But what I regret is,that our excellent friend M.Lerins apparently considers me a sort of human wolf.I should be very unhappy if I inspired you with fear."Then,turning half round towards Gilbert:"Let us see,look at me well;have I claws at the ends of my fingers?"Poor Gilbert inwardly cursed M.Lerins and his indiscreet zeal.
"Oh,Monsieur le Comte,"replied he in his frankest tones and with the most tranquil air he could command,"I never suspect claws in a fellow-creature;--only when occasion makes me feel them,I cry out loudly and defend myself."The sound of Gilbert's voice,and the expression of his face,struck M.Leminof.It was his turn if not to start (he seldom started)at least to be astonished.He looked at him an instant in silence,and then resumed in a more sardonic tone:
"This is not all;M.Lerins (ah!what an admirable friend you have there!)desires also to inform me that you are,sir,what is called nowadays,a beautiful soul.What is 'a beautiful soul?'I know nothing of the species."While thus speaking he seemed to be looking by turns for a fly on the ceiling and a pin on the floor.
"I have old-fashioned ideas of everything,and I do not understand the vocabulary of my age.I know a beautiful horse very well or a beautiful woman;--but A BEAUTIFUL SOUL!Do you know how to explain to me,sir,what 'this beautiful soul'is?"Gilbert did not answer a word.He was entirely occupied in addressing to Heaven the prayer of the philosopher:"Oh,my God!
save me from my friends,and I will take care of my enemies.""My questions seem to you perhaps a little indiscreet,"pursued M.
Leminof;"but M.Lerins is responsible for them.His last letter caused me great uneasiness.He introduces you to me as an exceptionable being;it is natural that I should wish to enlighten myself,for I detest mysteries and surprises.I once heard of a little Abyssinian prince,who to testify his gratitude to the missionary who had converted him,sent to him,as a present,a large chest of scented wood.When the missionary opened the chest,he found in it a pretty living Nile crocodile.Fancy his delight!
Experiences like this teach prudence.So when our excellent friend M.Lerins sends me a present of a beautiful soul,it is natural that I should unpack it with caution,and that before I install this beautiful soul in my house,I should seek to know what is inside of it.A beautiful soul!"he repeated,in a less ironical but harsher tone,"by dint of pondering upon it,I divine to be a soul which has a passion for the trumpery of sentiment.In this case,sir,suffer me to give you a piece of advice.Madame Leminof had a great fancy for Chinese ornaments,and she filled her parlors with them.Unfortunately,I am a little brusque,and it happened more than once that I overturned her tables laden with porcelain and other gewgaws.You can judge how well she liked it!My dear sir,be prudent,shut up your Chinese ornaments carefully in your closets,and carry the keys.""I thank you for the advice,"answered Gilbert gently;"but I am distressed to see that you have received a very false idea of me.
Will you permit me to describe myself as I am?""I have no objection,"said he.
"To begin then 'I am not a beautiful soul,'I am simply a good soul,or if you like it better,an honest fellow who takes things as they come and men as they are;who prides himself upon nothing,pretends to nothing,and who cares not a straw what others think of him.I do not deny that in my early youth I was subject,like others,to what a man of wit has called 'the witchery of nonsense;'
but I have recovered from it entirely.I have found in life a morose and rather brutal teacher,who has taught me the art of living by severe discipline;so whatever of the romantic was in me has taken refuge in my brains,and my heart has become the most reasonable of all hearts.If I had the good fortune to be at the same time an artist and rich,I should take life as a play;but being neither the one nor the other I treat it as a matter of business."M.Leminof commenced his walk again,and in passing Gilbert,gave him a look at once haughty and caressing,such as a huge mastiff would cast upon a spaniel,who fearing nothing,would approach his great-toothed majesty familiarly and offer to play with him.He growls loudly,but feels no anger.There is something in the eye of a spaniel which forces the big dogs to take their familiarity in good part.
"Ah,then,sir,"said the Count,"by your own avowal you are a perfect egotist.Your great aim is to live,and to live for yourself.""It is nearly so,"answered Gilbert,"only I avoid using the word,it is a little hard.Not that I was born an egotist,but I have become one.If I still possessed the heart I had at twenty,Ishould have brought here with me some very romantic ideas.You may well laugh,sir,but suppose I had arrived at your castle ten years ago;it would have been with a fixed intention of loving you a great deal,and of making you love me.But now,mon Dieu!now Iknow a little of the world,and I say to myself that there can be no question between us but a bargain,and that good bargains should be advantageous to both parties.""What a terrible man you are,"cried the Count with a mocking laugh."You destroy my illusions without pity,you wound my poetical soul.In my simplicity,I imagined that we should be enamored of each other.I intended to make an intimate friend of my secretary,--the dear confidant of all my thoughts,but at the moment when I was prepared to open my arms to him,the ingrate says to me in a studied tone:'Sir,there is nothing but the question of a bargain between us;I am the seller,you are the buyer;I sell you Greek,and you pay me cash down.'Peste!Monsieur,'your beautiful soul'does not pride itself on its poetry.As an experiment,I will take you at your word.There is nothing but a bargain between us.I will make the terms and you will agree without complaint,though I am the Turk and you the Moor.""Pardon me,"answered Gilbert,"it is naturally to your interest to treat me with consideration.You may give me a great deal to do,Ishall not grudge my time or trouble,but you must not overburden me.I am not exacting,and all that I ask for is a few hours of leisure and solitude daily to enjoy in peace.
M.Leminof stopped suddenly before Gilbert,his hands resting upon his hips.
"You will sit down,you will sit down,Monsieur le Comte,"muttered Gilbert between his teeth.
"So you are a dreamer and an egotist,"said M.Leminof,looking fixedly at him."I hope,sir,that you have the virtues of the class.I mean to say,that while wholly occupied with yourself,you are free from all indiscreet curiosity.Egotism is worth its price only when it is accompanied by a scornful indifference to others.I will explain:I do not live here absolutely alone,but Iam the only one with whom I desire you to have any intimate acquaintance.The two persons who live in this house with me know nothing of Greek,and therefore need not interest you.Remember,Ihave the misfortune of being jealous as a tiger,and I intend that you shall be mine without any division.And as for your fantasies,should you think better of it,you will find me always ready to admire them;but you show them to no one else,you understand,to no one!"Count Kostia pronounced these last words with a tone so emphatic that Gilbert was surprised,and was on the point of asking some explanation;but the stern and almost threatening look of the Count deterred him."Your instructions,sir,"answered he,"are superfluous.To finish my own portrait,I am not very expansive,and I have but little sociability in my character.To speak frankly,solitude is my element;it is inexpressibly sweet to me.
Do you wish to try me?If so,shut me up under lock and key in this room,and provided you have a little food passed through the door to me daily,you will find me a year hence seated at this table,fresh,well and happy,unless perhaps,"he added,"I should be unexpectedly attacked with some celestial longing,in which case,I could some fine day easily fly out of the window;the loss wouldn't be very great.Finding the cage empty,you would say,'He has grown his wings,poor fellow--much good may they do him.'""I don't admit that,"cried the Count,"Monsieur Secretary.You please me immensely,and for fear of accident,I will have this window barred."With these words he drew a chair towards him,and seated himself facing Gilbert,who could have clapped his hands at this propitious result.Their conversation then turned upon the Byzantine Empire and its history.The Count unfolded to Gilbert the plan of his work,and the kind of researches he expected from him.This conversation was prolonged for several hours.
IV
A fortnight later,Gilbert wrote to his friends a letter conceived thus:
"Madame:--I have found here neither fetes,cavalcades,gala-days nor Muscovite beauties.What should we do,I beg to know,with these Muscovite beauties?or perhaps I ought to ask,what would they do with us?We live in the woods;our castle is an old,very old one,and in the moonlight it looks like a specter.What I like best about it,is its long and gloomy corridors,through which the wind sweeps freely;but I assure you that I have not yet encountered there a white robe or a plumed hat.Only the other evening a bat,who had entered by a broken pane,brushed my face with its wing and almost put out my candle.This,up to the present time has been my sole adventure.And as for you,sir,know that I am not obliged to resist the fascinations of my tyrant,for the reason that he has not taken the trouble to be fascinating.
