Through Night to Light Part 69

"I should think so," replied Mr. Schmenckel, and cleared his throat.

"Had we better go over it once more?"

"Might do no harm," replied Mr. Schmenckel.

"You will say, then, that you are sorry to have caused the princess so much trouble. You, yourself, would never have thought of it; but that man--how did you call him?"

"Timm!"

"----had led you on! Now you had found out that such proceedings were not worthy of an honest man, and, that you promised the princess, upon your honor, never to let another word of that whole affair escape your lips."

"My lips!" repeated Mr. Schmenckel, like a school-boy who repeats a lesson the teacher tells him to say after him.

"And as for that man, Timm, you will tell the princess not to trouble herself about him; but, if he should come and ask for money, to have him turned out of the house by the servants. As you do not intend to support him in any way, he cannot expect to make much out of the story.

Have you got it all well in your head now?"

"I think it will do," said Mr. Schmenckel, meditatively.

"And, above all, you will accept no money from the princess, neither much nor little. Don't forget that; do you hear?"

"All right!" said the director, putting his hat on his head with a great show of resolution. "Adieu, professor!"

"Adieu!" said Berger, shaking hands. "Go and become once more the honest, upright man you have been heretofore."

"And now," said Berger to himself, when the door had closed after Schmenckel; "now the moment has come to pay an old debt." He went to a bureau and took from a drawer a small box of ebony and a medallion.

Then he left the room and went down the pa.s.sage till he came to a door, before which he stopped, listening for a moment. The key was in the key-hole. Berger noiselessly drew it out and knocked.

"_Entrez!_" cried a shrill voice.

Berger entered.

The man he came to see stood with his back to the door, before a looking-gla.s.s, busy finishing his toilet. He turned round, thinking it was a waiter. The new comer cast a rapid look around the room, locked the door quickly and noiselessly from within, and then went to the middle of the room.

"What do you want?" asked Count Malikowsky, still busy with his cravat.

"My name is Berger. I have already told you what I want."

"If you have any demand upon me you can speak to my valet. I do not trouble myself with such things."

"I know very well," said Berger, without changing a feature, "that Count Malikowsky likes best to have demands which are presented to him in person attended to by others, even by a.s.sa.s.sins, if needs be; but this time I trust he will make an exception."

With these words he approached the round table in the centre of the room, placed the little box on it, and took from the box the two pistols which it contained.

The count had witnessed these proceedings with an amazement which made him for a time speechless and motionless. The sight of the pistols, however, brought him to his senses again. With a rapidity which one would not have thought possible at his age he hastened to the door.

Berger stepped in his way, the pistols in his hand.

"One more effort to escape," he said, "one sound, and you die like a dog! Stand over there, on the other side of the table; so!"

"The man is mad!" murmured the count, obeying Berger's command and trembling in all his limbs.

"Maybe!" said Berger, with an uncomfortable laugh; "but if I am mad it is your fault, count. You do not know me?"

"No; indeed, I do not!"

"Maybe I have changed slightly since I last had the equivocal honor of meeting you. I will a.s.sist your memory. Do you know this?"

He opened the medallion and held it towards the count across the table.

The count took his gold eye-gla.s.s and looked at the miniature. It was a well-painted portrait of a marvellously beautiful, brown-eyed girl, in the costume of the year 1820.

"Leonora!" cried the count, starting back.

"Yes; Leonora!" repeated Berger, closing the medallion again and putting it away. "And now I hope you will know who I am, and what the account is which we have to settle."

The count had turned pale even under his rouge; his false teeth rattled; he had to sit down in an arm-chair which stood near the table, as he could not stand any longer.

Berger seemed to enjoy the wretched sight.

"How the coward trembles!" he said. "How the mean heart in the hollow bosom knocks against the ribs for the sake of a useless bit of life!

Miserable coward! You can seduce girls, but you cannot face a man!

Here, take this pistol and end a life full of disgrace by an honorable death!"

"I cannot do it," whined the count; "have pity on me! You see, I am an old man; my hands tremble from gout; I cannot hold a pen, much less a pistol, steady!"

"Is that so?" asked Berger; "are you really nothing but a whitewashed grave? Why, then, it would be harder punishment to let you live!"

Berger bowed his head and thought a moment.

"Be it so!" he said. He put the pistols back in the box. The count breathed freely.

"I have longed for this hour these thirty years. I thought revenge would be wondrously sweet; but the cup in which it is offered to me is too disgusting. I do not want it."

Berger had said this as if speaking to himself. Now he raised his lids, fixed his piercing eyes on the count, who was still trembling in the corner of his chair, and said:

"I have done with you. I will leave you your miserable life, but under one condition: You will leave town in an hour, and never appear again in Germany. I do not want a blackguard like you to breathe German air."

"As you wish it! as you wish it!" said the count. "I shall be glad to get out of the wretched country."

Berger put the box in his pocket. Suddenly wild tumult was heard in the street. Berger was instantly at the window. Crowds of people--men, women, and children--were rushing down the broad streets. "We are betrayed! They fire at us! To arms! To arms!"

"To arms! To arms!" cried Berger, raising his arms on high in wild joyousness. "At last! at last! Thanks, Great Spirit!"

He turned away from the window, seized the count, whom curiosity had roused from his terror, by the breast, and shaking him with perfect fury, he cried:

"Do you hear, coward? to arms! A whole nation calls to arms! Women and children! Now all the old debts shall be paid that you and the like of you have contracted for the last thirty years!"

He pushed the half-dead man contemptuously from him, opened the door, and rushed out.

He ran against an officer, who was just about to enter.