was standing, facing the Prince.
+The latter made a gesture of weariness. He was bored by Atilio's words,
+by that childlike story about the train, the red-haired soldier and his
+insolent invitation. That might move Doña Clorinda, but nobody else; he
+had more important things to think about just then. And since he refused
+to do him the favor, he could leave him alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, Michael!" said Castro, with the conviction that this farewell
+was going to be something more than a momentary parting.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by," replied the Prince, without stirring.</p>
+
+<p>When he had almost reached the door, Atilio turned back.</p>
+
+<p>"I know what my refusal means, and what it is up to me to do. Good-by
+again. Remember that if you were to ask me anything else...."</p>
+
+<p>But the Prince interrupted his words with another gesture of
+indifference, and Atilio went away, hiding his emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately Don Marcos entered the bar, as though<a name="page_416" id="page_416"></a> he had been waiting
+on the other side of the curtain for Castro to come out. His
+"chamberlain" had never seemed to the Prince so active and intelligent.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all arranged, Marquis."</p>
+
+<p>As he had felt certain that Atilio would not allow himself to be
+persuaded, he had gone in search of another second. He thought for a
+moment of going to Monaco, to speak to Novoa. Then he remembered the
+professor's relations with Valeria. Such a visit would be equivalent to
+informing the Duchess of the entire affair. Besides, the scientist did
+not know anything about such matters, and was a fellow countryman of
+Martinez. It was quite enough that one Spaniard should figure in this
+affair.</p>
+
+<p>"I have my second," he continued. "It will be Lord Lewis."</p>
+
+<p>In the Colonel's eyes, Lewis was more of a Lord than ever. He was
+thankful for the promptness with which he had granted his request. The
+Englishman was winning money that afternoon, and was in an excellent
+humor. He even got up from his seat, leaving the gambling, to listen to
+the Colonel. He wanted to take him over to the bar, affirming that with
+a whiskey in front of a fellow he can talk better; and Toledo guessed
+from his breath that he had already taken several drinks to celebrate
+his good luck. Lewis was disposed to serve his friend Lubimoff. As far
+as fights were concerned, he was acquainted only with boxing; but he had
+absolute confidence in the Colonel's expert opinion and would support
+anything he might say. Immediately afterwards he had returned to his
+play.</p>
+
+<p>Michael gave Toledo his instructions. It would be an encounter under
+rigorous conditions, like those which he had witnessed in Russia. It
+could be nothing else: he had received a blow. And he said this with a
+sullen<a name="page_417" id="page_417"></a> voice, quite convinced of the absolute reality of the insult.</p>
+
+<p>As night fell, he left the Casino, avoiding his acquaintances who were
+invading the bar, and obliging him to smile and keep up frivolous
+conversation, while his thoughts were far away.</p>
+
+<p>In all his moments of profound anger, when unable to put his feelings
+into immediate and violent action, his nervous excitation was followed
+by a certain lassitude which caused his muscles and nerves to relax.</p>
+
+<p>It was with a real pleasure that he entered Villa Sirena, finding an
+unwonted voluptuousness in all the details of its comforts. He spent the
+time he was waiting for the Colonel in reading. At nine o'clock he was
+obliged to eat alone. Then he returned to his book, but this time in his
+bedroom, finally lying down, book in hand. He smiled with a smile that
+was almost a grimace, as he thought that his nervous fatigue had caused
+him to stretch out in the same posture as the dead.</p>
+
+<p>He went on turning the pages without losing a single line, and
+nevertheless he could not have told what he was reading. Suddenly, he
+concentrated his attention in an effort to remember. Something had
+happened; something was awaiting him. What was it? "Oh, yes!" And after
+reconstructing in his memory what had taken place that afternoon, and
+imagining what was to take place the following day, he returned to his
+meaningless reading.</p>
+
+<p>The pages melted away like snowflakes; he felt his hand grow lighter;
+the book finally fell on the bed. Instinctively he sought the electric
+button to darken the room, and before completely losing all perception
+of the outer world, he could hear his own first regular breathing.</p>
+
+<p>A light striking against his eyes made him sit up. He saw the Colonel
+beside his bed. The deep silence of the<a name="page_418" id="page_418"></a> night, which seemed even more
+absolute when emphasized by the sound of the sea, was broken off by the
+panting of a motor-car.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince rubbed his eyes. What time was it?</p>
+
+<p>"One o'clock," said Don Marcos.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was arranged. The meeting was to take place on the following
+day, at two o'clock in the afternoon. It could not be managed earlier!
+There were still a great many things left to be done. The place selected
+was Lewis' castle; an encounter in the principality of Monaco would be
+impossible. All the houses there were close together, without a single
+quiet spot where two men might face each other, pistol in hand.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff almost jumped out of bed, so great was his surprise. The choice
+of arms was his, as the injured person, and he had mentioned to his
+representative the saber, the favorite weapon of his youthful duels.
+Toledo, for the first time faced the furious look of his Prince without
+a tremor.</p>
+
+<p>"Marquis," he said with dignity. "It could not be anything else! You
+must remember that this poor young man is a convalescent, almost an
+invalid. I am astonished that he should have persuaded his seconds to
+allow even pistols. His representatives did not want to accept anything.
+They are among those who feel that this duel ought not to take place."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince calmed himself. A sense of equity caused him to accept
+Toledo's decision. That sick fellow was not an enemy worthy of his
+saber; it was necessary to establish a certain equality between them,
+and the pistol would do that, being the only weapon that lends itself to
+surprises and whims of chance.</p>
+
+<p>"At any event I shall kill him," thought Michael, remembering his skill
+as a marksman.</p>
+
+<p>"I must tell your Highness," the Colonel went on, "that<a name="page_419" id="page_419"></a> all weapons are
+the same to him. This young man and his two friends are well acquainted
+with everything that concerns warfare, but they haven't the slightest
+notion of duelling and the weapons that are used on such occasions."</p>
+
+<p>Then he enumerated the conditions. The distance was to be fifteen
+meters; each one was to fire a single shot, but each might aim and fire
+while he, who was to direct the combat, was counting from one to three.
+With a marksman like the Prince, such conditions would be serious.</p>
+
+<p>Exactly! The Prince found them acceptable.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night," he said, burying himself in the bed, and pulling the
+coverlet up to his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Once more sleep overwhelmed him, now that his curiosity was satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo would have liked to do the same, but he was obliged to fulfill
+the sacred duties of his exalted position, and he went from room to room
+looking through every drawer and climbing on chairs to rummage around on
+the top shelves of the closets. He was looking for a box of duelling
+pistols, that had been given to him in Russia by one of the Generals who
+was a friend of the dead Marquis. When he finally found it, he was
+obliged to spend more than an hour in cleaning the luxurious weapons,
+which had lost their silvery brilliancy in the oblivion of their long
+confinement.</p>
+
+<p>He felt tired, yet at the same time his feeling of importance warded off
+sleep. Was he not the soul of the drama which was being prepared for the
+following day, he alone? Without him, neither his Highness nor Martinez
+could fight. Lord Lewis and the two soldiers who represented the
+adversary were incapable of a single idea, and had to follow him as
+though they were his pupils.</p>
+
+<p>Consciousness of this superiority caused him to recall<a name="page_420" id="page_420"></a> from
+mid-afternoon to mid-night all his past negotiations and triumphs.</p>
+
+<p>He had gone in quest of Martinez, with a certain hesitation. In spite of
+his old beliefs, he felt Atilio's protests were quite reasonable.
+Perhaps what he said was right, that this duel was a piece of
+foolishness, madness even, on the part of the Prince. But his
+traditional ideas revolted against such scruples.</p>
+
+<p>"Honor is honor." And, hearing the Lieutenant accept reparation by arms,
+with joy, and with a certain haste, as though he were afraid that Toledo
+would repent and withdraw the proposal, the Colonel felt the
+satisfaction of a person who, after long hesitation, becomes convinced
+that he is in the right. Heroic youth, ready to maintain all points of
+honor! Don Marcos found it natural that he should act thus. Martinez was
+from the same land as himself!</p>
+
+<p>For a moment his memory dwelt on the image of the Duchess. Perhaps she
+was the involuntary cause of this clash, and the boy was animated by a
+feeling of vanity. He was going to figure in a duel such as he had read
+about in the story books of his youth; he was going to be a chief actor
+in one of those dreams of high life that seemed to him to belong to
+another world. But the Colonel immediately put aside such speculations,
+which had been suggested by the frank rejoicing with which Martinez
+accepted the challenge, as though it were an invitation to a party.</p>
+
+<p>From that moment on Toledo began to be more and more bewildered. The
+world had changed, changed completely, and he advanced from amazement to
+amazement.</p>
+
+<p>To favor his compatriot, he wanted to know the arms for which the latter
+had a preference.</p>
+
+<p>"I am acquainted with so many!" exclaimed Martinez.</p>
+
+<p>In an attack he had wounded with the point of a saber<a name="page_421" id="page_421"></a> a gigantic German
+who was threatening him with his bayonet. The thrust had met something
+hard that crunched, and spurted a shower of blood into his face. Then,
+on growing calm, he saw that he had driven the weapon through his
+adversary's mouth, breaking his spinal column. He was also acquainted
+with the revolver, but was not a marksman. He was more expert with other
+weapons: the hand grenade, which reminded him of youthful ball games;
+the machine gun, which he had handled as a mere aid; explosive hurled
+with a sling. He was even fairly skilled in artillery, but trench
+artillery, in loading short range mortars, used in firing torpedoes and
+asphyxiating projectiles into the neighboring trench!</p>
+
+<p>He smiled scornfully when Don Marcos insisted on the fencing formalities
+to be employed with the saber. He had his own style of fencing; to go
+straight up to the enemy and strike first. But in hand to hand fighting
+he preferred the knife. With a revolver he had never bothered about
+aiming. He didn't fire until he found himself close to the enemy, and
+was sure of his shot.</p>
+
+<p>"And the duelling pistol?" asked the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not acquainted with it at all. I should like to see one: it must
+be something curious."</p>
+
+<p>Toledo's hesitating glance wandered over the officer's breast, as though
+taking an inventory of his decorations, pausing at the stars that dotted
+the striped ribbons of his War Cross. Each one of them symbolized a
+great deed.</p>
+
+<p>When the Lieutenant presented his seconds, the bewilderment of Don
+Marcos was not relieved. They were two extremely young captains. Toledo
+guessed they were twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. Their uniforms
+fitting very tight about the waist, their kepis of the latest style,
+their neatness and elegance pleased the Colonel, who immediately took
+them to be professional soldiers. They must have come from the school of
+Saint-Cyr;<a name="page_422" id="page_422"></a> his professional eye could not be mistaken; they were of a
+different stock from humble Martinez!</p>
+
+<p>One of them had had his face burned on one side by German liquid fire:
+the other's face was burrowed with a network of scarlet threads, which
+were the remains of scars. They both limped; one of them, with an
+enormous foot covered with wrappings and shod with a felt shoe, was
+quite frankly leaning on a stick; while his companion, who had a stiff
+leg, wore a trim tiny shoe, displaying a certain vanity also in a
+slender rattan cane, which he really used for support.</p>
+
+<p>Their first words were rather embarrassing for the Colonel and Lewis.
+What was the meaning of this, a civilian daring to insult a soldier who
+was recovering from his wounds? What was the idea in proposing a duel in
+the midst of war? Any one who wanted to die himself or kill someone else
+had only to go to the front, like the rest. But Martinez, who was still
+present, intervened, entering into a rapid discussion with them. Did
+they want to do him this favor he had asked them as comrades, or not?
+Yes, but they were giving their own opinion of the matter. In their
+judgment the logical thing would have been to put an end to the quarrel
+right there on the Casino steps: two good punches at that slacker who
+wasn't going to war and took the liberty of annoying those who were
+doing their duty! They talked like men thoroughly aware of the fragility
+of life, like men who know how easy it is to take another man's life, or
+to lose one's. They laughed instinctively at the importance, the
+ceremonies and the so-called "equities" with which in peace times a
+private encounter is surrounded. But in the end, since their comrade
+insisted on their representing him in this farce, they would do it to
+please him, even though their compliance might get them into the guard
+house.<a name="page_423" id="page_423"></a></p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had Martinez withdrawn, when one of the Captains, the one with
+the elephantine foot in a felt shoe, confessed his lack of competence in
+such matters.</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw a duel in Bordeaux. I have no idea what it's like. Before
+the war I was a traveling salesman in Mexico. Wine was my line. I sailed
+with all the Frenchmen who were living there, and by a miracle we were
+not captured by a <i>Boche</i> pirate. I started in as a second class
+private; but I did what I could. If it were a business matter I would
+give my opinion, but in a thing like this!... Perhaps my comrade here."
+Another Martinez! Don Marcos forgot the Captain with the felt shoe. He
+was the Lewis of the opposite side. He concentrated all his attention on
+the Captain with the shiny boots and the toy cane. The latter must be an
+adversary worthy of him. It was a shame that his clear eyes should have
+the ironical expression of a man who makes a joke of everything, and
+that under his red mustache, trimmed short, in the English fashion,
+there should flit a faint look of insolence!</p>
+
+<p>He was born in Paris, as he proudly declared as soon as he started to
+speak; and when Don Marcos slyly sounded him to find out whether or not
+he was an expert in affairs of honor and had witnessed many duels, he
+said in a simple way:</p>
+
+<p>"More than a hundred."</p>
+
+<p>Toledo had not been mistaken. This was the man with whom he would have
+the struggle. Then he thought of the number, and compared it with the
+Captain's age. More than a hundred, and surely he was not over
+twenty-six! He had a presentiment that he was going to be up against
+some famous swordsman, whose glorious name has been momentarily obscured
+by the war.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain and the Colonel were the only ones to do any talking. In the
+beginning the Captain had had an<a name="page_424" id="page_424"></a> air of jesting, with a Parisian sense
+of humor, at the solemn, high-sounding terms in which Don Marcos treated
+questions of honor. But the Colonel's reserved and persistent
+grandiloquence finally got the better of the other's inclination to
+banter. The young Captain took the same tone as the Colonel, finally
+interested in the affair and recognizing its importance.</p>
+
+<p>At certain moments, the Colonel felt doubtful on listening to the way in
+which his rival formulated amazing heresies, revealing absolute
+ignorance of the great authorities who have codified the laws of
+encounters between gentlemen. And this man had been present at more than
+a hundred duels! Later, Don Marcos was amazed at the promptness with
+which the texts he had cited himself were appropriated by the young man;
+at the ease with which his classics had been assimilated, somewhat
+inverted in meaning, to be sure, the better to sustain affirmations
+contrary to his own.</p>
+
+<p>When the encounter was arranged for in its slightest details, the
+Captain summed up his impressions with a simplicity that made the blood
+of Don Marcos run cold.</p>
+
+<p>"One or both perhaps will be wounded. There is nothing extraordinary
+about that. Who isn't wounded these days? Surgery has made great
+progress; it is quite different from what it was at the beginning of the
+war. If a man doesn't die on the spot, he is nearly always saved.
+Besides, they will put them to bed and they won't remain abandoned on
+the field for days and days, as happens in war."</p>
+
+<p>But the placid expression with which he talked about wounds was clouded
+over, giving way to a grim look.</p>
+
+<p>"I am assuming, of course," he continued, "that no one is killed.
+Because if, for example, my comrade, Martinez, who is as gentle as a
+lamb and of whom I am very fond, should die in this farce, I'll kill
+your Prince on the<a name="page_425" id="page_425"></a> spot, without any rules whatsoever, the way we kill
+a <i>Boche</i> at the front."</p>
+
+<p>The tone in which he said these words was so sincere, that the Colonel,
+deeply impressed by them, did not observe how strange they sounded in
+the mouth of an expert in the laws of honor.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation became more intimate and cordial as always happens when
+a difficult matter has been settled. Toledo was obliged to tell them
+about his life as a soldier&mdash;at least the way he imagined it had been,
+after so many years&mdash;and both young men, who had witnessed the combats
+of millions of men, showed the same interest as children listening to a
+strange tale, as he related obscure encounters in the mountains, battles
+that did not even have a name and were remembered only in an exaggerated
+fashion by Don Marcos himself.</p>
+
+<p>The Parisian Captain, elegant and charming, also talked about his past.</p>
+
+<p>"As for me, before the war, I worked in the Box Office of the theaters
+on the Boulevard. I haven't any other position."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos had to make an effort to conceal his surprise. Indeed, he had
+seen more than a hundred duels; but in plays on the stage, between
+actors, who draw out the preliminaries of the encounters with
+ceremonious deliberation, in order to prolong the suspense of the
+audience. He should have guessed it on hearing his nonsense! What a fool
+that boy had made of him!</p>
+
+<p>But immediately his eyes fell on the coats of the two young men. The
+same as Martinez: The Legion of Honor, the Military Medal and the War
+Cross, with stars. That of the former ticket seller was even crossed by
+a golden palm.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, indeed! The world had changed. Where were the days of Don Marcos?
+Then he thought of all he had<a name="page_426" id="page_426"></a> done in his life to increase his own self
+esteem; by appearing in full ceremony at various duels where most often
+no blood was shed. He also thought of what these young men had done and
+seen in less than four years. Their obscure origin brought to his memory
+the various warriors of Napoleon, whose names were celebrated and whose
+origin had been even worse. Some of them had succeeded in becoming
+kings, while these poor Captains once the war was over, would have to
+return, laden with glory, to their former occupations, struggling day by
+day to earn their bread!</p>
+
+<p>They separated, agreeing to meet after dinner, to sign the paper stating
+the conditions of the encounter. They were all four in accord, but on
+mentioning this number, Toledo noticed that there were only three. Lewis
+had witnessed the long preliminaries with a certain impatience, seated
+on a divan in the ante-room of the Casino.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a friend waiting for me. I'll be back in a moment."</p>
+
+<p>And he had entered the gambling rooms, which were forbidden to the
+officers.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel had no illusions as to the duration of that moment, about
+two hours having passed. After leaving the Captains, he found Lewis at a
+<i>trente et quarante</i> table, with a heap of thousand franc chips in front
+of him. Of course he did not understand what Toledo whispered in his
+ear. He had to make an effort to recall.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, the matter of the duel! I have every confidence in you; do
+whatever you please, I shall sign what you give me, but I am not going
+to get up, even though they might tell me Lubimoff was dead. What a day
+this has been, my friends! If they were all like this!"</p>
+
+<p>And he turned his back, to make the most of his time, before the flight
+of luck would change.<a name="page_427" id="page_427"></a></p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos had dined in the Café de Paris, going over in his mind the
+various articles he should put in the dueling agreement. The
+consideration that they were all relying on his superior knowledge
+caused him to be very exacting with himself. He wanted something concise
+and brilliant which would inspire respect in those boys, who were
+covered with glory. And he spent more than an hour, with the dessert
+dishes in front of him on the table, scribbling over sheet after sheet
+of paper, tearing each one up and beginning all over again on another.
+It was futile work: both signed in the reading room of the Casino,
+hardly giving the eloquent text a glance. As for Lewis he was obliged to
+get him out of the private gambling rooms by every sort of trick, and
+entreaty. The Englishman had forgotten to dine, in order not to offend
+Madame Fortune by his absence, and that stubborn Colonel came and
+disturbed him with his damned affair of the duel!</p>
+
+<p>He signed the document without looking at it; he gave his word to the
+officers that he would come and get them in an automobile to take them
+to his castle. Then he ran away immediately, not without first saying to
+Don Marcos in a gruff tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Until four o'clock, no later! If it isn't all over at four, I'll let
+them kill each other alone and come back here. That's the hour that the
+fine deals commence. To-day's luck is going to continue."</p>
+
+<p>And he fled, smiling with pity on people who were occupied with less
+important things.</p>
+
+<p>On finding himself alone, the Colonel began to make preparations for the
+encounter. He needed a doctor. He would go next morning and find an old
+physician in Monte Carlo who visited the Prince from time to time. He
+needed powder and balls; he proposed to go in quest<a name="page_428" id="page_428"></a> of them to-morrow
+also. He needed two cases of pistols, and he had only one!</p>
+
+<p>The matter of the two cases he considered essential. The other man's
+seconds did not know where to get theirs. No matter; he would find them
+one. The indispensable thing was that there should be two, so that fate
+might decide which they should use. Without that, the conditions would
+not be equal. And he spent the time until about one o'clock in the
+morning, asking hotel employees, rousing people out of bed, going down
+to the rooms of the Sporting Club, until an American whom he knew gave
+him a note for a certain fellow-countryman, a gloomy, half crazy fellow,
+who lived in an isolated villa on Cap-Ferrat. He thought he would
+conclude this negotiation the following day; and to do so he had rented
+an automobile.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to the lack of vehicles and gas, the cost of the car was enormous;
+but it was necessary owing to the importance of his functions.</p>
+
+<p>But now he was in Villa Sirena, at two o'clock in the morning, slowly
+cleaning the pistols, as though they were fragile jewels.</p>
+
+<p>In the silence of his bedroom, far from mankind, influenced by the
+lonely mystery of the small hours of the night, which puts a certain
+vagueness in things and ideas, he felt an enormous self-aggrandizement.
+No; his world had not changed as much as he thought. The proof was that
+he was there, cleaning weapons for a duel!</p>
+
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>On waking up the next morning, the Prince could not find his
+"chamberlain". The rented auto had carried him off at seven o'clock, to
+complete his preparations.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff wandered about the gardens, stopping in front of the cages,
+which sheltered various exotic birds. Then with an absent-minded look,
+he followed the evolutions<a name="page_429" id="page_429"></a> of various peacocks, spreading their tails,
+colored blue and golden, or a royal black, in the sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>His old valet interrupted his promenade. Some men had come with a truck
+to get Señor Castro's baggage.</p>
+
+<p>Michael showed no surprise; they might hand over everything to them that
+belonged to Don Atilio. But the servant added that the same men also
+wanted to take away the little that belonged to Señor Spadoni, news
+which amazed the Prince. He, too! What reason had Spadoni to desert him?</p>
+
+<p>He glanced at the brief note written to the Colonel and signed by them
+both. In his flight, Castro was taking with him the dreamy pianist.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," he thought; "let them all leave; let them leave me alone.
+If they think that by doing so they are going to make me refrain from
+carrying out my intention!..."</p>
+
+<p>Then he resumed his walk.</p>
+
+<p>Only a few hours remained before he would find himself facing that young
+man whom he so hated. He was going coldly to do away with him, so that
+he would not continue to be a nuisance. The conditions planned by the
+Colonel were sufficient for a marksman of his skill to bring down his
+adversary. He needed only a single shot.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he thought of going to the end of the gardens, where he
+sometimes passed the time shooting. It was a good idea that he should
+practise steadiness of hand&mdash;the pistol is full of surprises. Then he
+decided not to, as it seemed unworthy that he should add these
+preparations to his evident superiority. His mediocre adversary could
+not be practising at that time. He had no facilities for doing so in
+Monte Carlo where he had no other friends than his convalescent comrades
+and a few ladies. He, on the other hand!... he held out his muscular
+arm, keeping it rigid for a few seconds with<a name="page_430" id="page_430"></a> his eye glued on his fist.
+There was not the slightest tremor! He would be able to place a ball
+wherever he wanted. Poor Martinez might consider himself a dead man. And
+not the slightest sign of remorse disturbed the Prince's infernal pride
+in his implacable strength.</p>
+
+<p>His consciousness of superiority was so great and his certainty in the
+result so absolute, that he finally began to feel some doubt, that
+feeling of uneasiness which is inspired by the mystery of things still
+to be accomplished. Suddenly there came crowding into his memory stories
+of combats in which the weak unexpectedly triumphed over the strong,
+through an obscure mandate of inherent justice. He recalled many novels
+in which the reader draws a sigh of relief on seeing that the hero,
+modest and agreeable, placed in danger of death by the "villain," who is
+stronger and wickeder than he, not only saves his own life, but in
+addition kills his adversary, through some happy chance; all of which
+goes to show the existence of some superior and just power which on most
+occasions seems asleep, but at certain moments awakens, giving each
+person what he deserves. Since the time of David, the little barefoot
+shepherd, killing with a stone the huge giant clad in bronze, humanity
+has enjoyed such stories.</p>
+
+<p>Pistols are capricious weapons, and lend themselves to the absurd
+determinations of fate. Might he not fall, with all his skill, at the
+poor Lieutenant's first shot?</p>
+
+<p>He held out his arm again, as before, looking at his clenched first.
+Then he smiled, with the smile of his ancestors, which gave his features
+a Mongolian ugliness. Mere traditional fiction, inventions of story
+writers, to flatter the public in a sentimental love of equality! The
+strong are always the strong. Within a few hours he would sweep that
+nuisance out of the way, calmly and without remorse, the way superior
+men always act.</p>
+
+<p>A roaring sound coming from the railway line drew<a name="page_431" id="page_431"></a> him from his
+thoughts. It was a trainload of soldiers approaching, like all the
+others, with an ovation of shouts, acclamations and whistling. It was
+rolling along towards Italy, in the direction opposite to that of the
+numerous trains coming to the French front. The Prince walked over to a
+garden terrace, the stone flower-covered wall of which descended to the
+track. The cars seemed to pass of their own will before his eyes,
+showing him one side as they rounded the curve, and then the other as
+they reached another curve, where they were lost to view.</p>
+
+<p>The uniform of these combatants puzzled the Prince for a moment, as an
+unexpected novelty. They were dressed in dark blue serge, with their
+blouses open at the neck, and sleeves rolled up. On their heads they
+wore white caps with the brims turned up all around, like the little
+paper boats that children make.</p>
+
+<p>He finally recognized them: they were sailors from the United States, a
+battalion, sailors from the fleet, going to Italy so that the Stars and
+Stripes might represent the huge republic on the icy summits of the Alps
+and on the hot marshy plains of Venetia.</p>
+
+<p>With the rapidity of mental visions, which reveal, one superimposed upon
+the other but nevertheless distinct, a great number of diverse images,
+the Prince recalled the harbors of North America which he had visited in
+his youth, aquatic beehives, gathering together all the work and riches
+of the earth; monstrous, interminable cities, with populations as large
+as nations, and in which liberty and well-being seemed to have reached
+their highest limits.... And these men were leaving the comforts of a
+scientifically organized existence, their productive business, their
+amply remunerative work, their immediate hopes of wealth, perhaps to die
+for an ideal in the Old World, merely for an ideal, since they were not
+seeking new strips of land nor indemnities for their country! And<a name="page_432" id="page_432"></a> until
+then, the average person had considered this country as the most
+materialistic, the least poetic and idealist of all nations, calling it
+the land of the dollar!... It was true that unselfish ideals were
+something more than words, since millions of men were coming across the
+sea to give their blood for them!</p>
+
+<p>The sailors, after passing through the city of Monte Carlo, where they
+were greeted with cheers and waving flags, were entering the open
+country, where their shouts faded away with no answering echoes. For
+this reason their attention was attracted by that flowering terrace and
+the man appearing above it. It was like a procession on review: the
+carriages, one by one, came to life as they passed the Prince. From all
+the car windows arms with sleeves rolled up projected, shaking white
+caps. On the car roofs, a few strapping lads were gesticulating, with
+arms and legs extended, while the wind rippled in the folds of their
+dark trousers, above the white leggings. More than a thousand throats
+greeted the solitary man on the terrace with gay whistling, hurrahs, or
+unintelligible cries, which gave vent to the exuberant feelings of those
+youths, hungry for danger and glory, full of joy and curiosity, as they
+passed through an Old World which to them was new.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff remained motionless, with his elbows on the railing, and his
+chin in one hand, as though he did not see that pent-up river of men,
+gliding along below his feet. The gay sailors, as they passed, turned
+their heads, repeating their shouts and greetings, as though anxious to
+awaken that human figure, rigid and clinging to the balustrade as though
+forming a part of its decoration.</p>
+
+<p>He had completely forgotten the thoughts and worries of a moment before.
+All he saw was that torrent of young men rushing to meet danger and
+death for certain ideals as simple and beautiful as their blossoming
+youth.<a name="page_433" id="page_433"></a> They were coming from the other side of the earth with that
+naïve faith that accomplishes the great miracles of history; and in the
+meantime, Prince Lubimoff, who, by dint of seeking after superior ideas
+and exquisite sensations, had finally come to believe in nothing, was
+there at his garden rail, calculating the surest means of killing a man,
+a man who was useful, like those who were passing.</p>
+
+<p>Castro's image arose in his mind. He, too, had witnessed two days
+before, the passing of a train. He recalled the impression so deep and
+powerful that had impelled him to leave Villa Sirena, and break with his
+relative. He could see, just as it had been described to him, the bitter
+look of that red-headed soldier insulting him with scorn.</p>
+
+<p>"There's room here for one more!"</p>
+
+<p>The American sailors continued their whistling, and their exuberantly
+youthful shouting; but it seemed to him that these voices and waving of
+hands said the same as the other man's words, inviting him with ironical
+politeness: "Come; there's a place here for you!" A little later, and
+the voices were dumb, but he could still hear them, deep in his soul,
+like the far-off booming of a bell. He had considered himself a brave
+man, who as a matter of distinction, of sophistication, of refined
+indifference, preferred to keep aloof from things which rouse enthusiasm
+in other mortals. But the far-off tolling of the bell protested, ringing
+in his ear, repeating a single word: "Coward! Coward!"</p>
+
+<p>He walked about the garden in a pensive mood until Toledo arrived in the
+afternoon. They had lunch in a hurry, and the Colonel made several
+recommendations. His knowledge of dueling matters, which has as many
+branches as the tree of science, touched in one of its ramifications on
+cooking. The Prince should not take any wine; since he must keep his
+hand steady. And<a name="page_434" id="page_434"></a> as the Colonel said this he was praying inside that
+the bullets would all go astray, since both contestants inspired an
+equal interest in him. Some soft boiled eggs, nothing more; and not much
+liquid. At the last moment he should remember to empty his bladder. A
+terrible thing a wound with internal leakage! Nothing escaped the
+Colonel&mdash;he thought of everything.</p>
+
+<p>He went up to his room to put on the frock coat he wore at duels. The
+moment for officiating had arrived. He remained hesitating in front of
+the mirror, realizing the lack of harmony between this majestic garment
+and the derby that topped off his appearance. Oh, the war! He smiled at
+the absurd thought of presenting himself thus four years before&mdash;it
+seemed like four centuries&mdash;in those Paris duels, in which the seconds
+and adversaries felt that it was only decent to go to meet death with an
+elegant, shiny, high hat.</p>
+
+<p>Having omitted this solemn touch, he felt that he might look somewhat
+ridiculous sitting in the automobile beside the Prince, with his long
+frock coat and the two pistol cases on his knees.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage stopped in the Boulevard des Moulins, in front of the
+doctor's house. Wounded soldiers were passing, some with fixed stares,
+tapping the pavement in front of them with sticks, others tottering
+along out of weakness or owing to an amputation.</p>
+
+<p>A woman's voice, smooth and sweet, greeted the Prince. It was the voice
+of an extremely slender nurse, who was walking arm and arm with two
+blind officers. Michael and Don Marcos recognized Lewis' niece. She
+smiled at them, showing them the two strapping Englishmen whom she was
+serving as a guide; two fair-haired Apollos, tanned by the sun, with
+Roman profiles, shining teeth, and lithe bodies, strong and symmetrical,
+but with vacant eyes&mdash;like fires that have gone out&mdash;and a tragic<a name="page_435" id="page_435"></a>
+expression on their lips, an expression of despair and protest at
+finding themselves dead in the midst of life.</p>
+
+<p>"They are my two 'crushes'. How do you like them?" She was jesting in
+order to cheer up her companions, with that joyousness and daring of a
+Virgin Dolorosa, passing through the world scattering pale rays of
+Northern sunlight in the ambulances and hospitals. She seemed to be made
+entirely of the same stuff as the sacramental Host, fragile, anæmic,
+white and transparent, like dim crystal. And she went away, guiding like
+children the two blind men, despairing and handsome, whose heads towered
+above her own. A slight pressure of their fingers would have been enough
+to crush that body, like an alabaster lamp, all light, of no more
+substance than was necessary to guard the inner flame and cause it to
+shine through.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, Lady Lewis!" said the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos started on hearing his voice; it was a solemn voice such as
+he had never heard, a tremulous voice like a sentimental song in the
+depths of which lay teardrops.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor laid his surgical case on the frayed carpet in the auto.
+There were three such cases now. It was not until then that the Colonel
+decided to relieve himself of the two precious boxes, placing them on
+top of the doctor's.</p>
+
+<p>The car started off up the mountain, by a road that rose in sharp
+zigzags. At the end of each angle, Monte Carlo was revealed, smaller and
+smaller, and more sunken, like a toy city built of blocks with its red
+roof and many ants threading its streets to gather together in the
+Square. On the other hand, the sea seemed to arch its back, constantly
+rising, devouring with its blue rectilinear jaws a portion of the sky at
+each turn in the climb.</p>
+
+<p>On the crest of the hill a huge mass of masonry kept<a name="page_436" id="page_436"></a> growing more and
+more gigantic; La Trophee, a name which had finally changed to La
+Turbie, the medieval name of the little gray, walled village, which
+huddled about the monument. Two slender columns of white marble flanking
+the rubble-work, and a piece of the cornice were all that remained of
+the proudest of Roman trophies&mdash;a tower 30 meters in height, with a
+gigantic statue of Augustus, on its summit, which marked on the Alps the
+boundary between the lands of the Empire and those of the conquered
+Gauls. The auto, leaving the hamlet of La Turbie behind, was now running
+along the ancient Roman road.</p>
+
+<p>"I can see the Legions," Don Marcos gravely murmured.</p>
+
+<p>It was a mania of his. He had never had sufficient imagination to be
+able to see the Legions for himself; but after witnessing in a moving
+picture film a procession of supers, with bare legs and short swords,
+following Julius Cæsar's horse, Roman military life had had no mysteries
+for him, and every time he went up to La Turbie he murmured the same
+words: "I can see the Legions."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later he forgot his resurrection of the warlike past to
+point out various buildings, of such a bluish gray color that they
+blended with the hills behind them. It was Lewis' castle. Standing out
+from it, one could see solitary towers, joined to the square mass of the
+buildings by causeways; watch towers flanking the gates; sharp slate
+roofs, with double rows of tiny dormers; roofs that only had the wooden
+rafters, through which one could see, as though the interior had been
+gutted by a fire; walls half built, descending at a right angle like a
+stone carpenter's square riveted to the ground on its long edge.</p>
+
+<p>From a distance the castle might have been taken for<a name="page_437" id="page_437"></a> an abandoned ruin.
+Lewis, having lost hope of being able to finish it, declared in good
+faith that it was better thus, since it would save him the trouble of
+decorating it with artificial ruins. It looked like some legendary
+fortress, such as those his father, the historian, had described, made
+for gray skies, for moist green forests, and which seemed anxious to
+escape from the sun-baked landscape of scanty vegetation, and to shrink
+from contact with the olive trees, the cacti, and the woody thickets
+covered with coarse flowers.</p>
+
+<p>They got out of the car on a smooth piece of ground, bordered on two
+sides by two buildings, meeting to form a right angle. It was the court
+of honor, the future parade ground of the castle. On the other two
+sides, some walls that rose only a meter above the soil, suggested what
+the courtyard might some day be, if Fortune would only cease being so
+intractable for the proprietor. At the open end of the flat ground was
+another hired car, and beside it the three soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>Lewis came forward to greet the Prince. They had arrived a short time
+before, and as he was in a hurry, he went into conference with the
+Colonel at once.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos was the oracle that he must consult in order not to lose any
+time. Might they end this business right here? Would it not be better to
+do it behind the castle, in an orchard surrounded by old olive trees?
+The Colonel, with a pistol case under each arm, was examining the
+terrain. The one thing that really concerned him at first was his own
+person. He felt, indeed, that he looked ridiculous. There were these
+three officers with their uniforms; the Prince, with his dark blue
+street suit; the doctor, dressed like an old man; Lewis, as usual, with
+the wide straw hat, without which he would never dream of taking a trip
+to the castle; and there he was himself<a name="page_438" id="page_438"></a> wrapped in his large, solemn
+frock coat, which seemed to frighten the very doves, that had taken
+refuge in the gables and the ruined walls.</p>
+
+<p>After taking a glance behind the castle, he decided on the court-yard,
+which was free from trees. He would place the two contestants so that
+their figures would not stand out as targets, against a wall in the
+background.</p>
+
+<p>Lewis, in spite of his haste, felt it necessary to do the honors of the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>"A glass of whiskey?" As they had not given him time to make
+preparations, and as he was now living at Monte Carlo, his cellar was
+exhausted. But he was sure that by looking around a little he could come
+across a good bottle. What respectable house could not produce a bottle
+of whiskey for friends?</p>
+
+<p>"When we have finished, my Lord," said Don Marcos, scandalized at this
+invitation which was an infringement upon solemn regulations.</p>
+
+<p>The four seconds and the doctor were in a room on the ground floor,
+adorned with ancient battle trophies. The two contestants had been
+forgotten in the courtyard, like actors waiting for their turn to
+appear.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo opened the pistol cases, and gave the captains the one he had
+found that morning at Cap-Ferrat. Fate was to decide which of the two
+were to be used.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't necessary," said the Parisian. "Either one, it's all the same
+to us. Arrange it all to suit yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos protested against this irreverent desire to shorten the
+ceremonials. It was all quite necessary; they were there on very grave
+business.</p>
+
+<p>A five-franc piece shone in his hand. What efforts it had cost him to
+obtain that piece of money. Of all the preparations of the morning, that
+had taken the most time and been the most difficult to arrange. Coins
+had disappeared with the coming of the war. One could find nothing<a name="page_439" id="page_439"></a> but
+paper money, and a five-franc note was of no use in a matter of heads or
+tails! He had been obliged to ask one of the important officers in the
+Casino to hand over that precious disc.</p>
+
+<p>"Heads or tails?"</p>
+
+<p>And the Colonel felt a secret thrill of joy as luck favored his ancient
+pistols. He was beginning to triumph!</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, in the meantime, was looking out of the drawing room door,
+with a certain air of amazement, not to say of indignation. His eyes
+were fixed on the Colonel. Finally, he called Don Marcos aside. Was that
+Lieutenant the man who was going to fight the Prince? He knew the boy; a
+friend of his, an army surgeon had talked to him about the Lieutenant's
+case as an astonishing instance of vitality. It was a disgusting piece
+of foolishness that was being planned: it amounted to murder. Why, that
+boy might fall stark dead before the first shot was fired! They had
+performed an amazingly delicate operation on his skull; it was a miracle
+that he had survived at all, and he might fall dead instantly at the
+slightest emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos found an heroic answer, worthy of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor, for a man like that, fighting is not an emotion."</p>
+
+<p>He then proceeded with slow solemnity to carry out the most delicate
+part of the proceedings: the loading of the pistols. The two captains
+followed with a look of curiosity this operation, which was quite
+strange for them, though they imagined they had seen a whole lot of
+military life. The Parisian almost laughed as he watched how Toledo
+handled the diminutive ivory spoon which contained the charge of powder,
+scrutinizing it carefully before pouring it into the barrel of the
+weapon, with a certain fear of having put a grain more in one than<a name="page_440" id="page_440"></a> in
+the other. Toledo was sure the heroic jester was making fun of his
+scrupulous precautions. But the Captain would not dare deny his interest
+in the novelty of the ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>Lewis went out to get the automobiles moved away as far as a nearby
+grove, much to the disgust of the chauffeurs. They obeyed reluctantly,
+intending to return, even though they might have to creep along the
+ground, to witness the spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo left the two pistols on an ancient Venetian table. They were
+ready! No one was to touch them! They were something sacred. Then his
+eyes, falling on the wall in front of him, were lighted with a sudden
+gleam of inspiration; he hurriedly advanced and unhooked two rusty
+swords from a panoply and went out with them into the courtyard.</p>
+
+<p>Deserted by their seconds, the contestants had begun to pace up and
+down, pretending they did not see each other, and each catching the
+other looking at him from the corner of his eye.</p>
+
+<p>They both suddenly found themselves in the situation of the preceding
+afternoon. It was as though no time had passed, as though they were
+still on the top steps of the Casino.</p>
+
+<p>All that the Prince had been thinking over in the last few hours and
+that had followed him until then in his thoughts, with a suggestion of
+remorse, immediately vanished. So this young gentleman was the man who
+had tried to strike him, Prince Lubimoff! He would soon find out what
+such daring was to cost him.</p>
+
+<p>But his anger seemed less violent than on the preceding day, something
+more reasoned, more completely the product of his will; and this
+weakening finally made him angry at himself.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_441" id="page_441"></a>The other man was more instinctive in his rancor. As he looked at the
+Prince, he saw also the sweet image of that great lady, his
+benefactress. It was because the Prince was rich that he had tried to
+trample on him, treating him like one of his serfs, on his far-off
+estates in Russia. All the best things in life had been for this
+aristocrat, and now he was claiming possession of the few scattered
+crumbs, even of happiness that fall to the unfortunate! He did not know
+how to kill a man in these regulated combats; but he was going to kill,
+nevertheless, and felt the absolute confidence in himself that had
+animated him out there in the trenches in the cruelest days of danger
+and success.</p>
+
+<p>The presence of Don Marcos with a sword in either hand disturbed their
+reflections and interrupted their walking back and forth. They both came
+to a standstill. The Colonel looked at the sky, then took several paces
+in different directions. He wanted to fix it so that neither of the
+contestants would have the sun in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Finally he proudly thrust one of the swords into the ground. It seemed
+to him appropriate to the character of the place, to make use of these
+ancient weapons. They seemed to him more in harmony with Lewis' romantic
+castle, than two stakes or two cans. But his satisfaction this time was
+of short duration. On raising his eyes, he saw that Prince, and he saw
+Martinez....</p>
+
+<p>Poor Colonel! Up to that moment he had proceeded like a priest
+intoxicated by his own ceremonious words and his own incense, without
+thinking of the person in whose interest they are offered up. He had
+prepared all these formalities with the blind fervor of a professional
+who resumes his functions after several years of inaction, and thinks
+only of his work, forgetting for whom it is being done. He had managed
+everything in accordance with the rites, so that two gentlemen might
+kill each other in compliance with the strictest conventions; but<a name="page_442" id="page_442"></a> now,
+at the supreme moment, he realized for the first time that these two men
+were his Prince and his Martinez, his fellow countryman, his hero.</p>
+
+<p>He was amazed to think that he had been able to go as far as he had gone
+up to that point. He felt the astonishment of a drunken man recovering
+his reason in the midst of objects broken by him in a fierce delirium.
+He recalled Castro's words and those of the doctor; why had <i>he</i> not
+seen that this duel was a piece of foolishness? Repentance seemed to
+rush upon him. There was a burning sensation in his eyes, which began to
+fill with tears. But now it was too late. He must go on, even though his
+serenity should fail him.</p>
+
+<p>The one thing that he had forgotten in his minute preparations was the
+tape measure, and he saw in this omission an act of Providence. Starting
+from the sword planted in the ground he began to pace off the terrain.
+But they were not paces that he took; they were enormous strides. He
+fairly leaped. Now he was absolutely sure of the ridiculousness of his
+appearance, as his coattails flapped back and forth like wings, as they
+were thrust aside by the vigorous movements of his legs. "Fifteen
+paces." And he planted the second sword.</p>
+
+<p>If he could have had his way, he would have gone to the farthest end of
+the open field; perhaps as far as the place where the automobiles were
+awaiting. Then he looked uneasily at the ground he had measured. It was
+surely over twenty meters; a betrayal! What cowardice! Might God and
+gentlemen forgive him!</p>
+
+<p>Once more he brought out the five-franc piece. He had to decide again by
+chance the position of each contestant. The Parisian captain greeted
+this proposal with a bored air.</p>
+
+<p>"But I told you before to do whatever you pleased!"</p>
+
+<p>Lewis was muttering impatiently under his mustache.<a name="page_443" id="page_443"></a></p>
+
+<p>When the coin had marked the position of each one, Don Marcos placed the
+Prince beside one sword.</p>
+
+<p>"Marquis: your hat," he said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff, understanding this suggestion, took off his hat, throwing it
+some distance away. His adversary could not fight with his <i>kepis</i> on
+his head. Its yellowish color and the emblem of the Legion embroidered
+on the brim of the cap made him conspicuous in an unfair manner. His
+uniform also worried Toledo, who tried to do away with all the visible
+details on it.</p>
+
+<p>Assisted by one of the captains, he proceeded to strip Martinez of his
+decorations of honor, after placing him beside the other sword. It was
+like a ceremony of degradation. They took off his <i>kepis</i>, then his
+medals, the red ribbon that hung from his shoulder, and the dark tan
+strips across his breast and the belt of the same color around his
+waist. The Lieutenant seemed reduced in stature and dignity in his loose
+uniform, without his decorations. The Parisian, always in a merry mood,
+compared him to a plucked bird.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel felt that it was necessary to repeat aloud the conditions of
+the duel. The Prince knew them and was accustomed to such encounters. It
+was Martinez who needed his suggestions. After he, as the director of
+the combat, should give the word "Fire!" he would slowly count, "one,
+two, three." They might aim and fire in that space of time. "Be very
+careful, Lieutenant!" Don Marcos spoke with tragic solemnity.</p>
+
+<p>"If you fire before the <i>one</i> or after the <i>three</i>, you will be declared
+a felon."</p>
+
+<p>The matter of being declared a felon frightened the young man. He didn't
+know exactly what it was, but the Colonel's look as he said this
+terrible word, made a deep impression on him. He no longer thought so
+vehemently of killing his adversary. This desire retreated<a name="page_444" id="page_444"></a> into the
+background. Nor did he think of the fact that he himself might be
+killed. His one preoccupation was to calculate the time properly and
+obey instructions without bothering about aiming; to fire before the
+terrible <i>three</i>; so that he should not be given that horrible
+mysterious name that made his hair stand on end.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos entered the castle, and appeared again with the two loaded
+pistols. He gave one to the Prince. The latter did not need any lessons.
+He put the other in the Lieutenant's right hand, and told him how he
+should stand, with his arm bent, holding the weapon high, presenting
+only the narrow side of his body to his adversary. Once more he dwelt on
+his warning. He should be careful not to make a mistake! Now he knew!
+<i>One ... two ... three....</i></p>
+
+<p>He himself stood midway between the adversaries withdrawing only a few
+paces from the line of fire. At that moment he was willing to die, so
+they both might remain unharmed!</p>
+
+<p>He took off his hat solemnly, and with a gesture of profound sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen ..."</p>
+
+<p>During the entire morning, as he walked from one place to another,
+making his preparations, he had not ceased to think of what he would say
+at that moment, working up a superb piece of oratory, brief and
+stirring. He had frequently spoken at duels, meriting the approval of
+the other seconds, retired Generals, and such experts, accustomed to
+formalities of the kind. But the short harangue of to-day was going to
+be his masterpiece.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen ..." he repeated. He hesitated, not knowing what to add, as
+it had all been blotted from his memory. With a stammering voice, he
+went on saying whatever occurred to him, with no attempt at order, and<a name="page_445" id="page_445"></a>
+without remembering a single word of the phrases which he had so
+carefully polished some hours before.</p>
+
+<p>"There was still time ... a little good will on their part; they were
+both men of courage who had proved their valor ... an explanation at the
+last moment was no dishonor!"</p>
+
+<p>His words were lost in a tense silence. But this silence was not
+absolute. There was somebody behind the Colonel, kicking the ground. It
+was Lewis who was consulting his watch, with a scowl. It was after three
+o'clock; the good series in the Casino had already begun.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel decided to end his speech. Besides, he was frightened at the
+motionless and rigid figure of his Prince, with his pistol raised. He
+had never seen him so ugly. His face was an earthen color, there was a
+squint in his eyes, and his cheek bones protruded. His features had been
+changed in a moment, as though the savagery of his remote ancestors,
+awakened within, had risen to his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Since there is no possible agreement ..."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the Colonel thought he had recalled the last part of his
+forgotten speech. But the tread of brilliant words escaped him again,
+and he was obliged to improvise, so he ended in a solemn fashion:</p>
+
+<p>"Come, gentlemen! Honor ... is honor; and the laws of chivalry ... are
+the laws of chivalry."</p>
+
+<p>He heard at his back the murmur of approval. It was the voice of the
+former ticket-seller. "Bravo! Wonderful!" But he did not care to hear
+what he said. You could never tell when that fellow was in earnest.</p>
+
+<p>"Ready?"</p>
+
+<p>The silence of the two adversaries gave the Colonel to understand that
+he might give the words of command.</p>
+
+<p><a name="page_446" id="page_446"></a>"Fire!... One ..."</p>
+
+<p>A shot rang out. Martinez, who was only thinking of the terrible three,
+had fired.</p>
+
+<p>He saw the Prince standing in front of him. He looked much taller; he
+could see the black hole of his weapon, and above that hole an eye, with
+a look of cold ferocity, which was choosing a point on his antagonist's
+body to send the obedient bullet. And with unconscious arrogance, he
+turned on his heel, so as to present not his profile, but the whole
+breadth of his body.</p>
+
+<p>The four seconds did not see this. Their eyes had focused on Lubimoff,
+the personification of death.</p>
+
+<p>Time contracts and expands us, according to our emotions. Its measure
+and rhythm depend on the state of the human mind. Sometimes it gallops
+along at a dizzy rate, over the faces of clocks that seem to have gone
+mad; at other times, it collapses and refuses to proceed, and a
+thousandth of a second embraces more emotions than months and years of
+ordinary life. The four witnesses felt as though the hours had been
+paralyzed, and the sun were remaining motionless forever. Time did not
+exist.</p>
+
+<p>"Two!" sighed Don Marcos, and it seemed to him that his lips would never
+cease uttering this word, as though it were composed of an infinite
+number of syllables.</p>
+
+<p>Lewis had forgotten the existence of the Casino; he was conscious only
+of the present. The Captain from Bordeaux, bending forward, was leaning
+on his wounded foot, without feeling any pain; the other officer was
+swearing between his teeth, and shaking his rattan cane until it hummed.
+The doctor, with professional instinct, was stooping over the surgical
+case that lay at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff was going to kill him! All four were sure that he was going to
+kill him. An implacable expression of security, and of ferocious
+coolness, radiated from that man, with arm upraised, so motionless, and
+pitiless. The<a name="page_447" id="page_447"></a> expression on his Kalmuck face was of such deep fatality,
+his one eye tightly shut and the other open, that they could all see an
+imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the pistol to the breast of the
+man opposite, the road that the tiny sphere of lead was going to follow
+with inexorable accuracy.</p>
+
+<p>Proud of his superiority, the Prince postponed the moment of dealing
+death, with a sort of savage playfulness. He had his enemy in his claws,
+and could toy with him during those three months, that were as long as
+centuries.</p>
+
+<p>In the dizzy coincidence of image whirling through his brain, he could
+see the Princess, his mother, beautiful and arrogant, as she was when
+she recounted to him as a little boy, the greatness of the Lubimoffs.
+Then he saw his father, the General, somber and kindly, saying in a
+rough voice: "The strong man must be kind."</p>
+
+<p>As he thought of his father, his pistol swerved slightly, but
+immediately he corrected his aim.</p>
+
+<p>In his imagination a train was slowly passing. French soldiers. He saw
+Castro and the insolent red-haired fellow who was offering him a seat.
+Another train advanced in the opposite direction, an endless train that
+kept coming from the depths of the ocean. Hurrahs, whistling, dark
+blouses, blue collars, little caps that looked as though made of paper.
+"Good afternoon, Prince!" The luminous smile of a pale Virgin: Lady
+Lewis with her two blind men, handsome and tragic....</p>
+
+<p>His pistol fell. Above it he could see the entire body of his adversary,
+that obscure soldier, condemned to die before long no doubt, from wounds
+received in a land that was not his own, for a cause which was that of
+all men.</p>
+
+<p>"Three!" said the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>But before he could finish the word, a shot rang out.<a name="page_448" id="page_448"></a> The grass stirred
+at intervals along the soil as the invisible bullet ricocheted into the
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>The scythe-like stroke passed close to the legs of the Director of the
+combat; but Don Marcos was in no mood to notice such a thing. His
+child-like joy made him run hither and thither. His frock coat seemed to
+laugh as its tails flapped up and down.</p>
+
+<p>He was so happy, that he almost embraced Martinez. The latter must shake
+hands with the Prince, a reconciliation was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>The officer refused to take this advice. He had his doubts about the way
+the combat had ended. The Prince had fired at the ground, and he was not
+going to let him spare his life like that.</p>
+
+<p>"Young man!" said Don Marcos, with an air of authority, "you are new in
+such affairs. Let yourself be guided by those who know more and give the
+Prince your hand."</p>
+
+<p>Immediately he went in quest of Lubimoff.</p>
+
+<p>He saw him standing on the same spot. He had thrown the pistol away and
+was covering his face with his hands.</p>
+
+<p>The only one beside him was Lewis.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Prince! What's this? Be calm! Perhaps a good glass of whiskey."
+Toledo heard a sob of anguish, the choking of a stifled breast.</p>
+
+<p>Respectfully he drew away one of the Prince's hands leaving his face
+uncovered. At present it was a dull brick red, shiny with sweat and
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff was weeping.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel recalled the dead Princess in her days of stormy humor,
+when, after an explosion of wrath, she would wring her hands, and ask
+forgiveness, weeping hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>As he gently took his hand, he felt that the Prince was<a name="page_449" id="page_449"></a> following him,
+meekly without any will of his own. Martinez was waiting a few steps
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"Shake hands. It's all over. Gentlemen are always ... gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>They shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>And then something unexpected happened which produced a long silence of
+surprise and amazement.</p>
+
+<p>Michael bent forward, knelt down, and raised to his lips the hand he was
+holding in his own, with the same humble gesture that the serfs of the
+Steppes had used in the presence of his powerful ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>Then he kissed it, moistening it with his tears.<a name="page_450" id="page_450"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<p>A <small>WEEK</small> passed, and Lubimoff had not once left Villa Sirena. In his
+conversations with the Colonel&mdash;his only companion in this solitary
+life&mdash;he had avoided making any allusion to what had occurred in Lewis'
+castle. Toledo, for his part, displayed absolute discretion, as though
+he had forgotten the duel and the strange ending which the Prince had
+given it; but the latter guessed that the Colonel's silence concealed
+many things that might have proved distasteful to himself.</p>
+
+<p>The other seconds had probably told everything. What people must have
+been saying! And fearing the curiosity of society which was doubtless
+repeating his name on all occasions, Lubimoff remained in retirement,
+with the hope of being forgotten. Some one would lose or win an enormous
+sum in the Casino, and that would be enough to make the gossips stop
+talking about him.</p>
+
+<p>His loneliness, however, began to weigh upon him like a fate. He was
+getting tired of walking about his garden all the time. It seemed to him
+narrow and monotonous. Besides, Lewis' niece, abusing her privilege,
+came every afternoon, with a constantly renewed escort of wounded
+Englishmen. She ran about with them through the Avenues, amid the cries
+of the exotic birds, weaving great garlands of flowers for her soldiers.
+Meanwhile he was obliged to hide in the upper stories of the villa to
+escape this child-like joy, which seemed to him to have something gloomy
+and funereal about it.</p>
+
+<p>The nights seemed endless. He thought with wistful longing of the quiet
+evenings with the "enemies of women",<a name="page_451" id="page_451"></a> when Spadoni used to sit at the
+piano or perform his infinite calculations, always doubling; when Novoa
+would indulge in his scientific paradoxes, and Castro relate the
+adventures of his grandfather "the red Don Quixote." Where were they
+now, those comrades of his dreamy happiness?</p>
+
+<p>Atilio interested him particularly. He had asked Don Marcos about him
+twice, without the latter being very clear in his explanations. The
+Colonel never saw Castro any more in the Casino; he doubtless was
+keeping away out of fear of gambling. The Prince had a feeling that the
+Colonel knew something more, and was refusing to talk from motives of
+discretion.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, the weariness of his imprisonment finally galvanized his
+stupefied will. Why should he not go in quest of those friends? Perhaps
+if he were to take the first step he would succeed in renewing relations
+with them, and re-establish his former life.</p>
+
+<p>As he was going out, the Colonel stopped him to speak again about a
+matter that had occupied their attention the evening before. What reply
+should he give the Paris business agent? The <i>nouveau riche</i> who had
+bought the palace on the Monçeau Park, wanted to buy Villa Sirena also.
+The Prince's manager was transmitting a final offer; a million and a
+half. The man would not give any more, and it was necessary to reply in
+haste, before his caprice should turn toward some other acquisition.</p>
+
+<p>Michael shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter were something of
+no interest to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him I don't want to sell. No&mdash;it would be better still not to
+reply at all. We shall see later on; I shall think it over."</p>
+
+<p>On getting out of the street car in Monte Carlo he passed to the right
+of the Casino, and followed the upper Boulevards. First he was going in
+quest of Spadoni, who<a name="page_452" id="page_452"></a> lived nearest. Besides, the latter would surely
+know better than Novoa where Atilio was staying. Perhaps they were
+living together.</p>
+
+<p>He had a vague idea of the house, through Castro's joking. The pianist
+was "the guardian of the tomb" above the Sainte Dévote ravine.</p>
+
+<p>From the summit of a bridge the Prince saw this ravine at his feet. Its
+sides were covered with gardens, luxurious villas and hotels, and at its
+outlet stretched the smiling harbor of La Condamine.</p>
+
+<p>Sixty years before, the ravine had been a wild spot. It was visited only
+by religious processions coming from the walled City of Monaco to pay
+homage to Sainte Dévote in a little white church, which to-day seemed
+still more diminutive beside the arches of the railway bridge.</p>
+
+<p>In the earliest times of Christianity, a bark without oars or sail,
+guided by the will of God, who had deigned to grant a patron saint to
+the inhabitants of "Hercules Harbor," had grounded keel on those shores.</p>
+
+<p>The bark contained the miracle working body of a Corsican Christian
+martyrized by the Romans. Nobody knew her name, and popular devotion
+called her simply the Sainte Dévote. Once a year, at nightfall, on her
+feast day, a large crowd from the Casino left roulette and <i>trente et
+quarante</i> to watch the sailors of Monaco, to the sound of music, burn an
+old bark in front of the church, thus cutting off all means of retreat
+to the Holy Patroness.</p>
+
+<p>The stony fields, once planted with prickly pear and olive trees, were
+now covered with palaces, as large as barracks. They supported a second
+lofty city, above, which stretched away along the slopes of the Alps,
+and united Monaco with Monte Carlo. The land here, now sold at fabulous
+prices, was a spot so neglected half a century before that any of its
+owners might arrange<a name="page_453" id="page_453"></a> without interference to be buried on his own
+property.</p>
+
+<p>An obscure officer in Napoleon's Army, born in Monaco, and who had
+succeeded in becoming a General in the days of Louis Philippe, had had
+his tomb built in an olive grove above the Sainte Dévote ravine. Later
+gambling had made Monte Carlo rise above the wild plateau of the
+Caverns; the elegant, new city was spreading out to join old Monaco,
+covering all the land of the principality with buildings, and the tomb
+of the unknown warrior was imprisoned by this wave of great hotels,
+palaces, and villas. The olive grove around the tomb was sold by the
+yard, making a fortune for the soldier's heirs. Between the sepulchre
+and the edge of the ravine there remained a level space, from which one
+could enjoy a view of the splendid panorama. A millionaire from Paris
+had been bold enough to construct over the spot a house in "artistic"
+style, with gardens descending in terraces. He had imagined it would be
+an easy matter to have the General transferred to the cemetery and the
+mortuary chapel demolished. But the dead man was on his own land, and
+could not come to life to cancel the arrangements he had made in his
+will with so little prescience of the extraordinary growth old Monaco
+was to make; as a result there was no power on earth that could demolish
+his last dwelling place.</p>
+
+<p>From the harbor Michael had often, above the heights of the ravine, seen
+this pantheon which was to serve him now as a place for meeting Spadoni.
+It was a simple block of masonry, with white-washed walls, four
+pinnacles at the angles, and a cupola of black tile. From a distance it
+looked like a Mohammedan hermitage, the tomb of some saint of Islam, and
+the similarity was carried out by groups of palm trees in the
+neighboring gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Castro had often made him laugh by telling him the<a name="page_454" id="page_454"></a> story of the dead
+General and his wealthy neighbors. The owners of the villa could not
+sleep with a dead man on the other side of the wall, and moreover, it
+was a nameless dead man, which made it all the more creepy and
+mysterious.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody could remember the name of this gentleman, who had commanded
+thousands of men, and was still exerting his will power on the living.
+The owners decided to rent the villa with all its elegant furnishings
+for a modest sum, and at first, the ladies who were gambling in the
+Casino, quarreled as to who should get it. How wonderful it would be to
+live in a little palace adorned by famous Parisian decorators, and with
+a magnificent view, all for five hundred francs a month! But the renters
+hastened to give up this bargain to others. Imagine having to pass the
+General's mausoleum at midnight, on returning from the Casino! And think
+of not being able to open one's window blinds without having to look
+that corpse in the face. Besides, the spiteful tongues of the women gave
+each successive tenant the nickname of: "The guardian of the tomb."</p>
+
+<p>Then Spadoni appeared. Castro had a vague idea that the pianist had paid
+the first month's rent, but he was not sure. What he knew for certain
+was that he had not paid any more. The owners, living in Paris, had
+finally accepted the situation, considering the pianist an unpaid
+caretaker for that house, which had come to inspire them with terror.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince descended the wide road between garden balustrades and walls
+of rock broken by tufts of flowers hanging from the crevices. On seeing
+the sepulchre at close hand, he understood why all the tenants had taken
+flight. The General had known how to do things. The pinnacles, as well
+as the iron cross which surmounted the cupola, were adorned with skulls
+and cross-bones; and<a name="page_455" id="page_455"></a> these funereal symbols, by force of contrast, made
+a still deeper impression because of the green splendor of the adjoining
+gardens under the bright blue skies and the dazzling sunlight, with the
+smiling harbor in the background, and the ruffled surface of the violet
+sea. The gate of the nameless mausoleum had not been opened for many
+years, and the wind had heaped the dirt against the underpinnings.
+Between the iron gate and the walls a thick, wild growth of vegetation
+had appeared, a diminutive forest, in the dense growth of which insects
+made war and devoured one another after sending forth endless flying and
+creeping expeditions against all the neighboring houses.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff passed close to the mausoleum in order to reach the entrance of
+the villa, a handsome building in the Tuscan style of architecture. The
+gate was a complicated piece of iron work; the windows had stained glass
+figures; the gray walls were encrusted with marble bas-reliefs, and
+ancient escutcheons.</p>
+
+<p>He knocked in vain with the iron dragon that served as a knocker.
+Finally from an adjoining alley-way, between two walls, appeared a woman
+with dishevelled hair, holding an infant in her arms. It was a neighbor,
+who acted as a servant for Spadoni, when he stayed in the house. The
+arrival of a visitor was an event for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he is in," she said, "don't you hear him?"</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, Michael had heard the sound of a piano, deadened by
+the thick walls.</p>
+
+<p>The woman, convinced that the artist would never hear the blows of the
+knocker, disappeared around the corner. Shortly afterward, her head and
+the child she was carrying in her arms appeared above the edge of the
+wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Maestro!" she shouted. "A gentleman to see you! A visitor!"<a name="page_456" id="page_456"></a></p>
+
+<p>And she came back again, smoothing her skirts as though she had just
+descended a ladder.</p>
+
+<p>The door groaned on its hinges, as it opened, and Spadoni appeared in
+the opening.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, your Highness!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no expression of surprise in his smile. He greeted the Prince
+as though he had seen him the day before.</p>
+
+<p>Then he guided him through corridors and drawing-rooms, which were sunk
+in deep multi-colored shadow, and smelled of dust and mold. It had been
+many months since the stained glass windows had been opened, or the
+curtains drawn. Spadoni lived his entire life in a single room. Lubimoff
+collided with furniture and curios, as he advanced, almost upsetting two
+huge Japanese vases, and nearly impaling himself on the numerous
+projections in the profuse decoration of a "romantic studio," which had
+been in style twenty-five years before.</p>
+
+<p>They finally returned to the light, a dazzling light that entered by
+three open doors overlooking a terrace bordering the ravine. It was the
+"hall" of the villa, decorated with Hindustanee draperies and divans.
+The Prince saw that Spadoni had excellent quarters in his "tomb". A
+large grand-piano was the only piece of furniture kept clean in this
+dust-invaded room. On the music rack several albums of music in
+manuscript lay opened.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing that Lubimoff noticed them, the pianist gave a look of despair.</p>
+
+<p>His poverty was very great: he was forced to give concerts in order to
+live, and found himself obliged to study the new operas.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke of this labor as though it represented the cruelest imposition
+of inexorable Reality, the greatest degradation in his life.<a name="page_457" id="page_457"></a></p>
+
+<p>Various ladies who organized benefits for the soldiers had sought his
+aid. He played for nothing, "out of patriotism", but the good ladies
+always found a way of giving him a fair sum. His poverty was tremendous!
+He was going to the gambling rooms only at long intervals. He hadn't
+enough money to play even the roulette wheel, where the stakes were but
+five francs!</p>
+
+<p>The Prince started to read the titles of the scores, but Spadoni covered
+them up in comic haste.</p>
+
+<p>"Awful rot! You mustn't look at those, your Highness. Here on the
+Riviera, when the ladies are getting on in years, and do not find any
+one to fall in love with them any more, they devote themselves to
+writing love songs or dance music for great spectacles; and the Casino
+accepts their work in order not to offend them. It results that on
+certain days the Monte Carlo Theater becomes the Temple of Musical
+Imbecility. No; it would be better for you to see what we are giving
+this afternoon. It is the work of a millionairess who writes the whole
+thing, music and words."</p>
+
+<p>And he read aloud the titles of various "picturesque scenes": <i>Dialogue
+between the Butterfly and the Rose, What the Palm Tree said to the
+Century Plant, Prayer of the Grasshopper to Our Father the Sun.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Fortunately, your Highness, this humiliating situation will not last. I
+have a way out of it&mdash;a way out of it!"</p>
+
+<p>And forgetting the piano, the scores, and his musical degradation,
+Spadoni suddenly launched into the world of dreams. He knew the secret
+of the great man, the Greek, who was winning millions at the
+Sporting-Club. He had guessed it, with his own cunning, after worming
+certain data out of a man who accompanied the lofty personage. It was a
+simple combination, like all ideas of genius. For example....</p>
+
+<p>And he reached for a pack of cards which was on the<a name="page_458" id="page_458"></a> table, lying on a
+number of albums bound in red: The nine Symphonies of Beethoven.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no&mdash;if you please!" the Prince brusquely restrained him, to keep him
+from plunging into that mania for demonstrating.</p>
+
+<p>"I hoped to meet Castro here," he said, in a quiet voice, a moment
+later.</p>
+
+<p>Spadoni seemed to awaken.</p>
+
+<p>"Castro?... Oh, yes! He lived with me for a few days, but he went away."</p>
+
+<p>Still obsessed by his marvelous combination, he talked in an
+absent-minded manner without showing the slightest interest in what he
+was saying. Castro had expressed a desire to live with him; he had told
+him so, late one afternoon in the Casino, and Spadoni had left Villa
+Sirena to accompany him. It was the least a friend could do!</p>
+
+<p>"But when did he go? Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He went day before yesterday, and must be in Paris. A fool trip!
+Imagine, your Highness, during the last few days he had an extraordinary
+run of luck, winning as high as twenty thousand francs. If he had only
+gone on! But he wouldn't! He was in a hurry. He gave me five hundred
+francs, and I lost them immediately; it was very little money for my
+combination. I think he was going to be a soldier; he kept talking to me
+about the Foreign Legion. You can expect almost any foolishness from
+him. A man who is winning and runs away!..."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as though the disordered workings of his brain were functioning
+logically for a few seconds, he added, with a smile of cunning:</p>
+
+<p>"Doña Clorinda also went to Paris. She left two days before him.... Oh,
+your Highness! How I think of what you told us at the lunch once about
+women! I know them, Prince: They are all enemies to be feared."<a name="page_459" id="page_459"></a></p>
+
+<p>And he pointed spitefully to <i>What the Palm Tree said to the Century
+Plant</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In vain the Prince kept questioning him. The pianist did not know
+anything more, and Castro's fate did not arouse his curiosity. He had
+gone to Paris, to be a soldier, and Spadoni had so many friends,
+already, who were soldiers!</p>
+
+<p>The "General" being a woman, aroused more interest in him; she
+stimulated his love of gossip.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," he said, with a smile that showed his hate for women, "that
+she went away out of jealousy, out of pique. The Duchess de Delille took
+that Lieutenant away from her, though the 'General' had been the one to
+introduce them. It seems even that this Lieutenant has had a duel...."</p>
+
+<p>The pianist grew pale, looking at Lubimoff with an expression of terror.
+His look was like that of a person who is talking aloud when he imagines
+himself alone, and then suddenly notices that some one is listening to
+him. He sat there embarrassed and stammering:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know ... people tell so many lies!... Women's gossip!"</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff felt a like embarrassment on realizing that even Spadoni had
+taken up his adventure with delight.</p>
+
+<p>He felt there was no use in continuing the conversation with an imbecile
+like that. He arose, and the pianist, still trembling at his own
+indiscretion, showed similar signs of haste to end the visit.</p>
+
+<p>"And Novoa?" asked the Prince on reaching the outer door. "Has he also
+left?"</p>
+
+<p>No; he was still in Monaco, working at the Museum, when he did not have
+any more urgent business. They met very seldom. How could they see each
+other if he, Spadoni, on account of his poverty, refrained from entering
+the gambling rooms?<a name="page_460" id="page_460"></a></p>
+
+<p>"He goes on playing, your Highness; but very badly, with the timidity of
+a novice, and for that reason he loses. He isn't made of the same stuff
+that we are, we who are true gamblers."</p>
+
+<p>And the pianist drew himself up to his full height as he said this, as
+though he had never lost and possessed all the secrets of chance.</p>
+
+<p>"I sent him two tickets for this afternoon's concert: one for him and
+the other for that Señorita Valeria, the Duchess's companion. Poor man!
+Always doing something silly, like a young lover!"</p>
+
+<p>But his smile, which was that of a superior person exempt from such
+humiliations, disappeared, as he realized that once more he was saying
+something offensive to the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>The latter passed close to the tomb again, but without seeing it, or
+even remembering the unknown General. Castro had gone!... Castro wanted
+to become a soldier!...</p>
+
+<p>After going down along the Monegetti road as far as the parade ground of
+La Condamine, he ascended once more the gently sloping avenue that leads
+up to Monaco. After his long seclusion, this walk aroused a certain
+pleasant tingling in his muscles.</p>
+
+<p>Finding himself between the two turrets that mark the entrance to the
+gardens, the memory of Alicia flashed across his brain. There, a little
+farther on, they had gotten out of their carriage; behind the trees was
+a bench on which he first had told her of his love; below, at the edge
+of the rocks, lay the solitary path along which they had passed as
+though treading on air, wrapped in the twilight and with lips joined.
+Then, had come the tearing of her dress, the sweet comical difficulties
+in mending it, and the pearl pin of the Princess.... Only a few weeks
+had passed, and these happenings seemed to belong<a name="page_461" id="page_461"></a> to another happier
+race of beings, to have taken place on a different planet, bathed in a
+light that was different from the light of earth.</p>
+
+<p>He made an effort to forget. At present he was standing on an asphalt
+square, opposite the steps of the Museum of Oceanography. For the first
+time he noticed the architectural decorations of the white building.
+They had adopted as an ornamental motif the cluster of twisting arms of
+the octopus, the semi-circular striations of sea-shells, the trailing
+filmy umbrella form of the jelly-fish. He observed the sculptural groups
+symbolizing the powers of the Ocean, or the arts of the navigators, he
+read the names carved on the frieze of the edifice, and the titles of
+ships famous for scientific explorations.</p>
+
+<p>He stood there motionless for a long time, seeking a pretext to justify
+his visit. Finally he went up the steps of the building, and found
+himself in a deep, cool shade like that of a Cathedral, but without the
+stale, musty odor of shut-in places, and with a whiff of salt air coming
+from the nearby sea. He knew the stately edifice: on one side was the
+vast hall for the lectures and scientific assemblies, like that of a
+parliament building, with lamp shades of frosted crystal affecting the
+different shapes of animals from the ocean depths; in the middle of the
+vestibule was the statue of Prince Albert, dressed as a sailor and
+leaning on the rail of the bridge of his yacht; on the opposite side and
+on the upper floors, were the collections gathered during the voyages of
+the famous scientific explorer: thousands of fishes and molluscs,
+gigantic skeletons of whales, some <i>kaiaks</i> and fishing implements from
+the polar seas. On the lower floors, under his feet, in that second
+palace which, clinging to the cliff, descended to the sea, were the
+aquaria, where the mysterious creatures of the depths continued their
+lives in crystal cages amid the silver bubbles of running water.<a name="page_462" id="page_462"></a></p>
+
+<p>The gate-keeper in a long blue coat, and a <i>kepis</i> with red braid,
+started to offer him a ticket, but paused on seeing that he was stopping
+at the turn-stile, asking for Novoa.</p>
+
+<p>"He went out a moment ago. Perhaps you may find him in the neighborhood
+of the palace. Almost every day, before lunch, he makes the rounds of
+'the rock'."</p>
+
+<p>"The Rock," for the inhabitants of Monaco, is the nickname of the high
+promontory on which Monaco is situated, and "to make the rounds" means
+to follow the circle of gardens and abandoned bulwarks, which, starting
+from the palace of the Princes, returns to it, after completely
+embracing the old city.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff followed the outer line of the San Martino gardens. He did not
+dare enter them; he was afraid of coming across the bench where he and
+Alicia had been that afternoon. He entered the City streets, narrow,
+without sidewalks, and paved with wide stones, as in many towns in
+Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The dwellings, which were old and lofty, recalled the time when ground
+was precious on a peninsula narrowly enclosed by its fortifications.
+Some of the houses were pierced by tunnels and at the end of the
+archway, one could see the sunlight and the whiteness of the next
+street. The largest buildings were convents, or religious schools. Above
+the roofs, the bells slowly tolled as in a Spanish village; in the
+streets there were many sacred images lighted by tiny lamps.</p>
+
+<p>When the paving stones resounded with human footsteps, the shutters all
+opened half way. A carriage caused many heads to appear at the windows.
+The few passersby were often canons from the cathedral, Barefoot
+Brothers with a crown of hair about their shaven scalps, or nuns with
+huge starched butterflies on their heads.<a name="page_463" id="page_463"></a></p>
+
+<p>Only a little door separated the old city from the other situated on the
+heights opposite, with its Casino, its hotels, its orchestras, and its
+wealthy pleasure-loving crowd. A short ride by street car was sufficient
+to give one the illusion of having suddenly slipped back two centuries.
+Lubimoff recalled the expressions of surprise awakened in people by
+several of these barefoot brothers crossing the Casino Square on their
+way down to Monte Carlo.</p>
+
+<p>He passed under a covered archway that joined two houses. A large open
+space, like a plain, opened in front of him. It was the Palace Square.
+Opposite it rose the lordly dwelling of the Grimaldi, a jumble of
+buildings dating back to different periods, which recalled the palaces
+of certain sovereign princes in ancient Italy. It was of a dark rose
+color, cut by the Archway of the Loggias, and was flanked by towers of
+white stone surmounted by battlements. He knew this edifice likewise. It
+was a mere show-place, and quite uninhabited, since the Prince, during
+his short visits to his domains, preferred to live on board his yacht.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing that attracted his attention was the guard. The soldiers
+of Monaco, old French gendarmes, had gone to the war, and a national
+militia was taking the place of the Prince's army. It was composed of
+actual citizens of the "Rock," where citizens must be descendants of at
+least four generations resident in Monaco. They alone could contribute
+to the ideal defense of the principality, since they enjoyed the
+advantages of belonging to a country, unique in the world, where all who
+were born there, had bread and work assured them, thanks to the Casino.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff admired the warlike guard, an old man with a white mustache,
+and stooping, almost humped, shoulders, dressed in a dark tan overcoat
+and a derby hat. A red and white arm band was his entire uniform. On
+his<a name="page_464" id="page_464"></a> shoulder he carried an ancient gun which because of its
+tremendously long bayonet seemed even more enormous and heavy than it
+was. He might have rested beside a sentry box, painted with the Monaco
+colors; but he preferred to pace incessantly up and down, like a
+squirrel in a cage, looking in every direction to see if any one were
+trying to enter the palace of the absent sovereign. Other men who were
+fathers and even grandfathers, dressed in their Sunday clothes, were
+patiently waiting on a bench for their turn to exercise the honorable
+function.</p>
+
+<p>The most notable thing on this esplanade was the artillery, a collection
+of XVIII century cannon placed there as an ornament, like the panoplies
+of a drawing room. On both sides of the entrance to the palace six huge,
+magnificent cannon, cast in green statue bronze, and chiseled like
+museum pieces, were drawn up in a row. Around their mouths, the metal
+curved backward forming a leafy design like that of a capital on a
+column; the other end was surmounted by a Medusa's head. The barrels of
+these hollow columns were ornamented with the three <i>fleurs de lis</i> of
+the ancient French Monarchy; the handles on each cannon were two
+dolphins, and all the pieces displayed the pretentious motto: <i>Nec
+pluribus impar</i> of Louis XIV, with another more somber one: <i>Ultima
+ratio regum</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince smiled at the latter motto.</p>
+
+<p>"These days, artillery," he said to himself, "is no longer 'the last
+argument of kings', but it is of peoples. We have progressed somewhat."</p>
+
+<p>Each of these green cannon had its own name, just as a ship or a
+regiment. One was named <i>Nero</i>, another <i>Tiberius</i>; farther on <i>Robust</i>
+and the <i>Snorer</i> opened their round mouths.</p>
+
+<p>On the parapets enclosing the large square on both sides, other more
+modest, but equally huge and ancient<a name="page_465" id="page_465"></a> cannon, thrust their mouths out
+upon the harbor or the open sea. The solid balls of these cannon formed
+pyramids, and parasitical vegetation had crept in between these iron
+spheres.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the palace, like the back-drop on a stage, rose the French
+Mountain of the <i>Tete du Chien</i>, with the windows in the barracks of the
+Blue Devils, the <i>Chasseurs Alpins</i>, gleaming on its rounded summit. The
+Monaco plateau was simply the lowest step in the great stairway which
+the Alps let fall to the sea. Above, clouds were caught amid the peaks,
+covering them momentarily with a shadow ominous of storm. Below, amid
+the rose-colored walls and the white towers of the Grimaldi, rose the
+tropical palms, the cocoanut and plantain trees, giving this Ligurian
+castle the luxurious aspect of Brazilian farm.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff was seated between the cannon, on the parapet that overlooks
+the open sea, when he saw Novoa strolling along the bulwarks that rise
+above the harbor.</p>
+
+<p>On recognizing the Prince, the professor hastened forward with
+outstretched hands.</p>
+
+<p>How likable the Professor seemed! His frank manners had never been so
+attractive to Michael as they were then. Novoa was greatly pleased at
+this meeting, attributing it to chance, and the Prince did not see fit
+to mention his visit to the Museum, so that Novoa would now know that he
+had come in search of him.</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically they began to promenade between the row of guns and the
+trees that cast a pallid shade on one side of the Square.</p>
+
+<p>It was Lubimoff who began to talk, questioning Novoa, showing an
+interest in his affairs and greeting his laments with a kindly smile.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor appeared unhappy. This place with its gay, pleasant life
+was fatal for study. To think that<a name="page_466" id="page_466"></a> back in his own country, he had
+imagined himself making useful discoveries in the mysteries of the
+ocean! The Casino spread its influence in every direction, reaching even
+the Museum of Oceanography. Often, while he was studying the <i>plancton</i>,
+a new idea would occur to him as to how he might penetrate the
+mysterious workings of the <i>trente et quarante</i> series. Mornings he
+worked with his thoughts fixed on Monte Carlo; and no sooner did
+afternoon come, than he felt an irresistible desire to go there. It was
+useless for him to invent pretexts to remain there on the "Rock." He had
+lost sums that for him were enormous, and he needed to get them back. He
+was worried at the thought of the money he had received from home as an
+advance payment on the modest fortune inherited from his parents.</p>
+
+<p>"Some days, common sense tells me that I ought to return to Spain, and I
+immediately want to act on that good advice. Unfortunately there are
+certain things that keep me here and shatter my will power."</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you mean," said Michael smiling. "First of all, there is
+love."</p>
+
+<p>Novoa blushed, and then accepted the words of the Prince with a comic
+look of embarrassment. Yes; there was something in that, but love had
+its disillusionments, the same as gambling.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff suddenly saw in his eyes an expression like that of Spadoni's.
+He, too, knew what had happened, and in speaking of love immediately
+recalled that absurd duel. But Novoa was a different person, incapable
+of feeling the malign pleasure of gossips, who rejoice in other people's
+shortcomings. Besides, Michael felt that he was very frank, and was
+immediately convinced of this. Quietly, without thinking whether or not
+his words might annoy the other man, the Professor alluded to what had
+occurred at Lewis' castle. He lamented it<a name="page_467" id="page_467"></a> as something illogical and
+untimely, but had not ceased to be interested in the affairs of the
+Prince on that account. If he had refrained from going to Villa Sirena,
+it was in order not to seem forward. He had often talked with the
+Colonel, asking him to take his best wishes to the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as though repenting the severity with which he had judged the
+duel, he hastened to explain. The image of Castro passed through his
+mind, causing him to look at his comrade with brotherly tolerance.</p>
+
+<p>"I can understand a great many things. I am not a fighting man like you,
+and nevertheless, I once felt a desire to fight. At present I laugh when
+I think of it; but, in similar circumstances, I would do the same again.
+What power women have over us! How they change us!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince did not protest on hearing that Novoa supposed him to be in
+love, attributing the duel to a woman's influence. And he continued to
+remain silent, while the Professor, through a logical association of
+ideas, began to talk about Alicia. The kindly simple savant showed a
+keen satisfaction in telling certain news which he thought would please
+Lubimoff.</p>
+
+<p>He felt a similar interest in his compatriot, Martinez. He did not hate
+any one. He had even forgotten the disagreements with Castro, which had
+caused him to leave the comfort and plenty of Villa Sirena.</p>
+
+<p>"That poor Lieutenant is less fortunate than you, Prince: this duel has
+been rather hard on him. I enjoy a certain intimacy with people who are
+close to the Duchess de Delille.... I do not need to say any more: you
+understand that I am in a position to know what is going on in the Villa
+Rosa. Well, then; since the duel, I don't know what has happened, but
+Martinez calls at that house less frequently. Whole days go by without
+his daring<a name="page_468" id="page_468"></a> to ring at the door. Sometimes he goes there, and a person
+whom you know tells me that the Duchess refuses to see him. At present
+he is a mere visitor, a friend like any other. The Duchess is anxious to
+avoid their former intimacy; she continues to send him little gifts at
+the Officers' Hotel, and to look after his comfort. She sends the young
+lady who is a friend of mine to find out if he needs anything, but she
+receives him only at rare intervals. The lunches and dinners each day
+have come to an end, with that life in common, which would have been
+complete if he had slept in the house. And the poor boy seems sad, and
+full of despair at this change."</p>
+
+<p>The Professor was encouraged in his confidences on noting the pleasure
+with which the Prince received them.</p>
+
+<p>"A certain person," he continued, after some hesitation, "who has spent
+several nights in the street where the Duchess lives&mdash;the deuce, a
+certain person! Why shouldn't I tell the whole truth&mdash;I, who sometimes
+spend hours in the neighborhood of Villa Rosa, waiting for the young
+lady in question, have surprised Martinez near the house, slinking by
+close to the gate, looking at the windows. Poor boy! And they tell me
+that during the day time, when he is afraid that the Duchess won't
+receive him, he goes by there, just the same."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff was stirred by a double feeling: one of rage, at the conviction
+that he had made no mistake: that little soldier boy was in love with
+Alicia; and one of delight on learning that he was not received in the
+house, as before, and was hovering about the neighborhood in vain. It
+was a negative sort of joy for him, but joy at any event, to see that
+youth in a situation like his own.</p>
+
+<p>Novoa, being a man of simple tastes, could not understand love except
+under conventional circumstances, and between people of similar ages;
+and he laughed at this<a name="page_469" id="page_469"></a> passion of the officer, as though it were
+something exceedingly amusing.</p>
+
+<p>"How absurd! To fall in love like that with a woman old enough to be his
+mother!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince started on hearing this, looking fixedly at his companion.
+No; the Professor had discovered nothing. He was laughing at his own
+reflections, without any indirect insinuations. No one but Lubimoff
+himself could possibly know Alicia's real secret.</p>
+
+<p>They walked back and forth several times between the cannon and the
+trees. Suddenly, the bells of the churches and convents in Monaco, began
+to ring, answering, through the luminous atmosphere, those of the Monte
+Carlo frontier.</p>
+
+<p>Twelve o'clock! Novoa became restless. He was a man of fixed habits, and
+besides, the Monaco people at whose house he was living were absolutely
+punctual in their meal hours. To think that there was not a restaurant
+in Monaco, where for once he could be extravagant and invite the Prince!
+The latter proposed that he accompany him to the far-off Villa Sirena to
+lunch together. It was so pleasant to be in his company! He gave him
+such interesting news!</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!" the Professor hastened to say. "I must see some one in
+Monte Carlo as soon as I finish my lunch. They will wait for me."</p>
+
+<p>And the Prince did not insist, guessing that the person referred to was
+Valeria.</p>
+
+<p>A single carriage had taken refuge in the pale shade of the trees. It
+had remained there after bringing some tourists who, on coming out of
+the Museum, preferred to return on foot by the ancient path along the
+fortifications.</p>
+
+<p>Michael got into it, and drove to Villa Sirena.<a name="page_470" id="page_470"></a></p>
+
+<p>The rest of the day and a great part of the night passed very pleasantly
+for him. He was going over and over in his memory the news he had just
+heard. It had not been a bad day. He scarcely remembered Castro. Castro
+was in Paris; that was the one thing certain. On the other hand, the
+misfortune of Martinez made him hum gaily to himself, and this unusual
+good humor quite deceived the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>"All I say is, Your Highness ought to go out, and see people. I was sure
+that to-day's walk would do you a world of good."</p>
+
+<p>The following day, the Prince had an even pleasanter surprise. He had
+finished his lunch, when his valet announced ceremoniously: "Dr. Novoa,
+the professor, to see you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Michael, having a presentiment that it meant something very interesting
+for him, received the Spaniard with extraordinary effusion, such as
+Toledo had never seen before. "Awfully good of you to come, Novoa! You
+don't mean to say you have had your lunch already? What a regular life
+you Monaco bachelors lead! Well, at least, you'll have coffee with me?"</p>
+
+<p>And the Prince hastily finished his lunch and went into the <i>salon</i>,
+where coffee and liqueurs were waiting. The impatience of the visitor to
+talk with him privately was so obvious, that Lubimoff hastened to invent
+an excuse for Don Marcos to go away.</p>
+
+<p>When they were alone, Novoa left his cup on the little table, took
+several puffs at his cigar, as though to summon all his strength of
+will, and finally said in a resolute voice:</p>
+
+<p>"I have a message to give you: a certain person sent me here ... and I
+suspect that I am playing a rather cheap rôle. A man like myself doing
+such errands as this!... Besides, men ought to help one another. You<a name="page_471" id="page_471"></a>
+who are a real gentleman, may perhaps consent to do something for
+me...."</p>
+
+<p>And the good Professor talked as though he felt himself united with the
+Prince by a sort of professional comradeship, by being in the same
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff, anxious to know the message, gave a look of acquiescence. Yes:
+it was true; he was capable of doing anything for him that he might ask.
+At that moment he felt the savant his best friend. But what was the
+message?</p>
+
+<p>Novoa continued, with a certain hesitation. The day before, after his
+meeting with the Prince, he had seen that young lady ... that young lady
+who is a companion to the Duchess. He had told her everything; a bad
+habit he had, but lovers cannot always talk about themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"We were together at a concert, and this morning she came to the Museum
+to tell me to see you immediately. I refused at first to take the
+message, but you know what women are. Besides, the young woman has a
+mind of her own. To make it short, here I am repeating what I was told."</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a moment, and after looking all around, he added, in a
+mysterious voice:</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon, at St. Charles."</p>
+
+<p>On his way there Novoa had been worried by the obscurity of the message.
+What St. Charles was it? A hotel? A promenade? As a resident of Monaco,
+the Professor knew only the Casino in Monte Carlo. The one thing certain
+in his mind was that Valeria's message came from the Duchess.</p>
+
+<p>Michael made an effort to hide the joy which these words gave him.
+Alicia was looking for him! In spite of his satisfaction he felt a need
+of asking for fresh details. Hadn't Novoa been told the time?<a name="page_472" id="page_472"></a></p>
+
+<p>"No, Prince. 'This afternoon, at St. Charles'; not another word more.
+The young lady almost became angry because I asked her to make it
+clearer. I told you that when we are by ourselves she can be cross&mdash;like
+all the rest. She told me that you would understand the message at
+once."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff nodded in affirmation; yes, he understood. What a nice fellow
+the scientist was! At that moment he wished him every sort of happiness
+that men can enjoy. If he had not known Novoa's scruples and his pride,
+he would have asked Don Marcos for all the money there was in the house,
+to hand it to him in handfuls. But since a material gift was quite out
+of the question, he expressed the hope that Valeria, whom he had always
+considered an ambitious climber, would bring happiness and beauty into
+the Professor's life. His satisfaction made him so optimistic that he
+even believed that he had been mistaken in regard to her, and he endowed
+the Duchess' companion with a great number of hidden virtues.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo had returned, and the Prince, who wanted to please Novoa, talked
+to him about Oceanographic explorations, displaying a lively curiosity
+in his questions, though his thoughts were far away.</p>
+
+<p>But this attempt at flattery was wasted. The Professor replied to his
+questions with hesitation. He was in a hurry; some one was waiting for
+him ... doubtless Valeria needed to know the result of his errand at
+once. And the Prince also displayed a certain haste in accompanying him
+to the gate, with the greatest possible show of friendliness. He must
+return often to Villa Sirena; he was his one real friend. What a pity he
+refused to live there, as he had formerly!</p>
+
+<p>When Lubimoff found himself alone, he went upstairs to his rooms on the
+second floor. He was afraid the<a name="page_473" id="page_473"></a> Colonel would guess the cause of his
+satisfaction. A sensation of pride and triumph mingled now with the joy
+of the first moment.</p>
+
+<p>He thought of his situation, Don Marcos had remained silent since the
+duel, and he, himself, a prey to loneliness, had been in the depths of
+despair, imagining himself the laughing-stock of every one.</p>
+
+<p>Now he could see things clearly, Alicia wanted to come back to him. She
+had fallen in love with him again. Everything showed that: the
+Lieutenant practically expelled from the house, which two weeks before
+he had considered as his own; and his former protectress avoiding him,
+so that his visits were becoming rare. Doubtless, on learning through
+Valeria that her former lover had voluntarily left his retirement in
+Villa Sirena, she was hastening to make an immediate appointment with
+him in haste to resume their former relations.</p>
+
+<p>He congratulated himself on his unexplainable aggressiveness which had
+impelled him to offend Martinez. He, who, in the last few days had
+repented of that mad affair! What had weighed upon him like remorse, was
+perhaps the most sensible and opportune act of his life. Alicia, seeing
+that, mad with jealousy, he was doing something which many people
+considered absurd, fighting for her sake, doubtless felt flattered in
+her vanity, and was looking upon him now with new interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, these women!" thought Lubimoff. "You've got to know them. They have
+an instinctive admiration for the strong. There is nothing like an act
+of brutality at the right moment to conquer them. They take a certain
+joy in yielding to a man who impresses them by violence."</p>
+
+<p>This had been his first happy moment in many, many days. Once more he
+was the Prince Lubimoff who had<a name="page_474" id="page_474"></a> always had his way, triumphing on
+obstacles, sometimes with his money, but more often with his imperious
+pride.</p>
+
+<p>Satisfied with his rough strength, he felt the need of making himself
+handsome before keeping the engagement. He was thinking of the males of
+the animal kingdom, who in addition to teeth, claws, and spurs, have
+combs, manes, and plumage to fall back on when it comes to inspire a
+sort of mystic slavish admiration in the females. It was the same among
+human beings. Education, laws, and traditions do nothing but disguise
+the barbaric foundations of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>His thoughts were interrupted by something which worried him. At what
+time should he appear at the place indicated. It occurred to him, that
+as no hour was mentioned, it must be the same as that of the previous
+meeting at the door of St. Charles. But he finally was convinced that
+the Professor had forgotten something, and his uneasiness made him keep
+the engagement much earlier.</p>
+
+<p>He spent more than three hours waiting anxiously, wandering about the
+streets in the neighborhood of the church, standing motionless at the
+corners, and changing from one place to another on noticing the
+curiosity of the passersby. He entered St. Charles several times, and
+was always greeted by the same sight: the multi-colored stained glass
+windows growing paler and paler, as the daylight waned, the clusters of
+flags, the altar pieces breaking the shadow with the dull splendor of
+their gold background, and women kneeling and motionless; women who
+seemed the same as on the other occasion, as though weeks had been
+minutes.</p>
+
+<p>With the superstitious feeling of those who wait, he said to himself
+that Alicia surely would not appear until nightfall, and the day seemed
+endless to him.</p>
+
+<p>As night came on he began to doubt.<a name="page_475" id="page_475"></a></p>
+
+<p>"She won't come. She must have repented."</p>
+
+<p>He was standing on the corner of a curved and sloping street adjoining
+the church. From there he could observe the steps leading to the little
+square with the sunken boulevard. No one climbed them; all the carriages
+passed without stopping.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, he had a sensation that some one was approaching from behind.
+He heard a light step, and on turning his head, he saw a woman in
+mourning.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly recovering his triumphant joy, he forgot everything: his long
+wait, his doubts and the fatigue of standing there in endless
+expectation. He was so sure of the motive which had induced her to ask
+for this interview, that he went forward to meet her with chivalrous
+cordiality.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Alicia!" he said, holding out both hands at once.</p>
+
+<p>But his hands clutched unavailingly at empty space, without finding
+anything to take hold of, and finally dropped in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff felt disconcerted at the expression on the woman's face. All
+the ideas that had been with him until that moment were so many
+illusions. They vanished in an instant, leaving him dismayed face to
+face with reality. Of that reality there could be no doubt. There was a
+look of hardness in the eyes that surveyed him fixedly.</p>
+
+<p>Alicia spoke rapidly, as though she had come on a matter of business
+with a person rather distasteful to her and wanted to end it as soon as
+possible, and be rid of his presence.</p>
+
+<p>There was a money matter between them which had to be settled. She had
+not written to him because, since certain recent happenings, she felt a
+letter was inadvisable. Besides, she could neither go to Villa Sirena,
+nor receive him at her home. For that reason, on hearing the<a name="page_476" id="page_476"></a> day before
+that Michael, whom she imagined ill, had been seen taking a walk, she
+had boldly made an appointment with him there, so that they might see
+each other for a few moments. That was all.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us talk like business men; business men who are in a hurry and do
+not waste words. I owe you some money and it is impossible for me to
+have any peace of mind until I return it to you: three hundred thousand
+francs which your mother gave me, and what you lent me in the
+Casino&mdash;perhaps something more. I have enough to pay you. If you don't
+care to take the matter up, send me Toledo."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff stood there dumbfounded at these unexpected words. After making
+this proposal, she seemed anxious to get away. Now she had said all she
+had to say; it annoyed her to remain there with the Prince; she had
+nothing to add.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Michael energetically.</p>
+
+<p>So that was why she had called him? And that was all she had to say to
+him, after they had been separated for so long?</p>
+
+<p>His refusal was so resolute, and his pained surprise was reflected in
+his features in such a manner, that Alicia felt it useless to insist.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well; let's not say anything more. I know your character, and I
+know that we would stay here arguing for hours without any result. I
+shall try and find a way to return what belongs to you. Good-by,
+Michael!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince tried to stop her by gently taking one of her hands, but she
+withdrew it with a nervous gesture of repulsion.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are going away!" he said in a tone of deep discouragement.</p>
+
+<p>The humility in his voice seemed to irritate the<a name="page_477" id="page_477"></a> Duchess, causing her
+to stop as she was turning away.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you think?" she asked indignantly. "I am surprised at your
+self-absorption, your failure to think of other people. Michael!
+Michael! You'll always be the same; you don't consider any one but
+yourself: nothing counts but your own desires. You've hurt me so much!
+And now you say like a child: 'And you are going away, ...' What, pray,
+did you expect after your despicable conduct? I want you to realize it
+once for all: I despise you. Your presence is odious to me. I despise
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>Poor Lubimoff saw his conduct once more as he had during his days of
+voluntary confinement. Alas! Where were the deceitful dreams that had
+cheered him until then? His sadness, and his repentance were so obvious
+that Alicia softened the tone of her words.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps despise is not the word; but I am sure that you fill me with
+pity; pity much like that which I feel for myself. We are two poor, mad
+creatures, Michael: our misfortunes have followed us a long way."</p>
+
+<p>Recalling their lives, Alicia thought of builders who make a serious
+mistake in putting in the foundation of a building, and go on raising
+it, imagining that their work is in a straight line, without observing
+that it is entirely out of plumb, owing to the defect in its base.</p>
+
+<p>"We began wrong. If the world had gone on the same as before, perhaps we
+would have been able to keep on our feet and be triumphant. Our
+surroundings sustained us: we were like children."</p>
+
+<p>But the Universal cataclysm had made them lose their balance forever.
+They were toppling over, with gaps that could never be brought together,
+ready to fall in a heap.</p>
+
+<p>"We belong to another period, and no one can protect<a name="page_478" id="page_478"></a> our frailty. I
+feel pity for you, Michael; and you must feel the same for me, for me,
+whom you have wronged so deeply!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince, in spite of his dejected humility, protested. He had been
+imprudent: that was sure. His aggression in the Casino and the miserable
+duel had caused a stupid scandal to be sure. But what irreparable harm
+did she mean, that caused her such profound sorrow? How could his
+madness, which injured him only, making him the object of comments and
+laughter, cause her such despair?</p>
+
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Alicia interrupted him with a gesture of impatience, as though she felt
+it impossible to make him understand her thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Look," she said pointing to the church door. "Before, I could go in
+there. Remember the last time that we saw each other on this spot. I had
+just been praying, and talking with my son; it was an illusion perhaps;
+but illusions help us to live. And now it is impossible for me; I feel
+remorse where before I found hope. And I have you to thank for this, you
+who took away the last consolation that I had invented for myself."</p>
+
+<p>She no longer looked at the Prince with hostile gaze. Her trembling
+voice, and her moist eyes, were those of a poor woman making an effort
+to hide her emotion. Michael stammered in embarrassment, not knowing
+what to do or say. Had he really been able to do her such an evil turn?
+When? How?</p>
+
+<p>Alicia, deaf to his questions, was thinking only of herself and her
+misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>"I had a son, and I lost him," she went on saying. "He was my hope, my
+one reason for living. The suffering made me look for consolation. What
+would become of us if we did not have the power of deceiving<a name="page_479" id="page_479"></a> ourselves
+by creating new illusions? And I had a second son, a son whom I
+invented, sad, condemned to die, but young like the other, unfortunate
+like the other, and lacking a mother to bring joy to his last days. I
+wanted to be that mother. I can feel only the sweet, protecting joy of
+maternity; my rôle as a woman is over: all I can see in a man is a son,
+and you take away this last consolation! You robbed me of my poor joy!"</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff began to understand. Alicia was talking about Martinez; and he
+felt once more the sting of jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>"When we saw each other here the last time I had sought a quiet refuge
+within my sorrow. I was praying for my son in the church, talking with
+him, and telling him how he was a brother in misfortune to one who was
+still alive, but who perhaps would soon go to join him. Then, on
+returning home I found the other, and my illusion was so great, that I
+was able to fuse them into a single person, imagining that time and the
+war were all a dream, and that my son was still alive, and had returned
+from his captivity and was by my side. They do not look alike, I am
+sure, although I avoid looking at George's pictures&mdash;but they seem to me
+the same; it is the uniform, misfortune, and nearness to death. Besides,
+the poor boy was so good! He was so timid, satisfied with anything,
+looking at me with the sweet look of a gentle little creature: he who is
+so proud! He venerated me like a being descended from an upper world. I
+was his mother. His words and looks breathed a feeling of deep respect.
+I wasn't a woman to him: I was something like the angels. And you, with
+your crazy interference, have spoiled it all. He is no longer my son: my
+dream has ended. I am obliged to do without his presence, and it is only
+at rare intervals that he finds open to him a house which I had taught
+him to consider<a name="page_480" id="page_480"></a> his home. Through your fault, this boy, in whom I saw a
+son, is now merely a man, and I, his mother, have become once more a
+woman."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff's features became dark and gloomy with an earthly cast, as on
+the afternoon of the duel. He was beginning to understand.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you do, Michael!" she continued in a tearful voice. "You
+aroused the poor boy by your madness. On fighting you, he imagined he
+was fighting for me, and that I was simply a woman. He saw me suddenly
+in a new light, as though he had been asleep until then. I might almost
+be his mother; for women of my class prolong their youth, preserve it
+artificially, and we are still desirable when women of the lower classes
+are already coming to old age. Besides, I understand the element of
+vanity in his admiration, that vanity which exists in all our
+sentiments. To him I am the unknown, the mysterious, a great lady, a
+Duchess, brought by these topsy-turvy days within his reach. Poor boy! A
+few weeks ago he used to laugh in my presence with childlike simplicity,
+and look at me placidly, without the shadow of an evil thought in his
+eyes. He was happy, and so was I; while now...!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince pictured Martinez pursuing Alicia with his amorous desires.
+"I'll kill him: I must kill him," he said to himself. But this homicidal
+anger lasted only an instant. The various scenes of the duel passed
+through his mind: a vision of himself kissing the officer's hand, in a
+sudden burst of unexplainable humility, which kept returning to torment
+him like remorse. What could he do now? After what had happened there
+was something sacred about the man. And once more he gave himself up to
+his despair, while Alicia went on talking.</p>
+
+<p>"My dream is dead. My son has become my son once more, and Martinez is a
+man like any other. At present<a name="page_481" id="page_481"></a> it is impossible for me to pray; I am
+ashamed to hold imaginary conversation with my real son. I am assailed
+by thoughts of what I told him; I am overwhelmed when I think that I go
+on talking with the other boy, in spite of what he has said to me, of
+what I read in his glances, and of what I know of his real desires. What
+a wrong you have done me! I lost one son, and can think of him only with
+remorse; I invented another, and you have taken him away from me."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as though complaining of some superior force that had presided
+over her destiny, she added:</p>
+
+<p>"What torture! Not to be able to know quiet friendship, and the tranquil
+days of maternity. Always to have love looming up in front of one! In my
+younger days I considered that the one aim of life was to inspire
+admiration and desire, and now I am punished for that indeed. I sought
+in you a sustaining friendship, and you immediately desired me. I tried
+to deceive my maternal longings by caring for an unfortunate boy who may
+die very soon, and this son of my affections talked to me of love. Is it
+true that women are never able to enjoy the peace and confidence that
+come to men quite naturally?"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince expressed his wishes, with eagerness and hatred in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't see him: break with him; close your door to him forever. In that
+way you will recover your peace of mind, and I ... I shall be your
+friend, I shall be anything you desire, it will be enough for me that I
+see you."</p>
+
+<p>She greeted his last words with a look of incredulity. Men had promised
+her so often to be friends! Besides, she knew Michael very well, and did
+not take the trouble to reply. The one thing that interested her was his
+advice that she definitely reject the wounded man, and<a name="page_482" id="page_482"></a> not see him any
+more. Once more her eyes grew moist.</p>
+
+<p>"Imagine driving the poor boy away! There are certain things you can't
+understand; you try to order affections about in the same arrogant way
+that you formerly disposed of people. Do you think I can abandon him? I
+am his mother in spite of everything, and you know very well how a
+mother tolerates and forgives things. The poor boy is not to blame for
+his evil thoughts; it was you who suggested them to him. Besides, it
+won't last; I have hopes that his foolish desires will die out."</p>
+
+<p>The idea of deserting the crippled soldier aroused her pity, giving an
+amorous tone to her words.</p>
+
+<p>"What would become of him! He doesn't know any one: he is alone in the
+world; the other officers are living, in their native land, they have
+families. Before, he could go and see Clorinda; now 'the General' has
+gone away, and I am the only one who remains, the only one! And you want
+me to forget him? You don't know him very well; you are an enemy of his.
+It is such a delight for me to recall the period of his innocence. He
+was like my son; no; there was something more about him; a thankfulness,
+a capacity for veneration concentrated entirely on me, such as I had
+never known before. You forget how his life hangs on a thread. Nor does
+he realize it himself; he does not know the real situation he is in; he
+has illusions of healthy youth; he thinks he will live for many years.
+Poor fellow! How hard it is for me to pretend that I am angry, to reject
+him with indignation because of the desires he feels for me ... me, who
+only want to be his mother!"</p>
+
+<p>This tone of sweet pity wounded her listener. Alicia seemed to feel the
+remorse of a death watch obliged to deny a condemned criminal the
+satisfaction of his last whim. She was lamenting like a nurse who cannot
+give a dying man what he asks for in his last gasps.<a name="page_483" id="page_483"></a></p>
+
+<p>Michael felt that he guessed the secret of the last interviews between
+this pseudo-mother and her adopted son. Perhaps she talked to him about
+his health, momentarily refusing to flatter him in his illusions of
+health, revealing to him the danger to which his life was exposed; and
+he, in a suicidal ardor of passion, was perhaps entreating her like a
+child who has placed all his dreams in a toy: "once, just once."</p>
+
+<p>He was convinced that this was the truth of the matter. He read it in
+her eyes, which in turn seemed to guess what the Prince was thinking,
+and she blushed slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"What harm you have done me," she repeated. "I must send him away from
+me, and I can't bear to desert him. It would be a crime if I abandoned
+him to his fate. You don't know what this constant struggle means to me.
+At times I see him hovering around my house; hidden behind the window
+blinds, I look at him, and I can hardly repress my tears. He seems so
+sad! I remember my son, who also lived alone, even more friendless than
+he, and who perhaps became interested in some woman, anxiously desiring
+many things without succeeding in possessing them, and I feel a desire
+to call to him, to shout: 'Since that is your dream, my dear child, your
+last wish in life, take it! Take it, and be happy!' Yet I think of his
+health, I think of many other things, and I restrain my impulse, and
+weep, letting him wander about near my house, imagining himself
+forgotten, though I am thinking of him all the time. Alas! May God give
+me strength! May I not lose my self control! May I continue to resist my
+absurd charitableness! Sometimes I fear I won't."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Alicia!"</p>
+
+<p>The Prince uttered the words in a tone of desperation. His presentiment
+was becoming a reality; he could already see that dying youth possessing
+what he had not<a name="page_484" id="page_484"></a> been able to obtain. There was a look of homicidal
+anger in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>This hostile expression annoyed Alicia, making another woman of her. The
+harsh look and the cutting tones which had accompanied her arrival
+appeared in her once more.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough said. I came here to return your money. You refuse to take it?
+You refuse? Very well, I will find a way to make you. Good night,
+Michael!"</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, night had fallen, and the Prince saw her disappear
+in the shadows of the street whence she had come: a street dimly lighted
+by a single blue street lamp.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, he thought of heading her off, humble and entreating. He
+would never see her again: he was sure of that. But at the same time he
+perceived the uselessness of insisting. She wanted him to forget her;
+the interview had merely been to suppress all traces of the past still
+existing between them. And he allowed her to pass out of his sight.</p>
+
+<p>From that day on, the life of the Prince lacked a purpose. Something had
+broken within him: his will had crumbled to dust, enveloping his senses
+in a sort of fog. What was to be done? Not even the narrowest of paths
+remained open to his initiative. Alicia hated him as though he were an
+enemy. It meant good-by for all time! There still remained the other
+man, but the Prince was invulnerable as far as Martinez was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>It was enough for him to think of what had happened in Lewis' castle to
+lose all intention of violence. He cursed his Slavic sentimentality, so
+confused and incoherent, like his mother's, which prevented him from
+going to the end in malice, and causing him to fall, when he least
+expected it, into exaggerated submission. Alas, for his tears of
+repentance! Alas for that kiss on his<a name="page_485" id="page_485"></a> adversary's hand! If he avoided
+returning to the Casino, it was in order not to meet Martinez and those
+two Captains who had witnessed the incomprehensible conclusion of the
+duel. He no longer had the energy to impose his will; his former
+harshness of character had melted with the catastrophe of his desires.</p>
+
+<p>He shut himself up once again in Villa Sirena, in order not to see any
+one. He hated people, and at the same time he thought with a certain
+terror of the ill-concealed smiles that might greet his passing, and the
+remarks that might be exchanged behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos was the one companion of his loneliness; and Lubimoff, who
+during the first few days exchanged but a few words with him, finally
+came to wish that he would hurry back from Monte Carlo, at nightfall, in
+order to hear the news, which in other days he would have considered
+insignificant. They entered into long conversations on what was going on
+in the Casino, or on the happenings of the world. It was the curiosity
+of a prisoner or an invalid, who takes an exaggerated interest in
+things, as he loses his sense of values, owing to his inability to move
+about in his confinement.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel was giving less and less importance to the events of daily
+life. All his attention had been focused on the Atlantic Coast and the
+opposite shores of the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>"They keep on coming!" he said, after greeting the Prince. "The
+Americans keep on coming: a regular crusade. There are hundreds of
+thousands of them; there are millions. And to think that a lot of people
+considered the talk of sending armies from America mere bluff!"</p>
+
+<p>He was really indignant at such ignorance, quite forgetting his
+skepticism of a few months before.<a name="page_486" id="page_486"></a></p>
+
+<p>"A great country! And that fellow Wilson, what a man!"</p>
+
+<p>At present he believed the American people capable of accomplishing
+anything they set out to do, no matter how extraordinary; but his
+old-fashioned ideas prevented him from feeling sustained enthusiasm for
+anything collective and abstract, without human physiognomy. The former
+partisan of absolute monarchy, preferred individuals: one man to think
+for the rest, and give them orders. And after a few words, his
+enthusiasm for the American democracy began to shrink in scope until it
+rested in concentrated form on the head of Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>"The greatest man in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes moistened with idolatrous fervor as he read the President's
+speeches; he exhausted all his vocabulary of superlatives in expressing
+his admiration for the personage who had made a great people unsheath
+their swords, disinterestedly, in defense of justice and liberty, and
+who prophesied at the same time a future of peace for mankind, with no
+greedy nations to menace the life of the humble and the weak.</p>
+
+<p>One evening he found a new phrase to express his admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"What a poet!" Lubimoff, in spite of his melancholy, began to laugh.
+President Wilson a poet!</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos, stammering at the laughter of his Prince, tried to explain
+himself. Perhaps "poet" was not just the word to express his thought
+accurately. But poet he would call him nevertheless, and with good
+reason. A poet for the Colonel was a seer, who says very beautiful
+things about the future of mankind; a prophet who dreams upon his
+heights, embracing with his glance all that the common crowd swarming
+below cannot see; a being who, on speaking, in whatever form he may
+choose, succeeds in making people who are listening blink their<a name="page_487" id="page_487"></a> eyes
+with emotion, while a shiver runs down their spines.</p>
+
+<p>His tongue became twisted as he said this but above his stammering,
+arose a firm unshakable conviction.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, I know what I mean. For me, he is a poet: a man who has
+wings ... very long wings."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince began to laugh again. Wilson with wings! He imagined the
+President with his high hat, his glasses, and his kindly smile, and
+growing out from each shoulder of his long coat two enormous feathery
+triangles like those of the angels in religious paintings. What an
+amusing fellow the Colonel was!</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly he became thoughtful, while his features took on an
+expression of great seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," he said. "I can see him with wings, wings that are too
+long perhaps. A great thing when it comes to flying, but when one is
+obliged to live among men, and has to walk along on the ground!... I am
+afraid he will drag his wings; I am afraid they will be stepped on some
+day, and that people will find them a great nuisance...."</p>
+
+<p>And they dropped the subject.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince wanted to break the confinement which he had voluntarily
+imposed upon himself. Why should he stay there at Villa Sirena, near
+certain people who constantly occupied his thoughts yet whom he did not
+wish to see? The best thing would be for him to return to Paris as soon
+as possible. The long range cannon was continuing to fire on the
+Capital; almost every week squads of German aeroplanes made night
+excursions about it, dropping explosives. Such a trip offered the
+inducement of danger and excitement to the lonely man, tormented in his
+perfect health by an inactive and monotonous life, which offered nothing
+more stimulating than the irritations to be derived from his recent
+experiences.</p>
+
+<p>Every morning, when he got up, he formulated the<a name="page_488" id="page_488"></a> same plan: "I am going
+to Paris." But the trip kept being put off from week to week. It was a
+case of abulia, the loss of will power of an invalid, who makes projects
+of active life, and no sooner attempts to carry them out, than he loses
+his strength again, and postpones them indefinitely.</p>
+
+<p>The most insignificant details loomed gigantically before his diseased
+will. He had to go to Nice to make reservations at the Sleeping-car
+Office. He thought of sending Don Marcos; then refrained, considering it
+preferable to go himself. And days went by without his taking the short
+ride preliminary to his Paris trip. Both of them seemed equally long.
+He, who had thrice circumnavigated the globe, wearily shrunk at the
+thought of the slowness of travel due to the war. Just imagine sixteen
+hours on a train!</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, bored by his splendid gardens,&mdash;now so monotonous!&mdash;by
+the silence of his house,&mdash;now so deserted!&mdash;and by the increasing
+absent-mindedness of the Colonel, who was always having something to do
+either in Monte Carlo, or in the gardener's pavilion, Lubimoff started
+out on foot toward the City. And he met some one.</p>
+
+<p>He had turned quite mechanically and without thinking in the direction
+of the upper boulevards, near the street in which Villa Rosa was
+situated. When he realized this, he decided to turn back. Just then he
+saw Lieutenant Martinez coming along on the opposite sidewalk, in the
+direction that he himself had been going a few moments before.</p>
+
+<p>The soldier seemed to him taller, stronger, and as it were, surrounded
+by a halo of glory. His uniform was the same, frayed and old looking
+after some years of service; but to the Prince it seemed entirely new,
+even dazzling in its freshness. Everything about the Lieutenant<a name="page_489" id="page_489"></a> looked
+magnificent and he seemed to illumine the objects about him by mere
+contact. His features perhaps were paler and more angular; but Michael
+imagined that he radiated a certain inner splendor, composed of pride
+and satisfaction. A sort of ethereal mask, enveloping him in astral
+light, made him appear handsome and gave him a new physiognomy,
+Apollo-like and triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>They passed without speaking. The Lieutenant pretended not to see him,
+as Lubimoff's eyes followed him with a questioning glance. What was
+there that was new in this man? The Prince doubted that lack of sound
+health, that perilous condition which worried the doctors so much. It
+was all a lie made up to impress the ladies! He noticed the proud
+firmness of the soldier's step, the jaunty, boyish air with which he
+swung the rattan he used as a cane.</p>
+
+<p>On losing him from sight, he could see him even more clearly. His
+imagination kept vividly recalling certain details over which his eyes
+had wandered carelessly. There was something that stood out in painful
+relief in his memory: a few roses, a little bunch of roses, which the
+soldier was wearing on his breast, between two buttons of his uniform.
+An officer with flowers seemed rather strange! That was what had shocked
+the Prince at the first glance, shocked him so violently that his whole
+vision had been deeply disturbed. Yes, those flowers!...</p>
+
+<p>He spent the rest of the day thinking about them. As he stretched out in
+his bed that night, darkness clarified the maze of thoughts and doubts
+whirling in his brain. He could see it all in a cold clear light. "It
+has happened already!"</p>
+
+<p>He jumped out of bed and turned on the light, pacing up and down his
+bedroom in a fury.</p>
+
+<p>"It has happened already!"</p>
+
+<p>He kept repeating the words with anguished obsession;<a name="page_490" id="page_490"></a> he repented his
+generosity, as though it were a crime. "Why didn't I kill him?" Then in
+plaintive tones he would repeat his original affirmation, concluding
+that what had happened was irreparable. Then he put out the light again;
+and for a long time, in the darkness, which once more filled the
+bedroom, the curses of the Prince resounded, alternating with fierce
+exclamations of wounded pride and sobs of rage.</p>
+
+<p>The following day his conviction still persisted. The childlike beauty
+of the morning, which always inspires optimism, meant nothing to him.
+How was he to know the truth about that thing which he had suspected and
+feared, but which he never imagined would really come to pass?</p>
+
+<p>A desperate curiosity caused him to spend the entire day in Monte Carlo.
+He met Martinez again. The officer kept on walking, turning his glance
+away in order not to see him; but the Prince imagined he caught a
+fleeting look of generous pity in his eyes, an expression of compassion
+for an unfortunate and inoffensive rival. Again he was wearing flowers;
+doubtless different from those of the day before.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff repeated to himself the laments of the previous night: "Yes, it
+had already happened." It was impossible to doubt it. But the thought of
+killing him did not recur, nor did he repent of his generosity. That was
+all so useless now! He merely thought with envy of people in the
+submerged classes of society, who feel the impulses of passion very
+simply, without any disturbing sense of honor and solemn promises. They
+were men who could act regardless of laws and customs. When they wanted
+to kill some one, they went and did so!</p>
+
+<p>He saw that Martinez was thinner than ever, with a feverish look in his
+eyes. Oh, that indefinable something,<a name="page_491" id="page_491"></a> that suggestion of youthful
+vanity, of triumph and satisfaction, which seemed to radiate from his
+features like a halo of glory!</p>
+
+<p>That evening, Toledo found himself brusquely repelled by his Prince,
+when he tried to tell him about a letter which he had received from
+Paris. The Administrator of the Prince's estate was getting impatient;
+he was asking for a reply from his Highness in regard to the sale of
+Villa Sirena.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; leave me alone. The best thing is for me to arrange the
+matter myself. I'll go to Nice to-morrow and see about my trip to
+Paris.... No, not to-morrow: day after to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>He could not explain to himself why he had conceded that additional day
+to his idleness: it was an instinctive postponement, without any motive
+whatsoever. The following day, after breakfast, he regretted it; but it
+was already too late to find the chauffeur he had gotten the afternoon
+of the duel, and whom Don Marcos had just promoted to the rank of
+"purveyor to his Highness."</p>
+
+<p>Where could he go, and be sure of not coming across the persons present
+so bitterly in his thoughts? Toward the end of the afternoon he went to
+the Casino terraces. There was an open air concert which was attracting
+a huge crowd. It was improbable that Martinez and the woman should show
+themselves in such a gathering.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as though he were living in peace times; as though he had gone
+back to one of those rare winters which used to attract all the wealthy
+people of the globe to the Riviera. Both terraces were filled with
+well-dressed people. The bombardment of Paris and the attacks of the
+German <i>Gothas</i> were keeping a great many elegant ladies in Monte Carlo
+who formerly would have felt they were losing caste if they stayed on
+the warm coast when winter was over.<a name="page_492" id="page_492"></a></p>
+
+<p>Chairs were lacking. A large part of the audience was seated on the
+balustrades and steps. Around the orchestra <i>kiosque</i> there was a mass
+of pleasant colors, formed by women's hats, spring dresses, and
+fluttering fans. Opposite the terraces the sea stretched away between
+the rose-colored promontories. The far-away sails reddened by the
+setting sun seemed like so many flames. Across the violet surface of the
+Mediterranean and the crystal opalescence of the evening sky the music
+fell voluptuously.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody was thinking about the war: that was a calamity that belonged to
+another world, to other skies. Even the convalescent soldiers in
+uniform, who were living entirely in the present moment, breathing the
+salt air, listening to the wail of the violins, and surrounded by gayly
+dressed women, did not seem to remember it. Many eyes were following the
+progress, along the horizon line, of a string of ships strangely painted
+like fabulous monsters, and escorted by several torpedo boats. But the
+lulling music that rang in the ears of the idlers took all significance
+away from the fearful disguise of the boats, and from the cautious
+slowness with which they were gliding along off the Shores of Pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>When, after seven o'clock, the concert was over, the terraces gradually
+emptied. On the benches only a few couples remaining, putting off the
+time of parting by conversing quietly in the silence of the blue
+twilight.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince succeeded in walking from one end to the other of the lower
+promenade without once having to submit to contact with the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he stopped, with a feeling of surprise and pain, as though he
+had just received a blow in the breast. Down the wide steps which joined
+the two terraces, a couple were descending. His instinct recognized
+them<a name="page_493" id="page_493"></a> even before he could see them clearly. It was a soldier. It was
+Lieutenant Martinez ... and she!</p>
+
+<p>Alicia was dressed in mourning, just as he had seen her near the church;
+but she was walking less resolutely, shrinking and timid, on finding
+herself on that spot which shortly before had been occupied by all her
+neighbors from the city.</p>
+
+<p>They were talking as they slowly descended. Absorbed in the view out
+upon the sea, they did not turn their eyes toward the spot where
+Lubimoff was standing motionless. At the bottom of the stairs they chose
+to walk in the opposite direction, and the Prince was able to follow
+them.</p>
+
+<p>He felt that some extraordinary power of divination was sharpening his
+faculties; a sort of second sight which was enabling him to see and
+study both their faces, in spite of the fact that their backs were
+turned toward him.</p>
+
+<p>Alas, that walk! It was the desire for light and open air, which people
+feel after a sweet confinement. It was the insolent need lovers have of
+displaying their happiness in public, when the joyous hours, through
+monotonous repetition, begin to weigh on them. It was the desire of
+prolonging in the sight of every one the sweet intimacy enjoyed in
+secret and now spiced with the added incentive of being obliged to
+feign, and to hide all real feelings.</p>
+
+<p>Michael considered his intuitions as beyond all question. Of course! It
+was the officer who had proposed that walk. How proud he would be to
+walk in a public place with a celebrated lady, and in full consciousness
+of the new rights he had acquired over her! It was no longer possible
+for him to question the visualization which had made him groan in the
+silence of the night.... It had taken place! It had taken place!<a name="page_494" id="page_494"></a></p>
+
+<p>Alicia's appearance dispelled all doubts in advance. She was walking
+along with a certain dismay like a person obliged to go on in spite of
+herself. He could see her invisible features. They were sad, profoundly
+sad, with a melancholy look of the woman who has fallen and is conscious
+of her abasement, but considers it irremediable, the result of an
+irresistible destiny, of a cause beyond the radius of the will's action.</p>
+
+<p>Her head kept bending down to one side toward her companion, for her
+eyes to gaze on him. It must have been the gaze of a willing prisoner
+anxious to forget the pangs of remorse and taking a sensuous
+satisfaction in her shameful slavery. While her soul shrank away at the
+memory, her body was bending under physical attraction to that other
+body, instinctively seeking the contact that was causing her youth to
+bloom again in a new spring-time; a sad spring-time, like all the
+surprises of fate, but sweeter far than the dull gray hours of solitude.</p>
+
+<p>Hate, repugnance, and indignant jealousy caused the Prince to stop. Why
+should he follow them? They might turn their heads and see him. He was
+ashamed at the thought of meeting them. The wretches! There must be Some
+One above to punish such things!</p>
+
+<p>And he left them, walking toward the other end of the promenade in order
+to descend to the harbor of La Condamine.</p>
+
+<p>He was just leaving the terrace when something happened behind his back
+which brought him to a stop. The couples seated on the benches suddenly
+rose and ran shouting in the direction whence he had come. He could hear
+people calling to one another. Some news seemed to be circulating
+through both levels of the garden, bringing people forth from the walks,
+from the clusters of palm trees, and the walls of vegetation.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff allowed himself to be carried along by this<a name="page_495" id="page_495"></a> alarm, and
+retraced his steps. He saw in the distance a noisy mass of people ever
+increasing in size, a group which was being joined by the winding lines
+of curiosity seekers running down the steps. The garden, which a moment
+before had been deserted, was pouring forth people from every opening.</p>
+
+<p>As he drew near the crowd, he could hear the comments of various
+detached onlookers, who were telling the news to the new arrivals.</p>
+
+<p>"A convalescent officer.... He was taking a walk with a lady....
+Suddenly he fell in a heap, as though struck by lightning. There he is."</p>
+
+<p>Yes; there was Martinez, in the center of that human mass, a pitiful
+object, lying on the ground, with his body bent into the shape of a Z:
+his head made a right angle with his breast, and his legs were doubled,
+making another angle. Lubimoff came forward until he could look over the
+shoulders of the first row of stupefied onlookers. A constant sound of
+hard breathing, a rattle like that of some poor beast in the death agony
+kept coming from his foaming lips. In his motionless body, the only sign
+of life was that moan, repeated with clock-like regularity, with no
+change in the tone.</p>
+
+<p>Officers were leaving their women companions to force their way into the
+center of the crowd. On recognizing Martinez, their surprise assumed a
+caressing brotherly expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Antonio! Antonio!"</p>
+
+<p>They bent over him to talk in his ear, as though he were asleep; but
+Antonio did not hear them. One of his eyes was hidden in the dirt of the
+walk; a small pebble was clinging to the eyelid of the other. All one
+side of his uniform was white with dust. The terrible harsh breathing
+was the only reply to their words of endearment.<a name="page_496" id="page_496"></a></p>
+
+<p>A military doctor stepped through the crowd. He took hold of Martinez's
+hands, and felt his pulse. A look of helplessness came over the doctor's
+face. The Lieutenant had had many attacks like this one. They could only
+hope that it was not to be his last....</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff could see Alicia kneeling on the ground, stunned by the shock,
+showing the sinuous curves of her back, under her mourning garments,
+oblivious of everything about her, with her eyes fixed on the man who a
+few minutes before had been walking at her side, talking and smiling,
+convinced that life is happiness, and who now lay stretched in the dust,
+convulsed and inert, a pitiable vessel slowly emptying itself in dying
+gasps.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she stood up, with an instinctive sense of danger. She did not
+care to remain in that posture before everybody's gaze. Her large eyes,
+with a blank, frightened look, began to move about over the crowd,
+without however recognizing any one. For a moment they rested on Michael
+and her gaze met his with an expression of anguished entreaty. But the
+Prince, lowering his head, concealed himself behind the front row of
+onlookers, and her eyes went on in their search about the circle, with a
+look that became dull and gray again. She believed, doubtless, that it
+had been an hallucination.</p>
+
+<p>As Alicia remained standing there, people began to point her out. That
+was the lady who was with the officer. Some of them recognized her, and
+repeated her name: "The Duchess de Delille." Through an instinctive
+feeling of repulsion, or a cowardly desire not to get mixed up in any
+"affair," no one spoke to her. She was left alone in the center of the
+crowd, with a look of stupefaction in her eyes, that seemed to ask for
+help, though without knowing just what help.</p>
+
+<p>Willing souls began to take the initiative with an air of authority.<a name="page_497" id="page_497"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Air! Give him air!" They began to shove the crowd back in order to
+increase the circle around the fallen man. But the people immediately
+pushed forward again with useless suggestions of aid; and once more the
+space was narrowed, until the feet of the nearest spectators grazed the
+panting lips of the dying man.</p>
+
+<p>A young girl had run of her own accord to the bar at the entrance of the
+Casino and was coming back with a glass of water.</p>
+
+<p>"Antonio! Antonio!" his kneeling comrades vainly called the Lieutenant,
+using all their strength to open his jaws and force him to drink. His
+lips repelled the liquid, and went on repeating the painful moans.</p>
+
+<p>Ladies, attracted by the news, began to arrive from the gambling rooms.
+They all knew the Duchess; and looked at her with a certain hostility,
+after gazing at the dying man. The Prince heard fragments of their
+comment: "A poor fellow rescued from death by a miracle.... The
+slightest emotion.... That woman...."</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the group, park policemen were running about giving orders. The
+stretcher bearers had arrived; the same ones who, according to public
+rumor, were passed by magic through the walls of the Casino to carry
+away the gamblers dying in the play-rooms.</p>
+
+<p>This time the stretcher was absent. The onlookers were separating to
+open the way for an extraordinary novelty. A hired carriage was coming
+across the terraces, which were forbidden to vehicles.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Lubimoff saw the Duchess rise above the heads of the crowd. She
+had just gotten into the carriage and was standing in it, with a dazed
+look and the inexpressive features of a person walking in her sleep.
+Perhaps she had done it without thinking; perhaps the military doctor
+had invited her to get in, thinking she<a name="page_498" id="page_498"></a> was a relative of the patient.
+Several men in uniform lifted the inert body of the officer.</p>
+
+<p>The harsh breathing that rent his chest continued.</p>
+
+<p>And then, in the presence of the crowd, whose eyes were sightless with
+stupefaction, the Duchess proceeded as though she were alone. She had
+just dropped to the seat. She had them lay the corpse-like body across
+her knees, and she herself, as she held Martinez with one arm, laid his
+panting head against one of her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage slowly started off in the direction of the officers' hotel,
+followed by a large part of the crowd. The doctor went along on foot,
+telling the driver to go slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Michael saw Alicia pass, upright and rigid in her seat, her eyes wide
+open, with terror, her mouth tense with grief, and holding the dying man
+on her knees. Her attitude reminded him of the Divine Mother at the foot
+of the cross; but there was something impure and shameful in Alicia's
+sorrow that made the comparison inadmissible.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Venus Dolorosa."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was interrupted in his reflections. He felt himself rudely
+shoved aside by a woman in uniform. It was Mary Lewis, running, as fast
+as her legs could carry her, to overtake the carriage. The Amazon of
+Good Deeds always arrived in time to catch up with suffering.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff saw how the vehicle slowly drove away with its embroidery of
+people. Its journey as far as the hotel would be endless; all Monte
+Carlo would see it go by.</p>
+
+<p>He felt sad, very, very sad. That officer was his enemy; but death!...</p>
+
+<p>He was not so sorry for Alicia. He smiled a malicious smile as he looked
+for the last time at the carriage and its following, which was
+constantly increasing.</p>
+
+<p>In the line of scandals there was nothing commonplace about this latest
+of the Duchess de Delille.<a name="page_499" id="page_499"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<p>T<small>WO</small> days later, in the morning, Lubimoff saw the Colonel go out dressed
+in black.</p>
+
+<p>He was going to the funeral of Martinez. He and Novoa felt it was their
+duty, as Spaniards, to accompany the hero on his last earthly journey.</p>
+
+<p>On his return he told his impressions, with painful conciseness, to the
+Prince. A few convalescent officers had followed the bier. The Professor
+and he were the only ones in civilian clothes present. In spite of his
+garb, those kindly heroic boys, seeing that he was a Colonel and a
+compatriot of the dead man, had obliged him to preside over the funeral
+services.</p>
+
+<p>The Beausoleil Cemetery lay half way up the slope of the mountain on the
+crest of which La Turbie is situated. On account of the war, it had been
+necessary to enlarge it by several level plots of ground that formed a
+series of terraces. From these esplanades the eye embraced a magnificent
+view: Monte Carlo, Monaco, immediately below that, Cap-Martin advancing
+out over the waves, finally the infinite expanse of sea that rose and
+rose until it mingled with the sky. A monument with a rooster arrogant
+and victorious on its summit held the remains of the combatants who had
+died for France. Don Marcos was still much moved by the speech he had
+delivered, while all stood hushed, at the entrance to this common tomb,
+which was about to swallow up forever the body of Martinez.</p>
+
+<p>"It was a speech for men," said Toledo, with pride, "for men who had
+been crippled in warfare. Nothing<a name="page_500" id="page_500"></a> but heroes before me! There wasn't a
+single woman at the funeral."</p>
+
+<p>This was the detail that interested the Prince most: "Not a single
+woman." And he asked himself again what could have become of Alicia.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of the afternoon, as he was walking about his gardens, he
+saw Lady Lewis coming, preceded by the Colonel.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince took refuge in his house. The nurse was undoubtedly arriving
+with a group of convalescent Englishmen, and wanted to run about among
+the trees and pick flowers. He did not feel he had the strength to
+listen to her chatter, which was like the twittering of a gay but
+wounded bird and was filled with a happiness that persisted tenaciously
+in the midst of grief, and continued even to the threshold of death.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was going up the stairway to retire to the upper rooms, when
+the Colonel overtook him; but before the latter could speak Lubimoff
+turned on him in a rage. He didn't want to see the nurse! Let her take
+her Englishmen over the gardens; she might go about in them as though
+they belonged to her; but as for himself, he wanted her to leave him
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Marquis," said Toledo, "the noble woman has come alone and must talk
+with your Highness. She has something important to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince and the nurse sat down in wicker chairs out of doors in a
+little open space surrounded by leafy trees. A fountain was laughing as
+great drops of water scattered from its lazy jet.</p>
+
+<p>The greenish light reflected through the grove made Lady Lewis appear
+weaker and more anæmic. What was left of life seemed concentrated in her
+eyes, before taking flight and vanishing like some volatile fluid, into
+space. The Prince was beginning to forget his recent<a name="page_501" id="page_501"></a> anger. Poor Lady
+Mary! Once more he had a feeling of tenderness and respect for her. Her
+physical wretchedness finally changed his pity into the kind of
+admiration that disinterested sacrifice always inspires.</p>
+
+<p>Accustomed to living amid the deepest sorrows, to witnessing the
+greatest catastrophes, Lady Lewis paid little attention to the
+conventions prevailing in ordinary life and spoke at once, with a
+certain military abruptness, of the reason for her visit.</p>
+
+<p>She was coming in behalf of the Duchess de Delille. She had spent the
+last two days at Villa Rosa, sleeping there in order not to leave the
+Duchess a single moment. First, Alicia's wild despair, followed later by
+a complete collapse, had frightened her. The lady had tried to kill
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor woman!... She finally grew calm, seeing the true light, and
+realizing the path she must take. I feel satisfied that I've
+accomplished that much by my words."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff's questioning glance remained fixed on the English woman. What
+light and what path was she talking about? But there was something that
+interested him more: the motive of her visit, the message that the
+Duchess had given her for him.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Lewis read his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"She asked me to see you, Prince; that is her last wish as she leaves
+the world. She begs you to forget her, never to seek her out, and above
+all to forgive her for the harm she has done you involuntarily.
+Forgiveness is what she most ardently yearns for. When I tell her that
+you don't hate her, it will restore the serenity she needs for her new
+life."</p>
+
+<p>Michael had been absorbed in deep thought. Forgive her? Alicia had not
+done him any harm. From himself, from his own desires and
+disillusionments, his sufferings<a name="page_502" id="page_502"></a> had come. If he had remained faithful
+to the principles he had announced some months before when he hated
+women, he would not have suffered the slightest change in the sensible
+life he had been leading. Besides, where was she? Could he not see her?</p>
+
+<p>This flood of questions was interrupted by Lady Lewis. She continued to
+smile sweetly, but her voice revealed the firmness of an unalterable
+will.</p>
+
+<p>"The Duchess is no longer living in Monte Carlo; I have arranged
+everything in regard to her trip. I am the only one who knows where she
+is, and I shall never tell. Do not look for her; let her go away in
+peace in her quest for truth; think of her as dead ... as others have
+died, as thousands of beings are dying and will continue to die in this
+period of ours, with each day's sun. Forgive and forget. Poor woman! She
+is so unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff understood how futile all his questions would be. His
+curiosity, no matter how strong and subtle, would fail in contact with
+that impenetrable reserve. Alicia had disappeared forever ... forever!</p>
+
+<p>He now felt sadder and lonelier than ever before. As he sat there beside
+this Amazon of human sorrow, he had a feeling of confidence similar to
+that which the Duchess must have felt during those last few days. It was
+a desire to make a confession to her, an instinctive impulse to bare his
+soul, as though from that woman who brought to death beds the
+light-hearted merriment of a bird, might come the supreme counsel of
+wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince nodded his head, murmuring his assent: "Yes, I forgive her."
+He did not wish the other woman to bear the slightest burden of grief on
+his account. He would shoulder all that, himself. But immediately
+afterward he could not resist the impulse of that anguish to express
+itself. He was himself astonished at the words which, overriding all
+restraint, escaped from his lips.<a name="page_503" id="page_503"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I, too, Lady Lewis, am very unhappy."</p>
+
+<p>The nurse did not show any surprise at such a burst of confidence. She
+simply continued to smile, and said laconically:</p>
+
+<p>"I know."</p>
+
+<p>Her smile was changing to a look of sweet pity, of beneficent
+compassion, as though the Prince were a child in need of her advice.</p>
+
+<p>She had guessed his unhappiness long before the Duchess had talked to
+her in the hours of despairing confession. He believed he was unhappy
+through being crossed in love; but actually, this sorrow was only the
+outer shell of another which was deeper and more real, and which
+depended on himself alone.</p>
+
+<p>He had tried to live apart from his fellow-beings, ignoring their
+troubles, selfishly withdrawing into a shell. He had wished, by
+loitering on the margin of humanity which was suffering the greatest
+crisis in all its history, to prolong the pleasures of peace into a time
+of war. One could understand such aloofness in a coward, dominated by
+the instinct of self-preservation; but <i>he</i> was a brave man. One could
+tolerate it in a man who was burdened with children, who constantly felt
+the imperious duty of supporting them, and was afraid on that account;
+but he was alone in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"We are all unhappy, Prince. Who doesn't know grief and death these
+days?"</p>
+
+<p>And she talked in monotonous tones of her own misfortune, as though she
+were reciting a prayer. Her smile, the smile that animated the anæmic
+homeliness of her features with a vaporous light of dawn, gradually
+faded.</p>
+
+<p>Six of her brothers had been killed in one afternoon. They belonged to
+the same battalion and she had received the news of the six deaths at
+the same time. Thirty-two of her relatives were now beneath the ground
+and very<a name="page_504" id="page_504"></a> few of them had been soldiers in the beginning. Before the war
+they had lived lives of pleasure. They enjoyed great wealth and titles:
+Life had been as sweet to them as to Prince Lubimoff.... But when they
+heard the call of duty!... "No one chooses the spot where he is born; no
+one can decide which his country shall be and what his lineage. We come
+into the world according to the whims of chance, in the upper or the
+lower stories of society, and we mold our lives according to the place
+designated by fate. Neither can any one choose the times he will live
+in. Happy they who are born in peace times, when humanity is wrapped in
+calm, and its prehistoric savagery is slumbering within the shell formed
+by civilization; happy also they who are born into a powerful family and
+find themselves exempted from the struggle of life."</p>
+
+<p>"But when we are born into a period of madness," she continued, "we have
+to resign ourselves and adapt ourselves to it, without seeking to avoid
+the painful burden that falls on our shoulders. It is our duty to suffer
+so that others later on may be happy as our forefathers suffered for our
+sakes."</p>
+
+<p>What grief she had felt on receiving at a single stroke the news of the
+death of all her brothers! She did not consider herself an extraordinary
+being; she was simply a woman like any other. She had wept. She had
+abandoned herself to her despair. Then, an idea kept drifting through
+her mind joyously refreshing her drooping spirits. Supposing men were
+immortal in this life! Then despair would be horrible indeed. If you
+considered that the dead might have saved their lives by keeping far
+from every danger! But no one was immortal.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether you die from a bullet wound or from microbes, makes little
+difference. Only the external circumstances vary, and for many people
+there is a greater<a name="page_505" id="page_505"></a> fascination in returning to dust in a lightning-like
+manner in the full intoxication of battle, with a generous idea in one's
+mind, than in slowly fading away in confinement between two sheets,
+defiled and degraded by the filth of a material nature beginning to
+disintegrate.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a sort of holy fear necessary, for that matter, to the
+preservation of human life, and it troubles people and makes them hide
+from themselves the terrible truth that waits at the end of every life.
+Sensible people consider it madness to go out in quest of death. It is
+all very well if death is something motionless which sets hands only on
+those who draw near it of their own accord. But if man does not go
+forward to meet death, death, with its hundred-league boots, runs in
+search of man. Who can guess the moment of the meeting? The best thing,
+then, is to scorn it; and not pay it the tribute of constant thought
+which engenders anxiety and fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, death in bed is an unfruitful and sterile death. To whom could
+it be of use, except one's heirs? The other kind of death, death for an
+idea, even for an erroneous idea, means something positive. It is an act
+of energy and faith and the aggregate of such acts makes up the noblest
+history of humanity."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince admired the simplicity with which this woman, who was almost
+in a dying condition, exalted the heroism of life and scorned death.</p>
+
+<p>She had placed her ideal very high beyond the selfish desires which form
+the warp and woof of ordinary lives. If every one were to suit merely
+his own convenience, humanity as a whole would have no reason to
+consider itself superior to animals.</p>
+
+<p>The noblewoman possessed an ideal: to sacrifice herself for her fellow
+beings; to serve them even at the cost of her own life. She was almost
+glad of the war, which had helped her to find her true path. In peace
+times she<a name="page_506" id="page_506"></a> would have done the same as every woman, linking her lot with
+that of a man, bearing children and building up a family.</p>
+
+<p>"Amorous affection reduces the world to two beings; a mother's love
+finds nothing of interest beyond her own progeny. Only when old age is
+reached and the illusory perspectives of life have faded away, is the
+great truth apparent that people must be interested in every living
+being, ready to sacrifice themselves for every living being. But the
+exalted sympathy of old age is unfruitful and brief."</p>
+
+<p>Mary Lewis considered herself fortunate in having rushed forward in the
+right direction from the first moment, without the long evasions of
+other people, who are late in reaching the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"I have had my romance, like every one else."</p>
+
+<p>She said this simply, but at the same time what blood was left in her
+veins animated her features with a faint blush, as though she were
+confessing something extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p>She had been loved by a scholarly man, a former secretary of her father,
+the Colonial Governor. Only once had they confessed their love.
+Afterwards their life continued as before, both of them keeping the
+secret, postponing the realization of their dreams to an indefinite
+future.... But the war came.</p>
+
+<p>He had hastened, among the first, to enlist as a volunteer: "Mary, I am
+a soldier." And Mary had replied: "That is right." They wrote short
+letters to each other at long intervals. They had more important things
+to do. He did not have the handsome features and the strength of a hero,
+like Lady Lewis' brothers. He even suspected that his bearing was
+scarcely military because of the ungainliness that comes from a
+sedentary life, spent in bending over a writing table. But he did his
+duty, and<a name="page_507" id="page_507"></a> more than once he had been cited for his cool audacity.</p>
+
+<p>Their desires would now never be fulfilled. Even though she might
+succeed in surviving the war, she would continue her present existence
+in civilian hospitals, in far-off countries scourged by plagues. He
+perhaps would marry another, or perhaps would remain faithful to her
+memory, devoting himself for his part to relieving the pain and sorrows
+of his fellow beings. But they would live apart, going where duty called
+them, thinking constantly of each other, but without meeting, like the
+cultivated monks and passionate nuns of other centuries, who filled
+their lives with spiritual friendships maintained in widely separated
+monasteries and convents.</p>
+
+<p>Once more Michael admired her abnegation. Lady Lewis belonged to that
+small group of the elect, who do not know what selfishness is and long
+to sacrifice themselves for what is good. She was one of that immortal
+line of saintly women who existed before the birth of religion and who
+will continue to flourish just the same when skepticism has finally
+ruined all our present beliefs.</p>
+
+<p>"You are an angel," said the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she protested; "I am a lover, a great lover."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff smiled with a certain air of pity.</p>
+
+<p>"You a lover?"</p>
+
+<p>She went on talking as though her listener's surprise annoyed her. What
+was other women's love compared to hers? They fixed their tenderness,
+their desire for self-sacrifice, on one man only. Beyond him they found
+nothing worthy of interest. She loved all men, all of them, even the
+soldiers of the enemy whom she had often cared for in the ambulances at
+the front. They were mistaken, and if they really were guilty souls and
+wished to continue being so, all she could see in them was their
+physical condition as, threatened by death, they lay stretched out on
+their beds, with their flesh mangled.<a name="page_508" id="page_508"></a> They were simply unfortunate
+beings, and this was enough to make her forget their nationality.</p>
+
+<p>She wanted her own side to triumph because the other represented the
+exaltation of brute strength, the glorification of war, and it was her
+desire that there should be no more wars. She longed for the time when
+love would rule the whole world!... It was bad enough that men could not
+suppress with like facility, poverty, pain and death, the black
+divinities which seize us at our birth and with whom we struggle up to
+the last moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I love everything that is alive: People, animals, and flowers. Beside
+such love, what is the affection between a man and a woman, which people
+consider the only love and is simply the selfishness of two beings
+setting themselves apart from their fellow beings, and living only for
+themselves? My love is likewise a kind of selfishness. I realize it;
+perhaps it is something worse: pride. If you only knew how gay I feel
+when I have saved from death one of my 'flirts,' one of those poor
+wounded men whom I shall never see again!... No, don't admire me,
+Prince, and don't feel sorry for me. I am merely a poor woman! by no
+means an angel! Moreover, I am very bad; I have my repentances, like
+every one else."</p>
+
+<p>"You, Lady Mary!" the Prince exclaimed again with a look of incredulity.
+That he should have no doubts about it she hastened to relate the great
+sin of her life. Traveling through Andalusia she had seen some boys on a
+river bank who were trying to drown a stray dog, throwing stones at it.
+Mary fell upon them, mad with rage, striking them with her parasol. One
+of the little fellows wept, and blood spurted from his nostrils. This
+unhappy memory had often troubled her in the night.<a name="page_509" id="page_509"></a> Now she could not
+see a child without caressing it with all the ardor occasioned by
+remorse.</p>
+
+<p>Also she had had quarrels in various countries with drivers who were
+whipping their work animals and with hotel keepers who would not allow
+her to keep in her room lost dogs and cats she found in the streets.</p>
+
+<p>Before the war, her pity had been entirely for animals. Humanity was
+able to defend itself. But now, the butchery of beings in uniforms had
+turned her sweet tenderness toward mankind. They needed love and
+protection more than the poor brutes.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of her "flirts" suddenly brought her back to her duty. At
+that very moment they were tossing, covered with bandages, in their
+beds, and anxiously calling for her presence. Or else they were sitting
+on a bench with motionless eyes turned toward the sun, refusing to take
+a walk until they could feel the gentle support of her arm. "Good-by,
+Prince!" She must go! Her lovers were waiting for her.</p>
+
+<p>As she stood up, she thought again of the reason for her visit and spoke
+once more in the tone that revealed the firmness of her will.</p>
+
+<p>It was useless for him to seek the Duchess. The poor woman after
+entering so many blind alleys in her life, had finally found the true
+path, the one she herself, more fortunate, had discovered while still in
+her youth. The Virgin Dolorosa spoke in a simple, natural way of
+Alicia's past. She knew it all. In the silence of Villa Rosa, the other
+woman had confessed it in despair, without the nurse feeling either
+scandalized or amazed. What did the moral capacity of a mere individual
+mean, when at every moment the world was beholding the most unheard of
+crimes.</p>
+
+<p>"She left this morning and is a long way off&mdash;a long<a name="page_510" id="page_510"></a> way!" said the
+gentle woman. "It is possible that you will never see each other again.
+I will write her that you forgive her. That will afford her the peace of
+mind she needs in her new life."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince was going with her as far as the entrance to his gardens.
+During the walk he began once more to lament his fate. He needed to
+relieve by articulation the despair in which he was left by the refusal
+of the English woman to tell him where Alicia was staying.</p>
+
+<p>"I am very unhappy, Lady Mary."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," she replied. "My misfortunes are greater than yours, but I
+rise above them better."</p>
+
+<p>For Mary life was a sort of balance. In one pan of the scales suffering
+had perforce to fall. No one could free himself from that burden. But
+the spirit must re-establish the equilibrium by placing in the other pan
+something great, an ideal, a hope. She had found the necessary
+counterweight: love for everything alive, sacrifice for one's fellow
+beings, and consequent abnegation.</p>
+
+<p>What did the Prince have to counter-balance the shocks of destiny?...
+Nothing. He went on living the same as in peace times, thinking only of
+himself. He was still just as the great mass of men had been, before the
+war drew them from their selfish individualism, making the virtues of
+solidarity and sacrifice flourish once more in their souls. For that
+reason all he needed to feel desperate was a mere obstacle to his
+desires, a disappointment in love, that should really be an affliction
+only in the life of a mere boy. Oh, if only he could get a high ideal!
+If only he could think less about himself and more about mankind!...</p>
+
+<p>They shook hands beside the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-by, Lady Lewis!" said the Prince, bowing.</p>
+
+<p>If Don Marcos had been present the Prince's voice<a name="page_511" id="page_511"></a> at that moment would
+have sounded familiar to him. It was the same as on the afternoon of the
+duel, when he met the English woman with the two blind men; a
+beautifully solemn voice which wavered close to tears.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo did not appear until a few moments later, coming out of the
+gardener's pavilion, to meet the Prince, who was returning pensively
+toward the villa.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff spoke and gave an order in stern tones.</p>
+
+<p>"I am leaving for Paris. I want to go to-morrow. Make all the necessary
+arrangements."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as he gazed into the Colonel's eyes, he continued in a gentler
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>"I think I shall never return here.... I am going to sell Villa
+Sirena."<a name="page_512" id="page_512"></a></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<p>D<small>ON</small> M<small>ARCOS</small> is descending the slopes of the public gardens toward the
+Casino Square, in conversation with a soldier.</p>
+
+<p>He is no longer the ceremonious Colonel who used to kiss the hands of
+the elderly and noble ladies in the gambling rooms, and was present as
+the inevitable guest at the luncheons of all the titled families
+stopping at the Hôtel de Paris. There is nothing about his person to
+recall the long velvet lined frock coats, the high white silk hats, and
+the other splendors of his eccentric elegance. He is soberly dressed in
+a dark suit, and there is something rustic about his appearance, which
+reveals the man who lives in the country, enjoys cultivating the soil,
+and feels constraint on returning to city life. He is wearing gloves,
+just as in the good old days; but now it is out of necessity. His hands
+remind him of a certain narrow garden around his diminutive villa, with
+five trees, twelve rose bushes, and some forty shrubs all of which he
+knows individually, by names he has given them. He has been caring for
+them so fondly, and caressing them so often, that his fingers have
+become calloused.</p>
+
+<p>The soldier is also walking along like a country man, looking with
+curiosity in every direction. A stiff mustache covers his upper lip, one
+of those stiff and aggressive mustaches which come out after long
+periods of continual shaving. His uniform is old, faded by the sun and
+rain. The yellowish cloth has the neutral color of the soil. His right
+arm hangs inert from the shoulder and<a name="page_513" id="page_513"></a> moves in rhythm with his step,
+like a dangling inanimate object. His hand is covered with a glove, the
+rigidity of which reveals the outline of something hard and mechanical.
+The other hand leans on a knotty cane, and smoke is curling from a pipe
+in his lips. On his sleeves, almost mingling with the color of the
+cloth, is the one narrow officer's stripe.</p>
+
+<p>"It has been ten months and twenty days, since your Highness left here.
+How many things have happened!"</p>
+
+<p>The soldier is Prince Lubimoff; but Lubimoff seems stronger, more serene
+and decided than the preceding year, in spite of his artificial arm.
+There are the same gray hairs, scattered here and there, on his head;
+but his mustache, on being allowed to grow, has come out almost white.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel's side whiskers are like his mustache. With the
+disappearance of his elegance, the touches of the toilet table have
+likewise ceased, and the modest gray, obtained by careful dying, has
+given place to the white of frank old age.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos points to the Square toward which they are both going.</p>
+
+<p>"If your Highness had only seen it the night of the Armistice!"</p>
+
+<p>The news of the triumph made every one come running. They descended from
+Beausoleil, they came up from La Condamine, and they arrived from the
+rock of Monaco. For the first time in four years, the façades of the
+Casino, the hotels and cafés, were illuminated from top to bottom.</p>
+
+<p>The Square was overflowing with people. They all seemed to blink as
+though dazzled by the light, after the long darkness in which the
+submarine menace had kept them plunged. Several brass instruments roared
+out the Marseillaise, and the crowd following the flags of<a name="page_514" id="page_514"></a> the Allied
+countries and, unwilling to leave the Square, kept marching about the
+"Camembert," like moths about a flame.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a long dancing line formed, a <i>farandole</i>, and it began to run
+and leap, growing at each twist and turn. Every one, in the contagion of
+enthusiasm, joined out; officers grasped hands with privates; solemn
+ladies kicked up their heels and lost their hats; timid girls shouted,
+with their hair flying; the faces of the women had the look of
+enthusiastic madness which is seen only in times of revolution. The lame
+hopped and skipped, the blind imagined they could see, and those who had
+lost their hands held on with their stumps to the serpentine line. The
+Marseillaise seemed like a miraculous hymn, giving every one new
+strength. Peace!... Peace!</p>
+
+<p>In one of its evolutions, the head of the human snake climbed the steps
+of the Casino. The <i>farandole</i> was trying to enter the antechamber, and
+the gambling rooms, to wrap its coils about the crowd, the <i>croupiers</i>,
+and the tables. Every selfish activity should cease in that hour of
+generous joy.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, the gamblers! What a malady gambling is, Your Highness! On
+reaching the Square they took off their hats to the flags, and almost
+wept, as they sang a verse of the Marseillaise. 'Long live France! Long
+live the Allies!' And immediately they entered the Casino to bet their
+money on the same number as the celebrated date, or on other
+combinations suggested by peace."</p>
+
+<p>The gate-keepers, with the air of old gendarmes, concentrated in a
+heroic body to keep off with their breasts, their bellies and their
+fists the turbulent snake dance which was trying to enter the sacred
+edifice. They seemed indignant. When had such extraordinary insolence<a name="page_515" id="page_515"></a>
+ever been seen? Peace was a good thing, and people might well rejoice;
+but to come into the Casino like a dancing riot, to interrupt the
+functioning of an honorable industry!... And they had finally shoved the
+line of disheveled women down the steps, and the decorated soldiers who
+were suddenly forgetting their infirmities and their wounds were driven
+after it.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince and Toledo arrive at the Square and turn to the left of the
+Casino, toward the Café de Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff sits down at a table, at a protruding angle of the sidewalk
+café which people nickname "The Promontory." The Colonel remains on his
+right. He has spent the afternoon with the Prince, and must return home.
+He is no longer so free as before; some one is living with him, and his
+new situation imposes unavoidable obligations.</p>
+
+<p>In his mind's eye he can see, on the heights of Beausoleil, the little
+house he lives in, surrounded by its little garden. It is all his by
+registered public deed. But the fate of his property does not worry the
+Colonel; no one will carry off his walls and trees. What makes him
+nervous is a certain non-commissioned American officer, young and well
+built, who has a mania for walking about the dwelling; and certain
+bright eyes which from a window follow the soldier with a hungry look;
+and certain lips red as cherries, that smile at that American; and
+certain hands which Don Marcos thinks he has surprised from a distance
+throwing down a flower, though their owner shrieks at him in fury every
+day to convince him that he has been imagining things.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos is married. A few weeks after the departure of the Prince, a
+great change came into his life. Villa Sirena already belonged to the
+nouveau-riche who was a maker of auto trucks and aeroplanes, and who<a name="page_516" id="page_516"></a>
+had also bought the Paris residence. The Colonel on giving him
+possession, remembered only to praise the merits of the gardener and his
+family.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff, before leaving for the front, had arranged for his
+"chamberlain's" future, assuring him a pension of ten thousand francs a
+year, and also sending him a certain sum with which to buy a house.
+Since the Colonel had set his mind on dying in Monte Carlo, he ought to
+have a little Villa Sirena of his own.</p>
+
+<p>After digging in the garden on his property for a short time, with an
+occasional glance down on the Casino Square, Toledo went in search of
+Novoa. The Professor was his best friend; besides, he was a Spaniard,
+and it was the latter's duty to be of service to him, in the most
+important event in his life. He needed a best man for his wedding. The
+Professor was dumbfounded on being informed that the Colonel was going
+to marry the gardener's daughter. She was young enough to be his
+grandchild! It was tempting fate for a man of his years to expose
+himself deliberately to such dangers.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Don Marcos, as a Spaniard, must remember," said Novoa, "that the
+Saint whose name you bear has a bull with long horns for his emblem!
+Besides, youth has its rights."</p>
+
+<p>"And old age its duties," replied the Colonel, with a kindly air,
+resigning himself to his future.</p>
+
+<p>At present, standing beside the Prince, he stammers with timidity and
+embarrassment. He hates to confess that he must desert him.</p>
+
+<p>"Mado is waiting for me: you see, the poor girl doesn't go out very
+much. She likes to have me take her to the afternoon concerts on the
+terraces. It is five o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>And when the Prince assents, with a slight nod, Toledo rushes off
+precipitously. Then, farther on, he begins<a name="page_517" id="page_517"></a> almost to run up the slope,
+panting, but without feeling his weariness. He wants to reach home as
+soon as possible, and yet is afraid of doing so. He is sure of Mado only
+when he is within range of her shrieks. He shudders when he thinks that
+he may be "imagining things" again.</p>
+
+<p>As the Prince remains alone, the glass that is before his eyes gradually
+fades away and with it the adjoining tables, and the people seated
+around the "Camembert." His vision contracts, and buries itself deep
+within his mind to contemplate other images of memory.</p>
+
+<p>He arrived in Monte Carlo that morning. Only a few hours have passed,
+and he has seen so much already!</p>
+
+<p>He recalls certain remarks of his friend Lewis; and remarks, made during
+one of the luncheons at Villa Sirena: "Life is strange and uneven as it
+flows along. Time goes by without anything extraordinary arising, and
+then, all of a sudden, hours do the work of months, days are as eventful
+as years, and things happen in a few moments which, at other times,
+would take centuries." How many people have died in the relatively short
+space of time that has elapsed since he last left Monte Carlo!</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff recalls the brief and exciting period after his arrival in
+Paris: his enlistment in the Foreign Legion; the Commission of Second
+Lieutenant granted him in recognition of his former service as Captain
+in the Imperial Guards; his departure for the front, after distributing
+or investing the million and a half derived from the sale of Villa
+Sirena, his hard life in action, the battles and slaughter accompanying,
+with gruesome prodigality, the advances of the triumphant offensive. He
+recalls his meeting with a member of the Legion who suddenly called to
+him and whom he had some difficulty in recognizing: Atilio Castro!
+Castro had changed. His<a name="page_518" id="page_518"></a> ironical smile had vanished. He looked on life
+with greater seriousness, and now seemed convinced of the worth of his
+actions. They belonged to different battalions, and they did not see
+each other again, till late one afternoon, after a fight, he came across
+him. The poor boy was lying stretched out on the ground, among other
+corpses. His forehead had been crushed in and his brain was showing
+under the wound! On that face the death grin was a smile of serenity.
+Poor Castro! What could have become of Doña Clorinda?</p>
+
+<p>The Prince's mind wanders from that memory. Other lost friends claim his
+attention. He evokes finally a more recent vision: his arrival after a
+long convalescence in a hospital, in Monte Carlo. On getting out of the
+train, Toledo deeply moved, gazes at his artificial arm, which hides but
+imperfectly the amputation. He had suffered for several months from the
+consequences of a stupid, accidental wound, received ingloriously a few
+days before the armistice.</p>
+
+<p>He ascends the slope to the delightful little home of Don Marcos, which
+will be his own while he remains here. Down below, projecting into the
+sea, the promontory of Villa Sirena meets his eye. It now belongs to
+another man, and he turns his glance away to keep certain memories from
+welling up. In doing so his eyes chance to meet the eyes of Mado,
+Toledo's <i>señora</i>; eyes which doubtless consider Prince Lubimoff more
+interesting, with his mustache, his elderly appearance, and his uniform,
+than when he was the elegant master of her parents. Poor Colonel! And
+Michael flees the tempting glance, and the full scarlet lips, which seem
+to challenge him to smile.</p>
+
+<p>After lunch he follows a path which zigzags up the mountain; he sees a
+stone wall, passes through a door,<a name="page_519" id="page_519"></a> and briefly contemplates a monument
+surmounted by a huge rooster.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo bares his head. Peace to the heroes! Then he points to the
+entrance of the funereal structure.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Martinez is there."</p>
+
+<p>They descend several steps to another part of the cemetery, lying in
+terraces on the mountain slope. On that level plot the tombs are leveled
+off even with the soil, with slabs of stone protected by low rectangular
+fences of chain, or simply bordered with flowers. An æsthetic instinct
+seems to explain the sparing use of ornaments here. From these mournful
+esplanades of death one can see a great expanse of green coast, dotted
+with the white of villas and towns; the rose-colored Alps, the capes of
+purple rock, the deep intense blue of the Mediterranean, and the soft
+limpid blue of a cloudless sky. And the graves seem to smile at all this
+splendor of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel searches among them, reading the names.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Marquis."</p>
+
+<p>He points to a slab with a simple inscription: "Mary Lewis."</p>
+
+<p>"Just like a bird, your Highness. One morning at dawn they found her
+poor little body dead on the hospital cot. She hadn't cried out, she
+hadn't complained; she departed as she had lived. The nurses say that
+the face was smiling. Her body was as light as a feather."</p>
+
+<p>Around the tomb several wreaths were turning black, as though scorched
+by fire. Toledo seeks among these offerings of the dead woman's
+companions, until he points to a handful of fresh roses, which are
+beginning to decay.</p>
+
+<p>"They must be from Lord Lewis," he goes on to say. "When things go badly
+in the Casino, he comes up to<a name="page_520" id="page_520"></a> see his niece. Your Highness must know,
+of course, that with the death of Lady Lewis, he is now a Lord&mdash;really a
+Lord."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince shrugs his shoulders. To think of human vanities in a place
+like this, which makes all earthly worries seem grotesque!</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos guesses his impatience, and as they descend two more
+terraces, he goes on explaining.</p>
+
+<p>"The English woman died before the other; that is why they buried her
+farther up. So many people have died in the last few months!"</p>
+
+<p>They reach the last terrace of the cemetery, the lowest one, a square
+field of reddish earth in which there are no slabs, no truncated
+columns, and no fences of chain. Little mounds of earth taking the form
+of a coffin indicate the location of the graves. Some of them have
+wooden crosses. From one of the latter hangs the picture of a young
+soldier in the center of a wreath laid there by his parents.</p>
+
+<p>Two men show their heads and shoulders above the ground and disappear
+from sight again after emptying their shovels. They are opening a grave
+for some one who is soon to come. Michael notices floating up from the
+vibrant, luminous air, the mournful sound of a bell, tolling in an
+unseen church below.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel insists on explaining.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a temporary grave, without any slab, without any name."</p>
+
+<p>On account of the war, it was impossible to send the body to Paris. It
+will lie here the length of time the law demands, and then the young
+lady, who is her heir, will have her taken to the vault in the Passy
+Cemetery where her mother is buried. He hesitates somewhat as he
+examines the mounds, and finally stops in front of one of them, and
+takes off his hat.<a name="page_521" id="page_521"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Here it is."</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff cannot hide his surprise. "Here?..." He sees a heap of earth,
+without anything to adorn it, without anything to differentiate it from
+the rest, and which inspires in him no emotion at all. He looks
+anxiously at his companion. Hasn't he made a mistake? Are they not
+standing beside the tomb of some poor soldier who died of his wounds?</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel, somewhat offended by the question, repeats energetically:
+"Here it is." He remembers that he was the only man present at the
+funeral. Three nurses, Señorita Valeria, and he, followed the coffin to
+these heights; there was no one else.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Duchess de Delille! Toledo is moved on remembering her unexpected
+death. Lady Lewis had sent her to the front. Having been born in the
+United States, it was fairly easy for her to be admitted to a hospital
+unit with the American Divisions that were fighting at Château-Thierry.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince, listening to the explanations of Don Marcos, recalls a
+confession Alicia once made to him. Her hands were clumsy. Her spirit,
+anxious to do good, weakened at the moment of action through a lack of
+material training. Doubtless for that reason she had been sent back a
+few weeks later to the Riviera, to give her services in a quieter
+hospital than the ambulance stations at the front.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo had not seen her. She was living in the neighborhood of Monte
+Carlo without his ever suspecting it. The first news he had had of her
+was that of her death; a death which leaves the Colonel pensive whenever
+he recalls it. She became infected by a surgical instrument which had
+just been used in an operation. Perhaps it was because of the clumsiness
+<a name="page_522" id="page_522"></a>of her hands; perhaps ... who knows! Don Marcos believes that the
+Duchess was tired of life.</p>
+
+<p>"A horrible death, Marquis. I did not see her: I am glad I didn't. They
+tell me she was black and swollen. Besides, for several hours she was in
+torture, lifting herself on her head and heels, arching above the bed,
+with the muscles of her body tense with the most atrocious suffering.
+Tetanus! How terrible for a great lady, so beautiful, so elegant to die
+like that! But in the midst of such pain she found the peace of mind to
+dictate her last testament. Señorita Valeria has inherited Villa Rosa,
+and several hundred thousand francs: all that she won that night at the
+Sporting Club. As for your Highness...."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince interrupts him with a gesture. He has known for a long time,
+from the letters of Don Marcos, that Alicia remembered him in her last
+moments, leaving him heir to her silver mines in Mexico, all that she
+possessed on the other side of the ocean; nothing at the present moment,
+but in the future perhaps a fortune, almost as great as that which
+Lubimoff formerly held in Russia.</p>
+
+<p>He remains with his eyes fixed on the grave. On it he sees some fine
+moss, a miniature forest, opening its branches at the breath of spring,
+and among the tiny leaves diminutive flowers are stirring. Several
+greenish black butterflies, spotted with red, are fluttering above this
+murmuring forest of budding life, much as the monstrous prehistoric
+birds fluttered above the first vegetation of the globe.</p>
+
+<p>Michael sees a relation between these insects and the spirit that dwelt
+in the organism now disintegrating a few feet under the ground beneath
+his feet. The varied, clashing colors remind him of the dead woman's
+soul. In the same way a few minutes before, a white butterfly<a name="page_523" id="page_523"></a>
+fluttering above the flowers brought by Lewis reminded him of the
+child-like and sublime soul of Lady Mary.</p>
+
+<p>At present, sitting in the café, his emotions are greater than in the
+cemetery. He can see events through a veil of memory, spiritualized, and
+free from the sediment of reality.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Alicia! Poor woman, disillusioned of life! The triumphant Venus,
+the Helen of the "old men on the wall," the beauty who was the center of
+the Universe, more eager for admiration than for love, is lying in this
+miserable cemetery, among the bodies of soldiers. Perhaps she
+voluntarily hastened her exit from a world in which she could not find
+her place, defeated by her own actions.</p>
+
+<p>Our lives are nothing more than what we will them to be. We create life
+in our own image; it is useless for us to complain of fate: we are what
+we want to be. It was impossible for Alicia to end her days save in some
+extraordinary manner, in harmony with her previous career. He, too, has
+lived as most men do not live, and he will die a different death from
+them.</p>
+
+<p>He feels neither grief nor resentment. He is surprised that he could
+have hated Martinez and desired this woman with such vehemence. At
+present he feels only melancholy and a deep sadness at the memory of
+those dreams that no longer exist and which are beginning to die a
+second death, in being forgotten by those who knew of them. They have no
+immortality save in the memory of the Prince, a poor memory destined to
+fade away in turn before many years.</p>
+
+<p>In his imagination he attempts to pierce the mass of earth that covers
+the dead body; he makes an effort to penetrate with his vision into the
+densest of the shadows. Only a few months of decomposition have gone by:
+her personality has not yet wasted away completely. He sees<a name="page_524" id="page_524"></a> her as she
+was in life and at the same time as she is now. Her flesh is
+disintegrating in little putrid rivulets that run down the folds of her
+clothes, blackened and eaten away. She is forced to smile at all times
+in the darkness: she no longer has any lips. Her eyes serve as a refuge
+for the prolific grave flies which engender millions and millions of
+destroyers. And this annihilation of something which existed, thought,
+and loved, is as yet only in its first stages.</p>
+
+<p>After the devourers of the soft parts will come the irresistible
+artisans of the bones. Myriads of micro-scopical workers will plow the
+skeleton, cleaning away the last impurities clinging to the framework,
+undoing the marvelous articulations, scraping away the cement which
+holds the vertebræ together. Some day the lower jaw will loosen, falling
+toward the abdominal cavity, leaving the upper jaw bone, the teeth of
+which knew the splendor of smiles and the caress of kisses. Some other
+day, the skull, as the pivot on which it rests comes apart, will fall in
+turn and mingle with the dust of the ribs and the little bones of the
+feet which mark the rhythm of an undulating walk. Within a few centuries
+revolutions and wars will perhaps bring this skull to the surface. Why
+not? Lubimoff has just seen at the front numerous cemeteries swept away
+by gunfire, with the dead emerging from the earth, raised thus by the
+bursting shells. And when some one, in the future, with the eternal
+curiosity of the Shakespearean Prince takes Alicia's skull in his hand,
+he will not be able to tell whether it belonged to a lady or a servant,
+whether it belonged to a beauty or to a drab.</p>
+
+<p>Michael recalls with ironical sadness all the illusions, all the
+desires, he had in the past, concentrated on this nothingness. He begins
+to feel the need of forgetting the corpse. His eyes, looking within, see
+the diminutive<a name="page_525" id="page_525"></a> foliage, the gaudy butterfly, and all that nature has
+placed on a nameless tomb. This is what a life which considered itself
+superior to all others has left as the only trace of its existence.
+Perhaps in the corolla of one of the little flowers there is something
+of Alicia's soul, the butterflies sip it, and continue in an intoxicated
+flight above the tombs.</p>
+
+<p>Springtime! The Prince lifts his thoughts above the sorrows of
+individuals. He recalls what he has seen in a corner of the world ruined
+by man's bestiality: cities in ruins; villages that raise their walls
+only a yard above the soil, like towns which have been excavated after a
+cataclysm; barns set on fire; endless fields made sterile, torn apart
+and turned topsy turvy by five years of bombardment; many
+graves&mdash;thousands of graves&mdash;millions of graves. Women, dressed in
+black, stagger along the roads through the ruins and the funnel-shaped
+chasms opened by the monstrous projectiles. They have lost their
+children, they have seen their husbands executed, and now they are
+exploring the soil in search of their homes that were....</p>
+
+<p>But the Winter-time of war is over; and now the Spring of Peace is here.
+The same hand, touching all things with green, puts little flowers and
+butterflies on the nameless graves, hangs fragrant garlands on the
+fire-blackened walls, spreads a velvet carpet of emerald on the sides of
+the shell holes, makes the birds warble and the insects stir above the
+tombs, and guides the curling creepers over the black wood of the
+crosses, as though trying to change them into thyrsi.</p>
+
+<p>Alas! The earth knows nothing of our sorrows.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince comes out of his abstraction, and sees the Colonel greeting
+him from a distance.</p>
+
+<p>Don Marcos is already back, and with him is <i>Madame</i> Toledo, whose head
+scarcely reaches his shoulder. On<a name="page_526" id="page_526"></a> the way she looks back several times,
+with the hope of finding herself followed by the American soldier.</p>
+
+<p>On recognizing the Prince in the café, however, she forgets the other
+man, and seems to be entreating him with her eyes to leave his seat and
+to go out with her to the terraces.</p>
+
+<p>The Colonel and his minx disappear in the direction of the terraces, and
+again Michael plunges into meditation. He recalls his talk with Don
+Marcos, shortly before, as they were descending from the cemetery.</p>
+
+<p>Toledo seems inconsolable. According to him the war has not ended
+properly. He appears scandalized at the absurd manner of its conclusion!
+What terrible times these are! The fugitive of Amerongen disconcerts and
+irritates him.</p>
+
+<p>"And imagine me doing him the honor of comparing him to a Lieutenant! I
+considered him man enough at least to blow his brains out!</p>
+
+<p>"For thirty years he has been frightening the world with the rattle of
+his saber, and with his boastful mustache; for thirty years he has been
+calling himself war lord, making whole races tremble at his frown, his
+heroic attitudinizing, and his melodramatic speeches; for thirty years
+he has been preparing millions of men for slaughter, obliging peoples of
+the world to live under arms in the midst of peace. And now, when
+misfortune seeks him for her own, when he considers his life in danger,
+he shamefully flees to a foreign country and deserts his supporters,
+like a merchant going into a fraudulent bankruptcy."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the greatest lie humanity has ever known," the Colonel shouts
+indignantly. "The greatest swindle in history."</p>
+
+<p>It does not prove anything to kill one's self; Don Marcos is well aware
+of that. But in this life there are<a name="page_527" id="page_527"></a> so many things that do not prove
+anything and which nevertheless are beautiful and logical! The despair
+of those who commit suicide through love does not prove anything either,
+and yet it has inspired the greatest works of poetry and other arts. The
+sailor, who wrecks his ship, kills himself; every man of honor who
+considers his fault irreparable appeals to death, in order that when he
+falls, he may fall in a dignified manner.</p>
+
+<p>"And that Emperor," Toledo continued, "who planned an organized
+slaughter of ten million men, wants to live to a ripe old age. It's the
+most shameless thing I ever heard of!</p>
+
+<p>"Military honor, such as it had come to be understood through the
+various centuries, was unknown likewise to his generals. Those
+specialists in burning towns, those technicians in executing peasants,
+those artisans of terror, on seeing disaster coming, tranquilly returned
+to their castles, like office boys leaving their work.</p>
+
+<p>"Of all these companions of the 'war lord,' the only one worthy of
+respect was a civilian, a manufacturer, a Jew, the munition maker
+Ballin, of Hamburg, who on seeing the Empire ruined, did not want to
+survive it and shot himself. In the meantime the Marshals of the
+strategy that failed, tranquilly begin to devote themselves to training
+their dogs, writing their memoirs, and looking after their health.</p>
+
+<p>"Napoleon, in one of his last battles, stopped his horse over a lighted
+bomb; later he tried to poison himself at Fontainebleau. He courted
+death, and resigned himself to living, like a fatalist, only on becoming
+convinced that death would have nothing to do with him. The other
+Napoleon, the one of Sedan, may have taken refuge in Belgium, abandoning
+his troops much as the sad German Cæsar had done; but ill and fainting,
+on his horse, he nevertheless preferred to gallop along a high road
+swept<a name="page_528" id="page_528"></a> by gun fire, hoping that a shell would tear him to pieces."</p>
+
+<p>That is the way Toledo understands military honor. That is the way it
+has been accepted in all ages.</p>
+
+<p>Against the Imperial generals, recreants, ready to run in the hour of
+danger, like comedians thinking only of their reputations, his anger is
+implacable. Hemmed in by the Allies, with their lines broken, they might
+have fallen nobly fighting until the last moment. But they preferred to
+beg for an armistice and hand over their weapons, in order that the
+imbeciles who had admired them so greatly might go on believing in their
+divine invincibility, and be sure that if they were retiring to their
+estates it was only out of consideration for internal politics.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry comedians, like their master, up to the very last moment!" And
+Don Marcos, thinking of the fear these men have made the whole world
+feel for thirty years, cries out in anger:</p>
+
+<p>"Swindlers! Swindlers!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more the Prince comes out of his reverie. Somebody has stopped in
+front of him, and he hears a well known voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Your Highness, what a joy to see you! The Colonel has just told me of
+your arrival."</p>
+
+<p>It is Spadoni: the same old Spadoni, as though but a few hours have gone
+by since his last interview with the Prince; as though it is only
+yesterday that he bellowed with indignation, as he studied at the piano
+<i>What the Palm Tree Said to the Century Plant</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He doesn't want to sit down: he is in a hurry; he came just to shake
+hands with his Highness. He will make a point of seeing him later when
+he has more time, in the Casino. He takes it for granted that the Prince
+is going into the Casino. Where else could a decent person go in Monte
+Carlo?<a name="page_529" id="page_529"></a></p>
+
+<p>He gives Lubimoff's uniform a rapid glance, and admires his rough
+soldierly appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard of the great deeds of your Highness; I always used to ask
+the Colonel about you ... a hero!"</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff has scarcely time to shake his head at this praise. Spadoni
+starts to talk about something more interesting. The war, heroes, and
+all that, are nebulous, meaningless things. He is for reality, and
+begins to talk about a new personage whom he admires, a Portuguese who
+plays big stakes, and whose name, because of his winnings, during the
+last few days, has been filling the gambling rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"I am studying him; besides, he is a friend of mine and I think I have
+his secret. Imagine, Prince...."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince grows uneasy, guessing that he is going to describe in all
+its details the combination of the Portuguese, which he already
+considers his own. But the pianist looks towards the Casino, stammers,
+and finally interrupts his account. Some one is coming and he wants to
+share his secret only with the Prince. He takes his leave with the
+promise that some time he will reveal the precious combination.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff thinks of his life during the last few months, his adventures
+as a soldier, of his wound, of all that has happened to him and to the
+entire world, while that musician has remained stationary in Monte
+Carlo, admitting nothing as real save the hovering flight of the Great
+Delusion.</p>
+
+<p>His friend Lewis holds out his hand to the Prince. It is he who, by his
+approach, has stopped the pianist's flow of eloquence. Gamblers, out of
+professional rivalry, avoid telling one another their secrets. Time,
+which seems to have forgotten Spadoni, leaving him the same as when
+Michael last saw him in his "Villa of the<a name="page_530" id="page_530"></a> Tomb," has laid its claws on
+Lewis, making him older, as though months for him have been years.</p>
+
+<p>He is sad because of the losses he has been suffering, and because of
+his memories. That niece of his was all the family he had! Lubimoff
+knows through the Colonel that he has not inherited anything from her.
+The nurse spent her entire fortune on ambulances and hospitals. Her
+title is the one thing that has gone to Lewis. His prophecy has come
+true: he is now the third Lord Lewis, surnamed "the Worthless," the name
+he gave himself.</p>
+
+<p>He gazes on the Prince for a long time, notices the rigid arm and then
+shakes his left hand effusively.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a man, Lubimoff. You know how to do things."</p>
+
+<p>And in these words there is a reproach for himself. Unable to tear
+himself away from Monte Carlo, he will live here and die here, doing the
+same things over and over.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, this is a great day for him. In the morning he received a
+visit from a friend who is coming to live with him, he does not know for
+how long, perhaps for two days, perhaps for two years; a great friend
+from whom he had had no news and whom he had often imagined dead; the
+Count, the famous Count.</p>
+
+<p>He has come as far as the café with Lewis, who refuses to be separated
+from him; he has shaken hands with the Prince as though he had seen him
+the day before, without noticing his uniform or his mutilation. He sits
+silently in a chair, running his hand through his white, curly hair,
+fixing his round eyes, with a nocturnal fire, on the people who are
+walking about the "Camembert."</p>
+
+<p>Lewis believes he ought to feel happy. What a day<a name="page_531" id="page_531"></a> of surprise it has
+been! First the Count, and then the Colonel telling him of Lubimoff's
+arrival.</p>
+
+<p>He avoids talking about his niece: he sinks his sadness in the sadness
+of all the rest.... Peace has surprised him: who could have imagined it
+would come so soon, following immediately on the most anxious phase of
+the war?</p>
+
+<p>The Count comes to life at this query.</p>
+
+<p>"Every one," says he. "The great soothsayers, the great ones, announced
+at the very beginning, that the war would end in the Fall of 1918. It
+was well known to everybody. I have always said so. You have heard me
+say so many times yourself, Lewis."</p>
+
+<p>Lewis makes a gesture of surprise. But he cannot doubt the science of
+his learned friend, and prefers to admit that it is he who has
+forgotten. He has such a bad memory! Perhaps, even, he may have
+misunderstood. These guardians of a knowledge of the future never
+express their truths clearly: they refuse to talk like ordinary mortals.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation begins to lag. The Englishman is thinking of the
+Casino. He was just going in when Don Marcos gave him the news of the
+Prince's arrival. He keeps the Count by his side. The Count has just
+returned from a mysterious trip and has the devil's rosary safe in a
+certain pocket of his trousers, constantly feeling in it with his right
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Later on we shall see each other at the Casino. I suppose you'll come
+in for a moment. We'll see if luck treats me well to-day after such
+pleasant meetings."</p>
+
+<p>And he goes off with the Count in the direction of the <i>Palace</i> where he
+is destined, as though in prison, to spend the rest of his life.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff notices two Italian soldiers who are looking<a name="page_532" id="page_532"></a> at him from the
+sidewalk around the "Camembert." They are a couple of <i>bersaglieri</i>,
+dressed in gray, with little round hats decked out in cock's plumes.
+Noticing that the Prince is looking at them they become embarrassed,
+turn their backs as though ashamed, and walk away, but not without
+smiling first and raising their hands to their much beplumed hats.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince recalls what Don Marcos told him. Oh, yes! They are Estola
+and Pistola, changed into soldiers! They have come on leave to see their
+families. They are going up to the Colonel's house in the evening to pay
+their respects to their former "Lord." They seem taller, and more
+vigorous. A few months of war have been sufficient to transport them
+from adolescence into maturity. In every man there is a soldier!</p>
+
+<p>Just as he is getting up to take a walk around the terraces, he sees
+hurrying toward the café a gentleman who is violently waving to him, and
+then has to stop to fasten his glasses more securely on his nose.</p>
+
+<p>It takes some time for the Prince to recognize him. He guesses who it is
+more by the tone of his voice than by his features. Dear old Novoa! The
+months that have gone by have left a deeper imprint on him than on the
+rest. He is no longer the young man preoccupied with worldly pomp, who
+used to consult the Colonel about the merits of various tailors and
+hatters. He has returned to the slavery of baggy-kneed trousers and
+ready-made neckties. His beard is full grown and bushy. He is still as
+young as ever in his voice, his eyes, and his lively and clumsy
+gestures; but he is dressed, not to say disguised, as an old man.</p>
+
+<p>The Professor is more effusive than the rest on seeing the Prince. He
+keeps blessing the happy chance, which brought Lubimoff to him, through
+his meeting with Don Marcos shortly before.<a name="page_533" id="page_533"></a></p>
+
+<p>"If you had waited two days longer, Prince, I wouldn't have had the
+pleasure of seeing you. I am going back to my country day after
+to-morrow. I have had enough now of Monte Carlo. When I think of what
+I've lost here!... Money, dreams, everything."</p>
+
+<p>Michael shows discretion. He suspects his friend has had some unexpected
+disillusionment, some deception, such as one must forget not to be
+continually tormented by it. He remembers Valeria, and sees nothing in
+the Professor's appearance to indicate the slightest trace of contact
+with that lady. He is a ruin, a dry dead tree; the bird that formerly
+sang in the branches must have flown away long since.</p>
+
+<p>Novoa is equally discreet. He looks at the other man's uniform, and the
+sleeve with the artificial arm; but he speaks in a general way, with
+vague regrets, only of what has taken place during the last few months.</p>
+
+<p>"What extraordinary things have taken place! How many friends of ours
+have died! Life has finally become one of those dramas in which one dies
+at the end of the last act."</p>
+
+<p>The Prince guesses that Novoa is thinking of Alicia and in order not to
+give him pain, is refraining from mentioning her. As a matter of fact he
+is indeed thinking of the Duchess, but she is merely a point of
+departure before he comes to the other woman with whom his memory is
+constantly occupied.</p>
+
+<p>At last he speaks, giving full rein to his melancholy. He can tell the
+Prince everything because he is the only man who knows his secret. (He
+has told the Colonel and even Spadoni the same thing, on lamenting his
+misfortune.) And he breaks into despairing recriminations against
+Valeria.</p>
+
+<p>She has become a different woman. She is no longer interested in "lands
+of love," where women marry without<a name="page_534" id="page_534"></a> dowries. Since the Duchess's death
+she has become a candidate for marriage. Her hand will bring with it
+more than three hundred thousand francs. The Professor has found himself
+jilted and forgotten. How he had grovelled before her when the truth was
+known; what shameful efforts he had made to remedy what he had
+considered at the outset a woman's passing whim! He hates to remember
+moments such as those.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all ended, Prince. At present she is crazy about an American
+officer and will finally marry him. No one counts here except the
+Americans. Everything is for them: even love. The humblest little
+milliner considers herself disgraced if she hasn't a soldier from the
+United States to promenade with in the evening. Every afternoon she and
+the other man dance in the hotels of La Condamine, or right here in the
+Café de Paris."</p>
+
+<p>He stops, as though some one had touched him on the shoulder. He does
+not see any one behind him, but his eyes, wandering over the groups
+sitting at the tables meet something which makes his voice tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"It is she, Prince."</p>
+
+<p>Michael would not have recognized her. He sees two ladies, escorted by
+two American officers, entering the Café. One of them is Valeria,
+dressed with gay and showy elegance, as though anxious to compensate in
+a moment for years of frugality and privation.</p>
+
+<p>Against the soft twilight the café windows begin to gleam with a reddish
+glow. One after another, the large lamps within are lighted. To the
+Prince's ears come the voluptuous wailings of violins.</p>
+
+<p>"Life has changed very greatly since you went away, Prince. Every one
+feels a desperate hunger for amusement. The first thing that peace
+brought back to life was the tango."</p>
+
+<p>Then Novoa begins to think about himself:<a name="page_535" id="page_535"></a></p>
+
+<p>"What can I do here? I am poor. Everything I possessed in my country I
+have dropped here in the Casino. I have studied the mysteries of the
+ocean enough. How dearly it has cost me! I have had my little dream, and
+now I am going to resume my ill-paid work back there as a day laborer in
+science."</p>
+
+<p>He thinks once more of her.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you notice?... The poor Duchess, who made her what she is now, is
+lying up there in her grave, and here she is dancing, only a few months
+after her death."</p>
+
+<p>He feels the harsh indignation, the sense of outraged morality, that all
+who have been scorned experience.</p>
+
+<p>His anger grows so strong that he gets up from his chair. He cannot
+remain there. The woman has seen him, and might think that he is
+pursuing her, that he is waiting for her to come out, in order to
+entreat her. Never; he has had enough of certain humiliations which he
+does not care to remember.</p>
+
+<p>He hurriedly says good-by. They will see each other again soon. Don
+Marcos has invited him to dinner at the little house in Beausoleil. The
+Colonel was sure that his visit would please the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>He grasps Lubimoff's hand and does not seem to notice it is the wooden
+one. His eyes and his thoughts are on the café windows, ablaze in mid
+afternoon. Through them the cadenced murmur of the violins is passing.
+As he walks away he still repeats his protest.</p>
+
+<p>"The poor Duchess up there forgotten.... And the other woman. What a
+scandal! I am glad I'm going away soon, and will never see her again."</p>
+
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>On remaining alone, the Prince leaves his table. Don Marcos is doubtless
+telling the news of his arrival to every one he meets, and Michael is
+afraid that other less interesting persons will appear.<a name="page_536" id="page_536"></a></p>
+
+<p>As he walks along he notices something which he had not seen before when
+he was with the Colonel. The United States flag is floating above all
+the buildings. In the city streets there are as many signs in English as
+in French. There are American soldiers everywhere. Lubimoff's uniform
+and that of the other French fighters are lost in the great flood of men
+dressed in mustard color. The light automobiles of the American army
+pass incessantly. They are everywhere. One meets them in the streets, on
+the roads along the coast and climbing the slopes of the Alps like
+buzzing, snorting ants. Everything seems animated by a robust, gay,
+self-confident life, the life of a twenty-year-old boy. The concert on
+the terraces is being given by an American band. The people walking in
+the streets absent-mindedly whistle dance tunes from across the ocean
+and marching songs of the soldiers from the States. People stop in the
+squares to admire the skill of the Americans in shirt sleeves throwing a
+ball and sending it back again after catching it in a kind of fencing
+glove.</p>
+
+<p>Monaco seems to have been conquered by the troops of the Great Republic;
+a good-natured and kindly conquest, which makes the conquered smile. It
+is the same in Nice and everywhere on the Riviera. The Prince recalls
+his brief stay in Paris a few days before. There he saw Americans just
+as here. How many are they? What superhuman power has been able to
+create in a few months this army which though of recent birth, seems to
+fill all space?</p>
+
+<p>A people has just risen above all the peoples of the earth. Never in
+history has such a rise been known. It dominates through friendliness,
+through its generous acts, and by the beneficent strength of its
+activities; not through terror, the base of all greatness in the past.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff recalls his doubts of the year before. No<a name="page_537" id="page_537"></a> one would have
+believed that a people without armies could improvise a military force
+equal to those of old Europe. And in only a few months the United States
+had organized and transported two million men to decide the outcome of
+the struggle, and the world's fate.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving at the last moment, they had liberally given their share of
+dead. In five months of campaign a hundred and twenty thousand Americans
+had perished, a huge proportion compared to the losses of the other
+nations during five years of fighting.</p>
+
+<p>Michael, in his silent enthusiasm, enumerates what has just been done
+for humanity by this great people, which shortly before was considered
+utilitarian and selfish, and which now reveals itself as the most
+romantic and generous.</p>
+
+<p>Two great wars are the most striking incidents in its history: one
+within, for the suppression of slavery; the other, without, to prevent
+the glorification of war, the brutal hegemony of one people over all,
+the exaltation of a mystic imperialism.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time in history, a democracy has intervened in the fate of
+a world through the centuries subjected to the rule of kings. The modern
+republics had until now lived an inner and retiring life. The wars of
+the French Revolution were defensive. The Republic of the Convention
+fought to exist, since all the monarchs wanted to suppress it. The
+American Republic had voluntarily entered the struggle, without being
+threatened by any immediate danger, because of a mandate of its
+conscience, indignant at German crimes, because of the responsibility
+developing upon its greatness, its democratic strength.</p>
+
+<p>Before arming, before intervening in the European crash while living in
+patient neutrality, battles were being won for it. This war was
+different from others.<a name="page_538" id="page_538"></a> Against Germany, ready through long years of
+preparation for the struggle, and with all its industrial and commercial
+strength mobilized for war purposes, the Allies fought during the first
+few months, as a brave but backward people fights against a modern
+nation. They showed much bravery, and great heroism, sometimes in vain,
+against the blind mechanical force of industrial invention applied to
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p>If this inequality kept diminishing, it was thanks in large part to the
+Republic beyond the sea. Its money barons made enormous loans to the
+Allies; its captains of industry facilitated the manufacture of the
+gigantic equipment demanded by the demon-like progress of military
+science; its ships defying the submarine menace, brought bread which had
+grown scarce in Europe through the war.</p>
+
+<p>And when, its patience finally exhausted, it directly intervened, what
+generosity it showed!</p>
+
+<p>The American combatants fought for simple and robust ideals: the rights
+of the weak to live, the dignity and freedom of mankind, the elimination
+of wars, understanding between peoples, sovereign right ruling the life
+of nations; things which shortly before had made the Old World skeptics
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>All the countries of Europe had frontiers to reëstablish, strips of land
+to claim. The United States of America was not asking for anything, it
+did not want anything.</p>
+
+<p>Each one of the contestants, on thinking of victory, calculated the
+indemnities it should collect to compensate for its endeavors and
+sacrifices. The American Republic spent more than all the other nations.
+The maintenance of each of its soldiers cost it as much as seven
+soldiers from the other countries, and nevertheless, it<a name="page_539" id="page_539"></a> entered the war
+and withdrew from the war without demanding any particular
+reimbursement.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff admired its enormous strength in victory: Never had any Empire
+in the past reached such greatness; not even Rome.</p>
+
+<p>It was the only country, at once both industrial and agricultural, on
+earth. It formed a world apart within the world. It might, without
+suffering, isolate itself from the rest of the Globe; but the world
+would feel a sensation of emptiness if the Great Republic were to turn
+its back upon the other nations.</p>
+
+<p>Its armed citizens were retiring without boasting and without commotion,
+just as they had come, and without asking anything for their great
+endeavor. They would disappear like the fairies and enchanters in
+ancient legends who, after doing good, need to return to their
+mysterious domains.</p>
+
+<p>Years would pass: history would speak of this endeavor, unique in its
+intensity and its generous character, and on the Riviera and in other
+places there would remain of this great world a memory disfigured by
+time. The boys of to-day, grown old, would remember how they learned to
+play baseball from the soldiers who had come from a land of marvels
+beyond the sea, the girls, becoming grandmothers, would yearningly
+recall the American lovers they once had.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince calculates again the greatness of this people, the only one
+capable of still working the miracles, that religions sometimes work in
+the early period of their exaltation.</p>
+
+<p>The Great Republic is the world's creditor. All the victorious nations
+owe it fabulous sums; England is its debtor by thousands of millions,
+and France the same. The smaller countries, Belgium, Serbia, and the
+rest,<a name="page_540" id="page_540"></a> have been able to live, thanks to its enormous loans. It is not
+all known as yet, years must pass before the full extent of these
+generosities is brought to light. This country, which likes
+advertisement and loud propaganda in its commercial affairs, is modest
+and concise in speaking of its disinterested acts.</p>
+
+<p>"To go on freely living after the cataclysm, humanity is going to need
+America's support, or America's benevolence," thinks the Prince. "The
+political center of the world has shifted. It is no longer in Paris, nor
+is it in London. It remained for a while, trembling unsteadily on its
+base, in Berlin; but now it has leaped across the ocean."</p>
+
+<p>The man, as yet unknown, who in the future is to take his place in the
+White House for four years, professor, lawyer, merchant, or farmer, as
+he may be, will sway the destiny of the world more than all the rulers
+who fill history with the din of warlike glory. His power will be based
+on something more permanent and solid than the strength of armies. It
+will have behind it industry and wealth, which create armies; democratic
+power, which the power of public opinion creates.</p>
+
+<p>The irresistible strength of this power is clearly seen by the Prince.</p>
+
+<p>Germany, in spite of her continual military triumphs in the first few
+years of the war, has finally fallen in defeat. Public opinion was
+against her. The democratic spirit of the entire world rose against the
+spirit of Empire.</p>
+
+<p>This triumph of democracy is beginning to be manifest everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no longer a single emperor left in Europe," Michael goes on
+thinking. "The vanquished empires want to be republics. All the kings
+are forgetting their ancestors with their divine rights, and are trying
+to have<a name="page_541" id="page_541"></a> their crowns forgiven them, that they may imitate the simple
+life of a president."</p>
+
+<p>This unexpected attitude of the world gives it a new love of life.</p>
+
+<p>He has realized, for the last few months&mdash;since he gave up Villa
+Sirena&mdash;that Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff has become an unfashionable
+personage. Perhaps, with the lapse of years, others will be as he was.
+History repeats itself. Times of peace and plenty inevitably produce men
+such as he had been. But at present humanity has been restored by grief
+and sacrifice, humanity is anxious to live, and longs for something new,
+without knowing exactly what, and is working to secure it.</p>
+
+<p>Michael looks on himself with pity. What is he going to do? What can men
+like himself do for their fellow men?</p>
+
+<p>He recalls the luncheon in the little house of Don Marcos. He is still
+offended by the attentions the Colonel shows him at table, cutting his
+meat, looking after him like a child, trying to make up for the absence
+of his arm. It is something disgraceful!</p>
+
+<p>Farewell to Prince Lubimoff!... Even if he still wanted to continue his
+selfish existence, entirely given up to pleasure, it would be impossible
+for him. He is a cripple; he considers himself quite old. No one but
+Mado, who doesn't really know what she wants, would ever notice him.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, he feels poor. For the first time he recalls with a certain
+satisfaction the heritage left him by Alicia. It was not worth anything
+at that moment, but who knows but what some day...! He dreams that
+perhaps those Mexican mines may replace his lost fortune in Russia; and
+then...! He feels a strong desire to regain his wealth in order to do
+good; a longing<a name="page_542" id="page_542"></a> which is something like remorse. He knows the
+inefficiency of individual effort in remedying human misery: a mere drop
+lost in the ocean, a grain of sand on the beach. But what difference
+does that make? He is satisfied in giving happiness to some fifty
+unfortunate beings, among the hundreds of millions who people the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Then he thinks of his present situation. That very morning he determined
+on his mode of life. He will flee from the poor Colonel, because of
+Mado. Others may take it upon themselves to bring misfortune to Don
+Marcos, but not he! He will take up his residence in Nice, in a Russian
+<i>pension</i> run by an impoverished noblewoman. In the evenings they will
+talk of the days when she was rich, beautiful, and desired; of the
+dances at the Petersburg Court, in which they danced together so often.
+Lubimoff even has a suspicion that one of his duels was over this
+boarding-house keeper.</p>
+
+<p>The remnants of his fortune will bring him a sufficient income to live
+in modest comfort. He will swell the number of wrecks retiring to the
+Riviera, to recall, under the palm trees, their forgotten triumphs. His
+old valet will accompany him in his dethronement.</p>
+
+<p>He already has an occupation to fill his hours. He wants to be a
+contemplator of life. He is glad to have been born in the most
+interesting of periods.</p>
+
+<p>Something is going to happen; something new in history.</p>
+
+<p>The smoke has not yet cleared away from the battlefields. It is a mist
+in which people lose their way and which does not allow them to see the
+complete outline of things. The very actors in the recent drama are
+blind. Years will pass, before the mist rises and vanishes, leaving the
+new world visible.</p>
+
+<p>Will it be the same stage setting as of yore, merely<a name="page_543" id="page_543"></a> with a few lines
+changed? Will all these bloody efforts to suppress violence,
+selfishness, and pre-historic ferocity as the chief bases of society,
+turn out to have been in vain?</p>
+
+<p>The Prince thinks bitterly of the possible disillusionment. How terrible
+to see primitive bestiality rise again unharmed after a cataclysm which
+has been accepted as a regeneration! How terrible to contemplate the
+failure of so many generous spirits, of so many noble minds, aspiring
+toward the triumph of good, anxious for peace among men, and the sweet
+association of people, working against war as medical societies labor to
+exterminate diseases!</p>
+
+<p>Faith in the future suddenly animates him. The world cannot always be
+the same; great convulsions, when they have passed, never leave the soil
+the same as they found it. Will children always be annihilating each
+other just because their fathers and grandfathers did so? Must they look
+on each other with hostility because they were born on different sides
+of a mountain, a river, or a wood, which politics calls a frontier?</p>
+
+<p>We all have two native lands! The place where we were born, and the
+State to which we belong. Why not generously broaden this conception to
+include a third country? Will not a blessed time come in which men will
+talk as fellow being to fellow being, without thinking whether or not
+History commands them to hate and kill each other? With deep love for
+one's land of birth, cannot they be at the same time citizens of the
+world?</p>
+
+<p>The Prince is leaning on the balustrade, above the terraces and the
+harbor. His pensive walk has brought him thither, without his realizing
+it.</p>
+
+<p>He turns his back on the sea and on the crowd which, after the concert,
+is beginning to thin out there below. The American musicians are passing
+close to him, followed<a name="page_544" id="page_544"></a> by a swarm of small boys accompanying their
+retirement.</p>
+
+<p>He looks at a gap on the horizon, between the Alps and the promontory of
+Monaco, where the sun has just gone down. Above the reddish expanse a
+star is shining with the brilliancy and luminous facets of a precious
+stone.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff is thinking of the ancient fathers of poetry who sang about it
+three thousand years ago. Homer called it <i>Kalistos</i>. Sometimes the
+morning star and at other times the evening star, Lucifer, Vesperus, or
+the "Shepherds' Star," it finally received the name of Venus, because of
+its shining whiteness, like that of a diamond on a woman's breast.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince feels the sweet caress in his eyes as he gazes on the soft
+glow of the planet. Its name symbolizes beauty and love. He imagines the
+people who inhabit that celestial point of light lost in space. They
+must be of a purer essence than ours, entirely free from a past of
+primitive animality&mdash;ethereal beings, like the angels of all religions.</p>
+
+<p>Then he smiles bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>There is another star shining in the sky, more beautiful and larger than
+that one. It is blue instead of white, a soft blue: the color of poetry
+and dreams. It sparkles, in the dark depths of space, with the
+mysterious glow of the enormous bluish diamonds which Oriental monarchs
+place in their tiaras. Those who contemplate it feel in their eyes the
+velvety dew of divine mystery. Perhaps the poets of other worlds sing of
+it as a chosen refuge and a place of eternal beauty, where only the
+souls of the pure and the elect may go to rest. Perhaps it has given
+rise to religions and is the object of cults, having its altars, as the
+sun had in former times.</p>
+
+<p>And this blue diamond of space, this world of soft<a name="page_545" id="page_545"></a> light, which the
+populations of other planets contemplate as a poetic star, and as one in
+which all creatures lead a purely spiritual life, is the Earth, our poor
+globe, where twelve millions of men have just died on the battlefield,
+where as many more millions died of the emotion and plagues, which are
+the consequence of war; and where six hundred thousand millions of
+francs have been consumed in smoke, fire, and bursting steel.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff remembers his impressions, a few hours before, standing beside
+a tomb which was beginning to be changed at the first halting words of
+Spring. The Infinite does not know us, nor does the very earth which
+maintains us know us either.</p>
+
+<p>We are alone in the infinite, without other support than that of our own
+lives, our own illusions, and our own hopes. Man can rely only on man.</p>
+
+<p>And he repeats what he had said of the earth that morning.</p>
+
+<p>The sky knows nothing of our sorrows.</p>
+
+<p>
+<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>He slowly turns toward the square.</p>
+
+<p>From all the cafés, restaurants, and hotels, comes the musical rise and
+fall of the cadenced violins. Behind the great windows, reddened by an
+inner light, he see couples passing intertwined, following the rhythm of
+the music. They are dancing, dancing, dancing.</p>
+
+<p>Youth does nothing else. Dancing is a sort of sacred rite, prohibited
+during the war; and people are all devoting themselves in dancing now,
+with the fervor of zealots finally celebrating the triumphs of their
+persecuted religion.</p>
+
+<p>The Prince recalls his recent passage through Paris. He had never seen
+the women better dressed, with so manifest a hunger for pleasure and
+luxury. The tango of the violins on the Boulevard is answered like an<a name="page_546" id="page_546"></a>
+echo by the tango of the violins all along the Riviera, and at the
+summer resorts which are beginning to open. Woman's dearest wish, at the
+moment, is to dance the latest dance with a fighter from the United
+States!</p>
+
+<p>The nightmare of war has vanished; everything has been forgotten. For
+many people nothing remains to recall the conflict save the uniforms,
+more numerous than formerly in the <i>thés dansants</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Michael confines his meditation to this coast, which was always the
+domain of the blessed! For four long years war has turned Monaco upside
+down and filled it with darkness.</p>
+
+<p>His imagination runs up and down the gulfs and promontories. There is a
+cemetery on each. In Mentone thousands and thousands of negroes lie
+under the earth. The combatants from Africa, whose fathers knew only the
+lance and the breech-clout, have chanced to perish like gladiators on
+this shore of European millionaires. In Cap-Martin the English have left
+their dead; in Monaco, there are some of every nationality; in
+Cap-Ferrat, the Belgians sleep, under wreaths already old; in Nice, are
+the bodies of the Americans; and everywhere, from Esterel to the Italian
+frontier, there are Frenchmen, Frenchmen, Frenchmen.</p>
+
+<p>The dead are innumerable. Were they all to rise together, those who come
+to prolong their lives under the palm tree and the olive on the shores
+of the Violet Sea, would flee aghast.</p>
+
+<p>But the aim of life is to live. Life is an endless Springtime, and
+covers everything it touches with the eager moss of pleasure, with the
+swiftly creeping ivy of dreams.</p>
+
+<p>The cemeteries, strikingly white, seem to take on a duller tone, and are
+lost in the smiling landscape, like an unessential note in a song. The
+softness of the skies<a name="page_547" id="page_547"></a> and the surrounding country changes them to
+gardens. A body occupies so little space and the earth is so large!...
+The hotels which were hospitals, are regilding their signs, disinfecting
+their rooms and sending advertisements to the great newspapers of the
+world. Already people may come and dream between the walls which just
+now shook with cries of pain, or the rattle of death agonies. Music is
+beginning sweetly to moan along the happy coast, amid the murmur of the
+waves and the rustling of the orange trees, of epithalamial perfume. The
+old shepherd of the Alps, who, after sixty years, has not yet recovered
+from his amazement at the Monte Carlo which has arisen there below on
+the once deserted tableland, will see it grow with new palaces and new
+towers, further expanding its opulence like a city of dreams.</p>
+
+<p>The passage of death has made love of life more keen. Every one, seeing
+the black banner of the Adversary vanish in the darkness, finds new zest
+in pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>Lubimoff stops in the middle of the square. It is beginning to grow
+dark. With one ear he hears the musical swing of a dance invented by the
+negroes of North America for the enjoyment of the whites; and with the
+other he hears other negro music, the South American tango. In the
+adjoining streets new orchestras are playing wherever there is a public
+place, café, hotel, or restaurant&mdash;with a sign in English at the door,
+to attract the heroes of the hour: <i>Dancing</i>.</p>
+
+<p>He gazes at the mountain which forms a background for the square and
+watches over the graves on its slopes. Then he looks on high....</p>
+
+<p>The earth and the sky know nothing of our sorrows.</p>
+
+<p>And neither does life.</p>
+
+<p class="c"><br /><br /><small>THE END</small></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary=""
+style="border:2px dotted gray;margin:5% auto 5% auto;padding:2%;">
+<tr><th align="center">The following typographical errors have been corrected by the etext transcriber:</th></tr>
+<tr><td>slanderous abjectives=>slanderous adjectives</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Don Marcos remainel silent.=>Don Marcos remained silent.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>confined in the Champ-Élysée=>confined in the Champs-Élysée</td></tr>
+<tr><td>rebelliouslly curse the being=>rebelliously curse the being</td></tr>
+<tr><td>I suddenly felt as thought I were=>I suddenly felt as though I were</td></tr>
+<tr><td>clamly displayed brass ornaments=>calmly displayed brass ornaments</td></tr>
+<tr><td>It was all a mazagine yarn=>It was all a magazine yarn</td></tr>
+<tr><td>dilate, the indigation and envy=>dilate, the indignation and envy</td></tr>
+<tr><td>that that will be his end, in case of a defeat.=>that will be his end, in case of a defeat.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>eying one another discreetly=>eyeing one another discreetly</td></tr>
+<tr><td>changing from sadness to gaity.=>changing from sadness to gaiety.</td></tr>
+<tr><td>benificent strength of its activities=>beneficent strength of its activities</td></tr>
+<tr><td>Michael amost envied him, because he had seen=>Michael almost envied him, because he had seen</td></tr>
+<tr><td>train was lowly passing=>train was slowly passing</td></tr>
+<tr><td>It was so peasant to be in his company=>It was so pleasant to be in his company</td></tr>
+<tr><td>reality there coud be no doubt=>reality there could be no doubt</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Enemies of Women, by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
+
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Enemies of Women, by Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+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 Enemies of Women
+       (Los enemigos de la mujer)
+
+Author: Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
+Translator: Irving Brown
+
+Release Date: January 1, 2012 [EBook #38458]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: image of the book's cover]
+
+
+
+
+THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN
+
+WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
+
+MARE NOSTRUM (OUR SEA)
+
+BLOOD AND SAND
+
+LA BODEGA (THE FRUIT OF THE VINE)
+
+THE SHADOW OF THE CATHEDRAL
+
+WOMAN TRIUMPHANT
+
+MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
+
+_In Preparation_
+
+THE ARGONAUTS
+
+E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+THE ENEMIES
+OF WOMEN
+
+_(LOS ENEMIGOS DE LA MUJER)_
+
+BY
+VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH
+BY
+IRVING BROWN
+
+[Illustration: colophon]
+
+NEW YORK
+E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+681 FIFTH AVENUE
+
+    Copyright, 1918, by
+    E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
+
+    _All Rights Reserved_
+
+    _First printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Second printing        Oct., 1920_
+    _Third printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Fourth printing        Oct., 1920_
+    _Fifth printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Sixth printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Seventh printing       Oct., 1920_
+    _Eighth printing        Oct., 1920_
+    _Ninth printing         Oct., 1920_
+    _Tenth printing         Oct., 1920_
+
+    Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+        CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER      PAGE
+
+    I.              1
+
+    II.            28
+
+    III.           71
+
+    IV.           103
+
+    V.            151
+
+    VI.           189
+
+    VII.          260
+
+    VIII.         324
+
+    IX.           371
+
+    X.            450
+
+    XI.           499
+
+    XII.          512
+
+
+
+
+THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The Prince repeated his statement:
+
+"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."
+
+He intended to go on but was interrupted. There was a slight stir of the
+heavy window curtains. Through their parting was seen below, as in a
+frame, the intense azure of the Mediterranean. A dull roar reached the
+dining-room. It seemed to come from the side of the house facing the
+Alps. It was a faint vibration, deadened by the walls, the curtains, and
+the carpets, distant, like the working of some underground monster; but
+there rose above the sound of revolving steel and the puffing of steam a
+clamor of human beings, a sudden burst of shouts and whistling.
+
+"A train full of soldiers!" exclaimed Don Marcos Toledo, leaving his
+chair.
+
+"The Colonel is at it again, always the hero, always enthusiastic about
+everything that has to do with his profession," said Atilio Castro, with
+a smile of amusement.
+
+In spite of his years, the man whom they called the Colonel sprang to
+the nearest window. Above the foliage of the sloping garden, he could
+see a small section of the Corniche railroad, swallowed up in the smoky
+entrance of a tunnel, and reappearing farther on, beyond the hill,
+among the groves and rose colored villas of Cap-Martin. Under the
+mid-day sun the rails quivered like rills of molten steel. Although the
+train had not yet reached this side of the tunnel, the whole
+country-side was filled with the ever-increasing roar. The windows,
+terraces, and gardens of the villas were dotted black with people who
+were leaving their luncheon tables to see the train pass. From the
+mountain slope to the seashore, from walls and buildings on both sides
+of the track, flags of all colors began to wave.
+
+Don Marcos ran to the opposite window overlooking the city. All he could
+see was an expanse of roofs with no trace of Nature's touch save here
+and there the feathery green of the gardens against the red of the
+tiles. It was like a stage setting broken into a succession of wings: in
+the foreground, amid trees, isolated villas with green balustrades and
+flower-strewn walls; next, the mass of Monte Carlo, its huge hotels
+bristling with pointed turrets and cupolas; and hazy in the background,
+as though floating in golden dust, the rocky cliffs of Monaco, with its
+promenades; the enormous pile of the Oceanographic Museum; the New
+Cathedral, a glaring white; and the square crested tower of the palace
+of the Prince. Buildings stretched from the edge of the sea halfway up
+the mountains. It was a country without fields, with no open land,
+covered completely with houses, from one frontier to the other.
+
+But Don Marcos had known the view for years, and at once detected the
+unfamiliar detail. A long, interminable train was moving slowly along
+the hillside. He counted aloud more than forty cars, without coming to
+the rear coaches still hidden in a hollow.
+
+"It must be a battalion ... a whole battalion on a war footing. More
+than a thousand soldiers," he said in an authoritative manner, pleased
+at showing off his keen professional judgment before his fellow guests,
+who, for that matter, were not listening.
+
+The train was filled with men, tiny yellowish gray figures, that
+gathered at the car windows, doors, and on the running-boards with their
+feet hanging over the track. Others were crowded in cattle pens or stood
+on the open flat-cars, among the tanks and crated machine guns. A great
+many had climbed to the roofs and were greeting the crowds with arms and
+legs extended in the shape of a letter X. Almost all of them had their
+shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, like sailors preparing to
+maneuver.
+
+"They are English!" exclaimed Don Marcos. "English soldiers on their way
+to Italy!"
+
+But this information seemed to irritate the Prince, who always spoke to
+him in familiar language, in spite of the difference in their ages.
+"Don't be absurd, Colonel. Anybody would know that. They are the only
+ones who whistle."
+
+The men still seated at the table nodded. Military trains passed every
+day, and from a distance it was possible to guess the nationality of the
+passengers. "The French," said Castro, "go past silently. They have had
+a little over three years of fighting on their own soil. They are as
+silent and gloomy as their duty is monotonous and endless. The Italians
+coming from the French front sing, and decorate their trains with green
+branches. The English shout like a lot of boys, just out of school, and
+in their enthusiasm, whistle all the time. They are the real children in
+this war; they go with a sort of boyish glee to their death."
+
+The whistling sound drew nearer, shrill as the howling of a witches'
+Sabbath. It passed between the mountains and the gardens of Villa
+Sirena; and then went on in the other direction, toward Italy, gradually
+growing fainter as it disappeared in the tunnel. Toledo, who was the
+only one in the room to watch the train pass, noticed how the houses,
+gardens, and _potagers_ on both sides of the track were alive with
+people, waving handkerchiefs and flags in reply to the whistling of the
+English. Even along the seashore the fishermen stood up on the seats of
+their boats and waved their caps at a distant train. The quick ear of
+Don Marcos distinguished a sound of footsteps on the floor above. The
+servants doubtless were opening the windows to join with silent
+enthusiasm in that farewell.
+
+When only a few coaches were still visible at the mouth of the tunnel,
+the Colonel came back to his place at the table.
+
+"More meat for the slaughter house!" exclaimed Atilio Castro, looking at
+the Prince. "The racket is over. Go on, Michael."
+
+Under Toledo's watchful eye, two beardless Italian boys, unprepossessing
+in appearance, were serving the dessert at the luncheon.
+
+The Colonel kept glancing over the table and at the faces of his three
+guests, as though he were afraid of suddenly noticing something that
+would show the lunch had been hastily arranged. It was the first that
+had been given at Villa Sirena for two years.
+
+The master of the house, Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff, who sat at the
+head of the table, had arrived from Paris the evening before.
+
+The Prince was a man still in his youth, fresh with the well controlled
+vigor that is furnished by a life of physical exercise. He was tall,
+robust, and supple, of dark complexion, with large gray eyes, and a
+massive face, clean shaven. The scattered gray hairs at his temples
+seemed even more numerous in contrast with the blue-black of the rest.
+A number of premature wrinkles around the eyes, and two deep furrows
+running from his wide nostrils to the corners of his mouth, were the
+first indication of weariness in a powerful organism that seemed to have
+lived too intensely, in the mistaken confidence that its reserve of
+strength was endless.
+
+The Colonel called him "Your Highness," as if Michael Fedor were a
+member of a ruling house, instead of a mere Russian prince. But this was
+when some one was present. It was a habit Don Marcos had adopted in the
+days of the late Princess Lubimoff, to maintain the prestige of the son,
+whom he had known since the latter was a child. In their intimate
+relations, when they were alone, he preferred to call him "Marquis,"
+Marquis de Villablanca, and the Prince was never successful in
+disturbing, by his witticisms on the subject, the precedence thus
+established by Don Marcos in his terms of respect. The title of Russian
+Prince was for those who are dazzled by the lofty sound of titles,
+without being able to appreciate their respective merits, and origins;
+as for himself, the Colonel preferred something nobler, the title of
+Spanish Marquis, in spite of the fact that that title for Lubimoff was
+quite unknown in Spain, and lacked official recognition.
+
+Toledo was well acquainted with Prince Michael's three guests.
+
+Atilio Castro was a fellow countryman, a Spaniard who had spent the
+greater part of his life outside his own country. He affected great
+intimacy with the Prince and, on the grounds of a distant blood
+relationship between them, even spoke to him with some familiarity. Don
+Marcos had a vague idea that the young Spaniard had been a consul
+somewhere for a short time. Atilio was continually poking fun at him
+without his being always immediately aware of it. But the Colonel,
+seeing that it pleased "His Highness" greatly, felt no ill-will on that
+account.
+
+"A fine fellow, good hearted!" the Colonel often said, in speaking of
+Castro. "He hasn't led a model life, he's a terrible gambler--but a
+gentleman. Yes, sir, a real gentleman!"
+
+Michael Fedor defined his relative in other terms.
+
+"He has all the vices, and no defects."
+
+Don Marcos could never quite understand what that meant, but
+nevertheless it increased his esteem for Castro.
+
+The Prince was only two or three years older than Atilio, and yet their
+ages seemed much farther apart. Castro was over thirty-five, and some
+people thought him twenty-four. His face had an ingenuous, rather
+child-like expression, and it acquired a certain character of manliness,
+thanks solely to a dark red mustache, closely cropped. This tiny
+mustache, and his glossy hair parted squarely in the middle, were the
+most prominent details of his features, except when he became excited.
+If his humor changed--which happened very rarely--the luster in his
+eyes, the contraction of his mouth, and the premature wrinkles in his
+forehead gave him an almost ominous expression, and suddenly he seemed
+to age by ten years.
+
+"A bad man to have for an enemy!" affirmed the Colonel. "It wouldn't do
+to get in his way."
+
+And not out of fear, but rather out of sincere admiration did the
+Colonel speak admiringly of Castro's talents. He wrote poetry, painted
+in water color, improvised songs at the piano, gave advice in matters of
+furniture and clothes, and was well versed in antiquities, and matters
+of taste. Don Marcos knew no limits to that intelligence.
+
+"He knows everything," he would say. "If he would only stick to one
+thing! If he would only work!"
+
+Castro was always elegantly dressed, and lived in expensive hotels; but
+he had no regular income so far as was known. The Colonel suspected a
+series of friendly little loans from the Prince. But the latter had
+remained away from Monte Carlo almost since the beginning of the war,
+and Don Marcos used to meet Castro every winter living at the Hotel de
+Paris, playing at the Casino, and associating with people of wealth.
+From time to time, on encountering the Colonel in the gaming rooms,
+Castro had asked him for a loan of "ten louis," an absolute necessity
+for a gambler who had just lost his last stake and was anxious to
+recoup. But with more or less delay he had always returned the money.
+There was something mysterious about his life, according to Don Marcos.
+
+The two other guests seemed to him to live much less complex lives. The
+one who had frequented the house for the longest period, was a dark
+young man, with a skin that was almost copper colored, a slight build,
+and long, straight hair. He was Teofilo Spadoni, a famous pianist.
+Spadoni's parents were Italian--this much was sure. No one could quite
+make out where he had been born. At times he mentioned his birthplace as
+Cairo, at other times, as Athens, or Constantinople, all the places
+where his father, a poor Neapolitan tailor, had lived. No one was
+astonished by such vagaries and absent-minded discrepancies on the part
+of the extraordinary virtuoso, who, the moment he left the piano, seemed
+to move in a world of dreams and to be quite incapable of adapting
+himself to any regular mode of life. After giving concerts in the large
+capitals of Europe and South America, he had settled down at Monte
+Carlo, explaining his residence there by the war, while Don Marcos
+imputed it to his love of gambling. The Prince knew him through having
+engaged him as a member of the orchestra on board his large yacht, the
+Gaviota II, for a voyage around the world.
+
+Sitting beside the host was the last guest, the latest to frequent the
+house, a pale young man, tall, thin, and nearsighted, who was always
+looking timidly around as though ill at ease. He was a professor from
+Spain, a Doctor of Science, Carlos Novoa, who received a subsidy from
+the Spanish government to make certain studies in ocean fauna at the
+Oceanographic Museum. The Colonel who had spent many years at Monte
+Carlo without running across any of his compatriots, other than those
+whom he saw around the roulette tables, had expressed a certain
+patriotic pride in meeting this professor two months previously.
+
+"A man of learning! A famous scientist!" he exclaimed in speaking of his
+new friend. "They can say all they want now about us Spaniards being
+ignoramuses."
+
+He had only the vaguest notion of the nature of his fellow countryman's
+learning. What is more: from his earliest conversations he had guessed
+that the professor's ideas were directly opposed to his own. "One of
+those heretics with no other God than matter," he said to himself. But
+he added by way of consolation: "All those learned men are like that:
+liberals and free-thinkers. What of it...." As for the professor's fame,
+in the opinion of Don Marcos it was unquestionable. Otherwise why would
+they have sent him to the Oceanographic Museum, large and white as a
+temple, whose halls he had visited only once, with a feeling of awe that
+had prevented him from ever going back again.
+
+On the occasional evenings when the professor would go to Monte Carlo
+and chance to meet Don Marcos, the latter would present him to his
+friends as a national celebrity. In this fashion Novoa had made the
+acquaintance of Castro and Spadoni, who never asked him more than how
+his luck was going.
+
+When the coming of the Prince was announced, Toledo insisted that his
+illustrious friend the Professor should accompany him to the station in
+order to lose no time in introducing him to "His Highness."
+
+"One of our country's prides.... Your Highness is so fond of everything
+Spanish."
+
+Michael Fedor had spent a considerable portion of his life on the sea,
+and felt a certain sympathy for the modest young man, on learning of the
+studies in which he specialized.
+
+They talked for a long time about oceanography, and the following day
+Prince Michael, who was in the habit of entertaining elaborately at his
+table the most divergent kinds of guests, said to his "chamberlain":
+
+"Your scholar is a very fine fellow. Invite him to luncheon."
+
+The guests all spoke Spanish. Spadoni was able to follow the
+conversation, with the little he had picked up while giving piano
+recitals in Buenos Ayres, Santiago, and other South American capitals.
+He had been there with an impresario, who finally got tired of backing
+him, and struggling with his childish irresponsibility.
+
+As they were sitting down at the table, the Colonel noticed that the
+Prince seemed preoccupied with some absorbing meditation. He made a
+point of talking with Professor Novoa, expressing his surprise at the
+slight compensation the scientist received for his studies.
+
+Castro and Spadoni gave their whole attention to their food. The days of
+the famous chef, to whom Prince Michael gave a salary worthy of a Prime
+Minister, were over. The "master" had been mobilized and at that moment
+was cooking for a general on the French front. However, Toledo had
+managed to discover a woman of some fifty years, whose combinations
+were less varied, perhaps, than those of the artist whom the war had
+snatched away, but more "classical," more solid and substantial--and the
+two men ate with the delight of people who, forever obliged to eat in
+restaurants and hotels, at last find themselves at a table where no
+economy or falsifications are practised.
+
+About dessert time the conversation, becoming general, turned, as always
+happens when men are dining alone, to the subject of women. Toledo had a
+feeling that the Prince had gently steered the guests' talk in this
+direction. Suddenly Michael summed up his whole argument by declaring a
+second time:
+
+"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."
+
+And then had followed the long interruption as the train of English
+soldiers, in a whirl of shouts, whistling and hissing, had gone by.
+
+Atilio Castro waited until the last car had disappeared in the tunnel,
+and said with a subtle and somewhat ironical smile:
+
+"The shouting and whistling sound like a mixture of applause and scorn
+for your profound remark. However, please don't bother with such
+inexpert opinion. What you said interests me. You abominate women, you
+who have had thousands of them!... Go on, Michael!"
+
+But the Prince changed the conversation. He spoke of his impressions on
+returning to Villa Sirena after a long absence. Nothing remained to
+recall the former days, before the war, save the building and the
+gardens. All the men servants were mobilized: some in the French army,
+others in the Italian. The day after his arrival he had asked, as a
+matter of course, for an auto to go to Monte Carlo. There was no lack of
+machines. Three, of the best make, were lying as though forgotten, in
+the garage. But the chauffeurs too were at the front; and moreover
+there was no gasoline; and a permit was necessary to use the roads....
+In short, he had been obliged to stand at the iron gate of the garden
+and wait for the Manton electric. It was a novelty for him, an
+interesting means of locomotion. It seemed as if he had suddenly been
+transported into a world he had forgotten, as he found himself among the
+common people on the car. The general curiosity annoyed him. Everyone
+was whispering his name: and even the conductor showed a certain emotion
+on seeing the owner of Villa Sirena among his passengers.
+
+"And the worst of it all, my friends, is that I'm ruined!"
+
+Spadoni stared with wide opened eyes as though hearing something
+extraordinary and absurd. Castro smiled incredulously.
+
+"You ruined?... I'd be satisfied with a tenth of the remains."
+
+The Prince nodded. He reminded one of those great transatlantic liners
+which, when they are wrecked, make the fortune of a whole population of
+poverty stricken people along the shore. Wealth was of course a relative
+thing. He might still have more than many people; but ruin it was for
+him, nevertheless.
+
+"In view of what I am going to say later, I must not conceal from you
+the situation I am in. A few weeks ago I sold my Paris residence which
+my mother built. It was bought by a 'newly rich.' With this war, I'm
+going to become a 'newly poor.' You know, Atilio, how things have gone
+with me, since this row among the nations started. From the time they
+fired the first cannon they sent me from Russia only an eighth of what I
+received in times of peace; later much less. The revolution came and cut
+down my income still more. And, now under Comrade Lenin and the red
+flag, there is nothing coming through at all, absolutely nothing. I have
+no idea whatsoever of the fate of my houses, my fields, my mines ... I
+don't know even what has become of those who were looking after my
+fortune there. They have probably all been killed."
+
+The Colonel raised his eyes to the ceiling: "The revolution!... What
+they need is a master."
+
+"But a rich man like you with reserve funds in the bank all the time,
+can always find some one to make him a loan until times are better."
+
+"Perhaps; but it means practically poverty for me. My administrator told
+me when I was leaving Paris, that I ought to limit my expenses, live
+according to my present income. How much have I?... I don't know. He
+doesn't even know himself. He is balancing my accounts, collecting from
+some people and paying others--I had a lot of debts, it seems.
+Millionaires are never asked to pay their bills promptly.... In short, I
+shall have to live, like a ruined prince, on some sixty thousand dollars
+a year; perhaps more, perhaps less. I really don't know."
+
+Castro and Spadoni seemed to be stirred with longing at the mention of
+such a sum. Novoa looked with an air of respect at this man who called
+himself his friend and thought himself poor with sixty thousand dollars
+a year.
+
+"My administrator spoke to me of selling Villa Sirena as well as the
+Paris residence. It seems that the newly rich would like to get
+everything I have. A complete liquidation.... But I wouldn't listen to
+it. This is my own little nook; I made it what it is myself. Besides,
+life is impossible out in the world. The war has filled it with
+bitterness. Living in Paris is very gloomy. There is no one there. The
+streets are dark. The 'Gothas' make the people of our class worried and
+nervous. It is much better to leave. I thought I would settle down here
+and wait till this world madness is over."
+
+"It is going to be a long wait," remarked Castro.
+
+"I'm afraid so. However, this is an agreeable spot, a pleasant refuge,
+all the more delightful because of the selfish feeling that at this very
+moment millions of men are suffering every sort of hardship, and
+thousands are dying every day.... But after all, it isn't the same as it
+used to be. Even the Mediterranean is different. The minute the sun goes
+down, my good Colonel has to mask with black curtains the windows and
+doors looking out on the sea, so that the German submarines cannot guide
+themselves by our lights.... Dear me! Where are those wonderful days we
+spent here in time of peace, the festivals we used to have, those nights
+on the Gaviotta II when she anchored in the harbor of Monaco?"
+
+A far away look came into Castro's eyes, as though he were in a dream.
+In his imaginings he saw the gardens of Villa Sirena, softly lighted,
+wrapped in a milky haze that settled on the invisible waves like rays of
+reflected moonlight.
+
+The window curtains were crimson, and from them, drifting through the
+warm darkness of the night, came the sound of laughter, cries, the
+sighing of violins, amorous love songs, that told of women's throats,
+white and voluptuous, swelling with desire and the rapture of the music.
+The stars, specks of light lost in the infinite, twinkled in answer to
+the electric stars, hidden in the dark foliage. Walking slowly, couples
+arm in arm disappeared amid the deep shadows of the garden. All the
+women of the day had turned up there sooner or later: famous actresses
+from Paris, London, and Vienna; beauties of the smart cliques of two
+hemispheres, women of high society, smiling the smile of slaves before
+the potentate who could banish their debts with the stroke of a pen.
+Oh, the Pompeian nights of Villa Sirena!...
+
+Spadoni saw, rather, the Gaviotta II, a palace with propellers, which,
+when anchored in the small harbor of La Condamine, seemed to fill it
+completely and to make the yachts of the American millionaires and the
+Prince of Monaco look like tiny things indeed. It was an alcazar, a
+palace of the Arabian Nights, topped off with two smoke stacks, and
+parading over every sea of the planet, its private parlors adorned with
+fountains and statues, its enormous library, its ball room with a raised
+platform, from which fifty musicians, many of them celebrated, gave
+concerts for a single visible auditor, Prince Michael, who half reclined
+on a divan, while the tropical breeze came through the high windows,
+caressing the heads of the officers and chief functionaries of the
+steamer crowding about the openings. The pianist could see once more the
+lonely harbors of dead historic countries, with flights of seagulls
+wheeling against the quiet azure vault; the mighty bays, filled with the
+smoke and bustle of North America; the coasts of the Antilles with
+groves of cocoanut palms, black at sunset against the reddish sky; the
+islands of the Pacific, of hard coral, forming a ring about an inner
+lake.... And that omnipotent magician confessed the loss of his
+wealth!...
+
+The Prince, as though he guessed their thoughts, added:
+
+"It's the end of all that: I don't know whether forever or for many
+years.... And even if things should be the same some day as they were
+before the war, what a long time we shall have to wait!... I may die
+before then.... That is why I am going to make a proposal to you."
+
+He paused a moment, to enjoy the curiosity he read in the eyes of his
+auditors.
+
+Then he asked Castro:
+
+"Are you satisfied with your present life?"
+
+In spite of Castro's good natured, smiling placidity, he started in
+surprise as if indignant at such a question. His life was unbearable.
+The war had upset his habits and pleasures, scattering his friendships
+to the four winds. He did not know the fate of hundreds of persons of
+various nationalities, who had filled his life before the war, and
+without whom he would then have thought it impossible to live.
+
+"Besides, I have less money than ever. I am staying at Monte Carlo just
+for the gambling; and even if I always lose in the end, like everyone
+else, I always keep a tight grip on a little something to live on!...
+But what a life!"
+
+He glanced at Novoa as though the recency of his acquaintance inspired a
+certain suspicion, but immediately he went on, with an air of assurance:
+
+"There is no reason why I should not speak quite plainly. A little while
+ago the Professor told us how much he earned: some hundred dollars a
+month; less than any employee at the Casino. I am going to be as frank
+as he. I live in the Hotel de Paris: Atilio Castro cannot afford to live
+anywhere else; he must keep up his connections. But there are many weeks
+when I have the greatest difficulty in paying for my room, and I eat in
+cheap restaurants and Italian wine shops, when no one invites me out to
+dine. I pay three or four times as much for my bed as I do for my board.
+Evenings when luck is against me, and I lose everything to the last
+chip, I get along with a ham sandwich at the Casino bar. I belong to the
+same school as the Madrid gambler we nicknamed the 'Master,' and who
+used to say to us: 'Boys, money was made for gambling; and what's left,
+for eating.'"
+
+"And in spite of that, you like good food," said the Prince.
+
+Castro's laments took on a comical seriousness. With the war the good
+old customs had been forgotten. No one kept house; everyone lived in
+hotels, and the proprietors of the luxurious palaces took the scarcity
+of food as a pretext to serve the sort of meals one gets in third rate
+restaurants, scanty and poor. An invitation merely gave one a chance to
+fool one's hunger.
+
+"It has been months, maybe years, since I've eaten as I have to-day, and
+I've sat at the tables of all the big hotels on the Riviera. I had
+ceased to believe that such chicken as you have just served existed in
+the world any longer. I imagined they were dream birds, mythological
+fowl."
+
+The Colonel smiled, bowing as if that were a tribute to him.
+
+"And you, Spadoni?" the Prince went on inquiringly. "How are you
+enjoying life?"
+
+"Your Highness--I--I," stammered the musician, at the sudden question.
+
+Castro intervened, coming to his rescue.
+
+"Our friend Spadoni can always get a free meal at the villas of a number
+of invalid ladies, who live at Cap-Martin and who are mad about music.
+Besides some English people at Nice often invite him. He doesn't need to
+bother about paying hotel bills either. He has at his disposal a whole
+big villa, large and well-furnished: it goes with his job, as watchman
+over a corpse."
+
+Novoa started with surprise at the news.
+
+"Don't be astonished," continued Atilio. "He has the benefit of a
+magnificent house in exchange for looking after a tomb."
+
+"Oh, Professor!... Don't mind him," groaned the musician with the air of
+a martyr.
+
+"But with all these advantages," Castro went on saying, "there is one
+terrible drawback: he is a worse gambler than I. He has a nickname in
+the Casino 'the number five gentleman.' He never plays any other number.
+Anything he can get hold of he puts on five, and loses it. I am the
+'number seventeen gentleman' and it turns out as badly with me as with
+him.... Besides, he has his English friends. Queer ducks! They come from
+Nice every day in a two horse landau, and just as if they didn't get
+enough gambling with the Casino, they set up a green table on their
+knees and take out a deck of cards. They play poker with the Corniche
+landscape, that people come from all over the world to see, right before
+their eyes. And our artist, when he takes a fourth hand with the two
+Englishmen and an old maid, there within the sight of the Mediterranean,
+golden in the setting sun, loses everything he took in at some concert
+at Cannes or Monte Carlo."
+
+Spadoni started to say something, but stopped, seeing that the Prince
+turned to Novoa:
+
+"I shan't ask you," said the Prince; "I know your situation. You live in
+the old part of Monaco, in the house of an employee of the Museum; and
+his lodgings can't be much. Besides, as Atilio was saying, you receive
+much less than a croupier at the Casino."
+
+And looking at his guests he added:
+
+"What I want to propose to you is that you live with me. The invitation
+is a selfish one on my part; I'm not denying that. I intend to stay here
+until the world quiets down, and life is pleasant once more. If my
+Colonel and I were here alone we would end by hating each other. You
+will keep me company in my retreat."
+
+All three remained dumbfounded at such an unexpected proposal. Novoa was
+the first to regain the use of his tongue.
+
+"Prince, you scarcely know me. We saw each other for the first time
+three days ago.... I don't know whether I ought...."
+
+The Prince interrupted him with the sharp tone and imperious manner of a
+man who is not accustomed to considering objections.
+
+"We have known each other for many years; we have known each other all
+our lives." Then he added soothingly:
+
+"It isn't much that I'm offering you. Servants are scarce. There are no
+men except my old valet and those two Italian monkeys that the Colonel
+managed to recruit somewhere. The rest of the service is done by
+women.... But even so, our life will be pleasant. We shall isolate
+ourselves from a world gone crazy. We will not mention this war. We
+shall lead a comfortable existence, as the monks did in the monasteries
+of the Middle Ages, which were refreshing oases of tranquillity in the
+midst of violence and massacres. We shall eat well; the Colonel
+guarantees me that. The Library from the yacht is here. When I sold the
+boat, I had Don Marcos install all my books on the top floor. Our friend
+Novoa will find some volumes there which perhaps he does not know.
+Everyone will do what he pleases; free monks all of us, with no other
+obligation than to repair to the refectory at the proper hour. And if
+the 'number five gentleman' and the 'number seventeen gentleman' want to
+drop in at the Casino, they can do so, and someone will see to it that
+their pockets are kept filled. We must give something to vice, what the
+devil! Without vices, life wouldn't be worth living."
+
+A silent approbation greeted these words of the master of Villa Sirena.
+
+"The one thing I insist on," continued the Prince after a long pause,
+"is that we live alone, as men among men. No women! Women must be
+excluded from our life in common."
+
+The pianist opened his eyes in astonishment; Castro stirred in his
+chair; Novoa removed his glasses with a mechanical gesture of surprise,
+immediately adjusting them once more to his nose.
+
+There was another silence.
+
+"What you propose," said Atilio, at last, with a smile, "reminds me of a
+comedy of Shakespeare. No women! And the hero in the end gets married."
+
+"I know that play," replied the Prince, "but I am not in the habit of
+governing my life according to comedies, and I don't believe in their
+teachings. You can rest assured that I shan't marry, even if it gives
+the lie to Shakespeare and the French king from whose chronicle he got
+the material for his work."
+
+"But what you're attempting is absurd," Castro went on: "I don't know
+what the rest think, but prevent me from...!"
+
+With a gesture he ended his protest.
+
+Then seeing that the Prince had remained thoughtful, he added:
+
+"It is quite evident that you have had your fill!... You have gotten all
+you wanted, and now you want to force on us...."
+
+The Prince, although absorbed in his own train of thought, he had not
+heard him, interrupted.
+
+"Seeing that you can't get along without it.... All right! I have no
+fixed intention of making a martyr of you. Go on being a slave to a
+necessity that is a result more of the imagination than of desire. Now
+that I really know life, I am astonished that men do so many foolish
+things for the sake of a passing pleasure. While you are here you may
+satisfy your whims whenever you like ... but no women."
+
+The three listeners looked at one another in astonishment; and even the
+Colonel, who never betrayed his feeling when his "lord" was speaking,
+showed a certain surprise on his countenance. What did the Prince mean?
+
+"You are not ignorant, Atilio, of what a woman is. In the great majority
+of peoples on this earth there are only females. There are young females
+and old females; but there are no 'women.' Woman, as we understand the
+word, is the artificial product of civilizations which, somewhat like
+hot-house flowers, have reached their maturity with a complex perverse
+beauty. Only in the large cities that have come to be decadent because
+they have reached their limits, do you find 'women.' Not being mothers
+like the poor females, they give up all their time to love, prolong
+their youth marvelously, and scheme to inspire passions at an age when
+the others live like grandmothers. There you have the creatures that,
+personally, I am afraid of! If they come in here, it's the end of our
+society, our tranquil, even life."
+
+The Prince arose from the table, and they all followed suit. Lunch being
+over they all passed into the great hall adjoining, where coffee was
+served. The Colonel looked about anxiously, examining the boxes of
+Havanas, and the large liquor chest with its varied cut glass and
+colored flasks, placed in a row.
+
+While cutting the tip of his cigar, the Prince continued, speaking all
+the while to Castro:
+
+"When you want ... anything like that, all you need do is to choose in
+the vicinity of the Casino. A hundred or two francs; and then,
+good-by!... But the other ones! The women! They work their way into our
+lives, and finally dominate us, and want to mold our ways to suit their
+own. Their love for us after all is merely vanity, like that of the
+conqueror who loves the land that he has conquered with violence. They
+have all read books--nearly always stupidly and without understanding,
+to be sure, but they have read books--and such reading leaves them
+determined to satisfy all sorts of vague desires, and absurd whims, that
+succeed only in making slaves of us, and in moving us to act on impulses
+we have acquired in our own early romantic readings.... I know them. I
+have met too many of them in my life. If women from our social sphere
+mingle with us here, it means an end to peace. They will seek me out
+through curiosity on remembering my past life, or greed in thinking of
+my wealth; as for you men, they will come between you, making you
+jealous of one another and the life that I desire here will be
+impossible.... Besides, we are poor."
+
+Atilio protested, smilingly: "Oh! poor!"
+
+"Poor when it comes to the follies of the old days," continued the
+Prince, "and for love one needs money. All that talk about love being a
+disinterested thing was made up by poor people, who are satisfied with
+imitations. There is a glitter of gold at the bottom of every passion.
+At first we don't think of such things; desire blinds us. All we see is
+the immediate domination of the person so sweetly our adversary. But
+love invariably ends by giving or taking money."
+
+"Take money from a woman!... Never!" said Castro, losing his ironic
+smile.
+
+"You will end by taking it, if you are poor, and frequent the society of
+women. Those of our times think of nothing but money. When their love is
+a rich man, they ask him for it, even if they have a large fortune of
+their own. They feel less worthy if they don't ask. When they are fond
+of a poor man, they force him to receive gifts from them. They dominate
+him better by degrading him. Besides, in doing so they feel the selfish
+satisfaction of the person who gives alms. Woman, having always been
+forced to beg from man, has the greatest sensation of pride, and thinks
+she in turn can give money to some one of the sex that has always
+supported her."
+
+Novoa, cup in hand, listened attentively to the Prince. Lubimoff was
+speaking of a world quite unknown to him. Spadoni, as he sipped his
+coffee, with a vague look in his eyes, was thinking of something far
+away.
+
+"Now you know the worst, Atilio," the Prince went on. "No women!... That
+way we will lead a great life. All the morning, free! We shan't see one
+another until lunch time. Down below is the cove, there are still a
+number of boats. We can fish, while it's sunny; we can go rowing. In the
+afternoon you will go to the Casino; occasionally I shall go, too, to
+hear some concert. Spring is drawing near. At night, sitting on the
+terrace, watching the stars, our friend Novoa, the man of learning of
+our monastery, will expound the music of the spheres; and Spadoni, our
+musician, will sit down at the piano, and delight us with terrestrial
+music."
+
+"Splendid!" exclaimed Castro. "You are almost a poet in describing our
+future life, and you have persuaded me. We are going to be happy. But
+don't forget your permission for the 'female,' and your prohibition of
+'women.' No skirts in Villa Sirena! Nothing but men; monks in trousers,
+selfish and tolerant, coming together to live a pleasant life, while the
+world is aflame."
+
+Atilio remained thoughtful a few moments, and continued:
+
+"We need a name; our community must have a title. We shall call
+ourselves 'the enemies of women'."
+
+The Prince smiled.
+
+"The name mustn't go any farther than ourselves. If people outside
+learned of it, they might think it meant something else."
+
+Novoa, feeling honored by his new intimacy with men so different from
+those with whom he had previously associated, accepted the name with
+enthusiasm.
+
+"I confess, gentlemen, that according to the distinction made by the
+Prince, I have never known a 'woman'. Females ... poor ones, to be sure,
+a very few perhaps! But I like the name, and agree to join the 'enemies
+of women' even though a woman is never to enter my life."
+
+Spadoni, as though suddenly awakening, turned to Castro, and continued
+his thought aloud.
+
+"It's a system of stakes invented by an English lord, now dead, who won
+millions by it. They explained it to me yesterday. First you place...."
+
+"No, no, you satanic pianist!" exclaimed Atilio. "You can explain it to
+me in the Casino, providing I have the curiosity to listen. You've made
+me lose a lot, with all your systems. I had better go on playing your
+'number five.'"
+
+The Colonel, who had listened in silence to the conversation in regard
+to women, seemed to recall something when Castro mentioned gambling.
+
+"Last evening," he said to the Prince, in a mysterious voice, "I met the
+Duchess in the Casino"....
+
+A look of silent questioning halted his words.
+
+"What Duchess is that?"
+
+"The question is quite in point, Michael," said Atilio. "Your
+'chamberlain' is better acquainted in society than any man on the
+Riviera. He knows princesses and duchesses by the dozen. I have seen him
+dining in the Hotel de Paris with all the ancient French nobility, who
+come here to console themselves for the long time it takes to bring back
+their former kings. In the private rooms in the Casino, he is always
+kissing wrinkled hands and bowing to some group of disgusting mummies
+loaded down with the oldest and most famous names. Some of them call
+him simply 'Colonel'; others introduce him with the title of 'aide de
+camp of Prince Lubimoff'."
+
+Don Marcos stiffened, offended by the waggish tone in which his high
+estate was being mentioned, and said haughtily:
+
+"Senor de Castro, I am a soldier grown old in defense of Legitimacy; I
+shed my blood for the sacred tradition, and there is nothing remarkable
+about my association with...."
+
+The Prince knowing by experience that the Colonel did not know what time
+was, when once he began to talk about "legitimacy" and the blood he had
+shed, hastened to interrupt him.
+
+"All right; we know that very well already. But who was this Duchess you
+met?"
+
+"The Duchess de Delille. She often asks about your Highness, and upon
+hearing that you had just arrived, she gave me to understand that she
+intended paying you a call."
+
+The Prince replied with a simple exclamation, and then remained silent.
+
+"We are starting well," said Castro, laughing. "'No women!' And
+immediately the Colonel announces a visit from one of them, one of the
+most dangerous.... For you will admit that a Duchess like that is one of
+the 'women' you described to us."
+
+"I won't receive her," said the Prince resolutely.
+
+"I have an idea that this Duchess is a cousin of yours."
+
+"There is no such relationship. Her father was the brother of my
+mother's second husband. But we have known each other since childhood,
+and we each have a most unpleasant memory of one another. When I was
+living in Russia she married a French Duke. She had the same desire as
+the majority of wealthy American girls: a great title of nobility in
+order to make her friends among the fair sex jealous and to shine in
+European circles. A few months later she left the Duke, assigning him a
+certain income, which is just what her noble husband wanted perhaps.
+This woman Alicia never appealed to me particularly.... Besides, she has
+lived life just as she pleased.... She has seen almost as much of it as
+I have. She has as much of a reputation as I. They even accuse her, just
+as they do me, of love affairs with people she has never seen.... They
+tell me that in recent years she has been parading around with a young
+lad, almost a child ... dear me! We are getting old!"
+
+"I saw her with him in Paris," said Castro. "It was before the war.
+Later in Monte Carlo I met her, all by herself, without being able to
+find a trace of her young chap anywhere. He must have been a passing
+fancy of hers.... She has been here three years now. When summer comes
+she moves to Aix-les-Bains, or to Biarritz, but as soon as the Casino is
+gay and fashionable again, she is one of the first to return."
+
+"Does she play?"
+
+"Desperately. She plays high stakes and plays them badly, although we
+who think we play well always lose just the same, in the end. I mean,
+she puts her money on the table without thinking, in several places at a
+time, and then even forgets where she placed it. The 'leveurs des morts'
+are always hanging around to pick up the pieces that no one claims and
+when she wins, they always manage to get something of it. She gambled
+for two years with nothing less than chips of five hundred and a
+thousand francs. At present her chips are never for more than a hundred.
+It won't be long before she is using the red ones, the twenties, the
+favorites of your humble servant."
+
+"I shall refuse to receive her," affirmed the Prince.
+
+And doubtless in order not to talk any more about the Duchess de
+Delille, he suddenly left his friends, and walked out of the room.
+
+Atilio, in a conversational mood, turned and asked a question of Don
+Marcos, who was speaking with Novoa, while Spadoni went on dreaming,
+with eyes wide open, of the English lord's system.
+
+"Have you seen Dona Enriqueta lately?"
+
+"Are you asking me about the Infanta?" replied the Colonel gravely.
+"Yes, I met her yesterday, in the courtyards of the Casino. Poor lady!
+If it isn't a shame! The daughter of a king.... She told me that her
+sons haven't anything to wear. She owes two hundred francs for
+cigarettes, at the bar of the private play rooms. She can't find anyone
+who will lend her money. Besides, she has frightful bad luck; she loses
+everything. These are fatal days for people of royal blood. I almost
+wept when I heard all her poverty and troubles, and felt that I couldn't
+give her anything more. The daughter of a king?"
+
+"But her father disowned her, when she eloped with some unknown artist,"
+said Atilio. "And besides, Don Carlos wasn't a king anywhere."
+
+"Senor de Castro," replied the Colonel, drawing himself up, like a
+rooster, "let's not spoil the party. You know my ideas: I have shed my
+blood in the cause of Legitimacy, and the respect that I have for you
+should not...."
+
+Novoa, wishing to calm Don Marcos, intervened in the conversation.
+
+"Monte Carlo here is like a beach, where all sorts of wreckage, living
+and dead, is washed up sooner or later. In the Hotel de Paris there is
+another member of the family, but of the successful branch, the one that
+is ruling and taking in the money."
+
+"I know him," said Atilio, laughing. "He's a young man of calipigous
+exuberance and wherever he goes his handsome gentleman secretary goes
+with him. He always meets some venerable old lady who, dazzled by his
+royal kinship, takes it upon herself to keep up his extravagant mode of
+living.... Don't know what the devil he can possibly give her in return!
+As for the secretary, he gives him a slap from time to time just to
+assert his ancient rights."
+
+Don Marcos remained silent. He was not interested in the members of that
+branch, not he.
+
+"Also," Castro continued mischievously, "in the Casino before the war, I
+met Don Jaime, your own king at present. A great fellow for gambling! He
+risked thousand franc chips by the handful. He had a lot of money coming
+from somewhere. In the Casino they all used to say that it was sent him
+from Madrid, on condition that he should have no children and allow his
+claims to the throne to die out with him."
+
+"And just to think," murmured Novoa, without realizing that he was
+speaking aloud, "that for both of these families, back there, so many
+men have killed one another. To think, that for a question of
+inheritance among people like that we have gone back a century in
+European life!"
+
+"You too!" exclaimed the Colonel, provoked again. "A scholar, saying a
+thing like that! I can hardly believe my ears!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+At the end of the second Carlist war a Spanish officer, Don Miguel
+Saldana, had found himself, as a result of the defeat, banished forever
+from his own country and condemned to a life of poverty and obscurity.
+The Madrid papers, without prefixing his name with any slanderous
+adjectives, called him simply "the rebel chief Saldana." This courtesy,
+doubtless, was intended to distinguish him from the other party chiefs
+who in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, had waged a campaign of pillage
+and executions for five years. Among his own people he was known as
+General Miguel Saldana, Marquis of Villablanca. The pretender, Don
+Carlos, had given him that title because Villablanca was the name of the
+town where Saldana had practically annihilated a column of the Liberal
+army. The topographical information of Saldana's Chief of Staff--a local
+priest who had spent his whole life in doing nothing except saying mass
+on Sundays and spending the rest of the week hunting in the mountains
+with his dog and gun--gave him an opportunity to take the enemy by
+surprise, and he won a notorious victory.
+
+When he crossed the frontier as a fugitive, through refusing to
+recognize the Bourbons as the constitutional rulers, "the rebel chief
+Saldana" was twenty-nine years of age. A second son in a proud and
+ruined family, he had been obliged to resist the traditions of his house
+which presented for him an ecclesiastical career. When his studies at
+the Military School at Toledo were just finishing, the Revolution of
+1868 caused him to renounce a commission to escape being under orders
+from certain generals who had participated in overthrowing royalty.
+When Don Carlos took up arms, Saldana was one of the first to volunteer
+his services; and having gone through a military school, and received a
+good education, he at once became conspicuous among the guerrillas of
+the so-called Army of the Center, made up, for the most part, of country
+squires, village clerks, and mountain priests.
+
+Besides, Saldana distinguished himself for a reckless though rather
+unfortunate bravery. He always led the attack at the head of his men and
+consequently was wounded in the majority of his fights. But his wounds
+were "lucky wounds" as the soldiers say. They left marks of glory on his
+body without destroying his vigorous health.
+
+Finding himself alone in Paris, where his only resource was the
+admiration of a few elderly "legitimist" ladies of the aristocratic
+Faubourg Saint Germain, he left for Vienna. There his king had friends
+and relatives. His youth and his exploits gained him admission as a hero
+of the old monarchy to the circle of archdukes. The war between Russia
+and Turkey tore him away from his pleasant life as an interesting
+hanger-on. Being a fighting man and a Catholic, he felt it his duty to
+wage war against the Turks; and with recommendations as a protege of
+some influential Austrians, he went to the Court at Saint Petersburg.
+General Saldana became a mere Commander of a Squadron in the Russian
+Cavalry. The officers conversed with him in French. His horsemen
+understood him well enough when he placed himself in front of his
+division, and, unsheathing his sword, galloped ahead of them against the
+enemy.
+
+Various successful charges and two more "lucky wounds" won him a certain
+celebrity. At the end of the war he had gained numerous friends among
+officers of the nobility, and was presented in the most aristocratic
+drawing rooms. One evening at a ball given by a Grand Duchess, he saw
+close at hand the most fashionable and most talked of young woman of the
+season: the Princess Lubimoff.
+
+She was twenty-two, an orphan, with a fortune said to be one of the
+largest in Russia. The first to bear the title of Prince Lubimoff, a
+poor but handsome Cossack, unable to read or write, succeeded in winning
+the attention of the Great Catherine, who made him the favorite among
+her lovers of second rank. During the years that her imperial caprice
+lasted, the new Prince was forced to seek his fortune far from the
+Court, since the favorites before him had gained possession of all that
+was near at hand. The Czarina allowed him to make his selection on the
+map of her immense Empire; distant territories beyond the Urals, which
+the new proprietor was, like the majority of his successors, never to
+see. With the introduction of the railroad, enormous riches came to
+light in these lands chosen by the Cossack; in some, veins of platinum
+were discovered; in others, quarries of malachite, deposits of lapis
+lazuli, and rich oil wells. Besides, tens of thousands of serfs,
+recently freed by the Czar, continued to work the land for the Lubimoff
+heirs, just as they had before the emancipation. And all this immense
+fortune, which nearly doubled each year with new discoveries, belonged
+entirely to one woman, the young Princess, who considered herself as one
+of the Imperial family owing to the relationship of her ancestor, and
+had more than once given the sovereign cause for worry through the
+eccentricities of her character.
+
+She was an aggressive young woman, capricious and inconsistent in both
+words and deeds, a puzzle to everyone through the sharp contradictions
+in her conduct. She mingled with the officers of the Guard, treating
+them as comrades, smoking and drinking with them and taking a hand in
+their exercises in horsemanship; and then suddenly she would shut
+herself up in her palace for whole weeks, on her knees most of the time,
+before the holy ikons, absorbed in mystic fervor, and loudly imploring
+the forgiveness of her sins. She looked on the Emperor with veneration,
+as the representative of God. At the same time she was known to
+sympathize with the Nihilists.
+
+The courtiers were scandalized whenever they told how she had
+accompanied a girl, whom the police were watching to a wretched house on
+the outskirts of the capital, and had there mingled with the
+revolutionary rabble composed of workmen and students. With them she had
+entered a narrow room, and joined the line passing before a coffin that
+was constantly in danger of being upset by the pushing of the gloomy
+curious crowd. The dead man's name was Fedor Dostoiewsky. The princess
+had scattered a bouquet of the most costly roses on the protruding
+forehead and monkish beard of the novelist.
+
+And in her moments of anger this same Nadina Lubimoff beat the servants
+in her Palace, as though they were still serfs, and forced her maids to
+grovel at her feet. Her irritability and fiery temper turned everything
+upside down, to such an extent that a certain elderly Prince, who by
+Imperial order had been chosen as her guardian, desired, in spite of the
+fact that it would mean to him loss of the management of an immense
+fortune, to see her married as soon as possible.
+
+Nadina Lubimoff inspired a feeling of dread in her suitors. They were
+all afraid that she would answer their request for her hand with a cruel
+jest. Twice she had announced her engagement to gentlemen of the Court,
+and at the last moment she herself had begged the Czar to refuse his
+consent. By this time no one dared propose, for fear of laughter and
+comment. Yet in spite of the freedom and unconventionality of her
+conduct, no one doubted the uprightness of her character.
+
+On seeing her, Saldana thought of a naiad of the North, rising from an
+emerald river, in which cakes of ice were floating. She was tall and
+majestic, with a somewhat massive figure, like the divinities painted in
+frescos for ceilings. Her skin was of radiant whiteness. The pupils of
+her gray eyes gave out a greenish light, and her silky hair was a faded
+washed-out red. Owing to the marvelous whiteness of her complexion, her
+flesh appeared somewhat soft, but a fresh fragrance emanated from it,
+"the fragrance of running brooks," to use the words of her admirers. Her
+nostrils were rather wide, and in the stress of emotion they quivered,
+like those of a horse, thus recalling her glorious ancestor, the virile
+Cossack of the Czarina.
+
+The ball was nearly over before she noticed the Spaniard. There were so
+many officers constantly at her heels, greeting her cruel jokes and
+vulgar expressions with a smile of gratitude!--Suddenly Saldana, who was
+standing between two doorways, was startled by a clear but commanding
+female voice.
+
+"Your arm, Marquis."
+
+And before he could offer it to her the young Princess took it, and led
+him off to the buffet in the drawing room.
+
+Nadina drank a good sized glass of vodka, preferring this liquor of the
+people to the champagne which the servants were pouring out in large
+quantities. Then smiling at her companion she drew him into the
+embrasure of a window where they were almost hidden by the curtains.
+
+"Your wounds!... I want to see your wounds!"
+
+Saldana was dumfounded at the command of this great lady accustomed to
+carrying out her most whimsical ideas. Blushing like a soldier, who had
+lived all his life among men, he finally drew up the left sleeve of his
+uniform, revealing a brown, hairy forearm, with large tendons, and
+deeply furrowed by the scar of a bullet wound received back in Spain.
+
+The Princess admired his athletic arm, with its dark skin, cut by the
+jagged white of the new tissue.
+
+"The other--the others! I want to see the rest of them!" she commanded,
+gazing at him fiercely, as though she were ready to bite, while her
+lips, moist and shining, curved sharply downward.
+
+She had seized his arm with a hand that trembled, while with the other
+she tried to undo the gold cords on the officer's breast.
+
+Saldana drew back, stammering. "Oh! Princess!" What she desired was
+impossible. It was impossible to show the other wounds to a lady....
+
+He felt on the one visible scar the contact of two lips. Nadina, bowing
+her proud head, was kissing his arm.
+
+"Hero!... Oh! my hero!"
+
+Immediately afterward she drew herself up again, cold and distant, with
+no other sign of emotion than a slight quivering of her nostrils. No
+longer was she tormented by the desire to see immediately those
+frightful scars of which she had heard from some of the comrades of the
+brave adventurer. She was sure of being able to see them to her heart's
+content whenever she pleased.
+
+In a few days the rumor began to circulate that the Princess Lubimoff
+was to be married to the Spaniard. She herself had started the news
+going, without bothering to ascertain beforehand the inclination of her
+future husband.
+
+The arguments with which she justified her decision could not have been
+more weighty. She was blond and Saldana was dark. They had both been
+born at outermost limits of Europe. These considerations were
+sufficient to make a happy marriage. Besides, the Princess was
+convinced that she had always been fond of Spain, although she would not
+have been able to place it accurately on the map. She recalled certain
+verses of Heine mentioning Toledo, and others by Musset addressing
+Andalusian Marquises of Barcelona; and she used to hum a love song about
+the oranges of Seville.... Her hero must surely be from Toledo, or,
+better yet, an Andalusian from Barcelona.
+
+In vain certain people of the court spoke of the Czar's not allowing the
+match. A great heiress marrying a foreign soldier banished from his
+country!... But the Princess by her very conduct, gave the sovereign to
+understand her will.
+
+"Either I marry him, or I start out as a dancer in a Paris theater."
+
+It was rumored that Saldana was about to be deported.
+
+"So much the better: I will go and join him, and be his sweetheart."
+
+The old Prince, her guardian, lamented this obstinacy on the part of the
+Court. If it had not been for this opposition, Nadina's caprice for
+Saldana, like so many of her whims, would have lasted only a few days.
+It was said that perhaps the Emperor, in order to break her will, would
+dispossess her of her vast estates in Siberia. The grandchild of the
+Cossack shrieked in reply that she would kill herself rather than obey.
+
+At last the ruler prudently allowed her to fulfil her desire. In getting
+married she would give up her eccentricities perhaps, and the Russian
+court, so rich in scandals, would have one less.
+
+The wedding journey of the Princess Lubimoff lasted all her life. Only
+twice, for reasons relating to her great fortune, did she return to
+Russia. Western Europe was more favorable than the court of an autocrat
+to her love of freedom. In the first year of her marriage, while in
+London, she had a son, who was to be the only child. She allowed him to
+be called Michael, like his father, but insisted that he should have a
+second name, Fedor, perhaps in memory of Dostoiewsky, her favorite
+novelist, whose character inspired in her a feeling of sympathy, through
+a certain resemblance to herself.
+
+No one succeeded in ascertaining with certainty whether or not Don
+Miguel Saldana felt happy in his new position as Prince Consort, which
+permitted him to enjoy all the pleasure and magnificence of immense
+wealth. According to Spanish customs, he started out to impose his will
+as a husband and a man of character, to curb the eccentricities of his
+wife. Vain determination! The very woman who at times could be
+sentimental and moan at the thought of social inequalities and the
+suffering of the poor, could, by her fiery impetuosity, reduce the
+stoutest and most firmly steeled will.
+
+In the end Saldana relapsed into silence, fearing the aggressiveness of
+the daughter of the Cossack. To keep his prestige as a great noble,
+anxious for the respect of the servants and for the consideration of his
+guests, he feared violent scenes that filled the drawing rooms and even
+the stairways of his luxurious residence with feminine shrieks. He did
+not care more than once to see the Princess with one kick send the oaken
+table flying against the dining room wall, while all the porcelain and
+crystal service smashed into bits with one catastrophic crash.
+
+When the Paris architects had carried out the orders of the Princess,
+the family left the castle they were occupying in the vicinity of
+London. A group of rich Parisians, Jewish bankers for the most part,
+were covering the level grounds around the new Park Monceau, with large
+private dwellings. The Princess Lubimoff had an enormous palace, with a
+garden of extraordinary size for a city, built in this quarter. She even
+set up a tiny dairy behind a grove of trees, and without leaving her
+place she could enjoy the role of a country woman, whipping cream and
+churning butter, in imitation of Marie Antoinette, who likewise played
+at being a shepherdess in the Petit Trianon.
+
+At times a wave of tenderness swept over her, and she adored and obeyed
+her husband, pushing her humility to extremes that were alarming. She
+told her visitors about the General's campaigns, and his daring exploits
+back in Spain, a land which inspired in her a romantic interest, and
+which for that very reason she did not care ever to see. Suddenly she
+would cut her eulogies short with a command:
+
+"Marquis, show them your wounds."
+
+As proof of her tenderness, she refrained from getting angry when her
+husband refused.
+
+She always called him "Marquis," perhaps in order to keep the princely
+title for herself alone, perhaps because she felt that he should not be
+deprived of a rank he had gained with his blood. The Marquis never paid
+any attention to this breach of etiquette. His wife had already
+committed so many!
+
+A year after their marriage, when the news reached London that Alexander
+II had been killed by the explosion of a Nihilist bomb, the Princess ran
+about her apartments like a mad woman, and took to her bed after an
+extraordinary fit of anger.
+
+"The wretches! He was so good!... They've killed their own father."
+
+And thereafter when Saldana entered the luxurious dwelling in Paris, he
+often came across strange visitors, at whom the lackeys in breeches
+stared in amazement. They were uncouth girls with spectacles, and
+cropped hair, carrying portfolios under their arms; men with long hair
+and tangled beards, whose eyes contained the startled expression of
+visionaries; Russians from the Latin Quarter under police surveillance,
+terrorists, who appealed not in vain to the generosity of the Princess,
+and used her money perhaps to make infernal machines which they sent
+back to their country and hers.
+
+When the Prince Michael Fedor recalled his childhood memories, he could
+see his father holding him on his knees and caressing him with his firm
+hands. The child would gaze up at the dark face and large mustache that
+joined Saldana's closely cropped mutton chop whiskers. He could not be
+sure whether the moisture in those black, commanding eyes came from
+tears; but after he learned Spanish he was sure that the Marquis had
+often murmured, as he smoothed the tiny brow:
+
+"My poor little boy!... Your mother is mad!"
+
+When Michael reached the age of eight, the problem of his education
+caused the Princess to show her motherly concern for a few weeks. One of
+those visitors, who so greatly worried the servants, brought his books
+and his frayed garments from a narrow street near the Pantheon, and took
+up his abode in the lordly dwelling of the Lubimoffs. He was a silent
+young man, given to the study of chemistry, and forbidden to return to
+his country. The very day of his arrival, a secret service agent came
+and questioned the porter of the palace.
+
+"I want my son to know Russian," said the Princess. "Besides, he will
+learn a great deal from Sergueff. Sergueff is a real man of learning,
+and worthy of a better fate."
+
+Saldana insisted that he should likewise have a Spanish teacher, and she
+raised no objections. All the members of her family had possessed to an
+unusual degree the talent of the Slavs for learning languages easily.
+
+"Prince Michael Fedor," said his mother, "is the Marquis of Villablanca,
+and ought to know the language of his second country."
+
+On this account the General once again sought out his former companions
+in arms who were still scattered in various parts of Paris. The fame of
+his enormous wealth had brought him many requests, even from persons of
+whom he had formerly stood in awe. But although the Princess, who was
+generous to a fault, allowed him the management of her fortune, Saldana,
+with chivalrous unyielding integrity, felt that he had no right to her
+money, and gradually came to avoid the insistent suppliants. Besides, a
+great change had come over this silent man during his travels through
+Europe. The former soldier of the absolute monarchy was now an admirer
+of England and her constitutional history.
+
+"You see things differently when you travel about," was all he said. "If
+all my fellow countrymen had only seen the world."
+
+One day the new teacher presented himself at the palace. He was twelve
+years younger than Saldana. He had been under the latter's command
+toward the end of the war, and instead of calling him by his title of
+Marquis or Prince he addressed him proudly, at every opportunity, as "my
+General."
+
+The General had not the slightest recollection of him; but the fact that
+he could give exact details of the last campaign, and had been
+recommended by various friends, did not permit of any doubt as to his
+veracity. He must have been one of those lads who had run away from home
+and joined the Carlist bands, making up those forces of irregulars whom
+Saldana, unable to tolerate their frequent atrocities, more than once
+threatened with execution en masse. The teacher claimed that the General
+himself had given him a subordinate's commission in the last months of
+the war, owing to his having a better education than his ragged
+comrades.
+
+Thus Marcos Toledo entered the palace of the Lubimoffs.
+
+The solemn husband of the Princess laughed with boyish glee upon hearing
+the story of Toledo's first experiences as an _emigre_ in Paris.
+
+During the first few months, since he did not know French, he used to
+stop the priests in the street, to talk with them in Latin. He eked out
+a miserable existence, giving lessons on the guitar, and lecturing in a
+Polyglot Institute, where the auditors did not pay the slightest
+attention to the subjects discussed, but tried simply to accustom their
+ears to his Spanish pronunciation.
+
+Seven francs and a half, for talking an hour and a half! But Toledo made
+up for the smallness of the compensation in the pleasure it gave him to
+orate about the happy days of Philip II, so much superior to "these days
+of liberalism."
+
+"At present, I have only one ambition, General," he ended by saying,
+"and that is to dress well."
+
+The passion for luxurious display came from his youthful days as a
+guerrilla, when he would steal red and yellow petticoats from peasant
+women in order to make uniforms for himself. In Paris, he did not feel
+so keenly the lack of nutritious food, as he did the fact that he was
+obliged to wear clothes that did not belong to any known fashion.
+
+When he was given quarters on the top floor of the palace, like the
+Russian teacher, and the General had selected various garments for him
+from his large wardrobe, Toledo felt he had realized all the dreams that
+he had elaborated while running about Paris as a persistent agent for a
+thousand unsaleable things.
+
+His fellow countrymen, former comrades in poverty, admired him on
+seeing him all dressed up like a rich man, and often riding in the
+carriage of a Prince. It scarcely seemed honorable that he, a former
+fighter, should occupy a position as a teacher, and he used to say in an
+apologetic manner:
+
+"I am now General Saldana's _aide-de-camp_. I don't think it will be
+long before we take to the mountains again."
+
+Young Prince Michael admired his Russian teacher, because his mother
+affirmed that he was a great scholar. The boy felt a certain fear in the
+presence of this melancholy sage. On the other hand, Michael Fedor
+treated the Spaniard with an air of friendly and patronizing
+superiority. Toledo made his father laugh, and that was enough to cause
+the son to consider him an inferior being, but one worthy of esteem
+nevertheless, because of his docility and patience.
+
+"Say: is it true that you were going to be a priest?" Michael Fedor used
+to ask Toledo. "Is it true that after you left the seminary you were a
+druggist's clerk?"
+
+"Prince," the teacher replied with dignity, "I am Don Marcos de Toledo.
+My name tells my nobility, in spite of everything that envious people
+may say, and I have a right to use the 'Don' since I am an officer and
+your father, the Marquis, gave me my commission."
+
+In a short time the pupil was speaking Spanish correctly. It seemed that
+he had learned it as rapidly as possible in order to be better able to
+poke fun at his _hidalgo_ teacher.
+
+The father also contributed to the education of the heir of the
+Lubimoffs the one thing he was able to teach. Every morning, after the
+lessons given by the Russian, which left the little fellow with a solemn
+face, Saldana would wait for him in a large room on the ground floor.
+
+"Prince, on guard!"
+
+And he, who had been the best blade in the Carlist army, and had on his
+conscience the slashing of a skull to the jawbone in a duel during the
+Turkish campaign, smiled proudly when he saw how this eleven year old
+boy stood his ground during the fencing lesson, parrying the hard blows
+and returning them successfully at the least unguardedness on his
+father's part. Michael Fedor was going to be a splendid fighting man, a
+worthy descendant of the Cossack of Russia, and of the guerrilla of the
+Spanish mountains.
+
+But Saldana was not to enjoy this satisfaction for long. Among his
+various "lucky wounds," which only bothered him slightly with the
+changing of the seasons, there was one which from time to time inflicted
+periods of acute pain. For many years he had carried in his body a
+Spanish bullet which the sawbones of his guerrilla band had been unable
+to extract. When the surgeons of London and Paris attempted the
+operation it was too late.
+
+One morning the General's valet, on entering the room, found him dead.
+
+Michael Fedor never forgot the sorrow he had felt on that occasion, nor
+the sumptuous funeral which the Princess had ordered, equal to that of a
+king deceased in exile. But what he remembered most clearly was the
+extraordinary grief of his mother. She too wanted to die. Her Russian
+maids were once obliged to snatch from her hands a phial of laudanum,
+receiving for their pains a few more blows than usual. Then, with her
+hair streaming down her back, she ran about wailing like a madwoman in
+front of all the portraits of the General. Oh! Her hero! Now she really
+knew how much she loved him....
+
+For several months she received her visitors in a drawing room with
+black furnishings and curtains. Wearing loose mourning garments, she
+half reclined on a sofa in front of a full length portrait of Saldana.
+His swords, his uniforms, and even a Russian saddle were on exhibition
+in the drawing room, which had been converted into a sort of museum of
+the deceased.
+
+"He died like the man he was!" moaned the widow. "He was killed by his
+wounds."
+
+At this period began the ultimate stage in the rise of Don Marcos
+Toledo. The Russian scholar receded into the background. A part of the
+dead man's glory passed to his humble fellow countryman who had
+witnessed his great exploits. One evening, the Princess, while engaged
+in conversation in the drawing room museum with some noble relatives who
+had arrived from Russia, wept so copiously at the memory of her husband,
+that she decided to leave the room for a moment.
+
+"Colonel, your arm."
+
+Toledo was present in company with his pupil, and looked around with an
+expression of bewilderment. The Princess had to repeat her command in a
+more imperious voice. "Colonel, your arm!" She was speaking to him! For
+some time Don Marcos thought that the new title was a whim of the
+Princess and that some day when he was least expecting it his commission
+as "Colonel" would be withdrawn.
+
+But when the first months of mourning had passed and the widow, tiring
+of solitude, started to resume her social calls, she insisted on being
+accompanied by Toledo, and on introducing him to her acquaintances in
+the aristocratic world.
+
+"He is the aide-de-camp of the dead Marquis," she explained.
+
+The very title he had invented to give himself an air of importance in
+the eyes of his half-starved companions in poverty! Toledo no longer
+questioned the validity of his promotion. Now that the Princess was
+presenting him as her husband's aide-de-camp, he might well be a
+Colonel. And a Colonel he was, even for the young Prince, who at first
+had given him the title to make fun of him, but finally came to call him
+"Colonel" by force of habit.
+
+Toledo's dreams of splendid and showy toggery were now realized
+magnificently. With the Princess he did not need to fear the scruples
+sometimes shown by Saldana, who hated extravagance and mismanagement.
+The great lady even felt disdain for those who were niggardly in
+availing themselves of her generosity. Don Marcos was enabled to change
+his attire several times a day, and held long conferences with famous
+tailors. He sought personal elegance. He wished to dress like a
+gentleman of distinction, but at the same time to wear clothes of a cut
+that would plainly show that he was accustomed to uniforms: He had in
+mind something like a Napoleonic Marshal obliged to wear a dress suit.
+Through his barber, likewise, he effected a great transformation. He
+imitated the manner in which the General had worn his hair, with a part
+that started at his forehead and ended at the back of his neck, and with
+stray locks hanging down at the temples. His mustache was taught to
+mingle with his side whiskers, in the Russian fashion. In accompanying
+the Princess, he learned to kiss ladies' hands with the grace and ease
+of an old courtier. He also learned to carry on long conversations
+without saying anything, to keep himself in the background, practically
+unseen, while his superiors were talking.
+
+When the Princess, after the first year of mourning, resolutely returned
+to her box at the Opera, Don Marcos attended her, remaining discreetly
+in the rear, like the Chamberlain of a Queen. One evening, during an
+intermission, on passing to the front of her box, the Princess heard
+the Colonel telling an old French general, a friend of the house, about
+the battle of Villablanca.
+
+"And the Marquis said to me: 'Now it's your chance, Toledo: Let's see
+how you can make out with a bayonet charge.' So I bared my sword, and at
+the head of my regiment...."
+
+"He's a true soldier," interrupted the Princess, "a worthy companion of
+my hero.... The Marquis often talked to me about him."
+
+And at that moment she was really sure she had heard the silent Saldana
+relate the gallant deeds of his aide-de-camp.
+
+The Russian teacher, regarded by Toledo as an unpleasant person who
+would bear watching, soon left the Lubimoff palace. Perhaps he was
+jealous of the Colonel's growing influence; perhaps mysterious reasons
+needed his attention far from Paris. The Princess did not mind in the
+least the disappearance of the scholar. She had forgotten her rebellious
+looking Russians; she stopped giving them money. At present she had
+other interests.
+
+She suddenly evinced a desire to live for some time in London, and for
+this reason, she granted her son's request to be allowed to travel alone
+throughout Europe.
+
+"You're a man now; you will soon be fourteen. Travel, and don't stop at
+expense; always remember that you are Prince Lubimoff.... The Colonel
+will go with you. He will be your aide, as he was for the heroic
+Marquis."
+
+His first trip was to Spain. Michael Fedor wanted to see his father's
+native land. Toledo thought it in point for the young Prince to show
+great admiration for Spain. Michael must remember they were in the
+enemy's country. Toledo was a Carlist Colonel who had refused amnesty,
+and had declined to recognize the reigning dynasty! But they traveled
+for three months in Spain, without being noticed except for the
+largeness of their tips. It is quite true that Toledo avoided coming in
+contact with any of his former comrades. He felt that he now belonged to
+a different world. Inwardly he felt the same change the General had.
+
+As soon as Michael Fedor had recovered from his first enthusiasm for
+bull fighting, they continued their travels across the continent as far
+as Russia, arriving considerably later than the numerous letters of
+introduction sent by the Princess Lubimoff to her relatives. The Prince
+remained there a year, visiting his less distant estates, and making the
+acquaintance of all the great families in his mother's circle of
+friends. The Colonel talked grandiloquently about everything related to
+war with various generals who received him as an equal. Was he not the
+aide and companion in heroic deeds of Saldana, whom they had known in
+the war against Turkey, when they were mere subalterns?
+
+The former friends of the Princess Lubimoff told her son some unexpected
+news. His mother had announced her forthcoming marriage to an English
+gentleman. She had written to the Czar asking his authorization. This
+news startled no one save Michael Fedor. The times of the wild Nadina
+had long since passed. Her actions aroused no further interest. Other
+young Princesses had effaced her memory with adventures that caused even
+greater commotion. No one save a few of the ladies of the old court,
+when they forgot their cares and interests as mothers, would bring to
+mind the Princess Lubimoff, recalling days of vanished youth, which for
+old people are always more interesting than the present.
+
+When the young man returned to the Paris palace, he found his mother as
+much of a Princess as ever, but married to a Scotch gentleman, Sir Edwin
+Macdonald.
+
+"Some day you will leave me," she said with a tragic note in her voice
+she used on great occasions. "A Prince Lubimoff should live at the
+court, serve his Emperor, be an officer in the Guard; and I need a
+companion, some one to lean on. Sir Edwin is the personification of
+distinction; but don't ever think that I shall forget your father.
+Never!... My hero!"
+
+Michael Fedor saw a gentleman who, indeed, was "the personification of
+distinction"; attentive to everyone, very precise in his bearing, a man
+of few words, who shut himself up for long hours--studying, according to
+the Princess. English politics was his preoccupation, and his one great
+dream was to return to Parliament, which he had been forced to leave by
+defeat at election.
+
+This cold man, with a pale smile and extreme insistence on good form
+even in the most trivial actions, neither displeased Michael as a
+step-father nor appealed to him as a friend. He was an inoffensive,
+somewhat stuffy person, whom Michael grew accustomed to seeing every day
+in his father's former place, and whom he had expected to see sooner or
+later anyhow.
+
+This marriage brought other people to the Lubimoff palace, with all the
+intimacy inspired by relationship.
+
+One of Sir Edwin's brothers had been obliged, like all the second sons
+in wealthy British families, to go out in the world and earn his living.
+After a life of adventure, he had finally settled down in the United
+States, near the Mexican border, and had soon found himself, through a
+marriage with an heiress of the country, much richer than his elder
+brother.
+
+His wife was a Mexican. She owned famous silver mines in the interior
+and vast ranches on the border. She had only one daughter; and the
+latter was in her eighth year when Arthur Macdonald died as a result of
+a fall from his horse. The widow, with her little Alicia, moved to
+Europe. She wanted to live in London, to be near her brother-in-law, Sir
+Edwin, then a member of Parliament, and much admired by the Mexican
+woman as one of the directors of the world's affairs. Later she
+established herself in Paris, as the capital most to her taste, and as
+the place where she could meet many people from Mexico.
+
+The Princess Lubimoff treated her relative well, although her friendship
+suffered sudden changes, often going from extreme affection to sudden
+coldness.
+
+She and Dona Mercedes could talk about mines and vast estates, although
+neither of them had any accurate knowledge of their respective fortunes.
+They estimated their wealth only by the enormous quantities of
+money--millions of francs a year--which their distant business agents
+sent them, and which they spent without knowing just how. There was
+another thing which attracted the Princess, in her moments of good will,
+to Dona Mercedes: she herself was blond, while the Spanish Creole still
+kept traces of Hispanic-Aztec beauty, with a dark, somewhat olive
+complexion, large, wide-open, almond eyes, and hair astonishing for its
+blackness, brilliancy, and length.
+
+But an instinctive rivalry frequently embittered the relations of the
+two multi-millionaires. The Princess was sure that her own wealth was
+far the greater. When Dona Mercedes talked about Mexican silver, she
+mentioned Russian platinum! "What is silver worth compared to platinum!"
+And in order completely to floor her opponent, the Princess would bring
+out her family history. Beginning with the remote Cossack ancestor, who
+almost became the legitimate husband of Catherine the Great, she
+paraded before her Mexican rival generals, marshals of the Emperor's
+household, hetmans, followed by their retinues of half savage horsemen,
+princes and ambassadors. Sir Edwin's wife talked as though she belonged
+to the reigning house, letting it be understood that her famous ancestor
+had played a part in the establishing of one of the Czars. For this
+reason she had always been shown special consideration at court.
+
+Dona Mercedes, inwardly jealous of so much greatness, nevertheless
+smiled a sweet enigmatic smile, as though she were to say, "That is all
+very far away--and perhaps a lie."
+
+Then immediately she would begin talking in her rapid whimsical French,
+a French which she had never been able to free from numerous Spanish
+locutions that still clung tenaciously.
+
+"Mama was an intimate friend of Eugenie.... Don't you know who Eugenie
+is? The Empress, the wife of Napoleon III. When Madame Barrios--that was
+my mother's name--was announced at the Tuileries, the doors were opened
+wide. Papa was one of the men who made Maximilian emperor."
+
+Over against the aristocratic grandeur of the Saint Petersburg court she
+set the image of the Mexican court, of the brief Empire which had ended
+in the execution of the Archduke Maximilian, and the madness of his
+bride, Carlotta. The Emperor endeavored to establish the musty old
+etiquette of the Austrian Court, but the Mexican matrons, when they
+called on the young Empress, said in the frank maternal fashion of the
+colonies: "How is everything, Carlotta?... How do you like the country,
+my dear?"
+
+Moved by a similar frankness, Dona Mercedes would end her discourse by
+saying carelessly:
+
+"Papa, seeing that the Empire was going badly, recognized Juarez as the
+head of the government, and joined the side of the Republic. He did it
+to save our mines."
+
+Then she would talk on for a long time about the Barrios, who, according
+to her, were descendants of the most ancient aristocracy of Spain. All
+the nobles of Madrid were therefore relatives of hers. Everybody knew
+that! As a child she had seen at home a lot of papers which proved her
+right to the title of Marchioness; but owing to the revolutions in her
+country, and her travels, she no longer knew where to find them.
+
+If the Princess referred to the splendor of her palace, the Creole would
+immediately mention her elegant private mansion in the Champs Elysees.
+The arrival of Colonel Toledo, as a valorous adornment giving the
+princely residence military prestige, did not intimidate Dona Mercedes.
+She too had a Spaniard, an Aragonese cleric, who acted as a sort of
+royal private chaplain, and whom she considered a man of science,
+because, bored by his sinecure in her employ, he had taken up elementary
+astronomy, and had set up a telescope on the roof of her house.
+
+Whenever the Mexican lady dared to imitate her entertainments, her
+carriages or her clothes, the Princess Lubimoff would audibly lament the
+fact that Paris was not in Russia, where she might call on the chief of
+police to force this low-bred Creole to show the respect due to her
+superiors. But after these bursts of anger she would feel a sudden wave
+of tenderness for Dona Mercedes. "In spite of your illiteracy," she
+would say, "you are a woman of natural talent and the only one with whom
+I can talk for an hour at a stretch."
+
+Between these two declining beauties, who had seen themselves the center
+of attraction and adoration in former years, there was a common bond,
+something which moved them both like far off lovely music, like the
+cherished memory of youth: It was the daughter of Dona Mercedes, the
+vivacious Alicia Macdonald.
+
+Dona Mercedes seemed to see her own beauty, renewed with fresh vigor, in
+her child. But in this she was mistaken. Alicia added to her dark
+southern splendor the slenderness and slightly boyish freedom of
+movement of her father's race. The Princess, observing the girl's
+independent character, thought she saw herself back once more in the
+days when she was beginning to shock the Imperial Court. This too was a
+mistake. She herself had been able to follow all her most wilful
+impulses, without fear of gossip. She possessed everything. Besides her
+immense wealth, she had the advantages of birth, enabling her to elevate
+any man whatsoever to her own level, no matter how far beneath her he
+might be. Alicia had one ambition; to unite her fortune with a great
+title of the old aristocracy in order to be presented at court. Since
+her fifteenth year this desire had been fixed, calculating design,
+dissimulated under apparent recklessness. From her fairy-story days, her
+mother had talked to her about wonderful marriages, and of princes who
+in former times used to marry shepherdesses, but who were in search
+nowadays of millionaires' daughters.
+
+Michael Fedor felt somewhat embarrassed at meeting this girl in his
+palace. She looked at him so boldly, with such a dominating expression,
+as though everything and everyone should bow before her!
+
+She had beauty of a type more fascinating than conventional. Her
+complexion, slightly tinged with a strange golden orange color, her
+large eyes a trifle slanting, her luxuriant hair, which, fleeing its
+bondage of hairpins, seemed alive and coiling like a cluster of snakes,
+gave her an exotic charm. The rest of her body revealed a modern
+physical education. Her limbs were firm and agile from continued
+exercise and play.
+
+Dona Mercedes seemed to urge Alicia and Michael toward each other from
+the first meeting.
+
+"Don't stand on formality," she said in a motherly way. "You are
+cousins."
+
+Although Michael didn't succeed in making out this relationship, he
+endeavored to treat the young girl in a friendly manner, while the
+Creole mother smiled as she already pictured Alicia with the coronet of
+a princess, bowing before the Czar. Princess Lubimoff was in one of her
+kindly moods; for the moment she did not believe in caste and
+privileges, to the extent that she would again have given money to the
+long-haired individuals who used to visit her. She accepted her friend's
+ambitious projects tolerantly and without comment.
+
+The Prince, meanwhile, was telling the Colonel his impressions.
+
+"Too much of a young lady! I like the others better."
+
+Don Marcos, having been Michael's companion in wide and joyous travels,
+knew whom the boy meant by "the others"; for Prince Lubimoff had begun
+very young to nibble at the grapes of life.
+
+On other occasions it irritated him that, with her unabashed demeanor of
+a foolish virgin, she should seem so much like "the others."
+
+"She's worse than a boy. If you only knew, Colonel, the things she says
+to me!"
+
+As for Alicia she was not wholly satisfied with the young Prince. She
+was accustomed to seeing other men make an effort to be gracious and
+show her flattering attentions, while Michael manifested a haughty
+character, like her own, arguing with her, and even daring to contradict
+her.
+
+Occasionally, accompanied by Toledo, they went out together for a gallop
+in the Bois de Boulogne. All this was torture for Don Marcos, who had
+been a mountain warrior! But his present position called for certain
+duties. So he rode along as well as could be expected from a colonel of
+infantry.
+
+Alicia was a tireless rider. At the residence in the Champs-Elysees,
+Dona Mercedes had frequently been obliged to look for her in the
+stables, where she made herself at home among the hostlers and coachmen,
+and talked with professional authority as she supervised the grooming of
+the horses. Afterwards, when she came back into the drawing room her
+hair would have a decidedly horsey odor. Back in her native land she had
+mounted a horse and clung to it before she knew how to walk. In Paris
+she boldly made her way among the vehicles, knocked down the passersby
+occasionally, and often found her mad gallops intercepted by the police.
+
+The Colonel endeavored to keep up with her. He never said anything, but
+his heart was heavy. The Prince protested against her racing in this
+fashion, which might have been all very well on her native plains. The
+girl's retorts widened the breach between them, with feelings of
+hostility. "No one is going to talk to me like that, not even my
+mother," she said. "I'm old enough to know what I ought to do." She was
+fifteen.
+
+One morning in the Bois, coming to a cross road that happened to catch
+her fancy, Alicia started her horse for the Avenue without consulting
+her companion.
+
+"No, this way," Michael called in a commanding voice.
+
+"I don't like that; this is the way!" she answered aggressively.
+
+The Prince made an effort to cut her off by crossing ahead of her, and
+she spurred her horse against Michael's with a shock that brought the
+two animals to their knees. The Colonel, who was behind them, caught an
+exchange of angry glances, and harsh words. Alicia raised her whip, and
+struck the Prince across the shoulders.
+
+"You do that to _me_!" shouted Michael furiously.
+
+The face of this scion of the old Cossack Lubimoff underwent a rapid
+series of expressions, finally taking an aspect of extreme ugliness and
+savagery. His nostrils seemed to dilate even more than usual. He raised
+his whip and struck, but Toledo had put his horse between the two,
+receiving the tip of the lash on his cheek, which began to bleed. The
+sight of blood and the thought that the blow was intended for her, drove
+the young woman mad with rage.
+
+"Brute! Savage!... Russian!"
+
+This seemed too mild, and she stopped for a moment, to think up a
+greater insult. Her childhood memories helped her; the legend she had
+heard from the half-breeds back in her own land inspired her with a new
+affront, as if Michael Fedor were Fernan Cortes.
+
+"Spaniard!... Murderer of Indians!"
+
+And fearing a new lashing after that supreme insult, she fled at a mad
+pace without stopping until she reached the Arch of Triumph.
+
+After this incident Dona Mercedes lost all hope of her daughter's
+becoming a Lubimoff.
+
+"A Russian Princess!" she said scornfully. "Why, everyone is a Prince in
+Russia!... A mere English baron is better, or a French or Spanish
+count."
+
+Michael was in a mood no more conciliatory when the Colonel lectured
+him.
+
+"I don't want to hear anything more about that wench!" said he.
+
+And the Princess, in one of her petulant moments averred that she
+considered this word the proper one. These relatives of Sir Edwin had
+always seemed to her very ordinary people. Likewise it seemed to her
+very natural that her son should think of going back to Russia to fill
+his station as a Prince. The life of caste and privilege there was more
+suitable to his rank than the democratic ways of Paris, where certain
+American Indians, because they had millions, could imagine they were the
+equals of the Lubimoffs.
+
+Prince Michael remained in Russia until he was twenty-three. His
+military studies were passed brilliantly, according to Toledo, and the
+boy succeeded in distinguishing himself among the most famous cavalry
+officers of the Guard. He took prizes in exhibitions of horsemanship.
+With his revolver he could pot coins held up at fifty paces by his
+comrades. He wielded the sabre with a skill that his Cossack ancestor
+and General Saldana would have admired. Every morning in the courtyard
+of his Petersburg palace he found awaiting him a life-sized dummy made
+of the firm sticky clay used by sculptors. He would stay for half an
+hour in front of it, going through his exercises. It was not enough to
+be able to strike one's enemy. The important thing was to strike well,
+with the greatest possible depth and force. And the head and limbs of
+the dummy went flying, severed by the steel blade. The study of military
+science was all well enough for those in the infantry or the
+artillery--sons of clerks and merchants!
+
+At first the Colonel was astonished at the magnificence and extravagance
+of Russian life. Finally he came to take it all quite naturally, as
+though he had been accustomed to something similar from his earliest
+boyhood. "My son, remember the name you bear," the Princess used to
+write to the Prince. "Do not disgrace it. Spend according to what you
+are." And the son, without asking her for anything, followed her advice
+faithfully by coming to a direct understanding with the Russian
+administrators. Don Marcos figured that the Lieutenant in the Guard was
+spending something over three millions a year. His racing stables were
+the most celebrated in the capital. Many famous beauties of the court
+and the theaters were on good terms with Prince Michael Fedor. His
+supper parties in the Lubimoff palace or in the fashionable restaurants
+were sought after by all the young men of the aristocracy. To be invited
+to one of them was an extraordinary honor, something like being a member
+of an academy of supermen. It often happened that toward morning on
+nights of such parties celebrated women finished by dancing naked on the
+tables, so that the host "might not be displeased."
+
+Sometimes these celebrations ended in drunken brawls, where wine mingled
+with blood. The Colonel had seen one of these suppers result in a duel
+between two of the guests. It took place in the palace garden, just
+before dawn. One of the men was killed. His best friends carried the
+corpse to the quay of the Neva, and placed a revolver in his hand to
+make it look like a case of suicide.
+
+No: Don Marcos did not care much for those nocturnal feasts. He
+considered them dangerous. On one occasion, a youthful Grand Duke,
+absolutely drunk, amused himself by daubing the Colonel's whiskers with
+caviar, until, tired of such brazen familiarity, the Spaniard in turn
+put his hand in the dish and smeared the other man's august face with
+green. The duke hesitated for a moment whether or not to kill him, but
+finally embraced him, covering him with kisses and shouting aloud, "This
+is my father."
+
+Toledo preferred his own honorable and quiet friendships with General
+Saldana's former companions in arms; solemn personages who talked to him
+about world politics and future wars. Besides, the Prince's generosity
+permitted the Colonel secret pleasures, less noisy, and agreeably
+unostentatious.
+
+One night, returning to the Lubimoff palace after two o'clock, he saw
+there was a supper party in the great dining hall used on gala
+occasions. Some fifty guests had assembled, and in the course of the
+night many more had arrived. It seemed that the news had spread
+throughout all the pleasure resorts of the capital, attracting all the
+youthful libertines.
+
+Opposite the Prince was seated a Cossack officer, short, lithe as a
+panther, dark skinned, with Asiatic eyes. His wrinkled uniform showed
+signs of recent traveling. Michael Fedor showed him the greatest
+attention, as though he were the only guest. Toledo, being acquainted
+with all the friends of the house, was unable to place this uncouth
+Cossack, who looked as though he had come from some remote garrison in
+Siberia. Some one offered to relieve his uncertainty. He was startled on
+learning that it was the brother of a court lady who just at that moment
+was being much talked about on account of her extreme familiarity with
+Michael Fedor. The two men looked at each other with keen interest,
+exchanging silent toasts in huge glasses of champagne. At the other end
+of the hall arose the ceaseless wail of gypsy violins. Several dark
+skinned girls with striped aprons of many colors were dancing about the
+tables. But in spite of that, Don Marcos, glancing about, felt
+instinctively a note of gloom.
+
+"Leon, the sabres!"
+
+The Prince, after looking at his watch, had arisen and given this order
+to his body servant, who was standing behind him. All the guests rushed
+for the doors forming a jam, like a crowd, pushing and shoving, at the
+entrance to a theater. There was no reason now to conceal their real
+feelings. They were eager for the promised spectacle. The Colonel
+finally found some one who could talk intelligibly.
+
+"He came last night, to ask the Prince to marry his sister. A
+thirty-eight day trip.... The Prince refuses.... It isn't often you'll
+see a match like this.... He's the best swordsman in Siberia."
+
+The garden was covered with snow. It was night, and the uncertain moon
+illumined it with slanting rays, lengthening immeasurably the shadows of
+the trees. More than a hundred men formed in two black masses on the
+borders of the walk. The Colonel noticed the arrival of several
+servants. One was bringing swords; the rest were carrying large trays
+with bottles and glasses.
+
+Michael Fedor bowed to his enemy, his eyes shining with kindliness and
+drink.
+
+"Would you like another glass of something?"
+
+The Cossack thanked him with a gesture, and immediately Toledo saw him
+remove his long coat, the breast of which was adorned with cartridge
+pouches. Then he took off his shirt, and finally remained in nothing
+save his trousers and high boots. Then he stooped, and seizing two
+handfuls of snow, began to rub his wiry body and muscular arms.
+
+The Prince, like many of the spectators, shivered slightly with surprise
+and cold; but nevertheless that the condition of the combat might be
+equal, Lubimoff felt it imperative that he should follow the example of
+his hardy adversary. While he was removing the upper part of his uniform
+several torches were lighted and began to blaze like red stars in the
+semi-darkness of the moonlit garden.
+
+Don Marcos could see the two men face to face. They were bare from the
+waist up. Their breasts shone from the moisture of the recent massage.
+In their hands quivered sabres as sharp as razors.
+
+"Ready!"
+
+Some one was directing the fight.
+
+"Why this is barbarous!" thought the Spaniard. "These men are savages."
+
+He did not dare say it aloud because he was a soldier, and more than
+that, a Colonel; but during the rest of his life he never could forget
+that scene.
+
+They crossed swords, parried, attacked, the Prince with firm poise, the
+other with catlike agility. Toledo could see that their bodies were
+blood red, but at the moment he thought it an effect of the torchlight.
+As they drew near him, circling about in their deadly play, he realized
+that they were actually red with blood. Their bodies seemed covered with
+a purple vestment that was torn to shreds and the shreds quivered at the
+ends as the blood dripped off. Standing out against that warm moist
+garment rose their white arms. The Prince was getting the worst of it.
+Toledo suddenly saw a deep gash appear in his brow; a moment later he
+thought he saw one of his ears hang half severed from the skull. But
+that wild cat from the steppes always sprang free from every sabre
+thrust. No one dared intervene; it was a duel without quarter, without
+rest, with no condition save the death of one or the other combatant. At
+times they came together, forming a single body bristling with white
+flashes in the shadow of the trees; a moment later they appeared apart,
+seeking each other in the fiery circle of the torches.
+
+Suddenly Toledo heard a wild cry of pain, the howl of a poor animal
+caught unawares. The Prince was the only one still standing. A straight
+thrust had slashed his adversary's jugular. Lubimoff stood there a
+moment motionless. Then his superhuman strength, which had sustained him
+until then, left him. With the loss of blood, all the weariness of the
+struggle came over him like a shot. He too tottered and fell, but into
+the arms of friends. There was not a single doctor among the
+spectators. No one had thought of that. They considered the presence of
+one unnecessary in an encounter that could end only in death.
+
+All the curiosity seekers left the garden, following the unconscious
+Prince. A few servants stayed behind, gathered about the body of the
+Cossack. He was lying face downward. With respectful awe they watched as
+his legs quivered for the last time, as the blood slowly emptied itself
+from the neck, and spread out across the snow, in a black stain that was
+beginning to take on a bluish tinge in the livid light of dawn.
+
+At the court, which had already shown frequent alarm over the Prince's
+notorious adventures, this event caused a great stir. Lubimoff's duels,
+his love affairs, his scandalous entertainments, annoyed the young
+Emperor, who had taken it upon himself to improve the morals of his
+associates.
+
+In aristocratic gatherings, the freakish whims of the almost forgotten
+Nadina Lubimoff were brought to memory and discussed again. The young
+Cossack was related to people of influence, and his death contributed to
+the complete disgrace of his sister.
+
+Michael Fedor had not yet entirely recovered from his wounds, when he
+received the order to leave Russia. The Czar was banishing him, and for
+an indefinite period. He might live in Paris with his mother.
+
+"That's all right; so long as they respect his income," was the
+Colonel's only comment.
+
+Arriving in Paris, the Prince was convinced of his mother's insanity.
+That was something he had suspected for some time, from her letters. Sir
+Edwin had died, rather suddenly, three years before, in England,
+following defeat in an election. The palace in the Monceau quarter had
+suffered an interior transformation that represented a cost of several
+millions. The Princess was devoting all her time to it. The Arabic,
+Persian, Greek, or Chinese drawing rooms, the construction and
+decoration of which had made the fortune of two architects and several
+dealers in doubtful antiques, had just disappeared; while furnishings
+acquired years before as extremely rare pieces had been scattered to the
+four winds as though they were mere rubbish of no value. The palace
+remained the same as before on the outside; but the interior, beginning
+with the stairway, was rebuilt in imitation of a medieval castle. Not a
+single window remained without its stained glass, not a room but was
+shrouded in the vague half light of a cellar. All the conventional
+Gothic known to modern contractors was employed by order of the Princess
+in the restoration of the house. Three stories and one entire wing had
+been torn down to form the nave of a cathedral.
+
+Michael saw advancing toward him a tall austere woman, with long
+transparent fingers, and large, staring, uncanny eyes. She was dressed
+in black, with loose sleeves that almost touched the ground, and with a
+white bonnet fitting close to the head beneath her mourning veils. In
+spite of the fact that she had a rosary at her wrist and talked with the
+air of a martyr, her son imagined that he was looking at an opera
+singer.
+
+The expulsion of the Prince from Russia had caused her neither surprise
+nor sorrow.
+
+"Those Romanoffs have always disliked us. They cannot forget that your
+illustrious ancestor, so they say, used to beat Catherine when he caught
+her with anyone else."
+
+Her thoughts rose above all such worldly considerations. She had never,
+as a matter of fact, taken any stock in religion; but now she declared
+herself a Catholic. She had made no public declaration of conversion, to
+be sure, but she felt she must adopt the belief. Her new and final
+personality demanded it.
+
+"Your father approves of my new stand. Often in the night I have talked
+with my hero. He is glad to see me in the path of truth."
+
+No sooner had Michael Fedor and the Colonel arrived, than they noticed
+the strange visitors who were frequenting the palace. The long haired
+terrorists had been succeeded by numerous fortune tellers, soothsayers,
+clairvoyants, and solemn professors of occult sciences. A plain old
+lamp-stand, which looked as though it might have walked upstairs by
+itself from the concierge's quarters, was jumping about and rapping, at
+all hours, in the bedroom of the Princess.
+
+One day she decided to tell her son the great secret of her life. At
+last she knew who she was; the spirits had revealed to her the knowledge
+of her true personality. In one of her many previous existences she had
+been the most unfortunate and beautiful, the most "romantic", of queens.
+The soul of the Russian princess, Nadina Lubimoff, centuries ago had
+dwelt in the body of Mary Stuart.
+
+"That is why I always had a special liking for the story of the unhappy
+queen. And now I know why, when I saw Sir Edwin in London, I fell in
+love with him on the spot, in the most irresistible fashion. His
+ancestors were Scottish."
+
+Such reasons were to her as unanswerable as all the others which had
+guided her actions. And to pay homage to the queenly soul which was,
+according to all her mystic attendants, reincarnated in her, she was
+going to live like the beheaded sovereign of Scotland, copying the
+Queen's clothes as she had seen them in pictures, converting her palace
+into a mediaeval castle, and eating from antique plates nothing but
+Renaissance delicacies, the recipes for which she had employed a
+history professor to discover in ancient chronicles.
+
+Carriages now rarely entered the Court of Honor of the palace. The grand
+stairway was growing mossy between its steps. Not so the delivery
+entrance. There, each day, the professionals of "the beyond" appeared,
+poorly dressed and suspicious looking men and women, who were exploiting
+the Princess, generous as a queen--and was she not one?--under the guise
+of aiding her in the manipulation of the lamp table, and conjuring up
+historic phantoms which, to prove their presence, moved the carpets,
+made the pictures fall from the walls, changed the positions of the
+chairs, and committed other childish deviltries.
+
+Dona Mercedes avoided visiting the Princess. Her simple faith caused her
+to be frightened at queens that last for centuries, and at those halls
+with old furniture that seemed to palpitate with mysterious life. She
+preferred the quiet wholesome conversation of the priests whom she was
+supporting for herself. The Aragonese vicar had allowed himself to be
+snatched away in triumph by another devout millionaire. He had grown
+tired, no doubt, of the excessive ease and idleness afforded him by his
+penitent, and was bored with astronomical observations on the roof of
+the dwelling in the Champs-Elysees.
+
+At present she was offering her hospitality to a Monsignor, a Bishop _in
+partibus_, who directed the widow's money into various pious charities
+of his own invention.
+
+Alicia had married a French Duke, twenty years her senior, and after a
+few months of marriage was causing herself to be very much talked about.
+Dona Mercedes, offended, was punishing her by seeing her very seldom, in
+hopes that such coldness would cause the Duchess de Delille to follow
+the example of her mother. In the meantime, the latter was concentrating
+all her family affection on the Monsignor, a saint, and a man of the
+world, who in the evening, to avoid a discordant note, took off his
+cassock and sat down at table in a tuxedo, while a flock of mechanical
+birds sang and flapped their wings in the large gilded cage in the
+Creole's dining room.
+
+Michael Fedor saw Alicia twice in the Lubimoff palace. She did not feel
+there the uneasiness her mother experienced, and even declared the
+manias of the Princess very original and interesting. Afternoons when
+she was bored, and paid the Princess a visit, she too seemed to believe
+in the lamp table and in the "Queen's" proteges with the mystic
+gestures.
+
+She too consulted them to find out whether she would be happy, and
+especially whether she would be greatly loved, although she never told
+who it was that was supposed to love her. On other occasions she asked
+the oracle, with a note of jealous anxiety in her voice, what a certain
+unknown person was doing at that particular time. The name of the person
+was kept secret, but some months he would be dark and at other times he
+would be blond. She and the lamp table understood each other perfectly.
+
+"I always said that girl was cleverer than her mother," the Princess
+affirmed.
+
+When Alicia first met the Prince, on his return home, she burst out
+laughing, and almost embraced him.
+
+"Do you remember how we used to hate each other? Do you remember that
+day in the Bois when we whipped each other?"
+
+She looked at him with an air of interest, scrutinizing him from head to
+heel without detecting anything of the displeasing youth of former
+times. She knew of his adventures in Russia, his loves, his duels, his
+expulsion. An interesting man! A Byronic fellow! Besides, she had heard
+that he was a bit of a brute with women.
+
+"Come and see me. We must be friends. Remember we are relatives."
+
+Michael scrutinized her also, but with a certain seriousness. He had
+heard a great deal about her since arriving in Paris. During her three
+years of married life the Duke had tried twice to divorce her. It
+weighed on his mind to think that he should be enjoying immense wealth
+just in return for allowing her to bear his name. When he shook hands
+with a friend, he was never sure of the latter's relations with his
+wife. But Alicia had married the Duke in order to be a Duchess, and in
+the end the couple came to a practical agreement. Half of her income was
+to go to the Duke, who was to travel, or, if he wished, reside in Paris
+with a former mistress. Alicia might live as she pleased in her splendid
+white mansion in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, and display a ducal
+coronet on her underwear, on her silver, and on the doors of her motor
+cars.
+
+The little horsewoman of the Mexican plains, trained to morning gallops,
+had been transformed into a woman of proud and arrogant beauty. To
+Michael she looked like a California orange, golden, gleaming, wafting a
+strong sweet fragrance.
+
+Inwardly he winced at the gaze of those dark eyes, so enticing and
+fascinating, so provoking and commanding, in full consciousness of
+power.
+
+But no. He remembered that various men whom he disliked, had, according
+to common gossip, already preceded him in falling under Alicia's spell.
+And for the time being he was interested in a French actress, whom he
+had met on the train returning from Russia.
+
+Besides, he suddenly beheld her again in his imagination as she was
+years before. Perhaps she had not changed. She was used to managing men
+with a firm hand, to changing from one to another, as though they were
+post horses. He and Alicia would quarrel at their second meeting. They
+might easily end by coming to blows.
+
+He saw no more of her. New preoccupations changed the direction of his
+thoughts. One day in the street he met a Russian who seemed old and ill.
+It was Sergueff, his former teacher. Sergueff must now have been some
+forty years of age. He looked as though he were in his seventies, with a
+dirty white beard, grayish skin, and a wrinkled almost motheaten face,
+with no sign of life save in the two green holes that marked his eyes.
+From Saint Petersburg they had sent him to a prison in Siberia. He had
+escaped, crossed half of Asia on foot and alone, as far as a Chinese
+seaport, and there he had taken ship for the United States. The story of
+this tour of the world was told in a few words, as though it were a
+single walk on the boulevards.
+
+Michael Fedor took him to the palace. The Colonel seemed dismayed by
+Sergueff's presence, and drew back into his shell. He must remember his
+own connections with nobles of the Russian court! Some of them were
+former generals of police!
+
+The son of Princess Lubimoff talked for several days with the fugitive.
+The memory of his own expulsion from the court caused Michael vaguely to
+sympathize with this man who was likewise an exile. Besides, in the
+depths of his mind something of his mother's character was stirring,
+with all its inconsistencies and hazy vague desires. The officer of the
+Guard listened as attentively as a scholar to the doctrines of the
+revolutionist.
+
+"Why, those men are right!" he exclaimed with the passionate enthusiasm
+that the Princess herself expressed for every novelty.
+
+For the first few days he felt a yearning for martyrdom, a deep desire
+for renunciation, the mystic abnegation of the man of his race. He
+thought of many princes like himself, educated at court, with high
+social positions, who had given away their wealth to live among the poor
+and dedicate their lives to the triumph of truth and justice. He would
+do the same. He would reawaken to true life, and he was sure that his
+mother would approve. General Saldana had given his blood to
+rehabilitate the past; he would give his to overcome all obstacles in
+the pathway of the future. Times change. The past consists of a certain
+number of centuries; the future is infinite.
+
+But Lubimoff was not a true Russian. No sooner had he decided to carry
+out his mystic determination, than the Latin love of pleasure reawakened
+in him. Life is good, and offers many pleasant things! For him the tree
+of life was still overflowing with sap; there still remained for him so
+many leafy springs, so many fruitful summers! Later, perhaps, when only
+the dry wood remained....
+
+The one positive and immediate result of this resurrection was Michael's
+sense of his own ignorance and of the emptiness of his life. There was
+something in the world besides knowing languages, wielding rapiers, and
+riding horses. Man should seek the realization of his greatness in more
+serious enterprises than love making, duels and betting. Fate, in giving
+him wealth, had exempted him from the harsh necessity of work. But that
+was no reason why he should renounce making his mark in the world, as he
+passed through it, just as thousands of his predecessors had done, and
+as millions of men to come would continue to do.
+
+For the first time in his life Michael sought the comradeship of books,
+and this initial reading stirred him with a new desire. He made up his
+mind to know the world, to see strange countries, to struggle with the
+blind forces, which form the pulsing of the planet, and to live the
+coarse rough adventures of men who go from port to port. His father had
+told him of remote ancestors of the Saldana family, who had gained
+titles and fortunes by setting sail from humble Spanish harbors,
+swooping out like sea gulls across the gloomy Ocean, in the track of
+Columbus and the Pinzons, in search of new lands of mystery. An ancestor
+of his, disembarking with the aged Ponce de Leon in Florida, in search
+of the famous "Fountain of Youth," had been one of the discoverers of
+the present United States. The first Saldana to be a noble had obtained
+his title of "don" by founding a city in the neighborhood of Panama. Why
+should he not be a navigator like his forebears, a wanderer of the seas,
+enjoying exotic pleasures, and perhaps succeeding in wresting some
+secret from the blue deep?
+
+Life in that palace which his mother's mania had rendered ugly, was
+becoming uncomfortable and distasteful, and was impelling him to flee.
+The Princess did not make the slightest objection, when informed that
+her son desired to buy a yacht to navigate the seven seas. Let him do
+so, by all means! It was a princely pastime, quite worthy of a Prince
+Lubimoff. They were constantly growing richer. The oil, the platinum,
+all the precious ores of their properties and the products of their
+lands, as large as nations, made up an enormous income. The preceding
+year it had reached the sum of seventeen million francs: a million a
+month! For a single private family it meant unbelievable wealth, and the
+Princess Lubimoff, who had temporarily regained her sanity, modestly
+added:
+
+"But for a queen it isn't much."
+
+In England Michael purchased a sailing yacht, with a sharp bow, bold
+masts, and an auxiliary engine, and gave it the Spanish name for the sea
+gull, the "Gaviota."
+
+His idea was to continue on the ocean the life he had led on land,
+selecting, however, only its most interesting phases. For that reason he
+decided to take Sergueff along. The teacher seemed melancholy, as though
+the comforts and the liberal sums of money which the Prince bestowed on
+him weighed on his conscience like remorse. He had something more urgent
+to do in the world than voyage idly hither and thither in a luxurious
+boat. He disappeared one day, to return to Russia, as though the gallows
+had a fascination for him. Or was it that he preferred, in case of
+better luck than that, to travel once again around the world, but in his
+own manner?
+
+The Colonel, as the aide de camp of the Prince, felt obliged to embark.
+He had never yet left "his boy's" side! But, oh, he was not blessed with
+sea legs, and, much less, with a sea stomach! He was a hero of the
+mountains! They were obliged to send him back to Paris from a port in
+Brazil.
+
+The voyage of the _Gaviota_ lasted for five years. In the second year
+Michael Fedor thought his career as a navigator was about to be
+interrupted. The war between Russia and Japan had just broken out and he
+cabled from a Pacific port, asking for his former place in the Guard.
+The reply was a long time in coming. The Czar was still angry with him
+and kept him in exile.
+
+"So much the better!" Michael finally said to himself in a voice choked
+with anger. He guessed what was going to happen; what was to be the
+final fate of those brave Russians of the sharp sabers, when they came
+to face the astute little yellow men who had silently gone on
+appropriating the most scientific occidental arts of killing.
+
+His adventures in the various ports, his relations with women of every
+race and color, were sufficient to fill his life.
+
+"I am studying geography," he wrote Don Marcos, after inquiring about
+his mother's health. "I am studying the geography of love."
+
+It was not long before he was obliged to interrupt his cruise to return
+to the Princess. The physicians had ordered her away from the Paris
+palace, with its gloomy decorations so stimulating to her obsessions.
+They were sending her to the Riviera to drink sunlight and open air.
+
+And poor Maria Stuart, absolutely _incognito_, went from one large hotel
+to another, occupying entire floors with her retinue of much beaten
+Russian servants and much adored soothsayers and witch doctors. She was
+the despair of the hotel keepers, who were always glad to see her
+depart, though she alone paid more than all the other guests put
+together.
+
+Her son found her looking like a specter in her flowing mourning garb.
+She was weaker and thinner, and her eyes had taken on an alarming, fixed
+stare, which gave one the creeps. Her complexion had lost its former
+whiteness, gradually growing darker as though burned by an inner fire.
+For the moment her sole preoccupation was the construction of a palace
+on the Blue Coast. On French territory, in sight of Monte Carlo, she had
+bought a small promontory, a spur of land and rocks jutting out into the
+sea, a ridge covered with century-old olive trees and gnarled pines. She
+was kept busy quarreling with a stubborn old couple, an aged peasant and
+his wife, who were refusing to sell her the extreme point of the
+headland. She had already spent many thousands of francs on the plans of
+the future palace. Architects, painters, and landscape gardeners were
+constantly working for her, making studies of the historic past, in the
+endeavor to view of the Mediterranean an enormous Scottish castle
+express her imaginings. Her idea was to erect in full as Scotch as could
+possibly be imagined; in short, according to the Princess, it was to be
+"a novel of Walter Scott, done in stone."
+
+Michael was frightened. The sumptuous dungeon in Paris was to be
+repeated in the face of that luminous sea, in one of the most smiling
+landscapes of the earth. Behind his mother's back he talked with all the
+men who were working on the future Villa Sirena, the "Villa of the
+Sirens." The Princess had selected this name, in the conviction that on
+moonlight nights the daughters of the briny deep would come and visit
+her, singing on the reefs beneath her window. That was the least they
+could do for her!
+
+Each day the veil of mystery was opening more widely before her eyes,
+allowing her to see things which for others were invisible.
+
+Don Marcos, who, deserted by his former pupil, had gone back to the
+Princess, likewise received instructions from Lubimoff. He was to
+prevent the unhappy lady from perpetrating such a sacrilege on the
+Mediterranean. But what could the poor Colonel do with that madwoman who
+spent whole weeks without speaking to him, as though she did not know
+who he was!
+
+The Prince returned to his yacht, and a year later being by chance in
+upper Norway on his return from an expedition to the Arctic Ocean, he
+received the sad but expected news. His mother had died, just as she saw
+rising from among the olive trees and pines of the rosy promontory, the
+beginning of huge stone walls artificially blackened like the painted
+panels in the antique shops, and which looked as though they were about
+to fall in ruins from mere age, as soon as they had risen from the
+ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Michael arrived in time to receive the body of the Princess in Paris.
+Before her death her mind had been illuminated by the sudden flare of
+reason which is the signal of the end in cases of serious mental
+disturbances. She had left various papers on which she had noted loans
+made to certain persons, and judicious suggestions for her son in regard
+to the management of the enormous fortune. She wanted to be buried
+beside her husband, her first husband, "the hero," in the Pere Lachaise
+cemetery. During the last years she had stayed in Paris, she had been
+seized once more by the craze for building, and had busied herself with
+the preparation of her final dwelling place. Beside the mausoleum of the
+Marquis of Villablanca, whose image, frowning and indomitable, held in
+one hand a broken sword, she had set up another monument no less
+ostentatious with a statue which was supposed to be her exact likeness
+and was nothing less than the semblance of the unhappy Queen of Scots,
+as it appears in the engraving of the Romanticist period.
+
+During the funeral ceremonies, Michael Fedor met again many persons who
+formerly visited the Lubimoff palace, and whom he had thought were dead.
+Dona Mercedes in tears embraced him. She had become extraordinarily
+stout, and the coppery complexion inherited from her Aztec ancestors had
+taken on an unhealthy ascetic pallor. She looked like the Mother
+Superior of a noble convent of nuns. At her side, Monsignor, in his silk
+cassock and with an air of compunction, was moving his lips to save the
+dead woman's soul. "My son! We have all our sorrows." And as she said
+this, the poor lady looked at another woman elegantly dressed in
+mourning who stood there somewhat aloof, in the cemetery, and seemed
+utterly incapacitated by the ceremony which had obliged her to rise
+before noon.
+
+The Duchess de Delille also came forward to meet him, taking both his
+hands and giving him a strange glance.
+
+"Your mother loved me ... really loved me. During these last years we
+saw each other very often."
+
+Michael nodded assent. He knew that already. The Princess Lubimoff had
+been the one loyal friend of this passionate unscrupulous woman, who was
+gradually losing every one's respect. She had defended Alicia when other
+high society women declared open war and closed their doors to her,
+fearing for their husbands' fidelity. As she used to play every winter
+at Monte Carlo, she had been in the company of the Princess up to the
+last moments.
+
+"She loved me more than my mother ever did.... Perhaps she remembered
+that I might have been her daughter."
+
+The Prince walked away, as though annoyed by this allusion. He had heard
+such things about her!... But all during the ceremony he kept seeing her
+in his mind's eye. She was still beautiful, but so strangely beautiful.
+Her skin had lost the golden tinge of ripened fruit, and now was pale,
+the dull white of Japanese paper. Her large eyes, which gave off green
+and yellow glints, stared with disturbing fixity and seemed at the same
+time to have a blank expression, as though covered by an invisible
+spider web. Her least bitter enemies accused her of a certain propensity
+for spirits. She drank all sorts of American mixed drinks like an
+habitue of the bars. Other people attributed her pallor and the
+continual darkly bewildered look in her eyes to morphine, opium and all
+the various liquids and perfumes producing lethargy and creating
+"artificial paradise." The little Alicia of former years was drinking,
+draining it to the last drop from the cup of life in deep draughts.
+
+Michael Fedor thought that he had seen the last of her, but a few days
+later he began to receive letters. He was alone, and must be feeling
+sad, so she was inviting him to come and eat with her, informally, of
+course, as was natural among close relatives. His evasions brought fresh
+invitations by telephone. The Prince, like a person fulfulling a
+tiresome social obligation, finally went one evening to her little
+palace in the Avenue du Bois, one of the numerous imitations of the
+Petit Trianon, which are to be found in various parts of the world.
+
+The Duchess de Delille was proud of this edifice and the tiny garden
+with its sharp, gilded grating, in front of which all fashionable Paris
+passed. Michael was acquainted with the drawing rooms without ever
+having been inside them. The illustrated journals, which cover the
+styles of wealthy social life, had published photographs, in Europe and
+America, of the interior of her residence. Gossip had kept him informed
+of Alicia's strange life. She had suddenly been taken with the mad
+desire of seeing people, of being admired, and of astonishing every one
+by her prodigality. She gave a series of great fetes, and publicly
+protested because the municipality of Paris would not allow her to
+illuminate the entire Champs Elysees and the Arch of Triumph so that her
+guests might ride up to her very door in a fiery apotheosis. She had
+given a garden party in the Bois de Boulogne, with water sports, and
+dances of sacred dancers, brought from Asia. The buffet supper had been
+prepared for three thousand guests. On another occasion, for a single
+costume ball, she spent a hundred thousand francs, to transform part of
+her residence into an interior of Persian style and the next day she
+began to have the rooms restored to their original state.
+
+Suddenly she would disappear, and people would wink and make malicious
+comments because she left no address. Some new love affair! Hers were
+nearly always wandering fancies, that called for long trips and new
+horizons! Perhaps she was in Constantinople or in Egypt; perhaps she was
+in hiding in one of the large New York hotels. At times such guesses
+were right; and then again the most intimate friends of the Duchess
+could affirm that she had not left Paris. Was not her automobile
+standing in front of the door?
+
+This was another of Alicia's eccentricities. At all hours of the day and
+night, one of her various expensive cars was kept in readiness in front
+of the stairway. Three chauffeurs divided the service between them. They
+stayed in the porter's quarters; and as soon as the bell was heard, they
+had only to put on their gloves, run to the machine, and start the
+motor. She often chose the most extraordinary hours for going out.
+Sometimes it would be just after returning from a ball, then again she
+would get up for a ride after she had gone to bed. Frequently she would
+select the early morning hours which were usually her time of soundest
+sleep.
+
+At times the chauffeurs would succeed each other, week after week,
+without leaving the gate of the mansion. The Duchess did not care to go
+out. She no longer felt her sudden impulses to ride aimlessly about
+Paris, while the city slept, pay unseasonable calls, or glide through
+the woods on the outskirts of the capital at the height of some violent
+storm. Meantime, the autos seemed to age, as they stood there
+motionless, now with their wheels deep in the snow of the courtyard, and
+again with the glass of the wind shield flecked with the tear drops of
+the slanting rain, that swept under the glass covered porte-cochere.
+During all such periods, Alicia, in spite of her restless impulsive
+nature, would be spending whole days in bed, telling her intimate
+friends that to keep one's beauty one must take a "rest cure" from time
+to time. She would entertain her friends at dinner without getting out
+of bed. The table would be spread in luxurious fashion in her large
+bedroom, and lying between the sheets, with the dishes within reach on a
+tiny table, she would laugh and chat for hours with her guests. Months
+would go by without her seeing the outside of her house, while the
+costly objects in her rooms, amassed to indulge her whims, were quite
+forgotten. Her vanity was satisfied, at such times, by the mere fact of
+having constructed a costly jewel case to harbor her idleness.
+
+The Prince met her in a little reception room on the ground floor. She
+was in truth receiving him with absolute lack of ceremony. She was
+dressed in a black tunic of her own invention, a combination of the
+Greek peplum and the Japanese kimono. Her bare arms floated free from
+the soft silk that almost seemed to live, it clung so closely to her
+body. Underneath it, half revealed, were the contours and perfumed
+warmth of her flesh, hidden by no inner veils. Michael glanced at his
+tuxedo and gleaming shirt-front as though his own costume were quite out
+of place.
+
+As she took him to the elevator, which was white and quilted like a
+glove box, he caught a rapid glimpse of the drawing rooms of the lower
+floor, ostentatious, but left in a shadow almost as dark as night; of
+the large dining-hall, deserted, with the furniture covered; of the
+little dining-room in which there were no signs whatsoever of
+preparations.... Where was she taking him?... Was the table set in her
+bedroom?
+
+The elevator passed the second floor without stopping? "We are going to
+my study," said Alicia. "I eat there when I am alone."
+
+The Prince was amazed at the so-called "study," a large room which
+occupied a major portion of the third floor, and in which only one or
+two books in a small book-rack were to be seen. The place was decorated
+in imitation "Far East" style: plain black lacquer furniture, silk
+either of pale shades or of an intense dark purple, and an array of
+frightful idols. A diffused bluish light, like that used in night scenes
+on the stage, descended from the ceiling. A screen, embroidered with a
+design in gold, formed a sort of second more intimate room, the floor of
+which was covered with white rugs of fur, with long, silky hair. Heaped
+about were dozens of pillows of various colors adorned with winged
+reptiles and unheard of flowers.
+
+An exotic, penetrating odor made Lubimoff wince. He knew that perfume.
+And there was a look of severity in his eyes as he glanced sharply at
+the Duchess.
+
+"Sit down," she said. "They are going to serve us."
+
+As the Prince looked about, without seeing any sort of a chair, Alicia
+set him an example, dropping on a heap of cushions. Michael sat down in
+the same fashion, beside a tiny mother of pearl table no bigger than a
+tabouret. On it a lamp with a dark shade let fall a circle of soft
+light. Inwardly the Prince began to feel a boiling of suppressed anger
+as he thought of his evening wasted.
+
+"You must have eaten this way often," she continued, "you have traveled
+more than I. The style of decoration must be familiar to you."
+
+Yes; he knew the style, the original and authentic style, and for that
+very reason he did not care to see it again in imitation. Besides
+obliging him to eat on the floor, there in a house on the Avenue de
+Bois.... What an affectation!
+
+But in a short time his opinion began to change. A poseur she
+undoubtedly was, but affectation had already become a more or less
+natural trait in her, a sort of second nature. He guessed that even in
+its slightest details none of this had been prepared especially for him.
+Alicia lived and ate there when she was alone just as she was doing
+then. She was prey to a desire to be different from other people even
+when no one was noticing her.
+
+The servant in charge of the meal was a copper-colored man with a long
+down-curling mustache. He was dressed in a black tuxedo, with a white
+cloth wrapped around his legs like a skirt. He had long hair, done up on
+his head like a woman's and held in place by a tortoiseshell comb. The
+Asiatic was placing the huge trays containing the food on the floor:
+Some of the dishes were of ancient hammered silver, others of many
+colored lacquer, or of semi-transparent materials made in imitation of
+emerald, topaz, and red sealing wax.
+
+For Michael the meal looked like something a great chef might have
+prepared if he had suddenly gone mad and made up the dishes in the midst
+of his ravings. There was not a single item that suggested the
+harmonious course of an ordinary dinner. The palate acted on the
+imagination, awakening memories of distant travels, visions of far off
+lands. Exotic preserves alternated with hot dishes. Pastry flavored with
+penetrating perfumes was served along with sharp, biting, or intensely
+bitter sauces.
+
+Alicia, half reclining on the cushions, looking at the dishes without
+appetite, extended her hand carelessly toward the most unusual
+delicacies, and those with the most pungent and racy savors. Clearly
+the perversion of her palate was profound. She herself saw to it that
+Michael's glass was always filled. It was a drink of her own invention,
+having a champagne base. It burned and rasped his mouth, paralyzing all
+other sensation with its stinging coolness. It penetrated his nostrils
+with a lingering scent of the rarest flowers and of Asiatic spices.
+
+Speaking of the dead Princess, Alicia came to mention her own mother.
+They were now on terms of open hostility. Her eyes began to gleam with
+defiance as she was reminded of Dona Mercedes, confined in the
+Champs-Elysee residence with her court of clericals, and showing herself
+in public only for the organizing of pious works. She was trying to
+starve her only daughter to death!... And as Michael smiled at this
+explosion of anger, she explained her grievances.
+
+"She gives me hardly anything; a mere nothing: half a million francs.
+And I have to hand two hundred and fifty thousand a year over to my
+husband: a rather expensive lover, whom I avoid seeing. You are really
+rich, my dear, and don't understand such things.... Since the fortune is
+all in her name, she tries to starve me out and keeps her money to
+squander it with the priests.... Poor Senora! She can't find any
+admirers now except that _Monsignor_ and other sponges like him.... And
+I, her own daughter, have to implore her like a beggar for the crumbs
+she gives me, seasoned with sermons.... Oh, if it hadn't been for your
+mother! She really was a great lady: I never lamented my poverty to her
+in vain; she gave me even more than I asked for. You know of course that
+I owe you some money. A little.... I don't know how much. Didn't you
+really know that?... I shall pay you back when I get my inheritance."
+
+And with brutal frankness she expounded her full thought.
+
+"When will that bigot leave me in peace?... Old people ought to make way
+for the young. What fun do they get out of going on living?"
+
+They had finished eating. She went on filling both their glasses with
+her special drink. At first Michael had found it repugnant, but in the
+end he was attracted to its refreshing fragrance which gently troubled
+the senses, like an intoxication with perfumes.
+
+"Of course you use the pipe," said Alicia simply.
+
+He shook his head and thought of the odor which struck him on entering.
+He knew what sort of a "pipe" it was, and gazed about the study. The
+smoking den must be in some hidden corner!
+
+"A man like you!" she went on. "A sailor! And I fooled myself into
+thinking we'd smoke together!"
+
+She even gave him to understand that the hope of being able to give him
+that forbidden pleasure was the principal reason for her invitation. She
+became resigned when she learned that the Prince, vigorous as he was,
+suffered nausea every time he attempted to experiment with that Asiatic
+vice. And while he lighted a havana, Alicia took from a silver case the
+cigarettes which she smoked in the presence of the "uninitiated":
+Oriental tobacco, but heavily dosed with opium. Suddenly Michael was
+convinced of something of which he had a presentiment the moment he
+entered the place, or even earlier, the moment their glances had met in
+the cemetery. He saw her half rising from the cushions, with a
+panther-like contraction of her muscles, as though she were ready to
+spring at him. It was the concentrated impulse of the beast, beautiful
+and sure of its power, unable to wait, and not knowing how to feign.
+
+Alicia had forgotten the demi-tasse she held in her hand, as she sat
+there, looking at him fixedly. The tiny blue electric spark dancing in
+her eyes was something well known to Michael.
+
+It was the offering glance of female silence, inviting violence, and
+mastery. He had encountered that glance often along his path of triumph
+as a conquering millionaire.... He felt he must say something at once to
+break the silent charm of the beautiful witch, who, sure of her final
+victory, was smiling and blowing puffs of cigarette smoke toward him. So
+Michael alluded to her amorous fame, to the great number of lovers she
+was supposed to have had. That might widen the distance between them.
+
+"Ah! You too?" said Alicia laughing, with masculine frankness. "I don't
+suppose your morals are the same as Mamma's! You are not going to read
+me a sermon on my behavior. Although, after all, Mamma doesn't blame me
+for what I do. What makes her angry is the fact that I am not afraid of
+what people say, and that sometimes I am attracted to unknown men of low
+birth. Poor Senora! If I were to have an affair with a king or a crown
+prince, perhaps she'd even let us see each other in her house, and have
+her _Monsignor_ mount guard into the bargain."
+
+She remained silent for a moment. That disturbing glance was still fixed
+on Michael.
+
+"It is true; I have had a lot of men. And how about you? Do you think I
+don't know about your wanderings all over the planet in quest of types
+of women unknown to the novels and capable of giving new sensations?...
+We have both done the same: only it wasn't necessary for me to travel
+around so much to learn just what you have learned.... And you are not
+so absurd as to imagine, as certain men do, that our cases are not to
+be compared because we are of different sexes."
+
+The Prince listened silently as she expounded her ideas. She was deeply
+in love with life, and in return she demanded all that life could give
+her.... The minds of other women were occupied with questions of a
+material nature: desire for wealth, longings for luxury, domestic
+cares.... As for her, she possessed everything; to-morrow held no
+worries for her; not even in regard to her beauty, sustained as it was
+by wonderful health, and seeming to increase in spite of age and her
+prodigal waste of energies.
+
+In her life, made up of caprices, always completely satisfied, even to
+the point of satiety, only one thing interested her, from its infinite
+variety and from its many phases, which might seem to vulgar people a
+monotonous repetition of one another, but which in reality were distinct
+for a mind attuned, as hers was, to exquisite sensations. That thing was
+love.
+
+"Oh please understand me, Michael; don't sit there laughing to yourself.
+You know me too well ever to imagine that I believe in love as the
+majority of women do. I know that a certain amount of illusion is
+necessary to color the material aspect of love; we all lie about it a
+little, and we enjoy the lie even though we know it as such; but way
+down deep, I laugh at love as the world understands it, just as I laugh
+at so many things which people venerate.... I don't want lovers, I want
+admirers. I am not looking for love; I care more for adoration."
+
+She was proud of her beauty. She spoke of Venus as though the goddess
+were a real person. She admired the Olympic serenity with which the
+Deity of Passion gave herself to gods and men, never surrendering her
+superiority even at the moment when she was submitting to the
+domination of the stronger sex. Alicia considered herself a
+super-beauty, belonging to a sphere outside the ordinary limits of vice
+and virtue. She thought herself a living work of art; and art is neither
+moral nor immoral; its mission is fulfilled when it is beautiful.
+
+"Poets, painters, and musicians seek to abandon themselves to the
+greatest number of admirers. They do their utmost to enlarge their
+circle of public worshipers and with feminine coquetry they try to
+attract new suitors. I am like them. I do not need to create beauty, for
+as they say, I have it in myself. I am my own work, but I love glory; I
+need admiration; and for that reason I give myself generously, content
+with the happiness which I apportion, but keeping my public at my feet,
+without allowing myself to be dominated by those whom I seek."
+
+Michael was sure that many artists must have left their imprint on that
+woman's life. It was evident in the words and imagery with which she
+endeavored to express her enthusiasm for her own body. Her pride in her
+beauty was boundless. What were the ambitions of men, compared to the
+satisfaction of being lovely and desired? Only the glory of warriors, of
+blood-stained conquerors, whose names are known even in the remotest
+wilds of the earth, equals the glory that a woman feels in the sense of
+universal power over men.
+
+"To me," continued Alicia, "the truest and most beautiful thing ever
+written is 'the old men on the wall.'"
+
+The Prince looked at her questioningly; so she went on to explain. She
+referred to the old Trojan men in the _Iliad_, who were protesting
+against the long siege of their city, against the blood sacrifice of
+thousands of heroes, against poverty and hardship, all due to the fault
+of a woman.... But Helen, majestic in her beauty, passed before the old
+men, trailing her golden tunic; and they all lapsed into silent
+contemplation, rapt in wonder, as though divine Aphrodite had descended
+upon earth; and they murmured like a prayer: "It is indeed fitting that
+we should suffer thus for her. So lovely she is!"
+
+"I like to see men suffer on my account. How glorious if I might be the
+cause of a great slaughter, like that ancient immortal woman!... I have
+an exultant feeling of pride when I notice that envy and spite are
+whispering behind my back, starting all that gossip that makes my mother
+so furious. Only extraordinary people stir up torrents of abuse.... And
+afterwards, in the drawing rooms, the very same austere gentlemen who
+have seconded all that their wives and daughters have to say against me,
+look at me with sly admiring glances, as I pass; and some of them blush
+in confusion and others turn pale. It is easy to guess that I have only
+to beckon and their silent admiration would.... I too have my 'old men
+on the wall.'"
+
+Michael suddenly realized that while she was talking she had been coming
+gradually closer, from cushion to cushion as she lay resting on her
+elbows. She was almost at his feet, with head held high, endeavoring to
+envelop him in a wave of magnetism from her fixed and dominating eyes.
+She seemed like a black and white snake, twisting forward little by
+little among the cushions as though they were rocks of various colors.
+
+"The only man of whom I have ever thought the least bit, the only one I
+ever considered at all different from other men," she continued in a
+half whisper, "is you.... Don't be alarmed: it isn't love. I am not
+going to invert roles, and propose to you. Perhaps it is because, as
+children, we used to hate each other; because you never wanted me. That
+is such an unheard of thing in my life, that it alone is enough to
+interest me."
+
+She put her hands on his knees, as though she were about to rise.
+
+"When I saw you in the cemetery, after so many years, I remembered all
+that I had heard about you. Many women whom I know have been sweethearts
+of yours, and I said to myself: Why not I, too? Then I thought of all
+the men who have come into my life, and I added: Why not he?" ...
+
+And now Alicia's elbows were resting on his knees, and as the Prince was
+seated on but two pillows, their lips and eyes were almost on a level.
+As she talked he could feel her breath on his face. It was like the
+breeze in an Asiatic forest, whispering beneath the moon. The spices and
+flowers with which the wine was saturated seemed to float in that
+volatile caress.
+
+Michael tried to avoid her advance, but one of Alicia's hands was
+already on his shoulder. He merely shook his head.
+
+"Don't be afraid," she added, exaggerating the caressing quality of her
+sigh. "There are no embarrassing obligations with me. You may leave me
+when you wish; perhaps I shall be the one to leave you first. I have
+wanted you for the last few days. You must surely desire me as the
+others do.... Let us live this moment, like people who know the secret
+of life and all it can give.... Then if we tire of each other, good-by,
+with no hard feeling and no pining!"
+
+When from time to time in after years the Prince recalled that scene, he
+always felt a certain dissatisfaction with himself. He was sure he had
+seemed brutal as well as ridiculous. In his travels he had approached
+women frequently in the most matter of fact way, often remembering them
+afterwards with some repugnance; yet here he was, rebelling with a
+feeling of offended modesty at the advances of the Duchess. No! With
+her, never! Rising within him he felt the same displeasure that had once
+made him raise his whip in his youth.
+
+He found himself on his feet in the middle of the study, looking
+anxiously toward the door and muttering stupid excuses. "No, I must go:
+it is late. Some friends are waiting for me...." She had gained control
+of herself. She too was standing looking at him with astonishment and
+wrath.
+
+"You are the only one who could do a thing like this," she said, in a
+cutting tone, as they parted. "I see it all clearly now. I hate you as
+you hate me. My whim was a stupid one. You have permitted yourself a
+liberty which no one in the world will ever be able to take again. If I
+were younger than I am I would thrash you again as I did in the Bois;
+but instead, just consider that I am repeating everything I said then."
+
+They did not see each other again.
+
+When the Prince had set in order everything concerning the inheritance
+from his mother, he thought of resuming his voyages, but on a more
+magnificent scale. It was no longer necessary for him to ask the
+Princess for money. He was one of the great millionaires of the world.
+Those who were in charge of the administration of his affairs--an office
+with numerous clerks, almost equalling the government bureau of a small
+state--made the announcement that the fifteen million francs which the
+Princess had received annually would soon be twenty, through the
+development of Russian railways, which allowed more intensive working of
+his mines.
+
+The Colonel was commissioned to have the heavy medieval walls of Villa
+Sirena torn down, and the place replanned according to the Prince's
+tastes. The latter hated architectural resuscitations. He could not bear
+modern buildings patterned to flatter the pride of the rich proprietors,
+after the Alhambra, the palaces of Florence, or the solemn and orderly
+constructions of Versailles.
+
+"The furniture ought to correspond to the period," said Michael, "and
+people ought to live in such houses as they lived in in the century
+which produced that particular style. People living in an ancient house
+ought to dress and eat as in former times.... What an absurdity to
+reconstruct those historic shells, with the interior arranged to suit
+the needs of modern men who are forced to commit an anachronism at every
+step!"
+
+He recalled the project of a millionaire friend of his, a member of the
+Institute, who had built a Roman house on the Riviera, Roman in all the
+exactness of its details. At the house-warming the guests were obliged
+to sleep on corded beds and to eat reclining on couches; and even more
+intimate conveniences were modeled on the principle of hygiene known to
+the ancient Caesars. Within twenty-four hours they all pretended they had
+received urgent telegrams calling them to Paris, and the owner himself
+after a few months, left his house in charge of a keeper to show to
+tourists as a museum.
+
+Michael was fond of modern architecture, whose cathedrals are machine
+shops and large railway stations. Applied to dwellings it pleased him
+for its lack of style: white walls, a few moldings, rounded corners,
+with no angles whatsoever, so that the dust might be pursued to its
+remotest hiding places, wide openings letting in the breeze and the
+sunlight, double walls between which hot or cold air, and water at
+various temperatures, could circulate.
+
+"Up to the present time," the Prince asserted, "man has lived in
+magnificent jewel cases of art and filth. Modern architects have done
+more in the last thirty years to make life pleasant than the
+artist-builders, so much admired by history, did in three thousand. They
+have declared running water and the bath-room as indispensable, things
+which were unknown to kings themselves half a century ago. They have
+invented the furnace and the water closet. Don't talk to me about the
+magnificent palaces of Versailles, where there was not a single toilet,
+and where every morning the lackeys were obliged to empty two hundred
+vessels for the king and his courtiers. Often to be through quicker,
+they threw their contents out of the majestic windows, and sometimes it
+would fall on the sedan chair and the retinue of a Dauphine or an
+ambassador."
+
+Toledo applied himself to supervising the construction of Villa Sirena
+in accordance with the desires of the Prince, making it a plain white
+building, and without any definite style of architecture. Lubimoff
+himself, at the proper time, would take charge of the artistic touches,
+placing famous pictures, statues, tapestries, or rugs, just where they
+would be most pleasing to the eye. The house was to be a harmony of
+simple, pure lines. The walls were to have heating and cooling systems
+for the different seasons, and running water was to be available in
+abundance everywhere. Each room was to have its electric lights and its
+electric fan.
+
+The Prince found it a much easier task to make over his wandering ocean
+residence. He simply sold the Gaviota, which reminded him of his
+youthful dependence on his family, and went to the United States to look
+into an advertisement. Three years before a certain multimillionaire had
+begun the construction of a yacht, designed to be more luxurious and of
+greater tonnage than that of any European sovereign. As the American was
+about to witness the consummation of this triumph of the democratic
+kings of industry over the historic kings of the Old World, he was
+killed in an automobile accident, and his heirs did not know what to do
+with the leviathan which would only be of use to an immensely rich,
+and, in their opinion, somewhat crazy traveler. They were thinking of
+selling it at a loss to the Kaiser, William II, having decided finally
+to endure his demands as a sharp business man, when Prince Lubimoff
+appeared. A week later on the white stern and bows of the yacht a new
+name in gold letters was displayed, a name that was repeated in addition
+on the life preservers and on the various tenders, the dingies, the
+steam launches, and the motor boats. The American yacht had become the
+_Gaviota II_.
+
+It had the tonnage of a small trans-Atlantic liner and the speed of a
+torpedo boat. Each day the wealth of an ordinary man went up in smoke
+through the _Gaviota II's_ double funnels. During a trip to some distant
+island, the supply of coal gave out. Immediately a collier chartered by
+the Prince, came to meet the _Gaviota II_ in the farthest seas to fill
+the bunkers with fuel.
+
+Quiet harbors came to be illuminated at night, as though the sun had
+risen. When the Prince gave a _fete_, the ship would be a blaze of glory
+from the water to the mastheads, its outline marked by electric bulbs of
+various colors, while powerful searchlights shot out movable streams of
+radiance and drew the waves, the shores, and rows of city houses from
+the depths of the darkness. At other times, the white fire of the
+_Gaviota II's_ monstrous eyes would flash on walls of ice towering to
+the clouds, and seals, penguins, and polar bears would waken from sleep
+frightened by the strange luminous, puffing monster that darted off like
+lightning into the mystery of night.
+
+To be the owner of a floating palace which, when anchoring off large
+cities, drew such crowds of sightseers as rare spectacles only attract,
+was not enough for Michael Fedor. So he created something more
+interesting even than the luxurious salons, and the refinements of
+comfort of the _Gaviota II_: he built up an orchestra.
+
+Sensuous delight in music was for him the most exquisite of emotions.
+When his ears were satiated with the sweetness and melody of traditional
+music, he sought unknown and often bizarre composers, who aroused his
+curiosity; but he always came back to demanding as the _pieces de
+resistance_ of his harmonic feasts, the masters who had been his first
+love, and above all, Beethoven.
+
+Treated as though they were officers, paid to their liking, and with the
+added inducement of being able to see a great deal of the world,
+musicians from every country offered their services to the yacht's
+orchestra. Famous concert players and young composers came in as mere
+instrumentalists. Some were ill, and sought to regain their health in a
+voyage around the world in real luxury and without expense; others
+embarked through love of adventure, to see new lands in this floating
+castle, in which everything seemed organized for an eternal holiday.
+There were never less than fifty of them.
+
+"My orchestra is the finest in the world," the Prince would proudly say
+when his guests complimented him after one of the concerts his musicians
+gave at rare intervals on land.
+
+In tropical nights, beneath the enormous honey-colored moon changing the
+sea to a vast plain of quick-silver, the musicians, seated in evening
+clothes before the rows of music racks illuminated by tiny electric
+lights, would weave on the quiet air, which seemed to have retained the
+first faint cries of the planet at its birth, the most original
+melodies, the most subtle combination of sounds that the sublime rapture
+of artists in god-like inspiration ever created. The music floated out
+behind the boat in the mystery of the ocean, like a scarf unfolding,
+breaking and scattering in fragments, with the smoke of the funnels.
+When the orchestra paused one could hear the distant subdued beat of the
+propellers, churning the foam with a humming sound; and then from time
+to time the slow tolling of the bell calling the men on watch, or the
+cry of the lookout snuggled into the crow's nest on the mainmast,
+reporting his vigilance with the rhythmic intonation of a muezzin from a
+minaret. And the monotonous music of the sea gave an impression of
+night, and of immensity, to the music of man.
+
+At the foot of the companionways, or on the outjutting parts of the
+lower decks, the various officers and officials of the Prince gathered
+to hear the concert in the night. On the prow the sailors squatted,
+listening to the music in religious silence, as is often the case with
+simple men when confronted with something they do not understand, but
+which inspires awe. Aft, the only listener would be Michael Fedor,
+standing at a distance from the music, and with his back toward the
+musicians, watching at his feet, the divided, foaming waters which
+rushed by like a double river far out and away from the boat. As
+occasionally he raised his cigar to his lips, his pensive features would
+appear for a moment in the darkness, lighted by the red glow.
+
+The yacht held another more silent group. Those who succeeded in getting
+on board in the ports always obtained a distant glimpse of a woman or
+two with white shoes, blue skirts, jackets with rows of gold buttons,
+masculine collars and neckties, and officers' caps. No one knew for
+certain how many such women there may have been. The men of the crew
+were forbidden access to the central quarters of the boat, and to the
+upper deck. Some of them, chancing to break the rule through oversight,
+had met the Prince's companions attired in elegant naval uniforms, or
+more lightly clad, like dancers, in elaborate and exotic costumes. At
+the large ports, steam launches landed these mysterious and beautiful
+travelers for a few hours on shore. It was remarked that they dressed
+with modest elegance and that they would speak various languages.
+
+When the _Gaviota II_ returned and anchored in the same harbor she had
+visited the preceding year, those whose curiosity had been aroused found
+that the personnel of the wandering harem had been completely renewed.
+They might occasionally recognize one or two of the former ladies, but
+now their faces wore the placid expression of the odalisque who has been
+supplanted, but is nevertheless contented with luxury and oblivion.
+
+Some years Michael Fedor suspended his travels, during the summer, to
+take up his abode at fashionable beaches. The women who accompanied him
+on his long voyages remained on board, with all the lavish comforts to
+which they were accustomed. At other times he parted with them, as one
+dismisses a crew when a ship goes out of commission, at the end of a
+trip.
+
+Immediately he became interested in women living stay-at-home lives, in
+shore society, and in summer flirtations at famous watering places. He
+would take up his abode in a hotel on the coast, while his yacht was to
+be seen rising from the azure waters, motionless, like a palace of
+mystery and magnificence, the center of all feminine imaginings.
+
+Living in Biarritz he came to know Atilio Castro intimately through
+learning that they were related on his father's side. The Spaniard
+admired the fascination exercised by the Prince, often without wishing
+to do so, on all women.
+
+Never at any period had women been more strongly attracted by luxury or
+felt less scruples in the means of obtaining it than at present. This
+was the opinion of Castro. Lavish display, which in other centuries had
+been within reach of only the very few families, was now possible for
+every one. All one needed to indulge in it was money. Besides, it was
+necessary to take into account present-day progress in material things,
+which has made life easier, but at the same time has increased our
+needs.
+
+"The motor car and the pearl necklace have made more victims than the
+wars of Napoleon," said Atilio.
+
+"These two things are like the gala uniform of women, and those who are
+forced to go without them consider themselves unfortunate and ill
+treated by fate. This twin image has shattered the illusions of maidens
+and the fidelity of wives. Mothers in middle class society, with
+melancholy dejection written on their faces as though they had made
+stupid failures of their lives, advise their daughters: 'If you are
+going to get married, make sure you will get an auto and a pearl
+necklace.' And long after the modest marriage this desire still remains,
+strengthened by maternal advice. Luxury is the one thought, luxury at
+whatever cost. Luxury has been democratized. It is within reach of all,
+obtainable through money, which has no taint, no odor, no sign of its
+origin."
+
+"You are the great provider of the expensive motor car of fashionable
+make and of the rope of pearls," continued Castro. "You are the great
+Sultan of magnificence. Your signature to a check is enough to sweep a
+woman off her feet in a torrent of gold. Make the most of your
+opportunity! The period in which you were born has left you an open
+field for your talents."
+
+And the Prince, who was not at all in need of such advice, went his way
+as conqueror through a world in which the best accredited virtues
+collapsed before his attack. Even sincere resistance finally appeared to
+him to be a clever device for postponing surrender and increasing the
+market value of desire. The millions from Russia were scattered
+broadcast in smaller and smaller subdivisions, maintaining the well
+being and display of many homes, indulging the taste for luxury of
+numerous ladies, and keeping numberless factories busy producing elegant
+novelties of female luxury. A few women felt a sincere interest in
+Michael Fedor for his own sake, because of the mysterious prestige of
+his voyages in a boat which was talked about as though it were an
+enchanted palace; and also because of his adventures with celebrated
+actresses and women of high society, which made him more attractive. But
+once their vanity and curiosity were satisfied, they allowed their own
+self-interest to have a word. "Why should I be any more altruistic than
+the rest?"
+
+They were not obliged to use cunning or round-about phrases in
+formulating their requests. Some at the second meeting, took on a
+melancholy air, and spoke of the sad realities of life. But the generous
+Prince anticipated their desires. He preferred to pay his mistresses and
+dazzle them with splendid gifts. Thus he could regard them as favored
+slaves covered with jewels. In this way also, it was easier to break
+with them: He could go away from them whenever he so desired, satisfied
+with his own behavior, and quite unmoved by their tears and laments.
+From his semi-oriental Russian ancestors he had inherited a great
+sensual capacity, which caused him to be attracted to women, and at the
+same time to feel an inalterable scorn for them. He indulged them but
+could not love them; he adored them, but was stirred to indignation when
+they presumed to be on terms of equality with him. He was capable of
+ruining himself, of braving death for them, but he was ready to thrust
+them aside with his foot if they tried in the least to govern his life.
+The ambitious ones who feigned deep, passionate love for him in the hope
+of marriage, the sentimental ones who tried to interest him with
+psychological subtleties, and those who kept their maternal enthusiasm
+even in adultery, and murmured in his ear how happy they would be to
+have a child who might resemble him, waited for him in vain the
+following day. "Neither deep passion, nor children!" ... Two trails of
+smoke were soon rising from the yacht, carrying its owner to another
+port or perhaps to another continent: or if he wished to flee from a
+city in the interior, he gave orders that his private car should be
+coupled to the first train that was leaving.
+
+These flights were never undertaken without a generous remembrance.
+Michael Fedor's munificence continued for those whom he had abandoned.
+Each year new names were added to his budget, like that of a reigning
+house which allots pensions to its forgotten servants. But the pensions
+of Prince Lubimoff were for the maintenance of luxury and not of life.
+The most modest were over thirty thousand francs a year. The average was
+double that amount.
+
+"Your Excellency: there will have to be a revision," his administrator
+would say.
+
+Michael would examine the list of names, hesitating at a few. He could
+not recall clearly the persons who bore them. Then suddenly he would
+smile, as certain visions were suddenly and attractively awakened in his
+mind. He was immensely wealthy: why not keep up the luxury which was the
+one dream of all of them?... He was not disturbed by the jealous thought
+that his successors would be reaping the benefit of that luxury.
+
+He felt a certain god-like pride in making his generosity felt at all
+times, without letting himself be seen. In Paris a jewelry shop managed
+by a Jew of Spanish origin limited its entire business to the production
+of the Prince's gifts. His gems of high intrinsic value, with no false
+artifices, had a certain family resemblance, a sort of imaginary
+perfume which enabled the women who displayed them to recognize each
+other. When it was least expected, at tea time, in the dining-room of a
+hotel, at an elegant watering place at a dance, two women who had just
+met would gaze at each other's ears and breast in silence, until the
+boldest, blushing imperceptibly under her rouge, would ask simply: "You
+knew Prince Lubimoff too?..."
+
+Atilio Castro felt a deep admiration for his relative, less on account
+of his triumphs than of the iron constitution required to sustain them.
+
+"What a Cossack! A regular Cossack!... He is a true descendant of that
+lover of the Great Catherine!"
+
+Nevertheless, frequently the yacht would hurriedly put out to sea on
+long voyages, without its master being forced to flee from any dangerous
+or entangling passion. He was running away from himself, from his
+perverse imagination and curiosity, which made him seek and allure
+different women, upsetting his peace of mind, without rousing in him any
+real desire. He undertook the most extraordinary voyages, for the sake
+of the bracing air and the sense of restfulness the sea brings. The
+orchestra accompanied him; but the "harem" remained on shore. He had
+gone completely around the globe, following the shortest route; then he
+had repeated this circumnavigation, but over a zig-zag course, to become
+acquainted with all the coasts of the earth. At present he was on going
+on whimsical trips; he was sailing from one hemisphere to another for
+the pleasure of visiting one or another of the small islands which seem
+lost in the Pacific, and are so tiny that on the maps they look like
+mere dots placed after long names traced on the blue colored surface.
+
+Returning from one of these excursions on which he went around the world
+as though it were his personal property, he received by wireless the
+news that Germany had declared war against Russia and France.
+
+He felt no great surprise. He knew William II personally. It was because
+of him that Prince Lubimoff avoided cruising off the coast of Norway in
+summer.
+
+The year following his acquisition of the _Gaviota II_ he had come
+across the Imperial yacht in those parts. The Kaiser, like an officious,
+all-knowing neighbor, came to see him in order to look over the yacht,
+examining it in all its details, giving advice, reviewing the men and
+materials, making a dissertation on the engines and interrupting himself
+to advise certain changes in the uniform of the crew. After a breakfast
+on his own yacht, and luncheon on the Emperor's, Prince Michael had had
+enough of this unexpected friendship. Lohengrin, with his winged helmet,
+white mantle, and both hands on the hilt of his sword, was less
+unbearable than this gentleman with turned up mustache, and wolfish
+teeth, dressed like a sailor, who laughed a false and brutal laugh, and
+(whenever he met on the seas a multimillionaire from America or Europe)
+played the role of a man of great simplicity and of an unconventional
+sovereign. Money inspired deep veneration in this story-book hero, this
+mystic with a mind fed on grandeur. Michael had never shared the
+enthusiasm of various snobs for the German Emperor. He smiled at the
+Hohenzollern's theatrical tastes, his war-like bravadoes, and his
+intellectual ambitions which pretended to embrace the whole knowable
+universe.
+
+"He is a comedian," Michael said on receiving the news of the war, "a
+comedian who for a long time is going to make the whole world weep....
+And to think that the fate of mankind should depend on such a man!..."
+
+Michael Fedor considered himself as a being set apart from the rest of
+mankind. He lamented the war as something terrible for the rest, but
+which could not influence his own particular fate. Since a madness for
+blood had descended upon Europe, he would go on sailing distant seas.
+Thanks to his wealth he could keep beyond the margins of the struggle.
+
+But times changed rapidly; life was not the same: all old values had
+lost their significance. In spite of her Russian flag, the _Gaviota II_
+found herself halted by some English torpedo boats and was forced to
+submit to a minute inspection. They could not believe that any one
+should be cruising for pleasure when all the seas had been converted
+into a battlefield. In the latitude of the Azores it became necessary to
+force the yacht's engines to escape from a German corsair.
+
+Besides, fuel was getting scarce. The various coaling stations located
+here and there on the coast were reserved exclusively for the warships.
+Important news kept coming by wireless from far-off Paris, where the
+chief agent of the Prince was located. Communication had been broken off
+between the Paris office and the administrators of the Lubimoff fortune
+in Russia. No money was coming from there, and the French banks, with
+their vaults closed by the _moratorium_, were willing secretly to lend
+money to a millionaire like the Prince, but not in quantities sufficient
+to meet his current needs.
+
+The yacht came to anchor in the port of Monaco, and Michael Fedor, on
+arriving in Paris, almost laughed, as though witnessing some
+preposterous change in the laws of nature. The heir of the Lubimoffs in
+need of money, and compelled to make an effort to obtain it--something
+he had never done in all his life! Here he was having to ask for loans
+at frightfully usurious rates, on the security of his distant and famous
+wealth, which for the first time was regarded somewhat contemptuously!...
+
+When communications were reestablished in an intermittent fashion
+between Western Europe and Russia--which was practically isolated--the
+administrator of the Prince gave a look of despair. The collections had
+been reduced eighty per cent.
+
+"According to that, I am going to be poor?" asked Lubimoff, laughing,
+the news seemed so unbelievable and absurd.
+
+It was very difficult to send money as far as Paris. Besides the rouble
+was decreasing in value at a dizzy rate. Millions on reaching France
+became mere hundred thousands. Mobilization had left the mines without
+workmen; there was no outlet for the produce; the peasants, seeing their
+sons in the army, refused to pay any money, and even to work. The
+Russian government, to keep as much money as possible at home, limited
+to small amounts the money sent to citizens residing abroad.
+
+"The Czar putting me on a pension!" said the Prince in amazement. "A
+thousand or two thousand francs a month!... How absurd!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But he did not laugh long. His anger against the Russian court, which
+had gradually been growing in his subconsciousness ever since his
+expulsion so long ago from Petersburg, now moved by a selfish impulse
+suddenly flared up. The Czar and his counselors, desirous of
+Russianizing all Eastern Europe, were responsible for the war. They
+certainly might have kept peace with Germany. Why disturb the peace of
+the world, for the sake of a little race of people in the Balkans?
+
+He coolly made fun of certain of his friends who, by devious routes
+across Europe and the icy Northern seas, returned to Russia to regain
+their former commissions in the army. As for him, he had no desire to
+die for the Czar. It made little difference to him whether his country
+were governed by Germans. There were times when he even thought that
+would be preferable, so long as peace were restored rapidly, allowing
+him once more to reap the benefit of his wealth, and resume the life he
+had been leading a few months before, or, as it now seemed, a half
+century before.
+
+The next two years went by for Lubimoff like a nightmare. What sort of a
+world was he living in?... His former friends were disappearing. Some of
+the frivolous women who had made life pleasant for him were not moved in
+the least by the unfortunate events which were happening; but others
+showed themselves to be heroic and self-sacrificing, forgetting all they
+had done before, feeling a new soul developing within them.
+
+The Prince suddenly found himself dragged along by the world happenings.
+A mysterious and irresistible force was pushing against him, causing him
+to lose his balance, just as he was reaching the pinnacle of his life,
+so pleasant, so vast, crowned with a halo of such glory. And now, once
+started, he was tumbling head over heels, of his own inertia, and each
+step he struck as he descended, gave him a harder blow, a more painful
+surprise. How far would this landslide take him?... What would he strike
+at the end of this unheard-of fall?...
+
+His interviews with his Paris administrator seemed to him like something
+taking place in another world, subject to ridiculous laws. These
+conferences always ended with the same order on his part:
+
+"Try and get some money. Ask for a loan.... I am Prince Lubimoff, and
+this cannot last. Whoever wins--it is all the same to me--order will be
+reestablished, and I shall pay my creditors immediately."
+
+But the administrator answered, with a look of dismay: "Raise money on
+property in Russia?..." Taking advantage of the former prestige of the
+Prince, he had been able to negotiate various loans; but time was
+passing and the enormous interest was accumulating. Lubimoff in spite of
+cutting down expenses and doing away with pensions, was in need of money
+for his current living expenses.
+
+The fall of the Czar gave a ray of hope to this magnate who hated the
+Imperial government. "With the Republic the war will be over sooner and
+we shall come back to the proper order of things." His egoism made him
+conceive of a Republic as a form of government occupied chiefly with
+restoring the wealth of beings of fortunate birth. The meager shreds of
+his fortune which now and then still got as far as Paris were suddenly
+cut off. The fountain of wealth was dry. The crumbling of a whole world
+had dammed its source, and perhaps forever.
+
+"Your Excellency must sell," the administrator was always saying. "You
+must do without everything that is superfluous. We must liquidate in
+time. Who knows how long the present state of affairs may last!"
+
+The yacht was lying idle in Monaco harbor. Almost the entire crew,
+composed of Italians, Frenchmen, and Englishmen, had left it to go and
+serve in the navies of their respective nations. Only a few Spaniards
+remained on board, to keep the boat clean.
+
+The _Gaviota II_ was renamed by the English admiralty, and turned over
+to the Red Cross. When he signed the bill of sale, Michael Fedor felt
+that he was giving up his whole past. The romantic prestige of his mode
+of life was vanishing now for all time; the _Arabian Nights_ palace was
+being converted into a hospital ship.... What a world!
+
+The English millions afforded him a year of respite. The administrator
+paid the huge debts, and he was able to live without economizing, in
+Paris, a Paris nearing the end of its third year of war with
+inexplicable tranquillity, resuming its usual pleasures as though all
+danger were past. Love affairs with two distinguished women, whose
+husbands were called to arms--although they were not at the
+front--caused him to spend a few months, now at Biarritz, now on the
+Riviera, and now at Aix-les-Bains.
+
+His agent disturbed these enjoyments. He was constantly repeating the
+same advice: "You must sell." The Prince's fortune was already like an
+old ship drifting aimlessly. The administrator had stopped the last
+leaks with the money from the most recent sale, but warned him at every
+moment that she was taking in water through new ones.
+
+In the end Michael Fedor grew accustomed to misfortune, accepting it
+serenely.
+
+The sale of the palace built by his mother moved him less than that of
+his yacht.
+
+At the same time his desires had changed. He was beginning to tire of
+love adventures, which seemed to be the only object of existence. His
+fresh and vigorous constitution, which had amazed Castro, suddenly broke
+down. But this was more the result of worry than of physical wear and
+tear.
+
+He felt that he was poor, and was he not accustomed to pay royally for
+his love affairs? Not being able to reward women with luxury, he would
+rather flee in order not to accept from them and be obliged to tolerate
+from them their caprices. He preferred to master his desires, as long as
+he could not satisfy them with all the grandeur of an oriental
+potentate. Besides he was tired of love, and all the pleasant things of
+life a man can find in this world!...
+
+He thought of his friend Atilio, of the Colonel, of Villa Sirena, white
+and shining in the Mediterranean sunlight, among the olive trees and
+cypresses.
+
+"The earth is being swept by the deluge. Perhaps the old lands will once
+more appear; perhaps they will remain submerged forever.... Let us take
+refuge in our Ark, and wait and hope."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+After glancing with satisfaction at the imposing aspect of Villa Sirena,
+the adjoining buildings, and the surrounding groves, the Colonel said to
+Novoa:
+
+"The part you see cost less than what you don't see. There is a great
+deal of money spent under ground here."
+
+Turning away from the residence, Don Marcos pointed to the gardens,
+which lay extended before them in terraces, some on a level with the
+roof of the "villa," others descending like a mighty stairway almost to
+the water's edge.
+
+He recalled the promontory as it was when the late Princess first
+thought of buying it; an ancient refuge of pirates; a tongue of rocks
+wild and storm-swept when the _mistral_ was blowing, with deep caves
+gnawed by the surge, which caused the land above to crumble, and
+threatened to break it lengthwise into a chain of reefs and islets.
+
+"The bulwarks we have had to build!" he continued. "You should have seen
+the stone we had to put in here,--enough to build a wall around the
+whole city!"
+
+There were walls more than twenty yards thick, descending in a gradual
+slope from the gardens to the sea. In places, it was possible to see
+their foundations in the natural rocks which emerged from the water like
+greenish beads always awash in the foam; in other places the masonry
+went down and down until it was lost from view in the watery depths.
+They were like the breakwaters one sees in harbors. They covered the
+original hollows of the promontory, the caves, the inlets that were
+forming, and all the jagged spaces, which had been filled with rich
+soil.
+
+These tremendous works of masonry were Toledo's pride, owing to their
+cost and grandeur. He called his fellow-countryman's attention to the
+proportions of the ramparts, worthy of a monarch of olden times.
+
+"And they are not only strong," he continued, "but look, Professor! They
+are all 'artistic.'"
+
+The blocks of stone had been cut in large hexagons which fitted together
+in a uniform mosaic, each piece outlined by a cement border.
+
+At intervals there were large openings, so that the earth might rid
+itself of its moisture; but each one of these blind windows held some
+sort of wild vegetation, some hardy, aromatic plant, obstinately
+parasitic, spreading downward over the wall and covering it with flowers
+for the greater part of the year. The thick groves at the summit, and
+the long balustrades arched with wine-colored clematis, seemed to exude
+a flowery, green, inferior form of life, pouring it out seaward through
+the gaps in the wall.
+
+"When you see it from a boat below you will appreciate it better. Senor
+Castro says it reminds him of the hanging gardens of Babylon, and of
+Queen Semiramis. He is the only one who would think of such comparisons.
+All I can say is that it meant doing all this! Imagine all the stone. A
+whole quarry! And I wish you could have seen the bargeloads of rich soil
+it took to fill the hollows, level the ground, and make a decent
+garden!"
+
+He grew enthusiastic as he talked about the modern flower gardens
+stretching around the villa and along the iron railing bordering the
+Menton road; and he lavished his praise on their harmonious elegance,
+and the majestic regulation to which the plants were forced to conform.
+That was how _he_ felt a garden should be, like many another thing in
+life: perfect order, a sense of subordination, and respect for the
+hierarchies, each thing in its place, with no individual rivalries to
+cause confusion. But he was afraid to expound his "old-fashioned"
+tastes, recalling the jests of the Prince and Castro. They preferred the
+park, which the Colonel always thought of as the "wild garden."
+
+They had availed themselves of the extremely ancient olive trees already
+on the promontory as a beginning for the park. These trees could not be
+called old, exactly. Such an appellation would have been petty and
+inadequate to their age. They were simply ancient, of no visible age.
+They had an air of changeless eternity about them which made them seem
+contemporaries of the rocks and the waves themselves. They looked more
+like ruins than like trees, like heaps of black wood, twisted and
+overthrown by a storm, or piles of wood, warped and hollowed and
+scorched by some fire long since past. With them also the invisible part
+was more important than the portions exposed to the light. Their roots,
+as large around as tree trunks, went out of sight, wound their way
+through the red earth, and then appeared once more thirty or forty yards
+beyond. Some of the trees had died on one side, only to come to life
+again on the other. What had been the trunk five hundred years before,
+now appeared as a mutilated stump, table shaped, severed by ax or
+shattered by thunderbolt; and the root, showing above the soil, was
+flowering again in its turn, changing into a tree, to continue an
+apparently limitless existence, in which centuries counted as years. The
+hearts of other trees were gnawed away and empty; and these supported
+only half of their outer shell, looking like a tower with one side blown
+out by an explosion; but on high they displayed an almost ridiculous
+crown of foliage, a few handfuls of silvery leaves scattering along the
+sinuous black branches. Below, the gnarled roots which seemed to have
+preserved in their knotted windings the sap that was the first life of
+the earth, embraced a much larger radius on the ground than that
+occupied by the branches in the air. Other olive trees, that were only
+three or four hundred years old, stood erect with the arrogance of
+youth, leafy and exuberant, casting a light, trembling, almost
+diaphanous shadow, like that of frosted glass which swayed with the
+capricious will of the wind.
+
+"His Excellency says that there are olive trees here that were seen by
+the Romans. Do you believe it, Professor? Can it be that any of these
+trees date back to the time of Jesus Christ?"
+
+Novoa hesitated in replying. The Colonel continued his observations as
+they walked along between walls of well-trimmed shrubbery towards the
+end of the park.
+
+"Look: there is the Greek garden."
+
+It was an avenue of laurels and cypress trees with curving marble
+benches, and in the background a semi-circular colonnade.
+
+"I would have liked to plant a great many palms: African, Japanese, and
+Brazilian, like those in the gardens of the Casino. But the Prince and
+Don Atilio detest them. They say that they are an anachronism, that they
+never existed in this region, and were imported by the wealthy people
+who have been building for the last fifty years on the Blue Coast. All
+those two fellows admire is the ancient Provencal or Italian garden:
+olive trees, laurels, and cypresses--but not the huge, funereal
+cypresses with bushy tops, that we use in Spain, to decorate the
+_calvaries_ and cemeteries. Look at them: they are as light and slender
+as feathers. To keep the wind from blowing them over you have to plant
+two or three together in a clump."
+
+They had reached the extreme limit of the park, where the leafiest olive
+trees were growing. They walked along open pathways through high masses
+of wild and fragrant vegetation, whose vigorous vitality seemed to
+challenge the salt breeze. The plants had stiff leaves, and gave out
+strong exotic perfumes. As Novoa breathed in the fragrance, it evoked
+visions of far-off lands; and in truth it seemed almost as though an
+odor of Hindoo cooking or Oriental incense were floating through that
+wild garden. A variety of creepers hung from tree to tree. Though it was
+still winter these natural garlands had already begun to bloom, owing to
+the warm breezes of an early Spring. They stood out with all the gay
+splendor of a courtly festival, against the chaste pale green of the
+olive trees.
+
+"Don Atilio says that all this makes him think of a Mozart symphony."
+
+The deep blue Mediterranean lay at their feet, its slow swells combed by
+a sharp reef that broke the streaming water into clouds of spray. Here
+the promontory divided, forming two arms of unequal length. The shortest
+was a prolongation of the park, carrying the magnificent vegetation
+which flourished on its back, into the very waters. The other descended
+to the sea in a chaos of rocks and loose earth, with no growth save a
+few twisted pines, clinging to the soil, obstinately determined to
+prolong their death struggle. The barren loneliness of this tongue of
+land drew a sad smile from the Colonel each time he gazed at the
+dividing wall. The rugged point was eaten away by the sea with caves
+that threatened to cut it in two. It had no regular place of entrance,
+being separated from the mainland by the gardens of Villa Sirena, and
+shut off by a hostile wall, which represented the inalienable rights of
+ownership, and was a source of constant indignation and amazement to Don
+Marcos.
+
+Doubtless that was why he turned away from it, gazing out toward where
+Monaco lay beyond the rocky cliffs.
+
+"It is lovely, Professor: one of the most delightful panoramas anywhere.
+There is good reason for people to come here from the farthest ends of
+the earth!"
+
+He let his glance rest on the violet colored mountains that, at the
+farthest horizon, projected out upon the sea, like the limit of a world.
+They were the so-called Mountains of the Moors, which, with Esterel
+Point, form a branch of the Maritime Alps, a separate mountain chain,
+which juts into the Mediterranean. In the opposite direction lay a
+portion of the pseudo-Blue Coast, which begins at Toulon and Hyeres. But
+this part did not interest the Colonel. What he saw, more in imagination
+than in reality, was a bird's-eye view of the real Blue Coast, his own
+Blue Coast--that of the aristocratic and wealthy people on whom he was
+in the habit of calling, in their elegant villas and expensive hotels.
+
+The Maritime Alps form a giant wall, parallel to the sea. In some places
+they fall steeply toward the Mediterranean with the sharp slope of a
+bulwark, without the slightest break to mask the abrupt descent. At
+other points the incline is gentler, creating waves of stone, miniature
+mountains which stand out above the water, forming capes and placid
+inlets. And on these sheltered shores, from Esterel to the Italian
+frontier, wealthy people, sensitive to cold, arriving in pilgrimages
+every winter, had finally converted the sleepy provincial villages into
+world-famous capitals. Fishing hamlets were transformed into elegant
+towns; the large Paris and London hotels erected enormous annexes on the
+deserted bays; the most expensive shops of the Boulevards opened
+branches in tiny settlements where a few years before every one had gone
+barefoot.
+
+In his mind Toledo went over the undulating line of celebrated places,
+overlooking the sea from the promontories, or nestling in the little
+horseshoe bays to profit more directly by the refraction of the winter
+sunlight from the red walls of the Alps: Cannes, which inspired in him a
+certain awe on account of its quiet distinction--the place where
+consumptives and old people of renown desire to die--Antibes, with its
+square harbor and its walls which, according to Castro, recalled the
+romantic seascapes painted by Vernet; Nice, the capital where people
+come together to spend their money, copying Parisian life; the deep bay
+of Villefranche, the harborage of battleships; Cap-Ferrat and the
+beautiful Point Saint-Hospice, a former den of African pirates, jutting
+out from it; Beaulieu, with its Tunisian palaces, the homes of American
+multimillionaires, who always keep open house, and who had often invited
+the Colonel to luncheon there; Eze, the feudal hamlet, hanging grimly to
+the side of the Alps, and falling in ruins around its decaying castle,
+while down below, the people who fled from it are forming a new town,
+beside the gulf which their predecessors proudly called the Sea of Eze;
+Cap d'Ail, which serves as a sort of portico to the adjoining
+Principality; the Rock of Monaco, carrying on its giant's back a walled
+city; opposite it the dazzling Monte Carlo; and beyond, Cap-Martin, with
+somber vegetation, reserved and lordly, the ultimate shelter of
+dethroned kings; and lastly, close to Italy, pleasant Menton, the
+stronghold of Englishmen, another place for invalids of distinction,
+where every self-respecting consumptive feels obliged to end his days.
+
+"Think of the money that has been spent here!" Don Marcos exclaimed.
+
+Fifty years before, the Corniche railway in successfully finding its way
+through this mountain region had been considered a marvelous piece of
+work; but now for the convenience of winter visitors, the same work had
+been repeated in every direction. Smoothly curving roads, clean and firm
+as a drawing-room floor, extended along the seashore, ascended the
+Alpine heights, passing from crest to crest on lofty viaducts, or
+burrowing the hills in long tunnels. Where the perpendicular rock would
+not allow a ledge to be cut the engineer had made one with buttresses
+many yards high, the bases of which were lost to view in the waves.
+
+A new dream had been added to the many which the blessed in this world's
+goods may realize--the owning of a house on the Riviera! Within fifty
+years, every architectural whim, every possible fancy of rich people
+bent on creating sensations, had covered this shore of the Mediterranean
+with villas, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Venetian, and Tuscan palaces, and
+dwellings of other distinct or indescribable styles. The palm tree was
+imported and acclimated as a native plant.
+
+"Enormous fortunes have been invested here; three generations have been
+ruined, and as many more enriched. When you think what it was a century
+ago, and see what it is now...!"
+
+The Colonel spoke of an Englishwoman's tomb, completely abandoned on the
+extreme point of Cap-Ferrat. She was a forerunner of the present winter
+visitors, a youthful contemporary of Byron, charmed by the beauty of the
+Mediterranean, and by the pathless and practically unexplored mountains.
+On her death, they buried her on the deserted promontory, because she
+was a Protestant. The fishermen and peasants of this lonely coast
+shunned the stranger, denying her the rights of hospitality even in
+their cemeteries.
+
+"This happened less than a century ago. And such poverty as there was!
+The only products of the country were thick skinned oranges, lemons, and
+these olives. The trees are very pretty, very decorative, but they bear
+an exceedingly small pointed olive, all pit. Compare them with ours in
+Andalusia, Professor! And to-day there are millionaires, born right here
+on the Riviera, who have grown rich merely by selling the wretched
+fields of their fathers. The red land, abounding in stones, is bought by
+the yard, even in the most out of the way spots, like lots in large
+cities. When you least expect it, at a turn in the road, you come across
+a miserable hut with a little land around it that takes your fancy. The
+roof of the building sags, and the wind blows through the cracks in the
+wall. The owners sleep with the pig, the chickens, and the horse. This
+same poverty and shiftlessness you find among the peasants almost
+everywhere. You happen to think that you might build up a country home
+there without much expense. Surely the good people won't ask very much,
+no matter how inflated their ideas of value may be! But when you ask the
+price, after much talk, and many doubts, they finally say in the most
+casual manner: 'A hundred and fifty thousand francs, or two hundred
+thousand.' When you protest in amazement they reply, pointing to the
+mountains, the sun, and the sea: 'And the view, monsieur.'"
+
+The red soil of the Alps amounts to little for its power of production:
+it is the situation that gives it its value. And the native has grown
+rich selling, so much per yard, the sunlight, the azure of the
+Mediterranean, the orange color of the mountains and the dazzling glory
+of the clouds at sunset, the shelter of the distant rock which, like a
+screen, turns aside the icy breeze of the _mistral_.
+
+"If you only knew how inexplicably obstinate some of these people are!"
+
+As Don Marcos spoke he turned and pointed out to Novoa the miserable
+strip of land that seemed fastened like a curse to the gardens of Villa
+Sirena. The Princess Lubimoff with all her millions, had not been able
+to buy the tip of that promontory. It belonged to an old married couple
+without any children. "That is their house," he added, pointing to a
+sort of yellowish cube, halfway up the mountain, beside a road that cut
+across the red and black slope.
+
+The Princess, after acquiring the promontory for her medieval castle,
+had considered the acquisition of the small extremity a mere trifle.
+"Give them what they ask," she said to her business agent. And in spite
+of her recklessness with money, she was amazed to learn that they
+refused two hundred thousand francs for a few rocks undermined by the
+waves, and a couple of dozen dying pines.
+
+"I was present at the interviews with the old people. The agent of the
+Princess offered five hundred thousand, six hundred thousand, and the
+couple did not seem to grasp the meaning of the figures. The Princess
+lost her patience, lamenting the fact that they were not in Russia, in
+the good old days. She even talked of engaging an assassin in Italy--as
+she had read in certain novels--to get rid of the stubborn old pair. It
+was just like her Excellency,--but she was really very kind at heart!
+Finally, one day, she shouted to us: 'Offer them a million, and let us
+be done with it!' Imagine, Professor, more than two thousand francs a
+yard; you could buy land at that rate in the business district of a big
+city! We went up to their cottage. They didn't bat an eyelash when they
+heard the figure. The old woman, who was the more intelligent of the
+two, let Her Excellency's lawyer explain what a million meant. She
+looked at her husband for a long time, in spite of the fact that she was
+the only one of the two who was doing any thinking, and finally
+accepted; but on condition that the Princess should erect, on the
+outermost point, a chapel to the Virgin. It was a wish that her simple
+imagination had cherished all her life. Without the chapel, she would
+not accept the million. 'Don't worry, we'll build the chapel!' we said.
+The day set for signing the papers, we found the two old people, sitting
+in the lawyer's office side by side, with bowed heads. The lawyer
+received us, wringing his hands, and looking toward heaven with an
+expression of despair. They would not accept! It was no use insisting.
+They wanted to keep things just as they had received them from their
+forefathers. 'What would we do with a million?' groaned the old woman.
+'We would lead a terrible life!' We tried to talk to her about the
+chapel, in order to persuade her; but they both fled, like people
+finding themselves in bad company, and afraid of being tempted."
+
+The colonel looked once more at the dividing wall.
+
+"Her Excellency being a born fighter, immediately had the partition
+raised before beginning the foundation of the castle. As you see from
+here, the old people can reach their property only by the beach; and on
+stormy days they have to enter the water up to their knees. That doesn't
+matter; from that time on they became more attached than ever to their
+land. They used to come down from the mountains every Sunday, to sit at
+the foot of the wall. By constantly measuring the point they succeeded
+in discovering an error made by the architect, who had been a trifle
+flustered owing to the haste enforced upon him by the Princess. He had
+made a mistake of eighteen inches, and half the width of the wall was on
+the old people's land. The peasant woman, in spite of the fact that she
+had a sort of superstitious fear of the majesty of the law, threatened
+to bring suit even though she might be forced to sell her hut and field
+on the mountain to fight the case. It was necessary to tear down the
+wall, and build it up again, half a yard farther this way. It meant some
+sixty thousand francs lost--nothing for the Princess--and yet I suspect
+at times, that the affair may have hastened her death."
+
+Don Marcos felt that he must pause a moment out of respect for the
+deceased.
+
+"The old woman has died too," he continued, "and her husband comes here
+only from time to time. When he finds that one of his pine trees has
+fallen, through the wearing away of the soil, he sits down close beside
+it, just as though he were watching beside a corpse. At other times he
+spends hours looking at the sea and the huge rocks, as though
+calculating how long it would take the waves to break his property to
+pieces. One afternoon, going on foot from La Turbie to Roquebrune, I ran
+across him near his hut, where he was pasturing some sheep. With his
+long beard he looked like a patriarch; and he is always the same,
+leaning on his staff, with a dirty tam-o'shanter on his head, and a
+rough cape about his shoulders. Besides, he always has a pipe in his
+mouth, though he rarely smokes. 'The million is waiting,' I said in fun,
+'whenever you want to come and get it.' He didn't seem to understand me.
+He smiled with a look of vague recognition, but perhaps he thought I was
+some one else. His gaze was fixed on Monte Carlo, a bird's-eye view of
+which lay at our feet. He must spend hours and weeks like that. His face
+looks as though it were carved of wood, or molded in terra cotta; he
+seldom speaks, and no one can guess the substance of his reflections.
+But I think that every day the same identical amazement must be renewed,
+and that he will die without ever recovering from his surprise. He sees
+the expanse of waters, which is always the same, the eternal hills, that
+never change, the house built by his ancestors, which was old when he
+was born, the olive groves, the mighty rocks ... but that city has
+sprung up, since he was a grown man, from a plateau covered with
+thickets, and burrowed with caves, and it is enlarged each year with new
+hotels, new streets, and more domes and turrets!"
+
+The Colonel suddenly forgot the old peasant. With his fellow-countryman,
+Novoa, he felt quite talkative, and he imagined that his thoughts flowed
+more freely and vigorously, through this contact with a man of learning.
+Besides, he felt a certain pride in being able to talk like an old
+inhabitant, of the many things of which the new-comer was ignorant.
+
+"The fortress you see over there practically belonged to us at one
+time," he went on, pointing to the Castle of Monaco. "For a century and
+a half it had a Spanish garrison. Our great Charles V"--and the old
+Legitimist spoke the name with a note of deep respect--"once slept
+there. And there, too."
+
+Turning, he pointed out on the mountain summit of Cap-Martin the village
+of Roquebrune, huddled about its ruined castle.
+
+"The archivist of the Prince of Monaco is studying the numerous letters
+in his possession written by our great Emperor to the Grimaldi family.
+When the historians of the Principality wish to establish the
+indisputable independence of their tiny land, they cite as the origins
+of the state the treaties signed at Burgos, Tordesillas, and Madrid."
+
+In a few words he went over the history of the little country, which
+came into being around a little harbor. Semitic sailors gave it the name
+of Melkar--the Phoenician Hercules--and the word gradually changed
+into the present one, Monaco. The Guelphs and Ghibellines of Genoa
+fought for possession of its castle, until a Grimaldi, disguised as a
+monk, entered the enclosure by surprise and opened the gates to his
+friends, making the ancient Hercules Harbor an estate of his family for
+all time. "This friar, sword in hand," continued Don Marcos, "is the
+one that figures on both sides of the coat of arms of Monaco. From that
+time on the history of the Grimaldis is similar to that of all the
+ruling houses of those days. They made war on their neighbors, and
+quarreled among themselves, to the extent that brother even assassinated
+brother. The sailors of Monaco plied the trade of corsair, and their
+flag was even used to give distinction to the pirates of other
+countries. The alliance of the Grimaldis with Spain allowed them to use
+the title of Prince for the first time. Charles V addressed them in his
+letters as 'dear Cousins,' and gave them other honorary titles. This
+great rock was of exceeding importance to the Spanish Monarchs who had
+lands in Italy and needed to keep the route safe. The Kings of France
+were very anxious, on their part, to do away with this obstacle and win
+the Grimaldis over to their side. You must realize that for a hundred
+and fifty years the latter kept their agreements faithfully, and that
+during all this time the subsidies that had been promised them from
+Madrid were sent only at rare intervals. Two galleys from Monaco always
+figured in the rolls of the Spanish navy. Only when the decline of
+Austria began to cause us to lose our influence in Europe, did the
+Grimaldis, like people fleeing from a house that is tumbling down,
+abandon us. At that particular moment, Richelieu was making France a
+great power, and they went with him. One night amid thunder and
+lightning, when the garrison, composed for the most part of Italians in
+the service of Spain, were carelessly asleep, the French caught them
+unawares, disarmed them, after killing a few who tried to resist, and
+finally sent the remainder courteously to the Spanish Viceroy at Milan,
+with the notice that the alliance must be considered broken forever.
+
+"The Grimaldis became the liege-lords of France. Later they went to
+Versailles, as courtiers, or served in the King's armies. During the
+Revolution they were persecuted, like all the other princes, and a
+beautiful lady of the family was guillotined. Napoleon kept them in his
+military following as aides-de-camp, and the long peace of the
+Nineteenth Century caused them to return and take up their abode once
+more in their tiny Principality.
+
+"They were so poor!" Toledo went on. "They were obliged to keep up the
+show and pomp of a court, since in a small state where all are
+neighbors, the Prince has to exaggerate formality, in order to hold the
+people's respect. The same expenses must be defrayed as in a large
+nation; the maintenance of courts, administrative offices, and even a
+diminutive army for internal safety. And the whole Principality produced
+nothing but lemons and olives.... You can see for yourself how poor and
+how hard pressed they must have been, not knowing how to raise funds,
+especially since under the rule of Florestan I, the grandfather of the
+present Prince, there was an attempted revolution, owing to the decree
+of the Sovereign that the olives of the country should be pressed
+exclusively in the mills of his estate.
+
+"Later under Charles III, the situation became still more difficult. The
+Principality was dismembered. The two cities, Menton and Roquebrune,
+dependencies of Monaco, full of enthusiasm for the Italian Revolution,
+declared their freedom, and joined the Kingdom of Savoy. Shortly after,
+when Napoleon III acquired the former County of Nice they fell under the
+control of France. And thus Monaco was isolated within French territory,
+with its sovereignty clearly recognized; but a sovereignty that embraced
+only a single city on a rocky height, a small harbor, and a little
+surrounding land overgrown with parasitical vegetation; about as much
+ground as a peaceful citizen might cover in a morning walk. How was the
+tiny State to be maintained?
+
+"It was saved by gambling. Don't imagine as some people do, that the
+idea originated with the Ruler of Monaco. Many German Princes had had
+recourse to some enterprise to support their domains. It is a German
+invention; but gambling on the shore of the Mediterranean, under a
+winter sun that seldom fails, is quite a different thing from gambling
+in Central Europe. At first the business was unsuccessful. They
+established a miserable Casino in old Monaco, opposite the Palace, in
+what is now the barracks of the Prince's Guard. The betting was very
+slight. It was necessary to come by diligence, over the Alpine heights,
+following the old Roman route, and to descend from La Turbie by roads
+that were like ravines. One had to be very anxious indeed to gamble.
+Later the Casino was transferred to the harbor below, where the La
+Condamine district is to-day: another failure. The lessees of the gaming
+privileges went bankrupt, and were unable to fulfill their obligations
+to the Prince. And then the Corniche Railway was put through, placing
+Monaco on the road between Paris and Italy; and all the gamblers and
+idlers of the world came flocking here within a few years. What a
+transformation!"
+
+The Colonel recalled once more the old peasant, who, pasturing his sheep
+on the Alpine slope, spent hours and hours with his eyes fixed on the
+marvelous city, stretching out below, on the very spot that, as a young
+man, he had seen covered with thickets.
+
+"That was the beginning of Monte Carlo. Opposite the rock of Monaco,
+forming the other side of the harbor, there was an abandoned plateau,
+only some sixty years ago. Scattered about the gardens of the Square,
+among the tropical trees, there are still a few scraggly olive trees
+left from those times. They have been spared as relics of the days of
+poverty. Where we now find the Casino, the large hotels, and the most
+elegant tea-houses, there were caves dating back to prehistoric times,
+which in less remote periods served as haunts for thieves. On account of
+the grottoes this wild plateau was nicknamed _The Caverns_. Some of the
+things you have seen in the Anthropological Museum in Monaco, stone
+axes, human bones, etc., came from those caves. And the abandoned
+plateau, in some ten or twelve years, was converted into Monte Carlo,
+the great city of world fame, leaving on the heights opposite in
+obscurity and more or less in oblivion, the historic Monaco, which at
+present is merely one of its suburbs. Monte Carlo has grown so that it
+extends from one end of the Principality to the other; the entire
+national territory is covered with houses, and each year it over-flows
+still farther beyond the boundary line. The French part is called
+Beausoleil. You have only to cross the Square in front of the Casino,
+ascend the sloping gardens, and mount a stairway to the Boulevard du
+Nord, to find one of the rarest sights in Europe. One sidewalk belongs
+to the Prince of Monaco, and the other across the street, to the French
+Republic. The shopkeepers pay different taxes and obey different laws,
+according to whether their show windows are on the left or on the
+right."
+
+Toledo remained thoughtful for a moment.
+
+"The miracles accomplished by roulette!" he continued. "The magic power
+of 'red and black'! They say the Casino is a marvel of poor taste, but
+the walls and ceilings fairly drip with gold, as in a rich church. The
+theater there is the first to produce many operas that become famous
+throughout the world. The countless hotels are like palaces. Monte Carlo
+bristles with domes and turrets like an oriental city. The streets with
+their scrupulously clean pavements, seem like drawing-rooms. There
+isn't a trace of dirt. And think of the gardens! The Alps, here, form a
+wonderful screen; we live in a sunny shelter; almost a hothouse. But at
+times the _mistral_ blows, and it is cold. I don't know how it is
+possible for all those tropical plants that are so fresh and luxuriant,
+and all those trees that originate in a climate as hot as an oven, to
+live here. The poor old olives must be as amazed as I myself at finding
+themselves in such company. 'Trente et Quarante' must be a powerful
+fertilizer! I'm sure that if the gambling were to stop, all this
+tropical vegetation would vanish like a dream."
+
+The silent Professor greeted these words with a smile.
+
+"And what a transformation in the people!" the Colonel continued.
+"Notice the crowd some Sunday; none of them like workmen, all equally
+well dressed! The girls here copy what they see worn by the elegant
+society women; and imagine how many of the latter come here! You never
+see a beggar, nor a man in rags. To be born here means something: one's
+livelihood is assured. The Casino takes care of every one; there is
+always a place for every citizen in the gambling rooms, in the gardens,
+or in the theater; and if not, on the police force, in the
+administrative offices, or in the Prince's household--and the latter is
+paid for with the Company's money too. To achieve the dignity of being
+put in charge of a gaming table is the native's highest ambition. He may
+earn as much as a thousand francs a month, not counting the tips. That
+is more perhaps than you will ever earn, Professor. And he ends his days
+in a little villa he has built on the heights of Beausoleil, where he
+can look after his garden, with a view below of the Casino--the house of
+the Good Fairy that dispenses all blessings. They all have enough to
+live on as long as they know how to keep a silent tongue, and mind their
+own business. An old cab driver, whom I sometimes engage, was bold
+enough one evening to talk quite frankly with me, owing to the fact
+that he was slightly intoxicated. His wife has been for some twenty
+years now in the Ladies' Section of the Casino toilets; his daughters
+work as cleaners; his sons are employed in the theater. They all bring
+in money. Moreover, the old men retire on pay, the sick are not
+forgotten, and the widows and orphans of every employee that dies during
+service are paid pensions. 'It's a great country, sir,' the driver said
+to me, 'the best in the world. Every one can make a living, as long as
+he's wise enough to keep his mouth shut, and not make trouble.' And you
+can depend upon it, they are all discreet. Moreover they watch one
+another, and are afraid of being denounced by their best friend, if they
+talk about the latest scandal, or a gambler's suicide. Among strangers
+not one of them lets on that he knows anything."
+
+"And supposing one of them were to talk?" asked Novoa. "Or if one of
+them were to make trouble?"
+
+"They would banish him. It is a paternal despotism, and does not dare
+inflict harsher punishments. The police of the Prince make him go half
+way across the street, and put him on the French sidewalk.... Don't
+laugh; it is a cruel penalty. Exiles to other places finally grow
+accustomed to their misfortune, since they live at a great distance, and
+see their native land only in their mind's eye. But a man who is exiled
+here can almost reach out and touch his country with his hand; he has
+only to cross the width of the street. As the land slopes downward, he
+can see his house a few roofs beyond. He sees the smoke from breakfast
+coming out of the chimney, and yet he cannot sit down to his own table;
+the family is at the windows, and he has to talk to them by signs.
+Moreover, and worst of all, he sees that the rest who were prudent go on
+leading their pleasant lives in the shadow of the Casino, while he has
+to seek a new profession at much harder work. His torment becomes
+unbearable, and he finally flees to some distant city, to let a few
+years go by, so he may be pardoned."
+
+Don Marcos began to praise Monte Carlo again; "People who lose their
+money in the Casino always retain an unpleasant memory of it; but where
+can one find a quieter, cleaner, or more peaceful city, with its
+Spring-like climate in mid-winter?
+
+"Everybody comes here sooner or later; lots of rogues, of course; but
+you find famous people too, and you can enjoy society of distinction. I
+scarcely ever gamble, and for that reason I appreciate the beauty of the
+scenery. And more than that: at times I have the satisfaction one feels
+in getting things for nothing; and when I gaze at the lovely walks, when
+I attend the concerts and operas, and enjoy the sweet tranquillity of a
+city in which there are no poor, and no desperate revolutionists, I say
+to myself: 'The gamblers pay for this, and you get the benefit of it.
+They lose so that you may enjoy life.'"
+
+As Novoa smiled again, the Colonel expressed his admiration still more
+glowingly.
+
+"It seems impossible that roulette should have performed so many
+miracles! And there must be others besides those which lie before our
+eyes. Gambling has paid the cost of this delightful harbor of La
+Condamine: a harbor for yachts, with elegant docks that are really
+promenades. It must have had a hand also in the restoration of the
+castle of the Prince. It even helps to develop the spiritual life of the
+place, and increase the prestige of religion. Before roulette came none
+of the clergy were of higher rank than priests. Since the triumph of the
+Casino there has been a Bishop, and canons; and a beautiful Byzantine
+cathedral has been erected, which, according to Castro, needs only to
+have Time darken it a bit. The Sunday masses are one of the chief
+attractions of the Principality. The Nice papers print the program of
+the music that will be sung by the choir, alongside the program of the
+concert at the Casino: '_Canto piano_ of the most celebrated masters,
+the Italian Palestrina, or the Spanish Vitoria.'"
+
+Novoa interrupted him.
+
+"There is the Museum of Oceanography too. That alone is enough to remove
+any taint from the money which has come from the Casino."
+
+He said this with the pleasing voice and the somewhat distracted
+expression that were natural to him; but in his words there was the
+mystic ardor of the firm believer.
+
+The Colonel nodded assent. The Museum which roused the Professor's
+enthusiasm was the work of the Prince, and as for himself, Don Marcos
+felt a deep respect for "Albert," as he called the sovereign familiarly.
+"Albert" had been an officer in the Spanish navy. As a lieutenant
+commander he had sailed the coast of Cuba; in his books he had praised
+the old Spanish sailors, his first masters in the art of navigation.
+What more was needed to inspire veneration in Don Marcos?
+
+"Whenever he attends a ceremony in his Principality he wears the uniform
+of a Spanish admiral. And he is a man of science: you know that better
+than I do."
+
+He gave Novoa a chance to speak. Three-fourths of the earth were covered
+with water, and for centuries and centuries humanity took no interest in
+investigating the mysterious hidden life of the ocean depths.
+Navigators, skimming the surface, went their way, guided by routine
+methods or by fragmentary experience, without succeeding in embracing
+the fixed and regular laws of the atmospheric or ocean currents.
+Science, which has to its credit so many discoveries in a single century
+of existence, halted in dismay at the edge of the sea. The scientists
+in the laboratories only need material for their work, and that is
+easily obtained; but to study the seas, to live on them for years and
+years, is another matter. For that, it was necessary to have ships and
+men at one's disposal, to construct new and costly apparatus, to spend
+millions, to cruise patiently and leisurely here and there over the
+ocean wastes, with no fixed goal, waiting for the great blue depths
+casually to reveal their secrets. That meant a great outlay, with slight
+returns. Only a sovereign, a king, could do that; and that was what the
+former officer in the Spanish navy, on becoming a Prince, had done.
+
+"Thanks to him," Novoa proceeded, "oceanography, which scarcely amounted
+to anything, has become to-day an important study. His yachts have been
+floating laboratories, cruisers of science, which have gradually made
+the first conquests of the deep. With his drifting buoys he has been
+able to demonstrate in a conclusive manner the circular drift of the
+Atlantic currents; with his careful soundings he has brought to light
+the mysteries of deep sea life at various levels of the great body of
+water. Scientists have been enabled to sail the sea and study, with no
+material restrictions, thanks to him. Through his generosity handsome
+books have been published, museums have been opened, and excavations
+have been made in the earth which throw enlightenment on the origin of
+man."
+
+"And all this," the Colonel interrupted, persisting in the admiration
+already expressed, "with the money from the Casino! Gambling has
+defrayed the expenses of the cruisers of science, the coal and men for
+far-off expeditions, the printing of books and journals, the subsidies
+for young men anxious to perfect their scientific training; the
+Institute of Oceanography in Paris; the Museum of Oceanography in
+Monaco, where you are working; the Museum of Anthropology and.... And
+you have to figure that all this is merely a tip left by the
+stockholders of the gambling corporation. Just imagine what the Casino
+produces! And lots of people consider it terrible!"
+
+"It doesn't make any difference where wealth comes from as long as it is
+put to useful purposes," said the Professor, with a note of hardness in
+his voice. "No one asks a government the origin of its funds, when they
+are used for some good purpose. Often they have been extorted with more
+cruelty and violence than those which come from here, where the people
+all flock of their own free will. It is a good thing that the money of
+scheming, foolish people, and of those who feel their lives are empty
+and don't know how to fill them, should be used for once to accomplish
+something great and human. Think what this Prince of a tiny State has
+done for science in the course of a few years. If only the great
+Emperors would devote the enormous forces at their command to similar
+enterprises! If only Kaiser Wilhelm had done the same, instead of
+preparing for war all his life, how humanity might have progressed!"
+
+The Colonel, considering himself a warrior by profession, only half
+admitted the truth of the Professor's words. The sword, the glory won on
+the battle-field, were something after all, and the world would be ugly
+without them, it seemed to him. But he remained silent, not venturing to
+spoil his friend's enthusiasm.
+
+"All the sins on the one hand are redeemed on the other." Saying this,
+Novoa pointed to the huge Casino, with its multi-colored domes and
+towers, rising from the table-land of Monte Carlo. Then tracing with his
+finger an imaginary arc above the harbor, he paused when it pointed to
+the eminence on the left, where, on the cliffs of Monaco, a large square
+edifice rose, the walls of which descended to the water's edge. It was
+the Museum of Oceanography, a fine new building in stone that, in that
+atmosphere so seldom streaked with rain, still retained its waxy
+whiteness.
+
+Don Marcos smiled at the contrast. "Don Atilio says the same thing.
+Every time he gazes at the view from here, he looks at the two buildings
+separated by the mouth of the harbor, and occupying the two
+promontories. He says the one justifies the other, and adds: 'They are
+...' What is it he says?--an antithesis. No; it's something else."
+
+The metallic booming of a gong drifted through the trees from Villa
+Sirena, summoning the guests, who were scattered through the park, or
+had not appeared as yet from their rooms. The Colonel listened with
+pleasure: "Luncheon!"
+
+He gave a last look at the two enormous buildings, one of them bristling
+with sharp and many colored pinnacles, the other plain and square, of
+uniform whiteness. Between the promontories, at the water's surface, two
+new breakwaters meet, closing the mouth of the harbor. At the outermost
+extremity of each is a beacon: one red, the other green.
+
+The Colonel tapped his brow and looked at his compatriot with a smile.
+"Oh, yes, I remember. He says the Casino and the Museum are a symbol."
+
+The little group which Castro had labelled "Enemies of Women" had now
+been in existence two weeks with no disharmony and no obstacles to the
+perfect happiness of the members. Complete freedom was theirs! Villa
+Sirena belonged to them all, and the real owner seemed merely like an
+additional guest.
+
+Arising late in the morning, Castro saw the Prince in a corner of the
+garden with his shirt open at the neck and his bare arms wielding a
+spade. The thing that made the new life complete for him was the
+cultivating of a little garden, and having the gratification of eating
+vegetables and smelling flowers that were the product of his own toil.
+This man who had always been surrounded by a corps of servants to attend
+to all his wants, was anxious now to be self-dependent, and feel the
+proud satisfaction of one who relies entirely on his own hands. Vainly
+he invited Castro to join him in this healthy, profitable exercise,
+which was at the same time a return to primitive simplicity.
+
+"Thanks; I don't care for Tolstoi. As far as the simple life goes this
+is all I want." And he stretched out on the moss, under a tree, while
+the Prince went on digging his garden. They talked for a while of their
+companions. Novoa was in the library, or wandering about the park. Some
+mornings he would take the early train for Monaco to continue his
+studies at the Museum. As for Spadoni, he never arose before noon, and
+often the Colonel would have to pound on his door so that he would not
+be late for lunch.
+
+"He never gets to sleep until dawn," said Castro. "He spends the night
+studying his notes on the way the gambling has been going. He gets into
+my room sometimes when I'm asleep, to tell me one of his everlasting
+systems that he has just discovered; and I have to threaten him with a
+slipper. In his room, among the music albums, he keeps piles of green
+sheets that give each day's plays for a year at all the various tables
+in the Casino. He's crazy."
+
+But Castro took care not to add that he often asked Spadoni to lend him
+his "archives" in order to verify his own calculations; and in spite of
+his making fun of the latter's discoveries, he used to risk a little
+money on them, through a gambler's superstition that attaches great
+value to the intuitions of the simple-minded.
+
+After luncheon, Castro and Spadoni would both hurry off to the Casino.
+The Prince, when not attending a concert, remained with Novoa and the
+Colonel in a _loggia_ on the upper story, looking out over the sea. The
+war had filled that part of the Mediterranean with shipping. In normal
+times the sea presented a deserted monotonous appearance, with nothing
+to arrest the eye save the wheeling of the gulls, the foamy leaps of the
+dolphins and the sail of an occasional fishing boat. The steamers and
+the large sailing vessels were scarcely ever to be seen even as tiny
+shadows on the horizon, following their course direct from Marseilles to
+Genoa, without following the extensive shore line of the Riviera gulf.
+But now the submarine menace had obliged the merchant ships to slip
+along within shelter of the coast. Convoys passed nearly every day;
+freighters of various nationalities, daubed like zebras to reduce their
+visibility, and escorted by French and Italian torpedo-boats.
+
+These rosaries of boats so close to the coast that one could read their
+names and distinguish their captains standing on the bridge, caused the
+Prince and the Professor to talk of the horrors of war.
+
+At times the Colonel entered the conversation, but only to lament the
+difficulties which such a war presented to the fulfillment of his duties
+as steward. Each day his task was becoming more difficult. He was no
+longer able to find anything worth serving at a table like that of the
+Prince, and even so, the prices that he paid roused his indignation when
+he compared them with those of peace times! And the servants! He had
+sent to Spain for some, now that all those from the district were in the
+army; but the hotel proprietors had immediately enticed them away. They
+all preferred to serve in cafes or in places where people are
+continually coming and going, tempted by the chance of getting tips and
+of associating with the white-aproned chamber-maids.
+
+He had improvised dining-room service with the two Italian boys from the
+Brodhigera, whose families were living in Monaco. The older and livelier
+of the two had the name of Pistola, and treated his companion in
+despotic fashion, bullying him with kicks and cuffs when the Colonel's
+back was turned. Atilio, for the sake of the rhyme, had nicknamed
+Pistola's comrade, Estola, and every one in the house accepted the name,
+even the boy himself.
+
+"When you think of the work it cost me to make decent respectable
+looking servants out of them!" groaned Toledo. "And now it seems that
+they are going to be called back to Italy as soldiers. More men off for
+the war! Even these young lads that haven't reached the age yet! What
+shall we do when Estola and Pistola go?"
+
+Many evenings, at the dinner hour, the rules of the community were
+rudely broken. The first to desert was Spadoni. He arrived sometimes
+after midnight, saying that he had dined with some friends. At other
+times he did not return at all. After a few days had gone by he would
+quietly appear, with the serene ingenuousness of a stray dog, just as
+though he had gone out only a few hours before. No one could ever find
+out exactly where he had been. He himself was not sure. "I met some
+friends." And in the same half hour, these friends would be at one
+moment some Englishmen from Nice, or at another a family from
+Cap-Martin, as though he had been in both places at the same time.
+
+Atilio also used to absent himself. A gambling companion had shown him,
+in the Casino, the little cards divided into columns, which are used to
+note the alternating frequency of "red" and "black." Various ladies had
+taken similar documents from their hand-bags, where they lay among the
+handkerchiefs, the powder boxes, the lip sticks, the banknotes, and the
+various colored chips, which are used as money in the gaming. The
+indications all agreed. During the morning and afternoon the "bets" were
+all lost, and the house was winning; but from eight o'clock in the
+evening on, undreamed-of fortune smiled on the players. The statistics
+could not be clearer; there was no possible doubt. And Castro would
+renounce the excellent food of Villa Sirena, satisfied with a glass of
+beer and a sandwich at the bar. Then at midnight he would return in a
+hired carriage, paying the astonished driver with prodigality. At other
+times he would stand in front of the gate fishing in his pockets to get
+together enough to pay for the cab. Fate had lied. Nor, on those
+occasions, would any of the prophets of the little cards have been able
+to lend him a cent.
+
+Toledo muttered protests. This lack of orderly habits made him lament
+once more the scarcity of servants. The help always got up late on
+account of having to sit up and wait at night. For that reason, on the
+nights when all the companions of the Prince were present, the Colonel
+felt the satisfaction of the Governor of a fortress when he sees all the
+posterns locked and feels the keys in his pocket. After dinner they
+would listen to Spadoni. Seated at a grand piano, he would play
+according to his mood or according to the wishes of the Prince. Lubimoff
+was a melomaniac whose musical taste was cloyed, perverted, by an
+excessive refinement. He cared only for rare works, and obscure
+composers.
+
+Castro, who was himself a pianist, at times was unable to hide his
+enthusiasm for the wonderful execution of the Italian virtuoso.
+
+"And just think that after all he is an idiot!" he exclaimed, with the
+frankness of a man who is carried away by his feelings. "All his
+faculties are warped, and narrowed, concentrated on a single purpose,
+music, without leaving anything for anything else. However, what's the
+difference? He's an idiot--but a sublime idiot."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There were nights when Spadoni remained with his elbow on the keyboard
+and his brow resting in his right hand, as though completely absorbed in
+music. As a matter of fact, the visions that were then whirling in his
+head, beneath those long locks, were red and black squares, many cards,
+and thirty-six numbers in three rows beginning with a zero. The Prince,
+annoyed by the silence, turned to Castro.
+
+"Tell us something about your grandfather, Don Enrique."
+
+This grandfather had married an aunt of General Saldana, and although
+Atilio had never known him personally he often talked about him, as a
+curious sort of person who aroused either his admiration or his bitter
+irony, according to the mood he happened to be in. This ancestor was a
+man of warlike temperament and rather perverse enthusiasms, who had
+succeeded in depleting the family fortune, already undermined by his
+predecessors. Related to a great many nobles, he usually would deny the
+relationship if forced to the point, as though it were something of
+which to be ashamed. Other members of the family might take the title of
+nobility if they chose. The motto which had figured for centuries on the
+Castro shield was an accurate summary of the man's character: "To-morrow
+more revolutionary than to-day." For thirty years there had not been a
+successful or abortive insurrection in Spain in which this
+somber-looking gentleman had not had a hand. He was very sensitive to
+insult and a great swordsman. He treated men like a despot and at the
+same time he was ready to die for the liberty of mankind.
+
+"A red Don Quixote!" said Castro.
+
+He remembered having played with the old man's sword, as a child. It was
+a Toledo weapon, inlaid with golden arabesques copied from the old sword
+of the explorer and _conquistador_, Alvaro de Castro, who had been
+Governor of the Indies. But toward the hilt of the blade, where his
+ancestors had been wont to inscribe an expression of fidelity to their
+God and King, Don Enrique had had engraved: "Long live the Republic!"
+Without this knightly sword, he refused to take part in a revolution. He
+had carried it from Sicily to Naples, following Garibaldi to dethrone
+the Bourbons. "To-morrow more revolutionary than to-day!" His companions
+soon appeared to him unspeakable reactionaries, and this caused him to
+seek new doctrines which would fully satisfy his insatiable eagerness
+for destruction and innovation. Finally, this descendant of Governors
+and Viceroys wound up in the "First International." And the most
+extraordinary thing of all was that in his new life he never lost the
+traces of his early education, his arrogance and his knightly ways,
+which caused him to consider the slightest difference of opinion as "an
+affair of honor."
+
+Over a discussion in a committee meeting, he had fought a "comrade"
+laborer in Paris. No sooner had they crossed swords than the workman
+received a cut across the head.
+
+"It is quite just," said the wounded man, wiping away the blood. "The
+Marquis, who has been able to learn the use of weapons, ought of course
+to beat a mere man of the people."
+
+Don Enrique turned pale at the irony, and to restore equality, and
+eliminate his traditional advantages, he raised his sword and gave
+himself a terrible cut across the skull, while the witnesses ran forward
+to seize him and prevent him from doing it again.
+
+After accompanying Garibaldi once more, in the War of 1870, fighting the
+Prussians at Dijon, he was drawn to Paris by the revolutionary movement
+of the Commune.
+
+"I think they made him a general," Atilio said. "He must have suffered
+heavily in that tragic farce. It is certain that he was executed by the
+government troops, and no one knows where he is buried."
+
+Atilio's admiration for his grandfather, whose life had been so
+romantic, was dampened by the thought of his mother. Poor, an orphan,
+and forgotten by her relatives, she had been obliged to marry a man old
+enough to be her father, and led the wandering life, outside of Spain,
+that is forced upon the wives of consuls. Atilio was born in Leghorn,
+and was given the name of his godfather, an old Italian gentleman, who
+was a friend of the Spanish Consul. The memory of his grandfather,
+saddened from time to time the life of his poor, resigned, and devout
+mother. In Rome, visiting Spaniards, all persons of conventional ideas
+who came to see the Pope, would look askance on learning of her birth:
+"Oh, so you are the daughter of Enrique de Castro!" And she would seem
+to shrink, and beg their pardon with her sad, humble eyes.
+
+"I don't disown my grandfather," Castro added. "I would like to have
+known him. The only thing I blame him for is that he left us so poor;
+though his forefathers had already done more than he to ruin us."
+
+On days when Atilio had lost, he was more prone to complain, recalling
+the immense estates of the Castros, gained in the conquests in America.
+
+"To-day there are large cities on the fields given by the king to my
+forefathers. One of my remote ancestors grazed horses, and built a
+colonial country house on land where at the present time you will find
+gardens, monuments, and big hotels. There were hundreds of millions of
+square yards; at a franc a yard, imagine, Michael! I would be richer
+than you, richer than all the millionaires in the world. And I'm only a
+well-dressed beggar. Good God! Why didn't my ancestors keep their land,
+instead of devoting themselves to serving the king and the people? Why
+didn't they do like any peasant who keeps religiously what has been left
+him by his ancestors?"
+
+Other evenings, seated in the _loggia_, the Prince listened to Novoa and
+gazed at the nocturnal scene of sea and sky. There was no light, save
+the veiled gleam from the distant drawing-room. The coast was dark. The
+silhouette of Monte Carlo stood out against the starry background,
+without a single dot of red. There were few street lights in the city,
+and besides, the glass of those few was painted blue. The lamps on the
+stairway of the Casino were shrouded like those of a hearse. The German
+submarine menace kept the whole Principality, as well as the French
+coast, in darkness. Only at the entrance to the harbor of Monaco, the
+two octagonal towers kept on their summit a red and a green beacon,
+which threw out over the water one shifting path of rubies, and another
+of emeralds.
+
+In the darkness, standing and looking at the stars, Novoa talked about
+the poetry of space, about distances that defy human calculations. It
+was impossible for Spadoni to follow this talk with the same attention
+as the Prince and Castro. What did the so-called tri-colored star matter
+to him? The millions and millions of leagues that the scientist spoke of
+merely made him yawn; and through an association of ideas, he became
+absorbed in gambling, mentally, imagining that he was winning fifty
+times in succession, doubling each time.
+
+He wagered a simple five franc piece--the smallest bet allowed in the
+Casino--and at the end of the twenty-fifth bet he stopped as though
+horror-struck. He had won more than a hundred and sixty-seven million
+francs. In only twenty-five minutes! The Casino was closing its doors,
+declaring the bank broken! But this was not enough to bring him out of
+his dream. The marvellous five franc piece remained on the green cloth
+beside a mountain of money which kept growing and growing. He must
+finish the fifty bets, always doubling. He continued for five more times
+and then stopped. He had already won more than five thousand million
+francs. They would have to hand over the entire Principality of Monaco
+to him, and even that would not be enough perhaps to pay the debt. The
+thirty-fifth time the simple "napoleon" had become a hundred seventy-one
+billions of francs. They wouldn't pay him; he was sure of that. It would
+be necessary for all the great powers of Europe to ally themselves as
+though for a great war, and even then perhaps, he, the pianist, Teofilo
+Spadoni, would not accept the credit they might offer him.
+
+He could no longer make the calculations mentally. The twentieth time he
+had been obliged to have resource to the pencil which he used in the
+Casino to note results of the various plays, and to the cards divided in
+columns which were distributed by the employees. The back of the card
+was rather narrow for his winnings, which kept growing so tremendously
+that they had reached fantastic sums. He continued his triumphant
+playing. At the fortieth winning he stopped. Five million million
+francs. Decidedly neither Europe nor the entire world would be able to
+pay him. The nations would have to put themselves up for sale, the globe
+would be put on public auction, the women would all have to sell their
+bodies and give him the proceeds; and even so it would be necessary to
+ask him for several thousands of years in which to pay the debt to him,
+the creditor of the universe, seated on his piano stool as though on a
+throne.
+
+But although he was certain that he was being deceived, since no one on
+earth or heaven could guarantee the bank, he went on playing. There were
+only ten more bets to be made. And when he had made the fiftieth he had
+a sudden stroke of generosity. In his mind he gave the employees of the
+Casino thousands, millions, and millions of millions. For himself he
+only kept the amount that figured at the head of his winnings, and wrote
+on his card:
+
+5,000,000,000,000,000 francs.
+
+Five thousand billions! For fifty minutes' work, that wasn't bad.
+
+Suddenly his attention was attracted by the silence in which the Prince
+and Castro were listening to Novoa, and he fixed his visionary gaze on
+the latter, his eyes still dazzled by the golden whirl of the Vision.
+
+The scientist too was talking about millions of millions, figures which
+words would not express, and was going into detail, repeating dozens of
+ciphers one after the other. He thought he heard the professor surmising
+the age which the sun would reach in time--here an interminable
+figure--the disappearance of the present forms of life, the recession of
+the heavenly body towards an exceedingly remote constellation, and its
+final extinction and death--here another appalling sum.
+
+Spadoni smiled disdainfully. The sun, the constellation of Hercules, the
+hundred million years that it would take for the former to reach the
+earth, the seventeen million years that it would require to lose its
+incandescence, and cease furnishing warmth for life on earth, and all
+the other calculations of the scientist were as nothing, mere nothing!
+If he were to put his money on the green table fifty times more, the
+figures obtained by astronomy would appear paltry and ridiculous beside
+the winnings obtained in an hour and forty minutes. God alone could be
+the banker, and pay with stars as though they were money; and who knows
+if God himself would be able to withstand the hundredth time the five
+franc piece was wagered, always doubling, and if he would not have to
+declare his bank was broken?
+
+Spadoni remained for some time absorbed in inner contemplation of his
+greatness. Coming out of his revery he became aware of Novoa's voice
+which still sounded a note of mystery, before that dark horizon, dotted
+above with the points of light from the stars, and undulating below with
+the phosphorescence of the waves.
+
+The Prince urged him to talk of the sea as the regulator and origin of
+life. The pianist heard it said that the sea covers three-fourths of the
+globe, and, as it represents a large preponderance over the continents,
+the latter, though they consider themselves superior, are dominated by
+the former, just as governments are obliged to yield to universal
+suffrage and respect the strength of majorities. All the great
+atmospheric laws are established, not on the lesser surface of the land,
+which is rough and broken, but on the vast ocean spaces, which allow the
+molecules freely to obey the mechanical laws of fluids.
+
+Spadoni touched Castro on the elbow, and tried to tell him in a low
+voice about the unheard-of winnings that he had just made. But Atilio,
+without turning around, brushed the interrupting hand aside, and went on
+listening.
+
+Novoa was talking about the hot waters which condensed on the globe in
+the primordial atmosphere, and had been precipitated on the crust of the
+earth which was then in formation, dissolving and tearing down
+everything in their way on the new-born surface.
+
+"With the salt that there is in the ocean," Novoa said, "one could
+reconstruct the entire African continent."
+
+The pianist stirred once more in his seat. An Africa made of salt! What
+could you do with it?
+
+"Castro, listen to me," he said in a low voice. "I put five francs on a
+certain bet, fifty times in succession, doubling each time, do you
+know?"
+
+But the latter was not interested, and rejected the piece of cardboard
+held out to him.
+
+Spadoni, offended, shut his eyes, deciding to isolate himself from the
+rest, and not listen to what did not seem to him of any importance. If
+the scientist was going to talk every evening, he would dispense with
+the hospitality of the Prince, and go in search of other friends.
+
+Suddenly, a word caught his ear and drew him from his shell, causing him
+to open his eyes. The Professor was talking about the gold that had been
+washed away by the boiling rains at the creation of the globe, and was
+still present in solution in the sea.
+
+"There are only a few milligrams in each ton of water, but with all that
+there is in the ocean one could form a heap so immense, that, if it were
+divided equally among the thousand five hundred million inhabitants of
+the earth, we would each get an eighty-five thousand pound ingot, or
+some forty tons of gold."
+
+The pianist craned his neck in amazement. What was the Professor saying?
+
+"And," Novoa continued, "according to the value of gold before the war,
+each person's ingot would represent some hundred and twenty million
+francs."
+
+The silence was broken by a whistling sound. Castro turned his head,
+thinking that Spadoni was snoring. Observing the pianist's staring eyes,
+he realized that this was a sigh, of real emotion, an exclamation of
+surprise.
+
+"I'll give my share for a hundred thousand francs in bank-notes," he
+said in solemn tones.
+
+And as the others laughed, he remained with his eyes fixed on Novoa. The
+sea! Who would have thought that the sea!... That scientist knew a great
+deal; and as for himself, with sudden awe and respect, he determined
+that hereafter he would always listen to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One night, Atilio and the Prince were eating alone. On leaving the
+Casino, the pianist had gone off to Nice with some English friends of
+his, who played poker in their landau. Novoa had been invited to dine
+with a colleague from the Museum and would not be back until midnight.
+
+Michael was thinking of his impressions of that afternoon. He had gone
+to the Casino to attend a classical concert, determined to face the
+obsequious curiosity of the employees, and take the risk of running
+across former friends. From the outer stairway to the door of the
+theater he had been obliged to reply to the series of deep bows from the
+various functionaries, some with military caps and gold buttons, others
+in solemn frock coats, stiff and dignified like lawyers in a play. The
+people who were passing through the portico noticed him immediately.
+"Prince Lubimoff!" They all remembered his yacht, his adventures, and
+his parties, and repeated his name like the glorious echo of a
+resurrected past. He had been obliged to hurry through the groups at top
+speed, with a vague stare, feigning absentmindedness, so as not to see
+certain well-known smiles, and certain inviting faces which evoked sweet
+visions of by-gone days.
+
+In the auditorium he looked for a seat where he would be entirely
+inconspicuous, some corner divan, close to the wall; but even there he
+was annoyed by the curiosity of the crowd. Around the leader of the
+orchestra were the most famous musicians, those who prided themselves on
+the title of "Soloists to His Most Serene Highness the Prince of
+Monaco." Some of them had sailed with Prince Michael on his yacht, as
+members of the orchestra. During a pause in the music, the first violin,
+in looking around the room to see if he could recognize any of his
+admirers, discovered Lubimoff, and communicated his surprise at once to
+the other soloists. They all smiled in his direction, and showed on
+their faces that they were dedicating to him alone the music which was
+rising from their instruments. Finally the public began to notice the
+gentleman who was half hidden, and who was gradually attracting the
+attention of the entire orchestra.
+
+When the concert was over Lubimoff left hurriedly, afraid of being
+stopped by certain former women friends whom he had observed in the
+audience. He crossed the portico brusquely, elbowing his way through the
+crowd that barred the way. Here his attention was caught by a person of
+majestic bearing and exclusive showy appearance, with a derby of smooth
+gray silk, a honey colored overcoat with velvet sleeves of the same
+shade, and white gloves and shoes. His gray side-whiskers joined his
+mustache; his hair was parted away down to his neck, and over his ears
+strayed two locks of hair, cut short and dyed and shining with
+cosmetics.
+
+"I thought it was a Russian general or some Austrian of note dressed for
+winter, with an elegance worthy of the Riviera, and I find it's you, my
+dear Colonel. I hadn't seen you outside of Villa Sirena before."
+
+Toledo blushed, not knowing whether to feel proud or annoyed, at these
+words.
+
+"Your Excellency, I always liked to dress well, and...."
+
+"Who was the lady you were talking with?"
+
+"It was the Infanta. She was telling me that she had lost seven thousand
+francs that were sent to her from Italy, and that she hasn't the money
+to pay her living expenses, and...."
+
+"The tall, thin one, with the big cow-boy hat? No, not that one. I was
+asking you about the other."
+
+He had only seen "the other" from behind, but she had attracted his
+attention for the moment because of her svelte figure and her queenly
+carriage.
+
+"Your Excellency," said Don Marcos, hesitatingly, "that was the Duchess
+de Delille."
+
+There was a moment's silence, and as though the Prince had caught him
+doing something wrong, that he must apologize for, he hastened to add:
+
+"She is very kind to the Infanta. She gives her children clothes, and I
+think she even lends her dresses. The daughter of a King! The
+grand-daughter of San Fernando! I am an old legitimist soldier, and the
+least I can do is be grateful that...."
+
+Michael cut his excuses short with a gesture. That was enough: he did
+not want to hear any more. And he turned to Castro. He had seen him too,
+near the entrance to the Casino, talking to another lady.
+
+"And I saw you, too," said Atilio, "but you were in such a rush, going
+along with your head down, making your way like a mad bull. Do you want
+to know who the lady is? Does she interest you?"
+
+Lubimoff shrugged his shoulders; but his indifference was feigned. As a
+matter of fact she had interested him, although slightly. The unknown
+woman was tall and blond, with an air of lithe strength, with the
+freedom of movement of a gymnast or an amazon.
+
+"Well, that's the _'Generala_,'" Castro continued without observing that
+his friend was not paying much heed. "The title of '_Generala_' isn't to
+be taken seriously. It's a pet name. I think the Duchess invented it,
+for I warn you the two are very good friends. She's a 'General' in the
+same way that certain other people are Colonels."
+
+Don Marcos overlooked this bit of irony. Atilio was evidently in a bad
+humor that evening. His nerves were on edge, and he seemed ready to snap
+at any one. He must have lost in the gambling.
+
+"They call her the 'Generala' because of her somewhat masculine
+character, and the brusque way she has of treating people at times. An
+extraordinary woman! A real amazon! She shoots, does gymnastics, swims
+in the rivers in mid-winter, and what's more she has a voice like the
+sighing of the breeze, and looks as though she were going to faint at
+the least emotion, like a timid girl. Do you want to know who she is?
+Her name is Clorinda, a name of ancient poetry, or ancient comedy. I
+always call her Dona Clorinda; it seems as though it would be
+disrespectful if I didn't, in spite of the fact that she is still young.
+Perhaps two or three years younger than her friend Alicia. The two hate
+each other, and they can't live apart. One week each month they clash,
+call each other names, and tell the most horrible tales about each
+other; then they look each other up; 'How are you, my dear?' 'Are you
+angry with me, angel?'"
+
+The Prince smiled at Atilio's imitation of the words and gestures of the
+two ladies.
+
+"Clorinda is an American," Castro continued, "but from South America,
+from a little Republic where her grandfathers and great-grandfathers
+were Presidents, and fighters, and fathers of their country. Her title
+of 'Generala' has a certain basis. Over there in her native land they
+admire her for her beauty and for the great sensation she is supposed to
+have caused in Europe. At a distance, you see, everything is changed and
+seems much greater. Her picture is public property, and figures on every
+package of coffee, and every advertising prospectus in the country. She
+is a national beauty; and when she gets old, there will always be a spot
+in the world where she will be considered eternally youthful. She got
+married in Paris to a young Frenchman, a dreamer, rather ill with
+tuberculosis. That was the very reason why the 'Generala' loved him. If
+she had married a strong, fiery sort of man, they would have killed each
+other in a few days. She is a widow now. I don't think she is very rich;
+the war must have diminished her income, but she has enough to live
+comfortably. I even imagine she must suffer fewer hardships than does
+the Delille woman. She is an exceedingly well-balanced person."
+
+He remained silent for a moment.
+
+"But she has such queer ideas! She is so used to dominating! I met her
+in Biarritz some years ago. I have seen her here often in the gaming
+rooms; we have bowed to each other and had a few conversations which did
+not amount to much. When a woman is placing her stakes she doesn't allow
+compliments that might distract her attention. To-day is the first time
+that I have talked with her at any length. Do you know what she asked
+me, the very first thing? Why I wasn't in the war. It didn't make any
+difference when I told her that I'm neutral, and that the war doesn't
+interest me. 'If I were a man, I would be a soldier,' she said. And if
+you had only seen the look she gave when she said it!"
+
+Lubimoff smiled a bit scornfully at the woman's words.
+
+"In her opinion," Castro went on saying, "every man ought to work at
+something, produce something, be a hero. She adored her poor husband,
+gentle as a sick lamb, because he painted a few pale, washed-out
+pictures, and had been rewarded in some slight degree at various
+expositions. Men like you and me, in her eyes, are a variety of 'supers'
+hired to give life to the drawing-rooms, casinos, and bathing resorts,
+to keep the conversation going, and be nice to the ladies; but we don't
+interest her. She told me so this afternoon once again."
+
+"Does her opinion bother you?" asked the Prince.
+
+Atilio paused for a moment, as though to weigh his words before
+replying.
+
+"Yes, it does bother me," he resolutely answered at last. "Why should I
+deny it? That woman interests me. When I don't see her, I forget all
+about her. Months and years have gone by without my giving her a
+thought. But as soon as I meet her she dominates me.... I want her. I
+know I can't come up to you in such matters, but I've had successful
+love affairs too. But she is so different from the others! Besides,
+there's the joy in conquering, the need of dominating, that you find at
+the bottom of all our amorous desires! Every time we talk together, and
+she makes quite evident, with her bird-like voice and her smile of
+compassion, the distance that separates us, I come away sad, or rather,
+discouraged, as though I had to climb a great height, of which I would
+never reach the top, no matter how hard I tried. To-day I ought to be
+happy; it has been months since I've had an afternoon like this. I've
+played, and look ... look! Seventeen thousand francs!"
+
+He had taken from his inner pocket a bundle of blue bank-notes, throwing
+it on the table with a certain fury.
+
+"I succeeded in winning as high as twenty-six thousand. If there is
+anything in the saying, 'Lucky at cards, unlucky in love,' I was as
+lucky as a despairing lover or a deceived husband. And yet, I'm not
+happy."
+
+The Prince smiled again, as though a self-evident truth had just been
+completely demonstrated. Woman! That Clorinda, that devil of a
+"Generala," was a real "woman." With a few short minutes of conversation
+only, she had turned Castro topsy-turvy, and perhaps would end by
+breaking up the peaceful life--without exciting pleasures but without
+desperate sorrows as well--that the guests at Villa Sirena were leading.
+
+"And you, Atilio," he said in a reproachful voice, "are moved by that
+smooth-voiced virago. You believe in love like a school-boy."
+
+Castro replied in a cold, aggressive tone. The Prince might say whatever
+he liked about him; but to call her a virago!... What right had he?
+Nevertheless he hid the real cause of his annoyance, pretending to be
+hurt by the allusion to his credulity.
+
+"I don't believe in anything; I'm more skeptical than you perhaps. I
+know that everything about us is false, and conventional--all a matter
+of lies that we accept because they are necessary to us for the moment.
+You love music and painting as though they were something divine and
+eternal. Very well; if the structure of our ears were to be modified a
+little, the symphonies of Beethoven would be a regular din; if the
+functioning of our retinas were to change, we would have to burn all the
+famous pictures, because they would seem like so many canvases dirtied
+by a child's play; if our brains were to be modified, all the poets and
+thinkers would become childish idiots for us. No, I don't believe in
+anything," he insisted angrily. "In order to live and understand one
+another, we have to agree upon a high and a low, a left and a right; but
+even that is a lie, since we live in the infinite which has no limits.
+Everything we consider fundamental is simply a matter of lines that have
+been laid down on the canvas of life to mark off our various
+conceptions."
+
+The Prince shrugged his shoulders, giving him a look of surprise. Why
+all this, apropos of a woman?
+
+"Everything is a lie," Castro went on; "but that is no reason why I
+should live like a stone or a tree. I need sweet falsehoods to sing my
+mind to sleep until the hour of my death. Illusions are a lie, but I
+want them near me; hope is another lie, but I want it to walk before
+me. I don't believe in love, since I don't believe in anything.
+Everything you say against it I have known for years; but should I give
+it a kick if it comes my way, and wants to go with me? Do you know any
+dream that fills the emptiness of our lives better--even though it lasts
+only a short time?"
+
+Michael greeted his friend's enthusiasm with a sardonic gesture.
+
+"Do you know why I look younger than I am?" Atilio continued, more and
+more excitedly. "Do you know I shall be young when others of my own age
+have become old men? I pretend to be ironical. As a matter of fact I'm a
+skeptic. But I have a secret, the secret of eternal youth, which I keep
+to myself. Let me tell you what it is. I have discovered that the
+greatest wisdom in life, the most important thing, is to 'while away the
+time'; and I fill the emptiness that every man carries inside him with
+an orchestra; the orchestra of my illusions. The great thing is that it
+play all the time, that the music rack never be empty; once one piece is
+played, another must take its place. At times it is a symphony of love.
+Mine have been beautiful but brief. For that reason I have replaced them
+with another which is endless--that of ambition and the desire for gain,
+whose orbits are infinite like those of the stars in the heavens, and
+like the possible combinations of cards. I gamble. In the whirl of the
+roulette wheel I see a castle that may be mine, a more sumptuous castle
+than any in existence; a finer yacht than the one you used to have;
+endless _fetes_. Through a pack of cards I can contemplate things more
+magnificent than were dreamed of by the Persian story-tellers. Its
+suites are so many piles of precious gems. Most of the time I lose, and
+the orchestra plays an accompaniment on muted strings, with a funeral
+march of wondrous wild sadness and beauty; but after a few measures,
+the march becomes a hymn of triumph, the dawning of a new day, the
+resurrection of hope."
+
+And now there was a look of pity in the eyes of the Prince. "He is mad,"
+it seemed to say.
+
+"This afternoon," Castro continued, "my orchestra made me acquainted
+with a new symphony, something I had never heard before. While I was
+winning money I did not think a single time about myself, nor about
+palaces, nor yachts, nor parties. I was thinking only of the 'Generala,'
+and thinking of her with real hate, wanting to get revenge. I wanted to
+win a hundred thousand francs--who knows, I may win it to-morrow--and
+spend the whole hundred thousand on a pearl necklace, on leaving the
+Casino, and send it to her anonymously with something like this: 'As a
+tribute of dislike from a worthless, miserable man.'"
+
+A burst of laughter from the Prince woke the Colonel with a start. As a
+good early riser, the latter had gone to sleep in his chair. Observing
+that His Excellency was not paying any attention to him, he slipped out
+of the Hall, as though he had something of more importance to attend to
+than the conversation of the two friends who seemed to ignore his
+presence.
+
+"But what do you find in love?" Michael asked. "For I think you know
+what love really is. All the illusions of adolescence, and all the
+idealism of poetry, are merely winding paths which lead to the same, the
+only goal; the physical act. And aren't you tired of that? Aren't you
+never daunted by the monotony of it?"
+
+There was a certain gloomy intonation in the Prince's voice, as though
+he were lamenting over the ruin of all his own life. He had met hundreds
+of women of the sort that cause a sudden burst of mute desire as they
+pass. Feminine resistance was something unknown to him. More than that:
+women had sought him, coming half-way of their own free will, pursuing
+him with no regard for the conventions and modesty, obliging him, as a
+matter of masculine pride, to overtax his powers with a prodigality that
+made pleasure almost painful. And they were all alike! He understood the
+mirage of illusion in the things that one admires from afar, and has no
+hope of obtaining. It is our curiosity for what is hidden, the desire
+which is aroused by an obstacle, the inner fancies inspired by clothes,
+ornaments, everything which covers the feminine body, giving to its
+sameness the charm of a mystery which is ever renewed. As for him, alas,
+it was as though they all went nude. Nothing could stimulate his
+interest; it was all too familiar.
+
+"Besides," and here his voice grew quieter, "I wouldn't confess it to
+any one else; but love and women make me think of the miserableness of
+human life, the inevitable end, death. Since I've been freed from their
+false seductions, I feel gayer, more sure of myself; I enjoy more
+frankly the passing moment. I don't want to talk to you about the shame
+of those bodies which we claim to be divine. Women are less wholesome
+than men. It was Nature's will. But that isn't what makes me flee from
+them."
+
+He was silent for a moment, but then added shortly after:
+
+"Whenever I am near a woman I can't help but see the image of death.
+When I caress her silky hair, I suddenly seem to feel a smooth, hard
+yellow skull, like those one sees protruding from the ground in
+abandoned cemeteries. A kiss on her mouth, or a nibble at her chin,
+rouses in me a vision of the bony jaw with its teeth, not so different
+from those of the anthropoids in the museums. Those eyes will fade; that
+nose with its graceful curves and rosy quivering nostrils will dissolve
+likewise; the only solid and permanent parts are the black sockets, and
+the grotesque grin of the skull, with its flattened nose. Those swelling
+breasts are nothing more than false padding to hide the ghastly cage of
+the ribs; those legs, which seem to us such wonderful columns, are
+stringy flesh and water that will waste away, leaving bare two long
+calcareous pipe-stems. We imagine we are adoring supreme beauty, and we
+are embracing a skeleton. The image of death fills us with horror, and
+every woman carries one within her, and compels us to worship it."
+
+Now it was Castro's turn to gaze in astonishment. His eyes, fixed on the
+Prince, seemed to say: "He is mad."
+
+"The trouble with you, Michael, is that you've over-enjoyed," he said
+after a long pause. "You make me think of the people who, when they sit
+down to the table, hide their lack of appetite with nausea. The most
+succulent meat for them suggests the horrors of the slaughter house.
+Bread reminds them of the hands that kneaded it, and wine calls up a
+picture of feet reeking with juice in the vintage-troughs. But just let
+their senses awaken, and their physical needs reassert themselves, and
+they see everything in a different light, as though the sun had just
+risen, and they find an indescribable charm in the very things that
+disgusted them. What difference is it to me if a woman has a skeleton
+inside? I have one too, and that doesn't prevent me from taking a great
+deal of joy in the pleasures of life, and considering love as the most
+interesting of all those pleasures."
+
+Castro laughed with affectionate compassion as he looked at his friend.
+
+"Let me say it again, you are satiated; you have the lack of appetite
+and the gloomy vision of a person suffering from a painful indigestion.
+You are still too young for this debility to last. You will recover.
+Your appetite will come back. I hope you won't find the table set
+exactly as in the past, that you will be swept off your feet by some
+obstacle, in other words, that unrequital will make you suffer; and then
+... well, just wait till then!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Don Marcos had never seen the Prince so vexed as he was that morning,
+when he announced that the Duchess de Delille was waiting for him
+down-stairs in the hall.
+
+"You should have told her I'd gone out; any sort of a pretext--a lunch
+at Nice.... There must be some understanding between you. You certainly
+look out for your Infanta!"
+
+The Colonel, flushed with emotion, made an effort to reply to these
+accusations. If the Duchess had now suddenly presented herself, it was
+perhaps because he had refused to take any of her messages for the
+Prince.
+
+As the latter went down to the hall, he ran straight into Alicia, who
+was standing close to a window, and looking at the gardens and the sea.
+Her back was towards him, just as he had seen her coming out of the
+concert. When she turned her head, Michael thought to himself that he
+would surely never have recognized her had he met her anywhere else. She
+was a beautiful woman, but scarcely like the person he had seen that
+last time in the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, with its weird oriental
+nick-nacks and unwholesome perfumes. Several years of her life had
+passed away since then, and yet she seemed fresher, and younger. Her
+eyes had lost the veiled disturbing fire, that made them look larger,
+and gave them a fixed, unnatural stare. The dull, sickly whiteness of
+her skin had taken on color from the sun and the open air. Her airy,
+undulating litheness had become less willowy, giving her person the calm
+tranquillity of bodies that are beginning to crystallize in their
+definitive form.
+
+The Prince, interrupted by Alicia's smiling glance, was unable to
+continue his scrutiny. It seemed from her quiet easy manner as though
+she had been there in that very place only the day before. Moreover,
+Michael suddenly began to wonder how he should start the conversation.
+Should he talk English or French? Should he speak informally as
+before?... She put an end to his hesitation, speaking familiarly in
+Spanish, just as when they were children.
+
+"How hard it is to get in touch with you! Practically impossible,"
+Alicia said as she sat down, after shaking hands with him. "So I decided
+to pay you this visit. It isn't exactly proper for a lady to call on a
+person with such a terrible reputation as you have; but I'm not the
+first one who has come here. There have been lots of others!"
+
+She laughed teasingly as she said this. Immediately she became serious,
+and said timidly:
+
+"I came here on business--a money matter."
+
+Not wanting to take up such a subject at once, she talked about the
+obstacles which had obliged her to come unannounced to Villa Sirena. The
+Prince could have absolute confidence in the fidelity with which his
+"chamberlain" carried out his orders. This Colonel was a nice fellow,
+but there was no approaching him, any more than a ferocious dog, when
+some one tries to make him disobey his master. She had vainly asked him
+to announce her visit; and he had even refused to accept her card for
+his Prince.
+
+"I might have written you; but I was afraid you wouldn't reply, or would
+simply tell me to deal with your agent in Paris. It has been such a long
+time since we've seen each other! Our friendship has been so
+intermittent! So that is why I finally decided last night to come and
+surprise you in your den, with the hope that you wouldn't show me the
+door."
+
+Michael smiled, making a gesture of indignant denial.
+
+"I came about my debt ... the loans your mother made me some time ago. I
+didn't know how much they amounted to. Your agent now says they are over
+four hundred thousand francs. It must be so, if he maintains it. At
+times when I was in straits I asked for something, and the Princess, who
+was such a great lady, kept giving and giving, without either of us
+paying any attention to the amounts. Now I see how tremendously generous
+she must have been."
+
+This was surprising news for Lubimoff. Then he gradually recalled that
+when his mother died she had left a long memorandum of all the loans she
+had made, and that Alicia's name figured among the debtors. But he had
+left the papers in the hands of his administrator, without thinking any
+more about the matter.
+
+He immediately understood the reason for Alicia's visit. His agent had
+wanted to raise some money, and owing to the lack of funds from Russia,
+he was raising all he could in the West: credits ... advances made to
+friends or dependents, guaranty deposits, and even the loans made by the
+Princess, which, according to his express orders, were not to be
+demanded except in case of strict necessity.
+
+The general pressure of circumstances had reached Alicia. For the last
+four months the Lubimoff estate had been sending her letter after
+letter, demanding the payment of her enormous debt. Already the agent's
+last note had become threatening because of her silence. It notified her
+that action would be brought against her in court. The estate was
+holding many of her letters thanking the Princess for the latter's
+generosity. Besides, all the money had been paid by checks cashed by
+the Duchess herself.
+
+"Your administrator is certainly an insolent fellow. The other day I saw
+you in the Casino,--I saw you from behind as you were running away from
+people. You frightened me: I imagined then that you had changed, that
+you were very different from the man I knew, and that we would never
+come to an understanding. Later I thought you mustn't be quite so
+terrible as you seem ... and I came."
+
+Michael, remaining silent, seemed to be saying something with his eyes,
+which were fixed on Alicia. Well, why had she come? What was it she
+wished to propose to him?
+
+She smiled with an expression of cynical amusement.
+
+"I came to tell you that I can't pay now--and perhaps never; to beg you
+to wait, I don't know how long, and to ask you to see that that
+disagreeable fellow who is managing your estate doesn't annoy me with
+his insolence."
+
+And as the Prince made no move, she continued,
+
+"I'm ruined."
+
+"So am I," said Michael. "We're all ruined. The munition makers are the
+only people with any money now."
+
+"Oh! You ruined!" Alicia protested. "With you it is simply a question of
+being hard pressed for the moment. Things in Russia will be straightened
+out some time or other. Besides, you are Prince Lubimoff, the famous
+millionaire. If I had your name, who would refuse me a loan?"
+
+Suddenly she lost the audacious smile which she had worked up for the
+interview. Her eyes grew darker; the corners of her mouth drooped.
+
+"I am really ruined. Look."
+
+She pointed to the triangle of bare flesh visible at the throat of her
+low cut dress. A pearl necklace rested on her white bosom. Michael, as
+she insisted, finally looked at the pearls. False, scandalously false;
+all the luster gone, opaque and yellow as drops of wax. He knew
+something about pearls; he had given away so many necklaces! Then Alicia
+showed him her hands. Two artistically made finger rings, but without
+any jewels, and of slight intrinsic value, were all that adorned her
+fingers.
+
+"This is a last year's dress," she added in a mournful voice, as though
+confessing something most shameful. "They won't trust me any more in
+Paris. I owe so much! Nothing but the hat is new. What woman, no matter
+how poor she might feel, wouldn't buy a hat! It is the most conspicuous
+thing about one,--something that changes all the time; and must be
+looked after at all costs. Luckily, on account of the war, they are not
+using plumes.... I'm poor, Michael, poorer than any woman you ever
+knew."
+
+"And your mother?"
+
+The Prince asked this instinctively, without thinking. A moment later he
+suspected that he had read, some years before, he didn't know where,
+perhaps while he was roving the seas, the news of the death of Dona
+Mercedes. He was not sure; but her daughter removed all doubt.
+
+"Poor senora! Let's not talk about her."
+
+But nevertheless Alicia did talk, but only to lament her mother's devout
+prodigality. She had given millions for the construction of an enormous
+hospital in Spain, on the advice of her Aragonese chaplain, the
+astronomer of the Champs-Elysees. Marble was used in the construction
+for the mere masonry; the garden fence was forged by a celebrated
+Parisian artist who devoted himself to molding bronze statues for
+drawing-rooms. But when the vicar left, tired of such generosity, the
+monster building remained unfinished, and the precious fence lay on the
+ground in pieces, like so much old iron. Later, the "Monsignor" directed
+the worthy lady's funds into other channels. It was necessary to spread
+the faith by means of the "good book," and a new publishing house arose
+in Paris, which was most extraordinary and unheard of. Packages of books
+were stored on mahogany shelves, and the leaves were folded on lacquer
+tables.
+
+"The priests got everything that belonged to me," Alicia continued. "At
+times they egged mamma on to the most absurd outlays of money just for
+the sake of collecting commissions from the contractors. From numerous
+belfries in both hemispheres chimes rang thanks to Dona Mercedes. One
+entire bell foundry was kept going just on mamma's gifts. Besides, she
+was often carried away by a sort of loving weakness for all the saints
+who were not especially famous.
+
+"In her last years she devoted herself to 'launching' saints. Every one
+in the calendar who was little known, or of some unusual name, aroused
+in her the desire to repair a great injustice. She had their lives
+written, churches dedicated to them; and corresponded with the high
+dignitaries of Rome to push many a dead man, who had waited centuries in
+vain for the hour when he should become a Saint."
+
+Lubimoff finally began to laugh at the resentful tone in which Alicia
+spoke of her mother's mystic pleasures. Dona Mercedes was a great one!
+And finally she began to laugh likewise.
+
+"In that way all our income, which was enormous, was spent. She should
+have left me a real fortune, unencumbered, in the bank. A lady that
+spent so little on herself! And nevertheless, I had to pay out huge sums
+for all the orders she had contracted before her death. You can be sure
+the Monsignor and the rest of them are much richer than I."
+
+"How about your mines? And your lands in Mexico?"
+
+The Duchess repeated the same gesture of despair. It was as though they
+did not exist! She was poor, absolutely poor.
+
+"You say you are ruined, and you haven't suffered from the money
+shortage for more than the last two years, perhaps less. I haven't seen
+a cent of my fortune for some time before the war. Every one is talking
+about Russia, and Bolshevism, because it is something that concerns the
+Old World directly. But how about Mexico, and the situation there which
+goes back to the time when Europe was at peace?"
+
+Her lands had been lost as though they were so much personal property,
+that could be transported and hidden. An agrarian revolution, the echoes
+of which had scarcely reached the Old Continent, had swallowed them up,
+suppressing all traces of her former property rights. The half-breeds
+had divided them to suit themselves, to work them, or leave them more
+unproductive than before. To whom could she appeal, if these lands were
+in provinces that were constantly changing hands, and the Mexican
+government had no authority over them?
+
+The silver mines, which for three generations of Barrios had been the
+basis of their fortune, were in a still worse situation.
+
+"One of the so-called 'Generals,' an Indian, has fortified himself in
+the territory where my mines are, and from there he defies the rulers in
+the Capital. They tell me that every month he takes out half a million
+francs in silver bars. He cuts them up in disks, puts his stamp on them
+and makes money thus to pay his men. You can imagine he has plenty of
+followers, with pure silver money, worth more than that of civilized
+countries! They will never be able to put him out; all he has to do to
+create armies for himself is to dig down into what belongs to me. This
+bad joke has gone on now for several years; I, who live in Europe,
+getting poorer and poorer every day, am paying for an endless war on the
+other side of the earth."
+
+In spite of the fact that the Prince had never taken care of his own
+business he wanted to give her some advice. She ought to go over there
+and ask for assistance; she was born in the United States.
+
+"I've already seen to that," she replied. "I have some one in New York
+who looks after my affairs. But would they go to war just on my account?
+Perhaps I shall take the trip later. Not now: I haven't the strength.
+There is something that is bothering me terribly just now, and it would
+be even worse if I were to leave France."
+
+Her eyes began to fill with tears. Her face contracted with an
+expression of pain, and her hand moved toward her purse for a
+handkerchief. Michael recalled the young man that Castro had been
+noticing at Alicia's side during the last few years. Perhaps he was the
+cause of her emotion, and inability to make the trip.
+
+"Love!" he thought to himself. "Love, even now when she's growing old."
+
+He tried to change the conversation and asked about the Duke de Delille.
+He knew that he was at the front; and even thought he remembered a
+report of his being wounded in one of the early battles. Was he still
+alive?
+
+In speaking of her husband, Alicia looked grave, to Michael's great
+surprise. Formerly she used to treat him with a certain scorn. He had
+accepted his wife's freedom, with all its consequences, in exchange for
+an enormous allowance. They lived apart, and although she found her
+independence very sweet, she could not help but feel a sort of feminine
+dislike for her accommodating husband, so little given to tragic
+jealousy. But at present her ideas seemed to have changed, and she
+spoke rapidly as though afraid of noticing Lubimoff smile as she used to
+smile herself, in mentioning the Duke.
+
+"Yes; he joined the service. You know of course that he is some twenty
+years older than I. He was exempted from bearing arms on account of his
+age; but he remembered that he had been an officer in his youth, and was
+one of the first to go. Who would have thought it of a man who didn't
+seem to have any cares, and made fun of everything that didn't affect
+his own selfish pleasures!"
+
+The Germans had picked him up in a dying condition during one of their
+victorious advances at the beginning of the war. He was covered with
+wounds. After two years as a prisoner they had exchanged him as useless,
+and he was living interned in Switzerland, with one arm gone.
+
+"Poor man! He writes me every month. He fishes in Lake Geneva, and
+thinks of me more than he ever thought before. His epistles are almost
+love letters. What a transformation misfortune can make in a character.
+He says that he sees life from a different angle; and hopes that after
+the cataclysm, which will have made us better, we shall be able to come
+together again, and be happy. Oh, if only I could want to!..."
+
+Her tone was ironical as she spoke of this illusionary happiness, but at
+the same time there was in it a note of respect and admiration. The Duke
+whom she had known as a great dowry hunter, accommodating and
+unscrupulous, was forgotten. At present she saw in him only the
+white-haired warrior, the invalid, who according to the doctors, would
+not live long, owing to the operations he had undergone. And she was
+trying to keep up the exile's hopes, replying to his long letters, with
+brief, affectionate notes.
+
+"So it's on account of your husband that you don't take the trip?"
+Michael asked, pretending that he was inquiring in good faith.
+
+Alicia was ruffled by such a supposition. Poor Delille! It was something
+else that was troubling her. Her husband wasn't the only one who had
+gone to war. There were others, who were younger, and had better reasons
+to love life, but who had suffered the same fate. How many hidden griefs
+there were these days!
+
+The Duchess's eyes moistened, and her eyes and lips frankly expressed
+her sorrow.
+
+"It's the little lover; there's no doubt of it," Michael said to
+himself. "It's the young chap Castro saw."
+
+As though she read his thoughts and were anxious to switch them, Alicia
+began to talk once more about the reason for her visit, and about her
+situation.
+
+The Prince nodded when she described to him her amazement at finding
+that wealth was not something infinite and immutable, and that it was
+slipping from her grasp ... slipping and slipping, without her being
+able to do anything to avoid the gradual ruin.
+
+"I sold inopportunely; I took the money they cared to give me, without
+paying any attention to the conditions. All my jewels went; I sold some
+in Paris, others here in this very place. You say you are ruined. No,
+you don't know what it means; but I know all right! I've been
+shipwrecked longer than you; my boat was smaller. I don't want to bore
+you with an account of my poverty. I haven't a house in Paris any more.
+I shall never go back there again, unless my affairs are straightened
+out. The only house I have is a villa here, which I bought in the good
+old days. Don't smile; there are two mortgages on it. Almost any day
+they may put me out of it. It was a very pleasant sort of house before,
+when I had money; but now, with everything so scarce on account of the
+war! There's no coal, and wood is dear; it gets cold at night, and it
+takes a fortune to keep the old furnace going. Besides, I haven't any
+servants except my former lady's maid, the gardener, and his wife who
+does the cooking. For that reason all the rooms are closed, and Valeria
+and I live our lives in two rooms on the first floor. We eat there, and
+sleep there. Valeria is a girl from Paris, a senorita whom I am
+'protecting.' Imagine how poor she must be if she trusts her future to
+me!"
+
+"But you gamble," said the Prince.
+
+Alicia seemed shocked at these words. They sounded like an accusation.
+
+"I play, but what can you expect me to do? I have to do something to
+keep body and soul together, to earn my living. How else could a woman
+like myself do it? I know what you're going to say to me: that I've lost
+a great deal. True; I sold my pearl necklace here, the real one, and a
+great many other jewels; I have lost large amounts, more than I care to
+think of. But at that time I didn't know all I know to-day.... When as
+luck will have it, I haven't much money to play!"
+
+Lubimoff was astonished at the way this woman spoke in all seriousness
+of her present adeptness.
+
+"Besides," she added in a tone of sadness, "what would become of me if I
+didn't play? Surely you haven't forgotten how I was when we saw each
+other last. You must have noticed certain tastes of mine."
+
+Michael recalled the invitation to smoke "the pipe," and the odor that
+filled the "study" in the palace on the Avenue du Bois.
+
+"I put a stop to all that: gambling and something else made me give it
+up. Now I think of it with disgust. That's why I live in Monte Carlo. I
+have a feeling deep down in my heart that fortune will come back in
+search of me here, and nowhere else. Don't you play?"
+
+Michael was annoyed at this question. Hadn't he told her that he was
+ruined? Was he going to follow her example, and make his situation still
+worse by losing the remnants of his fortune?
+
+"Ruined!" exclaimed Alicia. "Your hard times can't last long. This
+Russian business will finally be settled. The great powers have too
+large interests at stake there, not to take a hand in straightening
+everything out. It's this affair of mine that won't be arranged for
+years. The only hope I have is to enjoy a run of luck in the Casino and
+win some two or three hundred thousand francs, and, with that amount,
+wait for things to change."
+
+The Prince shrugged his shoulders. He knew gamblers. This woman,
+dominated by her wild dream, would forget the object of her visit, and
+go raving on about the possible whims of fortune, like Spadoni, or like
+Castro himself.
+
+"And what do you want of me?"
+
+Alicia seemed to wake up, and once more her smile became bold, and
+engaging, as it had been at the beginning of the interview; the smile of
+a petitioner who comes with the firm determination to get what he wants.
+She had already told him at the very beginning what her object was; that
+the Prince's agent shouldn't bother her any more in regard to that
+forgotten debt.
+
+"I shall pay it some day, if it is possible for me.... But you had
+better count on my never paying it at all. Give it up as lost, and tell
+that horrid gentleman not to write me any more."
+
+Michael, fascinated by the simple way in which this woman announced her
+extraordinary desire, imitated the tone of her voice.
+
+"Very well; I shall tell this horrid gentleman not to bother you; to
+forget you."
+
+And he laughed like a child, without paying any attention to the fact
+that his own interests were at stake. The only thing he thought of was
+the expression on the face of his solemn agent when he received such an
+order.
+
+"I always thought you were kind and generous," she said. "Thanks,
+Michael! At times I have had a discussion with the 'General' about you,
+to convince her that you are a big hearted man."
+
+"Oh, so Dona Clorinda is an enemy of mine? Why I've never seen her!"
+
+"She's an extraordinary woman. In her eyes, every man who has a good
+time, and doesn't do wonderful things, is displeasing to her. Only
+yesterday we quarreled for good. Let's not talk about her. I have
+something more to ask of you."
+
+More? The Prince looked at her in astonishment, but Alicia hastened to
+add that what she wanted was some advice.
+
+War had upset their modes of life with amazing rapidity. Social values
+were reversed: the fortunes that seemed most solid were crumbling.
+
+"Things will change, surely? It's impossible for this to last."
+
+"Yes it is impossible," he said gravely.
+
+Both of them seemed to be living in another world, surrounded by the
+senseless visions of a nightmare. To think that they would have to worry
+of money, after it had been, up to that time, a natural part of their
+existence, much as sunlight, air, or water is for every one! To think
+that they should find themselves obliged to pursue it in its flight
+through unknown ways! No, it wasn't logical; surely a passing whim of
+destiny. Their lives would again be the same as before, with the
+regularity of the laws of nature, which seem to swerve at times, but
+finally return to their orderly predestined course.
+
+Being harder pressed, and having suffered economic hardships for a
+longer time, it was impossible for her to adopt the serenity with which
+Lubimoff accepted his momentary ruin.
+
+"Things will change, that's certain; but in the meantime, how can I
+live? You have just freed me from a moral burden by forgetting about
+this debt. I thank you. But I must work, I want to earn some money! What
+is your advice?"
+
+He was astounded. What work could Alicia do? Her question was laughable.
+But there she was, gravely facing him, convinced of her determination to
+work, and expecting illuminating counsel, as though her fate depended on
+him.
+
+Fortunately Alicia herself, unable to bear the silence, began to explain
+her own ideas on the subject. The topsy-turvy state of things at the
+present time justified the wildest plans. A great lady might adopt means
+of support which some years previously would have caused a scandal. She
+knew a number of Russian ladies in Nice who used to give wonderful
+parties in their drawing rooms before the war, and who at present,
+having been reduced to poverty, were devising schemes to earn their
+living in their own way. One was going to open a millinery shop, and
+count on her former friendships to form a circle of customers. Another
+had changed her villa on the Promenade des Anglais into a boarding
+house. She would admit only people of distinction. Allied officers, from
+Colonels up. She intended to treat her boarders like visitors, with all
+the courtesy of a great lady receiving her guests; save that from now on
+every day in the week would be her reception day.
+
+"What do you think of my turning my villa into a boarding house? Could
+you help me with a little money to renew the furniture, and buy whatever
+is lacking? Nothing but aristocratic guests; generals, and retired
+ambassadors who come here in quest of sunlight."
+
+The Prince replied with a burst of laughter.
+
+"Why, you're crazy. They would all make love to you. In a few weeks your
+establishment would be a regular inferno."
+
+Alicia, considering his observation quite accurate, did not insist any
+further. The Russian lady in Nice was old and terrible looking compared
+with her. Besides, she thought it perfectly natural and logical that her
+guests should become enamored of her.
+
+The "General" had suggested another plan to her. She might open a
+tea-room in Monte Carlo, a very elegant one. The attraction of seeing
+her at the counter would draw people. For this she would not need a
+financial backer.
+
+Once more Lubimoff burst out laughing.
+
+"The Duchess de Delille's tea-room! That would be delightful; but once
+people's curiosity had been satisfied the only customers you would have
+would be those who were interested in your charms. No; that's not
+business."
+
+She gave a look of somewhat comic dismay; what was she to do? A lady who
+is anxious for work can find no occupation in a world controlled and
+monopolized by men. She had nothing to fall back on except gambling. It
+was an exciting pleasure which made her forget her worries, and at the
+same time gave her hope. Each day with gambling she opened a window to
+fortune, in case it should deign to remember her. Who knows but what
+some time it might fold its golden wings and alight on a Casino table,
+and allow Alicia's slender hands to caress it, like a tame eagle!
+
+"In the first few months of the war," she continued, "I didn't feel the
+need of anything to distract my mind; the reality of what was happening
+was enough. What anguish I went through! But one gets used to
+everything; the deepest emotions get monotonous if they are too long
+drawn out. One can't live forever with one's nerves at a high tension.
+And this war is so long, and so tiresome! I might have had recourse to
+philanthropic work to take my mind off my troubles; go into a hospital,
+and take care of the wounded. But I've never been clever at such things,
+and I don't want to make a nuisance of myself and be a hindrance, out of
+pure vanity, like a great many other women. Besides, we are in the habit
+of giving orders, and always coming first, and no matter how deeply we
+may feel the spirit of sacrifice, we finally leave, unable to endure
+finding ourselves ordered about by more skillful and useful women, who
+have previously been our inferiors. Take Clorinda for instance; she was
+a nurse the first two years; she was one of the prettiest and most
+interesting with her white dress and her little blue cape. She is
+attracted by everything great; heroism, sacrifices, etc., but she
+finally quarreled with her superiors and gave up her fine role."
+
+In gesture and facial expression Alicia seemed to be pitying her own
+uselessness.
+
+"What could I do? I was reduced to worse and worse straits. In Paris my
+creditors were right at my heels, constantly bothering me; that's why I
+came to Monte Carlo, and gambled to forget, and to make a living. There
+is love, an old Academician, a friend of mine, said to me, with a
+selfish motive to be the first to make advantage of his advice. Just
+imagine: real passionate love, wholehearted love, as the only solution
+for the sorrows of life, and at such a time! Oh, if only I could! But I
+feel I'm old, two thousand years old. You are younger, but you can
+count your life in centuries too. Love, for such as you and me!"
+
+At first Lubimoff smiled at the tone of irony and disenchantment in
+which she spoke. Yes, they were very old. The great remedies, useful for
+the majority of people, had no effect on them. They, as it were, had
+become insensible from satiety and weariness. Suddenly the Prince was
+moved by an indiscreet desire. He decided to take advantage of the
+opportunity to ask her a question that had often occurred to him.
+
+"Indeed," he said with masculine frankness, as though talking with a
+comrade, "you still believe in love? They told me about a boy, almost a
+child, whom you used to take everywhere before the war. Really, we are
+beginning to get old," he added with a smile, "and feel we need the
+contact of youth. Was he your lover? Is he the reason for your worries?"
+
+At these questions, the Duchess paled, and seemed to hesitate. Then she
+made an effort to speak. It was evident that she was eager to be
+sincere. But her pallor was followed by a wave of crimson. Twice she
+tried to say something, and finally, mastering her desire to talk, she
+forced a mischievous smile.
+
+"Let's not talk about that. We each have a right to our secrets," she
+said.
+
+And to keep the Prince from relapsing into his curiosity, she went on
+talking about gambling. But he was absorbed in his thoughts, and was not
+listening to her. He had hit the nail on the head; that young stripling
+was her lover, and she was suffering on his account. Perhaps he was
+wounded, or a prisoner. That was the great obstacle which stood in the
+way of her trip; which was keeping her pinned down in Europe, in the
+superstitious belief that we can ward off dangers better if we remain
+close at hand. And she seemed very much in love! Here the Prince gave
+vent to a series of mental exclamations.
+
+"Forty years old, with a past that would fill a book! To feel such a
+powerful, such a youthful passion! Still to believe in love!"
+
+Michael looked at her with an expression that was almost one of hatred.
+Her passion for the boy annoyed him, without his being able to tell just
+why; perhaps because of the indignation which is always aroused by
+people who cling to some harmful lie, accepting it as truth and
+consolation. Whatever the cause, her conduct annoyed him.
+
+This sudden feeling of hostility towards Alicia finally caused him to
+pay attention once more to what she was saying.
+
+"If only I had as much money as I had before, when your mother was still
+alive, and we used to live in Monte Carlo! But at that time I didn't
+know as much as I know to-day about gambling. I used to play just for
+excitement, just to enjoy the sensation of losing, which, as a matter of
+fact, didn't affect me very deeply. I used only chips for a thousand
+francs in betting. I thought it was beneath me so much as to touch any
+others; and besides, I never risked them one at a time. I always staked
+them in a row."
+
+"How much have you lost?"
+
+She shrugged her shoulders, and pursed her lips disdainfully.
+
+"Who could possibly know? I've been coming here for twelve years or
+more. Even the people in the Casino wouldn't be able to calculate what
+I've given them. In those days, I never used to keep any track of it
+myself. When I needed money I telegraphed to Paris. Besides, I had your
+mother; and I had my own, who usually gave in to my requests, in the
+end. I wouldn't like to know how much I've lost: it would make me
+furious. It must be millions."
+
+The smile of commiseration with which Michael listened to her, seemed to
+make her bolder.
+
+"But at that time I didn't know how to play! Now I must win, and I play
+in a different way. What I need is capital. If I only had a working
+capital!"
+
+This last expression changed his smile into frank laughter. "A working
+capital!" The Duchess would go on talking seriously about her "work."
+She lamented the slenderness of her means. Some thirty thousand francs
+was all the capital she had at her disposal. At times it dwindled in
+alarming fashion: the thirty thousand often shrunk to a single digit.
+Then the ciphers would reappear, and the product of her "work" expand,
+gradually rising above the thirty thousand; but this amount seemed to be
+the fatal number for Alicia, for soon after reaching it her winnings
+would always fall to their usual level.
+
+"Last night I was lucky; I succeeded in winning fourteen thousand
+francs. But last week was bad. Sum total, I'm still at thirty thousand:
+impossible to get any farther. And I don't run any chances, I'm afraid,
+and don't take advantage of the good runs of luck I do have. I ought to
+go on doubling, and doubling. I'm afraid of losing it all on a single
+stake. If I only had a working capital! If I were to go into the Casino
+some afternoon with a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand francs!
+That's the way to master luck. I ought to play big stakes. Imagine me,
+betting a hundred, and even as low as twenty franc chips, like a retired
+money lender! That's the reason fortune doesn't notice me, and passes by
+on the other side."
+
+The Prince shook his head. He refused to help her with her follies.
+Wasn't it better to keep those thousands of francs, instead of losing
+them in no time, as would happen when she was least expecting it?
+
+"You're not a gambler, I know," she said. "You have never felt attracted
+to that sort of pleasure. That's why you don't realize the mysterious
+power of the game, and give advice about something you don't understand.
+If I were to give up playing, I would feel my poverty at once; then I
+would be really poor. While you play, you always have money in your
+hands; you win, and lose, but you never lack the necessities of life.
+And if you lose everything you can still get what you need to start in
+again. I don't know how it is, but a gambler always has plenty of money.
+A single coin puts him on his feet again in five minutes. It's the poor
+man who doesn't play who goes around with empty pockets, without hope or
+means of improving his situation."
+
+Michael continued his mimicry of protest. That was all an old story to
+him; it was the way Spadoni, and even Castro, talked, but with a certain
+added fanaticism, characteristic of women, who, mystics in money
+matters, are always inclined to believe in presentiments and mysterious
+influences.
+
+"Don't count on my helping you to gamble. Besides, I'm poor. At the
+present moment the Colonel must have less cash in the strong box than
+you. I'm almost tempted to ask you to loan me your thirty thousand
+francs."
+
+They both laughed at the idea of this loan. And she had come as a debtor
+to ask his aid!
+
+"I don't know what I can do for you; it's impossible for me to tell just
+what my situation is; but I'll do what I can. Let's have hope: one must
+be patient. These times can't last."
+
+"No; they can't last."
+
+Again the thought of the ridiculousness of their being poor so
+unexpectedly, came over them. But was it logical to think that the world
+would go on in the same normal fashion after such radical divergences
+from the natural order?
+
+They felt drawn together in the solidarity of misfortune; they suddenly
+met, like brother and sister, fallen at the foot of a mountain peak, on
+the heights of which they had previously avoided each other, rudely
+clashing in uncontrollable hostility.
+
+At present Michael had a feeling of being attracted to her, for a reason
+that was absolutely novel. Since his youth he had hated the daughter of
+Dona Mercedes, for her pride, and for the air of overwhelming
+superiority which she maintained even in those moments of love when
+nearly every woman freely humbles herself to take shelter in a man's
+arms like a happy slave. She could give herself only with a manner of
+haughty condescension, as a haughty alms, much as a goddess might come
+to a poor mortal.
+
+And now, seeing her come to him thus simply, to entreat his aid, without
+the rancor of humiliated pride, hiding her fear with friendly merriment,
+desirous of forgetting the past, he felt all his old antipathy melt
+away.
+
+He had always been a protector, a lover in the oriental fashion,
+incapable of caring for any women except those of his harem, who owed
+everything to his munificence, from their slippers to the plumes in
+their turbans, from the jewels that adorned their breasts, to the
+sweetmeats they ate, the pipes they smoked, and the musical instruments
+which accompanied their songs. Alicia did not interest him as a woman;
+neither she nor any other! But he felt the sympathy of comradeship in
+seeing her in need of his protection; somewhat the same feeling that he
+had towards Castro, the Colonel, and the other occupants of Villa
+Sirena. He even thought to himself that misfortune was acceptable, so
+long as it tended to make people show their real character once more.
+This Alicia, so odious to him in early youth, might finally turn out to
+be quite a good friend, now that she found herself freed from the
+influence of vanity and of her bad bringing up.
+
+"You have done enough just in receiving me here," she continued. "I know
+the limitation of my rights: I'm in hostile territory. This is the house
+of 'The Enemies of Women.'"
+
+The Prince pretended not to hear her. Somebody had been talking; perhaps
+it was Castro, who could never keep anything from Dona Clorinda.
+
+They walked through the gardens. Alicia stopped suddenly in front of a
+little piece of cultivated ground, where a few vegetables were beginning
+to spring from the soil.
+
+"This is where you work? I know you amuse yourself working in your
+garden, just as other Russian princes do by making shoes."
+
+So she knew this too? Oh, that tattle-tale rogue of a Castro!
+
+In the Greek garden, one of the marble benches supported by four winged
+Victories attracted her attention, causing her to stop for a moment with
+a pensive expression on her face.
+
+"Do you remember the old man on the bench near the Trojan wall?" she
+suddenly said.
+
+Michael did not know how to answer her question; but after a few moments
+he remembered, as though her fixed stare communicated to him the vision
+of that night in which he had brutally left her.
+
+"How you laughed at me! What a fool I must have seemed! Yes: I was
+unbearable. I was Venus; I was the center of the world; everything in
+existence, people and things, had been created for my special benefit. I
+felt it was my mission to make the world endure my whims, and that the
+world ought to thank me on its knees for paying any attention to it.
+What can you expect! It was youth, and the childish pride of our
+Springtime, which imagines itself eternal. And afterwards! If I were to
+tell you all the disillusionments, and all the sorrows that I
+experienced, even back in the days when I didn't have to worry about
+money! Winter sweeps away all our fancies of Maytime!"
+
+"But you're not an old woman yet!" Michael exclaimed. "You still inspire
+romantic love in young men. You're fooling yourself or trying to make
+fun of me. There are still lots of men who, when they see you,
+would...."
+
+"Perhaps," she replied, "but you, my dear, are not one of them. Confess
+it; I've never pleased you."
+
+The Prince decided not to confess anything, and changed the
+conversation. These allusions to the past annoyed him. Alicia irritated
+him, every time she attempted to revive her charms as a siren of men.
+
+They wandered about for more than half an hour on the various garden
+terraces. From time to time, in passing a clearing in the shrubbery,
+Michael cast a stealthy glance in the direction of the villa. No one was
+at the windows; but he himself felt an inner agitation at this visit. He
+was sure they were spying on him. Atilio, from behind the window
+curtains, was undoubtedly following their promenade among the trees.
+Perhaps Spadoni, who had spent the night at Villa Sirena, was jumping
+out of bed, and losing two hours of sleep, in order to contemplate this
+surprising spectacle. Even Novoa might have stopped reading to look in
+the direction of the garden.
+
+Alicia herself noticed the fact that no one was visible, neither guest
+nor servants. She and the Prince seemed to be walking through an
+enchanted park.
+
+As they went in the direction of the gate they met Don Marcos, who was
+hurriedly coming out of the gardener's lodge.
+
+The Duchess held out her hand to Michael, who kissed it ceremoniously.
+
+"I hope we are to see each other again in the Casino."
+
+He shook his head. The gaming rooms bored him: he had no idea of going
+there.
+
+"I would have liked to meet you there. I'm sure you would bring me
+luck."
+
+For a moment she seemed undecided. She had no thought of returning to
+Villa Sirena, where there was no one but men: she was convinced that she
+was a nuisance there.
+
+"Come and see me to-morrow. The Colonel knows where I live. Come, and
+we'll have a laugh at the way the Duchess de Delille is living. It's
+rather interesting."
+
+She went over to the livery carriage which was waiting for her outside
+the gate. Before getting in she turned to urge him, in a tone of playful
+threat:
+
+"If you don't come, you'll never see me again. I shall think you want to
+break with me, that you think I'm a bore, and don't like me. I shall
+expect you."
+
+As the carriage drove off, she waved farewell.
+
+"It was about time!" Michael exclaimed, on finding himself alone.
+
+It had been a visit of an hour and a half. It had kept him continuously
+at a nervous tension, weighing his words, and avoiding too great an
+expression of friendliness, giving advice without any interest
+whatsoever, and leaving the past in silence. He preferred the confidence
+and lack of restraint of the conversations with his comrades.
+
+On thinking of the latter, his feeling of annoyance returned. How Castro
+would smile, when he sat down at the table! He could hear his voice
+already saying ironically: "No women!" And the first to appear had made
+him as sheepishly obedient as a prior breaking the rule of the monastery
+to receive a Queen.
+
+This worry caused him to speak to the Colonel, who was walking along at
+his side in silence, accompanying him from the gate to the house. Where
+was Castro?
+
+"In the library with Lord Lewis. His Lordship arrived while Your
+Highness was in the garden. He has come to lunch."
+
+He was a nice Englishman! He had taken it into his head of his own
+accord to choose this day, after so many futile invitations! While that
+Englishman was present, Castro would talk of nothing but gaming. And
+Michael went in search of Lewis.
+
+The latter was the son of the great historian, whose country had
+rewarded him with the title of lord. But this title was only to be
+inherited by the oldest son of the family, and no one but Toledo, who
+always exaggerated the importance of his friends, called the second son
+_Lord_ Lewis. He had been in Monte Carlo for twenty-five years, and the
+old employees in the Casino, seeing his bald head sadly bowed above the
+gaming tables, recalled the gentleman of former times, elegant, gay, and
+vigorous. He had come to the Riviera, on one of his Byronic
+"pilgrimages," and there he had remained, not caring to see any more of
+the world. The passion for gambling was the one inexhaustible pleasure
+for this man who had tried them all, and who was bored by the majority.
+
+The real Lord Lewis, a solemn person, who maintained the prestige of the
+family name, had several children, and had served his country in various
+high positions in the Colonies. As for the Colonel's "Lord," he was
+gradually losing all his former connections, and becoming a mere Monte
+Carlo gambler.
+
+"Twenty-five years!" he had remarked with sadness one day to the Prince.
+"And I shall never be able to do anything else! It's too late now to get
+a fresh start. My life is ended, and they will bury me here, I'm sure;
+all that I inherited from my father, and all that several old aunts left
+me will remain here. There have been times, when I saw things as they
+are, and undertook to run away. But when I'm at a distance, I feel
+violently indignant. I remember that I've dropped more than a million
+here, I think that I ought not to resign myself to the loss, and in
+order to recover it, I come back at once to play, and lose again. I
+shall go on doing like that until I die. Besides, there's the
+castle...."
+
+Michael was acquainted with the castle. It was on a peak of the Maritime
+Alps, in sight of Monte Carlo, near the village of La Turbie and the
+remains of the Trophy of Augustus which marks the ancient Roman road.
+
+During his first years of life on the Riviera, the aristocratic Lewis
+had bought for a few thousand francs the ruins of a lordly stronghold
+that possessed the romantic tradition of having witnessed wars with the
+Counts of Provence, and scenes of family violence and murder. The son of
+the Historian, fonder of sport than of literature, considered it a
+matter of filial homage to reconstruct within sight of the Mediterranean
+a castle such as his father had described in telling the legends of his
+country. Part of his fortune had gone into this. The rest had been
+devoted to gambling. "With what I win," he used to say to himself, "I
+shall finish the castle." And since he imagined he would win fabulous
+sums, he started the reconstruction on a gigantic scale, directing it
+himself, according to the architectural fancies he had studied out from
+the drawings of Gustave Dore. The castle had remained half built,
+standing thus for many years. On the one side that was completed, the
+walls displayed huge gloomy-looking windows with stained glass. On the
+side opposite, the timber of the scaffolding was rotting; the unfinished
+walls stood there meeting at right angles, and the wind and rain entered
+the future drawing rooms, for lack of a fourth wall to shut them off.
+They were open to the view like a stage setting.
+
+Whenever Lord Lewis' friends did not meet him in Monte Carlo it was
+because he was out of money, and was staying in his castle, sadly
+contemplating all that remained to be done. He lived in one of the wings
+that was most nearly completed, and passed the lonely hours in fighting
+with his peasant neighbors, the market people, and with every one in the
+district in fact, who considered it a duty to annoy him and exploit him
+in every possible way.
+
+Whenever a remittance of a thousand or two thousand pounds sterling
+arrived from England, he proudly descended from his mountain to the
+Castle. He had a great aim in life, and he felt he must accomplish it.
+This time he was going to triumph! And when, after exciting
+fluctuations--his capital sometimes increasing, as though his hopes were
+about to be realized--he finally lost everything, Lewis would return to
+his refuge on the heights, and to his hermit's life, in hopes of new
+remittances, which were less frequent and more difficult to get each
+time.
+
+The Prince had visited him once, in this new yet crumbling stronghold,
+to invite him on a long voyage on his yacht. But Lewis refused. He must
+continue his duel with the Casino to get back his money; he was under
+obligation to finish his undertaking.
+
+The war had awakened him for a few weeks from the grip of his wild
+dream. His brother had died a few weeks before; but countless young
+nephews still remained. They had given up their comforts and pleasures
+in high society to offer their lives. Some of them, who were in the
+navy, had embarked on small vessels, torpedo-boats and submarines,
+seeking the greatest dangers; others entered the army as officers. A
+niece of his even, delicate in health, had been decorated on the firing
+line, for her sacrifices as a nurse.
+
+"And I, miserable selfish man that I am," he said, in talking with the
+Colonel at the Casino, "go on being a mere Monte Carlo gambler. I ought
+to be out there, where the men are, but I can't.... I can't! My days are
+over; I'm a corpse that eats and sleeps just to go on gambling. Add to
+that the fact that some of my relatives, older than I am, are in the
+army!"
+
+At the age of fifty-four, the consciousness of his moral decay, and his
+continual losses, had embittered his nature. Besides, the evenings that
+luck was against him he kept going out to the Casino bar, seeking
+inspiration in one whisky after another gulped down in haste. Heavy set,
+with square shoulders, a small head, deep blue eyes and a red mustache
+streaked with gray, he reminded Atilio somewhat of a wild boar, perhaps
+because of his aggressiveness and gruffness when he was in a bad humor.
+He gambled with his head sunk between his shoulders, his strong hands
+resting on the green baize, without looking at any one, and without
+allowing any one to talk to him, since it disturbed his calculations.
+The days when things were going wrong, and he was having arguments in
+regard to some doubtful play, with the employees or with those who were
+sitting near him at the tables, Lewis's outburst of rage broke the
+discreet calm of the gaming rooms. He insulted the croupiers, inviting
+them to step outside on the Square, while his biceps swelled like a
+prize fighter's. It was necessary to call one of the principal
+directors to pacify him with all the paternal considerations which a
+steady patron deserved.
+
+This man, who in his youth had believed in neither God nor devil, lived
+a constant prey to superstitions which were Castro's delight. He
+detested strange faces, feeling certain that they exercised on him an
+evil influence. It was enough that he should see one across the green
+table, or behind his seat, to cause him to begin to growl in an
+undertone, until finally he would get up and go out to the bar, with the
+idea that a whisky taken in time would change his luck. His intimate
+friend, the only one who could live with him for several days in
+succession, was a French count, older than Lewis, and who was simply
+called by his title, as though he were nameless, or as though he were
+just naturally "The Count." The latter never gambled, but he was ever so
+wise, in spite of the fact that many people considered him insane! One
+day, thirty years ago, he had stepped out of his house in Paris, saying
+that he was going out to buy some tobacco, and he had not yet returned.
+His wife had died without seeing him, and his children, and countless
+grand-children, who had been born and had grown up during his absence,
+were anxious that he should never finish making his purchase.
+
+While Lewis played, the Count, seated on a divan, quietly read some
+book, without paying any attention to the curiosity of the public, which
+stared at his long white hair brushed back, his enormous wild-looking
+mustache, his round green eyes, gleaming with phosphorescence like those
+of a night hawk. Castro's curiosity was aroused by the Count's books.
+They were always new volumes of the sort that are never seen in any book
+store, and are published by obscure unknown firms; conscientious
+treatises on the nectars and ambrosias of modern life--opium, cocaine,
+morphine, and ether--formulas by which one can enter into direct
+communication with the mysterious powers--spirits, hobgoblins, and
+familiar demons--old books of magic brought to light by up-to-date
+sorcerers.
+
+He never deigned to give his friend advice as to gambling; his thoughts
+were on higher things; but Lewis felt surer whenever he raised his eyes
+and saw him, by chance, reading in a corner. As long as he was there, he
+always won, or at least he did not lose much. His presence was enough to
+conjure the evil power of the infinite number of enemies which the
+Englishman felt were surrounding the table. Besides, he was aware of the
+object which the Count was fondling secretly with one hand, while he
+went on reading.
+
+After he had had the misfortune to lose for several days in succession,
+Lewis would come to him, entreatingly:
+
+"Count, my dear Count, if you would please lend me your Satan's rosary!"
+
+The learned personage would look up, doubtful and hesitating. But since
+it was his best friend who asked for it, he would hand the rosary over,
+which meant that one of his hands would be left without anything to do.
+It was a rosary like any other, with large red beads and black ones to
+mark off the tens. The chief thing about it was the group of objects
+which hung in place of the missing cross: an ivory elephant picked up by
+the Count in India, an authentic coin of the Emperor Constantine found
+in the excavations at Anatolia, and another charm which even Lewis could
+scarcely look upon without a sense of revulsion.
+
+Ill luck was vanquished. At times Lewis had lost while he was secretly
+telling the beads of the diabolical rosary under the table; but he
+always lost less than when he was deprived of the marvelous talisman.
+He only cared to remember how one afternoon, aided by the obscene
+sacrilegious thing so highly prized he had succeeded in winning eighty
+thousand francs.
+
+If he stopped winning it was the Count's fault. He was as fickle as a
+coquette. He would suddenly disappear, repeating the same unexplainable
+flight that had amazed his family. He never left Lewis to go and buy
+tobacco; but if any of the books he bought told about some narcotic used
+in Asia to enable one to see the future, or about a gypsy woman in
+Granada who could kill people by merely wishing and saying a few words,
+then off he would go, accepting as gospel truth the saying of some
+anonymous writer who had never been out of Paris. He never lacked money
+for these mysterious trips: doubtless his family was interested in
+keeping him at a distance. He might be three months or five years in
+reappearing. At last the rumor would reach Lewis that his friend was
+living in Nice or Cannes, and he would then write him frequently,
+inviting him to come over to Monte Carlo. He even used to go after him
+and the Count would allow himself to be brought back with his mysterious
+books and his prodigious rosary, without ever saying a word about what
+discoveries he had made on his trips.
+
+On seeing Lewis, after a year's absence, the Prince was obliged to
+conceal his surprise. Nothing save the clear, quiet, gentle eyes,
+recalled the vanished freshness of the athletic and elegant gentleman.
+He had grown thin in an alarming manner, with the emaciation of illness.
+His skull seemed to have shrunk, and across his baldness strayed the few
+scattered ashen locks that still remained.
+
+A remark made by the Colonel came to his mind. Toledo had made a study
+of the decadence of gamblers. It was when they reached the last limits
+of depression and despair that they began to stoop, to shrivel up, and
+become wrinkled. Lewis' hat was getting too big for him; each day it sat
+farther down on his head until it rested on his ears. His shirt collar
+was also getting larger, as though it were making room for his sorrowing
+heart to take flight.
+
+During the lunch, Lewis, Castro and Spadoni kept up the conversation.
+They talked about gambling and the Casino, but no one dared ask the
+Englishman if he had been winning. He had a superstitious fear of this
+question, as if it brought misfortune. On the other hand, he talked
+about other people's good luck, and the great stakes that had been won
+in a night. He kept in his mind all that he had been told, and all that
+he had imagined he had seen during twenty-five years of life at Monte
+Carlo. An American had gone away with a million; an Englishman had won
+ten thousand pounds sterling with five _louis_ that he had borrowed.
+Thus he went on talking about the wonders that had happened in the
+Casino. And after that could there still be people to assert that all,
+absolutely all, of the gamblers, lose in the end?
+
+With eyes that glistened with astonishment and greed, the pianist
+listened to the tales of the "Dean of the Gamblers." Castro was more
+skeptical. He had heard of these extraordinary winnings, and of many
+others, but had never witnessed a single one of them, although he had
+been coming to Monte Carlo for a good many years. It was true that he
+had seen as much as five hundred thousand francs won in a single night.
+But the next day things had changed, and the winner had lost all his
+gains, and all the money he had brought, into the bargain, finally being
+obliged to ask for the customary viaticum in order to be able to return
+to his country.
+
+"I think," he said, "all these stories are invented by the advertising
+department of the Casino. They tell me they have engaged a popular
+novelist, whose business it is to start a story like that every week, in
+order to encourage the gamblers."
+
+The Prince smiled at this invention of his friend, but Lewis would not
+listen to jokes on such a serious subject, and asserted that he had
+witnessed everything that he related. He was lying unconsciously in
+making this statement. In reality he had seen the same things as Atilio:
+people who won to lose later on; but he felt the need of the
+supernatural and was inclined to believe everything in advance. He had
+the soul of a fanatic, who, when told of a miracle, affirms a few days
+later with sincerity: "I saw it with my own eyes."
+
+Every now and then the Prince would eye Castro, expecting to surprise
+some ironic glance, something which would reveal his impressions in
+regard to the visit he had received that morning. Lewis' presence seemed
+to have obliterated all memory of anything unrelated to gambling.
+
+When the luncheon was over they talked in the hall, over their coffee,
+about those who played for big stakes in the private rooms. The names of
+some of them were spoken of with respect, as though they were masters,
+worthy of admiration.
+
+"So-and-so knows how to play," was the one comment.
+
+The amusing part of it for Michael was the fact that Lewis also figured
+among the masters "who knew how to play," and every one of them lost,
+like those who were "ignorant." Their one merit rested on their ability
+to put off the hour of final ruin, and prolong the annihilating emotion,
+growing old like prisoners in the shadow of the rocky cliffs of the
+Principality.
+
+The Prince looked at Castro once more, as at a clever enemy who is
+hiding his thoughts. He ventured to ask a question.
+
+"And how does my relative, the Duchess de Delille, play?"
+
+Atilio looked at him, with not so much as a mischievous twinkle in his
+eyes, surprised at the interest shown by the Prince. But before he could
+reply, Lewis broke in with an answer. The latter hated women, especially
+at the gaming tables. They were only a nuisance, interrupting the
+calculations of the men, with their nervous looks and gestures.
+
+"She plays like an idiot," he said brutally. "She plays like any
+woman.... The money she's lost like a fool!"
+
+Castro intervened as though desiring the conversation to go no further.
+
+"How about the Count?" he asked Lewis. "Where is he? The Colonel is very
+much interested in him."
+
+Don Marcos gave an exclamation of surprise and reproach. He had formed
+his own opinion of that person a long time ago. He was a crazy man! He
+would never forget the brief dialogue they had had one afternoon in the
+Casino, after Atilio had introduced them. On learning Toledo's
+nationality he had launched into a great eulogy of Spain. Oh, Spain!
+What an interesting language it had! And when the Colonel was about to
+thank him for his extreme politeness, he was dumbfounded by the
+following remark, that took away his breath:
+
+"Because, as you probably know, Spanish is the preferred language of the
+devil, after Latin. The most powerful charms are written in Spanish.
+What wonderful necromancers in Toledo! What learned sorcerers in
+Salamanca!"
+
+The old soldier who had fought for the Most Catholic king was always
+greatly disturbed when he thought of the Count and his rosary. For this
+reason when Lewis declared that he had no idea of the whereabouts of his
+friend, he solemnly replied:
+
+"I know where he is: in a mad house."
+
+Suddenly the roar of a train was heard passing Villa Sirena, accompanied
+by shouts and whistling. They were more Englishmen on their way to
+Italy.
+
+This caused them to take up the subject of the war. Lewis, who had
+imbibed freely at the table, was overcome at once with an intense
+sadness, the talk of gambling having reminded him of the worthlessness
+of his life. His intoxication was of the solemn, melancholy kind.
+
+"Two of my nephews died in the Jutland naval battle. Six of my brother's
+sons were killed in France, in a single afternoon: they belonged to the
+same battalion. They were all young, spirited, and anxious to do
+something. I'm the only man left in the family; I'm the worthless one,
+the old man, good for nothing. It's terrible!"
+
+No one said anything, realizing the shame and despair of this man, who
+seemed to be weeping over the ruins of his aimless existence. Novoa
+nodded slightly, as though approving of his words.
+
+"My family is extinct. And there were so many young men in it! Life is
+strange. Time goes by without anything extraordinary happening, and then
+all of a sudden the hours are like months, the days like years, and in a
+few minutes things take place that usually require centuries. All dead!
+None left but my niece Mary, the nurse. She is here; her superiors
+ordered her away almost by force, to take a rest and recuperate. But,
+anxious to resume her service, she got away to Menton and Nice, where
+there are wounded men. If at least she would only marry! But it can't
+be: she will die like the rest. And I shall remain alone, and be a lord,
+the third Lord Lewis; Lord Lewis the Historian, Lord Lewis the Colonel
+Governor, and Lord Lewis the Wastrel...."
+
+At this point they all stopped him in affectionate protest. The
+misfortune of his family had been extraordinary, but he ought not to
+torture himself like that.
+
+"If you don't mind, Prince," said the Englishman, changing the
+conversation, "some day I shall bring my niece to let her see your
+gardens. She is so fond of such things! She is the only one of the
+family to inherit my father's spirit."
+
+After saying that, Lewis showed signs of desiring to go. It was
+necessary for him to forget, and he knew where oblivion was waiting for
+him. For a gambler like him, it was no more possible to sit still than
+it would be for a drunkard who is thinking of a bar with its rows of
+glasses. Castro and Spadoni exchanged several glances with him.
+
+"What do you say to dropping in at the Casino?" one of them proposed.
+
+And all three disappeared.
+
+The Colonel also left, and the Prince spent the remainder of the
+afternoon talking with Novoa, walking about the gardens, and looking at
+the sunset. Finally, he sat down in the hall under a tall rose-shaded
+floor lamp, to read.
+
+Castro returned alone, long before the dinner hour. He was sad; he
+whistled occasionally. His smile was a savage grin. It had been a bad
+afternoon. He had lost everything! The next day he would have to ask his
+relative for a fresh loan in order to return to his "work."
+
+Once more Michael felt compelled to talk to him about the call he had
+received that morning. It was better to have a frank explanation and
+avoid ironical allusions.
+
+"Yes, I saw her," Castro said. "I watched you from a window while you
+were walking through the gardens."
+
+The Prince looked at him, astonished at his brevity. Was that all he had
+to say? At present he felt he would have preferred his joking.
+
+"What of it if she did come?" at last he said brusquely. "That's
+natural; poor woman! I warn you that you've begun the conquest of an
+enemy."
+
+He had met "the General" in the Casino. She and Alicia had just had
+another reconciliation, and to seal their renewed friendship with a
+fresh burst of confidence, the Duchess Delille had related her interview
+with the Prince.
+
+"Dona Clorinda used to be unable to stand you. She considered you a
+frivolous fellow, a worthless loafer. But now she praises you to the
+skies, because of your cancelling that enormous debt, and proposing to
+help the Duchess. She says you are like a knight of old times, and that
+you are big hearted."
+
+Michael shrugged his shoulders. A lot he cared what Dona Clorinda
+thought! This exasperated Castro.
+
+"Why shouldn't your relatives come here?" he said sharply. "You're
+getting bored living just among men all the time. You don't believe it,
+but it's true. It's the same with all of us. One has to talk with a
+woman from time to time, even if it's only out of friendship. What you
+claimed when you came from Paris is impossible."
+
+"Perhaps you think I'm going to fall in love with Alicia?"
+
+And the Prince laughed for a long time, as though never tiring of seeing
+the funny side of such an absurd supposition.
+
+"You'll find that out later on," Castro replied. "All I have to say is
+that we can't live much longer as enemies of women. Look at the
+Colonel: he's your 'Chamberlain,' your Aide, the man who obeys you
+blindly. Well, even he is deserting you. Just notice: whenever he can,
+he spends his time in the Porter's lodge. He has to talk to the
+gardener's daughter, a little brat he used to see crawling around on all
+fours, but who is sixteen now, and not bad looking. She worked in a
+millinery shop in Monte Carlo, but follows the styles like a young
+society girl. The Colonel keeps her provided with high-heeled shoes,
+short skirts, tams, and smart hats, and buys her imitation amber beads.
+That's how he spends all the money you allow him to take for his
+services. Sometimes he follows her at a distance in the street, admiring
+her seductive outline and her ankles, much in evidence, and always in
+silk-stockings. He patiently cultivates his garden; and smiles like a
+fool when he thinks of his future harvest."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+One Sunday, as he got out of bed, the Prince felt like singing. Perhaps
+he was unconsciously following the example of some birds, which,
+deceived by the Spring-like warmth of a midwinter's day, had been
+warbling in the eaves of Villa Sirena since sunrise.
+
+He looked out of his bedroom window. The Mediterranean, without a single
+sail, stretched away in far-off undulations, to where it met the sky.
+The gulls were wheeling in circles, continually drooping into the water,
+folding their wings, and letting themselves be carried along by the
+waves. The sandy depths, stirred by the swells, gave the blue sea a
+lighter shade, which attained, along the shore, an opalescent hue, like
+that of absinthe. Around the promontory, white luminous foam was
+constantly being churned among the projecting rocks of the reefs.
+
+The Prince heard voices above him. Castro and Spadoni were talking from
+window to window. The mysterious call of the early morning beauty had
+caused them to jump out of bed. They were admiring the sky, which did
+not have a trace of mist to dim the brightness of its farthest reaches.
+The mountains stood out in extraordinary relief: they seemed larger and
+nearer. Above Cap-Martin, the Italian Alps descended to the sea, their
+outlying buttress, at the water's edge, white with the frontier towns:
+Vintimiglia and Bordighera.
+
+Through some freak of the atmosphere, a dense, elongated cloud, like a
+snow-covered island, was floating directly overhead in the clear sky.
+Its whiteness seemed to radiate an inner light.
+
+"I recognize it," Atilio said with a tone of conviction to the musician,
+who did not seem to tire of looking at it. "I have seen it often. When
+the day turns out too bright, the Directors of the Casino are afraid
+that the patrons may be bored by so much sunlight, and the vast expanse
+of azure: blue sea and blue sky. 'Have the big cloud brought out,' they
+order over the telephone. You must have noticed that that cloud always
+appears from behind the mountains. That's where the Casino has its
+storehouses. They don't neglect details here when it comes to
+entertaining their patrons."
+
+Michael heard two exclamations: one of surprise and the other of
+indignation. Next he heard the sound of a window suddenly closed. The
+pianist, not in a mood for joking at so early an hour, was going back to
+bed, to sleep until lunch time.
+
+The Prince hurried through his toilet. He felt the need of getting out
+and going somewhere, as though his gardens seemed too small for him. In
+the distance the bells of Monte Carlo were ringing, and still farther
+off those of Monaco were replying; and the merry pealing of the chimes
+caused the clear brittle air to vibrate like a crystal glass.
+
+He went down stairs slowly, trying not to make any noise, and when he
+reached the gate he breathed freely. He had not met any of his
+companions, not even the Colonel. As though attracted by the Sunday
+morning atmosphere of gaiety which, as the afternoon wears on, changes
+to tiresome ennui, he decided to walk to the city alone.
+
+Outside the gate, a girl was waiting for the street car. She was very
+young; but her feet slanted at a sharp angle on her high-heeled shoes.
+Her skirt, falling scarcely below her knees, showed her well-rounded
+calves. The finely woven stockings revealed the whiteness of her flesh.
+Prominent against the salmon colored silk sweater, was a necklace of
+large imitation amber beads. Her hair, cut short just below the ears,
+fell smoothly from underneath a jaunty velvet tam o'shanter of graceful
+line. The air of profound respect with which she spoke to him made him
+recognize her. It was the gardener's daughter. But at the same time she
+looked at him in a sly way with ill-concealed curiosity, as though her
+eyes made a distinction between the master and the man whom women adored
+and of whom she had heard so many things.
+
+The Prince went on, after speaking to her as he would have to a young
+lady of his own social rank. He was gay that morning, and he laughed
+inwardly as he thought how later on that little bundle of mischief and
+ambition would keep men busy. Then he thought of Don Marcos, and what
+Atilio had told him. Poor Colonel! Imagine a person, at his age, trying
+to tame a young wildcat!
+
+He walked lightly, with a springy step, in the direction of Monte Carlo.
+He passed the villas and the gardens as though contact with the ground
+had given his step fresh vigor, and as though the Spring-like air had
+abrogated to some extent the laws of gravity.
+
+When he reached the city he stopped in front of the steps of San Carlos
+Church. Through the door he could see the twinkling tapers, smell the
+odor of flowers, and hear the droning of the organ, and the voices of
+young girls singing. He felt like a boy once more, buoyant and fresh as
+the morning, and had an impulse to follow the various families, in their
+Sunday best, who were ascending the steps. He was a Catholic through his
+father, a member of the Greek church through his mother, and nothing by
+his own inclination. Suddenly he felt a certain repugnance for the
+cave-like darkness, laden with perfumes, and dotted with lights. So he
+went on, breathing the open air with delight.
+
+"Oh, your Ladyship! Good morning!"
+
+A long, thin female hand shook his with masculine vigor. The brass
+buttons of her khaki colored uniform, like that of an English soldier,
+were gleaming in the sun. The uniform, instead of being completed by
+breeches, ended in a short skirt and tan leather leggings.
+
+It was Lewis's niece. She had spent two afternoons at Villa Sirena
+rambling about the gardens. Once more Michael observed her unhealthy
+emaciation, which was beginning to take on the miserable appearance of
+consumption. Her Sam Brown belt buried itself in her blouse, as though
+failing to meet the resistance of a body underneath the cloth. The face
+under the visor of the military cap was as sharp as a knife. Her skin,
+drawn and lined in spite of her youth, showed all the bones and hollows.
+It was impossible to judge her age: she might have been twenty-five, or
+she might have been sixty. Only the eyes had retained their freshness;
+eyes that still kept the guilelessness of adolescence, and looked one
+squarely in the face with the serene confidence of a virgin sure of her
+strength.
+
+She had gone through the horrors of war, as through a flame that dries
+up and parches everything it touches, and in the end converts it to
+dust. She was like a mummy, burned by the fire of the blazing towns that
+she had seen, and shaken by the tears and moans of thousands of human
+beings. "Think what those ears have heard!" Michael said to himself. And
+he understood the sad expression of the pale mouth which hung wearily
+between two drooping furrows. "And think what those eyes have seen!" he
+continued mentally. But the eyes did not care to remember and smiled at
+him, happy in the present moment.
+
+She had just come out of a large hotel converted into a hospital, and
+was waiting for the street car to go to Menton. More wounded soldiers
+had arrived there, and owing to the scarcity of nurses the doctors had
+been obliged to accept her services. For the present they would not
+bother her any more with solicitude about her health! As she thought of
+the hard work that lay before her, of the long night watches, and the
+fight with death to save so many lives, she was filled with joy. She was
+anxious, as though she were going to a celebration to take the short
+trip as soon as possible, and seeing the car coming, she shook hands
+with the Prince again, with a firm grip.
+
+"I shall go on abusing your permission. Next time I shall pillage your
+gardens even worse. Flowers ... lots of flowers! If you would only see
+the joy they give the poor fellows when you put them beside the beds!
+Some of the doctors are vexed; they think it is silly. But all I say is:
+as long as we have to die, why not die with a little poetry, with
+something around us to remind us of the beauty we are losing. It doesn't
+hurt any one."
+
+Lubimoff went on his way, but his heart was less light. This woman,
+fighting death so generously and so manfully, seemed to have torn away
+the rosy veil that had made his eyes rejoice.
+
+Everything was the same, but of a darker hue, as though he were looking
+at the landscape through smoked glasses. He noticed things which he had
+not observed until then. The large hotels had been converted into
+hospitals. Their porches and large balconies were filled with men
+basking in the sun; men whose heads were white balls, bound with
+bandages that left only the eyes and mouth visible; half finished men,
+as it were, lacking a leg or an arm, like a sculptor's rough models.
+Others were lying motionless, with both legs amputated, like corpses in
+a dissecting room, but still breathing.
+
+On the sidewalks he met soldiers of various nations: French, English,
+Serbian, officers, and a few Russians, who reminded him of the former
+importance his country had had in the war. Every variety of uniform worn
+by the various armies of the French Republic passed before his eyes: the
+horizon blue of the home troops, the mustard color of the soldiers from
+Morocco, the yellow fatigue caps of the Foreign Legion, and the red fez
+of the Algerians and the negro Sharpshooters.
+
+Each one was maimed. This sunny land, with its lovely views of sea and
+sky, seemed peopled with a race that had survived a cataclysm. Elegantly
+dressed officers, with handsome figures, limped along, cautiously
+dragging one leg, or else stepping gingerly on a foot so swathed in
+bandages that it was several times its natural size. Some of them were
+leaning on canes, bent over like old men. Men of athletic proportions
+trembled as they walked, as though their skeletons were rattling about
+in the hollow wrapper of their bodies wasted by consumption. Fingers
+were missing on hands; arms had been cut off until the shapeless stumps
+looked like fins. Under their pads of cotton, cheeks retained the gashes
+made by hand grenades, scars like those left by cancer; the horrible
+cavity of the nose, which had been torn away in some of the men, was
+hidden by a black tampon attached to the ears. The faces of others were
+covered by masks of bandages, leaving nothing visible save the eyes--sad
+eyes that seemed to look with fear to the day when they would have to
+grow accustomed to the horror of a face that a few months before had
+been youthful and now was like a vision in a nightmare. The bodies of
+some were intact, retaining their former strength and agility in all
+their limbs. Seen from behind they had kept all the vigor and
+suppleness of youth. But they walked abreast, holding tightly to one
+another's arms, their eyes lost in darkness, tapping the pavement with a
+stick which had taken the place of the vanished sword, and which would
+accompany them until the hour of their death.
+
+And this procession of sadness and resignation, this grievous masquerade
+comforted by the joyousness of the morning, and feeling love of life
+once more renewed, was coming from the gardens. Others were going in the
+direction of the Casino and its terraces, passing among the Brazilian
+palm trees, with smooth, hollow trunks covered with elephant hide; among
+the cacti, held up by iron supports like a tangle of green reptiles
+bristling with thorns; among the prickly pears as high as trees; among
+the Himalayan fig trees, with towering trunks and wide spreading domes
+of branches which seemed to have been made to shelter the motionless
+meditation of the fakirs; among all the trees that come from tropical
+and temperate America, from China, Australia, Abyssinia, and South
+Africa. A tiny rivulet descended the slope in zig-zags through the
+openings in the green lawn, forming back waters among the bamboos and
+Japanese palms, until it flowed into a miniature lake, bordered with
+foliage, as tranquil, pleasing, and dainty as one of those centerpieces
+in which the water is represented by a mirror.
+
+Michael stopped in the upper gardens to look at the Casino from a
+distance. He had never realized before the fussiness and bad taste of
+the architecture of this building, which was the heart of Monaco. If the
+"gingerbread monument"--as Castro called it--closed its doors, all Monte
+Carlo would be wrapped in a deathly stillness like the loneliness of
+those cities which in former centuries were ports, and now are sleepy
+and deserted, far from the sea, which has withdrawn. It was the work of
+the architect of the Paris Opera House, an ornate, gaudy, childish
+structure, of the color of soft butter, with multi-colored roofs,
+balconied turrets, niches with nameless statues, many tile friezes and
+gilded mosaics. At the corners there were green porcelain escutcheons,
+imitating roughly cut emeralds. The outstanding decorative motif of this
+building, famous throughout the world, was the imitation of gold and
+precious stones.
+
+Owing to the prosperity of the establishment, they had added to the main
+body flanked with four towers, an extensive wing in which the best
+gaming rooms were located. Various green and yellow cupolas of different
+sizes revealed the existence of the latter, rising above the upper
+balustrade. On this balustrade a number of bronze angels or genii,
+entirely nude and with golden wings, had been set up. With black
+extended arms they were offering golden tributes, the significance of
+which no one had been able to guess. Other white or metal statues of
+half nude women were sheltered in the niches in the walls, and the names
+and significance of these were likewise a mystery.
+
+Although the edifice was erected with the pretense of dazzling and
+charming with its gold and soft colors, those who went there paid
+scarcely any attention to its splendors.
+
+"The ones who are arriving," Castro would say, "go in on the run; they
+want to get placed at the gaming tables as soon as possible. The ones
+who are coming out take a gloomy view of everything; and even though the
+Casino were as beautiful as the Parthenon, they would take it for a
+robber's cave."
+
+The Prince looked to the right of the building, where a strip of blue
+sea was visible, with the hairy trunks and rounded tops of a few
+Japanese palms standing out against the blue. There at the entrance to
+the terraces along the Mediterranean rose the only two monuments of the
+city, dedicated to the fame of two musicians from the simple fact that
+some of their works had been played for the first time in the theater of
+the Casino. Carved in marble, Berlioz and Massenet greeted with a vague
+stare in their sightless eyes the cosmopolitan crowd that came to the
+gambling house. "They are honorary _croupiers_," Castro used to say.
+
+"Massenet--that isn't so bad," thought Michael. "He was fortunate, he
+had money, and his gifts were recognized during his lifetime. But
+imagine Berlioz, who spent his years struggling against poverty and
+public indifference, standing guard after death over the Casino's
+millions!"
+
+Next, he looked at the foreground, observing the open Square in front of
+the edifice. There was a round garden in the center. People called it
+the "cheese" and some even particularized and called it the "Camembert."
+
+Around the garden rail and on the benches backing up to it, one could
+observe the living soul of Monte Carlo. Here people gathered, to
+exchange jokes and gossip, ask news from those who were coming out of
+the Casino, and comment on the good or bad fortune of the most
+celebrated gamblers.
+
+In the immediate neighborhood, there were no business houses except
+jewelry stores, branches of the government pawn shop, and millinery
+shops. Women who played small stakes felt like satisfying their longing
+for an expensive hat on coming out of the Casino. Those who needed fresh
+capital to carry out their systems had only to take a few steps to pawn
+their valuables. In the show windows of the jewelry shops, pearl
+necklaces worth a million francs and emeralds worth three hundred
+thousand, were exhibited during the winter, waiting for a buyer; and in
+summer they were sent to the fashionable bathing resorts to continue
+being a mute and dazzling temptation. The jewelers, with Semitic
+profiles, were waiting behind their counters, more for sellers than
+buyers, and calmly offered a fourth of the price for a gem bought in
+that very shop the year before.
+
+From a distance it was easy for the Prince to guess the character of the
+many people who at that early hour were sitting on the benches opposite
+the stairs leading up to the edifice. Here those condemned to misery by
+gambling, and accursed by fate, remained all day, suffering the most
+atrocious torment of living close to the door of the sanctuary without
+being able to enter. They had lost their last cent, and the directors of
+the establishment, who generously send ruined gamblers back to their
+respective countries, had handed over the _viaticum_ to them for their
+return. But they had staked the money given to aid them and had lost;
+and since they were debtors to the Casino they could not reenter it
+until they had fulfilled their obligations. So there they remained,
+stranded in the Square for all time, with the false hope of getting some
+money. None of them had any idea of how or from what source. They
+mingled together there in the companionship of misery, watching for
+fellow-countrymen who were better off, to besiege them with requests for
+a loan; or else they spent their time discussing numbers and colors.
+Perhaps they would succeed in getting together a few francs after
+turning all their pockets inside out, and they might choose, as the
+emissary of their illusions, a comrade who was as poor as they, but who
+had not "_taken the viaticum_" and was free to enter.
+
+Michael saw a crowd of people extending as far as the Japanese palm
+trees, near the Massenet monument. They had just arrived by various
+street cars from Nice. They were all hurrying, anxious to enter the
+motley edifice as soon as possible, as though fortune were expecting
+them in the gaming rooms and might leave at any moment, tired of
+waiting.
+
+He looked at the clock above the facade. It was ten o'clock. The daily
+occupations were being resumed and the devotees who lived in Monte Carlo
+were likewise flocking there, and mingling with the people who had come
+from other places. They all mounted the marble steps, following the
+three stair-carpets held in place by brass rods that glistened in the
+sun.
+
+"And to think that we're at war!" Michael thought. "And many of those
+who have gotten up early to make the trip, and those who live here, too,
+have sons or brothers or husbands, who at the present moment are
+fighting, and dying perhaps!"
+
+Love of life, love of pleasure, and the vain hope of winning, worked
+like an anaesthetic, causing them all to rise above their worries and
+forget, so that they were able to live entirely in the present moment.
+
+This general rush for the opening of the gaming hall disgusted the
+Prince and caused him to halt in his descent of the gentle slope of the
+gardens. It was repugnant to him to mix with the crowd that was
+loitering in the neighborhood of the Casino.
+
+His desire to retrace his steps gave him an idea. "Supposing you go and
+surprise Alicia at her home? She would be so pleased!"
+
+She had been at Villa Sirena twice since her first visit. A chance
+meeting in the street with the Prince, when she was walking along with
+her friend Clorinda, had served as a pretext for another visit to the
+refuge in their beautiful gardens of "the enemies of women." He found
+the "General" less hostile and dominating than he had imagined; but he
+could not understand Castro's passion for her. In spite of her beauty it
+seemed to him that he was talking to a man. They had been accompanied by
+Valeria, a young French girl, who had been a protegee of Alicia's, a
+traveling companion in the days of dazzling wealth, and who now
+accompanied her in poverty, out of gratitude and fidelity. Later the
+Duchess de Delille had returned alone a second time to consult him about
+various projects for her future, all of them lacking in common sense;
+and she had finally accepted a loan of a thousand francs. Luck was
+against her in gambling: she needed new "tools to work with." The
+capital that had irritated her so by never varying, never going much
+above thirty thousand, had finally heard her complaints, and dwindled
+with lightning rapidity, leaving merely a few remnants of its former
+self.
+
+In spite of the Prince's loan the Duchess had complained.
+
+"I'm always the one who is looking you up: you never deign to visit my
+house. How poor I really am!"
+
+Remembering her humble protest, the Prince no longer hesitated. Turning
+his back on the Casino, he began to ascend the sloping streets in the
+direction of the frontier line separating Monte Carlo from Beausoleil;
+streets that displayed names recalling Spring: the Street of the Roses,
+of the Carnations, of the Violets, of the Orchids.
+
+He entered a short avenue formed by a double row of garden fences. He
+caught a glimpse of the houses between the columns of palm trees, and
+the firm leaves of the large magnolias. As he went along he read the
+names of the small estates carved on little plaques of red marble,
+placed at the entrance to the grounds. "Villa Rosa", here it was. He
+pushed open the iron gate, which was ajar, without hearing the sound of
+a voice or the barking of a dog to greet his presence. He saw a small
+garden half deserted, overgrown with weeds at the foot of the untrimmed
+trees, and covering the space that had formerly been occupied by flower
+beds. The rest was more carefully tended, but it was a vegetable garden
+with rectangles of kitchen stuffs intensively cultivated.
+
+Lubimoff approached without meeting anyone. It occurred to him that the
+gardener must have been the man with the dog, whom he had met as he
+turned into the street.
+
+Then he mounted the four steps at the entrance. Here too the door was
+half ajar, and upon pushing it all the way open, he found himself in a
+hallway with stairs leading to the upper story.
+
+There was no one in sight. He tried the doors of the adjoining rooms and
+found them locked. There was not a sound. It was as though the house
+were deserted. But the silence was suddenly broken by a voice floating
+down the stairway. It was a faint voice, singing a slow, sad English
+air. The song was accompanied by a sound of dull blows, as though hands
+were beating and shaping up some large unresisting object.
+
+Michael thought he recognized Alicia's voice. He coughed several times
+without result; he was not heard. He was about to call to let her know
+that he was there, but refrained, through a sudden impulse to play a
+little joke on her. Why shouldn't he surprise her by going up-stairs the
+one part of the house where she was now living, he thought? His
+hesitation vanished. Up-stairs he would go!
+
+From the first landing he saw several doors, but only one was open; and
+it was from that one that the sounds of the song and the thumping were
+coming. A woman bending over a bed, was holding out her arms and
+vigorously shaking up a pillow. Instinctively she felt that some one was
+standing behind her, and turning around she gave an exclamation of
+surprise on seeing Michael in the doorway. The latter was no less
+surprised to recognize the woman as Alicia; an Alicia dressed in an
+elegant but old negligee, with crumpled gloves on her hands, and a veil
+wrapped around her hair.
+
+"You! It's you!" she exclaimed. "How you frightened me!"
+
+Immediately she recovered her composure, and smiled at the Prince, as
+the latter tried to excuse himself. He had not met any one; the gate and
+the door had been open. She, in turn, now excused herself. It was
+Sunday; Valeria, her companion, had gone to Nice to take lunch with a
+family she knew; her maid and the gardener's wife were at mass; the old
+man had gone out a moment before to see some friends.
+
+After these mutual explanations they both remained silent, looking at
+each other hesitatingly, not knowing what to say, but still smiling.
+
+"You making your bed!" he remarked, just to say something.
+
+"So you see. This is rather different from my bedroom in Paris. It is
+hardly the 'study' that I took you to either. Times have changed!"
+
+Michael gravely nodded assent. Yes, times had changed.
+
+"At any rate," she continued, "you must confess that there is a certain
+novelty in seeing the Duchess de Delille, madcap Alicia, making her
+bed."
+
+The Prince nodded again. Indeed it was a novelty: something one could
+not see every day.
+
+Alicia persisted in her explanations. It had not been at all hard for
+her to do housework. She cleaned her room herself, in order to save her
+elderly maid the extra bother. She did not want Valeria to help her.
+They were each keeping their own rooms in order, now that help was
+scarce. Besides, she herself sometimes went into the kitchen, and she
+would have liked to help the gardener cultivate the little garden, just
+for her own pleasure.
+
+"We are living in war times; things are getting dearer every day, and as
+for me, I'm poor. We ought to return to the simple primitive life. But I
+don't dare work in the garden, on account of the neighbors. They watch
+you all the time from their windows. There is a Brazilian gentleman,
+even, who seems to have fallen in love with me."
+
+She herself was proud of her industriousness. Who would ever have
+guessed such qualities some years before in the mistress of the
+luxurious residence on the Avenue du Bois, who was in the habit of
+getting up at three o'clock in the afternoon?
+
+"I owe it all to mamma. She had me educated in a girls' school in
+England, when it was the fashion to substitute domestic work for the
+physical exercise of sports. I think it's called 'Corinthianism.' And I
+feel better than ever. In the old days I had to get up several mornings
+a week with Valeria and Clorinda and go to a tennis club and play until
+I was exhausted. Now, after taking care of my room and helping with the
+others I don't need any exercise. I'm doing poor man's gymnastics."
+
+There was a long silence. Michael looked at the room; a woman's bedroom,
+still in disarray, with clothes lying on the arm chairs, giving out the
+perfume of a fastidious femininity. Through a narrow door he saw a
+corner of the adjoining bath room, where a wet spot had been left on the
+mosaic floor, from the morning bath. An odor of eau de cologne and tooth
+paste hung in the air. From several toilet jars, in disorder, vague
+scents of more precious essences were escaping. Mingling with the toilet
+articles and objects of intimate apparel, he could distinguish cards
+such as are given out to the patrons of the Casino, to mark their plays;
+some with red or blue marks in the columns, others pricked with a hat
+pin, for lack of a pencil. He observed larger cards, with a roulette
+wheel indicating the numbers and colors; and also many books of the sort
+sold by the stationers and at newspaper stands; illuminating treatises
+on "How to win without fail in all kinds of play." On the mantelpiece,
+half hidden by various fashion magazines, was a small roulette wheel, a
+real one, used undoubtedly in studying out and trying various theories.
+On the lamp stand beside the bed the latest copy of the Monte Carlo
+Review was lying open, with statistics of all the winning numbers during
+the past week at the various tables; interesting reading, with
+mysterious annotations which had kept Alicia up perhaps till dawn.
+
+In the meantime she was dexterously causing to disappear everything
+which she considered prejudicial to her appearance since the surprise.
+When Michael looked at her again the old gloves had vanished from her
+hands and the veil was hidden somewhere. Her hair, now left free, was
+black and lustrous, a trifle coarse, perhaps, but it rose luxuriantly in
+large ringlets in disarray.
+
+They prolonged the silence with an embarrassed smile, as though neither
+of them could find a way of relieving the situation.
+
+"Go on with your work," Michael said, somewhat timidly. "Now I'm here, I
+don't want to be in the way."
+
+As though seeing a challenge to her embarrassment in these words, and
+anxious at the same time to show her skillfulness, she bent over the bed
+to continue her work. Michael regained his high spirits at this display
+of confidence. It wasn't chivalrous to allow her to work alone: he must
+help her.
+
+"You! You!" exclaimed Alicia, laughing, as though such a proposition
+seemed to her unthinkable.
+
+The Prince pretended to feel hurt. Yes: he! Wasn't he a sailor, and
+hadn't his adventurous life compelled him to know how to do a little of
+everything? More than once in his explorations in the wilds, he had had
+to make a bed as best he could, wrapped in blankets beside the embers of
+a fire.
+
+He had gone over to the other side of the bed, and was imitating all the
+movements of the Duchess with comic exaggeration. He petted the pillows
+after her, with such violence as to make the bed resound. While she
+lifted it slightly toward her to shake it better, he lifted it
+completely with his strong hands.
+
+"You don't know how! You don't know how!" Alicia exclaimed with childish
+glee.
+
+Then, seeing his fingers seize the linen with a powerful grip, she
+added:
+
+"Good heavens, let go of that: You'll tear the pillow, and just now, in
+these hard times!"
+
+They both laughed, finding this work very amusing.
+
+"Take hold!" she said in authoritative tones, and flung in his face a
+sheet that she was holding at the opposite side.
+
+Michael found himself wrapped in a cloud of filmy linen fragrant with
+feminine perfumes. It was for an instant only, but to him it seemed like
+something extraordinary, of limitless duration, extending beyond the
+bounds of time and space. He had a presentiment that this insignificant
+event was going to be a turning point in his life. He felt his former
+self suddenly awaken with fresh vigor. Perhaps it was the stimulation
+due to continence. He thought of Castro's ironic smile, and of himself,
+living like a hermit there in Villa Sirena, and preaching hostility to
+women! There was a buzzing in his ears; his eyes, momentarily blinded,
+seemed to be gazing on a vast expanse of rosy sky, the pale, luscious
+rose color of a woman's flesh. There was something intoxicating in the
+sudden breath that caused his brain to reel, communicating the sensation
+to his whole organism, as violently as though struck with a lash. When
+the sheet had fallen back on the bed, Michael was deathly pale, with a
+look of intenseness gleaming in his eyes. She thought he was angry at
+the jest, and she laughed mischievously, leaning on the pillow with her
+hands. As she shook with laughter, the lace of her low-necked negligee
+trembled seductively on her breast and shoulders.
+
+Suddenly the Prince found himself on the other side of the bed close to
+Alicia. Finally they both sat down on the edge of the bed, turning their
+backs on the forgotten sheet. He took one of her hands without realizing
+what he was doing. Then he bent so close to her face that one of her
+Medusa-like tresses brushed against his temple. He felt no desire to
+talk, but seeing her eyes, so close to his, he broke the pleasant
+silence.
+
+"You have been weeping!"
+
+The woman protested with a strained smile and grew pale as she stammered
+her excuses. No; perhaps it was the dust shaken up by the cleaning, or
+the effort of working. But he went on studying her eyes which were
+indeed slightly reddened.
+
+"You were crying when I came in," he continued, with insistent and
+troubled curiosity.
+
+Now Alicia's protest took the form of a harsh, shrill laugh, that was
+decidedly forced and unnatural. And by one of those modulations of which
+only great actors know the secret, the burst of her laughter died
+gradually into a sigh, then a groan, until, letting go the Prince's
+hand, she covered her eyes, and hung her head, while a fit of sobbing
+shook her whole body.
+
+She was crying. It was enough that Michael should have discovered her
+recent weeping to cause the tears to rise in her eyes again, renewing
+her former anguish. She gave in to her grief with a sort of cruel
+delight, finding it preferable to the torture of feigning, which his
+unexpected visit had imposed.
+
+The Prince remained silent for a few moments.
+
+"Is it for that young fellow of yours?" he plucked up courage to ask,
+with a shaking voice as though he too were undergoing an unexplainable
+emotion.
+
+She replied with a slight movement of her head, without taking her hands
+from her eyes. It was unnecessary for Michael to see them. He had
+guessed the truth on discovering the traces of tears. It could be only
+for him that she was weeping: the lack of news; the worry of thinking
+that he was a prisoner, far off, suffering all sorts of privations; and
+that perhaps she would never see him again.
+
+"How you love him!"
+
+The Prince was surprised himself at the tone of voice in which he said
+these words. There was a note of despair, envy, and sadness at the
+thought of the passing years, bequeathing to the coming generation the
+haughty privileges of youth.
+
+The guests at Villa Sirena would also have been astonished to hear him
+talk in this fashion. Alicia's surprise caused her to forget all
+precaution as a pretty woman, and lift her head, as she took away her
+hands. Her face was red, her eyes tremulous and overflowing. A tear hung
+from a lock of hair. She realized that she must be looking terrible, but
+what did she care?
+
+"Yes, I love him; I love him more than anything in the world. It is on
+his account that I go on living. If it weren't for him I would kill
+myself. But he isn't what you think. No, he isn't."
+
+With her face so reddened with weeping, it was impossible to detect a
+blush; but her gestures, the expression of her face and the tone of her
+voice, rebelled with shame and indignation against the suspicion of the
+Prince.
+
+She went on talking in a low voice, without daring to look at him,
+hurrying her words like a penitent anxious to get through with a
+difficult confession as soon as possible. On various occasions in
+talking with the Prince, the truth had come to her lips, and at the last
+moment the reticence of a woman still desirous of pleasing through her
+beauty had caused her to conceal the facts. But to whom could she reveal
+her secret better than to Michael? She considered him one of the family:
+he had received her in friendly fashion in her hour of need, when so
+many men had turned their backs on her. Besides, between a man and a
+woman, love is not the only feeling that can exist, as she had thought
+in the days of her mad youth. There were other less violent things, more
+placid and lasting: friendship, comradeship, and brotherly affection.
+
+She paused for a moment, as though to gather strength.
+
+"He is my son."
+
+Michael, who was expecting some extraordinary, some monstrous
+revelation, worthy of her mad past, was unable to restrain an
+exclamation of astonishment:
+
+"Your son!"
+
+She nodded: "Yes, my son." With lowered eyes, she went on talking in the
+same nervous tone, as though she were making a confession. She went back
+over her past. How surprised she had been, how angry, at the cruel trick
+love had played in cutting off the best years of her life! Her
+indignation was like that of the citizens of Ancient Greece who began a
+riot when they learned of the pregnancy of a courtezan who was
+considered a national glory, a beauty whom the multitude came from afar
+to see, when she showed herself nude in the religious festivals. They
+were bent on killing her unborn child, as though it had been guilty of
+a sacrilege. Alicia, too, used to consider herself a living work of art,
+and wanted to punish the sacrilege of her child with death. What
+criminal attempts she had made to rid herself of the shame that was
+throbbing in her vitals! Besides, what tortures she had undergone in her
+efforts to hide it, to go on leading her life of pleasure as before, and
+suffer anything rather than permit her secret to escape! Returning from
+parties where she had seen herself admired as formerly yet always with
+the dread that her secret had been discovered, she would fall into fits
+of homicidal rage and rebelliously curse the being that persisted in
+living within her; and in paroxysms of wild hysteria she would devise
+ways and means of encompassing its destruction.
+
+There were tears in her voice as she recalled these scenes.
+
+"But how about your husband?" Michael asked.
+
+"We separated at that time. He could tolerate my love affairs in
+silence: he could pretend not to know about them ... but a child that
+wasn't his own...!"
+
+She recalled the attitude of the Duke de Delille. He had shown a dignity
+worthy of him. There had been many deceived husbands in his family: it
+had almost become a tradition of nobility, an historic distinction. He
+did not feel dishonored by selling his name in getting married in order
+to increase the pleasures and comforts of his life. His name that
+belonged to him was a tool to work with. But it was impossible for him
+to let that name get out of his family, to give it to an intruder to
+continue the line. His forefathers had had many illegitimate children;
+but it had never occurred to any of his gay women ancestors to introduce
+into the family descendants in whose creation their husbands could
+assume no responsibility whatever.
+
+The Duke had separated from her, granting all her demands save that
+one. It was an adulterous son and it must disappear. And no one, except
+they two and the maid--who was still with her--were to know of the
+birth.
+
+"There were times when I was quite happy," Alicia continued. "I learned
+to know new unsuspected joys. I would suddenly leave Paris: lots of
+people thought I was traveling with some new lover. No; I was going to
+see my little boy, my George; first in London, later in New York, but
+always in a large city. I could live with him, and play at being a
+mother, with a living doll that kept getting bigger and bigger ...
+bigger! Do you remember the night I invited you to dinner? I had just
+come back from one of those trips, and in spite of that, just think of
+the foolish things I said. I imagined myself Venus, or Helen, passing
+before the old men on the wall. And in order to give myself up
+completely to a paroxysm of maternal pride I was thinking of my
+heroines, who were also my rivals. Helen had had children, and men went
+on killing one another for her. Venus had not escaped maternity, and
+gods and mortals continued to adore her in spite of the fact that she
+had a son fluttering about the world. Maternity meant neither abdication
+of rights nor loss of prestige; she could go on being beautiful and
+being desired, like other women, after an incident that had seemed to
+her irremediable. So I went on living my life. Oh, when I think of how I
+sometimes shortened the time that I had intended to stay with him, in
+order to follow some man that scarcely interested me! Now that I haven't
+him, I think of the hours that I might have lived by his side, and that
+were given up to the first male that aroused my curiosity! It's my most
+terrible remorse; it gnaws at my conscience all night long, and drives
+me to gambling as the only remedy. I am certainly to be pitied,
+Michael."
+
+But a fixed idea seemed to dominate Michael as he listened to her.
+
+"And the father? Who is the father?"
+
+The tone of his voice was practically the same as before: a tone of
+hostile curiosity, of aggressive spite.
+
+Another wave of astonishment swept over him when he saw that she was
+shrugging her shoulders.
+
+"I don't know; it doesn't make any difference to me. Other women, in
+like circumstances, fasten the paternity on the man they are most
+interested in. As though you could tell! I haven't picked out any one in
+particular from among my memories. They are all the same. I have
+forgotten them all. My son is mine, mine only."
+
+She had the majestic indifference of the serene and fertile forest that
+opens its blossoms to the pollen scattered through the air like a golden
+rain of love. The new plant springs up. It belongs to the forest, and
+the forest keeps it, without showing any interest in learning the name
+and origin of the wandering source of life borne hither willy-nilly on
+the wind.
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+"One day, on arriving in New York," she continued, "I made a terrible
+discovery. I found my George almost as tall as I was, and strong
+looking, with the serious air of a grown man, though he wasn't quite
+eleven. I'm ashamed to think it; but I mustn't lie: I hated him. Venus
+might have a son, as long as the son remained eternally a little child
+through all the centuries, like one of those amusing babies that are
+dressed in a whimsical fashion, and are the mother's pride and
+amusement. But my own son, with his powerful body, his strong hands, and
+solemn face! It meant that I should grow old before my time; I should
+have to renounce my youth if I kept him by my side! I could never resign
+myself to declaring that I was his mother. And I fled from him, letting
+a number of years go by, without paying attention to anything in regard
+to him, excepting to send the means for his complete education. Oh, when
+I think how fate has punished me for my selfishness!"
+
+She remained silent for a few moments to dry the fresh tears that were
+reddening her eyes and giving her voice a husky resonance.
+
+"He came to Paris when I was least expecting him. The venerable friend
+who was looking after his education there in America, had died. I found
+a man, a grown man, in spite of the fact that he wasn't over sixteen. My
+first feeling was one of annoyance, almost anger. I should have to say
+farewell to youth, and change my mode of life on account of this
+intruder. But there was something in me that kept me from doing anything
+so heartless as to send him back to a foreign country, or off to a
+boarding school in Paris. I grew accustomed to him at once. I had to
+have him in my house. It seemed as though, when I was near him, I felt a
+certain serenity, a deep quiet joy that I never thought myself capable
+of feeling. You don't know what it means, Michael. You could never
+understand, no matter how much I tried to explain it to you. I swear it
+was the happiest time in my life. There is no love like that. Besides,
+we were such good comrades! I suddenly felt as though I were a girl of
+his age again; no, younger than he. George used to give me advice. He
+was so wise for a boy of his age; and I used to do what he said like a
+younger sister. He let his mother drag him along and introduce him to a
+world of pleasure and luxury that dazzled him, after his sober, athletic
+life with a stern educator. And I leaned proudly on his arm, and laughed
+at the false ideas people had of our actual relation. How we used to
+dance, the year before the war, without any one suspecting the true
+nature of the affection that bound me to my partner!"
+
+Alicia paused to linger on these delightful memories. She smiled with a
+far-away look in her eyes, as she thought of the malicious error people
+had made.
+
+"Every tango-tea in the Champs-Elysees found the Duchess de Delille
+dancing with her latest crush! And, Michael, as for me, I was proud that
+they should be making such a mistake. I went on being the beautiful
+Alicia, restored to youth by the fidelity of an adolescent who
+accompanied her everywhere, with all the enthusiasm of a first love.
+This seemed to me a much better role than that of the passively resigned
+mother. Besides, what fun we used to have laughing and talking it over
+afterwards when we were by ourselves! Many of my former lovers felt
+their old passion revive again out of a sort of unconscious envy--the
+instinctive rivalry that the man of ripe years feels toward youth--and
+they began besieging me with their gallantries again. George used to
+threaten me in fun: 'Mamma, I'm jealous!' He didn't want any other man
+to be showing attentions to his mother, so that she might belong to him
+completely. On other occasions I myself had better reasons to protest. I
+surprised a greedy look in the eyes of many women of my own class when
+they gazed at him--some with a boldly inviting look, since, being
+younger, they felt they had a right to take him away from me. And he was
+so good! He used to joke with me about these passions that he inspired;
+and tell me about others that I had not been able to guess! You don't
+know what young people are like nowadays, in the generation that has
+followed us. They seem to be made of different flesh and blood. Our
+generation was the last to take love seriously; to give tremendous
+importance to it, and make it the chief occupation of our lives. Now
+they don't understand people like you and me: we seem monstrous to them.
+My son is only interested in one woman: his mother; and in addition to
+her, automobiles, aeroplanes, and sports. All these strong, innocent
+boys seemed to have guessed what was awaiting them...."
+
+As she spoke, the momentary serenity with which she had related this
+happy period in her life gradually vanished. She went on talking in a
+subdued voice, choked from time to time by sobs.
+
+Suddenly war had come. Who could have imagined it a month before? And
+her son was ashamed not to be one of the men who were hurrying to the
+railroad stations to join a regiment. One morning he had overwhelmed her
+with the announcement of his enlistment as a volunteer. What could she
+do? Legally she was not his mother. George bore the name of a pair of
+old married servants who had been willing to play that game of deception
+by posing as his parents. Besides, he was born in France, and it was not
+extraordinary that he, like so many other youths, should have wanted to
+defend his country before he was called to arms by law.
+
+The Duchess lived for a few months in a tiny village in the south of
+France, near the Aviation Camp where her son was in training. She wanted
+to be with him just as long as she possibly could. If only he had become
+a soldier at the time when she was living separated from him, and was
+concealing her actual relation to him! But she was going to lose him at
+the sweetest moment of her life, when she was beginning to think she
+might be at George's side forever.
+
+"It did not take him long to become a pilot. How I hated the ease with
+which he learned to manage his machine! His progress filled me with
+pride and anger. Those young fellows are regular fanatics so far as
+aviation is concerned. It is something that has come into existence in
+their time, and they have seen it grow before their school-boy eyes. He
+went away, and since then I have been more dead than alive. Three years,
+Michael, three years of torture! I've paid dearly for all my past life!
+Though the mistakes that I made were great, I've made up for them, and
+more too. You may well have compassion on me. You can have no idea what
+I'm suffering."
+
+The first year that Alicia had spent alone, she had lived in constant
+expectation of his letters, which arrived irregularly from the front.
+Her joys were few and far between. George had come to Paris only once on
+leave, and had spent half a week with her. At long intervals she also
+received visits from the aviator's comrades, greeting the news they
+brought with tears and smiles. Her son had received the War Cross after
+an air battle. His mother had cut out the short newspaper paragraph
+referring to this event, sticking it with two pins on the silk with
+which her bedroom was hung. She would spend hours staring as though
+hypnotized at these brief lines: "_Bachellery, Georges, aviator, gave
+chase to two enemy planes beyond our lines and ..._"
+
+This "Bachellery, Georges" was her son! It made no difference to her
+that other people were not aware of the fact. Her pride seemed to grow
+because of the mystery surrounding it. The handsome strapping fellow,
+strong, and innocent as the heroes of ancient legend, had been formed in
+her body. All the men whom she had known in her past life seemed more
+and more petty and ugly; they were inferior beings, sprung from another
+race of humanity, the existence of which should be forgotten.
+
+Suddenly a stupid, unforeseen accident plunged her into the darkness of
+despair. One beautiful morning with the joyous confidence of a young
+knight setting forth in quest of adventure, the aviator started out in
+his pursuit machine, rising through the silvery clouds in search of the
+enemy. Suddenly, he noticed some slight motor trouble--due to the
+negligence of the mechanics in getting it ready, a matter of slight
+importance under ordinary circumstances ... and he was forced to
+descend, absolutely unable to continue his flight, and the wind and bad
+luck caused him to land within the German lines.
+
+"A hundred yards this side, and he would have landed among his own
+men.... What can you expect? I was too happy. I had still to learn what
+misery really means! I confess that at the very first I was almost glad,
+with the selfish gladness of a mother. A prisoner! It meant that his
+life would be safe; he wouldn't be killed in an air battle; he was no
+longer in danger of being crushed to pieces or burned to death under his
+broken machine. But later on!..."
+
+Later this security, that placed her son outside the limit of actual
+war, became a source of torture. She envied herself the times when he
+used to go out each day and face death, but still remained free. The
+newspapers talked about the suffering of the prisoners, their being
+herded together in vast unsanitary sheds, and the hunger from which they
+were suffering. The life of ease and comfort which the mother was
+leading was a constant source of remorse. When she sat down at table, or
+looked at her soft bed, or noticed the warm caress of a fire, and saw
+that the window panes were covered with the traceries of frost, she felt
+she was usurping in a shameless manner something that belonged to
+another person. Her boy, her poor boy, was living like a stray dog,
+lying on the straw, with hunger gnawing at his stomach! She had produced
+a human being--she, a miserable woman, who for so many years had
+believed herself the center of the universe, was enjoying all kinds of
+luxuries--and this flesh of her flesh was agonizing under the tortures
+of want such as are felt only by the most poverty stricken.... She
+never could have dreamed that such an irony of fate would be reserved
+for her.
+
+During the first few months she scurried wildly about, with the fierce
+irrational love of the female animal that sees her young in danger. She
+went from one government bureau to the other, taking advantage of all
+her social connections! But there were so many mothers! They were not
+going to open diplomatic negotiations for a woman in her position....
+Every day she sent large packages of food to the offices that had charge
+of prisoners' relief. They finally refused to accept them. The entire
+service could not take up all its time doing nothing but send aid to a
+mere protege of the Duchess de Delille. There were thousands and
+thousands of men in the same situation as he. And she could not cry out:
+"He is my son!" A scandalous revelation like that would not help
+matters. She kept on sending the packages regularly even if they did not
+go to her George. They would be used to satisfy some one's hunger. She
+felt the magnanimity roused by great sorrow; she made her offerings like
+a mother who, in praying for her child when all hope has been given up,
+prays for other sick children also, feeling that through her generosity
+her prayers may be heeded.
+
+Besides, the suspense was cruel. When the clerks took her packages, they
+smiled sadly. She was practically certain that her shipments of food
+were being appropriated by the guards. All the expensive eatables
+intended for her son were doubtless used by the old German reservists in
+charge of guarding the prisoners, to have a joyous feast, with the
+greedy merriment of fierce mastiffs, toasting to the glory of the Kaiser
+and the triumph of their race over the entire world! Good God! What
+could she do?
+
+At long intervals, after tremendous delays, she would finally get a
+postcard passed by the German censor. There would be four lines,
+nothing more, written as children write at school, under the eye of the
+teacher standing at their backs. But the writing was George's. "In good
+health. We're not badly treated. Send me eatables." She would spend long
+hours gazing at these timid, deceiving lines. For her they acquired a
+new meaning. They told something else: the truth, namely. She recalled
+the stories of dying captives who had come from those torture camps, and
+the lines seemed to stammer with groans of a sick child: "Mamma ...
+hungry. I'm hungry!"
+
+There were times when she thought she would go mad. Everything about her
+brought to memory the image of her George, well groomed, and cared for
+by her with such fond and exaggerated attention. She had looked after
+his clothes, taking an interest in the respective merits of his tailors.
+She had had to endure his masculine protests when she had tried to
+provide him with underwear of fine silk like her own. In the morning she
+used to go and surprise him, as he lay in bed, like a little child, and
+kiss her own flesh and blood, metamorphosed into an athlete. Everything
+seemed to her too mean and poor for that strong fellow, handsome as a
+god of old. She looked after his bed, his dresser, and his person with
+all the passionate fondness of a sweetheart. She inspected his pockets
+in order continually to renew her gifts of money. Her Mexican mines were
+his, and so were the frontier lands, and everything she possessed. And
+later on--she hated to think when--she would see him married to some one
+after her own heart. Then his obscure birth was to be glorified by the
+splendor of enormous wealth. But suddenly the world, losing its balance,
+had been plunged into a furious madness, and this Prince of Fate, whose
+mother, in conference with the chef, had invented gastronomic surprises
+for him alone, was crying from some far off snow-swept plain in the icy
+north:
+
+"Mother ... hungry. I'm hungry!"
+
+"I went to Switzerland three times, Michael. I even proposed that in
+Paris they should provide me with means of getting into Germany,
+offering to go as a spy. But they laughed at me; and they were right!
+What was I going to spy out? My son, of course ... what I wanted to do
+in Germany was to see my son. In Switzerland I met two crippled soldiers
+who had just been exchanged, and came from the camp where George was.
+They knew the aviator Bachellery. He had tried to escape five times. He
+enjoyed a certain fame among his companions in misery for the
+haughtiness with which he faced the cruelest guards. The latest news was
+uncertain. They had not seen him lately. They thought that he was then
+in another prison camp, a punishment camp, farther inland, near the
+Polish frontier, where the refractory and dangerous prisoners were
+forced to undergo a cruel disciplinary regime, and suffer terrible
+punishments."
+
+Her voice trembled with anger as she said this. She could see her son
+dragging a chain, and being whipped like a slave. Oh, if she were only a
+man, and could be left alone for a moment with that tragi-comedian with
+the upturned mustache who had made many millions of women groan with
+sorrow!
+
+"And to think that there have been fanatics who have killed good or
+insignificant kings! And not one of them has lifted a hand to do away
+with the Kaiser! Don't talk to me about anarchists. They are idiots! I
+don't believe in them."
+
+This outburst of wrath vanished immediately. Once more grief and despair
+tore a sob from her. She remembered a photograph she had seen in one of
+the newspapers: the torture called "the post," applied by the Germans in
+their punishment camps; a Frenchman in a tattered uniform, fastened to
+a wooden stake, as though it were a cross, on an open snow-covered
+plain, suffering for hours and hours from the deadly cold. It was the
+death penalty, hypocritically applied, with savage refinements of
+torture. It was impossible to distinguish the features of the poor
+fellow suffering like Christ, with his head falling on his breast. Even
+if it wasn't George, surely he had also suffered the same torture.
+
+"How can I live in such endless anguish! They wouldn't let me go back to
+Switzerland. They held up my passports. I don't know what's happened to
+him. There are times when it seems as though my head would burst. That's
+why I avoid living alone. That's why I gamble, and have to see people,
+and talk, and get away from my thoughts. Since then I've only received
+one postcard from my son, without any date, and without any indication
+as to where he is. It says about the same as the other one. The writing
+is his, and nevertheless it seems to be in another hand. Oh, what that
+writing says! I see him like the other man, like the poor fellow
+fastened to the post covered with rags, as thin as a skeleton.... My
+son!"
+
+Michael was obliged to take both her hands in a strong grip, and draw
+them towards him, holding her up, to keep her from falling on the bed in
+hysterical convulsions. He was sorry that he had come, and, by his
+curiosity, invited a confession that aroused the woman's grief.
+
+As for her, she looked at him with wide-open staring eyes, without
+seeing him. Finally, concentrating with an effort, she noticed Michael's
+emotion. This calmed her somewhat.
+
+"You can be glad you don't know what such torture is like. There's no
+end to it: there's no help for it. When I think of him, I feel as though
+I were going to die. Not to know about him! Not to be able to do
+anything! I ought really to find some diversion and learn to think of
+something else. One must live: one can't be always weeping. But whenever
+I succeed in getting interested in anything, I immediately feel remorse.
+I call myself names: 'You're a bad mother, to forget your sorrows.' A
+day seldom passes that I eat without crying. I'm tormented by the
+thought that he would be happy with what is left from my table, with
+what the servants eat, or perhaps with what they give to the dog! And
+when Valeria and Clorinda see my tears, they can't explain such constant
+grief. They don't know my secret. They think like every one else, that
+it's simply a question of a mere protege or a young lover. They can't
+understand such despair over a mere man. That's why I gamble so much.
+It's the only thing that really keeps my mind occupied, and makes me
+forget for a time; it's my anaesthetic. Before, I used to play just for
+the excitement, for the pleasure of struggling with fate; and because I
+was flattered by the amazement of the curiosity seekers who watched me
+stake enormous sums with indifference. Now it's on his account--and for
+no other reason."
+
+Alicia's mind reverted to her financial difficulties. As a matter of
+fact, her fortune had been seriously impaired some years earlier, but
+she had always had hopes of some sudden recuperation. Besides, the
+period before the war had been the happiest time of her life. She had
+her son and she lived her life, without any thought of business matters.
+Later her financial ruin had come along with the loss of George.
+
+"If only I had the wealth I used to have! I know the power of money. I
+could have moved men and even governments. I would have written to the
+Kaiser, or to Hindenburg, sending them a million, two million, or any
+amount they asked. 'Now that you are reestablishing slavery and
+pillaging towns, here is money for you. Give me back my son.' And now I
+would have him back at my side. But I'm poor! If you knew how I love
+money now, just for his sake! I dream of winning big stakes, five
+hundred thousand francs or maybe a million, in two or three days. How
+happy I am when I come back from the Casino with a few thousand francs
+to the good! 'It's to send my poor boy a box with something good to
+eat,' I say to myself. Then I write to the stores, or go there myself,
+keeping in mind the things he liked best. You are rich and don't
+understand how hard it is to get along now, how scarce things are
+getting, and how much they cost! I didn't have any idea of such things
+before, either. And I send him boxes of the nicest things; and I feel
+proud that in my mind I can say to him: 'It's with the money mamma won
+for you ... it's with my work!' Don't smile, Michael. That's what it
+is--work! Besides, what else could I work at? The one thing that worries
+me is how to address these shipments. 'For the Aviator Bachellery,
+prisoner in Germany.' That's all I know, and there are so many
+prisoners! Almost all my shipments must be lost; but some at least will
+reach him. Don't you think he'll get some of them?"
+
+The Prince greeted this anxious question with a vague gesture of
+agreement. "Yes;--perhaps, almost certainly!"
+
+Immediately Alicia showed a certain reassurance. Eight months had gone
+by without her hearing anything about him; but other mothers were in the
+same situation. There was no use despairing. Men who had been given up
+for dead in the early battles of the war were returning home after a
+long period of captivity. Besides, did it seem reasonable to believe
+that a son of hers was going to die of hunger and want, like a beggar?
+
+Lubimoff again nodded assent. "Really, it didn't seem reasonable!"
+
+"There are moments," she said, "when I feel an unexplainable joy, a
+mysterious intuition, that I'm going to receive good news,--the feeling
+I have on the days when I go to the Casino sure of winning,--and do win.
+I wrote to the King of Spain, who is interested in ascertaining the fate
+of prisoners, and who often succeeds in getting them sent back to their
+homes. I have had a great number of friends write to him. If he could
+only give me back my George! At least I expect to learn good news; to
+find out where he is, and convince myself that he is alive. I would be
+satisfied if they interned him in Switzerland, the way they do with the
+seriously wounded, and I would go and live with him. How happy I would
+be if he were in Lausanne or Vevey, beside the lake, like my husband!"
+
+There was a sad, kindly smile on her face as she thought of the Duke.
+
+"Oh, I haven't forgotten him, I assure you. Everything that's left over
+from George's boxes, I send to him by way of Geneva. 'For
+Lieutenant-Colonel de Delille.' Oh, it reaches _him_, without any
+difficulty! Poor fellow! His answers are almost love letters. I send him
+sausages and canned things, in memory of the twenty louis bouquets he
+used to send me when he was courting me. What are we coming to, Michael!
+Who could ever have imagined that everything and everybody would be so
+topsy-turvy!"
+
+Already she was talking more calmly, as though the memory of her son was
+no longer in the foreground of her thoughts.
+
+"Everything seems to tell me I'm going to get good news. Misfortune
+can't last so very much longer. Doesn't it seem that way to you? It's
+like bad luck in play: it finally goes away. The main thing is to save
+your strength in order to resist it. I ought to feel satisfied. I was so
+excited I could hardly sleep last night. I went above the thirty; you
+know: the thirty thousand francs that used to be the limit of my luck.
+Last night I won eighty thousand. Your friend Lewis was furious. He says
+it takes a woman to do a thing like that: to win, playing haphazard,
+defying all the rules."
+
+From the look on the Prince's face she guessed his surprise at her
+merriment following so closely on her recent tears.
+
+"I can't stay by myself. I have such memories! Perhaps you heard me
+singing, as you came up-stairs. It's an English song my son used to
+sing. In the morning I used to go and listen at his door like a
+sweetheart who, while waiting for him to appear, is glad to hear the
+voice of the man she loves. Whenever I'm alone I sing it over
+mechanically; I try to imagine it is George singing, and my eyes fill
+with tears, but with tears of tenderness that are very sweet. While I
+was making the bed it seemed as though I heard him, going back and forth
+in his bedroom, with me waiting and listening in the hall. My voice was
+his voice. That was why I fairly trembled when you came in. For a moment
+I supposed you were he. How wonderful it will be when I see him!... I'm
+sure I shall see him. Misfortune can't last forever. Don't you think
+I'll see him?"
+
+Her closed eyes seemed to smile on a far-off vision of hope. And
+Michael, who had remained silent for a long time, spoke to give her
+encouragement. Poor woman! Yes; she would see her son. At his age a man
+can stand any hardship. He would return; they would both be happy once
+more, talking over their present troubles, as though it had all been a
+bad dream.
+
+"Besides, I will help you. We must get busy and take steps to have your
+son returned to you. I shall write to the King of Spain. I knew him. He
+had lunch on my yacht once when I was in San Sebastian. I have friends
+in Paris, men in politics, and diplomats; I shall write to all of them.
+And if worse comes to worst, and there's no other way out of it, I shall
+try through the medium of some neutral government to get a letter
+through to Wilhelm II. Perhaps he may pay some attention to me. He must
+remember me, and his visit to my boat."
+
+Now it was her turn to look at him fixedly through a mist of tears,
+smiling, at the same time, to express her gratitude.
+
+"How kind you are!" she exclaimed after a long silence. "The day when I
+was in Villa Sirena for the first time I was convinced that I had made a
+great mistake. How little we knew each other! We needed adversity to see
+each other as we really are. First you offered to relieve my poverty,
+and now you are going to try to get me back my son!"
+
+She let herself be carried away by an impulse of affection. Michael saw
+her bend her head, and suddenly felt the contact of her lips on his
+hand. He heard two loud kisses and a voice whispering: "Thanks ...
+thanks." The Prince rose to his feet. He could not tolerate such
+expression of humility. But at the same time she too stood up; their
+eyes were on a level. As though desiring to complete the recent caress,
+she took his head impulsively in her hands, and kissed him on the brow.
+
+A sudden wave of human fragrance, like that which had enveloped him when
+the sheet had been thrown on his face, once more stirred the depths of
+his being. He realized that the caress meant nothing: that it was merely
+a kiss of gratitude, a sudden outburst of feeling on the part of a
+mother expressing her emotion with unusual impetuousness. In spite of
+this, he felt himself dominated by passion, cruel and at the same time
+voluptuous, causing him to reach out his arms to master and embrace
+what he held within reach.... But his hands touched empty space.
+
+Repenting her act, she had stepped back, retreating a few steps. She was
+standing in the doorway, ready to continue her flight, mechanically
+straightening her hair, and drying her tears, as a deep blush spread
+over her features.
+
+"I didn't know what I was doing!" she murmured. "Forgive me. I was so
+grateful to learn that you wanted to help me!"
+
+At the same time she pointed to the balcony. Below, in the garden, the
+voice of the gardener could be heard telling his dog to stop that
+barking all the time at the foot of the stairs, as though a thief were
+inside the villa.
+
+"Let us go," she commanded gravely. "The servants will soon be coming
+back from mass. I shouldn't like to have them find us here in my
+bedroom. They might think...."
+
+Calming down, Lubimoff noted the unconscious modesty, and the evident
+uneasiness with which she said this. He suddenly recalled the woman of
+the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, and her daring theories. Was it
+really the same person?
+
+As they went downstairs she turned her head to talk to him, as though
+she had read his thoughts.
+
+"You must be amused at me. What a change from the Alicia of former
+times! I'm not so bad as I seem, that much is certain, isn't it? Tell me
+you don't think I'm so bad; tell me you think I'm only mad; mad, and
+always unlucky."
+
+She opened the rooms downstairs to show how orderly they looked, but the
+chill of the deserted drawing room, the covers on the furniture, and the
+musty odor, like that of a damp cellar, prompted them to go out into the
+garden and, like two people prolonging their farewell, continue their
+conversation at the foot of the stairway.
+
+The elderly maid of the Duchess, and the gardener's wife who looked
+after the cooking, passed them repeatedly on various pretexts. They
+bowed to the gentleman, with a look of adoration and a pleasant smile.
+They seemed to be saying to themselves: "That nice fellow is Prince
+Lubimoff, the one that's so much talked about." They had often heard his
+name in Villa Rosa, and they both venerated him as a providential being
+who could restore the vanished days of abundance with a mere wave of the
+hand.
+
+Michael thought it best not to prolong his visit.
+
+"Come and see me," she said in a low voice, as she accompanied him out
+to the gate. "Now you know everything. You're the only one who does. It
+will seem very sweet to me to talk with you, and have you console and
+help me."
+
+The Prince spent the next few hours, pensive and silent. So many new
+things had come up all at once! First there had been the revelation of a
+son, whose existence he never could have imagined; next, the untamable
+creature of love changed into a mother; her tears, her silent suffering,
+which she was bearing, like a convict's chain, in expiation of her mad
+past. And the crowning surprise of all had been what he had felt within
+himself, the resurrection of his former being, his new surrender to the
+domination of the flesh, and the double lashing his nervous system had
+received in breathing the perfume of the soft linen and feeling the
+imprint of her lips on his brow.
+
+This latter he wished to forget, and to succeed in doing so he
+concentrated all his attention on the revelations she had made, and on
+her maternal sorrows. Poor Alicia! Finding her impoverished and tearful,
+with no other help than that which he might give, he began to feel a
+lasting affection for her. It was the affection of the strong for the
+weak; a paternal love which did not take into account the similarity in
+their ages, nor the difference of sex; a tenderness made up for the most
+part of a certain sweet pity. He was moved by the memory of the humble
+kiss with which she had caressed his hands. It was the kiss, almost of a
+beggar. Unhappy woman! This was enough to make him feel obliged never to
+abandon her.
+
+Alicia's pride, her desire to dominate, had formerly irritated him.
+Accustomed to protecting women generously without ever submitting to
+their will, considering them in the light of something agreeable and
+inferior, he could not compromise with her haughty character. They were
+both people too strong and domineering to be able to tolerate each
+other. But now everything was changed.
+
+He remembered her as he had seen her in the bedroom, sorrowful, weeping,
+with pearls hanging from the corners of her eyes, which were tragically
+beautiful, as in the images of the Virgin, where Mary is holding the
+body of the crucified Christ on her knees. _Mater Dolorosa!_
+
+But there seemed to be another person within the Prince protesting with
+cold, clear-sightedness against this image. No, she was not the Mother
+of Sorrows. A mother never abandons her son. She renounces all of the
+vanities of this world for him. She gives up her present and her future,
+as though she had no other life than that of her son, part of her own
+flesh. At all hours she gives him the milk of her breast. Moment by
+moment she follows his development, fighting with illness, laughing at
+danger. To love him she does not have to wait for him to grow to the
+full splendor of adolescence. Whereas she...!
+
+She was the _Venus Dolorosa_. Even in the moments of deepest despair she
+maintained her beauty, and her grief seemed a new means of seduction.
+She was a mother; but she continued to be a woman, that terrible,
+destructive woman whom the Prince had always hated. Look out, Michael!
+
+But with a smile of superiority he replied inwardly to this reflection.
+
+"Perhaps I am going to fall in love with her," he said to himself. "I am
+fond of her as I never thought I could be, but only as a friend, a
+companion worthy of pity, one whom I ought to protect."
+
+At lunch time Spadoni did not turn up at Villa Sirena. Atilio had seen
+him at the Casino with some English friends from Nice. They were
+probably lunching together at the Hotel de Paris to work out some new
+system or other. The last thing they had tried was for the four of them
+to play at different tables, but with the same system of combinations, a
+device that the pianist boasted would prove infallible.
+
+After they had had their coffee, all the guests of the luxurious villa
+seemed possessed by the same restlessness, which would not let them sit
+still.
+
+Castro was the first one to leave, announcing that he was going to the
+Casino. He had a feeling that it was going to be a "great evening." He
+had had his eyes on a _croupier_ who started work at half-past three. He
+knew this man's style of starting the ball. Every _croupier_ has his own
+mannerisms. Some do it with a long sweep, and others with a short jerky
+motion of the arm. This particular one made it fall most frequently in
+seventeen, and that was Castro's number.
+
+Novoa was the next to go, but he was less frank about it. He stammered
+blushingly as he said good-by to the Prince. Perhaps he would spend the
+afternoon with some friends from Monaco. Perhaps he would take a short
+trip on the Nice road as far as Cap d'Ail or Beaulieu. His was the
+embarrassment of a man who does not know how to lie.
+
+The Prince was left alone. He looked at the sea for a while. Then he
+changed windows, and gazed at the gardens. He pressed a button to call
+Don Marcos. He did not know what he was going to say to him but he felt
+he must see him in order not to remain alone. One of the old women
+servants appeared, and announced that the Colonel had gone to Monte
+Carlo.
+
+"He, too," the Prince said to himself.
+
+In order to escape the tediousness of spending a Sunday afternoon alone,
+he took his hat and overcoat. Some power beyond his comprehension was
+impelling him toward the neighboring city. Turning away from the villa,
+he walked through the gardens.
+
+The edifice, thus deserted, appeared larger, and its frowning and angry
+silence seemed to be asking him why anybody had ever been such a fool as
+to waste so much money and material on a box like that.
+
+Along the nearby road, street cars and carriages were gliding, filled
+with city people who were coming out for a glimpse of the smiling sea,
+or of a group of pines, or to find a height that might afford a
+panoramic view.
+
+And he, the owner of the famous gardens of Villa Sirena, was deserting
+all this beauty to go to a city from which others were trying to escape.
+
+Lubimoff recalled the splendid scheme of life he had worked out a few
+months before: a community of lay brethren shut off from the world in a
+spot like paradise: music, astronomy, pleasant conversations, wholesome
+work. And now the monks were running away on all sorts of pretexts, and
+he, who was their prior, also was feeling an unexplainable impulse to
+follow their example. Even Toledo, the faithful admirer of that estate
+which he had considered the best work of his life, seemed to be
+suffering from the same feverish desire to get away.
+
+Near the gate he turned to contemplate his beautiful domain as if to beg
+its pardon. There was a silence like that surrounding an enchanted
+palace. The gardens seemed asleep like dream woods.
+
+He thought he saw at the end of a long avenue a flutter of two large
+birds. It was Estola and Pistola, in afternoon coats too long for them,
+running toward the end of the promontory. It was as though Villa Sirena
+had been constructed for them. They could play with the active joy of
+youth in these gardens, to the envy of those who lingered at the gate
+out of curiosity. As they ran along they were free to trample on rare
+plants brought from the other side of the globe; free to jump from rock
+to rock in search of the little fishes left by the waves in miniature
+lakes in the hollows of the rock, until their coat tails were wet and
+their shoes full of holes--to the despair of the Colonel, who made the
+servants pass in review before him every day.
+
+Michael preferred not to ask himself where he was going. He surely had
+some end in view when he started his walk, but he felt it a nuisance to
+think about it. Suddenly he saw two currents of people coming from
+opposite directions, meeting and mingling, as they both mounted a short
+winding stairway which was divided by two hand-rails, and was covered by
+three red carpets.
+
+He was in front of the Casino. On one side, were arriving the people who
+had just come by train, on the other, those who had been gathered in by
+all the street cars from the towns on the Riviera between Nice and Monte
+Carlo.
+
+That evening a celebrated Italian tenor was singing, and many of the
+people, forgetting their game for the moment, were gathering in the
+theater.
+
+Lubimoff found himself immediately attended by two solemn gentlemen in
+frock coats with black ties and their heads bare. They were two
+inspectors from the Casino.
+
+"We are very sorry, Prince, but everything is full. There are people
+even in the aisles."
+
+But since it was he, one of the two men accompanied him as far as the
+box belonging to the Prime Minister of Monaco. The man who governed for
+the Sovereign Prince recognized him and was anxious to give him the best
+seat, but Michael, disliking public curiosity, preferred to remain in
+the second row.
+
+It was a theater without any balconies. The auditorium was wider than it
+was deep. The rows of comfortable seats were all alike and all sold at
+the same price. The stage was used for concerts and, on rare occasions,
+for plays and operas.
+
+The architect who had built the Paris Opera House had repeated the same
+dazzling display in this hall. There were gold ornaments on every side,
+elaborate moldings, caryatids and immense mirrors. There was not a
+hand's breadth of the wall without its gilded stucco, raised in bold
+relief.
+
+In the hall at the rear above the seats that rose at a decided angle,
+were five boxes, the only ones there were.
+
+They were reserved for the Sovereign Prince and his high officials.
+
+While listening to the singing, Michael examined the crowded mass of
+people, as well as he could, from his seat. He recognized many as he
+gazed over their heads.
+
+Toward the front he distinguished a man with gray hair that was parted
+from the forehead to the nape of the neck, and brushed forward mingling
+with his side whiskers, in an Austrian fashion. It was the Colonel, who
+was listening with a certain air of authority, swaying his head to show
+his approbation of the celebrated tenor. But he was not alone. The
+Prince saw him bend toward a girl with curly hair and a string of large
+amber beads. Oh, the traitor!
+
+There was no doubt about it. It must have been the gardener's daughter.
+That was why he had fled in such a hurry. The milliner's apprentice had
+insisted. She was anxious to hear the singer she had heard the ladies
+talk so much about.
+
+When the huge nightingale had retired to the wings, the Colonel offered
+his protegee a cornucopia full of caramels. Caramels in wartime! An
+extravagance, indeed, that only a lover could allow himself.
+
+In the intermission, the Prince slipped away, for fear that he might
+meet Don Marcos and spoil his aide's pleasant afternoon by his presence.
+Besides, he was not interested in the opera or in the highly praised
+artist.
+
+He crossed the large ante-room with its columns of jasper supporting a
+gallery with balusters surmounted by bronze candelabras. At one end of
+the room the latest news was posted on panels. The Prince read it
+without any curiosity.
+
+Nothing new. The same as ever. The monotonous trench warfare was
+continuing. Ground gained and lost by the yard. There would be no end to
+it.
+
+He slipped out between the groups of people during the intermission,
+taking care that the Colonel should not see him.
+
+Poor Don Marcos! He was walking along gravely and proudly by the side of
+his protegee, who might have been his granddaughter. He glanced with
+hostility at all the young men, while behind his back, she made eyes at
+every passing uniform.
+
+The Prince was obliged to force his way through a motionless compact
+group made up of wounded officers. French, Canadians, Australians, and
+Englishmen. Mingled with them were nurses of various types--some with
+nunlike veils and with a delicate appearance; others with a masculine
+look, having neckties and uniforms with gold buttons, without any
+feminine apparel except their skirts. Some who were older and had short
+hair, red faces, and large shell spectacles had to be examined closely
+before one could be convinced, from their hybrid appearance, that they
+were women. They crowded together in front of the three double curtains
+leading to the gambling rooms. Those who belonged in any way to the army
+or navy of any nation whatsoever were not allowed to pass this limit.
+Soldiers could enter only the theater and the ante-room of the Casino.
+And those people who in their far-off countries had often heard of Monte
+Carlo, finding themselves there by chance of war, were crowding at the
+curtains with childish curiosity, admiring, for an instant, as the
+draperies rapidly opened and closed, the vision of gilded rooms, all in
+a row and filled with people. Afterwards they would withdraw, giving up
+their places to other comrades. At last they had seen it! Now they could
+say they knew all about Monte Carlo!
+
+The employees in their black frock coats opened one of the curtains,
+greeting the Prince as though he were an old acquaintance. It was the
+first time Michael had entered the gaming rooms since his return. It
+seemed to him as though he had awakened miraculously into the world of
+things before the war. Everything that was afflicting humanity remained
+on the other side of the door, as the action of a drama, unreal but
+exciting, remains on the stage of a theater which we leave behind us. He
+found even a certain attractiveness in the architecture of these drawing
+rooms, because of their vague familiarity, recalling the pleasant days
+of his life. He was in the Renaissance hall, but his whole attention was
+taken by the adjoining parlor, the central rotunda of the Casino, called
+the "Schmidt Drawing Room," the one on which all the other rooms
+converge and which seems to be prolonged under the dividing archways to
+the farthest ends of the building.
+
+A pulsing silence arose from the mass of human beings around the green
+tables. Every one was talking in a low voice as though in church. From
+time to time this murmur was broken by a long swishing sound, a noise
+like that of pebbles on the shore swept by a wave. It was caused by the
+rakes of the employees sweeping the green cloth and carrying with them
+the clashing coins and ivory ships--all the spoils of the losings. The
+voices of the _croupiers_, like those of officers giving commands, arose
+above the feverish silence which reminded one of a humming hive.
+
+"_Faites vos jeux. Vos jeux sont faits?... Rien ne va plus._"
+
+The hall gradually lost the suppressed noises which served to accentuate
+its silence. People breathed more naturally, as they craned their necks
+to see better over the shoulders of those in front of them. Some of the
+women were standing on one foot only, with the other raised behind them
+like dancers bending over to touch the ground with their hands. They all
+crowded together, paying no attention to the sex of the persons against
+whom they were pushing. During this pause, marked by long faces,
+frowning eyebrows, drawn mouths, and converging glances, there resounded
+with its noise increased by a diabolical echo, the rattling of the tiny
+ivory ball as it whirled in the grooves along the wooden rim, while the
+colored rows of the roulette wheel kept spinning in the opposite
+direction, like a kaleidoscope. Suddenly there was a sharp click. The
+ball had ended its circular flight, falling into a number. The silence
+was prolonged. The spectators' necks were craned even more. There was a
+nervous clenching of fists. Again there was the sound of pebbles washed
+by the sea. The rakes were sweeping the green table. It was a bad number
+for the players. Whenever a stifled uproar occurred, caused by a hundred
+bosoms suddenly breathing freely, it took the _croupiers_ several
+minutes to resume play. They had to pay the winners and settle disputes
+between those who claimed the same bet. At the end of each play various
+groups at a table would disengage themselves to go over to another; but
+the ring of people always remained compact through the arrival of new
+spectators.
+
+From the central skylight a dim splendor descended. Outside the sun was
+shining on the azure sea. This light was like that of a wine cellar, a
+light, according to Castro, like that of a Hall of Congress. It was a
+yellowish light gold which seemed to increase the magnificence of the
+drawing rooms. The architecture was of the rich and majestic sort that
+attracts the crowd and the newly rich. The columns and pillars of onyx
+and bronze held up a magnificent ceiling, broken by the circular stained
+glass of the skylight. In the four triangles of the vault were statues
+representing _Air_, _Earth_, _Fire_, and _Water_, as though these four
+elements had some relation to the business which gave the vast edifice
+its reason for existence.
+
+Four metal spiders, huge and glistening, completed the heavy
+sumptuousness of the decoration. Where there were no gilded ornaments or
+mirrors, the walls were covered with showy pictures. These paintings and
+all of the rest that adorned the Casino were the object of Michael's
+jests. Some of them were fairly acceptable. The majority appeared very
+ancient in spite of the fact that they were not over forty years old.
+But there was nothing noble about their antique appearance. It seemed
+rather as though they had lain for centuries in scorn and oblivion.
+Atilio accounted for the appearance of these canvases in a way of his
+own. According to him they were the work of various patrons ruined by
+gambling, whom the Casino felt obliged to advertise.
+
+The Prince began to notice well-known faces in this crowd which was
+being constantly renewed, and was changing each moment. The whole world,
+sooner or later passed that way. That floor with its various inlaid
+woods was one of the most frequented spots of Europe. It was something
+like the ancient Roman forum, a point on which all roads of the entire
+world converged. Idlers from the entire globe were attracted to this
+room. They all dreamed of being able to go sometime and risk a coin in
+the great Mediterranean gambling house. Men from other continents
+disembarking in the old world wrote Monte Carlo on the itinerary of
+their travels. But this human river which constantly glided along,
+receiving new waves of arrivals, kept leaving in the crannies of its
+shores, pools of stagnant waters, clogged by uprooted plants and the
+naked trunks of trees.
+
+Lubimoff nodded to certain persons, who looked at him with a sort of
+cordial surprise, as though they were looking at a dead man brought to
+life. An old man, with a short bristling beard on a face pale as a
+corpse, bowed deeply as he passed, without seeming in his humility to be
+offended at not receiving an acknowledgment. He was the man most sought
+after and coaxed by the women who frequented the Casino. He wore a sort
+of black cap like that of a priest, and carried a hat in one hand. On
+his coat lapel was a medal of enamel work with the Sacred Heart of
+Jesus. Atilio and Lewis had also sought him frequently. Michael was sure
+that this man was a friend of the Duchess de Delille and that on more
+than one occasion he had seen her tears. He loaned money at 5 per cent
+(for every 24 hours), and spent the time, he was not busy, watching new
+arrivals from a distance to see if they might turn out to be new
+clients.
+
+The Prince received smiles, also from certain respectable looking women
+who were by no means ugly, though they were stout in some parts of their
+body and slender in others, like persons who have taken a course to
+reduce flesh without obtaining a uniform result. They were seated on the
+divans in the corners, talking among themselves, and watching the groups
+of gamblers, with the air of employees resting after having done their
+duty. They had come to Monte Carlo many years ago with jewels, with
+thousands of francs, and men who endured all the unevenness of their
+tempers and in addition gave them money. And everything had vanished on
+the Casino tables. But they went on clinging to the reef on which they
+had been wrecked--perhaps beyond salvation, living on the jettison of
+many another who had followed the same route, only to be dashed on the
+same rocks and perish. They offered their services to strangers as
+persons acquainted with the mysteries of the house, advising honey-moon
+couples what number they should play, as though they knew the secret.
+Besides they came to the Casino at the opening hour to get the best
+places at the tables and later give up their chairs to wealthy players,
+steady clients, who rewarded them generously if luck favored them.
+
+He met still others also. A number of women passed close to him. They
+were old, but of an age incapable yet of frankly facing the free air and
+the open sunlight. Their appearance of antiquity was accentuated by
+their strange apparel, which recalled no particular style--dresses of
+bright colors that had faded, and which seemed to have been cut from old
+curtains, and smelled like a musty old house;--and monumental hats or
+spherical turbans made of mosquito netting. Some were thin as
+skeletons; others were mountains of living fat; but all of them were
+painted scandalously with vermilion and had blue rings around their
+lightless eyes.
+
+"A _louis_, Prince," murmured the most daring. "I am sure that you will
+bring me luck." As she spoke, her false teeth, too large for her gums,
+rattled; a stench of the grave accompanied the smile on the painted
+lips.
+
+Michael knew who they were, from Toledo's tales. The Colonel, as an
+admirer of fallen royalty, accepted their conversation with melancholy
+deference. One of them had been a sweetheart of Victor Emanuel; another,
+who was older, recalled, with sighs, the days of Napoleon III, and of
+Morny.
+
+They had come to die in Monte Carlo, the last spot on earth able to
+remind them of the splendors of sixty years before; some of them, in
+memory of their vanished jewels, calmly displayed brass ornaments and
+beads of glass. According to a paradox of Castro's, they had died many
+years before, spending the night in the Monaco Cemetery dressing
+themselves with the spoils from other corpses and coming to the Casino
+from force of habit to contemplate once more the scenes of their remote
+youth. The Prince gave them a few bank notes and went out, while they
+ran to gamble this money, after having thanked him for the gift, with a
+death-head grin that was the last remnant of their former professional
+charm.
+
+Suddenly Michael stopped, observing the various parasites who lived by
+clinging to the gearing of the terrible machine and feeding on the
+crumbs it pulverized. He became interested in the crowd which was always
+apparently the same, though always with distinct individuals. There were
+some who walked along leaning on canes, invalids' canes tipped with
+rubber--the only kind allowed in the gaming room for fear of quarrels.
+He noticed flaccid old women slowly hobbling along, paralytic gentlemen
+leaning on the arm of tall, robust fellows in braided uniforms who led
+them in a fatherly fashion toward the roulette wheels and eased them
+into their chairs. A few paralytics arrived at the foot of the stairway
+in little carriages like children's carts, and thence were carried on
+hand chairs through the rooms to their favorite spot. At certain moments
+it seemed as though the gambling hall were a famous health resort, or a
+place of miracles, like Lourdes. They came just as incurable invalids
+come to other places, impelled by a last hope; but in this case the hope
+was not for health. That was the least of their cares. What galvanized
+them here was the hope of fortune, and dreams of wealth, as if riches
+would be of any service to these poor bodies lacking all the appetites
+which make life pleasant.
+
+Mentally the Prince summed up all human passions in two pleasures which
+are the springs of all action--love and gambling. There were people who
+experienced equally the attraction of them both--Castro, for example. He
+himself had been interested only in love and could not understand the
+pleasures of gambling. Whenever he had gotten up from the gaming tables,
+each time with winnings, he had never felt any temptation to return. But
+looking at these ailing people, some of them very aged, at those
+incurables, all of them dragging themselves toward the roulette wheel as
+though toward a miraculous bath, he condoned them pityingly. What other
+pleasure was there left for them on earth? How could they fill the
+emptiness of their lives prolonged so tenaciously?
+
+What he could not understand was the intense attitude, the hard faces,
+of the other gamblers who were healthy and strong. Young men moved among
+the women around the tables with hostile brusqueness, quarrelling with
+them harshly and treating them like enemies. Women suddenly lost their
+grace and freshness, becoming masculine all at once as they looked at
+the rows of cards of _trente et quarante_ or at the mad whirl of the
+colored wheel. Their gestures were those of prize fighters. Their mouths
+were drawn. There was a look of fierceness in their eyes. As though
+warned instinctively of this transformation, no sooner did they tear
+themselves away from the tables than they took out their vanity
+case--the little mirror, the powder, and the rouge--to correct or efface
+the passing ravages of the play. Those of more dignified and normal
+appearance showed themselves at times to be the most reckless. In a
+place where all the women were doing the same as they, gambling had
+something official about it, something worthy of respect; it was
+possible for them to indulge in a vice without fear of gossip, without
+the risk of being criticized.
+
+The Prince smiled as he remembered a story Toledo had told him a few
+days before: the despair of a woman of about forty who came from Nice
+with her two daughters every afternoon, and had finally lost fifty
+thousand francs.
+
+"Oh! If I had only taken a lover," the mother had groaned with tears in
+her eyes. "It would have been better if I had chosen love."
+
+Michael entered the other rooms that had no skylight. The clusters of
+electric bulbs lighting them with senseless splendor made him think of
+the burning sun and the azure sea just beyond those walls of gold and
+jasper.
+
+Above the tables were oil lamps with two enormous shades each one
+sheltering four fixtures which hung by bronze chains several yards long,
+attached to the ceiling. Thus if the electric current was cut off,
+there was no danger of the patrons feeling tempted to appropriate the
+money on the tables.
+
+Occasionally a little bell would sound, rung by one of the employees in
+black frock coat who directed the playing. A chip, a coin, or a bank
+note had fallen under the table. Suddenly with the promptness of a scene
+shifter waiting behind the stage, a lackey dressed in a blue and gold
+uniform appeared, carrying a dark lantern and a hook to rummage about
+among the players' feet until he found the lost object.
+
+The discipline observable in these vast rooms was like that on a
+warship, where everything is in its place and every man at his post. In
+order to make sure that everything was going properly, various
+respectable gentlemen with decorations on their coat lapels, walked back
+and forth among the tables, with the air of officers on duty. Whenever
+voices were raised, these men appeared with rapid strides, to cut short
+the arguments in some tactful manner. When two gamblers claimed the same
+bet, they immediately settled the dispute by paying both. The money
+would finally come back to the house any way!
+
+According to Atilio, the Casino was honeycombed in all directions with
+secret galleries, hidden openings and even trap doors, like the stage
+for a comedy of magic--all these for the sake of immediate service, and
+to avoid any annoyance to the patrons.
+
+Sometimes the invalid fainted at the table or fell dead through too
+violent emotion. Immediately the wall would open and eject two
+attendants with a stretcher who would cause the troublesome body to
+disappear as though by enchantment. Those at the adjoining table would
+scarcely have a chance to be aware of it.
+
+At other times it would be a suicide. Lubimoff knew a table called the
+Suicide Table, because an Englishman had killed himself there in
+melodramatic fashion, shooting himself with a pistol when he had lost
+his last penny. His brains had been scattered in shreds on the green
+baize and on the faces of his neighbors, and even on the frock coats of
+the _croupiers_. There are always people who have no tact, and who do
+not know how to behave in good society! But the attendants emerged from
+the wall, carried away the corpse, and cleaned the blood from the carpet
+and table.
+
+Shortly afterwards, from the oval of people crowding against the green
+table, the consecrated words arose: "_Faites vos jeux.... Vos jeux sont
+faits?... Rien ne va plus._"
+
+The Prince recalled the famous suicide bench in the gardens of the
+Casino. It was all a magazine yarn. No such bench had ever existed. When
+several persons killed themselves on the same bench, the administration
+had its position changed immediately! Besides, the number of suicides
+was much exaggerated. There were two or three each year, no more.
+According to Castro, it was no longer the fad to kill one's self at
+Monte Carlo. It showed an unpardonable lack of taste. The proper thing
+to do was to go a long way off and disappear without making any
+commotion.
+
+Besides the house police were quick to detect those who were in despair.
+Such people received a railway ticket at once and they were advised to
+kill themselves, like good fellows, in Marseilles, or if not so far
+away, at least in Nice or Menton.
+
+Michael was near the "Suicide Table" close to the entrance to the
+private rooms, when he noticed a certain commotion in the crowd. Groups
+were seeking one another to exchange news. The old patrons were moved by
+professional feeling. Something important was going on. The Prince knew
+the meaning of these sudden bursts of curiosity: a player was winning
+or losing in remarkable fashion.
+
+He heard indistinctly a name that brought him to attention.
+
+"The Duchess de Delille--two hundred thousand francs!"
+
+All those who had permission to play in the private rooms hurried toward
+the large glass door which gave access to them. Michael followed this
+living current.
+
+He found himself in an enormous hall with a lofty ceiling. On one side
+four large balconies opened out on the terraces, and the Mediterranean.
+Because of the war they were covered with dark curtains to hide the
+light from within. The wall opposite was adorned with various gigantic
+mirrors. On the ceiling seventeen white, full-breasted caryatids,
+bending under the weight of the roof, supported the wide bands of rock
+crystal, with electrical bulbs, which shed a sort of moonlight.
+
+Those whom curiosity had attracted, passed the first gaming tables with
+an air of indifference. Everybody was crowding around the last, the
+"_trente et quarante_," at the foot of a large picture, in which three
+buxom lasses in the nude against a background of dark trees like those
+in the Boboli Gardens, represented the _Florentine Graces_.
+
+The great phenomenon was taking place there. Craning his neck above the
+shoulders of two sightseers, Michael caught a glimpse of Alicia seated
+at the table with an anxious expression on her face. All eyes were upon
+her. In front of her, were heaps of bank notes and many columns of
+chips. There were the five hundred franc ovals, and the one thousand
+franc squares, "little cakes of soap" as they call the latter, in the
+language of the Casino.
+
+Suddenly she raised her head as though realizing instinctively the
+presence of some one interesting to her. And her eyes fell straight on
+Michael. She greeted him with a happy smile. There was the suggestion of
+a kiss in her glance. And all the people there, with the submission of a
+mob when dominated by enthusiasm or amazement, followed her eyes to see
+who the man was whom the heroine was greeting in this manner. The vanity
+of the Prince was flattered, as it used to be when some celebrated
+actress greeted him from the stage and went on singing with her eyes
+fastened upon him to dedicate to him her trills. Once, when he was a
+boy, a bull-fighter had bowed to him in a friendly way before giving the
+final death thrust in the arena. Alicia seemed to be choosing him as her
+god of luck.
+
+But immediately she fell back into the deep absorption of the play. She
+was not alone. An invisible and powerful person was standing behind her
+chair, bending over her to whisper in her ear some word of unfailing
+counsel, to suggest some unlooked for resolution, some original and
+daring idea. Her eyes, lighted by a mysterious fire, were gazing on
+something that no one else could see. Her mute lips trembled with
+nervous contractions, as though she were talking with some one who did
+not need sound to be able to hear. Michael felt there was a demon-like
+power beside her, the inspiration of the unforgettable hours which
+reveal to artists a masterful harmony, an illuminating word, or a
+supreme stroke of the brush; the inspiration which prompts the final
+slaughter in battle or the decisive move in some business venture, that
+means either millions or suicide.
+
+She had begun to plunge. Her hand carelessly pushed forward a column of
+twelve rectangular chips, with an extra oval one: twelve thousand five
+hundred francs, the maximum amount that could be risked in "_trente et
+quarante_." The crowd, with the idolatry which victors inspire, was
+hoping for the Duchess, as though each one expected to share in her
+winning. They all knew she was going to win. And when as a matter of
+fact she did win, there was a murmur of satisfaction, a sigh of relief
+from that oval of sightseers pressing against the backs of the chairs
+occupied by the players. From time to time she lost, and profound
+silence expressed their sympathy. Sometimes after advancing a column of
+chips, she closed her eyes as though listening to some one who remained
+invisible, and moving her head in sign of assent, withdrew the stakes.
+Once more there arose a murmur of satisfaction, when the public saw that
+she had withdrawn her money just in time, and had scored, as it were, a
+negative triumph.
+
+Many of them computed with greedy eyes the sums amassed in front of her.
+
+"She's in the three hundred thousands already--perhaps she has more--Oh!
+if she would only succeed in making it millions! What fun it would be to
+see her break the bank!"
+
+To these comments spoken in low tones were added the laudatory
+exclamations of a few elderly women who looked at the conqueror with
+adoring eyes. "How nice she is!--a great lady and so beautiful!--Good
+luck to her!"
+
+A dark shoulder over which the Prince was looking moved and the Prince
+saw Spadoni's face close to his. The pianist did not show the slightest
+surprise; as though they had separated only a few minutes before. He did
+not even greet Michael. The astonishment which caused the pupils of his
+eyes to dilate, the indignation and envy that this insolent fortune
+inspired, made it necessary for the pianist to express his feelings in a
+protest.
+
+"Have you noticed, Highness--she doesn't know how to play--she goes
+against all rules, all logic. She doesn't know the first thing about it,
+not the first thing!"
+
+Immediately his eyes returned to the table, forgetting the Prince on
+hearing once more a stifled outburst from the crowd. A little more and
+some of the people would be applauding the repeated triumphs of the
+Duchess. Those who had lost during the previous days, were rejoicing
+with the joy of vengeance. "What an evening! You don't see this every
+day." They smiled and nudged each other as they noticed the coming and
+going of the inspectors, the presence of high officials who strove to
+hide their concern, the long faces of attendants as they returned from
+the head cashier with new packages of one thousand franc chips to pay
+this lady who had swept the table bare of money three times. The news of
+her extraordinary run of luck circulated throughout the entire edifice.
+At that moment the gentlemen of the management must have been discussing
+in their offices on the top floor the bad trick that chance had dared to
+play them. A mood of anticipation and excitement, akin to the whispering
+of a revolution, spread through every nook and cranny. Those who had no
+tickets for the private rooms asked for news from those who were coming
+out, repeating what they had heard with exaggeration born of enthusiasm.
+In the wardrobe, in the lavatories, in the inner corridors, in all the
+subterranean and winding passageways where the servants, maids and
+firemen lived under an eternal electric light, this news shook the
+sleepy calm of the humbler employees. The atmosphere of excitement was
+similar to that which circulates through the half deserted corridors of
+the Chamber of Deputies while in the semi-circle teeming with emotion, a
+Prime Minister is fighting to survive a crisis. The news gathered
+momentum as it passed from group to group with that satisfaction
+mingled with uneasiness which is inspired in employees by the reverses
+of their employers.
+
+"It seems that upstairs a Duchess is winning a million--no: now they say
+it is two millions."
+
+And by the time the news had circulated throughout the entire building,
+the two millions had married and given birth to another. Half an hour
+later they were four millions, according to the lesser servants, who had
+grown old living off gambling without ever seeing it at first hand.
+
+Michael suddenly felt a great wave of anger against the fortunate woman.
+Since her smile of greeting she had not looked at him again. Several
+times her eyes had glanced mechanically in his direction, without taking
+any notice of him. He was merely one of the many curious spectators
+witnessing her triumph. At that moment there were only two things in the
+world, the pack of cards and herself.
+
+Her indifference caused him to feel the indignation of the moralist. It
+did not make any difference to him that Alicia was forgetting him. He
+repeated this to himself several times: no, he did not care about that.
+They were not lovers, nor was there any deep affection between them. But
+how about her son! He remembered that morning a scene with her tears and
+despair. And the mother was there abandoning herself completely to the
+pleasures of chance and with no feeling for anything except her
+perverted passion.
+
+If some one had spoken to her about the aviator who was a prisoner, she
+would have had to make an effort to recall his existence. And a few
+hours before she had wept sincerely on thinking of his imprisonment!
+
+This was too much for the Prince. His sense of dignity could not accept
+this thoughtlessness! He elbowed his way through a crowd of onlookers,
+after freeing himself from Spadoni's shoulder, while the latter as
+though hypnotized, remained with his eyes fixed on the ever-increasing
+treasure of the Duchess.
+
+Lubimoff began to pace the drawing room. He scorned Alicia's
+self-absorption, but lacked the strength to go away. It was necessary
+for him to be near her, perhaps in order to see just how far her slight
+of him would go.
+
+He came across a gentleman who was walking about among the tables,
+beating his hands behind his back and muttering unintelligible words. It
+was his friend Lewis.
+
+"Have you seen how she plays," he said in a tone of anger, as he
+recognized the Prince; "like a fool, like a regular fool! They ought not
+to allow women in here."
+
+All afternoon he had been losing according to rule and experience. He
+did not have enough money left even for his whiskies and had had to
+charge them at the bar. But suddenly he remembered that the Duchess was
+a relative of Lubimoff.
+
+"I am sorry if I offended you, but she plays like an idiot."
+
+And he turned his back to continue his furious monologue.
+
+Don Marcos passing in a hurry without seeing the Prince opened a path in
+the crowd of onlookers with all the authority of a dressy personage. He
+had just left the gardener's daughter in haste. The news had crept
+through the theater causing many of the spectators to give up seeing the
+close of the opera in order to be present at this unheard of run of
+luck, which was for them a spectacle of the greatest interest.
+
+At one of the roulette tables he saw Clorinda who was playing
+cautiously, with Castro standing behind her chair.
+
+"The General" had witnessed the first part of her friend's triumph.
+"She's going to lose: this cannot last," she thought each time. Then
+she had moved away from the table, explaining her attitude to Castro and
+other friends. It was impossible for her to watch Alicia tranquilly as
+she risked such heavy stakes. It was more excitement than she could
+endure.
+
+"I hope she wins a great deal, a great deal, indeed," she added with the
+generosity of a friend. "Poor Alicia, she needs it so much! Her affairs
+are going so badly!"
+
+She had just seated herself at another table with the faint hope that
+luck would remember her, too; but the murmurings which reached her from
+the trente et quarante table, announcing the news of fresh victories,
+made her nervous and she attributed the loss of several twenty franc
+pieces to this cause. When she found she had lost two hundred, she felt
+that she must take her spite out on some one. Atilio, who followed her
+everywhere, was standing there, greeting her expressions of bad humor
+with an adoring smile.
+
+"Castro, go away; don't stand there behind me. You must know you bring
+me bad luck. Go somewhere else."
+
+The Prince observed how his friend, with a look of annoyance, left the
+widow and walked toward the door.
+
+He thought he would follow him. By talking with Atilio, he might forget
+the irritation which the other woman had caused him; but as he went
+toward the end of the room he had a new surprise.
+
+In one of the dimly lighted corners he saw Novoa, who was going to spend
+the afternoon in Monaco or take a walk on the Nice Road. Perhaps the
+latter was true. He might have been waiting for Valeria who was coming
+back from her luncheon party. They must have both been there for a long
+time, in the dark corner, unaware of what was going on about them and
+deaf to people's comments.
+
+The scientist, with his back turned, was unable to see the Prince. As
+for the lady, her eyes were fixed on Novoa with the affectionate
+seriousness of a girl who has taken advanced studies, has the bachelor's
+degree, and is able to understand a man of science. Michael heard a
+snatch of the young professor's conversation.
+
+"And when the glacial currents from the pole reach that spot they take
+the place of the warm waters that rise to the surface...."
+
+He was explaining the formation of the Gulf Stream.
+
+No one could have guessed it from observing the caressing and timidly
+amorous glances behind his glasses.
+
+She was listening with admiring fervor, but Michael, who knew women,
+imagined he guessed her real thoughts. She was weighing, with the
+cunning of a poor girl alone in the world, the possibilities of this man
+as a husband. He was ignorant of everything not to be learned in books,
+and she was calculating the modifications necessary to improve the
+person of this careless male who always wore a necktie badly tied, and
+never pulled up his trousers before sitting down, to keep them from
+bagging in a grotesque manner.
+
+Lubimoff spent more than an hour deeply sunk in an armchair in the bar,
+listening to Castro. The branches of the large trees on the terrace wove
+soft shadows like spider webs on the window panes in the twilight dusk.
+
+Atilio was giving vent to his melancholy by lamenting the meagerness of
+the afternoon tea. On account of the war, burnt almonds and potato chips
+were the only gastronomic delicacies to be offered, in this place
+frequented by the wealthy.
+
+The crowd roused in him the same sad reflections. There were people
+there, but very few compared with the numbers that flocked to Monte
+Carlo some years before. Then they came in limited trains direct from
+Vienna, Berlin, and the farthest parts of Europe. The square in front of
+the Casino was a second _Babel_. Around the "Cheese," people of all
+races walked up and down, speaking every known language. At present the
+absence of the Russians, who were spirited gamblers, was to be lamented,
+and likewise the absence of the Austrians and the Turks. The last
+persons to be attracted by Monte Carlo were the Germans, but Castro had
+seen them come in great numbers during the past few years, applying to
+gambling the same quiet minutely scientific thoroughness of method they
+used in military discipline, the organization of industries, and
+laboratory work.
+
+He was always able to recognize them as soon as they entered the rooms.
+When they sat down at the table they surrounded themselves with books
+and papers: statistics of the most favored numbers of past years,
+manuals on how to gamble, their own calculations and logarithms that
+only they themselves could understand.
+
+"They held on to their money more tenaciously than the rest," Atilio
+continued. "They were as patient and tireless as stubborn oxen; but they
+lost in the end like every one else. Who doesn't lose here--even the
+Casino, that always wins, is losing now. Before the war it brought in an
+income of forty million francs a year. At the present time it clears not
+more than three or four millions and since enormous expenses have to be
+covered, it has had to ask for loans to go on living, the same as a
+State."
+
+Michael observed those who were passing through the bar. There was only
+one man for every ten women.
+
+"That's the war, too," said Castro. "You can see women, women
+everywhere! Before the war, if you recall, even in peace times, the
+proportion of women was always larger. There are fewer men but they play
+higher stakes. They risk their money with more daring; three-fourths of
+the crowd around the tables were composed of women. When women are
+afraid of love, or disillusioned by it, they give themselves up to
+gambling with passionate intensity. It is the only means they can find
+to express their imagination. Besides, when one takes into account their
+love of luxury, which is never proportionate to their means, and
+considers the needs of present day women which were unknown to their
+grandmothers.... Look--look over there." He pointed discreetly to a lady
+advanced in years, modestly dressed and with a face that was daubed with
+rouge, who was being approached with supplicating looks and gestures by
+two other young and elegantly dressed ladies. It was easy to guess that
+they had come in there purely for the sake of discussing some business
+affair, away from the prying eyes in the gambling rooms.
+
+"They are asking for a loan and she is refusing," Castro continued.
+"Perhaps it is the second or third time in the afternoon. This lady is a
+rival of the old man who wears the Sacred Heart on his lapel. He is
+quite a character, that old usurer! He began as a waiter in a cafe and
+must have some two millions now after thirty years of honorable toil.
+Everything he owns is to be given to the village of La Turbie, which has
+named him its benefactor. He pays for images of Saints and has rebuilt
+the church----. Notice: the lady is softening. They are going to get the
+loan."
+
+The three women had disappeared through the mahogany door leading to the
+women's lavatories. As the loan agent kept her funds in her petticoats,
+it was necessary for her to pull up her skirts to carry on her
+negotiations. Shortly after she came out and walked rapidly in the
+direction of the gambling room. She had to go on watching several women
+to whom she had loaned money, to see if they were winning. The two
+young women followed her with their purses still open, hurriedly
+counting the bank notes they had just received.
+
+Castro, who had suffered the humiliation of similar operations more than
+once, began bitterly to attack the vice which maintained this enormous
+edifice and the whole Principality.
+
+He played to win, played because he was poor; but so many rich people
+came there and risked the foundations of their well being!
+
+"Gambling is a functioning of the imagination. That is why you must have
+noticed that men with real imagination, writers, and true artists,
+seldom gamble. Many of them have caused great scandals by their
+extraordinary vices, reaching the point of monstrosity. But none of them
+have ever distinguished themselves as gamblers. They have other more
+exciting subjects to which they may apply their imaginative powers. On
+the other hand the great mass of human beings feel the charm of gambling
+and the more commonplace the individual, the more strongly is he
+attracted by the fascination of chance. Our acts are guided by the
+desire of obtaining the maximum of pleasure with a minimum of pain and
+effort; and you cannot obtain this better than by gambling. We all obey
+our hopes that do what seems most advantageous. We like to exaggerate
+the probability that what we most earnestly want to happen will occur,
+and we end by taking our desires for reality. Every day those who come
+in here have a feeling of certainty that they will come away taking a
+thousand, twenty thousand, or a hundred thousand francs with them, and,
+as a matter of cold fact, they come away with empty pockets. It doesn't
+make any difference, they will come back the next day, guided by the
+same illusions."
+
+He stopped talking as though depressed by the thought that he was
+painting his own picture. Then he added:
+
+"What is the difference? Without these illusions, which gently stimulate
+the imagination, life would overwhelm us. It is perhaps fortunate for us
+that our hopes are not mathematically exact, that our destiny is largely
+shaped by luck. Besides, life is short. The future is uncertain; if
+fortune is to be ours, should we not prepare the way so that it may come
+swiftly? And what better way than that of gambling? When we put our hope
+in some far-off future time, it is not worth much. If we are to win, let
+it be soon and once for all. Our life is nothing more than a game of
+chance. We are gamblers all, even those of us who have never touched a
+card. Professions, business, and love itself are pure gambles, pure
+luck, a matter of chance. Cleverness and intelligence may cause our life
+games to turn out favorably, but chance still retains its hold on us,
+and the luck of an individual is what is most important. To become rich,
+even in the most stable business enterprises, one must be favored by a
+combination of extraordinary circumstances, a continual run of luck. A
+man never has become rich or celebrated merely on his own merits."
+
+Lubimoff, one of the world's great millionaires a few years before,
+nodded his head at this statement.
+
+"Even Governments keep up the habit of hope in the public by recourse to
+chance," continued Castro. "There are very few that do not authorize a
+lottery. A person who takes a ticket, buys a little hope and the
+possibility, if he has any imagination, of building for a few days every
+kind of wonderful dream, and feeling deeply stirred at the time of the
+drawing. The betterment of our material well-being by means of our own
+efforts is a laborious and difficult task; but there is a way to give
+the humble a certain relative happiness: by giving them hopes of
+becoming rich, of freeing themselves from every kind of servitude, and
+of realizing the ideal of freedom to which they aspire. As a matter of
+principle the State shows itself an enemy of games of chance; and
+considers them immoral because they are based on what is uncertain; but
+all classes of commercial, financial, and industrial operations
+represent chance and oftentimes the ruin of one or two parties. They are
+all games quite similar to the gambling that goes on here." Atilio
+smiled ironically before continuing.
+
+"Let the moralists talk against gambling until they are weary. This much
+is certain. The sums that are played on horse races and in the Casino
+increase each year with rapid progression, more rapidly in fact than
+public wealth. The general improvement in ways of living which is
+developing, exerts no influence toward decreasing gambling. On the other
+hand, the complexity of modern life, with the increase of our needs and
+wants, favors this passion, and even aggravates it."
+
+The Prince interrupted him. He was quite right, perhaps, in what he was
+saying, but what a degrading vice gambling was! The more reasonable
+people allow themselves to be mastered by it and even lose their
+ordinary intelligence.
+
+"That's certain," confessed Atilio. "In gambling our human weaknesses
+and the tendency which we all have towards superstitions are shown most
+clearly. What madness.... Just as though the past could influence the
+present! How many useless efforts to conquer luck! More wealth and
+imagination has been wasted in the invention of new systems in gambling
+than in the attempt to find perpetual motion--and just as uselessly. All
+these wonderful systems lead the gambler infallibly toward ruin with
+more or less rapidity, but always with certainty. And how strong our
+faith is! I feel that it is greater than that of religious martyrs. When
+we think we have a combination which is sure to win, there is no use
+trying to persuade us to the contrary. Nothing can convince us. It is
+curious that the failure of his system and the consequent losses never
+discourage a good gambler. He immediately seizes upon some new
+combination, a true one this time--which will enable him to make a
+fortune--one hope followed by another, and thus he goes on living until
+death overtakes him."
+
+The melancholy of these last few words was brief. Castro seemed suddenly
+to recall something which made him smile.
+
+"How many inconsistencies in the lives of gamblers! They are not afraid
+to risk their money and there is no class of people that is more stingy.
+Notice the women who play most passionately. They are all badly dressed;
+some of them are often careless about their persons. They must have
+money to gamble, and postpone buying necessities until the next day.
+There are men who carry their hats in their arms all afternoon in order
+to save the ten cents which it costs to leave them in the vestibule of
+the Casino. To-day when I came in I saw an elderly gentleman who waits
+for a friend every day standing by the cloak room window. They leave
+their hats and coats together and that way each one has to pay only five
+cents. Later on, at the roulette table, I saw them handling rolls of
+thousand-franc bills."
+
+From the tables people called to the players who were entering the bar:
+
+"Is she still winning?"
+
+They referred to the Delille woman. The various reports did not agree.
+Some of the people seemed indignant: "Yes, she went on winning with luck
+that would make you tired." The enthusiasm of the first moment had
+vanished. There was a note of envy concealed in words and glances.
+Others moved by some selfish sentiment were pleased to point to a
+decline in her marvelous luck. She was losing and winning. Her runs of
+luck were not so frequent as in the beginning, but at all events if she
+were to stop at once, she might well take away three hundred thousand
+francs.
+
+Atilio and the Prince noticed Lewis standing at the bar, drinking the
+whisky which always restored his peace of mind, and permitted him to
+resume the complicated systems that were to give him back his paternal
+inheritance and restore his castle.
+
+They called to him to inquire about the luck of the Duchess. Lewis
+shrugged his shoulders with an expression of indignation and protest. It
+was absurd to win like that, playing so badly.
+
+"She must have the Count's rosary hidden in her skirts," said Atilio,
+gravely.
+
+Lewis was puzzled for the moment as though he took the words seriously.
+Later he blushed like a proper Briton, as he remembered the strange
+ornaments on his friend's rosary. Suddenly he burst into a violent fit
+of laughter. "Oh, Mr. Castro!----" Mr. Castro's supposition seemed to
+him so witty that he laughed till he nearly choked himself coughing, and
+then he decided to get another whisky to regain his serenity.
+
+The two friends returned to the drawing room of the _Florentine Graces_.
+
+The Prince saw Novoa and Valeria on the same divan continuing their
+conversation, but constantly becoming dreamier as they gazed into each
+other's eyes, as though in some deserted spot.
+
+He came near them without their seeing him, and was able to hear some of
+what Alicia's companion was saying.
+
+"I don't know Spain, but I am so interested in it. I adore all of the
+romantic countries where love is everything, and men are disinterested,
+where dowries don't exist, and a woman may marry even if she is poor."
+
+The Prince, in passing, gave the scientist a casual glance of pity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A new personage entered the lives of the dwellers in Villa Sirena. The
+Colonel announced with enthusiasm this friend whom Dona Clorinda had
+introduced.
+
+"He is a Spanish Lieutenant in the Foreign Legion. He lives in the hotel
+which the Prince of Monaco gave up for convalescent officers. His name
+is Antonio Martinez, a very common name which reveals nothing of his
+character; but he is a great soldier, a hero, and I don't know how he
+manages to survive his wounds."
+
+The "General" who kept track of all the soldiers of a certain
+reputation, as soon as they arrived in Monte Carlo, had been anxious to
+meet this Lieutenant, and had taken him under her protection. The
+Duchess de Delille was also interested in him, and the two women, proud
+of being his _marraines_, showed him off in the anteroom of the Casino,
+rented carriages to promenade him around to the most beautiful spots on
+the Riviera, and treated him to the finest war-time foods and pastry
+that they could find. With his lungs injured by German poison gases, he
+had also received a hand grenade wound on his head, and suffered from
+time to time from nervous trouble, which caused him to fall to the
+ground unconscious. The doctors talked despairingly of his condition.
+Perhaps he would live for years, perhaps he would die in one of these
+crises; the important thing was that he should live a quiet life,
+without any deep emotion. And the two ladies, who knew the real state of
+his health, lamented it when he was not present. He was so young, so
+affectionate, and so timid? On the breast of his mustard-colored
+uniform, attached by red ribbons, as a symbol of bravery given to the
+foreign battalions, were the War Cross and the Legion of Honor.
+
+Clorinda, who considered that she had greater rights over him because of
+having "discovered" him, thought for awhile of taking him to live with
+her in order to be able to take better care of him. But as she was at
+the Hotel de Paris, she did not, like Alicia, have an entire villa at
+her disposal. And the latter, although tempted by her friend's
+suggestions, did not dare to take the convalescent into her home. People
+liked to talk, and she, without saying why, was afraid of their gossip.
+
+In the meantime, they both took the Lieutenant everywhere, protesting
+that, because of his uniform, he was not allowed to enter the rooms of
+the Casino. One afternoon, Dona Clorinda, with all the natural boldness
+of her character, took him to Villa Sirena. It was a shame that the
+handsome building and its vast gardens should be given over to five men
+who did nothing for humanity at all. Often in her imagination, she had
+converted it into a Sanitarium filled with invalid soldiers, with
+herself at the head of it as director and patroness. But her suggestions
+had no effect whatever on the Prince. "A selfish fellow," she said to
+herself, returning to her former opinion.
+
+As long as it was impossible to occupy the Villa with a band of
+convalescents, she took the Spanish officer to show him the gardens,
+without first asking Lubimoff's permission.
+
+The latter was able to see at first hand the hero of whom Don Marcos,
+during the last few days, had talked so much. He saw nothing in him to
+indicate extraordinary deeds. Martinez was a youth, ready to blush when
+forced to tell what he had done in the war. Without his uniform and his
+insignia of honor, he would have seemed like a poor office clerk,
+modest and resigned and incapable of being anything else. His appearance
+contrasted with the deeds which, after much pleading, he would finally
+be persuaded to confess. He was twenty-six years old, and seemed much
+younger, but it was a sickly sort of youthfulness, undermined by wounds
+and hardships.
+
+Lubimoff, who hated the swagger of boastful heroes, felt at first
+disconcerted, and then attracted by the simplicity of this officer. If
+he had not known from Don Marcos the authenticity of his prowess, he
+would have taken no stock in it.
+
+Somewhat intimidated in the presence of the famous owner of Villa
+Sirena, Martinez confessed his humble birth with neither pride nor
+timidity. He was poor, the son of poor people. He had tried to study for
+a career, but the necessity of earning his living had caused him to
+abandon books, trying the most diverse occupations, one after the other.
+It was so difficult to earn one's bread in Spain! After fighting in the
+Spanish campaign in Morocco, he had wandered through various South
+American Republics, struggling all the while against poverty and ill
+luck.
+
+"There where so many common rough people get rich," he said, "all I
+found was poverty, like that in my own country. When this war broke out,
+like many other people, I was indignant at the conduct of the Germans,
+and their atrocities in the invaded countries. At the time I was in
+Madrid. One night some of my cafe acquaintances agreed to go and fight
+for France. The person who backed down was to pay ten dollars. They all
+repented their decision, except myself. Don't imagine that it was to
+avoid paying the wager. I have my own ideas, and have read more or less.
+I believe in republics--and France is the country of the Great
+Revolution. I entered a battalion of the Foreign Legion, which,
+composed for the most part of Spaniards, was being organized in Bayonne.
+There are a very few left by this time; most of them are dead; the rest
+are living scattered throughout the various hospitals, or else are
+crippled for life. I knew what war was like from mountain warfare
+against the Moors in the Riff country, and without seeking the honor I
+had gotten as far as being a Lieutenant of Reserves in my own country.
+Perhaps that is why they made me a Sergeant in the Legion after a few
+weeks. But it certainly was hard! I had never imagined they would
+receive us with a brass band! France has too many other things to think
+of; but it was sad to see how badly our enthusiasm was interpreted. Men
+called to arms by the laws of their country, and who were obliged to
+fight, looked at us with jealousy and suspicion. The other regiments
+considered us adventurers; or even escaped convicts. 'How hungry you
+must have been at home,' they said to me at the front, 'to have come
+here to be able to get something to eat!' And among us there were
+students, newspaper men, young men from wealthy families, fellows who
+had enlisted with enthusiasm--but let's not talk about that. In every
+country there are vulgar minded people incapable of understanding
+anything beyond their selfish, material wants."
+
+His military experience was confined to trench warfare, endless and
+monotonous, and to short distance attacks. He had arrived late at the
+Battle of the Marne; and he, who imagined that he would take part in
+gigantic combat, involving millions of men and the firing of immense
+cannon, merely witnessed a series of struggles between small forces
+hidden in the earth, and hand-to-hand encounters to win a few yards of
+ground. Life at the Dardanelles was the worst of his memories. He hated
+to think of that horrible campaign. The struggles in France seemed
+rather placid compared to that fighting on a few miles of coast, with
+the sea at their backs and unconquerable lines ahead of them.
+
+After saying this he fell silent, and the Colonel had to insist, with a
+certain paternal pride, that Martinez go on talking.
+
+"Wounds, many wounds," he added simply. "I have lost count of the
+hospitals that I have known in three years, and of the trips I have made
+through France in Red Cross ambulances. When we are not killed outright,
+we are like the horses in bull fights. They patch up our skins outside
+the ring, strengthen us a bit and back we go into the arena, until we
+get the final goring."
+
+Toledo, becoming impatient at the young man's modesty, told the story of
+his wounds. He received some in every period of the fighting. Some
+belonged to modern warfare, produced by fragments of high explosive
+shells, others came from machine guns, and even that cough which
+interrupted his speech from time to time was caused by asphyxiating
+gases. Others were made by knives, by clubbings from gun stocks, by
+flying stones, and even by the teeth of the Germans in night encounters
+and surprise attacks, in which men fought as they did in the infancy of
+human life on this planet.
+
+Prince Lubimoff could not help admiring this slight, dark young man, who
+looked so insignificant. It seemed impossible that a human organism
+could resist so many blows, and that his weak body could sustain so many
+shocks without succumbing.
+
+But Martinez, with the solidarity of all those who face danger, refused
+all personal glory. He talked about the Legion as a soldier talks about
+his regiment, as a sailor talks about his ship, considering it the
+finest of all. He saw the entire war in terms of the Legion. The French
+were all brave. Besides, no one could guess where the enemy would
+attack, and wherever the latter assumed the offensive, they found troops
+that withstood them and kept them from passing. But the Foreign Legion!
+
+"The soldiers who fight at the front are men," he said, "men torn from
+their families through the needs of the country. But we are fighters.
+That is why in the difficult operations, when flesh and blood have to be
+sacrificed, they send us forward. I am always, of course, only one of
+many. But the Legion!... Every six months a new Colonel: He is killed
+and another takes his place, he, too, is destined to die. And how the
+enemy hates us! There is one thing we are proud of. Among the prisoners
+that there are in Germany, there is not a single one from the Foreign
+Legion. Any one of us who ever falls into the hands of the _Boches_
+knows that he is a dead man: we are outlawed. And for our part, well, we
+do our best too!... Even when they insult us from trench to trench, we
+are proud of belonging to the Legion. One night, the enemy opposite,
+hearing us speak Spanish, began to shout in our language. They must have
+been Germans from South America. 'Hey, _Macabros_! Wait till we get hold
+of you, and then!...' They threatened us with the most terrible
+tortures. And they always nicknamed us 'Macabros!' I don't know why."
+
+The Duchess de Delille admired the hero, feeling at the same time a
+certain sense of uneasiness at the horrors which she guessed from his
+words. "The war! When would the war be over?"
+
+The Lieutenant shrugged his shoulders, smiling. People who live far from
+the front were more impatient for peace than those who risked their
+lives in the front lines. They had become accustomed to contact with
+death. The war would last as long as was necessary: five years, ten
+years; the main thing was to win the victory.
+
+But Toledo, fearing that the conversation would get away from his hero,
+insisted once more on his great deeds.
+
+"I'm only one of many," said Martinez. "But as far as brave men are
+concerned, I can recommend the Legion. That is where you'll find them.
+And all have died!... At first we had men from every country. But the
+Americans left as soon as their Republic intervened in the war; and it
+was the same with the Italians and Poles. On the other hand, many
+Russians, when their regiments were disbanded, joined the Legion. There
+is nothing extraordinary to tell about myself. And they have rewarded me
+so highly for the little I have done! Being a foreigner I have two
+ribbons. Besides, I shall never forget the moment when the Colonel, a
+week before they killed him, called me, and said, 'Martinez, the General
+has given me four Crosses of the Legion of Honor for our Legion. One of
+them is yours.' And he put it on my breast in front of a whole battalion
+of brave men presenting arms. It was unforgettable: it was worth a life
+time."
+
+It was the truth. Colonel Toledo affirmed it, nodding his head, his eyes
+wet with tears. Later, with selfish jealousy, Don Marcos tore him away
+from the ladies, who were busy for the moment, talking with the Prince
+and his friend.
+
+Walking through the gardens, the Colonel gazed at his hero with a look
+of tender protection, such as an artist who has exhausted his talents
+gazes at the increasing triumph of a younger, fresher, and more
+successful colleague.
+
+"Youth, youth!" he said. "You, Martinez, belong to the Spain of the
+future; I belong to the Spain of past days, the Spain that will never
+return again. I am convinced that the world is progressing in new
+directions."
+
+The Colonel kept up a frequent correspondence with many Spanish
+volunteers in the Legion. He looked after them with all the affection of
+a _marraine_, sending them chocolate, select edibles, everything that he
+could spare from the Villa Sirena pantry, without impairing the service.
+Some of the letters which came from the front made him weep and laugh.
+One volunteer asked him to send a good Spanish knife, having broken his
+own in a night attack. Another dreamt of a Browning revolver. Who would
+give him a Browning? He had only an ordnance revolver, an undependable
+weapon that had failed him twice in an attack on a trench and had
+prevented him from killing the German who finally wounded him.
+
+With Lieutenant Martinez, the Colonel could let go all his enthusiasm
+and give free rein to prophesies in favor of the Allies.
+
+In the presence of Atilio and Novoa he was less talkative as he feared
+their ridicule.
+
+In order to tease him and make him mad they recalled the enthusiasm of
+the Carlist party in Spain for Germany. Castro even pretended that he
+was surprised that the Colonel was not a pro-German, the same as his
+political friends.
+
+"I am where I belong," said Don Marcos with dignity. "I am a gentleman,
+and belong with decent people."
+
+This was his supreme argument. Humanity was divided, according to him,
+into two classes--the decent and the indecent. It was the same with
+nations, and Germany was not to be counted among the decent.
+
+As a patriot he suffered at seeing Spain outside the struggle, making an
+effort to remain unaware of what was going on in the rest of the world,
+putting its head under its wing, like certain long-legged birds that
+imagine they can avoid danger by not seeing it. Happily, his country did
+not figure among the indecent nations, nor was it any too decent either.
+It was allowing a chance for glory to escape, and this stirred the
+Colonel's wrath deeply.
+
+For the last three months a fixed idea has been disturbing his happiest
+moments. The Allies had entered Jerusalem. What a great joy for an old
+Catholic soldier! But his joy afterwards made him smile bitterly. A
+Protestant nation freeing the sepulcher of Christ for the third time!...
+
+"Imagine, Martinez, if only Spain had been with the decent nations! We
+have missed the chance of obtaining this glory, we who belong to the
+nation that has showed the greatest faith. Even I, in spite of my years,
+would have gone on the crusade. The Spanish entering Jerusalem
+victorious! What do you think of that?"
+
+But the officer replied, with a vague smile, "Yes, perhaps." It was
+evident that the entry into Jerusalem and the empty tomb of Christ made
+very little difference to him. Don Marcos was somewhat disappointed with
+his hero, but he consoled himself with the thought that after all his
+own ideas belonged to the Middle Ages. Decidedly, he and Martinez were
+men of two different periods. "Youth, youth! You belong to the Spain of
+the future; I to the Spain" ... and so on.
+
+Yes; the world was progressing in new directions. He, himself, a few
+days later, worried by the gloomy aspect of the war on the Western
+Front, had forgotten all about Jerusalem. The Germans, freed from the
+peril presented by Russia at their backs, after making peace with the
+Bolsheviki, were concentrating all their troops in France, in order to
+make a drive on Paris. The Allies, facing this overwhelming offensive,
+could count only on their regular forces and those which the recent
+intervention of the United States might bring.
+
+In regard to aid from this latter source Don Marcos held a fixed and
+decided opinion. In the first place he had felt towards the United
+States a certain antipathy which dated back to the Cuban war. They might
+possess a large fleet, because anybody can buy ships if he has money
+enough, and the Americans were immensely rich: but how about an army?
+Toledo believed only in armies belonging to monarchies, with the
+exception of that of France, since in the latter country the glory of
+military tradition was attached to the history of the first Republic.
+
+At the beginning of the war, he had even been irritated by the
+importance which every one had given President Wilson. Both sides had
+turned to him, appealing to his judgment, and protesting against the
+barbarities of the respective adversary. Even Wilhelm II cabled him
+frequently to make a show of sincerity for his frauds, as though he
+considered it important to gain Wilson's good opinion.
+
+"Just as though this man were the center of the Universe! The President
+of a Republic that had only a few thousand soldiers, a professor, a
+dreamer!..."
+
+He understood only heads of States in uniform, their breasts covered
+with decorations, with both hands on the hilt of a sword, and with an
+immense army before them, ready to fight in obedience to orders. And
+this gentleman in a cut-away coat and stiff hat, with eyeglasses and a
+smile like that of a learned clergyman, was now the man on whom the eyes
+of half the world were focused with looks of hope, and he was the
+deciding power that some were anxious to win over and others were afraid
+of arguing with!
+
+Atilio Castro laughed at Don Marcos. He was always out of sympathy with
+the Colonel's opinions, and seemed impressed by this new marvel in
+history.
+
+"Times have changed since your day, Don Marcos. We are going to see
+something new. America, which a century ago was merely a European
+colony, will perhaps protect and save Europe now. In the meantime, we
+are witnessing the curious spectacle of a former University professor
+being the arbiter of the world. What would Napoleon say if he were to
+see this ninety-four years after his death?"
+
+Toledo gloomily assented. Yes; his days had passed. Democracy,
+Republicanism, all these things that had made him smile, as though they
+were something transitory, ineffectual and out of date, were very
+powerful in the present world, and perhaps would finally take charge of
+directing its affairs. Even he felt their irresistible influence. When
+he saw how the President of the great American Republic protested
+against the torpedoing of defenseless ships, the crimes of the
+submarines, and finally declared war on the German Empire, Don Marcos
+affirmed, stammering out a confession:
+
+"This man Wilson ... this Wilson is a decent sort of a fellow."
+
+For him it was impossible to say more.
+
+He approved of the man through instinctive worship of personal power,
+but refused to believe in the military strength of the United States. It
+was a land of liberty, according to him, where all considered themselves
+equals and this made it impossible to create a real army.
+
+The Prince and Castro occasionally talked in his presence of the war of
+secession, the first war in which millions of men had taken part,
+applying, moreover, innumerable inventions, in which all the progress in
+modern armament found its source. Toledo listened, with a doubt inspired
+by distant events. This struggle had been among themselves: militia
+warfare; but to raise an army of millions of men in a country that did
+not have compulsory military service; to transport this army across the
+ocean with all the immense quantity of supplies and munitions, and to
+get them there, besides, in time to save Europe from the great
+danger.... Mere dreams! "What they call over there 'bluff'!"
+
+Don Marcos clung to this word in order to maintain his incredulity. This
+race is accustomed to accomplishing tremendous things; Americans
+conceive of everything on a large scale: cities, buildings, industries,
+wealth; but afterwards they exaggerate considerably when they come to
+advertising and describing what they do. Everybody knew that, and the
+American military forces which were to crush German militarism and
+re-establish peace on earth, although well-intentioned, were nothing but
+one bluff more.
+
+Castro approved of the Colonel's words for the first time, without any
+intention of making fun of him. The President had declared war, but the
+country did not seem disposed to follow him.
+
+"They will probably send money, munitions, supplies, all the immense
+power of their wealth and production. But a big army? Where can they get
+one? How is an immense people accustomed to the volunteer system, and
+living amid the greatest prosperity, going to take up arms? What would
+they gain by doing so?"
+
+But the Prince, who had often been over there, replied with an ambiguous
+gesture:
+
+"Perhaps! But if they really want to enter the war, who knows! Anything
+might happen in that country, no matter how impossible it seems!"
+
+The Colonel was gradually won over by the irrational enthusiasm of the
+general public. Since the beginning of the war, the masses, who believe
+in mysterious predictions and supernatural interventions, had always
+had some favorite people, some nation that it had been the fashion to
+regard as invincible and in which all hopes could be concentrated.
+
+At the beginning it had been Russia, with its millions and millions of
+men, the Russian "steam roller" that had only to advance in order to
+crush Germany. Poor steam roller! When it had fallen to pieces, the
+fickle enthusiasm of the public had turned toward England. Now it was
+America, all the more miraculous and omnipotent because little known.
+
+In all conversations one heard the name of an American, both at elegant
+teas and in humble cafes; the one American well known in Europe: Edison,
+the inventor. He would settle everything. Up to the present time he had
+remained out of sight and silent, but now that his country had entered
+the war they would see something miraculous. In a few hours, invisible
+and implacable powers would crush to bits the invading armies; the
+submarines would burst like shells under a sort of frozen light which
+would pursue them in the ocean depths; the aeroplanes that bombarded
+defenseless cities would be forced to descend, drawn by electric
+magnetism, as a bird is drawn toward the mouth of a boa constrictor.
+Edison, the wonder-worker, meant more to the popular imagination of
+Europe than all the soldiers and all the ships of his country.
+
+And Toledo, who decorated his bedroom with pictures of Joffre and Foch,
+but believed at the same time that St. Genevieve, the patron saint of
+Paris, had intervened in the victory of the Marne, felt attracted by all
+the miracles of the American wizard, announced by every one as something
+sure. Science, being somewhat apart from religion, inspired in him a
+feeling of respect and fear. For this reason he believed blindly in its
+wonders, much as a zealot believes in the immense powers of the devil.
+
+At other times his incredulity was renewed. The war could only be
+determined by troops. Up to that time the forces of both sides had been
+equal; but now Germany was bringing new divisions--those from the
+Eastern Front,--and was preparing the decisive blow. On the side of the
+Allies an equivalent or greater number of soldiers was lacking; they
+needed the last few drops which would fill the glass, cause it to
+overflow and tip the scales. America might do this. But their forces
+were arriving so slowly! The obstacles were so great! A few battalions
+of the regular American army had already marched through Paris. After
+that months went by without the constant tiny stream of reenforcements
+becoming a torrent.
+
+Everywhere on the Riviera, Toledo observed wounded soldiers from various
+countries. Only from time to time was he able to distinguish a few
+American uniforms, worn by men of the Medical Corps, who did not seem to
+have much to do. The newspapers talked about forces from the United
+States that occupied a sector on the front, but they were so few!
+
+"All that talk about a million or two million men before the end of the
+year is mere bluff," said the Colonel. "I know something about such
+things, and it is easier to build a skyscraper with a hundred stories
+than to transport a million soldiers from one hemisphere to the other.
+And how about the great drive that is beginning! And France is worn out,
+after four years of heroism that has drained her blood!"
+
+Every day he walked up and down in the ante-room of the Casino, waiting
+impatiently for the big bulletins which were written out by hand in
+large letters and posted on the panels by the employees. In scanning
+the latest telegraphic dispatches he was looking only for the beginning
+of the offensive announced by the enemy. This menace had shaken his
+faith in the victory, and kept him in a state of constant worry. Oh! If
+only the Americans would come in time, and in enormous numbers.
+
+He felt it his duty to lie unblushingly to the friends who surrounded
+him in the ante-room, asking his opinion as a soldier.
+
+"We will triumph; and William will have to shoot himself."
+
+The question of his shooting himself was the one thing that will be his
+end, in case of a defeat.
+
+"I know the Kaiser very well," he continued. "He is only a Lieutenant, a
+Lieutenant that has grown old, keeping the cracked brain swagger of
+youth. But he has the sense of honor of an officer who, finding himself
+defeated, raises his revolver to his head. You will see that that will
+be his end, in case of a defeat."
+
+"He writes verse, music, and paints pictures, giving his opinion on
+every matter, and making people accept it, like one of those young
+officers who on entering a drawing room of civilians monopolize
+attention with their insolence and conceit, emboldened by the silence of
+the guests, who are afraid of provoking a duel. He is the eternal
+twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant whose hair has grown gray under the
+imperial crown, whose head has been turned a bit by the constant
+triumphs of his personal vanity. But once Fate turns her back on him, he
+will act in the same decisive manner as an officer who has gambled away
+the funds entrusted to his care, or committed other crimes against his
+honor.
+
+"Never fear; the Lieutenant will know how to act when the hour of
+adversity arises. He is a mad man, a vain comedian, but he has the sense
+of shame of a warrior. Let me repeat: He will shoot himself."
+
+And in his imagination he could hear the Imperial revolver-shot.
+
+What disgusted Don Marcos was not to be able to talk about this, nor
+about the danger of the offensive, when he was in Villa Sirena. The
+friends of the Prince lived like guests at a hotel. They never were all
+together except during the early morning hours. They rarely sat down
+together at table. Some power from the outside seemed to attract them
+away from the Villa, driving them toward Monte Carlo. Even the Prince
+often lunched or dined at the Hotel de Paris, sending word at the last
+minute by telephone.
+
+This domestic disorder was accepted by Toledo as providential.
+
+The service had suffered an unavoidable decline through the departure of
+Estola and Pistola. One morning they appeared, stammering and filled
+with emotion, minus the dress suits which were too large for them. They
+were going away. They were to cross the frontier that very afternoon to
+appear at the Barracks. They had received orders from their Consul.
+
+They did not seem filled with enthusiasm for their new profession; but
+Don Marcos, through a sense of professional duty, tried to buck them up
+with a bit of a speech. He, too, at their age, had gone off to war of
+his own accord. "Respect for your officers ... love them as you would
+your father ... for honor ... for the flag."
+
+The appearance of the Prince cut short his harangue. The two boys kissed
+their master's hand as though they were taking leave of him for
+eternity, and in their confusion they did not know where to put the bank
+notes which were given them. Imagine Estola and Pistola converted into
+soldiers! Even these two boys were being driven along the road of death!
+And the whole thing seemed so extraordinary to Michael, so absurd, that
+while he felt sorry for them, he also felt like laughing.
+
+Half an hour later he had forgotten all about them. The Colonel would
+manage to organize new service with women, now that owing to the war it
+was impossible to get other servants. Besides, he was bored at Villa
+Sirena, and living at Monte Carlo would be something of a novelty for
+him.
+
+The idlers who promenaded around the "Camembert" frequently saw him
+enter the Casino with an absent-minded air, like a gambler who has just
+thought of a new combination. The crowd in the gambling room had also
+seen him approach the tables as though interested in the fluctuation of
+chance, but they waited in vain to see him place a bet, imagining that
+he would play nothing save enormous sums.
+
+His eyes seemed to see in all directions, and no sooner did the Duchess
+de Delille leave her seat to go over to another table, than the Prince
+came forward to meet her, extended his hand and smiled youthfully.
+
+They remained motionless in the spot where they greeted each other,
+gazing into each other's eyes, until, warned instinctively of prying
+glances behind their backs, they went and sat down on a divan in a
+corner, and continued their conversation there. Suddenly, a murmur from
+the crowd around a table would cause her out of professional curiosity
+to leave Lubimoff and to hasten thither.
+
+Alicia would smile the proud bitter smile of a dethroned queen. During
+the preceding day people had talked of nothing save her. Her name had
+traveled as far as Nice and Menton. In the evenings, at the dinner hour,
+families who dwelt permanently in Monaco and who are forbidden to enter
+the Casino, asked for news of her luck. In the cafes and restaurants,
+her name resounded, mingled with those of the Generals who were
+directing the war. In front of the bulletins giving the latest news,
+people interrupted their comments on the coming offensive, asking one
+another, "How did the Duchess de Delille come out yesterday?"
+Afternoons, when she arrived at the Casino, sightseers crowded about her
+to get a better view, and her friends greeted her, proudly kissing her
+hand. It was a silent ovation, consisting of glances and smiles, like
+that which greets the entry of a famous soprano on the stage which has
+witnessed her triumphs.
+
+Her battle with the Casino lasted about two weeks; she won, lost, and
+won again. She began her "work" at three o'clock in the afternoon, and
+remained at it until midnight. The tea hour passed, then the dinner
+hour, without her being aware of it. When the gambling was closed she
+came away, leaning on Valeria's arm, greeting every one amiably,
+exhausted and victorious. Sometimes, like an invalid fed against her
+will, she accepted the sandwiches and a cup of tea which her companions
+brought her at the gambling table.
+
+One night--a memorable one--she had won continuously up to the closing
+hour of the Casino. She counted the bank notes that the head employees
+had given her with a hard, enigmatic smile. There were four hundred of
+them, each of a thousand francs. They protruded from her hand bag and
+from Valeria's. Even her friend, "the General," was obliged to help her,
+by taking care of several packages of them.
+
+"If they hadn't closed I would have broken the bank," she said with the
+vanity of a conqueror.
+
+Clorinda accompanied her in the carriage as far as her house, repeating
+prudent advice: "Don't go on; keep the money. It is impossible to go
+any higher." Valeria, during the course of the evening, kept repeating
+the same words: "It is tempting God to keep on."
+
+But Alicia refused to listen to her. Her inspiration was not exhausted.
+There still remained great things for her to do; and when the time came
+for her to stop, she would be aware of it sooner than the rest.
+
+Michael had been present at this struggle, which had been annoying to
+him. Every afternoon, when he entered the Casino, he called himself
+names, as though he were doing something cowardly. Why did he come to
+witness the acts of that mad woman? She did not seem to be aware of his
+presence! At first a look, a smile, and during the remaining hours she
+had eyes for nothing save the gambling and the _croupiers_. In spite of
+this, the Prince kept coming regularly.
+
+To excuse himself, he recalled certain words which the Duchess had said.
+The day following her first famous winning, she had arisen on seeing him
+enter the room, taken both his hands in hers to speak to him privately.
+
+"You bring me good luck," she murmured in his ear. "I am sure that this
+is so. I have been winning since we became friends. Come, come all the
+time! Let me see you every time I raise my eyes."
+
+She raised them, however, very, very seldom. She had other more urgent
+things to think of. But Michael, to quiet his angry conscience, told
+himself that he was there to keep his word. Besides, who knew but what
+she was telling the truth! The tendency to superstition, common to all
+gamblers, the Casino's surroundings and even Alicia's luck itself, had
+finally influenced the credulity of the Prince.
+
+He tried to avenge himself for these long waits and her indifference by
+looking at her with scornful eyes.
+
+"How ugly she looks!"
+
+Yes, she was ugly, like all the women who gamble and seem to suffer at
+an ever increasing rate, the weight of years crushing out their youth
+under the stress of emotion. Every loss meant another year, every
+winning meant a look of tenseness which spoiled the regularity of their
+features. Michael took a certain joy in noting the wrinkles which fixed
+attention formed about her eyes. Her nose seemed to grow sharp, and two
+deep furrows drew down the corners of her mouth, giving her an
+expression of premature old age. All the little feminine attentions
+disappeared as the hours went by. Her hat tilted to one side; locks of
+hair made an effort to escape, as though disarranged by currents of
+human electricity darting among their roots. She seemed ten years older.
+
+But a second voice within gave forth a different opinion. "Yes, she was
+very ugly, but so interesting!" Surely when she arose from the table she
+would be once more the same Alicia as ever.
+
+One afternoon, on entering the Casino, he had a sense of something
+extraordinary happening. People were talking together, asking news, all
+of them hurrying toward the same table.
+
+His friend Lewis passed him without stopping.
+
+"It was bound to happen. She doesn't know how to play. I expected it."
+
+A little farther on Spadoni came forward to greet him.
+
+"She would never listen to me. She acts on her whims. She doesn't follow
+any system. She is done for."
+
+All the gamblers were talking as though they were lamenting somebody's
+death; but it was a question of hypocritical compunction, inwardly they
+felt a sense of envious triumph on seeing at an end that absurd run of
+luck, which had embittered their evenings.
+
+Lubimoff, thrusting his head between the shoulders of two onlookers, saw
+Alicia at the same time that she raised her eyes. Their glances met. She
+looked at him with dismay, as though lamenting, making him responsible
+for her misfortune. "Why did you abandon me?"
+
+The Prince fled: it hurt him to see her with that humble look of rage,
+like that of a cornered sheep, bleating in pain and defending itself.
+
+At nightfall he returned to the Casino. A few people were still talking
+about the Duchess, but in low tones, with sad gestures, as though
+referring to a dying person. The crowd had thinned about the table. He
+saw Alicia in the same place. Valeria stood behind her chair, with a sad
+face, while Dona Clorinda bent over her friend, talking in her ear. He
+guessed her words. She was pleading with her to come away: next day she
+would have better luck. But she did not seem to hear, and remained with
+her eyes fixed on the few five hundred and a thousand franc chips, which
+were all that remained. Suddenly she lost her patience, and turning her
+head she said one word, nothing more, something very strong, but nothing
+without precedent in that intimate friendship which was broken off at
+least once every week. Dona Clorinda immediately retorted, looking
+daggers, and went away, haughtily and disdainfully, while Valeria looked
+at the ceiling in despair.
+
+Michael fled once more. He was frightened by the expression on Alicia's
+face and the nervous hostility in her voice, which he had not been able
+to hear, but which was easily guessed from the trembling of her lips. He
+wandered about the rooms for half an hour, listening at a distance to
+the words of those who were still talking about the Duchess. One
+afternoon had been sufficient to sweep away all that she had won in
+many successful days. Her misfortune was as extraordinary as her good
+luck had been. She had not won a single bet.
+
+Suddenly he felt the contact of a nervous hand on his shoulder. He
+turned his eyes. It was Alicia, but with an eager gesture, and with an
+expression which was both bold and imploring.
+
+"Have you any money?"
+
+Her voice and the expression on her face were not unknown to Michael.
+Before the war, the Casino had been the scene of his most unexpected and
+dazzling conquests. Women who were very cold and treated him with
+visible antipathy, and women of well-known virtue whose very looks
+repelled all audacity, had approached him with an air of sudden
+decision, requesting a loan, and immediately asking point blank at what
+hour the Prince might offer them a cup of tea at Villa Sirena. He
+thought of the Colonel, who considered gambling the worst of women's
+enemies. It caused them to lose all sense of shame. In a few hours the
+standards built up during an entire lifetime were suddenly demolished.
+In order to go on gambling, they offered of their own free will what
+they had never thought of granting.
+
+The Prince replied, with surprise, at this sudden request. He carried
+very little money on his person: he was not a gambler. How much did she
+want?
+
+"Twenty thousand francs."
+
+She mentioned the figure in the same manner as she might have said a
+hundred thousand or five thousand. It was the same to her at that
+moment. Besides, during the last few days she had lost all sense of
+values.
+
+Michael replied with a laugh. Did she imagine, by any chance, that he
+came to the Casino with twenty thousand francs in his pocketbook, as
+though he were a money lender or a pawn broker?
+
+"Ask for a loan," said the Duchess. "They will give you anything you ask
+for."
+
+He went on laughing at this absurd proposition, but was won over
+immediately by the simplicity with which Alicia formulated her request.
+
+"How about you? Why don't you ask for one?"
+
+Oh, as for her!... In the midst of her proud triumph, she had forgotten
+to pay various debts contracted before her sudden burst of luck. At
+present it was useless to ask. It was a difficult moment for her; every
+one considered her ruined, and incapable of recouping.
+
+"And they are mistaken, Michael; I feel the inspiration of luck. You
+shall see how I get on my feet again after a few days. It is my secret.
+If I tell it to you, fortune will abandon me. Do me this favor! Ask for
+the twenty thousand from that little old man over there who is looking
+at us. He can't refuse you; you are Prince Lubimoff. If you like we will
+form a partnership: I shall share half my winnings with you."
+
+Michael kept on smiling, while inwardly he was scandalized by this
+proposition. Imagine the things in which this woman was trying to
+involve him! He, asking for money from a money lender in the Casino!
+
+But, like certain invalids who do things most contrary to their will, no
+sooner did he leave Alicia with gestures of protest, than his legs
+mechanically took him in the direction of the divan where the old man
+with the short beard, and the badge of the Sacred Heart on his lapel,
+was squatting, with his hat in one hand and a silk cap on his bald head.
+
+"I need twenty thousand francs."
+
+The Prince seemed to be in doubt as he faced this little man, who had
+arisen, surprised and suspicious on seeing that he was talking with so
+lofty a personage. Was it really his own voice that he heard? Yes, it
+was his voice, but he felt a sensation of immense surprise, as though it
+were some one else who was talking. He felt a desire to withdraw without
+waiting for the gnome's reply; but the latter had already responded,
+stammering:
+
+"Prince ... such an amount! I am a poor man. From time to time I do
+favors to distinguished people, two or three thousand francs ... but
+twenty thousand! Twenty thousand!"
+
+He muttered this sum with a groan of torture, but meanwhile his shrewd
+eyes were penetrating Lubimoff like a probe. This look irritated
+Michael, causing him to take an interest in the operation as though his
+honor were at stake. Doubtless, the usurer was thinking about Russia,
+and the disaster of the revolution and of the impossibility of being
+paid this loan even though the great man were to offer all his fortune.
+
+"You must know me," he said in an irritated tone. "I am Prince Lubimoff;
+I am the owner of Villa Sirena. I need twenty thousand francs; not a
+franc less. If you are unable...."
+
+He was about to turn his back on him, but the dwarf humbly restrained
+him, considering useless on this occasion all the excuses and delays
+which he usually made his clients endure, like a slow torture. He
+slipped out between the groups of people, begging "His Highness" to wait
+an instant. Perhaps he did not have the entire sum with him, and was
+obliged to ask for aid from the Cashier of the Casino; perhaps he was
+going to secrete himself for a moment in the lavatories, to take bank
+notes from various hiding places in his clothes, even from his shoes.
+
+Michael felt a discreet hand touch his own, thrusting between his
+fingers a roll of paper. The old man had returned without his seeing
+him come; bobbing up between two groups, small and sprightly, like an
+imp from a trap door on the stage.
+
+"You know the Colonel? To-morrow he will interview you about the payment
+and the interest."
+
+And the Prince turned his back without more words, leaving the usurer
+satisfied with his discourteous brevity. A great gentleman could not
+talk in any other way. He liked to have dealings with men of that sort.
+
+Alicia, who had followed the scene from a distance, came forward to meet
+him, holding out her hands inconspicuously.
+
+"Take it!" Michael's right hand thrust the bank notes forward so rudely
+that the offer was almost a blow.
+
+His shame for what he had just done expressed itself in a confusion of
+protests.
+
+"Women! Of all the fool things I have ever done!"
+
+But Alicia, with the bank notes in her hand, was already thinking of
+nothing but the tables.
+
+"You will see great things. You know we have formed a partnership: you
+get half."
+
+Mastered once more by the invisible demon that was singing numbers and
+colors in her ear, she went away without thanking him.
+
+He also left. He was afraid of meeting the money lender again, and
+having him bow familiarly; he imagined the entire crowd in the rooms had
+followed attentively his interview with the old man and had smiled when
+he received the money.
+
+He left the Casino. He would never come back again: he swore it!
+
+Castro, whom he had seen from a distance gambling at one of the tables,
+returned to Villa Sirena at the dinner hour. He was in a bad humor; but
+he forgot his own misfortune long enough to console himself by relating
+Alicia's mishaps:
+
+"After losing everything in _trente et quarante_, she appeared at a last
+minute with more money: a roll of thousand franc notes. And she, who
+never felt any special inclination for roulette, began to play the
+wheel. And how she played! At first she won a few long shots, two or
+three; but after that nothing: she kept losing and losing! She left
+everything on the table. I did not see her go out, but they told me she
+looked like a corpse, leaning on Valeria's arm. They say she suffers
+from heart trouble. All I say is: it isn't every one who pretends to be
+a gambler that is one; you need a strong constitution. The 'General'
+doesn't play so much, but she is cooler and doesn't lose her head."
+
+Michael slept badly. He was angry with Alicia. Instead of lamenting her
+misfortune he considered it logical. Imagine a woman trying to make
+money! Women can only get it from men's hands, and it is useless for
+them to try and get it for themselves, even by appealing to gambling.
+Gambling also is an enterprise for men.
+
+In the mental twilight when one is half asleep and half awake, the
+Prince, lying on his bed, remembered a scene from his happier days, when
+his yacht was anchored in the harbor of Monaco. It was one night when he
+was coming from a banquet in the Hotel de Paris. He was slightly
+intoxicated and was leaning in a sort of a mental haze on the arms of
+two pretty women, who, smiling and unsuccessful, were competing to see
+which one would get him. Behind him, like a retinue, came his friends,
+his brilliant parasites, and various women guests, his entire court.
+They had entered the Casino. He was not a gambler; it bored him to sit
+motionless at a table; he considered it childish to get interested in
+the whirling of a little ball of bone, or the combinations of little
+colored cards. There were so many more interesting pleasures in life!
+But that night, proud of his power, he felt a desire to fight a battle
+with fortune. Fortune is a woman, and he was determined to conquer it by
+the power of wealth, as he had conquered many another woman. The rich
+finally defeat even destiny with all its mysteries. He placed in front
+of him an enormous quantity of money to begin the struggle, and fortune
+refused it; or rather, began to give him money of her own, with scornful
+prodigality. The multi-millionaire wanted to lose and he could not. He
+varied his game capriciously, committed voluntary errors, and success
+always came forward to meet him. Finally he grew tired. It was before
+the war, and instead of with bone chips representing a hundred francs,
+they played with handsome gold coins of the same value. In front of him
+he had numerous and dazzling columns of this metal; and packages of bank
+notes.
+
+"Who wants money?"
+
+He began to fling it about in an enchanting rain. All except the most
+aristocratic women came running, tense and pale, swarming around the
+table, struggling for a single _louis_. They shoved one another, rolled
+on the carpet, bruising each other with hands and feet, to gain a single
+drop of this golden manna. Some of them struck and scratched each other,
+while their right hands clutched the same thousand franc note, tearing
+it. Hats rolled about on the ground; the hair of some of the women fell
+down their back, or was scattered in a cloud of false curls.
+
+"Me, Prince! Me!"
+
+And with clutching fingers they danced about him, in a body, as though
+possessed.
+
+"Who wants money?"
+
+The head employees intervened, angry but smiling, seeing who was the
+cause of the disturbance. "Your Highness, please! You are interrupting
+the play! Such a thing has never happened here before." But he continued
+flinging his money, until he had exhausted his winnings--more than sixty
+thousand francs--and the games went on again, with more players than
+before. Every one who had gathered something from the floor or caught it
+in the air, ran to risk it on a card or a number.
+
+Michael dwelt on this memory which was like a triumph. He could repeat
+it any time he pleased; he was sure of it. He recognized that in the end
+every gambler finally loses, and he did not consider himself an
+exception to this rule. But his will dominated fortune at first, and--by
+withdrawing in time before the latter had a chance to recoup with the
+perverse cunning of an untamable female!...
+
+The Prince finally went to sleep thinking of Alicia.
+
+"Poor woman! She doesn't know how to play; Lewis is right: She doesn't
+know how.... How should a beautiful woman know, who has never thought
+about anything save her own person! I must help her. I am a man. Perhaps
+to-morrow ... to-morrow!" ...
+
+The following day, at the breakfast hour, Don Marcos had a great
+surprise which worried him considerably. The Prince, who never bothered
+about money, allowing his "Chamberlain" to make negotiations directly
+with his Paris manager for the house expenses, asked him what amount he
+had at his disposal.
+
+The Colonel made a mental calculation. He did not think he kept just
+then any more than fifteen thousand francs. He was expecting a check
+from the agent.
+
+"Give it to me," Lubimoff commanded.
+
+And immediately, as though suddenly recalling something, he calmly
+mentioned the debt he had contracted the afternoon before. Toledo was
+thoughtful for a moment on learning that he was to come to an
+understanding with the old money lender to return the twenty thousand
+francs and the payment of extraordinary interest, which might double in
+a few days. He recalled the luncheon during which the Prince had
+proposed their present solitary life. Where were the ferocious "enemies
+of women" now? For the Colonel suspected that behind these squanderings
+of the Prince and this sudden passion for gambling, lay the influence of
+some woman. And he who never dared stake more than a few odd coins from
+time to time, thinking of the enormous sums entrusted to his loyalty,
+was deeply worried.
+
+While Don Marcos was on his way to the bank where the house money was
+deposited, the Prince walked about in the neighborhood of the Casino,
+waiting impatiently for the rooms to open. In the morning the crowd was
+very slight and very few tables were operating. Only the most desperate
+gamblers, after spending a sleepless night, anxious to try their new
+combinations as soon as possible, and sickly people who hoped to find a
+good seat vacant, came at that early hour.
+
+Impatiently Lubimoff entered the anteroom, after secretly thrusting into
+a pocket a roll of bills which Toledo handed to him. The employees of
+the first shift were arriving slowly, like clerks entering an office.
+The cleaning women and porters in shirt sleeves had just swept up the
+sawdust scattered on the floor. They all looked at him from the corner
+of their eyes, pointing him out to one another by discreet nudges.
+Imagine the Prince there at that hour, when people of his station in
+life were still in bed! Instinctively they looked all about expecting to
+see some coyly dressed lady waiting to meet him unobserved at that early
+hour. His well-known reputation did not permit them to imagine anything
+save a rendezvous.
+
+It was ten o'clock. The curtains were opened, and Michael entered
+brushing against the first gamblers to arrive, modest timid folk. He
+felt the same nervousness, impatience, and dull anger that he felt on
+the mornings when he had fought duels. He walked with a heavy step; his
+hands kept contracting as though ready to strangle the empty air. At the
+same time he felt the same proud confidence of a marksman, sure of
+hitting the bull's-eye. He defied Lady Fortune before facing her, the
+wench whom he had once conquered. "By God! She would see she was dealing
+with a man this time!"
+
+He jerked a chair away from a hand already stretched out to take it, and
+sat down at a roulette table, between two dirty, badly dressed old
+women, who looked like witches. The employees exchanged looks of
+amazement, eyeing one another discreetly. The Prince betting, and at
+such an hour!...
+
+_"Faites vos jeux!"_
+
+The game began. Michael had no particular combination and had not
+thought of any. His eyes wandered over the thirty-six numbers, but only
+for an instant.
+
+"That's the one," he thought. And he placed all that he could, nine
+_louis_, the maximum, on thirteen.
+
+The ball spun about the mahogany border, and when it finally came to
+rest was greeted with a murmur of amazement. "Number thirteen."
+
+A few thousand franc notes thrust in his direction by the rake of the
+_croupier_ remained in front of the Prince, who sat there impassively,
+retaining a hard willful look. He knew it; he was sure he was making no
+mistake. Thirteen once more.
+
+People looked in amazement. What folly to bet twice on the same number!
+But when thirteen won a second time and the Prince was paid the maximum
+again, a murmur from the crowd applauded the victor. Onlookers came
+hurrying, leaving the other tables devoid of spectators. This was going
+to be as famous a morning in the Casino, in spite of the smallness of
+the crowd, as the most celebrated afternoon and evening, when wealthy
+players fought with luck.
+
+Lubimoff changed his number. It was absurd to go on with thirteen. And
+he placed nine _louis_ on seventeen. The ball spun around. It was
+thirteen once more. He lost.
+
+His look became harder and more aggressive. Dame Fortune was beginning
+to laugh at him for his lack of will power. A conqueror should feel no
+vacillation; it was his fault, for having given up his number. Men like
+him should go ahead, and impose their will, or perish without abandoning
+their first attitude. Thirteen as before!... And it was seventeen that
+won.
+
+For a moment he thought the ground was falling away beneath his feet; he
+seemed to be floating in air, surrounded by mysterious forces that were
+weakening and finally breaking his will. He passed his hand over his
+forehead, as though trying to brush away, far away, his momentary
+weakness.
+
+"The she-devil," he exclaimed, mentally, insulting Fortune, sure once
+more that he was going to enslave her.
+
+And he went on playing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At three o'clock in the afternoon he came out of the Hotel de Paris. He
+had lunched alone, without paying any attention to the glances he had
+received from other tables, avoiding friendly greetings that might have
+started a conversation.
+
+In his mouth was a fat cigar, and his legs, although perfectly steady,
+inwardly felt a certain voluptuous sensation. The food had been bad; he
+had scarcely touched the dishes; on the other hand he had drunk a bottle
+of famous Burgundy, and several glasses of cordials immediately after
+finishing two cups of coffee.
+
+From the hotel steps he gave a glance of destructive hate at the square,
+the Casino and the Gardens. He thought with satisfaction of the
+possibility of a cruiser belonging to one of the nations which were
+carrying on war on the seas of Europe anchoring in front of that
+gingerbread house, and firing a few shells at it. What a wonderful
+sight! Then, in his imagination, he had a landing party with their
+machine guns disembark, to take prisoner all the people who were filling
+the square, men, women and even children. The world would lose nothing
+by it. What a city of corruption! Why the devil had his mother taken it
+into her head to buy the promontory of Villa Sirena, obliging him to
+live near this den of thieves? He even upbraided the dead Princess, with
+the stern uncompromising morality of every gambler who has just found
+himself tricked.
+
+As he glanced over the gay, well-dressed crowd that he was condemning to
+slavery, he saw Alicia, alone and on foot, on the edge of the sidewalk
+around the "Camembert," looking at the Casino.
+
+"Are you going in?" he said, approaching her.
+
+The Duchess became indignant, as though he was proposing something
+humiliating, something that she had never done before. She enter the
+Casino?
+
+"It's a rotten den, and the employees are rotters, and those who
+gamble--rotters too."
+
+It was all rotten! After saying this they took each other's hands as
+though they had just suddenly recognized each other.
+
+When Michael, still harping on his kind wishes, told her about the
+bombardment and landing party with machine guns that he had been
+enjoying in his imagination, the Duchess almost applauded. As far as she
+was concerned, she would be very glad if they destroyed everything, if
+they even took the sovereign Prince himself prisoner, and if, into the
+bargain, the invaders returned the money she had lost, she could want
+nothing better.
+
+Suddenly, as if these charitable fantasies of Lubimoff told her of
+something, her eyes scrutinized him closely, much like those of a
+suspicious invalid who is able to recognize his own symptoms in those of
+a neighbor.
+
+"You have been gambling."
+
+Michael nodded sadly.
+
+"And you have lost," she continued; "that goes without saying: I don't
+need to ask you. You, gambling!"
+
+But her surprise was short.
+
+"You have been gambling for my sake: I have guessed it. You said to
+yourself: 'I'm going to win what that crazy woman loses; men know more
+than women.' Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy, how grateful I am for your
+friendly intention!... How much was it?"
+
+On hearing the sum she gave him a look of compassion, but smiled
+immediately, as though the comradeship of misfortune made her own losses
+easier to bear.
+
+They remained silent for a moment. Then she explained her presence on
+the square. The night before she had sworn she would never again come
+near the Casino, but habit...!
+
+"I'm alone. Valeria went away immediately after lunch. She goes around
+like a crazy woman on account of that scientist you have at your house.
+They must have made an engagement somewhere. All she talks about is
+Spain, because the women there marry without dowries. As for 'the
+General,' don't talk to me about her: I don't want to hear her name;
+she is dead--dead forever, as far as I am concerned! And I'm so bored
+all by myself; I think of things that make me weep; I go out, and my
+feet take me here without my realizing it."
+
+Then she added with a graceful entreaty:
+
+"Take me somewhere, wherever you feel like. Let's go a long ways from
+here. Where can we go?"
+
+The Prince showed the same hesitation. They continually moved in the
+same circle, from their houses to the center of Monte Carlo, the Casino,
+and seemed lost if they tried to go any farther. The war had done away
+with private automobiles; to go on an excursion it was necessary to get
+a permit in advance. One could find nothing save carriages drawn by
+feeble horses, rejected by the Army.
+
+"Suppose we go to Monaco?" Alicia proposed.
+
+Monaco was in sight, on the other side of the harbor; a street car ran
+from there to Monte Carlo every twenty minutes, and nevertheless she
+made this proposal as though speaking of some remote country.
+
+They had both spent some twenty years there, continually seeing the rock
+which bore on its crest the old city of the Princes; but, as though
+those places were painted on a back drop in the theater, it had never
+entered their heads to go that far. Alicia vaguely recalled a visit to
+the Palace of the Sovereign and another to the Museum of Oceanography,
+without being able to formulate her impressions. Lubimoff also from his
+automobile had seen the garden, the old houses, and a large square, the
+one day that he had visited the Prince of Monaco in his old castle.
+
+They decided on the trip with the glee of school children, and when the
+Duchess went to call a cab, Michael showed a certain hesitation as he
+searched through various pockets.
+
+He had no money. He had dropped it all in the roulette, absolutely all.
+At the hotel he had asked them to charge his lunch, handing over his
+last few francs to the waiter as a tip.
+
+Alicia greeted his worried look with bursts of laughter. Lubimoff unable
+to pay a cabman! Monte Carlo was the only place where you could see
+things like that.
+
+"Poor boy, I'll pay. You can deduct it from the twenty thousand I owe
+you. No; not that, no; it will be a gift. You have given women so much
+money, let me be the first to pay a bill for you. What a luxury! I
+'keeping' Prince Lubimoff."
+
+They had gotten into the carriage, which was beginning to descend the
+slope toward La Condamine harbor.
+
+"How people stare at us!" said Alicia. "They will think I am carrying
+you off by force. The Duchess de Delille, ruined, seduces a
+multi-millionaire Prince to make him her lover and get money out of him
+... and they don't know that I am the one that is paying! Come laugh a
+little. Are you annoyed that I should pay? Don't you think it is
+amusing?"
+
+She talked of her lack of foresight and her folly with a certain pride,
+as though it were something which placed her above people of regular
+habits. The evening before she had been afraid of not having enough
+money left to buy food for the next day. But Valeria had spent the
+morning making valuable discoveries in the closets! Bank notes lost
+among the clothes, Casino chips forgotten among the books, and even a
+thousand franc bill used to wrap up an old cake of soap.
+
+She suddenly stopped enumerating these finds.
+
+"Look! Look!"
+
+They were beside the harbor. She pointed out a lady who was walking
+along the shore, among the tall rose-bay bushes trimmed in the shape of
+trees. It was Clorinda. A gentleman who seemed to be waiting for her
+rose from the bench, and came forward to meet her. They both recognized
+Atilio Castro, and observed how he and "the General" greeted each other,
+and how they continued their promenade together, so absorbed in mutual
+contemplation, that they did not notice the carriage.
+
+Michael smiled slightly. Himself there, beside Alicia, who was causing
+him to commit every sort of folly; and the other man waiting there for
+Dona Clorinda's arrival with all the emotion of a youth! Poor enemies of
+women!
+
+"Don't talk to me about her!" Alicia exclaimed in a rage, in spite of
+the fact that her companion had said nothing. "I hate her.... Think of
+poor Martinez forgotten. She quarrels with me to get him, takes him away
+from me, and then comes in search of Castro, while the other unhappy
+fellow is wandering about Monte Carlo. What a woman! She has done me so
+much harm! She is to blame for everything."
+
+And as the Prince looked at her with a questioning air she explained her
+complaints with a tone of conviction. Her losses which had been so rapid
+and so complete, could not be explained logically. She had won for two
+weeks, and in a few hours had lost everything. How could that be? The
+evening before, as she was leaving the Casino, a respectable friend, an
+Italian Marchioness, a former dancer, who was very wise in matters of
+luck, and who had been gambling for the last thirty years in Monte
+Carlo, had revealed to her the cruel truth: "Duchess, there is some one
+who hates you; an envious friend who comes to your house and has cast an
+evil spell over you. That is the only way to explain what has happened.
+You must drive out the evil luck, turning it back on the person who gave
+it to you.
+
+"So you see it couldn't be clearer: an envious friend who comes to my
+house--Clorinda; it can't be any one else. And no later than to-morrow I
+am going to drive away my bad luck, in the way the Marchioness
+recommended. Other gamblers follow her advice and are very successful."
+
+It was the Three Wise Kings who possessed the power of undoing evil
+spells. It was necessary to cleanse away the rooms which "the General"
+had entered by burning in a small pan gold, incense and myrrh, the three
+presents of the monarchs who had come from afar. She had no gold; it was
+inaccessible on account of the war; but, according to the
+Witch-Marchioness, it would be the same if she burned wheat.
+
+"And at the same time recite a prayer in Italian, a very pretty entreaty
+to the Three Kings, that sounds like a song, that says--that says----"
+
+Unable to remember it, she opened her hand bag. She kept the prayer in
+her coin purse, written in lead pencil on one of the cards furnished by
+the Casino to keep track of bets. Michael looked at the contents of the
+purse with the curiosity always inspired by every object belonging to a
+woman who interests a man. Beside the mussed handkerchief he saw a
+little leather case, and hanging from it a gambler's fetish, a hand with
+the index and little finger extended like horns, to ward off bad luck.
+But beside the hand there hung another golden fetish, of such an
+unexpected, unheard of form, that Michael refused to believe what had
+passed before his eyes like a rapid vision.
+
+Alicia drew back, pushing aside his inquisitive hand: "No, no!" And she
+closed the purse so rapidly that the silver rings almost caught his
+fingers. Blushing and smiling, she held him off, giving him a sly look,
+and at the same time shrinking like a naughty child.
+
+"It is a gift from the Marchioness. The best she knows, to bring luck.
+Mine has gone. That is all you need to know. How curious you are!"
+
+And while she pretended to be somewhat angry in order to avoid new
+explanations, Michael recalled the Rosary of Satan belonging to his
+friend Lewis and its strange ornaments.
+
+The carriage began to ascend the slope towards Monaco. The ships and the
+harbor seemed to sink with each turn of the wheel. Verdant shades cooled
+the road, within sight of the luminous sea and of the yellowish
+mountains, that were taking on a rosy color under the afternoon sun.
+
+Michael explained to his companion the strange features of the
+promontory that serves as a base for old Monaco. On the Southern part,
+among the rocks covered with century plants and prickly pear, the
+vegetation of the warm countries becomes acclimated with a facility that
+if one takes the latitude into account is truly extraordinary. On his
+visit to the palace of the Prince he had found in the warmer moats of
+the fortress, which are like natural hothouses, the same damp sticky
+heat that one finds in the forests of Equador, with their Brazilian palm
+trees that rise many yards in quest of light. On the other hand, without
+leaving the rock, one finds on the northern side, where there is little
+sunlight, ferns from the cold countries, vegetation from the Vosges
+Mountains, which got here no one knows how, and took root beside the
+Mediterranean.
+
+Alicia, not wishing to seem less informed, talked about the San Martino
+Gardens. She had not seen them, but she imagined that they were between
+the Museum of Oceanography and the Cathedral. Valeria had not been able
+to talk about anything else during the last few weeks, and described
+them as though they were the most interesting gardens in the world. She
+had seen them in good company, and this had exerted a strong influence
+on her powers of vision. It was doubtless Novoa who had revealed to her
+this Paradise.
+
+"Supposing we were to meet them!" said Alicia, laughingly.
+
+The carriage passed between two little towers, capped with tiles, that
+marked the entrance to the walled enclosure of Monaco. The harbor lay
+far below, with its boats that seemed so tiny. On the other side of the
+sheet of water shone the cupolas of the Casino and the many Monte Carlo
+hotels, with their multi-colored facades, the windows of their balconies
+and belvideres. It was impossible to make out the people. Automobiles
+were gliding along like tiny insects on the slope that descended to La
+Condamine.
+
+They followed the asphalt avenue, between two narrow dense gardens,
+leading to the Museum of Oceanography.
+
+"Look at them!" said Alicia with an expression of triumph, as she nudged
+the Prince at the same time.
+
+When the latter turned his head all he could see were two indistinct
+forms hiding in a side path.
+
+"It is they, you may be sure," continued the Duchess, laughing. "They
+were walking in the middle of the avenue. Valeria is very quick; she
+turned when she heard the sound of a carriage, and recognized me
+immediately. She hurried the scientist away as though she were dragging
+him along."
+
+She stopped laughing, and her features took on a look of sad solemnity.
+
+"Happy pair! What dreams! We have all gone through the same thing. The
+worst of it is that we want to keep on going in quest of something
+further, when we ought to remain satisfied with what we have."
+
+The Prince nodded, repeating briefly:
+
+"Happy pair!"
+
+His voice sounded like a _requiem_. These successive meetings had made
+him think of the end of the community of which he was the ridiculous
+head. First of all, Castro; then, Novoa. Even the Colonel at that very
+moment was walking up and down in front of a millinery shop waiting for
+the gardener's little girl. Spadoni was the only one left, but his
+loyalty counted for little. As far as the latter was concerned, nothing
+feminine existed except the roulette wheel.
+
+The carriage stopped beyond the Museum of Oceanography, where the San
+Martino Garden began. Alicia paid the driver.
+
+"We must economize," she said gravely. "We shall return on foot."
+
+They followed a network of winding paths, ascending and descending the
+gulleys of the slope. The tiny plateaus had been converted into stone
+lookouts, from which the view embraced an immense expanse of sea.
+Occasionally at dawn one could distinguish the distant profile of the
+Mountain of Corsica. Since the gardens were far above the Mediterranean,
+the horizon line was so high that one seemed to be looking upwards when
+viewing it. The pine trees rose in slender black colonnades and between
+the thin trunks one could see the dark Mediterranean suspended like a
+curtain. Only the murmuring tops of the sharp trees emerged in the
+diaphanous azure of the skies. Below the vegetation was composed of wild
+hardy plants breathing out strong odors, plants that were unaffected by
+the salty exhalations of the sea; prickly pear, lobes of which were
+surmounted by red fruit; small century plants whose twisted blades
+intertwined like tentacles of green pulp.
+
+Alicia admired this garden. According to her it was a maritime garden,
+in harmony with the nearby Museum and the landscape. The trunks of the
+trees seemed like the masts of ships; the plants amassed at their feet
+had the radiating enveloping form of the monsters of the ocean depths.
+Other vegetation of a foreign origin recalled images of warm countries,
+and of distant parts, filled with odors and swarming with crowds of
+yellow and copper-colored men. Through the straight trunks of the trees,
+one could see five schooners, motionless on the horizon with their sails
+hanging.
+
+A train of smoke followed the evolutions of a slim torpedo boat steaming
+around the white, timid flock, like a watch dog.
+
+Looking over the stone balconies one could peer into the ocean to
+enormous depths. The bold red cliff buried itself vertically in the
+waters darkened by shadows, or took shelter behind landslides of rocks
+continually surrounded by foam. On one side Cap-Martin advanced,
+repelling the onrush of the waves, circles of white caps that constantly
+succeeded one another, rising from the azure meadows; still farther on
+lay the Italian coast, showing rose-colored through the melancholy
+afternoon mist, and on the opposite side lay Cap-d'Ail and Cap-Ferrat,
+above whose backs embossed with the green of the seas, and dotted with
+the white of the villas--the golden winding sheet, which was to enshroud
+the dying sun, began to rise.
+
+"Beautiful! very beautiful!"
+
+Alicia displayed a girlish delight. They sat down in view of the sea,
+slowly drinking in the vibrant calm, in which mingled the trembling of
+the pines, the deep churning of the invisible foam, the breath of the
+azure plain, and the rustling of the earth, grazed by rosaries of ants,
+by chains of caterpillars, and by the busy work of the black beetle, and
+at the same time deeply stirred by the awakening of the roots.
+
+From time to time human footsteps sounded on the sand of the winding
+path. They came from invalids or convalescents who were passing through
+the gardens on coming out of the Museum; people from Monaco returning to
+their homes after having taken the sun on a bench; fat housewives who
+kept their knitting in a bag; old men leaning on canes, who perhaps had
+never gone to sea, but who looked like old Genoese sailors. Also a few
+pairs of lovers passed slowly. They would appear at a turning of the
+path with their arms around each other's waists, silent, looking at each
+other, and observing that there was another couple on the bench, they
+unclasped, and suddenly pretended to be carrying on a conversation. As
+soon as possible they gained the nearest turning to resume their tender
+entwining, not without having first greeted the Prince and the Duchess
+with a smile, as though they saw in them another pair of lovers.
+
+"And just to think that we have never come here before!" said Alicia.
+"You, at least, own magnificent gardens; but I, living in a villa which
+is simply a house with a few trees around it and has no other views than
+the opposite building, have been so stupid to have spent the afternoon
+in the Casino, dark and shut in like a wine cellar. How awful!"
+
+She shuddered on thinking of the Casino. It seemed impossible to her now
+that during the very hours when this garden lay stretched out beside the
+sea, with its luminous sylvan splendor she should have been able to live
+in that half light of artificial illumination or in that nasty,
+unwholesome atmosphere.
+
+"There are many beautiful things in the world," she continued, "for
+which money is not necessary. Just to think that if we had not lost we
+would not be here! It is almost better to be poor."
+
+Michael laughed at her earnestness. No; it was not pleasant to be poor;
+but she was right in saying that to enjoy many beautiful things it was
+not necessary to have money.
+
+"We, ourselves," she added, after a long pause, "have known each other
+only since we lost our wealth. Who knows but what if we had been born
+poor we would have understood each other better when we were young! I
+have often thought so."
+
+Of course! And since Michael had been there on the bench, beside her, he
+had been thinking the same thing. Alicia's joy at the splendor of the
+afternoon, her enthusiasm on seeing this rustic garden overlooking the
+sea, far from certain people, without whom she formerly would have
+thought life intolerable, far from gambling, which was the only remedy
+to fill the emptiness of her life--all this flattered and delighted the
+Prince, like a discovery in harmony with his desires. At present he saw
+her in a very different light from that in which he had imagined her in
+former years. And he, too, surely seemed like a very different person in
+her eyes than he had in the past. Before, they had been separated by an
+enormous wall, wealth, that gave rise to pride and eagerness for
+domineering.
+
+He felt the need of going on talking. Something was surging within him,
+causing words to rise to his lips in an irresistible tide.
+
+A voice within seemed to warn him. "You are going to commit some
+monstrous folly. Look out!--You are on the road to mixing up your life
+again----" It was the old Lubimoff in him that was talking; the Lubimoff
+who had recently arrived from Paris to take refuge in his Ark, far from
+the vain longings that make up the happiness of the majority of men; it
+was the stern chief of the "enemies of women."
+
+But the harsh, mournful inner voice awoke no echoing response. The
+Prince despised this phantom that still remained within him, lamenting
+over the ruins it found there.
+
+Up to that moment he had been inhaling with delight the perfume of that
+woman. It seemed to mingle with the perfumes of the afternoon,
+communicating its essence to all Nature. He saw the sky, the sea, the
+trees, and everything in fact in terms of her, as though she filled all
+space.
+
+He, too, had made a discovery that afternoon. He thought with horror of
+the loneliness of Villa Sirena, just as she had been thinking of the
+Casino. These gardens which every one might enjoy, seemed to him more
+beautiful than those he owned, and which every one envied him. How had
+he ever been able to walk around his villa, through its magnificent and
+lonely avenues, when there existed in the world the marvelous pleasures
+of sitting on a public bench beside a woman, or walking close to her,
+with an arm around her waist, like those poor soldiers and sailors?
+
+Once more he heard the voice: "Fine, Prince! In love like a school-boy
+when you're over forty. Go on with your foolishness, if it amuses
+you!... What would the other 'enemies of women' say?"
+
+But he refused to listen to this last protest from the other hostile and
+forgotten half of his personality.
+
+"Our life has been a mistake," he said aloud, with a certain vehemence,
+in order not to show his emotion. "You, too, must realize that I think
+the same--that I acknowledge my error--because I--because I, for some
+time--have been in love with you!... Well, I have said it! Now laugh if
+you like."
+
+She did not feel like laughing. She gave a slight exclamation, looked at
+him for a moment, and turned away as though avoiding the questioning
+glance in his eyes. She had had a presentiment that this was coming,
+sooner or later, but her breath was taken away on actually hearing it!
+
+There was a long silence.
+
+"What is your answer?" the famous Prince Lubimoff, adored by so many
+women, finally asked with timidity.
+
+Alicia looked at him again.
+
+"Aren't you joking? Isn't it a mere whim inspired by the beauty of this
+afternoon--so poetic?"
+
+Michael protested with a gesture. How could she take as a caprice the
+grave decision that he had finally reached after so long and difficult a
+debate within, the way one evolves a truly great decision!
+
+"If I were like most women, I would reply: 'How many women have you said
+the same thing to?' But such a question is stupid. One may have said: 'I
+love you,' to a woman, in all sincerity and some time later repeat the
+same words to another, with still more sincerity. I'm not going to ask
+you to how many you have said what you have just said to me. Perhaps you
+never said it to any one before. To fulfill your desires it wasn't
+necessary to exert yourself, playing a comedy of deep affection: they
+sought you passionately; like a Sultan, you needed only to throw your
+handkerchief as a signal.... But when it comes to me! Remember, Michael:
+as children we hated each other; later on, when I was willing, you were
+not. And now we are beginning to grow old! Now that I possess only the
+remains of what I once was and haven't the same freedom any longer,
+since I have--you know what...! It is absurd, and that is why I laugh.
+No: never!"
+
+It was the Prince's turn to speak. They had hated each other, that was
+true, and now he considered that hate as fortunate. What a misfortune
+for both of them if marriage had united their two enormous fortunes and
+their two prides, more enormous still.
+
+"We would have separated a week later; perhaps the same day," Michael
+continued. "I even suspect that I would have beaten you."
+
+"And I you," said the Duchess. "No place would have been large enough to
+hold us both. It would have been necessary for one of us to give in to
+the other. And neither one of us would have thought of making such a
+sacrifice."
+
+"I might say the same," he continued, "about the night when we dined
+together. I am glad of my absurd and ridiculous conduct on that
+occasion. Had I given in, there would be an invincible barrier between
+us now; we would never have met again, and we would not be here saying
+to each other what we are saying now."
+
+She assented.
+
+"We would not be here, that is certain. You would have kept a frightful
+memory of me; I know very well what I was like then. Neither would I
+have sought you out, even though my life depended on it. Thanks to your
+flight that evening we can still be friends, eternal friends, brothers
+if you like; but why do you talk to me about love? It doesn't belong to
+our age. The time has passed. What do you see in me now that you did not
+when I was young?"
+
+"I see your misfortune."
+
+The voice of the Prince sounded grave and deeply sincere as he said
+this.
+
+He had reflected for a long time, before answering, when he had asked
+himself the same question as Alicia's. He was sure that he had begun to
+love her the day when she had come to Villa Sirena to confess her ruin
+and to ask him to forget her debt to him. Poor Duchess de Delille,
+accustomed to spending millions each year, the proprietress of precious
+mines, and having to live by gambling like an adventuress!...
+Afterwards, beside her bed, seeing her tears, and listening to the great
+secret of her life, the hidden motherhood that had made her weep, he had
+become definitely conscious of this love. During the last few days,
+seeing her victorious in the Casino, his love had been clouded; he cared
+less for her. Later, finding her ruined and sick with sadness, his
+affection was renewed; and to help her, he had even become a gambler,
+he, who was incapable of doing this even for his own salvation!
+
+"You can't understand me; you are a woman. Often in my life, other women
+have said to me, after some unexplainable act of theirs: 'It is useless
+to try: men can never succeed in understanding us.' I say the same: A
+woman cannot understand a man either. I love you now because you inspire
+pity in me, and pity leads to tenderness and tenderness is true love,
+love such as I have never felt before. Each one loves in his own way.
+The majority of women need to feel proud when they love; the person they
+love must arouse the envy of others through being brave, handsome,
+wealthy or talented. Man almost always loves through pity, through
+tender compassion inspired by woman. He never feels more in love than
+when a woman's head reclines against his breast with the abandon of
+weakness; and when his hand is buried in her hair, it finds a tiny
+delicate head--smaller than he had ever imagined--a head that is filled
+with divine words, irresistible charms, and noble impulses, but which
+rarely has that force of thought which makes man superior to her. Her
+adorable arms are not strong enough to protect her. And man, seeing her
+so lovely and so weak, feels his passion increase with pity and the
+desire to protect her."
+
+"No," she said. "Woman, too, knows the meaning of compassionate love. A
+man for whom she feels indifference suddenly interests her, when she
+sees that he is unhappy; and a woman, who hates her lover one day,
+returns to him the next, when she feels that he is in danger. She never
+speaks more tenderly than when she says, 'My poor little boy!'"
+
+The Prince assented with a gesture. That was all very well. But
+immediately he returned to the subject which interested him.
+
+"To-day we both know misfortune; I, as well as you, since I have lost
+what distinguished me from other men, and which I shall never perhaps
+recover. But your situation is still worse; you are a woman, you are
+poorer, and I feel attracted to you and tell you what I never would have
+told you if, shut up within our own pride, we had both kept our former
+places in the world."
+
+He went on talking in a soothing tone almost in her ear, coming closer
+to her, and breathing the perfume of the fur boa around her neck, which
+seemed to have concentrated in itself the perfume of her whole body.
+
+He repeated what he had thought in the nights when he had struggled with
+his former dread; thoughts that he had vigorously resumed shortly
+before, as he was sitting silently by her side in the carriage. He
+talked of the future. They might still be happy; the love he offered her
+was of the quiet, lasting kind; an autumnal love, a love that would be
+for all time, with no dramatic complications, peaceful, tranquil,
+sweetly uneventful, like the long winter evenings beside a fire.
+
+She laughed with a pained expression.
+
+"You forget who I am; you talk as though the past did not exist, as
+though you were not yourself and as though all the stories that weigh
+against my name did not exist. If some one else were to make me this
+proposal, who knows!... I am weary and the thought of a quiet future
+attracts me. But you!... With you it would be impossible: It would end
+disastrously. I prefer that we be friends, without any thought of love.
+It is safer and more lasting."
+
+On seeing his look of dismay, Alicia went on talking. She was not afraid
+of living with him because of what people might say. It is true that she
+had a husband, who now in the throes of a senile passion would refuse to
+grant her a divorce. But what did she care for an obstacle like that, or
+for what people would say about it!... She had done more daring things
+in her life!
+
+"It is simply that I do not want to. Don't ask me why: I could not
+explain it to you; or I should say, you would not understand me. I
+repeat what other women have said to you: 'You are a man, and cannot
+understand women.' No, I don't want to. I shall speak more plainly:
+Another man might succeed in interesting me--I don't know. We are so
+weak! Our wills play us such strange tricks! But with you, no.... We
+know each other too well: It is impossible."
+
+Michael spoke in a tone of sadness and chagrin.
+
+"I don't interest you: that is easy to see."
+
+Alicia once more laughed heartily and with one of her hands she tapped
+those of the Prince which were clasped together.
+
+"Silly! Do you really think I don't care for you at all. If I felt
+indifferent toward you would I have sought you formerly, and would I be
+here with you now?"
+
+He was disconcerted. "Well, then?" And he made an effort to discover
+what obstacle stood in the way of his desire. If it was on account of
+what had happened in her past life, he had forgotten it. He, Prince
+Lubimoff, had had many affairs that it was better not to recall.
+
+"Let's not talk about the past at all. You are a different woman. I
+know what your life has been during the last few years; besides, the
+other morning you told me what you have been since your son began to
+live by your side. I take you from the time you recognized the
+seriousness of life, on seeing beside you a man formed from your own
+flesh and blood. I have forgotten the Venus of former years, the Helen
+of the 'old man on the wall.' I desire you, seeing you as you are
+to-day, the Venus Sorrowful, weeping, suffering and in need of
+consolation and care that will sustain and sweeten life."
+
+She stopped smiling. Her lips trembled with a pitiful expression of
+gratitude; her eyes were moist with tears.
+
+"No," she said in a humble voice. "It is impossible for that very
+reason. My son! How my son has changed me! I know what all this love
+means. We are not two children to be deceived by dreams of purity and
+talk about the soul and heaven, while our bodies are drawn together by a
+natural impulse. If I accept your love, I know what that means at once,
+perhaps before the dawning of a new day. Can you imagine such a thing?
+My son,--I don't know where he is, perhaps he is dead. At least he is
+suffering at the present moment hardships which a beggar woman would not
+allow a son of hers to suffer, and I, in the meantime, abandoning myself
+to a great love, to a passion such that it would absorb all my time and
+thoughts, as though I were still in my early youth.... Oh, no! How
+shameful! I know what love between us fatally demands, and it frightens
+me. I feel powerless in the face of things which formerly seemed to me
+as nothing. You have spoken the truth: I am a different woman."
+
+The Prince regained hope on learning the nature of the obstacle. Her son
+was still alive: he was sure of it, He had written to the King of Spain
+and to influential friends of his in Paris; he had even sent letters to
+Germany through diplomatic channels. They might find him any moment; he
+would succeed in returning him to his mother's side. Why should the poor
+boy stand in the way of both their futures? Her son knew life; the years
+that he had spent with his mother had familiarized him with the
+irregularities which are so common in the world of the fortunate. He
+would not consider it unusual for her, submitting to a marriage that was
+not a lie, to rebuild her life discreetly with a man whom she had known
+since her youth. Besides, he would love him like a younger brother. He
+could count on influential friends capable of helping the boy if he
+wanted to work. When he died what was left of his fortune would go to
+him.
+
+Alicia clasped one of his hands with the tenderness of gratitude. "How
+good you are!" But suddenly she dried her tears, and her eyes shone with
+a glow of energy that seemed to reflect her struggle with herself, and
+she continued, in a firm tone:
+
+"No, no. I don't want to. I am looking to the immediate future: to what
+would happen to us if I gave in to your glowing words; I can see my
+son--or I should say, I cannot see him, I don't know what has become of
+him, I don't know whether or not he is alive. I tell you no. It is
+useless for you to insist."
+
+There was a long silence. A soldier passed with his head bandaged
+beneath his _kepis_ and a flower behind his ear. He was smiling at a
+red-faced girl, who was leaning on his arm. They were both humming a
+tune. The Prince and the Duchess separated slightly on the bench, and
+remained in silence, he, looking on the ground, absorbed and frowning,
+she, with her eyes on the horizon line, following the slow progress of
+the schooners, the sails of which were filling with the breeze that
+announced the coming twilight.
+
+The obstinacy with which Michael kept his eyes riveted on the ground
+caused Alicia to make a mistake. Her ankles showed somewhat owing to her
+posture and her short skirt; trim ankles with the whiteness of her skin
+visible through the meshes of snuff-colored silk.
+
+"You are looking at my stockings?" she asked, her mood suddenly changing
+from sadness to gaiety. "Look. What you see on the side there is not
+embroidery, it is darning. My maid mends them nicely. What can you
+expect? We are poor."
+
+And doubtless, for the sake of amusing her frowning companion, she went
+on to enumerate in gay tones the various difficulties arising from her
+poverty. Oh, the war, with the terrible cost of living! Silk stockings
+were so bad! One got holes in them after putting them on once, and they
+came only at fabulous prices. She preferred to prolong the existence of
+those that she had kept since the days of her wealth, because they were
+stronger. She might say the same of her dresses. It had been two years
+since her wardrobe had received any replenishing, so frequent before.
+
+"We are poor," she repeated, with mock solemnity. "Besides, we are fond
+of gambling, and, like all gamblers, we lose thousands of francs and
+economize on the little things that make life pleasant."
+
+She had been waiting for an enormous stroke of luck after which she
+would stop playing and begin to think again of the wardrobe.
+
+But the Prince, by his gestures and the expression on his face gave her
+to understand how little he was interested in these confidences. It was
+useless for her to try and change the conversation. Michael, offended by
+Alicia's negative reply, was still absorbed in his question. Perhaps
+with another man she would have shown herself more clement.
+
+She realized that she must return to the subject which interested her
+companion, and said with masculine frankness:
+
+"I know what is the matter with you. I am going to forget we belong to
+different sexes and talk to you like a comrade, just as I talked to you
+that night in my study. I know the life you are leading; I know also all
+about the 'enemies of women': a silly idea. What you need, after several
+months of living alone like a maniac, is a woman. Choose from those
+about you; you can find them whenever you like, younger and more
+beautiful than I, who am beginning to see myself as I am. Why do you
+choose me? Why do you disturb my tranquillity, now that I have forgotten
+all about such things?"
+
+The Prince smiled bitterly at the suggested remedy. He had often thought
+of it. The censor that he kept within had repeated the same advice:
+"Find a female, and it will all pass away immediately; a woman who
+inspires only a momentary interest; no women and no love complications.
+Do what you recommended to Castro." He had frequented the Casino with
+the resolute air of a slaughter-house man about to choose his prey from
+the flock. He would glance over the troop of girls in the gambling
+rooms, who kept one eye on the green baize, while with the other they
+watched the men who were walking about behind them.
+
+He felt physically attracted by certain women; by one, because of her
+features, by another, because of her figure or stature, and by some,
+because of their strange ugliness or stimulating irregularity of form
+and feature, which affected his nerves much as sharp or biting food
+affects the palate. He had had only to make a sign or say a brief word
+to many who, seeing themselves noticed by that famous person, smiled
+ready to follow him. But suddenly he felt the dislike which is inspired
+by things repeated to the point of satiety, and by the emptiness of
+what is familiar to the point of weariness. He could not expect anything
+new; he was horrified at the thought of the vain prattle of an unknown
+woman desirous of appearing interesting; of the lies inspired by a
+sudden and false sentimentality; and by the gross animalism of the
+pairing which would end the tiresome preliminaries. No; he couldn't.
+Only once, with a desperate energy of a patient gulping down a
+disgusting medicine, he had followed one of these beautiful animals, and
+shortly afterwards he felt disgusted with his baseness and ashamed of
+his backsliding.
+
+"It is you; you and no one else," he said gloomily. "You, or no one."
+
+Alicia replied in the same grave tone. She knew by experience what this
+meant "We desire with greater eagerness what is impossible for us to
+obtain; we single out as unique whatever is beyond our grasp."
+
+But these reasonings exasperated Lubimoff to the extent of making him
+unjust.
+
+"I know you," he said, drawing nearer on the bench, as he gazed at her
+more closely, with angry, passionate eyes. "I know what you women are
+like; you're all vain and revengeful. You can't forget the evening you
+wanted me and I was not willing, and now you are taking delight in my
+torment; you enjoy making me suffer."
+
+"Oh, Michael!" she interrupted, in a tone of protest.
+
+The Prince continued to express his rancour, and his indignation stirred
+Alicia more than the humble question of a few moments before. It was the
+desperate pleading of a patient who is past recovery and desires to
+return to normal life.
+
+"I love you.... I need you. I'll get you!"
+
+Above the promontory of Cap-d'Ail the orange-colored globe of the sun
+was descending. Its lower edge was already touching the undulating line
+of garden and buildings. For a moment its rays were concentrated in a
+sheaf seen through the colonnade of a pergola, as though showing itself
+through an arch of triumph before dying. A dark azure light seemed to
+emerge from the sea driving the fading gold of the afternoon from the
+gardens.
+
+"No!... No, I won't!"
+
+Alicia's voice suddenly broke the vibrant silence with the tremulousness
+of surprise, and immediately changed to a long gasp, as though something
+were weighing on her lips. Michael had thrown both his arms around her
+shoulders, mastering her, drawing her breast forward, pressing it
+against his own. His lips sought hers, but she made an effort to resist,
+by turning away with a violent straining of her neck. Finally the moan
+of protest ceased. Both heads remained motionless.
+
+"Michael ... Michael!" she sighed, freeing herself for a moment from the
+caress. But a moment later she submitted again to those lips which
+pursued hers so eagerly.
+
+She spoke in a tone of surrender. She was suddenly back in her past
+life, trembling at the contact of all those foreign things which seemed
+absolutely new through long continence. His ardent lips had overpowered
+her, awakened her from a dream that had lasted for years, in a sleep
+longer and deeper than Michael's.
+
+She forgot everything around her. Her eyes were still open but the
+vision of the sea, the golden sunset in the sky, and even the pine
+boughs forming a canopy above their heads, had disappeared from her
+gaze.
+
+Suddenly she saw them all once more, and at the same time she drew back
+her shoulders repelling him.
+
+"No, I won't.... Stop! They might see us. How crazy of us!"
+
+The Prince was an athlete, but his emotion weakened him. Besides, his
+energy was scattered in the double effort of trying to master the woman
+and at the same time of enjoying her caress in the overwhelming fury of
+passion. She bent and straightened several times, with all the
+suppleness of a reptile, finally succeeding in escaping from the chain
+of his arms, as she gave a sigh of weariness and relief.
+
+Lubimoff, coming to himself again, saw Alicia standing in front of him,
+smoothing her disordered clothing, and raising her hands to her hair, to
+her tilted hat and her boa, which was slipping from her shoulders.
+
+"Let us go," she said, with angry brevity.
+
+And the Prince followed her, crestfallen, repenting his violence. After
+walking a few steps, she seemed moved by his silence, which showed his
+repentance, and smiled again:
+
+"It is quite evident that from now on I must not see you alone. I forgot
+that you were a sailor, accustomed to making port in a hurry without
+caring to lose any time." They walked along slowly, in a tranquillity
+like that of the serene twilight.
+
+On leaving the gardens, they found themselves cut off by the Museum.
+Must they return by the way they had come? Michael discovered on one
+side of the building a rustic stairway cut at intervals in the rock, the
+hollows of which were filled with brick steps. It descended to the edge
+of the sea in various flights of stairs, and at the farther end, a walk
+following the edge of the coast led to the harbor.
+
+She hesitated for a moment at the archway of the entrance.
+
+"I warn you," she said, shaking her finger at Michael, "that if you
+return to your old tricks, I shall call for help. Do you promise me
+you'll be good? Word of honor?... All right; go on ahead: I don't trust
+you."
+
+He went ahead down the stairway to explore. The walls of the Museum
+seemed to expand as they continued to descend. Besides the building with
+its roof at their feet, there was a second building below, rising with
+its stone walls pierced by large windows, from the rocky slopes. At a
+turn of the path, the Prince faltered to wait for his companion. She was
+slowly descending, maintaining a distance of several steps between them.
+Her feet were higher than Lubimoff's head, and it was only necessary for
+the latter to raise his eyes slightly to see the stockings the darning
+in which Alicia had explained.
+
+With the lightness of a spring released, he slipped up the various steps
+that separated them.
+
+"Michael! I'll shout!" she exclaimed on seeing him coming, and she held
+out her hands to repel him, trying at the same time to flee.
+
+With his arms he had embraced the lower part of that adorable body. He
+could not climb any further; Alicia's hands repulsed his head with a
+nervous violence. And he in passionate madness pressed his lips to her
+feet and her ankles, kissing her skirts wherever he could reach them.
+
+She was angry at feeling that she could not stir and would be unable to
+escape.
+
+"Let me go! It's ridiculous! Stop!"
+
+The Prince's hat rolled down the steps, knocked off by a blow from her
+slender hands, as, blindly, she defended herself.
+
+This incident brought him to his senses. Yes; as a matter of fact, it
+was ridiculous. And as he saw that Alicia intended to retrace her steps,
+returning to the garden, Michael to inspire her confidence ran down the
+stairway without turning his head, to see whether she was following him.
+
+They met at the edge of the sea, on the wide path that wound among the
+loose rocks bordered with foam, and the nearly vertical walls of the
+cliff. The flat places and hollows in the stone had been made use of, on
+this promontory, that had so few soft surfaces, to construct the few
+houses that sheltered the families of the employees in Monaco. Along the
+upper edge of the cliff appeared the green line bordering the lofty
+gardens and cut at intervals by the old works of fortification.
+
+They were the sloping bastions, with sentry posts, like those one sees
+in old engravings or in stage settings. Huge stone facings with Latin
+letters sang the praises of the various sovereign Princes, who had built
+these costly works of defense, now antiquated and worthless. Lubimoff
+expected to see appear from these sentry posts a grenadier in a white
+uniform with scarlet facings, wearing, above his black mustache and
+powdered wig, a golden miter.
+
+They walked slowly along in the twilight. Above them shone the orange
+light of the setting sun, casting a mild red glow on the jutting rocks,
+the trees, and the white and yellow facades of the buildings. At the
+edge of the sea, the shadow was a deep blue shade, like moonlight
+shadow. The sky, blood-red in the West, was invisible for them behind
+the rocky cliffs of Monaco. They could see it only in the direction of
+Italy, and there it was growing darker and denser every minute,
+preparing for the first luminous piercing of the stars.
+
+They met various fishermen who were returning home loaded down with
+baskets and nets.
+
+Alicia felt worried in certain bends of the path so completely
+deserted. Later, on seeing a house or a passerby approaching, she
+resumed the conversation. What she was afraid of was stopping along the
+way, and sitting down with the Prince on the little parapet bordering
+the seashore. In the meantime they continued walking!
+
+Without protesting, she allowed Lubimoff to put his arm in hers, leaning
+upon it. He expressed such deep humility! He seemed repentant for the
+liberties he had taken; and asked her forgiveness with a pale smile.
+Besides, he talked to her about her son with soothing optimism. All her
+fears were unfounded; her son would return: he was sure of it. She would
+receive good news almost any moment, perhaps that very night.
+
+Her George was a man, and no matter how much he might love his mother,
+some day he would fall in love with another woman whom he would care for
+more deeply, and would build up a separate existence, like all the rest.
+
+"And you, who may still consider yourself young, you, who have the right
+to long years of happiness, do you want to give up everything like an
+old woman? Why? Why be in a hurry about that?"
+
+She bowed her head without knowing what to reply, and her emotion was
+such, that she made not the slightest movement when his arm freed itself
+from hers and encircled her waist. Thus they walked along, closely
+linked, forming a single body, taking step after step mechanically,
+without watching where they were going. With his eyes fixed on hers, he
+closely watched her face, hoping for a glance, or a monosyllable that
+would mean acceptance. Alicia was afraid of meeting those imploring
+eyes, and turned her own away.
+
+"Tell me yes," Michael murmured, "tell me that you will. It isn't for
+nothing that we have met; it is not for nothing that you sought me out.
+We shall rebuild our lives that have been so nearly wrecked by our
+vanity and pride. Let us be, although it is rather late, what we ought
+to be to one another."
+
+"No," sighed Alicia. "I can't.... My son!..."
+
+And immediately afterwards she hastened to murmur, as though repenting:
+
+"Yes; perhaps ... later ... but not now. How shameful! When my mind is
+at ease, when I don't feel this worry that is killing me. I love you; is
+that enough? I love you."
+
+These two words sufficed the Prince. He, who had gone to the farthest
+extreme of domination with so many women without ever feeling satisfied,
+contented himself with these brief words, which sounded in his ears like
+happy music.
+
+Instinctively, his arm dropped below her waist, while his other arm drew
+her head to one of his shoulders.
+
+There was a kiss, a long kiss, without either of them pausing in their
+walk. Alicia offered no resistance, and shortly afterwards, her lips,
+animated by a feverish awakening, responded to his kiss, making it more
+passionate, more vibrant and endless. She no longer felt any fear; they
+were walking along, and it was impossible for her lover to repeat the
+liberties he had dared to take in the garden. Moreover, she inwardly
+confessed, with a certain shame, the delight aroused in her by that
+violence.
+
+"I love you!" she sighed, without knowing what she was saying. "I love
+you; but not that, no! Let us love each other like children. It is
+ridiculous at our age--but so sweet."
+
+At that moment Lubimoff's spirit was like her own. This simple kiss
+seemed to him the greatest pleasure he had ever known. Life opened up
+enchantments of which he had never dreamed. It seemed to him that he
+was gazing on the most beautiful landscape in the world. How
+interesting were the old fortifications! What a great man Albert of
+Monaco was to build that lonely asphalt path, so that he might walk
+along it with his lips pressing the lips of a woman.
+
+They walked along as though they were intoxicated, in a continual zigzag
+between the parapet and the wall of the cliff, their lips pressing,
+their eyes almost touching, as though nothing existed beyond them, and
+they actually imagined that they were walking in a straight line. From a
+distance one would have thought they were two adversaries struggling,
+staggering, as they jostled each other in the fight.
+
+Suddenly mastered by desire, he stopped and refused to go on.
+
+"No, no!"
+
+Her will still shaken by her recent emotion, Alicia protested at this
+danger, but she forced herself to reiterate her refusal.
+
+His lips had separated from hers. There was an aggressive gleam in his
+half-shut eyes. His hands fell upon her hips, and clinched like claws.
+
+"I won't: I told you I won't! Come!"
+
+She struggled in his arms with the agility of a gymnast, and in breaking
+free from his grasp there was a sound of tearing clothes.
+
+"Look, you villain! Look what you've done!"
+
+She was standing motionless, a few steps away, with her fur boa falling
+from one of her shoulders, while at the other she was looking for the
+tear that her dress had just suffered.
+
+Michael, behind her, saw that one sleeve was almost torn away, giving a
+glimpse of her white flesh, and the seductive hollow under her arm.
+
+He repented his violence, and the clumsiness of his hands, which like
+those of a drunken sailor broke what he caressed.
+
+Once more Alicia took pity on his childish embarrassment.
+
+"No, don't worry about that. It is a dress I have had for two years: it
+is so old, that it tears just by looking at it. That is one of the
+inconveniences of walking with a beggar."
+
+But she finally became worried by this tear which was so visible. She
+was going to enter Monte Carlo on foot or by street car. What would
+people say, seeing her in such a state!
+
+"A pin: have you got a pin?"
+
+This request increased the remorse of the Prince. Where could a man find
+a pin? While Alicia was feeling for one without avail, he thought of
+returning to the Museum or scaling the rocks to one of those houses
+where the employees of the Prince live. He would have given a hundred
+francs for a pin--but he remembered that his pockets were empty.
+
+He began to search his clothes while she searched hers, although he was
+certain that it would be useless.
+
+Suddenly he smiled triumphantly.
+
+"Here is your pin."
+
+It was from his necktie! A famous pearl, admired by the women, and which
+he had never been willing to give away, because it was a gift of the
+Princess Lubimoff.
+
+He was obliged to mend the tear at the shoulder himself, sighing with
+vexation.
+
+"You don't know how," said Alicia laughing. "Look out that you don't
+prick me. How clumsy!"
+
+But he finally felt glad of his clumsiness. He had to touch her naked
+arm with his fingers; and he quivered as he touched the soft skin, which
+preserved in its velvety shadows a certain mystery of passion.
+
+"Look out!" she called. "Don't go back to your old tricks: I shall get
+angry. It is all right as it is. Come on!"
+
+She threw her scarf over the clumsy repair, and the pearl, which stood
+out against it, with odd magnificence. They were walking along once
+more, without any new attempted audacities on Michael's part. The last
+incident had made him circumspect. Inwardly he called himself names,
+considering himself a savage, incapable of living among real ladies.
+
+As they reached the last bend they left the azure shade of the cliff.
+Above their heads extended the last angle of the bulwarks, and a stone
+sentry post; across the harbor, with its mouth flanked by two
+illuminated towers, and on the opposite bank rose the heights of Monte
+Carlo, with its huge buildings, and its glistening cupolas, which were
+reflecting the last rosy fire of the twilight.
+
+They both halted instinctively. In the middle of the harbor, the yacht,
+the white yacht of the Prince of Monaco, lay motionless, tugging at her
+buoy. Beside the nearby dock a few latine rigged boats were pitching,
+moving their single mast, and a Spanish steamer, displaying its neutral
+flag, was unloading sacks of rice, and barrels of wine. The presence of
+various groups of men gathered in front of the boat made them prudent.
+They were no longer alone. Once more they had entered the life of the
+City.
+
+"How short the road was!" exclaimed the Prince.
+
+She thought the same. "Yes; how short!"
+
+They could no longer walk together. It was necessary to say good-by
+there, far from the crowd.
+
+Alicia held out both hands.
+
+"Nothing more?" sighed Michael.
+
+The Duchess hesitated a moment. Then, with the agility of a young girl,
+as though she were still the wild Amazon of the Bois de Boulogne, she
+sprang for his open arms.
+
+"There, there, and there!"
+
+There were three rapid fiery kisses, that only lasted for a second;
+three kisses that made Lubimoff think he had never felt one in all his
+life, since he had never experienced the quivering that swept his body
+from head to feet.
+
+"More! Give me more!"
+
+She laughed at his imploring look.
+
+"Enough folly. Another time, who knows!--For the present I am worried
+again. I am afraid to enter my house: I feel terror and hope. Oh, the
+news that I may receive at any moment! Tell me; do you really think that
+nothing has happened to him? Do you think he may come back?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Spadoni entered Novoa's room with the intention of getting him to talk.
+At present he was an ardent believer in the professor's knowledge, and
+seeing him well disposed toward gambling and inclined to meditate on its
+mysteries, he hoped with simple faith that the scientist would discover
+something miraculous, some brilliant idea that would make them both
+wealthy. On that account the pianist arose earlier than he was wont, to
+surprise the professor during his toilet, considering this the proper
+time for matters of confidence.
+
+"The word 'chance,'" said Novoa, "is a term devoid of meaning; or, I
+should say rather, chance does not exist. It is an invention of our
+human weakness, our ignorance. We say that a phenomenon takes place by
+chance when the causes either are unknown to us or seem impossible to
+analyze. We are ignorant of the causes of the majority of things that
+occur and we get out of the difficulty by attributing them to chance."
+
+The musician opened his eyes wide, and his olive features contracted
+with a look of respectful attention. He did not understand the
+scientist's words very clearly, but he admired them in advance, as a
+prelude to revelations which would be more practical, and of immediate
+application.
+
+"Every phenomenon," continued Novoa, "no matter how slight it seems, has
+a cause, and the man with an infinitely powerful brain, infinitely well
+informed of the laws of Nature, would be capable of foreseeing
+everything that might happen within a few minutes or within a few
+centuries. With a man like this it would be impossible to play any
+gambling game. Chance would not exist for him. Having the secret of the
+small causes that at present escape our intelligence, and a knowledge of
+the laws that control their combinations, he would know absolutely
+everything that might arise from the mystery of a pack of cards or from
+the numbers of a roulette wheel. No one could hope to win from him."
+
+"Oh, Professor!" sighed the pianist, in admiration.
+
+Inwardly he prayed that his illustrious friend would go on studying. Who
+knows but what a professor might become that all-powerful person, and,
+taking pity on a poor pianist, allow him to follow in his trail of
+glory!
+
+Novoa smiled at Spadoni's simplicity and went on talking.
+
+"The number of facts which we attribute to chance (and chance is nothing
+but a fictitious cause created by our ignorance) varies, in the same
+ratio as our ignorance varies, according to the times and according to
+the individual. Many things which are chance for an uneducated person,
+are not chance for a man of learning. What is chance to-day will not be
+perhaps within a few years. Scientific discoveries finally diminish
+considerably the domain of chance, just as our ignorance decreases."
+
+The pianist's face beamed with a rapt expression.
+
+"You are a great scholar, Professor, a great scholar!... Don't shake
+your head; I know what I'm saying. I have a feeling of certainty that,
+if you go on studying these important matters, you will find a system
+which...."
+
+The Spaniard interrupted him, pointing to a pack of cards on a nearby
+table. It was easy to guess that he had been studying during the night,
+before going to bed. These cards were for Spadoni evidence of scientific
+studiousness, worthier of respect than all the books from the library
+of the Prince, which lay forgotten in the corners. At present the
+Professor was interested in the mysteries of chance, and Spadoni was
+certain that he would discover something better than anything which had
+been invented thus far by ordinary gamblers.
+
+But his hope vanished at Novoa's gesture of dismay.
+
+"Look at that pack of cards: A few pieces of cardboard and,
+nevertheless, they contain the immensity of the universe! They cause in
+one the feeling of dizziness inspired by the Infinite, just as when you
+look upward with a telescope or downward with a microscope. Do you know
+how many combinations can be made with a pack of fifty-two cards? I
+don't know how to express it: nor will you find the figure in a
+dictionary or an arithmetic, as it is useless, since it lies beyond
+human calculations. Let us coin the word: eighty unidecillions, or the
+figure eight followed by sixty-six ciphers. Two men who began to play
+with a pack of fifty-two cards and played a hand every minute, each hand
+being different, would not be able to exhaust all the possible
+combinations in five million centuries."
+
+There was a long silence, as though the walls of the room had shrunk
+under the weight of these inconceivable numbers. Spadoni bowed his head.
+
+"Now, tell me," continued the Professor, "what can a poor human being,
+with all his calculations of probabilities, do against this infinity!"
+
+And seizing a handful of cards, he let them fall again like a whispering
+rain of colors on the table.
+
+"Everything depends on chance," he added, "or I should say, on error. We
+lose through error and win through it likewise. Our error is the result
+of an infinity of infinitesimal errors due to another infinity of small
+causes, the analysis of which we cannot even attempt. These tiny causes
+are all independent of one another, and since they are directed by
+chance, they operate in one way as readily as in another. When the
+infinitesimal is positive, it causes us to win, when it is negative, we
+lose."
+
+Spadoni nodded his head, although he scarcely understood. The one thing
+clear to him were the infinitesimal errors which cause us to lose. He
+was acquainted with them; they were like microbes, malevolent germs,
+which always clung to him. He wished that his learned friend might
+discover an antiseptic that would put an end to them.
+
+"Besides," said Novoa, "if there are probabilities of winning, these
+probabilities are in proportion to the wealth of the gamblers. A poor
+gambler has less chance of winning than one who has capital at his
+disposal."
+
+"Then, how about us?" the musician asked in a melancholy voice.
+
+"We are the under dogs and were born to be victims. Gambling is an image
+of life: the strong triumph over the weak."
+
+Spadoni remained thoughtful.
+
+"I have seen wealthy gamblers," he said, "who were finally ruined like
+the rest."
+
+"Because they don't stop in time, at the point where the resisting power
+of their capital brings the hour of winning. In life, as well, the great
+devourers, soldiers, multi-millionaires, and rulers, are in turn
+devoured in the final leveling: death. But before that time, they
+triumph through a powerful means that fate has placed in their hands. We
+who are poor, never triumph continuously for a whole day. Trying to win
+a great fortune with small capital is equivalent to wanting to lose that
+small capital."
+
+They both fell silent, discouraged; but Novoa seemed to have suffered
+the contagion of his companion's dreams, and felt the necessity of
+bolstering him up again with some fantastic meditation fit for a
+gambler.
+
+"You know, Spadoni, how much one can win with a thousand francs? Last
+night I undertook to make the calculation."
+
+He pointed to a piece of paper covered with figures which was protruding
+from among the cards. So Novoa was up to the same tricks as the pianist!
+
+"With a thousand francs, doubling each time in forty-three games (some
+four hours), one could win a block of gold a hundred thousand million
+times as large as the sun."
+
+"Oh, Professor!"
+
+They both looked at each other with mystic ardor, as though they were
+actually contemplating this immeasurable block. Beside such a vision
+what did the winnings of a few paltry millions mean?
+
+Toledo was beginning to realize, little by little, the gradual
+transformation of his friend, the scientist.
+
+Novoa was greatly interested in his personal appearance; he had asked
+the Colonel to recommend him to his tailor in Nice; and the Professor
+made frequent trips to the latter city, merely to make purchases.
+
+Besides, he was gambling. Don Marcos frequently surprised him beside a
+table in the Casino, standing and meditating before risking one of the
+few chips which he held tightly in his hand. He seemed dazzled by the
+ease with which he won. The amounts were small, but so large in
+comparison with those which he had received for his previous work as a
+Professor! In half an hour he could win a month's salary. In an
+afternoon he had succeeded in amassing three thousand francs; half a
+year's work at teaching and in the laboratory.
+
+Monte Carlo seemed to him an interesting place and life there a quiet
+relaxation, which stood out above the grave, laborious monotony of his
+previous existence. The Museum of Oceanography could wait; it would not
+move away during his absence from the point on the rock of Monaco. The
+science of maritime zoology was not going to be revolutionized in a few
+months. And when the director saw him with a gay excited look enter,
+from time to time, the quiet silent atmosphere of the Museum, and when
+he observed his gay clothes, and the closeness with which he followed
+men's style, he sadly shook his head. Novoa was not the first. Oh, Monte
+Carlo! The old professors looked with the stern face of prophets at the
+city opposite. Young men who arrived from various places in the world to
+study the mysteries of the ocean, ended by making mathematical
+calculations on the probabilities of roulette.
+
+"Besides, he is in love," said Castro, communicating to Toledo his
+impressions in regard to Novoa. "When he isn't gambling he is with that
+Valeria woman."
+
+They were engaged. The professor, with an air of mystery, had told this
+to all his friends, asking each one to keep the secret. After idle
+gallantries as a student, this was the first, the great love of his
+life. He was worried somewhat by the humbleness of his position. When
+they were married what would Valeria say on learning how little he
+earned as a scientist? But immediately he placed his hope on gambling,
+the undreamt of fortune which at present offered itself each day.
+
+"If this goes on a few months," he told the Colonel, "I will have gotten
+together a tidy little sum before I have completed my studies. Every day
+I lay something aside, and nevertheless I am spending more than ever. I
+must dress smartly like my fiancee."
+
+And Don Marcos replied with an ambiguous smile.
+
+Novoa's happiness was accompanied by a certain pride. He considered his
+future life companion a great lady, of higher intellectual capacity and
+capable of more serious pursuits than the majority of women of her
+class. She was poor, and for that reason accepted a position bordering
+on that of a servant. But seeing her on familiar terms with the Duchess,
+he considered her of as high rank as the latter, and finally blended the
+affairs of both women in a common interest. And since Dona Clorinda was
+at present an implacable enemy of Alicia's, and since Atilio blindly
+espoused the whims and ideas of "the General," a hidden animosity began
+to spring up between the two men, who up to that time had treated each
+other with amiable indifference.
+
+"Women!" murmured Toledo on observing the progress of this dislike. "The
+Prince was right...."
+
+But other more important preoccupations tormented the Colonel. The
+greatly feared offensive had begun. The telegrams from the front were
+brief and bad. The Allies were retreating before the German advance.
+Their lines were not broken, but were wavering, and curving backwards
+under the overwhelming blows of the enemy. Every day dozens of villages
+and great stretches of territory were lost.
+
+Don Marcos, with the bursts of anger of a Polytechnic freshman,
+protested against the lack of foresight of the Generals, mingling his
+complaints with those of the crowd.
+
+"I knew it would come," he said, with a self-sufficient air to the
+groups of idlers in the ante-room of the Casino, where he was listened
+to because of his military title. "The Kaiser has massed in France all
+the troops that he had in Russia. Who wouldn't have expected it? And our
+forces are doubtless inferior in numbers."
+
+The bombardment of Paris finally routed all his ideas of strategy.
+"Lies!" he roared, standing in front of the telegraphic despatches on
+the bulletin board, and reading of the first shells that had fallen in
+Paris. It was impossible: he was ready to stake his word, and was well
+informed as to the range of modern artillery. And on learning the
+existence of cannon that fired more than a hundred kilometers, he was
+disconcerted. "What times we're living in! What a war this is!"
+
+When the ladies consulted him in the Casino or in the Hotel de Paris, he
+displayed unshakable optimism in the face of the bad news.
+
+"This is nothing: The reaction is going to set in. Our men are
+withdrawing in order to be better able to take the offensive."
+
+But when he was alone his sense of security collapsed, and he could not
+hide from himself that his faith was shaken like that of the rest.
+
+"They will reach Paris, if God does not take a hand," he said to
+himself. "A miracle is necessary, another miracle like that of the
+Marne."
+
+For the good Colonel still firmly believed that the first battle of the
+Marne had been a miracle wrought by Saint Genevieve, by Joan of Arc, or
+some other beatific person able to intervene in human combats, much as
+the false gods sung by Homer had intervened. Did not St. James fight in
+the battles of Spain, whenever the Christians attacked the Moors?
+
+"And the miracle has been rendered worthless," he said bitterly. "It
+will have to be repeated, they will have to begin again, after four
+years of war."
+
+With the bombardment of Paris the population of the Riviera had
+increased considerably in a few weeks. The trains were arriving packed
+with fugitives. The streets of Nice were filled with strangers just as
+in peace times, when the Carnival was celebrated. Monte Carlo found its
+crowds largely increased and new gambling rooms were opened in the
+Casino.
+
+Toledo spent the afternoon and the early evening hours in the anteroom,
+always expecting good news, and accepting the bad with an easy optimism
+which found excuse and justification for everything.
+
+The circle of his friends was gradually increasing. Every day he came
+across well known faces that he had not seen for a long time. He shook
+hands, and returned greetings. "You here!" The cannon firing on Paris
+from an extraordinary distance filled the gambling rooms with a
+well-dressed crowd, almost as numerous as that of peace times.
+
+Don Marcos continued to announce the reaction, the counter-offensive for
+the following day, as though he were in touch in some mysterious way
+with the General Staff. And the anger aroused by the daily failure of
+his predictions was taken out on the gamblers. "What a life, what an
+indecent life! Appetites that know no morals! The selfishness of
+brutes!"
+
+The people around the Colonel seemed to be sorry for a moment as they
+read the bad news. Then, the majority entered the Casino. Perhaps it was
+a lack of thoughtfulness on their part, or perhaps it showed a desire to
+forget, to seek in gambling the illusions of alcohol. But the tiny ivory
+ball whirled tirelessly in the many roulette wheels. The cards did not
+cease to fall in double row on the _trente et quarante_ tables, and the
+crowds around the green boards kept on increasing.
+
+The people were nervous, argumentative, and irritable, and lost their
+manners over a mere gambling incident. The activity on the far-off
+battle line spread like a fierce wind, around the tables; there was an
+aggressive look in the eyes of the women. Every cannon shot fired on
+far-away Paris reverberated like an echo in the rain of money falling in
+Monte Carlo.
+
+When Toledo, the strategist, attempted to put forth his opinions and
+plans in Villa Sirena, he found a less attentive audience than in the
+ante-room of the Casino. The Prince had much more interesting things to
+think of. Novoa displayed a certain selfish joy, as though considering
+this period the best in his life, and the world's misfortunes merely
+something which gave a keener zest to his secret happiness. Spadoni
+listened to war talk as though people were talking of some ancient
+fiction.
+
+As for him, reality was what he wanted, and he interrupted the Colonel
+to tell him about more interesting matters. At present he scorned the
+Casino, and was frequenting the _Sporting-Club_, where there gathered
+the boldest gamblers who preferred to use chips of five thousand francs.
+A Greek, who had been a common sailor in his youth, reigned there like a
+hero of epic legends, admired by the ladies in ball-room dresses and the
+solemn gentlemen in evening clothes who gathered together in that
+aristocratic club. He had learned to read and write after he had grown
+up, but he possessed an immense fortune. The night before, after dealing
+for three hours, he had won a million two hundred thousand francs.
+Spadoni had seen it with his own eyes, and imitated the hero's gestures
+as he rose from the table, with a little wicker basket held in both
+hands, a miserable little basket containing, as so much sweepings, heaps
+of blue bills, and piles of five thousand franc chips. Why should they
+talk to him about Generals and battles? There was a man for you!
+
+Castro had been listening to the Colonel in a silence that augured ill,
+and with a coolly aggressive look. Suddenly, he interrupted the plans of
+strategy of Don Marcos.
+
+"And when are they going to promote you?"
+
+Many of the Generals who at present were celebrated, had been mere
+Colonels at the beginning of the war. It was about time that Toledo was
+shoved up a notch on the Army Register.
+
+And poor Don Marcos, wounded by this cruel jest, replied in a dignified
+manner:
+
+"I am satisfied with what I am, senor de Castro."
+
+He knew perfectly well what he was: a Colonel, and he did not care to be
+anything more. And several times he repeated to himself that he did not
+want to be anything more.
+
+In spite of the fact that at Villa Sirena each one was preoccupied with
+his own affairs, appearing absent-minded when the other guests were
+talking, Atilio's bad humor was making their life in common rather
+unpleasant.
+
+Toledo had a feeling that he knew the reason for this conduct. Dona
+Clorinda was doubtless treating him badly, and he, in turn, was getting
+revenge for these humiliations and vexations by showing himself harsh
+and ironical with his friends. The Colonel had been obliged to calm
+Clorinda when he met her (discussing the news of the war) in the Casino.
+She felt a strong antipathy to every man who was not in uniform, a
+little more and she would have insulted them.
+
+"Slackers! Cowards! If I were a man!"
+
+Although she was not, she felt the need of doing something, and was
+consumed with impatience at not being able to use her energies among the
+whistling bullets at the front. Finally, she found a means of being
+useful.
+
+She decided to leave for Paris. When every one who was able to run away
+from there was hastening to do so, she determined she would go and take
+up her residence in her former house, defying with her presence the
+cannon and aeroplanes of the enemy.
+
+Castro took the liberty timidly to suggest that this sacrifice would
+have no effect. The Colonel added, with his professional judgment, that
+it seemed to him foolish, but she was in no way disposed to modify her
+determination.
+
+The outcome of the war concerned her passionately, and she entered into
+the spirit of it with a nervous vehemence like that which disturbed her
+friendly relationships.
+
+"If the Allies shouldn't win, life for me would be impossible. How those
+miserable wretches would laugh! I would rather die."
+
+The miserable wretches were the friends she had formerly had before the
+war, people of various nationalities who, through pose or through
+personal interest, sympathized with the Germans. The "General" with a
+feeling of pride that inspired fear, really and sincerely wanted to die,
+rather than see triumphant those whom she had chosen as enemies.
+
+"If I were a man!" And Atilio, who sought every occasion to be near her
+in the Casino, or exaggerated the beauty of certain spots, in order to
+induce her to take walks with him there alone, hastened to flee at these
+words, in which he detected an insult.
+
+Later, on finding himself at Villa Sirena, his submission as a lover
+changed to hostility for the rest.
+
+He had discovered that he hated Novoa, or, rather, that logically he
+ought to hate him. Dona Clorinda was quarreling with Alicia, and the
+blue-stocking for whom the Professor felt such enthusiasm was the
+companion and protegee of the Duchess. For that reason he ought to be an
+enemy of Novoa. They were like two men who have never done each other
+any particular harm, but belong to two nations which are at war.
+
+Besides--and he would not have been willing to confess it--the air of
+satisfaction and triumph of the scholar caused him a certain envy. Novoa
+was never squelched nor treated with indifference, it was the woman who
+sought him, making an effort to flatter his tastes, pretending
+scientific interest in things which made no difference to her
+whatsoever: merely for the sake of keeping him under her sway. Happy
+man! And how disagreeable! As always happens when one is beginning to be
+disliked, Atilio discovered, almost daily, various sources of annoyance
+of which he told Toledo.
+
+His friend, the Professor, was trying to make fun of him, and he was not
+disposed to tolerate it. One day Atilio had to wait half an hour at the
+barber's. The Professor was in his chair and using _his_ manicure. Such
+nerve! He was doubtless trying to outshine him, and for that reason he
+even got his clothes from the same tailor in Nice. Another piece of
+insolence! Besides, he didn't know how to wear clothes. And he even
+suspected that, to please his fiancee and the latter's mistress, that
+book-worm was probably taking the liberty of saying mean things about a
+certain lady, and if he ever found it out!...
+
+But the Colonel paid no attention to such threats. The sad news from the
+war made the matters of daily life seem unimportant.
+
+The Germans were continuing to advance on Paris. Under the repeated
+blows of the enemy the retreat of the Allies seemed endless, and
+Toledo's hopes diminished from moment to moment. By this time, he was
+prepared for anything! The invaders had an overwhelming numerical
+superiority!
+
+He had only one hope left. If the aid promised by the United States were
+actually to materialize! Supposing it did not turn out to be a bluff, as
+many people thought! Now in his imagination, all he could see was
+America, its harbors filled with armed multitudes, and the blue surface
+of the ocean plowed by thousands of boats, bringing endless armies to
+land on European shores. And as weeks went by without his dreams being
+realized, he began to give advice to Wilson from the Groves of Villa
+Sirena, or from among the jasper columns of the ante-room of the Casino.
+
+"What is the man thinking of? Why don't they come? If they don't hurry,
+it will all be over before they arrive."
+
+War and discord made their appearance nearer at hand, within his own
+domains, causing him for a few hours to consider the general
+conflagration as a matter of secondary interest.
+
+He never knew for sure who started the row, but one night during dinner,
+he noticed that Castro and Novoa, with studied coolness, were exchanging
+words like sword thrusts. The Prince could not suspect any hostility
+between his two friends, since never in his presence did they depart
+from the usual forms of courtesy. Besides, occupied with his own
+thoughts, he did not realize that the Professor, stirred up, doubtless,
+by Atilio's animosity, had become somewhat quarrelsome. Novoa made a
+slight allusion to the war-like "General," who was talking about going
+to Paris, as though her presence there could have any effect on the war.
+Castro saw in this remark a reflection of the enmity of the Duchess.
+Doubtless, Valeria and Novoa had laughed together over Dona Clorinda's
+enthusiasm. And he turned against Alicia's protegee, calling her a
+penniless blue-stocking, who was always rubbing elbows with great ladies
+though she was only a servant herself! He could not understand
+sentimental love affairs with women of that class. He felt a temptation
+to attack the Duchess de Delille also, but, remembering that she was a
+relative of the Prince, he refrained.
+
+The two men sat there pale and silent, looking daggers at each other.
+
+The next day, Atilio, before leaving for the Casino, called Don Marcos
+aside. Perhaps he would soon have an affair of honor on his hands; and
+could he count on the Colonel as second?
+
+The Colonel drew up to his full height, with a grave frown. Several
+years had passed since he had performed that solemn function, for which
+he seemed to have been born. His last duel dated some eight years back:
+a meeting on the Italian frontier between two gentlemen who had
+exchanged blows over cheating at cards.
+
+His face became even more gloomy as he bowed in sign of consent, raising
+his hand to his breast. Since with Don Marcos every action carried with
+it proper details in dress, he felt that it was impossible to perform a
+certain act without the corresponding costume, and he suddenly
+remembered a certain frock coat, which had long been forgotten in his
+wardrobe, and which he called his "duelling uniform," a black garment,
+of Napoleonic cut, with long tails, which he brought to light whenever
+he was a second and, owing to his military name, was called upon to
+direct a combat.
+
+"I accept. One gentleman cannot refuse another gentleman such a favor."
+
+And he accepted with true thankfulness, thinking how proper it would be
+to take this suit, as solemn as death, from its prison among the
+moth-balls, and give it an airing.
+
+But that same afternoon Novoa came to look him up. The Professor spoke
+timidly, without the elegant indifference of Castro, and with a certain
+sense that he might be acting foolishly. Perhaps he would soon have an
+affair of honor on his hands.
+
+"Since I don't understand such matters, Colonel, you will be my second.
+I have studied along other lines; but when a lady is insulted and when I
+see a young defenseless girl trampled upon, I consider myself as much a
+man as the bravest."
+
+Don Marcos started. No, indeed! His eyes were open to the truth. He
+forgot about airing his frock coat; it might remain in its odorous tomb.
+And since the Professor was less to be feared than the other man, he let
+loose all his wrath on Novoa. Imagine fighting over mere nonsense, when
+millions of men were giving their blood for great ideals! and he, who
+had referred so frequently to his many experiences as a second as heroic
+actions, made a gesture of disgust, as though something offensive to his
+honor were being proposed to him.
+
+A few days later, Novoa spoke to the Prince, with the brevity that ill
+concealed his emotions. He was very thankful to the owner of Villa
+Sirena; he would never forget his pleasant life in that retreat, but it
+was necessary for him to return to his former lodgings. He had important
+work on hand which would not allow him to live far from Monaco; the
+director of the Museum was complaining of his absences.
+
+And he went away, to live in a poor house in the old city, renouncing
+all the comforts and luxury of the mansion in charge of the Colonel.
+
+In spite of such excuses, the Prince expressed his doubts to Toledo. He
+did not clearly understand this flight. Perhaps there were some other
+reasons which he could not guess.
+
+"Yes; perhaps there are," replied Don Marcos, with a knowing smile. "It
+must be a question of women."
+
+Michael nodded. Doubtless, it is on account of Valeria. Living in Monaco
+he felt himself freer to meet the girl.
+
+"Women!" the Prince exclaimed. "What a power they have over us!"
+
+"And what a mess they make of friendships among men!"
+
+Toledo's voice as he said this was as sad as the Prince's had been on
+enumerating to his friends the advantages of living away from women. On
+the other hand, Michael was now himself submitting to a woman's
+domination, and almost envied the scientist returning to his former
+modest life in order to meet the woman he loved more frequently.
+
+As for himself, Michael was less happy. Days went by without his being
+able to repeat his promenade with Alicia in the gardens of Monaco.
+
+"I love you!" she said. "You may believe that I haven't forgotten that
+afternoon. Later on we will take the same trip, but not now, I know how
+it would end. It is impossible for me.... I am thinking of my son."
+
+Michael had no doubt that this was true, but something more than worry
+over the absent one was at the time in her thoughts. She had abandoned
+herself once more to gambling with the money she had found in her house.
+The Prince even suspected that she had sold or pawned the pin with which
+he had repaired the tear in her dress. After giving her the Princess
+Lubimoff's pearl, he had not seen it again. Alicia seemed unmoved at the
+first splendor of Spring.
+
+"Some day we shall go there," she said, when he recalled to her the
+gardens of San Martino, "I promise you. But I must be free from worry, I
+must lose everything or win everything. I must make the most of my time.
+As you see, luck seems to be remembering me again."
+
+She was winning little, but she was winning, and this caused her to
+hope that that sudden burst of good luck which had stirred the Casino,
+would be repeated.
+
+In the evening she withdrew contented. She had three or four thousand
+francs more, but what did that amount to? She lamented the smallness of
+her capital. She wanted to play the "grand jeu" and win back all that
+she had lost. Winning thus little by little, she would never get
+anywhere. If she could only get together again the thirty thousand
+francs, which rose and fell, but always remained faithful!
+
+Michael remained in the Casino for hours at a time near her table,
+watching for a propitious occasion, without being able to obtain more
+than brief conversation when she was resting from the play, or taking
+tea in the bar of the private rooms.
+
+One morning he went to surprise her in her villa. It was ten o'clock. He
+met Valeria who had just put on her hat, and seemed annoyed at this
+visit. Perhaps she was going to Monaco, perhaps her man of Science was
+waiting for her in one of the side streets of Monte Carlo.
+
+"The Duchess has gone," she said, smiling, "she must be in the midst of
+her work."
+
+Among the gamblers the Casino was known as the "factory," and they
+really meant it, when they referred to their worry and scheming around
+the tables as their "work."
+
+Doubtless she had spent a large part of the night figuring, in order to
+be on hand at the Casino, at the opening hour, her eyes still heavy with
+sleep, and without paying any attention to her personal adornment, as
+though there were all too little time for carrying out some wonderful
+combination she had just discovered.
+
+Whenever he met her, the Prince, with a childish rather ill-concealed
+motive, alluded to her son's fate. It was only thus that he could rouse
+her from her preoccupations with gambling, which kept her constantly
+distracted, talking and smiling automatically, like a person walking in
+her sleep.
+
+One day, Lubimoff showed her various telegrams and letters from Madrid,
+Paris, and Berne. Kings and Ministers had taken up the task of finding
+out the fate of the aviator who had disappeared. A promise came over
+from Berlin, through the medium of a neutral nation, to look for the
+young man in every prison cantonment. They suspected that he might be
+confined in Poland, in a punishment camp.
+
+Alicia began at once ardently to measure time, as though the longed-for
+notice might arrive at any moment.
+
+"In Heaven's name, please, Michael! Write, telegraph this very day. Tell
+the gentlemen who have been so kind to send their answer directly to me.
+The telegram or letter might come to your Villa while you are away, and
+I would be hours and hours without knowing anything about it! No, have
+them write to me. Every day, when I go out, I tell my gardener that if
+there is a telegram he should bring it to me at the Casino. Imagine my
+impatience! Tell me you'll do this. Promise me you won't forget!"
+
+The one thing that the Prince was at all able to forget, while he was by
+Alicia's side, was his own personal business. His mind was entirely
+taken up with discovering the forgotten captive, on whom his happiness
+depended.
+
+"The day I learn for certain that he is alive!... you will see then how
+different I am. I shan't bore you with my troubles: you will find a
+different woman."
+
+And as a matter of fact, her smile and her glances, full of promises,
+caused him to see in her once more the Alicia who had walked beside him
+on the path along the seashore, with her lips pressed closely to his in
+an endless kiss.
+
+When he found himself alone, he was assailed by his own troubles and
+worries. He had received news from Russia through various fugitives who
+had just been freed from the persecution of the Revolution. The men who
+formerly administered his estate there had been murdered. The Lubimoff
+palace was being used as the headquarters of a Bolshevist Committee. His
+mines were national property, although no one was working them; his land
+had been divided; various persons of obscure origin, former old clothes
+dealers and liquor merchants, had become the owners of his houses, no
+one knew how. And at the same time that he received this news, which
+made his future so uncertain, he learned other details which embittered
+his pleasantest memories. A great lady of the Court, with whom he had
+had a love affair, the memory of which he cherished, was now selling
+newspapers on the sidewalks; another very elegant lady, who had set all
+the fashions in Saint Petersburg, was sweeping snow on the streets of
+Petrograd, and had lost several fingers by freezing. He could count by
+the dozen friends of his who had been killed; some of them shot with
+revolvers like rats, in the depths of some dungeon, others executed by
+firing squads. Several had perished of hunger, just as years before
+those of the lower classes, who now were taking revenge, had died.
+
+All these horrors aroused his selfish instincts, causing him to take
+fresh delight in his own situation. The world had been plunged into a
+bloody madness. East and west men were rushing about like wild beasts,
+while he remained quietly beside the most smiling of seas, with love and
+desire filling his life, which had been so empty before, and awakening
+anew the ardor and enthusiasm of youth. At the very hour when thousands
+of human beings were dying in crowds, and the whole villages were being
+swept from the surface of the earth, he was living under the sway of a
+woman, and finding his servitude very sweet.
+
+One afternoon, in the bar of the private room, Alicia spoke to him with
+an air of resolution. She must play big stakes. She was tired of
+"working" on small capital, and gaining small returns. Besides, she
+scorned the Casino with its limited bets, its roulette and _trente et
+quarante_, almost mechanical games in which you cannot see the banker
+sitting opposite, but instead mere employees.
+
+"All that gives you the impression of struggling with a formidable
+machine, that functions monotonously, with no imagination, no soul. I
+must play _baccarat_."
+
+She had gotten her thirty thousand francs together once more: either
+enormous winnings or nothing! She preferred to lose everything and end
+it once for all at a single stroke.
+
+"To-night in the Sporting Club. Don't say no: I need you. I have a
+feeling that this is going to be the decisive night for me--and perhaps
+for you. Sit opposite me so that I can see you. Remember that on the
+lucky afternoons you were near me. You will bring me luck. Don't shake
+your head; you will bring me luck, I tell you."
+
+And she said it with such conviction, that Michael could no longer
+withhold his consent.
+
+"Come, you will gain by it: I promise you. You will gain by it, no
+matter what the result. If they clean me out, to-morrow we will go for a
+walk in the Monaco Gardens, as we did before. And if I win--if I
+win,--all you want!..."
+
+She did not need to say any more. The look in her eye and her smile
+filled Michael with enthusiasm. He would see her at the Club.
+
+That night, Castro and Toledo were surprised at seeing the Prince sit
+down at the table dressed, like themselves, in a Tuxedo.
+
+"The Boss isn't staying home," said Atilio to the Colonel. "He too is
+going to the opera."
+
+He went to the Casino theater, to while away the time until midnight. He
+would not have been able to tell for a certainty with whom he talked
+during the intermission, nor with whom he shook hands. He was obliged to
+make an effort several times to recall the name and composer of the
+opera. The music made no difference to him. It was a lulling sound which
+rocked his thoughts to sleep, calming his emotion--an emotion made up of
+hope and of fear.
+
+During the first act, he wanted Alicia to lose everything, absolutely
+everything, thus she would be his more completely, depending absolutely
+on him, in sweet bondage. Later, during the following act he thought of
+Alicia's despair after such a loss. She was full of temperament, and she
+felt the pride of an artist in her play. Perhaps more than the lost
+money, she would lament her personal defeat. No, it was better that she
+should win. But how long the music was lasting! How slowly his watch
+seemed to go! After eleven, when the lobby was lighted and the crowd was
+leaving the opera, Michael got into an elevator, which took him down
+into the bowels of the earth, and then he followed a subterranean
+passageway, the multi-colored stucco walls of which brilliantly
+reflected the electric lights. He was walking along under the square
+front of the Casino, where at that moment many carriages were passing
+back and forth. Another elevator took him up to a large room filled with
+columns. It was the great hall of the Hotel de Paris. He saw women in
+evening gowns and gentlemen dressed in Tuxedos, the usual crowd of
+fashionable hotel people who put on uniforms for dinner, and then sit
+around in deep armchairs, to digest what they have eaten, looking at one
+another without talking, or else conversing in low tones, as though they
+were in church, until they are overcome by sleep.
+
+He bowed distantly to various friends who arose, on seeing him, to begin
+a conversation. He pretended not to see certain ladies who smiled at
+him, motioning with their heads to call him. He entered another
+elevator, and descended once more underground. He found himself in a
+curving passageway, the walls of which were decorated with Pompeian
+paintings. It extended under two hotels and their gardens. Once more he
+entered an elevator, which brought him above the surface of the ground.
+He opened a glass door. An old lackey, in a blue livery, with knee
+breeches and white stockings, bowed, somewhat surprised at recognizing,
+after a moment's hesitation, Prince Lubimoff. He was in the Sporting
+Club.
+
+He had not entered it for years, since before the war. He was not a
+gambler, and it was only because he had been interested in certain women
+that he had spent his nights amid elegant society in that place which,
+like many others of the same class, was merely a gambling den.
+
+The drawing rooms were too small, after midnight; one walked along
+stepping on the trains of women's gowns. One had to be very dextrous to
+slip through between the various groups. Every one was smoking, the
+women more than the men, and the atmosphere grew thicker and thicker
+with tobacco smoke and the perfumes of the boudoir. The wealthy people
+scorned the crowds at the Casino, considering it a sign of distinction
+to be packed in together in this club. They gambled with their own set,
+considering themselves safe from bad neighbors at the tables, and from
+contact with suspicious characters who were so frequent in the public
+rooms. To get in here, it was necessary to give guarantees; some one
+must vouch for the honor of a person before he could be presented.
+
+The Prince was well acquainted with this brilliant gathering. Here one
+might meet people of royal blood, heirs to thrones, who were passing
+through the Riviera, famous bankers, millionaires from all parts of the
+world, women celebrated for their nobility, their beauty, or their
+jewels, and many famous and aged _cocottes_ and a few, young and fresh
+looking, who were anxious to grow old as soon as possible, as though
+that were a means of attaining celebrity. They had all appeared on the
+stage, at one time or another, in a trained-rabbit act, perhaps, or in
+some wretched dance, or with a song which they sang in spite of the fact
+that they had no voices. They were admitted to the Club under the rather
+vague classification of "artists."
+
+Michael came forward through the atmosphere warm from the crowds and
+heavy with fading perfumes. He still had to watch where he stepped this
+time as he had done on his visit here before. Now, to be sure, women's
+skirts were very short, and their legs were shown uncovered, with a
+placid lack of shame. The war was shortening their skirts, as though the
+women, obliged to run in the open field, had taken as a model the
+ancient Vivandiere. But almost all of them, in order not to break
+completely with a majestic tradition, had added to their stylish
+overskirts, a sharp and narrow tail, tongue-shaped, which dragged far
+behind as they walked.
+
+A lady came forward to meet Lubimoff, and it was a moment before he
+recognized her. It had been so many years since he had seen Alicia in
+evening dress! Her gown dated back to pre-war times, but was of rich
+material and the Duchess wore it with the same smartness as in the days
+of her wealth. The long pearl necklace gained an air of genuineness on
+her person, as did her other ornaments. It was evident that she had made
+extraordinary efforts to present a proper appearance on her visit to the
+Club.
+
+She came here seldom, the crowd composed of former friends talked too
+much, disturbing her in her gambling calculations. She preferred the
+Casino, with its large rooms and its motley crowd, talking in various
+languages. She was a proletarian in the matter of gambling: she had a
+superstition that fortune prefers to come where its devotees gather in
+large bands. Her intuition that she would be lucky at _baccarat_, a game
+to be found only here, had persuaded her to abandon her usual custom for
+this one night.
+
+The Prince complimented her on her lovely appearance, her dress, her
+pearls....
+
+"False, scandalously false, my dear," she said, laughing and looking
+about her. "But you know very well that the majority of those worn by
+the other women are no better. Ah, pearls! If all that shine in the
+world were brought together, the sea would not be large enough to have
+produced a tenth part."
+
+She led the Prince toward the bar. She had a favor to ask of him. At
+midnight the game of _baccarat_ commenced: she had asked for "the bank,"
+but the rules of the Club prevented her from getting it. Alas for women!
+Even in gambling they were condemned to a position of degrading
+inferiority. Lost in the common crowd of "ponteurs" they might lose a
+fortune, but they were forbidden ever to hold the bank. The directors of
+this Club and other similar ones doubtless feared that women were more
+given to cheating than men. She, the Duchess de Delille, could not be
+the equal of a Greek sailor, who dealt every evening with unheard-of
+luck, causing the crowd to feel suspicious and think evil thoughts.
+
+"They insist that I get a man to deal for me. He must appear as my
+banker, although every one knows that the capital is mine. I thought
+that you might do me this favor. I like to think of our going together
+into this business which means life or death to me! Besides, I am sure
+of success if you deal. And what an event! How they would bet! Prince
+Lubimoff playing the banker!"
+
+But she did not continue. Michael interrupted her with a decisive
+gesture of refusal. It made no difference what she said. He was
+indignant at the very idea that people should see him seated at the
+green table, playing with money that did not belong to him, and having
+Alicia at his back. Besides, he was sure of losing.
+
+The Duchess hastily left him. Time was flying, and any minute they might
+give out the bank. She believed once more in her good star as she saw a
+young man timidly slipping through the crowd.
+
+"Spadoni! Spadoni!"
+
+The pianist grew pale on hearing her. "Oh, Duchess!" He trembled and
+stammered with emotion. _He_ dealing in the _Sporting-Club_ before an
+elegant opera night crowd, handling thousands of francs, with all eyes
+fixed on him! It was the crowning moment of his career; after that he
+could die happy.
+
+Two players had asked for the bank, the famous Greek and a manufacturer
+from Paris, who had gotten fabulously rich making munitions. Spadoni
+also presented himself, carrying in a purse the fifteen thousand francs
+which were necessary in order to take charge of the bank. Lots were to
+be drawn among the three petitioners. An employee of the Club took a
+wicker basket that held ten numbered balls and after shaking it, threw
+out three on the table: one for each. Alicia mingling with them with
+masculine familiarity, almost clapped her hands with joy. Luck had
+favored Spadoni, the bank was his. But the pianist, respectful of the
+privileges due to genius, showed his sense of profound humility in
+smiles and expressions of face and eyes that seemed to beg pardon of the
+Greek, his rival.
+
+The Greek was a stout man with a figure that almost formed a square,
+with a dark shiny complexion, black mustache and eyes that were somewhat
+slanting, and had a fixed aggressive look, suggesting those of a wild
+boar. His ancestors had been pirates in the Archipelago, and he, finding
+this heroic career cut off, had become a smuggler in his youth. Spadoni,
+somewhat intimidated by the majesty of the great man, stammered excuses
+with his eyes fixed on the Greek's shining shirt-bosom, adorned with
+pearls, and his gray silk vest that covered a heavy paunch. But the
+Greek replied, with an ill-humored grunt, walking away after favoring
+the Duchess with a bow like one of those he had seen on the stage.
+Although he scarcely knew how to read, the Greek was posted on the
+proper way of treating a lady who declares war.
+
+It was twelve o'clock. The gambling stopped at the roulette wheels and
+the _trente et quarante_ tables. The crowd was gathering in the baccarat
+room. The news had gone around: The pianist Spadoni, considered by every
+one as a pleasing parasite, was going to occupy the place that had been
+held on former evenings by the Greek, but in reality the bank belonged
+to the Duchess de Delille.
+
+A triple row of people formed around the table, jamming together to get
+a better view over adjoining shoulders.
+
+Spadoni smiled, but finally the ironic curiosity fixed on his person
+began to make him nervous. Many of those who were gazing on him were
+important personages and had always inspired him with deep respect.
+Fortunately, he felt the Duchess at his back, seated there with an air
+of ownership, and watching him with a look of authority. If he made any
+mistake, the great lady was capable of striking him.... Courage and
+forward march! The _croupier_, sitting opposite to collect and pay the
+bets, was shuffling the cards, before putting them in a small double
+box, from which the banker was to draw them. Poor banker! The crowd,
+considering his elevation something quite extraordinary, was ready to
+laugh no matter what happened. As he sat down in the presidential chair,
+the onlookers considered the pianist's embarrassment very amusing, and
+an unrestrained laughter greeted his appearance in the seat of
+authority. He asked the _croupier_ a question in a low voice, and the
+same explosion of merriment was repeated. The women were the most
+demonstrative as they thought their ridicule might pass over Spadoni's
+head, and reach the woman who had placed him there. The musician's look
+of surprise at this unexplainable hilarity only served to prolong it to
+the point of a general uproar. They all laughed contagiously on seeing
+his comical inability to understand the situation. But a rough voice put
+an end to the merriment.
+
+"Bank!"
+
+It was the Greek. He had seated himself on Spadoni's right, with the
+angry look of a person who is conscious of an enormous injustice and
+feels it is necessary to remedy it. He could not tolerate the fact that
+this grotesque person should occupy the same place in which he had been
+admired every evening. Neither did he consider it admissible that a
+woman should mix in affairs that belong entirely to men. He had the same
+scandalized and astonished feeling of a person witnessing some
+disarrangement in the rhythmic order of Nature. The world was upside
+down: apprentices were trying to be masters; class distinctions were not
+being respected, such nonsense must be stopped once for all. "Cards!"
+
+The Prince trembled. Alicia's fifteen thousand francs were in danger.
+That man was going to prevent the bank from continuing. If the Greek
+were to win, the entire capital bet by Alicia would vanish; if he lost,
+her money would be doubled. But he was sure to win. When a man as lucky
+as he dared do that!...
+
+Spadoni was overwhelmed on hearing the great man's voice. Instinctively
+he turned his eyes in the direction of the Duchess, but withdrew them at
+once, still more overwhelmed by her motionless features and the hard
+look that seemed to strike his shoulder, as though he were to blame.
+
+The double box, quite ready, was awaiting his reach. He dealt cards to
+the right and left, and then drew his own.
+
+The Greek showed his cards, throwing them down on the board. "Eight." A
+murmur of approval arose around the table. The admirers of his good luck
+rejoiced as though it were a triumph of their own. From the opposite
+side he took cards which the _croupier_ offered him, and showed them
+after a previous rapid examination of them. The murmur was now one of
+amazement. Eight again! He was going to win. It was almost impossible
+for the banker to make a higher point than that.
+
+Spadoni, pale, his brow glazed with sweat, turned his cards over. The
+public greeted them with a suppressed exclamation: "Nine!"
+
+The very ones who had laughed at him, considered this result quite
+natural. "Luck always protects the simple-minded."
+
+And as the Greek handed over the fifteen thousand francs to the
+_croupier_, who acted as a depository for the bank, the pianist bowed
+modestly. A few superstitious gamblers considered that the Duchess had
+showed excellent judgment in confiding her fate to this simple fellow.
+
+Alicia's eyes sought Michael in the triple oval of heads. She smiled at
+him slightly. Her features had lost the hard, fixed look with which she
+had faced the exciting moment. She felt entirely sure of her triumph.
+And anxious to amaze the onlookers by her imperturbable calm, she took a
+golden cigarette case and an ivory mouthpiece from her purse and began
+to smoke.
+
+The pianist, after this first moment of success, played with a certain
+assurance. The Duchess, sitting motionless at his back, seemed to
+communicate her confidence to him. He dealt several times successfully,
+and as the money in the bank was considerably increased, the cupidity of
+the gamblers was aroused. Those who laughed at Spadoni's clumsiness, now
+frowned with aggressive interest, taking part in the playing. Thus as
+the capital increased, the stakes grew higher. Every one felt there was
+going to be a great and exciting game. The banker had forgotten the
+Duchess and his own humbleness. He imagined that what he was winning was
+his own; he believed he had discovered the secret mentioned by Novoa,
+which was going to win those fabulous sums, on which his imagination had
+played so often as he wrote dozens and dozens of zeros on a piece of
+paper. What a night! And to think that his friend, the scientist, was
+not there to witness his triumph!
+
+Lubimoff withdrew from the table. It hurt him to see Alicia's forced
+serenity, and her manner of smoking while she watched the progress of
+the gambling with feline eyes. Luck was going to change any moment. This
+mad continual winning could not go on. The Greek was making an effort to
+hide his anger, playing and losing like an ordinary bettor. He could
+not call "bank" until a second deal began after all the cards in the
+double box were exhausted. But he stuck to his original bet with the
+tenacity of a bull dog, convinced that sooner or later he would succeed
+in getting the better of this mockery of chance. He had more money than
+Alicia and her representative, he would be able to hold out against
+fate, and in the end could beat them.
+
+The Prince went to the bar, passing the time by sipping two American
+mixed drinks, which were sweet and bitter at the same time, and heavy
+with alcohol. He wanted to become slightly intoxicated, in order to feel
+himself on the same level with the woman who was appealing so
+desperately to luck.
+
+He found himself alone. The entire Club was huddled together in the
+_baccarat_ room. Michael lamented the fact that Castro was not at the
+Sporting-Club. They would have been able to chat together as they had
+the afternoon that Alicia succeeded for the first time in clutching the
+golden wings of the Chimera. Perhaps his absence was due to an order
+from the "General". He himself had come there dragged by a woman!
+
+A dull murmur came from the gambling room. Shortly afterwards he saw a
+few of the onlookers entering the cafe, and standing at the bar to
+drink. They were talking in tones of wonder and amazement. Hearing the
+name of the Greek repeated several times, Michael listened. The former
+had shouted "bank" at the beginning of a new hand, when the bank
+contained a hundred and forty thousand francs. No one but that lucky
+fellow was capable of such daring. He drew eight, but the pianist
+immediately showed his cards. Nine once more. And the _croupier_ had
+swept the Greek's one hundred and forty thousand into the bank. What a
+night! And to think that that fool of a Spadoni was the man who was
+doing such wonders!
+
+A few women passed the door of the bar with an ill-humored air,
+gesticulating among themselves. They appeared scandalized and annoyed by
+the Duchess de Delille's good fortune, in spite of the fact that none of
+them had lost a cent in the play. Such luck was unnatural; there must
+have been some cheating. They could not say in what the cheating
+consisted, but it existed undoubtedly.
+
+Later they saw the Greek, followed by two admirers. His face was
+sweating, his shirt-bosom wrinkled, and his vest had worked up, showing
+his shirt between the gray silk points and his belt. He was shrugging
+his shoulders scornfully. The world was upside down: there was no such
+thing as logic any more. That was why the war was going so badly!
+
+And the Greek walked away in the direction of the subterranean passage,
+to return to the Hotel de Paris. He did not care to see any more of it:
+it was a night for lunatics!
+
+Neither did the Prince care to be a witness, and he remained in his
+armchair, asking for another cocktail. In front of the door he could see
+passing those whom another's good luck had embittered, and were fleeing,
+and those who were arriving, attracted by the news of the event.
+
+He remained alone, like a spectator who stays in the lobby of a theater
+and listens to the far-off pulsing thrills of the audience. Long
+intervals of silence passed. Later, there was a murmur, a sigh from the
+crowd, a buzz of exclamations circulating in low tones. Was Alicia still
+winning? Or was he going to see her appear like the Greek, shrugging her
+shoulders at the absurdity of fate?
+
+He asked for still another glass; and gazing at the spirals of smoke
+from his cigar, he was falling asleep. Suddenly he sat up, imagining he
+had received a sharp blow on his shoulders. It was a mere illusion! He
+was alone. Gazing about him, he noticed the clock. It was two. He stood
+up and slowly walked toward the _baccarat_ room.
+
+The crowd had thinned out, but all those who had remained were taking a
+hand in the play. The enormous sum amassed by the Bank was a temptation.
+No need to fear that the winners would not be paid! Even the mere
+spectators who spend the night on their feet, sharing other people's
+emotion, were risking their money _louis_ by _louis_, hoping that this
+burst of luck which wholly favored the bank, would change in favor of
+the crowd.
+
+The first thing that Michael saw was an enormous heap of thousand franc
+notes, five thousand franc chips, and chips and bills of various
+amounts. It was a fortune. Then he noticed Alicia, sitting motionless in
+her seat, just as he had left her, with the expressionless face of a
+caryatid. Her eyes merely looked mechanically back and forth from that
+heap of wealth to the hands of the banker. She was smoking, smoking. On
+a tray which a lackey had placed reverently beside the victorious woman
+there was a pile of gold-tipped cigarette butts.
+
+She seemed stupefied by her success, by the monotony of her constant
+luck.
+
+The pianist was beginning to display a certain somnolence in his looks
+and in his voice. Mere winning seemed something insipid to him, after
+the flight of that admirable Greek. Similarly other famous gamblers had
+disappeared, as though not caring to authenticate by their presence such
+an absurd run of luck. The only real competitors were some English
+people from Beaulieu, whose automobiles were waiting below. This
+extraordinary game interested them, as though it were some unusual
+sport; they were anxious to fight against the Bank's good luck, with
+British tenacity, merely for the pleasure of overcoming it. The women,
+bony and distinguished looking, with very low necks and long trails to
+their gowns, ejaculated "oh!" in amazement, each time the _croupier_
+with his rake carried off their heavy bets, while the men drew from
+inner pockets of their Tuxedos, new handfuls of bills, greeting their
+defeat with metallic laughter.
+
+In one blow Spadoni lost twenty thousand francs. Lubimoff had the fatal
+presentiment of a sailor who feels beneath his feet the shudder of the
+ship about to be torn open, of the soldier who feels instinctively the
+beginning of his rout.
+
+Another blow; and the bank lost again.
+
+Michael cautiously drew near the chair occupied by Alicia.
+
+"It is two o'clock. It is time to go home," he murmured, whispering his
+words into her hair as he bent over her. "You are going to have a run of
+bad luck: I can feel it coming. Tell Spadoni to get up."
+
+She raised her eyes and looked at him in surprise. She seemed
+intoxicated, unable to make out what he was saying, and showed her
+refusal by a slight shake of her head. She had faith in her own luck.
+
+Fortune saw to it that her confidence was justified. The banker was
+winning again, carrying off all the sums placed on both sides of the
+table. But this did not convince the Prince. He continued to feel
+afraid, and his worry made him brutal.
+
+He went over and stood at Spadoni's back, in order to drop a word to him
+discreetly, while looking in another direction. "You ought to stop at
+once. Call the game off. It's long after closing time anyhow."
+
+The banker turned his face and looked up at him in order to see what
+sage was dropping these words of wisdom from on high. "Oh, your
+Highness!" This discovery was accompanied by a proud smile, evincing
+satisfaction that Prince Lubimoff should have witnessed the greatest
+deed of his life.
+
+And he went on dealing.
+
+Michael grew angry. This idiot, overwhelmed by his triumph, did not
+understand him, and if he did understand him, he was refusing to obey.
+The voice of the Prince, falling with a slow tremor, reached the ears of
+the man below. "Spadoni, you incredible fool of a pianist"--here two or
+three oaths in various languages.--If Spadoni did not obey him at once
+he would jerk him out of the chair with a thud, and give him a kick that
+would send him flying through the windows!
+
+"The last deal!" said the banker.
+
+And when he stopped dealing, many of the spectators breathed freely,
+satisfied and relieved by the end of a game that seemed to have been
+under an evil spell. Others gazed with astonishment and envy at the
+enormous heap of money in the bank, as the _croupier_ put it in order,
+forming bundles of bills, and straightening the various colored chips in
+columns.
+
+The sum ran from mouth to mouth: four hundred and ninety-four thousand
+francs! A little more and it would have been half a million. Rarely had
+such a rapid winning been seen.
+
+Spadoni, as though he were the master of these riches, was putting them
+into a little wicker basket. He was trembling with emotion. He was going
+to walk through the crowd of onlookers carrying this treasure, just as
+on former nights he had seen his hero pass, with the air of a conqueror.
+In comparison with this what did he care for the applause he had
+received as a pianist!
+
+But eager hands snatched the basket from him.
+
+"No! let me! let me!" It was the Duchess; it was no longer necessary any
+more for her to claim indifference. That money was hers. She had become
+transfigured by coming out of her eager trance-like silence. Her eyes
+were shining with a triumphant gleam, her brow was pearled with sweat,
+her cheeks, which were intensely pale, quivered. Carrying the basket,
+with her arms held out before her, she slowly passed among the groups,
+with priestly majesty, walking in the direction of the cashier's cage.
+
+Spadoni remained beside the Prince. He, too, was perspiring, and his
+features were pale with emotion.
+
+"What a night, Your Highness! What a night!"
+
+He looked proudly at every one, but smiled humbly at the owner of Villa
+Sirena. He must make the Prince forget his refusal of moments before,
+and the terrible threats which had been visited upon it.
+
+A moment later Alicia returned to them, carrying a paper in her
+hand-bag.
+
+The pianist's enthusiasm overflowed.
+
+"Oh, Duchess! Divine Duchess!"
+
+He kissed one of her bare arms, then a shoulder. Alicia smiled at this
+public homage. The poor pianist, no matter what he might do, could not
+compromise her.
+
+"Thanks, Spadoni, you may count on my gratitude. Go ahead and decide
+what you want, a house, a yacht, or perhaps a piano with golden keys."
+
+Michael listened in amazement. She was speaking in all sincerity: as
+though her fortune had turned her mind.
+
+But the pianist left them. He felt he must be alone. By the Duchess'
+side he was obliged to share his glory, contenting himself with but a
+fragment of it. And he went off to join the English people from
+Beaulieu, who, proclaiming him the most interesting phenomenon they had
+met in all their travels, were anxious to meet and share a bottle of
+champagne with him.
+
+Alicia and the Prince walked toward the cloak room.
+
+"I have deposited my winnings with the cashier of the Club," she said,
+showing him the receipt. "I am not going to carry so much money home at
+night. To-morrow I shall come to take it to the bank. I need some one to
+accompany me. Send me the Colonel: he is a fighter and must have a
+revolver."
+
+Then, remembering something important, her features took on a grave
+look.
+
+"I need not say that to-morrow we will straighten our account. Don't
+think I have forgotten what I owe you: the twenty thousand francs from
+the other day, and your mother's three hundred thousand. It will all be
+paid."
+
+Michael showed the astonishment which this promise caused him by a
+prolonged laugh. Really, her winning had affected her brain. A piano
+with golden keys for the other man, and now hundreds of thousands of
+francs for him. The fortune recently acquired in two hours seemed to her
+as extraordinary and limitless as her good luck itself had been.
+
+"What I want," he added, in a low tone, ceasing to laugh, "what I want
+from you, you know very well."
+
+She stopped him with a caressing look and a discreet whisper which was
+equivalent to a promise.
+
+They descended the large stairway in the Club, and were standing in the
+vestibule, she wrapped in a silk cape embroidered with gold and adorned
+with rich furs, which recalled her evenings after the opera in Paris;
+he, with his overcoat open and a soft silk-lined hat on his head.
+
+The employees in the vestibule, informed of what had happened in the
+gambling rooms, hurried to the glass door in a hope of a handsome tip.
+"A carriage for the Duchess!"
+
+But she wanted to walk in the silence of the night. She was numbed from
+remaining motionless so long, and felt the need, like every one who
+feels happy, of prolonging the joy of her triumph by a long walk.
+
+She descended the outer stairway leaning on Michael's arm. They passed
+between the drivers and the few chauffeurs who were standing about in
+groups, waiting for the owners of their machines, or for possible
+patrons.
+
+They went down into the cool night air, with their eyes still tired,
+from the splendor of the illumination, their skins hot from the heavy
+atmosphere of the gaming rooms. They both noticed that it was a
+moonlight night, with a sad, waning moon that was beginning to drop
+behind the dark barrier of the Alps. The submarine menace kept the city
+in darkness. At long intervals, pale lamps, the glass of which was
+painted blue, cast above themselves a narrow circle of funereal light.
+
+After a few steps, they grew accustomed to the darkness. In the street
+the ground was divided into two bands, one a pale, dim white reflected
+from the dying moon, the other dark, with the heavy black shade of
+ebony. Instinctively, they walked along the dark sidewalk, as though
+afraid of being seen. They wound along through a curving, sloping
+street, the same that made its way underground by the Pompeian corridor
+and which the Prince had taken a few hours before.
+
+At their backs they could still hear the conversations of the drivers
+hidden by a turn in the street, the voices of the Club servants calling
+by the owners' names for the carriages; the stamping of the horses,
+shaking off sleep as they waited, and the first humming of the motors
+that began once more to function. Michael, who was walking along in
+silence, with a desire to get away from there as soon as possible and
+seek absolute solitude, on seeing her pause, was obliged to stop. She
+had anticipated his thoughts: she did not care to go any farther.
+
+"I must reward you!" she murmured. "I told you that at any event you
+would gain by coming, even though I should lose. There ... there."
+
+Her bare arms, freeing themselves from the silken cape, closed about his
+shoulders, forming a tight ring; submissively her mouth sought his,
+humbly abandoning itself, with a desire of giving happiness.
+
+At the end of the street a sudden illumination flared up, making the
+scene stand out against the shadows, like a flash of lightning. It was
+the searchlight of an automobile. She did not move, she was not afraid
+of being surprised: people were mere phantoms, without any reality
+whatsoever. Nothing existed in the world at that moment save themselves
+and the heap of paper bills, and pieces of ivory guarded in the steel
+vault.
+
+All his life Michael remembered that night. The clocks were doubtless
+mad, turning like his head, which seemed in a whirl, following the
+rhythm of sweet music. He had a feeling that they passed the same place
+several times, going back and forth as they walked, without knowing what
+they were doing. What difference did it make? The important thing was
+that they were together. There was a moment in which they both seemed to
+awaken, finding themselves seated on a bench, in the Casino Square. The
+Prince was sure of it. He had looked at the clock on the facade. It was
+three o'clock! It seemed impossible, he firmly believed that only a few
+minutes had passed since they left the Club. And they were obliged to
+walk away, annoyed by the curiosity of a civilian who was doing police
+duty in war time, a member of the Prince's militia in citizen's clothes,
+with a colored band on his arm and a revolver at his belt.
+
+Once more they walked through the deserted streets or along the public
+gardens, closed at that hour. Her body was thrown back, with her cape
+open, she was hanging limp upon his arm which was thrown about her
+waist, and she offered a tensely drawn throat and an upturned face to a
+rain of kisses. She looked up at her companion, with eyes dreamy with
+love. Her caresses rose slowly and voluptuously in a crescendo, as sea
+flowers and stars arise from the blue depths in search of light.
+
+Replying to the mute appeal of the eyes that were imploring from above,
+she murmured several times, in a faraway voice, as though talking in a
+dream:
+
+"Yes, all you wish ... all you wish!"
+
+More aggressive in his passion, he buried his free arm in the warm
+circle of her cape, drawing her closer to him.
+
+They walked along in a wavering course, imagining they were going in a
+straight line; in certain spots they both stopped at the same time,
+without knowing why. Their loitering caused a commotion in the villas.
+The gardeners' dogs howled furiously at these intruders, thrusting their
+noses against the iron gates. This howling sounded to the lovers like
+barbaric but agreeable music, feeling benevolently toward everything
+that surrounded them, they imagined themselves the lords of creation,
+just as at that moment they were masters of the night. Nothing save
+themselves existed in the world.
+
+Michael, obeying an obscure impulse he did not understand, spoke to her
+of her son. She would recover him at any moment now, and her happiness
+would be complete.... Immediately he repented having awakened this
+memory, which might break the enchantment in which they were living. But
+she showed no emotion.
+
+"Yes, I will recover him," she murmured. "I am sure of it. My good luck
+will not forsake me. It was time, after suffering so long."
+
+And once more she abandoned herself to the present moment. They were
+both surprised to find themselves in the street where Villa Rosa was
+located. After wandering about at random, instinctively they had finally
+come there.
+
+The Prince, emboldened by the long walk filled with kisses and
+abandonment, became urgent.
+
+"Let me come in," he murmured. "No one will see me.... I will go away
+before the break of dawn."
+
+Alicia stopped short as though suddenly awakening. It was her first
+gesture of refusal during the entire night. The gardener was surely
+waiting, perhaps Valeria had not yet gone to sleep. "Oh, no!"
+
+Lubimoff, in desperation, spoke of their walking together to Villa
+Sirena.
+
+"So far!" continued Alicia, growing calmer at every moment, as though
+she were entirely awakened. "Besides, that place is a barracks; a house
+full of men. And that Castro who tells everything to the 'General'! No,
+no, I shall never go there. What madness!"
+
+Michael's look of sadness, his gesture of dismay, touched her. She
+passed her hand over his features with a motherly caress.
+
+"My poor boy: Don't look like that, be patient awhile. To-morrow; I
+promise you that it will be to-morrow."
+
+She, who in former times had dared the most atrocious scandal with
+tranquil lack of shame, hesitated and stammered as she spoke of the next
+day. She seemed like a young girl struggling between love and a fear of
+compromising her future in society.
+
+To-morrow! To-morrow he might come at three in the afternoon.... No, not
+at three; four o'clock was better. Valeria surely would have gone out by
+that time. She would send her maid to Nice to do some shopping; the
+gardener and his wife would be busy outside the house.
+
+"But in Heaven's name, be careful! If you can manage so that the
+neighbors don't see you, it will be much better."
+
+And the famous Prince Lubimoff visibly moved, like a boy planning his
+initiation into love, and prematurely stirred by its mysteries, assented
+to this counsel.
+
+He insisted, in spite of her protests, on going with her to the gate of
+the Villa.
+
+"If you were any one else, all right! It is quite natural that a friend
+should accompany me at such an hour; but you!... I am afraid that every
+one will guess our secret."
+
+It was not until the gate was closed and Alicia's adorable figure was
+lost in the darkness, that the Prince could decide to go away.
+
+He was obliged to walk the long distance to Villa Sirena, and
+nevertheless the road seemed short to him. Memories and promises
+accompanied him. His step had never been lighter, he seemed to be
+advancing through air in which the laws of gravitation had been
+lessened, on a planet wrapped in a perpetual night of springtime, in
+which the air, the dim trees and the objects lost in the darkness about
+him, vibrated with a poetic rhythm.
+
+His sleep was restless, but he arose serene and in high spirits. He
+remembered the errand Alicia had asked him to do. She needed a warrior,
+with a revolver if possible, to escort her in transferring her fortune
+from the Club vaults to the bank. The Colonel, deeply impressed at her
+stroke of luck, went out to perform this task. "Poor Duchess! In the end
+God always protects the good."
+
+Michael spent the entire morning attending to his personal adornment.
+His attempts at leading a simple, country life in retirement at Villa
+Sirena had not made him forget the hygienic care to which he was
+accustomed since his childhood. But now it was a question of something
+more; he wanted to make himself look well, and heighten with exquisite
+and intimate attentions the individuality of his physique, which he
+suddenly felt had been rather roughly treated by time.
+
+He had his old valet go over the wardrobe he had acquired in former
+days. He remembered certain under-garments that had merited women's
+praise. He was as desirous for novelty and seductiveness as a woman
+dressing for a long-awaited rendezvous. Besides, he chose a suit that he
+had never worn before in Monte Carlo, a new hat, and a modest tie. He
+recalled her apprehension, and her request that he should enter unseen.
+
+As he was doing all this, a sinking feeling, of lack of confidence in
+himself, began to assail him. It was the feeling of uneasiness like that
+of a student before examination, like that of a dramatist watching from
+the wings for the fate of his play, like that of a man about to fight a
+duel. He had spent so many weeks desiring without avail! He had
+renounced love so long ago! And the thought of Alicia aroused in him
+both eagerness and terror.
+
+The Colonel returned about noon. He had performed his duties. He told
+the news with modest brevity, as though he had just accomplished
+something very important. Michael almost envied him, because he had seen
+Alicia. "How is she?"
+
+"Beautiful, as beautiful as ever. Somewhat pale, as was natural after
+such an excitement as that of last night! But gay, very happy, talking
+constantly about the Marquis. It is easy to guess that she feels a
+strong affection for him."
+
+They had lunch alone. Spadoni was going out in society, after his
+triumph. Perhaps he was in Beaulieu with his new friends, the
+Englishmen. Toledo had met Castro going into the Hotel de Paris, where
+Dona Clorinda lived. Doubtless they were having lunch together to talk
+over the winnings of the Duchess. Atilio had even pretended he did not
+understand when the Colonel talked to him about the event. Envy, of
+course! The Prince shrugged his shoulders. People were mere phantoms as
+far as he was concerned, and evil passions were illusions. There were
+only two realities: he and what was awaiting him.
+
+After lunch he dressed with such attention to the minutest details that
+the absurdity of it made him smile. He even changed his tie, after he
+was dressed, looking for another of a quieter color. "Half-past two." He
+looked at himself from head to foot in the mirror: a dark gray suit, tan
+shoes, and a light felt hat with broad brim turned down to protect his
+eyes from the sun. No one had ever seen Prince Lubimoff dressed in such
+a manner. From a distance one might have taken him for one of the
+travelers who visit the Riviera in passing, and come to make the
+acquaintance of roulette at Monte Carlo in an afternoon, and go away
+again immediately.
+
+Three o'clock! He left Villa Sirena. It was a long way and he wanted to
+walk it. The exercise would fortify his will and dispel the doubt which
+was assailing him anew. He thought of how he had performed the same
+supreme intimate act so many times in former years, as something
+ordinary and almost mechanical. His suspicious isolation during the last
+few months seemed to have numbed him. He felt the lack of confidence of
+an athlete who has left off exercising and doubts whether he can summon
+all his former strength again. Fear at the mere idea of a failure
+restored his confidence. Such a thing was impossible! Forward march!
+
+On reaching Monte Carlo, he climbed the long stone steps as far as the
+streets of Beausoleil. He considered it advisable to go out of his way
+thus to carry out in the fullest detail the counsels of prudence that
+Alicia had given him.
+
+He planned to enter her street from above, where there were no houses.
+In this way he would avoid any of her neighbors who at that hour might
+be going down town.
+
+Above the building plots where houses were going up and the stairways
+which were winding down the slope, he could overlook a large expanse of
+sea, and on the shore the groves of the gardens, with a bird's-eye view
+of the huge mass of the Casino, with its green tiles and the yellow
+cupolas of its halls, the wide square, the little circular garden of the
+"Camembert," and around it numerous people the size of ants.
+
+The Prince had a feeling of pity for those pigmies. Unhappy men! They
+were going to gamble, to shut themselves up between four walls, under
+artificial light, with no other dreams than those of money. For him
+something better was awaiting; for a few hours he was going to
+experience the one interesting intoxication of life. Then he laughed
+with pity at a certain lunatic, his double, who had tried to found a
+club group of "women's enemies." Imagine hating love, and trying to live
+without women; poor Prince Lubimoff!
+
+It was now four o'clock. Passing among tiny gardens which seemed miles
+away from a crowded city, he entered Alicia's street. The red roof of
+Villa Rosa was peeping out from among the trees, almost at his feet. He
+kept on descending. His legs trembled slightly, and he stopped for a
+moment to regain his poise, raising his hand to his breast. Rounding a
+bend, all of the street that was built up appeared, straight and gently
+sloping down to where it joined one of the avenues of Monte Carlo.
+
+No one was in sight, and he hastened to slip into Villa Rosa before any
+neighbors appeared. He passed the gardens rapidly, with the air of a man
+afraid of being late at a game of cards. He found the gate half open. It
+was a good sign: Alicia had thought of facilitating his entry.
+
+He crossed the little garden, and thought he saw the frightened face of
+the gardener, peeping over some shrubbery for a moment, then hiding
+again precipitously. There was something strange about that man's
+curiosity and his look of fear. But he was hurrying away, and the Prince
+was pleased at his discretion.
+
+With a flutter of emotion, he climbed the four steps of the door. With
+each one there awoke in his imagination a fresh dream picture, softly
+rose-colored like women's flesh, a sweet unconfessable vision which
+suddenly brought back his past. More with his memory than with his sense
+of smell, he perceived in the atmosphere a well-known perfume, her
+perfume. Everything seemed to be whirling about him with hazy contours.
+There was a buzzing in his ears; desire electrified him drawing his
+muscles taut, just as in his happiest days. And with the bearing of a
+conqueror, he pushed open the door, which was unlocked.
+
+A woman came forward to meet him in the vestibule, a woman whose
+presence caused him to draw back.
+
+Valeria! What was she doing there? What sort of a farce was this?
+
+The young woman tried to speak, and he, too, wished to speak at the same
+time. But neither was able.
+
+Another woman appeared, opening the door abruptly. It was Alicia, with
+her clothes in disorder and her hair wildly streaming. On seeing the
+Prince, she raised her arms and came forward, impetuous and silent, as
+though to embrace him. At last!... What did he care if Valeria were
+present: he did not see her. On the other hand, Alicia seemed different
+to him; taller than ever, and paler, with eyes that suddenly inspired
+fear.
+
+Her arms fell about him, and immediately her whole body seemed to
+totter, bereft of strength. He felt a panting breast against his own;
+her arms were as cold as those of a corpse; a rain of hot tears began to
+bathe his neck.
+
+"Michael! Michael!" Alicia groaned.
+
+It was all she could say. She was choking, the sobs catching in her
+throat as though a strangling lump were fixed within it.
+
+The Prince was obliged to summon all his strength to sustain the inert
+body. A voice sounded in his ear, with the same low monotonous tone that
+is heard in a chamber of death.
+
+It was that of Valeria, who was also weeping, feeling afresh the
+contagion of tears.
+
+"He is dead! He died a month ago!"
+
+And she showed him a little yellow paper that had arrived half an hour
+before: a telegram from Madrid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Spadoni, after greeting Novoa in the Casino square, told him about the
+dreams which were troubling his sleep, and about his disillusionment on
+awakening.
+
+"It is your fault, professor. When we were living together at Villa
+Sirena, I used to listen to the interesting things you knew and talked
+about and then I would go peacefully to sleep. Now I am practically
+alone. The Prince and Castro are unbearably ill-humored; they talk
+scarcely at all and pay no attention whatever to me. As you yourself
+would say, I lead an 'inner life,' always alone with my thoughts; and
+when I spend the night there, I sleep badly, and suffer from dreams,
+which are very wonderful in the beginning, but turn out very sad in the
+end. Oh, what wonderful evenings we used to spend, talking about
+scientific things!"
+
+Novoa smiled. In the eyes of the musician, gambling and its mysteries
+were scientific matters. All the paradoxes that he had taken delight in
+uttering had been stored up in the mind of the pianist as irrefutable
+truths. Novoa tried to head him off by asking for news of the Prince.
+But Spadoni, absorbed in his mania, continued:
+
+"Last night's dream was terrible, and nevertheless it could not have
+begun better. I had the secret of your infinitesimal errors; I had
+mastered the hidden laws of chance and was King of the world. I had a
+special train, composed of a sleeping car, a drawing-room car, a dining
+car, a swimming-pool car, and goodness knows how many special kinds of
+cars! It was a regular palace on wheels that was always awaiting me at
+the railway station, with the engine constantly keeping up steam, ready
+to start at any moment. I got out of the train in all the cities famous
+for gambling, just as a person gets out of an automobile. And seeing me
+coming, the owners of the Casinos, the employees, and even the green
+tables fairly trembled. 'Hurrah for the Avenger!' all those who had lost
+their money shouted in the anteroom. But I passed on, serene as a god,
+without paying any attention to these ovations from the common herd.
+Imagine what it would cost the possessor of the secret of the
+infinitesimal errors to win! My twelve secretaries placed on the various
+tables a million or two, following my instructions. 'Ready, play!' I
+walked about like Napoleon, giving orders to my marshals. In half an
+hour, they declared the bank was broken and the Casino bankrupt. 'The
+house is closing its doors!' shouted the employees, just as in a church
+when the services are over. And on coming out, the same starving
+wretches who had greeted me with acclamations rushed on the guards
+escorting me, with sudden hate, trying to kill me. The place where their
+fortunes were buried was closed to them forever. Now they could not
+return the next day and lose more money with the vague hope of squaring
+accounts. I had taken away all their hopes."
+
+"Exactly," said Novoa.
+
+"Also I had a yacht, which was larger than Prince Lubimoff's; something
+in the nature of a first-class cruiser. And I needed one that size, for
+a band of followers as large as mine. I had with me hordes of
+secretaries, a crowd of strong-arm men whose duty it was to defend me
+and my treasure, and a great number of blase people, who considered me a
+very interesting person, and followed me all over the globe, like that
+misanthropic fellow who followed a lion tamer from city to city, hoping
+that the wild beasts might some day devour him. There was no longer a
+single Casino functioning in Europe: the one at San Sebastian had been
+turned into a convent; the one at Ostend was being used as a laboratory
+for experiments on oyster culture. In all the bathing resorts and all
+medicinal springs, people became interested exclusively in taking care
+of their health; and when they wanted distraction, they went to the
+promenades and played marbles and other children's games. In the
+meantime I went traveling through the Americas and the South Seas,
+breaking one bank after another, in all the big gambling houses. I was
+followed by journalists who made up another army larger than my own. The
+newspapers and the cable and telegraph agencies announced my arrival in
+advance, making a great stir. 'The invincible Spadoni is coming!' And
+the gaming establishments, feeling their end was near, tried to exploit
+their death agony by selling seats at fabulous prices to every one who
+wanted to witness my triumph. In the United States a steel king, or a
+king of something or other, gave a hundred thousand dollars for a seat,
+in order to follow my irresistible playing close at hand. Never before
+had such a sum been paid to see the long hair of a concert singer or the
+diamonds of a soprano."
+
+"And how about Monte Carlo?" asked Novoa, interested by the gambler's
+wild dreams.
+
+"We are coming to that. I kept Monte Carlo to the end of my trip,
+thinking of the money that I had lost here. The fatter I let the victim
+grow, the greater would be my vengeance. And such business as Monte
+Carlo was doing! Since there was no gambling left anywhere else in the
+world, all the gamblers gathered here from every part of the globe. The
+city had grown, until it reached the summits of the Alps; the forty
+millions that the Casino used to win in favorable years, had now become
+four thousand million. The stockholders were marrying persons of royal
+blood: two Balkan kings were declaring war, quarreling over the hand of
+the daughter of a fourth Vice-President of the company that was managing
+the Casino. The equilibrium of Europe was imperiled: the great powers
+were dreaming of annexing Monaco in the name of ancient historical and
+ethnological rights, since they had all had and still had many people of
+their race living on that tiny piece of land. But suddenly the
+Invincible appeared."
+
+Spadoni, as though still dreaming, looked at the Casino, the Square, the
+entrance to the terrace, and the curving slope of the avenue which
+descended to the harbor. He could see it all, perhaps no differently
+than he had seen it in his imagination.
+
+"What a crowd there was! For six months previously the whole world had
+talked of nothing else. 'Are you going to see the fun?' 'Aren't you
+going?' Cook's Agency had announced in every country of the globe an
+inexpensive trip 'personally conducted' to witness this world event. The
+Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean was giving round trip tickets at reduced
+prices, and all Paris was on hand. The owners of hotels and restaurants,
+out of gratitude, were placing my portrait in the most conspicuous part
+of the dining rooms, which were always filled. The newspapers published
+my biography, and in mentioning my wealth were obliged to break their
+columns, placing a line of zeros clear across the page, and even then
+there was not sufficient space. I forgot to tell you that I found myself
+obliged to establish a bank, just to take care of my treasures. And
+whenever the Bank of London or the Bank of France were pressed for
+money, they sent me a polite note, asking me to get them out of their
+difficulty."
+
+Novoa laughed at the naive way in which the pianist related his
+greatness. He still seemed obsessed by his dream.
+
+"My yacht was obliged to anchor outside the harbor among other ships.
+There were many trans-Atlantic liners there: four from the United
+States, one from Japan, another from South America, and a few from
+Australia and New Zealand, all filled with travelers who had come from
+the other hemisphere to see Spadoni. After greeting Monaco with a
+twenty-one-gun salute, I sprang ashore amid the hurrahs of the foreign
+sailors. You easily understand that a man like myself could not arrive
+at the Casino seated in a mere automobile. Who hasn't an automobile
+now-a-days! On the dock there was waiting for me a single seated
+carriage which I was to drive myself, but a carriage with gilded wheels,
+drawn by six women, six beautiful women, all of them celebrated, whose
+pictures figured not only in the principal illustrated papers, but also
+on perfumery bottles and cigar boxes."
+
+The Professor was extremely amused. He noticed the satisfaction with
+which the pianist dwelt on this detail of his triumphal entry. The
+degradation of these six elegant and famous women seemed to flatter his
+woman-hating propensities. He spoke with a coolly revengeful look, as
+though witnessing the abject humiliation of his greatest and deadliest
+enemy.
+
+"It was merely a matter of paying the price: and I was not going to
+bargain over a million more or less. The one thing that annoyed me was
+having to choose among several thousand beauties who were clamoring to
+be selected. I was obliged to risk offending many big theater managers,
+business men, and statesmen, by rejecting the many ladies whom they
+recommended to me. A monarch even withdrew the title of Duke which he
+had just given me, because I had refused his favorite 'friend.' All six
+wore the latest frocks designed in the _Rue de la Paix_. The reporters,
+cameras in hand, were taking snap shots of the gowns which were to set
+the latest style. Besides, their harness was covered with pearls,
+diamonds, and every sort of precious stone, and they were careful not to
+injure them, knowing that at the end of their trot they would be able to
+keep the gems as souvenirs. I had a large whip to use on occasion: a
+whip of flowers, to be sure. One must always be chivalrous with ladies."
+
+He smiled ironically. Once more Novoa noted his look of rancorous
+misogyny.
+
+"But inside, the whip was made of sharp steel; and lashing my six
+handsome steeds, we started out. What a long time it took to climb the
+slope making our way through the crowd! The foreigners greeted me with
+acclamations. The sounds of the clicking cameras blended into an endless
+buzzing. Every one wanted to carry away the image of the king of the
+world. I could pick out the natives of the city by their sad faces. The
+men were imploring me with their glances, like miserable captives; the
+women held up their children; the old men fell on their knees. I was the
+conqueror who, in ruining the Casino, was utterly destroying their home
+land, condemning them to poverty and hardship. The square was black with
+people. On getting out of my vehicle, I saw that the steps of the Casino
+were filled with a great delegation. First of all, was Monsieur Blanc;
+next, his general staff of advisors, the principal stockholders, the
+inspectors, and the entire body of _croupiers_, all dressed in black,
+with long alpaca coats of a funereal cut. In the background were well
+known people, whose presence there might move me. In order to recall to
+my mind the fact that I had been a mere pianist, they had waiting for me
+there, baton in hand, directors of concerts and operas, orchestra
+soloists with their instruments; singers--the men with swords at their
+belts, the women with long trains, and all of them painted and bewigged;
+girls from the ballet, with pale pink legs and masses of tulle standing
+out horizontally from their waists. Instructed in advance, they were all
+ready to groan.