Know also that I am not bored.I am contented;I am enjoying the tranquility of mind which comes from a well-defined,well-regulated,and after all,very supportable position.I am no longer compelled to urge my life on before me and to show it the road;it makes its own way,and I follow it as Martin followed his ass.And then pleasures are not wanting for us,--listen!Our castle is a long series of dilapidated buildings,of which we occupy the only one habitable.I am lodged alone in a turret which commands a magnificent view,and I have a grand precipice under my window.I can say 'my turret,''my precipice!'Oh,my poor Parisians,you will never understand all there is in these two words:MY PRECIPICE!'What is it then but a precipice?'exclaims Madame Lerins.'It is only a great chasm.'Ah,yes!Madame,it is 'a great chasm';but imagine that this morning this chasm was a deep blue,and this evening at sunset it was--stay,of the color of your nasturtiums.I opened my window and put my head out to inhale the odor of this admirable precipice,for I have discovered that in the evening precipices have an odor.How shall I describe it to you?It is a perfume of rocks scorched by the sun,with which mingles a subtle aroma of dry herbs.The combination is exquisite.
"The proud rock,of which we occupy the summit and which deserves its name of Vulture's Crag,is bounded at the north as you already know,at the west by a ravine which separates it from a range of hills higher and fantastically jagged,and following the windings of the river.This line of hills is not continuous;it is cut by narrow gorges,which open into the valley and through which the last rays of the sun reach us.The other evening there was a red sunset,and one of these gorges seemed to vomit flames;you might have supposed it the mouth of the furnace.Upon the east,from its heights and its terrace,Geierfels overlooks the Rhine,from which it is separated by the main road and a tow-path.At the south it communicates by steep paths with a vast plateau,of which it forms,as it were,the upper story,and which is clothed with a forest of beeches,and furrowed here and there with noisy streams.It is on this side only that our castle is accessible,--and here not to carriages,--even a cart could reach us but with difficulty,and all of our provisions are brought to us upon the backs of men or mules.
Mountains,perpendicular rocks,turrets overhanging a precipice,grand and somber woods,rugged paths and brooks which fall in cascades,do not all these,Madame,make this a very wild and very romantic retreat?On the right bank of the Rhine which stretches out under our eyes,it is another thing.Picture to yourself a landscape of infinite sweetness,a great cultivated plain,which rises by imperceptible gradation to the base of a distant chain of mountains,the undulating outlines of which are traced upon the sky in aerial indentations.
"Directly in front of the chateau,beyond the Rhine,a market town,with neat houses carefully whitewashed and with gardens attached,spreads itself around a little cove,like a fan.Upon the right of this great village a rustic church reflects the sun from its tinned spire;on the left,some large mills show their lazily turning wheels,and behind these mills,the church and the market town,extends the fertile plain which I have just endeavored to describe to you,and which I cannot praise too much.Oh!charming landscape!This afternoon I was occupied in feasting my eyes upon it,when a white goat came to distract my attention,followed at a distance by a little girl whom I suspected of being very pretty;but I forgot them both in watching a steamboat passing up the river towing a flotilla of barges,covered with awnings and attended by their lighters,and a huge raft laden with timber from the Black Forest,manned by fifty or sixty boatmen,some of whom in front,and some in the rear,directed its course with vigorous strokes of the oar.
"But what pleases me above everything else is,that Geierfels,by its position,is a kind of acoustic focus to which all the noises of the valley incessantly ascend.This afternoon,the dull murmuring of the river,the panting respiration of the tug-boat,the vibration of a bell in a distant church tower,the song of a peasant girl washing her linen in a spring,the bleating of sheep,the tic tac of the mills,the tinkling bells of a long train of mules drawing a barge by a rope,the reverberating clamors of boatmen stowing casks in their boats--all these various sounds came to my ear in vibrations of surprising clearness,when suddenly a gust of wind mingled them confusedly together,and I could hear but a vague music which seemed to fall from the skies.But a moment afterwards all of these vibrating voices emerged anew from the whirlwind of confused harmony,and each,sonorous and distinct,recounted to my enraptured heart some episode in the life of man and nature.And then,when night comes,Madame,to all of these noises of the day succeed others more mysterious,more penetrating,more melancholy.Do you like the hooting of the owl,Madame?But first,I wonder if you have ever heard it.It is a cry--No,it is not a cry,it is a soft,stifled wail;a monotonous and resigned sorrow,which unbosoms itself to the moon and stars.One of these sad birds lodges within two steps of me,in the hollow of a tree,and when night comes,he amuses himself by singing a duet with the singing wind.The Rhine plays an accompaniment,and its grave,subdued voice furnishes a continuous bass,whose volume swells and falls in rhythmic waves.The other evening this concert failed;neither the wind nor the owl was in voice.The Rhine alone grumbled beneath;but it arranged a surprise for me and proved that it could make harmony of its own without other aid.Towards midnight a barge carrying a lantern on its prow had become detached from the bank and had drifted across the river,and I distinctly heard,or imagined that I heard,the wash of the waves upon the side of the boat,the bubbling of the eddy which formed under the stern,the dull sound of the oar when it dipped into the current,and still sweeter,when raised out of it the tender tears which dripped from it drop by drop.This music contrasted strongly with that I had heard the night before at the same hour.The north wind had risen during the evening,and near eleven o'clock it became furious;it filled the air with sad howlings,and increased to a rage that was inexpressible.The weathercocks creaked,the tiles ground against each other,the roof timbers trembled in their mortices,and the walls shook upon their foundations.From time to time a blast would hurl itself against my window with wild shrieks,and from my bed I imagined I could see through the panes the bloodshot eyes of a band of famished wolves.In the brief intervals when this outside tumult subsided,strange murmurs came from the interior of the castle;the wainscoting gave forth dismal creakings;--there was not a crack in the partitions,nor a fissure in the ceiling from which did not issue a sigh,or hoarse groans.
Then again all this became silent,and I heard only something like a low whispering in the far off corridors,as of phantoms murmuring in the darkness as they swept the walls in their flight;then suddenly they seemed to gather up their forces,the floors trembled under their spasmodic tramping,while they clambered in confusion up the staircase which led to my room,throwing themselves over the threshold of my door and uttering indescribable lamentations.
"But enough of this,perhaps you will say;let us now talk a little of your patron:This terrible man,will you believe it,has not inspired me with the antagonism which you prophesied.But in the first place we do not live together from morning to night.The day after my arrival,he sent me a long list of difficult or mutilated passages to interpret and restore.It is a work of time,to which I devote all my afternoons.He has had some of his finest folios sent to my room,and I live in these like a rat in a Dutch cheese.
It is true,I pass my mornings in his study,where we hold learned discussions which would edify the Academy of Inions;but to my delight,after nightfall I can dispose of myself as I choose.
He has even agreed that,after seven o'clock,I may lock myself in my room,and that no human being under any pretext whatever shall come to disturb me there.This privilege M.Leminof granted to me in the most gracious manner,and you can imagine how grateful I am to him for it.I do not mean to say by this that he is an amiable man,nor that he cares to be;but he is a man of sense and wit.He understood me at once,and he means to make me serviceable to him.
I am like a horse who feels that he carries a skilful rider."V
The next day was Sunday,and for Gilbert was a day of liberty.
Towards the middle of the forenoon,he went out to take a walk in the woods.He had wandered for an hour,when,turning his head,he saw coming behind him a little troop of children,decked out in strange costumes.The two oldest wore blue dresses and red mantles,and their heads were covered with felt caps encircled by bands of gilt paper in imitation of aureoles.A smaller one wore a gray dress,upon which were painted black devils and inverted torches.The last five were clothed in white;their shoulders were ornamented with long wings of rose-tinted gauze,and they held in their hands sprigs of box by way of palm branches.
Gilbert slackened his pace,and when they came up with him,he recognized in the one who wore the san-benito the little hog-driver,so maltreated by Stephane.The child,who while marching looked down complacently on the torches and the devils with which his robe was decorated,advanced towards Gilbert,and without waiting for his questions,said to him,"I am Judas Iscariot.Here is Saint Peter,and here is Saint John.The others are angels.We are all going to R----,to take part in a grand procession,that they have there every five years.If you want to see something fine,just follow us.I shall sing a solo and so will Saint Peter;the others sing in the chorus."
Upon which Judas Iscariot,Saint Peter,Saint John and the angels resumed their march,and Gilbert decided to follow them.The first houses of the village of R----rise at the extremity of the wooded plain which extends to the south of Geierfels.In about half an hour,the little procession made its entry into the village in the midst of a considerable crowd which hastily gathered from the neighboring hamlets.Gilbert made his way along the main street,decorated with hangings and altars,and passed on to an open square planted with elms,of which the church formed one of the sides.
Presently the bells sounded a grand peal;the doors of the church opened,and the procession came out.At the head marched priests,monks,and laymen of both sexes,bearing wax tapers,crosses,and banners.Behind them came a long train of children representing the escort of the Saviour to Calvary.One of them,a young lad of ten years,filled the role of Christ.
At a moment when Gilbert was absorbed in reflection,a voice which was not unknown to him murmured in his ear these words,which made him shudder:
"You seem prodigiously interested,Monsieur,in this ridiculous comedy!"Turning his head quickly,he recognized Stephane.The young man had just dismounted from his horse,which he had left in the care of his servant,and had pushed his way through the crowd,indifferent to the exclamations of the good people whose pious meditations he disturbed.Gilbert looked at him a moment severely,and then fixed his eyes on the procession,and tried,but in vain,to forget the existence of this Stephane whom he had not met before since the adventure at the fountain,and whose presence at this moment caused him an indefinable uneasiness.The reproachful look which he had cast upon the young man,far from intimidating him,served but to excite his mocking humor,and after a few seconds of silence he commenced the following soliloquy in French,speaking low,but in a voice so distinct that Gilbert,to his great regret,lost not a word of it:
"Mon Dieu!how ridiculous these young ones are!They really seem to take the whole thing seriously;what vulgar types!what square,bony faces.Don't their low,stupid expressions contrast oddly with their wings?Do you see that little chap twisting his mouth and rolling his eyes?His air of contrition is quite edifying.
The other day he was caught stealing fagots from a neighbor...
And look at that other one who has lost his wings!What an unlucky accident!He is stooping to pick them up,and tucks them under his arm like a cocked hat.The idea is a happy one!But thank God,their litanies are over.It's Saint Peter's turn to sing."For a long time Gilbert looked about him anxiously,seeking an opportunity to escape,but the crowd was so compact that it was impossible to make his way through it.He saw himself forced to remain where he was and to submit,even to the end,to Stephane's amiable soliloquy.So he pretended not to hear him,and concealed his impatience as well as he could;but his nervousness betrayed him in spite of himself,and to the great diversion of Stephane,who maliciously enjoyed his own success.Fortunately for Gilbert,when Judas had stopped singing,the procession resumed its march towards a second station at the other end of the village,and this caused a general movement among the bystanders who hedged his passage.Gilbert profited by this disorder to escape,and was soon lost in the crowd,where even Stephane's piercing eyes could not follow him.
Hastening from the village he took the road to the woods."This Stephane is decidedly a nuisance,"thought he."Three weeks since he surprised me at a bright fountain,where I was deliciously dreaming,and put my fancies to flight,and now by his impertinent babbling he has spoiled a fete in which I took interest and pleasure.What is he holding in reserve for me?The most annoying part of it is,that henceforth I shall be condemned to see him daily.Even to-day,in a few hours,I shall meet him at his father's table.Presentiments do not always deceive,and at first sight I recognize in him a strong enemy to my repose and happiness;but I shall manage to keep him at a distance.We won't distress ourselves over a trifle.What does philosophy amount to,if the happiness of a philosopher is to be at the mercy of a spoiled child!"Thus saying,he drew from his pocket a book which he often carried in his walks:It was a volume of Goethe,containing the admirable treatise on the "Metamorphosis of Plants."He began to read,often raising his head from the page to gaze at a passing cloud,or a bird fluttering from tree to tree.To this pleasant occupation he abandoned himself for nearly an hour,when he heard the neighing of a horse behind him,and turning,he saw Stephane advancing at full speed on his superb chestnut and followed at a few paces by his groom,mounted on a gray horse.Gilbert's first impulse was to dart into a path which opened at his left,and thus gain the shelter of the copse;but he did not wish to give Stephane the pleasure of imagining that he was afraid of him,and so continued on his way,his eyes riveted upon the book.
Stephane soon came up to him,and bringing his horse to a walk,thus accosted him:
