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diff --git a/75200-h/75200-h.htm b/75200-h/75200-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..61eb8cf --- /dev/null +++ b/75200-h/75200-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,43292 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + +<head> + +<link rel="icon" href="images/img-cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + +<meta charset="utf-8"> + +<title> +The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Man of Iron, by Richard Dehan +</title> + +<style> + +body { color: black; + background: white; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +p {text-indent: 1.5em } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.t1 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 200%; + text-align: center } + +p.t2 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + text-align: center } + +p.t2b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t3 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + text-align: center } + +p.t3b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t4 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + text-align: center } + +p.t4b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t5 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 60%; + text-align: center } + +h1 { text-align: center } +h2 { text-align: center } +h3 { text-align: center } +h4 { text-align: center } +h5 { text-align: center } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; } + +p.contents {text-indent: -3%; + margin-left: 5% } + +p.thought {text-indent: 0% ; + letter-spacing: 4em ; + text-align: center } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.footnote {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +.smcap { font-variant: small-caps } + +p.transnote {text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.intro {font-size: 90% ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.quote {text-indent: 0 ; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.capleft { margin-left: 0%; + margin-right: 1%; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + font-weight: normal; + float: left ; + clear: right ; + text-indent: 0%; + text-align: left } + +p.capright { margin-left: 1%; + margin-right: 0 ; + margin-bottom: .5% ; + margin-top: 0; + font-weight: normal; + float: right ; + clear: right ; + text-indent: 0%; + text-align: center } + +img.imgleft { /* float: left; */ + /* clear: right; */ + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: 1%; + padding: 0; + text-align: left } + +img.imgright {float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1%; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-top: 1%; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center } + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75200 ***</div> + +<h1> +<br><br> + THE<br> + MAN OF IRON<br> +</h1> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + BY<br> +</p> + +<p class="t2"> + RICHARD DEHAN<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + AUTHOR OF<br> + BETWEEN TWO THIEVES, ONE BRAVER THING,<br> + (THE DOP DOCTOR), ETC.<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + NEW YORK<br> + GROSSET & DUNLAP<br> + PUBLISHERS<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p class="t4"> + <i>Copyright, 1915, by</i><br> + FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY<br> +</p> + +<p class="t4"> + <i>All rights reserved, including that of translation<br> + into foreign languages</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="t4"> + <i>February, 1915></i><br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p class="t3b"> +PREFACE +</p> + +<p> +<i>For the second time, since this book's beginning, the rose +of July had flamed into splendid bloom. I drew breath, +for my task approached its ending, and looked up from +the yellowed newspaper records of a great War waged +forty-four years ago.</i> +</p> + +<p> +<i>Perhaps I had grown negligent of modern signs and +portents, or the web of Diplomacy had veiled them from all +but privileged eyes.... Now I saw, looming on the +eastern horizon, a cloud in the shape of a man's clenched +fist in a gauntleted glove of mail.</i> +</p> + +<p> +<i>For days previously the frames of the open windows that +look across the garden seaward, had leaped and rattled in +answer to the incessant thud-thudding of big naval guns at +sea. One opal dawn showed the grim shapes of +super-Dreadnoughts, Dreadnoughts, pre-Dreadnoughts and +war-cruisers, strung out in battle-line along the glittering-green +line of the horizon, escorted by a flotilla of destroyers and +a school of submarines. Night fell, and sea, land, and sky +alternately whitened and blotted in the wheeling ray of the +searchlights. Electric balls dumbly gibbered in Admiralty +Secret Code. Gulls cradled on the glassy waters of the +Channel must have been roused by outbursts of full-throated +British cheering, and the crash of the Fleet bands +striking into the National Anthem, as the sealed orders of +the Supreme Admiral were signalled from the Flagship +commanding the Southern Fleet. No sound reached us +ashore but the hush of the waves, the whisper of the +night-wind, and the plaintive ululation of the mousing owls on +Muttersmoor. Yet what we saw that night was the awakening +of Great Britain to the knowledge that her greatness is +not past and gone.</i> +</p> + +<p> +<i>Since then, the menacing cloud in the east has assumed +solidity. The mailed fist has fallen, imprinting Ruin on the +soil of a neutral country, demolishing the matchless +heirlooms of Art and the priceless treasures of Literature, +bringing down in gray fragments the glories of Gothic +architecture, everywhere destroying the Temple of God and +shattering the House of Life. The galleries and cabinets +of noble and burgher, the treasure-houses of a nation are +plundered.</i> +</p> + +<p> +<i>We have lived to see the War of Nations. We are in it: +fighting as our Allies of Belgium, France, and Russia are +fighting; for racial name, national existence, social +independence, and freedom of bodies and souls. And this being +so, I see no cause to blot a line that I have written. For +the Germany of 1870 was not the Germany of 1914. The +New Spirit of Teutonism had not shown itself in those dead +days I have tried to vivify.</i> +</p> + +<p> +<i>The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 was waged sternly +and mercilessly, but not in defiance of the Rules that +govern the Great Game. Treaties were held as something more +sacred than scraps of paper. Blood was lavishly poured +out, gold relentlessly wrung from the coffers of a +vanquished and impoverished State. Things were done—as in +the instances of Bazeilles and Châteaudun that made the +world shudder, but not with the sickness of mortal loathing. +Kings and nobles made War like noblemen and Kings.</i> +</p> + +<p> +<i>Yet that great Minister whose prodigious labor reared up +stone by stone the German Empire was, unless biographers +have lied, haunted and obsessed in his declining days by +remorse of conscience and terrors of the soul. "</i>But for +me,<i>" he is reported to have said, "</i>three great wars would +not have been made, nor would eight hundred thousand of +my fellow men have died by violence. Now, for all that I +have to answer before Almighty God!<i>" ... Could the +relentless exponent of the fierce gospel of blood and iron +have foreseen the imminent, approaching disintegration of +his colossal life-work, under the hands of his successors—might +he have known what Dead Sea fruit of ashes and +bitterness his fatal creed, grafted upon the oak of +Germany, was fated to bring forth—he would have drunk ere +death of the crimson lees of the Cup of Judgment; he +would have seen in the shape of his pupil the grotesque, +distorted image of himself.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +RICHARD DEHAN. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +SOUTH DEVON, November, 1914. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap01"></a></p> + +<p class="t2"> +THE MAN OF IRON +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<h3> +I +</h3> + +<p> +When Patrick Carolan Breagh attained the age of six +years, the boy being tall enough to view his own topknot +of scarlet curls and freckled snub nose in the big shining +mirror of his stepmother's toilet-table, without standing on +the tin bonnet-box that was kept under the chintz cover, +or climbing on a chair,—he was fated to acquire, during +one brief half-hour's concealment under a Pembroke table, +more knowledge of Life, Death, and the value of Money, +than would otherwise have come to him in the course of +half a dozen more years. +</p> + +<p> +Upon this unforgetable third of January, his plaid frock +had been taken off and, to his infinite delight, replaced by +a little pair of blue cloth breeches and a roundabout jacket. +Amateurish as to cut, the nether garments displaying so +little difference fore and aft that it did not matter in the +least which way you faced when you stepped into them, +they were yet splendid,—not only in Carolan's eyes. Alan, +his junior by three years, bellowed with envy on beholding +them; and four-year-old Monica sucked her finger and +stared with all her might. +</p> + +<p> +It was plain to Carolan that, having once assumed the +manly garments, no boy could be expected to put on those +hateful petticoats again. In vain Nurse Povah,—who had +been Carolan's foster-mother,—and Miss Josey, the +governess, explained to him that the breeches were not +completed, and directed his eyes to the mute evidence of pins, +chalk-marks, and yellow basting-threads. Their arguments +were vain, their entreaties addressed to deaf ears. An +attempt to remove the cause of contention by force resulted +in Nurse's being butted, though not hard! and Miss Josey +kicked with viciousness. In the confusion that ensued, the +rebel effected an escape from the scene of combat. And +the door of the sitting-room being open, Carolan trotted +across the Government cocoanut matting of the landing +with the intention of confessing his own misdeeds, since +Miss Josey was quite certain to report him at headquarters, +had not this often-tested method of blunting the edge of +retributory justice failed, through his own fault. +</p> + +<p> +For upon entering the large, shabbily furnished room, +situated on the second floor of a gaunt, gray stone building +known as Block D, Married Officers' Quarters—the room +that served Captain Breagh and his second wife as +sitting-room, dining-room, smoking-room and boudoir—Carolan +became aware that his stepmother, quite unconscious of +his intrusion, was dusting the china vases on the +mantel-shelf, and was instantly possessed by the conviction that +it would be huge fun to hide under the large round table +that occupied the middle of the worn Brussels carpet, and +bounce out upon the poor lady when she turned, making +her say "Owh!" +</p> + +<p> +So the boy noiselessly dived under the deep, hanging, +silk-fringed border of the Indian shawl that covered the +circular Pembroke table, upon which were ranged, about a +central basket of wax fruit and flowers, gilt frames with +spotty daguerrotypes, albums of scraps, Books of Beauty +containing the loveliest specimens of Early Victorian female +aristocracy, and Garlands of Poetry reeking with the +sentimental effusions of Eliza Cook and L.E.L., interspersed +with certain card-cases and paper-knives of Indian carved +ivory and sandal-wood, and other trifles of brass and +filigree ware. +</p> + +<p> +The big, shabbily furnished second-floor room had three +windows looking out upon the graveled expanse of the +Parade-ground, and commanding a view of the flower-bedded +patch of sacred green turf, inclosed by posts and +chains, that graced the front of the pillared, pedimented, +and porticoed building that housed the Officers' Mess. And +when the regiment got the route for another garrison town, +nearly everything the room contained—from the Pembroke +center-table and chintz-covered sofa, to the secrétaire +at which Captain Breagh penned his letters, the big +leather-covered arm-chair in which he sat, and the Bengal +tiger-skin hearthrug,—would be packed,—with the picture +of the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Vimiera, and +the chimney-glass over which it always hung—into wooden +cases, with the before-mentioned chimney-glass, curtains and +carpets, beds, baths, uniform-cases and a great number +of other things; and then after a period of rumbling +confusion there would be a new sitting-room looking on +another barrack-square, other bedrooms and a fresh +nursery,—and Carolan would forget the old ones in something +under a week. As a matter of fact, the regiment had been +shifted four times since its return from India, when +Carolan was little more than a baby, and Monica and Alan and +Baba were nowhere at all. +</p> + +<p> +Now either Mrs. Breagh occupied an unconscionable +time in dusting the vases and making up the fire for her +Captain, who by reason of long service with the regiment +in the East was susceptible to chill; or Carolan, with the +mental instability shared by the child and the savage, lost +interest in his new project and abandoned it. He was +squatting silently in his hiding-place when Miss Josey +entered; he heard her complaint, noted down two spiteful +exaggerations and one malicious falsehood, and witnessed +the exhibition of a bulgy ankle in a badly-gartered white +cotton stocking surmounting an elastic-sided cloth boot. +When the governess withdrew, consoled by Mrs. Breagh's +sympathy, Nurse Povah was summoned from the other +side of the landing by a tinkle of the hand-bell, and bore +stout witness on the culprit's side. +</p> + +<p> +"Did ye see her leg, I'd make so bould as ask, or did +ye take her worrud for ut? And—av there was anythin' +to show barrin' a flaybite, is ut natheral a boy wud parrut +wid his furrst breches widout a kick? Sure, they're the +apple av his eye, and the joy av his harrut! And her—wid +her talk av bendin' his will and breakin' his temper! +is ut like ye wud lay a finger on the Captain's eldest son, +to plaze the likes of her?" +</p> + +<p> +"The Captain has said himself—over and over—that a +sound thrashing would be a capital thing for Carry," +Mrs. Breagh returned. +</p> + +<p> +"He praiches—ay, bedad!—but does he ever practuss?" +demanded Nurse, smoothing her apron with stout, matronly +hands, and getting very red in the cheeks. "Niver fear +but he'd be too wise to bring a curse upon himself by +ill-thrating a motherless child!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Motherless!</i>" What did the word mean? Carolan wondered, +recalling how Nurse would describe some particularly +down-hearted person as being as long in the jaw as a +motherless calf. And now Mrs. Breagh was saying, in the +kind of voice some good people use for the purpose of +Scriptural quotation, and which is not in the least like +their accents of every day... +</p> + +<p> +"Solomon said, 'He that spareth the rod'—but you +Catholics never seem to read the Bible. And I always +treat Carolan as if he were my own child—and you know +I do! 'Ssh! Here comes the Captain—and I <i>think</i> I +hear Baba crying...." +</p> + +<p> +And Nurse, with the honors of war, retired to the +nursery on the other side of the landing, as Captain +Breagh's hasty footsteps and the jingle of his scabbard +were heard on the stone stair. A minute later he entered +the room. But during the minute's interval Carolan had +had time to ponder, mentally digest and form a conclusion +from what he had just heard. +</p> + +<p> +It had never previously occurred to him that the stout, +dark, beady-eyed, brightly dressed lady whom he had been +taught to call Mamma was not really his mother, but he +knew it now. It was revealed to him in one lightning-flash +of comprehension that this was the reason why her +hands felt so like hands of wood whenever they touched +him, and why her kiss,—religiously administered night and +morning—was a thing he would much sooner have gone +without. He knew,—and something inside him was glad +to know—that it was not wicked of him not to love her as +he loved Nurse, or Monica, or Ponto the brown retriever. +And then his heart dropped like a leaden plummet to the +pit of his infant stomach. This was to be a day of +discoveries. He had discovered that by kicking out lustily it +had been possible to resist the forcible removal of his new +breeches. He had discovered that "Mamma" was not his +real, real mother! Would Daddy turn out to be Monica's +and Alan's and Baba's Daddy, and not Carolan's, after +all? +</p> + +<p> +A sob rose in his throat, and his hot, dry eyes began to +smart and water. But the manly trampling and clanking +came nearer. The door opened—his father was in the room. +He could only see his shiny Wellington boots, and the +bottoms of the red-striped dark blue breeches that were +strapped over them. But familiar knowledge built from +the boots the handsome manly figure in the light brick-red +coat with the Royal blue facings, the China and Punjab +war-medals, the crimson sash and the other martial +accouterments topped by the stiff leather stock, and the head +whose wealth of jet-black curls and luxuriant bushy +whiskers might have been the glory of a fashionable +hairdresser's window; in combination with the well-cut features, +light blue eyes, and fine rosy complexion, as yet scarcely +deteriorated by Mess port, whisky punch, and late +hours. +</p> + +<p> +Captain Breagh kissed Mrs. Breagh with a hearty smack +that made Carolan start in his hiding-place, and said the +wind was enough to cut you in two, and that the fire +looked tempting; as he laid down his pipeclayed gloves +and dress-schako with the gilt grenade and white ball-tuft +on the aged and dilapidated sideboard, and permitted his +lady to relieve him of his sword. Then he rubbed his hands +and thrust them to the blaze enjoyingly, and threw +himself into the creaking leathern arm-chair. This, it +suddenly occurred to Carolan, would be a favorable moment +for emerging from concealment. He had got on all-fours, +ready to appear in the character of a bear or tiger, when +Mrs. Breagh stopped him by beginning to tell tales. The +child was beyond control, she declared—there was no end +to his naughtiness. For the sake of his immortal soul, +something would have to be done.... +</p> + +<p> +"What's he been doing? For my own part,—I wouldn't +give a brass farthing for a pup that wouldn't bite, or a +boy that wouldn't show fight when he was put to it!" The +arm-chair creaked suggestively as the Captain stretched +out his legs, and the firelight danced in the polish of his +boots, hardly dimmed by the dry gravel of the Parade-ground. +"And it's in the blood, that high spirit. Don't +suppose I'm bragging that the Breaghs are any great +shakes in the way of family!—though the name's as decent +a one as you'll meet in a long day's march. But Carolan's +a Fermeroy on the mother's side—and they're a hot-headed, +high-handed breed," the Captain added, taking +the newspaper from the Pembroke table, "and have been +ever since the year One—if you take the trouble to look +'em up in Irish History. Not that I've ever read any, +but my poor Milly used to say——" +</p> + +<p> +His wife's eyes snapped with irrepressible jealousy at +the reference to her predecessor. +</p> + +<p> +"And everything that came from her you took for Gospel, +I suppose?" +</p> + +<p> +"Pretty near!" said Captain Breagh, and began to +unfold his newspaper. +</p> + +<p> +"I get little enough time for reading things that are +useful," said Mrs. Breagh, as the Captain dipped into the +crackling sheets. "It was my bounden duty to speak, +and I've done it! And if you think you are doing your +duty by the child—let alone his mother——" +</p> + +<p> +She broke off, for the Captain bounced in his chair, and +dashed down the newspaper. +</p> + +<p> +"Haven't I told you I won't have poor Milly's name +dragged into these discussions! She's dead!—and so let +her be!" +</p> + +<p> +If a lady can be said to snort, Mrs. Breagh gave utterance +to a sound of that nature. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm willing, Alexander, I'm sure! But all things +considered, I must say I think it's a pity her ladyship died +and left you a widower!" +</p> + +<p> +"And you're right there, begad you are! And how +many times have I told you she was merely an +Honorable, and not her ladyship!" He left the newspaper +sprawling on the hearthrug, and mechanically reaching +down his pipe and tobacco-pouch from the corner of the +mantelshelf, proceeded to fill the well-browned +meerschaum, and when his wife lighted a spill and held it to +him as an olive-branch, he thanked her in an absent way. +What did the Captain see as he pulled at the gnawed, +amber mouthpiece and stared into the red-hot heart of +the fire, communing with that other self that dwells within +every man? +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap02"></a></p> + +<h3> +II +</h3> + +<p> +I think he saw young Alex Breagh, a junior Lieutenant +of the Grenadier company of the Royal Ennis Regiment +of Infantry, winning his spurs of manhood under Gough +and Hardinge and Gilbert on the plain beside the Sutlej, +where stands Ferozshahr. +</p> + +<p> +"For I don't pretend to be a hero or anything of that +sort, but I've never shirked my share of fighting," said the +silent voice within him, and the Captain exhaled a spirt of +smoke and mumbled: "I believe you!" And the other +Breagh went on: +</p> + +<p> +"Fair play and no favor won us our honors, mind you! though +the chance didn't come until later on. True, we +helped Sir Harry Smith to pound the Sikhs at Ferozshahr +and at Aliwal, when the cavalry of his Right had driven +the Khâlsas back across the Red Ford. Waiting for the +elephants with the heavy siege-guns and the ammunition +and stores to come up from Delhi, took a hell of a time. +Seven long weeks of broiling by day and freezing o' nights, +while Tij Sinh and his thirty-five thousand Khâlsas +entrenched themselves, mounted their heavy artillery—made +their bridge of boats, and encamped their cavalry up the +river. But the day came—our day!—and I don't forget +that foggy tenth of February while I'm breathing." +</p> + +<p> +Captain Breagh sucked at his pipe and reflectively pulled +a whisker. And the silent voice went on: +</p> + +<p> +"We were with the Left Division under General Dick, +and led the assault, while Gilbert and Smith feigned to +attack on the enemy's left and center. And in that +charge,—when the General got his death-wound from a +swivel-ball,—I was the second red-coat to cross the ditch, and +scramble over the big mud rampart, and saber a Sikh +gunner with his linstock in his hand!..." +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Breagh, chagrined at remaining so long the object +of her husband's inattention, picked up his fallen +newspaper and almost timidly laid it on his knee. And the +child under the table kept as quiet as a mouse, almost... +</p> + +<p> +"Thank ye, my dear!" said the Captain, while the other +Breagh went on: +</p> + +<p> +"And when the Treaty was signed and the rumpus all +over—for the time!—because Dalhousie's bungling brought +the hornets about our ears again!—we marched from +Lahore to Calcutta with Britain's victorious army—barring +the force we'd left with Lawrence at Mian Mir." +</p> + +<p> +The silence continuing, Mrs. Breagh drew her work-table +toward her, and began to look over a basket of little +toeless and heel-less stockings. As she did this she sighed. +The Captain smoked thoughtfully. And the inward voice +went on: +</p> + +<p> +"The Governor-General and his staff rode with Sir Harry +Smith and the Advance—and between the Cavalry Brigade +that came after 'em—for Sir Harry swore he'd be damned +but since we'd seen the hottest of the fighting, we should +have the post of honor!—between the Cavalry and Ours +came the spoils of war, drawn by the Government +elephants—two hundred and fifty Sikh guns we'd taken at Sobraon. +Hah!" +</p> + +<p> +The Captain's eyes were fixed on the fire. He smoked +in quick, short puffs. +</p> + +<p> +"Standards waving, bands blowing their heads off, and +a bit o' loot in most men's knapsacks. Glory for the dead, +and praise and promotion for the living—begad! it was +worth while—just then!—to be a British soldier! And +I'd been wounded just enough to look interesting, and got +a Special Mention in Despatches—and the women were +pulling caps for me,—devil a lie in that! And I danced +with Milly at the Welcome Back Ball at Government +House, in March, 1846. And whether it was Fate—or +that way she had of looking up under her eyelashes, and +showing a laughing mouth full of tiny pearly-white teeth +over the top of her fan, I've never been quite clear. But +even before the steward introduced Lieutenant Breagh to +the Hon. Millicent Fermeroy, I'd fallen head over ears in +love with Milly, and she was as mad for me!" +</p> + +<p> +Still silence reigned in the room, only broken by the +cinders falling on the hearth, and the breathing of three +people. Mrs. Breagh still bent over her basket of little +worn socks, of which those in most crying need of darning +belonged to Carolan. Her lips were tightly closed, but as +the man within her husband talked to the man, the woman +within the woman talked to his wife. +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder whether he knows I know he's thinking of +her again? I wonder whether she'd have liked to sit and +toil and moil for a child of mine, and know that the other +woman held the first place in his heart? Ah, dear me!" +</p> + +<p> +She glanced at her husband. He did not see her. He +was living in the Past. +</p> + +<p> +"Nobody noticed how often we danced together.... +It had gone pretty far with us before Her Ladyship scented +what was in the wind, and sent an <i>aide-de-camp</i> to remind +Miss Fermeroy that the doctor had set down his foot against +her overheating herself with waltzing,—and I found myself +staring after her with her bouquet in my hand.... And +I took it home to quarters—and I've got it now, stowed +away with her letters and a lot of other things in a tin +uniform-case.... Fanny hasn't an idea of that!" +</p> + +<p> +The smoke-puffs came more slowly, and the darning-needle +now worked busily. The voice of a sergeant who +was drilling a squad of recruits came in gruff barks from +the Parade. +</p> + +<p> +"The Fermeroys were great folks.... Colonel Lord +Augustus Fermeroy—Milly's uncle, was a tremendous Light +Cavalry swell on the Commander-in-Chief's Staff. Of +course, I knew that he would never hear of an engagement +between his brother's orphan daughter—(to do the old +man justice, he loved her as his own!)—and a Lieutenant +of a marching regiment of infantry who'd nothing but his +pay. So—as Milly and me had made up our minds we +couldn't live without each other,—we were married +secretly—first at a Protestant Mission Church, and then by a +French Franciscan <i>padre</i>—and <i>he</i> made bones about +splicing us—because I wasn't a Catholic,—and if I hadn't +told a white lie or two about my intention of turning +Papist, I don't believe he'd have tied the knot. But all's +fair in love!—and we were in love with a vengeance. I +suppose I was a selfish beggar to coax Milly into deceiving +her people, but——" +</p> + +<p> +A long ray of chilly January sunshine, full of dancing +dust-motes, came in at the window. Mrs. Breagh sneezed +as it fell across her face. +</p> + +<p> +"A time came when I knew I had been as selfish as she +never would have called me. People had to be told!—so +we enlightened 'em by shooting the moon. The condition +of my war-chest wasn't over and above flourishing, but I +got a month's leave for the Mofussil and secured a twenty-rupee +furnished bungalow at Titteghur—and next morning—before +the hue and cry had well begun, Lady Augustus +got a <i>chit</i> from Milly by <i>harkára</i>—I remember every word +of it. '<i>Dearest Aunt,—I hope you have not been alarmed, +supposing me to have been murdered or carried off by +wicked persons. I am safe and happy with my own dear +husband, from whom, I shall never be parted now.</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +The pipe was nearly smoked out, but the Captain did +not appear aware of that. +</p> + +<p> +"'<i>Never be parted</i>,' and before three months were over +our heads..." +</p> + +<p> +Clash! Mrs. Breagh had let her scissors fall. Her +husband made a long arm, picked them up, and gave them +back to her. +</p> + +<p> +"Thank you, Alex, love!" said Mrs. Breagh effusively. +But he went on sucking at the now empty pipe, and staring +at the waning fire. And the silent voice went on: +</p> + +<p> +"The Fermeroys were furious. But there was no use in +making a fuss and a scandal, and I must say they took the +blow awfully well. Good haters both—declared that under +no conceivable circumstances would they ever admit within +their doors an officer who had acted so dishonorably, but +they'd receive Milly whenever she liked to come. Nor +would they—though her uncle was her guardian and +trustee—deprive her of her fortune—seven thousand pounds +in East India Stock, Home Rails, and Government Three +Per Cents. But they tied it up tight for the benefit of the +child that was coming, and others that might come—in +what they called a Post-Matrimonial Settlement, and I +was agreeable; though, mind you!—I had the law on my +side if I'd chosen to make a fuss. And I was too much in +love to bother over money—or to care a cowrie about being +cut by the Fermeroys' friends." +</p> + +<p> +Nothing but gray ashes remained in the pipe-bowl. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know whether it wasn't to get me out of the +way that the regiment was ordered to Sikandarabad. +There'd been a Sepoy rising at Haidarabad, six miles north +of the Subsidiary Force's cantonments—and as the big +Mussulman city was swarming with all the blackguards +and <i>budmashes</i> in the Dekkan—and bazar-<i>gup</i> had it that +another Rohilla riot was threatening—Ours got the route +to go. And Milly—God bless her! wouldn't hear of being +left behind. And we steamed down coast to Masulipatam, +and marched the two hundred miles; and though it was +early in January, the roads were confoundedly squashy and +the heat was like a vapor-bath—there being no winter to +speak of in the South." +</p> + +<p> +"He's in a regular brown study," said her unseen gossip +and confidante to the Captain's second wife. "Perhaps +his tailor has been dunning him, or he's been losing at +cards. When men are out of spirits, money's generally +at the bottom of it! Better get him to tell what's the +matter by-and-by—not now!" +</p> + +<p> +"And the long road ran like a brown snake between +mangrove-swamps and paddy-fields, where it wasn't +coffee-plantations and cotton-ground. And there were +black-buck and partridge for the shooting when you could get +away from the columns; and duck and snipe when we were +hung up at the river-fords waiting for the elephants that +were to take over the baggage and guns." +</p> + +<p> +The shouts of the drill-sergeant came more faintly from +the Parade-ground. The Captain seemed to doze as he +sucked at the empty pipe, but Memory's voice went +on: +</p> + +<p> +"The women and children of the rank and file were +carried on the baggage-wagons, and the officers' wives +traveled by bullock-<i>tonga</i> or <i>palki-dak</i>, under an escort of +good-conduct men of the Subsidiary Force the Brigadier +had sent down from cantonments. Milly laughed at their +oilskin-covered wickerwork chimney-pot hats and little old +red coatees, and black unmentionables and bare sandaled +feet. But they couldn't keep the beggars of bearers from +turning out of the road and taking short-cuts through +jungle-paths. Then they'd dump the <i>palkis</i> down in the +shade, and light a fire of sticks, and squat round and smoke +their hubble-bubbles or chew betel.... And Milly's +blackguards had gone out of sight behind some trees, and +she was scared at finding herself alone and unprotected. +And she tried to be calm and plucky, thinking of—what +she and me were looking for.... But something trotted +out of a cane-brake and snuffed at the <i>palki</i> curtains—and +she went off in a dead faint and small blame to her! For +there were the prints of a full-grown tiger's pugs in the +soft ground round the palanquin—and the place where +his hind-claws had torn up the grass when he bounded +off...." +</p> + +<p> +The forgotten pipe was upside down in the smoker's +mouth now. A pinch of ashes had fallen upon the breast +of the unhooked scarlet coat. +</p> + +<p> +"When I came up I made those coolie-brutes eat plenty +stick. But Milly—poor girl! had got her death-blow. And +the boy was born that night under canvas by the roadside. +An old Murderer—Surgeon-Major Murdoch of Ours—did +all man could do to save her. But—just at dawn—with +the eastern sky all lemon-yellow and pink and madder +behind a mango-tope, with a Hindu temple near it, and a +clump of mud huts—and some old saint's shrine under a +sacred peepul-tree—the boy was born and the mother +went out like a blown waxlight. Oh, my darling! ... And +the Catholic chaplain—who'd been fetched to give +Milly the Last Sacraments—baptized the boy, for Milly +had made me swear all the children should be of her faith. +And the boy would have died, too, but that my company +Sergeant's wife—she that is nurse to my youngest child +to-day—happened to be able and willing to suckle him. +And we struck camp and set out on the last march, +carrying a corpse and a new-born baby. And that night we +buried my girl by torchlight in the cemetery belonging to +the European infantry-barracks. And it's six years ago +to-day—and here I am married to another woman! Are +you happy with her, Alex Breagh? She's as unlike the +other as chalk's different from cheese—and poor Milly 'ud +have called her a vulgar person! I know she would! +And yet—Milly never gave me a decent meal, and the +servants did as they liked! and Fanny's a rare +housekeeper. I've been more comfortable since I married her +than I ever was in my life before. Yes, I'm a happy +man!..." +</p> + +<p> +He told himself this continually. And yet the knowledge +of material comfort could not long silence the crying +of his heart. +</p> + +<p> +He took the smoked-out pipe from his mouth, and turned +to look at the plump, high-colored, personable woman who +was sitting darning his children's stockings with his +wedding-ring shining on her finger, and the present had its +value for him, and he ceased to company with the dead. +His regard, at first chill and gloomy, warmed: his +good-humored smile curled his full red lips again.... +</p> + +<p> +"Why, how you look, love!" said Mrs. Breagh, and she +rose and came to his side. Then she sat on his knee and +smoothed his hair from his forehead. And the Captain +returned her kiss, and told himself that true wisdom lay +in making the best of one's luck generally, and being +grateful for whatever good the gods chose to grant. +</p> + +<p> +"No use crying over spilt milk! ... Beg pardon, my +dear!—but what were you asking me?" +</p> + +<p> +"I was asking—supposing Carolan had never been born—or +had died—whether you would have come into his +mother's money?" +</p> + +<p> +"Would I have inherited Milly's seven thousand pounds? +Not a halfpenny of it, my dear! In the event of her +decease without issue it would have gone back to her family. +And even during Milly's lifetime she only had the +half-yearly interest. Couldn't sell out stock, or raise a lump +sum for—ahem!—for the benefit of any person she'd a +mind to help. And husband and wife are one flesh, so the +Bible tells you!" +</p> + +<p> +"The poor thing that's gone ought to have had more +spirit than to let you be treated so!" said the second wife, +who had possessed no fortune beyond a hundred pounds +or so, bestowed as dowry on his younger daughter by the +hard-worked apothecary of an English country town; and +was conscious that in marrying her the Captain had not +aspired to a union above his social rank. +</p> + +<p> +"Begad! my dear! I don't mind owning that Lord +Augustus hated me, from the top hair of my head to the +last peg in my boot-sole. And—when he died—and he +did go over to the majority not long after the Fermeroys +had sailed for England with Lord Hardinge—when he died +it didn't make a pin's difference, for under that settlement +I've told you of, the co-trustee, a solicitor—Mr. Mustey, of +Furnival's Inn, Holborn, London—took his son,—who'd +been made partner in his business—as his partner in the +trusteeship. And, of course, the money's the boy's!—though +the two-hundred-and-twenty-odd annual interest is +paid to me—the whole of it!—until Carry's old enough to +go to school and college—and when he reaches twenty-three +the whole lump of the principal will be his—seven +thousand golden sovereigns—to play ducks and drakes with +if he likes!" +</p> + +<p> +"And my poor darlings will have nothing," Mrs. Breagh +bleated, "unless,—-because I've treated Carolan in all +respects—and more!—as if he were my own child, and +that I would declare with my head upon my dying pillow!—unless +he has the gratitude and the decent feeling to do +something for Alan,—if it's only giving him a few hundreds +to start him properly in life...." +</p> + +<p> +"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched," +advised her lord. "My dear, if you'll get me the materials +from the sideboard, I'll wet my whistle. Talking's dry +work!" +</p> + +<p> +With wifely compliance Mrs. Breagh placed the whisky-decanter +and the Delhi clay-bottle of drinking-water near +her Alexander's elbow. You are to imagine the Captain +mixing a jorum on half-and-half principles, nodding to his +Fanny, and taking a refreshing swig of the cooling draft. +And at this juncture a head of scarlet curls was poked out +from the covert of the Indian shawl tablecloth, and the +clear treble of his eldest son piped out: +</p> + +<p> +"Dada, how much money is seven fousand golding +sovereigns? And how long will it be before I get them to +make ducks and drakes?" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap03"></a></p> + +<h3> +III +</h3> + +<p> +You are to suppose Captain Breagh, startled by the +unexpected apparition of his eldest son, swallowing the whole +jorum of whisky and water at a gulp, and his wife dropping +her darning into her lap with the very exclamation +Carolan had previously promised himself. Still as a mouse, +he had lain in ambush beneath the Pembroke table, with +the portrait of the Duke of Wellington on a gray charger +in the foreground of the highly varnished +oil-painting—representing the Royal Ennis Regiment in the +performance of prodigies of gallantry in conflict with the French +at Vimiera—staring with bolting blue eyes, and pointing +at him with a Field-Marshal's <i>bâton</i> whenever he had +peeped out. +</p> + +<p> +Now, conscious of having made an impression, and with +a curious mixture of sensations, emotions, impulses, +fermenting in a brain of six years, the boy stood upright +before his elders, his well-knit shoulders thrown back, his +sturdy legs, arrayed in their virile coverings of blue cloth +adorned with cat-stitches of yellow basting-thread, planted +wide apart upon the tiger-skin hearthrug, and his stomach +thrust forward with the arrogance characteristic of the +newly made capitalist. +</p> + +<p> +"Why the devil were you hiding there? Eh, you young +Turk, you?" blustered the Captain. +</p> + +<p> +"Eavesdroppers," said Mrs. Breagh acidly, "never go +to Heaven." +</p> + +<p> +"Farver Haygarty——" Carolan began. +</p> + +<p> +"We don't want to know what Father Haygarty says!" +snapped Mrs. Breagh, whose Protestant gorge rose at the +Papistical teachings of the regimental chaplain. And then +she remembered that in a few years the worldly prospects +of her three children might depend on the good-will of this +chubby-faced, red-haired urchin who stood silently before +her, contemplating her with a new expression in a very +round pair of oddly amber-flecked gray eyes. And being +a weak, ill-balanced, underbred woman, and a mother into +the bargain, she truckled, as such women will, to the latent +potentialities vested in the stubborn wearer of the +unfinished suit of clothes. +</p> + +<p> +"Not but what Father Haygarty is a good man and +much respected—and I dare say you're sorry for having +kicked poor Josey. So, since it's your birthday we won't +say any more about it—and Nurse shall pull out those +basting-threads and sew on the brace-buttons when you're +in bed to-night——" +</p> + +<p> +"There! you hear! Stop, you young rascal! Come +back and kiss your mother, and thank her, and run away +to Mrs. Povah!" bade the Captain, for Carolan, driving a +pair of grubby fists deep into the pockets of the new +breeches, had swung contemptuously upon his heel, and +made for the door. +</p> + +<p> +"She's not my muvver!" said the son, pausing in his +struggle with the door-handle to turn a flushed and frowning +face upon his sire. "She said so just now and so did +you!" +</p> + +<p> +"Then shut the door!" thundered the Captain, but it +had slammed before the words were fairly out. And +Carolan stamped across the landing whistling defiantly, +and burst into the nursery, where Baba—for the moment +its sole occupant—was asleep in her bassinette, Alan and +Monica having gone out to walk with Miss Josey, and +Nurse being busy in the adjoining room. +</p> + +<p> +Carolan's head was hot, and his heart felt big and +swollen. He was a person of consequence, and at the +same time a thing of no account. Thus the pride that +flamed in his gray eyes was presently quenched by scalding +salt drops of resentful indignation. He was sorrowful, +elated, angry, and complacent, all at once, as he stood by +Baba's crib. +</p> + +<p> +He had never until now suspected Mrs. Breagh was not +his mother. He had called her "Mamma" ever since he +could speak. No question had ever risen in his mind as to +the existence of some secret reason for her dislike of him. +</p> + +<p> +When she had seemed most hateful in his eyes, by reason +of her lacking reticence and absent sense of honor—for +she couldn't keep a secret if she promised you ever so, and +was always telling tales of you to Dada!—Carolan had +frequently relieved his feelings by going into corners and +calling her "that woman" under his breath. The appalling +sense of crime, involved with the relief this process +brought—for to call your real mother names would be a +sin of the first magnitude—bad invested it with a dreadful +fascination. Now the glamour had vanished, together with +the wickedness. Mrs. Breagh was nothing to Carolan. He +was the son of another woman—and she was dead in India. +Her name was Milly—a gentle, prettily sounding name. +</p> + +<p> +Only the day before, Carolan had found out what the +thing grown-up people called "death" and "dying" +meant. He had given a shiny sixpence that had lain +hidden for weeks at the bottom of the pocket in his old +plaid frock to Bugler Finnerty for a thrush he had limed, +a beautiful brown thrush with a splendidly dappled breast. +Only the bird's eyes looked like beads of dull jet glass +instead of round black blobs of diamond-bright bramble-dew. +And it had squatted on the foul floor of the little +wood and wire cage in which Finnerty had been keeping it, +panting, with ruffled feathers and open beak. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Finnerty had said that the bird would thrive on snails +and worms, and Carolan had promised it plenty of these +luxuries. He had meant to range for them through all +the soldiers' vegetable-allotments, and ransack the +Parade-ground flower-beds. But all at once the thrush had fallen +over on its side, fluttering and struggling—and Carolan +had been so sorry for it that he had thrust his pudgy hand +into the cage, and taken the poor sufferer out with the +intention of nursing it in his pinafore for a little, and then +letting it go free, since it was so unhappy in captivity. +</p> + +<p> +But when he had bidden it fly away it had had no +strength to do so. It had lain helpless in his hands, and +the strange quivering thrills that had passed through its +slender body had communicated themselves to the child. +Something was taking place—some change was coming. +Without previous knowledge he had been sure of that. +</p> + +<p> +And the change had come, with the drawing of the thin +gray membrane from the corners next the beak, over the +round yellow-rimmed eyes. Then the upper and underlids +had sealed themselves over the veiled eyeballs—the +quick panting had changed to long gasps, the head had +rolled to one side helplessly—and with a long shuddering +convulsion the thing had taken place. The slender body +had stiffened in Carolan's hand, the glossy wings had closed +down tightly against its dappled sides, its scaly legs had +stretched out rigidly and not been drawn back again. And +a voice that seemed to speak inside Carolan had said to +him: "This is death!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Now broke in upon his immature brain a flash of blinding +brilliancy. Milly, who had been his mother, was dead, +like the thrush. He shut his eyes, and saw her lying, very +pale and pretty and helpless, with ruffled brown hair the +exact color of the bird's feathers, and beautiful brown +eyes—why was he so certain that they had been brown?—all dim +and filmy, and her slender body and long graceful limbs +now quivering and convulsed, and now growing rigid and +stiff. And a lump rose in his throat, and a tear splashed +on the front of the brand-new blue jacket, and another that +would have fallen was dried by a glow of inspiration. For +he had dug a grave with a sherd of broken flower-pot in +the angle of one of the official flower-beds that decorated +the oblong patch of lawn before the Mess House, and buried +the dead thrush in the shelter of a clump of daffodils, and +said a "Hail Mary!" for it, because, though Miss Josey and +Mrs. Breagh—whom he would never call "Mamma" again!—termed +it a Popish practice,—Father Haygarty said that +one ought to pray for the dead.... +</p> + +<p> +Surely one ought to pray for the soul of Milly. She +would understand, it was to be hoped! why one had +never done it before. Somebody would tell her Carolan +hadn't known! Poor, poor Milly! He wished he had +been there with his new tin sword when that snuffing +Thing came out of the jungle and frightened her so that +she had died.... +</p> + +<p> +He looked about the nursery. There stood Monica's +Indian-cane cot, and Alan's green-painted iron crib on +either side of Nurse's wooden four-poster. At the +bed-head above Nurse's pillow was nailed a little plaster +Calvary, and a miniature holy-water stoup, and over Carolan's +little folding camp-bedstead hung a noble crucifix of ebony +and carved ivory, so large and so massive that two iron +staples held it in its place. +</p> + +<p> +The Face of the pendent, tortured Figure—there was +death in that also. It seemed to the child that the breast +beneath the drooped, thorn-encircled Head, heaved with +long sighs, that the lips gasped for breath—that long +shuddering spasms rippled through the tortured Body, +bringing home, as nothing ever had before, the meaning of +the lines that the boy had learned as a parrot might.... +</p> + +<p> +"<i>He was crucified also for us ... suffered ... and was +buried....</i>" +</p> + +<p> +And that was why we prayed to Him for the dead and +buried people, because He had suffered death and gone +down into the dark grave, and He knew how to help souls.... +Carolan nailed his resolution to say a nightly "Our +Father" for poor Milly to the masthead of determination, +unaware that Father Haygarty had incurred the displeasure +of Mrs. Breagh by urging the necessary discharge of +this filial duty as a reason why the boy should be told about +his mother who was dead. +</p> + +<p> +We may guess that the influence of the second wife had +inspired the Captain to insist that the hour of enlightenment +should be deferred indefinitely. And if any one had +suggested to Mrs.. Breagh that she had been prompted by +a belated jealousy of her predecessor, she would have been +genuinely horrified at the idea. +</p> + +<p> +Nurse came in as Carolan decided on his course of future +loyalty, and started at the sight of the sturdy little figure +standing, with legs planted wide apart, on the shabby +nursery drugget, its childish brows puckered with +profound thought. +</p> + +<p> +"Now may the Saints stand between you and the mischief +I know you're plannin'!" said Nurse, who prided herself +on reading thoughts in faces. "Is ut playin' acreybats +on the windy-sill, or shavin' wid the Captain's razor? +Spake ut out!" +</p> + +<p> +Carolan spoke. +</p> + +<p> +"Mamma is not my muvver, an' I shall call her Mrs. Breagh +<i>always</i>!" +</p> + +<p> +"God be good to me!" said Nurse, quite pale, and +putting her hand to her side. "An' who tould ye that, +an' set the two eyes of ye blazin' like coals of fire?" +</p> + +<p> +"You saided it!—and she saided it—and Dada saided +it—when I was playin' robber's cave under the sittin'-woom +table," Carolan proclaimed. "And I'm goin' to +pray for Milly—that's my weal muvver—because she's +dead—even if they say I shan't!" +</p> + +<p> +"There'll none durst," said Nurse rather awfully, "wid +Bridget Povah to the fore! And what else?" +</p> + +<p> +Slightly damped by the prospect of being permitted to +carry out his shining new intention without interruption, +Carolan reflected. +</p> + +<p> +"Nuffing," he said at last, "'cept that I want to know +how much is seven fousand golding sovereigns? For I +am going to have them when I grow up." +</p> + +<p> +"Sure!" said Nurse, slightly bewildered, "a sovereign +is the same as a wan-pound note! Ye have seen thim things, +have ye not?" +</p> + +<p> +Carolan had seen the soiled rags of Bank paper changing +hands on market-days, and the recollection wrinkled his +nose. +</p> + +<p> +"'Tis quare talk ye have," said Nurse, "about the sivin +thousand wan-pound notes. 'Tis a little haystack av them +ye would be gettin' from the gintleman at the Bank. +Where arr ye goin' now, ye onaisy wandherer? Wid your +hoop for a rowl in the Barrack-square? Take your cap—an' +remember that wheniver ye're clane out av sight, Biddy +Povah has her eye on you!" +</p> + +<p> +But Carolan was already out of the room and half-way +down the stairs. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Outside under the blue sky, with its flocks of fleecy +white clouds all hurrying southward, it was easy to forget +the things that had hurt. The crackle of the sandy gravel +underfoot, the purr of the iron hoop in the metal driving-hook +soothed and stimulated; the ringing clatter when one +got upon the cobblestones, and the echo when one came +under the archway of the Barrack-gate—were familiar, +pleasant things. +</p> + +<p> +Familiar, too, was the sentry on guard, great-coated—for +at all times and seasons of the year a nipping wind +howled through the stony tunnel that ended in the arch of +the Barrack-gateway—and pacing his official strip of +pavement, that began at the yellow-painted sentry-box with +the blunt lamp-post near it, and ended at the big spiked +gate. And the peep into the guardroom, with unbuttoned +privates in the familiar red coats with Royal blue facings +sprawling on plank beds reading thumbed newspapers, +and the sergeant sitting on his cot stiffly stocked and fully +accoutered—that had the charm of a well-known, never too +familiar sight. To other senses besides the eyes and ears +appealed the figure of Mary Daa, the apple, cake and +ginger-pop woman, sitting under a vast and oddly-patched +blue gingham umbrella at her stall, made of a short plank +mounted on two barrels, against the great bare wall on the +left of the Barrack-entrance, exercising a privilege permitted +to no other, because Mary's stone ginger-pop bottles +might be relied upon as containing nothing else.... +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +It was market-day, and the great cobblestoned place, +bordered by a line of shops and houses, broken by the +bridge, under which flowed a famous salmon-river, was +seething with people out to buy and sell and enjoy +themselves. On the right hand was the Catholic Church, a +modern building of no great design, animated bundles of +rags containing female penitents performing the devotions +of the Stations round it. While upreared upon the summit +of an isolated rock beyond the rushing river, perched the +ivy-mantled remnant of the ancient castle from which the +town derived its name; once held against the Commonwealth +by King James, and with Ireton's round-shot yet +bedded in the massive masonry. +</p> + +<p> +The distracting grind-organ accompaniment of a round-about +blared on the ear from a field where some caravans +of strolling show-people had encamped themselves. Rows +of empty jaunting-cars, shafts down, waited their squireen +owners in the bleakest angle of the market-place; and +in the farm-carts with feather-beds in them, covered with +gay patchwork counterpanes, the strapping matrons and +buxom maids of the hill-farms or mountain-villages had +jolted and joggled from their distant homes, and—the +last bargain made—would jolt and joggle back +again. +</p> + +<p> +Booths and stalls, presided over by them, exhibited cheese, +butter, and other dairy-produce. Crates were crammed +with quacking ducks and loudly cackling fowls. Strings +of shaggy-footed horses and knots of isolated cows were +ranged along the curbs to tempt the would-be purchaser; +hurdled pens of sheep waited to change owners; but the +staple article of commerce, in the active and the passive +mood, alive and squealing or dead and smoked, was pig. +In reeking basements below the shops—cellars where +potatoes, cabbages, and onions were peddled to the poorest, +and turf and firewood were sold in ha'p'orths—piles of +pigs-tails, fresh and dried, rivaled the salted herring in +popularity, and were borne home, wrapped in red-spotted +handkerchiefs, and stowed away in the crowns of hats, to +be frizzled over turf-embers for supper. +</p> + +<p> +A jig was being danced to the music of a fiddle and a +clarionet on a square of smooth flagstones in the middle of +the market-place. And—for this was the West of Ireland +in the early fifties—the bright red or dark blue cloaks and +white frilled caps of the matrons, the short stuff petticoats, +chintz jacket-bodices and bright handkerchief-shawls of +the unwedded women; the corduroy breeches, blue yarn +stockings and buckled brogues of the men, their long-tailed +gray or blue coats and high-crowned, narrow-brimmed +chimney-pots—gave charm and variety to the shifting +scene. +</p> + +<p> +Not for the first time observed, the half-dozen of coarse, +strapping, red-faced women who daily patroled the square +in the neighborhood of the Barracks; whisky-hardened +viragoes whose uncovered heads of greasy hair, thrust into +sagging nets of black chenille-velvet, and uniform attire of +clean starched cotton print, worn over a multiplicity of +whaleboned petticoats, bespoke them,—as did their coarse +speech and loud laughter,—members of the ancient sisterhood +of Rahab and Delilah, followers of the most ancient +profession in the world. +</p> + +<p> +Prone at all times to hunt in pack or couples, the wearers +of the greasy hair-nets flauntingly displayed a pair of +captive red-coats. One of them was fairly sober, and sulky +at being thus paraded under the eyes of his countrymen. +The other, a raw young recruit, half-fuddled with libations +of porter and whisky, staggeringly promenaded the +pavement with a siren on either elbow; and, being in the +pugnacious stage of liquor, was stung by some sarcastic +comment from the crowd into shaking off the women who +supported,—while they feigned to lean on him,—and +challenging the critic of morals, in broad Yorkshire, to a bout +at fisticuffs. +</p> + +<p> +"Leggo o' me, tha——!" he hiccoughed to the Paphians. +"Cannowt a chap walk wi'out women-fowk hangin' on, an' +armin' him? As for tha!"—he addressed the critic—"Ah'll +teach tha to meddle wi' thy betters. If tha'rt a +mon—coom on!" +</p> + +<p> +"Fight, is ut? Och, ye poor craythur, the wind av a +fist wud level ye," commented the censor, turning on his +heel contemptuously. Upon which, the belligerent, taking +the act as a confession of recreancy, wrenched himself from +the women, and, staggering forward, came into violent +contact with Mary Daa's plank-and-barrel stall; with the +result that certain apples, oranges, and cakes, displayed +to tempt customers, were scattered on the flagged sidewalk, +or rolled gaily down the gutter; pursued with yells +of joy by certain ragged urchins who usually were to be +found in the vicinity of Mary's stall. +</p> + +<p> +Carolan clapped his hands with a child's delight in the +upset and the subsequent fray, as Mary, vociferating maledictions +on the soldier's drunken clumsiness and the predatory +activity of the raiders, shook her fists at their flying heels. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah nivir meant t' dommage tha! Wull sixpence neet +maak guid thy loss t' tha?" stammered the Yorkshireman, +thrusting a hand into his trousers-pocket in search of the +coin. Then his flaming face darkened heavily, and he said, +withdrawing the hand, empty, "Ah havena a brass farden +t' pitch at dog or devil, let alone sixpence. Mak't oop to +her, Noorah lass, an' Ah'll gie't thee back agean!" +</p> + +<p> +And the woman he had called Norah said, linking her +arm in the soldier's and affectionately ogling him: +</p> + +<p> +"Sure, I'll give the ould craythur a shillin', asthore, and +a kiss av the handsome boy you are will pay me!" +</p> + +<p> +Then happened what Carolan, with a child's intuitive +sense of things that are incomprehensible, saw with a +strange shock and thrill that never quite passed away. +</p> + +<p> +The bright new shilling tendered to Mary by the plump +clean fingers with the twinkling glass-and-pinchbeck rings +on them was dashed to the flags by a fierce blow of the old, +bony, wrinkled hand.... +</p> + +<p> +"Take up yer money, ye livin' disgrace!" Mary had said +sternly to the staring woman, "and thrapse upon your +way!" +</p> + +<p> +And under the regard of many eyes, for nearly all the +faces in the crowded market-place seemed to be looking +that way, the woman had picked up the coin; and as her +comrades hurried on, had slunk after them, leaving the +tipsy soldier standing there. +</p> + +<p> +"Had ye no modher, ye fool-man?" Mary asked him, +"that ye are hastin' quick to hell, arrum-in-arrum wid +Thim Wans?" +</p> + +<p> +And the tipsy young soldier had given a thick grunt that +might have meant anything, and hung his head sulkily, +and gone staggering upon his way, but in an opposite +direction to that taken by the women. And Mary Daa looked +after him long and sorrowfully. +</p> + +<p> +"Please tell me," asked Carolan, edging up to the +apple-woman, for Mary and he had struck up a friendship over +divers ha'p'orths of nuts and pink peppermint-candy sticks, +"what are they, and why are they wicked?" +</p> + +<p> +Mary brought round the weather-stained brown tunnel +of her huge and venerable bonnet, and became aware of +a small boy with a scarlet topknot and a pair of honest +gray eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"Who arr ye talkin' of?" she demanded, and there were +shining drops of water on her wrinkled cheeks, and the +cracked glasses of her huge iron-framed spectacles were +foggy. She took them off, and wiped them on her old green +plaid shawl, as Carolan explained that he had been +referring to Thim Wans. +</p> + +<p> +"What arr they? Wandherin' waves av the say, poisonous +planets; thraps for the feet, fiery dhragons that ate +up the bodies an' souls av men! Look me in the face wid +your child's eyes, ye that will be a man wan day, an' get +by harrut the worruds I'm spakin' to you! An' when the +pith is set widin your bones, and the hair is thick upon +your lip, and the blood is hot widin the veins av +you—kape them worruds in mind!" +</p> + +<p> +Carolan thanked Mary Daa, and, having a stray half-penny, +purchased a cocked-hat of brown peppermint rock, +and went home crunching. He had learned a good deal +that day. The mystery of Death and the power of Money +had been revealed to him. Also, he had gained some slight +preliminary inkling of the forces that are arrayed against +the human soul in its march through this strange world of +ours, and of the strange and foul and ugly things that lie +hidden beneath the shining surface of Life. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap04"></a></p> + +<h3> +IV +</h3> + +<p> +Furnival's Inn, Holborn, with its parallelogram of dusty +or rain-washed cobblestones unrelieved by any patch of +railed-in grass plot, where sooty lilacs and rusty hawthorns +make a show of putting forth green leaves in Spring, and +plane-trees shed their bark, as boa-constrictors doff their +skins, at the approach of Winter—Furnival's Inn, even in +the year of stress of 1870, impressed itself upon the casual +visitor as a dismal spot in wet weather and a dusty one in +dry. But that an immortal genius wrote a deathless work +of humor in its cheerless precincts, one would have said +that nothing young or gay or natural could ever flourish +there. +</p> + +<p> +At nine o'clock upon the morning of a day heavily +fraught with Fate for the protagonist of this unpretending +life-drama, recent puddles testified to overnight's rain, and +gray clouds rushing north-westward across a monochromatic +parallelogram of sky, framed in by the bilious-hued, +grimy-windowed, decrepit-looking Inn buildings, predicted +more presently. +</p> + +<p> +Punctually upon the stroke of the hour you might have +seen a shaggy young man in a red-hot hurry plunge under +the round-topped carriage archway, eschewing the smaller +side-entrance intended for pedestrians. Whereat the upper +half of a porter, crowned with a tarred chimney-pot hat, +and wearing a brown livery with copper-gilt buttons, +appeared at the wicket of his lodge-door, and the fresh-faced, +shaggy-haired boy in the battered felt wideawake and +well-worn frieze overcoat, had felt an eye boring hard into his +back, as, after one doubtful glance about him, he dived +between the gouty Corinthian columns of the fourth portico +on the left-hand side, and rang the first-floor bell. +</p> + +<p> +"I'd ring if I was you!" the porter had soliloquized, +noting the masterful tug given by the early visitor to the +dingy brass bell-handle—third of a row of six sticking out +like organ-stops on the right of the heavy, low-browed +outer door. "And again! ... Don't be shy!" said the +porter, who was something of a cynic: "Break the bell-wire, +and then you won't have done no good to yourself!—supposing +you to be a client or a creditor of Mustey and +Son—though you're over-young to be the first and +over-cheerful to be the second, it strikes me! Good-day, +Mr. Chown!" And the porter touched his hat to a lean, +mild-looking, elderly man in black, who turned in at that +moment beneath the smaller archway. "You're not the first +this morning, early as you are. There's a young chap who +don't seem in the mind to take no answer—has been ringing +ten minutes without stopping at Mr. Mustey's bell." +</p> + +<p> +"Pressing business, I suppose, to bring him out so +early!" said the person addressed. +</p> + +<p> +A glance of intelligence may have been exchanged between +Mr. Chown and the porter, but there were no further +words. Mr. Chown passed on, and joined the younger man +on the doorstep under the fourth portico on the left +side, as he prepared to fulfill the porter's prophecy +about breaking the bell-wire; and said, shifting his +umbrella to the hand that held a shiny bag of legal +appearance, and drawing a shabby latchkey from the pocket of +his vest: +</p> + +<p> +"Excuse me, but if it is a business appointment with +Mr. Mustey Junior,"—he tapped the key upon the tarnished +brass door-handle as though to knock some grains of dust +out of the words, and went on, punctuating his utterances +with more tapping—"I happen to know"—<i>tap-tap-tap</i>—"that +he won't be here to-day." He added, as he took a +brief, comprehensive survey of the healthy, +square-shouldered, well-built youngster of some five feet eight +(with a hopeful promise of more inches in the breadth of +the shoulders, and the depth of the chest), buttoned up in +the rough frieze garment that had seen hard wear. "But +possibly it is the head of the Firm" (<i>tap-tap</i>) "you want, +and not Son? ... In which case I'm afraid you'll have +to wait some time, as the old gentleman stayed very late +at work yesterday. I should mention that I am employed +in the capacity of head-clerk by" (<i>tap</i>) "a firm of solicitors +who have offices on the ground-floor immediately underneath +Mustey and Son" (<i>tap</i>), "and——" +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Chown, still industriously tapping, nodded at the +lowest of a series of legends in letters of black paint, flanking +the right-hand row of bells, and setting forth the titles +of "Wotherspoon and Cadderby, Attorneys and Commissioners +of Oaths." He continued: "And though I was +detained myself, and did not leave till eight-thirty, I +noticed particularly—when I shut the front-door behind +me, that the gas in Mr. Mustey Senior's private room was +burning still." +</p> + +<p> +"For the matter of that, it's burning now!" said the +strange young man, whose head was plentifully covered +with a crop of decidedly red and obstinately curly hair, +crowned with the battered gray felt wideawake previously +mentioned; and whose square, blunt-featured, fresh-colored, +rather freckled face was illuminated with a pair of very +clear and intelligent eyes of a good gray, curiously flecked +with yellow. He indicated with a knotty vine-stick he +carried two dingy, wire-blinded windows on the first floor, +and Messrs. Wotherspoon and Cadderby's head-clerk, with +an irrepressible start of consternation, saw that the +darkness of the room behind them was thrown into relief by a +greenish patch of radiance that indicated the position of +a paper-shaded gas reading-lamp which to his knowledge +hung over the heavy writing-table that occupied the middle +of the elder Mustey's private room. +</p> + +<p> +"God bless my soul, so it is!" +</p> + +<p> +The speaker, with a tallowy change in his complexion, +stepped backward from the doorstep to the pavement, +conveyed himself in the same crab-like fashion to the +center of the quadrangle of ancient buildings constituting +the Inn, and so stood, staring up at the window with the +yellow-green flare behind the dusty brown wire-blinds, +and tapping his latchkey on his chin as he had tapped it +on the door-knob. Then he rejoined the other to say, with +rather a perturbed and dubious air: +</p> + +<p> +"If your business could wait half an hour or so, and +you—being a stranger, as I take it?—and new to the sights of +London—were to indulge in a little walk along Holborn—say +as far as Bloomsbury Street—and drop in at the +British Museum, and have a look at the Elgin Marbles or +the Assyrian Bulls,—or the—the Mummies in the Egyptian +Department,—and then come back again,—you might stand +a better chance of getting the bell answered." The speaker +added, meeting a look of decided obstinacy, quite in +keeping with the pouting, deeply-cut lips and the square chin +with a cleft in it: "Unless you can suggest a better idea, +you know...." +</p> + +<p> +"My idea is to stop here and ring until the bell <i>is</i> +answered. But I am obliged to you all the same!" said +the young man. +</p> + +<p> +"You've waited long enough, you think?" hesitated +Messrs. Wotherspoon and Cadderby's head-clerk. +</p> + +<p> +The answer came with a flash of strong white teeth in the +fresh-colored countenance that was dusted with dark brown +freckles. +</p> + +<p> +"Just twenty-three years," said the shaggy-haired young +man. +</p> + +<p> +"Lord bless me!" said Mr. Chown, "you must have +begun waiting in your cradle! But time flies and business +presses, and——" +</p> + +<p> +"My view exactly!" returned the freckled young man, +as the head-clerk inserted his latchkey into the heavy door +and it swung slowly backward, revealing a bare and +gloomy hall wainscoted with grimy oak and hung with +mildewed flock-paper. "<i>Donnerwetter!</i> how you smell here!" +he commented, having taken in a chestful of the medium +that served the inhabitants of the Inn buildings for air. +"But I suppose you're used to it!" +</p> + +<p> +"Comparing our atmosphere with that of other London +offices, I should be inclined to call us rather fresh than +otherwise," said Mr. Chown, who had dropped his latchkey +and was groping for it on the dirty floor by the oblong of +daylight admitted by the open hall-door. "But I suppose—as +some of the gentlemen who rent chambers here are +still away on their vacations—the place might seem—to a +stranger from the country—a trifle close." +</p> + +<p> +"Stuffy!" corrected the young man, whose expression +of disgust was highly uncomplimentary. "Drainy, +black-beetly, mousey, dusty, cellary. With a tinge of escaped +gas and a something else that I——" He sniffed and said, +puckering a sagacious nose: "Why, it's gunpowder! The +place is chock-full of the fumes of burnt gunpowder.... +Here! Hallo! What the devil are you trying to do? +What do you mean?" +</p> + +<p> +For the other, who had risen to his feet with a reversion +to the sallow change of countenance previously observed +in him, had caught him by the arm, as his eager foot had +touched a dilapidated mat that lay as a snare for the +unwary at the foot of the uncarpeted staircase, and with +unexpected strength and quickness had swung him to the +hall-door, and was endeavoring to push him over the +threshold. +</p> + +<p> +"I mean——" Mr. Chown was of middle age and evidently +quite unused to wrestling: and as he strove with +the shaggy young man upon the threshold of the dingy +hall, it was evident that he would very soon give in. "I +mean..." he panted, "... that you ... can't you be +sensible?" +</p> + +<p> +"I should be a fool if I couldn't see that you're hiding +something. Let go!" said the red-haired young man, not +at all malevolently, "or I shall have to hurt you! I'm +going upstairs, and you can't stop me! What harm do +you think I am going to do to the white-haired old man +who's lying fast asleep across his table? I shan't go in +without knocking, if that's what you're thinking of! And +what harm do you suppose he's going to do to me?" +</p> + +<p> +A sullen bang answered, for Mr. Chown had reached out +a wary hand behind his own respectable back, and grabbed +at the dim brass knob and slammed the heavy door upon +himself and his antagonist. There were circles round his +eyes, and he puffed and panted heavily. +</p> + +<p> +"You young—<i>puff</i>—idiot!" he gasped, "I'm +not—<i>whoof!</i>—considering you—for—a—<i>whuff!</i>—moment. It's +him,"—he pulled out a colored handkerchief and mopped +his face—"him that I've known since I was first articled, +and had many a kindly word from, and many a liberal +present. And now that this has happened—I may say +I've seen it coming, and many a night I've stayed +here—knowing him busy over his accounts above, and many a +time I've been on the point of going up and knocking and +offering a word of sympathy. But—it wasn't to be done! +... You could never take a liberty with him, alive—and +no one shall if I can stop 'em—now that he isn't!" +</p> + +<p> +"Now that he—why, man!—you don't mean to say——" +</p> + +<p> +They confronted each other on the doorstep, and the +shaggy, obstinate young man had now flushed to ripe +tomato-color as he stammered: +</p> + +<p> +"You don't mean he's dead? It isn't possible!" +</p> + +<p> +"I say nothing and I mean nothing. There's no third +party present," asserted Mr. Chown, with professional +caution, "to testify to what I said or didn't say. But his +son has to be looked for, and brought here if they can find +him—and if Mr. William can't be found—and without +prejudice I think that's more than likely!—some one he +knew and trusted must be the first to go into that room. +His housekeeper I've heard is a good creature. He's often +dropped a word in praise of her to me, I know.... We'll +telegraph—I know his address! Number Three——" +</p> + +<p> +The young man interrupted: "Addington Square, Camberwell." +</p> + +<p> +"Send her a wire! I'll pay!" Mr. Chown plucked a +shilling from his waistcoat pocket and agitatedly pressed +it on the stranger. "There's a telegraph office at Snow +Hill!" +</p> + +<p> +"Where is Snow Hill? I'm a stranger in London. As +it happens, I came from Schwärz-Brettingen—it's a +University town in North Germany—to keep a business +appointment with Messrs. Mustey and Son." The shaggy-haired +young man pointed to those first-floor windows.... +adding: "The elder gentleman is chief trustee of my +mother's fortune—his son, who you say's missing, is the +other—that is, he has been since the death of a great-uncle +of mine.... For I didn't come of age, according to my +mother's settlement, until my twenty-third birthday. And +as it happens, I'm twenty-three to-day!" +</p> + +<p> +"I see! He was to have paid the money over! ... Good +Lord! Good Lord!" groaned the head-clerk, "what +a world it is!—what a world it is!" +</p> + +<p> +"And all this while we're swopping talk, the old fellow +upstairs may be dying for help that we could give him!" +snarled the younger man, and caught the head-clerk by the +shoulder in a grip that struck him as unpleasantly +powerful. "Look here!—where is your key?" +</p> + +<p> +"Just inside in the hall there.... I'd dropped it, don't +you remember—I was looking for it when you—when +you—said you smelt gunpowder," explained the attorney's +clerk, "and then it all rushed on me." +</p> + +<p> +"You did on me!—and I thought you'd gone crazy. +Look here——" the other began. +</p> + +<p> +"To be at all effective I had to take you suddenly," +said Mr. Chown, adding, with a mild gleam of pride, "and +you must add—I was effective! And if you've got it into +your head that there's life in the poor old man yet—put it +out again! For he shot himself last night just on the +stroke of nine—and I could take my oath of it! I heard +what must have been the—the noise—as I passed out at +the gate, and the porter he said to me: 'A gas explosion +somewhere in the neighborhood, Mr. Chown, or else it was +a thunderclap.' And I thought it might have been +thunder—for the weather observations in the newspapers had +mentioned storms as prevailing in South and South-Eastern +England—and the winds have been blowing from south and +south-east. And my wife has headaches when electricity's +in the atmosphere—and she has been bad three days past." +</p> + +<p> +"But let's do something—not stand here with our hands +in our pockets!" urged the red-haired young man with +eagerness. "I'm a surgeon—not diplomaed, worse luck! but +enough of a one to give aid in such a case as you've +hinted at." +</p> + +<p> +"My key's inside the house—as I've told you!" retorted +Mr. Chown, "and unless we were to break down the door—which +would bring the police upon us before they're wanted—or +one of us could climb like a cat—so as to look in at +that window and make certain——" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Donnerwetter</i>! Good idea!" said the shaggy young +man, in whose conversation mingled interjectional scraps +and snatches of a language not comprehended by Mr. Chown, +but dimly conjectured to be German. In the same +instant he had pulled off his frieze overcoat, revealing the +unsuspected fact that he wore no jacket under it—had +thrown it upon the area-railings close to the row of bells +that resembled organ-stops, and mounted upon it, +shirt-sleeved, vigorous, ready and purposeful. An iron +torch-extinguisher, a rusted relic of the days when respectable +citizens went forth o' nights attended by linkmen, jutted +from the wall immediately above his head. He made a +long arm and grasped it—and to the dazzled observation of +the head-clerk appeared to walk up the wall like a +housefly. But in reality he had wedged a toe in an ornamental +border of sooty masonry of the brick-in-and-brick-out +description, that outlined the doors and windows of the Inn +buildings; and with a degree of skill and suppleness that +testified to no small degree of practice, hoisted himself up. +Directly afterward he was observed to be in the act of +getting over the sooty balustrading that edged a narrow +ledge of stone running before those first-floor windows, +and the head-clerk, holding his breath, saw him stoop and +peer in over a wire blind. +</p> + +<p> +Directly afterward, as it seemed, he withdrew his head +and looked down into Mr. Chown's pale face, and his own +had lost its ruddy color. Then, coming down as he had +gone up, much to the astonishment and curiosity of +Mr. Chown's two juniors and several legal-looking personages +who had arrived upon the scene and gathered in quite a +little crowd upon the cobblestones—he said in a low tone, +as he drew the former gentleman apart: +</p> + +<p> +"You were right. Whether it was done last night or +more recently, it has been done, and thoroughly. With a +new-looking revolver. He has it in his hand!" +</p> + +<p> +"Poor old gentleman, I could swear that what he did +he has been driven to do, through despair and debt and +misery.... 'Mr. William will be my ruin, Chown!' he +said to me only three days ago. And he has been his ruin, +sir!" said Mr. Chown, blowing his nose with a flourish, +and wiping his eyes furtively. "His ruin, Mr. William has +been.... You may depend upon that!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the young man from North Germany, pulling on his +shabby overcoat: +</p> + +<p> +"The table is covered with papers, and the safe facing +the window is open.... Do you think——" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't think—I know! He had a kind of swooning +fit a week back, when the crash came, and a Receiving +Order in Bankruptcy was made against him on the petition +of his creditors. He was a long time coming round—and +I stayed by him while the caretaker went to fetch a +hackney-cab—for I'd been called, being a sort of favorite with +him, and having known him for years. He'd been robbed +and plundered then, because he groaned it out to me; and +he pointed to that safe, and told me that it had been gutted +by means of false keys—the Bramah he always wore on his +watch-riband having been got at and copied. 'All the +cash I had left in the world, Chown, besides seven thousand +in Trust Securities! ... It's my punishment for having +been near and hard to others that I might be generous to +him!' Are you going!" +</p> + +<p> +The shaggy young man, crimson to the lining-edge of the +old gray wideawake he had pulled over his brows after +buttoning his overcoat, made an incoherent sound in his +throat, and swung abruptly round upon his heel. The +reflection had occurred to him: "He'd have been generous +to me if he'd waited to have seen me—and blown out my +brains before scattering his own; <i>pfui!</i>—over that table +and all the papers!" But he did not voice it aloud. +</p> + +<p> +"Leave me your address," said the kindly-hearted +Mr. Chown, "and—it's not business to say you may trust +me!—but I'll undertake to bring your name before the Official +Receiver—for you're one of the principal creditors—provided +what you've told me can be proved...." +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose you know that—dead man's writing when +you see it?" said the other, swinging round on Mr. Chown +with no very pleasant look. +</p> + +<p> +"As well as I know my own!" retorted Mr. Chown, +nodding back. +</p> + +<p> +"If so—and not because I admit you've any right!—but +because I choose to show it you—you may read this!" +went on the late Mr. Mustey's chief creditor, pulling a +rather worn and crumpled oblong envelope out of his +pocket and exhibiting the direction written on it in a +flowing, old-fashioned, legal hand. +</p> + +<p> +"'P. C. Breagh, Esq., care of Frau Busch, Jaeger +Strasse, Schwärz-Brettingen, N. Germany.' ... But I +really shouldn't have dreamed—" began Mr. Chown. +</p> + +<p> +"Read it!" said the owner of the letter, savagely thrusting +it upon him, and the head-clerk with another protest, +nipped in mid-utterance by another order to read it, +mastered the contents. +</p> + +<p> +The writer acknowledged the receipt of Mr. P. C. Breagh's +letter, and begged to remind him that he was +quite well acquainted with the terms of his late mother's +Marriage Settlement. He congratulated his young friend +on having so nearly attained the age of discretion decided +under the provisions of the instrument referred to; and +appointed the hour of nine o'clock upon the morning of the +3d of January, to discharge his trust and hand over the +cash, deposit-notes, and securities.... +</p> + +<p> +"While all the time he knew—none better, except his +precious partner!—that I should leave his office as poor as +I'd come there. It would have been decent," snarled +Patrick Carolan Breagh, "to have owned the truth." +</p> + +<p> +"And accused his own son!—And now I look at the +date of this it was written on the day before that affair of +the false Bramah.... Do him justice, Mr. Breagh! ... Try +to think he meant fair by you. Wherever he's +gone..." Mr. Chown looked vaguely up at the monochromatic +sky—now darkening as though it meant to rain in earnest—and +then down at the cobblestones, "he'll be no worse for +that, and you'll be the better here, I dare to say! You'll +give me your address, sir? I don't know but that as you +were the first to discover the body, you'll be expected to +give evidence before the Coroner." +</p> + +<p> +"Damn the Coroner!" said P. C. Breagh. "Whether +he wants it or not I haven't an address to give. I paid my +bill at a thundering beastly cheap hotel in the Euston Road +by handing over my trunks of clothes, and books and +instruments to the landlord.... He promised to keep them +for three weeks—to give me a chance to redeem them!—and +he grunted when I said I'd be back with money enough +to buy his bug-ridden lodging-house before two days were +over his head. And I pawned my coat for dinner yesterday +and a coffee-house bed last night.... That's why you +saw shirt-sleeves when I pulled off this old wrap-rascal.... +But I'll look in here again to-morrow—unless I—change +my mind!" +</p> + +<p> +He had passed under the archway and was gone before +Mr. Chown had recovered himself sufficiently to call after +him. To follow would have been no use. So the head-clerk +went sorrowfully back to write and dispatch those urgent +telegraphic messages. +</p> + +<p> +And Carolan, shouldering through the double torrent of +pedestrian humanity rolling east and west along the worn +pavements of Holborn, plunged through the roaring traffic +of the cobblestoned roadway, and with his chin well down +upon his chest, and his hands rammed deep into his pockets, +turned down Fetter Lane, knowing that he, who had been +heir to a goodly sum in thousands, was, by this sudden +turn of Fortune's wheel, a beggar. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap05"></a></p> + +<h3> +V +</h3> + +<p> +As a dog will skulk dejectedly from the spot where a bone +previously buried has failed to reward the snuffing nose +and the digging paw, so P. C. Breagh, on the long-expected +twenty-third birthday that was to have made him master +of dead Milly's fortune, slouched down Fetter Lane, +humming and vibrant with the vicinity of great printing-works, +and redolent of glue and treacle, tar, printers' ink, +engine-oil, and size. +</p> + +<p> +A double stream of carts and trucks, heavily laden with +five-mile rollers of yellow-white paper for the revolving +vertical type-cylinders of the Applegarth steam +printing-machine—then in its heyday—bales of tow, forms of type +and piles of wood-blocks, choked the narrow thoroughfare. +The smells from the cheaper eating-houses—where sausages +frizzled in metal trays, and tea and coffee steamed in huge +tapped boilers, and piles of doubtful-looking eggs, and +curly rashers of streaky bacon were to be had by people +with money to pay for breakfast—even the sight of +compositors in clean shirt-sleeves and machine-men steeped in +ink and oil to the eyebrows eating snacks of bread and +cheese and saveloy, and drinking porter out of pewter on +the doorsteps of great buildings roaring with +machinery—sickened P. C. Breagh with vain desire. +</p> + +<p> +His world was all in ruins about him. He was conscious +of a painful sense of stricture in the throat, and a tight +pain as though a knotted rope were bound about his +temples. His hand did not shake, though, when he thrust +it out under his eyes and looked at it curiously. But he +shouldered his way so clumsily along the narrow, crowded +sidewalk that he found himself every now and then in +collision with some more or less incensed pedestrian, such as +the printer's devil, who cried, "Now then, Snobby, where +are yer a-comin' to?" or the stout red-faced matron in +black, displaying a row of bootlaces and a paper of +small-tooth combs for sale—who emerged from the swing-doors +of a public-house as P. C. Breagh charged past them, and +wanted to know whether he called himself a young man or +a mad bull? A well-dressed, elderly gentleman, carrying +a calf-skin bag and a gold-mounted umbrella, confounded +him for a bungling, blundering, blackguardly! ... and +was left reveling in alliteratives as the provoker of his +wrath swung out of the Lane and found himself upon the +reported Tom Tiddler's ground of Fleet Street. And +then a curious swirling giddiness overtook him, and he +dropped down upon some stone steps under the Gothic +doorway of a church with a lofty tower, and sat there with +hunched shoulders and drooped head, staring dully at the +pavement between his muddy boots. +</p> + +<p> +He was conscious of a dull resentment at his lot, but no +base hatred of that old man with the shattered skull, lying +prone among the bloody litter of his office-table, mingled +with it. All his life, since that sixth birthday when he had +learned the meaning of Death, and the potential value of +Money, the attainment of his twenty-third year had been +the goal toward which he had striven; and every third of +January crossed off the almanac "<i>brings me nearer,</i>" he +had said to himself, "<i>to the money that will be mine to +spend as I shall choose!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +And now ... without a profession—for he had failed +to obtain his degrees in Medicine and Surgery—without +funds, for a reason that did him no dishonor—without +books or belongings of any kind except the clothes upon +his back; without hope—for who can be hopeful on an +empty and craving stomach?—without work to occupy +those strong young hands and the sound, capable brain +behind those gray, amber-flecked eyes, the unlucky young +man who had been reared on expectations sat under +St. Dunstan's Tower; and heard St. Dunstan's clock and +St. Paul's, and all the other City churches answer the boom +of Big Ben of Westminster, solemnly striking the hour of +ten. +</p> + +<p> +His prospects had been blighted and ruined, his young +hopes lay dead: he felt bruised and battered by the +experiences and discoveries of that birthday morning, as +though the pair of wooden clock-giants that some forty +years back had figured among the City sights from their +vantage in the ancient steeple of St. Dunstan's, had beaten +out the hour with their mallets on his head. +</p> + +<p> +</p> + +<p> +His stepmother had always resented the monetary independence +of her husband's son by Milly Fermeroy. Well! she +and her vulgarities, her resentments and jealousies, had +long been laid to rest, poor soul! +</p> + +<p> +In that bloody June of the Mutiny of '57 she and her +two youngest children had perished at Cawnpore. A +fortnight later Major Breagh, previously wounded in the +head by a shell-splinter in the defense of the entrenchments, +was bayoneted by a Sepoy infantryman during a +desperate sortie. +</p> + +<p> +Carolan had remained as a boarder at the Preparatory +School of the Marist Fathers at Rockhampton where he +had previously been placed, thanks to the "interference," +as Mrs. Breagh had phrased it, of the regimental chaplain. +Father Haygarty. And, owing to the same influence, Monica, +Carolan's junior by two years, had—after the double +stroke of Fate that left the children orphaned—been sent to +the Sisters of the Annunciation in London, the charges of +her support and education being defrayed out of the +interest of Carolan's seven thousand, and the compassionate +allowance of twenty-five pounds granted her by Government +as the orphan daughter of an officer killed in war. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap06"></a></p> + +<h3> +VI +</h3> + +<p> +To-day, as P. C. Breagh sat paupered on the doorstep of +St. Dunstan's, he realized that, from childhood to this hour, +dead Milly's money had been his bane. +</p> + +<p> +"When I was quite a little shaver I expected to be +knocked under to, and given the best of everything, because +I was going to be rich one day.... I knew my money kept +my stepmother from grumbling and nagging at me. And—my +first thrashing at Rockhampton was because I'd +bragged about it to a bigger boy. He said when he let +me get up—that I should be obliged to him one day, if I +wasn't at the moment! And my first fight—no, my +second—because the first was over my Irish brogue!—my second +fight came off because I'd forgotten my lesson, and talked +about being able to drive four-in-hand, and live up to a +Commission in the Household Cavalry when I should +come of age.... Silly young idiot! And when I was old +enough for a public school—and passed—I wonder, with +my luck, how I managed to pass?—into Bradenbury +College—I had mills, no end! with the fellows there, because +I couldn't keep mum about my expectations." +</p> + +<p> +He leaned his dusty elbows on his knees and went on +thinking, as a regular procession of legs of all sexes, ages, +and colors went past, and the muddy river of Fleet Street +traffic roared over the cobblestones, boiled in swirling +eddies where it received the stream flowing down Chancery +Lane, and choked and gurgled in and out of the squat +archways of Temple Bar. +</p> + +<p> +"I'd talked of Oxford as a preliminary to Sandhurst and +a Cavalry Commission—and I went in for an Exhibition +Entrance—but my classics queered me for the University. +Knock Number One! The Head put it on the Italianate +Latin I'd learned from the Marist Fathers—and why old +Virgil, and Ovid, Horace, Cæsar, and Livy, and the rest +of 'em, should be supposed to have pronounced their +language with a British accent I've never been able to +understand! ... When I went up for the Woolwich Open +Competitive—having altered my views about the Household +Cavalry!—my plane trigonometry dished me for the Royal +Horse Artillery.... Knock Number Two! So I told myself +that it wasn't as easy getting into a Queen's uniform +as it was in my father's time.... You were given the +Commission—or you bought it—and if you could drill, and +march, and fight, no more was asked of you.... And +I tried for the Royal Engineering College of India—and +failed in dynamics—and had a shot for the I.C.S.—and +missed again! Oh, damn! And do I owe every one of +the whole string of failures to the belief that money makes +up for everything and buys anything? I'm half beginning +to believe I do! Even the kindness I have had from +people I'd no claim on—and who is there alive I have a +claim on? Have I been cad enough—ape enough—worm +enough—to put it down to——Grrh!—how I loathe +myself!" +</p> + +<p> +He covered his reddened face with his hands and shuddered. +It is horrible to have to go on living inside a fellow +you have begun to hate. +</p> + +<p> +"Even Father Haygarty's untiring kindness, his interest +in all I did and thought and hoped for.... Weren't there +times when I suspected that my—in some degree +representing property—accounted for—oh, Lord! And when +he was dying and his housekeeper sent for me—for he'd +given up being an army chaplain and got a little living +in Gloucestershire—did I realize even then what a friend +and father I was losing? I hope to God I did, but I'm +hardly sure of myself!" +</p> + +<p> +He stubbed with the toe of his muddy boot the jutting +corner of a paving-stone, and scowled at the image of +himself that was growing more and more distinct. He had +always thought P. C. Breagh rather a fine young fellow. +Now he knew him for what he had always been. +</p> + +<p> +"When Father Haygarty was gone—it wasn't long +before Mustey and Son began to send explanations and +apologies, instead of the whole of the quarter's +interest-money. There had been a drop in securities of this kind +and the other, and Consols were down—and at first I was +as pleased as a prize poodle at being made excuses to..... +But the fact remained that where I'd been getting two +hundred and forty, I was only getting one hundred and +seventy-three.... And that—if I really meant to go in +for my Degree in Surgery and Medicine, for I'd made up +my mind to be a medical swell—I had—if Monica was to +go on staying with the Sisters!—I'd got to give up the idea +of Edinburgh, or the London University, and matriculate +somewhere abroad. So I went to Schwärz-Brettingen, +and shared rooms with another English chap.... It was +admitted I had solid abilities—the Professors whose +lectures I attended thought well of me. And I failed!—Failed +for the fourth time! Have I the accursed money to thank +for that last blow?" +</p> + +<p> +He perspired as though he had been running, and, +indeed, nothing takes it out of you like a spruit over the +course of the past with your conscience as pacer. +</p> + +<p> +"I'd thought myself rather a fine fellow when, with my +student-card in my pocket and my <i>Anmeldungsbuch</i> in my +hand I called—in company with a squad of other +candidates—on the Rector Magnificus. We had a punch +afterwards, and a drive and coffee at the Plesse—and made a +night of it at Fritz's. I woke with a first-class student's +headache in the morning, and a hazy recollection that I'd +told one or two of the British colony—in confidence—and +several Germans—about the money I was coming into +by-and-by...." +</p> + +<p> +He ground his teeth and squeezed his eyelids together, +trying to shut out the picture of P. C. Breagh in the +character of a howling cad. +</p> + +<p> +"But if I bragged—and I did brag!—I worked.... +The Marist Fathers had grounded me in French and German +in spite of myself, and my pride had been nicely stung +up by that failure for Sandhurst and the others.... +Men told me what I'd got to grind at, and I ground; filling +piles of lecture-pads with notes on all sorts of subjects. +Anatomy, physiology, physics, chemistry, botany, and +zoology.... My brain was a salad of 'em—but I passed +the <i>Abiturienteti-Examen</i> at a classical gymnasium with a +better certificate than a lot of other Freshmen—thanks to +the Marist Fathers, who'd pounded Latin and Greek into +me!—and then—after two years of walking hospitals, +attending demonstrations and lectures, and doing +laboratory-work—varied by beers and <i>schläger</i>—and more beers and +more <i>schläger</i>!—and perhaps I took to sword-play all the +more kindly because of the soldier-blood in me!—came +the first regular examination. And I don't forget that +third of November—not while I'm breathing!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +<i>Donnerwetter</i>! P. C. Breagh could see the cocked-hatted +and scarlet-gowned University beadle ushering a +pale young man, with saucers round his eyes, into the awful +presence of the Dean, and Examiners in the Faculties of +Surgery and Medicine.... +</p> + +<p> +The neophyte—arrayed in the swallow-tail coat, low-cut +vest, black cloth inexpressibles, white cravat, and kid +gloves inseparable from an English dinner-party, or the +ordeal of examination at a German university, found his +inquisitors also in formal full dress, seated in a semicircle +facing the door, and looking singularly cheerful. +</p> + +<p> +A solitary chair marked the middle of the chord of the +arc formed by the chairs of the examiners. Upon this stool +of judgment—after bowing and shaking hands all round +and being bowed to and shaken—the victim had been +invited to seat himself. The Dean opened the ball with +the Early Theorists. And he had seemed quite to cotton to +P. C. Breagh's ideas on the subject of Egyptian Sacerdotal +Colleges, the preparation of Soma in the Vedas, the +therapeutical formulas of Zoroaster, Chinese sympathetic +medicine—the dietetic method of Hippocrates—who invented +barley-water!—the observations of Diocles and Chrysippus +and the criticisms of Galen. At the expiration of half an +hour, when the Hofrath delivered him over to the next +examiner, P. C. Breagh had felt that, if the others were no +worse than the Dean, all might yet be well. +</p> + +<p> +Professor Barselius, who followed the Dean, and was +reported to be a terror, when correctly replied to upon an +interrogation as to the chemical composition of the fatty +acids, vouchsafed a grunt of approbation. +</p> + +<p> +Professor Troppenritt, who succeeded Barselius, was a +person with a reputation for amiability, and a mobility of +mental constitution which enabled him to flit like the +butterfly or leap like the grasshopper from subject to +subject, harking back to Number One, perhaps, when you +felt quite sure he had done with it for good. But on that +fateful third of November a tricksy demon seemed to possess +Troppenritt. He no longer flitted like the butterfly, +or hopped like the grasshopper—he sported with the seven +great departments of Structural Anatomy, Physiology, +Pathological Anatomy, General Pathology, Ophthalmology, +Medicine, Hygiene and Midwifery—as a fountain might +toss up glass balls, or a conjurer juggle with daggers.... +His victim after a while found himself breathlessly +watching the hugh knobby rampart of forehead, behind which +the Professor's intentions were hiding, in the vain hope +that the next question might be foreshadowed on its shining +surface. A hope destined never to be fulfilled.... +</p> + +<p> +The fact remains that P. C. Breagh, after some really +creditable answers, was beginning to recover the use of his +mental faculties, when the Dean—prompted by the candidate's +evil genius—suggested a little pause for cake and +wine. It was awful to see how Hofrath and Professors—there +were three of them besides the conjurer Troppenritt—enjoyed +themselves at this sacrificial banquet, which had +been arranged upon a little table in a corner, waiting the +five-minute interval. And P. C. Breagh rejected cake, +which was of the gingerbread variety, garnished with +blanched almonds and sugar-plums. But the single glass +of Rüdesheimer he accepted might have been the +Brobdingnagian silver-mounted horn that hung within a garland +of frequently-renewed laurel leaves upon the walls of a +famous students' beer-hall—or have been filled with raw +spirits above proof,—the contents mounted so unerringly to +his head, and wreaked such havoc therein. +</p> + +<p> +The three remaining Professors were almost tender with +the sufferer, but what Troppenritt had begun, the wine +had completed. The <i>nicht wahr's</i> had been succeeding +one another at marked intervals,—like distress-signals or +funereal minute-guns, when the traditional three hours +expired. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh—removed to cold storage in the anteroom—was +detained but five minutes longer.... His nervous +shiverings had reached a crescendo, when the beadle opened +the door.... And the Dean, stepping forward, in staccato +accents delivered himself: +</p> + +<p> +"Candidate, from the quality of the dissertations in +writing previously submitted, we, the Faculty of Surgery +and Medicine of the University of Schwärz-Brettingen—would +a more satisfaction-imparting result have anticipated +as the result of the just-concluded oral examination +undergone by you.... But although lacking in +<i>Gedächtniss</i>—has been manifested on your part a so-remarkable +degree of <i>Einbildung</i> and <i>Begriff</i> that the Faculty +of-hesitation-none-whatever have in the +following-advice-to-you-imparting;—Yourself +another semester give, or better still, +another twelvemonth! and try again, young man!—try +again!" +</p> + +<p> +Not bad advice, if the young man had chosen to follow +it. But January drew near, and the inheritor-expectant +of seven thousand pounds scorned to toil and moil over +intellectual ground already traversed. He had tried for +honors, and he had failed, thanks to the hypnotizing +methods of the too-agile Troppenritt. +</p> + +<p> +So P. C. Breagh spent the money that would have kept +him, with economy, for six months, in giving a farewell +banquet to his friends; called—in his best attire, with kid +gloves and a buttonhole bouquet—on his favorite +lecturers; left cards on the wives of those who possessed +them; paid his landlady—who had faithfully labored to +convert his formal, class-room German into a malleable, +useful tongue,—kissed her round cheek—tipped the civil +servant-maid five dollars,—and turned his back for ever on +Schwärz-Brettingen, its <i>Aula, Collegien-Haus, Theatrum +Anatomicum</i>, Botanical Garden, Library and Career—(a +correctional edifice the interior accommodations of which +were only known to him by hearsay),—its restaurants, +beer-saloons, coffee-gardens, and fencing-halls; its chilly +wood-stoves, its glowing enthusiasms; its pleasant +companionships, its passing flirtations with <i>schoppen</i>-bearing +Hebes, and nymphs of the coffee-garden, restaurant, or +ninepin alley. One cannot say its love-affairs, because in +the esteem of P. C. Breagh—though Passion might bloom +red by the wayside at every mile of a man's journey—Love +was a rare blossom found once in a lifetime, too often +never found at all. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh's idea of Love was that it should be spelt +with a capital, and spoken of in whispers. Nor, let us hint, +was the ideal Woman at whose feet, he promised himself, he +would one day pour forth all the gold and jewels of his +heart and intellect, a being to be lightly trifled with. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +To commence with, she would have to be six feet high or +thereabouts.... Blue-eyed, blonde-haired, of classical +features, cream-and-rose complexion, powerful intellect +and thews matching, the ideal woman of P. C. Breagh must +have weighed about fourteen stone. He imagined her a +kind of Britomart-Krimhilde-Brünhilde-Isolde—with a +dash of Mary Queen of Scots, Kingsley's Hypatia, and a +spice of Edith Dombey and the beautiful shrewish Roman +Princess out of "The Cloister and the Hearth"—though +these heroines were jetty-locked, and for this reason fell +short of P. C. Breagh's ideal of female loveliness. Fair and +colossal, he had seen her over and over again,—though a +little too roseate and pulpy in texture to come up to his +ideal—in the vast canvases of Kaulbach and in the +overwhelming frescoes of the Bavarian Spiess. But he had +never yet encountered her in the flesh. One day they +would meet—and she would be scornful of the young, +obscure, unknown man who looked at her—she felt it from +the first, and that made her quite furious!—with the eye +of a consciously superior being—a master in posse. +</p> + +<p> +All the masculine world would bow down before the intellect +combined with the beauty—of +Britomart-Kriemhilde-Brünhilde-Isolde—and so on, +for he amalgamated new heroines +with the others, in the course of his reading. But one +man lived who would not bow down. She would taunt him +with this stiff-necked pride of his, in the course of an +interview on the terrace of a castle, whose moat he had swum +and whose guarded ramparts he had scaled in order to +be discovered, scorning her, and communing with the +moon. And he would quell her tempestuous wrath, and +silence her reproaches, by telling her that it was for her to +pay homage and court smiles. Then she would summon her +vassals and lovers, and half a dozen of them would set upon +P. C. Breagh, who would strangle one with his naked hands, +run another through with his own sword—and provide +materials, broadly speaking, for half a dozen first-class +funerals—before he leapt into the moat, carrying a rose +that she had dropped between his teeth—-and "<i>gained the +distant bank in safety,</i>" or "<i>dripping and bloody, emerged +from the dark water, gripped an iron chain, eaten with the +rust of centuries, and, painfully scaling the frowning +masonry, disappeared into the...</i>" etc. +</p> + +<p> +Absurd, if you will, and bombastic and impossibly +high-flown. Yet such boyish dreams keep the soul clean and +the body from grosser stain. Walking with your head +erect you may stub your toe, and come a cropper on the +stones occasionally. But you pick yourself up again and +proceed more warily—none the less rejoicing, seeing the +splendor of the sunset, or braving the blaze of noonday, +or drinking in the delicate spring-like hues of dawn.... +</p> + +<p> +One does not know how long P. C. Breagh might have +remained upon the steps of St. Dunstan's, had not the +hour of twelve sounded from the new clock—a youngster +barely forty years old—that had replaced the gong-hammering +wooden giants, now on view outside the Marquis of +Hertford's villa in Regent's Park. A constable civilly +asked him to move on. He got up, heavily, and mechanically +felt for his watch that was in keeping of the landlord +of the fourth-rate hostelry in the Euston Road. And it +occurred to him—as a pin-prick among innumerable stiletto +strokes—that the watch alone, being a heavy silver one +attached to a slender gold snake-chain once the property +of dead Milly—would have satisfied the man's claim, which, +exorbitant as it was for the accommodation afforded, was +considerably under three pounds. You are to understand +that P. C. Breagh had been so certain of returning in a +few hours, heavy with ready money, that he had treated +the landlord's detention of his luggage as a joke. +</p> + +<p> +The present situation was no joke. But Youth preserves +above all the property of rising unbruised and elastic from +a tumble, and of healing readily when it has sustained +mental or physical wounds! +</p> + +<p> +The blood in the veins of P. C. Breagh was mingled with +the finer strain that came from the breed of Fermeroy. +He had no idea of finding a craven's refuge in suicide. The +single shilling remaining to him might purchase sufficient +strychnine for a painful, unheroic exit, but P. C. Breagh +was not disposed to invest his remaining capital in that +unpleasant alkaloid. And neither did it occur to him then +to test the depth and drowning-capacity of the muddy +liquid running under any one of London's bridges, from +Westminster to the Tower. For by the contradictory law +of Nature, reversing scientific fact, a helpless weight that +hung about his strong young neck kept his moral head +above the turbid waters of Despondency. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +He was not alone in the world. There was Monica. +With the remembrance of that frail link, binding him to +the rest of humanity, awakened in him the desire to see her. +He turned his face Westward and stepped into the moving +throng. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap07"></a></p> + +<h3> +VII +</h3> + +<p> +The Great Class fermented in irrepressible excitement. +Subsequently to the arrival of a foreign mail, Juliette +Bayard had been summoned by an attendant lay-sister to +the presence of Mère M. Catherine-Rose. +</p> + +<p> +She had remained nearly half an hour in the Parlor of +Cold Feet—so called in recognition of the fact that the +apartment contained no fireplace, and that even in the +hottest weather cool draughts played hide-and-seek across +the polished parquet from circular brazen gratings inserted +in the wainscot, which ancient legend connected with the +presence of a French <i>calorifère</i>. +</p> + +<p> +When the door opened and Juliette emerged, somewhere +about the middle of the noon recreation, an advance-patrol +in the shape of a pupil of the Little Class, by name Laura +Foljambe—happened to be buttoning a shoe-strap at the +end of the corridor. The apoplectic attitude inseparable +from this particular employment would have rendered +observation impossible—in the case of an adult. But +Laura, under the cover of a luxuriant head of yellow +ringlets, unconfined by any comb or ribbon, observed, firstly, +that Juliette had been crying, and secondly, that Mère +M. Catherine-Rose had tears in her own eyes. More, she had +called Juliette back, embraced her affectionately, and said: +"We shall miss you, my dear!" "You will be brave, I +know!" and "Remember to write!" Packed with news, +Laura rushed into the Lesser Hall, where the seniors were +gathered round the stove, the raw chill of the January +weather rendering the garden a place of penitence, and +emptied her budget of intelligence upon the spot. +</p> + +<p> +Juliette must be going away! The forty girls of the +Great Class had unanimously arrived at this conclusion +when Juliette herself arrived upon the scene. It needed +but a glance to assure her of the treachery of Laura; it +needed but a moment, and the spy, blubbering and +protesting, was seized, shaken, and forced upon her +knees. +</p> + +<p> +You are to understand that when Juliette Bayard was +angry, she was so with a vengeance. Heroic by +temperament, her wrath smacked of the superhuman. A +demi-goddess enraged might have manifested as semi-divine a +frenzy. Ordinary prose seemed too poor a vehicle to +convey such indignation. You expected hexameters or +Alexandrines.... +</p> + +<p> +"That you listened I would stake my honor!—I would +pledge my life!—I would put the hand in the fire! Mean! +Base! Despicable! Ah, you look simple, little thing, but +you are cunning as a mouse—fine as amber! No! I +do not pinch, I would scorn it—you know that perfectly! +Yes! I will permit you to go when you confess who set +you on!" +</p> + +<p> +Laura, unwilling to incur the resentment of forty +grown-ups, undesirous of forfeiting the saccharine reward of +treachery, boohooed in a whisper, for class-hour was +approaching. The wrathful goddess towered over her, eyed +with blue lightning, crowned with dusky clouds of thunder, +flushed like the sunset that comes after the day of storm. +</p> + +<p> +Had Arthur Hughes or Fred Walker been privileged to +peep—one painter at least would have armed her uplifted +hand with a bulrush-spear, helmeted her with a curled +water-lily leaf, and given the smiling world Titania in the +character of Pallas Athene, or Queen Mab as an Amazon. +And Juliette would never have pardoned the painter. +For—despite the testimony of her tale of inches—she +would have it that she was tall, even above the average +height of woman. +</p> + +<p> +"I shall not be beautiful, no! but I shall be commanding!" +she had assured those favored girls on whom she +deigned to bestow her imperial confidence. This select +number in turn possessing a circle of confidantes, the drop +of a secret meant a series of widening rings, extending to +the circle of the day scholars, reaching the Orphanage +by-and-by, and trickling at length into the basement, where +the Poor School assembled on Wednesdays and Fridays, +to gather up the crumbs of knowledge that fell from the +tables of the daughters of the great and rich. +</p> + +<p> +You may imagine the scene in Lesser Hall upon this +chilly day in January. Excitement was much more warming +than crowding round the smoky stoves. Of the semi-circle +of great girls in their black school-dresses, enlivened +only by the red or white class-rosettes, or the pale blue +ribbons of the Children of Mary, all the heads, adorned +with every shade of feminine tresses,—all the eyes of all +colors, set in faces plain or pretty—were turned toward +the tragic figure of Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +Once kindled, such violet fires of wrath blazed in those +implacable eyes, one would have supposed nothing could +ever quench them. But when she was sorrowful, they +were bottomless lakes of misery. Despair lay drowned and +wan amid the long black sedges drooping at their borders. +Under the dark, hollowed precipices that shadowed +them it seemed as though no sun could ever shine. But +when the laugh was born, it leaped to the surface with a +quiver that caught the light and flashed it back pure +sapphire or loveliest Persian turquoise. No face ever framed +of earthly clay had more of the mirth of Heaven in it, +then. Her long upper lip, the elastic, mobile feature that +could draw out to so portentous a length, would be haunted +by flying smiles, and the deep-cut corners of her short +scarlet under lip would quiver. To inventory the beauties +of a young lady and omit the nose would suggest cause +for reticence on the writer's part. Juliette's nose was not +of Greek or Roman type, but neither was it snubbed or +tip-tilted. It had a rounded end, and deep, curved, +passionate nostrils. It pertained to no known order of nasal +architecture. It was Juliette's nose, and could never have +belonged to anybody else. +</p> + +<p> +If you would more of her,—and after the first encounter +you either sought or shunned—loved or loathed—as she +would have had you do who was in all things sincere and +candid, you are to understand that her cloud of dusky +hair framed a small oval face that made no show of carnation +or vaunt of rose. Her clear fine skin was almost always +pale. She would have laughed you to scorn had you +likened those colorless cheeks of hers to lilies. She prided +herself upon a frame of mind eminently commonplace, +antipodean to the romantic. "I am sensible, me!" you +often heard her say. +</p> + +<p> +In form—though as you know she believed herself to be +a giantess—she was small and slight, and not at all +remarkable. A framework of slender bones, frugally covered +with tender, healthful flesh. Her shoulders sloped so +much that in her loose-bodied, full-sleeved, black merino +school uniform she seemed about to vanish. Her hips were +narrow, without the voluptuous curves that belong to +heroines. But a Divine jest had added to her little +high-arched head a tiny pair of rosy shells for hearing, and the +palms and nails and finger-tips of her narrow hands,—and +feet I have heard it said by some who loved her—were +roseate also. The younger children liked to pretend that +this was a judgment on Juliette for stealing strawberries +in the early June season, but she only joined in that one +raid on the Sisters' kitchen-garden "To be a good +comrade!" ... and as it happened, all the strawberries were +slug-eaten. And where are there strawberries worth the +stealing, unless it be in France? +</p> + +<p> +For next to God and Our Lady, and her father M. le +Colonel, Juliette Bayard loved her country. Paradise was +but an improvement on France, to hear her describe it to +the little ones. Further, though she had a perfect taste in +dress, when released from the school uniform; though an +ordinary hat under her deft transforming fingers would +become a miracle of exquisite millinery; her groups of +flowers, and landscapes, in water-color, her crayon dog's +heads, were mercifully hidden from the drawing-master's +eye. She sang out of tune, but in time; played correctly, +but hated the piano; danced like an air-wafted tuft of +dandelion-down or a gnat upon a summer evening,—and +had a Heaven-born gift for housekeeping and cookery. +</p> + +<p> +Of this last gift more anon. Meanwhile Laura writhed, +or seemed to writhe, under the torrent of passionate +reproaches, culminating in another shake, and a slap which +might have damaged a kitten newly-born. Laura fell +prone, moaning and gurgling. And Juliette, pierced by +remorse at her own ruthlessness, sank, pale as ashes, beside +the victim's corse. +</p> + +<p> +"Darling Laura! sweetest Laura!—tell me I have not +hurt you! Just Heaven! how could I strike you?—I, +who am so strong! Indeed, I might have killed you! ... +Pray for me, my little angel! It will need a miracle to +cure my temper, as Mother Veronica constantly says. +Cannot you get up? Do try, to please me! Tell me +where you feel most injured? Quick, or I know I shall be +angry again! ... Show me the bruise! Pouf! that is a +mere nothing! I will kiss it and make it well, and you +shall have the blue bead Rosary." +</p> + +<p> +The mention of the blue beads palpably restored vitality. +The sufferer was understood to intimate that a chocolate +elephant would absolutely complete the cure. +</p> + +<p> +"The elephant to-morrow when the Great Class return +from the promenade. The Rosary before Benediction. +Away with you!" +</p> + +<p> +Laura scuttled. Juliette blew her a parting kiss, and +said, with a comprehensive glance of scorn at the faces of +her classmates: +</p> + +<p> +"It was not she who deserved the—— I have not the +expression! ... It is one of your English words that mean +many things together ... a kiss ... a blow ... the boat +of a sailor who catches fishes and crabs.... I have seen +such boats at Havre and Weymouth, and they are very +pretty.... Ah! Now I remember. You call them +fishing-spanks!" +</p> + +<p> +The Class shrieked. Juliette stood calmly while the +tumult of laughter and exclamations raged about her. +Her long upper lip shut down upon its scarlet neighbor, +her brows frowned a little; her slender arms, lost in their +loose sleeves, hung straightly by her narrow sides. Millais +would, seeing her, have painted a maiden martyr. Watts +might have limned her as Persephone new-loosed from the +dark embrace of Dis, her wooer, taking her first timid steps +upon the glowing floor of Hell. +</p> + +<p> +"When you have finished making so much noise—<i>peu +importe</i>—but I have a piece of news to tell you. You are +none of you inquisitive—that goes without saying!—or +you would not have dispatched that poor infant to play +the spy outside the parlor door. Bridget-Mary and +Alethea Bawne, I do not mean you—you are souls of +honor—incapable of curiosity! ... Also, Monica Breagh, <i>c'est +là son moindre defaut</i>! But there are others—yet my +friends—who are not so delicate,—and to these I address +myself. You do not deserve to hear—and yet I cannot be +unkind to you; I, who have such joy of the heart in the +knowledge that I am to return to my dear father!—such +grief—ah! but such grief of the soul in bidding adieu to +the School!" +</p> + +<p> +"Not for good?" +</p> + +<p> +"You are going to leave the School?" +</p> + +<p> +"Dear, darling Juliette, say you're only joking!" +</p> + +<p> +"She is in earnest. Look at her upper lip!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Vous moquez-vous du monde de parler ainsi!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Throbbed out a Spanish voice, husky and passionate: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Qué vergüenza! No, no, es imposible!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"Sure, dear, you'd not be so cruel as to make game +of us?" +</p> + +<p> +She stood her ground, firm, but no longer frowning. +Her heart swelled, her eyes were heavy with the promise of +rain. Her slender arms went out as though she would have +embraced them all. +</p> + +<p> +"My dears, it is true! I go to Versailles to rejoin my +father. He says to me also—I have his letter here!" ... +</p> + +<p> +Silence fell upon the turbulent crowd as she laid a +slender hand on the place where her heart could be seen +throbbing. The paper rustled, but she did not draw it +forth. +</p> + +<p> +"He says, in this—I am to be married ... soon,—very +quickly!" +</p> + +<p> +A Babel of cries, ejaculations, and exclamations broke +out about her. A girl's voice, more strident than the rest, +shrieked: +</p> + +<p> +"I hate your father! Beast!" and broke down in hysterical +sobbing. Juliette replied, those about her hushed +to hear; and in the oasis of silence her tender, silvery +voice rose like a fountain springing from the heart of +purity. +</p> + +<p> +"My father is not what you say, but the Emperor's +brave soldier and a noble gentleman. I am proud to obey +when he commands! He has said to me that I am to be +married, and does he not know what is best for me? +Would he wish to bring unhappiness upon his Juliette?" +</p> + +<p> +She was not so much loyal as Loyalty personified, standing +there defending him; with her little hand keeping down +her bursting heart of anguish, and salt lakes of unshed +tears pent up behind her sorrowful sapphire eyes.... +Her voice broke as she said "his Juliette," and one of the +Bawnes, a stately, black-browed girl, answered, speaking +in French: +</p> + +<p> +"He would not if he is—what you have described +him! ... But—unless you knew of this before—it is so +sudden.... It would seem to argue that M. le Colonel +was thinking more—you will not be offended!—of the +happiness of his future son-in-law than of his +daughter's——" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Non, non, non!</i>" She made an emphatic gesture with +her little hand, and shook her head so that a tear fell from +her lashes on the bosom of her black school-dress, "Dear +Lady Biddy—you are mistaken. For—comprehend you?—my +happiness is in obeying that beloved father, always. +For me, there is no greater joy.... And his letter bears +date of the New Year—three days since—behold the +postmark. It is the custom to give young people étrennes at +that season—my father bestows on me a husband, and I +am—content! See you well?" +</p> + +<p> +It was faulty English, yet Juliette's "See you well?" +haunted the music-loving ear. +</p> + +<p> +And now even the reserved began to question, while the +frankly curious waxed importunate concerning the date of +Mademoiselle Bayard's impending departure, the name, +rank and personal appearance of the mysterious husband-elect, +the number and uniform of his regiment. For, of +course, he was certain to be an officer of Cavalry, Dragoons, +Lancers, or Cuirassiers. That he must be handsome went +without saying; but were his eyes dark or light, and did he +wear a moustache only, or sport the hirsute ornament in +conjunction with an imperial? Beset from all quarters, +Juliette was beginning to lose command of herself, +when the hour of two struck from the great clock in +the corridor. +</p> + +<p> +The clang-clang of an iron bell succeeded, the double +doors at the upper end of the Hall rolled backward, +uniting the Great and the Middle Classes in the religious +exercise that opened afternoon School. The hymn sung, +the brief litany chanted to an accompaniment played on +the harmonium by a mistress in the purple habit and +creamy veil of the choir-sisters, another nun approached +Juliette and whispered in her ear. +</p> + +<p> +She was to go to the dormitory and pack her trunk, +which would presently be brought her by one of the +lay-sisters. And this done, she was free to spend the +half-hour previous to Benediction in the parlor with—— +</p> + +<p> +The name was lost in Juliette's embrace and kiss of +gratitude. She was usually chary of caresses, perhaps she +wished to hide her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +They were fairly overflowing, poor eyes! when their +owner gained the solitude of her white-draped cubicle in +the Greats' dormitory. Once the curtains fell behind her +she was free to fall upon her knees beside the bed and sob +there, to call upon Our Lady for succor and pity, to rock +herself and hug her bleeding heart. And all these things +Juliette did, until the dull thump of felt shoes upon the +shining boards betokened the arrival of the lay-sister, +bearing the oilskin-covered dress-basket, disinterred from +some below-stairs repository, which had to be filled from +the locker, dress-hooks, and drawers. +</p> + +<p> +Ten minutes had been devoured in grief, forty yet +remained for packing. A lover of method in all things, +frugal and prudent in the expenditure of resources ("<i>I am +sensible, me!</i>"), Juliette was economical of time. Ten +minutes might be spared to re-perusal of the letter that +had set her faith in that dearest father rocking like a palm +in tempest, and wrung such tears of anguish from the heart +that worshiped him. +</p> + +<p> +She drew the bulky envelope from its pure hiding-place, +kissed it, and moaned a little. There were three sheets of +thin foreign note, flourished over in a big, bold, soldierly +hand. The date bore evidence that the letter had been +penned on the Eve of Saint Sylvestre, answering to our +New Year's Eve. The address was: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "<i>Barracks of the 777th Regiment,</i><br> + "<i>Mounted Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard,</i><br> + "<i>Versailles.</i><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"<i>My Daughter,</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Of news thy father has not much to tell thee that thou +wouldst find of the most interesting, save that of the +fashions prevailing in Paris at the moment, the most daring and +eccentric is the little hat or miniature bonnet, tilted +forward upon the forehead by the chignon, and spangled with +beetles, dragon-flies, and other brilliant insects. Jeweled +birds, yachts in full sail, or baskets of flowers, dangle from +the ears of all the feminine world!</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>The Empress is as beautiful as even she could wish to +be. I saw her driving a pair of little thoroughbred mares +in the low park-phœton yesterday in the Bois, near the +Rond des Cascades. She was so gracious as to recognize +me—though I was in civilian riding-dress—and beckoned me +with her parasol-whip from the line of equestrians respectfully +mustered on the left side of the road. She patted the +gray Mustapha—thou wilt be glad thy horse was so +honored!—and asked if I was quite recovered of the wound +I received at Solferino,—proving that an Imperial memory +can be conferred with the hand that raises to Imperial +rank. Later on I met Dumas, and—at the corner of the +Rue Laffitte—Baron Rothschild and Cham, the caricaturist—and +there thou hast a résumé of the encounters of the +day.</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Do political matters really interest thee? Learn, then, +a new Ministry is in formation by M. Emile Ollivier—a +'homogeneous cabinet,' is to be drawn chiefly from the Left +Center in the Corps Législatif. My father's friend, M. le +Général Lebœuf, Minister of War, retains the post he held +in the expired Administration. M. le Maréchal Vaillant +continues as Minister of the Emperor's Household. Haussmann +has fallen! his ten thousand hands will no longer +scatter gold from the Imperial Treasury. The last +announcement emanating from the Prefecture of the Seine +gave notice that the cemeteries of Mont-Parnasse, +Montmartre, Ivry, and others are to be seized by the +municipality in 1871. All the private monuments are to be +withdrawn before the first of April.... With what sorrow of +heart these tragic removals will be effected thou wilt realize, +who hast so often accompanied thy father, bearing wreaths +to lay upon thy grandmother's tomb at Père Lachaise. +Pray that the necessity to find a home for those sacred, +beloved ashes may not devolve upon us.</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Thou must know that in October, during the maneuvers +at the camp of Châlons, a new and terrible weapon +was placed in the hands of the Imperial army of France. +It is the </i>Mitrailleuse<i>, conceived by the brain of De +Reffye—an invention worthy to rank with that of the Chassepôt +rifle, which fulfilled such great expectations the first time +the weapon was used in action, at Mentana, against the +Garibaldians. How shall I describe it? I will say, briefly, +that it is a rifled, breech-loading gun of from fourteen to +twenty-nine barrels; that it has as many locks as barrels; +that it can be transported from place to place by two men, +and fired by one, who manipulates a lever, sitting upon a +saddle attached to the gun-carriage. And that it is a mill +that grinds—a machine that hails—death upon an enemy. +Armed with batteries of these invincible weapons, the march +of an invading army would be irresistible!</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Two of these marvelous guns have been by the Imperial +favor bestowed upon our regiment. The men baptized +them in wine by the names of Didi and Bibi. They are +treated as regimental infants, and thrive exceedingly +well.</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>My child, whether this news will make thee sad or joyful +it must be that Juliette joins her father here at +Versailles not later than on the twentieth of the month of +January. Madame la Supérieure will supply thee with +funds in exchange for the enclosed note of credit furnished +me by my bankers. Purchase thyself—on arriving in +Paris—for certainly the modes of London will never +content a taste so fastidious—some fresh and charming toilettes +of the evening, costumes for the house, theater or promenade, +and suitable lingerie. Last, but not least, bring a +marriage-robe, crown and veil. I am not joking, I assure +thee! For my daughter I have found a husband. A +young man, sincere, upright, honorable, and a good +Catholic, whom I have known from boyhood, whom my child +will love as a wife should; and by whom she will be adored +and cherished. Thou knowest Charles Tessier, the son of +my mother's widowed friend, the estimable Madame Tessier, +whom we have visited in the Rue de Provence, Versailles! +Charles has succeeded to his father's large businesses +at Paris, Lyons, and in Belgium, as a manufacturer +of woolen dress-materials, the pattern Écossais, so much +in favor with S.M. the Empress and the belles of the +Imperial Court, having been imported, woven and supplied +by this wise, enterprising and energetic young man. +Who—but it will be for his wife to perceive and praise his +many excellencies. I leave thee to the pleasant task of +discovering them.</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>My Juliette, if so much of thy father mingles in thy +nature that of all careers this of a soldier seems to thee the +noblest—if the pursuit and attainment of military +glory—distinctions won upon the field of War, appeal to thee—as +Heaven knows they have to me!—since my blood first +learned to thrill at the roll of the drum—and leap at the +sound of the trumpet—if thou hast pictured in thy innocent +mind—loved in thy spotless dreams—some brave and +noble officer chosen for thee by him who now writes—tear +the picture!—forget the dream! For when such dreams +become realities they are—how often rudely shattered by +the rush and shock of armies meeting in the blood-stained +field of War!</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>My dear, War is a monster composed of flesh, and iron, +and steel, that like the dragon or chimera of classical +mythology—devours the hopes of virgins and the happiness +of matrons, and leaves children orphans and homes heaps +of dust. Thou rememberest thy grandmother? She had +been married just five years when my father reddened +with his heart's blood the soil of Algeria. Yet when I +wished to follow the profession of arms she did not +endeavor to dissuade me. She hid her anguish as only +mothers can, but her beloved life was shortened by anxiety +undergone during the terrible war of the Crimea; that war +so protracted, so disastrous to our brave ally of England—so +fraught with loss and suffering to the more fortunate +army of France. And that was not the only blow Fate +dealt me while I served as </i>aide-de-camp<i> upon the staff of +M. le Maréchal Grandguerrier. Thou dost not know as +yet!—one day I may find courage to tell thee.... Even +a soldier may shrink from baring wounds that are of the +soul.</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>My daughter, I have never spoken to thee of thy +mother.... The time has arrived when——</i>" +</p> + +<p> +The sixteen words were lined out by a heavy stroke of +the quill. The closing sentences were—— +</p> + +<p> +"<i>In the event of War abroad—taking thy father from +thee—perhaps to lay his bones in a trench hastily dug by +peasants in some foreign province!—or in the event of War +at home,—sudden, unexpected—sweeping as a cataclysm +over thy native soil, thou wilt believe me, my Juliette, when +I tell thee this marriage would be absolutely for the best! +Living or dead, for me to know thee safe and cherished, +here at Versailles with thy husband Charles and his +estimable mother, would be happiness.... Wilt thou +consent to the union? Wilt thou obey thy father, who loves +thee as his soul? One finds this a scrawl which will prove +difficult to decipher. As thou knowest, I am a better +artist with the sword than with the pen.</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Written here at my new quarters, which comprise a +sleeping chamber and boudoir elegantly furnished, +suitable for a young lady of refinement; and a little kitchen, +full of pots and bright pans.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "<i>Thy father,</i><br> + "<i>HENRI-ANTOINE-ALBERT DE BAYARD,</i><br> + "<i>Colonel Commandant.</i>" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap08"></a></p> + +<h3> +VIII +</h3> + +<p> +Will it not be admitted that a letter such as this was +calculated to cause a flutter of agitation in the meekest +feminine bosom? To be recalled from School before the +completion of the tiresome process technically known as +"finishing," that was matter for rejoicing. The little +bedroom-boudoir in the Colonel's quarters at the Cavalry +Barracks, "elegantly furnished, suitable for a young lady +of refinement," presented an alluring picture, the tiny +kitchen, "full of pots and bright pans," charmed.... +</p> + +<p> +For Mademoiselle de Bayard, going back to her Colonel +after two years' absence, laden as the working-bee with +the honey of accomplishments and the well-kneaded wax +of useful knowledge, promised herself that it should not +be long before her idol should be convinced by practical +demonstration that his Juliette had not forgotten how to +cook. Irish stew, saddle-of-mutton with onion-sauce, +pancakes, Scotch collops, English plum-pudding and mince-pies +had been added to her lengthy list of recipes, by grace +of the Convent cook, Sister Boniface, who had permitted +the ardent amateur to experiment in a second kitchen, +used in hot weather, abutting on the garden, and not +regarded as a portion of the nuns' enclosure. +</p> + +<p> +To return, and resume the old dear life of companionship, +how sweetly welcome had been the summons. But +nothing could disguise the taste of the powder that came +after the jam. +</p> + +<p> +You are to conceive the struggle in Juliette's faithful +heart between obedience and anger. Marry, my faith! yes! +Every sensible young girl naturally expected to be +married; but a husband approved of by oneself, if selected +by one's father—that was what one had had reason to +expect. +</p> + +<p> +And this Charles, eulogized as wise, sensible, far-seeing, +and business-like. Were these qualities, though naturally +desirable in the estimation of a father-in-law, attributes +that weighed down the scale in the opinion of a bride? +Had one ever beheld him? She shut her eyes and summoned +up all the masculine faces in her gallery of mental +portraits, dismissing one after the other with no's, and +no's, and no's! ... Was it not horrible to have to admit +even to oneself that one had not the faintest recollection +of ever having seen or spoken to him? Madame Tessier +she remembered well as a little, stout, very <i>gentille</i> and +amiable, elderly lady, whom she had visited with M. le +Colonel, who had embraced one cordially, and insisted on +one's partaking—immediately and at great length—of a +collation of sandwiches, fruit, cakes, and syrups; excellent—and +to a hungry school-girl, welcome at any hour of the +day. What more? ... Ah, yes! Madame had much deplored +Charles's absence, possibly at Lyons or in Belgium. +Further, Madame had remarked to M. le Colonel: +</p> + +<p> +"My friend, your Juliette is the image of her beloved +grandmother!" +</p> + +<p> +"Will nobody ever say that I am like my mother?" +Juliette had gaily cried. And with a strange stiff smile, +the Colonel had answered for Madame Tessier,—who at +that juncture had opportunely upset a dish of little +sugar-cakes. +</p> + +<p> +"There have been moments, my child, when I have"—he +coughed rather awkwardly for M. le Colonel—"anticipated +that a resemblance might exist." +</p> + +<p> +Could he have been on the verge of saying "feared," +and substituted the other word at the last moment? Such +an idea was ridiculous, yet it had occurred to Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +To questions on the subject of the faintly remembered +mother the grandmother had been impervious. The +Colonel had always answered—yet with palpable reticence.... +</p> + +<p> +"You have no mother, my little Juliette; she was taken +from us, my child, while I was absent with the Army in the +Crimea," or "She left us, while yet I was detained in +Eastern Russia, serving as aide upon the staff of M. le +Maréchal Grandguerrier.... It is true, she was both +good and beautiful when I married her! Now run and +play!" Or, in later years: "Now come and read to me!" +or "Walk with me," or "Ride with me," or "Now +tell me how and where thou didst learn to turn out such +savory dishes with those tiny <i>pattes de mouche</i> of thine? +Nowhere is there a <i>chef</i> whose choicest efforts can +com-pare with my Juliette's. And I have dined with the +Emperor—and with Milord Hertford at Bagatelle—and with +Consul-General Baron Rothschild—and—<i>parole +d'honneur!</i>—I have told them so!" +</p> + +<p> +And all the time M. le Colonel had been keeping back +something.... Was it not strange, thought Juliette, that, +while upon the anniversary of the <i>Jour des Mort</i> Mass had +invariably been offered for all deceased relatives of the +De Bayard family, the actual date of the death of one so +young and beautiful had never been marked with special +solemnity. +</p> + +<p> +Could it be that the lost mother was not dead, but +living! Oh, but impossible! ... And yet—once +awakened, the doubt would never sleep again.... +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Did ever a girl receive such a letter? It was fuller of +darts than even the fabled porcupine. It awakened stinging +doubts of the kindness of the gentlest and tenderest of +fathers. "<i>Tear the picture!—forget the dream!</i>" he had +said. Ah, my Heaven! what young girl cherishes not such +images—such visions! ... Juliette wondered sorrowfully. +Sitting on her school locker, lost in thought, her +elbows on her knees, her little pointed chin cupped in the +slender hands, you saw her as a haggard, weary little +creature. For while joy made of Juliette a living rainbow, +grief transformed her to the wan and rigid nymph that +droops above a classic urn upon a mourning cameo; and +anxiety or suspense or remorse of soul set a changeling in +her place, wizened her, pinched her, struck her prematurely old. +</p> + +<p> +She might—to employ hyperbole—have been sitting on +her locker until the present hour, had not her sad eyes +lighted upon a colored photograph of M. le Colonel in full +military harness and equipment, contained in a little ivory +frame fastened by a safety-pin to one of the starched white +dimity curtains that imparted an air of select privacy to +the little white-covered dormitory bed. +</p> + +<p> +You are to behold Juliette's father—<i>per</i> medium of this +pen-portrait—and would that you might have heard his +cordial voice, and pressed his living hand.... +Conceive him as a little man; and somewhat stout and +paunchy; you would never have dared to term him so in +the presence of Juliette. And yet so manly, soldierlike and +ingratiating was the boldly-featured face, with its brave +eyes, curled moustache and imperial; the fur talpack with +the green and scarlet plume and the red Hussar bag, was +worn with such an air; the dolman of fine green cloth, laced +and corded with heavy <i>galons</i> of silver and faced with the +brilliant red of his silver-striped pantaloons, fitted his +compact round person with such creaseless tightness; his +silver-striped <i>ceinture</i>, belts and buckles were so <i>point-device</i>; +his spurred Hessian boots graced such neat small feet; his +right hand rested on his hip, his left upon the hilt of his +long saber, with so pleasant a grace, that you could not +but warm to this picture of a cavalry commander. +</p> + +<p> +His daughter melted even as she gazed. The generous +soul, once wrought to the pitch of heroism, piles sacrifice +on sacrifice. She had meant to temporize, but she would +not do so now. She began to comprehend, as stray sentences +of the father's letter floated back, that his mood had +been sorrowful when he wrote it; and that those wounds +of the soul he spoke of had been bleeding, though hidden +from his daughter, many a year.... He was never sentimental; +that sentence about laying his bones in a trench +hastily dug by peasants in a foreign province had been +struck from the steel of his nature by some flint hurled +from the sling of Fate. The words that followed, picturing +War,—sudden, unexpected, sweeping as a cataclysm over +the country,—had the solemnity of deep organ-notes. And +the rushing tenderness in the words, "<i>Living or dead, to +know thee safe and cherished!</i>" thrilled, and the dignity +of the entreaty touched and conquered: "<i>Wilt thou obey +thy father, who loves thee as his soul? ...</i>" +</p> + +<p> +You saw light and warmth and youth and loveliness visibly +flowing back into her as she looked at the picture. The +witches' changeling fled, a christened maiden remained +in her place. Words came to the lips that had been dumb, +dews of tenderness bathed the eyes that had been dry as +those of a sandstone statue in the Theban desert.... +</p> + +<p> +"Dearest—beloved—best! ... Oh! shame that I should +have dreamed of doubting you! ... There is some great +reason for this decision—something terrible behind this +haste of yours. What, I may not know now!—one day +all will be explained to me! ... Until then"—she rose +and kissed the portrait—"until then I will trust you—who +have never deceived me.... I will write to you as +you would wish me to this very night. Now I must pack, +and then go down to Monica.... How to answer if she +should question! ... but no, she never will!" +</p> + +<p> +Dismissing the phantom of Charles, faceless and bodiless, +but none the less terrible, she flew at the locker—pulled +out the three drawers—stripped the row of regulation +dress-pegs. Brushing, smoothing, and folding, she even +sang as she worked.... Presently a bell rang twice. It +was yet vibrating where it hung, on the passage-landing +at the dormitory stair-head, when Juliette passed on her +way to the guest-parlor. Monica was waiting there. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap09"></a></p> + +<h3> +IX +</h3> + +<p> +A tall slight figure in the plain black, tight-fitting gown +of a novice, made with a little cape covering the upper arm. +A sweet plain face with eyes of hazel brown, framed in a +close white cap with three rows of gophered frills, and +there you have Monica, the chosen friend of the fiery +Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +"She has not three ideas! How can you think so much +of her?" a jealous rival is reported to have said. +</p> + +<p> +Juliette retorted with a lightning riposte: +</p> + +<p> +"Possibly no more than three, but they are good ones!" She +marked them off on her tiny fingers. "First, to serve +God.... Again,—to serve her friends.... Once more—to +help her enemies! ... If not, how is it that she spent +two hours yesterday, working with you at that F major +fugue in Bach's Book of Forty-eight? ... Has not +that stopped you the whistle? ... I have eyes in my +head, see you well? <i>Pour tout dire</i>—you are an ingrate, +you!" +</p> + +<p> +"See you well!" could be a slogan on occasion, a blood-chilling +note heralding the shock of battle. But it came +now in the softest of dove-notes, as they hurried to meet +each other, clasped hands, and kissed. +</p> + +<p> +"Dear one, I am so glad! See you well, we have a whole +half-hour to spend together.... And there is so much +to tell you that I know not where to begin." ... She +drew back frowning a little, vexed that Monica was not +alone. "I entreat your pardon! ... I did not know you +entertained a visitor.... It is best that I retire.... +I fear I am.... how do you say? ... very much in the +road!" +</p> + +<p> +Monica explained, holding the big red hand of an +awkward young man in a shaggy greatcoat. +</p> + +<p> +"You are not in the way, dear—and this is not a visitor! +Let me introduce my brother, of whom you have heard. +Caro, this is my friend, Mademoiselle de Bayard." +</p> + +<p> +The shaggy young man, blushing savagely to the tips of +his ears and the roots of his flaming hair, made a clumsy +inclination, and offered the large red paw to Mademoiselle, +who gravely inspected it, drawing down her upper lip, +folding her own infinitesimal hands before her narrow +waist, but made no movement to take it. +</p> + +<p> +"He has angry eyes, with curious amber <i>taches</i> in +them, ..." she thought. "And he looks dusty as a +voyager after a long travel.... Not <i>bien tenu</i> as a +gentleman should be.... Living with Germans in Germany—he +has become indifferent to the <i>petits soins</i> of the toilet. +I would put the hand in the fire rather than tell Monica!—but, +for me, I find him horrible. What is he saying? One +would expect from a being so clumsy and so shaggy, not +merely speech, but a roar!" +</p> + +<p> +Yet the voice was fresh and rather pleasant, as he replied +to Monica's interested questions. Had he had a good +journey? ... How long had he been in London? ... Three +days, and never let her know? ... Why not? ... Had +he dined early, or lunched, and if not—he had been +understood to mumble a negative,—would he not have +something now? Tea and sandwiches—Sister Boniface +would cut the latter in a minute. It was only three o'clock. +Benediction wasn't until four—there would be heaps of +time.... +</p> + +<p> +The mumbled refusals grew faint. Monica smiled her +triumph. Intent on hospitality she hurried out of the +parlor, saying with a backward glance, and a smile halved +between sulky Carolan and somber Juliette: "Sit down!—talk +to each other ... I'll soon be back again!..." +</p> + +<p> +But the sound of the closing door smote the shaggy +youth with a dumb palsy and transformed Mademoiselle +de Bayard into the semblance of a large mechanical doll +in black merino. +</p> + +<p> +"Stiff, pale, proud little creature!" Carolan mentally +termed her. It occurred to him that, attired in a brocade +Court dress over a hooped farthingale, crowned with a wig +of stiffened ringlets adorned with lace and ribbons and +diamond powder, with a fan in one of those rigid little +hands, she might have sat to Velasquez as a child Infanta. +Or, upholstered and decked in Moorish finery, posed as +one of the female midgets in the royal group of the +Familia. Whatever Velasquez might have thought, she was +priggish, prudish, dull, doltish.... Obstinate, too, with +that long, deeply-channeled upper lip. And how persistently +she kept those long, thick, uncurling lashes down. +One wondered rather what might be the color of the eyes +so concealed? Black or brown? Or—one had had a gleam +of blue when for an instant she had looked at one. Nobody +cared—but perhaps they were blue? +</p> + +<p> +She made no movement to sit down, nor did she indicate +a desire that he should seat himself. She flickered her +somber eyelids for an instant, and the eyes seemed +inky-black. Burnt holes in a blanket, the observer brutally +termed them, lifting his mental gaze to the china-blue +orbs of his ideal, the colossal +Britomart-Kriemhilde-Brünhilde-Isolde. +</p> + +<p> +In contempt of the prim puppet in the black merino +he found himself adding inches to his loved one's height. +Or perhaps it was to keep himself from madly shouting to +Monica to tell them to hurry up with that tray.... +</p> + +<p> +When you have pawned your jacket and waistcoat for +two-and-eightpence early on Wednesday, and have dined +on a sausage and mashed for threepence, supped on a +drink of water from a pump in a livery-stable yard.... +When the bed at a coffee-house has cost you a shilling, +breakfast of burned-bread coffee and roll, threepence, +and you have spent twopence on a paper collar, your +remaining capital stands at a shilling, and by three o'clock +on Thursday, if you have not ventured to break into this, +you are beginning to return to the savage of the Earlier +Stone Age. Who, supposing his neighbor to be gnawing +a lump of gristle when his own stomach was clamorous, +dropped in upon the banquet armed with a flint axe, and +possessed himself of the coveted <i>bonne-bouche</i>. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh was frankly astonished at the savage +voracity of his own impulses. It did not occur to him +that his nerves—he had always jeered at men who had +talked of their nerves—had sustained a tremendous shock, +and that this was the inevitable reaction. His laboriously +crammed scientific knowledge had never yet been called +upon to account for his own bodily sensations—unless in +the case of a jammer headache—diagnosed as the result of +too many beers overnight. At any rate he was not hungry +now,—and the room with its stiff row of chairs, its +high-molded ceiling, its dingy blue distempered walls, hung +with engravings of Popes and Cardinals, Roman views, +and Scriptural oil-paintings, began to heave and surge +like the decks of the evil-smelling, second-rate +passenger-steamer that had brought him third-class from Ostend. +He thought of that old man with the shattered skull +sprawling among his bloody papers, and knew that in +another moment he should—horror of horrors! despite the +presence of yonder speechless Immobility in the fiddle-bodied +black frock and medaled blue neck ribbon—either +faint or be violently sick. +</p> + +<p> +He chose the first alternative, for the whole room, with +its faded gilt mirrors, its album-laden tables, its formal +rows of chairs skirting the wainscot, the little mats in +front of them, and the beeswaxed floor on which with +growing difficulty he maintained a perpendicular position, +melted away from about and from under him, letting him +sink down, down ... into bottomless, boundless abysses +of intangible gray mist.... +</p> + +<p> +Out of which, after an interval of a hundred years or +three minutes, he emerged sufficiently to say in a husky +whisper: +</p> + +<p> +"It's nothing! I'm all——" +</p> + +<p> +And then be swallowed up again. Coming to the surface +in another æon or so to ask, with a wince of pain: +</p> + +<p> +"Did the old fellow shoot me in the head? It—hurts +like the dickens!" +</p> + +<p> +And to receive the answer in a cool little silvery voice +like the playing of a fountain in a mossy basin at the end +of a green alley, or the trickle of a brook through lush +grasses and forget-me-not beds. +</p> + +<p> +"You knocked the floor with it when you made to fall +so suddenly!" Something cool and light touched his +aching forehead, and the voice went on again: "It does +not bleed, no! but there will certainly be one big bump +there!" +</p> + +<p> +"One bump.... Feels like one-and-twenty!" P. C. Breagh +muttered, adding, with a heave and struggle that +brought him into a sitting posture: "Help me up, +whoever you are! ... Not all at once.... <i>Donnerwetter!</i> +how giddy I am! Try again in a minute! ... Here! +... Give me hold of your fist!" +</p> + +<p> +The silvery voice said, with a liquid tremble in it that +might have been laughter or shyness: +</p> + +<p> +"But I do not comprehend—<i>feesth</i>! Permit that I +offer you the hand.... I am so very strong, me!" +</p> + +<p> +"Strong, eh?" P. C. Breagh said vacantly, being still +absorbed in the effort to remember where he was. He was +certainly sitting up on a shiny, cold and slippery floor, +leaning back against something warm and fragrant and +soft, but he had not the least notion as to the nature of the +support afforded him, nor did he associate the ownership +of the voice with any person previously met. +</p> + +<p> +"Strong!..." he repeated, and yawned, and could not +leave off yawning. "<i>Physical exhaustion, fatigue, and +lack of food,</i>" he mentally diagnosed, and found that, when +his eyes had left off blinking and watering, the room was +coming back. There were the Popes, Cardinals, and views +of Roman Basilicas; there the oil-paintings of sacred +subjects—there the dingy gilt mirrors, the round center-table +with books upon it, the oval one with an inkstand +and nothing more,—the formal rows of chairs, instantly +reviving the impression of a Convent parlor ... and +stimulating him to rise, after some slips and sprawls and +flounders, and stand upright on the beeswaxed boards, +smiling rather stupidly and clutching something small and +soft and sentient, for it fluttered in his big inclosing palm +as a captive titmouse or robin might have done.... +<i>Donnerwetter!</i> it was the hand whose aid he had asked a +moment before in his extremity.... A child's.... +No!—a girl's.... Who was the girl? ... +</p> + +<p> +The truth burst on him then that it was to the mechanical +doll, the stiff, pale, proud, absurd little creature, the +Infanta of the drooping eyelids, the Moorish pigmy, he owed +the help the little hand had given. The silvery, sweet voice +was hers, and against her he had leaned as he sat on the +floor gathering in his scattered faculties.... The light +touch that had visited his aching forehead, when she had +said it did not bleed, had soothed him like the contact of +a flower. The sweetness of the voice was in his ears +again.... +</p> + +<p> +"Will you not sit down? You are not strong, and should +manage your forces. A gentleman to faint like that I have +never before seen! Your sister will be grieved that +you——" +</p> + +<p> +"You are not to tell her!" He dropped heavily into +the chair she had brought, and made a feebly-emphatic +blow at the table near which she had set it. "Promise +me! ... I—I must ask you to be good enough.... Who +has gone and unbuttoned my coat?" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap10"></a></p> + +<h3> +X +</h3> + +<p> +The pitiable secret the shaggy garment had concealed, the +absence of jacket and waistcoat, bringing his hidden +poverty into horrible relief, the dinginess of the shirt of +two days' wear, the deceptive nature of the paper collar +purchased at an outlay of twopence, had been revealed +by some traitorous hand during his unguarded weakness +of a moment back. The color rushed back to his haggard +young face in flood, as with shaky fingers he wedded the +big horn buttons to their buttonholes, and felt about his +neck to find it wet.... Juliette had said to herself that +he had angry eyes. They were tigerish as they flamed at +her. Then the yellow flame died out of them and they +were nothing but gray and miserable. He said brokenly: +</p> + +<p> +"I—beg your pardon! I must seem the last thing out +in the way of a brute to you. I had—fainted or +something!—I've been through a lot of late! And you meant +to—be kind, I'm sure...." +</p> + +<p> +He had thought her a mere child in size, but her personal +dignity lent her height and presence. Her great eyes met +his full, and they were deeply blue as scillas in May, with +great black pupils and velvety-black bands about the irises. +She said in an icy little voice: +</p> + +<p> +"Sir, it is customary in these days to instruct young +ladies in the knowledge of imparting medical aid to the +sick or wounded. A moment since I saw you fall to the +floor! I lanced myself to your side!—I debuttoned your +paletot—sprinkled on your forehead water from that vase +upon the table,"—she indicated the ornament with an +infinitesimal forefinger,—"and in a few minutes I have the +relief to behold you sufficiently recovered to demand if a +man has shooted you? ... Naturally, I do not mean to +be unkind! But the promise not to speak of this to +Mademoiselle, your sister, see you well?—I cannot give it! +Young ladies"—there was an appalling stateliness about +the tone and manner of this delivery, worthy of a mistress +of deportment—"young <i>ladies</i> do not have secrets with +strange young gentlemen! And Monica is my dear friend, +not you!" +</p> + +<p> +"Then if she is so much a friend of yours, you would +wish to spare her knowledge of things certain to shock +and grieve her. You would not like to have her anxious +and worried about what she couldn't help, would you?" His +eyes constrained and besought. His voice was humbly +entreating.... +</p> + +<p> +Juliette recognized the cunning in this appeal. She +lowered her little pointed chin and leveled her thick +straight eyelashes at the speaker. "Yes!" the chin said: +"No!" the eyelashes replied. Thus encouraged, +P. C. Breagh had an inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +"But if I trust you!—you look as if you could be +trusted...." +</p> + +<p> +From her little neck in its plain white frill to the cloud +of dusky hair that crowned her, she flushed rosy as Alpine +snows at sunset. Did he mean to insult, or ingratiate, this +overbearing, shaggy youth? She said, with delicate +reproof, completely lost upon his bluntness: +</p> + +<p> +"My father has honored me with his confidence, as long +as I can remember, sir." +</p> + +<p> +"Then I'll risk mine with you!" said P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +"Not risk!" She had lost her glow, the sapphires of +her eyes were shadowed by the blackness of the lowered +lashes. "Do not say risk, for that is to gamble. See +you—I will be trusted absolutely, or I will not be trusted +at all!" +</p> + +<p> +He understood, in part, that he had wounded, and +awkwardly begged her pardon, ending: "And show that you +forgive me by letting me tell you that I wouldn't have my +sister know, for the world!" He got up and went to one +of the white-curtained, ground-glass-filled windows, that +masked the outlook upon Kensington Square, and said still +more awkwardly: +</p> + +<p> +"You see—you must have already seen from my togs—that +I am a beggar. I came back from Germany three +days ago to find myself one. I was to receive a fortune +from the hands of trustees, and I found that their firm +had gone bankrupt. The elder partner had committed +suicide—the younger had shot the moon. My thousands in +his pockets!" He ground his teeth. "And if I live—and +ever meet that fellow!—he'll pay me in inches of skin!" +</p> + +<p> +She said, and the silvern voice had the sweetness of +Cordelia's: +</p> + +<p> +"I am so very sorry! Could you not prevail upon this +dishonest gentleman to restore to you your property?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said, with a flash of white teeth in his +blunt-featured freckled face: +</p> + +<p> +"I might, if he had been considerate enough to mention +where I could find him! ... Meanwhile..." He +shrugged his strong young shoulders in rather a +despondent way. +</p> + +<p> +"Meanwhile you are without a home ... and without +money?" +</p> + +<p> +He nodded, biting fiercely on his jutting underlip. +"Just now! But by-and-by——" +</p> + +<p> +She persisted. +</p> + +<p> +"Without money and—starving! Surely, starving! and +that was why you fainted! ... And I, <i>mon Dieu!</i>—I +have been blind and stupid.... <i>Je ne me doutais de rien</i>! +Forgive me, I beg of you!" +</p> + +<p> +Her small face was all white and pinched and working. +Sobs choked her voice; she struck her little bosom—she +wrung the tiny hands in anguish.... And it was all +real. You could not doubt Juliette's sincerity. And +though his manhood was sufficiently new to revolt at +commiseration, still, it was not unpleasant to know that one's +misfortunes had pierced the bucklered pride of the little +Infanta, and wrung tears from the most wonderful eyes +he had ever seen. And what was she saying? +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur Breagh, it is a misfortune of the most grand +that you are a man and I a woman! Otherwise it would be +so easy to say to you this.... Me, I am for the moment +rich. I could—if you would accord me the permission?—relieve +these pressing necessities.... Let me know where +a letter will readily find you.... Do not, I entreat you, +be angry that I ask this!" +</p> + +<p> +But he was angry. His broad stripe of meeting red +eyebrows came loweringly down over eyes that had the +tigerish flame in them. His face burned and he clenched +his hands until the knuckles showed out white upon their +sunburned backs. He tried to speak and could not, so +choking was his indignation. To be asked to borrow from +a girl—his sister's schoolmate, added one last dash of +wormwood to the brimming cup of bitterness. Unlucky +P. C. Breagh! +</p> + +<p> +"I'm uncommonly obliged, but decent men—in this +country—don't do that sort of thing! Even Frenchmen +might call it caddish!" he choked out at last. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes blazed murderously, a savage dusky crimson +dyed the small white face that had looked at him with +such pitiful entreaty. She did not tower, she contracted—she +crouched like a savage little cat ready to spring and +rend him; her muscles grew visibly tense under her transparent +skin. He could hear the sharp hiss of her intaken +breath, and see her lips writhe in the struggle to control +utterance that seemed on the point of breaking from them. +When she spoke, it was in a low clear whisper, more +piercing, it seemed to her unlucky auditor, than any +shriek. +</p> + +<p> +"Sir, when you say to me that even a Frenchman might +find despicable the deed an Englishman would shrink from +as a stain upon his honor,—you insult my country of +France, and my brave father; and the noble gentleman +who will be my husband soon! ... It is fortunate for you +that M. Charles is not here, see you well? Brave as a +lion, he is a master of the sword. But enough!—I was +mistaken and I have been justly humiliated.... Permit +that I wish you a very good afternoon!" +</p> + +<p> +She curtsied to the miserable P. C. Breagh with crushing +ceremony, turned, and had swept from the room before he +could even reach the door. It shut in his face with a +deliberate gentleness that was more final than a slam +would have been.... +</p> + +<p> +"I've done it, by golly!" said P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +Just after this lofty, dignified fashion had +Britomart-Krimhilde-Brünhilde-Isolde quitted the scene of many an +imaginary interview. That a being so small and frail +should assume the airs of these heroines tickled even while +it angered him. A moment more he glowered and fumed, +cursing the Fate that had dealt him another set-back, and +then ... the tinkle of crockery heralded the return of +Monica with Sister Boniface and a tray, satisfactorily +laden with a stout brown teapot, bread and butter, +home-made preserves, and a dish of somewhat solid +ham-sandwiches, the welcome sight of which drove away the dark +blue devils and restored his cheeriness again. He could go +a long time on one full meal, he told himself, as he +perpetrated a surprising onslaught on the eatables and +thirstily swallowed cup after cup of convent tea. +</p> + +<p> +Replete at length, he leaned back in his chair, conscious—so +overwhelming was the sensation of fullness after his +protracted fast—of feeling like a boa-constrictor who had +swallowed his blanket. He longed to sleep, the continual +battle with recurrent yawns was becoming painful; and +yet you are mistaken if you suppose that this young man +did not love his gentle step-sister, and was not glad at +heart to be once more in Monica's company. But Brother +Ass, the body, ridden fast and far by the turbulent spirit +and the eager mind, belabored by the cudgel of Fate until +his solid ribs were cracking within his shaggy hide, wanted +repose more than social converse. Carolan's eyelids were +closing under the stream of Monica's eager talk. His head +was nodding—his mouth had fallen ajar—a faint snore +was on the point of issuing from the organ immediately +above it—when he started as broad awake as though a +wasp had stung him.... Monica was speaking of +Juliette.... +</p> + +<p> +"I am so glad that you have met her!—yet sorry, too, +because she is leaving us so soon now. Is she not sweet?—with +those grave airs, and those angelic eyes under determined +eyebrows, and that shy wild smile..." thus Monica +prattled on. To stop her—or to prevent himself from +giving her his candid opinion of her lauded idol, he +inquired whether she did not find him handsome, and had +her reply: +</p> + +<p> +"Not a bit! rather ugly than otherwise; but I love your +face, and always shall, Caro! Why, you have a mustache +already!" she cried. +</p> + +<p> +He blushed as Monica jumped up for a nearer inspection, +to discover that the close sprinkling of dark-brown +freckles on the egg-smooth young surface of his upper lip +had deceived the sisterly observation. +</p> + +<p> +"The mustache will come," Monica said with a smile, +"and then you will begin to be more of a dandy." +</p> + +<p> +He fancied that her look betrayed a shade of +disappointment. "No wonder! such a beast as I must look!" +he thought. But he said with rather a clumsy air of +indifference: +</p> + +<p> +"I daresay my clothes are a bit shabby, perhaps more +than a bit! But, you see, I've been knocking about on the +rail—and aboard steamers—and so on." +</p> + +<p> +"Still, you could be—what Juliette would call more +<i>soigné</i>." There was a little accent of sisterly rebuke in the +words. "And I have talked to her so much about +you——" +</p> + +<p> +"That you're afraid she'll chaff you, now she has beheld +the wonder! If she did I shouldn't be surprised! ... And +if I'd known you wanted me to turn up a thundering +swell, I'd have polished myself up a bit. My hair is too +long, of course.... But—most British fellows run shaggy +after a year or two at a German University." +</p> + +<p> +He spoke as easily and naturally as was possible, with a +lump in the throat embraced by the paper collar, and a +savage pain tearing at his heart. +</p> + +<p> +She said: +</p> + +<p> +"It is a bargain then, and I shall see my old Caro looking +as he ought to look, next time he comes here! ... Tell me, +when will next time be?" +</p> + +<p> +He stuttered, inwardly writhing: +</p> + +<p> +"I had no idea you'd mind the sort of—togs a fellow +went about in! You, who are going—you told me in your +last letter! to take a vow of poverty and all the rest!..." +</p> + +<p> +She laughed and patted the brown hand. +</p> + +<p> +"But you aren't going to take a vow of poverty.... +You will be independent.... You will have everything—I +hope you will have everything; that goes to make Life +pleasant, and all the other things that make it—precious.... +I am very ambitious for you, Carolan!" +</p> + +<p> +He laughed rather roughly. +</p> + +<p> +"Ambition in the cap and cape of a postulant! What +would the Mistress of the Novices say to that?" +</p> + +<p> +The face framed in the triple row of white frills was very +pure and tender. +</p> + +<p> +"She would say that there are more kinds of ambition, +than one. I am ambitious that my brother should be +spoken of among men—as a man who in the whole course +of his career was never once ashamed to own himself a +Catholic, and to prove not only in words, but in deeds—his +loyalty to his Master in the face of the world! You +understand me, don't you?" +</p> + +<p> +He answered her in an embarrassed, awkward way, and +with a look that evaded hers. +</p> + +<p> +"Of course! You mean—you'd like me to be the kind +of fellow who goes regularly to Mass, and receives the +Blessed Sacrament on all the Feasts of Obligation! Well, +I can't boast of being quite as scrupulous as that! But +at any rate I have—ringed in with the late-comers—at +Christmas and Easter and Whitsuntide...." He added, +"Not that I should have been thought priggish if I'd +gone oftener.... Of course the bulk of the students at +Schwärz-Brettingen were Lutheran Protesants. But about +one-third were Catholics, I should think." +</p> + +<p> +"And were all of them late-comers—ringing in at the +last minute?" +</p> + +<p> +"I can't say that. When one did turn out for early +Mass one found the churches—there were three of +'em—packed full." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! ... Where are you staying?" she asked him in +a changed tone. +</p> + +<p> +He faltered, sick at heart at having to lie to her. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap11"></a></p> + +<h3> +XI +</h3> + +<p> +"I—I haven't got the address on me just now! By +George, that's just ... Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +"What is the joke? Do tell me!" she urged, puzzled +by the mirthless bark of laughter. +</p> + +<p> +He could not have explained. His Irish sense of humor +had been tickled to realize that in actual fact he did carry +his address about him. Did not the shabby old frieze +greatcoat constitute his hotel, chambers and club? To +change the subject he began to question her experiences +in the Novitiate. She looked happy, he admitted. He +did not hide that her decision to take the Veil had been a +surprise. +</p> + +<p> +"You see, you'd always been such a jolly girl," he told +her. "Such a stunning companion—I'd never have +expected it of you." +</p> + +<p> +Her bright laugh rang through the room. +</p> + +<p> +"Dear boy, do you suppose that nuns are dismal things, +or indifferent to pleasant companionship? You should +hear us laugh and chatter at Recreation. Perhaps because +the time for fun is limited, as the time for other things—we +enjoy that half-hour's freedom all the more. Not"—her +smile did not leave her, but it changed in expression,—"not +that I did not have my miserable hours. For the +matter of that I have them still!" +</p> + +<p> +He got up and went over to the hearth-side, where a tiny +gas-fire made pretense of cheerfulness. +</p> + +<p> +"I never thought it was all jam in the Novitiate. A +fellow I knew who had wanted to be a Carthusian monk—and +found it impossible to stick out the +preliminaries!—hinted as much to me." +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose," she said calmly, "that he could not submit +to the—necessary experiences that lead to the final +breaking of the will." +</p> + +<p> +"Breaking of the will!" He kicked the old-fashioned +fender savagely. "What do they do to break yours, in +Heaven's name?" +</p> + +<p> +"What is done is done in Heaven's name," she said, +"and that is why one can submit cheerfully. But my +first weeks in the noviceship were cloudlessly happy." She +laughed a little. "I thought it was always going to +be like that!" +</p> + +<p> +"I see! ... I twig! ... They made much of you in +the beginning...." He gritted his teeth and turned his +face away. +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps they did! ... I remember I had all the +nicest things to do, and nobody minded.... I was +allowed to dust the High Altar, change the flowers in the +vases, and help the Sister-Sacristan brush and fold the +vestments away. And one day I was permitted to wash +the lunette of the monstrance. It was a wonderful +experience. One could understand how the Magdalene must +have felt when she wiped the Sacred Feet." +</p> + +<p> +He was silent, for she had soared to heights beyond +him. +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps it made me proud, for next day I was set to +tidy the linen-room presses. I worked for some weeks +there, darning and mending and folding. Then I was sent +to the Refectory." The smile was only in her eyes now. +"I liked laying the long tables, but I hated washing dirty +plates and dishes, and I simply loathed cleaning knives +and forks." +</p> + +<p> +"I should think so! Housemaid's duty! I understand +now what you meant a minute back! ... By George! ... +'Miserable hours!' ..." +</p> + +<p> +Her deep eyes rested on him calmly: +</p> + +<p> +"And after I am clothed—after I have received the +habit—I shall most likely go on having them! I daresay +I shall have them after I have taken the Veil." +</p> + +<p> +He kicked the fender again, his hands shoved deep into +his empty pockets, and felt the shilling, sole coin remaining +to him, burn against his aching ribs. He would have +given ten years of life to have been able to tell her that a +home with him was ready and waiting,—in case she shrank +from the final plunge. He made a great effort and groaned +out: +</p> + +<p> +"But that won't be for two years to come. And things +may happen—who knows!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh! I pray," she said with a sudden flush, "that I +need not wait two years!" +</p> + +<p> +Her eagerness lifted a load that had been crushing him. +In sheer relief he began to stammer: +</p> + +<p> +"What a blessed idiot I am! I didn't understand ... I +thought you ... I believed you.... Of course you +don't do the dirty work now. That was only for a time, at +the beginning. Well, I'm glad! I'd hate to think of my +sister tackling servants' duties, anyway! All right! Well, +what are you on to now, eh? Back at dusting the Altar +and doing the flowers?" +</p> + +<p> +"No. That is for others.—There are many others, and +each of them must have a turn at the pleasant things. +When you have lived in the community only a short time, +you begin to understand that.... And when you have +lived in it only a little longer you learn that between the +pleasant duties and the unpleasant duties there is no +difference, whatever. Nothing being done that is not done +for God. When I was scrubbing the desks in the Little +Class to-day,—there are seventy children, and the tiny +ones come in with muddy boots from the garden in wet +weather, and splash the ink over everything,—I was +dusting the Altar.... When I was washing the slates I was +washing the Feet of Christ. It is no matter what we do as +long as it is nothing to be ashamed of—and is done with a +right intention! ... The lowest service counts as the +highest in the sight of Almighty God. It is one of the great +mysteries of Faith that this should be so. But it is so! ... +There's the first bell for Benediction!" +</p> + +<p> +It was too late now. But even as she rose with that +wonderful look in the calm face framed in by the triple +row of little starched frills, and took his hand and led him +to the door, P. C. Breagh realized that he ought from the +first to have told the truth to her. +</p> + +<p> +The parlor door led them into the corridor upon the +boarders' side. She guided him along it, left him at the +entrance of the chapel, pressed his hand, whispered +"Good-bye for now!" and vanished through a curtained archway +on the right hand, communicating with the cloister, +possibly. +</p> + +<p> +He entered the chapel. A small portion of the nave, +near the west door, was open to the public. Some dozen +worshipers, chiefly elderly ladies, knelt or sat upon the +rush-bottomed chairs. Beyond, a high, wrought-iron grille +partitioned off the capacious choir, separated from the +cloisters upon either hand by the tall carved screen that +backed the rows of stalls. And the dying daylight of the +January afternoon shone through high windows, stained in +hues tender as flower-petals or brilliant as jewels, depicting +the various scenes in the life of the Virgin Mother of +Christ. +</p> + +<p> +The second bell had not yet rung for Benediction as +Carolan bent the knee and slipped into a chair near the +central gate of the grille. The place was full of the presence +and perfume of flowers, and the spice of incense burned +at the morning Mass. Tapers tall and short blazed on the +High Altar, and a nun in purple habit and creamy veil +knelt at a faldstool, absorbed in adoration of the Throned +Mystery of Faith. Within the space of a Paternoster the +second bell rang. The choir-sister rose, knelt in adoration, +moved her stool carefully aside, and went out by a side-door +in the sanctuary. And a sound as of many moving +waters began to grow upon the ear. A curtain was drawn +that masked an archway upon the farther side of the +grille upon the right side: there was the invariable convent +signal of a hand-clap, and two girlish shapes, in long white +muslin veils over dark uniform dresses, entered together; +and went to the bottom of the broad aisle between the rows +of benches, moving sedately side by side. One wore a pale +blue, the other a crimson ribbon supporting a silver medal. +One was of solid Teutonic build, with magnificent plaits of +golden hair, vivid red and white coloring, and rather +stiff, if dignified, bearing. The other—a slender creature +of stature almost childlike, yet with womanly coils of +duskiness shot through with a tortoiseshell arrow, seemed +insignificant as she walked beside her stately white-veiled mate. +And yet, it was not walking, but gliding, hovering, +floating ... such airy grace of movement as P. C. Breagh had +never dreamed of,—Britomart-Krimhilde-Brünhilde having +covered the ground with the magnificent indolence of a +glacier, or traversed it with the overwhelming rush of an +avalanche, when the exigencies of some imaginary scene of +passion had compelled her to "fly from her conqueror's +presence," or "impetuously gain his side." Now for the +first time her inventor found himself wavering.... Was +his heroic ideal too Titanic, too colossal, too big and too +clumsy? Would it not be just as well to shorten her by +half a dozen superfluous inches—reduce her superabundant +flesh? And if at the same time one were to darken her +dandelion tresses?—tone down the staring china-blue of +her eyes into—— +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +What was the color? The blue of the spring flower or +the blue of the sapphire? ... You never knew until she +looked at you ... and then you weren't certain ... you +kept wanting her to look again! Meek or tigress-like, in +whatever mood you found her, you would always be wanting +Juliette to look, and look again. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The revelation of his monstrous folly, the knowledge of +his faithlessness came in the instant of recognition, hit him +like a seventh wave and bowled him off his mental legs. +</p> + +<p> +Before he had recovered, the white-veiled hovering figure +had vanished. The aisle had noiselessly filled with a great +procession of similar figures, standing motionless, waiting, +two by two. There was a second clap of hands,—and the +white-veiled column knelt in adoration. At a third signal +they rose and slowly filed into their seats. And a second +double line of younger girls, the Middle Class, also +white-veiled and white-gloved, formed in the place of them, and +the orderly, impressive maneuver was repeated by these. +Little children took their places, and did as their seniors. +A noble voluntary burst from the organ in the high-placed +loft, and the purple-habited, creamy-veiled choir-sisters +poured in and took their stalls, and the lay-sisters and +novices followed, filling the great choir to overflowing, as +the door of the vestry was opened by a sweet-faced child +in a red cassock and white cotta, and the vested priest, a +scholarly-looking, gray-haired man, came in and went to +his place. And the strains from the organ changed, and a +voice fresh and sweet as a thrush's, passionless-pure as an +angel's, began to chant <i>O Salutaris</i>,—and something like a +sob broke from P. C. Breagh's throat, and hot tears came +crowding, and one at least fell. +</p> + +<p> +He had been shipwrecked, and here was a little green-palmed +islet of peace to rest on—his only for a moment, +but a moment in which to gather strength, and breath to +face the raging seas again. His mood changed. He was +glad he had not told Monica that he was homeless, +half-clothed, and all but penniless in big, black, brutal, noisy +London, and would have to water cab-horses, or sweep a +crossing, or clean boots to keep alive. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, what was it Monica had said? Without her knowing +it those words had been somehow meant for Carolan. +Let's see—how did they go? ... Something this way.... +</p> + +<p> +"<i>It is no matter what we do, as long as it is nothing to be +ashamed of, and is done with a right intention. The lowest +service counts as the highest in the sight of Almighty God. +It is one of the great mysteries of Faith that this should be +so. But it is so!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"I—see!" +</p> + +<p> +He had sheltered his shamed and burning face in his big +hands. But with that ray of inward light had come +courage and resourcefulness. He lifted his head bravely +now and drew in a deep chestful of the sweet, warm, +pleasant air. +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps the money was spoiling me!—making me +look to it instead of to myself—and I've been stripped and +pitched into deep water as the big fellows used to do to us +little chaps, when we funked. Perhaps this is for the +best—and I'll find it so one day. Perhaps I can make up +for some of the caddish things I've done—refusing that +girl's offered help so savagely among 'em—by taking this +thing well! Facing what there is to face—and putting +up with what I've got to. Well, I'll have a shot at it!" +said P. C. Breagh to P. C. Breagh. "I'll do nothing that +I'm ashamed of—and be ashamed of nothing that's honest; +I'll labor for my daily bread—and for my nightly bed,—with +these hands and shoulders,—if nobody will pay me +for my brains!—And what I do I'll do cheerfully. Shall +I kick at sweeping a crossing, when He was a carpenter?" +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to him that he had not prayed, and yet he had +without knowing it. The Benediction seemed to fall on +him like dew. He went out by the west door with the +small congregation, and found himself in the foggy London +square within sound of the roaring traffic of the London +streets, with a return of the old hideous shrinking. A +sensation paralleled by that of the shipwrecked castaway +who has found brief resting-place upon the tiny coral atoll +and must perforce commit himself, upon his crazy raft of +planks and hencoops, to the shark-infested, treacherous +Pacific seas again. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap12"></a></p> + +<h3> +XII +</h3> + +<p> +He strolled up a short street, and looked for and found a +roomy, double bow-fronted house of warm old red brick, +with huge capacious areas. "Vanity Fair" had been +written there, he knew, perhaps "Esmond" too, though he +was not sure. He took off his hat to the memory of the +magician, and wondered where his other idol, the still +living author of the "Cloister and the Hearth," and "Never +Too Late to Mend" might be run to earth, and made up +his mind to see Dickens's grave in Westminster Abbey on +the morrow, whether it cost sixpence, or whether it did +not.... And then he wavered, sixpence, as we know, being the +moiety of his capital; and then he remembered that +to-morrow could only be reached by the bridge of to-night. +He walked very fast for some distance, trying to exorcise +the demons that this thought evoked, and,—blinded by +their buzzing and stinging—was in Piccadilly before he +knew. The high railings of the Green Park, and the foggy +solitude of the gravel-walks between the wintry lawns, +tempted him to turn in and rest upon a seat a while, for he +was still somewhat giddy and shaky, and the bump so +confidently prophesied by the Infanta had appeared upon +his brow. +</p> + +<p> +He took off the old felt wideawake and stared at Piccadilly, +brilliant with the paroquet-colors of passing omnibuses, +green and royal blue, chocolate and white-and-gold. +Behind the shining windows of the great Clubs, the members' +heads, gleamingly bald, or affluent of hair and whiskers, +alternately appeared and vanished. He caught brief +passing glimpses of white-bosomed waiters, ... the twinkle +of gilt buttons on livery coats.... Beer-drays, driven by +burly red-faced men, frequently in shirt-sleeves, went by +with a whiff of malt, and the thunder of heavy hoofs. +Vans of business-houses passed with a clang of bells. +Victorias and landaus with muffled, and furred, and veiled +ladies in them; shut-up broughams, madly-daring velocipedists +on the machine of the era, a giant wheel followed +by a pigmy one, made fleeting pictures on the retina of +P. C. Breagh. And the double river of traffic, and the +eastward and westward-flowing stream of pedestrians went by +without a break in them. Gas-lamps began to make +islands of yellow light upon the fog, but showed no +dwindling in their numbers. He wondered if they would go on +like this all night? And then some one came up and sat +down on the other end of the seat rather heavily, and the +slight resultant shock and jar brought round P. C. Breagh's +head. +</p> + +<p> +He saw the thick-set, rather lax and round-shouldered +figure of a man of middle age, dressed in a suit of tweeds +patterned in giant checks of black and white and gray, the +<i>dernier cri</i> in masculine morning-wear, had the observer +but known it. His hat, a low-crowned chimney-pot in +hard gray felt, was tilted backward, his hair, of a pale +tow-color, tufted out from beneath the hat in a way that cried +for the attention of the barber; his whiskers, and mustache, +of the same shade as the hair, were raggedly in need +of the shears. He wore a buttonhole-bouquet composed +of a pink camellia with Neapolitan violets, and pale lemon +kid gloves, and sucked the carved ivory knob of an ebony +stick he carried, until,—upon his neighbor's looking round +as above recorded,—he took it from a somewhat lax and +swollen mouth, and observed that it was a nice afternoon. +Adding, as P. C. Breagh made a sound which might have +been assent or denial: +</p> + +<p> +"If it is affernoon? Without my fellow to post me, I'm +apt to be wrong about time. Not that that's remarable. +Lots of people the same, don't you know? Nothing +extra—nothing ex—oh, damn!" +</p> + +<p> +A covert anxiety—and a very visible tremulousness were +combined in the speaker's manner. His large watery blue +eyes were painfully vague and blurred, with distended +pupils that looked uneven; his gestures were uncertain, +and his words, well chosen enough, and uttered with the +tone and accent usually distinctive of a gentleman, came +haltingly from a tongue that seemed to be too large for its +owner's mouth: +</p> + +<p> +"You don't regard it as extra ... Stop a minute!" A +pause ensued, during which the vague-eyed gentleman +waited, clutching his stick with both hands, and holding +his swollen mouth ajar. And when he shut the mouth to +shake his head, and looked at P. C. Breagh in the act of +doing this, the perspiration shone upon his puffy cheeks +and stood in beads upon his reddened forehead, as though +it had been July instead of a foggy afternoon in January, +and the pink-bordered cambric handkerchief with which +he wiped his worried face became, after this usage, a very +rag. And a queer, unwillingly-yielded-to sense of +commiseration prompted Carolan to suggest: +</p> + +<p> +"'Extraordinary' was the word you wanted, wasn't it?" +</p> + +<p> +"Much obliged! The word, unnoutedly! 'Stror'nary +how words do dodge one on occasion!" returned the +uncertain gentleman in the large-patterned tweeds. He +added, pulling at the ragged light mustache, with a gloved +hand that was decidedly shaky: "I don't know that it +matters parricurarly—but I'd prefer you to know that I'm +not runk!" +</p> + +<p> +"Not—what?..." +</p> + +<p> +"Not runk!" repeated the vague-eyed gentleman +emphatically. "Not cut, foozled, miffed, fizzed, screwed! +Not that it's oblig—that's another of the words that +perretually queer me!—or incumment on me to isplain, +but I regard it as due to myself, by Gad! that you should +clearly unnerstand the case. As I said to the manuscript +upon the Bench when the bobby ran me in on Thursday—or +was it Friray? ... Appearances are sally against me, +but I have never been a rinking man! The doctors have +a crajjaw name for my connition, which under the +exissing circ—and that's another of the words that play the +deuce and all with me! ... Look at my westick, buttoned +all wrong!" +</p> + +<p> +He slewed round upon the seat, and throwing back the +large-patterned, fashionably cut-away coat, exhibited the +garment mentioned, every buttonhole of which afforded +hospitality to a button not its own. His necktie, the ample, +sailor-knotted necktie of the period, was under his left ear, +and his shirt had come unstudded. Being appealed to, +P. C. Breagh admitted that the existing condition of things +left something to be desired! +</p> + +<p> +"When a man entirely ripends on valets and domessicks," +explained his incoherent neighbor, "a man is apt +to be neglected and so on. As a marrer of fact I live in +that little joppa cottisit!" He waveringly pointed to a +large, handsome private dwelling with an ornate portico, +situated nearly opposite, and sandwiched between two +Clubs. "An' as a narrural conquicense of my temorrary +irrability to pronounce words of the most orinary nature, +I am——" He drew an aimless figure in the muddy gravel +with his ivory-topped, ebony stick, and went on with a +weak laugh, "I am absoluly neglected by my own househol'. +My own children seem ashamed or afray of me—all +but Little Foxhall—splendid little chap is Little Foxhall! +But his mother—my wife——" He broke off to say—"You +will escuse my touching on these priva' matters in +conversation with a perfec' stranger. I am quite conscience +I trepsass against the orinary usages of propriety, +especially in speaking of my wife! ... But—the fact is, sir! +I am most desperately wretched. Six people imagine me +runk—out of every half-dozen. While the other six—the +irriots whisser it when they think I'm out of +earshock—suppose me to be suffrig from Sofrig of the Bray!" +</p> + +<p> +He began to tremble and shake, and put his stick between +his knees to hold on to the edge of the seat with his +lemon-kidded hands—and couldn't hold the stick in that +position, and it fell, and P. C. Breagh picked it up and put +it back. +</p> + +<p> +"I am murrabliged," said the owner of the stick, "by +your kind attention!" Something struggled and fought in +the vague blue eyes that he turned upon Carolan,—it +seemed as though in another moment Fear and Terror +might have leaped glaring into sight. "And while I am +boun' to ajopolize for thrussing my privarrafairs upon a +stranger—I feel bound to put the quession; Why should +thissorathing happen to ME? Goolor'! I've been no +worse than lossa urra fellers!" He rose up shaking, and +shakily sat down again, nearly missing the bench. +</p> + +<p> +"Bessaran loss of 'em—if you come to that!" He +turned to Carolan, and the vague eyes were piteous and +desperate.... "You see the sort of chap my luck—my +damble luck—has made o' me! Yet I used to be +envied—envied ... you unnerstand! I have belonged to the +best regiment in the Brigade of Guards—the devil another! +I have played the bes' cards, driven the bes' turnouts, +smoked the bes' cigars and had the most stunnin' women! +Do you unnerstand me?—Have!" He brought down the +uncertain hand in an attempt to strike his knee emphatically, +and missed it; and tried to look as though he had not, +and went on: "And I have belonged to the best gloves, +by Gad! an' put on the clubs with the most celebrarred +li'-weights! And I rode my steeplechase at York, and +romped in first, and they toasted and speechified me at the +Gimcrack dinner. And I won my Oaks and my Derby—and +led in the winner, with all the cheeple reering;—the +seeple peering—the—Goolor'! Goolor'! And the horse +was Gladianor—and the victory was a popular one—and +my name was a household word through the Unirred Kingom. +A household word!..." He broke off, trembling +and sweating, as the horse might have done after the race, +and put the wavering hand to his head, and turned his +empty blue eyes from Carolan's as though they hurt. +"What was my name?" he asked himself in a dull, thick, +shaky whisper, "Goolor'! Goolor'! What was my +name? ... That you, Murchison?" +</p> + +<p> +For a decent figure in the irreproachable dark clothing of +a servant out of livery had passed and turned back, and +now approached the bench, eyeing Carolan suspiciously +even in the act of uncovering its well-brushed head, and +saying in the smooth accents of servility: +</p> + +<p> +"It is Murchison, your Grace. It's cold, your Grace, +and you've not got on an overcoat. Your Grace had best +come home now, before your Grace is missed!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Home?" His Grace looked mildly from the authoritative +Murchison to the stately "cottage opposite," and +one of the uncertain hands in the pale lemon kid gloves, +making as though to pluck at an untrimmed whisker, found +itself imprisoned in a deferential but vigorous grip. +</p> + +<p> +"Home, your Grace!" said Murchison, applying muscular +leverage to raise the inert figure. +</p> + +<p> +"All right. Prass I better, Murchison!" He rose to +the perpendicular.... "Wish you a very good evening, +sir!" With a faded reminiscence of what might have been +a courtly manner, he touched his hat to P. C. Breagh, who +returned the farewell greeting, avoiding the sharp glance +of Murchison. Then valet and master moved off, leaving +a little trail of dialogue behind them: +</p> + +<p> +"You give us the fair slip that time, your Grace!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Perhass I did, Murchison—now you happen to mention it." +</p> + +<p> +"Might have been killed crossing Piccadilly, your Grace, +and none of us the wiser." +</p> + +<p> +"Goolor'! I'd wish I had, Murchison—if it wasn't for +Little Foxhall!" ... Then in a high, quavering note of +eagerness, the plea, pitiable and ridiculous and pathetic: +"I—I say! ... Tell me the boy'd have minded, +Murchison—whass a lie to you, you dam' smoo'-ranged +Ananias!