The Cross of Berny Part 3

At the end of the act I left my box and made a rapid tour of the lobby before presenting myself. The d.u.c.h.ess dispelled my embarra.s.sment by a cordial welcome. Women have a keen and supernatural perception about everything concerning love, that is alarming.

The d.u.c.h.ess carelessly p.r.o.nounced Mlle. de Chateaudun's name and mine, as if to be rid of the ceremonies of introduction as soon as possible, and touching a sofa with the end of her fan, said:

"My dear Roger, it is quite evident that you have come from everywhere except from the civilized world. I bowed to you twenty times, and you declined me the honor of a recognition. Absorbed in the music, I suppose. La Favorita is not performed among the savages, so they remain savages. How do you like our barytone? He has sung his aria with delicious feeling."

While the d.u.c.h.ess was indulging her unmeaning questions and comments, a rapid and careless glance at Mlle. de Chateaudun explained the admiration that she commanded from the crowded house. Were I to tell you that this young creature was a pretty, a beautiful woman, I would feebly express my meaning, such phrases mean nothing. It would require a master hand to paint a peerless woman, and I could not make the attempt when the bright image of Irene is now surrounded by the gloomy shadows of an afflicted heart.

After the first exchange of insignificant words, the skirmish of a conversation, we talk as all talk who are anxious to appear ignorant of the fact that they are gazed upon by a whole a.s.sembly.

Concealing my agitation under a strain of light conversation, "Mademoiselle," I said, in answer to a question, "music is to-day the necessity of the universe. France is commissioned to amuse the world.

Suppress our theatre, opera, Paris, and a settled melancholy pervades the human family. You have no idea of the ennui that desolates the hemispheres.

"Occasionally Paris enlivens the two Indias by dethroning a king. Once Calcutta was _in extremis_, it was dying of the blues; the East India company was rich but not amusing; with all its treasure it could not buy one smile for Calcutta, so Paris sent Robert le Diable, La Muette de Portici, a drama or two of Hugo and Dumas. Calcutta became convalescent and recovered. Its neighbor, Chandernagore, scarcely existed then, but in 1842, when I left the Isle de Bourbon, La Favorita was announced; it planted roses in the cheeks of the jaundiced inhabitants, and Madras, possessed by the spleen, was exorcised by William Tell.

"Whenever a tropical city is conscious of approaching decline, she always stretches her hands beseechingly to Paris, who responds with music, books, newspapers; and her patient springs into new life.

"Paris does not seem to be aware of her influences. She detracts from herself; says she is not the Paris of yesterday, the Paris of the great century; that her influence is gone, she is in the condition of the Lower Empire.

"She builds eighty leagues of fortifications to sustain the siege of Mahomet II. She weeps over her downfall and accuses Heaven of denying to her children of '44 the genius and talents that characterized the statesmen and poets of her past.

"But happily the universe does not coincide with Paris; go ask it; having just come from there, I know it."

Indulging my traveller's extravagancies laughingly, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of my fair companion, she said:

"Truly your philosophy is of the happy school, and the burden of life must be very light when it is so lightly borne."

"You must know, my dear Roger," said the d.u.c.h.ess, feigning commiseration, "that my young cousin, Mlle. de Chateaudun, is pitiably unhappy, and you and I can weep over her lot in chorus with orchestral accompaniment; poor child! she is the richest heiress in Paris."

"How wide you are from the mark!" said Irene, with a charming look of annoyance in the brightest eye that ever dazzled the sober senses of man; "it is not an axiom that wealth is happiness. The poor spread such a report, but the rich know it to be false."

Here the curtain arose, and my return to my box explained my character as the casual visitor and not the lover. And what intentions could I have had at that moment? I cannot say.

I was attracted by the loveliness of Mlle. Chateaudun; chance gave the opportunity for studying her charms, the fair unknown improved on acquaintance. Hers was the exquisite grace of face and feature and winningness of manner which attracts, retains and is never to be forgotten.

From the superb tranquillity of her att.i.tude, the intelligence of her eyes, it was easy to infer that a wider field would bring into action the hidden treasures of a gifted nature. Over the dazzling halo that surrounded the fair one, which left me the alternative of admiring silence or heedless vagrancy of speech, one cloud lowered, eclipsing all her charms and bringing down my divinity from her pedestal--Irene was an heiress!

The d.u.c.h.ess had clipped the wings of the angel with the phrase of a marriage-broker. An heiress! the idea of a beautiful woman, full of poetry and love, inseparately linked to pounds, shillings and pence!

It was a day of amnesty to men, a fete day in Paradise, when G.o.d gave to this young girl that crown of golden hair, that seraphic brow, those eyes that purified the moral miasma of earth. The ideal of poetry, the reality of my love!

Think of this living master-piece of the divine studio as the theme of money-changers, the prize of the highest bidder!

Of course, my dear Edgar, I saw Mlle. de Chateaudun again and again after this memorable evening; thanks to the facilities afforded me by my manoeuvring kinswoman, the d.u.c.h.ess, who worshipped the heiress as I worshipped the woman, I could Add a useless volume of romantic details leading you to the denouement, which you have already guessed, for you must see in me the lover of Mlle. de Chateaudun.

I wished to give you the beginning and end of my story; what do you care for the rest, since it is but the wearisome calendar of all lovers?--The journal of a thousand incidents as interesting and important to two people as they are stupid and ridiculous to every one else. Each day was one of progress; finally, we loved each other. Excuse the homely plat.i.tude in this avowal.

Irene seemed perfect; her only fault, being an heiress, was lost in the intoxication of my love; everything was arranged, and in spite of her money I was to marry her.

I was delirious with joy, my feet spurned the earth. My bliss was the ecstasy of the blest. My delight seemed to color the contentment of other men with gloom, and I felt like begging pardon for being so happy.

It seemed that this valley of tears, astonished that any one should from a terrestrial paradise gaze upon its afflictions and still be happy, would revolt against me!

My dear Edgar, the smoke of h.e.l.l has darkened my vision--I grope in the gloom of a terrible mystery--Vainly do I strive to solve it, and I turn to you for aid.

Irene has left Paris! Home, street, city, all deserted! A damp, dark nothingness surrounds me!

Not an adieu! a line! a message! to console me--

Women do such things--

I have done all in my power, and attempted the impossible to find Irene, but without success. If she only had some ground of complaint against me, how happy I would be.

A terrible thought possesses my fevered brain--she has fallen into some snare, my marvellously beautiful Irene.

Hide my sorrows, dear Edgar, from the world as I have hidden them.

You would not have recognised the writer of this, had you seen him on the boulevard this morning. I was a superb dandy, with the poses of a Sybarite and the smiles of a young sultan. I trod as one in the clouds, and looked so benevolently on my fellow man that three beggars sued for aid as if they recognised Providence in a black coat. The last observation that reached my ear fell from the lips of an observing philosopher:

"Heavens! how happy that young man must be!"

Dear Edgar, I long to see you.

ROGER DE MONBERT.

III.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN _to the_ PRINCE DE MONBERT, St. Dominique Street, Paris.

RICHEPORT, 20th May, 18--

No, no, I cannot console you in Paris. I will escort your grief to Smyrna, Grand Cairo, Chandernagore, New Holland, if you wish, but I would rather be scalped alive than turn my steps towards that fascinating city surrounded by fortifications.

Your elegy found me moderately impressible. Fortune has apparently always treated you like a spoiled child; were your misfortunes mine I should be delighted, and in your torment I should find a paradise. A disappearance afflicts you with agony. I was forced to beat a retreat once, but not from creditors; my debts are things of the past. You are fled from--I am pursued; and whatever you may say to the contrary, it is much more agreeable to be the dog than the hare.

Ah! if the beauty that I adore (this is melo-dramatic) had only conceived such a triumphant idea! I should not be the one who--but no one knows when he is well off. This Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun pleases me, for by this opportune and ingenious eclipse she prevents you from committing a great absurdity. What put marriage into your head, forsooth! You who have housed with Bengal tigers and treated the lions of Atlas as lapdogs; who have seen, like Don Caesar de Bazan, women of every color and clime; how could you have centred your affections upon this Parisian doll, and chained the fancies of your cosmopolitan soul to the dull, rolling wheel of domestic and conjugal duty?

So don't swear at her; bless her with a grateful heart, put a bill of credit in your pocket, and off we'll sail for China. We will make a hole in the famous wall, and pry into the secrets of lacquered screens and porcelain cups. I have a strong desire to taste their swallow-nest soup, their shark's fins served with jujube sauce, the whole washed down by small gla.s.ses of castor oil. We will have a house painted apple-green and vermilion, presided over by a female mandarin with no feet, circ.u.mflex eyes, and nails that serve as toothpicks. When shall I order the post-horses?

A wise man of the Middle Empire said that we should never attempt to stem the current of events. Life takes care of itself. The loss of your fiancee proves that you are not predestined for matrimony, therefore do not attempt to coerce chance; let it act, for perhaps it is the pseudonym of G.o.d.

Thanks to this very happy disappearance, your love remains young and fresh; besides, you have, in addition to the Pleasures of Memory, the Pleasures of Hope (considered the finest work of the poet Campbell); for there is nothing to show that your divinity has been translated to that better world, where, however, no one seems over-anxious to go.

Let not my retreat give rise to any unfavorable imputations against my courage. Achilles, himself, would have incontinently fled if threatened with the blessings in store for me. From what oriental head-dresses, burnous affectedly draped, golden rings after the style of the Empress of the Lower Empire, have I not escaped by my prudence?

But this is all an enigma to you. You are in ignorance of my story, unless some too-well-posted Englishman hinted it to you in the temple of Elephanta. I will relate it to you by way of retaliation for the recital of your love affair with Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun.