The Cross of Berny Read online

  This is not at all probable, however, for Madame Taverneau would not compromise her respectability so far as to act as chaperon to the loves of Louise Guérin. After all, what is it to me? I am very good to trouble myself about the freaks of a prudish screen-painter! She will return, because the hired piano has not been sent back to Rouen, and not a soul in the house knows a note of music but Louise, who plays quadrilles and waltzes with considerable taste, an accomplishment she owes to her mistress of painting, who had seen better days and possessed some skill.

  Do not be too much flattered by this letter of grievances, for I only wanted an excuse to go to the post-office to see if Louise has returned—suppose she has not! the thought drives the blood back to my heart.

  Isn't it singular that I should fall desperately in love with this simple shepherdess—I who have resisted the sea-green glances and smiles of the sirens that dwell in the Parisian ocean? Have I escaped from the Marquise's Israelite turbans only to become a slave to a straw bonnet? I have passed safe and sound through the most dangerous defiles to be worsted in open country; I could swim in the whirlpool, and now drown in a fish-pond; every celebrated beauty, every renowned coquette finds me on my guard. I am as circumspect as a cat walking over a table covered with glass and china. It is hard to make me pose, as they say in a certain set; but when the adversary is not to be feared, I allow him so many advantages that in the end he subdues me.

  I was not sufficiently on my guard with Louise at first.

  I said to myself: "She is only a grisette"—and left the door of my heart open—love entered in, and I fear I shall have some trouble in driving him out.

  Excuse, dear Roger, this nonsense, but I must write you something. After all, my passion is worth as much as yours. Love is the same whether inspired by an empress or a rope-dancer, and I am just as unhappy at Louise's disappearance as you are at Irene's.

  EDGAR DE MEILHAN

  Chapter XI

  *

  ROGER DE MONBERT to MONSIEUR DE MEILHAN,

  Pont de l'Arche (Eure).

  PARIS, June 3d 18—.

  She is in Paris!

  Before knowing it I felt it. The atmosphere was filled with a voice, a melody, a brightness, a perfume that murmured: Irene is here!

  Paris appears to me once more populated; the crowd is no longer a desert in my eyes; this great dead city has recovered its spirit of life; the sun once more smiles upon me; the earth bounds under my feet; the soft summer air fans my burning brow, and whispers into my ear that one adored name—Irene!

  Chance has a treasure-house of atrocious combinations. Chance! The cunning demon! He calls himself Chance so as to better deceive us. With an infernal skilfulness he feigns not to watch us in the decisive moments of our lives, and at the same time leads us like blind fools into the very path he has marked out for us.

  You know the two brothers Ernest and George de S. were planted by their family in the field of diplomacy: they study Eastern languages and affect Eastern manners. Well, yesterday we met in the Bois de Boulogne, they in a calash, and I on horseback—I am trying riding as a moral hygiene—as the carriage dashed by they called out to me an invitation to dinner; I replied, "Yes," without stopping my horse. Idleness and indolence made me say "Yes," when I should have said, "No;" but Yes is so much easier to pronounce than No, especially on horseback. No necessitates a discussion; Yes ends the matter, and economizes words and time.

  I was rather glad I had met these young sprigs of diplomacy. They are good antidotes for low spirits, for they are always in a hilarious state and enjoy their youth in idle pleasure, knowing they are destined to grow old in the soporific dulness of an Eastern court.

  I thought we three would be alone at dinner; alas! there were five of us.

  Two female artistes who revelled in their precocious emancipation; two divinities worshipped in the temple of the grand sculptors of modern Athens; the Scylla and Charybdis of Paris.

  I am in the habit of bowing with the same apparent respect to every woman in the universe. I have bowed to the ebony women of Senegal; to the moon-colored women of the Southern Archipelago; to the snow-white women of Behring's Strait, and to the bronze women of Lahore and Ceylon. Now it was impossible for me to withdraw from the presence of two fair women whose portraits are the admiration of all connoisseurs who visit the Louvre. Besides, I have a theory: the less respectable a woman is, the more respect we should show her, and thus endeavor to bring her back to virtue.

  I remained and tried to add my fifth share of antique gayety to the feast. We were Praxiteles, Phidias and Scopas; we had inaugurated the modest Venus and her sister in their temples, and we drank to our model goddesses in wines from the Ionian Archipelago.

  That evening, you may remember, Antigone was played at the Odeon in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.

  I have another theory: in any action, foolish or wise, either carry it through bravely when once undertaken, or refrain from undertaking it. I had not the wisdom to refrain, therefore I was compelled to imitate the folly of my friends; at dessert I even abused the invitation, and too often sought to drown sorrow in the ruby cup.

  We started for the Odeon. Our entrance at the theatre caused quite an excitement. The ladies, cavalierly suspended on the arms of the two future Eastern ambassadors, sailed in with a conscious air of epicurean grace and dazzling beauty. The classic ushers obsequiously threw open the doors, and led us to our box. I brought up the procession, looking as insolent and proud as I did the day I entered the ruined pagoda of Bangalore to carry off the statue of Sita.

  The first act was being played, and the Athenian school preserved a religious silence in front of the proscenium. The noise we made by drawing back the curtain of our box, slamming the door and loudly laughing, drowned for an instant the touching strains of the tragic choir, and centred upon us the angry looks of the audience.

  With what cool impertinence did our divinities lean over the seats and display their round white arms, that have so often been copied in Parian marble by our most celebrated sculptors! Our three intellectual faces, wreathed in the silly smiles of intoxication, hovered over the silken curls of our goddesses, thus giving the whole theatre a full view of our happiness!

  Occasionally a glimmer of reason would cross my confused brain, and I would soliloquize: Why am I disgracing myself in this way before all these people? What possesses me to act in concert with these drunken fools and bold women? I must rush out and apologize to the first person I meet!

  It was impossible for me to follow my good impulse—some unseen hand held me back—some mysterious influence kept me chained to the spot. We are influenced by magic, although magicians no longer exist!

  Between the acts, our two Greek statues criticised the audience in loud tones, and their remarks, seasoned with attic salt, afforded a peculiar supplement to the choir of Antigone.

  "Those four women on our right must be sensible people," said our blonde statue; "they have put their show-piece in front. I suppose she is the beauty of the party; did you ever behold such dreadful bonnets and dresses? They must have come from the Olympic Circus. If I were disfigured in that way, I would be a box-opener, but never would be seen in one!"

  "I think I have seen them before," said the bronze statue; they hire their bonnets from the fish-market—disgusting creatures that they are!"

  "What do the two in the corner look like, my angel?"

  "I see nothing but a shower of curls; I suppose she found it more economical to curl her hair than to buy a bonnet. Every time I stretch my neck to get a look at her, she hides behind those superb bonnets."

  "Which proves," said Ernest, "that she is paradoxically ugly."

  "I pity them, if they are seeking four husbands," said George; "and if they are married—I pity their four husbands."

  Whilst my noisy companions were trying to discover their ideal fright in the corner of the box on our right, I felt an inexplicable contraction of my heart—a chill pass through my whole body; my silly
gayety was by some unseen influence suddenly changed into sadness—I felt my eyes fill with tears. The only way I could account for this revulsion in my feelings was the growing conviction that I was disgracing myself in a den of malefactors of both sexes. My fit of melancholy was interrupted very opportunely by the choir chanting the hymn of Bacchus, that antique wonder, found by Mendelssohn in the ruins of the Temple of Victory.

  When the play was over, I timidly proposed that we should remain in our box till the crowd had passed out; but our Greek statues would not hear to it, as they had determined upon a triumphal exit. I was obliged to yield.

  The bronze statue despotically seized my arm, and dragged me toward the stair. I felt as if I had a cold lizard clinging to me. I was seized with that chilly sensation always felt by nervous people when they come in contact with reptiles.

  I recalled the disastrous day that I was shipwrecked on the island of Eaei-Namove, and compelled to marry Dai-Natha, the king's daughter, in order to escape the unpleasant alternative of being eaten alive by her father. On the staircase of the Odeon I regretted Dai-Natha.

  In the midst of the dense crowd that blockaded the stairway, I heard a frightened cry that made the blood freeze in my veins. There was but one woman in the world blest with so sweet a voice—musical even when raised in terror.

  If I were surrounded by crashing peals of thunder, rushing waters and yells of wild beasts, I still could recognise, through the din of all this, the cry of a beloved woman. I am gifted with that marvellous perception of hearing, derived from the sixth sense, the sense of love.

  Irene de Chateaudun had uttered that cry of alarm—Take care, my dear! she had exclaimed with that accent of fright that it is impossible to disguise—in that tone that will be natural in spite of all the reserve that circumstances would impose, Take care, my dear!

  Some one near me said that a door-keeper had struck a lady on the shoulder with a panel of a portable door which he was carrying across the passage-way. By standing on my toes I could just catch a glimpse of the board being balanced in the air over every one's head. My eyes could not see the woman who had uttered this cry, but my ears told me it was Irene de Chateaudun.

  The crowd was so dense that some minutes passed before I could move a step towards the direction of the cry, but when I had finally succeeded in reaching the door, I flung from me the hateful arm that clung to mine, and rushing into the street, I searched through the crowd and looked in every carriage and under every lady's hood to catch a glimpse of Irene, without being disconcerted by the criticisms that the people around indulged in at my expense.

  Useless trouble! I discovered nothing. The theatre kept its secret; but that cry still rings in my ears and echoes around my heart.

  This morning at daybreak I flew to the Hotel de Langeac. The porter stared at me in amazement, and answered all my eager inquiries with a stolid, short no. The windows of Irene's room were closed and had that deserted appearance that proved the absence of its lovely occupant—windows that used to look so bright and beautiful when I would catch glimpses of a snowy little hand arranging the curtains, or of a golden head gracefully bent over her work, totally unconscious of the loving eyes feasting upon her beauty—oh! many of my happiest moments have been spent gazing at those windows, and now how coldly and silently they frowned upon my grief!

  The porter lies! The windows lie! I exclaimed, and once more I began to search Paris.

  This time I had a more important object in view than trying to fatigue my body and divert my mind. My eyes are multiplied to infinity; they questioned at once every window, door, alley, street, carriage and store in the city. I was like the miser who accused all Paris of having stolen his treasure.

  At three o'clock, when all the beauty and fashion of Paris was promenading on Paix aux Panoramas street, I was stopped on the corner and button-holed by one of those gossiping friends whom fiendish chance always sends at the most trying moments in life in order to disgust us with friendship ... A dazzling form passed before me ... Irene alone possesses that graceful ease, that fairy-like step, that queenly dignity—I could recognise her among a thousand—it was useless for her to attempt disguising her exquisite elegance beneath a peasant dress— besides I caught her eye, so all doubts were swept away; several precious minutes were lost in trying to shake off my vexatious friend. I abruptly bade him good-day and darted after Irene, but she has the foot of a gazelle, and the crowd was so compact that in spite of my elbowing and foot-crushing, I made but little headway.

  Finally, through an opening in the crowd, I saw Mlle., de Chateaudun turn the corner and enter that narrow street near the Cafe Vernon. This time she cannot possibly escape me—she is in a long, narrow street, with deserted galleries on either side—circumstances are propitious to a meeting and explanation—in a minute I am in the narrow street a few yards behind Irene. I prepare my mind for this momentous conversation which is to decide my fate. I firmly clasp my arms to still the violent throbbings of my heart. I am about to be translated to heaven or engulfed by hell.

  She rapidly glanced at a Chinese store in front of her and, without showing any agitation, quietly opened the door and went in. Very good, thought I, she will purchase some trifle and be out in a few minutes. I will wait for her.

  Five feet from the store I assumed the attitude of the god Terminus; by the way, this store is very handsomely ornamented, and far surpasses in its elegant collection of Chinese curiosities the largest store of the sort in Hog Lane in the European quarter of Canton.

  Another of those kind friends whom chance holds in reserve for our annoyance, came out of a bank adjoining the store, and inferring from my statue-like attitude that I was dying of ennui and would welcome any diversion, rushed up to me and said:

  "Ah! my dear cosmopolitan, how are you to-day? Don't you want to accompany me to Brussels? I have just bought gold for the journey; gold is very high, fifteen per cent."

  I answered by one of those listless smiles and unintelligible monosyllables which signifies in every language under the sun, don't bore me.

  In the meantime I remained immovable, with my eyes fastened on the Chinese store. I could have detected the flight of an atom.

  My friend struck the attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, and supporting his chin upon the gold head of his cane which he held in the air clenched by both hands, thus continued: "I did a very foolish thing this morning. I bought my wife a horse, a Devonshire horse, from the Crémieux stables.... That reminds me, my dear Roger, you are the very man to decide a knotty question for me. I bet D'Allinville thirty louis that ... what would you call a lady's horse?"

  For some moments I preserved that silence which shows that we are not in a humor for talking; but friends sent by ingenious Chance understand nothing but the plainest language, so my friend continued his queries:

  "What would you call a lady's horse?"

  "I would call it a horse," said I, with indifference.

  "Now, Roger, I believe you are right; D'Allinville insists that a lady's horse is a palfrey."

  "In the language of chivalry he is right."

  "Then I have lost my bet?"

  "Yes."

  "My dear Roger, this question has been worrying me for two days."

  "You are very fortunate to have nothing worse than a term of chivalry to annoy you. I would give all the gold in that broker's office if my troubles were as light as yours."

  "I am afraid you are unhappy, ... you have been looking sad for some time, Roger, ... come with me to Brussels.... We can make some splendid speculations there. Now-a-days if the aristocracy don't turn their attention to business once in a while, they will be completely swept out by the moneyed scum of the period. Let us make a venture: I hear of twenty acres of land for sale, bordering on the Northern Railroad—there is a clear gain of a hundred thousand francs as soon as the road is finished; I offer you half—it is not a very risky game, nothing more than playing lansquenet on a railroad!"

  No signs of Irene. My
impatience was so evident that this time, my obtuse friend saw it, and, shaking me by the hand, said:

  "Good bye, my dear Roger, why in the world did you not tell me I was de trop? Now that I see there is a fair lady in the case I will relieve you of my presence. Adieu! adieu!"

  He was gone, and I breathed again.

  By this time my situation had become critical. This Chinese door, like that of Acheron, refused to surrender its prey. Time was passing. I had successively adopted every attitude of feverish expectation; I had exhausted every pose of a museum of statues, and saw that my suspicious blockade of the pavement alarmed the store-keepers. The broker adjoining the Chinese store seemed to be putting himself on the defensive, and meditating an article for the Gazette des Tribunaux.

  I now regretted the departure of my speculating friend; his presence would at least have given my conduct an air of respectability,—would have legalized, so to speak, my odd behavior. This time chance left me to my own devices.

  I had held my position for two hours, and now, as a regard for public opinion compelled me to retire, and I had no idea of doing so until I had achieved a victory, I determined to make an attack upon the citadel containing my queen of love and beauty. Irene had not left the store, for she certainly had no way of escaping except by the door which was right in front of my eyes—she must be all this time selecting some trifle that a man could purchase in five minutes,—it takes a woman an eternity to buy anything, no matter how small it may be! My situation had become intolerable—I could stand it no longer; so arming myself with superhuman courage, I bravely opened the shop-door and entered as if it were the breach of a besieged city.

  I looked around and could see nothing but a confused mingling of objects living and dead; I could only distinguish clearly a woman bowing over the counter, asking me a question that I did not hear. My agitation made me deaf and blind.