—and I'll give you my nex' week's sovereign—I'm dead +broke now!" +</p> + +<p> +And Murchison and His Grace went away together, the +man steering, with deft guiding touches of the master's +elbow, the latter stepping high and bringing his feet down +with a peculiar thump that threw a light upon the situation +in the eyes of P. C. Breagh. Not softening of the brain.... +<i>Donnerwetter!</i> what were the London doctors thinking +of? Had none of them read the "Dissertation on Tabes +Dorsalis" of the Herr Doctor Max Baumgarten, published +in Berlin only a twelvemonth previously, and dealing +fully with that rare and curious disease of the nervous +system? ... Fibrous degeneration of the posterior columns +of the spinal cord, affecting the patient's sight, gait, +and—in isolated cases—speech and memory. +</p> + +<p> +"I'd like to have got him to let me rap his shins! Bet +you anything there'd have been total absence of reflex +action! Remember that peddler in the Nervous Ward of +the Augusta Hospital at Schwärz-Brettingen! ... They +cured that chap with spinal injections and regular +massage. And this man—being a thundering swell and having +the best advice possible—is naturally being treated all +wrong! Hang it!—how cold I am! Better be moving!" He +got up and stamped some warmth into his cold feet and +flailed his cold ribs with his elbows until they tingled +again. He had learned something of the wretchedness that +may sometimes dwell in princely homes, yet be homeless; +and fare delicately from plate of gold and silver, and yet +go hungry,—and lie down to toss and stare through dreadful +sleepless nights on soft luxurious beds. Therefore the +bright reflections of great fires dancing on the plate-glass +windows of the "cottage opposite" stung him to no +comparisons. "Is it base in me that the knowledge of the +misery of this wealthy nobleman makes me more contented +with my own obscure poverty?" he asked himself, and the +answer was: "<i>Not if your content does not make you +callous to his woe!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"I hope that Little Foxhall would have minded!" he +found himself saying; "and I wish to Heaven Baumgarten +could get a chance of doing something for his father! I've +half a mind to drop a postcard to him—or write a line to +the Herr Professor! ... Stop, though!" +</p> + +<p> +He remembered that he must break into his last remaining +shilling to buy the postcard and pay for the stamps. +Then he swung out through the Park side-gates, and now +he was one of the crowd rolling Circus-wards, and all the +street gas-lamps had been lighted by certain officials with +poles, furnished with hooks for keying the gas on, and +perforated iron sockets filled with blazing tow that had +been soaked in naphtha; thus every shop or restaurant +became an Aladdin's cave of brilliancy, and the down-drawn +blinds of the houses and clubs hid splendor unspeakable—if +only one had been able to pull them up.... +</p> + +<p> +Alas! to us who live in these pushful days of Electrical +Power Supply, the glories of the illuminated capital in the +year of grace 1870 would appear murky enough. We should +sneer at the stumpy iron lamp-posts and the chandeliers yet +adorned with Early Victorian crystal glass lusters. The +wood pavement, an invention <i>de luxe</i> economically confined +to the West End, and upon the greasy surface of which +bus-horses broke legs as easily as the most aristocratic +thoroughbreds—the loose iron gratings covering basement-lights, +and incidentally presenting man-traps for unwary +pedestrians, as receptacles for stray umbrellas, dead cats, +wisps of packing straw, discarded newspapers and +orange-peel—the untrapped gutter-drains and sewer-vents would +awaken our ridicule and evoke our indignation, even as the +displays in the shop windows, especially those of <i>modistes</i>, +<i>couturières</i>, and tailors, would provoke us to mirth. +</p> + +<p> +The extraordinary little hats, pot-shaped or plate-shaped, +worn upon huge chignons, surmounting cascades of ringlets, +<i>couleur Impératrice</i>. The preposterous frilled <i>paniers</i>, +the bustles, the <i>jupes</i> of velvet or plush, flounced to the +waist or kilted—sometimes to mid-leg, displaying boots—such +as are worn to this hour by Principal Boys in Christmas +Pantomimes and serio-comic ladies of the Varsity +Stage, who are, we know, Principal Boys in the pupa, or +chrysalis-state. All these things compel us to hold our +sides when we review them in the illustrated papers of the +<i>Ladies' Mentor</i>,—which illuminating periodical, in the +dearth of Fashionable Intelligence from Paris, the hub and +center of the modish world, came to a sudden end in the +October of that year, and has defied all efforts at +resuscitation. +</p> + +<p> +Though it is possible that the wearers of these +long-vanished modes—surveying the belles of Belgravia, with +their humbler followers of Brompton and Bayswater,—in +the present year of progress, might be moved to laughter +or provoked to wrath. To-day, when the ambition of +every properly constituted woman is to be shaped like a +golliwog and dressed like a pen-wiper, or to acquire the +sinuosities of a Bayadere and drape the same in cobwebs +calculated to conceal nothing and suggest everything—can +we honestly enlarge upon the bygone improprieties of +our aunts, and moan over our mothers' taste in toilettes? +</p> + +<p> +It was just six when P. C. Breagh crossed Piccadilly +Circus and turned down toward the Haymarket. Why +hurry, he asked himself, when you have nowhere to go? +The restaurants were filling with diners who were going to +the theaters, the smell of cooked meats made savory the +fogginess. He shrugged his shoulders, dug his hands deep +into his empty pockets, and tried to whistle as he loafed +along. +</p> + +<p> +Misery stalked these West End streets, rampant and +clamorous. A burly man devoid of legs, shuffling along +with his hands in a pair of woman's clogs, entreated +P. C. Breagh in stentorian tones to buy a tin nutmeg-grater. +A miserable creature, whose sole garment appeared to be +the upper portion of an adult pair of trousers, begged him, +in the professional whine, to spare a penny for the pore +orphan boy! A dank female, in rusty weeds, stationary +by the curb, displaying a baby and a row of ballads, +besought of him, for the love of Gawd! to pity the +unfortunate widow and her starving orphans. +</p> + +<p> +"Buy a ballad, kind genl'man! On'y a penny—goes to +a lovelly choone!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Ho! Dermot, you look 'ealthy now,<br> + Your does is neat an' clean,<br> + Hi never sees you drunk about,<br> + W'erehever 'ave you been?"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The stave chanted as an appetizer for the music-lover, +she wiped the baby's nose with her ostentatiously white +apron, and protested it to be the image of its +father—blowed up in a Mind. +</p> + +<p> +"You mean a mine, don't you?" P. C. Breagh was +beginning, when the widow once more burst into song. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "Your wife and Fam'ly—Har they well?<br> + You once did use them strynge!<br> + Ho! Har you kinder to them now?<br> + And wence this 'appy chynge?"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Reverting to prose, as P. C. Breagh lounged listlessly on, +she demanded why, if he wasn't going to buy, he had +stopped and given a respectable female Tongue. +</p> + +<p> +"And not even fork out a copper, you blistered +swindler! You blindin', blazin'——" +</p> + +<p> +"Come now, Chanting Poll, what's all this here row +about?" +</p> + +<p> +The gruff, not unkindly voice of a policeman broke in +upon the rusty widow's eloquence. P. C. Breagh, yielding +to a sudden impulse, wheeled and swung back again. +</p> + +<p> +"It's all right, constable, the lady was only having a bit +of chaff with me!" +</p> + +<p> +"I know her!" said P. C. 999, C. Division, removing a +heavy but not brutal hand from the lady in question, "and +the kind o' chaff she slings. Done Time for it, too, she +'as—before now!" +</p> + +<p> +But he moved on, huge in his belted greatcoat, walking +with the elephantine, clumping step begotten of boots with +iron toe-caps, and iron-nailed soles at least two inches +in thickness; and the dank widow cocked a knowing eye +at his retreating back, and the other at her unexpected +champion. +</p> + +<p> +"Good for you, my dear! Stand us a drain for luck, +since you're so civil!" +</p> + +<p> +He returned: +</p> + +<p> +"I would if I'd got the tin! I believe I'm poorer than +you are!" +</p> + +<p> +"S'welp me bob! wot 'ave we 'ere? A haristocrat in +distress, har yer?" she demanded. +</p> + +<p> +"Not quite," he told her, as she turned the ponderous +batteries of her raillery upon him. "I've seen an aristocrat +in distress to-day, and he was worse than me. I'd not +change!" +</p> + +<p> +"Fer ten thousand jimmies hannual hincome, an' a 'ouse +at Number One 'Yde Park Corner!" she jeered. "'Ow +did yer lose the I'm-so-funny?—for if you 'aven't it now, +you 'ave 'ad it, I'll tyke me Davy!" +</p> + +<p> +"It's—a long story! Good-bye!" +</p> + +<p> +He nodded and was moving on, when she shot out a +gaunt hand and clutched him by the sleeve, crying: +</p> + +<p> +"'Old 'ard, Mister! 'Ang on till I give this 'ere squealer +to its mammy. About due now, she ought to be!" +</p> + +<p> +"Isn't it..." His surprised look tickled the relict of +the blown-up husband into a chuckle. +</p> + +<p> +"Mine? Not by 'arf! A tizzy per workin'-day is wot +I pays for the loan of 'er. Nothin' like a babby—specially +in narsty weather like this 'ere—to touch the people's +'arts! Lil's mine, though, ain't you, deary?" +</p> + +<p> +A preternaturally bright-eyed, white-faced, wizened little +creature peeped out from the shelter of the ostentatiously +clean apron, making a sound as of assent. +</p> + +<p> +"Is she ill?" asked P. C. Breagh commiseratingly. +</p> + +<p> +"Not 'er, that's her color!" +</p> + +<p> +"Hungry, perhaps?" he asked. +</p> + +<p> +"Why should she be? ... Wot did yer 'ave fer dinner, +Lil? Speak up like a good gal an' tell the gen'lman!" +</p> + +<p> +The small, grimy finger came out of the wide mouth. +She lisped confidingly: +</p> + +<p> +"Ay'po'rth o' gin 'ot, an' a stit o' totlit!" +</p> + +<p> +"My God!" gasped P. C. Breagh in horror, "does that +baby drink hot gin?" +</p> + +<p> +"When she can get it! an' so does Hi!" explained the +lady of the ballads, whom a short female in a plaid shawl +and a battered brown bonnet had now relieved of the baby. +She added hospitably: "Come an' 'ave two-pennorth o' +comfort along o' me now! It's meat and drink both! as +you'll find afore long! I'll stand treat—no blarney!" +</p> + +<p> +But he groaned and fled from the tragic pair, seeing the +blazing eyes of the drunkard, set in the small white childish +face, staring at him from the gas-lamps and the hoardings, +from the paving-stones beneath his hurrying feet, and +from under the hats of passing strangers; and peering +between the slowly-moving shoals of sooty smoke and muddy +vapor, streaking the livid grayness overhead. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap13"></a></p> + +<h3> +XIII +</h3> + +<p> +Pall Mall was some relief. He looked for the Junior +United Service Club, and found it; for the Rag,—and for a +time walked up and down in the vicinity of both of these +stately institutions, heartened by the memory that his +father had been a member of the former—listening with +eager ears to scraps of conversation between soldierly, +well-groomed, clear-voiced men in evening dress, lingering +on the wide doorsteps to finish some animated discussion, +or waiting for cabs and hansoms, the common hack, or the +smart private vehicle, low on the wheels at that date, and +more heavily built than the later S. and T. +</p> + +<p> +Certain bald, mustached, and red-faced veterans, scrupulously +attired for the evening—delighted him extremely. +</p> + +<p> +"By George, General!" he heard one of them say, as he +went by, his slouch forgotten, his shoulders squared, his +head held up, "look at that seedy-looking chap there! +Twelve to one in sixpences he's one of the 'supererogatory +useless infantrymen,' kicked out by Cardwell, after twelve +years' Service. D'ye take the bet or no?" +</p> + +<p> +The reference to the unpopular War Secretary under +whose effacing hand infantry regiments had not only lost +their numbers, but in many cases vanished from the rolls +of the Army, swallowed up in the New System of +Amalgamation—had, as was intended, the effect of the red rag on +the bull. The General bellowed: +</p> + +<p> +"Confound me if I don't! Pay the cabman, McIntosh, +while I put the fellow through his paces! Hi! Hi! +Come here, you, sir!" +</p> + +<p> +Then, as P. C. Breagh, summoned by an imperious wave +of the umbrella, stepped out of the fogginess into the +mellow circle of light streaming through the glass doors of +the brilliant vestibule: +</p> + +<p> +"What's your regiment? ... Give me the old designation! +... I know nothing of new-fangled names; ... All +my eye and Betty Martin! and I don't care a dee who hears +me say it! ... What is your rank, name and battalion-number? +When were you discharged? ... Where's your +small-book and certificate? ... Got 'em about you? +... Every soldier has 'em about him! And why don't you +answer, dee you!—why don't you answer, man?" +</p> + +<p> +The volley of interrogations left no room for reply. A +second might have followed had not the General's crony, in +unconcealed ecstasies at the sulky embarrassment of the +victim and the determined attitude of the inquisitor, +intervened: +</p> + +<p> +"Dashed sorry! My mistake! Believe you've landed +a civilian, after all, General!" +</p> + +<p> +"Be dee'd! and so I have!" the General, after a raking +stare, admitted. Then he took his crony's arm, they +wheeled, and marched into the Club together. From whence +issued, a moment later, a small boy in buttons, who, after a +look up and a look down the street, pursued the retreating +figure of the stalwart young man in the gray felt wide-awake +and shaggy greatcoat, and arrested it with the words: +</p> + +<p> +"'Arf a jiff, my covey!" He added, as the retreating +figure wheeled and surveyed him in hard-eyed silence: +"Wasn't it you what Old Fireworks went for just now on +the 'Rag and Famish' steps?" +</p> + +<p> +"The General called to me—mistaking me for——" +</p> + +<p> +"I know!" The boy in buttons winked. "He's always +a-pitching into somebody in mistake for somebody else! +Catch hold! This is for you!" +</p> + +<p> +This was a warm half-crown, thrust upon P. C. Breagh, +without further ceremony. He flushed a murky, savage +red, and shouted: +</p> + +<p> +"What is this for? ... Who had the infernal insolence——" +</p> + +<p> +He choked. Buttons, plainly regarding the tramp who +could be insulted by half-a-crown as a new species, stared +at him with circular orbs of astonishment, retorting: +</p> + +<p> +"What's it for? How do I know, stoopid? He told +me to catch you and give it you.... Cool that! Well, +blow me!..." +</p> + +<p> +These expressions being evoked by the swift, supple +movement of arm and wrist that had sent the half-crown +flying into the midst of the Pall Mall traffic. A sharp ring +on the wood-pavement, a yell, and a flourish of naked heels, +and a street Arab had seized the treasure. As the fog +swallowed the wealthy imp, said Buttons icily: +</p> + +<p> +"That's your game, is it?—pavin' Pall Mall with 'arf +bulls for gutter-pads to pick up. Better ha' tipped it to +me!—or sent it back to Old Fireworks. He ain't got too +many of 'em. Signs too many toast-and-water tickets to +be flush!" +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps P. C. Breagh, scalding with wrath as he was, +would have dived in among the traffic to recover the coin +had it been recoverable. But the snows of yester-year +were not more irretrievably gone. He realized it, hung his +head and hunched his shoulders, and moved away from +the region of clubs, where officers of the twin Services talked +shop in sublime indifference to other subjects, as +white-chokered attendants supplied them with savory meats +and cheering drinks. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Be sorry for the boy with the gaunt wolf Hunger at his +heels, and the black demon of Despair sitting on his +shoulders. That determination of his to face what might come, +and take his luck in a cheerful spirit, was to be put to a +yet fiercer test before the dawn of a new day. +</p> + +<p> +He was hungry and thirsty, and sorely tempted to break +into his solitary shilling. But that silver barrier between +himself and pennilessness was not to be lightly changed. +He wondered, as he recalled to mind the many occasions +upon which he had wantonly squandered and wasted +money, whether an experience such as this, previously +undergone, would not have been a valuable lesson in thrift? +</p> + +<p> +He presently came by a well-known theater. It was too +early for the frequenters of the Stalls and Boxes and Grand +Circle. But playgoers of the humbler kind were pouring in +to fill the unnumbered seats in the upper tiers, and a crowd +composed of the usual elements had gathered at the doors +of the Pit and Gallery, and filled the narrow side-alley in +which these were situated, and overflowed into the Strand. +</p> + +<p> +Queues not being officially recognized and regulated, +there was a good deal of obstruction and pushing and +persiflage. Pausing a moment under the gas-jet bordered, +glazed shelter ornamenting the box-office entrance, his +unseasoned eyes winced as they took in a sad, sad sight. +</p> + +<p> +You saw her as a woman not past early middle-age, nobly +proportioned, and even in her dreadful degradation, +imperially beautiful. An old velvet mantle covered her, from +which the torn and moth-eaten fur-trimming hung in +draggled festoons. A trained silk gown, stained and torn +and flounced with mud of many thicknesses, trailed upon +the slushy Strand pavement; a broken bonnet perched on +a palpably false and inconceivably dirty chignon, the false +curls that cascaded from beneath it, hid a workhouse-crop +of rusty gray.... And she lifted her skirts aside, +disclosing muddy bare feet shod with a trodden-down, +elastic-sided boot and a ragged slipper; and stepped across the +threshold of the gilt and mirrored vestibule with a +graceful, royal air.... +</p> + +<p> +"Now then, missus! Out of this, will you!" +</p> + +<p> +A uniformed theater-attendant had advanced toward the +intruder. But she did not retreat in terror at his +truculence. She drew herself up, and folded her arms upon her +bosom, and confronted the menial with a haughty, quelling +stare. +</p> + +<p> +"Man! who are you to drive me from this threshold? +Out of the way! Clear!—and let me look at her. Do you +ask whom? She! that woman who stands behind you +smiling, with the white dove perched upon her whiter +hand. Times have changed, my girl, since you and I last +saw each other! Well, well! You are the same, whatever +I may be!" +</p> + +<p> +She laughed, a deep, melodious ha, ha, ha! not at all +like the laughter of everyday people. Even P. C. Breagh, +inexperienced as he was in such matters, recognized it as +the artificial laughter of the stage. And, profiting by the +momentary confusion of the functionary, she swept in +her silken rags toward the person indicated; who looked +back at her with beautiful stagey eyes from a life-sized +canvas, wearing a stage costume; standing in a pose of the +theater; fondling the bird that was palpably a property of +the scene. +</p> + +<p> +A long gilt-framed mirror hung beside the portrait, and +to this she pointed with the tattered remnants of her +theatrical manner, exclaiming with another of the stage +laughs: +</p> + +<p> +"Look upon this picture and on that! Ye gods!..." Adding, +as the guardian of the vestibule, now wroth, +advanced upon her: "No! Don't you hustle me. I'm off, +governor! Farewell. Ta-ta!—until we meet again!" +</p> + +<p> +She was gone, but she must have noted the boy who +stared, fascinated by her haggard beauty and her dreadful +misery. In fact, P. C. Breagh, passing on, had barely +traversed a dozen yards of slushy pavement, before, with +a bound and rush, a supple movement, predatory and feline, +the woman emerged from an alley, and was by his side. +</p> + +<p> +"Who are you? A waif, like me? Where do you come +from? I saw you looking at me with all your eyes and your +heart in them!—I played that scene with the picture and +the mirror for you! You know——" She took P. C. Breagh's +reluctant arm and leaned to his ear, being taller +than he was, "There's always one person in the house you +play to—and when that person's not there—the inspiration +doesn't come. When it won't, you—shall I tell you what +you do if God hasn't made you able to say 'No' to +them?—you send out the devils to fetch you brandy and +champagne!" +</p> + +<p> +She laughed wildly and looked round suspiciously. +</p> + +<p> +"Walk fast! A policeman's behind us, shadowing us. +I'll tell you my story as we go. Did you ever hear of +Anabel Foltringham? You must have! Everybody has! +I drew crowds to that theater you've seen me kicked out +of!—I was beautiful—great—famous! Men gloated over my +beauty—they hung upon my every word. That made the +devils jealous—the smooth, servile, obsequious devils in +white aprons, that you find behind the scenes at every +theater. They call them dressers, but I know better, you +can't deceive me! You boy, I like your face! You look +at me as if I were a Christian, and a man I knew had eyes +like yours! ... Don't leave me! I'll make it worth +your while to stay, only listen! ... I'll teach you all I +know, make you a greater artist than any of them. For +the things that you shall learn from me—I learned +myself—in Hell!" +</p> + +<p> +She hung upon the boy's wincing arm, her terrible breath +scorched him, her burned-out eyes appalled—her greedy, +long-nailed clutch found his flesh through his sleeve like +the talons of a beast of prey. And he wrenched himself +free, and fled, sick at heart; fancying that the old boot and +shoe were running after him, and that the mud-trimmed +silk gown flapped at his hurrying heels like leathery wings. +</p> + +<p> +He broke into his shilling to pass the turnstile of Waterloo +Bridge, stowed himself in a corner of one of the seated +niches, and found relief in the presence of a stray kitten, +sore-footed, hungry-eyed, ginger-haired, that rubbed against +his legs and responded with appreciative purrs to his +tentative back-strokings and ear-rubbings, administered +half-unconsciously, as he wondered why human beings—under +certain given circumstances, should be so much more +beastly than the brutes? +</p> + +<p> +The kitten jumped on his knee. He saw that its fur had +been torn—probably by a dog—and shuddered at the +remembrance of having more than once set a rough-haired +terrier—a companion of his early boyhood—to worry stray +cats—and enjoyed the carnage resulting. Why did he +shudder now? Because by a feat of imagination only +possible to one who was beginning to learn what it is to be +homeless and hunted and desperate, he had got inside the +ginger kitten's ragged skin, and established between +himself and what we are content to call inferior creatures a +bond of brotherhood. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you go, Kitty! though I can't make it much +worth your while to stop," he muttered. "If I'd got the +things—a scrap of lint and a saucer of clean water, a +needleful of silk and a dab of carbolic ointment—I could +patch up that tear—you'd be as good as new inside of a +week." +</p> + +<p> +He yawned, and the tramp of booted feet and the shuffle +of naked ones grew faint in his ears; and presently the rush +and roar of the Bridge roadway-traffic dulled to a +hum—and he was deadly sleepy. With blundering fingers he +undid two buttons of the frieze greatcoat and tucked the +kitten inside—and after turning round three times, and +making a great parade of clawing the surface soft enough +for comfort, it curled up and fell asleep, and its host not +only slept, but snored. +</p> + +<p> +Even in sleep he was dogged and haunted by those three +tragic figures;—the broken-down <i>viveur</i>, the child dying +on gin, the lost creature who had once been Anabel +Foltringham—they cropped up in his troubled dreams, over +and over again. And he woke up, and it was dark, and a +sleety rain was stinging him, and even the kitten in his +breast was cold and cried. +</p> + +<p> +He got up, aching and stiff, hungry and thirsty, realizing +that he must have slept for hours. Big Ben boomed +twelve. A midnight express from Charing Cross dragged +its chain of yellow lights across the railway bridge with +a hollow roar and rattle. One or two shapes passed, +vaguely human in the wintry darkness; a Post Office van +or so, with an official inside sorting bags by the light of a +swinging lantern, three or four crawling cabs, a trolley +with a formless mass upon it, pushed by two indistinct, +slow-moving figures, coming from the Surrey side. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the Strandward end of the Bridge there was +a light, with murky figures moving about it. Revealed +by its two flaring naphtha-lamps, the characteristic hostelry +of the London gutters, with its gaudy paint and patriotic +decorations, its clean shelves piled up with homely food, +and hung with common crockery, its steaming urns of hot +and comforting drink,—proved a Godsend to one more +hungry and homeless vagrant. +</p> + +<p> +The shipwrecked mariner of his analogy might have +known the same sense of relief, seeing his signal answered +and some stout vessel, flying the red ensign of the British +Mercantile Marine, bearing down upon his tiny, wave-washed +raft.... P. C. Breagh was guilty of prodigality +at that coffee-stall. A penny cup of coffee, weak, but hot, +and a twopenny sandwich, consisting of two slices of bread +smeared with mustard and inclosing something by courtesy +called ham, but really pertaining to that less stylish part +of the pig known as "gammon," took the edge off his +savage appetite. A ha'porth of milk for the kitten, and +another ha'porth of ham-trimmings, left him lord of +seven-pence halfpenny cash. +</p> + +<p> +Thus, warmed and cheered, he went back to his seat in +the niche again, noting that every stone bench he passed +had now its seated group, or prone extended figures. His +recently vacated place had its occupant, a thin, barefooted +young man, indescribably ragged; who slept with his +famished face—sharp and yellow as a wedge of cheese—turned +to the sky, and the Adam's apple of his lean throat jerking, +as though something alive, swallowed inadvertently, was +madly struggling to get out. +</p> + +<p> +And as he leaned upon the eastward parapet of the +Bridge with the ginger kitten, now replete and happy, +purring on his shoulder, and watched the wild welter of +black water, pale-patched with foam and spume, rushing +away beneath him, to plunge growling through the arches +of Blackfriars Bridge, and speed away under Southwark +and London Bridges, past the Custom House, Traitor's Gate +and the Docks, between Wapping and Rotherhithe on its +way to Greenwich and Poplar and Blackwell; and thence, +by the verdant heights of Charlton to Woolwich, widening +to a mile here; and so on past Gravesend and the Nore +Light to where it flows between Whitstable and Foulness +Point—eighteen miles broad; a kingly river, carrying on its +back the commerce of the world. +</p> + +<p> +The wind blew bitter cold from the heights of Hampstead. +A livid moon blinked through rifts in ink-black +cloud-wrack above the Shot Towers and a huge mass of +brewery-buildings on the right. On the left, revealed in +glimpses and suggestions by stray moonbeams and +wind-blown lamp-flares, was a great confusion of trucks and +trolleys; huge cranes rearing skeleton arms aloft, colossal +cauldrons, heaps of clay beside yawning trenches, winking +red eyes of warning for belated wanderers. All this +beyond a banking-face of stone masonry with completed piers, +showed where the Victoria Embankment would be by-and-by. +Meanwhile chaos reigned; the area would have been +an appropriate playground for the inhabitants of Bethlem +Hospital, in hours of relaxation, or on national holidays. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh laughed gallantly at his own conceit, and +his chapped lips cracked and hurt him. He staunched the +bleeding with his handkerchief, conscious that a day might +come when he should cease to have any use for such an +article. Habits die hard with us, but the cleanly ones go +first, being acquired. We continue to desire food and +drink long after we have left off caring about the color of +our linen—nay! long after we have become indifferent to +the fact that we wear no linen at all. +</p> + +<p> +He was bone-weary; his thigh-bones seemed wearing +through their sockets. His knees ached, his feet were +heavy as solid lumps of lead. It occurred to him that the +two things most desirable on earth were an arm-chair and +a roasting fire to toast before. Failing that, a seat on a +stone bench, with a north wind gnawing you was better +than nothing.... He thought that by now one of the +sleepers in the niches would have wakened up and moved +on. +</p> + +<p> +Vain hope. Where one had withdrawn, his place had +been filled by three newcomers. Misery, Dirt, Drunkenness, +Disease, and Wretchedness herded in those stony +refuges, mercifully winked at by the patroling policeman +with the unsavory-smelling bull's-eye. And strange +beings perambulated or crept the pavement; 2 a.m. is the +time when you may see them!—emerging from the foul +hiding-places where they pass the daylight hours, to +wander forth unseen.... +</p> + +<p> +Such goblin forms, such Gorgon faces, revealed by some +fitful ray of watery moonlight, or the lamp of a languid, +belated cab.... It was a waking nightmare, a Dantesque +vision realized, inconceivably hideous to nerves already +weakening. The Celtic strain derived from his father, in +conjunction with the sensitive romantic nature bequeathed +by Milly Fermeroy, might have urged their son to end +things that bleak January night, with a leap from the +parapet and a plunge into the wild black welter tumbling +under the Bridge arches. But P. C. Breagh was not fated +to join the procession of grim, unconscious voyagers, that +wallow in the tides and circle in the eddies, flounder under +the sides of barges, beat upon the piles and bridge-piers, +and sink to slumber in the river-sludge a while, before they +rise, more dreadful than before, to journey on again.... +</p> + +<p> +His mother's faith plucked him as before, from the +desperate brink of the temptation; and—he had worked in +the dissecting-rooms and walked the hospitals, toward that +end of failure previously recorded,—and the hardening did +yeoman's service now. But it went badly with him—at one +period of that week-long night particularly.... He never +liked to speak of that experience.... But long, long +afterward he said to one who loved him: +</p> + +<p> +"I held on to my reason, and prayed Our Lord for +daylight. And—I don't know how I managed—but somehow, I +got through!" +</p> + +<p> +He found a seat at length, not knowing by whom or how +it had been vacated, and dropped into it and slept like the +dead. And he awoke in a windless lull,—to a strange +bluish-yellow radiance in the sky beyond the great squat +dome of St. Paul's and the crowding chimneys of the City: +and felt the stir and thrill and quiver that is the sign of +this sad world's waking to yet another day. +</p> + +<p> +Three homeless women shared the seat with him. Two +were awake, watching him not unkindly. A third slept, +leaning forward in a huddled attitude, propped by the +handle of a basket she held upon her knees. She breathed +in whistling squeals,—a night on Waterloo Bridge in +January encourages bronchitis.... He listened for a moment, +then with a prodigal impulse, dropped twopence of his +eightpence into the basket on her lap. And she woke, and +said with an Irish accent: +</p> + +<p> +"May the heavens be yer bed!" and slept again, heavily. +</p> + +<p> +The second woman snuffled out in the accents of the East +End: +</p> + +<p> +"Gawd bless you, good gen'leman!" +</p> + +<p> +The third lifted a tattered scarlet head-shawl, and flashed +a pair of jet-black Oriental eyes upon him: +</p> + +<p> +"Fortune and Life!" +</p> + +<p> +To her he said, with a creditable effort at cheeriness: +</p> + +<p> +"I've lost the fortune, mother! the life's about all I've +got that's left to me!" +</p> + +<p> +"And a good thing too, my gorgious! Don't yer complain +of it! Come, tip us yer vast!" She added, as he +stared uncomprehending—"Eight or left-hand dook—whichever +the Line's brightest in. Have yer a—No! I'll +give yer of my jinnepen for naught!" +</p> + +<p> +He held out the broad, strong palm, grimy enough by +dawn-light. She peered, spat on the chilly gray pavement +and said: +</p> + +<p> +"You keep up heart—there's a change a-coming soon!" +</p> + +<p> +"Can't come too soon for me!" His smile was rueful. +</p> + +<p> +"Keep up heart, I tell yer!" she bade him. "Yer'll +travel a long road and a bloody road, and yer'll tramp it +with the one yer love, and never know it. Until the end, +that is, when tute is jasing. And there's a finer fortune +than I meant yer to get o' me! Shake her up, Bet!" She +explained, as the other woman turned to rouse the sleeper, +"Taken a great cold, she has! We're fetching her to the +Hospital. 'Tholomewses in Smithell, for the gorgio +doctors to make her well. Though that's not where I would +lie, my rye, and my pipes playing the death-tune. Shoon +tu, dilya! Better shake her again!" +</p> + +<p> +"Wake up, deer! There's a good soul!" +</p> + +<p> +They stood up, supporting the bronchial Irishwoman +between them, shaking and straightening their frowsy +garments—tidying themselves as the poorest women will. +Then with, a farewell word they moved on, northward. +And P. C. Breagh, following them with reddened, +night-weary eyes, saw his Fate coming, though he did not +know it, in the person of a small and shabbily-attired +elderly man. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap14"></a></p> + +<h3> +XIV +</h3> + +<p> +He came striding from the Strand side, in a red-hot hurry, +making as much noise with his boots as three ordinary +pedestrians. He wore no overcoat, but was buttoned up +in a decent black serge frock, having his throat protected +by a large white cashmere wrapper. Also he wore gray +mixture trousers, rather baggy at the knees, and shiny, +and was crowned with a well-worn silk top-hat. +</p> + +<p> +He walked at a great pace, swinging his arms, which were +inordinately lengthy, and finished with hands of extra size, +encased in white knitted woolen bags not distantly +resembling boxing-gloves. When he reached the middle of +the Bridge, he stopped and backed against the west parapet, +folded his arms, and,—or so it seemed to P. C. Breagh, who +was watching him for the sole reason that he happened to +be the only cheerful-looking, decently-clad human being +within his range of vision—snuffed the breeze, and +considered the prospect with a consciously-possessive air. In +moving his head sideways, so as to extend his view, his +sharp black glance encountered that of his neighbor, and +he nodded, and thus their acquaintance began. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm glad to see, young gentleman," said the little +man—and "<i>My eye! Do I still look like anything of that sort?</i>" +was the young gentleman's unvoiced aside: "I'm glad to +see that you don't number one among the many thousands—if +I was to say Millions I shouldn't be guilty of +exaggeration—who under-estimate the value of fresh morning +air. For my part, without boasting, I may call myself a +walking Monument to its healthiness, or as you can't put +up a monument to a live man—I'll say, a Living Testimonial." +</p> + +<p> +He had a yellow, tight-drawn, wearied skin, with a patch +of rather hectic red on either cheekbone, and his bright +black eyes twinkled at the bottom of hollow orbits, +overshadowed by shaggy eyebrows of the deepest black. When +he took off his hat to cool his head, from which quite a +cloud of steam arose, you could perceive that he was +baldish, and that his bristly hair and large mutton-chop +side-whiskers owed, like his shaggy eyebrows, their intense +and aggressive blackness to a conscientious but unskillful +dyer, for by the cold and searching light of morning, +delicate nuances of green and purple were seen to mingle with +their youthful sable, and here and there the roots showed +grayish-white. +</p> + +<p> +"I was given up by the Doctors at the age of twenty," +said the little man, "as I had been previously give up by +'em at eleven and fifteen. 'The boy's in Rapid Decline,' +says one, 'keep him out o' drafts and give him boiled +snails and asses' milk.' My poor mother did her best, +stopping up window-cracks with paste and paper, and +stuffing chimneys with old carpets. And living as we was +at Hampstead Village, and the Heath being productive in +snails and donkeys, the rest o' the prescription was easy +to carry out. Still I got lankier and went on coughing o' +nights. Says Doctor Number Two, 'It's a case of Galloping +Consumption. Feed him up, clothe him warmly, +encourage him to take gentle exercise, and avoid chills +whatever you do!' So my mother swadged me up in flannel, +made me eat a mutton chop every two hours, and trot up +and down the front-garden for exercise between chops; +and she'd pour half-a-pint o' porter down me whenever I +stood still. And in spite of all her affectionate solicitude," +said the little man with a twinkle, "I kep' on wasting, and +coughing and spitting, and doing everything that a young +fellow in a galloping consumption could do, short of +galloping out o' this world into another. And Doctor Number +Three says,—being called in when I was twenty: 'It's +<i>phthisis pulmonalis</i> in the advanced and incurable stage. +You can do nothing at all for this young man but get him +into an Institute for Incurables. Codliver Oil, Care, and +Kindness,' so says he, 'may prolong his miserable +existence a month or two. For the rest, there's nothing to be +done!' If you'll believe me, that news was the death of +my poor mother. She'd expected nothing else for years—and +yet it killed her at the end! And I acted as Chief +Mourner at her funeral," ended the little man with a +queer twist of his lean, sharp jaws and a momentary +dimming of his keen black eyes, "in the pouring rain, +and walked home without an overcoat—and got wet to the +skin, and stripped, and rubbed myself dry, and made a +rough supper of scalding oatmeal porridge, and went to +bed and slep' with the windows open top and bottom. +And that was over thirty years ago, and I've never missed +my morning sponge-over with cold water since; nor never +shut a window night or day, nor never run up a doctor's +bill, and don't mean to! I left off coddling—once the +blessed old soul was gone! Got better—better still—always +expected to die by those who'd knowed mother. I traveled +and saw Foreign Parts,—not specially going about +to pick the 'ealthiest climates, knocked about abroad—came +home and took to Business, and have taken to it ever +since, as you may see. My health is robust," he made a +show of hitting his chest again, but thought better of it. +"I live plain, and make a point of getting Fresh Air into +my system whenever possible.—This is the place I come to, +as a rule, for the morning's supply. I take it on +Blackfriars Bridge after the dinner-hour, the eating-house I +patronize being on Ludgate Hill," he added. "And—I +don't know whether you happen to be a student of old +Bill Shakespeare, but there are some lines of his which +might be twisted into applying to me." He drew a deep +breath and delivered himself as follows: +</p> + +<p> +"Some are born Tough, some achieve Toughness—others +have Toughness thrust upon them." +</p> + +<p> +He smote his chest hard with a muffled hand, and coughed +in that rather hollow fashion, adding: "Without vanity, +I may consider myself as belonging to the latter class! +Eh?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh agreed that the speaker might be considered +as belonging to the latter class. +</p> + +<p> +"For at this moment I am as fresh as paint," said the +little man proudly, "and as lively as a kitten, yet I have +been up and about and on my legs all night! I left +our place of business at 3.20 a.m., reached Charing Cross +by 3.30, was on the platform when the Dover Boat Train +steamed in—bringing mails and passengers that have +crossed in the Night Boat from Cally—took over a +shorthand report from a Special Correspondent—who has been +to Paris to gather details of a political murder," he tapped +the breast of his black frock-coat, which showed the bulging +outline of a thick notebook. "And in the absence of our +News Editor—who's been sent to Brummagem to report +Mr. Bright's speech on Popular Education, Irish Amelioration, +and Free Trade,—Parliamentary affairs being at a +standstill this holiday season,—I shall hand 'em to the +Senior Sub., who'll distribute the stuff and have it set up +by the time the Chief drops in from Putney at eleven. It's +for to-morrow's issue, following the ten-line telegram we +publish this morning. A column-and-a-half of Latest +Intelligence!" the little man screwed up his eyes and licked +his lips as though reveling in the flavor of some rare +gastronomic delicacy. "And if I had the say as to the +setting of it—which I haven't!—and was free to indulge +my predilection for showy printing—which I never shall +be!—it should be headed with caps an inch high—and +spaced and leaded all the way down." +</p> + +<p> +His black eyes snapped: his hectic cheeks grew fiery. +</p> + +<p> +"Headed with inch-high caps, ah! and spaced and leaded +from the top to the bottom. Fancy how it 'ud lay siege +to the Public Eye, and draw the Public's coppers! When +I shut my eyes I can fair see the editions running out." +</p> + +<p> +He recited, marking out the lines and spaces with a +finger encased in white woolen: +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + A PRINCE MURDERS<br> + <span style="font-size: smaller">ONE MAN AND</span><br> + FIRES AT ANOTHER<br> + <span style="font-size: smaller">IN HIS OWN</span><br> + GILDED DRAWING-ROOM.<br> + PARIS SENSATION.<br> + <span style="font-size: smaller">COUSIN OF</span><br> + THE FRENCH EMPEROR KILLS<br> + A JOURNALIST<br> + <span style="font-size: smaller">ON THE VERY DAY WHEN</span><br> + THE FRENCH LEGISLATIVE<br> + BODY<br> + <span style="font-size: smaller">MEET TO INAUGURATE THE NEW ERA</span><br> + <span style="font-size: smaller">OF CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT</span><br> + UNDER NAPOLEON III.<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +His eyes snapped, his hectic cheeks flamed, he was +evidently launched on a subject that was near the heart +beating beneath the bulgy pocket-book. He talked fast; +and as he talked he waved his arms, and gesticulated with +the large hands encased in the woolly boxing-gloves. +</p> + +<p> +"I cherish ambitions, perhaps you'll say, above my +calling, which I don't mind owning is that of Newspaper +Publishers' Warehouseman. Perhaps I do—perhaps I +don't! My own opinion is I'm before my time, a kind of +Anachronism the wrong way round," said the little man +rather ruefully, "and rightly belong to—say forty years +hence. As the poet Shakespeare says, and if it wasn't him +it ought to have been! 'Sweet are the uses of +Advertisement.' I'm a believer in Advertisement, always have been +and always shall be!" +</p> + +<p> +His garrulity was an individual and not unpleasant trait, +implying confidence in others' sympathy. He went on: +</p> + +<p> +"Being Nobody in particular, my views have never been +took up and acted on. Though I enjoy a good deal of +confidence and am—I hope I am!—respected in my place. +For as Solomon said, somewhere in Proverbs—'Designs +are strengthened by counsels,' and our Chief himself hasn't +been too proud to say, on occasion: 'Knewbit, what would +you do in this or that case?' Such as you see me, I am +often at the 'Ouse of Commons, when sittings are late and +speeches have to be jotted down in mouthfuls and carried +away and set up in snacks.... For my constitution is of +that degree of toughness—sleep or no sleep matters little +to me, and that I am as fresh at this moment as you are," +he bit off the end of a yawn, "I wouldn't mind betting a +sixpence now!" +</p> + +<p> +Said P. C. Breagh, at last getting in a word edgeways: +</p> + +<p> +"If you lost—and you would lose!—and paid—and I +expect you'd pay!—my capital would be doubled. I'm not a +young swell who has got up early to look at London. I'm +a vagrant on the streets—and it strikes me I must look +like it. To-day I've got to find work of some kind. Can +you give me a job in your warehouse? I'm strong and +willing and honest—up to now! But by G—! if stealing +a bunch of turnips off a costermonger's barrow will get me +a full belly and a clean bed in prison, I expect I shall have +to do it before long, if I can't find work anywhere!" +</p> + +<p> +"Bless my soul!" said the garrulous little man +excitedly. "And I thought you were a Medical Student or +an artist (some of 'em aren't over-given to clothes-brushes +and soap-and-water), and here I stood a-jawing and you +starving all the time! ... Work—of course you shall have +work, though I can't promise it'll be the kind o' work that's +fit for an educated young gentleman——" +</p> + +<p> +"Any work is fit for a gentleman," snarled P. C. Breagh, +"that a decent man can do! What I want is——" +</p> + +<p> +"What you want is—Breakfast and a wash and brush-up!" +cried the little man excitedly. "And that you must +go to Miss Ling and get. Say Mr. Knewbit sent you—I'm +Knewbit,—Christian name Solomon. It's No. 288 Great +Coram Street—second turn to your right above Russell +Square. Cross the Strand and go up Wellington Street and +Bow Street, cross Long Acre and ... but you're too +dead-beat to walk it. Take a growler—it'll be eighteenpence +from here unless the cabby's lost to every sense of decency. +Borrow the money from me—here it is! I give you my +word you shall be able to pay me back to-morrow. Here +is a cab! Hi! Phew'w!" Mr. Knewbit whistled scientifically, +and the preternaturally red-nosed driver of an old +and jingling four-wheeler pulled up beside the curb as +P. C. Breagh stammered out: +</p> + +<p> +"I—I can't thank! ... You're too confoundedly +kind! ... and I'd begun to think that all men were thieves +or scoundrels—except a poor, sick beggar of a swell I met +yesterday, whose wife and children shun him and whose +valet bullies him! I can't refuse, you know! ... Things +are too..." +</p> + +<p> +"The fare will be two shillings if you talk one minute +longer!" warned Mr. Knewbit, opening the door of the +straw-carpeted, moldy-smelling vehicle. "I can see +extortion in that man's eye. I'm a judge of character, that's +what I am. Bless my soul! Is that kitten yours?" +</p> + +<p> +For the ginger Tom, with arched back and erect tail, was +walking round P. C. Breagh's legs, purring insinuatingly, +and his companion of the night's vigil said hesitatingly, +looking at the meager, homeless mite: +</p> + +<p> +"He seems to think so! And—he helped me through +last night. Would you mind if I took him? I'll pay for +his keep as soon as ever I——" +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Knewbit shouted in a violent hurry: +</p> + +<p> +"In with you! Cat and all! Don't apologize! Miss +Ling adores 'em! Three in the house already—waste bits +left on the dustbin for needy strangers. Don't forget! +288 Great Coram Street, Russell Square. Drive on, +cabby!" +</p> + +<p> +He added, dancing up and down excitedly on the pavement, +as the jingling four-wheeler rolled on, with the pair +of castaways: +</p> + +<p> +"Lord! if I only had the setting up of that young +fellow's story, how I would give it 'em in leaded capitals!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +He closed his eyes in ecstasy and saw, in large black +letters standing out across the clear horizon of the new +day to which London was waking: +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + LONDON DRAMA.<br> + BEGGARED HEIR TO WEALTH<br> + ROBBED.<br> + CAST ON THE STREETS!<br> + SOLE COMPANION A KITTEN!<br> + PATHETIC STORY.<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"Not that I know he is the heir to wealth, but it looks +well, uncommon! Uncommon well, it looks!" said Mr. Knewbit. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap15"></a></p> + +<h3> +XV +</h3> + +<p> +When the Editorial Staff of the <i>Early Wire</i> had gone +home, or to the Club, by cab or private brougham or on +foot, in the blackest hours of the night or the smallest +hours of the morning; when the Printing Staff had filed +out, pale and respectably attired, or thundered down the +iron-shod staircases in grimy, inky, oily <i>déshabillé</i>, then the +Publishing Staff trooped in and took possession. And, as +the lines of carts backed up to the curb, and were filled by +brawny shirt-sleeved men, who tossed the huge bales of +newspapers from hand to hand with the nonchalant skill +of jugglers doing tricks with willow-pattern plates and +oranges, the Business Department began to empty so much +that you could see the eyebrows of clerks behind the +iron-nailed unplaned deal counters; and Mr. Knewbit, slackening +in his terrific energy, would cease keeping count, and +tallying, and writing cabalistic signs on huge packages with +the stump of blue pencil that never was used up. And he +would mop his face and say—in the same invariable formula: +</p> + +<p> +"Well! we've broke the back of the day's work, and +lucky if no one can say no worse of us!" +</p> + +<p> +Later on, when the last newspaper-cart had been gorged +and rattled away, and the last newspaper-boy had darted +out with his armful, and his mouth open for the yell that +would issue from it the moment his bare feet hit the +pavement of Fleet Street, and the office of the <i>Early Wire</i> and +all the other offices that had got off the Morning Issue had +an air of dozing with blinking eyes and mouths half open—when +the Evening Papers were at the height of strenuous +effort,—Mr. Knewbit would arrange the limited supply +of hair remaining on his cranium with a pocket-comb, +titivate his whiskers by the aid of a tiny scrap of looking-glass +nailed inside his desk-lid, dust the blacks off his +collar, straighten his cravat—which boasted a breastpin +that was an oval plaque of china, painted with a miniature +of a young lady with flowing ringlets, rosy cheeks, white +arms and shoulders, pink legs and a diaphanous tutu, +dancing, crowned with roses in front of a sylvan +waterfall,—and betake himself out to dine. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes he would patronize the "Old Cheshire +Cheese" chop-house, where they gave you beefsteak +puddings on Saturdays. Or "The Cock" would have his +custom, or he would drop in at an eating-house in St. Paul's +Churchyard, where Irish stew, boiled beef with dumplings +and carrots, or tripe and onions were the staple dishes in +winter months. In summer you got roast mutton and +green peas and gooseberry tart with custard; but whatever +the season or the dish, it was always washed down +with whisky-and-water, or gin-and-lemonade, or the +strongest of strong beer. +</p> + +<p> +For this particular tavern was patronized by the penny-a-liners +of Paternoster Row and the vicinity; out-at-elbows, +and generally seedy-looking literary free-lances, who picked +up a living by inditing touching tracts and poignant +pamphlets for religious Societies bearing arresting titles, +such as: +</p> + +<p> +"STOP! YOU ARE OUT AT THE GATHERS! Or, The +Tale of a Skirt," and "DEAD LOCKS FOR LIVE HEADS! By +A Converted Hairdresser." Or biographical accounts of +the brief lives and protracted deaths of Little E——, aged +seven, or Miss Madeline P—— of X——. +</p> + +<p> +Bearded men these, with bulbous noses, studded with +ruby pimples; full of strange oaths, reveling in profane +jest and scurrilous talk. Lanky youths with hollow eyes, +uncut hair and crimson neckties, who boasted of having +cast off all shackles, bonds and fetters, civil, social, moral +and religious, and dreamed in their wilder moments of +the inauguration of a second British Commonwealth, and +the reign of a New Era of Socialism, and the planting of +the Tree of Liberty in Buckingham Palace Courtyard.... +</p> + +<p> +And over their strong meats, and the stronger liquors +with which they moistened them, these would discuss the +plots of tracts, and so forth, seasoning their discourse with +highly-spiced pleasantries and salacious witticisms, jesting +in ribald sort at all things upon earth and elsewhere; +until—as Mr. Knewbit frequently said—you expected the ceiling +to come down and strike 'em speechless, and fancied you +saw wicked little hellish flames playing about the cutlery. +</p> + +<p> +"Not that I ever read any of their stuff, you know!" +he explained to P. C. Breagh, "though I am a man that, +to a certain extent, might be considered a reader. You've +seen my library on the shelf by my bed-head, and though +three books might be held—in the opinion of some people—to +constitute rather a limited library, they're the three +best books that ever were written or ever will be. Bar +none!" +</p> + +<p> +He was a Christian believer himself; of the easy-going, +undenominational, non-Church-going kind. And when +Sunday came round, Miss Ling, after seeing the beef and +potatoes and Yorkshire-pudding safely into the oven, would +charge him to watch over the same and guard them from +burning; and put on her best bonnet and pop over to the +Christian Mission Army Hall that used to be in Judd +Street, W.C., for a supply of red-hot doctrine sufficient to +stand her in a week of working-days, while Mr. Knewbit +smoked, kept an eye on the cooking, and occasionally +dipped into his library. +</p> + +<p> +A popular edition of the Plays and Poems by one William +Shakespeare, together with a stout and bulky volume, +"Gallowglass's Encyclopaedia of Literary and Typographical +Anecdote," and a worm-eaten, black-leather-bound +copy of the Bible—as translated from the Latin Vulgate +and published by the English College at Douay A.D. 1609, +formed Mr. Knewbit's library. In the pages of these, their +owner frequently stated it as his opinion, might be found +the finest literature in the world. He always ended: +</p> + +<p> +"And I bought Gallowglass for half-a-crown off a +barrow in Camberwell, and Shakespeare was give me by a +young fellow who found him dullish reading—and the +Book that beats 'em both I picked up in the fourpenny +box at a second-hand bookseller's in Clement's Inn!" +</p> + +<p> +King Solomon and the son of Sirach of Jerusalem, with +the Prophets Isaiah and Hosea, were Mr. Knewbit's favorite +Old Testament authors. Of the Books of Wisdom and +Ecclesiasticus he never wearied. One wonders how much +he understood, but he quarried diligently in their pages, +and sometimes emerged into the light figuratively laden +with jewels. Marvelous passages would drive home to the +brain of the man in blinding flashes of illumination, and +he would lose the place in his excitement,—being an +unmethodical if omnivorous reader,—and never be able to +find them again.... So he quoted his Prophets from +memory and generally inaccurately, yet seldom without +point or inappropriately. At other times, wearied with +their glorious obscurity, he reverted to the plainest and +simplest of all the stories ever written, and the sweetest +and the saddest too.... +</p> + +<p> +He spoke of the Saviour as though he had known Him.... +</p> + +<p> +"I never could forgive them fellers"—I conceive he +meant the Disciples—"for cutting off and leaving Him to +be pinched by that gang in the Garden. It was mean, +that's what I call it. Mean! But I will say they owned +up their shabbiness in their writings afterward. Though +you notice they hurry over that part. And I'm not +surprised! That young feller downstairs yet, Maria?" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +This was at eight o 'clock on the Sunday morning +following Mr. Knewbit's meeting with Carolan on Waterloo +Bridge. Miss Ling, stepping nimbly about the big front +kitchen in the basement, busy with her task of getting +breakfast, returned that "Mr. Breagh had got up and gone +out at half-past six." +</p> + +<p> +"For a shave?" +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Knewbit rubbed his own bristly chin rather dubiously +as he asked the question. Miss Ling, impaling a +round of stale loaf upon a tin toasting-fork, shook her +neat head and answered in the negative. Mr. Breagh had +mentioned that he was going to church. +</p> + +<p> +"To church.... We'll hope he has gone," said Mr. Knewbit +still more dubiously, "though between me and +you and the toasting-fork it sounds too good to be true.... +And 'The Brunswick Arms' is handy round the corner. +If the young man don't rattle at the area-gate by the time +you've finished your toasting, I shall made bold to go and +look for him at the Bar. Hulloa! Here he is! Now, +that's what you might call a pleasant disappointment!" +</p> + +<p> +For he had glanced up at the strip of area-railings +commanded by the upper panes of the kitchen window, and +seen the legs of P. C. Breagh stride by at a great rate, stop, +turn back, and descend the area-steps. +</p> + +<p> +You are to see Miss Ling receiving his morning greeting +with the wide smile that revealed an unbroken row of +sound white teeth ("every one her own," as Mr. Knewbit +would say) and made her thin, triangular face so pleasant. +She was a staid spinster, owning to forty-nine, who would +have died rather than confess to being fifty. Her magnificent +hair, genuinely black and shining like ebony, was +coiled upon the top of her head too tightly for beauty. +Her well-marked eyebrows and candid brown eyes slanted +a little upward at the temples, and her skin was rather +yellowish than olive. She was of a flat and bony figure, +active and sound and tough, and, in a plain way, a +first-rate cook and caterer. +</p> + +<p> +"Though when I left her Ladyship the Countess of +Crowmarsh," said Miss Ling, "after fourteen years spent +in the Castle nurseries, gradually rising from nursery-maid +to under-nurse, and then becoming what his Lordship was +pleased to call Head of the Bottle Department—a very +humorous nobleman his Lordship was at times!—I had +forgotten all I ever knew of my dear mother's +kitchen-teaching—she was a cook, Mr. Breagh, who had lived with +the first in the land! and when—being pensioned by the +family—I decided to risk the step of taking this house, +and letting it out to lodgers, preferring single gentlemen—I +was forced to engage a widowed person to prepare +their meals at first." +</p> + +<p> +"I remember her," said Mr. Knewbit, with his mouth +full of poached eggs and bacon. "She could under-boil a +pertater and calcine a chop with any elderly female I ever +yet come across. Here, pussy! if you ain't too proud for +rasher-rinds? And not you!" He leaned to the hearth—he +was sitting with his back to the glowing range, and +dropped his offering under the nose of the ginger kitten, +which, having already disposed of a saucer of bread-and-milk, +instantly grabbed. +</p> + +<p> +"To-morrow," said P. C. Breagh, looking up from his +rapidly-emptying plate with the smile which Miss Ling +had already decided was pleasant, "I hope to prove to you +that, like the kitten, I am not too proud for anything that +comes in my way." +</p> + +<p> +"Presently, presently!" said Mr. Knewbit sharply. +"Everything in good time! ... I don't like to be hurried. +And—what did you say was the property you'd left with +the—the Greedy Guts who runs that Euston Road hotel?" +</p> + +<p> +"There were three boxes of books—chiefly works on +medicine and surgery." Carolan reflected a moment, +stirring his coffee with one of Miss Ling's Britannia-metal +spoons. "And two trunks, with clothes and all that. +Things I valued. My student's cap and <i>schläger</i>, and the +silver-mounted beer-horn the English Colony gave me, and—a +Crucifix that was my mother's." The speaker blinked +and spoke a little huskily: "Used to hang over my bed +when I was a little chap in frocks." +</p> + +<p> +"Don't be cast down. Some wave o' luck may wash +your property ashore at your feet one of these days. What +I will say is—I wish I had the setting-up of that story for +the paper!" said Mr. Knewbit, handing in his plate for +fried bread. "Supposing you,"—he jerked his eyes at +Carolan—"had any talent in the literary line, it 'ud be +worth your while to throw off a quarter-col. of descriptive +stuff." +</p> + +<p> +"Relating to my experiences in that fellow's bug-ridden +lodging-house? Why, I don't doubt I could—after a +fashion," said P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +"After a fashion won't do. Write it the best you know! +Sit down at the kitchen-table here, when Maria's gone to +her prayer-meeting and I've got my pipe and Solomon to +keep me quiet,—and blacken half a quire o' paper—there's +plenty in the drawer there!—with the story—told short, +crisp and plain, and with a dash o' humor, and within +four hundred words. It would space out lovely!" said +Mr. Knewbit, arranging imaginary head-lines on the clean +coarse tablecloth. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + LONDON SHARK<br> + <span style="font-size: smaller">VICTIMIZES STUDENT!</span><br> + HE GRABS HIS GOODS<br> + <span style="font-size: smaller">AND LETS HIM GO!</span><br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"Ah, dear me! If I had had your education. But it's too +late to alter that. What were you saying, Maria?" +</p> + +<p> +Miss Ling was hoping that Mr. Breagh had passed a +comfortable night? +</p> + +<p> +"First rate, ma'am, many thanks to you!" returned the +object of her solicitude. +</p> + +<p> +"For," said Miss Ling, with a homely kind of dignity, +"if anything was wanting, Mr. Breagh must make excuses. +The arrival being unlooked-for and the notice very short." +</p> + +<p> +"Dropped on you out of the skies, didn't he, Maria?" +chuckled Mr. Knewbit. "And you've put him, for the +present, in Mr. Ticking's bed!" +</p> + +<p> +"In Mr. Ticking's bed!—Mr. Ticking," explained Miss +Ling, turning to the new arrival, "who rents our +third-floor front, being in the country for his holidays." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh expressed the hope that Mr. Ticking would +not be offended. +</p> + +<p> +"Lord bless you, no!" responded Mr. Knewbit. "Ticking's +an agreeable feller. He'd take you rather as a Boon +than otherwise. Contributes a column of cheerful, gossipy +items weekly to half-a-dozen of the suburban and district +newspapers that are springing up around us like—like +mushrooms. Always on the look-out for copy—Ticking is! +Now Mounteney——" +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Mounteney—who is also away on his vacation, and +rents the front sitting-room on our ground-floor, and the +bedroom behind it," said Miss Ling, "is a gentleman +who—owing to the nature of his professional employment—is +very refined and sensitive." +</p> + +<p> +"Edits the Health and Beauty column of the <i>Ladies' +Mentor</i>," said Mr. Knewbit, crunching fried bread noisily, +"and is altogether too ladylike a gentleman to take a +liberty with. For the rest, we are Full Up. To begin +with, I occupy a combined bed-and-sitting room behind +this kitchen, and Miss Ling occupies the large front garret +bedroom; the back one being partitioned off as a Box and +Lumber room, and a bedroom for the servant gal, who is +now having her breakfast in the scullery, as me and Miss +Ling agreed would be more considerate toward you.... +Coming down again to the first-floor, the front parlor and +back bedroom are rented by a German gentleman, Mr. Van +Something——" +</p> + +<p> +"Herr von Rosius," interpolated Miss Ling, "who is a +teacher at the Institute of Languages in Berners Street.... +Second-floor front, another combined bed-and-sitting +... Monsieur Meguet, a French gentleman who is studying +Prints at the British Museum. Second-floor back, Miss +Kindell, who is a copier of Pictures at the National Gallery, +and a sweet artist. Third-floor, Mr. Ticking——" +</p> + +<p> +"You represent him for the present," said Mr. Knewbit, +nodding at Carolan. +</p> + +<p> +"The trouble is, and I hope Mr. Breagh will forgive me +for mentioning it," hesitated Miss Ling, "that Mr. Ticking +comes back to-morrow night...." +</p> + +<p> +"And when does Miss Morency go? ... Miss Morency," +explained Mr. Knewbit without waiting for an answer, +"is a young person who don't give satisfaction,—regarded +as a lodger,—and there you have the truth in a +nutshell—Brazil for choice! And Miss Ling's good-nature +has led her, before now, to take in such people, and be +taken in by 'em too, I'm bound to say!" +</p> + +<p> +The little man broke off as Miss Ling, mindful of +P. C. Breagh's flushed and uneasy countenance, coughed +warningly. +</p> + +<p> +"Miss Morency has been brought up very well, and is—she +has told me,—the daughter of a clergyman in Hertfordshire," +she explained as Mr. Knewbit buried his confusion +in his coffee-cup. "I cannot but think it right—under the +circumstances—to give Miss Morency a little time to turn +round." +</p> + +<p> +"She's been turning round for eight weeks," said Mr. Knewbit, +rubbing his nose irritably. "And—if I was you, +I'd have my latchkey back." +</p> + +<p> +"To ask it would be a want of confidence, which would +wound Miss Morency, and upset her," returned Miss Ling, +who had risen and was gathering the breakfast things +together in rather an agitated way. She added: "And +willfully to hurt a person's feelings is a thing I could not +bring myself to do, Solomon. And she goes out, evening +after evening, poor thing, to call on relatives who live in +distant parts of London, and is hardly ever back until very +late indeed!" +</p> + +<p> +"She come in at two o'clock this morning," said +Mr. Knewbit, screwing up his eyes meaningly at Carolan. +"And—being comparatively early myself on Saturdays—I +heard her—just as I was getting between the sheets. +And being anxious to solve the problem as to Why a young +creature like that should go out walking on two feet—and +them remarkably small and pretty ones!—and come back +with Four—and two of 'em uncommon big and heavy +ones, I slipped up the kitchen-stairs and looked round the +corner-post. '<i>The seeing eye and the hearing ear,</i>' said my +namesake, '<i>the Lord hath made them both</i>' ... and then, +just as I was a-going to ring the garret-bell and bring you +down out of bed in your curl-papers, Maria, I remembered, +'<i>Lie not in wait for wickedness in the house of the just, nor +spoil his rest,</i>' 'him' being understood as 'her,' for you're +a just woman! But judgment must be executed upon the +daughter of Rahab, whether it's Sunday or whether it +ain't!" +</p> + +<p> +"When you begin quoting from the prophets, it takes a +cleverer than me to understand you," said Miss Ling, +flushed to the top of her high cheekbones. "But as a +woman that's her elder, I will stand up for that poor +unprotected young creature against any man that tries to +take her character away!" +</p> + +<p> +"It's nearly time for the Prayer Meeting at the +Headquarters Branch Hall of your Christian Mission Army," +said Mr. Knewbit, looking at an enormous silver watch he +wore, and always set by the Tower clock at Westminster, +and calmly taking the poker from the rail above the +kitchen-range. "If you'll put on your bonnet and go, +what I have made up my mind to do will be comfortably +over before the General, or the Colonel, or whichever of 'em +is set down to give you Blood and Fire this morning, has +fairly warmed to the fight. But if you want to be upset +and made uncomfortable in your mind for a week +afterwards—you'll stop! You will? Very well, and why not +in your own house? Mr. Breagh, will you kindly follow +with Miss Ling and act as Reserve Force in this +emergency? I thank you, young gentleman!" +</p> + +<p> +And armed with the poker, Mr. Knewbit left the kitchen, +followed by Carolan and the landlady, closely attended +by the ginger kitten, and mounted the stairs to the +third-floor back. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap16"></a></p> + +<h3> +XVI +</h3> + +<p> +It was a sordid little scene that followed, but for the +sake of the good woman whose unaffected charity and +kindly feeling illumined its murky darkness, it shall be +recorded here.... +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Mr. Knewbit, arriving at Miss Morency's door, thumped +on it, receiving no answer beyond the hurried shooting of +the bolt, and the scuffling of slippered feet across the +carpet. Roused by the meaningful silence to indignation, he +delivered himself in the following terms: +</p> + +<p> +"You inside there—and you're aware why I don't address +you as a young lady!—I'm going to trouble you to +unfasten that door!" +</p> + +<p> +"No, you ain't!" said a feminine voice from within, +defiantly. "Go downstairs and shave yourself, you silly +old man!" +</p> + +<p> +A thickish masculine chuckle greeted this sally. +</p> + +<p> +"When we have got you and your companion out of +this respectable house," quoth the wrathful Mr. Knewbit, +"I may have time to attend to my Sunday twylett. Not +before! Are you a-going to undo this door? Because, if +you won't, I am a-going to bust it with the poker! +Once!" He applied the end of the weapon named to a panel with +a crack in it. "Twice!——" +</p> + +<p> +"Stop!" cried Miss Ling, and Mr. Knewbit lowered the +poker. "One moment, Solomon!—I want to speak to +her!" +</p> + +<p> +Forgetful of her neat Sabbath attire, she went down +upon her knees before the door, as Mr. Knewbit joined +P. C. Breagh upon the staircase, and laid her work-worn hand +as gently and persuasively upon the threatened panel, as +if it had been a human bosom housing an obdurate heart. +</p> + +<p> +"Miss Morency! Don't be afraid, my dear! Maria +Ling it is a-speaking to you!" She waited an instant, and +receiving no response, went on. +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Knewbit has got it in his head—he best knows +why!—that you're not Alone in that room, in a manner +of speaking.... Open the door and prove to him he's +wrong; or tell me on your solemn honor—before the God +who made you and me both women!—that he's mistaken, +and I'll believe you—and ask your pardon—and we'll all +go downstairs again!" +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence within the room, and then a thick +whispering voice and a thin whispering voice held indistinct +colloquy. P. C. Breagh and Mr. Knewbit exchanged +looks, Miss Ling grew pale, rose, and withdrew from the +door. Her clean Sunday handkerchief was in her hand and +the hand shook, and her mouth was shut tightly, as, with +much shuffling, an obstacle—probably a chest of drawers—was +removed from the other side, the key was turned, +and the bolt withdrawn. +</p> + +<p> +The door opened. The defiant figure and the angry +painted face of a good-looking young woman were revealed +beyond the threshold. She wore a gaudy dressing-gown +trimmed with cheap lace, and a butterfly cap in the +prevailing mode was set upon her mound of dyed hair. Her +companion might have been the manager of a restaurant, +or a West End shopwalker. His face was sallow with +debauch, and his eyes were red from liquor or sleeplessness. +With the rosebud of the previous night still drooping in +the buttonhole of his fashionably cut frock-coat, and the +mud of the previous night soiling his trouser-ends and his +shiny boots and drab spats, and his silk hat fixed firmly +on his head as though in anticipation of a scuffle, he stood +behind the woman; maintaining a sulky silence, gripping +his cane in a hand that was mottled and shaky. And the +roll of his eyes said "Two of 'em!" as his glance took in +Mr. Knewbit and P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +Said the rouged, defiant young woman in the flyaway +cap, turning a glare of defiance upon her landlady: +</p> + +<p> +"You see now whether that"—she employed a term +reflecting on the moral character of her assailant—"was +mistaken, or whether he wasn't, I hope?" +</p> + +<p> +Returned Miss Ling, looking mildly at the brazen +countenance: +</p> + +<p> +"I see! May the Lord forgive you, poor ruined young +creature. But for Him having given me a good, good +mother, I might be standing where you are now!" +</p> + +<p> +"Never!" said Mr. Knewbit under his breath. The +kind soul went on without heeding him: +</p> + +<p> +"Were you led away? ... Was it the first time? ... Whether +or no, it's not too late to change, and lead a life +of decency. As for this—man...." +</p> + +<p> +The young woman interrupted, with lowered eyes +shunning her: +</p> + +<p> +"We're to be married! He's promised me upon his oath!" +</p> + +<p> +Her companion purpled furiously, and broke out: +</p> + +<p> +"You're lying, you——! I picked you up in the +Haymarket! Do you think I'm afraid of you and your bullies +there? Stand back!" +</p> + +<p> +Fulminating threats, he thrust roughly past Miss Ling, +driving her, possibly not with intention, against the landing +wall. She gave a little cry, and the poker fell.... He +bellowed: +</p> + +<p> +"—— you! You've broken my arm, you—blackguard! +Where's the police?" +</p> + +<p> +A grip of steel shut upon his scruff, and the voice +belonging to the grip said cheerfully: +</p> + +<p> +"In the street. Come down and look for 'em, my man!" +</p> + +<p> +His protests were drowned in the rattling of his boot-heels +on the oil-cloth-covered staircase, in the violence of +his transit to the ground-floor. There, as Mr. Knewbit, +dodging past, opened the hall door, he was shot from its +threshold as a human bullet from a spring-cannon, even +then supplying a sensational turn at the Royal Alhambra +Theater—rolled down the steps, gathering momentum, +and colliding with a late milk-truck that happened to be +passing, suffered abrasions and the ruin of his smart +frock-coat. Leaving the victim of righteous judgment to appease +the justly-indignant milkman with some of the silver shed +from his trousers-pockets in the transit, Mr. Knewbit +slammed the door, and crowed, slapping P. C. Breagh +heartily upon the back. +</p> + +<p> +"Neatly done! You could get a well-paid job as pitcher-out +at a West End bar, if you'd nothing better than your +muscles to rely upon.... Wait a bit!" He vanished +upstairs, walking as softly as a cat does, to return and +explain: +</p> + +<p> +"The pumps are at work up there! Both of 'em +crying—Rahab's Daughter and Solomon's Virtuous Woman, I +mean.... You remember the text? '<i>Her price is above +rubies.</i>' I remembered it when I saw her sitting dropping +tears upon that trollop's head, that was a-lying in her lap. +Well, well!" He led the way down into the kitchen, +muttering, "'<i>As golden pillars upon bases of silver, so are +the firm feet upon the soles of a steady woman....</i>' and +'<i>Her husband's heart delighteth in her!</i>' Sit down, you +must want a breather ... '<i>Delighteth in her</i>'—or would +have if she'd married one capable of appreciating a +character like hers." +</p> + +<p> +Seeing that the mind of Mr. Knewbit was still running +upon Miss Ling, P. C. Breagh ventured to ask: +</p> + +<p> +"And has she never entertained any intention of——" +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Knewbit nodded sagely. +</p> + +<p> +"Once. You might say—there has been a Romance in +her life, without exaggeration. When in service with that +family of Nobs you've heard her mention,—about twenty-four +years ago, when she was a strapping young woman of +twenty-six—she got engaged to an underbutler—a young +man with an affectionate nature and a changeable disposition, +in conjunction with weak lungs. Weak lungs——" +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Knewbit opened the oven-door and looked in to +ascertain how the mutton and Yorkshire pudding were getting +on. "I've had weak lungs myself, but never found 'em +an excuse for villainy! Mph! ... Don't smell like +burning—pretty right, it seems to me!" +</p> + +<p> +He sat down in his Windsor arm-chair near the hearth, +stretched out his carpet-slippered feet, and broke out: +</p> + +<p> +"So—in the interests o' them weak lungs of his, his +master's son, Lord Wallingbrook—to whom he sometimes +acted as valet, took him in that capacity on a steam-yacht-trip +from Plymouth, via Trinidad to the Southern Seas. +And they cruised among the Islands of the Pacific for +months—a gay party of bachelors amusing themselves!—and—in +the Paumotu Group—this precious young man +of Maria's up-stick and took French leave.... And that's +all. And whether his master knew more than he'd tell—that's +uncertain. Anyhow, a letter arrived six months +after the steam-yacht dropped anchor at Plymouth, to +say that he was safe and well and happy—but was never +coming Home any more. And she believes ... 'Ssh! +Here she is!" +</p> + +<p> +It was Miss Ling, who had been crying, undoubtedly, for +her Sunday bonnet-strings were spotted as with rain, and +her clean handkerchief was reduced to a damp wad. Said +she: +</p> + +<p> +"I have talked to that poor thing upstairs, as a woman +of my age is privileged to do. And she has softened +wonderful, Solomon, and from what she has owned—has +seen the shame and wickedness of her life clear, and longed +to be delivered from it—this many and many a day, I'm +sure! So if you'll kindly whistle up a four-wheeler, I'll +make bold—being late for the speaking at the Judd Street +Branch Hall!—to take her down to the Christian Mission +Army Headquarters in the Whitechapel Road. Where I +shall find not only the General, as they call Mr. Booth, +but Mrs. Booth, ready and willing, please Heaven! to help +the poor soul to a better life! And though Lilla has gone +home to spend Sunday with her mother at Southampton +Mews, I'll stop there passing and send a note in, and she'll +come round and dish up dinner—and don't you, either of +you, dream of waiting a minute for me! Now, I'm going +back to Miss Morency—though her real name is nothing +like so grand as that, poor creature!" +</p> + +<p> +She turned at the door to nod and smile and say: +"And her and me will carry down her box between us, +so don't show yourselves to shame her poor swelled face +before the cabman." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"There's a woman!" said Mr. Knewbit exultantly, a +few minutes later, as the hall-door shut and the cab-door +banged, and the vehicle containing the Daughter of Rahab +and the Woman Above Rubies rattled away in the direction +of Holborn Circus. +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder you——" P. C. Breagh was beginning, when +he stopped himself on the brink of an indiscretion. +</p> + +<p> +"Eh?..." interrogated Mr. Knewbit. "What? ... Oh, +but I did, though!" +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Knewbit rubbed his chin, which needed shaving, +and shook his head in a despondent way. +</p> + +<p> +"I did. She was thirty-one when the Earl and Countess +pensioned her—thirty-one pound a year For Life they +promised.... And it's been paid regularly, going on for +nineteen year now. And in the second year I came to lodge +here early in January, and finding her a comfortable, +cleanly, kindly creature, I stopped on—and all but asked +her to marry me next time New Year came round. On +the following anniversary I took the plunge! after reading +a passage of Solomon's peculiarly applicable to my case. +'<i>He that hath found a good wife hath found a good thing,</i>' +it was. Turned it up by accident, and showed it to her, +and asked her. And she said No! And goes on saying +it—though I ask her for the last time regularly every year. +Here's the gal coming down the area-steps. Now that +meat and pudding's off my conscience, I shall put on my +boots for an airing before dinner. And while I'm gone—try +your hand at a neat article in moderate paragraphs +describing the methods of that"—Mr. Knewbit cast about +for a new term—"that Man-eating Alligator in the Euston +Road. What was the name of the place? 'Royal Copenhagen +Hotel!' ... Why, it fairly smells of roguery! +'Royal Greenhorn' would be pretty well up to the mark." +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Knewbit returned, just as the little servant pronounced +dinner to be in danger of spoiling—in a cab; and +thereupon ensued much jolting and bumping, suggestive +of the conveyance of heavy articles up the doorsteps into +the hall. Where, being summoned from the kitchen by a +bellow, P. C. Breagh recognized his own trunks and +book-boxes, and wrung the hand of his good genius with a +grateful swelling of the heart, and an irrepressible watering of +the eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"It was so kind!—and suppose I never am able to pay +you—or keep you waiting a devil of a time?" he +protested incoherently. +</p> + +<p> +"Young fellow," said Mr. Knewbit, scowling with his +heavy brows and twinkling pleasantly from under them. +"You are a gentleman born and bred and taught. You +must have your Books to keep up your Latin and Greek +and other learning—and to keep up your appearance you +must have your clothes. No man is so down in the world +that he can afford to go downer. This is my opinion, and +also Miss Ling's!" +</p> + +<p> +"And to-morrow Mr. Breagh will find poor Miss Morency's +room swept and scrubbed and got ready for him," +said Miss Ling that evening, during Mr. Knewbit's +absence. "And the rent is—including Kitchen Board with +myself and Mr. Knewbit, who likes homeliness, sixteen +shillings per week. And if I trust Mr. Breagh for a +month—that will be a chance for him of getting work to do. And +that he will turn from nothing that will bring him in an +honest living, I am certain; and that he will justify the +confidence of Mr. Knewbit, I am equally sure!" +</p> + +<p> +Said P. C. Breagh, rather chokily: +</p> + +<p> +"I hope to God I may one day be able to thank you +both as I should like to! You don't know what you have +done for me, either of you! But I will—will repay you, +I swear!" +</p> + +<p> +She said in her quaint way: +</p> + +<p> +"What obligation there may be could be repaid now—with +Mr. Breagh's permission. He saw that most unhappy +girl to-day.... He has seen a-many—many like her! +If he would promise me—never to bring about a fall like +that, or help to drag a head so fallen, lower! Perhaps I +take a liberty," said Miss Ling, "and presume, being +almost a stranger.... Yet I ask it of Mr. Breagh, I do +indeed!" +</p> + +<p> +He gave the promise, in words that were broken and +hurried, and with eyes that shunned her plain, kind, +earnest face. She said: +</p> + +<p> +"There will be a beautiful young lady, one of these +days, all the happier for that promise Mr. Breagh has +given. And I hope he won't think me unjust—because +I am a woman! and blind to the wreck and ruin that +my sex can bring about. I knew a young man, once; who +was good, and honest, and worthy; and engaged to marry +a young person of his own rank in life...." +</p> + +<p> +Carolan remembered Mr. Knewbit's story of the faithless +underbutler. +</p> + +<p> +"He went Abroad to Foreign Countries," said Miss +Ling, mildly, "sailing on a ship that voyaged for months +at a time. I am told that the women are very beautiful +in the islands that he visited; and somehow or another, he +was led away...." +</p> + +<p> +Though she looked at Carolan, her regard was curiously +impersonal. It was as though she saw the wraith of some +face once dear, and although changed, never to be +forgotten, appear within the outlines of the face that looked +back at her. +</p> + +<p> +"The ship sailed Home without him. He wrote—by +another vessel—to the young woman he was to have +married, begging her forgiveness.... He had loved her, he +said, and looked to be happy with her. But the sunshine +and perfume and color of them foreign places, and the +spell of the beauty of their wild brown foreign women was +over him. He could not come back.... He never may +come back again.... But if it happened so—and he, +being old and worn, and weary of strange ways and distant +places, was looking for an honest roof to shelter him, +and a loving heart to lean upon at the last...." +</p> + +<p> +"He would find both here, I know!" said Carolan, gently. +</p> + +<p> +She started and, recalling herself, said in a changed tone: +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Breagh must excuse my having delayed him here +a-talking. To work and bustle is more natural to me!" +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand, and having learned in Germany to +pay such pretty homage without looking foolish, he stooped +above it and touched it with his lips. She smiled her wise, +kind smile, and said with a touching simplicity: +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Breagh is good enough to honor a poor, hard, +working hand!" +</p> + +<p> +He said, and the tone had the ring of sincerity: +</p> + +<p> +"I wish, with all my heart, I were worthier of touching it!" +</p> + +<p> +And so went upstairs to sleep in Mr. Ticking's bed. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap17"></a></p> + +<h3> +XVII +</h3> + +<p> +"My student-cap and <i>schläger</i> and the silver-mounted +beer-horn the English Colony gave me, and my mother's +Crucifix" found their places on the walls of the clean and +comfortable room, and upon cheap stained-deal shelves +the books of which Mr. Knewbit had spoken so respectfully +were ranged, waiting to refresh their owner's memory +whenever he chose to dip into them. +</p> + +<p> +The sharkish manager of the "Royal Copenhagen Hotel" +had been cowed into giving up the detained luggage by +Mr. Knewbit's assurance that the story of his knavery was +even then taking literary form under the skilled hand of a +young and aspiring journalist of his (Knewbit's) own +acquaintance, and might shortly appear in a newspaper +to the confusion of the said manager, unless the property +was surrendered upon payment of a corrected version of +the bill. +</p> + +<p> +These terms being hastily accepted, the Rules of Fair +Play, according to Mr. Knewbit, demanded that the written +record of the manager's iniquity should be consigned to +Miss Ling's kitchen-fire. +</p> + +<p> +"Not that it ain't a pity, for it ain't half bad for a +beginner, though wanting in what I call snap and sparkle. +But honor is honor—and if Mr. Ticking reads this knowing +you're not going to use it—you'll find the story cropping +up presently in the <i>Camberwell Clarion</i> or the <i>Islington +Excelsior</i>.... Couldn't you do something else—just +for a taster? Or haven't you something finished and put +away and forgot?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh finally disinterred from the litter of manuscript +notes at the bottom of a book-box, a scrawled description +of a duel between two Freshmen at a well-known +tavern and concert-room outside the walls of +Schwürz-Brettingen. The humors of the battle, waged in a +low-ceiled room in the upper story, crowded with chaffing, +drinking, smoking students; the marvelous nature of the +defensive armor worn by the inexperienced <i>Füchse</i>, the +blows that fell flat, the final entanglement of their swords, +and abandonment of these unfamiliar weapons in favor of +fisticuffs, made Mr. Knewbit chuckle, and won the +suffrages of Mr. Ticking; who said the fight and the bit of +knock-about at the end was nearly good enough to be put +on at the Halls. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Ticking was a journalist who possessed a knack of +rhyme, penned comic ditties for Lion Comiques, when these +gentlemen would sing them,—and lived in the hope of +getting a Burlesque produced at a West-End Theater one day. +He had educated himself because you couldn't get on if you +were not educated. He could not have explained to you +how the process had been carried out. By dexterously +angling matter for short paragraphs from the swirl of +happenings about him, he contrived—between the <i>Camberwell +Clarion</i>, the <i>Islington Excelsior</i>, and the <i>Afternoon</i>, +a late daily published in Fleet Street—to net some three +pounds at the end of each week. Thirty shillings of this +went to support an aged and invalid mother resident at +Brixton; and if you had lauded Mr. Ticking as a heroic +exemplar of filial virtues, he would have been excessively +surprised. Though if you had told him that he wrote +Burlesque better than Byron, he would have believed you +implicitly. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mounteney, Miss Ling's ladylike gentleman, proved +to be a tall, stout, elderly, rather depressed individual, +whose gold-rimmed glasses, attached to a broad black +ribbon, sat a little crookedly upon a high, pink Roman nose. +His light blue eyes were over-tried and rather watery, his +hair had come off at the top, leaving his crown bald and +shiny; his customary attire was a rather seedy black +frock-coat, a drab vest with pearl buttons, and rather baggy +brown trousers, and he wore turned-down collars and black +ribbon neckties, and displayed onyx studs and links in a +carefully preserved shirt. Pieces of paper protected his +cuffs, invariably covered with memoranda written in +violet-ink-pencil, referring to the most delicate and confidential +affairs. +</p> + +<p> +For Mr. Mounteney, under the <i>nom de guerre</i> of "Araminta," +edited the "Happiness, Health, and Beauty" column +of that fashionable feminine monthly, the <i>Ladies' +Mentor</i>, into whose bureau, according to Mr. Mounteney, a +vast correspondence,—penned by the wives and daughters +of what Mr. Mounteney termed the Flower of Britain's +Nobility and Gentry, as by their governesses and maids, +and the wives and daughters of their butchers, bakers, and +candlestick-makers,—continually flowed. Signing +themselves by fancy names, these confiding ones would put +questions concerning matters of the toilette and so forth, +the Answers to which interrogations, with the pseudonyms +prefixed, were inserted month by month. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"<i>Little Fairy</i>.—A lady who weighs fourteen stone +need not necessarily give up waltzing. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"<i>Ruby</i>.—We should recommend you to powder it. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"<i>Ravenlocks</i>.—To stand in the sun too soon after +applying is prejudicial to a successful result. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"<i>Peri</i>.—Try peppermint." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Or the bosom of Araminta, guarded by the onyx studs +and the black pince-nez ribbon, would be made, according +to its owner, the receptacle of confidences calculated, if +revealed, to convulse Society to its core. Thus burdened +with secrets, it weighed heavily on Mr. Mounteney. When +lachrymose with gin-and-water, to which cooling beverage +he was rather addicted, he would with tears deplore the +wreck of a once noble constitution, caused by reason of +emotional strain. But he never gave any of his +correspondents away. And being of a kindly disposition, he +induced the Editor of the <i>Ladies' Mentor</i> to read and +accept a brief, mildly-humorous article, descriptive of a +German ladies' cake-and-coffee party; the details having +been long ago previously supplied by a fellow-student at +Schwärz-Brettingen, and worked up by P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +Several other social paragraphs by the same hand found +their way, thanks to Mr. Ticking's introduction, into the +columns of the <i>Islington Excelsior</i>. In recognition, +P. C. Breagh, producing pairs of basket-hilted swords, pads, +cravats and goggles from one of the cases rescued from +the hotel manager, instructed Mr. Ticking in the noble +art of fence. +</p> + +<p> +Their thrusts, lunges and stampings seriously threatening +the stability of the third-floor landing, these combats +were transferred to the back-yard in fine weather, and +permitted in the kitchen when it was wet. And Mr. Ticking, +though he never mastered the science of the <i>schläger</i>, +inducted P. C. Breagh into the mysteries of boating and +velocipeding,—having a cutter-rigged Thames sailing-boat +in housing near Chelsea Bridge Stairs, and a huge-wheeled +bone-shaker of the prevailing type stowed away in a +decrepit conservatory adjoining the bathroom on Miss Ling's +second floor. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mounteney could not be prevailed upon to handle +what he stigmatized as "deadly weapons," or to risk his +person on the whirling wheel, while even fresh-water +boating caused him to suffer from symptoms not distantly +resembling those peculiar to the malady of the ocean. +But, flabby as the ladylike gentleman appeared, he was a +vigorous and tireless pedestrian, able to reduce Mr. Ticking, +who was not unhandy in the usage of his feet, into a +human pulp, and walk Mr. Knewbit, who had reason to +pride himself upon his powers of locomotion, completely +off his legs. +</p> + +<p> +Expeditions were made to Addiscombe, in the green +swelling Surrey country, where the once famous East India +College was founded in 1812, and sold and dismantled in +1858 upon the transfer of the Company to the Crown. Of +the 3,600 cadets who were trained here, the names of +Lawrence, Napier, Durand, and Roberts are written upon the +rolls in letters of undimming gold. Or to Sydenham with +its acres of glittering crystal, its matchless fountains, and +the view from the North Tower, extending over six counties +and compassing the whole course of the Thames. Or +to Ascot, with its stretches of sandy heathland, its noble +racecourse and its woods of fir and birch, would the lady-like +gentleman, accompanied by one or the other or both +of his young friends, betake himself upon a highday or a +holiday, when duchesses ceased from troubling and +milliners were at rest. Or they would make for Hampton +Court or Bushey Park, or the ancient manor of Cheshunt, +or to Chigwell, immortalized by Dickens, where in the +oak-wainscoted dining-room of the King's Head, such rare +refreshment of cold beef and salad, apple pie and Stilton +cheese could be had, and washed down by the soundest and +brightest of ales; then even "Araminta" was tempted to +forget the crushing responsibilities inseparable from the +delicate position of adviser upon Health, Happiness, and +Beauty to the feminine flower of England's nobility and +gentry, and eat and drink like a navvy free from care. +</p> + +<p> +And upon the return of the three wearied pedestrians +from these excursions, there would be a cheery supper in +Mr. Ticking's room, or in Mr. Mounteney's, or, best of all, +in Miss Ling's clean and comfortable kitchen, with more +beer and more tobacco,—though by reason of a digestion +impaired by the continual wear and tear of his fair clients' +confidences, or by excessive indulgence in tea, Mr. Mounteney +restricted himself to the mildest of Turkish +cigarettes. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Knewbit, who reveled in the growing popularity of +his <i>protégé</i>, though he might in secret have shaken his head +over the articles and paragraphs published in the <i>Ladies' +Mentor</i> and the <i>Islington Excelsior</i>, learned very willingly +to whistle a beer-waltz, knocking the bottom of his tumbler +on the table in time to the tune; to say "<i>Prosit</i>" when he +drank, and vocally unite in the final melodic outburst of: +"<i>O jerum, jerum, jerum, jerum, la la la!</i>" In which +historic and legendary burden Miss Ling would also join, and +laugh until the tears ran down. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Of the junior-staff room of the <i>Early Wire</i>, a bare, gaunt +place, lighted by three seldom-washed windows looking on +a sooty yard, or by six flaring gas-jets by night or in foggy +weather, Carolan was, by the interest of Mr. Ticking, one +day made free. Names of power were cut with penknives +on the ink-splashed deal tables, and the bottoms of the +cane-seated chairs had given way under the weight of +personalities now famous, men who were paid for a single +article as much as Ticking earned in a year. +</p> + +<p> +And thus P. C. Breagh joined the gallant company of +the Free Lances of Fleet Street, and very soon had its +offices and eating-houses, its haunts and traditions by heart. +What demi-gods walked upon those historic flags and +cobblestones! Russell, the pioneer and King of War +Correspondents, and Simpson of Crimean fame, whose +war-sketches for the <i>Illustrated London News</i> had set England +ablaze in '54-5, and George Augustus Sala, and Macready—long +since retired from the stage in 1870,—the veteran +Charles Mathews and Byron of burlesque fame, and +Bulwer Lytton, and Tennyson and Browning, and Planche +and Edmund Yates, and genial, handsome Tom Robertson, +who was to die, with his laurels green upon him, in another +year. All these were pointed out to the young man, with +certain places rendered for ever sacred by the footsteps of +Dickens and Thackeray, and other of the Immortals who +have passed beyond these voices into peace. +</p> + +<p> +And into the world of Music and the Drama, our fortunate +youth, by virtue of his initiation into the cheery +brotherhood of Pressmen, was now admitted. There were free +admissions for Popular Concerts where one could hear +Professor Burnett and Signor Piatti play the piano and +violoncello, and Santley most gloriously sing, and Sims +Reeves deliver Beethoven's incomparable "Adelaida" with +that splendor of voice and style that will never be +surpassed. The Christy Minstrels of St. James's Hall +beguiled our hero of a stealthy tear or two, and made him +roar with laughter; and Blanchard's Drury Lane +Pantomime of "Beauty and the Beast," with Kate Santley as +Azalea, the Peri, and Miss Vokes as the lovely Zemira, was +an eye-opener to a youth who had witnessed only provincial +productions in his native country, and half a dozen +performances of Schiller's "Robbers," "Don Carlos," and +"The Stranger" of Kotzebu as given by a stock-company +of Bavarian actors at the Theater of Schwärz-Brettingen. +</p> + +<p> +Also our hero was privileged to witness the performances +of Mrs. Wood as Miss Hardcastle in "She Stoops to +Conquer," and afterwards in the extravaganza of "La Belle +Sauvage," at the St. James's Theater, and J. S. Clarke, +then drawing the town with "Amongst the Breakers" +at the Strand. +</p> + +<p> +At the Olympic, Patti Josephs was touching the hearts +of the British Public as Little Em'ly, Rowe was tickling +people to laughter with the unctuosities and impecuniosities +of Micawber, a certain Mr. Henry Irving was holding +his audiences spellbound with the sardonic slyness and +hypocritical cunning displayed in his performance of Uriah +Heep, and beautiful Mrs. Rousby was breaking hearts at +the Queen's Theater. And evenings spent with these, or +with Professor Pepper at the Polytechnic, or the German +Reeds, who were playing Gilbert and Sullivan's little +operas, and "Cox and Box" at the Gallery of Illustration,—were +crowned by suppers in the grill-room of "The +Albion" in Drury Lane, or at Evan's at the north-west +corner of Covent Garden. And these were merry times +and merry mimes, my masters, and we shall not look upon +their like again. +</p> + +<p> +And in the environment I have endeavored to depict, +and with the associates I have tried to delineate, and with +the pleasant hum and swirl of this new life setting the tune +for his young pulses and mingling with his blood, Carolan's +temperament recovered its elasticity, and his character +developed apace. The magic gift of sympathy found in +the gutter on that night of homeless, hungry wandering +was his now, never to be lost or alienated. He had learned +much when he had discovered how to fit himself inside the +ginger kitten's ragged skin. +</p> + +<p> +The bond of brotherhood, established between a shaggy-haired +boy and all other created beings capable of joy and +susceptible to suffering, would hold unbroken through all +the years to come. We are aware that the confidence of +Mr. Knewbit had been won that morning on Waterloo Bridge, +and we have heard Miss Ling (not ordinarily given to +broach the subject of the faithless underbutler) tell him +in her simple way of the desertion that had left her kind +heart empty and sore. We may know also that Mr. Ticking +revealed, with the fact of the existence of the invalid +mother resident at Brixton, the secret that he was beloved +by a certain Annie, the orphan daughter of a deceased +relative, who lived with the old lady as housekeeper and +nurse. Annie, it seemed, had a little fortune of her own, +and was so kind, so clever and so charming, that only the +indiscreetly-evident anxiety of Ticking's mother to bring +about a match, and the too plainly manifested willingness +of Annie to accept the hand of Mr. Ticking, were it +offered—held him back from becoming an engaged man. As it +was, he spoke, in somber whispers, of an amatory entanglement +with a splendid creature, not good as Annie was good, +but possessing the beauty in whose baleful luster honest +prettiness pales, and the charm whose sorcery kills the +conscience, and wakens the scorching desires of man. +</p> + +<p> +"Passion!—there's no going against that, you know!" +he would say, wagging his head dismally, "and if ever you +see Leah, you'll understand." +</p> + +<p> +But when P. C. Breagh did see Leah, who presided over +the gaudy necktie and imitation gold cuff-link department +at an East Strand hosier's, he failed to understand at all. +She had big burnt-out dusky-brown eyes and loops of coarse +black hair, and a big bust and a tiny waist with a gilt +dog-collar belt about it. Ticking had paid for the belt +when he had taken her to the Crystal Palace, and she had +admired the trinket on one of the fancy stalls in the +French Court next the Great Concert Hall. And there +had been a display of fireworks on the Terrace, and in the +dark interval between two set-pieces there had been a +mutual declaration; and the moth Ticking had singed his +wings in the flame of illicit passion, and would return to +flutter about the candle, he supposed, until he met his +doom. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Mounteney spoke of Passion as well as Mr. Ticking, +but in the exhausted accents of a world-weary cynic who +had drunk of the cup to satiety. He knew so much of +women, thanks to "Araminta," that he had nothing more +to learn. Yet when a pert and pretty waitress, who served +the table at which he commonly lunched at a Fleet Street +chop-house, proved ungrateful after six months of extra +tips, trips to Kew and Rosherville Gardens and innumerable +theater tickets, and told Mr. Mounteney in the plainest +terms that he was "too bow-windowy in figure for a +beau," and that she preferred young swells on the Stock +Exchange to elderly newspaper gents, Mounteney—the +expressed preference having been illustrated by +demonstration,—was tragically comic in his manifestations of +wounded vanity, quite funnily touching in his display of +jealousy and despair. For a whole week following the +betrayal his pale blue eyes were suffused with tears, his +Roman nose was red, and his light hair stood up on end, +where his despairing fingers had rumpled it. His black +ribbon necktie straggled untied over a limp shirt-front, the +violet-ink-pencil memoranda on his paper cuffs had merged +into blotches and blurs. +</p> + +<p> +Then suddenly his dismal countenance recovered its mild +placidity, his necktie was tied, his hair lay once more in +smoothly brushed streaks across his shining crown. His +nose paled, his eyes reverted to their purely normal +wateriness. It seemed that nestling amid the grasses at the +feet of one who had plucked the fairest flowers that bloom +in the garden of Passion and sickened of their cloying +perfume and dazzling hues, the disillusioned Mounteney +had discovered a simple violet, and that the humble sweetness +and modest beauty of this shrinking blossom had +refreshed his jaded senses and solaced his wearied mind. +</p> + +<p> +In terms less obscure, Mr. Ticking explained that the +humble violet was a certain Miss Rooper, who for a monthly +salary attended at the office of the <i>Ladies' Mentor</i> thrice +a week to assist in the Herculean task of opening the letters +addressed to "Araminta"—take down in shorthand her +representative's replies to the interrogations therein +contained—make notes of queries impossible to answer on the +spot, and ferret out the answers by application at such +leading centers of information as the Reading-room of +the British Museum, Heralds' College, the Zoological +Gardens, the Doctors' Commons Will Office, Marshall and +Snelgrove's, Whiteley's, Parkins and Gotto's, Twinings', +the Burlington Arcade, Scotland Yard, and the Coöperative +Stores. Ticking added that for years Miss Rooper +had brought her luncheon-sandwiches to the office in a +velvet reticule, and consumed them under cover of the lid of +her desk, but that now, the lady being regularly engaged to +Mr. Mounteney, he supposed the couple would go out to +"Araminta's" usual ordinary arm-in-arm. It would be +a jolly lark, he added, if Mounteney took his betrothed to +his customary table, as Flossie had already been thrown +over by the young jobber from Capel Court. +</p> + +<p> +And when P. C. Breagh saw Flossie, who owned a turned-up +nose (I quote Mr. Ticking) that you might have hung +your hat on, and when he was introduced to Miss Rooper, +who was on the shady side of thirty-five and had a long +sagacious equine face, and boasted a fringe and chignon +and waterfall of black hair as coarse as the mane of a +Shetland pony, and was bridled with bands of red velvet, +as the pony might have been,—and caparisoned with leather +belts and strappings garnished with steel rivets, and tossed +her head when she was coquettish, and whinnied when she +laughed, and looked less like a modest violet than anything +else you could have imagined, he wondered very much. +For Mr. Mounteney had spoken of Passion in connection +with the faithless Flossie, and by the latest bulletins his +sentiment for Miss Rooper had developed into Passion of +the strictly honorable kind. +</p> + +<p> +Could the passion on which Shakespeare had strung the +pearls and rubies of Romeo and Juliet, and to which the +lyre of Keats throbbed out the deathless music of +"Endymion" have anything in common with the loves of Ticking +and Leah, or the emotion wakened in the bosom of +Mr. Mounteney by Flossie and Miss Rooper? +</p> + +<p> +Could the emotion of which Carolan himself was conscious, +the sudden, fierce, stinging temptation born of the +bold glance of a pair of painted eyes, ogling and laughing +from under a clipped fringe and a tilted hat, partake of +the nature, be worthy of the designation? For Sin beckoned +sometimes, and the boy would tug at his chain, forged +of links of instilled religion and honor, instinctive +cleanliness and a sensitive, secret shrinking from the purchase of +something that was never meant to be bartered or sold. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +But there were times when, sitting at the rickety but +useful and capacious old davenport in the room from +tenancy of which Miss Morency had been ejected, the pen +would hang idle between the fingers of P. C. Breagh, and +the article commissioned by the benevolent editor of the +Camberwell Clarion or the <i>Islington Excelsior</i>, or the more +ambitious magazine-story that was being written as a bait +to catch a literary reputation,—and would return as surely +as the swallow of the previous summer, from the editorial +offices of Blackwood's, or the <i>Cornhill</i>, or even +<i>Tinsley's</i>—would hang fire. +</p> + +<p> +With his elbows on the blotting-pad, exposing to view +the shiny places on the right-hand cuff of the old serge +jacket, and his eyes vaguely staring at the strip of London +sky seen above the chimney-pots of Bernard Street, +P. C. Breagh would fall into a brown study, a dreamy reverie +of the kind to which hopeful Youth is prone. +</p> + +<p> +The outer angles of the eyebrows would lift, giving an +eager, wistful look to the gray eyes that had specks of +brown and golden dust in them, the nostrils of the short, +determined nose would expand as though in imagination +they were inhaling some rare, strange, delicate fragrance,—the +upper lip would lift at the corners, showing the canines +of the upper jaw—a mouth of this kind can be fierce, and +yet you have an example of it in the Laughing Faun. +</p> + +<p> +A delicate, rushing sweetness would envelop, enter and +possess him, body and brain and mind and soul, and his +heart would beat fiercely for a minute or so, and then not +seem to beat at all; and he would scarcely be able to breathe +for the strange new joy, and the subtle, mysterious sense +of being drawn to and mingled with the being of another, +some one wholly and unutterably beloved and dear.... +</p> + +<p> +A touch, light as a flower, would visit his forehead, and +a voice, small and silvery-clear, and with a liquid tremble +in it that might have been mirth or shyness, would sound +in his ears again. He would sigh and lean back, shutting +his eyes, and feel the slight yet firm support of the delicate +limbs and slender body, and the small soft hand would stir +and flutter in his palm like a captured bird, and he would +find himself painting in the choicest colors of his mental +palette upon the background of London sky or neutral-tinted +wall-paper—a face that was not in the least like +Krimhilde-Brünhilde's. And then he would frown, and +shake himself as a red setter might have done, plunging +back out of dripping sedges at the sound of its master's +whistle, and hurl himself savagely upon the pile of blank +pages before him, and never pause again until the daily +task was done. Or—supposing this retrospective mood +to have seized him at the ending of his stint of labor, he +would set his teeth, summon up the image of his colossal +beloved, and savagely add to her inches all that she had lost +since his meeting with the frozen Infanta at the Convent, +Kensington Square. For the truth must be told, and the +painful fact faced,—that since that day the heroic Ideal of +P. C. Breagh had been steadily shrinking; and the hour +was coming when her golden tresses were to darken to the +black-brown hue of rain-soaked oak leaves in Winter,—when +her roseate cheeks were to blanch to the hue of old +ivory, when her towering stature and robust limbs were to +dwindle to the slender shape and delicate extremities of an +elfin maiden's, and her late worshiper was shamelessly to +dote upon the change. +</p> + +<p> +But had this been foretold to P. C. Breagh, he would +have scouted the prophet as an impostor, and laughed the +prophecy to scorn. Came a day, when, fastidiously +groomed, and dressed in well-cut, carefully chosen clothes, +he called upon Monica at the Convent, this time to apprize +her of the loss of his inheritance, and to assure her of his +present well-being, despite the change in his prospects +brought about by the defalcations of Mustey and Son. +</p> + +<p> +He had not intended to ask after the Infanta; the query +slipped out quite accidentally. But when Monica returned +that by the latest advice received from France, the health +of Mademoiselle Bayard might be pronounced excellent, +the querist was conscious of a tightness within his collar, +and a sudden rush of blood reddened him to the hair as +his sister added: +</p> + +<p> +"She may be 'Madame' and not 'Mademoiselle' to-day, +since what date is uncertain. For her marriage was to +take place almost instantly on her return to Paris, she +told us. Her father—he is Colonel of the 777th Mounted +Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard—had set his heart on +this—she worships him—she would consent to any sacrifice—would +let herself be cut to pieces if he but wished it. +Dear Juliette!" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh got out, with difficulty, "Then—but—look +here, doesn't she love the fellow?" +</p> + +<p> +The word last but three got out with difficulty. His +throat was hurt by its passage. He gulped as he stared +at Monica, moistening his dry lips. +</p> + +<p> +"The fellow." Her eyes widened. "You don't call +the Colonel—that?..." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course not. I referred to the young lady's husband. +Actual or yet expectant." He boggled horribly in the +attempt to seem natural and at ease. "Why should it be +a sacrifice to obey her father—what has the—the affair got +in common with cutting to pieces if she—if she——" +</p> + +<p> +He stuck there. Monica, of all Juliette's friends alone +held worthy to share the aching secret, had not been told, +for her own peace of mind. Yet, loving much, she had seen +much. Now she sat silent. But a little line of distress +came between her placid eyebrows, and tears were gathering +behind the beautiful, tender eyes, in readiness to fall +when next they might unseen. Carolan went on, not +looking at her: +</p> + +<p> +"She said he was a noble gentleman,—master of the +sword, and brave as a lion. That doesn't suggest that +she—would think herself sacrificed in marrying him?" +</p> + +<p> +A sigh heaved Monica's breast and exhaled unnoticed. +He mumbled with a hangdog grace: +</p> + +<p> +"Could you, when you happen to write, just give her +a message? Don't ask what it means—it has to do with +something we spoke of here the other day when you were +out of the room." +</p> + +<p> +His eyes sought one particular square in the center of +the beeswaxed parquet, where he had sat leaning against +the Infanta's knees. +</p> + +<p> +"Tell her that the man—a fellow-student of mine at +Schwärz-Brettingen—realized not long after the—the +girl—she will remember the girl's name!—after the girl had +made the offer—she will not have forgotten what that +was!—from how kind and generous a heart it came. And she +will believe—she must believe!—that he has loathed +himself heartily for the brutal way in which he answered her. +And he entreats her to forgive, and he thanks her with +all——" +</p> + +<p> +Something splashed upon the clenched hand with which +he had unconsciously emphasized his utterance. He wiped +off the drop furtively, and said, still not looking at Monica, +but scowling at that particular square in the middle of the +parquet: +</p> + +<p> +"With all his heart! You won't forget?" +</p> + +<p> +He made her promise it, and left her wondering. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap18"></a></p> + +<h3> +XVIII +</h3> + +<p> +Being a daughter of France, and a Parisienne to the +finger-tips, it could not be that the return to Paris, delightful +capital where all the brilliancy, <i>esprit</i>, good taste, and +refinement of modern life were concentrated, should fail to +rejoice the heart of Mademoiselle de Bayard. Her +characteristic quality of humor, a trait not derived from the +paternal strain, made her omit three items from the list +of purchases commanded by M. le Colonel. To supply +oneself beforehand with a complete bridal costume in the +view of immediate union with a husband never to one's +knowledge previously beheld, could anything be more +outrageously impossible! Juliette knew that she would titter +hysterically behind the stately backs of the powdered and +frock-coated gentlemen who parade Departments, and +probably laugh to madness in the faces of the powdered +and frizzled young ladies who should seek to minister to +her needs. +</p> + +<p> +And so, though the fresh and charming toilettes of the +evening, the promenade and the theater, with the suitable +lingerie, were added to Juliette's wardrobe, the nuptial +robe, crown, and veil remained unbought. +</p> + +<p> +Paris, a seething pot since the Auteuil assassination +early in that January, was in a state of ebullition upon +Juliette's return. Passing in a <i>fiacre</i> along the Champs +Élysées, the progress of Mademoiselle's hired vehicle was +stopped. A regiment of mounted Chasseurs and a detachment +of the Guides blocked the Avenue to stem the black +torrents of people rolling toward Neuilly, to attend the +funeral of the murdered journalist Victor Noir. The +National Guards occupied the Place de la Concorde, and +in front of the Corps Législatif was a battalion of infantry, +besides a force of <i>sergents de ville</i>. Yet by other +thoroughfares inky streams of men and women poured steadily +nor'-west, and a vast concourse packed the Passage +Massena, where the dead man had lived, and when his coffin +was brought out, weeping friends unharnessed the bony +black horses from the shabby hearse, and six of them, +hugging the pole, drew it to the Cemetery. +</p> + +<p> +But no speeches were made, though an instant previous +to the lowering of the coffin a disheveled, red-eyed woman +leaped upon the plinth of a memorial column that neighbored +the grave dug in the Jewish quarter of the Cemetery, +and shrieked: +</p> + +<p> +"He was only twenty-two, and was to have been married +in a few days! Vengeance upon the nephew of the Corsican +wild boar! Death to the murderer Bonaparte and all +his bloody race!..." +</p> + +<p> +The rest was lost in the strangled whoopings of hysteria. +But upon the ten thousand faces that had turned her way +a crimson glow was thrown, as though, the sun of Imperial +glory were indeed about to set, and a yell went up that +might have reached the ears of the princely homicide +lodged in the Conciergerie by order of his Imperial +relative, pending that extravagant farce of the Tribunal of +Tours. There was a rush of police, and the woman was +pulled down and spirited away, it is said, by Revolutionists! +But the <i>Marseillaise</i> had already cried more loudly +than the red-eyed woman, and had been heard to greater +effect. Indeed, upon the previous day M. Rochefort had +attended the tribune of the Corps Législatif, and protested +in the name of the people against the decree ordering for +the trial of the noble criminal a Special High Court of +Justice composed of Judges notoriously amenable to +Imperial influence;—proceeding to draw between Bonapartes +and Borgias some extremely uncomplimentary parallels. +</p> + +<p> +The newspaper was seized upon the morning of the +interment at Neuilly, and its editor and proprietor served on +behalf of the Crown with a writ of prosecution for libel, +by the special authorization of the Corps Législatif. Thus +M. Rochefort was rendered too late for the ceremony. +But one of the huge crowds of assistant mourners, rolling +back upon Paris, encountered him, in a hackney cab on +one of the boulevards, and the human torrent surging and +eddying about the vehicle, turned it round; and so rolled +and roared with it and its occupant in triumph to his home. +</p> + +<p> +The savage faces, the sinister cries, the significant tokens +of popular disaffection and incipient revolt affected +Mademoiselle Bayard but little, it must be owned. Her +dear Parisians were for some reason boiling over. How +many times had she not beheld them in a state of ebullition? +French blood is easily heated, see you well! A +little patience and the people would quiet down. +</p> + +<p> +In the eyes of Juliette and how many other daughters of +the Empire, the personality of the stoutish little gentleman +with the heavy sallow face, dull regard, spiky mustache +and dyed brown chin-tuft was invested with an aureole +of semi-divinity. To her as to her sisters, the Emperor +stood for France. +</p> + +<p> +Born nineteen years before in the very month of the +Coup d'État of 1851, what should she know of the betrayals, +treacheries, crimes that had been so many steps in the +ladder leading the man on to success. A tidal wave of +human blood had set him upon the throne of St. Louis; the +Church, first duped, afterward to be shorn by him of +power, had poured her hallowed oils upon his head; titles, +dignities, gold, had streamed from his open hands upon his +supporters; the tradition of the Army that had throned +him was devotion to his name. +</p> + +<p> +And Juliette was a soldier's daughter. How, then, not +reverence the Emperor, from whose ermined purples +Field-Marshal's bâtons, Grand Crosses of the Legion of Honor, +coveted commands, desired steps, constantly dropped. +That the blind, unreasoning support hitherto accorded to +him by the Army was weakening,—that 50,000 private +soldiers' votes would be recorded against him in the +forthcoming <i>plebiscitum</i>,—how was a mere girl to conceive of +this? +</p> + +<p> +That her beloved Paris, transformed by him into the +gayest and most splendid of European capitals, was +tottering on the verge of bankruptcy, she would not have +believed. Had she been told that High Finance is too often +synonymous with knavish trickery, that those who carry +out great civic works may drain treasuries of the national +millions—it would have conveyed nothing to her. You +cannot talk to a school-girl in the shibboleth of the Bourse. +</p> + +<p> +But one sign of the trend of popular resentment etched +itself as by a biting acid on her memory. When the sulky +driver of the ramshackle vehicle pulled up in the Avenue +of the Champs Élysées, in obedience to the upraised +sword-arm and authoritative voice of a lieutenant of mounted +Chasseurs, Juliette, thrilling with girlish delight at the +sight of the dear, familiar uniform, let down the window +and thrust forth her charming head. And at that moment +a party of four equestrians, followed by two grooms in the +Imperial livery, came galloping westward, from the +direction of the Pont Royal. +</p> + +<p> +Pray picture to yourself the congested condition of this +part of the Avenue, the squadron blocking its throat, the +halted cab, and the lengthy queue of phaetons, Americaines, +britzkas, dogcarts, and Victorias, forming up on the left +hand of the road to rear of it, containing ladies old and +young, pretty or plain, accompanied by the males of their +species; while nursemaids pushing babies in perambulators, +elderly gentlemen out for constitutionals, and other +harmless pedestrians, were marshaled on the right, under the +surveillance of imperious policemen, who meddled not at +all with certain isolated clumps of somber-looking persons +dressed in black; broken links of one of the huge processions +of mourners, checked upon their way to the Cemetery +at Neuilly. +</p> + +<p> +There was a stir of interest, and every eye was drawn to +the little cavalcade, previously mentioned, whose leaders, +seeing the barrier of humanity, horseflesh and steel drawn +across the thoroughfare, checked their horses and came +forward at a walk. Military Governor was written large +upon a double-chinned, stiff-necked, gray-mustached and +imperialed personage who bestrode a high-actioned brown +charger, and wore the undress uniform of a General of +Division of the Service of Engineers. When he leaned to +speak in the ear of the slender, brown-haired, blue-eyed +boy who rode upon his right hand, you saw in the wearer +of the glossy silk topper, the accurately cut, single-breasted +black coat and dark gray-strapped trousers—ending in +the daintiest of little polished boots, with gold +spurs—the heir of the Imperial throne of France. +</p> + +<p> +A cocked-hatted, white-plumed Imperial <i>aide-de-camp</i> +in blue-and-gold, and a green-and-silver Palace equerry +followed in attendance, succeeded at a respectful distance +by two grooms in the livery of the Tuileries; and a troop +of the glorious beings known as Cent Gardes came clattering +after, balanced to a hair on their shiny, prancing black +horses, the long white horse-tails streaming from their +polished steel helmets, with tricolored side-plumes and +eagled brass plates, their brass-nutted steel cuirasses +reflecting their lacquered mustaches and the adoring glances +of enamored femininity, their sky-blue tunics with the +scarlet and golden collars, their golden epaulettes and +aiguillettes, their gauntleted gloves of white leather, their +skin-tight breeches of snowy buckskin, their brilliantly polished +boots with huge brass roweled, steel-spiked spurs, glancing +and dancing, clinking and twinkling in the sun. +</p> + +<p> +Ah me! Their morals were doubtful, those mustached +and chin-tufted Antinouses of the Guard, as not only giddy +work-girls and milliners, but fast variety actresses and +frisky ladies of fashion were perfectly aware. But they +were splendid, stately, expensive creatures, and so worthy +to clatter at Imperial heels. +</p> + +<p> +And so gallant was the youthful figure they attended and +guarded; so well-graced the seat upon the spirited English +chestnut, so light the boyish hand upon the mare's snaffle-rein, +so frank and debonair the smile with which he acknowledged +the scanty salutations of a few of the bystanders; +that Juliette's heart flew to him with her eyes, and +there broke from her in a voice so clear and thrilling that +the object of her homage started in his saddle: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Vive le Prince! Vive le Prince Impérial!</i>" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The French are tender to youth and beauty, accessible +to sentiment, lovers of Romance. Other voices joined in +the cry, hats not ominously furbished with crape were +lifted in salutation; a charming dignity was manifested +in the boy's reception of these tokens of good-will. +</p> + +<p> +You can conceive the picture, set in the beautiful +scenery of the Champs Élysées, to the roll of carriages in +the great avenues, the glint of wintry sunshine on still or +leaping water, the nip of keen sweet air, perfumed with +the scent of damp grass and dead leaves and wood-smoke. +Delicate tracery of branches as yet bare, interspersed with +the hardy green of pines, laurels, and larches against a +sky pale blue as harebell, streaked with broad floating +scarves of gray-white vapor, made a background for the +green-jacketed, red-breeched Chasseurs on their bony, +brown horses,—for the knots of strollers, curious or +contemptuous,—for the broken masses of the crowd of +would-be demonstrators, arrested in their progress by the +blocking of the way. In the right foreground suppose the slim +young Napoleon sitting easily on the fidgety, fretful +chestnut,—the Military General balanced on his big champing +charger,—the blue-and-gold aide and the green-and-silver +equerry, the grooms and the escort of Cent Gardes looking +decorously between the ears of their well-trained, shining +beasts. To the left place the debilitated <i>fiacre</i> with its +weary Rosinante and red-nosed sulky Jehu, and leaning +from the open window of the vehicle—Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps you can see her, a little toque of Persian lambskin, +with a blue wing in it, on her high-piled hair,—with a +coquettish jacket of corduroy-velvet of the shade known +in the spring of that year as Bismarck gray,—trimmed with +the lambskin, fitting close to her slender shape. She wore +a plain black silk skirt looped high over a vivid red cloth +petticoat—it was a fashionable style of costume that +year—and very much worn. A bright rose bloomed in each +cheek, pale as she was ordinarily; and her black brows +were spread and lifted joyously, and her eyes shone blue +as sapphires in contrast with a little knot of violets at her +breast and the big bunch held in her little gray-gloved +hand. And with a very fair aim she threw the latter so +that the bundle of wet fragrance lightly hit the saddleflap +close to the knee of the Imperial stripling, and behind the +shoulder of the swerving chestnut, as she cried again: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Vive le Prince Impérial!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +The boy bowed to her, blushing at her beauty and her +loyal enthusiasm,—the equerry, slimmest of the officers in +attendance, dismounted and picked up the flowers. A +trumpet sounded, a short, sharp order was given, there +was a trampling of hoofs and a clinking of bridles as the +files wheeled right and left, leaving a broad road open +between a double rank of saluting troopers, and the Prince +with his Governor and following rode down this open vista +and cantered away by route of the Avenue de l'Impératrice, +in the direction of the Bois de Boulogne. +</p> + +<p> +The boy held in his whip-hand the bunch of violets +handed him by the equerry. Only a little grayish sand +clung to some of the dark, shining leaves. He sniffed +their fragrance and glanced back as the trumpet rang out +behind them, and the Avenue was once more blocked with +mounted Chasseurs. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap19"></a></p> + +<h3> +XIX +</h3> + +<p> +He was fourteen, delicate and rather backward for his +age, owing to the inevitable drawbacks of his environment. +Since the salvo of a hundred-and-one guns announcing the +birth of a Prince Imperial had crashed from the battery +of the Esplanade of the Invalides, to be echoed from every +fortress throughout the Empire; and bells had pealed from +every steeple, flags had broached from every staff-head, +and dusk-fall had seen every city, town, or village, ablaze +with illumination,—had he not been environed with +precautions, lapped in luxury? Where another baby would +have slumbered in a wicker bassinette, the child of France +cried in a cradle of artistic goldsmithery. And the three +great official bodies of the State, the Delegates from all +the constituted Authorities paid homage. And they +enrolled him in the First Regiment of Grenadiers of the +Imperial Guard on the day of his birth, and pinned the +Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor on his bib when he +was forty-eight hours old. +</p> + +<p> +To gratify the paternal ambition of a father who had +dreaded the stigma of childlessness, this graft of his race +was to be forced into precocious maturity. You might +have seen the little creature at six months of age strapped +in a cane chair-saddle upon the back of a Shetland pony. +At five he could ride a military charger. Dressed in the +white-faced blue uniform of the First Grenadiers of the +Guard, his tiny face hidden in a huge fur shako with a +white plume and <i>galons</i> and a huge brass-eagled fore-plate, +you saw him with the Emperor at Imperial Reviews. +</p> + +<p> +It is uncertain whether he was ever soothed to sleep +with the French equivalent of the rhyme of Baby Bunting, +whether he ever learned of the Archer who shot at a frog, +or was thrilled by the adventures of Jack the Giant Killer. +We know that the Napoleonic tradition was his ABC, the +Third Empire his primer. At the time of the war with +Italy, he being then some three years of age, his utterances +on the subject were quoted in the daily papers as miracles +of wisdom—marvels of acumen. His seventh birthday +had been celebrated by the production of a Military +Spectacle, in the course of which real cannon were fired and +real military evolutions performed upon the stage. His +great-uncle on a white horse, in the little cocked hat and +gray capote of History, was the hero, you may be sure; +and three hundred soldiers' sons of his own age filled the +dress circle, stalls and upper tiers. One likes the pretty +story of the fair-haired child going down among these +little comrades to distribute smiles and bonbons. One can +understand the father's pride in the laborious pot-hooks +and hangers that compliment him upon the taking of +Mexico—word of ill omen in Imperialist ears!—and the +scrawled postscript that tells how his horse kicked at +exercise that morning, but that he sat tight and did not +fall. It was not for a long, long time to dawn upon the +expanding mind behind the beautiful, bright blue eyes, +that the Throne Imperial of France was a saddle insecurely +girthed upon a kicking charger, and that the paternal +horsemanship had been, and frequently was severely taxed +in the effort to stick on. +</p> + +<p> +You may imagine the query, Why?—forming in the +mind of seven years. Perhaps you see him in his +lace-collared, belted blouse and wide Breton breeches of black +velvet, scarlet silk stockings and buckled shoes, curled up +upon the blue-and-golden cushion of the gilded chair of +State upon the three-step daïs in the Throne Boom of the +Tuileries, where, while their Imperial Majesties dined, he +loved to play hide-and-seek with his tutor and an <i>aide-de-camp</i> +or so; and wearied with play, conceive him dreaming +under the gorgeous crimson velvet canopy powdered with +golden N's and symbolical bees, edged with laurel leaves +of beaten gold, and surmounted by a great golden eagle, +perched with outstretched wings upon a laurel Crown. +</p> + +<p> +Under the brooding wings of the Eagle on the Crown +this child of the Empire wondered about many things.... +Did any discovery connected with the peculiar duties +devolving upon the Cent Gardes and the Tuileries Police +ever make the bright young head toss restlessly on its pillow +of down? For he must one day have learned that noiseless +footsteps patroled the corridors, that observant eyes +twinkled at every keyhole—that sharp ears were listening +at every chink for suspicious sounds not only by night, +for the terror that walketh in the noonday is the peculiar +bugbear of Emperors and Kings and Presidents. +</p> + +<p> +One may be very sure that long ere another seven years +had browned the fair hair, he was familiar with the fact +that the guardian angels of M. Hyrvoix and M. Legrange +kept unsleeping watch over the personal safety of his +father, his mother, and himself. That officials, +functionaries, ladies of the Court, and lackeys, male and female, +were maintained under constant and vigilant surveillance. +That there were even Police to watch the Police who kept +the Police under observation. That precautions of a +peculiarly special and delicate nature were observed with +regard to the food prepared in the Imperial Kitchens and +the wine that came from the Imperial Cellars, lest deadly +poison should be mingled therein by those who did not +love the name of Bonaparte. +</p> + +<p> +He learned, next,—perhaps the knowledge floated in the +air he breathed like some strange pollen, or was realized +from certain experiences garnered during Imperial +Progresses, Distributions of Awards, Opening Ceremonies, and +other public Functions,—that there were many of these +naughty people, who, while the soldiers and certain of the +townsfolk in the streets cried "<i>Vive l'Empereur!</i>" "<i>Vive +l'Impératrice!</i>" and "<i>Vive le Prince Impérial!</i>" remained +silent even though they uncovered, and a vast number +who not only did not cheer, but kept their hats on, and +sometimes hissed. Following, came the shocking discovery +that there existed a party of extremists who were not +content with being rude and making ugly noises, but had +even tried—and tried more than once—to kill the Emperor.... +</p> + +<p> +"<i>To kill papa, who is so good to me! ...</i>" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +In a glass case in the Empress's cabinet were preserved +the crush-hat and the cloak worn by the Emperor on the +night of Orsini's attempt outside the Opera, and damaged +by a splinter from one of the exploding bombs. Perhaps +that glass case now yielded up its sinister secret to the +curious questionings of a child. +</p> + +<p> +The discovery that this father, so indulgent, so tender, +and so much beloved, should be the object of such destroying +hate as was cherished by these nameless men was +terrible. You may go farther into the thing, and suppose +its breaking in upon him presently that many thousands +of his father's subjects, not criminals or murderers, but +rather estimable persons than otherwise, thrilled with +something else than tenderness at the mention of the +paternal name, and that the Empire, which had hitherto +signified for him the adamantine hub on which rests the +pivot of this spinning world of ours—was not as solidly +founded as his pedagogues had taught him. That the +Army, the Peasantry, certain of the Nobility—not of the +Ancient Régime—and a section of the Bourgeoisie +supported it; but that by the educated middle-class, and by +the intellectual, professional and working-classes it was +held in abomination—execrated and detested; hated with +a bitterness that intensified from day to day. +</p> + +<p> +The cat came out of the bag a full-grown tiger. Revelations, +discoveries, succeeded one another. Disillusions came +crowding thick and fast. When it was discovered that he +was backward for his age, and the question of a new +private tutor was being discussed, he had asked his +Governor: +</p> + +<p> +"Could I not go to a day-school like Corvisart and +Fleury and the Labédoyère boys?" +</p> + +<p> +"Impossible, Monseigneur!" was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +He urged: +</p> + +<p> +"But, <i>mon cher Général</i>, you answer that to so many +questions. Pray, this time explain why?" +</p> + +<p> +Horribly nonplussed, the military governor stammered: +</p> + +<p> +"The heir to an Imperial Throne could not be sent twice +daily to a day-school. Not to be dreamed of! Such an +innovation would be the signal for fresh insults, +provocation of new perils.... Never could it be allowed!" +</p> + +<p> +The boy's were rather dreamy eyes, under the silken +plume of hair, chestnut-brown like his beautiful mother's. +They were proud eyes, too, when they had flashed at the +word "insult." And brave, for mention of "perils" only +made them smile. He said thoughtfully that morning, +leaning his elbow on an unfinished Latin exercise that lay +on the table in the window of his study at the Château of +St. Cloud: +</p> + +<p> +"An 'innovation' means something that is new. But +Primoli and Joachim Murat are being educated at a French +College, and did not the late King send his sons to be +boarders at the Lycée Henri IV.? Could not I be a boarder +at the Lycée Napoléon, or the Lycée Bonaparte, M. le +Général?" +</p> + +<p> +With labored clearness and a great deal of circumlocution, +M. le Général explained: +</p> + +<p> +"The heir of a Democratic Empire, Monseigneur, and +the sons of a bourgeois Royalty cannot be regarded upon +the same level, or educated upon identical principles. But +a plan has been devised for bringing your Imperial Highness +into actual touch with the life of a public school...." +</p> + +<p> +"How? Tell me quickly, M. le Général!" +</p> + +<p> +The child's delicate face flushed bright red. His eyes +shone. He sat upright in his chair as though a vivifying +breath had passed through him, waiting the reply. It +came.... +</p> + +<p> +"One of the Professors of the Elementary Class has +been engaged to take your Imperial Highness through the +course prescribed for the other pupils. He will attend +daily here, or at the Tuileries." +</p> + +<p> +The child said, with a catching of the breath that was +almost a sob, and a look of bitter disappointment: +</p> + +<p> +"The boys.... Then I shall not know the boys?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, Monseigneur, except by hearsay. The Professor +will tell you their names, ages, and—ah!—leading +characteristics.... You will learn with them, and every week +you will write a composition with them, recapitulating +what you have learned. And that they will hear of you +goes without saying. Frequently, Monseigneur, but +frequently!" +</p> + +<p> +His pupil interrupted: +</p> + +<p> +"They will hear of me, but what is that? They will +never see me—I shall never see them! Never join in their +games—never be just another boy with them! Never be +friends or foes with them—never beat them or +be—— No! I should not like to be beaten at all!" +</p> + +<p> +M. le Général rejoined solemnly: +</p> + +<p> +"That degrading possibility, and graver dangers still, +will be averted by the fact that their Imperial schoolfellow +will not be—ah!—bodily present in their midst, my Prince. +Perhaps your Imperial Highness would like to see the +Professor now?" +</p> + +<p> +And so the Professor came, and from him the boy eagerly +gleaned information about his little schoolfellows of the +Seventh Form. He had friends of his own who came to +him after High Mass on Sundays and on all holidays. But +except Espinasse, they had been chosen for him. The joy +of selection and choice he was not to know. +</p> + +<p> +Thus, many men of mark from different Lycées succeeded +one another in the work-room at the Château and successively +occupied the arm-chair at the end of the leather-covered +table in one of the three windows of his corner +study on the third story of the Pavilion de Flore at the +Tuileries—and when he had been attentive and pleased his +Professor,—his reward would be to hear about the boys.... +Some were noble, splendid fellows, full of cleverness, +energy and spirits; others were funny by reason of sheer +stupidity, or some quaint characteristic or absurd failing +which had gained them nicknames among the rest. A few +were spoken of almost with reverence, as being dowered +with the magical gift of genius: poets, dramatists, novelists, +scientists in embryo, budding naval or military commanders, +explorers who were to plant the Flag of France in +virgin corners of the earth and proudly add them to the +Empire that would one day be his own.... +</p> + +<p> +He met his longed-for boys at last. One likes to picture +him—having once taken a First Place in the Arithmetic +Class—as being permitted to join in the St. Charlemagne +fête of the Lycée Bonaparte. He sat in the center of one +of the long tables, with long vistas of boys, boys, boys +opening out before him whichever way he turned his head. +And he was happy, but for this thing; that though most +of the boys in whom he had been particularly interested +were presented to him, he did not find—as secretly he +hoped to find—the friend of whom he dreamed.... +</p> + +<p> +He tried to be <i>bon camarade</i>; to combine—and he had +a special gift in this—easy good-fellowship with +graciousness. But the boys did not respond as he would have +liked. They stood to attention, and looked him in the +face, and answered, "Yes, Monseigneur! No, Monseigneur!" +boldly, or they shuffled and blinked, and answered, +"No, Monseigneur! Yes, Monseigneur!" mumblingly, and +that was all. +</p> + +<p> +He wished, secretly yet ardently, for brave, proud eyes +to meet his own, and strike out the sacred spark of chaste +and mutual fire that kindles the pure, undying flame of +Friendship's altar. He longed for a grave, melodious voice +to match the noble, youthful face and the fine form of his +chosen friend. He sought a nature to lean upon, which +should be stronger, greater, than his own.... Superior +talents, greater capacities, ambitions to share, successes +to emulate. And he found none. Not a boy here was a +patch upon the shoe of gay, gallant, lovable, merry +Espinasse, who had never come up to his Prince's notion of a +bosom-friend. Could it be that the other self did not exist +anywhere? We turned from that thought, we who were +lonely when we were young. It made the world feel so +big and cold. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The Fête of St. Charlemagne having passed off without +any untoward incident or disagreeable demonstration, an +unhappy inspiration on the part of M. Victor Duruy +prompted the suggestion that the Emperor's heir should +preside at the distribution of prizes for the Concours +Général, and thus be for the second time brought into +sympathetic touch with the intellectual youth of France. +</p> + +<p> +You are to imagine the picture of the stately entry into +the great Hall upon the first-floor of the Sorbonne upon +an evening in mid-August; the reception by the Minister +of Public Instruction, gowned and capped and hooded, +and the Representatives of the Faculties; the ominously +restricted and frigid applause of professors and students, +greeting references made in the Rector's Latin speech to +the presence of an Imperial Prince in the classic groves +of Akademos. +</p> + +<p> +Hostility, hidden behind a mask of frigid indifference, +was to dash down the brittle sham, and show the fierce +eyes of scorn and the livid hue of hatred, and the writhed +lips dumb with reproaches unutterable. Contempt and +mockery were to be conveyed in the small sibilant <i>s'ss</i>! +that rippled from parterre to gallery, and by the +intolerable jeering titter that replied. +</p> + +<p> +Yet all might have passed off tolerably but for the beldam +Fate, who had arranged that the second prize for Greek +translation, a trio of calf-bound, gilt-backed volumes +containing the Works of Thucydides, had—together with a +laurel crown—fallen to Louis-Eugène Cavaignac. +</p> + +<p> +The young voice had not faltered in reading the name +upon the illuminated scroll. What did its owner know +of the Revolutionary soldier, the dauntless foe of +Abd-el-Kader? The Governor-General of Algeria who had been +recalled to Paris to assume the functions of Minister at +War to the Republican Government of 1848. The man +who had upheld the office of Dictator during the period of +terror that had followed the fatal days of June! The +candidate for the Presidency of the Republic who had scorned +to bribe; who had calmly accepted his defeat, and taken +his place in the National Assembly, when Charles Louis +Napoleon Bonaparte, the good citizen, was elected to the +arm-chair upon the tribune, and took the oath of fidelity +to the Republic of France. Who had been imprisoned in +the Fortress of Ham, with other Representatives of the +Left,—his gaoler a commandant named Baudot, whom he +himself had appointed in '48,—his guards the 40th Regiment +of the Line, which had been subject to his orders so +short a time before. +</p> + +<p> +Of his seven fellow-captives between those grim and +oozing walls, one was paralyzed upon release, others were +victims to chronic rheumatism. Cavaignac had lived in +retirement until the elections of June, 1857, when he was +chosen as one of the Deputies for the Seine, in opposition +to an Imperialist candidate. A few weeks later he had +died suddenly, leaving a wife and a son three years old. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +This son, who had half-risen from his place upon the +bench at the sound of the voice that called upon him in the +name that had been his father's, had all these memories +in his flaming eyes. He did not seem to hear the applause +that greeted his triumph; he gazed steadily into the face +of the young Bonaparte, and then looked toward his +mother. And Madame Cavaignac, seated, beautiful and +stern as a matron of old Rome, relentless as Fate, in the +front of the gallery opposite, signed to him with an +imperious gesture to sit down. He obeyed her. And then +round upon round of deafening plaudits made the walls +and rafters of the ancient building shake; and brought +the gray dust of six centuries drifting down upon the black +or brown or golden locks of the hopeful youth of France. +</p> + +<p> +After that episode the heir of the Imperial dignities was +not again brought in contact with the students of the +lyceums. He made no reference to the prize-winner who +had refused the prize tendered by the son of his dead +father's relentless enemy. But the insult had gone to the +quick. Recalling it, he would clench his hands until the +nails dug deep into the delicate flesh, crying inwardly: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh! to be a man full-grown, and avenge that day with +blood!" +</p> + +<p> +At other times he would weep passionately in secret over +the memory of the outrage; for, being of a sensitive, +affectionate and generous nature, it sorely hurt to find +himself the object of such hatred from one in whom,—it seemed +to him, and perhaps indeed it was so!—he might have +found the bosom-friend and <i>alter ego</i>, so keenly longed for +and so eagerly sought. +</p> + +<p> +The bright dark eyes and clear-cut features, the well-set +head and athletic form, the dignified, yet modest bearing +of this boy, so superior to himself in everything but wealth +and station, fitted the niche previously prepared. And +when he fell to dreaming, young Cavaignac's resolute face +and calm, contemptuous bearing were invariably opposed +to his own unslumbering resentment, and finally-conquering +generosity. For, varied as the plot might be, the +<i>dénouement</i> of each little drama would always be the +same. +</p> + +<p> +They would meet, in manhood, upon some field of bloody +battle, during the great war beginning with the French +invasion of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ending with +the conquest of Germany and the annexation of the left +bank of the Rhine. A youth upon the verge of manhood, +the dreamer would have performed such prodigies of valor +in command of his regiment as to justify his appointment +as Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Army of Invasion. +He had not decided what would happen. There would +be a great charge of cavalry led against overwhelming odds, +under a deadly fire of infantry and artillery, by himself. +He would cut down or shoot a gigantic Prussian trooper, +who had wounded a French officer. He would lightly leap +from his own charger—the Arab "<i>Selim</i>" given him by +Sultan Abdul Aziz—and aid the prostrate man to rise and +mount. Their looks would meet, the blue-gray and the +fiery black eyes would strike out a spark of mutual +recognition. Oh! the joy of heaping coals of fire upon that +beautiful, rebellious head! +</p> + +<p> +Or Cavaignac would not then recognize his saviour, but +long afterward, the Prince having become Emperor, would +head a conspiracy to dethrone him. Moving, as would +be the wont of the Fourth Napoleon, in disguise through +the public places of his capital, mingling with every rank +and class, a mystery to men, an enigma to women, +worshiped by all, known by none; he would have discovered +the plot and laid a counter-plot, which, of course, would +be successful. The mine would explode harmlessly—the +conspirators would be seized. Their leader,—lying under +sentence of death in a military fortress—probably Mont +Valérien—bedded upon damp straw, loaded with massive +fetters, would be visited by a young officer. He would +recall the features of his deliverer of long ago, and fall +upon his neck, crying: "Alas! my noble friend, long +sought, unfound till now, thou comest late, but in time, for +I am to die to-morrow!" "Die! Is it possible! Of what +art thou guilty, then?" Cavaignac would answer coldly: +"Of having conspired to dethrone the young Emperor!" "Dost +thou indeed hate him so?" "Ay! we have been +enemies since boyhood's days." Choking with emotion, +dissembled under a pale and resolute exterior, the visitor +would return: "And he hates thee not! Were he here +he would say as much to thee!" "Can it be possible? +How, then——?" "I swear it upon the soul of my father! +Thy Emperor is thy truest friend! Here is my sword. +Behold this undefended breast, cage of a heart that has +ever loved thee! Thrust, I command thee, if thou hast the +power!" "Sire, I am conquered; I have lived for a +Republic—I die the Emperor's most loyal subject!" "To +my arms, then, Cavaignac! Embrace me—thou art forgiven!" +</p> + +<p> +Impossible, beautiful dreams, grandiose and absurd, +ridiculous and touching.... +</p> + +<p> +He was mentally carrying on one of these endless +duologues as he rode through the wintry avenues of the Bois, +and dismounted at my Lord Hertford's exquisite villa of +Bagatelle, set in beautiful, secluded grounds adjoining the +park. +</p> + +<p> +Born of a whim of the Comte d'Artois, gay Monsieur, +brother of the Sixteenth Louis, built in fifty-four days by +the architect Bellanger, at a cost of six hundred thousand +livres, Bagatelle had always served as a shelter for gallant +adventures, not all of them set in what Republicans +scornfully termed "the night of monarchy." +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle de Charolais, beautiful and haughty; +Mademoiselle de Beauharnais, handsome, sensual, and +unscrupulous; Madame Tallien, constant, noble, and +courageous; the Duchesse de Berri, and how many other women, +famous or infamous, had trodden its velvet lawns and +swept over its floors of rare marquetry or its pavements +of mosaic? The blood of the Beauharnais mingled in this +boy's own veins, with the Corsican and Spanish tides and +the dash of canny Scots derived from distant Kirkpatricks. +That Celtic strain was responsible, it may be, for his +dreaminess and love of solitude. +</p> + +<p> +He was dreaming as he rode through the forest; the +spell of his dream was still upon him as he turned his +Arab in at the gilded gates of Bagatelle, and dismounted +before its portico, in the shadow of the Gothic tower. +</p> + +<p> +From childhood many of the happiest hours of this son +of the Empire had been spent at Bagatelle. In its +labyrinths of myrtle and oleander, laurel and syringa, he had +hidden, bursting with childish laughter, when his playmates +were seeking him; he had galloped his Shetland +pony and raced with his dogs over its green lawns. Upon +its broad sheets of crystal water he had sailed his miniature +yacht-squadrons. At his entreaty, the Emperor, always +an indulgent father, had endeavored to buy the place from +its English owner. In vain! my lord of Hertford was +not to be tempted by gold, possessing so much of the stuff, +or allured by rank, who was a premier English Marquess, +Knight of the Garter, and so forth. Yet he was a generous +nobleman, and made the Imperial urchin free of his coveted +fairyland whenever he, the owner of the place, should be +from home. +</p> + +<p> +To-day's dream, for a wonder, was not the usual duologue +between the friend and the unfriend. Albeit innocently, +it was tinged by sex, it assumed the shape of the +triangle; and worked out, though, to the satisfaction of the +dreamer, the eternal Rule of Three. Louis and his dear +enemy, men grown, madly loved one woman; a bewitching +creature, with a sparkling rose-flushed face, eyes like blue +jewels under a pile of black hair, crowned with a little +cap of velvet and gray fur, with a blue wing set at the side. +She adored the Prince who had won her love in the disguise +of a simple officer. Fortified by this passion, she +could hear Cavaignac plead unmoved. He, driven to +frenzy by jealousy, would conceal himself here, for the +Imperial lover would have settled Bagatelle with all its +treasures upon his lady-love!—and at midnight when a +step echoed in the gallery of arms, and the fair one, +reclining upon this very fauteuil in the window commanding +the grass-plot centered by the Cellini fountain,—sprang +up with a cry of joy to welcome her lover,—the rejected +aspirant would leap from behind yonder trophy of +sixteenth-century pageant-shields, topped with the +magnificent embossed and damascened one bearing the monogram +and insignia of Diane de Poitiers; and, seizing yonder +rapier from its stand, would challenge his successful rival +there and then, to a duel <i>à outrance</i>. +</p> + +<p> +Need it be said that the Prince's well-known mastery of +the sword would enable him,—by a lightning <i>coup</i>, following +a feint—to disarm his antagonist; upon whom he +would finally bestow not only the lady, but the villa, with +its treasures of paintings by ancient and modern masters, +its marvelous miniatures and enamels, its rooms of porcelain, +cabinets of priceless coins and gems, galleries of +antique sculpture, its costly furniture, its matchless grounds +and gardens, ending a great many nobly turned sentences +with the dignified peroration: +</p> + +<p> +"Take her, Cavaignac, with all these riches! I ask +nothing in return, but your esteem!" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap20"></a></p> + +<h3> +XX +</h3> + +<p> +Could Juliette have known how she had been disposed +of in a boy's imagination, perhaps the Spanish Infanta +would have replaced the rosy nymph. But while her +Prince dreamed, her jingling vehicle had crossed the Port +de St. Cloud, and so by Ville d'Avray up the long avenue +between the breasting woods, stately and glorious still, +though stripped by the blasts of January, to the clean +white town that had sprung up, nearly three hundred +years before (upon the site of a little village patronized +by wagoners), where an ancient feudal castle stood on a +plateau surrounded by lake, forest, and marsh. +</p> + +<p> +A touch of a King's scepter changed this ancient castle +to a Royal Hunting-Lodge, a whim of his successor transformed +the humbler dwelling to a Palace. Courtiers, officials, +functionaries, guards, valets, lackeys, pimps, cooks, +barbers and innumerable hangers-on are necessary to the +upkeep of State; and these must be housed in stately fashion. +Behold whole streets of buildings, with noble avenues, +radiating like the sticks of a fan from the sunlike center, +uprising like fungi from the swampy soil. Behold, as the +power and glory of the monarch redoubled,—no less than +thirty thousand workmen engaged in enlarging and beautifying +the residence of His Majesty, while a regiment of +Swiss Guards dig out the lake. And when pneumonia, +fever, and ague carry off so many thousands of these hapless +toilers that the dead have to be carted away by night, +and secretly dumped into pits dug for the purpose, and the +bottoms of the Royal coffers are seen through a thinning +layer of gold, and the Building Accounts of the Crown +Demesne show totals of unpaid debts sufficiently colossal +to stagger a lightning-calculator, and Ministers grow dizzy, +seeing a Kingdom on the brink of financial ruin, the +sublime forehead beneath the bediamonded hat and the +towering wig is illuminated by an inspiration. "Ha! We +have it! Quick! commence new works! Pile on the +national taxes, press a million unpaid laborers into the Royal +service. Let rivers of tears flow to swell the sources of our +dwindling fountains. Upon the uncounted corpses of vulgar +toilers erect fresh monuments to all the glories of +France!" +</p> + +<p> +No ghastly visions disturbed the royal dreams, no awful +Finger wrote the dreadful sentence upon the marble +friezes of his banqueting-halls. The shadow of the little +cocked hat that was to overtop his tallest wig by the whole +height of a Crown Imperial was never shown him in Witch +Montespan's magic mirror. The bees that were to swarm +over his lilies and drain their golden honey were not to be +hatched for many years yet. He deemed himself immortal +in spite of the twinges of the gout, until it took +him in the stomach and carried him off, at seventy-seven, +leaving France to shudder in the embraces of a far worse +man than himself. Until, aphrodisiacs and apoplexy +having made an end of the infamous Regent, and Louis the +Well-Beloved having succumbed to vice and smallpox, and +the Red Widow having hugged the heads off Louis the +Locksmith and his fair young Queen, the Terror ushered +in the Revolution, Era of Liberty, Equality, and Universal +Phlebotomy; until men, wearied of serving many masters, +looked about for one to lead them, and the Little Corporal +with the pale hatchet-face and the inscrutable gray-blue +eyes under the great marble forehead rose up and said, +"Here am I!" +</p> + +<p> +The Court of his nephew was just now at the Tuileries. +You saw the town of Versailles in its winter slumber, +undisturbed by the roll of innumerable carriages, luggage +<i>fourgons</i>, pastrycooks' and tradesmen's vans, and other +vehicles, over its historic and venerable cobblestones.... +Fashionable people lived there all the year round; many +of the crack regiments of the Imperial Guard were quartered +in the innumerable barracks; there was no lack of +society—not the cream of the cream, perhaps, but +charming, lively and gay. +</p> + +<p> +The 777th Mounted Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard +were garrisoned in that antique quarter of barracks and +churches, convents and Royal harems, once known as the +Parc aux Cerfs. South of the great central avenue leading +from the Place d'Armes to Paris, you found its huge +monumental entrance on the right of the Rue de l'Orangerie, +once the Hotel of the Gardes du Corps du Roi. It +boasted a frontage at once chaste and imposing. The high +window of the mess-room, balconied and dominated by a +lofty pediment, surmounted the great gates of wrought-iron +rolling back upon a wide sanded courtyard. If I do +not err, the quarters of M. le Colonel were upon the second-floor +upon the left-hand side of the gate, immediately above +a confectioner's, whence rose delicious odors of baking +pastry and simmering chocolate to titillate the nostrils of +Mademoiselle. The sleeping-chamber and boudoir, +described in the Colonel's letter as hung with rosebud chintz, +and elegantly furnished; the little kitchen on the same +floor, full of pots and bright pans, scoured by the Colonel's +soldier-servant into dazzling brilliancy, more than fulfilled +the expectations provoked beforehand. I rather think +that the dinner—an inexpensive and savory little meal, +consisting of vegetable soup with fillets of sole Normande, +an infinitesimal steak <i>jardinière</i>, an omelette <i>soufflée</i>, Brie +cheese (nowhere upon earth does one get such Brie as at +Versailles), and dessert—had come from the pastrycook's +on the street-floor. After the cooking one got at the +Convent and in default of the much better dinner +Mademoiselle could have evolved out of similar materials, it +was a meal for demi-gods. And you do not know Juliette +if you imagine she did not dispose of her share. +</p> + +<p> +"I am <i>gourmande</i>, me," she would assure her confidantes +in all sincerity, fitting the tip of a slender finger +into a dint that would have needed slight persuasion to +become a dimple. "I love good dishes, or how should I +be able to cook them? One of these days it is possible +that I may even grow fat. Believe me, I am not joking. +Already I perceive the beginning of a double chin!" +</p> + +<p> +M. le Colonel had excused himself from attendance at +Mess that he might dine with his daughter. Both Monsieur +and Mademoiselle were prodigiously gay, you may conceive. +But even while Juliette laughed and clapped her little +hands in delight at the paternal witticisms, while she leaned +upon her Colonel's shoulder, or sat upon the arm of his +chair; while her slender arm twined round his neck, and +her cheek, no longer ivory-pale, but painted by the delicate +brush of the artist Joy with the loveliest rose-flush, was +tickled by the waxed end of his martial mustachio, the +hateful shadow of the faceless Charles rose up and thrust +itself between. It blotted out the last rays of the red +wintry sun, it sprawled across the shade of the Argand +lamp. It was heavy though impalpable, and diffused a +numbing chill throughout the little apartment. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps the father felt it, for as they sat together +talking by the cheerful fire of crackling beech-billets that +burned upon the open hearth, he gradually fell silent. +</p> + +<p> +You can see him in his undress uniform jacket of green +cloth, braided, frogged, and with fur edging, unhooked at +the neck and showing the white shirt, stiff linen collar, and +scarlet tie. His polished boots and bright spurs, buttons, +buckles, and so forth, reflected the dancing firelight. His +forage-cap, a head-dress gaudy and bizarre enough to have +come out of a Christmas cracker, crowned a porcelain +bust of a young negress, chocolate-hued, with purplish-crimson +lips, pink protruding tongue, and rolling onyx +eyes (an art-object left behind as too fragile for transport +by the previous occupant of the quarters)—while his long +saber leaned against her wooden pedestal. +</p> + +<p> +His handsome face was very grave, almost somber, as +he pulled his crisp imperial, and stared at the little dancing +hearth-flames, forgetful of the excellent cigar burning itself +away to ash between the first and second fingers of his +well-kept right hand. The other hand sometimes rested +on his knee, sometimes touched his daughter's hair; for +Juliette had slipped from her previous seat to the carpet, +where she sat leaning against him. +</p> + +<p> +And all at once the chill barrier of reserve broke down. +It was when a heavy tear splashed upon the hand that +rested on the knee of the crimson overall, a strong, brown, +manly hand, rather hairy on the back. It clenched as +though the single drop had been of molten metal, and +then Juliette caught it in both her own and spoke: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my father, why must this marriage take place? +We have not said one word, but I know well that what is +in my mind is in yours also. Feel!"—she drew the prisoned +hand closely to her—"here lies your letter over where +my heart is beating so. Much of it I comprehend, but the +rest is anguish—mystery! War is threatened—that at +least is clear. The regiment will sooner or later be ordered +on active service. And—were your daughter the wife of +a gentleman of her father's profession, you fear that she +might suffer as her grandmother—as her own beloved dead +mother did. But though my grandmother lost her husband, +War spared her son. You returned to her and to my +mother, not even wounded, darling! And if you apprehend +for me a lot less fortunate, why need I marry any +one? Take me with you or leave me behind, I am your +obedient daughter always—always! But I had rather you +would take me, dear!" +</p> + +<p> +Not trusting himself to speak, the father took the little +head between his palms and kissed the blue-veined temples +and the clear space between the wide-arched eyebrows. +The candid eyes met his, that were cloudy and troubled. +He searched for phrases to disguise a truth that must stab. +</p> + +<p> +"If I met death upon the field, you by my side, you +would be left alone and unprotected. Were I to leave you +behind even, in the care of Madame Tessier, you would +none the less be alone. There is safety in permanent ties; +but only when her husband is by her side does the sacrament +of marriage open a haven to a young girl where the +libertine and the seducer dare not enter. I speak with +certainty—only when her husband is by her side!" +</p> + +<p> +So women were not to be trusted! ... His palms +might have been burned had he not withdrawn them, so +fiery the sudden blush that rose in the clear, pale cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +Barely comprehending his meaning, she faltered: +</p> + +<p> +"Yet my grandmother——" +</p> + +<p> +The Colonel broke in hastily: +</p> + +<p> +"My mother was a Saint! What I have said does not +apply to her!" +</p> + +<p> +"And my mother?" +</p> + +<p> +Something like a groan broke from the man. She felt +him wince and shudder as she leaned upon him, saw the +strong square teeth of the upper-jaw nip the ruddy lower +lip, noted the ashen grayness that replaced the ebbed +color, and the points of moisture that broke out upon his +temples where his rich black hair was frosted with white. +And looking, she bleached and shuddered in sympathy. +His haunted eyes and haggard face bent over an upturned +white mask, that had little of the grace of girlhood left in +it. The distended pupils encroached upon the blue until +her eyes seemed inky-black. He would have withdrawn +the hand she held in both hers, but the soft little fingers +turned to living steel, and he could not free himself. And +the blue-black eyes staring out of the pinched elfin face +quested in search of something that his own eyes strove to +hide. As though his had been the weaker nature and +hers the stronger (impossible, the creature being feminine), +he felt his loathed secret being relentlessly drawn to light. +The clear, unshaken question: +</p> + +<p> +"Was not my mother good?" compelled him to truthful +utterance. He heard a voice unlike his own replying: +</p> + +<p> +"At the beginning—yes! I would stake my soul upon +it. But during the war in the Crimea, when the Allies +watered with the best blood of France and England that +fatal soil, her loyalty to the absent husband weakened—her +heart strayed!" He struck himself upon the breast +passionately. "Yet here beat a heart that would have +throbbed for love in death, had her lips kissed the shape +of icy clay that housed it. It burns now with shame that +I must strip off the veil of secrecy that until this moment +has hidden from thee thy mother's sin!" +</p> + +<p> +The head bent, a swift kiss touched his hand. Her +mouth felt very cold. He went on, realizing that she +demanded it: +</p> + +<p> +"She fled with her lover upon the very day of the +re-entry of the Army into Paris. After the triumph I +hastened to Auteuil, where she and her child were living with +my mother. That sainted soul met me at the door—the +first glimpse of her face told the terrible intelligence. +Had other lips than those beloved ones stabbed me with +the truth, that night my revolver would have ended it!—I +would not have lived to endure the pity in the faces of the +friends who loved me—the curiosity in strangers' eyes." +</p> + +<p> +A deep sigh stirred her, quickening in him the knowledge +that since she had kissed his hand she had listened +without breathing. She murmured now: +</p> + +<p> +"Poor, dearest, best father! How old was I when +she——" +</p> + +<p> +He said tenderly: +</p> + +<p> +"Let me see ... it was the August of 1856; thou +hadst five years, and thy curls were as soft and as yellow +as chicken-down. Thy mother used to say, <i>Juliette will +never be black like me!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +That disloyal mother had been the darkest of brunettes, +ivory-skinned, and ebon-haired, with eyes of tawny +wine-color, and the tall, lithe, exuberant form of a goddess of +Grecian myth. To question the man she had deserted +with regard to his betrayer seemed hideous, and yet... +Juliette strung herself to the effort, faltering: +</p> + +<p> +"And for whom...? with whom...? Do not tell +me if it costs thee too much!" +</p> + +<p> +His comprehension was instant. Very coldly the answer +came: +</p> + +<p> +"He was a personage of rank in his own country. A +military attaché of the Prussian Embassy in Paris. They +had met at one of the Imperial receptions at the Tuileries." +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Is he alive?</i>" +</p> + +<p> +The whispered words might have been shrieked in his +ear, such a leap of the heart and such a thrilling of the +nerves responded. He rose to his feet and said sternly, +not looking at his daughter, but directly at the wall before +him: +</p> + +<p> +"The man is dead! But he did not fall in a duel. He +lived to meet his end during the Prusso-Austrian War. +He had left Paris <i>en route</i> for Berlin when my representative +called at the Prussian Embassy. Strive as I would, +I could gain no answer from him. Nor might the utmost +influence I could command obtain a response to my <i>cartel</i>. +This being so, the disgrace is his—not mine!" +</p> + +<p> +He grew quite tall in saying this, so dignified was the +little tubby man, so noble in his soldierly simplicity. His +daughter looked up at him, wondering at him, loving him, +sorrowing over him; yet yearning to hear more of that +beloved, faithless one who had dealt those bleeding wounds +he now bared in the sight of the child she had deserted, +and plowed such deep lines in his wrung and suffering +face. The words would break out, though she nipped her +lips to stop them: +</p> + +<p> +"And my mother ... did she repent and ask your +pardon? Did you not forgive her before she died?" +</p> + +<p> +"She did not die!" +</p> + +<p> +The little Colonel had a great voice. His "<i>Garde à +vous!</i>" roared down the files like a spherical mortar-shell, +his "<i>Chargez!</i>" might have set dead men and horses up +and galloping. Indeed, his nickname among the troopers +of his regiment was, I believe, nothing less than "<i>Bouche +à feu!</i>" When he thundered the answer to Juliette's +question, not only did Mademoiselle Bayard leap to her feet, +vibrating in every fiber of her slender, rigid body, but the +crystal drops of the mantelshelf chandeliers left by the +previous tenant danced and tinkled, and the panes of the +windows rattled in their frames. What more the Colonel +might have said was drowned, as the customary fanfare of +trumpets sounded from the Mess, heralding the loyal toast. +Then the "Vive l'Empereur!" rang out, and the +regimental band crashed into "<i>Partant Pour La Syrie</i>," and +very soon afterward, from the uncurtained window +commanding the barrack-square, lights could be seen moving +across the shadowy space as the dispersing officers returned +to their quarters or went about their duty, attended by +orderlies carrying stable-lanterns of the smoky, smelly, +tallow-burning kind. The Colonel's own duty called him +elsewhere, and he was glad of it. He muttered an inaudible +word, his eyes averted from his daughter; took his cap, +gloves, and riding-whip, and strode jingling from the +room. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, it would need a great artist in words to depict the +swift and changing emotions that swelled and wrung the +heart of the poor girl he left behind him, and give some +adequate idea of the storm that swept over her in that +lonely hour. Joy at the discovery that the adored mother +of her childish memories yet lived was drowned in anguish +at the piercing thought, "<i>She lives, but not for +me!</i>" Shame burned her cheeks to crimson, grief washed them +white again; her heart bounded in her bosom, or sank, +heavy as lead. Except Madame Suchard, the soldier's +wife who had been engaged to wait upon Mademoiselle +de Bayard, and who now might be heard washing up the +dinner-plates and dishes in the little kitchen, there was no +earthly woman near to whom she might turn for comfort +in this her hour of need. +</p> + +<p> +But as she wept, not the freely-flowing tears of girlhood, +but with the dry sobbings and painful convulsions +that tortured women know, there chimed from the great +cathedral Church of St. Louis close by, the first long triple +of the Angelus, echoed by the thinner-sounding bells from +the Convent of the Augustinian Sisters, from the Priory +of the Bernardine Fathers, from the House of the Sœurs +de l'Esperance, from the House of the Little Sisters of the +Poor. Mechanically Juliette's hand went to her bosom, +her pale lips moved, shaping the sacred words. And then +she went to her room and knelt at the little straw-bottomed +<i>prie-Dieu</i> that stood before her Crucifix, and prayed with +passionate earnestness that He, Who when hanging upon +His Cross of Agony gave His Mother to be our Mother, +would hear Her pure prayer of intercession for that mother +who had deserted her child. Wherever she might be, however +low she might have fallen, whatever the sins, vices, +follies that yet environed her, held her back or dragged +her down, the ray of Divine Grace had power to reach +her, raise her up, and lead her back by the path of +Penance into the Way of Peace. +</p> + +<p> +And pending the miracle, toward which end Masses +should be offered and Communions given; obedience to +that father so cruelly betrayed, so bitterly wronged, must, +more than ever, be the watchword of Juliette. For the +conviction began to dawn in her that belief in the innate +purity and truth of her sex having been destroyed in him +by the unfaith of that most beloved, most unhappy one; +he sought to safeguard her daughter's virtue by means +of a husband, who, being the only son of a widow, and +therefore exempt from the obligations of military service, +must always be on the spot. Sorrowfully she sought her +bed, to remember, the moment her head touched the pillow, +that although she had mustered courage to plead against +the Colonel's sentence of marriage, provoking him thereby +to reveal the long-hidden secret of his betrayal, she had +never mentioned Charles except by inference. +</p> + +<p> +What was he like, this young man, pious, virtuous, devoted +to his mother, energetic, frugal, a manufacturer of, +and merchant in, the commodity of woolen cloth? Could +one build a husband out of such materials? Was it possible? +</p> + +<p> +She tried once more. The effort led to tossing and +turning. Conscience is most active in the night-watches. +Juliette's bosom-monitor reproached her with having +boasted to dear Monica's untidy brother of the faceless +Charles's mastery of the art of fence. Other lapses from +the strict line of veracity had preceded and followed. She +had told one curious girl that Charles owned the form of an +athlete, and hair of ruddy chestnut; another had reaped +the information that he possessed a profile resembling +that of Edgar Ravenswood, with dark, melancholy eyes, +and a jet-black mustache of the kind that is silky and +sweeps. Yet another eager inquirer had elicited the +information that Charles was quite a duodecimo edition of +a lover, slender, brilliantly fair, and not much taller than +the bride-elect. Should it occur to these girls to compare +notes in some hour of recess or exercise, what would be the +impression conveyed to the Great Class? +</p> + +<p> +One had left School, however, and one was glad of it. +To go back with that tragic secret locked in one's bosom, +and mingle with fortunate girls whose mothers were good +women, happily alive or safely in Paradise, how could one +have borne that? +</p> + +<p> +A well-known footstep outside the door of her room, +which opened from the little salon, and a gentle rustling +sent a shiver through her. When the step moved away +with its soldierly jingle of spurs accompanying it, De +Bayard's daughter sat up in bed and kissed both hands +to him, passionately; stretching out her arms with a wide +gesture as though something of the maternal mingled with +her love for him now.... When "Lights Out" sounded, +and the gas was extinguished, and no line of yellow +showed under the door, and the footsteps retreated and +his door shut upon them, Juliette crept out of bed, lighted +the candle, and picked up the scrap of paper that had been +pushed across her threshold by the strong, beloved hand. +</p> + +<p> +It proved to be a note dated that day, and addressed +from the Tessier's house in the Rue de Provence, in +Madame's angular, spidery caligraphy. Felicitations to her +dear friend on the safe return of his cherished one were +followed by regrets. "My Charles, alas! will be detained +in Belgium at least until the Mardigras. The meeting of +these dear young people must necessarily be deferred until +that date. But to-morrow being the Feast of Saint +Polycarpe, possibly M. le Colonel would bring Mademoiselle to +visit a friend, old and most affectionate, punctually at the +hour of one <i>midi</i>?" With tender remembrances the note +concluded. Beneath the signature—Marie-Anastasie +Tessier—M. le Colonel had scrawled in pencil the curt +intimation: "Arranged.—H.A.A. de B." +</p> + +<p> +Knowing Charles safely bestowed in Belgium, Juliette +sank back upon her pillow, and soon was calmly sleeping +between her two great hair-plaits. But slippered footsteps +patroled the Colonel's room until gray dawn showed +between the slits of the window-shutters, and the heavy +sighs and muttered words that broke from him would have +wrung his daughter's faithful heart. Sleepless and +haggard, the first pale beams of January daylight found him +still pacing his brown-striped drugget, a letter—the cause +of his own and another's misery,—crushed in his strong +right hand: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "555, AVENUE DE L'ALMA, PARIS,<br> + "<i>December</i> 18, 1869.<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"MONSIEUR, +</p> + +<p> +"Acting upon instructions received from the senior +partner of the Berlin branch of our firm, we beg to +acknowledge your reply to his communication of the 7th +instant, and must point out to you that the attitude you +assume with regard to our client is equally unjust and +indefensible. No legal remedy was sought by you for the +injuries you allege that you sustained through the infidelity +of the lady who until the autumn of 1856 occupied—and +without reproach—the position of your wife. +</p> + +<p> +"Further, during the years of her absence from your +side, she has neither asked nor received from you any +monetary payments toward her support and maintenance, +facts which certainly appear to suggest consent and +knowledge upon your part. You may further be aware that +His deceased Excellency, Count Maximilian von +Schön-Valverden, late junior military <i>attaché</i> to the Prussian +General Staff, fully atoned for an indiscretion of his earlier +years, by making an ample settlement upon Madame de +Bayard; and that she is now in a position to render liberal +assistance to relatives whom Fortune has not dowered with +ample means. +</p> + +<p> +"Under the circumstances, we have advised our client, +whose natural affection for her daughter strongly urges +her to assert her maternal rights to the society of +Mademoiselle de Bayard, to enforce her claim by the +reëstablishment of personal influence. +</p> + +<p> +"The young lady in question is still unmarried, under +age, and therefore subject to maternal authority; and our +client does not disguise her hope that, by awakening the +long silent chords of filial tenderness, she may gain a +powerful advocate upon the side of reconciliation, reunion, and +that unblemished and peaceful happiness which is only +to be found by the domestic fireside. +</p> + +<p> +"Recollect, Monsieur, that no legal bar exists to this +most virtuous and irreproachable aspiration. And understand +that unless a favorable answer is shortly received +by our firm to the application now made by us to you on +behalf of our client, her next appeal will be made to your +daughter and hers. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "We remain, etc.,<br> + "WIEGELT, NADIER AND BIDUQUET,<br> + "<i>Solicitors</i>."<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +By the chill light of the new day the Colonel for the +twentieth time re-read the letter, and its cunning mixture +of truth and falsehood, the venomed hint at knowledge +and complicity, struck fangs once more into his quivering +heart. +</p> + +<p> +A devout Catholic, he had never sought to divorce the +wife who had betrayed him. Thus a civil marriage with +her paramour had been rendered impossible to Adelaide, +even had the Count desired it. Now, furnished with +ample means by the generosity of her dead lover, did the +false wife seek at the hands of the injured husband +rehabilitation, in return for a heap of tainted gold? +</p> + +<p> +Horrible thought! The walls of the room seemed to +close upon De Bayard suffocatingly. He opened the +window and leaned out, drawing in deep drafts of the frosty +morning air. It cleared his brain; he realized, in the event +of his contemptuous rejection of the hideous bargain, a +menace to his daughter's peace of mind. +</p> + +<p> +Motherhood is of all earthly relationships the most +sacred. Yet there are mothers who in revenge for +disappointed hopes and thwarted ambitions have not hesitated +to strike, through their own offspring, at husbands +abhorred. More than ever the husband of Adelaide bent to +his determination of placing Juliette, at the earliest +moment, safe out of reach of that spotted maternal embrace. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap21"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXI +</h3> + +<p> +Upon the following afternoon the Colonel duly escorted +Mademoiselle to the dwelling of Madame Tessier. You +may conceive that the portly little warrior, when panoplied +in the full-skirted, black frock-coat, gray peg-top trousers, +black cravat and vest, and curly-brimmed silk chimney-pot +of private life, looked a very gallant gentleman; and +that his daughter, attired in a new and charming costume +of fine blue cloth, trimmed with velvet and loops of black +silk cord, and wearing a sealskin coat and a minute bonnet, +consisting of a knot or two of blue velvet, a froth of lace, +and half-a-dozen richly-tinted oak-leaves on her coils of +black hair, conveyed an effect of elegant simplicity and +youthful grace, such as only a well-bred French girl knows +how to combine perfectly. +</p> + +<p> +During the walk, which absorbed the best part of a +quarter of an hour, Juliette occupied herself in the +endeavor to glean a few meager items of information with +regard to her destined husband. To her timidly-cast bait +the Colonel barely vouchsafed a rise. One may imagine a +dialogue of timid interrogations and baffling replies, +running somewhat after this fashion: +</p> + +<p> +"Dear father, upon reflection, I find myself unable to +recall the features of M. Charles Tessier with anything +approaching clearness. I pray you be kind enough to +describe him to me?" +</p> + +<p> +"My daughter, I myself experience—how shall I phrase +it?—a difficulty in verbally portraying the form and +features of that excellent young man. But his mother carries +his image in her heart, and doubtless has it on her walls +and in her albums. Look in the one before you search +the others; it will be wise." +</p> + +<p> +"Assuredly. But, my father——" +</p> + +<p> +"Chut!" The Colonel twirled a waxed end of his +magnificent mustache, and resumed presently: "M. Charles +Tessier is a gentleman of honor, an excellent man of business, +and a most desirable <i>parti</i> for any young girl of good +family and limited fortune. Could the most exacting +bride-elect demand more than this? In addition, he has +a fine hand——" +</p> + +<p> +"Indeed, dear father——" +</p> + +<p> +A fine hand was something tangible. The owner of the +commended extremity might in addition be possessor of a +good figure, broad shoulders, a handsome nose.... And +yet hunchbacks occasionally have neat hands, and the +Colonel had only testified to one. That idea might be +dismissed as fanciful. Of course, Charles had the proper +complement of legs and arms. Half-smiling at her own +terrors, Juliette murmured: +</p> + +<p> +"Pray go on, dear father! You said—a fine hand..." +</p> + +<p> +"Hah—aha! yes. A fine hand for a stroke at billiards. +In addition, it cannot be denied that Charles has a +magnificent head——" +</p> + +<p> +"I am listening, dear father!..." +</p> + +<p> +"A truly magnificent head for figures! Book-keeping +by double-entry is infant's play to this admirable young +man. He must teach thee the logarithms, my child, when +thou art married.... Docile and intelligent as thou art, +thou wouldst quickly learn to be his secretary and +head-clerk. It should be a true wife's ambition to help her +husband in business, and this is alone possible when his +avocations are of the strictly civil kind." +</p> + +<p> +It was tragic. In her dreams Juliette Bayard had aided +to put on the casque, and buckle the cuirass of a stately +warrior. Now she must perforce mend the gray goose-quill +of a knight of the counting-house. You might have +seen how her slender throat swelled against the encircling +band of velvet. Tears sprang to her eyes. To keep them +back she bit her lip, straightened her back, and +shrugged,—one barely perceptible shrug. The Colonel said,—was his +kind glance a little troubled as it turned on her?— +</p> + +<p> +"The letter of Madame Tessier has made it clear to +thee, that although thou wilt see thy future husband soon, +the meeting will not take place upon the present occasion. +Since October M. Charles Tessier"—the Colonel twisted +his mustache—"has been detained by affairs at Mons-sur-Trouille +in Belgium. I understand that at this country +hamlet—near the town of Mons—is situated the manufactory +of his partner, M.—the name for the moment escapes +me. He is a wealthy gentleman of excellent Flemish +family. The daughter, I remember, was called Clémence or +Clémentine." +</p> + +<p> +The Colonel cleared his throat. Juliette expressed a +preference for the name of Clémentine. The Colonel +begged her pardon. After all, it was Clémence. That did +not matter. Mademoiselle liked the name of Clémence +nearly as well as Clémentine. The Colonel tugged at the +other side of the fiercely-waxed mustache, and changed +the subject. +</p> + +<p> +"The pavement rings beneath the heel; I prophesy +frost to-night. Thou art cold, my child, I saw thee shiver. +Shall we walk more quickly? It will be better so." +</p> + +<p> +She quickened her steps at the suggestion. There had +already been frost, and the air was keen and sparkling as +champagne. The young blood in her veins answered to +the pleasant stimulus of exercise. Her cheeks were rose-tinted +porcelain, her eyes blue stars, despite her wretchedness, +by the time they reached Madame Tessier's door. +</p> + +<p> +The house of the Widow Tessier was in the Rue de Provence, +which runs north from the Avenue de Saint Cloud, +not far from above its junction with the Carrefour de +Montreuil, and ends at the corner of the Boulevard de la Reine. +</p> + +<p> +A quiet, retiring street, its houses separated by ample +gardens, hidden by high walls of brick faced with fine +gray Caen stone, generally festooned with pretty creepers +and overtopped by stately trees. A noble pine shaded the +green glass conservatory, large enough to be termed a +winter-garden, which projected on the south side, from +what was a solidly built villa plastered yellow, with a +raised ground-floor, second story and attic story with +Mansard windows; the short sloping roof, and these—indeed, +the whole of the attic story to the floor-line, where a +fine-worked cornice of stone ran round the building—being +covered with grayish-blue slates. +</p> + +<p> +You rang at a gate of open ironwork, white-painted, in +which was a smaller gate to admit pedestrians, and while +you were waiting for someone to answer the bell, you had +leisure to admire the heavy <i>porte cochère</i> upon your left, +of solid oak timbers, studded with iron bolts, surmounted +with a fine arch of stone, centered with a blank lozenge; and +the neat balcony railing topping the wall to your right, +in which was a modest little iron-studded door leading to +the kitchen and servants' offices, always secured by a huge +lock, and opened with much groaning of inward bolts. +</p> + +<p> +You are to understand that the roof of the kitchen +formed a leaden terrace upon which the bay of the +drawing-room and other ground-floor windows opened; these, +like the windows on the basement and upper stories, being +furnished with outside shutters, the slatted wooden pattern +with which Continental travelers are familiar, yellow-painted +to match the plaster of the walls. The terrace +could be gained by a short flight of stone steps rising upon +your right as you entered. But upon a visit of ceremony +you went on to the main entrance, which was reached by a +handsome ascent of five broad, shallow steps of the Caen +stone, continued along the north and east sides of the +house, so that from any of the ground-floor windows, which +were all of antique French door-pattern, you could descend +into the garden at will. The hall-door commanded a view +of the stables and the cottage attached to them, whose +tenant combined the office of coachman with the duties of +a gardener. You could not call those buildings +unpicturesque, covered as they were with the now leafless +branches of a great vine and a magnificent wistaria. +Beyond there stretched a kitchen-garden, with beds of flowers +and vegetables, under glass and in the open; and splendid +espaliers, whence many a basket of luscious cherries, huge +blue plums, brown Bon Chrétien pears, and melting +nectarines, were gathered for the table in the season of such +luscious fruits. And behind and to the north side of the +villa was the pleasance, which must have formed part of +a nobleman's park at one time. For winding walks +bordered with ground-ivy led you in and out and among +clumps of oak and chestnut, and stately limes and acacias +stood upon the sunlit spaces of its velvet-lawns; while near +its bounds shrubberies and thickets of Portugal laurel and +lilac, bird-cherry and hawthorn, syringa and arbutus +harbored thrush and blackbird, and in spring rejoiced the lover +of beauty and perfume; and one great tulip tree opened its +crimson-purple chalices beneath the rains and suns of +early June. From the eastern boundary-wall jutted a stone +pipe, ending in a mask, from the mouth of which fell a jet +of clear water, forming a tiny pond, and a brook that ran +away between stones covered with moss and overgrown +with ferns and water-plants. But just now the pond was +frozen, and a great icicle hung from the jaws of the +grinning Satyr, and the blackened leaves of the water-loving +plants and club-mosses were hidden under a thin covering +of recently-fallen snow. What strange uses this place was +to serve before the terrible year of 1870 was ended! How +many letters signed "Charles" were to be drawn by the +tiny hand of P. C. Breagh's Infanta from that grinning +satyr-mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Entering the house—for you are to see it plainly, serving +as it did for a theater upon whose table the life-blood of +France was to flow; and her body, beneath the steady, +skillful hands of a man well fitted to perform such operations, +was fated to undergo a terrible mutilation—entering +the house by the double glass-doors, you found yourself +in a parqueted hall, furnished with Empire consoles and +large mirrors in frames of tarnished gilding. The chief +staircase, covered with striped drugget in gray-and-red, +you found immediately upon your right. Under this was +the opening to a servants' stairway leading down to the +kitchen beneath the terrace. Upon your left was a small +door masking another servants' stairway leading to the +attics; and beyond this two large folding-doors, covered +with green baize, led into a medium-sized but lofty +apartment, used as the dining-room, looking out on the garden, +and hung with a crimson flock paper patterned with gilt +palm-leaves, against which hung some large landscapes +and antique hunting-scenes in oils. There was a handsome +white marble fireplace, with a high mantel-slab +supported by terminal figures, one a nymph, wanton-lipped +and languid-eyed, her full voluptuous bosom partly veiled +by a leopard skin, her disheveled hair crowned with ivy, +like that of her companion; a faun, and young, judging by +his budding horns. +</p> + +<p> +A third pair of folding-doors facing the hall-entrance +opened into the drawing-room; a fourth to the right of +these gave entrance to the billiard-room, from which access +might be gained by a low glass door into the winter-garden, +a high-domed glass house full of palms and tree-ferns, +boasting a little fountain, whose leaden dolphin, balanced +almost perpendicularly on his tail in the center of a +moss-stained basin, could spout high enough to wet the green +roof when any charitable hand might set him going. A +door at the farther end of this winter-garden gave access +to a small room lined with books, classical works by standard +French authors for the most part, smelling moldy, +and apt, when a curious hand strove to remove them from +their shelves, to stick to their neighbors on either side. +And looking at the conservatory from outside, one +perceived, running along the entire length of the rounded +glass roof, a wrought-iron gangway, or double-sided +balcony. From which, according to the testimony of Madame, +the late M. Tessier, from whose dressing-room this aerial +promenade could be gained by a glass door had been, +accustomed to enjoy the prospect and breathe the air. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap22"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXII +</h3> + +<p> +Madame, a discreet and sensible-looking person, with very +little more mustache than is becoming to a Frenchwoman +of sixty, embraced Juliette warmly on both cheeks, and +graciously received the Colonel's salute upon her mittened +left hand. The mittens were invariably black in tribute +to the memory of the late M. Tessier. Madame's +half-mourning, gray poplin gown, trimmed with black gimp +upon the gores, round the bottom of the expansive skirt +and upon the waist and shoulder-lappets, might have been +the same she had always worn, in Juliette's memory. Her +cap had lavender ribbons, her front was bay, whereas it +had been chestnut, and the net of black chenille-velvet, in +which she confined her back hair, plentiful in quantity +and iron gray like her mustache and eyebrows, had silver +beads upon it here and there. +</p> + +<p> +Father and daughter were made welcome, were entertained +with wine of Madeira, raspberry-vinegar—for which +sweet, subacid beverage, diluted with water, young ladies +were expected to express a preference—macaroons, ratafias, +and little pink ice-cakes. The Colonel, having +accepted a glass of the good vintage and consumed a biscuit, +expressed a desire to walk round the garden; Madame, +who had suggested the excursion, and Juliette, who had +gone goose-flesh all over—were left to a <i>tête-à-tête</i>. +</p> + +<p> +During the collation described above, Mademoiselle's +blue eyes had discreetly raked the walls of the dining-room +in search of portraits. Nothing rewarded her search but +a highly varnished oil presentment of a simpering young +woman in the vast flowery bonnet, the bunches of +side-curls, and the high-waisted gown of 1830, in whom one +must perforce discover Madame in her twentieth year. A +case of three miniatures hung beside the copper wood-tongs +on the left of the fireplace. When Madame affectionately +leaned to her young guest, patted her hand, and +bade her take her seat upon a green velvet fauteuil between +Madame's own high-backed arm-chair and the carved-oak-framed, +glass-covered embroidery picture of Dido on her +funeral pyre that served as fire-screen, Juliette, in the act +of transit, cast a rapid glance at this case. In vain. Only +M. Tessier, in a high satin stock, gray curls and strips of +side-whisker, Madame in a lace cap, fiddle-bodied brown +silk gown, berthe, and cameo brooch, and a chubby infant +of indeterminate sex, with sausage curls and tartan +shoulder-knots, rewarded her anxious scrutiny. She could not +restrain a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +To be taken by the chin is not unpleasant to a young +lady, under the right conditions and given certain +circumstances. But when the ringed and bony fingers enclosed +in Madame's black mitten, turned the small, pale oval to +the light, a choking lump rose in Juliette's throat, and the +black lashes veiled the eyes her aged friend would have +peered in. She felt given over to harpies, abandoned and +alone. Almost she could have rushed to one of the long +French windows, wrenched it open, and fled to the shelter +of her father. I wonder whether the Colonel was as ill at +ease as his daughter, as he paced the winding paths under +the leafless trees, between the beds of snow-powdered +ground ivy, already sprinkled with patches of aconite in +partially thawed places, shining yellow as little suns +against dark leaves and wet brown earth.... +</p> + +<p> +She could see him from the nearer of the three long +windows opening on the steps that led to the garden. He +walked among the trees bare-headed, holding his high silk +hat and gold-topped Indian cane behind him, his handsome +double chin bent upon his breast, his fine face full of care. +Even his boldly-curled mustaches seemed to droop under +the weight of sorrows that were no longer hidden from +his child. +</p> + +<p> +At the bottom of his heart he distrusted her, she was +almost certain. And from the bottom of her own heart +she forgave the cruel wrong. He had come to believe, +since the great betrayal, that every woman save the Mother +of all mothers, and his own, had it in her to play the +traitress, given the opportunity. Thus the opportunity +was not to be given to Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +Madame was speaking. She no longer held the little +chin, though the chill of her hard finger-tips still seemed +to cling to it. She smiled benevolently, making curves of +parenthesis in her well-powdered cheeks, and sometimes +punctuating her sentences by a rather disconcerting click +of teeth that were too startlingly white and never seemed +to fit properly. +</p> + +<p> +"One understands, my cherished" (<i>click</i>), "that this +visit is a little <i>triste</i> for thee.... One who should have +been here to welcome thee does not appear. To repress the +feelings is <i>convenable</i>" (<i>click</i>) "in a young girl of good +education, but nevertheless one cannot hide the oppression +of the heart. Rest assured, my little one, that my +Charles—who is to be thy Charles so soon"—Madame's playfulness, +emphasized by the click described, was more than a +little grisly—"suffers as thou dost. He is chagrined to the +very soul, believe me! that he cannot be with thee here +to-day. Detained in Belgium, at Mons-sur-Trouille (where +he has a manufactory for the production of woolen +fabrics)—by important business in connection with an +immense order given by a Paris firm of" (<i>click</i>) "drapers, +thou canst picture him counting the hours that must elapse +before the happy moment of his return. He is ardent, my +Charles—noble, sincere, religious, and candid. I, his +mother, say to thee: Thou art happy" (<i>click</i>) "to have +won the love of so estimable a young man!" +</p> + +<p> +And with this maternal peroration two gray poplin +sleeves went out and enfolded Mademoiselle de Bayard, and +two rapid touches of Madame Tessier's mustache visited +first her left cheek and then her right one. Fluttering like +a caught robin, Juliette faltered: +</p> + +<p> +"You are so good, dear Madame, but when did I win +it?" She added, released from the imprisoning sleeves, +and with a bright red rose of agitation blooming in the +center of each pale cheek: "Alas! I refer to the love of +M. Charles Tessier.... If I might know where he has +seen me? ... I cannot recollect his ever having been +presented to me. In my mind, Madame, your son has no +form, no features.... It is terrible, but there you have +the fact!" +</p> + +<p> +The truth was out at last. Now that the room had left +off whirling, Madame's benevolent smile shone forth +unchanged. She clicked, and returned with archness that +was labored. +</p> + +<p> +"My Juliette, I comprehend. Thou wert just a little +bewildered.... Thy father has not made it quite clear.... +Ah, naughty M. le Colonel, I shall scold him by-and-by!" +</p> + +<p> +"Pray, no!" Juliette's little hands went out entreatingly. +"Only explain, dear, dearest Madame, for I am +bewildered, as you say truly. My father's command that +I should leave school, provide myself with a <i>trousseau</i>, and +come here to be married—instantly—to M. Charles Tessier!—was +so brusque—so sudden—that I might be pardoned +for saying I have felt less like a young girl than a poor +lamb, hurriedly taken from the fold and driven to the +butcher's yard." +</p> + +<p> +"Poor little lamb!" drolled Madame, still portentously +playful, and displaying a gleaming double row of teeth +between the parenthesis. Juliette felt more than ever like +the lamb of her analogy, as she strove to read the meaning +of the smile. Madame continued: "Too much boldness—an +excessive display of <i>sangfroid</i>—my Charles has ever +disliked in women. When I tell him how <i>gentille</i> thou art, +how sensitive, and how <i>spirituelle</i>, he will say to me, +'My mother, thou hast chosen well! and when he sees +thee...'" +</p> + +<p> +Something in the well-powdered elderly face of the +speaker sent an electrical shock of comprehension through +Juliette's being, evoking the cry: +</p> + +<p> +"Sees me.... But then ... he has never seen me?" +</p> + +<p> +It was necessary to hold on with one's own eyes to +Madame's, they so spun and whirled in their rather small, +round orbits. Then they steadied, as though she had made +her mind up. She said, and though the treacly suavity had +gone out of her voice, Juliette liked it better: +</p> + +<p> +"No, my child—Charles has never seen thee. This is a +betrothal—this will be a marriage exclusively arranged by +the parents of the young people concerned. Thy father, +the son of my beloved friend Antoinette de Bayard, does +not desire that the husband of his Juliette should be a +member of the military profession,—I am averse to the idea +of my son's bestowing his name upon the Protestant daughter +of a Flemish woolen-manufacturer—for that that was +originally my son's intention, I will not seek to deny. +Wounded in my tenderest and most susceptible spot by the +announcement of Charles's infatuation, I might have +estranged him for ever—even hurried on the catastrophe I +feared, had not the advice of my director, Dom Clovis, +of the Carmelite Fathers—fortified and sustained me in +the trying hour! I wrote to my son. I poured out my +maternal heart in pleadings the most earnest—the most +tender. I recalled to him the dispositions of his late +father's will. Under this document," Madame went on, +drying a tear with a deep-hemmed cambric handkerchief, +"I possess the power at pleasure to divert from Charles +and his heirs a considerable portion of his sainted father's +funded property. And that power," said Madame, drying +another tear, "I solemnly assured my child, would—in the +event of his union with Mademoiselle Clémence +Basselôt—unhesitatingly be used." +</p> + +<p> +Words might have come from the pale parted lips before +her. Madame tapped them to silence with a mittened +finger and pursued her way. +</p> + +<p> +"Charles is profoundly reasonable—a quality he inherits +from both parents. He wrote to me a letter inexpressibly +touching in its expressions of filial trust and +confidence, over which, I assure thee, I have shed the most +consoling tears." +</p> + +<p> +Something had previously crackled in the pocket of +Madame's black silk apron, when she had smoothed it over +her knees in seating herself. Now she drew it out, and +Juliette saw a blue envelope directed in a handwriting of +the business-like, copper-plate description. The sheet of +white paper the envelope contained had an engraved +picture-heading of a square building possessing many +windows—no doubt the Belgian cloth manufactory possessed in +partnership by MM. Basselôt and Tessier. From the page, +closely covered all down one side with regular lines of +mercantile handwriting, Madame read: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"Sentiments of the most profound agitated me as I +read thy letter. These sentences penned by a mother's +hand, have touched me to the quick. Thy arguments, so +delicate, yet so powerful, have convinced me of the +impossibility of the union toward which—I will own!—my +wishes urged me. I abandon the idea henceforth! Since +Mademoiselle Clémence is not to be mine, choose then for +me, best and noblest of women. Let her who taught my +infant lips to murmur the beloved name of mother select +for me some virtuous young girl upon whom I may confer +the equally sacred title of Wife. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"THY CHARLES." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +And there, with a flourish like a double lasso, M. Tessier's +letter ended, leaving Juliette swaying between the impulse +to shriek with laughter and the urgent desire to melt away +in tears. +</p> + +<p> +Madame came to her rescue by proposing a visit to the +billiard-room, built and appointed by the late M. Tessier +to afford his son wholesome recreation at home. For +otherwise, Madame explained, the young man might have +been allured by the amusements to be found in the saloons +of the Hôtel des Réservoirs and other brilliant and fashionable +lounges, full of dissipated civilians and officers of +every branch of the military and naval services. Clubs +Madame regarded as gateways to eternal perdition. She +dried another tear as she thanked Heaven that her beloved +child did not belong to one. When possible, she +added, Charles avoided restaurants. A congenital delicacy +of constitution rendered over-seasoned dishes little less +than poison to him; he habitually suffered from nettle-rash +after the consumption of shellfish. Green salad was, upon +this count, pernicious to his well-being. Nor should he +ever be permitted to sleep without a nightcap, having been +subject to earache from his youth. +</p> + +<p> +The mental picture of Charles, suffering from an attack +of nettle-rash and crowned with his protective nightcap, +sent the listener's balance dipping toward hysteria. They +were in the billiard-room, a pleasant, longish salle, with +two high windows opening on the frontward terrace. The +glass door stood open leading into the winter-garden: from +whence came a smell of hot-water pipes, damp moss, and +mold, with an added whiff of ferniness, and a suggestion +of the cockroaches and mice that pervaded the place. +</p> + +<p> +And then: "Thou seest, my sweet Juliette"—pray +imagine Madame, indicating with a lifted mitten a +gilt-framed square of canvas hanging between the two French +windows—"a speaking portrait, painted but two years ago, +of my—I should say, of our beloved Charles." +</p> + +<p> +Obediently the eyes of Mademoiselle Bayard followed +the direction of the pointing finger. The painter or the +evil genius of Charles Tessier had induced him to sit for +his portrait in the habiliments of the chase; thus in +sporting checks of the chessboard pattern, with the addition of +yellow leather leggings, gun pads, and a game bag, and +holding between his knees a weapon which obviously +embarrassed him, he was presented for the first time to the +gaze of his future bride. Those eyes of Juliette's fastened +on the canvas a single moment before their dusky lashes +dropped. But in that moment Mademoiselle had classified +Charles as belonging to the Order of Invertebrates; +comprehended his profound insignificance, and realized that +from the owner of a head so commonplace, eyes so round, +and a nose so blunt, a mouth so lax, and cheeks so pink +and chubby—possibly the artist had been liberal of +carmine—nothing more of originality, decision, manly force, +or power of will might be expected than is commonly +demanded of the child's whirligig of stick and cardboard, +as seen gyrating madly or spinning feebly under the +impetus of its owner's breath. +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible, Mademoiselle told herself, to detest +a being so utterly devoid of character—a human pad of +blotting paper—as uninteresting as a counting-house stool. +One could only pity him, and hope for his mother's sake +that sound business capacities were concealed behind that +characterless forehead, topped with brown hair cut very +short and standing upon end—and wonder at or congratulate +Mademoiselle Clémence. Flamandes are generally big +and muscular. One could only hope that she had taken +Charles by his sloping shoulders and soundly shaken him +when he had backed out of his proposal of marriage. +Though possibly he had never spoken to the girl at all. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +M. le Colonel found his daughter silent during their +walk back to the Barracks. After a questioning eyeshot +or so at the dainty little figure that moved so demurely +beside him—abandoning the vain endeavor to read her +mood from the droop of the pure eyelids, the chiseled lines +of the exquisite profile—the father relapsed into his own +sad thoughts. And then Juliette, stealing a glance at him, +realized, with a pang, that his once luxuriant black curls +were thinning in places, and already thickly sown with +white hairs. The upright martial carriage was marred +by a rounding of the shoulders—the stoop of a man upon +whose back sits perched Black Care. The seams of the +immaculately brushed frock-coat of civil ceremony were +shiny in places—the rosette of red ribbon at the lapel was +frayed and faded—the tiny medal tarnished and dull. +Perhaps the mood of the wearer, be it hopeful or despondent, +can affect the apparel, as the chameleon's wrinkled +skin changes from the hue of dead bark to the vivid green +of young leaves when sunlight touches it, and fades back +to the neutral tint when the golden ray is withdrawn. +</p> + +<p> +Juliette would not have thanked me for that analogy +of the prehensile-tongued, long-tailed lizard. Inconstancy +as described by the poets is typified by the chameleon, +and her faith in the sincerity and truth of her Colonel was +founded upon the living rock. +</p> + +<p> +We know that she had, or thought she had, discovered +why he dared not trust her to a husband whose career +must lead him from her. "My blood," she had murmured +to herself sorrowfully, "it must" (she meant unfaith) +"be in my blood!" The reason for his desperate +haste was all beyond her. It must be cruel, because it +hurt him so. +</p> + +<p> +That heart of hers was as great as she herself was tiny. +Titania at need could love like a Titaness. And the blood +of Antigone runs in the veins of living women even to this +day, though the noble daughter of Œdipus died a virgin +unspotted. When the fairy hand in the perfectly fitting +gray glove crept under the Colonel's elbow, it gave, with +the smile that accompanied it, a silent pledge of fidelity +to the death. But oh, blind father, could you have seen +her, in that inmost chamber of the heart where the most +innocent maiden shrines the imaginary portrait of a +lover—taking down the stately canvas bearing the presentment +of a soldier-hero unknown, and hanging up in its place +the picture of a mere Charles Tessier, your eyes, like those +of the protagonist of the Greek drama, would have wept +tears of blood. +</p> + +<p> +That night a letter was penned to Monica in the small, +delicately pointed handwriting that seemed appropriate +to Juliette. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"To you, dear friend, who have exacted of me the +pledge that I will write to you before all, a faithful description +of the person of my future husband, I hasten to fulfill +the vow. M. Charles Tessier has a fine head and a fine +hand, my father praises his capacity for business and his +skill at the billiard-table with equal fervor. Of his powers +of conversation I have as yet not sufficient experience to +afford you an opinion. In the presence of his mother he +has been silent and reserved. His letters, however, are +eloquently expressed and forcible. When I mention his +letters, it should be explained that affairs have entailed +upon him the necessity of a journey to Belgium, where +he remains for the present, at the house of his partner, +M. Basselôt. Thou wilt draw from this the correct +conclusion that I am not yet married. Do not forget to pray +for thy faithful +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"JULIETTE." +</p> + +<p> +"See you well, I am happy—content—I dream not of +impossibilities. <i>J'ai pris mon parti</i>. I am sensible, me!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +In answer to a second letter from Monica received upon +the ending of the month there came: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"Tell M. Breagh that I have received his message, so +generously worded. Alas! the poor young girl had no +intention of wounding a heart at once so courageous and so +proud. His fellow-student is unjust to himself. Why term +that 'brutality' which was merely honest <i>brusquerie</i>? Yet +if he gave pain—and I do not deny it was so—he may rest +assured he has been forgiven. Tell this to thy brother, +from +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"JULIETTE." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"M. Charles Tessier is still delayed by affairs in Belgium. +I visit his mother nearly every day. An excellent +housekeeper and cuisinière, she is charmed with my skill in +cooking. For her and for my father, who dines with her +frequently, I plan delightful little menus. They eat, and +praise the dishes and cry—at least, Madame cries: '<i>Ah, +Heaven! if my Charles were only here!</i>' In a letter which +this morning's post brought me from the person mentioned, +he dwells with that impassioned luxuriance of +imagery, warmth of color and fullness of expression not +denied to his sex, upon our approaching union. One cannot +deny that it is pleasant to be the sole object in life +of a young man so worthy and so amiable, and—ah, my +dearest! were the sacrifice of a personal wish demanded of +me, could I, <i>knowing what I</i>" (<i>scratched out</i>) "refuse to +gratify the cherished desire of my dear father's heart? +Each day that finds me by his side closes in deeper +respect and love more ardent. Our Lord, Whose will it was +to leave me motherless, decreed that in him I should find +the tenderness of a father and that of a mother too. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"J. M. DE B." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +For the delectation of those readers who are anxious to +sample the luxuriant imagery, glowing color and plenitude +of expression ascribed to the epistolary communication +received by Mademoiselle de Bayard from M. Charles +Tessier I append the letter referred to as above: +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + "BASSELÔT AND TESSIER,<br> + "WHOLESALE MERCHANTS.<br> + "WEAVERS AND DYERS OF WOOLEN FABRICS.<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "MONS-SUR-TROOTLLE.<br> + "BELGIUM.<br> + "—th <i>January</i>, 1870.<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"MADEMOISELLE, +</p> + +<p> +"That I have been tardy in personally assuring you +of my profound regard and unfaltering devotion you will +pardon, knowing me detained in a foreign country in the +interests of my business affairs. +</p> + +<p> +"Assured that all that concerns my welfare will naturally +possess for you the deepest interest, I hasten to inform +you that jointly with my partner, M. Felix Basselôt, +I have entered into a scheme to facilitate the manufacture +of our woolen cloths and other textile fabrics by the +purchase and installation of the most recently invented +machines. Raw cloths are now subjected to perching, knotting, +milling, washing, hydro-extracting, gigging, cutting, +cropping, boiling, brushing and steaming processes of the +latest invention, and we claim that the output of our +manufactory will henceforth vie with the first qualities of goods +advertised by the leading firms of Belgium, England and +France. +</p> + +<p> +"My mother's letters palpitate with your praises. What +happiness, Mademoiselle, awaits the man who shall be +privileged to confer upon such beauty, goodness, and +amiability, the sacred name of wife. You will be interested +to hear that for Saxonies, tweeds, merinos, and cashmeres +for ladies' drapery our house maintains its old reputation, +as well as for the heavier fabrics of masculine wear. +</p> + +<p> +"Were I now at your side, how enchanting it would be to +confide to you that we have struck out a bold and original +line in dress-stuffs, dyed with the new agent called Aniline. +It is extracted from coal-tar, and the magenta so much +admired by our Parisian <i>mondaines</i> is obtained from it, by +treating the crude substances with the chloride of tin. +From magenta we derive rosaniline, a dye as delicate yet +as passionate as a lover's fondest wishes. In an experiment +recently made in my presence I beheld a pure young +girl immerse in a solution of this extraction containing a +little ammonia, a spotless lily, when instantly the virginal +blossom's whiteness was changed to the loveliest roseate +hue. +</p> + +<p> +"Thus, dear Mademoiselle, your soul, so chaste, so spotless, +and so innocent, being plunged in the consecrated vat +of marriage, will assume the glowing hue of Love. Bleu +de Lyons with Violet Imperial, all the most fashionable +shades of mauve and other colors can be obtained by +methods equally simple, and with the addition of aldehyde +and sulphuric acid, we secure a green of the most brilliant, +and a yellow that enchains the eye. By a simple process +these colors may be fortified to stand the test of washing, +as firmly and unchangeably as the affection I am privileged +to offer you; which is hallowed by the blessing of the best of +mothers, and of a father noble as your own. +</p> + +<p> +"Receive then, dear Mademoiselle, the tenderest assurances +of devotion, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "From yours eternally,<br> + "CHARLES JOSEPH TESSIER."<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Over this epistle, apparently begotten between a trade-circular +and a polite letter-writer, Juliette had wept helpless +tears of mirth. Reading it, one may conjure up a +picture of the excellent Charles, spurred by the maternal +threat of partial disinheritance to a desperate effort, +bending over the paper in the throes of composition, diluting the +ink with the sweat of a non-intellectual brow. +</p> + +<p> +Also, one may suspect the anonymous heroine of the +experiment with the lily to have been none other than +Mademoiselle Clémence Basselôt, but the suspicion has not, +to the present date, been verified. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap23"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXIII +</h3> + +<p> +In the July of that year, while the gilding was yet +untarnished upon France's brand-new Constitution—ratified by +a <i>plebiscitum</i> obtained after the usual methods, and +recording seven millions of pinchbeck votes—while the +Imperial Court of the Third Napoleon played at Arcadian +pastorals under the mistletoe-draped oaks and spreading +beeches of St. Cloud, the question of the Candidacy of +Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern for the vacant Throne of +Spain appeared in the firmament of European politics +(even as the voice of Lord Granville prophesied a lengthy +period of unbroken fine weather)—and broke about the +ears of the Power most concerned like a stinging shower of +hail. +</p> + +<p> +The Spanish crown upon the head of a Hohenzollern. +Rather a Montpensier, intolerable as that would have +been. True, the Almanach de Gotha had offered (to General +Prim, President Zorilla, and the Cortes, assembled in +solemn session) only the unwelcome alternative of the legal +heir to the throne going begging; true, the Spanish people +were very well satisfied with the idea of being ruled by a +Catholic gentleman of Royal blood, suitable age, handsome +person, and military experience, married to a Portuguese +princess, and possessing two healthy sons. +</p> + +<p> +But that a Prussian Prince, holding a commission in +Prussia's Army, should be set up like a signpost of warning +on France's southern frontier, as though to keep her in +mind of what would happen in the event of another war +on the Rhine—was, from the Gallic point of view, intolerable. +"The security and the dignity of the French nation +are endangered by this candidacy!" cried Jules Favre. +According to M. Thiers, "the nominacy was not only an +affront to the nation, but an enterprise adverse to its +interests." Gambetta cried aloud that all Frenchmen must +unite for a national war. Marshal Vaillant made a +memorandum in his notebook. "<i>This signifies war, or +something very like it!</i>" And at the Council of Ministers +hastily summoned to St. Cloud on the morning of the sixth +of July, the Emperor passed to the Duke de Gramont, +his Foreign Minister, a penciled communication. "<i>Notify +Prince Gortchakoff at Petersburg that if Prussia insists +upon the accession of the Prince of Hohenzollern to the +throne of Spain, it will mean war!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +What haste to clutch at the <i>casus belli</i>. When the +Ministers quitted the Imperial Council, and the Corps +Législatif opened its session, long-continued applause greeted +the declaration of Gramont from the tribune that a certain +unnamed Third Power, by placing one of its Princes on +the throne of Charles V., threatened to disturb the +equilibrium of Europe, to imperil the material interests and +endanger the honor of France. "If it be impossible to +prevent this," ran the peroration, "strong in your support, +Messieurs, we shall perform our duty without hesitation +or faltering!" Here was an ultimatum that sounded the +very note of war. +</p> + +<p> +Do you hear the echo of the thunderous acclamations +that attended the Foreign Minister to his seat, the clapping +of hands, stamping of feet, roaring of lungs that have +been dust for more than forty years, or are now on the +point of dissolving into their native element? Naturally +because the Right were defiant, the Left called their +utterances bellicose. Had the Right manifested a disposition to +turn the other cheek in Scriptural fashion, the Left would +have passionately taunted this band of politicians with +cowardice, lack of patriotism, indifference to the sacred cause +of national freedom,—would have accused them of being +traitors to their country, and Heaven knows what else. +</p> + +<p> +The Press threw oil upon the roaring conflagration. +Were this affront submitted to, cried the <i>Gaulois</i>, "there +would not exist a woman in the world who would accept +a Frenchman's arm!" The <i>Correspondant</i> was "relieved +to find that Frenchmen once more have become +Frenchmen." The <i>Moniteur Universel</i> was charmed to discover +that the blame for this momentous conflict could never +be attributed to the French Government. The <i>Figaro</i> left +off making a cockshy of the Imperial dignity, to admit that +for once the Emperor's official mouthpiece had spoken the +right word. And the <i>Débats</i> praised the attitude taken by +the Government. "Silence at this juncture would," it +cried, "have been pusillanimous. Shall the nation be +accused of bowing its head for the second time, before the +cannon of Sadowa?" +</p> + +<p> +Lord Granville, replacing the recently deceased Clarendon +at Great Britain's Foreign Ministry, mentioned to the +Spanish Ambassador to England that the choice of Prince +Leopold would create a sore. He wrote to Layard at Berlin +that he considered France had been given good cause of +resentment. Lyons, in the shoes of Lord Cowley, at the +English Embassy in Paris, wrote to his chief that the +unhappy affair had revived all the old animosity, though +it seemed to him that "neither the Emperor nor his +Ministers really wish or expect war!" The <i>Times</i> of July 8th +was severe on the policy of Prussia; the <i>Standard</i> for +once expressed the same opinion as the <i>Times</i>. The <i>Daily +Telegraph</i> prophesied that the succession of the Prussian +Prince would mean France's present humiliation and +future peril. The <i>Pall Mall Gazette</i> poked mordant fun at +the attitude of unconsciousness assumed by King William, +who, between sips of Ems water, declared his ignorance +of the whole affair. The <i>Early Wire</i>, backing and filling, +kept an even keel for a day or two. Then said Mr. Knewbit +confidentially to P. C. Breagh, one midsummer evening, +after the early supper: +</p> + +<p> +"My opinion is we are a-going to give a leg-up to this +'ere 'O'enzollern business, our Chief being—when England, +Home, and Duty permit him to indulge the weakness—a +red-'ot admirer of a Certain Person at Berlin. +Who"—Mr. Knewbit's wink was infinitely sagacious—"is said on +the strict Q.T. to have put up Field-Marshal Prim and the +Government at Madrid to making the proposal to the young +gentleman. For the sake of giving a jolt-up to the elderly +swell at the Tuileries. We all have our ideal 'eroes," +Mr. Knewbit added, "and our Chief's partiality dates from his +acting in an emergency as Special War Correspondent for +his own paper, durin' the Prusso-Austrian War of 1866. +It was at the Battle of——that name always beats me——" +</p> + +<p> +"Königgratz, perhaps?" suggested Carolan. +</p> + +<p> +"Königgratz—when this 'ere Bismarck spurs his big +brown mare up to Colonel von Somebody to ask him why, +seeing the 'eavy losses occurring in his neighborhood from +Austrian Artillery—he didn't ride forward with his +Cuirassiers to find out where the shells came from? Took our +Chief's fancy uncommon, that did, as the iron sugar-plums +was dropping freely in the neighborhood, and when he +had rode on, swearing at the Colonel like anything you +can imagine—the old man picked up a cigar-stump he'd +pitched away, and keeps it to this hour in the pen-tray of +the silver inkstand the Proprietors presented him with +when he came home." +</p> + +<p> +Said P. C. Breagh reflectively: +</p> + +<p> +"It's the rule, invariably. Men love Bismarck or lampoon +him—swear by him—or swear at him. He's the devil +or a demigod—there's no alternative!" +</p> + +<p> +"Good!" said Mr. Knewbit, leaning back in his Windsor +chair, and rubbing the ear of the ginger Tom with the toe +of one of his carpet slippers. "Tell us a bit more. +Anything you can lay hold of. I want to see him stand out a +bit clearer in my mind." +</p> + +<p> +"He gets his name from the Wendish—I've read in the +<i>Kleine Anekdotenbuch</i>," said P. C. Breagh, "that 'Bismarck' +really means 'beware of the thorns.' And there's +a golden sprig of blackberry-bramble among the family +quarterings, so perhaps there's something in it, after all. +An ancestor of his who lived in the sixteenth century was +a tailor—and a natural son of Duke Philip of Hesse, by the +way! Duke Philip was a lineal descendant of St. Elizabeth +of Hungary—who in her turn was descended from the +Emperor Charlemagne——" +</p> + +<p> +"Lor' bless my soul!" said Mr. Knewbit, rubbing his +knees. +</p> + +<p> +"And he—this man you want to know about!—was born +the younger son of a Pomeranian country squire, and +entered the University of Göttingen in 1831. They say +that he permitted study to interfere so little with the more +serious business of amusement that the name of Mad Bismarck +was given him then, and had stuck to him even when +he passed his examination as Referendar, and began to +practice law in the Municipal Court of Aix-la-Chapelle." +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Knewbit, drinking in the information at every pore, +nodded "<i>More</i>"—and P. C. Breagh obliged him: +</p> + +<p> +"He served his year as Volunteer at Potsdam in the +<i>Jägers</i> of the Guard, and then went home to the paternal +estate of Kneiphof, and began sowing wild oats—acres and +acres of them. The officers of the garrison were a +hard-drinking set of fellows, and the county Junkers scorned to +be outdone by them—so they hunted and shot and danced +and made love to the local beauties—they dined and +supped and gambled and fought duels. In fact, they did +all the things men usually do when they mean to have a +high old time and don't care a damn for the consequences," +said P. C. Breagh, "and when you regularly hail smiling +morn with cold punch, beer, and corn-brandy, and wind +up the night with quart-beakers of champagne and porter, +the consequences must be——" +</p> + +<p> +"A taut skin and a fiery eye next morning," interpolated +Mr. Knewbit, "and a tongue like a foul oven-plate or a +burned kettle-bottom. But—my stars!—what a constitution +that man must have to be as hale and as hearty, and +as upright as they say he is, at fifty-five, and with a family +of grown-up sons! One wonders how his sweetheart ever +had the courage to marry such a—such a Ring-tailed +Roarer.... But Love's a thing you can't account for +nohow." +</p> + +<p> +"I have heard that the Fräulein Puttkammer's family +objected to the engagement," said P. C. Breagh, "but he +seems to have got over their prejudices in a way peculiarly +his own. By betrothing himself privately to the Fräulein +first, and then calling openly to inquire how the family +felt about it," he added, in response to the interrogative +hoist of Mr. Knewbit's eyebrows, "and taking the +precaution, upon entering the room—to hug the young lady +before all her friends." +</p> + +<p> +"The hugging would settle the thing—in Germany?" +asked Mr. Knewbit. +</p> + +<p> +"To a dead certainty." +</p> + +<p> +"Without any male cousin or anything of that kind +getting up and calling the hugger out?" asked Mr. Knewbit +dubiously. +</p> + +<p> +"When a man is six feet two inches in height, is as +strong as a bull, and possesses a well-earned reputation +as a fencer and pistol-shot, even male cousins," returned +P. C. Breagh, "are content to sit still and let him hug." +</p> + +<p> +"And then he married her and went into politics—and +to-day, when the Press says 'Prussia,' it means him!" +cried Mr. Knewbit. "What our Chief likes, and what +fetches me!—is his cool owdaciousness. If ever I chance +to find myself in Berlin," he added, "before visiting any +State Collection of Art Objects ever brought together—I'd +choose to 'ave a look at that man!" +</p> + +<p> +Said P. C. Breagh: +</p> + +<p> +"I've seen the Iron Chancellor just once—in '67—passing +through Schwärz-Brettingen on his way to Berlin. +It was in my first semester at the University, and just after +the Constitution of the North German Bund was put into +force by Royal Patent. The Social Democrats had protested +against the withdrawal of the Prussian garrison from +the independent State of Luxembourg—wanted to rush +Germany into war over the business, and they, as well +as the <i>Ultramontaine</i>, having plenty of followers among +the students—both parties formed up on the platform of +the railway-station, and gave the Count three groans." +</p> + +<p> +"How did he take 'em—the groans, I mean?' +</p> + +<p> +"Rather as if he liked them, now I come to think of it. +I can see him now, in civil dress, black frock-coat, vest and +trousers, with a white choker something like a Lutheran +clergyman's. And he jammed his great black felt hat down +on his head and thrust his huge body half out of the +carriage window. His eyes—fierce blue eyes heavily pouched +underneath, and blazing from under shaggy eyebrows—swept +over us as though we were a lot of squeaking +mice—though he was laughing in a good-tempered sort of way. +And he shouted something in dialect—they said it was a +common Pomeranian proverb, '<i>Let not live men fight +over a dead dog!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +"Meaning——?" +</p> + +<p> +"Meaning, one would suppose, that the Luxembourg +garrison was a right which had been given up as +unimportant, and therefore was of no more value than a dead +dog, set against the cost of a new war." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm obliged for your information," said Mr. Knewbit, +pushing back his chair and getting up to reach his brass +tobacco-box from the high kitchen mantelshelf. "In +return I'll give you a bit o' news—which may be of walley +to you. You have been talking A.1 journalism, young +man, as different from the stuff you commonly put on +paper as gold is from this metal"—he tapped the brass +tobacco-box—"and—my advice is—For the future, write +only of what you know; have felt, and heard and seen!" +</p> + +<p> +He sucked despairingly at the wooden pipe he was +filling and, finding it foul, stuck the stem in the spout of +the boiling kettle—a practice abhorred of Miss Ling—and +left it to be cleaned as he continued: +</p> + +<p> +"Big things are going on in the world at this moment—things +worth watching and waiting for. Damme!—though +I'm not a swearer as a rule," said the little man, "if I +don't wish I could change places with something that has +wings. The great man we have been a-talking of is at this +minute at his country-seat in Pomerania—that's the +estate he bought with the grant—sixty thousand pounds +English, it came to—the German Parliament voted him +after the Prussian-Austrian War. And the King of Prussia +is at Ems, a-drinking the waters, and the French Ambassador +has been sent there by the Emperor Napoleon III. to +obtain a special audience, I'm told. And if you or me +could swop jobs with a fly on the wall at one place or the +other—being a German insect it would be likely to +understand their crack jaw language—me or you would be able +to supply a leaded half-column for Special Issue that would +fairly set the world afire. See this!" +</p> + +<p> +He took the short poker from the top of Miss Ling's +kitchen-range, and, pushing back his chair, rose and +approached the wall, which was destitute of pictures, and +distempered in an economical brown color. +</p> + +<p> +"Look here, I say!..." began P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +"The breath of genius inflates me," said Mr. Knewbit, +who had had more than his allowance of beer at supper. +"The impulse to prophesy stimulates me. Look at this!" +</p> + +<p> +He wielded the poker deftly as he spoke. And on the +brown distemper appeared in huge white letters: +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + WILL THERE BE WAR?<br> + YES!<br> + HOHENZOLLERN QUESTION NO DEAD DOG TO FRANCE!<br> + GAUL, AND TEUTON RIPE FOR CONFLICT.<br> + BISMARCK'S VIEWS!<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"But, there, my inspiration gives out," said Mr. Knewbit, +replacing the poker on the range and shaking his head +mournfully, "unless it was possible to change with that +fly on the wall—and take him at one of his expansive, +confidential moments—if he ever has any—neither me nor +any other man living will ever be able to give Bismarck's +real views upon this or any other subject dealing with +Politics. Who's this?" +</p> + +<p> +The hall-door had slammed a moment previously. There +had been a step upon the oilcloth-covered basement staircase, +and now it bore Miss Ling's first-floor lodger, Herr +von Rosius, the "quiet gentleman," who taught German +to English students and English to Germans at the Institute +of Languages in Berners Street, W.—across the threshold +of her tidy kitchen, pipe in mouth and hat in hand. +</p> + +<p> +"Meine Herren, I haf to beg your pardons! I seek +the Fräulein Ling——" he was beginning, when suddenly +the tall, broad-shouldered figure in the ill-fitting checked +tweed clothes was petrified into rigidity. The felt hat he +had civilly removed dropped from his hand, his jaws +clenched on his inseparable meerschaum. Bolt upright, +crimson to the hair, and staring through his steel-rimmed +spectacles, he stood confronting the huge white letters +that disfigured Miss Ling's brown distemper. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Kreuzdonnerwetter! was ist dies?</i>" Carolan heard him +mutter in his own tongue. "<i>Es ist in jedermanns Mund!</i>" Then +he recovered himself almost instantly, picked up his +hat, and gave good-evening in his stiff, yet civil, way. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap24"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXIV +</h3> + +<p> +"Good evening! Miss Ling is out, and won't be back +for an hour," explained Mr. Knewbit, "but if there was +anything you were wanting in a hurry, I'll see that you +get it, somehow." +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks, thanks!" said Herr von Rosius pleasantly. +"So that I shall have my bill within an hour I shall need +nothing. Pray inform the Fräulein I haf just received a +cable from my family in Germany. They tell me I am +wanted at home." +</p> + +<p> +"Sorry, sorry!" said Mr. Knewbit in his pouncing +manner. "Sudden, sudden! Hope no bad news?" +</p> + +<p> +Von Rosius's pale blue eyes might have been stones, +they were so hard, and had so little expression. He +removed and wiped his glasses with his silk handkerchief, +and said, carefully replacing them: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Nein, ganz und gar nicht</i>, but my mother is in need of +me. So I have resigned my post at the Berners Street +Institute of Languages, and got my passport from our +North German Consul in your city. Be so good to give my +message to the Fräulein. I go upstairs to pack my trunks +and bags!" +</p> + +<p> +Von Rosius's long legs had carried him to the first-floor +before Mr. Knewbit had done rubbing his ear and thinking. +When his sitting-room door had banged, and the +kitchen gaselier ceased to vibrate at the concussion, the +little man said, looking at Carolan: +</p> + +<p> +"You have an eye in your head, young chap, and have +lived in that gentleman's country, and speak his language. +And yet the setting of his upper lip and the blank expression +he throwed into his spectacles when I put a plain +question to him, have told me more about him than you've +learned. I'll bet you a ginger-ale that Germany is his +mother, and he has been recalled to serve in the Reserve +Force, I forget what they call it just now." +</p> + +<p> +"They call the Reserve the Reserve, but I expect you +mean the <i>Landwehr</i>," returned Carolan, wondering at the +little man's sharpness. +</p> + +<p> +"That's it. Listen to him singing," said Mr. Knewbit, +as the first-floor sitting-room door banged open again, +heavy steps crossed the landing, and the robust baritone +of Herr von Rosius trolled forth a fragment of song: +"Now, if that might be anything in the 'Rule Britannia' +line, my ginger-ale's as good as won." +</p> + +<p> +"It's the <i>Wacht am Rhein</i>," said P. C. Breagh, returning +enlightened from an excursion to the bottom of the +kitchen staircase, "and I believe you've hit the nail on +the head." +</p> + +<p> +"He served in '66 he told me," said Mr. Knewbit, +indicating the unseen Von Rosius with an upward jerk of his +chin, "and now he's got to go back and be a cog or a +screw-nut somewhere in the big war-machine you've told me of. +What did he call Service of the Active kind? 'Camping +under the helmet-spike.' We shall miss him, for a quieter +and civiler lodger never wore out oilcloth. Hark!—that +was the hall-door. Monsieur Meguet's back uncommon +early. As a rule, after the Museum Print Room closes he +goes to his club in Leicester Square." +</p> + +<p> +The French gentleman who lived on the second floor had +ascended the doorsteps simultaneously with Mr. Ticking. +Mounting to the hall on his way upstairs, attended by the +ginger Tom—no longer a kitten—P. C. Breagh found them, +surrounded by a blue haze of Sweet Caporal and Navy Cut, +finishing a political discussion on the mat, while +Mr. Mounteney, languidly leaning against the door-post of +the ground-floor front-parlor, listened with a detached +and weary air. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>C'est de bouc émissaire</i>—I tell you he is the scapegoat +of a diplomat's malice!" declared the French gentleman. +"Of himself he is without designs—unambitious! a +good child, nothing more! Brave as he is—has he not +been trained from infancy to hardihood and acts of +daring?—has he not slept with but a blanket for covering, and +eaten the soldier's sausage of pea? ... Brave as he is, +he dare not draw upon his unhappy country the terrible—the +devastating—the exterminating wrath of France!" +</p> + +<p> +The French gentleman whose profession was Prints had +spoken loudly,—possibly without the design of being heard +upon the first floor. +</p> + +<p> +Now, as he paused to wipe his streaming brow with a +brilliant green silk handkerchief, a door upon the landing +immediately above was suddenly thrown open, and as a +trunk was dragged across the landing, a stave of the +German equivalent to "Rule, Britannia," boomed forth in +Herr von Rosius's powerful baritone: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "<i>While there's a drop of blood to run,<br> + While there's an arm to hold a gun—<br> + While there's a hand to wield a sword—<br> + Brum—brum brum brum——</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The German words were lost in the racket accompanying +the violent ejection of heavy articles from the bedroom. +Comparative calm ensued as M. Meguet continued: +</p> + +<p> +"Disciplined, well drilled, energetic, and brave, the Army +of France is unmatched and invincible. Our Emperor +assures us upon the honor of a Napoleon, that, equipped +and ready to the last buckle—to the final gaiter-button, it +waits but the signal to roll on. Its musket is infinitely +superior to the Prussian needle-gun, that feeble invention +of an ill-balanced mind!—its artillery is commanded by a +picked corps of officers—is enforced by that terrific weapon, +the <i>mitrailleuse</i>. The Army of Prussia is a bundle of dry +bones, fastened together—not with living sinews—but with +rusty wire. The Prussian Monarch is a tottering +pantaloon of seventy-three, crowned with dusty laurels; who +submits to be the puppet of a demon in human form! +The Genius of France is a divine and glorious being, whose +soul burns with the noble thirst for warlike achievements, +whose blood courses with the fire and heat of unimpaired +youth...." +</p> + +<p> +From upstairs came the big baritone, buzzing like a +gigantic bumble-bee: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "<i>The oath is sworn—the hosts roll on,<br> + In heart and soul thy sons are one.<br> + Dear Fatherland, no fear be thine,<br> + We'll keep our watch upon the Rhine!</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"I tell you!" cried M. Meguet passionately, and pitching +his voice so as to be heard, if possible, still more distinctly +on the floor above; "France will cross the Rhine! Her +hosts will inundate the soil of Germany like a vast tidal +wave, and in one moment obliterate——" +</p> + +<p> +Silence had prevailed above during the utterance of the +above-recorded sentences. At the word "obliterate," a +heavy canvas holdall dropped over the balusters of the +upper landing, missing the speaker by a calculated inch; +and as the ginger Tom, with an astonished curse, +disappeared in the direction of the kitchen: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Prut!</i>" said the voice of Von Rosius from above, +"that was an uncommonly near shave. Pray pardon," he +added, appearing on the staircase, emitting volumes of +smoke from his big meerschaum. "I so much regret the +accident!" +</p> + +<p> +He was attired in rough traveling-clothes, and wore an +intensely practical woolen cap with ear-flaps, though the +July night was oppressively hot. And his spectacles were +inscrutable as he gathered up the boots, slippers, and +clothes-brush that had escaped from the holdall, leaned +the bulky brown canvas mass against the hall-wainscoting, +and felt in the drawer of the rickety hatstand that never +had hats on it, for the cab-whistle that was wheezy from +overwork. +</p> + +<p> +"It is nothing, Monsieur, you have not deranged me for +an instant," returned M. Meguet, with ominously smiling +bonhomie. Then refixing his late audience with his eye, he +went on as though the interruption had never happened: +</p> + +<p> +—"and obliterate from the face of the earth the entire +German nation." +</p> + +<p> +Von Rosius opened the hall-door, letting in the sultry +smell of the hot street. He stood upon the threshold, and +blew for a four-wheeler, one tittering, mocking trill. +M. Meguet continued, quavering, and clutching his brow +in the character of the terrified Hohenzollern, and +imparting a tremor of agitation to his legs: +</p> + +<p> +"Is it, then, to be wondered at," cries this unhappy +Leopold, "that the opinion of Queen Victoria and the +observations of the Czar of Russia have quickened scruples +already existing in my breast? Will my royal relatives +wonder that I say: <i>This shall not be</i>? The brand +designed to set a world on fire has been quenched by my +mother's tears, and the entreaties of my wife and infants. +Let M. de Bismarck mount the Spanish Throne, and adorn +his crafty temples with this crown of piercing bayonets. +I withdraw from this fatal candidacy, though the whole +world should say——" +</p> + +<p> +M. Meguet shrugged his shoulders and struck the blow +for which he had been saving himself: +</p> + +<p> +—"should say what the latest edition of that admirably-informed +journal, the <i>Evening Gazette</i>, quotes from this +morning's edition of <i>Le Gaulois</i>: +</p> + +<p> +"'<i>La Prusse cane!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +Von Rosius was standing on the threshold of the open +door as the words hissed past him. Distant wheels were +rumbling up the dusty cobblestones of Coram Street from, +the cabstand at the corner of Russell Square +</p> + +<p> +"Now, what's the English of that?" asked Mr. Ticking, +rashly. +</p> + +<p> +"Possibly," remarked M. Meguet, with a sardonic smile +at the tall figure and broad shoulders that blocked the +hall-doorway, "Herr von Rosius might be able to inform +you!" +</p> + +<p> +Von Rosius signaled to the driver of the approaching +cab before he turned. In his rough, loosely-fitting clothes, +he bulked large and menacing, though his spectacles were +as inscrutable as ever, and under his light mustache his +excellent teeth showed quite smilingly. He felt for money +in his trousers-pocket as he answered composedly: +</p> + +<p> +"With pleasure. It is a slang expression used by the +blackguards of the lowest quarters of Paris. '<i>Cane</i>' is +to 'back out' or to 'climb down,' as the Americans would +say. Excuse me! I go to pay my bill." +</p> + +<p> +He nodded slightly as he passed Ticking and Mounteney, +and bestowed the same civility on P. C. Breagh. +Then his heavy footsteps thundered down the kitchen +staircase, from whose hatchway he emerged a few minutes +later, accompanied by Mr. Knewbit, who had volunteered +to help with the luggage, and this being stacked on the +cab, their owner got into it, and Herr von Rosius, rigidly +shaking hands with his English fellow-lodgers, and +exchanging a distant salute with M. Meguet, got into the +fusty vehicle and was driven away to the triumphant +strains of the Marseillaise, performed by his racial +antagonist on the piano appertaining to the first-floor +sitting-room he had a moment previously vacated. +</p> + +<p> +"'Prussia climbs down,'" murmured Mr. Knewbit, +standing before the inscription on the kitchen distemper. +"With the 'and on her 'elm that she 'as——" he went on +shedding "h's," as was his way when deeply meditative, +"I should doubt the correctness of that report. Still, I +shall advise Maria to keep them first-floor apartments +vacant a day or two—in case Mr. von Rosius's mother +doesn't want him after all.... What does Solomon +say? '<i>Designs are strengthened by counsels, and wars are +to be managed by Governments.</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +The kettle was boiling madly, and a volume of steam +was issuing from the pipe-bowl. Mr. Knewbit rescued +the blackened briar-root, mechanically filled it, and looked +for a light. +</p> + +<p> +There was a crumpled pale green paper lying near his +boot upon the worn linoleum. He picked it up, and saw +that it was a cablegram issued by the North German +Submarine Telegraph Company, addressed to Von Rosius, and +containing a message of four words: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Lanze inden Schuh, Uhlan! Hauptquartier, Berlin.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"Now, which shall I do?" asked Mr. Knewbit, scanning +the baffling foreign words written in the familiar English +characters. Torn between conscientious scruples and a +characteristic thirst for information, the little man was +pitiable to see. "Which shall I do?" he repeated. "Use +this here for a pipe-light—or show it to my young shaver +upstairs?" +</p> + +<p> +Deciding on the latter course, he climbed to the attic +rented by the young shaver, and knocked at the door. +</p> + +<p> +"Come in! ... I'm not working to-night," said P. C. Breagh +out of the darkness. Upon Mr. Knewbit's striking +a match, the young man, who was leaning back in his chair +before the venerable davenport, contemplating the dusk +oblong of starry sky visible above the chimney-pots of +Bernard Street, shook himself free of thought as a setter +shakes off water, and got up. +</p> + +<p> +"Feel out of sorts?" asked Mr. Knewbit, burning his +fingers, and striking another match as he bustled to the +single bracket over the narrow wooden mantelshelf and +lighted the gas. "Anything wrong?" +</p> + +<p> +"I feel out of the swim," said P. C. Breagh, sitting down +again astride his chair, and cupping his square chin in a +fist that had ink-smears on it, as he stared at the wobbling +blue flame that presently spread itself into a yellow fan of +radiance, "and hipped and beastly. I've no right to +quarrel with my bread-and-butter, but I'm doing it +to-night. The fact that I'm a Nobody doesn't prevent me +from wanting to wind up as Somebody. Putting the case +roughly, that's what's wrong." +</p> + +<p> +"This here house," said Mr. Knewbit in his pouncing +manner, "belonged to a man who was a Nobody, if you +like. A Master Seaman, who used to tramp it to his ship +at Wapping, and pick up the outcast babies lying in the +kennels, and roll 'em in his big boat-cloak and carry 'em +home. Them foundlings was nobodies—yet two of 'em +lived to be Lord Mayors of London. Old Captain Coram, +who founded the Hospital, died neglected and forgotten, +but nobody looking at his tomb in the Chapel yonder will +deny he wound up as Somebody at last!" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh yawned hugely and rumpled his hair +discontentedly. +</p> + +<p> +"The chap you're talking of was a philanthropist, and I +want—I'm not ashamed to want—to build a career for +myself instead of founding a charity-school. I want—your +own talk has made me want!—to get out of this little +squirrel-cage—even though there are nuts and sugar and +bread in it all the year round. And"—his scowl was +portentous—"if this Hohenzollern hadn't backed out of the +Spanish Crown affair, when France cockadoodled, and +there had been a racket on the Rhine frontier—I'd just +have rummaged round to find an editor who'd be ass +enough to pay a raw hand for letters sent from the seat +of hostilities—and if I couldn't have found one—and of +course I couldn't—when seasoned men are as plentiful +as nutshells in the Adelphi gallery—I'd have gone to the +war as a camp-follower—and got experience that way!" +</p> + +<p> +Said Mr. Knewbit, turning and scanning the resolute, +dogged young face, with black eyes that twinkled like jet +beads: +</p> + +<p> +"I don't agree with you that seasoned Correspondents +are plentiful. There are thousands who're ready to sit in +an office behind the Compositors' Room, and write +eyewitnesses' accounts of thrilling charges. But them that +are ready to go out with a Permit and get attached to a +Staff; them that are ready and willing to march with an +Army on the War path—starve when there are no rations, +lie in the fields in the sopping rain when no roof's to be +had to cover 'em—write accounts of the day's fighting +under shell-fire, and cheerfully get killed if a bullet comes +their way in the course o' things!—you can't call the +journalistic profession overstocked with them. If you do, +just name me one such man for each finger of these two +big hands of mine. I defy you to, so there!" +</p> + +<p> +They were very big hands, and as Mr. Knewbit held +them up side by side, with the palms toward his young +shaver, they not undistantly resembled a pair of +decent-sized flatfish. +</p> + +<p> +"To become a man like one of these—and they're the +Pick of the British Nation," said Mr. Knewbit, "you must +be pitched into the midst of things neck and crop, and left +to sink or swim. I compliment you when I say that I +believe you one of the swimming kind. Now, supposing +War broke out after all—how much Hard Cash would you +want to carry you through a Campaign?" +</p> + +<p> +"I've got five pounds put away in the Post-Office Savings +Bank," returned P. C. Breagh, after a moment's mental +calculation, "and I believe I could manage if I had +another fifteen." +</p> + +<p> +"Making Twenty Pound," said Mr. Knewbit, biting a +finger thoughtfully. He threw the finger out at P. C. Breagh, +and his black eyes twinkled more than ever. "For +Fifteen Pound down would you undertake to write and +send home to the person advancing you the money, for—say +four weeks (that'd give two nations comfortable time +to have it out and settle their differences in a +Christian-like manner, with a little burning of powder, and +bloodshed)—three letters per week, describing in a style +readable by plain, ordinary, everyday people—what you've +seen, and heard—and felt—and smelt—don't forget that!" +said Mr. Knewbit, shaking his finger warningly at +P. C. Breagh, "on the march, or in the bivouac, or while the +fighting was going on?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh would have broken in here, but the held-up +finger stopped him on the verge of utterance: +</p> + +<p> +"Avoid sham Technicality," said Mr. Knewbit sternly. +"Don't let me have stuff like: '<i>Sir—On the morning of +the —th the Field-Marshal von Blitherem—or General +Parlezvous—shifted the left wing of his Division nearer to his +center, and shortly after nine o 'clock the forces under +command of What'shisname and Thingummy began to move +in column of so and so. A light 'aze lay upon the +fields—the droppin' fire of the enemy's Artillery made itself +felt at the Advance Posts nor' and nor'-west.</i>' Nor don't +you ladle me out sentimental slumgullion, after the fashion +of—'<i>All is Peace, while I pen these 'asty lines and sip +my morning coffee. Yet ere the radiant beams of Sol +will have dried the pearly dew from these smiling fields, +the 'ideous roar of cannon and the withering burst of +shrapnel will have devastated and blighted Nature's +choicest 'andiwork, and Man, that noblest work of the +Creative Power—will be engaged in the 'orrible task of +destroying fellow-men wrought in the image of hisself.</i>' For +the Lord is a Man of War—according to the Scriptures," +said Mr. Knewbit, ignoring P. C. Breagh's amusement. +"And it is written that He shall overthrow Kingdoms +and break the scepters of Kings, and cause that +nations shall be swallowed up in nations." He added, +with a sharp change to his business tone, "And bad or +good, these letters of yours are mine, to burn or print as +I think fit and necessary? All right! I'll draw up a +little agreement—and whenever you choose to sign +it—there's your Fifteen Pounds.—Lord! to think I should live +to send out a Special Correspondent, all to my own cheek! +It's—a—a luxury I should never have anticipated." +</p> + +<p> +"The Correspondent won't be much use without a war +to correspond about," said Carolan, growing weary of +Mr. Knewbit's humor. "And I suppose there won't be +one now." +</p> + +<p> +"We shall know for certain, I dare say, when you've +thrown your eye over this paper here," said his patron, +producing a crumpled oblong of pale green. "That it's +addressed to another person ain't your business. I mean +that person no injury—and naturally no more don't you. +What you're asked to do is to English these words for +me." He handed over the cablegram and expanded himself +to hear. P. C. Breagh read with lifting eyebrows: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Lanze inden Schuh, Uhlan! Hauptquartier, Berlin.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"And what's that mean? English it, can't you?" +snapped Mr. Knewbit, rabid with curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh Englished it as requested: +</p> + +<p> +"Lance in rest, Hussar. Headquarters, Berlin." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Said Mr. Knewbit later on, warming his calves despite +the heat of the weather, at the low coke fire in the kitchen +register, while Miss Ling bustled about clearing away the +supper-cloth: +</p> + +<p> +"That there cable was received in London at six-thirty +this evening, and the <i>Evening Gazette</i> Meguet quoted from +was the latest issue—about eleven a.m. I shall go down +early to the office to-night!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +His Excellency Field-Marshal General Count von Moltke +had said that day, having dropped in at the Berlin +Headquarters of the Reserve <i>Landwehr</i> for the purpose of +perusing certain lists sent from London a few days +previously by the Teutonic gentleman who taught English +to German immigrants at the Institute in Berners +Street, W.: +</p> + +<p> +"It was an excellent idea of Colonel von Rosius to fish +for missing Prussian conscripts and deserters from our +<i>Landwehr</i> in the character of a teacher of English to +foreigners in London. He has netted in a year, two +thousand privates and non-commissioned officers, would-be +waiters, clerks, porters, valets, and tradesmen—men of +all ages, from forty to nineteen. A useful officer—a very +intelligent officer. We shall make up much leakage in +adopting his plan!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +In the dimly gaslit murkiness of three o'clock in the +morning Mr. Knewbit sallied forth to business, carrying +his hat in his hand as he went, for the weather was +oppressive, yet walking at his usual red-hot pace, and making +as much noise with his boots as three ordinary men. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm not in my usual mood for Nature," he said, on +reaching the bottom of gray, grimy Endell Street, "and I +flatter myself on being tough enough—at a pinch—to do +without my customary dose of fresh air. So I'll twist +down Long Acre and take the Drury Lane short-cut. Not +that there is any special reason for hurry to-night." +</p> + +<p> +Yet hurry seemed abroad to an observation as strictly +professional as Mr. Knewbit's. Cabs rattled over the stones +of the Strand, dashing Fleet Streetward; panting messengers +clutching envelopes dived under the horses' noses; +hurried pedestrians carrying little black bags jostled +Mr. Knewbit every moment; windows of offices glowed like +furnaces, and the champing of steam-engines made a +continual beat upon the ear. +</p> + +<p> +"The last report from the late Debate in the Commons +is in by now," said Mr. Knewbit, looking at his stout silver +timekeeper, under a gas-lamp, "and Gladstone 'as made +short work of that last batch of Bills for the Session. Fee +Fo Fum was nothing to 'im. Merchant Shipping, Ballot, +Turnpikes, Inclosures—and a baker's dozen of Scotch Bills +'ave been offered up in a regular 'ecatomb, and anathemas +'ave been 'urled at the 'eads of the Opposition with the +usual inspiritin' effect. The gentleman who is a-trying to +put a stop to the employment of young children in +Factories and Workshops 'as been put down with the powerful +argument that the kids like their work, and would get up +at four in the morning to do it for nothink if they wasn't +paid for it. What a headin' I could make out of that! +The stoker who was drivin' the engine to give the reg'lar +driver a rest when the Carlisle Railway Disaster happened +has been released without a stain on 'is character, and +complimented by the Committee on his 'umanity into the +bargain. Mr. Bright is better, and will wake up the Board +of Trade presently. That's all we shall have for our bill +of fare this issue, includin' the City Correspondence, +Sportin' Intelligence, Markets, Stocks, and state of the +weather, Railway Shares, Law and Police reports, and +Births, Deaths, and Marriages, and not leavin' out the +new midsummer drama at Sadler's Wells Theater or the +letters written by gentlemen with grievances, signing +theirselves 'Pater-familias,' or 'Englishman,' or 'Verax,' who +have been sauced by hackney-cab drivers or over-rated by +the Income Tax, or overcharged for a cold-mutton, lettuce-salad +and cheese luncheon in a country inn. That's all, +and no more than bound to be! And yet I feel as if +something was going to happen. I'm not due in my Department +for another hour. I shall do a bit of a Look Round." +</p> + +<p> +He entered by the swing-doors of the Fleet Street +general entrance, meeting a rush of hot air, powerfully +flavored with gas and machine-oil, and was instantly borne +off his feet by an avalanche of telegraph-agency +messengers in oilskin caps and capes. The place was ablaze +with gas, shirt-sleeved men and grubby boys ran hither +and thither like agitated insects. The walls shook with +the panting of engines getting up steam. Perspiring +printer-foremen shot in and out of little baking-hot glass +offices where sub-editors were cutting down heaps of +"flimsy," ramming sheets of copy on files, correcting +proofs, and curtailing pars.... +</p> + +<p> +Said Mr. Knewbit, fanning himself on a landing after +climbing a great many iron-shod staircases, and passing in +and out of a great many swing-doors emitting puffs of the +hot gas-and-oil-perfumed air already mentioned, and +leading to glass-roofed departments, where shirt-sleeved and +aproned men labored for dear life, and huge steam-power +machines at high pressure trembled and panted like +elephants gone mad: +</p> + +<p> +"The Foreign Telegrams are in type and the Leaders +are in the chases. The forms are in the machines, and in +another minute the word will be given to Print. Halloa! +Beg pardon, sir! I'm sure I didn't see you!" +</p> + +<p> +For a little red-hot, perspiring gentleman had leaped up +the staircase like a goat of the mountain, had charged at +the swing-doors immediately behind Knewbit, collided with +him, sworn at him breathlessly—and vanished with a double +thud of the swing-doors, and a shout of "Matheson!" +</p> + +<p> +A clang of voices seemed to answer him, there was a +brief minute's delay, ages as it seemed to the waiting +Mr. Knewbit; then the mad elephants, unchained, began to +heave and stamp and snort. And—at the rate of twenty-five +thousand an hour, began to roll, from the great +cylinders of damp paper, the day's issue of the <i>Early +Wire</i>. +</p> + +<p> +They rolled out—as similar cylinders were rolling up +and down Fleet Street and all the world over, the Report +of the late Debate in the Commons, the list of Bills +beheaded by the Prime Minister, the ineffectual efforts of +the gentleman who was trying to stop the Factory Owners +from employing Infant Labor, the result of the Commission +of Inquiry upon the Carlisle Railway Disaster, and +all the News of the day. And in a space reserved for the +Latest Foreign Intelligence appeared a telegram sent from +Ems by the King of Prussia, as condensed at a dinner-council +of three convivials, in the Wilhelm Strasse, Berlin. +</p> + +<p> +And all the world read it and commented, as British +stocks went up and Continental Stocks played seesaw: +</p> + +<p> +"The King of Prussia refuses to receive the French +Ambassador! ... This most certainly means WAR!" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap25"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXV +</h3> + +<p> +Perched on the wall,—hung with an old-world Chinese +paper, figured with sprays of bamboo, pagodas, bridges, +mandarins promenading under yellow umbrellas, and fair +Celestials reclining on the banks of a meandering, bright +blue stream—the German fly of Mr. Knewbit's envy would +have reaped scant information from the conversation of +the three men sitting at the dinner-table, for the reason +that they conversed in English—perhaps for privacy's +sake. +</p> + +<p> +The apartment, not ordinarily used as a dining-room, +possessed three sets of folding-doors, and beyond a sofa +and twelve heavy chairs, upholstered with a Chinese +brocade matching the paper, was scantily furnished. The +table plate was solid and handsome. A pair of huge +silver-gilt wine-coolers displayed a goodly array of +champagne bottles, a cellar-basket with rows of horizontal +wicker-nests contained claret, Burgundy, and Rhine wine. +The second course was under discussion, but the servants, +after placing the dishes on the table, had withdrawn. By +a bell kept on a dumb-waiter at the host's elbow, bearing +sauces, clean plates, spare glasses, bread of white and +black, and other requisites, the attendants could be +summoned at need. +</p> + +<p> +The hostess's chair at the table-head was vacant. The +two guests' places were laid on the right and left hand of +the host. All three men were in uniform, two were well +stricken in years; and Time had not left sufficient locks +among them to furnish a wig-maker with material for +covering a bald patch. +</p> + +<p> +Also, they were men of whom the world had heard much +already, and was, before the ending of the year, to hear a +great deal more. +</p> + +<p> +The tall, heavily-built man of sixty-seven, in the uniform +of a General of Division, who sat upon the host's right +hand, boasting a hair-tuft above either ear, a pair of +shaggy eyebrows, and a bristling mustache dyed to savage +blackness, any intelligent Berliner would have recognized +as Von Roon, the Prussian Minister of War; while the +mild-looking veteran of seventy who opposed him, displaying +the crimson badge of the Great General Staff upon a +plain dark close-buttoned military frock, with the ribbons +of a dozen decorations showing in a narrow line on his left +breast and the coveted Cross of the Red Eagle of the +First Class hanging at the black regulation stock that +clipped his unstarched linen collar, would have been +claimed by the veriest street urchin as "Our Moltke!" +</p> + +<p> +You saw in this hale, lean, stooping Staff Officer, who +covered a scalp as bare as a new-born babe's with an +obvious auburn wig, the first soldier of the day, the +past-master in war-craft. His fine, transparent beaky profile, +tight mouth, clear light eyes, set in a net of innumerable +knowing little wrinkles, and the cross-hatching of tiny +scarlet veins that made his hollow cheeks ruddy as Cornish +apples, might have belonged to some aged, ascetic Cardinal, +or venerable Professor of Science, rather than to Baron +Helmuth Carl Bernhard von Moltke, General, Field-Marshal, +and Chief of the Great General Staff of the +Prussian Army; whose heraldic motto, <i>Erst wagen dann +wagen</i> summarizes his strategical policy; whose conduct of +the Danish War of '64 and the Austrian War of '66 had +placed Prussia in the forefront as a military nation, under +whose banner were soon to gather the Confederated +German States. +</p> + +<p> +Questioned as to the identity of the man at the head of +the table, the long-limbed, heavily molded, powerfully +built personage of five-and-fifty, attired in the +undress-uniform of a Colonel of White Cuirassiers, and wearing +the Order of Commander of the Red Eagle, the citizen +would most likely have scowled, the street-boy spat forth +some unsavory epithet, tacked on to a name that was +destined to be inscribed upon the era in divers mediums, +inclusive of marble and iron, brass and gold and silver; +lead and fire; bright steel and red blood. +</p> + +<p> +For this was the Minister to whom diplomats, Parliamentary +orators, and political leader-writers referred when +they mentioned Prussia; the accursed of Ultramontane, +the abhorred of Socialists. Walking alone through the +streets, as, indeed, he loved to do, his keen eye and huge +physical strength had saved him, ere now, from the +assassin's bullet or knife. And you could not look upon +him without recognizing a Force, all-potent for good or +all-dominant in evil, an enemy to be execrated or a leader +to be adored. +</p> + +<p> +The massive, high-domed head was scantily covered, save +for a grayish lock or so above either temple, and a thin +thatching behind the finely shaped, sagacious ears. The +eyebrows were thick—of gray mixed with darkish brown; +the luxuriant brown-gray mustache covering the large, +mobile, sarcastic mouth, grew heavily as any trooper's. +The short, straight nose was rounded at the end like the +point of a broadsword. And in the indomitable, vital +regard of the blue eyes, partly hidden under thick and +level lids, you felt the master-mind, as they coldly +considered some question of finance or diplomacy, or blazed +challenge and defiance, scorn and irony. And in the +sagging orbital pouches, as in the puffy jowl, you read +the unmistakable signs of bygone orgies, deep potations, +marvelous vital powers taxed to the utmost in the past +pursuit of pleasure, as by present indefatigable, unsleeping +labors with brain, voice, and pen in the service of Throne +and State. +</p> + +<p> +The table-talk dealt chiefly, at first, with culinary and +gastronomical matters. Asparagus soup iced and a clear +soup with vermicelli had preceded the course of fish, placed +on the table by the servants, who had then been dismissed. +A huge dish of Waldbach trout with green sauce and +another, as capacious, of crayfish stewed in cream with +mushrooms, vanished before a double onslaught on the part of +the War Minister and the Chancellor, the Chief of the +General Staff partaking sparingly, as was his wont. +</p> + +<p> +Said his host, smiling and setting down an empty wine +goblet: +</p> + +<p> +"You eat nothing, Herr Baron Field-Marshal, whereas +I, who come of a family of great eaters, and His Excellency, +who boasts a similarly inherited capacity, have taken twice +of each dish." +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks, thanks, dear Count," said Moltke mildly, +glancing downward at the well-marked hollow behind his +middle buttons; "but I do not like to overload my stomach, +particularly at my time of life." +</p> + +<p> +"Being aware of Your Excellency's objection to dishes +that are heavy," the Chancellor continued gravely, but +still smiling, "I took pains to select a menu of light, easily +digested things. What are three or four dozens of oysters +at the commencement of a dinner?" +</p> + +<p> +Von Roon agreed, in a hoarse bass, that set the +chandelier-glasses vibrating: +</p> + +<p> +"Or a few half-pound trout, or a helping or so of stewed +crayfish? Mere nothings—to a strong digestion." +</p> + +<p> +"Mine cannot be strong," the great strategist remarked +modestly, "for I find that an over-plentiful meal oppresses +the brain, and hinders steady thought." +</p> + +<p> +Said the Chancellor, filling from a long-necked bottle +one of the three large crystal goblets that served him as +wine-glasses, emptying it at a draught and setting it +down: +</p> + +<p> +"Hah! Were that known in a certain high quarter at +Paris, what a cargo of delicacies you would presently +receive from the Maison Chevet!" +</p> + +<p> +Von Roon's big voice came in: +</p> + +<p> +"Was not Chevet the Parisian purveyor who supplied +the banker-minister Lafitte with fish for a Dieppe dinner +in the time of the French Monarchy?" +</p> + +<p> +"So!" The Chancellor, holding his napkin delicately +in both hands, dried the wine from his mustache, and +added, turning his great, slightly bloodshot eyes upon +the interrogator. "And who is now chief caterer for the +Emperor Napoleon the Third." He added, glancing back +at Moltke, and observing that his glass stood unemptied: +"Since Your Excellency will not eat, let me recommend +you the wine, which is of special quality. Not only +Rüdesheim, but good Rüdesheim. Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +The veteran's clear eyes became mere slits in the mass +of puckered wrinkles. He pushed back his auburn peruke, +showing his high-arched temples, and laughed, revealing +gums as healthy as a child's, and still accommodating +three or four staunch old grinders inclined at various +angles, like ancient apple-tree stumps. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Nu, nu</i>! You are twitting me with my candor to +Sultan Mahmoud in 1835; but what else could I say when +Chosref Pasha intimated that His Sublimity required my +opinion? Directly I tasted his wretched wine, I knew +some rogue had sold him an inferior brand, and thus I +told him honestly: 'It is Rüdesheim, Your Majesty, but it +is not good Rüdesheim!' And with the first of the boxes +of tobacco and cigarettes that came from Constantinople +after my return to Germany, I received the message that +the <i>tutun</i> was not only Turkish <i>tutun</i>, but good Turkish +<i>tutun</i>." He drank off his wine, ending: "And so my +nephews say it is, for I smoke neither cigarettes nor +pipes." +</p> + +<p> +"I smoke pipes," said the Chancellor, stretching a white, +muscular hand toward the bell on the dumb-waiter, +"when my doctor prohibits cigars." He added: "Pipes +of all materials and descriptions—one sort excepted. I +have no doubt Your Excellency could give it a name." +</p> + +<p> +The War Minister, pondering, knotted his heavy tufted +eyebrows, and presently blew out his cheeks as a man may +when the jest baffles his wit. The Field-Marshal began to +laugh, a gentle chuckle that began by agitating his lean +abdomen, and shaking his bowed but vigorous shoulders +before it widened his mouth into a slit curved gaily at the +corners, and squeezed tears of merriment out of his +puckered eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"I'll wager half a pfennig I will name it at the first +guess! You mean the Calumet of Peace!" +</p> + +<p> +Von Roon barked out a laugh. The Chancellor nodded, +smiling. Then two middle-aged, grave-looking male servants +in plain black entered with the third course, and the +faces of the diners underwent a curious change. They +were more suave, and all expression seemed as though it +had been wiped from them. Until, following on the heels +of the servants (who brought the <i>entrées</i>), there appeared +a colossal boarhound, dark tawny in color, with black +pointings, short, rounded ears, massive chest, square +muzzle, and red-rimmed eyes. Fixing these fierce orbs +upon his master with an affection proved not altogether +disinterested by the copious dribbling of his jaws, the +great brute sat upright at his left hand, flogged the carpet +with his heavy tail, and saluted the placing of the dishes +on the table with three gruff barks. +</p> + +<p> +"Aha, Tyras!" +</p> + +<p> +"Hey, then, Tyras! So they have cut short your +furlough, boy!" +</p> + +<p> +"He would tell you, like that sergeant of infantry who +was made postman of a country district after the war of +'66, and at whom the illiterate population—who never got +anything but bad news or dunning letters—used to shoot +as a mild hint to keep away altogether, that all the days +are field-days to him. Speaking as a dog with a master +who walks when he does not ride, and must be waited for +when he is neither riding nor walking." +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor, smiling, looked at the huge brute, which +rose and laid its massive jowl entreatingly upon his +chair-arm, and receiving no immediate return in caress, lobbed +a heavy forepaw pettishly upon the tablecloth. A chased +silver-gilt salt-cellar, in the shape of a Bavarian +peasant-girl carrying two milk-pails, toppled, and might have +fallen to the floor, but that the Field-Marshal caught it +dexterously, though without being able to prevent the salt +being spilt. +</p> + +<p> +"No harm done. See!" He triumphantly set the milk-maid +in her place again: "Only the salt is spilled upon +the cloth!" +</p> + +<p> +"Now, if Tyras were superstitious!" commented the +host, as a servant hastened to repair the damage with the +aid of a napkin and a porcelain dessert-plate, "he would +be convinced that Madame Tyras and her sons were not +doing as well as might be hoped." +</p> + +<p> +"The bitch has pupped, then?" said Von Roon as a +trio of corks exploded; and the servants, having carried +round the dishes, placed them on the table, set an open +bottle of champagne, dewy from the ice, and enveloped in +a damask napkin, at the right of each diner, and +noiselessly quitted the Chinese room. +</p> + +<p> +As the door shut, the Chancellor continued, responding +to Roon's question with a nod, and looking at the Chief +of the Great General Staff: +</p> + +<p> +"However, Tyras is not one of those nervous sires who +rend heaven and earth with outcries if danger threatens +one of their offspring. The Pomeranian breed are possibly +less nervous than the strain at Sigmaringen. I think +Prince Antony——" +</p> + +<p> +Blurted out the Field-Marshal, bolting a mouthful of +cutlet and crimsoning to the edges of his wig with sudden +anger: "May the great devil fly away with that pompous +old sheep's-head!" +</p> + +<p> +"It was not without reason," said the Chancellor, without +slackening in his onslaught upon an <i>entrée</i> of duckling +stewed with olives, "that I arranged for us three to dine +without the servants. Did I not foresee that the hot +blood of the warlike youth would effervesce in some such +expression as that I have just heard!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the old man, still flushed, but laughing, and sipping +at a bumper of dry Sillery: +</p> + +<p> +"He is a sheep's-head, and a pompous one! He negotiates +with Prim, as head of the Hohenzollern family, quite +forgetting the King, it would appear! He is very well +pleased—he thinks the place will suit his son capitally! +He sends him on second thoughts to ask the King if he +does not think so. Then when France hurries her +Ambassador to Ems to inform the King, who has not said +'Ay' or 'Nay' in the matter, that she will not tolerate a +Prince of Prussia on the Throne of Spain, he writes to +the King saying that he is much impressed by the turn +things are taking at Paris, and though he thinks he +cannot in decency break off the affair, perhaps the King will +do it for him! Meanwhile Prince Leopold, who is the +chief person concerned—where withdrawal or acceptance +is in question—has quitted Ems and gone where you +please.... Not to his parents' country castle of +Sigmaringen, but to the Tyrol.... Now why to the Tyrol? +This marching and countermarching—with no definite +purpose in it, makes my blood boil. Phew!" +</p> + +<p> +And really the perspiration fairly bubbled from the +pores of the old warrior, as he took off his auburn peruke +and mopped his dripping head and face with a large white +handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor, who had been discussing a second helping +of the dish before him, laid down his knife and fork +upon their silver-gilt supporters, unfastened a hook of his +undress frock, and said, withdrawing a small roll of tissue +papers and separating one thin penciled sheet from the +rest: +</p> + +<p> +"There is some reason for the Prince's agitation. This +morning a telegram in cipher—of which this is a fair +transcript—was dispatched from Sigmaringen to Olozaga, the +Spanish Ambassador at Paris. It conveys the intimation +that Prince Antony withdraws from the candidacy in the +name of Prince Leopold. It was sent by the French +Emperor's secret agent, a Roumanian named Straz." +</p> + +<p> +He went on informing himself, with a quiet side-glance +to right and left, of the effect his communication was +producing: +</p> + +<p> +"Perhaps you do not know Straz—a man with the profile +and curls of one of M. Layard's man-god bulls of Nineveh, +a living tool that might have been tempered in the +workshop of an Alexander Borgia, or a Catherine de +Medici——" +</p> + +<p> +He stopped to fill one of his great crystal goblets from +the champagne-bottle that stood beside him. Moltke, +indifferent to the dishes that stood temptingly within reach, +had been wiping the inside of his wig dry with his +handkerchief. Now, oblivious of the wig, and crumpling it +with the handkerchief into a ball, he was squeezing the +ball between his narrow palms as he listened to the speaker. +Von Roon, who had been busy upon some sweetbreads +cooked in sour cream, paused in the act of helping +himself again largely. +</p> + +<p> +"So—so—this fellow—Straz——" The Chancellor stuttered +now and then, and he did it here effectively—"This +uns-scrupulous f-fellow of whom I am t-talking——" He +drained the big glass to the dregs, wiped his mustache +carefully, and began delicately unfolding more thin sheets +of paper from the small but pregnant wad. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, yes, where was I? Th-this morning, the twelfth of +July, the originals of these three telegrams, which are not +in cipher, were sent from Sigmaringen by Prince Antony. +The first, to Marshal Prim, at Madrid, withdraws his son +from the candidacy. The second, to Olozaga, recapitulates +the wording of this. The third, ostensibly addressed +to the principal journals of Berlin and Germany, and to +the German Submarine Telegraphic Agencies by order of +Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, abandons all pretensions +to the Spanish scepter, and restores to Spain her freedom +of initiative." +</p> + +<p> +Von Roon bellowed like a nine-inch siege gun: +</p> + +<p> +"What May-madness has the confounded old billy-goat?" +</p> + +<p> +The Chief of the Great General Staff put on his wig, +and said, folding his lean arms upon his sunken chest: +</p> + +<p> +"How has he at Paris managed to frighten the old man?" +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor said, fixing his full, powerful eyes upon +the light ones twinkling through their wise old puckers: +</p> + +<p> +"The mission of M. Straz, privately sent, upon the +advice of the Duke de Gramont, by the Emperor of France +to Sigmaringen (while Count Benedetti repairs to the +King of Prussia at Ems, and a third emissary, Bartholdi, +is sent to menace President Zorilla at Madrid)—the +mission of M. Straz is to terrify the Prince and Princess +with threats of the assassination of one, if not both their +sons." +</p> + +<p> +Commented Moltke, shrugging a shoulder: +</p> + +<p> +"To work on the woman, always—if there is one! ... +Badinguet's tactics are not new—but they are effective +beyond doubt." +</p> + +<p> +"Knave!" came from Roon, in a blurt of indignation +</p> + +<p> +"Says Straz to Prince Antony of Hohenzollern—I give +you the exact words;—'Highness, His Imperial Majesty +the Emperor authorizes me to inform you that a group of +Roumanian conspirators are plotting against the life of +your elder son, Prince Charles von Hohenzollern—now +Charles of Roumania. The threads of this plot being +centered in Paris, it is in the Emperor's power to sever +them—he will do so if Prince Leopold withdraws from +the candidature,—he will not seek to deter the conspirators, +should the Prince prove obstinate. Reflect in addition +that Prince Leopold, as King of Spain, will have +to contend against the plots of Alfonsists and Carlists—as +against the intrigues of Montpensier and other aspirants +to Isabella's vacated throne. He will not be summoned +to reign—he will be called to a disaster. Death +will sit beside him, under the Royal canopy.'" +</p> + +<p> +The reader's muscular white hands drew another crackling +sheet from the little roll of papers. He went on: +</p> + +<p> +"The mother of the two young men was present—as +was intended—when Straz delivered this message from +the Emperor. Naturally the Princess brought her +batteries to work upon the Prince and her younger son, +who, though it is not admitted, was actually present. +She has wept, implored, prayed, fainted, argued for +forty-eight hours——" +</p> + +<p> +The Field-Marshal muttered: +</p> + +<p> +"Poor soul!" +</p> + +<p> +And with his wrinkled hand he rubbed a glistening +drop from his cheek, that was not perspiration. Von Roon +snorted like a dyed old war-horse: +</p> + +<p> +"Meanwhile, the Imperial Ambassador, Count Benedetti, +will be setting forth the object of his mission to the +King!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Chancellor, letting the words come out softly +and distinctly,—and one would have expected so huge a +man to roar after the fashion of giants, rather than to +speak in such mellifluous tones: +</p> + +<p> +"His instructions run thus: '<i>Say to the King that we +have no secret motive, that we do not seek a pretext for +war—and that we only ask to reach an honorable +solution of a difficulty that was not created by us.</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +"It is honorable, then," said Von Moltke in a tone of +childlike wonder, "to threaten to murder that old woman's +two sons?" +</p> + +<p> +"Meanwhile," said the mellifluous, pleasant voice of the +Chancellor, "the Emperor and Marshal le Bœuf have sent +Staff-Colonel Gresley to Algiers with secret orders to +MacMahon to embark those troops from Africa which are +most available for service on the Continent, and to warn +the most distant regiments to be at Algiers on the 18th. +The Generals of his Artillery and Engineers have been +dispatched upon a plain-clothes confidential visit of +inspection to the fortresses of the North-East, all leave has +been stopped, and the commanders of brigades have +apprised the staffs of the mobilization offices to dispatch +the orders of recall of the reserves. This was put into +effect on the 8th. Upon the same day the order was given +to bring the Infantry regiments up to War strength by +the creation of their Fourth Battalions, and General +Blondeau, of the Administrative Branch of the War +Department, has been authorized to exceed his credit by the +sum of a million francs." He ended, showing his small, +regular teeth, as he smiled agreeably upon his hearers: +"The Tuileries system of Secret Intelligence is certainly +excellent, but I do not think we are so badly served!" +</p> + +<p> +"Badly served!" echoed Roon. "One would say not!" +</p> + +<p> +"You must be served by the great devil himself and all +his devilkins, Otto, my dear fellow!" said the Chief of the +Great General Staff, with a merry chuckle, "to have all +this dished up to you before it is cold! Well, well! +Thanks be to the good God—we are not so far behind +these French as we might be! No, no! not at all so far +behind! ..." +</p> + +<p> +He said this musingly, his startlingly limpid eyes almost +hidden by the wrinkles and puckers, his long, humorous +upper lip drawn down and set firmly on the lower one, +as he cupped his sharp chin in the palm of one wrinkled +hand, nursing the elbow appertaining to it in the palm +of-the other hand. +</p> + +<p> +"'So far behind,' do you say?" growled Von Roon. +"<i>Sapperlot</i>! I should call it a day's march and a +half-day's march ahead!" +</p> + +<p> +"It may be—it may be!" said the Field-Marshal +placidly. "God grant that it prove so!" +</p> + +<p> +"You are as pious as the King to-night," said the Chancellor, +laughing heartily. "And your God is the God of +Battles, we all know!" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, yes, the Friend Above does not forget this old +fellow!" said the Field-Marshal simply. "The thousand-ton +Krupp gun—whose acquaintance the Parisians made +at the Exposition of 1867,—has been waiting ever since to +make upon them an impression of a different kind! Like +the gun, I have <i>bided my time</i>, as the Scotch say. Neither +the cannon nor myself will last for ever, but to worry is +folly! ... Heaven will not let us rust upon the shelf!" +</p> + +<p> +"'<i>Mensch ärgere Dich nicht</i>' is a good proverb," said +the Chancellor, "not only for Your Excellency! Chained +to my study-table all yesterday and this morning,—horribly +handicapped by the absence of my First Secretary +Abeken, who is doing duty with the King at Ems.—listening +to reports, receiving showers of telegrams, dictating +replies in answer to the appeals or expostulations of +Foreign Ministers—sending instructions to Ambassadors, +and drinking Mühlbrunnen water,—which must not be +taken when one is vexed or worried, if one wants it not +to play the very devil in one's inside, I chewed the cud +of that proverb, '<i>Man, do not vex thyself!</i>' to keep myself +from gnawing my tongue. That official international +threat of Gramont, uttered in the session of the Corps +Législatif of July 6th,—the filth hurled by the Paris +Press—did not cost me a sleepless night. But that, after such +insults, the King of Prussia should treat with Benedetti +at Ems while the Prussian Foreign Minister remained at +Varzin—stuck in my gizzard as though I had swallowed +a prickle-burr. It was worse than Olmütz.... I saw +nothing but resignation ahead of me!" +</p> + +<p> +Von Roon agreed: +</p> + +<p> +"To me also it seemed a slight not to the Foreign +Minister alone—but to His Majesty's Government in your +person." +</p> + +<p> +The Field-Marshal added, his wrinkled face lengthening +dourly: +</p> + +<p> +"I may tell you—there being no ladies present!—the +whole affair acted on me like unripe gooseberries, especially +after reading that sentence in the <i>Gaulois</i>, written +by a <i>gamin</i> with a finger to his nose...." +</p> + +<p> +Von Boon thundered: +</p> + +<p> +"'<i>La Prusse cane</i>!' Only say black-dose, rather than +sour gooseberries, and there you have the effect of the +words on me!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Chancellor, with a twinkle of humor: +</p> + +<p> +"They wrought upon myself as an emetocatharsis. For, +repudiating the slight, and simultaneously expelling from +my system the last remains of compunction, I decided +then and there to hurry off from Varzin to Ems for the +purpose of urging upon His Majesty the urgent necessity +for summoning the Reichstag. The words I meant to use +kept drumming in my skull—<i>We shall be traitors to +ourselves if we do not accept this challenge. Without an +instant's delay, we must mobilize!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Said Roon: +</p> + +<p> +"Why not, when we are prepared to take measures for +the safety of the Rhenish provinces? We can put +Saarbrück in a state of defense in twenty-four hours, and +Mainz in less than forty-eight. Is it not so, Herr General +Field-Marshal?" +</p> + +<p> +Von Moltke's dry, level voice returned quietly: +</p> + +<p> +"My plan of invasion was drawn up in 1868. All my +arrangements are made, as I have said. When His +Majesty—when the Chancellor of the Confederation and Your +Excellency give the signal—I go home to my quarters on +the first floor of the south-east wing of the Great General +Staff Department, and dispatch a telegraphic message of +three words..." He began to laugh, rubbing his hands +together. "Then—you will see whether I am ready! All I +ask is Opportunity—like Krupp's thousand-tonner gun!" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap26"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXVI +</h3> + +<p> +The Chancellor said, emptying another bumper of champagne: +</p> + +<p> +"This morning the opportunity lay within grasp. So +strongly convinced was I of this that as my phaeton passed +through the village of Wussow, on the way to the station, +'War is Inevitable' seemed written on every house. The +old clergyman stood before his parsonage door and greeted +me with a hand-wave. My answer was the gesture of a +thrust in <i>carte</i> and <i>tierce</i>. For me the three words: 'War +is Declared' replaced the lettering of the advertisement +posters on the walls of the stations the special rushed +through. Yet, though I had notified His Majesty of the +advisability of summoning me to his assistance, I received, +even as I stepped out of the train at the Stettin Station, +a vacillating telegram from him, enjoining delay." He +added, laughing: "Together with a message in cipher from +our Prussian Ambassador at Paris, informing me that it +has been given forth from the tribune of the Corps +Législatif that had not Prince Leopold retreated from the +Spanish candidature, to prevent the war with which the +Emperor threatens us—the Government of Napoleon III. would +have extorted a letter of apology from the King." +</p> + +<p> +Roon could not speak. Said Moltke: +</p> + +<p> +"The Gallic cock crows loudly! Such a letter would +nicely recoup France for the humiliation of Sadowa." +</p> + +<p> +"Did France succeed in extorting it," retorted the +Chancellor, "but she has got to get it first!" +</p> + +<p> +The forehead of Roon was black as thundercloud. He +unhooked his collar, and wiped his congested face. The +Field-Marshal thrust his hand under his wig perplexedly, +saying: +</p> + +<p> +"That His Majesty should continue to treat with Benedetti +after all these insults and outrages.... It passes +my understanding, I am fain to confess!" +</p> + +<p> +"The Count himself would have no difficulty in reading +the riddle," said the Chancellor, shrugging. "He +is—according to his own conviction—a diplomat of the first +water, a statesman of infinite finesse and irresistible +persuasions. Yet he did not coax us into the Emperor's trap +in 1867. Speaking of that, I have in my pocket something +that will presently jump out of it, a testimony in his own +handwriting that he is not quite so clever a fellow as he +thinks!" +</p> + +<p> +"To-day," boomed Roon, "I met Prince Gortchakoff. +We were riding in the Unter den Linden when he stopped. +He spoke of the King's age—the merest allusion in reference +to a site he pointed out as being suitable for a statue. +His Majesty was to be represented holding a wreath of +laurel with the dates of 1864 and 1866 upon it. While +emblematical figures of Peace, and the Genius of the +Domestic Hearth, were shown disarming him of his helmet +and sword." +</p> + +<p> +"A sneer thoroughly merited," said the Chancellor, "by +these days of hesitation!" He added: "The Genius of the +Domestic Hearth is for the moment at Coblenz. However, +wifely expostulations can be conveyed by telegram. Her +Majesty's cry is, '<i>Remember Jena and Tilsit and avoid war, +even at the cost of national dishonor!</i>' Should these +entreaties of the Queen prevail, she will merit the reproof of +Sir Walter Scott—I think it was Sir Walter Scott!—who +addressed to his grayhound, Maida, who had torn up—unless +I err?—the manuscript of a newly-completed novel. +'<i>Poor thing! thou little knowest the injury thou hast +done!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +"Women are less reasonable," declared Von Boon, +"than bitches, to my mind!" +</p> + +<p> +"Nay, nay!" said the Field-Marshal with sudden anger. +"Maida was not a bitch, and I cannot agree with you! +Great and noble female characters have been, and exist +now—not only in the pages of history-books. It may be +that Her Majesty is prejudiced—her influence has not +always been favorable to the adoption of measures I +would have counseled. But she is high-minded!—a great +lady, and truly devoted as a wife. And with this ring +upon my finger"—he held up his wrinkled left hand and +showed the narrow band of gold—"it would ill become +me to sit still and hear women likened to the unreasoning +beasts that perish, when for all I know my beloved wife +Mary is standing by my side!" +</p> + +<p> +He drank a sip of wine, and continued more mildly: +</p> + +<p> +"The good God took her to Himself twelve years ago, +in the fullness of life and strength and English beauty!—while +I, more than thirty years her senior, hang yet upon +the tree. On the top of the hill at Crusau is her tomb, +where one day I shall lie beside her. But before that +day"—the brave old eyes snapped fire, and he wrinkled up his +ancient eagle-beak as though he savored the fumes +already—"it may be that I shall smell powder again!" +</p> + +<p> +"Let us drink to that!" said the Chancellor. As they +filled their glasses there came a peculiar, scratching knock +on the door. +</p> + +<p> +"Come in, Bucher!" cried the host harshly, and the +summons was answered by one of His Excellency's Privy +Councillors of Legation, a little, stooping old gentleman, +with a large hooked nose and a grizzled mustache and +whiskers, who was dressed in a chocolate-colored, +single-breasted frock-coat, tightly fastened with gilt buttons, +and who wore a black satin stock, with the tongue of the +buckle sticking up among the locks at the back of his +neck, and baggy black cloth trousers ending in the feet +of a Prussian Lifeguard, encased in huge and shapeless +cloth boots; these moved him noiselessly to the elbow +of the Chancellor, to whom he whispered, handing +him a card, large and square, and unmistakably feminine: +</p> + +<p> +"And so, as Madame was urgent ... Your Excellency +knows what women are!" +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks to some early studies in femininity, I am +credited," said the Chancellor, "with knowing a great +deal too much about the sex. Where have you put +Madame?" +</p> + +<p> +Bucher answered, raising himself on his toes to approach +his lips to the large, well-shaped ear; for even seated, the +Chancellor overtopped him: +</p> + +<p> +"In the gracious Countess's little red damask back +drawing-room." +</p> + +<p> +"It is doubtful, my good Bucher, whether—did she know +how she was honored—the gracious Countess would welcome +her visitor." +</p> + +<p> +"Alas! Your Excellency!" pleaded the Councillor, "but +Her Excellency does not know!—and the room contains +nothing valuable. Only a few family pictures—no china, +silver, or <i>bric-à-brac</i>. Nothing that it would be any use +to steal!" +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come!" expostulated the Minister, his blue eyes +alight with cynical amusement, "you must not speak of +Madame as though she were a house-thief. Our good +Bucher," he went on, turning jestingly to his table +companions, "sees little difference between a person who picks +brains for pay, and sells the pickings, and another person +who picks locks and steals silver vases and cups. Rather +a reflection on the Diplomatic Service, now I think of it!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ach! Herr Gott!</i>" said the Councillor in alarm, "I +cast no reflection, Your Excellency knows it! Only the +woman is of light reputation——" +</p> + +<p> +"And may be light-fingered into the bargain. Possibly—" +said the Chancellor, "and all the better if she +be so! We will risk my wife's family portraits in her +vicinity until after dinner. Have coffee and liqueurs sent +to her, and beg her to wait a while." He added, "Let +them put cigarettes on the tray—I have no doubt she +smokes tobacco. And as the smell will have passed off +before my wife and daughter return from Varzin, neither +of the ladies will ever know of the desecration of the red +damask back drawing-room." +</p> + +<p> +And as Bucher shuffled out of the room to execute his +errand, his Chief rang the bell for the third course. +</p> + +<p> +"By the way, Excellency," said the War Minister, as +the demure servants out of livery removed the empty +dishes: "that Frenchwoman of poor Max Valverden's is +driving about Berlin." +</p> + +<p> +"So!" commented the host, turning an inscrutable face +upon the Minister. "She must find it very warm, and +insufferably dull." +</p> + +<p> +"She consoled herself," said Roon, "not long after +Count Max's suicide." +</p> + +<p> +"There," burst out the Field-Marshal, "was an +incomprehensible catastrophe! That young man—who was +military attaché at our Embassy in Paris until the return +of the Allied Armies of Great Britain and France from +the Crimea in 1856; and in 1866, ten years later, joined my +staff in Austria as third <i>aide-de-camp</i>—I cannot +understand it—he must have been demented!" +</p> + +<p> +He unbuttoned the frock-coat, showing an unstarched, +but scrupulously clean white shirt and vest of white nankeen, +and taking a little silver snuff-box from his waistcoat +pocket, laid it down carefully upon the tablecloth as he +said: +</p> + +<p> +"In '56 he brought his mistress from Paris with him—he +was infatuated with her spirit and beauty. They said +she was the wife of an officer in Grandguerrier's Division, +who had served throughout the whole of the War in the +Crimea." +</p> + +<p> +"A <i>chef d'escadron</i> of Mounted Chausseurs, who seems +to have taken his wife's desertion philosophically," +commented the Chancellor. +</p> + +<p> +The Field-Marshal took a pinch of snuff, and gravely +shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +"Of that I know nothing, but there was no meeting. +Max Valverden assured me, on his honor, that an +opportunity for the challenge had been given. Otherwise the +young Count could not have continued in our Prussian +Army—one would naturally have been obliged to retire +him." He sneezed and went on: "My personal acquaintance +with Valverden began ten years later. He served +me—excellently. One should always give due praise to the +dead. But when he returned from Austria—then happened +the tragedy, at Schönfeld in the Altenwald, where +lies his patrimonial property, and where the lady waited. +And—he shot himself, upon the very night of his return +to her." +</p> + +<p> +"Not," interposed the cool, level voice of the Chancellor, +"not being expected until noon of the day following." +</p> + +<p> +"Of that I know nothing," said Moltke, turning his +ascetic hairless face full upon the speaker. "What I know +is that an officer who faithfully served his country and +whom I had recommended for distinction, at the earliest +opportunity—died by his own hand! How the woman +was left, I cannot tell you." +</p> + +<p> +"Count Maximilian von Schön-Valverden had provided +for Madame de Bayard when summoned upon active Service," +said the Chancellor. "His family did not contest +the will, and she is not badly off. Therefore," he added +with a smile, "when she condescends to serve my Intelligence +Department as a spy, you may suppose she does not +do it too cheaply. I must refer to my perambulating +ledger, Bucher, before I quote you the exact figures of the +sum I am to hand her to-night. She is a true daughter +of the horseleech, who cries '<i>Give, give, give!</i>' incessantly. +But all the same I am indebted to her for those remarkably +interesting particulars concerning the Mission of +M. de Straz to Prince Antony." +</p> + +<p> +"So!" ejaculated Von Roon in astonishment. The +Field-Marshal rubbed his chin and turned his clear eyes +upon the speaker, who went on smilingly: +</p> + +<p> +"M. de Straz is susceptible—a fatal fault in a conspirator. +Madame is still seductive, with a figure like Circe, +ropes of black silk hair, a skin of cream, though the roses +are bought ones! and eyes the color—exactly the color +of old, pale tawny port. Now, when you reflect that she +is waiting in my wife's red boudoir to interview me in my +next spare moment—do you fear for my hitherto unassailable +virtue, or regard me as proof against such charms?" +</p> + +<p> +"I never bet more," said Moltke, "than half a pfennig, +and then only when I play cards with my niece." +</p> + +<p> +"I will wager you proof," cried Roon, "for two hundred +thalers!" +</p> + +<p> +"I can hardly bet upon my own marital infidelity!" +said the Chancellor, laughing, as a servant uncovered the +dish newly placed before him. "Will Your Excellency +take some of this?" +</p> + +<p> +"This" was the savory <i>pièce de resistance</i> of the +masculine banquet, a lamb of six weeks, roasted to a golden +brown, basted with marrow, and surrounded with tiny +cucumbers stuffed with seasoning. +</p> + +<p> +Moltke accepted the offer with alacrity, indifferent to +the charms of veal with tomatoes and aubergines. Von +Roon, declining, hurled himself upon a fillet of beef +<i>jardinière</i>, and hacked a huge steak from its surface as with +a sword, rather than a carving-knife. The Chancellor, plying +his gleaming weapons delicately, liberally supplied his +guest and piled his own plate, saying as he launched +himself upon its contents with unabated appetite: +</p> + +<p> +"Confederations may disappoint us—Kings may deceive +us—while our teeth and our digestions faithfully serve us, +we can find some zest in life. When I retire, I shall cultivate +vegetables, plant forest-trees, rear trout, breed cattle, +sheep, pigs, and poultry—drop my hereditary patronymic +as I shed my titles of office and be known to all posterity +as the Farmer of Varzin!" +</p> + +<p> +The hall-bell had been heard to ring a moment previously. +There was another scratching signal on the door, +and Bucher appeared, manifestly excited and carrying a +telegraphic dispatch. +</p> + +<p> +"What now?" asked the Chancellor, finishing a mouthful. +</p> + +<p> +"A telegram from Ems——" began the Councillor. +</p> + +<p> +The imperious hand whipped it from between his pudgy +fingers; the masterful voice demanded, as the envelope +was rent open: +</p> + +<p> +"The decipherer has not left?" +</p> + +<p> +"Excellency, no!" twittered the Councillor, agitated by +the portentous frown of his Chief, and by the grave faces +of Moltke and Roon. The paper was thrust back to him +with the curt order: +</p> + +<p> +"Get this deciphered—do not delay!" +</p> + +<p> +And as the Legation Councillor vanished, Bismarck said +with a short laugh, bending his powerful regard on the +gaunt, black stare of the War Minister: +</p> + +<p> +"It is from the King, and will not please us. We may +make up our minds beforehand to that. Yet I drink this +glass to the honor of Prussia!" And filling his great +bumper glass from a fresh bottle that had been placed at +his elbow, he gulped down at least a pint of the creaming +nectar of the Widow Clicquot, and his guests, in smaller +measures, pledged the same toast. After that they sat in +silence, the Chancellor alone continuing to eat with +appetite—until the Councillor's big feet came shuffling back +again. +</p> + +<p> +"The copy, Excellency, 200 groups altogether," he +began, "signed by the Herr Privy Councillor von Abeken, +at His Majesty's command." +</p> + +<p> +The papers he held were whipped away from him. The +Chancellor read—and his countenance most grimly altered. +His brows grew thunderous, trenches dug themselves along +his forehead, caves appeared about his blazing eyes, and +the pouches under them portentously bagged. The heavy +mustache might shade the mouth and chin, but could not +hide that they were changed to granite. He passed his +firm hand over them and said, his incisive tones veiled +with a curious hoarseness: +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Councillor of Legation, you will now leave us. +When I ring the bell it summons you. Pray tell Dr. Busch +that his services will be needed. Some articles must be +written for the Press to-night." +</p> + +<p> +He said, as the door closed behind Bucher, and the smile +that accompanied the words was grim and cynical: +</p> + +<p> +"Well, gentlemen, we have got our final slap in the +face! The Press organs of the Ultramontane and the +Democrats will call us by our nicknames to-morrow: 'Old +Hellfire' and 'Death's Chess-Player' and 'The Pomeranian +Ogre' and all the rest. But—I swear to you that no enemy +of mine will ever despise me as I now despise myself!" +</p> + +<p> +Roon and Moltke regarded him in silence. He went on +speaking, still with that strange hoarseness: +</p> + +<p> +"Some have called me the Iron Chancellor. I will tell +you by what title Wilhelm the First of Prussia will go +down to posterity. Men will speak of him as the Fluid +King. It is written in the Scriptures,—all day the phrase +has haunted me,—'Unstable as water, thou shalt not +excel!'" +</p> + +<p> +At a glance from the War Minister, Moltke rose up +suddenly. His stooping scholar's body sprang upright as a +lance. He said, and the words rang clear as steel on steel: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Excellency, I deplore the necessity of imposing +silence upon you. But the obligation of my military oath, +and your own——" +</p> + +<p> +He paused as the great figure of his host reared up at +the head of the table. He saluted the Field-Marshal and +said coldly: +</p> + +<p> +"Herr General Field-Marshal, the rebuke is merited. +Holding the King's commission as Colonel of White +Cuirassiers of the <i>Landwehr</i>, I have spoken treasonably. +Does your Excellency wish me to ring for my sword?" +</p> + +<p> +Moltke's wrinkled face flashed into amusement, as the +Chancellor imperturbably stretched his hand to the bell +beside him. He said, laughing: +</p> + +<p> +"Colonel Count von Bismarck-Schönhausen, I accept +your apology. I will limit the period of your arrest to +confinement to this room until conclusion of dinner, on +condition that you read now this message from Ems." +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor saluted, and glancing at Roon, who was +now standing, gloomy and downcast, "We look," he said, +"like three mourners about a bier. It is, in fact, Prussia +who lies dead upon the table. However, judge of the +situation for yourselves." +</p> + +<p> +And he read out the famous telegram handed in at Ems +at three-thirty: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Count Benedetti spoke to me on the Promenade in order +to demand from me finally, in a very important manner, +that I should authorize him to telegraph at once to Paris +that I bound myself for all future time never again to give +my consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. +I refused at last somewhat sternly, as it is neither +right nor possible to undertake engagements of this kind +</i>à tout jamais<i>. Naturally I told him that I had received no +news; and as he was earlier informed from Paris and +Madrid than myself, he could clearly see that my +Government once more had no hand in the matter.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"Ei-ei!" broke in Moltke, "'<i>Somewhat sternly</i>' ... +'<i>Naturally I told</i>' ... '<i>Neither right nor possible,</i>' and +then '<i>no hand in the matter!</i>' Do I hear the King—or +have my ears played tricks on me?" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Kreuzdonnerwetter!</i>" exploded Roon. "Well might +one ask 'Is this the master or the servant speaking?' But +go on, go on, I pray your Excellency!" +</p> + +<p> +The reader had transformed his face to an expressionless +mask that might have been wrought in stone or metal. +Now the tell-tale huskiness of fierce emotion cleared from +his voice. He resumed: +</p> + +<p> +"This closes His Majesty's personal communication. +Herr Privy Councillor Abeken continues to the end." +</p> + +<p> +Said Moltke: "Let us hear what little Abeken has got +to say to you." +</p> + +<p> +The cold, incisive voice recommenced reading: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>His Majesty commands me to inform you, that he has +since received a letter from the Prince. His Majesty, +having told Count Benedetti that he was awaiting news from +the Prince, has decided, upon the representation of Count +Eulenburg and myself, not to receive Count Benedetti +again, but only to let him be informed through an +</i>aide-de-camp<i> that His Majesty has now received from the Prince +confirmation of the news Benedetti has already received +from Paris, and has nothing further to say to the Ambassador. +His Majesty leaves it to Your Excellency whether +Benedetti's fresh demand and its rejection should not be at +once communicated both to our Ambassadors and to the +Press representatives.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +The close of the Royal communication plopped into a +pool of silence. The Chancellor coughed, and said with his +characteristic stutter: +</p> + +<p> +"The-the laxity and diffuseness of the verbiage of this +dispatch l-lul-leave me in no doubt as to the favorable effect +the Ems waters have already wrought upon the constitution +of His Majesty!" +</p> + +<p> +Roon barked his laugh. Moltke raised his thoughtful +head from his breast and said laconically: +</p> + +<p> +"It gives me the belly-ache to listen to such rubbish. +Are we German men or German mice?" +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor shrugged and said: +</p> + +<p> +"More than ever it is clear that my position is untenable. +The King, under pressure of threats mingled with +entreaties, has permitted himself to be heckled by the +Emperor's Franco-Italian emissary. He ignores my urgent +request that he should refer Benedetti to his Foreign +Minister. Now, by the medium of an inferior official, he tells +me that I may acquaint the representatives of the State +and the Press—that nothing is settled and no definite end +in view! What is settled is, that I resign!" +</p> + +<p> +Von Roon called out harshly, striking a sinewy fist upon +the table: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Excellency will not leave your friends in this +extremity?" +</p> + +<p> +Moltke turned to him half whimsically, half pleadingly: +</p> + +<p> +"For our sake, Otto, stick by the old wagon!" +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor said, with a sudden softening of the grim +lines of his strong face, and of the eyes that had been +fixed and expressionless: +</p> + +<p> +"You talk, both of you, like two babes in the wood. As +far as regards my personal influence to sway the King or +control the feeling of the Reichstag—another hand may +guide the State as well as this of mine. Yet, were it +possible—having already the King's permission—to produce a +somewhat concentrated version of this verbose telegram.... +Has either of you a pencil?—mine has been mislaid.." +</p> + +<p> +"Here, take mine!" said the Field-Marshal eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor took the offered pencil with a brief nod +of thanks, swept the silver-gilt milkmaid ruthlessly aside, +and spreading the forms containing the Royal dispatch +on the space she had occupied, pored over them for a +moment, frowning heavily, before the red-chalk crayon +began to play its part. Words were struck out—then +whole sentences.... +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, ah!" said Moltke, beaming. "He has finished at +last. Now let us hear what it sounds like with its mane +cropped and its tail docked?" +</p> + +<p> +"Reduced," said the Chancellor, lifting his great eyes +from the red-crayoned papers, "without addition or +alteration, the message might run thus..." +</p> + +<p> +He read: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary +Prince of Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to +the Imperial Government of France by the Royal Government +in Spain, the French Ambassador at Ems further +demanded of His Majesty the King that he would authorize +him to telegraph to Paris that His Majesty the King bound +himself for all future time never again to give his consent +should the Princes of Hohenzollern renew their candidature.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"Good, very good!" growled Roon. +</p> + +<p> +"That seems to me excellent!" said Moltke, twinkling. +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor finished: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>His Majesty the King thereupon decided not again to +receive Benedetti, the French Ambassador, and sent the +aide-de-camp on duty with the information that His +Majesty had nothing further to say to him!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Bravo, bis!</i>" roared Roon. +</p> + +<p> +"Why," said Moltke, rubbing his hands delightedly, +"now it has a different ring altogether. Before it sounded +like a parley. Now it is a fanfare of defiance! Sentences +like these are worthy of a King!" +</p> + +<p> +"And there can be no accusations of falsification," said +the Chancellor, bending his powerful regard upon his two +colleagues. "The Bund Chancellor carries out what the +Prussian monarch commands. He communicates this text +by telegraph to all our Embassies and to the Press agencies. +Is it his fault if its published words provoke the Gallic +cock to show fight?" +</p> + +<p> +"I understand," said the War Minister joyfully, "that +we should be the party attacked first. And we shall be, +and we shall win! Our God of old lives, and will not let +us perish!" +</p> + +<p> +"Has Your Excellency nothing to say to me?" asked the +Chancellor, fixing his great eyes on the face of Moltke, now +radiant with childlike happiness. +</p> + +<p> +"Were I a poet," returned the joyous old artist in war, +seizing the hand outstretched to him across the table, and +wringing it between both his own, "I should crown you +with a wreath of laurel inscribed '<i>Hail to thee, Guardian of +Prussia's honor!</i>' or something of that kind. Being what +I am, I say that you are what my English nephews would +call '<i>a trump</i>!' As you said this morning when you quitted +Varzin, 'War Is Inevitable!'" He added, hitting himself +a resounding thump in the chest: "And if I may but live +to lead our armies in such a war—then the devil may come +directly we have conquered these Frenchmen and fetch +away this crumbling old carcass!" He added, with a +change to gravity: "I do not say my soul, for I am +a decent Christian. Hey, look here, our dinner has got +cold!" +</p> + +<p> +It was true; the viands were stagnant in the dishes. +The fillet sat in the center of a stagnant lake of congealed +gravy; the roasted lamb, reduced by the onslaughts of the +Chancellor to a partial skeleton, was covered with a +frosting of rich white fat. He said, with a laugh that +clattered against walls and ceiling like a discharge of +musketry, and reaching for the bell that would summon +Bucher: +</p> + +<p> +"It does not matter; my cook has always a second menu +ready in case of delays or accidents. While Bucher +communicates to our Embassies and the European Press +Agencies the concentrated essence of His Majesty's +telegram—while hundreds of thousands +of handbills are being printed +that shall disseminate the text throughout Germany, and +Busch writes the articles that shall put the needful +complexion on this affair—we will order up the Moet and +Chandon White Star—I am thirsty after so much +talking!—and eat our dinner again!" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap27"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXVII +</h3> + +<p> +Ever since the King, returning from the baths of Ems, +had been met at the railway-station by his Under-Secretary +of State bearing France's declaration of war,—a huge, +orderly crowd, compact of all classes and callings, had +ceaselessly rolled through the streets of Berlin, chanting +with its thousands of sturdy lungs "<i>Heil dir im Siegerkranz</i>" +and the "<i>Wacht am Rhein</i>" until its patriotic +fervor reached a state of ebullition only to be relieved by +volleys of cheers. +</p> + +<p> +Jammed in the solid mass of bodies blackening the Unter +den Linden and packing the Opera-Platz to suffocation,—until +the bronze equestrian statue of the Great Friedrich, +opposing the eastern courtyard gateway of the small stuccoed +Palace, reared above a tossing sea of heads,—P. C. Breagh +tasted the raptures of emancipation from the +mill-round, and drank in news at every pore. +</p> + +<p> +For this was life in earnest.... With the red-hot +cigar-end of a corpulent merchant burning the back of his neck, +and the crook of a market woman's blue-cotton umbrella +imperiling his left eye; while the sword-hilt of a gigantic +Sergeant of Uhlans insinuated itself between his third and +fourth ribs on the right side, and the huge flaxen chignon +of a servant-girl, armed with a capacious market-basket +crammed with meat, fish, and vegetables for family +consumption, bobbed itself into his mouth whenever he opened +that feature to cheer, or gasp for air, heavily burdened with +the fumes of beer, schnaps, herring-salad, garlic, +sauerkraut, and perspiring humanity, he was happier than ever +he had been before. +</p> + +<p> +The King, it was said, was holding a council with his +Ministers and Generals in his study on the ground-floor of +his Palace looking on the Opera-Platz. Presently His +Majesty might be expected to come out. +</p> + +<p> +The tall, elderly, white-whiskered officer in the undress +uniform of the Prussian foot-guards—a blue tunic with +red facings, silver buttons and epaulettes—had already +appeared upon the balcony of a window overlooking the +Linden, and touched his spiked helmet in response to the +frenzied acclamations of his scarlet, perspiring subjects, +whose staring eyes and open mouths a Berlin dust-storm +was filling with peppery grit. +</p> + +<p> +Presently the King had moved back into the room +behind him, and returned with the Queen, a tall, thin, +elegant lady in half-mourning, who was weeping; people said, +because she hated the thought of war, and had besought +her husband, on her knees, to truckle to the Napoleon at +Paris, and thus avert hostilities. +</p> + +<p> +When the royal couple had retired amid plaudits of a +somewhat less enthusiastic kind, the people had demanded +the Crown Prince; and the King had stepped out yet +again with his hand on the shoulder of the heir-apparent, a +tall and stalwart man of thirty-nine, with a clear red-and-white +complexion, setting off his well-cut features, kindly +blue eyes, and flowing beard of yellow-brown. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Unser Fritz!</i>—his manly good looks and the Order of +Merit shining on his general's uniform had provoked fresh +outbursts of patriotic enthusiasm, in which the gray-powdered +foliage of the overrated linden-trees, limply resting +during a sudden lull of the dust-storm, had been wildly +agitated, and the very street-lamps had rocked. +</p> + +<p> +But when the King, turning to his heir, gave him his +hand,—when the son, reverently bending, raised it to his +lips, and the father with manifest emotion embraced +him,—there had fallen a silence of sympathetic emotion.... +Then the great martial figure had reared erect again and, +stepping to the front of the balcony, had shouted to the +people: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Krieg! Mobil!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"Mobilization!... War!..." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +All the shouting that had gone before was no more than +the squealing of a kindergarten compared with the mighty +roar that greeted these two pregnant words! The scorching, +dusty blue sky-dome, now tinged with sandy-pink sunset +toward the Brandenburg Gate, seemed to quiver with +the upward rush of it. And—not by accident—from the +forest of flagstaffs mounted on the Palace, the Opera House, +and the buildings contingent,—as down the whole length +of the Linden to the Ministerial palaces of the Wilhelm +Strasse,—the black-and-white Flag of Prussia and the +Hohenzollern banner of white with the black eagle and +the cross of the old Teuton Order, broke and fluttered on +the sandy breeze. +</p> + +<p> +The National Anthem broke out once more, and the war-song, +"<i>Ich bin ein Preusse</i>." The King retired on his son's +arm manifestly overcome with weariness. Still the vast +crowd of heated faces, set with shining eyes, and holed with +roaring mouths, persistently turned toward those ground-floor +windows of the Palace. <i>Something more yet!</i> asked +all the gaping mouths and staring eyes. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +But the blinds of the monarch's study were pulled down, +unmistakably signifying that all was over for the present.... +The central valves of the great gilded Palace gates +were now shut, leaving open only the smaller carriage-way, +through which mounted <i>aides</i> and orderly officers conveying +dispatches presently began to stream. The carriages +of Ministers and other State officials followed these, while +lesser personages, emerging from the exit left for +pedestrians, began to hail cab-drivers from the stand of +hackneys on the Linden side of the Opera House. Swearing, the +frustrated Jehus of these vehicles laid about them with +their whips in the endeavor to force their animals through +the solid crowd.... +</p> + +<p> +A man went down under the hoofs of a wretched Rosinante. +There were cries for "Police!" and spiked helmets +appeared in the crowd. It surged and swayed.... The +guardians of the law had drawn their cutlasses and were +beating their fellow-children of the Fatherland upon their +heads with the flat of these weapons, in the attempt to +effect a junction between the cabs and those who wished to +hire them. Thus the pressure on the flanks, ribs and +breast-bone of P. C. Breagh became suffocating. Lifted +from his feet, he was carried backward and forward by +rushes, growing less certain of his own identity as the +roaring in his ears became louder. Just as his eyelids +dropped and he passed out of his own knowledge, a powerful +hand caught him by the coat-collar, and a solid rampart +of human flesh interposed between his lately-drifting body +and the waves of the human sea that raged beyond. +</p> + +<p> +Gulping, P. C. Breagh became aware that he was spread-eagled +against the railings of the Palace courtyard facing +the Unter den Linden, and that a big man in a loose black +waterproof rain-cloak and broad-leaved black felt hat was +holding to a railing on each side of him and warding off +the rushes. +</p> + +<p> +"Th-thanks! I'm tremendously obliged!..." he was +beginning, when the swish of the cutlasses and the shrieking +of the cutlassed drowned his voice. Yet another voice, +masculine, resonant, and imperious, dominated all others; +it cried: +</p> + +<p> +"The King commands the police to sheath their swords!" +</p> + +<p> +And upon the instant lull in the tumult that followed +came another order: +</p> + +<p> +"His Majesty has work to do for the Fatherland. Let +the people disperse quietly to their homes!" +</p> + +<p> +And the crowd, pacified and quieted, answered, "We +will so!" in a crashing volley of Teutonic gutturals, and +began to split up and move away in sections, singing "<i>Heil +dir im Siegerkranz</i>" in sonorous unison. When through +the Palace gates came a small and shabby brougham drawn +by a venerable bay, and driven by an elderly coachman +in gray-and-black livery, the sight of whose military +cockade evoked another whirlwind of enthusiasm.... +</p> + +<p> +"Moltke! It is our Moltke!" men shouted to one +another, and the old General, who sat alone in the carriage, +the lean, stooping, septuagenarian in the spiked helmet, +whose thin, ascetic face was rosy with suppressed +excitement and whose pale blue eyes twinkled good-humoredly +between their narrow lids at the seething ocean of humanity +in which the shabby brougham labored, saluted in +acknowledgment of the cheers. +</p> + +<p> +"Moltke! Long live our Moltke! But where has Otto +got to!" hiccuped an alcoholic seaman, clutching the ledge +of the brougham window. He continued in the midst of +a silence born of consternation: "What has become of the +Big Pomeranian? We would have—hic!—carried him +home shoulder-high for this week's—hic!—work he has +done!" +</p> + +<p> +Zealous hands dragged the presumptuous speaker back, +as the venerable expert in war doffed his spiked helmet, and +said, popping his auburn-wigged head out of the brougham +window: +</p> + +<p> +"Where Count Bismarck is needed there he will be, depend +on it! Now, children, let me get back to my maps!" +</p> + +<p> +"Tell us first how things are going in France yonder?" +bellowed another Berliner, and the great Field-Marshal +answered, pointing the jest with his keenest twinkle: +</p> + +<p> +"You want to know how things are going there? Well, +the wheat has suffered from the drought, but acorns and +potatoes promise to be plentiful, and pumpkins will be big +this year!" +</p> + +<p> +And the crowd, splitting with laughter, made way for +the brougham of the Chief of the General Staff, and the +joke was sown broadcast over Germany before the end of +half an hour. For were not Moltke's acorns the oblong, +round-ended bullets of the Prussian needle-gun, as his +potatoes were the shrapnel shell cast by the six-pounder +steel breech-loaders designed by Krupp for the Prussian +field-artillery, and the big pumpkins the seventeen-pound +projectiles fired by the siege-guns of nine centimeters' +bore? ... +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The massive ribs that had acted as buffers between +P. C. Breagh and the battering onslaughts of the crowd +shook with laughter as the brougham moved on through +a lane that continuously opened in the mass of bodies and +closed when it had passed.... Then their owner settled +the wide-leaved felt hat more firmly on his head, and said +in well-bred, fluent English, turning his heavily-jowled +face and powerful, fiery-blue eyes on P. C. Breagh, who +was thanking him in his best German for his timely +assistance: +</p> + +<p> +"Do not thank me so effusively. I have a habit of +sometimes saving a man's life! Yours happened to be in +peril; there is no need to say more!" +</p> + +<p> +The clear incisive tones had an inflection that was almost +contemptuous, yet a smile, curving the heavy mustache, +showed the small and well-preserved teeth it shadowed, +as he added in his admirable English, fastening a button +of the thin black waterproof cloak which had been +disarranged in the recent struggle sufficiently to show that it +covered some sort of military uniform: +</p> + +<p> +"Save this,—that I happen to possess a son about your +age, and should not care to lose him!" +</p> + +<p> +And with this he was gone, leaving P. C. Breagh breathless +with the greatness of the adventure that had befallen +him. For the owner of the bulldog face with the fierce +blue eyes blazing over their heavy orbital pouches, was +the unpopular Minister who had been booed by the Ultramontane +and Socialist students three years before, as the +Berlin express-train passed through the station of +Schwärz-Brettingen—the all-powerful Chancellor, who was meant +when diplomats and Press leader-writers referred to +"Prussia." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +What did he on foot in those packed, roaring thoroughfares, +where the assassin's dagger or revolver might play +its part so safely? Perhaps, like the Third Napoleon, +whose peacock bubble of Empire might now have reached +the point of bursting, Count Bismarck believed in his +fortunate star.... +</p> + +<p> +Ah! what was that round bright object lying on the +pavement? P. C. Breagh, still dazed with the magnitude +of the thing that had befallen him, stooped and picked, +it up. +</p> + +<p> +It was a medal of silver, with the Prussian Eagle +enameled in red upon the obverse, and a name which left no +doubt as to the identity of P. C. Breagh's rescuer. Upon, +the reverse was the inscription: "<i>Fur Rettung aus +Gefahr</i>"—"For Saving From Danger." With the date of the +24th June, 1842.... +</p> + +<p> +No doubt the Chancellor prized this, the decoration +earned at twenty-four for saving his orderly-groom and +another private from drowning, when serving as <i>Landwehr</i> +cavalry officer with the Stargaard Regiment of Hussars. +Well, he should have it back,—but into no hands but his +would P. C. Breagh surrender it,—P. C. Breagh, who had +been cast out with mockery from the editorial offices of +one daily and two evening newspapers, when he had +offered—at a rate of astounding cheapness,—to supply their +columns with material drawn from the experiences of one +who had never previously enjoyed an opportunity of seeing +the thing called War. +</p> + +<p> +One Editor had dealt with him drastically, pitching his +card into the waste-paper basket, and saying, "No! Get +out with you!" A second had whistled up a tube and +called down a sub-editor, and said to him, "Look at +this!" The third had preached a brief but pithy sermon on +presumption and cocksureness, winding up with the intimation +that if P. C. Breagh ever found himself at the seat of +war and in possession of any experiences worth recording, +he might submit them for consideration if he chose. +</p> + +<p> +These men would never know it, but they were profoundly +humiliated. At least one of them had lost a half-column, +striking the note of personal adventure to the +clink of shekels of fine gold. As for Mr. Knewbit +... P. C. Breagh could almost hear him chuckling—had only +to shut his eyes to see the poker, sketching out headings +on the Coram Street kitchen wall: +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + "ADVENTURE OF YOUNG ENGLISHMAN.<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + WAR CORRESPONDENT IN BERLIN.<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + CRUSHED BY THE CROWD.<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + RESCUED BY BISMARCK.<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + THE IRON HAND SAVES A LIFE!"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, the medal had to be returned to the hands +of its owner, who must, P. C. Breagh was firm on +that!—consent to receive it from the hands of the finder, if he +wanted it back again. P. C. Breagh knew the Foreign +Office, in the Wilhelm Strasse—the shabbiest residence in +all that street of official palaces—with its high-pitched, +red-tiled Mansard roof, its shabby gray stuccoed front (a main +building with two short wings, pierced by twelve windows, +and decorated with a sham-Hellenic frieze and shallow +pilasters),—and its big, park-like garden stretching away +behind. +</p> + +<p> +So, clutching the precious token, P. C. Breagh plunged +back into the crowd. It was dense, but no longer solid, +and, still lustily singing, with intervals of cheering, it bore +him down the Linden as far as the Brandenburg Gate. +</p> + +<p> +There it split into three vociferating rivers of +humanity. One of which streamed north-westward toward the +offices of the Great General Staff, where Moltke, the ancient +war-wizard, was busy over his maps! Another, desirous +of refreshment, surged onward in the direction of the +Thiergarten. The third flowed down the street of palaces, +and with it went P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap28"></a></p> + +<h3> +XVIII +</h3> + +<p> +The Foreign Office knocker was a colossal funereal wreath, +of sooty bronze laurel, that wakened hollow startling echoes +in the tomb-like void of a grim stone vestibule. +</p> + +<p> +The vestibule lay at the end of a glass-roofed passage. +On the right was a window, behind the window gleamed +an eye, belonging to the Chancery janitor who had manipulated +the door-levers. The door banged behind P. C. Breagh, +and his hope climbed a central flight of stairs, +gray-white marble, with bronze balusters badly in need of +cleaning. The staircase was covered with worn Turkey +carpet, was lighted from above by a green and gold cupola, +and guarded by two conventional figures of sphinxes, +carved in shiny blackish stone. +</p> + +<p> +All these details the eye of P. C. Breagh gleaned over +the arm of the Chancellor's door-porter, a seven-foot East +Prussian, who wore plain black official livery and carried +no gold-headed staff, yet would have snubbed the Rector +of the University of Schwärz-Brettingen had he presented +himself in this unceremonious way. +</p> + +<p> +"What does he want? The young man must know +that His Excellency the Royal Chancellor of the North +German Confederation is engaged upon State business—not +to be approached by strangers having no appointments +or credentials previously obtained. An introduction to His +Excellency is indispensable. Where has the young man +lived that he does not know that?" +</p> + +<p> +To which the young man thus addressed could only +reiterate that he deeply regretted the absence of a letter +of introduction, and that his credentials could only be +displayed to His Excellency himself. +</p> + +<p> +"It is likely!" The porter's forehead corrugated with +suspicion: "Thus is he approached by lunatics and +dangerous persons, armed with crazy petitions or lethal +weap——" +</p> + +<p> +"Bosh!" +</p> + +<p> +The English word made the porter leap in his square-toed, +steel-buckled half-shoes. Recklessly P. C. Breagh +went on: +</p> + +<p> +"I'm neither a lunatic nor an assassin... It's just a +case of <i>Rettung aus Gefahr</i>. Two lives saved in the year +1842, and another less than an hour ago.... Send that +message to His Excellency, and he'll see me, I believe!" +</p> + +<p> +"He believes!" ... snorted the porter indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +A little, stooping, shabbily dressed old man in a +chocolate-colored frock-coat with gilt buttons came shuffling +across the vestibule carrying a handful of papers, telegrams +they appeared to be. He had paused to listen to the latter +part of the colloquy, holding his head on one side, as +though the better to focus his sharp gray glance on the +dusty, obtrusive young Englishman crowned with a +sun-burnt Oxford straw hat, attired in a well-worn brown +Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers and heather-mixture woolen +stockings, and shod with stout, black, leather-laced, +hob-nailed boots. +</p> + +<p> +"He believes!" exclaimed the porter as though referring +to the chocolate-coated old gentleman. "Will not the +highly well-born Herr Legation-Councillor order that I +summon Grams and Engelberg, and have this presumptuous +person thrown into the street?" +</p> + +<p> +"Softly, softly, my good Niederstedt!" advised the +little chocolate-coated old gentleman. He added, shuffling +forward in his immense black cloth boots over the slippery +marble pavement of the vestibule: "It has occurred to me +that an utterance of this young man's referred to an +article that has been lost by His Excellency." He added, +fixing his sharp, gray, jackdaw's eyes on the face of the +young man: "Not valuable, but worth recovering—purely +as a memento of the past!..." +</p> + +<p> +Said Carolan bluntly: +</p> + +<p> +"I did refer to such an article. In fact, I have it on me!" +</p> + +<p> +A finger and thumb, stained with snuff, dipped into the +Councillor's waistcoat pocket. He said, secretly conveying +an order to the watchful porter with a twirl of one +jackdaw-eye: +</p> + +<p> +"For a couple of thalers," he displayed the coin, "a +box of smokable cigars may be purchased in Berlin." He +added, having cast for a bite, and missing the rise: "Four +thalers secures a really excellent article!" +</p> + +<p> +"Certainly," agreed P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +"But for ten thalers," continued the old gentleman with +forced enthusiasm, coaxingly beckoning P. C. Breagh to +approach nearer, "one may smoke the choicest Havana +brands. Give me the medal, fortunate young man, and +take the money. Such a sum is not often picked up in the +street!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the young man, thus adjured, thrusting out his +square chin obstinately: +</p> + +<p> +"If His Excellency consents to receive me, I will +personally return the medal to him. Be good enough to let +him know as much." +</p> + +<p> +"Unhappy young man! you realize not the greatness of +your own presumption!" expostulated the old gentleman, +lifting up his warty eyelids and puffing out his whiskered +cheeks over his old-fashioned black satin stock. "Is the +Chancellor of the Realm to be—and at a national crisis +such as this?—at the beck and call of every English +traveler?" He added with warmth: "For I know you to be +of that nation, young man, though you speak German +with some approach to facility. Hence! Trouble here no +more, but give me that medal before you take your +departure. Otherwise you will be forcibly relieved of it by +the hands of those who are accustomed to deal with +bumptious and obstinately-authority-defying persons of your +description...." +</p> + +<p> +He added, as the arms of P. C. Breagh were pinioned in +an iron grip that clamped the elbows together behind the +shoulder-blades, drew his arms down, and pinioned his +wrists: "He, he, he! That was a capital stratagem of +yours, my excellent Niederstedt! Really very smartly +done!" +</p> + +<p> +The grim, sable-clad porter, in whose huge hands P. C. Breagh +vainly struggled, relaxed into a smile at the compliment. +He said, as from different points two stalwart +liveried attendants appeared, hastening to lend assistance: +</p> + +<p> +"One has not served in the Prussian Guards for nothing. +Once a soldier, always a soldier! Will the highly well-born +Herr Legation-Councillor order Grams and Engelberg +to hold this English pig-dog while I take His Excellency's +medal out of the fellow's clothes?" +</p> + +<p> +Snarled P. C. Breagh, livid with rage and glaring at +the hostile faces like a young male tiger-cat: +</p> + +<p> +"Add robbery to violence if you think well!—you are +four to one—and in your own country. But as an English +journalist I protest against the outrage.... And the +British Ambassador shall take the matter up!" +</p> + +<p> +There was an instant's pause of indecision, during which +P. C. Breagh heard the opening of a door on the landing +above. Then, with the rustle of silk, and the soft fall of +footsteps traversing heavy carpets, a resonant voice called +down the stair that led up between the basalt Sphinxes: +</p> + +<p> +"Meanwhile, you will allow me to apologize for the +too-excessive zeal of my servants. Do me the favor to come +up here!" +</p> + +<p> +The grip of the giant porter became flaccid as an +infant's. The voice spoke again from the summit of the +stair: +</p> + +<p> +"Herr Legation-Councillor, will you kindly see Madame +to her carriage? Au revoir, Madame, et bon voyage!" +</p> + +<p> +A liquid voice responded: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Au revoir, Monseigneur</i>! At Paris—who knows!—before +the Noël!" +</p> + +<p> +She pulled down her veil, curtsied with demure elegance, +and came softly rustling down in pale-hued, trailing silks +and laces, one snow-white hand blazing with splendid +emeralds lightly passing over the bronze baluster-rail, the +other holding the ivory and jeweled stick of a dainty +parasol. +</p> + +<p> +"Madame!" +</p> + +<p> +As by an afterthought he had called her. Midway in +her descent the lady turned to look up at him. He said, +bending his powerful eyes upon the face of sensuous +loveliness: +</p> + +<p> +"Pardon! but I believe—you are a native of France?" +</p> + +<p> +The hint stung. She returned, with the stain of an +angry blush darkening the roses purchased from Rimmel; +and a hard line showing from the angle of each delicate +nostril to the corner of the deep-cut, scarlet lips: +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur is correct ... I am a Frenchwoman.... +But the heart is free to choose its own country.... +And—mine has learned to beat for the Fatherland!..." +</p> + +<p> +So exquisite was the cadence with which the words were +uttered, that P. C. Breagh heaved an involuntary sigh. +The Legation-Councillor took snuff—it may have been his +way of showing emotion. The huge porter sighed like a +locomotive blowing off steam. His colleagues, who, like +himself, stood waiting in rigid military attitudes, suffered +no sympathy to appear in their wooden faces, yet may +have felt the more. But the heavy mask of their master +was divested of all expression. +</p> + +<p> +"Even," said he, in his clear, resonant voice, "to the +point of outdoing Agamemnon, King of Argos. For he—but +doubtless you are familiar with the classic story!—merely +sacrificed Iphigeneia on the altar of the virginal +Artemis...." He added with a tone of intolerable +irony: "It would have required fewer scruples and more +toughness than Agamemnon possessed to have offered up +an only daughter to Venus Libertina.... Only a woman +of fashion would be capable of such infamy.... +Pardon! but you have dropped your parasol!" +</p> + +<p> +She had shuddered and winced as though his words had +been vitriol,—dropped from above—corroding her delicate +flesh.... The costly toy had fallen from her hand as the +shudder had passed over her, and rolled down the stair, +as she continued her descent. P. C. Breagh picked it up +and handed it to her, as she set foot upon the lowest step +of the staircase. She looked at him, and bent her head. +And the beauty that had been hers a moment back was +so strangely, bleakly altered, he could scarcely repress an +exclamation of dismay. +</p> + +<p> +Thus Circe might have stared, thought P. C. Breagh, +when her feeding hogs leaped up as men frantic for +vengeance. Thus Duessa, when the spotted image of her own +vileness was reflected in the glassy shield of Truth. +</p> + +<p> +The change in the boy's face stabbed Madame to +consciousness. She caught at her mauve tulle veil, forgetful +that it was already lowered, and tore it horizontally, so +that her full white rounded chin emerged with fantastic +effect, like the moon through a bank of storm-wrack. And +then, with her head held high, she swept through the +vestibule in a frou-frou of silks and a gale of perfume, and +down the passage ending in the hall-door with the funereal +knocker. The Legation-Councillor trotted after her. One +of the servants followed him, and P. C. Breagh, mounting +the staircase between the Sphinxes, reached the landing +and the summit of his ambitions in a breath. +</p> + +<p> +"Time is scarce!" said the man who was meant when +Prime Ministers and political leader-writers referred to +Prussia. "I have no more than five minutes to spare, +but you shall have them. Come this way! So you are +an English journalist! What paper do you represent, here +in Berlin? Sit down and tell me in as few words as +possible!" +</p> + +<p> +They were in a small but lofty room on the first-floor, +hung with green flock paper. It had a fireplace as well +as a stove, and it was a study, yet it contained no +bookcases, only a couple of shelved stands laden with pamphlets +and papers of the official kind. The two high windows—open +and unblinded, though the green-shaded reading-lamp +upon the big carved mahogany writing-table was +alight—looked across the extensive gardens reaching to +the Königgratzer-Strasse. Beyond lay the Thiergarten, +all black with masses of people under the sultry red-gold +sunset of middle July. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps you can see—like Scaramouch and the Sultan +in the Eastern story—P. C. Breagh, hot and dusty, flushed +and rumpled, seated opposite the most formidable +personage of the day. He who dictated to Kings and carried +his Foreign Office trailing after him whenever he chose to +go campaigning, stood upon the skin of a white lioness +that served as hearthrug, and bit off the end of a huge +cigar. He looked bulkier than ever, and the powerful +modeling of his scant-haired temples, the splendid dome +of the skull that housed the keenest intellect in Europe, +the masterful regard of the great eyes, the sarcastic humor +of the mouth shaded by the heavy mustache—traits and +features reproduced so constantly in the illustrated +newspapers of the period,—conveyed to Carolan the impression +that a portrait moved and spoke. +</p> + +<p> +He was attired, as usually represented, in a dark blue, +braided military undress-frock, and trousers tightly +strapped over boots with cavalry spurs. An Order hung +at his collar. As he threw back his head in the act of +lighting his cigar, P. C. Breagh recognized it—the Cross of +a Commander of the Red Eagle. While on the left breast +of the blue frock-coat was a small three-cornered rent in +the cloth from which the lost medal had been somehow +wrenched away.... +</p> + +<p> +The sight of that tear in the dark blue-faced cloth sent +the blood racing to P. C. Breagh's forehead. He knew +himself for a presumptuous young man. He plunged his +hand into the pocket of the brown Norfolk jacket, and +brought out the red-and-white enameled decoration, and +said, awkwardly laying it upon the edge of the big writing-table, +in the yellow radius thrown by the lighted lamp: +</p> + +<p> +"I found this after Your Excellency had gone!" +</p> + +<p> +"Hand it here!" said the heavy blue eyes imperiously. +P. C. Breagh got up and obeyed. The Chancellor's long +arm shot out, and the muscular white fingers whipped the +medal from the palm that offered it. Its owner assured +himself by a brief scrutiny that the token had sustained +no injury, nodded, and re-pinned it on the breast of his +frogged military frock-coat. When this was accomplished,—the +small solution in the continuity of the cloth being +covered by the decoration,—he said, taking the cigar from +his mouth, and knocking off the long crisp ash upon the +edge of the white earthenware stove: +</p> + +<p> +"I should have been sorry to have lost that. But, while +thanking you for having restored it, let me say that had +my servants taken it from you by <i>force majeure</i> they would +not have been robbing you,—though in law they might +have been held guilty of a personal assault. Now as to +your business. You have had one of your five minutes! +You have just now said you are an English journalist. +Does your business concern the War?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh stammered—for the heavy eyes that rested +on him seemed to oppress him physically: +</p> + +<p> +"To be frank with Your Excellency, I represent no +newspaper. I have some slight experience as a journalist, +that is all,—War Correspondence seems to me the highest +branch of journalism,—and I want, naturally, to fit myself +to practice it. Therefore, as no newspaper would employ +me, I accepted a private commission given, out of +good-nature, by a friend, who has helped me before. And—my +first day in Berlin—I fell in with Your Excellency. I +won't deny it seemed a hopeful augury!" +</p> + +<p> +"For the future! ... I understand!" said the Chancellor, +sending out a long cloud of cigar-smoke. "And in +what way do you suggest that I should help you?" +</p> + +<p> +</p> + +<p> +He put the question so bluntly that P. C. Breagh, in the +effort to answer, floundered and boggled. He had suddenly +realized his own insect-like insignificance in the eyes that +were so intolerably heavy in their regard. His own eyes +sank to the neat, small, polished boots of the big man. +who stood smoking upon the white lioness-skin. To the +wearer of those boots he was merely a beetle who could +be crushed by them. The slight ironical smile that altered +the curve of the mustache said as much. But the Minister's +tone was suave as he went on: +</p> + +<p> +"I think I have grasped the mainspring of your reasoning. +To begin with, you desire to accompany one of our +armies on the campaign?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes—sir! Your Excellency, I should say!" +</p> + +<p> +A lambent light of humor danced in the blue eyes +that were bent on him. The faint ironic smile broadened +into a laugh. The Chancellor took his cigar from his +mouth, knocked off the ash, and said quite pleasantly: +</p> + +<p> +"And deducting from this premise, I conjecture +that—because I have been privileged to save you from being +trampled to death under the feet of the mob upon the +Linden, you naturally take it for granted that I would +further your ambitions. Gratitude, one of your English +authors has admirably defined as a lively sense of favors +to come...." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh, who had been for some time shrinking in +his own estimation, suddenly saw himself in a newer, +meaner light. His torturer went on in mellifluous +English: +</p> + +<p> +"I do not know that any classical German author has +defined gratitude quite so cleverly. But we in Pomerania +have a folk-story which may be new to you." He drew +sharply at his cigar, then laid it glowing on the edge of +the stove: +</p> + +<p> +"You speak German quite passably, so I will tell it in +our Pomeranian dialect. If this is not done, the dialogue +lacks salt. Thus it goes: Wedig Knips, a peasant of +Dalow, whose horses wanted watering, went one winter's +day to break the ice that covered the drinking-hole.... +'Bless us! what have we here?' says he, when he finds a +kerl called Peders, frozen in the ice, with his head down +and his heels up. To make a long story short, he chops +out Peders, takes him home, and sets him up to thaw +before the fire.... 'Now, neighbor,' says he, 'go about +your business!'—'How can I when my jerkin is wet and +my breeches are full of muddy water?'—Says Wedig: +'Poor devil! I will give you my Sunday trows!'—'And a +jerkin too, for you saved my life, you must remember!' ... +Wedig scratches his head, but hands over a jerkin with +the rest. 'Come, now be off!' says he. '"Off," with +my under-pants and shirt all sopping! Do you want to +kill me—now that you have saved my life?'—So Wedig +pulls a wry face, but hands over the underclothes.... +'Put these on and be off, we are busy people in this +house!' 'What,' says Peders, 'without paying me the value of the +good duds spoiled in your stinking horsepond?'—'Must I +pay?' ... 'Certainly, you have saved my life! Nobody +asked you!—I had thrown myself in because I was tired +of living. Now it is your bounden duty to make things +tolerable for me!'—'How make things tolerable?'—'To +begin with, I want a cottage to live in, and a plot of +kail-ground to it, and a wee pickle furniture.'—'But I have +only this cottage, and the bits of sticks you see!'—'Well, +give me them! Didn't you save my life?' ... Wedig gets +confused, sees no way out of it. 'The devil!' says he, +'this is a nice affair! However, take them, man!'—'I +will take them,' says Peders, 'but you must give me the +cart and plow, the cow and the two +horses?'—'<i>Himmelkreuzbombenelement</i>! Have I got to give you all that +because I saved your life?'—'Ay, undoubtedly!—and you +must let me have your wife into the bargain. It's your +bounden duty——' 'I know! because I saved your life! +Shan't make such a mistake next time, you may be sure +of that!'—'No, but you did, so to grumble is no +use.'—'Thunder! my old girl will make a terrible squawking.'—'Not +when you have explained how you saved my life!' ... Wedig +scratches his head, rubs his chin, gets a bright +idea.... 'Help me to explain to the wife, do you agree?'—'Ay, +of course! What is it you want me to say to +her?'—'Oh! say nothing. Only let me show her exactly how +I got you out of the water-hole.'—'Willingly!'—'But to +do that I must put you back just a minute!'—'Put me +back?'—'Only for a minute.' 'Promise when I cry +"<i>Genug!</i>" you'll take me out directly!'—'All right! +Come along!' So Wedig takes Peders by the legs and +sticks him back where he found him, driving his head +well down into the mud at the bottom of the pond.... +So—he never cried '<i>Genug!</i>' and Wedig left him there.... +</p> + +<p> +The hard blue eyes that had been all alight with laughter, +the heavily molded face that had unexpectedly proved +itself capable of comic changes, the voice that, as the droll +dialogue proceeded, had conveyed with slight, admirably +restrained mimicry the complacent assurance of the knave +and the dull bewilderment of the victim, changed, became +the Minister's again. He said, in his smoothest tones: +</p> + +<p> +"I cannot put you back into the crush of the crowd, +because by an appeal to its loyal feelings and domestic +instincts I was so fortunate as to disperse it. What I might +do, of course, is to deliver you to the tender mercies of my +servants, to whom,—when you brought back the medal,—you +blustered about delivering it to me personally. This +not-exactly-very-clever ruse would have failed—had I not +happened to step upon the scene. Your English policy is +often more fortunate than masterly.... Fortune certainly +has favored you to-day. Not in the fulfillment of +your ambition to accompany a Prussian Army to the field +of action—that is a wish impossible to gratify. For we +put up a general defense against the presence of any save +the most highly accredited Correspondents, and the War +Minister will only grant Legitimations to two or three. +But in obtaining for an obscure paragraphist a special +interview with the Prussian Minister for Foreign Affairs +on the eve of a world-crisis, Fortune has certainly favored +you. Go back now to your hotel and write your article; +then telegraph to Fleet Street and make your own terms!" +</p> + +<p> +"I'll be shot if I do!" choked out P. C. Breagh, flaming +scarlet to his hair-roots. "And I thank Your Excellency +for a lesson, and I beg to take my leave!" +</p> + +<p> +"Why does he go? Why does he talk about a lesson?" +asked the broad, cynical gaze that rested on him. +</p> + +<p> +As though he had spoken aloud, P. C. Breagh answered: +</p> + +<p> +"Because I set my personal advantage above common +gratitude and honor. Your Excellency lost the medal in +pulling me out of the scrimmage at the risk of your own +life, and when I found the thing—I used it,—exactly as +you say! True, you'd snubbed me when I'd tried to +thank you! yet I did believe your having saved me might +help me in some way.... But it would be better to cadge +in the dustbins for a living, than make money out of +information gained by trickery. And I apologize sincerely +for having been such a cad!" +</p> + +<p> +"'Cad' is the slang for vulgarian, is it not?" He +added: "Yes, they inculcate a code of honor at the +English public schools." +</p> + +<p> +The voice grated. P. C. Breagh hated its owner. But +he answered, looking squarely in the bulldog face that +bent on him: +</p> + +<p> +"They do, and I am sorry to have broken at least one of +its articles. May I wish Your Excellency good afternoon!" +</p> + +<p> +The speaker bowed, not clumsily, and turned to quit the +room, when a ferocious growl behind him, and the scraping +of heavy claws on slippery parquet pulled round his head. +Savage, red-rimmed eyes challenged, and the bared gleaming +fangs of a huge boarhound couched at length under a +wrought-iron sofa at the west end of the longish room +menaced the stranger's throat: +</p> + +<p> +"Down, Tyras!" ordered the Minister harshly, and with +a deep groan the heavy brute dropped its nose between its +forepaws, and lay still, shaken by occasional rumbling +growls. +</p> + +<p> +"You see," said the Minister, laughing, "that I can afford +to dispense with the services of detectives when this +good servant is at hand. Come, sit down another moment.... +I am really willing to help you.... You have not +come so badly as you imagine out of the affair!" +</p> + +<p> +"But I have said I will not write the article, and I am +intruding on Your Excellency's privacy." The soul of +P. C. Breagh yearned for the freedom of the streets. To +be shut up in the study of the greatest of living +Ministers,—set beak-to-beak with the man who was occupying the +attention of Europe—the master-mind in statecraft, who +used blunt truth as a weapon to beat down diplomatic +falsehood, and comported himself amidst the striving +parties of his national Parliament as a giant surrounded +by dwarfs;—had seemed, previously, a thing to boast of—a +dazzling feather in the cap of achievement. Now it was no +triumph, but a torture. He writhed under those keen, +amused, analytical glances, knowing himself worthy to be +so despised. +</p> + +<p> +"I have twenty minutes in which to refresh and rest, +not having eaten or sat down since ten o'clock this morning. +You have had ten—I will give you another five. Sit +down again there!" +</p> + +<p> +Tyras emitted another savage growl as though in support +of his owner's authority, and P. C. Breagh, loathing +his host even more intensely than he hated P. C. Breagh, +obeyed the imperious hand that pointed to the chair he had +vacated, and sat down, white-gilled now, and sick with +longing to be out of this presence into which he had thrust +himself—beyond the reach of the icy, contemptuous tones +and the arrogant, domineering eyes. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The Chancellor had turned away to pull at one of the +red woolen bell-ropes that hung on either side of the +fire-place, shabby things, threadbare with use, like the Persian +carpet that was trodden out in paths by the spurred feet +of the man who stood for Prussia; worn like the leather +cushions of the great wrought-iron sofa, under which the +great man's faithful attendant couched, with one eye on +the familiar face, and the other on the strange one that +might mask an enemy. +</p> + +<p> +Above the sofa, beneath a trophy of fencing-swords and +masks, reigning over a rack supporting a number of red +and white military undress-caps in all stages of wear, and +another containing a collection of pipe-sticks and +unmounted pipe-heads, hung the half-length oil-portrait of a +beautiful girl in ball-dress. Below was a large-framed +photograph of a noble-looking woman, with a mass of black +braided hair framing a long, serious face, with grave dark +eyes, thick straight nose, and full-curved, humorous lips +recalling published engravings of the English author of +"Adam Bede." Probably it was the Countess—that same +Fräulein Johanna Puttkammer who had been hugged under +the gaze of her assembled family. She looked strong, +serene and courageous, fit—thought P. C. Breagh—to be +the wife of a man destined by Fate and framed by nature +to become a leader of men. Also, she looked like a woman +who could love with old-world, elemental, forceful passion. +She had bestowed such love upon this man—who had +begun life as a roaring, hard-drinking young Pomeranian +squire, well worthy of the sobriquet of "Mad Bismarck," +bestowed upon him by his native county. +</p> + +<p> +She had sifted the gold out of the sand.... She had +never openly displayed her influence.... All the same it +had been there, guiding, sustaining, controlling.... He +had written to her, years after, when he had begun in +earnest to be a power in politics.... "<i>You see what you +have made me! What should I have done without you?</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Arrogant, harsh, domineering, merciless, as his enemies +had reason to term him, there must be something noble in +the man who had written like that. He was said to be a +kind, if not over-indulgent, father to his two big sons, even +then serving as private soldiers in a well-known regiment +of Dragoon Guards, and to be worshiped by his daughter, +a feminine copy of himself, if that oil-portrait were +anything like.... +</p> + +<p> +"Have you taken any food to-day?..." +</p> + +<p> +The interrogation brought P. C. Breagh's head round. +A servant must have appeared, and gone, and come again +in answer to the bell-summons. For on a clear corner of +an étagère otherwise piled with official papers and pamphlets, +stood a tray, bearing glasses and a vast crystal jug of +creaming golden-hued nectar with miniature icebergs floating +on the surface; and several dishes of rolls, split, +profusely buttered, and lined with something savory, the sight +and scent of which awoke tender yearnings within.... +</p> + +<p> +"No!—I thought not. Drink this and eat some of +these sandwiches. I myself have fasted longer than is +agreeable!" +</p> + +<p> +And a huge goblet of the ice-cold creaming nectar was +handed to P. C. Breagh, who immediately realized that his +tongue and palate were dry as the sun-baked asphalt of +the Linden. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Prosit!</i>" said his host, and drained his glass, adding, +as the guest duly responded according to the classic formula +and drank: "You are University-bred, I see! What Alma +Mater had the preference? Schwärz-Brettingen! ... Ah, +they thought very badly of me there about the time of +the Luxembourg Garrison Question. Nearly all the little +foxes barked at me as I passed through. However, we are +now reconciled, and more than a thousand of the students +have applied to serve as volunteers in this war,—there's +an item of interest for your paper!—though you have +Quixotically determined, you say, not to make use of any +information that I may be enabled to offer you. All +Quixotism is weakness, in my estimation; a man, according +to my code, should pursue his advantage where he finds it +irrespective of ethical laws or religious prejudice. Now eat +some of these stuffed rolls. Here are caviar, smoked +goose-breast, Westphalian ham and liver-sausage. You see I +set you an example!—and a would-be campaigner should +be able to sleep soundly under any and all conditions; and +eat whenever anything eatable is obtainable, with +unflinching appetite!" +</p> + +<p> +The savory rolls were vanishing under the speaker's +repeated attacks, and the golden tide in the great crystal +decanter was sinking visibly. He said, lifting and holding +it so that between the light of the green-shaded table-lamp +and the red glow of sunset pouring through the +unblinded western windows, the liquid in it shone ruby +and emerald.... +</p> + +<p> +"Come, let me fill your glass again, and then I shall send +you about your business. Absolved, you understand, from +that ridiculous vow of yours—and with a magic talisman +to enable you to use your eyes." +</p> + +<p> +The steady hand set down the now emptied jug, and +took from the red marble mantelshelf a small and +perfectly-finished pair of field-glasses, covered in black Russia +leather and mounted in ivory. An inlaid silver shield bore +a monogram, "O. v. B.-S.," and a date. +</p> + +<p> +"You can shoot with a pistol?—Good!—then I should +advise you to buy one, if possible. A revolver of the +American Colt's invention—six-barreled—a feature which +increases weight in proportion as it adds to effectiveness—would +be useful. Indeed, I carry one myself! One day +they will turn out such things with one barrel—but we +must wait for that, I am afraid. Here is the case belonging +to the glasses, with a strap to sling it round your +shoulders—and one thing more I will give you—though I am less +certain about its ultimate usefulness!" +</p> + +<p> +The writing-table stood in the middle of the room. He +moved to it with one of his long, heavy strides, sat +down—dipped quill in ink—and penned a few lines rapidly, +glancing at the sunburned, freckled face as though to +refresh his memory—holding up an imperious baud for +silence when the recipient of the field-glasses seemed about +to protest against the value of the gift. +</p> + +<p> +"Your nationality?—'British.' Name, 'Patrick Carolan +Breagh—pronounced "Brack." Your height?—Be very +accurate. One half-inch too much or too little might bring +you into trouble of a serious kind. 'Five feet nine' +... you promise to be taller. Your age ... twenty-three last +January.... Shoulders broad, good muscular development. +Your hair ... Reddish, is it not? ... You have +gray eyes with what the French would call <i>taches</i> of +yellow in them. Complexion fresh, considerably freckled. +Nose short and straight, ears small, teeth white and regular. +Chin square and with a cleft—weaklings have not such +chins!..." +</p> + +<p> +He added a brief sentence to the hastily scrawled +description, signed and blotted it, rose and came to +P. C. Breagh and thrust it in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +"Do not thank me! It is my passing whim to help you—regard +it in that light. As to this pass, safe-conduct or +whatever one may call it—it may forward you or hinder +you.... <i>Potztausend</i>! I am a mere officer of Cuirassiers +of the <i>Landwehr</i>—General by courtesy—not +Generalissimo! ... You, Bucher! ... What is there wanted +now?..." +</p> + +<p> +For a scratch on the door-panel had been succeeded by +the flurried entrance of the little Councillor of Legation, +breathing hard, and red in the face. He gabbled in +Spanish: +</p> + +<p> +"Pardon, Your Excellency, that I enter without knocking. +But His Highness the Crown Prince is coming upstairs!..." +</p> + +<p> +And almost in the same instant, as Tyras uttered a deep +"wuff" of friendly greeting, the open doorway was filled +by the stateliest and most martial figure in Europe, and a +pleasant, manly voice said: +</p> + +<p> +"Not finding you in your official quarters below-stairs, +I ventured, my dear Count Bismarck, to follow you to +your private study. It is a question of whether Le Sourd +delivered the war-gauntlet from Paris, or—— Pardon! +I had no idea that you were not alone!" +</p> + +<p> +The tall, broad-chested, golden-bearded Viking in the +undress uniform of the First Regiment of Guards touched +his cap in acknowledgment of P. C. Breagh's respectful +salutation. Then, as in obedience to a glance from the +Minister, the lean claws of the little Councillor closed upon +P. C. Breagh's arm, and he was plucked from the room, +the Prince asked, glancing after the queer couple: +</p> + +<p> +"May one ask who your young friend is?" and got answer: +</p> + +<p> +"It is only an English schoolboy, Your Royal Highness,—who +thirsts to try his hand at War-correspondence—having +had a few articles printed in some London rag. And +this being so, he applies to me, who am the least leisured +person in His Majesty's dominions—-for a moment of my +spare time!..." +</p> + +<p> +"It is annoying, my dear Count," answered the mellow-voiced +Viking, "but cannot your people keep such troublesome +persons outside?" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister returned, laughing: +</p> + +<p> +"He caught me on my doorstep,—as the polecat waylaid +the badger!—and as he brought back a decoration I had +lost, and which he, luckily for himself, had found!—I +could not refuse him a minute's interview. But with +regard to Your Royal Highness's question of an instant +since—Le Sourd, the French Chargé d'Affaires, placed the +Emperor's declaration of war in my hands about an hour +after the opening of Council in the Palace to-day." +</p> + +<p> +Said the Prince: +</p> + +<p> +"Unhappy man! driven to risk the loss of an Empire +that he may continue to rule a nation of enemies. One +can hardly doubt the issue—yet at what cost of lives shall +we not purchase victory!" +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck said in harsh, metallic tones, bending his brows +upon the Prince, who all the world knew loved peace, and +loathed the thought of the red months of strife that were +approaching: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Royal Highness is aware that I look upon this +war as necessary, and that I should not have returned to +Varzin without giving in my resignation to His Majesty +had the issue been other than what it is.... As for this +weak-backed Napoleon, this Pierrot stuffed with bran,—who +is kept in an upright attitude only by the slaps I deal +him on one cheek and the buffets the Monarchists and the +Revolutionists lend him on the other!—it will be better +for him to meet his end by a bullet or a sword-thrust on +the banks of the Rhine, than to be blown to pieces by some +bomb in the streets of Paris, or to die of apoplexy in the +bedroom of some nymph of the theater-coulisses!" +</p> + +<p> +He drew himself to his full height and, folding his +powerful arms upon his breast, said, looking full at the +Prince, who had declined a seat and who was standing +near the window, his hair and beard glowing golden-red +in the full rays of the setting sun: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Royal Highness speaks of the effusion of blood. +I am of those who have drawn the sword in the service of +their King and country. I do not regard war from the +point of view of the man who stops at home. More than +this! ... His Majesty is not the only father who has a +son serving in our Army.... I have two. Herbert and +Bill...." +</p> + +<p> +A pale purplish tint suffused his heavy face and crept +to the summit of his rugged forehead. His fierce blue eyes +dimmed. He said, in slightly muffled tones: +</p> + +<p> +"I am not given to pompous phrases. Yet if German +unity can only be brought about by a great national war +waged against our near-hand enemy—our old, cunning, +sleepless foe—I hail that war, even though it leave me +without posterity! If the gulf that divides the Northern +and Southern sections of the Fatherland can be better +bridged by my boys' dead bodies ... I would give them as +freely as I would give my own!" +</p> + +<p> +A spasm twisted his under-jaw. He said, laughing in +his stern way: +</p> + +<p> +"Three long-legged Bismarcks should equal one +eighteen-foot-seven plank. And I speak not only for myself. My +wife would echo me." +</p> + +<p> +Said the Prince in his cordial way: +</p> + +<p> +"My mother has a great admiration for Her Excellency. +My wife, too, speaks of her as a woman of antique nobility +of mind." He continued, with a smile that curved the bold, +frank mouth under the glittering mustache into lines of +exceeding pleasantness: "And her personal solicitude for +Your Excellency pleases my father much!" +</p> + +<p> +The heavy face that opposed him lost its dogged, set +expression. The Minister broke into a hearty laugh. +</p> + +<p> +"So! I have been waiting to hear somewhat of that +voluble telegram of hers to Abeken: '<i>Pray ask the King +not to bother Count Bismarck about State matters just now, +when he is taking Carlsbad waters for the gout!</i>' +</p> + +<p> +"Ha, ha!" The Prince joined gaily in the laughter. +"The Councillor was working with the King and myself, +when he received that wire. It came with a sheaf of +others—he read it aloud without a change of expression..... +Then you should have seen his face ... a study for +a comedian...." +</p> + +<p> +The Minister said, still smiling: +</p> + +<p> +"My wife pours many confidences of the domestic sort +into Abeken's bosom. She said to him during the Constitutional +Conflict of '66 ... 'Bismarck cares really nothing +at all about these stupid political matters. A cabbage well +grown, or a fir-tree well planted, means more to him than +the Indemnity Bill.' Yet when the Bill passed she was +all-triumphant. And to-day she remarked to me: 'War +is horrible to me on principle. But it would be equally +horrible to me if you said to me to-morrow: "<i>All is over!—we +do not fight!...</i>"' I made her angry by telling her +that one might parody in application to the mental +attitude of her sex the lines of the English Poet Laureate, +and say: +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + "Her reason rooted in unreason stood."<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"When our German women become too highly educated," +said the fair-haired giant, "love will take wing +for a land where the culture of the feminine intellect is +still unpopular. We males hold our supremacy on the +very insecure tenure of a carefully inculcated belief that, +being men, we must be wise!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Minister: +</p> + +<p> +"There is a Pomeranian proverb bearing on that question. +'<i>In the house where a strip of green hide hangs +handy, the wife will never know better than her old man!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +"Unless she happened to be the stronger of the two, +bodily as well as mentally, dear Count," the Prince +rejoined; "in which case the husband would be well advised +to accept the inferior place. For against brute-strength +and brains combined, there is no remedy but patience." +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck retorted: +</p> + +<p> +"Possibly—but what if the muscular brute with the +brains possesses a share of patience also? There is nothing +like knowing how to wait—I assure Your Royal Highness!" +</p> + +<p> +The Prince looked at the great figure topped by the stolid +bulldog face, and recalled something that the English +Princess, his wife, had said to him that day: +</p> + +<p> +"This fearful struggle will set the coping-stone upon +that man's colossal labors and ambitions!" +</p> + +<p> +But he was all grave, gracious cordiality as they passed +from the lighter vein of talk to serious questions, though, +as he took leave of the Minister at the hall-door and +stepped into his waiting carriage, he said to himself +mournfully: +</p> + +<p> +"Alix was right. He has what he has waited and +schemed for. To light this international conflagration he +would have ventured down to fetch a burning brand from +the nethermost Hell. And what oceans of blood will be +poured out before the fire may be extinguished—none +knows but God alone!" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap29"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXIX +</h3> + +<p> +Von Moltke, the ancient war-wizard, went home from the +Council-Extraordinary to his private quarters at the offices +of the Great General Staff. He dispatched the three-word +telegram, and the vast machine began to work.... +</p> + +<p> +All had been ready for two years. Nothing was left to +finish at the last moment. Not a speck of rust marred +shaft or spindle or bearing, not a drop of oil was clogged +in any slot. +</p> + +<p> +Days back, the Heads of Departments had been recalled +by a brief telegram from the Chief who knew how to be +taciturn in seven languages. Now, while in Berlin, as in +every other city and town of Prussia Proper and her +Eleven Provinces, palaces, mansions, restaurants and <i>cafés</i>, +beer-gardens and schnaps-cellars blazed with gas and +resounded with the clinking of glasses, and people sat late +into the grilling July night discussing and rediscussing +that special supplement of the <i>North German Gazette</i>—which +was being distributed gratuitously by hundreds of +thousands,—predicting the next move of the Man of Iron, +and the latest ruse of the Man of Paris,—consuming tons of +sausage, caviar, pickled salmon, herrings in salad, and +potted tunny, with strawberries and other fruits and sweet +dishes, all washed down by floods of cooling beer, or iced +Moselle and champagne—the numberless huge barracks +and other military establishments displayed another kind +of activity. +</p> + +<p> +Here no outbursts of patriotic song and festivity checked +the rapid, organized, methodical scurry of warlike +preparation. Soldiers ran about like busy ants, purposeful and +unblundering. Long trains of Army Service carts and +wagons streamed in at divers lofty gates, to emerge at +others after the briefest interval, heavily laden with Army +stores, Army baggage, War material of all kinds. Night +and day, huge Government factories and foundries dithered +and roared, filling up newly made vacuums in those huge +magazines and storehouses which must always be kept full. +In the gloomy dominions of the Iron King, Herr Krupp, +that stout-loined Teuton who begat great guns instead of +tall sons, and had them godfathered by Prussian Royalty—what +forests of tall chimneys belched forth smoke, canopying +begrimed and prosperous Westphalian towns, populated +by innumerable swarthy toilers in the gigantic iron and +steel foundries! At Essen, where mountains of coal kiss +the sooty skies, and heavy locomotives ceaselessly grind +over networks of shining steel rails, dragging strings of +trucks, containing yet more fuel for the ever-hungry +furnaces,—within an impregnable rampart of solid masonry,—he +dwelt in a Babylonian palace. The panting of innumerable +steam-power engines, the banging, moaning, crashing, +groaning, and grinding of forges, lathes, and planing-machines; +cutting, shaping, boring, and polishing machines; +with the beating of sixty-two steam-hammers, of all weights +up to that of fifty tons, which cost £100,000 to manufacture, +sounded like a cannon whenever it was used, and was kept +working without pause, so as not to lose a fraction of the +interest of the capital sunk in it—made his concert by day, +and by night served for his serenade and lullaby. He made +laws for the control of his grimy subjects, this Briareus of +ten thousand hands—and enforced them by the aid of his +own police and magistrates. With orders in course of +execution for Turkey, China, Egypt, Russia, and Spain, he +was yet able to deliver eighty cannon per week to the +different artillery depots of his Fatherland. His steel, +tempered by his secret process, the new ore being brought +him from his Spanish mines by his own fleet of transports, +surpassed even Bessemer's. Yet he was not a conceited +or purse-proud man. By the chief entrance of the biggest +of all his factories stood the little soot-blackened forge +where forty years before young Krupp had labored with +his father and a couple of workmen. Small wonder the +powerful Iron King had honor from his over-lord. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Conceive next the well-ordered bustle at the headquarters +of the different Army Corps, when the withered finger of +the Warlock pressed upon the button, and the spark of +electricity leaped along a thousand wires, carrying with it +the vitalizing word.... Moltke's methods were then +fire-new, and made the world sit up. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +You might have seen the Reserve men of the Twelve +Provinces—whose summons for assembly lay ready in the +Landwehr office of every city, town, village, or +hamlet—streaming in at the district depots, bringing each Line +regiment up to war-strength (nearly double its numbers in +time of peace). Mobilization was no foreign word to them, +for once a year, after Schmidt, the field-laborer, had done +getting in the harvest, and when Schultz, the bank-clerk, +and Kunz, the chemist's assistant, had got their annual +autumn holiday, Schmidt, Schultz, and Kunz were accustomed +to perform a series of carefully rehearsed physical +exercises ending in maneuvers, and a safe if inglorious +return to the domestic hearth. +</p> + +<p> +Schmidt, Schultz, and Kunz were only remarkable by +their unlikeness to each other—Schmidt being the brown, +uncouth, and unshaven husband of a stout wife and +numerous tow-headed babes. Schultz was more recently +married to a young lady remotely connected on the maternal +side with a family possessing the right to inscribe the +aristocratic prefix "von" before its surname. The couple lived +frugally on Herr Schultz's salary of thirty pounds a year, +somewhere upon the outskirts of the select quarter of the +country town (some four miles distant from Schmidt's +native village)—while Kunz, the graduate of a University, +and author of a text-book of Analytical Chemistry, sold +impartially to both, squills, rhubarb-tincture, and porous +plasters over the counter of his employer's shop. +</p> + +<p> +Served by the Burgomaster's clerk, or a wooden-faced +orderly-corporal, with the compelling bit of paper, Schmidt, +Schultz, and Kunz, having taken farewell embraces of their +nearest and dearest, would sling over their shoulders +canvas wallets containing a lump of sausage, a shirt or so, a +huge chunk of bread, white or black, with a bottle containing +wine or schnaps, and stowing next their skins leather +purses containing a few coins, and a parchment volume +resembling the English soldier's "small book," would hasten +by rail or road in the direction of their regimental +rendezvous, toward which bourne the Reserve contingent of +other towns, villages, and hamlets would also betake +themselves, until the roads were blackened with their tramping +bodies and the trains would be packed chock-full. Arrived +at Headquarters, batch after batch,—subsequently to a +brief but exhaustive medical overhauling—would be +dispatched to the arsenal, where attaching themselves to a +tremendous queue of other Schmidts, Schultzes, and +Kunzes, they would mark time in double-file outside a vast, +grim, barn-like structure, until the moment arrived for +entering; when with well-accustomed quickness, each would +find his way to a certain hook or group of hooks, +surmounted with his regimental number, from which +depended a certain familiar uniform, with accoutrements +and weapons equally well known. +</p> + +<p> +Picture innumerable alleys formed by these dangling +uniforms, radiating away to the point of distance,—and +suppose Schmidt, Schultz, and Kunz equipped in something +answering to the twinkling of a Teutonic eye. +</p> + +<p> +In—supposing Schmidt, Schultz, or Kunz to belong to +the Infantry—a pair of dark gray unmentionables, +red-corded down the side-seams, and a pair of mid-leg-high +boots, very roomy and strong. Inside the boots were no +stockings, tallowed linen bands being bound about the legs +and feet. A single-breasted tunic of dark blue cloth with +red facings followed, and a flat forage-cap of blue cloth +with a red band, or a glazed black leather helmet with a +brazen Prussian eagle front-plate and a brass spike-top. +With the addition of a zinc label, slung round the neck, +and bearing a man's name, number, company, and regiment, +an overcoat made into a sausage and tied together at +the ends, a canvas haversack, glass leather-covered canteen, +a pipeclayed waistbelt with two cartridge-boxes of black +leather, and a knapsack of calf-skin tanned with the hair, +stretched upon a wooden frame, and slung by two pipe-clayed +straps hooked to the waistbelt in front and then +passing over the shoulders. Two shorter straps, going +under the armpits, would be fastened to the knapsack, +which had a receptacle for a packet of twenty cartridges +at either end of it. Within, suppose the usual soldier's +kit, with spoon, knife, fork, comb, and shaving-glass; and +on top imagine a galvanized iron pot, holding about three +quarts, with a tight-fitting cover which became, at need, a +frying-pan. Arm with a strong waistbelt-sword about +fifteen inches long, an unburnished needle-gun heavily +grease-coated, and Schmidt, Schultz, and Kunz, having +hung their civilian garments on the hooks that erst +supported the martial panoply, tugged at a final buckle-strap, +wheeled and passed out, transformed, by yet another door. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Always the three had known that an hour would come +when these familiar exercises would not end with half-a-dozen +exceedingly strenuous field-days, and a return,—on +the part of Schmidt and Schultz,—to the arms of their +respective wives. Schmidt, on whose breast shone the +war-medal of '66, and who must now be addressed as +"Herr Sergeant" by his social superiors, seemed not to +mind at all, though he swore at his boots, quite unjustly, +for pinching. But the bank-clerk's espousals were too +recent, and his first experience of paternity too near at +hand, for any display of hardihood, while Herr Kunz was +but newly betrothed to the apothecary's daughter Mina, +and could not forget how the tears had rolled out of her +large blue eyes at the prospect of parting with her beloved +Carl. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore, although the mouths of the trio were, when +not professionally shut, busily engaged in bellowing "<i>Die +Wacht am Rhein</i>," "<i>Ich bin ein Preusse</i>," and other +patriotic songs, or sending up deafening "Hochs" for the +King, the Crown Prince, Prince Friedrich Karl, "Our +Moltke," and another public personage recently very much +elevated in the popular esteem,—the mental visions of at +least two of them were occupied with prophetic visions in +which blue-eyed sweethearts pined and faded away out of +grief for absent betrotheds, and young wives wept over +empty cradles until they too expired, with faltering +messages of love for the husband so far distant on their dying +lips.... +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Sapperlot</i>! What in thunder are you gaping at, you +<i>gimpel</i>, you?" a rough, loud voice would shout, and a +terrific thump from the hard and heavy hand of Sergeant +Schmidt would visit the shoulders of Private Schultz, or +Kunz. Who thus addressed would jerk out: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, nothing, nothing, Herr Sergeant, truly nothing at +all!" and receive from their recently despised inferior the +rude counsel to look alive and keep cheery: +</p> + +<p> +"For this will be a war worth fighting in, mark you! +The Man on the Seine has played the part of the Evil +Neighbor too long. France and Prussia have got to come +to clapperclaws—there's no help for it! The soup is +cooked, so let us eat it. He is the luckiest who gets the +spoon in first!" +</p> + +<p> +You may suppose precisely similar scenes and dialogues +occurring in the experience of Kraus, Klaus, and Klein, +who, having served their time with the active Army and +passed from the Reserve into the <i>Landwehr</i>, were now +fetched out with the First Call, not only to replace the +garrisons of Saxony, Prague, Pardubitz, and all the other +fortified points on the lines of communication, but to +guard and patrol those lines of road and railway over which +the three marching armies were to receive supplies of food, +ammunition, clothing, stores, and medicine; and maintain +telegraphic communication with Berlin. Meanwhile Grein, +Schwartz, and Braun, men of riper years, stiffer joints, and +older experiences, remained at home; waiting the hour +when, Death having thinned the ranks of the fighters in +the forefront of the battle, the Second Call should sound. +When these hardy veteran battalions, formed into divisions +of the same numerical strength as those of the regular +Army, would roll over the frontiers, to fill up the bloody +gaps left by the scythe of the Red Mower, and play their +part in the vast, chaotic, multi-tableauxed drama of War. +</p> + +<p> +Prussia contributed some 652,294 actors of small parts +to the said drama, not counting the leading men, stars of +the war-theater, who supported the heavier roles. And +Bavaria, Würtemburg, and Baden contributed their +contingents, bringing up the strength of the cast to 780,923 +performers. The equine actors numbered 213,159. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The vast machine worked wonderfully. It is interesting +to know that the German Staff maps of France showed +recently made roads which in July, 1870, had not been +marked upon any map issued by the Imperial War Office +at Paris, and that within three days from that three-word +signal-wire of Moltke's, military trains full of men, +guns, horses, ammunition, and proviant, began to run at +the rate of forty per day, from north, east, and south, +toward the narrow frontier between Strasbourg and +Luxembourg. +</p> + +<p> +"For God and Fatherland!" and "Watch well the +Rhine!" said the miniature banners carried by thousands +of people. You could see them fluttering from crowded +roofs and packed windows, and variegating the sidewalks +of thoroughfares below, as regiment after regiment +marched to the station, in shining rivers of <i>pickelhaubes</i> +and bayonets, or Dragoon helmets, Hussar busbies, and +Uhlan schapkas, flowing between upheaped banks of +waving women and cheering men. +</p> + +<p> +Speedily, in response to communications addressed by +the Crown Prince to the South German sovereigns, notifying +these potentates of his appointment as Commander-in-Chief +of their armies, came replies expressing satisfaction +of different shades and qualities. The Grand Duke of +Baden's bubbled with joy, and expressed the determination +of his troops to gain their Royal Commander's confidence +by fidelity and bravery. The King of Würtemburg +rejoiced likewise, but in cooler terms, "in our German +affair" being brought to a head at last; and was anxious to +have the opportunity of saluting the heir of Prussia. The +King of Bavaria telegraphed "<i>Very happy. Many thanks +your Royal Highness's attention!</i>" A message which +conveyed no more warmth than was felt. +</p> + +<p> +His telegram of martial support, addressed at the outset +of affairs to Onkel Wilhelm, had seemed quite genuine. +Had not Count Bismarck quite a sheaf of documents, more +or less compelling, signed in the youthful monarch's +scrawling hand? King Ludwig had ordered immediate +mobilization of the dark green and light blue +uniforms—expended millions of gulden in variegated lamps, public +fountains of white beer and red wine, bands, Royal +Command Opera performances, patriotic set-pieces in fireworks +(representing the tutelary genii of Prussia and Bavaria, +cuirassed and armed, upholding the standards of +black-and-white and blue-and-white), joined in the "<i>Wacht am +Rhein</i>" as though he liked the tune (which he abhorred), +and certainly enjoyed the tumultuous plaudits with which +his subjects greeted their monarch's first and last +appearance in the character of a man of action. +</p> + +<p> +But instead of riding away at the head of the South +German Army, Nephew Ludwig sent an excuse to Onkel +Wilhelm—one has heard a gumboil named as occasion of +the disability—and Cousin Fritz was dispatched to take +over chief command. +</p> + +<p> +Prince Luitpold of Bavaria accompanied the First Army +Headquarter Staff. Alas, the appointment but served to +inflame the gumboil of the jealous King,—the accounts +that were daily to reach him of the prowess of his martial +cousin of Prussia worked like poison in his blood. He +drew the hood of his mantle of dreams more closely over +his head to shut out those fanfares of triumph, those +"Hochs!" and cheerings, and plunged more deeply into +the solitudes of his forests and mountain-caves. Blood and +iron were his bugbears, and yet they might have been his +tonics too. They might have staved off the black hound of +Destiny, already baying at his heels, and saved him from +vicious decadence, ultimate madness, and a strange and +sordid end. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, how did his chivalrous cousin die, at the +meridian of robust manhood, under the newly imposed +weight of an Imperial Crown? Not the swift, soldierly +death that is given by the bullet of a chassepot—the +projectile from a mitrailleuse—the flying fragment of an +exploding shrapnel-shell—but a straw-death, a bed-death +such as angry seers and cursing Valkyrs of Scandinavian +legend foretold as the speedy punishment of warriors who +had broken faith and tarnished by false oaths the +brightness of their honor. +</p> + +<p> +But no shadow of the grim fate that was to befall him +darkened those brave blue eyes at this period. Laboring +night and day at the mobilization of his Third Army, in +concert with his Chief of Staff, Von Blumenthal, he was +buoyantly happy, despite his hatred of the shedding of +blood and his undisguised compassion for the conjectured +plight of the Man on the Seine. +</p> + +<p> +With whom Britannia at first expressed a sympathy not +at all restrained or guarded, and for the success of whose +arms she was openly eager, until, toward the close of this +momentous month of July, 1870, the text of a brief but +pithy diplomatic document, penned in precise and elegant +French, and dated a few years previously—made its +appearance in the columns of the Times. +</p> + +<p> +The movements of the opposing forces camped on the +banks of the Meuse and the Saar lost interest for the public +eye in perusal of this rough memorandum of a proposed +treaty between the Third Napoleon and the King of Prussia, +scrawled in Count Benedetti's flowing Italian hand. +</p> + +<p> +Since the spring of '67 it had been hidden away in a +snug corner of Bismarck's dispatch-box, waiting to jump +out. You recall the terms of the thing—one of many overt +attempts to seize a coveted prize. The Empire of France +was to recognize the acquisitions made by Prussia in the +war of 1866 with Austria. Prussia was to aid Napoleon +III. to buy from Holland the debatable Duchy of +Luxembourg. The Emperor was to shed the luster of his smile +and the <i>ægis</i> of his approval upon Federal Union between +the North German Parliament and the South German +States—the separate sovereignty of each State remaining. +In return, Prussia was to abet the Bonaparte in the +military occupation and subsequent absorption of the +Kingdom of Belgium. And in furtherance of these laudable +ends, an alliance, offensive and defensive, against any +Power, insular or otherwise, was to be compact between the +great gilt eagle of the Third Empire and the black-plumaged +bird across the frontier. +</p> + +<p> +Britons, with inconveniently good memories, perusing +this draft, recalled the existence of a treaty existing +between France, England, and Prussia, mutually binding +these Powers to protect the neutrality of Belgium, and +drew reflections damaging to the betrayer and the betrayed. +French diplomatists asserted that the project had been +drawn up by Benedetti at Bismarck's dictation. Why +preserve so explosive a document, they argued, if it was +never to be drawn out and supplied with detonators in the +shape of signatures? Later on M. Rouher's boxes of official +papers, found at his château of Cercay, gave up the original +draft-treaty annotated in the Emperor's handwriting. +</p> + +<p> +For it was his nature, may God pardon him! to be false +and specious, ungrateful and an oath-breaker. He must +always repay great services with great wrongs. Thus in +the red year 1870, England, who in '54 had poured out +blood and treasure lavishly to aid him, receiving this plain +proof of treachery, stood sorrowfully back and saw him +rush upon his fate. Sick and desperate, madly hurling +his magnificent Army hither and thither upon the arena, +a Generalissimo out-generaled before the War was a week +old. +</p> + +<p> +He had made France his mistress and his slave, and now +her fetters were to be hacked apart by the merciless sword +of the invader. Through losses, privations, and humiliations; +through an ordeal of suffering unparalleled in the +world's history; through an orgy of vice and an era of +infidelity; through fresh oceans of blood shed from the veins of +her bravest; she was to pass before she found herself and +GOD again. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, North, East, South and West, prevailed a +great swarming scurry of military preparation, the tunes +of the "<i>Wacht am Rhein</i>" and "<i>Heil dir im Siegeskranz</i>" +clashing with "<i>Partant pour la Syrie</i>" and the +"<i>Marseillaise</i>"; and the solemn strains of masses rising up +together with Lutheran litanies, as two great nations strove +to convince Divine Omnipotence that Codlin deserved to +whip, and not Short. +</p> + +<p> +Strange! that Christian men, who frankly confess themselves +to be sinners, worms, and dust-grains before the +supreme Majesty of the Creator, should be so prone to offer +Him advice. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap30"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXX +</h3> + +<p> +The lovely lady whose lace parasol P. C. Breagh had +picked up at the bottom of the Prussian Chancellor's +staircase was driven, by the tipsy-faced Jehu of a debilitated +hack-cab, to a semi-fashionable hotel situated in a graveled +courtyard facing toward the Linden. The bureau-manager +looked out of his glass-case as she swept her rustling +draperies over the dusty Brussels carpets of the vestibule, +and muttered to the pale-faced ledger-clerk at his side: +</p> + +<p> +"A representative from the firm of Müller and Stettig, +Charlotten-Strasse, has called three times to see the lady in +Suite 35. With a jewelry account for payment, promised +and deferred." +</p> + +<p> +The clerk assented with a nod of the double-barreled +order, and reaching an envelope from a numbered +pigeon-hole offered it for the inspection of his superior. +</p> + +<p> +"Baroness von Valverden," sniffed the bureau-manager, +and in his turn reached a squat red Almanach de Gotha +from the top of a pile of ledgers, and ruffled the leaves +with an industrious thumb. +</p> + +<p> +"It is as I thought—there is no Baroness von Valverden. +Baron Ernst von Schön-Valverden is a minor and a bachelor, +private in the —th Regiment of Potsdam Infantry +of the Guard. This must be the Frenchwoman I have +heard of as mixed up in the scandal connected with the +death of Baron Maximilian at Schönfeld in the Altenwald +some years ago. He left Madame a lapful of thalers—I +suppose she has played skat with the money. Not that that +matters if the hook-nosed, long-haired Slav she has got +with her upstairs has the cash to settle with us! But if +not——" +</p> + +<p> +The manager's tone was ominous. The clerk scratched +his nose with the feather-end of his pen, and said +admiringly: +</p> + +<p> +"If not, the Herr Bureau-Director will give orders to +detain their valises and trunks?" +</p> + +<p> +The bureau-manager smiled, and said, jerking his chin +at another envelope reposing in the numbered pigeon-hole: +</p> + +<p> +"Send that up at once and let them know we will stand +no nonsense. Keep Müller and Stettig's back for the +present. Understand?" +</p> + +<p> +And the clerk nodded again, and whistled down a tube, +and evoked from regions below a brass-buttoned, +gilt-braided functionary, to whom he entrusted the missive +indicated, which bore the monogram of the hotel-company, +and indeed contained their bill. +</p> + +<p> +It was handed to Madame by the brass-buttoned functionary +just as she reached the ante-room of her second-floor +suite of apartments. She took it from the salver, and +said without looking at it: +</p> + +<p> +"Presently!" +</p> + +<p> +The functionary gave a peremptory verbal message. She +repeated: +</p> + +<p> +"Presently, sir, presently.... At this moment I am +exceedingly fatigued!" +</p> + +<p> +The brass-buttoned functionary begged to remind the +gracious lady of similar excuses previously received by the +management. At this she turned upon him the battery of +her magnificent eyes. Always economical of her forces, she +had removed her torn tulle veil during the cab-drive, and +with a delicate powder-puff drawn from a jeweled case +dependant from her golden <i>châtelaine</i>, removed from her +lovely face all traces of emotion. Only a spiteful woman +would have called her thirty-five.... And the functionary +was a man, despite his brass buttons and gilt braiding. +When she smiled, he caved in, bowed, and left her. But +he did not forget to leave the bill. +</p> + +<p> +She had it in her hand as she entered the drawing-room +of the suite of apartments, one of those impossibly shaped, +fantastically-uncomfortable salons, possessing a multiplicity +of doors and windows, upholstered with rose-satin +and crusted with ormolu, such as are only seen in foreign +hotels and upon the stage. Despite the sultry heat of the +July weather the windows were shut, their Venetian blinds +lowered, and their thick lace curtains drawn over these. +And in a rose-colored arm-chair with twisted golden legs +and arms and an absurd back-ornament like an Apollonian +lyre, huddled a dark, hawk-featured, powerfully built man +of something less than forty, wrapped in a short, wide coat +lined, cuffed, and collared with black Astrakhan; wearing a +traveling-cap similarly lined, and presenting the appearance +of one who suffers from a cold of the snuffly, catarrhal +kind. +</p> + +<p> +He sneezed as Madame surged across the threshold, and +would have told her to shut the door, only that she divined +his intention and forestalled him, throwing her parasol +upon a sofa and sinking into a chair as ridiculous as his +own. Yet when her wealth of pale-hued draperies poured +over it, and the ripe outlines of her voluptuous form +concealed its crudities of design and coloring, it could be +forgiven for being in bad taste. +</p> + +<p> +She looked in silence at the traveling-cap, not at its +sulky wearer, until, conscious of her sustained regard, he +raised his hand to his head. In haste then, as though she +dreaded the shock of his purposeful abstention from the +customary courtesy, she said: +</p> + +<p> +"Do not take it off! Pray keep it on!" +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks!" He uttered the word laconically, drooping +his immense, black-lashed eyelids over his fierce and +staring eyes. They, too, were black, with the white, hard +glitter of polished jet; black also were the great curved +eyebrows, the coarse and shining hair that fell to his +shoulders, the parted mustache, and the wedge-shaped +beard that depended from his boldly curved chin. Rippling +in small, regular waves, suggestive of the labor of a +primitive sculptor's chisel, the inky <i>chevelure</i> of this man +with the cold,—taken in conjunction with his large, +aquiline nose, deep chest, fleshy torso, and thick muscular +limbs, reproduced the type of an ancient Assyrian warrior, +as represented in some carved and painted wall-frieze of +Nineveh or Babylon, marching in a triumphant procession +of Shalmaneser or Sennacherib. Even the conical +head-dress was reproduced by the modern cap with ear-pieces, +and turned-up border; and the deep yellowish-white +of the alabaster in which the ancient sculptor wrought his +bas-relief was reproduced in thick, smooth, unblemished +skin. +</p> + +<p> +Handsome as he undoubtedly was in his exotic, Oriental +style, even in spite of influenza, Madame contemplated him +with ill-concealed distaste. To a woman who loves, what +matters the temporary thickening of the beloved object's +profile, even when accompanied by attacks of sneezing and +a running at the nose and eyes? She can wait the day +when his voice will clear, and his leading feature will regain +its former beauty. That is, as long as she continues to +love. +</p> + +<p> +The passion of this man and this woman had in its brief +time burned high and fiercely. So does a fire of paper or +straw. Now Passion lay dying, and Satiety and Weariness +were the only watchers by the death-bed. Every twenty-four +hours that passed over the heads of the couple brought +nearer the hour when these would give place to Hatred and +Dislike. And meanwhile both were infinitely hipped. +</p> + +<p> +"Every window.... Every curtain.... Must we, +then, asphyxiate?..." At the end of her patience, she +made an angry gesture as though to loosen the ribbon of +mauve velvet that held a diamond locket at the base of her +round white throat, bit her full lip—and let her hand drop +idly into her silken lap again. +</p> + +<p> +Her companion stretched out a pair of muscular, but +shortish legs, encased in dark green trousers with braided +side-stripes, and looked with interest at his patent boots. +Then he answered, speaking with a drawling, nasal accent: +</p> + +<p> +"Unless M. de Bismarck has supplied you with the +means of averting a singularly-unpleasant catastrophe, it +may be that the answer to your question should be 'Yes'!" +</p> + +<p> +She understood that he questioned, and said, drooping +her proud, languorous eyes under the hard black stare of +his: +</p> + +<p> +"You would be wiser to speak in a lowered tone, when +you refer to—that personage. One does not trifle with +him—here or elsewhere!" +</p> + +<p> +"The Pomeranian bear," said her companion, pouting +a slightly swollen lip, and dabbing gingerly at his reddened +nostrils with a voluminous cambric handkerchief exhaling +the heavy perfume of opoponax, "has claws and fangs. +Also a hug, in which friends of mine have stifled. But they +were men and you are an enchanting woman!" He removed +his cap and bowed; resuming: "Besides you went +to M. le Ministre with a trump in your hand—a little +Queen of Diamonds, fresh as a rosebud. Have you played +her, may I ask?" +</p> + +<p> +He got up, pocketing his handkerchief, came over to her +and stood beside her, in the upright attitude which called +attention to the disproportion between his huge torso and +his too-short legs. He held his furred cap upon his hip with +one hand, and with the other stroked his waved +wedge-beard. The rasping sound made by his heavily-ringed +fingers as they passed through the thick, crisp hairs +irritated her to anguish. Yet not so long ago it had thrilled +her to sensuous ecstasy. +</p> + +<p> +"I played the girl—and I have lost!" Almost against +her will a cry broke from her. "My God! what things he +said to me! My God! what humiliations we women endure +for men!" +</p> + +<p> +"I had imagined, my Adelaide," said he of the Assyrian +hair and profile, showing in a smile a double row of teeth +so perfect that they struck the imagination as being carved +out of two solid curves of ivory—"that you were playing +for your own advantage—even when you played my game. +Did M. le Comte mention me at any point of the interview?" +</p> + +<p> +She started at the unexpected question. Her voice shook +a little in the reply. +</p> + +<p> +"He said that he had heard—that M. de Straz had lately +visited Berlin. That his agents would tell him. Of +course!" +</p> + +<p> +"He said nothing of—a flying visit of mine to Sigmaringen?" +</p> + +<p> +She answered hastily: +</p> + +<p> +"I think not. No! I am quite certain he did not." +</p> + +<p> +"No?" +</p> + +<p> +Straz sniffed and whipped out his handkerchief, grumbling: +</p> + +<p> +"Yet the purport of my mission to that South German +crow's-nest was known to him—here in Berlin—I can prove +it!—by nightfall of the day I interviewed the Prince." He +added, trumpeting in his handkerchief, "Of course, +M. Bismarck has spies everywhere. But all the same it +was quick work!" +</p> + +<p> +Her face was immovable. No guilty flush stained its +smooth ivory surface. Only the lines about her scarlet +mouth sharpened, that was all. +</p> + +<p> +Straz went on, peevishly, strolling to the fireplace, and +leaning an elbow on the corner of the mantelshelf. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose they call that princely hospitality—to send +a man who has traveled night and day, and is decanted +out of a crazy railway-station droschke at the door of their +confounded Stammschloss at five o'clock in the morning—to +an inn!" +</p> + +<p> +She said in a velvet tone of amorous insinuation, and +with a glance of sleepy fire: +</p> + +<p> +"To an inn where Love lay waiting!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Truly," he admitted, "but how were they to know +that you were there? What possible connection could +have been imagined between two chance travelers—I—arriving +from Paris—you coming from Berlin? Besides—to +send me to a summer tavern on the banks of the Danube!—when +they have two hundred bedrooms at the Schloss! +If that is princely hospitality, I tell you that I spit upon it! +I grind it under the heel of my boot!" +</p> + +<p> +Her nostrils dilated with disgust as he demonstrated by +spitting on the hearthrug. She said, meeting his angry +black stare with eyes that were of the color of tawny +wine: +</p> + +<p> +"The Prince cannot have regretted his omission to +accommodate you with an apartment, when the Emperor's +message was made known to him!" +</p> + +<p> +He demanded: +</p> + +<p> +"Am I a hired bravo? <i>Pardieu</i>! your words suggest it. +Were either of the old man's sons in danger personally, +from me? Not at all! I but repeated a lesson—gave a +warning as it had been given.... But I understand—you +have been chagrined by the nature of your reception from +the Federal Chancellor!" +</p> + +<p> +She returned, now flushed and breathing deeply: +</p> + +<p> +"It is true. I suffocate at the recollection. Give me +time to breathe!" +</p> + +<p> +She rose. Straz said, going over to her, taking both her +hands, kissing them and replacing her in her chair: +</p> + +<p> +"Compose yourself. Let me understand the attitude +M. le Ministre is taking. I need not remind you that not +until I had learned from you that, through the lamented +Count Valverden, you were sufficiently acquainted with +M. de Bismarck to obtain an interview, did I suggest that +you should seek one. Well, you did, and it has taken +place. You told him of the little episode I witnessed +in January—on the day of the funeral of Victor Noir at +Neuilly. Monseigneur the Prince Imperial was riding +with his governor and escort—the Avenue of the Champs +Elysées was blocked by troops. A charming girl threw +M. Lulu a bunch of violets—made a little scene of loyalty +and enthusiasm in contrast with the unamiable attitude +of the crowd assembled. An equerry dismounted and gave +the flowers to Monseigneur. He carried them with him as +he galloped toward the Bois de Boulogne. Nothing of +importance in that, perhaps, had he not afterward sent for +the equerry who had picked up the flowers, and said to +him, blushing, '<i>Pray tell me who was she?</i>' So skilled a +master of phrases as M. de Bismarck could hardly have +undervalued the question from the heir to an Empire, +taken in combination with the blush. Or discounted the +importance of the fact that, later, when the equerry +brought him the information that the charming unknown +was the daughter and only child of a certain gallant +Colonel commanding the 777th Regiment of Mounted +Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard—at that moment quartered +at Versailles,—Monseigneur said, with another blush +as ingenuous as the first, 'I am glad she is the daughter of +so brave a soldier! Possibly I may meet her one of these +days.' Being told that her baptismal name was 'Juliette' +he blushed once more, and wrote it down,—together with +Mademoiselle's surname and address,—in a little +memorandum-book he habitually carries.... And there, my +exquisite Adelaide—if your narrative style did credit to my +teaching, the interest of M. de Bismarck should have been +engaged." +</p> + +<p> +She lowered her chin and drooped her somber eyelids, +and said with curling lips: +</p> + +<p> +"It was. He took out his watch, and told me: 'I can +hear you for three minutes longer! Has the Prince +Imperial—with the disinterested assistance of those about him, +altered that possibility into a certainty?' I explained to +him then that nothing further had come of the +<i>rencontre</i>,—though measures had been taken to preserve +Monseigneur's interest from dying for lack of excitement, bouquets +of violets being sent to him at regular intervals, with a slip +of paper attached to the stems, upon which had been +written in an unformed, girlish hand—'<i>From one who +prays for the Hope of France!</i>' +</p> + +<p> +"And then?..." +</p> + +<p> +"Then M. de Bismarck spoke, keeping his thumb all the +time on the watch-dial: 'So! The girl plays the part of +an ingenue for the present! Will she keep these airs of +candor and innocence when she has got her claws on that +poor stripling? And do you suggest that the Prussian +Secret Service should supply her with funds for the +carrying out of her design, whatever it may be? Are we to lay +our heads together, like the Brethren in the libretto of +Mehul's opera "Joseph," and sing in chorus: <i>This is the +heir. Come, let us kill him!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +"Even Beelzebub," said Straz, "can quote from Scripture +when it suits him. I suppose you were annoyed, and +showed it—which was an error of judgment on your part!" +</p> + +<p> +"I rose up," said she, and suited the action to the word, +"with indignation, assuring M. de Bismarck that his +suspicions were unjust. That the young girl mentioned was +of ancient family and irreproachable morals, convent-bred +and highly educated. And that I, myself, being her nearest +living relative of her own sex, was able to vouch for +the fact. I added that the interest displayed in her by +Monseigneur the Prince—who until that moment had +never been known to look at a woman—led me to conceive +that by aid of a few deft hints, a little discreet +encouragement—another distant glimpse—a meeting +accidentally brought about in some retired spot favorable to +the revival of first impressions, an influence might be +brought to bear upon the Imperial boy which might develop +his mind and mold his character. Somehow in my agitation +the name of Juliette de Bayard escaped me. 'De +Bayard,' exclaimed M. de Bismarck. 'So! You are her +mother!' Great Heaven!—the intolerable tone in which +he uttered the words! Only the most abandoned of her +sex could have supported the insulting irony of the look +accompanying them. Choking, I took my leave.... He +accompanied me to the staircase, with a false appearance +of courtesy. As I turned to descend, he hurled the last +insult of all! Nicolas, do not ask me to repeat the +sentences!—and yet, I must have them written in another +memory.... He twitted me with my nationality before +his secretary and servants. He likened me to a +mythological character with an unpronounceable name.... He +said only a modern mother would be infamous enough to +devote her only daughter to Venus Something-Or-Other.... +Next to my husband, I detest that man!" +</p> + +<p> +Straz had been pulling at his moist red underlip as she +raved out her story in a frenzy of rage and resentment, +intensified by the necessity of speaking in a lowered tone. +Now he dragged the feature out as though it had been made +of india-rubber, let it snap back, and said, shrugging his +bull's shoulders and getting up: +</p> + +<p> +"You are a woman and he is—Bismarck! He does not +for the moment want the wares you desire to sell him. It +is unlike him—the diplomat who could encourage M. Benedetti +to lay before him the Emperor's <i>projet de traité</i> +in writing—and lock it away for use at a future +opportunity—not to be willing to secure an advantage—placed +before him with clearness and skill—in the newly awakened +fancy of a schoolboy who, if he lives, will be an Emperor—for +a charming and innocent young girl!" He pronounced +these words as though they were smeared with something +sweet and luscious, licking his lips gently, and rolling his +dead black eyes in sensual enjoyment. "As regards your +husband, he has certainly not replied to the letter of your +solicitors, but why do you hate the unlucky man?" +</p> + +<p> +"Do you ask?" Adelaide demanded, with glittering +eyes and heaving bosom. "Did he not refuse to divorce +me? Should I not have legally borne the title of Baroness +von Valverden if his sentimental prejudices had not +blocked the way?" +</p> + +<p> +Straz pulled his waved beard, and said, delicately +separating a strand of it from the rest, and keeping it between +his thick white fingers: +</p> + +<p> +"Sentimental, why sentimental? Do you not even give +him credit for sufficient spirit to resent being made +ridiculous? The desire to be revenged—you will not even allow +him that?" +</p> + +<p> +She bit her scarlet underlip and answered, breathing +quickly: +</p> + +<p> +"He was too good, too high-minded—too chivalrous—oh! 'tis +ridiculous, I admit!" for Straz commenced to +titter silently, screwing up the corners of his eyes and shaking +his shoulders, as he sat with his thick, short arms folded +on his chest. "An idea to make you hug yourself as you +are doing. But true, nevertheless! He would have said—at +this distance of time I can still hear him preaching: '<i>I +will avenge the injury to my honor when I am confronted +with my enemy. I will not revenge myself upon the +woman who deserted me for him!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +The words came, not in her own voice. Straz left off +sniggering. He said to himself, considering her through +narrowed lids: +</p> + +<p> +"Those were De Bayard's actual words. I wonder, since +she has neither seen nor heard from him since she left him, +how it is she knew that they were spoken? Some obliging +mutual friend may have repeated them. Or she read them +in some letter of his, written to Count Valverden. That +is quite possible. But the question is, whether she would +detest him so bitterly if her passion for him were absolutely +extinguished. She is even jealous when one speaks of +their daughter, whom he worships.... I will play her on +this string—it may be useful, who knows?" +</p> + +<p> +Aloud he said: +</p> + +<p> +"Detest your husband, dear friend, if it affords you +entertainment. Probably he deserves it, though women I +have met who knew him vowed him <i>un crème d'homme</i>, +worthy of the name he bears." He smiled in his beard, +hearing her foot tap upon the shining parquet, and went +on. "Men have praised his gallantry and his +disinterestedness——" +</p> + +<p> +"'Disinterestedness!'" she mocked. "Truly—to the +point of fanaticism he is disinterested. Have we not to +thank that characteristic for the ruin of our plans?" +</p> + +<p> +Said Straz: +</p> + +<p> +"A little more subtlety upon the part of your solicitors, +and you might have found M. le Colonel less obstinately +inclined to discourage the idea of a reconciliation. To have +entrusted a portrait to the hands of the lawyers would have +been an excellent move. Once convinced that the thirteen +or fourteen years that have elapsed since you—parted—have +increased rather than diminished the beauty that +once he worshiped—and I fancy De Bayard would have +accepted your terms!" +</p> + +<p> +He sniggered, and waited as the violet shadows about her +brilliant eyes deepened, and she breathed more quickly. +Then he went on: +</p> + +<p> +"They were generous—I allude to the conditions. +Ninety men out of a hundred would have accepted them. +For what has De Bayard to condone that others have not +winked at? You were a mere girl, weary of separation +from a husband who doubtless consoled himself after his +own fashion, for his detention in the Crimea. Bored to +desperation—condemned to spend your days in the care of +a child, and in listening to the imbecile grumblings of a +sick old devotee,—point out to me the woman, young, +beautiful, brilliant, and ambitious—who would not—in +your place—have done precisely as you did?" +</p> + +<p> +She threw her head a little backward, bringing into +prominence the superb modeling of her columnar throat +and the heavy lines of the lower jaw. Her wine-colored +eyes considered him between their narrowed lids. She +savored his words, silently, with palpitating nostrils, and +rippling movements of the muscles of her tightly closed +lips. And the qualities of treachery and cruelty, mingling +in her strange character with sensuality, and pride, and +recklessness, were written upon her beauty as plainly as +they are stamped upon the individuality of a tigress, or a +poisonous snake. +</p> + +<p> +"You speak of weariness ... of boredom..." She +spoke between her teeth, accentuating the vowels and +prolonging the sibilants: "Nicolas, it was hellish—that <i>ménage</i> +at Auteuil!..." She clenched the white hand that +rested on the chair-arm and continued, looking with +burning eyes through Straz into the past. +</p> + +<p> +"That woman—my husband's mother, with her parade +of devotion for the absent. With her ceaseless repetition +of 'my son,' 'my son's child,' and 'my son's wife!' +... Grand Dieu!—how she enraged me! How she made me +hate—hate—hate them!—yes! all three.... Perhaps +myself also, most bitterly of all!" +</p> + +<p> +"We have a curious proverb in my country," commented +Straz, with his snigger: "'<i>I draw water from a +well that has no bottom when I tell my gossip of the faults +of my mother-in-law!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +She said, with undisguised scorn: +</p> + +<p> +"I am not a collector of curios from your country!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, but wait! Hear the rest of it!" said Straz, +dexterously embroidering on the original: "'<i>But when my +mother-in-law wishes to acquaint my husband with my good +qualities, she will write them with the plume from a gnat's +head, on the paper that wrapped a butterfly's egg, when +she has bought her ink at the shop where they sell none!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide continued, ignoring the labored witticism: +</p> + +<p> +"In the letter of farewell that I wrote to De Bayard I +said '<i>Your mother will console you, I have no doubt!</i>' +... How often I have imagined I could hear her talking to +him.... He would weep on her knees, like a schoolboy. +She would lead him to look at the child, asleep in its cot by +the side of her bed, and tell him, '<i>Do not fear! She will +not be like her mother! She will grow up candid and +discreet and virtuous!</i>' Everything that Adelaide was not, +you understand.... Ha, ha, ha! Absurd old creature! +Were she not dead, I should detest her still!" +</p> + +<p> +Straz mentally commented: "The daughter has inherited +the hatred, unless I am mistaken." Aloud he said: +</p> + +<p> +"The prophecy, if made, has not been fulfilled, my +Adelaide.... Mademoiselle, if inferior to her mother in +splendor and beauty, certainly has been dowered with her +elegance and charm." He bunched the fingers of his right +hand, kissed them, and launched the kiss, conjecturally, in +the direction of Paris. "A pocket edition of Psyche before +that little affair with Cupid! A rare jewel! A <i>chic</i> type, +give you my word!" +</p> + +<p> +The daintily shod foot had beaten time, as Straz +enlarged upon the theme of Juliette's perfections, to what +might have been the tune of a tarantella: now it ceased. +She laughed in the Roumanian's face, and cried, still +laughing: +</p> + +<p> +"A child! ... A schoolgirl—who has seen no more of +the world than the pearl in the oyster! All this is too +funny—<i>give you my word!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Said Straz, lolling his head against the chair-back and +licking his red lips cattishly: +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, but when the pearl-diver opened the oyster, he +said: '<i>Here is a gem worth a Kingdom, or an Empire, +when it shall be polished and properly set!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +"'Or an Empire!'" +</p> + +<p> +She echoed the three words, throwing her head back in +imitation of Straz's attitude, and looking at him with +languid provocation. Then she yawned, showing her +perfect teeth and the tip of a rosy tongue, and remarked +with an air of boredom: +</p> + +<p> +"My friend, whether your pearl be worth an Empire +or a cabbage-plot, your chance of proving its value is +forever forfeited, thanks to the obstinacy of M. de Bayard." +</p> + +<p> +Said Straz: +</p> + +<p> +"Our plan would have been easier to carry out,—had +M. de Bayard been more—complaisant." +</p> + +<p> +She rose up, her beautiful face livid and gray under its +artificial roses. Her eyebrows writhed like little live snakes, +her eyes burned like wind-blown torches. She spoke, +looking past her confederate in the chair, and with a +voice he barely recognized: +</p> + +<p> +"His mother must have prayed her Saints for this," she +said, "that I should always fail in the moment when +triumph seemed most sure. Max Valverden would have +married me—it is absolutely certain!—had not Fate sent +him back on leave from the Staff in Austria but a couple +of hours too soon. Weak, sentimental Max! always +threatening extreme measures. Who would have believed him +capable of carrying out that menace so often reiterated! +But this I know. Had he confronted me with what his +letter termed '<i>the unmistakable proofs of my appalling +treachery,</i>' I would have convinced him even against the +testimony of his own ears and eyes. But De Bayard—but +my husband!——" +</p> + +<p> +She had forgotten Straz; she saw nothing but her own +frustrated ambitions, the dead body of the man whose +suicide had robbed her of a title, and the living husband +whose stern rejection of her overtures had left her forever +outside the social pale.... +</p> + +<p> +"Do I not know the man he is! With another it would +have been so easy. He would have granted an interview,—I +would have been suppliant and humble—I would have +told my tale in such a voice! ... <i>You were away.... I +was young and inexperienced.... I foolishly yielded to +the persuasions of another.... Once I had let Valverden +kiss me I felt myself smirched for ever. I fled with him +because I dared not meet your eyes!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Straz sniggered. She went on, not hearing him.... +</p> + +<p> +"He would have taken me to his heart again. Once +reinstated there I would have regained the <i>entrée</i> to +Society. For a woman who has lived within the pale—even +if she finds it better fun outside—it is hideous to be +<i>déclassée</i>. A few triumphs,—a little intriguing—and I +should have been received at Court.... For the Emperor +is above all a man of the world; and the Empress loves to +surround herself with beautiful and witty women. With +gifts, talents, charm like mine, I should have carried all +before me!—I should have reigned—I should have drunk +the wine of Success from a goblet of diamond." +</p> + +<p> +"Without doubt," agreed Straz, "had M. le Colonel +consented to receive you. Yet I contend, his refusal is a +hopeful sign, if it means that he is afraid." +</p> + +<p> +She winced as though he had thrust a knife in her side, +and cried out: +</p> + +<p> +"Afraid! You do not know him.... No!—I tell you, +that it is to him as though I had never existed.... Did +we meet, he would look me in the face—pass me by without +the twitch of a muscle—without the flicker of a glance.... +But you have shown me how I may reach his heart—and +one day I shall thrust my hand into his breast and +tear it out and trample on it.... It is she—my +daughter—who will accomplish this!..." +</p> + +<p> +Said Straz, pushing back his chair, getting up and +blowing his nose loudly: +</p> + +<p> +"Then the sooner we exchange these avenues of dusty +lime-trees, choked with crowds of bellowing Teutons, for +the boulevards of Paris, the better. We shall, of course, be +forced to return by a <i>détour via</i> Brussels—the Rhine +Valley railways being reserved for the transport of troops. +Passports can be had on application to the usual authorities. +The only insuperable obstacle to our departure is—the +bill!" +</p> + +<p> +Madame came back to consciousness of sordid things as +the Roumanian ostentatiously turned out his trouser-pockets. +</p> + +<p> +"You are at an <i>impasse</i> for lack of funds?" she asked +him. +</p> + +<p> +"Upon my life, my soul!" Straz smilingly assured her, +"I am at present without a radish! A sum of two thalers +negotiable currency constitutes my stock of cash. Although, +as I have told you, I carry secreted on my person an order +for"—he tapped his bosom—"ten thousand francs payable +from the Secret Funds of the Imperial Government. +This I tried to cash before I left Paris——" He measured +off an infinitesimal quantity of finger-nail and displayed it +to her. "Do you think I got a franc from anyone? No!—you +know better! The Emperor's methods are understood +too well. And thus it is that the disinclination of +M. de Bismarck to finance our plan for the union of two +young and ingenuous lovers has hit me in the midriff. A +thousand curses on his niggardliness!" +</p> + +<p> +As though prompted by some recollection of Adelaide's +previous display of tragic passion, he scowled portentously, +spat at the fireplace, then began to strut about, vaporing +and waving his ringed, hairy-backed hands. +</p> + +<p> +"Penniless.... What damnable absurdity! The +Emissary of a Potentate! The Bearer of the Bowstring—with +Life or Death in my hand. For lack of cash I travel +second-class to that accursed South German Principality—I +stoop to put up at a third-rate inn. My Mission +performed, I yield to the promptings of my ardent nature. +In the company of her who reigns sultana of my soul,—who +for my sake has shared the discomforts of that abominable +caravanserai—I return to the barbarous capital of +the Hohenzollerns—I risk my person in the streets of +Berlin. Had my brain been cooler—had your image glowed +less seductively before my mental vision"—he rolled his +black eyes amorously and laid a thick ringed hand upon +his breast—"it may be that I should not have accompanied +you,—that I might have hurried back express to +Paris—presented myself to my Imperial master—and +reaped the golden prize!" +</p> + +<p> +"Say rather," responded Madame, in a tone not untinged +with acrimony, "that as the result of your unsuccessful +endeavor to enlist the interest of M. de Bismarck +in that charming plan to unite two ingenuous young +people—you are placed in a position that is not without +unpleasant possibilities. My <i>beaux yeux</i> are less to blame +than your ambition '<i>to kill</i>,' as the English say, '<i>two birds +with one stone!</i>' You——" +</p> + +<p> +"Say 'we,' not 'you,' my divine Adelaide," corrected +Straz, with tender insistence, "for if not in actuality +husband and wife, we are thus inscribed upon the +bureau-register. 'One in sorrow, one in joy,' to quote a poet of +my nation. I wish you were acquainted with the verses +of Stepan Mieciwycz. They would afford you exquisite +delight." +</p> + +<p> +"Possibly," said Madame, with an ominous hardening +of the facial muscles, and a whiteness about the lips. +"What does not afford me delight is that these brigands +downstairs have threatened to seize our luggage if their +claim is not satisfied within an hour." +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Sapristi!</i>" commented the Roumanian. "A beautiful +imbroglio! And—as I have no luggage—beyond a traveling +valise," he added with a gentle snigger, "your trunks, +bonnet-boxes, imperials, traveling-bags, and so forth—must +become the prey of the management. It grieves me +to the soul that you should suffer this denudation at the +hands of these coarse Germans. But what I cannot +prevent, I can but deplore!" +</p> + +<p> +"And if," she said in a vibrating voice of anger, "these +coarse Germans should lay hands upon your person, for +the purpose of ascertaining for themselves the state of +your purse! ... What then?" +</p> + +<p> +"What then?" Straz's cynical composure broke up. +"<i>Istenem!—Istenem</i>! Nothing could be more dangerous! +My letter of instructions from M. de Gramont, annotated +in the Emperor's own hand! The official letter, of +introduction from the Minister to Prince Antony—the copies of +those three telegrams His Highness sent from Sigmaringen—the +order on the Privy Purse—all concealed in a silk +belt I am in the habit of wearing—these Prussians will find +the papers should they search me to the skin. Then I, +<i>with my wife</i>——" He italicized the sentences. +</p> + +<p> +"One in sorrow as in joy, I think you said!" interpolated +Madame, bitterly. +</p> + +<p> +"We should be arrested—dragged before official +interrogators!—imprisoned!—Oh! do not imagine I am laying +on the colors too thickly. Is it incredible that M. de +Bismarck might welcome an opportunity—pending the +result of this war—to turn the key on us?" +</p> + +<p> +"Why on us?" demanded Adelaide. "Do <i>I</i> wear a +silken belt containing incriminating letters? Orders on +the Secret Funds ... copies of Hohenzollern telegrams?" +</p> + +<p> +Straz looked at her, and his black stare hardened +suspiciously. The swift Oriental blood that pigmented his +eyes and skin, and fed the luxuriant growth of hair upon +him, leaped in the dark to the conclusion that he had been +betrayed. He said, smiling, and speaking with a lisp, a +trick of his that boded ill, had she but known it: +</p> + +<p> +"Not to my knowledge.... I have never searched +while you were sleeping,—or spiced the draught that made +the sleep profound." +</p> + +<p> +"My thanks," she said, keeping her countenance +magnificently, "for the glass of mulled Burgundy I gave you +when you returned from the Schloss. You were suffering +from chill—you shivered and burned alternately.... +Like a woman, I did what I could—and you are ungrateful, +like all other men." +</p> + +<p> +"My soul," simpered Straz, "I adore you madly. But +like every other man, I am a son of Adam, and you are a +daughter of Madame Eve. And a little snake hisses in +my ear whenever I am not looking at you: '<i>She would be +truer to her sex if she were false!</i>'" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"Nicolas! This is too much! No, no, I beg of you to +let me leave you!" +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide had put her hand to her heart, given him a +look in which passionate tenderness seemed to strive with +wounded pride, quitted her chair, and hurried, the +Roumanian hot upon her heels, to the door communicating +with the boudoir. Detained by his feverish grasp upon +her hand, prisoned by the muscular arm about her waist, +she could only reiterate her desire for freedom. Straz +asseverated: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes! when you have forgiven me! Pardon, beloved +Adelaide! Life of my life, you know we Slavs are +naturally suspicious—it is always in our blood!" +</p> + +<p> +He thrust his face to hers, amorously ogling. The slight +thickening of the consonants, due to catarrh, made his +passionate speech sound grotesquely ridiculous. The +approach of his mouth, the contact of his breath, reminded +the fastidious Adelaide that such colds could be +transferred. So she smiled dazzlingly upon him, and gently +freed herself from his enfolding tentacles, leaning her +softly-tinted cheek downwards to the shoulder her own +overtopped. +</p> + +<p> +"You are pardoned, my beloved one! But think with +me how this bill may be settled! What if you really +should be in danger in this place!" +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged hopelessly, and ejaculated: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Sapristi</i>! I can conceive it possible.... +But—hampered by the lack of money, what are we to do?" +</p> + +<p> +She said with a start, as if suddenly enlightened: +</p> + +<p> +"Dearest, I have some jewels.... Think nothing of +the sacrifice! ... Will it not be made for him who is +more to me than all?..." +</p> + +<p> +"Angel! ... Now I know, indeed, that Adelaide is true +to me! Pardon thy slave, who dared to deem otherwise!" +</p> + +<p> +Straz devoured her hand with kisses, became more +enterprising as she grew, or seemed to grow, more yielding. +But she put him from her, suffering her bright glance to +linger on him amorously, saying in tones of liquid +sweetness, with a bewitching accent of rebuke: +</p> + +<p> +"Be good now! I am tired, and must positively dine +in my room to-night. My maid will bring you in a few +moments a case containing—what I mentioned just now. +Late as it is, shops are still open ... there is a firm +of jewelers—Müller and Stettig in the Charlotten-Strasse, +who will buy such things for ready money.... It should +bring sufficient to supply us with funds for a long time.... +Poor Valverden paid eighteen thousand thalers for +it!" She added as Straz licked his lips appreciatively: +"It is a star of emeralds and brilliants you have often seen +me wear." +</p> + +<p> +"Thou art my star! O incomparable Adelaide!" +</p> + +<p> +She pushed him from her, yet oozing with impassioned +admiration. She gently shut the boudoir-door—and noiselessly +shot the bolt. Then her face changed, and all her +disgust for Straz, his cheap compliments—his slovenliness—his +arrogance and self-satisfaction, his impecuniousness +and his cold in the head, was written on her face and +expressed by every movement of her body. She ran across +the boudoir, abandoning her air of languor, burst into the +bedroom beyond, and aroused a dozing maid. +</p> + +<p> +"Wake up, Mariette! Find me—it is in the red morocco +jewel-case in the brown leather imperial—the diamond star +with emerald points!" +</p> + +<p> +While the woman rummaged, the mistress swiftly reviewed +the situation. The cold, clear brain that dwelt +behind that velvet mask of sensuous beauty had +formulated a plan for getting rid of the Slav. +</p> + +<p> +He would be an enemy dangerous as a rattlesnake, she +told herself. But—trap your rattlesnake, and he cannot +bite. On the other hand, his subtle capacity for intrigue—his +swift Oriental cunning—even his masculine strength,—made +of him a useful ally, even when he had no more +secrets for a clever woman to ferret out and sell. +</p> + +<p> +For the brief telegram in cipher, dispatched by Madame +to a studiously unsuspicious address in Berlin before +nightfall of the day of the arrival in Sigmaringen—with the +later-sent copies of Gramont's letters—the formal +introduction which had secured the Agent from the Tuileries +an audience of Prince Antony, and the four pages of +secret instructions margined with the Emperor's +annotations, had brought in a handsome sum of money, thanks +to the potency of mulled Burgundy heavily dosed with +laudanum. Adelaide had known a moment of deadly terror +when the Slav's black eyes had looked at her with that +sinister stare of suspicion, and his conjectures had leaped +in the dark, so very near the actual verity. She felt no +desire to encounter that look again. +</p> + +<p> +So she pondered, fingering the bulky roll of Prussian +banknotes paid her by Privy Councillor Bucher a few days +previously,—how she might best get rid of Straz without +another scene. His Oriental cunning, his childish vanity, +his petulance and sensuality, his colossal greed of money +and money's worth, blinded her to the ruthlessness and +ferocity of his tigerish nature, and provoked her to brave +a risk far greater than she guessed. +</p> + +<p> +She would get rid of him—play the game he had devised, +without him; and win, in spite of cold water thrown by +M. de Bismarck. The trap he had planned to catch the +son of the Emperor should yet be set successfully. Was +not the intended bait of living maiden's flesh her own? +</p> + +<p> +She felt no pity for the innocence of the girl, or for the +inexperience of the stripling. She was curious to know +how—under given circumstances—they would comport +themselves; she was eager to bring to terms the Minister +who had contemptuously rejected her proposal—she +thirsted above all for revenge upon the husband she had +wronged. +</p> + +<p> +Straz stood in the way, therefore Straz must be swept +aside. His mission to Prince Antony performed, the +Napoleon would have no more use for the instrument. +Perhaps that order on the Privy Purse would never be +paid? +</p> + +<p> +She arrived at this conclusion as the maid brought the +red morocco jewel-case. She unlocked it with a key she +wore in a bracelet, and drew out a shagreen-covered box +containing the vaunted ornament. It had not been given +her by her dead lover; the story of the thousands spent on +it was no more reliable than the doubleted emeralds, and +the thin central star of diamonds set flush with the gold +setting of the toy. +</p> + +<p> +But it looked well; and Straz was no good judge of +jewels, and she had not paid Müller and Stettig the +moderate sum demanded as its price. The merchants had been +rude enough to dun her, and when Straz should appear +and tender the article for sale to them, the manager would +summon a policeman, and the Roumanian would be detained. +He would refer to herself, but long before a +representative of the firm could appear to interrogate her, she +would have paid the hotel-bill and departed, leaving the +price of the trinket in the hands of the management. +Flaws in the plan, no doubt, but on the whole it was +workable. She rose, took the star from the case stamped +with the too-revealing names of Müller and Stettig, glanced +in the mirror, left the bedroom and swept through the +boudoir. +</p> + +<p> +"Nicolas!" she whispered, unbolting the door noiselessly, +and opening it a little way. +</p> + +<p> +"My Peri, I am here!" snuffled the impassioned Roumanian. +</p> + +<p> +She opened the door a little further, and thrust out a +white palm cradling the glittering gewgaw. He pounced +on it, leaving a kiss instead. +</p> + +<p> +"Remember, Müller and Stettig, 85 Charlotten Strasse. +Fly!" +</p> + +<p> +"Sultana, I depart upon the wings of Love, to return +like the bee to the rose, laden with golden pollen." +</p> + +<p> +"Your wings, unlucky bee, will be clipped by a policeman," +Madame said inwardly, as the drawing-room door +shut and the Slav's footsteps crossed the little ante-room. +There was a murmur of voices, that of Straz raised as if in +surprise or interrogation. Probably the gilt-buttoned +functionary had been lying in wait for him with the +hotel-bill. She listened a moment, heard no more, and went +back, saying to her attendant: +</p> + +<p> +"Pack everything. We leave at once for Brussels." +</p> + +<p> +The maid said, with peculiar demureness: +</p> + +<p> +"And Monsieur, Madame?" +</p> + +<p> +Her mistress told her: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur has gone to call upon his bankers." +</p> + +<p> +The maid responded with even greater demureness: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame should know that in her absence Monsieur +endeavored——" +</p> + +<p> +Madame said hastily: +</p> + +<p> +"Pay no heed. These are customs common in Roumania!" +</p> + +<p> +The woman continued, bridling with all the scorn +Lesbia's waiting-maid feels for the penniless gallant: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur endeavored to borrow of me ten thalers...." +</p> + +<p> +Madame shrugged and bade her: +</p> + +<p> +"Go on with your packing! Monsieur does not accompany us!" +</p> + +<p> +And without the exchange of another word the mistress +and maid understood each other perfectly. The impecunious +Straz was to be jettisoned for the lightening of the +ship. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Fate willed the Slav should encounter on the +threshold of the ante-room the emissary of Messrs. Müller +and Stettig, who had called for the third time to demand +payment of the bill. This being offered for his inspection +as the responsible male of the party, threw unexpected +light on the intentions of Adelaide. +</p> + +<p> +"Sixteen hundred thalers," he murmured. "Reasonable, +too—most reasonable! I have seen Madame wearing +the ornament, and admired it very much. Yes, if you +desire it, I will speak to the lady. It is doubtless mere +forgetfulness that has deferred the settlement of your +claim. Wait here!" +</p> + +<p> +He unwound a knitted silk scarf that was folded round +his bull-neck. He turned down the collar of his Astrakhan-lined +coat, and went back with noiseless steps. The door +of the boudoir was ajar. He satisfied himself that Adelaide +was in the bedroom beyond it. He stepped in, glanced +about him, formulating his plan, then locked the boudoir-door, +put the key in his pocket, crossed the room, and +knocked upon the door of the bedroom, swiftly stepping +aside, so that the door—which opened outward,—should +conceal him from those within. +</p> + +<p> +"Who is it knocks? Open and see!" he heard Madame +command her maid within the bedroom. The maid +appeared, crossed the boudoir, found the door fast, and +returned to tell her mistress. But then she found the door +of the bedroom she had quitted was bolted on the other +side. There was no sound within, but a kind of rustling, +and once or twice a footstep on the carpet. So, with the +patience of her caste, the maid sat down upon a sofa +until it should please her lady to undo the bedroom-door. +</p> + +<p> +Her lady was incommoded by the grip of Straz's thick +hairy hands upon her windpipe. He freed one in a +moment—and then Adelaide was being blinded by the folds +of a silken scarf.... Long, wide, and elastic, it served +the Roumanian's purpose admirably. Perhaps it had been +useful in that particular way before. And as he rolled +and twisted it, he whispered sniggeringly in the little +pearl-white ear that jutted from between the crimson swathings, +almost as though it had been purposely left free: +</p> + +<p> +"So, my Sultana!—so,—you would betray me!..." +</p> + +<p> +Enveloped, she stammered through the silken meshes +some barely intelligible sentences. The folds tightened +chokingly—and the words died in a gasp. +</p> + +<p> +"Mercy!... Forgive!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Surely, my proud Sultana," said the thickish voice +with the catarrhal snuffle in it. "What will men not +pardon to beauty such as yours!" +</p> + +<p> +She moaned and strove to tear away the smooth bands +that were suffocating her. He whipped a velvet ribbon +from the toilet-table, brought down her hands, and bound +them behind her back. That little shell-shaped ear was +purplish by this time. At the point of losing consciousness, +she felt him softly groping for the treasure hidden in +her bosom—she heard the crackling of the roll of notes +withdrawn. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Do not...!</i>" she tried to say, but no sound came +from her but a groaning; and through the roaring of her +blood she heard him answer back: +</p> + +<p> +"Do not rob you! would you plead, my peerless Adelaide? +Far from it. I merely take from you what is my +own! For—there was the taste of opium in my mouth +when I awakened in Love's embraces. And conviction, +stronger than proof, convinces me that I have been sold. +Else why this store of honey in the breast of the Queen of +the garden, while the black bee was sent roaming to gather +store elsewhere? Eh, eh! I think I could manage to guess +at the reason why I was to have been detained by those +jewelers on suspicion of theft! My Sultana would have +vanished, leaving no address behind her.... <i>Istenem!</i> +but the emerald star would have served your purpose +well!" +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence. Rings of fire, stars of emerald +whirled before Adelaide's blinded vision. +</p> + +<p> +"Do not be afraid, my Queen, I am not going to murder +you!" chuckled the thick voice in the little swollen +blackening ear. "Only to spoil your beauty a little—nothing +more terrible. Your eyes will be less clear, your skin +less dazzlingly unblemished, after this experience. You +will never again look in your mirror without remembering +me!" +</p> + +<p> +Rocking and swaying, ready to fall, she was only kept +upright by the arm of Straz about her body. She felt him +free that arm, shifting her weight against his great chest, +and as she lay blind and helpless there, his snigger vibrated +through her horribly. Then—the smooth, slippery folds of +the silk scarf tightened murderously, stopping all breath, +shutting out consciousness. Whelmed in an abyss of +Nothingness, she felt and knew no more.... +</p> + +<p> +"Madame is a little unwell," said Straz, who regained +the ante-chamber by the way of a dressing-room +communicating with Madame's bedroom. "She will call on +Messrs. Müller and Stettig to-morrow, and settle their +account. Meanwhile"—for the representative of the firm +was beginning to expostulate—"she returns the emerald-pointed +star with her regrets." He added smilingly as the +relieved <i>employé</i> gratefully pocketed the trinket: "Ladies +are not business-like in these little matters of money. +But Heaven, who inspired in man the desire to see them +well-dressed, has conferred on him the privilege of paying +their bills." +</p> + +<p> +He accompanied the jeweler's foreman down to the +vestibule, chatting agreeably. He carried no valise, so +was allowed to pass out with the man. Keeping one thick, +hairy-backed hand thrust down into a pocket of his +Astrakhan-furbished shooting-jacket, close-clutched upon the +solid roll of Prussian banknotes, reft from that smooth +and perfumed hiding-place. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap31"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXXI +</h3> + +<p> +"The Crown Prince," wrote P. C. Breagh, "and the Red +Prince—as people nickname Friedrich Karl of Prussia, in +virtue of his partiality for the crimson uniform of his +regiment, the Ziethen Hussars,—have departed amidst +scenes of overwhelming enthusiasm, to take over the +respective commands of the Third and Second Army Corps. +On July 31st, at half-past-five noon, the very day on which +I pen these lines, the aged Sovereign drove in an open +landau drawn by two superb black Hungarian horses to +join his Ministers and his Chief of the Great Staff at the +station, where waited the special train destined to convey +the venerable Commander-in-Chief of the Field Armies of +Germany to the immediate Seat of War." +</p> + +<p> +There was a jolt, the pencil bucked furiously, and the +writer's skull came smartly into contact with the +uncushioned seat-back of the gray-painted, semi-partitioned +railway transport-car, in which, with some forty +blue-uniformed infantrymen of the Prussian Guard, +P. C. Breagh was being hurried toward the Rhine frontier, in +a din so comprehensive that you could only make your +neighbor hear by putting your mouth to his ear and +bawling, and in an atmosphere so thick with dust and +smells, of varied degrees of intensity and picturesqueness, +that you drew it into your lungs in gulps and exhaled it +with sensible effort. +</p> + +<p> +The partly-glazed windows did not let down, bars began +where the glass left off, and therefore the N.C.O.'s of the +eighth of a company appropriated to themselves the +corner-seats. Sandwiched between two large and heated +warriors, with his unstrapped knapsack on his knee, and +his elbows jammed immovably against his lower ribs, +P. C. Breagh abandoned the impulse to rub his bump, and +continued to write, using the old straw hat which crowned +the knapsack as a support for a notebook. +</p> + +<p> +"The Queen," he went on, "who was evidently laboring +under the influence of emotion, accompanied His +Majesty. A thunderstorm coruscated and detonated +overhead as the Royal salute of guns crashed out, and King +Wilhelm's subjects greeted him with round upon round of +enthusiastic '<i>Hoch's</i>.' The object of their acclamations +kept continually smoothing his heavy white mustache +with the right, ungloved hand, between the salutes with +which he acknowledged the plaudits of his people—a +characteristic gesture of the veteran monarch when..." +</p> + +<p> +The pencil faltered. "Under the influence of emotion" +could not be used again, because it had already done duty +for the Queen, whose eyes, poor lady! had been red with +crying. P. C. Breagh knocked off to sharpen his pencil +and read over what he had set down. "Coruscated and +detonated" pleased him, though to have said that the +thunderstorm had growled and blazed would have been a +good deal nearer the mark. And "characteristic gesture" +was loftier language than "familiar trick" or +"habit." Mr. Knewbit would have snorted at it, it was true, but +this was not one of Mr. Knewbit's stipulated-for letters, +"describing in a style readable by plain, ordinary, everyday +people, what you've seen and heard, and felt, and +smelled." +</p> + +<p> +Still, one could not hope to please everybody—and this +was a descriptive article—not a chatty news-letter. When +complete, it would be forwarded to the Editor of a Leading +Daily, with the brief intimation that more like it might be +had—at a price. That it would draw commissions, P. C. Breagh +believed implicitly. There was a stately stodginess +about the style that could not fail to impress. So he +continued as "<i>Die Wacht am Rhein</i>" broke out once more; +and the deep bass notes emitted by his burly right-hand +neighbor tickled his ribs and made him goosefleshy. +</p> + +<p> +"The aged monarch seemed weary, it appeared to me." +</p> + +<p> +"Ach, ach! but the old man looks tired!" people in the +front had holloaed to one another. All the week-end one +had seen the King bowling up, and down, and round-about +Berlin in his little one-horse carriage, with a single, +mounted orderly-officer in attendance; giving out colors, +addressing the regiments, conversing in short, soldierly +sentences with the field-officers in command. +</p> + +<p> +"Baron von Moltke, Chief of the Great General Staff," +went on the pencil, "the War-Minister General von Roon, +and the Federal Chancellor and Minister-President General +Count von Bismarck-Schönhausen, with the personnel +of the Great Headquarters Staff and the mobilized Foreign +Office, received His Majesty at the railway-station, +tastefully adorned with black-and-white bunting, carpeted with +red, and garlanded with roses, said to be the favorite +floral emblem of the septuagenarian potentate...." +</p> + +<p> +It could not be denied by P. C. Breagh,—the painfully +hammered-out paragraphs smacked of the sample supplied +by Mr. Knewbit for avoidance. "Sham technicality and +sentimental slumgullion," he seemed to hear that rigorous +critic saying, so loudly and in such a pouncing manner, +that P. C. Breagh hurriedly scratched out the sentence +about the floral emblems, though "septuagenarian potentate" +must be reserved for use later, as offering a refreshing +change from "aged King" and "veteran" or "venerable +monarch." "Hoary-headed Ruler" would come in +usefully by-and-by.... +</p> + +<p> +<i>Bump—bump—jolt, ker-link-ker-lank ker-lunk!</i> ... +</p> + +<p> +The two powerful engines, pulling a train-load of fully +two-thirds of a regiment at fullest war-strength, were +slowing up at a station: ... A roar of voices kept +continually at crescendo hailed the arrival. Another roar, +mixed with fragments of patriotic song, replied. The +platform presented a sea of heads of both sexes, backed by an +imposing array of shelves, decorated with foliage, dangling +lamps and national bunting; surmounted by a bust of the +King between busts of Moltke and Bismarck, and literally +groaning under piles of sausages, loaves, cheeses, oleaginous +packages of sandwiches and pastry—rows of gilt and +silver-foiled wine-bottles, and then more rows.... +</p> + +<p> +Barrels of genuine Berlin beer, adorned with the Hohenzollern +colors, stood hospitably ready to replenish glasses +and mugs. Filled with the amber nectar, trays of these, +suspended from the shoulders of stalwart youths, wearing +Red Cross arm-badges, and white-muslin-draped maidens +adorned with crimson sashes, waited to quench the thirst +of Prussia's soldier sons. And taking in the condition of +things at a glance, said one of the two N.C.O.'s in charge +of the party: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Himmeldonnerwetter!</i> ... Lads, there seems no help +for it. We have got to tuck in again!" +</p> + +<p> +And simultaneously with the bass response: "At your +service, Herr Sergeant!" and almost before the +slow-going locomotives stopped, panting Samaritans hurled +themselves upon the carriages, and arms ending in hands +proffering packages of comestibles and tobacco, bottles of +beer or frothing glasses, or packets of cigars, were thrust +in between the window-bars, until every man's jaws were +busy, and every man's hands were laden.... Until even +the modestly retiring P. C. Breagh had been compelled to +accept a mighty hunk of iced plum-cake and a giant package +of liver-sandwiches, and forced to empty a foaming +beaker of brown Bavarian. +</p> + +<p> +"Why not, why not, when they have plenty for everyone?" +hiccoughed a stalwart private, who had emptied +many mugs: "Won't every fellow of the regiment find +his double-pint waiting him, when the next train comes +up?" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +There was plenty for everyone. Not only the troop-train +that would follow this, containing the odd thousand +rank-and-file and the rest of the regimental officers, would +find the "cool blonde" and the "dark brunette," the +savory snack and the soothing weed, as ready for the +alleviation of possible requirements as they had been +at every halting-place—the City of Hanover severely +excepted—since the huge send-off at Berlin on the afternoon +of the previous day. +</p> + +<p> +Every class contributed to the refreshment of the +soldiers. Wealthy brewers sent drayloads of barrels, rich +aristocrats gave wines from their cellars. The bakers +bestowed bread, the pork-butchers contributed hams and +sausages, the tobacconists cigars and pipe-tobacco. While +the cook baked cakes with her perquisites of lard and +dripping: and the servant-maid took from her scant savings +for the purchase of a gross of match-boxes, to distribute +at the station when the military trains came in. +</p> + +<p> +Poor was the wight who could be liberal in nothing. +And thus thought the little old woman when she cooked +her dozen ginger-snaps. +</p> + +<p> +She was a tiny little monkey-faced old peasant, in a +frilled white mutch, jaded red shawl, blue apron and +brown-striped drugget petticoat; and she stood quite alone +in a clear space left upon the platform of a little country +station, as the eager philanthropists about her crowded to +lavish hospitality on the inmates of the incoming train. +As the pastry and the cakes, the coffee, beer, and spirits +flowed in at the windows and down the throats of the +wearers of the blue, white-faced Guard uniforms, this little +old woman made no effort to offer her ginger-snaps, which +were ranged in three rows of four on a dingy white cloth +in a little broken basket, and were palpably melting under +the rays of an ardent July sun. +</p> + +<p> +Her timidity and her feebleness had kept her back, but +when the Colonel in command issued the order to entrain, +and the officers who had clanked in pairs up and down the +platform, good-humoredly answering the questions of old +ladies, and gallantly returning the admiring glances of +young ones, accepting a leaf-full of fruit here, or a glass +of Rhine wine or a cigarette there,—began to take their +places,—she mustered courage to hold up her basket to +a dandy young subaltern and murmur: "Please to take!" +</p> + +<p> +Next moment—the dandy could not have meant it,—but +as he pushed away the extended basket, and swung +round upon his heel, his silver sword-knot caught in the +frayed cloth or broken wicker-work, and down went the +basket, and the snaps were spilt upon the ground.... +</p> + +<p> +"Thou dear God!" the little old woman cried in anguish. +"<i>Ach—ach!</i> the good, the delicious ginger-snaps! ... Who +now will eat them? <i>Ach!—Ach!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +And up to her poor eyes went her blue apron. It was +a terrible tragedy to her. Some people pitied her. Others +were heartless enough to laugh after the fashion of the +blond, red-lipped officer—and to laugh once more at the +summary fashion of his setting-down. +</p> + +<p> +For a terrible, rasping voice said, speaking behind the +dandy subaltern, and full four inches above the level of his +ear: +</p> + +<p> +"Under-Lieutenant Fahle will remedy the damage done +by his carelessness before he resumes his place in the +train!" +</p> + +<p> +Thus the train waited while the offender, blood-red with +rage and confusion, picked up the sticky brown cakes +with his snowily gloved fingers, and replaced them in the +broken basket, amidst the little old woman's humble +apologies, and entreaties that the gracious gentleman would +not trouble himself. When the Colonel, owner of the +rasping voice above referred to, in conjunction with a +bushy scarlet beard and bristling mustaches, a stately +height of six feet four inches, a regulation waist, and three +rows of decorations, performed an act of bravery for which +he deserved another medal still. For, selecting the snap +that looked cleanest, this dauntless warrior gravely took it +between his thumb and finger, bit a piece out, and declared +it excellent. Then, amidst the rapturous plaudits of the +onlookers, he solemnly saluted the twittering old lady, and +swung himself loftily back into his carriage, thundering +out once more the order: +</p> + +<p> +"Entrain!" +</p> + +<p> +Conceive the banging of doors, the bumping and clanking, +the cheers and the tears <i>da capo</i>, and the curtseys +the little old woman dropped, one after another, almost +faster than one could count. Suppose the train moving +slowly on, and a tricksy spirit inspiring a wag among the +rank-and-file aboard, to shout to her: +</p> + +<p> +"Hey there, Mother Ginger-snaps! give us one before we go!" +</p> + +<p> +Twenty voices took up the cry, and blue cloth-covered +arms were thrust out between the carriage window-bars. +Hands waggled, soliciting the sugary boon. And the little +old woman, torn between the desire to give and the +impossibility of giving,—danced like a hen on a hot griddle, +until a giant porter, compassionating her plight, snatched +her up like a large doll, and ran with her beside the +moving carriages, holding her out at arm's length, as she +upheld her basket, until all the ginger-snaps were gone. +</p> + +<p> +Instinctively as P. C. Breagh had felt that the cumbrous +grandiloquence of his descriptive article would be snorted +at by Mr. Knewbit, so he knew that the little incident of +the ginger-snaps would afford his patron delight. Therefore +he tucked it away in a safe pigeon-hole of his memory, +with a description of the rough, gay-painted, crowded +wooden box he sat in, odoriferous with its conglomeration +of smells, based on the combined stenches of tallow +and perspiring humanity, laced with the sharp sour of +malt, and mercifully tempered with the fumes of strong +tobacco. +</p> + +<p> +Piff! The hot, cinder-flavored draughts that raced in +over the glazed half-windows were powerless to freshen or +dilute the atmosphere. Yet among the varied types of +men who, their heavy knapsacks disposed in iron racks +above them, sat packed as close as sardines on the narrow +benches, were not a few, who, judging by the mute evidence +of their well-groomed skins and carefully kept finger-nails, +their finer hair and more clearly modeled features, +belonged to Germany's upper class. +</p> + +<p> +Shriek! The train plunged into a cutting ending in a +tunnel of sheer blackness. Bursting, with another shriek, +into the light of day, she raced for a while neck-and-neck +with a cavalry-train. They were Red Dragoon Guards and +White Cuirassiers of the Great Headquarters Staff, and +they exchanged cheers and sharp, staccato shouts of +"<i>Hurrah, Preussen!</i>" with the infantry of the Guard, as +the latter were hurried by. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing was left to Chance. All was deadly, methodical +accuracy. The keen, clear brain under Moltke's wig +controlled the speed of every train upon the six Rhine and +Moselle railways over which the Army of United Germany +was rolling to inundate France. +</p> + +<p> +Trains, trains, trains! +</p> + +<p> +Trains of trucks, laden with gabions woven of split +beech-saplings, with oaken lascines and bales of empty +earth-bags. Commissariat trains of wagons packed with +sheep and cattle, and the ubiquitous pig of the Fatherland. +Coffee-and-sugar trains, trains of pea-sausage and the +rock-hard brown biscuit wherewith "Our Moltke" fed his +soldier men. Trains of spare arms, clothing, trenching-tools +and cooking-utensils; trains of cartridges, gunpowder, +blasting-powder, solid shot, shrapnel, and the big +projectiles destined for the siege-guns; with trains upon trains +close-packed with the men who were to use these things,—took +precedence or gave it, because the withered finger +beckoned or waved.... +</p> + +<p> +"Our Moltke," so mild and affable and courteous, truly, +when the Genius that possessed thee spread his steely +wings and soared, thou wert a very terrible old man, or +so it seems to me. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The descriptive article laid by, you found P. C. Breagh, +in the interests of Mr. Knewbit, studying his fellow-travelers. +The weak-eyed, spectacled young soldier on his +left-hand, whose fingers were burned and yellow-stained, as +though their owner had dabbled in chemical experiments, +and who had remained mute as a fish throughout the +journey, only opening his mouth to eat or drink, or reply +to a remark addressed to him by a non-commissioned +officer, was reading the "Iliad" of Homer in the original, +from a little parchment-bound, Amsterdam-printed Elzevir +edition, that he seemed to cherish as the apple of +one of his short-sighted eyes.... A handsome young +bugler in the next compartment had a well-thumbed copy +of "The Pickwick Papers." The huge tanned Guardsman +on his right, whose broad breast displayed the medals of +1866 and of the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, and whose +powerful bass notes had reverberated through the +diaphragm of his neighbor when he sang, was chatting with +a younger comrade who sat opposite. Holding the well-greased +unburnished needle-gun between their solid thighs—to +hang the silver-spiked Guard's helmet on the muzzle +seemed a popular way of disposing of the headpiece—they +exchanged experiences in a genial roar, subdued to a growl +at confidential passages. +</p> + +<p> +"Grete came to the Barracks to bid me God-speed.... +There were a few tears—dried when I promised to bring +her a wedding-gift from Paris. Thou seest, she is going +to turn over a new leaf, and get married to a waiter at a +Sommer-garten—a club-footed man who is not called upon +to serve—being on the Exempt List." +</p> + +<p> +They guffawed at the picture of the happy bridegroom. +Said the senior, wiping his overflowing eyes with a +hand as brown and broad as an undersized flitch of +bacon: +</p> + +<p> +"I looked up 'Mina in the Landsberger-Strasse. She +could not meet me, as her old woman had a betrothal-party +for one of her daughters. A young student from a +Conservatoire, in a tail-coat three sizes too small for him, +and a pair of linen cuffs as big as starched table-napkins, +was the victim served up. I saw him as 'Mina carried in +the spiced wine and rum-punch, and a longer pair of +lantern-jaws I never saw. But when they sat down to +table, and I took another peep through the door-crack, I +promise you those jaws of his were grinding away like +steam!" +</p> + +<p> +"Nu, but the punch?" asked the other Guardsman. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Sapperlot!</i>—do you suppose I went without my whack +of it?—and 'Mina's eyes as red as preserved cherries with +crying about my going to the War? I had had a mug of +the good stuff, and a bottle of something or other!—gilt +paper on the neck of it—nothing at all but fizzle inside. +Then I settled down to a jug of cool beer and the breast +of a turkey, while 'Mina was waiting on the parlor-folks. +Heard her step coming along the passage—thought I'd +play the fool with her a bit—so I turned the kitchen-gas +low and hid behind the door. In she comes!—I'd got my +arms round her and kissed her—a regular juicy smack or +two, before—by the yell she gave!—I knew it wasn't +'Mina at all...." +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Potzblitz!</i> who was it, then?" +</p> + +<p> +"Who but the old woman? But for the thumping size +of the waist I'd squeezed, and the taste of violet-powder +in my mouth, I might have thought I'd got hold of one of +the young Fräuleins. 'Help, murder, thieves!' cried she. +'How dare you insult a respectable mother of a family! +Give your name, you rogue, or I'll have in the police!'—'Don't +do that,' says I. 'I'm only 'Mina's brother—dropped +in to take leave before going to the War!'—'A +fine brother!' says she. 'Do brothers hug their sisters in +that bearish way? Be off with you quick march! and +think yourself lucky to escape so easily!'..." He +wound up: "But if she had reported me to the <i>Herr +Oberst Leutnant</i>, nothing much would have come of it. +He'd have said: '<i>Was sol Ich!</i>—but we're off to the +War!'" +</p> + +<p> +A sentence or so more, and the conversation resolved +itself into strong tobacco-smoke. Twilight was fading into +dusk. Dortmund—Elberfeld—Düsseldorf had paid tribute +of beers, cheers, and tears to the defenders of German +Unity, the most inveterate songsters and conversationalists +were getting sleepy, and it would be midnight before the +troop-train, traveling, like the others that followed it, at +a speed strictly calculated to permit of the somewhat slower +transit of six supplementary trains bearing the King and +his Great Headquarter Staff—could reach Cologne. +</p> + +<p> +The lamps, adding the flavor of hot kerosene to the +conglomeration of odors—had been lighted at Düsseldorf. +The tobacco-reek had grown so dense that below their band +of yellow light was a sharply defined band of opaque blue +fog, in which medium colors were neutralized to monochrome, +and outlines of sleeping, or chatting, or card-playing, +or reading soldiers blurred into vagueness, wavered, +and were blotted out for P. C. Breagh in a sudden doze. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +He wakened at a late hour, to the iron measure clanked +and ground and beaten out by couplings and brakes, +wheels and axles. Snores of all kinds—from the shrill +clarionet-note of the spectacled student of Homer to the +deep 'cello-bass of the Guardsman who had hugged 'Mina's +mistress in mistake for his sweetheart—resounded on all +sides; the tobacco-fog had somewhat thinned. +</p> + +<p> +Finding it possible to move, because his burly neighbor +was soundly sleeping, pillowed upon the body of the man +upon his right hand, P. C. Breagh yawned—recovered his +knapsack, which had slipped from his knees to a floor +which in point of cleanliness left much to be desired, +removed from it with a fragment of newspaper the worst +impurities it had contracted by contact, threw the +newspaper out of the nearest window and, in the performance +of this act, caught a not unfriendly eye. +</p> + +<p> +Its owner, a huge young man, who, occupying a place on +the end of the same seat, had been hitherto screened by +the body of the huger private who had kissed not wisely, +said, and in English of the Oxford brand: +</p> + +<p> +"You find our men lacking in good manners? Yet there +is much spitting on the part of English soldiers, when they +are standing at ease, or off duty. I have myself observed +this." +</p> + +<p> +"Then you know England?" P. C. Breagh interrogated, +and the private, who was very tall, very blond, very +broad-shouldered, straight-featured, blue-eyed, and small-waisted, +answered: +</p> + +<p> +"Pretty well. I have a relative who married a lady +who is your countrywoman. I have been the guest of her +family at their London house. You speak our language, +for I have heard you. And with a North Prussian accent, +by the way." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh returned: +</p> + +<p> +"I spent three years at Schwärz-Brettingen. With the +sole result that I can make myself understood by +Germans who don't speak English. And that I owe to my +landlady." +</p> + +<p> +Said the Guardsman, yawning and smiling: +</p> + +<p> +"My father sent me to Oxford. Three terms have +yielded this result,—that I can converse with Englishmen +who know German. Thanks to a charming young lady, a +niece of the relative I spoke of just now, who was so good +as to read the poems of Tennyson with me. 'The Princess,' +'In Memoriam,' and 'Maud,' were her chief favorites—I +preferred his epics founded on the Arthurian legend. +Though my charming English cousin was often vexed with +me for saying that our Wagner's verse-drama of the +Nibelungen-Ring possessed far truer inspiration, and that +'Die Walküre' and 'Tristan' would have been finer than +anything Tennyson has ever written,—had they existed +simply as poems, and never been wedded to music at all. +At that the young English lady was angry; she said things +to me in her indignation which were terrible; but she +forgave me, because I was compelled to leave the University +and return to Germany to put in my term of service as a +private, before I present myself as a candidate for an +officer's silver sword-knot in the usual course of things. +You are, perhaps, acquainted with our German methods +of qualifying for a Commission? Bismarck has two sons +serving as troopers with the 1st Dragoon Guards; whereas +a private of Ours is a nephew of Moltke's, and two or three +others are cadets of princely families—representatives of +what your countrymen would call the 'aristocracy of +Germany.' Perhaps one or two of them will find that silver +sword-knot they are looking for—across the frontier, +somewhere between the Rhine and the Moselle!..." +</p> + +<p> +"When do you think there will be fighting?" +</p> + +<p> +Inexpressibly P. C. Breagh yearned to know when and +where the dance was expected to begin. But his eagerness +seemed to freeze the loquacious Guardsman, whose blue +eyes narrowed, whose smile stiffened, whose smooth voice +instantly diverted the current of the talk to other things: +</p> + +<p> +"Were you at the Gala Performance at the Opera, the +night before last? Delphine Zucca could hardly sing; her +husband, young Baron von Bladen, of the Jastrow Hussars, +has been appointed first galloper on the Staff of General +Manteuffel, Chief of the First Corps, First Army. So +the Zucca is naturally inconsolable, as they've only been +married a month. But Elise Hahn-Tieck, as the Genius +of United Germany, in a corslet of gilt chain-mail, and a +helmet crested with oak-boughs, with a green Rhine +meandering over her white muslin robe, was tremendous when +she came down to the center of the stage to sing '<i>Die +Wacht am Rhein</i>,'—-carrying our East Prussian Flag and +the banner of the Hohenzollern, and followed by other +operatic actresses in character as the Auxiliary States. +<i>Sapperlot</i>! When she drew her sword, she was tremendous! +And when she fell upon her knees, the big chandelier +in the auditorium jumped. She sang the part of +<i>Gretchen</i> last season, and looked not much over thirty. +Make-up, because, you know, she has a grandson who is a +junior-lieutenant in the Duke of Coburg's Regiment of +White Cuirassiers, and must be sixty if she's a day. +<i>Prime donne</i> are like wines, no good till they've arrived at +a ripe old age. Though I could introduce you to a little +girl of eighteen or so, just now doing a song-and-dance at +the Schützen-Strasse Tingel-Tangel, who has a voice that +pleases me better than the warblings of any of the highly +paid Opera House nightingales. And what a figure! round +and tempting and seductive. And such arms, +and—<i>Sapperlot!</i>—what a pair of legs!" +</p> + +<p> +Thus prattled the twenty-year-old sprig of German +aristocracy, to the other youngster, his senior in years if his +junior in knowledge of the world. He went on in his +Oxford English: +</p> + +<p> +"Not that I'm inclined to ruin myself for women, though +I must say a good many pretty ones have been uncommonly +kind to me. That sort of thing runs in my family, +though! and I ought to be obliged to my Cousin Max for dying a +bachelor. Killed himself in '66 about a mistress who was +playing the double game. A regular French adventuress, +diabolically handsome, who eloped with him when he was +<i>attaché</i> of our Prussian Embassy at Paris in '57, and has a +husband living, they say. Colossal impudence—actually +passes herself off as my cousin's widow, in society of a +certain sort. So, out of the desire to deal Madame Venus +a slap in the face, I got a comrade who knew her, to +introduce me at a festive supper-party.... Said he: +'Countess von Schön-Valverden, permit me to present my most +intimate friend,' and reels off my name. Would you +believe it, the woman never turned a hair. It was I who +got flustered when she stared me in the face. Colossal +coolness—I can hear her now, lisping: '<i>The Herr Count +is doubtless a relative of my poor, dear Maximilian! Even +had he not borne the name, I should have been struck by +his resemblance to my beloved lost one.</i>' And then I got +out, not half as cleverly as I had planned it: 'And even +had you borne the name that is your own, Madame, I +should have been shot through the heart by the beauty +that has already proved fatal to one member of my +family!'" He added, "I laid an emphasis on those four +words, '<i>shot through the heart</i>,' because my unlucky cousin +actually met his death after that fashion.... Will you +have a cigar of mine? They are better than the weeds +our patriotic friends have bestowed on us." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh accepted a smooth light-hued Havana from +the offered case, asking with interest, due to the lurid flare +of tragedy in the background of the other's lively chatter: +"And the lady of the Venusberg—how did she take your +reference to her past?" +</p> + +<p> +The Guardsman, cigar in mouth, stopped in the act of +striking a fusee-match to answer: "She took it—as a +woman of Madame de Bayard's stamp might be expected +to. With a <i>sangfroid</i> that one could only admire somewhat +less than her superb skin and hair, her shape of a +goddess and her marvelous eyes—almost the color of +Brazilian tourmaline." He sent out a spiral of fragrant +brownish-blue smoke and added: "Had I actually stood +four years ago in the shoes which I have legally inherited, +I'll be hanged if I'd have shot myself and left her +to my rival. For the other was at Schönfeld—actually in +the house, you must know!—when Cousin Max came home +on leave. Hence the tragedy at three o'clock in the +morning. Such a depressing hour to commit suicide. Now, +had it been after supper..." +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged, and sent out another spiral of cigar-smoke, +and, perceiving that his whilom listener heard no longer, +ceased to talk. +</p> + +<p> +The while P. C. Breagh plunged into a brown-study by +the chance utterance of a stranger's name, and unblushingly +abandoning the effort to remain true to his gigantic +type-ideal, hung fondly over the mentally evoked image +of an Infanta in miniature. +</p> + +<p> +Where was Juliette de Bayard now? Had the outbreak +of war hastened or delayed her marriage with the happy +master of swordsmanship? And—worshiping her father +as Monica had said she did—how had she borne the parting +from him? +</p> + +<p> +She would be very calm.... P. C. Breagh pictured +the little face drawn and pinched with misery; saw the +sapphire eyes dimmed with tears unshed, imagined the +slender throat convulsed with sobs that were kept +resolutely back, heard the silver-flute voice saying: +</p> + +<p> +"My father has honored me with his confidence as long +as I can remember, sir!" and, "See you—I will be trusted +absolutely, or I will not be trusted at all!" +</p> + +<p> +Strange that his elfin queen—his carved ivory +Princess—should bear the same name as the woman the Guardsman +had gossiped of—the beautiful, evil creature with the eyes +like Brazilian tourmalines. And, what particular color +in Brazilian tourmalines might have been intended? Some +were purple, others pink, and yet others reddish-brown. +The woman who had dropped her parasol on the staircase +at the Chancellor's had had eyes of tawny wine-color. +With the remembrance, came back the perfume shaken +from her rustling silks and laces, and the languid echo of +her caressing voice. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Drowsiness came next, and then oblivion, in heavy +slumber. And, as the unconscious form of P. C. Breagh +lapsed this way and that, and his chin burrowed deeper +into his bosom, the Sergeant who occupied the corner-seat +facing the sleeper,—shading his eyes from the lamplight +with a broad brown hand that wore a thick silver wedding +ring upon the little finger, lowered the hand, and, +leaning forward, stared in the young man's unconscious +face, with small, suspicious, unwinking eyes. Now the +eyes looked round so sharply, that every waking man in +the compartment, save the blue-eyed patron of the +Tingel-Tangel girl, found it necessary to assume the appearance +of slumber, and the Sergeant's voice said hoarsely: +</p> + +<p> +"Private von Valverden!" +</p> + +<p> +"At your service, <i>Herr</i> Sergeant." +</p> + +<p> +"Private von Valverden, is this one, then, an Englishman?" +</p> + +<p> +"Undoubtedly, <i>Herr</i> Sergeant!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Gut!</i>" said the Sergeant. "But what is his calling? +Is he of the newspaper-offices that he sits and scribbles +so?" +</p> + +<p> +"That question I cannot answer, Herr Sergeant, but +if he be on the staff of any paper, he cannot accompany us +without a <i>Legitimation</i>, and a letter from someone in +authority." +</p> + +<p> +The Sergeant sucked in his bearded lips, and rolled his +sharp little eyes more suspiciously than ever. Valverden +went on: +</p> + +<p> +"Doubtless he has them—I saw him show a paper to +the Halt Commandant at Berlin, and the <i>Herr</i> Colonel +himself spoke to him and told him he might travel as +far as Bingen by this train. And I happen to know +that four London newspaper correspondents have been +accredited by the King upon the instance of Count Bismarck; +one being appointed to accompany the Crown Prince, +another being permitted to accompany the Second Army, +while two are attached to the Great Headquarter Staff." +</p> + +<p> +The Sergeant said, glancing at the unconscious slumberer: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Gut, gut!</i> but is this fellow one of them?" +</p> + +<p> +"If he be not, <i>Herr</i> Sergeant, he will get no farther +than Bingen, for doubtless the Commandant there will be +on the lookout for persons whose credentials are not of +the best." +</p> + +<p> +The Sergeant shook his head vigorously, wrinkling up +his full-bearded countenance suspiciously: +</p> + +<p> +"And suppose the Commandant is not on the lookout, +Private von Valverden? See you, I have had my +suspicions since yesterday, and I tell you..." +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap32"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXXII +</h3> + +<p> +Every waking ear in the neighborhood, and there were +now a good many, pricked with curiosity as the Sergeant +half-rose, and, inclining his inflamed countenance and +bearded lips toward the ear of his selected confidant, +continued in a hoarse rumbling undertone: +</p> + +<p> +"Two of those <i>verdammte</i> English newspaper-scribblers +that have got on the blind side of Their Excellencies and +His Majesty the Commander-in-Chief were at the station +at Berlin picking up information the very day we +entrained. Well do I know that paunchy little one with the +big beard, who has, they say, as many Orders as a +Field-Marshal, and who will venture to thrust himself upon +Our Moltke in his study, and accost His Excellency Count +Bismarck upon the very doorsteps of the Reichstag itself. +They got off three trains ahead of us, paying for men and +horses and trucks, to Cologne; and if this fellow were not +a knave, would he not have gone with them? <i>Ach, ja</i>! +It would have been so! But they did not even know him, +though he pretended to touch his cap to them.... I tell +you he turned as red as beetroot when they passed him +without a glance. <i>Nu, nu!</i> he is an unlicensed meddler, +if not a French spy, speaking English. Do they not teach +it at their Lycées? And he has got on the blind side of +the Commandant at Berlin and the <i>Herr</i> Colonel. But I, +Sergeant Schmidt, have my weather-eye open, and it +sticks in my gizzard that our so-glorious Moltke, let +alone His Majesty, should with so much civility these +quill-driving vagabonds encourage; when they say the French +Emperor has given orders that, should the like of them +about the heels of his Army Corps be caught sniffing, they +are to be shot." +</p> + +<p> +"Possibly the Napoleon has more deficiencies to be +ashamed of than we have, <i>Herr</i> Sergeant!" +</p> + +<p> +Taking a deep breath, the Sergeant blew himself out to +the utmost of his capacity and bellowed: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Himmeldonnerwetter!</i> are you going to insinuate in +my presence that the Prussian Army has anything at all +to be ashamed of? Now you've waked this rascal with +your racket, maybe you'll sit on his head while I go +through his pockets. Here, Braun and Kleiss, catch hold +of his arms and legs!" +</p> + +<p> +Waking in the chiaroscuro of the smoke-filled, lamplit +troop-carriage to find himself in the brawny grip of the +aforesaid Braun and Kleiss, P. C. Breagh fought for freedom, +yelling as one possessed, and lashing out with all his +might. In the heat of the scrimmage that followed, as a +muscular arm in a coarse blue sleeve came round his neck +from behind and choked him into silence, somebody said +in his ear: +</p> + +<p> +"Keep still ... not hurt you! Only going ... search!" +</p> + +<p> +And before he had rallied his wits sufficiently to realize +that the warning was in English, a pair of extra-sized +hands had deftly emptied the pockets of the old brown +Norfolk jacket, relieved him of the cherished binoculars, +a brand-new revolver, and a purse and letter-case that +had been hidden in his bosom next the skin. Then, a +soiled newspaper having been spread upon the carriage-bench +and the pieces of conviction arranged upon it, +Sergeant Schmidt, surrounded by an audience of admiring +inferiors, commenced to interrogate their owner: +</p> + +<p> +"What is this?" He held up the well-used briar-root. +"A pipe, and yet it might be used to conceal dispatches or +tracings. A pistol also. On the principle of the French +mitraille, with many barrels. Prisoner, answer! Where +did you get this?" +</p> + +<p> +Returned P. C. Breagh, scarlet and breathing shortly: +</p> + +<p> +"I bought it in Berlin from a pawnbroker in the +Landsberger-strasse. By what right..." +</p> + +<p> +Someone behind hacked him on the ankle, driving home +the axiom that silence was wisdom, and he subsided, +boiling within, as the Colt, a nearly brand-new six-barreled +weapon, seen and purchased, together with its box of three +hundred cartridges, for seven of P. C. Breagh's cherished +sovereigns, was laid by, while the Sergeant, breathing +stertorously, examined the contents of the purse. He +snorted, letting the bright coins run through his greedy +fingers like yellow water: +</p> + +<p> +"Nine pieces of gold. French coins, too, or call me a +sheepshead!" +</p> + +<p> +"At your service, Herr Sergeant," put in the smooth, +well-bred voice of Valverden, following on the ominous +murmur that had greeted the Sergeant's announcement; +"the money is as English as this revolver is American. +Prove the first for yourself. When has the French +Emperor figured in a woman's hair and <i>corsage</i>?" +</p> + +<p> +A guffaw went up. P. C. Breagh, recognizing the voice +which had spoken from behind him, realized that here was +a friend in need. But an attempt at speech on his part +was frustrated by an ominous tightening of the muscular +arm that had previously half-strangled him. The Sergeant, +his fiery pot-zeal rather damped by frequent set-backs, +snapped-to the purse and said, keeping it tucked in one +capacious palm, as he shook out the contents of the +letter-case: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>So</i>! He is cunning, like many another of his kidney. +Yet it may be here is proof sufficient to show him a +rogue! Who here reads French?" +</p> + +<p> +"I do, <i>Herr</i> Sergeant." Once again the well-bred voice +of Valverden. The Sergeant grunted surlily: +</p> + +<p> +"There is another here ... Private Kunz!" +</p> + +<p> +The spectacled soldier who read Homer in the original, +and who had been violently displaced when the muscular +Braun and the athletic Kleiss had obeyed the order to +pinion the suspected one, shot bolt upright in his distant +corner, saluted and said in a meek voice: +</p> + +<p> +"At your service, <i>Herr</i> Sergeant!" +</p> + +<p> +"Private Kunz, canst thou read French?" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Zu befehl, Herr</i> Sergeant!" The spectacled private +added as the Sergeant passed him over the contents of the +letter-case: "But these letters are not in French. Two +are in English, and one is in German." +</p> + +<p> +The Sergeant scowled and thundered: +</p> + +<p> +"Thou art an ass!" +</p> + +<p> +"At your service, Herr Sergeant," mildly agreed the +spectacled soldier, "but Private Count von Schön-Valverden, +who understands the French and English languages, +will corroborate my statement if you will kindly +refer to him." +</p> + +<p> +"'Kindly refer.' ... 'Corroborate my statement.' +..." The Sergeant, purple in the gills, and with bolting +eyes, loosened his collar-hook before he launched into +profanity: "<i>Potzblitz</i>! Never did I meet with language +to equal thine. What wert thou as a civilian before thou +didst enter the Army?" +</p> + +<p> +"Graduate of the University of Würzburg, <i>Herr</i> Sergeant," +faltered the spectacled Guardsman, "and <i>Privat-docent</i> +in Chemistry and Philosophy. Occupying the post +of assistant to Herr Weber, Dispensing Chemist, of +Strahlsund, near Stettin." +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Sehrgut</i>, Private Kunz," said the Sergeant, conscious +of the grins lurking behind the respectful faces about him. +"Tell us plainly, and without lying or skipping, what +are these papers the fellow has got on him? Put him +back on the seat, Braun and Kleiss, and sit on either +side, each taking a wing. Now, Kunz, do thou begin!" +</p> + +<p> +And the little sheaf that had been transferred from the +horny clutches of the Sergeant, to the yellow-stained +sensitive-looking fingers of the chemist's assistant, was +subjected to the scrutiny of the weak eyes behind his large +round spectacles, as sleepy-looking Westphalian villages of +cottages with tall tiled roofs, grouped about squat, +low-spired churches; and leagues of rye and barley, almost +ready for the sickle, streamed by the half-glazed windows, +all black in shadow and white in the clear, pure radiance of +August's crescent moon. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Item</i>, a worn letter in English handwriting of the legal +kind, dated in the January previous, and directed to +P. C. Breagh, Esq., Care of Frau Busch, Jaeger-strasse, +Schwärz-Brettingen. <i>Item</i>, a passport issued some ten +days previously, to the same person on application at the +London Foreign Office, on disbursement of the sum of Two +Shillings, and authorizing him, on payment of the proper +dues and at his own risk, to proceed <i>via</i> Ostend to Berlin. +<i>Item</i>, another passport, procured as a last resource—granting +the said P. C. Breagh permission on the part of the +Berlin Foreign Office, and as a strictly non-combatant +British subject, to transfer himself, <i>via</i> Belgium and +Luxembourg, to French territory. Lastly, a half-sheet of +tough Chancellory note-paper, covered with the large, +closely-set, vigorous handwriting of the man who was +meant when newspaper-editors and politicians, diplomats +and monarchs, guttersnipes and generals, talked of Prussia. +What would happen when that came under the spectacles +of the ex-chemist's assistant? P. C. Breagh thirsted to +know. +</p> + +<p> +What happened was, that the Sergeant, rendered +impatient by delay on the part of the spectacled one, grabbed +at the documents and dropped them on the unclean floor. +The half-sheet of Chancellory note was picked up by +Valverden. He gave it one glance and said, smoothly and +with an indefinable change in the tone of the voice that +P. C. Breagh had thought so friendly: +</p> + +<p> +"I would put this paper back with the rest and return +them to their owner, Herr Sergeant, and prosecute no +further inquiries, if I were you." +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Nu</i>? ... <i>Was</i>? I cannot read the crabbed stuff that +is written and printed on the other papers," grunted the +Sergeant. "But this seems wholesome German.... +What says it, then? Tell us, you, since that <i>gimpel</i> in +glasses can make nothing of it, for all his brag." +</p> + +<p> +Valverden obeyed and read: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>The bearer of this is an Englishman, named Patrick +Carolan Breagh, speaking German with a slight accent. +Height five feet nine inches, age 23. Hair reddish and +curling, complexion fresh, much freckled. Short, straight +nose, gray eyes with dots of yellow, chin square, slightly +cleft. Further his desire to proceed with our troops, if +possible. I can personally vouch for his honesty and good +faith.</i> +</p> + +<img class="imgleft" src="images/img-295.jpg" alt="signature of Otto von Bismarck"> + +<p class="noindent"> + "BERLIN,<br> + "<i>July</i>, 1870."<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap33"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXXIII +</h3> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh never heard the order given, but next +moment his aching wrists were released from the huge, hard +grip of Privates Braun and Kleiss, and the muscular legs +that had affectionately twined about his own, were +withdrawn. Subsequently, singly, and in silence, the Sergeant +handed back the watch, pipe, tobacco-pouch, purse, and +note-case. Last of all, Valverden, making a long arm, +returned the half-sheet of Chancellory note, bearing the +signature that had worked the miracle, without words, and +looking coldly in its owner's face. +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks tremendously! ... I've no doubt I'm to +blame for not producing my credentials earlier," said +Carolan. "But I'd no notion of the rather serious turn +things were going to take. However, all's well that +ends——" +</p> + +<p> +His smile froze upon his lips, and died out of his eyes as +he encountered the stare the other turned upon him, +answering haughtily: +</p> + +<p> +"I regret that you have suffered some rough handling +from my comrades, under the wrong impression that you +were an agent of the French Secret Service. Admitting +that our own side act advisedly in employing persons like +you, I must say that to me, personally, a spy is—a spy!" +</p> + +<p> +"But, hang it! you don't suppose——" Carolan choked +out after a moment of angry bewilderment. And with the +Sergeant's piggish little eyes curiously fixed on him, +Valverden answered curtly: +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose nothing. Excuse me from further conversation." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The revolver with its cartridges had not been returned +with the other articles. Its owner asked the Sergeant for +it, getting in reply only a glare. Thenceforward the long +night's journey for one traveler was performed in unbroken +silence. P. C. Breagh had been dispatched to Coventry by +one and all. +</p> + +<p> +Men who conversed spoke in barely-audible whispers, +their covert glances, like the frigid indifference of +Valverden's regard, and the extra six inches of seat-space +accorded to the holder of the States Chancellor's written +guarantee, testified to the aroma of suspicion that +personage's document exhaled. +</p> + +<p> +So at breathless, baking midnight the troop-train clanked +into Cologne, no longer throbbing with the beat of drums, +roaring with iron-shod wheels, swarming with men in +brass-spiked helmets, choked with continuously shouting +patriots, as it had been a few hours earlier when the +Headquarter Staff trains had passed through,—and in the +close, gray dawn of a thundery day, jolted into Bingen. +</p> + +<p> +Here miles of rolling-stock and numberless engines +blocked up the metal roads. Shuttered windows and +barricaded doors testified that house-owners had temporarily +abandoned their property. Strings of barges, laden with +Commissariat stores and live-stock, were being towed up +the Rhine by the gaily painted, white-awninged, paddle-wheel +steamers familiar to the British tourist, while others +were conveying voluntarily exiled residents and fugitive +visitors down the classic stream out of harm's way. +</p> + +<p> +Conveyance by railway—of a kind—was to be had upon +terms prohibitory to all but the opulent. And disheveled +ladies, pale or red with panic, besieged the station-master +and his master, the Halt Commandant—with prayers, +commands and entreaties, for places, but for places on some +Northward-going train.... +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Something was in the air besides the short, staccato +bugle-calls, the scream of signal-whistles and the ceaseless +beating of the Prussian side-drums. P. C. Breagh knew +it, even as a tall, lean, red-faced Inspector caught his eye +and beckoned him imperiously to quit his cage, asking: +</p> + +<p> +"You have a <i>Legitimation</i> to proceed with the troops to +Kreuznach? No? Then be good enough to stand aside +until I have an opportunity of ascertaining why you were +originally permitted. Here is the Commandant." +</p> + +<p> +Standing on the whitewashed platform, hot, dusty, +unbrushed and unwashed, burdened with his unstrapped +knapsack, a stout walking-stick, a leather-covered, screw +topped sling water-bottle, some crumpled newspapers and +a package of solid sandwiches—thrust upon him at one of +the previous stopping-places, P. C. Breagh was conscious +of cutting a sorry figure. Conscious, too, of Valverden's +supercilious eye-glass, glittering a few yards off, as he +stretched his long legs on the platform and talked eagerly +with some comrades of his own standing, straight-backed, +long-legged youngsters, with arrogant manners, clear +eyes, budding mustaches, newly fledged whiskers, broad +shoulders and regulation waists. +</p> + +<p> +No new pupil at a young ladies' boarding school, smarting +under the double stigma of plainness and poverty, no +cheaply arrayed debutante at a suburban subscription-ball, +ever blushed more hotly or winced more painfully under +the scrutiny of prettier and richer girls, than did +P. C. Breagh under the glances of these young men. +</p> + +<p> +Not the memory of the Army Service examinations he +had failed in galled him, or that missed shot for the I.C.S., +or the University career foregone. It was the word "spy" +that rankled in his memory and took the starch out of his +self-conceit. +</p> + +<p> +Before the discovery of the Minister's written guarantee, +Valverden had gossiped with him as an equal—the other +Guardsmen had been friendly in their rougher way. The +fateful half-sheet of Chancellory note had changed +everything. "As though one had blossomed out in plague +or smallpox," P. C. Breagh had said to himself bitterly. +"And I feel like a kind of Ali Baba or somebody, whose +talisman would only work upside down!" +</p> + +<p> +Even his parting salute had met with grudging +acknowledgment. The Sergeant had grunted. Braun and Kleiss +had spat, and looked the other way. Valverden's finger +had barely brushed the narrow peak of his forage-cap. +Only Kunz, the spectacled ex-chemist's assistant, had +civilly bidden the parting guest good-day. +</p> + +<p> +He was horribly sore at the treatment received from +Valverden. Susceptible of hero-worship, warm and sincere +in feeling, he had taken a liking to the brilliant youngster, +three years his junior, his superior in social status and in +cynical knowledge of the world. Was it disgraceful to +belong to the Prussian Diplomatic Secret Intelligence +Department, that ramifying spider-web of invisible wires, +reaching to the uttermost Kingdoms of the civilized globe, +and emanating from the Chancellory in the Friedrichstrasse, +Berlin? +</p> + +<p> +The Army had its secret agents, an army of them, by +Jingo! Had not scraps of conversation reached the ears +of P. C. Breagh no later than the previous day, relative +to a certain dandy Colonel of Prussian Field Artillery, +who for the past two years had filled the well-paid post of +lace and ribbon Department Manager at the Paris Bon +Marche. +</p> + +<p> +Then why on earth.... But at this juncture the Halt +Inspector returned with the Commandant, a white-whiskered, +potty officer, in blue infantry uniform with distinctive +white shoulder-straps, beside whom stalked a tall, +middle-aged Colonel of Uhlans, whose pale eyes, unshaded +by the tufted schlapka, glittered through steel-rimmed +glasses, whose teeth were clenched on a familiar +meerschaum—and whose gaunt, broad-shouldered figure looked +better in the dark blue cavalry uniform with its yellow +plastron and white cross-belt, than in Herr von Rosius's +Berlin-made private clothes. +</p> + +<p> +For it was undoubtedly Miss Ling's quiet-mannered first-floor +lodger, who had resigned his post of teacher at the +Berners Street Institute of Languages when the wire had +come from Headquarters, bidding him come back and +be a cog-wheel in Moltke's big war-machine. What +Mr. Knewbit would have called "the blank expression" +appeared behind his spectacles when they showed him his +young fellow-lodger from Coram Street. But he paused +when the Commandant halted and began to ask questions—which +Carolan answered in the German so frequently tested +on Herr von Rosius. +</p> + +<p> +"How came you to travel from Berlin in a train set +apart for the use of the Guard Infantry? Show me your +<i>Legitimations-Kart</i> and military ticket, if you have +one!—You have neither? ... Then how did you, against the +regulations, obtain permission of the authorities to enter +a <i>militär-zug</i>? It is inconceivable that you should have +managed to conceal yourself without connivance of some +kind!" +</p> + +<p> +Things were getting close to the Chancellory half-sheet, +but it would never be displayed with the consent of +P. C. Breagh. He had wild ideas of feigning idiocy, of +appealing to Von Rosius, but the first resource savored of the +theater too strongly for adoption, and the second—one +glance at the hard, ignoring eyes behind the steel-rimmed +glasses disposed of that for good. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +At his wits' end, a loud, genial voice hailed him in the +English language, flavored with the County Dublin +brogue. +</p> + +<p> +"By the powers! and there's the face I'm looking for. +Longer by a yard than it was when you capped me at +Berlin. Faith! and I stared at you with all my eyes, +wondering where in the world I'd last beheld ye? Till Chris +Brotherton quizzed me and I bet him five shillings the +place was Fleet Street. Now, on your honor, was it? +Speak, or forever after hold your tongue!" +</p> + +<p> +"Not quite Fleet Street, sir, but hardly a stone's throw +from it!" A great wave of unreasonable hope lifted the +sinking heart of P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +The big, warm voice and the kind, bright glance that had +wrought the miracle, belonged to a stout little bearded +gentleman of fifty, topped with a hard gray Derby, and +attired in a pepper-and-salt cutaway coat, brown holland +vest and neat white hunting-stock, gray Bedford cords and +shiny black spurred Blucher boots. Had you met him +cantering on some plump and well-fed cob along a green +lane in the Mother Country, you would have taken him—but +for the revolver-pouch that depended from a neat +black leather belt, and the wallet that, with its companioning +field-glass, was slung across his shoulders—for a hard-riding +country surgeon or solicitor, of the good old English +kind. But P. C. Breagh knew better, and his drab world +changed to rose-color, as the big voice rolled from the +capacious chest: +</p> + +<p> +"Hardly a minute's ... Hold on! For the life of +you, don't refresh my memory! What would it be to +find one's mental legs getting shaky at the start of a new +campaign! Not a stone's throw from Fleet Street, did you +say? ... By the Beadle of Old Trinity! if you don't +mean the Maze at Hampton Court or the Nevski Prospect +at Petersburg, or the garden of the Dilkusha at Lucknow, +you're talking of Printing House Square! Am I right +now?" +</p> + +<p> +"You've hit the nail, sir! You were walking arm-in-arm +with Mr. Sala—and I'd been introduced to him before, +luckily! and he remembered my name and presented me +to you!" +</p> + +<p> +"And I'm five shillings the richer by the meeting. For +if Chris Brotherton dares to say the <i>Thunderbolt</i> office +and Fleet Street are anything but synonymous, he's a +bolder man than I take him to be. But I'm interrupting a +conversation...." He broke off, saluting the official. +"Pray accept my apologies, <i>Herr</i> Commandant, I'll wait +while you finish with my young friend." +</p> + +<p> +The Commandant stiffly returned the genial salute before +he wheeled and walked off with the Inspector and Von +Rosius, who, while the king of British War Correspondents +chatted with his glowing vassal, had exchanged a few +sentences with these personages apart. Then said the kindly +little gentleman, with a humorous twirl of the eye at the +three: +</p> + +<p> +"I claimed your acquaintance because I saw you nearing +the jaws of a German guardroom. Though I fancy you'd +a friend at Court in that Uhlan Colonel there! ... I +heard him tell the Commandant that he'd no earthly idea +how you got here, but you were simply an English schoolboy +who was crazy to see a war. And the Commandant +said something about turning tail at the first whistle of a +<i>Bombensplitter</i>—that's a shell-splinter. Though I'm +pretty certain by the cut of your jib you'd do nothing of +the kind!" +</p> + +<p> +He added, as a familiar shout of "Entrain!" and a +bugle-call brought the platform leg-stretchers scampering +to their places and the long train of gray-painted wagons, +officers' horse-boxes and baggage trucks, clanked into +motion again: +</p> + +<p> +"Your friends of the Guard have gone without you. +Kreuznach will be their detraining-point—that's all I can +tell you. For the reason—and it's an uncommonly sound +one!—that the newly mobilized men of the infantry +battalions want a march to limber their joints and stretch +their new boots a bit. Begad! my own brogues would be +the better of a day or two on the trees. But rheumatism +and corns are the price one pays for experience—and the +privilege of talking like a daddy to harum-scarum gossoons +like yourself. You've no business to be here, boyo! but +since you are—use your eyes and brains to observe +with—never be ashamed of running away when you can get out +of danger by doing it! and for your mother's sake, if she's +living—don't be dragged into fighting on a side. Forget +that you have a revolver, if that bulge under your jacket +means that you carry one,—and keep your temper cool and +your opinions strictly neutral, if a fellow with a drop of +Irish blood in him can! Twit me with Bull Run, now, and +you'll get the historic answer: 'Do as I advise you to do, +not what I do!'" +</p> + +<p> +He pulled out the battered gold hunting-watch at the +end of its short, strong leather guard, and glanced at it, +saying with a sigh of relief: +</p> + +<p> +"Seven o'clock. Breakfast ought to be ready at the +Victoria—barrack of a hostelry, packed with cocky Prussian +officers. Suppose you come back there with me and have +a bite and sup?" +</p> + +<p> +Dazzling prospect! to a young man given to hero-worship, +which the historian of "Cromwell" had positively +asserted to be good for youthful bodies and souls. +P. C. Breagh would have given a great deal if Valverden could +have heard the invitation.... However, it was more likely +than not that he had beheld the object of his scorn in +familiar conversation with the most famous of British War +Correspondents, as the gray-painted troop-train carried him +away. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap34"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXXIV +</h3> + +<p> +That was an enchanted walk for P. C. Breagh, back to +the big, bare, barrack-like Victoria. It was the Doctor's +generous amends for an unintentional slight. Two days +previously, at the Potsdam Railway Station, Berlin, when a +companion had said to him: "Who's the enthusiastic young +admirer who kowtowed to you? English, I should say, and +you cut him unmercifully,"—he had answered, out of the +whirl of great affairs: +</p> + +<p> +"I've no notion; but I'll make amends if ever he crosses +my path again. It's not my way to hurt a boy." +</p> + +<p> +"Bet you five bob he hails from Fleet Street," the friend +had cried; and the Doctor had answered: +</p> + +<p> +"If so, he has a claim on me I'm not going to deny." +</p> + +<p> +Dust underfoot made the tread fall as on velvet. Dust +in the air parched the throat and got in the eyes. And the +incessant rolling of the Prussian side-drums, lanced +through with signal whistles and sharp bugle-calls, made +the hot baked atmosphere quiver, and the play of early +sunshine on myriads of brass helmet-spikes made the eyes +water and blink, as the battalions of blue infantry that +had marched into Bingen on the previous day mustered +from their billets, were entrained and conjured away; and +other battalions that had marched fifteen miles since +cock-crow tramped in with the thick white dust turned to mud +upon them by the heavy Rhineland dews that had soaked +their boots and damped their uniforms, halted but to +breakfast—and were off, almost on the heels of the first. +</p> + +<p> +Division after Division of Cavalry—Uhlans in light or +dark blue piped with red, and shiny black Lancer <i>schapkas</i>, +Cuirassiers in white uniforms, with steel breast and +back plates, and steel helmets simple in design as those of +Cromwell's Ironsides; light blue Dragoons, Hussars with +tufted shakos of miniver, and braided jackets of red, black, +green, brown and pale blue, with their flying batteries of +Horse Artillery, their proviant columns and ammunition-trains, +had been rushed to the frontier with astounding +speed. Now the blue deluge of marching men with +needle-guns came rolling after. With thunder of heavy +siege-trains, with patches of green upon the monotonous blue, +that stood for picked battalions of sharpshooters; sons of +gamekeepers and forest-rangers; bred from childhood to +woodcraft and hunter's lore; experts in the use of the rifle, +scouts and trackers of daring and skill. +</p> + +<p> +On the seventeenth of July the Warlock had said to his +King, "Give me to the third of August and we are safe." This +was the third of August. And the air was thick with +something besides dust. +</p> + +<p> +Conscious of this, they talked, the neophyte and the +adept discussing things that had happened during the +pregnant interval. How Forbes of the <i>Daily News</i>, who +tramped it up to Saarbrück by the Nahe Valley Road from +Kreuznach, had seen the first blood flow, when a couple of +infantrymen of the garrison were brought in in a chipped +condition, having been sniped at by red-breeched French +marksmen across the frontier-line. +</p> + +<p> +With a single battalion of the Hohenzollerns, the 7th +Regiment of Rhineland Uhlans had hitherto constituted +Saarbrück's garrison. And the French being reported in +force at Forbach, some fifteen or sixteen thousand men +being said to be strung out along the frontier, a +detachment of Uhlans with spare troop-horses had ridden into +Neunkirchen on the morning of the twenty-fourth of July, +and borrowed from the collieries a dozen stout miners, +armed with picks, and supplied with blasting cartridges, +fuses, and so on. These grimy stalwarts they tied on +troop-horses; crossed the frontier, and blew up the viaduct +on the railway-line branching from the Forbach-Metz +railway near Cocheren and connecting Metz with +Saarguemines, Bitche, Hagenau and Strasbourg. +</p> + +<p> +Thenceafter, nothing of note happened until the twenty-eighth +of July, when the Emperor Napoleon III. entered +Metz with his Staff and the heir to the Throne Imperial, +and formally took command of the seven <i>corps d'armée</i> +known as the "Army of the Rhine." Upon the same day, +a party of the Hohenzollerns, commanded by an N.C.O., +reconnoitering on the right front, flushed a French <i>vidette</i>, +in a wood covering a knoll of rising ground, over the top +of which went the imaginary frontier-line. +</p> + +<p> +Being shot at, the Hohenzollerns retired to garrison. +But about regimental soup-time, twelve or thereabouts, a +battery of six French field-pieces came over the slope of +the Spicherenberg heights, getting into position on a +plateau half-way down. +</p> + +<p> +And while the Prussian drummers beat to arms; while +the Hohenzollerns hastily posted their four companies, one +on each of the town's three bridges, and sent one forward +on the heels of a squadron of Uhlans, up the Forbach Road, +which runs through Saarbrück, rising as it trends to the +west;—while the rest of the Uhlans stood to their horses in +the Markt-platz, and the civilian population stopped to +look on, or scuttled for cover, six shells were fired, three of +them hitting a little beerhouse on the hill-brow, just off +the Forbach Road—and the Imperial cannonade was over, +the artillerists retired, and nothing more had happened,—though +the <i>videttes</i> and patrols, Gallic and Teuton, had +cracked away at each other from high noon till batlight. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Discussing these things, the adept and the neophyte came +to the Victoria, every window of which was crowded with +Prussian officers, eating, drinking and smoking, or shouting +for breakfast, coffee, beer, wine and tobacco in every key +of the human register. +</p> + +<p> +Distracted waiters ran about like ants, and before the +packed and roaring caravanserai—keeping guard over one +of the little decrepit iron tables that stood under the dusty +acacias—a little table that had a fly-spotted cloth upon it, +and a great glass basin filled with sugar cubes, and was +further adorned with brown rings made by the bottoms of +coffee-cups and beer-glasses, were the two friends referred +to by P. C. Breagh's Good Samaritan. +</p> + +<p> +One was a handsome, fair-haired, smiling man in the +scarlet, yellow-faced, gold-adorned uniform of a crack +regiment of British Light Dragoons, "a swell of the +haw-haw type" Mr. Ticking would have termed him. With this +splendid personage, who was generally referred to as +"Major Brotherton," was a shorter, plainer individual +with fluffy whiskers, attired as for the sports of the field, +in a white, low-crowned felt, large checked tweeds, in which +orange and pink predominated, drab leggings and heavily +nailed highlows. A Dolland field-glass was slung from his +shoulders, and over a neighboring chair lay a huge box-coat, +the multitudinous pockets of which appeared to contain +his luggage, for a bath-sponge in a rubber bag rolled +out of one as he rose up to welcome the leader of the +party, and a box of areca-nut tooth-paste, and a hairbrush +with a patent collapsible handle had to be shifted before +the sponge could be replaced; just as though Mr. Toole +had thought out the costume and the comic business for +some traveling Briton in a new farce. +</p> + +<p> +You may suppose P. C. Breagh blushing from consciousness +of the contrast of his own travel-stained griminess +with the Major's dazzling brilliancy, when that personage +shook hands with him and said it was going to be +a hot day. Introduced by his kindly patron to the +sportsman in pink and orange tweeds with: +</p> + +<p> +"Tower, this is a young countryman of mine—picked up +at the station—just tumbled out of a troop-wagon full of +Guards Infantry——" +</p> + +<p> +The fluffy whiskered sportsman civilly nodded and +observed: "And dashed good luck for him!" He added: +"Doctor, if you recognized your baggage-van by that +confounded goat you've had painted on it, I'll admit it's +served some purpose besides frightening German crows!" +</p> + +<p> +"Begad! it frightened me when I saw it on the siding +this morning!" avowed the genial Doctor. "But how was +I to know that the Berlin painter who undertook to copy +the crest from my family coat-of-arms had got a +magnifying eye?" +</p> + +<p> +Said the man in cavalry uniform, smoothing his drooping +mustache, and speaking with the drawl of Robertsonian +comedy: +</p> + +<p> +"At any rate, the size of the animal testifies to the +antiquity of your race, and so on. For in prehistoric days, +I take it, goats were as big as cows are now!" +</p> + +<p> +"My thanks to you, Brotherton, for supplying so plausible +an explanation. I'll salve my pride of pedigree with +it next time I'm taken for a traveling quack, and +Prussian soldiers suffering with indigestion apply to me for +pills and black-dose." He added, with his pleasant laugh, +catching P. C. Breagh's glance of incredulity: "Actual +fact, and no embroidery, I assure you! You understand +that to emphasize the strictly pacific nature of my calling, +I'm exploiting my honorary degree for all it's worth!" He +added, rather pointedly addressing the handsome +cavalryman, "I've no special ambition to be shot as a +combatant!" +</p> + +<p> +"Nor have I," said the man in sporting checks, warmly. +"And, Brotherton, my dear fellow, if this 'ere 'umble +individual may add his advice to the counsel you've +already had from the man, by Jove! who of all men knows +best what he's talkin' about, you'll stow that 'ere +lady-killing uniform, and the silver helmet with the flowin' +plume away in some spare portmanteau, and leave 'em with +your saber and the dazzlin' horse-furniture you showed +me this morning in charge of the landlord here, until you +come back from the war-path safe and sound. Am I +talking 'oss sense, Doctor?" +</p> + +<p> +"Indeed you are, Tower!" agreed the Doctor. "And, +Chris, if you'll listen to him, I'll be eternally grateful to +you, for your own sake. You've too much of what Tower +and the Yankees call 'horse sense' not to know you're +handicapped as a war correspondent by your glorious +panoply!" +</p> + +<p> +The Major smiled, and said, smoothing the drooping +mustache with a fine white hand that wore a diamond-set +signet: +</p> + +<p> +"You can't blame me for thirsting to carry the harness +I've worn in sham fights for nearly half my lifetime, where +bullets are flying in real earnest?" +</p> + +<p> +"Not a bit, dear fellow," said the Doctor, with a twinkle, +"so long as you thirst to do it and don't! That letter 'R' +on your shoulder-cord is hardly big enough to serve as +cover where those bullets are plentiful. And with your +influence, prospects in life, and position, you'd be an +ingrate to Fate if you were anxious to die at thirty-four." +</p> + +<p> +Said Brotherton, knitting his fair eyebrows over the +restless fire in his handsome eyes: +</p> + +<p> +"Influence has been my bane, and the two other things +have stood in my light ever since I was an urchin in +knickerbockers. I've been Queen's page, and Prince's Equerry, +and <i>aide-de-camp</i> on the Duke's Staff, and I've never seen +an army in the field, or smelt powder, except at Aldershot, +or Shorncliffe, or the Curragh of Kildare, or at +carbine-practice. What luck do you call that?" +</p> + +<p> +"Dashed hard!" said Tower. +</p> + +<p> +Brotherton went on: +</p> + +<p> +"I was a callow cadet at Sandhurst when the Regiment +covered itself with glory at Balaclava, and as it has seen +no active service since—I've had no chance to find out +whether I'm a real soldier, or a kid-glove one." +</p> + +<p> +"Why not have exchanged——" began Tower. The +Major shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +"It wasn't to be done, for a very solid reason. My +father, who served with Redlett's Brigade in the Crimea, +was killed on Balaclava Day; and I was an only son. And +my mother was a confidential Lady-in-Waiting, and knew +where to apply, by Jove! when my youthful ambition was +to be cold-watered.... And now that the dear soul has +gone, and I'm on the Retired list—after fifteen years of +Windsor, Buckingham Palace, Whitehall, Pall Mall and +Hyde Park—out breaks the war that I've been sighing for. +And, after hovering about the <i>Thunderbolt</i> office till +every printer's devil knows me by name, and cooling my +heels on the doorstep of your chambers in the Albion so +persistently that your housekeeper believed me a bailiff with a +writ—I managed to knock over Opportunity on the wing—and +secured, thanks to you, Doctor! the chance of my +life!" +</p> + +<p> +He stood up, a handsome, martial figure in his scarlet +and golden uniform, his eyes ablaze under the silver, +gold-starred, white-plumed helmet, his fine face flushed with the +battle-lust. And as he stretched out his hand across the +spotty tablecloth, the feasting flies rose in a buzzing +cloud. +</p> + +<p> +"And glad am I if word of mine helped to get that +chance for you, and you know it, Chris, and that it's a +pleasure to have you with me," said the genial voice, as the +Doctor took the offered hand. "But the military array, my +dear fellow! The wampum and war-paint—that's what I +kick at, with my gouty toe of fifty-two." He added: "But +here comes the waiter with the coffee and eggs, and bread +and butter, and something like the cold sliced ham I'm +dying for—if only it doesn't happen to be raw! So sit +down and we'll fortify ourselves against possible +short-commons at Mayence. For that's where the King is, with +Moltke and the Great Headquarters. And that's the +destination we take rail for at twelve noon." +</p> + +<p> +He added, as Brotherton and Tower started in their +chairs, and P. C. Breagh quivered like a fox-terrier shown +a rat: "As for the other chiefs, the Red Prince is—no +one seems able to tell where—and the Crown Prince is on +the frontier. Maybe we'll hear of him at Wissembourg +by-and-by!" +</p> + +<p> +"We should be there ourselves, in the thick of it," +asserted Brotherton, savagely slashing at a pallid pat of +butter, as Tower poured boiling milk and coffee into cups +half-an-inch thick. +</p> + +<p> +"We would be, Chris, me dear man!" said the Doctor, +liberally piling slices of cold veal and ham-sausage on his +guests' plates, cutting bread and passing the pickles, "if +the authorities panted to have English correspondents at +their elbows while they're posting their pawns and pieces +for the opening game!" +</p> + +<p> +Brotherton retorted with a touch of pomposity: +</p> + +<p> +"You take it lightly, sir. But for the honor of our +profession, we should extort recognition at the hands of +these foreigners. We should, as representatives of a great +Power, submit to no belittling. Wielding as we do——" +</p> + +<p> +"Keep all that toffee for the speechmaking end of a +Newspaper Press dinner, Chris, my boy," drolled the Doctor. +"Sure, 'tis we ourselves are the foreigners here—hard +as it is of conception to a true-born Briton. And—since +we're permitted on sufferance to accompany the forces +of United Germany—the least we can do is to extract the +necessary information painlessly!" +</p> + +<p> +"But, my God! when I think of what may be doing at +this moment!" broke out Brotherton, hitting the table, +"I feel as if I should go stark, staring crazy! Have I +sacrificed what I have sacrificed—and—and borne what I +have borne, to trot like a stray tyke at the tail of a moving +Army—picking up such scraps as may be thrown me from +day to day? I tell you, sir, the mere idea is horrible to +me! I cannot put it more mildly. My blood is not yet +chilled by age, or my susceptibilities blunted...." He +pushed away his plate and rose, pulling his gloves from his +belt, and taking up the cloak that had been thrown over a +neighboring chair. "I will ask you to excuse me! I have +not yet received my papers back from the Halt Commandant. +I will call upon him now!" +</p> + +<p> +"Come with you, if you've no objection to walking in +civilian company?" said Tower, swallowing a mouthful, +emptying his coffee-cup, and reaching for the white felt +hat and the box-coat. +</p> + +<p> +"Come back about ten—I may have a scrap or two of +news worth hearing," said the Doctor, with imperturbable +good temper; and with a horsey touch of the hat on Tower's +part, and a sulkily dignified salute from the Major, the tall +soldierly figure in its scarlet and blue and gold, and the less +dignified personality in the clothes that might have been +worn by Toole in the part of a horsey squire, went away +together, over the yellow-burnt grass and the dusty sun-baked +gravel, dotted with little breakfasting groups of +officers, who had been crowded out of the Hotel. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm glad Tower's gone with him. He's in a frame of +mind that won't make for pleasant relations with Prussian +transport-officers," quoth the Doctor, looking after the +retreating couple with something like a twinkle and +something like a sigh. "But he's a grand fellow!—a splendid +fellow is Brotherton!—even if he sometimes reminds me of +the Quaker wife who said to her husband: 'Friend Timothy, +all the world is wrong except thee and me, and thou +is a little wrong sometimes, Friend Timothy!'" +</p> + +<p> +And having got rid of his vexation in one gentle gibe at +the idiosyncrasy of the petulant Brotherton, he fell to his +breakfast again, urging his guest to a renewed attack on +the strong ham-sausage and weak coffee, with the words: +</p> + +<p> +"Bad policy—neglecting rations. Must stoke when fuel +for the human engine is to be had, if you're going to +chronicle the deeds of an army that fights as it marches. And +when you've cleaned your plate, and drunk another cup of +coffee, you shall tell me why you came here and what you +want to do." +</p> + +<p> +He commented, when P. C. Breagh, duly replete, had +stated the nature of his aims and ambitions; touching upon +his discouragements as briefly as might be: +</p> + +<p> +"War Correspondence! ... Well, I'll admit I guessed +that you'd set your heart on something of the kind, when +I saw you tumble out of that troop-wagon with a note +book sticking out of your jacket-pocket. And so old Knewbit +financed? Sporting of him!—and he deserves that his +letters should be worth reading. Call 'em 'Experiences of +a Tyke at the Tail of an Army.'" He added, his bright +brown eyes twinkling through their gold-rimmed glasses. +"For that's where you've got to be!" +</p> + +<p> +He lighted a huge cigar, twisted round his green-painted +iron chair and sat astride upon it, resting on its rickety +back his folded arms, short and strong, with small muscular +hands, sunburned like his bearded face and thick bull-neck. +</p> + +<p> +"I am not joking, my young acquaintance. Can't you +understand that to keep abreast with even a secondary +Staff in the war-field you have to sweat out money at +every pore? And—without gold for transport or thalers +for <i>trinkgelt</i>—or seasoned knowledge to help you even if +your pockets were full, what can you accomplish? I tell +you frankly—nothing at all! But if you'll follow on the +fringe of a Division, marching with the hangers-on and +officers' servants—you'll get many a scrap of useful news +and many a meaty bone of valuable information tossed +to you day by day. And even with the rear of the Army +Corps you elect to stick to, you'll sup your fill of raw-head +and bloody bones—take the assurance from me. Will +you—with the advice?" +</p> + +<p> +The great man was so unassuming in his kindness that +the little one hardly grasped the full extent of it, even as +he said, blinking as though a cinder of the Lower Rhineland +Railroad had got into his eye: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, sir, and thank you! I shall never forget how +good you've been to me!" and got reply: +</p> + +<p> +"You've no business to be here, boyo, but since you +are, more by luck than grace, use your eyes and stuff your +memory with things worth keeping. Now as my time is +precious,—is there anything more you want to know?" +</p> + +<p> +"Only one thing.... I have been puzzled by an—an +incident that happened to a—fellow in my own +position." P. C. Breagh boggled horribly: "Was regularly +set on getting to the Front—hadn't a notion how to set +about it—when he—accidentally—managed to get hold of +a—kind of official authorization. An informal pass, +certifying the bearer as trustworthy—written and signed by +Count Bismarck himself...." +</p> + +<p> +"And that wasn't half bad," the Doctor said, knocking +the ash off the huge cigar, "for a beginner pretty well, it +seems to me!" +</p> + +<p> +Said P. C. Breagh: +</p> + +<p> +"He was tremendously elated at having got the paper. +It seemed to smooth away every difficulty. But later, +when he found himself in touch with Prussian Army +men—they,—not only the gentlemen privates qualifying for +commissions, but the common rankers,—dropped him like a +hot potato once they knew! And—I'd like to know the +reason why they cut me—I mean him?—because they +supposed him to belong to the Secret Intelligence +Department? '<i>A spy is—a spy! Excuse me from further +conversation!</i>' His mouth twisted wryly, repeating the +hateful words. +</p> + +<p> +"I—understand." The Doctor stroked his beard. "And +previously this young Englishman and the rank-and-file +of the Guard Infantry"—P. C. Breagh kept as straight an +upper-lip as was possible—"had chatted together upon +friendly terms?" +</p> + +<p> +"That was it. He had got on splendidly with them—one +fellow especially. And—it hurt, being suddenly sent +to Coventry!..." +</p> + +<p> +"And does it strike you"—there was infinite sagacity +in the clear brown eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses, +"that if you had been chatting freely with a supposed +equal, about your own position, prospects, and opinions, +you would have 'dropped him like a hot potato' if you +had suspected him of being commissioned to sound you for +French sympathies, predilections, and so forth—on the +eve of hostilities with France?" +</p> + +<p> +A light broke in upon the darkness in which Carolan had +groped. His eyes became circular, and his mouth shaped +for a whistle. He exploded: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, hang it! I never thought of anything so—so +beastly.... I wondered why Valverden shied, supposing +me a Secret Information agent, when the Army has shoals +of 'em.... But that Government should set such fellows +sniffing at the heels of the Army—of course I never thought +of that. It's not—cricket, is it, sir?" +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor's hearty laugh pulled round the heads of a +breakfasting party of officers not far off. He said, +lowering his voice: +</p> + +<p> +"You remember the nigger's definitions of verse and +prose, don't you? '<i>Go up mill-dam, fall down slam! dat +verse. Go up mill-dam, fall down whoppo, dat blank +verse.</i>' Prussian military authority may hold, that between +spying on the enemy before the Army and spying on the +Army before the enemy, there is as little distinction. +Though they'd think differently at the Horse Guards, thank +the Lord! By the way, with regard to that gaunt, long-legged +Lieutenant-Colonel of Uhlans of the Landwehr who +claimed to know something of you, rather luckily for your +ambitions!—where did you come across him? '<i>An English +schoolboy,' he called you, 'crazy to see War!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh explained: +</p> + +<p> +"He did know something of me, sir!—though it was the +merest chance—our meeting. Until a week ago he was +a teacher of English at the Berners Street Institute of +Languages, and lodged at my landlady's. And they +recalled him to Berlin a few hours before the Declaration +of War." +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap35"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXXV +</h3> + +<p> +It was the Doctor's turn to whistle. +</p> + +<p> +"Phew! So that's how they spy out and trap deserters +from their Reserve and <i>Landwehr</i>. Clever—uncommonly! +Possibly it's not business to tell you, but you've given away +a genuine bit of information. And as a lesson in caution +for the future, I shall annex your nugget—do you hear? +In return—I've a pass for an extra groom who has shot +the moon with three weeks' double pay in advance, the +cowardly beggar! And—supposing you're not too +proud—I'll take you with me as far as Mayence." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know how to thank you, sir!" +</p> + +<p> +"Leave thanking for the present." He pulled out the +gold chronometer, secured by its twisted thong. "Ten +o'clock, and here come Towers and Brotherton, like +Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, '<i>with a kind of confession in +their looks which their modesties have not craft enough to +color</i>.' No news to be had? No starting for Mayence +before twelve sharp, in spite of honied entreaties lavished +on the authorities?" +</p> + +<p> +"Deuce a scrap!" +</p> + +<p> +"Devil a minute!" +</p> + +<p> +They threw themselves upon chairs, hot, dusty and panting. +They had got their papers back, countersigned, from +a kind of understrapper, after, to do him justice, very +little delay. But of intelligence, not a modicum was +obtainable, except that the Emperor was said to be close to the +frontier near Saarbrück at the head of the Imperial +Guards. +</p> + +<p> +"Though they've been saying that for forty-eight hours," +grumbled Tower, "and I'm dam' if I call it anything but +Ancient History." +</p> + +<p> +At which candid confession the Doctor's mouth twitched +under the thick, curling mustache of rusty iron-gray. He +said, his quick eye noting an excited stir and bustle about +the thronged entrance of the hotel, and the crowding of +officers about another, who had a paper in his hand: +</p> + +<p> +"Those officers have heard—something that is not +Ancient History. And look at the fellows who were eating +at the tables in the windows; they've something tastier to +discuss now than the landlord's indifferent grub!" +</p> + +<p> +It was true. In the long dining-room, in the restaurant, +and in the reading-room, which had been converted into a +temporary coffee-room, men were swarming like bees and +buzzing like them, while detached, staccato sentences +shaped out of the buzz. +</p> + +<p> +"Saarbrück ... Spicheren ... Frossard ... Colonel +von Pestel...." +</p> + +<p> +"Something up...." Towers adjusted his eyeglass. +Brotherton, catching a sentence shouted by an officer of a +<i>jäger</i> battalion to another green-coat leaning from a +window on the second-floor, jumped as though he had been +prodded with a bayonet, and turned a flaming face upon +his friend: +</p> + +<p> +"A telegram has come in... There has been serious +fighting at Saarbrück. Did they lie to us at the station, +then? Officers and gentlemen——" +</p> + +<p> +"Softly, Chris!" The Doctor's hand upon his arm +checked him on the verge of a fiery outburst. "I fancy +they've a right to hold back intelligence dispatched from +Headquarters when the senders mark the wire '<i>Delay</i>.'" +</p> + +<p> +"No doubt, but I had better interview the Commandant. +Details would be worth having!" said Brotherton, adding +with a peculiar smile, "Or at least I, in my inexperience, am +inclined to think so." +</p> + +<p> +Came the quick answer: +</p> + +<p> +"You can have details now—without troubling the +Commandant! Full—well, as fully as I got them—under a +strict undertaking of secrecy for four hours—at six o'clock +this morning!" +</p> + +<p> +Brotherton turned as ashen-pale as he had hitherto been +crimson. Towers called out gleefully, as active little thrills +of excitement coursed down P. C. Breagh's spine: +</p> + +<p> +"Bravo, Doctor! And you had it up youi sleeve all +the time. 'Unfold, thou man of 'orrid mystery!' as Miss +Le Grange says at Astley's in the <i>Specter's Bride</i>." +</p> + +<p> +"There's not so much to unfold. But from, eight +thousand to ten thousand French troops made an attack on +Saarbrück yesterday. Some battalions of the 8th Prussian +Army Corps had augmented the original garrison, and their +nearest support was at Lebach, five miles to the rear. A +mitrailleuse-battery and some field-guns posted on the +Keppertsberg drove the Blue Uniforms out of the town!" +</p> + +<p> +Towers said: "Then why the deuce..." and broke off. +Brotherton gloomed heavily. The Doctor went on: +</p> + +<p> +"The Emperor and the Prince Imperial were on the +heights, with the Imperial Staff, to see the show—an astonishing +spectacle it must have been. Frossard, in the center +with supports drawn from the Second Corps—Marshal +Bazaine on the right, with troops picked from the Third. +And in command of the Fifth Corps, De Failly, who +crossed the river at Saarguemines." +</p> + +<p> +Queried Tower: +</p> + +<p> +"And when the big bow-wow had made the little one +drop the bone, he didn't stick to it?" +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor returned: +</p> + +<p> +"No—and that's the puzzle of the whole affair. The +whole glorious display resolved itself into a cannonade, +with occupation of the heights on the left bank, and nothing +further. Though the French foreposts actually occupied +the three bridges and held the town." +</p> + +<p> +Tower said, his pale eyes sharp with intelligence: +</p> + +<p> +"Bet you a tenner it was done for the boy. Got up to +blood the young'un—cockerel of the Walk Imperial. +Geewhillikins!—What telegrams Nap must have fired off to +St. Cloud!" +</p> + +<p> +"They'll have read them in Berlin and London long +before they get to us," said the Doctor, shrugging. "Where +are you off to, Brotherton?" +</p> + +<p> +Brotherton returned—and the tone was offensive, if the +words were not: +</p> + +<p> +"To do what my senior Special does not appear to think +necessary—wire the news to Printing House Square." +</p> + +<p> +The elder answered with a good-humored twinkle: +</p> + +<p> +"Why, that was done hours back, by grace of the +authorities. They bridled my tongue, but left my pen +unhampered. Knowing, of course, that the British Public +must wait for its news until breakfast-time to-morrow. +Were you speaking to me, Brotherton?" +</p> + +<p> +The Major was saying in a voice as little like his own as +the livid mask of rage he turned on the Doctor resembled +his ordinarily calm and placid visage: +</p> + +<p> +"I was addressing you, though it pleased you not to hear +me. I was asking you what you meant, by G——! in +stealing a march on the man you've called your friend?" +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor's eyes blazed behind their gold-rimmed +glasses. Anger darkened his handsome sunburnt face. He +drew himself up and said, speaking simply and with dignity: +</p> + +<p> +"How do you infer that I have 'stolen a march on you'? +By taking the apology they give one here for a cold tub at +cockcrow and going over to the Hauptmann's office with +our papers while you and Tower were sleeping like——" +</p> + +<p> +"Like dormice, by Gad!" put in Tower. "And so we +were. And it's a case of the early bird—and not the first +time, I'll swear—by thousands! And, Brotherton—you +ought to apologize. You were simply infernally rude just +now!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Major loftily: +</p> + +<p> +"I gave it as my opinion that I had been dealt with +unfairly. I do not withdraw the words I used. But I +comprehend that my senior in the service of the paper is not +anxious to share the credit of the earliest intelligence with +regard to what is taking place on the frontier just now." +</p> + +<p> +"For God's sake, Chris, don't say what you'll be sorry +for!" +</p> + +<p> +"I'll say what I think, to you, sir, or to the King of +Prussia!" +</p> + +<p> +The gray-bearded, strongly-featured face, with the look +of generous sorrow on it, and the younger, fairer, +handsomer face, with the stamp of arrogance and vanity and +pride marring its manly beauty, confronted each other in +silence, until, with an impatient snarl, Brotherton swung +round upon his heel. +</p> + +<p> +"Look here!—look here!—where the merry hell are you +off to?" Tower spluttered, grabbing at the sleeve of the +splendid scarlet tunic. "Not going to part company for +a misunderstanding—hey?" +</p> + +<p> +"I am going to part company," Brotherton returned +bitterly, freeing himself from the detaining hand, "since +the jealousy that hampered me in my military career +threatens to mar my prospects now. Where I am going to +I cannot tell you—probably you will hear from me, but I +cannot promise it. Good-bye! Or—if you prefer it—<i>Auf +wiedersehen</i>!" +</p> + +<p> +He shook hands with Tower, nodded coldly to the astonished +P. C. Breagh, formally saluted the Doctor, who returned +with a slight bow, picked up his cap and cloak +and strode away over the sun-dried grass and the hot yellow +gravel, making for the gaudily painted iron gates that +ended the drive. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, Chris, man-alive, and am I jealous of ye?" said +the Doctor, his spectacles dewy with irrepressible laughter, +as the gallant figure in its gorgeous scarlet and golden +trappings was swallowed in a crowd of blue uniforms: "If +you'd waited another minute, I'd have told you of something +else your senior in the service of the paper by seventeen +years, some odd days, and a minute or two isn't +anxious to share with you, and that is a reputation for not +being a hot-headed, unreasonable young ass!" +</p> + +<p> +"He's making a bee-line for the Railway Station," said +Tower, wiping his heated forehead with a gaudily-hued +silk handkerchief, "and if he comes across any of those +Transport swells there'll be the deuce to pay. He's got the +bit in his teeth and his tail tight down over the ribbons, by +George!—and he'll kick the trap to pieces and lame himself +to a dead certainty. Shall I go after him and try to <i>soother</i> +him down a bit?" +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor shrugged assent. +</p> + +<p> +"If you think 'twill be any good! ... Meanwhile I +have to write a letter or two, and pack, or rout my man +out of the servants' quarters to do it. As for you, my +boyo!"—he turned on P. C. Breagh a keen, humorous +glance that summoned up blushes to mantle under the +railway grime—"a wash and brush-up will do you no harm, +and besides—my absconding Berliner isn't described on +his passport as a mulatto!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Tower came back in half an hour, reporting failure in +the attempt to pacify Brotherton, who nevertheless joined +the Doctor's little party at the station, having apparently +recovered his serenity of temper, and abandoned his +determination to forswear his senior's company. +</p> + +<p> +Beer, coffee, bread and meat were still being lavishly +distributed among the troops continually parading for +departure, and the train-loads of soldiers passing through. +And the exodus of panic-stricken visitors, flying from the +little up-Rhine watering places, in apprehension of the +arrival of the Emperor with his mitrailleuses, continued; +until, in another hour, the shrunken finger of the Warlock +wagged, and thenceforth the Rhine Valley Railways were +totally blocked for civilian passengers, and given over to +the transport of men and munitions of war. +</p> + +<p> +Presently, when a train of coal-trucks from Kreuznach +came jolting into Bingen, bearing on their sable flanks the +chalk hieroglyphics that signified their official emptiness, +P. C. Breagh was destined to behold personages of the +loftiest rank and the utmost exclusiveness, German Serene +Highnesses, Austrian Duchesses, and English peeresses, +with their children and lap-dogs, their maids, <i>chefs</i>, +coachmen, lackeys, and grooms, packed into these grimy vehicles +without precedence or selection, or any seating-accommodation +other than that afforded by an empty sack or an +armful of straw. +</p> + +<p> +The troop-train conveying the mounted gendarmerie of +the Third Army Corps—huge men equipped as dragoons—to +Mayence, afforded accommodation to the men, horses +and vans of the Doctor's party. Long before the fortifications +came in sight the roads were blotted out by marching +columns, and the fields were dotted with moving +transport-trains. +</p> + +<p> +At Mayence, whose stone-paved streets were roaring with +the passage of iron-shod wheels, the trampling of +iron-shod hoofs, and the measured tramping of infantry +battalions, the Doctor, stepping from the train, was seized +upon by friends. Yet after the first eager interchange of +interrogations and answers, he found time to bestow a +parting hand-grip on Carolan and a final word of advice. +</p> + +<p> +"And—put this in your pocket—it'll be a help to you +if it doesn't hang you. They're lithographed by the +Prussian War Department, and every German officer has one. +And here's something else, a lot more use than the revolver +those chaps stole from you. You'll know better than to use +it unless in case of need!" +</p> + +<p> +This was a folding pocket-map of the Eastern Departments +of France, with certain military routes very nicely +marked in red upon it. While the something else proved +to be a wicker-covered metal pocket-flask, containing about +half-a-pint of the whisky of Kinahan. +</p> + +<p> +The donor added: +</p> + +<p> +"Remember, train your memory to pigeon-hole things +for later description, and never be caught taking notes, or +fighting on a side! And—be on your guard with women, +pretty ones especially. And—there's a scrap of paper in +the pocket of the map-cover, may come in handy, at a pinch. +No, no thanks! General von Reigen, that's the light blue +Würtemburg Hussar officer talking to Tower—tells me +Moltke and his staff are quartered at the Hotel de Holland. +If so, the King won't be far off. He thinks Bismarck has +gone to a house outside the town, but he can't swear to it. +There goes a carriage with the Red Prince's big +buck-nigger on the box. Shows his Highness must be +somewhere hereabouts. As for the Crown Prince, nobody will +say anything. He's marching—with an end in view. And +they say the French are shooting uncommonly badly—and +that half of the Reserve men don't know how to use their +chassepots. Well, they'll have practice enough before long. +Good luck, and good-bye!" +</p> + +<p> +The "scrap of paper," upon later examination, proved +to be a five-pound note, placed there by the hand that +later penned those wonderful war-letters—under a wayside +hedge, at a corner of a plank bivouac-table, on the zinc +counter of a wine-shop filled with carousing soldiers—at the +ebony and tortoiseshell <i>éscritoire</i> of Madame la Marquise, +in the boudoir of the château that had been so sorely +battered by those big potatoes of Moltke's. +</p> + +<p> +Kind little, great man; a whole chestful of Orders had +no power to chill the big warm heart that prompted your +many deeds of generosity. It molders in a coffin now, +and the decorations are dimming with dust in a glass-topped +box. But beyond the Veil that parts the seen from +the unseen world, I like to think that there were waiting +for you rewards and honors, in comparison with which the +most coveted earthly insignia were vilest dirt and dross. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap36"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXXVI +</h3> + +<p> +Said the sutler-woman, whose coarse black hair was +powdered white as any lady's of the early eighteenth +century, smearing the dust from the peonies of her +cheeks with a brawny arm that was dusty as any +miller's: +</p> + +<p> +"Young man, if thou stick to thy word, and take good +care of the jackass, remembering the sharp nail-spike in +the end of the whip-butt if he tries to kick or bite—I'll +creep in under the tilt and take a forty-winks. Lord be +thanked! my legs are sound, but they ache a bit!" +</p> + +<p> +The jackass, who boasted the not inglorious name of +"Rumschottel," laid back his ears viciously at his mistress's +reference to the persuasive spike in the whip-butt, +and the young man addressed by his temporary employer +nodded in assent without opening his lips. For the dust +in which the little tilt-cart moved was almost solid, being +kicked up by the Seventh Corps of the Second Army of +Germany, in line of march through the Haardt Wald by +Kaiserslautern. +</p> + +<p> +The sutler-woman's young man had marched with the +Fifth Corps from Mayence by Oppenheim and Alzey, and +had picked up an American tourist who knew of a short cut +to Kaiserslautern, and had mislaid the Army Corps in +trying to find it. Staffs, squadrons, batteries, battalions, +transport and baggage had vanished like smoke among +these vineyard-and-forest-clad hills, these pine-jacketed +gorges, these roads that ran between natural ramparts of +granite, or passed through quaint villages tucked under +hillsides crimson and gold with laden appletrees, and +dominated by ancient castles perched on towering +platforms of rock. +</p> + +<p> +Scenery palls when the thigh-bones seem wearing through +their sockets; when the stomach complains for very emptiness, +and there are bloody blisters inside the ragged socks. +The American who had been so cocksure about the road to +Kaiserslautern was lying up under a peasant's penthouse-thatch, +at a twenty-mile distant village, drinking Kirsch, +nursing his own skinless heels, and reading up "Murray." His +late companion had refused to give in, and perseverance +had won its reward. Sixty miles or so above +Kreuznach, where the main road forks right and left, +climbing the shoulders of the Nahe Valley, he had met the Ninth +Corps of the Second Army marching up from Bingen, and +hobbled at the heels of one of the dusty battalions until +he could hobble no more. +</p> + +<p> +The sutler-woman had come upon him sitting +pumped-out by the wayside, had sold him bread, coffee and sausage, +doctored his blisters, supplied him with tallowed strips of +linen to replace his wornout socks, earned his gratitude, +and displayed no reluctance to profit by her philanthropy, +when he had volunteered to help lead the jackass as far as +Kaiserslautern. True, he spoke a most vile jargon, but +you cannot have everything. And the weather was so +beautifully dusty, thought the sutler-woman, that an +assistant would certainly be of use. Without the dust that +clogs the human throat, the trade in liquid lubricants would +be less roaring. And the tilt-cart contained, beside other +marching-requisites, a twenty-gallon barrel of rather +luke-warm beer. +</p> + +<p> +The young man nodded again as the cart-shafts tilted in +the hame-straps, and a command to throw his weight on the +front-board was issued from behind. There was a good +deal of creaking as he obeyed. A heavy weight suddenly +added to the jackass's load made Rumschottel look +malevolently round his near-side blinker, and display an upper +row of long orange-colored teeth in testimony of his desire +to bite. Then his driver slid off the board, took the rope +reins, and continued to trudge beside him, keeping well +to the low hedgerow so as to leave a clear space between +the sutler's cart and the seemingly endless column of +dusty infantrymen, striding steadily forward through a +blazing August noon. +</p> + +<p> +Ahead, where black-and-white and white-and-black lance-pennons +flickered at the turn of the road below a steep hill-shoulder +covered with bronzing vineyards heavy with purpling +grapes, the light-blue of a Prussian Dragoon regiment +and the facings of a squadron of Red Uhlans showed +through the thick coating of dust that clung to horse and +man. But the dark uniforms of a succeeding battery of +Horse Artillery and the indigo or rifle-green of the +battalions that marched with the needle-gun, had long ago +given place to a pervasive whitey-brown. +</p> + +<p> +Schmidt, Klaus, and Klein were pressing on in spite of +dust and an eighty-five-in-the-shade thermometer, you must +understand, so as not to get left out of the fighting that +must be going on ahead. For the First and Second Corps +of the Second Army, with the Headquarters Staff, were +known to have reached Homburg, and on the previous +night the Army of the Crown Prince had bivouacked +behind the Klingbach, south of Landau.... Five or six in +the morning, supposing him to have marched at dawn, +would see him well across the frontier. And scouts on the +hills had heliographed and flag-signaled the arrival of +Imperial battalions and artillery at Wissembourg, and blue +Baden Dragoons reported a cavalry camp at Selz. For all +they knew, "Unser Fritz" and the Napoleon were even then +at grips. +</p> + +<p> +So they marched—as they had marched since they detrained +at Bingen, swinging starkly on under the weight of +the knapsack, eighty rounds of ammunition, rolled great-coat, +camp-kettle, sword, spade, water-bottle, haversack +and bread-roll, or half-a-dozen flint-hard brown biscuits +threaded together on a bit of string. +</p> + +<p> +Men sweated and blistered under the relentless sun, but +not many fell out, and there were very few severe cases of +sunstroke, these for the most part falling to the lot of +Reservists. And in the hottest part of the day a plump of +thunder broke among the hills eastward, and a deluge that +followed turned the dust on them to paste. Then the sun +came out again and baked the paste hard; and the sutler-woman +stuck her head out between the front flaps of the +cart-tilt, and told her young man to pull up for a bit of a +rest and a snack. +</p> + +<p> +So P. C. Breagh unharnessed Rumschottel, and the jackass +rolled in a sandy hollow in asinine fashion, and rose +up braying and refreshed. Then, quite mildly submitting +to be hobbled by his mistress, he fell-to upon a patch of +thistles that the battery-wheels had spared. And the +sutler-woman, who answered to the name of Krumpf, produced +black bread and cheese, with peppery sausage of Brunswick, +and a mighty tin bottle of cold milk-coffee, from the +depths of her vehicle, and liberally dispensed of these +refreshments to her servitor. She partook of them herself, +largely, lacing her own mug of coffee out of a private bottle +of <i>schnaps</i>. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Herr Je!</i>" she grumbled presently, "what is he gaping +at?" For her young man had finished eating, and was +absorbed in watching marching legs.... She added, +snorting scornfully: "We might sit here and sleep for +three hours, and they would still be going by when we woke +up.... Horses' legs and men's legs, just as though they +had got clockwork inside them.... It was so in +Schleswig-Holstein, and it will be so in France. And what the Danes +got the French will get, and that will be a thumping!" She +nodded directly afterward and dozed heavily, leaning +her broad back against the wheel of her cart. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps she slept a quarter-of-an-hour while the dusty +men marched by, four abreast, without slackening pace or +changing step. They had hard-featured, serious, intelligent +faces for the most part, thought P. C. Breagh, though +here and there was a visage that bore the stamp of vice +upon it, or was pimply with drink, or brutal, or merely sly. +They had ceased to sing, though their bivouac of the night +before had been patriotically vocal; the dusty instruments +of the bandsmen came less frequently out of their dustier +bags. They marched for the most part in silence, though +the trampling of their feet made the solid ground reverberate. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes a battalion would quit the road, and hedges +would go down before it as by magic; and through the +middle of a field of browning corn or whitening barley +a broad white highway would be beaten hard as any +threshing-floor, bare of anything save the most insignificant +tokens of their passage, such as a covey of late-hatched +partridge chicks trampled into rags, a broken strap, a +fragment of biscuit, a scattering of potato-peels, an empty +match-box, the paper that had held an ounce of tobacco, +and many empty bottles that had held beer. Rarely, a +great scurry in the dust where some obstreperous charger +had reared and fallen with his rider, the extent of whose +injuries might be guessed by a clotted puddle of drying +blood and a broken stirrup-iron. Thus, under the +rhythmical tread of the dusty boots, as under the iron-shod +wheels and iron-shod hoofs that had preceded and would +follow them—green things were beaten from the face of +earth, and fur and feather fled, as they were flying before +the Third Army, marching toward Wissembourg; as they +were flying before Steinmetz, bringing the First Army from +the North. +</p> + +<p> +Where they halted they left their taint by the scorched +hedgerows, and the black circles of their great fires +remained to tell of them, like the soil-pits that scarred the +fields where they had bivouacked. Last night, by some +delusion of the wearied senses of sight and hearing, they had +seemed to the boy who had slept on the outskirts of their +camp to be marching even as they slept. The lusty snoring +of the countless swathes of sleepers between the long, +orderly rows of stacked needle-guns topped with gilt-spiked +helmets, suggested the rushing of a host in onward motion. +When the boy who had lain through the night under the +sutler-woman's cart to guard it from light-fingered +marauders had fallen into a troubled slumber, his blistered +feet had carried him on in dreams behind them still. Then +in the blue dusk before dawn cavalry trumpets far ahead +and shrill bugles near at hand had shrilled reveillé—and +when the tremendous war-machine rushed on again once +more, the dusty boy had been caught up once more by the +wind of its going, and drawn along with it, as a chip is +whirled in the under-draught of a rushing express-train, +or a wisp of hay is caught up by a traveling tornado, and +borne upon its dreadful way. +</p> + +<p> +He grinned now, reminiscent of the Doctor's analogy, as +a blunt-nosed, shaggy dog of no distinguishable breed +trotted past, sneezing, between the files at the rear of a +half-company-column. "Whose is the beast?" he heard a +soldier ask his neighbor on the right-hand, and: +"Nobody's—joined the battalion at Bingen!" was the reply. Upon +which the inquirer tossed the canine waif a scrap of biscuit, +with "Here, Bang!" and Bang, thus adopted and christened, +neatly caught the morsel, bolted it, and trotted on,—no +more an ownerless mongrel, but a regimental dog. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Now the sutler-woman was waking, rubbing the sleep out +of a pair of eyes which were less bright than they had been +before their owner became addicted to the use of beer with +<i>schnaps</i> as a lacing. She had an incipient beard, and the +voice of a heavy dragoon, yet there was a tinge of womanly +coquetry in her way of straightening her big, battered +bonnet, and adjusting the checked blue-and-yellow shawl +tied crosswise over her voluminous bust. She yawned, +struggled to the perpendicular position, with some difficulty, +owing to her corpulence; and cried, pointing a stout +red finger at her henchman, yet squatting in the shade of +a clump of dusty whins: +</p> + +<p> +"Lord! if he isn't mooning still, with his chin on his two +fists! Such a <i>gimpel</i> I never yet did see! But they say all +the <i>Englisch</i> are mad, their climate makes them so. Otherwise +would they not live in their country?—but no! they +can't. <i>Hier</i>! Catch Rumschottel, and let's be moving!" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh obliged, undisturbed by the appellation of +idiot, or the contumely heaped on the United Kingdom. +It was better to be on the black books of the sutler-woman +than distinguished by her too-favorable regard. +</p> + +<p> +For though the stout proprietress of the tilt-cart had +undoubtedly played the part of a Samaritaness toward +the wandering Englander, she was, it had to be owned, +more charitable than chaste; trading not only in beer, +bread, sausages, matches, cheap packs of cards, dominoes, +pipe-tobacco, sweets and pickled cucumbers, but following, +between marches, the oldest profession in the world. +</p> + +<p> +Being invited on the previous evening to convey a verbal +billet of the amorous kind to a young Pioneer of Würtemberg +Artillery, P. C. Breagh had flatly declined. Conceiving +the refusal to be prompted by jealousy, Frau or Fraulein +Krumpf had not taken it in ill part. Until, being +undeceived upon this point, she uncorked the vials of her +anger and exerted a gift for vituperation justly celebrated +among her clients of the rank and file. +</p> + +<p> +"You threadling, you whipper-snapper! You pickled +herring in a jacket and breeches! There is a man buried +in the Domkirche at Mainz, where I belong, that has been +dead over a hundred years, and has more of good red life +in him to-day than thou! '<i>Frauenlob</i>,' they called him, +because he couldn't live without women, and women! and +when he died, eight of the town-girls carried him on his +bier. And they poured wine over his grave so that you +stepped up to your knees in it—all because he had liked +the women as a tom-cat likes cream!" +</p> + +<p> +The first spate of her resentment over, she had accepted +the situation. But the wound remained; and as the better-half +of Potiphar may have railed at her husband's young +Hebrew steward, the sutler-woman nagged at the young +man who limped beside her jackass, through the deep +welcome shade of ancient oak-forests or over long blistering +stretches of naked mountain roads, as those tireless, dusty +men marched by. +</p> + +<p> +There was no keeping up with them; they passed, and +others swarmed after them. Batteries succeeded battalions, +ammunition and baggage, ambulance and commissariat-trains +were followed by yet other battalions, while the +sweat dripped into the eyes of P. C. Breagh and the skin +wore off his heels. +</p> + +<p> +At midday, when his chest hurt with the very act of +breathing and his straining muscles seemed about to crack, +a man died. +</p> + +<p> +He was an infantryman of Hessians, and it happened +quite suddenly. P. C. Breagh, who had long ago abandoned +all unnecessary integuments, marching without coat, +vest, collar, or braces, had noticed him a moment previously +swinging along with unbuttoned uniform—it was marvelous +how small a minority of the soldiers had sought this +method of relief.... His open shirt showed the lighter +skin of his bare chest, his <i>pickelhaube</i> was perched upon the +cooking-pan crowning his knapsack-top, and he had draped +a wetted red handkerchief over his steaming head. +</p> + +<p> +Save that his face was purple with congested blood, so +that his pale, staring eyes seemed colorless by comparison, +and he walked with open mouth, the Adam's apple in his +lean throat jerking as he gulped down the hot air, he +conveyed no dire impression of breakdown. But suddenly he +stumbled and spun round, as if seized by sudden giddiness, +clutching at his shirt-breast, dropping his gun. Men were +thrown out of step as he fell, with an absurd clatter of metal +and tin-ware. Yet they marched on without a pause. +</p> + +<p> +Others came, stepping over the fallen figure lying +huddled in the way. Its fingers moved, paddling in the +dust; and P. C. Breagh, yielding to a sudden impulse, +dropped the bridle of the jackass, ran in, grabbed hold +and hauled the heavy body out of the way. +</p> + +<p> +"What are you doing, born stupid that you are?" the +sutler-woman cried viciously, for Rumschottel had swerved +aside to the hedge and was ravenously devouring weeds. +She added, becoming aware of the prone infantryman, who +was lying on his back staring at the sun unwinkingly: "It +it all up with that one, his eyes are turning white already. +Such as he have never six pfennigs to pay for other folks' +time and trouble. Better leave him for the <i>Feld-lazarett</i> +to pick up." +</p> + +<p> +But P. C. Breagh only grunted dourly, hunkering by the +prostrate Hessian, and with a parting sarcasm the +proprietress of Rumschottel seized her beast's head and +trudged on. If she had looked back, she would have seen +good Irish whisky wasted. For despite the shade of the +tree under which he was hauled, the rolled-up coat thrust +under his head and the laving of his face and breast with +spirit, it was all up with the man, as she had prophesied. +</p> + +<p> +He grabbled with his sunburnt fingers in the dust a +little, and tried to lift a hand to his perspiring chest. By +the tin crucifix dependent from a leather bootlace round his +neck, you could tell that he tried to make the sacred Sign. +Then his eyes rolled up, and an expression of great surprise +overspread his discolored countenance. His knees jerked +and a sound like a rotten stick of wood, breaking, came +from his open mouth. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>A-a-ach!</i>" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap37"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXXVII +</h3> + +<p> +He would breathe for possibly an hour longer, but +practically the man was dead. Still listening for the faint, +intermittent heart-beats, a splash of gravel stung P. C. Breagh +smartly in the neck and cheek, and the dull thunder +of horse-hoofs came unpleasantly close and stopped. He +lifted his ear from the rattling chest, and looked up into +the face of an infantry officer, who was reining up his +beast and bending from the saddle as he looked at the +casualty on the ground. The officer asked in staccato +sentences: +</p> + +<p> +"It is a case of heat-stroke? You are a doctor?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh answered shortly: +</p> + +<p> +"Enough of one to know that there is no hope." +</p> + +<p> +The horse, a fine, spirited animal, hoofed the ground +impatiently. The captain said, patting the glossy, +sweating neck: +</p> + +<p> +"Very good. Will you kindly show me his name-tag?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh found the zinc label, bearing the moribund +Hessian's name, regimental, battalion and company-number, +and turned it face-upward on the discolored breast. +The captain, leaning from the saddle, read, and mentally +registered. His keen eyes, hedged with dusty fair lashes, +narrowed against the blinding white sunshine and, +somewhat bloodshot with heat and fatigue, had something like +a smile in them; and for some reason, to the dusty young +man who squatted on the ground by the dying, the smile +was an offense. He scowled, and the officer, noting this, +asked curiously: +</p> + +<p> +"Were you acquainted with that one, then?" +</p> + +<p> +He indicated the body by an overhand thumb-gesture. +Resenting the gesture for the same inexplicable reason, +P. C. Breagh responded with a head-shake. The captain +pursued, pulling the damp and blackened reins between his +gloved fingers, stained with his own sweat and the horse's +within the palms.... +</p> + +<p> +"I asked, because you seemed—how shall one put +it?—sorry for him, you know!" +</p> + +<p> +The dust-smeared, freckled face turned on the interlocutor +angrily. The smouldering fire in the eyes leaped +into sudden flame: +</p> + +<p> +"I am, damned sorry for him! To come by his end like +this—without firing a single shot!" +</p> + +<p> +There was something unusual about this little dialogue, +carried on between the smart mounted officer and the +footsore, untidy pedestrian, over the body stretched out by +the roadside. As the broad stream of marching men flowed +by, curious eyes rolled their way, the whites showing +startlingly in their owners' sunburned faces. Men +wondered what he had died of, and what they were discussing +there. And P. C. Breagh went on, his mouth pulled awry +with wrathful bitterness: +</p> + +<p> +"He was as good a patriot, I'd bet my hat!—as any +fellow in his battalion. He set as much store as others by +King and Fatherland! I daresay he dreamed of getting +the Distinguished Service medal for some tremendous act +of gallantry, and astonishing his wife—he wears a wedding +ring, so I suppose he had one!—with it when he got home. +And now it's all over. It makes me feel sick. All over, +and nothing to show for it!" +</p> + +<p> +The blank, rolled-up eyes, staring unwinkingly in the +face of the coppery, westering sun, and the discolored face, +with the look of agonized surprise now fixed upon it, +seemed to echo dumbly: "Nothing but this!" The officer +returned: +</p> + +<p> +"So! but there will be a war-pension for the widow, as +he died upon Active Service, and that will not be so bad, +after all. And presently the <i>Feld-lazarett</i> will come up and +put him in a wagon. He will be buried at sundown, when +we halt.... They will give him a firing party and a +bugler—everything will be done decently. After a battle +there is not always—you understand?..." +</p> + +<p> +He shrugged, and the Danish and Austrian war-medals +on his dark blue tunic glinted, in witness of his ripe +knowledge and experience. Hating him still more vigorously, +P. C. Breagh ended his sentence: +</p> + +<p> +"Not always time to stow away lost pawns!" +</p> + +<p> +"'Pawns!' My worthy sir, <i>our</i> pawns are battalions!" The +captain laughed, showing even, but tobacco-stained +teeth under his thick brown mustache. "This was—a +unit among myriads of myriads.... You will find plenty +of work waiting for you among his comrades, if, as I guess, +you are a graduate in surgery out for practice.... Let +me advise you to join a Red Cross ambulance—the +arm-badge is a protection—of a definite kind." +</p> + +<p> +He saluted, gave rein, and the tired, yet impatient horse +snorted relief, and cantered on with him, sending another +shower of dust-grains and gravel-grit over the extinct +"unit among myriads of myriads" and the unkempt +Samaritan hunkering by its side. +</p> + +<p> +A scalding wave of bitterness and resentment had swept +over him a moment previously. Behind and through the +officer's brown-eyed, good-looking face he had seen the +fierce, challenging blue stare and great domed skull and +bulldog jaw of the great Minister who made wars at will. +And the limp, dead body of the "unit among myriads of +myriads," lying by the beaten track where twenty +thousand men thus clad and armed had passed already, had +awakened in him a rage of pity and a fury of disgust. +</p> + +<p> +This War that had seemed such a huge and splendid +world-event, shaking sovereigns upon their thrones and +stirring nations to wildest enthusiasm, meant catastrophes +innumerable as minute; infinitesimal tragedies never to be +heard of, related or known,—involving the humbler and +the weaker among the people of both sides. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile—here was a letter, pinned inside the dead +man's shirt, an ill-spelt, loving scrawl, containing a wilted +sprig of some kind of garden-herb, smelling evilly. +</p> + +<p> +"Glory is glory," said the poor soul who wrote, "but so +thou bring thyself safe back to me and the Kinder, that will +be enough." Meanwhile, entreating her lambkin to +remember that "old man" kept off the fleas, she enclosed +"a bit picked from the clump in the garden border by the +old red gooseberry bush," and with a tender inquiry after +his poor corns, and a row of blotty kisses, signed herself +his faithful wife Lottchen. One could only be sorry for +poor Lottchen and note down her address, together with +her deceased lambkin's name and regiment, and send her +presently a line from a stranger who had been near him +when he died. +</p> + +<p> +For the unit among myriads of myriads, nothing +could be done beyond pulling his yet pliant limbs into +decent straightness and folding the already stiffening hands +upon the unheaving breast. Then P. C. Breagh covered +his face with the red handkerchief, and—a tin crucifix +being suspended from the neck by a leather bootlace—touched +the violet-mottled lips with it, and whispered a +prayer for the departed soul, before, resuming possession +of his discarded jacket and shouldering his knapsack, he +trudged upon his way. +</p> + +<p> +"Our Moltke" was testing his material at the outset, +by heavy marching. Since breakfast-time there had been +no halt; the columns of human flesh and horsemeat had +pegged along, tirelessly as though the sinews that bore +them had been forged of elastic steel. +</p> + +<p> +The blazing sun set in a great whirlpool of molten rubies +and gold beyond the Birkenfeld, while the sky to the north +and east was green, with a vivid, springlike hue. The +clear, thin dusk of August fell, yet the tireless columns +marched on—and in company of other, even queerer +wayfarers, the dusty young man with the knapsack doggedly +continued to trudge beside them. When at length the halt +was sounded, he staggered through a hedge-gap into a field +of flax, and threw himself heavily face downward amid +the yellowing stems that had long ago flowered, and +seeded, and ripened for pulling. +</p> + +<p> +Stupid with weariness, he might have lain there ten +minutes, when a bugle shrilled close by, and the brown, hairy +heads and forelegs of the leaders of a team of gun-horses +crashed through the hedgerow, the scarlet face, open +shouting mouth, and uplifted whip-arm of the forerider showing +above. As luck would have it, orders had been given that +a half-battery of mounted artillery should bivouac in this +flax-field. And death under the iron-shod hoofs of the +horses, and the iron-shod wheels that followed them, shaved +very close to P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +Yet he was not grateful as he picked himself out of the +hollow into which his frog-like, instinctive leap for life had +landed him. The heavy riding-whip of the forerider had +cut him bitterly across the loins while yet in mid-air. +Adding insult to injury, the artilleryman had cursed his +victim for getting in the way of the battery, and the other +riders and the gunners on the limber were grinning from +ear to ear. Smarting, P. C. Breagh cursed back, in a +cautious but vigorous whisper, as he hobbled back to the +road.... +</p> + +<p> +Upon the farther side two half-battalions of infantry, +divided by a little bushy knoll, were already encamped +upon a strip of gorsey grass. The thing had been done as +if by magic, the officers grouped in the foreground round +their little camp tables were drinking Rhine wine and beer +as peacefully as though they had not stirred for hours. +Behind them the battalion-color and the halberd of the +drum-major had been planted upright in the center of an +orderly array of drums and band-instruments, the straight +rows of knapsacks within rolled greatcoats, stretching +away in the rear, were divided by the customary ten-pace +interval, and the mathematically balanced stacks of +needle-guns. +</p> + +<p> +Fires of brush and dry cones from the pine-groves fringing +the road crackled in the small oblong trenches dug by +the fatigue-men. Squad-cooks were cutting up pea-sausages, +raw potatoes, and onions into camp-kettles of water, +destined to simmer, slung on sticks reaching from bank to +bank. And the regimental butchers had already slaughtered +a couple of young bullocks, whose skins lay smoking +by the chopping-block. Presently, when the officers' +mess-cooks had chosen such joints as seemed good to them, the +rest of the meat would go to enrich the stew of the +rank-and-file. Meanwhile the men, scattered to the utmost +limits of the cordon of sentries, blunted the edge of hunger +with black bread and the flinty brown biscuit, crowded +thirstily round the beer and wine-carts, squatted in groups +playing cards, chatting, or singing part-songs; wrestled +and ran races, or dozed lying face downward on the sunburnt +grass, their foreheads resting on their folded arms. +</p> + +<p> +A charming scene, now that the all-pervading dust had +begun to settle—the bivouac roofed in by the clear green +twilight, through which diamond star-points began to +thrust. If only one had been less sharp-set, and the +proprietors of the wine and beer-carts had had bread and +sausage to sell as well as warm, flat beer and musty-smelling +vintage, the beauty would have appealed to one a good +deal more. +</p> + +<p> +Squatted by a lichened boulder in a clump of sun-scorched +bracken, P. C. Breagh searched his pockets, and +then the recesses of his knapsack, for something to eat. +An ancient crust of black bread rewarded his investigations, +just as the savory-smelling camp-kettles were taken +off the fires. +</p> + +<p> +He fell to work upon his crust as the stew was apportioned, +and the big cans of beer distributed to each mess; +and as he gnawed dog-like at the stone-hard lump of baked +rye-dough, he caught the eye of one of the Barmecides, a +merry-faced, red-haired young private, who was evidently +the jester of his squad. +</p> + +<p> +"Our soup smells good, what? Well, the smell may be +had for nothing. He may fill his belly with as much of +that as he can!" +</p> + +<p> +A roar of laughter greeted the sally of the humorist. To +whom P. C. Breagh nodded assent, and, gravely extending +his diminished crust in the quarter from whence the whiff +of oniony pea-soup came most powerfully, fell to with +apparently renewed appetite, provoking the approving +comment: +</p> + +<p> +"He can take a joke! Well, then, let him take this! and +this! Catch it, <i>junge</i>!" +</p> + +<p> +A lump of very fresh beef, boiled in the oniony pea-soup, +was dumped into a bit of newspaper, screwed up, and +pitched across to the supperless. P. C. Breagh gratefully +caught the oleaginous parcel and the two hard Army biscuits +that came after, and, pulling out some small change, +signified his desire to pitch back the coins in return. But +a big hand waved them vigorously away, with the gruff +exclamation: "<i>Der Teufel!</i> let him keep his pfennigs. One +gives a share of one's supper—one doesn't sell!" +</p> + +<p> +And so genuine was the one that, despite the smarting +weal that had been the gift of another less kindly, +P. C. Breagh's faith in humanity lifted up its head. +</p> + +<p> +He disposed of the grub, and drank some hill-water +tinctured with Kinahan, a permissible indulgence in view of +his fatigue, and stuffed the well-used briar-root with bird's +eye, and, propping his back comfortably against the +boulder, kindled the pipe of peace. By nature clubbable, +and athirst for news, he would have liked to mingle with +the replete, unbuttoned soldiers, who, supper over, gathered +round the fires to smoke and chat and sing. But the snub +dealt by Valverden had not left off smarting; the fear of +incurring another rebuff, even from a social inferior, kept +him aloof and solitary. He realized with dismay that his +stock of self-confidence was beginning to run low. +</p> + +<p> +"I'd a lot of faith in myself when I accepted that +commission from Knewbit," he ruminated, chewing hard on +the stem of the venerable briar-root. "More than half +his money's spent—what did I want with that revolver?—and +I haven't written him a line. Instead, I've swotted up +a thundering long descriptive article, telling people all +about what they know already—and sent it to that shaved +sea-elephant in a Gladstone collar, who told me I might +forward letters from the seat of hostilities if ever I got +there!" +</p> + +<p> +He frowned, mentally reviewing the points of the +first-born launched upon the tide of speculation. However +ancient its matter might be, the vigor and mastery of +that descriptive article—completed in the train between +Bingen and Mayence, and dropped with paternal solicitude +into the sack of a corporal of the Field Post—would +surely—could not fail to—insure its appearance in print. +</p> + +<p> +Why did a horrible conviction of its utter stodginess +come home to him at this eleventh hour? Its labored +periods revolted, its stately mawkishness sickened his +memory. He knocked out the pipe-bowl against the boulder +and got out his note-book and began to jot down a letter +to Mr. Knewbit by the light of the now risen moon, who, +with Venus blazing emerald at her opulent side, hung high +in the south-east, looking down upon forest and field, +mountain, valley and river, and the armed men and beasts, +guns and wagon-trains, strung out over leagues of distance, +calmly as befitting an aged Queen familiar with the +portents of War. +</p> + +<p> +She stared down so haughtily at the travel-soiled and +dusty scallawag lying upon the fringe of the bivouac +among the remnants of a meal cadged from a soldier's +camp-kettle, that he caught her eye and broke his pencil-lead. +No! he couldn't write, even well enough to "please +plain, homely people." ... Why, hang it all!—Old +Knewbit must have known from the beginning, to do that +was the highest and most difficult art of all. Men came +into the world equipped, as had come Shakespeare, and +Scott, and Dickens, each with a single feather, such as +might belong to the wing of a Phcenix or an Archangel, +sprouting from his own flesh. Urged by the inborn crave +to set down Life, each had plucked forth his birth-gift with +a pang of unutterable anguish, and there, at the quill-end, +hung a single drop of red, red blood. And that drop +tinctured every page they penned, and thus what they wrote +lived. To be a distinguished War Correspondent one had +to be born with the magic pen-feather. The Doctor had it. +That was why his written sentences dug home to the quick. +Without it, Success would never come to one, no matter +how hard one tried for it. One would be nothing better all +one's life than a plodding paragraphist. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Pity an unlucky youth, fagged, footsore, and smarting, +not only from disillusion and chagrin, but from the very +recent application of an Artillery horsewhip. In addition, +the infantry band had now begun to play with soul-melting +sweetness. First "The Lorelei," and then "Red Dawn +That Lights Me to My Early Grave," and then the song of +Siebel from "Faust"—with all its yearning passion and +tender anguish. And possibly other eyes were wet besides +P. C. Breagh's, who fairly put down his head and sobbed, +under cover of the twilight and the protecting boulder, as +he had not done since his knickerbocker days.... Not +now from a vague, wistful aching for the voice and the +touch of the young, unknown, long-dead mother. Pain +and longing were there, but of how different a kind.... +</p> + +<p> +The reign of Brünhilde-Britomart-Isolde was over. That +night saw the smallest and slenderest of heroines +established on the vacant throne of the Ideal. +</p> + +<p> +He who wept was not the type of a young girl's hero, +choking and gulping, and burrowing his hot, wet face into +the dry, rustling fern. But he suffered as only youth can +suffer, the pangs were very real that wrung from him such +stifled cries as these: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, God! I love her—Juliette de Bayard! ... I +have loved her since the moment our eyes met. My +infernal ingratitude that she forgave like an angel!—the +brutal things I thought and said of her—were because I +could not forgive myself for loving her so. My discontent, +my restlessness, my ambition to do something and be +somebody—weren't they prompted by the longing to cut a +figure in her eyes! ... Lovely eyes;—and at this minute +her husband may be kissing them!—'the noble gentleman, +brave as a lion,' who fought like the deuce and all! Stop, +though! If he's an Army man, he has had to leave her. +Could I have borne to do that if I had had the luck to be +in his shoes? Yet how she would despise a lover who +hesitated between her and his duty! Even if '<i>her heart-strings +about his heels were tied</i>,' as the Suabian ballad says, '<i>she +would bid him march to war!</i>' For a girl like that could +love, mind you! like Juliet and Desdemona and Viola +rolled into one, and yet never be blinded by love into +forgetfulness of God, or honor, or loyalty. It is written in her +face. Are these things first with me? I'm afraid +not!... I think not!... I know they're not!... And +yet I dare to love her—to whom they mean everything!" +</p> + +<p> +His conscience stung and smarted like the weal from +the Artillery whip-lash. And the dread of Death and the +Hereafter wakened in him, shuddering and quaking in the +creeping dusk. +</p> + +<p> +Now he comprehended his own insignificance and weakness +and loneliness.... He had seen a man die that +day, suddenly, without time for preparation, as thousands +of others would die before the ending of this war. What if +to-morrow at the hottest hour the trenchant blade of the +sun should bite through P. C. Breagh's brain-pan? He +heard the other self within him saying "Suppose...?" And +he asked himself, with a cold sweat breaking out upon +his flesh, and a curious stirring among the roots of his +hair, what would have happened only an hour or two +back, if the flying squirrel-leap that had made the white +teeth flash against the brown faces of the gunners on the +limber, had failed to land the dusty scallawag who had +been sleeping in the flax-field beyond reach of the +pounding of the hoofs of the battery-team! ... +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Father, I cry to Thee!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +The soldiers were singing the Battle Prayer of Körner, +the lusty Teutonic basses and baritones and tenors mingling +in melodious unison with the night-breeze that had risen +with the moon. +</p> + +<p> +Previously P. C. Breagh might have smiled at the simultaneous +production of hymn-books, the rising at the word +of command to sing—the short, business-like prayer recited +by an officer, that was followed by a crashing Amen. +</p> + +<p> +Now, it seemed to him, there was something wholesome +and good in the military regulation that united men of +every Christian creed and denomination, with those who +habitually omitted religion from the daily routine, in the +brief act of worship described.... Recalled by it to the +teachings of the Mother Church, he made the sacred sign +upon brow and breast, and whispered his nightly prayers. +The name of Juliette mingled in the entreaty that Our +Lord and His Mother would bless and guard those dear to +the petitioner from danger and harm. +</p> + +<p> +"And not let me come to grief for <i>her</i> sake—of course I +mean Monica's! For she never would have loved me even +if there hadn't been another man. But O! take care of +her, and shield her from evil, sickness, grief, and danger. +And let me see her again one day!" +</p> + +<p> +He grew drowsy, lying against the yet sun-warm boulder, +listening to the distant cry of the mousing owl, and the long +rattling <i>chur'r'r!</i> of the nightjar, mingled with the +occasional snorting of the tethered horses, the measured tramp +of the sentries,—the small explosions made by pine-cones +thrown upon the blazing guard-fires, and the other sounds +of the bivouac. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap38"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXXVIII +</h3> + +<p> +The watch was set at nine o'clock. Then the "Lie Down" +sounded far and near, and the moon stared down on rows +of prone men wrapped in their greatcoats and pillowed on +their knapsacks, stretching away under the pansy-dark +canopy of heaven for miles. +</p> + +<p> +The officers sat for some time longer, drinking their +Rhine wine and playing cards by moonshine and lantern-light, +or strolling, cigar in mouth, upon the outskirts of +the bivouac. Several Artillery-officers, who had supped +with them, went back to their own bivouac after voluble +leave-takings. Infantry-officers, who had shared the +hospitality of the gunners, returned, enlivening the night with, +scraps of gossip, and more or less melodious song. +</p> + +<p> +A couple of these late-comers halted on the outskirts of +the cordon of sentries to finish a confidential conversation. +The moon was obscured by clouds, the bivouac was swathed +in shadow. Of the lumpy boulder by which the Adjutant +stood, only its shape could be discerned against the +dusty-pale grass by the dust-white road. +</p> + +<p> +Said the Adjutant to the senior Captain, and the +excellent cigar he was smoking smelt pleasantly in the dark: +</p> + +<p> +"One can't call yesterday's a big battle, but at the same +time it was a tolerably serious engagement." +</p> + +<p> +The senior Captain snorted. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Donnerwetter!</i> one would think so. Nearly fifteen +hundred prisoners, and Douay's Division obliged to +abandon its camp and baggage. The Crown Prince has begun +well—one expected no less!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Adjutant: +</p> + +<p> +"I shall advise the Herr Colonel to announce the news +to the regiment at roll-call to-morrow. It will make a good +moral impression upon those who are new to Active +Service, when they realize that the French have been +trounced." +</p> + +<p> +Then they were silent a moment, but one felt that both +were crowing. +</p> + +<p> +We know what had happened. Before midday the Crown +Prince had pounded Douay's Division into brickbats, the +brave General himself was dead, the town of Wissembourg +had fallen; by two o'clock the mitrailleuse-batteries on +the Geisburg had been silenced, and the Chateau stormed +and won. +</p> + +<p> +The men of the Imperial Army in Alsace had fought +magnificently. Red-capped, swarthy Turcos in baggy +white breeches, Zouaves and French infantrymen, light +blue Bavarian and dark blue Prussian uniforms, with what +had been brave men inside them, lay scattered among the +hop-gardens and vineyards on the mountain-side. +</p> + +<p> +Of these no doubt the Adjutant was thinking when he +threw away his cigar-butt and said, with a sigh and an oath +together: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Kreuzdonnerwetter!</i> one does not win victories for +nothing. It must have been a bloody fight, and especially +in the streets; you understand me? The French fired from +the windows, and from the roofs of the houses.... There +was a terrible struggle at the point of the bayonet, and both +sides used the butt—liberally!" +</p> + +<p> +"The butt may be brutal," commented the senior Captain, +clearing his throat and expectorating copiously; "but +all the same it is a hellishly useful thing!" +</p> + +<p> +"Why leave your enemy brains when he may live to +plan your defeat by the use of them?" agreed the Adjutant. +The scabbard of his sword clinked, as he moved, against +the boulder, and the sound made an eavesdropper go +goose-fleshy all over, as he lay prone among dry bents and +bracken in the blackness on the farther side. Then he +heard the Captain ask: +</p> + +<p> +"Did the Crown Prince continue the advance to-day?" +and strained his ears for the Staff officer's reply. +</p> + +<p> +"Undoubtedly! Moltke's telegram from the King's +Headquarters at Mainz ran: '<i>Seek out and fight the enemy +wherever you may find him,</i>' and Marshal MacMahon is +said to be concentrating all his force on a high plateau +between Froeschwiller and Eberbach, west of the Sauer and +the Sulz. The bridges have been broken—his position is +an exceptionally strong one.... Of course you know the +kind of ground!" +</p> + +<p> +"Open ground," snorted the Captain, "over which an +assailant must pass to get at him. <i>Sapperlot!</i> don't I wish +I'd had the chance to-day!" +</p> + +<p> +"You are too greedy, Scheren," joked the Adjutant. +"Ts't! What was that?" +</p> + +<p> +Both men were silent, intently listening. For the +eavesdropper, titillated to madness by a spear of seed-grass that +had thrust up a nostril, had given a smothered sneeze. +Now on the point of discovery, he found presence of mind +sufficient to repeat the sneeze, panting doggishly, whining +and scratching among the fern.... +</p> + +<p> +The ruse was successful. The Adjutant said, laughingly: +</p> + +<p> +"It's a dog, nosing at a rat or rabbit-hole. +Under-Lieutenant Brand's terrier 'Nagler,' perhaps." +</p> + +<p> +"Hie, then, boy!" +</p> + +<p> +"Here, Nagler!" +</p> + +<p> +The Captain whistled, the other man advised indifferently: +</p> + +<p> +"Let the brute alone—perhaps the rabbit's a French +one!" He added, "It would be amusing to read a dog's +Impressions of the campaign. What time is it? 'Ten!' Very +well, I shall go and turn in. You'll do the same +thing if you'll take my advice." +</p> + +<p> +The Captain grunted assent, and the two officers clanked +away together, while P. C. Breagh noiselessly collected his +venerable waterproof, his water-bottle, and knapsack, and +departed in search of a more distant sleeping-place. +</p> + +<p> +But when he found it in a dry ditch a quarter-of-a-mile +below the Mounted Artillery bivouac, and stretched +himself out to sleep, he could not.... His head rang with +the news that would presently thrill the civilized world. +</p> + +<p> +First blood to Germany.... Did the Doctor know? ... +</p> + +<p> +That genial little gentleman had prophesied accurately. +The "meaty bone" of early and accurate information had +fallen to the "tyke at the tail of the Army Corps." While +the prophet, delayed by pumped-out horses and recalcitrant +grooms, at the Lion Inn of Neustadt, knew no more than +that the heir to the Prussian Crown was over the frontier, +and was reported to have taken Wissembourg from the +French. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +That dry ditch accommodated a complacent lodger. His +misgivings banished by one stroke of fortune, P. C. Breagh +brooded sleeplessly over the Koh-i-noor that had fallen +to him.... Though, to hold such a jewel and know oneself +impotent to use it, that was the verjuice mingled in +the cup of bliss. +</p> + +<p> +Without funds for telegraphing—an Editor to print +one's letters—and a public ready to read, what was the use +of information? Stop! What was that the more authoritative +of the two officers had said?—the one who had given +the news to the other man? "<i>It would be amusing to read +a dog's impressions of the campaign! ...</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Would it? Such a dog, perhaps, as the mongrel that +had joined the green-jacketed Saxon infantry regiment at +Bingen. The cur the compassionate soldier had christened +"Bang." Lying on his back, pillowed on his knapsack, +staring at the waning moon, the boy pondered. Suppose +one wrote one's letters to Knewbit in the assumed character +of Bang? +</p> + +<p> +The idea grew, and he sat up to review its possibilities. +Something soft and feathery brushed past his ear as he +stirred. An owlet, most likely, yet I prefer to believe that +it may have been the wing of Inspiration, touching the +head destined to be crowned by Fame. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"Pages from the Diary of 'Bang,' the Battalion Dog." That +should be the title, or simply, "The Story of 'Bang.'" "Short +and to the point," he heard Mr. Knewbit saying. +And Knewbit ... +</p> + +<p> +Here was day! ... +</p> + +<p> +Reveille after reveille sounded, shattering his train of +thought, waking the hilly echoes. Under how strange a +sky the bugles clamored, the bivouac stopped snoring; +men sat up on dew-wet cloaks and rubbed their eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The cup of heaven was red as though brimmed with blood +new-drained from the veins of heroes. In the leftward +hemisphere looking East, Ursa Major swam in blood, +blazing with white-hot fierceness. On the ensanguined +South the Dog cowered as though in terror. And like a +skeleton arm, the Milky Way pointed over the blood-dabbled +hill-crests and the blood-tipped pine-groves from the +south-east, West.... +</p> + +<p> +Men's faces and hands were crimsoned by reflections cast +from that portentous sunrise, the dew-wet grasses were +dyed the same hue. +</p> + +<p> +They broke their fast on their black bread washed down +with bitter black coffee. In the pause that followed the +roll-call, a voice spoke. And amid deafening cheers the +news sprang from bearded lip to lip. +</p> + +<p> +"Lucky is the standard that flies over the first-fought +field!" says the proverb. +</p> + +<p> +How those Teutons marched, that day of rain-pelts and +thunderstorms, upheld by their first draft of the strong +wine of Success! +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +At Mayence, Moltke had commented to his Sovereign, +with his keen old eyes twinkling with joy: +</p> + +<p> +"Douay's troops were preparing their evening coffee +when the Prince with his four Divisions appeared on the +heights above Schweigen. The Red Breeches thought it +was a <i>promenade militaire</i> in the Second Empire style, +until the shells began to plop into their cooking-pots!" +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks be to Heaven!" returned King William piously, +"our artillery-fire has improved since the Bohemian campaign." +</p> + +<p> +"All the same," returned the Warlock, shaking the wise +old head cased in the auburn scratch-wig, "their musketry +should do much for the French. For the chassepot is +quicker in loading than our needle-gun, and spits less, +which is better for the aim.... Then our needle-gun has +A poor trajectory at 500 yards, and wounds rather than +kills outright. While the chassepot bullet,—driven by its +huge charge of powder—has a splendidly flat trajectory, +And flattening out,—makes a magnificent wound! In at +the chest—out at the shoulder-blades! ... The man has +a hole in him you can see the landscape through!" +</p> + +<p> +And he nibbed his withered hands, the old specialist in +slaughter. While Bismarck said, laughing, to his cousin +and military <i>attaché</i>: +</p> + +<p> +"The enthusiast forgets that the perforated examples +will be German.... Look at him! Already he begins +to resemble a bird of prey. Have you read these French +newspapers? The King has laughed heartily over them, +but they must horribly irritate the Emperor. Listen to +this, from the <i>Constitutionnel: 'Prussia continues to insult +us with impunity, when the Armies of the Empire, at a +word from their Chief, might descend like three crashing +avalanches upon the hosts of Germany. Why is the word +not uttered? Why is the massacre—with the rout that +must inevitably follow, delayed for a single hour?</i>'" ... +</p> + +<p> +The Emperor had perused the leaders, in his headquarters +at the Prefecture at Metz. His eyes seemed opaque as +clouded glass, his face was a puffy mask, devoid of expression, +as he replied to the hinted condolences of a sycophant +upon his staff. +</p> + +<p> +"The opinions of these gentlemen of the Press were not +solicited. They are free to criticize me, let them do so. +I am not bound to divulge to them my plans." +</p> + +<p> +Alas! vacillation, hesitation, and delay on the part of the +Imperial Commander-in-Chief fatally clogged the movements +of his magnificent Army. He did not put in an +appearance with his staff at headquarters until a fortnight +subsequent to the Declaration of War. A week later—and +no Plan of Campaign had been issued to his generals. +True, he had demolished, with field-fire, a beer-shop at +Saarbrück. He had paraded on the hills with Frossard's Army +Corps. He had witnessed the evacuation of the town by +its tiny garrison—had withdrawn his advanced posts and +gone home to Metz to dine and telegraph to Paris of the +"capture of the heights" and the "short resistance of the +Prussians";—to tell of the cannon-balls and bullets which +fell at his own feet, and those of the Prince Imperial, "who +showed admirable coolness." "Some of the soldiers wept," +he adds, "beholding him so calm...." +</p> + +<p> +And indeed, though one takes the soldiers' tears with a +grain of salt, the spirited bearing of the boy must have +cheered the sick heart of his father, and yet thrust another +dagger in it, too. +</p> + +<p> +Had the Imperial Commander-in-Chief any plan, one +wonders.... Long after he had ceased to be Emperor, +a pamphlet was published at Brussels, which is generally +accepted as the work of the pen that signed the Capitulation +of Sedan. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>To Marshals MacMahon and Lebœuf alone, the Emperor +had entrusted his scheme of warfare. His purpose was—to +mass 150,000 troops at Metz, 100,000 at Strasbourg, and +50,000 at the Camp of Châlons. The concentration of the +first two armies—one on the Sarre, and the other on the +Rhine—did not reveal the purpose of the Imperial +Commander-in-Chief, for the enemy would be left in +uncertainty as to whether the attack would be made against the +Rhenish Provinces or the Duchy of Baden.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Would the Warlock have long remained in uncertainty? +But hear the pamphleteer: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>As soon as the troops should have been concentrated at +the points indicated, it was the Emperor's purpose to +instantly unite the armies of Metz and Strasbourg; and at the +head of 250,000 men, to cross the Rhine at Maxau, compel +the Southern States of Germany to observe neutrality, and +hasten to encounter the Army of Prussia.</i>" Later on +occurs the pathetic complaint: "<i>If one could only know +beforehand exactly where the enemy was, one's plans would +be easy to carry out!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Indeed, the dispositions of Moltke were made with +baffling secrecy. Even as the Heathen Chinee accommodated +card-packs innumerable in his ample sleeves, so the +Warlock hid the twelve Army Corps of the North German +Confederation, with the Prussian Guard Corps, the +Bavarian Field Army and the Württemberg and Baden +Divisions, in the skirts of his military cloak.... When the +moment came, the aged conjuror twitched open the garment +and showed them: Steinmetz with the First Army at +Treves, Prince Frederick Charles with the Second at +Mayence, the Crown Prince with the Third at Landau. +</p> + +<p> +When the Three Armies rolled on, the art of the strategist +covered their movements with a baffling veil of cavalry. +That immense, well-organized and highly mobilized arm +was thrown well forward before the Germans crossed the +frontier: at their first entry into France they came in +contact with French troops. A day's march ahead of the +Army Corps' advanced-guards, Divisions of Uhlans, +Dragoons and Hussars—(in a little all were "Uhlans" to +the terrified French peasants)—provided for the security of +the huge infantry bivouacs behind them; made requisitions +for provisions, fuel, and forage; rendered railways and +telegraphs useless—scouted for the enemy's positions—took +prisoner or shot dispatch-bearers and patrol-riders—harassed +marches, and boldly fired into camps. Many fell +in forays, or skirmishes, many were those accounted for by +the long-range hitting chassepot, which was heartily +detested by Prussia's mounted men. +</p> + +<p> +"If I had not been called to Metz to attend an Imperial +War-Council," Marshal MacMahon is reported to have said +bitterly, when the news of the defeat of Wissembourg +reached him, "this blow upon the south would not have +fallen. My Second Division would still be left to guard +the opening between the Vosges and the Rhine." +</p> + +<p> +The thunder of the guns of Worth add their comment +upon that utterance. +</p> + +<p> +Over the head of the town, lying at the bottom of a +fertile valley patched with hop-gardens and vineyards, and +threaded by a river, was waged between the Marshal with +50,000 troops, the pick and flower of the French Army, +and "Unser Fritz" with twice the number of men, a +desperate and bloody fight. +</p> + +<p> +The French on the bluffy wooded cliffs that are the foothills +of the Vosges, occupied, as strategists have declared, +an almost unassailable position. But the fire of the +mitrailleuses was hampered by the artillery of the 2d Bavarians +under Hartmann, that seasoned veteran, who had fought +at Waterloo in 1815 and now led an Army Corps against +France in his seventy-sixth year. Thus the Prussian +infantry crossed the Sauerbach on bridges improvised of +planks and hop poles; and though the chassepot proved an +infinitely deadlier weapon than the needle-gun, the +generalship of Von Kirchbach and Von der Tann,—in command +of the Prussian 4th Division and 5th Corps, backed by a +division of the 11th Corps,—forced MacMahon's hand. +</p> + +<p> +Outnumbered, outflanked and disorganized, with the +loss of 9,000 men killed, 5,000 taken prisoners, twenty +pieces of artillery, six mitrailleuses, and two eagles, the +Marshal fled by the way of Zabern, under cover of night, +trailing after him the beaten remnant of the Army of +Strasbourg. +</p> + +<p> +The Third Army of Germany had lost 489 officers and +10,153 rank and file. Before night of the 7th the dead +were buried in great trenches, the columns of the Society +of the Red Cross, the Sisters of Mercy and Lutheran +Deaconesses, with surgeons, volunteers, and Army +ambulance-bearers, had cleared the wounded from the field. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! if we had only had this sort of thing at the Alma +and at Inkerman!" a grizzled Zouave sapper growled to +one of the ladies of the Red Cross. "I was wounded +there—sacred name of a pipe! My belt-buckle was carried by +a shell-splinter through my ceinture into my stomach. +This very buckle, look you, that I wear to-day!" He +added, rubbing the locality of the previous casualty: +"There is nothing inside there now, because of late they +have not fed us, or our chassepots. How the devil can +men kill Prussians without soup in their bellies or cartridges +in their guns?" +</p> + +<p> +The Zouave spoke truth. It was a half-equipped and +under-rationed army that had made such a splendid show +at Froeschwiller. It was a starving, demoralized remnant +that surged and weltered through the passes of the Vosges +at MacMahon's flying heels. Cavalry on foot, Zouaves +riding Artillery-horses, mitrailleuse corps without +mitrailleuses, baggage-wagons crowded with men of a dozen +different regiments, went clanking and jolting over the roads +that were littered with discarded chassepots, bearing +witness to the pitiable, ghastly disorder of the retreat. +</p> + +<p> +The hour of their defeat had seen Frossard's Army Corps +holding with Forton's Cavalry Brigade the heights over +Saarbrück, simultaneously attacked by the 7th and 8th +Corps of Unser Fritz's terrible army, and driven back in +confusion and with slaughter, toward Metz. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap39"></a></p> + +<h3> +XXXIX +</h3> + +<p> +The huge peacock-bubble of the Third Empire was +pricked and leaking in good earnest. Thenceforward it +was to shrink, and pale, and dwindle to its inglorious end. +</p> + +<p> +The Emperor must have known its days were numbered, +when those wires of the 6th reached him. On the 7th the +news of Wörth electrified Paris. Can you hear Jules +Ferry joyfully exclaiming to the father of Paul Déroulède, +"The armies of the Third Napoleon are annihilated! At +last there dawns a day of hope for France!" But fierce, +triumphant voices like these were drowned in the muffled +sobs of mothers, the moans of wives made widows, and the +wailing of children now fatherless. Later, and as though +to enhance the bitterness of defeat, lying telegrams were +published in Paris, announcing that the Duke of Magenta +had retaken Wissembourg, captured sixty guns, and made +25,000 prisoners. Chief among these unlucky ones figured +the Prussian Crown Prince, who in an access of despair +had shot himself.... +</p> + +<p> +For some hours the streets and boulevards were packed +with rejoicing multitudes. Cries of "<i>Vive l'Empereur</i>," +scarce at this era as snowflakes in summer, were suddenly +heard again. Flags and Chinese lanterns were displayed +from every window, the people stopped the hansom-cab in +which the famous Opera tenor Capoul was being driven +along the Place de la Bourse, and, hoisting their idol to the +top of a stationary omnibus, compelled him to chant the +"<i>Marseillaise</i>." +</p> + +<p> +When the Emperor's sorrowful dispatches of the 7th +revealed the cruel truth, and proclamations signed by the +Empress and the Ministers made it public, rapture gave +place to frenzy of the wildest. Troops of cuirassiers and +mounted Gardes de Paris,—bands of National Guards,—companies +of the Line, and Marines were employed to clear +the Rue de la Paix, and the Places de l'Opéra and +Vendôme, of rioters. +</p> + +<p> +The Chambers assembled amid tumult indescribable. +Ministers were insulted on their way to attend the +deliberations. "<i>À la Frontière!</i>" cried the huge crowd, thronging +the quay before the Palace of the Corps Législatif. "<i>Vive +Rochefort!</i>" "<i>À bas les Ministres!</i>" "<i>Chassepôts!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Their reiterated demands for arms could be heard within +the Chamber. Where, when M. Schneider mounted the +tribune to read the Imperial Decree of Convocation, the +opening formula: "Napoleon, by the Grace of God and the +national will, Emperor of the French," was vigorously +howled down. Ollivier, the unpopular Head of the Imperial +Cabinet, who had egged on the war, fared no better. Later, +the fall of his Ministry was greeted with salvo upon salvo +of enthusiastic applause, and when the news was published +all Paris went mad once more with joy. +</p> + +<p> +While the moment of supreme collapse of the great +peacock bubble was coming nearer, the Crown Prince of +Prussia was hunting MacMahon through the defiles of the +Vosges, his flying cavalry snapping up scores of wounded +or footsore stragglers, his advance batteries of light +artillery harassing the bleeding flanks of the fugitive. The +Second and First Armies were moving Metzward, the Warlock +having knowledge that the Emperor's main Army, the +Imperial Guard, and Bazaine's, Ladmirault's and Frossard's +Corps, with part of Canrobert's, were concentrating +there. +</p> + +<p> +The Great Bubble was sagging pitifully. The weather +was wet and chilly, the Imperial troops not yet in action +were disheartened by the news of battles lost. Their +equipment was incomplete, their new boots had proved to be of +no better material than brown paper and American cloth. +Worst of all, the Commissariat, always inadequate, showed +signs of caving in. And the blame for all was heaped upon +the shoulders of the Emperor, whose faith in his fortunate +star had quite deserted him; a man tormented by telegrams +of wifely censure and wifely advice from Paris; +disgruntled, if ever man was; haunted and oppressed by +premonitions of impending disaster; sleepless, shaky, sick, +and prematurely old. +</p> + +<p> +The taking of the fortresses of Bitche and Phalsbourg—memorable +by reason of its brave Governor's resolute +defense—the seizure of the undefended City of Nancy, the +Zorn Valley railway line, Forbach with its immense military +stores, Sarreguemines, and other garrison towns were +lesser shocks, falling on a mind already paralyzed. Hasty +decisions, contradictory orders, had emanated, one after +another, from the Headquarters. He was confused and +flurried, finding his good brother of Prussia so near. For the +Warlock, scenting a movement of French troops to the +rear, had crowned the uplands eastward of Metz with the +1st and 7th Corps of the First Army of Germany under the +veteran General Steinmetz, cavalry well to the fore and +outposts skillfully posted, so as to look into the French +position from all points of view, while the Red Prince felt +for a solid footing for his Second Army on the left or +French bank of the Moselle. Meanwhile, the Crown Prince, +whose clutches Marshal MacMahon had evaded by taking +a vast circuit to Châlons, had swept round and was +marching northward from Vigneulles toward Metz. +</p> + +<p> +Ah! in what a hornet's nest the Imperial Commander-in-Chief +found himself. Almost incapable of mental effort, he +recognized, like Mr. Wilkins Micawber,—whose epistolary +style is occasionally suggested by his Proclamations and +harangues,—that something had to be done at once. To +shake off the intolerable burden of authority was the most +urgent necessity. He transferred it to the youngest of his +Marshals, Bazaine. +</p> + +<p> +"You will get us out of this, won't you, Marshal?" +cried an officer of the Imperial Staff, as the new +Commander-in-Chief came out of the Prefecture. +</p> + +<p> +The Marshal had left his Imperial master in bed, expecting +answers to letters he had penned to the Emperor of +Austria and the King of Italy, soliciting aid and alliance, +which these potentates did not bestow. True to himself, +he could not quit Metz without a proclamation, penned in +the old flourishing, ambiguous style: +</p> + +<p> +"Inhabitants of Metz. In leaving you to oppose the +invading enemy, I rely upon your patriotism to defend this +great city. You will not allow the foreigner to seize this +bulwark of France, and you will emulate the Army in +courage and devotion.... I hope to return in happier +times to thank you for your noble conduct." +</p> + +<p> +Then he quitted the place with his son, his cousin and +his personal following and escort. As his <i>cortège</i> clattered +through the streets choked with soldiers, guns, +provision-carts and baggage-wagons, and faces of contempt, or +derision, or hatred turned to see, did he hide his sick, +humiliated face behind the green silk screen of the carriage +window? How did he answer the inevitable questions of +his son? +</p> + +<p> +A prey to hideous uncertainties, for the new Commander-in-Chief +had suddenly applied to be superseded, the luckless +Emperor spent the night at the camp at Longeville, +waking upon a foggy morning—if he could be said to sleep, +who never slept—to a brisk salute of Prussian guns. For +a patrol of Uhlans with a half battery had made, during +the night, a bold attempt to seize upon the Imperial person, +and being foiled within an ace of success, had retreated, +plumping a shell or so into the lines from the German side +of the river. And while these hornets were being repulsed +with heavy metal, the muddy, travel-stained Army of the +Red Prince crossed the river lower down; the little episode +described having diverted attention from their transit; +effected, even as in a jam of batteries, battalions, +squadrons, baggage and ammunition-trains, the French retreat +was being made. +</p> + +<p> +So choked were the roads that the Emperor and his suite +with the Imperial Guard Escort only managed to struggle +as far as Gravelotte, a village some eight miles from Metz, +where Bazaine had his headquarters: +</p> + +<p> +"Gentlemen, we will remain here, but keep the baggage +packed!" had been the Emperor's instructions to his +following upon alighting at the inn, where two miserable +bedrooms were with difficulty obtained for himself and his +son. Prince Napoleon and the other personages of the +suite found harborage at various cottages; the lackeys slept +in the baggage-fourgons, it may be hazarded. For in the +morning these vehicles and their attendants were found +to have disappeared. They had departed for Verdun, +whither their master was now to follow them. Bazaine, +who could not shuffle off his now detested responsibilities, +was summoned, to find the Imperial carriage standing in +readiness before the tavern door. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap40"></a></p> + +<h3> +XL +</h3> + +<p> +One can see the splendid bays, clamping their bits of +solid silver, their sleek skins and their costly harness +glittering in the sunshine that had driven the early morning +fogs away, the postilions and outriders in their green and +gold liveries sitting in the saddle, the landaus of the suite +drawn up at the distance prescribed by etiquette. +</p> + +<p> +Everybody was breakfastless, save the Emperor, his son, +and cousin, and their immediate following. The regiment +of Chasseurs d'Afrique, the gorgeous Cent Gardes in +gold-crested, crimson-tufted, silver helmets with flowing white +horsetails and caped cloaks of azure, were empty of all but +air, like their own famous kettledrums. Their horses had +cropped a little grass in the fields during the night's +bivouac, and were better off than their riders, by one +meal. +</p> + +<p> +The young Prince Imperial looked sulky and discontented, +but neat and soldierlike in his new uniform of a +subaltern of infantry. Prince Jerome Napoleon, the portly +M. Plon-Plon of the Crimean War caricatures, wore a +cocked hat pulled down hard over his eyes, and was +buttoned up in a military cloak. +</p> + +<p> +The Emperor had suffered in the night, for a traveler +who had slept in an attic above his bedroom had heard him +pacing to and fro and groaning. He wore a black-caped, +red-lined waterproof cloak over the uniform of a General +of Division; a glimpse of the Star of the Legion of Honor +fastened on his breast showed as he raised his hand to throw +away the butt of the inseparable cigarette, and set his neat +little polished gold-spurred boot on the carriage-step, and +beckoned with a small white-kid-gloved hand. +</p> + +<p> +Obeying this signal, a green-and-gold equerry and a +demure elderly valet hoisted him respectfully on one side, +while a keen-eyed, lean-jawed young man, accurately +attired in deep black, propped him scientifically upon the +other. We know this deft and silent personage to have +been a brilliant young Paris surgeon, retained about the +person of the Emperor; a specialist whose ministrations, in +dulling unbearable pain with subcutaneous injections of +morphia, and combating the progress of disease by skilled +surgical treatment, became more necessary every day. +</p> + +<p> +They got him in. The sweat was starting through the +rouge upon his livid face as he sank heavily upon the seat +of the carriage. His son and cousin followed. Bazaine,—who +was accompanied by Canrobert and Bourbaki, and did +not dismount, rode up to receive his master's farewells. +</p> + +<p> +He did not entreat again to be relieved of the supreme +responsibility. Perhaps the Emperor imagined that he +might. For he put out his hand in haste and shook the +Marshal's, reiterating: +</p> + +<p> +"All will go well! Excellently, I have no doubt of it! +You understand, you have broken the spell." +</p> + +<p> +Of ill-luck, did he mean, clinging to the fatalist whose +Star was on the point of setting. He added: +</p> + +<p> +"I go to Verdun and Châlons. Put yourself upon the +road for Châlons as soon as possible.... May you be +fortunate! <i>Au revoir! En avant!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +The brigadier-general in charge of the escort gave the +word. The Advance was sounded, the Chasseurs on their +gray Arabs dashed onward, riding in fours, keeping a sharp +lookout for Uhlans. A half-troop of Cent Gardes preceded +the Emperor's carriage, his equerries and aides and those +of the Prince's household followed on their empty, chafing +beasts. Another <i>peloton</i> of Cent Gardes were succeeded +by three Imperial carriages containing the surgeon, +secretaries and valets; grooms followed with led horses; and the +Empress's regiment of Dragoons, brass-helmeted, black-plumed +warriors, in green with white plastrons, brought up +the rear. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +It was four o'clock in the morning when they started. +Deep defiles rather than roads, with wooded, precipitous +banks, stretch between Metz and Gravelotte. By the time +the Imperial <i>cortège</i> had extricated itself from the stray +columns and batteries choking these, and the cliffy banks +had lowered to hedgerows, it was six o'clock and a gloriously +sunny morning. +</p> + +<p> +One may imagine, as the landscape broadened and +smoothed like a human face relieved from carking anxiety, +the young Prince Imperial turning in his seat, and looking +back upon the scene he was unwillingly quitting, with a +scowl of resentment and dissatisfaction that changed and +aged his boyish face. +</p> + +<p> +He saw the white tents of the huge camps of the Imperial +Divisions snowing over a vast area of country on the French +side of the river, and the clotting of cavalry and infantry in +swarms upon the roads, where vast aggregations of baggage +and provisions and ambulance wagons impeded their passage. +He saw the Imperial Standard break out above the +Tricolor on the flagstaff of the Fort of Plappeville, +signifying that Bazaine had entered. He could see the +artillery-batteries on the high ground at Rezerieulles, and he knew +that others were posted behind the woods of Genivaux, +and yet others near the quarries of Amanvilliers. The +glitter of steel and the flutter of red and white +lance-pennons told of the Light Cavalry outposts at St. Ruffine. +And sinister moving specks upon the hill-crests beyond the +river above St. Barbe—and others moving in the villages, +with darker, bigger patches toward Sarrebourg, testified, +like the gray-white drifts of powder-smoke that came down +upon the northeast breeze, with the reduplicated rattle of +musketry, the detonation of field-guns and the yapping of +mitrailleuses—to the near, active presence of the ancient, +racial foe. +</p> + +<p> +<i>He</i> was drawing nearer, always nearer, to the coveted +key-city of the Two Rivers, seated within her ancient +fortifications, guarding the northeast frontiers of France. +<i>He</i> wanted Metz, with her vast modern arsenal, her huge +hospitals and military colleges, her fifteen bridges—(the +railway-bridge had been blown up by Bazaine's engineers +on the night before last, when the squadron of Uhlans, +greatly daring, had made their way into the French lines, +with the project of seizing upon the person of papa)—and +her glorious Cathedral, whose vast gray bulk was now +bathed in the misty golden sunshine of a perfect autumn +day. +</p> + +<p> +Soon, soon, those indomitable dark blue soldiers would be +at grips with Frenchmen for the possession of Metz. Oh! not +to be able to fire a shot, or strike a blow with her +defenders, because of one's pitiable weakness and youth! +Oh! to be perpetually guarded and protected and plucked +from the very possibility of danger, because one happened +to be Heir to the Imperial Throne. +</p> + +<p> +Why had the Emperor resigned the supreme command +of the Army? There had been reverses—does a +Commander-in-Chief give up for that? True, he was not well, +but the First Napoleon had fought battles and won them, +in spite of cramps and colic. <i>He</i> would never have driven +away under the noses of King Wilhelm and Count Bismarck +and the Prince Commanders. He would have called +the nephew who could commit such an <i>impair</i> as that a +<i>godichon</i>. He would have said: "To the devil with you, +who boast yourself of my blood! A Napoleon—and not a +general! You might have proved yourself a fighter, at +least!" +</p> + +<p> +The soldiers regarded the Emperor's resignation as the +Great Napoleon would have done. They had not cried +"<i>Vive l'Empereur!</i>" when papa had driven out of Metz. +Upon the contrary, they had maintained silence, scowling +or sneering covertly. To-day, the meanest piou-piou had +presumed to wink or grin. More, voices from the depths of +company-columns had called out horrible insults; things +that had made the son's teeth set and his fists clench with +the passionate desire to thrash the offenders, yet had not +twitched one muscle in the father's impassive face.... +</p> + +<p> +"Why do you look back so often, Louis? What are you +thinking about?" +</p> + +<p> +The Emperor's question brought the young head round. +He muttered, twisting the gold knot of his little sword: +</p> + +<p> +"I am looking at the Army, and at Metz—and at those +Uhlan outposts. And I want to know why we are going +away—just because the Prussians are coming? Why +cannot we stay—and fight?" +</p> + +<p> +The diplomatic, evasive answer came: +</p> + +<p> +"Because for the present it is more prudent that we +should withdraw ourselves." +</p> + +<p> +The boy shrugged, almost imperceptibly, and his young +face took on an expression of heavy obstinacy, bringing +out, quite startlingly, a resemblance to the sire. He +muttered: +</p> + +<p> +"All very well.... But it isn't nice to—absquatulate!" +</p> + +<p> +The slang term <i>filer</i> might be rendered as above. The +Emperor's gray face with the patches of rouge on the flaccid +cheeks moved not a muscle. Turning his hunched shoulders +upon the scene of his horrible humiliations, he stared with +fixed eyes along the road to Verdun, stretching away to the +west between its bordering poplars, whose long blue +shadows—the day being yet young—barred the white dust +rather suggestively. +</p> + +<p> +At Etain, where the <i>cortège</i> halted for breakfast, the +Prince had a much nearer view of those ubiquitous +horsemen in the dark blue uniforms. Indeed, the Emperor and +his suite barely escaped a surprise, and the escort of Cent +Gardes, who were here replaced by some of MacMahon's +Chasseurs d'Afrique, were hotly chased and sniped at on +the way back to camp. +</p> + +<p> +Through the journey of that night, performed in the +cushionless plank seats of a third-class carriage, his suite +being accommodated in a string of cattle-trucks, of what +did the sleepless Emperor think? What questions occupied +that sick and sluggish brain? +</p> + +<p> +The question of returning to Paris, the refuge he longed +for and yet dreaded inexpressibly. The question as to +whether the Empress Regent would welcome the Emperor +who could no longer rule the State, and what kind of +ovation the people would extend to the General who had +deserted the Army of Metz before the advancing hordes of +United Germany. +</p> + +<p> +Would not Rebellion, Anarchy and Revolution rear up +their hydra-heads to greet the Third Napoleon, reëntering +his capital? Would his reign end in the explosion of a +bomb, and a shower of torn flesh and scattered blood upon +the paving-stones? Would his son ever wear the Imperial +crown, won by bribery, bloodshed, fraud and trickery? +Would the Church forgive the rape of temporal power? +Would Heaven succor one who had defrauded Her? Was +this the beginning of the end? +</p> + +<p> +Lugubrious doubts like these and many others haunted +his sleepless pillow in the Imperial pavilion of the camp on +the dusty plains of Champagne. Dismantled at the close +of the October maneuvers, and now hastily prepared for +the Emperor's reception, the place was damp, dismal, and +cheerless, as such places usually are. +</p> + +<p> +The newly levied troops were showing signs of +insubordination; the Gardes Mobiles from Paris were in open +mutiny against their generals. The great camp was a +wasp's nest, which the presence of the Emperor stirred to +frenzy; the lewd songs in which he figured, the yells of +savage laughter greeting obscene jests leveled at him and +his, reached him, pacing the mildewed carpets underneath +the damp-stained draperies festooned from the claws of +Imperial eagles, whose gilding was tarnished and +discolored, like the Imperial central crown. +</p> + +<p> +All night he paced, on thorns. With the dawn of day he +had the answer to his questions. From the Empress, who +wished him to abdicate that she might reign for her son; +from the new War Minister, a creature of his own +aggrandizing, who by influencing the Empress, who detested him, +dreamed of becoming another Richelieu; from the Prefect +of Police—who indeed brought the warning in person—came +a triple sentence of exile for the sick, dejected man. +</p> + +<p> +Spewed forth again upon the road toward the northern +frontier, he was a clog upon the feet of the army that +might, by a movement in which boldness combined with +rapidity, have relieved Bazaine at the critical moment and +changed the fate of France. Thenceforth he was to be a +passive witness, rather than a participator, in scene after +scene of horrible disaster; disgraces, disillusions, defeats, +crowding one upon the other, to be crowned by the +unspeakable catastrophe of Sedan. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap41"></a></p> + +<h3> +XLI +</h3> + +<p> +Three hours after the Emperor had driven out of Gravelotte +the Red Prince had blocked the direct road to Verdun. +The First Army had crossed the Moselle. Moltke and the +Royal Headquarter Staff were already at Pont à Mousson, +the Crown Prince was marching toward Châlons. +</p> + +<p> +At this stage of the game, the Warlock gave the signal. +Von Redern's guns opened suddenly on the French cavalry +camp near Vionville. You remember the squadrons were +watering: Murat's Dragoons stampeded with their baggage-trains, +De Gramont's troopers sent in a volley of carbine-fire, +mounted and retired in less haste. This was the opening +figure of the three days of bloody conflict waged in the +rural tract between the northern edges of the Bois de Vaux +and the Forest of Jaumont. The French call it the "Battle +of St. Privat," the Germans the battle of +Gravelotte-St. Privat. +</p> + +<p> +The Great Headquarters of the Prussian Commander-in-Chief +were at the riverside town of Pont à Mousson, some +ten miles distant from the war-theater—whose stage +occupied some six square miles of undulating, wooded, +ravine-gashed country-side. +</p> + +<p> +And here, his possessing genius, or demon, prompting +him, the tactics of Moltke abruptly changed. +</p> + +<p> +I have fancied the Warlock getting up at cockcrow on +the day of Vionville,—he had a little folding camp-bed he +always slept upon. Undressed to shirt and drawers, he +would roll himself in a gray-striped blanket which did not +reveal the fact when it needed washing, and cover himself +on chilly nights with a big, shabby, military cloak. +</p> + +<p> +Beside the bed, with the extinguished candle-lantern, +standing on a corner of it, was the little portable +campaign-table, covered with faded green baize. His maps were +spread on this, and an Army revolver of large caliber lay +atop of them, well within reach of its owner's practiced +hand. +</p> + +<p> +He sponged his old face and sinewy neck economically in +a basin of cold water, carefully washed his hands, rinsed his +mouth and put on a clean white shirt. A white drill waistcoat +went on under the old red-faced uniform frock, with +the distinctive shoulder-cords of Chieftaincy of the Great +General Staff and the Order of Merit dangling from the +silver-gilt swivel at the collar. Then he polished his bald +head with his silk handkerchief, reached his wig from the +chest of drawers and assumed it, read a text in his Lutheran +Bible, prayed a twenty-second prayer standing: lighted a +thin, dry, ginger-colored cigar, such as his soul loved, and +sat down to work at his maps. +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck might well have likened him to some bird of +the predatory species. With the rising furrows of his bald +brow hitching up his wig, and his clear eyes, lashless with +old age, crimson-rimmed by dint of fatigue and overstrain, +his fierce hooked beak following the journey of his withered +claw over the tough cartridge-paper—one can imagine him, +very like an eagle, or a member of the vulture-tribe. +</p> + +<p> +It grew lighter as he worked with his old chronometer +and well-used compasses and stumpy pencils; and the little +thumbed table of distance-measures to which he sometimes +referred. He finished and rang his handbell for his +orderly-servant; chatted with his Adjutant and secretary as he +broke his fast on bread and black coffee. Then at a great +jingling of cavalry bridles and stamping of iron hoofs upon +the cobblestones below, he went down, carrying his rolled +map-case, mounted, and rode away with his following. +</p> + +<p> +The sun rising had found him, lean, inscrutable and +silent, on the ridge above Flavigny, where he had told +Prince Charles and Steinmetz, Moltke would be found that +day.... +</p> + +<p> +He had met and primed them with the result of his +calculations, had seen a fierce engagement from his coign +of observation. By three noon, he was back at Pont à +Mousson, had interviewed the King, dined frugally, and +now stood chatting with the Iron Chancellor upon the +steps of the Mairie. +</p> + +<p> +Guns were muttering in the distance as they had done all +day at intervals. There had been fighting, he answered +mildly when questioned. Quite a considerable battle one +might call it. The villages of Flavigny and Vionville were +burning as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +The potato-gardens of Flauville were thick-strewn with +corpses of French and German foot-soldiers. In a little, +layer upon layer of dead and dying men and horses had +been piled upon these. Necessity knows no law; and it had +been found necessary to interpose Prussian cavalry between +the French Artillery and exhausted masses of German +infantry. Which accounted for a considerable thinning in +the ranks of Rauch's Hussars. +</p> + +<p> +The sacrifice had been necessary. He told himself so as +he stood there smoking. His high forehead was quite +unclouded as he returned in answer to some reference to +MacMahon's losses at Wörth: +</p> + +<p> +"It is one of the traditions handed down from the days of +Murat and Kellerman and Lassalle—the French belief in +the virtue of the massed cavalry charge...." +</p> + +<p> +The Minister to whom he spoke replied: +</p> + +<p> +"The English exploded the theory at Balaklava sixteen +years ago, by their magnificent but useless sacrifice of +Cardigan's Light Brigade. They learned then, and we have +profited by the lesson that MacMahon has just been spanked +for forgetting—and that Your Excellency will presently +teach Bazaine...." +</p> + +<p> +The great strategist cupped his long chin in his lean hand, +and said in his dry, thoughtful way: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, yes. We will drub this precept into his brain at +cost of his breeches. <i>Regiments of mounted men serve +admirably for the protection of marching Army Corps—are +priceless for reconnaissance, outpost and patrol-work, but +when they are thrown against vast bodies of troops armed +with the modern breech-loader, their use is unjustifiable, +being nil.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"And when in addition, the unlucky horsemen are +charged as at Wörth, over hop-poles and tree-stumps, open +field-drains and shattered garden walls," said the Minister, +"then they are worse than useless, I should add." +</p> + +<p> +The Warlock's thin-lipped mouth opened in a silent laugh +that creased his lean cheeks and displayed the gums that +were all but toothless. He rubbed his hairless chin and +said: +</p> + +<p> +"Ay, unless from the point of view of that farmer of +Schleswig-Holstein who said as our troops marched by his +barn-yard: 'Let us look on them as manure for next year's +wheat!'" +</p> + +<p> +The Iron Chancellor's blue eyes hardened with sudden +anger. Imagine him in his great muddy jack-boots, with +cord breeches not innocent of clay and soil, the black +double-breasted frock with pewter buttons and yellow collar +and cuff-facings, the white cap with the yellow band and +the long, heavy, steel-hilted cavalry sword, puffing at a +giant cigar as he stood on the doorsteps of the Mairie, over +whose door drooped the Prussian flag, and the white +Hohenzollern pennon with the Black Eagle and the gold blazoning, +showing, like the bodyguard of Red Dragoons and White +Cuirassiers, the numerous orderlies, and the double cordon +of sentries placed about the building, that there lodged the +King. While the Red Prince's headquarters were distinguished +in similar fashion at the National Bank of France. +</p> + +<p> +"I have not forgotten!" The response came in Bismarck's +grimmest vein of humor. "Nor has the rascal +either, if he happens to be alive still. Our infantry taught +him very thoroughly that there are more uses than one for +a bundle of straw." +</p> + +<p> +"Some of our German Princes have mastered that lesson +quite recently, Excellency," said Count Paul Hatzfeldt, +First Secretary of the ambulatory Foreign Office, turning +a handsome, humorous face upon his Chief. "The Grand +Duke of Mecklenburg slept in a barn at the last halting-place, +and Prince Leopold of Bavaria in a loft over a stable +yard, where, as he explained afterward, there were not only +mice, but rats!" +</p> + +<p> +"I understand His Excellency to refer," said Moltke, +taking a pinch of stuff, "to the Polish method of flogging, +which is to tie a man face-downward on a truss and thrash +him to a jelly with green birch-rods." +</p> + +<p> +"Precisely. Only not having birch rods 'convenient' as +Lever's Irishmen would say," returned the Chancellor, +"our fellows used their belts—buckle-end preferably. Then +they pitched the farmer on his own dunghill, and left him +to rot there for the land in spring." +</p> + +<p> +"Severe, but severe lessons are best remembered," said +the Warlock, placidly. "Thus MacMahon will perhaps +throw no more regiments of cavalry away! As for +ourselves, we have hardly brought that arm of the Service to +its present condition of usefulness to handle it wastefully. +Military science—true military science—does not allow of +undue extravagance in the sentient material of war. Nay,—it +will never be said of me that I wasted blood prodigally!" He +curved his long thin hand about his large and beautifully +shaped ear, and added, as the distant detonations of +heavy artillery made the windows rattle in their sashes and +the pavement quake underfoot. "They are still fighting +south and west of Metz. In half an hour, if the firing has +not abated, I am going to ride in that direction with the +King." +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at his chronometer, then went down the side +steps, and strolled, contentedly smoking, to where his own +charger and his master's were waiting in charge of some +orderlies near the Royal carriages and fourgons that +occupied the center of the Market Place. While Count +Hatzfeldt, glancing after the thin figure, shrugged and said to +his Chief in an undertone: +</p> + +<p> +"Heaven send that by this time to-morrow we may not +be deploring some tremendous holocaust of Prussian +cavalry! Do not ask me how the idea suggested itself...." +</p> + +<p> +"Possibly,"—the Minister slightly moved his hand +toward a string of country grain-wagons, crowded with +wounded, and drawn by farmers' horses, converging from +the westward boulevard toward the Market Place—"possibly +because so many of those fellows have been brought +in here since twelve noon. And in Moltke's very disclaimer +of blood-waste, you find cause of suspicion. In that case, +our greatest strategist would be like the spider, who agitates +her web to conceal herself before she has even been seen. +Moreover, they—I refer to our wounded—have been +infantry of the Third Corps chiefly, nearly all Prussians from +the Mark of Brandenburg. The French prisoners were +mostly horsemen; Light Blue Lancers and Cuirassiers of +the Guard Imperial. What fellows are these?" Under his +heavy brows he scrutinized the approaching train of +sufferers, adding: "H'm! Marshal Frossard's chassepotiers +have taken toll of Rauch's Hussars with a vengeance! +Where are you going, Count, in such haste?" +</p> + +<p> +Halfway down the steps Hatzfeldt halted, dropping his +eyeglass and turning round an astonished face. +</p> + +<p> +"Going, Excellency? Why, naturally, to speak to these +wounded cavalry men. My wife has a cousin, a captain in +the Hussars of Rauch." +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor said, bending his powerful gaze on the +handsome face of the diplomatic dandy: +</p> + +<p> +"Let me counsel you to quench your desire for +information. The King's windows are overhead. And the +inquiries natural for you to make in your own character will +be suspected, should His Majesty observe them—to have +been prompted by me." He showed a corner of the sealed +dispatch he had thrust into his pocket. "You recognize +the Queen's handwriting upon this envelope? Augusta +will have written another such Jeremiad to her spouse. +Mercy and moderation, piety and philanthropy will be the +headings of the sermon penned on my own sheets of letter-paper. +The test of the King's will be, '<i>Bismarck is alone +to blame!</i>' Fortunately my back is broad, and I have his +entire confidence.... But if he once suspected me of +getting what the Yankees call 'cold feet!'..." +</p> + +<p> +The hand that held the cigar indicated a stoppage of the +foremost wagon. "See! Moltke is speaking to the officer +in charge of the convoy. I will wager you a case of +champagne that his mouth is being corked up. A wise +proceeding too! For, remember, the story of a wounded man is +painted from his own wounds—always a red tale of disaster. +How can it be otherwise? In the heat of battle, or +perhaps without having fired one shot, or ridden one charge—he +has been struck down, poor wretch! and carried, bleeding, +from the field.... Has it occurred to Your Excellency +that those guns are drawing nearer?" +</p> + +<p> +The query was addressed to Moltke, who had returned, +leaving the wagon-train to jolt with its doleful load in the +direction where the Flag of the Geneva Cross, hanging from +doors and windows, announced the location of temporary +hospitals. +</p> + +<p> +The expert listened as distant crashes of volley-firing +were answered by the hyena-yapping of mitrailleuses, and +answered, pointing to the weather-vane on the tower of the +Market Hall: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Excellency is wrong. The breeze has altered its +direction. It was northerly, and is now blowing directly +from the west. Yet if the action should assume grave +proportions, it may prove necessary to shift Headquarters +to some village further afield." +</p> + +<p> +"Heaven forbid!" murmured Count Hatzfeldt, expressively +raising his fine eyebrows, "when one is able to get a +decent dinner, and a daily bath at one's hotel!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Heaven generally ordains, through the mouth of Your +Excellency, an exodus," said the Chancellor, laughing, +"when a comfortable bed falls to my lot. At Herny my +couch had to be lengthened with chairs and carriage-cushions, +and these kept parting company all the night +long. My feet were on the floor when I awakened in the +morning,—literally at cockcrow—for my window opened +upon the dunghill where the lord of the poultry-yard +sounded his reveillé. Now here I am accommodated in +quite respectable fashion; in a little red creeper-covered +house at the corner of the Rue Raugraf, and three of the +Councillors are stowed under the same roof with me." +</p> + +<p> +"While I," said the Warlock, "have my quarters at a +cleanly bakery, where there is quite an excellent piano, by +the way. So that, to-night, unless Fate order otherwise, I +shall hear my nephew Henry von Burt sing some of my +favorite songs. He is in voice for the first time since his +attack of sore throat. The King has been much pleased +with his rendering of Herder's '<i>Volkslieder</i>' and '<i>Die +Blumen</i> of Heine, which doubtless Your Excellency +knows." +</p> + +<p> +"I am acquainted with the song you mention. Or I +was," returned the Chancellor, "in my salad days. They +are over for me, unluckily! ... Only Your Excellency +possesses the secret of perpetual youth." +</p> + +<p> +And he turned aside to receive a bulky sealed packet of +dispatches from a green-jacketed Royal Courier, who +had just driven into the Market Place in a farmer's gig, +and now got down, tossing a fee to the scowling driver of +the muddy, panting roadster. While Moltke stood smiling +and humming with characteristic untunefulness a stave of +the tender, sentimental ballad: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "<i>If they knew it, the little flowers,<br> + How she wounded this bleeding heart,<br> + They would weep with me in bright dew-showers,<br> + Healing, healing its anguished smart!</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Said the Minister in an undertone to Hatzfeldt, as he +transferred to his keeping the bulky sealed envelope +received from the courier: +</p> + +<p> +"Let his Excellency sing only loud enough, and neither +Steinmetz nor the Red Prince will be able to prevent the +music-loving Frenchmen from retiring upon Verdun." +</p> + +<p> +He had not meant the pungent jest to reach the ear of +the great strategist. But Moltke glanced round and +answered mildly, if with a narrowing of his wrinkled eyelids, +and a sardonic twist of his thin, dry lips: +</p> + +<p> +"Then all the more surely should we surround and +annihilate them. My second plan is usually stronger than +my first. And I have already issued instructions to Prince +Frederick Charles and General Steinmetz, indicating the +course they are to follow should Bazaine pierce our left +wing. Meanwhile let us listen to this fellow's singing. It +may please Your Excellency better than mine!" +</p> + +<p> +The arrival, a Captain of Dragoons of the Prussian +Guard, acting as <i>aide-de-camp</i> upon the staff of Steinmetz, +had just galloped into Pont à Mousson, accompanied by an +escort of half a dozen troopers on blown horses, and had +little breath left even for speech. But when he threw +himself from his reeking beast, the dispatch he took from his +belt-pouch and handed to the Chief of the Great Staff told +of a huge expenditure of "the sentient material of war." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +At noon of the day, looking from his point of observation +on the high ground between the Bois des Ognons and Gravelotte, +short-legged, fiery-tempered Steinmetz had seen what +seemed a weak spot in the French position. Under cannon, +mitrailleuse and chassepot-fire he had ordered several +batteries of the 7th Corps and Von Hartmann's Division of +Cavalry to cross the Gravelotte defile and plant themselves +on the slopes south of the road. Death had harvested redly +from the extravagant movement. The slaughter that +ensued had shaken even the men who carried the needle-gun, +their huge columns were giving ground. General Steinmetz +and his staff were under heavy fire. Only the Prussian +field-batteries, served and trained by gunner-sharpshooters, +kept the German right wing from caving in. +</p> + +<p> +Heavy news, one would suppose, yet the Warlock read +the dispatch to his master with as placid an expression as +though he were at that moment seated beside the baker's +excellent piano, listening to the tender warblings of the +melodious Henry von Burt. +</p> + +<p> +"Steinmetz is over ardent, it may be, yet it is what I +should have done, had I been in his place," he said in +answer to some perturbed exclamation of King Wilhelm. +"Only, perhaps," he fingered his long chin thoughtfully, +"I should have done it in a different way. He is supported +by now. Stülpnagel will have thrown his Division forward +and gripped the woods and heights upon the French left. +Your Majesty will see a change in our favor by the time +we have reached the ground!" +</p> + +<p> +"Your Excellency should be there now and I with you. +Pray order the horses!" urged the agitated King. +</p> + +<p> +"They are waiting, sire!" said the Warlock, cool, calm, +and inscrutable as ever. In fact, he hummed another bar +or two of the plaintive ballad about the weeping flowers as +he followed his Royal master downstairs to the door, and +the War Minister, Von Roon, who had been hastily sent for, +rode up with his staff as the King mounted his steadiest +charger, a powerful black horse. +</p> + +<p> +"The Federal Chancellor, Count von Bismarck Schönhausen, +begs permission to accompany your Majesty!" said +Hatzfeldt, gracefully approaching as the orderly of the +Body-guard resigned the bridle-rein. +</p> + +<p> +He said to himself as he returned with the graciously +accorded permission to where the Minister waited by the big +brown mare that was held by an orderly of Cuirassiers: +</p> + +<p> +"How perfect is his discretion! How completely he +hides the iron grip of power under the velvet glove of +diplomacy! Roon is the King's quartermaster-sergeant, +Moltke is his calculating machine, Bismarck is his ruler—but +he will always seem his slave! Wherever the King +goes—on journeys, shooting excursions, visits to +watering-places—he is always at his elbow; he rides with him to +maneuvers, and reviews and parades. Since the War began—and +at cost of what exertion, mental and bodily, no one +understands better than I do!—he has never left his master +alone for long enough to further the intrigues and +influence of other men.... Every battle-field the King looks +on will be seen through the Chancellor's eyes. For this +War is <i>his</i> War—and he knows it! ... Here come galloping +the Royalties and Serene Highnesses, rabid to see some +real fighting.... Bismarck calls them the Tinsel +Rabble,—if only they knew!" +</p> + +<p> +And Count Paul, smiling in his gently satirical fashion, +strode back to his quarters to pen to his young, pretty, and +exceedingly coquettish Countess, a marital letter full of +tender expressions and requests for lots more cigarettes. +While their Highnesses and Mightinesses of the Royal Suite +pranced away in the wake of the King and his three great +servants, without the slightest idea that the Chancellor +who rode on William's left hand held them in such contempt. +</p> + +<p> +The wounded men sitting or lying on hay in the grain-carts +at the hospital door looked up as the Great Headquarter +Staff rode by and gave a shaky Hoch! of greeting. +Heads of dressers, nurses, Knights of St. John, and surgeons +appeared at windows from which projected the Flag with +the Red Cross. While a long train of haggard French +prisoners, halted before the porch of the church that had +been converted into a temporary prison, stared with +lackluster eyes over the bowls of cabbage-soup and the huge +hunches of bread that had been distributed among them +by pitying ladies; and a battalion of little black-a-vised, +green-coated Saxon soldiers who had marched in dead-beat +and were dozing on straw under the Market Hall, lifted +their heads from their knapsacks, saying: "There goes +Moltke with his King, and the Big Pomeranian. Something +is up out yonder!" and rolled over to sleep again.... +</p> + +<p> +The inhabitants and tradespeople of Pont à Mousson were +too crushed to make any audible comments. Within a +fortnight they had had twice to feed and quarter a French +Division. Now here, as it seemed, was the whole Prussian +Army poured out upon them. +</p> + +<p> +They were dumb and stupefied in the Babel of foreign +dialects. They could make no headway against the flood. +Everywhere were loud-voiced Intendants making requisitions +and giving orders; officers and quartermaster-sergeants +shouting for rooms, provender and stabling; the +men, like the officers, insatiable in demands for meat, bread, +forage, tobacco, flour and wine, liberal in oaths and blows +to those who could not satisfy their needs. +</p> + +<p> +Tradesmen in gutted shops swore in whispers over +basketsful of dirty little nickel coins with (to them) +indecipherable inscriptions—all they had to show in return for +one or two thousand francs' worth of stock. To grumble +brought retribution, swift, sharp and merciless, on the +head of the grumbler. To resist meant death. Therefore +they would be silent until the invader should have passed +on. +</p> + +<p> +But when the wearers of the muddy blue uniforms and +the riders of the muddy, well-fed horses did pass, fresh +hosts came swarming after them. There seemed no end to +the brown-faced men in the loathed blue uniform.... +</p> + +<p> +"Are there more to come?" those of them who understood +French—and many did—were asked timidly, and +they answered: "Naturally. We are only the Advance. +To keep the roads by which we have passed open, and to +guard the telegraph-wires we have left behind us there will +be very many more required!" +</p> + +<p> +Germany was being emptied into France's lap, it seemed +to the bewildered peasants leaning against the walls of +their cottages or peering from the doorways, as had done +the peasants of Alsace-Lorraine. They, like them, were +ruined, their crops devastated by cataclysms of armed +humanity, their cellars emptied, their frugal stores devoured. +</p> + +<p> +"But where are we to find food for all these, we who had +fared badly enough before they came? And who will pay +us for what they have not paid for, or give cash for this +stuff called money that they have left behind? Will it be +the King or the Emperor?" some haggard man or woman, +reckless with despair and misery, would demand with +frantic gestures. "And how shall we feed our children when +they leave us nothing? How live at all when they live +upon us?" +</p> + +<p> +They asked this less often when the Flag with the Geneva +Cross appeared above roofs and thrust out of windows of +buildings appropriated as hospitals, and when long trains +of German ambulance-wagons and hay-carts full of +wounded men in blue uniforms began to pass by, as well +as piteous processions of French wounded and French +prisoners.... +</p> + +<p> +"You see, they die!" they presently began to tell each +other. "Frenchmen are being killed like flies out yonder +where you hear the cannon, but not Frenchmen only. +These too, die.... MacMahon has failed us and the cursed +Emperor has run away for fear of Bismarck, and Bazaine +may prove a rotten staff for France to lean on. But if our +generals have forgotten how to lead, the Army of France +has not forgotten how to fight, and thousands upon thousands +of Prussians have been killed since the beginning of +the War. They dig their great trenches so quickly and +bury the slain in such haste that the greatness of their +losses will never be really known. When they would hide +them more completely, they heap up corpses in farmers' +barns, and pile the farmers' straw and hay and faggots +about them, and pour on petroleum and tar and set fire to +it—and thus their dead are consumed to ashes—and +sometimes the yet living with the dead!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +As at Paris, spy-fever raged in cities, towns and villages, +while the armies of the invader plowed bleeding furrows +in the flank of prostrate France. For the Prussian Secret +Intelligence Department had its emissaries everywhere. +Hotels, public bureaus, railway stations, shops, offices, even +clubs, had harbored them unknowingly. Now they cropped +up on all sides, speaking French with the Gallic accent, +their German brains full of neatly pigeon-holed and docketed +information, ready to place themselves at the disposal +of their friends. Hence, patriotic Frenchmen, favored by +chance or heredity with blue eyes, fair hair, ruddy +complexions and the advantage as to inches over their +neighbors, found themselves cold-shouldered by their intimates +and subjected to unpleasantly suspicious scrutiny when +consuming refreshment in <i>cafés</i> and restaurants, or +strolling with their acquaintances on public boulevards. +</p> + +<p> +English artists attached to illustrated newspapers, special +correspondents, handicapped by blonde whiskers and an +imperfect acquaintance with the French language, found +themselves in many a tight place. "<i>Mort aux espions!</i>" +is not a cheering cry when some thousands of red-hot +throats are uttering it, and half a dozen soldiers or +gendarmes form the only barrier between the unlucky suspects +and the furious mob. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap42"></a></p> + +<h3> +XLII +</h3> + +<p> +A mud-bedaubed nondescript who toiled at the heels of the +Great Headquarter Staff upon a huge velocipede of the +big-wheeled, bone-shaker type prevalent at that remote period, +met plenty of scowling glances from groups of peasants +gathered at the corners of villages and listening by the +wayside. Even on territory occupied by German troops, +it was not safe for lagging soldiers to drop behind upon +the march. To enter roadside taverns or farmhouses with +a comrade was imprudent, to venture in alone was perilous, +the sight of the German uniform, the sound of the Teutonic +gutturals, were so fiercely abhorred. Of the reason +for this loathing the Englishman was not ignorant. Marching +with the infantry of the German army, he had followed +where the Uhlans had passed. +</p> + +<p> +He had slept, the night before the Army of the Red +Prince had crossed the river, in a little deserted country +château,—an ideal honeymoon nest for lovers, standing in a +high-walled garden full of fruit-trees and tangled roses +in the middle of a sloping meadow on the banks of the +Moselle. +</p> + +<p> +The butt of some Prussian soldier's rifle had served for +key to the locked door in the high garden-wall. Those who +had gone before had stripped the bushes and espaliers. +The house had been entered, and the dainty silk-upholstered +drawing-room chairs and sofas had been dragged out into +the garden. The piano—a tiny rosewood <i>bijou</i>—probably +a wedding present—and the absurd little billiard-table with +which Monsieur had disported himself, stood crookedly upon +the gravel; a long tear in the green cloth of the one; prints +of tumblers, marks of greasy fingers marring the shiny +veneer of the other. Bottles that had contained Champagne +and Moselle—butts of cigars, empty tobacco-papers +and match-boxes were scattered everywhere—over gravel, +and grass-plot and the once trim garden-beds. An +impromptu <i>café</i>-concert had evidently formed a feature of the +bivouac. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh had slept in a charming bedroom, under +rosebud-chintz curtains looped with silken ropes, having +carved wooden Cupids, painted pink, instead of tassels. +The bed was not as luxurious as it might have been, because +the blankets and sheets had been carried off. Opening his +eyes in the gray of morning he had seen himself as he lay +reflected in a long cheval-glass, and failed, for the moment, +to recognize in the bronzed, shaggy, unclean tatterdemalion +therein reflected the young Englishman of respectable +appearance who had interviewed the German States' +Chancellor in the Wilhelm-strasse. +</p> + +<p> +He was not alone in the room, that was the next discovery. +A woman, young and swarthy, dressed in the quaint costume +of the country, stood upon the other side of the bed, +with a kitchen chopper in her lifted right hand. He took +in the chopper at a glance, and promptly rolled off the bed +upon the side facing the friendly cheval-glass, and stood +glowering at the black-eyed girl. +</p> + +<p> +"I have startled Monsieur? A thousand apologies!" +</p> + +<p> +She forced a smile with her curtsey and backed toward +the door. P. C. Breagh explained in his French that he +was no robber but a harmless traveler, and that she need +not be alarmed. +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur is very kind!" Her chopper-hand hidden +under her apron, she explained that she had served as +cook in the establishment. Upon the news that M. de +Bismarck was coming, <i>tout à coup</i>, Monsieur and Madame +had gone away together to Paris. They were noble and +very amiable, but old, old, and feeble.... They had left +the little château in her care.... +</p> + +<p> +"Mademoiselle is not easily frightened?" P. C. Breagh +hinted. +</p> + +<p> +Said the black-eyed, modestly: +</p> + +<p> +"I am Angéle—nothing of Mademoiselle. A peasant—like +my father, who was gardener for Monsieur and +Madame.... I was alone here when the Prussian horsemen +came, breaking the doors and shutters.... Everything +was spoiled, or taken, wine, linen, the fowls in the +poultry-run. Destitution, ruin everywhere!..." +</p> + +<p> +She accentuated her tale of loss by heavings of the bosom, +shrugs of the fine shoulders, dramatic gestures. +</p> + +<p> +"Then my father returned and found ... No matter! +Both he and I should have been silent and endured +everything.... It was not wise, Monsieur, that the old man +should have struck a Prussian, even for my sake. For then +he was beaten. Whenever I shut my eyes, I see it.... +Therefore I have vowed not to sleep again until...." She +opened her eyes wide, and smiled, rather grimly, then +changed the subject with a wave of the unchoppered and +visible hand. Was Monsieur hungry? By searching, a +crust of bread might be found in some cupboard, an egg or +two—laid by one of the abducted hens in some private +corner—a pinch of coffee and sugar sufficient for Monsieur! +</p> + +<p> +"I should be glad of it. But—when you are in such +trouble it seems unfair," protested Monsieur. He added, +reverting to the language of the country, that he would be +happy to pay for the <i>déjeuner</i>. +</p> + +<p> +"But no! A meal for a bird!—Monsieur and Madame +will never miss it!" and Angéle curtseyed herself away, +with forced smiles. +</p> + +<p> +Left alone, P. C. Breagh bolted the door and finding +water in the bedroom jugs, and scented soap upon the +washstand, enjoyed the luxury of a comprehensive wash, +drying himself, in the absence of towels, upon a pillow-case. +A pot of cold-cream, tinted a delicate pink and bearing the +label of Piesse and Lubin, he found, and anointed his blistered +feet therewith, and not without pangs of conscience—tore +up the pillow-case and bandaged them. He would pay +the girl for the damage done to her master's property, he +told himself. +</p> + +<p> +He combed his shock of dusty hair with a tortoise-shell +comb he picked up from the carpet, and went downstairs, +knapsack in hand. It was four o'clock. The dusty, +foot-print and wheel-marked highway beyond the broken door +in the garden-wall was strangely bare and lonely. The +battalion he had marched with had bivouacked on the other +side of the village. The troops that would presently follow +were not yet upon the road. +</p> + +<p> +The girl cried out that Monsieur's breakfast was ready. +It had been laid, looking quite tempting, on one of the little +inlaid tables that stood upon the tiny lawn. A truncheon +of bread, fairly new, a pat of butter, two eggs, and a bowl +of fragrant, steaming milk and coffee—such a meal as +P. C. Breagh had not enjoyed for many a day. +</p> + +<p> +He begged Angéle to share. She replied with a graceful +wave of abnegation that she had already eaten. P. C. Breagh +expressed regret, muttered his old Rockhampton +grace and savagely fell to. +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur is Catholic?..." +</p> + +<p> +The movement of his hand, making the sacred Sign, had +not escaped her. He nodded, with his mouth full, and +Angéle turned pale under her swarthy skin. Her guest +vigorously beheaded an egg and reached for the coffee-bowl. +The expression of the girl's eyes, as he lifted it to +his mouth, brought something back to him. He sipped +cautiously—recognized the French equivalent for English +rat-poison—spat forth what he had taken, with a hideous +grimace, and poured the deadly stuff out upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +Then he got up and looked for Angéle, whose white-frilled +cap, crimson bodice, and striped stuff petticoat had +vanished round the corner of the little hen-house. He could +hear the <i>klop-klop</i> of her varnished cow-leather clogs +receding along paths unknown. +</p> + +<p> +Said P. C. Breagh, speaking with mouth awry, for the +intense bitterness of the alkaloid had dried up tongue and +palate: +</p> + +<p> +"I'd like to follow that girl and shake her. But more +than likely her sweetheart and male relatives are lurking +in the neighborhood with pitchforks, to speed the +unwelcome guest." +</p> + +<p> +He went back to the breakfast-table, but the glamour +had faded from the banquet, and the leathery dryness of +mouth and throat foiled him in the effort to finish the egg +he had begun. He pocketed the other, abandoned the bread +and butter as unreliable, strapped on his dusty knapsack, +and was hobbling away upon the sticks that had lately +served him as crutches, when he caught sight of an obviously +new coffin of thin tarred planking, on the gravel near +the conservatory door. It bore a cross and an inscription +roughly scrawled in letters of white paint: +</p> + +<pre style="text-align: center"> + | +--+-- + | + | +</pre> + +<p class="t3"> + JOSEPH MARIE MEUNIER,<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + AGED 80.<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + KILLED BY THE PRUSSIANS,<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + AUGUST, 1870.<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + ———<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + R.I.P.<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +And then, with a stiffening of every muscle and a cold +and deadly sinking at the heart, the English boy realized +that Angéle's father had been murdered, and knew what +had been the unendurable injury that had provoked the +man of eighty to strike in his daughter's defense. Next +instant a gun banged, but the charge of slugs that had +been meant to lodge in P. C. Breagh's cerebellum merely +smashed the conservatory glass and peppered the walls and +trees. The intended recipient of these favors had +previously been lame. Now, regardless of blisters and skin +cracks, he cast away his improvised crutches, darted down +the garden-path, nipped through the shattered door that +hung upon one twisted hinge, and ran for dear life. +</p> + +<p> +Thenceafter our young friend did not stray too far from +the column he temporarily marched with. The secret of +those haggard eyes and scowling looks was clear to him +now. And the discovery of a giant velocipede with the +solid rubber tires of the period and a front wheel of four +feet in diameter abandoned in a ditch, presently enabled +him—previously schooled by Mr. Tickling in the management +of a machine of similar construction to outpace the +Red Prince's marching battalions; and—upon highways, +keep abreast of his flying cavalry. +</p> + +<p> +Now, hugely daring, he pounded along in the wake of the +Great Headquarter Staff, guided by the whipping flicker +of the black and white lance-pennons of the Red Uhlans +bringing up the rear. +</p> + +<p> +There were troops upon the road.... One or two stray +batteries of artillery, and part of an Engineer Corps going +the same way, halted to give a cheer for the King. But +the galloping dispatch-bearers with their guards of troopers, +bound for Pont à Mousson, meeting the Great Staff on +the way, turned back with it, adding to the clouds of dust +in its wake. +</p> + +<p> +The Doctor had promised P. C. Breagh plenty of raw-head +and bloody-bones whether he marched with the Advance +or remained at the rear. The prophecy had been +verified. He had not yet seen a battle or even a +battlefield. But thousands of wounded men, displaying every +sickening mutilation that shot and shell and steel can +inflict upon the human body; thousands upon thousands of +prisoners, gaunt with fatigue, hunger and misery, had +passed in an almost unending panorama before his sickened, +pitying eyes. Ruined châteaux, farms and churches, crops +destroyed or rotting in the ground ungarnered, villages +razed or burned, towns battered out of shape, and fortifications +breached by heavy gunnery, were to become sights of +common occurrence as he traveled the long red road that +was to lead him home at last. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Now he rode and odd lines of songs, comic or tender, +fragments of Fleet Street talk, brain-pictures of things seen +or persons remembered passed through his mind as he +pedaled between long lines of roadside poplars, whitening +in the hot breeze that carried the scorching dust along in +clouds. +</p> + +<p> +The face of the peasant girl who had tried to poison him. +By George! if Mrs. Rousby or Miss Marriott or Mrs. Vezin +could have seen her fierce, gleaming eyes, and her +heavy black eyebrows lifted at the outer corners, and the +way a white canine tooth had nipped her red underlip.... +The voice of Mr. Knewbit barking, "Avoid Sham Technicality +and Sentimental Slumgullion," the well-bred voice +of Valverden dealing the unforgotten snub. The fortune +told him by the gipsy woman on Waterloo Bridge after +that unforgettable January night's vigil: "Yer'll travel a +long road and a bloody road; and yer'll tramp it with the +one yer love, and never know it, until the end, when tute +is jasing...." +</p> + +<p> +"When tute is jasing" meant "When thou art going" +he had been told so by a man who knew a bit of Romany. +His imagination made a grasshopper-leap of years to the +death-bed of a celebrated War Correspondent.—a grim, +bronzed man who had followed his arduous calling in many +quarters of the world, and had earned much kudos and a +whole chestful of decorations, but had never married, and +was understood to look with coldness upon the loveliest +women, his heart having been irrevocably given in earlier +days. Juliette—still young, and ah! how exquisite in +maturity—Juliette in widow's weeds, would hasten to the +moribund's side and place her little hand in his, gaunt and +damp with approaching death. She would hear his story +of faithful, hopeless passion, and close his eyelids for the +last long sleep. And standing by his pillow, looking +pityingly at the dead face, she would realize that she +loved—too late.... +</p> + +<p> +He sniffed and gulped as the tears stung his smarting +eyelids, so moving was the picture of that death-bed scene. +</p> + +<p> +A picture of the King of Prussia as he had seen him +sitting at the open window of his lodgings at the Mairie +of Pont à Mousson next came up, with faces of market-people +and street-boys gaping round-eyed at <i>Le Roi de la +Prusse</i>, who nursed his clean-shaven chin and stared +unwinkingly before him. Again, the old man, pale, +square-shouldered, capped and tightly-buttoned, riding through +the market-place with his Iron Chancellor by his side. +</p> + +<p> +Wiry, hawk-eyed Moltke and saturnine, shaggy-browed +Roon clattered upon the heels of them, but P. C. Breagh +had had eyes only for the great soldierly figure that +bestrode the big brown mare. +</p> + +<p> +Did he not owe his life to the well-shaped hand that +had rested on the thigh of the brown mare's rider, as the +Minister bent to speak to the King? +</p> + +<p> +No common bond of confidence and friendship seemed to +unite the master of seventy-three and the man of fifty-five. +The hard, somewhat vulpine face of the Hohenzollern, with +its drooping, aquiline nose, narrow light hazel eyes, curled +white mustache, precise, tight-lipped mouth and rounded +chin projecting between the brushed back white whiskers, +had been all alight with interest, and warm with kindliness. +</p> + +<p> +This is what the Man of Iron had said with his small +square teeth showing laughingly under the heavy hair-brake, +and his fierce, prominent blue eyes sparkling with +humor and fun: +</p> + +<p> +"The final scenes of melodrama are always the most +strenuous. Your Majesty must regard the ridge over +Flavigny as your Royal box on the Grand Tier, the occasion +as a farewell performance of the French Empire—played +for the benefit of United Germany, before the whole +world!" +</p> + +<p> +Flavigny was a village.... But the flickering +black-and-white pennons that tipped the dust-cloud ahead were +slowing.... Three battalions of infantry, each with its +band playing gaily at its head, the bronzed, healthy-looking, +white-powdered men marching eight abreast, had halted +and front-faced as the word of command followed the +sound of the Great Staff trumpeter: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Clear the way! Clear the way! Here comes the King!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +And now the scorching air vibrated with their vigorous +cheering as the King cantered by and was gone with a +shout and a wave of the hand. +</p> + +<p> +"Our old one takes dust and sun, saddle-blisters and +short commons like any old trooper!" P. C. Breagh heard +a Lieutenant say to a subaltern as the dusty ranks +half-wheeled and fell into step once more. "He's a precisian +too.... <i>Zum Beispiel</i>, he called to a man in Vidler's +company that he had got his 'needler' on the wrong +shoulder. Now that's another thing I like in the old +man!..." +</p> + +<p> +"The Field Marshal is taking the Great Headquarters to +where it will be hellishly risky," a Captain with Staff +shoulder-cords was saying to another, as a new outbreak +of cannon and mitrailleuse-fire caused his horse to start +and rear. He added: "They were hard at it at Mars la +Tour, Vionville and Rezonville all day yesterday: the +5th Division were in action all round Moltke as he stood +on the high ridge above Flavigny.... To-day our 7th +and 10th are fighting between Gravelotte and St. Hubert, +where the French have the devil's own array of +battery-emplacements and rifle-pits—our guards are at Doncourt, +our 9th and 8th corps are at Verneville and Amanvilliers. +Now the fighting seems to have rolled down nearer the +river. I have certainly heard cavalry trumpets sounding +the charge, and volleys of musketry—French, I judge!—coming +from that direction. I should judge that...." +</p> + +<p> +"Bazaine must have turned the handle in too much of +a hurry!" retorted the junior, who enjoyed a regimental +reputation for humor, and a volley of laughter rattled +along the marching files, now breasting a steep and gravelly +hill, half-way up which the rider of the giant-wheeled +velocipede had been compelled to dismount. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh had seen, reproduced from the <i>Charivari</i> in +all the German illustrated papers, the famous caricature of +Cham, over which King Wilhelm's brown-faced infantrymen +were grinning as they climbed the hill. Who does not +remember the Count de Noë's memorable presentment of +the field of war dotted with defunct Prussians, and the +French mitrailleuse-gunner in the foreground who exclaims +in astonishment: "<i>Sapristi!</i> the battle is over. I +must have turned the handle too fast!" +</p> + +<p> +But more than the sardonic jest of Cham, the Captain's +reference to the nearness of a possible action interested the +would-be spectator of a battlefield. The wiry, sun-bronzed +young man in the broken boots and the dusty brown Norfolk +jacket, now pushing the solid-tired giant-wheel up a +steep and lung-testing hill which the bearers of the needle-gun +took in a canter, had seen war-casualties in appalling +numbers, but he had not yet beheld War. +</p> + +<p> +And now sharp bugles and piercing trumpets were +clamoring of War all round one. The musketry that one +could hear at Pont à Mousson clattered in volleys among +the neighboring hills. The deep booming of heavy +field-batteries persistently answered. Every now and then the +ear was violently assaulted by the hideous hyena-yapping +of the mitrailleuse. +</p> + +<p> +These breasting hills, these deep-cupped valleys walled +and ramparted with wood-crested hill-ranges, cut up the +honest battle into a dozen skirmishes. Oh! for an open, +campaign and a vantage on some breezy hill-top whence +one might see, as the King was seeing with Moltke and his +Chancellor from the ridge above Flavigny! +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap43"></a></p> + +<h3> +XLIII +</h3> + +<p> +The ridge above Flavigny seemed farther off and more +inaccessible than the Great Atlas. One must get off the +highroad to some elevated bit of ground, consult the +Doctor's map, and use the Chancellor's binoculars. Here was +a broad track, green with grass grown over ancient wheel-ruts, +leading off upon the left near the crest of the hill. +</p> + +<p> +The grass-road led to a stone quarry evidently long +abandoned. Skirting the quarry, P. C. Breagh began to climb +the grassy scarp of the hill. It grew steeper, and presently +he awakened to the difficulties of mountaineering with a +velocipede, and hid away, with the intention of retrieving it +later, his stolen giant-wheel in a clump of whins. Alas! its +bones, like those of many a sentient charger, were to +rust in rains and blister in suns upon that hillside of the +Meurthe Department for many and many a year. +</p> + +<p> +But not knowing this, P. C. Breagh continued climbing. +The ridgy backbone of turf-jacketed rock proved a natural +buttress rising to a towering platform sparsely grassed, +tufted with thorn and furze-bushes, stunted pines and +dwarfy oak-trees, all mossy of stem and bending to the +southwest. +</p> + +<p> +The afternoon sunshine was mellow rather than hot. +The pure dustless air was fragrant with hill-thyme and the +meadow-sweet. The autumn-tinted woods were golden, the +hills hathed in clear blue air. The short herbage clothing +the steep was warm, smelling like the clean hide of some +great grass-feeding animal. But for the restless bickering +of trumpets and bugles, and the hellish noise that men with +guns were making, it would have been sweet to be upon the +hillside alone with God. +</p> + +<p> +There was a great view from the summit of the colossal +limestone.... You could see that bone of contention, the +road leading to Verdun, stretching away southwestward, a +dusty-white ribbon between its lines of whitening poplars, +over the tops of three thick patches of rusty-golden +woodland, and the bushy uplands above Gravelotte and the +church spire of Vernéville. +</p> + +<p> +Dark blue Prussian columns showed on the grassy slopes +traversed by the road that ran from Ars to Bagneux. +Near the Quarries of Rezerieulles was a huge French +battery served by red-legged artillerymen, who ran about like +ants. But one could only guess at the fact that Germany +and the Bad Neighbor were locked in the death-grips over +six miles square of battle-ground, the breasting plumps +of trees and towering bush-clad ridges hid so much away. +</p> + +<p> +Ah! but the din was hellish! The woods vomited fire. +White balloons that meant shrapnel-shells described arcs +against the hot blue sky, crossing and recrossing between +Rezonville and Gravelotte. When they fell upon the slippery +grass slopes they exploded with fearful crashes, or +became black balls that rolled merrily a while and then lay +quiet. In the grass near them were shapeless lumps and +masses, red and blue, and dark blue; and things with stiff +legs sticking up grotesquely,—the human and equine <i>débris</i> +of the morning's fighting and the battle of the previous day. +The soft westerly breeze brought an ugly taint upon it—less +loathsome, but more horrible than the stench coming +from the huge crowded camps of French about St. Quentin +and Plappeville and Les Carrières and St. Eloy. +</p> + +<p> +Two great nations at each other's throats and God's +image being shattered everywhere.... Blizzards of Lead +and Iron, Steel and Fire raging over six miles square of +ground. Rivers of blood being poured out, and yet, in +spite of the terrific din of War, the insects and birds +and beasts went about their usual business. The shrill +laugh of the green woodpecker sounded in the copses, +the jackdaws were gossiping as they darted in and out of +the clefts of the gray rock. Two magpies were feeding a +late-hatched fledgling among the dwarfy oak-scrub. Rabbits +were showing their white scuts on the edges of the +oak-plantations; and the black and gray humble-bees were +buzzing as they rifled the lavender scabious and the blue +corn-bottles and the late white clover-blooms. +</p> + +<p> +Looking northeast toward the richly wooded hill where +perches Fort Queleu, you could see the French flag flying +from there, and from St. Privat, and the great cathedral of +Metz sitting in the lap of the Moselle. The railway bridge +crossing the green, slowly rolling river above Ars was +guarded by Uhlans and Engineers. A stray outpost with +half a field-battery held the island below the bridge, and +the rear squadrons of a brigade of cavalry,—Blue Dragoons, +White Cuirassiers, Uhlans, and Red Hussars, with +two batteries of Horse Artillery, were traversing the iron +roadway, the troopers walking beside the horses as they +delicately picked their way along. The Advance was +almost out of sight, the midpost squadrons, remounted, were +under the bluff that runs beside the river road from Ars +to below Aney, and with the Staff of the Cuirassier +brigade-commander—the dazzling scarlet-and-gold of his British +Dragoon's uniform contrasting forcibly with the steel +cuirasses and white coats, his red-plumed silver helmet +shining like a miniature sun—rode Brotherton, on a powerful +dappled-gray horse, his handsome face animated and eager +as he replied to some remark addressed to him by the +Brigadier. +</p> + +<p> +"Certainly, General, but I should think the sword could +never be superseded. It is, with the bow and spear, the +traditional weapon of war." +</p> + +<p> +"You omit the sling, Colonel!" called out an officer +who rode behind him. And then the scrap of English talk +was swamped in the clink of steel on steel, and the +rhythmical trampling of the squadrons that followed. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh sat astride of a hot boulder, got out the +Doctor's map and adjusted his cherished binoculars. They +showed him the battalion he had marched with halted by +the side of the river road. The bridge at Pagny showed +black with solid columns of infantry, marching eight +abreast; their sun-touched bayonets rippling lines of +molten silver, each helmet-spike a flame of ruddy gold. +</p> + +<p> +The First and Second Armies of United Germany, hitherto +compelled to a strenuous inactivity, were having their +innings with a vengeance now.... Looking Metzwards, +one could see that three new lines of pontoons were +thrown across the river below Yaux. A division of the +dark-blue soldiers, with eight squadrons of cavalry and +half a dozen batteries of mounted artillery, were crossing +almost within range of the guns of Mount St. Quentin +and Plappeville. +</p> + +<p> +How thickly the white tents were clustered on the green +slopes about both fortresses, Red Breeches swarming in +thousands without and within the walls. Were the +gunners of the huge bronze Creusots one had read of asleep, +or lazy or indifferent? The answer came in a spirt of +white vapor from an embrasure of the middle salient of +St. Quentin's long, eight-pointed star. A white-hot flame +leaped, a towering cloud of smoke soared, the roar of a +heavy piece of artillery followed; and a shell of big caliber +soared above Moulins and burst with a shattering explosion +and an uprush of flame. Some Artillery-horses on the +nearest pontoon reared, causing a momentary confusion. +Their dismounted drivers quieted them, and the orderly +crossing went on. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Boom-Boom!</i> Crack! A clatter like old iron and a +heavy splashing and pounding of hoofs. St. Quentin had +got the range.—No! the shrapnel shell had been fired from +a French field-battery placed behind earthworks above +St. Ruffine. Another shell hit the upper pontoon and +must have smashed it adrift on the landing side. For +dark-blue men and struggling horses were drifting away in +the direction of Metz, and the green river was tinged with +red. The wheelers of a gun-team, dragged downward by +the weight attached to them, had gone to the bottom almost +without a struggle. The leaders, submerged all but their +wild heads and splashing fore-hoofs, battled a while with +the current before one of them vanished. The other, whose +rope-and-chain traces had somehow broken, swam gallantly +down-stream, and finally landed on the farther bank. +</p> + +<p> +Further successful practice on the part of France's +artillerists may have followed. At this juncture the +attention of P. C. Breagh became diverted by a curious fact. +One of the stone-pines seemed to be lobbing cones at him. +<i>Whiff-phutt!</i> they were dropping on all sides. Or could +it? ... A shrill whistling sound close by his ear, and a +simultaneous bristling of the hairs upon his scalp and body, +told him that it could. The missiles were bullets. +</p> + +<p> +They came, sometimes with a sharp whistle that told of +unexpended energy, at others with the pleasant humming +that had at first attracted him, from the woods that clothed +the rising ground northwest and west of the platform he +occupied. +</p> + +<p> +Were they Prussian bullets or French? At the moment, +the question did not interest him. He had pocketed his +map and crawling on his belly towards the southern edge +of his platform, looked cautiously over, meditating descent. +Beyond was a sandwich-shaped stretch of woodland climbing +to a ridge; and beyond the ridge a considerable expanse +of bush-dotted common bordered by a stream and speckled +with a few farm-buildings. Quite a decent-sized town +lifted its Norman church-tower nearly a mile away. +</p> + +<p> +The town must be Gorze. Withdrawing his eyes from it, +they dropped into a deep ravine or combe running parallel +with the western and southern sides of the giant limestone +rock he sprawled on. Ferns clothed the deep, hollow sides, +and oaks and birches, springing from the bottom, lifted +their bushy heads to the level of his face. Spying between +the branches, he saw that the ravine was full of garishly +colored lights and shadows, and that a steady current of +glittering white metal snaked in and out between the +tree-trunks, setting from west to east. +</p> + +<p> +Bayonets, carried on the shoulders of red-breeched +French soldiers, moving with startling rapidity over the +dry leaves at the bottom of the ravine. A battalion, at +least, of wiry, active-looking Voltigeurs, a mitrailleuse-battery, +each weapon hauled by a team of three gunners.... +Green-coated Chasseurs <i>à pied</i>, with cocks' plumes +shading the peaks of their <i>képis</i> followed. Would a surprise +be intended for the cavalry-brigades that had crossed +the railway-bridge and ridden eastward down the river-road +a few minutes previously? In that case, what ought +one to do? +</p> + +<p> +Even as he asked, the advanced company of Voltigeurs +discovered the Prussian squadrons. He saw a ripple of +excitement pass down the ranks, and the Voltigeurs hurry +forward at the double. He saw the mitrailleuse-batteries +string out in line, push up the sloping sides of the +ravine, and scatter among the trees of the plantation that +climbed the ridge. The Chasseurs followed. Their intention +was obvious. They were going to enfilade the passing +brigades from the cover of the wood. +</p> + +<p> +Even as the hounds of hell seemed to break loose, and a +sheet of pure yellow-white flame ran from end to end of the +ridge where the trees ended, the foremost brigade of three +Hussar regiments came in view, trotting over a track that +traversed the common, became a road, and plunged +between deep woodlands trending west. His map had told +him that the road led to Rezonville and Gravelotte. +</p> + +<p> +He heard the Prussian trumpets sound through the ear-splitting +racket of the French rifle-fire. He saw through +the thin haze of powder-smoke that hung above the wood, +the massed columns split into squadrons, the squadrons +divide into troops, the troops become units—scattered over +the common, galloping to re-form again upon the road that +led through the woods to Rezonville. +</p> + +<p> +They were two of the brigades forming Rheinbaben's +Fifth Division, under Von Barby and Von Bredow, pushing +forward to join General von Redern in the neighborhood +of Mac La Tour. Their mobility saved them from +decimation on a grand scale, but they left dead horses and +men and officers dead and wounded. Their retreat was +covered by one of their batteries of Horse Artillery, and +two squadrons of a Uhlan regiment. +</p> + +<p> +In the distance a riderless gray charger galloped wildly +over the common, and a prone figure in a brilliant scarlet +coat lay motionless beside the track. More could not be +observed just then, for the battery of Horse Artillery got +into position, while the Uhlans dismounted and coolly +returned with carbine-fire the enfilade from the chassepots +in the wood. +</p> + +<p> +They knelt, and aimed and shot without hurry, and that +their shooting was effective was demonstrated to the +noncombatant onlooker, by half a dozen French Artillerymen +and Chasseurs <i>à pied</i> who came staggering or limping back +through the trees, and got down into the ravine. One +toppled over in the act of negotiating the descent, and lay +sprawling and head downward. Another, who kept putting +a hand to his streaming cheek, and taking it away to +stare at the blood upon it, was shot again in a vital part, +spun around, and collapsed in a heap. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Lee-ee eer!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +The wailing, stinging screech of a bullet that had shaved +unpleasantly near was accompanied by the whisking of +the sun-scorched straw hat from the head of P. C. Breagh, +and an acute pang of deadly fear. In the same instant the +Prussian field-battery opened fire. Beyond the trees four +puffs of white smoke went up, and four tongues of bright +yellow flame preceded the quadruple crash of the +driving-charges. Lanes opened through the smoke-filled wood, +as trees split into kindling and match-sticks. And heaps +of green and scarlet rags mixed with bloody flesh and +shattered bones mingled with the <i>débris</i>. And something +that screamed like a devil unchained hurtled through +intervening space, and plumped upon the limestone platform +within a dozen feet of P. C. Breagh. And he shrieked like +a shot rabbit as it exploded with a splitting crash, and a +spurt of evil yellow fire licked the skin off his ear and +cheek. +</p> + +<p> +Dazed and stupefied, he removed himself to the farther +and more sheltered side of the platform. But the skirmish +was over, the Voltigeurs and the Chasseurs <i>à pied</i>, with +what remained of the mitrailleuse-battery, had not waited +for the Uhlans to charge, but were in pell-mell retreat along +the ravine. He heard a French voice cry savagely: +</p> + +<p> +"We are cut off! These woods are full of Prussians!" +</p> + +<p> +And in the same instant, through the lanes that had been +hacked through the trees, P. C. Breagh saw the Prussian +artillery limber up and ride off with what remained of the +Uhlan squadrons. They were wanted badly at the front, +and the infantry-battalions with which P. C. Breagh had +marched from Pont à Mousson, and the Division coming +up from Pagny, striking into the Ars road, had crossed the +upper end of the ravine. The woods were indeed full of +them. And they also were wanted at the front and had +no time to spare. +</p> + +<p> +As blue uniforms and crimson faces topped by gilt-spiked +helmets came crowding through the trees, the +human river, flowing along the bottom of the defile, rose +in a wave and splashed back upon itself. A red-haired +young officer of Voltigeurs, drawing his sword, used his +voice and the flat of the weapon to restore order; and +succeeded so far that his company formed in straggling lines +and began to send in volleys with the courage of despair. +The gunners of the mitrailleuse that was not smashed by +the German shell-fire could not use the piece effectively at +the bottom of the death-trap. They were shot down in the +attempt. +</p> + +<p> +It was cool, scientific slaughter—merciless carnage. +Before it began, a bugle cautioned attention. A flat-capped +field-officer pushed his horse to the front and cried +in stentorian tones: +</p> + +<p> +"Aimed fire!" +</p> + +<p> +The men of the chassepot made a gallant stand, but the +odds were heavy, and the men of the needle-gun did not +waste a cartridge. They loaded and aimed, fired and +reloaded with machine-like precision. When the ravine was +piled with bloody corpses the bugles sounded "Cease fire!" Then +the Prussian field-officer spurred to the edge of the +red ditch and shouted, looking down: +</p> + +<p> +"Does anyone here ask quarter?" +</p> + +<p> +There was a laugh. But something raised itself from a +heap of bullet-pierced bodies. A rattling voice cried: +</p> + +<p> +"No, dog of a Prussian!" +</p> + +<p> +A revolver cracked, and the speaker, a Voltigeur, was +silent. His voice had sounded like that of an old man, but +he wore the epaulettes of a lieutenant and had carroty-red +hair. At this juncture, being overtaken by grievous +retching and vomiting, P. C. Breagh's observations +ceased. +</p> + +<p> +He sat up presently and wiped his dripping neck and +mopped his forehead. It seemed to him that he had seen +the whole French Army exterminated, and yet he had +witnessed but a skirmish ending in a battue. He shook his +wits into some order, and controlled the shuddering that +took him in the pit of the stomach, when he remembered +that in common decency he must go to Brotherton. +</p> + +<p> +The descent from the rock-platform was nothing more +than a risky scramble. There were plenty of pine and +furze roots and jutting stones for holding to and clefts into +which to thrust one's toes. But the crossing of that ravine +cumbered with bloody corpses was not effected without +revolt of body and soul. He slipped once and fell, and +struggled up all horribly besmeared and sick and shaking. +For the teeth of a head from which the face had been +shot away had snapped close by his ear. Then came the +negotiation of the bit of woodland. Here were more +Voltigeurs and Chasseurs <i>à pied</i> dead and horribly mutilated, +and the wreck of a mitrailleuse, with two of its gunners. +Some of these poor wounded creatures were living, and +moaned for water. +</p> + +<p> +"My God!—my God! how I suffer!" one feeble voice +kept crying. +</p> + +<p> +Help was coming, for from the direction of the town +some carts were being driven, one by a stout priest in +cassock and broad-brimmed hat, others by men with Red Cross +armlets. Black-habited, white-capped Sisters of Mercy +were in these vehicles, with baskets, and pitchers, and +pails. +</p> + +<p> +Seven dead Hussars showing hideously the effect of +mitrailleuse-fire,—a troop-horse or two, and a White +Cuirassier shot through the body and swearing horribly in +Low German, were the fruits of the French enfilade. The +fine gray charger had ceased careering; it grazed peaceably +on the short herbage by the track that led over the +common. But Chris Brotherton would never sit in saddle +again. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh turned him gently over and opened the +gold-laced scarlet tunic. There was no blood upon it, only +clean dust, nor was the dead man bruised or cut, having +fallen where it was grassy. Upon the broad breast, under +the white cambric shirt, was an oval miniature, pearl-set, +of a pretty woman. The handsome mouth of the wearer +smiled under the drooping fair mustache, and his blue +eyes stared glassily. A bluish hole in the right temple and +a bloody clot amid the hair upon the left side showed +where the chassepot bullet had traversed the brain. +</p> + +<p> +He had been high-handed, arrogant, and domineering, +yet the Doctor and the horsey Towers had seemed to love +him. No doubt that woman in the miniature had held +Chris Brotherton dear.... P. C. Breagh would have +left her fair face lying on the yet warm breast of her lover, +but something he saw going on among the casualties upon +the edge of the wood caused him to change his mind. +</p> + +<p> +That gaunt-eyed, greedy-fingered creature in the +peasant's blouse and Red Cross brassard, who glided from +body to body, rifling pockets, should not plunder the +Doctor's friend. With this determination, Carolan took away +the portrait, a packet of letters, and Brotherton's watch +and purse and pocketbook, then went forward to meet the +Sisters, just descending from the foremost of the string of +peasants' carts; and began: +</p> + +<p> +"My Sister..." +</p> + +<p> +The nun addressed turned a pleasant face upon him, and +cried, with a sympathetic clasping of her small, +work-roughened hands: +</p> + +<p> +"There is blood on Monsieur! ... He has been wounded." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh explained with economy of words how and +where he had been watching the fighting, and whence came +the ugly stains upon his clothes. The nun glanced toward +the wood, paled and shuddered, and said, making the sign +of the Cross upon her starched, cape-like <i>guimpe</i>: +</p> + +<p> +"But all cannot be dead who lie bleeding in that <i>ravin</i>—the +hollow where our poor school-children gather primroses +in Spring?" +</p> + +<p> +"I think they must be. The massacre was carried out +deliberately. Aimed fire—and there is not a movement, +not a groan...." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh shuddered, remembering the crossing of +the red ditch. The nun said with energy, as other black +habits and white guimpes came crowding round her: +</p> + +<p> +"We must make sure.... Each of those bodies must +be lifted and examined. Life often lingers, sir, when it +seems to have fled. We learned that in the Crimea, when +we worked in the base-hospitals of Kamiesch. What of +these things?" P. C. Breagh was holding out the portrait, +purse, pocketbook, and letters. "You wish our Reverend +Mother to take charge of them? They belonged to that +dead officer yonder, in the scarlet uniform? He was +English, you tell me—and you, too, are of England? Very +well! It shall be as you wish, Monsieur—I am free to +decide, as I am the Superior of our community. But I +will not receive the valuables at your hands until you have +helped us to clear that terrible ravine. We have only our +good priest with a few peasants and one surgeon, and some +charitable ladies and gentlemen of the Association of the +Red Cross. Everyone else is panic-stricken—they have +barricaded themselves within their shops and houses, and +taken refuge in the cellars.... The explosions of +cannon have been so terrible—they are becoming yet more +alarming, and when the fighting came quite close.... Our +people are not brave, you think!—Still, everyone cannot +be courageous.... But, Monsieur, who watches men +being killed by guns to gain experience—we may look to +Monsieur for help?" +</p> + +<p> +The clear woman-eyes went to the sun-browned, freckled +face of the young man in the travel-worn, dusty, blood-stained +clothing, and realized that a struggle was going on +within him. She said: +</p> + +<p> +"If Monsieur is of necessity compelled to go and leave +us, I will take charge of the dead English officer's property +for Monsieur. But a great blessing is for those who succor +the wounded. Our Lord has always promised this!" +</p> + +<p> +No one listened to the little colloquy; some of the Sisters +were already stooping beside the prone bodies, two of them +were helping the vocal Cuirassier into a cart.... +</p> + +<p> +With a great longing P. C. Breagh had longed to make +the ridge south of Flavigny, and see with his own eyes +how the Man of Iron comported himself in the clash of war. +And to stay behind and forego the possibility cost him +poignant anguish, but one could not leave the Superior and +the Sisters to dabble unaided in that ghastly ravine. +</p> + +<p> +"I will stay, Reverend Mother," he said, with a bow that +might have been more clumsy. Next moment Brotherton's +property had vanished into a huge pocket hidden +somewhere in the black habit. The nun clapped her hands, +crying to the peasants: +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks! thanks! Come, Antoine, Pichegru, Eloi, +Bénoit! Dubois! To the wood, my friends! and the +hollow, where are many sufferers! I place you under the +orders of this English Monsieur." +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap44"></a></p> + +<h3> +XLIV +</h3> + +<p> +Upon that battlefield of Gravelotte, France, driven to bay, +fought like a royal tigress. How many times the dark blue +Divisions were thrown back in their assault upon positions +zoned with death-bellowing cannon and death-barking +mitrailleuses, History relates. So murderous was the fire of +her chassepotiers from their densely manned rifle-pits that +you could trace Moltke's plans of assault in mounds of +dead Uhlan cavalry and long regular swathes of motionless +blue objects that had been Schmidt, Schultz, and Kunz.... +</p> + +<p> +Yet if the Warlock had said within himself, "<i>This shall +be above all a battle of cavalry</i>," it would seem as though +the determination had been formed upon the other side. +</p> + +<p> +For this day that saw the death-charge of Von Bredow's +brigade upon the Gorze Road—Uhlans, White Cuirassiers, +and Dragoons of the Guard hurled in a solid column of +shining steel against French field-batteries and battalions +of riflemen—also saw the cavalry of Frossard, of +Ladmirault, and Canrobert ride down whole squares of +German infantry, who rose again and poured in volleys from +their needle-guns, to be beaten down by the storms of +leaden hail ground out by the mitrailleuse. +</p> + +<p> +A glowing, coppery sun looked down on those six square +miles of fiercely contested ground. Over its whole expanse +there was not one patch as big as a National School playground +without its <i>débris</i> of arms and accouterments, its +ghastly or ludicrous tokens of war. +</p> + +<p> +In an intermittent lull of the racket you could hear the +dry earth, that had been pounded bare of verdure, sucking +moisture as though after heavy rain. Only the rain was +red. The faint, sour smell of it came to the nostrils +mingled with the smell of burnt gunpowder, human and +equine exhalations, and the acrid stifle of burning wood. +</p> + +<p> +For Flavigny was yet smouldering, the farm-buildings at +Gorze were burning, Malmaison was a furnace; houses and +barns at Verneville were wrapped in clouds of black smoke +shot with lurid flame. +</p> + +<p> +Exhausted battalions, sick and stupefied with slaughter, +were lying down among the dead and the wounded to snatch +a wink of sleep. Others opened their haversacks to snatch +a hasty mouthful, or drained their canteens of the last +drop. Surgeons were going up and down among them, +patching up flesh-cuts with lint and diachylon, temporarily +plugging bullet-wounds of the minor order. "There!" +they would say to the Schmidt, Kunz, or Schultz so treated; +"now you are fit for fighting again!" +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps you can see the Man of Iron in his white Cuirassier +cap, black undress frock with the pewter buttons, and +great steel-spurred jack-boots, standing, grim-jawed and +inscrutable, behind his King's camp-chair. Through the +stress and storm of two long days of hot fighting, that +patch of high ground south of Flavigny had been the point +to which orderlies and aides-de-camp furiously galloped +from every point of the compass, and from which they +galloped back in even more desperate haste. +</p> + +<p> +In the rear of the camp-chair, not so close to it as to +draw fire, were the King's personal military staff, a bevy +of Princes, and the representative of the British War Office, +Colonel ——. Several Councillors and Secretaries of +the Chancellor's traveling Foreign Office stood about, stout, +gray-haired, important-looking persons in semi-military +uniform. The carriages that had conveyed them waited at +Tronville. The King's charger and those of the other +great personages were in the care of orderlies. The Escort +waited by their horses in the background. +</p> + +<p> +Moltke stood apart, taciturn and inscrutable, nursing +his thin elbow and cupping his long chin. Roon, who +contrary to his custom was not wearing his helmet, gloomily +champed his cap-strap, unable to disguise his anguish of +anxiety. He would have given a year of life to say: +</p> + +<p> +"Old man, so cool in the midst of this hellish slaughter, +can it be that you do not know how things really are going? +Since two of the clock the French have had the best of it! +The chassepot you termed a 'magnificent weapon' has +justified your eulogism. The mitrailleuse we despised, not +comprehending its terrible capabilities, has revealed them +to our undoing. The Army of United Germany bleeds at +every pore!" +</p> + +<p> +He tore his mustache, the dye upon which had not been +renewed recently. His heart swelled with the flood of +pent-up speech. +</p> + +<p> +"The Commander-in-Chief's dispatches to the Queen +have been cheered in Berlin. Throughout Germany they +are hailed with joy.... '<i>France now fights with her back +to the Rhine</i>,' the people say. '<i>Our Army stands arrayed +between Bazaine and Paris!</i>' Is it possible they do not +realize that the situation is critical? Have they no +suspicion that the tables might be turned?" +</p> + +<p> +He wrung his knotted hands together in torment, and +the sweat started in gouts upon his livid skin. +</p> + +<p> +"Before us the Army of Bazaine—behind us at Châlons +the Army of MacMahon. Were the Duke of Magenta +with his recuperated Divisions to advance energetically and +swiftly to the relief of his brother Marshal—could the +Crown Prince hold him back? And if he could not, what +were our chance worth?..." +</p> + +<p> +The sentence had escaped Roon without his knowledge. +Moltke's wrinkled visage turned his way. The scarlet-rimmed +eyes glittered on him a moment. Roon leaped as +the dry voice said: +</p> + +<p> +"Not so much as a pinch of snuff!" +</p> + +<p> +The War Minister stammered: +</p> + +<p> +"Pardon, Your Excellency! You spoke to me?..." +</p> + +<p> +Moltke answered quietly: +</p> + +<p> +"I asked if you could spare me a pinch of snuff. My +box is empty." He opened the little silver receptacle and +turned it upside down, tapping it on his finger nail: +"Neither have I a single cigar!" +</p> + +<p> +Roon had forgotten his cigar-case in quarters. He +fumbled for his snuff-box, thought it must be in his cloak. +A resonant voice said from behind the King's camp-chair: +"Will Your Excellency take one of these?" +</p> + +<p> +"Why not? why not? If they are not too strong for +me...." The Warlock smiled, showing his toothless gums. +The Chancellor said, opening and offering the plain green +leather case with the coroneted B stamped in gilding on it: +</p> + +<p> +"It may be they are stronger than you are accustomed +to smoke?" +</p> + +<p> +Moltke's keen, swift glance met the heavy blue stare of +the Chancellor. He returned: +</p> + +<p> +"I will answer Your Excellency when I have tested them." +</p> + +<p> +The case held three Havanas of varying merit. Two +were good, one super-excellent. The withered hand +hovered, paused above them, made selection, while the sharp, +glittering glance seemed to say: "So! ... You are trying +again the test you put me to at Königgratz! See! I am +cool enough to choose the better creed!" While Bismarck +returned the case to his breeches-pocket, mentally +commenting: +</p> + +<p> +"Excellent. He has chosen the best one. He is not +flustered—he has yet a trump to play!" +</p> + +<p> +Believed, he returned to his post behind the King's +camp-chair, a rugged, powerful figure, with the face of a +thoroughbred mastiff, unwearyingly keeping guard lest +meaner influences should undermine his power and topple +his unfinished life-work down. +</p> + +<p> +Watching the battle through these noonday hours, he +had, being a practical soldier as well as a consummate +statesman, known some moments of horrible foreboding. +Now his courage revived. The work would be completed. +The well-shaped, sun-browned hand lightly resting on the +chair-back would hold all Germany within its iron grip. +</p> + +<p> +The thrill of conscious power transmitted itself to the +King, it may be, for he moved impatiently in his seat. +Sometimes he must have chafed, the white-haired Hohenzollern +chieftain, knowing himself a puppet in the hands +of his powerful Minister. +</p> + +<p> +"How they fight! How they fight! <i>Ach Gott!</i>" he +muttered. "Wouldst thou have credited, Otto, that such +fire was left in France?" +</p> + +<p> +And the helmeted head of the old chieftain shook with +an uncontrollable nervous spasm. Over it came the +scoffing retort: +</p> + +<p> +"It is the fire of fever, the fire of phosphorescence. It +will leave them weak and debilitated—it will glimmer out +and go black. And yet Bazaine, contemptible as a strategist, +has his moments of inspiration. The thrust of the +skilled fencer will sometimes puzzle the master of +swordsmanship.... Frossard and Canrobert are devout +Catholics, and no doubt believe in guardian-spirits. They have +had a hint, it may be, from some celestial Field Marshal; +St. Louis, possibly, or the Chevalier de Bayard." +</p> + +<p> +The King murmured, unheeding the jest, his eyes glued +to the field-glasses that jerked in his shaking hands: +</p> + +<p> +"Even a victory could not bring my soldiers of the +Guard to life again. And there! Dost thou see?..." +</p> + +<p> +The Minister turned his own binoculars in the indicated +quarter. What remained of a Division of the Prussian +10th Corps, with a brigade of cavalry, Uhlans and +Dragoons, was locked in the death-grip with a Cavalry +Division of Bazaine's own corps, the Third, on the plain +between the Bois de Vionville and the Bois de Gaumont. +And even the Chancellor's iron hand trembled as with +ague, and his breathing harshened perceptibly as he +carefully focused the glasses on the fight. He said after a +moment: +</p> + +<p> +"Those three regiments of cavalry on brown horses with +green, silver-laced dolmans and red-bagged talpacks are +Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. Fine fellows! They +have a man to lead them, it would seem, in that little +Colonel with the big paunch." +</p> + +<p> +The Brigadier of the Chasseurs had been killed by a +shell, and upon Paunchy had devolved the leadership. +Twice he had led the green dolmans in shattering charges, +under the stress of which the dark blue islands of infantry +had hollowed and caved in. Twice he had fought his way +out at the head of his shrunken and mutilated squadrons. +Now, sweeping round, the Dragoons and Uhlans had +attacked the Chasseurs furiously in the rear. +</p> + +<p> +All that could be seen, even through the binoculars, was +a shifting kaleidoscopic jumble of gay uniforms. Men's +heads and arms rising and falling, flashing swords, +flickering lance-pennons, and the crests and hindquarters of +plunging beasts.... Hence Kraus, Klaus, and Klein of +the blue infantry could not fire into the <i>mêlée</i> for fear of +shooting their countrymen. Red Breeches hesitated to use +his chassepot on the same count. +</p> + +<p> +About a bushy knoll to the left of the struggle, the +German cavalry circled like swallows, greedily assailing a +swarm of green and red dragon-flies. The chasseurs' +cartridge-boxes being empty, they used their long sabers as +they had used their carbines, coolly and effectively; and +Paunchy, lifted above the press by the little knoll referred +to, encouraged them with looks and gestures and words. +</p> + +<p> +"Courage, my children! ... Follow me! ... Bravo! ... One +moment's breathing-space, and at them again!" +</p> + +<p> +He was only a green and scarlet speck in the midst of an +aggregation of other specks on the vast battlefield, yet the +King and the Minister watched him with fixed regard. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Grosser Gott</i>! How that man fights!" the King muttered +at one point in the conflict, and the rejoinder came +from overhead: +</p> + +<p> +"He is gallant, certainly, but a bit of an actor. Would +not one say that flourish was meant for the ladies in the +orchestra-stalls?" +</p> + +<p> +"Because he has kissed a medal or a relic?" the King +muttered, tugging at his white whisker. "Doubtless he is +Catholic.... We ourselves have many brave soldiers of +the Roman faith!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +For as his squadrons ever thinned and dwindled, every +instant paying toll to the great swords of the Prussian +Dragoons and the blood-thirsty Uhlan lances, they had +seen the little Brigadier take from the breast of his green +dolman something white and press his bearded lips to it, +and thrust it back again, and sign himself with the Cross. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Hurrah Preussen! Immer vorwärts!</i>" yelled the +Uhlans, as their dripping lance-points flickered in and out +between the red-stained sword-blades, and the bodies of +dead Chasseurs and dead horses rose in a mound about the +knoll where stood the little Brigadier. +</p> + +<p> +Paunchy possessed a great voice. His "<i>Chargez!</i>" had +reached the ears of the King and his Chancellor through +all the pandemonium of battle. When his Staff +trumpeter's instrument, bullet-pierced, gave forth no sound +but a strangled screeching, the little Colonel's thundering +"<i>Feu!</i>" needed no trumpet to make the order plain. Now, +his "<i>Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur!</i>" boomed out like +the roar of a dying lion. His melting squadrons gave back +the rallying-cry. +</p> + +<p> +But they were lost. Prisoned within the ring of piercing +steel that tirelessly revolved about them, they could kill, +but they could not break through the barrier. Fresh +squadrons rushed with hoarse shouts to the aid of the German +cavalry. The Chasseurs were hopelessly outnumbered, and +must inevitably be crushed. +</p> + +<p> +The subaltern who bore the Imperial standard got a +lance-thrust in the shoulder. At the same moment, his +horse was shot dead. As the beast reared in the death-throe +and went down under the plunging hoofs of the +maddened horses round him, the Colonel leaned from his +saddle, seized the hand that gripped the staff of the +standard, drew the fainting officer upward, and laid him across +his own saddle-bow. Then, as his gallant horse braced +itself to bear the double burden, the rider lifted high the +glistening folds of the tricolor topped by the golden +Imperial eagle, and as the Uhlans charged the knoll he shouted +again in terrible tones the slogan of the dying Empire: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Vive la France! Vive l'Empereur!</i>" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +War has many of these sublime moments mingled with +her squalid hideousness. Upon this day many a soldier, +French and German, died as finely as the father of Juliette. +You are to see him—bareheaded, for the fur talpack with +the plume of green and scarlet had been sheared from his +head by a glancing sword-cut—lifting a war-flushed forehead +to the sky all sunset-red. Then a mortal lance-thrust +reached him over the body that lay across his horse's +withers, and he reeled upon his saddle, and fell backward, +partly swathed in the Flag for which so many heroes have +died. +</p> + +<p> +Through the tricolored folds yet other Uhlan lance-points +reached him. Did any thought of his daughter pass +through the brain of the dying soldier between the sharp +pangs of the probing steel? +</p> + +<p> +"<i>My child ... safe ... neutral territory.... Charles +... honest man ... protect my girl from Adelaide! +Now ... death! Ah!—agony! Save, Jesu! ... Mary, +help!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +A few of his gallant Chasseurs surrendered. But these +were only a handful. Nearly the whole strength of his +brigade of three regiments lay dead upon that patch of +common that was cumbered with their corpses and those of +their enemies. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap45"></a></p> + +<h3> +XLV +</h3> + +<p> +Bismarck said, lowering his binoculars: +</p> + +<p> +"Lucky that war is so confoundedly expensive. Otherwise, +one might get too fond of it!" +</p> + +<p> +The King groaned: +</p> + +<p> +"My Dragoons of the Guard!—my Uhlans, slaughtered +in regiments! My infantry shattered—decimated—annihilated +in Divisions. The bravest blood of France—poured +out upon French soil like water.... Great God!—how +shall I defend this carnage to the Queen?..." +</p> + +<p> +The voice behind him said, ironically: +</p> + +<p> +"My wife writes me ten pages every three days, urging +upon me in Biblical language the necessity for complete +extermination of everything French! Believe me, Sire, +he who is guided by the advice of a woman follows, not a +Jack, but a Jinny o' Lantern, that will inevitably lead +him into a bog!" +</p> + +<p> +The King winced under the gibe, yet he said, striking +his clenched hand passionately upon his knee: +</p> + +<p> +"And this shadow that we follow southward, this vision, +of a Crown Imperial! What is it but an <i>ignis fatuus</i> that +has plunged us to the neck in the morass of War? If the +whole Army of United Germany sink down in the death-sleep, +for what have we offered up the sacrifice?" +</p> + +<p> +The answer came, prompt and authoritative: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Majesty may leave that question to be answered +by the sons of these men who lie dead about us, and the +sons they shall in their time beget. If your Majesty's +whole army must be sacrificed to insure German Unity, let +it be so, in the name of Heaven!" +</p> + +<p> +The King tugged again at his white side-whisker and +muttered something about "sinful ambition." The hand +that had wrenched the curb now offered sugar. The +voice said, mellowed and softened to persuasive tenderness: +</p> + +<p> +"I have served a great King. I aim to serve a great +Emperor. If my ambition be sinful, it is at least not base!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, Otto!" The King rose, and his hard, yellowish-hazel +eyes were full of tears as they met the Minister's. +"You have no argument so strong as your disinterestedness. +For even your bitterest enemies have never questioned that!" +</p> + +<p> +Something took place in the brain behind the great domed +forehead hidden by the Cuirassier cap, the fierce, almost +challenging stare sank beneath the old man's tearful look +of love. The Man of Iron was asking himself: "Am I, +then, so disinterested? ... If I am, why is it that these +words have power to gall me so? Can it be that I have +my price as well as others? I think myself repaid in Power +for what other Ministers will only sell for gold." +</p> + +<p> +The momentary embarrassment passed. He said, pointing +to one of those long blue mounds of dead infantry: +</p> + +<p> +"And who could see our soldiers advance under the fire +of these French chassepots and the terrible mitrailleuses, +and doubt that they have understood the greatness of the +issue at stake. Excuse me a moment, Sire! ... What +is it, Götzow?" +</p> + +<p> +The <i>aide-de-camp</i>, in the full uniform of the Chancellor's +own regiment of Cuirassiers, was white as his own coat. +He gulped out: +</p> + +<p> +"Excellency, I am charged by His Highness, Prince +Augustus of Württemberg, Commander-in-Chief of the +Prussian Guard Corps..." +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor's prominent blue eyes lightened so fiercely +upon the speaker that he began to stammer and boggle in +his speech: +</p> + +<p> +"Terrible intelligence ... only just received by His +Highness.... Yesterday Your Excellency's sons, Count +Herbert and Count William, were in the general cavalry +charge which took place at Mars la Tour..." +</p> + +<p> +The great soldierly figure standing with the huge spurred +boots apart, the hands leaning on the long steel-hilted +sword, might have been cast in iron or carved in granite +for all the emotion conveyed by look or gesture. The voice +said stridently and harshly: +</p> + +<p> +"The First Dragoons of the Guard were not involved in +the struggle. Only the brigades of Von Barby, the 4th +Westphalian Cuirassiers, the 10th Hussars, and the 16th +Dragoons." +</p> + +<p> +The ghastly aide faltered, perspiring freely: +</p> + +<p> +"At the moment of General von Barby's charge, it has +been unfortunately ascertained, a squadron of Prussian +Guard Dragoons of the First Regiment—returning from a +patrol, dashed into the <i>mêlée</i>..." +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor drew a sharp breath, but stirred not a +finger. His fierce eyes, staring from dark pits that had +suddenly been dug round them, paralyzed the wretched +bearer of the tragic intelligence. He asked in a tone that +appalled by its tranquillity: +</p> + +<p> +"Have both my sons been killed?" +</p> + +<p> +The <i>aide-de-camp</i> got out that it was feared so. He was +thanked and charged with a polite message to the Prince. +As he saluted and retired, lightened of his tidings of +anguish, the Minister focused his binoculars with a steady +hand upon that point toward the northward where the dark +bulk of the fortress of St. Privat loomed on a hill-top +covered with masses of troops and traversed by a straight +white, poplar-bordered road, regularly trenched for +musketry. He said in the same tone of composure, though his +set face and the hand that held the glasses were wet as +though with rain: +</p> + +<p> +"St. Privat still resists. General Pape, with the +Guard's cavalry and the Saxons, will find their work cut +out for them in driving those French battalions out of the +village below the hill." +</p> + +<p> +He lowered and wiped the glasses with his handkerchief. +The King said entreatingly, laying a hand upon his arm: +</p> + +<p> +"Go, go! Find out the truth about your sons, +Bismarck.... Leave not a stone unturned, in God's name!" +</p> + +<p> +Even as the King spoke, German drums and trumpets +sounded the charge; and there was a sudden shifting of +masses of troops in the direction of St. Hubert. Then as +a wave of dark blue men began to roll out from the deep +woods that flanked the village of Gravelotte, so fierce a +storm of cannon and mitrailleuse and chassepot began to +beat about their heads that the unseasoned horses of the +Princes of the suite kicked and plunged and the Minister +said: +</p> + +<p> +"It would be wise did your Majesty remove out of this +neighborhood. These bon-bons thrown by Frossard's +artillery are coming much too near." +</p> + +<p> +"I will ride back—I will move out of the way," said the +old man in great agitation. "But you, Bismarck!—you +must go and see about your sons!" +</p> + +<p> +He answered, and his great bloodshot eyes and sagging +jowl were more than ever those of a mastiff: +</p> + +<p> +"When I have seen your Majesty in a place of safety +I will ask your permission to do so." +</p> + +<p> +An orderly from Steinmetz, who now had his field +headquarters at St. Hubert, arrived with an urgent entreaty +that the King would at once retire. +</p> + +<p> +The horses were brought. King William and Von Roon +mounted. The Chancellor's mare had been sent to water; +his orderly appeared with her as the King's party rode on. +With a hasty word of reproof the Minister swung his great +figure into the saddle, but the brawn and bone of his beast +had not carried him clear of the threatened spot before a +retreating wave of German foot and horsemen swept over +it, followed by the thundering gallop of a retreating +battery. +</p> + +<p> +It was a <i>sauve-qui peut</i>, caused by the smashing fire +from the French shrapnel and mitrailleuse batteries, and +the practice of the French riflemen entrenched at the +Moscow Farm. A general officer rode through the rout, +laying about him with the flat of his drawn sword and +swearing horribly, to judge by his bloodshot eyes, and +purple countenance. +</p> + +<p> +"Hares! <i>Gottverdammt!</i> hares!" he gasped breathlessly, +finding himself face to face with a gigantic officer of +Cuirassiers. "A thousand pardons, Excellency. I did +not at once recognize you. Surely you will follow his +Majesty to the rear?" +</p> + +<p> +"Willingly," said the Chancellor, as a brace of French +shells exploded, digging pits in the sandy ground over +which the Headquarter Staff had passed. "Only, as shell +does not fall twice in the same place, I am waiting to make +sure." And, with a knee-touch, he put the brown mare +into her stride. +</p> + +<p> +There was a backward surge of disorganized infantry as +the huge beast lifted herself over the yawning craters. +But she passed through the press by the bore and thrust of +her great shoulders, and the beast and the big man she +carried were swallowed up in the roaring dusk. +</p> + +<p> +Moltke, the bald-headed war-eagle, remained brooding +his coign of observation upon the verge of the ridge +south of Flavigny, his feathers drooping, his shoulders +hunched, his sharp, hooked beak inclined toward his breast; +his red eyes, burning with the battle-lust, staring fixedly +from under the wide, hairless brows. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The sun sank in clouds of smoky gold and crimson over +that country of copses, ravines, ruddy brown farmhouses, +and white villages. Evening came down and dipped her +wings in billows of salt-tasting gunpowder smoke, +rose-tinged above and beneath by the reflection from the red +sky and the red earth. The green Moselle was tinged with +blood. Little rivers ran blood, streams and springs became +blood. Wells were filled with blood, as in old time under +the rod of the Lawgiver of Israel, and still the battle +raged over hill and valley, common and highroad. +</p> + +<p> +Flavigny village still smouldered, Malmaison was burning, +houses and barns at Verneville were wrapped in roaring +flames. Yet the gunners of the French batteries at +Moscow, Point du Jour, La Folie, and the Quarries of +Amanvilliers and Rezerieulles, continued to make practice +of the deadliest; and still French cavalry charged the +Teuton's dwindling infantry-squares. +</p> + +<p> +Had not a comparatively fresh and vigorous Prussian +Army Corps dropped in at the crucial moment success had +hardly crowned the arms of United Germany. They had +been marching every day since they quitted the Saar, +those solid-thewed Pomeranians of the 2d Corps, but at +Puxieux they had cooked and eaten, and now appeared +like giants refreshed. +</p> + +<p> +Not only Steinmetz rode at their head, with their +commander Von Fransecky, but the Warlock in person directed +their attack. Battalions that had retired in disorder +reformed and rushed back to meet afresh the brunt of battle. +Wherever the red eye glittered and the withered finger +pointed, fresh swarms of fierce assailants were hurled +against the dwindling hosts of France. +</p> + +<p> +Down came the dark, and now St. Privat was burning; +the village under the lee of the fort was burning—sending +up great columns of livid smoke shot with licking tongues +of flame. The day was over. But crackling lines of fire +outlined the position of the rifle-trenches; the mitrailleuse +batteries still spat death unwearyingly, as what remained +of Bazaine's Army retired in comparative safety to the +Fortress of St. Quentin under cover of that fiery screen. +</p> + +<p> +There the shattered brigades and mutilated divisions +clung like swarming wasps "with plenty of sting in them +yet," said Moltke, "and the hive"—meaning the huge +Fortress of Metz—"handy in their rear. But, on the +whole," he added, "I am excellently well satisfied. My +calculations have worked out correctly. Those Pomeranians +of the Second Corps arrived just in time!" +</p> + +<p> +And the veteran galloped joyously as a young trooper +of twenty-five to cheer his King with the good news. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +And can you see that other man, to whom Emperors and +Kings and Ministers referred when they mentioned Prussia, +who outwitted nations in policy and made wars at will, +spurring the great brown mare wildly through the weltering +darkness, with salt drops of mortal anguish coursing +down his granite cheeks? +</p> + +<p> +"Bazaine's right has been turned by the Saxons, the +Guards have smashed his center, and the Pomeranians of +the Second Corps have taken St. Privat and forced him to +retreat, leaving Germany master of the field. Success has +crowned beyond hope the arms of the Fatherland, but +where are the sons who called me father? ... Is this Thy +judgment upon one through whom so many fathers are +sonless, O my offended God?" +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps he groaned forth such words as these, as he +bucketed the great brown mare through the perilous +darkness, over roads bestrewn with helmets, swords, and +cuirasses, knapsacks, talpacks, forage-caps, and schakos, +needle-guns, and chassepots, and camp kettles, as well as +the human <i>débris</i> of War. The flare of a lantern tied to +and swinging from one of the great steel stirrups threw a +treacherous and fitful light upon his road. +</p> + +<p> +Follow him as he ranged from camp to camp, questioning, +investigating.... It was black night and raining +heavily when a gleam of hope dawned upon the man. +</p> + +<p> +The cavalry piquet-officer who had given the clue beheld +the great brute and her huge rider vanish in a cloud of +their own steam. A furious clatter of hoofs came back out +of the welter ing darkness, as the flaring lantern, gyrating +like some captive fiend at the end of its tether, dwindled +to a dancing will-o'-the-wisp and vanished, the officer +exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Kreuzdonnerwetter!</i> he must have a neck like other +men. Yet he rides as though it were forged of tempered +steel!" +</p> + +<p> +"Who rides? ... What was that?" asked a brother +officer, waking from a doze of exhaustion beside the hissing +logs of the rain-beaten watch-fire. He got reply: +</p> + +<p> +"Only the Pomeranian bear ranging in search of his lost +cubs." He added: "I was able to tell him that he would +find the eldest of them at the field-hospital of Mariaville, +upon which he galloped away like mad." +</p> + +<p> +"The field-hospital of Mariaville" proved to be a +farmhouse on a hill-top near the battlefield of Mars la Tour. +Candles stuck in the necks of empty wine-bottles revealed, +through the open, unblinded windows, the figure of the +surgeon in charge and those of his orderly-assistants +passing to and fro. +</p> + +<p> +"Have you a Bismarck here?" +</p> + +<p> +The stentorian shout from the yard made wounded men +turn upon their improvised pillows, and brought the head +and shoulders of the bibbed and shirt-sleeved surgeon +thrusting out of a window on the first floor. A colloquy +ensued between the unseen and the medical officer. +Presently the arbitrary voice interrupted: +</p> + +<p> +"What do you call not seriously wounded, man? Describe +the casualty clearly, without professional Latin, or +too many crackjaw words." +</p> + +<p> +The dressers winked to each other behind the back of +the surgeon. He said, supporting himself with one hand +against the crazy window-frame as he thrust his head and +shoulders forth into the dripping darkness and gesticulated +with a hand that held a probe: +</p> + +<p> +"Excellency, your elder son has received three bullets. +One lodged in the breast of his tunic, another hit his +watch, and the third is at present in the upper part of his +thigh. I was about to place the patient under chloroform +when Your Excellency's call summoned me from his side." +</p> + +<p> +The voice said, with a clang of anger in it: +</p> + +<p> +"You should not have left him had it been the King +who called. Go back to him instantly. I am coming up." +</p> + +<p> +And he came striding in his great boots up the crazy +one-flight stair. Ghastly faces of wounded soldiers turned +upon their pillows of straw as that gigantic figure filled up +the doorway. His shadow, thrown by the flaring tallow-candle +flames, loomed portentously on the whitewashed +walls. He wore no cloak or overcoat and dripped as though +he had swum, not ridden, through water to his finding; the +peak of his field-cap discharged quite a little deluge upon +his son's white face as he stooped over the stretcher where +the young man lay and touched his hand, and kissed him +on the cheek. +</p> + +<p> +"Never mind. Clean water does no hurt," he said, for +he had drawn out his handkerchief to wipe the splash away, +and finding it soiled with dust and powder-grime had +returned it to his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +The surgeon returned: +</p> + +<p> +"I wish we had clean water—it would be above price. +But all the springs are fouled with blood, and there are +dead French in the courtyard-well." +</p> + +<p> +"They must be got out and the well cleansed, if possible," +said the Chancellor. "Meanwhile, a temporary supply +must be found.... What nourishment have you, fit +for wounded men?" +</p> + +<p> +The surgeon responded, busy with a cotton-wool chloroform pad: +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing, Excellency, except wine and a little Extract +of Liebig." +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor said harshly: +</p> + +<p> +"Yet this appears to be a farm-house, and I heard the +clucking of fowls down below!" +</p> + +<p> +The surgeon, who was a bullet-headed, obstinate East +Prussian, and did not relish this sort of hectoring, returned, +thrusting out a stubbly under-jaw: +</p> + +<p> +"Excellency, there are certainly fowls in the farmyard. +But they are not mine, nor have I money to buy. They +belong to the unhappy wretch who owns this place, and +has lost everything else." +</p> + +<p> +And he gave back the stare of the fierce eyes that raked +him. The Minister began to lisp, an ominous sign: +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, indeed! ... May I—may I ask where you—where +you gained your notions of the code of ethics that should +prevail in warfare?" +</p> + +<p> +Said the surgeon, fronting him fairly and squarely: +</p> + +<p> +"Excellency, from my father, who was an honest man!" +</p> + +<p> +Straw rustled under heads that slewed to look at the +blunt speaker. There was a long instant's pause. Then +the Chancellor thrust his hand into his breeches-pocket, +pulled out a gold coin, and said, tendering it to the medical +officer: +</p> + +<p> +"Kindly pay this to the object of your pity for twenty +fowls at a mark apiece. Now I will keep you no longer +from your patient. Good night to everyone here." +</p> + +<p> +"Good night, Excellency!" came in chorus. +</p> + +<p> +He gave his brusque salute and had already reached the +threshold, when his son, a colossal, black-haired, +brown-skinned young trooper, who lay back upon his stretcher, +staring sulkily at the smoke-blackened rafters, or +contemplating the twitching bare toes of the leg that bore a +tourniquet above the plugged and bandaged wound, started +slightly, looked round, and called: +</p> + +<p> +"Father!" +</p> + +<p> +"What is it, my dear fellow?" +</p> + +<p> +His great stride took him back to the prone young giant +on the stretcher. Count Herbert said, barely removing his +eyes from the ceiling, and speaking in a studiously +indifferent tone: +</p> + +<p> +"If you are upset about Bill, sir, there's no need to +worry. His horse was shot under him, but he got hold of +another. I saw him ride off all right with a wounded +comrade behind him. That's all. Goodnight!" +</p> + +<p> +The son nodded surlily and resumed his inspection of +the ceiling. The sire, who had received the news in silence, +went out at the door, stooping under the lintel, his great +shoulders rasping the posts on either side. They heard his +heavy footsteps pass down the crazy staircase. A curt +sentence or two reached them, spoken as he went through the +kitchen on his way to the door. Then he was in the yard, +loudly calling for an orderly to bring a lantern. An +instant, and three revolver-shots cracked in rapid succession, +each followed by a significant cackling and squawking. +The surgeon, now fitting the cotton-wool pad upon the wire +mouthpiece and signing to his assistant to hand him the +chloroform, clapped the pad upon the mouth and nostrils +of young Bismarck, and said, with a dry chuckle as he +poured the pungent anaesthetic upon the wool: +</p> + +<p> +"His Excellency is having a little sport. All the same, +without water, one cannot cleanse wounds or boil +hen-broth." +</p> + +<p> +Water arrived an hour later, two barrelsful upon a +hand-cart drawn by terrified peasants, behind whom rode a +trooper of Uhlans, accelerating their movements with prods +of the lance. A general officer had sent the barrels for +the use of the wounded at Mariaville. This service +rendered to his son, he rode in search of his King. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap46"></a></p> + +<h3> +XLVI +</h3> + +<p> +He found him, with his Staff, not far distant from +Rezonville, having returned there when the French cavalry of +the Left withdrew after their tremendous charge. The +King was reading dispatches, seated on a saddle thrown +across a wet faggot, beside a smoky watch-fire. The +farmstead of Malmaison, now sending up showers of sparks +like a set-piece at the end of a display of fireworks, gave +light enough by which to read. +</p> + +<p> +Persuaded to take shelter, the old man found it in a +deserted hamlet, of which the very name was uncertain, +so sorely had it been mauled about. A crust of stale bread +and a mutton-chop grilled on some wood embers furnished +his supper. Water fit for drinking being unattainable, he +tossed off a nip of sutler's rum out of a broken tulip-glass, +and lay down in his clothes to rest upon the royal ambulance, +within four walls and under a roof holed and gapped +by shot and shell. +</p> + +<p> +The Princes of the Suite, much to their Highnesses' +chagrin, were compelled to subsist on fragments of stale +sandwiches from their holster-cases. The escort bivouacked +about the Royal lodging. Troops, wearied to exhaustion +by the two days' continuous fighting, lay down to sleep in +the pouring rain. +</p> + +<p> +The Warlock supped with his personal Staff on ration-biscuit +and raw bacon, and spent the night by a bivouac-fire, +among the living and the dead. Can you see him +sitting on the empty ammunition-box, buttoned in his +dripping waterproof, his scanty meal eaten and his cigar well +alight? ... How contentedly he listens while the bulbul +Henry sings, without notes of accompaniment, his moving +ballads. How piously he rises, bares his old head, and joins +in the robust hymn sung by his battered but victorious +legions, "Now thank we all our God..." +</p> + +<p> +Or, with the mind's eye, one can follow the Man of Iron +as, having bidden his master good night and left the young +Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg to keep guard over +the royal carriage, he set out, in company of his cousin +Bismarck-Böhlen, a lieutenant of Dragoon Guards and one +of the minor Councillors of the Embassy, in search of a +lodging until break of day. +</p> + +<p> +Sheridan, the famous American General, representing +the United States with the Prussian Headquarters Staff, a +short, alert gentleman of forty-five, with a dark mustache +and chin-tuft, and a pronounced Yankee twang, followed, +begging leave to accompany the expedition. The first +cottage approached as likely to afford a night's shelter was +found to be on fire. +</p> + +<p> +"Too hot, though I like warm quarters!" the Chancellor +commented. The next house was found crammed with +wounded soldiers, all suffering from the excellent +shell-practice made by the gunners of General Frossard. The +next house and the next had also been converted into +field-hospitals. The fourth yielded to the Minister's personal +investigations a vacant attic, with three truckle-beds, +provided with straw palliasses, tolerably clean. +</p> + +<p> +Sheridan and Bismarck-Böhlen threw themselves upon +their rude beds and very soon were soundly sleeping. For +a little while the Man of Iron stood beside the narrow +unglazed window in the attic gable, his great arms folded on +his broad breast, his eyes, bloodshot and strained with +gazing through the fire and smoke of bombardments, looking +out into the wild black welter of the rainy night. +</p> + +<p> +Those torn-up pastures and plow-acres, those devastated +cornfields and woodlands, those burning farms and +villages of Lorraine lay in comparative quiet now.... +The hellish roar and crash and tumult of War had ceased +for the time being. Its ghastly sights were veiled, for the +most part, by merciful darkness, though the innumerable +little sputtering fires kindled by the soldiers threw fitful +illuminations upon grotesque, or strange, or terrible, or +indescribably hideous things.... +</p> + +<p> +Hungry, thirsty, weary, and saddle-sore as any trooper of +his own White Cuirassiers was the Man of Iron, having +broken his fast at dawn upon a hunch of bread and +bacon-fat, and supped upon a couple of raw hen's eggs, broken +on the pommel of his big steel-hilted sword. But as his +bloodshot eyes looked upon his handiwork, he was +contented. This huge, vehement, and bloody conflict had +established the mastery of Germany: France was +outnumbered, out-generaled, and out-fought. +</p> + +<p> +With frightful loss Moltke had attained his premier +object. The Army of MacMahon had been driven in rout to +Châlons, the retreat of Bazaine's Army westward had been +effectually checked. The South road from Metz to Verdun, +hitherto lightly held by the advance-patrols of the +Prussian Crown Prince, was now blocked by the whole effective +strength of two out of the three armies of Germany; +weakened, wounded, and bleeding after the two days of +desperate fighting, but still powerful, menacing, and grim. +</p> + +<p> +One desperate effort made at this juncture might have +broken through the barrier of living flesh and steel. Would +it be made, or would the French Army of the Rhine fall +into the snare so cunningly left open, and retire within +the fortified area of Metz? +</p> + +<p> +The gable-attic looked toward the great fortress. In vain +his glasses swept the formless blackness. The sparkle of a +moonbeam on a bayonet-point—the green or crimson ray cast +by a Staff lantern moving over the ground, yet screened by +the French batteries, might have cleared the point in doubt. +Save for the sputter of German watch-fires over the recent +field of battle, and the yellow candle-flare in the windows of +half-ruined cottages and outbuildings, where wounded men +lay on straw or the bare earth, no light showed, no life +seemed to be.... He swung the shattered casement wide, +and thrust his head out, gripping the window-sill, intently +listening.... No distant roll of iron-shod wheels, no +reverberating tread of countless footsteps; no other sounds, +such as might betray the retreating movement of an armed +host, broke the silence of that tragic night. +</p> + +<p> +Only the sob of the wind and the dripping of the chill +rain from the overflowing roof-gutters, came to him, with +the deep ruckling snores of exhausted Divisions, and the +strangling coughs and hollow groans of mangled and dying +men and beasts. +</p> + +<p> +All would be well, he told himself, as he shut up the +glasses, unbuckled his sword-belt, and unhooking his collar +stretched himself in his great boots upon the groaning +truckle-bed, his heavy revolver ready to his hand. Moltke's +great plan would be successful.... The King would once +more prove his Chancellor a true prophet.... The hand +that could build up Prussia from a fourth-rate State into +a world-power, would yet hold the German Empire in its +grip of iron, and through that Empire rule the world! +</p> + +<p> +If He Who created the World had been displeased by +Bismarck's ambitions, things would have gone less smoothly +from the outset.... If He Who wrought Man in His +Image had been moved to wrath by all this bloodshed, He +would have shown it by letting something happen to the +boys.... +</p> + +<p> +But Bill was safe, while Herbert was only slightly +wounded. To-morrow he should be brought back to the +hospital at Pont à Mousson and thence invalided home. +</p> + +<p> +Reverting to Bill, secretly the father's idol, in whose +person he saw his own lost youth renewed, the Chancellor +smiled now, painting in imagination on the darkness a +picture of that charge of the French square at Mars la Tour. +According to Herbert, who had put the thing badly, Bill +had had his horse shot, and jumped on another, taking a +comrade behind him as he rode off the field. +</p> + +<p> +A fine story to write home to the boy's mother.... How +her deep eyes would glow and kindle as she read.... An +exploit with which to dazzle fat Borck, hated keeper of +the King's Privy Purse.... Nor must one omit to embody +the incident in the next official communication penned +to Count Bernstorff, Prussian Ambassador in London, who +would be sure to retail it to some Lady-in-Waiting possessing +the ear of the Queen. Lastly, what a magnificent anecdote +for the convivial stage of a Foreign Office Staff dinner, +or an official banquet, related with spirit garnished +with exaggerations of the pardonable harmless kind. +Indeed, with such embellishments he subsequently related the +slight episode, proving himself capable of the very folly of +paternal tenderness. The picture cropped up constantly +among his dreams on this wild night of Gravelotte. And +when the wan-faced Dawn peeped shuddering between her +blood-stained curtains, and the reveillé sounded, waking the +living from their sleep among the dead, so that their +haggard uprising seemed as though in answer to the trump of +the Archangel of the Resurrection—he heaved his giant's +frame from the squalid bed to learn, with a savage thrill +of exultation, that Bazaine had fallen into the trap. +</p> + +<p> +In the dead of night, behind the screen of the unsilenced +French batteries yet emplaced behind the high-walled +farms of Montigny la Grange, La Folie, and from thence to +Point du Jour, the bleeding Army of the Rhine had +retreated to the treacherous shelter offered beneath the guns +of Metz. +</p> + +<p> +Said the Warlock, smiling in his sunniest manner as he +made his hasty morning toilet in the shelter of a +baggage-wagon tilt: +</p> + +<p> +"Three French Marshals are twittering in this birdcage +on the Moselle—one Army has been shut up with them. +Another yet remains at large, with Paris and the huge +resources of France in rear of it." He paused to absorb a +pinch of snuff and extract a clean white shirt from a small +and shabby japanned tin field-case, then added: "A +France on the point of Revolution—an Army commanded +by MacMahon, who has been badly beaten, and has that Old +Man of the Sea, the Third Napoleon, sitting on his back +wherever he goes!" He put on the shirt and emerged from +temporary obscurity to finish. "If the spirits of the just +be permitted knowledge of earthly matters, my beloved +wife Mary is pleased with her old man!" +</p> + +<p> +And he equipped himself in his old war-harness, and +crowned his old wig with his battered war-helm, and got on +his fine charger and rode off to meet and confer with his +King, the Chancellor, and the War Minister, and issue +instructions to his Chiefs of the various Staffs, trolling even +less tunefully than usual, another verse of his favorite +song: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "And knew they, the shining stars above me,<br> + Of the bitterness of my woe,<br> + They would come down and bid her love me,<br> + Pleading: 'Ah! do not scorn him so!'"<br> +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap47"></a></p> + +<h3> +XLVII +</h3> + +<p> +Rumor had it that the King, the Chancellor, Roon, the +Royal Staff, and the Tinsel Rabble, with the escort of red, +blue, and green Hussars, Guard-Dragoons and Uhlans, had +ridden toward Flavigny. +</p> + +<p> +The Warlock placidly followed, traversing the battlefield +near Rezonville. Here bearer-parties of the German Ambulance +Service, with Red Cross helpers, Knights of St. John, +volunteers and French and German surgeons wearing the +Geneva badge, were now arriving; and some progress had +already been made in the gigantic task of separating the +wounded from the dead. +</p> + +<p> +The Iron Chancellor was found here, attended by his +shadow, Bismarck-Böhlen, sometimes dubbed "The Little +Cousin," other whiles "The Twopenny Roué," according +to the humor of his powerful relative. The Minister was +glancing through the morning's letters, his cousin was +reading him extracts from the <i>Daily Telegraph</i>, a parcel of +English papers having arrived. Hard by, squads of +fatigue-men, aided by bloused peasants, were working to +finish the second of two parallel trenches, in length some three +hundred feet, near which had been collected a huge mass +of French and German corpses, many half-naked, the majority +of them still in uniform. Carts lumbering up with +fresh loads to discharge continually, augmented the terrible +mound of bodies, a huge percentage hideously displaying +the effects of shell-fire, many in the initial stages of +decomposition, hastened by the sweltering and oppressive +heat. +</p> + +<p> +Soldiers went about with huge canvas sacks, filling these +with zinc identification-tags taken from the necks of their +dead comrades, gathering a harvest of watches and purses, +the former sometimes of such value, and the latter +occasionally so well-filled with French money as to suggest +that they had previously been taken from the dead. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ach Gott!</i>" the perplexed officer of Pioneers in superintendence +of the trenching-party kept saying: "More, more, +and still more.... What is one to do with so many dead +men?" +</p> + +<p> +Some utterance of this kind reaching the ears of the +Chancellor, he turned in his saddle and called to the officer: +</p> + +<p> +"Your trench is too deep, sir, and not half wide enough. +Three feet is sufficient. Lay them in as cooks dispose +herrings in oil-pickle, across in layers and not singly and +lengthways—labor and space will be economized thus." +</p> + +<p> +"Alas, Excellency!" protested the officer, "will not such +a method be very unwholesome? The churchyard at Flauville +is already raised four feet above the pavement of the +church." +</p> + +<p> +"Let them lay on fresh dead," said the Chancellor, smiling +grimly, "and stop when they reach to the level of the +window-sills. Thus our good fellows will be able to listen to +the Curé's Sunday address. Meanwhile, bury thick." He +added, as Moltke rode up, pointing to the ground now +trodden into mud and littered with French schakos and <i>képis</i>, +Prussian helmets and schapkas, knapsacks, arms, under-clothing, +accouterments, brushes, razors, and shoes: "Would +not one call this 'Death's Rag Fair'?" He added as the +wind, blowing over a battery of dead horses, brought with +it an odor that made the senses reel: "Or 'Death's +Perfumery Shop' would be as appropriate a title.... I must +advise the King not to breathe this atmosphere longer, +fasting. It might result in dysentery." +</p> + +<p> +Moltke agreed, expanding his thin nostrils: "Truly, the +effluvium is exceedingly bad!" +</p> + +<p> +"Hypocrite!" said the Chancellor, openly laughing. +"Do we not all know that the bouquet of a battle-field +covered with slain enemies is sweeter to you than November +violet-blooms." +</p> + +<p> +"Both may be agreeable," said the old war-eagle, "in +different fashion; as the partition of a conquered province, +and the dismemberment of a truffled capon might afford +pleasure of two kinds to Your Excellency." +</p> + +<p> +Said Bismarck, as his cousin reined back and joined the +modest personal staff of Moltke, following at some distance +in the rear of the Commander-in-Chief: +</p> + +<p> +"I prefer the first, if the second appeals to my empty +stomach. Though we must not sell the bear's skin before +we have killed the bear!" +</p> + +<p> +He went on, patting the sweating neck of the brown +mare, who had winced and started as yet another dead-cart +shot out its dreadful load to windward.... +</p> + +<p> +"The King has been in favor of keeping the country up +to the Marne. I have yet another idea, which may be too +Utopian to realize. A kind of German colony—a neutral +State of eight or ten million inhabitants, free from the +conscription, and whose taxes should flow to Berlin. France +would thus lose a district from whence she draws her best +soldiers—one would cut her claws thus!" +</p> + +<p> +Said Moltke, his clear eyes narrowing in merry wrinkles: +</p> + +<p> +"And draw her teeth as well!" +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor went on: +</p> + +<p> +"That the annexation of the piece of territory will give +jaundice to the French is a matter of no consequence. +Revenge should be made impossible. Even without annexation +we must render them permanently harmless before we risk +their bite. The surrender of the eastern fortresses of +France can alone serve our purpose. We have bought +them with the best of our German blood!" +</p> + +<p> +Agreed the Warlock: "Many noble Prussian families +will be plunged in mourning. Wesdehlen and Reuss, +Wedell and Finkenstein have been killed—Rahden is most +grievously wounded, and a whole crowd of officers +commanding regiments or battalions are either badly hurt or +dead. I can but thank Divine Providence that I have +suffered no personal bereavement." +</p> + +<p> +"I echo your thanksgiving," responded the Minister, +"though some pints of my own blood have vicariously been +shed." +</p> + +<p> +"I had heard—I had heard somewhat, but feared to +touch upon the matter," said the Warlock. "With the +younger olive-branch they tell me all is well!" +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor answered, stammering slightly and +looking straight in the other's eyes: +</p> + +<p> +"Bill rode off the field in safety, carrying two unhorsed +comrades out of the leaden hailstorm, one in each stirrup, +Cossack-fashion, and accommodating a th—a third on the +crupper of his horse!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ei—ei</i>! I had not heard these interesting particulars," +exclaimed Moltke, raising his hairless brows in apparent +astonishment. "I did not know the brave young man had +distinguished himself so much! The Countess will +overflow with pride and gratitude.... She writes regularly, +I think Your Excellency told me? Naturally she would be +solicitous for your health." +</p> + +<p> +"I had a letter from her yesterday," returned Bismarck, +"in which she mingles, in equal doses, stern admonition and +affectionate advice. Thus, I am to avoid the French wines, +which are known to be gout-provoking, and be sure to +return in time for the celebration of our wedding-day.... +While, remembering, however strongly Paris may be fortified, +that the walls of Jericho fell down when the trumpets +of Joshua were sounded—I am to give Your Excellency no +peace, 'until the modern Babylon is utterly destroyed.'" +</p> + +<p> +"Ha, ha, ha!" The Warlock laughed with boyish merriment, +until the water stood in his clear, keen eyes. "Her +Excellency, as I have often told thee, Otto, possesses a +personality of the antique order. She is of the breed of Judith +and Zenobia.... I would also say Boadicea, but for the +Countess's known antipathy to the British race. So we +are to destroy Paris, and what of the Bonapartes and +Bourbons and Orleans?... Have we, then, no cut-and-dried +instructions as to what is to be done with these?" +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor returned, with immovable gravity of +tone and feature, belied by the amusement dancing in his +eyes: +</p> + +<p> +"We are to purge France of the whole lot of them. +Though—supposing the Prince Imperial were to complete +his education at a German University, and thus attain to +manhood surrounded by German influences—Monseigneur +Lulu might one day become a subaltern in our Prussian +Army—subsequently to completion of the customary period +of service in the ranks!" +</p> + +<p> +"Capital. Her Excellency is indeed a woman in a +thousand." And Moltke fairly rocked in his saddle with +laughter, finally having recourse to the frayed cuff of his old +uniform field-frock for the mopping of his overflowing eyes. +"Thou must paint for the King," he gasped, "that picture +of Lulu as a Prussian private soldier. Do not fail to tell +him—it will be sure to make him laugh." +</p> + +<p> +Said the Chancellor, shrugging his great shoulders: +</p> + +<p> +"He has ridden with Von Roon and the Tinsel Rabble +in the direction of Flavigny, where the French bombardment +so greatly endangered him yesterday. Von Roon will +be pouring into the royal ear dismal details of our losses, +which are to be estimated for the Berlin newspapers at +something under twenty thousand, including officers." +</p> + +<p> +"Seventy thousand would be nearer the mark," said the +Warlock placidly. "Nor do I regard it as a heavy price +for such a victory as we have won. Roon, however, is not +to be envied an unpleasant duty, which, for my own part, +I prefer, when possible, to leave to other mouths than +mine." +</p> + +<p> +And leaving the battle-field they struck into a road in a +cutting leading east toward Flavigny, and bordered with +cottages shattered and scorched by shell-fire, most of them +standing in gardens gay with dahlias, sunflowers, snapdragons, +marigolds, lavender, and phlox. Every house that +boasted a roof was full of wounded French and German +soldiers, most of them lying on bare boards or earthen +floors. Oaths and cries of anguish came from kitchens that +in virtue of their solid tables had been converted into +operating theaters; ambulance-assistants emptied buckets of +ensanguined water over the gaily-colored flower-beds, while +bare-armed surgeons, in blood-stained aprons, came to the +doors every other moment to cool themselves, or fill their +lungs with draughts of cleaner air. +</p> + +<p> +"It is sad to see all this suffering," remarked the +Chancellor, "or would be, did one not know it unavoidable!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Warlock, smiling cheerfully: +</p> + +<p> +"Blood and wounds, dying men and dead men, are the +inseparable concomitants of War. One takes them then as +natural, and pays no heed to them. Did armies fight with +truncheons of sausages, and dumplings stuffed with plums +instead of iron shells full of shrapnel, there would still be +deaths in plenty." +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor said, laughing heartily: +</p> + +<p> +"And the Field equipment of our Army surgeons would +consist of calomel and rhubarb-pills. Here now are a +collection of soaked macaws and paroquets. The fine feathers +of the Napoleon's Guard Imperial have suffered badly from +last night's rain." +</p> + +<p> +In two fields right and left of the road they followed were +crowded nearly four thousand French prisoners, under +a heavy guard of Mecklenburg infantry. The Mecklenburgers +were drinking their morning coffee and munching +Army bread and raw ham rations. The emerald, pale blue, +and scarlet Imperial Dragoons and Cuirassiers, the +white-mantled, red-fezzed Chasseurs d'Afrique, the green-coated +Chasseurs à cheval, the gorgeous Guides and Lancers, the +Voltigeurs, and the red-breeched, blue-coated grenadiers +belonging to individual regiments, standing as if in the ranks, +or lying down in groups upon the muddy ground where +they had spent the last night, looked with hollow eyes of +famine, upon their munching jailers, but disdained to ask +for food. +</p> + +<p> +"They are wet," said Moltke, "for few of them have got +their greatcoats. It is the love of display that leads the +French soldier to throw away what extra weight of covering +he carries when he is in the thick of a <i>mêlée</i>, or +suddenly called upon to charge. While our stout fellows will +come out of an assault with what they carried into it." +</p> + +<p> +"Or perhaps a little more!" hinted the Chancellor. +</p> + +<p> +"It may be—it may be!" admitted the Field Marshal. +"The French love for gold-carrying is the cause of that +enrichment. Hence most of their Guard Cavalry officers +carry beneath their tunics or in the pockets of their tight +pantaloons netted purses given them by their women, that +stick out in a tempting style. A prod of our German lance, +or a rip from the bayonet, and out pops the purse into the +soldier's fist. You would not call him a thief for taking +what he finds in this manner?" +</p> + +<p> +"I cannot answer for myself," said the Chancellor, +turning a laughing look upon the speaker, "but I can safely +predict that my wife would exonerate him upon Scriptural +authority. By the way, I see that your brigadiers have not +thought it worth while to place the French wounded under +surveillance." He pointed to a halting procession of +roughly bandaged casualties in torn and muddy uniforms. "I +have already passed at least a thousand of these limping +fellows in red breeches, and of course there must be +thousands more." +</p> + +<p> +"How could they escape?" asked the Warlock, turning +his ascetic, hairless face upon the speaker. "And did they +succeed in doing so, of what use would they be as combatants? +All these you see, have they not been wounded by +shell-splinters in the head or arms, or hit in the legs and +feet by our rifle bullets? Why should we burden ourselves +with the maintenance of men who cannot fight against us? and +must be helpless burdens upon their country even were +they within the French lines?" +</p> + +<p> +"I admit the clearness of your Excellency's judgment," +said the Minister, "even while I doubt whether, if some of +these red-breeched rascals happen to be in possession of +concealed weapons—there would not be an excellent +opportunity, at this moment, for ridding France of Bismarck or +Moltke." +</p> + +<p> +"Or both," the Warlock amended, "with the aid of a +double-barreled pistol. Look here! Was ever a more +startling likeness between a dead man and a living, than is +presented at this moment before Your Excellency and myself?" +</p> + +<p> +And returning the salute of a young soldier in the +white-faced blue uniform of the Guards Infantry, who in the act +of galloping past upon a powerful if wearied beast, had +checked his stride so as not to splash mud upon the +Chancellor and the great Field-Marshal, Moltke signed to him to +halt. +</p> + +<p> +"That he is a relative of Max Valverden's," said +Bismarck, "I would have wagered you a dozen of Moselle, of +Comet vintage, if Your Excellency were not already +inclined to bet on the relationship." +</p> + +<p> +"I never bet," chirped Moltke, "except in boxes of chocolate +and gloves with my nieces, and then it is a matter of +certainty beforehand that the little girls are going to +win!" And he turned his narrow, glittering gaze upon the object +of his curiosity, who was now fixed in the front attitude of +attention, immovable as an equestrian statue of painted +stone. +</p> + +<p> +"I will not detain you upon what is no doubt a pressing +errand," said the Chief of the Great Staff, smiling amiably +in the Guardsman's rigid countenance. "I merely wished +to ask your name, and why it is that a private soldier of +Guard Infantry happens to be riding an officer's horse?" +</p> + +<p> +"Pardon, General Field-Marshal!" The statue blushed +becomingly. "My name is Carl Bernhard von Schön +Valverden, at the service of Your Excellency. Of my rank in +the Army I am hardly at this moment certain, as I was +promoted Corporal and Sergeant yesterday, during the +action of the Guard at St. Privat and Amanvilliers, and am +now acting temporarily as junior Captain of my company, +nearly all our officers having been killed." +</p> + +<p> +"I congratulate you, Sergeant!" rejoined the Field-Marshal +cordially, "and am glad that you, as successor to +the family honors of an officer who served the Prussian +Army with distinction, seem likely to follow in the steps of +your relative. Prut!—that was a close thing!" +</p> + +<p> +"Hellishly so!" agreed Bismarck. +</p> + +<p> +For the flushed and laughing face of Valverden had +suddenly hardened and sharpened. With lightning quickness +he had drawn a revolver from a pouch strapped to his belt +and fired across the withers of the big brown mare bestridden +by the Iron Chancellor. As the single shot rang out, +another followed almost instantly, and the midmost of a +knot of three dismounted Lancers, their heads, legs, and +arms swathed in clumsy, blood-stained bandages, who had +halted to rest by the side of the muddy road, yelled shrilly +and pitched heavily backward, dropping, with the broken +pair of clothes-props that had served him as crutches, a +cavalry holster-pistol that had exploded as it fell. +</p> + +<p> +Said Valverden, stiffening his features in the endeavor to +disguise his almost passionate elation: "Your Excellencies +will pardon me, but I saw the fellow was dangerous...." +</p> + +<p> +"He might with reason," the Chancellor answered, "have +entertained a similar idea of you!" He turned to Moltke, +saying: +</p> + +<p> +"Will not Your Excellency give orders that the companions +of these would-be assassins—all upon the road who +have witnessed the attempted outrage—shall be shot without +delay? It strikes me also that more stringent precautions +must be taken with regard to disarming wounded +prisoners. The man had a pistol—that goes for much!" +</p> + +<p> +"Certainly—certainly!" agreed Moltke, beckoning to an +aide of his small Staff, who followed at some distance. He +issued some brief directions, speaking in an undertone, then +said, smiling and turning to Valverden: +</p> + +<p> +"The late Count Max was an excellent marksman with +the pistol. You seem to have inherited this talent of his!" +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor added, looking at the still smoking +revolver: "You have there a pretty little weapon, apparently +of American make!" +</p> + +<p> +"It is one of Colt's six-shooters," said Valverden, +smiling. "I bought it from a non-commissioned officer quite +recently, and have practised with it in the trenches at the +animate mark. But of the ammunition I got with it all has +been expended save six cartridges, one of which I have had +the honor to dedicate to the service of Your Excellencies." +</p> + +<p> +Both the Excellencies laughed, Moltke saying: +</p> + +<p> +"It would be a pity to spoil your shooting, Sergeant +Count von Schön Valverden, for want of a few cartridges. +Give me the caliber of your weapon and I will engage to +supply you with a few hundred. And, as to your promptitude +may be owed the priceless life of Count Bismarck, the +silver-sword-knot must be the reward." +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks, thanks! Your Excellency!" stammered Valverden, +grasping the offered hand of the old warrior. +</p> + +<p> +"And the King shall hear how important a service his +newly promoted officer has rendered him," appended the +Chancellor, "in preserving to the Throne and nation of +Prussia the greatest of living strategists!" +</p> + +<p> +"Under Divine Providence," said Moltke, devoutly +raising his forage-cap. +</p> + +<p> +"Under Divine Providence," repeated the Chancellor, +touching the peak of his own. +</p> + +<p> +He added, as Valverden, dismissed by a wave of the +Chief's finger, his blue eyes blazing, his blond face aglow +with triumph, set his borrowed spurs to the flanks of his +late Captain's charger, and with a showy bound and +demi-volte, galloped furiously away: +</p> + +<p> +"He is as vain as Count Max, but seems to possess more +character. I prophesy he will go far!" +</p> + +<p> +Moltke agreed, slightly glancing after the flying horseman: +</p> + +<p> +"Far—if Heaven preserve him from the clutches of such +women as Adelaide de Bayard. Wouldst thou believe, Otto, +the she-fiend spread her nets to catch that youngster, who +out of dare-devilry prevailed on an officer of her +acquaintance to take him to her house?" +</p> + +<p> +"So!" Bismarck turned his large eyes on the withered +eagle-face. "Did the meeting ripen into intimacy?" +</p> + +<p> +Moltke replied: +</p> + +<p> +"Sufficiently so to cause Valverden's family acute +apprehension. One would suppose that she first revolted, then +attracted, then charmed.... The Countess in the anguish +of maternal solicitude wrote a letter to the Colonel of +Valverden's regiment.... Fortunately the call to Active +Service diverted the young man's thoughts elsewhere." +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck said, smiling and smoothing his heavy gray +mustache with his ungloved right hand: +</p> + +<p> +"And, happily for her intended victim, an accident befell +the sorceress, which blunted some of the arrows in her +quiver of irresistible charms!" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap48"></a></p> + +<h3> +XLVIII +</h3> + +<p> +"Sad, sad! I had not heard. How did it happen?" asked +Moltke, elevating his hairless brows inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +"Briefly, the affair, as its details have reached me, sums +up in this way: Straz, the Roumanian agent of the Emperor +Napoleon, having performed his mission to Prince +Antony of Hohenzollern, met Madame de Bayard at a +Sigmaringen hotel.... She is as clever and light-fingered as +she is, or was, beautiful——' +</p> + +<p> +"I know, I know!" said Moltke. "She sucked Straz dry +of his store of Imperial secrets, but how, I did not hear +from Your Excellency." +</p> + +<p> +Returned the Chancellor: +</p> + +<p> +"By drugging him—or so he vows!—she obtained those +copies of his instructions from the Emperor (with copies +of his copies of the telegrams sent by Prince Antony)—which +I was privileged to show you later on. Subsequently, +and in floods of artificial tears, she awakened her victim, +declaring she must return that instant to Berlin. Which +she did—a special engine having been kept under steam at +the Sigmaringen railway station—in time to place the +papers in the hands for which they were destined. The +exquisite point of the jest is that Straz accompanied +her—subsequently discovering how roundly he had been +befooled! But upon this point I am not certain.... I only +argue from the premises that when Delilah was subsequently +found gagged, half-strangled, and robbed in her bedroom +at the hotel where she and her Roumanian had put +up—Straz—who had vanished—was the perpetrator of what +Madame has since termed 'a mysterious outrage.'" +</p> + +<p> +"He took the money?" Moltke queried. +</p> + +<p> +"Undoubtedly he took the money, which Bucher had +paid her a few hours previously. Twenty thousand marks +in honest Prussian bank-notes. Some of them Straz changed +before he left Berlin. He is now here in France, and that +is all I care to know of him at present. But in the eyes of +every man she now encounters, Madame will read something +that will keep her animosity alive." +</p> + +<p> +"So changed, is she?" asked Moltke, with interest. +</p> + +<p> +"So changed is she, in spite of the aid of cosmetics, that +as I looked at her I was minded to exclaim with the Prophet +Ezekiel: <i>Devourer of men ... thou shalt devour men +no more!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +The speaker added: +</p> + +<p> +"Unless vicariously, for the De Bayard has a daughter—not +destitute of charms, if there be truth in the description +given me by her mother, when the woman offered, for a +consideration, to sell the girl to me!" +</p> + +<p> +"Prut!" said Moltke, reddening angrily and frowning. +"Decency demands that such vileness be kept hid!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Chancellor, shrugging indifferently: +</p> + +<p> +"Decency and such women as Max Valverden's ex-mistress +have long ceased to be on nodding terms. To do +Madame justice, she flew at higher game than a mere Prussian +Minister. Her idea was to influence a future Emperor, +in the person of Badinguet's heir." +</p> + +<p> +Moltke wrinkled up his transparent, arched nostrils, as +though an unpleasant odor had afflicted them: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Pfui!</i>—what beastliness! what abomination! And the +boy but fifteen, and childish for his age!" +</p> + +<p> +"And cleanly of habit and thought," added Bismarck, +"considering his paternity, and the sort of people who +habitually surround him." He turned slightly in his saddle +as carbine-shots rang out, followed by oaths, shouts, and in +the distance behind them muscular blows: "The gendarmery +of the Württembergers are carrying out your orders in +a general <i>battue</i>. It should be enforced as an iron rule +never to be infringed or departed from, that not only those +soldiers, reduced to the level of non-combatants—who +attempt to revenge the misfortunes of their Army by acts of +violence—but those who witness such acts are to be +instantly shot. More, the rule should extend to private +persons: I would without mercy shoot or hang all those who +do not treat as sacredly inviolate the persons of their +conquerors!" +</p> + +<p> +His deep-cut nostrils expanded, his blood-tinged blue eyes +blazed under the heavy eyebrows, the corners of his mouth +clamped downward, giving to the thick mustache a certain +appearance of solidity, typical of the man, and suggesting +a human mask carved in granite, or cast in bronze and +colored with the hues of life. His resonant voice had the +clang and timbre of a war-gong, forged of metal tempered +by Pagan priests in blood of human victims. And he went +on, his clenched right hand beating the measure of his +words upon his solid thigh: +</p> + +<p> +"I speak from the inner depths, at the promptings of a +profound conviction. Strictness—unmerciful strictness—should +be wielded, to bring home to the innocent and the +guilty, the feeble as well as the powerful, the horror and +hideousness of War. And yet"—his voice assumed a milder +tone, the somber frown relaxed, and the tense corners of +the deep-cut mouth twitched a little: "And yet wilt thou +credit that during the frightful carnage of the last two +days—there have been moments when my bowels melted to +water—when Pity and Compunction have gripped me by +the throat?" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ach-ach!</i>" ejaculated Moltke, turning his clear +red-rimmed eyes wonderingly upon the heavy features whose +ruddy color had faded to grayish: "Thou wast unfed, or +hadst made some rough soldier's meal that disagreed with +thee. Man's stomach will upon such occasions chide with +the very voice of conscience. Unavoidable horrors need not +cause twinges. Besides, pity and compunction are felt by +my niece Gusta when she has trodden upon her lapdog's +tail.... I am myself agitated by these sentiments when +Gusta exhibits to me her chilblains.... In War—especially +a recklessly provoked war of attack, such as this—neither +pity nor compunction can be tolerated. Grief of +heart, I have been hitherto spared by Heaven's gracious +preservation of those dear to me. Thou art nearly as +favored, for the wound of Herbert is comparatively slight, +and Bill—the hero of the astonishing episode thou hast +related—has come off the field not only with four—I think +Your Excellency mentioned four—rescued comrades, but +without a scratch upon his skin?" +</p> + +<p> +The simple, serious, almost childish tone of his harangue +brought back the thunderclouds to the forehead of the Man +of Iron. His grim mouth set, his bulldog jaw thrust +forward, a dull cloud of red swept upward to his temples, +chasing the sickly grayish hue. He said, stammering in his +characteristic manner: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Ex—Your Excellency and myself have, as you +say, been spared the bereavement which will presently +plunge the noblest Prussian families into mourning. But +Heaven—looking down upon the Gorze Road, now white +with the bodies of Von Bredow's Cuirassiers—or contemplating +the field of Mars la Tour, heaped with the corpses +of our Guard-Dragoons and Uhlans—might be inclined to +disclaim arch-responsibility for the orders that in one +instance hurled suss—six Prussian squadrons upon a French +Infantry Division and the combined strength of Frossard's +batteries, and in the other, pitted against eight regiments +of French Imperial Guard Cavalry Von Barby's Heavy +Brigade." +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ei!</i>" said Moltke, placidly ignoring the irony, but with +a rosy heightening of the color in his wrinkled cheeks: +"And Heaven would be in the right of it. Von Alvensleben +in the first case, General Voights-Rhetz in the second, +had been told in such and such an emergency to do +thus—and thus. In the Wars of Joshua and David, as +recorded in Holy Scripture, Heaven assumed the chief +generalship. In the War of Germany with France, in this +year of 1870, Heaven is pleased to let Moltke have his own +way." +</p> + +<p> +Verbal thrusts and riposte had the grind of edged steel +on steel. +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor returned with elaborate suavity: +</p> + +<p> +"And yet—I quote Your Excellency's own utterance, +such use of cavalry as I have quoted has been condemned +by Moltke as unjustifiable." +</p> + +<p> +"And Moltke was right," trumpeted the indomitable +veteran, "only you have not quoted me right. Such use of +cavalry by a general is unjustifiable. +Unjustifiable—absolutely—unless he wins!" He +added, rather nettled by the Chancellor's criticism: +</p> + +<p> +"Here we part, as I ride toward Gorze to visit the scene +of Von Bredow's brilliant exploit, in the course of which, +though Your Excellency has omitted to mention it, the +French battery was cut to pieces, and an infantry column +ridden down. Thus the loss of life in a military sense +weighs nothing against the advantage!" +</p> + +<p> +And stiffly returning the Minister's salute, the Warlock +galloped away. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"I have trodden on Moltke's corns," said Bismarck, +laughing, as his cousin Bismarck-Böhlen rode up to join +him. "He grew testy on being twitted with our losses in +cavalry." He added, as the low hedges bounding the road +vanished, and the arena of the previous afternoon's conflict +opened before them: "There is the King, whose face Roon +has lengthened with tremendous lists of losses on our side. +It will now be my business to shorten the royal countenance +again. Roon and I resemble Ixel and Axel in the child's +story-book, only that we manage better on the whole!" He +explained as his cousin professed ignorance of the legend: +"Ixel and Axel were possessed of a magical birth-gift, +which worked in the same way, but differently.... Thus, +Axel had a little finger that stirred sweet, while Ixel's +stirred sour, only neither could remember to use his gift +properly. Thus, Ixel would sour the coffee in the pot, spoil +the beer, and turn the jelly in the house-mother's pipkins, +while Axel would stir the sauer-kraut sweet and make sweet +calf's head with cabbages!" He added, laughing: "If a +dish thus flavored were now set before me, I should +certainly make short work of it. Save for a bowl of the +soldier's pea-soup given me by General von Goeben this +morning—my stomach would now be as empty as the inside of +Louis Napoleon's head!" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The scene of the Homeric battle of the previous +afternoon, watched by the King, Bismarck, Roon, and Moltke +from the ridge south of Flavigny, was indescribable. Blue +Prussian infantry, mingled with Uhlan lancers, Dragoons, +and mounted Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard, covered the +wide stretch of level common-ground between the Bois de +Vionville and the Bois de Gaumont. So high were piled +the bodies of dead men and dead horses, mingled with that +sorrowful <i>débris</i> of shattered arms, scattered accouterments +and ownerless headgear, that live men walked through +narrow lanes and crevasses opening here and there among +them, and failed to reach the surface at the full stretch of +the arm. +</p> + +<p> +Bearer-sections of the German Ambulance were looking +for survivors, burial-parties were collecting the German +dead. Here and there the narrow lanes that ended nowhere +had become crooked thoroughfares, owing to these efforts +and the labor of bands of volunteers and peasants working +under the Red Cross. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh was one of these toilers. On the previous +day he had helped the peasants clear the Red Ravine under +the direction of the Gorze Sisters of Mercy, and darkness +falling before the gruesome task was ended, he had kept on +by torch and lantern-light until brain and muscles gave in. +Then, staggering with weariness, he had gone back with +the Sisters to their convent—had been dried and warmed, +fed with soup and bread, stewed fruit and coffee, and had +slept dreamlessly in the clean spare bed at their gardener's +cottage—to wake, refreshed, in the light of a new day. +</p> + +<p> +Morning had found every house in Gorze crammed with +French and German wounded, and every able-bodied resident, +willingly or otherwise, impressed into the service of +the Red Cross. One single lady of the Sister's acquaintance, +whose villa had been forcibly turned into a hospital, +had retired to sleep off a nervous headache, setting her maid +to guard her bedroom door. Which door, after an interval +of trampling and violent argument, had been kicked open, +revealing the kicker in the person of a Prussian General, +muddy to the whiskers, hoarse from exposure and shouting, +and red-eyed from the lack of sleep, who there and +then forcibly ejected the hapless spinster from her bed, and +telling her go and nurse the wounded, pulled off his spurred +boots, and promptly installed himself in her place. +</p> + +<p> +This was mild treatment, even tender, to the usage +received by many other harmless non-combatants. P. C. Breagh +had seen an elderly priest savagely hit in the face +by a dismounted Uhlan, whom he had unintentionally +jostled in helping to lift a disabled French soldier into a +cart. +</p> + +<p> +And he had been witness of other outrages. He had seen +a wayside cabaret gutted, and the casks hauled up from +the cellar, set up on end, unheaded, and emptied by a party +of blue infantry-men. When they had dipped in and filled +their water-bottles, they had drunk out of their helmets, +and when they could drink no more, they had emptied out +the wine upon the ground before the bush-decorated doorway, +and with brutal jests and laughter watched the red +stuff trickle away. +</p> + +<p> +To this senseless waste the host had offered no objection. +A blow from a gun-butt had previously knocked him senseless, +and his wife, with her black hair hanging wildly over +her shoulders, and her face blurred with tears and pale +with terror, was trying to bring him round again. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap49"></a></p> + +<h3> +XLIX +</h3> + +<p> +The sight of the battle-field blotted out that brutal +picture—made him clench his hands until the nails dug deep into +the palms, shut his eyes and set his teeth, fighting down +the deadly qualm.... It was worse than the Red Ravine a +hundred times magnified. It was awful—inconceivably +awful.... He found himself muttering: +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder how God can bear to look down on it all!" +</p> + +<p> +With difficulty he controlled his ardent desire to remove +himself as far as possible from this attained vision of his +great desire, by using the legs that had brought him to this +hideous scene: +</p> + +<p> +"If some of the fellows who gas about wanting to see +War—as I gassed—not twenty-four hours ago—could be +set down where I stand now, they'd find out, as I have +found—that they didn't know what they were talking about.... +Oh, God! ... suppose one of them saw that German +Hussar without a head, sitting upright on a dead horse, +curiously caparisoned with its own intestines, would he go +sheer crazy or tumble down in a swoon?" +</p> + +<p> +He who saw the thing kept on his legs and did not lose +his mental equilibrium. We are so weak to our own knowledge +that it is always a marvel when we find ourselves +strong. He found the nausea going and the dimness clearing +from his vision. He could even breathe the dreadful +air, and, standing on the limber of a broken gun-carriage, +stare out over the rigid billows of that silent sea of death +and tell himself that a not inapt comparison would have +been Deal Beach, with ridges of dead men and beasts +instead of ridges of pebbles, and flocks of carrion crows +instead of gulls—flapping heavily from one place to settle +down in another and renew their dreadful banquet, between +hoarse croakings that sounded like "More, more, more!" +</p> + +<p> +Starlings in myriads were there, reveling in blood and +fat like the titmice and robins, who manifested predilections +calculated to divest P. C. Breagh of the last remnant of +belief in the tender fable of the Babes in the Wood. +Butterflies, Royal Peacock, and Purple Emperor greedily +sipped blood in preference to honey-dew. Hares, rendered +tame by bewilderment and terror, couched among the +corpses of men, their natural enemies. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the northeast rose a knoll, about which the +battle seemed to have raged desperately. For it was +high-heaped with bodies of the green-jacketed Chasseurs on the +bony brown horses, and ringed about with Red Uhlans and +Dragoons in blue coats. The black and white lance-pennons +were whipping and flickering in the morning breeze that +brought with it the appalling savor of death.... +</p> + +<p> +One had come to work, not to make notes. P. C. Breagh +got down from the limber into the trough between two +towering wave-crests and looked about him helplessly, not +knowing where to begin. A bearer-party of the Prussian +Ambulance Service pushed by him. They were hard-bitten, +brown-faced men, who joked and laughed freely. A scared +band of peasants followed, carrying auxiliary stretchers +made of hurdles and sacks and poles. +</p> + +<p> +Upon the heels of these tottered a single figure. Was it +a young girl, or an old woman, so slight and frail, so bowed +and blackly clad? A black silk veil covered the bent face, +the small white hands were knitted across the narrow +bosom. A white linen armlet with the badge of the Red +Cross showed vividly against the sleeve of her plain black +merino dress. The little, daintily shod feet that showed +under the dabbled hem of the skirt had red mire upon +them. Through the veil her great eyes gleamed, haggardly +moving from side to side, restlessly seeking.... +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh was becoming familiar with that look of +strained apprehension and bleak anxiety, stamped upon the +sharpened faces of those crowds of black-clad men and +women who hastened from all quarters to seek amid the +brute and human waste and wreckage of battle, their own +wounded or dead. +</p> + +<p> +She moved with the irregular gait of one walking in a +fog, looking from side to side, questing amid blue and livid +or waxen faces for the face, it was quite plain. Her look +passed over bodies that did not wear the dark-green, +silver-laced dolman, and silver-striped red pantaloons of the +mounted Chasseurs of the Guard Imperial. She ignored +faces that were young, and unadorned with the crisp +mustache and the Imperial tuft. +</p> + +<p> +For whom did she seek? A husband, uncle, father? ... What +lay in her path? Something that, did the little foot +strike it unwarily, might bring to an end that anguished +search.... The impact seemed so imminent that his voice +died in his throat when he strove to call to her. He got out +in a gasping croak: +</p> + +<p> +"Stop! ... Look! ... Right in your path there! ... For +God's sake, don't touch it—it's a live shell!" ... +</p> + +<p> +She swerved blindly aside in obedience to the warning, +though he who uttered it had spoken in his own tongue. +The edge of her skirt brushed the unexploded shrapnel, a +potentiality fraught with hideous death. But she struck +her knee against the wheel of the broken limber—would +have fallen but for P. C. Breagh. Even as the slight figure +stumbled against him, he knew the veil screened the face of +Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +"Mademoiselle de Bayard.... Madame..." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, it is you—it is you!" she said gaspingly. +</p> + +<p> +And she would have dropped at his feet had he not thrust +out strong hands and caught hers that were still knitted +over her breast. +</p> + +<p> +They were so cold, so cold and tiny. They stirred in his +grasp like little half-frozen birds. She freed one, and put +aside the heavy veil, and showed him what havoc Grief can +make in loveliness.... She said—in the toneless wraith of +the crystal voice he remembered: +</p> + +<p> +"When you spoke to me in English, I knew Our Lord +had not forgotten me. Ah, Monsieur Breagh, for the love +you bear your sister!—for the love of charity—do not +desert me! Me, I am in the greatest extremity, or I would +not venture to appeal to you now. In the midst of these +appalling cruelties and terrors I seek the body of one who +is all the world to me.... For that I may find him living +I do not dare to hope..." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh choked out, crimsoning and stammering: +</p> + +<p> +"Not your husband? ... You don't mean your husband...?" +</p> + +<p> +She said, with a wonderful, pure dignity: +</p> + +<p> +"Not my husband. My father, sir. It is since a week +that I returned from Belgium upon receiving news of his +captivity in the hands of the Prussians. The intelligence +was false—I afterward learned. How—I cannot now tell +you. At this moment, and in the presence of all these poor +corpses, of odor so terrible, of appearance so frightful, I +can remember nothing very well. But this—that I have +come from Rethel since yesterday, and that I have come +altogether alone." +</p> + +<p> +"Alone! ... without a guide, or protector of any kind? ... Without +papers?..." His face expressed the blankest surprise. +</p> + +<p> +"A passport was obtained for me," she told him, "by +whom I will not say now, so that from the Belgian frontier +I might reach Rethel. When I quitted Rethel, I was given +a military permit by the aid of which I returned to Verdun. +From Verdun, in a train full of French wounded—in +a <i>fiacre</i> part of the way—in a peasant's cart the remaining +distance—I traveled: hoping to reach the Camp of the +Imperial Guard Cavalry at Châtel St. Germain. But at +Plappeville they detained me. A great battle was raging.... +What thunder of guns, what fire and smoke, what terrible +confusion, devastation, wounds, and death did I not +behold!..." +</p> + +<p> +She unknitted one of the little rigid hands that he had +let go, felt for her handkerchief, and wiped away the cold +drops of anguish that stood upon her blue-veined temples +and about her colorless lips. And P. C. Breagh could only +look at her in an agony of pity, and wonder at the courage +that bore the frail creature up. +</p> + +<p> +"Last night the frightful explosions of cannon ceased +A poor peasant woman had afforded me shelter in her cottage, +and shared with me the milk of her goat and her last +loaf of bread. News came before day, brought by a wounded +soldier, whose comrades had been killed, that the battle +had been won by the Army of France, but that M. de Bazaine +had withdrawn our forces for rest and shelter to the +Citadel of Metz. I asked this poor soldier for intelligence +of my father's regiment, the 777th Mounted Chasseurs of +the Guard. The reply was: 'Three regiments of Mounted +Chasseurs lie dead on the field of honor. You will find +them south of Flavigny, between the Bois de Vionville and +the Bois de Gaumont.' I cried out then, for the words had +pierced me like sharp iron. I would have run out of the +house to find my father, like a creature distracted, but that +an ambulance of the Red Cross, accompanied by two English +Protestant Sisters, passed through the village on the +way to this terrible place. They brought me with them—'You +cannot seek among the dead,' they told me, 'without +the brassard of the Rouge Croix.' This they put upon me, +and then they bring me with them. Now I know not where +they are, but I have found you. Help me, monsieur—and I +will pray for you until I die!" +</p> + +<p> +She gave him one wild, supplicating look, put her little +frozen hands together—would have knelt down on the +bloody grass to plead with him the better, if he had seemed +to delay. But he caught fire at her flaming eagerness, and +snatched at the wallet of Red Cross necessaries he had +unslung when he had climbed upon the broken limber to gaze +over that sea of Death that spread to the horizon, crying: +</p> + +<p> +"Of course I'll help you look for your father! ... But +how to search for him—and where? ... Tell me ... the +regiment and the color of the uniform?" +</p> + +<p> +Shuddering, she pointed to the green, silver-braided +dolman clothing of one of the rigid figures near them. He +noted the red and green plume of the sealskin talpack, cut +through, perhaps, by a stroke of the heavy saber yet +gripped in the stiff right hand of a Prussian Dragoon. He +muttered, even while mentally registering other details of +the Chasseur's uniform—noting the crest embroidered on +the green schabraque of the brown charger whose inert +weight rested on its dead rider's thigh: +</p> + +<p> +"777th Chasseurs ... I've heard German officers telling +each other that they fought like devils yesterday.... Half +a dozen regiments might have been cut up here! And we +have to find one man somewhere in a square mile of +piled-up bodies.... If one only had a bloodhound and one of +De Bayard's gloves!..." +</p> + +<p> +Love has a scent as keen as the great dun hound of the +hanging dewlap. The issue of the search was to prove this. +For an hour, as it seemed, they traversed narrow lanes that +wound between walls of dead men. Then the ground rose +to a knoll, topped with three scorched oak-trees that had +been stripped of their leaves and lopped of their branches +by the blizzard of metal and fire, still burning, the air +expanding in their sap-channels, exploded with the detonation +of musketry. Charred cinders dropped from them; they +gave forth clouds of acrid-smelling whitish smoke. +</p> + +<p> +About and upon this knoll of the three oak-trees the +battle of the previous day had raged—the billows of the sea +of Death had beaten fiercely. The lane became a crevasse, +the floor of which sloped sharply—from the sides of which +projected rigid limbs, human and equine. But the slender +figure in black moved between them—stooped to pass under +them, seldom faltering. When the young man who followed +begged her to turn back, she shook her head without +answering, and kept on. The silent gesture meant: +</p> + +<p> +"Not yet! A little farther still!... Be patient with +me, I beg of you!" +</p> + +<p> +For it seemed to Juliette's tense nerves and overstrained +brain as though those white or blue, or darkly-discolored +faces, hideously distorted or wearing an unnatural expression +of calm, were all staring with their glassy eyes in one +direction, pointed out by myriads of stiffened arms. +</p> + +<p> +She said, tottering with sheer weakness, and turning +upon her companion colorless, black-ringed eyes set in a +face most strangely peaked and shrunken: +</p> + +<p> +"Here where these trees are I will turn, because my +strength is failing.... See, see! O Mother of God!... O +Jesu!... HE IS THERE!" +</p> + +<p> +The scream that tore through her slender throat turned +P. C. Breagh's blood to snow-water. He could only gasp, +clutching at the folds of her black school-dress with a vague +idea of holding her back from some sight of intolerable +horror: +</p> + +<p> +"Wait! For God's sake! Wait!... Let me!..." +</p> + +<p> +She shook off his unconsciously violent grasp as though it +had been a baby's. She was gone, wading through a languid +runnel of fast-congealing blood, stepping over a broken +lance-shaft and a horse's rigid hind-limb. When P. C. Breagh +reached her, she was crouching on a patch of hoof-torn +earth through which the limestone core of the knoll +showed in places, hugging to her bosom a stiff blue hand. +</p> + +<p> +It wore a familiar ring, that brave right hand, from +whose grip the long cavalry sword had dropped when the +Uhlan gave the death-thrust. But I think, even without +the crested sard, his daughter would have known.... +</p> + +<p> +Madness was near enough in that fell hour to brush the +bowed veiled head of Juliette with her tattered mantle of +imaginary enemies. She saw nothing and knew nothing +but that her father was there. She kissed the stiff blue +hand, and sang to it and cuddled it. Ophelia was not more +tragic than this Convent school-girl, squatting in the chilly +shadow of a heap of dead horsemen, lavishing futile, foolish +tendernesses on that piece of insensible clay: +</p> + +<p> +"My father, now that I have found thee, we must never +be parted again—never! Indeed, I have tried to obey +thee—but I could not help coming back because I love thee +so!... Thou hast been wounded, but I will nurse thee and +cure thee. When thou art well again we will find a quiet +home together, where my mother shall never come. For +she is not good as my grandmother was, and as thou art, my +own father!... I have fear of her, now that I have seen +and known!..." +</p> + +<p> +She broke off and listened, as though an answer had come +from under the blood-stained Imperial eagle and the corpses +that hid De Bayard from her view. One of them was the +body of the young subaltern who had borne the standard. +Over him sprawled the colossal form of a German officer of +Dragoons. He was not dead, for he moved, and blood was +yet trickling from a sword-cut that had bitten deep into his +shoulder through the cuirass, and a deep gash in the +close-cropped scalp of his unhelmeted head. +</p> + +<p> +"Help! Some drink! <i>Donner!</i> how my head hurts!" he +groaned faintly. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh, judging it a case for practical Samaritanism, +got to him by skirting the heap of dead and scaling it +from the opposite side. Reaching the summit, he dosed the +Dragoon with cognac, and was about to apply a first-aid +bandage to the damaged shoulder, when the red-banded +forage-caps and bearded faces of a burial-party of +Prussian Guard infantry strung through the narrow alley below +the level of his operations, and an unforgotten voice said +in rough Teutonic gutturals: +</p> + +<p> +"Hereabouts or near. Begin this—widening the way +until carts can get through to be loaded.... +<i>Kreuzdonnerwetter!</i> is that a dog up there?" +</p> + +<p> +Another voice answered: +</p> + +<p> +"No, <i>Herr</i> Sergeant. It is either a nun or a woman!" +</p> + +<p> +The Sergeant thundered: +</p> + +<p> +"You silly sheepshead! Aren't nuns women? But you +<i>verdammte</i> Catholics think such wenches are angels out of +the sky. Turn her out of that—nun or woman!" +</p> + +<p> +With a savage rush of scalding blood to his sun-bronzed +cheeks and temples, P. C. Breagh realized that they meant +Juliette. He thrust his head forward, peering down from +his eyrie. The crouching little shape in black looked no +bigger than a big dog. Near her stood a soldier in the +white-faced dark blue uniform of the Guard Infantry. It +was the spectacled ex-chemist Kunz, who had nodded him +civil farewell. Staring up from below was the copper-colored +countenance of the too-zealous Sergeant Schmidt, +not rendered more amiable by mud-splashes and powder +grime, in combination with a stitched-up scar across the +bridge of the nose, and a flamboyant overgrowth of beard. +He bellowed to the ex-chemist: +</p> + +<p> +"Speak to her! Ask what is her business." +</p> + +<p> +The spectacled Kunz stooped over the little bowed head, +and seemed to put a question. She lifted her drained white +face, shuddered, then resumed her previous attitude. +Interrogated from below, Private Kunz responded: +</p> + +<p> +"She is deaf, or mad. She only shakes and stares at one!" +</p> + +<p> +The Sergeant bellowed: +</p> + +<p> +"Shout in her ear, fool! You are not courting your +sweetheart! Tell her to get up and move out of this!" +</p> + +<p> +Thus urged, the ex-chemist approached his lips to the +little ear shaded by the black silken tresses, and bawled +the order of his superior. She gave no sign of having +heard. Copper-red with indignation, the Sergeant commanded: +</p> + +<p> +"Turn her out, then! Promptly up with the baggage!" +</p> + +<p> +Kunz, thus adjured, gripped the slight arm, not brutally. +At the touch, Juliette gave a faint cry, and crouched lower, +hiding her face upon the rigid hand she held. And +P. C. Breagh saw red, abandoned his groaning cavalryman and +leaped for it, slithering down from the summit of his +dreadful eyrie with a roll of four-inch bandaging trailing in +his wake. Casting caution to the winds, he shouted +savagely to the ex-chemist: +</p> + +<p> +"Let the lady go! Take your hand off! Damn you!—do +you hear?" +</p> + +<p> +The words, being English, were not comprehended by the +Sergeant. For an instant he stared open-mouthed at the +unexpected apparition. The next he had bawled out an +order to his men, and P. C. Breagh found himself looking +down the long brown barrels of a couple of Prussian +"needlers," accurately covering the exact area of waistcoat +behind which his heart hammered and bumped. There +was a creaking of leather then—and with the jingle of +steel on steel, the snort of a horse reluctant to be ridden +into an alley without turning-space. Over the heads of +the Sergeant and his party rose the pricked ears, sagacious +eyes, and broad frontlet of a great, gaunt brown mare, ridden +by a gigantic field officer, wearing the flat white, +yellow-banded forage cap, black pewter-buttoned frock, white +cords, and immense spurred jack-boots of the Coburg +regiment of White Cuirassiers. +</p> + +<p> +"Whom have we English here? Who called out 'Take +your hands off!'" +</p> + +<p> +From under the peak of the white forage-cap the rider's +heavy domineering stare took in the huddled feminine +figure, the disheveled young man menaced by the Service +rifles, and the truculent attitude of Sergeant Schmidt. He +lifted a finger, and the "needlers" became vertical. He +beckoned with the authoritative digit, and P. C. Breagh +drew near. And the sickening horrors of the battlefield +faded suddenly from about the Englishman.... He was +back in the tobacco-scented study of a house in the +Wilhelmstrasse, Berlin. And the resonant tones of the man +who stood for Prussia in the mind's eye of the world were +saying, in Bismarck's well-phrased English: +</p> + +<p> +"Even though you belong to a neutral nation, you should +not presume upon the fact too rashly. Had I not been +within earshot just now, you would have paid with your +life for your interference. German military authority is +supreme, and in the execution of its duty not to be turned +aside." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh retorted, tingling to the very finger-tips: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Excellency, I interfered to save this lady from +ill-usage." +</p> + +<p> +"She is a Frenchwoman? ... Explain to her," said the +resonant voice coldly and brutally, "that even to reach the +side of a fallen lover, too much may be risked and lost!" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said, meeting the imperious stare with +yellow-gray eyes that blazed tigerishly: +</p> + +<p> +"Excellency, the dead man is her father, Colonel de +Bayard, 777th Mounted Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard." +</p> + +<p> +"Stand back," said the domineering voice, "and I will +speak to her!" +</p> + +<p> +At a touch of the spur the great brown mare moved forward, +breasting a lance-shaft that barred the narrow alley, +terribly squeezing the Sergeant and his men. +</p> + +<p> +"Mademoiselle de Bayard!" said the authoritative voice. +</p> + +<p> +"Excellency, she does not hear you! The shock has been +too terrible," Carolan was beginning. He was brusquely +interrupted with: +</p> + +<p> +"People usually listen when I speak to them." And the +curt command was issued—in French, suave and polished: +</p> + +<p> +"Be good enough, Mademoiselle de Bayard, to stand up +and listen to me!" +</p> + +<p> +The big brown mare snorted angrily and fidgeted. He +turned her head with an iron hand on the curb-bit, looking +steadily at the other female thing. +</p> + +<p> +"Mademoiselle de Bayard, do you hear?" +</p> + +<p> +This time she lifted her sunken head, and turned her +small pinched face his way. In the haggard young mask +of frozen anguish two wild eyes glittered, tearless and +stony-hard. Then slowly, as though his powerful will +impelled her, she rose to her knees, and stood upon her feet +before him. He said, in cool, incisive accents: +</p> + +<p> +"Young lady, your father was a gallant soldier. I myself +had the privilege of seeing how he died. I wish such a +man had served a better master!..." +</p> + +<p> +She answered, her white lips barely moving as they +framed the sentence: +</p> + +<p> +"He served the Master of Kings and Emperors, before +Whom he stands now!" +</p> + +<p> +His somber eyes lightened suddenly as though in irritation. +He said in tones that had the clang of overbearing +authority: +</p> + +<p> +"I cannot enter now into a theological discussion. The +battle-field is no place for debate, or for unprotected women +and young girls.... In your own best interests I counsel +you to return home." He added—and there was no flicker +of recognition in the passing glance vouchsafed to +P. C. Breagh: "Alone, if you prefer—or under the escort of +this young Englishman.... I will promise you that your +father's body shall be treated with respect!" His heavy +eyes fell on the stiffened face of the Sergeant, standing +rigidly in the attitude of salute. "Where is the officer in +charge of this burial-party?" he added, grimly enough. +</p> + +<p> +"Here, Excellency!" came from behind him. He glanced +over his shoulder and said to the flurried under-lieutenant +who had hurried up and was standing in the alleyway: +</p> + +<p> +"A separate grave, distinguished by some mark that is +recognizable by the daughter." He looked back at the +daughter, saying curtly: "Your veil!" +</p> + +<p> +She removed it in silence, and handed it to the ex-chemist, +who received the frail fluttering cobweb between +his finger and thumb. Then the brown mare, in obedience +to the iron hand upon the bridle, backed out of the alley +of silent witnesses, baring her long, vicious-looking yellow +teeth and showing the whites of her savage eyes resentfully. +From the florid bull-dog face of her rider, barred with the +heavy mustache of iron gray, all memory of the little +drama just enacted had been effaced, as the outlines of a +sketch in charcoal are wiped from wood or stone. +</p> + +<p> +But as the alley widened and his great beast surged +round, switching her tail, putting back her ears and lashing +out with her heels so as to nearly brain the officer, +P. C. Breagh thought he caught the words: +</p> + +<p> +"Separate grave ... marked to find easily. All respect +... answer to me!" +</p> + +<p> +More he might have heard, but for Juliette's sobbing. +For God had remembered her, and sent her tears at last. +</p> + +<p> +She had suddenly seen, lying at her feet, a frayed and +crumpled envelope bearing the Belgian postmark, and +addressed in her own handwriting to M. le Colonel +H. A. A. de Bayard, Headquarters of the 777th Mounted Chasseurs +of the Guard Imperial with the Army of France, at Metz. +And the intuition of love told her that the dead man must +have carried this, the last message received from his +daughter, hidden in his bosom; and have drawn it forth and +kissed it—as in very truth we know he had—shortly +before he died. +</p> + +<p> +"See, see, my friend! Behold my own letter. His +sacred blood has stained it.... His lips perhaps have +pressed it!—it well may be that tears of his have fallen +here also! ... Never shall it leave me until my hand is +cold as this is! Adieu, dear hand!" She knelt down to +fondle it, had to be raised almost by force—would have +returned for a last caress—a final prayer, but that +P. C. Breagh, rendered desperate by the evident impatience of +the officer and the scowling looks of the Sergeant and his +merry men, lifted her bodily in his arms and carried her +away. +</p> + +<p> +"I pray you put me down! ... Me, I am not an +infant!" she protested. "See you well, Monsieur Breagh, I +do not think it <i>convenable</i> that a gentleman should carry a +lady so!..." +</p> + +<p> +Then her strength ebbed from her and she became in +truth, an infant. As her frail body yielded to his clasp, as +her head sank down upon his shoulder, she sighed, a long, +quivering sigh. +</p> + +<p> +What of the youth who waded through the frozen sea of +Death, bearing in his arms his worshiped lady? He was +footsore and aching in every bone and muscle from long +marches and desperate exertion. His heart pounded so +beneath her cheek that it seemed to him she must hear it and +be frightened, or that he must suffocate and die outright. +Terror and rapture, exquisite pain and exquisite pleasure, +mingled in the draught now held to his lips by Fate, Life's +cup-bearer. And as he drank, with what strange birth-pangs, +his budding manhood burgeoned into flower. He +might look back upon his boyhood with regret, contempt, or +tenderness.... He would never be a boy again. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap50"></a></p> + +<h3> +L +</h3> + +<p> +The smallest and slenderest of women can be surprisingly +heavy, when carried in the arms of a lover who long has +borne her in his heart. +</p> + +<p> +Thus to P. C. Breagh, stumbling with his burden over +roads strewn with weapons, accouterments, mess-tins, and +water-bottles, boxes of biscuit and halves of sugar-loaves +discarded by troops retiring in haste, the appearance of a +very tall peasant leading a little white-faced donkey came +as an unspeakably welcome relief. For a franc in good +French money the owner of the donkey was more than +willing to hire out his beast. Thus, seated on this humble +animal, P. C. Breagh's Infanta returned to the cottage where +she had passed the previous night. +</p> + +<p> +It was one of a hamlet boasting the name of Petit Plappeville. +To reach it they skirted the frightful carnage at St. Hubert, +threaded the wood of Châtel St. Germain, crossed +the railroad, unmolested by the Prussian patrols, and, +following narrow lanes hidden between copses, came at last +upon its single street. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Guyot, stout, hospitable, and voluble, received +Juliette with cries of welcome and open arms. Mademoiselle +should have something better than dry bread on this +occasion, for a neighbor had that morning killed a calf. +Hence veal cutlet, fried in batter—for some of the hens, +scared by yesterday's bombardment, had already begun +laying—and an omelette with fine herbs. No less than +young demoiselles, wounded soldiers require nourishment, +and here behold, English Monsieur accompanying +Mademoiselle, here upon the pallet-bed in the corner of the +kitchen one of France's brave defenders in the person of +my Cousin Boisset. Pardon that he cannot rise to salute +you, for the Prussians have made it impossible. During +the battle of St. Privat yesterday, my Cousin Boisset was +twice wounded while serving with the Eighteenth Field +Battery of the Sixth Army Corps.... +</p> + +<p> +Thus introduced, the gunner told his story, and told it +with vivacity in spite of his evident pain. His bandaged +head and the useless leg roughly swathed in a homespun +towel of Madame Guyot's told their story no less than his +nimble tongue and vivacious eyes and hands. +</p> + +<p> +"We were overcome by force of numbers.... The Germans +know nothing of scientific warfare.... Believe me, +Mademoiselle and Monsieur, we swept them down in rows +like ninepins painted black. At twelve hundred yards, and +again at fourteen hundred—and the more we killed the +more there were to kill. Name of a pipe!—pardon, +Mademoiselle!—it was inconceivable! We were compelled at +length to cease our fire because our ammunition failed us, +and it was not possible to butcher any more!—Worst of all, +our generals lost their heads, and issued contradictory +orders!—Commissariat broke down before the ammunition-service—we +had had nothing to eat for two days—then we +ceased to have shrapnel with which to feed our guns.... +So we stood in front of a wood in which we might have +taken cover, being peppered by Prussian fire of infantry +and artillery, for three whole hours!—Three solid hours, +Monsieur and Mademoiselle—until we were remembered, +and ordered to retire. When the order came, few officers +remained, and not a single non-commissioned officer was left +to us. Of the three batteries of our brigade Division, +two-thirds lay dead upon the field. With my wounded leg +trailing behind me, I crawled over rank after rank of +bodies, pausing over many of my old comrades.... Then +I lay in the wood till dusk, and made crutches of saplings I +cut down with my penknife. With the day I reached my +cousin's house.... You may say 'All this is War'—but +what kind of War? is what I ask you.... I—a soldier when +has fought and bled for France!" +</p> + +<p> +It was the voice of Juliette that answered from the corner +of the blackened oaken settle, where she sat huddled +in the leaden stupor that is born of grief and fatigue: +</p> + +<p> +"Soldier of France, I will try to answer your question.... +I am young and ignorant, but I have read and thought +much. And now I have experienced what never can be +forgotten.... I have sat by the corpse of my father on the +battlefield.... I have looked in the face of the great man +who is my country's cruel enemy...." +</p> + +<p> +Madame Guyot, who was frying a panful of veal cutlet, +started and looked round from her sputtering, +savory-smelling cookery. The wounded gunner, propped up on +the pallet-bed that stood in the corner of the low-ceiled, +stone-built kitchen, turned keen dark eyes and a resolute +bearded face toward the quarter whence came the silvery +voice: +</p> + +<p> +"It is Bismarck's War," she said. "Stone by stone he +has built up Prussia until her vast shadow has swallowed +up all Germany. He has seen—this huge man of colossal +ambitions—that the road to Power greater still leads +through the gate of France. And Diplomacy could not +steal the key, so War is the lever with which he opens it." +</p> + +<p> +"Alas, Mademoiselle," returned the gunner sorrowfully, +"it would never have opened while a French soldier was +left alive—if we had not been betrayed! Have you seen +the picture of Cham in last week's <i>Charivari</i>? It reached +my battery through one of our officers. It is true—<i>mon +Dieu!</i>—it is desperately true. There is the Little Napoleon +of To-day dressed up in the old cocked hat and the tattered +rags of the capote that used to be worn by the Great +Napoleon. He begs at the street-corner for sous—and even +the prostitute turns away from the impostor. 'The End of +the Legend!' is written underneath. It is furiously chic +and terribly clever—and frightfully true, Mademoiselle. +For the Napoleonic legend is done with—finished, for good +and all!" +</p> + +<p> +She did not answer, the momentary flash of interest had +died out. With her sad eyes fixed upon the ebony and +silver crucifix of her rosary, she was murmuring a +prayer—doubtless for her father's soul. Seeing her thus +absorbed, the soldier glanced at her companion, shrugged +significantly, and tapped his own forehead, as though he +would have said: +</p> + +<p> +"It is well that women have faith in Heaven. See!—she +turns to her beads, the poor little one. She is able to +pray!—that is fortunate.... Otherwise, grief would turn +her brain!" +</p> + +<p> +Meeting no response from P. C. Breagh, who sat upon a +backless straw-bottomed chair in the chimney corner, +raptly contemplating the small, sorrowful face, the gunner +shrugged again, and exchanged a wink of intelligence with +Madame Guyot, as she took the bubbling pan from the fire, +proclaiming the cutlet cooked to a turn. +</p> + +<p> +Who has loved and does not remember the first meal +partaken in the company of the beloved. To one guest at +Madame Guyot's board, the fried cutlet and tomatoes eaten +from her coarse platters of red-flowered crockery, the +home-baked loaf, the jug of thin red wine, the country +cheese and the dish of purple plums that served as dessert, +made a banquet worthy of the gods. To sit opposite that +little drawn, white face with the lowered, swollen eyelids, +and watch her brave pretense of relishing their hostess' +victuals, would have been torture had it not been bliss. +</p> + +<p> +When the homespun cloth had been drawn, the crumbs +shaken out upon the threshold for the hungry poultry, the +cat accommodated with a saucer of scraps, and the hearth +swept, P. C. Breagh, glancing at the cuckoo-clock that had +hiccuped twelve, and now pointed to the half-hour, got up +and reluctantly tore himself away. +</p> + +<p> +"You are going?... Back to <i>him</i>?... To make sure +that those soldiers have obeyed the orders of M. de +Bismarck? Ah! that is what I have been praying for! Our +Lady has put it into your head." +</p> + +<p> +She said it eagerly, with her hand quieting the flutter in +her bosom. Of what else should de Bayard's daughter +have been thinking, P. C. Breagh asked himself. He +entreated, his troubled gray eyes wistfully questioning: +</p> + +<p> +"You won't leave this place until I come back? Pray do +not!... Promise me!" +</p> + +<p> +The soldier, chatting in low tones with the good woman +of the cottage, pricked his hairy ears at the unfamiliar +accent of the English words. Juliette answered in the same +tongue: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur, I give you my <i>parole</i> of honor. When you +come back to this house, if I am alive, you will find me +here, under the <i>manteau</i> of Our Lady. May she protect +and guard you. <i>Au revoir!</i>..." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh echoed the final words, and held out his big +hand. She considered it a moment, hesitated, then laid her +own in the broad, blistered palm. As he shut his strong +fingers over the fragile captive, it struggled, then lay still, +throbbing like some small imprisoned bird. And a dimness +came before his eyes, and he hurriedly released her, +stammering: +</p> + +<p> +"Take—take care of yourself, won't you? I'll—not be +very long away!" +</p> + +<p> +She called him back. He knew a shock of joy and hurried +toward her. She slipped her Rosary into his hand +with a gold coin, faltering with eyes brimful, and +quivering lips: +</p> + +<p> +"This ... to be buried with him!... This—for a +priest to read the Office and offer Mass ... if one can be +discovered!... Oh! if I might come with you!... but +no!—I will not be unreasonable. Again, it must not be that +you carry me, as you did to-day!" +</p> + +<p> +He trembled at the poignant recollection. She went on, +breathing fast and eagerly, lifting her eyes, poor rain-washed +scillas, to his—laying her small hand timidly on his +shabby sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +"Me, I have an idea!... There is now in Heaven a +great saint who was priest of a little village that lies not far +from here.... Since he died, it is eleven years.... I +speak of M. Jean-Baptiste Vianney, the Blessed Curé of +Ars...." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh nodded recognition of the shining name she +mentioned. She went on, her small fingers pinching a fold +of the rough brown sleeve: +</p> + +<p> +"Sacrifice—mortification—the Cross—these things to the +holy Curé were the Keys of Heaven. The poorest and +simplest of his peasants was not poorer or simpler than he. +Even before his death Our Lord gave him the grace to +perform miracles, and always did Our Lady regard him +with tenderness.... See you well, I will pray to the +Blessed Jean Vianney to intercede for me, that God may +send a holy priest to read the Office for the dead!" +</p> + +<p> +Her voice broke, and the bright tears brimmed over her +pure underlids. At the sight a wave of tenderness surged +up in him, pure of all sensuous passion, knowing only the +overwhelming desire to serve, and comfort, and protect.... +He bent his head, and kissed the little hand, before he +turned and went from her. When he glanced back, midway +clown the wide dusty street of the hamlet of scattered +cottages, Juliette was standing in the sunshine, looking +earnestly after him. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap51"></a></p> + +<h3> +LI +</h3> + +<p> +She could think clearly and remember again. The confusion +in her overwrought brain gradually subsided. She +went back to the fatal days when the news of the defeats +of Wörth and Spicheren rushed shrieking through France +and Belgium, and the 16th of August brought word of +Bazaine's intercepted retreat from Metz. That day a +young girl, sitting under the grisly wing of Madame Tessier +at the <i>table d'hôte</i> of the Hôtel de Flandre, in Brussels, +had risen up as pale as death and hurried from the room. +</p> + +<p> +The picture was clear-cut, definite as a photograph. She +saw the tables in confusion.... French guests uprising, +the men exclaiming, and the ladies in tears,—Belgians +sympathizing—Teutons exchanging congratulatory eye-glances, +and smiles not at all concealed. As the white girl passed +the chair from which a German cavalry officer had risen, he +whipped the obstacle out of her way with an ogle and a +bow. And Juliette, covering her eyes as though the sight +of him scorched them, had fled past him.... As she +quitted the <i>salle à manger</i>, the voice of Madame Tessier had +reached her, saying grimly to the dandy: +</p> + +<p> +"A civility from one of your nation at such a moment is +an insult, Monsieur." +</p> + +<p> +And Madame, with bristling mustaches, had also risen, +and gone in search of her daughter-in-law elect, to be +arrested at the foot of the grand staircase by a waiter with +the intelligence that Mademoiselle had gone to her room to +lie down, and begged not to be disturbed.... To which +apartment, it being on the third floor, Madame Tessier—having +wound up the twelve-o'clock <i>déjeuner</i> of hot meats +and vegetables and salad with coffee and pastry,—did not +follow her. Had she braved the ascent, this story would +have ended in quite a different way. +</p> + +<p> +Upon this day, that saw the battle of Mars la Tour, +Juliette would not have met the elegant, self-possessed, +ingratiating lady who had spoken to her so amiably on the +previous afternoon. When—Madame Tessier being +engaged in changing a French <i>billet de banque</i> into Belgian +money—Juliette had inquired for letters at the bureau. +</p> + +<p> +"'Mademoiselle de Bayard.' ... Unhappily there is +not a single letter for Mademoiselle de Bayard..." had +said the curled and whiskered functionary, taking an +envelope from compartment "B" of the green baize-covered +letter-rack, and handing it to this lady, who stood +immediately behind. +</p> + +<p> +Juliette had found it impossible not to see the address +upon this letter: +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "To MADAME DE BATE,<br> + "HÔTEL DE FLANDRE,<br> + "BRUSSELS,"<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +written in rather a vulgar scrawl. It carried extra stamps, +and looked bulky. And the elegantly-gloved hand that was +extended to take it, recoiled from the contact as though the +envelope had concealed a scorpion. +</p> + +<p> +The owner of the hand had regarded Mademoiselle de +Bayard with a piercing and exhaustive scrutiny, even as +she slipped the letter into a gold-mounted reticule, and +snapped the spring tight. She had observed in soft and +well-bred accents: +</p> + +<p> +"Letters from one we love are enhanced in value, when +the writer must lay down the sword to use the pen...." +</p> + +<p> +Through a black lace veil so thickly flowered as to +suggest a mask, a pair of brilliant eyes glittered at Juliette. +What dazzling teeth were revealed by the crimson lips +that smiled.... The well-bred voice added, with an +entrancing touch of melancholy: +</p> + +<p> +"Under other circumstances, to address Mademoiselle +would be held a liberty—the speaker being a stranger. +Yet as the wife of a French officer of the Imperial +Guard,—I may be pardoned for presuming in my young +country-woman an anxiety similar to my own?..." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, Madame," Juliette had said impulsively, "who is +there would not pardon you?" +</p> + +<p> +And she had looked with a young girl's honest admiration +at the sumptuous form in the perfectly-appointed dress. +When the lady had said, with brilliant eyes fixed on her: +</p> + +<p> +"Were this letter not from my husband, I could wish it +had been for you," she continued: "Does Mademoiselle +know M. de Baye's regiment? The 777th Mounted +Chasseurs...?" +</p> + +<p> +"My father commands it, Madame," Juliette had +proudly answered. And an animated conversation would +have sprung from this answer, but Madame Tessier turned +round rather sharply, and the lady, with a slight, graceful +inclination, had glided rather rapidly away. +</p> + +<p> +Later, Juliette had encountered Madame de Baye upon +the staircase, and had received another of her brilliant +glances, and another of her entrancing smiles. And, being +lonely in this strange land, and athirst for interest and +companionship, the young girl had woven a little romance +out of this passing acquaintanceship. +</p> + +<p> +Now as she reached her room, trembling and ready to +sink with excitement and agitation, a woman stopped her +in the corridor, who looked like a lady's maid of the better +class. Well mannered, smart and discreet, she dropped +Mademoiselle de Bayard an ingratiating curtsey, handing +her at the same time a little three-cornered note. +</p> + +<p> +As the messenger plainly waited for an answer, Juliette +unfolded the delicately perfumed cocked-hat. This is what +she read in a finely-pointed feminine caligraphy, with +lasso-loops to all the "g's," "y's," and "h's," and "s's" of the +prolonged, old-fashioned kind. +</p> + +<p> +The maid had penned it at the dictation of her mistress, +who for an unexplained reason preferred another hand to +bait her hook. This is what Juliette read between her +heart-beats, striving to check her flowing tears, and the +sobs that rose in her throat: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"<i>To you, Mademoiselle, so spirituelle, gentille and amiable, +I am fated, alas! to cause the greatest grief. I have +received the most terrible news of my husband's regiment. +The reports of the Emperor's resignation are false from +the beginning. The Army of Metz, Mademoiselle, has +encountered Prussian forces.... Where I know not, but +with terrible loss! My Victor has been dangerously +wounded and conveyed to hospital at Metz. I fly thither +on the wings of anxiety and tenderness to receive too +possibly! his final kiss. Also I learn that M. le Colonel de +Bayard has been taken prisoner.... My pen trembles as +I write the words.</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Since I may not tender them personally, receive, +Mademoiselle, my condolences and farewells. May Heaven +protect you!</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "<i>Distractedly and devotedly,</i><br> + "A. DE BATE."<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Madame was packing, said the maid upon whom Juliette +turned with a breathless inquiry. Without doubt Madame +would receive Mademoiselle.... And, having previously +been primed with instructions, Mariette, whom not so long +ago we encountered in Berlin, conducted Mademoiselle to a +door upon the lower landing, and having knocked discreetly +ushered the young lady in. +</p> + +<p> +It was a bedroom crowded with trunks and imperials, +none of which seemed to have been unpacked. The lovely +lady of the veil was standing near the toilette-table in a +thoughtful pose which did justice to her figure and the +beauty of her profile. She had removed her veil and held +it in her hand, as she changed the position of a jeweled +comb in her hair.... She looked round as the door +opened. Her brilliant eyes, ruddy-brown as Persian sard +or Brazilian tourmaline, encountered the tearful eyes of +Juliette. She advanced to meet the girl with effusive +tenderness, crying: +</p> + +<p> +"Alas, poor little one! From my heart I pity you!..." +</p> + +<p> +She was not so beautiful, unveiled, as she had appeared +behind her mask of black lace flowers. The handsome +eyes were bloodshot and too prominent. There were faint +dusky-red streaks showing through the purchased roses +and lilies of her complexion; horizontal marks, resembling +the congenital disfigurement known as "port-wine stain." And +withal she was an attractive woman of fascinating +manners. And her sympathy seemed genuine, and yet—for +some incomprehensible reason, Juliette trembled at and +shrank from her touch.... +</p> + +<p> +"You are too good to receive me—you who are also +suffering!..." She tried to collect herself, and not +cause distress. "How I pity you I cannot tell you! but +at least you have the knowledge that you are returning to +your husband's bedside. You will have the sad consolation +of seeing him, while I..." +</p> + +<p> +She broke down and sobbed, and the sympathetic Adelaide +administered red lavender on sugar, while her maid +kept guard on the landing to intercept Madame Tessier +should she appear. The cock-and-bull story told the girl +would hardly have borne the test of recital before a third +person. But Juliette was young, and innocent and +unsuspecting, and Adelaide was experienced in the ways of the +world, and very old in guile.... +</p> + +<p> +"Courage, my child, and above all, have faith in +Heaven!" It did not at all suit her voluptuous type, the +heroic-pious tone.... "Naturally you will, knowing +M. le Colonel a prisoner, leave nothing undone to assuage the +miseries of his situation!... Have I guessed right? I +venture to think I have!" She patted Juliette's hand and +smiled in the drowned blue eyes, from which she gently +drew the little soaked handkerchief. "Accompanied by +your venerable protectress, you will instantly return to +France. You will leave no stone unturned to obtain an +interview with the Emperor—you will implore him on your +knees to obtain M. le Colonel's exchange.... Presto! the +Emperor will set the machinery in motion. He will +give back three Officers to the King of Prussia—and +Mademoiselle will have her father again! Is it not so, tell me, +my little one?" +</p> + +<p> +She held the girl's small hands in hers, and as she marked +off each item of her program, she gently clapped the hands +together, as in approval or consent. It was a characteristic +trick with Adelaide when she meant to be playfully +coaxing, and there was imprudence in employing it now. +But with the first inchoate stirring of memory in Juliette, +caution reawakened in Madame de Bayard. She released +the hands, and said in a graver tone: +</p> + +<p> +"Your <i>gouvernante</i> will not object to return?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette responded: +</p> + +<p> +"Dear Madame, that lady is not my instructress. She +is the excellent Madame Tessier, my grandmother's oldest +friend." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide's lip wore the expression of one who sniffs at +physic. Had she not been deafened with the recounted +virtues of this very Madame Tessier! As she racked her +memory for the date of a possible meeting, Juliette +continued: +</p> + +<p> +"She is very kind to me. But I fear she will not consent +to return to France immediately. She is now upon her +way to Mons-sur-Trouille to attend the wedding of her only +son. All has been arranged. It is to take place upon the +22d." +</p> + +<p> +A sigh heaved her breast, and her eyelids sank under the +burning gaze of Adelaide. But Adelaide was still engaged +with Madame Tessier: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>If she has seen me once—and it may well be once!—she +certainly has forgotten me!</i>" she commented mentally. +Aloud she said: +</p> + +<p> +"But you, Mademoiselle—you are free to return to our +beloved country. Under my own guardianship if you will. +Do not refuse!... Grant me the privilege!" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette panted: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, if I might accept!... But this marriage is the +obstacle! Because M. Tessier could not return to France +for it, my father commanded that I should go. All the +more urgently that War had been declared with Prussia, +and the regiment had been ordered to join the Imperial +Army at Metz." +</p> + +<p> +Madame Adelaide repeated scoffingly: +</p> + +<p> +"This marriage ... this marriage.... Is your +presence necessary to legalize the ceremony?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette cried, opening wide her eyes: +</p> + +<p> +"Alas! yes, Madame!—for I am to be the bride!..." +</p> + +<p> +A shock visibly passed through the nerves of the woman +who heard her. She started in her chair and grew livid +underneath her powder and rouge. And the dusky marks +on her fair skin started into sinister prominence. She was +suddenly terrible, and haggard and old.... +</p> + +<p> +"So, that was de Bayard's plot.... To marry her!" +Adelaide heard an inward voice saying. "Why did you +not foresee that, knowing her of age? Nineteen—though +she looks like a child, almost.... Her grandmother +possessed that physique of an infant, in combination with an +iron determination, and a regard of truth that robbed Life +of every alleviation, deprived conversation of grace and +versatility—reduced the very language of Love to the level +of a notary's <i>précis</i>...." +</p> + +<p> +All this passed through her brain in an instant. She +controlled herself, rose, took the girl's hands again, and +kissed her on the brow, saying with sorrowful melodiousness: +</p> + +<p> +"My child, I comprehend! But while I rejoice at the +happiness that awaits the daughter, I weep—forgive me +that I weep!—for the father in his prison-cell. He is +handsome, thy betrothed—and brave—and not a soldier? +In a day like this when our France cries out for men?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette clenched her little hands as the languid irony +stabbed her. She cried out, almost beside herself: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, that is what I feel, and for that I cannot pardon +him! Why is he not a soldier? One could esteem him if +he were! But oh! Madame,—I despise him, and that +makes it the more terrible.... This marriage with a +husband whom I have never even seen!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ah, ha!...</i>" she heard a strange voice scream +through peals of laughter. "Ah, <i>la, la!</i>—what a clumsy +game to play!... <i>Fi donc, M. le Colonel!</i>... So we +were to be married in the style of the Old Commander.... +'<i>Pas files a droite!</i>... To the church, quick +march!' <i>Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!</i> how droll!..." +</p> + +<p> +She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, and said, +controlling her frantic merriment: +</p> + +<p> +"Sweet child, forgive me, I am a little hysterical.... +The shock of Victor's wound ... my sympathy with your +cruel situation.... How could M. le Colonel subject you +to a trial so severe?" Feeling herself upon unsafe ground, +she dried her eyes again and amended. "That, I comprehend, +is a question between yourselves.... When this +wedding was arranged M. le Colonel had no comprehension +of what would befall him. Yet, for his sake, would it not +be wise to delay? Engage the interest of the Emperor +before it is too late to reach the beloved captive. Should +he be interned in some fortress of East Prussia, how will +even a daughter's tenderness reach him amidst those +desolate plains—in those caverns of freezing stone!..." +</p> + +<p> +She used her fine voice like a consummate artist of the +theater.... Juliette had a vision of her father dying, +fettered, ghastly and gaunt with famine, as an engraving +of Count Ugolino in his dungeon she remembered to have +somewhere seen.... And her secret horror of Charles +Tessier, wedded with the feverish longing to return to +France and work for the release of her dear prisoner, +prompted her to decision now.... +</p> + +<p> +"I will go with you, since you are good enough to propose +it. But Madame Tessier will never give her consent. +Therefore, we must leave here without consulting her, and +secretly.... I will write a letter explaining all. Money +I have for the railway charges, not much, but I think +sufficient!" +</p> + +<p> +Said Adelaide, barely able to hide her triumph: +</p> + +<p> +"Leave the purchase of the tickets to me, <i>ma mignonne</i>! +I have a pretty little score to settle with M. le Colonel. We +will settle our accounts presently, I promise you! What +is the matter now?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette gasped: +</p> + +<p> +"Alas!—I have no passport! At least, Madame Tessier +has both ours...." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, bah!" said Adelaide. "We will borrow Mariette's.... +She can remain here at pasture, and amuse +herself with the waiters!..." She burst out laughing at +Juliette's look of astonishment, and tapped her under the +chin, telling her to go to her room, pack a small hand-bag +with necessary articles, change into a dark, plain +walking-dress, and rejoin her as soon as might be. She showed +a small watch, its back thickly crusted with emeralds, +saying: +</p> + +<p> +"Hurry!... You have barely a quarter of an hour." +</p> + +<p> +Then she opened the door, sped her capture with a beaming +smile, beckoned Mariette, and this strange colloquy +took place between Circe and her tirewoman: +</p> + +<p> +"Did the old woman come nosing upstairs after the +little Mademoiselle joined me?" +</p> + +<p> +Mariette replied: +</p> + +<p> +"She did, Madame, but I had locked both Mademoiselle's +doors—that leading into the old lady's room, and the one +that opens on the corridor,—and put the keys in my pocket. +Here they are!" +</p> + +<p> +She held them up, her sallow features expressive with +the expectation of a reward earned by intelligence. Said +Adelaide, impatiently tapping her handsome foot: +</p> + +<p> +"And then?... And then?..." +</p> + +<p> +"Then I accidentally encountered Madame on the +threshold of Mademoiselle's apartment. Seeing her about +to knock, I told her that I had seen the young lady descend +the stairs, carrying a letter, which I supposed Mademoiselle +intended to post at the pillar in the vestibule.... +Hearing this the old lady thanked me, and bundled +downstairs. She is asthmatic, judging by her wheezing.... +She will wait a bit before she climbs up all these flights +again." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide thought a moment, and then gave orders. +</p> + +<p> +"Run you down, hunt up the old woman—help her to +search everywhere for the little thing—you understand!... +Half an hour will be sufficient to detain her below +stairs. In less time Mademoiselle will be safe with me in +my apartment.... Then you will give Madame these +keys and a little note written by Mademoiselle.... Or—do +you know of a waiter who would undertake to do this +and hold his tongue?" +</p> + +<p> +Mariette's expression became sentimental. She said, +with her head tilted on one side: +</p> + +<p> +"There is one, a Swiss youth, handsome and with the +form of an athlete, upon whose fidelity and silence Madame +can implicitly rely...." +</p> + +<p> +"For how much?" Adelaide demanded, having no illusions +as to the permanence of an unpurchased silence. +</p> + +<p> +Mariette answered: +</p> + +<p> +"I will guarantee Adolphe Madame's for the sum of +twenty francs!" +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide gave her a bank-note, and the faithful creature +tripped away to split it. Despite youth, beauty and +muscles, her Adolphe only got ten francs. But he carried +out his instructions and handed Madame Tessier the keys, +with a little envelope, containing a hasty line in the +handwriting of Juliette: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"<i>Dearest Madame,</i>" it said. "<i>This moment I have +received grave news of my father, compelling me to leave +your side. This marriage must be deferred. Entreat +M. Charles to excuse me! I embrace and pray you to pardon.</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "J. M. De B."<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The little note was penned on the corner of Adelaide's +toilette-table. While Madame read it and fainted,—was +revived by Mariette and the athletic Adolphe,—scolded +herself into hysterics, came out of them and dispatched +telegrams; tore the telegrams up and wrote letters,—Juliette +was safely hidden in Madame Adelaide's room. +</p> + +<p> +Later on, when Madame Tessier had left the hotel, with +her luggage and the trunks and bandboxes of the vanished +bride-elect—this time containing the marriage robe, crown +and so on,—Madame de Baye sent for her bill and paid +it—ordered a <i>fiacre</i> and drove to the station, accompanied by +her maid, and her maid's sister, a demure little person in +black merino, cut convent-style, whose head was draped, +after the fashion of some lay novices, with a black silk veil. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The abduction was effected in the simplest fashion.... +Not a soul turned to look at the dowdy little figure carrying +the hand-bag, its slight proportions half hidden in the +sweeping folds of Adelaide's silken train. +</p> + +<p> +The station was crowded with newly-arrived French +officers, men of MacMahon's defeated army, who wore their +swords, having given their <i>parole</i> to their captors not to +serve again in the War. Belgian officers fraternized with +them,—Belgian ladies of the Red Cross were busily +engaged in making much of those who were wounded.... +Juliette's heart swelled at the sight of the bandages and +crutches, and when the laden stretchers were carried past, +the hot tears streamed down her white cheeks behind her +screening veil. +</p> + +<p> +The train carried a great many French passengers, as +well as an English Red Cross column and a Belgian one. +When the engine shrieked, Juliette started as guiltily as +though it had been the voice of Madame Tessier, shrilly +lamenting an absconding daughter-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +They were off—launched upon the iron road that led +back to France and freedom. The excellent Mariette +remained behind. She would sleep at some hotel, procure +a passport, and join her mistress later. Madame de Baye +took the trouble to explain. +</p> + +<p> +From the shrinking little figure in the corner of the +carriage came a muffled sound in answer. +</p> + +<p> +"Let her mope," Adelaide said to herself. "Thought is +necessary to carry out my plan!" +</p> + +<p> +You are to see her as Juliette saw her, leaning her fair +round elbow on the padded window-ledge, and thinking, as +the rolling plains in the vicinity of Brussels gradually gave +place to valley and hill. All of fierce and sensual and +treacherous that mingled in her complex nature with how +many nobler qualities,—showed now in the beautiful mask +of Adelaide, even as she sat brooding there. +</p> + +<p> +She had knotty problems to decide, it must be admitted.... +How best to play this marvelous trump, her daughter +thrown in her way by chance, was one of these. That plot +of Straz, for bringing the girl into contact with the Heir +Imperial, might be combined with Adelaide's own original +notion of employing the girl's influence to bring about a +reconciliation with M. de Bayard. +</p> + +<p> +The indifference of M. de Bismarck had quashed her +tentative approaches on the one subject. The silent +contempt of de Bayard had thrown the other affair out of +gear. To score off both would be magnificent.... As +for Straz ... she lost grip of herself when she thought of +the Roumanian, murmuring: +</p> + +<p> +"For revenge on him, who has robbed me of my beauty, +how cheerfully I would give my soul!" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette, from her corner, saw the change and shuddered. +Adelaide turned sharply, to read terror in the girl's face. +</p> + +<p> +"What is it, my chicken? Has anything frightened you?" ... +</p> + +<p> +The terrifying Medusa turned to a maternally-smiling +Cybele. She leaned across the intervening space of cushion, +to playfully pat the knee of her charge. But the answering +smile was as faint as the scent of frozen violets.... The +spell of her beauty had been broken when her demon had +looked out of her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"My nerves are not as strong as they were before—what +happened in July," she told herself. "And that is another +debt I owe to Nicolas. He would be wiser to let me forget +him—if oblivion be possible." +</p> + +<p> +Her looking-glass bore out each day what the Roumanian +had said to her. "<i>Never will you be able to look in your +mirror without remembering me!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +And to keep her smart alive, the Slav had adopted a +method of his own invention. Peculiarly ingenious and +characteristic of Straz. +</p> + +<p> +At intervals Adelaide received anonymous letters, +containing inclosures, wherever she went and by whatever +alias she passed. Envelopes directed in varying hands +would contain doll's mirrors costing but a sou or two. +Pinchbeck-framed ovals or circles of tin or glass, always +reflecting the same thing. +</p> + +<p> +A livid face of hate, streaked with those faint brownish +red marks left by the tightened folds of the silk scarf that +had so nearly strangled her. She had tried to laugh at this +childish form assumed by the malice of the Roumanian. +But the deadly cleverness of the thing lay in the fact—that +it did what it was meant to do. The medieval torture of +the falling drops of water was equaled by this Ordeal of +the Penny Looking-Glass. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Look, see, and think of me!</i>" sometimes ran the doggerel +rhyme scrawled on the paper wrapping of the doll's +mirror. At other times: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Charms that are spoiled hold no men entoiled!</i>" would +be the motto, or something equally stupid, dull and banal. +The stupidity was becoming unbearable by its very repetition; +by the certainty and regularity with which the laden +envelopes arrived. Sometimes Adelaide felt entangled in a +cunningly woven network ... surrounded by spies, sleepless +and unseen.... Yet in the maid Mariette the Slav +had found an accomplice clever enough to carry out his +purposes single-handed. The cream of the thing +was—Adelaide never suspected Mariette. +</p> + +<p> +Treacherous herself, she believed in the devotion of this +woman, who watched her anguish grimly, planting fresh +thorns in her mistress's shuddering flesh. And every day +or so brought another doll's looking-glass. The jeer that +accompanied the last had been a vilely parodied verse of +the child's dancing-song: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "<i>Ma commère était belle!<br> + Helas! dans le temps!<br> + Ma commère était belle!<br> + Helas! dans le temps! Hélas!<br> + Pousser un soupir!<br> + A vue de ma commère:<br> + L'Amour n'a qu'à mourir!<br> + Hélas!</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +One may imagine the curl of Adelaide's lip on reading +rubbish like this. But she read it more than once, and +when she finally burned it, the accursed jingle, burr-like, +stuck in her memory: for she it was who had been beautiful +in the time that had passed for evermore—the gossip +at the first sight of whose damaged, unveiled charms Love +sighed and gave up the ghost. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap52"></a></p> + +<h3> +LII +</h3> + +<p> +Meanwhile Juliette, nestled in her corner, stared from the +window as Belgium hurried by. Bouillon, at whose station +they left the train, showed a platform crowded with +swaggering Prussian officers of the Crown Prince's army—some +of them wounded, all upon <i>parole</i>. French ladies, entering +and leaving the carriages, looked daggers at their enemies. +Poisoned daggers at Adelaide, who, to her secret annoyance, +was recognized and familiarly greeted by two of these +Teutonic warriors, one a tall and red-whiskered Bavarian +Light Dragoon, the other a brown-coated Hussar of von +Barnekow's Brigade. +</p> + +<p> +In vain Adelaide ignored the pair and redoubled the +directions she was giving to a porter. The Bavarian coolly +thrust the man aside, opened the carriage-door and jumped +upon the steps. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Meine gnädigste</i> ... loveliest Countess, you won't give +the go-by to your old comrade Otto? Here also is von +Wissman, who claims a greeting from you!" +</p> + +<p> +There was no gainsaying the boisterous good-fellowship +of the officers. They superintended the removal of the +luggage from the van, engaged a pair-horsed <i>fiacre</i>, and +advised as to its loading. When Adelaide and her charge +entered they followed uninvited, and deposited themselves +on the front seat, incommoding the ladies with their long +spurred boots and filling the vehicle with the odor of +cigars and wine. Both talked much; the Hussar chattered +incessantly; giving details of the various actions he had +been engaged in, the chance by which he had been taken +prisoner, the irksomeness of being interned in Belgium +until the ending of hostilities: +</p> + +<p> +"Not that it will be long before the War is over. We +now hold Alsace Lorraine and the country north and east +of Metz. The Crown Prince is making for Châlons; that +will give the French Emperor an attack of hysterics. He +has handed over the supreme command to Bazaine, and +yesterday left Gravelotte for Verdun. That means Châlons, +and after Châlons will be Paris. Badinguet has had +enough of campaigning to last him the rest of his reign." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide asked: +</p> + +<p> +"And the Prince?" +</p> + +<p> +The brown Hussar puffed out his cheeks and squinted +like a pantomime-mask. The Bavarian replied: +</p> + +<p> +"Lulu went with papa, though we heard they had trouble +to make him. He wanted to stop and kill +Prussians—they're such horrible beasts, you know!" +</p> + +<p> +"You droll beggar, Strelitz, shut up with your mummery," +said the Hussar, leaning across him to pitch his +cigar-butt away. +</p> + +<p> +"Madame is fire-proof, why waste the stump of a three-mark +Havana?" chuckled Strelitz, keeping his own weed +alight. He went on, drolling for the benefit of his +companion: +</p> + +<p> +"This meeting, loveliest Countess, makes me feel a youth +again—garlanding the grim temples of Bellona with the +roses of the goddess of Love. You remember the classical +lessons you used to give me only last winter, in your +charming flat near the Linden Strasse?" +</p> + +<p> +He ogled Adelaide with comic sentimentality: +</p> + +<p> +"And the jovial supper-party at which I was present, +when von Kessel, of the Guards Infantry, had the presumption +to bring an uninvited guest!" +</p> + +<p> +"Why apologize!" laughed the Hussar. "The pleasantest +acquaintanceships are made by chance!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, but this was not chance!" said the Bavarian, with +mock solemnity. "It was one of those accidents that only +happen by design. Von Schön-Valverden bored von Kessel +frightfully to take him—left the fat fellow no peace until +he gave in. The Count is reported to have paid the +penalty." +</p> + +<p> +"Aha! I can imagine what happened to the youngster!" +giggled the Hussar. +</p> + +<p> +Replied the comedian: +</p> + +<p> +"He had three losses that evening. Each one more +serious than the last!" +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide shrugged, but she did not look angry; indeed, +through her veil her disdainful beauty assumed a smiling +cast. +</p> + +<p> +"Three losses," the comedian repeated, "exactly as in +my own case. For he first lost his money—so did I!—we +were playing baccarat that evening—then he lost his head, +and finally his heart!" +</p> + +<p> +"Otto, thou wert always a tease!" protested Madame, +but her ill-humor had softened into conscious coquetry, +and her eyes beamed radiantly through the flowers of her +masking veil. +</p> + +<p> +"Or he would have!" continued Otto: "had not his +mother, the Countess, come flying to the rescue and carried +him off, nobody knows where!..." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide's eyes blazed. She said in a tone of haughty +nonchalance: +</p> + +<p> +"Count Valverden is now with the first Army, advancing +toward Metz.... He says he hopes to win the silver +sword-knot before the close of the campaign." +</p> + +<p> +"You correspond?" the Hussar asked, grinning, as the +driver signified impatience by kicking the back of the +box-seat. Both officers got out of the carriage as Adelaide +answered coldly: +</p> + +<p> +"He often writes to me." +</p> + +<p> +The driver, ignored, opened a little padded trap-hole in +the front part of the vehicle. He clapped his mouth to it +and shouted in the Flemish tongue: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Geef my U address!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide gave the name of the Hôtel des Postes. The +officers kissed her hand and said they would call there on +the morrow. They waved as the <i>fiacre</i> rumbled out of the +station. Adelaide waved back, and issued quite another +direction through the driver's trap-hole. And the <i>fiacre</i> +went jingling through the old-world streets of the castled +town that sits on the broad flowing river whose bridge was +crowded with French and Belgian officers, chatting, +smoking and discussing the news of the War. +</p> + +<p> +Presently they were free of the streets, roaring with the +tongues of many nations, choked with trains of French +wounded, Red Cross columns, Sisters, surgeons, bearers, +carriages full of visitors, and more processions of officers +on <i>parole</i>. The <i>fiacre</i> lumbered at a good pace behind its +pair of heavy-hocked Flemish horses along a wide, straight +road, with plains on either side. And presently tall black +wooden observation-towers marked the frontier where +Belgian videttes and outposts amicably fraternized with +French. +</p> + +<p> +Kilometer posts of wood instead of stone.... The dear +French language in the mouths of people. Breasting hills +covered with woods, instead of fallow plains, intersected +with level roads bordered with eternal poplar-trees. +</p> + +<p> +With the joy and relief of the return, Juliette's heavy +heart grew lighter. Her muscles relaxed. She could +unclench her hands again. For the horror she had felt at the +contiguity of the German officers and the loathing their +familiar address had inspired in her had been well-nigh +unbearable, though she understood their language but +imperfectly. And this strange woman, her self-chosen +protectress, who greedily fed on an admiration so coarse, +Who was she? What was she? The poor girl shuddered +as she wondered. Of women like Adelaide she had no +experience, and yet she could not silence the voice of her +doubt. +</p> + +<p> +When Madame good-humoredly bade her unlock traveling +bags, unstrap baskets and serve both with the food +and drink she had lavishly provided, Juliette, declining all +offers of refreshment, waited upon her, in silence so frozen +that the patience of her protectress was severely taxed. +</p> + +<p> +Unaided, Madame emptied a pint bottle of champagne, +a fluid which temporarily elevates the spirits, and +consumed the greater part of a cold <i>pâté</i>, with pastry and +fruit, winding up the repast with a Turkish cigarette and +a thimbleful of cognac from the silver flask in her +traveling-bag. +</p> + +<p> +"How dull you are—how cold, you tiny creature!" she +grumbled. "Is it blood that runs in your veins, or melted +snow? From whom do you inherit this torpid nature—without +vivacity, warmth, or gaiety? Your father was +not lacking in fire and passion.... Your mother——" Her +long eyes laughed wickedly. "A feminine volcano, +shall we say?" +</p> + +<p> +A shock went through the girl. She visibly quailed and +shuddered. Through the rumbling of the <i>fiacre</i>, she heard +herself speaking in a voice she hardly recognized: +</p> + +<p> +"My mother.... Did you know my mother? And—knowing +her—dare you speak of her to me?..." +</p> + +<p> +"Dare!..." Adelaide threw back her handsome head +in a gale of laughter, curling back her crimson lips, lavishly +displaying her splendid teeth. "I dare do many things," +she said, still laughing. "Conventionality ... timidity +... these are not characteristics distinctive of me! Nor +were they ever, to do myself justice.... Why are we +stopping at this miserable place?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette, rendered dumb by growing fear of her +companion, did not answer. The carriage drew up at a +crossroads where a bridge arched the Givonne. They were upon +the fringes of the village, near a country inn and +posting-house. The driver had an ancient understanding with the +proprietor of this hostelry that his beasts should break +down here. +</p> + +<p> +He now got down from his perch. Adelaide lowered the +window. The man explained by the aid of signs that the +horses were quite exhausted and they were yet three miles +from Sedan. The proprietor of the inn assisted at the +colloquy, extending the distance by another mile—hinting +at possible dangers after nightfall. He could supply an +excellent supper, a comfortable double bedroom—coffee at +the peep of day, a vehicle and horses to take Madame and +Mademoiselle to Sedan, or wherever they chose.... +</p> + +<p> +Finally the driver was paid enough to satisfy even his +cupidity. Madame's luggage was taken upstairs, the ladies +mounted to their room. +</p> + +<p> +It was a low-ceiled, dampish apartment containing two +bedsteads of uncomfortable aspect, with flock beds and +dusty chintz draperies. Candles were lighted, put on the +chimney-piece.... A fire of damp billets was set smoking +by the efforts of the chambermaid, who was not disinclined +to talk. French troops were encamped near. Let the ladies +look from the window. Those lines of red and yellow lights +glaring through a rising fog marked the sites of the +soldiers' watch-fires. There were officers down below drinking +wine and playing cards in the <i>salle à manger</i>. Also soldiers +were drinking cider in the yard. It made one feel +more safe, the presence of so many warriors. Indeed, +Sedan was full of them, and all the country round about.... +At Metz also, even more, with guns enough to kill +all the Prussians in existence. The chambermaid felt +confident that they would soon be driven out of France. +</p> + +<p> +Still talking, she supplied hot water, and laid a little +supper-table, the ladies preferring not to descend. A +smoked omelette with herbs, some stewed pears, and a +seed-cake furnished the supper, with a decanter of thin red +wine. +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide nibbled and sipped discontentedly. Juliette, +being famished, made a meal. The billets refusing warmth +Madame unrobed her sumptuous person, arrayed herself in +lace and lawn, enlisting the services of her charge as lady's +maid, and gracefully betook herself to bed. There she +leaned on her white elbow, chatting while Juliette made +her own preparations for the down-lying.... Her tigerish +mood was past. She was amiable—almost affectionate.... +She even praised the girlish charms reluctantly +unveiled in the process of undressing; remarking: +</p> + +<p> +"After all, you only want style and more <i>tournure</i> to do +execution among the men. Some of them actually prefer +coldness. They say it gives the illusion of innocence. Have +you locked the door? Yes! Then double-lock and drag +a trunk before it, and shut the window and slide the bolt.... +Pull down the blind and draw the curtain.... One +cannot be too careful in places like these!..." +</p> + +<p> +"But we shall be suffocated!" Juliette cried in +consternation, forgetting her deadly fear of Adelaide in her +craving for fresh air. And then in the ghastly face the +other turned upon her, she saw the unmistakable stamp of +Fear. +</p> + +<p> +"What have I said?... What has frightened you? +Are you ill? Pray tell me!" she begged. +</p> + +<p> +But Adelaide waved her off, biting her pale lips to bring +the blood back to them, saying harshly: "It is nothing! +A spasm. I have suffered from them of late.... Do not +stare at me as though I were hideous. Give me my reticule.... +There! on the toilette-table. How clumsy you tiny +things can be!..." +</p> + +<p> +Trembling, Juliette handed her the gold-mounted bauble. +She took a little phial from it and a measuring-glass. +</p> + +<p> +"Now place one of those candles on the night-stand, +beside me. One will not do—give me both!..." +</p> + +<p> +There was laudanum in the little crystal phial. When +Adelaide had measured and swallowed her dose she +breathed more easily, stared less fixedly, and those +disfiguring reddish-purple streaks of Straz's handiwork showed +less vividly against the creamy skin. Her suffused eyes +regained clearness. She lay back among her pillows and +declared herself better ... laughed at the terror still +visible in Juliette's face.... +</p> + +<p> +"Now give me the little pistol and the pearl-handled +dagger out of the inner compartment in my traveling-bag.... +The large, deep pocket that fastens with a snap. +What! you would rather not!... You do not like to +handle them.... <i>Fi donc</i>, Mademoiselle! A soldier's +daughter—and guilty of such cowardice!..." +</p> + +<p> +Juliette winced at the thrust. It was her turn to bite +her lips. She steadied them and mastered her voice +sufficiently to say: +</p> + +<p> +"I dislike to touch such weapons, because I have never +learned to use them. And I will ask you, Madame, not to +speak jestingly of my father to me!" +</p> + +<p> +"Give me the pistol and stiletto, then!" stipulated her +tormentress. +</p> + +<p> +In silence Juliette took one of the candles, and set it near +the traveling-bag upon the table near the supper-tray +which the chambermaid had neglected to remove. She +dived into the deep pocket as directed, and drew out a +double-barreled pistol, mounted in ebony and silver, and +the dagger, a costly toy of Indian workmanship. Something +else fell upon the floor with a faint tinkle. It was a +miniature set with pearls, that had rolled under the table. +She laid the pistol and dagger there, took the candlestick +and stooped to pick the miniature up. The portrait within +the oval of pearls and gold was that of a girl-child of some +five years. In the pictured face that smiled up at her +with eyes as deeply blue as the spring skies of Italy, +Juliette with a thrill and shock indescribable, recognized +herself.... +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"<i>It was the August of 1856. Thou hadst five years, and +thy curls were as soft and yellow as chicken-down.... +Thy mother used to say: 'Juliette will never be black +like me!</i>'" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The beloved voice was in her ears, with the very throb of +his aching heart in it. De Bayard's daughter knelt so long +upon the floor, motionless, staring at the horror, that +Adelaide accused her jestingly of having fallen asleep. +</p> + +<p> +"Get up! Wake! Give me my pistol and the dagger. +I call them my babies—they sleep under my pillow ever +since—never mind!... Ah! You have blown out the +candle.... Light it at this one!—or perhaps you will +have light enough without it?... Ugh! how cold your +hand is, you chilly little frog!" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette had blown out the candle so that she might +unseen return the portrait to the dressing-bag. Had +Straz's Sultana not been heavy with laudanum, she would +have perceived this. +</p> + +<p> +Now she yawned, stretched, smiled, declared herself +actually sleepy, in spite of a mattress apparently stuffed +with potatoes and stones.... +</p> + +<p> +Juliette was kneeling by the other bedside, a slender, +rigid little figure in a white night-robe, striving to collect +her whirling thoughts sufficiently to say her prayers. When +she rose up, Adelaide asked her drowsily: +</p> + +<p> +"Do you pray always?... And what do you pray for? +And for whom, tell me, you secret little thing!" +</p> + +<p> +The low answer came: +</p> + +<p> +"I pray for the living, Madame, and for the departed.... +For my father and—others who are dear to me; for +myself and for my grandmother's soul!" +</p> + +<p> +"For your mother?" Adelaide queried curiously. +</p> + +<p> +"I pray that my mother may repent and be forgiven!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah-h!" Adelaide's inflection was sleepily scornful. +"So you think her a terrible sinner, eh, Mademoiselle?" +</p> + +<p> +The white-robed figure palpably shuddered, yet the +answer came unfalteringly: +</p> + +<p> +"It is not for me to judge—you, Madame!" +</p> + +<p> +The clean riposte pierced the consciousness that had +been dulled by the opiate. There was a dreadful silence, +during which the girl could hear her own heart drumming, +and through the noise it made, the hiss of her mother's +sharply intaken and expelled breath. Then Adelaide +shrugged, saying in a tone of drowsy irony: +</p> + +<p> +"That is the most sensible utterance I have yet heard +from you, ma mignonne. Well—the discovery was inevitable! +Now, with your leave, I am going to sleep!..." +</p> + +<p> +And she did, while the girl sat huddled among her scanty +bedclothes, clasping her knees and praying for day. Torn +between unconquerable aversion toward this bold, +audacious, worldly woman, and the old yearning toward the +beautiful lost mother, enshrined as a demi-goddess in a +young child's recollection, you may imagine Juliette's +mental and physical plight. +</p> + +<p> +That one should shudder at the touch of her who stood +in so sacred a relation was inconceivable.... That one +should welcome it was inconceivable also. Dim +conjectures as to her mother's past, as to her present mode of +life, were evolved from the depths of the daughter's +Convent-bred ignorance.... Would those German officers +have looked so boldly, conversed so coarsely and familiarly, +if they had not had reason to believe such approaches +welcome, even agreeable?... The lives of Phryne, +Thaïs and Aspasia were missing from the pages of +Juliette's School Dictionary of Classical Biography. Yet +when Cora Pearl had flashed past her in the Bois, or upon +the Champs Élysées, driving four mouse-colored ponies in +silver harness—wielding a jeweled parasol driving-whip—she +had instinctively averted her gaze from the face of the +courtesan. +</p> + +<p> +Was Juliette's mother a woman like that woman? And +why, within a few hours from their chance, accidental +meeting, had she inveigled her daughter into a snare?... +For that some sinister purpose had prompted the proceeding +began to be clear to the poor young girl. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Love.... Oh, Heaven! was the look in those hard eyes +born of the divine tenderness that a mother feels for her +child? Was it not hatred that glittered from them? Was +it not revenge that had concocted the plot? +</p> + +<p> +The marriage with M. Charles Tessier, so keenly desired +by the Colonel, had been quashed by his wife's kite-like +swoop upon the bride. Was that story of de Bayard's +having been made prisoner by Prussians true or invented? +If false, whither were they now bound?... "Oh, help, +Mother of Mercy, Mary most pitiful! Pray for me that +light may be given me!—teach me what I ought to do!..." +</p> + +<p> +Growing calmer the reflection occurred to Juliette that +this mother so strangely encountered could not be all +untender toward her daughter, or the pearl-set miniature +would not have been kept.... This brought tears to +her aching eyes, and some relief to her apprehensions. She +determined, remembering that token of lingering kindness, +that she would yield duty and obedience to her mother now. +Until she found her all untrustworthy, she would trust +her.... She had invented freely, in setting her +springes—and yet not altogether lied.... +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Sleep did not come to Mademoiselle de Bayard that +night, or for many nights after. She lay staring at the +curtains that met across the blinded window, until the +dawn edged them with a line of glimmering gray. As the +streak encroached, she rose noiselessly, and silently as the +dawn itself approached her mother's bed. +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide lay upon her back with her head thrown back +amid its wealth of rich black tresses, her arms tossed out +and upward, the hands clenched, one knee a little raised. +The unfastened robe of lawn disclosed the creamy beauty +of her throat and the swelling contours of her magnificent +bosom. The sight sent an exquisite pang to the heart of +her sorrowful child. Oh, God! if beauty so divine had been +but chaste, what pride, what happiness to call this woman +mother! To lay one's head upon that breast and weep all +griefs out there!... +</p> + +<p> +The sleeper stirred beneath the wistful gaze of her +daughter. Violet shadows were round her sealed eyelids +and about her nostrils and mouth. She moaned a little +and murmured brokenly: +</p> + +<p> +"Nicolas ... Monseigneur ... insult ... never +pardon!... '<i>Only a woman of fashion would be capable of +such infamy....</i>' Ah, <i>mon Dieu!</i>..." +</p> + +<p> +She cried out, and her eyes opened, staring about wildly. +She asked suspiciously as they fell on Juliette: +</p> + +<p> +"Have I been talking?... What was I saying?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette answered simply and literally: +</p> + +<p> +"That only a woman of fashion would be capable of +such infamy." +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap53"></a></p> + +<h3> +LIII +</h3> + +<p> +They broke their fast on rolls and coffee, dressed and +demanded, with the bill, the promised carriage. This was +not so quickly forthcoming as the landlord of the <i>Coup +d'Épée</i> had prophesied. Indeed, the debilitated conveyance +of the wagonette type, drawn by one promoted cart-horse, +could only be had by grace of the traveler by whom +it had been previously engaged. He proved, when +Adelaide swept her charge downstairs, to be a <i>Monsieur +Anglais</i>, traveling for pleasure. A middle-sized, clean-shaven, +inconspicuous, elderly man, in an ill-fitting suit of +drab-color. He sported a sealskin vest in spite of the +oppressive heat of the weather, and spoke the French of +the conversation-manual with the accent it inculcates. His +baldish grizzled head was covered with a straw hat bound +with a preposterous light-blue ribbon. His luggage +consisted of a brown calfskin bag, a portable easel, +sketching-block and color-box, and a violin-case, of which articles +he took the most excessive care. Nothing could well be +more respectable, or appear more harmless. Juliette +breathed more freely at the sight of the elderly +drab-clothed man. +</p> + +<p> +He professed himself happy to accommodate the ladies +with a share in the wagonette as far as Bazeilles, where he +meant to take train for Verdun. Interpreting for Adelaide, +who possessed no English, Juliette learned that their +own destination was not Metz, but Châlons. +</p> + +<p> +That drive to Bazeilles in the freshness of the morning +would have been delightful under other circumstances. +The night-mists yet hung white as milk over the valleys, +while the breasting rises crowned with woodlands were +golden in the sun. Tents of French brigades snowed over +the countryside. Bugles and trumpets sometimes drowned +the rushing of the Givonne, beside whose stream their road +conducted them. The stubbles were full of grain-devouring +wood-pigeons, too heavy even to rise and take wing +when peasant-lads threw stones. The drab Englishman +praised the view in the set terms of the manual, until +discovering that Mademoiselle had command of the tongue of +Albion, he reverted to that language with evident relief. +</p> + +<p> +"For I won't deny it comes easier, though I manage to +get on with the other when necessary. And since I left +England—seven months ago—my poor health requiring a +holiday from business—it has been necessary most of the time." +</p> + +<p> +"Ask the hideous animal in the ugly clothes whether he +has seen a newspaper this morning," instructed Madame. +"And find out if he knows anything of the movements of +the Emperor. Those miserables at the inn were absolutely +ignorant, or else they would not tell!" +</p> + +<p> +The drab English traveler had reason to know something +of his Imperial Majesty, having recently encountered him +with his suite at the village of Gravelotte, eight miles from +Metz. He explained in a rambling manner, and with many +divagations, that he himself had been surprised by the +intrusion of War at the outset of a sketching-tour in the +northwest of France, which was to have realized the +ambition of his life. +</p> + +<p> +"Painting from Nature and playing on the violin.... +Those are what I may call my weaknesses," he told the +ladies by-and-by. +</p> + +<p> +He was moist-eyed and red-nosed and shaky-handed, +which must have interfered with his brush-work and +bowing. An odor of strong waters exhaled from his person +and clothes. You, had you been there, could have imagined +him making an inventory, serving a summons, or, +mounted on a Holborn auctioneer's rostrum—knocking +down second-hand works of inferior Art to imaginary +bidders, and vaunting the qualities of sticky-toned violins. +Save for his garrulity, he was inoffensive; though his open +conviction that his fellow-travelers were mother and daughter +caused Juliette infinite anguish and disquiet of mind. +</p> + +<p> +"With regard to His Majesty the French Emperor, I +was brought into contact with him unexpectedly," said the +drab man. "You can picture me, young lady, in the +enjoyment of my well-earned holiday, strolling, as one may +say, from village to village, enjoying the fresh air and the +scenery, such a change after five-and-twenty years of +Camberwell, the Courts of Law, and Furnival's Inn." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide complained: +</p> + +<p> +"He bores me horribly, this red-nosed imbecile! Cannot +he answer the question? What is he saying now?" +</p> + +<p> +The drab man prattled on: +</p> + +<p> +"For from the cradle, as one might say, I have been the +vassal and slave of Business, having been sent by my father +to a Mercantile and Legal Training College at Bromersham +when only seven years old. At fifteen I was office-boy and +under-clerk in the old gentleman's office. Believed in +beginning at the bottom of the ladder, you see! At eighteen, +articled—again to the old gentleman! He being a solicitor +and attorney with a good old-fashioned family practice, +and naturally being desirous to see his son a full-blown +partner in the Firm!..." +</p> + +<p> +He sighed and shook his head sentimentally. +</p> + +<p> +"No use to tell the old gentleman I had been born with +other ambitions. That Art had a fascination, and the voice +of Music called.... I used up reams of office wove-note +in making pen-and-ink designs for illustrations to the books +I'd read on the sly, and the plays I'd seen on the quiet.... +I'd render popular airs on the mouth-organ to the +admiration of all the other clerks. 'Now, Mr. William, let's +have a Musical Selection!' they'd say whenever the old +gentleman popped out.... I saved up my money to pay +for a course of tuition in Drawing from the Round and +Life Model at a Night School of Art in Soho. But I never +got time. The old gentleman must have been more knowing +than I suspected, for he always managed to keep my +nose to the grindstone. Will you believe that I bought +this box, and this easel, and the violin twenty years +ago—and never got a chance to use 'em, until now? To such a +degree was my liberty hectored over, and the talents that +might have made me the center of a circle of admirers, +blighted by the Senior Partner and Head of the Firm...." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide, growing more restive, interrupted: +</p> + +<p> +"Does this fatuous person who talks so greatly afford +any information, or does he not?" +</p> + +<p> +"—Yet I could show you a sketch of the Roman Aqueduct +at Ars that would surprise you," went on the drab +man, addressing Juliette, "regarded as emanating from +the pencil of a simple amatoor. Also I could touch off a +French chansong on the violin in a style equally creditable +and gratifying—and justifying my retirement from +Business in the interests of Music and Art. But——" +</p> + +<p> +He took out a plaid silk handkerchief and wiped his +moist eyes with it, and wagged the grizzled head that wore +the absurd blue-ribboned straw hat in a maudlin, +despondent way. +</p> + +<p> +"But just as I'd settled to the roving life, tramping +from inn to inn and finding 'em comfortable, the country +cooking tasty, and the country vintages nice—War breaks +out and spoils everything! Another week, and I should +have bought a Bit of Ground!" +</p> + +<p> +He mopped his eyes and snuffled a little, and put away +the handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +"It was going cheap—the Chatto and farm and wine-plant +and vineyards. I had a good look at the title-deeds—everything +was in order there, even to a professional eye.... +All I had to do was to put down the money. I'd have +painted and fiddled, made wine and drunk it—sold what I +didn't drink, and branded the vintages: 'Château Musty, +Dry, Sparkling ... Château Musty, Special Still.' ... +Château Musty, sweet, preferred by ladies.... Stop, +though! It wouldn't have been that name! My name is +Furnival! Excuse me, Mam'selle, but I think your +lady-mother is making some remark to you. At least she +impresses me with that idea." +</p> + +<p> +"Madame is greatly desirous of intelligence with respect +to the Emperor," Juliette explained. The talkative +traveler looked aggrieved: +</p> + +<p> +"Pray tell the lady I am coming to him presently. +After the War broke out—Lord! what a hurrying and +scurrying of soldiers.... Bugles blowing your head off +at four o'clock in the morning—all the wagons taken to +carry baggage—all the farm-horses whipped off to drag +cannon ... no more sensible business done anywhere!... And +when the shooting began, it was a scandal! +Positively perilous to visitors! Why, I've been absolutely +in danger of my life!..." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide's foot tapped impatiently on the floor of the +wagonette. Her fine eyes shot forth indignant sparks. +She bit her crimson lips. The drab Englishman regarded +her mildly, commenting: +</p> + +<p> +"If I wasn't accustomed by this time to French ways +and manners, I should take it that your mamma had a +temper of her own. But it's the national method of +over-working the features.... Not that your Emperor is +given to too much expression. Heavy, he struck me as, +and puffily low-spirited! And even a worse sleeper than +myself, if you ask me! For I spent the night in a room +over His Majesty's, the night he stopped in the inn at +Gravelotte, and didn't shut my eyes for an instant with +his groanings and his moanings and his tramp ings to and +fro...." +</p> + +<p> +He wagged his head, and pursued with solemnity: +</p> + +<p> +"In the morning I peeped out of the window and saw +him drive off. All sorts of French Nobs bowing and +scraping.... Orders and Stars and shiny carriages, and +silver-mounted harness on prancing bays.... Yet if he +had asked me, I wouldn't have changed places. Thinks I, +'How much better to be Me, plain William Furnival, an +honest English Commoner, than an Emperor whose +crime-stained conscience keeps him broad awake o' nights!'" +</p> + +<p> +Said Juliette, her eyes blue fire, two angry roses in her +usually pale cheeks: +</p> + +<p> +"But you, Monsieur—who also sleep badly—is that +because you have crime upon your soul?" +</p> + +<p> +"What have you said to this creature that has frightened +him?" Adelaide demanded, as the drab traveler's jaw +dropped, and his red nose glowed brilliantly in a visage of +dingy-white. +</p> + +<p> +Juliette translated. Said Madame, regarding the perturbed +Mr. Furnival, with a glance of superb indifference: +</p> + +<p> +"He is a runaway husband of some Englishwoman who +keeps a <i>pension</i>. Or the absconding clerk of a London +notary." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Whatever he may or may not have been, he fell silent +after the little passage here recorded. At Bazeilles, where +the driver was paid, and the wagonette dismissed, though +he entered the same train of vilely dirty third-class +carriages and goods-trucks, he traveled in a compartment +remote from that selected by his companions of the drive. +</p> + +<p> +At Verdun they learned that the railway bridge below +Metz had been blown up by M. de Bazaine's Engineers, the +line beyond being in Prussian hands.... And at this +point the drab gentleman got out, hugging his violin-case, +bag, and artist's fit-out. Juliette saw him swallowed up +in a roaring crowd of mobilists from the Ardennes, who +rushed upon and instantly crammed solid every corner of +the train. +</p> + +<p> +A good-looking officer, entering with the deluge, +apologized to the ladies in a well-bred, easy way: +</p> + +<p> +"It is inconvenient, Mesdames, but at the same time +necessary.... I take these little ones to Châlons to be +incorporated in the New Army of MacMahon.... They +are rough, as you perceive, and very few are yet in +uniform. But blue cloth and red cloth are less important +than chassepots, and they have them and can use them—these +little ones of mine! And when they receive orders to +march north and give a helping hand to M. de Bazaine—I +prophesy that, boots or no boots, they will keep up with +the best!" +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide smiled witchingly on the speaker, plied the +archery of her fine eyes, evoking admiring glances from the +officer and his uncouth, half-clad, half-trained mobilists. +She said she had no doubt of the courage of these sons of +Western France. She had heard, she added, that the +Emperor was at Châlons, but that H.I.M. intended to +resort to Paris, having surrendered to another the <i>bâton</i> of +supreme command. +</p> + +<p> +"'To Paris'!" The officer shrugged. "Alas! at such a +crisis in the affairs of the nation, Paris would be the last +shelter for the French Emperor. It is no longer a secret +that the Emperor has already left Châlons with the Grand +Headquarters Staff and the First Corps of the Army of +MacMahon.... Rheims is the destination—that +intelligence is also public property...." +</p> + +<p> +"And the Prince?" Adelaide asked eagerly. +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur the Prince Imperial left for Rheims with +the Emperor, but will be sent on from there to Rethel, with +his carriages, and an escort of Imperial Body Guards +under Colonel Watrin. His three <i>aides-de-camp</i>, Colonel +Lamey, Colonel Comte Clary, and Commandant Duperré +of the battleship <i>Le Taureau</i>, attend him. Comte d'Aure +is equerry now instead of old Bachon!... Pardon, +Madame?... You descend here...? But I thought you +were traveling to Châlons!... Permit me to open the +carriage door!" +</p> + +<p> +And the prattling officer, who had promised himself a +charming <i>vis-à-vis</i> upon the journey, must needs leap out +upon the platform, arrest the guard's arm in the act of +signaling the start.... Adelaide was handed down.... +Juliette followed with an avalanche of Madame's +traveling bags and parcels ... a discontented porter was +called upon to rescue her trunks and <i>portmanteaux</i> from +the van.... +</p> + +<p> +The signal fell, the train steamed out of the station. +Juliette, white and fagged, sitting on an up-piled luggage +truck, was asked by Adelaide: +</p> + +<p> +"Where do you think we are going now, Mademoiselle?" +</p> + +<p> +Came the weary answer: +</p> + +<p> +"I do not know, Madame.... First, it was to Metz, +and then to Châlons. Now, it may be to Rheims, as the +Emperor is there." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide returned tormentingly: +</p> + +<p> +"But we are not going to Rheims." +</p> + +<p> +A thrill passed through Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +"My father is not a prisoner, then?" +</p> + +<p> +"My faith!" said Adelaide, shrugging with ostentatious +indifference. "He is as he was yesterday. But all the +same, my little one, we do not go to Rheims, but to Rethel.... +Tell me—you have brought with you a walking-costume +that is tolerable? Something more becoming than +this lugubrious garment you have on!" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette replied in the negative. Adelaide's look was +coldly scornful as she scrutinized the little figure before +her. Could this really be her daughter, this pale, peaked, +elfish thing?... +</p> + +<p> +What sloping shoulders, what tragic, haunted eyes, what +a long upper lip, what lack of vivacity and elegance.... +Her grandmother—that well-loathed woman, lived again +in de Bayard's child. +</p> + +<p> +Monseigneur the Prince Imperial must have curious taste +in feminine beauty to have been smitten with this stiff +little white-faced mannequin. Whom de Bayard +worshiped ... whom even Straz had admired.... What +were his words ... "<i>A little Queen of Diamonds, fresh +as a rosebud!</i>" Grand Dieu!... how comical! "<i>A rare +jewel.... A chic type.... A pocket edition of Psyche, +before that little affair with Cupid.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Well, Cupid waited at Rethel.... Her red lips writhed +with the jeering laughter she stifled. Two devils of +mockery looked through the windows of her eyes. And with +the swift understanding of this stranger that came of +their close, intimate relationship, Juliette encountering +that look, said mentally: +</p> + +<p> +"She hates me! My mother hates me! For that reason +she sought me out and told me that false tale.... +Because of that she lured me away with her from Brussels! +Because of that she has planned to do something.... +Oh, my father, if only you knew!..." +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap54"></a></p> + +<h3> +LIV +</h3> + +<p> +The Hope of a tottering and crumbling Empire was +installed at the Prefecture of Rethel, a picturesque, +old-world river-town of many bridges, and houses with quaint +carved gables, slanting floors, and low ceilings crossed by +heavy beams. +</p> + +<p> +He had arrived late on the previous evening. There had +been no flags, no bands, no popular ovation, no delirium of +enthusiasm in greeting the Imperial heir. Press organs +were now telling incredulous Parisians that in consideration +of the Prince's weariness the people had foregone +their privilege of welcome. In honest truth, the unlucky +townsfolk were too sad and sick-hearted to cheer. +</p> + +<p> +A great battle was impending in the neighborhood of +Metz. The First and Second Armies of United Germany +had crossed the Moselle, wheeled right-about-face, and were +closing in on Bazaine, who had failed in his attempt to +retire upon Châlons by the Verdun Road. The Prussian +Crown Prince had come out of the Vosges, and was marching +North instead of moving upon Châlons. If his vanguard +clashed with MacMahon's patched-up Army there +would be trouble.... Everyone expected trouble, the +soil of France had been sown so thickly with the bad seed +from which great national disasters spring, even before +it had been plowed by German shells.... The coming +tragedy chilled and numbed as the iceberg chills the senses +of the passenger in the Atlantic liner's warm deck-cabin, +long before the keel grates, and the white fog lifts, and +shows the towering Death on which the doomed vessel is +being hurled. +</p> + +<p> +The deep dejection of the officers around the Heir +Imperial could not be covered by any well-meant attempts at +disguise. The rumors that came through the fog into +which Bazaine had vanished were horribly disquieting. +They waited upon thorns, for a telegram from the +Emperor, conveying intelligence on which they might rely. +</p> + +<p> +There was something in the situation of the lonely, proud +young creature they surrounded that made the heart bleed +as you looked at him. So helpless and yet so representative +of unfettered Power, so ignorant in the ways of the +world, and yet so conversant with its outward forms and +ceremonies, so palpably the last frail link upon a chain +that was being hacked through by the Prussian sword. +</p> + +<p> +He had grown older and thinner since the days of July, +and his fresh, fine color had faded to paleness. There was +a frown upon the open forehead now, the gay, confident +regard had changed to sullenness. The blue eyes were +less lustrous. The silky chestnut hair was rumpled and +duller. Care had overshadowed the boyish head with her +heavy sable wing. +</p> + +<p> +The arrival of the previous night had been sudden and +unexpected, the startled authorities had been rarely put +about to find fitting accommodation for their Emperor's +son. This morning Monseigneur had been hurried out of +his bed at the Prefecture to receive the apologies of the +Prefect, an Imperialistic vine-grower, who had been absent +in the interests of his affairs. +</p> + +<p> +"Your Imperial Highness will be aware that this is a +critical month with owners of vineyards. The vines have +borne well and the grapes are ripening magnificently. +Next month the champagne-making ought to be in full +progress. But the lack of hands terribly hampers us.... +Women cannot replace the men who are skilled in the +various processes. And who knows——" +</p> + +<p> +The Prefect broke off, for the Sub-Prefect had nudged +him openly. Even if the tide of War should turn, and +France be freed from her invaders, who knew whether any +of those grape-pickers and sorters and pressers, Reservists +and volunteers and conscripts who had been called out to +carry the chassepot against the Prussians, would ever +return to their countryside again? Who knew whether they +would not be thrown as ripe grapes into Death's huge +wine-press? Perhaps their red blood was foaming in the vat +even now. +</p> + +<p> +Who knew whether those rich, prosperous vineyards on +the Aisne would not be trampled into sticky mashiness +under the ruthless feet of Prussian Army Corps? If the +rumors were correct, an advance upon Paris might take +place at any moment. True, MacMahon's Army was said +to be covering the road to the capital. +</p> + +<p> +But MacMahon had been already beaten terribly.... +Recollecting it, the Prefect shuddered in his well-polished +shoes. +</p> + +<p> +But he said his say and shook the young hand graciously +offered him, and got out of his own wife's drawing-room +as awkwardly as though he had been one of his own clerks. +While the Sub-Prefect, a sharp-visaged little man, who +combined the office of public notary with the trade of +wool-stapler, trotted after him, very much at his ease. +</p> + +<p> +"How you sweat! Wipe your head and your neck too," +counseled the notary. "Otherwise your cravat will be a +perfect wisp and Madame will certainly take you to task!" +</p> + +<p> +"You have such <i>sangfroid</i>, my good M. Schlitte. I envy +you; I do, positively!" stuttered the Prefect, puffing and +blowing and mopping. "Royalty invariably dazzles me.... +I tremble ... I blunder.... In a word, I make a +fool of myself! At this moment I am tortured by the +weight of my responsibilities.... True—His Highness +is well guarded—true, the Army of Châlons is somewhere +or other in the neighborhood!... But the daring of these +Prussian horsemen ... the danger of a surprise!..." +</p> + +<p> +"A surprise.... Nonsense, my dear sir. The thing is +impossible!" +</p> + +<p> +And M. Schlitte, who was said upon the strength of his +queer French accent to be a native of Strasbourg, soothed +the Prefect, and grinned like a rat-trap as he betook +himself home. Inhabiting a riverside villa in the +neighborhood, from which residence—we may suppose for the +better conduct of his extensive business—a private +telegraphic installation connected him with Rheims, Paris, +Brussels, Luxembourg—and, when necessary, Berlin—it +would have been possible to have made arrangements for +that very contingency. His suggestions were not adopted +at the Prussian Headquarters, but his zeal was approved +in the right place. He became Prefect of Rethel a little +later, when Berlin was settled at Versailles. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +He stopped now, on his way back to his villa, to send +the town-band round to the Place of the Prefecture and +to bribe some loafers with small silver to mix with the +crowd and cheer for the Emperor and the Prince. +Consequently, a drum, trombone, cornet, and ophicleide shortly +made their appearance before the Imperial lodgings.... +<i>La Reine Hortense</i> and <i>Partant Pour La Syrie</i> entertained +Monseigneur while he breakfasted. Since then he had +thrice been summoned out upon the balcony to acknowledge +the acclamations of the loyal populace of Rethel. +</p> + +<p> +It was pouring rain, and the knots of spies, loafers, and +genuine enthusiasts were sheltered by umbrellas. The very +fowls that pecked between the cobbles had a listless and +draggled air. The boy shivered as he turned from the +dismal outdoor prospect to contemplate the Empire hangings, +ormolu girandoles, and obsolete, scroll-backed chairs +and claw-foot tables, gracing the Prefect's wife's reception-room. +He told himself that it was horrible, even when one +waited for the news of certain victory, to be shut up in a +beastly hole like this. +</p> + +<p> +He nearly jumped for joy when the name of M. de Straz +was brought him by his equerry. He remembered the +Roumanian agent, who had previously been presented to +him. +</p> + +<p> +"Pray bring him quickly, M. le Comte," he said eagerly +to M. d'Aure, who had replaced old M. Bachon. "It is +possible that he may bring a message from the Emperor." +</p> + +<p> +He colored, and his eyes regained a little of their old +brightness. The green-and-gold equerry, who loved him, +as did every member of his household, was glad to see him, +interested, for more reasons than one. +</p> + +<p> +Straz, known to be a secret agent of the Emperor, and +hailing from Rheims, where his employer was now—Straz +might well amuse the Prince while his protectors waited +for an Imperial telegram. Meanwhile, the bodyguard +about the Prefecture was unostentatiously doubled, the +carriages and the baggage were secretly held in readiness +for a move. +</p> + +<p> +You can imagine Straz, with his profile and beard of a +courtier of old Nineveh, bowing over the boyish hand, and +rolling his jet-black, glittering eyes. He had looked better +in his Astrachan-trimmed traveling jacket than in the +tight-waisted, closely buttoned, black frock-coat and pearl-gray +trousers of ceremony, and the inky river of black silk +cravat that flowed over the expanse of white shirt-front +now covering his Herculean chest. +</p> + +<p> +He wore white spats, which made his short legs appear +shorter. A bouquet adorned his buttonhole—pink carnation +and tuberose. Its cloying fragrance hung heavily on +the damp air of the Prefecture reception-room, as the boy +pleasantly said: +</p> + +<p> +"Good-day, M. de Straz; do you come to us from the Emperor?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, my Prince, and no!..." Straz had long ago +got rid of his cold, yet a certain thickness characterized his +consonants. He shrugged his great shoulders and smiled, +showing his dazzling double curves of solid human ivory. +"I come from Rheims, where His Imperial Majesty is +making history.... I am not charged with any message +from him!" +</p> + +<p> +The boy's face fell. He said, with a brave effort to +conquer his disappointment: "I am impatient, Monsieur, +for news of another victory. It is so long since the +engagement of Saarbrück, and that was only a little one. You +are an officer in the Army of Roumania, you have told me. +You are aware, even better than I, that military plans take +time to develop .. and that Papa has every confidence in +the generalship of M. de Bazaine.... If I were five or +six years older, I should be admitted to the Councils of +the Imperial État Major.... I should understand the +reasons for these changes which puzzle me.... But one +thing I should like to ask..." He flushed and glanced +round nervously. "They do not believe in Paris or +London that we are being ... beaten?... I beg of you to +answer me candidly!" +</p> + +<p> +Straz drew himself up dramatically, expanding his huge +chest, and curling his parted mustache. His fierce black +eyes, staring from their great curved arches, glittered like +balls of polished jet.... +</p> + +<p> +"They do not, my Prince! They wait for the Star of +the Bonapartes to rise resplendent from a sea of gore shed +from Prussian veins.... They wait, as the world waits, +for the Empire to emerge more glorious than ever from +this conflict, which will restore to her forever her lost +Provinces of the Rhine. It may be that the Coronation of +Napoleon IV. will be solemnized in the Cathedral of +Cologne.... Aha, my Prince, have I won a smile at last?" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +He looked, despite the frock-coat, more than ever like +some ancient warrior of Assyria, marching in a carved and +painted procession along the walls of some unearthed +palace of Nineveh or Babylon. And so admirable an actor +was he that the sick heart of the boy now warmed at his +simulated fire, and gladdened at his deceptive words of +hope. +</p> + +<p> +"I had pictured my Imperial Prince," he went on, "in +brighter and less gloomy surroundings, with sympathetic +and delightful companions to alleviate his exile from +home." +</p> + +<p> +He had touched the wrong chord. The slender, well-made +figure was drawn up proudly. The delicate brows +frowned, the lips quivered as the boy said: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur, it is not 'exile' when an officer is ordered on +Active Service.... And I am with the French Army, +whose uniform I wear. For the moment the Emperor, my +commanding officer, has ordered me to remain here.... +I did wrong to grumble—I shall do so no more!" +</p> + +<p> +Straz grinned and bowed to cover his momentary +confusion. Why had he used the indigestible word? He +touched his buttonhole bouquet and said with a treacly +inflection: +</p> + +<p> +"There are no violets—it is not the proper season.... +Does Monseigneur remember when the purple blooms +reached him regularly at intervals, one timid scrap of +paper hiding among the slender stems? ... And would +he, did he know how the sender languished for news of +him—entrust me with one penciled message of kindness +that might restore the rose to a fading cheek?" +</p> + +<p> +The clear-eyed, fresh face of the boy he harangued +underwent several changes during this windy apostrophe. +For one brief instant it flushed and brightened eagerly, +then it frowned with perplexity, then it twitched with the +evident desire to laugh. +</p> + +<p> +He said, controlling his amusement with his grace of +good-breeding: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur, if it was a lady who sent me those violets, +pray tell her that she was very good to do so, and that I +thank her very much. And since she asks for a +message—perhaps this will do as well?" +</p> + +<p> +He turned to the writing-table, where some sheets, covered +with clever pen-and-ink caricatures, lay on the blotter, +and took up a rough little outline drawing of a landscape, +marked with lines of dots and written over with +notes. He said ingenuously, offering this to the +Roumanian: +</p> + +<p> +"See, Monsieur, this is a mere sketch of the affair at +Saarbrück. I did it to send my tutor at Paris, but +M. Filon shall have another one.... If the lady has sons of +my age, no doubt they will be able to draw far better. +Nevertheless, here it is!" +</p> + +<p> +Under the date of August 2nd, he had signed it, with a +touch of boyish vanity: +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "<i>Under fire for the first time.<br> + "Your affectionate<br> + "Louis Napoleon.</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"What genius!—what a gift! How gracious an act of +kindness on the part of your Imperial Highness!" +</p> + +<p> +Straz grabbed the little scrawl eagerly, pressed his moist +scarlet lips to it with theatrical devotion—made a tremendous +flourish of putting it away in a pocketbook, and +bestowing this receptacle near the region of his heart. +</p> + +<p> +"Though the lady has no sons—she is not even yet +married," he hinted. "Dare I confide a secret to +Monseigneur?—she is a young and beautiful girl!" +</p> + +<p> +Monseigneur had been promising himself to caricature +Straz at the next opportunity, not forgetting to make the +most of his profile, hair, and beard. Young and beautiful +girls were no novelties to Louis Napoleon, accustomed to +do the honors of Versailles and Saint Cloud to the muslin-clad +daughters of the sparkling coquettes who frequented +the Imperial Circle. He began, struggling with the +boredom that began to oppress him: +</p> + +<p> +"If the young girl is your <i>fiancée</i>, Monsieur, or your +daughter——" +</p> + +<p> +The speaker broke off at the sound of hoofs and wheels +on the cobblestones of the Place, the bump of a carriage-step +let down, hitting the curb before the Prefecture.... +Someone had arrived with a message from the Emperor; +or perhaps it was only the Prefect's wife returning from +an airing.... Straz would have been other than himself +had he failed to seize the opportunity. +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur, Mademoiselle de Bayard is not affianced. +She has hitherto declined all alliances proposed as +advantageous—it is said her affections are secretly +engaged!..." +</p> + +<p> +His smirk revolted even while it fascinated. He said, +rolling his glistening black eyes about the apartment—shrugging +his great shoulders, laying a thick white squat-nailed +finger mysteriously against his carmine lips: +</p> + +<p> +"Engaged since a little <i>rencontre</i> that took place in the +month of January.... There were disturbances in Paris—which +the troops had been called out to quell. Riding +with M. de Frossard in the Avenues of the Champs Élysées, +your Highness passed close by a young girl in a cab. She +cried out, '<i>Vive le Prince Impérial!</i>' ... She threw a +knot of violets, which struck your horse on the shoulder.... +You had the flowers in your hand, Monseigneur, +when you rode away." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, now I remember!" The boy's blush became him. +"Or I should say I have not forgotten. And where is she +now, Monsieur?" +</p> + +<p> +"Where is Mademoiselle de Bayard? Your Imperial +Highness would like to know?" +</p> + +<p> +Straz, who had thrilled with a sportsman's joy at the +curtsey of the float betokening a nibble, would have given +his soul to know himself.... Now, as he delayed, with +the air of one who momentarily holds back something +eagerly waited for, the equerry knocked and entered, +approached and whispered to the Prince. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap55"></a></p> + +<h3> +LV +</h3> + +<p> +"But surely, M. le Comte, it would please me to receive +these two ladies. M. de Straz has just been speaking of +Mademoiselle de Bayard." +</p> + +<p> +And he dismissed Straz, who for once had been stricken +speechless; giving his hand to him and saying: "I am +very much obliged by your visit, Monsieur!" +</p> + +<p> +The equerry retired, shepherding the unstrung +Roumanian. The Prince waited, looking at the door. +</p> + +<p> +He heard footsteps descending the stairs, a slight bustle +in the hall, or so it seemed to him. Once a raised voice +cried out something, drowned in the buzzing of the crowd +that now gorged the Place of the Prefecture. +</p> + +<p> +It still rained. The brass helmets of the Fire-Brigade +and the black shakos of the local police strung out along +the edge of the pavement, showed as fringing a solid mass +of dripping umbrellas; there were clumps of more privileged +umbrellas in the middle of the Place, where a +hackney-carriage now stood, doubtless the vehicle that a +moment previously had stopped before the door. The Cent +Gardes had their undress cocked-hats on; their blue-caped +mantles, pulled out in cavalry fashion over the +hindquarters of their tall brown horses, shed off the merciless +downpour like penthouse roofs.... +</p> + +<p> +Brr! It was chilly. Why did not Mademoiselle come? +Such delay was rather a breach of etiquette. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, there upon the blotter lay a sheet of paper, +with an unfinished caricature upon it—masterly, considering +that a mere boy had drawn it—representing M. Thiers, +bald, spectacled, oracularly smiling, in the guise of a +gobbling turkey-cock. +</p> + +<p> +M. Thiers would keep. The Prince chose another sheet, +and began his portrait of the Roumanian, humming a song, +popular with the African infantry-regiments, in capital +tune and time. "<i>Gentle Turco</i>" had been half sung +through when the door opened. The crisp grizzled curls, +tanned soldierly face, waxed mustache, and green-and-silver +uniform of the equerry reappeared upon the threshold, +ushering in a small young lady.... D'Aure said, as +the boy laid down his pen, rose and came toward them: +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur, I bring the young lady of whom I spoke +to you, daughter of Colonel de Bayard, 777th Chasseurs +of the Emperor's Guard. She has convinced me of her +identity by showing me a portrait, and a letter from her +father.... She begs me to assure you that she will not +detain you longer than ten minutes. For that space of +time I will return to the lady downstairs." He added at +the Prince's glance of inquiry: "The lady is the wife of a +French officer, and accompanied Mademoiselle de Bayard. +As I went downstairs just now with M. de Straz, we +encountered both ladies in the vestibule. A giddiness seized +the elder, she cried out, and swooned away." +</p> + +<p> +The Prince said: +</p> + +<p> +"Pray give orders that the sick lady is to have every +attention!" +</p> + +<p> +D'Aure answered that the wife of the Prefect was with +Madame even then. He saluted, and repeated with an +accent of finality: +</p> + +<p> +"For the space of ten minutes, Monseigneur...." +</p> + +<p> +Then he bowed to Mademoiselle de Bayard, and went +quickly out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +The Prince began, with a touch of boyish pompousness: +</p> + +<p> +"We have met before, Mademoiselle. My thanks for the +violets!" +</p> + +<p> +For he knew this face with cheeks so fairly rose-tinted, +with eyes that shone brilliant as blue jewels from their +covert of black lashes, with the softly-smiling mouth. The +dull moth shone out a butterfly in the radiance of the joy +that overbrimmed her. She was near her Prince Imperial, +Juliette de Bayard, who was not so much loyal as Loyalty +incarnate, to whom the tawdry figure of the Emperor was +invested with godlike splendor, in whose esteem the +Empire was France—her France.... +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +She was attired as she had been when she left Brussels +with Adelaide. Only a fichu of black and white Malines +lace that she had brought in the handbag containing linen +and toilet requisites, had been pinned about her narrow, +sloping shoulders, and a tiny bonnet matching this was +perched upon her magnificent coils of cloudy-black hair. +Her deft fingers had fashioned it in a few minutes out of +the long ends of the over-ample fichu. A bunch of +fragrant red roses had been pinned upon her bosom by +Madame. She had purchased out of her own slender +resources a fringed gray silk parasol and a pair of little +gray kid gloves. And in this hastily arranged toilette she +looked elegant, refined, exclusive as any slender aristocrat +of the Faubourg St. Germain. You would never have +suspected the tumult beneath her sedate composure. Yet she +thrilled in every fiber as she swept her stateliest curtsey +before the slender boy in the unassuming uniform of a +subaltern of infantry. +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur is too good to remember so infinitely +trifling an occurrence ... more than gracious to consent +to receive me now! But that my dear father is a prisoner +in the hands of the Prussians, I would not dare to intrude +upon the privacy of my Prince. Oh, Monseigneur! of your +pity prevail upon the Emperor to obtain the exchange of +my father for some German officer of equal rank in his +Army! Think, oh, pray!—think how I..." +</p> + +<p> +She stopped to control herself ... felt for her handkerchief +to dry the tears that were blinding her ... dropped +the scrap of cambric upon the Aubusson carpet gracing the +drawing-room of the Prefecture. The Prince picked the +handkerchief up as Mademoiselle hastily stooped to recover +it ... their heads encountered in the act. The bump was +a hard one—Juliette could have sunk into the earth with +confusion.... But the Prince rubbed his forehead, +grinned, and called out like any other schoolboy: +</p> + +<p> +"My word! that was a stunner! I do hope you're not +hurt? Are you, as it happens, Mademoiselle?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, no, Monseigneur! But you?..." +</p> + +<p> +"I am all right! Saw lots of stars, though!" +</p> + +<p> +He burst out laughing. And so infectious was the peal +of merriment that for one blissful moment of forgetfulness +Juliette joined in. +</p> + +<p> +"To laugh does the heart good," the boy assured her. +He went on: "Do not be unhappy, for I will telegraph to +the Emperor. He never denies me anything I ask him.... +Depend upon it, he will do everything in his power +for your father, Mademoiselle!" +</p> + +<p> +She looked all thanks, saying in her voice of silver: +</p> + +<p> +"I shall pray with redoubled fervor for His Imperial +Majesty. And for you, Monseigneur—be well assured of +it! Now, with all my gratitude, I will retire if your +Highness permits?" +</p> + +<p> +She swept her curtsey, and would have withdrawn then +had not Monseigneur called out eagerly: +</p> + +<p> +"No, no! We have still eight of our ten minutes! Don't +go!... I do so like the way you talk.... Mon Dieu! +What would the Empress say to me if she knew that I had +left a lady standing! Pray sit down here, Mademoiselle!" +</p> + +<p> +He turned round the writing-chair in which he had been +sitting, made her take it—perched himself upon the corner +of the writing-table, a schoolboy of fifteen in spite of his +uniform, pouring out his heart to a girl older than he. +</p> + +<p> +"It was horrible here until you came!... I was so +lonely! Everybody looks so strange, and no news comes +through. It would have been better to have stayed at +Metz, where there is fighting. But no! We were +compelled to return to Châlons.... On our way we were +nearly caught by the German cavalry. They are terribly +daring ... they even ventured into our lines at +Longeville.... But we got to Verdun and traveled to Châlons +in a third-class carriage. Frightfully dirty, and full of +things that bit.... And I washed my face in a thick +glass tumbler, out of which I had drunk some wine they +brought me.... Fact, I assure you!... But we +soldiers don't mind hardships.... We get used to them, +Mademoiselle!" +</p> + +<p> +She looked up at the brightened face with the tenderness +of an elder sister. He went on with increasing animation +and growing confidence: +</p> + +<p> +"Do you see that little black box standing there in the +corner? That's my officer's kit—all the baggage we're +allowed to have on Active Service. There are other boxes +with other things..." He blushed. "The valets look +after them.... But this I keep under my own eye. And +here!... This I hold as a great treasure. Do you think +I would show it to everyone?... <i>Non, merci!</i> ... Behold, +Mademoiselle!" +</p> + +<p> +He took from a pocket beneath his tunic and showed her +a splinter of rusty iron wrapped in an envelope. +</p> + +<p> +"Guess what this is! A bit of a real German bombshell.... +It burst quite close to the Emperor and me.... I +thought a lot of old iron was being shot out of a cart, there +was such a racket.... This should be a keepsake for the +friend one loves above all, should it not? Otherwise I +would give it you, Mademoiselle!" +</p> + +<p> +She said: +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur is too generous.... I need no token by +which to remember him!... Have I not the remembrance +of the sympathy and condescension with which my +Prince has listened to a daughter's prayer?... Now, +indeed, I must take leave of Monseigneur!..." +</p> + +<p> +He persisted with boyish eagerness: +</p> + +<p> +"No, no! M. d'Aure will certainly return at the end of +our ten minutes. And I do like you so much, +Mademoiselle!... Will you write and tell me when the Emperor +obtains the release of M. le Colonel? ... Will you let me +hear how you liked the little sketch I gave M. de Straz for +you?" +</p> + +<p> +She was puzzled, and looked it: +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur will pardon me, but the name of M. de +Straz is that of a stranger.... Yet he has received from +Monseigneur a message for me?..." +</p> + +<p> +Louis Napoleon explained. She listened with a gravity +that chilled his amusement over the message he had sent +to the supposedly elderly sender of the violets. +</p> + +<p> +She said, looking at him steadily with her sincere eyes: +</p> + +<p> +"I sent Monseigneur no violets, with messages written +or otherwise. To have done so would have been presumptuous, +and lacking in delicacy.... If this M. de Straz +were but here.... If Monseigneur could but describe +him!..." +</p> + +<p> +Monseigneur caught up the unfinished caricature: +</p> + +<p> +"Look, Mademoiselle! This is he!" +</p> + +<p> +It was he.... The Assyrian head, great torso, and +short legs had been grotesquely exaggerated. But the +ferocity, sentimentality, and sensuality mingling in the +exotic temperament of the Roumanian, had been conveyed +with a mastery of technique and a grasp of character +astonishing, considering the artist's youth. And seeing, +Juliette recognized the man they had encountered in the +vestibule. Just as he had passed them, Adelaide had cried +out, and sunk down helplessly in a genuine swoon. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, yes, Monseigneur, I have seen this gentleman, but +a few moments ago. We encountered him at the instant +of entering the house. But I do not know him—I have +never before met him! Why, then, should M. de Straz +speak familiarly of me?" +</p> + +<p> +The boy said, with a tactfulness that was ingratiating: +</p> + +<p> +"Never mind!... He was playing some stupid trick!... +He shall be punished if he offends you. See! I am +tearing up the ugly picture!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, Monseigneur!" +</p> + +<p> +She was too late to save the drawing. He went on, +tossing away the bits: +</p> + +<p> +"Meanwhile—since the sketch I meant for you has been +given to this person, you shall have my shell-splinter, +though at first I meant it for—Cavaignac." +</p> + +<p> +He had never uttered this name, about which so many +lonely day-dreams clung, in the hearing of any second +person. He could hardly believe that he had done so now as +he went on: +</p> + +<p> +"Take my souvenir, and shut your hand over it, and +promise me you will never part with it. If you will, I can +tell you about Cavaignac—my friend, Mademoiselle!" +</p> + +<p> +She complied with his wish, smiling at the tone of +authority. She thought, looking in the beautiful frank blue +eyes, that Cavaignac must be proud of his high place in +this princely young heart. +</p> + +<p> +"He is brave, Mademoiselle, and handsome and wonderfully +clever. Once he gained the second prize for Greek +translation at the Concours General. And Greek is horribly +difficult. M. Edeline could never teach it me. I find +the grammar so dreadfully dull! And yet Alexander the +Great was a Greek general, and would have told me all +about his campaigns in the Greek language.... I think +I must find it hard to study because the figures of people +mean more to me than letters and words!... I like better +to draw caricatures of my masters than to listen to them!" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette said, with something maternal in her accent: +</p> + +<p> +"That is unwise, Monseigneur.... For the better we +learn, the sooner we part with the teacher, do not we?" +</p> + +<p> +He said, in a tone of wounded pride rather than vanity: +</p> + +<p> +"I have always attended carefully to my Military Governor +when he gave us lessons in scientific warfare. For a +Napoleon must always be a soldier and a strategist.... +Riding came easily—anybody can learn to ride well!... When +I have pleased my tutors most, my reward has been—unless +it was in July or August—a day with the stag-hounds +at Fontainebleau, or St. Germain or Compiègne.... +The Emperor has given me two magnificent Irish +hunters...." He added with naïve boyish vanity: "And +the uniform of our Imperial Hunt is splendid, you know.... +Gold-laced cocked hat with white plumes, green coat +with crimson velvet facings, white leathers and jack-boots. +Last night I dreamed I was hunting with Cavaignac +... the brown forest flying by as we galloped through the +frosty fern.... The sky was pale red, and a diamond +star hung just under the tip of the new moon of November. +We were foremost of all when the stag turned to bay +at the Pools of Saint Pierre.... Then the horns sounded +the <i>hallali</i>, the Chief Huntsman offered me the knife, and +I said to him: '<i>M. Leemans, you will give it to my friend, +M. Cavaignac!</i>' ..." +</p> + +<p> +"And then, Monseigneur?..." +</p> + +<p> +He had told the dream with unexpected spirit and fire. +That gallop through the wintry forest-rides had been +stimulatingly real to Juliette. She had thrilled as the +hard-pressed buck had leaped into the pool, and turned with +antlers lowered against the ravening jaws of the pack. +Now, though she shrank from the thought of the spilled +blood—she wanted to hear the rest of it. She wished +always to remember this story, told solely for her, by the +son of her Emperor.... +</p> + +<p> +"Shall I tell you? The end is not as nice as the beginning +or the middle...." He hesitated, frowning a little, +then took up the broken thread: "I thought I took the +knife and held it out to him, and he suddenly snatched it +and I felt the blade pierce my heart right through.... +He said, with his dark, bright eyes on mine: '<i>Son of my +father's enemy, I slay despots, not animals!</i>' ... And I +felt the hot blood bubbling in my throat as I answered: +'<i>You have killed a great faith and a great love!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +It was rhetoric of a bombastic, youthful kind, but not +without pathos. His lips quivered. He nipped them +together, and blinked away the stinging salt moisture that +had risen in his bright eyes. Juliette said, aching to +console him: +</p> + +<p> +"Dreams go by contraries, according to my schoolmates +of the Convent. Your friendship with M. Cavaignac will +not be severed by the blade of a hunting-knife." +</p> + +<p> +He shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +"Or rather it is by my hand that the stab will be given.... +Yet how could that be, when I like him so very, very +much? ... Is it not strange, I have never spoken to +Cavaignac, and yet I would have chosen him for my +companion above all others, before even Espinasse or Chino +Murat!..." +</p> + +<p> +"I think I understand..." Juliette said, feeling the +tug of his craving for affection and sympathy, realizing the +loneliness that had found relief in hero-worship, and +heartily pitying her Emperor's son. "When the heart +speaks, one cannot shut one's ears; one must listen +always.... Among hundreds of faces there is one that +paints itself upon the memory ... there is one voice that +makes good music when others only tire the ear.... +There is one nature that seems more open, fresh, and +candid than others.... Without knowing that you do so, +you continually compare it with them.... And when +you are sad or lonely, you would wish that person to be +near you.... You remember his gray eyes with specks +of brown and golden in them, and the curly hair, and the +pleasant lips. You regret that when you met him you +were not more charming, more amiable.... You feel +chagrin to remember that you were neither of these things.... +You would like to hold out the hand as they do in +England, and say, 'Pardon, pardon, that I misunderstood +you, my friend!'" +</p> + +<p> +The boy's blue eyes rounded. His fair brows puckered +in perplexity. Too well-bred to interrupt, he listened with +increasing surprise. +</p> + +<p> +"Pardon that I regarded you as a brusque, untidy boy, +when you had been robbed, and were homeless, and +suffering from hunger. For Monica's sake, you hid it. And +I applaud that noble silence! I admire you with all my +heart!..." +</p> + +<p> +The Prince broke in: +</p> + +<p> +"But Cavaignac has not been robbed, and who ever said +he was hungry? He lives with Madame, his mother ... they +are not rich, certainly! As Madame is a widow and +he an only son, he is exempt from military service. He is +to embrace the profession of Literature—he will write +great books or great plays, or edit a newspaper.... And +I would like to help him to climb to the very top of the +ladder.... Secretly—because he would never accept +anything that came from me!... Am I stupid, Mademoiselle?" +</p> + +<p> +She said with warmth that covered a slight confusion, +caused by that slip of the tongue an instant before: +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, no, indeed! but very kind and generous. Perhaps, +if it were possible, M. Cavaignac would be proud and glad +to know you were his friend. It may be that the affection +he inspires in you, he returns, though he does not own it. +There can be no harm in thinking this, at least!" +</p> + +<p> +The Prince said, with animation: +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap56"></a></p> + +<h3> +LVI +</h3> + +<p> +"I saw him, I am convinced, when we left Saint-Cloud, +outside the station near the Gate of Orleans. He stood +apart from the soldiers and the people.... He was all in +black, and had grown older and taller. He looked at me +earnestly, and slightly raised his hat as the carriage drove +up. I saluted in answer, and the Empress asked me: '<i>Who +is that grave young man? Do you know him?</i>' I said: +'<i>My mother, I have never spoken to him in my life!</i>' +... You would have thought the Empress very brave, if you +had seen her, Mademoiselle. Nobody could have guessed +she had been weeping. Though the night before we left +for Metz ... when she came to me in my bed..." +</p> + +<p> +His lips twitched, and one big tear brimmed over and +splashed on the sleeve of his piou-piou's uniform. He +flushed bright red, and whisked it off as though it were a +wasp that would have stung. +</p> + +<p> +"She brought me a new medal to hang on the collar I +wear always." He slid a finger inside the edge of his stiff +military stock, and hooked up an inch of gold chain. "It +has on one side a figure of Our Blessed Lady crushing the +head of the serpent, and on the other there is the Cross +with two hearts. The Holy Father has blessed it; it was +sent to Rome purposely.... Mothers are anxious when +their sons are called upon Active Service.... It is +natural, is it not?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette's eyes were wet with pity for the Empress. She +bent her head in assent. The boy went on, shrugging his +slender shoulders: +</p> + +<p> +"For me—I like better to have soldiers about me than a +lot of people in embroidered tail-coats. If I had been +twenty, I should have been at Wörth with the Duke of +Magenta.... I would have died at the head of my +troops rather than have consented to that shameful +retreat.... '<i>Over my body!</i>' ... that is what I would +have said to them.... '<i>Do you wish me to dishonor the +blood of Napoleon the Great?</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +He crossed to the fireplace and stood upon the Turkey +hearthrug, a boyish figure reflected in the great Venetian +mirror that hung above the carved stone mantelpiece. +The outpouring had relieved the nervous tension; the red +flush had died out of his fair temples, the smooth forehead +was no longer disfigured with a scowl. +</p> + +<p> +"If I might only have remained with the Army at Metz, +I would have asked nothing better. But instead of staying +to fight the Prussians, we drove away when they came +in sight. It was ignominious.... It made me feel +horribly!... And the Emperor would not show it, but I +know he suffered, too. Then the camp was beastly.... +There was no pretense of discipline. Their officers could +hardly restrain the mobilists. There was even mutiny +among those who had returned from Alsace-Lorraine—the +Algerian troops of the Army of MacMahon!" +</p> + +<p> +His agitation made him stutter as the words came +pouring from him. +</p> + +<p> +"They wanted to be led once more against the Germans!—to +be avenged for all their losses and misfortunes!... I +understood why they were difficult.... They did not +understand why we did not march at once to the northeast +frontier. No more did I.... I was unreasonable, like +them! But now we are advancing—soon, soon, you will +hear something!... We will effect a junction of our +Army with M. de Bazaine's, and sweep the Prussians out +of France!" +</p> + +<p> +He was walking up and down, swinging his arms, +gesticulating, grinding his heels into the arabesques of the +Aubusson carpet at every turn. +</p> + +<p> +"Then there will be great popular rejoicings—the +Emperor will receive his due—there will be no more +misunderstandings. For the Emperor is terribly misunderstood, +Mademoiselle, and he is no longer young or strong.... +He has so many bitter enemies.... I have heard him say +so, weeping—the Emperor, Mademoiselle!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, hush, Monseigneur!" +</p> + +<p> +But he did not heed Juliette's entreaty. +</p> + +<p> +"I have heard him crying out to God in his room at +midnight, when he thought everyone was asleep, and he +was quite alone: '<i>My God! is this the beginning of the +punishment? Must the price of my success be ruin, +defeat, disgrace!</i>'... Then I stole away and made a prayer +for him and for myself, Mademoiselle.... I say it +regularly every night since then." +</p> + +<p> +His boyish pompousness, pride, and vanity had fallen +from him like a tinsel diadem. Chivalry and loyalty, +unselfishness and devotion shone from and irradiated the +child. +</p> + +<p> +"'<i>My God, if Thou dost save up happiness for me, I +pray Thee to take it away, and give it to my father, who +needs it so badly.... And, my God, if Thou indeed art +angry with him, I beseech Thee to grant him Thy pardon, +and punish me, instead. All I ask Thee for myself is that +I may know Thy Will, and obey It, that I may do my duty +bravely, and die when the end of my life comes without +dishonor and without fear!</i>' Is that a good prayer, do +you think, Mademoiselle?" +</p> + +<p> +Before she could command herself sufficiently to answer, +there was a knock at the door, and the equerry came in. +He looked eager and vexed, excited and disappointed. +Varying emotions seemed to clash in him. But he said, +smiling and saluting as the Prince turned toward him: +</p> + +<p> +"The ten minutes are over, Monseigneur!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ten minutes ago, Monsieur, to speak correctly," said +Monseigneur, with a mischievous look. Then his face +changed. "News!" he called out eagerly. "You have +dispatches from the Emperor!... Don't play a farce +with me, Count, I beg of you! when there is the telegram +sticking out of your cuff!" +</p> + +<p> +And with the nimbleness of a gamin and the audacity of +a spoiled princeling, he threw himself upon the equerry +and captured the prize. +</p> + +<p> +"From the Emperor at Rheims—no! don't retire, +Mademoiselle! You are discreet—not like women who +talk! ... You shall share my good news with me.... +He says: '<i>There has been furious fighting at Mars la Tour. +Battles are raging at Flauville, Flavigny, and Vionville. +The Prince will remain for the present at Bethel, where the +Emperor will rejoin him on the 27th. As it is not considered +advisable to effect a junction with Bazaine, the march +of the Army of Châlons is directed upon Sedan.</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +The mischief died out of the dancing eyes, the mobile +face whitened with disappointment. He repeated, staring +blankly at the paper: +</p> + +<p> +"For what did we leave Châlons, if not to assist +Bazaine?... <i>Mon Dieu!</i>... What infamy!... Why +am I not a man?" +</p> + +<p> +He grew crimson and burst into a tempest of sobbing. +He tore the pale green paper into fragments and trampled +them beneath his feet. His eyes blazed through the tears +that streamed from them as he stammered between his +gasps and chokings: +</p> + +<p> +"Cowards!... Traitors!... Disgraced forever!... Is +there no honor left in France?" +</p> + +<p> +"Come, Mademoiselle, in pity!" entreated the equerry, +as deadly pale as Monseigneur was red. He held open the +door with a shaking hand, and Juliette hurriedly quitted +the drawing-room. The door shut upon the sobs and +outcries. The Count said, with a sigh of relief, wiping the +perspiration from his face: +</p> + +<p> +"You will not speak of this? His Imperial Highness is +overwrought and excited. It will pass presently. Let me +conduct you downstairs!" +</p> + +<p> +The hall of the Prefecture reached, a servant in the +livery of the establishment approached the equerry. It +appeared that the lady who had accompanied Mademoiselle +had recovered from her indisposition, and departed, +leaving no message for her young friend. +</p> + +<p> +"Madame will have returned to her hotel," said the +equerry. He added: "By chance, Mademoiselle, the +dispatches we have just received contain proof that your +friend has been misled by false intelligence. Colonel le +Bayard has not been taken prisoner. He is now in +command of his regiment with the First Brigade of Cavalry +of General Clérambault's Division, now engaged with the +Third Corps in the neighborhood of Metz." +</p> + +<p> +Then as Juliette turned red and pale, and looked at him +in breathless questioning, he added, pulling a vestibule-chair +from its place near the wainscot and making her sit +down: +</p> + +<p> +"Rest there one moment.... I will speak to Colonel +Watrin. He is now at mess with his officers in the +Prefect's billiard-room." +</p> + +<p> +Watrin of the Bodyguard, Chief of the Prince Imperial's +escort, came clanking and jingling from his dinner to +confirm the fact as stated by the equerry. The 777th +Chasseurs, belonging to de Clérambault's Division of the Third +Corps of the Army of Bazaine, were certainly now engaged +in the neighborhood of Gravelotte. But as certainly they +had not come into contact with the enemy previously to +the fifteenth of the month. +</p> + +<p> +The fifteenth!—the very day on which Adelaide had +baited her trap with an imprisoned father.... Joy at +the discovery, indignation at having been so easily cajoled +into captivity, brought back the red to Juliette's pale +cheeks and the light to her sad eyes. +</p> + +<p> +This strange, wayward, mysterious mother might exercise +over her daughter a certain degree of maternal authority. +The supreme obedience, the first duty was to the +father, that was clear. Now she was going straight to +him, wherever he might be. She was strong enough, for +his dear sake, to take whatever risks were involved. +</p> + +<p> +Suppose Adelaide insisted on accompanying her? It +was unthinkable that even so hardy an offender should +venture into the presence of one so wronged.... Meet +his look!... Read in his face his scorn of perfidy! +Juliette put away the possibility from her with both hands. +</p> + +<p> +We know that Madame Adelaide had contemplated this +very move upon occasion. But she had not met +Mademoiselle de Bayard then. Since the encounter had taken +place she had realized that the establishment of maternal +influence, strong enough to make of her daughter a +confederate and ally, was a task beyond her powers. +</p> + +<p> +Her grace, her charm, were lost upon this pale, frigid, +obstinate little being, in whom she saw her mother-in-law +over again. For than this girl, sprung of her own flesh, +whose veins were filled with her blood, nothing could be +more unlike Adelaide, that magnificent creature of impulses +and desires and appetites.... +</p> + +<p> +Dominion over de Bayard could never be regained and +established while his daughter sat by his hearth a virgin +unwed. Why had Adelaide hindered her marriage to +M. Tessier? Pacing the Turkey carpet of the Prefect's +library, Madame admitted that she had acted inadvisedly. +That the plan of bringing Juliette into contact with the +Prince Imperial would be discounted by the innocence of +the girl and the inexperience of the boy. +</p> + +<p> +She could imagine the dialogue they were holding at that +moment, all, "<i>Oh, Mademoiselle!</i>" and "<i>Ah, Monseigneur!</i>"... +The girl should have been permitted to celebrate +her nuptials with this dull young husband of her +father's choosing.... Then a few years later would have +come the opportunity. She ground her teeth, thinking +how her precipitation had spoiled everything ... thrust +her.... Ah, Heaven! how one shuddered at the recollection, +almost into the clutches of the Wielder of the Bowstring, +the ingenious inventor of the Ordeal of the Looking-Glass.... +</p> + +<p> +Straz.... At the sight of him her heart had stopped +beating. In imagination those strangling silken folds had +closed, shutting out light and breath.... +</p> + +<p> +How he had leered, rolling those fierce black eyes of his. +"<i>So,</i>" his jeering smile had said, "<i>my Sultana and her +slave have met again. Did I not prophesy truly, sweet +one, tell me? when I said you would never again look in +your toilette-mirror without remembering me!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Her nerves were raveled to threads—her will was +weakening.... Despite her hatred and her overwhelming +fear of the man, she knew that he was her master. That +if he fixed those eyes upon her and beckoned <i>Come!</i> she +would have to obey.... +</p> + +<p> +Was he still here? The book-lined walls seemed closing +in on her. The atmosphere was suffocating ... she must +escape from this place or go mad. +</p> + +<p> +The Prefect's wife had been called away, after kindly +ministrations with smelling-salts and red lavender. +Adelaide opened the library door a little way, and looked +forth cautiously. Except the two Cent Gardes on duty at +the foot of the principal staircase, there was nobody +stirring in the hall or vestibule. +</p> + +<p> +As she told herself so, a red baize-covered door at a +flagged rear passage-end was opened. The Prince's equerry +came out with the Chief of the Bodyguard, an oblong pale +green paper was in the equerry's hand. Both officers' faces +were pale. Colonel Watrin's was livid and distorted with +emotion. He said to his companion in a low voice, and +with a despairing gesture: +</p> + +<p> +"It needed but this to hasten the catastrophe!... All +is over!... The Empire is lost!" +</p> + +<p> +Then he went back. The red baize door shut upon him. +The equerry came through the passage, entered the hall, +and went quickly up the stairs. He was going to break to +the Emperor's son the news of some terrible disaster +... to say to him, as Watrin had said: "<i>All is over!... +The Empire is lost!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +With all a woman's intuition, Adelaide leaped at the +truth and comprehended the situation. What did she in +the galley of a ruined, sinking Empire? What advantage +was to be gained by reconciliation with Henri de Bayard +now? And with Straz in the neighborhood, what madness +to remain here.... +</p> + +<p> +As for the girl, she was possessed of money. Let her +go to her father, or to her friends, or elsewhere.... +</p> + +<p> +So Adelaide went out into the hall, still haunted by +horrible memories of the Roumanian. She found the porter. +He hailed her <i>fiacre</i> from its waiting-place. Madame +stepped in gracefully, and was jingled away, straight into +the jaws of Straz! +</p> + +<p> +"Mademoiselle is courageous," commented the Chief of +the Escort when Juliette's determination to seek the shelter +of her Colonel shaped itself in a request for a military +pass, a thing without which nobody could penetrate the +immediate area where the dreadful thing called War was +actually going on. The speaker resumed: +</p> + +<p> +"The Cavalry Camp of the Third Corps is at present at +Châtel St. Germain.... Provided Mademoiselle gets there +without accident, and can endure the noise of the +bombardments—Mademoiselle may be quite as safe"—he +shrugged and twirled his imperial—"there as anywhere +else!..." +</p> + +<p> +A little vague, more than a little doubtful, considering +the huge conflict then waging, that was to wage until +nightfall of the morrow, between the Imperial Army of +Metz and the First and Second Armies of Germany. But +the permit was written and signed with a flourish, and +gracefully handed over to the keeping of Mademoiselle. +Then she thanked Colonel Watrin and went away, declining +the attendance of the servant whom the officer would +have sent with her, and descended the steps of the +Prefecture under the raking eyes of the crowd.... +</p> + +<p> +For, owing to a mysterious leakage in Imperial +dispatches, something approaching to a panic was brewing.... +The Place of the Prefecture was packed with people +... the news of the frightful struggle near Metz was +buzzing from mouth to mouth. It was whispered that +defeat was certain, that M. de Bismarck had a secret +understanding with M. de Bazaine.... Later on, when +peasants who had hurried in from villages on the outskirts, +stragglers who had quitted the Army at the commencement +of its misfortunes, soldiers who had deserted from the +Colors in action, came flocking into the town; despite the +presence of the Bodyguard and the gendarmerie, and the +local Fire-Brigade, an attack upon the Imperial party at +the Prefecture was anticipated; so threatening became the +attitude of the people, egged on by those among them who +were agents and spies of the enemy. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps the arrival of the Emperor would throw oil upon +the troubled waters. Perhaps it would be wiser to warn +him not to come. Well might the officers who guarded the +person of the Heir of a crumbling Empire groan under the +burden of their responsibilities. Well might the Prefect +perspire, to the ruin of his collars and cravats. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +It may be imagined that the lack of Adelaide's company +did not greatly depress Mademoiselle de Bayard, as, cheered +by her interview and armed with her permit, she tripped +through the crowded streets to the Hotel of the Crown, +where they had spent the previous night. +</p> + +<p> +"Madame had already returned," said the respectable +Frenchwoman in charge of the bureau. "She gave notice +of departure, and asked for the account. Then the gentleman +arrived—a handsome man with splendid eyes, brilliant +as carbuncles, and hair and beard—my faith! what hair +and what a beard! Madame cried out with ravishment +upon his entrance, for he would not be announced—he +went up at once. Possibly it was Madame's husband, or +some near relative?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette made some ambiguous reply to the question. +She was intent upon the problem of rescuing her traveling-bag. +Without money one could not reach Châtel St. Germain, +and in the bag was her little store of cash. Trembling, +she crept upstairs to the room she had slept in, a +dressing or maid's apartment, opening out of Madame's. +The discovery that the door was locked and the key in +Adelaide's possession was appalling. She was delivered +from the dilemma by a chambermaid with a master-key. +As she stole in and seized her bag she heard voices in the +next room. Certainly one was Adelaide's and the other +male. A thickish voice, speaking with a drawl and a +muffled softness that somehow recalled the Assyrian +hawk-features and fierce black eyes of Straz. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>When the little Queen of Diamonds comes,</i>" the voice +said, "<i>you shall present me!</i>" And a chuckle followed on +the words that made her cold. Fortunately, some noise +in the corridor covered her retreat with her rescued +property, and facilitated her departure unobserved from the +Hotel of the Crown.... +</p> + +<p> +The station was near enough to be reached in a few +minutes. She learned there that a train would leave in ten +minutes for Verdun. At Verdun she would have to change, +provided the branch-line trains were running, or proceed +to Châtel St. Germain by road. +</p> + +<p> +Those ten minutes expanded into hours as the girl sat +in the dirty station, waiting. She was escaping from even +greater perils than she had feared, and yet when she found +herself actually in the train, and the train moving out of +Bethel, she knew a moment of passionate regret. +</p> + +<p> +She had been so happy there.... She would never +forget, even though she lived to be an old, old woman, that +half-hour spent in easy, confidential talk with her Imperial +Prince. +</p> + +<p> +The littered third-class carriage expanded, became the +formal drawing-room of the Prefecture.... Lingeringly +Mademoiselle went over the interview, and the parting—ah, +me! there had been no farewell!... And yet, upon +the step of departure, standing upon the muddy curbstone +of the Place, full of soldiers and scowling people, she had +looked wistfully up at the row of four big round-topped +shining windows on the balconied first floor of the +Prefecture and seen... +</p> + +<p> +Only a boy's face, blurred and stained with crying. +Only a boy's hand, waved behind the pane. As she +whispered "<i>Adieu!</i>" looking up at him with passionate love +and loyalty, she wondered if ever they two would meet on +earth again. +</p> + +<p> +It was to be never again for the boy and girl whose +chivalrous and noble natures had struck out, at first +meeting, the white spark that kindles to Friendship's sacred +flame. +</p> + +<p> +What misfortunes were coming, thick and fast, upon the +luckless child of the Empire!... What a cup of dreadful +judgment was to be offered to those guiltless lips!... +</p> + +<p> +So young, so noble, so unfortunate! The pity of it!... He +who might have breathed new life into the dry bones +of the Napoleonic Legend, and given France an Emperor +without fear and without reproach. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +What a string of waking nightmares, the days that were +to follow!... That journey by road to Mézières ... that +brief sojourn at Sedan. The sudden flight to Avesnes, +where the guns could be heard thundering, betokening the +defeat of a demoralized, dejected army, conquered almost +before the shock of battle, paralyzed by the premonition of +inevitable disaster, as much as by the perfect preparedness, +the masterly strategy, and the overwhelming numbers of +the enemy.... +</p> + +<p> +From Landrécies to Maubeuge follow the boy sorrowfully.... +</p> + +<p> +What an hour was that when his protectors stripped him +of his darling uniform, dressed him in civilian garments, +took him out by the hotel back-door, and smuggled him into +the omnibus that was to convey him to Belgian ground. +</p> + +<p> +His father a prisoner, his mother a fugitive, crowds +hustling him in their curiosity to see the son of the toppled +Napoleon, what wonder that the memory of that journey +haunted him his brief life long. +</p> + +<p> +He was to attain manhood in exile. Transplanted to the +soil of a foreign country, he was to develop into the +<i>beau-ideal</i> of a youthful King among men. High-minded, +pure-hearted, excelling in manly sports and martial exercises, +the soul of honor, the fine flower of French chivalry. And +in the spring of his manhood he was to die by the assegais +of savage warriors, leaving nothing behind him but the +broken heart of a mother, some fragrant memories, and the +undying story of that lion's life-and-death fight among the +trodden grasses on the banks of the Imbazani. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap57"></a></p> + +<h3> +LVII +</h3> + +<p> +Following the devious route of narrow paths by which +the peasant had guided them, P. C. Breagh made his way +back to the battle-ground between the Bois de Vionville and +the Bois de Gaumont. +</p> + +<p> +Prussian spade-parties had made good progress during +the three hours of his absence. Part of the field had been +cleared, long parallel trenches dug at twelve-foot intervals +in the soft, soaked ground, and German bodies decently +interred therein. Huge canvas sacks crammed with +identification-tags, papers and purses removed from these +stood ready to be carted away. Volunteers and Red Cross +helpers had rendered like services to dead Frenchmen. +And at the head of a trench, marked by a board on which +was chalked in awkward letters: +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + "CHASSEURS OF HORSE OF THE IMPERIAL GUARD.<br> + OFFICERS, 6;<br> + TROOPS, 200."<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +a single widish grave had been dug, in which had been +deposited the body of de Bayard. +</p> + +<p> +The place was marked by a cross made of the broken, +halves of a Uhlan lance lashed with a fragment of cavalry +picket-rope. About the cross Mademoiselle de Bayard's +veil had been loosely tied, and the vertical shaft topped, +grimly enough, with M. le Colonel's talpack. None of the +heavy clay soil had been thrown back. Waiting some hand +to draw Earth's rude coverlet charitably over him, de +Bayard lay, staring back in the brazen face of the sun. +</p> + +<p> +His green silver-braided dolman had been torn open—the +blood-drenched ceinture cut, showing the mortal lance-thrust. +The red, silver-striped pantaloons had been slashed +at the hips, no doubt in search of pocket-book and purse. +It was difficult to credit that the sternly extended right +arm, and the determined frown graven deep between the +eyebrows, did not mean that Life was extinct, but merely +in abeyance; that the cold glitter of the bold dark eyes and +the grim setting of the pale mouth under the martial +mustache would not warm and soften and relax into a +smile. +</p> + +<p> +He was so disdainful in his rigid silence, so much a chief +of men, even in death, that the disheveled scallawag who +dared to love his daughter winced at the cold stare of those +dark, glittering eyes. But for Juliette's sake P. C. Breagh +nerved himself to the sticking point—got down into the +squashy clay beside de Bayard, and took his medals, and +Cross of the Legion of Honor, giving him Juliette's Rosary +instead. +</p> + +<p> +"You know, sir, I don't intend to take a liberty," he felt +like saying: "I'm only carrying out what I've given my +word to do. If I'm not quite up to your mark, please +overlook it! As to being worthy of <i>her</i>—<i>is</i> any man +breathing? Ask yourself the question, and the answer will be +No...." +</p> + +<p> +Save the Algerian, Crimean and Sardinian medals, and +the Cross, nothing of value remained upon the Colonel.... +</p> + +<p> +Some soldier having left a spade sticking in the clay at +the head of an unfinished trench, P. C. Breagh possessed +himself of the utensil, and began to fill the grave in, though +the dead face looked at him so haughtily that until he had +covered it with the black silk veil, he boggled hideously at +the task. +</p> + +<p> +Winking away the tears that blinded him, and gulping +down the lump that stuck in his throat, he finished. +Remained but the need of a Catholic priest to read the Office. +You saw the caped cloak, and the broad-brimmed hat, or the +cossack and biretta of the Roman ecclesiastic, working side +by side with the Jewish rabbi, the English Protestant +clergyman, and the Lutheran pastor, in these harvest-fields +of death. The secular priest and the tonsured religious +were to be found with the Red Cross Ambulance-trains and +in the temporary hospitals; doing their best for the souls +and bodies of their broken fellow-men, now that War had +done the worst. +</p> + +<p> +To whom should one appeal? Hardly to the burly, +bearded Franciscan, who passed supporting a laden +double-stretcher at the upper end. You saw his brown robe +hitched up under his white girdle, and his muscular bare +legs, ending in boots of the elastic-sided description, stained +as though he had been treading out ripe grapes in the +press. An Army chaplain succeeded the monk, upright and +thin, in a dark military frock and black-banded forage-cap, +half leading, half carrying a French corporal of infantry, +who had received a bullet through both eyes. Farther off, +a gray-haired ecclesiastic, whose dress betokened his +episcopal dignity, was administering the Viaticum to a dying +Mecklenburg Hussar. Even as the sublime Mystery of +Faith was uplifted—even as the Englishman bent the knee +in adoration—his glance fell upon the kneeling figure of +an old man a few yards away. +</p> + +<p> +Undoubtedly a priest, the poor shepherd of some poverty-stricken +country parish, for the cassock that covered the +frail, wasted body was threadbare, green with wear and +heavily patched. Absorbed in devotion, his broad-brimmed +hat lying on the ground before him, his thin hands crossed +upon his sunken breast, his white head erect, his rapt gaze +fixed upon the Host, he remained immovable, until the +brief but solemn rite was at an end. Then he looked up at +the sky—shaking back the long white hair that had fallen +about his peaked and meager features—making three times +rapidly the sign of the Cross. And the serene and beautiful +peace that rested on that broad furrowed forehead, the +radiant smile upon the toothless mouth, and the beaming +kindliness in the brilliant dark eyes that rested on +P. C. Breagh's, told him that here was the needed man. +</p> + +<p> +Yet he hesitated to speak to the priest, who rose and +moved a few steps farther to where a shell-torn horse, +tangled in the rope-harness that had attached to it a smashed +artillery caisson, lay groaning and thrashing its long neck +and tortured head to and fro. +</p> + +<p> +Parties of Uhlans told off for the purpose, were even +then shooting such hopelessly wounded victims. But no +merciful bullet had ended the pain of this suffering beast. +It groaned again, and coughed up blood as the old man +stopped to look at it, and fixed its haggard eyes almost +humanly upon his face. +</p> + +<p> +The appeal went home. Stepping over the prone body of +its dead comrade, the old man bent over the horse and +gently stroked its neck. He said, and the words came +clearly to Carolan: +</p> + +<p> +"Poor creature of God! be thy sore anguish ended. In +the Name of the Father ..." +</p> + +<p> +As he ended the Triune Invocation, the horse's head +sank down heavily. A deep sigh heaved the creature's +sides, and exhaled in a gasp. The hind legs contracted +sharply toward the body, and then jerked out, heavily +hitting the axle of the ammunition-cart. All was over. +The Samaritan moved away, but P. C. Breagh followed and +overtook him, crying: +</p> + +<p> +"My Father..." And the old man halted and turned +himself, leaning for support upon a knotted ash-stick and +saying: +</p> + +<p> +"Surely, my child. Do you need my poor assistance?" +</p> + +<p> +A lisping voice, speaking with a country accent. And +with that smile of radiant kindness making it angelic—the +face of Voltaire. +</p> + +<p> +There were the features of the Philosopher of Ferney, +rendered familiar to this later age by many portraits and +busts. The broad and lofty brow, the great orbital arches, +the mobile expressive eyes, wide-winged, sensitive hawk-beak, +thin-lipped mouth, with the subtly-curving corners +and the deeply cleft humorous chin, were all there. The +face lacked nothing of Voltaire but cynicism and devilry. +In place of these imagine a Divine simplicity, and a +tenderness so pure that the young man was abashed.... +</p> + +<p> +"My Father," he got out: "in charity to the dead and +pity for the living, will you consent to read the Office of +Burial by a Catholic soldier's graveside?" +</p> + +<p> +"Surely, surely, my child," nodded the wearer of the +threadbare soutane. And pulled out of his pocket a +red-cotton handkerchief, wrapped about a battered Office-book +and a shabby stole, and trotted back beside the Englishman. +Then, standing opposite to where the green and red-plumed +talpack topped the broken lance-shaft, he read the +Absolution, the <i>Libera me</i>, <i>Paternoster</i> and Collects, and +with a wide and sweeping gesture, solemnly blessed the +grave and the trenches it neighbored, saying, at the close of +the <i>De Profundis</i> that followed, with one of those rare +smiles that made the old face beautiful exceedingly: +</p> + +<p> +"My poor prayers are for all my children. Now kneel +and make your confession. No one will hear you—it is as +though we were together in my poor little church." +</p> + +<p> +"But, my Father!..." P. C. Breagh protested. +</p> + +<p> +The old man said, looking at him penetratingly: +</p> + +<p> +"My child, you would tell me that not so very long ago +you discharged your religious obligations. But to-day is +the Octave of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady, and +you have not confessed or received Communion since +Whitsuntide. Will you tell me that your conscience is clear +enough to meet death without apprehension, when Saints at +the moment of dissolution tremble, anticipating the terrors +of the Divine Judgments of God!" +</p> + +<p> +Tears stood in the radiant eyes, brimmed over and ran +down in two channels worn by that sorrowful-sweet smile +of his.... He clasped his hands entreatingly, then threw +them wide, crying in a very passion of pity and love: +</p> + +<p> +"My poor child, with Death on every side of you, will +you turn from Him Who is Lord and Giver of Life? And +what shall I say to Him when I stand before Him, and He +asks me: '<i>Didst thou suffer a sinner to depart whom +pleadings might have won?</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +There was no resisting that passionate entreaty. Another +instant, and the barrier of pride broke down. P. C. Breagh +knelt in the raw, moist clay by Henri de Bayard's +graveside, and poured out his full heart under the light yet +thrilling pressure of those thin old hands upon his head. +</p> + +<p> +With the murmured blessing that followed the Absolution +the hands were withdrawn and their owner went away. +How he went and whither he betook himself, his penitent +never knew. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap58"></a></p> + +<h3> +LVIII +</h3> + +<p> +The hamlet of Petit Plappeville lay strangely still and +silent in the westering sunshine. Hitherto a small oasis of +untouched ordinary life situated on the edge of a vast area +of blackened devastation, it now partook in the general +aspect of upheaval and ruin. The doors of the dozen cottages +forming its single street stood wide open. Household! +goods, furniture, clothing, broken loaves of bread, smashed +and empty wine-bottles were strewed upon the street and +in the little, flowery front yards. All the doors stood open, +some that had been locked and driven in hung crookedly on +twisted hinges, the broken windows displayed shattered +splinters edging gaping holes. Not a human being showed, +not a fowl pecked among the litter. The hand of the +marauder had plainly been at work. P. C. Breagh groaned +as he crossed the threshold of Madame Guyot's cottage, +such a scene of domestic chaos housed between its denied +walls. +</p> + +<p> +Chests of drawers and cupboards had been ransacked of +clothes and linen, these, hideously befouled, had been rent +into rags and thrown upon the floor. The fragments of the +Englishman's knapsack, temporarily left in Madame Guyot's +keeping, the ruins of his shaving-tackle, and some +stray leaves of filled note-books, deplorably appealed to +their late owner's eyes. But P. C. Breagh's eyes were +busied elsewhere. With the ripped-up feather bed from +the inner chamber, where Juliette de Bayard had passed +the previous night. With the soiled and trampled +remnants of some delicate articles of feminine underwear—a +lace-frilled night-robe, a filmy chemise. He took them up +with reverent, shaking hands—looked instinctively for an +initial.... There were letters embroidered in dainty +Convent-taught stitchery—"J. M. de B." +</p> + +<p> +He would have cried out, but the cry stuck in his throat, +and a chilly sweat broke out upon and bathed him. He +had glanced toward the corner occupied by the truckle-bed +whereon my Cousin Boisset had lain. Covered with a sheet +dyed partly red, something long and stark and still lay +outstretched upon the palliasse. And a lance driven home +to the shaft stuck upright in the body, from whose drained-out +veins the last drops splashed heavily into a dreadful +pool that slowly widened on the stone-flagged kitchen floor. +</p> + +<p> +Something snapped in P. C. Breagh's brain at that sight. +His under-jaw wrenched to one side and dropped idiotically. +He yelped out wildly the name of his Infanta, and +went on yelping, and could not stop: +</p> + +<p> +"Juliette! Juliette! Where are you? What have they +done?... Oh, Juliette!..." +</p> + +<p> +And then the piercing agony of his loss and the certainty +of a fate of nameless horror for her, were lost in an +immense relief. Underneath the bed of death something +moved and rustled. The slender thread of a voice replied: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur Breagh, I am here! Do not be so alarmed, I +beg of you! Terrible things have happened, but I am not +hurt at all!" +</p> + +<p> +And the ensanguined pall was pushed aside and the little +figure crept out from its hiding-place. Dust and cobwebs +could not dim her in the eyes of her true worshiper. He +choked and made a dive to help her, stumbled and fell upon +his knees as she rose to hers. And then she was in his +arms, not clinging to him, but leaning against his broad +chest, and shivering as though she were perishing cold. +And through the chattering of her teeth he heard—did he +really hear her falter: +</p> + +<p> +"I knew—I knew that you would come! When a priest +had been found to bless the grave of my father. Not +before!... You would never have returned before!" +</p> + +<p> +Her faith in him filled him with a joy that was anguish. +He rose up, lifting her toward the light, but not at all +releasing her. +</p> + +<p> +"I came as soon as I had done my best to keep that +promise. Shall I ever forget what I felt when I set my +foot in at the door?... Oh, Lord!... Ten million +times worse than when that luckless Angéle poisoned +me!... Didn't I make sure you were dead or worse than +dead!" +</p> + +<p> +"It is he who is dead!" She drew her small, cold hands +from his that were as icy, and went to the bed and turned +back the upper end of the sheet that covered the still form. +"Monsieur Breagh, you look upon a noble soldier, who +gave his life for me," she said proudly, and showed the +snow-white face of my Cousin Boisset. +</p> + +<p> +"Wouldn't I die for you? If I got the chance!... Don't +you know it?... No—how can you know it?" +</p> + +<p> +Carolan clenched his hands in jealous misery, and she +looked back at him to say: +</p> + +<p> +"I do know it! To-day you placed yourself between me +and the violence of those Prussians. I have no words to +thank you for your courage, sir! Had I words for <i>him</i>"—she +looked back at my "cousin"—"he would not hear +them.... Nor can he be sensible of this——" She +stooped and kissed the dead man's forehead between the +boldly arching eyebrows. "Yet with all my gratitude I +place it there!" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said, flushing scarlet to his hair-roots: "I +would change places with him to get that—and I believe +you know it! Cover him up and let me take you away +from here...." He added, as she looked at him in breathless +questioning, "Somewhere where you'll be safe. There +must be somewhere!" +</p> + +<p> +"Until night comes to cover us," she told him, "we are +more safe here than anywhere. You do not think the +comrades of those savage men who made this scene of desolation +would halt in passing to ravage a plundered nest?" +</p> + +<p> +"But here ... you can't stay here ... in all +this—beastliness." +</p> + +<p> +His gesture of repugnance was as forcible as the word. +</p> + +<p> +She thought, and said as the outward shadows lengthened, +and a deep red sunset streamed through the shattered +window-panes: +</p> + +<p> +"Behind the house there is a little cabane ... I should +say, 'a shed,' where Madame kept her firewood. We will +hide ourselves in there until the dark. For what are you +looking?" +</p> + +<p> +He answered, stirring the <i>débris</i> on the flagstones: +</p> + +<p> +"For a comb and a razor for choice, out of my knapsack. +No!... Except the rags of a spare jacket—they've +left me nothing but this." +</p> + +<p> +One stout clasped notebook had suffered little. He thrust +it into his pocket and turned to Juliette. She said, with a +rueful catch of the breath as she regarded the wreckage of +her own property: +</p> + +<p> +"Me they have not left anything at all of luggage. The +little <i>portemanteau</i> and the <i>sac de nuit</i> I brought with me +from Belgium ... behold their contents destroyed by +those most wicked men! Is it not deplorable? Pray look, +Monsieur!" +</p> + +<p> +But Monsieur, suddenly seized by an attack of ultra-British +prudery, had turned away to rummage in the corner +of a cupboard, where perchance might lurk a loaf. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing was there but a little knitted white shawl, which +Juliette recognized as her own, and claimed gladly.... +She threw it about her head and shoulders, and they passed +out cautiously together by Madame Guyot's back door, as +destitute a young couple as ever tramped. But not before +Juliette de Bayard had replaced the sheet over the face of +the dead gunner, and sprinkled it with holy water from a +crockery stoup that hung above the bed. +</p> + +<p> +"He was so good.... He should now be safe in +Paradise. But we must always remember him in our +prayers!..." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +It would not have been wise to move about, but they +could talk in whispers, partly buried in the heap of clean +dry dead leaves filling half of the lean-to. Thus +P. C. Breagh learned the story of the death of my Cousin +Boisset, and told in return his own tale. +</p> + +<p> +"You had departed, it might be one-half hour, when a +man came running down the street, who cried: 'Hide! +Run! The Uhlans are coming! They have plundered the +Château Malakoff, and drunk M. Bénoit's <i>eau de vie</i> and +wine!' +</p> + +<p> +"This Château Malakoff is the house of a rich peasant +whose vineyards have suffered much by the German guns. +You will remember Madame Guyot saying so, and M. Boisset +responding, full of gaiety, 'He will get all the better +prices, my cousin, for the old vintages he has in +store!' Naturally the outcry made much confusion, one peasant +running this way and one that.... Madame Guyot +caught hold of me and would have forced me to accompany +her, saying that in the quarries beyond the village would +be found a refuge. But I refused to leave the house!" +</p> + +<p> +He broke in: +</p> + +<p> +"Think what you risked! Why didn't you escape with her?" +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him wonderingly: +</p> + +<p> +"Why, do you ask me? ... Had I not given you my +<i>parole</i> to stay?" +</p> + +<p> +He could not speak. She went on quickly: +</p> + +<p> +"So I said: 'I will remain, wearing my brassard of the +Croix Rouge, and the Prussians will take me for the nurse +of M. Boisset.' But when Madame and the villagers had +gone, hearing the galloping of horses approaching and a +howling as of wolves, that brave soldier said to me: +'Mademoiselle, when men like these are mad with wine, they care +nothing for the Red Cross! Cover me over with a sheet, +and hide underneath the bed I lie on. Thus they will think +me dead, and possibly go away. The good God may let me +save you, though I have often sinned against Him!'" +</p> + +<p> +A tear brimmed over and fell on her white cheek. She +brushed it off and went on: +</p> + +<p> +"I obeyed, Monsieur; I locked the door, taking out the +key and hiding it. Then I covered M. Boisset with the +sheet, took a crucifix from the wall, and laid it on his +breast. Then I got under the bed, for I heard men at the +door. There was the 'tinc' of spurs and the sound of +breathing. Then heavy blows struck on the door until the +lock gave way.... They entered.... Monsieur Breagh, +that noble man had said to me, '<i>For your life, do not make +a sound!</i>' For my soul, more precious than life, I could +not have spoken or moved!..." +</p> + +<p> +Above the narrow band of black velvet that clipped it, +P. C. Breagh could see her little throat swelling. Her +tragic eyes seemed to have no room for him. He waited, +possessed by a strange hazy feeling that this meeting with +her amidst surroundings so frightful must be taking place +in a dream of uncanny vividness. That he must wake up +next moment in the clean spare bedroom of the gardener's +cottage, to find his garments, cleansed of soil and stain, +brushed and repaired by the deft hands of the charitable +Sisters, and a battered tin bath of genuinely hot water, +waiting to receive the Englishman..... +</p> + +<p> +"They came in," said Juliette, "talking in their guttural +language. Me, I could never learn more than ten words of +German at school.... But I comprehended that they +were angry at finding so little in the cupboards and closets +of my poor Madame Guyot. That was why they tore up +clothes and linen—broke the dishes and glasses—behaved +as wild beasts, rather than men. That they were drunk, I +knew, though I saw their boots and not their faces. The +smell of wine and brandy made me desire to be sick.... +But when they approached the bed, with what anguish of +apprehension I waited.... If I could have screamed, it +would have been in that moment, when they pulled back +the sheet...." +</p> + +<p> +Her eyelids shuddered over trembling eyeballs. Her +nostrils quivered with each sharply-taken breath. Her +tragic upper lip shut down upon its neighbor as though it +would never relax in smiles again: +</p> + +<p> +"I heard my own heart beat—so loud it was like thunder. +I felt M. Boisset trying to hold the breath.... I +prayed to the Mother of God to cover us with Her <i>manteau</i>. +I think she has certainly heard me when the Uhlans put +back the sheet.... Alas, how terribly I am to find myself +mistaken! When the Uhlan moves from the bed I believe +he is about to go. Then—there is a savage cry!