+
+"'One word with you, Signor Spadoni.'
+
+"It was Monsieur Blanc who took me aside, and handed me a small paper.
+
+"'Take this and don't go in.'
+
+"I looked at the paper: a check for a million. Humph! What can a man do
+with a million? And on noticing that I was crumpling it, and throwing it
+on the ground, the master of the Casino gave me another paper.
+
+"'Make it five then, and go away.'
+
+"Since this did not move me either, he kept on taking checks from all
+his pockets: ten million, fifteen, forty....
+
+"My twelve counselors came forward with huge purses filled with bank
+notes; my escort cleared the way among the imploring crowd on the
+stairway; my horses were getting impatient, because certain connoisseurs
+had availed themselves of the crowding to take liberties with them.
+
+"'One more word, Signor Spadoni: the last. We will cause a revolution,
+we will dethrone Albert, and give the crown of Monaco to you. If you
+like, you might marry the daughter of an Emperor: with money you can do
+anything. We have it and so have you....'
+
+"'I have told you no! What I want is to get into that Casino, bust the
+whole business, and take away the keys.'
+
+"This threat tore from him the supreme concession.
+
+"'You shall be my partner; I will give you fifty per cent of the
+winnings. Don't you want to? Well then, seventy-five.'
+
+"On seeing that I continued to advance up the stairway without
+listening to him, he raised a whistle to his lips. On his face was a
+look of a Samson, clutching the columns of the Temple. He would rather
+die than see his house bankrupt! A terrible explosion resounded, as
+though the world were being rent apart. They had mined with all the
+high-power explosives of the war, the Casino, the square, and the whole
+city. I was blown off my feet and driven, dazed, up into the clouds, but
+I was still able to see how Monte Carlo was disappearing, and even the
+dock of Monaco, as the sea in one enormous wave, was sweeping over the
+site of the vanished land. And when I came down to earth again...."
+
+"You woke up," said Novoa.
+
+"Yes, I woke up, and on the floor beside my bed; and I could hear
+Castro's voice in the corridor calling me names for having spoiled his
+sleep by my cries. Don't laugh, Professor. It is very sad to dream of
+such grandeur, as though you had had it in hand, and then to find
+yourself as poor as yesterday, as poor as ever, and besides with bad
+luck still clinging to you."
+
+This mention of poverty and bad luck by Spadoni caused Novoa to protest.
+People still recalled his amazing fortune as the banker in the Sporting
+Club. That had been an epoch-making night. Besides, he knew through
+Valeria that the Duchess had made him a handsome present.
+
+"Wonderful Duchess!" the pianist said enthusiastically, "Always a great
+lady. Poor woman, in the midst of her despair she remembered me. 'Take
+this, Spadoni, and I hope you have lots of luck.' She gave me twenty
+thousand francs. If I were to ask her for a hundred thousand she would
+give them to me just the same. And to think she is so unfortunate!"
+
+As the Professor still looked at him questioningly, he continued:
+
+"Well, then; of the twenty thousand francs I haven't even a hundred
+left."
+
+The same evening he had hurried to the Sporting Club to repeat his great
+deeds. He had never happened to have so much capital before, not even
+when he returned from his concert tour in South America. The terrible
+Greek was there, and in spite of the admiration Spadoni paid His
+Eminence, the Helene treated the musician with implacable hostility.
+"Bank!" said the Greek on seeing the pianist in the banker's chair, with
+fifteen thousand! With what remained the musician had struggled along
+for a few days as a mere bettor, and now the Duchess' generous gift was
+merely a memory.
+
+"If she would only return to work! I am sure that I would be once more
+the man I was that night, with her behind me. But who would dare talk to
+her about gambling."
+
+They both lamented Alicia's misfortune. Since the day the telegram
+arrived telling of the death of her protege, she had been a different
+woman. Spadoni attributed her overwhelming grief over a young soldier
+who did not belong to her family to her excessively kind heart. The
+Professor assented, with an enigmatic air. In her sudden burst of grief,
+Alicia had doubtless let a portion of her secret escape in the presence
+of Valeria, and the latter probably had told Novoa about it.
+
+Then they talked about the isolation in which the Duchess was living.
+
+"It has been a month since any one has seen her," said Spadoni. "People
+are beginning to forget about her; a good many people think she has gone
+away. That's the way Monte Carlo is: quite tiny for those who go to the
+Casino, and rub elbows all day long; enormous, like a great metropolis,
+for those who do not come near the gambling rooms. The Prince frequently
+asks me about her with a great deal of interest. It seems he has not
+been able to see her since the afternoon of the telegram."
+
+Novoa repeated his enigmatic look on hearing Lubimoff's name. He knew
+through Valeria that Michael had gone repeatedly to Villa Rosa, without
+being admitted. And more than that; the Duchess had shuddered in terror
+at the thought of his visit. "I don't want to see him, Valeria; tell him
+I am not in." Colonel Toledo had suffered the same fate; obliged to hand
+his card, sometimes to the Duchess' friend and at other times to the
+gardener. Several letters from the Prince had remained unanswered.
+Alicia showed a firm determination not to see her relative, as though
+his presence might quicken the grief that was keeping her away from
+society.
+
+Spadoni, unaware of all this, continued to praise the Duchess.
+
+"A noble heart! She always has to have some unfortunate person around to
+look after. Since the death of her aviator, she seems to be feeling a
+deep affection for that Lieutenant of the Foreign Legion, the Spaniard
+who is so ill, and who may die almost any moment, like the other man. He
+spends whole days at Villa Rosa; he lunches and dines there; and if the
+Duchess takes a walk in the mountains, it is always with him. He does
+everything but sleep at the Villa! When he doesn't show up for some
+time, she immediately sends a messenger to the Officers' Hotel."
+
+The Professor remained silent, but knew that Spadoni was telling the
+truth. It agreed with what Valeria had been telling. Martinez was
+constantly at Villa Rosa, often against his will. The Duchess needed his
+presence, but nevertheless on seeing him, she would burst into sobs and
+tears. But the poor boy, with a submission born of awe, accompanied her
+in her voluntary seclusion, deeply thankful that such a great lady
+should take an interest in him.
+
+"Dona Clorinda must be furious," continued the pianist, with malignant
+joy such as rivalry among women always aroused in him. "She no longer
+has any influence over Martinez, in spite of the fact that she was the
+one who discovered him. The other woman has cut her out. Weeks go by and
+the 'General' doesn't get a chance to see her Lieutenant; I believe she
+has given him up, as a matter of fact. She criticizes her former friend
+for this monopolizing, which she considers 'dangerous.' They even tell
+me that she accuses the Duchess of flirting with the poor boy, of
+arousing false hopes in him, and of still worse things. Quite absurd!
+Women are terrible when they hate. Imagine! A poor officer--practically
+a dead man...."
+
+Novoa said nothing, so that the pianist would stop talking. He was
+afraid Spadoni might say some awful thing, repeating Dona Clorinda's
+gossip, with the rancorous joy of a woman-hater. Novoa, through his
+relations with Valeria, considered himself a partisan of the Duchess,
+and could not tolerate anything being said against her.
+
+They separated after a few minutes more of inconsequential talk.
+
+That evening Spadoni spoke to the Prince about his conversation with the
+Professor, and it gave him a pretext for repeating what Dona Clorinda
+thought of her former friend. But immediately the pianist repented of
+having done this, seeing the look of wrath which Lubimoff gave him.
+
+"What a cad," thought Michael, "peddling around a lot of female gossip,
+just because he has a grouch against women in general."
+
+He understood how Alicia might feel interested in the soldier. His youth
+and his uniform reminded her of her son. Besides, Martinez was alone in
+the world, a foreigner, a piece of wreckage from the war, a man whom
+every one considered irrevocably condemned to death.
+
+Yet Michael could not avoid an immediate feeling of jealousy toward the
+poor young fellow who was friendless and ill. Martinez was living
+constantly by Alicia's side, while he himself was unable to gain
+admittance to the Villa, even as a mere visitor. Why?
+
+He had spent several weeks making conjectures, and watching for a chance
+to meet Alicia. Since the afternoon when he had held her in his arms,
+drying her tears and restraining her from hurting herself, as she
+writhed in grief, and kissing her on the brow, with brotherly
+compassion, the gate of Villa Rosa had closed behind him forever. "Come
+to-morrow," groaned Alicia on saying good-by to him. And the following
+day Valeria had halted him with the embarrassed look of a person telling
+a lie. "The Duchess cannot receive you. The Duchess wants to be alone."
+And this inexplicable refusal had been repeated each successive day,
+with increasing sharpness. At present the gardener, who was the only one
+who came to answer the bell, talked with him through the gate.
+
+This rejection caused him to commit a great number of childish and
+humiliating actions. He circled about the neighborhood of the Villa like
+a jealous husband, facing the curiosity of the passersby, and taking
+advantage of the most absurd pretexts to disguise the real object of his
+vigil, hurriedly concealing himself whenever the gate opened, and any
+one left the house. This vigilance had only served to arouse his anger.
+Twice Michael had been obliged to hide himself while Lieutenant
+Martinez, erect in the old uniform which the Prince had given him and
+which was rather a bad fit, steadied his weak sick body in a desire to
+appear proud and healthy, and entered Villa Rosa through the wide-open
+gate, as though he were the owner.
+
+One afternoon he had seen them from a distance, the Lieutenant and
+Alicia, in a hired carriage, which was going in the other direction, on
+the opposite side of the street, toward the Heights of La Turbie. She
+was looking after the wounded man, taking him, in maternal solicitude,
+to a spot where he could breathe the upland air. And the Prince might
+just as well have not existed!
+
+In vain he wrote her letters, and his torment was even greater owing to
+the fact that he could not talk openly with his friends. The Colonel,
+obedient to his veiled suggestions, had unavailingly paid several calls
+on the Duchess.
+
+"What unexplainable grief!" said Don Marcos. "It is impossible to
+understand such despair over a young aviator who was merely a protege of
+hers. Unless, perhaps, he were her...." But his sense of delicacy would
+not allow him to insist on such an ignoble suspicion.
+
+Nor could the Prince talk with Atilio. In the latter's eyes, the
+prisoner who had died in Germany was the same young man he had known in
+Paris before the war: the Duchess' lover, who followed her everywhere
+and danced with her at the Tango teas. Besides, Michael felt afraid of
+what Castro might add, reflecting the "General's" way of thinking.
+
+The latter, at first, on learning of Alicia's despair, had felt like
+forgetting the quarrels of the past, and had gone of her own accord to
+Villa Rosa to console the Duchess. Since the "General" was very
+patriotic, the boy who had died in Germany seemed to her a hero. But the
+sudden monopolizing of the Spanish Lieutenant, and the passionate
+sympathy which obliged Martinez to spend all day with the Duchess,
+renewed Dona Clorinda's cool hostility.
+
+The Prince guessed what she and her friend were thinking, and what
+Castro might tell if he dared talk to him about Alicia. "She has just
+lost a lover, and while she is weeping with theatrical vehemence, she is
+getting ready for another, as young as the first. A crime indeed, since
+poor Martinez is condemned to death, and only prolongs his days, thanks
+to absolute quiet. The slightest emotion means death to him."
+
+Lubimoff could not tell the truth. His secret was Alicia's. Only they
+two knew the true identity of the prisoner who had died in Germany, and
+as long as she kept silent, he must do the same.
+
+One night, the Colonel gave him some interesting news. At nightfall,
+when he was returning from the Casino, he had seen the Duchess de
+Delille from the street car. Dressed in mourning she was getting out of
+a hired carriage, in the Boulevard des Moulins, opposite the church of
+St. Charles. Later she had ascended the steps leading to the place of
+worship: she was doubtless going to pray for her protege. And Don Marcos
+said this with a certain emotion, as though the visit to the church
+cancelled all the gossip he had been hearing in the previous few days.
+
+Michael had a presentiment that this would be the means of rescuing him
+from his incertitude. He would meet Alicia at the church. And the
+following day, toward evening, he began to walk up and down the
+Boulevard des Moulins, without losing sight of the one church in Monte
+Carlo, the place of worship of gamblers and wealthy people, which seemed
+to maintain a certain rivalry with the Cathedral of silent, ancient
+Monaco.
+
+This continual going and coming finally caught the attention of the
+shopkeepers on the street and of their clerks, girls with hair dressed
+high on their heads in a complicated fashion, who seemed to be dreaming
+behind the counters, waiting for some millionaire to lift them from
+their position of unjust obscurity. "Prince Lubimoff!" They all knew
+him, and his fame was such that immediately a hundred eyes curiously
+sought the object of his promenading. Doubtless it was a woman. On the
+deserted balconies women's heads began to appear, following his
+maneuvers more or less overtly. Window shades went up, revealing behind
+the panes questioning eyes and smiling lips. "Might it be for me?" This
+unexpressed question seemed to spread from one window to the next.
+
+Annoyed by such curiosity, he ascended the double row of steps from the
+tiny deserted square in front of the church, using the same strategy
+there as when he had lurked in the neighborhood of Villa Rosa. He peeped
+into the interior of the sanctuary, dotted with red by a number of
+lighted tapers. There were only two women, within, both of them dressed
+in mourning and kneeling. They were women of lowly fortune, wives or
+mothers of men killed in the war. On returning to the little square, he
+passed the time reading and re-reading the headlines of all the papers
+displayed on the newsstand. Then he started off down a street, turned
+into another, walked across the square with an air of unconcern, and hid
+behind a corner, taking care not to lose sight of the entrance to the
+church. It was not bad waiting there: there were no passersby. The
+traffic on the nearby boulevard was invisible, as though going on in the
+depths of a ditch. Through the low branches of some trees, he could just
+see the roofs of carriages and street cars.
+
+Night fell and she did not come.
+
+The following day Michael returned, but discreetly, so as not to arouse
+the curiosity of the shopkeepers. He remained for long hours in the
+little square in that old part of the city, with none to watch him save
+a melancholy old woman who sold newspapers at a stand that had no
+customers. Nor did Alicia come this time.
+
+The third day, when he was beginning to doubt whether there was any use
+of waiting, Alicia's head and shoulders suddenly appeared above the line
+of the top step. Then her whole body emerged, by waves, so to speak, as
+her feet advanced from step to step. Night was falling. On the facades
+of the buildings on the boulevard, above the green mass of the trees,
+the fugitive sun drew a golden brush stroke along the rows of roofs.
+
+It was his heart that recognized her even before his eyes, just as on
+the day when he had seen her at a distance in the carriage accompanied
+by the officer. He had a feeling of shock at her black bonnet, with a
+long mourning veil falling on her shoulders. The emotion he felt on
+seeing her and the spying habit he had recently acquired, caused him to
+draw back, and she entered the church without seeing him. Ah, now he had
+her! This time she could not escape, he would have a great many things
+to tell her, very, very many! But at the same time he became rancorously
+conscious of the just indictment against her which he had prepared in
+advance; and, in spite of himself, he felt afraid, desperately afraid of
+the possibility that she might meet him with a curt reply, or perhaps
+not speak to him at all.
+
+He allowed a long time to elapse. Then he was torn by the desire of
+seeing her again, even from a distance, and he entered the church, but
+cautiously, trying to avoid a premature encounter.
+
+He advanced between a double row of deserted benches. There in the
+background were the same women who had been there the other day, still
+kneeling, as though their grief were unconscious of the lapse of time.
+In the darkness the pale gold of the altar pieces became gradually
+distinguishable, and two masses of color, two clusters of flags--those
+of the Allied countries, which adorned the high altar. On seeing the two
+praying figures alone in the church, and in motionless silence, he
+thought that Alicia must have fled through an exit of which he was
+unaware. But she appeared from a door on the side, followed by an
+acolyte who was carrying two tapers. Alicia seemed to be watching how
+the tapers were lighted and placed in their sockets in front of the
+Virgin. Then she knelt, remaining in a rigid posture on her knees.
+
+Some time went by. And Michael watched her, as she became, like the two
+poor women, a mere shape in black, motionless in prayer and
+supplication. The only distinguishing features of her person that he
+could make out, were the soles of her elegant shoes, two tiny
+light-colored tongues, which stood out against the black silk of her
+skirt. He could also see her white neck writhing from time to time, as
+though trying to throw off the twining veil of sorrow.
+
+He felt that the rancor which had caused him to desire this meeting was
+vanishing. Poor woman! He knew, and no one else knew, the identity of
+the young man whose death she had come to mourn in this temple. A
+picture of the Princess Lubimoff suddenly arose in his memory, vague and
+covered with the dust of oblivion. The Princess had been insane; but she
+was his mother, and he had loved her so dearly!
+
+Immediately afterward his egotism revolted against this feeling. It was
+natural for Alicia to weep for her son, but it was not natural that she
+should have broken with him without any explanation whatsoever.
+
+Mechanically he advanced toward the high altar, desiring to see her
+closer at hand. A slight movement as she prayed caused him to retrace
+his steps. It was better that she should not recognize him. He
+considered it preferable to wait for her outside the church, with the
+advantage of taking her by surprise, without allowing her time to invent
+excuses to justify her conduct.
+
+It was beginning to grow late, when Alicia came out, running straight
+into Michael Fedor who was blocking her path.
+
+Not the slightest quiver revealed any feeling of surprise.
+
+"You!" she said simply.
+
+She was very pale, and her eyes were red and moist, as though she had
+just been weeping.
+
+Perhaps she had seen him within the church, and was expecting this
+meeting on coming out. The natural manner in which she greeted his
+presence was for him a just disappointment.
+
+He felt he must speak at once, relieving himself of the burden of
+complaint and accusation, which had been gathering within him during the
+preceding days. There were so many, that they clouded his thoughts. But
+Alicia, as though afraid of what he was going to say, came forward and
+began to talk in sad, monotonous tones.
+
+She had been coming to this church several afternoons as she suddenly
+felt the need of leaving Villa Rosa with its terrible memories. Oh, the
+arrival of that telegram!
+
+"Now I am a believer," she announced simply.
+
+Immediately afterward she corrected the statement, rather through
+humility than pride. She wanted to be a believer, but in reality she was
+not. She remembered the mother, poor, simple-minded Dona Mercedes! What
+would she not give to have the confidence in the Great Beyond which that
+good lady had had! That faith, which in former days had provoked her
+laughter, seemed to her now like something superior. What a pity she
+could not feel the resignation of humble souls! The irreligiousness of
+her happy days still remained with her. Those who enjoy the pleasant
+things of life do not remember death, nor do they think of what may be
+beyond. No one feels religious sentiments in his soul at a dance, at a
+banquet, or at a rendezvous with a lover! She had to believe, because
+she was unhappy! She clung to religion as an invalid condemned to death
+by the doctors in whom he believes, implores in despair the services of
+a quack, in whom he has no faith.
+
+"Grief makes mystics of us," she continued. "What I regret is not being
+able to be one in the way that others are. I pray, but resignation does
+not come to my aid."
+
+She revolted against the thought of annihilation at death. That flesh of
+her flesh was rotting in an unknown cemetery in Germany! And was that
+the end? Could it be there was nothing more? Would she die in turn and
+never meet again in a superior existence the son in whom she had
+concentrated all her love of life? Would they both be blotted out of
+reality, like two infinitesimal points, like two atoms, whose life means
+nothing?
+
+"I must believe," she said with all the energy of her maternal egotism.
+"My one consolation lies in the hope that we shall meet again in a
+better world: a world that knows no wars, nor death. But suddenly my
+confidence fails, and all I see is annihilation--annihilation! I am
+greatly to be pitied, Michael."
+
+These words did not move the Prince, in spite of the despair which
+Alicia put into them. His amorous yearning let him think only of the
+present.
+
+"And I," he said in a reproachful tone. "You deserted me in the greatest
+moment of our lives! You are unhappy; all the more reason that you
+should not drive me from you. I can put cheer into your life. I can
+guess what you are thinking. No, no, I do not insist on talking to you
+of love. Perhaps later on, but now!... Now, I want to be your comrade,
+your brother, whatever you want me to be, but at your side. Why do you
+avoid me? Why do you shut your door to me as you would to a stranger?"
+
+And incoherently he continued his laments, his protests, his rancor, at
+her unexplainable estrangement.
+
+"Am I to blame for your misfortune?" he finally asked. "Am I a different
+man to-day than I was the last time we saw each other?"
+
+She shook her head sadly. She could not convince Michael no matter how
+much she might talk; it was beyond her strength to explain her new
+feelings. She seemed dismayed at the obstacle which had arisen between
+them.
+
+"Leave me, forget me; it is the best that you can do. No; you haven't
+changed, my poor boy. What harm could you have done me, you who are so
+kind, so generous? You have helped me to learn the horrible truth; it
+was through you that I discovered it; and although it is killing me, I
+feel that it is preferable to uncertainty. You are not to blame, you
+have done all that I asked you to do. But listen to me, I beg of you: do
+not seek me, avoid meeting me, leave me! It is the last favor I ask of
+you. It is only away from you that I can find a certain peace of mind."
+
+Michael's voice lost its tones of supplication and began to quiver with
+a vibration of anger. How could he be an obstacle to her tranquillity?
+Hadn't he just said that he wanted to be a comrade in her misfortune,
+without desires, oblivious of love, with a sweet dispassionate
+affection, like that of friendship? Now that she was unhappy he felt
+more vehemently a desire to be by her side. What absurd caprice made her
+avoid him?
+
+Alicia looked at him with tearful eyes, which reflected the hesitations
+of her thoughts. Finally she seemed to have made up her mind.
+
+"You haven't changed," she said, in a subdued voice, "but I am
+different. Misfortune has made another woman of me. I do not recognize
+myself. I am dominated by a fixed idea. An absurd one it may well be; if
+I tell it to you, I know that you will protest with holy indignation.
+No; you are not to blame; but it is better for me not to see you. Your
+presence increases my remorse. Seeing you, I feel extraordinary shame, a
+desire to die, to kill myself. I have a feeling of suspicion that it was
+I who killed my son. I remember all that took place between us; and I
+recognize God's punishment."
+
+Lubimoff's anger vanished at these inexplicable words. Automatically he
+took her hands with caressing gentleness, as though they were those of a
+poor sick patient at the height of delirious ravings. She should be
+calm! What was she saying? What remorse was she talking about? Her
+gloved hands, in passive resignation offered no resistance to his touch;
+but suddenly they woke to life, violently freeing themselves from those
+of Michael, as though they had just received a hard shock. "No! No!" And
+the Prince had a sort of feeling that there was a current of repulsion
+between them, something that he had never experienced until then: the
+fear of his person.
+
+He remained so disconcerted and humiliated by this movement of
+withdrawal, that he did not know what to say. She took advantage of his
+silence to go on talking, but as though she did not see the man who was
+standing before her eyes.
+
+"When I remember all that ... what a shame! My son, my poor boy, living
+like a slave, suffering from hunger, being whipped, he, who was so noble
+and so handsome ... and his mother here acting like a young girl, going
+into ecstasies over ideal love, taking poetic promenades through the
+gardens, exchanging kisses. An old woman's romantic fancies. The
+gambling follies might even be pardoned. I thought of him as I played;
+the money was for him; but love!... it seems impossible that I could
+have done all that while my son was a prisoner and I was getting no news
+from him. What diabolical spell was upon me? And God has punished me;
+and if not God, whoever or whatever it may be; fate, a mysterious power
+which makes us expiate our shortcomings, call it anything you like."
+
+Michael attempted to protest, but she went on talking:
+
+"I know what you are going to tell me; but it won't do any good. All
+that you might say I have said to myself again and again, to convince
+myself that my belief is absurd. And what would that prove? All that we
+are not acquainted with is absurd, and we know so little! No; my remorse
+can never be overcome. No matter what you may say will not keep me from
+spending my sleepless nights puzzling things out, and thinking of
+certain dates in my recent life. When I began to be interested in you,
+my son was still alive, and I forgot him. When we were walking through
+the gardens of San Martino, he was perhaps suffering the agonies of
+hunger, and martyrdom, and I like the heroine in a novel, like a crazy
+schoolgirl, was kissing you, and making you promises! Besides, the
+arrival of the telegram the same afternoon that you were going to come,
+seemed like something definitive in my life! Don't you see the
+intervention of a superior power, the punishment for my badness?"
+
+The Prince tried to speak again, but in vain.
+
+"That is why I am avoiding you; that is why I have not replied to your
+letters. You are not to blame; but you mean remorse to me, and your
+presence recalls my crime. Besides, I know myself; I am only a poor,
+weak woman, the very personification of thoughtlessness, and neglect. If
+I were to accept you as a comrade in grief, since I am not indifferent
+to you, perhaps I might give in to what you want. And that would be
+horrible, still more horrible even than what has gone before; one of
+those offenses which people maddened by passion commit against natural
+laws. Don't try to see me; I don't want to see you. If I had been a true
+mother, thinking only of him ... who knows!... Perhaps he would still be
+alive. But some one was bent on punishing me for my unnatural conduct,
+and that some one killed him, so that I might awaken, at the very moment
+when in my shameful love, I felt myself happiest."
+
+Michael no longer cared to say anything. He looked at this woman with
+pity and dismay in his eyes. He recalled the Princess Lubimoff with her
+extravagant beliefs in the mysterious; and of Alicia's own mother, with
+her religious manias. Whatever he might try to say would be useless.
+That absurd and sorrowing conviction of hers had opened a gap between
+them like a gulf that could be bridged over only by time.
+
+The silence of the Prince caused her to lose the nervous exaltation that
+had made her express herself with such fervor.
+
+"Leave me now," she murmured gently. "What could I do for you? I am only
+a woman now; I am an old woman, centuries old, as old as sorrow itself.
+You need a sweetheart, and I am simply a bad mother, a mother tormented
+with remorse."
+
+Her renunciation of the past, and the feeling that she was only a
+despairing mother caused her voice to break with a groan, and at the
+same time her eyes filled with tears. With a timid hand Michael drew
+away the handkerchief that she had raised to her face to hide her
+weeping. He murmured incoherent phrases, with the intention of consoling
+her; but immediately he was mastered once more by anger.
+
+"If you really were alone," he said in bitter tones, "I could wait, and
+perhaps time would silence the after scruples that torment you. But your
+loneliness is a lie. A man enters your house at all hours as though it
+were his own, while I must go away, so that, as you say, you may recover
+your tranquillity."
+
+With a feminine instinct, Alicia had hastened to raise the handkerchief
+to her face again, on feeling herself free from Michael's hand. She felt
+she must be ugly with her watery eyes, her pale lips, and her nose red
+with weeping. But the words of the Prince gave her such a shock of
+surprise, such a desire to refute the offensive supposition, that she
+took the wrinkled batiste from her face.
+
+"You are referring to Martinez? Poor boy!"
+
+He was giving up the gay society of his comrades, their promenades in
+company, and even the parties to which the convalescent officers were
+invited, to come and be bored at Villa Rosa beside a woman who could do
+nothing but weep. When she wanted to come to church she had to oblige
+him to go for an hour or two to join his comrades-in-arms in the
+ante-room at the Casino. The visits of the invalided soldier meant so
+much to her. They were pure charity on his part.
+
+"I dream that he is my son. His age and his uniform aid in this
+illusion. You have never had any children; it is impossible for you to
+know the necessity we feel, when we have lost them, to transfer our
+bereaved affection to other beings, imagining that they look like those
+who are gone. I need to go on being a mother, nor can I be anything
+else; and this unhappy boy never knew his own mother. He has no one in
+the world, and is as much alone as I am. Please, let me enjoy a little
+illusion wherever I can find it. The poor fellow is so grateful for my
+affection! He feels so happy beside me! Remember: he is condemned to
+death, and only maternal care, and pleasant quiet surroundings, can
+possibly prolong his days."
+
+She wanted to accomplish this task, perhaps for a selfish reason, to
+obliterate from her memory, with a great generous deed, all the evil she
+had done before. She wanted him to be her son, a son born of her grief,
+to whom she might devote everything that it was now impossible for her
+to do for her real son.
+
+Now, Michael, too, was silent, realizing the uselessness of insisting
+any further. He knew Alicia's character. Behind her plaintive voice, he
+guessed the resolute will to keep by her side that young man who
+refreshed her maternal feelings and was at the same time a means of
+consolation for the remorse which she had taken upon herself.
+
+The consideration of his powerlessness finally irritated him, made him
+feel a cruel desire to hurt that woman.
+
+"You are doing wrong, Alicia. Society is unaware of your secret. You
+know what people said before about you and your son. You laughed,
+yourself, finding such a mistake amusing. Now the equivocation continues
+with more reason. Many people imagine you have substituted another young
+man for the young man that died."
+
+Alicia lost her sad serenity.
+
+"How disgusting!" she said. "How can they think that. Poor Martinez! He
+is so good! So respectful!"
+
+Then she continued arrogantly:
+
+"Let them say what they like! I want to forget society; let society
+forget me. I am dead as far as people are concerned."
+
+But Michael in his spite still dwelt on the subject.
+
+"The other man was your son, and I knew he was. This man is not, and I
+know the power of seduction that you exercise, even against your will.
+Remember 'the old men on the wall.'"
+
+Wherever she went, men's glances would cling to her rhythmic body; and
+that young man, that queer fellow, would finally....
+
+He was unable to continue.
+
+"You, too!" she exclaimed. "Good-by, don't come after me. I shall always
+think of you; but it is better for us not to see each other. Don't bear
+me a grudge. Perhaps some day!..." And she resolutely turned her back on
+him, and descended the steps toward the boulevard.
+
+The Prince remained motionless for a few minutes. Then he advanced
+toward the top step, but all he could see was a carriage with the hood
+raised, and two horses starting to trot away.
+
+And the meeting with Alicia he had so ardently desired had come to this!
+The feeling of spite caused him to judge himself harshly; he hadn't
+known how to talk. Later he recalled all his reasoning and his
+accusations, and felt amazed at the slight effect they had had on her.
+Yes, indeed, she was a different woman. Some one had changed her; some
+one was to blame for this absurd situation.
+
+He spent a great part of that night reflecting. It did not occur to him
+to blame Alicia. He even repented of his angry words. Unhappy woman! Her
+extreme over-sensitiveness was causing her to find reason for shame and
+remorse in all that she had ever done.
+
+"Besides, women," he continued to himself, "at the least nervous shock
+lose their logical faculty first of all."
+
+He felt a need of concentrating all his anger on some one besides her;
+and Michael, never imagining that he himself had lost his logical
+faculty, put the responsibility for everything on Martinez. The latter
+was the one person to blame. If he had not come between them, Alicia, on
+finding herself alone in misfortune, would have sought once more the
+support of the Prince. What a gift the "General" had made them,
+presenting this adventurer!
+
+His reason vainly argued that it was not the officer who was seeking
+Alicia, but the latter who was keeping him in her home, cutting him off
+from his old friendships. Lubimoff was not willing to give up his spite.
+It was Martinez and no one else who had come between them.
+
+Up to that time he had not paid much attention to the boy whom Toledo
+called the "hero." There were so many heroes at that moment! In his
+hatred he began to strip him of the prestige given him by his deeds and
+his misfortune, Michael saw him without his uniform, without his war
+crosses and his wounds, such as he must have been before the war; a poor
+employee, a business clerk, whose dreams of love had never gone beyond a
+milliner or a stenographer. And this was the interesting personage who
+had the temerity to face him! Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff. What
+intolerable times!
+
+The following day he walked about his garden all morning, resolved never
+to return to Monte Carlo. He was filled with scorn at the thought of the
+tenderness with which Alicia had spoken of her protege. It was better
+that he should not encounter him. But in the afternoon the loneliness of
+his beautiful Villa weighed on him. It seemed deserted. Atilio, the
+pianist, and even the Colonel were all at the Casino. He, too, decided
+to go, to mingle with the crowd which was dividing its attention
+between the hazards of war and the hazards of chance.
+
+In the anteroom he walked toward the groups who were gathered around the
+bulletin board reading the latest telegrams. The crowd considered the
+news good, since it was not extremely bad as on the preceding days. The
+Allies had stopped the enemy's advance, holding them at a standstill on
+the ground they had just conquered. The bombardment of Paris with long
+range guns was still continuing. And that was all.
+
+There was a man making comments in a loud voice. It was Toledo, who, as
+was his custom every afternoon, was giving a lecture on strategy to a
+semi-circle of admirers. With his back to the Prince, he was spouting a
+stream of clear optimism, with a simple faith that misfortune and
+reverses could not move.
+
+"Now they have nailed them in their tracks: they won't advance any
+farther. In a short time will be the counter-attack. I am sure of it; it
+is clear as daylight to me."
+
+Don Marcos rubbed his hands, and slyly winked one eye.
+
+"And the Americans are coming and coming. There are days when as many as
+ten thousand of them are landed here. A wonderful people! I have always
+said so! That fellow Wilson is a great man. I know him well."
+
+They all listened with delight to this voice of hope that refreshed
+their hearts before they gave themselves up to the strain and stress of
+roulette and _trente et quarante_. He talked with the authority of a man
+who has influential connections, and is informed of everything. "He knew
+Wilson," he had just said so himself. Besides, he was a
+Colonel--although none of them knew in what army--an expert, capable of
+expressing an unfounded opinion. And many of them lost no time in
+hastening to the gambling rooms to repeat his views, as though they had
+just received some inside information.
+
+The Prince withdrew, afraid that his presence might put an end to that
+professional triumph of Toledo, which was repeated every day.
+
+As he walked about the anteroom before entering the gaming halls, he saw
+beside a column, a group of French officers, all of whom were
+convalescents. Denied the permission to go any further, because of their
+uniform, they were standing there, looking with a certain envy on the
+civilians. A few of them were standing erect, without any visible
+infirmity, with the sharp features of an eagle, aquiline nose, bold
+eyes, and wild mustache. Others, with youthful faces, were bent over
+like ailing men, leaning on canes, and wearing wrinkled uniforms much
+too large for their sunken chests. Each time they decided to move their
+legs they made a long pause as though to muster every bit of their will
+power available. Some of them had come to Monaco as incurables, after a
+long captivity in Germany. The rest came from hospitals on the firing
+line. On the faces of all of them was an expression of joyous
+bewilderment at finding themselves in this corner of the earth, that was
+like a Paradise, where people seemed to have forgotten the rest of the
+world, and women's eyes followed them with enigmatic glances, half
+amorous and half maternal!
+
+One of the soldiers raised his hand to his cap to salute the Prince. The
+latter looked at the yellowish color of his _kepis_, then at his uniform
+which was of the same color, and at the multi-colored line of
+decorations. It was Martinez, the lieutenant in the Foreign Legion, who
+was saluting him with a certain timidity, but pleased at the same time
+that his comrades were seeing him on friendly terms with the famous
+personage, who was so much talked about on the Riviera.
+
+Michael returned his greeting mechanically and went on. That moment
+remained fixed in his memory all his life. Age and the discretion that
+accompanies it seemed to fall from him like dry bark from a tree in
+springtime. He felt as though he were back in his youth. For a few
+moments he was the same Captain Lubimoff of the imperial Guards, who had
+trampled on obstacles and braved scandal when any one opposed his will.
+
+He turned to look at the group of officers from a distance. That little
+insignificant Lieutenant, who looked like a bookkeeper, promoted by
+mobilization, was his enemy! It seemed as though he were seeing him for
+the first time. Lost among his companions he appeared even more
+insignificant than when he visited Villa Sirena.
+
+Michael remained motionless, with his glance fixed on the group. "You
+are going to do something foolish," admonished a voice within him. And
+there passed through his memory the image of stern Saldana, kindly and
+tolerant with the weak, like every one who is sure of his strength. He
+recalled one of his sayings which had never before crossed his mind: "A
+gentleman must be kind and never take unfair advantage of his strength."
+He was sure that his father had said that to him when he was a child.
+But immediately the duality of his inner being expressed itself through
+another voice which was stronger and more imperious, a woman's voice
+like that of the other counselor of his youth: "Spend; don't deny
+yourself anything, put yourself above everybody; always remember that
+you are a Lubimoff." And he saw the dead Princess, not the Mary Stuart
+with her theatrical mourning robes, but the dominating and still
+beautiful woman, the one who had overwhelmed her husband "the hero"
+with her rage, and turned the Paris residence upside down.
+
+Suddenly he found himself near the group of officers, and again his eyes
+met those of Martinez. The latter came toward him with a smile of
+interrogation. Michael realized that he had beckoned to the soldier,
+without being aware of what he was doing, through an impulse of will
+which seemed entirely detached from his reason.
+
+"So much the worse! Let's get through with the business!"
+
+With a certain haste, he took the young man toward the vestibule of the
+Casino as though anxious to avoid the presence of the groups who were
+filling the anteroom.
+
+"Lieutenant, I have something to say to you.... I must ... ask a favor
+of you."
+
+He stammered, not knowing how to express the command which he himself
+felt was absurd.
+
+This vacillation, together with the trembling in his voice, finally
+irritated him.
+
+They stopped beside the glass door at the entrance. Martinez was no
+longer smiling, as he gazed in amazement at the hard look and the pallor
+of the Prince.
+
+"In a word," the latter said resolutely; "what I have to ask you is that
+you pay fewer visits at the house of the Duchess de Delille. If you
+should refrain entirely from going to see her, it would be even better."
+And he paused, breathing with a certain freedom, after having expressed
+this demand.
+
+An expression of amazement gradually took possession of Martinez' face.
+He hesitated for a moment, with his eyes fixed on Lubimoff's. No, it was
+not a jest: the hostile look of this man who had always treated him with
+amiable indifference, the sharpness of his tone, and a certain trembling
+of his right hand, indicated that he had expressed his real thoughts,
+and that behind these thoughts lay enormous depths of hatred against
+him.
+
+His surprise caused him to talk with timidity. He visited the Duchess
+because the lady asked him to come and see her every day. He had often
+felt his assiduity might prove to be a nuisance, but every attempt he
+had made to break off his visits had been fruitless. He scarcely left
+her for a few hours but the good lady had him sent for. She was as kind
+to him as a mother. Suddenly his humble tone vanished. His eyes guessed
+in those of the man who had stopped him something that he himself had
+never imagined. The Lieutenant seemed transfigured, as though rising to
+the same level as the Prince. His eyes shone with the same wild splendor
+as the other man's; his body stiffened with the tension of a spring
+about to be released; his nostrils quivered nervously. The little clerk,
+with his timid bearing, recovered the air of gallant bravery of the
+fighting man. His voice sounded harsh, as he went on talking.
+
+He would go wherever he was asked, wherever he felt like going, without
+recognizing the right of any man to interfere in his actions. The
+Duchess was the only one who could close her door to him. Why did the
+Prince interfere in that lady's affairs without consulting her first?
+
+"I am related to her," said Michael, inwardly hesitating somewhat at
+making use of the relationship which he had often preferred to deny.
+
+They both found themselves on the other side of the entry, on the
+platform above the steps of the Casino, in the open air, opposite the
+groves of the square and the groups of passersby who were walking about
+the "Camembert." They were obliged to stand aside, in order not to
+disturb those who were entering and coming out.
+
+"Besides," continued the Prince, "it is my duty to shield her from
+gossip. I cannot permit that. Seeing you in there at all hours, they
+should suppose...."
+
+He almost regretted these words on noticing the double effect that they
+had on the young man. First he became indignant. Had any one dared
+gossip about that great lady who had been such a saint in his eyes? But
+this protest was accompanied by a certain unconscious satisfaction, by
+childish pride, as though he were flattered, in spite of everything that
+his name should be connected in absurd conjecture with that of the
+Duchess. It seemed that Martinez had just been revealed to himself,
+giving substance and a name to the obscure sentiments that until then,
+in an embryonic stage, had pulsed unrecognized within him.
+
+The jealous mind of the Prince guessed, with keen penetration,
+everything that the other man was thinking, and this added fuel to his
+wrath. What impudence in this little clerk to take up Alicia's defense?
+What a conceited show he was making of his love for her!
+
+"If any one takes the liberty of talking about the Duchess," said the
+Lieutenant, "if anybody dares to gossip because she does me the honor of
+receiving me in her home--the greatest honor in my life!--I will take it
+on my shoulders to punish whoever invents such a lie, no matter how high
+up he may be, no matter how powerful he may think himself to be!"
+
+Lubimoff listened impatiently. Now it was Martinez daring to attack him.
+Those last words had carried a threat for him.
+
+Besides, the Prince felt irritated at his own clumsiness. His imprudent
+action had served merely to open this young man's eyes, and make him
+think of the possibilities of many things which he had never yet
+imagined, and which if he had imagined them, he would have cast aside
+immediately as foolish. And now no less than the Prince Lubimoff had
+elected to show this cheap Lieutenant that, in the opinion of gossips,
+such things were possible.
+
+The tone in which the officer defended Alicia aroused his anger even
+more. He divined in it great pride, the vanity of a poor fellow who had
+known love adventures only in books, and who suddenly found himself in
+supposed relations with a Duchess, as the rival of a Prince. How
+glorious for an upstart!
+
+"Boy ..." said Lubimoff, in a hard voice.
+
+This simple word, which was the term in which waiters were addressed in
+the hotels, was followed by a haughty look of overwhelming superiority,
+which seemed to sweep away everything extraordinary which the war had
+given Martinez: his uniform, his decorations, and his glorious wounds.
+For the Prince the officer no longer existed: there only remained the
+poor vagabond of a few years before, wandering from one hemisphere to
+another in quest of bread. "Boy," he repeated in a tone that brought
+back all the class distinction and social gradations of dead centuries,
+so that the man whom he had accosted might realize the enormous
+separation between him and the man to whom he deigned to give advice----
+
+"Boy, let's come to the point--. And if I were to order you not to
+return to that house? And if I demand that...?"
+
+He was unable to finish the sentence. His threatening voice, harsh as a
+cry of command, roused the indignation of the man in uniform. To have
+faced death for three long years, among thousands of comrades who were
+now lying in the ground; to have learned to set little store on life, as
+something proved worthless at every moment on the battlefield; to have
+stripped himself forever, by dint of frightful adventures and awful
+wounds, of that fear which the instinct of self-preservation puts in
+all beings, only to the end that now, in a pleasure resort, at the door
+of the most luxurious of gambling houses, a man, rich and powerful, but
+who had never done anything useful in his whole life, should dare to
+threaten him!...
+
+"You say that to me!" he said, stammering with rage. "You give orders to
+me!"
+
+Michael felt a hand seize him by the lapel of his coat. It was like a
+bird, tremulous and aggressive, pausing for an instant in its blind
+impulse, before flying upward. He was aware of the blow that was coming,
+and raised his arm instinctively, both hands met as that of the young
+man whirled close to the face of the Prince. The latter, who was
+stronger, seized the ascending hand and held it motionless, in a firm
+grip, while at the same time he smiled in a gruesome fashion. His eyes
+contracted as his eyebrows arched in the smile. They became again the
+eyes of an Asiatic. His nostrils dilated as he breathed like a stallion.
+The remote ancestors of the Princess Lubimoff must have smiled thus in
+their moments of anger.
+
+"Enough: I consider that I have received it," he said slowly, "Name two
+friends to confer with mine!"
+
+And freeing that hand of Martinez, he turned his back on him, after
+making a deep bow. The movements of both men had been rapid. Only one of
+the doorkeepers, with his official cap, standing guard on the platform
+above the steps, had guessed that anything had happened; but his
+professional experience advised him to remain passive as long as there
+were no blows. He imagined that it was merely a dispute over some
+gambling affair. It would all be settled by an explanation, and
+forgotten after a winning! He had seen so many such things!
+
+Prince Lubimoff reenters the Casino. He crosses the vestibule and the
+anteroom holding his head high, but without seeing any one, gazing
+straight ahead, with a faraway expression.
+
+It seems to him that time has suddenly been reversed, causing him to
+return to the past with one bound. He is back in his youth. He walks
+arrogantly. He is surprised that the sound of his firm tread is not
+accompanied by the tinkling of spurs and the metallic scraping of a
+saber. At the same time he begins to see imaginary faces, faces of those
+who disappeared from the earth many years ago: the Cossack who had come
+from a distant garrison in Siberia to avenge his sister; a friend in the
+same regiment as the Prince, who died from a sword thrust in his breast
+after a tumultuous supper, while Lubimoff wept, suddenly awakening from
+his homicidal intoxication; the faces of others who had been present as
+mere witnesses, but who had died and were now resurrected in his memory,
+cold and insensible to remorse and vain regrets.
+
+"The Colonel. Where in the devil is the Colonel!"
+
+He crosses the gambling room, in quest of a gray head, with a straight
+part from the forehead to the back of the neck, dividing the glistening
+hair into two shining sections. He sees it finally rising above the back
+of a divan, between two women's hats, four eyes darkly bordered as
+though in mourning, and cheeks with wrinkles filled with white and
+rose-colored enamel. A terse sentence of the Prince interrupts the
+explanations of the war news with which the Colonel had been thrilling
+the two ladies.
+
+"Colonel, an affair of honor. I intend to fight to-morrow. Look for
+another second."
+
+Toledo seems disconcerted by this order. His first thought flies to
+Villa Sirena. He sees his black frock coat, the solemn vestment of honor
+ready to leave its prison. Then a cloud of doubt obscures this joyous
+thought. A duel! Would it be fitting now that men are fighting in masses
+of millions, giving their lives for something higher and more important
+than personal hatred? His training immediately smothers this scruple. "A
+gentleman should always be at the orders of another gentleman." Besides,
+it is his Prince. And ready to fulfill his mission, he asks the name of
+the adversary.
+
+"Lieutenant Martinez."
+
+Don Marcos thinks he had heard wrong; then he seems to totter and stands
+there looking at his "Highness" in a sort of stupor. Instinctively,
+without taking the pains to disentangle the confused thoughts that
+assail him, he sees in his imagination the Duchess de Delille. Why did
+the Prince ever give up his wise theories on the woman question! He
+recalls, like a happy past, the flourishing days of the "enemies of
+women"! Only four months had gone by, and it seems as though they were
+centuries. A duel right in war time--and with an officer! And that
+officer is Martinez, his hero!
+
+He shrugs his shoulders, bows his head, and makes a gesture denying all
+responsibility as he always does when his Prince, with a hard look on
+his face which reminds Toledo of the dead Princess in her stormy days,
+gives absurd orders.
+
+"Shall I look for Don Atilio? He has had several affairs of honor; he
+knows what it means, and may be able to help me."
+
+The Prince is willing. In the bar of the private gambling rooms, he will
+wait for them both to talk over the conditions of the encounter.
+
+He remains motionless in a deep armchair, opposite a window gilded by
+the light of the setting sun, on which the threads of shadows, projected
+by the moving branches of the trees, weave and unweave. Suddenly it
+seems to him that he is obliged to wait an unreasonable length of time.
+It occurs to him that Castro is not in the Casino and that Don Marcos is
+looking for him in vain. He scarcely remembers the past at all. The
+officer's figure is sunk into a gray mist which falls across his memory:
+it is no longer anything save a vague outline. The one thing that he can
+see, in sharp relief and as though looming close to his eyes, is a hand:
+a hand which is gripping his breast and rising toward his face, that no
+man ever yet had slapped. His indignation causes him to come out of his
+deep fit of distraction. To do that to him! Trying to slap Prince
+Lubimoff!
+
+When he raises his eyes he sees Toledo approaching, but alone, with a
+certain embarrassment, fearing in advance the anger of the Prince. The
+latter, who feels kindly and tolerant since the scene of violence on the
+stairway, guesses what he is going to say to him. He has not found
+Castro and he absolves him with a benevolent smile.
+
+The Colonel speaks:
+
+"Marquis: Don Atilio refuses."
+
+"What!" And at the questioning glance of Lubimoff, who cannot
+understand, and who does not want to understand what he hears, Toledo
+repeats, growing more and more embarrassed.
+
+"He refuses to be your representative. He told me to find some one else.
+He has some ideas of his own that...."
+
+And he hesitates to express these ideas. He stops, in order not to say
+anything which the Prince ought not to hear from his lips: and he
+accepts as a blessing the silence of amazement which comes between them;
+he is afraid to let the Prince recover from the astonishment with which
+this news has overwhelmed him.
+
+As he starts to go away, he proposes something which seems to him a way
+out.
+
+"Does your Highness want me to call Don Atilio? He will surely come.
+Perhaps the two of you talking together...."
+
+And he goes away in search of Castro, while Michael Fedor once more
+becomes motionless in his seat, quite unable to comprehend the
+situation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Prince saw Castro standing by the little table close to his chair,
+with a certain appearance of haste in his look and bearing, like a man
+who is facing a difficult situation, and anxious to get out of it as
+soon as possible.
+
+The Prince invited him to take the nearest seat, but Castro consented
+only to sit down lightly on the arm of the chair, to indicate his desire
+that the interview be brief. Besides, he spoke first, bluntly expressing
+his thoughts, without any preamble.
+
+"The Colonel has doubtless told you my reply. I can't. You know very
+well that I am your friend: you even do me the honor of recognizing me
+as a relative; I owe you a great deal; but what you ask me now ... no!
+It is a piece of foolishness, madness. It all had to end like this!
+There was no other way out of it. I had a presentiment of it some time
+ago. Perhaps you were right when you talked about women as you did, and
+about the necessity of being their enemies--if such a thing is possible.
+But it doesn't do any good to bring up the past: You are no longer the
+Lubimoff who said those incoherent things. As for me I am mad, I'll
+grant you that: but you are even more so than I: and for that reason I
+can't be with you."
+
+Michael looked at him fixedly, without abandoning his silent immobility,
+waiting for him to go on.
+
+"A duel right in war time! Is there any common sense to that? You are
+the gentleman who remains quietly in his home, with all the comforts
+that the present time can allow, without running any risk whatsoever,
+while half of humanity is weeping, starving, bleeding, or dying. And
+just because one fine day you happen to be in an ill-humor--perhaps you
+know why--you want to fight a poor boy who has survived almost by a
+miracle, and who is sick and weak from having done what you and I are
+not capable of doing. You ask me to represent you in such a piece of
+business?"
+
+"He insulted me--he tried to strike me. I caught his hand close to my
+face," said the Prince in a low but rancorous voice from the depths of
+his chair.
+
+This caused Castro to hesitate for a moment, as he had no idea of the
+importance of the clash between the two men. But his hesitation was
+brief.
+
+"There is something that I don't understand and that you are keeping
+silent. The very seriousness of the insult indicates that there was
+something extraordinary on your part. For that poor, respectful, and
+timid boy to dare to strike, and strike a man like you!... What did you
+do to rouse him to such a pitch?"
+
+Lubimoff did not deign to reply. Without abandoning his frowning reserve
+he asked briefly:
+
+"Well, are you going to, or are you not?"
+
+Castro, irritated by this attitude, replied without hesitating:
+
+"It's all nonsense, and I refuse."
+
+Lubimoff still remained motionless at this refusal, but Atilio was sure
+he guessed the Prince's thoughts in the hostile look fixed on him. He
+was accusing him of ingratitude. At the same time he was holding the
+"General" responsible: believing that the latter must have influenced
+his decision. That Lieutenant was so greatly admired by Dona Clorinda!
+
+As though replying to these unexpressed ideas, Atilio went on:
+
+"Do you think I am interested in that boy you are bent on fighting? He
+is quite indifferent to me; I even dislike him, because of the great
+extremes to which certain women go in their admiration of his heroism.
+That is always annoying to those who are not heroes. I think how
+insignificant he must have been only four years ago. If I had met him
+then, I would have found him, I dare say, a book-keeper in some hotel,
+or a clerk in my haberdasher's in Paris. Imagine what a friend! But the
+war has swept over us, turning everything upside down, making some
+emerge, and burying others in the deepest depths, without any certainty
+of rising again. This boy happens to be somebody now. He is of more
+consequence than you or I. He has been of some use; and for me he is
+sacred, in spite of the fact that he inspires envy in me rather than
+admiration."
+
+The Prince finally made a gesture of protest. Then he shrugged his
+shoulders disdainfully, and sank once more into motionless silence. That
+little adventurer worth more than he, because they had punctured his
+skin in a fight or two!
+
+"We would never come to an understanding, even if we talked all the
+afternoon," continued Castro. "I have changed considerably, and you are
+the same man you have always been. I believe that yesterday I came to my
+'road to Damascus.' I feel to-day that I am a different man."
+
+And, through a certain need of expressing his great inner turmoil, he
+went on talking, without paying any attention to whether or not the
+Prince was listening to him.
+
+He had come to his "road of Damascus" near the Monte Carlo railway
+station, beside the tracks. He was with two ladies, in one of whom he
+was greatly interested. (Michael thought once more of Dona Clorinda.) A
+trainload of soldiers was returning from Italy; a somber train, without
+flags and without any branches of trees adorning the doors and windows.
+They were Frenchmen. They had been sent to Italy as reenforcements,
+after the disaster of Caporetto, and now they were being hurriedly
+recalled, to defend their own soil, which was again in danger.
+
+"No songs and no wild merriment; they were all silent, tired and dirty,
+with an epic dirtiness. The cars were more like wild beasts' cages, with
+their pungent odors of the animal ring. The soldiers were young men but
+they looked old, with their bristling beards, spotted uniforms, and
+faces parched by the sun, hardened by the cold, and cracked and chapped
+by the wind. The heat had caused them to remove their blouses, and they
+were in flannel shirts of an undefinable color, drenched with the sweat
+of so many fatigues and so many emotions.
+
+"One could guess that they were the battalion always predestined to
+arrive in time to sustain the hardest shocks; the one that punctually
+appeared in the places of greatest danger, with the heroic resignation
+of the strong, who allow themselves to be exploited, and who not only do
+their own work, but help out all the others who work less. Where had
+these men not fought? On their own soil, and on that of the Allies, and
+perhaps in the Orient, and now, they were returning again to the land of
+their first combats. Just when they were thinking they had accomplished
+everything, they had discovered they had as yet done nothing. In the
+weaving and unweaving of the web of war, it was necessary to begin all
+over again. Four years before, they imagined they had triumphed
+decisively on the banks of the Marne, and now they were returning once
+more to the Marne. Every winter, sunk in the mud, buried in the
+trenches, under the rain, they said to one another: 'This will be the
+last.' And another winter came, and another, and still another on the
+heels of the last, without any noticeable change. This was the reason
+for their fatalistic and resigned demeanor, the look of men who adapt
+themselves to everything and finally come to believe that their misery
+will be eternal, that human times of peace will never return."
+
+Castro stopped talking a moment and paid no attention to the face of his
+friend, which seemed to be asking what all that story had to do with
+him. "We were standing on the edge of an embankment, leaning on the
+barriers, and our heads were on a level with the men huddled in the
+carriages. The long train, the head of which had already reached the
+station, was slowly advancing. The two ladies were waving their
+handkerchiefs, smiling at the soldiers, and calling words of greeting to
+them. Many of the latter remained unmoved, looking at them with eyes of
+sleepy wild beasts. They had been greeted with ovations for four years.
+They knew realities, the terrible realities that lie beyond ovations!
+Others, young or more ardent, aroused themselves at the sight of these
+two elegant women. Electrified by their smiles, they stood erect,
+passing a hand over their wrinkled flannels, and threw kisses, trying to
+recover their gentleness of the days when they were not soldiers.
+Suddenly, one of those who were passing, forgot the women and noticed
+me, also waving my hat to them, and shouting hurrah. He was a sort of
+red-haired, bitter devil."
+
+Castro could still see him, as though his head were peering through one
+of the bar-room windows; perhaps he would be able to see, as long as he
+lived, the whitish parchment of the man's face, drawn across his
+prominent cheek-bones; his red beard hanging from his jaws, as though it
+were a piece of make-up, and above all, his insolent, sarcastic eyes, a
+muddy green color, like that of oysters. He was the soldier who
+criticizes, grumbles, and talks against the officers, while carrying out
+their orders. In civil life he must have been the disagreeable rebel
+who never approves of anything. As his eyes met those of Castro, the
+latter had a feeling of repulsion. He divined the man with whom one
+always clashes in the street, in the cars, and in the theater. And
+nevertheless, he would never forget his momentary meeting with that
+soldier who was passing and was disappearing in the distance, with only
+just enough time to say six words.
+
+He gave the two women a scornful, ironic smile--then another at Castro,
+who was still waving his hat, and pointed to the end of the carriage,
+shouting to him:
+
+"There's still room for one more!"
+
+And that was all he said.
+
+"He said enough, Michael. Since then I keep hearing his harsh voice: I
+shall always hear it, in my happiest moments, if I remain here. And the
+look in his eyes? I understood all the mute insults, the rapid
+comparisons that he made between his misery and my strong, well-groomed
+appearance. For him I was a coward gallivanting with women, when men are
+with men, giving their lives for something of importance."
+
+"Bah! You are a foreigner," interrupted the Prince, who seemed wearied
+by his friend's words.
+
+"I live here; and the land where I live cannot be foreign to me. This
+war is for something more than questions of land; it concerns all men.
+Look at the Americans, whom we all considered very practical and
+incapable of idealism; they know that they are not going to gain
+anything positive; and nevertheless they are entering the struggle with
+all their might. Besides, there is the spirit of the women. Would you
+imagine that the two that were with me laughed at the red-headed
+fellow's insult, considering it very apropos? And don't tell me that
+women are always attracted by the warrior, on every occasion. Perhaps by
+the warrior in peace times, shiny and beplumed. But these fellows now
+look so miserable! No; there is something very lofty in everything that
+surrounds us, something that you and I have not been able to see,
+because of our selfishness."
+
+His listener once more shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of
+indifference.
+
+"And when I think of my meeting yesterday, as I constantly am doing, and
+see the place that that damned redhead offered me jokingly, as though I
+were a woman, and as though I would never have the courage to take it,
+you propose that I arrange for a deadly combat with another of these men
+who consider themselves, not without reason, superior to us! No; now you
+know my answer: I won't accept."
+
+He had left the arm of the chair and was standing, facing the Prince.
+The latter made a gesture of weariness. He was bored by Atilio's words,
+by that childlike story about the train, the red-haired soldier and his
+insolent invitation. That might move Dona Clorinda, but nobody else; he
+had more important things to think about just then. And since he refused
+to do him the favor, he could leave him alone.
+
+"Good-by, Michael!" said Castro, with the conviction that this farewell
+was going to be something more than a momentary parting.
+
+"Good-by," replied the Prince, without stirring.
+
+When he had almost reached the door, Atilio turned back.
+
+"I know what my refusal means, and what it is up to me to do. Good-by
+again. Remember that if you were to ask me anything else...."
+
+But the Prince interrupted his words with another gesture of
+indifference, and Atilio went away, hiding his emotion.
+
+Immediately Don Marcos entered the bar, as though he had been waiting
+on the other side of the curtain for Castro to come out. His
+"chamberlain" had never seemed to the Prince so active and intelligent.
+
+"It is all arranged, Marquis."
+
+As he had felt certain that Atilio would not allow himself to be
+persuaded, he had gone in search of another second. He thought for a
+moment of going to Monaco, to speak to Novoa. Then he remembered the
+professor's relations with Valeria. Such a visit would be equivalent to
+informing the Duchess of the entire affair. Besides, the scientist did
+not know anything about such matters, and was a fellow countryman of
+Martinez. It was quite enough that one Spaniard should figure in this
+affair.
+
+"I have my second," he continued. "It will be Lord Lewis."
+
+In the Colonel's eyes, Lewis was more of a Lord than ever. He was
+thankful for the promptness with which he had granted his request. The
+Englishman was winning money that afternoon, and was in an excellent
+humor. He even got up from his seat, leaving the gambling, to listen to
+the Colonel. He wanted to take him over to the bar, affirming that with
+a whiskey in front of a fellow he can talk better; and Toledo guessed
+from his breath that he had already taken several drinks to celebrate
+his good luck. Lewis was disposed to serve his friend Lubimoff. As far
+as fights were concerned, he was acquainted only with boxing; but he had
+absolute confidence in the Colonel's expert opinion and would support
+anything he might say. Immediately afterwards he had returned to his
+play.
+
+Michael gave Toledo his instructions. It would be an encounter under
+rigorous conditions, like those which he had witnessed in Russia. It
+could be nothing else: he had received a blow. And he said this with a
+sullen voice, quite convinced of the absolute reality of the insult.
+
+As night fell, he left the Casino, avoiding his acquaintances who were
+invading the bar, and obliging him to smile and keep up frivolous
+conversation, while his thoughts were far away.
+
+In all his moments of profound anger, when unable to put his feelings
+into immediate and violent action, his nervous excitation was followed
+by a certain lassitude which caused his muscles and nerves to relax.
+
+It was with a real pleasure that he entered Villa Sirena, finding an
+unwonted voluptuousness in all the details of its comforts. He spent the
+time he was waiting for the Colonel in reading. At nine o'clock he was
+obliged to eat alone. Then he returned to his book, but this time in his
+bedroom, finally lying down, book in hand. He smiled with a smile that
+was almost a grimace, as he thought that his nervous fatigue had caused
+him to stretch out in the same posture as the dead.
+
+He went on turning the pages without losing a single line, and
+nevertheless he could not have told what he was reading. Suddenly, he
+concentrated his attention in an effort to remember. Something had
+happened; something was awaiting him. What was it? "Oh, yes!" And after
+reconstructing in his memory what had taken place that afternoon, and
+imagining what was to take place the following day, he returned to his
+meaningless reading.
+
+The pages melted away like snowflakes; he felt his hand grow lighter;
+the book finally fell on the bed. Instinctively he sought the electric
+button to darken the room, and before completely losing all perception
+of the outer world, he could hear his own first regular breathing.
+
+A light striking against his eyes made him sit up. He saw the Colonel
+beside his bed. The deep silence of the night, which seemed even more
+absolute when emphasized by the sound of the sea, was broken off by the
+panting of a motor-car.
+
+The Prince rubbed his eyes. What time was it?
+
+"One o'clock," said Don Marcos.
+
+Everything was arranged. The meeting was to take place on the following
+day, at two o'clock in the afternoon. It could not be managed earlier!
+There were still a great many things left to be done. The place selected
+was Lewis' castle; an encounter in the principality of Monaco would be
+impossible. All the houses there were close together, without a single
+quiet spot where two men might face each other, pistol in hand.
+
+Lubimoff almost jumped out of bed, so great was his surprise. The choice
+of arms was his, as the injured person, and he had mentioned to his
+representative the saber, the favorite weapon of his youthful duels.
+Toledo, for the first time faced the furious look of his Prince without
+a tremor.
+
+"Marquis," he said with dignity. "It could not be anything else! You
+must remember that this poor young man is a convalescent, almost an
+invalid. I am astonished that he should have persuaded his seconds to
+allow even pistols. His representatives did not want to accept anything.
+They are among those who feel that this duel ought not to take place."
+
+The Prince calmed himself. A sense of equity caused him to accept
+Toledo's decision. That sick fellow was not an enemy worthy of his
+saber; it was necessary to establish a certain equality between them,
+and the pistol would do that, being the only weapon that lends itself to
+surprises and whims of chance.
+
+"At any event I shall kill him," thought Michael, remembering his skill
+as a marksman.
+
+"I must tell your Highness," the Colonel went on, "that all weapons are
+the same to him. This young man and his two friends are well acquainted
+with everything that concerns warfare, but they haven't the slightest
+notion of duelling and the weapons that are used on such occasions."
+
+Then he enumerated the conditions. The distance was to be fifteen
+meters; each one was to fire a single shot, but each might aim and fire
+while he, who was to direct the combat, was counting from one to three.
+With a marksman like the Prince, such conditions would be serious.
+
+Exactly! The Prince found them acceptable.
+
+"Good-night," he said, burying himself in the bed, and pulling the
+coverlet up to his eyes.
+
+Once more sleep overwhelmed him, now that his curiosity was satisfied.
+
+Toledo would have liked to do the same, but he was obliged to fulfill
+the sacred duties of his exalted position, and he went from room to room
+looking through every drawer and climbing on chairs to rummage around on
+the top shelves of the closets. He was looking for a box of duelling
+pistols, that had been given to him in Russia by one of the Generals who
+was a friend of the dead Marquis. When he finally found it, he was
+obliged to spend more than an hour in cleaning the luxurious weapons,
+which had lost their silvery brilliancy in the oblivion of their long
+confinement.
+
+He felt tired, yet at the same time his feeling of importance warded off
+sleep. Was he not the soul of the drama which was being prepared for the
+following day, he alone? Without him, neither his Highness nor Martinez
+could fight. Lord Lewis and the two soldiers who represented the
+adversary were incapable of a single idea, and had to follow him as
+though they were his pupils.
+
+Consciousness of this superiority caused him to recall from
+mid-afternoon to mid-night all his past negotiations and triumphs.
+
+He had gone in quest of Martinez, with a certain hesitation. In spite of
+his old beliefs, he felt Atilio's protests were quite reasonable.
+Perhaps what he said was right, that this duel was a piece of
+foolishness, madness even, on the part of the Prince. But his
+traditional ideas revolted against such scruples.
+
+"Honor is honor." And, hearing the Lieutenant accept reparation by arms,
+with joy, and with a certain haste, as though he were afraid that Toledo
+would repent and withdraw the proposal, the Colonel felt the
+satisfaction of a person who, after long hesitation, becomes convinced
+that he is in the right. Heroic youth, ready to maintain all points of
+honor! Don Marcos found it natural that he should act thus. Martinez was
+from the same land as himself!
+
+For a moment his memory dwelt on the image of the Duchess. Perhaps she
+was the involuntary cause of this clash, and the boy was animated by a
+feeling of vanity. He was going to figure in a duel such as he had read
+about in the story books of his youth; he was going to be a chief actor
+in one of those dreams of high life that seemed to him to belong to
+another world. But the Colonel immediately put aside such speculations,
+which had been suggested by the frank rejoicing with which Martinez
+accepted the challenge, as though it were an invitation to a party.
+
+From that moment on Toledo began to be more and more bewildered. The
+world had changed, changed completely, and he advanced from amazement to
+amazement.
+
+To favor his compatriot, he wanted to know the arms for which the latter
+had a preference.
+
+"I am acquainted with so many!" exclaimed Martinez.
+
+In an attack he had wounded with the point of a saber a gigantic German
+who was threatening him with his bayonet. The thrust had met something
+hard that crunched, and spurted a shower of blood into his face. Then,
+on growing calm, he saw that he had driven the weapon through his
+adversary's mouth, breaking his spinal column. He was also acquainted
+with the revolver, but was not a marksman. He was more expert with other
+weapons: the hand grenade, which reminded him of youthful ball games;
+the machine gun, which he had handled as a mere aid; explosive hurled
+with a sling. He was even fairly skilled in artillery, but trench
+artillery, in loading short range mortars, used in firing torpedoes and
+asphyxiating projectiles into the neighboring trench!
+
+He smiled scornfully when Don Marcos insisted on the fencing formalities
+to be employed with the saber. He had his own style of fencing; to go
+straight up to the enemy and strike first. But in hand to hand fighting
+he preferred the knife. With a revolver he had never bothered about
+aiming. He didn't fire until he found himself close to the enemy, and
+was sure of his shot.
+
+"And the duelling pistol?" asked the Colonel.
+
+"I am not acquainted with it at all. I should like to see one: it must
+be something curious."
+
+Toledo's hesitating glance wandered over the officer's breast, as though
+taking an inventory of his decorations, pausing at the stars that dotted
+the striped ribbons of his War Cross. Each one of them symbolized a
+great deed.
+
+When the Lieutenant presented his seconds, the bewilderment of Don
+Marcos was not relieved. They were two extremely young captains. Toledo
+guessed they were twenty-five or twenty-six years of age. Their uniforms
+fitting very tight about the waist, their kepis of the latest style,
+their neatness and elegance pleased the Colonel, who immediately took
+them to be professional soldiers. They must have come from the school of
+Saint-Cyr; his professional eye could not be mistaken; they were of a
+different stock from humble Martinez!
+
+One of them had had his face burned on one side by German liquid fire:
+the other's face was burrowed with a network of scarlet threads, which
+were the remains of scars. They both limped; one of them, with an
+enormous foot covered with wrappings and shod with a felt shoe, was
+quite frankly leaning on a stick; while his companion, who had a stiff
+leg, wore a trim tiny shoe, displaying a certain vanity also in a
+slender rattan cane, which he really used for support.
+
+Their first words were rather embarrassing for the Colonel and Lewis.
+What was the meaning of this, a civilian daring to insult a soldier who
+was recovering from his wounds? What was the idea in proposing a duel in
+the midst of war? Any one who wanted to die himself or kill someone else
+had only to go to the front, like the rest. But Martinez, who was still
+present, intervened, entering into a rapid discussion with them. Did
+they want to do him this favor he had asked them as comrades, or not?
+Yes, but they were giving their own opinion of the matter. In their
+judgment the logical thing would have been to put an end to the quarrel
+right there on the Casino steps: two good punches at that slacker who
+wasn't going to war and took the liberty of annoying those who were
+doing their duty! They talked like men thoroughly aware of the fragility
+of life, like men who know how easy it is to take another man's life, or
+to lose one's. They laughed instinctively at the importance, the
+ceremonies and the so-called "equities" with which in peace times a
+private encounter is surrounded. But in the end, since their comrade
+insisted on their representing him in this farce, they would do it to
+please him, even though their compliance might get them into the guard
+house.
+
+Scarcely had Martinez withdrawn, when one of the Captains, the one with
+the elephantine foot in a felt shoe, confessed his lack of competence in
+such matters.
+
+"I never saw a duel in Bordeaux. I have no idea what it's like. Before
+the war I was a traveling salesman in Mexico. Wine was my line. I sailed
+with all the Frenchmen who were living there, and by a miracle we were
+not captured by a _Boche_ pirate. I started in as a second class
+private; but I did what I could. If it were a business matter I would
+give my opinion, but in a thing like this!... Perhaps my comrade here."
+Another Martinez! Don Marcos forgot the Captain with the felt shoe. He
+was the Lewis of the opposite side. He concentrated all his attention on
+the Captain with the shiny boots and the toy cane. The latter must be an
+adversary worthy of him. It was a shame that his clear eyes should have
+the ironical expression of a man who makes a joke of everything, and
+that under his red mustache, trimmed short, in the English fashion,
+there should flit a faint look of insolence!
+
+He was born in Paris, as he proudly declared as soon as he started to
+speak; and when Don Marcos slyly sounded him to find out whether or not
+he was an expert in affairs of honor and had witnessed many duels, he
+said in a simple way:
+
+"More than a hundred."
+
+Toledo had not been mistaken. This was the man with whom he would have
+the struggle. Then he thought of the number, and compared it with the
+Captain's age. More than a hundred, and surely he was not over
+twenty-six! He had a presentiment that he was going to be up against
+some famous swordsman, whose glorious name has been momentarily obscured
+by the war.
+
+The Captain and the Colonel were the only ones to do any talking. In the
+beginning the Captain had had an air of jesting, with a Parisian sense
+of humor, at the solemn, high-sounding terms in which Don Marcos treated
+questions of honor. But the Colonel's reserved and persistent
+grandiloquence finally got the better of the other's inclination to
+banter. The young Captain took the same tone as the Colonel, finally
+interested in the affair and recognizing its importance.
+
+At certain moments, the Colonel felt doubtful on listening to the way in
+which his rival formulated amazing heresies, revealing absolute
+ignorance of the great authorities who have codified the laws of
+encounters between gentlemen. And this man had been present at more than
+a hundred duels! Later, Don Marcos was amazed at the promptness with
+which the texts he had cited himself were appropriated by the young man;
+at the ease with which his classics had been assimilated, somewhat
+inverted in meaning, to be sure, the better to sustain affirmations
+contrary to his own.
+
+When the encounter was arranged for in its slightest details, the
+Captain summed up his impressions with a simplicity that made the blood
+of Don Marcos run cold.
+
+"One or both perhaps will be wounded. There is nothing extraordinary
+about that. Who isn't wounded these days? Surgery has made great
+progress; it is quite different from what it was at the beginning of the
+war. If a man doesn't die on the spot, he is nearly always saved.
+Besides, they will put them to bed and they won't remain abandoned on
+the field for days and days, as happens in war."
+
+But the placid expression with which he talked about wounds was clouded
+over, giving way to a grim look.
+
+"I am assuming, of course," he continued, "that no one is killed.
+Because if, for example, my comrade, Martinez, who is as gentle as a
+lamb and of whom I am very fond, should die in this farce, I'll kill
+your Prince on the spot, without any rules whatsoever, the way we kill
+a _Boche_ at the front."
+
+The tone in which he said these words was so sincere, that the Colonel,
+deeply impressed by them, did not observe how strange they sounded in
+the mouth of an expert in the laws of honor.
+
+The conversation became more intimate and cordial as always happens when
+a difficult matter has been settled. Toledo was obliged to tell them
+about his life as a soldier--at least the way he imagined it had been,
+after so many years--and both young men, who had witnessed the combats
+of millions of men, showed the same interest as children listening to a
+strange tale, as he related obscure encounters in the mountains, battles
+that did not even have a name and were remembered only in an exaggerated
+fashion by Don Marcos himself.
+
+The Parisian Captain, elegant and charming, also talked about his past.
+
+"As for me, before the war, I worked in the Box Office of the theaters
+on the Boulevard. I haven't any other position."
+
+Don Marcos had to make an effort to conceal his surprise. Indeed, he had
+seen more than a hundred duels; but in plays on the stage, between
+actors, who draw out the preliminaries of the encounters with
+ceremonious deliberation, in order to prolong the suspense of the
+audience. He should have guessed it on hearing his nonsense! What a fool
+that boy had made of him!
+
+But immediately his eyes fell on the coats of the two young men. The
+same as Martinez: The Legion of Honor, the Military Medal and the War
+Cross, with stars. That of the former ticket seller was even crossed by
+a golden palm.
+
+Ah, indeed! The world had changed. Where were the days of Don Marcos?
+Then he thought of all he had done in his life to increase his own self
+esteem; by appearing in full ceremony at various duels where most often
+no blood was shed. He also thought of what these young men had done and
+seen in less than four years. Their obscure origin brought to his memory
+the various warriors of Napoleon, whose names were celebrated and whose
+origin had been even worse. Some of them had succeeded in becoming
+kings, while these poor Captains once the war was over, would have to
+return, laden with glory, to their former occupations, struggling day by
+day to earn their bread!
+
+They separated, agreeing to meet after dinner, to sign the paper stating
+the conditions of the encounter. They were all four in accord, but on
+mentioning this number, Toledo noticed that there were only three. Lewis
+had witnessed the long preliminaries with a certain impatience, seated
+on a divan in the ante-room of the Casino.
+
+"There's a friend waiting for me. I'll be back in a moment."
+
+And he had entered the gambling rooms, which were forbidden to the
+officers.
+
+The Colonel had no illusions as to the duration of that moment, about
+two hours having passed. After leaving the Captains, he found Lewis at a
+_trente et quarante_ table, with a heap of thousand franc chips in front
+of him. Of course he did not understand what Toledo whispered in his
+ear. He had to make an effort to recall.
+
+"Oh, yes, the matter of the duel! I have every confidence in you; do
+whatever you please, I shall sign what you give me, but I am not going
+to get up, even though they might tell me Lubimoff was dead. What a day
+this has been, my friends! If they were all like this!"
+
+And he turned his back, to make the most of his time, before the flight
+of luck would change.
+
+Don Marcos had dined in the Cafe de Paris, going over in his mind the
+various articles he should put in the dueling agreement. The
+consideration that they were all relying on his superior knowledge
+caused him to be very exacting with himself. He wanted something concise
+and brilliant which would inspire respect in those boys, who were
+covered with glory. And he spent more than an hour, with the dessert
+dishes in front of him on the table, scribbling over sheet after sheet
+of paper, tearing each one up and beginning all over again on another.
+It was futile work: both signed in the reading room of the Casino,
+hardly giving the eloquent text a glance. As for Lewis he was obliged to
+get him out of the private gambling rooms by every sort of trick, and
+entreaty. The Englishman had forgotten to dine, in order not to offend
+Madame Fortune by his absence, and that stubborn Colonel came and
+disturbed him with his damned affair of the duel!
+
+He signed the document without looking at it; he gave his word to the
+officers that he would come and get them in an automobile to take them
+to his castle. Then he ran away immediately, not without first saying to
+Don Marcos in a gruff tone:
+
+"Until four o'clock, no later! If it isn't all over at four, I'll let
+them kill each other alone and come back here. That's the hour that the
+fine deals commence. To-day's luck is going to continue."
+
+And he fled, smiling with pity on people who were occupied with less
+important things.
+
+On finding himself alone, the Colonel began to make preparations for the
+encounter. He needed a doctor. He would go next morning and find an old
+physician in Monte Carlo who visited the Prince from time to time. He
+needed powder and balls; he proposed to go in quest of them to-morrow
+also. He needed two cases of pistols, and he had only one!
+
+The matter of the two cases he considered essential. The other man's
+seconds did not know where to get theirs. No matter; he would find them
+one. The indispensable thing was that there should be two, so that fate
+might decide which they should use. Without that, the conditions would
+not be equal. And he spent the time until about one o'clock in the
+morning, asking hotel employees, rousing people out of bed, going down
+to the rooms of the Sporting Club, until an American whom he knew gave
+him a note for a certain fellow-countryman, a gloomy, half crazy fellow,
+who lived in an isolated villa on Cap-Ferrat. He thought he would
+conclude this negotiation the following day; and to do so he had rented
+an automobile.
+
+Owing to the lack of vehicles and gas, the cost of the car was enormous;
+but it was necessary owing to the importance of his functions.
+
+But now he was in Villa Sirena, at two o'clock in the morning, slowly
+cleaning the pistols, as though they were fragile jewels.
+
+In the silence of his bedroom, far from mankind, influenced by the
+lonely mystery of the small hours of the night, which puts a certain
+vagueness in things and ideas, he felt an enormous self-aggrandizement.
+No; his world had not changed as much as he thought. The proof was that
+he was there, cleaning weapons for a duel!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On waking up the next morning, the Prince could not find his
+"chamberlain". The rented auto had carried him off at seven o'clock, to
+complete his preparations.
+
+Lubimoff wandered about the gardens, stopping in front of the cages,
+which sheltered various exotic birds. Then with an absent-minded look,
+he followed the evolutions of various peacocks, spreading their tails,
+colored blue and golden, or a royal black, in the sunlight.
+
+His old valet interrupted his promenade. Some men had come with a truck
+to get Senor Castro's baggage.
+
+Michael showed no surprise; they might hand over everything to them that
+belonged to Don Atilio. But the servant added that the same men also
+wanted to take away the little that belonged to Senor Spadoni, news
+which amazed the Prince. He, too! What reason had Spadoni to desert him?
+
+He glanced at the brief note written to the Colonel and signed by them
+both. In his flight, Castro was taking with him the dreamy pianist.
+
+"All right," he thought; "let them all leave; let them leave me alone.
+If they think that by doing so they are going to make me refrain from
+carrying out my intention!..."
+
+Then he resumed his walk.
+
+Only a few hours remained before he would find himself facing that young
+man whom he so hated. He was going coldly to do away with him, so that
+he would not continue to be a nuisance. The conditions planned by the
+Colonel were sufficient for a marksman of his skill to bring down his
+adversary. He needed only a single shot.
+
+For a moment he thought of going to the end of the gardens, where he
+sometimes passed the time shooting. It was a good idea that he should
+practise steadiness of hand--the pistol is full of surprises. Then he
+decided not to, as it seemed unworthy that he should add these
+preparations to his evident superiority. His mediocre adversary could
+not be practising at that time. He had no facilities for doing so in
+Monte Carlo where he had no other friends than his convalescent comrades
+and a few ladies. He, on the other hand!... he held out his muscular
+arm, keeping it rigid for a few seconds with his eye glued on his fist.
+There was not the slightest tremor! He would be able to place a ball
+wherever he wanted. Poor Martinez might consider himself a dead man. And
+not the slightest sign of remorse disturbed the Prince's infernal pride
+in his implacable strength.
+
+His consciousness of superiority was so great and his certainty in the
+result so absolute, that he finally began to feel some doubt, that
+feeling of uneasiness which is inspired by the mystery of things still
+to be accomplished. Suddenly there came crowding into his memory stories
+of combats in which the weak unexpectedly triumphed over the strong,
+through an obscure mandate of inherent justice. He recalled many novels
+in which the reader draws a sigh of relief on seeing that the hero,
+modest and agreeable, placed in danger of death by the "villain," who is
+stronger and wickeder than he, not only saves his own life, but in
+addition kills his adversary, through some happy chance; all of which
+goes to show the existence of some superior and just power which on most
+occasions seems asleep, but at certain moments awakens, giving each
+person what he deserves. Since the time of David, the little barefoot
+shepherd, killing with a stone the huge giant clad in bronze, humanity
+has enjoyed such stories.
+
+Pistols are capricious weapons, and lend themselves to the absurd
+determinations of fate. Might he not fall, with all his skill, at the
+poor Lieutenant's first shot?
+
+He held out his arm again, as before, looking at his clenched first.
+Then he smiled, with the smile of his ancestors, which gave his features
+a Mongolian ugliness. Mere traditional fiction, inventions of story
+writers, to flatter the public in a sentimental love of equality! The
+strong are always the strong. Within a few hours he would sweep that
+nuisance out of the way, calmly and without remorse, the way superior
+men always act.
+
+A roaring sound coming from the railway line drew him from his
+thoughts. It was a trainload of soldiers approaching, like all the
+others, with an ovation of shouts, acclamations and whistling. It was
+rolling along towards Italy, in the direction opposite to that of the
+numerous trains coming to the French front. The Prince walked over to a
+garden terrace, the stone flower-covered wall of which descended to the
+track. The cars seemed to pass of their own will before his eyes,
+showing him one side as they rounded the curve, and then the other as
+they reached another curve, where they were lost to view.
+
+The uniform of these combatants puzzled the Prince for a moment, as an
+unexpected novelty. They were dressed in dark blue serge, with their
+blouses open at the neck, and sleeves rolled up. On their heads they
+wore white caps with the brims turned up all around, like the little
+paper boats that children make.
+
+He finally recognized them: they were sailors from the United States, a
+battalion, sailors from the fleet, going to Italy so that the Stars and
+Stripes might represent the huge republic on the icy summits of the Alps
+and on the hot marshy plains of Venetia.
+
+With the rapidity of mental visions, which reveal, one superimposed upon
+the other but nevertheless distinct, a great number of diverse images,
+the Prince recalled the harbors of North America which he had visited in
+his youth, aquatic beehives, gathering together all the work and riches
+of the earth; monstrous, interminable cities, with populations as large
+as nations, and in which liberty and well-being seemed to have reached
+their highest limits.... And these men were leaving the comforts of a
+scientifically organized existence, their productive business, their
+amply remunerative work, their immediate hopes of wealth, perhaps to die
+for an ideal in the Old World, merely for an ideal, since they were not
+seeking new strips of land nor indemnities for their country! And until
+then, the average person had considered this country as the most
+materialistic, the least poetic and idealist of all nations, calling it
+the land of the dollar!... It was true that unselfish ideals were
+something more than words, since millions of men were coming across the
+sea to give their blood for them!
+
+The sailors, after passing through the city of Monte Carlo, where they
+were greeted with cheers and waving flags, were entering the open
+country, where their shouts faded away with no answering echoes. For
+this reason their attention was attracted by that flowering terrace and
+the man appearing above it. It was like a procession on review: the
+carriages, one by one, came to life as they passed the Prince. From all
+the car windows arms with sleeves rolled up projected, shaking white
+caps. On the car roofs, a few strapping lads were gesticulating, with
+arms and legs extended, while the wind rippled in the folds of their
+dark trousers, above the white leggings. More than a thousand throats
+greeted the solitary man on the terrace with gay whistling, hurrahs, or
+unintelligible cries, which gave vent to the exuberant feelings of those
+youths, hungry for danger and glory, full of joy and curiosity, as they
+passed through an Old World which to them was new.
+
+Lubimoff remained motionless, with his elbows on the railing, and his
+chin in one hand, as though he did not see that pent-up river of men,
+gliding along below his feet. The gay sailors, as they passed, turned
+their heads, repeating their shouts and greetings, as though anxious to
+awaken that human figure, rigid and clinging to the balustrade as though
+forming a part of its decoration.
+
+He had completely forgotten the thoughts and worries of a moment before.
+All he saw was that torrent of young men rushing to meet danger and
+death for certain ideals as simple and beautiful as their blossoming
+youth. They were coming from the other side of the earth with that
+naive faith that accomplishes the great miracles of history; and in the
+meantime, Prince Lubimoff, who, by dint of seeking after superior ideas
+and exquisite sensations, had finally come to believe in nothing, was
+there at his garden rail, calculating the surest means of killing a man,
+a man who was useful, like those who were passing.
+
+Castro's image arose in his mind. He, too, had witnessed two days
+before, the passing of a train. He recalled the impression so deep and
+powerful that had impelled him to leave Villa Sirena, and break with his
+relative. He could see, just as it had been described to him, the bitter
+look of that red-headed soldier insulting him with scorn.
+
+"There's room here for one more!"
+
+The American sailors continued their whistling, and their exuberantly
+youthful shouting; but it seemed to him that these voices and waving of
+hands said the same as the other man's words, inviting him with ironical
+politeness: "Come; there's a place here for you!" A little later, and
+the voices were dumb, but he could still hear them, deep in his soul,
+like the far-off booming of a bell. He had considered himself a brave
+man, who as a matter of distinction, of sophistication, of refined
+indifference, preferred to keep aloof from things which rouse enthusiasm
+in other mortals. But the far-off tolling of the bell protested, ringing
+in his ear, repeating a single word: "Coward! Coward!"
+
+He walked about the garden in a pensive mood until Toledo arrived in the
+afternoon. They had lunch in a hurry, and the Colonel made several
+recommendations. His knowledge of dueling matters, which has as many
+branches as the tree of science, touched in one of its ramifications on
+cooking. The Prince should not take any wine; since he must keep his
+hand steady. And as the Colonel said this he was praying inside that
+the bullets would all go astray, since both contestants inspired an
+equal interest in him. Some soft boiled eggs, nothing more; and not much
+liquid. At the last moment he should remember to empty his bladder. A
+terrible thing a wound with internal leakage! Nothing escaped the
+Colonel--he thought of everything.
+
+He went up to his room to put on the frock coat he wore at duels. The
+moment for officiating had arrived. He remained hesitating in front of
+the mirror, realizing the lack of harmony between this majestic garment
+and the derby that topped off his appearance. Oh, the war! He smiled at
+the absurd thought of presenting himself thus four years before--it
+seemed like four centuries--in those Paris duels, in which the seconds
+and adversaries felt that it was only decent to go to meet death with an
+elegant, shiny, high hat.
+
+Having omitted this solemn touch, he felt that he might look somewhat
+ridiculous sitting in the automobile beside the Prince, with his long
+frock coat and the two pistol cases on his knees.
+
+The carriage stopped in the Boulevard des Moulins, in front of the
+doctor's house. Wounded soldiers were passing, some with fixed stares,
+tapping the pavement in front of them with sticks, others tottering
+along out of weakness or owing to an amputation.
+
+A woman's voice, smooth and sweet, greeted the Prince. It was the voice
+of an extremely slender nurse, who was walking arm and arm with two
+blind officers. Michael and Don Marcos recognized Lewis' niece. She
+smiled at them, showing them the two strapping Englishmen whom she was
+serving as a guide; two fair-haired Apollos, tanned by the sun, with
+Roman profiles, shining teeth, and lithe bodies, strong and symmetrical,
+but with vacant eyes--like fires that have gone out--and a tragic
+expression on their lips, an expression of despair and protest at
+finding themselves dead in the midst of life.
+
+"They are my two 'crushes'. How do you like them?" She was jesting in
+order to cheer up her companions, with that joyousness and daring of a
+Virgin Dolorosa, passing through the world scattering pale rays of
+Northern sunlight in the ambulances and hospitals. She seemed to be made
+entirely of the same stuff as the sacramental Host, fragile, anaemic,
+white and transparent, like dim crystal. And she went away, guiding like
+children the two blind men, despairing and handsome, whose heads towered
+above her own. A slight pressure of their fingers would have been enough
+to crush that body, like an alabaster lamp, all light, of no more
+substance than was necessary to guard the inner flame and cause it to
+shine through.
+
+"Good-by, Lady Lewis!" said the Prince.
+
+Don Marcos started on hearing his voice; it was a solemn voice such as
+he had never heard, a tremulous voice like a sentimental song in the
+depths of which lay teardrops.
+
+The doctor laid his surgical case on the frayed carpet in the auto.
+There were three such cases now. It was not until then that the Colonel
+decided to relieve himself of the two precious boxes, placing them on
+top of the doctor's.
+
+The car started off up the mountain, by a road that rose in sharp
+zigzags. At the end of each angle, Monte Carlo was revealed, smaller and
+smaller, and more sunken, like a toy city built of blocks with its red
+roof and many ants threading its streets to gather together in the
+Square. On the other hand, the sea seemed to arch its back, constantly
+rising, devouring with its blue rectilinear jaws a portion of the sky at
+each turn in the climb.
+
+On the crest of the hill a huge mass of masonry kept growing more and
+more gigantic; La Trophee, a name which had finally changed to La
+Turbie, the medieval name of the little gray, walled village, which
+huddled about the monument. Two slender columns of white marble flanking
+the rubble-work, and a piece of the cornice were all that remained of
+the proudest of Roman trophies--a tower 30 meters in height, with a
+gigantic statue of Augustus, on its summit, which marked on the Alps the
+boundary between the lands of the Empire and those of the conquered
+Gauls. The auto, leaving the hamlet of La Turbie behind, was now running
+along the ancient Roman road.
+
+"I can see the Legions," Don Marcos gravely murmured.
+
+It was a mania of his. He had never had sufficient imagination to be
+able to see the Legions for himself; but after witnessing in a moving
+picture film a procession of supers, with bare legs and short swords,
+following Julius Caesar's horse, Roman military life had had no mysteries
+for him, and every time he went up to La Turbie he murmured the same
+words: "I can see the Legions."
+
+A few minutes later he forgot his resurrection of the warlike past to
+point out various buildings, of such a bluish gray color that they
+blended with the hills behind them. It was Lewis' castle. Standing out
+from it, one could see solitary towers, joined to the square mass of the
+buildings by causeways; watch towers flanking the gates; sharp slate
+roofs, with double rows of tiny dormers; roofs that only had the wooden
+rafters, through which one could see, as though the interior had been
+gutted by a fire; walls half built, descending at a right angle like a
+stone carpenter's square riveted to the ground on its long edge.
+
+From a distance the castle might have been taken for an abandoned ruin.
+Lewis, having lost hope of being able to finish it, declared in good
+faith that it was better thus, since it would save him the trouble of
+decorating it with artificial ruins. It looked like some legendary
+fortress, such as those his father, the historian, had described, made
+for gray skies, for moist green forests, and which seemed anxious to
+escape from the sun-baked landscape of scanty vegetation, and to shrink
+from contact with the olive trees, the cacti, and the woody thickets
+covered with coarse flowers.
+
+They got out of the car on a smooth piece of ground, bordered on two
+sides by two buildings, meeting to form a right angle. It was the court
+of honor, the future parade ground of the castle. On the other two
+sides, some walls that rose only a meter above the soil, suggested what
+the courtyard might some day be, if Fortune would only cease being so
+intractable for the proprietor. At the open end of the flat ground was
+another hired car, and beside it the three soldiers.
+
+Lewis came forward to greet the Prince. They had arrived a short time
+before, and as he was in a hurry, he went into conference with the
+Colonel at once.
+
+Don Marcos was the oracle that he must consult in order not to lose any
+time. Might they end this business right here? Would it not be better to
+do it behind the castle, in an orchard surrounded by old olive trees?
+The Colonel, with a pistol case under each arm, was examining the
+terrain. The one thing that really concerned him at first was his own
+person. He felt, indeed, that he looked ridiculous. There were these
+three officers with their uniforms; the Prince, with his dark blue
+street suit; the doctor, dressed like an old man; Lewis, as usual, with
+the wide straw hat, without which he would never dream of taking a trip
+to the castle; and there he was himself wrapped in his large, solemn
+frock coat, which seemed to frighten the very doves, that had taken
+refuge in the gables and the ruined walls.
+
+After taking a glance behind the castle, he decided on the court-yard,
+which was free from trees. He would place the two contestants so that
+their figures would not stand out as targets, against a wall in the
+background.
+
+Lewis, in spite of his haste, felt it necessary to do the honors of the
+house.
+
+"A glass of whiskey?" As they had not given him time to make
+preparations, and as he was now living at Monte Carlo, his cellar was
+exhausted. But he was sure that by looking around a little he could come
+across a good bottle. What respectable house could not produce a bottle
+of whiskey for friends?
+
+"When we have finished, my Lord," said Don Marcos, scandalized at this
+invitation which was an infringement upon solemn regulations.
+
+The four seconds and the doctor were in a room on the ground floor,
+adorned with ancient battle trophies. The two contestants had been
+forgotten in the courtyard, like actors waiting for their turn to
+appear.
+
+Toledo opened the pistol cases, and gave the captains the one he had
+found that morning at Cap-Ferrat. Fate was to decide which of the two
+were to be used.
+
+"It isn't necessary," said the Parisian. "Either one, it's all the same
+to us. Arrange it all to suit yourself."
+
+Don Marcos protested against this irreverent desire to shorten the
+ceremonials. It was all quite necessary; they were there on very grave
+business.
+
+A five-franc piece shone in his hand. What efforts it had cost him to
+obtain that piece of money. Of all the preparations of the morning, that
+had taken the most time and been the most difficult to arrange. Coins
+had disappeared with the coming of the war. One could find nothing but
+paper money, and a five-franc note was of no use in a matter of heads or
+tails! He had been obliged to ask one of the important officers in the
+Casino to hand over that precious disc.
+
+"Heads or tails?"
+
+And the Colonel felt a secret thrill of joy as luck favored his ancient
+pistols. He was beginning to triumph!
+
+The doctor, in the meantime, was looking out of the drawing room door,
+with a certain air of amazement, not to say of indignation. His eyes
+were fixed on the Colonel. Finally, he called Don Marcos aside. Was that
+Lieutenant the man who was going to fight the Prince? He knew the boy; a
+friend of his, an army surgeon had talked to him about the Lieutenant's
+case as an astonishing instance of vitality. It was a disgusting piece
+of foolishness that was being planned: it amounted to murder. Why, that
+boy might fall stark dead before the first shot was fired! They had
+performed an amazingly delicate operation on his skull; it was a miracle
+that he had survived at all, and he might fall dead instantly at the
+slightest emotion.
+
+Don Marcos found an heroic answer, worthy of himself.
+
+"Doctor, for a man like that, fighting is not an emotion."
+
+He then proceeded with slow solemnity to carry out the most delicate
+part of the proceedings: the loading of the pistols. The two captains
+followed with a look of curiosity this operation, which was quite
+strange for them, though they imagined they had seen a whole lot of
+military life. The Parisian almost laughed as he watched how Toledo
+handled the diminutive ivory spoon which contained the charge of powder,
+scrutinizing it carefully before pouring it into the barrel of the
+weapon, with a certain fear of having put a grain more in one than in
+the other. Toledo was sure the heroic jester was making fun of his
+scrupulous precautions. But the Captain would not dare deny his interest
+in the novelty of the ceremony.
+
+Lewis went out to get the automobiles moved away as far as a nearby
+grove, much to the disgust of the chauffeurs. They obeyed reluctantly,
+intending to return, even though they might have to creep along the
+ground, to witness the spectacle.
+
+Toledo left the two pistols on an ancient Venetian table. They were
+ready! No one was to touch them! They were something sacred. Then his
+eyes, falling on the wall in front of him, were lighted with a sudden
+gleam of inspiration; he hurriedly advanced and unhooked two rusty
+swords from a panoply and went out with them into the courtyard.
+
+Deserted by their seconds, the contestants had begun to pace up and
+down, pretending they did not see each other, and each catching the
+other looking at him from the corner of his eye.
+
+They both suddenly found themselves in the situation of the preceding
+afternoon. It was as though no time had passed, as though they were
+still on the top steps of the Casino.
+
+All that the Prince had been thinking over in the last few hours and
+that had followed him until then in his thoughts, with a suggestion of
+remorse, immediately vanished. So this young gentleman was the man who
+had tried to strike him, Prince Lubimoff! He would soon find out what
+such daring was to cost him.
+
+But his anger seemed less violent than on the preceding day, something
+more reasoned, more completely the product of his will; and this
+weakening finally made him angry at himself.
+
+The other man was more instinctive in his rancor. As he looked at the
+Prince, he saw also the sweet image of that great lady, his
+benefactress. It was because the Prince was rich that he had tried to
+trample on him, treating him like one of his serfs, on his far-off
+estates in Russia. All the best things in life had been for this
+aristocrat, and now he was claiming possession of the few scattered
+crumbs, even of happiness that fall to the unfortunate! He did not know
+how to kill a man in these regulated combats; but he was going to kill,
+nevertheless, and felt the absolute confidence in himself that had
+animated him out there in the trenches in the cruelest days of danger
+and success.
+
+The presence of Don Marcos with a sword in either hand disturbed their
+reflections and interrupted their walking back and forth. They both came
+to a standstill. The Colonel looked at the sky, then took several paces
+in different directions. He wanted to fix it so that neither of the
+contestants would have the sun in his eyes.
+
+Finally he proudly thrust one of the swords into the ground. It seemed
+to him appropriate to the character of the place, to make use of these
+ancient weapons. They seemed to him more in harmony with Lewis' romantic
+castle, than two stakes or two cans. But his satisfaction this time was
+of short duration. On raising his eyes, he saw that Prince, and he saw
+Martinez....
+
+Poor Colonel! Up to that moment he had proceeded like a priest
+intoxicated by his own ceremonious words and his own incense, without
+thinking of the person in whose interest they are offered up. He had
+prepared all these formalities with the blind fervor of a professional
+who resumes his functions after several years of inaction, and thinks
+only of his work, forgetting for whom it is being done. He had managed
+everything in accordance with the rites, so that two gentlemen might
+kill each other in compliance with the strictest conventions; but now,
+at the supreme moment, he realized for the first time that these two men
+were his Prince and his Martinez, his fellow countryman, his hero.
+
+He was amazed to think that he had been able to go as far as he had gone
+up to that point. He felt the astonishment of a drunken man recovering
+his reason in the midst of objects broken by him in a fierce delirium.
+He recalled Castro's words and those of the doctor; why had _he_ not
+seen that this duel was a piece of foolishness? Repentance seemed to
+rush upon him. There was a burning sensation in his eyes, which began to
+fill with tears. But now it was too late. He must go on, even though his
+serenity should fail him.
+
+The one thing that he had forgotten in his minute preparations was the
+tape measure, and he saw in this omission an act of Providence. Starting
+from the sword planted in the ground he began to pace off the terrain.
+But they were not paces that he took; they were enormous strides. He
+fairly leaped. Now he was absolutely sure of the ridiculousness of his
+appearance, as his coattails flapped back and forth like wings, as they
+were thrust aside by the vigorous movements of his legs. "Fifteen
+paces." And he planted the second sword.
+
+If he could have had his way, he would have gone to the farthest end of
+the open field; perhaps as far as the place where the automobiles were
+awaiting. Then he looked uneasily at the ground he had measured. It was
+surely over twenty meters; a betrayal! What cowardice! Might God and
+gentlemen forgive him!
+
+Once more he brought out the five-franc piece. He had to decide again by
+chance the position of each contestant. The Parisian captain greeted
+this proposal with a bored air.
+
+"But I told you before to do whatever you pleased!"
+
+Lewis was muttering impatiently under his mustache.
+
+When the coin had marked the position of each one, Don Marcos placed the
+Prince beside one sword.
+
+"Marquis: your hat," he said in a low voice.
+
+Lubimoff, understanding this suggestion, took off his hat, throwing it
+some distance away. His adversary could not fight with his _kepis_ on
+his head. Its yellowish color and the emblem of the Legion embroidered
+on the brim of the cap made him conspicuous in an unfair manner. His
+uniform also worried Toledo, who tried to do away with all the visible
+details on it.
+
+Assisted by one of the captains, he proceeded to strip Martinez of his
+decorations of honor, after placing him beside the other sword. It was
+like a ceremony of degradation. They took off his _kepis_, then his
+medals, the red ribbon that hung from his shoulder, and the dark tan
+strips across his breast and the belt of the same color around his
+waist. The Lieutenant seemed reduced in stature and dignity in his loose
+uniform, without his decorations. The Parisian, always in a merry mood,
+compared him to a plucked bird.
+
+The Colonel felt that it was necessary to repeat aloud the conditions of
+the duel. The Prince knew them and was accustomed to such encounters. It
+was Martinez who needed his suggestions. After he, as the director of
+the combat, should give the word "Fire!" he would slowly count, "one,
+two, three." They might aim and fire in that space of time. "Be very
+careful, Lieutenant!" Don Marcos spoke with tragic solemnity.
+
+"If you fire before the _one_ or after the _three_, you will be declared
+a felon."
+
+The matter of being declared a felon frightened the young man. He didn't
+know exactly what it was, but the Colonel's look as he said this
+terrible word, made a deep impression on him. He no longer thought so
+vehemently of killing his adversary. This desire retreated into the
+background. Nor did he think of the fact that he himself might be
+killed. His one preoccupation was to calculate the time properly and
+obey instructions without bothering about aiming; to fire before the
+terrible _three_; so that he should not be given that horrible
+mysterious name that made his hair stand on end.
+
+Don Marcos entered the castle, and appeared again with the two loaded
+pistols. He gave one to the Prince. The latter did not need any lessons.
+He put the other in the Lieutenant's right hand, and told him how he
+should stand, with his arm bent, holding the weapon high, presenting
+only the narrow side of his body to his adversary. Once more he dwelt on
+his warning. He should be careful not to make a mistake! Now he knew!
+_One ... two ... three...._
+
+He himself stood midway between the adversaries withdrawing only a few
+paces from the line of fire. At that moment he was willing to die, so
+they both might remain unharmed!
+
+He took off his hat solemnly, and with a gesture of profound sadness.
+
+"Gentlemen ..."
+
+During the entire morning, as he walked from one place to another,
+making his preparations, he had not ceased to think of what he would say
+at that moment, working up a superb piece of oratory, brief and
+stirring. He had frequently spoken at duels, meriting the approval of
+the other seconds, retired Generals, and such experts, accustomed to
+formalities of the kind. But the short harangue of to-day was going to
+be his masterpiece.
+
+"Gentlemen ..." he repeated. He hesitated, not knowing what to add, as
+it had all been blotted from his memory. With a stammering voice, he
+went on saying whatever occurred to him, with no attempt at order, and
+without remembering a single word of the phrases which he had so
+carefully polished some hours before.
+
+"There was still time ... a little good will on their part; they were
+both men of courage who had proved their valor ... an explanation at the
+last moment was no dishonor!"
+
+His words were lost in a tense silence. But this silence was not
+absolute. There was somebody behind the Colonel, kicking the ground. It
+was Lewis who was consulting his watch, with a scowl. It was after three
+o'clock; the good series in the Casino had already begun.
+
+The Colonel decided to end his speech. Besides, he was frightened at the
+motionless and rigid figure of his Prince, with his pistol raised. He
+had never seen him so ugly. His face was an earthen color, there was a
+squint in his eyes, and his cheek bones protruded. His features had been
+changed in a moment, as though the savagery of his remote ancestors,
+awakened within, had risen to his face.
+
+"Since there is no possible agreement ..."
+
+At that moment the Colonel thought he had recalled the last part of his
+forgotten speech. But the tread of brilliant words escaped him again,
+and he was obliged to improvise, so he ended in a solemn fashion:
+
+"Come, gentlemen! Honor ... is honor; and the laws of chivalry ... are
+the laws of chivalry."
+
+He heard at his back the murmur of approval. It was the voice of the
+former ticket-seller. "Bravo! Wonderful!" But he did not care to hear
+what he said. You could never tell when that fellow was in earnest.
+
+"Ready?"
+
+The silence of the two adversaries gave the Colonel to understand that
+he might give the words of command.
+
+"Fire!... One ..."
+
+A shot rang out. Martinez, who was only thinking of the terrible three,
+had fired.
+
+He saw the Prince standing in front of him. He looked much taller; he
+could see the black hole of his weapon, and above that hole an eye, with
+a look of cold ferocity, which was choosing a point on his antagonist's
+body to send the obedient bullet. And with unconscious arrogance, he
+turned on his heel, so as to present not his profile, but the whole
+breadth of his body.
+
+The four seconds did not see this. Their eyes had focused on Lubimoff,
+the personification of death.
+
+Time contracts and expands us, according to our emotions. Its measure
+and rhythm depend on the state of the human mind. Sometimes it gallops
+along at a dizzy rate, over the faces of clocks that seem to have gone
+mad; at other times, it collapses and refuses to proceed, and a
+thousandth of a second embraces more emotions than months and years of
+ordinary life. The four witnesses felt as though the hours had been
+paralyzed, and the sun were remaining motionless forever. Time did not
+exist.
+
+"Two!" sighed Don Marcos, and it seemed to him that his lips would never
+cease uttering this word, as though it were composed of an infinite
+number of syllables.
+
+Lewis had forgotten the existence of the Casino; he was conscious only
+of the present. The Captain from Bordeaux, bending forward, was leaning
+on his wounded foot, without feeling any pain; the other officer was
+swearing between his teeth, and shaking his rattan cane until it hummed.
+The doctor, with professional instinct, was stooping over the surgical
+case that lay at his feet.
+
+Lubimoff was going to kill him! All four were sure that he was going to
+kill him. An implacable expression of security, and of ferocious
+coolness, radiated from that man, with arm upraised, so motionless, and
+pitiless. The expression on his Kalmuck face was of such deep fatality,
+his one eye tightly shut and the other open, that they could all see an
+imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the pistol to the breast of the
+man opposite, the road that the tiny sphere of lead was going to follow
+with inexorable accuracy.
+
+Proud of his superiority, the Prince postponed the moment of dealing
+death, with a sort of savage playfulness. He had his enemy in his claws,
+and could toy with him during those three months, that were as long as
+centuries.
+
+In the dizzy coincidence of image whirling through his brain, he could
+see the Princess, his mother, beautiful and arrogant, as she was when
+she recounted to him as a little boy, the greatness of the Lubimoffs.
+Then he saw his father, the General, somber and kindly, saying in a
+rough voice: "The strong man must be kind."
+
+As he thought of his father, his pistol swerved slightly, but
+immediately he corrected his aim.
+
+In his imagination a train was slowly passing. French soldiers. He saw
+Castro and the insolent red-haired fellow who was offering him a seat.
+Another train advanced in the opposite direction, an endless train that
+kept coming from the depths of the ocean. Hurrahs, whistling, dark
+blouses, blue collars, little caps that looked as though made of paper.
+"Good afternoon, Prince!" The luminous smile of a pale Virgin: Lady
+Lewis with her two blind men, handsome and tragic....
+
+His pistol fell. Above it he could see the entire body of his adversary,
+that obscure soldier, condemned to die before long no doubt, from wounds
+received in a land that was not his own, for a cause which was that of
+all men.
+
+"Three!" said the Colonel.
+
+But before he could finish the word, a shot rang out. The grass stirred
+at intervals along the soil as the invisible bullet ricocheted into the
+distance.
+
+The scythe-like stroke passed close to the legs of the Director of the
+combat; but Don Marcos was in no mood to notice such a thing. His
+child-like joy made him run hither and thither. His frock coat seemed to
+laugh as its tails flapped up and down.
+
+He was so happy, that he almost embraced Martinez. The latter must shake
+hands with the Prince, a reconciliation was necessary.
+
+The officer refused to take this advice. He had his doubts about the way
+the combat had ended. The Prince had fired at the ground, and he was not
+going to let him spare his life like that.
+
+"Young man!" said Don Marcos, with an air of authority, "you are new in
+such affairs. Let yourself be guided by those who know more and give the
+Prince your hand."
+
+Immediately he went in quest of Lubimoff.
+
+He saw him standing on the same spot. He had thrown the pistol away and
+was covering his face with his hands.
+
+The only one beside him was Lewis.
+
+"Come, Prince! What's this? Be calm! Perhaps a good glass of whiskey."
+Toledo heard a sob of anguish, the choking of a stifled breast.
+
+Respectfully he drew away one of the Prince's hands leaving his face
+uncovered. At present it was a dull brick red, shiny with sweat and
+tears.
+
+Lubimoff was weeping.
+
+The Colonel recalled the dead Princess in her days of stormy humor,
+when, after an explosion of wrath, she would wring her hands, and ask
+forgiveness, weeping hysterically.
+
+As he gently took his hand, he felt that the Prince was following him,
+meekly without any will of his own. Martinez was waiting a few steps
+away.
+
+"Shake hands. It's all over. Gentlemen are always ... gentlemen."
+
+They shook hands.
+
+And then something unexpected happened which produced a long silence of
+surprise and amazement.
+
+Michael bent forward, knelt down, and raised to his lips the hand he was
+holding in his own, with the same humble gesture that the serfs of the
+Steppes had used in the presence of his powerful ancestors.
+
+Then he kissed it, moistening it with his tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+A week passed, and Lubimoff had not once left Villa Sirena. In his
+conversations with the Colonel--his only companion in this solitary
+life--he had avoided making any allusion to what had occurred in Lewis'
+castle. Toledo, for his part, displayed absolute discretion, as though
+he had forgotten the duel and the strange ending which the Prince had
+given it; but the latter guessed that the Colonel's silence concealed
+many things that might have proved distasteful to himself.
+
+The other seconds had probably told everything. What people must have
+been saying! And fearing the curiosity of society which was doubtless
+repeating his name on all occasions, Lubimoff remained in retirement,
+with the hope of being forgotten. Some one would lose or win an enormous
+sum in the Casino, and that would be enough to make the gossips stop
+talking about him.
+
+His loneliness, however, began to weigh upon him like a fate. He was
+getting tired of walking about his garden all the time. It seemed to him
+narrow and monotonous. Besides, Lewis' niece, abusing her privilege,
+came every afternoon, with a constantly renewed escort of wounded
+Englishmen. She ran about with them through the Avenues, amid the cries
+of the exotic birds, weaving great garlands of flowers for her soldiers.
+Meanwhile he was obliged to hide in the upper stories of the villa to
+escape this child-like joy, which seemed to him to have something gloomy
+and funereal about it.
+
+The nights seemed endless. He thought with wistful longing of the quiet
+evenings with the "enemies of women", when Spadoni used to sit at the
+piano or perform his infinite calculations, always doubling; when Novoa
+would indulge in his scientific paradoxes, and Castro relate the
+adventures of his grandfather "the red Don Quixote." Where were they
+now, those comrades of his dreamy happiness?
+
+Atilio interested him particularly. He had asked Don Marcos about him
+twice, without the latter being very clear in his explanations. The
+Colonel never saw Castro any more in the Casino; he doubtless was
+keeping away out of fear of gambling. The Prince had a feeling that the
+Colonel knew something more, and was refusing to talk from motives of
+discretion.
+
+One morning, the weariness of his imprisonment finally galvanized his
+stupefied will. Why should he not go in quest of those friends? Perhaps
+if he were to take the first step he would succeed in renewing relations
+with them, and re-establish his former life.
+
+As he was going out, the Colonel stopped him to speak again about a
+matter that had occupied their attention the evening before. What reply
+should he give the Paris business agent? The _nouveau riche_ who had
+bought the palace on the Monceau Park, wanted to buy Villa Sirena also.
+The Prince's manager was transmitting a final offer; a million and a
+half. The man would not give any more, and it was necessary to reply in
+haste, before his caprice should turn toward some other acquisition.
+
+Michael shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter were something of
+no interest to him.
+
+"Tell him I don't want to sell. No--it would be better still not to
+reply at all. We shall see later on; I shall think it over."
+
+On getting out of the street car in Monte Carlo he passed to the right
+of the Casino, and followed the upper Boulevards. First he was going in
+quest of Spadoni, who lived nearest. Besides, the latter would surely
+know better than Novoa where Atilio was staying. Perhaps they were
+living together.
+
+He had a vague idea of the house, through Castro's joking. The pianist
+was "the guardian of the tomb" above the Sainte Devote ravine.
+
+From the summit of a bridge the Prince saw this ravine at his feet. Its
+sides were covered with gardens, luxurious villas and hotels, and at its
+outlet stretched the smiling harbor of La Condamine.
+
+Sixty years before, the ravine had been a wild spot. It was visited only
+by religious processions coming from the walled City of Monaco to pay
+homage to Sainte Devote in a little white church, which to-day seemed
+still more diminutive beside the arches of the railway bridge.
+
+In the earliest times of Christianity, a bark without oars or sail,
+guided by the will of God, who had deigned to grant a patron saint to
+the inhabitants of "Hercules Harbor," had grounded keel on those shores.
+
+The bark contained the miracle working body of a Corsican Christian
+martyrized by the Romans. Nobody knew her name, and popular devotion
+called her simply the Sainte Devote. Once a year, at nightfall, on her
+feast day, a large crowd from the Casino left roulette and _trente et
+quarante_ to watch the sailors of Monaco, to the sound of music, burn an
+old bark in front of the church, thus cutting off all means of retreat
+to the Holy Patroness.
+
+The stony fields, once planted with prickly pear and olive trees, were
+now covered with palaces, as large as barracks. They supported a second
+lofty city, above, which stretched away along the slopes of the Alps,
+and united Monaco with Monte Carlo. The land here, now sold at fabulous
+prices, was a spot so neglected half a century before that any of its
+owners might arrange without interference to be buried on his own
+property.
+
+An obscure officer in Napoleon's Army, born in Monaco, and who had
+succeeded in becoming a General in the days of Louis Philippe, had had
+his tomb built in an olive grove above the Sainte Devote ravine. Later
+gambling had made Monte Carlo rise above the wild plateau of the
+Caverns; the elegant, new city was spreading out to join old Monaco,
+covering all the land of the principality with buildings, and the tomb
+of the unknown warrior was imprisoned by this wave of great hotels,
+palaces, and villas. The olive grove around the tomb was sold by the
+yard, making a fortune for the soldier's heirs. Between the sepulchre
+and the edge of the ravine there remained a level space, from which one
+could enjoy a view of the splendid panorama. A millionaire from Paris
+had been bold enough to construct over the spot a house in "artistic"
+style, with gardens descending in terraces. He had imagined it would be
+an easy matter to have the General transferred to the cemetery and the
+mortuary chapel demolished. But the dead man was on his own land, and
+could not come to life to cancel the arrangements he had made in his
+will with so little prescience of the extraordinary growth old Monaco
+was to make; as a result there was no power on earth that could demolish
+his last dwelling place.
+
+From the harbor Michael had often, above the heights of the ravine, seen
+this pantheon which was to serve him now as a place for meeting Spadoni.
+It was a simple block of masonry, with white-washed walls, four
+pinnacles at the angles, and a cupola of black tile. From a distance it
+looked like a Mohammedan hermitage, the tomb of some saint of Islam, and
+the similarity was carried out by groups of palm trees in the
+neighboring gardens.
+
+Castro had often made him laugh by telling him the story of the dead
+General and his wealthy neighbors. The owners of the villa could not
+sleep with a dead man on the other side of the wall, and moreover, it
+was a nameless dead man, which made it all the more creepy and
+mysterious.
+
+Nobody could remember the name of this gentleman, who had commanded
+thousands of men, and was still exerting his will power on the living.
+The owners decided to rent the villa with all its elegant furnishings
+for a modest sum, and at first, the ladies who were gambling in the
+Casino, quarreled as to who should get it. How wonderful it would be to
+live in a little palace adorned by famous Parisian decorators, and with
+a magnificent view, all for five hundred francs a month! But the renters
+hastened to give up this bargain to others. Imagine having to pass the
+General's mausoleum at midnight, on returning from the Casino! And think
+of not being able to open one's window blinds without having to look
+that corpse in the face. Besides, the spiteful tongues of the women gave
+each successive tenant the nickname of: "The guardian of the tomb."
+
+Then Spadoni appeared. Castro had a vague idea that the pianist had paid
+the first month's rent, but he was not sure. What he knew for certain
+was that he had not paid any more. The owners, living in Paris, had
+finally accepted the situation, considering the pianist an unpaid
+caretaker for that house, which had come to inspire them with terror.
+
+The Prince descended the wide road between garden balustrades and walls
+of rock broken by tufts of flowers hanging from the crevices. On seeing
+the sepulchre at close hand, he understood why all the tenants had taken
+flight. The General had known how to do things. The pinnacles, as well
+as the iron cross which surmounted the cupola, were adorned with skulls
+and cross-bones; and these funereal symbols, by force of contrast, made
+a still deeper impression because of the green splendor of the adjoining
+gardens under the bright blue skies and the dazzling sunlight, with the
+smiling harbor in the background, and the ruffled surface of the violet
+sea. The gate of the nameless mausoleum had not been opened for many
+years, and the wind had heaped the dirt against the underpinnings.
+Between the iron gate and the walls a thick, wild growth of vegetation
+had appeared, a diminutive forest, in the dense growth of which insects
+made war and devoured one another after sending forth endless flying and
+creeping expeditions against all the neighboring houses.
+
+Lubimoff passed close to the mausoleum in order to reach the entrance of
+the villa, a handsome building in the Tuscan style of architecture. The
+gate was a complicated piece of iron work; the windows had stained glass
+figures; the gray walls were encrusted with marble bas-reliefs, and
+ancient escutcheons.
+
+He knocked in vain with the iron dragon that served as a knocker.
+Finally from an adjoining alley-way, between two walls, appeared a woman
+with dishevelled hair, holding an infant in her arms. It was a neighbor,
+who acted as a servant for Spadoni, when he stayed in the house. The
+arrival of a visitor was an event for her.
+
+"Yes, he is in," she said, "don't you hear him?"
+
+As a matter of fact, Michael had heard the sound of a piano, deadened by
+the thick walls.
+
+The woman, convinced that the artist would never hear the blows of the
+knocker, disappeared around the corner. Shortly afterward, her head and
+the child she was carrying in her arms appeared above the edge of the
+wall.
+
+"Maestro!" she shouted. "A gentleman to see you! A visitor!"
+
+And she came back again, smoothing her skirts as though she had just
+descended a ladder.
+
+The door groaned on its hinges, as it opened, and Spadoni appeared in
+the opening.
+
+"Oh, your Highness!"
+
+There was no expression of surprise in his smile. He greeted the Prince
+as though he had seen him the day before.
+
+Then he guided him through corridors and drawing-rooms, which were sunk
+in deep multi-colored shadow, and smelled of dust and mold. It had been
+many months since the stained glass windows had been opened, or the
+curtains drawn. Spadoni lived his entire life in a single room. Lubimoff
+collided with furniture and curios, as he advanced, almost upsetting two
+huge Japanese vases, and nearly impaling himself on the numerous
+projections in the profuse decoration of a "romantic studio," which had
+been in style twenty-five years before.
+
+They finally returned to the light, a dazzling light that entered by
+three open doors overlooking a terrace bordering the ravine. It was the
+"hall" of the villa, decorated with Hindustanee draperies and divans.
+The Prince saw that Spadoni had excellent quarters in his "tomb". A
+large grand-piano was the only piece of furniture kept clean in this
+dust-invaded room. On the music rack several albums of music in
+manuscript lay opened.
+
+Seeing that Lubimoff noticed them, the pianist gave a look of despair.
+
+His poverty was very great: he was forced to give concerts in order to
+live, and found himself obliged to study the new operas.
+
+He spoke of this labor as though it represented the cruelest imposition
+of inexorable Reality, the greatest degradation in his life.
+
+Various ladies who organized benefits for the soldiers had sought his
+aid. He played for nothing, "out of patriotism", but the good ladies
+always found a way of giving him a fair sum. His poverty was tremendous!
+He was going to the gambling rooms only at long intervals. He hadn't
+enough money to play even the roulette wheel, where the stakes were but
+five francs!
+
+The Prince started to read the titles of the scores, but Spadoni covered
+them up in comic haste.
+
+"Awful rot! You mustn't look at those, your Highness. Here on the
+Riviera, when the ladies are getting on in years, and do not find any
+one to fall in love with them any more, they devote themselves to
+writing love songs or dance music for great spectacles; and the Casino
+accepts their work in order not to offend them. It results that on
+certain days the Monte Carlo Theater becomes the Temple of Musical
+Imbecility. No; it would be better for you to see what we are giving
+this afternoon. It is the work of a millionairess who writes the whole
+thing, music and words."
+
+And he read aloud the titles of various "picturesque scenes": _Dialogue
+between the Butterfly and the Rose, What the Palm Tree said to the
+Century Plant, Prayer of the Grasshopper to Our Father the Sun._
+
+"Fortunately, your Highness, this humiliating situation will not last. I
+have a way out of it--a way out of it!"
+
+And forgetting the piano, the scores, and his musical degradation,
+Spadoni suddenly launched into the world of dreams. He knew the secret
+of the great man, the Greek, who was winning millions at the
+Sporting-Club. He had guessed it, with his own cunning, after worming
+certain data out of a man who accompanied the lofty personage. It was a
+simple combination, like all ideas of genius. For example....
+
+And he reached for a pack of cards which was on the table, lying on a
+number of albums bound in red: The nine Symphonies of Beethoven.
+
+"Oh no--if you please!" the Prince brusquely restrained him, to keep him
+from plunging into that mania for demonstrating.
+
+"I hoped to meet Castro here," he said, in a quiet voice, a moment
+later.
+
+Spadoni seemed to awaken.
+
+"Castro?... Oh, yes! He lived with me for a few days, but he went away."
+
+Still obsessed by his marvelous combination, he talked in an
+absent-minded manner without showing the slightest interest in what he
+was saying. Castro had expressed a desire to live with him; he had told
+him so, late one afternoon in the Casino, and Spadoni had left Villa
+Sirena to accompany him. It was the least a friend could do!
+
+"But when did he go? Where is he?"
+
+"He went day before yesterday, and must be in Paris. A fool trip!
+Imagine, your Highness, during the last few days he had an extraordinary
+run of luck, winning as high as twenty thousand francs. If he had only
+gone on! But he wouldn't! He was in a hurry. He gave me five hundred
+francs, and I lost them immediately; it was very little money for my
+combination. I think he was going to be a soldier; he kept talking to me
+about the Foreign Legion. You can expect almost any foolishness from
+him. A man who is winning and runs away!..."
+
+Then, as though the disordered workings of his brain were functioning
+logically for a few seconds, he added, with a smile of cunning:
+
+"Dona Clorinda also went to Paris. She left two days before him.... Oh,
+your Highness! How I think of what you told us at the lunch once about
+women! I know them, Prince: They are all enemies to be feared."
+
+And he pointed spitefully to _What the Palm Tree said to the Century
+Plant_.
+
+In vain the Prince kept questioning him. The pianist did not know
+anything more, and Castro's fate did not arouse his curiosity. He had
+gone to Paris, to be a soldier, and Spadoni had so many friends,
+already, who were soldiers!
+
+The "General" being a woman, aroused more interest in him; she
+stimulated his love of gossip.
+
+"I think," he said, with a smile that showed his hate for women, "that
+she went away out of jealousy, out of pique. The Duchess de Delille took
+that Lieutenant away from her, though the 'General' had been the one to
+introduce them. It seems even that this Lieutenant has had a duel...."
+
+The pianist grew pale, looking at Lubimoff with an expression of terror.
+His look was like that of a person who is talking aloud when he imagines
+himself alone, and then suddenly notices that some one is listening to
+him. He sat there embarrassed and stammering:
+
+"I don't know ... people tell so many lies!... Women's gossip!"
+
+Lubimoff felt a like embarrassment on realizing that even Spadoni had
+taken up his adventure with delight.
+
+He felt there was no use in continuing the conversation with an imbecile
+like that. He arose, and the pianist, still trembling at his own
+indiscretion, showed similar signs of haste to end the visit.
+
+"And Novoa?" asked the Prince on reaching the outer door. "Has he also
+left?"
+
+No; he was still in Monaco, working at the Museum, when he did not have
+any more urgent business. They met very seldom. How could they see each
+other if he, Spadoni, on account of his poverty, refrained from entering
+the gambling rooms?
+
+"He goes on playing, your Highness; but very badly, with the timidity of
+a novice, and for that reason he loses. He isn't made of the same stuff
+that we are, we who are true gamblers."
+
+And the pianist drew himself up to his full height as he said this, as
+though he had never lost and possessed all the secrets of chance.
+
+"I sent him two tickets for this afternoon's concert: one for him and
+the other for that Senorita Valeria, the Duchess's companion. Poor man!
+Always doing something silly, like a young lover!"
+
+But his smile, which was that of a superior person exempt from such
+humiliations, disappeared, as he realized that once more he was saying
+something offensive to the Prince.
+
+The latter passed close to the tomb again, but without seeing it, or
+even remembering the unknown General. Castro had gone!... Castro wanted
+to become a soldier!...
+
+After going down along the Monegetti road as far as the parade ground of
+La Condamine, he ascended once more the gently sloping avenue that leads
+up to Monaco. After his long seclusion, this walk aroused a certain
+pleasant tingling in his muscles.
+
+Finding himself between the two turrets that mark the entrance to the
+gardens, the memory of Alicia flashed across his brain. There, a little
+farther on, they had gotten out of their carriage; behind the trees was
+a bench on which he first had told her of his love; below, at the edge
+of the rocks, lay the solitary path along which they had passed as
+though treading on air, wrapped in the twilight and with lips joined.
+Then, had come the tearing of her dress, the sweet comical difficulties
+in mending it, and the pearl pin of the Princess.... Only a few weeks
+had passed, and these happenings seemed to belong to another happier
+race of beings, to have taken place on a different planet, bathed in a
+light that was different from the light of earth.
+
+He made an effort to forget. At present he was standing on an asphalt
+square, opposite the steps of the Museum of Oceanography. For the first
+time he noticed the architectural decorations of the white building.
+They had adopted as an ornamental motif the cluster of twisting arms of
+the octopus, the semi-circular striations of sea-shells, the trailing
+filmy umbrella form of the jelly-fish. He observed the sculptural groups
+symbolizing the powers of the Ocean, or the arts of the navigators, he
+read the names carved on the frieze of the edifice, and the titles of
+ships famous for scientific explorations.
+
+He stood there motionless for a long time, seeking a pretext to justify
+his visit. Finally he went up the steps of the building, and found
+himself in a deep, cool shade like that of a Cathedral, but without the
+stale, musty odor of shut-in places, and with a whiff of salt air coming
+from the nearby sea. He knew the stately edifice: on one side was the
+vast hall for the lectures and scientific assemblies, like that of a
+parliament building, with lamp shades of frosted crystal affecting the
+different shapes of animals from the ocean depths; in the middle of the
+vestibule was the statue of Prince Albert, dressed as a sailor and
+leaning on the rail of the bridge of his yacht; on the opposite side and
+on the upper floors, were the collections gathered during the voyages of
+the famous scientific explorer: thousands of fishes and molluscs,
+gigantic skeletons of whales, some _kaiaks_ and fishing implements from
+the polar seas. On the lower floors, under his feet, in that second
+palace which, clinging to the cliff, descended to the sea, were the
+aquaria, where the mysterious creatures of the depths continued their
+lives in crystal cages amid the silver bubbles of running water.
+
+The gate-keeper in a long blue coat, and a _kepis_ with red braid,
+started to offer him a ticket, but paused on seeing that he was stopping
+at the turn-stile, asking for Novoa.
+
+"He went out a moment ago. Perhaps you may find him in the neighborhood
+of the palace. Almost every day, before lunch, he makes the rounds of
+'the rock'."
+
+"The Rock," for the inhabitants of Monaco, is the nickname of the high
+promontory on which Monaco is situated, and "to make the rounds" means
+to follow the circle of gardens and abandoned bulwarks, which, starting
+from the palace of the Princes, returns to it, after completely
+embracing the old city.
+
+Lubimoff followed the outer line of the San Martino gardens. He did not
+dare enter them; he was afraid of coming across the bench where he and
+Alicia had been that afternoon. He entered the City streets, narrow,
+without sidewalks, and paved with wide stones, as in many towns in
+Italy.
+
+The dwellings, which were old and lofty, recalled the time when ground
+was precious on a peninsula narrowly enclosed by its fortifications.
+Some of the houses were pierced by tunnels and at the end of the
+archway, one could see the sunlight and the whiteness of the next
+street. The largest buildings were convents, or religious schools. Above
+the roofs, the bells slowly tolled as in a Spanish village; in the
+streets there were many sacred images lighted by tiny lamps.
+
+When the paving stones resounded with human footsteps, the shutters all
+opened half way. A carriage caused many heads to appear at the windows.
+The few passersby were often canons from the cathedral, Barefoot
+Brothers with a crown of hair about their shaven scalps, or nuns with
+huge starched butterflies on their heads.
+
+Only a little door separated the old city from the other situated on the
+heights opposite, with its Casino, its hotels, its orchestras, and its
+wealthy pleasure-loving crowd. A short ride by street car was sufficient
+to give one the illusion of having suddenly slipped back two centuries.
+Lubimoff recalled the expressions of surprise awakened in people by
+several of these barefoot brothers crossing the Casino Square on their
+way down to Monte Carlo.
+
+He passed under a covered archway that joined two houses. A large open
+space, like a plain, opened in front of him. It was the Palace Square.
+Opposite it rose the lordly dwelling of the Grimaldi, a jumble of
+buildings dating back to different periods, which recalled the palaces
+of certain sovereign princes in ancient Italy. It was of a dark rose
+color, cut by the Archway of the Loggias, and was flanked by towers of
+white stone surmounted by battlements. He knew this edifice likewise. It
+was a mere show-place, and quite uninhabited, since the Prince, during
+his short visits to his domains, preferred to live on board his yacht.
+
+The first thing that attracted his attention was the guard. The soldiers
+of Monaco, old French gendarmes, had gone to the war, and a national
+militia was taking the place of the Prince's army. It was composed of
+actual citizens of the "Rock," where citizens must be descendants of at
+least four generations resident in Monaco. They alone could contribute
+to the ideal defense of the principality, since they enjoyed the
+advantages of belonging to a country, unique in the world, where all who
+were born there, had bread and work assured them, thanks to the Casino.
+
+Lubimoff admired the warlike guard, an old man with a white mustache,
+and stooping, almost humped, shoulders, dressed in a dark tan overcoat
+and a derby hat. A red and white arm band was his entire uniform. On
+his shoulder he carried an ancient gun which because of its
+tremendously long bayonet seemed even more enormous and heavy than it
+was. He might have rested beside a sentry box, painted with the Monaco
+colors; but he preferred to pace incessantly up and down, like a
+squirrel in a cage, looking in every direction to see if any one were
+trying to enter the palace of the absent sovereign. Other men who were
+fathers and even grandfathers, dressed in their Sunday clothes, were
+patiently waiting on a bench for their turn to exercise the honorable
+function.
+
+The most notable thing on this esplanade was the artillery, a collection
+of XVIII century cannon placed there as an ornament, like the panoplies
+of a drawing room. On both sides of the entrance to the palace six huge,
+magnificent cannon, cast in green statue bronze, and chiseled like
+museum pieces, were drawn up in a row. Around their mouths, the metal
+curved backward forming a leafy design like that of a capital on a
+column; the other end was surmounted by a Medusa's head. The barrels of
+these hollow columns were ornamented with the three _fleurs de lis_ of
+the ancient French Monarchy; the handles on each cannon were two
+dolphins, and all the pieces displayed the pretentious motto: _Nec
+pluribus impar_ of Louis XIV, with another more somber one: _Ultima
+ratio regum_.
+
+The Prince smiled at the latter motto.
+
+"These days, artillery," he said to himself, "is no longer 'the last
+argument of kings', but it is of peoples. We have progressed somewhat."
+
+Each of these green cannon had its own name, just as a ship or a
+regiment. One was named _Nero_, another _Tiberius_; farther on _Robust_
+and the _Snorer_ opened their round mouths.
+
+On the parapets enclosing the large square on both sides, other more
+modest, but equally huge and ancient cannon, thrust their mouths out
+upon the harbor or the open sea. The solid balls of these cannon formed
+pyramids, and parasitical vegetation had crept in between these iron
+spheres.
+
+Behind the palace, like the back-drop on a stage, rose the French
+Mountain of the _Tete du Chien_, with the windows in the barracks of the
+Blue Devils, the _Chasseurs Alpins_, gleaming on its rounded summit. The
+Monaco plateau was simply the lowest step in the great stairway which
+the Alps let fall to the sea. Above, clouds were caught amid the peaks,
+covering them momentarily with a shadow ominous of storm. Below, amid
+the rose-colored walls and the white towers of the Grimaldi, rose the
+tropical palms, the cocoanut and plantain trees, giving this Ligurian
+castle the luxurious aspect of Brazilian farm.
+
+Lubimoff was seated between the cannon, on the parapet that overlooks
+the open sea, when he saw Novoa strolling along the bulwarks that rise
+above the harbor.
+
+On recognizing the Prince, the professor hastened forward with
+outstretched hands.
+
+How likable the Professor seemed! His frank manners had never been so
+attractive to Michael as they were then. Novoa was greatly pleased at
+this meeting, attributing it to chance, and the Prince did not see fit
+to mention his visit to the Museum, so that Novoa would now know that he
+had come in search of him.
+
+Mechanically they began to promenade between the row of guns and the
+trees that cast a pallid shade on one side of the Square.
+
+It was Lubimoff who began to talk, questioning Novoa, showing an
+interest in his affairs and greeting his laments with a kindly smile.
+
+The Professor appeared unhappy. This place with its gay, pleasant life
+was fatal for study. To think that back in his own country, he had
+imagined himself making useful discoveries in the mysteries of the
+ocean! The Casino spread its influence in every direction, reaching even
+the Museum of Oceanography. Often, while he was studying the _plancton_,
+a new idea would occur to him as to how he might penetrate the
+mysterious workings of the _trente et quarante_ series. Mornings he
+worked with his thoughts fixed on Monte Carlo; and no sooner did
+afternoon come, than he felt an irresistible desire to go there. It was
+useless for him to invent pretexts to remain there on the "Rock." He had
+lost sums that for him were enormous, and he needed to get them back. He
+was worried at the thought of the money he had received from home as an
+advance payment on the modest fortune inherited from his parents.
+
+"Some days, common sense tells me that I ought to return to Spain, and I
+immediately want to act on that good advice. Unfortunately there are
+certain things that keep me here and shatter my will power."
+
+"I know what you mean," said Michael smiling. "First of all, there is
+love."
+
+Novoa blushed, and then accepted the words of the Prince with a comic
+look of embarrassment. Yes; there was something in that, but love had
+its disillusionments, the same as gambling.
+
+Lubimoff suddenly saw in his eyes an expression like that of Spadoni's.
+He, too, knew what had happened, and in speaking of love immediately
+recalled that absurd duel. But Novoa was a different person, incapable
+of feeling the malign pleasure of gossips, who rejoice in other people's
+shortcomings. Besides, Michael felt that he was very frank, and was
+immediately convinced of this. Quietly, without thinking whether or not
+his words might annoy the other man, the Professor alluded to what had
+occurred at Lewis' castle. He lamented it as something illogical and
+untimely, but had not ceased to be interested in the affairs of the
+Prince on that account. If he had refrained from going to Villa Sirena,
+it was in order not to seem forward. He had often talked with the
+Colonel, asking him to take his best wishes to the Prince.
+
+Then, as though repenting the severity with which he had judged the
+duel, he hastened to explain. The image of Castro passed through his
+mind, causing him to look at his comrade with brotherly tolerance.
+
+"I can understand a great many things. I am not a fighting man like you,
+and nevertheless, I once felt a desire to fight. At present I laugh when
+I think of it; but, in similar circumstances, I would do the same again.
+What power women have over us! How they change us!"
+
+The Prince did not protest on hearing that Novoa supposed him to be in
+love, attributing the duel to a woman's influence. And he continued to
+remain silent, while the Professor, through a logical association of
+ideas, began to talk about Alicia. The kindly simple savant showed a
+keen satisfaction in telling certain news which he thought would please
+Lubimoff.
+
+He felt a similar interest in his compatriot, Martinez. He did not hate
+any one. He had even forgotten the disagreements with Castro, which had
+caused him to leave the comfort and plenty of Villa Sirena.
+
+"That poor Lieutenant is less fortunate than you, Prince: this duel has
+been rather hard on him. I enjoy a certain intimacy with people who are
+close to the Duchess de Delille.... I do not need to say any more: you
+understand that I am in a position to know what is going on in the Villa
+Rosa. Well, then; since the duel, I don't know what has happened, but
+Martinez calls at that house less frequently. Whole days go by without
+his daring to ring at the door. Sometimes he goes there, and a person
+whom you know tells me that the Duchess refuses to see him. At present
+he is a mere visitor, a friend like any other. The Duchess is anxious to
+avoid their former intimacy; she continues to send him little gifts at
+the Officers' Hotel, and to look after his comfort. She sends the young
+lady who is a friend of mine to find out if he needs anything, but she
+receives him only at rare intervals. The lunches and dinners each day
+have come to an end, with that life in common, which would have been
+complete if he had slept in the house. And the poor boy seems sad, and
+full of despair at this change."
+
+The Professor was encouraged in his confidences on noting the pleasure
+with which the Prince received them.
+
+"A certain person," he continued, after some hesitation, "who has spent
+several nights in the street where the Duchess lives--the deuce, a
+certain person! Why shouldn't I tell the whole truth--I, who sometimes
+spend hours in the neighborhood of Villa Rosa, waiting for the young
+lady in question, have surprised Martinez near the house, slinking by
+close to the gate, looking at the windows. Poor boy! And they tell me
+that during the day time, when he is afraid that the Duchess won't
+receive him, he goes by there, just the same."
+
+Lubimoff was stirred by a double feeling: one of rage, at the conviction
+that he had made no mistake: that little soldier boy was in love with
+Alicia; and one of delight on learning that he was not received in the
+house, as before, and was hovering about the neighborhood in vain. It
+was a negative sort of joy for him, but joy at any event, to see that
+youth in a situation like his own.
+
+Novoa, being a man of simple tastes, could not understand love except
+under conventional circumstances, and between people of similar ages;
+and he laughed at this passion of the officer, as though it were
+something exceedingly amusing.
+
+"How absurd! To fall in love like that with a woman old enough to be his
+mother!"
+
+The Prince started on hearing this, looking fixedly at his companion.
+No; the Professor had discovered nothing. He was laughing at his own
+reflections, without any indirect insinuations. No one but Lubimoff
+himself could possibly know Alicia's real secret.
+
+They walked back and forth several times between the cannon and the
+trees. Suddenly, the bells of the churches and convents in Monaco, began
+to ring, answering, through the luminous atmosphere, those of the Monte
+Carlo frontier.
+
+Twelve o'clock! Novoa became restless. He was a man of fixed habits, and
+besides, the Monaco people at whose house he was living were absolutely
+punctual in their meal hours. To think that there was not a restaurant
+in Monaco, where for once he could be extravagant and invite the Prince!
+The latter proposed that he accompany him to the far-off Villa Sirena to
+lunch together. It was so pleasant to be in his company! He gave him
+such interesting news!
+
+"Impossible!" the Professor hastened to say. "I must see some one in
+Monte Carlo as soon as I finish my lunch. They will wait for me."
+
+And the Prince did not insist, guessing that the person referred to was
+Valeria.
+
+A single carriage had taken refuge in the pale shade of the trees. It
+had remained there after bringing some tourists who, on coming out of
+the Museum, preferred to return on foot by the ancient path along the
+fortifications.
+
+Michael got into it, and drove to Villa Sirena.
+
+The rest of the day and a great part of the night passed very pleasantly
+for him. He was going over and over in his memory the news he had just
+heard. It had not been a bad day. He scarcely remembered Castro. Castro
+was in Paris; that was the one thing certain. On the other hand, the
+misfortune of Martinez made him hum gaily to himself, and this unusual
+good humor quite deceived the Colonel.
+
+"All I say is, Your Highness ought to go out, and see people. I was sure
+that to-day's walk would do you a world of good."
+
+The following day, the Prince had an even pleasanter surprise. He had
+finished his lunch, when his valet announced ceremoniously: "Dr. Novoa,
+the professor, to see you, sir."
+
+Michael, having a presentiment that it meant something very interesting
+for him, received the Spaniard with extraordinary effusion, such as
+Toledo had never seen before. "Awfully good of you to come, Novoa! You
+don't mean to say you have had your lunch already? What a regular life
+you Monaco bachelors lead! Well, at least, you'll have coffee with me?"
+
+And the Prince hastily finished his lunch and went into the _salon_,
+where coffee and liqueurs were waiting. The impatience of the visitor to
+talk with him privately was so obvious, that Lubimoff hastened to invent
+an excuse for Don Marcos to go away.
+
+When they were alone, Novoa left his cup on the little table, took
+several puffs at his cigar, as though to summon all his strength of
+will, and finally said in a resolute voice:
+
+"I have a message to give you: a certain person sent me here ... and I
+suspect that I am playing a rather cheap role. A man like myself doing
+such errands as this!... Besides, men ought to help one another. You
+who are a real gentleman, may perhaps consent to do something for
+me...."
+
+And the good Professor talked as though he felt himself united with the
+Prince by a sort of professional comradeship, by being in the same
+condition.
+
+Lubimoff, anxious to know the message, gave a look of acquiescence. Yes:
+it was true; he was capable of doing anything for him that he might ask.
+At that moment he felt the savant his best friend. But what was the
+message?
+
+Novoa continued, with a certain hesitation. The day before, after his
+meeting with the Prince, he had seen that young lady ... that young lady
+who is a companion to the Duchess. He had told her everything; a bad
+habit he had, but lovers cannot always talk about themselves.
+
+"We were together at a concert, and this morning she came to the Museum
+to tell me to see you immediately. I refused at first to take the
+message, but you know what women are. Besides, the young woman has a
+mind of her own. To make it short, here I am repeating what I was told."
+
+He was silent for a moment, and after looking all around, he added, in a
+mysterious voice:
+
+"This afternoon, at St. Charles."
+
+On his way there Novoa had been worried by the obscurity of the message.
+What St. Charles was it? A hotel? A promenade? As a resident of Monaco,
+the Professor knew only the Casino in Monte Carlo. The one thing certain
+in his mind was that Valeria's message came from the Duchess.
+
+Michael made an effort to hide the joy which these words gave him.
+Alicia was looking for him! In spite of his satisfaction he felt a need
+of asking for fresh details. Hadn't Novoa been told the time?
+
+"No, Prince. 'This afternoon, at St. Charles'; not another word more.
+The young lady almost became angry because I asked her to make it
+clearer. I told you that when we are by ourselves she can be cross--like
+all the rest. She told me that you would understand the message at
+once."
+
+Lubimoff nodded in affirmation; yes, he understood. What a nice fellow
+the scientist was! At that moment he wished him every sort of happiness
+that men can enjoy. If he had not known Novoa's scruples and his pride,
+he would have asked Don Marcos for all the money there was in the house,
+to hand it to him in handfuls. But since a material gift was quite out
+of the question, he expressed the hope that Valeria, whom he had always
+considered an ambitious climber, would bring happiness and beauty into
+the Professor's life. His satisfaction made him so optimistic that he
+even believed that he had been mistaken in regard to her, and he endowed
+the Duchess' companion with a great number of hidden virtues.
+
+Toledo had returned, and the Prince, who wanted to please Novoa, talked
+to him about Oceanographic explorations, displaying a lively curiosity
+in his questions, though his thoughts were far away.
+
+But this attempt at flattery was wasted. The Professor replied to his
+questions with hesitation. He was in a hurry; some one was waiting for
+him ... doubtless Valeria needed to know the result of his errand at
+once. And the Prince also displayed a certain haste in accompanying him
+to the gate, with the greatest possible show of friendliness. He must
+return often to Villa Sirena; he was his one real friend. What a pity he
+refused to live there, as he had formerly!
+
+When Lubimoff found himself alone, he went upstairs to his rooms on the
+second floor. He was afraid the Colonel would guess the cause of his
+satisfaction. A sensation of pride and triumph mingled now with the joy
+of the first moment.
+
+He thought of his situation, Don Marcos had remained silent since the
+duel, and he, himself, a prey to loneliness, had been in the depths of
+despair, imagining himself the laughing-stock of every one.
+
+Now he could see things clearly, Alicia wanted to come back to him. She
+had fallen in love with him again. Everything showed that: the
+Lieutenant practically expelled from the house, which two weeks before
+he had considered as his own; and his former protectress avoiding him,
+so that his visits were becoming rare. Doubtless, on learning through
+Valeria that her former lover had voluntarily left his retirement in
+Villa Sirena, she was hastening to make an immediate appointment with
+him in haste to resume their former relations.
+
+He congratulated himself on his unexplainable aggressiveness which had
+impelled him to offend Martinez. He, who, in the last few days had
+repented of that mad affair! What had weighed upon him like remorse, was
+perhaps the most sensible and opportune act of his life. Alicia, seeing
+that, mad with jealousy, he was doing something which many people
+considered absurd, fighting for her sake, doubtless felt flattered in
+her vanity, and was looking upon him now with new interest.
+
+"Oh, these women!" thought Lubimoff. "You've got to know them. They have
+an instinctive admiration for the strong. There is nothing like an act
+of brutality at the right moment to conquer them. They take a certain
+joy in yielding to a man who impresses them by violence."
+
+This had been his first happy moment in many, many days. Once more he
+was the Prince Lubimoff who had always had his way, triumphing on
+obstacles, sometimes with his money, but more often with his imperious
+pride.
+
+Satisfied with his rough strength, he felt the need of making himself
+handsome before keeping the engagement. He was thinking of the males of
+the animal kingdom, who in addition to teeth, claws, and spurs, have
+combs, manes, and plumage to fall back on when it comes to inspire a
+sort of mystic slavish admiration in the females. It was the same among
+human beings. Education, laws, and traditions do nothing but disguise
+the barbaric foundations of human nature.
+
+His thoughts were interrupted by something which worried him. At what
+time should he appear at the place indicated. It occurred to him, that
+as no hour was mentioned, it must be the same as that of the previous
+meeting at the door of St. Charles. But he finally was convinced that
+the Professor had forgotten something, and his uneasiness made him keep
+the engagement much earlier.
+
+He spent more than three hours waiting anxiously, wandering about the
+streets in the neighborhood of the church, standing motionless at the
+corners, and changing from one place to another on noticing the
+curiosity of the passersby. He entered St. Charles several times, and
+was always greeted by the same sight: the multi-colored stained glass
+windows growing paler and paler, as the daylight waned, the clusters of
+flags, the altar pieces breaking the shadow with the dull splendor of
+their gold background, and women kneeling and motionless; women who
+seemed the same as on the other occasion, as though weeks had been
+minutes.
+
+With the superstitious feeling of those who wait, he said to himself
+that Alicia surely would not appear until nightfall, and the day seemed
+endless to him.
+
+As night came on he began to doubt.
+
+"She won't come. She must have repented."
+
+He was standing on the corner of a curved and sloping street adjoining
+the church. From there he could observe the steps leading to the little
+square with the sunken boulevard. No one climbed them; all the carriages
+passed without stopping.
+
+Suddenly, he had a sensation that some one was approaching from behind.
+He heard a light step, and on turning his head, he saw a woman in
+mourning.
+
+Suddenly recovering his triumphant joy, he forgot everything: his long
+wait, his doubts and the fatigue of standing there in endless
+expectation. He was so sure of the motive which had induced her to ask
+for this interview, that he went forward to meet her with chivalrous
+cordiality.
+
+"Oh, Alicia!" he said, holding out both hands at once.
+
+But his hands clutched unavailingly at empty space, without finding
+anything to take hold of, and finally dropped in dismay.
+
+Lubimoff felt disconcerted at the expression on the woman's face. All
+the ideas that had been with him until that moment were so many
+illusions. They vanished in an instant, leaving him dismayed face to
+face with reality. Of that reality there could be no doubt. There was a
+look of hardness in the eyes that surveyed him fixedly.
+
+Alicia spoke rapidly, as though she had come on a matter of business
+with a person rather distasteful to her and wanted to end it as soon as
+possible, and be rid of his presence.
+
+There was a money matter between them which had to be settled. She had
+not written to him because, since certain recent happenings, she felt a
+letter was inadvisable. Besides, she could neither go to Villa Sirena,
+nor receive him at her home. For that reason, on hearing the day before
+that Michael, whom she imagined ill, had been seen taking a walk, she
+had boldly made an appointment with him there, so that they might see
+each other for a few moments. That was all.
+
+"Let us talk like business men; business men who are in a hurry and do
+not waste words. I owe you some money and it is impossible for me to
+have any peace of mind until I return it to you: three hundred thousand
+francs which your mother gave me, and what you lent me in the
+Casino--perhaps something more. I have enough to pay you. If you don't
+care to take the matter up, send me Toledo."
+
+Lubimoff stood there dumbfounded at these unexpected words. After making
+this proposal, she seemed anxious to get away. Now she had said all she
+had to say; it annoyed her to remain there with the Prince; she had
+nothing to add.
+
+"No!" said Michael energetically.
+
+So that was why she had called him? And that was all she had to say to
+him, after they had been separated for so long?
+
+His refusal was so resolute, and his pained surprise was reflected in
+his features in such a manner, that Alicia felt it useless to insist.
+
+"Very well; let's not say anything more. I know your character, and I
+know that we would stay here arguing for hours without any result. I
+shall try and find a way to return what belongs to you. Good-by,
+Michael!"
+
+The Prince tried to stop her by gently taking one of her hands, but she
+withdrew it with a nervous gesture of repulsion.
+
+"And you are going away!" he said in a tone of deep discouragement.
+
+The humility in his voice seemed to irritate the Duchess, causing her
+to stop as she was turning away.
+
+"What did you think?" she asked indignantly. "I am surprised at your
+self-absorption, your failure to think of other people. Michael!
+Michael! You'll always be the same; you don't consider any one but
+yourself: nothing counts but your own desires. You've hurt me so much!
+And now you say like a child: 'And you are going away, ...' What, pray,
+did you expect after your despicable conduct? I want you to realize it
+once for all: I despise you. Your presence is odious to me. I despise
+you!"
+
+Poor Lubimoff saw his conduct once more as he had during his days of
+voluntary confinement. Alas! Where were the deceitful dreams that had
+cheered him until then? His sadness, and his repentance were so obvious
+that Alicia softened the tone of her words.
+
+"Perhaps despise is not the word; but I am sure that you fill me with
+pity; pity much like that which I feel for myself. We are two poor, mad
+creatures, Michael: our misfortunes have followed us a long way."
+
+Recalling their lives, Alicia thought of builders who make a serious
+mistake in putting in the foundation of a building, and go on raising
+it, imagining that their work is in a straight line, without observing
+that it is entirely out of plumb, owing to the defect in its base.
+
+"We began wrong. If the world had gone on the same as before, perhaps we
+would have been able to keep on our feet and be triumphant. Our
+surroundings sustained us: we were like children."
+
+But the Universal cataclysm had made them lose their balance forever.
+They were toppling over, with gaps that could never be brought together,
+ready to fall in a heap.
+
+"We belong to another period, and no one can protect our frailty. I
+feel pity for you, Michael; and you must feel the same for me, for me,
+whom you have wronged so deeply!"
+
+The Prince, in spite of his dejected humility, protested. He had been
+imprudent: that was sure. His aggression in the Casino and the miserable
+duel had caused a stupid scandal to be sure. But what irreparable harm
+did she mean, that caused her such profound sorrow? How could his
+madness, which injured him only, making him the object of comments and
+laughter, cause her such despair?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Alicia interrupted him with a gesture of impatience, as though she felt
+it impossible to make him understand her thoughts.
+
+"Look," she said pointing to the church door. "Before, I could go in
+there. Remember the last time that we saw each other on this spot. I had
+just been praying, and talking with my son; it was an illusion perhaps;
+but illusions help us to live. And now it is impossible for me; I feel
+remorse where before I found hope. And I have you to thank for this, you
+who took away the last consolation that I had invented for myself."
+
+She no longer looked at the Prince with hostile gaze. Her trembling
+voice, and her moist eyes, were those of a poor woman making an effort
+to hide her emotion. Michael stammered in embarrassment, not knowing
+what to do or say. Had he really been able to do her such an evil turn?
+When? How?
+
+Alicia, deaf to his questions, was thinking only of herself and her
+misfortune.
+
+"I had a son, and I lost him," she went on saying. "He was my hope, my
+one reason for living. The suffering made me look for consolation. What
+would become of us if we did not have the power of deceiving ourselves
+by creating new illusions? And I had a second son, a son whom I
+invented, sad, condemned to die, but young like the other, unfortunate
+like the other, and lacking a mother to bring joy to his last days. I
+wanted to be that mother. I can feel only the sweet, protecting joy of
+maternity; my role as a woman is over: all I can see in a man is a son,
+and you take away this last consolation! You robbed me of my poor joy!"
+
+Lubimoff began to understand. Alicia was talking about Martinez; and he
+felt once more the sting of jealousy.
+
+"When we saw each other here the last time I had sought a quiet refuge
+within my sorrow. I was praying for my son in the church, talking with
+him, and telling him how he was a brother in misfortune to one who was
+still alive, but who perhaps would soon go to join him. Then, on
+returning home I found the other, and my illusion was so great, that I
+was able to fuse them into a single person, imagining that time and the
+war were all a dream, and that my son was still alive, and had returned
+from his captivity and was by my side. They do not look alike, I am
+sure, although I avoid looking at George's pictures--but they seem to me
+the same; it is the uniform, misfortune, and nearness to death. Besides,
+the poor boy was so good! He was so timid, satisfied with anything,
+looking at me with the sweet look of a gentle little creature: he who is
+so proud! He venerated me like a being descended from an upper world. I
+was his mother. His words and looks breathed a feeling of deep respect.
+I wasn't a woman to him: I was something like the angels. And you, with
+your crazy interference, have spoiled it all. He is no longer my son: my
+dream has ended. I am obliged to do without his presence, and it is only
+at rare intervals that he finds open to him a house which I had taught
+him to consider his home. Through your fault, this boy, in whom I saw a
+son, is now merely a man, and I, his mother, have become once more a
+woman."
+
+Lubimoff's features became dark and gloomy with an earthly cast, as on
+the afternoon of the duel. He was beginning to understand.
+
+"What did you do, Michael!" she continued in a tearful voice. "You
+aroused the poor boy by your madness. On fighting you, he imagined he
+was fighting for me, and that I was simply a woman. He saw me suddenly
+in a new light, as though he had been asleep until then. I might almost
+be his mother; for women of my class prolong their youth, preserve it
+artificially, and we are still desirable when women of the lower classes
+are already coming to old age. Besides, I understand the element of
+vanity in his admiration, that vanity which exists in all our
+sentiments. To him I am the unknown, the mysterious, a great lady, a
+Duchess, brought by these topsy-turvy days within his reach. Poor boy! A
+few weeks ago he used to laugh in my presence with childlike simplicity,
+and look at me placidly, without the shadow of an evil thought in his
+eyes. He was happy, and so was I; while now...!"
+
+The Prince pictured Martinez pursuing Alicia with his amorous desires.
+"I'll kill him: I must kill him," he said to himself. But this homicidal
+anger lasted only an instant. The various scenes of the duel passed
+through his mind: a vision of himself kissing the officer's hand, in a
+sudden burst of unexplainable humility, which kept returning to torment
+him like remorse. What could he do now? After what had happened there
+was something sacred about the man. And once more he gave himself up to
+his despair, while Alicia went on talking.
+
+"My dream is dead. My son has become my son once more, and Martinez is a
+man like any other. At present it is impossible for me to pray; I am
+ashamed to hold imaginary conversation with my real son. I am assailed
+by thoughts of what I told him; I am overwhelmed when I think that I go
+on talking with the other boy, in spite of what he has said to me, of
+what I read in his glances, and of what I know of his real desires. What
+a wrong you have done me! I lost one son, and can think of him only with
+remorse; I invented another, and you have taken him away from me."
+
+Then, as though complaining of some superior force that had presided
+over her destiny, she added:
+
+"What torture! Not to be able to know quiet friendship, and the tranquil
+days of maternity. Always to have love looming up in front of one! In my
+younger days I considered that the one aim of life was to inspire
+admiration and desire, and now I am punished for that indeed. I sought
+in you a sustaining friendship, and you immediately desired me. I tried
+to deceive my maternal longings by caring for an unfortunate boy who may
+die very soon, and this son of my affections talked to me of love. Is it
+true that women are never able to enjoy the peace and confidence that
+come to men quite naturally?"
+
+The Prince expressed his wishes, with eagerness and hatred in his voice.
+
+"Don't see him: break with him; close your door to him forever. In that
+way you will recover your peace of mind, and I ... I shall be your
+friend, I shall be anything you desire, it will be enough for me that I
+see you."
+
+She greeted his last words with a look of incredulity. Men had promised
+her so often to be friends! Besides, she knew Michael very well, and did
+not take the trouble to reply. The one thing that interested her was his
+advice that she definitely reject the wounded man, and not see him any
+more. Once more her eyes grew moist.
+
+"Imagine driving the poor boy away! There are certain things you can't
+understand; you try to order affections about in the same arrogant way
+that you formerly disposed of people. Do you think I can abandon him? I
+am his mother in spite of everything, and you know very well how a
+mother tolerates and forgives things. The poor boy is not to blame for
+his evil thoughts; it was you who suggested them to him. Besides, it
+won't last; I have hopes that his foolish desires will die out."
+
+The idea of deserting the crippled soldier aroused her pity, giving an
+amorous tone to her words.
+
+"What would become of him! He doesn't know any one: he is alone in the
+world; the other officers are living, in their native land, they have
+families. Before, he could go and see Clorinda; now 'the General' has
+gone away, and I am the only one who remains, the only one! And you want
+me to forget him? You don't know him very well; you are an enemy of his.
+It is such a delight for me to recall the period of his innocence. He
+was like my son; no; there was something more about him; a thankfulness,
+a capacity for veneration concentrated entirely on me, such as I had
+never known before. You forget how his life hangs on a thread. Nor does
+he realize it himself; he does not know the real situation he is in; he
+has illusions of healthy youth; he thinks he will live for many years.
+Poor fellow! How hard it is for me to pretend that I am angry, to reject
+him with indignation because of the desires he feels for me ... me, who
+only want to be his mother!"
+
+This tone of sweet pity wounded her listener. Alicia seemed to feel the
+remorse of a death watch obliged to deny a condemned criminal the
+satisfaction of his last whim. She was lamenting like a nurse who cannot
+give a dying man what he asks for in his last gasps.
+
+Michael felt that he guessed the secret of the last interviews between
+this pseudo-mother and her adopted son. Perhaps she talked to him about
+his health, momentarily refusing to flatter him in his illusions of
+health, revealing to him the danger to which his life was exposed; and
+he, in a suicidal ardor of passion, was perhaps entreating her like a
+child who has placed all his dreams in a toy: "once, just once."
+
+He was convinced that this was the truth of the matter. He read it in
+her eyes, which in turn seemed to guess what the Prince was thinking,
+and she blushed slightly.
+
+"What harm you have done me," she repeated. "I must send him away from
+me, and I can't bear to desert him. It would be a crime if I abandoned
+him to his fate. You don't know what this constant struggle means to me.
+At times I see him hovering around my house; hidden behind the window
+blinds, I look at him, and I can hardly repress my tears. He seems so
+sad! I remember my son, who also lived alone, even more friendless than
+he, and who perhaps became interested in some woman, anxiously desiring
+many things without succeeding in possessing them, and I feel a desire
+to call to him, to shout: 'Since that is your dream, my dear child, your
+last wish in life, take it! Take it, and be happy!' Yet I think of his
+health, I think of many other things, and I restrain my impulse, and
+weep, letting him wander about near my house, imagining himself
+forgotten, though I am thinking of him all the time. Alas! May God give
+me strength! May I not lose my self control! May I continue to resist my
+absurd charitableness! Sometimes I fear I won't."
+
+"Oh, Alicia!"
+
+The Prince uttered the words in a tone of desperation. His presentiment
+was becoming a reality; he could already see that dying youth possessing
+what he had not been able to obtain. There was a look of homicidal
+anger in his eyes.
+
+This hostile expression annoyed Alicia, making another woman of her. The
+harsh look and the cutting tones which had accompanied her arrival
+appeared in her once more.
+
+"Enough said. I came here to return your money. You refuse to take it?
+You refuse? Very well, I will find a way to make you. Good night,
+Michael!"
+
+As a matter of fact, night had fallen, and the Prince saw her disappear
+in the shadows of the street whence she had come: a street dimly lighted
+by a single blue street lamp.
+
+For a moment, he thought of heading her off, humble and entreating. He
+would never see her again: he was sure of that. But at the same time he
+perceived the uselessness of insisting. She wanted him to forget her;
+the interview had merely been to suppress all traces of the past still
+existing between them. And he allowed her to pass out of his sight.
+
+From that day on, the life of the Prince lacked a purpose. Something had
+broken within him: his will had crumbled to dust, enveloping his senses
+in a sort of fog. What was to be done? Not even the narrowest of paths
+remained open to his initiative. Alicia hated him as though he were an
+enemy. It meant good-by for all time! There still remained the other
+man, but the Prince was invulnerable as far as Martinez was concerned.
+
+It was enough for him to think of what had happened in Lewis' castle to
+lose all intention of violence. He cursed his Slavic sentimentality, so
+confused and incoherent, like his mother's, which prevented him from
+going to the end in malice, and causing him to fall, when he least
+expected it, into exaggerated submission. Alas, for his tears of
+repentance! Alas for that kiss on his adversary's hand! If he avoided
+returning to the Casino, it was in order not to meet Martinez and those
+two Captains who had witnessed the incomprehensible conclusion of the
+duel. He no longer had the energy to impose his will; his former
+harshness of character had melted with the catastrophe of his desires.
+
+He shut himself up once again in Villa Sirena, in order not to see any
+one. He hated people, and at the same time he thought with a certain
+terror of the ill-concealed smiles that might greet his passing, and the
+remarks that might be exchanged behind his back.
+
+Don Marcos was the one companion of his loneliness; and Lubimoff, who
+during the first few days exchanged but a few words with him, finally
+came to wish that he would hurry back from Monte Carlo, at nightfall, in
+order to hear the news, which in other days he would have considered
+insignificant. They entered into long conversations on what was going on
+in the Casino, or on the happenings of the world. It was the curiosity
+of a prisoner or an invalid, who takes an exaggerated interest in
+things, as he loses his sense of values, owing to his inability to move
+about in his confinement.
+
+The Colonel was giving less and less importance to the events of daily
+life. All his attention had been focused on the Atlantic Coast and the
+opposite shores of the ocean.
+
+"They keep on coming!" he said, after greeting the Prince. "The
+Americans keep on coming: a regular crusade. There are hundreds of
+thousands of them; there are millions. And to think that a lot of people
+considered the talk of sending armies from America mere bluff!"
+
+He was really indignant at such ignorance, quite forgetting his
+skepticism of a few months before.
+
+"A great country! And that fellow Wilson, what a man!"
+
+At present he believed the American people capable of accomplishing
+anything they set out to do, no matter how extraordinary; but his
+old-fashioned ideas prevented him from feeling sustained enthusiasm for
+anything collective and abstract, without human physiognomy. The former
+partisan of absolute monarchy, preferred individuals: one man to think
+for the rest, and give them orders. And after a few words, his
+enthusiasm for the American democracy began to shrink in scope until it
+rested in concentrated form on the head of Wilson.
+
+"The greatest man in the world!"
+
+His eyes moistened with idolatrous fervor as he read the President's
+speeches; he exhausted all his vocabulary of superlatives in expressing
+his admiration for the personage who had made a great people unsheath
+their swords, disinterestedly, in defense of justice and liberty, and
+who prophesied at the same time a future of peace for mankind, with no
+greedy nations to menace the life of the humble and the weak.
+
+One evening he found a new phrase to express his admiration.
+
+"What a poet!" Lubimoff, in spite of his melancholy, began to laugh.
+President Wilson a poet!
+
+Don Marcos, stammering at the laughter of his Prince, tried to explain
+himself. Perhaps "poet" was not just the word to express his thought
+accurately. But poet he would call him nevertheless, and with good
+reason. A poet for the Colonel was a seer, who says very beautiful
+things about the future of mankind; a prophet who dreams upon his
+heights, embracing with his glance all that the common crowd swarming
+below cannot see; a being who, on speaking, in whatever form he may
+choose, succeeds in making people who are listening blink their eyes
+with emotion, while a shiver runs down their spines.
+
+His tongue became twisted as he said this but above his stammering,
+arose a firm unshakable conviction.
+
+"After all, I know what I mean. For me, he is a poet: a man who has
+wings ... very long wings."
+
+The Prince began to laugh again. Wilson with wings! He imagined the
+President with his high hat, his glasses, and his kindly smile, and
+growing out from each shoulder of his long coat two enormous feathery
+triangles like those of the angels in religious paintings. What an
+amusing fellow the Colonel was!
+
+Then suddenly he became thoughtful, while his features took on an
+expression of great seriousness.
+
+"You are right," he said. "I can see him with wings, wings that are too
+long perhaps. A great thing when it comes to flying, but when one is
+obliged to live among men, and has to walk along on the ground!... I am
+afraid he will drag his wings; I am afraid they will be stepped on some
+day, and that people will find them a great nuisance...."
+
+And they dropped the subject.
+
+The Prince wanted to break the confinement which he had voluntarily
+imposed upon himself. Why should he stay there at Villa Sirena, near
+certain people who constantly occupied his thoughts yet whom he did not
+wish to see? The best thing would be for him to return to Paris as soon
+as possible. The long range cannon was continuing to fire on the
+Capital; almost every week squads of German aeroplanes made night
+excursions about it, dropping explosives. Such a trip offered the
+inducement of danger and excitement to the lonely man, tormented in his
+perfect health by an inactive and monotonous life, which offered nothing
+more stimulating than the irritations to be derived from his recent
+experiences.
+
+Every morning, when he got up, he formulated the same plan: "I am going
+to Paris." But the trip kept being put off from week to week. It was a
+case of abulia, the loss of will power of an invalid, who makes projects
+of active life, and no sooner attempts to carry them out, than he loses
+his strength again, and postpones them indefinitely.
+
+The most insignificant details loomed gigantically before his diseased
+will. He had to go to Nice to make reservations at the Sleeping-car
+Office. He thought of sending Don Marcos; then refrained, considering it
+preferable to go himself. And days went by without his taking the short
+ride preliminary to his Paris trip. Both of them seemed equally long.
+He, who had thrice circumnavigated the globe, wearily shrunk at the
+thought of the slowness of travel due to the war. Just imagine sixteen
+hours on a train!
+
+One afternoon, bored by his splendid gardens,--now so monotonous!--by
+the silence of his house,--now so deserted!--and by the increasing
+absent-mindedness of the Colonel, who was always having something to do
+either in Monte Carlo, or in the gardener's pavilion, Lubimoff started
+out on foot toward the City. And he met some one.
+
+He had turned quite mechanically and without thinking in the direction
+of the upper boulevards, near the street in which Villa Rosa was
+situated. When he realized this, he decided to turn back. Just then he
+saw Lieutenant Martinez coming along on the opposite sidewalk, in the
+direction that he himself had been going a few moments before.
+
+The soldier seemed to him taller, stronger, and as it were, surrounded
+by a halo of glory. His uniform was the same, frayed and old looking
+after some years of service; but to the Prince it seemed entirely new,
+even dazzling in its freshness. Everything about the Lieutenant looked
+magnificent and he seemed to illumine the objects about him by mere
+contact. His features perhaps were paler and more angular; but Michael
+imagined that he radiated a certain inner splendor, composed of pride
+and satisfaction. A sort of ethereal mask, enveloping him in astral
+light, made him appear handsome and gave him a new physiognomy,
+Apollo-like and triumphant.
+
+They passed without speaking. The Lieutenant pretended not to see him,
+as Lubimoff's eyes followed him with a questioning glance. What was
+there that was new in this man? The Prince doubted that lack of sound
+health, that perilous condition which worried the doctors so much. It
+was all a lie made up to impress the ladies! He noticed the proud
+firmness of the soldier's step, the jaunty, boyish air with which he
+swung the rattan he used as a cane.
+
+On losing him from sight, he could see him even more clearly. His
+imagination kept vividly recalling certain details over which his eyes
+had wandered carelessly. There was something that stood out in painful
+relief in his memory: a few roses, a little bunch of roses, which the
+soldier was wearing on his breast, between two buttons of his uniform.
+An officer with flowers seemed rather strange! That was what had shocked
+the Prince at the first glance, shocked him so violently that his whole
+vision had been deeply disturbed. Yes, those flowers!...
+
+He spent the rest of the day thinking about them. As he stretched out in
+his bed that night, darkness clarified the maze of thoughts and doubts
+whirling in his brain. He could see it all in a cold clear light. "It
+has happened already!"
+
+He jumped out of bed and turned on the light, pacing up and down his
+bedroom in a fury.
+
+"It has happened already!"
+
+He kept repeating the words with anguished obsession; he repented his
+generosity, as though it were a crime. "Why didn't I kill him?" Then in
+plaintive tones he would repeat his original affirmation, concluding
+that what had happened was irreparable. Then he put out the light again;
+and for a long time, in the darkness, which once more filled the
+bedroom, the curses of the Prince resounded, alternating with fierce
+exclamations of wounded pride and sobs of rage.
+
+The following day his conviction still persisted. The childlike beauty
+of the morning, which always inspires optimism, meant nothing to him.
+How was he to know the truth about that thing which he had suspected and
+feared, but which he never imagined would really come to pass?
+
+A desperate curiosity caused him to spend the entire day in Monte Carlo.
+He met Martinez again. The officer kept on walking, turning his glance
+away in order not to see him; but the Prince imagined he caught a
+fleeting look of generous pity in his eyes, an expression of compassion
+for an unfortunate and inoffensive rival. Again he was wearing flowers;
+doubtless different from those of the day before.
+
+Lubimoff repeated to himself the laments of the previous night: "Yes, it
+had already happened." It was impossible to doubt it. But the thought of
+killing him did not recur, nor did he repent of his generosity. That was
+all so useless now! He merely thought with envy of people in the
+submerged classes of society, who feel the impulses of passion very
+simply, without any disturbing sense of honor and solemn promises. They
+were men who could act regardless of laws and customs. When they wanted
+to kill some one, they went and did so!
+
+He saw that Martinez was thinner than ever, with a feverish look in his
+eyes. Oh, that indefinable something, that suggestion of youthful
+vanity, of triumph and satisfaction, which seemed to radiate from his
+features like a halo of glory!
+
+That evening, Toledo found himself brusquely repelled by his Prince,
+when he tried to tell him about a letter which he had received from
+Paris. The Administrator of the Prince's estate was getting impatient;
+he was asking for a reply from his Highness in regard to the sale of
+Villa Sirena.
+
+"I don't know; leave me alone. The best thing is for me to arrange the
+matter myself. I'll go to Nice to-morrow and see about my trip to
+Paris.... No, not to-morrow: day after to-morrow."
+
+He could not explain to himself why he had conceded that additional day
+to his idleness: it was an instinctive postponement, without any motive
+whatsoever. The following day, after breakfast, he regretted it; but it
+was already too late to find the chauffeur he had gotten the afternoon
+of the duel, and whom Don Marcos had just promoted to the rank of
+"purveyor to his Highness."
+
+Where could he go, and be sure of not coming across the persons present
+so bitterly in his thoughts? Toward the end of the afternoon he went to
+the Casino terraces. There was an open air concert which was attracting
+a huge crowd. It was improbable that Martinez and the woman should show
+themselves in such a gathering.
+
+It seemed as though he were living in peace times; as though he had gone
+back to one of those rare winters which used to attract all the wealthy
+people of the globe to the Riviera. Both terraces were filled with
+well-dressed people. The bombardment of Paris and the attacks of the
+German _Gothas_ were keeping a great many elegant ladies in Monte Carlo
+who formerly would have felt they were losing caste if they stayed on
+the warm coast when winter was over.
+
+Chairs were lacking. A large part of the audience was seated on the
+balustrades and steps. Around the orchestra _kiosque_ there was a mass
+of pleasant colors, formed by women's hats, spring dresses, and
+fluttering fans. Opposite the terraces the sea stretched away between
+the rose-colored promontories. The far-away sails reddened by the
+setting sun seemed like so many flames. Across the violet surface of the
+Mediterranean and the crystal opalescence of the evening sky the music
+fell voluptuously.
+
+Nobody was thinking about the war: that was a calamity that belonged to
+another world, to other skies. Even the convalescent soldiers in
+uniform, who were living entirely in the present moment, breathing the
+salt air, listening to the wail of the violins, and surrounded by gayly
+dressed women, did not seem to remember it. Many eyes were following the
+progress, along the horizon line, of a string of ships strangely painted
+like fabulous monsters, and escorted by several torpedo boats. But the
+lulling music that rang in the ears of the idlers took all significance
+away from the fearful disguise of the boats, and from the cautious
+slowness with which they were gliding along off the Shores of Pleasure.
+
+When, after seven o'clock, the concert was over, the terraces gradually
+emptied. On the benches only a few couples remaining, putting off the
+time of parting by conversing quietly in the silence of the blue
+twilight.
+
+The Prince succeeded in walking from one end to the other of the lower
+promenade without once having to submit to contact with the crowd.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, with a feeling of surprise and pain, as though he
+had just received a blow in the breast. Down the wide steps which joined
+the two terraces, a couple were descending. His instinct recognized
+them even before he could see them clearly. It was a soldier. It was
+Lieutenant Martinez ... and she!
+
+Alicia was dressed in mourning, just as he had seen her near the church;
+but she was walking less resolutely, shrinking and timid, on finding
+herself on that spot which shortly before had been occupied by all her
+neighbors from the city.
+
+They were talking as they slowly descended. Absorbed in the view out
+upon the sea, they did not turn their eyes toward the spot where
+Lubimoff was standing motionless. At the bottom of the stairs they chose
+to walk in the opposite direction, and the Prince was able to follow
+them.
+
+He felt that some extraordinary power of divination was sharpening his
+faculties; a sort of second sight which was enabling him to see and
+study both their faces, in spite of the fact that their backs were
+turned toward him.
+
+Alas, that walk! It was the desire for light and open air, which people
+feel after a sweet confinement. It was the insolent need lovers have of
+displaying their happiness in public, when the joyous hours, through
+monotonous repetition, begin to weigh on them. It was the desire of
+prolonging in the sight of every one the sweet intimacy enjoyed in
+secret and now spiced with the added incentive of being obliged to
+feign, and to hide all real feelings.
+
+Michael considered his intuitions as beyond all question. Of course! It
+was the officer who had proposed that walk. How proud he would be to
+walk in a public place with a celebrated lady, and in full consciousness
+of the new rights he had acquired over her! It was no longer possible
+for him to question the visualization which had made him groan in the
+silence of the night.... It had taken place! It had taken place!
+
+Alicia's appearance dispelled all doubts in advance. She was walking
+along with a certain dismay like a person obliged to go on in spite of
+herself. He could see her invisible features. They were sad, profoundly
+sad, with a melancholy look of the woman who has fallen and is conscious
+of her abasement, but considers it irremediable, the result of an
+irresistible destiny, of a cause beyond the radius of the will's action.
+
+Her head kept bending down to one side toward her companion, for her
+eyes to gaze on him. It must have been the gaze of a willing prisoner
+anxious to forget the pangs of remorse and taking a sensuous
+satisfaction in her shameful slavery. While her soul shrank away at the
+memory, her body was bending under physical attraction to that other
+body, instinctively seeking the contact that was causing her youth to
+bloom again in a new spring-time; a sad spring-time, like all the
+surprises of fate, but sweeter far than the dull gray hours of solitude.
+
+Hate, repugnance, and indignant jealousy caused the Prince to stop. Why
+should he follow them? They might turn their heads and see him. He was
+ashamed at the thought of meeting them. The wretches! There must be Some
+One above to punish such things!
+
+And he left them, walking toward the other end of the promenade in order
+to descend to the harbor of La Condamine.
+
+He was just leaving the terrace when something happened behind his back
+which brought him to a stop. The couples seated on the benches suddenly
+rose and ran shouting in the direction whence he had come. He could hear
+people calling to one another. Some news seemed to be circulating
+through both levels of the garden, bringing people forth from the walks,
+from the clusters of palm trees, and the walls of vegetation.
+
+Lubimoff allowed himself to be carried along by this alarm, and
+retraced his steps. He saw in the distance a noisy mass of people ever
+increasing in size, a group which was being joined by the winding lines
+of curiosity seekers running down the steps. The garden, which a moment
+before had been deserted, was pouring forth people from every opening.
+
+As he drew near the crowd, he could hear the comments of various
+detached onlookers, who were telling the news to the new arrivals.
+
+"A convalescent officer.... He was taking a walk with a lady....
+Suddenly he fell in a heap, as though struck by lightning. There he is."
+
+Yes; there was Martinez, in the center of that human mass, a pitiful
+object, lying on the ground, with his body bent into the shape of a Z:
+his head made a right angle with his breast, and his legs were doubled,
+making another angle. Lubimoff came forward until he could look over the
+shoulders of the first row of stupefied onlookers. A constant sound of
+hard breathing, a rattle like that of some poor beast in the death agony
+kept coming from his foaming lips. In his motionless body, the only sign
+of life was that moan, repeated with clock-like regularity, with no
+change in the tone.
+
+Officers were leaving their women companions to force their way into the
+center of the crowd. On recognizing Martinez, their surprise assumed a
+caressing brotherly expression.
+
+"Antonio! Antonio!"
+
+They bent over him to talk in his ear, as though he were asleep; but
+Antonio did not hear them. One of his eyes was hidden in the dirt of the
+walk; a small pebble was clinging to the eyelid of the other. All one
+side of his uniform was white with dust. The terrible harsh breathing
+was the only reply to their words of endearment.
+
+A military doctor stepped through the crowd. He took hold of Martinez's
+hands, and felt his pulse. A look of helplessness came over the doctor's
+face. The Lieutenant had had many attacks like this one. They could only
+hope that it was not to be his last....
+
+Lubimoff could see Alicia kneeling on the ground, stunned by the shock,
+showing the sinuous curves of her back, under her mourning garments,
+oblivious of everything about her, with her eyes fixed on the man who a
+few minutes before had been walking at her side, talking and smiling,
+convinced that life is happiness, and who now lay stretched in the dust,
+convulsed and inert, a pitiable vessel slowly emptying itself in dying
+gasps.
+
+Suddenly she stood up, with an instinctive sense of danger. She did not
+care to remain in that posture before everybody's gaze. Her large eyes,
+with a blank, frightened look, began to move about over the crowd,
+without however recognizing any one. For a moment they rested on Michael
+and her gaze met his with an expression of anguished entreaty. But the
+Prince, lowering his head, concealed himself behind the front row of
+onlookers, and her eyes went on in their search about the circle, with a
+look that became dull and gray again. She believed, doubtless, that it
+had been an hallucination.
+
+As Alicia remained standing there, people began to point her out. That
+was the lady who was with the officer. Some of them recognized her, and
+repeated her name: "The Duchess de Delille." Through an instinctive
+feeling of repulsion, or a cowardly desire not to get mixed up in any
+"affair," no one spoke to her. She was left alone in the center of the
+crowd, with a look of stupefaction in her eyes, that seemed to ask for
+help, though without knowing just what help.
+
+Willing souls began to take the initiative with an air of authority.
+
+"Air! Give him air!" They began to shove the crowd back in order to
+increase the circle around the fallen man. But the people immediately
+pushed forward again with useless suggestions of aid; and once more the
+space was narrowed, until the feet of the nearest spectators grazed the
+panting lips of the dying man.
+
+A young girl had run of her own accord to the bar at the entrance of the
+Casino and was coming back with a glass of water.
+
+"Antonio! Antonio!" his kneeling comrades vainly called the Lieutenant,
+using all their strength to open his jaws and force him to drink. His
+lips repelled the liquid, and went on repeating the painful moans.
+
+Ladies, attracted by the news, began to arrive from the gambling rooms.
+They all knew the Duchess; and looked at her with a certain hostility,
+after gazing at the dying man. The Prince heard fragments of their
+comment: "A poor fellow rescued from death by a miracle.... The
+slightest emotion.... That woman...."
+
+Beyond the group, park policemen were running about giving orders. The
+stretcher bearers had arrived; the same ones who, according to public
+rumor, were passed by magic through the walls of the Casino to carry
+away the gamblers dying in the play-rooms.
+
+This time the stretcher was absent. The onlookers were separating to
+open the way for an extraordinary novelty. A hired carriage was coming
+across the terraces, which were forbidden to vehicles.
+
+Suddenly Lubimoff saw the Duchess rise above the heads of the crowd. She
+had just gotten into the carriage and was standing in it, with a dazed
+look and the inexpressive features of a person walking in her sleep.
+Perhaps she had done it without thinking; perhaps the military doctor
+had invited her to get in, thinking she was a relative of the patient.
+Several men in uniform lifted the inert body of the officer.
+
+The harsh breathing that rent his chest continued.
+
+And then, in the presence of the crowd, whose eyes were sightless with
+stupefaction, the Duchess proceeded as though she were alone. She had
+just dropped to the seat. She had them lay the corpse-like body across
+her knees, and she herself, as she held Martinez with one arm, laid his
+panting head against one of her shoulders.
+
+The carriage slowly started off in the direction of the officers' hotel,
+followed by a large part of the crowd. The doctor went along on foot,
+telling the driver to go slowly.
+
+Michael saw Alicia pass, upright and rigid in her seat, her eyes wide
+open, with terror, her mouth tense with grief, and holding the dying man
+on her knees. Her attitude reminded him of the Divine Mother at the foot
+of the cross; but there was something impure and shameful in Alicia's
+sorrow that made the comparison inadmissible.
+
+"Oh, Venus Dolorosa."
+
+The Prince was interrupted in his reflections. He felt himself rudely
+shoved aside by a woman in uniform. It was Mary Lewis, running, as fast
+as her legs could carry her, to overtake the carriage. The Amazon of
+Good Deeds always arrived in time to catch up with suffering.
+
+Lubimoff saw how the vehicle slowly drove away with its embroidery of
+people. Its journey as far as the hotel would be endless; all Monte
+Carlo would see it go by.
+
+He felt sad, very, very sad. That officer was his enemy; but death!...
+
+He was not so sorry for Alicia. He smiled a malicious smile as he looked
+for the last time at the carriage and its following, which was
+constantly increasing.
+
+In the line of scandals there was nothing commonplace about this latest
+of the Duchess de Delille.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Two days later, in the morning, Lubimoff saw the Colonel go out dressed
+in black.
+
+He was going to the funeral of Martinez. He and Novoa felt it was their
+duty, as Spaniards, to accompany the hero on his last earthly journey.
+
+On his return he told his impressions, with painful conciseness, to the
+Prince. A few convalescent officers had followed the bier. The Professor
+and he were the only ones in civilian clothes present. In spite of his
+garb, those kindly heroic boys, seeing that he was a Colonel and a
+compatriot of the dead man, had obliged him to preside over the funeral
+services.
+
+The Beausoleil Cemetery lay half way up the slope of the mountain on the
+crest of which La Turbie is situated. On account of the war, it had been
+necessary to enlarge it by several level plots of ground that formed a
+series of terraces. From these esplanades the eye embraced a magnificent
+view: Monte Carlo, Monaco, immediately below that, Cap-Martin advancing
+out over the waves, finally the infinite expanse of sea that rose and
+rose until it mingled with the sky. A monument with a rooster arrogant
+and victorious on its summit held the remains of the combatants who had
+died for France. Don Marcos was still much moved by the speech he had
+delivered, while all stood hushed, at the entrance to this common tomb,
+which was about to swallow up forever the body of Martinez.
+
+"It was a speech for men," said Toledo, with pride, "for men who had
+been crippled in warfare. Nothing but heroes before me! There wasn't a
+single woman at the funeral."
+
+This was the detail that interested the Prince most: "Not a single
+woman." And he asked himself again what could have become of Alicia.
+
+Toward the end of the afternoon, as he was walking about his gardens, he
+saw Lady Lewis coming, preceded by the Colonel.
+
+The Prince took refuge in his house. The nurse was undoubtedly arriving
+with a group of convalescent Englishmen, and wanted to run about among
+the trees and pick flowers. He did not feel he had the strength to
+listen to her chatter, which was like the twittering of a gay but
+wounded bird and was filled with a happiness that persisted tenaciously
+in the midst of grief, and continued even to the threshold of death.
+
+The Prince was going up the stairway to retire to the upper rooms, when
+the Colonel overtook him; but before the latter could speak Lubimoff
+turned on him in a rage. He didn't want to see the nurse! Let her take
+her Englishmen over the gardens; she might go about in them as though
+they belonged to her; but as for himself, he wanted her to leave him
+alone.
+
+"Marquis," said Toledo, "the noble woman has come alone and must talk
+with your Highness. She has something important to say to you."
+
+The Prince and the nurse sat down in wicker chairs out of doors in a
+little open space surrounded by leafy trees. A fountain was laughing as
+great drops of water scattered from its lazy jet.
+
+The greenish light reflected through the grove made Lady Lewis appear
+weaker and more anaemic. What was left of life seemed concentrated in her
+eyes, before taking flight and vanishing like some volatile fluid, into
+space. The Prince was beginning to forget his recent anger. Poor Lady
+Mary! Once more he had a feeling of tenderness and respect for her. Her
+physical wretchedness finally changed his pity into the kind of
+admiration that disinterested sacrifice always inspires.
+
+Accustomed to living amid the deepest sorrows, to witnessing the
+greatest catastrophes, Lady Lewis paid little attention to the
+conventions prevailing in ordinary life and spoke at once, with a
+certain military abruptness, of the reason for her visit.
+
+She was coming in behalf of the Duchess de Delille. She had spent the
+last two days at Villa Rosa, sleeping there in order not to leave the
+Duchess a single moment. First, Alicia's wild despair, followed later by
+a complete collapse, had frightened her. The lady had tried to kill
+herself.
+
+"Poor woman!... She finally grew calm, seeing the true light, and
+realizing the path she must take. I feel satisfied that I've
+accomplished that much by my words."
+
+Lubimoff's questioning glance remained fixed on the English woman. What
+light and what path was she talking about? But there was something that
+interested him more: the motive of her visit, the message that the
+Duchess had given her for him.
+
+Lady Lewis read his thoughts.
+
+"She asked me to see you, Prince; that is her last wish as she leaves
+the world. She begs you to forget her, never to seek her out, and above
+all to forgive her for the harm she has done you involuntarily.
+Forgiveness is what she most ardently yearns for. When I tell her that
+you don't hate her, it will restore the serenity she needs for her new
+life."
+
+Michael had been absorbed in deep thought. Forgive her? Alicia had not
+done him any harm. From himself, from his own desires and
+disillusionments, his sufferings had come. If he had remained faithful
+to the principles he had announced some months before when he hated
+women, he would not have suffered the slightest change in the sensible
+life he had been leading. Besides, where was she? Could he not see her?
+
+This flood of questions was interrupted by Lady Lewis. She continued to
+smile sweetly, but her voice revealed the firmness of an unalterable
+will.
+
+"The Duchess is no longer living in Monte Carlo; I have arranged
+everything in regard to her trip. I am the only one who knows where she
+is, and I shall never tell. Do not look for her; let her go away in
+peace in her quest for truth; think of her as dead ... as others have
+died, as thousands of beings are dying and will continue to die in this
+period of ours, with each day's sun. Forgive and forget. Poor woman! She
+is so unhappy."
+
+Lubimoff understood how futile all his questions would be. His
+curiosity, no matter how strong and subtle, would fail in contact with
+that impenetrable reserve. Alicia had disappeared forever ... forever!
+
+He now felt sadder and lonelier than ever before. As he sat there beside
+this Amazon of human sorrow, he had a feeling of confidence similar to
+that which the Duchess must have felt during those last few days. It was
+a desire to make a confession to her, an instinctive impulse to bare his
+soul, as though from that woman who brought to death beds the
+light-hearted merriment of a bird, might come the supreme counsel of
+wisdom.
+
+The Prince nodded his head, murmuring his assent: "Yes, I forgive her."
+He did not wish the other woman to bear the slightest burden of grief on
+his account. He would shoulder all that, himself. But immediately
+afterward he could not resist the impulse of that anguish to express
+itself. He was himself astonished at the words which, overriding all
+restraint, escaped from his lips.
+
+"I, too, Lady Lewis, am very unhappy."
+
+The nurse did not show any surprise at such a burst of confidence. She
+simply continued to smile, and said laconically:
+
+"I know."
+
+Her smile was changing to a look of sweet pity, of beneficent
+compassion, as though the Prince were a child in need of her advice.
+
+She had guessed his unhappiness long before the Duchess had talked to
+her in the hours of despairing confession. He believed he was unhappy
+through being crossed in love; but actually, this sorrow was only the
+outer shell of another which was deeper and more real, and which
+depended on himself alone.
+
+He had tried to live apart from his fellow-beings, ignoring their
+troubles, selfishly withdrawing into a shell. He had wished, by
+loitering on the margin of humanity which was suffering the greatest
+crisis in all its history, to prolong the pleasures of peace into a time
+of war. One could understand such aloofness in a coward, dominated by
+the instinct of self-preservation; but _he_ was a brave man. One could
+tolerate it in a man who was burdened with children, who constantly felt
+the imperious duty of supporting them, and was afraid on that account;
+but he was alone in the world.
+
+"We are all unhappy, Prince. Who doesn't know grief and death these
+days?"
+
+And she talked in monotonous tones of her own misfortune, as though she
+were reciting a prayer. Her smile, the smile that animated the anaemic
+homeliness of her features with a vaporous light of dawn, gradually
+faded.
+
+Six of her brothers had been killed in one afternoon. They belonged to
+the same battalion and she had received the news of the six deaths at
+the same time. Thirty-two of her relatives were now beneath the ground
+and very few of them had been soldiers in the beginning. Before the war
+they had lived lives of pleasure. They enjoyed great wealth and titles:
+Life had been as sweet to them as to Prince Lubimoff.... But when they
+heard the call of duty!... "No one chooses the spot where he is born; no
+one can decide which his country shall be and what his lineage. We come
+into the world according to the whims of chance, in the upper or the
+lower stories of society, and we mold our lives according to the place
+designated by fate. Neither can any one choose the times he will live
+in. Happy they who are born in peace times, when humanity is wrapped in
+calm, and its prehistoric savagery is slumbering within the shell formed
+by civilization; happy also they who are born into a powerful family and
+find themselves exempted from the struggle of life."
+
+"But when we are born into a period of madness," she continued, "we have
+to resign ourselves and adapt ourselves to it, without seeking to avoid
+the painful burden that falls on our shoulders. It is our duty to suffer
+so that others later on may be happy as our forefathers suffered for our
+sakes."
+
+What grief she had felt on receiving at a single stroke the news of the
+death of all her brothers! She did not consider herself an extraordinary
+being; she was simply a woman like any other. She had wept. She had
+abandoned herself to her despair. Then, an idea kept drifting through
+her mind joyously refreshing her drooping spirits. Supposing men were
+immortal in this life! Then despair would be horrible indeed. If you
+considered that the dead might have saved their lives by keeping far
+from every danger! But no one was immortal.
+
+"Whether you die from a bullet wound or from microbes, makes little
+difference. Only the external circumstances vary, and for many people
+there is a greater fascination in returning to dust in a lightning-like
+manner in the full intoxication of battle, with a generous idea in one's
+mind, than in slowly fading away in confinement between two sheets,
+defiled and degraded by the filth of a material nature beginning to
+disintegrate.
+
+"It is a sort of holy fear necessary, for that matter, to the
+preservation of human life, and it troubles people and makes them hide
+from themselves the terrible truth that waits at the end of every life.
+Sensible people consider it madness to go out in quest of death. It is
+all very well if death is something motionless which sets hands only on
+those who draw near it of their own accord. But if man does not go
+forward to meet death, death, with its hundred-league boots, runs in
+search of man. Who can guess the moment of the meeting? The best thing,
+then, is to scorn it; and not pay it the tribute of constant thought
+which engenders anxiety and fear.
+
+"Besides, death in bed is an unfruitful and sterile death. To whom could
+it be of use, except one's heirs? The other kind of death, death for an
+idea, even for an erroneous idea, means something positive. It is an act
+of energy and faith and the aggregate of such acts makes up the noblest
+history of humanity."
+
+The Prince admired the simplicity with which this woman, who was almost
+in a dying condition, exalted the heroism of life and scorned death.
+
+She had placed her ideal very high beyond the selfish desires which form
+the warp and woof of ordinary lives. If every one were to suit merely
+his own convenience, humanity as a whole would have no reason to
+consider itself superior to animals.
+
+The noblewoman possessed an ideal: to sacrifice herself for her fellow
+beings; to serve them even at the cost of her own life. She was almost
+glad of the war, which had helped her to find her true path. In peace
+times she would have done the same as every woman, linking her lot with
+that of a man, bearing children and building up a family.
+
+"Amorous affection reduces the world to two beings; a mother's love
+finds nothing of interest beyond her own progeny. Only when old age is
+reached and the illusory perspectives of life have faded away, is the
+great truth apparent that people must be interested in every living
+being, ready to sacrifice themselves for every living being. But the
+exalted sympathy of old age is unfruitful and brief."
+
+Mary Lewis considered herself fortunate in having rushed forward in the
+right direction from the first moment, without the long evasions of
+other people, who are late in reaching the truth.
+
+"I have had my romance, like every one else."
+
+She said this simply, but at the same time what blood was left in her
+veins animated her features with a faint blush, as though she were
+confessing something extraordinary.
+
+She had been loved by a scholarly man, a former secretary of her father,
+the Colonial Governor. Only once had they confessed their love.
+Afterwards their life continued as before, both of them keeping the
+secret, postponing the realization of their dreams to an indefinite
+future.... But the war came.
+
+He had hastened, among the first, to enlist as a volunteer: "Mary, I am
+a soldier." And Mary had replied: "That is right." They wrote short
+letters to each other at long intervals. They had more important things
+to do. He did not have the handsome features and the strength of a hero,
+like Lady Lewis' brothers. He even suspected that his bearing was
+scarcely military because of the ungainliness that comes from a
+sedentary life, spent in bending over a writing table. But he did his
+duty, and more than once he had been cited for his cool audacity.
+
+Their desires would now never be fulfilled. Even though she might
+succeed in surviving the war, she would continue her present existence
+in civilian hospitals, in far-off countries scourged by plagues. He
+perhaps would marry another, or perhaps would remain faithful to her
+memory, devoting himself for his part to relieving the pain and sorrows
+of his fellow beings. But they would live apart, going where duty called
+them, thinking constantly of each other, but without meeting, like the
+cultivated monks and passionate nuns of other centuries, who filled
+their lives with spiritual friendships maintained in widely separated
+monasteries and convents.
+
+Once more Michael admired her abnegation. Lady Lewis belonged to that
+small group of the elect, who do not know what selfishness is and long
+to sacrifice themselves for what is good. She was one of that immortal
+line of saintly women who existed before the birth of religion and who
+will continue to flourish just the same when skepticism has finally
+ruined all our present beliefs.
+
+"You are an angel," said the Prince.
+
+"No," she protested; "I am a lover, a great lover."
+
+Lubimoff smiled with a certain air of pity.
+
+"You a lover?"
+
+She went on talking as though her listener's surprise annoyed her. What
+was other women's love compared to hers? They fixed their tenderness,
+their desire for self-sacrifice, on one man only. Beyond him they found
+nothing worthy of interest. She loved all men, all of them, even the
+soldiers of the enemy whom she had often cared for in the ambulances at
+the front. They were mistaken, and if they really were guilty souls and
+wished to continue being so, all she could see in them was their
+physical condition as, threatened by death, they lay stretched out on
+their beds, with their flesh mangled. They were simply unfortunate
+beings, and this was enough to make her forget their nationality.
+
+She wanted her own side to triumph because the other represented the
+exaltation of brute strength, the glorification of war, and it was her
+desire that there should be no more wars. She longed for the time when
+love would rule the whole world!... It was bad enough that men could not
+suppress with like facility, poverty, pain and death, the black
+divinities which seize us at our birth and with whom we struggle up to
+the last moment.
+
+"I love everything that is alive: People, animals, and flowers. Beside
+such love, what is the affection between a man and a woman, which people
+consider the only love and is simply the selfishness of two beings
+setting themselves apart from their fellow beings, and living only for
+themselves? My love is likewise a kind of selfishness. I realize it;
+perhaps it is something worse: pride. If you only knew how gay I feel
+when I have saved from death one of my 'flirts,' one of those poor
+wounded men whom I shall never see again!... No, don't admire me,
+Prince, and don't feel sorry for me. I am merely a poor woman! by no
+means an angel! Moreover, I am very bad; I have my repentances, like
+every one else."
+
+"You, Lady Mary!" the Prince exclaimed again with a look of incredulity.
+That he should have no doubts about it she hastened to relate the great
+sin of her life. Traveling through Andalusia she had seen some boys on a
+river bank who were trying to drown a stray dog, throwing stones at it.
+Mary fell upon them, mad with rage, striking them with her parasol. One
+of the little fellows wept, and blood spurted from his nostrils. This
+unhappy memory had often troubled her in the night. Now she could not
+see a child without caressing it with all the ardor occasioned by
+remorse.
+
+Also she had had quarrels in various countries with drivers who were
+whipping their work animals and with hotel keepers who would not allow
+her to keep in her room lost dogs and cats she found in the streets.
+
+Before the war, her pity had been entirely for animals. Humanity was
+able to defend itself. But now, the butchery of beings in uniforms had
+turned her sweet tenderness toward mankind. They needed love and
+protection more than the poor brutes.
+
+The mention of her "flirts" suddenly brought her back to her duty. At
+that very moment they were tossing, covered with bandages, in their
+beds, and anxiously calling for her presence. Or else they were sitting
+on a bench with motionless eyes turned toward the sun, refusing to take
+a walk until they could feel the gentle support of her arm. "Good-by,
+Prince!" She must go! Her lovers were waiting for her.
+
+As she stood up, she thought again of the reason for her visit and spoke
+once more in the tone that revealed the firmness of her will.
+
+It was useless for him to seek the Duchess. The poor woman after
+entering so many blind alleys in her life, had finally found the true
+path, the one she herself, more fortunate, had discovered while still in
+her youth. The Virgin Dolorosa spoke in a simple, natural way of
+Alicia's past. She knew it all. In the silence of Villa Rosa, the other
+woman had confessed it in despair, without the nurse feeling either
+scandalized or amazed. What did the moral capacity of a mere individual
+mean, when at every moment the world was beholding the most unheard of
+crimes.
+
+"She left this morning and is a long way off--a long way!" said the
+gentle woman. "It is possible that you will never see each other again.
+I will write her that you forgive her. That will afford her the peace of
+mind she needs in her new life."
+
+The Prince was going with her as far as the entrance to his gardens.
+During the walk he began once more to lament his fate. He needed to
+relieve by articulation the despair in which he was left by the refusal
+of the English woman to tell him where Alicia was staying.
+
+"I am very unhappy, Lady Mary."
+
+"I know," she replied. "My misfortunes are greater than yours, but I
+rise above them better."
+
+For Mary life was a sort of balance. In one pan of the scales suffering
+had perforce to fall. No one could free himself from that burden. But
+the spirit must re-establish the equilibrium by placing in the other pan
+something great, an ideal, a hope. She had found the necessary
+counterweight: love for everything alive, sacrifice for one's fellow
+beings, and consequent abnegation.
+
+What did the Prince have to counter-balance the shocks of destiny?...
+Nothing. He went on living the same as in peace times, thinking only of
+himself. He was still just as the great mass of men had been, before the
+war drew them from their selfish individualism, making the virtues of
+solidarity and sacrifice flourish once more in their souls. For that
+reason all he needed to feel desperate was a mere obstacle to his
+desires, a disappointment in love, that should really be an affliction
+only in the life of a mere boy. Oh, if only he could get a high ideal!
+If only he could think less about himself and more about mankind!...
+
+They shook hands beside the gate.
+
+"Good-by, Lady Lewis!" said the Prince, bowing.
+
+If Don Marcos had been present the Prince's voice at that moment would
+have sounded familiar to him. It was the same as on the afternoon of the
+duel, when he met the English woman with the two blind men; a
+beautifully solemn voice which wavered close to tears.
+
+Toledo did not appear until a few moments later, coming out of the
+gardener's pavilion, to meet the Prince, who was returning pensively
+toward the villa.
+
+Lubimoff spoke and gave an order in stern tones.
+
+"I am leaving for Paris. I want to go to-morrow. Make all the necessary
+arrangements."
+
+Then, as he gazed into the Colonel's eyes, he continued in a gentler
+voice:
+
+"I think I shall never return here.... I am going to sell Villa
+Sirena."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Don Marcos is descending the slopes of the public gardens toward the
+Casino Square, in conversation with a soldier.
+
+He is no longer the ceremonious Colonel who used to kiss the hands of
+the elderly and noble ladies in the gambling rooms, and was present as
+the inevitable guest at the luncheons of all the titled families
+stopping at the Hotel de Paris. There is nothing about his person to
+recall the long velvet lined frock coats, the high white silk hats, and
+the other splendors of his eccentric elegance. He is soberly dressed in
+a dark suit, and there is something rustic about his appearance, which
+reveals the man who lives in the country, enjoys cultivating the soil,
+and feels constraint on returning to city life. He is wearing gloves,
+just as in the good old days; but now it is out of necessity. His hands
+remind him of a certain narrow garden around his diminutive villa, with
+five trees, twelve rose bushes, and some forty shrubs all of which he
+knows individually, by names he has given them. He has been caring for
+them so fondly, and caressing them so often, that his fingers have
+become calloused.
+
+The soldier is also walking along like a country man, looking with
+curiosity in every direction. A stiff mustache covers his upper lip, one
+of those stiff and aggressive mustaches which come out after long
+periods of continual shaving. His uniform is old, faded by the sun and
+rain. The yellowish cloth has the neutral color of the soil. His right
+arm hangs inert from the shoulder and moves in rhythm with his step,
+like a dangling inanimate object. His hand is covered with a glove, the
+rigidity of which reveals the outline of something hard and mechanical.
+The other hand leans on a knotty cane, and smoke is curling from a pipe
+in his lips. On his sleeves, almost mingling with the color of the
+cloth, is the one narrow officer's stripe.
+
+"It has been ten months and twenty days, since your Highness left here.
+How many things have happened!"
+
+The soldier is Prince Lubimoff; but Lubimoff seems stronger, more serene
+and decided than the preceding year, in spite of his artificial arm.
+There are the same gray hairs, scattered here and there, on his head;
+but his mustache, on being allowed to grow, has come out almost white.
+
+The Colonel's side whiskers are like his mustache. With the
+disappearance of his elegance, the touches of the toilet table have
+likewise ceased, and the modest gray, obtained by careful dying, has
+given place to the white of frank old age.
+
+Don Marcos points to the Square toward which they are both going.
+
+"If your Highness had only seen it the night of the Armistice!"
+
+The news of the triumph made every one come running. They descended from
+Beausoleil, they came up from La Condamine, and they arrived from the
+rock of Monaco. For the first time in four years, the facades of the
+Casino, the hotels and cafes, were illuminated from top to bottom.
+
+The Square was overflowing with people. They all seemed to blink as
+though dazzled by the light, after the long darkness in which the
+submarine menace had kept them plunged. Several brass instruments roared
+out the Marseillaise, and the crowd following the flags of the Allied
+countries and, unwilling to leave the Square, kept marching about the
+"Camembert," like moths about a flame.
+
+Suddenly a long dancing line formed, a _farandole_, and it began to run
+and leap, growing at each twist and turn. Every one, in the contagion of
+enthusiasm, joined out; officers grasped hands with privates; solemn
+ladies kicked up their heels and lost their hats; timid girls shouted,
+with their hair flying; the faces of the women had the look of
+enthusiastic madness which is seen only in times of revolution. The lame
+hopped and skipped, the blind imagined they could see, and those who had
+lost their hands held on with their stumps to the serpentine line. The
+Marseillaise seemed like a miraculous hymn, giving every one new
+strength. Peace!... Peace!
+
+In one of its evolutions, the head of the human snake climbed the steps
+of the Casino. The _farandole_ was trying to enter the antechamber, and
+the gambling rooms, to wrap its coils about the crowd, the _croupiers_,
+and the tables. Every selfish activity should cease in that hour of
+generous joy.
+
+"Alas, the gamblers! What a malady gambling is, Your Highness! On
+reaching the Square they took off their hats to the flags, and almost
+wept, as they sang a verse of the Marseillaise. 'Long live France! Long
+live the Allies!' And immediately they entered the Casino to bet their
+money on the same number as the celebrated date, or on other
+combinations suggested by peace."
+
+The gate-keepers, with the air of old gendarmes, concentrated in a
+heroic body to keep off with their breasts, their bellies and their
+fists the turbulent snake dance which was trying to enter the sacred
+edifice. They seemed indignant. When had such extraordinary insolence
+ever been seen? Peace was a good thing, and people might well rejoice;
+but to come into the Casino like a dancing riot, to interrupt the
+functioning of an honorable industry!... And they had finally shoved the
+line of disheveled women down the steps, and the decorated soldiers who
+were suddenly forgetting their infirmities and their wounds were driven
+after it.
+
+The Prince and Toledo arrive at the Square and turn to the left of the
+Casino, toward the Cafe de Paris.
+
+Lubimoff sits down at a table, at a protruding angle of the sidewalk
+cafe which people nickname "The Promontory." The Colonel remains on his
+right. He has spent the afternoon with the Prince, and must return home.
+He is no longer so free as before; some one is living with him, and his
+new situation imposes unavoidable obligations.
+
+In his mind's eye he can see, on the heights of Beausoleil, the little
+house he lives in, surrounded by its little garden. It is all his by
+registered public deed. But the fate of his property does not worry the
+Colonel; no one will carry off his walls and trees. What makes him
+nervous is a certain non-commissioned American officer, young and well
+built, who has a mania for walking about the dwelling; and certain
+bright eyes which from a window follow the soldier with a hungry look;
+and certain lips red as cherries, that smile at that American; and
+certain hands which Don Marcos thinks he has surprised from a distance
+throwing down a flower, though their owner shrieks at him in fury every
+day to convince him that he has been imagining things.
+
+Don Marcos is married. A few weeks after the departure of the Prince, a
+great change came into his life. Villa Sirena already belonged to the
+nouveau-riche who was a maker of auto trucks and aeroplanes, and who
+had also bought the Paris residence. The Colonel on giving him
+possession, remembered only to praise the merits of the gardener and his
+family.
+
+Lubimoff, before leaving for the front, had arranged for his
+"chamberlain's" future, assuring him a pension of ten thousand francs a
+year, and also sending him a certain sum with which to buy a house.
+Since the Colonel had set his mind on dying in Monte Carlo, he ought to
+have a little Villa Sirena of his own.
+
+After digging in the garden on his property for a short time, with an
+occasional glance down on the Casino Square, Toledo went in search of
+Novoa. The Professor was his best friend; besides, he was a Spaniard,
+and it was the latter's duty to be of service to him, in the most
+important event in his life. He needed a best man for his wedding. The
+Professor was dumbfounded on being informed that the Colonel was going
+to marry the gardener's daughter. She was young enough to be his
+grandchild! It was tempting fate for a man of his years to expose
+himself deliberately to such dangers.
+
+"You, Don Marcos, as a Spaniard, must remember," said Novoa, "that the
+Saint whose name you bear has a bull with long horns for his emblem!
+Besides, youth has its rights."
+
+"And old age its duties," replied the Colonel, with a kindly air,
+resigning himself to his future.
+
+At present, standing beside the Prince, he stammers with timidity and
+embarrassment. He hates to confess that he must desert him.
+
+"Mado is waiting for me: you see, the poor girl doesn't go out very
+much. She likes to have me take her to the afternoon concerts on the
+terraces. It is five o'clock."
+
+And when the Prince assents, with a slight nod, Toledo rushes off
+precipitously. Then, farther on, he begins almost to run up the slope,
+panting, but without feeling his weariness. He wants to reach home as
+soon as possible, and yet is afraid of doing so. He is sure of Mado only
+when he is within range of her shrieks. He shudders when he thinks that
+he may be "imagining things" again.
+
+As the Prince remains alone, the glass that is before his eyes gradually
+fades away and with it the adjoining tables, and the people seated
+around the "Camembert." His vision contracts, and buries itself deep
+within his mind to contemplate other images of memory.
+
+He arrived in Monte Carlo that morning. Only a few hours have passed,
+and he has seen so much already!
+
+He recalls certain remarks of his friend Lewis; and remarks, made during
+one of the luncheons at Villa Sirena: "Life is strange and uneven as it
+flows along. Time goes by without anything extraordinary arising, and
+then, all of a sudden, hours do the work of months, days are as eventful
+as years, and things happen in a few moments which, at other times,
+would take centuries." How many people have died in the relatively short
+space of time that has elapsed since he last left Monte Carlo!
+
+Lubimoff recalls the brief and exciting period after his arrival in
+Paris: his enlistment in the Foreign Legion; the Commission of Second
+Lieutenant granted him in recognition of his former service as Captain
+in the Imperial Guards; his departure for the front, after distributing
+or investing the million and a half derived from the sale of Villa
+Sirena, his hard life in action, the battles and slaughter accompanying,
+with gruesome prodigality, the advances of the triumphant offensive. He
+recalls his meeting with a member of the Legion who suddenly called to
+him and whom he had some difficulty in recognizing: Atilio Castro!
+Castro had changed. His ironical smile had vanished. He looked on life
+with greater seriousness, and now seemed convinced of the worth of his
+actions. They belonged to different battalions, and they did not see
+each other again, till late one afternoon, after a fight, he came across
+him. The poor boy was lying stretched out on the ground, among other
+corpses. His forehead had been crushed in and his brain was showing
+under the wound! On that face the death grin was a smile of serenity.
+Poor Castro! What could have become of Dona Clorinda?
+
+The Prince's mind wanders from that memory. Other lost friends claim his
+attention. He evokes finally a more recent vision: his arrival after a
+long convalescence in a hospital, in Monte Carlo. On getting out of the
+train, Toledo deeply moved, gazes at his artificial arm, which hides but
+imperfectly the amputation. He had suffered for several months from the
+consequences of a stupid, accidental wound, received ingloriously a few
+days before the armistice.
+
+He ascends the slope to the delightful little home of Don Marcos, which
+will be his own while he remains here. Down below, projecting into the
+sea, the promontory of Villa Sirena meets his eye. It now belongs to
+another man, and he turns his glance away to keep certain memories from
+welling up. In doing so his eyes chance to meet the eyes of Mado,
+Toledo's _senora_; eyes which doubtless consider Prince Lubimoff more
+interesting, with his mustache, his elderly appearance, and his uniform,
+than when he was the elegant master of her parents. Poor Colonel! And
+Michael flees the tempting glance, and the full scarlet lips, which seem
+to challenge him to smile.
+
+After lunch he follows a path which zigzags up the mountain; he sees a
+stone wall, passes through a door, and briefly contemplates a monument
+surmounted by a huge rooster.
+
+Toledo bares his head. Peace to the heroes! Then he points to the
+entrance of the funereal structure.
+
+"Poor Martinez is there."
+
+They descend several steps to another part of the cemetery, lying in
+terraces on the mountain slope. On that level plot the tombs are leveled
+off even with the soil, with slabs of stone protected by low rectangular
+fences of chain, or simply bordered with flowers. An aesthetic instinct
+seems to explain the sparing use of ornaments here. From these mournful
+esplanades of death one can see a great expanse of green coast, dotted
+with the white of villas and towns; the rose-colored Alps, the capes of
+purple rock, the deep intense blue of the Mediterranean, and the soft
+limpid blue of a cloudless sky. And the graves seem to smile at all this
+splendor of Nature.
+
+The Colonel searches among them, reading the names.
+
+"Here, Marquis."
+
+He points to a slab with a simple inscription: "Mary Lewis."
+
+"Just like a bird, your Highness. One morning at dawn they found her
+poor little body dead on the hospital cot. She hadn't cried out, she
+hadn't complained; she departed as she had lived. The nurses say that
+the face was smiling. Her body was as light as a feather."
+
+Around the tomb several wreaths were turning black, as though scorched
+by fire. Toledo seeks among these offerings of the dead woman's
+companions, until he points to a handful of fresh roses, which are
+beginning to decay.
+
+"They must be from Lord Lewis," he goes on to say. "When things go badly
+in the Casino, he comes up to see his niece. Your Highness must know,
+of course, that with the death of Lady Lewis, he is now a Lord--really a
+Lord."
+
+The Prince shrugs his shoulders. To think of human vanities in a place
+like this, which makes all earthly worries seem grotesque!
+
+Don Marcos guesses his impatience, and as they descend two more
+terraces, he goes on explaining.
+
+"The English woman died before the other; that is why they buried her
+farther up. So many people have died in the last few months!"
+
+They reach the last terrace of the cemetery, the lowest one, a square
+field of reddish earth in which there are no slabs, no truncated
+columns, and no fences of chain. Little mounds of earth taking the form
+of a coffin indicate the location of the graves. Some of them have
+wooden crosses. From one of the latter hangs the picture of a young
+soldier in the center of a wreath laid there by his parents.
+
+Two men show their heads and shoulders above the ground and disappear
+from sight again after emptying their shovels. They are opening a grave
+for some one who is soon to come. Michael notices floating up from the
+vibrant, luminous air, the mournful sound of a bell, tolling in an
+unseen church below.
+
+The Colonel insists on explaining.
+
+"It is a temporary grave, without any slab, without any name."
+
+On account of the war, it was impossible to send the body to Paris. It
+will lie here the length of time the law demands, and then the young
+lady, who is her heir, will have her taken to the vault in the Passy
+Cemetery where her mother is buried. He hesitates somewhat as he
+examines the mounds, and finally stops in front of one of them, and
+takes off his hat.
+
+"Here it is."
+
+Lubimoff cannot hide his surprise. "Here?..." He sees a heap of earth,
+without anything to adorn it, without anything to differentiate it from
+the rest, and which inspires in him no emotion at all. He looks
+anxiously at his companion. Hasn't he made a mistake? Are they not
+standing beside the tomb of some poor soldier who died of his wounds?
+
+The Colonel, somewhat offended by the question, repeats energetically:
+"Here it is." He remembers that he was the only man present at the
+funeral. Three nurses, Senorita Valeria, and he, followed the coffin to
+these heights; there was no one else.
+
+Poor Duchess de Delille! Toledo is moved on remembering her unexpected
+death. Lady Lewis had sent her to the front. Having been born in the
+United States, it was fairly easy for her to be admitted to a hospital
+unit with the American Divisions that were fighting at Chateau-Thierry.
+
+The Prince, listening to the explanations of Don Marcos, recalls a
+confession Alicia once made to him. Her hands were clumsy. Her spirit,
+anxious to do good, weakened at the moment of action through a lack of
+material training. Doubtless for that reason she had been sent back a
+few weeks later to the Riviera, to give her services in a quieter
+hospital than the ambulance stations at the front.
+
+Toledo had not seen her. She was living in the neighborhood of Monte
+Carlo without his ever suspecting it. The first news he had had of her
+was that of her death; a death which leaves the Colonel pensive whenever
+he recalls it. She became infected by a surgical instrument which had
+just been used in an operation. Perhaps it was because of the clumsiness
+of her hands; perhaps ... who knows! Don Marcos believes that the
+Duchess was tired of life.
+
+"A horrible death, Marquis. I did not see her: I am glad I didn't. They
+tell me she was black and swollen. Besides, for several hours she was in
+torture, lifting herself on her head and heels, arching above the bed,
+with the muscles of her body tense with the most atrocious suffering.
+Tetanus! How terrible for a great lady, so beautiful, so elegant to die
+like that! But in the midst of such pain she found the peace of mind to
+dictate her last testament. Senorita Valeria has inherited Villa Rosa,
+and several hundred thousand francs: all that she won that night at the
+Sporting Club. As for your Highness...."
+
+The Prince interrupts him with a gesture. He has known for a long time,
+from the letters of Don Marcos, that Alicia remembered him in her last
+moments, leaving him heir to her silver mines in Mexico, all that she
+possessed on the other side of the ocean; nothing at the present moment,
+but in the future perhaps a fortune, almost as great as that which
+Lubimoff formerly held in Russia.
+
+He remains with his eyes fixed on the grave. On it he sees some fine
+moss, a miniature forest, opening its branches at the breath of spring,
+and among the tiny leaves diminutive flowers are stirring. Several
+greenish black butterflies, spotted with red, are fluttering above this
+murmuring forest of budding life, much as the monstrous prehistoric
+birds fluttered above the first vegetation of the globe.
+
+Michael sees a relation between these insects and the spirit that dwelt
+in the organism now disintegrating a few feet under the ground beneath
+his feet. The varied, clashing colors remind him of the dead woman's
+soul. In the same way a few minutes before, a white butterfly
+fluttering above the flowers brought by Lewis reminded him of the
+child-like and sublime soul of Lady Mary.
+
+At present, sitting in the cafe, his emotions are greater than in the
+cemetery. He can see events through a veil of memory, spiritualized, and
+free from the sediment of reality.
+
+Poor Alicia! Poor woman, disillusioned of life! The triumphant Venus,
+the Helen of the "old men on the wall," the beauty who was the center of
+the Universe, more eager for admiration than for love, is lying in this
+miserable cemetery, among the bodies of soldiers. Perhaps she
+voluntarily hastened her exit from a world in which she could not find
+her place, defeated by her own actions.
+
+Our lives are nothing more than what we will them to be. We create life
+in our own image; it is useless for us to complain of fate: we are what
+we want to be. It was impossible for Alicia to end her days save in some
+extraordinary manner, in harmony with her previous career. He, too, has
+lived as most men do not live, and he will die a different death from
+them.
+
+He feels neither grief nor resentment. He is surprised that he could
+have hated Martinez and desired this woman with such vehemence. At
+present he feels only melancholy and a deep sadness at the memory of
+those dreams that no longer exist and which are beginning to die a
+second death, in being forgotten by those who knew of them. They have no
+immortality save in the memory of the Prince, a poor memory destined to
+fade away in turn before many years.
+
+In his imagination he attempts to pierce the mass of earth that covers
+the dead body; he makes an effort to penetrate with his vision into the
+densest of the shadows. Only a few months of decomposition have gone by:
+her personality has not yet wasted away completely. He sees her as she
+was in life and at the same time as she is now. Her flesh is
+disintegrating in little putrid rivulets that run down the folds of her
+clothes, blackened and eaten away. She is forced to smile at all times
+in the darkness: she no longer has any lips. Her eyes serve as a refuge
+for the prolific grave flies which engender millions and millions of
+destroyers. And this annihilation of something which existed, thought,
+and loved, is as yet only in its first stages.
+
+After the devourers of the soft parts will come the irresistible
+artisans of the bones. Myriads of micro-scopical workers will plow the
+skeleton, cleaning away the last impurities clinging to the framework,
+undoing the marvelous articulations, scraping away the cement which
+holds the vertebrae together. Some day the lower jaw will loosen, falling
+toward the abdominal cavity, leaving the upper jaw bone, the teeth of
+which knew the splendor of smiles and the caress of kisses. Some other
+day, the skull, as the pivot on which it rests comes apart, will fall in
+turn and mingle with the dust of the ribs and the little bones of the
+feet which mark the rhythm of an undulating walk. Within a few centuries
+revolutions and wars will perhaps bring this skull to the surface. Why
+not? Lubimoff has just seen at the front numerous cemeteries swept away
+by gunfire, with the dead emerging from the earth, raised thus by the
+bursting shells. And when some one, in the future, with the eternal
+curiosity of the Shakespearean Prince takes Alicia's skull in his hand,
+he will not be able to tell whether it belonged to a lady or a servant,
+whether it belonged to a beauty or to a drab.
+
+Michael recalls with ironical sadness all the illusions, all the
+desires, he had in the past, concentrated on this nothingness. He begins
+to feel the need of forgetting the corpse. His eyes, looking within, see
+the diminutive foliage, the gaudy butterfly, and all that nature has
+placed on a nameless tomb. This is what a life which considered itself
+superior to all others has left as the only trace of its existence.
+Perhaps in the corolla of one of the little flowers there is something
+of Alicia's soul, the butterflies sip it, and continue in an intoxicated
+flight above the tombs.
+
+Springtime! The Prince lifts his thoughts above the sorrows of
+individuals. He recalls what he has seen in a corner of the world ruined
+by man's bestiality: cities in ruins; villages that raise their walls
+only a yard above the soil, like towns which have been excavated after a
+cataclysm; barns set on fire; endless fields made sterile, torn apart
+and turned topsy turvy by five years of bombardment; many
+graves--thousands of graves--millions of graves. Women, dressed in
+black, stagger along the roads through the ruins and the funnel-shaped
+chasms opened by the monstrous projectiles. They have lost their
+children, they have seen their husbands executed, and now they are
+exploring the soil in search of their homes that were....
+
+But the Winter-time of war is over; and now the Spring of Peace is here.
+The same hand, touching all things with green, puts little flowers and
+butterflies on the nameless graves, hangs fragrant garlands on the
+fire-blackened walls, spreads a velvet carpet of emerald on the sides of
+the shell holes, makes the birds warble and the insects stir above the
+tombs, and guides the curling creepers over the black wood of the
+crosses, as though trying to change them into thyrsi.
+
+Alas! The earth knows nothing of our sorrows.
+
+The Prince comes out of his abstraction, and sees the Colonel greeting
+him from a distance.
+
+Don Marcos is already back, and with him is _Madame_ Toledo, whose head
+scarcely reaches his shoulder. On the way she looks back several times,
+with the hope of finding herself followed by the American soldier.
+
+On recognizing the Prince in the cafe, however, she forgets the other
+man, and seems to be entreating him with her eyes to leave his seat and
+to go out with her to the terraces.
+
+The Colonel and his minx disappear in the direction of the terraces, and
+again Michael plunges into meditation. He recalls his talk with Don
+Marcos, shortly before, as they were descending from the cemetery.
+
+Toledo seems inconsolable. According to him the war has not ended
+properly. He appears scandalized at the absurd manner of its conclusion!
+What terrible times these are! The fugitive of Amerongen disconcerts and
+irritates him.
+
+"And imagine me doing him the honor of comparing him to a Lieutenant! I
+considered him man enough at least to blow his brains out!
+
+"For thirty years he has been frightening the world with the rattle of
+his saber, and with his boastful mustache; for thirty years he has been
+calling himself war lord, making whole races tremble at his frown, his
+heroic attitudinizing, and his melodramatic speeches; for thirty years
+he has been preparing millions of men for slaughter, obliging peoples of
+the world to live under arms in the midst of peace. And now, when
+misfortune seeks him for her own, when he considers his life in danger,
+he shamefully flees to a foreign country and deserts his supporters,
+like a merchant going into a fraudulent bankruptcy."
+
+"It is the greatest lie humanity has ever known," the Colonel shouts
+indignantly. "The greatest swindle in history."
+
+It does not prove anything to kill one's self; Don Marcos is well aware
+of that. But in this life there are so many things that do not prove
+anything and which nevertheless are beautiful and logical! The despair
+of those who commit suicide through love does not prove anything either,
+and yet it has inspired the greatest works of poetry and other arts. The
+sailor, who wrecks his ship, kills himself; every man of honor who
+considers his fault irreparable appeals to death, in order that when he
+falls, he may fall in a dignified manner.
+
+"And that Emperor," Toledo continued, "who planned an organized
+slaughter of ten million men, wants to live to a ripe old age. It's the
+most shameless thing I ever heard of!
+
+"Military honor, such as it had come to be understood through the
+various centuries, was unknown likewise to his generals. Those
+specialists in burning towns, those technicians in executing peasants,
+those artisans of terror, on seeing disaster coming, tranquilly returned
+to their castles, like office boys leaving their work.
+
+"Of all these companions of the 'war lord,' the only one worthy of
+respect was a civilian, a manufacturer, a Jew, the munition maker
+Ballin, of Hamburg, who on seeing the Empire ruined, did not want to
+survive it and shot himself. In the meantime the Marshals of the
+strategy that failed, tranquilly begin to devote themselves to training
+their dogs, writing their memoirs, and looking after their health.
+
+"Napoleon, in one of his last battles, stopped his horse over a lighted
+bomb; later he tried to poison himself at Fontainebleau. He courted
+death, and resigned himself to living, like a fatalist, only on becoming
+convinced that death would have nothing to do with him. The other
+Napoleon, the one of Sedan, may have taken refuge in Belgium, abandoning
+his troops much as the sad German Caesar had done; but ill and fainting,
+on his horse, he nevertheless preferred to gallop along a high road
+swept by gun fire, hoping that a shell would tear him to pieces."
+
+That is the way Toledo understands military honor. That is the way it
+has been accepted in all ages.
+
+Against the Imperial generals, recreants, ready to run in the hour of
+danger, like comedians thinking only of their reputations, his anger is
+implacable. Hemmed in by the Allies, with their lines broken, they might
+have fallen nobly fighting until the last moment. But they preferred to
+beg for an armistice and hand over their weapons, in order that the
+imbeciles who had admired them so greatly might go on believing in their
+divine invincibility, and be sure that if they were retiring to their
+estates it was only out of consideration for internal politics.
+
+"Sorry comedians, like their master, up to the very last moment!" And
+Don Marcos, thinking of the fear these men have made the whole world
+feel for thirty years, cries out in anger:
+
+"Swindlers! Swindlers!"
+
+Once more the Prince comes out of his reverie. Somebody has stopped in
+front of him, and he hears a well known voice.
+
+"Your Highness, what a joy to see you! The Colonel has just told me of
+your arrival."
+
+It is Spadoni: the same old Spadoni, as though but a few hours have gone
+by since his last interview with the Prince; as though it is only
+yesterday that he bellowed with indignation, as he studied at the piano
+_What the Palm Tree Said to the Century Plant_.
+
+He doesn't want to sit down: he is in a hurry; he came just to shake
+hands with his Highness. He will make a point of seeing him later when
+he has more time, in the Casino. He takes it for granted that the Prince
+is going into the Casino. Where else could a decent person go in Monte
+Carlo?
+
+He gives Lubimoff's uniform a rapid glance, and admires his rough
+soldierly appearance.
+
+"I have heard of the great deeds of your Highness; I always used to ask
+the Colonel about you ... a hero!"
+
+Lubimoff has scarcely time to shake his head at this praise. Spadoni
+starts to talk about something more interesting. The war, heroes, and
+all that, are nebulous, meaningless things. He is for reality, and
+begins to talk about a new personage whom he admires, a Portuguese who
+plays big stakes, and whose name, because of his winnings, during the
+last few days, has been filling the gambling rooms.
+
+"I am studying him; besides, he is a friend of mine and I think I have
+his secret. Imagine, Prince...."
+
+The Prince grows uneasy, guessing that he is going to describe in all
+its details the combination of the Portuguese, which he already
+considers his own. But the pianist looks towards the Casino, stammers,
+and finally interrupts his account. Some one is coming and he wants to
+share his secret only with the Prince. He takes his leave with the
+promise that some time he will reveal the precious combination.
+
+Lubimoff thinks of his life during the last few months, his adventures
+as a soldier, of his wound, of all that has happened to him and to the
+entire world, while that musician has remained stationary in Monte
+Carlo, admitting nothing as real save the hovering flight of the Great
+Delusion.
+
+His friend Lewis holds out his hand to the Prince. It is he who, by his
+approach, has stopped the pianist's flow of eloquence. Gamblers, out of
+professional rivalry, avoid telling one another their secrets. Time,
+which seems to have forgotten Spadoni, leaving him the same as when
+Michael last saw him in his "Villa of the Tomb," has laid its claws on
+Lewis, making him older, as though months for him have been years.
+
+He is sad because of the losses he has been suffering, and because of
+his memories. That niece of his was all the family he had! Lubimoff
+knows through the Colonel that he has not inherited anything from her.
+The nurse spent her entire fortune on ambulances and hospitals. Her
+title is the one thing that has gone to Lewis. His prophecy has come
+true: he is now the third Lord Lewis, surnamed "the Worthless," the name
+he gave himself.
+
+He gazes on the Prince for a long time, notices the rigid arm and then
+shakes his left hand effusively.
+
+"You're a man, Lubimoff. You know how to do things."
+
+And in these words there is a reproach for himself. Unable to tear
+himself away from Monte Carlo, he will live here and die here, doing the
+same things over and over.
+
+Nevertheless, this is a great day for him. In the morning he received a
+visit from a friend who is coming to live with him, he does not know for
+how long, perhaps for two days, perhaps for two years; a great friend
+from whom he had had no news and whom he had often imagined dead; the
+Count, the famous Count.
+
+He has come as far as the cafe with Lewis, who refuses to be separated
+from him; he has shaken hands with the Prince as though he had seen him
+the day before, without noticing his uniform or his mutilation. He sits
+silently in a chair, running his hand through his white, curly hair,
+fixing his round eyes, with a nocturnal fire, on the people who are
+walking about the "Camembert."
+
+Lewis believes he ought to feel happy. What a day of surprise it has
+been! First the Count, and then the Colonel telling him of Lubimoff's
+arrival.
+
+He avoids talking about his niece: he sinks his sadness in the sadness
+of all the rest.... Peace has surprised him: who could have imagined it
+would come so soon, following immediately on the most anxious phase of
+the war?
+
+The Count comes to life at this query.
+
+"Every one," says he. "The great soothsayers, the great ones, announced
+at the very beginning, that the war would end in the Fall of 1918. It
+was well known to everybody. I have always said so. You have heard me
+say so many times yourself, Lewis."
+
+Lewis makes a gesture of surprise. But he cannot doubt the science of
+his learned friend, and prefers to admit that it is he who has
+forgotten. He has such a bad memory! Perhaps, even, he may have
+misunderstood. These guardians of a knowledge of the future never
+express their truths clearly: they refuse to talk like ordinary mortals.
+
+The conversation begins to lag. The Englishman is thinking of the
+Casino. He was just going in when Don Marcos gave him the news of the
+Prince's arrival. He keeps the Count by his side. The Count has just
+returned from a mysterious trip and has the devil's rosary safe in a
+certain pocket of his trousers, constantly feeling in it with his right
+hand.
+
+"Later on we shall see each other at the Casino. I suppose you'll come
+in for a moment. We'll see if luck treats me well to-day after such
+pleasant meetings."
+
+And he goes off with the Count in the direction of the _Palace_ where he
+is destined, as though in prison, to spend the rest of his life.
+
+Lubimoff notices two Italian soldiers who are looking at him from the
+sidewalk around the "Camembert." They are a couple of _bersaglieri_,
+dressed in gray, with little round hats decked out in cock's plumes.
+Noticing that the Prince is looking at them they become embarrassed,
+turn their backs as though ashamed, and walk away, but not without
+smiling first and raising their hands to their much beplumed hats.
+
+The Prince recalls what Don Marcos told him. Oh, yes! They are Estola
+and Pistola, changed into soldiers! They have come on leave to see their
+families. They are going up to the Colonel's house in the evening to pay
+their respects to their former "Lord." They seem taller, and more
+vigorous. A few months of war have been sufficient to transport them
+from adolescence into maturity. In every man there is a soldier!
+
+Just as he is getting up to take a walk around the terraces, he sees
+hurrying toward the cafe a gentleman who is violently waving to him, and
+then has to stop to fasten his glasses more securely on his nose.
+
+It takes some time for the Prince to recognize him. He guesses who it is
+more by the tone of his voice than by his features. Dear old Novoa! The
+months that have gone by have left a deeper imprint on him than on the
+rest. He is no longer the young man preoccupied with worldly pomp, who
+used to consult the Colonel about the merits of various tailors and
+hatters. He has returned to the slavery of baggy-kneed trousers and
+ready-made neckties. His beard is full grown and bushy. He is still as
+young as ever in his voice, his eyes, and his lively and clumsy
+gestures; but he is dressed, not to say disguised, as an old man.
+
+The Professor is more effusive than the rest on seeing the Prince. He
+keeps blessing the happy chance, which brought Lubimoff to him, through
+his meeting with Don Marcos shortly before.
+
+"If you had waited two days longer, Prince, I wouldn't have had the
+pleasure of seeing you. I am going back to my country day after
+to-morrow. I have had enough now of Monte Carlo. When I think of what
+I've lost here!... Money, dreams, everything."
+
+Michael shows discretion. He suspects his friend has had some unexpected
+disillusionment, some deception, such as one must forget not to be
+continually tormented by it. He remembers Valeria, and sees nothing in
+the Professor's appearance to indicate the slightest trace of contact
+with that lady. He is a ruin, a dry dead tree; the bird that formerly
+sang in the branches must have flown away long since.
+
+Novoa is equally discreet. He looks at the other man's uniform, and the
+sleeve with the artificial arm; but he speaks in a general way, with
+vague regrets, only of what has taken place during the last few months.
+
+"What extraordinary things have taken place! How many friends of ours
+have died! Life has finally become one of those dramas in which one dies
+at the end of the last act."
+
+The Prince guesses that Novoa is thinking of Alicia and in order not to
+give him pain, is refraining from mentioning her. As a matter of fact he
+is indeed thinking of the Duchess, but she is merely a point of
+departure before he comes to the other woman with whom his memory is
+constantly occupied.
+
+At last he speaks, giving full rein to his melancholy. He can tell the
+Prince everything because he is the only man who knows his secret. (He
+has told the Colonel and even Spadoni the same thing, on lamenting his
+misfortune.) And he breaks into despairing recriminations against
+Valeria.
+
+She has become a different woman. She is no longer interested in "lands
+of love," where women marry without dowries. Since the Duchess's death
+she has become a candidate for marriage. Her hand will bring with it
+more than three hundred thousand francs. The Professor has found himself
+jilted and forgotten. How he had grovelled before her when the truth was
+known; what shameful efforts he had made to remedy what he had
+considered at the outset a woman's passing whim! He hates to remember
+moments such as those.
+
+"It is all ended, Prince. At present she is crazy about an American
+officer and will finally marry him. No one counts here except the
+Americans. Everything is for them: even love. The humblest little
+milliner considers herself disgraced if she hasn't a soldier from the
+United States to promenade with in the evening. Every afternoon she and
+the other man dance in the hotels of La Condamine, or right here in the
+Cafe de Paris."
+
+He stops, as though some one had touched him on the shoulder. He does
+not see any one behind him, but his eyes, wandering over the groups
+sitting at the tables meet something which makes his voice tremble.
+
+"It is she, Prince."
+
+Michael would not have recognized her. He sees two ladies, escorted by
+two American officers, entering the Cafe. One of them is Valeria,
+dressed with gay and showy elegance, as though anxious to compensate in
+a moment for years of frugality and privation.
+
+Against the soft twilight the cafe windows begin to gleam with a reddish
+glow. One after another, the large lamps within are lighted. To the
+Prince's ears come the voluptuous wailings of violins.
+
+"Life has changed very greatly since you went away, Prince. Every one
+feels a desperate hunger for amusement. The first thing that peace
+brought back to life was the tango."
+
+Then Novoa begins to think about himself:
+
+"What can I do here? I am poor. Everything I possessed in my country I
+have dropped here in the Casino. I have studied the mysteries of the
+ocean enough. How dearly it has cost me! I have had my little dream, and
+now I am going to resume my ill-paid work back there as a day laborer in
+science."
+
+He thinks once more of her.
+
+"Did you notice?... The poor Duchess, who made her what she is now, is
+lying up there in her grave, and here she is dancing, only a few months
+after her death."
+
+He feels the harsh indignation, the sense of outraged morality, that all
+who have been scorned experience.
+
+His anger grows so strong that he gets up from his chair. He cannot
+remain there. The woman has seen him, and might think that he is
+pursuing her, that he is waiting for her to come out, in order to
+entreat her. Never; he has had enough of certain humiliations which he
+does not care to remember.
+
+He hurriedly says good-by. They will see each other again soon. Don
+Marcos has invited him to dinner at the little house in Beausoleil. The
+Colonel was sure that his visit would please the Prince.
+
+He grasps Lubimoff's hand and does not seem to notice it is the wooden
+one. His eyes and his thoughts are on the cafe windows, ablaze in mid
+afternoon. Through them the cadenced murmur of the violins is passing.
+As he walks away he still repeats his protest.
+
+"The poor Duchess up there forgotten.... And the other woman. What a
+scandal! I am glad I'm going away soon, and will never see her again."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On remaining alone, the Prince leaves his table. Don Marcos is doubtless
+telling the news of his arrival to every one he meets, and Michael is
+afraid that other less interesting persons will appear.
+
+As he walks along he notices something which he had not seen before when
+he was with the Colonel. The United States flag is floating above all
+the buildings. In the city streets there are as many signs in English as
+in French. There are American soldiers everywhere. Lubimoff's uniform
+and that of the other French fighters are lost in the great flood of men
+dressed in mustard color. The light automobiles of the American army
+pass incessantly. They are everywhere. One meets them in the streets, on
+the roads along the coast and climbing the slopes of the Alps like
+buzzing, snorting ants. Everything seems animated by a robust, gay,
+self-confident life, the life of a twenty-year-old boy. The concert on
+the terraces is being given by an American band. The people walking in
+the streets absent-mindedly whistle dance tunes from across the ocean
+and marching songs of the soldiers from the States. People stop in the
+squares to admire the skill of the Americans in shirt sleeves throwing a
+ball and sending it back again after catching it in a kind of fencing
+glove.
+
+Monaco seems to have been conquered by the troops of the Great Republic;
+a good-natured and kindly conquest, which makes the conquered smile. It
+is the same in Nice and everywhere on the Riviera. The Prince recalls
+his brief stay in Paris a few days before. There he saw Americans just
+as here. How many are they? What superhuman power has been able to
+create in a few months this army which though of recent birth, seems to
+fill all space?
+
+A people has just risen above all the peoples of the earth. Never in
+history has such a rise been known. It dominates through friendliness,
+through its generous acts, and by the beneficent strength of its
+activities; not through terror, the base of all greatness in the past.
+
+Lubimoff recalls his doubts of the year before. No one would have
+believed that a people without armies could improvise a military force
+equal to those of old Europe. And in only a few months the United States
+had organized and transported two million men to decide the outcome of
+the struggle, and the world's fate.
+
+Arriving at the last moment, they had liberally given their share of
+dead. In five months of campaign a hundred and twenty thousand Americans
+had perished, a huge proportion compared to the losses of the other
+nations during five years of fighting.
+
+Michael, in his silent enthusiasm, enumerates what has just been done
+for humanity by this great people, which shortly before was considered
+utilitarian and selfish, and which now reveals itself as the most
+romantic and generous.
+
+Two great wars are the most striking incidents in its history: one
+within, for the suppression of slavery; the other, without, to prevent
+the glorification of war, the brutal hegemony of one people over all,
+the exaltation of a mystic imperialism.
+
+For the first time in history, a democracy has intervened in the fate of
+a world through the centuries subjected to the rule of kings. The modern
+republics had until now lived an inner and retiring life. The wars of
+the French Revolution were defensive. The Republic of the Convention
+fought to exist, since all the monarchs wanted to suppress it. The
+American Republic had voluntarily entered the struggle, without being
+threatened by any immediate danger, because of a mandate of its
+conscience, indignant at German crimes, because of the responsibility
+developing upon its greatness, its democratic strength.
+
+Before arming, before intervening in the European crash while living in
+patient neutrality, battles were being won for it. This war was
+different from others. Against Germany, ready through long years of
+preparation for the struggle, and with all its industrial and commercial
+strength mobilized for war purposes, the Allies fought during the first
+few months, as a brave but backward people fights against a modern
+nation. They showed much bravery, and great heroism, sometimes in vain,
+against the blind mechanical force of industrial invention applied to
+destruction.
+
+If this inequality kept diminishing, it was thanks in large part to the
+Republic beyond the sea. Its money barons made enormous loans to the
+Allies; its captains of industry facilitated the manufacture of the
+gigantic equipment demanded by the demon-like progress of military
+science; its ships defying the submarine menace, brought bread which had
+grown scarce in Europe through the war.
+
+And when, its patience finally exhausted, it directly intervened, what
+generosity it showed!
+
+The American combatants fought for simple and robust ideals: the rights
+of the weak to live, the dignity and freedom of mankind, the elimination
+of wars, understanding between peoples, sovereign right ruling the life
+of nations; things which shortly before had made the Old World skeptics
+smile.
+
+All the countries of Europe had frontiers to reestablish, strips of land
+to claim. The United States of America was not asking for anything, it
+did not want anything.
+
+Each one of the contestants, on thinking of victory, calculated the
+indemnities it should collect to compensate for its endeavors and
+sacrifices. The American Republic spent more than all the other nations.
+The maintenance of each of its soldiers cost it as much as seven
+soldiers from the other countries, and nevertheless, it entered the war
+and withdrew from the war without demanding any particular
+reimbursement.
+
+Lubimoff admired its enormous strength in victory: Never had any Empire
+in the past reached such greatness; not even Rome.
+
+It was the only country, at once both industrial and agricultural, on
+earth. It formed a world apart within the world. It might, without
+suffering, isolate itself from the rest of the Globe; but the world
+would feel a sensation of emptiness if the Great Republic were to turn
+its back upon the other nations.
+
+Its armed citizens were retiring without boasting and without commotion,
+just as they had come, and without asking anything for their great
+endeavor. They would disappear like the fairies and enchanters in
+ancient legends who, after doing good, need to return to their
+mysterious domains.
+
+Years would pass: history would speak of this endeavor, unique in its
+intensity and its generous character, and on the Riviera and in other
+places there would remain of this great world a memory disfigured by
+time. The boys of to-day, grown old, would remember how they learned to
+play baseball from the soldiers who had come from a land of marvels
+beyond the sea, the girls, becoming grandmothers, would yearningly
+recall the American lovers they once had.
+
+The Prince calculates again the greatness of this people, the only one
+capable of still working the miracles, that religions sometimes work in
+the early period of their exaltation.
+
+The Great Republic is the world's creditor. All the victorious nations
+owe it fabulous sums; England is its debtor by thousands of millions,
+and France the same. The smaller countries, Belgium, Serbia, and the
+rest, have been able to live, thanks to its enormous loans. It is not
+all known as yet, years must pass before the full extent of these
+generosities is brought to light. This country, which likes
+advertisement and loud propaganda in its commercial affairs, is modest
+and concise in speaking of its disinterested acts.
+
+"To go on freely living after the cataclysm, humanity is going to need
+America's support, or America's benevolence," thinks the Prince. "The
+political center of the world has shifted. It is no longer in Paris, nor
+is it in London. It remained for a while, trembling unsteadily on its
+base, in Berlin; but now it has leaped across the ocean."
+
+The man, as yet unknown, who in the future is to take his place in the
+White House for four years, professor, lawyer, merchant, or farmer, as
+he may be, will sway the destiny of the world more than all the rulers
+who fill history with the din of warlike glory. His power will be based
+on something more permanent and solid than the strength of armies. It
+will have behind it industry and wealth, which create armies; democratic
+power, which the power of public opinion creates.
+
+The irresistible strength of this power is clearly seen by the Prince.
+
+Germany, in spite of her continual military triumphs in the first few
+years of the war, has finally fallen in defeat. Public opinion was
+against her. The democratic spirit of the entire world rose against the
+spirit of Empire.
+
+This triumph of democracy is beginning to be manifest everywhere.
+
+"There is no longer a single emperor left in Europe," Michael goes on
+thinking. "The vanquished empires want to be republics. All the kings
+are forgetting their ancestors with their divine rights, and are trying
+to have their crowns forgiven them, that they may imitate the simple
+life of a president."
+
+This unexpected attitude of the world gives it a new love of life.
+
+He has realized, for the last few months--since he gave up Villa
+Sirena--that Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff has become an unfashionable
+personage. Perhaps, with the lapse of years, others will be as he was.
+History repeats itself. Times of peace and plenty inevitably produce men
+such as he had been. But at present humanity has been restored by grief
+and sacrifice, humanity is anxious to live, and longs for something new,
+without knowing exactly what, and is working to secure it.
+
+Michael looks on himself with pity. What is he going to do? What can men
+like himself do for their fellow men?
+
+He recalls the luncheon in the little house of Don Marcos. He is still
+offended by the attentions the Colonel shows him at table, cutting his
+meat, looking after him like a child, trying to make up for the absence
+of his arm. It is something disgraceful!
+
+Farewell to Prince Lubimoff!... Even if he still wanted to continue his
+selfish existence, entirely given up to pleasure, it would be impossible
+for him. He is a cripple; he considers himself quite old. No one but
+Mado, who doesn't really know what she wants, would ever notice him.
+
+Besides, he feels poor. For the first time he recalls with a certain
+satisfaction the heritage left him by Alicia. It was not worth anything
+at that moment, but who knows but what some day...! He dreams that
+perhaps those Mexican mines may replace his lost fortune in Russia; and
+then...! He feels a strong desire to regain his wealth in order to do
+good; a longing which is something like remorse. He knows the
+inefficiency of individual effort in remedying human misery: a mere drop
+lost in the ocean, a grain of sand on the beach. But what difference
+does that make? He is satisfied in giving happiness to some fifty
+unfortunate beings, among the hundreds of millions who people the earth.
+
+Then he thinks of his present situation. That very morning he determined
+on his mode of life. He will flee from the poor Colonel, because of
+Mado. Others may take it upon themselves to bring misfortune to Don
+Marcos, but not he! He will take up his residence in Nice, in a Russian
+_pension_ run by an impoverished noblewoman. In the evenings they will
+talk of the days when she was rich, beautiful, and desired; of the
+dances at the Petersburg Court, in which they danced together so often.
+Lubimoff even has a suspicion that one of his duels was over this
+boarding-house keeper.
+
+The remnants of his fortune will bring him a sufficient income to live
+in modest comfort. He will swell the number of wrecks retiring to the
+Riviera, to recall, under the palm trees, their forgotten triumphs. His
+old valet will accompany him in his dethronement.
+
+He already has an occupation to fill his hours. He wants to be a
+contemplator of life. He is glad to have been born in the most
+interesting of periods.
+
+Something is going to happen; something new in history.
+
+The smoke has not yet cleared away from the battlefields. It is a mist
+in which people lose their way and which does not allow them to see the
+complete outline of things. The very actors in the recent drama are
+blind. Years will pass, before the mist rises and vanishes, leaving the
+new world visible.
+
+Will it be the same stage setting as of yore, merely with a few lines
+changed? Will all these bloody efforts to suppress violence,
+selfishness, and pre-historic ferocity as the chief bases of society,
+turn out to have been in vain?
+
+The Prince thinks bitterly of the possible disillusionment. How terrible
+to see primitive bestiality rise again unharmed after a cataclysm which
+has been accepted as a regeneration! How terrible to contemplate the
+failure of so many generous spirits, of so many noble minds, aspiring
+toward the triumph of good, anxious for peace among men, and the sweet
+association of people, working against war as medical societies labor to
+exterminate diseases!
+
+Faith in the future suddenly animates him. The world cannot always be
+the same; great convulsions, when they have passed, never leave the soil
+the same as they found it. Will children always be annihilating each
+other just because their fathers and grandfathers did so? Must they look
+on each other with hostility because they were born on different sides
+of a mountain, a river, or a wood, which politics calls a frontier?
+
+We all have two native lands! The place where we were born, and the
+State to which we belong. Why not generously broaden this conception to
+include a third country? Will not a blessed time come in which men will
+talk as fellow being to fellow being, without thinking whether or not
+History commands them to hate and kill each other? With deep love for
+one's land of birth, cannot they be at the same time citizens of the
+world?
+
+The Prince is leaning on the balustrade, above the terraces and the
+harbor. His pensive walk has brought him thither, without his realizing
+it.
+
+He turns his back on the sea and on the crowd which, after the concert,
+is beginning to thin out there below. The American musicians are passing
+close to him, followed by a swarm of small boys accompanying their
+retirement.
+
+He looks at a gap on the horizon, between the Alps and the promontory of
+Monaco, where the sun has just gone down. Above the reddish expanse a
+star is shining with the brilliancy and luminous facets of a precious
+stone.
+
+Lubimoff is thinking of the ancient fathers of poetry who sang about it
+three thousand years ago. Homer called it _Kalistos_. Sometimes the
+morning star and at other times the evening star, Lucifer, Vesperus, or
+the "Shepherds' Star," it finally received the name of Venus, because of
+its shining whiteness, like that of a diamond on a woman's breast.
+
+The Prince feels the sweet caress in his eyes as he gazes on the soft
+glow of the planet. Its name symbolizes beauty and love. He imagines the
+people who inhabit that celestial point of light lost in space. They
+must be of a purer essence than ours, entirely free from a past of
+primitive animality--ethereal beings, like the angels of all religions.
+
+Then he smiles bitterly.
+
+There is another star shining in the sky, more beautiful and larger than
+that one. It is blue instead of white, a soft blue: the color of poetry
+and dreams. It sparkles, in the dark depths of space, with the
+mysterious glow of the enormous bluish diamonds which Oriental monarchs
+place in their tiaras. Those who contemplate it feel in their eyes the
+velvety dew of divine mystery. Perhaps the poets of other worlds sing of
+it as a chosen refuge and a place of eternal beauty, where only the
+souls of the pure and the elect may go to rest. Perhaps it has given
+rise to religions and is the object of cults, having its altars, as the
+sun had in former times.
+
+And this blue diamond of space, this world of soft light, which the
+populations of other planets contemplate as a poetic star, and as one in
+which all creatures lead a purely spiritual life, is the Earth, our poor
+globe, where twelve millions of men have just died on the battlefield,
+where as many more millions died of the emotion and plagues, which are
+the consequence of war; and where six hundred thousand millions of
+francs have been consumed in smoke, fire, and bursting steel.
+
+Lubimoff remembers his impressions, a few hours before, standing beside
+a tomb which was beginning to be changed at the first halting words of
+Spring. The Infinite does not know us, nor does the very earth which
+maintains us know us either.
+
+We are alone in the infinite, without other support than that of our own
+lives, our own illusions, and our own hopes. Man can rely only on man.
+
+And he repeats what he had said of the earth that morning.
+
+The sky knows nothing of our sorrows.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He slowly turns toward the square.
+
+From all the cafes, restaurants, and hotels, comes the musical rise and
+fall of the cadenced violins. Behind the great windows, reddened by an
+inner light, he see couples passing intertwined, following the rhythm of
+the music. They are dancing, dancing, dancing.
+
+Youth does nothing else. Dancing is a sort of sacred rite, prohibited
+during the war; and people are all devoting themselves in dancing now,
+with the fervor of zealots finally celebrating the triumphs of their
+persecuted religion.
+
+The Prince recalls his recent passage through Paris. He had never seen
+the women better dressed, with so manifest a hunger for pleasure and
+luxury. The tango of the violins on the Boulevard is answered like an
+echo by the tango of the violins all along the Riviera, and at the
+summer resorts which are beginning to open. Woman's dearest wish, at the
+moment, is to dance the latest dance with a fighter from the United
+States!
+
+The nightmare of war has vanished; everything has been forgotten. For
+many people nothing remains to recall the conflict save the uniforms,
+more numerous than formerly in the _thes dansants_.
+
+Michael confines his meditation to this coast, which was always the
+domain of the blessed! For four long years war has turned Monaco upside
+down and filled it with darkness.
+
+His imagination runs up and down the gulfs and promontories. There is a
+cemetery on each. In Mentone thousands and thousands of negroes lie
+under the earth. The combatants from Africa, whose fathers knew only the
+lance and the breech-clout, have chanced to perish like gladiators on
+this shore of European millionaires. In Cap-Martin the English have left
+their dead; in Monaco, there are some of every nationality; in
+Cap-Ferrat, the Belgians sleep, under wreaths already old; in Nice, are
+the bodies of the Americans; and everywhere, from Esterel to the Italian
+frontier, there are Frenchmen, Frenchmen, Frenchmen.
+
+The dead are innumerable. Were they all to rise together, those who come
+to prolong their lives under the palm tree and the olive on the shores
+of the Violet Sea, would flee aghast.
+
+But the aim of life is to live. Life is an endless Springtime, and
+covers everything it touches with the eager moss of pleasure, with the
+swiftly creeping ivy of dreams.
+
+The cemeteries, strikingly white, seem to take on a duller tone, and are
+lost in the smiling landscape, like an unessential note in a song. The
+softness of the skies and the surrounding country changes them to
+gardens. A body occupies so little space and the earth is so large!...
+The hotels which were hospitals, are regilding their signs, disinfecting
+their rooms and sending advertisements to the great newspapers of the
+world. Already people may come and dream between the walls which just
+now shook with cries of pain, or the rattle of death agonies. Music is
+beginning sweetly to moan along the happy coast, amid the murmur of the
+waves and the rustling of the orange trees, of epithalamial perfume. The
+old shepherd of the Alps, who, after sixty years, has not yet recovered
+from his amazement at the Monte Carlo which has arisen there below on
+the once deserted tableland, will see it grow with new palaces and new
+towers, further expanding its opulence like a city of dreams.
+
+The passage of death has made love of life more keen. Every one, seeing
+the black banner of the Adversary vanish in the darkness, finds new zest
+in pleasure.
+
+Lubimoff stops in the middle of the square. It is beginning to grow
+dark. With one ear he hears the musical swing of a dance invented by the
+negroes of North America for the enjoyment of the whites; and with the
+other he hears other negro music, the South American tango. In the
+adjoining streets new orchestras are playing wherever there is a public
+place, cafe, hotel, or restaurant--with a sign in English at the door,
+to attract the heroes of the hour: _Dancing_.
+
+He gazes at the mountain which forms a background for the square and
+watches over the graves on its slopes. Then he looks on high....
+
+The earth and the sky know nothing of our sorrows.
+
+And neither does life.
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The following typographical errors have been corrected by the etext
+transcriber:
+
+slanderous abjectives=>slanderous adjectives
+
+Don Marcos remainel silent.=>Don Marcos remained silent.
+
+confined in the Champ-Elysee=>confined in the Champs-Elysee
+
+rebelliouslly curse the being=>rebelliously curse the being
+
+I suddenly felt as thought I were=>I suddenly felt as though I were
+
+clamly displayed brass ornaments=>calmly displayed brass ornaments
+
+It was all a mazagine yarn=>It was all a magazine yarn
+
+dilate, the indigation and envy=>dilate, the indignation and envy
+
+that that will be his end, in case of a defeat.=>that will be his end,
+in case of a defeat.
+
+eying one another discreetly=>eyeing one another discreetly
+
+changing from sadness to gaity.=>changing from sadness to gaiety.
+
+benificent strength of its activities=>beneficent strength of its
+activities
+
+Michael amost envied him, because he had seen=>Michael almost envied
+him, because he had seen
+
+train was lowly passing=>train was slowly passing
+
+It was so peasant to be in his company=>It was so pleasant to be in his
+company
+
+reality there coud be no doubt=>reality there could be no doubt
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Enemies of Women, by Vicente Blasco Ibanez
+
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