ui ava aty cee ht Library of the University of North Carolina we ®s i | J t ae Ss SOCIETIES I La ; ‘ | rae THE LIBRARY OF THE \, UNIVERSITY OF ka NORTH CAROLINA C4 . , . 4 % "i s ENDOWED BY THE P DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 8):3 | DE8bokKx > 1895 Se Em. )/ ERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL el Tt il 410001747772 ve oe THE ROMANCES OF ALEXANDRE DUMAS. NEW SERIES. ee BLACK. Womances of Alexandre Pumas. AEE ROMANCES OF THE REIGN OF HENRY Il. 1. > DHE SE WOeDTANAS See: eh ene eee ee 3 vols. II]. THE PAGE OF THE DUKE OF SAVOY. .... 2 vols, THE VALOIS ROMANCES. I, sMARGUERITE, DE, VALOISHn ssecisatee: Gunes ee 2 vols. Ty Ae DANE DE SN ONSOR A Ui fo eecen cine ncenearenn 2 vols. lil), +P RE FORTY-RIVE: acacia eae aes ae 2 vols. THE D’ARTAGNAN ROMANCES. [.) LEE EAR EE NUSKET BE RIS. aeismemy ees ae 2 vols. TS TWENTY. YARIS CARTER eure erectme iss Gene ai 2 vols. Ill. THE VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE ; or, Ten Years TLiater S204 cweani ceed o tke pees ae eee tie 6 vols. THE REGENCY ROMANCES. TLE CHE VALLE RS 1) ELAR IMIG TAdims are eure ssmrine r vol. Ll Hie REGENTS DAUGHTER fea a sana e mien ts r vol. A ROMANCE OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XV. OLYMPE, DEYCLEVESS.., <0. ds pce se Maes SiemeunNe Gye 2 vols. THE MARIE ANTOINETTE ROMANCES. Toe MEMOIRS OF Ag PIY SIGIAN me og ac ou anen eas ie 3 vols. lio. LAE OURENS INECKICA CE Eas. sec eaemen ours 2 vols. IMT eANGE: PIT OUs Sarees tease oo eeeo ete an 2 vols [Vee AL COMEBSSEe DET CEARINIVEN, (0 nea nein ine 4 vols V. LE CHEVALIER DE MAISON-ROUGBE ~..> 2... 1 vol. THE NAPOLEON ROMANCES. DME COMPANTONS © Bin) Eee trees nine esie mer nrewnr 2 vols. AWEG AM Gen BVaSy NING DY Te EosnM SHOPS SU | Foy. 8 a5 Bs a 2 vols. THE BLACK TULIP eh ee dy Pee ae ee r vol THE COUNT OR MViONTENG RISO Wout 4 vols THE SHE-WOLVES OF MACHECOUL — THEZCORSIGAN BROTHER'S.) Soh ee eke = NEW SERIES. ASCANIO: A Romance of Francis 1. and Benvenuto Gellinih- tif cWebscat ee atest Gs guen eenneee Teme 2 vols. THE WAR OF WOMEN: A Romance of the Fronde . . 2 vols. ISHOING ES IMM oaee aD on, eo a be ao do eto t vol. TALES OF THE CAUCASUS—THE BALL OF SNOW, NITRA LAO NPS W Ee I 4G obd o a 60 a 0 6. 6 THE EXTERIOR AND THE INTERIOR OF THE HoME OF THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE How AND UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE WAS BORN . THE FIRST AND LAST LOVE OF THE CHEVALIER DELUA GRAVERIE .- 546. ‘ ee THE CHEVALIER DE LA Gnavnte OF THE GRAY MUSKETEERS Mabe ne. ees IN WHICH OCCURS AN EVENT WHICH RELIEVES THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE FROM Duty Aas Escort ror THREE MontTus IN WHICH THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE FORMS NEw ACQUAINTANCES. . ASDROKEN: HBA RT 7 ale oteet eee le bay) IN WHICH IT IS SEEN THAT TRAVEL SHAPES THEMOTA RACTERSORS VOUTH o's. stake NEATH OUR to. cobs. eae BATA en ety test How THE CHa ns DiEaLA Gus LEARNED TO SWIM... Ae Ws BL Bee MAN PROPOSES AND GOD DISPOSES... PAGE 20 Ba Oo” 47 58 69 86 95 105 116 124 Xx CHAPTER XITVA Vi, AVE AVIE ye XXI. XOX LE »,O.Gi8E XXIV. XXYV. PORN le XXVIT. OBST XeX EG OO, O,O.4 I. TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE ReToRN TOUERANCE aan eee IN WHICH THE CHEVALIER PERFORMS THE Last RITES FOR HIS FRIEND AND SETTLES HIMSELF IN CHARTRES IN WHICH THE AUTHOR RESUMES HIS INTERRUPTED NARRATIVE HAGLUGINATION. ae ee ee IN WHICH MARIANNE ARRIVES AT A CONCLUSION . . ta: ee ae THE Two Son Lerner a aig: IN wHicH MoNSIEUR LE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE EXPERIENCES INEX- PRESSIBLE ANGUISH : InN wHIcH ARMED FORCE RESTORES Pan TO THE SLOUGH. Bie 5 Meee IN wHicu BLACK LEADS THE (ete THE CHEVALIER AS A Sick NURSE IN wuHicH A LIGHT BEGINS TO PIERCE THE CLOUDS A. OURPRIGH >) wack aig epee me oe ee clawed 3. IN WHICH THE CHEVALIER FORMS A RESOLUTION ; : IN WHICH THE Cuneta DE LA Cre VERIE IS FOR A MOMENT DISTURBED BY THE SCANDAL «THAT HE HAS CAUSED IN THE VirtTuOUS TOWN OF (HART RESU 8 0) eee ee ton mes ae ee IN WHICH THE CHEVALIER SETS OUT FOR VER é CONCERNING THE Dies HELD IN THE MAIL-COACH A ; f How Monsreur LE BARON DE LA ere VERIE UNDERSTANDS AND APPLIES THE PRECEPTS OF THE GOSPEL How THE PIRATES OF THE BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS CUT THE MOORINGS AND GABRY. OFF THE \CONVOYe. sin -8 PAGE 138 Paral 284 293 323 CHAPTER XXXII. NLT, XXXIV. XXXYV. AXXVI. Pe VEL. TABLE OF CONTENTS. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FACE WITH WHISKERS AND ONE WITH MOUSTACHES IN WHICH IT IS SEEN THAT “PEKINS” SOMETIMES INDULGE IN A QUARREL- SOME ROSS eee rg” ten aere Ark tee a tee IN WHICH THE CHEVALIER. FINDS BOTH WHAT HE IS SEEKING AND WHAT HE TOSNOD SPEKING@“0) 9) c) ls) (2a eee IN WHICH AFTER IDENTIFYING HIS DoG, THE CHEVALIER IDENTIFIES A FRIEND WHICH WILL BE VERY SATISFACTORY TO THOSE OF OUR READERS WHO LIKE TO SEE PUNCHINELLO CARRY OFF THE Wri), INeHIGe DORN @ © vel lwo esos fs WHICH WILL GUARD AGAINST ENDING OTHERWISE THAN AS THE LAST CHAP- TER OF A STORY USUALLY ENDS. . ¥ 345 356 368 381 393 ILLUSTRATIONS. Drawn by Bugene Gribvas. HE SAW THE HONEST, PLACID FACE OF A DOG . Frontispiece THE HEADS ALL REAPPEARED, ONE AFTER THE ORR. lp Ye mee le ogen le) “¢QOr WHAT ARE YOU THINKING, THHRESE,’ HE ASKED” 243 BLACK. IN WHICH THE READER MAKES ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE TWO PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS OF THE STORY. Tue Chevalier de la Graverie was on the second round of his walk about town. Perhaps a more logical way of entering upon the subject would be to inform the reader who the Chevalier de la Graverie was, and in which one of the eighty-six departments of France was situated the town where he was taking his walk. But, in a fit of spleen, induced probably by the fog we have lately breathed in England, we have resolved to construct a novel that shall be quite original in style, quite the reverse of other novels. For this reason, instead of entering upon our story at the beginning, as heretofore, we shall begin at the end,— confident that the example will be imitated, and that henceforth novels will begin only at the end. And yet another motive has led us to adopt this course of procedure: we fear lest the dryness of biographical details should repel the reader, and cause him to close the book at the end of the first leaf. Hence, as the fact eannot be concealed, we shall be content to say for the present that the scene opens in Chartres, in the year 1 2 BLACK. 1842, on the elm-shaded promenade winding around the old fortifications of the ancient capital of the Carnutes, — a promenade which has been at once the Champs-Elysées and the Little Provence of all the generations of Char- trains that have appeared in succession through two hundred years. Now, having stated our reservation as to the retro- spective personality of our hero,— or, rather, of one of our heroes,— that the reader may not accuse us of having dealt him a fatal blow without warning, we will continue. The Chevalier de la Graverie, then, was on the second round of his walk about town. He had reached the part of the boulevard which overlooks the cavalry-quarters, and from which the eye can grasp, in all their details, the extensive grounds of the barracks. The chevalier stopped. This was his halting-place. Every day, the Chevalier de la Graverie, who set out from his house at noon precisely, after having taken his coffee clear and dropped three or four lumps of sugar into the back-pocket of his coat to nibble at while going along, retarded or hastened the second part of his walk so as to find himself at the exact spot we have just indicated, at the precise moment when the trumpet was summoning the cavalrymen to groom their horses. Apart from the red ribbon that he wore on his coat, there was nothing in the world that could indicate in the Chevalier de la Graverie a fondness for military exer- cises; on the contrary, the Chevalier de la Graverie would have been taken for the simplest civilian. But he liked to view this picturesque and animated scene; it took him back to the time when he himself (we shall tell later under what circumstances) had been a guardsman,— a_ fact of which he was very proud, since he was one no longer. For without seeking, ostensibly at least, present THE TWO PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS, 3 consolation in the memories of a past epoch, while philosophically wearing hair that had turned from pale yellow to pearl-gray, and seeming to be as satisfied with his exterior as a chrysalis is with its own, nor yet flutter- ing on the butterfly wings of the would-be young man, the Chevalier de la Graverie was not averse to posing as a connoisseur in the eyes of the peaceful townsmen who, like himself, came to seek their daily diversion opposite the barrack stables, and to giving his neighbors occasion to say, — ‘Do you know, chevalier, you too must have been a handsome officer in your day?” This assumption was all the more agreeable to the Chevalier de la Graverie for being wholly without foundation. The equality of wrinkles, which is only a prelude to the grand equality of death, is a solace to those who have grounds for complaint against Nature. Now, the Chevalier de la Graverie had little for which to be thank- ful to capricious Nature, smiling nurse to some, frowning stepmother to others. And now is the time, I think, to describe the Cheva- _ her de la Graverie physically; he will develop morally later on. He was a small man, forty-eight or forty-nine years of age, fat in the way women are, or eunuchs. He had had, as we have said, yellow hair that was generally called blond in his passports; he still had great, china- blue eyes, whose expression was habitually restless, save when revery —for the chevalier dreamed sometimes — endowed them with a mournful fixedness; his large, smooth ears were soft and flabby; his lips were thick and sensual, the lower one hanging slightly, in the Aus- trian way; and, finally, his complexion, which was ruddy in spots, was almost pallid where it was not red. 4 BLACK. This, the first part of his body, was mounted upon a short, thick neck springing from a torso that ran wholly to abdomen, — to the detriment of the arms, which were meagre and wanting in length. In conclusion, this torso went about on two little legs, as round as sausages and rather knock-kneed. At the time when he is pre- sented to our readers, the head was covered with a broad- brimmed, low-crowned, black hat; the neck was swathed in a cravat of fine, embroidered battiste; the torso was arrayed in a waistcoat of blue piqué, surmounted by a blue coat with gold buttons; and lastly, the lower part of the body was encased in nankin trousers, a little short and tightly fitting at the knee and ankle, disclosing speckled stockings, which disappeared within low shoes tied with wide ribbons. Such was the Chevalier de la Graverie, who, as we have said, had made the grooming of the cavalry horses the recreative event of the walk taken daily with the scrupulous care employed by methodieal characters, after they have reached a certain age, in carrying out a medi- ical prescription. He kept it for a tidbit; he was as fond of it as an epicure is of a dainty side-dish. Having arrived opposite to a wooden bench on the summit of the slope descending to the stables, the cheva- lier paused, and looked around to see if the play was about to begin; he then seated himself methodically, as an old habitué might take his place in the orchestra at the Comédie-Francaise, with his chin resting on his gold- headed cane, waiting for the sound of the trumpet to perform the function of the manager’s three beats. And truly, on this day, the interesting spectacle might have arrested and charmed many others less curious and > more blasé than our chevalier. Not that the daily per- formance was in itself unusual or peculiar; no, there THE TWO PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS. 5 were the same horses — bay, chestnut, roan, black, gray, white, spotted, and pied—-whinnying and quivering under the brush and curry-comb; there were the same troopers in undress uniform, the same bored-looking sub- lieutenants, the same adjutant-major, grave and exacting, watching for a breach of regulations as a cat watches a mouse, or a master his pupils. But the day on which we encounter the Chevalier de la Graverie a beautiful autumn sun shone down upon that leaping mass of bipeds and quadrupeds, and tripled the value of the scene as a whole and in detail. Never had the horses’ flanks so shone, never had the helmets glittered with such fires, never had the sabres flashed such lightnings, never had every outline been so salient; never, in fine, had the setting been so splendid. The two majestic spires tow- ering above the vast cathedral took fire from a warm ray that might have been borrowed from the sky of Italy; the least details of their fine sculpturings were thrown into relief by the keenness of the shadows, and the foli- age of the trees on the banks of the River Eure was varied by a thousand tints of green, of purple, and of gold. Although the Chevalier de la Graverie did not in any way belong to the romantic school, although he had never so much as thought of reading the “ Poetic Medita- tions ” of Lamartine, or Victor Hugo’s “ Autumn Leaves, ” the sun, the stir, the noise, the majesty of the landscape fascinated him; and like all idle souls, instead of domi- nating the scene and musing at his will, directing his revery in whatever way was most agreeable to him, he was soon absorbed by it, — falling into that weak intellec- tual state in which thought seems to quit the brain, and ~ the soul the body, in which one looks without seeing and listens without hearing; while a throng of visions, follow- 6 BLACK. ing one another like the colored bits of a kaleidoscope — and that without the dreamer’s having the power to seize upon one of his visions and arresting it in its flight — ends by producing an intoxication distantly resembling that of the eaters of opium or hashish. The Chevalier de la Graverie had for some time abandoned bimself to this lstlessness, when he was brought back to a perception of the realities of life by a sensation of the most positive nature. It seemed to him that a bold hand sought furtively to slip into the left pocket of his redingote. The Chevalier de la Graverie turned brusquely about, and to his great surprise, instead of the gallows-face of a cutpurse or a pickpocket, he saw the honest, placid physiognomy of a dog, which, without being the least in the world embarrassed at having been caught in the act, continued to hanker after the chevalier’s pocket, gently wagging his tail and wistfully licking his chops. The animal that had so inopportunely snatched the chevalier from his revery, belonged to the great race of spaniels that came to us from Scotland along with the aid sent by James I. to his cousin Charles VII. He was black (we speak of the spaniel, pray understand), with a white streak that began at his throat and, widening, traversed his breast and descended between his forelegs, forming a sort of jabot, or frill; his tail was long and shaggy; his silky hair had a metallic lustre; his ears, delicate, long, and set low, enframed intelligent, almost human eyes, from between which sprang a muzzle slightly tipped with red. Assuredly, he was a magnificent animal, well worth the ‘trouble of admiring; but the Chevalier de la Graverie, © who piqued himself on his indifference to all beasts, and | to dogs in particular, gave little attention to the exterior THE TWO PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS. 7 charms of this one. He was disappointed. During the second which had sufficed for a perception of what was taking place behind his back, the Chevalier de la Graverie had built up an entire drama. There were robbers in Chartres! A band of pick- pockets had invaded the capital of the Beauce with the intention of exploiting the pockets of the citizens, who were well known to stuff them out with valuables of every description. These audacious miscreants had been unmasked, seized by the police, dragged before the courts, sent to jail,— all this, thanks to the perspicacity, the keenness, of an unpretending lounger. It was splen- didly theatrical, and one can understand that it was disagreeable to be hurled from such lofty events into the calm monotony of the every-day happenings of a walk about town. So, in his first impulse of bad humor against the author of this deception, the chevalier thought to repel the intruder by an Olympian frown, the might of which it seemed impossible that the animal should be able to withstand. But the dog bore intrepidly the fire of that regard, and, in return, contemplated his adversary with an amiable air. His great yellow, humid eyes beamed with so much expression that those mirrors of the soul (as a - dog’s eyes may be called as well as those of man) said plainly to the Chevalier de la Graverie: “ Charity, monsieur, if you please!” And that with an accent so humble, so piteous, that the chevalier was moved to the depths of his soul, and he smoothed his brow; then, fumbling in that same pocket into which the spaniel had tried to thrust his pointed muzzle, he drew forth one of the lumps of sugar that had excited the thief’s cupidity. The dog received it with all imaginable delicacy ; see- 8 BLACK. ing him open his mouth to receive the dainty alms, one could never have believed that a wicked intent, a pur- pose to rob, had ever been harbored in that honest brain. Perhaps the disinterested observer might have desired an expression of countenance somewhat more grateful as the sugar was crunched between the white teeth; but gor- mandizing, which is one of the seven cardinal sins, ranked among the amiable vices of the chevalier, who regarded it as one of the weaknesses that beguile. social intercourse. Consequently, instead of entering com- plaint against the dog’s more sensual than grateful expression, he followed with unfeigned and almost envi- ous admiration this exhibition of gastronomic enjoyment. Yet the spaniel was decidedly of the race of beggars! The benefit was no sooner absorbed than he seemed to remember it only to solicit another, which he did, smor- ously licking his lips, with the same play of beseeching looks, the same humble and caressing attitudes whose worth he had just experienced. Like most mendicants, he did not hesitate to pass from pleasing to importunate begging, but instead of censuring his importunity, the chevalier encouraged his vicious tendencies by producing the bits of sugar one by one, ceasing only when his pocket was quite empty. The critical hour for gratitude was about to strike. The Chevalier de la Graverie saw it approach, not with- out a certain degree of apprehension. ‘There are always traces of self-conceit and egotism in benevolence, even when exercised toward a dog. One likes to think that the hand at which a gift is received invests it with all its value; and the chevalier had so often seen debtors, fa- vorites, and courtiers, turn their heels to a licked-out dish, that, in spite of the vanity at which we have just hinted, he dared not greatly hope that a single member of the THE TWO PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS. 9 dog fraternity would not follow the traditions and exam- ples afforded his kind by the sons of Adam from the beginning of the march of time. Whatever philosophy long experience had taught him in this respect, it was painful to the Chevalier de la Graverie to test once more, at his own expense, the uni- versal ingratitude. He asked nothing better than to spare this chance acquaintance the embarrassment of that terrible proof, and himself the humihation that must result therefrom. Hence, having a last time sounded the depths of his redingote, and being well convinced that he lacked the means of prolonging this agreeable acquaintance so long even as the duration of a crumb of sugar, —after having, before the eyes of the spaniel, turned his pocket inside out as a proof of perfect good faith, he gave the dog a friendly pat, intended to serve at once as benediction and farewell; then, rising, with- out daring to look back, he resumed his promenade. All this, you understand, does not proclaim the Chev- alier de la Graverie to be a bad man, nor the spaniel a bad dog. It is certainly a point gained that, having to bring on the scene a man and a dog, the man is not wicked nor the dog rabid. Also, I think myself obliged, in view of the improbability of the former statement, to assert that I am telling you, not a fiction, but a true tale. Chance had, this time, brought together a good man and a good dog. Once is not always! 10 BLACK. Li IN WHICH MADEMOISELLE MARIANNE GIVES A CLEW TO HER CHARACTER. We have seen that the chevalier resumed his walk without venturing to turn his head to learn whether or not he was followed by the dog. But he had not reached the Pont de la Courtille, —a place well known, not only to the citizens of Chartres, but to the inhabitants of the entire canton, — before his resolution had already under- gone a rude assault, and it was not without exercising really moral strength that he was able to resist the sug- gestions of the demon curiosity. By the time the Chevalier de la Graverie was ap- proaching the Porte Morard, his curiosity was so urgent that the passing of the stage-coach which ran on the old Paris route, its five horses at a hard gallop, served as a pretext for stepping aside; and while doing so, he turned his head as if inadvertently, and, to his great surprise, he perceived the dog following at a lock-step, and gravely, | like an animal possessed of a conscience in what he did, and acquitting himself according to his conscience. ‘‘But I have nothing to give, my poor fellow,” cried the chevalier, shaking his limp pockets. One would have thought the creature understood the full import of these words; for, darting ahead, he exe- cuted two or three frolicsome gambols, as if to testify his gratitude; after which, seeing the chevalier stop, and not knowing how long the halt would last, he stretched MADEMOISELLE MARIANNE. ue himself at full length, flat upon his stomach, rested his head on his extended paws, shot two or three joyous barks into the air, and waited for his new friend to resume his walk, At the chevalier’s first movement the dog sprang to his feet and bounded on ahead. Just as the animal had seemed to understand the man’s words, so the man appeared to comprehend the animal’s capers. The chevalier stopped, and liftthg both hands and letting them drop again, exclaimed: -— “Good! you wish that we should go in company. I understand you; but, unfortunately, I am not your master, not I; and to follow me, you must abandon some one else, some one that has raised you, lodged, fed, nursed, and petted you, —a blind man, perhaps, whose guide you are; a dowager whose comforter you doubtless are. A few miserable pieces of sugar have caused you to for- get them, as, later, you would forget me if I were weak enough to adopt you. Go! off with you, Medor!” com- manded the chevalier, this time emphatically addressing the brute. ‘ You are only a dog; you have no right to be ungrateful. Ah, if you were a man,” continued the chevalier, parenthetically, ‘‘it would be another thing.” But the dog, instead of obeying the command, or of yielding to the chevalier’s philosophy, redoubled his barks, his gambols, his enticements to the promenade. Unhappily, this second current of thought, mounting in the chevalier’s brain like an evening tide, each wave of which advances more darkly than the last, had made him gloomy. At first it had been flattering to have inspired the sudden attachment testified by the animal ; but, by a natural reaction, he had reflected that this attachment undoubtedly concealed an ingratitude more or less black. He had considered the stability of such a 12 BLACK. friendship at sight; he had, in short, strengthened him- self in a resolution taken many years before, —a resolu- tion according to which (we shall explain later) neither man nor woman nor brute must in future have any place in his affections. By means of this artfully managed hint, the reader must begin to perceive that the Chevalier de la Graverie belonged to that honorable religion whose god is Timon, whose messiaf is Alceste, and whose designation is misanthropy. And so, althotgh determined to cut to the quick in freeing himself from this liaison at its beginning, the Chevalier de la Graverie endeavored at first to send the dog away by persuasive means. After having, as we have seen, addressed him as Medor, inviting him to with- draw, he renewed the invitation, calling him in turn by the mythological appellations of Pyramus, Morpheus, Jupiter, Castor, Pollux, Actzon, Vulcan; then by the ancient names, Cesar, Nestor, Romulus, Tarquin, Ajax ; then by the Scandinavian names, Ossian, Odin, Fingal, Thor. From these he passed to the English Trim, Tom, Dick, and Nick ; from English names he turned to the picturesque Sultan, Phanor, Turk, Ali. Finally, he exhausted the entire martyrology of dogs from the age of fables down to our own time, in the endeavor to find a name that should aid to introduce into the head of that obstinate spaniel the fact that he could not possibly con- tinue to travel in his snite; but there is a saying appli- cable to men, that no one is so deaf as he that will not hear, and it was evident that in this instance, at least, the proverb must apply to dogs. In fact, the spaniel, so prompt to divine the meaning: of his friend a little earlier, now appeared to be a thou- sand leagues from comprehending it. The more threat- MADEMOISELLE MARIANNE. 13 ening and severe the chevalier’s face, the more he ran- sacked his throat for a harsh metallic tone, the more sprightly and playful were the attitudes which the ani- mal assumed, as if in response to agreeable badinage. At last, when the chevalier, much against his will, but constrained by the necessity of making his intent clear and unmistakable; decided to employ the ultima ratio of dogs, and raised his gold-headed cane, the poor brute lay dejectedly down upon his back, and with a resigned air, presented his flanks to the stick. Misfortunes — misfortunes which we by no means in- tend to keep secret from our readers—had made the chevalier a misanthrope; but Nature had not created him hard-hearted. Hence he was completely disarmed by the spaniel’s submissive attitude. He passed his cane from his right hand over to his left, wiped his brow, — for the role he had just played, in which he had joined gesticu- ‘lation to speech, had thrown him into a perspiration , — and, owning himself vanquished, but preserving his self- respect by a hope of revenge, he cried, — “ Sac-a-papier! come, if you will, you dog of a dog! but of the devil, if you follow me farther than my gate.” But the dog was probably of the opinion that who gains time gains all; for he at once rose to his feet, and as if quite consoled and in no wise discomfited, he enliv- ened the remainder of the promenade hy a thousand capers about the master he seemed to have chosen, treat- ing him so like an old friend that all the Chartrains whom they met stood amazed, and went back to their homes enchanted to have this enigma to put to their friends in the form of an affirmative interrogation : — “ Ah?‘ so Monsieur de la Graverie keeps a dog, now?” Monsieur de la Graverie, about whose affairs the city babbled, and during two or three days, perhaps, would 14 BLACK, continue to babble, was very dignified; he appeared to be quite oblivious of the curiosity he was exciting along his route; and with a superb indifference as to his com- panion, he paused, absolutely as if he had been alone, at every place where he had been accustomed to pause, — before the Porte Guillaume, whose old battlements were being restored; opposite the tennis-court, animated by the awkwardness of six players and the shouts of a dozen gamins contending for the office of scorers; near a rope- walker’s walk, whose work he inspected each day with an interest for which he never tried to account. If sometimes a winning expression, or a tantalizing caress from the dog wona smile from the chevalier in spite of himself, he carefully blotted it out, resuming his affectedly grave air, like a swordsman who, uncovered by a feint of his adversary, cautiously puts himself on guard, Thus they at last reached Number 9 Rue des Lices, which had for several years been the home of the Chevalier de la Graverie. Arrived at the street door, the latter understood that the rest had been only a sort of skirmish, and that the real struggle was about to take place. But the dog, for his part, understood nothing at all except that he had arrived at the terminus of his promenade. While the chevalier was inserting his latch-key into the key-hole, the spaniel, exempt, in appearance at least, from all anxiety, waited, placidly seated on his haunches, until the gate should open, as if long usage had caused him to regard the house as his own; then, as soon as the chevalier had stirred a hinge, the animal, darting quickly between his legs, stretched his nose over the threshold. But the master of the house closed the half-opened door so suddenly that it struck against the dog’s nose, and the MADEMOISELLE MARIANNE. 15 key was hurled by the shock into the middle of the street. The spaniel darted after the key, and, in spite of the repugnance of dogs in general to touching iron with their teeth, no matter how well they may have been trained, he delicately took it between his jaws and returned it to M. de la Graverie, @ Anglaise, as they say in hunters’ phraseology, standing erect on his hind legs, with his back turned toward the chevalier so as not to soil him with his fore-paws. This manceuvre, without touching M. de la Graverie, charming as it was, yet afforded his brain matter for a certain number of reflections. The first was that he had no business with the first dog that came, and that, with- out being a learned dog exactly, he had just given proof of being a very well-trained one. Although unshaken in his first resolution, he neverthe- less thought the spaniel entitled to some consideration ; and, as two or three people had already stopped to watch him, and the curtains of windows were parting, he resolved not to compromise his dignity in a struggle, which, considering the animal’s vigor and perseverance, might easily end to his disadvantage ; and, this resolution - taken, he determined to call a third person to his aid. Consequently, he pocketed the key which the spaniel had just returned to him, and, pulling the stag’s foot ‘suspended from a small iron chain, he rang the bell within. In spite of the jingling sound echoing distinctly in the chevalier’s ear, the bell produced no other effect. The house remained as silent as if he had rung at the castle gate of the Sleeping Beauty of the wood; and it was only when he had redoubled his appeals, with a corres- pondence between cause and effect indicating that he 16 DLACK: would not be the first to tire, that an upper sash-window was pushed up, and the crabbed visage of a woman of fifty years, or thereabouts, was there enframed. The head advanced as cautiously as if a new invasion of Normans or Cossacks had threatened the city, and sought to discover the author of this uproar. But M. de la Graverie, who had naturally expected to see the door of the ground-floor open instead of a first- story window, had pressed closely against the door, that he might have the less distance to cover in escaping into the interior, and had disappeared in the shadow of the cornice laden with wall-flowers growing there, green and thick-set, as in a flower-garden. It was, then, impossible for the housekeeper to see him; she saw only the dog sitting on his haunches, three steps away, waiting, like the chevaler, for the door to open, his intelligent eyes lifted to the new per- sonage now entering on the scene. The sight of the dog was not calculated to reassure Marianne,— this was the old housekeeper’s name, — his color still less. It will be remembered that the spaniel, save for two touches of red on the muzzle and a white jabot at the throat, was as black as a crow; and Marianne could recall no acquaintance of M. de la Graverie’s who had a black dog, and thought: only of the devil’s having a dog of that color. Now, being aware that the chevalier had vowed never to own a dog, she was very far from suspecting this dog of accompanying the chevalier. Besides, the chevalier never rang. The chevalier, who did not like to be kept waiting, had a pass-key, which never left him. At length, after some hesitation, she ventured timidly to demand, — “ Who is there ? ” MADEMOISELLE MARTANNE. live The chevalier, guided by her voice as well as by the spaniel’s glance, abandoned his post, took three steps into the street, and, making a shade of his hand, raised his head in turn. “Ah! you are there, Marianne,” said he. “Come down.” But when Marianne had recognized her master, she had lost her fear; and, instead of obeying his command, she parleyed : — “Come down? What for?” “ Why, to open the door for me, apparently, ” responded M. de la Graverie. Marianne’s visage, from gentle and timid, as it had been at first, became crabbed and spiteful. She snatched out a long needle that had been sticking in her cap and hair, and, resuming her interrupted knitting returned, — “To open the door for you? ‘To open the door? ” “ Certainly.” “ Have n’t you your pass-key ?” “ Whether I have it or not, I tell you to descend.” “Good! then you’ve lost it; for I am sure that you had it this morning. While I was brushing your clothes it fell out of your trousers-pocket, and I put it back there. Well, well! that is a carelessness I should not have thought you capable of at your age; but, thank God! one learns something every day.” “Marianne,” returned the chevalier, giving slight in- dications of impatience, proving that he was not so much under the dominion of his housekeeper as one might have thought, “TI tell you to come down! ” “ He has lost it!” cried she, without having remarked the imperceptible change in the chevalier’s tone; ‘he has lost it! “Ah, mon Dieu! what will become of us? I shall have to run all over the town to have the lock 2 18 BLACK. changed, —the door, perhaps; for I shall certainly not sleep in the house with the key travelling the highway.” “T have my key, Marianne,” said the chevalier, be- coming more and more impatient, “but I have reasons for not using it.” “ Jésus Diew! and what reasons can a man have, when he actually has his key, for not letting himself in with it, instead of making a poor woman, overwhelmed with work, chase down stairs and through the halls? And that reminds me that my dinner is on the fire. Oh, it is burning, it is burning, I smell it! and all for what, mon Dieu!” And Mademoiselle Marianne began to withdraw. But the chevalier was at the end of his patience; with an imperative gesture he kept the old woman at her post, saying severely, — “Come, a truce to words, and open the door for me, you old lunatic! ” “«QOld lunatic’! open the door for you!” shrieked Marianne, convulsively elevating her knitting above her head in the attitude of the antique imprecation. “ What! you have your key, you say; you show it to me, and yet you would make me run through the house and across the court? I shall not do it, monsieur; that I shall not! I have put up with your whims for a good while, but I shall not submit to this one.” “Oh, the abominable shrew!” muttered the Chevalier de la Graverie, quite amazed at her obstinacy, and already broken down by his struggle with the dog. “I believe I shall have to part with her in spite of her skill in crab- soup and rabbit gravy; only, as I do not wish, at any price, to let this cursed spaniel enter my house, I will yield now, free to take my revenge later.” Then, more gently, — MADEMOISELLE MARIANNE. 19 “Marianne,” said he, “I understand your astonish- ment at my apparent inconsistency; but this is the case: you see this dog —” “Certainly I see him,” said the waspish woman, con- scious that she had gained all that the chevalier had consented to lose. “Very well; he has followed me, in spite of myself, from the barracks of the dragoons; I am unable to get rid of him, and I wish you to come down and drive him away while I enter.” “A dog!” cried Marianne; “and it is for a dog that you are abusing an honest woman that has been in your service ten years! A dog! Well, for my part, I can show you how to drive away dogs.” And this time Marianne disappeared from the window. The Chevalier de la Graverie, supposing that Mari- anne had left the window for the purpose of descending and coming to his aid in the quiet and respectable little programme of expulsion mapped out by him with refer- ence to the animal, drew near to the door; the dog, resolutely determined to cultivate the acquaintance of a man whose pockets yielded such delicious morsels of sugar, drew near to M. de la Graverie. Suddenly a species of cataclysm separated man and dog. A veritable cascade of water, a fall of the Rhine, a Niagara, issuing from the first story, inundated both of them. The dog uttered a howl and fled. As for the chevalier, he drew his pass-key, inserted it into the keyhole, opened the door, and, in a state of exasperation easy to understand, crossed the threshold just as Marianne was issuing the tardy injunction, — “ Took out; Monsieur le Chevalier!” 20 BLACK. LOBE THE EXTERIOR AND THE INTERIOR OF THE HOME OF THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE. Number 9 Rue de Lices consisted of a house, a gar- den, and a court. The building was situated between the garden and the court, but not, as usual, with the court in front and the garden in the rear. No; the court was at the left, and the garden at the right. Flanked by court and garden, the house faced the street. In the court, by which one ordinarily entered, the sole ornament found was an old vine, which, not having been cut back for ten years, covered the gable of its neighbor, the house against which it leaned, with shoots whose vigor recalled to mind the virgin forests of the new world. Although the court was paved with stone, the grass, favored by the moisture of the soil and the shade of the roofs, had sprung up so thickly, so abundantly, in the interstices as to form a sort of chess-board in relief, whose squares were represented by the stones. Unfortunately, the Chevalier de la Graverie, being a player of neither chess nor draughts, had never thought to take advantage of this circumstance, which might have formed the happiness of Méry or M. Labourdonnais. Outside, the house had the cold, sad aspect character- istic of most of the dwellings of our old towns. The plaster with which it had once been coated had scaled off in large patches, revealing the ashlar-like nature of the THE HOME OF THE CHEVALIER. 21 structure, covered here and there with laths nailed side by side; this imparted to the front the appearance of a face spotted over with a skin disease. The windows, bereft of their grayish paint and black with age, were fitted with small panes economically chosen from bottle- glass, — panes that served to admit only a greenish light into the apartments. Had one but crossed the court and paused at the ground- floor, he would have needed only to find the kitchen-door ajar in order to gain a fair idea, and form a sufficient opinion of the master of the house; for then, through the opening, he would have seen the stoves of white faience, as clean and shining as the floor of a Dutch parlor, and usually brightened by the ruddy light of glowing coal. By the side of a stove, an immense fireplace, where huge logs blazed grandly and without stint as in the days of our ancestors, served for roasting on the spit, which was turned by means of the classic device imitating so agree- ably the tic-tac of a mill; the hearth, paved with bricks, made a bed for the embers, without which there were no broiled meats, — embers for which there is no substitute, and which the modern economists, execrable gastrono- mers for the most part, have thought to supplant by - an iron oven. Opposite to the fireplace and the glisten- ing stoves, a dozen saucepans, glowing lke so many ruddy suns, were displayed, arranged according to size from large to small, and polished every day like the guns of a man-of-war,— from the great untinned kettle, in which simmered the .preserves and sirups, down to the tiny vessels in which were elaborated the sauce problems of algebraic cookery. To one already aware that M. de la Graverie lived alone, without wife or children, without dogs and cats, without guests of any sort, in short, with Marianne for 22 BLACK. sole domestic, that culinary arsenal was a revelation; and he would have recognized the dainty gourmand, the refined gastronomer devoted to the pleasures of the table, as easily as, in the middle ages, he might have recog- nized an alchemist by his furnaces, crucibles, retorts, alembies, and stuffed lizards. Now, the kitchen-door being closed, here is what one saw on the ground-floor. A very shabby vestibule, without ornament other than two wooden pegs,— on one of which, upon entering, the chevalier hung his hat, and on the other his umbrella, when he had been out with an umbrella instead of a cane,— contained an oak bench on which the servants sat, when, by chance, the chevalier received, and was paved with tiles, black and white, indifferently counter- feiting marble, whose coldness and dampness they pos- sessed,— a dampness and coldness that clung to them in summer and winter alike. A vast dining-hall and an immense drawing-room, in which fires were never made save when the Chevalier de la Graverie gave a dinner, — that is to say, twice a year,—formed with the kitchen and vestibule the entire ground-floor. These two rooms, moreover, fulfilled all that the exterior had promised in the way of dilapidation. The floor was warped and disjointed; the ceiling gray and dingy; the hangings, rent, soiled, and sagging, flapped in the disturbed air when a door was opened. In the dining-room six wooden chairs painted white, of the style of the empire, a walnut table, and a buffet com- posed the furniture. : In the drawing-room, three fauteuils and seven chairs pursued but never overtook one another; while a lounge, having back and seat stuffed with hay, boldly usurped the estate and title of sofa. The decoration and furnish- THE HOME OF THE CHEVALIER. 23 ing of this reception-room — a room never entered by the proprietor save on notable occasions — was completed by a round card-table, with its candlestick; a clock with stationary hands and motionless pendulum; a mirror in two pieces, reflecting muslin curtains with red and yellow bands hanging limp and lank before the windows. But the first story was very different: the first story, it is true, was inhabited by the Chevalier de la Graverie in person. hither a clew starting from the kitchen would have led in a direct line, if this labyrinth in the Rue de Lices had had an Ariadne. Let one picture to himself three rooms, arranged, fur- nished, and hung with the minute care and the dainty elegance that seem the peculiar right of dowagers and ladies of leisure. Every desire had been anticipated, all had been arranged to render life smooth, easy, and de- lightful, in these three dainty little boxes, each of which was devoted to a special purpose. The salon, which surpassed the other rooms in mag- nificence, was supplied with modern furniture, the pieces designed to support the plump little person of the Chev- alier de la Graverie being wadded and upholstered with the utmost consideration and forethought. An ebony book-case, inlaid with buhl-work in copper, was filled with books bound in red morocco, which, it must be admitted, the chevalier’s hands seldom fingered, and never at long sittings, flanked by two five-branched can- delabra; a clock representing Aurora in her chariot, the wheels of which formed the dial, indicated the hour with precision; curtains of thick stuff, matching the furniture of the salon, draped the windows with an elegance that would not have been disdained in a boudoir of the Chaussée-d’Antin; while the white panels, still preserv- ing traces of gilding, bespoke an elegance superior to 24 BLACK. his own in the tenants or proprietors who had preceded M. de la Graverie. From the salon a door opened into the bedroom. In this room, the attention was first attracted by a bed like a monument, as large and as high. - This bed was so lofty that the first idea presenting itself to the beholder’s mind was that whoever achieved the ambitious purpose of sleeping in it must scale it by means of a ladder. Having won the heights of wool and down enclosed by curtains on three sides, the conqueror, from an alcove wadded and lined lke a goldfinch’s nest, was master of the situation; from there, looking about the chamber, he could muster armchairs, easy-chairs, sofas, and ottomans, foot-stools, cushions, and fox-skins, upright, sprawling, or spread over a moquette as thick and noiseless as a Smyrna carpet. Some were covered for winter with stuffs soft and yielding, others for summer with leather or sheep-skin; all were artfully shaped, comfortably con- trived, ingeniously curved, inviting to rest and the siesta, and apparently rallying in defence of the fireplace, whose mantel was laden with tapers and candlesticks, and which was provided with a screen. so arranged that not a degree of warmth should be lost. This room, the farthest from the street, overlooked the garden; so that no noise of cart or carriage, no vendor’s ery, nor bark of dog, should disturb the repose of the sleeper. Returning from the chamber to the salon and travers- ing its length, a great screen of antique lacquer-work, not merely from China, but from Coromandel, was found to mask a door leading into the third room. This last, draped and carpeted, was furnished only with a little round mahogany table, a single armchair of mahogany, and a side-table, also of mahogany, whose marble top supported two silver coolers for champagne ; THE HOME OF THE CHEVALIER. 25 but on all sides this room was fitted with an array of glazed cabinets, whose contents made it a worthy and valuable appendix to the kitchen. Each of these cabi- nets was devoted to a specialty. In one glittered massive silver plate. There was a service of white porcelain, banded with green and gold and bearing the chevalier’s crest; there were goblets of Bohemian glass, red and white, whose delicacy and grace must surely add to the flavor of the wines which they served to conduct to the mouth, and present, across two sensual lips, to the sensitive nerves of the palate. The second contained pyramids of table-linen, whose fineness could be divined from their silky lustre. In the third stretched away, like an array of well- disciplined soldiers, motionless and drawn up in two or three ranks as to height, the wines for the entremets and deserts, collected from France, Austria, Germany, Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Greece, imprisoned in their national bottles, — some, short-necked and humped at the shoul- ders; others, slender and graceful. Some wore labels on their portly stomachs; others were wrapped with wisps of straw or rushes. All were alluring and full of promise, appealing at once to the imagination and the curiosity, and were flanked, as an army corps by hght infantry, by cosmopolitan liqueurs in their breastplates of glass of all colors and of all shapes. Finally, in the last cabinet, and this was the largest, hanging on the walls, suspended from the edges, strut- ting on the shelves, were eatables of all sorts, — terrines from Nérac, sausagés from Arles and Lyons, apricot jam from Auvergne, apple-jelly from Rouen, comfits from Barre, preserves from Mans, pots of ginger from China, English pickles and sauces of every description, spice, anchovies, sardines, cayenne-pepper, dried fruits, pre- 26 BLACK. served fruits, — everything, in short, that the good and wise Dufouilloux enumerated and designated by the ex- pressive and memorable phrase, —“ the harness of the jaws.” After this domiciliary inspection, —a little too cireum- stantial, perhaps, but which has yet seemed to us neces- sary, —the reader will have concluded that the Cheva- ler de la Graverie was a man very charitably occupied with his own person, and much concerned about the gratification of his stomach. And, not to leave in the shadow a single feature in this sketch we are making of him, we will add that this strongly marked tendency towards gluttony was counterbalanced by the worthy gentleman’s mania for constantly believing himself ill, and feeling his pulse every quarter of an hour; let us add, too, that he was a rose-fancier, rabid. Having reached this point, we realize the impossibility of going farther, not merely without making a halt, but also without turning back to a period of forty-eight or fifty years before; and we ask the reader’s permission to relate how these three infirmities had overtaken the poor chevalier. } CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CHEVALIER’ BIRTH. 27 LV HOW AND UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES THE CHEYV- ALIER DE LA GRAVERIE WAS BORN. Let not the reader be too greatly astonished at this retrospective glance, which he must have foreseen, espe- cially as we have introduced our hero at an age when the most interesting adventures of hfe — love adventures — are over; we pledge ourselves not to go back earlier than the year 1798. In 1793, accordingly, the Baron de la Graverie, the father of the chevalier, was in the prison of Besancon on the double charge of hostility to the State and aiding refugees. The Baron de la Graverie could indeed have alleged, in defence, that from his own point of view he had only obeyed the most sacred laws of nature in send- ing money to his eldest son and to his own brother, both in a foreign land; but there are times when social law takes precedence of natural law, and he did not even dream of ‘making that defence. Now, the Baron de la Graverie’s crime was one of those leading at that time most surely to the scaffold; and so, Madame de la Graverie, being free, engaged in the most active measures toward securing her husband’s escape. Thanks to the gold which the poor woman lav- ished, her little plans sped very well. The jailer had promised to be blind; the turnkey had brought the pris- oner somé rope and a file, by whose aid he could saw off 28 BLACK. a bar and gain the street, where Madame de la Graverie. would be found awaiting him to leave France. The next day, the fourteenth of May, was fixed upon for their flight. Never had hours seemed longer than the hours of that fatal day appeared to Madame de la Graverie. Every moment the poor woman gazed at the clock and reviled its slowness. At times the blood rushed back upon her heart, suddenly stifling her, and she told herself that it was impossible that she should ever see the dawn of the longed-for morrow. ‘Towards four o’clock in the afternoon, unable longer to endure her suspense, she resolved, in order to allay the terrible anguish by which she was tortured, to go out and seek a refractory priest whom one of her friends was concealing in his cellar, and beg him to add his prayers to her own, invoking divine pity for the unhappy prisoner. Madame de la Graverie, therefore, set out. While attempting to cross, in spite of its obstructions, one of the little streets leading to the market, she heard the deafening and continued uproar of a vast throng in the square. She endeavored to retrace her steps, but found it impossible to do so: the crowd barred all egress; ad- vancing, it bore her upon one of its waves, and, as a river casts itself into the sea, the current which swept her on emptied into the square. The square was thronged with a crowd of people above whose heads the red sil- houette of the guillotine was uplifted, where, empurpled by a last ray of the setting sun, flashed the fatal knife, —a terrible emblem of equality, if not before the law, at least in the presence of death. Madame de la Graverie shuddered, and longed to flee. It was even less possible than before; another flood of people had poured into the square, forcing her to the centre, and it was useless to think of breaking through CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CHEVALIER’S BIRTH. 29 the crowded ranks of the multitude. To attempt it was to risk exposing herself as an aristocrat, and to compro- mise in her own person, not merely the safety of herself, but that of her husband. Madame de la Graverie’s mind, bent for so many days upon one single purpose, that of securing the baron’s escape, had acquired an admirable degree of clearness. She thought of everything. She became resigned to the inevitable, and resolved to endure courageously, and without too openly testifying her horror, the revolting spectacle about to take place before her eyes. She did not veil her face with her hands, —a demonstration that must have drawn the attention of her neighbors, — but she closed her eyes. A great clamor, which advanced by degrees like a train of ignited gunpowder, announced the arrival of the victims. It soon subsided, indicating that the cart was passing and taking its position. Although crowded, jostled, lifted from her feet even, by the throng, Madame de la Graverie had until then refrained from looking up; but at that moment it seemed to her that an invisible and irresistible power raised her eyelids. She opened her eyes, saw the cart of the con- demned a few paces distant, and in that cart her hus- band! At that sight she sprang forward, uttering a cry so terrible that the curious ones surrounding her sep- arated to let this distracted, gasping woman, with the haggard eyes, pass through. She thrust aside those who still separated her from the tumbrel, with the overpower- ing strength possessed even by the frailest woman in a paroxysm of grief and despair, and forcing a path through the dense throng, as if by a cannon-ball, she reached the cart. Her first idea and effort were to climb into it to reach her husband; but the soldiers, recovering from their first surprise, prevented her. She then clung to 30 BLACK. the sides of the cart, uttering the shrieks of a maniac; then suddenly ceasing, without transition, she began to entreat her husband’s executioners as never victim en- treated his own. It was a spectacle so dreadful that, in spite of the sanguinary appetites necessarily developed in the rabble by the daily recurrence of these terrible dramas, more than one fierce sans-culotte, more than one of those abominable hags of the market-place who have been called by the frightfully appropriate name of “lickers of the guillotine,” felt great tears course down their cheeks. So, when nature had succumbed to the strain of grief, when Madame de la Graverie, feeling her strength abandon her, was forced to loose her hold upon the cart, and then had swooned away, the poor creature found herself sur- rounded by sympathizing hearts eager to aid her. She was borne to her home and her physician was immedi- ately called. But the shock had been too violent; the poor woman died in a few hours, in the height of delir- ium, having given birth, two months before its time, to a child as weak and slight as a reed, who was the same Chevalier de la Graverie whose interesting history we are writing to-day. Madame de la Graverie’s eldest sister, the Canoness of Beauterne, assumed charge of the poor little orphan, who, having come at seven months, was so delicate that the physician regarded it as impossible for him to live. But the grief occasioned her by the tragic deaths of her sister and brother-in-law developed in the old maid the maternal instincts placed by God in every woman’s heart, but which celibacy so often dries and shrivels up in those of old maids. Madame de Beauterne’s most ardent desire was to meet again those whom she mourned, after having worthily and piously accomplished the task their death CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CHEVALIER’S BIRTH. 31 had imposed upon her. She determined, with the obsti- nacy characteristic of single men and women, that the child should live; and by dispensing treasures of patience and self-denial, she falsified the horoscope of the man of science, who is much more positive when predicting death than when promising life. As soon as the roads were free, possessed of her treasure, — thus Madame de Beauterne styled Stanislas Dieudonné de la Graverie, —she proceeded to shut her- self up in the community of German canonesses of which she was a member. A community of canonesses, we hasten to explain to our readers, is not a convent; it is, indeed, very nearly the opposite, we ought to say, being a society of women of the world brought together as much by their tastes and necessities as by the strictness of their piety. They go out when they please, and receive whom they like; their very toilets, too, declare the elasticity of their vows, and so long as elegance, and coquettishness even, seem to compromise the safety of their neighbor only, they are tolerated in the order. Amid such surroundings, half worldly, half religious, the little De la Graverie was reared. Among these good and amiable women he grew up. The mournful cireum- stances attending his birth intensely interested all the little sisterhood in his destiny; therefore never was child, were he heir of prince, king, or emperor, so nursed, coddled, and petted as was that one. A rivalry of devotion was established among the good ladies, in which, in spite of her tenderness for the young Dieu- donné, Madame de Beauterne was usually distanced. A single tear shed by the child caused a general head- ache to the entire community; each of his teeth occa- sioned ten nights of sleeplessness ; and had it not been 32 BLACK. for the rigorous sanitary cordon established by the aunt against dainties, and her pitiless system of inspection of pockets, the little De la Graverie would have perished in his babyhood, gorged with sweets, stuffed with bon- bons hke Vert-Vert, and our story would now be ended, or, rather, it would never have had a beginning. The general solicitude on his account was so great that his education was somewhat affected because of it. In fact, a great outcry was raised among the canonesses by a proposition hazarded one fine day by Madame de Beauterne, setting forth nothing less than the sending of Dieudonné to the Jesuits’ College at Fribourg, to com- plete his education. She was charged with cruelty to the poor child, and her project met with such universal disapprobation that the good aunt, whose heart asked nothing better than to beat a retreat, did not even attempt to brave it. Consequently, the little man remained at liberty to learn only what pleased him, or much the same thing; and as Nature had not endowed him with pronouncedly scientific inclinations, he re- mained very ignorant. It would have been unreasonable to hope that the good and worthy women would cultivate the character of their pupil with greater insight than they had displayed in training his intelligence. They not only, then, taught him nothing of the men among whom he was destined to live, nor of the usages with which he must come in contact, but, by the precautions put forth to shield their little puppet from the stern realities of the world, the experiences which would chill his tenderness, the shocks which would react upon his heart, they inordinately de- veloped the nervous sensitiveness already disposed to be excessive through the emotions from which, like James I., the child had suffered in the maternal bosom. CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CHEVALIER’S BIRTH. 33 As to the athletic training essential to the education of a gentleman, it was the same. The young Dieudonné was never permitted to take riding-lessons, with the result that the child’s only mount was the gardener’s donkey ; moreover, when he rode the donkey, the animal had to be led by one of the good ladies; who cheerfully played for the young De la Graverie the réle so reluc- tantly performed by Haman for Mordecai. There was an excellent fencing-master in the town in which the religious community was situated, and it was briefly discussed whether the young Dieudonné should be taught fencing; but in addition to its being fatiguing exercise, what likelihood was there, with his charming character, so full of sweetness and grace, that the Chevalier de la Graverie would ever engage in a quar- rel? He must needs be a monster of blackness and vice that would wish him harm, and, thank God! monsters are rare. A hundred paces from the convent ran a magnificent river, whose waters flowed across meadows pied with king- cups and daisies; with an imperceptible current and as smooth as a mirror; the young students from the neigh- boring university frequented it daily, accomplishing deeds of prowess by the side of which those of Schiller’s diver paled. Three times a week Dieudonné could have been sent to this river, and, under the instruction of an excel- lent swimming-master, he could have become as expert as a pearl-fisher; but its waters sprang from a source so cold that possibly they might have had a deleterious influ- ence on the child’s health. Dieudonné amused himself by paddling twice a week in his aunt’s bath-tub. Dieudonné, then, did not know how to swim, fence, or ride. There was a great resemblance, it will be observed, between his education and that of Achilles; but if, in j 3 34 BLACK. the midst of the good ladies surrounding the Chevalier de la Graverie, some Ulysses had appeared, unsheathing his sword, it is probable that instead of leaping upon the. glaive, as did the son of Thetis and Peleus, Dieudonné, dazzled by the flashing blade, would have taken refuge in the darkest cellar of the community. All this developed in Dieudonné a most deplorable temperament, physically and morally. At sixteen years of age he was unable to see a tear trembling on the eye- lid of another without at once beginning to weep in unison; the death of his sparrow or canary brought ona nervous attack; he composed a most touching elegy on the death of a brown beetle, inadvertently crushed. All this afforded great delight to the canonesses, and won their unanimous applause. They exalted the exquisite delicacy of his heart, without a suspicion that this exagger- ation of sensibility must necessarily lead their idol to an early grave, or induce a selfish reaction of these too philanthropic emotions. From these premises, one ought not to expect to see Dieudonné receiving from his preceptresses rules in the art of pleasing and lessons in the science of loving. Yet thus it was. Madame de Florsheim, one of Madame de Beauterne’s companions, had with her a niece, as the latter had her nephew. This niece, two years younger than Dieudonné, was called Mathilde. She was blond, like all German maidens; like all German maidens, she had great blue eyes that welled with sentiment from the time she was out of swaddling-clothes. Now, as soon as the two little creatures were able to walk without leading-strings, it seemed to amuse the good canonesses to pit them against each other. If, then, they neither taught Dieudonné nor caused him to CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CHEVALIER’S BIRTH. 35 be taught how to ride, fence, or swim, they did teach him something else. When, after running out into the garden, arrayed like a Watteau shepherd, in coat and trousers of sky-blue satin, white vest, silk stockings, and red-heeled shoes, Dieudonné returned with a bouquet of forget-me-nots or a spray of woodbine, he was taught to present his spray of woodbine or bouquet of forget-me-nots to his little friend, and that too, on bended knee, after the manner of the ancient chivalry. When the weather was bad and they could not go out, Madame de Beauterne sat down to her spinnet and played the air of the minuet from “ Exau- det,” whereupon Dieudonné and Mathilde, — the latter as much a shepherdess as her partner was a shepherd, — like two little puppets on wires, would advance, hand in hand, and then began an exhibition of dancing that brightened the eyes and cheered the hearts of the good canonesses. When, at last, the minuet ended, Dieu- donné gallantly kissed the little white perfumed hand of his partner, there was general rapture; the good ladies, overcome with delight, hugged the children to their breasts and stifled them with kisses. It was no longer Dieudonné, it was no longer Mathilde: it was little husband, little wife; and when they were seen wandering about the park under the great trees, like two miniature lovers, instead of the warning, “ Do not go there, children, the solitude is dangerous, and the dense shade injurious,” the dear canonesses, if they could pos- sibly have done so, would have deepened the shade into twilight, and from the solitude would have chased even the robin red-breasts and the crickets. As a result, the two babes disdained the frolics of childhood for the affec- tations of sentiment, thus prematurely enervating their minds and brushing the bloom from their souls. 36 BLACK. Moreover, however pure, however angelic these amours must have seemed to the fairies who protected them, the devil, watching them from the corner of his eye, assured himself that he should lose nothing thereby. In truth, such a course was very unwise on the part of these holy women. But how could it have been different ? To these worldly recluses the two poor children were as the backward glance of regret cast by the traveller upon the beautiful and smiling vale that he has just left, to enter upon a region of arid and desolate sands. It is true that if this spectacle momentarily lulled the poor old sorrowing hearts; if it subdued the bitterness of remem- brance; if for an instant it regilded the illusions of lost youth; if for a brief space it caused them to forget their yellow teeth and ashen air, —it is certain that from the reaction which the poor souls endured, it cost them in the end more tears than smiles; since, after the ephem- eral joys of this mirage, resignation became more difficult, hope more confused, faith more lukewarm, and many sighs drawn not from contrite breasts mingled with Jee prayers that came from aching hearts. Last of all and much more serious, without the least in the world appearing to suspect it, the grave ladies pro- faned what is the holiest and most sacred of all earthly things, — childhood. THE FIRST AND LAST LOVE OF THE CHEVALIER. 37 Ne THE FIRST AND LAST LOVE OF THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE. WueENn Mathilde had attained her fifteenth year, and Dieudonné his seventeenth, the fine transports seemed strangely to cool. Dieudonné no longer brought forget- me-nots and woodbine from his walks; when the minuet was ended, Dieudonné no longer kissed the white hand of his partner, — he was content to make a simple bow. Indeed, the children were now never seen withdrawing innocently and alone to the deep shades of the woody park. Yet an observant person might have seen Mathilde tenderly carry to her lips faded knots of flowers that came to her no one knew whence, and which she soon concealed in her bosom. And the same observant person might have remarked that when Dieudonné gave his hand to Mathilde to execute with her the figures of the dance, Dieudonné grew pale, Mathilde blushed, and a nervous thrill seemed to pervade their two beings like an electric current. Finally, this same observant person— mind, no longer having the scene limited to the one path by which both formerly entered the park — could follow with the eye the one going to the right, the other to the left; and after having seen them enter opposite sides of the wood, he would have observed that they met near a charming stream of water, whose gentle rippling made an adorable accompaniment to the song of a nightingale that had built her nest near the margin of the rill. 38 BLACK. The day on which he attained his eighteenth year — and Mathilde, consequently, her sixteenth — Dieudonné entered his aunt’s room, performed the three salutes which his aunt had taught him in case he should be presented to the Grande-Duchesse Stephanie of Baden, or to Queen Louise of Prussia, and solemnly asked Madame de Beauterne when he could be united in marriage with Mademoiselle Mathilde de Florsheim. The canoness was suddenly seized with one of those fits of merriment which with her possessed the dangerous feature of being so violent as almost always to end in a fit of coughing; then, when she had laughed till the tears ran, and had coughed herself into a spasm, — Dieudonné, meanwhile, in the third position of the minuet, gravely awaiting her reply, —she told him there was no haste; that children of eighteen still had at least four or five years before they need trouble them- selves about that sort of thing; and that when it should be time to think of it, the young man’s ideas would per- haps be found to have undergone great changes on the subject of marriage. Dieudonné, lke a well-trained nephew, made no reply and withdrew, respectfully saluting his aunt; but although nothing unusual happened that evening, on the next morning, when Madame de Beauterne’s maid entered the young gentleman’s room to take him the traditional coffee and cream, she found the room empty and the bed quite untouched. ‘Thoroughly frightened, she ran to announce the incredible news to her mistress. At the very instant when she was the third time repeat- ing to Madame de Beauterne, “I assure you, madame, Monsieur le Chevalier has not slept in his bed,” —. Madame de Florsheim was announced. Madame de Florsheim, very pale and greatly alarmed, THE FIRST AND LAST LOVE OF THE CHEVALIER. 39 came to confide to Madame de Beauterne that her niece Mathilde had disappeared during the night. The young people’s offence, as attested by those two untouched beds, was as patent as if one had seen their two heads upon the same pillow. In an instant the double flight was rumored abroad, and there followed a great flurry in the sisterhood. The two aunts were naturally the ones most afflicted; they prayed and wept. Their companions added fuel to the fire, without reflecting that their harvest-time had come, that was all, and that they were reaping what they had sown. Finally one of them ventured upon the advice that, as weeping and wailing availed nothing, they had better begin without delay the pursuit of the fugitives. The counsel seemed good, and it was acted upon. Both were much too inexperienced to have employed any great artifice to conceal their traces; and on the morrow the emissaries sent in pursuit had brought back the runaways. ‘The two strayed lambs re-entered the fold. But this was not a sufficient dénouement, and Madame de Florsheim implored one that should suitably repair the breach made in the honor of her house in the person of her niece. Madame de Beauterne absolutely refused it. The latter had preserved in France a considerable estate; consequently, she did not consider it sufficient that the heir of all this wealth should be allied with one of the most illustrious families of Bavaria; she de- manded that a dot should be added to that honor; and, as the Florsheims had excellent reasons for failing to comply with Madame de Beauterne’s exaction, the old lady insistently declared that matters should remain in statu quo, and that they should pass the sponge, if not 40 BLACK. of forgetfulness, at least of forgiveness, over the past. It had been, she asserted, only one of the little events of childhood, of no consequence, and encouraged by Madame de Florsheim with the entire community. Madame de Beauterne could guarantee, on her own honor, that Dieudonné was too pious, too well brought up, and, especially, too young, for any inconvenience to result from this téte-a-téte journey to Munich with his little friend, —for it was in Munich, we forgot to say, that the two children had been found. But a few months after that time, although the two young people had been carefully kept apart since their return, it was clearly proven to Madame de Beauterne that she had been much too rash in pledging honor for honor in the matter of her nephew’s innocence. The affair was so serious that, at the request of Madame de Florsheim, Madame de Beauterne’s confessor thought it best to interfere. At last, convinced by the representations of the reverend director of her conscience, Madame de Beauterne, in order to acquire title to the gratitude of the young people, appeared to yield solely to their tears and prayers, and, to the great joy of the com- munity of canonesses, marriage came to sanctify this love which they had reason to regard as their work. The new household was established+in a little villa in the suburbs, where, patronized by the canonesses, who followed all its phases with the curious, meddlesome, and jealous eagerness of as many mothers-in-law, the honey- moon threatened to last forever. The death of Madame de Beauterne was the first cloud — that overcast this happiness. The good lady left thirty thousand livres of rent to her nephew; but to his credit, let us say, neither that considerable fortune nor the conju- gation of the verb to dove, which occupied his whole time, THE FIRST AND LAST LOVE OF THE CHEVALIER. 41 prevented his shedding some sincere and pious tears in honor of the memory of his second mother. In truth, Dieudonné, arrived at manhood, had attained the probationary age of twenty years without evincing any alteration in the sweetness and ingenuousness which had characterized his childhood. He had preserved his springs of infinite tenderness and universal sympathy ; but these sentiments were imbued with a certain tinge of sadness and melancholy, probably born with him, and a result of the events attending his birth. He presented the singular spectacle of a young man possessed of neither tastes nor desires. The catechism had taught him the names of the passions, but growing up, he had forgotten them; devotedly in love, absorbed by Mathilde and in Mathilde, he lent himself with admirable docility to the little caprices of his wife, only a degree more awakened than he, and to whom must have been due at least half, if not three-fourths, of that episode of the flight. How- ever, her caprices, obeyed as soon as manifested, confined to the narrow limits in which they lived, led to no dis- turbance, no shadow, no trouble in an existence worthy of the golden age. Never had the Chevalier de la Graverie cast a curious glance over the walls which bounded his earthly paradise. Instinctively, without rendering himself a reason there- for, he was afraid of the world; the outside tumult caused him a shudder, and he escaped it as well as he could, stopping his ears by day and drawing the blanket over his eyes by night. And so he was wholly over- whelmed when, already shocked by the death of his aunt, and scarcely yet recovered from his grief, a letter came to him, postmarked at Paris, and signed by the Baron de la Graverie. Dieudonné had heard his eldest brother spoken of only 42 BLACK. on the occasion of his marriage and through the medium of his aunt. We have said that Dieudonné stopped his ears so as not to hear the outer tumults. It may be judged whether he had his ears well stopped: he had scarcely heard the uproar made by Napoleon’s first fall from the throne, and had not at all heard that made by his second. The French army had maintained a running. fight across all - “Germany; the German, Austrian, and Russian armies had followed it; the human flood broke against the very corner of the convent, parting to right and left, and, sheltered by that steadfast craft, Dieudonné had not felt the shock of the living waves. The Baron de la Graverie now informed his younger brother of all of which he was ignorant; that is to say, that the Restoration had brought back to France the princes of the House of Bourbon; and he pointed out to Dieudonné the necessity of performing one of the duties of his rank in hastening to rally around the throne. It goes without saying that Dieudonné’s first impulse was to refuse. He cursed Louis XI., not for having executed Nemours and. Saint-Pol, not for having assas- sinated Count d’Armagnac, not for having inspired his father, the poor Charles VII., with such terrors that the latter allowed himself to die of hunger through fear of being poisoned, — but for having invented the post! We have said that Dieudonné was poorly informed, so poorly that he confounded the stage-post with the letter- post; but in truth both sprang from Louis XI., the one being an outgrowth of the other. He even fell into such dejection that Madame de la Graverie, who at that moment opened the door, saw his uplifted hands and heard him exclaim, — | “Why was I not born on Robinson Crusoe’s island?” THE FIRST AND LAST LOVE OF THE CHEVALIER. 43 She understood that something very disastrous must have overtaken her husband’s affairs, that he should hazard such a gesture or give utterance to such a wish. She was then for a moment dismayed at the misfortune which could have wrested from her spouse such an exaggerated gesture, such a misanthropic outburst. Dieudonné gave her the letter with the air of Talma, as Manlius, handing Servilius the letter revealing his treason. Madame de la Graverie read the letter without at all appearing to share her husband’s grief at the prospect of a journey, or his apprehensions with respect to the world at large. In the midst of the cloistered severity of her education, Mathilde had heard those old gossips, all of aristocratic birth, speak not only of the court of France prior to 1789, pray understand, but of all other courts also as being veritable regions of delight; and her inher- ently coquettish instinct impelled her to desire to shine thereat. She had twenty reasons, without once avowing that she herself wished it, —she had twenty reasons proving to her husband that he must obey the behests of the head of his family; nor did it need so many to convince a man accustomed to listen to Mathilde’s words _as a Greek to the Delphic oracle. The young couple decided, then, upon flitting from the charming nest in which their love had been sheltered, and they set out for France in July in the year 1814. With the first stage began the tribulations of the Chevalier de la Graverie. In the motion of the car- riage, in the joy of contemplating new places and things, Mathilde encountered her first distractions, and ceased to perform so conscientiously her part in the duet of lyric tenderness chanted by Dieudonné from morn to eve. Dieudonné very quickly perceived this, and his soul, 44 BLACK. impressible to excess, was grievously afflicted. It was, then, in a sufficiently sad state of mind that he arrived at Paris, and having scanned the baron’s address at the foot of the letter which had been the unhappy cause of all this derangement, he presented himself before his elder brother, who, true aristocrat as he was, had estab- lished himself at Number 4 Rue de Varennes, Faubourg Saint-Germain. The Baron de la Graverie was nearly nineteen years older than his brother. He was born under the mon- archy, in the very year of Louis XVI.’s advent to the throne. In 1784 he had established his claims, and was entered as a page of the royal household. In 1789, after the taking of the Bastille, he had emigrated with his uncle. Having never seen his brother, the result was he did not cherish a profound affection for him. In place of affection existed a keen feeling of jealousy; for, alas, as will appear in the sequel, the Baron de la Graverie was not perfect. Returning penniless from exile after having undergone a thousand perils, he could not for his part forgive his younger brother’s having inherited the Canoness de Beau- terne’s entire fortune, —a fortune to which as senior he claimed to have rights superior to those of a younger brother. How had his brother won this fortune? By paying court to twenty old women in the shade of a con- vent. Had the cadet become a Knight of Malta, as was his duty according to the baron’s ideas, he might per- haps have ‘pardoned what he called the usurpation of his inheritance. But Dieudonné, on the contrary, had mar- ried; and the baron regarded it as wholly unbecoming that a younger brother, that is to say, a person belong- ing, in his estimation, to the neuter gender, should have THE FIRST AND LAST LOVE OF THE CHEVALIER. 405 dreamed of taking a wife, thus depriving the sons of the elder of a fortune which, since it had been stolen from the father, should at least be restored to the children. Therefore, at the first interview, the baron expounded his views on the subject to the chevalier; and he added, with marvellous aplomb, that Providence having already brought about one miscarriage for Madame de la Graverie, would refuse — he hoped so, at least — to grant any pro- geny whatever to this contraband household, and would, sooner or later, return to the elder branch of the family what incontestably belonged to it, —the inheritance from the canoness. This exordium exasperated Madame de la Graverie, who had accompanied her husband to the baron’s house, and extracted two great tears from the eyes of Dieudonné. Like the excellent father he felt it in his power to be, he wept for his posterity, condemned by the baron to non-existence. He regarded alternately his wife and his brother, seeming to ask the latter how he could reproach Mathilde, so pretty, so good, so loving. Were not the charms with which his young wife was endowed, and which his love doubled, tripled, quadrupled, — were they not, then, a sufficient justification? Or had the baron, ‘like Alceste, sworn to an eternal hatred of women? But, returning to himself, reflecting that he who had remained in France, who had encountered none of the dangers of war, none of misfortunes of emigration, — reflecting that he was rich, while his brother had brought back from exile only his sword and epaulets, he hesi- tated for a moment; and asked himself if, in truth, by accepting the inheritance of his aunt Beauterne, he had not been guilty of a misdemeanor. Thereupon, not wishing the trouble of thinking it over, and without perceiving the signs of opposition exhibited 46 BLACK. by the sweet Mathilde, who was not satisfied, like Saint Martin, with the half of a cloak, —he asked his senior’s forgiveness for the fault whose consequences he had but just learned, and at the same time demanded that the baron should accept a half of the fortune of the canoness; and he desired to make over the gift the same day. To which the baron consented without being urged. DE LA GRAVERIE OF THE GRAY MUSKETEERS, 47 Vere THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE OF THE GRAY MUSKETEERS. However arid his heart, the Baron de la Graverie seemed touched by his brother’s generosity; and when the deed of gift, drawn up by the baron’s notary, had been signed and sealed by the chevalier, the baron opened his arms with an expansion in which he almost forgot his dignity as the head of the family. The chevalier cast himself into them, dissolved in tears, more grateful for this simple paternal demonstration than the baron was for the fifteen thousand livres into possession of which he had just come, and which, with what he already pos- sessed, afforded him an income of exactly fifteen thousand francs. For his: part, the baron declared, after the embrace - given and received, that for the future he should regard and love Dieudonné as his own son, and that he should with the most anxious solicitude charge himself with his fortunes at court. Resolved upon giving him an unde- niable proof of this, he demanded a commission for him in the Gray Musketeers, and, thinking to arrange the most delightful of surprises, said not a word of his intentions. As a result, one evening on sitting down to dinner, Dieudonné found under his napkin a commission signed “ Lous, ” which admitted him to the honor of membership in that privileged corps. It was indeed a great honor; 48 BLACK. the young men of the first families of France begged to enter what was at that time called La Maison Rouge. The Black Musketeers, like the Gray Musketeers, wore red uniforms, their designations arising from the color of their horses rather than from that of their coats; each musketeer also ranked as a lieutenant. But, great as the honor was, we are compelled to avow that since the receipt of the letter which had torn him from the delights of his hermitage, Monsieur de la Graverie had experienced no shock more disagreeable than the one he felt at the sight of that parchment. He was seized with a dazzling vertigo, and a cold perspiration broke out upon him. With an energy no one could have expected from a character so easy and debonair, he re- pelled the honor, and defended himself by stormy argu- ments, —the best of which unquestionably was, that, quite unlike D’Artagnan, his illustrious predecessor, he had no sort of liking for the cassock. The Baron de la Graverie learned of this refusal from a letter written by the chevalier ab trato. He went into a majestic rage; the chevalier’s non-acceptance com- promised him seriously, as he had used his utmost influ- ence to obtain the king’s precious signature. And now, for a La Graverie to declare himself unable to perform any military duty whatever was to render him, the baron, the laughing-stock of the court. He thereupon replied to his brother that, willing or unwilling, he must don the cassock; and he wrote the king that the chevalier was so grateful for the favor granted that, not knowing in what terms to tender his thanks, he had commissioned the baron to express to his Majesty the depth of his gratitude. There was no retreat for the unhappy Dieudonné. The baron had accepted, and tendered thanks in his name. DE LA GRAVERIE OF THE GRAY MUSKETEERS. 49 Dieudonné held the family hierarchy in profound respect. He did more than to love the brother who had taken upon himself all the discomforts and hardships of life, leaving him only its pleasures; and in spite of hav- ing yielded up the half of his inheritance, which he did not for a single moment regret, let us hasten to say, he sometimes asked himself if he were not wronging his elder brother in withholding the other half. The charge of ingratitude which the baron had just brought against him in person, —for on the rare occasions when he had fault to find with his brother, the baron accorded himself the satisfaction of doing so by the living voice, — the charge of ingratitude, we repeat, so keenly touched Dieu- donné that, knowing not what to say, he remained absolutely mute. Madame de la Graverie’s eyes pleaded with her brother- in-law for mercy in behalf of her poor husband, in whose name she seemed to be making a pledge. In fact, Mathilde had not yet had time to rid herself of her German through friction with French society, and she regarded Dieudonné as the Antinoiis of the nineteenth century, and doubted not that a uniform as elegant as that of the Musketeers would heighten the charms she supposed him to possess; she therefore decided to rein- force by conjugal coquetry the arguments of her brother- in-law. For that matter, the arguments did not require rein- forcement, since the baron had replied, and given thanks in Dieudonné’s name. Dieudonné, whether he wished it or not, was then, for good and all, a Musketeer, from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, and subordinate henceforth to the Maréchal Duc de Raguse, commander-in-chief of the king’s house, Musketeers, and body-guard. ight 2 7 50 BLACK. days later, in fact, the unhappy chevalier assumed the uniform with the resignation and good grace of the little dog tricked out in a troubadour’s coat and cap to under- take his performances on the tight rope. The uniform was magnificent, especially the full- dress outfit. It consisted of a red coat, white cassimere trousers, high boots reaching above the knee, a helmet with tossing crest, and a cuirass displaying a cross rayed with gold. But poor Dieudonné was greatly embarrassed in this magnificent uniform. His opinion of himself was not higher than he deserved, and he was conscious of being awkward and ridiculous under his trappings. In truth, short and chubby, he had the ruddy beardless face of a - canon of St. Genevieve; pretty enough to eat in a choir- boy’s surplice, he was utterly absurd in the uniform. And yet, dressed as a bourgeois, the chevalier was not more noticeably ugly than most men make themselves; and the phrase consecrated by custom to palliate the want of grace characterizing certain individuals of the male species, “neither handsome nor homely,” could have been applied to the chevalier as well as, or let us say even better than, to another. But the uniform, by in- vesting the modest figure with pretension, emphasized all defects. When afoot, his boots seemed to start from the abdomen, as the handle of a cup-and-ball from its bowl. Then, because of his short, plump litle arms, one person compared him to the penguin; another asked the first person he met after passing him: “ Pray, mon- sieur, can you tell me the name of that red-coat?” Yet all this was the fair side of the situation. To form an idea of the anguish that a man can suffer with- out dying of it, the Chevalier de la Graverie should have been seen on horseback. DE LA GRAVERIE. OF THE GRAY MUSKETEERS. 51 At ten years of age, when the little chevalier found himself at the top of a staircase, he would call his aunt, the Canoness de Beauterne, to come and lead him down. If, perchance, at the age of fifteen, he mounted the gar- dener’s donkey, one of his noble protectoresses invariably held the animal’s head, and another the opposite extrem- ity, in order that if the donkey should be seized by a fancy to take the bit in his teeth, the one could check him by the bridle, and the other hold him back by the tail. Now, however assiduously the chevalier might apply himself to lessons in riding, whatever patience he might display in mastering the theory, it was impossible for his round, inflexible members to lend themselves at once to the movements of his horse. Chosen by his brother, although the chevalier had asked for a very gentle horse, our hero’s steed was a racer and a war-horse, without a fault, but full-blooded and mettlesome. The chevalier _ had demanded that his horse should stand as low as pos- sible, but there was a prescribed standard of height for the horses belonging to the king’s household, — muske- teers, life-guards, or light-horse, — below which they _ were not accepted. Now, the chevalier, who experienced dizziness if he but looked downward from the summit of a flight of motionless stone steps, might well be attacked by a vertigo on finding himself in the saddle of a frisky and vigorous horse. Perched upon Bayard — the name which the baron had thought proper to bestow on his brother’s steed, in honor of the horse belonging to Aymon’s four sons — with about the same degree of stability and grace as that exhibited by a sack of flour when perched on a mule’s back, the chevalier kept his position, the greater part of the time, only by a miracle of equipoise, and, on D2 BLACK. trying occasions, by the kindly co-operation of his com- rades to the right and left. Had not the weight of his person been respectable, twenty times, at an unexpected command to halt, he would have broken rank by pitching over his animal’s head. Happily for the chevalier, his gentleness, his obliging disposition, and his humility touched his comrades, who were ashamed to take for a butt of ridicule a being so inoffensive, although, thanks to their aid, if he had pos- sessed the least bit of conceit, nothing could have pre- vented his looking upon himself as the most brilliant cavalier of his corps. But it was quite the reverse, and Dieudonné found himself so ill at ease under the beauti- ful embroidered cross displayed on his uniform that he would have thrown his red coat to the dogs, had he not dreaded his wife’s chagrin and his brother’s anger. One thing especially terrified him: on some day or other his turn would come to serve as one of the king’s escort. There would then be no riding in the ranks; they galloped along with the carriage each on his own account. And the king took his airing with hopeless regularity; he was a man of very regular habits, was King Louis XVIII. He never did one thing one day that he had not done the day before; which must greatly have simplified the work of the modern Dangeau, — if Louis XVIII. had, like his illustrious predecessor and grandfather, a Dangeau. Now, from his re-entrance into Paris, May 3, 1814, until his death, December 25, 1824, — pardon me if I am mistaken as to a day or so, as I have not at hand the “ Art of Verifying Dates,” — this is the way the king passed every day. He rose at seven o’clock in the morn- ing, and received the groom of the stole or Monsieur de Blacas at eight o’clock; at nine, he gave audience on DE LA GRAVERIE OF THE GRAY MUSKETEERS. 53 matters of business; at ten, he breakfasted with his household and the personages authorized once for all to breakfast with him, —namely, the incumbents of the highest offices, and the captains of the troops of the king’s household; after the breakfast, which at first lasted but twenty-five minutes, but which ended by last- ing three-quarters of an hour, and at which the Duchesse d’Angouléme and one or two of her ladies always as- sisted, they entered the king’s cabinet and engaged in conversation; at five minutes to eleven, never earlier, never later, the duchess withdrew, and then some doubt- ful story held in reserve would be told by the king to enliven his auditors; at ten minutes past eleven, or a little later, all were dismissed, and the time until noon was occupied by special audiences. At noon, the king with his cortege — often composed of more than twenty people, never of less — went to hear mass; on his return, he received his ministers or held his council, which took place once a week; after the council, he spent an hour or two in writing or reading, or in drawing house-plans, which he immediately threw into the fire; at three or four o’clock, according to the season, he went for a drive, going four, five, or even ten leagues in a great berlin, over paved roads, his horses running at full speed. At ten minutes to six, he returned to the Tuileries; at six, he dined with his family, ate much and with discrimina- tion, making legitimate pretensions to the title of epicure. The royal family remained together until eight o’clock ; at eight, all who had a right to enter the king’s presence without preliminary appointment could ask to be ad- mitted, and were received in turn. At nine o’clock, his Majesty came forth and passed to the council hall, where he issued orders for the palace; a few were privileged to enter at this time and profit by the opportunity afforded 54 BLACK. to pay court to the king; twenty minutes later, he withdrew to his chamber and annotated Horace, or read Virgil or Racine; and at eleven o’clock he went to bed. When Madame du Cayla and Monsieur de Cases were in favor, Madame du Cayla came on Wednesdays after the council, and remained two or three hours alone with the king. As for Monsieur de Cases, his turn came in the evening; he entered the king’s chamber at the same time as his Majesty, remaining there alone with him, and leaving only a quarter of an hour before he went to bed. Near the middle of this long list of small duties im- posed by the king upon himself, and performed with religious punctuality, one single paragraph riveted the attention of Monsieur de la Graverie, cadet. It was this: — “Every day, be the weather good or bad, his Majesty will go out, and will remain out from three o’clock until a quarter to six.” The king’s household furnished the escorts for the drives, —the Maison Rouge, like the others. But the king’s household was large; so each one’s turn came only oneea month. Chance decreed that the chevalier should have twenty days in which to await his turn. It came at last. It wasa cruel day! Mathilde and the baron were in ecstasies; they hoped, the one that his brother, the other that her husband, would be marked by the king. At the least scintillation, the nebula might become a star. Alas! the poor star-to-be was hidden under a terrible cloud, —a cloud of fear. As the day had come, so came the hour; the escort waited in the court. The king descended, and, accord-: ing to custom, he was scarcely in his carriage before the horses were off at a gallop. DE LA GRAVERIE OF THE GRAY MUSKETEERS. 55 Whoever had cast a glance in the direction of the Chevalier de la Graverie would have seen him so pale as to excite pity. He was wholly incapable of directing his horse; but by good chance, the animal was as well trained as the master was badly, and the horse directed the master. The intelligent animal seemed to understand it all, and took his place of his own accord; nor did he leave it. We do not have to record that the pommel of the saddle was resorted to; one hand held the bridle, the other the sabre. The chevalier, in fancy, saw himself falling, and spitted upon his own blade; and it occasioned him such anguish that he kept his body as far as possible from his sabre, and his hand from his body. That day the course was enormously long; they made the tour of half of Paris, having set out from the Bar- riére de l’Etoile and re-entered by the Barriére du Tréne. A good horseman would have been lame; the Chevalier de la Graverie was as if he had been broken on the wheel, Although it was in the month of January, the perspiration poured from his brow, and his shirt was as wet as if it had been dipped in the Seine. He threw the reins to his groom, and instead of dining at the palace with his comrades, as usual, he leaped into a fiacre, and in a few moments he had reached Number 10 Rue de VUniversité. Short as the distance was, he had not the courage to walk it. At the first sight of him Mathilde uttered a cry; he looked ten years older. The chevalier had his bed warmed, lay down in it, nor did he rise for three days, and for a fortnight he com- plained of pain in every part of his body. Alas! far distant was the tranquil existence of the little Bavarian villa, with its long té¢e-a-tétes interspersed 56 BLACK, with caresses; its charming walks at twilight, in the edge of the wood and along the river-bank, — walks in which the silences of the wedded pair were as eloquent of love as the tenderest caresses, so complete was the fusion of their souls. There could be no more of egoistic in- sulation in the midst of the indifferent, no more fireside communions spent in planning for themselves a quiet old age a la Philemon and Baucis, The worst that came of all this—and the attack of lumbago helped a long way toward the conviction — was that Madame de la Graverie found herself compelled to recognize the fact that her chevalier was not, upon com- parison, quite so superior to other men as she had until then supposed. It is a fatal moment for love, and a terrible menace to conjugal fidelity, when the wife admits a suspicion that the Creator could not positively have rested from his labors after having fashioned expressly for her the object which, till then, she had made her idol. A husband having reached the status of legal tender has thereafter only a forced circulation. Not that we are willing to say that Mathilde ceased to love her husband from the day on which she made the fatal discovery; on the contrary, the care which she bestowed on him in private during the indisposition fol- lowing that unhappy duty of escort was nothing compared with the attention she lavished on him in public: certain prudes even qualified as indecent the tenderness which the young German did not fear to display toward Mon- sieur de la Graverie. Yet, to be faithful to the truth in every respect, we must confess that when they were alone Mathilde opened her mouth only to yawn, and that her engagements and duties as a fashionable woman began strangely to multiply day by day. DE LA GRAVERIE OF THE GRAY MUSKETEERS. 57 It goes without saying that the Chevalier de la Graverie perceived nothing that could cause him to sus- pect himself to be other than the most fortunate of men. He saw the petting to which he had been accustomed from childhood continued after his marriage; and, by degrees, he came to regard as very simple and very natural the extraordinary attentions showered upon him by Mathilde, and to think that it was indeed the least and best that she could do. Monsieur de la Graverie would most certainly have been the happiest of husbands, had it not been for the unlucky chance that he was at the same time a husband and a Gray Musketeer. ‘That terrible duty of escort, coming once a month, hung suspended over his head like a sword of Damocles, and threatened his happiest moments. 58 BLACK, aly, IN WHICH OCCURS AN EVENT WHICH RELIEVES THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE FROM DUTY AS ESCORT FOR THREE MONTHS. THe month of February glided away as the month of January had done; the chevalier’s turn as escort came again. The same agonies were endured, but this time they were better justified. Held badly in hand, the Musketeer’s horse stumbled and fell. Monsieur de la Graverie pitched over his head, struck upon the pave- ment, and sprained his shoulder, He was carried to his home, almost happy at escaping so lightly. The chevalier’s accident was rumored abroad. All who stood high at court left cards, or visited him in person. Three times the king asked for news of him. The baron was overwhelmed with joy. “ Understand how to take advantage of this affair,” said he, “and your fortune is made.” The chevaher asked nothing better than to take advan- tage of the affair, provided he had not to do so on horseback. Although in private he could withdraw his arm from its sling; although when alone he shook his fist before the mirror at some unknown person who might easily have been the baron; although when he essayed to clasp his wife to his heart, he found the sprained arm as strong as the other, —yet, in presence of those who came to inquire after his health, in the pres- IN WHICH OCCURS AN EVENT. 59 ence of the officers of the king’s household who came to visit him, he voluntarily or involuntarily feigned obsti- nate» pain, and made diabolical grimaces at every motion communicated to his arm. He hoped thus to juggle away at least one turn of escort duty. Consequently, he not only did not appear on the street, but he did not leave his room; and he left his bed only to be propped ina great easy-chair, experiencing anew that felicity of téte-a- tétes he thought forever lost. In fact, while the chevalier read the papers, and par- ticularly the “ Moniteur,” in whose placidity he encoun- tered something akin to his own nature, Mathilde, seated near him, applied herself to some kind of needle-work, yawning enough to dislocate her jaws; but each time that she yawned she concealed the uncomely act from her husband by elevating her needle-work to the height of her face and yawning behind the cloth. On the morning of the seventeenth day of March, Mathilde was working at her embroidery, and the chev- alier, outstretched in his easy-chair and reading the “Moniteur,” came upon the following: — “PROCLAMATION. “On the thirty-first day of December last we adjourned the chambers, to resume their sittings on the first day of May; during this time we have devoted ourselves without relaxation to all that could insure public tranquillity and the happiness of our people —” “ Yes, that is very true,” murmured the chevalier; “ and for my part I have but one reproach for the king, — these daily sorties, and his mania for being accompanied by an escort.” Then he resumed: — 60 BLACK. “This tranquillity is menaced ; this happiness may be jeop- ardized through malevolence and treason.” | “Oh! oh!” exclaimed the chevalier; “do you hear that, Mathilde?” “Yes,” replied Mathilde, stifling a yawn, “I hear: ‘through malevolence and treason,’—only, I do not understand.” “Neither do I,” responded the chevalier; “but we shall find out.” And he continued: — “If the country’s enemies have founded their hopes upon the dissensions which they have always sought to foment, her friends, her lawful defenders, will overthrow their crimi- nal desires by the unassailable force of an indestructible union.” “Certainly,” interpolated the chevalier, “we shall overthrow their criminal desires; and I shall be the very first, if my arm gets better.” Then turning towards Mathilde, he exclaimed, “ How well the king writes! does he not, darling?” “ Yes,” answered Mathilde, without parting her teeth, fearful, should she do so, of no longer being mistress of her jaws. “The ‘ Moniteur,’ is interesting to-day,” remarked the chevalier. And he proceeded: — “For these reasons, having heard the report of our beloved and loyal Chancellor of France, Monsieur Dambray, Com- mander of our Knighthood, we have ordered and do order as follows :”? — “Ah! ejaculated the chevalier; “let us see what the king orders.” “ ArtICLE I. The chamber of peers and the chamber of deputies of departments are convoked in their usual places of assembling. IN WHICH OCCURS AN EVENT, 61 “ARTICLE II, The peers and the deputies now absent from Paris will return thither as soon as they have knowledge of this present proclamation. “Given at the Palace of the Tuileries, March 6, 1815, in the twentieth year of our reign. “[Signed ] Louis.” “That is strange,” said the chevalier; “the king con- vokes the chambers and does not say why he convokes them.” “You have always promised to take me to a session, to amuse me, Dieudonné,” said Mathilde. “T will take you,” returned the chevalier. “ Ah! that will be very diverting,” remarked Mathilde, yawning enough to split her mouth in anticipation of the pleasure to be derived from the visit. “Ah! but listen now,” cried the chevalier: “ ‘ Ordi- nance,’ there is an ordinance; the ordinance will explain it all, doubtless.” And he read: — “ ORDINANCE. “Upon the statement of our beloved and loyal chevalier, Monsieur Dambray, Chancellor of France and Commander of our Knighthood, we have ordered and do order, have declared and do declare, as follows: — “ ARTICLE I. Napoleon Bonaparte is declared a traitor and arebel, having by force of arms entered the department of the Var.” “Tut, tut, tut! What is the ‘Moniteur’ saying? Are you listening, Mathilde? ” “¢Traitor and rebel, having by force of arms entered the department of the Var;’ but who is the traitor and rebel?” “Why, Napoleon Bonaparte, sac-a-papier/ But did n’t they shut him up on an island? ” 62 BLACK. “Certainly they did,” said Mathilde, “the Island of Elba.” “Well, then, he could not get into the department of the Var unless there is a bridge leading from the Island of Elba to the aforesaid department. Let us proceed, let us proceed! ” “Tt is therefore enjoined upon all governors, commanders of armed troops, national guards, civil authorities, and private citizens to fall upon him — ” “JT really hope you will keep quiet, and not amuse yourself by falling upon him,” said Mathilde. “That is not all. Listen now, listen!” And the chevalier resumed : — “‘ — to fall upon him, arrest him, and bring him forthwith before a council of war, which, having established his identity, shall pronounce against him the penalties fixed by law.” At that moment the chevalier’s reading was inter- rupted by the opening of his chamber door, and his servant’s voice announcing the Baron de la Graverie. The baron was armed and equipped for war, like Malbrouck. The chevalier grew pale at his formidable appearance. “Well,” inquired the baron, “do you know what has happened ? ” “T have some idea of it.” “The ogre of Corsica has left his island, and has landed at the Juan Gulf.” “The Juan Gulf! Where is that? ” _ “Ttis a little harbor about two leagues from Antibes.” “From Antibes?” “Yes, and I have come for you.” “For me? Me! what for?” “Why, have n’t you seen that it is enjoined upon all IN WHICH OCCURS AN EVENT. 63 commanders of troops, national guards, civil authorities, and private citizens even, to pursue him? Well, I have come for you to go in his pursuit.” The chevalier turned to Mathilde with an air of entreaty; he humbly recognized her mind to be more active in all emergencies than his, and he counted upon her to extricate him from this one. Mathilde understood the signal of distress. “ But it seems to me, brother, that you have forgotten one thing,” she said, addressing the baron. “ And what is that?” “That although you are free to take your sword and go in pursuit of whom you will, Dieudonné is not.” “ Why is he not?” “ Dieudonné belongs to the king’s household, and he must do whatever the king’s household does. ‘To leave Paris at this time, even to pursue Napoleon, would be desertion.” The baron bit his lip. “Ah! it seems that you are Dieudonné’s major-general.” “No,” replied Mathilde, simply, “the Duc de Raguse is, I think, Dieudonné’s major-general.” And she tranquilly took up her embroidery, while the ~ chevalier beamed upon her with admiration. “Very well; be it so,” said the baron; “I will go without him.” “ And the honor will be yours, and yours alone,” answered Mathilde. The baron cast a look of hatred at the young wife, and departed. “What do you think of my brother’s visit?” asked Dieudonné, still trembling. “Why, I think that after getting possession of half of your fortune, he would not be sorry, perhaps, to get you killed in order to inherit the rest of it.” 64 BLACK. Dieudonné made a grimace that signified, “ You may be right.” He then went to Mathilde and embraced her, straining her so closely to his heart as to stifle her, unmindful that he had seized her with the helpless arm. During the entire day the chevalier’s house was thronged. Each visitor spoke of the strange event; no one doubted that Napoleon would be captured and shot before he had advanced ten leagues. But to the question twenty times addressed to the chevalier in the course of the day, “ And you, what are you going todo?” the chevalier invariably replied: “I belong to the king’s household; I must do whatever is done by the king’s household.” Which was accepted by each as a very suitable re- sponse. Every visitor, moreover, had met the baron with his great sword, and every one knew that he was prepared to march against the ogre of Corsica. On the same day, at about two o’clock, it was learned that the Comte d’Artois had set out for Lyons, and the Duc de Bourbon for La Vendée. In response to this double piece of news, Dieudonné announced, with fright- ful grimaces, that his arm was giving him insupportable pain. On the eighth and the ninth, the news was vague. The baron was encountered everywhere; he was only wanting to advance against Napoleon as soon as he knew exactly where he could be found. Aside from the pain experienced from his arm, Dieu- donné enjoyed great tranquillity. Whence came his philosophy? Was he of the school of the Stoics? No; a thought had occurred to him, and it lurked in the depths of his soul with selfish obstinacy. We hardly dare confess what that thought was. IN WHICH OCCURS AN EVENT. 65 La Rochefoucauld has said that in the misfortunes of even our dearest friend there is always something that is not unpleasant to us. It might be added that in the greatest political reverses, in the midst of the catastro- phes which overthrow sceptres, crowns, and thrones, there is always some little thing that is the cause of our bearing no excessive ill-will towards the overthrow- ing agent, Dieudonné had foreseen that if Napoleon mounted the throne, Louis XVIII. would leave Paris; that Louis XVIII., leaving Paris, would no longer drive from three o'clock to six; and that, Louis XVIII. no longer taking his drive, the service of the escort would be abolished. Then no more anguish during one entire day, no more dread during the other thirty! Great Heaven! what an idea for a man to harbor! The chevalier had at first thrust the thought from him as unworthy; then little by little it had returned to the charge, and having penetrated his brain it would not yield. The result was that when Dieudonné read in the “ Moniteur,” on the ninth, of Napoleon’s probable entry into Lyons on the tenth, he was not so greatly depressed _ by the news as one might have expected him to be. Now that he knew where Napoleon was to be found, the baron announced his intention of setting out without fail on the eleventh or twelfth; that is to say, as soon as his entrance into the second capital of the realm should be confirmed. On the fifteenth, it was rumored that the Due de Raguse had prevailed on the king to fortify the Tuileries, and shut himself in with the ministers, the chambers, and all his military household. The Tuileries would hold three thousand men. The baron had just brought this news to his brother, 5 66 BLACK. saying that he particularly hoped to see him form a part of the garrison. “T thought you had been gone since the eleventh,” returned Dieudonné, “JT was about to set out, indeed,” said the baron, “ when it occurred to me that there are two routes between Paris and Lyons, —the one by Burgundy, and that by Nivernais. -I feared to take one route lest the usurper should take the other.” “A very good reason,” remarked Mathilde. “Yes; and I do not understand why my brother does not put himself at the disposition of the king.” “Tt is just what he is about to do,” said Mathilde; and she took pen, ink, and paper. “What are you doing?” demanded the baron. “Tam writing, as you see.” “To whom? ” “To the Duc de Raguse.” “What?” “That my husband places himself at the disposition of the king.” “ Dieudonné, then, does not know how to write?” “ Not when his right arm is sprained.” And Mathilde wrote : — MonsIEuR LE MARECHAL: My husband, the Chevalier de la Graverie, although his arm is so seriously injured that I am compelled to write in , his stead, has the honor to remind you that he forms a part of the king’s household. Whatever you may decide upon, he asks to share the dangers of his comrades. His devotion to his Majesty will serve him instead of strength. . He has the honor to be, Monsicur le Maréchal, etc., etc. IN WHICH OCCURS AN EVENT. 67 “ Will this answer?” Mathilde asked the baron. “Yes,” answered the furious baron, “ perfectly; and Dieudonné is very fortunate to have a wife like you.” “Ah,” said Dieudonné, naively, “how often I have told you that she is a treasure!” The baron withdrew, saying that he was going to learn the news. Mathilde sent her letter to the Tuileries. On the nineteenth, at nine o’clock in the morning, it was learned at Paris that Napoleon had entered Auxerre on the seventeenth, and that he was continuing his march toward the capital. At eleven o’clock, the king, who had rejected the plan of the Duc de Raguse, called for the marshal and said to him: — “T leave Paris at noon; give orders accordingly to my military household.” The Due de Raguse issued his orders. At noon, an aide-de-camp from the marshal was an- nounced at Monsieur de la Graverie’s. The marshal responded directly to Madame de la Graverie that the king, knowing of the serious accident which had confined Monsieur de la Graverie to his room, and recognizing his devotion to the monarchy, granted him permission to remain at home, being assured that if he were not present upon this trying occasion, it would be due to the injury which had been received in his Majesty’s service. “Thank you, monsieur,” replied Mathilde to the aide-de-camp; “say to Monsieur le Maréchal that Mon- sieur de la Graverie will be at the palace in one hour.” Dieudonné stared. The aide-de-camp, amazed at this heroine, saluted her admiringly, and withdrew. Mathilde handed the letter to Dieudonné. “But,” said he, “the king has given me leave, it seems to me.” 68 BLACK. “Yes,” replied Mathilde, “but it is a favor that a gentleman cannot accept. You must accompany the king in his retreat as far as the boundaries of France if you can possibly cling to your horse.” Monsieur de la Graverie was a man of correct ideas. “You are right, Mathilde,” was his reply. Then, with a voice such as Cesar might have used for the same command, he issued the order: “My armor, and my war-horse! ” An hour later, the Chevalier de la Graverie was at the Tuileries. The king set off at midnight. On arriving at Ypres, the king saw and recognized him; the chevalier was the third left to him. The king produced three crosses of the order of Saint Louis, and with his own hands attached them to the uniforms of the faithful three. He then dismissed and sent them back into France, assuring them that he hoped soon to meet them there. The chevalier had made almost a hundred leagues on horseback; he had had enough of it. He sold his horse at half his value, took the diligence, and returned to Paris. It is impossible to convey to the reader any idea of the majesty of the gesture with which he ONL the cross of Saint Louis to Mathilde. Mathilde was radiant. Dieudonné asked for news of his brother. The baron had at last set off, on the seventeenth. Only, he had set off for Belgium, not wishing to remain at Paris, com- promised as he was by the bellicose disposition that he had imprudently manifested. THE CHEVALIER FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES, 69 VIII. IN WHICH THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES. THE events following the return from the Island of Elba are well known. Dieudonné, upon returning to his apartments in the Rue de l Université, hung his cross of Saint Louis over the head of his wife’s bed in acknowledgment of the fact that he owed it to her. Dieudonné had no cause for uneasiness during the Hundred Days. He was the happiest man in the world. He was a Knight of Saint Louis, and he was not a Musketeer! The second Restoration came about; the baron re- turned in the train of the Bourbons, and reinstalled himself in his apartments in the Rue de Varennes. Nevertheless, he did not visit his brother. He regarded it asa great injustice that Dieudonné had been decorated, and that he had not. As a result of the Chevalier de la Ganens s no longer having a go-between, he arranged his own affairs directly with the king. He succeeded in exchanging his Mus- keteer’s sabre for the wand of a Master of Ceremonies, — an exchange that afforded him exquisite joy, the latter encumbrance, wholly civil and pacific, harmonizing with his tastes much better than the former had done. But, once disembarrassed of his own uniform, it happened that, by an anomaly sufficiently common 70 : BLACK. among men of his temperament, the chevalier eagerly sought the society of those who wore it. He seemed to have undertaken the task of proving to all the world that his head also had worn the blessed plume, by which he had been so inconvenienced when he had the right to wear it. And so, when he was on duty at the Tuileries at dinner, he would place himself by choice among the officers of the military household, and treat them as comrades. One day he made the acquaintance of a captain of the mounted Grenadiers, who, in accordance with the law of contrasts, pleased him at first sight. The captain was much older than Monsieur de la Graverie, who, at this time had attained his twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth year, while but a few months would elapse before the officer would be placed by law on the retired list. His hair was gray, and premature wrinkles fur- rowed his brow. But in spirit, in heart, and in charac- ter Monsieur Dumesnil — which was the captain’s name — was no more than twenty years old; it was remarked that there was not in the whole guard a sub-lieutenant that could vie with him in gayety, caprice, or recklessness. In all athletic exercises, so neglected by Monsieur de la Graverie, or rather by the old canonesses who had educated him, Captain Dumesnil was possessed of the highest skill. As to his courage, it was proverbial in the army. These qualities profoundly impressed the chevalier, for the very reason that he did not possess them. He immediately decided that such a friend would be very desirable in a house somewhat dull, like his own, he hoped that he would amuse Mathilde, who became less and less responsive in ¢éte-d-téte ; he calculated upon reaping the benefit of the good-humor that could not fail THE CHEVALIER FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 71 to inspire his wife when listening to the witty sallies of his new acquaintance. Consequently, he at once made him all the overtures that a lover would make to the woman of his choice. At the end of a few hours the friend- ship had gained such headway that Monsieur Dumesnil had accepted an invitation to dine at the chevalier’s on the morrow, and that, too, without great urging. Besides, we must add in passing, the captain was a man that would sit down to a cover with the devil, if sure that the roast would not be too badly burned. Without suspecting it, Monsieur de la Graverie was at that very moment in one of the most critical periods of his conjugal hfe. For a long time Madame de la Graverie had suffered from ennwt. Hnnui, with women of Mathilde’s temperament, is the chill that precedes a fever. The year following the second Restoration had been very gay ; the young wife found herself sated with amusements, tired of balls, surfeited with commonplace coquetry. She no longer loved pleasure for pleasure’s sake; she felt the emptiness of her own heart; and Madame de la Graverie was like Nature, in that she abhorred a vacuum. Yet she continued the same, or nearly the same to her husband; habit and the influence of education had stereo- typed in her the careful and attentive housekeeper. Whatever might be the course of her thoughts, she testified no less affection for Dieudonné; but in reality, the chevalier’s melancholy tenderness irritated the deli- cacy of his wife’s nervous system, and the glances she had once cast at him as love-shafts began gradu- ally to become charged with the impatient aversion generally felt by women of her type for a husband obsti- nately bent upon giving not the slightest cause for com- plaint, and, consequently not the slightest ground for retaliation. (iv BLACK. Now, the very day on which Monsieur de la Graverie introduced his friend of the day before into his home, the baron, revisiting Dieudonné for the first time, presented to his sister-in-law a young heutenant of Hussars whom he commended to her favor in the highest terms. Verily, this young Hussar was one of the most charming officers to be found; he possessed a figure whose slenderness and suppleness were quite feminine, an elegant shape, a handsomely curled moustache, and a consequential air; he was, in short, an exquisite model for the advantageous exhibition in the sunlight of the gold braid of a jacket, or for sporting the sabretache with a swagger. The influence of an attractive figure and a jovial humor on the health and spirits of a pretty woman has never been sufficiently accounted for, nor will it ever be accounted for. A visible improvement was manifest in the appearance of the mistress of the house from the happy day on which the leutenant of Hussars and the captain of Grenadiers took their places at the fireside of the Chevalier de la Graverie. The paleness which had temporarily bedimmed her complexion was lost; the bluish circles which had deadened the lustre of her eyes disappeared; she again became gay, and she seasoned her conjugal attentions with a smiling air that doubled their charm and their value. Their involuntary but visible success singularly attached to the pretty patient the two physicians in spite of them- selves. They were always at her side, and before a fortnight had rolled away, they had become not merely frequent, but daily guests at the hdtel de la Graverie. They were constantly seen in her company, walking or driving; they made their entrance together at balls and theatres, — so that as soon as Madame de la Graverie appeared, one could wager that Monsieur de la Graverie THE CHEVALIER FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES, 738 was coming behind her, and the attendant cavaliers behind Monsieur de la Graverie. It was the most extraordinary, perhaps, but also the most charming of households. It was not a ménage of two, like the ordinary household; it was not a ménage of three, such as may be met with at every step in Italy; no, it was a ménage of four, in which figured Monsieur, the friend of Monsieur, and the protégé of Madame, with equal privileges very elegantly and very loyally shared by all three, — each receiving with scrupu- lous exactitude what belonged to him of smiles, of affectionate thanks and grateful glances, all three acquir- ing in turn the right to offer an arm to the lovely Mathilde, or to carry her fan, her shawl, or her bouquet, by way of indemnity. The distributive justice of Madame de la Graverie was so perfect that not once did she create jealousy or dis- content. But, beyond contradiction, the most satisfied of the masculine trio, the most grateful, not only to Mathilde, but to each of the others, was Dieudonné, who was unable to contain his joy when he thought that he had found two new vents by which he could pour forth the superfluity of tenderness that, to the days of his isola- tion, overflowed from his heart. How did Madame de la Graverie manage to maintain such equability of temperaments and such self-abnegation in her little court? Itis, we openly confess, one of those woman’s secrets which we have never been able to pene- trate, in spite of long-continued and repeated effort. And, most extraordinary thing of all, the world did not speak ill of this strange aggregation. The young German matron appeared to be so open, such naiveté was exhibited even in her most compromising relations with the two officers, and in all things she was so perfectly natural, that a 74 BLACK, person would have been accused of possessing a very wicked soul had he dared to hint at the least suspicion. The Baron de la Graverie was the angel with the flaming sword who was to chase the happy trio from their Paradise. One afternoon Mathilde was slightly indisposed. Monsieur de Pontfarcy, the lieutenant of Hussars, was on duty; and so the Chevalier de la Graverie and his friend, the captain of Grenadiers, walked by themselves to the Champs-Elysées. Although the ranks of the usual quartette were con- siderably reduced, Monsieur de la Graverie appeared to be very joyous; he skipped rather than walked, and that too, notwithstanding an embonpoint quite respect- able, considering his age. The slightest occasion served to set him off into shouts of laughter, and he unceasingly rubbed his hands gently together; and, in obedience to the holy law of friendship, Captain Dumesnil shared in full degree his happy mood, During their promenade their path was crossed by a man who did not seem so wholly satisfied with destiny as they appeared to be. ‘That man was the Baron de la Graverie. He walked with mien so anxious, so sombre, and his hat was so completely crushed down over his eyes, that they touched without recognizing him. But he, feeling himself jostled, raised his head and recog: nized them. “ Par la mort Dieu! IT am glad to meet you, cheva- lier,” said the elder brother, seizing the younger one’s arm. “Indeed!” exclaimed the latter with a wry face at ane erip which the baron had given his arm. “Yes, I was on my way to your house.” ' Dumesnil shook his head; he had a presentiment of THE CHEVALIER FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 75 evil, But the chevalier quickly regained his joyous mood. “ Well, now, how strange!” he said; “TI had this very moment remarked to Dumesnil that I must go to my brother’s immediately and announce the happy news.” “The happy news?” echoed the baron, with a lugubrious smile. “Ah! you have happy news to communicate? ” (13 Wes.” “Indeed, the exchange will not be to your advantage, since I have, for my part, very disagreeable news to offer your” It was easy enough for so keen an observer as Dumes- nil to discover that the news which promised to be so disagreeable to the chevalier afforded the baron great satisfaction. Dumesnil shuddered; and as the chevalier’s arm was linked with the captain’s, he shuddered in sympathy, rather than from presentiment. “ Well, what is it, then?” murmured poor Dieudonné, turning pale, so terrified was he in advance by the flash of the bomb which the baron had shot athwart his happiness. “ Nothing at present.” “What! nothing at present?” “No; I will tell mo by and by, at my house, if you will go there with me.” Dumesnil perceived that the baron wished to speak pri- vately to his brother, as the baron had not concealed the fact that his information was disagreeable to hear, Du- mesnil preferred not to be present at the conversation. “Your pardon, Dieudonné,” said he, ‘but I am just reminded that I am due at my colonel’s.” And he extended a hand to the chevalier, while he saluted the baron with the other. But Dieudonné, menaced by unlooked-for misfortune, 76 BLACK. was not the man to face it alone; he replaced within his own the arm that the captain had just withdrawn. “Nonsense!” he exclaimed ; “ you declared this very morning that you were free for the whole day. You will remain, my discreet friend, and my brother will speak before you. ‘The deuce! you just now accepted half my joy, and the least you can do is to shoulder half my trouble.” “In fact,” said the baron, “I do not know why I should leave the gentleman out of a confidence in which he is interested as well as you.” Captain Dumesnil lifted his head like a charger at the clarion’s call, and his color heightened. “The devil take the old Jack-in-the-box! He has spoiled our day,” muttered he in Dieudonné’s ear. Then aloud, in a tone divided between menace and entreaty: “The baron has undoubtedly reflected well on what he is about to communicate,” said he; “ yet I shall permit myself to observe that confidences sometimes prove as disastrous to those who tell them as they are painful to those who listen.” “ Monsieur,” dryly responded the baron, “I know my obligations as the head of the house de la Graverie, and I alone must judge as to what my honor demands.” “ Mon Dieu! what does it all mean?” murmured the poor chevalier, shaking his head. “ Dumesnil seems to understand what my brother has to say, yet he has not spoken of it to me. Come, my dear baron, unburden yourself at once; this perplexity is more disagreeable, I am very certain, than anything you have to say.” “Follow me, then, to my house,” said the baron. And, returning through the Champs-Elysées, the friends walked at his side, and by way of the Pont de la Concorde and the Rue de Bourgogne they reached the Rue de THE CHEVALIER FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 77 Varennes and the baron’s residence. All three were so preoccupied that no one broke the silence of that long walk. Poor Dieudonné’s anxiety was redoubled when he saw that his brother was taking them into his most secluded room, and carefully closing the door. When he had taken these preliminary precautions to insure the secrecy of their conference, the baron solemnly drew a letter from his pocket, presenting it to his brother with his right hand while with his left he clasped the latter’s hand, and murmured with a profoundly sympathetic air, — “Poor brother! poor brother! unhappy chevalier! ” This exordium was so lugubrious that Dieudonné hesi- tated to take the paper. The momentary hesitation sufficed for Dumesnil to ‘east his eye upon it and to recognize the small, delicate writing. Before the chevalier had time to decide, the captain of the Grenadiers had seized the letter. “ Par le sang Dieu!” said the captain, “he shall not read that letter, Monsieur le Baron.” Then, recovering him- self, he seized Monsieur de la Graverie, the elder, by a buttonhole and drew him into a corner of the room. “T accept your reproaches, monsieur,” he said; “I ~ assume all the consequences of this affair. But I will not allow your poor brother’s happiness to be crushed out of him. There are men who must dream in order to exist ; think of it!” Then, still lower: “ In the name of Heaven, monsieur, let the poor lamb live! He is made of the best clay to be found on earth.” “No, monsieur, no,” answered the baron, elevating his voice; “the question of honor overrules all others in our family.” “ Well! well!” said the captain, as if turning the thing into pleasantry, “you will admit that it is with honor 78 BLACK, as with husband: safe if the matter is concealed, and scarcely hurt if it is known.” “But, monsieur, the culprit must be punished.” The captain seized the baron’s wrist. “And who the devil asks grace?” said he, with blazing eyes; “do you not understand that I am at your service, monsieur ? ” “No,” continued the baron, raising his voice higher and higher; “ Dieudonné must understand that his un- worthy wife, and his not less unworthy friend —” The captain became as pale as a corpse, and tried to stop the baron’s mouth with his hand. He was too late; the chevalier had heard. “My wife!” cried he. “ Mathilde! she has deceived me, she? Never! it is impossible! ” “Well!” muttered the captain, “he has attained his end, the ruffian! ” And, shrugging his shoulders, he freed the baron and sat down in a corner of the room, lke a man that has done what he could to avert a catastrophe, but who is patiently resigned upon its overtaking him in spite of his efforts. , “Tmpossible! ” retorted the baron, paying no attention to the lamentable accent with which his brother had pronounced the word. “If you do not believe me, ask this gentleman to give you the letter of which he has taken possession in contempt of propriety and good- breeding, and you will have the proof of your dishonor.” Captain Dumesnil, seated in his corner, seemed impassive on the surface; but he bit his moustache like a man who is not so calm as he would seem. Meanwhile Dieudonné became paler and paler; the few words that escaped from his lips explained that increasing pallor. THE CHEVALIER FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 79 “My dishonor!” repeated he; “my dishonor! but then, brother, my child —” The baron laughed aloud. “'The child,” continued the chevalier, as if he had not heard his brother’s derisive laughter, “the child that I have dreamed of when awake, thought of in my sleep, that I already saw in its little bed, with its little pink and white angelic form; the child whose sweet prattle already filled my ears,—that child does not belong to me? Oh, my God! my God!” continued he, in a voice broken with sobs, “I lose wife and child at a blow !” The captain rose as if to go and take the chevalier in his arms; but he reseated himself immediately, and, instead of biting his moustache, he bit his lips. But, as if blind to his brother’s grief and the captain’s rage, the baron brutally answered : — “You do; for the letter, placed in my hands by acci- dent, which I wished to convey to you, and of which Captain Dumesnil has possessed himself, contains your wife’s felicitations to her lover upon her prospective maternity.” Poor Dieudonné made no reply: he had fallen upon his knees, concealing his face in his hands, while his form was shaken by convulsive sobs. Captain Dumesnil could endure the scene no longer. He arose, and going directly to the baron, said in a low tone ;: — “Monsieur, just now, as you very well know, having done everything to bring it about, I am not my own man; but when your brother has received the satisfaction that is justly his due, I shall be able to qualify your conduct as it deserves; and believe me, I shall not fail to do so.” 80 BLACK. As he finished speaking the officer bowed and turned towards the door. “You are going, monsieur?” asked the baron. “T confess,” replied the captain, “my strength is not equal to this dreadful scene.” “ Away with you, then; I have no objection! But return me Madame de la Graverie’s letter.” “ And why, pray, should I return it to you?” haugh- tily demanded the captain, with knitted brows. “ For the very simple reason that it is not addressed to you,” replied the baron. The captain leaned back against the wall; he had almost fallen. In fact, the captain, as the reader must have understood, had supposed up to this point that the baron’s indictment assigned him a more active réle in the affair than was the case. He quickly drew the letter from the pocket in which he had placed it, unfolded it, and glanced at the first lines. From the gesture that escaped him, from the expres- sion of his face, the baron divined everything. “You, too!” cried he, rubbing his hands together. “You too! well, then, she is three times as bad as I thought her!” “Yes, monsieur, I, too,” said the captain, lowering his voice. | cs Well? 7 a “Yes, I, too, am a wretch as base as she to have be- trayed this tender, honorable, loyal heart; but tell him when he recovers —” But Dieudonné, who had meanwhile emerged from his stupor, interrupted him. | “Dumesnil! ” cried he, “ Dumesnil, do not leave me, my friend; remember I have nothing in the world but your friendship to aid and comfort me now.” THE CHEVALIER FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 81 The captain, restrained by remorse, hesitated. “Oh, my God! my God!” cried the poor chevalier, wringing his hands; “is friendship, then, merely a name, like love?” The baron turned to advance towards his brother. That movement decided the captain. He seized the elder brother’s arm with a grip that made the latter flinch with pain, and, glaring into his eyes, said in an im- perious undertone, — * Not a word more, monsieur! This is the first time that a fault of this kind has caused me a regret; but the remorse occasioned by this one is so keen that I doubt, I swear, whether my whole life will be enough to atone for it; yet I shall attempt it, monsieur, by devoting myself to your brother, and giving him the care and tenderness without which he cannot live. Be silent then, monsieur; it is not in your power, nor in mine, to annihilate the past, but torture that poor heart no longer.” “ Anything will satisfy me, monsieur,” sullenly replied the baron, “that will prevent my brother’s running after a wife that has disgraced him, and will induce him to repudiate a child that would appropriate the fortune belonging to others.” “Oh, say belonging to you! that will be more frank ; and then from a personal standpoint your conduct will, perhaps, : be excusable,” replied the captain, casting on the baron a look of contempt. “Be that as it may; but Madame de la Graverie’s letter to Monsieur de Pont- farcy will quite suffice to obtain in the courts what you desire.” “Then return me the letter.” Dumesnil reflected a moment. Then, — “T will do so, but on one condition.” “ A condition ? ” ; 6 82 BLACK. “You may take it, or leave it, monsieur,” said the captain, with an impatient stamp of his foot; “so make haste. Your word, or I tear up the letter.” “ But, monsicur! 2’ The captain made a gesture as if to tear the paper. “Monsieur, on my honor as a gentleman — ” “ A gentleman!” muttered Dumesnil, with an accent of sovereign contempt; “ very well, yes, on your honor as a gentleman — since you are yet a gentleman, it appears, though engaged in such a business — swear that you will never tell your brother that he has been deceived at the same time by the two men he has called his friends; swear, in short, that you will never interfere with the explation to which I wish to devote the rest of my life.” “T swear it, monsieur,” said the baron, devouring the precious letter with his eyes. “That is well. And I rely so implicitly on your keeping your oath, that I will not say what I shall do if you break it.” And the captain gave the baron Mathilde’s letter to Monsieur de Pontfarcy. Then, approaching the cheva- lier, still crouching in grief, he said, — “Come, Dieudonné, get up and lean on me; we are men.” “Oh, thank you, thank you!” said the chevalier, rising with effort, and throwing himself into the captain’s arms; “you will not leave me, will you?” “No, no,” murmured the captain, caressing his friend as he might have caressed a child. “Oh, don’t you see,” continued the chevalier, in a voice broken by sobs, “I am afraid I shall go mad, I am so terrified by the future that opens before me, so sure that comparison of the past with the present will render life unbearable.” THE CHEVALIER FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 83 “Come,” said the baron, “ have courage! The best of women is not worth half the tears you have shed in the last quarter of an hour, — still less an unfaithful one.” “Oh, you don’t know, you don’t know,” interrupted poor Dieudonné, “what that woman was to me! You have ambition to occupy you; you pursue honors; pleas- ures and the gossip of the two chambers have place in your heart; you are concerned about the promotions, the distinctions, that your rivals obtain. As for me, I had only her; she was my whole life, my whole joy, my whole ambition on earth. The words that fell from her _lips were the only ones that had any value for me; and now that I feel everything suddenly fallen from under my feet, it seems as if I were about to enter a desert without water, without sun, and without light, where the time will no longer be marked save by my grief! Oh, my God! my God!” “Bah!” exclaimed the baron, “ stuff and nonsense! ” “ Monsieur! ” warned the captain, almost threateningly. “Oh, you cannot prevent my telling my brother,” returned the baron, not losing sight of his inheritance, — “you cannot prevent my telling him that he owes it to the name he bears not to let it be disgraced; in ceasing to esteem a woman unworthy of you, you cease to love her.” “That is all sophistry, all wrong, brother!” cried the chevalier, with despair in his heart; “at thjs very mo- ment, look you, —at this very moment when her fault breaks my heart, when shame reddens my face, — yes, even now, I love her, I love her!” “Friend,” murmured the captain, “you must be a man, you must live.” “Live! for what, now? Ah, yes! to avenge myself, to kill her lover! ‘Yes, according to society’s code, he 84 BLACK. or I must die, because God has made a woman base and treacherous; and because, base and treacherous, she has forfeited her honor, a man’s death is necessary; and all for society, for honor, —as if society cared how my peace was destroyed; as if honor cared for my happiness or my unhappiness! But the world and honor care for one thing, forsooth; and that is blood. Little it matters whose is shed for the offence.” “ Are you afraid, brother?” demanded the baron. The chevalier regarded his brother with a hopeless expression. “I am afraid only of being the one who kills,” said he. And he pronounced these words with an animation and an energy that proved how truly he had spoken. Then, with an effort, and placing his hand on the captain’s shoulder, he said: — “Come, my poor Dumesnil, help me to my revenge, since I cannot leave my vengeance to God without being charged with cowardice.” And, turning to his brother, he continued: “ Baron, I pledge you my honor that to- morrow, at this hour, either Monsieur de Pontfarcy or I shall be dead. Is this all you exact as the representative of the family honor?” “No; for I know your weakness, brother. I demand a power of attorney to secure you a legal separation from your unworthy wife.” “ And the document, — you have it, doubtless, brother, all prepared, all drawn up ?” “Tt wants only your signature.” “T thought as much. Give me a pen, ink, and the document.” ae “ Here is what you ask, my dear Dieudonné,” said the baron, presenting the paper to his brother with one hand, and with the other a pen dipped in ink. THE CHEVALIER FORMS NEW ACQUAINTANCES. 85 The chevalier signed his name without uttering a word, without drawing a sigh. But the signature was so wavering as to be scarcely legible. “ Mille tonnerres/” ejaculated the captain, hurrying his friend away and casting a last look at the baron; “men have been hanged, and a goodly number, who have not so richly deserved it as that man!” 86 BLACK. IDS. A BROKEN HEART. Art the street door there was almost a struggle between the chevalier and his friend. The chevalier wished to turn to the left, the captain tried to lead him to the right. Dieudonné insisted on returning to his home, to re- proach Mathilde with her treachery and bid her a last adieu. The captain, on the contrary, in his friend’s interest, as well as in his own, had excellent reasons for preventing the interview. He accordingly employed all his eloquence to induce Dieudonné to relinquish his pro- ject; but it was with great difficulty that he prevailed on the chevalier to go with him to his own modest lodgings, instead of returning home. When his friend was once installed in the little room, Dumesnil divested himself of his uniform, put on a suit of black, and prepared to go out. The poor chevalier was so overcome with grief that he did not perceive his friend’s intention until the door was opened. He stretched out his arms as a child might have done. “Dumesnil,” cried he, “are you going to leave me alone ?” “ My poor friend,” said the captain, “have you already forgotten that you have to call a man to account, I will not say for your honor, but for his own ?” “Oh, I had forgotten it, I confess. Dumesnil! Du- mesnil! I think only of Mathilde.” A BROKEN HEART. 87 And again the chevalier burst into tears. “Weep, weep, my friend,” said the captain; “the blessed God, who doeth all things well, has supplied the hearts of good and feeble creatures with escape-valves through which to pour outa grief that would otherwise kill them. Weep! Oh, I shall not bid you keep back your tears.” “Well, go, my friend, go; I thank you for recalling me to my duty.” aele ati oil’ “T have one request.” “What is it?” “Try to hasten matters; if possible, have the meeting take place to-morrow morning.” “Rest easy, my friend,” said the captain, clasping the chevalier to his heart; “I shall be very sorry if all is not ended this evening.” And the chevalier was alone. Here let us pause to ask, very humbly, the reader’s pardon. We said, in the beginning, that this was to be unlike other stories. Here is the proof, All heroes of romance are handsome, tall, straight, well-formed, brave, intellectual, shrewd. They have beautiful hair, black or blond, large eyes, black or blue. They are endowed with a sensitiveness that sends the hand to the sword-hilt or pistol-butt at the least offence. In short, they are quick to respond, whether hatred challenges hatred, or love, love. Our hero possesses none of these characteristics: he is ugly rather than handsome, short rather than tall, fat rather than slender, more cowardly than brave, more naive than shrewd. His hair is neither black nor blond; it is yellowish. His eyes are neither black nor blue; they are green. The offence committed against him has 88 BLACK. been great, and yet, as already shown, he will fight only because society demands it. Finally, he is irresolute, and, instead of hating, he still loves her who has deceived him. It has for a long time appeared to us that humble natures have been disinherited of the right to love and suffer. It has seemed to us that it was not absolutely necessary to be as handsome as Adonis and as brave as Roland to have the right to the supreme passions of love and grief. And while searching the imagination for a character to endow with life, we chanced to encounter in the very heart of society exactly the man we sought. It was the poor Chevalier de la Graverie. He exemplified our theory, that, without being the typical hero either physically or morally, one can suffer all the human griefs expressed in these few words: he loved; he was deceived. And so, on being left alone, instead of posing as an Antony or a Werther, Dieudonné abandoned himself very simply, and naturally, to his despair. He walked the floor, lengthwise, crosswise, and diagonally, calling Mathilde, not ungrateful, perfidious, cruel, but by the sweetest and most endearing of the names he had been accustomed to give her; he reproached her as if she were able to hear him. In order to share her blame, he cast about for grounds of complaint against himself that might justify her treason. He dried his tears only to have to dry them a moment later. Ah, well, we confess it, here is a grief that has all our sympathy. The weakness of a man who displays the helplessness of an infant is heart-rending, in that, finding no consolation in itself, it does not seek it from others; its relief all depends on God. Not that such weakness has the faith that says: “The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord!” A BROKEN HEART. 89 but that it cries: “ What have I done that T should suffer so? My God! my God! have pity on me! ” Now, do you know what desire controlled this un- happy one, so cruelly betrayed by his wife? It was to see Mathilde once more, just once more. He would utter the reproaches that were stifling him. He would — Who knows? — she might be able to vindicate herself ! After a thousand doubts, a thousand misgivings, he seemed suddenly to reach a decision, and hastened to the door. But he found that his friend had locked it. He ran to the window and began to curse Dumesnil. It was a relief to have anything to curse that was not Mathilde. Suddenly it occurred to him that the concierge would come if he called from the window, and, having, doubt- less, a duplicate key to the room, she would open it for him. He raised the window and called. The court remained deserted. In the same ratio as difficulties multiplied in the way of the chevalier and his desire to see Mathilde, his desire increased. “Yes, yes, yes!” he cried aloud, “I must see her again, and I will!” Then he shouted, “ Mathilde! Mathilde! Dear Ma- thilde! ” And he sank, writhing, to the floor. Suddenly he arose and looked searchingly around. His eyes stopped at the bed: there was what he sought. He rushed at it like a tiger at his prey; he snatched off the clothes, tore them into strips, and began to knot the strips together. The man who, when ten years old, had called his aunt to lead him down a flight of stairs, who was seized with dizziness on mounting a horse,— this man, without any debate with himself, had resolved to descend from a window on the third floor by means of these torn strips. 90 BLACK. So, his task finished, he went toward the window, to reach which he must pass the door. There he stopped, essayed again to open it, but in vain. He pushed against it with all his strength; but the door was firm and resisted his efforts. “Come!” said he, “ we will see!” and then he tied one end of his rope to the window bar. Night had come, or the twilight, at least. He looked over, and recoiled; the height of the casement made his head swim. “I was dizzy because I looked,” he said; “Tf I don’t look, I shall not be dizzy.” He closed his eyes, bestrode the window-ledge, clutched the knotted rope with both hands, and began to descend. At the top ofthe first story, that is, when midway, the chevalier heard a rending of cloth above his head; then, suddenly, his.support gave way, and he fell with his whole weight from a‘height of fifteen feet. His rope had broken; either a knot had been badly tied, or the cloth, old, and torn in narrow strips, had not been strong enough to sustain a man’s weight. The chevalier’s first feeling was of joy at finding him- self on the ground. He had experienced only a violent shock of the whole body, but no local pain. He at- tempted to rise, but fell back. His left leg was broken three inches above the ankle. Nevertheless, he tried to walk; but he then felt such excruciating pain that he uttered a cry, although he had not cried out when falling. Then everything seemed to whirl about him; he sought the wall to lean against, but the wall whirled with every- thing else. He realized that he was losing his senses, once more pronounced the name of Mathilde, the last ray of reason, or, rather, of love, and fainted. At that name it seemed to him that a woman answered, advancing towards him, and that the woman was Mathilde. But his mind was already enshrouded in so A BROKEN HEART. 9] dense a cloud as to be unable to distinguish any object with certainty; the chevalier extended his arms towards the dear image, without knowing whether it was a dream or a reality. | The woman was, in truth, Mathilde, who, quite igno- rant of the day’s events, and finding that Dieudonné did not return, had waited until the twilight, and, tying a veil over her hat, had at first gone to Monsieur de Pontfarcy’s. Monsieur de Pontfarcy was absent. She then hastened to Monsieur Dumesnil’s. She had traversed the court to gain the second staircase, which led to the captain’s modest apartments, when she heard a cry, and then saw a man who staggered as if intoxicated, and who, finally, had fallen, invoking the name of Mathilde. Not till then had she recognized her husband. She threw herself down on her knees at his side, taking his hands in her own, erying, “ Dieudonné! dear Dieudonné! ” At that voice, which could have made him tremble in his tomb, Dieudonné opened his eyes, and an expression of unspeakable joy and happiness was depicted on his countenance. He endeavored to speak, but his voice failed, his eyes closed again, and Mathilde heard only a prolonged and painful sigh. At this juncture a third person came upon the scene. It was Captain Dumesnil. He saw Dieudonné in a swoon, Mathilde weeping, and a fragment of cloth hang- ing from the window. He comprehended all. “Ah, madame,” said he, “your presence alone was lacking to bring about his death also.” “How! His also?” demanded Mathilde. “ What do you mean?” “T mean that there will be two of them.” And the captain threw a pair of swords down upon the pavement of the court where they rebounded, with a 92 BLACK. clang. He then took Dieudonné in his arms as if he had been a child, and bore him up to his apartment. Mathilde followed, sobbing. In a swoon though he was, Dieudonné had a vague consciousness of the passing scene. He seemed to recog- nize the captain’s room; he was lying on the bed that he had robbed of its covering. He heard Dumesnil’s voice, stern and emphatic, rumbling in his ears; Mathilde’s, sweet and deprecating, alternated with it. She called the captain “ Charles” ! | Then it seemed to the wounded man that, in his delirium, he was witnessing a strange scene passing between his friend and his wife, during which he heard, or thought he heard, rather, that the captain too had betrayed him. The captain cursed her who had caused him to commit what he now regarded as a crime, and declared that he was about to consecrate himself, body and soul, to his victim, as some expiation of his fault. As for Mathilde, she was on her knees by his bed- side; she held him, clasped him, kissed his hands; asked forgiveness sometimes from him, sometimes from Du- mesnil, also confessing her guilt, and vowing to expiate it, for her part, by a life of austerity and penitence. Then the murmur of voices was extinguished by the dull rum- bling sound in his ears caused by the blood’s surging, a stormy flood, back to his heart, and the Chevalier de la Graverie completely lost consciousness. When he came to himself he found his leg bound in splints. He was in the captain’s room, and, by the glow of a lighted lamp on the table near the bed, he saw the captain seated at the foot. “ And Mathilde,” he asked, after gazing all about the room, “ where is she?” At this question the captain started violently in his A BROKEN HEART. 93 chair, “ Mathilde! Mathilde!” stammered he, “ why do you ask for Mathilde?” “Where has she gone? She was here just now.” If Dieudonné had at that moment scanned his friend’s honest face, he would have thought him about to faint in his turn, so pale had he grown. “ My friend,” said Dumesnil, “ you are delirious; your wife has never been here.” Dieudonné, his eyes blazing with fever, stared at Du- mesnil. “ But, I tell you, she was here just now, on her knees, kissing my hands and weeping.” The captain maintained his lie. “ You are mad!” said he; “ Madame de la Graverie is certainly at home, igno- rant of what has happened, and, consequently, she has had no reason to come here.” With a heavy groan, the chevalier fell back on his pillow. “ And yet I could have sworn that she was here but a little while ago, accusing herself and weeping; that she called you — called you —” A thought like a flash crossed the unhappy man’s brain. He raised himself almost threateningly. “What is your name?” he demanded of his friend. “Why, you know it very well, unless your delirium has returned,” answered Dumesnil. “But your first name?” The captain understood. “ Louis,” said he; “don’t you remember it?” “True,” responded Dieudonné,. In fact, it was the only Christian name by which he had known the captain, who was also named Charles Dumesnil. On reflecting that, in her anxiety as to his absence, his wife would at least have endeavored to learn the cause, the chevalier muttered sadly to himself, “ But if 94 BLACK. she is not here, where is she?” And then he added, in a tone so low that Dumesnil could scarcely hear, “ At Monsieur de Pontfarcy’s, undoubtedly.” And at that idea his wrath rose again. “ Ah,” said he, “ you know, Dumesnil, that I must either kill him, or he must kill me.” “ He will not kill you, and still less will you kill him,” responded the captain, in a hollow tone. “ And why not?” “ Because he is dead.” “Dead! and how ? ” “From a thrust given en quarte and received full in the breast.” “ And who killed him ? ” eva tan “You, Dumesnil! and by what right?” “By my right to prevent your going to certain death, my poor fellow. Your brother will wear mourning, perhaps, because you are still alive, but so much the worse for him!” “And you fought, you wretch! telling him that you fought for my sake, and because Mathilde had betrayed me!” “Oh, be tranquil, now; I engaged Monsieur de Pont- farcy in duel because he drank his absinthe pure, and I cannot endure people who have that dreadful habit.” The chevalier threw his arms about the captain’s neck, and embraced him impulsively, murmuring, “ Of course, I must have been-dreaming! ” But the captain, whom this exclamation occasioned new remorse, gently freed himself from the embrace, and went silently and sat down in a corner of the apartment. “Oh, Mathilde! Mathilde! ” murmured the chevalier. TRAVEL SHAPES THE CHARACTER OF YOUTH. 95 X. IN WHICH IT IS SEEN THAT TRAVEL SHAPES THE CHARACTER OF YOUTH. It was decided that the chevalier should remain, dur- ing his convalescence, with Captain Dumesnil. It is true, the captain had consulted only himself in arriving at this decision. He left the wounded man on the bed, and betook himself to the sofa. For a man who had made nearly all the campaigns of the Empire, it was not a very fatiguing bivouac. The chevalier did not sleep; all night he tossed about on the bed, stifling his sobs, but emitting audible sighs of despair. The next day Dumesnil sought to distract his mind: he talked of amusements, studies, new affections; but the chevalier responded only with Mathilde and his grief. Dumesnil wisely judged that time only could assuage Dieudonné’s grief, and that to render it supportable even, the unhappy man must be taken out of the country as soon as his condition would permit. For the sake of the task to which he had vowed to devote his life, the captain, who had reached the age of retirement before this, took the steps necessary for quit- ting the service and securing his pension. Hence, six weeks after the accident, and when his friend had begun to walk, the fracture having been a simple one, and the convalescence unimpeded, Dumesnil begged the cheva- lier to accompany him to Havre, where, he said, he had business, 96 BLACK. Arrived there, as this was Dieudonné’s first view of the sea, Dumesnil insisted on his visiting a packet ship. The chevalier followed unresistingly ; but, once on board, Dumesnil declared that he had paid their passage on the vessel, and that they would leave for America the next day, at six o’clock in the morning. The chevalier lis- tened with surprise, but made no objection to the plan. At Paris, one day, when his friend had left him alone, intentionally perhaps, the chevalier had returned secretly to the Rue de l Université, of a certainty to see Mathilde again, and, perhaps, to pardon her. He had learned from the concierge that, on the next day after he him- self had failed to return, Madame de la Graverie had gone away, and no one knew what had become of her. All the efforts made by Monsieur de la Graverie to learn the place of her retreat had ended in the conviction that she had left France. It was, then, only after the poor chevalier had become convinced that he could not exercise towards his wife the clemency of which he was ready to give her proof, that he had consented to follow his friend to Havre. Besides, if Mathilde had left France, perhaps she had gone by way of Havre; and at Havre, perhaps, by a happy chance, he might apc news of her. Yet, it must be said, the chevalier had somewhat ea his confidence in destiny, and counted but little on chance, especially on a happy chance. As to leaving France, he raised no objections, — Mathilde was no longer in France. And so he established himself in his cabin, without even asking to go ashore again. The next day, with American punctuality, the packet weighed anchor and was off. During the whole passage, the poor chevalier was sea- sick, with the result that, instead of thinking of Mathilde, TRAVEL SHAPES THE CHARACTER OF YOUTH. 97 he no longer thought of anything, which so pleased the captain that he was ready to say, like the prisoner tired of his cell, to whom the hour of torture was announced, — “Good! that will at least help to while away the time.” They arrived at New York. ‘The activity of the great commercial city, excursions into the suburbs, trips up the Hudson, and a visit to Niagara Falls caused several months to pass endurably. But in the midst of all this he experienced terrible shocks. From time to time the chevalier would see a woman whose face resembled Mathilde’s. Thereupon, dropping his friend’s arm, he would dart off like an arrow, and follow the lady until convinced of his error. His mis- take recognized, all strength would abandon -him, and, wherever he might be, he would sink down, whether upon a bench, or a curb, or even upon the ground, and there remain until his friend came and found him. For this reason, the captain resolved to abandon civiliza- tion and take him beyond the reach of such experiences. They followed the line of the Great Lakes to the Chicago River, crossed to the Mississippi, descended it to St. Louis, went up the Missouri as far as Fort Mandan, and there joined a band of hunters and trappers bound for the Pacific by way of the Yellowstone River and the Rocky Mountains. They descended the Colorado to the Gulf of California. This gave the chevalier a chance to see strange regions, and, above all, women whom he could not, from either face or figure, mistake for Madame de la Graverie. At that period California still belonged to Mexico, and, consequently, was yet a desert. The captain and his friend at last reached the military post which is to-day the theatre of San Francisco, and which at that time was mirrored almost in solitude in the waters of its bay. 7 98 BLACK. The chevalier had made all that long journey, some- times in a boat, sometimes on a mule, sometimes on horseback. His old timidity had disappeared, and, with- out having become a cavalier of the first rank, he had | attained to something like a mastery of the different mounts he had essayed. Moreover, his friend, profiting by the rage into which he was thrown by the incessant chattering of the birds which they encountered in flocks, and which disturbed his meditations, had placed a gun in his hands, and by degrees had famiharized him with the use of the weapon. The chevalier had not. become an accomplished marksman, but in the end, at thirty paces, with a perched bird, he was almost sure of his game. To vary the amusement, the captain often substituted a pistol for a gun, and ball for shot. Monsieur de la Graverie began by missing the first hundred birds that he aimed at; then he hit one, and missed fifty others; then he again killed one, and missed only twenty-five ; then twelve, then six. At last, he could drop three out of five. His skill with the pistol never surpassed that limit; but the captain, who brought down his bird at every shot, considered the progress made by his friend to be something wonderful, and expressed great satisfaction. Then, under the pretext that Monsieur de la Graverie was exhibiting a tendency towards corpulence, he was induced to try fencing. For this drill, which forced the chevalier to emerge from his usual apathy, the captain was obliged to exercise authority; but the chevalier was accustomed to obey like a child, and, from third rate with the gun, and fourth rate with the pistol, he became, unsuspectingly, sixth or seventh rate at fencing. All this was not so appalling as real combat; but, in truth, given the occasion, the chevalier could have TRAVEL SHAPES THE CHARACTER OF YOUTH. 99 defended himself, —a thing of which he had previously been incapable. But the captain cherished another scheme, whose audacity took a different direction. He had resolved to take advantage of the first vessel leaving for Tahiti, and pass a year with his friend in that para- dise of the Pacific Ocean, that gem of Polynesia. The opportunity presented itself. The chevalier went abroad without inquiring for what part of the world they were set- ting sail. In due season they disembarked at Papaete. Up to that time, the captain had not known the chevalier to pay the least attention to scenery. The Niagara Falls had indeed scarcely forced a moment’s attention; the sole mark of astonishment that he had given had been to stop his ears and say, — “Let us go; it is deafening.” He had descended the Mississippi and seen the triple- decked monsters passing by, resembling districts of a floating city; yet he had not raised his eyes to their summits. He had traversed virgin forests, and, lost in their midst, had not been troubled as to how he should find his way. He had strayed over the limitless prairies, and had not once questioned the horizon to learn if they were coming to the end. But, arriving at Papaete, he was impelled to exclaim: “ Well! here is a country that suits me! What is its name, Dumesnil? ” “Tt has many names,” answered the captain. “ Quiros, who first visited it, called it Sagittaria; Bougainville, true Frenchman of the eighteenth century, called it La Nouvelle Cythére; Cook, Otaheiti. You see that you have a choice of names.” The chevalier asked no more questions; this was much. After having made a safe passage of the channel hemmed in by reefs, — thanks to the native pilot who 100 BLACK. had come aboard, — anchor was cast in a roadstead as calm as a lake. A crowd of Kanaka boats thronged about, looking for passengers; these boats, like those of New Zealand, the Isle of Pines, and the Sandwich Islands, were made each from the trunk of a single tree. The chevalier, jumping into one, almost capsized it. “Well!” said he, without being otherwise disturbed, “a little more, and I should have been drowned.” “What! don’t you know how to swim?” asked Dumesnil. “No,” replied the chevalier, simply; “but you will teach me, will you not, Dumesnil? ” Dumesnil had instructed the chevalier in so many things that he did not at all suppose that the captain would refuse to teach him to swim, just as he had taught him to fence, ride, and shoot. “No,” answered Dumesnil, “I shall not teach you to swim.” “Oh!” exclaimed Dieudonné, in astonishment, “and why not?” “ Because women are the swimming-masters here.” The chevalier blushed. He considered the pleasantry to be in rather bad taste. “ Look, then,” bade Dumesnil. And as they were nearing the shore, and also as it was five o’clock in the afternoon, he pointed out a bevy of women sporting in the waters. The chevalier looked in the direction indicated by the captain, where he beheld a spectacle by which he was captivated in spite of himself. A dozen women, naked as the Nereids of antiquity, were swimming about in that blue sea, so clear that one can see, thirty or forty feet beneath the water, the marvellous submarine growth, which gradually forms TRAVEL SHAPES THE CHARACTER OF YOUTH. 101 the coral banks encircling the island. Picture to your- self gigantic madrepores shaped like huge sponges, every orifice being a dark and yawning abyss swarming with fish of all sizes and forms, and of every color, blue, red, yellow, and gold. Then, in the midst of all this, fearless of the depths, the rocks, or the sharks which are occasion- ally darting about, swift as arrows of burning steel, are women, nymphs knowing not even the name of shame, the language of the country having no word to express that wholly Christian virtue, — women, wearing no robe other than their own long hair; diving beneath the water that seems but a denser atmosphere, so lmpid it is; rolling over and over, and frolicking about in such fashion that one feels the sea to be their second element, and that they scarcely need rise to the surface of the water to breathe. The poor chevalier was in the dazed state of an intoxicated man. ‘The captain was obliged to support his steps when they had gained the land, and he went and sat down with him under a pandanus-tree in bloom. “Well, what do you think of the country, my dear Dieudonné?” asked Dumesnil. “Tt is paradise,” responded the chevalier. Then with a sigh, he added: “Oh, if Mathilde were here!” And his eyes were lost in the depths of the horizon with an expression of melancholy one would have supposed to be wholly foreign to that roly-poly figure. The captain left him to his reflections under the pan- danus, while he sought information from the natives; however sweet the air and caressing the breeze in the bay of Papaete, the captain did not intend to sleep under the opén sky. At length he returned to Dieudonné. It was six o’clock, that is to say, nightfall; the sun, like a red disk, was descending rapidly into the sea. At 102 BLACK. Tahiti, the day has just twelve hours, and the night twelve; at whatever time of year it may be, the sun rises at six in the morning and sets at six in the evening. One can set his watch by the celestial horologe at these two periods of the day with as much accuracy as did the Parisians formerly by that of the Palais Royal. The captain touched Dieudonné’s shoulder, lightly. “Well?” demanded the chevalier. “Well, I am here,” said the captain. “What do you wish?” “Why, I wish to ask what you intend to do?” The chevalier stared at the captain in amazement. “ What I intend to do?” “ Certainly.” “Good God!” cried he, almost frightened, “must I do anything?” “In the matter of lodgings, yes; do you intend to stay here any length of time?” “ As long as you like.” “Do you wish to live like a European or like a native!” “Tt does not matter which.” “To lodge in a house, or in a hut?” “ As you like.” | “So be it; as I like. But you must not complain afterwards.” “Do I ever complain?” asked Dieudonné. “You! poor lamb of the Lord!” murmured the cap- tain to himself. Then, to the chevalier: “ Very well; stay here ten minutes longer and watch the sunset while I go and make arrangements about lodgings.” . Dieudonné nodded assent; he was at all times sad, but he now became sensible of a sort of physical well-being that he had not before experienced. TRAVEL SHAPES THE CHARACTER OF YOUTH. 103 The sun having disappeared in the sea, night came with almost magic swiftness. But what a night! It was not darkness, but absence of day. An atmosphere transparent as our most beautiful twilight; a sea in which every fish left a wake of fire; a sky where every star seemed to unfold like a rose or a yellow corn-flower. The captain returned to get Dieudonné. “Oh,” pleaded the latter, “let me stay and look at all these beautiful things a little longer! ” “Ah,” said the joyful captain, “then you can see, at last!” “Yes; it seems to me that I am only this evening beginning to live.” “ Yet come with me, and you shall see it all from your room.” “From the window ?” “No, through the walls. Come!” It was the first time that Dieudonné had not yielded to the first invitation. Together they took their way toward the house. Hereupon there was yet other evidence of improve- ment in-the chevalier’s condition, for, although he had entered many houses since leaving the captain’s apart- ments without paying the slightest attention to them, he observed this one. 7 That it was noticeable is true. At first sight, it seemed to be, not a human habitation, but a bird-cage, It was almost square, rounded at the extremities, a little longer than it was broad, and covered with pandanus- leaves overlapping like tiles. It might have been taken for a large arbor, such as we build against the walls of our gardens for ivies and twining vines. The roof was supported by posts. It was made with joists overlaid by mats having red and black designs; a mass of seaweed 104 BLACK. and a large piece of white canvas had been thrown down in one corner. They constituted the bed and bed-clothes. In the middle of the room a small table was drawn up, laden with fruit, milk, and bread. A sort of calabash, filled with cocoanut oil in which wicks were burning, provided the lamp. ‘Through the open sides were visi- ble sky and sea, and, as if floating in these two infinite realms, an infinitude of golden stars. “Well,” said Dumesnil to Dieudonné, “ you see there is nothing to interfere with your looking out.” “Yes, my friend; but —” “ But what?” “Tf nothing interferes with my looking out, neither does anything interfere with others’ looking in.” “Do you intend to do anything wicked?” demanded Dumesnil. “God forbid!” was the chevalier’s response. “Well, then, are you afraid of anything?” asked Dumesnil. “Now that you speak of it, what is there to be afraid of?” rejoined the chevalier. “ Absolutely nothing.” “ No serpents, no reptiles, no rats?” “There ’s not a harmful animal in the whole island! ” «¢ Ah!” murmured the chevalier, ‘‘ Mathilde! Mathilde!” “ Again! ” said Dumesnil. “No, my friend, no!” cried the chevalier; “but if she were here —” ¢¢ Well 2 ” “JT would never return to France.” The captain looked at the chevalier, and sighed in turn. But, whatever the resemblance between one sigh and another, the chevalier’s did not resemble the captain’s. The first was a sigh of grief; the second, of remorse. MAHOUNIL. 105 xOE MAHOUNI. Tue chevalier sat down to the table, ate a guava, two or three bananas, and a fruit as red as a strawberry and as large as a pippin, whose name he did not know. Then, in place of bread, he broke manioc-root into a cup of cocoanut milk; after which, on being questioned by his friend, — the chevalier spoke only when addressed, —he declared that he had never dined so well in his life. After supper, it was with great difficulty that the captain induced him to remove his clothing to go to bed. The open walls gave the alarm to his modesty. Before he would yield, Dumesnil was obliged to assure him that everybody was in bed, in Papaete, by ten o’clock. But, altnough the captain affirmed that, in this Polynesian Eden, people lay naked, finding supreme enjoyment in exposing the flesh to the velvety night-breeze, he would not leave off his nether garments. When the captain had seen him in bed, according to his custom for three years, he withdrew to his own quarters, a second apartment in the hut. There were two other rooms, which were occupied by the Tahitian family from whom the captain had rented his, and who had instantly vacated these according to agreement. The chevalier was ignorant of this detail; he never asked questions concerning anything, and the partition separat- ing him from his hosts being quite close, he had not even 106 BLACK. thought of inquiring as to what was on the other side of it. fe What attracted the chevalier’s eye, when anything attracted it, was the grand spectacle of Nature, which seemed made to serve as a setting for profound sentiment. And yet, as we have seen, only a few hours had elapsed since poor Dieudonné had remembered that he possessed eyes. He lay down, then, and, although his mind wan- dered over scenes of the past, his eyes looked out through the openings of the hut upon that beautiful sky, that azure sea. A few steps from the hut a bird sang, invisible in the shrubbery; it was the bulbul of Oceanica, the love bird, the marvellous tow, which wakes only when all else sleeps, which sings only when all else is silent. The chevalier, leaning on his elbow, his face close to one of the openings in the hut, looked and listened, overwhelmed by an indefinable atmosphere of melancholy and yet of well-being; one would have said that the calm of that night, the clearness of the sky, the harmony of song, had materialized and dissolved into an air-bath, de- signed by the supreme Providence to refresh the wearied frame and expand the suffering heart. It seemed to the chevalier that he was breathing freely for the first time in three years. Suddenly he thought he heard the light step of a child brushing the herbage, and, in the transparent half-light, appeared the charming figure of a young girl of fourteen or fifteen years, having for her only garment her long hair, and for sole ornament two magnificent blossoms of a species of lotus, white and red, that floats on the streams, and of which the young Tahitian girls make their favorite ornaments, putting them through the car- tilage of the ears. ‘The young girl lazily dragged a mat MAHOUNI. 107 behind her. Under an orange-tree, ten paces distant from the hut, opposite the bush where the tou?-sang, she spread her mat and dropped down upon it. The chevalier knew not whether he was waking or dreaming, whether he should keep his eyes open or should shut them. Never had statue more perfect left the sculptor’s hands ; but, instead of being a pale Carrara or Parian marble, she seemed a Florentine bronze. For a little while she amused herself listening to the tow?’s song, occasionally jarring with her shoulder the orange-tree against which she leaned, and bringing down upon herself a shower of fragrant snowy bloom. Then, with no cover other than the long hair with which she was, for that matter, almost completely veiled, she sank down by degrees, and slept, her head under her arm, lke a bird’s under its wing. The chevalier was much longer in going to sleep, and he succeeded at last only by turning away from the wall, and opposing the name of Mathilde as a buckler against what he had seen. The next morning, the captain, entering his friend’s room, found him not only awake, but up, although it was hardly six o’clock. The chevalier complained of having slept badly. Dumesnil proposed that he should refresh himself by a walk, to which the chevalier agreed. Just as they were about to start, the door of the partition opened, and a young girl appeared. She came to ask if they needed anything. Dieudonné recognized the beautiful sleeper of the night before, and blushed to his ears. However, she wore her day costume. We know what her night costume had been. Her dress was a long, white gown, quite scant, opening in front, and not fastened at the throat; a piece of dark-blue foulard, 108 BLACK. with red and yellow flowers, was wound around her hips over the gown. Arms, feet, and legs were bare. Still blushing, the chevalier studied her more closely than he had dared to do the night before. She was, as we have said, a girl of fourteen; yet in Tahiti a girl of fourteen isa woman. Like all Tahitian women, she was small of stature, but admirably formed; her skin was tinted a most beautiful copper-color; she had long hair, as already said, but silky and black as a raven’s wing; her eyes were very full and velvety, and shaded by long black lashes; her nostrils were wide and dilating, like those of an Indian accustomed to scenting danger, pleasure, and love; the cheek-bones were salient; the nose was a little flattened; the lips were full and sensual, the teeth white as pearls, the hands small, slender, and delicate, and her form was as flexible as a reed. The captain thanked the young Tahitienne, informed his friend that she was the daughter of their hostess, and announced that they would not return until nine o’clock. The child seemed to understand very well what was said, and the captain, having spoken to her, seemed to wait for his friend to do the same. But Dieudonné gave no heed; he turned aside to avoid touching the girl’s silk scarf, and passed her with a bow that he might have bestowed upon a Parisienne on the boulevard des Capucines. After which he quickly bore away his friend. It was evident that the young girl inspired him with a species of terror. The captain was not surprised; he knew the chevalier’s shyness with respect to women, but he had not expected ‘his friend to treat a Tahitienne exactly as if she were a lady. So, indicating the young girl, who, with down- cast look, was watching their departure, he demanded: “Why did you not speak to Mahouni? She is hurt.” MAHOUNI. 109 “Ts her name Mahouni?” inquired the chevalier. “Yes, a pretty name, is it not?” Dieudonné made no reply. “Do you object to that young girl? Let us change our hut,” said the captain. “No! no!” quickly responded Dieudonné. And they continued their way. Dumesnil, like another Tarquin, struck off the heads of the plants which were too high, while his bamboo whistled through the air. Dieudonné followed him in silence. It is true that silence was so habitual with the chevalier that if the captain remarked it, he was in no wise disturbed by it. That first walk sufficed to reveal to the friends that they had reached a country marvellous as to vegetation, at least. The town presented an aspect which was at once prim-. itive and charming. Capital, as it had the honor to be, it was in appearance an immense village rather than a city, each house having its own garden under the trees, in whose shade it seemed swallowed up. ‘Then, as they neared the outskirts, foot-paths began to take the place of streets, and there came a succession of bowers, of trees most beautiful in form, of choicest flowers and most abundant fruits; there were walks gravelled with fine sand and arched over with plantain, cocoanut-palms, guava-trees, paw-paws, orange and citron trees, and the pandanus; above all these rose the iron-tree, with its red wood, and its branches resembling giant asparagus gone to seed. Then, too, a perfumed air, birds of a thousand hues, and the charming echoes of-women’s voices and of birds’ circulating through the trees, made this island of flowers and fragrance seem a fairy realm. At the end of an hour’s sauntering through the wind- ing walks of a sort of English park, the captain stopped ; 110 BLACK. a chattering, for which he could not account, was heard close by. He left the path, went about fifty paces through the trees, parted the leaves as he might have lifted a curtain, and stood motionless, mute, surprised. Dieudonné followed him with his eyes; when he was with the captain, he obeyed him as the body obeys the mind, he followed him as the shadow follows the body. The captain, without speaking, made a sign for Dieu- donné to approach. Dieudonné advanced mechanically, and looked absently. But his abstraction did not endure long; the scene before his eyes must have won attention from Destouches’ Absent-minded Man himself. The shrubbery through which they were gazing bor- dered the river. In the water, forming a circle, as ina — salon, were seated or reclining some thirty women, entirely naked. As the river had less than two feet of depth, those who were seated had but the lower part of the body covered by water, so limpid as to be no veil, while the others, who were reclining, had only the head above water. All had flowing hair; all inhaled volup- tuously the morning air while fashioning wreaths, ear- sprays, and necklaces of flowers. Water-lilies, China roses, and gardenias contributed chiefly toward the deco- rations. As if these wonderful creatures comprehend that they are themselves but human blossoms, their great passion is for flowers, their inanimate sisters; born amidst flowers, they live with them, and are buried beneath them. While putting the wreaths on their heads, twining necklaces about their necks, and slipping the sprays into their ears, they chattered and prattled and babbled, like a flock of fresh-water birds settled down on a lake, twittering and cackling in rivalry of one another. MAHOUNI. ue “There she is!” ejaculated the chevalier, pointing with his finger. “Whot” asked the captain. The chevalier blushed; he had recognized the sleeping beauty of the night before, the charming young hostess of the morning. He forgot that he had said nothing to the captain of the vision he had seen, and pointed toward the beautiful Mahouni. The captain, who had not the same reason as the chevalier for remarking her, repeated his question. “Who?” he asked, the second time. “ No one,” said the chevalier, falling back. One would have said that the chevalier’s retreat was a signal for the séance to end. In an instant the thirty bathers were on their feet. They ascended a little grassy knoll where their garments were strewn about, letting the water trickle a moment down their beautiful bodies as down so many bronze statues; then the water dried gradually, the drops became more rare, and one could have counted the pearls that rolled from brow to cheek, and from cheek to bosom; at last, each one wrung out her hair like a Venus Astarte leaving the sea, put on her gown, bound the scarf. about her hips, and idly loitered along the path to her home. The captain observed to his friend that it was their breakfast hour; he lighted a cigar, instinctively invited Dieudonné to have one, an invitation which Dieudonné refused (the canonesses among whom he had been reared held tobacco in abhorrence), and they resumed the way to the hut. Whether by chance, or by a habit of orientation, the captain took the shortest route, so that on the way they overtook the beautiful Mahouni, who had herself from indifference chosen the longest. Liga BLACK. Upon seeing the two friends, she waited at one side of the path, with cambering hip, in one of those attitudes that women take when alone, and that an artist can never obtain from his model. ‘Then, being fond of the luxury of a cigar, so despised by Dieudonné, she said to the captain, — “ Ma ava ava iti,” which, in the Tahitian language, signified, “ Give me a cigar, dear.” The captain did not understand her words, but, as she executed the pantomine of inhaling and exhaling smoke, he understood its significance. He took a cigar from his pocket and gave it to her. “ Nar, dar,” said she, pushing away the fresh cigar, and pointing to the one burning in the captain’s mouth. Dumesnil understood that the capricious child wished the lighted cigar. He gave it to her. The Tahitienne quickly drew two whiffs, which she quickly expelled. Then she drew a third, making it as full as possible. After that, she coquettishly bowed to the officer, and went on, with her head thrown back and making rings with the smoke she carried in her mouth, emitting it vertically into the air. All this was accom- panied with that movement of the hips whose secret the captain had thought until then only Spanish women possessed. Dumesnil cast a side glance toward his friend, who walked along with lowered eyes, and softly murmured a name. That name was Mathilde’s. But Dumesnil re- marked with much satisfaction that Dieudonné now whispered low the name that he had once cried aloud. When she had emitted her last puff of smoke, the young girl detached her sash from her hips, stretched it above her head at arm’s-length, and disappeared around , MAHOUNI. a es, the corner of a citron grove. One would have said that a butterfly had flitted away. On reaching the hut, the two friends found their ele spread. It held, as on the preceding evening, a tray of bread-fruit, a root of manioc roasted in the ashes, fruit of all kinds, and milk and butter. No one was in sight; they could have fancied the table to have been set by the hands of the fairies. But the breakfast hour of their hostess seemed to be -the same as that of her guests; for Dieudonné, who was so seated as to command a view through the side of the hut, saw the young girl reach up, on tiptoe, to take down a little basket suspended from a branch of a gardenia, and then, sitting down with her back against the trunk of a tree, she proceeded to take her breakfast out of it. The breakfast consisted of half a dozen figs, a section of fruit resembling a melon, a bit of fish wrapped in a banana-leaf and cooked in the ashes, and a slice of bread- fruit. The chevalier forgot to eat while watching Mahouni. Dumesnil noticed his friend’s distraction; he turned his head and saw the young girl breakfasting quite uncon- scious of them. “Ah,” said the captain, “you are watching our hostess.” The chevalier blushed. “ Yes,” he assented. “ Shall I tell her to come and breakfast with us?” “Oh, no, no! ” said the chevalier; “I was only think- ing how fresh and cool it is under the trees.” “ Shall we go and breakfast with her?” “No indeed, no indeed!” replied the chevalier, “ we are comfortable here ; but let us change places, the sun hurts my eyes.” The captain shook his head. It was evident that he 8 c¢ 114 BLACK. knew what luminary had dazzled the chevalier. He said no more, however, and they exchanged places. After breakfast the chevalier inquired, “ What. are we going to do?” “Oh,” replied the captain, “ what every one does here after breakfast, — take a nap.” “Ah, yes,” assented the chevalier; “in fact I slept so badly last night that I am quite upset.” “A nap will refresh you.” “T think so.” And they both went to seek a suitable place, a siesta in ‘the open air being much more agreeable than in the huts, however well ventilated they may be. But the chevalier did not wish to be disturbed during his nap. The captain suggested the garden as being a suitable place, and thither they bent their steps. The chevalier halted at a soft bed of turf shaded by a gardenia, whose branches, bending almost to the ground, formed a perfect tent. A spring of water, cool and pure, issued forth from the roots of the gardenia, ren- dering the turf that had attracted the chevalier somewhat humid. | Dumesnil, more concerned about material things than his friend, had taken the precaution to bring a mat, which he stretched out upon the dewy grass. “Stay here, if this suits you,” said he; “I will find a~ place as well shaded where the grass is drier.” Dieudonné seldom replied when his friend had decided upon a plan; he spread out the mat, upon which four persons could have lain, searched around for projecting pebbles that might cause him discomfort, and, only then discovering the size of the mat, he turned to observe to. the captain that it seemed large enough for two. But the captain had disappeared. ‘The chevalier there- MAHOUNI. 115 fore concluded to monopolize the mat. He took off his redingote, rolled it up as a pillow for his head, watched for a while the sun’s unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the branches of the gardenia, followed with languid eyes the evolutions of two birds that seemed carved from very sapphire, shut his eyes, opened them, shut them again, gave a sigh, and was asleep. 116 BLACK. vue HOW THE CHEVALIER DE LA GRAVERIE LEARNED TO SWIM. SLEEP was no very safe refuge against the waking dreams by which the chevalier had been visited since the previous night. In fact, his sleep was very much disturbed. At first, he dreamed of the beautiful swimmers of the preceding day, — only, like the sirens of Cape Circe, they terminated in fish, and each held in her hand a lyre, or an instrument of some kind, as an accompaniment for her voice, ravishingly sweet and eloquent of love; but the chevalier, brought-up on the mythological traditions handed down to the eighteenth century, knowing the danger of such a concert, turned away his head, and, like Ulysses, stopped his ears. Then he found himself on land, — where, he knew not; doubtless it was at Thebes or Memphis, for, on the right and the left, all along his way, crouching on marble pedestals, he saw those mon- sters having a lion’s body and the head and breast of a woman, —the symbol of Neith, the goddess of Wisdom, which antiquity has christened with the name of Sphinx. But, instead of being marble like their pedestals, these Sphinxes were alive, although chained to their places; their eyes opened and shut, their breasts heaved and fell, _ and it seemed to the chevalier that they regarded him with looks of love. At last, one, with an effort, raised a paw and extended it toward the chevalier, who, to HOW THE CHEVALIER LEARNED TO SWIM. 117 avoid the touch, sprang aside; but a second sphinx raised a paw in her turn, seeing which, the others did the same thing. And yet it was evident that the Egyptian mon- sters— their gentle looks and agitated breasts vouched for it— had no ill intentions toward the chevalier. On the contrary. But the chevalier seemed to fear their good-will more than their ill-will. He sought how and whither to flee. It was not an easy thing to do; the pedestals began to move, as if impelled by a powerful machine, and he found himself completely surrounded. At this crisis, it seemed to the chevalier that a cloud swept near him, in form like those on which the sleeping princesses descend at the theatres. This cloud appeared to await merely the instant of the chevalier’s lying down upon it, to quit the earth. And as the eyes of the monsters became increasingly tender, and their bosoms throbbed more and more violently, while their claws almost touched the collar of his coat, he no longer hesi- tated; he reclined upon his cloud, and it flew away with him. But it then seemed to poor Dieudonné that the cloud was alive; that its fleece was only a robe of gauze; that the firm part on which he rested was a body; that the body, like that of Iris, Juno’s messenger, who traversed space like this cloud, was a young girl’s with rounded limbs, palpitating flesh, and kindling breath. She had saved the chevalier, but it was for herself; she was bearing him away, but it was to her grotto. She laid him down upon a bed of fine sand, but stationed herself at his side; and, asif her breath must transmit into his human breast the fire that burned in hers divine, the beautiful messenger seemed to breathe the fire of her heart upon his lips. The sensation was so vivid that the chevalier uttered 118 BLACK, a cry and awoke. It had been but half a dream. Mahouni was lying beside him, and it was the young Tahitienne’s breath by which he had been fanned. Like the chevalier, after her breakfast, Mahouni had sought a place in which to enjoy her siesta. She had discovered the chevalier asleep in the most charming nook of the garden, on a mat that was three times too large for one person: she, charming daughter of Nature, had seen no harm in borrowing from him, for an hour or two, that part of the mat for which he had no use. And upon that part of the mat she had gone to sleep as innocently as a child beside its mother. But, being herself agitated during her sleep, by some dream, no doubt, she had extended her arm, her chest had heaved, and her warm breath just then had touched the chevalier’s lips. She slept on. The chevaher gently removed from his shoulder the young girl’s arm which had been thrown across it, re- leasing himself with every precaution. He regained his feet with difficulty, and once upon them he began to run without knowing whither he went, abandoning the redingote that he had arranged as a cushion for his own head, and which at that moment was serving to pillow Mahounv’s. The chevalier escaped in the direction of the sea, nor did he stop until it became an obstacle in his path. It was almost one o’clock in the afternoon, which is as much as to say, the sun in its zenith possessed the sky, and consequently the earth. The chevalier reflected upon what sweet enjoyment, what soft delight must be experienced by swimmers, who, like fish or Tahitian women, can glide through the waves. Thereupon he regretted with almost a pang that he had not been taught that indispensable part of a man’s education. But, HOW THE CHEVALIER LEARNED TO SWIM. 119 without knowing how to swim, he could at least enjoy the coolness of the water. He had noticed in the broken outlines of the shore, natural grottos where the sea formed shallow bathing-pools. There were to be found the two delights he sought, shade and coolness. The chevalier resolved to enjoy them. He followed the beach, a difficult task even when the tide was low; and, as if he had held a fairy’s wand with which to con- jure up his desires, he found a grotto which seemed to have been fashioned with Calypso’s as a model. He looked around on all sides to assure himself that it was unoccupied. The grotto was quite deserted. The chevalier thought, therefore, that his modesty ran no risks; he removed, one after another, every article of dress, placed them all in a miniature grot beside the larger one, and, testing the depth with his feet, he passed under the arch described by the rock. At the deepest place, the chevalier found not more than three feet of water. This water, warm, but re- freshed, by the shade of the overhanging rock, afforded him one of the most delightful sensations that he had ever experienced. He asked himself how it was possible that a man should not have learned how to swim. But he reflected that, to learn to swim, one exhibits himself almost naked to other men; and Dieudonné, thanks to the canonesses, had been raised with such ideas of deli- cacy that he shuddered even at the thought of learning to swim with Dumesnil, who, nevertheless, was his best friend. Happily, he had discovered this grotto; he would not speak of it to any one, and he would spend a part of every day in it, the enjoyment he experienced being such that it could take the place of all recreation. It is evident that the mind itself demands no distrac- tion when the material comfort is such that a man’s entire 120 BLACK. physical and intellectual faculties are enlisted in the appre- ciation of it. The chevalier thus remained an hour or two, plunged into a state of beatitude that did not permit him even to measure the time. Suddenly he was snatched from this ecstatic condition by the sound of a heavy body which struck the water. He had vaguely seen something flash through the air, but it was impossible to say what. Ina moment, he saw a laughing face rising to the surface of the water. Jt was Mahouni’s. She uttered some words that seemed a call to her companions. The call was not in vain. A body traversed space, passing with the swiftness of lightning, and was buried in the water with the same sound that the chevalier had already heard. Then a third, then a fourth; then ten, then twenty. They were the same beautiful idlers whom the chevalier had seen in the morning taking their bath in the river, and who, to vary their pleasures, now took it in the sea. The heads all reappeared, one after the other; then these daughters of Amphitrite, as a Greek poet would have said, abandoned themselves to their favorite amuse- ment, that of swimming. Dieudonné saw them, but they did not see him, concealed as he was in the gloom of his grotto. Another hour passed away, which, we must confess, the chevalier did not find longer than the first. We must even add that, so closely was his attention devoted to the spectacle before his eyes, he failed to notice that the water had risen until it reached his armpits. It was simply the rising tide. | Dieudonné had not foreseen this phenomenon, and he experienced real anxiety only upon beholding his gar- ments floating off on the water. The grotto in which he HOW THE CHEVALIER LEARNED TO SWIM. hey had left them being lower than the other, the sea had reached it first, and had borne away the chevalier’s clothing. Seeing his apparel tossing on the waves, the chevalier was impelled to cry out; but that would reveal his presence to the women: he dared not do it. If only he could have had on his back the garments that went dancing away, he might not have hesitated to appear, being clothed, in their presence; for they did not appear - to be like goddesses who would punish him as Actzon was punished. But if he had been dressed, he would have had no reason for calling them. The chevalier deceived himself, for his situation was becoming serious. The water, which scarcely came up to his waist when he had entered the grotto, and which had gradually risen to his armpits, now reached his chin. By going back a few paces, he could gain a foot, indeed. But the chevalier began to comprehend the situation. The tide crept on; and, looking round him, he could see the height which it would attain in the cave. At full tide, there would be four feet of water above his head. The chevalier felt himself grow faint; a cold sweat damp- ened his brow. At this moment the swimmers gave a shout; they had just caught sight of his garments. As they did not understand the significance of the clothing, they came swimming toward the cave. But, instead of calling them to his aid, Dieudonné, filled with shame, withdrew from sight. One girl seized the vest, another the trousers, another the shirt, all appearing meanwhile to ask each other how the things got there. There was no mistake about it, they were the clothes of a European. The chevalier longed to claim his property; but when he had redeemed them what could he do with them, 122 BLACK. drenched as they were? They would be a parcel to save along with himself, and there was now no chance of escape even for himself. The water steadily rose. The chevalier knew that in ten minutes it would be above his head. One wave, advancing a little farther than the others, dashed its spray into his face. Involuntarily he cried out. The swimmers heard him. A second wave followed the first. Dieudonné thought of the captain, and, as if the latter could hear, he eried, “Help, Dumesnil! help!” The bathers did not understand the words, but there was in their utterance such an accent of distress that they knew them to come from one who was threatened by death. Evidently, the cry issued from the cave. One of them penetrated it, swimming between two waves. Suddenly, not more than two feet from him, the chevalier saw a head rise. It was Mahouni’s. She divined the chevalier’s predicament, from his disconcerted counte- nance. She gave a shout; her companions all hastened to the spot. . The chevalier found himself exactly in the situation of Virginia on the deck of the “ Saint-Geran, ” — saved, if she would accept the aid of the naked sailor who offered to carry her ashore; lost if she refused. The Tahitiennes made Dieudonné understand by their gestures, and tried to make him understand by their words, that he had only to lean on them and they would take him ashore. ‘Two of their number, side by side, formed a sort of raft on which he could support himself, with right hand and left resting on a shoulder of each. Let us do the chevalier the justice to say that he hesi- tated a moment, that for an instant he entertained the chaste intention of dying like the maid of the Isle of HOW THE CHEVALIER LEARNED TO SWIM. 123 France. But love for life prevailed. He closed his eyes, extended himself on his mobile raft, grasped the round shoulders of the lovely nymphs, and departed. Murmured he the name of Mathilde? We were not there, and we cannot tell. Three or four months after this event, of which he carefully refrained from speaking to the captain, Dieu- donné, while hunting sea-birds with his friend, impru- dently leaned over the side of the boat and fell into the sea. The captain uttered a cry of dismay, and quickly threw off his coat and vest to jump after Dieudonné. But just as he was about to accomplish this act of devotion, he saw, to his intense amazement, the chevalier rise to the sur- face of the sea, by the aid of a vigorous kick in the water, and thereupon strike out, not like a calegon rouge, but like an accomplished calecgon bleu. Dumesnil was so surprised at what he saw that he stood not only mute, but motionless. “Now, then,” said Dieudonné, “ give me your hand and help’ me into the boat.” Dumesnil put out his hand; the chevalier climbed in. “But where the devil did you learn to swim?” de- manded Dumesnil. Dieudonné reddened to his ears. “Ah, sly dog!” said the captain. Then, exploding with laughter, he added: “Come, agree with me that there are swimming-masters here equal to those of Deligny.” Dieudonné did not reply; but the ease with which he had extricated himself from peril proved that the captain was right. 124 BLACK. eT, MAN PROPOSES AND GOD DISPOSES. SEVERAL years sped away in this terrestrial paradise. Dieudonné was not wholly, but almost, cured of the profound melancholy which he had brought from France. All the credit of this mental quasi-cure should be accorded to the captain, as the honor of the physical cure belonged to the physician. It is true that the one, like the other, had employed the means placed in his hands by Nature; but these means were, on the whole, merely the remedies; the true healer was he who had directed their employment. The chevalier, then, appeared to be happy; if he still pronounced the name of Mathilde, it was only in a dream. When awake, his will was stronger, and if there was not a cure, there was at least a victory. Not once during all those years had the question arisen of the chevalier’s returning to France; and not a single time had he seemed in the least regretful of it, although he was not unmindful. It is true that during the whole period the captain, constantly on the watch for some- thing to divert his friend, studious of all that could give him pleasure, engaged in maintaining for him the httle attentions and services to which his education and his household had accustomed him, had never allowed his © brow to become overclouded without essaying to clear it by recounting some gay reminiscence of his youth; in short, Dumesnil had never rested a moment from the burden that remorse had imposed on him. MAN PROPOSES AND GOD DISPOSES. 1295 Considering the affectionate nature of the Chevalier de la Graverie, one can understand how dear, and above all how necessary, the friend to whom he owed this tran- quillity had become. The grown-up child always needed a mother, or, at the very least, a nurse. Thus Dieu- donné had wholly lost his habit of directing himself, physically and mentally; he lived, loved, enjoyed, for himself alone. But the captain was compelled to think for two. One evening, as they were walking together, the captain smoking, and the chevalier nibbling at bits of sugar, surrounded by the charming feminine population, which begged for Dieudonné’s fragments of sugar and Dumesnil’s cigar-ends, and an occasional sip of cognac to boot, giving in exchange fragrance, favor, and grace, the captain suddenly felt indisposed. Dumesnil, who had the health of a Hercules, paid no attention to his own discomfort, and wished to continue his walk; but in a short time his limbs failed him, beads of perspiration stood upon his brow, and he was so overcome by weak- ness that a seat was brought, while his friend supported him lest he should fall. There was no struggle; some disease had developed itself with an appalling intensity of symptoms. The chevalier raised a cry for a doctor. At that time, which was before the English invasion and the French protectorate, there was no garrison on the island, and, consequently, no physician except the indigenous charlatans who by the aid of herbs and incan- tations pretended to cure, and cured, perhaps (it is a hypothesis that admits of doubt, I grant), as well as the big-wigs, Mahouni, at all times disposed to render the chevalier every service in her power, volunteered to summon one of these empirics. But the chevalier, who had learned 126 BLACK. to speak the Tahitian language fluently, told her that he wished a European physician, a French one if pos- sible; and that, as there were vessels of all nations in the harbor, and the evening before, among others, a French ship had been signalled, she must go to this one for help. Mahouni repeated several times the French word for physician, achieved an intelligible pronunciation, and darting off, took a header into the sea above the grotto known to us, and swam like a gold-fish towards the ship whose tri-color proclaimed her to be French. The last line imphes that, during the chevalier’s stay at Tahiti, the revolution of 1850 had taken place; but the change which, had the chevalier remained in France, would in all probability have overthrown most things in his life, passed almost unnoticed by him at the dis- tance of three thousand five hundred leagues from Paris. Upon reaching the waters of the “ Dauphin,” the French brig, Mahouni raised her beautiful torso from the water, and shouted with all her might, yet in tones of wonderful sweetness, — “Un midissin ! un midissin !” In spite of the shght change the Tahitienne had made in the word, the captain understood perfectly what the swimmer demanded; he conjectured that Queen Pomare was ill, and ordered the ship’s physician, a young man of twenty-six or twenty-seven years, who was on his first voyage, to go ashore. When Mahouni saw a boat lowered with the doctor in the boat, she knew that she had been understood; and notwithstanding the efforts the young doctor made to induce her to return with him in the barge, she plunged, reappeared twenty paces away, dived again to appear yet farther away, and, well in advance of the boat and its MAN PROPOSES AND GOD DISPOSES. 127 four oarsmen, she regained Papaete. ‘Then, she ran at once to the house of the two friends, one of the nearest to the shore, and cried: — “ Midissin ! midissin /” After which she returned to the beach to guide the doctor. The boat had, in a manner, followed in the wake of the young swimmer, and it made the shore just as she herself returned to it. The young physician leaped ashore, followed his guide, and in a few moments was at the door of the hut. ‘The chevalier rushed out to him, and while presenting excuses for the inconvenience which he was caused, led him to the captain’s bedside. The doctor, seeing that he had to do with Frenchmen, now understood why the messenger had addressed _ herself to the “Dauphin” in preference to any other vessel. He therefore asked no questions, and at once advanced to the sick man. “What!” he exclaimed, “is it you, captain? ” The captain, already in a state of almost total collapse, opened his eyes, in turn recognized the doctor, smiled, extended his hand, and with an effort gasped, — “Yes, here I am, you see.” “Unfortunately, yes,” said the doctor; “ but this will be nothing. Courage! Tell me your symptoms.” The chevalier wished very much to ask how the doctor and the captain happened to know each other; but, observing that Dumesnil had begun to describe his symp- toms, he postponed the question. “Tt is difficult,” said the captain, “ to say how I feel. I was suddenly seized with a disagreeable sensation, fol- lowed by prostration which forced me to return to the house and go immediately to bed.” _“ And since lying down? ” 128 BLACK. “T have experienced starts and shivers, with alternat- ing chills and dry heat.” “ A glass of water,” demanded the doctor. Then, pre- senting it to the sick man, he commanded, “Try to drink it.” Dumesnil swallowed a few mouthfuls. “It is repulsive,” said he, “and I swallow with difficulty.” The doctor pressed two fingers a little below the stomach. The sick man uttered a cry. “You have not yet experienced nausea?” asked the doctor. “ Not yet,” replied the patient. The doctor looked around for paper and pen. ‘There was not, be it understood, paper or pen in the hut. Dumesnil asked for his travelling-case. It was brought. He wore the key to it suspended from his neck. The captain opened the travelling-case cautiously, and as if it contained things that must not be seen; he extracted from it paper, ink, and a pen, which he handed to the doctor, who wrote a few lines and asked that they should be sent to his boat. | It was an order to his assistant to take from the ship’s pharmacy and send to him, immediately, some laudanum, ether, mint essence, and ammonia. As Mahouni could not give the necessary instructions to the rowers, the chevalier charged himself with carrying the note to the barge. He gave a louis to the four sailors to hasten their speed, and they pushed off their boat, which glided immediately over the calm surface of the roadstead, like the long-legged spiders that skim along the surface of lakes. He then returned to the house. The doctor was absent; the chevalier inquired where he had gone, and was answered by the captain’s pointing MAN PROPOSES AND GOD DISPOSES. 129 towards the river. ‘The chevalier was anxious to speak with him alone. He started upon his track, and found him up to his knees in the water, gathering an herb that is called the river poléon. “ Ah, doctor! I was looking for you.” The doctor greeted the chevalier, and resumed his task, like a man who understands that he has been asked for news, and knows that he has nothing very good to com- municate. “ You were acquainted, then, with Captain Dumesnil?” insisted the chevalier. “T saw him yesterday for the first time, on board of the ‘Dauphin,’ ” replied the doctor. “On board of the ‘Dauphin!’ And what did he go aboard the ‘Dauphin’ for?” “He came to see if we had any news from France; and he was so determined to speak to one of our passen- gers that, although we notified him of the presence of yellow fever, he insisted on boarding us.” The physician’s words were as a thunderbolt to the chevalier. | “The yellow fever!” cried he. “Then Dumesnil has the yellow fever?” “T fear it,” replied the young man. “ But the yellow fever,” stammered Dieudonné, shiver- ing, “ people die of it!” “Tf you were the captain’s mother, or sister, or son, I should reply, ‘Sometimes!’ You are a man, you are only his friend; I will answer, ‘ Almost always!’ ” The chevalier uttered a cry. “ But,” he demanded, “are you sure that he has the yellow fever?” “T still hope that it may prove to be acute gastritis, ” replied the doctor; “the early symptoms are the same.” “ And you could save him from acute gastritis?” 9 130 BLACK. “T should at least have more hope.” “Oh, my God! my God!” cried the chevalier, burst- ing Into tears. The doctor gazed at this man, who wept with sobs and a woman’s flood of tears. “Ts the captain, then, your kinsman?” asked he. “ He is more than kin,” responded Dieudonné, “ he is my friend.” “Sir,” said the young man, touched by this great grief, and extending his hand to Dieudonné, “ from the moment of your applying to me, you may be sure that your friend shall not want care. In France, Frenchmen are only compatriots; abroad, they are brothers.” “Oh, my God! my God! Why did he go aboard that ship? Why did he not send me? If he had sent me, I should have been ill, and not he; I should die instead of Dumesnil.” The doctor stared with positive admiration at this man, who so simply offered his life to God in exchange for that of the man he loved. “ Monsieur,” said he, “I assure you that I have not lost all hope. ‘This may as easily be a gastric fever as the yellow fever; with a little blood-letting we shall make an end of it.” “But who was the passenger with whom he had such important business ? ” “A friend of his.” “ Dumesnil has no friend but me, as I have none but him,” sadly replied the chevalier. “ Nevertheless, they embraced,” said the doctor, “ like two men rejoiced to see each other.” | “And what is the man’s name?” demanded the chevalier. “ Baron de Chalier,” answered the doctor. MAN PROPOSES AND GOD DISPOSES. Ist “Baron de Chalier— Baron de Chalier—I do not recognize the name. Ah, why did he not send me to speak with this cursed Baron de Chalier? ” “ Because,” said the young physician, significantly, “because he probably did not wish you to know the busi- ness he was engaged upon; which means, that I beg you not to say a word to him of my indiscretion, as, in his present state, the least annoyance might prove fatal to him.” “ Ah, monsieur, be at ease on that score,” said the chevalier, giving him his hand, “I shall not breathe a word of it to him.” They went back to the hut; the chevalier advanced to the bedside and took Dumesnil’s burning hands in his own, unconcerned as to anything save his friend’s condition. “Well,” he asked, “ how do you feel?” “Badly. I have horrible pain in the epigastric region.” “T am going to bleed you,” said the doctor. Then, turning to Dieudonné, he said: “Chevalier, steep this herb in a little water.” The chevalier obeyed with the passiveness of a child and the promptness of a nurse. Meanwhile the doctor bandaged the sick man’s arm and prepared his lancet. The veins of the arm became distended, “ Chevalier,” said the doctor, “leave the tisane to the woman, and hold this basin.” The chevalier obeyed. The doctor pricked the vein; but there was already so great a derangement of the system that the blood refused to flow. He made a deeper incision. ‘This time the blood followed, but it was black and already decomposed. 132 BLACK. A few drops spurted into the chevalier’s face. Feeling the warm moisture spreading on his face, the chevalier fell backward and fainted. The captain seemed anxious to profit by the occurrence. “ Monsieur,” said he, addressing the young doctor, “this is a mortal seizure; I know it. I pray you tell Monsieur de Chalier that I commend to him anew the child of whom I spoke yesterday, and that I beg of him, if chance should bring about a meeting between him and » the Chevalier de la Graverie, not to speak of it to him, unless reasons’ of the highest importance to Thérése should arise that make it necessary that she should be recognized; I leave him to judge of those reasons. Have you heard and understood me perfectly ?” “Yes, captain,” said the physician, who perceived the importance of the mission, “and I will now endeavor to repeat your. message to you, word for word.” And, in fact, without change either in form or in detail, he repeated the captain’s charge. “That is right!” said the sick man. Then he turned towards the young girl. “ Mahouni,” said he to the Tahitienne, “throw some cold water into the poor chev- alier’s face.” Mahouni, who, crouched before the fire caring for the herb-tea, had not noticed the chevalier’s fainting-fit, obeyed the captain’s order with an eagerness which betrayed the interest she felt for her swimming-pupil. The chevalier revived just as the doctor had closed his patient’s vein. The blood-letting momentarily relieved the captain; but, about two o’clock in the morning, in spite of the: use of opium and ether, the vomiting set in. The doctor cast a glance at the chevalier which seemed to say: “This is what I feared.” MAN PROPOSES AND GOD DISPOSES. 133 The chevalier understood, and went away to weep by himself. The next day passed with alternations of good and bad symptoms. Towards evening, however, the bad ones had entirely gained the mastery. The face was purple, deglutition almost impossible; the vomit, bilious at first, had become almost black and fuliginous, and it was easy to recognize the particles of decomposed blood. The physician had removed the dressing from the arm, and had found the wound encircled with black. He had taken the chevalier aside, and as the captain was still in full possession of his faculties, he had informed the chev- alier of his friend’s hopeless condition, in order that no time should be lost if the latter had any testamentary provisions to make. As for the doctor, he was obliged, he said, to return to the ship, if only for a few hours; he would come back the next day, and he wrote out for the chevalier the treatment to be followed, the chief point of which was to keep up the captain’s spirits as long as possible. The recommendation was useless: the well man was weak; the sick one, strong. From the moment when the captain had taken to his bed the chevalier had not left his pillow, rendering in turn all the care that he himself had received when suf- fering from a broken leg; watching him with the assidu- ity and the affection of a mother, not allowing him to receive a cup of tisane from any hand other than his own. And there was great merit in poor Dieudonné’s con- duct; for his anguish was so keen that, twenty times, feeling himself falter, he was upon the point of deserting his post and fleeing, that he might not witness his friend’s suffering. It has been seen that he fainted at the mere 134 BLACK. touch of the captain’s blood. It was much worse now that the doctor had all but avowed to the poor chevalier that there was no longer hope. If the patient moved in his bed, Dieudonné felt the drops of cold sweat oozing from his whole body; if, on the contrary, Dumesnil, dozed, Dieudonné considered that a most unfavora- ble symptom, and, shaking the sick man, he would inquire, — “ How do you feel? Answer me! Oh, answer me!” If the sick man made no response, he would wring his hands and burst into sobs. In the midst of one of these explosions of grief Du- mesnil, who was not asleep, but was meditating, felt that the time had come when he should give his friend his last instructions. The captain’s was a strong and stoical spirit; he faced fearlessly — for himself at least — the gloomy passage he was about to make, and at this moment he was troubled only by the thought of the loneliness to which he was leaving his friend. “Come, my dear Dieudonné,” said he, “ put an end to these tears and lamentations, unworthy of a man, and let me give you some advice concerning the way in which you should order your life when I am no longer a part of it.” At the sick man’s first words, the chevalier grew calm as if by magic. Dumesnil, who had not spoken for nearly two hours, was speaking, and so calmly that he could believe the Lord had performed a miracle in his behalf; but when he came to the words, “ when I am no longer a part of it,” Dieudonné uttered a cry of despair, threw himself upon the bed of the dying man, taking him in his arms and bewailing the injustice of Provi- dence, the rigor of fate. MAN PROPOSES AND GOD DISPOSES. 135 The captain’s spent forces were unable to struggle against his friend’s exuberance of grief; he summoned up his whole remaining strength and exclaimed in a dying voice, “ Dieudonné, you are killing me!” The chevalier made a leap backward; then, with clasped hands, he threw himself on his knees beside the bed, imploring him, — “ Forgive me, Dumesnil, forgive me! I will not move, I will not breathe, I will listen scrupulously.” But great tears rolled down his cheeks. Dumesnil regarded him with profound pity. “ Do not weep so, my poor comrade; I need all my strength to make the last march as becomes a man and a soldier, but your grief tortures my soul.” Then, with military firm- ness, he continued: — “We must separate, for this world, Dieudonné.” “No! no! no!” cried Dieudonné, “ you will not die! it is impossible! ” “Yet, it is what awaits us all, dear old fellow,” said the sick man. “Never to see you! never to see you! God is not so cruel, ” cried Dieudonné. “ Unless I find metempsychosis to be the order of the day up there,” said the captain, smiling, “we must play out our part in this terrible separation, my poor friend.” “Oh, Lord! Lord!” groaned Dieudonné. “But, I must confess, it is hardly more probable than my resurrection.” “Metempsychosis? ” mechanically repeated Dieudonné. “Yes, metempsychosis; in that case, on both knees I will beg the Almighty God to put me into the skin of the first dog that comes, in which, no matter where I shall be, I will break my chain to go and rejoin you.” - This jest, made at the threshold of eternity, failed to 136 BLACK. awaken stoicism in the heart of Dieudonné; he raised his eyes to heaven, and held Dumesnil in close embrace. “Come, courage!” resumed the latter; “in truth, of us two it is you that seem to be quitting the world. While I have strength, let me give you some good advice: stay here if you can, although, without me, I doubt if you could amuse yourself much.” “Oh, no, no!” cried Dieudonné; “if I am so unhappy as to lose you, I shall return to France.” “As you will, my poor friend. In that case, take my body back there; that will afford you a melancholy diver- sion, and it will seem as if you had not quite taken leave of me. Iam from a poor provincial town, very gloomy and dull, —from Chartres; but at Chartres my father, my mother, and a sister that I loved dearly are buried. Our family has a vault, in which there remains one vacant niche; place me in it, and then have the door sealed upon me. I am the last of the family. That ceremony performed, isolate yourself, lead a bachelor’s life, an egoist’s; be a gourmand, love with your stomach, but never love again with your heart, not even a rabbit, — some one will put it on the spit. Ah, my poor Dieudonné, you are not strong enough to love!” Dumesnil fell back upon his pillow, exhausted.