—a groan, +hollow and terrible.... The lance comes plunging through +the body of M. Boisset, through the palliasse—through the +sacking that is underneath—through the sleeve of my dress, +which is soaked with blood.... See!..." +</p> + +<p> +And she drew out a fold of the loose sleeve, and showed +the rent made by the steel in it and the wet red patches +fast drying into brownish stains. And he who saw could +only choke out, as his brows scowled and his yellow-flecked +eyes burned tigerishly: +</p> + +<p> +"The brutes!... The cowardly beggars! Oh, if I had +only been there!" +</p> + +<p> +"Of what use?" she said. "They would only have +killed you!" +</p> + +<p> +"An Englishman," he blustered: "I'd like to have had +them try! Why, we're neutral. No Germans would +dare——" +</p> + +<p> +She said, bending her great black brows upon him, and +sternly drawing down her upper lip: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur, they would have killed you, as they killed +my father. They have no pity, these men with panther +hearts. How should they, when he has none—that +soldier-Minister whom Germany worships to idolatry. Contradict +me—say that I am wrong—to convince me would be +impossible. For I read the soul of Count Bismarck when I +looked him in the face." +</p> + +<p> +For the owner of the domineering voice that had roused +her from her stupor of misery was for Juliette de Bayard a +very Moloch, ravenous for flesh of men, insatiable in thirst +for blood. And comprehending this, P. C. Breagh put +forth no plea for a more tolerant judgment of his erstwhile +hero, beyond lamely saying: +</p> + +<p> +"He's a great man—a terribly great man, however you +look at him. And he—do you know, he saved my life +once!" +</p> + +<p> +She said, with her deeply cut nostrils swelling and +quivering: +</p> + +<p> +"Our Lord will say to him upon the Day of Judgment, +'You saved this one. How many others have you given +to death?'" +</p> + +<p> +Then, as P. C. Breagh winced at the brief, semi-contemptuous +'This one,' Juliette healed the wound with one gentle +glance. The delicate voice crept to his sore heart +soothingly: +</p> + +<p> +"But for that rescue, I should now be quite alone in my +great misery. I think that God permitted it, knowing this +day upon its way to me." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said, tingling all over: +</p> + +<p> +"Do you really believe that?..." +</p> + +<p> +She answered simply and directly: +</p> + +<p> +"If I did not, I would not say it.... Now I will shut +my eyes and rest a little. I am so very tired, me!" +</p> + +<p> +And she leaned back with lowered lashes on her rustling +pillow of last year's dead leaves. He asked himself what +had she not gone through on this day, poor fragile, tender +child! +</p> + +<p> +Had the news of her father's death been brought to her +in London or Paris, there would have been closed doors, a +darkened chamber for the mourner, the presence of some +well-loved consoler, the counsel of her director, the silent +sympathy of understanding friends. +</p> + +<p> +But here, where every custom and conventionality was +suspended or shattered—where human life was bared to the +bedrock by the furious struggle of nations in War, she +had sought for a wounded warrior, to find a bloody corpse +amidst a jumble of other corpses, and returned from that +overwhelming experience to sit with strangers at a +peasant's board. +</p> + +<p> +No wonder Juliette was very tired. Would her reason +suffer from the results of this shock? Would she droop and +die of the horrors undergone? Was it possible that in a +body so frail there dwelt an indomitable and unconquerable +spirit? It had looked out of her stern eyes, it had sat +upon her lips when she had spoken of the Iron Chancellor. +</p> + +<p> +Even as P. C. Breagh leaned toward the small white face, +brooding over it, breathlessly studying it, she opened +sapphire eyes upon him, to say, with the suddenness of a child: +</p> + +<p> +"I have been told that the Crown Prince of Prussia is +good and has a noble nature. Do you not think that if he +knew how wickedly those Uhlans have killed the poor +M. Boisset he would without mercy have them shot?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh, caught staring, confusedly opined so. She +said, her heavy eyelids weighed down with drowsiness: +</p> + +<p> +"They were cowards, for they took the alarm and mounted +and rode away calling that the Franzosen were +coming.... Yet when they had gone and I crept out from my +concealment, what do you imagine is all that I view? In +effect, nothing more terrible than an old, bent, white-haired +priest in a ragged soutane, who was walking through the +village saying his Rosary...." +</p> + +<p> +She went on, as P. C. Breagh pricked his ears, and +opened his eyes widely: +</p> + +<p> +"He looked so good and like the pictures of the holy +Curé d'Ars, for whose intercession I had been praying, that +I cried to him: 'Help, my Father! Help for one dying! +Help for another in misery!' But he must have been less +holy than he looked, or very deaf, for he passed on. Then +I crept back under the bed, and then—at last, you came to +me. What should I have done if you had not come, +Monsieur?..." +</p> + +<p> +For once Carolan did not hear her. His thoughts were +busy elsewhere. He was asking himself if the old priest +in the patched cassock who had shown himself to Juliette, +could be the Curé who had read the Office at the grave of +de Bayard? +</p> + +<p> +And if that priest were mortal man, how had he covered +the distance between the battlefield and Petit Plappeville, +and what had scared the drunken marauders from their +prey? And was it not strange that the resemblance to the +saint of Ars had appealed to both Carolan and Juliette?... +The problem must remain unsolved for all Time, it +might be. +</p> + +<p> +Yet this fact had stamped itself on P. C. Breagh's +consciousness, deeply as his own heavy nailed boots had bitten +into the clay by the Colonel's graveside. On the moist +surface of the spot where the Servant of Heaven had been +standing, the clumsy iron-buckled, wooden-soled shoes had +left no print at all. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +An interesting illusion, bred of the exaltation of the +senses under emotion, produced in part, says my friend the +Physiologist, by subconscious Memory. A significant +phenomenon, remarks my other friend, the student of Psychology, +testifying to the thinness of the Veil dividing the Visible +World from the Unseen. While my Catholic terms it +a rare but not isolated or uncommon revelation, pointing +the stupendous truth contained in that clause of the <i>Credo</i> +referring to the Communion of Saints and illustrating the +dynamic force of Prayer. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap59"></a></p> + +<h3> +LIX +</h3> + +<p> +Juliette breathed so evenly, and lay so long without moving, +that P. C. Breagh believed her asleep. Twilight showed +nothing but a black shape, vaguely feminine, a pale oval +patch represented her face.... +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly as before, her eyes opened and met his. She +said, following up some previous train of thought: +</p> + +<p> +"It is nobler than the portraits, and yet more pitiless. +I speak of the face of my country's enemy.... See you +well, Monsieur Breagh ... if I were Our Lady, I would +never rise from my knees until Our Lord had saved +France!..." +</p> + +<p> +"What would save France?" Carolan asked her. She +answered, turning in her rustling couch of leaves: +</p> + +<p> +"Death, striking the hand that slowly strangles her.... +Death, freezing the brain that plans her fall.... Death, +overtaking the merciless giver of Death to her children.... +Nothing else could now save France!..." +</p> + +<p> +He who heard was dumb, knowing that this harping was +the very note of madness. She went on, speaking with +somber earnestness: +</p> + +<p> +"Always is it that women are accused by men of weakness. +Frenchwomen are, in addition, termed 'timid and +frivolous.' Yet France has twice been saved by the courage +of her daughters.... Remember the holy Jeanne d'Arc, +beloved of God and Our Lady ... and Charlotte Corday +also, Monsieur!—the courageous citizeness of Caen.... +At school I learned her words, spoken before the Revolutionary +Tribunal.... '<i>Me, I have slain one man to save a +hundred thousand!...</i>' Why has not France a Charlotte +Corday now?" +</p> + +<p> +There was something in her tone that menaced like the +flicker of lightning, seen through a rent in stormy wrack. +That a creature so frail and slender should dream of heroic +vengeance was incredible. One would have expected it +from a heroine of the Krimhilde-Brünhilde type. To +divert her from the dangerous theme by changing the +conversation was impossible. The only thing to do was to +feign to doze. +</p> + +<p> +He yawned, stretched his aching body on the clean dry +litter, shut his hot and sandy eyes, seeing rings of +green-blue fire. Oblivion descended on him. Pretense became +reality. He sank into a very gulf of sleep. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Long after her comrade's heavy respiration had told her +that he was wrapped in slumber, Juliette Bayard sat +staring out into the deepening dusk. Insomnia born of +nervous strain and mental shock claimed her as a victim. She +was far more near to madness than Carolan had dreamed. +</p> + +<p> +It was a night of chilly breathings from the northwest, +and violent contrasts in light and shadow; a high bright +moon making black silhouettes of hills and trees, and +bottomless infernos of hollows and ravines. Gigantesque +clouds up-piled monstrous ramparts on the southeast +horizon, others topped these with the strangest sculpturesque +shapes.... An iceberg with a veiled crouching figure on +it; a mammoth with elevated trunk and great curved tusks, +bellowing in dumb show; wrestling shapes of Titans prone +or erect; lovely children playing in meadows of asphodel; +vast winged shapes of genii with hidden faces, speeding +across unthinkable distances of cold, crystal-blue +atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +But the cloud-shape that most persistently recurred was +that of a heavy-browed, mustached Colossus, who sometimes +was helmed and cuirassed, and bestrode a monstrous +horse of war. In other vaporous pictures he addressed +great multitudes from a high rostrum, or from some +fantastic hill-peak urged on rushing armies; or sometimes +counseled a crowned figure that sat upon a high-placed +throne. +</p> + +<p> +Yet whatever the giant was, there was sure to be another +figure, slender, weak, fragile, a mere vaporous wisp of mist. +And the watcher had strange cognizance that this was the +appointed Fate of Colossus, and that her constant presence +was an augury of ill for him. +</p> + +<p> +He walked amid trees in a wood, and his Fate dogged +his footsteps, a pistol or poignard ready for her country's +enemy.... He ate at a daïs-table in a banqueting hall—she +served him a golden cup of wine iced and poisoned. ... He +lay down to sleep on a lordly bed, the frail shape +glided in with a torch and fired the curtains.... He +dreamed of Power on the brink of a precipice, and his tiny +Fate crept near unseen, and thrust him screaming down. +</p> + +<p> +The moon had long southed, the cloud-shapes were growing +vaguer, the eyes of the stars looked through their +thinning veils. The wind had fallen, the silence was profound +and awful. She shuddered, thinking of the battlefield.... +</p> + +<p> +What of de Bayard lying under his clay coverlet? +What of the thousands of bodies buried in the newly-dug +trenches? What of the myriads yet unburied, lying stark +and awful under the canopy of Night? +</p> + +<p> +Did they understand, the Dead, whose hand had really +poured red life from them, and thrown them like empty, +broken vessels abroad upon the trodden fields? Did they +curse him with their stiff, silent lips, and point at him with +their rigid fingers? Would they know, in Paradise or +Purgatory, if anyone avenged them? In Hell they would +be sure to know, because their murderer would be +there.... +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ting....</i>" +</p> + +<p> +What was that faint approaching sound, drawing nearer +and nearer through the darkness, that banished the haunting, +dreadful images that crowded in her brain? It loosed +the iron band that was bound about her aching temples. +It melted the icy armor that was riveted about her torn +and sorrowful heart.... +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ting-ting!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +She turned her head to the quarter whence it came, and +listened, breathing quickly. Again came the silvern tinkle. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ting-ting-ting! ...</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Now the sound of heavy approaching footsteps came +with it, and Fear fell from her like a pall all snow-wet. +She rose up among the rustling dead leaves, bent, laid her +hand on the shoulder of the sleeper, and roused him +cautiously. He awakened, and said through the fingers she +laid in caution on his lips: +</p> + +<p> +"Who is it?..." And then instantly remembered, +and passionately kissed the warning hand. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ting-ting, ting-ting!...</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"Do you hear, Monsieur?" she panted. +</p> + +<p> +She snatched away the hand. He rose to his knees and +listened.... Dawn, creeping into the hovel, painted their +hands and faces gray. White teeth flashed in the gray of +his, as he said to her joyfully: +</p> + +<p> +"It is a priest, with the Blessed Sacrament!" +</p> + +<p> +No more was said. They took hands and went out of +the hovel, and passed round and through the little flowery +front yard into the littered street of Petit Plappeville. +</p> + +<p> +At its upper end two black figures, encircled by the +yellow halo of a lantern-flame, moved toward them. Their +shadows were thrown sidewise upon the littered road and +the whitewashed garden walls. The bell tinkled, telling +of the coming of Him Who is the Light of the World. The +wheezing of someone troubled with asthma accompanied +the clumping of wooden-soled country shoes. +</p> + +<p> +Presently came in sight an old woman in sabots, carrying +an immense umbrella, and a huge and antique lantern with +horn slides. The stout figure of an elderly priest followed +her, covered with a biretta, wearing a wide black mantle, +and walking at a slow and decent pace. +</p> + +<p> +At intervals he tinkled the small hand bell he carried +in his left hand. His right arm was folded over his +breast. As Juliette sank down in the dry dust, her +companion hesitated an instant, then knelt down beside +the girl. +</p> + +<p> +The priest stopped as he neared the kneeling pair, and +blessed them in silence. His round face looked puckered +and anxious. He said, as his glance took in the bareheaded +young man and the slender young woman, and their +environment of ruin and desolation: +</p> + +<p> +"My children, are you the only living creatures +remaining in this unhappy village?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette was praying. P. C. Breagh answered in a +reverent whisper: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, my Father. The Prussian horsemen came, and +the villagers left their houses.... There was a wounded +soldier in the cottage of Madame Guyot. He feigned to be +dead, and the Uhlans ran him through with one of their +lances. He lies within there! May his soul rest in peace!" +</p> + +<p> +The priest solemnly raised the Host, and blessed the +house of death. Then he said to Carolan and Juliette: +</p> + +<p> +"It will be best that you should follow me to the place +where I am going. A person lies there in extremity, to +whom I carry Our Lord. Your presence will be something +of an additional protection, in case any of these foreign +soldiers should offer insult to Him I bear." +</p> + +<p> +He rang the bell, and moved on along the street that +was cumbered with the wreckage of humble households. +The old woman in sabots preceded him, assiduously lighting +his path. And the boy and girl came after the priest, +walking side by side decorously. But presently, when +Juliette stumbled, Carolan took her hand. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ting!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +They might have been walking to the Sepulcher on that +earliest Easter morning, when He Who wrought man in +His Own Image broke asunder the bonds of Death. The +air was sweet with a wonderful reviving fragrance. Their +pulses throbbed calmly, their blood flowed through their +veins smoothly as new milk. Presently the old woman who +walked before them began in a monotone to recite the +Rosary. They answered, murmuring the sacred words in +unison, moving on as though in a dream. +</p> + +<p> +Over the smoldering villages in the southeast the August +moon was setting, hanging like a great ripe glowing fruit +against a background of translucent silvery hue. A broad +band of primrose-yellow banding the purple blackness in +the East betokened daybreak. Above, there hung one star +of blazing emerald. +</p> + +<p> +When they turned out of Petit Plappeville into a lane +that trended upward, they could see upon the right the +long lines of Prussian watch fires twinkling like rubies out +of a mist that covered the low-lying country like a shallow, +milky sea. Upon the left rose the ivied stone wall of some +orchard or chateau garden. Steps rose to an archway in +which hung the fragments of a door that had been battered in. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ting!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +As the priest rang his bell a bareheaded man appeared +in the doorway. He was very pale, his dress was +disordered, and his eyes had a strained and anxious look. +He bent the knee and crossed himself, then stood aside as +the Curé mounted the doorsteps. His wild eyes questioned +the faces of the strangers who followed the lantern-bearer. +He seemed reassured by what he saw there, and said to +the priest in a muffled tone, loud enough to be heard by +his companions: +</p> + +<p> +"Take care ... there is broken glass strewed everywhere +about here. Do not put out the lantern; it will be +safer walking with more than one light!" +</p> + +<p> +Then he took up a heavy silver candlestick he had set +down upon a sort of rustic flower stand. The candle wax +had guttered all down one side, making what old women +call a winding sheet. He glanced at this as he took it up, +and then at Mère Catherine. Then he moved forward, +taking her place as guide, and the glass of smashed wine +bottles that covered the ground cracked and crackled under +his own boots, and the Curé's wooden-soled shoes. The +huge sabots of Mère Catherine made short work of the +splinters. Following in her Brobdingnagian footsteps, +Juliette's small feet took no hurt. +</p> + +<p> +A long, low house rose up before them. Its rows of +barred basement windows indicated an extensive cellarage. +Many of the windows were broken, and some of the ground-floor +shutters had been wrenched off. Shattered furniture +was thrown about in confusion, shrubs and rose trees had +been ruined, broken bottles were here, there, and +everywhere. And as a slight sound of astonishment came from +Juliette, the priest having mounted some red-brick steps +and entered after his guide at an open hall door, the old +woman, to whom silence was evidently a sore penance, +glanced back at the young one and said to her in a whisper: +</p> + +<p> +"This is the Château Malakoff. Perhaps you remember?... And +all those broken bottles.... The soldiers +drank the wine...." +</p> + +<p> +Then she hung her old white-capped head, and hurried +after the Father, finishing the last decade of the Rosary as +she went. Juliette and Breagh would have waited in the +square hall on which the front door opened, but from the +landing immediately above the aster of the house looked +back frowning, and imperatively beckoned them to +ascend. +</p> + +<p> +They went upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +The door of the death chamber stood open. From within, +came the murmuring sound of the priest's voice. Red-eyed +servants knelt in prayer about the threshold. The +master of the house was just within the door. His square +black head and vigorous shoulders looked angry and wrathful. +Old Catherine whispered to Juliette as she beckoned +her to kneel beside her: +</p> + +<p> +"It is his wife, Madame Bénoit.... They were only +married a year!" +</p> + +<p> +Then she clashed her great Rosary and joined in the +prayers vigorously, while the thin crying of a baby in an +adjoining chamber pierced the sudden, deep, profound +silence that fell upon all present when the priest elevated +the Host. A little later she broke down again, and hissed +in Juliette's ear that Madame was dying, that the baby +had been born too soon, because the mother had been +frightened by the Prussians ... that M. le Curé would +give the Holy Oils after administering the Viaticum. And +then in a gray pool of quiet that ensued some moments +later, a woman's voice cried out with astonishment and +terror and anger in it: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Mon mari!... Mon mari!... Au secours!... Les +Prussiens——</i>" +</p> + +<p> +And the cry broke off short with a horrible suddenness; +there was a momentary confusion, and then the priest +came out, looking stern and sorrowful. He opened the +door widely, beckoning in several of the women. And +Juliette, rising to make way for him, saw the wavering +flames of tapers burning on either side of a Crucifix on a +white-draped table, and the figure of the house master, +with a face of ashen grayness turned toward her, leaning +over a white bed, clasping something even whiter in a +desperate embrace. Only two great hair plaits that flowed +over the bosom of the dead woman glittered like solid +bands of burnished copper in the wavering candlelight. +And Dawn crept in through the open window, with the +scent of the crushed and trampled roses, and the smell of +wine spilled and staling, and the uneasy twittering of +frightened birds. +</p> + +<p> +And then—they were picking their way over the broken +glass-covered gravel walk, and the priest, released from the +obligation of silence, was eagerly asking for more particulars +of the death of my Cousin Boisset. +</p> + +<p> +"For the villagers of Petit Plappeville are hiding in the +quarry of Seulvent. They will not return until the +Prussians have left the neighborhood; they have learned what +they have to expect from these men when they are full of +wine.... We will stop as we pass, and tell them what has +happened.... Then you had better come back with me to +my presbytery. The soldiers have not left us much, but +there will be coffee and bread!" +</p> + +<p> +"But for me," said Mère Catherine, clumping along +stoutly, "there would not be even bread and coffee. But I +have my hiding holes of which I tell nobody. And as +Monsieur le Curé did not know, he could not say where they +were!" +</p> + +<p> +That was a pleasant meal in the little deal-shelved study +that had somehow escaped when the presbytery was turned +upside down. It stood next the church, a little ancient +plain stone building with a square belfry tower and a spire +covered in with blackened slating, and two recumbent +effigies of the twelfth century, that were dear to the good +Curé's heart. After <i>déjeuner</i> he explained that he was +going to visit these treasured relics for the purpose of +ascertaining whether they had suffered damage at the +Germans' hands. +</p> + +<p> +He carried a basket with him when he trotted away on +his errand. P. C. Breagh, as he leaned by the open casement +of the little ground-floor study, rather wondered why +it should contain a corked bottle and a biggish loaf of +bread. +</p> + +<p> +Juliette had gone to help Catherine restore order in the +kitchen. The young man's hand was in his trousers pocket +as he wondered, staring after the stout retreating figure in +its cassock of rusty black. Suddenly he uttered an +exclamation, and pulled out the hand with something shining +in it. The piece of gold given him by Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +He put a hand on the sill, and was out at the window +in time to see the priest unlock the heavy sunken door that +led into the belfry tower, and vanish into the dusk of the +sacred place. He followed, to find the Curé struggling +with a heavy ladder that led up to a trap hole in the +huge-beamed, plastered ceiling of the belfry—a ladder that was +evidently seldom shifted from its cobwebbed place against +the whitewashed wall. +</p> + +<p> +"Couldn't I do that? I'm a good deal stronger than, you +are.... Halloa!... Lucky I was there!" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh had thoughtlessly spoken in English, and +the priest, who had not seen him enter, had nearly dropped +the ladder. He said quite reproachfully, as the young man +caught and steadied the ponderous bit of timber: +</p> + +<p> +"Why have you followed me? Is it that you wish to +speak to me privately? If so, pray do not do so in your +English, which is sufficiently like German to give me an +unpleasant agitation of the nerves!" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh explained, exhibiting the golden coin, that +it had been given him by Mademoiselle to secure a Mass. +</p> + +<p> +"But certainly she shall have a Mass. Though five +francs will be more than sufficient. Retain the coin, +Monsieur, until I can find the necessary francs of change. You +see, we are poor in this neighborhood ... it is to be +expected!" The good Curé smiled, and added: "As you see +me, I am rich compared with many of my <i>confrères</i>—even +richer than some of my superiors. Therefore, if you will +describe to me the features of the priest who read the +Office, it may be arranged with more propriety that he shall +offer Mass." He added, seeing the young man hesitate: +"Recall his features. Describe his person, if you +can!" ... +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh recalled and described. When he had done, +the Curé said, in a tone of quiet conviction: +</p> + +<p> +"That priest will not need Mademoiselle's five +francs! ... And he is not only my superior.... He ranks above +the angels.... Monsieur has spoken face to face with a +glorious Saint of God!" +</p> + +<p> +Something like an electric shock tingled from the roots +of P. C. Breagh's hair down his spine, and passed out by +way of his heels into the worn flagstones. He tried to +speak, but his palate and tongue were stiff. The priest +went on: +</p> + +<p> +"Upon earth he was the Curé of Ars. As a Catholic, +Monsieur has learned of him. But that he foretold this +War, possibly Monsieur does not know?... A year before +his holy death.... Since it has happened ... this War +that the holy Curé prophesied, he has revisited the earthly +places where he prayed and labored and suffered.... He +has succored the wounded.... He has appeared, just as +he was when alive, to the dying, and cheered and consoled +them so that they have departed in joy and peace.... +In the world this will not be credited. It does not +matter!... What matters is, that those who perhaps asked the +Saint of Ars to intercede for them in their hour of +desperate need have received proof that in heaven, where he +now dwells, he is still what he would have wished to be: +a worker on behalf of souls.... He said this to me, twelve +years ago, with that smile that the good God had given him, +to make poor doubters sure that He Himself will one day +smile on them in heaven——" +</p> + +<p> +He stopped and wiped his face with a handkerchief that +was unaffectedly a blue duster, and, noticing the sweat +that had started on the other's face, interrupted himself +to cry: +</p> + +<p> +"But Monsieur is still holding that heavy ladder!... +How could I be so forgetful!... No! it is not to be +replaced against the wall. It is to be attached by the rings +in the uprights to those hooks at the edge of that +trap-door.... Since Monsieur has been favored with a vision +of the Saint of Ars, he is worthy of all trust and confidence. +Let Monsieur but fix the ladder while I turn the key in +the door, and then he shall see a pigeon that I keep in the +belfry tower!" +</p> + +<p> +And the good man bustled to the door and locked it, and +then came back to test the steadiness of the ladder, and +mounted with asthmatic wheezings and much display of +darned socks and venerable carpet slippers, and tapped +three times at the trapdoor. +</p> + +<p> +It was lifted at the signal, and P. C. Breagh beheld the +gaunt and sunburnt face of a French Cuirassier, peering +down out of the gloom of the spire that was faintly lighted +by delicate lines of morning sunshine, gilding the upper +edges of the shingle boards that roofed it in. +</p> + +<p> +"Thanks, thanks, my Father!" the Cuirassier muttered, +as the bottle of coffee and the loaf were handed up into +his eager, shaking hands. +</p> + +<p> +"Did you sleep?" the priest asked him, and the soldier +answered in the affirmative, adding that he had been +awakened by footsteps in the church below him at the earliest +break of day. +</p> + +<p> +Said the Curé: +</p> + +<p> +"My child, it was I. A member of my parish was dying—I +came to the church to take the Blessed Sacrament from +the Tabernacle.... I forgot that you would probably +awaken and suppose that your presence here had been +betrayed!... But all is well! and a cart of brushwood will +stop before the presbytery this evening and carry more +than its load when it is driven on. It is going to a farm +near Audun—from there you will be able to escape into +Luxembourg, and from thence rejoin the Army when your +wounds are sufficiently healed. It is said that the Army of +Châlons, with the Duke of Magenta and the Emperor, now +marches north from Rheims toward Sedan." He added as +white teeth flashed in the dark face, and the sullen eyes +gleamed scornfully: "You will please yourself as to +serving again! You have already suffered greatly for our +country!" +</p> + +<p> +The soldier said roughly: +</p> + +<p> +"I would die for her with a good heart!... But I will +not fight again for this Emperor and his Marshal, by whom +France has been sold and betrayed!" +</p> + +<p> +"Well, well!... <i>Au revoir</i>, my child, and may Our +Lord protect you," said the priest, sighing and beginning +a puffing retreat down the ladder. "Shut the trapdoor +down carefully, keep perfect silence, and remember that +it is very dangerous to smoke. The curls of vapor can be +seen rising between the shingles. I observed it when we +had workmen here in Spring!" +</p> + +<p> +Then he descended, and with P. C. Breagh's aid put back +the ladder, unlocked the belfry tower door, and they went +out into the clear bright autumn air. +</p> + +<p> +"That soldier came last night," the Curé whispered, as +they stopped to lock the door with the heavy iron key that +was corroded with rust where use did not maintain its +brightness. "He was taken prisoner in yesterday's battle, +found to be wounded, disarmed, and left to shift for +himself, with others in the same condition. One of them—in +whose company this man was—had concealed a pistol, and +had the daring to attempt the life of M. de Bismarck—or +General Moltke—I am not sure which! But the shot missed +its mark, and instantly all those who had seen it fired, with +others who knew nothing, were massacred in cold blood. +This man by a miracle—escaped!... How, I know not! +He says he fell into a pit full of dead, and lay there +expecting to be buried with them, until the darkness came +to cover his resurrection from the grave." +</p> + +<p> +They went back into the presbytery. The priest went to +look for the fifteen francs of change out of Juliette's gold +piece. She came out of the kitchen, from which Catherine's +bedroom opened, and showed herself freshly laved, and +attired in spotless neatness, her face no longer swollen +with weeping and weariness, her superb hair brushed to +dull cloudy silkiness, and newly coiled upon the summit of +her little queenly head. +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes shone brilliant and hard as blue jewels, as she +said to her friend in a low, vibrating tone of excitement: +</p> + +<p> +"Mère Catherine says that yesterday a French prisoner +tried to shoot M. de Bismarck, and nearly succeeded.... +See you well, I would like to meet that man!" +</p> + +<p> +"Why, Mademoiselle?" +</p> + +<p> +"To kiss the hand of one so brave, Monsieur!" +</p> + +<p> +He regarded her in silence. She went on almost with +hardihood, throwing back her head, and looking at him +with eyes that gleamed between their narrowed lids. +</p> + +<p> +"See you well—if I were only beautiful, I would give my +beauty to the man who saved France!" +</p> + +<p> +Her hearer's heart began to pound violently, and a +dimness like mist came before his sight. Through it he was +aware of long eyes that gleamed like wonderful azure +jewels, and a small red mouth that pleaded for the soul of +P. C. Breagh.... He saw that the underlip was like the +bud of a pomegranate, and that the curve of the upper +disclosed teeth as white as curd.... Then he heard the +silver voice say with a sigh in it: +</p> + +<p> +"But I am not beautiful ... not even pretty. Ah, +Monsieur, if I but were!..." +</p> + +<p> +She was hating herself as she saw his look respond to +hers. As the amber sparks in his gray eyes leaped into fire +and his under jaw thrust out savagely, she thought: +</p> + +<p> +"There is something of my mother in me—more than a +little! How dared I scorn her—I, who can speak and look +like this?" And she repeated with a plaintive, lingering +inflection: "If I were ... if I but were!" +</p> + +<p> +For the primal Eve is in all women, believe me. When +the first Woman bowed herself in her apron of leaves to +strike out between the lump of iron ore and the flint flake, +the spark that, blown within its nest of dried moss, begat +Fire, she laughed and then wept; for she remembered how +she had learned of old from the Serpent, wise Teacher of +guile and evil! to kindle the hot spark of Desire in the +hearts of men. +</p> + +<p> +This knowledge would have come to Juliette as a legacy +from Eve, her earliest ancestress, even had she not been +born of Adelaide. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Breagh saw nothing but the little red mouth +with the subtly wooing smile on it ... the gleaming jewels +that were shadowed by their covert of black lashes.... +Her will bent heavily on his, weakened by his worship of +her. In another instant he would have asked what she +wanted him to do. +</p> + +<p> +But the heavy footsteps of the priest, clumping on the +little crazy stair, recalled Breagh from the rapids toward +which he had been drifting. In another moment the Curé +came into the room. He had a knotted blue handkerchief +in his hand, which weighed somewhat heavily. He said +with a good-humored smile as he untied one of the knots, +and took out a little pile of silver: +</p> + +<p> +"Here behold my savings bank! Your fifteen francs, +Mademoiselle!" +</p> + +<p> +He was earnest to count them out and return them to +her, and she was as earnest that the coins should not be +given back.... But she could not deny her poverty when +the good man charged her with it, saying: +</p> + +<p> +"Accept the return of this money as a mortification +salutary for the health of your soul!" +</p> + +<p> +Then he tied up the handkerchief and stuffed it away +under his cassock, and asked them: +</p> + +<p> +"Where are you journeying together, my children? I +have a reason for wishing to know!" +</p> + +<p> +He had turned to P. C. Breagh, still thrilling with the +memory of that strange look Juliette had cast upon him. +The young man answered, glowing through his sunbrown: +</p> + +<p> +"Wherever Mademoiselle de Bayard is desirous to go!" +</p> + +<p> +The Curé pursed his mouth and turned to Juliette; and +then sabots clumped in the passage, and a cracked voice +cried from the door: +</p> + +<p> +"'Mademoiselle' and 'Mademoiselle,' when she is no +more 'Mademoiselle' than I am! ... Why not +'Madame'? ... Call things and folks by their right names!" +</p> + +<p> +There was a terrible pause. Juliette was enduring +agonies. The Curé pursed his mouth, and rounded his mild +eyes behind their iron-rimmed spectacles. Mère Catherine +went on triumphantly: +</p> + +<p> +"It was her father's dearest wish that she should marry +his old friend's only son. She told me that when we were +washing up the coffee bowls, out in the kitchen there.... +When the Prussians came to France, she went to Belgium +with the young man's mother. '<i>To celebrate my +marriage,</i>' she told me, '<i>because M. What's-his-name was +there!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh had a sensation as of a weight of cold lead +in the stomach. His feet seemed shod with lead, his arms +hung down inertly. His tongue might have been turned +to lead, so impossible was utterance. "<i>Married!...</i>" +kept on ticking inside his head. "<i>Married!...</i>" and +with maddening iteration, slowly as the clapper of a tolling +bell. "<i>You knew it ... She knew it ... Married all the +time!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +His dull stare was set upon the face that had smiled on +him so wooingly. It was snow-white now, and the eyes +were hidden beneath their heavy fringes of black. The +eyebrows were knitted, the pale lips set rigidly. The Curé +looked at them a moment, and then asked, plump and +plain: +</p> + +<p> +"You are really married? My good Mère Catherine is +not deceiving herself?" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette shut down her stern upper lip upon its little +neighbor, and raised clear, sorrowful eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"As she says, I went to Belgium to celebrate my marriage. +Now that I have returned, I shall await my husband +here in France. My father esteemed him highly. He is +M. Charles Tessier. He lives in the Rue de Provence, in the +town of Versailles." +</p> + +<p> +Whether the good Curé scented the quibble, we are not +at all inclined to ask. We are concerned with P. C. Breagh, +whose enchanted castle had crashed into dust and brickbats. +One glance at his face, sharp as a wedge of cheese, +and bleached under its wholesome freckles and sun-tan, +told his Infanta what ruin she had wrought. But if he had +seized and shaken her and cried: "You lie!" she would +have lied again, defiantly. Was she not married, when her +Colonel had believed so.... She would be, from now, in +thought and word, the wife of Charles Tessier. Ah, +Heaven!... The thought was more unwelcome than ever +it had been. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, Heaven! if that dear dead father could but have +known this brave young Englishman. Would he have been +in such haste to break his daughter's heart?... And—ah, +Heaven!—again, if this burning of her boats meant +parting, how could one live without one's comrade now? +</p> + +<p> +He was so simple, and Juliette adored simplicity. He +was so straightforward and honest, one could not guard +the heart. When he had thought her dead, how piteously +he had cried to her, "Juliette! Juliette!..." When she +had crept from under the bed the lance had plunged +through, barely missing her, and Breagh had dived at her +and caught her up and hugged her, despite her terror and +misery, she had known a wonderful thrill.... +</p> + +<p> +"Mine!" those fierce young arms conveyed, as they had +strained her to his broad breast. Was it wicked, was it +unnatural in one so newly bereaved of the noblest and +dearest of all fathers, to have been taken by storm in those +moments of desolation—to have dreamed since then of the +rapture of being able to answer: "Yes, yes!... If our +very own!... Never anyone's but yours...."? +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Alas! if Juliette had been unnatural in yielding to such +thoughts, was she not now punished? She had dealt with +her own slight arm the blow that had shattered the fabric +of her dreams as well as his.... She would never again +see that light in the eyes of Monica's brother; never—against +all the accepted traditions ruling the pre-matrimonial +affairs of a young French girl of good family—be +hugged in that rude, possessive, British way. But what +loneliness, what terror, what danger had driven her into +the arms that enfolded.... Besides, she would atone by +marrying Charles Tessier. A tepid future passed by the +side of the young cloth manufacturer extended before her.... +She could not restrain a shudder at the thought, even +while she mentally renewed her vow that, for the sake of +him who had planned it, she would embrace such a future +with resignation.... It flashed upon her now, with blinding +clearness, that not only must the future be embraced, +but the man.... +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Tear the picture.... Forget the dream!</i>" The words; +of de Bayard's letter came back to her. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, well!—she had done with pictures and dreams.... +For her, realities. The comrade looked as though Reality +had hit him smashingly. She barely recognized his +cheerful voice as he answered to some leading question put by +the Curé: +</p> + +<p> +"I am ready and willing to act as escort to Madame. +It would be risky for her to attempt to return alone to +Versailles." +</p> + +<p> +She tried to meet his sorrowful gray eyes and succeeded. +She bent her little head and said with an admirable +assumption of newly wedded dignity: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur Breagh is very amiable. I will accept his +offer with gratitude. When my husband learns of his great +goodness, he too will thank him. Alas! at this moment my +poor Charles is far away!..." +</p> + +<p> +She sought for a tear, and found more than she had +expected. For a whole thunderstorm of big, bright drops +burst from those wonderful eyes. +</p> + +<p> +She fell into a Windsor armchair polished by the worthy +Curé's stout person, and dropped her arms upon the table, +and her head on them, and sobbed, sobbed, sobbed.... +The priest beckoned Breagh from the study. They were +going to make arrangements for the journey. Horrible +Mère Catherine, cause of all the misery, came and cackled +over the prone, abandoned head.... Madame was going +to start early to-morrow morning.... Allowing for the +disorganization of the railway service, Madame would +reach Versailles by noon of the same day. The husband of +Madame would presently arrive to find her waiting for him. +Heaven would shed blessings on their joyous reunion. Let +Madame take her occasion of soliciting the patronage of +St. Christopher, patron of all travelers. The first little +male cherub that should bless the union of Madame and +Monsieur would naturally be christened by the name of the +good Saint. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap60"></a></p> + +<h3> +LX +</h3> + +<p> +They drove in a country cart to Etain over roads bestrewn +for the most part with the <i>débris</i> of the falling +Empire, and there caught a train starting for Verdun. It +was crammed with wounded French soldiers lying on +straw in trucks and horse boxes. Women jostled one +another at the doors of these, to supply the poor sufferers +with soup and fruit, bread and coffee. The news of the +retirement of Bazaine upon Metz was in every mouth, +although, thanks to the cutting by Uhlans of the telegraph +line between Metz and Thionville, the Emperor did not +receive the Marshal's wire until the 22nd. +</p> + +<p> +The Warlock had lost no time. Already the blockade of +the doomed fortress city was so far completed that only +the most daring French scouts were able to worm their way +through the enemy's investing lines. +</p> + +<p> +For, even as the octopus, desirous of increasing his family, +throws off a spare tentacle which becomes another octopus, +from the First and Second Armies of United Germany +had been evolved a Fourth Army of Six Corps under the +command of the Crown Prince of Saxony, whose Advance +of Guard Cavalry were already over the Meuse. +</p> + +<p> +The Army of the Prussian Crown Prince had traversed +the roads south of Toul and entered the basin of the +Ornain. The King of Prussia, with Bismarck and Moltke, +had started to march on Paris through the dusty white +plains of Champagne. +</p> + +<p> +His Great Headquarters had already reached Bar-le-Duc. +One of his scouting squadrons of Uhlans had captured a +French courier at Commercy. Thus Moltke had learned +that the mounted regiments of Canrobert's Corps had been +left behind at the Camp of Châlons, and that Paris was +being placed in a state of defense to resist an investment +expected hourly. +</p> + +<p> +On this very day the vast Camp had been abandoned, +the Imperial pavilions, the mess houses, officers' quarters +and kitchens were blazing merrily, the lines of rustic +baraques usually occupied by the troops were marked out +by crackling hedges of fire. While MacMahon, at his camp +near Rheims, was torn between Ministerial orders emanating +from the Empress, insisting on the immediate relief of +Bazaine, and his own conviction that the order of march +should be back by the directest route to defend the +menaced capital. +</p> + +<p> +Said the Man of Iron to Roon, whiffing a huge cigar as +the steady downpour of rain swirled down the gutters and +drenched the Bodyguard on duty outside the King's +Headquarters at Bar-le-Duc: +</p> + +<p> +"We barricade the straight road that leads to Metz. +Will the fellow face the risks of a circuitous march leading +him near the Belgian frontier? I should be personally +obliged to him to decide quickly.... One does not desire +to linger in a Capua as dismal as this." +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck-Böhlen brought him a telegram. He was about +to open it when the Warlock hastily entered the sitting +room that served as ante-chamber, flourishing a copy of +<i>Le Temps</i>, issued in Paris on the previous day. +</p> + +<p> +"A Uhlan of the Advance has got me this paper. He +took it from the person of a respectable bourgeois at whose +house in Cligny he and his comrades called to drink a drop +of wine. Judging it a welcome gift to me, the brave fellow +rode here to bring it." +</p> + +<p> +"There is wine of another kind on those pages," said +the Minister, pointing to the journal with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +Moltke read from the blood-stained paper: +</p> + +<p> +"'<i>The speeches delivered yesterday at the Chamber are +unanimous in the declaration that the French people will +be disgraced forever if the Army of the Rhine be not +relieved. The dispatches received during the sitting of +yesterday's Privy Council, from the Prefecture of Police, the +Ministry of War and of the Interior, were of a nature to +cause apprehension of the keenest. But the disposition of +the people of Paris can be ascertained by any person whose +ears are not stuffed with Court cotton-wool. Do not these +shouts of "Dethronement!"—these cries of "A Republic! +A Republic!" become louder every day?</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +He added: +</p> + +<p> +"This bears out the text of Palikao's intercepted wire of +yesterday to the Emperor; and the second from the +Empress, virtually saying: 'Abandon Bazaine and Paris is +in revolt!'..." +</p> + +<p> +Commented the Minister: +</p> + +<p> +"The Empress-Regent talks like a young woman. +Palikao argues like an old one—the speakers in the Chamber +gabble like a pack of old gossips, not one of whom looks +beyond the end of her own nose. Paris was in revolution +at the beginning of August. She will be a full-blown +Republic before Christmas, whether Bazaine be abandoned +or not." +</p> + +<p> +Moltke said, helping himself from his silver snuffbox: +</p> + +<p> +"MacMahon has not the courage to resist a consensus of +quackers. He will march east and uncover the Paris road. +I may say I had already drawn out private tables of +marches which would thwart him in any case. What have +you there? A wire in Secret Code?" +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck answered: +</p> + +<p> +"It is in Russian, with which language the sender knows +me to be acquainted. He is an agent of our Secret Service, +who combines the trade of wool stapler with the profession +of notary, and holds the post of Sub-Prefect in the town of +Rethel. He communicates by private wire that the +Emperor has telegraphed the Prince Imperial that the +junction with Bazaine will not be attempted, and that the +march of the Army of Châlons will be directed upon Sedan. +He states that when he quitted Rheims to-day the Imperial +Headquarters had left for Tourteron...." +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ei, ei</i>! Is he trustworthy?" asked the Warlock, putting +away the silver box. +</p> + +<p> +The Minister answered succinctly: +</p> + +<p> +"The intelligence he supplies is usually worth the money +he is paid for it." +</p> + +<p> +He went on: +</p> + +<p> +"He has got into touch with the Roumanian Straz, who +has not received cash for some dirty work he did in July +at Sigmaringen, and who judges it advisable—Napoleon +Bonaparte Grammont & Co. being insolvent—to transfer +his services to the opposite firm.... He adds that Straz +possesses, or says that he possesses, free access to the Prince +Imperial. He appears to think our interests would be +served by kidnapping the boy." +</p> + +<p> +"Would they?" asked Moltke. +</p> + +<p> +The Minister raised his shaggy brows, and answered +smilingly: +</p> + +<p> +"You are acquainted with the Countess's views in +connection with the youngest Bonaparte. If the Queen does +not want him to hand her tea and comb her lap dog, why +should I not take M. Lulu home as a present to my wife?" +</p> + +<p> +"You are jesting!" said the Warlock, shaking the wise +old head in the scratch wig. "You have told this stinking +rogue that decent German men make not war upon women +or children.... When the time comes that we are guilty +of such things, United Germany will be near her fall." +</p> + +<p> +"Her barometer predicts a rise," said the Minister +dryly, "at this particular moment." +</p> + +<p> +"With God's help, we shall fulfill the prediction!" +returned the Warlock, going to a table where lay spread a +map on a comprehensive scale of an inch to a mile. "We +will talk over this with the King, when the Crown Prince +and Von Blumenthal come over from Ligny. It will be +wiser to delay the movement on Paris, and hit this weather +cock of a Marshal with all our forces. So, he marches his +Army on the Meuse! <i>So'o!</i>..." +</p> + +<p> +And he hummed a bar of the little song about the weeping +flowers and the shining starlets, as he set the mental +machinery in motion that resulted in the Grand Right +Wheel. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap61"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXI +</h3> + +<p> +The closed shutters of the Tessier house in the Rue de +Provence gave that pleasant, airy, well-kept residence +standing behind its high garden walls of stone-faced brick, +festooned with autumn-tinted creepers, an unoccupied and +cheerless air. +</p> + +<p> +Repeated rings at the bell of the white-painted gate of +wrought iron upon the right of the heavy <i>porte cochère</i> +topped by the lozenged archway, elicited a caretaker in the +person of the wife of the gardener-coachman, who cried out +joyfully upon recognizing one of the ringers, and broke +into a spate of words: +</p> + +<p> +"Mademoiselle! ... Madame Charles! A thousand +pardons for the error! But a return so unexpected. +Nothing is ready...." She queried, her eyes becoming +circular as they drank in the fact that the newly-married wife +of her master had arrived in company of a strange young +gentleman in a shabby brown suit of foreign make, and a +straw hat decidedly the worse for wear: "Madame Tessier +has not accompanied you?... Or Monsieur Charles?... Nothing +has happened?" Upon being assured that +her employers were well, and still in Belgium, she raised +her eyes piously, and heaved a sigh of relief. "In these +days such terrible things happen!" sighed the +gardener-coachman's wife. "No one knows who the Prussians will +not kill next!... Though, what with the soldiers that +have gone away—regiments and regiments marching with +their bands!—and the guns—thousands of guns rolling and +rolling!—one would say that France possessed enough +men.... But who knows! One can feel the fears of the +people like a dark cloud blackening the sky.... They +say that at Meudon the trees have been cut down and +trenches dug, and beautiful villas blown up with +gunpowder that the Germans may not live in them when they +come. Of what use, then, the great cannon that break the +windows when they fire them from the Forts of Issy and +Meudon, Vanvres and Mont Valérien, if they cannot keep +such people back?" +</p> + +<p> +She had looked at the young man who accompanied +Madame Charles as she put her question. He answered, +with appreciation of the shrewdness prompting the question: +</p> + +<p> +"One wishes one could answer that! But it is all true +about the trenches and so on.... All the main roads +leading north and west and east from Paris have been cut up +in the same way. And the bridges have been mined—but +they will not blow them up yet. They will wait until the +Prussians come!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Grand Dieu</i>! And all our hospitals here are full of +wounded soldiers. They arrive in trains or wagons every +hour.... People wait at the railway stations and at the +barriers in crowds to see them. Sometimes one cries out: +'<i>My brother!</i>' or '<i>My husband!</i>'—or '<i>My son!</i>'..." +</p> + +<p> +The wide mouth of the little woman widened in a +grimace of misery. She gulped and sniffed, and the tears +began to tumble from her beady black eyes. "My brother +Michel has been killed!... My sister has received an +official letter that says so. Also my husband's nephew, +Jean Jacques—the dear youth who served Madame Tessier +so faithfully.... Madame Charles must remember him +going about the house in his striped jacket, cleaning the +silver and sweeping and polishing the parquet.... And +now my poor Potier, whom Madame Charles cannot have +forgotten.... At fifty years of age, he has been called to +serve again!" +</p> + +<p> +Her poor Potier was even then marching with MacMahon's +hundred thousand toward Montmedy by Mézières, +and the end that was to meet him there, as the little woman +dried her eyes with her blue apron, and bestirred herself to +welcome one whom she firmly believed to be her young +master's wife. +</p> + +<p> +"No luggage! Madame has returned without luggage!" +she commented mentally, as the driver of the hack vehicle +that had brought Madame and her companion from the +station was paid and jingled away. +</p> + +<p> +Then as she shut the outer gate and locked it she realized +that the companion of Madame Charles was a foreigner. +She could hear the pair conversing in an unknown jargon +as they stood together near the terrace steps. Upon which +the perplexity of honest Madame Potier was banished by +an effort of simple reasoning. The strange young man +would be a Belgian—an employee of M. Charles. M. Charles +had determined, all the world knew, to engage a +resident bookkeeper. This must be the Belgian bookkeeper +who had accompanied Madame. For his manner was humble +to dejectedness, as became a dependent, and he looked +at Madame with extreme wistfulness. He was actually +saying: +</p> + +<p> +"This means good-bye, I suppose, doesn't it?..." +</p> + +<p> +Juliette returned, with her heart wavering in her like a +wind-blown taper flame: +</p> + +<p> +"If you desire it, Monsieur, of course it is good-bye!" +</p> + +<p> +He perused the gravel walk with an appearance of great +interest. +</p> + +<p> +It was extraordinary that neither he nor Madame had +brought any luggage.... Madame Potier fairly writhed +with curiosity to learn the reason why. She could restrain +herself no longer. She cried, madly clashing the gate +keys: +</p> + +<p> +"But the luggage, Madame! ... The carriage has +driven away without depositing it. What of the trunks, +imperials, portmanteaux, bonnet boxes that Madame +possessed when she went away?..." +</p> + +<p> +She was a little, voluble, excitable Frenchwoman, with +shiny black hair, bright, snapping black eyes, and a hectic +spot in the center of each cheek. As yet her environment +had not brought home to her what War meant in reality. +When she had wept for her brother and her nephew by +marriage, and at parting with her husband, she had +relapsed into her accustomed round of duties, not unpleasantly +varied by her newer responsibilities as guardian of +her mistress's empty dwelling. Like many other excellent +women of her type, she could not read or write, and relied +on local news imparted by her gossips and bits of +intelligence left by the baker with his bread rolls, or served by +the woman who brought the morning's milk. +</p> + +<p> +Now Madame Charles turned to her and told her: +</p> + +<p> +"The boxes and imperials are left behind in Belgium, +dear Madame Potier. As for the articles I brought with +me, they have been torn to pieces by the lancers of M. de +Bismarck. Also the luggage of this gentleman, who has, +like myself, nothing left but the clothes that he is wearing. +Thank him, for had he not protected me, I should never +have reached this house!" +</p> + +<p> +"Great Heaven!" Little Madame Potier threw her +hands and eyes heavenward. "What wretches! What +terrible dangers Madame has surmounted!... What +horrors one hears of!—what miseries and sufferings!... +Death is everywhere.... One would say it was the end +of the world! But still there is hope, is not there, +Madame?... Our glorious Army..." +</p> + +<p> +Juliette turned a snow-white face upon the eager woman, +and lifted a little, tragic hand. She said, and in that tone +and with that look most feared and dreaded by the man +who loved her: +</p> + +<p> +"Our glorious Army has been betrayed and massacred! +With these eyes I who speak to you have seen vast tracts +of country covered with the slain!" +</p> + +<p> +Madame Potier winced and drew herself together. Her +black eyes glared. The red spots sank out of her sharp +face. And Juliette went on: +</p> + +<p> +"I traversed one of these huge fields of carnage. Many +Germans were there—but most of the dead were our +French soldiers.... And in the silence you heard their +blood running, and the earth lapping it like a great thirsty +dog!..." +</p> + +<p> +In the throat of the other woman, listening, an hysterical +knot began growing. You could see it working as her dry +lips twitched. She held her breath as though to keep back +a scream. +</p> + +<p> +"I sought among all these dead men for my father," +said Juliette. "And I found him!... His dead hand +beckoned me from a mountain of corpses.... I would +have known it without the ring that he always wore.... +And I went to him and sat beside him, and asked God to +let me die also.... And a sword seemed to cut my soul +from my body.... I grew cold—and all was blackness +about me!... I felt no more ... I breathed no more +... I thought: '<i>This must be death!</i>' Then a voice spoke +to me.... I was too far away to answer. It called me +loudly—and I came to life again.... I rose up.... I +saw the face of the man who had called me.... And then +I knew why I must not die just yet!" +</p> + +<p> +She laughed, and so strangely that Madame Potier cried +out in terror. She would have rushed at the girl and +clutched her but for Breagh's strong interposing hand. +He said in her ear in the bad French she took for Belgian: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame has traveled many miles, fasting, and she has +suffered a great bereavement.... Do not question her, +but go and make ready her apartment, and prepare food +for her. Hot soup—she needs that before all!" +</p> + +<p> +The little woman addressed looked sharply at the +speaker, then mounted the two steps leading to the terrace, +scuttled across it in front of the shuttered windows of the +drawing-room and billiard-room, descended the steps upon +the other side, and vanished in the direction of the +basement kitchen door. +</p> + +<p> +Then P. C. Breagh, wondering at his own daring, +stretched out a hand and touched Juliette's. It was very +cold. He lifted it gently and led her unresisting down the +ivy-bordered path that led into the pleasance. +</p> + +<p> +For she must not be left alone in this mood, and the +garden was still, and scented, and beautiful in the noonday +sunshine. Its beds of autumn flowers blazed from their +setting of smooth and still verdant turf. The great +wistaria on the stable buildings was magnificent in trails of +fading purple blossoms. The oaks were browning, the +chestnuts shedding their yellow fans. The stately limes +were bleached pale golden, the tall acacias were already +stripped quite bare. +</p> + +<p> +It was not yet the season of song for thrush and blackbird, +but the robin's sweet shrill twitter came from the +heart of a hawthorn, marvelously laden with gorgeous +crimson fruit. The breast of the bird, not yet attired in +fullest winter plumage, showed orange as japonica berries +beside the ripe haws' splendid hue. +</p> + +<p> +Said P. C. Breagh, trying to speak lightly and naturally: +</p> + +<p> +"Look at him! What a pretty little beggar! Nobody +ever told me you had robins in France!..." Then as +the bird cocked his round bright eye and hopped to a +higher twig, and Juliette's pale face remained unchanged, +and her fixed stare blankly ignored him, her sorrowful +friend cried out in a passion of entreaty: +</p> + +<p> +"Juliette! Juliette, take care! For the love of God, +don't yield to this! Oh, Juliette! have pity upon others, +even if you have none on yourself!" +</p> + +<p> +The cry touched a chord that responded in vibration. +The stiff waxen mask softened, and became the face he +knew. She looked at him, and her eyes were no longer +fixed and glassy. She asked in wonder: +</p> + +<p> +"What do you want me to do?" +</p> + +<p> +Trees hid them from the house with its closed slatted +shutters. They were near a rustic seat that was under the +great tulip tree. Breagh led her to the seat, made her sit +down, and sat himself beside her. He made no effort to +retain the little hand. "<i>It is not mine,</i>" he said to himself, +as he looked at it, and then his heart jolted, and stood +still.... Where was her wedding ring?... Didn't +French married ladies wear the plain gold circlet? Of +course they did! Then why?... Came her faint, sad +voice again: +</p> + +<p> +"What is it I might do and do not do, for myself and +others? Tell me, Monsieur, for I do not like to be +unkind!" +</p> + +<p> +He said, trying to speak clearly and unemotionally: +"It is because you love so greatly those who are near +you that I ask you to be kind to these and to yourself. +You have suffered a great loss, you brood upon it to your +injury.... You dream of revenge upon a man, high-placed +and powerful, whom you accuse of having brought +about the War." +</p> + +<p> +She had taken off the black silk veil that she had worn +as head covering. A dry leaf fluttered down from the +tulip tree and crowned her splendid coils of mist-black +hair. Her thin arched brows were drawn together and +frowning; from the dark caverns that Grief had hollowed +round them looked eyes that were cold and hard and +brilliant as blue diamonds. She asked in almost a whisper: +</p> + +<p> +"And if I dream ... and accuse ... am I not +justified?... Because he saved your life, do you take his +part?" +</p> + +<p> +Breagh answered her with a sudden spurt of anger: +</p> + +<p> +"I take no part. I speak for your own good. If a +woman as frail and sensitive as you are yields to the +promptings of a hate so overwhelming, a time comes when +she cannot, if she would, control them or rule herself.... +When voices sound in her ears, urging her to deeds of +violence, and she cannot silence them by any prayers.... +Then she goes away into a strange dim country peopled +with shadows—lovely or queer, strange or awful. And +that is the country of Madness, where live the insane.... +Even those who love her as I—as your friends and your +husband love you!—can never reach her there!" +</p> + +<p> +The pleading seemed to touch her. Two great tears +over-brimmed her pure pale underlids and fell upon her shabby +black gown. She said, trembling a little: +</p> + +<p> +"You are very good to have so much solicitude for me. +I thank you very humbly. It is true that I have sustained +a terrible wound, and that it rankles—is that the right +word? My nature is not gentle—not amiable!—I long to +strike back when I am wounded.... When those I love +are hurt..." She stopped and controlled herself with a +visible effort, then resumed: "I have it in me to be +pitiless! See you well, there is something of my mother in +me!" +</p> + +<p> +"Of your mother?..." +</p> + +<p> +He echoed the words in dismay that was almost +ludicrous.... He had never asked whether Juliette +possessed a mother or not. Now he looked to the house, +expecting one of the shuttered French windows to open, +anticipating the appearance of a middle-aged lady arrayed in +mourning crape and weepers, and Juliette followed and +understood his look. She said, with sorrowful meaning: +</p> + +<p> +"Where friends of my father live. Monsieur, you do not +find my mother. She is very beautiful, but not good, not +noble, as he!... She left him many years ago, when I +was an infant. See! I could not have been higher than +that!" She measured with her hand above the turf the +height of the baby of five years, with hair that had been +silky and yellow as newly hatched chickens' down. She +said, her clear, transparent face darkening with the shadow +that swept across her memory: "Before I encountered +you at Gravelotte I had passed through a terrible +experience. This lady—of whom I dread to speak!—was thrown +across my path. She did not reveal to me that she was my +mother, when I quitted Brussels in her company.... She +represented herself as the wife of an officer who had been +wounded. She told me that my father was a prisoner in +the hands of the Prussians. She took me to Rethel, that I +might lay my case before the Prince Imperial, and beg him +to obtain my father's release." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh looked at her doubtfully, fearing—what he +most feared for her. She said, drawing a folded envelope +from the bosom of her black school dress: +</p> + +<p> +"Never shall I forget how graciously Monseigneur received +me. Here is a little keepsake he gave me with his +own hand.... You shall hold it in yours, because you +are my friend, and Monseigneur would permit it.... No +one else, because no one deserves it save you!" +</p> + +<p> +And she exhibited with dainty pride the splinter of +rusty scrap iron. The envelope bore a small Imperial crown +in gold, with the initial "E" beneath.... It was directed +in violet ink and in a handwriting pointed and elegantly +feminine, to S. A. the Prince Imperial, with the Great +Headquarters of the Imperial Army, at the Prefecture of +Metz. +</p> + +<p> +"He is so brave!... He wanted to join M. de Bazaine +and fight the Prussians. He stamped ... he wept ... he +suffered such chagrin when the telegram came from +the Emperor.... No! I must not tell you of the telegram.... +My Prince said: '<i>Mademoiselle shall hear it because +she is discreet!</i>'..." +</p> + +<p> +She folded away her treasure in the envelope that bore +the Empress's handwriting, and hid it away again in its +sweet nest close to her innocent heart. Life and vivacity +were hers again as she descanted upon the graces and gifts +of her Imperial princeling, and P. C. Breagh listened, +grateful for the change in her. The shadow came back +for a moment as she told him: +</p> + +<p> +"And when I descended to the vestibule, Madame had +gone away.... She had been seized with faintness in the +moment of our arrival, when she had encountered a +stranger passing through the hall.... Then I went back +to the hotel, and crept up to my room quietly. Madame—whom +I had discovered to be my mother!—was engaged +with a visitor.... I do not know at all who he was. But I +heard him say, on the other side of the door that was +between us ... '<i>When she comes, you shall present me to +the little Queen of Diamonds!</i>' And he laughed.... <i>Mon +Dieu!</i> how strange a laugh!... It made me feel cold. It +makes me cold even now to remember it.... But I do not +think I have been really warm since the night upon which +I found the portrait, and my mother said: '<i>The discovery +was inevitable! Now, with your leave, I am going to +sleep!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +With such truth did she render the very tone of the +sumptuous Adelaide's languid irony that P. C. Breagh +started as though he had been stung. Somewhere he had +met someone ... a woman who spoke like that?... Who +was she? Where had they encountered?... He beat his +brains to evoke some reply, in vain. And Juliette went on: +</p> + +<p> +"It does me good to tell you this, Monsieur, though I +thought at first I would not. You will understand how +terrible it was to discover in this lady, who had deceived +me, the mother whom I have believed dead until a few +months ago. There was something in her very beauty, and +ah! she is so beautiful!—that made me regard her with +terror.... See you, I prayed to Our Blessed Lady for aid +to overcome that terror. Then at the daybreak, I rose and +went to her bed. When I saw her sleeping, I think I +feared her more than ever. The face can reveal so much, +Monsieur, in sleep. And hers was a sleep uneasy, and +troubled by visions.... Without waking she said a thing +so strange.... '<i>Only a woman of fashion would be guilty +of such infamy!</i>' ... What made you start so violently, +Monsieur?" +</p> + +<p> +For P. C. Breagh had jumped as though he had been hit +by a bullet. His mouth screwed itself into the shape of a +whistle, his eyes rounded unbecomingly. He remembered +when and where he had heard that utterance—in the +resonant accents of the Man of Iron, and addressed to the +adventurous beauty encountered at the Foreign Office in +the Wilhelm Strasse, Berlin. +</p> + +<p> +What were the words that had preceded the sentence, +scathing in their irony, terrible in their implied contempt? +</p> + +<p> +"<i>It would have required fewer scruples and more toughness +than Agamemnon possessed to have offered up an only +daughter to Venus Libertina.... Only a woman of fashion +would be capable of such infamy.... Pardon! but you +have dropped your parasol!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +And an English boy had picked it up, and seen the +devastating change wrought in that softly tinted mask of +sensuous beauty, by Conscience, roused to anguish by the +vitriol splash of scorn. +</p> + +<p> +So the Duessa of the Wilhelm Strasse was Madame de +Bayard! How strange the chance encounter that had +brought them together in that house! What was the +bargain she had hoped to drive with Bismarck? What had +she intended when she had taken her daughter to Rethel? +Who was the man who had been waiting to be presented to +the little Queen of Diamonds?... And how true had +been the instinct that had warned the girl of danger, whose +nature her Convent-bred innocence made it impossible for +her to conceive? +</p> + +<p> +She was speaking: +</p> + +<p> +"Do not think me wicked or insensible, Monsieur. I am +deeply sensible of all your goodness!... I know very well +that there is truth in what you say!... You are noble, +candid, magnanimous.... You do not comprehend what +it is to hate so that it is torture ... like fire burning here, +here, and here!..." +</p> + +<p> +She touched her slight bosom and her throat with the +joined finger-tips of her small hands, shielded her eyes and +forehead with them an instant, then swept them wide apart. +A curious gesture, and notable, in its suggestion of surging +overwhelming emotion, and the dominance of an impulse +obsessing in its evil strength. +</p> + +<p> +"Here where it is so quiet I shall recover in a little.... +I shall become calmer.... I shall learn to sleep again.... +You cannot imagine how much I wish to sleep, Monsieur!... +But when I lie down it is as though great doors +in my brain were thrown wide open. There is music ... and +processions of people come pouring, pouring through.... +There are voices that make great clamor—there are +hands that wave to me and beckon. But I clench my own +hands and lie still—so very still! I pray to Our Lord that +one figure may not pass among the others, for then I know +I shall have to get up and follow him.... I cry to Our +Lady to cover my eyes with Her cool hands, that I may not +see if he does come. But always he passes; walking or +driven in a chariot—riding a great horse, or borne upon +the shoulders of guards. And then I resist no more, for +it is useless! I wake!—and I am standing in the middle of +my room!" +</p> + +<p> +Said P. C. Breagh, comprehending the situation: "In a +word, you are suffering from overstrain and consequent +insomnia. And I wish I were a full-blown M.D., because I +think I should know what to do. But you will let me +prescribe the doctor, if I may not undertake the case, won't +you? What's that? Who's there?" +</p> + +<p> +Something like a gurgling laugh had sounded behind +them, and Juliette glanced round, and back at Carolan +with something of the old gayety in her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"It is the Satyr of the pool, where Madame Tessier +grows her water plants. He laughs like that when the +water bubbles in his throat." +</p> + +<p> +She rose and followed a little path leading through a +shrubbery of lilac and syringa. Beyond rose the ivy-hung +and creeper-covered eastern boundary wall of the +pleasance. From the grinning mouth of the Satyr mask +wrought in gray stone the slender spring spouted no longer. +It trickled from a hole in the pipe behind the mask, and +yet the laugh sounded at intervals as of old. The wall +below the mask was wet, and green with a slimy moss-growth, +fed by the dampness; the ferns that bordered the +pool, the water plants that grew in it, had suffered from +the diminution of their supply. The brook had diminished +to a slender trickle winding among stones crowned with +dry and withering mosses. Juliette cried out at the +spectacle in sheer dismay. +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +What would Madame say if she knew how spoiled was +this, her cherished bit of sylvan beauty? Never mind. +When she returned all should be found in order of the best. +The kitchen garden, perforce neglected since the departure +of M. Potier, should be weeded diligently. The dead roses +should be snipped off with loving care, the withered +blossoms pulled from the sheaths of the flaming gladioli.... +The place needed a mistress, that was plain to Mademoiselle +de Bayard's order-loving eye. +</p> + +<p> +"We will work here!..." she said, and almost clapped +her hands at the thought of the pleasant labor waiting +them. "Me, I adore gardening! And you also—do you +not, Monsieur?..." +</p> + +<p> +Could P. C. Breagh deny? He cried with a hot flush of +joy at the thought of long days of sweet companionship: +"Indeed I do!... and of course I will, Madame!" +</p> + +<p> +"'<i>Madame!...</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +She had nearly betrayed the truth, but she nipped her +stern upper lip close down upon its rosy fellow.... Was +she not married? Nearly, if not quite.... +</p> + +<p> +So nearly that until M. Charles appeared with Madame, +she would maintain the character of a recent bride. It +would be better not to rekindle in the gray eyes of Monica's +brother that fire that had blazed there so fiercely a few +hours before. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap62"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXII +</h3> + +<p> +How strangest of the strange, to love a person so nearly a +stranger!... What had Monica's brother been thinking +of? In January they had met, and parted coldly ... in +August they had met again, and had spent together not +quite three days.... But what days! to brand themselves +upon the memory. After that morning on the bloody field +of Gravelotte—that night spent in the woodshed behind the +cottage of Madame Guyot—that gray dawn when they had +walked, hand clasped in hand, behind the bearer of the +Blessed Sacrament, could He and She be ever anything but +friends?... Close friends ... dear comrades, linked by +indissoluble bonds of memories ... of perils shared, of +experiences unforgettable by both.... What would Life +be like when one had to face it shorn of the sympathy and +companionship of Monica's brother?... Juliette did not +dare to question. The thought of such loneliness was +enough to freeze the heart. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, here was Madame Potier, heated and +triumphant, proclaiming Madame served with the best that +could be got. A lentil soup—an omelette with ham, coffee, +and fruit from the garden. One would do better later, let +Madame only wait.... The apartment of Madame Tessier +had been got ready for Madame ... the small room usually +occupied by M. Charles might be prepared for the Belgian +gentleman.... Or—since that room was dismantled +for cleaning purposes, and Madame Potier herself occupied +the apartment adjoining ... would Monsieur mind +sleeping at the garden cottage? She would guarantee there +cleanliness and more than comfort.... Was not the +bedroom hers and her poor Potier's?... Had they not slept +in that bed for ten years past?... Ah, wherever her poor +Potier might now be sleeping, he would never find the +equal of his own bed.... +</p> + +<p> +The proposal, possibly prompted by discretion on the +part of the excellent Madame Potier, was gratefully +accepted by Breagh. And from that hour, under the +sheltering wing of the hectic little caretaker, began a little +idyll of happiness for two young people, who asked +nothing better than that it should last. +</p> + +<p> +It was exquisite autumn weather. They rose early, and +passed out of the iron gate together, and so through the +quiet streets to Mass at the great church of Notre Dame +in the Rue St. Genevieve. Or they would attend it at the +Chapel in the Convent of Carmelites that is now the Petit +College in conjunction with a colossal Lycée. Then they +would come back to <i>déjeuner</i>, laid on a table under the +trees on the lawn, and afterward they would work in the +garden, or read, or talk. But they read no newspapers, +and for the best part of two months they never exchanged +a word about the War. +</p> + +<p> +It was the treatment devised by P. C. Breagh, who had +failed of his practicing degree in Medicine, and under this +<i>régime</i> the shadow that had rested upon Juliette lifted day +by day. He had taken Madame Potier into his confidence, +and she entered into a conspiracy for the better nourishing +of one whom she firmly believed to be the wife of her +master. She dragooned Juliette into drinking a vast quantity +of milk, and the girl's haggard outlines began to fill out, +and her dreadful dreams ceased to haunt her. Sleep +returned, strength revived, her grief for the lost father, +unassuaged, became less poignant. She could look back upon +the happiness of their old life together without the anguish +that rends the heart. +</p> + +<p> +Daily she doled out to Madame Potier the small sum +necessary for housekeeping. Under the able management +of the hectic little woman, a very little money went a long +way. Such butter, such cheese of Brie, such excellent +bread, milk and cream, such country chickens, such fruit, +and vegetables from the garden, were daily set upon the +table, that a honeymooning Prince and Princess could not +have been better served. The reward of Madame Potier +was to see her handiwork vanish under the combined +onslaughts of Madame Charles and Monsieur.... She +waited upon them at table, and joined in their conversation, +after the inconvenient habit of her simple kind. +</p> + +<p> +As, still after the habit of her kind, she conceived an +affection for her young mistress, she developed cunning of +a wholly lovable sort. The first time she heard her idol +laugh, she clapped her hands with rapture. Another day, +in pursuance of a stratagem she had elaborated, she placed +upon the dinner table a dish, with the blatant boast: +</p> + +<p> +"My poor Potier used to declare by all that is sacred +that no living woman could cook <i>ragoût</i> of veal except his +wife!" +</p> + +<p> +She whipped off the cover. Madame Charles helped +Monsieur in silence, and unwittingly P. C. Breagh played +into Madame Potier's hands. For he sniffed approval, and +said, as she set his sizzling hot plate before him: +</p> + +<p> +"M. Potier was quite right! If the woman lives who +can cook a better <i>ragoût</i>, I've never met her, Madame!" +</p> + +<p> +Juliette's eyes sent forth blue sparks as she sat erect at +the head of the table. Her sloping shoulders sloped +terribly, her upper lip was preternaturally long. She helped +herself to a very little of the dish before her, and began to +eat without perceptible enthusiasm. Madame Potier stood +back and watched her, her red hands on the hips that were +embraced by her apron of blue stuff. She said: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame Charles will perhaps have forgotten the <i>menus</i> +she used to prepare for Madame Tessier and M. le +Colonel." She crossed herself at the mention of the dead +man's name. +</p> + +<p> +Juliette's blue eyes filled, and the stiffness went out of +her. She laid down her knife and fork. P. C. Breagh +scowled savage reproof at Madame Potier. But Madame, +at first overwhelmed, recovered herself. She went on, as +though she had never broken off: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Menus</i> composed of excellent—but excellent dishes!... +What a pity to think that Madame Charles cannot +make them now!—Look you, to cook well is an art that may +be easily forgotten!... Hey, Madame is not eating to-day!" +</p> + +<p> +Madame said in accents that were dignified and frigid: +</p> + +<p> +"There is a little too much sugar in the <i>ragoût</i>, dear +Madame Potier; otherwise it is, as Monsieur says—excellent!" +</p> + +<p> +"'Sugar.' ... But one doesn't put sugar——" P. C. Breagh +was beginning, when both the women turned on +him and rent him, figuratively. +</p> + +<p> +"Who does not put sugar? Will Monsieur answer me?" +</p> + +<p> +The piercing shriek was Madame Potier's. And the +silvery accents of Madame Charles took up the burden, +saying: +</p> + +<p> +"Dear Monsieur Breagh, the delicate brown of coloring +that pleases you—the suavity that corrects the sharpness +of the salt—these are due to sugar—burnt and added at +the last moment. But one should use it with delicacy, or +the effect is absolutely lost!" +</p> + +<p> +"Can you really cook?" he asked, in his senseless, masculine +fashion, smiling rather foolishly and staring at her +with his honest gray eyes. +</p> + +<p> +And Juliette answered with a trill of delicate, airy +laughter: +</p> + +<p> +"Do you find it so incredible? Well, I will not boast +now, but presently—you shall see!" +</p> + +<p> +Next morning, when Madame Potier returned from +market, with an unusually heavy basket, Madame Charles +donned a stuff apron of the good woman's, and vanished +with her into the kitchen, whence their voices could be +heard chattering as though a particularly shrill-voiced +pea-hen were singing a duet with a reed warbler or crested +wren. The twelve o'clock <i>déjeuner</i> was memorable, the five +o'clock dinner a marvel, from the <i>croûte au pot</i> to the <i>sole +au gratin</i>, and from the sole to the <i>filet aux champignons</i>! +There were <i>beignets</i> afterward—crisp, adorable, light as +bubbles. P. C. Breagh ate hugely, and praised, while the +excellent Potier chuckled. Her work, she told herself, sat +at the head of the table, in this slender creature with the +wild-rose cheeks and the beaming, sparkling eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Juliette had found in a trunk full of garments that had +been committed by her to Madame Tessier's keeping a +simple dinner dress of thin filmy black. Jet gleamed in +the trimming of the skirt and polonaise, and upon the +elbow sleeves and about the V-shaped neck of the bodice, +the somber gleam of it threw into marvelous relief the +ivory whiteness of the young, fresh skin. Her dainty +slimness was emphasized by the absence of all ornament. Her +marvelous black hair, fine as cobweb, silky without +glossiness, crowned her chiseled temples with its dusky coils. +When she lifted a slender arm to thrust in a hairpin more +firmly, the sunset reflection from the sky caught the fragile +hand and reddened the delicate palm of it, and the tiny +nails that shone like rosy, polished shells. +</p> + +<p> +She did not look as though she had been toiling in a +kitchen among casseroles and stew pots. Rather an elfin +Queen of Faerie—a Titania robed in cobweb and moonbeams, +whose smile sent a breeze of happiness flowing +through the sad, empty places in one's heart. For the +heart of the young man who loved her grew the emptier +the more her sweetness filled it, and realized its own sorrow +the more she showed herself to be naturally a daughter of +joy. +</p> + +<p> +She belonged to Charles Tessier, and all these sparkling +looks and lovely flushes, these sweet, unconscious provocations +of gesture and tone and inflection were for him—and +no other man.... This remembrance was always alive in +Breagh to rear a barrier between him and his Infanta.... +And other knowledge, too, was his, held in common with +Madame Potier and many thousands of other people, that +he had not dared to share with Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +But to-night he had realized that the truth could no +longer be kept from her. She was cured. There could +hardly be a relapse into the old conditions, even when she +learned the dreadful truth. And even if risk there were, +she must be told that truth by him to-night, or hear it from +the lips of some stranger. It was a miracle that she had +remained so long in ignorance of the fate of France—her +beloved France. +</p> + +<p> +"For seven weeks we have played together like two children +on the brink of an open grave!" he said to himself. +"Have I been right or wrong? Only Time can tell!" +</p> + +<p> +Madame Potier had clattered out of the room, and across +the hall, and down the kitchen stairs to make the coffee. +Behind those little black beady eyes of hers she hoarded +the knowledge of well-nigh unspeakable things. She had +been faithful in guarding them from the knowledge of +Juliette. But now she had said to P. C. Breagh: "You +must speak to-night, Monsieur! We have done our best, +but we two cannot keep from the poor little lady that +to-day the King of Prussia will enter Versailles!" +</p> + +<p> +She had given him a look as she had left the dining room +that had said: "Remember!" P. C. Breagh, nerving himself +to the ugly task, felt like one who seethes the kid in its +mother's milk. +</p> + +<p> +As he pondered, something cool and fragrant struck him +on the forehead. He picked up the red carnation that had +fallen upon the dessert plate before him. He inhaled its +fragrance lingeringly, holding it so as to hide his mouth. +Over it his troubled gray eyes scanned the face that was all +alight with sparkling gayety. Why had Juliette thrown the +flower? Why had she challenged him? She, who had up to +this moment been decorous and reserved almost to stiffness. +Was it true that in every woman lives a coquette? +</p> + +<p> +She was asking herself the same question, pierced by the +conviction that her grandmother would have been horrified. +But it had been impossible not to hurl the perfumed missile +at the brooding face with its smear of dark-red meeting +eyebrows, and the short, square nose and the pleasant lips. +</p> + +<p> +He had on the shabby suit of brown, for his funds did +not permit of a visit to the tailor. His new linen was +spotless, and under the narrow turned-down collar he wore +a loose-ended black silk tie. The bow was pulled out upon +one side so much longer than upon the other that +Mademoiselle's feminine fingers itched to adjust it. How +careless he was in matters of dress, this adorable young +Englishman! +</p> + +<p> +She was restless this evening. He had aroused her +curiosity. Some hours after she had retired upon the previous +night she had risen, and stolen barefooted to the open window +that looked upon the moonlit garden, and parted the +thin curtains that hung before it, and peeped out.... +</p> + +<p> +There was not a breath of air to bring the autumn leaves +down. A white dew sparkled on the turf that Breagh kept +closely cut. The countless clocks of the white town of +royal palaces tinkled and chimed and belled and boomed +out the witching hour of two. +</p> + +<p> +Her room was on the east front, facing the garden.... +A downward glance showed her that Breagh was pacing +there. +</p> + +<p> +Up and down, backward and forward, leaving black +prints of footsteps upon the lawn that was all be-gemmed +with dewdrops. The presence of so many reservoirs makes +Versailles more than a trifle damp. +</p> + +<p> +How rash!... How unwise! Did the young man desire +a fever? Juliette, accustomed of old to subject her +Colonel, for his health's sake, to a daughterly surveillance, +had a lecture ready on the tip of her tongue. She might +have spoken, had not the patroling figure come to a standstill, +and looked up wistfully at her shrouded window, and +said something in a low, dogged, dejected tone, and shaken +his head and gone away. +</p> + +<p> +"I've got to tell!—and I don't want to tell!—and I don't +know how to tell, that's the bother of it!... Give it up!... +For another night!" +</p> + +<p> +Without the muttered words, the glance and the headshake +would have conveyed his doubt and his perplexity, to +the subject of his sore reflections, returning in a flutter of +strange, sweet wonder, and expectation, to her recently +vacated couch. +</p> + +<p> +You may imagine how she tossed and turned, seeing his +miserable gray eyes looking at her out of the shadows in +the corners. Those eyes could blaze in tigerish fashion +when he was angry, for she had seen.... When she had +crept from under my Cousin Boisset's death bed, they had +flamed with a wonderful light of joy and triumph, and +when he had caught her fiercely to his breast.... +</p> + +<p> +Oh! to be snatched again into those strong young arms, +and held against the heart that shook one with its beating.... +Was it wicked to feel that one hated Charles Tessier? +Was it unnatural, in these days of mourning, to think of +anyone except her lost Colonel?... Was it not +exceedingly unmaidenly to determine that Monica's brother +should say whatever it was he had got to say, and did not +want to say, and did not know how to say, no later than the +following night?... +</p> + +<p> +True—she had purposefully conveyed to him the impression +that she was married, but she would explain that she +had meant that she would be by and by.... Alas! what +would her grandmother, that sainted woman, have said +regarding this lapse from the way of truth? +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap63"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXIII +</h3> + +<p> +But she certainly had not planned to throw the carnation. +The missile hurled, she had been seized with paralyzing +fright. The shade of her grandmother seemed to rise, +appalling in its shocked propriety. One could almost hear +her saying: "<i>My unhappy child, you have become more +like your mother than I could have believed, had I not +seen!...</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Now in sheer desperation she mocked on, dissembling +her terror. +</p> + +<p> +"What is the matter? Why are you so dull and <i>distrait</i>? +Are you tired of living shut up in a garden? Answer +me, I pray you, Monsieur!" +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her, and his cleft chin squared itself, and +his broad red eyebrows lowered into a line of determination. +He said doggedly: +</p> + +<p> +"The happiest time of my life has been spent shut up in +this garden! I believe you know that very well!" +</p> + +<p> +She burst into silver laughter and cried to him teasingly: +</p> + +<p> +"But you did not look at all happy when I peeped at +you in the night from my window. See! Thus, with the +hands miles deep in the pockets, and the shoulders elevated +to the tips of the ears!" +</p> + +<p> +She jumped up and mimicked the slouching gait of the +midnight cogitator, brilliantly and with fidelity, parading +between the dinner table and the long windows that opened +toward the lawn. He recognized himself, and reddened, +while he laughed with vexation. He had never before seen +her in this mood of Puck-like mischief. He had yet to +become acquainted with another phase of Juliette. +</p> + +<p> +"Did you learn to act so well at your Convent?" he +asked her, and she answered with sudden gravity: +</p> + +<p> +"Acting can never be learned, Monsieur.... It is a +gift, of the good angels or the bad ones, which can be +brought to perfection by use. To 'make' an artist of the +stage is not possible. He or she is born ... and that is all +I know...." She added: "When I make my appearance +at the Théâtre Français, they shall send you a <i>billet +de faveur</i>. Then you shall see acting. I promise you!" +</p> + +<p> +She was more like Queen Titania than ever as she held +up her fairy finger, and smiled and sparkled at the +bewildered young man. +</p> + +<p> +"For example, if MM. les Directeurs assign to me the +part of a grandmother of sixty, do you think I shall put +on wrinkles with paint? ... <i>Non, merci</i>! The true artist +says to herself, '<i>I am old!</i>' and she is old.... '<i>I am ugly!</i>' +and she becomes hideous. '<i>I am wicked!</i>' See here!... Is +this a face to regard with love, Monsieur?" +</p> + +<p> +The last sentence had been croaked, rather than spoken. +No Japanese mask of a witch could well have been more +furrowed, puckered, scowling, or malignant than the face +that had been Titania's a moment back. Breagh called +out in protest, half angry, half amused, wholly fascinated; +and Oberon's bright Queen came back again to say: +</p> + +<p> +"Or I can be stupid, very stupid—if that will please +you!... Gentlemen sometimes admire stupid girls.... +We had one at the Convent—your countrywoman and a +great heiress. Miss Smizz—the daughter of Smizz and Co., +Tea Merchants, of Mincing Lane." +</p> + +<p> +She banished all expression save a smile of absolute +fatuity, puffed out her cheeks, narrowed her eyelids, +permitting her eyes to twinkle through the merest slits. She +giggled inanely, and said, combining the consonantal +thickness of catarrh with the gobbling of a hen-turkey... +</p> + +<p> +"All the eggstras.... Whad does expedse battere whed +you've got a Forchud to fall bag od? Besides, Ba says I +bust barry iddo the Beerage, ad accoblishbeds are dod +usually expegded of a doblebad's wife!" +</p> + +<p> +She added, in her own voice, summarily banishing Miss +Smith, her expectations, and her splutter: +</p> + +<p> +"Do not be vexed with me, Monsieur Breagh, I beg of +you!... I am perhaps a little excited. There is something +strange in the air.... I have a humming in my ears +as though great crowds of people were talking very softly.... +What is it?" she asked in bewilderment, pressing the +fine points of her small fingers into her temples. "What is +the matter with me to-night?..." +</p> + +<p> +Then P. C. Breagh spoke out, in a tone that hurled a +challenge to Destiny: +</p> + +<p> +"There is nothing the matter with you!... That is the +glory of it! You were ill, and now you are well.... You +can laugh again, and sleep again, and cook a dinner and +help to eat it.... You have made capital use of your +time!... For we came here on the twenty-first of August, +and this is the fifth of October. We have been shut +up in a garden, as you say yourself, for more than six +weeks!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Can it be possible?" +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him intently and realized his earnestness. +He answered with a glow of pride in his work: +</p> + +<p> +"Fact! And in all the time you have never seen a +newspaper or asked a question about the War. Even when you +have heard the great guns firing from the forts below +Paris—Issy and Vanves and Montrouge and the rest—you never +said a word that showed you noticed.... Do you know +why?..." +</p> + +<p> +His voice wavered exultantly. She looked at him and +slightly shook her head. +</p> + +<p> +"No!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Because I willed you to. By George! there are times +when I believe that even yet I'd make a doctor. Mental +suggestion was the line I took with you...." He rubbed +his hands. "Not that I could have done anything without +the help of Madame Potier—first-class little woman!—regular +brick that she is!... You see, your brain had sucked +up all the trouble it was capable of holding. You wanted +rest.... Well, you've had it, thank God! Night after +night I've walked up and down, backward and forward, on +the lawn, just as you saw me doing last night, saying: +'Sleep! Forget! You have my orders to!" +</p> + +<p> +The tone of mastery thrilled, even while the muscles of +her mouth twitched with repressed laughter. He was +beautiful in her eyes as he leaned forward smiling at her. +She said, repressing her tears, and concealing her +admiration: +</p> + +<p> +"But last night you did not say 'Sleep!' but something +else, Monsieur...." +</p> + +<p> +There was a swift change in him, telling her that for +once he was not listening. His eyes were alert, his ear +eagerly drank in a sound composed of many sounds that +grew louder as they came more near. Now the whole room +was full of the trampling of horses and the fainter clink of +spur and scabbard and bridle.... Cavalry were passing +up one of the great avenues south of the Rue de Provence—not +the Avenue of St. Cloud—probably the Rue des +Chantiers—there was a distant roar of cheers.... Then in +one little oasis of silence came the rolling of carriages, and +then the walls shivered with the roaring of lusty lungs: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Hoch der König! Hoch der Kronprinz!</i>"—and the +shouts were drowned in a great burst of martial music, and +the trampling of men and horses, mingled with the beat of +drums and the blare of trumpets, rolled on tumultuously +again. +</p> + +<p> +The blood ebbed from Juliette's cheeks and lips to her +heart as she listened. Then the double doors of the dining +room were butted open with the corner of a wooden coffee +tray, and Madame Potier appeared with a steaming pot +and two cups. She was pale round the hectic patches that +blazed in her thin face. Her black eyes leaped to Breagh's +with an eager question in them ... "<i>Have you told her?</i>" +... and he answered with an almost imperceptible shake +of the head. +</p> + +<p> +Then before either of them knew, Juliette had risen. She +went to the little woman and kissed her on the cheek. She +said, taking one of the gnarled work-worn hands in one of +hers and holding out the other to Carolan: +</p> + +<p> +"Dear friends, to whom I owe so much, tell me now +what in your great compassion you have kept from me. +For I think the time has come when I must hear!" +</p> + +<p> +The time had come, indeed, with the ring of Prussian +cavalry hoofs upon the ancient cobblestones, and the roll +of the carriages that came with them. And before either +of those the girl addressed could speak in answer, the +resonant sound of a Prussian trumpet pierced their silence: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Clear the way! Clear the way! Here comes the King!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +And followed a cry, pitiful as the wail of a hare in a gin +trap: "Those are Prussians!" ... and another scream, +shrill and thin and clear.... Then a crash!... Madame +Potier had dropped her coffee tray.... Before the +hot steam of the spilled liquid rose up from the Tessier +carpet, the small hand Breagh had clasped was suddenly, +violently snatched from him. He sprang to his feet, but +Madame Potier had been quicker than he. She had caught +the girl round the waist, and now wrestled with her.... +The silent, desperate strife was horrible. The slender +black-clad figure writhed for freedom like a snake.... +Then all at once the life seemed to go out of it.... They +carried her to the sofa and laid her down.... +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur should have told her!" Madame Potier said +angrily. "Why leave it to the Prussians to break the +news?..." Tears were running down her cheeks as she +unfastened the girl's dress, and rubbed the limp hands, +while Breagh dropped Cognac between the little teeth, a +drop or two at a time. +</p> + +<p> +And presently Juliette was looking at them, not wildly, +and Madame Potier was answering: "It was nothing!... +Madame was startled into an attack of faintness when +I was so clumsy as to drop the coffee tray. Now I shall go +and get more, and Monsieur will talk quietly to Madame +as she lies there. She must hear everything that we have +kept from her.... Yes, yes! that is quite understood!" +</p> + +<p> +And she clumped away, with a backward glance of disdain +directed at the masculine boggler, and Breagh drew a +chair near the sofa where his wan Infanta lay, and sat +down and told her all. +</p> + +<p> +Red sunset flooded the autumn garden as he talked. Not +a leaf stirred, hardly a bird uttered a nooning note. But +the strange sound that had haunted not only the ears of +Juliette went on incessantly. It was the sighing and +whispering and muttering of the vast crowds that had filled the +Rue des Chantiers behind the lines of troops to witness +the entrance of the conquerors, and now gorged the great +Place of the Prefecture (above whose entrance flaunted +the standard of the Hohenzollerns)—filled the upper end +of the Avenue de Paris—and surged over the vast expanse +of the Place d'Armes, beating in black and restless human +waves against the lofty blue and golden railings of the +Royal Château, above whose golden dome floated the +black-and-white Prussian Standard and the white Flag with the +red Geneva Cross. +</p> + +<p> +We know what he had to tell her.... The false step of +MacMahon, the unavailing attempt of Bazaine to break out +of Metz, the conflict on the Meuse, ending in defeat and +the loss of 7,000 prisoners with guns and transport. The +flight and escape of the Emperor to the fortress city of +Sedan.... The battle between the ill-led, unfed, dispirited +French forces and the Three Armies. The taking of 20,000 +French prisoners, the wound of MacMahon, leading to his +resignation of the chief command into the hands of General +Wimpffen, summoned from his command in Algeria in time +to capitulate. The pitiable surrender of the Emperor's +sword to the King of Prussia. His transport into Belgium +as a prisoner of War. The flight of the Empress from the +Tuileries. The formation at Paris of the New Government +of National Defense. The entry of the King of Prussia +into Rheims, and the arrival of the First and Third Armies +in force before Paris. The fight upon the heights of +Châtillon—the defeat of Ducrot by a Bavarian Division—the +German advance upon Nemours and Pitiviers—the investment +of the capital, now encircled with an iron ring. +</p> + +<p> +For three days the Crown Prince had been established +with his Staff at the Prefecture. This day had seen +the Great Headquarters of the Prussian King removed +to Versailles, from Baron Rothschild's Castle of +Ferrières.... +</p> + +<p> +Truly it had been time to break the news to Juliette. +She lay still during the recital, only quivering now and +then. She drank the coffee when Madame Potier brought +it, and thanked the faithful soul affectionately. When the +gas lamps were lighted, and the shutters shut, she bade +P. C. Breagh good night in a faint whisper, and gave him +both hands, saying with a liquid glance: +</p> + +<p> +"Thank you, my friend!..." +</p> + +<p> +He whispered as he kissed the little fingers: +</p> + +<p> +"You will sleep to-night, will you not?..." +</p> + +<p> +And she nodded in assent. But when he had gone to +his bed at the cottage, the old terrible thoughts came +crowding back. +</p> + +<p> +That electrifying blast of glorious sound from the silver +instrument of the Great Staff trumpeter had wakened and +brought them like hornets buzzing and stinging about her +ears.... She longed for her friend, but he had departed. +And the loneliness was too terrible to bear. +</p> + +<p> +She caught up a little white shawl that she had brought +with her, and often wore when walking in the garden upon +chilly evenings, or going to Mass in the early mornings, +before the sunshine had warmed the air. One turn of the +wrist draped it faultlessly about her head and body. Thus +shielded, she went into the hall, and laid her hand upon the +lock of the door. +</p> + +<p> +As she did so, cavalry horses ridden at a sharp trot came +clattering down the cobbled street. They were pulled up +outside the Tessier mansion. There was an imperious tug +at the gate bell. She waited for the opening of the kitchen +door. +</p> + +<p> +Then she heard it unlocked, and the clatter of Madame +Potier's clogs upon the terrace. <i>Klop—klop—klop!</i> they +crossed the leads, descended the three steps that led to the +gravel walk, and went on to the iron gate. It was locked, +as always, in the absence of Madame Tessier. Presently +the keys clashed, the lock scrooped back from the mortise, +and the hinges uttered a protesting cry.... +</p> + +<p> +Then the harsh tones of a man, speaking French with a +frightful German accent, turned the listening girl to ice. +There was an exclamation from Madame Potier, a rejoinder +in the stranger's gutturals. A horse trampled. The rough +voice of the rider swore at the brute in German. Then +there was a clatter of boots upon the pavement, with a +great clinking of spurs and scabbard, and the now-dismounted +rider said in his infamous French jargon: +</p> + +<p> +"Go you before and open! His Excellency is coming in!" +</p> + +<p> +Terrified, Madame Potier obeyed ... scuttling across +the terrace like a frightened beetle. Juliette, paralyzed +with horror, heard the heavy spurred footsteps crunch and +jingle up the gravel walk and ascend the steps to the hall +door. Almost directly, as little Madame Potier darted +panting up the stairs from the kitchen, the hall doorbell +clanged a deafening peal. +</p> + +<p> +A carriage had rolled down the Rue de Provence, and +stopped before the smaller gate, ere the doorbell's iron +echoes had ceased shouting through the house of the +Tessiers. There were other voices at the gate, other footsteps +upon the gravel.... They mounted the steps. A +resonant, unforgotten voice said to the ringer in German: +</p> + +<p> +"The Herr Intendant General may spare himself the +trouble.... I will interview the people of the house +myself!" +</p> + +<p> +The person addressed replied in the harsh tones that +had terrified Madame Potier: +</p> + +<p> +"But supposing Your Excellency be met with some insolence?..." +</p> + +<p> +The resonant voice answered with a smile in it: "In +that case, Herr Intendant General, my Excellency will take +the risk. There are only women in the house, and should +they offer violence, I have Count Hatzfeldt and Count +Bismarck-Böhlen here!..." +</p> + +<p> +There was a laugh—gay, mellow, and careless—and a +young man's voice answered: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Excellency may safely rely on our protection!" +</p> + +<p> +There was another laugh. Under cover of it, Madame +Potier hissed into the head folds of the white shawl: +</p> + +<p> +"They have quartered the Prussian Chancellor and the +Foreign Office upon us. That is what the sacred brute in +the big boots and spectacles shouted, when I went down +to open the front gate.... What is the Prussian Foreign +Office?" +</p> + +<p> +From the white folds of the shawl a sibilant whisper +hissed at her: +</p> + +<p> +"It is a man. They call him Count Bismarck. Now +if you love me, be quiet, and watch and listen. He shall +ring the bell with his own hand.... Then I open the +door!..." +</p> + +<p> +"But, Madame!..." whispered the distracted caretaker. +</p> + +<p> +No verbal answer.... The white shawl pulled closer, +shrouding round the slender form and girlish features. A +little hand, firm and unfaltering, ready upon the latch of +the door. +</p> + +<p> +Poor Potier whimpered.... +</p> + +<p> +"Madame Charles.... My child! my treasure! for the +love of Christ and Mary!... Tell me what you are going +to do!" +</p> + +<p> +The bell rang again, with a new and imperious hand +upon it. She well knew whose was the hand. And the +snow-water in her veins became liquid fire. She threw +open the hall door and stepped back to admit the Man of +Iron. +</p> + +<p> +He stood upon the doorsteps like the house's master, a +huge dominating figure, dressed as she had seen him on +the battlefield of Gravelotte, in his high black, +pewter-buttoned military frock and white peaked Cuirassier cap, +riding cords, and great black jack-boots with long steel +spurs. He was powdered with dust as a man newly come +off a journey, though his boots were clean, for he had +driven in a carriage from Ferriéres. Upon the step below +him stood Count Hatzfeldt, his First Secretary, a man of +thirty, tall, broad-shouldered, and <i>débonnaire</i>, wearing, as +did Bismarck-Böhlen, the semi-military Foreign Office +undress. The lean trap-jawed personage in a dark uniform +with velvet facings, whom we must recognize as the Intendant +General, waited in the background, glaring through +his spectacles at the tardy portress in the white shawl, and +the peaked face and flaring black eyes of little Madame +Potier, who stood beside her mistress as ready to spit +and scratch for her sake as a pussy cat to defend its +young. +</p> + +<p> +There was no pause. The dominating figure stepped +into the hall. His great Cuirassier sword clanked on the +threshold. He touched the peak of his cap with his bare +right hand, and said, looking down from his great height +upon the women: +</p> + +<p> +"This is the house of the Famille Tessier?" +</p> + +<p> +One of the women, who was swaddled in a white shawl, +dropped him a stiff little middle-class reverence. Behind +her, the other bobbed a serving woman's curtsy. He went +on, addressing White Shawl as the superior: +</p> + +<p> +"This house, Madame, has been selected as the official +residence of the Prussian Foreign Office. We shall pay +you an adequate sum for our accommodation, and remain +here some weeks ... possibly three." +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at Hatzfeldt, and said with a flicker of +sardonic humor playing in his heavy blue eyes, and about the +corners of the deeply cut mouth that was masked by the +heavy iron-gray mustache: +</p> + +<p> +"Though the actual duration of the visit depends—not +upon ourselves—but upon the decision of the United +German Powers, and the position which they shall decide to +take up with regard to Conditions of Peace. We are not +the invited guests of France, whose stay can be cut short +because our manners do not prepossess our hostess. We +came because we thought it advisable ... we will go when +it is convenient to depart!" +</p> + +<p> +"If Jules Faure could hear Your Excellency!..." said +Bismarck-Böhlen, grinning. +</p> + +<p> +"He would cast up his fine eyes more tragically than he +did at Ferrières," said Hatzfeldt, "when the three words, +'<i>Forfeiture of Territory</i>,' drew from them so many +patriotic tears...." +</p> + +<p> +"He is a weeper," said the Minister, pulling off his left +glove, "and Wimpffen was a posturer, with his '<i>Moi, soldat +de l'Armée Français</i>'—and the Duke of FitzJames is a +manufacturer of bugaboos.... Our German caricaturists +should draw him as a pavement artist, holding the hat +beside a horrible red-and-yellow chalk picture of our +atrocious cruelties in Bazeilles." +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap64"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXIV +</h3> + +<p> +We know that Bazeilles had been on the thirty-first of +August a town of 2,000 inhabitants, mostly weavers, gathered +about the ancient château that sheltered the boyhood +of the great Turenne. Bazeilles had not observed the +Law of the Neutrality of the non-combatant. The village +had formed the extreme right of the French position on the +day of the Battle of Sedan. Lebrun's Corps had occupied +it, and its inhabitants had been seized with the fighting +fever, and had helped to hold back a Bavarian Division for +nearly six hours. Elderly civilians armed with antiquated +rifles had displayed desperate bravery. One old woman, +possessed of an ancient horse pistol, is said to have shot +down three of the enemy. The men, their women and +children, were now cinders mixed with heaps of calcined +brickbats. The grim lesson had been taught very +thoroughly. Bazeilles served as an object-lesson on Prussian +methods throughout the remainder of the War. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>I will remember Bazeilles!</i>" had flashed through the +young head that was swaddled in white woolen. "<i>My +friend shall not forget to tell me what was done there!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +But the imperious hand of the Minister was upon the +door of the billiard room. She saw it summarily thrown +open. He went in, followed by Hatzfeldt, Bismarck-Böhlen +at their heels. +</p> + +<p> +"Capital!" he said to them. "We will have this arranged +as a Bureau for the Councilors, the dispatch secretaries, +and the cipherers. What is this?" He went to the +glass door that led into the winter garden, looked through, +and commented: "One could smoke a cigar here after +dinner in wet weather; very well, it seems to me!" +</p> + +<p> +</p> + +<p> +The owner of the quick ears sheltered by the shawl of +white woolen understood but little German, as she had +previously said to her absent comrade. But what slight +lore she had in the abhorred tongue had been gained in +conversation with a Prussian mistress. She found that, +thanks to the enemy's clear, melodious diction, she had no +great difficulty in comprehending the substance of what +he said. +</p> + +<p> +His long heavy strides carried him next into the drawing-room, +that apartment destined to become famous in history +as the seat of the various negotiations which led to the +treaties with the States of South Germany, the proclamation +of the King of Prussia as German Emperor, and later, +to the surrender of the City of Paris, and the settlement of +the Conditions of Peace. The simply furnished, medium-sized +room boasted a few mediocre oil paintings, a cottage +piano, a sofa, some easy-chairs, and wall mirrors framed in +handsomely wrought ormolu. Upon a little table against +the wall stood an old-world timepiece, surmounted by a +bronze figure with fiendish attributes, which engaged his +attention curiously. His great laugh burst out, as he +contemplated the grotesque. +</p> + +<p> +"Now," he said, his voice still shaken by amusement, +"if that malignant little demon be a model of the guardian +spirit of the Famille Tessier, the Socialists and Ultramontane +will be of opinion that I have come to the right +shop!" +</p> + +<p> +The young men laughed at the jest uproariously. He +joined them, crushing down their lighter merriment with +a mirthful giant's thunderous "Ha, ha!..." Then the +double doors of the drawing-room opened. He came out +with his followers into the hall place, demanding of little +Madame Potier in fluent French whether gas was laid on in +the rooms above: +</p> + +<p> +"I think it probable, for you are a luxurious people in +your habits, even down to the <i>bourgeoisie</i> and peasantry of +France. At home, I am accustomed to go to bed with a +candle, and blow it out when I get between the sheets. But +here in Gallia I shall do as the Gauls!" +</p> + +<p> +"There is gas in the bedrooms, Monseigneur!" shrilled +White Shawl. +</p> + +<p> +"So!" He looked down from his great height upon the +speaker. She caught up a box of matches from the hall +table and thrust it into Madame Potier's shaking hand.... +</p> + +<p> +"Go up quickly. Light the gas in the bedrooms. +Monseigneur wishes to examine them all!" She added in her +shrill voice: "They are in use at the moment, but can be +vacated and got ready for the occupation of Monseigneur +in something less than half an hour!" She broke off to +shriek to the ascending Madame Potier.... "Quicker, +Jeannette! Thou art always as slow as a tortoise!... But +I come myself!..." And with a halting, shuffling +gait which made Count Bismarck-Böhlen grin, and even +the polished Hatzfeldt put up his eyeglass, she jerked +across the beeswaxed parquet of the hall, and mounted the +gray-and-red drugget-covered stairs. +</p> + +<p> +What virtue lies in contrasts! When Juliette de Bayard +walked, you learned what poetry could be in simple motion. +Her skirts had a rhythmic swing and flow. Those little +feet of hers made twenty steps to the stride of an ordinary +English girl. At Mass, when folded in her white School +veil, she advanced to the Communion rail to receive the +Blessed Sacrament, she swam, she rocked as though +upborne on waves of buoyant ether. Watching her, you +would have said that thus Our Lady must have glided +onward, bearing the gracious burden of her Divine Child. +</p> + +<p> +This peacock-voiced creature who hid under a white +shawl what the men who sneered at her dimly felt must +be a countenance ugly to repulsiveness, had one shoulder +thrust upward and forward, reaching nearly to the ear on +that side.... A palpable curvature of the spine caused +the curious gait, and possibly to this deformity might be +attributed the voice that was so harsh, raucous, and +torturing to the ear. +</p> + +<p> +"Do not laugh.... It is pitiable rather than ridiculous," +she heard her enemy say, in his own tongue. +</p> + +<p> +Hot wrath, fulminating indignation, mingled in Juliette +with the pride of the comedian who has made an effective +exit.... To be pitied by him, and for a second time! +That liquid flame that circulated through her veins, +illuminated her brain in its every cell and convolution. By its +lurid light she saw her own intention in all its ugliness. +Was she to blame, who had fled from this her destiny? Had +she sought for her vengeance? Of his own will had he not +come, this world-shaking Colossus, to find his Fate waiting +for him? +</p> + +<p> +And Breagh. What of her promise to her comrade? +The thought was a knife-keen stab compelling a shriek. +She stifled it in the folds of the shawl, bent down her head, +and with an exaggeration of the grotesque gait, scuttled +upstairs with the agility of an escaping spider, provoking +a guffaw from the Twopenny Roué, a laugh from the well-bred +Hatzfeldt, even a deep chuckle from the Enemy. Let +him laugh! As she fled from room to room, and the gas-jets +leaped up flaring and shrieking under her small, fierce +hand, like little Furies and Vengeances, and tell-tale +articles of feminine attire and use were caught up and thrust +into a small portmanteau, she bade him laugh as much as he +would. As she opened a cupboard by the chimney-piece +where Madame Tessier had kept medicine and cosmetics, +and took from the shelf a flat-topped, wide-mouthed +chemist's vial, and thrust it within her dress, deep into her +bosom, she told herself that France should laugh before +long! +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, her enemy and France's waited, chatting in +the hall at the foot of the stair. When she descended, he +went up with Hatzfeldt and Bismarck-Böhlen, and made a +brief inspection of the rooms. His own choice was made +with the least delay possible. Opening from the square, +skylighted landing at the head of the main staircase, was +a room, some ten paces long and seven broad, lighted by +one window on the right side of the main front, looking +toward the stables, and commanding a view of the pleasance +and shrubbery from two more windows in the eastward +wall. This apartment, which was partly above the +dining room, and had been occupied by Madame Charles +Tessier, the Minister appropriated to his own use. A second +room, communicating with this, and looking on the pleasance, +and boasting also a glass window door leading out +upon the iron bridge topping the conservatory on the south +side, he set apart for Bismarck-Böhlen. +</p> + +<p> +A somewhat better-furnished room looking upon the +Rue de Provence would serve, as would the drawing-room +upon the ground floor, for the reception of strangers and +guests. Privy Councilor Abeken would occupy the bedroom +next to this, also with an outlook upon the Rue de +Provence. A tiny cell near the back stairs, only big enough +to hold a bed, chest of drawers, and washstand, was set +apart for Secretary Bolsing. Upon the second floor +Dr. Busch or Privy Councilor Bucher would occupy the best +bedroom, the two Prussian body servants from the +Wilhelm-Strasse sleeping in the attic overhead. The two +remaining chambers on the second floor—small, angular, +ill-ventilated places—the women of the house were free to +move into, and retain, if they desired. "Only in that +case," said the masterful voice, "they must contribute their +services toward keeping the house in order. Where I +live, there must be no idlers. That is understood!" +</p> + +<p> +Below in the hall, White Shawl and Madame Potier +heard his strong laugh echoing amid the empty chambers +and his heavy stride shaking the rafters above their heads. +</p> + +<p> +"I am pleased with my room, though it has a window +opening toward the stables, where the detachment of troops +supplying the sentries will be quartered for the present, +with my orderly and coachman and the two grooms. But +common sights do not annoy me, any more than common +noises, and there are two other windows overlooking the +park. The trees in their autumn coloring will remind me +of my own woodlands at home. Altogether the place has +been chosen intelligently. A more roomy and better-furnished +house might afford spiteful people an excuse to +accuse the Chancellor of the Confederated States of +luxury—the love of which has never been a besetting sin of mine. +True, I must have a table supplied well, punctually, and +generously.... That is always an understood thing. A +<i>sine qua non</i>, in fact.... The King is quite aware of this.... +I told him again yesterday, ... '<i>Sire, I must be fed +properly if I am to make proper terms of peace!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +His great laugh sounded again as he came trampling +downstairs, bringing with him a masculine perfume of +Russian leather and cigars of super-excellent quality. And +Hatzfeldt was saying in his languid, well-bred accents: +</p> + +<p> +"With Your Excellency's permission, I will now take +leave of you—I must go and see the place where I am +quartered. It is at No. 25, Avenue St. Cloud." +</p> + +<p> +"So, then.... A pretty good distance from the Chancellor +of the Confederation, should he require at some +unusual hour the services of his First Secretary.... You +will have to find the Count more convenient lodgings." The +Minister turned to the Intendant General, who barked: +</p> + +<p> +"At Your Excellency's honorable orders, the change +shall be immediately made!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, for Heaven's sake, not to-night!" expostulated +Hatzfeldt, with graceful peevishness. "I am horribly done +up with the heat and the dust we had on our way here. +Why should the King have dragged us to Choissy-le-Roi, +in order to see the troops? Cannot he see troops every +hour of his existence? Ah, by the way! Did Your Excellency +notice that at Villeneuve St. George the bridge of +boats had been blown up?" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister shrugged: +</p> + +<p> +"Who can understand this destructive mania? It is a +national disease peculiar to the French. Since the beginning +of the war, they have destroyed bridges and railways +to the tune of millions—for the sheer pleasure, one would +suppose, of building them up again. Well, good night!" He +held out his hand pleasantly to Hatzfeldt. "Good +night to you, Herr Intendant General!" +</p> + +<p> +The Intendant saluted stiffly and barked in his peculiar +style: +</p> + +<p> +"I wish a very good night to Your Excellency!" Then +he clanked down the steps after Hatzfeldt and over the +gravel walk to the front gate. +</p> + +<p> +"I know what Count Paul has it in his mind to do," +chuckled Bismarck-Böhlen, looking after them. "He will +take a bath and dine at the Hôtel des Réservoirs." +</p> + +<p> +"It would not be a bad plan to follow his example," said +the Minister, "since some of the Foreign Office <i>fourgons</i> +may be late in getting here. Unless Madame Tessier is +prepared to supply us with a dinner upon the spur of the +call?" +</p> + +<p> +He added: +</p> + +<p> +"Come, shut the hall door. I see they have already +placed sentries. The grooms and Niederstedt will bring +in the luggage by the back door and up the servants' +staircase." He continued as Bismarck-Böhlen obeyed: "They +are particular about such matters in French houses, where +there is so much wax polishing of the floors and woodwork. +Where are the women? ... There were two. A <i>bonne</i> and +her mistress, the proprietress...." His powerful glance +fell upon them standing near the doorway of the dining-room. +He motioned them to enter, and followed them in. +</p> + +<p> +"Madame Tessier!" he began, taking as by right the +chair at the head of the long shining dinner table, upon +which the tapestry cloth had not yet been replaced. He +looked at White Shawl. The shrill voice cackled: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame Tessier is in Belgium.... I am Madame +Charles Tessier, the wife of Monsieur, her son!" +</p> + +<p> +He said in his excellent French, laying on the table the +flat white Cuirassier cap he had removed on entering: +</p> + +<p> +"I congratulate M. Tessier! Can your servant cook, +Madame?" +</p> + +<p> +The shrill voice responded: +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur must be judge of that when he has tried +her dishes. She does her best—the excellent Jeannette! But +if Monseigneur is to be served as befits his state and +consequence ... I should prefer to cook for him myself!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>So!</i>" He leaned one elbow on the table, meditatively +regarding the speaker, and the lambent blue flame of humor +danced and flickered in his eyes: "Since we do not require +you and your domestic to leave the house—only to confine +yourselves to the two smaller bedrooms on the second floor—it +may be as well that you should assist to a degree in +the kitchen.... But for all that does not require women +we have our servants—you understand? And the <i>chef</i> +attached to the service of the Prussian Chancellery is +extremely competent. He is—rather a personage in his +way!" +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck-Böhlen sniggered in his characteristic fashion. +</p> + +<p> +White Shawl shrilled, gesticulating with a hand that +resembled a claw: +</p> + +<p> +"If your Prussian cooks better than I do—or even the +<i>chef</i> of our <i>gredin</i> of an Emperor, he may call me a +Bonapartist and I will not slap his face!" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister drew his well-shaped sunbrowned hand over +his mustache, perhaps to hide a smile at the epithet. +He asked with his powerful glance intent upon Madame +Charles Tessier: +</p> + +<p> +"So, then, you are not a lover of the Bonapartes? What +is your party? Are you Republican or Monarchist?" +</p> + +<p> +She shrieked with raucous energy: +</p> + +<p> +"I am a patriot, and a citizeness of the French Republic! +All my life I have execrated the Bonapartes. See you +well—I do not love Prussians!... But you have humiliated +and dethroned this sacred pig of a Napoleon.... And for +that I could kiss the hand that received his sword!" +</p> + +<p> +The person to whom the shrill tirade was addressed +listened with imperturbability, although Bismarck-Böhlen, +standing on the other side of the table, between the +windows, involuntarily clapped his hands to his sorely +sacrificed ears. +</p> + +<p> +Now the Minister said in his suavest French accents: +</p> + +<p> +"The hand was not mine, Madame, I beg to assure you, +but that of the King of Prussia, who is hardly likely to +pay us a visit here.... Should His Majesty elect to do so, +your ambition may be partially gratified. You will see +the monarch who has paid your Imperial bugbear so +thoroughly well in his own coin." +</p> + +<p> +Here Bismarck-Böhlen broke in.... "Excellency! ... talking +of coin ... you told me to remind you of what +happened the other day...." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, so I did!" said he. "It is a mere coincidence, but +worth remembering.... Upon leaving the weaver's hovel, +near the village of Donchery, outside which you and Leverstrom +waited while I discussed the terms of the capitulation +with Napoleon in a garret containing a table, a bed, +and two rush-bottomed chairs, the French Emperor +presented five pieces of gold to the weaver, which Leverstrom +afterward told me he vainly endeavored to buy of the man. +His stupidity or the weaver's, we will not say now which +was the greater!... But the coins displayed in unbroken +sequence—the portraits of five rulers of France. There +was Napoleon I., imperially wreathed, on a fine fat piece of +1820; a Louis XVIII., inane and aristocratic; a Charles X., +with the knob in his nose; a Louis Philippe, looking like a +bourgeois, and Napoleon III., Emperor of Ready-Made +Plebiscites...." He broke off to say: "And now, Madame, +what news of this dinner? Can you supply it, or +must we go elsewhere? Decide. I am always an economist +of time!" +</p> + +<p> +And the penetrating glance shaded by the shaggy eyebrows +of the Minister questioned the meager peaked countenance +of which merely a wedge showed between the curtaining +folds of the white shawl.... Lover of good cheer +as he was, he was perhaps asking himself whether a +creature so mean and pinched-looking could set before him the +nourishing, well-flavored, well-cooked dishes, calculated to +restore energy to his giant's frame. She was studying the +face revealed in the circle of light cast downward by the +shaded lamps of the gasalier above the dinner table, half +loathing, half fascinated by the tremendous personality +now revealed. +</p> + +<p> +How much the published portraits of the man lacked, she +realized now, clearly. What mental and physical power, +and force, and energy were indicated in the lines of the +great domed skull and the astonishing frontal development. +What audacious courage and ironic humor were in the +regard of the full blue eyes that rested lightly upon her +own insignificance.... What deeply cut, pugnacious +nostrils he had; what a long stern upper lip the full gray +mustache curtained! He had a cleft in his chin that reminded +her of a friend she loved.... +</p> + +<p> +This last and the other characteristics of the visage that +confronted her were fuel to her roaring furnace of hate. A +baleful light blazed in the eyes she curtained from him. +Her heart seemed a goblet brimmed with intoxicating, +poisoned wine. And then a little thing tamed the snake in +her. It drew in its quivering, forked tongue, covered the +fangs that oozed with venom, lowered its hooded head, and +sank down, palpitating among its cold and scaly coils. +</p> + +<p> +With all its power, the profound weariness of his face +had suddenly come home to and arrested her. He looked, +as was indeed the fact, like a man who had not known a +good night's rest for weeks. There were sagging pouches +of exhaustion under the masterful eyes, and the lines about +the forehead and mouth and jaws were deeply trenched +with fatigue and anxiety. With pain, too, for he was +suffering from facial neuralgia brought on by nervous strain +and overexposure, and divers galls and blisters, the result +of days spent in the saddle by an elderly heavy-weight. +Now he yawned and leaned back in his creaking chair, and +suddenly was no despot helmed with terrors, armed with +power, mantled with ruthlessness, but a man fagged out, +and tired and hungry, athirst for rest and the comforts of +home. +</p> + +<p> +He had a wife living, she knew, and sons serving in the +Prussian Army. Perhaps he had a daughter who loved +him, too.... Perhaps she was thinking of him ... praying +for his return in safety.... Oh, God!... The dreadful +thought was not to be tolerated.... It must be driven +away ... banished from the mind, if one was to carry out +the plan.... +</p> + +<p> +All these thoughts volted through the brain under the +white shawl in the passing of an instant. The next, she +heard the shrill voice say: +</p> + +<p> +"It is for Monseigneur to decide!... There is no difficulty +about dinner—that is, provided Monseigneur can eat +a good soup of artichokes made with cream!..." +</p> + +<p> +His startlingly blue eyes laughed. He acquiesced, +seeming to snuff the air with his deeply cut nostrils. +</p> + +<p> +"There is nothing better than puree of artichokes—provided +it serves as the prelude to a solid, sustaining, and +well-cooked meal." +</p> + +<p> +White Shawl shrilled: +</p> + +<p> +"There might follow a six-pound trout, boiled, with +sauce <i>à la Tartare</i>.... One came in this afternoon, fresh +to a miracle, a fish from the Gauche near Montreuil." +</p> + +<p> +He said to Bismarck-Böhlen: +</p> + +<p> +"The trout of the Cauche are capital eating ... especially +those caught in the upper part of the stream, a mile +below Parenty. What else, Madame?" +</p> + +<p> +She proclaimed in the raucous voice that made +Bismarck-Böhlen grimace and shudder: +</p> + +<p> +"A dish of cutlets and a <i>ragoût</i> of partridges with little +cabbages. It is now upon the fire, simmering in the +casserole—I meant it for next day!" +</p> + +<p> +Like the trout, it had been designed for P. C. Breagh's +delectation. +</p> + +<p> +She added: +</p> + +<p> +"And there are a cold ham, a peach tart, and a jelly of +Maraschino, and I could toss up a savory omelette to +follow the sweet dishes. As for dessert ... we have pears +and plums from the garden.... But, Monseigneur..." It +was greed that made the woman's strange eyes glitter so +intolerably—"I shall be well paid for the excellent food +and all my trouble, shall I not, Monseigneur? ... In good +French money—not in Prussian notes?" +</p> + +<p> +Under the heavy mustache he showed his sound, even +teeth in a laugh of enjoyment. +</p> + +<p> +"In good French money. You have my promise. So—you +do not like our Prussian notes?" +</p> + +<p> +White Shawl screamed: +</p> + +<p> +"They are good where they come from, it may be, +Monseigneur!... But here—the people would as soon take +dead leaves for pay!..." +</p> + +<p> +He thrust his hand in his breeches pocket, pulled out a +gold Napoleon, and threw it ringing on the shining table. +Her eyes snapped. The little clawlike hand darted from +the folds of the enveloping white shawl and pounced on the +gold piece. She curtsied like an elder-pith puppet to the +great figure sitting at the table head, and with the extraordinary +gait that combined a hitch, twist, and shuffle, hobbled +out of the room, shrilling as the door closed behind +her: +</p> + +<p> +"Jeannette! Jeannette! Monseigneur will dine here! +Make you up the kitchen fire! I will go myself to the +cellar and get the fruit.... And the wine ... Monseigneur +will certainly require some wine! Later on you must help +me get ready the bedrooms. Put out sheets and pillow +cases to air!" +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck-Böhlen was saying, as he followed his great +relative into the drawing-room, and extended himself upon +the green plush sofa, as the Minister selected the largest +armchair, and lighted one of his huge cigars: +</p> + +<p> +"What a woman! What a voice!" +</p> + +<p> +The other laughed through the fragrant smoke rings: +</p> + +<p> +"You could say no more and no less of an operatic <i>diva</i>, +had you recently fallen a victim to her charms. My +landlady pleases me. My tastes, as you know, are somewhat +peculiar.... But you need not feel anxious on the +Countess's behalf. My sentiments in this instance are +highly platonic." He added, smoking and speaking almost +dreamily: "If in cookery Madame's performance equals +her promise, what with trout, and partridges <i>aux petit +choux</i>—cold ham to fall back on, and a savory omelette, we +ought not to do badly at all!... With half a dozen +bottles of that champagne we brought from Rheims, and a +little of the Epernay..." +</p> + +<p> +He added, yawning and stretching his great limbs: "I +am not usually poetical, but I have a fancy with regard to +the deep blue, green-fleshed grapes of the country, that +their color affects the river into which the hillside +vineyards drain. The Marne water is as brilliant and green +as though it were made of melted emeralds. And the must +from those grapes yields the best champagne of Rheims +and Epernay...." He yawned again and went on: +"There is something in surroundings! In this house I feel +that I can work comfortably. The view of old trees, and +bushes and flower beds from the room I have chosen as a +bedroom and study will make one feel almost at home. Two +of my servants shall sleep upstairs in the attics—of which +there are several, and my coachman Niederstedt—who was +my porter at the Wilhelm Strasse, shall have a shakedown +somewhere belowstairs. He is as strong as Goliath and as +sharp as a needle. An unusual combination of qualities, +because giants are supposed by little people to be +dull-witted and easily taken in!" +</p> + +<p> +He sent out a long column of fragrant blue vapor, and +added, looking at the antique bronze clock surmounted by +its grotesque bat-winged shape: "A fallacy, since I +myself belong to the family of the Anakim. Do you observe +that my landlady's familiar spirit appears to be winking at +what I have just said?... Kobold or gnome, there is a +family resemblance between his countenance and Madame's. +I must get her to sell him to me, to carry home to Berlin." +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap65"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXV +</h3> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh had gone back to his bedroom at the gardener's +cottage, under the garret where had slumbered the +unlucky Jean Jacques Potier. The pet rabbits of the young +man were even now in a hutch in the stable yard, and his +striped house jacket and the green baize apron he used to +wear when cleaning the Tessier silver hung on a hook in +Madame Potier's closet, with the civil integuments of +M. Potier, now deceased. +</p> + +<p> +It was too early to go to bed. He pulled off jacket and +waistcoat, filled and lighted the venerable briar root, and, +sitting on his bed, re-perused by the light of his tallow +candle a letter in headings, and bearing the date of +September 23rd, which may be reproduced as written, here: +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +288 GREAT CORAM STREET, +LONDON, W.C. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"MY DEAR YOUNG MAN! +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + I WAS SURPRISED AND GRATIFIED<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +To Receive Letters dated respectively July 28th, 31st, +August 4th, 11th, 26th, Sept. 5th, 19th, from: +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + ONE WHO HAD VANISHED<br> + SWALLOWED ALIVE<br> + BY THE ROARING WHIRLPOOL OF WAR.<br> + THEY ARE SLAP-UP AND NO MISTAKE!<br> + ROBUST TO BRUTALITY!<br> + THEY HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED<br> + PUBLISHED AND PAID FOR!<br> + BY THREE SUBURBAN EDITORS<br> + SIMULTANEOUSLY.<br> + A NEW IDEA<br> + LONG CHERISHED<br> + BY SOLOMON KNEWBIT.<br> + A MAN BORN BEFORE HIS AGE!<br> + THE BOSS OF A FLEET ST. WEEKLY<br> + IS NOW NIBBLING AT<br> + 'BANG!<br> + A DOG'S TALE.'<br> + I Have Recovered My Fifteen Shiners And Have<br> + Cash in Hand<br> + For My Young Swell<br> + WHEN HE COMES MARCHING HOME!<br> + MARIA SAYS<br> + YOU HAD BETTER LOOK SHARP!<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + AN IMPORTANT CLUE<br> + DISCOVERED!<br> + MYSTERY OF LOST FORTUNE<br> + ABOUT TO BE CLEARED UP!<br> + ABSCONDING TRUSTEE<br> + HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED IN ECCENTRIC LODGER<br> + BY THE LANDLADY!<br> + PROOFS IN A SEALSKIN WAISTCOAT!<br> + BE READY!<br> + AT ANY MOMENT THE SUMMONS MAY COME!<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + I remain,<br> + My dear young man,<br> + Truly and faithfully yours,<br> + SOLOMON KNEWBIT."<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +At the bottom of the last page was written in a curious +up-and-down handwriting: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"Dr mr Breagh, +</p> + +<p> +"yu kno How mr Knewbit Has a Way of Puting Things +queer but it Wold be Best For you To Come Home it Realy +Wold. There Is a Pore Siner only Wating To maik Amens +wich Is Mind must alwais Have Bean weak and People +Puting There Afares in the Hands of sutch a Trustea Can +ixpect Nothing but Truble, mr Chown of Furnival's Inn +is To Be let kno If He Gives Warning to Leeve the House +wich i think never will Drink being got Hold of him to +sutch an xtent dear mr Breagh you have thought you were +Pore. But your Fortune of 7,000 lbs was only took awai +by the Almighty Goodness to Be Given back again, trust +and beleive. I am Dr mr Breagh, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "Respectfully and afexnly<br> + "Maria Ling."<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh folded up the pregnant pages—owing to +Mr. Knewbit's professional predilection for capitals and +spacings, the double letter covered a good number—and +put them away and began to think. +</p> + +<p> +Would it not be best that Juliette should return to her +husband in Belgium, since M. Tessier gave no sign of +returning? And whether she agreed with the notion of +leaving Versailles or not, was it wise of P. C. Breagh to stay? +</p> + +<p> +He loved her. He would love her always. There were +times when her eyes had tenderness in them for him. Those +unforgettable days passed together ... those strange and +dreadful sights seen in common, those perils mutually +encountered had made a bond between them that might never +be broken now. +</p> + +<p> +But was it wise to remain near her, breathing her atmosphere, +drinking in her rare, delicate, exquisite beauty, and +growing more besotted in his worship of it with every day? +He knew that it was not. By the anguish the mere thought +of leaving her cost him, he realized how deeply the love of +Juliette Tessier had taken root in his heart. +</p> + +<p> +His nature, as simple as hers was complex, made it easy +to hold her blameless in all. She had not led him on. They +had been flung together by force of circumstances. That +there was something guileful in her very guilelessness never +suggested itself to Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +The gate bell pealed as he sat ruminating, causing him +nearly to leap out of his skin. That M. Tessier had +returned was the possibility that instantly suggested itself. +He knelt by the window of the low-ceiled cottage chamber +and leaned out into the deepening dusk. +</p> + +<p> +German voices at the gate, the stamping of horses, and +the clinking of bridles.... The grinding of heavy boots +on gravel, the jingle of spurs and the sound of scabbards +scraping against the ground, rapping against the steps. A +pause and a voice he knew said clearly and resonantly: +</p> + +<p> +"The Herr Intendant General may spare himself the +trouble. I will interview the people of the house myself!" +</p> + +<p> +A loud voice barked out something unintelligible to the +listener, ending with "insolence." The voice of the Man +of Iron returned: +</p> + +<p> +"In that case, my Excellency will take the risk. There +are only women in the house, and, should they offer +violence, I have Count Hatzfeldt and Count Bismarck-Böhlen +here." +</p> + +<p> +If there were any further words, the listener missed +them, so deafeningly loud was the drumming of the blood in +his ears.... The door was opened. There was a gleam +of something white in the dusky hail place. And <i>He</i> +entered and the other men followed him.... What did they +there? What was it best to do?... +</p> + +<p> +Now one by one the upper rooms were illuminated. The +house door was opening. Two men came out and descended +the steps. One who walked lightly and hummed a tune +between the whiffs of his cigar passed away, still humming, +toward the Avenue St. Cloud. The second who trailed a +clanking sword gave harsh-voiced orders in the staccato +tone of Prussian military authority to some persons in the +street outside, mounted a charger held by an orderly, and +rode jingling away toward the Boulevard de la Reine. His +helmet and his orderly's could be seen bobbing over the top +of the wall that screened the Tessier house from the Rue +de Provence, and the dark silhouettes of the heads and +bodies of men who crowded the double box seats of two +private luggage vans that waited beyond the <i>porte cochère</i> +under an escort of cavalry. No doubt they were <i>fourgons</i> +sacred to the traveling Foreign Office of the Minister, +bearing, besides the material of diplomatic labor, a working +staff of Chancery clerks. Other vehicles were waiting, and +videttes of cavalry were posted at each end of the quiet +street. The trampling of their horses could be heard +distinctly, with certain gruff admonitions, presumably +addressed to pedestrians desirous of using the thoroughfare. +</p> + +<p> +Now the leaves of the <i>porte cochère</i> were being opened +and hooked back by the dusky silhouettes of a couple of +men. Liveried grooms, because of stray gleams of light +flashed back from buttons and cockades. Light thrown by +the blazing yellow lamps of a large, empty, traveling +landau that rolled in under the lozenged archway, at the heels +of a splendid pair. The horses smelt of dust and sweat, +and whinnied as they whiffed the stables. They were driven +by a huge coachman, and a second carriage followed, piled +with luggage, and containing three persons, who might have +been secretaries or body servants, one could not decide. +Four led horses followed, guided by orderlies of Cuirassiers. +These did not follow the carriages, as they turned up +the short avenue and pulled up at the hall door. The +orderlies, quite as though they knew the place, rode down +the longer gravel drive that ended at the gates of the stable +yard. One trooper got down and opened the gates, and the +eager horses were conducted in. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Tramp, tramp, tramp!...</i> +</p> + +<p> +A detachment of infantry, marching down the Rue de +Provence. Turning in under the archway of the carriage +entrance, an eighth company belonging to a regiment +impossible to specify, because of the enfolding, deepening +dusk. They also smelt hot and dusty and tallowy. A +subaltern was in command of them, and an under officer. +They halted, marked time while they posted a sentry at +each of the gates, then tramped on toward the gardener's +cottage, and turned into the Tessier stable yard. They +were going to bivouac there. It was all clear and plain and +simple. It was as fascinating as a shadow play—but for +the tragic element that mingled in. Now the servants and +grooms were unloading the luggage from the carriages and +marvelously deft and noiseless they seemed at the work. A +little later—and both carriages turned from the house, and +were driven into the stable yard. You could hear the +grooms and the big coachman hissing as they unharnessed +the weary horses, and the horses snorting recognition as +they scented their stable mates. And then P. C. Breagh +became aware that the venerable pair of ponies that drew +Madame Tessier's basket carriage were not to be permitted +to remain in their comfortable loose boxes.... He could +hear the elderly man who groomed and fed and exercised +the ponies vainly protesting at the summary eviction of +his charges, and the officer who commanded the detachment +of infantry—Green Rifles, as it turned out—answering his +complaints: +</p> + +<p> +"Find the beasts another stable, and the rent and forage +will be paid for. But remember!—if you grumble, His +Excellency will have you shot!" +</p> + +<p> +And the ponies were led away in search of new quarters, +as the Foreign Office <i>fourgon</i>, with its escort of Uhlans, +ground over the trampled gravel and pulled up at the +terrace steps. One could hear the voice of Madame Potier +and the creaking of the Venetian shutters. Then the +billiard-room windows threw broad stripes of light across the +terrace toward the wall. They were going to carry in the +dispatch boxes and light traveling safes, the copying +presses and letter books and the rest of the Foreign +Office impedimenta by way of the long windows.... One +guessed whose idea that had been. +</p> + +<p> +A dominating, transforming spirit had invaded the quiet +house in the Rue de Provence, bringing with it this +purposeful, orderly bustle, this disciplined irruption of +elements strange and new. +</p> + +<p> +Of all these servants and attendants, some would certainly +take up their abode at the gardener's cottage. Would +P. C. Breagh, like the Tessier ponies, be presently turned +out to seek cover elsewhere? +</p> + +<p> +And Juliette.... The thought of her roused all his +stinging apprehensions. He told himself that presently, +when the house should have resumed something of its normal +quiet, he would steal across the lawn in the shadow of +the trees and borders, and lie in wait for a glance ... for +a word.... +</p> + +<p> +He would force her to leave at once for Belgium. She +must not remain in the house with all these men.... The +time crept by with maddening slowness as he waited. Dark +shadows moved in lighted rooms, passing across the blinded +windows.... The whole house was flaring with gaslight +now. +</p> + +<p> +How long.... The slatted Venetian shutters of the +dining-room were now unbarred and thrown open. He +could not see into the room by reason that it faced east +toward the pleasance, while the window from which he +watched looked southward, immediately commanding the +hall door. But broad beams of light were thrown down the +steps and across the grass plot. Tall shadows moved across +the streaks at intervals. There was the clatter of china, +glass, and cutlery, a smell of cooking delectably savory. +The Man of Iron was dining, and Hate had spread the +board. +</p> + +<p> +A shudder went through Breagh, and a cold perspiration +bathed him. His hair seemed to rise and stiffen upon +his creeping scalp. A sound broke from him ... perhaps +a groan, perhaps an exclamation. There was a soft step in +the darkness under his window and a whisper like a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur Breagh.... Do not descend! It will be +better that I mount the stairs to you!" +</p> + +<p> +His first impulse was to reassume the discarded coat and +waistcoat. Then he remembered that it was dark. The +floor creaked under his stealthy footsteps as he reached the +landing and crept on stockinged feet down the narrow +stairway. She had pushed back the unlatched door and +passed into the tiny passage. He met her almost on the +threshold, felt for and seized her little hands. How +feverishly hot they were! He pressed them as he whispered: +</p> + +<p> +"I guessed what had happened!... I know who has +come here!... For hours I have been waiting my chance +to get a word alone with you. I was just coming when I +heard you under the window!" +</p> + +<p> +She whispered—and, although her hands burned in his, +they trembled and her teeth chattered: +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur de Bismarck desired to dine here. Every +day one does not entertain a guest so noble. See you well! +I have cooked for Monseigneur with my own hands a dinner +worthy of—himself! He has devoured like an ogre the +trout <i>à la sauce Tartare</i>, and the cutlets, and is now +engaged upon a <i>ragoût</i> of partridges. When it is time to fry +the savory omelette that follows, Madame Potier will ring +the little bell, and I shall run back to the house." +</p> + +<p> +The sentence ended in a stifled titter. An ugly sound +that sickened Breagh as he heard it. He pressed the small +hands, whispering entreatingly: +</p> + +<p> +"Don't laugh! You must not laugh. Go back and get +what you need for a journey. Tell Madame Potier I am +taking you to Belgium. Back to your husband! ... your +place is where he is! You shall not stay here ... you +must not, I forbid you!..." +</p> + +<p> +She ceased to laugh and pulled her hands away from his. +Her answer came: an inflexible utterance to be breathed so +softly: +</p> + +<p> +"I remain here, Monsieur, until my husband comes!" +</p> + +<p> +He panted the old prayer: +</p> + +<p> +"Juliette, for the love of God...! You don't know +what terrible danger you are risking!..." +</p> + +<p> +The reply fanned past his cheek like the velvety wing of +some great night moth: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur, I remain here, until the arrival of M. Charles +Tessier. Although you will do wisely to depart while you +may—unseen!" +</p> + +<p> +He said between his gritted teeth, while the pounding +of his heart choked him: +</p> + +<p> +"I shall stay here! ... I decline to be sent away!..." +</p> + +<p> +She seemed to cogitate. Then came the mere breath of +an utterance. +</p> + +<p> +"Will you swear to be secret and faithful?" +</p> + +<p> +He said hoarsely: +</p> + +<p> +"Juliette, I must first know what you intend to do." +</p> + +<p> +She whispered, and her voice set his blood rushing and +the fragrance of her maddened him. +</p> + +<p> +"Stoop!... Why are you so tall? Bend down your head!" +</p> + +<p> +He stooped from his majestic altitude of five feet nine +inches and a bittock, and two little hands that scorched +him clasped his neck about. Light and soft as the touch +of a flower was the contact of the mouth that whispered: +</p> + +<p> +"I will tell you.... There is a line of one of your +English poets—I forget his name—but the words run like +this.... +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + "'<i>Throw but a stone—the giant dies!</i>'<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +He gasped: +</p> + +<p> +"I hear you!" +</p> + +<p> +She whispered, still with her mouth against his cheek: +</p> + +<p> +"See you well!—for the deliverance of my country, it is +I who am going to throw that stone!" +</p> + +<p> +He panted through the shuddering that had seized him: +</p> + +<p> +"Do you know what will happen, whether you succeed +or fail? You will be led out—placed with your back +against—this wall perhaps—and shot!" +</p> + +<p> +He felt her lips smile against his cheek as she answered: +</p> + +<p> +"And what of that! It will be the fortune of War! +But you..." She sharply drew her face away, and the +slight hands thrust him from her. "I will have you leave +this place to-night!" +</p> + +<p> +A weakness seized him. He sank down upon his knees +and stretched his arms out, in the darkness, to the dimly +outlined silhouette of the slight elfin creature standing on +the threshold, and the scents of rose and jasmine came to +him in gusts from the night-veiled garden with another +fragrance that had no name. He whispered, driven beyond +himself: +</p> + +<p> +"I will not go! I love you!" +</p> + +<p> +She said: +</p> + +<p> +"I have nothing to do with Love—who have consecrated +myself to vengeance. And your presence here might ruin +all.... He knows M. Breagh, the Englishman.... Have +you not told me over and over that once he..." +</p> + +<p> +She broke off there. But the intolerable stab brought +Breagh to his feet. He snarled at her through his clenched +teeth. +</p> + +<p> +"He may know Breagh, the Englishman, but he doesn't +know Jean Jacques Potier. Tell Madame that I shall wear +her nephew's clothes and take his name, and do his work +about the house and garden. All his duds are in the +cupboard up in my room there, and his apron and clogs and +so forth...." +</p> + +<p> +Appalling triviality of the sex feminine. The conjured +picture evoked a titter. She breathed, and he was stung +with rage to know her shaken with irresistible mirth: +</p> + +<p> +"But you do not know how to sweep and clean, and how +can you conceal your very red and curly hair? French +servant men have not such hair! You will be betrayed by +it, Monsieur!..." +</p> + +<p> +His blood boiled, and he thundered in a whisper: +</p> + +<p> +"I shan't!... Call it what color you like to-night. It +won't be there to-morrow! There are clippers in the +cupboard, and I shall have it off." +</p> + +<p> +A distant bell rang. She was gone like a bat in the +darkness. His word was given. He was pledged now to follow +her wherever fate should lead. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap66"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXVI +</h3> + +<p> +Versailles, always a town of martial music. Royal or +Imperial fanfares of brass, and welcoming salutes of +deep-voiced cannon, had been—since a day early in October, +when the girdle of iron and steel had closed about +Paris—resonant with Prussian bugle calls and throbbing with +Prussian drums. +</p> + +<p> +From dusk to dawn the electric search ray now mounted +on the summit of the Arc de Triomphe, as the broad wheeling +beams from Vanves, Issy, Mont Valérien, and the whole +ring of forts that guarded the great, magnificent, menaced +capital, whitened earth and sky in token of the unsleeping +vigilance of the Parisians, and their ceaseless expectation +of a German night attack, even as the long indicatory fingers +of brilliant blue-white light, stretching from the ridge +of St. Cloud and from the heights of Clamart, from Marly, +Vanesse, Epinal, Noiseau, Choisy, and Bourget—no less +than the formidable battery of big guns on the Place +d'Armes, with their muzzles placed so as to sweep the +avenues radiating from the Château—betokened the invaders' +anticipations of yet another sortie. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, why had there been no sortie earlier than that +abortive effort toward Chevilly on the thirtieth of +September? There were, at the beginning of the Investment, no +more than 180,000 German troops of the Crown Prince's +Army encircling Paris. Up to the tenth of October what +a triumphant turning of the tables might have been +effected by a vigorous sally, effectively carried out! +</p> + +<p> +Huge German forces were engaged in the sieges of Metz +and Strasburg, Belfort and Soissons, Schelsstadt and +Verdun. General von der Tann was engaged with the +Army of the Loire near Artenay. The stubborn resistance +of Orleans kept an Army Corps of the Red Prince extremely +busy. The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, with the right +wing of the Prussians' covering army south of Paris, was +actively engaged with the French at Dreux and Le +Mans. +</p> + +<p> +And there were 55,000 troops of the Line within the +walls of Paris; there were 105,000 Mobiles—not fighters to +be sneezed at. There were 30,000 National Guards—perhaps +too soft in muscle and well-developed in the region of +the corporation to be very effective—pitted against such +seasoned warriors as Schmidt, Klaus, Kraus, and Klein. +But add to these, 25,000 Marines, Douaniers, Gardes-Champêtres +and Forestiers, and there you had a force of 485,000 +trained Frenchmen, asking nothing better than to sally out +by St. Denis, Villejuif, and Charenton, cut the line of +investment north, clear the blocked road south, effect a +junction with the Army of the Loire, destroy the Warlock's +subtlest combinations, promptly raise the Siege of Paris, +and deliver France from the invader. +</p> + +<p> +What was Trochu, Military Governor of Paris, thinking +about? What were MM. Ducrot and Vinoy doing, to delay +until the garrison and fortress of Strasburg were surrendered, +until the Capitulation of Metz on the twenty-seventh +of October, and the fall of Verdun on the seventh of +November, had released the main Army of the Red Prince for +the strengthening of that steel and iron girdle that lay +outside the defiant ring of forts? The tentative sally of +the twenty-ninth of November was foredoomed to failure +from the outset. No wonder Trochu and his plans +furnished hungry Parisians with abundant food for mockery, +when the Specter of Famine brooded over the City on the +Seine. Narrow-eyed and tight-lipped, cold, sinister, and +mysterious, the man was a mere bag of wind, when all was +said and done. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, the great bronze muzzle-loaders of the Forts +of Mont Valérien, Issy, Montrouge, Vanves, and Charenton, +St. Denis and its twin sisters, roared at intervals throughout +each day, raining common shell, chain shot, solid ball, +and shrapnel into the lines of the investing host. But the +trenching and battery-making went on steadily; the high-walled +farmyards and gardens of country houses in the +environs were being converted into emplacements for artillery +of the largest caliber. Already several of Krupp's +stupendous siege-howitzers, with muzzles cocked at angles +of forty-five, demonstrated the possibilities of the +bombardment for which the German Press daily shrieked. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Not for the reduction of the military defenses, but to +produce by the exercise of sheer terror, bodily suffering, +and destruction of private property, such an effect upon +the unarmed multitudes—subjected to a hail of incendiary +shells within their encircling ring of walls and fortresses—as +to compel the chiefs of the Government and garrison to +come to terms at command of the popular voice.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Thus the leader-writers of the <i>Berliner Zeitung</i> and other +journals—peaceful-looking, stout men, with full beards and +short-sighted eyes behind spectacles—wrote, as though they +longed to dip their quills in newly shed French blood. +</p> + +<p> +"It is sad, very sad," said the Warlock, vexed for once, +"that the siege trains conveying more than 100,000 hundred-weights +of ammunition cannot be brought over a single line +of rails with sufficient quickness to gratify these excellent +gentlemen.... Yet for the present we can do no more +than invest the place and wait for the means of attacking it. +The process of starving out is, as the mighty fortress of +Metz has shown, a very slow one. But as the loud voices of +one hundred and one guns have already proclaimed to our +Berliners—the empty stomach triumphs over the most +obstinate resistance. We now require an army to guard +300,000 prisoners of War! Since the Babylonian Captivity +the world has not heard the like! And yet the chamber +prattlers and the journalists accuse us of tardiness. +Already from several anonymous quarters have reproachful +or ridiculing letters reached me. One even contains a +villainous comic verse, which I am told is sung in the music +halls in Berlin." +</p> + +<p> +And the great tactician read, with the expression of one +who savors the bouquet of sulphureted hydrogen or asafetida: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + "<i>Guter Moltke, gehst so stumm?<br> + Immer um das Ding herum:<br> + Bester Moltke, sei nicht dumm,<br> + Mach' doch endlich: Bumm, bumm, bumm!</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +And he tore up the rude verses in indignation and threw +them into the waste-paper basket of the Prussian Great +Headquarters at the Palais de Justice, on the right of the +Prefecture, and strode downstairs, too much out of tune +to hum. +</p> + +<p> +To have been called slow and stupid, and affectionately +urged to hurry up and make an end of things with bang, +bang, banging!... He was almost glad that his departed +Mary was not alive to know of the humiliation inflicted by +these scurrilous rhymesters on her beloved old man. +</p> + +<p> +It was an unfortunate moment chosen by a new junior +assistant <i>aide-de-camp</i> upon the Chieftain's personal staff, +for tendering a request for leave of absence until the +following day. +</p> + +<p> +"What, what?... You have barely entered upon your +new and important duties, the wine in which your comrades +of the Guard pledged you is still bubbling in your veins.... +Is it another congratulatory banquet, or a supper +<i>tête-à-tête</i> ... Am I right?" The Warlock's keen +glance glittered between his lashless eyelids at the tall, +fair-headed young officer standing rigidly before him. +"<i>Prut!</i> that reminds me!..." he added. "In whose company +did I see you lunching only yesterday at one of the little +round tables in the ante-chamber of the dining salle at the +Hôtel des Réservoirs?" +</p> + +<p> +Said Valverden, his blue eyes meeting the sharp gray +glance with a charming candor: +</p> + +<p> +"Excellency, the lady is the recently married wife of a +Roumanian noble. Her name, if Your Excellency desires +to know it, is Madame de Straz." +</p> + +<p> +Said the Field Marshal with an acute look and a dry +intonation: +</p> + +<p> +"In Berlin, not so long ago, she called herself something +else!" +</p> + +<p> +Valverden answered, with a conscious side glance at the +twist of silver braid that marked his rank of Captain: +</p> + +<p> +"Her first husband was killed in action with his regiment +at Gravelotte. She is now legally married to M. de +Straz." +</p> + +<p> +Moltke took snuff and said laconically: +</p> + +<p> +"She has not taken long in changing her state." +</p> + +<p> +Valverden began, rather lamely: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame had virtually been separated from M. de +Bayard——" +</p> + +<p> +Like a bayonet thrust came the retort: +</p> + +<p> +"Since your Cousin Max ran away with her from Paris, +fourteen years ago! The woman is an adventuress, whom +you will be wise to avoid." +</p> + +<p> +Valverden answered, with his disarming look of frankness: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Excellency, I was applied to by the person you +mention for advice in a matter of serious urgency. +Madame de Straz has unhappily lost all trace of the +whereabouts of her daughter, Mademoiselle de Bayard.... She +has entreated me to solicit for her an audience with Your +Excellency, in the hope that you might aid her to recover +the young girl." +</p> + +<p> +The War Eagle croaked, ruffling his feathers with indignation: +</p> + +<p> +"Does the woman suppose that I have got the unfortunate +young creature in my pocket? Or does she suspect +you of knowing where she is to be found?" +</p> + +<p> +Valverden said, hastily and flushing: +</p> + +<p> +"Your Excellency, upon my honor, I have never seen +the girl!" +</p> + +<p> +The Warlock tucked away his snuff box and pointed +the terrible withered finger at the left side of the young +man's bosom, where hung upon a broad black, white-bordered +ribbon a cross of dark metal, edged with a narrow +line of silver, and bearing a crown and the letter "W." A +terrible grating voice said, and with all his cool +effrontery Valverden quailed at the words and the stern look +that accompanied them: +</p> + +<p> +"To you, young man, upon whom the Second Class of +the Iron Cross has been conferred by the hand of your +Crown Prince, for daring and gallantry upon the war +field—no more I say than this: Do nothing to disgrace the +wearer of that decoration—which should be sacred in your +eyes...." He added: "The leave you ask is granted. +Until twelve noon to-morrow, Captain von Herding will +take your place." +</p> + +<p> +And His Excellency the Field Marshal returned his +aide-de-camp's salute and wheeled sharply, and had taken a +couple of strides across the vestibule, when he halted to +ask: +</p> + +<p> +"This girl you speak of—how came she lost?..." +</p> + +<p> +Said Valverden, hesitating slightly: +</p> + +<p> +"According to Madame her mother, the ladies were on a +visit to Rethel during the time when the Prince Imperial +of the French was staying at the Prefecture. They had +obtained an audience of the Prince.... Madame de Straz +was prevented by illness from accompanying her daughter.... +The young lady—Mademoiselle Juliette de Bayard—has +never been seen since." +</p> + +<p> +The lean neck and spare features of the greatest of +strategists became suffused with indignant scarlet. He +said: +</p> + +<p> +"The mother is a trollop of the very first water. She +took the girl to the Prefecture—why did she contrive an +interview? She sends her up alone—she declares that she +has never since seen her.... <i>Pfui!...</i> The affair, in my +nostrils, fairly stinks of vulgar intrigue. Have no more to +do with it—though the unlucky girl is no doubt to be +pitied.... I will speak to His Excellency, Count +Bismarck, who has agents in Rethel." +</p> + +<p> +And he steamed across the marble vestibule of the great +hall of the Palais de Justice, crossed the Place des +Tribunaux, and vanished into the Prefecture, over whose +entrance hung the Hohenzollern banner and the Prussian +standard, that was very soon to show a stripe of red beside +the black and white.... +</p> + +<p> +For the hitherto recalcitrant States of Baden and Hesse +had joined the Bund. The King of Saxony had +signed,—Würtemburg would sign the treaty of Federation shortly. +There were prospects of a definite settlement with the King +of Bavaria. The ambition of the Man of Iron was shortly +to be realized.... Bismarck was to rule a German Emperor! +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +You might have seen him, upon this bland November +morning that had succeeded a night of shrieking northerly +gusts and driving pelts of sleety rain, walking with the +Count Hatzfeldt in the garden of the Tessier mansion in +the Rue de Provence. The house immediately opposite +had now been converted into a guard post. Sentries in the +uniforms of the Green Jaegers were on duty at the gates. +Over the principal entrance hung the black and white +Prussian standard. +</p> + +<p> +The sky was deep blue, with argosies of white clouds +sailing toward the northeast. The leaves that yet remained +upon the elms and poplars shone in the sunshine like newly +minted gold. Those that the gale had stripped lay in wet +drifts upon the grass and gravel, though the three oak trees +on the pleasance yet retained their suits of crisping russet +brown. +</p> + +<p> +To the right, at the rear of the house, a young man +servant was sweeping away the leaves that adhered to the +narrow terrace of steps running round three sides of the +building. The swish of his birch broom punctuated the +sentences of the newspaper article being read by Hatzfeldt +to his Chief. +</p> + +<p> +It was the continuation of the article in the <i>Berliner +Zeitung</i> that had roused the ire of the Warlock a little +while before. +</p> + +<p> +"Unanimously," it concluded, "and in the interests of +Humanity, we demand that this measure be taken at once. +We reprehend in the sternest terms, not only those military +commanders who are in favor of procrastination. We cry +in the ears of the Chancellor-and-Minister-President, Count +Bismarck himself, who is credited with being the main +factor in this policy of delay: <i>Mene, mene, tekel +upharsin!</i>—'Thou +art weighed in the balance, and found to want!'" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Man of Iron to Hatzfeldt: +</p> + +<p> +"Did I not know that my wife regards women who +enter the lists of journalism as unsexed, and outcasts +beyond the hope of redemption, I should be inclined to +believe she had written this." He added: "I have often +been accused of inhumanity, but to be reproached for an +excess of tenderness is something quite new to me. How +shall we reassure these excitable gentlemen? Buschlein"—he +referred to his Press article-writer, the rotund author of +the famous "Recollections"—"Buschlein shall write that +he has authority from Count Bismarck to state that his +universally credited predilections for slaughter have not +been blunted by recent experiences, and that he much +approves of the bombardment idea, but that he has no control +over those high military functionaries who command His +Majesty's investing forces, and is not accustomed to be +consulted by them." +</p> + +<p> +He spat and resumed: +</p> + +<p> +"Private correspondents worry me to know whether I +am really averse to the bombardment, and why I won't +allow firing into the town? What pernicious rubbish! +They will be blaming me next for all losses during the +investment. Which are not small; for in little skirmishes, +and during the short time occupied by those abortive +sorties, we have lost more troops than we should have done +had we regularly stormed the place." +</p> + +<p> +He added, looking humorously at Hatzfeldt, whose handsome, +<i>débonnaire</i> countenance invariably fell at any reference +to a bombardment: +</p> + +<p> +"By the way, another balloon has been taken with letters +from Paris, some of which I have already read, and a +Figaro of yesterday's date. It has been decreed by the +French Government that all wine and provisions are to be +taken away from private people, as the poorer classes +have already begun to fricassee their dogs and pussy cats. +So your American father-in-law will have to look out for +his cellar—an excellently stocked one, as I have heard from +you. And your wife's famous mouse-gray ponies will probably +be made into cutlets—a pretty piece of intelligence for +your next letter to Madame!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah!... for Heaven's sake, Your Excellency!" cried +Hatzfeldt, with ruefully elevated eyebrows, "I implore +you not to conjure up the image of my wife's indignation +and despair. Every letter I receive from her begins and +ends with her precious ponies." +</p> + +<p> +The Minister appended: +</p> + +<p> +"Her mother, father, and her brother, Henry, who is +living at their estate of Petit Val, near Marly—I think you +told me—being sandwiched in between the little beasts." +</p> + +<p> +They were pacing the garden paths. The Chancellor had +recently risen, and seemed inclined to be in a jesting mood. +He continued, throwing away the butt of a finished cigar: +</p> + +<p> +"I must be careful, or the Countess will send me no +more <i>pâté</i> of pheasants, or sausages. Pray tell her, with +my compliments, that both were excellently fresh and good.... +Did you notice written on my table card that the +Mayor of Versailles is to have a ten-minute interview before +M. Thiers arrives at half-past twelve? If I have not +polished off the Republican official before Thiers toddles up +the doorsteps with his portfolio under his short arm, and +his gold spectacles twinkling, engage him in conversation +below here for an instant—do not send him up straightway +to the torture cell." Thus the Minister had christened +the small room adjoining his private apartment. He +went on: "I do not want him to go down to Sèvres with his +white flag and his escort, and meet Jules Favre with a +string of tales about our orgies and revelings, of the +enormous expense of which the Mayor is coming to complain." +</p> + +<p> +"What insolence!" commented Hatzfeldt. +</p> + +<p> +"It seems," continued the Minister, "that we all cost +the town too much to keep, the chief offenders being the +grand ducal and princely personages at the Hôtel des +Réservoirs. Of course, one knows that the Tinsel Rabble +eat and drink a great deal more than they require, and +waste much more than they consume. But to a Frenchman, +one cannot admit as much. So I shall tell the Mayor that +he must apply to the French Government at Tours for +permission to raise a substantial money loan, and as +M. Thiers has only just come from there, he would naturally +buttonhole the old gentleman if he encountered him. +Which—as our plump, neatly shaved old Professor is as +timid as a hare and as soft as a baby—would discompose +him very horribly...." He continued: "He is dying to +make peace with us, because there will soon be famine in +Paris. Imagine how I caught him out when I told him +yesterday: '<i>Monsieur, you have only visited the city for a few +hours. We know better about the contents of its magazines +than you do. They have ample provisions to last until the +end of January....</i>' What a look of incredulity! I had +only been feeling his pulse, as it were.... His amazement +told me what I most wanted to know. What a man to +make a bargain about an armistice, an invalidy civilian, +who cannot conceal his feelings! Who lets himself be put +out of countenance and pumped!—actually pumped!" +</p> + +<p> +He turned aside to cough and hawk and expectorate +copiously.... "There!" he said, wiping his mustache +vigorously with a large white cambric handkerchief. "You +see what it is to have a stomach as sensitive as mine is.... +That injustice done me in the <i>Berliner Zeitung</i> with +reference to the bombardment has caused an overflow of bile, +by which I was already incommoded. Thiers will be +certain to remain closeted with me for two hours. He is +nothing if not expansive and flowery, and redundant. I shall +not be able to get on horseback before three o'clock, and we +dine at six." He went on, punctuating the sentence with +more coughs and hawkings: "And as our table is to be +graced—<i>tchah!</i>—by a huge trout pasty, a love gift to the +Chancellor of the—<i>hah!</i>—Confederation, from a Berlin +restaurant keeper who throws into the bargain—<i>ahah!</i>—a +cask of Vienna March beer and his photograph, taken with +his wife and—<i>brr'r</i>!" +</p> + +<p> +He turned aside and spat vigorously, before ending, +resuming, as he used the big white handkerchief: +</p> + +<p> +"One would desire to do justice to a gift so welcome.... +More bile!... I spat like this half the night through.... +Decidedly I am not as well as when we galloped along +the highroads with the Great Headquarters Staff.... I +have wondered: Do I eat too much? Does this sedentary +life conduce to indigestion?" He spat again, and answered +himself: "How can it be so, when I breakfast on a couple +of eggs with dry toast, and a cup of tea without milk? I +don't lunch—lunch is a mockery of a meal—but in the +evening I make a hearty dinner. With beer and champagne +in plenty, and wash all down with half a dozen cups of +tea. Then I go to bed—as you know, never before +midnight. There's a doze—and I waken up with my brain as +bright as daylight—all sorts of things running through it, +and my mouth full of this bitter—<i>faugh!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"Your Excellency will need a fresh handkerchief," said +Hatzfeldt, slightly shuddering, as the Chancellor vigorously +crumpled the soiled cambric into a ball. "Shall I send +Your Excellency's servant to fetch another?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, no! As it happens, I have sent Grams out. And +Engelberg is busy. There is Madame Charles's factotum!" He +called in French: "<i>Hola</i>, Jean Jacques! Approach, +my brave young man!" +</p> + +<p> +His full blue eyes, their whites now red-veined and +biliously injected, had turned to where the strongly built +young male servant was still sweeping the steps of the rear +of the house. Cropped to the scalp, you saw the fellow +attired in a well-worn morning jacket of striped linen, a +blue waistcoat and tight blue cloth trousers, yellow piped +at the side seams. Summoned by an imperative word and +gesture, he knocked the damp leaves off his broom, stood +it up against the side of the conservatory, and shambled +to where the Chancellor was standing, muttering with a +downcast air and a furtive, sulky look: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ouiche, Monseigneur?...</i> What is it Monseigneur +desires?" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Minister, with a smile that curved the great +mustache and showed the white, square teeth that a young +man might have envied: +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur desires that without delay the brave Jean +Jacques would betake him to the kitchen, and desire Madame +Charles Tessier of her goodness to favor Monseigneur +with a clean handkerchief.... Perhaps two would be +better.... Ask for two, Jean Jacques, and compel thy +legs to rapid motion, for to <i>croquer le marmot</i> is not a +favorite pastime with Monseigneur! Comprehend you?" +</p> + +<p> +Jean Jacques replied in his extraordinary patois, with a +bow of the clumsiest: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Ouiche, Monseigneur!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>De quel pays sont vous?</i>" asked Hatzfeldt curiously. +</p> + +<p> +Jean Jacques responded with sulky unwillingness: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>La Suisse, Monsieur!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt said, as the young man returned to the scene +of his abandoned labors, picked up his broom, and went +round the end of the conservatory toward the kitchen +quarters: +</p> + +<p> +"There are Frenchmen who call themselves Belgians or +Swiss because they are too funky to fight!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Minister: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame Charles Tessier, who knows all about this +fellow, describes him as a native of Neufchâtel. Here she +comes herself, bringing my handkerchiefs. Thank you a +thousand times, Madame! But why inconvenience yourself?" +</p> + +<p> +Madame Charles, whose black hair, heavily streaked with +white, was crowned with a dreadful lace cap with lappets, +parted in the middle, and brushed down in two old-fashioned +festoons on either side of her haggard white wedge +of a face, shrilled in her raucous voice that it was no +trouble whatever.... The laundress's basket with +Monseigneur's clean linen had but that moment come in. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Charles wore a gray poplin gown of rich, stiff, +antique material, trimmed with black gimp upon the gores, +round the bottom of the expansive skirt, and upon the +sleeves and waist. It had been discovered in a wardrobe +belonging to the mother of M. Charles Tessier. She had +on one of Madame's black silk aprons, a pair of her black +silk mittens, and the black chenille net adorned with steel +beads that confined her back hair had housed the iron gray +curls of her respected mother-in-law. Over her narrow +shoulders hung the inevitable white woolen shawl. +</p> + +<p> +She curtsied deeply to the Chancellor and slightly to +Count Hatzfeldt, and went on into the garden, and +disappeared round the corner of the ivy-bordered path. Seen +thus in the searching daylight, the elevation and forward +thrust of the left shoulder that lent her gait its unpleasant +peculiarity, and the curvature in the lower part of the +spine were even more painfully apparent. It occurred to +her as she moved away from the two men, whose eyes, +reluctantly or curiously, were following her, that to ape this +deformity so persistently might be to bring it in reality +upon herself. +</p> + +<p> +She shivered a little, despite the bland warmth of the +November sunshine. Round the corner of the green glass +conservatory, well out of sight of those who walked in the +garden, Jean Jacques Potier was shivering, too. +</p> + +<p> +When the Chancellor had coughed and spat and spat +again, the knees of Jean Jacques had shaken beneath him. +His heart had sunk like a leaden plummet, and the sweat of +terror had started on his skin. +</p> + +<p> +He was afraid—horribly afraid. Not for himself, but +for another. There was no knowing. The thing he feared +might happen at any time. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +"<i>Throw but a stone—the giant dies!...</i>" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +He could hear now the very voice in which she had +added: "See you well, it is I who am going to throw that +stone!" +</p> + +<p> +He had expended all the eloquence he possessed with the +object of turning Juliette from her purpose. He did not +know whether he had succeeded. She would give him no +promise. She was sphinxlike, inscrutable.... You +could never feel sure that in the middle of the night there +would not be a cry—and then a commotion of running feet +upon the stairs, and then—the arrest, and the accusation. +He had made up his mind to say, when that happened: +"<i>It was my doing. She knew nothing about it. It was I +who put poison in the food of this man!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +Then he would be taken out and shot. It would be done +instantly, whether the owner of the life that had been +attempted died or got well. Perhaps the man would not +die? He had an iron constitution and the frame of a Titan. +But sometimes he looked weary and haggard and bilious. +And when he spat as just now, and pulled wry mouths +over the bitter stuff he expectorated, the heart of +P. C. Breagh would sink to the pit of his stomach, and his legs +would shake under him, as they were shaking now. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap67"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXVII +</h3> + +<p> +Meanwhile, the Man of Iron had commented to Hatzfeldt: +</p> + +<p> +"Our landlady is going for a little promenade ... she +does not fear damp, that is quite plain ... see how she +trails her skirts over the wet grass. Now, if she were to +show her feet, should we be grateful, or the reverse?" +</p> + +<p> +A light of cynical amusement flickered in his blue eyes +as he noted Hatzfeldt's disgust of the creature of whom he +spoke. He went on: +</p> + +<p> +"Ugly women have sometimes pretty feet, and hands +that are exquisite. Have you ever looked closely at the +hands of Madame Charles? If not, I recommend them to +your notice. They are well worth looking at." He added, +ignoring the shudder that convulsed the dandy: "I propose +that we follow her—discreetly and at a distance. I +have still a few minutes before the Mayor arrives." +</p> + +<p> +He led the way. They crossed a portion of the lawn and +turned into a gravel walk, damp and miry and drifted over +with wet and rotting leaves. The shining patent-leather +boots of Hatzfeldt suffered by their contact. The +Chancellor, observing this, said: +</p> + +<p> +"Never mind.... You can have them cleaned! My +man Niederstedt polishes boots capitally!" +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt returned plaintively: +</p> + +<p> +"I can have them cleaned, as Your Excellency observes. +But never again will they be the same after a wetting. +And they are made by the only man in the world who +knows how to make boots." +</p> + +<p> +The Minister said brutally: +</p> + +<p> +"Order another pair of the fellow!" +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt returned with a shrug and a rueful look: +</p> + +<p> +"He lives in Paris—Rue de Lafayette. And Your +Excellency is going to have Paris bombarded!" +</p> + +<p> +Said Bismarck, his great frame shaken by internal +laughter: +</p> + +<p> +"The fellows who write the newspaper articles out of +their own heads know a great deal better than that.... +According to them, I am a humanitarian—altruistic to +imbecility." +</p> + +<p> +"But we, who only write to Your Excellency's dictation, +know Your Excellency better than they!" +</p> + +<p> +The injury to his immaculate foot coverings, and the +impending destruction of his bootmaker's establishment, +incensed Hatzfeldt to the point of an imprudent retort. +</p> + +<p> +The granite face turned. The heavy regard rested upon +him. With his characteristic stutter—a signal as warning +to those who knew him as the rattle of the <i>crotalus</i> hidden +in the brake, the Minister said: +</p> + +<p> +"So I am not a philanthropist, or a—or an apostle of +light and sweetness. I would prefer to build an Empire +with the fallen towers of the modern Babylon?..." +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt bowed with the grace inherited from the +Russian Princess, his mother. The Minister went on in a +lighter tone: +</p> + +<p> +"As a boy, I always preferred the apples that hung on +the highest branches. They were bigger and sweeter and +rosier than the others, though in stealing them I risked +both my breeches and my neck. Well! To be plain, there +are two apples just now that I particularly covet: the +Bombardment—and the Proclamation of the Emperor of +Germany from the Tuileries...." He added: "The <i>via +media</i> is not the surest road to an arrangement that shall +be lasting. The most convincing arguments are uttered by +the iron mouths of big guns!" +</p> + +<p> +They had emerged from the shrubbery at the bottom of +the garden. The patch of green still spread upon the +eastern boundary wall, where the water trickled down. +The aquatic plants had been weeded, and the tiny pond +cleaned out by Breagh under the supervision of his +Infanta, but the pipe remained unsoldered because the +plumber's men had gone to the War. Thus the Satyr's +mouth remained dry, though the chuckle still sounded in +the Satyr's throat. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Charles had been standing near the mask as the +Minister and his courtly First Secretary stepped into the +open. She started slightly, glanced round, bent her head, +and limped painfully away. +</p> + +<p> +Said the Chancellor, barely glancing after the awkward, +misshapen figure: +</p> + +<p> +"I hope that it has not occurred to Madame Charles to +look over the garden wall!" +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt's eyebrows went up in mild surprise. He +objected: +</p> + +<p> +"It would hardly be possible. The wall must be eight +feet high, and how in the world could a woman, elderly and +with that distressing deformity——" +</p> + +<p> +The laugh that shook the great figure beside him +puzzled as much as the utterance. +</p> + +<p> +"She is a daughter of Eve—and it would be possible, by +putting a toe in the jaws of yonder grinning gentleman, +to ascertain that I have had two sentries posted on the +other side of this wall. Listen!..." +</p> + +<p> +He rapped on the masonry with the walking stick he +habitually carried, and an answering rap came from the +other side. +</p> + +<p> +"There is a good large garden there, belonging to an +unoccupied house," he added. "And ranged along the +wall are bushes, behind which my two men stand well +screened." +</p> + +<p> +"Did Your Excellency apprehend danger from that +quarter?" inquired Hatzfeldt. +</p> + +<p> +"Hardly," said he, "though it is as well to be on the +safe side, and Versailles is pretty well packed with people +by whom I am rather particularly detested. But as a fact, +I placed the soldiers for the purpose of catching Madame's +postman. You did not perceive as we stepped out of the +shrubbery that she slipped an envelope into this creature's +mouth?" +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt answered, in some astonishment: +</p> + +<p> +"Why, no, Your Excellency. I saw nothing of the kind!" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister said, shaken with the internal, secret +laughter: +</p> + +<p> +"And yet you have good eyes, better than mine for +seeing some things at a distance.... A pretty face behind +a thick veil ... a graceful figure concealed by a shawl. +Possibly the friend who communicates with Madame +Charles with the aid of this grinning fellow admires her.... +There is no accounting for tastes...." +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt asked in a tone of disgust: +</p> + +<p> +"Who is Madame Charles's friend? Is it possible that +misshapen creature has a lover?" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister answered with a curious grimace: +</p> + +<p> +"A lover who is apparently a <i>Franc-tireur</i>." +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt returned with acrimony: +</p> + +<p> +"One of those marauding free shooters who wear a +black cloth uniform, and carry a black standard with a +skull above a pair of crossbones. Perhaps his lady-love +sat for the picture of the Death's head?" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister returned, with a look of amusement: +</p> + +<p> +"Possibly she did.... Though there have been +moments when, under Madame's extraordinary coiffure with +the black lace lappets, I have seen peeping at me—imagine +what?" +</p> + +<p> +"I cannot imagine.... Hatred, possibly?" said Hatzfeldt. +</p> + +<p> +"Hatred, blazing from two extraordinarily blue +eyes...." The Minister went on: "But not only hatred.... +Youth, and prettiness. Now, look here, and—for I +am perfectly convinced that you believe me bewitched by +our landlady—behold my rival's <i>billet-doux</i>!.." +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt could scarcely speak for laughter. The Minister +put his hand into the Satyr's mouth and extracted +therefrom a little envelope, inscribed in a bold, black, inky +scrawl. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>To My Adored Wife.</i>" +</p> + +<p> +The Satyr chuckled almost humanly as the Minister held +the superscription under his Secretary's eyes, and calmly +proceeded to open the envelope.... Hatzfeldt, at first +crimson, and writhing with repressed merriment, became +graver as the Minister read aloud: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"<i>What of thy husband? dost thou ask in the nights that +are sleepless and solitary. Credit, my little one, that thy +Charles is often near. In the thought of thy husband, if +not in person, he rests upon thy heart so faithful and +fond.</i>" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt spluttered. The reader continued: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +"<i>We Francs-tireurs attacked a squadron of Schleswig +Hussars the other day at the village of Hably.... We shot +down many of the Prussian marauders and killed their +horses. Only eleven escaped with life. They returned later +and burned the village, committing unexampled brutalities, +and murdered several of the inhabitants. It is well! +We have another cause to feed our roaring furnace of hate.</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>All means of revenge are good, for ours is a holy war +waged upon a merciless invader. We number nobles, peasants, +citizens, criminals in our armed and organized ranks. +Each man will kill as he knows best. The rifle, the knife, +the scythe, or the cudgel, the gardener's shears, the +chemist's drugs, and the barber's razor are weapons lawful to +be used against the enemies of France. We will dig +wolf-traps for these Prussian foes of ours, who plunder by +method and wreck scientifically. We will tumble them +down wells, drown them in rivers, burn the huts they are +sleeping in over their heads. And our sisters?—our wives? +They are united with us in our solemn compact of destruction. +They will embrace to strangle. They will smile and +stab! They will cook savory dishes for Messieurs les +Prussiens, and the dogs will eat of them and die.</i> +</p> + +<p> +"<i>These kisses on thy sweetest eyelids. These for thy +two little hands. Dost thou love me? Till death and after,</i> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "<i>Thine and thine only,<br> + "Charles Tessier.</i>"<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +There was a silence. The Minister broke it with a grim +sentence: +</p> + +<p> +"When this fine fellow is not murdering Prussians, he +is making love to his spitfire of a wife. A fine breed of +young criminals should spring from such a union!" +</p> + +<p> +The Satyr's mocking chuckle sounded like a comment +on the speech. The Minister had deftly opened the +envelope without tearing the flap, which was still moist. He +now refolded and slipped back the sheet into the envelope, +wet his finger in the little jet that gurgled from the hole +in the pipe behind the mask of the Satyr, and reclosed the +envelope. He drew out his watch and consulted it, as the +clocks of Versailles struck the half hour, and said to +Hatzfeldt, replacing the watch: +</p> + +<p> +"Half-past twelve.... Do you know, I read something +by Félix Pyat very like this"—he slightly waved the +drying envelope—"in a copy of the <i>Petit Journal</i> that was +brought me the other day.... Now, my Mayor is due, and +M. Thiers is certain to arrive on his heels.... I must +return to the house; but I should prefer that you stayed +here." +</p> + +<p> +"Here, Excellency!" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister laughed in the amazed face of the Secretary. +</p> + +<p> +"I want you," he said, "to play the part of Leporello.... +Frankly, I cannot understand why Madame Charles +herself placed this letter in the gape of the mask.... I +am curious to know who will fetch it away from there.... +I am going to ask you to hide in the shrubbery and +find out." +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt glanced dubiously at the wall. The Minister +nodded. +</p> + +<p> +"My two men are not sufficiently sharp-eyed to see +through these bricks. Really, I must ask you to stay here +and oblige me. Von Keudell must keep M. Thiers in play +instead of you.... Why, you are quite pale!..." +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt gulped and admitted: +</p> + +<p> +"That letter gave me an unpleasant sensation. I am +regularly shaved by a Frenchman, you understand!... And +these <i>Francs-tireurs</i> seem to be everywhere. Really, +it is horrible!" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister's brow became thunderous. The lines +about his mouth hardened to granite. He said in his +grimmest tone: +</p> + +<p> +"They should be hanged whenever found! And not cut +down, but left hanging, for a salutary warning to other +rascals.... Do you know that the <i>Combat</i>—the organ +edited by that blackguard Félix Pyat—wishes to get up a +subscription for the purchase of a gold-mounted rifle to be +given to the scoundrel who succeeds in removing the +Prussian King.' ... Doubtless they have set their price +upon the heads of Moltke, and the arch enemy Bismarck. +Well—<i>Auf Wiedersehen</i>! Ride out with me after lunch to +the aqueduct of Marly, and tell me what I want to know." +</p> + +<p> +And the great figure strode away, leaving the First +Secretary to his unwelcome task. +</p> + +<p> +"After lunch..." he said mentally, as he insinuated +his graceful figure between a lilac and a lauristinus, and +the rich soil, rendered marshy by the overflow of the lily +pool, squashily gave way beneath his once immaculate +boots. "Why, good Heaven!... the woman to whom +that monstrous epistle was addressed actually assists the +Foreign Office <i>chef</i> with the cooking! The Chief swears +by her <i>ragoûts</i> and her omelettes and her <i>beignets</i>. They +are certainly excellent.... I must avoid them for the +future. A young married man with a family must be +careful. I wonder, if anything unpleasant happened, whether +Touti would marry again?" +</p> + +<p> +The bushes were wet with rain. Little cold showers +sprinkled the dandy's head and shoulders. His boots sank +deeper as the wet trickled down his neck. What a degrading +task for a First Diplomatic Secretary! With what +shrieks of laughter his lively American Countess would +read his written description of his experiences as a spy! A +corn began to shoot. He sneezed. This meant influenza +to a certainty. Even while he devoted Madame Charles, +her bloodthirsty spouse, and all her countrymen to the +hottest corner of Tophet, he kept a bright lookout. And in +another five minutes or so he saw the person for whom he +lay in waiting coming down the mossy gravel path that +wound through the shrubbery. +</p> + +<p> +It was Jean Jacques, the clumsy foot boy, whose mistakes +and blunders kept the Prussian Chancery attendants +in a continual eruption of abusive German epithets, and +whose <i>patois</i>, proclaimed to be Swiss, was so extremely +puzzling that Hatzfeldt, who had piqued himself upon an +exclusive knowledge of the French of the Tyrol, could only +assign the youth to a canton of his own. He thrust his +hand into the Satyr's toothed gape and pulled out the +letter, twisted a wry mug as he regarded it, and said, with +an admirable English accent: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, damn!..." +</p> + +<p> +Then, at the urgent tinkle of a bell from the kitchen +regions, he thrust the missive into the pocket of his striped +cotton jacket and scampered back to the house. +</p> + +<p> +You will remember that when Juliette had consented to +marry the unknown Charles Tessier, she had, for her dear +Colonel's very sake, adorned the faceless one with features, +a complexion, shoulders, muscles, and so on. She had even +boasted to Monica's brother of the swordsmanship of the +worthy but unromantic young cloth manufacturer, whose +most sportsmanlike accomplishment was the shooting of +thrushes and sparrows, which he would bring home to the +Rue de Provence in triumph, to be converted by his +adoring mother into savory pies. +</p> + +<p> +Now, during these days of tension and anxiety, perhaps +to relieve the strain of an otherwise unbearable +situation—possibly with the desire of inflicting on her unfortunate +adorer the torturing pangs of jealousy, or possibly to create +and maintain in herself a fictitious interest in the +supposititious husband, she had begun anew to expatiate upon his +gifts and graces, and, having begun, could not leave off. +Her Charles had not red hair and yellow gray eyes, a blunt +nose, and a square chin with a dent in it. He was pale, +with melancholy black eyes and a high brow. His jetty +mustache was waxed, his imperial finished in a point of +the most elegant.... He quoted poetry in a deep voice, +and was capable of torrential outbursts of passion. He +was altogether a perfect specimen of the type of Balzac's +beautiful young man. +</p> + +<p> +Surfeited with these perfections, P. C. Breagh had +become restive, to the point, one day, of being clumsily +sarcastic on the immunity of widows' only sons from the +obligation of military service, and so on. +</p> + +<p> +That afternoon Madame Charles had received a mysterious +communication to the effect that her lord had secretly +quitted Belgium, penetrated in disguise into France, passed +through the Prussian lines in a series of hairbreadth +escapes, and joined a corps of <i>Francs-tireurs</i>. Since when, +letters containing tirades inspired by the most flaming +patriotism, sanguinary descriptions of adventure, and +passionate protestations of devotion, had been found at +intervals by Madame Charles in the mouth of the Satyr mask. +Of late, since she had developed nervousness about fetching +the letters herself, Jean Jacques had sulkily performed +the office. And when she did not, with due precautions, +declaim these effusions for the benefit of her victim and +fellow conspirator, his was the task—inconceivably repulsive +to a young man suffering the stabs of jealousy, of reading +them aloud to Madame Charles. Hence the expletive +which had betrayed his British nationality to Count +Hatzfeldt, standing disconsolate in his squelching patent +leathers under the dripping lilac and syringa trees. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap68"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXVIII +</h3> + +<p> +From Tours, chief town of the Department of the Indre et +Loire, 120 miles southwest of Paris as the crow flies, where +Cremieux, Minister of Justice, and rather too doddery to +be of efficiency at this crisis, had established the +Administrative of the Provisional Government of the new French +Republic;—whither M. Leon Gambetta, Minister of the +Interior, Member of the Board of National Defense, had +recently betaken himself, escaping from the besieged +capital to Montdidier as a passenger in the car of a +balloon—whither the veteran Garibaldi had now arrived to offer his +services in the cause of Liberty—from Tours had come +the famous diplomat and man of letters, contemptuously +dubbed "Professor" by Count Bismarck, with the object +of carrying out the peace negotiations in whose conduct +the tragic patriarch Favre had broken down. +</p> + +<p> +You saw the famous Minister and author of the <i>Histoire +du Consulat et de l'Empire</i>, as a little, stocky, black-clad +old gentleman with a square gray head, round, clean-shaven +face, and bright, round eyes, looking through gold-rimmed +spectacles.... Above all, a patriot, heart and soul +devoted to France, the position of this famous French +statesman of seventy-five, newly returned, empty of all but fair +words and vain courtesies, from a pilgrimage to the Courts +of various neutral Powers, was horrible and painful beyond +words. +</p> + +<p> +Sad, distracted, anxious little gentleman, charged with +the mission of obtaining those needed terms of peace, or at +least an armistice from the conqueror upon the threshold, +can you see him, in the shadow of the magnificent Temple +erected by the Sun King, toiling and moiling with his +secretary, the younger M. Remusat, in preparation for +those anguish-fraught interviews with the German Chancellor. +</p> + +<p> +The tables of his sitting-room at the Hôtel des Réservoirs +were piled with books and papers—papers covered with +abstruse calculations dealing with the most urgent need—the +provisioning of Paris—papers dealing with the question +of the Elections—papers dealing with the General +Census—papers of every imaginable kind. And with these, from +dawn till midnight, the little, grief-worn man wrestled +while the Tinsel Rabble and their staffs of German officers +reveled in the dining-saloons, and trampled and shouted +and clanked and jingled up and down the corridors, and +in and out of the bedrooms; and the roar of the guns from +the forts of the beleaguered city shook the windows from +time to time. +</p> + +<p> +Now and then he would lie back exhausted in his chair, +or lie down and sleep, if sleep ever visited him. He took +his frugal meals in a private cabinet opening out of the +great dining-hall of the restaurant. Since the thirtieth of +October he had been engaged in this wise, save when, +having been first compelled to apply to Count Bismarck +for a pass and a military safe-conduct, he would meet and +confer with Favre, or one of his other colleagues, at some +chosen spot without the walls of the beleaguered capital. +</p> + +<p> +Only the previous day he had trundled down in a little, +shaky, hired brougham to the half-ruined and wholly +deserted suburb of Sèvres, preceded by an officer of Uhlans +with a White Flag on a pole. +</p> + +<p> +Day after day the little brougham had drawn up before +the modest house in the Rue de Provence, and the little +gentleman, whose head seemed to whiten perceptibly, had +stepped out with his portfolio under his arm, as now. +Day after day the Chancery footmen would open the door +to him, and Madame Charles Tessier, hovering in the +background, would drop the representative of suffering France +her lowest curtsey, and sometimes gain a brief word with +his unfailing bow and smile. To-day, as Major von Keudell +appeared in the doorway of the drawing-room—the +Chancellor being closeted in his private interviewing-room +upstairs with the Republican Mayor of Versailles—the +little gentleman said simply, offering his hand to the +eccentric-looking person in the cap with lappets and the +white shawl: +</p> + +<p> +"The sympathy that is expressed in looks and by silence +can be very eloquent and very touching. From my heart +I thank you for yours, Madame!" +</p> + +<p> +And as she had burst out sobbing and kissed the hand, +he had drawn it away with a murmured protest, and had +passed on into the drawing-room where Von Keudell was +to hold him in conversation until the Mayor had been +polished off. +</p> + +<p> +But M. Thiers had endured the ordeal with a courteous +kind of resignation, only looking at his watch from time +to time, or glancing at the clock over which presided the +horned, bat-winged, cloven-hoofed and tailed figure that +tickled the fancy of his oppressor so much. +</p> + +<p> +"His Excellency expected me," he said. "There has +been no mistake about the time of the appointment—named +by himself at our previous interview. The greatness +of the interests concerned are apprehensible by His +Excellency!" +</p> + +<p> +The mild sarcasm rebounded pointless from Von +Keudell's bluff rejoinder: +</p> + +<p> +"No, no mistake at all. His Excellency has merely +shifted the hour. From half-past twelve to a quarter to +one—His Excellency found it more convenient." +</p> + +<p> +"What boors are these Germans!" thought the angered +diplomat, writhing, as some medieval victim, condemned +to undergo torture by rack and fire, might have writhed at +the delay of the hideous ordeal. +</p> + +<p> +And then the door opened. The Chief Torturer looked +in with the salutation: +</p> + +<p> +"A pleasant day! I am quite at your service now, if +you will come up to me.... You know the way, I +think?..." +</p> + +<p> +And the great figure vanished, and the heavy footsteps +thundered up the drugget-covered stairs. +</p> + +<p> +Did the sorrowful visitor know the way to the +torture-chamber? Surely malice must have prompted the query +addressed to the unfortunate plenipotentiary of France. +</p> + +<p> +The room he had so loathed had one window looking +out on the Rue de Provence, and another at the south side +of the house, where stood the pine-tree and the turtle-backed +green glass conservatory with the wrought-iron +bridge above it. It had a figured gray carpet, a green +hearthrug with red edges, dark green stuff curtains, and +various oil-paintings and steel engravings hung upon the +walls, which were painted coffee-tinted cream. It was +furnished with a writing-table, on which were a terrestrial +globe, a celestial one, and a tellurion, a large gray +marble-topped chiffonier, a sofa covered with chintz, pattern +red-and-gray birds-of-paradise on a background with +palm-leaves; two cane chairs and a round center-table, upon +which lay a platter of wood containing the colored glass +marbles with which one plays the game of solitaire. +</p> + +<p> +It was a game of solitaire which was played in that stiff, +primly-furnished apartment, in one corner of which stood +a mahogany bedstead of Empire pattern, with an obsolete +drapery of green-figured brocade. Such a game as may be +played by a grim, greedy, gray-mustached Grimalkin with +a plump, bright-eyed, feebly-palpitating mouse. +</p> + +<p> +M. Thiers had been gravely imperiled by the shell-fire +of the French guns in the act of returning from Sèvres on +the previous day, a mischance which had increased the +palpitations which were caused by his heart disease, and +wounded his feelings cruelly. Commented the Chancellor, +to whom he unwisely related the episode: +</p> + +<p> +"Fortunately the cab-horse was too ill-fed to bolt, but +the window was broken, and you were mud-splashed all +over.... Not exactly the first time that your countrymen +have treated you in that way!..." +</p> + +<p> +And this first scratch of the claw that never failed to +draw blood was followed by the query whether M. Thiers +were provided with full powers for carrying on the +negotiations? +</p> + +<p> +The Minister added, enjoying his victim's start and look +of horrified astonishment: +</p> + +<p> +"My people in Paris tell me that there has been practically +a Revolution, and that a new Government is coming +into power. On the Place before the Hôtel de Ville there +were yesterday 15,000 persons assembled, most of them +National Guards from the Faubourgs, disarmed and +crying: '<i>Vive la Commune! ... Point d'Armistice!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +He went on, unheeding the writhing of the sufferer, +whose dignity had been so cruelly wounded: +</p> + +<p> +"It appears that the Mayors of Paris had been summoned +by Arago, and were in one room conferring, while +in the other was the Government. Mobiles guarded the +doors, but were thrust back by the insurgents. General +Trochu came out and confronted them. He could only +mouth and gesticulate in a sort of dumb Crambo. Cries +of '<i>A bas Trochu!</i>' drowned his voice. There was a rush.... +One does not know how, but Trochu finally escaped +out of their clutches—got out by a back door and cut his +lucky to the Louvre.... Here is one of the slips of +paper that were thrown from the windows of the Hôtel.... +They have '<i>Commune décretée. Dorian Président!</i>' +upon them. There was a scene of confusion peculiar to +your nation, in the midst of which M. Félix Pyat and other +virtuous citizens proclaimed the Commune, and constituted +themselves into a Government embracing Blanqui, +Ledru-Rollin, Délescluze, Louis Blanc, and Flourens.... +Flourens got upon a table—made himself heard, it seems, +finally calling upon the Members of the Government of +National Defense to resign. M. Jules Favre refused +... was arrested with the old Government—the new Government +reigned until two o'clock in the morning, when some +battalions of Mobiles—the 106th and 90th, under +Picard—closed in upon the Hôtel and ejected them. Trochu was +there with his staff.... Since, a general sort of +agreement appears to have been arrived at. A decree signed by +Favre was placarded yesterday, announcing that on Thursday +next a vote is to be taken whether there is to be a +Commune or not.... What I relate happened the day +before yesterday. Now, if Your Excellency saw M. Jules +Favre at Sèvres yesterday afternoon, he must have told +you of the turn things were taking. Oblige me with a plain +answer to a plain question.... Did he tell you, or did +he not?" +</p> + +<p> +The humiliated gentleman bowed his head assentingly. +The hot sweat of a mortal agony stood upon his broad +forehead, and flushed and working features. His glasses were +dimmed with the reek of his torment and his shame. The +Enemy knew all. There was no concealing anything from +one so well served by spies and informers. Probably the +cruel interview with his fellow-Minister had been listened +to, from its beginning to its end. +</p> + +<p> +Thiers and Favre had sat on two iron chairs at a gayly +painted little iron table, before one of the wrecked <i>cafés</i> +that boasted the sign of <i>La Belle Bouquetière</i>. No one had +been near except a haggard, absinthe-sodden wretch, who +lay in a drunken stupor upon the pavement, close under +the broken window of the deserted restaurant. Perhaps +that drunken man had been his spy.... What was he +saying in the harsh, bullying tones that grated so?... +</p> + +<p> +"The mob who rode roughshod over General Trochu, +and his Council of lawyers and orators, appear to be +actuated by the desire of fighting things out with us. They +burn for a chance, it appears, to pit their undisciplined +courage against the Army of United Germany. They are +hardly to be blamed for accepting literally the theatrical +bombast with which they have been fed by Favre!" +</p> + +<p> +He laughed, and said, with a galling imitation of the +rhetorical manner of the Democratic barrister of Lyons: +</p> + +<p> +"'Not a stone of our fortresses'—do you remember? +'Not an inch of our territory!'—have you forgotten?... +When it was in the power of the person to whom he boasted +to have said to him: <i>Every inch. Every stone!</i>..." +</p> + +<p> +He rose up, towering over the unhappy personage who +sat opposite to him, in a little wicker easy-chair that would +have suited a child. His greedy vitality physically sucked +energy from his victim. The stare of his great eyes +oppressed, the roughness of his speech had a wounding +brutality. +</p> + +<p> +"Which Party governs France? The Blue Republicans +or the Reds, answer me? Can one treat with a State that +has no responsible heads?" +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur le Comte!" screamed the personage thus +cruelly prodded. "Do you not know that you are +insulting me?" +</p> + +<p> +He had grown deadly pale, and now flushed red, making +a passionate gesture as though to strike himself on the +forehead, as the other asked him with bitter irony: +</p> + +<p> +"Is the truth so offensive to you as all that?... If +you did not wish to hear it, you have come to the wrong +shop. The day for compliments and flatteries has passed +with the tinsel Empire of your Napoleon, unless you compel +us to bring him back and set him up again at the Tuileries. +Believe me, he has contemplated this eventuality!—has his +carpet-bags ready packed, and his eagle in a traveling-cage.... +And certainly we could discuss the military questions +at issue better with him than with you civilian gentlemen, +who do not understand the language of War." +</p> + +<p> +It was not possible to get a word in edgeways.... The +rasping voice tore the nerve-fibers as with a saw-edge, the +towering figure overwhelmed, the powerful stare fascinated +and terrified as the pitiless gaze of the snake when fixed +upon a frog or a bird. +</p> + +<p> +And Bismarck went on, deliberately lashing himself into +a passion: +</p> + +<p> +"Are you and your colleagues aware that I suffer in my +reputation for these procrastinations? It is said at home +in Germany that I am over-lenient toward the French, +our treacherous enemies ... that I delay to reap for +United Germany the glory and profit for which she has +paid so terrible a price in blood. Yourself with +MM. Ducrot and Favre have considered my terms for an armistice +inadmissible.... In return I tell you you have forfeited +the right to criticize any terms that I may propose.... +You would hold the elections—even in those provinces +of France which we hold as conquerors! You would reprovision +Paris and her fortresses! We should be hellish +unpractical if we listened to you!... What the big devil!... +Are we to permit the levies, and the recruiting by +which the French Republic may hurl against us a new +army to shoot down? <i>Himmelkreuzbombenelement!</i>... +Do you take us for sheep's heads?" +</p> + +<p> +The unhappy Minister protested in a faint voice: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur le Comte, I do not even comprehend the +meaning of the term!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, by God!" thundered the terrible voice, "you are +ignorant indeed of German words and German meanings, +and the word that you understand least of all when applied +to yourselves is WAR! Silk gloves are not our wear in War, +and therefore the iron gloves with which we have handled +you have pinched your soft flesh and made you squeal. +We might complain of your <i>Francs-tireurs</i>, who hide in +woods and houses, and shoot our soldiers unawares; and of +the inhumanity of your mitrailleuses which cut red lanes +through whole regiments. But no! You are the +sufferers—you are to be pitied—even for the injuries you wreak +upon yourselves...." +</p> + +<p> +He struck with his clenched fist the top of the chiffonier +near which he stood, and the dull shock of the contact of +that sledge-hammer of muscle and bone with the solid +marble, made the pictures shake upon the wall, the +windows rattle in their frames, and the bewildered listener +leap as if he had been shot. +</p> + +<p> +"I rode over to St. Cloud yesterday," he went on, "to +look at the palace you have set on fire with your shells +from Mont Valérien. It is burning still, as I don't doubt +you know. A well-dressed French gentleman stood looking +at the smoldering ashes of the conflagration. Near him +was a French workman in a dirty blue blouse—'<i>C'est +l'œuvre de Bismarck!</i>' said the gentleman to the plebeian, +little dreaming who was near.... But the cad in the +blouse only said to him: 'Why, our —— gunners did that +themselves!' That workman had more sense in his +pumpkin than the whole lot of you!" +</p> + +<p> +M. Thiers revived under the fresh insult sufficiently to +plant a sting: +</p> + +<p> +"It is said, Monsieur, and on excellent authority, that +the Imperial Palace was sacked by German troops before +it was set on fire." +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor lowered his heavy brows and demanded +almost menacingly: +</p> + +<p> +"Do you assert that His Majesty the King or the Crown +Prince of Prussia were parties to a crime of this kind?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, Monsieur, not for an instant!" +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor said with a short laugh that had no mirth +in it: +</p> + +<p> +"That is fortunate, otherwise I should have been compelled +to break off, and finally, our negotiations with regard +to this question of an Armistice, and deal only with the +question of the territory to be added—in addition to the +fortresses on the right bank of the Rhine—and those six +thousand millions of francs that we shall certainly take +from you!" +</p> + +<p> +The thrust caused M. Thiers to leap to his feet, galvanized +into a feverish energy. He screamed, raising his +clenched hands and sweeping them downward and outward: +</p> + +<p> +"It cannot be, Monsieur!—it is outrage—robbery—ruin! +Europe will intervene if you persist in such a demand!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ha, ha, ha!" The great jovial giant's laugh set the +crystal drops upon the mantelshelf-vases and the +wall-mirror girandoles tinkling, and reached the hearing of +Hatzfeldt and von Keudell in the drawing-room, and the +decipherers in the Bureau below. It vibrated through the +joists and planks and spaces above the plastered ceiling, +and made Madame Charles start where she lay upon the +floor of her bedroom listening, with her ear pressed to the +uncarpeted boards. +</p> + +<p> +"My good sir, you are making game of me.... You +have visited the Courts of the Powers—we know to what +profit.... You have solicited intervention—to be told +what both of us knew very well before! ... The British +Lion may lash and roar, but will not do more, that is +certain. England has not sufficiently recovered from the war +of the Crimea—from the further drain of men and gold +caused by the Indian Mutiny.... Austria, in spite of +creeds and bias—with her German-speaking population and +her Germanized institutions—may be regarded as a powerful +German State. Italy lies under the heel of Austria. If +the Russian Bear elect to hug, the hugging will be done +upon our side. For it is inconceivable that Germany +should ever be at war with Russia. Our interests are and +have always been one...." He laughed again, and said, +laughing: +</p> + +<p> +"And, knowing this, you threaten me with the intervention +of European Powers.... You will hear nothing +with respect to forfeiture of territory!... You refuse to +contemplate the question of the Gold Indemnity!... +Wait!" he said—"wait until the bombardment is a month +old and the bread-basket is empty.... Then we shall hear +you sing to a different tune!" +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur le Comte!..." +</p> + +<p> +The old man tottered to his feet. He was ashen in hue, +and trembling. His blue lips hung breathlessly apart, his +eyes had a lack-luster stare behind their gold-rimmed +glasses; he pressed a hand over his left breast as though to +repress a pang of pain. +</p> + +<p> +"M. le Comte ... I have suffered too much.... I find +myself unable to continue our interview.... With your +permission ... to-morrow?..." He bowed and took his +hat and cane, and repeated weakly: "To-morrow?" +</p> + +<p> +"With pleasure!" said the Man of Iron, escorting him +to the door. +</p> + +<p> +And the old, humiliated, fallen King-maker, the great +literary genius, the polished orator—tottered away out of +the presence of the conqueror. +</p> + +<p> +He was to return upon the morrow, and for many days +thenceafter, to be played with and tortured, to be +tantalized and mocked. +</p> + +<p> +He was to return flushed with futile hope, only to be +crushed and retire discomfited. He was to furnish an +inexhaustible source of amusement for the delectation of his +implacable enemy. +</p> + +<p> +He was to return after a prolonged absence within the +walls of the beleaguered capital, he and others, faint with +famine, broken by anxiety, shattered by suspense and +sleeplessness, forced by sheer hunger to sit and partake at +the groaning board of their merciless foe, compelled by his +arrogance to listen to his jestings, moistening the food +they placed between their livid lips, with the stinging salt +of tears. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap69"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXIX +</h3> + +<p> +The center of a small but lively group, composed of +admirers and listeners, Prussian officers known in Berlin, +their Bavarian and Hessian friends and acquaintances, +American and English Press Correspondents, and a traveling +Oriental or two—you might have observed Madame de +Straz—a full-blown Comtesse now, in virtue of the patent +of nobility asserted by her husband—in the restaurant of +the Hôtel des Réservoirs—not always accompanied by her +Assyrian-featured lord. +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide had not grown younger since the adventure of +the Silk Scarf. Her bold and striking beauty had suffered +gravely, though her figure, set off by its fashionable and +well-chosen dress, was as supple and graceful as of yore. +She looked like some gorgeous fruit that the wasps had +ravaged, and to conceal this she made up heavily and wore +thicker veils. What she now lacked in loveliness she +endeavored to make up in <i>espièglerie</i> and easy-going +good-fellowship. Not a few officers responded with enthusiasm +to her pressing invitations to breakfast or lunch at the little +country villa she and M. de Straz had rented, at Maisons +Lafitte beyond St. Germain. +</p> + +<p> +One need hardly say that there was play on these occasions, +besides excellently prepared dishes and a liberal flow +of the champagne, besides the cognac and liqueurs of which +Madame drank a good deal. +</p> + +<p> +To quiet her nerves, raveled by the unhappy situation +of her beloved country, she declared, for it suited her to be +a Frenchwoman now. +</p> + +<p> +She would have dearly liked to inveigle a Duke, Grand or +Hereditary, or even a Prince Regnant, to her roof-tree and +her baccarat-board, but these personages, bestarred and +beribboned, furred, jack-booted, buck-skinned and +long-spurred, were as shy as the hares and partridges in the +forest, that were incessantly cracked at by hungry +pot-hunters. Wherefore the sumptuous Adelaide must +perforce be contented with Counts and Barons, whose purses +were less lengthy than their pedigrees, as a rule. +</p> + +<p> +"A solitary nest and too remote, it may be.... But +for a bride and bridegroom, solitude and remoteness have +their advantages!" had proclaimed M. de Straz, with a +shrug of infinite meaning, and suggestive glances of his +black Oriental eyes. Certainly the guests of Madame and +Monsieur, even when conveyed to the destination in hired +broughams and victorias, were wont to find the road, +running through abandoned villages and by deserted châteaux, +unexpectedly barricaded with felled timber and scarred +with unfinished trenches, more than a trifle long. +</p> + +<p> +The nest of these love-birds, half a mile from the sacked +railway station and the broken bridge of Maisons Lafitte, +was enclosed in private grounds. The villa Laon—how or +from whom acquired, nobody ever thought of questioning—was +a cottage with Swiss gables and East Indian verandas +standing in gardens adorned with glass arcades and Italian +pergolas, their vines and roses stripped and shuddering in +the bitter wintry winds. There were also Chinese bridges +crossing pieces of ornamental water, aviaries of finches and +canaries, and wired enclosures once well stocked with silver +pheasants, now, thanks to the nocturnal ravages of +mysterious marauders, depopulated in a manner painful to +behold. +</p> + +<p> +"You pretend," said Valverden teasingly to Adelaide, +"that the neighbors creep out at night and annex the +pheasants, or that our cavalry pickets take them for the +mess-pot, or that they are stolen by <i>Francs-tireurs</i>. +<i>Francs-tireurs</i> there are in plenty in the neighborhood—every +hour some honest German soldier gets his death at the +hands of one of these scoundrels!—but as far as concerns +the vanished inmates of the pens and cages, I believe you +and M. de Straz have eaten them yourselves." +</p> + +<p> +He stretched his long spurred legs out over the brocade +of an Empire sofa gracing Madame's boudoir, and leaning +back his handsome head, looked up at her teasingly. +</p> + +<p> +"With my assistance, for that <i>salmis</i> we had for breakfast +was of home production I am certain. Come, own +that I have guessed as well as Mariette can cook at a +pinch." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide frowned and bit her lip. But she let her gaze +dwell lingeringly on the upturned face of the handsome +Guardsman, and said, seeming to search for her own sulky, +splendid image in the blue eyes with which Adonis made +play: +</p> + +<p> +"If you were less like Max I believe I should detest +you!..." She added, after an instant: "And if you +resembled him more than you do, you would find no +welcome here." +</p> + +<p> +"Beyond <i>salmis</i> of pet pheasants, and stewed carp out +of your landlord's fish-ponds." His red lips rolled back in +a grin that showed the strong white teeth, the fuzzy ends +of his fair mustache sparkled as though the hair had been +sprinkled with gold-dust. "Who is your landlord? I am +dying to know. Do you rent the place of the gardener, or +that pompous-looking butler who has not got the key of +the cellars, but nevertheless can produce champagne of +Comet brand and excellent Roussillon. Or is it a speculative +partnership? Some of us have dropped a good deal +of money here in play lately.... They are beginning to +grumble noisily—particularly that little black-haired +<i>aide-de-camp</i> of the Duke of Coburg, and von Kissling of the +squadron of Blue Dragoons quartered here at Maisons +Lafitte.... What's in the wind I don't pretend to know, +but they might get you turned out of here—they might +even obtain an order from Headquarters for the return of +their lost cash!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Bernhard!" Her ringed white hands tenderly caressed +his forehead. "You will protect me from them!—you will +stand my friend! Oh! how horrible it is to want +money—always money!" +</p> + +<p> +Valverden said, neatly biting off the end of a cigar and +spitting the nipped-off end through the open glass-doors +leading out upon the veranda: +</p> + +<p> +"Has not M. de Straz got any money? And did not +my Cousin Max give you enough?... You used to seem +uncommonly flush of the ready when one saw you queening +it among the gay <i>cocottes</i> of Berlin." +</p> + +<p> +His tone cut like a whip. But Adelaide was growing +used to take insults with outward meekness. She +swallowed her wrath and even tried to smile. +</p> + +<p> +It was horribly true that she had need of money. Even +before she had fallen into her present state of servitude, +she had known that a day was coming when she would be +penniless. +</p> + +<p> +Like all other women of her sensuous tastes and clamorous +predilections, Adelaide devoured money as a pussycat +crunches up small birds. Her dead lover had spent +upon her lavishly, had provided that an income should be +paid her out of his private estate. But it was not sufficient +for a woman so extravagant, and Adelaide had supplemented +it in various ways. Firstly, by obtaining information +for the Prussian Secret Intelligence Bureau. Secondly, +by tapping the bank-balances of admirers of the +wealthier order. Thirdly, by signing Bills of Exchange +and Promissory Notes for cash at ruinous rates of interest. +When she had conceived the idea of obtaining a reconciliation +with Henri de Bayard, the prospect of incarceration +in a debtor's prison had loomed very near. +</p> + +<p> +The cunning fable of her riches that had been devised to +tempt him to his ruin, had failed through the very whiteness +of the man's integrity. Ah, Adelaide! The way to +have triumphed over the Colonel would have been to have +crept in tatters as a beggar to his door. +</p> + +<p> +But she had never understood the man. Let us hope +that generous soul of his was spared knowledge of the +degradation of the woman he had worshiped, as Valverden +went on, barely deigning to hide his contempt of her, or to +modify even slightly the insolence of his tone: +</p> + +<p> +"You have asked me to protect you. I have no objection +to doing so. My sympathy is not at all with the losers +who squeal. Even when I was as poor as a church-mouse +I had the gift of being plucked without wincing. Besides, +I won money that night when Von Kissling dropped such +a lot.... And of course my testimony would be +worth—something...." +</p> + +<p> +His tone of bargaining was unmistakable. Adelaide +flushed a dusky-red, through which the fading streaks of +Straz's love-gift showed plainly, and her dark eyes gleamed +covetously as she bent over the young man. She whispered +with her hot lips almost touching the diagonal white +band of forehead above his soldierly sunburn: +</p> + +<p> +"What, Bernhard? Tell me what it would be worth to +you...." +</p> + +<p> +His long blue eyes laughed up into hers, lazily. He said, +feeling for the silver case in which he carried his fusees: +</p> + +<p> +"Shall we say ... a little information regarding the +whereabouts of Mademoiselle Titania.... M. de Straz has +piqued my curiosity, you will observe." +</p> + +<p> +"So!..." +</p> + +<p> +She reared above him like a furious Hamadryad, +whispering thickly, for rage dried up her tongue: +</p> + +<p> +"So it is of my daughter you and Nicolas have been talking +apart together, both here and at the Hôtel des Réservoirs. +Are you both mad? For a pale, plain, dull school-girl ... a +peaky, undeveloped, mincing doll!" +</p> + +<p> +He raised himself to a sitting posture, and answered her +coarsely: +</p> + +<p> +"Women like you cannot realize what is or is not pleasing +to men of my standard. The Prince Imperial must +have seen a good many pretty women, young as he is, yet +he found your daughter charming, I am told.... M. de +Straz, who is a judge, admires her excessively.... If my +curiosity is tickled, the fault is your own, for it was you +and not M. Straz who first engaged my interest in that +quarter.... Did I not speak to Count Moltke at your +request of Mademoiselle? Well, he did—though at first he +scouted the notion—sound Count Bismarck on the subject, +when he called to congratulate him on his First Class of +the Iron Cross, and be complimented on his own Order +<i>Pour Le Mérite</i>." +</p> + +<p> +He folded his arms on his broad chest and dropped the +words out lingeringly, relishingly, his blue eyes gloating +over the changes in her tortured face: +</p> + +<p> +"And the Chancellor answered him: '<i>Do not you trouble +yourself! All is well with the pretty young daughter of de +Bayard, by that disreputable old woman who played the +mistress of Count Max in '67.</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +She screamed, and struck with her clenched hand at the +fair, flushed, grinning face as though she would willingly +have battered out its beauty. He caught her wrist with a +fencer's quickness, and prisoned the other in the twinkling +of an eye. He went on, holding her immovable, leisurely +enjoying the changes upon her tortured face: +</p> + +<p> +"As a good German I do not interfere with my superiors. +His Excellency knows where the girl is, and does not at +present choose to tell. But you, Werte Frau, have the +right to question His Excellency, whose answer was +repeated to me by my Chief, Count Moltke. Do not forget, +however, that you lay claim to the disrepute as well as the +daughter when you present yourself at the Foreign Office +... in the Rue de Provence...." +</p> + +<p> +She panted breathlessly: +</p> + +<p> +"I shall not go! No one shall compel me!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, in that case," said Valverden, rising and releasing +her, "I can only leave you to the arguments of M. de Straz. +He is coming now—I can hear his voice in the garden. <i>Auf +Wiedersehen!</i>" He said over his shoulder, as he lounged +out of the cottage: "In the affair of Von Kissling, do not +count on my assistance. It is only given on condition you +fall in with our views." +</p> + +<p> +So he and Straz were in league.... Rage stung her to +the mad imprudence of rebellion—the proud sultana whom +a thousand freakish cruelties on the part of her swarthy +master had taught to be a trembling slave. +</p> + +<p> +The Roumanian, we know, was nothing if not subtle. +When Adelaide flatly refused to call at the Foreign Office +in the Rue de Provence in the character of a bereaved and +yearning mother, he smiled on her, almost tenderly. He +kissed the wrists Valverden's grip had bruised. +</p> + +<p> +"Queen Rose of my Garden of Delights," he said, "why +did you let the girl go in the beginning? You recognized +her value even when you did not know that she has money +in her own right." +</p> + +<p> +Money.... A new light began to break upon Adelaide. +The fear of a sudden and violent death no longer stiffened +her muscles. She moistened her lips, pale under their +rose-tinged salve, and lifted her eyebrows inquiringly. +</p> + +<p> +"Money, soul of my soul," said Straz, who had almost +reverted to the original gushing and poetic Nicolas of +Adelaide's remembrance, the lover whom in pre-Sigmaringen +days she had cajoled and despised and betrayed. "Not a +large fortune certainly, but between her grandmother's +estate and her father's savings she has a sum of 80,000 +francs invested in the Belgian cloth manufactory and +dyeing works of M. Charles Tessier. Not a fortune, but not a +sum to be at all despised." He added: "I have obtained this +information from a person—formerly a clerk in the employment +of the Versailles firm of solicitors who enjoyed the +confidence of M. le Colonel and his sainted mother." The +quirk of his lips and the roll of his eyes as he made this +reference, so unsavory in the ears of Adelaide, cannot be +described. "From this retentive person—I refer to the +ex-clerk—I have purchased the intelligence I now divide with +her who has the right to share the secrets of my heart." +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide had previously seated herself, at a motion of +his finger. She looked up now as he thrust a hand between +his vest and shirt-bosom. Their glances met. He said to +her with a snap of his thick white fingers: +</p> + +<p> +"No! Put that out of your head, <i>ma cocotte</i>! Not a +sou of de Bayard's will ever come his widow's way." +</p> + +<p> +This uncanny faculty of the Roumanian for reading her +unspoken thoughts was one of the secrets of his power over +Adelaide. She shuddered now, encountering his look. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you know," he was demanding, "that with her +unique beauty Mademoiselle would be a fortune in our +pockets even were she penniless? What! you doubt the +justice of my taste—which placed on you the seal of +approval when your own charms were at their perihelion. +You who have paid the price for those supreme moments +when celestial flames enveloped you—when you knew +yourself nearest to the bosom of the Sun." +</p> + +<p> +Were all the men in league with this man to taunt and +mock and torture her? A fierce surge of blood rushed to +her brain. She heard his thick chuckle as she loosened, +with shaking hands, the lace about her throat. +</p> + +<p> +"Why do you not kill me outright?" she cried to him, +as the tide rushed back to her heart, and left her livid. +"Are you not yet weary of playing this hideous farce of +marriage? Why murder me by inches?... Will you +never set me free?..." +</p> + +<p> +He said, combing his clubbed beard with his thick +yellow-white finger-tips: +</p> + +<p> +"When you have helped to get back Mademoiselle, I +will think about providing you an honorable retirement. +Come! Be pliant.... You have my word that you shall +be free. But without funds," he shrugged, "who can do +anything? And Mademoiselle has these expectations +... and beyond these I have certain definite arrangements +with—a certain personage—who is—content to pay handsomely +for an introduction to her." +</p> + +<p> +She cast caution to the four winds and shrieked at him +furiously: +</p> + +<p> +"'De Bayard's daughter by that disreputable old +woman!...' Ah, for that he shall indeed pay handsomely!" +</p> + +<p> +For though the sentence quoted by Valverden bore the +unmistakable stamp of the Iron Chancellor's mintage, the +tone in which the words had been repeated, the icy glance +of contempt that had accompanied them, rankled in the +flesh of the unhappy woman, like barbed thorns. +</p> + +<p> +The venom wrought in her still, even to hardihood and a +courage bordering on effrontery, when a few days later her +hired carriage drew up before the sentried gate of the +Tessier mansion in the Rue de Provence, early in the +forenoon of a December day. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap70"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXX +</h3> + +<p> +One of the black-garbed Chancery attendants opened the +yellow-painted hall-door. Madame tendered him a card, +and said in her most musical tones, plying the archery of +her fine eyes: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame de Straz, formerly de Bayard. By appointment +to see His Excellency the Chancellor." +</p> + +<p> +Von Keudell looked out of the drawing-room and signaled. +The Chancery attendant caught his eye. Madame, +borne upon a gale of costly perfume, swept her velvets and +Russian sables over the Foreign Office threshold, and +amidst the tinkling of lockets, and charms, and bracelets +innumerable, was ushered into the drawing-room. +</p> + +<p> +As the door shut, and the Chancery attendant resumed +his bench and his German newspaper, Jean Jacques Potier, +who had been polishing the hall parquet with a flannel +clout on one foot and a brush strapped on the other, +resumed his labors with a very red face. Madame Charles +Tessier, who had been watering the ferns and pot-plants on +the console-tables, wrapped in the woolen shawl that +seemed parcel of her individuality, might have struck the +young man, when he furtively glanced at her, as being +whiter than her shawl. +</p> + +<p> +But the deadly whiteness passed, and the rigor of terror +could add little stiffness to the gait that was a compound +of a limp and a shuffle, as the Twopenny Roué's bugbear +climbed the back-stairs to her second-floor room. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Potier slept in the next. One could hear her +making beds on the first-floor beneath one. Judging by +the sounds, she was sweeping the Chancellor's sleeping-room. +<i>Knock-knock!</i> went her busy broom every instant, +against the furniture or the wainscot. <i>Flip-flap!</i> That +was the duster, being shaken out of the window. When +the Minister was unwell, and kept his room, Madame did +not sweep, but merely dusted and made the bed. And he +lay on the sofa, pulled near the fire and lengthened with a +settee, or worked with his back to the window, at a table +in the middle of the room. There were two great black +leather dispatch-boxes on the table, and a great many +maps of France, covered with marginal annotations; and +the brass-handled mahogany bureau near the washstand-alcove +was piled high with boxes of long, strong Bremen +cigars. And by the bed was the night-table, with the +framed photographs of his daughter and Countess +Bismarck, his traveling candlestick, a supply of hard wax +candles in a box, matches; a volume of Treitschke's +"Heidelberg Lectures," with several little good books, in cloth +bindings, "Daily Readings for Members of the Society of +Moravian Brethren," and "Pearls from the Deep of Scripture," +as well as a bottle of patent medicine and a box of +pills, both of which nostrums were renewed constantly, +and neither of which seemed to do him any good. +</p> + +<p> +For he coughed and hawked and spat bile continually. +Rarely was he silent before two o 'clock in the morning, and +then it might be that one ceased to hear him, because one +had succeeded in wooing sleep for oneself. Something +ailed him. Those who knew him best gave no name to his +ailment. Others whispered of catarrh of the stomach. +Yet others were oracular upon the subject of dyspepsia of +the acute kind. +</p> + +<p> +Whatever the indisposition, it was fostered by the +indiscriminate generosity of his admirers, who continually +forwarded from all parts of the German Fatherland huge +consignments of delicacies solid and fluid for the +delectation of their Chancellor. +</p> + +<p> +Choice wines, rare cigars and fine tobacco, liqueurs and +old corn-brandies, cold punch in barrels, beer of Berlin +and Leipzig, and the brunette drink beloved of Bavarians. +Smoked Pomeranian goose-breasts, cakes, sausages +of every variety, fresh salmon and sturgeon, pickled +tunny, herrings and caviar, game of all kinds, smoked +hams of bear, deer, mutton, and pig. Magdeburg +sauerkraut and Leipzig pastry, preserves and fruit, fresh +and candied, gorged the capacious storerooms and cellars +of the Tessier mansion, which would have been found +inadequate to accommodate all these mountains of good +things, had not each Privy Councilor, Secretary and +decipherer of the Chancellor's perambulating Foreign Office +possessed a capacity for gorging only inferior to the +Chief's. +</p> + +<p> +In truth, this great Minister, so pitiless in his mockery +of the idiosyncrasies and weaknesses of others, habitually +overate himself; showing as little mercy toward his stomach +as the staff of the Berlin Chancellery displayed toward +the gorged and replete leather dispatch-bags that came to +him by every post. He was horribly greedy, and drank a +great deal, and his stomach-aches, like himself, were on the +colossal scale. More than once Madame Charles had ministered +to their assuagement with infusions of carbonate of +soda and peppermint. +</p> + +<p> +"One should check the appetite when one suffers thus +from overindulgence," she had once said to him, stirring +her dreadful infusion with an ivory measuring-spoon. +</p> + +<p> +"The French climate does not suit me...." he had +answered her. "In Germany I can eat a great deal more +than I do here. Not that I eat much really, because my +dinner is my only meal." +</p> + +<p> +"But, just Heaven! Monseigneur! what a meal!" she +had screamed at him in horror. And the room had +resounded to his giant's Ha, ha, ha! +</p> + +<p> +"Without a head and stomach of iron," he told her, +"such as we Bismarcks inherit from our ancestors, and +Göttingen has helped to render more tough, it would have +been impossible in my young days to get on in the Diplomatic +Service. We drank the weaker men under the table, +then lifted them up, propped them between chairs, and +made them sign their names to all sorts of concessions +which they would not have dreamed of making otherwise.... +To this day I can toss down the strongest wines +of the Palatinate like water with my dinner. Champagne +I need, and the bigger glasses I get it in the more it agrees +with me.... Port, such as the English sip with dessert, +I prefer as a breakfast-wine. Corn-brandy, such as our +Old Nordhausen, is indispensable for the oiling of my +machinery; and I derive benefit from rum, taken after the +Russian fashion, with my eight or nine cups of +after-dinner tea." +</p> + +<p> +He added, sipping Madame Charles's fiercely-smelling +nostrum: +</p> + +<p> +"Not that anything I have drunk or eaten mars my +capacity for cool reflection and close argument.... When +I and one or two others are laid by, men will only peck and +sip. There will only be chatter about eating and drinking.... +<i>Grosser Gott!</i> What things I used to do in that line +when I was young!" +</p> + +<p> +And he tossed off the contents of the tumbler, and +mouthed at it, and set it down upon the little tray she held +and dismissed her with a nod of thanks. +</p> + +<p> +But Madame Charles carried away with her an idea of +him as he had been in those old days, huge, loud, voracious, +powerful, tempestuously jovial or ironically grim. She +crowned the domed head with thick waving locks of brown +hair, lightened the shaggy brows, and gave the blue eyes +back their youthful fire; smoothed the deep lines from the +florid face, restored his long heavy limbs their shapeliness, +and reduced the girth of his waist. And it was impossible +to despise the finished picture, because the man was so +much a man. +</p> + +<p> +Day by day, while the War went on, and Paris lay +raging and spitting fire within her impregnable, impassable +girdle of human flesh and steel and iron—to this house +where he sat solid and square at his table in his bedroom-study, +reading over documents vomited by the great dispatch-boxes, +or letters and papers captured with balloon-posts, +or driving the pen with that tireless hand of his over +sheets to be conned by Monarchs and rulers of States—came +the Crown Prince of Prussia, handsome and débonnaire, +or the dry, withered gentleman who bore the great +name of von Moltke, or the War Minister von Roon, or +M. Thiers, or the Saxon Minister von Friesen, or the Grand +Dukes of Weimar or Baden, or the Duke of Coburg, or the +Representatives of Austria-Hungary and Bavaria, or the +English Ambassador, who had recently come upon a Mission +to Versailles. Night after night, other and stranger footsteps +crossed the threshold. Sometimes blindfolded officers +in stained and weatherbeaten French uniforms had been +led upstairs to that mysterious room where he sat, weaving +his huge web of diplomacy, or manipulating with deft, +capable touches the threads that moved both men and +Kings. +</p> + +<p> +Everyone came to this house on the quiet by-street of +Versailles, that had become the throbbing center of the +world.... From the greatest to the smallest, from the +worthiest to the vilest. Now, last of all came—Adelaide +de Bayard. +</p> + +<p> +And with her came the question: How much he suspected. +There had been one or two moments when Juliette +had been temporarily thrown off her guard. Could one +really deceive him, who was so subtle, watchful, +observant?... Past master in cunning, ripe in diplomacy.... +</p> + +<p> +She heard his heavy footstep on the staircase as she held +her bosom and listened. Madame Potier had finished his +bedroom, and taken her broom and dustpan to the next. +Madame de Bayard had been shown into the smaller +interviewing-room, where the Brussels carpet had been paced +into threadbare alleys by the feet of men who were topped +by aching responsibilities—where the Crown Prince of +Prussia smoked his big painted pipe of Latakia as he +chatted with the Chancellor—where M. Thiers sat through +long ordeals of torture in the little wicker arm-chair. +</p> + +<p> +Would the mother of Juliette de Bayard sit in that +chair? Her daughter knew how superbly she would rise +and sweep her reverence to the Minister. How smoothly +she would pour forth some false and specious tale.... +</p> + +<p> +The Minister strode in upon Madame, carrying his cap +and riding-whip. His heavy countenance had the healthier +flush of exercise, his great spurred boots were plastered +with clayey mud. He had but just returned from an early +ride with Count Hatzfeldt, taken at this hour "To escape," +as he had explained to that elegant functionary, "the +detestable clattering and knocking of that female Kobold, +whose day it is to sweep my room." +</p> + +<p> +"Why let her sweep?" Hatzfeldt had asked, and his +principal had answered: +</p> + +<p> +"I approve domestic cleanliness. And a room that is +used as bedroom and study somehow harbors both spiders +and dust. And I abhor spiders—nearly as much as +cockroaches. Those long-waisted insects that swarm in the +conservatory here give me almost a sensation of sickness +when they scuttle away from my boots. I find a physical +relief, actually, in crushing them." +</p> + +<p> +He experienced something of that nausea and its resulting +impulse toward extermination, meeting the bold eyes +and the false ingratiating smile of the still beautiful +Adelaide. He said, standing huge and adamantine between +the woman and the window: +</p> + +<p> +"Be seated, Madame.... No ... not that chair! Possibly +I grow old, but I find that I can best deal with certain +persons when the morning light is on their faces." +</p> + +<p> +"As you will, Monseigneur!" +</p> + +<p> +Adelaide mentally execrated his coarse brutality as she +bit her lip, pulled down her flowered veil more closely, and +prepared to sink into the little wicker chair. +</p> + +<p> +"No!" he said, stopping her, "not that chair!—take +the other. To my idea the seat you at first selected +represents at present the Throne of France, or at least the +Presidential fauteuil. M. Thiers occupies it when he comes to +see me.... And he is a person whom I hold in much +respect." +</p> + +<p> +She winced at the side-thrust. +</p> + +<p> +"I regret, Monseigneur, to have forfeited your good +opinion." +</p> + +<p> +"I do not usually bestow my good opinion," he told her, +"upon ladies of your reputation, even though I may have +reason to praise their sharp wits. Now pray state your +business here. My time is limited." +</p> + +<p> +She half rose up with a pained stare of wounded feeling, +thought better of it, sank down again amidst her velvets +and sables, and recited her lesson as taught by Straz. +</p> + +<p> +The Roumanian, by dint of diligent, patient inquiry, +had collected and pieced together with marvelous cleverness, +the information gathered, correlative to the movements +of Juliette. Her departure from the Prefecture at +Bethel, her frustrated journey to the Camp at Châtel +St. Germain—her halt at the village of Petit Plappeville, her +search for the Colonel upon the battlefield, were all pieces +in a mosaic miraculously restored. M. de Straz knew that +Count Bismarck had seen and spoken to the young lady—had +ordered separate burial for the body of de Bayard. +He could even name a soldier of the German burial-party, +who had helped to dig the grave. Subsequently Mademoiselle +had been seen in company with a young Englishman ... she +had returned with him to Petit Plappeville. +The village had been raided and sacked by Prussian cavalry. +Since when, Mademoiselle, with the young Englishman, +had returned to Versailles.... She was occupying the +Tessier mansion up to the moment of the arrival of the +Chancellor with his Foreign Office Staff. And—by a most +curious and deplorable coincidence, from that psychological +moment to the present, all trace of Mademoiselle had been +lost.... +</p> + +<p> +"Consequently," Adelaide wound up her well-conned +lesson, "myself and M. de Straz have no resource but to apply +to Your Excellency. Naturally M. de Straz desires that +the daughter of M. de Bayard and myself should be extricated +from a compromising position and placed under our +joint guardianship. He takes—such chivalry is innate in +his nature—a parental interest in the poor young girl!" +</p> + +<p> +Said the Minister, smiling with cynical amusement: +</p> + +<p> +"Therefore in the interests of Chivalry and Morality—you +call on me—as proprietor of the seraglio in which you +suppose Mademoiselle to have been hidden away.... You +demand"—he struck the riding-glove he had removed upon +the palm of the right hand it had covered—"and the hint +of such a demand is a menace—do you hear?—a menace—that +I should render the girl up to you, or pay through +the nose for what I once declined to buy. You think at +this epoch in the history of Germany—when the search-ray +of international interest is turned upon the doings of that +fellow Bismarck at Versailles—that I should not care to be +classed with the Minotaurs who devoured youths and +virgins. Madame, they were French monarchs, I am only a +Pomeranian squire...." +</p> + +<p> +He rose up, towering over the quaking woman, and +strode across the shaking floor and pulled the green silk +bell-rope by the fireplace. It came down in his hand, top +ornament, wire and all, and he said as he looked at it and +tossed it from him: +</p> + +<p> +"That is a suggestion on the part of your Fate which I +shall not adopt, though I could hang you and your paramour...." +</p> + +<p> +He added, speaking loudly as Von Keudell opened the +door, and the wretched woman rose and tottered toward +him: +</p> + +<p> +"Did I hold the secret of your daughter's hiding-place, +I would not betray her to you.... <i>Adieu</i>, Madame de +Bayard.... You observe that I do not add, 'and <i>au +revoir</i>!'" +</p> + +<p> +The great resonant voice had sounded through the whole +house like a beaten war-gong. Lying upon the floor of +her room, straining her ears to catch some fragments of +their colloquy, it broke over Juliette in waves of thunderous +sound. +</p> + +<p> +Jean Jacques, below in the hall, was told by Von Keudell +to "see the lady to her carriage," which, in virtue of her +appointment, had been admitted through the Tessier +<i>porte cochère</i>. The Swiss youth obeyed with even a clumsier +grace than usual, the polishing-brush being still strapped +about one instep, and the clout still swathed about the other +foot, as he hobbled down the shallow doorsteps to open the +brougham-door for Madame. As she stepped in and took +the seat, her strained eyes leaped at his face suddenly. +As he leaned in arranging the rug about her knees—what +was it he heard her say: +</p> + +<p> +"You are the English boy I saw in July at the house of +M. de Bismarck. Do not attempt to deny; I never forget +a face! When can you come and see me?... I must +speak to you! I swear to you that I mean no harm to +Mademoiselle Juliette de Bayard!" +</p> + +<p> +Her lips were ashen under their rose-salve. The ringed, +bare hand she laid on his rough paw burned like fire. He +muttered in the weird <i>patois</i> that passed as Swiss with +some German occupants of the Tessier mansion: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame will pardon.... One does not understand!" +</p> + +<p> +She gave a disjointed, unmusical peal of laughter, that +rattled the brougham windows. +</p> + +<p> +"Droll boy! But you will come, whether you understand +or not. The Villa Laon, Maisons Laffitte, near +St. Germain.... Night-time will be best—to-night or +to-morrow night." She added, looking at him over the +lowered window as he shut the door upon her: "Ask for +Madame de Straz. I shall be waiting for you. Do not +forget!..." +</p> + +<p> +The carriage drove on. He stood upon the lowest doorstep +staring after it, for only privileged vehicles were +admitted by the <i>porte cochère</i>. A hand fell heavily on his +shoulder, startling him hideously. A terrible grating +voice said in his ear, speaking in the Minister's excellent +English: +</p> + +<p> +"So, Madame Delilah has been trying her sorceries, has +she? Come this way, my young English friend.... I +want two words with you!" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap71"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXXI +</h3> + +<p> +In the Tessier drawing-room, where the carpet was threadbare +with the traffic of the feet of Princes and plenipotentiaries, +and the brocade furniture was soiled with the contact +of muddy breeches, and ragged with the rowels of +spurs; where the bronze, bat-winged figure presided over +the ancient clock of ormolu and malachite that had marked +the passing of so many hours in this the death-struggle of +bleeding France, Jean Jacques Potier stood up to give an +account of himself, while just without the doorway waited +a brace of muscular Chancery attendants, and the gigantic +East Prussian coachman, Niederstedt, patrolled the +terrace outside. +</p> + +<p> +"You have not forgotten him! He used you somewhat +roughly at the Foreign Office in the Wilhelm Strasse. Nor, +as it happens, has he forgotten you. Come!—what have +you admitted to that Witch of Endor, <i>la veuve Bayard</i>? +You are no friend to her daughter if you have told the +woman that Mademoiselle is here, under this roof." +</p> + +<p> +"So you—know?..." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh had gasped the words out before he could +stop himself. The Minister's flashing blue eyes lightened +in laughter as they met the appalled stare of the young +man with the cropped head and the green baize apron. +He said, lisping a little as was his wont: +</p> + +<p> +"I know, and I have known almost from the beginning. +Everything must be known in this house. Did you suppose +I had left my Prussian Secret Service at home in Berlin? +Here! This belongs to you!" +</p> + +<p> +He was standing on the hearth, his great back to the +wood fire that blazed on the steel dogs. One of a brace of +letters that he pulled from his breeches pocket, and tossed +to the culprit under examination, fell at that wretch's feet. +</p> + +<p> +"Pick it up, Mr. Patrick Carolan Breagh," he said. +"You will find it a more-than-ordinarily interesting epistle. +It was brought me something over an hour ago. Your +legal friend, Mr. Chown, of Furnival's Inn, Holborn, +London, advises you to go back there without procrastination. +Your absconding trustee, Mr. William Mustey, Junior, has +been found in Bloomsbury lodgings, the War having +apparently frightened him out of France. Odd, because the +scent of battlefields proves attractive to birds and animals +of the predatory order. Mustey is dead, but luckily for +you he has left nearly all of your property behind him. +Some £500 of your inheritance of £7,000 seems to be missing. +I daresay you will be willing to let the deficit go. +What are you saying?" +</p> + +<p> +His victim, with lips screwed into the shape of a whistle, +had murmured: +</p> + +<p> +"The Post Office.... Gee-whillikins!... they've given +me away!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Given you away!... You are a pretty conspirator!" The +masterful eyes flickered with humor. There was +amusement, suppressed, but evident, in the lines about the +grim mouth hidden by the martial mustache. "Where +should my blue Prussian bees gather intelligence, if not at +the Post Office? Did you not <i>give yourself away</i>, as you +term it, when you employed the time not occupied in +smearing silver plate with whitening, and bedaubing +polished boards most execrably with beeswax,—in acting as +a voluntary assistant dresser at the auxiliary Military +Hospital that has been established under the Red Cross at the +Convent of the Sisters of the Poor? When a young Swiss—who +is supposed to be ignorant of any language save his +own extraordinary gibberish—betrays a more than superficial +knowledge of French and German surgical terminology, +and evinces a degree of skill in bandaging and so +forth, such as you have permitted yourself to display, the +German authorities, while they avail themselves of the +young gentleman's service, are to be pardoned for supposing +him to be other than he appears! Come, it is time this +farce of yours and Mademoiselle's ended. I am going to +ring the bell, and send for her, and tell her so now!..." The +imperious hand went out to the bell-rope of faded red, +and he stayed his summons to add: "Then you and she +must pack up and betake yourselves to England.... I +will furnish you with a permit to travel by railway and a +<i>laissez-passer</i>. You will return to me a certain half-sheet +of Chancellery notepaper which I gave you in the Wilhelm +Strasse last July! Further—I have no advice to give you +except that you would be wise not to select the theatrical +profession for your next venture. You have not a gift for +the stage, unlike Mademoiselle.... As for her, the +vixen! you would do well to marry her promptly. Nothing else +will cure a young man of the stupidity of being in love!" +</p> + +<p> +There was something horrible in the mere fact of being +taken so lightly, when one had waited in tense agony for +the ominous flurry in the daytime—expecting in sleepless +anguish the cry in the night.... The relief that mingled +with the horror caused the muscles of the mouth to relax +in a smile of imbecility, made one stutter and gulp because +of the choking in one's throat.... +</p> + +<p> +The life of this man, who was meant when the great ones +of the earth now referred to Germany, had been in hourly +peril for months past. Now it was safe. She had not bent +one's will, ineffectually, to the effort of restraining +another's. One had not kept watch and put in one's word +for nothing, remembering the debt one owed to that +powerful ruthless hand. Not unheard had one prayed in an +anguish of supplication that the woman loved beyond all +Ideals, however heroic and overwhelming, might be saved +from the fate of occupying a red-stained niche in History. +</p> + +<p> +"Marry her promptly!" +</p> + +<p> +He repeated the words, with the flicker of a laugh playing +in his eyes and about his heavy facial muscles. His +tortured victim, blood-red to his cropped scalp, groaned +out: +</p> + +<p> +"She is married already, Sir!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Quatsch!</i>" said the Minister, laughing: "Married she +is not. Oh, she has been married as the American canvasback +ducks are roasted. She has been carried on a dish +through the kitchen of matrimony, and taken out at the +opposite door." +</p> + +<p> +"But—my God, sir!—I have seen her husband!" cried +the young man desperately. +</p> + +<p> +"When did you see him?" asked the resonant, +compelling accents. The answer came, bringing down his +frown. +</p> + +<p> +"I—cannot tell you!" +</p> + +<p> +Came, curiously lisped, the words: +</p> + +<p> +"I fear I must compel you. All this may lead to +something more serious than I have thought...." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh snarled, knitting the broad red eyebrows so +industriously sooted: +</p> + +<p> +"Twice.... There can be no harm in my saying so." +</p> + +<p> +"And how recently?" The grating voice scooped into +one's brain like a dentist's burred scraper. P. C. Breagh +shook his head, saying: +</p> + +<p> +"I can't tell you that!" +</p> + +<p> +"Why not, if there is no harm in telling?" The voice +was almost pleasant. "Was it as recently as three days +ago?" +</p> + +<p> +No answer. +</p> + +<p> +"Was it as recently as two days? ... as twenty-four +hours? ... Will you not answer for your own sake?" +</p> + +<p> +The stubborn head was shaken resolutely. The Minister's +voice said, blandly, persuasively: +</p> + +<p> +"You may, for all you know, be answering for hers!" +</p> + +<p> +There was a stubborn silence. The Chancellor said, +with his suave, but warning lisp more perceptible than +usual: +</p> + +<p> +"Be good enough to touch that bell upon the table near +your hand...." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh obliged. Grams and Engelberg presented +themselves. The Minister said, looking at them over the +head of his sacrifice: +</p> + +<p> +"One of you will convey my compliments to Madame +Charles Tessier, and request her to speak to me here and +now." +</p> + +<p> +The stalwart, black-clad pair retired. The Minister +pulled his cigar-case from his breeches-pocket, selected a +cigar, bit off the end, and looked for a match. Meeting +the burning stare of the gray-yellow eyes under the broad +sooted eyebrows, he did not fulfill his intention of lighting, +but restored the cigar to its place. +</p> + +<p> +As he thrust the case back into his breeches-pocket the +door opened. Madame Charles came in, wrapped in her +white shawl, and moving with her characteristic limp and +shuffle. Her glance went to the broad-shouldered, +lean-flanked figure of the young man standing at attention a +little to the left hand of the Minister. She was aware of +the huge shape of the watchful Niederstedt keeping guard +outside the terrace-windows. She heard the steady +crunching of booted feet upon the graveled stone flags of the +conservatory, recalling the fact that the two officers of the +guard of Green Jaegers were now quartered there. And +she said to herself, even as she made her curtsey before the +Chancellor: "The hour of discovery has come. Am I sorry +or glad?" +</p> + +<p> +The heavy stare met her desperate eyes as she raised +them from the carpet. The grim voice began, and she +strung her nerves to hear: +</p> + +<p> +"Mademoiselle de Bayard, I have just closed an interview +with your lady-mother, who is desirous to reëstablish +over your person the maternal authority she once resigned.... +That I have not betrayed to her your presence here +I think you are aware already. I had a pretty shrewd +suspicion that you were listening when I spoke to her +loudly just now upon the stairs. Am I right, Mademoiselle?" +</p> + +<p> +She said, meeting his heavy, powerful stare with eyes of +burning sapphire, steadily under leveled brows of jetty +black: +</p> + +<p> +"It is not for me to contradict a person of Monseigneur's +eminence. Might I ask why Monseigneur is pleased to +designate me as 'Mademoiselle'? Madame Charles Tessier +is my name in this house." +</p> + +<p> +"Mademoiselle de Bayard," he said, ignoring the +interruption as a man may when an infant has tugged him by +the coat-tail, "I have to congratulate you upon your gift +of grotesque character-impersonation, no less than your +companion, whose Swiss-French <i>patois</i>, spoken with a +British accent, has never since the first instant succeeded +in deceiving me. But as one of my more amiable weaknesses +is a liking for children, I must own to having found +infinite amusement in the spectacle of Missy and Master, +dressed up for grandpapa's benefit, playing the game of +'Guess Who I Am!'..." +</p> + +<p> +He was laughing now, unmistakably. He said, smoothing +the heavy mustache with a hand that twitched a little: +</p> + +<p> +"But the performance ends here. So we may lay aside +the cosmetics, costumes, and properties. The hero's green +baize apron, crop-wig, and blackened eyebrows, the flour +with which the heroine sprinkles her black hair, and the +stockings and towels with which she disguises her charming +shape. It will not seem surprising to you that a person +of my dubious character should be learned in the secrets +of stage disguises.... My early researches in femininity +have led me into queerer places than actresses' +dressing-rooms. But where did a Convent schoolgirl gain her +knowledge of make-up?" +</p> + +<p> +His mockery was intolerable. Her hate and scorn rose +up in arms to meet it. She would be silent only for an +instant longer, then she would speak and tell him all. +</p> + +<p> +He was going on: +</p> + +<p> +"I have here a letter, brought me some days back by +the Prussian official who is in charge at the General Post +Office here in Versailles. It is addressed to Mademoiselle +Juliette de Bayard, 120, Rue de Provence. It is dated +from Mons-sur-Trouille, in Belgium, and is written and +signed by M. Charles Tessier.... I will not disguise from +you that I have mastered the contents." +</p> + +<p> +He showed her the letter. Monster! he had opened it. +Her blazing eyes dwelt on him with a contempt he did not +seem to feel. She had let the white shawl drop from about +her head and shoulders. Now she straightened her slight +form—(as though an artist needed the adventitious aid of +towels and stockings!)—and thrust back with a superb +gesture of both hands the heavy loops of white-streaked +hair that masked her forehead and curtained her small +face, whose cheeks, previously pale, now burned with +angry fire. +</p> + +<p> +He said, and as he withdrew the letter from its envelope, +a small, square enclosure wrapped in white paper, slipped +from the interior and dropped near his spurred boot: +</p> + +<p> +"I have not only read this, but I am going to read it +aloud to you. For the sake of one present whose fidelity to +you deserved a confidence you seem to have withheld." +</p> + +<p> +She caught one sharp breath, dropped her slender arms +at her sides and stood immovably before him. Her clenched +hands, tense lips and tragic brows, with that fierce flame of +hatred and scorn burning beneath their shadow, betrayed +the test of her self-command as he read: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + "BASSELOT & TESSIER.<br> +</p> + +<p class="t3"> + "WHOLESALE MERCHANTS,<br> + "WEAVERS AND DYERS OF WOOLEN FABRICS.<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "MONS-SUR-TROUILLE,<br> + "BELGIUM.<br> + "December 20, 1870.<br> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +"MADEMOISELLE: +</p> + +<p> +"Relying on your good sense and amiability, permit me +to make you a confession. +</p> + +<p> +"Torn between the urgent commands of filial duty, and +the dictates of ardent affection, I have yielded to the +irresistible promptings of Love. +</p> + +<p> +"Wedded to her I adore—the name of Mademoiselle +Clémence Basselôt can hardly be strange to you—I offer +you the calm devotion of a brother. My mother is resigned +to this alliance, at one time repugnant to her maternal +feelings. She desires me to say that your luggage, taken +on by her from the Hôtel de Flandre, Brussels, shall be +forwarded to you at the Rue de Provence, or any other +destination you may choose to indicate. Need I say that +Madame Charles Tessier and myself regard you as our +benefactress—that you will confer upon us the greatest +obligation by consenting to remain beneath our roof. +</p> + +<p> +"I would add that the capital of 80,000 francs invested +by your regretted father upon your behalf in the business +of myself and M. Basselôt can remain at the interest it at +present commands (some 7 per cent. of annual profit), or +be transferred to your credit at any agents or bankers you +may choose to designate. +</p> + +<p> +"Receive, dear Mademoiselle, with my regrets and excuses, +the affectionate souvenirs of myself and my wife. +My Clémence encloses some wedding-cake, after the touching +fashion of England. She made it, she assures me, with +her own hands. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + "Respectfully and sincerely,<br> + "CHARLES JOSEPH TESSIER."<br> +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +The reader added, as he looked about him: +</p> + +<p> +"Where is the wedding-cake?—that white thing! ... thank you!" +</p> + +<p> +For P. C. Breagh had picked the little parcel up and +restored it to his hand. He took it, returned it to the +envelope with the letter, and said with unsmiling gravity, +striking a finger on the envelope: +</p> + +<p> +"In the face of this—are you married, Mademoiselle?" +</p> + +<p> +She answered him dauntlessly: +</p> + +<p> +"No, Monseigneur!" +</p> + +<p> +"Th-then," he asked, with his portentous lisp, "wh-why +on earth did you—did you pretend to be?" +</p> + +<p> +She answered with surprising quietude: +</p> + +<p> +"To make my place in this house more secure." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! Might one ask why?" +</p> + +<p> +He put the question with irony. She answered with +astonishing composure and dignity: +</p> + +<p> +"Because at that period I desired to gain the +opportunity to—kill you, Monseigneur!" +</p> + +<p> +A sound came from Breagh's throat like a curse or a +groan or a sob, or all together. Her clear gaze was troubled +for a moment, she caught her breath in a fluttering sigh. +</p> + +<p> +"To kill me?..." said the resonant voice of the great +figure that upreared its bulk before the dancing hearth-blaze +that threw broad lights and shadows upon the ceiling +and walls of the darkly-papered drawing-room. It was a +bitter, wintry day of sickly white sunshine, and smileless +skies of leaden grayness. Freezing sleet-drops rattled on +the terrace-windows, outside which the giant ex-porter of +the Wilhelm Strasse waited, blowing from time to time +upon his chilly knuckles and beating his great arms upon +his vast chest to keep them warm, but never removing the +sharp little piggish eyes under his low red forehead from +the figure of P. C. Breagh.... +</p> + +<p> +"To kill me!" said the Chancellor, as a springing +hearth-flame threw a giant shadow of him upon the double doors +that divided the drawing-room from the billiard-room, +where the staff of clerks and decipherers labored from early +morning until far into the night. +</p> + +<p> +In the silence that his voice had broken, his keen ear +heard a quill pen buck upon a page. He imagined the +splash of ink upon the thick creamy Chancellery paper, +that had evoked the "Tsch!" of the dismayed clerk, even +as he queried: "Might I ask why? It would be interesting +to know." +</p> + +<p> +The firelight was full upon Juliette as she answered: +</p> + +<p> +"Because you have made this War;—because through it +I have been orphaned and made desolate; but chiefly +because you are the merciless enemy of France. These +milliards you would wring from her veins ... these groans +torn from her heart ... these indignities to all she holds +most sacred!... Your scorn and contempt of these great +men—Chiefs of her Government—who have stooped to beg +from you consideration ... for these things, see you +well—you have been accursed in my eyes. I have said to +myself a thousand times, that to kill you would be to save +my country, and not a sin unpardonable in the eyes of +Almighty God!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Your theology is as defective," said the Chancellor, +"as your sentiments are patriotic...." He surveyed the +small slight figure before him rather ogreishly from under +his shaggy brows. "And so," he said, with his wounding +irony, "you thought to play the part of a Judith to my +Holofernes—a little skip o' my thumb like you.... My +good young lady, had you succeeded in murdering me, how +was it your intention to evade summary justice? For you +could not have escaped detection.... You must be aware +of that!" +</p> + +<p> +She said with her quiet dignity, one hand upon her slight +bosom, her clear eyes upon the angry, powerful stare that +would have crushed another woman down: +</p> + +<p> +"I should not have tried to escape, Monseigneur!" +</p> + +<p> +He commented sarcastically: +</p> + +<p> +"Fanatics are the most dangerous of conspirators. Life +has no value—Death has no terrors for them. They believe +themselves superior to all laws, both human and Divine. +And how, may one ask, would you have done my business? +To have dispatched me by poison would have been easiest, +for you have assisted our Foreign Office cook. Yes! +Possibly it would have been poison?" +</p> + +<p> +She said between her close-set teeth, hissingly: +</p> + +<p> +"It should, Monseigneur, but for one thing!..." +</p> + +<p> +His powerful glance rested on her curiously: +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, Fury!" he said, and with her wild black disheveled +locks, her eyes that darted vengeful blue fire, the gloomy +brows that frowned over them, the long upper lip +pinched down over the little closely-set white teeth, hers +was not unlike the mask of a Medusa, wrought in onyx +by the hand of some Greek master dead a thousand years +ago. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, Fury!—and what was that one thing? To what +fortunate breakage of pots in the kitchen will the Prussian +King owe it that he has still a Chancellor, when he is +crowned Emperor of Germany in the Palace of Versailles +at the beginning of the New Year?" +</p> + +<p> +Here was news. So the recalcitrant States had at last +been ringed in. So the sensitive objections of His Majesty +the King of Bavaria had been by some means overcome.... +P. C. Breagh drew a sharp breath at the hearing. The +speaker flashed upon him a cynical look. +</p> + +<p> +"There," he said, "is a tit-bit for some enterprising +Editor, were it possible to get a wire through to Fleet +Street. You see what comes, Mr. Breagh, of being false +to one's principles. A few months ago you said to me—I +have an excellent memory for such utterances: '<i>It would +be better to cadge in the dustbins for a living than make +money out of information gained by trickery.</i>' Yet you +have not scrupled to live in this house disguised as a +common servant. Really, to one who is aware of your +ambitions, the whole thing has—a kind of stink!" +</p> + +<p> +The prodded victim uttered an incoherent exclamation. +Juliette cried indignantly: +</p> + +<p> +"It is not true! How can you wrong him so? If you +do not know what you owe to him, I will tell you. It is he +who has saved your life!" +</p> + +<p> +She flamed out all at once into a rage and cried, seeming +to tower to twice her stature: +</p> + +<p> +"Because you have robbed me of my father, and because +you are the great enemy of France I would have killed you. +I tried to hide this from him, and he found it out. He +stayed here—at what risk you know!—for my sake and +for your sake.... How often has he not said to me: 'You +shall not do it. He once saved me!... You shall not +do it because he has a daughter, by whom he is beloved, +perhaps, as your father was by you!... You tell me +that her portrait stands by his bedside. Go and look at +it, and you will never be able to do this hideous thing!' And +I went and looked at her portrait, and it was as he +had told me.... That night I threw away the poison and +swore an oath upon the Crucifix, that, come what might, +I would never seek your life!..." +</p> + +<p> +"Halt, there!" he bade her, in his rough, masterful +manner. "Touch that bell upon the table near you!" he +said to Breagh. As Breagh obeyed and von Keudell +entered by the door leading from the hall, shutting it upon a +glimpse of the stalwart Grams and the athletic Engelberg, +"Fetch me that bottle," he said, "that was picked up by +the sentry in the adjoining garden. I gave it to you to +lock away for me." +</p> + +<p> +Von Keudell vanished. In the interval that elapsed +before his reëntrance the Minister turned his back upon +Mademoiselle and her comrade, rested a hand upon the +mantelshelf, and said, as he kicked back a burning billet +that had tumbled out of the heart of the red fire: +</p> + +<p> +"All that about my daughter's portrait is <i>quatsch</i>!" He +suddenly wheeled upon Mademoiselle, thundering: +"You were frightened. That is why you seized an +opportunity to pitch away your witches' sauce.... Confess! +Be candid! Have I not read you? Were not your fine +heroic frenzies all assumed to impress—him?" He indicated +P. C. Breagh by an overhand thumb-gesture. "Was +it not for this spoony fellow's benefit you wrote yourself +letters from an imaginary <i>Franc-tireur</i>—full of bombastic +vaporings and bloodthirsty denunciations borrowed from +the columns of Parisian rags?" +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur!..." +</p> + +<p> +She was taken aback. She faltered, flushed, whitened, +conscious of the reproachful stare of Breagh's honest gray +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"Did I not tell you?—everything is known to me!... +Not only have I read those letters you hid in the mouth of +that grinning Pan in the garden—but here is the bottle +you threw away!..." +</p> + +<p> +He took it from von Keudell and showed it her—a squat, +wide-mouthed chemist's ounce vial, half full of whitish +powder, and read from the label: +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> + "ARSENIC: (<i>Poison.</i>)<br> +</p> + +<p class="quote"> +"<i>The powder as prescribed, to be diluted with +Three Parts of Milk, and applied as directed, +for clearing the complexion and freshening +the skin.</i>" +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +Crash!... +</p> + +<p> +A turn of his wrist, and the corked-up vial flew into the +fireplace, smashing on the chimney-bricks and raising +showers of crimson sparks from the billets blazing there. A +rich incense of scorching wool arose from the Brussels +carpet. P. C. Breagh stamped out one red-hot cinder, +Von Keudell darted in pursuit of a remoter danger. The +Minister himself was fain to extinguish another by vigorous +stamps of his heavy spurred riding-boots. +</p> + +<p> +"Take warning," he said to Juliette, a little breathed by +his exertions, and wiping his high-domed forehead and +florid cheeks with a large white handkerchief, carried, in +military fashion, in the cuff of his coat. "In this way +dangerous, high-flown emotions should be repressed in +young girls, by sensible parents. In what a false and +perilous position have your hysterical notions placed +you...." +</p> + +<p> +He coughed and hawked, and wiped his mouth with the +big white handkerchief, put it away and said, as though +trying to lash himself into a rage: +</p> + +<p> +"Foolish child! Silly girl!... Little coquette!—pretending +to be married to torture a sweetheart; vaporing +of murder—acting the heroine—to take a gaby's breath +away!... What you want is a decent, sensible mother +to administer a good whipping...." +</p> + +<p> +A shudder convulsed her slight body. In the firelight +her face looked rigid and drawn. +</p> + +<p> +He might have pursued, had not the gaby to whom he +had unceremoniously referred stopped him by crying: +</p> + +<p> +"Be silent! I will not stand by and listen to such +language! I will not permit you to speak to her so!" +</p> + +<p> +"<i>So!</i>" He surveyed the crop-headed, red-faced young +man in the green baize apron, with grim incredulity. "You +will not permit me to speak! You will silence me?... +How?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said desperately: +</p> + +<p> +"I do not know how—but I will somehow silence +you!... Perhaps by reminding you that Mademoiselle de +Bayard is helpless and unprotected. That she has no +stronger champion and no better advocate than a gaby like +myself." +</p> + +<p> +"Retire to your room, then!" he said to her grimly. +"Henceforth you do not meddle in the kitchen, Mademoiselle. +You cook capitally, your <i>beignets</i> are worth a bellyache, +but just at this moment I am indispensable to +Germany.... Observe! You will remain entirely in your +room upstairs, until I decide what is to be done with +you!" He added, less roughly: "Madame Potier will +attend on you and bring you your meals. And—in compliment +to your unflinching candor—I will ask you to give +me your <i>parole</i> not to attempt to escape!..." +</p> + +<p> +She put up both hands to her eyes, and they were +trembling. When she took them away there were tears upon +her face. +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur, I thank you. I give my <i>parole</i> not to +run away." +</p> + +<p> +"So be it!" he said, and slightly acknowledging her +deep curtsey, motioned to Von Keudell to open the door. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap72"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXXII +</h3> + +<p> +She passed out of the room. Von Keudell held open the +door for her. As he did so, he glanced toward his Chief +for instructions. The Minister said, answering the +interrogation in the look: +</p> + +<p> +"No. I prefer to extend to Mademoiselle the semi-liberty +of the <i>parole</i>." He added: "Exceptional cases +must be treated exceptionally. Upon a different kind of +young woman I should promptly turn the key. Tell Grams +and Engelberg that they are released from duty outside +there. And Niederstedt...." +</p> + +<p> +He whistled, and the great red face and huge unwieldy +figure of the East Prussian ex-door porter filled up nearly +the whole width of one of the long windows. The red face +disappeared as the steam of its owner's breath dimmed the +glass, and the effect was so quaint that the Minister laughed +irresistibly as he opened the window and relieved the +impeccable guard, saying: +</p> + +<p> +"Why, my good Niederstedt, you are frozen—you smoke +like a volcano. Go down to the house-steward—tell him +to give you some old corn-brandy, hot, with sugar and +pepper. That will thaw you inside as well as out!..." +</p> + +<p> +He shut the window, and came back to the fireplace, +pushed forward the great green brocade armchair, and +threw himself into it, saying as he stretched his long legs +out to the glowing billets: +</p> + +<p> +"You may go, Mr. Breagh; there is no cause for detaining +you. But while you remain here, revert to your own +dress, and leave it to more experienced hands to polish the +floor and balusters, to which I adhere like a fly who has +walked upon treacle, half-a-dozen times in a day. +Remember—I see no reason for denying you reasonable access to +the society of Mademoiselle de Bayard—unless she objects +to your visits, in which case she will probably notify +me!——" He added more genially: "Sit down. Take +that chair opposite me.... You need no longer stand in +the attitude of a suspected criminal. Indeed, I rather +think you have repaid a small service I was enabled to +render you in pulling you out of a Berlin crowd, last July. +Ah, that reminds me. I must ask you for the return of +that paper...." He watched with a slight expression of +amusement as P. C. Breagh produced the shabby note-case +from a pocket inside his livery waistcoat, commenting: +</p> + +<p> +"Had you been searched, those papers would have +betrayed you instantly. One more skilled in the art of +disguise would have carried nothing that could afford +information. That is a very elementary rule." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said, meeting the powerful eyes fully: +</p> + +<p> +"I have already had the honor to explain to Your Excellency +that my disguise was not assumed for any purpose +but that of remaining near Mademoiselle de Bayard." +</p> + +<p> +He rose and offered the folded half-sheet of Chancellery +note to the Minister, who took it, unfolded and glanced at +the black upright characters above the signature, then tore +the paper to pieces, and, leaning forward, dropped it into +the heart of the fire. Then he kicked back a charring log +with the toe of his great riding-boot, and said, leaning back +in the green armchair: +</p> + +<p> +"Credited—as to your statement about the reason of +your impersonation. You should see to it that Mademoiselle +rewards such chivalry. As regards the pass I have +just cremated—did you find it useful or—otherwise?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said: +</p> + +<p> +"The one and only time I did use it, it proved of service +to me. But later——" +</p> + +<p> +"Speak frankly," said the Chancellor. "I have no +disrelish for candor, you are aware." +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said, flushing to the temples: +</p> + +<p> +"Later, the accidental discovery that I possessed it, +exposed me to the accusation of being a spy." +</p> + +<p> +"So you chose to do without it?" +</p> + +<p> +"I thought," said P. C. Breagh, "that I would try to +do without it. And upon the whole I managed—better +than I expected to...." +</p> + +<p> +"To put it baldly," commented the resonant voice of +the Minister, "you preferred to travel in blinkers and with +hobbles on—for the sake of a scruple of the genteel kind. +That is your Celtic blood.... You remind me of the +story—I think it hails from Dublin, of the little old +spinster lady of high family, who was reduced for a living to +hawking pickled pig's-trotters in the streets. She accepted +the money to buy the license, with the basket and the first +installment of trotters, and went forth into the streets to +sell them—but beyond this, as a gentlewoman—her feelings +did not permit her to go. So she cried, in a whisper: +'Trotters! who'll buy my trotters! Only a penny! Pickled +trotters! Please God, nobody hears me!' ... and nobody +did hear her, so that was the end of her...." +</p> + +<p> +He had told his absurd tale with one of those comic +changes of face and voice characteristic of him. Now he +reverted to gravity, and said, as P. C. Breagh rose to +withdraw: +</p> + +<p> +"Go! but remain here as my guest for the present. +You are not under <i>surveillance</i>. But there is one question +I must again put to you. What of this mysterious +personage who represented himself to you as M. Charles +Tessier? You must now be convinced that Mademoiselle +knows nothing of him? Well, then, I will repeat the +simple questions which you refused to answer just now. +Where did you first see him? how long ago? and how many +times have you encountered him?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh had been first addressed by the stranger +when returning from an errand in the character of Jean +Jacques. Putting it roughly, about a fortnight back. Since +then, he had been twice spoken to by the same man. +Interrogated as to the appearance of the stranger, he ruminated +a moment, then answered: "The man was of middle +height, but broad and tremendously muscular. He was +remarkable to look at, very dark; with great black +eyebrows, and a profile like that of an Egyptian hawk-god. +No! ... He was more like those curly-bearded +man-bird-bulls Layard dug up in the mounds of Babylonia and +Assyria." +</p> + +<p> +Said the Minister: +</p> + +<p> +"You have answered all my questions in that simile.... +The man is Straz the Roumanian, who is supposed to have +married Madame de Bayard. What was it she said to you +this morning when I had the ill-manners to break upon the +lady's confidences?" +</p> + +<p> +Said Breagh, with a pucker between the broad eyebrows +that would be red when he had washed off the +soot: +</p> + +<p> +"Whatever she is, she is Mademoiselle de Bayard's +mother, and I would ask Your Excellency to remember +it too." +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Quatsch!</i>" said His Excellency roughly. "Mademoiselle +de Bayard—for whom I have a sneaking sort of kindness, +in spite of her avowedly bloodthirsty intentions +toward myself!—has no worse enemy than that +adventuress-mother of hers, and you should be aware of it by +this time. In plain words, she visited me in the Wilhelm +Strasse upon an occasion you will remember, to offer to +sell me Mademoiselle as bait for the better catching of an +Imperial fish. I did not take the high horse with her, but +refused her simply as declining an unsuitable business +proposal." He laughed and added: "These good ladies +have conveniently short memories. Imagine her coming +to appeal to me to-day, in the character of a bereaved +mother with a yearning heart!... Well, now she has +asked you to go to see her? Have I not hit it?" +</p> + +<p> +Answered Breagh: +</p> + +<p> +"She told me that I was English, and that she remembered +having seen me at Your Excellency's. She asked +me where her daughter was, and then—when I pretended +stupidity—she laughed, and insisted that I must visit her +to-night or to-morrow night. How late did not matter. +She seemed certain that I would come." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, you will go to her," said the Minister, "but +not to-night, I think! To-morrow night would be +preferable!... If you appeared to-night, she would think that +you are to be easily got over, and she would not show her +hand to you. Go to her late. Twelve o'clock will not be too +late for her. Women of her type are usually night-birds—and, +besides, most people sit up on Christmas Eve. Report +direct to me at whatever hour you may get back. I +myself am not likely to turn in before daylight, because +the Crown Prince and the three Bavarian Envoys dine +here." He added, looking quizzically at the young man: +"Now you are saying to yourself, 'That has something to +do with the scheme for the accession of the South German +States to the North German Confederation.... An agreement +has been definitely arrived at. That is why Bismarck +let that fat plum drop about the New German Empire just +now.'" +</p> + +<p> +He laughed outright as P. C. Breagh reddened, but made +no effort to deny the charge, and went on: +</p> + +<p> +"Baden and Würtemburg have come to terms. You +cannot use the intelligence before it will be known by +everyone in London, so I risk nothing by telling you. Our +chief stumbling-block has been the King of Bavaria, who +suffers from gumboils, and considers that in turning the +Palace of Versailles into a military hospital, we have +outraged the shades of Louis XIV., Madame de Montespan, +Louis XV., Madame de Pompadour, and Queen Marie +Antoinette." He added curtly: "There! be off, and tell +Grams to send word to the stable that I am ready for the +horses. I ride with Count Hatzfeldt another hour +to-day. And change those clothes, if you would have me +cease to address you as a footboy.... Clothes cannot +make a man, but the lack of them can mar him—if they +make him appear a clod." +</p> + +<p> +The horses came, and he rode out with Hatzfeldt. There +was a piercing northeast wind and a spatter of freezing +sleet, much resented by the Diplomatic Secretary and his +thin-skinned thoroughbred, and even displeasing to the +Chancellor's great brown mare. +</p> + +<p> +The iron lions of Mont Valérien were growling and +spitting shell down into the surrounding valleys, thickly +wooded with trees, now stripped—all save the firs and +pines—of leaves, and glittering-white with frost. The +lakes in the parks were frozen. Hundreds of thrushes +drifted like leaves before the icy gale, toward the +low-growing coverts of ivy and brushwood. A balloon rose +within the Bois de Boulogne, soared, and traveled south-west. +</p> + +<p> +Reaching the Aqueduct of Marly, they dismounted, for +the purpose of taking what the Minister termed "a peep +at Paris from the platform," and, leaving their horses to +the care of the grooms, transferred themselves there. +</p> + +<p> +Behind the Forest of Marly the red sun of December +was sinking over the frosty landscape. The Minister +glanced casually through his glasses at the ruined houses +of Louvéciennes in the foreground, sheltered amidst their +clumps of whitened trees; and sweeping over the villages +of La Celle and Bougival, looked long toward Fort Mont +Valérien, where the great stronghold sat perched on its +height with its many windows glowing like furnaces in +that fierce reflection from the crimson west. +</p> + +<p> +The line of the Rennes and Brest railway running from +Courbevoie through the Park of St. Cloud and Versailles +showed strongly held by Prussian outposts. Beyond, +between banks dotted with damaged hamlets, and bordered +on the north side with fanged ice sheets, the silver-gray +Seine wound, flowing sluggishly about her islands, +wrinkling her lips in disgust at the jagged buttresses of the +bridges that had been blown up. Farther south, over the +lopped trees of the Bois de Boulogne, rose the great +shining dome of the Invalides, bathed in that ominous +ruddiness, looking like a great cabochon ruby studding a shield +of silvery-green bronze. For Paris from this point of +view is shield-shaped, crossed with the bar-sinister of her +historic river; backed with her fortifications as by the +enamel-and-silver work of a cunning jeweler; set with +points of diamond where the bayonets of a column of +marching infantry moved out from the ramparts along the +road toward Fort Vanves. +</p> + +<p> +It was frightfully cold. Said Hatzfeldt, stamping to +recover the circulation in his numbed feet, and beating his +gloved hands vigorously upon his sides: +</p> + +<p> +"How cold!... I can smell more snow. Heaps of it, coming!" +</p> + +<p> +The Chief turned an eye toward the speaker without +lowering the glasses through which he was looking. He +completed his survey before he said, restoring the binoculars +to their case, and speaking with a jarring note of anger +in his voice that made the Secretary arch his eyebrows: +</p> + +<p> +"I do not smell what I should like best to smell, and +that is, the smoke of a German bombardment!" He added: +"We have to thank women and priests, and Jews and Freemasons, +if our operations are not conducted as energetically +as they should be. To begin with, Monsignor Dupanloup +has Augusta by the apron string—the Crown Prince, +cajoled by his wife and bullied by Victoria, his +mother-in-law—is ready to give up the command if I insist that +we begin.... Do you know how many weeks it has taken +me to get our Most Gracious to consent that the siege +train should be moved from Villa Coublay and placed in +position? And then Moltke and the generals asserted that +we had not ammunition enough.... Given three hundred +powerful siege guns—ninety of them howitzers—with fifty +or sixty mortars, and five hundred rounds of ammunition +for each—could not we pour sufficient shell into the city +to bring her to reason? Give me the post of Commander-in-Chief +for twenty-four hours—and I will take it upon +myself!..." +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt said mentally: +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, the devil! wouldn't you—and with a vengeance!" +</p> + +<p> +The Chancellor went on, deep lines of anger and +vexation digging themselves into his gloomy face: +</p> + +<p> +"Never were two men more reluctant to reap the fruits +of a great victory than our Most Gracious and his Heir +Apparent—who in this matter, as in some others, needs a +candle to light up his head!..." +</p> + +<p> +His face took on a sullen cast. He stamped his foot +upon the ground, and bayed out like some deep-mouthed +bloodhound: +</p> + +<p> +"If they have no ambition of their own—these +Hohenzollerns—do not they owe something to mine?" +</p> + +<p> +He ended, breaking into his great laugh, evoked by +something in the expression of his Secretary: +</p> + +<p> +"Here am I—applying to you for sympathy, who are +just as petticoat-ridden by your Countess as the King and +Prince Fritz by their respective better halves. Have you +not your mother-in-law and your millionaire papa-in-law +shut up there in the Rue de Helder—to say nothing of +your wife's pet pair of pony cobs?" +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt returned, shrugging ruefully: +</p> + +<p> +"I had another letter from my wife about the cobs +this morning. Heaven knows whether they are still +alive!" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister said with a touch of malice: +</p> + +<p> +"It is quite certain that there has been no fresh meat in +Paris now for some time. Except ass and mule flesh at +fifteen francs a pound. Dogs and cats are getting scarce, +consequently <i>ragoût de lièvre</i> has become the staple dish at +all the restaurants...." +</p> + +<p> +Hatzfeldt rejoined with a sigh: +</p> + +<p> +"I am not quite sure that a little starvation would not +be good for myself personally, and one or two others of the +Prussian Foreign Office staff. For there is no denying we +eat a great deal too much. Your Excellency knows there +are few nights when we spend at the dinner table less than +two hours and a half." +</p> + +<p> +The answer came: +</p> + +<p> +"You should eat little for breakfast, and nothing in the +middle of the day; then your stomachs would neigh and +prance at the dinner call as mine never fails to do. +Sometimes you see me dine twice without ill results—as when I +am going to the King, who keeps a bad table—and find it +necessary to fortify myself beforehand...." +</p> + +<p> +He broke off speaking to cough and expectorate, and +Hatzfeldt, noting the deep yellow hue of his jaws and +temples and forehead, and the sagging pouches under the +great eyes, and the caves that his anxieties and labors had +recently dug about them, said to himself that the Chief's +health was not what it had been; that any fool could see +with half an eye he was terribly liverish; that he slept +little and spat bile continually, and that his superhuman +capacity for work, in combination with his superhuman +powers of eating and drinking, were maintained at high +pressure by a remorseless vanity that proved him no +stronger or wiser than other men. +</p> + +<p> +What was he saying in tones tinged with mockery, for he +had probably taken that reference to the excess of luxury +at the Foreign Office in the Rue de Provence as a thrust +directed at himself: +</p> + +<p> +"If you would really like to try high living after the +latest Parisian style, I have at home among some letters +taken from a balloon captured yesterday the menu of a +dinner given at Voisin's on the twenty-first by some rich +Americans: <i>Potage St. Germain.... Côtelettes de loup +chasseur.... Chat garni des rats rôtis, sauce poivrade. +Rosbif de Chameau.... Salade de légumes. Cèpes à la +Bordelaise. Dessert, none at all</i>.... I gathered from the +same source that the Government are going to take over all +private stores of provisions, and that the edible animals +confined in the Jardin des Plantes are to be shot and cut +up for sale." +</p> + +<p> +"Good-bye to poor Touti's ponies, then," said the Secretary, +with resignation, "and possibly farewell also to my +hopes of a sturdy son and heir." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! if things are as serious as that," said the Minister, +"you had better telegraph to the Countess. Prince +Wittgenstein, Clarmont, and little Desjardin, Secretary of the +Belgian Legation in Paris, left there yesterday morning by +special permit from General Trochu. All three packed +into a <i>coupé</i> belonging to Prince Croy—these equine +treasures of your wife's were harnessed to the vehicle. They +were to spend the night at Villeneuve St. Georges—and +you will probably find them in Versailles when we get +back." +</p> + +<p> +He added as the Secretary thanked him with effusiveness: +</p> + +<p> +"As regards the family in the Rue de Helder and your +bootmaker—the only man in the world who can turn you +out properly!—you may tell them, if you are in communication +with them, that until the twenty-seventh of December +they may sleep in peace.... As to-morrow is Christmas +Eve, that means four unbroken nights of slumber. +After that—the Deluge; not of water, but of fire and steel +and lead." He added, ignoring the Secretary's start and +half-suppressed exclamation: "Call to Reichardt to bring +up the horses. I find it chilly—let us be getting back!" +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap73"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXXIII +</h3> + +<p> +Christmas Eve came with an unloading of all the countless +tons of snow that had lain pent up behind those skies +of leaden grayness. The Seine froze in thin crackling +patches, Paris and the surrounding country lay under two +feet of snow. Kraus, Klaus, Schmidt, and Klein of the +Army of United Germany told each other gleefully that it +was going to be a real German Christmas, after all. Nearly +every man had packed up and sent a French clock or a +porcelain vase as a seasonable gift to his family in +Germany, or some article of furniture of a bulkier kind. Now +upon the side of the senders of these love gifts was a great +unpacking of strongly smelling parcels directed in well-known +characters, and containing cakes, sausages, pudding, +loaves of black bread, cheeses, barrels of Magdeburg, sauerkraut, +and salt meat to eat with it, sweets, tobacco, cigars, +and pipes. Each hospital and barracks, camp and quarters +displayed elaborate preparations for merrymaking; the +most distant outpost wore a festive air. Wagonloads of +holly, ivy, and mistletoe creaked over the snow. Miniature +forests of fir trees, large and small, had been cut down, +and set up in tubs of earth for the festival. +</p> + +<p> +French eyes regarded these preparations upon the part +of their foes with curiosity. For Catholics there would be +Midnight Mass at the churches—by consent of the German +authorities!—Holy Communion—and some sort of +supper—possibly none this War Christmas—upon the return from +Church. But this setting out of tables of presents under the +fir-branches adorned with colored tapers hung with +child-rejoicing trifles such as gilt nuts and gingerbread, apples +and sugar plums; this singing of carols; Luther's "<i>Euch +ist ein Kindlein heut geboren</i>," with "<i>Der Tannenbaum</i>," +and "<i>Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht</i>," the frequent references +to Santa Claus and his sack, and the Christkind—apparently +regarded as a benevolently disposed Puck or +Brownie, was to the adult non-German inhabitants of +Versailles excessively puzzling, unless they happened to be +English Protestants. +</p> + +<p> +Of these honest Britons there was a fair sprinkling, the +majority of them being exceedingly depressed and out-at-elbows +refugees from Paris, whose exodus from the city in +the previous month of November had been achieved under +the auspices of the British Government, and the personal +superintendence of Lord Henry Fermeroy, Secretary of +Lord Lyons's Embassy at Paris, armed with a safe conduct +from General Trochu. +</p> + +<p> +Despite his low-bosomed vests, Imperial, and French +accent, this sprig of British nobility behaved like a man. +From the old lady who brought a tin bonnet box full of +jewelry and a case containing a stuffed pug, with the prayer +that these heirlooms might be taken care of at the +Embassy, and the courtesan, Cora Pearl, who requested formal +permission to carry on business, during the siege, under +the protection of the British Flag, as from each individual +unit of the army of distressed Britishers who flocked to +seek his aid or counsel, Lord Henry earned gratitude, and +praise, and good-will. +</p> + +<p> +When the provisions and money subscribed to the Fund +for the aid of the many destitute English residents in Paris +were at an end, he did not hesitate to dip his hand into +his own breeches pocket. His shining patent-leather boots +carried him not only into the attics and cellars where grim +Starvation crouched on a bed of damp straw. They tripped +over the Aubusson carpets of the drawing-rooms where +Genteel Famine sat sipping hot water out of Sèvres cups, +wherewith to quell its gnawing pangs, and retired, without +having trodden upon a single corn during the accomplishment +of their owner's charitable errand. He bombarded +Count Bismarck with official Notes, until he had obtained +permission from that grim Cerberus for his little army of +refugees to pass the Prussian lines. +</p> + +<p> +Of his dreary three days' journey in charge of the string +of country carts containing the exiles, who were permitted +to travel to Versailles via the Porte Charenton, Brie-Comte-Robert, +and Corbeil, Lord Henry afterward penned a Narrative. +Which literary effort, printed, bound in cloth of a +soothing green, and adorned with a Portrait of the Author, +the young man bestowed upon his friends. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps you can see the blue eyes of Juliette peering +between the frost flowers encrusting the window of her +bedroom on the second floor, which commanded a view of +the garden of the Rue de Provence. +</p> + +<p> +She had, upon the previous evening, received an intimation +from the Minister that she would be permitted to take +exercise regularly in the garden between the hours of nine +and ten. Thus with a throbbing heart, she dressed the +shining tresses so long concealed under Madame Charles +Tessier's chenille net and white shawl, and arrayed herself +in the plain black silk skirt and bodice that we have seen +once previously—looped over a cloth petticoat of the same +mourning hue. She sought for, found, and put on the +gray velvet jacket trimmed with Persian lambskin, and +the little gray toque that matched it, despoiled of its azure +feather. These things, with many others, had been packed +away in a trunk and stowed in the attic now occupied by +Madame Potier, when Mademoiselle had departed for +Belgium under the charge of Madame Tessier. +</p> + +<p> +She wound a white silk scarf about her throat, tied on a +veil, and found herself wishing for a knot of violets to +brighten the pale, somberly clad reflection in the +looking-glass.... Color ... and her Colonel's grave lying under +the first-fallen snow.... She blushed deep rose for very +shame of her own vanity, and then in all conscience the +picture was bright enough. +</p> + +<p> +The pleasance, like the rest of the world, lay under a +mantle of sparkling whiteness. The orderlies and grooms +had already cleared and scraped the paths in the vicinity +of the house. The ring of the shovels and the swish of the +brooms might be heard in the distance. Mademoiselle +sighed, thinking of Jean Jacques Potier. +</p> + +<p> +Then timidly she stole down by the back staircase and +passed through the hall door into a world all glittering. +The keen air was as exhilarating as champagne. It breathed +on her cheeks, and renewed the roses that had bloomed +there when she had frowned at the girl in the mirror. The +frost kissed her eyes, and they sparkled like sapphire-tinted +icicles. She tripped down the short curved avenue, +passed the gardener's cottage, and turned into the kitchen +garden. Not that she was looking for anybody there. +</p> + +<p> +All through the autumn and winter in a sheltered corner +had bloomed a large standard rose tree of the hardy, +late-flowering kind. The storms of October had passed over +and left its fragrant pink blooms unscathed, the bitter +winds and night frosts of November had done no more than +brown the edges of an outer petal. The tree in its +fragrance and beauty, and its strange immunity from hurt of +wind and weather, had been an unfailing source of pleasure +to Juliette. When an overblown flower shed its leaves, +she had gathered up and kept them. When a new bud +plumped and bravely unfolded, her heart had known a +delicate thrill of joy. +</p> + +<p> +So Mademoiselle went on into the kitchen garden, whose +paths had not been cleared of snow. There was her +tree—standing in its corner, but buried to the lower branches in a +drift that had formed in this sheltered angle of the +southward wall. +</p> + +<p> +The roses had met their match at last. Drooping and +yellow, sodden and heavy, they had no more courage or +hope to give away. Juliette kissed both her hands to +them, in farewell, and turned to encounter P. C. Breagh. +</p> + +<p> +The green baize apron and other integuments of the late +Jean Jacques Potier had been replaced by the old brown +Norfolk suit so often mentioned in these pages. It had +been sedulously brushed and his linen was scrupulously +white, and he had bestowed infinite pains upon the knot +of the black silk, loose-ended tie. His cropped hair would +grow again, and his broad red smear of eyebrow was echoed +on his upper lip by a young but decidedly red mustache +with rather fuzzy corners. The pleasant lips smiled at sight +of her, and a hot flame leaped into the gray-and-amber eyes. +Her own could not be likened to sapphire icicles now. +They were tender, and her long upper lip was haunted by +flying smiles that came, and vanished, and came again. +</p> + +<p> +"It is you! Ah, my friend," she said, "I am so glad—I +am so glad!" +</p> + +<p> +He caught the gloved hands she stretched out to him, +and held them in his, that were reddened with Jean Jacques +Potier's labors, and kissed them eagerly. The little gray +gloves were not buttoned—his warm lips feasted unchecked +upon each blue-veined wrist, until she told him breathlessly: +</p> + +<p> +"No more!—there must be no more!... Pray cease, +my friend!" +</p> + +<p> +She had withdrawn her hands.... He said with a catch +in his breath and with eyes that implored her: +</p> + +<p> +"I do not offend you?..." +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him full and drew off one glove and laid +the bare hand in his extended palm. Warm and soft, it +seemed incredibly small as it lay there. The touch of it +infused a melting sweetness; a thrill went through the +man from head to foot. Perhaps the thrill was communicated, +for she drew her hand away quickly. She said: +</p> + +<p> +"You are very generous to one who has so often deceived +you.... How many times I have condemned myself for +my wickedness, thinking: 'Of all those noble deeds I have +described in the letters, not one has been really performed +by M. Charles Tessier.... All are invented to make a +good face!'" +</p> + +<p> +He said in a whisper: +</p> + +<p> +"I could forgive you for making even a worse fool of +me—now I know you never were married! It was your +telling me that knocked me out of time.... Nothing else +mattered much afterward.... You said to Monseigneur +yesterday that it was to retain your place in this house you +pretended to be the wife of its master. But why did you +pretend it in the first place to <i>me</i>?" +</p> + +<p> +She began to change color from pale to red, and tried +to free her hand. It was impossible. He said: +</p> + +<p> +"I mean to know.... I have the right to know!..." +</p> + +<p> +She faltered: +</p> + +<p> +"See you well, Monsieur, I cannot explain...." +</p> + +<p> +He said doggedly: +</p> + +<p> +"Then I shall explain it for you. You told me that to +make me jealous! Now, did you not?" +</p> + +<p> +She winced. +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur ... not then!... Upon my faith, I assure +you.... See you well, I had promised my father that +M. Charles should be my husband.... I would have kept +that promise <i>à tout hasard</i> ... had M. Charles not +married Mademoiselle Basselôt. And so I told you I was +married, not then to make you jealous ... that came after. +But to make it ... possible to be true!" +</p> + +<p> +He almost reeled under the sudden shock of the terrible, +exquisite confession. He would have given a year of life +to let himself go with the sweet roaring current that +tumbled foaming through his veins and sent its red sparkling +bubbles to his brain. But there were steps and voices on +the other side of the high laurel hedge that divided the +kitchen garden from the pleasance. He recognized +Bismarck-Böhlen's snigger and Hatzfeldt's lazy, well-bred +accents—telling an anecdote of the Minister one could not +doubt. The languid voice reached their ears distinctly. It +said: +</p> + +<p> +"He was an officer of French Imperial Hussars, who had +been taken prisoner at Sedan, and had broken his <i>parole</i>. +He had been taken again in arms against us, fighting under +General Chancy at Le Mans. So she comes post-haste to +Versailles, lays siege to the King, who will not see her—to +the Crown Prince, who will not see her—and finally to +Moltke, who will not see her, because all three of them are +cowards at the sight of a woman's tears. Finally the Chief +consents to receive her.... It was yesterday, in his room +at the Prefecture. She comes in—all in black, which to a +blonde of her type is very suitable, full of hope at not +being made to <i>croquer le marmot</i> for long. She reels off a +long tale about her Frederic, his bravery, and his excellent +heart. The Chief listens sympathetically, looking at the +clock from time to time. Again the heart is pressed upon +his notice. It is heavy with grief at the thought of a life +parting from Madame, who is Frederic's mistress, by the +way—and not his wife!... It is weighed down with +suspense at the delay of the Prussian <i>Kriegsrath</i> in answering +the loved ones his prayer.... She gets so far, when the +Chief looks up at the clock, and says, touching his table +bell: 'Madame, that excellent heart of your client is even +heavier than it was five minutes ago....' 'How, +Monseigneur?' cries Madame. 'He was shot,' says the Chief, +'just now when I looked up at the clock. And, as a rule, +seven out of the ten bullets shot off by the firing party are +found to have lodged in the region of the heart.' So the +poor woman screamed and fainted. They carried her past +me with her teeth set and all her fine hair hanging +down...." +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck-Böhlen's snigger greeted the <i>dénouement</i>. The +footsteps grew fainter. Juliette and Breagh exchanged +glances. She said with white lips: +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur can be merciless! And yet, when I heard +him tell my mother that did he know of my hiding place, +he would not betray it, I said to myself: '<i>How you have +misjudged this man!</i>'" +</p> + +<p> +Her comrade had started at the reference to Madame de +Bayard, remembering the rendezvous to be kept that night. +Juliette went on, with a liquid look: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur, I have a favor to ask of you.... All those +weeks when I struggled with that purpose from which you +tried so faithfully to dissuade me, I did not once dare to +set foot in Our Lord's House. But when I threw away that +wicked bottle, I found that I could pray once more.... +I went to the Carmelite Fathers and made my confession.... +I received Our Lord in the Holy Communion ... and +my soul began to be at peace again. Now it is Christmas +Eve and I should much like to attend the Midnight High +Mass, or the Second Mass at daybreak, and I had intended +to ask you to take me, but I am upon <i>parole</i>.... +Therefore, I entreat of you—pray for me when you +make your own Communion. How much I need Divine +pardon and guidance ... even you can hardly +know...." +</p> + +<p> +His conscience stung. He had not intended to evade +the sacred obligation, yet he had wavered as to when he +should comply with the command of the Church. He +said: +</p> + +<p> +"It shall be as you ask. I shall attend High Mass at +the Church of the Carmelites at midnight. Afterward, I +have an appointment—at a place some distance from here." +</p> + +<p> +"So late, Monsieur?" +</p> + +<p> +Her glance had not only surprise in it, but fear for him. +He said lightly: +</p> + +<p> +"Very late.... I may not get back until—some time +near the second breakfast.... Madame Potier will have +some hot coffee ready for me...." +</p> + +<p> +She flushed and knitted her small hands together +anxiously. She asked: +</p> + +<p> +"Could you not—could you not take me into your +confidence?" +</p> + +<p> +He said bluntly: +</p> + +<p> +"Not without myself committing a breach of +confidence...." He added, holding out his strong hand: +"Try to trust me. If it were possible to tell you, I would +do it, you must know." +</p> + +<p> +"I know it, and I trust you, Monsieur, always...." +</p> + +<p> +There was faith in her eyes. He kissed her hands and +released them, and turned with her silently.... They +walked back together as far as the house. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap74"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXXIV +</h3> + +<p> +At six o'clock, when the snow had ceased falling and the +old moon of December glowed redly through a thinning veil +of frost fog, the Crown Prince arrived to dine with the +Minister. +</p> + +<p> +The Heir Apparent of Prussia came with an escort of +Dragoons of the Bodyguard, driving with one of his +aides-de-camp in a closed sledge belonging to the exiled Empress, +an exquisite vehicle, finished like an enameled <i>bonbonnière</i>, +supplied with a great white Polar bearskin, and +drawn by two superb black Orloffs, whose glossy coats had +the burnish of old Italian armor in the ruddy light of +torches held by orderlies and grooms. +</p> + +<p> +The Minister, followed by Hatzfeldt and his Chief Privy +Councilor, went down bareheaded, between a double row +of Chancery attendants, dressed in their new dark-blue +liveries, with black velvet facings, to welcome his Crown +Prince. The broad breast of "Unser Fritz" displayed the +Order <i>Pour la Mérite</i>, with the First-Class of the Iron +Cross, and the Red Eagle, with an English Order, bestowed +by Queen Victoria upon her son-in-law. He sported new +shoulder straps, distinctive of his newly conferred rank as +Field Marshal, and cut a very gallant figure, as may be +supposed. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps you can see him at the head of the long table in +the dining-room of the Tessier mansion, his Chancellor and +host upon his left hand. Upon his right sat the Bavarian +plenipotentiary, Count Maltzahn. Count Holnstein, +another Bavarian Minister, newly arrived from Munich with +a letter from his King, and the Bavarian Minister of War, +Von Pranky, were severally disposed according to their +degrees. Prince Putbus was there, and a certain Herr von +Zadowski, a large red-faced man in a green Hussar +uniform, wearing a white patch with a red Cross, the badge +of the Knights of St. John, and the Iron Cross, was also +present, and the Secretaries and Privy Councilors filled +the lower end of the board; sporting the new Foreign +Office uniform of dark blue, with black velvet side stripes +to the trousers, and a black-velvet-collared, double-buttoned +military frock. Sword belts and black-hilted swords +with gold knots caused the more stout and elderly among +the Councilors infinite discomfort, to the secret but acute +delight of Bismarck-Böhlen and Count Hatzfeldt. The +dinner, composed of love gifts from admiring German +patriots to their Chancellor, was of a quality, quantity, +lusciousness, and length calculated, as Privy Councilor +Bucher piously whispered to a neighbor, "to make a guest +imagine himself a banqueter in Abraham's bosom before +the time." +</p> + +<p> +Long before his table companions had reached the zenith +of their sensuous enjoyment, the Crown Prince had finished +his temperate meal. The Chancellor commented mentally, +glancing at the clear, rather set features of the great +golden-bearded figure seated beside him: +</p> + +<p> +"Fritz is endeavoring to impress myself and these +Bavarians, with whom it rests to decide whether he is +Emperor or no Emperor, <i>par la fermeté de son attitude</i> with +regard to the pleasures of the table, and by the Spartan +simplicity of his habits and tastes. How I should like to +offer him black broth and barley bread in a special wooden +bowl and platter. But that, I suppose, would be <i>lèse +majesté</i>." +</p> + +<p> +And closely emulated by Von Holnstein and Von +Pranky, he gave free reign to his Gargantuan appetite, +taking twice of nearly every course, and washing the huge +meal down, as was his habit, with floods from Rheims and +Épernay. +</p> + +<p> +When the cloth was drawn and fresh relays of wine appeared, +the Prince accepted but a single glass of <i>fine champagne</i> +with his coffee. When the costly cigars were offered, +he pulled from his pocket a porcelain pipe bearing +his crest and monogram, painted and sent him by his +English wife as a Christmas present, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"I should prefer to smoke this, if Your Excellency does +not mind." +</p> + +<p> +Dinner over, His Royal Highness, with the Bavarians +and the Minister, repaired to the salon. Overhead, +Mademoiselle de Bayard, lonely in her prison bedroom on the +second floor, heard their voices—deep, sonorous bass, shrill +tenor, and penetrating, resonant baritone—engaged in +discussion or joining in argument. At ten o'clock the Prince +took leave, attended to his vehicle as previously by the +Chancellor, to whom he said, in a low tone, as he pressed +his hand: +</p> + +<p> +"We are now no longer North Germans, but Germans. I +shall urge upon my father the speedy proclamation of the +Empire with all external state. Names, arms, titles, colors +place us before the world in a proper light. I have never +coveted a Crown Imperial. I denounce the idea of a +bombardment as brutal and unnecessary. But I am willing +to reap all the honors and advantages that can be gained +from our victory. Impress this upon my father, who +treats pomp and solemnity with indifference. As to +demanding the old crown of Charlemagne from Vienna, I do +not at all see the necessity for that. I shall write to my +wife to-night!" +</p> + +<p> +And <i>Unser Fritz</i> got into the exquisite sledge that had +been given to the beautiful Empress by the Third +Napoleon, and was whirled away in a glittering dust of snow, +kicked up by the fiery Orloffs' heels. And the Chancellor, +recovering from his deep, ceremonious bow, wheeled and +went back up the steps, with his bald head glittering in +the ruddy torchlight.... None might guess what savage +triumph swelled the heart beating under his white +full-dress uniform, upon this the night that set upon the +fabric of the man's colossal labors the copingstone of +Success. +</p> + +<p> +The Bavarian plenipotentiaries took leave within ten +minutes. Count Hatzfeldt had been summoned to the +salon a few moments previously. When the unseen bustle +of their departure had subsided, the Secretaries and +Councilors, smoking and drinking tea in the dining-room, were +unexpectedly joined by the Minister. +</p> + +<p> +All rose up as he suddenly opened the folding doors, +thrust in his head and shoulders, and surveyed them, +smiling. Behind him was Hatzfeldt, pale and excited, and +with eyes that seemed dancing out of his head. There was +a silence of expectation, then the great figure moved to +the table, and men scattered to make space for him as +though his contact might have slain. +</p> + +<p> +He wore full-dress White Cuirassier uniform, without +the steel cuirass, and the First and Second Classes of the +Iron Cross, and the Red Eagle, with the peculiar deporation +that he always sported, and which had been given him +in his young manhood for saving life. His bald forehead +and great domed cranium were studded with shining drops +of perspiration, under his tufted brows his blue eyes blazed +with a triumph almost fearful; his straight-bridged, +snub-ended nose, thick cheeks, and bulldog jowl were crimson +and dripping. He drew out his handkerchief and wiped +them—and the hand that held the linen palpably shook. +</p> + +<p> +He said to them all, and they held their breath to listen: +</p> + +<p> +"Gentlemen, the Bavarian business is settled, and +everything signed and sealed. We have got our German +Unity—and our German Empire!" +</p> + +<p> +There was a deep silence for a moment, broken by +Busch's request to be allowed to take the pens with which +the treaty had been signed. He got permission. +</p> + +<p> +"That little Busch," said the Minister, "will never lose +anything for want of a tongue. If he thinks to find there +the gold pen set with brilliants, that was sent me by the +Hamburg jeweler, he is mistaken. Come!" he added, +"this is a great occasion!" and bade Hatzfeldt ring for a +servant and order up more champagne. +</p> + +<p> +The wine was brought and opened. He said to the +servant who officiated: +</p> + +<p> +"Let the house steward know that some wine is to be +sent to the clerks and decipherers in their room. The +servants also are to have what they like best for +drinking—I fancy Niederstedt will choose Old Nordhausen. +But—short of my best liquor, let what each likes best be +given to him. No!—not that glass. I will drink out of +my biggest goblet!..." +</p> + +<p> +With the fizzing bumper in hand, he waited until all had +been served, looking, as he reared his great bulk at the +head of the full table, the biggest man, mentally and +physically, who had ever served the Hohenzollern. In his most +powerful tones, he called the toast: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Hoch!</i> to His Imperial Majesty, our Kaiser Wilhelm!" +</p> + +<p> +Every man there strained his lungs to the utmost, but +the great bull voice of the Chancellor drowned every other +there. +</p> + +<p> +He talked a little more: "We should never have hooked +the King of Bavaria, but for the pluck of Holnstein, who +set off from Munich to tackle His Most Gracious at his +Palace of Neuschwanstein, and—there being no railway—made +in six days a journey of eighteen German miles on +foot and on horseback over mountain passes, agreeably +diversified by forest tracks and timber roads." +</p> + +<p> +He drank and went on: +</p> + +<p> +"He arrived, to find His Majesty nursing his toothache +in absolute solitude, invisible to human eyes, save those +belonging to the dentist, his valets and fiddlers and grooms. +At first the King refused to receive him, but Holnstein was +clever enough to gain over the dentist to deliver a letter +from his own hand, and incidentally one written by myself...." +</p> + +<p> +He went on, with a smile that curved the great mustache +into lines of gayety: +</p> + +<p> +"Knowing myself particularly detested by King Ludwig, +I had taken pains to make my letter acceptable. I said in +it that my family had enjoyed the patronage of his family +a trifle of five hundred years ago. I mentioned that +reinstitution in the Wittelsbach good graces had been the +object of my whole life's labors. I incidentally pressed the +claims of the King of Prussia to be made Emperor of +Germany. I enclosed, with many apologies, the draft of a +letter which expressed the concurrence of Bavaria. 'Your +Majesty has only to copy this and sign it,' I added, 'and +the troublesome business is closed.' What a prospect to a +monarch afflicted by an obstinately throbbing gumboil! +There was no paper or pen at hand with which to answer, +so the dentist presented his patient with a sheet out of his +pocketbook, and the patent ink reservoir pen with which +he writes his prescriptions. King Ludwig sits up in bed, +scrawls a copy of my draft reply, and the German Empire +is made.... The Festival of the Orders and the +Proclamation of the Emperor will come off in the Great Hall +of Versailles upon a certain date not far off.... I will +leave you to guess what the date is likely to be!..." +</p> + +<p> +In the midst of a deafening tumult of joyful outcries and +congratulations, he turned his great eyes upon one excited +face after another, and drained his capacious glass and set +it down. +</p> + +<p> +"And with all this, gentlemen, our hopes might have +foundered.... The Royal sign manual might have availed +us nothing!... the Treaty might never have been signed!... +Everything has depended upon a question as trivial +and ridiculous as indeed are most of our human vanities. +Imagine the gravity of the question at issue!... Whether +the Bavarian officers are in future to wear the marks of +their military rank upon their collars as heretofore, or on +their shoulders, like us North Germans?... Upon that +the German Empire has dangled, do you hear? Ah! how +many times," he said, "I have been tempted to break out +and tell those fellows in the devil's name to sew their stars +and badges on the seats of their breeches. But I comforted +myself with the old adage: <i>Politeness as far as the +last step of the gallows, but hanging for all that!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +They roared with laughter. He called: +</p> + +<p> +"Fresh bottles! A little excess may be pardoned, upon +this of all the nights in the year. Really, I need a buck-up +after all that I have suffered, what with this Bavarian +business, with Gortchakoff's Note, and the bumptiousness +of the English, who, without knowing why or wherefore, +are bellowing for war. All that danger has been avoided +by the exercise of a little diplomacy.... But how can +we expect to be taken seriously by the Powers when we +procrastinate in the matter of the Paris Bombardment—which +ought to begin at once!" +</p> + +<p> +There was a hubbub of acquiescence, from which only +the voices of Hatzfeldt and Abeken were missing. +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck-Böhlen begged leave to propose a toast. The +Minister asked, tolerantly regarding his young relative, +who vibrated with suppressed hiccups, and was palpably +unsteady upon his long legs: +</p> + +<p> +"What is this toast we are to drink?" +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck-Böhlen, in labor with speech, got out with a +final effort: +</p> + +<p> +"The—<i>hic!</i>—bombar—<i>hic!</i>—ment! Big—<i>hic!</i>—potarroes +for Paris!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, as God lives!" he said to them, "I must drink +that toast!" +</p> + +<p> +It went round. Hatzfeldt followed with: +</p> + +<p> +"Our glorious Chancellor!" +</p> + +<p> +"Our glorious Chancellor! Our great, ineffable, +powerful Kaiser-maker! <i>Hoch!</i> the Fürst von +Bismarck-Schönhausen, Imperial Germany's master-mind!" +</p> + +<p> +Sobs mingled with their acclamations. Their faces were +now purple red with the exception of Hatzfeldt's, which +was ghastly, and Bismarck-Böhlen's, which presented a +combination of shades, in which pea green and orange +predominated, as, bathed in tears, he staggered to embrace +his august relative. He was turned off with a single jerk +of the Minister's wrist, to fall weeping on the bosom of +Privy Councilor Abeken, who, shocked at finding himself +involved in something approaching to an orgie, was in the +act of escaping from the room. +</p> + +<p> +"My thanks for the toast!" said the resonant voice in +their dulled and singing ears, "but pray all remember that +I am no longer the North German Chancellor, or even the +Chancellor of the Germanic Federation, but Chancellor of +the German Empire, which has a better sound! And this +is now, or will be by the New Year—the Imperial German +Chancellery, and Foreign Office, while you, my friends, are +Imperial Privy Councilors, Secretaries, and so on. We will +baptize your green honors in a fresh round of champagne, +and then I must leave you. I have yet before me some +hours of hard work, and must keep my head clear and +cool." +</p> + +<p> +He held his great glass to the now drunken servant to +be filled up. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Prosit!</i>" he said, and lifted the capacious vessel high, +and tossed off the wine and dashed the costly goblet into +the fireplace, where it exploded in crystal fragments and +sparkling dust. Had they tried, his satellites could not +have followed his example. Their leaden arms could only +lift the wine to their dribbly lips. They drank—and one +by one each toper collapsed and buckled as though the +solid oak floor had given way under his boneless feet. +Hatzfeldt sank prone across a chair. Bismarck-Böhlen +had rolled under the table some moments previously, where, +judging by the ominous nature of the sounds that asserted +his presence, Madame Tessier's Brussels carpet was suffering +for his excess. Similar noises, stertorous snores were +reëchoed from other quarters as the Minister surveyed his +fallen warriors: +</p> + +<p> +"Men cannot drink in these days!" he commented, and +left the room. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap75"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXXV +</h3> + +<p> +He threw on his cap and his great white cavalry cloak +lined with Russian sables and passed out by the front door +into the still white night. The snowstorm was over, the +fall had lessened to the merest sprinkle. The bitter northerly +wind no longer drove the blizzards screaming before it, +each tree stood immovable under its burden, the overloaded +evergreen bushes lay flat upon the ground. And the moon +sailed high, drifting away eastward. Through the tatters +of the frost-fog shone the great blazing jewels of the stars. +</p> + +<p> +Twelve o'clock struck near and far, and from the great +Cathedral of the Place St. Louis, as from every bell-graced +tower and steeple in Versailles, rang the Christmas +carillon. Many voices broke upon the piercing, windless quiet. +Many footsteps were passing through the snowy streets. +Catholics were going to their Midnight Mass and Communion +to be celebrated by permission of the Prussian +Minister. He pictured the crowds that would flock to the +great churches of Paris—how Notre Dame would be packed +to the doors, and Ste. Marguerite, also the great Church of +the Carmelites, and the ancient church of the Augustine +Fathers in the Place des Victoires.... +</p> + +<p> +He imagined the flower-decked High Altars in the +churches and chapels of Versailles thronged about with +war-weary, famine-bitten refugees and residents. German +Catholics would mingle with them—the conqueror and the +conquered kneeling side by side. Wounded soldiers of +both nations would help each other to limp to the +Communion rail; the atmosphere of the hushed, crowded +sanctuaries would throb and vibrate with prayer.... +</p> + +<p> +For what boon would all these suppliants entreat High +Heaven most fervently? Pacing in and out of the snowy +garden alleys, his giant shadow passing over the moveless +tree shadows, he asked himself the question. There was +but one reply: +</p> + +<p> +For Peace.... They would pray to GOD for Peace ... that +Bismarck was not going to give them yet a while. +Under the icicles that had formed on his great mustache +he laughed. And a Satanic pride swelled within him +as he told himself that this was his crowning hour of life. +</p> + +<p> +The wild sweet frenzy of the bells was dying down. +Distant refrains of sturdy German carols came from the +military quarters and the barracks. The bells stopped, +wavered, broke out again, grew faint, and were still. And +it seemed to the man standing in the chill silence of the +snowy garden as though he heard the Spirit of France and +the Spirit of Germany communing in the depths of this +Christmas Night. +</p> + +<p> +It was the voice of France that wept: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Alas! miserable that I am, what hast thou done to me? +Why have thy fierce hordes rolled down upon me from the +strange Pagan lands in the inclement East? Was it my +fame, or my wealth, or my beauty that tempted thy +Hunnish warriors, the yellow-haired footmen, with hard, +blue-eyed faces and huge hairy limbs, and the uncouth, fierce +tanned horsemen, who ride as though they were one with +their beasts? Woe is met for my white breasts that were +kissed by the conquering Roman! must I yield them again +to be bruised by the ravishing Frank? A curse on thee! thou +treacherous, deep-flowing, swift river, that hast again +proved no barrier to the Prussian invader! I am fallen a +prey to the Confederation set up by the Corsican upon the +Rhine. Oh! hard as the nether millstone! Wilt thou +unpitying, behold Famine devour my beauty? See, the white +limbs that show through my tattered garment are fleshless! +No man who looks upon me would desire me more! For +what hast thou dug a pit about me and set up thy terrible +war engines? Was I not willing to make terms with thee, +as the conqueror?</i>" +</p> + +<p> +It was the Voice of Germany that answered: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>O Gaulish Queen! thou wert willing, but not for the +conquered is it to appoint the sum of the ransom, or hold +parley with the victors regarding the price of blood! Hearest +thou, O fallen one? I withdraw my triumphant legions +when it pleases me. This is a land where the wine and the +women are luscious. When we have drunken deep enough, +we shall load ourselves with spoil and treasure and go. +Yet ere I withdraw, I shall have known thee as a lover, +whose desire is kindled the fiercer because of thy hate. +Death shall be the priest who celebrates our espousals. +He shall unite us with a ring of steel and fire. Then I +depart, leaving thee to the enemies of thine own household, +who shall wreak thee greater ruin than thy foes. But +a child shall be born of thy long resistance and my fierce +triumph and our brief mingling, who shall be called Peace! +Hearest thou, O France?</i>" +</p> + +<p> +He listened, standing on the hard-frozen, white-powdered +garden path between the swept-up snow mounds. +There was no answer. He returned, stamping the snow +from his clogged spurs, to the house. +</p> + +<p> +The door stood open as he had left it. The even tread +of the sentries came from the Rue de Provence. He had +heard the guard being changed at the entrance gates and +beyond the wall at the bottom of the garden. Those +without were vigilant if those within were not. He +remembered, noting the absence of the usual Chancery attendant +from the hall bench, that he had given permission to the +servants, without distinction, to make merry upon this +night. He could hear no clinking of glasses and bottles +belowstairs. Perhaps sleep had overtaken them as it had +the revelers in the dining-room. He softly opened the +double doors of that apartment. A stench combined +of stale tobacco, spilled wine, and alcoholic humanity +offended his nose, and he withdrew it. But not before he +had ascertained that with the exception of Abeken, who +had left early, and Count Hatzfeldt, who must have been +taken home—the Staff slept there. +</p> + +<p> +He looked into the drawing-room. The fire lay in gray +ashes between the fire dogs. On the table lay the signed +Treaty with Bavaria. He picked it up and rolled it, looking +at the mantelshelf, where the bat-winged bronze demon +brooded over the ormolu clock. +</p> + +<p> +The room, whose hearth was cold, whose windows, closely +shuttered, bolted and blinded, had the curtains drawn close +over them, was lighted by a yellow ray shining through the +glass door opening into the conservatory. He crossed to +this door and looked through. Commendably sober, the +two officers of the guard of Green Jaegers who were +quartered here sat chatting in whispers and smoking by the +stove. Between them on an upturned tub bottom stood a +little, twinkling, taper-lit Christmas tree. +</p> + +<p> +"Von Uslar! Bleichröder!..." +</p> + +<p> +The Minister opened the glass door and looked in. The +officers sprang to their feet and stood saluting him. He +smiled at the little tree, and asked, nodding at the door at +the end of the conservatory, leading to a room where the +library of the late M. Tessier had peaceably moldered until +the clerks and decipherers of the Prussian Foreign Office +had been assigned it for their quarters: +</p> + +<p> +"Have those fellows yet gone to bed?" +</p> + +<p> +And even as he queried he knew by the peculiar smile +upon the faces of Captain von Uslar and his subaltern, +that the scene in the dining-room was repeated here. He +said with a shrug: +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, well!... They had my permission to make a +night of it. One would like to be sure, though, that there +are no candles to upset!" +</p> + +<p> +The junior officer moved to the library door and opened +it, setting free a puff of hot air laden with wine fumes, and +a chorus of snores ranging from piping alto to deep bass. +Nothing could be seen except the vague outlines of prostrate +bodies, revealed by a pale gleam of moonlight that +made its way down the chimney and shone upon the dead +ashes of the hearth. +</p> + +<p> +"Shall I wake anybody?" queried the lieutenant's look. +The Minister made a sign in the negative, bade a pleasant +good night to the two officers, and withdrew, shutting the +glass door. He quitted the drawing-room, went into the +hall, tried the fastenings of the hall door, and crossed to +the hatchway under the main staircase that led to the +kitchen quarters. A gas jet was flaring in a draught at +the bottom of the staircase. He went down, regulated the +light as he passed to a safer volume, and tried the handle +of the door leading to what had been a housekeeper's +parlor, and was now used by the house steward and the +Chancery attendants as an upper servants' hall. A gasalier +of flaring jets revealed five persons in here, wrapped +in the heavy sleep of drunkenness. One, the house steward, +snored, recumbent on a sofa; Grams and Engelberg, those +monuments of rigid respectability, reposed with their heads +and shoulders resting on the table, appropriately decorated +with empty bottles and upset glass beakers, and in +the center of which stood a great china bowl. +</p> + +<p> +The Minister peeped into this vessel curiously. Apples +stuck with cloves, and cinnamon sticks left high and dry at +the bowl bottom testified to the Yuletide correctness of +the punch, brewed by the skilled hand of the Foreign Office +cook. He, the artist responsible for the dinner which had +astonished the three Bavarian plenipotentiaries, leaned +back, slumbering profoundly in a high-backed armchair. A +china pipe, gayly tasseled and painted, drooped from one +side of his relaxed mouth. His feet rested upon the sprawling +back of the gigantic Niederstedt, who had gone to sleep +upon a sheepskin rug in front of the wood stove. His huge +right hand still grasped an empty bottle that had contained +his favorite Old Nordhausen. He opened one eye as the +Minister stooped to inspect him—uttered a stertorous +snort, and relapsed again into his hoggish Nirvana, leaving +the Minister, as he deliberately turned out the gas and +quitted the steward's room, to realize that, save himself, +the two officers smoking in the winter garden, and the +women presumably sleeping on the second floor, the house +whose outer precincts were so vigilantly guarded, did not +contain a sober head. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, well! A bout of drunkenness may well be condoned +in the servants when the master himself gave the +signal for revelry!" +</p> + +<p> +He told himself so, smiling as he made the round of the +basement house doors. Nothing had disturbed his +equanimity saving the discovery that Niederstedt was +incapable of speech or movement. For with his strange +characteristic mingling of audacity and caution, the Minister, +while leaving Mademoiselle de Bayard practically free +within the house limits, had insured by private orders that +the giant East Prussian should sleep henceforth outside +his master's bedroom door. +</p> + +<p> +Again, as the master's long strides carried him upstairs +to the hall again, and he took his bedroom candle from the +row on the Empire console, he knew a moment of inward +f rat. There was nobody to help him undress, and put away +his clothes. Wherever Fate and the Intendant General +had assigned the Minister's sleeping quarters, the deft +Grans, or the attentive Engelberg had always appeared—or, +failing these, the stolid Niederstedt—to render these +and other personal services, the lack of which after long use +is keenly felt. +</p> + +<p> +Is was a hellish nuisance to a middle-aged man to have +to get himself out of his full-dress uniform. One grew hot +at the mere thought of unfastening the shoulder belt and +sword belt, collar hooks, buckles, swivels, and so on. Last, +but not least, the final wrestle with the polished, spurred +jack boots.... +</p> + +<p> +"God be thanked, I am not wearing the cuirass!" he +said to himself devoutly, as he laid hand upon his bedroom +door. +</p> + +<p> +It swung back, and then his vexation passed from him. +On a little table near the hearthside, where yet some embers +of a fire glowed redly, stood a little gayly-caparisoned +Christmas tree. Under its branches, adorned with red-and-white +tapers as yet unlighted, lay the gifts that came from +home. +</p> + +<p> +He crossed the room in two long steps and stood smiling +before the little fir tree. The purplish redness died out of +his great cheeks and jowl, the congested veins no longer +stood out like ropes upon his throat and temples. The +great eyes that had blazed with Satanic pride softened into +tenderness, as he picked up the gifts one by one and looked +at them. +</p> + +<p> +"From His Daughter to Papachen," said an embroidered +tobacco pouch. "From Bill" and "From Herbert" a gold +fusee box and a smoker's knife were respectively labeled. +"From thy wife Johanna" was written on a slip of paper +attached to the case that contained a handsome cup of Tula +ware. He turned the cup in his hands many times before +he returned it to its outer husk. He said fondly, +familiarly, as though the giver were standing beside him: +</p> + +<p> +"Little thou carest, thou good heart!—whether thou art +wife to a Chancellor of the North German Confederation, +or the Chancellor of the German Empire. One object in +life thou hast—and that is to get the old man home +again!" After a moment he added, pitching the Bavarian Treaty +on the center table, unhooking and removing his sword belt, +and throwing it on the couch: "Babel must be bombarded, +or thou wilt not be pleased with me ... am I not a good +pupil, to have learned my lesson so well?" +</p> + +<p> +The shoulder belt came off with a slight degree of twisting +and fumbling. He laid it aside, and moved to the slaving +glass, and by its aid unfastened from his collar swivel +the Iron Cross. "Good!" he commented, and laid it on +top of a dispatch box on the center table. Then he began +slowly and methodically to unfasten the other Orders from +his breast. As he pricked a finger with the pin of one in +wrenching at it angrily, it occurred to him that it would +have been perfectly feasible to have removed his dress tunic +with all its decorations, and this discovery stung him to +wrath. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Kreuzdonnerwetter!</i>—am I, then, such a sheep's head?" +he said angrily to himself. Something dropped upon the +floor with a tinkle and rolled away merrily under a chair, +leaving its owner with the thick silver pin that had secured +it gripped between his finger and thumb. It was the medallion +bestowed upon him in '42 for an act of gallantry, the +obverse a shield of silver on a circle, bearing a red-enameled +Prussian eagle, and on the reverse the inscription: +"<i>Für Rettung aus Gefahr</i>." +</p> + +<p> +The pin remained in his hand. Cursing his own clumsiness, +he took the lighted candle he had placed upon the +center table upon entering, and stooped to recover the +evasive prize. Both hands were required for the task, that +was quickly apparent. Half unconsciously he reverted to +a habit for which his wife had often playfully scolded +him—nipped the broken silver pin between his teeth and bent +down to resume his search upon the floor. +</p> + +<p> +As he stooped, the detonation of a driving charge and +the deafening roar and shriek of a huge shell were followed +by an ear-splitting explosion. His practiced ear told him. +that the shell had been fired from the Fortress of +St. Valérien. Half a dozen others followed in rapid succession. +No alarm trumpet sounded. Dogs barked, near and far, +the echoes of the cannonade rattled among the woods and +high grounds, then died out. He said to himself: +"Those sugar plums have done damage somewhere near +St. Germain.... Now, then, where is this runaway medal?" +</p> + +<p> +As he queried, a sudden spasm of the windpipe shot him +to the perpendicular. He coughed and hawked as he had +never done before. With a hand upon his side, he coughed, +straining horribly. With streaming, starting eyes he +coughed, clutching at his throat. +</p> + +<p> +And then, with a sudden stab of pain beneath the uvula +and a strangling access of coughing, he realized that a +familiar home prediction had been fulfilled: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Otto, you will certainly swallow that pin!...</i>" +</p> + +<p> +He could almost hear the voice of his wife speaking. +How absurd! he thought, and laughed; and the agony in +his lacerated gullet brought on a fit of choking worse than +those that had gone before. He seized the candle and held +it to his face before the shaving mirror, opening his powerful +jaws to their widest and straining his eyes that were too +blind with tears to see his own swollen, discolored features. +He spat furiously, ejecting showers of saliva streaked with +blood, but not the obstacle that was choking him.... +He thrust his hand into his mouth, and groped as +far down his throat as his fingers could reach—all to no +avail.... +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Help!...</i>" +</p> + +<p> +He gasped the word, realizing that if no help came, he +was a dead man. And he seized the bell rope and rang +furiously, until the rope came down in his hand as had +that of the reception-room a day or so previously, followed +by a long trail of rusty wire that, when tugged, evoked no +metal clang below. +</p> + +<p> +"Help! For the love of God!" he croaked, and whirling +vertigo seized him. Whooping with a dreadful croupy +intake, he tripped over a footstool, and fell upon his hands +and knees, and struggled up again in a last strangling +effort, and staggered to the door. +</p> + +<p> +The door handle seemed to stick, or could it be that his +grasp had lost its power? In the light of the gas and his +yet flaring candle, he looked at his knuckles and saw that +they were turning blackish blue.... A wave of blackness +rose and fell, swamping consciousness. He emerged from +drowning waters, and found himself upon the landing, +gripping some round object that proved to be the wrenched-off +door handle, and moaning in the whisper that he +thought a shout: +</p> + +<p> +"Help, help, help!..." +</p> + +<p> +Bismarck, the man whom Kings and Emperors meant +when they spoke of Prussia—the great Minister who had +made three Wars—was dying. Would no one come? Not +one of those who loved the man would ever know the true +story of his sordid, solitary ending.... Not one of those +who hated him but would hear every ugly detail of it, and +recount it for others, smiling at its grim, grotesque +absurdity.... +</p> + +<p> +Choked by a pin!... An end rather less noble for a +great Chancellor than being run over by a donkey cart or +smothered in a midden pit full of liquid manure.... +</p> + +<p> +Someone was groaning horribly, close beside him. Deep +ruckling, gasping groans with a rattle and a catch midway. +Were they his own death groans? What was this? The +walls were melting and vanishing. Clear, vivid, definite, +there unrolled before his filming eyes a picture of Varzin, +his Pomeranian country home. It was Spring. The dark +pines about the house shone as though newly varnished. +The larches were caparisoned with tassels of pale green. +The blue sky was vivid as Persian turquoise. He saw his +daughter in a white dress step out from the low wide porch +and stand smiling upon the terrace. She had a bunch of +primroses in her belt, and his great hound Tyras had +followed her and was rubbing his great head against her +sleeve. +</p> + +<p> +"Dying!" he tried to say to her. "Help your father!" +... But it seemed to him that he uttered nothing but a +groan. There was a thundering in his ears like the noise of +a field battery. His great bulk reeled toward her.... He +pitched forward and fell heavily.... +</p> + +<p> +He heard a scared voice crying: "Monseigneur!..." +and knew no more. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap76"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXXVI +</h3> + +<p> +Juliette had not gone to bed, this snowy night of the Noël. +She had said her Rosary and waited until the Christmas +carillon. Then she knelt and prayed for her own pardon, +for light and guidance, for a blessing upon those living +friends she held most dear, for the souls of the beloved +departed. And then she had waited, pacing solitary in her +bedroom or sitting by her fire, for the sound of Breagh's +return. +</p> + +<p> +Madame Potier had gone to the Midnight Mass at the +Cathedral. There would be crowds of communicants—she +might not reach home before three. And in her absence +had Juliette wished to sleep, sleep would have been +banished by the sounds of revelry going on in the regions +belowstairs. +</p> + +<p> +Those first shouts for the Kaiser had been followed by +others for the Chancellor. Even in her remote eyrie she +could hear the clinking of glasses and the popping of corks. +Then after a wild outburst of cheering she had seen, +peeping between the frost flowers on her window into the +snowy, moonlit garden, the great figure in the white +Cuirassier cloak move down the path between the snow-laden +trees. +</p> + +<p> +She was possessed by a great sense of loneliness, and a +vague unreal sensation of living somebody else's life, and +not the life proper of Juliette Bayard. She locked her +door and built up the fire to a cheerful hearth blaze, and +sat upon the rug in her white dressing gown, combing and +brushing her glorious hair. +</p> + +<p> +Never again need those superb waves of jet-black spun +silk be confined in the chenille net of Madame Charles +Tessier. One could be charming if one chose—there was +no grim reason for being ugly, thought Mademoiselle, as +she brushed and brushed.... +</p> + +<p> +What was that? +</p> + +<p> +So strange a sound from below that she dropped comb +and hairbrush and sprang to her feet quivering.... She +had heard such a groan uttered when the lance of the +Uhlan had plunged through the body of my Cousin Boisset.... +</p> + +<p> +Again! ... the sound of a door thrust violently open. +Heavy footsteps thudded on the gaslit landing of the next +floor, and a muffled voice cried out as though for help. +</p> + +<p> +A man's voice.... Again it cried. No voice sounded +in answer. She unlocked her door, and set her foot upon +the stairs. +</p> + +<p> +A few steps down.... Then she saw him, the tottering +giant with the distorted, blue face, and the open mouth +that trickled with saliva and blood. What had befallen +Juliette's enemy and France's pitiless oppressor? His +huge staring eyes were fixed on her. Tears rolled from +them as the deep groans issued from his gaping mouth and +his broad chest heaved and labored vainly for air. +</p> + +<p> +"<i>Choking! Help!</i>" his gesture seemed to say to her, +and a terrible shudder convulsed her as the huge body +crashed down prone at her feet. +</p> + +<p> +With a strange mingling of pity and aversion she knelt +down beside him and looked at him closely by the light +of the flaring gas jet that illuminated the landing and +stairs. +</p> + +<p> +He had turned a little in falling. His blackening face +and staring, agonized eyes spoke to his desperate +condition.... What was to be done?... The obstruction in +the throat must be removed somehow.... She rose up and +went into the empty room upon her left hand, and felt in +the darkness for the bell. There was none. The bell rope +had been pulled down by the hand of the Minister, for +this was the torture chamber, where M. Thiers underwent +his periodical ordeal of thumbscrew and rack. +</p> + +<p> +Air.... He must have fresh air. She desperately +flung both the windows open, admitting a gush of piercing +cold. He still groaned, but more faintly. The man was +dying. Was not this the Judgment of Heaven? +</p> + +<p> +In the hour of his triumph the sword had fallen. France +would be saved—there would be no bombardment of +Paris if the enemy were to die to-night. This she told +herself, standing in the sharp draught from the open +windows, and knew a thrill of intolerable triumph, +thinking: +</p> + +<p> +"Our Lord has delivered him into hands as weak as mine!" +</p> + +<p> +<i>Ting!...</i> +</p> + +<p> +Her heart leaped and stood still. She looked breathlessly +from the window. Along the middle of the snowy +Rue de Provence, where pedestrians must walk to avoid the +dangers of the frozen sideways, a lantern moved, carried +by a squat, muffled shape. A taller figure followed, moving +steadily. +</p> + +<p> +<i>Ting-ting-ting!...</i> +</p> + +<p> +A shock and thrill of mingled awe and terror passed +through her. To some dying Catholic, saint or sinner, in +the dawn of this day of the Christ-birth, the Body of the +Virgin-born was being conveyed.... Was it not to aid a +soul in dire temptation—two souls, it might be—that He +had bidden His minister pass this way? +</p> + +<p> +She bent the knee and made the Sign of the Cross, +trembling, then rose and sped back to the suffocating man. +With a strength that she could not have believed herself +possessed of, she raised his discolored head upon her lap.... +His great jaws were wide open. She thrust the tiny +hand within them. Shuddering, sickening, she probed with +her slender fingers, thrusting them down into the +contracting, gulping throat. +</p> + +<p> +Something bright projected beneath the swollen uvula, +wedged firmly into the membrane, blocking the orifice of +the trachea. She nipped the projecting end in the little +fingers and pulled. It yielded. He gave a gulp of relief. +As the big teeth snapped together, she plucked the little +hand from peril, bringing with it the broken silver pin. +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap77"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXXVII +</h3> + +<p> +He was instantly, tremendously sick, as an overeaten ogre +might have been in an Eastern story. When he had +finished vomiting, he heaved up his huge, shuddering bulk. +She put her slight shoulder under the groping hand, and +guided him. With this slight aid he reached his room. The +couch stood drawn forward at an angle toward the fireplace. +He staggered to it, let himself drop upon it, and +said, in a groan: +</p> + +<p> +"Drink!..." +</p> + +<p> +He pointed to the night stand at his bedside. When she +poured from the jug that stood there into the glass and +brought it to him, he gulped the contents greedily. +</p> + +<p> +"Barley water ... good for the throat!" he gasped, +giving the glass back. She filled it again, and again he +emptied it. +</p> + +<p> +His sweat-dabbled face was regaining a more natural +color. She went to the washstand, filled a small shaving +basin with cold water from the hand jug, and brought it +with a fine clean towel to his side. She dipped the towel +in the water and laved his face and forehead. That he +experienced relief and refreshment from this she saw by +the placid air with which he submitted, leaning his head +back against the pillowed sofa end, and closing his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +She dried his face, and suddenly the great eyes opened. +The voice of the Chancellor said: +</p> + +<p> +"There.... That will do!" +</p> + +<p> +From the passive victim he had suddenly reverted to +the master; potent—authoritative.... +</p> + +<p> +"Go to bed, Mademoiselle de Bayard, and sleep," he +told her. "I am comfortable ... I shall do well enough!" +</p> + +<p> +She replaced the basin and towel in silence, bent her +head to the figure sitting upright on the sofa, and moved +noiselessly to the door. As she touched the broken handle, +he said to her abruptly: +</p> + +<p> +"You will be silent upon the subject of +to-night's—misadventure?..." +</p> + +<p> +She answered: +</p> + +<p> +"I will be silent, Monseigneur!" +</p> + +<p> +He said, lifting a finger to detain her yet another instant: +</p> + +<p> +"Do not err in supposing me ungrateful. I know very +well that you have saved my life!" +</p> + +<p> +A shudder passed through her slight figure. She averted +her eyes, remembering.... He finished: +</p> + +<p> +"I lunch with the King at the Prefecture to-morrow. I +will see you before I leave the house." +</p> + +<p> +"As you will, Monseigneur!" +</p> + +<p> +He added with something like a twinkle: +</p> + +<p> +"With regard to all that ... <i>débris</i> upon the landing +... it will not be the first time Niederstedt has been guilty +in that way. Good night, Mademoiselle—or, rather, good +morning.... Hark! Was not that the bell of the house +door?" +</p> + +<p> +"I—am not sure, Monseigneur!"' she said, in hesitation, +for so ragged and weakly a peal had been evolved by +the ringer that the sound might have passed unnoticed by +ears less keen than his. +</p> + +<p> +"They are all asleep or drunk belowstairs!" He began +to raise himself stiffly from the sofa. "I will go down...." +</p> + +<p> +"No; I will go!" she said. +</p> + +<p> +And she left the room. He let himself sink back on the +sofa. "<i>Grosser Gott!</i>" he said to himself. "How near a +thing! ... And that the little Fury should have stopped +the brand from quenching.... Well, now, at this rate, I +may live another thirty years. Not that I should find +much zest in a prolonged spell of power and authority. +The King-Emperor in the ordinary course must die before +long. My master in that event would be a good-natured +booby, who in assuming the supreme dignities of Imperial +authority would value the stage setting beyond anything +else!" +</p> + +<p> +He quoted with acerbity increased by recent suffering: +</p> + +<p> +"'Pomp and solemnity' ... 'The ancient Crown of +Charlemagne from Vienna' ... 'I shall write to my wife +to-night' ... Pray do!... And while Your Royal Highness +is about it you had better consult little Prince +William, who would probably give you as valuable advice." +</p> + +<p> +His thoughts reverted to the fair-haired, puny-limbed +eleven-year-old urchin in kilt and plaid of Royal Stuart +tartans.... "Now," said he, "what sort of a future +Emperor may be enclosed in that husk?... That the boy has +a crippled left arm, and a capital set of sharp teeth, which +he uses on the calves of his Military Governor and tutors, +is practically all I know of him.... Come in!" +</p> + +<p> +He had been so lost in thought as to miss the sound +of chains undone and bolts drawn back, though he had +shivered unconsciously as the opening of the hall door had +admitted a volume of fresh, piercing air to the heated +house. Now he reared himself upright upon the sofa, +stared for a moment at the figure that responded +to his gruff "Come in!" and burst into an irresistible +laugh. +</p> + +<p> +"Quite right, Mr. Breagh!" he said, in his clear and +fluent English. "I told you to come up to me at whatever +hour you might get back. But I forgot that you would +naturally visit Madame de Bayard in the costume proper +to Jean Jacques Potier, to whom I suppose that extraordinary +overcoat and the wolfskin cap must have belonged. +Frankly, I did not recognize you.... The condition of +your clothes, and that bandage on your forehead are +responsible, more than my lapse of memory. You certainly +look rather shaken. Let me hope you have sustained no +serious hurt?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh grinned mirthlessly, and looked ruefully +down at his snowy boots and trousers, from which the +melting snow was beginning to drip in little rills upon +the carpeted floor. By the light of the two gas lamps +depending above the table, it could be seen that the gory +bandage surmounting his pale face had been applied by an +experienced hand. He needed no immediate surgical aid. +But his blue lips and drawn and pallid features betrayed +him exhausted. The Minister, noting this, pointed to a +chair. +</p> + +<p> +"Sit down," he said, "and rest before you speak! There +is brandy in that flask that stands upon the bureau.... +But something hot would be better for you—that is what +you most need." +</p> + +<p> +There was a sound upon the landing ... a faint tap +upon the door panel. +</p> + +<p> +"See who it is!" said the Chancellor. +</p> + +<p> +As Breagh rose, the door opened, wide enough to admit a +little tray bearing two steaming coffee cups. +</p> + +<p> +"Capital!" said His Excellency, addressing the unseen +cup-bearer. "Now, that I call an excellent thought!" +</p> + +<p> +He took a cup from the tray Breagh offered, bidding +him: +</p> + +<p> +"Sit down and drink the other. I should have got none +except for you!" When the steaming cup was empty, +"Proceed," he said, ignoring the gray daylight outlining +the curtain poles and filtering between the drawn curtains. +</p> + +<p> +"At what hour did you get to Maisons Lafitte? For I +presume you did get there?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said: +</p> + +<p> +"I got there at about two o'clock.... I had an appointment +at the Cathedral, otherwise I should have started +before." +</p> + +<p> +"I hope she was pretty!" said the Minister, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh went on, as though he had not heard: +</p> + +<p> +"The snow was beginning to freeze. It was not such +bad walking, but that hill of St. Germain was a winder, and +in the Forest I lost my way.... If a party of men—peasants +in sheepskin caps and jackets—forest keepers possibly—had +not turned out of an avenue and kept marching +ahead, I might never have got as far as the Seine +road...." +</p> + +<p> +"The men were marching, and not walking," commented +the Minister, and his great brows scowled, and his bulldog +jowl hardened as he added: "And they carried guns, or +you would not have taken them for keepers.... I have +no doubt that they were <i>Francs-tireurs</i>." +</p> + +<p> +"I lost them where the road winds by the Seine," P. C. Breagh +continued. "And then I had a real stroke of luck. +I came across a hack cab from Versailles at a regular +standstill. The snow had balled in the wretched horse's +feet, and the driver was as drunk as David's sow. The +fare was asleep inside, but he woke as I opened the cab +door and flashed one of the lamps in his face, and then he +said"—the narrator unconsciously gave the tone and +accent of the Doctor—"'By the piper that played before +Moses, my boyo! I was dreaming of you, and here you +are.'" +</p> + +<p> +The Minister broke in: +</p> + +<p> +"That man was the English correspondent of <i>The Times</i> +newspaper. He is of the same surname, though no relative +of Odo Russell, the English Envoy, who has been sent out +here upon a Mission to our German Court.... Ill-natured +diplomatists whisper that Great Britain is jealous of the +great successes of Prussia, and does not welcome the +prospect of a United Imperial Germany. <i>Au fond</i>, we +Germans have a kind of sentimental regard for your nation. +She is an offshoot of the great Germanic stem—it is +impossible that we should not regard her as nearer to us than +others.... Though, should we ever seriously quarrel, it +may be found that the bitterest variance may exist +between those of the same blood.... And so you have never +confided to your friend the secret of your presence in +Versailles! Reticence in the young is an unusual gift. +Possibly he gave you a lift in his vehicle?" +</p> + +<p> +"——Till the unlucky Rosinante gave out," acquiesced +Breagh, "and we had to leave her with her Jehu at the +wreck of the railway station, and then the Doctor stopped +at the diggings of the friends he was on the way to look up, +a half squadron of Barnekow's Hussars who are quartered +in a deserted chateau. They gave me some sandwiches and +beer, and then I went on by myself to the Villa Laon where +Madame de Bayard"—he stopped and added in a low +voice—"used to live." +</p> + +<p> +Something in the tone attracted the attention of the +Chancellor. He repeated: +</p> + +<p> +"Used to.... Does she not, then, live there now? Has +she gone with M. de Straz—the pair of love birds +together?..." +</p> + +<p> +Said P. C. Breagh, seized with a shudder that knocked +his knees together, and speaking in a low voice: +</p> + +<p> +"I—I beg of Your Excellency to spare her your irony.... +Madame de Bayard is dead!" +</p> + +<p> +"So!..." +</p> + +<p> +The Minister's ejaculation was followed by the order: +</p> + +<p> +"Now the details!... Has she died naturally, or by +accident—or by a murderer's hand?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh said, lowering his voice apprehensively: +</p> + +<p> +"She was killed by a shell. There was a bombardment +from Mont Valérien.... It broke out at about a quarter +past two this morning—just as I reached the Villa +Laon...." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! now I understand how you got that love token on +your forehead!" said the Minister. +</p> + +<p> +Breagh nodded, and wiped his wet forehead with a +blood-stained handkerchief, and shuddered and went on: +</p> + +<p> +"Nobody had gone to bed when I got to the villa. The +blinds of what I could see was a dining-room were drawn +up and the curtains all drawn back. The room was +brilliantly lighted, lots of mirrors and crystal girandoles. It +was like a scene on the stage, looking at it from the snowy +garden. Shin-deep in snow, because the paths had not +been cleared.... You could not tell where the paths +were, in fact, so I steered my course by the big shining +window. Then I saw him, moving before me——" +</p> + +<p> +Queried His Excellency: +</p> + +<p> +"By him, you mean whom?..." +</p> + +<p> +"A man," said P. C. Breagh, "whom I saw moving along +before me, taking cover behind snowy bushes and clumps +of frosted prairie grass. When he stood up, I saw that he +was short in figure and had immensely broad shoulders. +I was quite sure that I had seen the fellow before. In +fact——" +</p> + +<p> +"In fact," the Minister sharply interrupted, "you +recognized him as the man who posed as M. Charles Tessier, +and who can have been nobody but M. Straz. Now tell +me, whom was he watching? Madame and a companion, +I venture to guess?" He added, as P. C. Breagh assented: +"What was the man? A civilian or an officer?" +</p> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh answered, repressing another shudder: +</p> + +<p> +"A tall, fair officer of the Prussian Guard Infantry. He +and Madame were at supper, or they had just finished. He +had opened a fresh bottle of champagne and was leaning +over to fill Madame's glass when I noticed the short man +standing still, watching them closely. He seemed to have +his right hand in his pocket. He drew it out and +then—I don't know very well what happened. There was the +heavy boom of a big gun, and a shell came shrieking like +an express train.... I remember how the spitting flare of +the fuse lit up the sky. And there was a terrific +crash—and something hit me on the head—a bit of masonry, it +must have been—for when I came to myself other shells +were hurtling, and hitting, and bursting.... One smashed +the stables of the chateau where the Hussars are quartered, +and another has dug a crater, they tell me, in the side of +the Terrace of St. Germain. The flashes made everything +show up clear like lightning, and I picked myself up.... +The blood was running down into my eyes, blinding me. +But I'm not likely to forget what I saw. It was ... so +awfully stagey ... so like a picture of the sensational, +blood-curdling, highly colored kind." +</p> + +<p> +"Go on!" +</p> + +<p> +"It was like this. The upper story of the Villa had been +shaved off—simply. There was the interior of the +dining-room before me, all color and mirrors and gilding and +twinkling wax candles in crystal girandoles. The French +windows had been shattered, and there was a great hole in +the ceiling. On the mantelshelf, just in front of me, +between two Sèvres candlesticks, was a clock, the hands +pointing to half-past two. There were Sèvres figures on each +side of the clock—I have seen them here in the shop +windows, '<i>Pierrot qui rit</i>' and '<i>Pierrot qui pleure</i>.' The +crying Pierrot had been smashed by the shell splinter that +shivered the mantel mirror, but the laughing Pierrot was +untouched. He seemed to be holding his sides and screaming +at Valverden sprawling across the table with his skull +shattered, and Madame de Bayard sitting stone-dead in her +chair. She had the cigarette in her fingers, still alight.... +It must have been painless.... There was only a +small blue hole in her temple—just here." +</p> + +<p> +The Minister was repeating: +</p> + +<p> +"Valverden!... Are you clear that you mean Count +Max Valverden?... But of course you are! There is no +other officer of that name in the Prussian Guard Infantry. +How you came to be acquainted you shall tell me +to-morrow." He laughed harshly, looking at the clock upon the +mantel. "I should say to-day, at a somewhat later hour." He +added, as Breagh rose: "Have you told anything of +this matter to Mademoiselle de Bayard? Then, I advise +you, do not enlighten her at all. Or, if you must do so, tell +her after you are married!" +</p> + +<p> +He drove the sentence home with another that left the +listener gasping: +</p> + +<p> +"For of course you will marry, you are capitally suited +to one another. The mother exists no longer and M. Straz +if he escaped, which is most likely, will not be able to +interfere. Let me recommend you to get some rest. You +will require it. For at twelve you leave Versailles with +Mademoiselle de Bayard en route for England. Now +go!..." +</p> + +<p><br><br><br></p> + +<p><a id="chap78"></a></p> + +<h3> +LXXVIII +</h3> + +<p> +P. C. Breagh and Juliette met upon the morrow in the +same spot near the rose tree that had borne pink blossoms +undismayed through the bitter wintry months. +</p> + +<p> +"You have bestowed upon me no Christmas present, +Monsieur," Juliette said to him gravely. "Now I will have +you gather one of those roses and give it to me...." +</p> + +<p> +He strode into the drift, mid-leg deep, and cut a bud that +was upon the sheltered side next the wall. +</p> + +<p> +"Be careful of the thorns, lest they prick you!" Juliette +cried to him. "Do not cut your fingers! Do not get +wet!" +</p> + +<p> +"You shall not have this rose," he said, withholding the +frozen flower, "until you have given my Christmas gift +to me!" +</p> + +<p> +Her blue eyes rose, brimming, to meet his. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! what is there I can give you? Tell me, my +friend!" she said softly. +</p> + +<p> +He got out, blushing, and swallowing a lump that rose in +his throat: +</p> + +<p> +"We have been through so much ... we have seen +strange and terrible things together!... We have shared +dangers ... we have seen a great nation in the death +throes.... Nothing could ever make us strangers +whatever came to pass.... But now we are going back to +England. Before we leave this garden where we have been +so happy——" +</p> + +<p> +"It is true.... We have been happy here!" she answered. +</p> + +<p> +Winged smiles were hovering about her mouth. Jeweled +gleams played between the black fringes of her eyelashes, +as though fairy kingfishers were diving for some new joy in +those sapphire depths. She asked demurely, as the clumsy +male creature choked and boggled: +</p> + +<p> +"What do you seek, Monsieur? Some souvenir.... +Some token of friendship?" +</p> + +<p> +He said, in a low, dogged voice: +</p> + +<p> +"I have never asked mere friendship from you. But if +you—if you——" He got it out with a desperate effort: +</p> + +<p> +"Before we leave this ... if you would kiss me—once..." +</p> + +<p> +She drew back. A terrible dignity vested her sloping +shoulders. Modesty veiled her eyes. He was going +miserably away, when she beckoned to him, with that splendid +sweep of the arm that might have belonged to +Krimhilde-Brünhilde-Isolde-Britomart and the whole covey of +Romance Ideals.... He returned.... She spoke, and her +eyes were wavering under the eager fire of his: +</p> + +<p> +"See you well, Monsieur, a young lady cannot bestow a +gift of that kind. It is for the gentleman, having obtained +consent, to take..." +</p> + +<p> +Breagh caught her to his broad breast and snatched the +coveted guerdon. He cried to her in wonder and triumph: +</p> + +<p> +"You love me!... A fellow like me?... And you +will be my wife? We are not going to England to be +parted! I am not a beggar any more! I will try again for +my practicing degree in Medicine, and get it! I will write +books and make a name for myself in Literature. But not +unless you'll marry me!... Oh, Juliette! say when you +will marry me?" +</p> + +<p> +She said, with downcast eyelids that veiled laughter, +though the rose flush had dyed her very temples, and the +beating of her heart shook her slight frame: +</p> + +<p> +"Monsieur, my grandmother would have answered: +'<i>Under the circumstances, the marriage cannot take place +too soon.... Once a young girl has been kissed, she must +be married.</i>' And"—the smile peeped out—"I was taught +always to obey my grandmother...." +</p> + +<p> +"Admirably spoken!" said the Chancellor. +</p> + +<p> +He had come upon the lovers, of set purpose it may have +been. Now he stood surveying them in an ogreish, yet not +unamiable fashion, as they stood before him hand in hand. +</p> + +<p> +He said, and the resonant tones were veiled by a painful +hoarseness, of which the reason was known to Mademoiselle +alone: +</p> + +<p> +"Mr. Breagh, Count Hatzfeldt has the necessary papers +of which I spoke to you. You will find him in the +drawing-room waiting to complete some slight formalities +inseparable from the granting of passports in time of +War.... Good-bye to you, good luck and all happiness. +I am on the point of departure for the Prefecture, so I +shall not again see you. For a moment I detain Mademoiselle." +</p> + +<p> +As Breagh bowed to Juliette and His Excellency and +hastened toward the house, the Chancellor said to Juliette: +</p> + +<p> +"It is too cold to stand here ... it will be wiser to +walk a little. There is a path that leads us out near the +wall at the bottom of the shrubbery." +</p> + +<p> +It was where the mask of the Satyr, now with long icicles +hanging from his eyebrows and goat-beard, jutted from the +ivy of the boundary wall. +</p> + +<p> +The little spring had not frozen, the ferns and grasses +round its margin were still quite green. A few pinched +violets peeped from among their broad leaves. Juliette +stooped and gathered one or two of the faintly-fragrant +blossoms and a leaf of fern and a sprig of ivy. As she +slipped them into the inner pocket of her jacket, the +Chancellor spoke: +</p> + +<p> +"Mademoiselle, I have to thank you for my life..... +Now, last night——" He squarely confronted her, his +powerful eyes looking down upon the little figure so frail +and slender. "Now, last night," he repeated, "had you +really believed that my death meant the salvation of your +country.... Well!... Did you not hold me in the +hollow of your hand?" +</p> + +<p> +She met his stern regard with a look that was clear as +crystal. She said in her silver tones: +</p> + +<p> +"It is true, Monseigneur. Our Lord granted me my +wish. You so great, so strong, so powerful, were helpless +as an infant.... I had only not to put out my finger—and +you were a dead man! The power of Life and Death +was mine, yet I could not let you perish, for Almighty +God would not permit it.... He willed that you should +not die.... Crush France or spare her, you will not be +carrying out the wishes of Count Bismarck. You will do +what God permits you to do—no more and no less! But +when you are most strong and most powerful ... when +you play with Kings and Emperors like pawns, then I +ask you to remember Juliette de Bayard!" +</p> + +<p> +She quivered in every limb, but she went on resolutely: +</p> + +<p> +"You are not a good man, Monseigneur!... Hard, +subtle, arrogant, cruel and unscrupulous, God made you to +be the Fate of France. One day she will lift up her face +from the mire into which you have trodden it, and the star +will be burning unquenched upon her forehead. We may +both be dead before that day dawns. But rest assured +that when next your armies cross the Rhine they will not +gain an easy victory!... We shall be prepared and ready, +Monseigneur, when the Germans come again!" +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her and listened to her in silence, perhaps +in wonder. She seemed the Spirit of France incarnate, a +pale reed shaken by prophetic winds from Heaven. +</p> + +<p> +"It may be so," he said to her gravely. "And now, +Mademoiselle de Bayard, I shall ask you to give me your +hand at parting!" +</p> + +<p> +"Take it, Monseigneur," she bade him. +</p> + +<p> +He held it in his an instant, saying in his clear-cut +French: +</p> + +<p> +"I desire no evil to France when I say that I wish that +every Frenchman had a daughter like you!..." He +added: "Thanks for the <i>beignets</i>.... I shall always +remember you when I am served with them.... And for +last night again thank you!... Farewell and all +happiness attend you, Mademoiselle!" +</p> + +<p> +His heavy footsteps crunched the snow. He was gone, +and she had almost called after him: +</p> + +<p> +"Monseigneur, I do not hate you so much as I have +said...." +</p> + +<p><br></p> + +<p> +On the morning of the 27th of January eighteen seventy-one +French guns on Fort Montrouge had been keeping up a brisk +cannonade of the German investing-works. Meeting no +response their thunder ceased. There, upon the east and +north of beleaguered Paris—with a simultaneous uprush +of fierce white flame from the muzzles of seventy giant +howitzers, with the detonation of driving-charges, and the +piercing scream and deafening crash of the percussion of +Krupp's huge siege-projectiles, the bombardment of the +doomed Queen City of Cities had begun.... +</p> + +<p> +A few moments before, as Juliette de Bayard and her +lover set foot upon the steamer-pier at Dover, an aged +French lady, who had stopped Count Bismarck on the steps +of the Prefecture, had imploringly said to him: +</p> + +<p> +"<i>O! Monseigneur, donnez nous la paix!</i>" +</p> + +<p> +And the Iron Chancellor had replied to her almost +smilingly: +</p> + +<p> +"Dear lady, it is with a peace as with a marriage, there +must be two parties willing to conclude the contract.... +I am ready to make peace, but the other side is not!" +</p> + +<p><br><br></p> + +<p class="t3"> +THE END +</p> + +<p><br><br><br><br></p> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75200 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + + |