Books: Prince Zilah, v3
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Jules Claretie >> Prince Zilah, v3
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"Shall I accompany you, gentlemen?" asked Vogotzine.
"Certainly, General!"
"You see, I don't like lunatics; they produce a singular effect upon me;
they don't interest me at all. But still, after all, she is my niece!"
And he gave a sharp pull to his frock-coat, as he would have tightened
his belt before an assault.
They descended a short flight of steps, and found themselves in a large
garden, with trees a century old, beneath which were several men and
women walking about or sitting in chairs.
A large, new building, one story high, appeared at one end of the garden;
in this were the dormitories of Dr. Sims's patients.
"Are those people insane?" asked Zilah, pointing to the peaceful groups.
"Yes," said Dr. Sims; "it requires a stretch of the imagination to
believe it, does it not? You can speak to them as we pass by. All these
here are harmless."
"Shall we cross the garden?"
"Our invalid is below there, in another garden, behind that house."
As he passed by, Zilah glanced curiously at these poor beings, who bowed,
or exchanged a few words with the two physicians. It seemed to him that
they had the happy look of people who had reached the desired goal.
Vogotzine, coughing nervously, kept close to the Prince and felt very ill
at ease. Andras, on the contrary, found great difficulty in realizing
that he was really among lunatics.
"See," said Dr. Sims, pointing out an old gentleman, dressed in the style
of 1840, like an old-fashioned lithograph of a beau of the time of
Gavarni, "that man has been more than thirty-five years in the
institution. He will not change the cut of his garments, and he is very
careful to have his tailor make his clothes in the same style he dressed
when he was young. He is very happy. He thinks that he is the enchanter
Merlin, and he listens to Vivian, who makes appointments with him under
the trees."
As they passed the old man, his neck imprisoned in a high stock, his
surtout cut long and very tight in the waist, and his trousers very full
about the hips and very close about the ankles, he bowed politely.
"Good-morning, Doctor Sims! Good-morning, Doctor Fargeas!"
Then, as the director of the establishment approached to speak, he placed
a finger upon his lips:
"Hush," he said. "She is there! Don't speak, or she will go away." And
he pointed with a sort of passionate veneration to an elm where Vivian
was shut up, and whence she would shortly emerge.
"Poor devil!" murmured Vogotzine.
This was not what Zilah thought, however. He wondered if this happy
hallucination which had lasted so many years, these eternal love-scenes
with Vivian, love-scenes which never grew stale, despite the years and
the wrinkles, were not the ideal form of happiness for a being condemned
to this earth. This poetical monomaniac lived with his dreams realized,
finding, in an asylum of Vaugirard, all the fascinations and chimeras of
the Breton land of golden blossoms and pink heather, all the
intoxicating, languorous charm of the forest of Broceliande.
"He has within his grasp what Shakespeare was content only to dream of.
Insanity is, perhaps, simply the ideal realized:"
"Ah!" replied Dr. Fargeas, "but the real never loses its grip. Why does
this monomaniac preserve both the garments of his youth, which prevent
him from feeling his age, and the dream of his life, which consoles him
for his lost reason? Because he is rich. He can pay the tailor who
dresses him, the rent of the pavilion he inhabits by himself, and the
special servants who serve him. If he were poor, he would suffer."
"Then," said Zilah, "the question of bread comes up everywhere, even in
insanity."
"And money is perhaps happiness, since it allows of the purchase of
happiness."
"Oh!" said the Prince, "for me, happiness would be--"
"What?"
"Forgetfulness."
And he followed with his eyes Vivian's lover, who now had his ear glued
to the trunk of the tree, and was listening to the voice which spoke only
to him.
"That man yonder," said Dr. Sims, indicating a man, still young, who was
coming toward them, "is a talented writer whose novels you have doubtless
read, and who has lost all idea of his own personality. Once a great
reader, he now holds all literature in intense disgust; from having
written so much, he has grown to have a perfect horror of words and
letters, and he never opens either a book or a newspaper. He drinks in
the fresh air, cultivates flowers, and watches the trains pass at the
foot of the garden."
"Is he happy?" asked Andras.
"Very happy."
"Yes, he has drunk of the waters of Lethe," rejoined the Prince.
"I will not tell you his name," whispered Dr. Sims, as the man, a thin,
dark-haired, delicate-featured fellow, approached them; "but, if you
should speak to him and chance to mention his name, he would respond
'Ah! yes, I knew him. He was a man of talent, much talent.' There
is nothing left to him of his former life."
And Zilah thought again that it was a fortunate lot to be attacked by one
of these cerebral maladies where the entire being, with its burden of
sorrows, is plunged into the deep, dark gulf of oblivion.
The novelist stopped before the two physicians.
"The mid-day train was three minutes and a half late," he said, quietly:
"I mention the fact to you, doctor, that you may have it attended to.
It is a very serious thing; for I am in the habit of setting my watch
by that train."
"I will see to it," replied Dr. Sims. "By the way, do you want any
books?"
In the same quiet tone the other responded:
"What for?"
"To read."
"What is the use of that?"
"Or any newspapers? To know--"
"To know what?" he interrupted, speaking with extreme volubility.
"No, indeed! It is so good to know nothing, nothing, nothing! Do the
newspapers announce that there are no more wars, no more poverty,
illness, murders, envy, hatred or jealousy? No! The newspapers do not
announce that. Then, why should I read the newspapers? Good-day,
gentlemen."
The Prince shuddered at the bitter logic of this madman, speaking with
the shrill distinctness of the insane. But Vogotzine smiled.
"Why, these idiots have rather good sense, after all," he remarked.
When they reached the end of the garden, Dr. Sims opened a gate which
separated the male from the female patients, and Andras perceived several
women walking about in the alleys, some of them alone, and some
accompanied by attendants. In the distance, separated from the garden by
a ditch and a high wall, was the railway.
Zilah caught his breath as he entered the enclosure, where doubtless
among the female forms before him was that of the one he had loved. He
turned to Dr. Sims with anxious eyes, and asked:
"Is she here?"
"She is here," replied the doctor.
The Prince hesitated to advance. He had not seen her since the day he
had felt tempted to kill her as she lay in her white robes at his feet.
He wondered if it were not better to retrace his steps and depart hastily
without seeing her.
"This way," said Fargeas. "We can see through the bushes without being
seen, can we not, Sims?"
"Yes, doctor."
Zilah resigned himself to his fate; and followed the physicians without
saying a word; he could hear the panting respiration of Vogotzine
trudging along behind him. All at once the Prince felt a sensation as of
a heavy hand resting upon his heart. Fargeas had exclaimed:
"There she is!"
He pointed, through the branches of the lilac-bushes, to two women who
were approaching with slow steps, one a light-haired woman in a nurse's
dress, and the other in black garments, as if in mourning for her own
life, Marsa herself.
Marsa! She was coming toward Zilah; in a moment, he would be able to
touch her, if he wished, through the leaves! Even Vogotzine held his
breath.
Zilah eagerly questioned Marsa's face, as if to read thereon a secret,
to decipher a name--Menko's or his own. Her exquisite, delicate features
had the rigidity of marble; her dark eyes were staring straight ahead,
like two spots of light, where nothing, nothing was reflected. Zilah
shuddered again; she alarmed him.
Alarm and pity! He longed to thrust aside the bushes, and hasten with
extended arms toward the pale vision before him. It was as if the moving
spectre of his love were passing by. But, with a strong effort of will,
he remained motionless where he was.
Old Vogotzine seemed very ill at ease. Dr. Fargeas was very calm; and,
after a questioning glance at his colleague, he said distinctly to the
Prince:
"Now you must show yourself!"
The physician's order, far from displeasing Zilah, was like music in his
ears. He was beginning to doubt, if, after all, Fargeas intended to
attempt the experiment. He longed, with keen desire, to speak to Marsa;
to know if his look, his breath, like a puff of wind over dying ashes,
would not rekindle a spark of life in those dull, glassy eyes.
What was she thinking of, if she thought at all? What memory vacillated
to and fro in that vacant brain? The memory of himself, or of--the
other? He must know, he must know!
"This way," said Dr. Sims. "We will go to the end of the alley, and meet
her face to face."
"Courage!" whispered Fargeas.
Zilah followed; and, in a few steps, they reached the end of the alley,
and stood beneath a clump of leafy trees. The Prince saw, coming to him,
with a slow but not heavy step, Marsa--no, another Marsa, the spectre or
statue of Marsa.
Fargeas made a sign to Vogotzine, and the Russian and the two doctors
concealed themselves behind the trees.
Zilah, trembling with emotion, remained alone in the middle of the walk.
The nurse who attended Marsa, had doubtless received instructions from
Dr. Sims; for, as she perceived the Prince, she fell back two or three
paces, and allowed Marsa to go on alone.
Lost in her stupor, the Tzigana advanced, her dark hair ruffled by the
wind; and, still beautiful although so thin, she moved on, without seeing
anything, her lips closed as if sealed by death, until she was not three
feet from Zilah.
He stood waiting, his blue eyes devouring her with a look, in which there
were mingled love, pity, and anger. When the Tzigana reached him, and
nearly ran into him in her slow walk, she stopped suddenly, like an
automaton. The instinct of an obstacle before her arrested her, and she
stood still, neither recoiling nor advancing.
A few steps away, Dr. Fargeas and Dr. Sims studied her stony look, in
which there was as yet neither thought nor vision.
Still enveloped in her stupor, she stood there, her eyes riveted upon
Andras. Suddenly, as if an invisible knife had been plunged into her
heart, she started back. Her pale marble face became transfigured, and
an expression of wild terror swept across her features; shaking with a
nervous trembling, she tried to call out, and a shrill cry, which rent
the air, burst from her lips, half open, like those of a tragic mask.
Her two arms were stretched out with the hands clasped; and, falling upon
her knees, she--whose light of reason had been extinguished, who for so
many days had only murmured the sad, singing refrain: "I do not know; I
do not know!"--faltered, in a voice broken with sobs: "Forgive!
Forgive!"
Then her face became livid, and she would have fallen back unconscious if
Zilah had not stooped over and caught her in his arms.
Dr. Sims hastened forward, and, aided by the nurse, relieved him of his
burden.
Poor Vogotzine was as purple as if he had had a stroke of apoplexy.
"But, gentlemen," said the Prince, his eyes burning with hot tears, "it
will be horrible if we have killed her!"
"No, no," responded Fargeas; "we have only killed her stupor. Now leave
her to us. Am I not right, my dear Sims? She can and must be cured!"
CHAPTER XXIX
"LET THE DEAD PAST BURY ITS DEAD"
Prince Andras had heard no news of Varhely for a long time. He only knew
that the Count was in Vienna.
Yanski had told the truth when he said that he had been summoned away by
his friend, Angelo Valla.
They were very much astonished, at the Austrian ministry of foreign
affairs, to see Count Yanski Varhely, who, doubtless, had come from Paris
to ask some favor of the minister. The Austrian diplomats smiled as they
heard the name of the old soldier of '48 and '49. So, the famous fusion
of parties proclaimed in 1875 continued! Every day some sulker of former
times rallied to the standard. Here was this Varhely, who, at one time,
if he had set foot in Austria-Hungary, would have been speedily cast into
the Charles barracks, the jail of political prisoners, now sending in his
card to the minister of the Emperor; and doubtless the minister and the
old commander of hussars would, some evening, together pledge the new
star of Hungary, in a beaker of rosy Crement!
"These are queer days we live in!" thought the Austrian diplomats.
The minister, of whom Yanski Varhely demanded an audience, his Excellency
Count Josef Ladany, had formerly commanded a legion of Magyar students,
greatly feared by the grenadiers of Paskiewisch, in Hungary. The
soldiers of Josef Ladany, after threatening to march upon Vienna, had
many times held in check the grenadiers and Cossacks of the field-
marshal. Spirited and enthusiastic, his fair hair floating above his
youthful forehead like an aureole, Ladany made war like a patriot and a
poet, reciting the verses of Petoefi about the camp-fires, and setting
out for battle as for a ball. He was magnificent (Varhely remembered him
well) at the head of his students, and his floating, yellow moustaches
had caused the heart of more than one little Hungarian patriot to beat
more quickly.
Varhely would experience real pleasure in meeting once more his old
companion in arms. He remembered one afternoon in the vineyards, when
his hussars, despite the obstacles of the vines and the irregular ground,
had extricated Ladany's legion from the attack of two regiments of
Russian infantry. Joseph Ladany was standing erect upon one of his
cannon for which the gunners had no more ammunition, and, with drawn
sabre, was rallying his companions, who were beginning to give way before
the enemy. Ah, brave Ladany! With what pleasure would Varhely grasp his
hand!
The former leader had doubtless aged terribly--he must be a man of fifty-
five or fifty-six, to-day; but Varhely was sure that Joseph Ladany, now
become minister, had preserved his generous, ardent nature of other days.
As he crossed the antechambers and lofty halls which led to the
minister's office, Varhely still saw, in his mind's eye, Ladany, sabre in
hand, astride of the smoking cannon.
An usher introduced him into a large, severe-looking room, with a lofty
chimney-piece, above which hung a picture of the Emperor-King in full
military uniform. Varhely at first perceived only some large armchairs,
and an enormous desk covered with books; but, in a moment, from behind
the mass of volumes, a man emerged, smiling, and with outstretched hand:
the old hussar was amazed to find himself in the presence of a species of
English diplomat, bald, with long, gray side-whiskers and shaven lip and
chin, and scrupulously well dressed.
Yanski's astonishment was so evident that Josef Ladany said, still
smiling:
"Well, don't you recognize me, my dear Count?" His voice was pleasant,
and his manner charming; but there was something cold and politic in his
whole appearance which absolutely stupefied Varhely. If he had seen him
pass in the street, he would never have recognized, in this elegant
personage, the young man, with yellow hair and long moustaches, who sang
war songs as he sabred the enemy.
And yet it was indeed Ladany; it was the same clear eye which had once
commanded his legion with a single look; but the eye was often veiled now
beneath a lowered eyelid, and only now and then did a glance shoot forth
which seemed to penetrate a man's most secret thoughts. The soldier had
become the diplomat.
"I had forgotten that thirty years have passed!" thought Varhely, a
little saddened.
Count Ladany made his old comrade sit down in one of the armchairs, and
questioned him smilingly as to his life, his friendships, Paris, Prince
Zilah, and led him gradually and gracefully to confide what he, Varhely,
had come to ask of the minister of the Emperor of Austria.
Varhely felt more reassured. Josef Ladany seemed to him to have remained
morally the same. The moustache had been cut off, the yellow hair had
fallen; but the heart was still young and without doubt Hungarian.
"You can," he said, abruptly, "render me a service, a great service.
I have never before asked anything of anybody; but I have taken this
journey expressly to see you, and to ask you, to beg you rather, to--"
"Go on, my dear Count. What you desire will be realized, I hope."
But his tone had already become colder, or perhaps simply more official.
"Well," continued Varhely, "what I have come to ask of you is; in memory
of the time when we were brothers in arms" (the minister started
slightly, and stroked his whiskers a little nervously), "the liberty of a
certain man, of a man whom you know."
"Ah! indeed!" said Count Josef.
He leaned back in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, and, through
his half-opened eyelids, examined Varhely, who looked him boldly in the
face.
The contrast between these two men was striking; the soldier with his
hair and moustache whitened in the harness, and the elegant government
official with his polished manners; two old-time companions who had heard
the whistling of the same balls.
"This is my errand," said Varhely. "I have the greatest desire that one
of our compatriots, now a prisoner in Warsaw, I think--at all events,
arrested at Warsaw a short time ago--should be set at liberty. It is of
the utmost importance to me," he added, his lips turning almost as white
as his moustache.
"Oh!" said the minister. "I fancy I know whom you mean."
"Count Menko."
"Exactly! Menko was arrested by the Russian police on his arrival at the
house of a certain Labanoff, or Ladanoff--almost my name in Russian.
This Labanoff, who had lately arrived from Paris, is suspected of a plot
against the Czar. He is not a nihilist, but simply a malcontent; and,
besides that, his brain is not altogether right. In short, Count Menko
is connected in some way, I don't know how, with this Labanoff. He went
to Poland to join him, and the Russian police seized him. I think myself
that they were quite right in their action."
"Possibly," said Varhely; "but I do not care to discuss the right of the
Russian police to defend themselves or the Czar. What I have come for is
to ask you to use your influence with the Russian Government to obtain
Menko's release."
"Are you very much interested in Menko?"
"Very much," replied Yanski, in a tone which struck the minister as
rather peculiar.
"Then," asked Count Ladany with studied slowness, "you would like?--"
"A note from you to the Russian ambassador, demanding Menko's release.
Angelo Valla--you know him--Manin's former minister--"
"Yes, I know," said Count Josef, with his enigmatical smile.
"Valla told me of Menko's arrest. I knew that Menko had left Paris, and
I was very anxious to find where he had gone. Valla learned, at the
Italian embassy in Paris, of the affair of this Labanoff and of the real
or apparent complicity of Michel Menko; and he told me about it. When we
were talking over the means of obtaining the release of a man held by
Muscovite authority, which is not an easy thing, I know, we thought of
you, and I have come to your Excellency as I would have gone to the chief
of the Legion of Students to demand his aid in a case of danger!"
Yanski Varhely was no diplomat; and his manner of appealing to the
memories of the past was excessively disagreeable to the minister, who,
however, allowed no signs of his annoyance to appear.
Count Ladany was perfectly well acquainted with the Warsaw affair. As an
Hungarian was mixed up in it, and an Hungarian of the rank and standing
of Count Menko, the Austro-Hungarian authorities had immediately been
advised of the whole proceeding. There were probably no proofs of actual
complicity against Menko; but, as Josef Ladany had said, it seemed
evident that he had come to Poland to join Labanoff. An address given to
Menko by Labanoff had been found, and both were soon to depart for St.
Petersburg. Labanoff had some doubtful acquaintances in the Russian
army: several officers of artillery, who had been arrested and sent to
the mines, were said to be his friends.
"The matter is a grave one," said the Count. "We can scarcely, for one
particular case, make our relations more strained with a--a friendly
nation, relations which so many others--I leave you to divine who, my
dear Varhely--strive to render difficult. And yet, I would like to
oblige you; I would, I assure you."
"If Count Menko is not set at liberty, what will happen to him?" asked
Yanski.
"Hmm--he might, although a foreigner, be forced to take a journey to
Siberia."
"Siberia! That is a long distance off, and few return from that
journey," said Varhely, his voice becoming almost hoarse. "I would give
anything in the world if Menko were free!"
"It would have been so easy for him not to have been seized by the
Russian police."
"Yes; but he is. And, I repeat, I have come to you to demand his
release. Damn it! Such a demand is neither a threat nor a cases belli."
The minister calmed the old hussar with a gesture.
"No," he replied, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth;
"but it is embarrassing, embarrassing! Confound Menko! He always was a
feather-brain! The idea of his leaving diplomacy to seek adventures!
He must know, however, that his case is--what shall I say?--embarrassing,
very embarrassing. I don't suppose he had any idea of conspiring. He is
a malcontent, this Menko, a malcontent! He would have made his mark in
our embassies. The devil take him! Ah! my dear Count, it is very
embarrassing, very embarrassing!"
The minister uttered these words in a calm, courteous, polished manner,
even when he said "The devil take him!" He then went on to say, that he
could not make Varhely an absolute promise; he would look over the papers
in the affair, telegraph to Warsaw and St. Petersburg, make a rapid study
of what he called again the "very embarrassing" case of Michel Menko, and
give Varhely an answer within twenty-four hours.
"That will give you a chance to take a look at our city, my dear Count.
Vienna has changed very much. Have you seen the opera-house? It is
superb. Hans Makart is just exhibiting a new picture. Be sure to see
it, and visit his studio, too; it is well worth examining. I have no
need to tell you that I am at your service to act as your cicerone, and
show you all the sights."
"Are any of our old friends settled here?" asked Varhely.
"Yes, yes," said the minister, softly. "But they are deputies,
university professors, or councillors of the administration. All
changed! all changed!"
Then Varhely wished to know if certain among them whom he had not
forgotten had "changed," as the minister said.
"Where is Armand Bitto?"
"Dead. He died very poor."
"And Arpad Ovody, Georgei's lieutenant, who was so brave at the assault
of Buda? I thought that he was killed with that bullet through his
cheek."
"Ovody? He is at the head of the Magyar Bank, and is charged by the
ministry with the conversion of the six per cent. Hungarian loan. He is
intimately connected with the Rothschild group. He has I don't know how
many thousand florins a year, and a castle in the neighborhood of
Presburg. A great collector of pictures, and a very amiable man!"
"And Hieronymis Janos, who wrote such eloquent proclamations and calls to
arms? Kossuth was very fond of him."
"He is busy, with Maurice Jokai, preparing a great book upon the Austro-
Hungarian monarchy, a book patronized by the Archduke Rudolph. He will
doubtless edit the part relative to the kingdom of Saint Stephen."
"Ha! ha! He will have a difficult task when he comes to the recital of
the battle at Raab against Francis Joseph in person! He commanded at
Raab himself, as you must remember well."
"Yes, he did, I remember," said the minister. Then, with a smile, he
added: "Bah! History is written, not made. Hieronymis Janos's book will
be very good, very good!"
"I don't doubt it. What about Ferency Szilogyi? Is he also writing
books under the direction of the Archduke Rudolph?"
"No! no! Ferency Szilogyi is president of the court of assizes, and a
very good magistrate he is."
"He! an hussar?"
"Oh! the world changes! His uniform sleeps in some chest, preserved in
camphor. Szilogyi has only one fault: he is too strongly anti-Semitic."
"He! a Liberal?"
"He detests the Israelites, and he allows it to be seen a little too
much. He embarrasses us sometimes. But there is one extenuating
circumstance--he has married a Jewess!"
This was said in a light, careless, humorously sceptical tone.
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