Books: Gerfaut, v4

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This etext was produced by David Widger

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]

GERFAUT

By CHARLES DE BERNARD

BOOK 4.

CHAPTER XX

MARILLAC TELLS A STORY

Guests were seated that evening around the oval table in the dining-room
of the castle of Bergenheim. According to custom, the ladies were not
present at this repast. This was a custom which had been adopted by the
Baroness for the suppers which were given by her husband at the close of
his hunting parties; she dispensed with appearing at table on those days;
perhaps she was too fastidious to preside at these lengthy seances of
which the ruses of the hare, the death of the stag, and the feats of the
hounds, formed the principal topics of conversation. It is probable that
this conduct was duly appreciated by those who participated in those
rather boisterous repasts, and that they felt a certain gratitude, in
spite of the regrets they manifested on account of Madame's absence.

Among the guests was Marillac, whose sparkling eye, and cheeks even more
rosy than usual, made him conspicuous. Seated between a fat notary and
another boon companion, who were almost as drunk as he Marillac emptied
glass after glass, red wine after the white, the white after the red,
with noisy laughter, and jests of all kinds by way of accompaniment. His
head became every moment more and more excited by the libations destined
to refresh his throat, and his neighbors, without his perceiving the
conspiracy, thought it would be good fun to put a Parisian dandy under
the table. However, he was not the only one who was gliding over the
slippery precipice that leads to the attractive abyss of drunkenness.
The majority of the guests shared his imprudent abandon and progressive
exaltation. A bacchic emulation reigned, which threatened to end in
scenes bordering upon a debauch.

Among these highly colored cheeks, under which the wine seemed to
circulate with the blood, these eyes shining with a dull, fictitious
light, all this disorderly pantomime so contrary to the quiet habit of
the gesticulators, two faces contrasted strangely with the careless mirth
of the others. The Baron fulfilled his duties as master of the house
with a sort of nervous excitement which might pass for genuine merriment
in the eyes of those of his guests who were in no condition to study his
countenance; but a quiet observer would soon have discerned that these
violent efforts at good-humor and bantering concealed some terrible
suffering. From time to time, in the midst of a sentence or a laugh, he
would suddenly stop, the muscles of his face would twitch as if the
spring which set them in motion had broken; his expression became sombre
and savage; he sank back in his chair motionless, a stranger to all that
surrounded him, and gave himself up to some mysterious thought against
which resistance seemed powerless. Suddenly he appeared to wake from
some perplexing dream, and by another powerful effort aroused himself and
joined in the conversation with sharp, cutting speeches; he encouraged
the noisy humor of his guests, inciting them to drunkenness by setting
the example himself; then the same mysterious thought would cross his
face anew, and he would fall back into the tortures of a revery which
must have been horrible, to judge by the expression of his face.

Among his guests, one only, who was seated almost opposite Bergenheim,
seemed to be in the secret of his thoughts and to study the symptoms with
deep attention. Gerfaut, for it was he, showed an interest in this
examination which reacted on his own countenance, for he was paler than
ever.

"When I saw that the hare was reaching the upper road," said one of the
guests, a handsome old man about sixty years of age, with gray hair and
rosy cheeks, "I ran toward the new clearing to wait for its return. I
felt perfectly sure, notary, that he would pass through your hands safe
and sound."

"Now, notary," said Marillac, from the other end of the table, "defend
yourself; one, two, three, ready!"

"Monsieur de Camier," replied the hunter whose skill had been questioned,
"I do not pretend to have your skill. I never have shot as large game as
you did at your last hunt."

This reply was an allusion to a little misadventure which had happened to
the first speaker, who, on account of nearsightedness, had shot a cow,
taking it for a buck. The laugh, which had been at the notary's expense
first, now turned against his adversary.

"How many pairs of boots did you get out of your game?" asked one.

"Gentlemen, let us return to our conversation," said a young man, whose
precise face aspired to an austere and imposing air. "Up to this time,
we can form only very vague conjectures as to the road that Lambernier
took to escape. This, allow me to say, is more important than the
notary's hare or Monsieur de Carrier's cow."

At these words, Bergenheim, who had taken no part in the conversation,
straightened up in his chair.

"A glass of Sauterne," said he, suddenly, to one of his neighbors.

Gerfaut looked at him stealthily for a moment, and then lowered his eyes,
as if he feared his glance might be noticed.

"The public prosecutor scents a culprit, and there is no fear he will
drop the trail," said the notary.

"The case will doubtless come up at the next session of the Assizes."

M. de Carrier put his glass, which was half filled, upon the table,
angrily exclaiming:

"The devil take the jury! I am called to the next session, and I will
wager my head that I shall be drawn. How agreeable that will be! To
leave my home and business in the middle of winter and spend a fortnight
with a lot of fellows whom I do not know from Adam! That is one of the
agreeable things supplied by constitutional government. The French have
to be judged by their peers! Of what use is it to pay for judges if we,
land-owners, are obliged to do their work. The old parliaments, against
which so much has been said, were a thousand times better than all this
bedlam let loose in a court of assizes."

Marillac, who during this speech was amusing himself with singing his low
"G" while peeling an apple, interrupted his song, to the great relief of
a hound who lay at his feet, and whose nerves seemed to be singularly
affected by the strain.

"Monsieur de Carrier," said he, "you are a large landowner, an eligible
citizen and a Carlist; you fast on Fridays, go to mass in your parish,
and occasionally kill cows for bucks; I esteem and respect you; but allow
me to say that you have just uttered an old, antediluvian platitude."

"Gentlemen," said the public prosecutor, punctuating each word with his
first finger, "I have the greatest respect for the old parliaments, those
worthy models of our modern magistracy, those incorruptible defenders of
national freedom, but my veneration is none the less great for the
institutions emanating from our wise constitution, and it prevents me
from adopting an exclusive opinion. However, without pretending to
proclaim in too absolute a manner the superiority of the old system over
the new, I am in a certain sense of Monsieur de Carrier's opinion. In my
position, I am better able than any other person to study the advantages
and disadvantages of a jury, and I am forced to admit that if the
advantages are real, the disadvantages are none the less indisputable.
One of the great vices of juries consists in the habit that a great
number of its members have of calling for material proofs in order to
form their opinions. They must almost see the wounds of the victim
before agreeing on a verdict. As to Lambernier, I hope that they will
not contest the existence of the main evidence: the victim's still
bleeding thigh."

"Tra-de-ri-di-ra," exclaimed the artist, striking alternately with his
knife a glass and a bottle, as if he were playing a triangle. "I must
say that you choose madly gay subjects for conversation. We are truly a
joyous crowd; look at Bergenheim opposite us; he looks like Macbeth in
the presence of Banquo's ghost; here is my friend Gerfaut drinking water
with a profoundly solemn air. Good gracious, gentlemen! enough of this
foolish talk! Let them cut this Lambernier's throat and put an end to
the subject! The theatre for dramatic music, the church for sacred!

Le vin, le jeu; les belles,
Voila mes seuls amours."

A general protestation rose from the whole table at this verse, which was
roared out in a lugubrious voice. Noisy shouts, rapping of knives upon
tumblers and bottles, and exclamations of all kinds called the orator to
order.

"Monsieur Marillac," exclaimed the public prosecutor, in a joking tone,
"it seems to me that you have wandered from the subject."

The artist looked at him with an astonished air.

"Had I anything in particular to say to you?" he asked; "if so, I will
sustain my point. Only do me the kindness to tell me what it was about."

"It was on the subject of this man Lambernier," whispered the notary to
him, as he poured out a glass of wine. "Courage! you improvise better
than Berryer! If you exert yourself, the public prosecutor will be
beaten in no time."

Marillac thanked his neighbor with a smile and a nod of the head, which
signified: "Trust me." He then emptied his glass with the recklessness
that had characterized his drinking for some time, but, strangely enough,
the libation, instead of putting the finishing stroke to his drunkenness,
gave his mind, for the time being, a sort of lucidity.

"The accusation," he continued, with the coolness of an old lawyer,
"rests upon two grounds: first, the presence without cause of the accused
upon the spot where the crime was committed; second, the nature of the
weapon used.--Two simple but peremptory replies will make the scaffold
which has been erected upon this double supposition fall to the ground.
First, Lambernier had a rendezvous at this place, and at the exact hour
when this crime with which he is accused took place; this will be proved
by a witness, and will be established by evidence in a most indisputable
manner. His presence will thus be explained without its being
interpreted in any way against him. Second, the public prosecutor has
admitted that the carrying of a weapon which Lambernier may have been in
the habit of using in his regular trade could not be used as an argument
against him, and for that same reason could not be used as an argument in
favor of premeditation; now, this is precisely the case in question.
This weapon was neither a sword, bayonet, nor stiletto, nothing that the
fertile imagination of the public prosecutor could imagine; it was a
simple tool used by the accused in his profession, the presence of which
in his pocket is as easily understood as that of a snuff-box in the
pocket of my neighbor, the notary, who takes twenty pinches of snuff a
minute. Gentlemen, this weapon was a pair of carpenter's compasses."

"A compass!" exclaimed several voices at once.

"A compass!" exclaimed the Baron, gazing fixedly at the artist. Then he
carried his hand to his pocket, and suddenly withdrew it, as he felt the
workman's compass there, where it had been ever since the scene upon the
rocks.

"An iron compass," repeated the artist, "about ten inches long, more or
less, the legs of it being closed."

"Will you explain yourself, Monsieur?" excitedly exclaimed the public
prosecutor, "for it really seems as if you had witnessed the crime. In
that case you will be called out as a witness for the defence. Justice
is impartial, gentlemen. Justice has not two pairs of scales."

"To the devil with justice! You must have come from Timbuctoo to use
such old-fashioned metaphors."

"Make your deposition, witness; I require you to make your deposition,"
said the magistrate, whose increasing drunkenness appeared as dignified
and solemn as the artist was noisy.

"I have nothing to state; I saw nothing."

Here the Baron drew a long breath, as if these words were a relief.

"But I saw something!" said Gerfaut to himself, as he gazed at the
Baron's face, upon which anxiety was depicted.

"I reason by hypothesis and supposition," continued the artist. "I had a
little altercation with Lambernier a few days ago, and, but for my good
poniard, he would have put an end to me as he did to this fellow to-day."

He then related his meeting with Lambernier, but the consideration due
Mademoiselle Gobillot's honor imposed numberless circumlocutions and
concealments which ended by making his story rather unintelligible to his
auditors, and in the midst of it his head became so muddled that he was
completely put out.

"Basta!" he exclaimed, in conclusion, as he dropped heavily into his
chair. "Not another word for the 'whole empire. Give me something to
drink! Notary, you are the only man here who has any regard for me. One
thing is certain about this matter--I am in ten louis by this rascal's
adventure."

These words struck the Baron forcibly, as they brought to his mind what
the carpenter had said to him when he gave him the letter.

"Ten louis!" said he, suddenly, looking at Marillac as if he wished to
look into his very heart.

"Two hundred francs, if you like it better. A genuine bargain. But we
have talked enough, 'mio caro'; you deceive yourselves if you think you
are going to make me blab. No, indeed! I am not the one to allow myself
to become entangled. I am now as mute and silent as the grave."

Bergenheim insisted no longer, but, leaning against the back of his
chair, he let his head fall upon his breast. He remained for some time
buried in thought and vainly trying to connect the obscure words he had
just heard with Lambernier's incomplete revelations. With the exception
of Gerfaut, who did not lose one of his host's movements, the guests,
more or less absorbed by their own sensations, paid no attention to the
strange attitude of the master of the house, or, like Monsieur de
Camier, attributed it to the influence of wine. The conversation
continued its noisy course, interrupted every few moments by the
startling vagaries of some guest more animatedly excited than the rest,
for, at the end of a repast where sobriety has not reigned, each one is
disposed to impose upon others the despotism of his own intoxication, and
the idle talk of his peculiar hallucinations. Marillac bore away the
prize among the talking contingent, thanks to the vigor of his lungs and
the originality of his words, which sometimes forced the attention of his
adversaries. Finally he remained master of the field, and flashed
volleys of his drunken eloquence to the right and left.

"It is a pity," he exclaimed, in the midst of his triumph, as he glanced
disdainfully up and down the table, "it really is a pity, gentlemen, to
listen to your conversation. One could imagine nothing more commonplace-
prosaic or bourgeois. Would it not please you to indulge in a discussion
of a little higher order?

Let us join hands, and talk of poetry and art. I am thirsting for an
artistic conversation; I am thirsting for wit and intelligence."

"You must drink if you are thirsty," said the notary, filling his glass
to the brim.

The artist emptied it at one draught, and continued in a languishing
voice as he gazed with a loving look at his fat neighbor.

"I will begin our artistic conversation: 'Knowest thou the land where the
orange-flower blooms?'"

"It is warmer than ours," replied the notary, who was not familiar with
Mignon's song; and, beginning to laugh maliciously, he gave a wink at his
neighbors as if to say:

"I have settled him now."

Marillac leaned toward him with the meekness of a lamb that presents his
head to the butcher, and sympathetically pressed his hands.

"O poet!" he continued, "do you not feel, as I do at the twilight hour
and in the eventide, a vague desire for a sunny, perfumed, southern life?
Will you not bid adieu to this sterile country and sail away to a land
where the blue sky is reflected in the blue sea? Venice! the Rialto,
the Bridge of Sighs, Saint Mark! Rome! the Coliseum and Saint Peter--
But I know Italy by heart; let us go instead to Constantinople. I am
thirsting for sultanas and houris; I am thirsting--"

"Good gracious! why do you not drink if you are thirsty?"

"Gladly. I never say no to that. I scorn love in a nightcap; I adore
danger. Danger is life to me.

I dote on silken ladders as long as Jacob's, on citadels worth scaling;
on moonlight evenings, bearded husbands, and all that sort of thing--I
would love a bed composed of five hundred poniards; you understand me,
poet--"

"I beg of you, do not make him drink any more," said Gerfaut to the
notary.

"You are right not to wish to drink any more, Octave, I was about to
advise you not to. You have already drunk to excess to-day, and I am
afraid that it will make you ill; your health is so weak--you are not
a strong man like me. Fancy, gentlemen, Monsieur le Vicomte de Gerfaut,
a native of Gascony, a roue by profession, a star of the first magnitude
in literature, is afflicted by nature with a stomach which has nothing
in common with that of an ostrich; he has need to use the greatest care.
So we have him drink seltzer-water principally, and feed him on the white
meat of the chicken. Besides, we keep this precious phenomenon rolled up
between two wool blankets and over a kettle of boiling water. He is a
great poet; I myself am a very great poet."

"And I also, I hope," said the notary.

"Gentlemen, formerly there were poets who wrote only in verse; nowadays
they revel in prose. There are some even who are neither prose nor verse
writers, who have never confided their secret to anybody, and who
selfishly keep their poetry to themselves. It is a very simple thing to
be a poet, provided you feel the indescribable intoxication of the soul,
and understand the inexpressible afflatus that bubbles over in your large
brain, and your noble heart throbs under your left breast--"

"He is as drunk as a fool," said M. de Camier, loud enough for him to
hear.

"Old man," said he, "you are the one who is drunk. Besides the word
drunk is not civil; if you had said intoxicated I should not have
objected."

Loud shouts of laughter burst forth from the party. He threw a
threatening glance around him, as if he were seeking some one upon whom
to vent his anger, and, placing his hand upon his hip, assumed the pose
of a bully.

"Softly, my good fellows!" said he, "if any of you pretend that I am
drunk, I declare to him that he lies, and I call him a misantrophe, a
vagabond, an academician!" he concluded, with a loud burst of laughter;
for he thought that the jesters would be crushed by this last heavy
weapon.

"By Jove! your friend is hilariously drunk," said the notary to Gerfaut;
"while here is Bergenheim, who has not taken very much wine, and yet
looks as if he were assisting at a funeral. I thought he was more
substantial than this."

Marillac's voice burst out more loudly than ever, and Octave's reply was
not heard.

"It is simply astounding. They are all as drunk as fools, and yet they
pretend that it is I who am drunk. Very well! I defy you all; who among
you wishes to argue with me? Will you discuss art, literature, politics,
medicine, music, philosophy, archiology, jurisprudence, magnetism--"

"Jurisprudence!" exclaimed the thick voice of the public prosecutor, who
was aroused from his stupor by this magic word; "let us talk
jurisprudence."

"Would you like," said Marillac, without stopping at this interruption,
"that I should improvise a discourse upon the death penalty or upon
temperance? Would you like me to tell you a story?"

"A story, yes, a story!" they all exclaimed in unison.

"Speak out, then; order what story you like; it will cost you nothing,"
replied the artist, rubbing his hands with a radiant air. "Would you
like a tale from the Middle Ages? a fairy, an eastern, a comical, or a
private story? I warn you that the latter style is less old-fashioned
than the others."

"Let us have it, then, by all means," said all the drunken voices.

"Very well. Now would you like it to be laid in Spain, Arabia, or
France?"

"France!" exclaimed the prosecutor.

"I am French, you are French, he is French. You shall have a French
story."

Marillac leaned his forehead upon his hands, and his elbows upon the
table, as if to gather his scattered ideas. After a few moments'
reflection, he raised his head and looked first at Gerfaut, then at
Bergenheim, with a peculiar smile.

"It would be very original," said he, in a low voice as if replying to
his own thoughts.

"The story!" exclaimed one of the party, more impatient than the rest.

"Here it is," replied the artist. "You all know, gentlemen, how
difficult it always is to choose a title. In order not to make you wait,
I have chosen one which is already well known. My story is to be called
'The husband, the wife, and the lover.' We are not all single men here,
and a wise proverb says that one must never speak--"

In spite of his muddled brain, the artist did not finish his quotation.
A remnant of common-sense made him realize that he was treading upon
dangerous ground and was upon the point of committing an unpardonable
indiscretion. Fortunately, the Baron had paid no attention to his words;
but Gerfaut was frightened at his friend's jabbering, and threw him a
glance of the most threatening advice to be prudent. Marillac vaguely
understood his mistake, and was half intimidated by this glance; he
leaned before the notary and said to him, in a voice which he tried to
make confidential, but which could be heard from one end of the table to
the other:

"Be calm, Octave, I will tell it in obscure words and in such a way that
he will not see anything in it. It is a scene for a drama that I have in
my mind."

"You will make some grotesque blunder, if you go on drinking and
talking," replied Gerfaut, in an anxious voice. "Hold your tongue, or
else come away from the table with me."

"When I tell you that I will use obscure words," replied the artist;
"what do you take me for? I swear to you that I will gloss it over in
such a way that nobody will suspect anything."

"The story! the story!" exclaimed several, who were amused by the
incoherent chattering of the artist.

"Here it is," said the latter, sitting upright in his char,; and paying
no heed to his friend's warnings. "The scene takes place in a little
court in Germany--Eh!" said he, looking at Gerfaut and maliciously
winking his eye--"do you not think that is glossed over?"

"Not in a German court, you said it was to be a French story," said the
public prosecutor, disposed to play the critic toward the orator who had
reduced him to silence.

"Well, it is a French story, but the scene is laid in Germany," he
replied, coolly." Do you desire to teach me my profession? Understand
that nothing is more elastic than a German court; the story-teller can
introduce there whoever he likes; I may bring in the Shah of Persia and
the Emperor of China if I care to. However, if you prefer the court of
Italy, it is the same thing to me."

This conciliating proposal remained without response. Marillac continued
raising his eyes in such a way that nothing but the whites could be seen,
and as if he were searching for his words in the ceiling.

"The Princess Borinski was walking slowly in the mysterious alley on the
borders of the foaming torrent "

"Borinski! she is a Pole, then?" interrupted M. de Camier.

"Oh! go to the devil, old man! Do not interrupt me," exclaimed the
artist, impatiently.

"That is right. Silence now."

"You have the floor," said several voices at once.

"--She was pale, and she heaved convulsive sighs and wrung her soft, warm
hands, and a white pearl rolled from her dark lashes, and--"

"Why do you begin all your phrases with 'and?'" asked the public
prosecutor, with the captiousness of an inexorable critic.

"Because it is biblical and unaffected. Now let me alone," replied
Marillac, with superb disdain. "You are a police-officer; I am an
artist; what is there in common between you and me? I will continue:
And he saw this pensive, weeping woman pass in the distance, and he said
to the Prince: 'Borinski, a bit of root in which my foot caught has hurt
my limb, will you suffer me to return to the palace? And the Prince
Borinski said to him, 'Shall my men carry you in a palanquin?' and the
cunning Octave replied--"

"Your story has not even common-sense and you are a terrible bore,"
interrupted Gerfaut brusquely. "Gentlemen, are we going to sit at the
table all night?"

He arose, but nobody followed his example. Bergenheim, who for the last
few minutes had lent an attentive ear to the artist's story, gazed
alternately at the two friends with an observing eye.

"Let him talk," said the young magistrate, with an ironical smile.
"I like the palanquin in the court of Germany. That is probably what
novelists call local color. O Racine, poor, deserted Racine!"

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