COSAOPOLIS 
 
 PAUJLBOURGET
 
 Cosmopolis
 
 Cosmopolis 
 
 (Jlooef 
 
 PAUL BOURGET 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE PROMISED LAND," "THE DISCIPLK," ETC. 
 
 AUTHORIZED EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 TAIT, SONS & COMPANY 
 
 UNION SQUARE
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1893, BV 
 TAIT, SONS & COMPANY 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 
 TROW DIRECTORY 
 NtW YORK
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER, 1 
 
 II. THE COMMENCEMENT OP A DRAMA 25 
 
 III. BOLESLAS GORKA, 51 
 
 IV. DANGER NIGH, 75 
 
 V. THE COUNTESS STENO, 107 
 
 VL THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN, . . .138 
 
 VII. A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO, 190 
 
 VIII. THE DUEL, 219 
 
 IX. ALBA SEES, 248 
 
 X. COMMON MISERY, 272 
 
 XL LAKE OP PORTO . . . 302 
 
 XII. EPILOGUE, . . 332
 
 TO COUNT JOSEPH PRIMOLI. 
 
 I send you, my dear friend, from beyond the Alps, the ro- 
 mance of international life that was begun in Italy almost 
 under your eyes, which I have framed in that old and noble 
 Rome of ivhich you are so ardent a lover. Certainly, the 
 drama of passion unfolded in this book has nothing else 
 especially Roman, and nothing was farther from my thoughts 
 than to trace a picture of a society so local, so traditional as 
 that ivhich stirs between the Quirinal and the Vatican. Tlie 
 drama is not even Italian, for it could not, with any degree 
 of probability, develop itself in Venice or in Florence. 
 Nice would have suited equally well, and St. Moritz, not 
 to mention Paris and London in fact, the various cities 
 which are, as it were, quarters scattered throughout Europe, 
 of that floating COSMOPOLIS baptized by Beyle : Vengo ad- 
 esso da Cosmopoli. It is the contrast between tJie some- 
 what incoherent ways and doings of the wanderers of high 
 life, and tJie character of perennial existence stamped every - 
 wJiere in the great city of the Cwsars and the Popes, that led 
 me to choose this spot, where tlie smallest corners speak of a 
 past of centuries, for evoking in it some representatives of 
 that mode of life, which is the most modern, and also the 
 most arbitrary and most momentary. You, who know better 
 than anyone the odd world of the Cosmopolites, will undw- 
 stand why I have confined myself here to depicting a mere 
 fragment, as I would, had occasion allowed, have told only 
 an episode. This world, indeed, has not, cannot have either
 
 Vlll TO COUNT JOSEPH PRIMOLI. 
 
 definite manners or a general character. It is all exceptions 
 and singularities. We are so naturally creatures of habit, 
 our perpetual mobility has such a need of gravitating to some 
 fixed axis, that reasons of a very personal order can alone 
 determine us to an habitual and voluntary exile from our 
 native country. The reason is sometimes, for an artist, a 
 methodical care for culture and renewal ; sometimes, for a 
 man of business, the need of assuring oblivion of some 
 scandalous transaction ; sometimes, for tlie man of pleasure, 
 the search of new adventures ; in the case of anotJier, who 
 siiffers from prejudice respecting birth, it is the desire of 
 finding more equitable conditions ; in another, it is to fly 
 from too painful recollections. The existence of the Cosmo- 
 polite can hide everything under the luxurious outlawry of 
 its fancies, from snobbery in search of higher connections to 
 roguery in search of easier plunder, as it passes in its career 
 through the brilliant frivolities of sport and the dark in- 
 trigues of politics, or the sadness of a life of failure. A 
 like variety of causes renders at the same time very attract- 
 ive and almost impossible tJie task of the romance writer 
 who takes as his model tliis fluctuating society, so uniform in 
 the exterior rites of its elegant life, so really, so thoroughly 
 complex and composite in its fundamental elements. The 
 ivriter is reduced to taking a series of particular cases, as 
 I have done, while essaying to disengage therefrom a law 
 which dominates them. This laiv, in the present book, is the 
 permanence of race. Contradictory as may appear the re- 
 sult, the more one is familiar ivith Cosmopolites, the more 
 ive are assured that the most irreducible datum in them is 
 that special foi'ce of Jieredity which slumbers under the 
 uniform monotony of superficial relations, but is ready to
 
 TO COUNT JOSEPH PRIMOLI. IX 
 
 awaken as soon as passion touches the ground-work of the 
 man's nature. But even there a difficulty almost unsur- 
 mountable presents itself. Obliged to concentrate his action 
 on a restricted number of personages, the novelist cannot 
 claim to embody in these personages that confused assem- 
 blage of characters which is summed up in the, vague word 
 " race." To take this present book as an example : You 
 and I, my dear Primoli, know many Venetian and English, 
 ladies, many Romans and Poles, Americans and French- 
 men, who have nothing in common with Mme. Steno, Maud 
 and Boleslas Gorka, the Prince of Ardea, the Marquis 
 Cibo, Lincoln Maitland, his br other -in-laio and the Marquis 
 de Montfanon, just as a Justus Hafner represents but one 
 face among the twenty European adventurers, of whom we 
 know neither the religion, nor tJie family, nor the education, 
 nor the starting-point, nor the destination, to such an extent 
 has he been involved in different prof essions and surround- 
 ings. My ambition would be fully satisfied, if I have suc- 
 ceeded in creating a group of individuals, not representative 
 of the whole race to which they belong, but only possible with 
 the data of that race or races ; for many of tliem, Justus 
 Hafner and his daughter Fanny, Alba Steno, Florent Chap- 
 ron, Lydia Maitland, have in their veins drops of very 
 mixed blood. May these personages interest you, my dear 
 friend, and become as living to you as for days they icere 
 to me ! Welcome them to your palace of Tor di Nona 
 near the Albergo dell' Orso, where Montaigne lodged as 
 faithful messengers of the grateful affection entertained for 
 you by your companion, of the present winter. 
 
 PAUL BOUROET: 
 
 PARIS, November 16, 1892.
 
 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 
 
 Although the narrow shop, overflowing with piles of 
 books and papers, left the visitor merely room to stir, 
 and although the visitor was an habitual customer, the 
 old book-dealer did not condescend to rise from the 
 stool on which he sat writing on a movable desk. At 
 the sound of the opening and shutting of the door, he 
 scarcely raised his odd, wild head with its long white 
 hair streaming out from a felt hat with broad brim that 
 had once been black. He showed to the new-comer the 
 fleshless, drawn countenance of a monomaniac, in which 
 there twinkled, behind his round spectacles, two brown 
 eyes of roguish fierceness. Then the hat plunged down 
 on the paper which his knotty, black-nailed fingers 
 deftly covered with scratched out, sprawling lines in a 
 handwriting worthy of another age, and, from his thin 
 but gigantic chest, wrapped in a jacket now greenish 
 with age, a worn-out voice the voice of a man choked 
 by incurable laryngitis issued and, by way of excuse, 
 said in a strong Italian accent, the French phrase : 
 " One moment, Marquis ; the Muse will not wait." 
 " Well then, I will wait, for I am not the Muse. Get 
 up your inspiration, Ribalta, at your leisure," was the 
 reply from the person whom the dealer in old books 
 had received with such carelessness. He was evidently 
 accustomed to the eccentricities of this strange shop-
 
 2 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 keeper. But at Rome for this little comedy of man- 
 ners was played in a ground floor at the end of one of 
 the oldest streets of the Eternal City, a few paces from 
 that Piazza di Spagna so well known to travellers in 
 that city which forms a point to which flow so many 
 destinies from all parts of the world is not the sensa- 
 tion of strangeness destroyed by the very multiplicity 
 of singular and abnormal types that are stranded or 
 sheltered there ? Here you will find revolutionists like 
 this rough Ribalta, who, with a peaceful background of 
 bric-a-brac, lead lives more adventurous than the most 
 adventurous of the sixteenth century. This man, sprung 
 from a poor Corsican family, had come to Rome in early 
 youth, in 1835, and had at first been in a seminary. Just 
 as he was on the point of being ordained, he fled and 
 did not reappear till 1849, when he came back such a 
 furious republican that he was condemned to death per 
 contumaciam on the re-establishment of the Papal gov- 
 ernment. Then he had served as Mazzini's secretary, 
 and had quarrelled with him for reasons that seemed 
 not honorable. Had a passion for some woman, since 
 dead, drawn him into some pecuniary indiscretion 1 In 
 any case, he became more and more radical and social- 
 istic ; he was in the " One Thousand " and among the 
 soldiers of Mentana, without Garibaldi being ever able 
 to conquer, with regard to him, a feeling of repugnance, 
 all the more remarkable as it was rare. After 1870 Ri- 
 balta had returned to Rome, where he opened, if we 
 can apply the term to such a hole, a petty bookstore. 
 But he was an amateur bookseller, who would shut the 
 door in your face if you displeased him. As he had a 
 little income, he sold, or refused to sell, according to his 
 fancy and his need of money for his purchases ; to-day 
 he would ask you twenty francs for a bad engraving for 
 which he had paid ten sous ; to-morrow he would let you 
 have at a low price a precious volume of which he well 
 knew the value. In his furious hatred of the Gallic race 
 he no more pardoned his old general for his campaign
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 3 
 
 at Dijon than he pardoned Victor Emmanuel for leaving 
 the Vatican to Pius IX. " The House of Savoy and the 
 Papacy," he said, speaking confidentially in his sick 
 voice, " are two eggs we must eat in the same dish." 
 And he would tell you of a certain pillar in St. Peter's, 
 which Bernini had hollowed out as a stairway, where a 
 cartridge of dynamite had its place already marked. 
 If you pressed him farther and asked why he had set 
 up as a bookseller, he would beg you to step over a 
 hedge of papers, cardboard boxes, and folio volumes. 
 Then he would show you an immense room a shed 
 rather where thousands of pamphlets were piled along 
 and across the walls. " These are the rules of all the 
 suppressed convents of Italy. I shall write their his- 
 tory." Then he would stare you out of countenance. 
 He feared you were a spy sent by the king for the sole 
 purpose of learning the plans of his most dangerous 
 enemy one of those spies whom he dreaded so mucl? 
 that no one for twenty years had known where he slept, 
 where he ate, where he hid himself when, for a week 
 at a time, the shutters of his shop in the Strada Borgo- 
 gnona were closed. As a result of his past life as a re- 
 doubtable democrat, and of his clandestine ways, he 
 was arrested, after the attempt at assassination by Pas- 
 sanante, as one of the members of those Barsanti Clubs, 
 to which a corporal who had turned rebel and been 
 shot as such, had given his name. But the police, after 
 rummaging over the dusty paper-boxes of the ill-man- 
 nered bookseller, found only a prodigious quantity of 
 grotesque scrawls in verse, against the Piedmontese and 
 the French, against the Germans and the Triple Alli- 
 ance, against the Italian republicans and the Italian 
 ministers, against Cavour and against Crispi, against the 
 University of Rome and the Inquisition, against monks 
 and capitalists. It was one of these pasquinades doubt- 
 less, that this customer whom he had received in such an 
 abrupt manner, watched him finishing, while he thought, 
 as he had often done before, how Rome abounds in
 
 4 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 paradoxical meetings. For in 1867 this same old Gari- 
 baldian had exchanged shots with the Papal Zouaves, 
 of whom the Marquis de Montfauon such was the visi- 
 tor's name was one. Twenty years had sufficed to turn 
 the two fanatic soldiers of that time into two inoffensive 
 cranks, one of whom sold old volumes to the other. 
 Nor could you scarcely find elsewhere a figure like that 
 of the French gentleman, who had retired thither to die 
 nearer to St. Peter's. Could you believe, as you saw 
 him in his heavy boots, his plain, rather worn, sack-coat, 
 his soft hat covering his old grizzled head, that you had 
 before you one of the famous dandies of the Paris of 
 1864 ? Listen to this other story. Some pious scruples 
 resulting from a mortal illness, had suddenly hurled the 
 frequenter of the Cafe Anglais and the gay suppers of 
 that day into the ranks of the Papal Zouaves. His first 
 sojourn at Rome, during the last four years of the gov- 
 ernment of Pius IX. in that matchless city, which ac- 
 quired a still more special character by the presenti- 
 ment of the approaching end of a State that had lived 
 for ages, by the announcement of the Council and by 
 the French occupation, had been an enchantment. All 
 the seeds of piety, planted in the breast of the youth of 
 gentle blood by his education with the Jesuits of Bruge- 
 lette, bloomed out into a harvest of noble virtues on the 
 day of trial. It came too soon. Montfanon passed 
 through the campaign in France with the other Zou- 
 aves, and the empty sleeve, folded in the place of his 
 left arm, proved with what courage he had fought at 
 Patay, after that sublime charge where the heroic Gen- 
 eral de Sonis flung out the banner of the Sacred Heart. 
 He had been duellist, sportsman, gambler, lover, but 
 now, to those of his old companions in pleasure whom 
 chance brought to Rome, he was only a devotee who 
 lived meanly, in spite of his still retaining fragments of 
 a large fortune, amid alms-giving, retreats, reading, and 
 collecting. He, too, was a collector. All the world ac- 
 quires, more or less, this vice in the city which is, of
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 5 
 
 itself, the most astonishing museum of history and art. 
 Montfanon was collecting documents for a history of 
 the relations between the French noblesse and the 
 Church. His mistresses of old days, when he was a 
 rival of the Gramont-Caderousse's and the Demidoffs' 
 would not have recognized him any more than he would 
 have recognized them. But were they as light-hearted 
 as he seemed to be in his life of renunciation ? There 
 was laughter in the blue eyes which attested his Ger- 
 manic origin, and which lighted up his strongly marked 
 countenance, one of those feudal faces that we see on 
 the walls of the priories of Malta, where even ugliness 
 shows race. A heavy whitening mustache, with a vague 
 gold tint playing through its density, half-concealed a 
 scar which would have given to that rather red face a 
 formidable look, but for the expression of the eyes, in 
 which fervor and gayety were blended. For Montfanon 
 was as fanatic on certain subjects as he was a good fel- 
 low on others. If he had the power, he would, most 
 certainly, have arrested, tried, and condemned Eibal- 
 ta, for example, for the crime of free-thinking, within 
 twenty-four hours. As he did not have it, he amused 
 himself with him, all the more as the vanquished Cath- 
 olic and the discontented socialist had some hatreds in 
 common. We have seen how this morning he endured 
 the rude salutation of the old bookseller, while he stood 
 looking at him, a good ten minutes, without troubling 
 himself further about it. At last the uncouth revolu- 
 tionist seemed to have found the point of his epigram, 
 for, with an evil, silent laugh, he carefully folded the 
 sheet and placed it in a wooden box of which he turned 
 the key. Then, raising his long, thin frame, he asked 
 without other excuse: 
 
 " What can I do for you, Marquis ? " 
 
 " First of all, you might read me your piece, old Ked 
 Shirt," said Montfauon, " if only to repay me for wait- 
 ing your good pleasure as patiently as an ambassador. 
 Come now, whom are you attacking in your verses ? Don
 
 6 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 Ciccio or His Majesty ? Will you not answer ? Are you 
 afraid of my informing 1 the Quirinal ? " 
 
 " In bocca chiusa non c'entra mosca" * replied the old 
 conspirator, justifying- the proverb by the style in 
 which he closed his toothless mouth, into which, indeed, 
 at the moment, not a fly, not a grain of dust could enter. 
 
 " Good old saw," replied the Marquis, laughing ; " that 
 I should like to see engraved on the front of all modern 
 parliament houses. But between your poetry and your 
 proverbs, have you had time to write for me to the old 
 book-man of Vienna who has the last copy of the undis- 
 coverable pamphlet on the trial of that ruffian Haf- 
 ner ? " 
 
 " Patience," replied the shopkeeper, " I will write." 
 
 "And my documents on the siege of Rome by the 
 Constable de Bourbon, the three notarial acts which 
 you promised me have you hunted them up for me ? " 
 
 " Patience, patience," repeated the shopkeeper, adding, 
 as he pointed with a comic mixture of irony and des- 
 pair, to the frightful disorder of his shop. " How can 
 you expect me to find my way through this ? " 
 
 " Patience, patience," repeated Montfanon ; " you have 
 been warbling that refrain for a month. If, instead of 
 composing bad verses you were to occupy yourself with 
 your correspondence, and if, instead of always buying, 
 you were to classify this heap of stuff Besides," he 
 said, without laughing and with an abrupt gesture, " I am 
 wrong to reproach you for your purchases, since I have 
 come to talk about one of your latest. Cardinal Gucril- 
 lot told me that you had shown him the other day a 
 Bock of Hours, in bad condition but interesting, which 
 you had found in Tuscany. Where is it ? " 
 
 " Here it is," cried Ribalta ; then stepping over some 
 piles of volumes and kicking aside a huge mass of paper 
 boxes, he indicated a dusty drawer in a tottering old 
 press. In the drawer, amid an indescribable mass of 
 fragmentary things, old medals and old nails, empty 
 
 * No flies get into a shut month.
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 7 
 
 bindings, and discolored engravings, he picked up a 
 large, worm-eaten leather case on which a half-effaced 
 coat of arms could be traced. He opened the case and 
 handed to Montfanon a volume of which the wooden 
 binding, also covered with leather and studded, was fall- 
 ing in pieces. One of the clasps was broken, and when 
 the Marquis turned over the leaves, he could see that 
 the inside was in no better condition than the outside. 
 Some illuminations had originally adorned the precious 
 work, but they were nearly all effaced. The yellow parch- 
 ment was torn in places. In fact, it was a mere shapeless 
 ruin that this curious visitor examined with the great- 
 est care, till Eibalta this time' made up his mind to 
 speak. 
 
 " It was a widow at Montalcino, in Tuscany, who sold it 
 to me. She asked an enormous price and it is worth it, 
 although a little damaged. The miniatures are by Mat- 
 teo da Siena, who made them for Pope Pius II. Picco- 
 lomini. Look at the one with St. Biagio blessing the 
 lions and panthers ; it is the best preserved one. Is it 
 fine enough ? " 
 
 " Why do you try to cheat me, Ribalta ? " Monfanon 
 broke in, with an impatient gesture. " You know bet- 
 ter than I, that these miniatures are mediocre, and do 
 not recall to any extent the close handiwork of Matteo. 
 Another proof, this Book of Hours is dated. . . 1554. 
 Look " and with his solitary hand, he very adroitly 
 pointed to the figures "and as I have a memory for 
 dates, and have been occupying myself with Siena, I 
 have not forgotten that Matteo died before 1500. Now, 
 as I am not a pupil of Macchiavelli," he continued, with 
 some abruptness, "I will tell you what the Cardinal 
 would have told you, if you had not attempted to hood- 
 wink him with your fine strokes as you tried with me just 
 now. . . . Look at this half-effaced signature which 
 you have not known how to read. I will decipher it for 
 
 you. Blaise de Mo then a ' c ' with some letters 
 
 missing, just three. That makes Montluc, in the writing
 
 8 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 of the time, and the ' b,' traced in a hand which you may 
 go and verify in the archives of Siena, if you come to that, 
 is a lower case ' b,' but large and tall. . . . And now 
 for the coat of arms," and he closed the book to explain 
 to the astonished dealer the arms scarcely visible on 
 the cover. " Do you recognize a wolf, which originally 
 must have been or, and these tourteaux, which must have 
 been gules ? These are the arms that Montluc bore since 
 that year 1554 when he was made a citizen of Siena, for 
 having defended it so bravely against the terrible Mar- 
 quis de Marignan. As for the case," and he took it up in 
 turn to study it, " there are the half -moons of the Picco- 
 lomini. But what does this prove ? That after the siege, 
 when he was about to return to Montalcino, Montluc 
 gave his Book of Hours, as a kind of souvenir, to some 
 of that family. Then the volume was lost, stolen very 
 likely, and finally reduced to the state in which we find 
 it. Here is another proof, here in this book, that a few 
 drops of French blood have been shed in the service of 
 Italy. But those who sold it have forgotten that, as 
 they have forgotten Magenta and Solferino. Here you 
 have no memory but for hate. Now that you know why 
 I want to have your Book of Hours, will you part with 
 it for five hundred francs ? " 
 
 The bookseller listened to this discourse with a score 
 of contradictory ideas passing over his face. He always 
 felt for Montfanon a sort of respect mingled with ani- 
 mosity, which visibly rendered him distressed at being 
 caught in a flagrant falsehood. To be just, we must add 
 that, in speaking of the great painter Matteo and the 
 great Pope Pius II. in connection with this unhappy 
 volume, he did not imagine that the Marquis, usually 
 very economical, and confining his purchases strictly to 
 the domain of ecclesiastical history, had the slightest 
 wish for this Book of Hours. He had magnified it with 
 the idea of making a pretty legend about it, and taking 
 advantage of the ignorance of some rich amateur. On 
 the other hand, if the name of Montluc meant nothing
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 9 
 
 to him, it was not the same case with the direct and 
 offensive allusion made by the speaker to the war of 
 1859. This is the thorn always plunged into the heart 
 of those of our neighbors beyond the Alps who do not 
 love us. The pride of the Garibaldian would not lag- 
 behind the generosity of the old Zouave. With an 
 abruptness equal to that of Montfanon, he took back the 
 volume, and growled out, as he turned it over in his ink- 
 stained fingers : 
 
 " I would not sell it for six hundred francs. No, for 
 six hundred francs I would not sell it." 
 
 " It is a very large sum," replied Montfanon. 
 
 "No," he continued, "I would not sell it " then, 
 holding it out to the Marquis in a visible fit of rage, 
 " but, to you I will give it you for four hundred 
 francs." 
 
 " But when I offer you five hundred," said the pur- 
 chaser, perplexed. " And you know that it is a low 
 price for such a curiosity ? " 
 
 " Take it for four," Ribalta insisted, more and more 
 out of temper. " Not a sou less, not a sou more. That 
 is what it cost me. And you shall have your documents 
 in two days, and the Hafner report this week. But the 
 Bourbon who sacked Rome," he continued, " was not he 
 a Frenchman ? And Charles of Anjou, who fell upon 
 us to make himself king of the two Sicilies ? And 
 Charles VIII., who entered by the Porta del Popolo ? 
 Were they not French ? And Ouclinot, was not he 
 French ? Why do they come to meddle with us ? Ah, 
 if one reckoned strictly, what do you owe us ? Did we 
 not give you Mazarin, Massena, and Bonaparte, and 
 many others who died in your army in Russia, Spain, 
 and elsewhere ? And at Dijon ? Was it not Garibaldi 
 who went to fight for you, like a fool, although you had 
 robbed him of his native country ? As far as services 
 go, we cry quits. But take away your Book of Hours, 
 and good evening, good evening. You can pay me later." 
 
 He literally pushed the Marquis out of the shop,
 
 10 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 gesticulating and flinging down the books on all sides. 
 Montfanon found himself in the street before he could 
 pull from his pocket the money he had ready. 
 
 " What a crank ! Heavens, what a crank ! " he said to 
 himself, smiling. He walked away with a step still 
 light, and gayly, with the precious book under his arm. 
 Then, as long acquaintance had familiarized him with 
 these southern natures in which knavery and chivalry 
 jostle each other without damage to either these Don 
 Quixotes with their windmills going he asked himself, 
 " How much can he have made after having played the 
 gentleman before me ? " He never knew how far his 
 question was justified, nor that Kibalta had got the rare 
 volume in a lot of papers, engravings, and old books, for 
 twenty -five francs altogether. Moreover, on leaving the 
 shop, two chance events that he encountered prevented 
 him from meditating on this problem of commercial 
 psychology. He stopped a moment at the end of the 
 street to cast a glance on that Piazza di Spagna, which, 
 as an old Roman, he loved as one of the corners that had 
 remained unchanged during the last thirty years. In 
 this early May morning, the long Piazza with its winding 
 outline was truly charming with movement and light, 
 with the brown tint of the irregular houses that bor- 
 dered it already wide awake, with the double stairs of 
 Trinita dei Monti strewn with idlers, with the water 
 springing from the grand central fountain in the form of 
 a bark one of the countless caprices in which the fancy 
 of Bernin found diversion that marvellous designer 
 who had the genius for the living fountain, where the 
 sheet of water enhances the chill of the bronze and the 
 marble. At that hour, in that clear air, the fountain 
 was as living as the little gamins who ran about, hold- 
 ing at the extremity of their outstretched hands baskets 
 filled with pale roses, blond narcissus, red anemone, 
 frail cyclamen, and sombre pansies. Barefooted, a 
 black flame in their eyes, entreaty on their lips, they 
 glided between the carriages that passed on rapidly,
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 11 
 
 less numerous than in the full season, but still in goodly 
 number; for the spring had been late in coming, and 
 announced itself with delicious freshness. The fiower- 
 sellers besieged hurrying passers-by, as well as those 
 who waited for the opening of the stalls ; and, fervent 
 Catholic as Montfanon was, he enjoyed, before this pict- 
 uresque scene of a beautiful morning in the most beau- 
 tiful square of his beloved city, the pleasure of com- 
 pleting his impression of a radiant moment by a dream 
 of eternity. He needed only to look to the right, to- 
 ward the College of the Propaganda, that seed-bed of 
 martyrs, whence all the missions of the world set forth. 
 It was written, however, that this enthusiastic gentle- 
 man should enjoy in peace neither his bibliographic 
 bibelot, which he had got so cheaply and held under his 
 solitary arm, nor this truly Eoman sensation, a sudden 
 glance on things above, caught at the turning of a 
 street, at a corner of the footpath. For his clear eyes 
 lost their serene look when a carriage passed close to 
 him, drawn, in spite of the early hour, by two magnifi- 
 cent black horses. Two ladies sat in' it conversing. 
 
 Evidently one of them was an inferior, some dame de 
 compagnie who acted as a chaperon for the other, a 
 young girl of almost sublime beauty, with large black 
 eyes which burned in a pale complexion of a warm and 
 living pallor. The Oriental purity of her profile realized 
 too completely the type of Jewish beauty to leave any 
 doubt of the Hebraic origin of this striking figure, this 
 veritable vision which, as the poet says, ought " to draw 
 all hearts after her." But it did not do so now : the jovi- 
 al, kindly physiognomy of the Marquis was suddenly 
 clouded with wrinkles of annoyance at the sight of this 
 young girl, as she turned the corner of the street and 
 exchanged a salutation with a very gentlemanly-looking 
 young man. The latter knew well the old Pontifical 
 Zouave, for he greeted him" in a familiar and bantering 
 tone, and in French which, from its purity, had plainly 
 come straight from France.
 
 12 COSMOPOLLS. 
 
 " Ha ! Ha ! I've caught you in the fact, Monsieur the 
 Marquis Claude Francois de Montfanon. She came, 
 you saw, you were conquered ! Were you not devour- 
 ing her with your eyes the divine Fanny Hafner? 
 Tremble ! I shall give information to his Eminence 
 Cardinal Guerillot, and when you begin to abuse his 
 charming catechist, I will come and bear witness that 
 I saw you hypnotized as she drove past, as the Trojans 
 were by Helen. I am sure Helen never had that mod- 
 ern grace, that soul in her beauty, that ideal profile, 
 that deep gaze, that dreamy mouth, and that smile ! How 
 handsome she is ! When do you want to be introduced ? " 
 
 " If Master Julien Dorsenne," Montfanon replied, in 
 the same bantering tone, " does not put more observa- 
 tion into his next novel than he exhibits at this minute, 
 I am sorry for his publisher. Come here," he added, ab- 
 ruptly, and drew the young man to the corner of the Via 
 Borgognona ; " you see the victoria stop before No. 13 ? 
 and the divine Fanny, as you call her, step out ? She 
 goes to the shop of that old scamp, Bibalta. She will 
 not stay there long. Look, she is coming out, and off 
 she drives in her carriage. 
 
 " It's a pity she does not come this way ! We should 
 have had the pleasure of seeing her look of disappoint- 
 ment. Here is what she went to get," he added with a 
 gay laugh, holding out his purchase, "and she shall 
 never have it, even if she were to offer all the millions 
 that her good, honest father stole from the swells of Vi- 
 enna. Ha-ha ! " he concluded, with a louder laugh ; " M. 
 de Montfanon got up early in the morning, and has not 
 wasted his time. And, my author of novels of observa- 
 tion, guess what it is that I have saved from falling into 
 the hands of that little mountebank, who shall not make 
 a toy of this thing, at least ? " and he looked at his 
 friend with the most comic air of triumph. 
 
 " I need not look at the volume," replied Dorsenne. 
 " Tes, yes ! " he continued, as Montfanon shrugged his 
 shoulders ; " as a novelist and as an observer, since you
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVEK. 13 
 
 fling 1 that epithet at my head, I know already what it is. 
 "What will you bet ? It is a Book of Hours, with the 
 signature of Marshal de Montluc, which Cardinal Gue- 
 rillot discovered. Am I not right ? He spoke of it to 
 Mdlle. Hafner, and thought lie would disarm your hos- 
 tility against her by telling you that she had an enthu- 
 siastic desire to buy the book. Am I not right ? And 
 then you, wicked man, had only one idea, to steal away 
 this bibelot from the poor little girl. Am I not right ? 
 I am not even sure that you care for the book, while 
 she ! The day before yesterday we passed the even- 
 ing together at the Countess Steno's ; she did nothing 
 but tell her joy of having the volume from which that 
 great soldier that great believer, had prayed. In fact, 
 she went through the whole gamut of heroic convic- 
 tions. I fancied, upon my word, that I was listening to 
 you. She must have gone to buy it yesterday. But 
 the shop was shut up, I remarked in passing ; and you 
 had been there, also, beyond dispute. Am I not right 
 again ? And now, when I have told you your whole 
 story, step by step, explain to me why you, who are a 
 just man, pursue with an antipathy so bitter and so 
 childish pardon the epithet an innocent young girl 
 who has never speculated on the Bourse, who is as char- 
 itable as a whole convent, and who is in a fair way of 
 becoming as pious and orthodox as yourself ? If her 
 father had not refused to hear a word about conversion 
 before her marriage, she would have been already a 
 Catholic ; and, Protestants as they are for the present 
 ten minutes, she never goes out except 1 to a Church. 
 Biit when she is a Catholic complete, under the protec- 
 tion of Saint Claudine and Saint Franchise, as you are 
 under Saint Claude and Saint Francois, you will have 
 to lay down your arms, old Leaguer, and acknowledge 
 the sincerity of the religious sentiments of this girl who 
 never has done anything to you." 
 
 " What ! Done nothing to me ! " Montfanon broke in. 
 " It is quite natural for a sceptic not to comprehend
 
 14 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 what she has done to me what she is doing every day 
 not to me personally, but to my ideas. A man like you, 
 an intellectual acrobat in the circus of Sainte-Beuve 
 and E/enan, must deem it very fine to see Catholicism 
 that great fact serve as a spor.t for this daughter of a 
 stock exchange wrecker, who aims at an aristocratic 
 marriage. Your irony may be amused by knowing 
 that my saintly friend Cardinal Guerillot is the dupe of 
 this intriguer. But I, sir, who have taken the Holy 
 Communion by the side of General de Sonis on the 
 mornings of battle, cannot tolerate the use of what was 
 the faith of that hero, and what is my faith, as a means 
 of pushing one's self up in the world. I cannot toler- 
 ate that anyone should make an old man, whom I ven- 
 erate and whose eyes I will open, I give you my word 
 of honor play the part of dupe and accomplice. As 
 for this relic," again holding out the volume, " you may 
 think it puerile, that I did not wish to see it turned into 
 a property for this comedy. I do not think so. And it 
 never shall be a property in this comedy. No one shall 
 display with moistened eyes, fine phrases, affected 
 looks, this breviary used by the great soldier ; yes, sir, 
 the great believer who would have given a short shrift 
 and a high gallows to you, and her, and Eibalta, too 
 and he would not have been far wrong. Done noth- 
 ing to me ! " he cried, with increasing warmth and face 
 reddening with anger. " People like her and her father 
 are the quintessence of all I despise most. Base, cos- 
 mopolite adventurers, who play at being grand sei- 
 gneurs with millions purloined by filibustering on the 
 Bourse, the incarnation of the modern world in all 
 that is most hateful ! They have no country, to begin 
 with. Who is this Baron Justus Hafner ? Is he Aus- 
 trian, German, Italian ? Do you know ? They have 
 no religion. The name, the face of the father and 
 daughter proclaim them Jews, but they are Protes- 
 tants for the next ten minutes, as you correctly said ; 
 till they become schismatics, Mohammedans, no matter
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 15 
 
 what ! For the next ten minutes, when the question is 
 of God ! They have no family. Where was he brought 
 up ? What were his father, mother, brothers, sisters ? 
 What family traditions has he ? Where is his past, that 
 past which forms and consolidates the moral nature of a 
 man ? Examine things a bit. All is darkness about this 
 fellow, except this one fact ; that if there had been 
 judges in Vienna, after the trial of the case of the Aus- 
 tro-Dalmatian Credit Company, he would have been in 
 the galleys instead of in Rome. These are the facts. 
 The ruin was indescribable. I know something about 
 it. My poor cousin, Saint Remy, who was in the house- 
 hold of Monseigneur, the Count of Chambord, lost the 
 support of his old age and the dowry of his child. 
 There were suicides horrible crimes especially that 
 of a certain Schroeder, who became insane after the 
 crash and killed himself, after killing his wife and his 
 two children. But M. le Baron came out scathless. 
 This was only ten years ago, and it is forgotten, and 
 when he comes to Rome he finds doors open, hands 
 stretched out, just as he would have found them at 
 Madrid, London, or Paris, indeed, for all Europe is 
 alike since '89. And people go to his house, people 
 receive him. And you want me to believe in the relig- 
 ious sentiments of this man's daughter ! No ! a thou- 
 sand times, no ! You yourself, Dorsenne, with your craze 
 for paradox and sophistry, you have a good heart at 
 bottom, and these people horrify you as they do me ! " 
 
 " Not the least in the world," replied the novelist, who 
 had been looking at the Marquis as he uttered this 
 tirade with visible interest, but yet with a smile of only 
 half conviction ; " not the least in the world. You called 
 me an acrobat. I do not care, as it is you, and you are a 
 good friend. Let me have the acrobat's agility. First, 
 then, before I express an opinion on a financial affair, I 
 shall wait till I know all about it. Hafner was acquit- 
 ted. That's enough for me. Point number one. He 
 might be the worst of scoundrels, but would that pre-
 
 16 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 vent his daughter from being an angel ? Point number 
 two. As to his cosmopolitism, which you denounce ; we 
 have not all heads shaped alike, and that is the very 
 thing I find interesting in him. And point number 
 three well, I believe I should not have spent in vain six 
 months in Home, if I had made the acquaintance of no- 
 body else. Don't look at me as if I was one of the circus 
 proprietors, Uncle Beuve or poor Renan himself," 
 touching the Marquis on the shoulder. " I swear I am 
 quite serious. Nothing interests me more than these 
 changes of scene, these people who have passed through 
 two, three, four forms of existence. These individuals 
 are my museum. You would not have me sacrifice my 
 best specimens'? And then," and the young man's eyes 
 twinkled with the arch malice of what he was going to 
 say; "abuse Baron Hafner as much as you will, call 
 him a thief and snob, an intriguer and a knave, just as 
 you like. But when you talk of his being uprooted, not 
 living where his fathers lived, I will answer you as Bon- 
 homet, in the story of our comrade Villiers de 1'Isle 
 Adam, when he arrived at heaven and God said to him, 
 ' Still a mystifier, M. Bonhomet ! ' ' And you yourself, 
 Lord ! ' For, as a matter of fact, you, Marquis de Mont- 
 fanon, were born in Burgundy, of an old family of Bur- 
 gundy, with a chateau in Burgundy, and vineyards in 
 Burgundy for which I congratulate you and here you 
 are, settled in Eome for twenty-four years; which is 
 equivalent to saying, in the Cosmopolis that you were 
 cursing! " 
 
 "In the first place," replied the old soldier of the 
 Pope, showing his empty sleeve, "I do not count. I do 
 not live. I am trying to die. Furthermore," and his 
 face took a new glow of exaltation, and the real basis, 
 the seldom-seen depths of this narrow intelligence, 
 often blind, but always high, suddenly was revealed. 
 " Furthermore, my Rome, sir, has nothing in common 
 with that of M. Hafner, nor with yours, since you come 
 here, it seems, to study modern comparative teratology.
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 17 
 
 Rome to me is not Cosmopolis, as you call it, but Metrop- 
 olis, the mother-city. You forget that I am Catholic in 
 every breath I draw ; here I am at home, in my soul's 
 fatherland. I am here because I am a monarchist, be- 
 cause I believe in old France as you believe in the 
 modern world. And I serve her, my dear old France, 
 in my fashion, which is not perhaps very efficacious, but 
 is one all the same. The office of administrator of St. 
 Louis, which I accepted from Corcelle, is my post, and I 
 mount guard there as of old in war, as best I can. Ah, 
 that old France ! How one feels her grandeur here, and 
 what a swathe she cut through Christendom ! This is the 
 chord I should like to see vibrate in a writer as eloquent 
 as you, and not these paradoxes always, and always these 
 sophisms. But what do you care, you who date from 
 yesterday, and who boast of it," he continued, almost 
 sadly, "that there are centuries of your history in the 
 smallest corners of this city ? Does your heart beat at 
 seeing on the facade of this church of St. Louis the sal- 
 amander of Francis I. and the lilies ? Do you even know 
 why this Yia Borgognona is so called, and that two 
 steps hence is our church, Saint Claude of the Bur- 
 gundians ? Have you, who come from the Vosges, vis- 
 ited the church of your province, Saint Nicolas of Lor- 
 raine ? And Saint Yves of Brittany do you know it ? 
 But," and his tone became gayer, "you are taking it 
 out of me, to use your abominable slang, in making me 
 charge home on this scoundrel Hafner. I did so with- 
 out bargaining, for I speak to you, as I think, with my 
 whole heart, although for you it is all mere badinage. 
 You'll be punished for it, for I'll not leave you I will 
 lead you into that France of the days of yore. You will 
 breakfast with me, and afterward we will make the tour 
 of the churches I have just named. During that hour 
 we shall live a hundred and fifty years ago, in a world 
 where there were no cosmopolites, no dilettanti, no gen- 
 tlemen of the stock exchange. It was the old world, 
 but it was strong, and the proof is that it has reached
 
 18 cosMoroLis. 
 
 old age that is to say, has lasted, while your society, 
 sprung from the Revolution where is it, after one hun- 
 dred years in France, Italy, soon in England, too, thanks 
 to that detestable Gladstone whose pride would make 
 him a new Nebuchadnezzar. Your society is like Rus- 
 sia, to quote the only bright saying of the filthy Did- 
 erot, rotten before it is ripe. Will you come ? " 
 
 " Don't take it as a refusal," replied the author, " for 
 you are wrong if you believe I do not love that old 
 France of yours which does not prevent me from 
 heartily enjoying the new France. Bordeaux and 
 champagne go well enough together. But I am not at 
 liberty. I have to visit this morning the exhibition at 
 the Castagna Palace 
 
 " You won't do that ! " cried the impetuous Montfanon, 
 whose stern face showed one of those fits of contrariety 
 which he relieved by passionate tirades when he was 
 with some one he liked as well as Dorsenne. " You 
 would not have gone, confound it ! to see the king mur- 
 dered in '93 ? It is just as tragic a thing, this putting 
 up to auction the old dwelling of Pope Urban VII., the 
 successor of Sixtus V. It is the beginning of the death- 
 agony of that other grand thing, the Roman nobility. 
 I know, I know. They deserve it all, because they 
 did not die on the last steps of the Vatican when the 
 Italians took the city. We would have done it, who 
 have no popes among our grand-uncles, if we had not 
 been occupied in fighting elsewhere. Still, it is no less 
 a pity to see the auctioneer's hammer fall on a palace 
 that holds centuries of history. By my life, were I 
 Prince of Ardea, had I inherited the blood, the house, 
 the titles of Castagna, and had to think that I should 
 leave behind me nothing of what my fathers had gath- 
 ered, I swear to you, Dorsenne, I would die of grief. 
 Just think that this unfortunate boy is a spoiled child 
 of twenty-eight, surrounded by flatterers, without kin- 
 dred, without friends, without advisers, that he staked 
 his patrimony at the Bourse against bandits like Haf-
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 19 
 
 ner, that all the treasures amassed by a line of popes, 
 cardinals, warriors, diplomatists, will go to enrich 
 treacherous brokers or dishonest speculators well, you 
 will find the business too lamentable a one for you to 
 meddle with, even as a spectator. Come, I will take 
 
 you to Saint Claude's " 
 
 " I must repeat that I am waited for," said Dorsenne, 
 releasing- the arm that his despotic friend has grasped, 
 " and it has been a great pleasure to meet you on my 
 way to keep my appointment. I dote on contrasts, 
 but I shall not have wasted my time. Have you the 
 patience to listen to the list of persons I am going to 
 meet ? It will not be long, but do not interrupt me. 
 You will be indignant, if you survive the thrust I give 
 you. Ah! you do not like me to call Borne Cosmop- 
 olis. What will you say of the company with which, in 
 twenty minutes, I shall visit the old palace of Urban 
 VII. ? We shall have your fair enemy Fanny Hafner, 
 in the first place, and her baron of a father, to represent 
 a bit of Germany, a bit of Austria, a bit of Italy, and 
 a bit of Holland, for the baron's mother, it seems, was 
 from Rotterdam. We shall have the Countess Steno to 
 represent Venice, and her charming daughter Alba to 
 represent a corner of Russia, for the record says she is not 
 the daughter of the late Count Steno, but of Werekiew, 
 Andrew, you know, who killed himself at Paris, five or 
 six years ago, by flinging himself into the Seine, a not 
 very aristocratic death, from the Pont de la Concorde. 
 We shall have a painter, the famous Lincoln Maitland, 
 to represent America. He is, at present, the lover of 
 the Steno whom he has filched from Gorka while the 
 latter is travelling in Poland. We shall have the paint- 
 er's wife, Lydia Maitland, and her brother, Florent 
 Chapron, to represent a bit of France, a bit of America, 
 and a bit of Africa. For their good father was the cele- 
 brated General Chapron, mentioned in the Memorial, 
 who after 1815 went to be a planter in Alabama. This 
 old soldier had no prejudices. He had by a mulatto
 
 20 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 woman a son whom lie recognized, and to whom he left I 
 don't know how many dollars. Inde Lydia and Florent. 
 Do not interrupt me ; it is nearly finished. We shall 
 have to represent England, still catholic and wedded to 
 Poland, Madame Gorka, the wife of Boleslas, and, last 
 of all, Paris in the form of your humble servant. It is 
 now my turn to try to take you with me, for if you will 
 join our crowd, you the feudal seigneur, it would be 
 complete. Will you come ? " 
 
 "And you would take it out of my poor old gray 
 head, in this fashion ! " replied Montfanon. " Yet he has 
 talent, the poor fellow," he said, speaking of Dorsenne 
 as if he were not there ; " he has written ten pages on 
 Rhodes as good as Chateaubriand; he has received 
 from God the most precious gifts, poetry, soul, a sense 
 of history, and .now what a society he loves. But 
 come, now, once for all, explain to me what pleasure 
 even your talents can find in the society of this interna- 
 tional Bohemia, with more or less gilding about it, in 
 which there is not a soul in its proper place, in its 
 proper surroundings, or with its proper antecedents. 
 I'll talk no more of that scoundrel Hafner and his 
 mountebank daughter, since you, an analytical novel- 
 ist, have the same eyes for her as Monseigneur Gueril- 
 lot has. But this Countess Steno she must be forty 
 with her big daughter beside her ought she not to 
 keep quiet and live in her palace at Venice, bravely 
 and honestly, instead of keeping here a kind of prome- 
 nade-salon through which all the shoddy swells of 
 Europe pass, and of taking lover after lover, a Pole 
 after a Russian, an American after the Pole ? ' And 
 Maitland ? Why did he not obey the only good senti- 
 ment that his country possesses, the aversion for black 
 blood which makes it impossible to find two of his 
 countrymen who would do what he has done, marry an 
 octoroon, for ten times as many millions, and a half- 
 dozen of Bonaparte's marshals to boot. The young 
 wife it is terrible if she is deceived, and it is more ter-
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 21 
 
 rible if she does not know it. This Madame Gorka, 
 honest creature as I believe she is, and truly pious, 
 who has never seen for two years that her husband was 
 the countess' lover, and who does not see that now it 
 is Maitland's turn ! And poor Alba Steno, a child of 
 twenty, dragged about in these disgusting intrigues ! 
 And Florent Chapron ? "Why does he not cry halt ! to 
 the adulterous adventures of his sister's husband? I 
 know him, that fellow. He came to me about a monu- 
 ment he was going to build at St. Louis, in memory of 
 his cousin. He respects the dead ; I like him for that. 
 He is but another dupe in this sinister comedy in which 
 you are taking part, you who know all without your 
 heart 
 
 " Pardon, pardon," interrupted Dorsenne ; " we have 
 nothing to do with that, you impracticable man. You 
 go on, and on and on, and forget the question before 
 us. I will tell you what pleasure I find in this human 
 mosaic that I have minutely described to you. Do not 
 let us talk morality, if you please, when the matter is 
 one of intellect alone. I do not pique myself on being 
 a judge of life. I like to look at it and understand it, 
 and among all the spectacles it can present, I know 
 none more suggestive, more special, more modern than 
 the one here. You are in a drawing-room, at a dinner- 
 table, a party such as I am going to this morning. 
 You are with a dozen persons who speak the same 
 language, are dressed by the same shopkeepers, read 
 the same newspaper, and believe they have the same 
 ideas and the same sentiments only these persons are 
 like those I have just enumerated, creatures come from 
 the most diverse parts of the world and of history. 
 You study them with all your knowledge of their ori- 
 gin and their hereditary influences, and, little by little, 
 under the varnish of the cosmopolite you disentangle 
 the race the irresistible, indestructible race! In a 
 Madame Steno, the mistress of the house elegant, cul- 
 tivated, hospitable you discover the heiress of the
 
 22 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 Doges, the patrician lady of the fifteenth century, with 
 the physique of a queen of the seas, an energy in pas- 
 sion, and a candor in immorality beyond compare. In 
 a Florent Chapron or in a Lydia you discover the prim- 
 itive slave, the black hypnotized by the white, the un- 
 enfranchisable being manufactured by ages of slavery. 
 In a Madame Gorka you recognize, under her smiling 
 amiability, that fanaticism for the truth which made 
 the English Puritans ; while behind the artistic refine- 
 ment of a Lincoln Maitland you find the squatter in his 
 invincible robustness and coarseness. In Boleslas 
 Gorka you have all the nervous irritability of the Slav 
 that ruined Poland. These racial traits are scarcely 
 visible in the civilized man, who speaks fluently three 
 or four languages, who has lived at Paris, Nice, Flor- 
 ence, here, the same life of elegance, so commonplace 
 to look at and so monotonous. But let passion give 
 a coup, let the men be touched to the bottom, then 
 comes the conflict of characters, almost conflicts of 
 races, all the more surprising the more remote the dis- 
 tance whence come the people thus met face to face. 
 Here are the dramas where the battles of race take 
 place in a corner of a salon ! This, then, is why," he con- 
 cluded with a laugh, " that I have spent six months in 
 Rome almost without seeing a Roman, occupied solely 
 in observing this little clan which disgusts you so much. 
 It is perhaps the twentieth one that I have studied, and, 
 possibly, I shall study twenty more ; for, as they are all 
 produced by fortuitous concourse of individuals, no one 
 of them resembles another. Are you more indulgent 
 to me, now that you have taken it out of me in making 
 me at this corner of a street indulge in dissertation like 
 a hero in a Russian romance ? Well, adieu ! " 
 
 Montfanon had listened to this discourse with an ex- 
 pression of countenance beyond description. In the 
 religious solitude where he was waiting for death, as he 
 said, he felt no pleasure so vividly as interchange of 
 ideas. He brought to such discussions the fiery temper
 
 A DILETTANTE AND A BELIEVER. 23 
 
 of a man of ardent feeling, and when he met the half- 
 ironic dilettanteism of Dorsenne, he was disconcerted 
 to a painful degree, all the more that the writer and he 
 had some theories in common, particularly about hered- 
 ity and race. But their feelings on these topics were so 
 different that this agreement in doctrine irritated the 
 old Marquis as much as it attracted him. A species of 
 discontented grimace distorted his expressive counte- 
 nance. He clicked his tongue in unconcealed ill-humor 
 and said : 
 
 " One question more : The result of all this ? The 
 end of all this? What does all this observation lead 
 you to ? " 
 
 " What do you want it to lead to ? To comprehension, 
 as I have said," replied Dorsenne. 
 
 " And afterward ! " 
 
 "There is no 'afterward' to thought," replied the 
 young man. "It is a debauch like any other, but it 
 is mine." 
 
 " But among these people whom you see living thus," 
 continued Montfanon after a silence, " there may be 
 some whom you love and whom you hate, whom you 
 despise and whom you esteem. Do you never have an 
 idea that, with your great intelligence, you have some 
 duties toward them, and may aid them and raise 
 them ? " 
 
 "That," said Dorsenne, "is another subject of discus- 
 sion, which we will resume another day, for I am afraid 
 of being late. . . . Adieu ! " 
 
 "Adieu," said the Marquis, with visible regret at 
 parting from his friend. Then abruptly, "I do not 
 know why I like you so much, for at bottom you em- 
 body one of the intellectual vices which horrify me, 
 that dilettanteism which the disciples of M. Kenan have 
 made fashionable, and which is at the root of deca- 
 dence. But you'll recover from the attack, I have good 
 hopes. You are young enough." Then in a good-nat- 
 ured mocking tone, " Pleasant thoughts as you descend
 
 24 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 the Cortile ; and I had forgotten that I had a commis- 
 sion to give you for one of the actors in your troupe. 
 Will you tell Gorka that I have found the book he asked 
 for before he left, on the nobility of Poland." 
 
 " Gorka ! " replied Julieii, " why, he has been at 
 Warsaw for three months past, on family affairs. I 
 have just told you how his journey has cost him his 
 mistress." 
 
 " What," said Montfanon, " at Warsaw ! I saw him 
 this morning, as plainly as I see you, driving in a hack 
 past the Triton fountain. If I had not been in a hurry 
 to reach that old Jacobin Bibalta, in time to save the 
 Montluc, I would have stopped him, but we were both 
 going too fast." 
 
 "You are sure that Gorka is at Rome Boleslas 
 Gorka ? " persisted Dorsenne. 
 
 " What is there surprising in that ? " said Montfanon, 
 who continued to sneer. " It is natural enough that he 
 should not like to be long absent from a city where he 
 has his wife, and his mistress of to-day, yesterday, or to- 
 morrow. I suppose your Slav and your Anglo-Saxon 
 have no mere prejudices, and make a partition of their 
 Venetian sensations with a thoroughly modern dilet- 
 tanteism. That would be indeed cosmopolitan. Well, 
 well, adieu once more. Give my message if you see 
 him, and then," and his visage again expressed an 
 infantile joy at the trick played on some one he dis- 
 liked, " and then, do not fail to tell Mdlle. Hafner that 
 the daughter of her papa shall never, never have that 
 book Blaise de Montluc, sir, M. de Montluc, the man of 
 Sienna and Rabastens." Then laughing like a school- 
 boy out of bonds, he pressed the book more closely 
 under his arm, repeating, " She shall not have it ; do 
 you hear ? Tell her so plainly. She shall nev-er have 
 it."
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DKAMA. 25 
 
 II. 
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 
 
 " There goes an honest man who has no doubt about 
 his ideas," was Dorsemie's reflection as the Marquis left 
 him. " He is like the sincere socialists at whom I am 
 always astonished. What use are his tirades to me ; but 
 what youthfulness in that old, worn-out machine." 
 
 His eyes followed the maimed veteran of Patay, as 
 he went off by the Via della Propaganda for nearly a 
 minute, with a look in which there was at least as much 
 envy as pity. The loss of the arm brought out strongly 
 the height and thinness of Montfanon's figure as he 
 walked, holding himself erect, with the rapid gait of 
 enthusiasts who follow their ideas instead of looking 
 at objects before them. Still the care with which he 
 avoided the sunny side of the street, showed the instinct 
 of the old Roman, who knows the dangers of the first 
 beams of spring in that blue sky, which so readily 
 becomes murderous. For a moment Montf anon stopped 
 to give a trifle to one of the coatless beggars who swarm 
 about the Piazza, di Spagna, an action all the more 
 praiseworthy as with his one arm and his Book of 
 Hours it required an effort to search his pocket. Dor- 
 senne was well enough acquainted with this original 
 character to know that he could never say " No " to any 
 one who asked for charity, great or small. Thanks to 
 this practice, the enemy of the fair Fanny Hafner found 
 himself always short of money, although his life was 
 most simple and his income forty thousand francs. It 
 will be seen then that the purchase of the Montluc relic 
 proved that the antipathy he had conceived against the 
 charming daughter of the Baron had become a kind of 
 passion. Under other circumstances the novelist, who 
 revelled in remarking such things, could not have failed 
 to ponder ironically over this little trait, which was
 
 26 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 easy enough to explain, for Montfanon had more 
 unreasoning instinct than he himself suspected. The 
 old Leaguer would not have been logical if he had not 
 possessed, when race was concerned, the impartiality 
 of an inquisitor, and the simple suspicion of Jewish 
 origin had already rendered him unfavorably disposed 
 toward Fanny. Still, he was a just man, as Dorsenne 
 had said, and if the girl had been a professed Jewess, 
 fervently devoted to her religion, he would have es- 
 teemed her, while avoiding her, and would never have 
 spoken so bitterly. The true motive of his antipathy 
 was his love for the Cardinal Guerillot, into which, as 
 into all things, he threw passion and jealousy, and he 
 could not pardon Mdlle. Hafner for having made her way 
 into intimacy with this saintly prelate, although he, 
 Montfanon himself, had vainly warned the late Bishop 
 of Clermont against the most dangerous of intriguers, as 
 he deemed her. She had in vain, for months, multiplied 
 proofs of her sincerity, and the Cardinal had in vain 
 reported them to the terrible Marquis ; but that obstinate 
 person would not believe in it, and every new good 
 action of his enemy increased his hatred by increasing 
 the uneasiness caused him, in spite of all, by a vague 
 feeling of injustice. Dorsenne, however, had not walked 
 far in the direction of the Castagna Palace, till he forgot 
 both Mdlle. Hafner and the Marquis's prejudices, and 
 thought only of one of the remarks uttered by Mont- 
 fanon, namely, that respecting the return of Boleslas 
 Gorka. This bit of news must have been quite unex- 
 pected, and it awakened serious reflections in the novel- 
 ist, for he did not even glance at the counter of the 
 French bookstore at the corner of the Corso, to see if 
 the longed-for important " Fourteenth Thousand " was 
 displayed on the yellow cover of his last volume, his 
 " Eglogue Mondaines," which had appeared in the last 
 autumn with a success that his six months' absence 
 from Paris, far from all friendly cliques, had rather im- 
 paired. Nor did he think of noticing whether the reg-
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 27 
 
 imen he was following-, in imitation of Lord Byron, to 
 reduce his embonpoint, had preserved the elegant outline 
 of which, in his fatuous conceit of being- a handsome 
 man, he was so proud. Yet there are plenty of plate- 
 glass windows in the shops on the street he was following 
 on his way from the Piazza di Spagna to the Castag- 
 na Palace, which rears its dark mass on the banks of 
 the Tiber, at the end of the Via Giulia, and forms a 
 pendant to the magnificent Sacchetti Palace, the master- 
 piece of Sangallo. Nor did Dorsenne amuse himself 
 in his accustomed pleasure of noting- the checkered 
 tapestry of memories that a walk through the streets of 
 Rome exhibits to every man of education. Yet during 
 the twenty minutes that it took him to reach his destina- 
 tion he passed a series of buildings, in which he might 
 have read centuries of history. First, the vast Borghese 
 Palace, the " Borghese Piano," as it was nicknamed 
 from the harpsichord shape adopted by the architect, a 
 splendid monument, destined, in less than two years, to 
 become the theatre of an exhibition more lamentable still 
 than that of the Castagna Palace, and of a ruin not 
 merited, as was that of the cosmopolitan spendthrift who 
 had been the Prince of Ardea. Was not all papal Rome 
 evoked before this imposing mass, baptized by the 
 name of the pontiff who completed St. Peter's, and in- 
 scribed on the facade, alongside the Prince of the 
 Apostles, his proud Paulus V. Burgliesius Romanus. 
 Dorsenne did not bestow a glance on the sumptuous 
 edifice, nor did he notice, ten minutes' later, the facade 
 of St. Louis, the object of Montfanon's reverence. If 
 the novelist did not profess for this relic of old France 
 the piety of the Marquis, he never failed to enter there 
 for his literary devotions at the tomb of Madame de 
 Beaumont, at that Quid non surd of the epitaph inscribed 
 by Chateaubriand on the sepulchre of the gentle dead, 
 with more vanity, alas ! than tenderness. For the first 
 time in his life he did not think of it ; he forgot to 
 gladden his eyes at the rococo fountain of the Piazza
 
 28 eOSMOPOLIS. 
 
 Navona where Domitian placed his circus, and which 
 recalls the cruel annals of Imperial Borne, just as, two 
 steps away, the broken statue at the corner of the 
 Braschi Palace, the Menelaus which, by the irony of fate, 
 has become the Pasquin of the Pasquinades, recalls the 
 moral conquest of Home by Hellenic artists. Again 
 two steps, and the great artery of the Corso Vittorio- 
 Emmanuele displays the struggling renaissance of Rome 
 as she is to-day. Again two steps, the mass of the 
 Farnese Palace recalls all the grandeur of modern art 
 and the tragedy of contemporary monarchies. Is not the 
 thought of Michael Angelo still impressed on the dark 
 travertine of this immense sarcophagus which was the 
 refuge of the last King of Naples ? But the soul 
 must be entirely free, to deliver itself to that charm 
 of historic dilettanteism which emanates from cities built 
 up of their past, and although Julien piqued himself, not 
 without reason, with possessing an intellect superior to 
 emotion, although he admired above all the saying of 
 the man who asserted he had never felt an annoyance 
 that an hour's reading could not soothe, he had not his 
 usual freedom of thought during his walk toward this 
 bit of " human mosaic," as he picturesquely described 
 it, but turned over and over the following questions : 
 
 " Boleslas Gorka back ! Why, it is only two days since 
 I saw his wife, who did not expect him for a month. 
 Montfanon is not a dreamer. Boleslas Gorka back ! At 
 the very moment when Mme. Steno is just crazy over Mait- 
 land : for she is crazy over him. The day before yester- 
 day she looked at him during dinner, at her own house, 
 in a scandalous manner. Gorka must have seen what 
 was coming this winter. When the American offered 
 to paint the portrait of Alba, the Pole stopped it. It is 
 good to hear Montfanon when he talks of partition be- 
 tween these two men. When Boleslas set out for War- 
 saw, the Countess and Maitland scarcely knew each 
 other; and now ! If he has come back, he must 
 have heard of his successor. Some one must have told
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 29 
 
 him ; an enemy of the Countess, a friend of Maitland 
 for our dear little comrades do commit these infamies at 
 times. If Gorka, who shoots like Casal, kills Maitland 
 in a duel, there will be so many sham Velasquez' the 
 less, and I shall care no more than for my first scrawl. 
 If he punishes his mistress for this treachery, again, it 
 is all the same to me, for Catharine Steno is a pretty 
 considerable jade. But my little friend, my poor charm- 
 ing Alba, what will become of her if there is a scandal 
 if there is bloodshed over her mother's follies? Poor 
 child, who already suspects and has suffered so ! Gorka 
 back ! He has not hinted at it in his letters to me, al- 
 though I have received many from him since his depart- 
 ure, and although last autumn he made me the confidant 
 of his jealousy, under the pretext that I understood 
 women, and with the pretty vanity of giving me some 
 inspiration for a romance. This silence about his re- 
 turn looks more like a drama than a romance, and with a 
 Slav, as Slav as this man is, one may expect anything. 
 I'll soon learn, however, how things stand, for he will 
 be at the Castagna Palace. He would be bound to ac- 
 company his wife to see his old mistress a day sooner. 
 Old mistress ? No ! This affair is not in good shape. 
 I would prefer him on the Vistula, decidedly. It would 
 be more reassuring. Poor charming Alba ! " 
 
 This little soliloquy was very much what would have 
 been made in similar circumstances by any young man 
 that was interested in a girl whose mother's conduct was 
 not altogether proper. It is a lamentable, but not un- 
 common, situation, and there was no need of the novel- 
 ist coming to study it at Home, for a whole winter 
 and spring, to the damage of his literary ambition. If 
 his interest was deeper than that of a student, Dorsenne 
 possessed a very simple method of saving his " little 
 friend," as he called her, from any trouble from the pro- 
 ceedings of a mother whom age could not render discreet. 
 Why did he not ask for her hand? He had a good 
 patrimony which his success as an author augmented.
 
 30 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 For, after the first book, which established his reputa- 
 tionhis " Etudes des Femmes," published in 1879 not 
 a single one of his fifteen novels or collections of tales 
 had not been appreciated. His personal celebrity could, 
 strictly speaking, boast of a family celebrity, for his 
 grandfather was the second cousin of the brave General 
 Dorsenne, for whom Napoleon could pick no successor 
 as head of the Guard but Friant. There it is all in one 
 word. Although the heirs of the hero of the empire 
 would never have recognized this cousinship, Julien be- 
 lieved in it, and he spoke in perfect sincerity when, in 
 reply to compliments on his books, he said: "At my 
 age my grand-uncle, the Colonel of the Guard, had done 
 something far better." This doubtful claim was not 
 even necessary, for, in the station he occupied, the 
 Countess Steno, who had rather lost caste through her 
 gallantries, would have taken him as a son-in-law. As to 
 inspiring love in the girl, his intelligent and refined face, 
 his graceful figure, which he retained in spite of his 
 thirty-five years, left no doubt on that score. Yet noth- 
 ing was further from his thoughts than such an idea, for 
 as he climbed the steps of the palace once inhabited by 
 Urban VII. he continued, in quite different terms, the 
 monologue he had said to himself on his way thither, 
 that kind of involuntary " copy " which is written in the 
 brain of a literary man when he loves literature too 
 much. It took the form almost of " edited copy," the 
 most marked of professional sins, the most incompre- 
 hensible, too, to the inexperienced, who think at hazard, 
 and who, happily for themselves, never undergo the 
 slavery of too precise a phrase, or too conscious an idea. 
 " Yes, poor charming Alba," he repeated ; " what a 
 pity that her marriage with the brother of the Countess 
 Gorka was not arranged four months ago ! It was not 
 the height of propriety to form a connection in the fam- 
 ily of the wife of her mother's lover. But she would 
 have been less likely to know anything, and the conve- 
 nient combination by which her mother had made her a
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 31 
 
 friend of the other woman, to blind the eyes of both, 
 might have had a good result. Alba would have been 
 Lady Ardrahan to-day and absorbed into that strong, 
 English life which restores the moral tone as the moun- 
 tains restore the blood, instead of marrying some imbe- 
 cile here or elsewhere. Then she would deceive him, as 
 her mother deceived Steno, of happy memory, with me 
 perhaps, in remembrance of our charming and pure 
 friendship of to-day which would be too melancholy. 
 "Well, let us not think about it. We do not know 
 whether the future exists, while the present does exist 
 and has its rights. The present means that I owe to the 
 Contessina my finest sensations in Rome, this view of 
 her youth not too happy in the scenery of such a 
 grand past. There is another sensation to be enjoyed : 
 to visit this palace, for sale by auction, with this lovely 
 girl, over whom hangs this threatening drama. What 
 does logic say, as my friend Beyle would have said ? 
 To be glad that the Countess Steno is a woman of gal- 
 lantry, otherwise the house would not have its present 
 tone, and I should never have been a familiar friend of 
 the little girl. To be glad that Ardea is a spendthrift 
 and a fool, that he has lost his fortune on the Bourse, 
 and that the syndicate of his creditors, presided over by 
 Ancona, has laid hands on his palace, for otherwise I 
 would never have been ascending the steps of these 
 papal stairs, nor looking at these fragments of Greek 
 sarcophagi built into the walls, and this garden with 
 its intense green. Gorka might come back for lots of 
 reasons besides jealousy, and Montfanon is right, Cath- 
 erine is smart enough to keep them both, the painter 
 and him, on a string. She will make Maitland believe 
 that she receives Gorka on account of Madame Gorka, 
 and to prevent him from ruining that excellent woman 
 by his gambling. She will tell Boleslas that there is 
 nothing between her and Maitland but platonic discus- 
 sions on the relative merits of Raphael and Perugino. 
 And I should be a greater dupe than these two dupes
 
 32 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 if I lost this visit. It is not every day that one can see 
 the great-grandnephew of a pope sold up like a com- 
 mon Bohemian." 
 
 This second series of reflections resembled much 
 nearer than did the first series the real Dorsenne, and 
 the kind of logical dilettanteism which he professed 
 that which he had confessed to Montfanon in the attenu- 
 ated form that rendered it often inexplicable to his best 
 friends. This } 7 oung man, with large, black, well-opened 
 eyes, a face with delicate outlines, the olive tint of a 
 Spanish ascetic, had never had but one passion. This 
 was so exceptional as to throw the ordinary observer off 
 the track, and took such a singular development that it 
 would in time assume, for kindly eyes, the symptoms of 
 an almost offensive disposition, or even those of a re- 
 volting egotism, and profound corruption. Dorsenne 
 said, with truth, he loved to comprehend, for the sake 
 of comprehending, as the gambler loves to gamble, the 
 miser to heap up money, the ambitious man to gain 
 office. He possessed this appetite, this taste, this craze 
 rather, for ideas which makes the philosopher and the 
 savant. But he was a philosopher, blended by a ca- 
 price of nature with an artist, and by a caprice of for- 
 tune and education with the man of the world and the 
 traveller. Abstract speculations in metaphysics would 
 not satisfy him any more than the continuous simple 
 creativeness of a story-teller, who tells his stories to 
 amuse himself by their brightness, or than the half -ani- 
 mal ardor of the man of pleasure who abandons himself 
 to the madness of vice. He had invented, partly by in- 
 stinct, partly by design, a compromise between these 
 contradictory tendencies, which he formulated rather 
 pedantically, by saying that his ' only aim was " to in- 
 tellectualize vivid sensations." In clearer terms, he 
 dreamed of securing from human life the greatest num- 
 ber of impressions that it could give, and to ponder 
 them when they were received. He believed, rightly or 
 wrongly, that he could discover in the two writers,
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 33 
 
 whom he admired most, Goethe and Stendhal, a con- 
 tinual application of a similar principle. His constant 
 study, then, had been, during the fourteen years since 
 he began to write, how to pass through as many differ- 
 ing conditions of society as possible. He passed through 
 them, was in them but not of them, with the ever-present 
 idea in the background that elsewhere there were other 
 manners to learn, other characters to examine, other per- 
 sonages to clothe, other sensations to vibrate with. The 
 instant of a change to some newer life was marked by 
 the completion of each of his books, as he held that a 
 sentimental or social experience, when once written 
 down or translated, was not worth the trouble of pro- 
 longing. Hence the incoherence of his habits, and the 
 contrasts of atmosphere, if one dare say so, which 
 stamp his work. Take at hazard his first collection of 
 tales, the " Etudes des Feinmes," that made him known. 
 They are about a sentimental youth who loved not 
 wisely, and wasted hour after hour in taking seriously, 
 in an excess of romanticism, the members of the avowed 
 or disguised demi-monde. Next to that book his 
 " Sans Dieu," a drama of scientific conscientiousness, 
 attested diligent study in the Museum, the Sorbonne, 
 the College of France ; while " Monsieur le Premier " 
 remains one of the most faithful pictures of the con- 
 temporary political world, which could not have been 
 traced except by one acquainted with the Palais Bour- 
 bon and newspaper offices. Was it not reported, one 
 fine morning, that Dorsenne was a candidate for the 
 House of Deputies in which candidature he failed 
 moreover for the sake of advertising himself, said 
 his enemies, out of caprice, said his friends, while 
 really he only sought to experience the peculiar sensa- 
 tion of a man in political life ? Then his two volumes 
 of travel, pretentiously named " Tourisme," " Profils 
 d'trangeres," and " Eglogue Mondaine," where he flits 
 between Florence and London, Saint Moritz and Bay- 
 reuth, reveal long sojourns out of France, a keen an-
 
 34 OOSMOPOLI8. 
 
 alysis of Italian, English, and German life, a superfi- 
 cial but exact knowledge of languages, histories, and 
 literatures which are scarcely in accordance with Voder 
 di femina, which scents all his pages. Their contrasts 
 suppose a strangely complex mind dominated by a 
 pretty firm will, and, it must be added, very little sensi- 
 bility. This may seem inconsistent with the extreme, 
 almost morbid, delicacy of certain of Dorsenne's works. 
 Still it is true. He had little heart. But in return, he 
 had plenty of nerves, and if the heart is necessary to 
 feel truly, down to that complete abnegation of self 
 which recoils not even before death, nerves and their 
 painful irritability are enough for one who wishes to 
 paint human passions, love above all, with their joys 
 and sorrows of which one does not speak when one feels 
 to a certain degree. Julien's glory had never been 
 more than half glory, yet his success had come so soon 
 that it gave opportunity for some adventures. He had 
 the credit of having had more, on account of his profes- 
 sion of a keen enjoyment of feminine conversation. 
 Whatever society he had traversed in his sentimental 
 pilgrimage, he always sought to find in it some woman 
 whose charms would sum up the scattered charms of 
 that society. His countless acquaintances had been 
 mere light sketches. Some had been openly gallant ; 
 most of them had remained platonic ; some had been 
 simply playing at friendship, as was the case now with 
 Mme. Steno. Every woman, mistress, or friend was for 
 him, nine times out of ten, nothing but a curiosity to be 
 satisfied, and in the tenth case, a pleasure to be en- 
 joyed, a perfume to inhale, a model to paint. But as 
 he unceasingly labored to make his model unrecogniz- 
 able by an external sign, he never thought he was to 
 blame, if he used his position as a recognized author, 
 for what he called his "culture." He never imagined 
 what depravity there was in this mental epicureanism, 
 based on a constant abuse of his own soul, and that 
 of others. He was capable of justice ; his defence of
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 35 
 
 Fanny Hafner to Montfanon proved that ; of admiration, 
 his respect for the nobles quoted by Montfanon was evi- 
 dence of that ; of pity, for otherwise he would never have 
 felt at once with such sympathy the disastrous effect of 
 Gorka's return on the fate of the innocent Alba Steno. 
 The sudden right-about-face that his thoughts had 
 made as he entered the vast stairway of the Castagna 
 Palace, would have been made by him in all similar cir- 
 cumstances. Excess of reflection ever came to corrupt 
 or dissolve his natural sensibility ; and thus, after being 
 really upset by the unexpected news of the return of 
 the lover whom Mme. Steno was deceiving, to such an 
 extent as to have an unquiet quarter of an hour while 
 he ran through all the dangers this return might have 
 for Alba, he got himself well in hand again, before even 
 seeing her. In place of hastening, as was natural, to 
 know how matters stood, he paused at a window and 
 scribbled on a tiny note-book, in a firm, precise, clear 
 handwriting characteristic of his style, this little note, 
 which is far from sentimental : 
 
 " 25 April, '90. Castagna Palace. Wonderful winding 
 stair, built by Balthazar Perazzi, so long and so wide, with 
 double colonettes every ten steps, like that of Santa Colomba, 
 near Sienna. Enjoyed the view .of the garden ivithin, so 
 shut up, fenced in, and designed that the red clumps of 
 flowers, the, dry regularity of the evergreens, the straight 
 lines of the sanded and gravelled walks look like so many 
 lines in a face. Latin garden, opposed to German or Anglo- 
 Saxon garden, tlie latter regarding the indeterminate in 
 nature, the other all in order, all by rule, humanizing and 
 organizing down to the flower -beds. To render tlie complexity 
 of life submissive to a thought of unity and clearness, a 
 constant mark of the Latin genius, for a clump of trees, as 
 for a whole people, for a wliole religion Catholicism con- 
 trary in the Northern races. Profound thought in the ivords, 
 Forests taught men freedom."
 
 36 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 He had scarcely finished writing these notes and was 
 closing 1 his pocket-book, which he called sometimes his 
 pantry, sometimes his spittoon, when the sound of a 
 voice he well knew made him turn suddenly. He had 
 not heard this person ascending the stairs, and the lat- 
 ter had let him write on. He was no other than one of 
 the actors in his troupe, to use Dorsenne's words one 
 of the persons with Avhom they had arranged, the evening 
 before at Mme. Steno's, this morning's party which the 
 redoubtable Marquis had denounced with such warmth. 
 It was the father of the fair Fanny Hafner, the Baron 
 Justus himself. The old buccaneer of the bourses at 
 Berlin and Vienna, the too famous founder of the Austro- 
 Dalmatian Credit, was a little, very thin man, with blue 
 eyes of almost insufferable keenness, a face of a neutral 
 tint, and an expressionless countenance. His attitude, 
 always equally courteous, his dress always equally 
 simple and careful, his language always equally sober 
 and restrained, gave him that kind of quiet distinction 
 which is the leading characteristic of so many old dip- 
 lomatists. But the dangerous adventurer was betrayed 
 by the glance which Hafner could not cover with a veil 
 of amiable indifference. Man of the world, as he 
 piqued himself on being, he revealed, in spite of all, by 
 indefinable nothings, and by his eye with its restless- 
 ness so singular in a man so rich, an obscure, enigmatic 
 past of obscure and varied struggles, savage greed, cool 
 calculation and indomitable energy. The fanatic Mont- 
 fanon, who was so mistaken and unjust about the 
 daughter, was right about the father, or almost right, for 
 there are more shades and less definiteness, even in such 
 a perfect type of the international speculator as this 
 character, about religion, family or country. Son of a 
 Berlin Jew and a Dutch Protestant, Justus Hafner was 
 registered as belonging to his mother's religion. But he 
 lost her in early life and was brought up in no other faith 
 than that of money. His father, a jeweller in a small 
 way, very persevering and skilful, but too prudent to risk
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 37 
 
 or gain much, taught him the trade in precious stones, 
 to which he soon added laces, pictures, old stuffs, tapes- 
 tries, and old furniture. An unerring perception, and 
 bull-dog German patience, crossed with Jew and Dutch, 
 soon had won for him his first capital, which the property 
 he inherited from his father augmented. At twenty- 
 seven, Justus was worth not less than five hundred thou- 
 sand marks. Two unfortunate operations on the Bourse 
 which he had undertaken to force fortune and reach the 
 million point, stripped the too bold broker, who recom- 
 menced to build up a new fortune by again peddling dia- 
 monds and trinkets. He came to Paris, and there in a 
 little room in the Rue Montmartre, he made, in three 
 years, his second capital. He managed it this time so 
 skilfully that in 1870, at the epoch of the war, he had 
 recovered all his losses. The armistice found him in 
 England, where he had married the daughter of the agent 
 for a Vienna house who had come to London to or- 
 ganize a vast scheme for revictualling the belligerent 
 armies. The enormous profits made by the father-in- 
 law and son-in-law during this year, made them resolve 
 to found a bank with its head office in Vienna, and a 
 branch in Berlin. Justus Hafner, an enthusiastic ad- 
 mirer of M. de Bismarck, had also the commanding 
 interest in a great newspaper. But the great statesman 
 refused to aid the late jobber of diamonds in the politi- 
 cal ambitions that he had cherished from youth. It was 
 a cruel shock, although only a moral one, in the life of 
 this hardworking man, who, having made up his mind 
 as to his future in Prussia, emigrated definitively to 
 Vienna. The creation of the Credit Austro- Dahnate, 
 placed in the market with an extraordinary amount of 
 skilful puffing, enabled him to realize, at length, one at 
 least of his chimeras. His fortune, without equalling 
 that of the great financiers of the epoch, increased with 
 the rapidity of a phantasmagoria till it reached a figure 
 high enough in 1879 to permit him to enjoy the luxury of 
 five hundred thousand francs a year income. Contrary
 
 38 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 to the habits of most of the speculators of this sort, Haf- 
 ner realized in time and placed his prodigious capital 
 in good securities. He thought himself safe when the 
 thunder-clap of the trial of 1880 almost destroyed for 
 ever the edifice so painfully constructed. The Credit 
 Austro-Dalmcde foundered in a noisy manner among in- 
 numerable disasters, public and private, and such scan- 
 dals as the suicide of the Schroeder family. A whole 
 band of founders among them Justus Hafner, were pros- 
 ecuted ; he was acquitted, but with such imputations on 
 his financial morality and in the midst of such public 
 indignation that he left Austria for Italy, and Vienna 
 for Rome. There, without heeding his previous rebuff, 
 he set to work to realize what had been the third great 
 object of his life, a position in society. The age of 
 amassing had been succeeded, as is the case with these 
 great managers of money, by the age of vanity. After 
 the death of his wife, he planned the marriage of his 
 daughter with a force of will and a complication of com- 
 binations equal to any of his exploits of old, and this 
 " struggle for high life " was disguised under the form, 
 systematically adopted, of lofty politeness and noble 
 bearing. How had he found the means, amid so many 
 bitter struggles, to get such a degree of refinement 
 that the primitive old-clothes man and the sneaking 
 share-broker were not too conspicuous in the Baron 
 of forty-four, decorated with several orders, installed 
 in a magnificent palace, the father of a charming daugh- 
 ter, and himself a pleasant talker, a courteous cavalier, 
 a distinguished sportsman ? This is the secret of natures 
 formed for social conquest, as Napoleon for war, and 
 Talleyrand for diplomacy. Dorsenne was always put- 
 ting this question to himself, and never could answer it. 
 Although he boasted of looking on the Baron with a 
 mere intellectual curiosity, he could not, with it all, get 
 rid of a shudder of antipathy as he met the eyes of this 
 terrible man. Even this morning, in this turn of the 
 stairs, it was very disagreeable to know that those eyes
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 39 
 
 had watched him making 1 his innocent notes, although 
 there was a trace of playful irony that of a grand sei- 
 gneur who is the patron of a great artist in the manner 
 of Hafner, as he addressed him. 
 
 , " Do not disturb yourself for me," he said. " You 
 paint from nature, and you are quite right. I seo your 
 next work will be based on the ruin of our poor Prince 
 d'Ardea. Don't be too hard on him or on us ! " 
 
 The novelist could not refrain from blushing at this 
 kindly bit of pleasantry. Nothing could have affected 
 him more painfully, because he knew the remark was, at 
 the same time, very just and very unjust. How could 
 he explain the kind of literary alchemy, thanks to which 
 he could assert that he never made portraits, although 
 every line of his fifteen volumes had been taken from a 
 living model ? Hence he exhibited some bad temper in 
 his reply : 
 
 " You are mistaken, my dear Baron. I do not take 
 notes about anybody, and I am not in the habit of writ- 
 ing books with a key " 
 
 "All authors say that," replied the Baron, as he 
 shrugged his shoulders with the good nature he rarely 
 lost, " and they are right. In any case, it is very lucky 
 that you had to make your notes, for we shall both be 
 too late. It is nearly a quarter-past eleven, and we were 
 due at eleven sharp. But I have a good excuse. I 
 waited for my daughter." 
 
 " Is she not coming ? " asked Dorsenne. 
 
 "No," Hafner answered. "At the last moment she 
 could not make up her mind. She was annoyed a little 
 this morning about some old book she wished to buy. 
 Some smart fellow who had learned that she wanted it 
 got ahead of her. She will have to pay twenty louis 
 more for her fancy. But this is not the real cause. The 
 real cause is that she is too sensitive, and finds the sale 
 of all the furniture of this old family a very sad business. 
 So I did not insist. How would she have felt if she had 
 known the late Princess Nicoletta, Peppino's mother ?
 
 40 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 When I paid my first visit to Eome, in '75, you should 
 have seen this salon, and what a princess she was ! She 
 was a Condolmieri, of the family of Bug-emus IV., a pope 
 of the purest fifteenth century type." 
 
 " How stupid vanity can make the cleverest of men ! " 
 thought Julien, as he followed the Baron. " He wants 
 me to believe that he was received by this lady, who was 
 of the creme de la creme, and the most select in invita- 
 tions to her salon. How much more complex life is than 
 it seems to Montfanon ! This girl feels by instinct what 
 the Chouan Marquis feels by knowledge, the melan- 
 choly of such ends of noble families ; while her father 
 lets the old bric-a-brac dealer's ears still peep out, and 
 talks of mediaeval popes as if they were bibelots. The 
 ' purest fifteenth century ! ' While we are alone, I will 
 ask the old fox what he knows about Gorka's return. 
 He is Mme. Steno's confidant and must be posted about 
 the Pole's comings and goings." Hafner was the Count- 
 ess's financial adviser, and this very friendship between 
 them ought to have been a reason why Dorsenne should 
 at any price have avoided such a subject, all the more 
 as he knew the Baron disliked him. The Baron could, 
 by repeating a rash word, ruin him with the mother 
 of Alba. But the novelist, like most professional ob- 
 servers, could only analyze retrospectively. His pene- 
 trating intelligence never aided him in avoiding one of 
 those little indiscretions of speech, which are great in- 
 discretions of conduct on the tricky chess-board of the 
 world. Luckily for him, he had no ambitions but 
 pleasure and art, and without them he had found means 
 of making for himself enemies enough to spoil his 
 chances for any academy or any decoration. He selected 
 the moment when the Baron was rather out of breath 
 by ascending the flight of stairs, and the auctioneer's 
 assistant was examining their tickets of admission, to 
 say to his companion : 
 
 " Have you seen Gorka since his arrival ? " 
 
 " What ! Boleslas here ? " asked Justus Hafner, who
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 41 
 
 gave no other sign of astonishment, except by adding 
 " I thought he was in Poland." 
 
 " I have not seen him myself," said Dorsenne, who 
 then regretted having spoken so hastily. It is not 
 always wise to be the first to convey certain bits of 
 news. But the ignorance of the Baron, the best friend 
 of the Countess, who saw her nearly every day, struck the 
 young man with such surprise that he could not refrain 
 from adding, " A friend whose word I cannot doubt met 
 him this morning; " and then, abruptly, " Does not this 
 sudden return alarm you ? " 
 
 " Alarm ! " replied Hafner. " Why ? " and he looked 
 at the novelist, as he uttered the words, with his usual 
 impassive countenance, which however was contradicted 
 by a little, very little sign, very significant to those who 
 knew him. The two men, during this exchange of 
 words, had entered the first room, in which were dis- 
 played " objects of art belonging to the apartments of 
 H. E. the Prince of Ardea," so the catalogue said, and 
 the Baron had not touched the gold eyeglass which he 
 was in the habit of placing on his nose before the 
 meanest display of bric-a-brac. As he walked with 
 slow, carefully measured steps through the busts and 
 statues in this first " Room of Marbles," as it was called 
 in the catalogue, and never turned his keen dealer's 
 glance on the Gobelin tapestry on the walls, he must 
 have considered the novelist's communication as very 
 important. The latter had said too much to stop now. 
 
 " Well, although I have not been, like you, a friend 
 of Mme. Steno's for years, I felt a shiver when I heard 
 of his return. She does not know what Gorka is when 
 he is jealous, and what he is capable of " 
 
 " Jealous ? And about whom ? " Hafner broke in. 
 " This is not the first time I have heard Boleslas's 
 name mentioned in connection with the Countess. I 
 confess I never took these whispers seriously, and I 
 could not have believed that you, a visitor at her house 
 and one of her friends, would have hesitated about
 
 42 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 them. Set your miiid at ease. Gorka loves his charm- 
 ing wife, and he could not choose better. The Countess 
 Caterina is an excellent woman, very Italian, very 
 demonstrative. She is interested in him, as she is in 
 you, in Maitland, in me, through her expansive nature ; 
 in you because you write such charming books, in 
 Boleslas on account of his grief at losing his first child, 
 in me because I have the delicate charge of bringing up 
 a daughter. She is more than an excellent person, she 
 is a superior woman, very superior." 
 
 He uttered this hypocritical discourse with such com- 
 plete tranquillity that Dorsenne was stunned, as well as 
 irritated. That Hafner did not believe a word of what 
 he said, the novelist knew quite well, as he had learned 
 from the indiscreet confidences of Gorka what to think 
 of the manners of the Venetian countess, and he knew 
 how keen were the Baron's eyes. At any other time he 
 would have admired the adroitness of the old stager, 
 who was so wide-awake and circumspect as to dread 
 even to hear what he was more sure of than anyone else. 
 At this instant the writer deemed this show of reserve 
 somewhat puerile, because it left him to play the part, 
 common enough but not very nice, of being a slanderer 
 who defamed a lady with whom he had dined the day 
 before. He hurried on, then, as fast as politeness per- 
 mitted him, in order to avoid a longer tete-a-tete with 
 the Baron and to join the rest of the party, who had now 
 arrived. They left the first room for the second, "the 
 Porcelain Room," and the third, styled " Hall of the 
 Fresco of Perino del Vaga," from the ceiling where the 
 master had painted a replica of his vigorous sketch of 
 Jupiter destroying the Giants, and finally into a fourth, 
 the hall " Degli Arazzi," from the marvellous tapestries 
 with which it was decorated. But few visitors were 
 moving about, for the season was little advanced, and the 
 singular choice of such a date for selling the prince's 
 furniture attested either deep hate or the knavery of 
 a syndicate of dealers. -All the magnificent objects in
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 43 
 
 the palace would be knocked down for half of what 
 they would have fetched a few months earlier or later. 
 The small number of visitors made a striking contrast 
 to the profusion of furniture, stuffs, works of art of 
 every kind, that encumbered the immense rooms. It 
 was a marvellous result of five hundred years of power 
 and luxury, where masterpieces worthy of the great 
 Medicis, and others of that date, alternated with the 
 frippery of the eighteenth century, and bronzes of the 
 First Empire with silver jimcracks ordered from Lon- 
 don yesterday. The Baron could not restrain himself ; 
 he had now placed his famous eyeglass on his nose, and 
 conversed with Dorsenne as he pointed out a curious 
 conch, the engraving on a dial, the embroidery on a cur- 
 tain. A single look enabled him to judge infallibly. 
 The writer, if he had been capable of observing, might 
 have perceived, in the banker's minute knowledge of 
 the catalogue, traces of a deep study that must have 
 some mysterious project in view. 
 
 " There are treasures here ! " he said ; " look at these 
 two vases with domed covers, and this deep-orange tint 
 reinforced with gilding work that they no longer pro- 
 duce in China. The art is lost. This bit of old Saxon 
 ornamented with flowers ! And this processional cape 
 in this glass case ! What a marvel ! It is as good as that 
 of Pius II. at Pienza, which was stolen. I very nearly 
 bought it at that time for fifteen hundred francs. It 
 is worth fifteen thousand, twenty thousand, what you 
 will. Now look at this Spanish - Moorish faience. It 
 must have been brought from Spain when Cardinal 
 Castagna, afterward Urban VII., went to Madrid to 
 take the place of Pius V. as god-father of the Infanta 
 Isabella. Ah, what riches ! But you are going on like 
 the wind," he added ; " that is the best plan, perhaps, 
 for I should stop, and Fossati, to whom the creditors of 
 Peppino have entrusted the sale, has his spies every- 
 where. If you look at anything you are known to be a 
 solider Mann, as one says in Germany. You are marked
 
 44 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 off. I must be on his list. I have been tricked enough 
 by him. He's a smart fellow. But see, here are the 
 ladies. We should have remembered that they would 
 be here ! " 
 
 Smiling (either at Fossati, himself, or his companion) 
 he pointed out the notice on the door of a side-room, 
 containing the words " Hall of Wedding - coffers." 
 There, ranged along the walls, were fifteen painted 
 and carved boxes of wood, the cassoni in which in old 
 days it had been the fashion in the great Italian 
 families to place the trousseaux of new-made brides. 
 Those of the Castagna family showed by their escutch- 
 eons, what noble alliances had been disgraced by the 
 loss of his hereditary fortune by the last of the grand- 
 nephews of Urban VII., the present prince of Ardea. 
 Three young ladies were occupied in examining them, 
 and Dorsenne recognized the blond and slender Alba 
 Steno, Mme. Gorka, with her tall figure, her blond hair, 
 and her energetic English profile with its too-pro- 
 nounced chin ; the pretty Mme. Maitland, with her 
 warm complexion that seemed to have derived from her 
 black blood just a tinge of gold and bistre ; Florent Chap- 
 ron, her brother, the only cavalier with the three ladies. 
 Mme. Steno and Lincoln Maitland were absent, and the 
 musical voice of Alba was audible as she spelled out the 
 arms carved on the sides of the coffers, which had been 
 opened in days past, with little quivers of tender curi- 
 osity, by young girls who had been as laughing and 
 as dreamy as herself. 
 
 " Look, Maud," she cried to Mme. Gorka, " here is the 
 oak of the Delia Rovere, and here the stars of the 
 Altieri." 
 
 " I have found the column of the Colonnas," replied 
 Maud Gorka. 
 
 " What do you see ? " Mdlle. Steno asked Mme. Mait- 
 land. 
 
 " I see the bees of the Barberini " 
 
 " And I the lilies of the Farnese," continued Florent
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DKAMA. 45 
 
 Chapron in his turn. As he raised his head he was the 
 first to see the new-comers. He greeted them gayly 
 with a laugh that seemed to light up the very white of 
 his eyes, and which displayed his dazzling teeth. " We 
 did not wait for you, gentlemen ; everybody has broken 
 faith with us. Lincoln would not leave his studio. It 
 seems that Mdlle. Hafner made her excuses to these 
 ladies yesterday. Countess Steno is a little out of sorts. 
 We did not count on the Baron, who is known never to 
 be five minutes behind time." 
 
 "I was sure that Dorsenne would not desert us," said 
 Alba, looking at the young man with her large eyes, 
 whose blue was as clear as that of Mine. Gorka was dull ; 
 " but I expected to meet him on the staircase as we 
 were leaving, and hear him say ' What ? Am I not in 
 time ? ' ' Then she continued : " Make no excuses, but 
 answer the examination in Roman history which we 
 shall put you through. We have had a regular course 
 of lectures here on these old boxes. What arms are 
 those ? " she went on, asking the young man to examine 
 the side of one of the cassoni. " Don't you know ? The 
 Carafa arms, my most distinguished friend. And what 
 Pope was in their family ? Again ignorant ? Paul IV., 
 my illustrious novelist. If ever you come to visit us at 
 Venice, I will astonish you among the Doges." 
 
 She put such affectionate grace in this little speech, 
 and was so visibly in one of her hours alas, too rare 
 of childish joy, that Dorsenne, occupied as he had been 
 with thoughts of her, felt his heart tighten. The ab- 
 sence of Mme. Steno and Lincoln Maitland at the same 
 time might possibly be accidental, but it seemed to him 
 very suspicious. Such an idea would have been enough 
 to make him distressed at the girl's innocent gay ety, but 
 the gayety was tragic if it were true that the Countess's 
 other lover had returned unexpectedly, summoned by 
 some information that he had received. Dorsenne, 
 therefore, felt deeply moved when he said to Mme. 
 Gorka,
 
 46 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 " How is Boleslas ? " 
 
 " Well, I suppose," the wife replied ; " I have no letter 
 from him to-day. What does the proverb say no news, 
 good news ? " 
 
 Baron Hafner was standing at the side of Mme. Gorka 
 as she said these words. Involuntarily Dorsenne looked 
 at him, and involuntarily, in spite of his self-command, 
 he looked at Dorseime. It was no longer a mere suppo- 
 sition that they had to confront. The return of Boleslas 
 Gorka to Rome, unknown to his wife, constituted, for 
 anyone who knew his relations with Mme. Steno and 
 her infidelity, too serious an event for the two men not to 
 be struck with the same thought, " Was there still time 
 to avert a disaster 1 " Yet under these circumstances, 
 as in all important crises of life, each was bound to act 
 according to his real character. Not a muscle of Haf- 
 ner's face moved. It was a question, probably, of ren- 
 dering an important service to a woman in danger for 
 whom he entertained as much friendship as for any- 
 one. She was the opening wedge for his entrance into 
 Roman society. She was still more, for a whole plan for 
 marrying Fanny, a plan still secret, but ready to mature, 
 rested on Mme. Steno. He could not, however, attempt 
 to render her this service till he had passed half an hour 
 in the rooms of the Castagna Palace, and he set to work 
 employing this half hour in the manner most favorable 
 for his possible purchases unless, indeed, he had a still 
 further interest. For, turning to Mme. Gorka, he said, 
 with the rather exaggerated politeness which was habit- 
 ual to him : 
 
 " Countess, if I may advise you, do not linger before 
 those chests, however interesting they may be. In the 
 first place, as I just told Dorsenne, the auctioneer Fos- 
 sati has spies all about. You may be sure that notice 
 has been taken of the fact of your standing here, and if 
 you have a fancy for one of these coffers, he will know it 
 beforehand and will make you pay double or treble or 
 more. And there are more riches to examine, espe-
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OP A DRAMA. 47 
 
 cially a portfolio of designs by great masters which the 
 Prince never dreamed of, and which Fossati discovered 
 just think of it 1 half -eaten by moths in a cupboard 
 in one of the garrets. . . ." 
 
 "A very interesting collection," observed Florent. 
 " So is my brother-in-law's." 
 
 "I just dote on two of these chests," replied Mme. 
 Gorka, with her habitual good-humor, " and I must have 
 them. I have said this out so loud that there is no chance 
 of Fossati not having heard me, if he really has estab- 
 lished this system of spies. Forty or fifty livres more 
 are not worth a lie nor even forty thousand." 
 
 "Hafner is about to say that her tone is not low 
 enough," said Alba Steno with a smile ; " he will be add- 
 ing his final remark, ' You will never be a diplomatist.' 
 But," she added turning to Dorsenne, as she made way 
 for the silent Lydia Maitland, and prepared to remain in 
 the rear with the young man, " I am a little of a diplo- 
 mat enough so to know that you have some annoyance." 
 Her mobile face changed its expression and she looked at 
 Julien with genuine anxiety. " Yes," she said, " I have 
 never seen you so preoccupied as this morning. Do you 
 not feel well ? Have you bad news from Paris ? In fine, 
 what is the matter *? " 
 
 "Preoccupied?" replied Dorsenne. "You are mista- 
 ken ; there is nothing the matter I assure you." It was 
 impossible to lie more awkwardly, and he, if anyone, 
 deserved Hafner's sarcasm and contempt. Mme. Gorka 
 had scarcely spoken before he had imagined the Coun- 
 tess Steno and Maitland surprised by Gorka at that very 
 instant; a challenge a murder on the spot perhaps. 
 And as Alba continued to laugh with her clear laughter, 
 his impression of the wretched lot of the girl became so 
 strong that his face was overshadowed by it. He felt 
 touched, when she questioned him, to see the true, living 
 friendship she bore him. But this effort to hide his 
 emotion rendered his voice so harsh that she cried 
 
 " Have I annoyed you by my questions * "
 
 48 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 " Not the least in the world," he replied, without power 
 to utter a kind word. He felt himself unable to talk, as 
 they used to do, in a tone of friendship, half jocular, 
 half sentimental, and added : " I merely feel this exhibi- 
 tion rather melancholy. That's all." Then with a smile, 
 " Let us not lose this opportunity of having it shown to 
 us by our incomparable cicerone,''' he hurried her on to the 
 group which Hafner was guiding through the magnifi- 
 cent display of the almost deserted room. The party 
 continued its promenade, but one heard in turns the 
 low -voice of the Baron commenting on the skilful ar- 
 rangement of everything by the sellers, and the clear 
 voices of the visitors questioning him. 
 
 "Look!" said the second-hand broker of Berlin and 
 Paris, now turned into a cultivated amateur " look 
 how this humbug Fossati has taken pains not to put 
 away bibelots in the reception rooms. These couches 
 seem to invite sitters. They are well known. They were 
 reproduced in the Paris 'Review of Decorative Art.' 
 .... And that dining-room through this door, with 
 all the plate arranged on the table, would not one think 
 it prepared for a grand dinner? . . . ." 
 
 "Baron," said Mme. Gorka, "look at this tapestry ; 
 it is eighteenth century, is it not ? " 
 
 " Baron," interrupted Mme. Maitland, " this cup and 
 cover ; is it Old Vienna, or Capodirnonte ? " 
 
 " Baron," cried Florent Chapron, " is this back-piece 
 Florentine or Milan work ? " 
 
 The glasses quivered on the thin flexible tip of the 
 Baron's nose, his little eyes twinkled, his lips contracted, 
 and he answered as correctly as if he had studied every 
 detail of the catalogue. A chorus of " Thank you's " fol- 
 lowed other questions in which two voices only, those 
 of Alba and Dorsenne. took no part. Under any other 
 circumstances the latter would have striven to dissipate 
 the increasing sadness of the girl, who had ceased to 
 speak after he had repulsed her friendly anxiety. In 
 fact, he did not attach much importance to it. These
 
 THE COMMENCEMENT OF A DRAMA. 49 
 
 changes from excessive gayety to sudden depression 
 were so habitual in the Contessina, especially when she 
 was with him ! Although they were the indisputable 
 evidence of excessive feeling, he would only see in 
 them a sign of nervous excitement, and, besides, his 
 mind was too much occupied elsewhere. He was asking 
 himself whether, after Mine. Gorka's remarks, it would 
 not be prudent to communicate to Lincoln Maitland this 
 clandestine return of his rival. Perhaps the drama had 
 not yet been acted, and if only the two threatened per- 
 sons could be put on their guard . . . ? Without doubt 
 Hafiier would warn the Countess Steno. But where 
 would he see her ? He, Dorsenne, might mention this 
 reappearance of Gorka to Maitland's brother-in-law, to 
 Florent Chapron, whom he saw at that very moment 
 gazing on all the objects of this princely exhibition with 
 the tender love of a devoted slave. To do so was a 
 dangerous business, and would have appeared so to 
 anyone else. But Julien was a prey to that feeling of 
 the passage of time that robs of their coolness nervous 
 men, especially writers accustomed by their profession 
 to never distinguish the possible from the real. More- 
 over, the relations between Florent Chapron and Lin- 
 coln Maitland were of a very peculiar nature. They had 
 interested the novelist too deeply for him not to take 
 into account his previous observations in this moment 
 of anxiety. He knew that Florent, sent in youth to the 
 Jesuits of Beaumont, in England, by a father who was 
 desirous of sparing him the humiliations which his blood 
 entailed in America, had conceived an exalted friendship 
 for his fellow-pupil, Lincoln. He knew that this friend- 
 ship for his school-fellow had turned into equal enthu- 
 siasm for the artist, when the latter's talent began to de- 
 velop, and he believed that the marriage that had placed 
 Lydia's fortune at the service of the painter's talents, 
 was the work of this enthusiasm, at a period when Mait- 
 land, wearied by his mother's bad management, and not 
 yet appreciated by the public so as to live by his brush,
 
 60 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 was in the depths of despair. The exceptional char- 
 acter of the marriage would have astonished a man who 
 thought less of moral eccentricities than Dorsenne. He 
 had too often remarked the silence and retiring be- 
 havior of the sister, not to consider her a victim. He 
 thought that the worship of Maitlaud's glory had 
 blinded Florent to such extent that he was the prime 
 cause of the sacrifice. 
 
 " Drama for drama," he reflected as their visit drew to 
 a close, and after a long internal conflict. "I prefer 
 one in this family rather than in the other. ... I 
 shall reproach myself all my life for not having tried 
 everything ! " They were in the last room, and Hafner 
 was tying with his long dexterous fingers the cords 
 of the portfolio of drawings which one of the assistants 
 had brought, when this resolution finally took posses- 
 sion of the young man. Alba Steno, who was still 
 silent, looked at him again, with eyes that revealed the 
 struggle between her interest in him and her injured 
 pride. She would doubtless at the moment of separation 
 ask him, in her friendly and charming way, when they 
 should meet again. He thought not of that, nor of 
 other eyes which told him to be prudent the eyes of 
 the Baron, nor of the observant looks of Mme. Gorka, 
 who, after noticing at last Alba's ill-humor, was specu- 
 lating on its cause, which she had long before guessed 
 to be in the young girl's heart nor of the attitude of 
 Mme. Maitland, whose eyeballs gleamed at times with 
 flashes of treachery equal to those of gentleness in her 
 brother's. He took the latter by the arm and said 
 aloud : 
 
 " I would like to have your opinion, Chapron, on a 
 little portrait I noticed in the other room." Then, 
 when they were in front of some canvas that served as 
 a pretext to this aside, he went on, in a low tone: "I 
 heard, this morning, a strange piece of news. Fancy, 
 Boleslas Gorka is back in Rome, unknown to his 
 wife."
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 51 
 
 " Strange, indeed," the brother-in-law replied, adding 
 simply, after a pause, " Are you sure ? " 
 
 " As sure as we are here," said Dorsenne. " One of 
 my friends, the Marquis de Montfanon, met him this 
 morning 1 ." 
 
 There was again an interval of silence between the 
 speakers, during- which Julien felt the arm that he held 
 trembling. They resumed their places beside the rest, 
 and Florent remarked aloud, '"' A good bit of painting, 
 but, unfortunately, too heavily re varnished." 
 
 " I was right," thought Julien. " He understands 
 me." 
 
 III. 
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 
 
 Not ten minutes elapsed since Dorsenne had spoken 
 as he had to Florent Chapron, before the rash novelist 
 began to ask himself if he would not have been wiser 
 not to mix himself up, much or little, with an affair in 
 which his interference was at most useless. The appre- 
 hension of an immediate disaster which had disturbed 
 him, once, after his conversation with Montfanon, 
 and again, more strongly, when he ascertained the ig- 
 norance of Mine. Gorka on the matter of her husband's 
 return the frightful, irresistible vision of a chamber 
 suddenly deluged with blood, was banished by one of the 
 simplest incidents. The six visitors were interchang- 
 ing their last remarks on the melancholy and splendor 
 of the Castagna Palace, and were descending the vast 
 graceful staircase with its colonnettes and windows 
 through which the burning sun continued to smile on 
 the dark greenery and bright flowers of the narrow 
 garden which Dorsenne had compared to a face. The 
 young man was walking a little in advance with Alba 
 Steno, whose vexed and cold expression he was trying 
 to cheer up, when, suddenly, at the last turning of the
 
 52 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 wide, long steps that rendered the slope so easy, her 
 face was illuminated with surprise and pleasure. The 
 Contessina uttered a little scream. " Why, here is my 
 mother ! " and Julien saw before him the same Mme. 
 Steno whom his mad fit of anxiety had painted to his 
 imagination as surprised, ill-used, murdered by a 
 deceived lover. She stood on the black and gray 
 mosaic of the peristyle, clad in the daintiest and softest 
 of morning dresses, of thin homespun. Her golden 
 hair was massed under a large hat, with flowers and a 
 floating white veil ; her hand trifled with the engraved 
 silver handle of a white parasol, and, amid the reflections 
 of all this whiteness, with her clear blond complexion, 
 her beautiful blue eyes beaming with passion and 
 intelligence, her marvellous teeth that shone beneath 
 her smiles, her figure, still slender in spite of her opul- 
 ence of bust, she looked a creature so young, so strong, 
 so untouched by life, that no stranger could have fancied 
 her the mother of the tall girl who had run up to her 
 and said : 
 
 " How imprudent ! ill as you were this morning, to 
 come out in such a sun, and why ? " 
 
 " Why, to come and take you home," the Countess 
 replied, gayly. " I was ashamed of having given way, 
 and got up. So here I am ! Good-day, Dorsenne. I 
 hope you have kept your eyes well open, upstairs. 
 There is a story to be written on this business of Prince 
 Ardea. I will relate it to you. Good-day, Maud. How 
 kind of you to make lazy little Alba take more exercise. 
 She would have another complexion if she took a walk 
 every morning. Good-day, Florent. Good-day, Lydia. 
 And is not the Master here ? You, my old friend, what 
 have you done with Fanny ? " 
 
 In distributing these simple "Good-days," she had 
 such delicate shading of graciousness, such a partic- 
 ular smile for each tender toward the daughter, ap- 
 preciative toward the writer, grateful toward Mme. 
 Gorka, surprised at Chapron and Mme. Maitland.
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 53 
 
 familiar and confiding toward the " Old Friend," as 
 she called the Baron she was so evidently the soul of 
 the little society that her mere presence kindled life in 
 every eye. They all replied at once, and she replied to 
 each as they walked toward the carriages in the spa- 
 cious court. One after another the carriages came for- 
 ward, the brougham of the Baron, the landau of Mme. 
 Gorka, the victoria of Mme. Maitland. The horses 
 pranced. The harness glittered. The footmen and 
 coachmen were in such correct liveries the porter 
 of the Castagna Palace, in his long coat with its buttons 
 bearing the symbolic chestnut-tree of the Castagna 
 family, and with his laced cocked hat, had such an im- 
 posing presence, that Julien suddenly felt himself ab- 
 surd to imagine a savage drama of passion among such 
 people. He was the last to leave, and as he watched 
 the others departing, he again had the sensation of 
 ironical and indulgent gayety, common to those who 
 know the wrong side of the splendors of the world, and 
 who see there, forcibly, moral poverty and childish- 
 ness. 
 
 " You have been a big fool, my friend Dorsenne," he 
 said to himself as he took his seat in one of the demo- 
 cratic vehicles, which were called " boxes " at Rome ; 
 " To fear a tragic adventure in the case of a woman like 
 that, and with such self-possession, is much like jump- 
 ing into the water to prevent a shark from drowning. 
 If she had not Maitland's kisses still on her lips, I know 
 nothing ! She came straight from their meeting. That 
 was plain, to me, in her convenient dress, her rosy 
 cheeks, her little slippers that had not taken thirty 
 steps on foot ! with what maestria she flung out her 
 net of lies. Her daughter, Mme. Gorka, Mme. Mait- 
 land how she swept them all in ! This is the reason I 
 do not like the theatre. Where can one find an actress 
 who possesses such a tone for saying, ' The Master not 
 here * ' " He laughed aloud, and then, as he unceasingly 
 imagined situations of character, beyond the situations
 
 54 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 of sentiment which reality presented, his roving fancy 
 fearlessly set out on a new path, and, using- the word 
 common to cosmopolites of German origin to designate 
 a stupid action, he thought, " I have committed a pretty 
 ' Rchlemylade? as Hafner would say, in telling Florent 
 of Gorka's unexpected arrival. It would have been 
 better to tell him plainly that Maitland is the Countess's 
 lover. I should like to overhear the conversation be- 
 tween the two brothers-in-law. I should not be surprised 
 if this negro in want of a job is the confidant of this 
 great man ! It is a fine subject, never yet well done : 
 the passionate friendship of a Tallet for a Musset, an 
 Erckmann for a Goethe, an Asselineau for a Baudelaire, 
 the total absorption of the admirer in the person ad- 
 mired. Florent discovered that the genius of this great 
 painter required a fortune, so he gave him his sister's. 
 If he discovers this genius requires a passion for its 
 further development, he will joyfully be the go-between. 
 On my word of honor, he looked at the Countess just 
 now with an air of gratitude. Why not, after all ? 
 Lincoln is a colorist of the front rank, although his 
 desire of being up to date beguiles him into too many 
 imitations. It is all race. Mme. Maitland has as 
 much sense as a broom-stick, and Mme. Steno is one 
 of those extraordinary women who are created to exalt 
 an artist's vitality. He had never before done anything 
 like Alba's portrait. I can hear the dialogue right here. 
 ' You know the Pole is back ? ' ' What Pole ? ' ' Your 
 Countess's.' ' Why, you believe these slanders t ' Mait- 
 land will be grand as he utters this inevitable remark. 
 Ah, what comedies one misses in this world of ours. 
 My driver has committed a schlemyladc, too. I told 
 him Via Sistena, by La Trinita dei Monti, and here he 
 is going by the Piazza Barberini, in place of cutting 
 across by Capo le Case. It is my mistake, too. I see 
 nothing when the bee in my bonnet is buzzing. Let us 
 admire at least Bernini's Triton, as he blows the 
 water through his conch. AVhat genius in that great
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 55 
 
 sculptor, who never thought of nature but to falsify 
 her ! Talk of aesthetics after that ! " 
 
 These incoherent reflections, during which the novel- 
 ist had again traversed a third of Home, ended in a 
 very optimistic frame of mind, as was seen when the 
 hack stopped at the address he had given. It was that 
 of a very modest restaurant, adorned with a thoroughly 
 Tuscan sign, Trattoria al Marzocco, and the Marzocco, 
 the symbolic lion of Florence, was represented above 
 the door with his paw on the escutcheon that bore the 
 national lily. The exterior of the house scarcely justi- 
 fied the choice of it, by a man of Dorsenne's taste, as 
 his dining-place whenever he was not asked out to 
 dinner. But his species of dilettanteism adored noth- 
 ing so much as these sudden contrasts of societies, and 
 Egisto Brancadori, who kept the Marzocco, was one of 
 those unconscious buffoons whom he was ceaselessly 
 searching for in real life. He used to call them " The- 
 bans," in memory of King Lear's "I'll talk a word 
 with this same learned Theban," the exclamation 
 which the king, when he became mad, uttered, we 
 know not why, on meeting " Poor Tom " on the heath. 
 In order that his Parisian friends, the Casals, the Ma- 
 chaults, the de Vardes, might not judge him too severely, 
 it may be added that his Florentine Theban was, at the 
 same time, a first-class cook, and his modest restaurant 
 had its traditions, which always diverted a paradoxi- 
 cal observer like Julien. He used to say : " Who will 
 ever dare to write the truth of history. This bit, for 
 example : Pope Pius IX. asked Napoleon III. to lend 
 him some soldiers to protect his states ; the latter 
 consented ; the occupation of Rome had two results : a 
 Corsican hatred of one-half of Italy toward France, 
 and the foundation of the Marzocco by Egisto Bran- 
 cadori, called the Theban or the Doctor." This was a 
 little joke on Dorsenne's part, who pretended to have 
 been cured of dyspepsia in Italy by the sage and 
 wholesome cookery of Egisto aforesaid. In reality,
 
 56 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 and more simply, Brancadori had been the chef of a 
 great Russian noble, one of the Werekiew family, a 
 cousin of the real father of pretty Alba Steno. This 
 Werekiew, who had been famous for his dinners at 
 Rome, died suddenly in 1866, and some friends of the 
 family, under the advice of a French officer of the army 
 of occupation, and tired of clubs, hotels, and restau- 
 rants, resolved to continue and act as backers to the 
 cook of the late Werekiew. They established in his 
 name, in an unpretending spot, a kind of superior mess, 
 which they might, without much vanity, have styled a 
 culinary club. By guaranteeing him a minimum of 
 sixteen dinners at seven francs a head, they had had 
 for four years an exquisite table, at which every dis- 
 tinguished visitor who came to Rome in those days had 
 been seated. The year 1870 dispersed this little club 
 of gourmets and talkers, and the club-house was trans- 
 formed into a restaurant, almost unknown except to 
 some artists or diplomats who were attracted by the 
 traditions of its ancient splendor and by their appre- 
 ciation of the Doctor's talents. It was no rare sight 
 to see the three little rooms that formed the establish- 
 ment filled about eight o'clock with white ties, white 
 waistcoats, and evening coats. A cosmopolite like 
 Dorsenne found the spectacle singularly entertaining: 
 a corner of the English Embassy here, a corner of the 
 Russian Embassy there ; two German attaches else- 
 where ; two French secretaries accredited to the Vati- 
 can, another to the Quirinal. But the novelist was 
 still more delighted by the conversation of the " Doc- 
 tor " himself, who could neither read nor write. But 
 he preserved a clear recollection of all his ancient 
 guests, and when he felt himself among men he could 
 trust, he would stand erect on the threshold of his 
 kitchen, the cleanness of which rendered him inordi- 
 nately proud, and tell anecdotes of the by-gone Rome 
 which had been so curious in his youth. His gestures, 
 uneducated but in keeping with his surroundings, his
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 57 
 
 mobile features, his Tuscan dialect, that sweet tongue 
 that softens the hard " c " between vowels into " h," 
 gave a flavor to his stories that delighted the curious 
 seeker after local color. Especially in the morning, 
 when there was hardly anyone in the restaurant, he 
 would gladly leave his furnaces to chatter ; and if Dor- 
 senne on this occasion gave to his hack-driver the 
 address of the Marzocco, it was with a hope that the old 
 chef would sketch in his wonted manner, for him, the 
 history of the ruin of Ardea. He found Brancadori 
 standing by the cash-desk, where his niece, Sabatina, 
 was enthroned. Her charming Florentine face, with 
 its rather long chin, its rather broad brow, its rather 
 short nose, and its curling lips, her large black eyes 
 with a golden tint in them, and her waving hair, re- 
 called in striking fashion the favorite type of the first 
 of the Ghirlandajo. 
 
 " Uncle," said the girl, on perceiving Dorsenne, 
 " where have you put the letter sent here for the 
 Prince ? " In Italy every stranger is a prince or a 
 count, and the profound bonhomie of Italian manners 
 gives to these titles, even in the mouth of those who 
 confer them, an expression of amiability usually devoid 
 of all sordid calculation. In no country in the world 
 does there prevail a truer or more charming familiarity 
 of classes than in Italy, and Brancadori gave a proof of 
 it at once, in addressing as Caro lei, that is " my dear 
 fellow," the visitor whom his niece had adorned with a 
 closed coronet. Then rummaging in the pockets of the 
 alpaca jacket he wore under his cook's apron, he ex- 
 claimed : 
 
 " A testa bianco, spesso cervello manca. I put it in 
 my coat pocket to be sure that I would not forget it. 
 I changed my clothes, as it was too warm, and I must 
 have left the letter in my bedroom." 
 
 " You need not get it till after breakfast," said Dor- 
 senne. 
 
 " Oh, no," replied the girl, rising. " It is only a
 
 couple of steps, and I'll go for it. The janitor of the 
 palace where his Excellence dwells brought it himself, 
 and insisted that it must be delivered at once." 
 
 " Well, go fetch it," said Julien, who, although ac- 
 customed to it, could not help smiling at this ennobling 
 of his lodging as well as of himself, " and I'll stay and 
 talk with the Doctor while he is preparing his prescrip- 
 tion for this morning, that is, his bill-of-fare. Guess 
 where I've come from, Brancadori," he added, to arouse 
 the curiosity and chattering propensity of the cook ; 
 " from the Castagna Palace, where everything is to be 
 sold." 
 
 " Per Bacco ! " cried the Tuscan, with visible distress 
 in the old parchment face that had been reddened by 
 forty years of stewpan fires ; " if the late Prince Urban 
 sees that in the other world, his heart will break, I 
 swear. The last time he came to dine here ten years 
 ago was on the Saint Joseph, and he said to me, ' You 
 will make me some fritters, Egisto, like those we used 
 to have with M. d'Epinay, M. Clairin, Fortuny, and 
 poor Henri Begnault ! ' And he was pleased. He 
 stopped to talk to me. ' Egisto,' he said, ' I can go to 
 my grave. I have only one son, and I leave him six 
 millions and the palace. If it were Gigi, I should not 
 be easy, but with Peppino ' Gigi was the other, the 
 older son who is dead, a gay fellow, who came here 
 every day in the time of those gentlemen ; a good lad, 
 but such a scamp ! You should have heard him tell 
 the story of his visit to Pius IX., on the day when he 
 converted an Englishman. Yes, your Excellence, he 
 converted him, by lending him, in mistake, a religious 
 book instead of a novel. The Englishman took the 
 book, read it, read another after it, read a third, and 
 turned Catholic. Gigi, who did not stand well at the 
 Vatican, rushed off to boast of his achievement to the 
 Holy Father. ' See, my son,' said Pius IX., ' what in- 
 struments the Lord God can employ.' He would have 
 consumed those millions in having a good time, while
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 59 
 
 Peppino . . . ! They all went in signed paper. Just 
 fancy, the name of Ardea was worth money. He gam- 
 bled on the Bourse, lost, gambled again, lost again, and 
 then came his signing acceptances after acceptances. ' I 
 sign' and 'I sign,' and every time he made this little 
 flourish, as I might with my pencil only I cannot sign 
 my name it was one hundred thousand, two hundred 
 thousand francs sent running over the world. And 
 now he has to leave his home and leave Rome. What 
 will he do then, your Excellence, I ask you ? " and with 
 a shake of his head, " He will have to rebuild his fort- 
 une abroad. We say in Tuscany, ' who squanders money 
 with his hands, must make it with his feet.' But here 
 comes Sabatina back, she is as active as a cat." 
 
 The indescribable pantomime of the man, his prov- 
 erbs, the background of old customs sketched in be- 
 hind his story in his recollection of the feast of Saint 
 Joseph, when all the cook-shops display the orthodox 
 "fritters;" the dry humor of Pius IX., reproduced with 
 the old pope's accent, the strikingly original picture of 
 the heir of the Castagnas, signing, signing ; the rough 
 and ready explanation of his ruin, quite true by the 
 way everything in his conversation amused Dorsenne. 
 He knew enough Italian to appreciate the intranslata- 
 ble shades of this man of the people say rather man of 
 Florence. He was about to laugh again, as the ma- 
 donna of the broken fresco, as he sometimes called the 
 young girl, handed him an envelope with an address 
 that at once changed his smile into a grimace of uncon- 
 cealed annoyance. He pushed back the bill-of-fare that 
 the old chef was presenting, and said, abruptly, " I am 
 very much afraid I cannot stay to breakfast." Then 
 opening the letter, " No, I cannot, good-by." He went 
 out in such a troubled and hasty manner, that the uncle 
 and niece looked at each other with a smile. These 
 genuine southerns cannot imagine that a handsome 
 young man like Dorsenne can have any cares beyond 
 cares of the heart.
 
 60 OOSMOPOLI*. 
 
 " Chi hal'amor nd petto" said Sabatina. 
 
 " Ha lo spron neifianchi" replied the uncle. The simple 
 adage, comparing- passion in the breast to spurs in the 
 courser's flanks, did not hold true of Dorsenne, although 
 its application in the present circumstance was not en- 
 tirely out of place. The novelist himself was com- 
 menting on it, in a different form, as he repeated to 
 himself during his walk along the Via Sistina, all bathed 
 in sunshine that increased his nervousness. " No, never, 
 no ! I will not meddle with this affair, I'll tell him so, 
 straight and plain." He took the letter, the perusal of 
 which had suddenly produced a crisis of disquietude 
 still more poignant than those he had experienced 
 twice already. He was not mistaken in recognizing on 
 the envelope the writing of Boleslas Gorka, and to read 
 in phrases, terribly mysterious in the present situa- 
 tion, the brief message : 
 
 " Iknoio, my dear Julien, that you are a true friend, and 
 I have such a regard for your chivalric and French char- 
 acter that I have decided to apply to you in a very tragic 
 circumstance in my life. I must see you IMMEDIATELY ; / 
 am waiting at your rooms. I sent a note like this to the 
 Hunt Club, to your bookseller on the Corso, to your bric-a- 
 brac dealer. Wherever my appeal reaches you, leave every- 
 thing and come. You will save more tlian life. For a 
 reason I shall tell you, my return is absolutely secret. No 
 ONE, you will understand, knows of it but you. I need 
 not write more to a friend as sure as you are, and whom I 
 heartily embrace. 
 
 '"#. G." 
 
 " He beats everything," Dorsenne repeated, as he 
 crumpled up the letter with increasing anger ; " he heart- 
 ily embraces me ! I am his best friend ! I am chivalric, 
 French, the only person he esteems ! What disagree- 
 able commission does he beg of me to discharge ? Into 
 what wasp's nest does he ask me to plunge, unless I 
 have already plunged into one ? I know this tribe of
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 61 
 
 men who protest to entrap you. ' It is a life and death 
 struggle ! Do me a favor ! ' Then they upset all your 
 habits, they waste your time, they launch you into trage- 
 dies, and when you say ' No,' squarely, they accuse you 
 of egotism and treachery. I am to blame, too. Why did 
 I listen to his confidences ? Have I not known for 
 years that a man who tells you his love affairs is a cad, 
 an actor, or a fool, sometimes all three. With cads, 
 fools, and actors we can have nothing in common. 
 
 " Of course, at first he amused me by relating his in- 
 trigue, naming no names, as they all do to begin with. 
 He amused me more by the artifices he went through 
 to name her without violating what men of the world 
 call honor. And to think that women believe in such 
 honor, such discretion ! Then, it was the surest road 
 for me to get admission at all times to Mme. Steno and 
 see Alba. I'll have to pay for my Boman flirtation, I 
 fancy. We'll see about that. If Gorka is from Poland, 
 I am from Lorraine. There is a proverb about us Lor- 
 rainers, too, and the heir of the Polish Castellans will 
 not make me do anything but what suits me not a 
 jot." 
 
 In this bad temper and with this resolve, Julien came 
 to the door of his house. If this abode was not a 
 palace, as Sabatina styled it, it was by no means the 
 vulgar tenement so common to-day in modern Home, as 
 in contemporary Paris, and new Berlin, and in certain 
 London streets opened near Hyde Park. It was an old 
 building, projecting into the Piazza della Trinita del 
 Monti, at the corner of the Via Sistina and the Via 
 Gregoriana. Although reduced to the condition of a 
 lodging-house, more or less commonplace, the house 
 was mentioned in some guide-books, and like all the 
 works of old Rome, it preserved traces of glorious artis- 
 tic traditions. The tiny columns of the porch before it 
 had given to it the name of the Tempietto, or Little 
 Temple, and many persons, dear to literature, had 
 dwelt there, from Claude Lorrain, the landscape artist,
 
 02 OOSMOPOLIS. 
 
 to the poet Francois Coppee. Two paces off, almost 
 opposite, Poussin had lived, and one of the greatest of 
 modern English lyric poets, Keats, died near by, the 
 same John Keats whose tomb can be seen at Rome in 
 the cemetery which is dominated by the pyramid of 
 Cestius, with the sad epitaph, written by his own hand, 
 
 Here lies one whose name was writ on water. 
 
 It was very seldom that Dorsenne returned home 
 without repeating his translation of the pathetic line, or 
 recalling, if it was evening, the charming fragment of 
 " Les Intimites," sweet and sad as a background of one 
 of Leonardo's pictures : 
 
 Le del se nuangait de vert tendre et de rose, 
 
 but on this occasion he made his entry in a much more 
 prosaic fashion. He addressed the janitor in the tone 
 of a jealous husband, or a debtor pestered by duns : 
 " You've given my key to someone, it seems, Tonino ? " 
 "The Count Gorka said that your Excellence had 
 begged him to wait here," the old man replied, with a 
 timidity rendered comic by the formidable cut of his 
 gray mustache and his white chin-tuft, that made him 
 into a caricature of the late king Victor Emanuel. He 
 had served in '59 under the Galantuomo, and he thus paid 
 homage, as a veteran of Solferino, to his glorious mem- 
 ory. His large, staring eyes rolled in alarm beneath 
 his grenadier-eyebrows at the slightest cause of embar- 
 rassment, and he repeated, " Yes, that your Excellence 
 had begged him to wait," as Dorsenne mounted the 
 stairs, four at a time, saying to himself aloud : 
 
 " More and more excellent ! But this time this famil- 
 iarity passes the limit, and so much the better. I shall 
 show myself so surprised and so displeased from the 
 very first that I shall be able to refuse at my ease the 
 demands of such an inconsiderate man." Drawing 
 himself up in his wrath, the novelist armed himself in
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 63 
 
 advance against the weakness he knew he felt, and 
 which came not from defective will, but from a too vivid 
 perception of the motives and impulses of those with 
 whom he was in conflict. Once more he was about to 
 experience, almost before the door was opened, that 
 there is no such dissolvent of anger as curiosity. This 
 curiosity, indeed, was aroused by a very simple detail, 
 which proved in what a strange state the Pole had been 
 during his journey : his valise, his overcoat, and his hat 
 were lying on the table in the antechamber, still covered 
 with the dust of the train. He had evidently dropped 
 down straight from Warsaw to the Piazza della Trinita 
 dei Monti. To what delirium of passion must he have 
 been the prey ? Dorsenne had neither the time to ask 
 himself this question, nor the presence of mind to 
 assume a chilling attitude that would cut short the 
 familiarity of this strange visitor. At the sound he 
 made in opening the door of the ante-room, Boleslas 
 rushed toward him, and seized the hands of the host 
 whose room he had invaded. He shook them, and 
 looked at him with feverish eyes that had not slept for 
 hours and hours, and, dragging him into the little room, 
 stammered out : 
 
 " Here you are, Julien, here you are. Thanks for 
 your coming and answering my appeal at once. Let 
 me look at you, and be sure that I have a friend near 
 me, someone to believe in, to talk to, to lean on. . . . 
 If this loneliness had continued, I swear, I should have 
 gone mad ! 
 
 Although the lover of Mme. Steno belonged to that 
 race of nervous excitables who constantly overdo the 
 expression of their most sincere sentiments by a ludi- 
 crous excess of word and gesture, yet his face bore 
 the traces of a trouble that was too deep not to be strik- 
 ing. Julien, who had seen him set out, three months 
 before, radiant in almost luminous beauty, was struck 
 by seeing him so changed by a short absence. He was 
 still the same Boleslas Gorka, the celebrated handsome
 
 64 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 man, the marvellous human animal, so strong, so grace- 
 ful, so marked by centuries of aristocratic lineage. 
 
 The Count of Gorka belonged to the old house of 
 Lodzia, with which so many illustrious Polish families, 
 the Opalenice-Opalenski, the Bnin-Bninski, the Ponin- 
 Poninski, and so many others were connected ; only 
 his cheeks were thin under his long brown beard with 
 its tawny streaks, immense fatigue could be read in the 
 eyelids blackened by wakefulness, in the folds of the 
 wrinkled face, in the fixed nostrils, in the complexion, 
 where the aristocratic pallor sank into muddy spots. 
 The travel stains on his countenance accentuated still 
 more the cruel alteration. Yet the natural elegance of 
 his physiognomy and figure lent an air of grace to his 
 weariness. Boleslas, in the vigorous, supple maturity of 
 thirty-seven, realized one of those types of manly beauty 
 which resist, so perfect are they, the hardest trials. Ex- 
 cesses of emotion, like excesses of profligacy, seem only 
 to lend them a new prestige. In truth, in this novelist's 
 room, with its literary air, with its heaps of books, pho- 
 tographs, engravings, pictures, and casts, this vision of a 
 face torn by the bitter suffering of passion had a poetry 
 to which Dorsenne could not remain entirely insensible. 
 The scent of Russian tobacco impregnating the atmos- 
 phere, and the blue vapor floating through the room, re- 
 vealed the manner in which the betrayed lover had 
 beguiled his impatience, and an Italo-Greek cup with a 
 Bacchante painted in red on a black ground, of which 
 Julien was very proud, held the remains of thirty cigar- 
 ettes thrown away almost as soon as lighted. The card- 
 board ends had been chewed with the nervousness vis- 
 ible in the whole being of the young man, as he repeated, 
 in a tone that made the listener tremble, so serious was 
 it, 
 
 " Yes, I should have gone mad 
 
 " Be calm, my dear Boleslas, I beg you," responded 
 Dorsenne. Where was the bad temper he had felt on 
 the stairs ? How keep it up in the presence of a man so
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 65 
 
 clearly beside himself ? Julien continued, speaking 1 to 
 his companion as one speaks to a sick child : " Come, sit 
 down. Be a little less excited, as I am here and you 
 can count on my friendship. Speak, tell me what is the 
 matter. If you want advice, I am ready to give it. If 
 you want a service done, ready again. . . . Great 
 heavens, what a state I find you in ? " 
 
 " Am I not ? " replied the other, with a kind of ironi- 
 cal pride. He only needed a spectator of his sorrows 
 to display them with a secret vanity, real though they 
 were. " You can see how I have suffered," he went on, 
 " but that is nothing " pointing to his face with a de- 
 spondent gesture " it is here that you ought to read," 
 and he smote his breast. Then passing his hands over 
 his brow and eyes, as if to brush away a hideous dream, 
 " But you are right, I must be calm or I am lost." After 
 a silence during which he appeared to have collected 
 his ideas, and to have again obtained conscious com- 
 mand of his will, for his voice became decided and sharp, 
 he began : " You know that I am here unknown to any- 
 one, even to my wife ? " 
 
 " I know that," replied Dorsenne. " I have just left the 
 Countess. We visited this morning the Castagna Palace 
 in company with her, Hafner, Mme. Maitland, Florent 
 Chapron." He paused a little and added, as he thought 
 it better not to lie on useless points, " Mme. Steno and 
 Alba were there also." 
 
 " And no one else ? " asked Boleslas, with such a pierc- 
 ing look that Dorsenne had the utmost difficulty to keep 
 from betraying himself, as he answered, 
 
 " No one else." 
 
 The two men remained silent. Dorsenne had begun to 
 see by this disconcerting question, still more clearly, 
 what course would be taken by a conversation commen- 
 cing in such a fashion. Gorka, lying rather than sitting 
 on the divan in the little room, had in his whole attitude 
 something of the wild beast that, in a moment, will 
 spring. He had evidently come to Julien's room, a prey
 
 66 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 to that madness of knowing all that is to jealousy what 
 thirst is to certain tortures. When one has drunk the 
 bitter water of certitude, the agony will not be less, still 
 the sufi'erer marches toward it, with bare feet on the 
 burning pavement, without feeling the scorching heat. 
 The motives that decided Boleslas to choose the French 
 novelist in order to tear from him a revelation, were of 
 different kinds, and proved that the feline character of 
 his countenance did not deceive. He knew Dorsenne 
 better than Dorsenne suspected. He knew that he was, 
 on one side, impulsive and rash, and on the other perspi- 
 cacious enough. If there were an intrigue between Mme. 
 Steno and Maitland, Dorsenne would undoubtedly have 
 detected it, and, attacked in a certain manner, would 
 undoubtedly betray himself. Besides, with his violent, 
 cunning, and vain nature abounding in complexity, Boles- 
 las, who ardently admired the author's talent, felt an 
 indefinable attraction in exhibiting himself before him 
 in the light of a frenzied lover with all his passions let 
 loose. He was one of the kind of people who have 
 themselves photographed on their death-beds, such is 
 the childish importance they attach to their personality 
 a weakness which does not prevent them really dying, 
 and sometimes bravely too. He would have been most 
 sincerely indignant if the author of " Une Eglogue Mon- 
 daine " had depicted in living tones in a book his love- 
 affair with Mme. Steiio, and yet it had been with a 
 vague desire to make an impression that he made the 
 novelist's acquaintance and chose him as his confidant. 
 He dreamed of suggesting some character that might 
 resemble him, while he believed that he was simply giv- 
 ing way, as he really was giving way, to the need of talk- 
 ing which suffocates one in certain moral crises. Yes, 
 everything was complex in Gorka, for he was not content 
 with deceiving his wife by the profound hypocrisy 
 displayed in the disgraceful plan of his intrigue his 
 wife, that noble and confiding being who was the dear- 
 est friend of the daughter of her husband's mistress : he
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 67 
 
 professed to regret his deception, and to have never 
 ceased to entertain for her an affection as distressing 1 as 
 respectful. It was true, however. But one must be a 
 Dorsenne to understand such anomalies, and the rare 
 sensation of being understood in the most improbable 
 caprices of the heart attached the young- Count to the 
 man who was, at the same time, a trusty confidant, a pos- 
 sible painter of such emotions, and a moral accomplice. 
 He now set to work, a less easy task, to make him his 
 involuntary detective. 
 
 " You see," he resumed suddenly, " to what miserable 
 details I have sunk, I, who have always had a horror of 
 spying- as a vile degradation. Yet, I am questioning 
 you, in this underhand way, while you are my friend ! 
 And suclj. a friend ! My whole life history lies in the two 
 impulses that I have been experiencing- for the last two 
 minutes. I wanted to trick you, and I was ashamed of it. 
 Passion seizes me. It tortures me. No matter what in- 
 famy it suggests just now a low bit of cunning-, by 
 and by a worse action ! I plunge in, and then I am 
 afraid! yes, I am afraid of myself. Oh, what I have suf- 
 fered ! Do not you see ? Well, listen " and he gazed 
 on Dorsenne with one of his comprehensive looks, 
 where greedy scrutiny does not let a gesture, a move- 
 ment of the eyelid escape in the one observed " and 
 say if you have ever imagined in one of your romances 
 a situation parallel to mine. You remember the mortal 
 anguish in which I lived this winter, with my brother- 
 in-law in the house, and the continual risk of his 
 informing my poor Maud, either through stupidity, 
 British prudery, or dislike. Can one ever know ? You 
 remember, too, my journey to Poland, and what those 
 long months of agony cost me ! Business complications 
 and my aunt's illness, coming just at that time when I 
 had got rid of Ardrahan, made a sad impression. I always 
 believed in presentiments. I felt one as if I had been 
 at the gambling-table, I felt there would be a run on the 
 black. I was not wrong-. From the time I received the
 
 68 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 first letter guess from whom, if you can I knew that 
 something was going on at Rome that threatened me 
 in what was the dearest thing in the world, the love to 
 which I have sacrificed everything, to which I trampled 
 my way over the noblest heart. Was Catherine about 
 to cease to love me ? When one has given two years of 
 life to a passion and what years ! it becomes involved 
 in fibres that lie cruelly deep ! I will spare you the 
 account of the past week, spent running here and there, 
 visiting relatives, talking to lawyers, nursing my sick 
 aunt, doing my best for my son since half of the fort- 
 une will come to him. Yet, always, always the fixed 
 idea ! She does not write as she used to do, she loves 
 me no longer ! Ah, if I could show her letters during 
 my other periods of absence ! You have lots ^of talent, 
 Julien, you could never have written better ones ! " 
 
 He was silent, as if the part of his confession he was 
 approaching cost him a great effort, and Dorsenne, in 
 his turn, said : 
 
 " A change of tone in a correspondence does not suf- 
 ficiently explain the fever which you are in " 
 
 " No," replied Gorka, " it was not a mere change of 
 tone. I complained. For the first time my complaints 
 found no echo. I threatened to stop writing. She 
 made no reply. I wrote to beg pardon. What cow- 
 ards men are ! I received such a cold letter that in 
 turn I wrote one to break off our connection. Another 
 silence. Oh, you will understand now what a terrible 
 effect was produced on me in such trouble by another 
 letter, not signed, that I received a fortnight ago. It 
 came one morning, with no other. It bore the stamp of 
 Rome. I did not recognize the handwriting. I opened 
 it. I saw two sheets of paper on which were pasted 
 some printed words cut out of a French newspaper, 
 I repeat, without signature. It was an anonymous let- 
 ter. . . ." 
 
 " And you read it ? " interrupted Dorsenne. " What 
 madness ! "
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 69 
 
 " And I read it," replied the Count. " It began with 
 a terribly exact account of my own situation. That the 
 stories of our lives are known to others, we ought to 
 know, since we know theirs. We ought consequently to 
 think that we are exposed as a prey to their savage 
 malice as they are to ours. It was bitter all the same, 
 to have proof of it. But what rendered the accuracy of 
 this first letter really infernal, was that it was a guar- 
 antee of the accuracy of the next one. And the last 
 was a detailed, minute, pitiless account of an intrigue 
 that Mme. Steno had cherished during my absence 
 and with whom ? With the man I had always most dis- 
 trusted, this dauber of colors, who wanted once to make 
 a portrait of Alba that time I stopped him much 
 good it has done me ! This blackguard, who sank low 
 enough to make this shameful marriage for money ; the 
 fellow who calls himself an artist; that American, 
 picked up at a restaurant, that Lincoln Maitland. . . " 
 
 Although the childish bitter hatred of the jealous 
 that hate which degrades us by depreciating the one 
 who is preferred to us had poisoned the heart of 
 Gorka with its bitter waters, as it poisoned the end of 
 his discourse, he had never ceased for an instant from 
 watching Dorsenne. He half raised himself on the di- 
 van, and, leaning on his clenched fists, he thrust forward 
 his head, as he uttered the name of his rival, as if to en- 
 wrap Dorsenne in his gaze. The latter, fortunately, was 
 seized with indignation at the news of the anonymous 
 letter, and repeated with an astonished accent from 
 which his visitor could divine nothing : 
 
 " What infamy ! Why, what infamy ! " 
 
 " Wait a bit," said Boleslas ; " this was only a begin- 
 ning. Next day I received another letter, written and 
 sent in a similar way ; next day after, a third. I have a 
 dozen of them, do you hear ? a dozen in my pocket- 
 book, all composed with the same atrocious knowledge 
 of the society we live in that drove me crazy at first. 
 Think what a torture! I received, at the same time,
 
 70 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 letters from my poor wife, and everything in her whole 
 sad correspondence agreed with terrible truth. The 
 anonymous letter said: 'To-day they had a meeting 
 from two to four ; ' and Maud wrote to me : ' I could 
 not go out to-day with Mme. Steno as we had agreed, 
 for she was indisposed.' And this portrait of Alba, which 
 was announced as in progress. The anonymous letters 
 told all the incidents connected with it, the prolonged 
 sittings, those convenient sittings, while my wife wrote : 
 ' We went over to see Alba's portrait, yesterday. The 
 painter has rubbed out what he had done.' At last I 
 could hold in no longer. The anonymous letters, with 
 their abominable precision of detail, gave even the ad- 
 dress of their place of meeting ! I set out. I said to 
 myself, ' If I tell my wife that I am about to return, 
 they will know of it ; they will escape me.' I wanted to 
 surprise them. I wanted how do I know what I 
 wanted ? I wanted to suffer no longer this agony of 
 incertitude. I took the train. I did not stop day or 
 night. I left my valet at Florence. This morning I 
 reached Rome. My plan was formed on the journey. 
 I would take a room opposite theirs, in the same street, 
 or in the same house, perhaps. I would play the spy, one 
 day, two days, a week. And then would you believe 
 it ? In the hack that was bringing me to this street, I 
 suddenly saw myself clearly and was afraid. I had my 
 hand on the butt of my revolver." And he drew out the 
 weapon and flung it on the divan, as if he wished to 
 repel a new temptation. " I saw myself as clearly as I 
 see you, killing these two creatures if I surprised them, 
 like two beasts. At the same time I saw my son and my 
 wife. Between murder and me, there was, perhaps, just 
 the distance between this street and that other. I felt 
 that I must flee at once flee from that street flee from 
 those criminals, if they really are such ; flee from my- 
 self ! Your name crossed my mind, and I am here, cry- 
 ing, 'My friend, look at my condition; I am drowning; 
 I am lost ; save me.' "
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 71 
 
 " You have found safety," replied Dorsenne, " in your 
 son and your wife. First of all go and see them, and if 
 I cannot promise you release from suffering, you will 
 be no more tempted by this terrible thought." He 
 pointed to the pistol which lay shining in a sunbeam 
 that flashed through the window. Then, as the genuine 
 pity aroused by Boleslas's tale did not extinguish the 
 author's instinct, any more than emotion had extin- 
 guished in the other speaker his cunning and vanity, he 
 added : " You will retain this idea the less when you 
 verify de visu the work of these anonymous letters. 
 Twelve letters in fifteen days, formed in such a manner, 
 by cuttings out from so many newspapers ? And people 
 say we invent dirty tricks in our books ! If you like, we 
 can seek together who can have devised this pretty little 
 villainy Judas, Rodin, lago, or laga ? But this is no 
 time for guessing. Are you sure of your valet ? Yes, 
 since you brought him back. Send him a letter, and in 
 that letter another letter addressed to Mme. Gorka, that 
 your man will mail at once ! You announce your arrival 
 to-morrow, with an allusion to a letter from Warsaw, 
 which will have been lost. You take the train this even- 
 ing for Florence, and leave again to-night. You will be 
 at Rome again to-morrow morning, and openly. You 
 will then have avoided, not this misfortune of being a 
 murderer, for you would not have caught them, I am 
 sure, but a much graver one for a man of your heart 
 and troubles, that of arousing the suspicions of Mme. 
 Gorka. Do you promise 1 " Dorsenne rose to get a pen 
 and some paper. " Come, write your letter at once, and 
 thank your good genius that has led you to a friend 
 whose business is to devise methods of solving insolu- 
 ble problems." 
 
 " You are right," said Boleslas, after taking the pen 
 which the other held out ; " here is safety, here is pru- 
 dence." Then, casting aside the pen as he had the re- 
 volver": "I cannot. No, I cannot, as long as I have this 
 doubt. Ah, it is too dreadful ! I see them too well ! You
 
 72 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 talk of my wife. But you forget she loves me. At her 
 first glance she will read me as you read me. You do 
 not take account of the efforts required for two years not 
 to arouse her suspicions. I was happy, and it is easy to 
 deceive when one has nothing to conceal but happiness. 
 To-day, we would not be five minutes together before 
 she would suspect, before she would seek and find. 
 No, no. I cannot. Something else I must find some- 
 thing else. . . ." 
 
 " But, miserable man," replied Julien, " I cannot give 
 you this ' something else.' No opium will lull to sleep 
 doubts like those which these terrible anonymous let- 
 ters have instilled into you. You cannot take hypoder- 
 mic injections of confidence, as you can of morphine ! 
 What I know is, that if you do not follow my advice, 
 Mme. Gorka will have, not suspicion, but certainty. It is 
 already, too late, perhaps. AVell, I will tell you what I 
 have kept from you as I saw you in such trouble. You 
 did not waste much time in coming here from the sta- 
 tion, and probably never looked twice out of the window 
 of the hack. "Well, you were seen. By whom ? Mont- 
 fa non. He told me so this morning at the door of the 
 Castagna Palace. If I had not learned from a remark 
 of your wife that she was ignorant of your presence 
 in Rome, I myself, do you understand, I might have 
 given her the information. Consider your situation 
 now ! " 
 
 He spoke with unfeigned emotion, so troubled was 
 he by the evident danger that lay in Gorka's obstinacy. 
 The latter had begun to gather himself together as if to 
 spring ; he had a strange gleam in his yellow eyes. The 
 nervousness of Dorsenne doubtless marked the moment 
 he was waiting for to strike a decisive blow. He rose 
 with such an abrupt movement that Dorsenne recoiled. 
 He seized his hands, as he had before, but with such 
 force that not a quiver of the man he grasped so firmly 
 could escape him. 
 
 " Yes, Julien, you have a means of relieving me, you
 
 BOLESLAS GORKA. 73 
 
 have," he said, in a voice that excess of anxiety rendered 
 hoarse. 
 
 " What is it? " asked the author. 
 
 " What is it ! You are an honest fellow, Dorsenne. 
 You are a great artist. You are my friend a friend 
 bound to me by a sacred bond, almost a brother in arms, 
 you, the kinsman of a hero who shed his blood by my 
 grandfather's side at Somo-Sierra ! Give me your word 
 of honor that you are absolutely certain that Mme. Steno 
 is not the mistress of Maitland, that you never thought 
 so, never heard so and I will believe you and obey you. 
 Come on," he continued, pressing- the novelist's hand 
 still more fervently. " You see you hesitate ! " 
 
 " No," said Julien, freeing- himself from this frenzied 
 grasp. " I do not hesitate. I am sorry for you. When 
 I shall have given you my word, will it have five min- 
 utes value to you? Will you not at once conclude that 
 I perjured myself to prevent a crime 1 " 
 
 " You hesitate ! " Boleslas exclaimed, repeating- the 
 words twice more, and then, with a burst of terrible 
 laughter, such shuddering ferocity was in it : "It is 
 true, then ! Besides, I like it better so ! It is horrible 
 to know, but one suffers less. To know ! As if I did 
 not know that she had lovers before me, as if it was not 
 written in every line of Alba's face that she is the daugh- 
 ter of Werekiew ; as if I had not heard a score of times 
 before knowing her that she had had Branciforte, San- 
 Giobbe, Strabane a dozen others. Before, during, or 
 after, what does it matter 1 I was sure when I knocked 
 at you, the very gate of honor, I should get the truth, 
 should touch it as I touch this thing," and he seized a 
 marble head on the table and fingered it furiously. 
 " You see I bear the truth like a man. You can speak 
 to me now. Who knows ? Disgust is a great de- 
 stroyer of passions. Go on I am listening. Do not 
 spare me." 
 
 " You are mistaken, Gorka," replied Dorsenne ; " what 
 I said was said in all simplicity. I was I am persuaded
 
 74 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 that in a quarter of an hour, say an hour, say to-mor- 
 row, say the day after to-morrow, you will consider me 
 a liar or a fool. But since you misinterpret my silence, 
 my duty is to speak, and I do speak. I give you my 
 word of honor that I had never had the slightest idea of 
 an intrigue between Mme. Steno and Maitland, nor of 
 any change in their relations during your absence. I 
 give you my word of honor that no one, mark me ! no 
 one has spoken of such a thing before me. And now, 
 act as you like, think as you like. I have said all that 
 I can say." 
 
 Dorsenne pronounced these words with a feverish 
 energy caused by the horrible constraint he put on 
 his conscience. But the laughter of Gorka had ter- 
 rified him all the more, because at that very instant his 
 free hand, voluntarily or not, had stretched toward the 
 weapon which lay glittering on the sofa. A new vision 
 of an approaching immediate catastrophe, this time in- 
 evitable, possessed Julien. His lips had spoken, as his 
 arm had been extended by an irresistible instinct of sav- 
 ing several human lives, and he had taken his false oath, 
 the first, and doubtless the last of his life, without more 
 reflection. No sooner had he taken it than he had such 
 a fit of internal anger that he would almost have pre- 
 ferred, at the moment, not to have been believed. It 
 would have been a consolation for him if his dreaded 
 visitor had answered him by one of those insolent de- 
 nials that allow a man to slap another in the face, so 
 great was his irritation at having his word of honor 
 thus violently extorted from him. He saw, on the other 
 hand, the face of Mme. Steno's lover turned toward him 
 with an ineffable expression of gratitude. Boleslas's 
 lips trembled, his hands clasped together, two large 
 tears sprang from his burning eyes and streamed over 
 his deep-lined cheeks. Then, when he was able to 
 speak, he groaned out : 
 
 "What good you have done me, my friend! From 
 what a nightmare have you rescued me! Now I am
 
 DANGER NIGII. 75 
 
 saved ! I believe you, I believe you. Yes, you are inti- 
 mate with them. You see them nearly every day. You 
 would know if there were anything 1 between them ! You 
 would have heard it mentioned ! Oh, thanks ! Give me 
 your hand let me let me thank you. Forget what I 
 have just said, all the slanders that I repeated in this fit 
 of madness. I know they are baseless ! And now let me 
 embrace you as I would have done had I really been 
 drowning, and you had rescued me from the waves. 
 Oh, my friend, my only friend ! " 
 
 He rushed forward to press the novelist to his breast, 
 while the latter repeated the opening words of their 
 conversation: " Be calm, I beg you, be calm," and re- 
 peated to himself, brave and loyal to excess as he was, 
 " I could not have acted otherwise, but it is hard ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 DANGER NIGH. 
 
 " No, I could not have done otherwise," said Dor- 
 senne to himself, once more, on the evening of this ter- 
 rible day. He had wasted all the afternoon in looking 
 after Gorka he had made him eat, he had made him lie 
 down, he had watched over him, he had taken him in a 
 close carriage to the depot at Portinaccio, the first sta- 
 tion on the line to Florence. He had taken all possible 
 pains not to leave alone for a single minute the man 
 whose frenzy he had rendered intermittent, rather than 
 cured, at the price, alas ! of his own quiet. For as soon 
 as he had returned to the solitude of his own room in 
 the Piazza della Trinita, where the presence of this late 
 visitor was revealed by a score of little details, than the 
 weight of his false word of honor began to press heav- 
 ily on him, all the more that he could at last follow the 
 calculated plan adopted by Boleslas. His penetration,
 
 76 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 which as usual with him came too late, enabled him to 
 trace the general course of their conversation. He saw 
 that not one single word, not even the most excited, ut- 
 tered by the speaker, had been spoken by chance. From 
 reply to reply, from confession to confession, he, Dor- 
 senne, had been driven into this cruel dilemma which 
 he could neither foresee nor avoid. He would have 
 either to accuse a woman, or tell one of those lies for 
 which a virile conscience cannot pardon itself. And he 
 did not pardon himself. 
 
 " It is all the more distressing," he reflected, " that 
 it will stop nothing. From the instant that there exists 
 in this world a person so vile as to have written those 
 anonymous letters, that person will not stop here. 
 Some means to let loose this madman anew will be 
 found. But were those letters really written ? Gorka 
 combines lucidity and craft with his madness, and he is 
 quite capable of forging this black romance out of his 
 own head, just to have the power of putting to me the 
 question he did put. And yet- no. Two facts are be- 
 yond dispute his exasperated jealousy and his ex- 
 traordinary return. Both presuppose a third fact, 
 namely, a warning. Given by whom ? Let us take Gor- 
 ka's side. He spoke of a dozen letters. Say he has 
 received one or two. But who is the author of this 
 one or two ? " 
 
 The whole immediate development of the drama in 
 which Julien was involved depended on the answer to 
 this question. It was not easy to put into terms. The 
 Italians have a proverb of remarkable significance, and 
 he had often laughed when he had heard it quoted by 
 his sententious host, Egisto Brancadori. He repeated 
 it to himself and saw the full bearing of it. Chi non sa 
 fingersi amico, non sa essere nemico. " The man who can- 
 not pretend to be a friend, cannot be an enemy." In the 
 little corner of society in which Mme. Steno, the Gor- 
 kas, and Lincoln Maitland moved, who was so filled 
 with hypocrisy and hate as to follow this counsel ?
 
 DANGER NIGH. 77 
 
 Nothing- but precise information, supported by posi- 
 tive facts, could have touched Boleslas's jealousy to the 
 quick, and such information presupposed daily inter- 
 course. 
 
 "It cannot be that Mme. Steno," thought Julien, 
 " has amused herself in telling- the whole story to her 
 lover, for the sake of experiencing- more emotions ? I 
 have known such cases. But then it was the case of 
 crazy Parisiennes, not of such a mag-nificent amourous 
 force as this Dogaressa of the sixteenth century, found 
 intact in the Venice of our day like a sequin of the period, 
 with its stamp still sharp. Let us set her aside. Let us 
 set aside, too, Mme. Gorka, that soul of truth, who would 
 not stoop to the least falsehood for a bibelot she ad- 
 mired. Besides, it is this quality that renders her so 
 easily deceived. What irony ! Let us set aside Flo- 
 rent. He would let himself be killed like a Mameluke 
 at the chamber-door where his fascinating brother-in- 
 law was flirting with the Countess. Let us set aside the 
 American, himself. Yet I have known a case, a lover 
 tired of a mistress and denouncing himself in the 
 proper quarter, to get rid of his hard labor of love. 
 But these were roues, who had nothing in common 
 with this lout, who has a talent for painting, as ele- 
 phants have a trunk a marvellous tool stuck on a 
 shapeless mass. What irony again ! He could make 
 himself marry this octoroon to get some money a dis- 
 gusting business to begin with but it was a base act 
 committed once for all, which saved him from pecuni- 
 ary troubles, and gave him opportunity to paint what 
 he liked and as he liked. He let himself be loved by 
 Mme. Steno, because she is devilishly beautiful in spite 
 of her forty years, and because she is a great lady after 
 all, and filched by him from a great noble. That flat- 
 ters his vanity. He has not a dollar's worth of moral 
 delicacy in his heart. Nor has he the roue's finesse. 
 Let us set aside his wife, too. She is a genuine slave, 
 whom the very sight of a white annihilates to such a
 
 78 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 degree that she dare not even look at her husband. 
 Nor is it Hafner. The sly fox is capable of everything 
 in finesse, even of a good action. But of a useless and 
 dangerous bit of trickery never! Fanny is a saint, 
 escaped all alive from the Golden Legend, whatever 
 Montfanon thinks of her. Irony again ! I have, I 
 think, passed in review the circle of all our intimates. 
 I was going to forget Alba. That is too wild to think of 
 too wild? Why?" 
 
 Dorsenne was just getting into bed as he put this 
 question. He took, as was his habit, one of the books 
 lying ready on the table, to read while he was in bed. 
 He had within reach of his hand the works in which 
 he sought to temper his dogma of uncompromising intel- 
 lectuality, the " Memoirs " of Goethe, the " Correspond- 
 ence of George Sand," in which the letters to Flaubert 
 occur, Descartes' " Discourse on Method," and Burck- 
 hardt's " Essay on the Renaissance." With his elbow on 
 the pillow, he turned over a few pages, and closed the 
 volume without having read twenty lines. He put out the 
 light, and could not sleep. The strange suspicion that 
 had flashed through his mind was almost monstrous, 
 thus gratuitously applied to a young girl. Such a 
 suspicion and such a girl! The girl who had been 
 his chosen friend all the winter, for whom he was 
 prolonging his stay in Rome because she was the most 
 gracious union of delicacy and melancholy in that 
 frame of a tragic and sombre past ! Anyone but Dor- 
 senne would never have conceived such an idea, even for 
 a second, without shuddering at himself. He, on the 
 contrary, set to work at once to examine the sinister 
 hypothesis, to work it out, to prove it. No one suffered 
 as he did from the moral perversion which the abuse 
 of a certain kind of literary labor inflicts on certain 
 writers. They are so accustomed to combine artificial 
 characters in the creation of their fancy, that they 
 end in accomplishing a similar task in reference to the 
 friends they know the best. They have a friend who is
 
 DANGER NIGTI. 79 
 
 dear to them, whom they see nearly every day, who con- 
 ceals nothing 1 from them, from whom they conceal noth- 
 ing. A year afterwards, when they speak of him, you 
 are surprised to observe that, while they continue to 
 love him, they sketch for you two contradictory por- 
 traits of him, with the same sincerity and the same 
 probability. They have a mistress, and the woman sees 
 with alarm how, in the space of a single day, they as- 
 sume a changed attitude toward her, although she is 
 conscious of no change in herself. The truth is, they 
 have, in an intensely developed degree, the imaginative 
 power, and their observation only forms a pretext for 
 creation. This morbid weakness had dominated Julien's 
 life since his first youth. It was rarely manifested in a 
 more unexpected manner than in reference to the charm- 
 ing Alba Steno, who perhaps was dreaming of him at 
 the very instant when, in the deep silence of the night, 
 he was striving to prove her capable of this species of 
 epistolary parricide. 
 
 " After all," he repeated, not without a feeling of satis- 
 factionfor these men whose intellectuality is excessive 
 are somewhat iconoclastic and love to destroy their 
 dearest moral or sentimental idols, as if to prove their 
 own superiority, " after all, do I really know the rela- 
 tion in which she stands to her mother ? When I ar- 
 rived in Rome in November, and had been presented to 
 the Countess, what did I hear, not from one person, but 
 from nine or ten ? That Mme. Steno had a liaison with 
 the husband of her daughter's dearest friend, and that 
 the girl was dying of grief at it. She was sad that 
 evening. I saw that her countenance was such as it 
 might be under the circumstances, and I had the curios- 
 ity to read her heart. That is six long months ago. 
 We have met nearly every day since, often twice a day. 
 She shuts herself up so hermetically close, that I am 
 only a little more advanced than on the first day. I 
 have seen her look at her mother, for instance, this 
 morning, with her eyes filled with love and admiration.
 
 80 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 And I have seen her suffer till she grew pale, at a 
 word or at an attitude of her mother. I have seen her 
 embrace Maud Gorka as one embraces a friend for 
 whom one has a profound pity, and I have seen her 
 play at tennis with this friend, with childish gayety. I 
 have seen that she could not bear the presence of Mait- 
 land in a room, and then it was she herself who asked 
 to have the American paint her portrait ! Is.she an in- 
 nocent, or a hypocrite ? Or is she tormented by doubt, 
 guessing and not guessing, believing in her mother, and 
 not believing ? In any case can there be any mystery in 
 her with her eyes of liquid blue ? Has she the hybrid 
 soul at once of the Russian and Italian ? It would be a 
 solution of the problem to suppose her a girl of extraor- 
 dinarily concealed energy, who, knowing her mother's 
 two intrigues, and detesting them equally, had the idea 
 of setting the two men at each other. Still for a young 
 girl such an action would be an enormity. Well ! Is 
 not enormity the daily bread of passion? Does not 
 every column of gossip in a newspaper show us that 
 the word ' impossible ' ought never to be uttered 
 when the question concerns the aberrations of the 
 heart ? I will call on the Countess to-morrow even- 
 ing, and will amus'e myself by cross-examining Alba, to 
 see. ... If she is innocent, my game will be harm- 
 less. If, perchance, she be not so ? It would be a 
 what a pity to say more before a picture of the Ma- 
 donna. I've said enough." 
 
 It is all very well to profess to one's own heart a 
 complacent dandyism of misanthropy ; still such reflec- 
 tions leave behind them a bitter aftertaste of remorse, 
 especially when, like those of Dorsenne's, they are abso- 
 lutely imaginary and founded on mere literary para- 
 dox. In all cases one feels that this impression of 
 calumny is hateful to every man who has suffered from 
 it, either in himself, or in the person of a friend. Cer- 
 tain suspicions are too inhuman even when they are 
 still in the state of vague and floating hypothesis,
 
 DANGER NIGH. 81 
 
 and consequently Dorsenne experienced a deep sense 
 of shame when he awoke next morning, and, as he 
 thought about the anonymous letters received by 
 Gorka, called to mind the criminal romance he had 
 constructed around the charming- and tender visage 
 of the young girl. Luckily for his nerves which were 
 exasperated by discussing the hard problem, " If no 
 one in the society of the Countess wrote these letters, 
 who did ! " he received, as he sprang out of bed, a big 
 package of " proofs " marked " In haste." He was pre- 
 paring to publish as a kind of study of his career, a 
 collection of his early articles scattered among some 
 twenty-five newspapers, under a title with which he 
 was enchanted, Poussiere d'idees. Dorsenne was an in- 
 defatigable workman, in spite of his fancy for such 
 titles, which is rare, and in spite of the distractions of 
 his life in society, which is still more rare. Usually 
 elaborate tickets serve, in a book-store, to conceal slop- 
 made goods, and novelists and dramatists who pique 
 themselves on seeing life in order to write, and who 
 seek inspiration from other sources than regular habits 
 and their writing-table, find their works smitten with 
 sterility in advance. Obscure or famous, rich or poor, 
 an artist must be first of all an artisan, and practice the 
 artisan's fruitful virtues, patient application, conscien- 
 tious technique, modest absorption in his task. Dor- 
 senne, when he sat down to his " bench " for he desig- 
 nated his desk by this carpenter's term was entirely 
 wrapped up in his work. He closed his door, he opened 
 neither letters nor telegrams, and spent ten hours of 
 grind without taking anything but two eggs and a cup 
 of black coffee, as he was doing to-day, remoulding the 
 essays of his twenty-fifth year with the talent of thirty- 
 five, retouching a word here, a phrase there, sometimes 
 rewriting a whole page, here discontented, there smil- 
 ing at the idea. His pen went on and carried with it 
 all the sensitiveness of this intellectual monster who 
 forgot utterly Mme. Steno, Gorka, Maitland, and the
 
 82 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 caluminated Contessina, till he awoke from his clear- 
 thinking intoxication as night was falling 1 . Then he 
 counted and arranged the galley slips, and, adding up 
 the series of articles, noticed that they were twelve in 
 number. 
 
 " Like Gorka's letters," he said aloud, laughingly. 
 He felt his veins pulsing with the light exultation that 
 all genuine writers know when they have labored at 
 a work which they believe to be good. " I have earned 
 my evening," he added, still aloud ; " I must dress and 
 call on Mme. Steno. A good dinner at the Doctor's. 
 A good half-hour's walk on a good road. The night 
 promises to be divine. I shall know if they have news 
 of the Palatine" the nickname he gave to Gorka in 
 his facetious fits, " and I will amuse myself by imitating 
 my patron, Hamlet, when he set his 'springe to catch 
 woodcocks,' before his uncle. I will talk about anony- 
 mous letters. If the author of those sent to Boleslas is 
 there, I shall be in the front rows of the orchestra, to 
 have a good view. Provided it is not Alba. Deci- 
 dedly, the what a pity ! it would be too sad." 
 
 The young man carried out his programme faithfully, 
 and at ten o'clock arrived at the door of the great house 
 which Mme. Steno occupied in the Via Venti Settem- 
 bre, opposite the Via della Porta Salara. It was a huge 
 modern building in two distinct portions, a rented-out 
 building to the left, and on the right a house in the style 
 of those that swarm about the Pare Monceau. The 
 " Villa Steno," as the gilt inscription on the black mar- 
 ble of the gate called it told the entire story of the 
 Countess's fortune a fortune estimated with the usual 
 exaggeration by common report, at twenty or thirty 
 millions of francs. Eeally she had two hundred and 
 fifty thousand francs a year. Considering that the 
 Count Michel Steno, her husband, when he died in 1873, 
 left nothing but debts, a tumble-down palace at Venice, 
 and a lot of property with titles as bad as the mort- 
 gages were heavy, this figure quite justified the appella-
 
 DANGER NIGH. 83 
 
 tion of " most superior woman," given by her male friends 
 to Alba's mother. Her female friends added, " She was 
 the mistress of Hafner, who paid her in points," an atro- 
 cious calumny, the more false as she had begun to make 
 a fortune before she knew the Baron. This is her story : 
 At the end of 1873, while the young widow, in her sump- 
 tuous and dilapidated dwelling on the Grand Canal, 
 was struggling her best with creditors, one of the great- 
 est bankers of Rome proposed to her a very advanta- 
 geous piece of business. It concerned a large extent of 
 ground which the Steno estate possessed at Rome, in 
 the suburbs, between the Porta Salara and Porta Pia, a 
 half-abandoned villino which the late Cardinal Steno, 
 Michel's uncle, had begun to plant. On his decease, his 
 land was let in lots to market gardeners, and it was es- 
 timated to be worth forty centimes the square metre. 
 The banker offered her four francs, under the pretext of 
 wanting to build a factory there. It was a large sum 
 ready and waiting. The Countess asked for twenty-four 
 hours for reflection, and refused a refusal by which 
 she gained the eternal admiration of all business men 
 who knew of it. In 1882, less than ten years later, she 
 sold the same ground for ninety francs the metre. She 
 saw, as she looked at a map of Rome, and thought of 
 modern Italy, that the new masters of the Eternal City 
 would give wing to their ambition in rebuilding it; 
 then, that the portion between the Quirinal and the two 
 gates, Pia and Salara, would be one of the chief points 
 where this development would take place, and finally 
 that speculation would bring her an enormous advance 
 over the first offer, if she knew how to wait. She did 
 wait, meanwhile watching over her business interests 
 like the strictest of agents, getting better leases, pinch- 
 ing herself, filling up gaps with unexpected wind- 
 falls. Thus, in 1875, she had sold to the National Gal- 
 lery, a series of four panels by Carpaccio, that had been 
 found in one of her country houses, for one hundred and 
 twenty thousand francs. In fact, she was as active and
 
 84 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 practical in her business life, as she was fickle and au- 
 dacious in her life of sentiment, or rather of gallantry. 
 The old story of her having been unfaithful to Steno in 
 the first year of her marriage, when they were in the 
 embassy at St. Petersburg, and met Werekiew, was con- 
 firmed by the lightness of her conduct since she became 
 free. At Borne, where she took up her residence for 
 part of the year, after the sale of her land, from which 
 she reserved space enough to erect this double house, 
 she continued to make herself as conspicuous as at Ven- 
 ice, and to manage her fortune with the same intelli- 
 gence. A lucky investment in the Acqua Marcia ena- 
 bled her to double in five years the enormous profit of 
 her first operation. The singularly strong good sense 
 with which the woman was endowed, when love affairs 
 were not in question, was proved by the fact that she 
 stopped at these two speculations at the very moment 
 when the Roman aristocracy, possessed by a craze for 
 the share market, began to speculate when values 
 were at the highest point. To pass the evening at the 
 Villa Steno, after passing the morning at the Palazzo 
 Castagna, was to realize one of those paradoxes of 
 contradictory sensations that Dorsenne loved, for poor 
 Prince Ardea was ruined by wanting to do some years 
 too late what the Countess Catherine had done at 
 the right time. He, too, hoped for an advance in the 
 value of his real estate. Only it had been bought by 
 him for seventy francs the metre, and in '90 it was 
 worth only twenty-five. He, too, believed that Rome 
 would expand, and on the lots he bought so dear, he be- 
 gan to build whole streets, fancying that he would be- 
 come, like the dukes of Bedford and Westminster, in 
 London, the owner of whole districts. But the contrac- 
 tors robbed him. His houses, when finished, were not 
 let. To finish others he had to borrow. He had spec- 
 ulated on the Bourse to pay his debts ; he lost, then in- 
 curred more debts to pay his losses. His name to a 
 bill, as the owner of II Marzocco had coarsely said, had
 
 DANGER NIGH. 85 
 
 been sent out into the world in all the various forms 
 which are assumed by the fatal, inexorable acceptance. 
 The result was that every wall of Rome, comprising the 
 Via Venti Settembre, adjoining the Villa Steno, was cov- 
 ered with many-colored placards announcing the sale 
 by auction, under the management of Cavaliere Fossati, 
 of the collection of furniture in the Palazzo Castagna. 
 
 " Foresight is might," Dorsenne said to himself as he 
 rang at the door of Mme. Steno, and mentally summing 
 up the invincible association of ideas which recalled to 
 him the palace of the ruined Roman prince as he stood 
 before the villa of the triumphant Venitienne, he 
 thought : " Here is the true Alpha and Omega. It is 
 the fashion of the day to put these two letters on all 
 kinds of trinkets. They ought to add to them this com- 
 mentary. . . ." 
 
 The comparison between the positions of Mme. Steno 
 and the heir of the Castagnas had made the inconstant 
 novelist almost forget his design of inquiring about the 
 anonymous letters. The comparison struck him the 
 more when he entered the hall where the Countess re- 
 ceived every evening. Ardea himself was there, in the 
 centre of a group composed of Alba Steno, Mme. Mait- 
 land, Fanny Hafner, and the Baron, who, the only person 
 standing up, with his back to the mantelpiece, seemed 
 an indulgent honorable old man, ready to bless all these 
 young people. Julien was not surprised to see so few 
 persons in the spacious salon, any more than he was as- 
 tonished at the aspect of the room, encumbered with old 
 stuffs, bibelots, flowers, bits of furniture in the latest 
 style, divans lumbered with innumerable cushions. He 
 had had a whole winter in which to observe, with that 
 old - tapestry - knowledge which distinguishes modern 
 novelists, this apartment, so like hundreds of others at 
 Vienna, Madrid, Florence, Berlin, everywhere indeed, 
 where a lady of the house, more or less cosmopolite, 
 strives to realize her ideal of Parisian elegance. He had 
 been amused during countless evenings, in picking out,
 
 86 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 in the almost international style of furniture, the local 
 traits that distinguished one piece from another of the 
 same kind. No human being becomes absolutely arti- 
 ficial, either in his house or in his writing. The writer 
 had, consequently, noted that this salon displayed a date, 
 that of the Countess's last visit to Paris in 1880. She was 
 still at the time of the plush and tufted silk of large cur- 
 tains. The general tonality, in which green predomi- 
 nated, an egotistic impertinence in the case of a bright 
 blonde, had too warm a color-scale, that revealed Italy. 
 Italy could be seen also in the painted ceiling and in 
 the frieze that ran round it, as in some pictures scattered 
 here and there, which are not to be found at the sales at 
 the Hotel Drouot, or at those of Parisian amateurs. There 
 were two panels by Moretto di Brescia, especially, in his 
 second manner, the silver manner as it is called, from 
 the tender, transparent fluidity of its colors, a " Supper 
 at the House of Simon, the Pharisee," and a "Jesus 
 Awakened at the Lake," which could not have come ex- 
 cept from the very old palace of a very old family. Dor- 
 senne knew all this, and he knew also for what reasons 
 he found so empty at this season of the year this hall, 
 so animated during the winter, and through which he 
 had seen pass a whole carnival of transient visitors, 
 great lords, artists, politicians, Roman, Austrian, Eng- 
 lish, and French pell-mell. 
 
 The Countess was far from occupying at Home the 
 position which her intelligence, her fortune, her name 
 ought to have given her. For, a Navagero by birth, 
 she bore in her escutcheon the cross d'or of the Sebas- 
 tien Navagero, who was the first to mount the walls of 
 Lepanto, and the etoile argente of the great Doge Michel. 
 But one peculiar trait in her character had always pre- 
 vented her from succeeding in this line. She could not 
 bear ennui or constraint, and she had no vanity. She 
 was positive and full of passion, like the moneyed men, 
 whose well-considered combinations only serve to as- 
 sure the conditions of their pleasures. Mme. Steno had
 
 DANGER NIGH. 87 
 
 never, for example, done anything for anyone whom 
 she did not care for except in the interest of her pas- 
 sions. She had never displayed any diplomatic strata- 
 gems in her sudden changes of passion, and they had 
 been numerous before Gorka appeared. To him she had 
 been faithful, an improbable thing, for two years. She 
 had never, except in her inmost privacy, observed any 
 moderation when the question was to reach the object 
 of her desire. Moreover, at Rome, she had not any 
 member of the great family to which she belonged to 
 back her up, and she was not a member of either of the 
 two coteries, into which Koman society, after 1870, was 
 divided. Her spirit was too modern, her manners too 
 bold, for her to be affiliated with the Blacks ; she had 
 not been received by the admirable lady who reigns at 
 the Quirinal, and who creates around her an atmosphere 
 of noble elevation. These various causes would have 
 produced a kind of semi-ostracism if the Countess had 
 not reckoned on it beforehand, and had not devoted all 
 her energies to make a side-salon, to be recruited almost 
 solely by strangers. The coming and going of new 
 faces, the unexpected conversation, the blending of in- 
 timacy without duty, all in this life of movement, sat- 
 isfied the thirst for change, to which was united in this 
 strong, spontaneous, and almost masculinely immoral 
 nature, a just and clear perception of realities. If 
 Julien stopped astonished at the door of the hall, it was 
 not because he found it once more without guests, but 
 because among the visitors was the very same Peppino 
 Ardea, whom he had not met all winter. And, veritably, 
 it was a strange time to show himself, the very time 
 when the auctioneer's hammer was already raised over 
 all that had been the pride and splendor of his name. 
 It must be said that the grand-nephew of Urban VII., 
 seated between Fanny Hafner in pale blue, and Alba in 
 flame-red, opposite Mme. Maitland, so graceful in mauve, 
 had by no manner of means the look of a man blasted 
 by adversity. The half-light, adroitly distributed from
 
 88 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 high and low lamps, lit up with a delicate glow his 
 fine, manly profile that had lost nothing- of its haughty 
 amiability. The two dominant notes in his counte- 
 nance, irregular and striking as it was, were fatuity 
 and good-humor. His deep black eyes, very brilliant, 
 very mobile, seemed to be able almost in the same 
 glance to sneer and smile, while his lips, shaded by 
 his brown mustache, expressed disdain as well as crav- 
 ing, satiety as well as sensuality. The shaven chin 
 showed blue shades which gave to his face an expres- 
 sion of strength, contradicted by his rather frail and 
 evidently too nervous body. The heir of the Castag- 
 nas had been a " viveur," in that style of Anglomania 
 affected by certain Italians, but which is always out of 
 pitch a little just as the Countess's salon. The Prince 
 wore too many rings, too big a flower at his button-hole, 
 he gesticulated too often and too much to allow one for 
 a moment, after looking at his brown complexion, to 
 cherish any illusion as to his nationality. He it was 
 who, first of all the group, saw Julien, and he said, or 
 rather cried in a familiar tone : 
 
 " Why, Dorsenne, I thought you had left. You have 
 not been visible at the Club for a fortnight." 
 
 " He has been working," said Hafner, " on some new 
 masterpiece, a romance of Roman life, I am sure. Be on 
 your guard, Prince, and you, mesdames, disarm this 
 portrait-painter. . . ." 
 
 " If he likes," cried Ardea, laughing merrily, " I will 
 give him notes about myself, as big as that. I'll illus- 
 trate his story, moreover, with photographs for which I 
 used to have a passion. See, mademoiselle," turning to 
 Fanny, " how we ruin ourselves. I had a craze for in- 
 stantaneous photographs. A very convenient thing, is 
 it not ! Well, it cost me thirty thousand francs a year 
 for four years." 
 
 Dorsenne had, of course, heard that it was an under- 
 stood thing between Peppino and his friends, to treat 
 lightly the misfortune that had befallen the Castagna
 
 DANGER NIGH. 89 
 
 family in its last and only scion. But Dorsenne never 
 suspected such a cool demeanor. He was so discon- 
 certed that he took no notice of the Baron's remark, as 
 he would have done, at any other moment. The late 
 founder of the Credit Austro-Dalmate did not fail to 
 show in a certain fashion his deep-rooted aversion for 
 the novelist. Men of his order, profoundly cynical and 
 calculating-, dread and despise at the same time cer- 
 tain kinds of literature. It seems to them to tell truths 
 thoroughly dangerous to write, and very unimportant as 
 regards the principles that they profess in practical life. 
 Hafner, also, had too much tact not to feel the instinctive 
 repulsion which he caused in Julien Dorsenne. But for 
 Hafner every social force had its price marked, and lit- 
 erary success as much as any other. So he was afraid, 
 as the day before at the palace Castagna, of having gone 
 too far, and, laying on the novelist's shoulder his hand 
 with its long supple fingers which seemed always to 
 begrudge a squeeze, he added : 
 
 " This is what I admire in him. He will let outsiders 
 like me tease him without ever being annoyed. He is 
 the only celebrated author who is so unaffected. But 
 he is more than an author. He is a man of the 
 world. . . ." 
 
 " Is the Countess not here? " asked Dorsenne, address- 
 ing himself to Alba Steno, without paying any more 
 attention to the compliment unconsciously offensive 
 of the Baron, than he had to his sneer, or to the jocose 
 offer of the Prince. The absence of Mme. Steno gave 
 him a new pang which the girl dissipated by her an- 
 swer. 
 
 " My mother is on the terrace. We were afraid it was 
 too cold for Fanny." The simple phrase was pro- 
 nounced simply while the girl was fanning herself with 
 a large fan of curled, pliant white feathers. Every 
 wave of the fan made an aureole of the locks of her 
 blonde hair, which she wore in ringlets rather high on 
 her forehead. Julien knew her too well not to observe
 
 90 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 that her voice, her manner, her looks, her whole self, 
 betrayed a nervousness akin, at the moment, to pain. 
 Was she still annoyed by the petulance of the last even- 
 ing ? Or was she a prey to one of those inexplicable 
 moods which had led Dorsenne, in his meditations dur- 
 ing the past night, to such strange suspicions ? The sus- 
 picions returned to him, with the feeling that of all the 
 persons there present, Alba was the only one whose 
 look seemed to betray a consciousness of the drama 
 which was, without doubt, imminent. He resolved to 
 seek, at once and once more, for the solution of the 
 living enigma presented by the young girl. How lovely 
 she seemed to him, this evening, bearing one of her 
 two expressions which seemed like a tragic mask ! 
 The corners of her mouth were rather depressed, the 
 upper lip almost too short displayed her clenched 
 teeth, and in the lower part of her pale face was a bit- 
 terness, so precociously sad ! Why ? It was not the 
 time to proceed to this inquest. He must first go and 
 pay his respects to Mme. Steno on the terrace which 
 terminated in a paradise of Italian voluptuousness, a 
 room furnished in imitation of Paris. Evergreens 
 shivered in terra-cotta vases ornamented with stucco. 
 Busts were arranged on the balustrade, and beyond it 
 the spreading pines of the Villa Bonaparte outlined 
 their dark shades against a sky of velvet blue embroi- 
 dered with large stars. A vague scent of acacias, from 
 a neighboring garden, floated in the air which had the 
 lightness of gossamer, caressing, subtile, and warm. 
 This state of the atmosphere, soft to mellowness, was 
 enough to prove the falsehood of the Contessina, who 
 evidently wished to justify the tete-a-tete of her mother 
 and Maitland. The two lovers were, in fact, side by 
 side in the fragrance, the mystery, and the solitude of 
 this obscure and quiet terrace. Dorsenne, coming from 
 the full glare of the salon, required a minute to distin- 
 guish, in the dim shadow, the outlines of the Countess, 
 who, dressed entirely in white, was reclining on a long
 
 DANGER NIGH. 91 
 
 cane chair with cushions of soft silk. She was smoking 
 a cigarette, the slight glow of which, at each inhalation, 
 gave light enough to indicate that, in spite of the night 
 air, her beautiful, long, and flexible neck, with its collar 
 of pearls, was bare, bare to the spring of her bust and 
 her white shoulders, bare her well-formed arms, which, 
 laden with bracelets, appeared beneath her large flow- 
 ing sleeves. Julien, as he approached, recognized, 
 amid the flowery odors of the spring night, the scent 
 of Virginia tobacco, which Mme. Steno had taken to 
 using since she had been smitten with Maitland, in place 
 of the Russian " papyros " to which Gorka had accus- 
 tomed her. It is by such insignificant traits that one 
 can recognize the women whose amorous passion is pro- 
 foundly, insatiably sensual. Such was the only passion 
 of which the Venetian was capable. The passionate 
 need of surrendering themselves more and more, leads 
 them to wed, so to speak, the most trifling habits of the 
 man they love in this fashion. It is thus that we must 
 explain the changes of tastes, ideas, even of appear- 
 ance, which are so thorough that in six months or three 
 months, they are different women. Near this graceful 
 and lissome phantom, Lincoln Maitland was sitting on a 
 chair, too low to enable one to judge of his stature. But 
 his broad shoulders, displayed in all their vigor by his 
 evening dress, showed that before studying Art, he had 
 heard of the " Art of Self-Defence," and had not only 
 studied it, but had unceasingly practiced the most ath- 
 letic sports of his English education. The epithet 
 " large " was the first to be suggested at any mention 
 of him. Above his large chest rose a large face, rather 
 red, cut in two by a heavy ruddy mustache, which dis- 
 closed, as he smiled one of his large smiles, large white 
 rows of strong teeth. Large rings glittered on his 
 fingers. In fine, he was the exactly opposite type to 
 that of Boleslas Gorka. If the descendant of the Polish 
 castellans reminded one of the dangerous grace of a 
 feline, of some slender, pretty panther, Maitland might
 
 92 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 be compared to some powerful, brutal mastiff, the dog of 
 legend, with jaws and muscles strong enough to choke 
 lions. All that was painter in him resided in his eye 
 and hand, and was as much a physical endowment as 
 the formation of the throat in a tenor. But this abnor- 
 mal instinct had been developed, cultivated, made fruit- 
 ful by that energy of will for culture which forms so 
 marked a trait in the Anglo-Saxons of the New World 
 when they love Europe in place of hating it. Just at 
 present his desire for culture seemed reduced to pas- 
 sionate inhalation of the perfume of that divine white 
 rose of love, that was named Mme. Steno a rose in 
 almost too full bloom, and beginning to fade in its for- 
 tieth autumn. She was, however, still delicious, and 
 Maitland seemed to care little for the presence of his 
 wife in the adjoining room, from whose door-windows 
 poured a light that deepened the kindly shadow of the 
 voluptuous terrace. He held in his hand the hand of 
 his mistress, but dropped it when he saw Dorsenne, 
 who had taken good care to make a noise by upsetting 
 a chair as he drew near. He spoke in a loud tone and 
 with a frank laugh : 
 
 " I should have made a poor Abbe of the last century, 
 for to-night I can see nothing. If your cigarette, 
 Countess, had not served as my beacon, I should have 
 run up against the balustrade." 
 
 "It is you, Dorsenne ? " Mme. Steno replied, in a cold 
 tone which was in such flagrant contradiction to her 
 usual amiability, that the novelist could not but draw 
 two conclusions. One was that he was the Terzo Inco- 
 modo of classic comedy ; the other, that Hafner had re- 
 peated his imprudent remarks of the day before. " So 
 much the worse," he thought. " I gave her warning, 
 and on reflection she will thank me. There is not much 
 reflection in her mind at this instant." While saying 
 this to himself, he spoke aloud about the heat of the 
 day, the weather probabilities for to-morrow, Ardea's 
 good nature a score of useless remarks to fill up a rea-
 
 DANGER NIGH. 93 
 
 sonable time till he could leave tlie terrace and restore 
 the lovers to their tete-a-tete, without exhibiting that 
 indiscreet haste to depart that is as disagreeable as 
 persistence in remaining. 
 
 " When shall we come and see the portrait finished in 
 your studio, Maitland ? " he asked as he remained 
 standing to get away easier. 
 
 " Finished ! " cried the Countess, who added, using a 
 diminutive which in the last few weeks she had given to 
 her lover. " Don't you know that Linco has rubbed out 
 all the head again 1 " 
 
 " All the head no," said the painter ; " but it is true 
 that the profile will have to be retouched. You remem- 
 ber, Dorsenne, those two pictures by Piero della Fran- 
 cesca, at Florence, the Duke Federigo of Urbino, and his 
 wife Battista Sforza? Did you not see them in the 
 same room as the Calumnia of Botticelli, with a land- 
 scape in the background 1 It is sketched like this," and 
 he made a motion with his thumb, " a touch of fresco 
 style. That is it. Yes ; that is how it is. This was the 
 very thing I was looking for, the necessary line, the 
 profile that holds all profiles. That painter, Fra Carne- 
 vale et Melozzo there is none better in Italy." 
 
 " Titian and Raphael ? " observed Mme. Steno. 
 
 "And the Viennese school, and the Lorenzetti you 
 rave about ? You wrote to me about them in reference 
 to my article on your exhibition of '86, don't you re- 
 member ? " continued the writer. 
 
 " Raphael ? " replied Maitland. " Do you really want 
 me to give you my opinion of Raphael? A sublime 
 contractor: Titian? A sublime embroiderer. The 
 Viennese, I grant, have always been favorites of mine," 
 he added, turning to Dorsenne. " I spent three weeks 
 copying the Simone Martini in the Municipality, the 
 Guido Riccio who is riding between two forts over a 
 gray heath, where not a tree, not a house is visible 
 nothing but lances and towers. And Lorenzetti ! Don't 
 I remember him ! Especially his fresco at San Fran-
 
 94 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 cesco, where St. Francis presents his Order to the pope. 
 That's the best thing- he did. There is a cardinal who 
 puts his thumb in his mouth, like this." Another imi- 
 tative gesture. " I have recovered from that, because 
 you see it is story-telling, reporting done on a wall- 
 good reporting, oh, yes! But without the subject, 
 Pshaw ! While Piero della Francesca, Carnevale Me- 
 lozzo. . . ." he paused to search out a word to em- 
 brace the complex idea that filled his mind " there is 
 painting for you ! " 
 
 " Still the Assunta of Titian and the Transfiguration of 
 Raphael ! " exclaimed the Countess, who added in Italian, 
 with an accent of enthusiasm, " Ah ! die bellezza ! " 
 
 " Do not be distressed, Countess," Dorsenne said, with 
 a laugh ; " these are professional opinions. I am a 
 writer, and I declared, some ten years ago, that Victor 
 Hugo was an amateur, and Alfred de Musset a plebeian. 
 It did not hurt them, nor me either. But, as I am not 
 descended either from Doges or Pilgrim Fathers, and am 
 merely a poor degenerate Gallo-Roman, I am afraid of 
 damp evenings for my rheumatism, and I beg to ask 
 permission to return to the house." Then, as he passed 
 the door of the salon : " Raphael a contractor ! Titian 
 an embroiderer! Lorenzetti a reporter! And the Do- 
 garessa listens to all this stuff, seriously she, whose 
 ideal is a decent chromo ! This beats everything ! As 
 for Gorka, if he had not wasted my whole afternoon 
 yesterday, I could fancy myself dreaming, so little do 
 they think of him. And Ardea, who continues to brag 
 of his ruin. He is not bad for an Italian. But he will 
 acquire bad taste, and talk too much. . . ." 
 
 In fact just as he was approaching the group that was 
 gathered in a corner of the salon, beneath a picture by 
 Moretto, he heard the Prince relating a story about 
 the Cavaliero Fossati, who had charge of the sale. 
 
 " ' How much will you make on the whole ? ' I asked 
 him finally. ' Oh, not much,' he replied. But here a 
 little and there a little, ends in a good deal. And then
 
 DANGER NIGH. 95 
 
 with what an air he added, ' JE' gicb il moschino e conte.' 
 And then the fly is a count. He was that same fly ! 
 People called him so when he was peddling- about in 
 Umbria. ' A few more sales like yours, Prince, and my 
 son, one of the Counts Fossati, with half a million, will 
 be a member of the Club, and play golf with you.' There 
 is all that in his ' then ' ! On my honor, I was never so 
 much amused since I became penniless." 
 
 " You are an optimist, Prince," said Hafner, " and 
 in spite of our friend Dorsenne here, one must be an 
 optimist in this life. . . ." 
 
 "You are attacking- him again, father," Fanny ob- 
 served in a tone of respectful reproach. 
 
 " Not him," replied the Baron, " but his ideas, and 
 above all the ideas of his school. "Well, well," he con- 
 tinued, either because he wished to turn the course of 
 the conversation which Ardea persisted in confining to 
 his ruin, or because, in a world so well organized that 
 operations like that of the Austro-Dalmatian Credit 
 were possible, he really felt a profound aversion to the 
 melancholy and pessimism, rather affected, it must be 
 confessed, which colored Julien's looks. " As I listened 
 to you, Ardea, and saw this great novelist approach, I 
 thought, as a contrast, of the fashion people affect to- 
 day of seeing all life in black." 
 
 " You find it very bright ? " asked Alba abruptly. 
 
 " Good ! " cried Hafner. " I was sure that if I spoke 
 against pessimism, I should make the Contessina talk. 
 Very bright ? " he continued. " Certainly not ; but when 
 I think of the misfortunes that might have befallen 
 all of us, for example, I find life very, very tolerable. 
 Fancy being born in another epoch. You see yourself, 
 Contessina, a hundred and fifty years ago, at Venice, 
 liable to arrest any day as the result of a communica- 
 tion to the Council of Ten ? And you, Dorsenne, ex- 
 posed to be cudgelled, like M. de Voltaire, by some jeal- 
 ous grand seigneur ? And the Prince of Ardea risking 
 assassination or confiscation at .each change of a pope ?
 
 96 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 And I myself, as a Protestant, chased out of France, per- 
 secuted in Austria, harassed in Italy, burned in Spain." 
 
 As one can see, he was careful to choose between 
 his two hereditary elements. He did it with an enig- 
 matic good-nature that was almost ironical. He checked 
 himself, to avoid mentioning what Mme. Maitland 
 might have been before the abolition of slavery. He 
 knew that this very pretty and refined lady shared the 
 prejudices of her compatriots against black blood, and 
 employed every means of concealing the original taint, 
 going so far as never to take off her gloves. It is only 
 fair to add that only a tinge of gold in her complexion, 
 her slightly crisp hair, and a vague bluish tint in the 
 white of the eyes, revealed the mixture of races. She 
 did not seem to have appreciated the Baron's silence, 
 but arranged, in a careless air, the folds of her mauve 
 dress, while Dorsenne replied : 
 
 " Well reasoned and specious. There is no other flaw 
 in it, except want of truth. For I defy you to imagine 
 what you would have been at the epoch of which you 
 speak. People are fond of saying, ' If I had lived a 
 hundred years ago' and forget that a hundred years 
 ago they would not have been the same, would not have 
 had the same ideas, the same tastes or the same wants. 
 It is very much like claiming to imagine what you would 
 think if you were a bird or a serpent." 
 
 " One can always imagine what it would be to have 
 never been born ! " exclaimed Alba Steno. She uttered 
 the remark in so strange a manner that the little dis- 
 cussion started by Hafner fell to the ground at once. 
 Words too deeply felt produce such an effect in these 
 chatterings of idlers who believe only half the ideas 
 that they give out. And, although it is always a para- 
 dox to find fault with life in the midst of luxurious sur- 
 roundings, and when one is not twenty years of age, the 
 girl was evidently sincere. Whence came this sincerity ? 
 From what corner of a young heart wounded till it fes- 
 tered ? Dorsenne was the only one to put such a ques-
 
 DANGER NIGH. 97 
 
 tion to himself, for the conversation at once changed, 
 as Lydia Maitland, pointing with her fan to Alba's 
 sleeve as she sat within two seats of her, asked, with an 
 irony which, after Alba's remark, was as delightful as 
 it certainly was unintended : 
 
 " It is mousseline de soie, is it not ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied the Contessina, rising and straighten- 
 ing her figure, as she held out to her fair and curious 
 neighbor her arm which appeared frail, nervous, with a 
 blonde down, through the transparent fold of the soft 
 red stuff, which a bow of ribbon of the same color fas- 
 tened to her delicate- shoulder and her slender wrist. 
 Ardea's voice could be heard as, inclining to Fanny, 
 who was more lovely than ever that evening with her 
 pale complexion flushed a little by some secret inter- 
 est ; he said : 
 
 " You were at my palace, yesterday, Mademoiselle ? " 
 
 " No," she replied. 
 
 " Ask her why, Prince," said Hafner. 
 
 " Father ! " cried Fanny, with a look of entreaty in 
 her black eyes, which Ardea had the delicacy to heed, 
 as he continued : 
 
 " It is a pity ! Everything there is very common- 
 place. But you would have been interested by the 
 chapel. At heart I regret most the objects before 
 which my race has prayed so long, and which are the 
 last in the catalogue. They have taken even a reli 
 quary, because it was by Ugolino da Siena. I'll buy 
 back the most I can. Your father praises my courage. 
 I do not believe I shall have courage enough to separ- 
 ate myself from such objects without real sorrow." 
 
 " It is the feeling she entertains respecting the whole 
 palace," said the Baron. 
 
 " Father ! " said Fanny, again. 
 
 " Do not be disturbed. I'll not betray you," he replied, 
 while Alba, taking advantage of her having left her 
 seat, stepped out from the circle of talkers. She walked 
 to a table placed at the other end of the room, laden
 
 98 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 with a tea-set, in English style, and iced drinks. As 
 Julien followed her she inquired : 
 
 " Shall I mix your brandy and soda, Dorsenne ? " 
 
 " What is the matter, Contessina," the young- man 
 asked in a low tone, while they stood together at the 
 large table on which the cut-glass and the silverware 
 shone white and new against the intense but dull back- 
 ground of the room. " Yes," he persisted, " what is the 
 matter ? Are you still vexed with me ? " 
 
 " With you 1 " she said. " Wliy, I have never been 
 vexed with you ! Why should I be ? " she repeated. 
 " You have never done anything, you. . . ." 
 
 " Who, then, has done something to hurt you ?" he 
 asked. He saw she was speaking in good faith, and 
 scarcely thought of the annoyance of the day before. 
 " A friend like me you cannot deceive," he continued. 
 " By the very way in which you used your fan, I saw 
 that it was your mood to be annoyed. Ah, I know you 
 so well. . . ." 
 
 " I am not annoyed," she replied, with an impatient 
 frown of her long silky eyebrows, that ended in a shade 
 of gold on the temples. " I cannot bear to hear people 
 lie in such a fashion. That is all." 
 
 " Who has been lying ? " replied Dorsenne. 
 
 "Did you not hear Ardea talk of his chapel just 
 now ? A man who believes in God about as much as 
 Hafner of whom nobody knows whether he is Jew or 
 Christian 1 Have you not seen poor Fanny all this 
 time? Did you not notice with what tact the Baron 
 alluded to the delicacy that prevented his daughter 
 from joining us in our visit to the palace Castagna? 
 Does not this comedy, played by these two men, give 
 you something to think of ? " 
 
 " Then that's why Peppino is here," said Julien. " A 
 project of marriage between the heiress of Papa Hafner's 
 millions and the great-grand-nephew of Pope Urban 
 VII. ... a nice subject of conversation with a cer- 
 tain gentleman of my acquaintance." The mere thought
 
 DANGER NIGH. 99 
 
 of Montfanon hearing 1 such a bit of news produced a 
 burst of laughter, and he continued, " Do not look at me 
 with indignation, Contessina ;*but I cannot find matter 
 for deep melancholy in this story. Fanny marrying 
 Peppino ? Why not ? You have told me yourself that 
 she is half Catholic already, and that her father is only 
 waiting for her marriage to have her baptized. He will 
 be happy. Ardea will keep his fine palace, which we 
 saw yesterday, and the Baron will crown his career by 
 restoring to one fool ruined on the Bourse, by way of 
 dowry, what he has made out of others. The sons-in- 
 law of financial bandits, like the Baron, take vengeance 
 for the shareholders." 
 
 " Silence ! " said the girl, in a grave voice. " You hor- 
 rify me. That Ardea should lose all scruples and be ready 
 to sell his title of Roman prince as dearly as possible to 
 the first bidder, is no more to me than that we Venetians 
 let ourselves be imposed on by the nobility of Borne. 
 We have all had doges in our families when the fathers 
 of these men were still bandits in the Campagna, waiting 
 till some poor monk of the name became pope. That 
 Baron Hafner should invest his daughter as they say he 
 used to invest his plated trinkets in his youth, is nothing 
 to me either. But you do not know her. You do not 
 know what a charming 1 , enthusiastic being she is, how 
 simple and sincere, and who will never entertain the 
 thought that her father is a thief, in the first place, and 
 that he is peddling her about like a bibelot, in order to 
 have grandchildren who are great-grand-nephews of a 
 pope, nor will she have the idea that Peppino does not 
 love her, that he wants her dowry, and that he will have 
 for her much the same sentiments one has for " in- 
 dicating Mme. Maitland by a glance. " It is still worse 
 than I say," she said, mysteriously, like some one who 
 feels herself carried away by her own words, and is 
 almost afraid of them. 
 
 " Yes," replied Julien. " It would be very sad. But 
 are you sure you do not exaggerate ? There is not so
 
 100 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 much calculation in this life it is more commonplace 
 and more easy-going. Perhaps the Prince and the 
 Baron have a vague plan. . . ." 
 
 " A vague plan ! " exclaimed Alba, shrugging her deli- 
 cate shoulders. " There is never anything vague with 
 Hafner, you may be sure. Suppose I were to tell you 
 that I am sure, mark me sure that it is he who holds 
 between his fingers the bulk of the Prince's debts, and 
 who has had them sold by Ancona, to place the market 
 in his hands ? " 
 
 " Impossible ! " cried Dorsenne. " You saw him yes- 
 terday, yourself, deliberating about buying this thing 
 or that. . . ." 
 
 " Do not make me talk any more," replied Alba, pass- 
 ing twice or thrice across her brow and eyes her slender 
 and white hand on which no ring glittered, and which 
 betrayed by its movements her extreme nervous excita- 
 bility. "I have already said too much about it. It is 
 not my affair, and poor Fanny is only a recent friend of 
 mine, although I find her so tender and sympathetic. I 
 think she is about to fetter her whole life and there is 
 no one, there can be no one to cry to her, ' They lie to 
 you ! ' How piteous, how very piteous it is ! That is 
 all. It is childish." 
 
 It is always cruelly distressing to observe in a young 
 person such an exact vision of the dark underside of 
 life, which, once entered into the soul, never permits 
 the existence of that light-hearted freedom from care 
 which is natural at twenty. Alba Steno had often left 
 on Dorsenne this impression of precocious disenchant- 
 ment, and this had been her principal attraction for this 
 student of feminine nature. Yet at this instant he was 
 struck mute by the terrible absence of illusions re- 
 vealed in such a penetrating and keen insight into the 
 projects of Fanny's father. Whence had she learned 
 them ? Clearly from Mme. Steno herself, either because 
 the Baron and the Countess had talked too freely before 
 her to permit a doubt, or because she had divined mis-
 
 DANGER NIGH. 101 
 
 taken intentions behind and under the words spoken. 
 Looking- at her thus, her mouth bitter, her eyes hag- 
 gard, a prey to a dull fever of internal revolt, Dorsenne 
 again felt confirmed anew in his idea of his own perspi- 
 cacity. She must have applied the same strength of 
 thought to the conduct of her mother. It seemed to 
 him that, as she was turning up the wick of the lamp 
 under the tea-urn, she looked toward the terrace where 
 the white robe of the Countess gleamed through the 
 shadows. All at once the mad notions that had tor- 
 mented him the evening- before, and the project he had 
 formed of imitating his model Hamlet, and playing- in 
 Mme. Steno's salon the trick of the Prince of Denmark 
 on his uncle, returned to his memory. With his air of 
 habitual indifference he took up the last words that the 
 young- girl had just uttered, and continued: 
 
 "You need not be disturbed. Ardea has plenty of 
 enemies, and Hafner more. Some one will turn up 
 and reveal their little stratagem, if there is one, to the 
 fair Fanny. An anonymous letter is quickly writ- 
 ten." 
 
 No sooner had he pronounced these words than he 
 checked himself with the shock of a man who handles a 
 weapon he thinks unloaded, and hears the ball whiz 
 out. He really had spoken in this style to acquit his 
 conscience of what was due to his scepticism, and never 
 expected to see a new cloud of pain pass over the proud 
 and mobile face of Alba. She displayed, however, an ex- 
 pression of deeper disgust in the lines of her mouth, and 
 more of sombre disdain in her eyes, while her hands, 
 occupied with the tea-things, trembled still more as she 
 said, in an accent too full of emotion not to make him 
 regret his cruel experiment : 
 
 " Do not wish her that ! That would be worse still 
 than her present ig-norance. " Now, at least, she knows 
 nothing, and if some wretch were to do what you have 
 just said, she would know only in half, without being 
 sure. How can you smile at such a supposition ? . . .
 
 102 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 No, poor sweet Fanny ! I hope she will never receive 
 anonymous letters. It is so cowardly, and the thought 
 hurts me." 
 
 " I beg- pardon if I have vexed you," replied Dor- 
 senne. 
 
 He had just touched, he perceived, a bleeding- spot in 
 her heart, and saw with alarm that Alba Steno had not 
 only not written the anonymous letters addressed to 
 Gorka, but had herself received some. From whom ? 
 Who was the mysterious informer who wrote in this 
 abominable manner to the daughter of Mme. Steno, as 
 well as to her lover ? Julien was chilled to the marrow, 
 and continued : " If I smiled, it was because I believe 
 that Mdlle. Hafner, in case such a misfortune should 
 occur, is sensible enough to treat such communications 
 as they deserve. An anonymous letter ought not to be 
 even read. Anyone so infamous as to use arms of this 
 sort does not deserve that one should pay him the honor 
 of looking at what he has written." 
 
 " That is so, is it not ? " she replied. Her eyes sud- 
 denly dilated with a gleam of genuine gratitude which 
 convinced Dorsenne that this time he had seen aright. 
 He had used the very words she stood in need of. 
 With such evidence before him, he felt a shock of sharne 
 and pity of shame, for having, in his thoughts, offered 
 such a gratuitous insult to this unhappy soul ; of pity, 
 because she must have received a cruel blow, if the com- 
 munication really referred to her mother. He no more 
 could ask her such a question than she could have 
 shown such an infamous letter to her mother, who often 
 said : " I bring up my daughter on English principles, 
 in the most perfect independence." Very happy results 
 had come from this independence which permitted a 
 letter of such a nature to reach the poor child ! She 
 must have received this horrible letter yesterday after- 
 noon or this morning, for when they visited the Cas- 
 tagna Palace she had been in turns gay and reserved, 
 but girlishly so, while this evening it was no longer
 
 DANGER NIGH. 103 
 
 the girl who suffered, but the woman. Dorsenne 
 went on : 
 
 " You may think how we writers are exposed to these 
 abominable things ! A book that succeeds, a play that 
 pleases, an article one is proud of, sets every envious 
 soul at work to insult anonymously, either ourselves 
 or those we love. In such cases, I repeat, I burn with- 
 out reading; and if ever in life such a thing befalls 
 you, be sure, Contessina, and follow the recipe of your 
 friend Dorsenne. For I am your friend ; you feel that, 
 do you not ? " 
 
 " Why ! " the girl exclaimed with animation. " Why do 
 you think that anyone would write anonymous letters 
 to me ? I have no fame, nor beauty, nor millions, nor 
 envious friends. . . ." And as Dorsenne looked at 
 her with regret at having said too much since she drew 
 back again, she forced her sad lips to smile and resumed : 
 "If you are truly my friend, in place of making me 
 waste my time in listening to advice of which I think I 
 shall never have need, unless I become a great writer, 
 help me to serve the tea, will you ? It must be ready." 
 She raised in her slender fingers the lid of the teapot, 
 adding : " Pray ask Mrs. Maitland if she will have some 
 this evening. Fanny, too. Ardea likes his grog ; the 
 Baron takes mineral water. We must ring for his glass 
 of Vichy. Thanks. You have made me behind time. 
 Here comes a new visitor, and nothing will be ready. 
 Why," she cried, " it is Maud ! " and immediately after- 
 ward, with an astonishment which drew from her a half- 
 exclamation, " and her husband ! " 
 
 The folding-door of the hall opened to admit Maud 
 Gorka, beautiful with that English beauty which is so 
 grand and strong, all radiant with happiness in her 
 black China crape dress, with orange bows that brought 
 out her fresh, fine color. Behind her came Boleslas. 
 He was no longer the traveller who, thirty-six hours 
 previously, had landed in the Piazza della Trinita, mad 
 with anxiety, frenzied with jealousy, stained by the dust
 
 104 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 of the train, with bristling hair, dusty eyebrows, and 
 dirty hands. Somewhat thinner, but not fatigued, he 
 was the elegant Count Gorka whom Dorsenne knew, 
 the graceful man of fashion in his evening dress, a 
 spray of lilies of the valley in his button-hole, his lips 
 smiling, and altogether looking well. To the writer, 
 knowing what he knew, this smile, this coolness, was 
 more terrible than his rage of the night before. He 
 felt it from the way in which Boleslas shook hands. A 
 night and a day of reflection had undone his work, and 
 if Boleslas had played his part in the comedy so well 
 as to lull to sleep his wife's distrust and induce her to 
 pay this visit, it was because he had resolved to con- 
 sult no one, but to conduct the inquirj 7 himself. He 
 had succeeded at the first stroke and his feline eyes 
 had perceived the white robe of Mme. Steno on the 
 terrace, while Maud, to her happiness, was explaining 
 the sudden resolve of her husband with noble sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 " You see what it is to send to an unreasonable father 
 bad news of our boy. I wrote that Luc had a slight 
 fever the other day. He replied, asking about him. I 
 did not receive the letter. He lost his head and here 
 he is ! " 
 
 " I will go and tell mamma," said Alba, who went to 
 the ten-ace too slowly to please Dorsenne. He had 
 such a feeling of coming danger that he never thought 
 of smiling at the perfect success of the coarse lie that 
 he and Boleslas had invented the night before, of which 
 the Count had said, with a complacency perfectly justi- 
 fied by the result, that " Maud will be so happy to see 
 me that she will believe anything." It was a scene at 
 once simple and tragic with that polite tragedy where 
 events are more alarming because they take place with- 
 out raising the voice, without a gesture, among the con- 
 ventional phrases and amid the surroundings of a fete. 
 Two of the spectators, besides Julien, understood their 
 importance Ardea and Hafner. Neither of them had
 
 DANGER NIGH. 105 
 
 the slightest illusion about the present relations of Mme. 
 Steno and Maitland, any more than about her past con- 
 nection with Gorka. The author, the Roman noble, the 
 man of business, in spite of differences of age and sur- 
 roundings, had all had experience of analogous circum- 
 stances. They knew what presence of mind can be dis- 
 played by a woman of courage when she is surprised like 
 the Venetian. All three afterward declared that they 
 could never have imagined a more wonderful coolness, a 
 more superbly audacious serenity, than that of Mme. Ste- 
 no at this trying moment. She appeared on the thresh- 
 old of the door- window, astonished and delighted just 
 as much as she ought to be. Her blonde complexion, 
 which the least emotion flushed with blood, retained 
 its delicate tint of rose. Not a quiver of her long eye- 
 lashes, Turkish in their gracefulness, veiled her deep 
 blue eyes, that were illuminated by an internal radi- 
 ance. With a smile that disclosed beautiful teeth of a 
 color that rivalled the large pearls that adorned her 
 neck, with emeralds twined in her blonde tresses, with 
 her strong shoulders visible in the low cut of her white 
 corsage, with her opulent, yet refined figure, with her 
 splendid arms from which she had removed the gloves 
 to feel the caressing kisses of Maitland, and which 
 gleamed with more emeralds, with her gait marked by 
 a haughty certitude she was, in truth, a woman of an- 
 other age, the sister of those radiant princesses whom 
 the painters of Venice evoked under marble porticos, 
 among apostles and martyrs, who are magnificos and 
 sailors. She went straight to Maud Gorka, whom she 
 embraced tenderly ; then, shaking hands with Boleslas, 
 she said, in her rich voice that had at times contralto pas- 
 sages, and had been softened by using the caressing 
 dialect of the lagoons : 
 
 " Why, what a surprise ! And you could not come and 
 dine with us ? Come, let us sit down together and you 
 can tell me the whole Odyssey of your wanderings." 
 Then she turned to Maitland, who had followed her into
 
 106 COSMOPOLTS. 
 
 the salon, with the double and insolent tranquillity of a 
 giant and a favored lover, and said, " Be so good, my 
 little Linco, as to look for my fan and gloves that I have 
 forgotten on the arm of the lounging-chair." 
 
 At this instant Dorsenne, who had only one fear, that 
 of meeting the eyes of Gorka he could not have sup- 
 ported them found himself again near Alba Steiio. The 
 countenance of the girl, lately so fixed and constrained 
 with anguish, was now illumined. It seemed as if an 
 immense weight had been raised from the heart of the 
 pretty Contessina. 
 
 " Poor child," thought the romance-writer ; " she can- 
 not believe that her mother would be so calm if she 
 were guilty. The attitude of the Countess is the reply 
 to the anonymous letter. They have, then, written to 
 her everything. Heavens ! Who can it be ? What will 
 come of a drama commencing in this fashion ? " 
 
 He fell into a profound reverie, not even interrupted 
 by the noise of conversations in which he took no more 
 part. Had he observed instead of pondered, he could 
 have verified the truth respecting the author of the 
 anonymous letters. There it was before him, clear as 
 the courage of Mme. Steno in confronting danger as 
 the blind confidence of Mme. Gorka as the contemptu- 
 ous imperturbability of Maitland before his rival, and 
 the suppressed rage of that rival as the dexterity of 
 Hafner in maintaining the general conversation as 
 the attentions of Ardea to the wealthy Fanny, and her 
 emotion clear as Alba's joy at deliverance. All these 
 faces, as Boleslas entered, had expressed different senti- 
 ments. One only had for some minutes expressed the 
 joy of crime and the thirst of satisfied hatred. But as 
 this face was that of the little Mme. Maitland, the silent 
 creature whom he so commonly regarded as dull and in- 
 significant, Dorsenne paid no more attention to it than 
 did the other witnesses of this startling apparition of 
 the betrayed lover. All nations have a proverb to ex- 
 press the idea that no water is worse than water unruffled.
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 107 
 
 " Still waters run deep," say the English ; the Italians 
 say : " Still waters bring down bridges." All these 
 proverbs would not be true unless we forget them in 
 actual life; and the professional analyst of the female 
 heart had utterly forgotten them this evening. 
 
 V. 
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 
 
 For a woman less courageous than the Countess, and 
 one less capable of looking a situation in the face and 
 taking immediate action upon it, such an evening as 
 she had passed through would have been the prelude 
 to one of those nights of insomnia in which imagina- 
 tion, erroneous in its reasonings, would have experi- 
 enced in advance the agonies of a danger which was 
 only probable. These crises of terror, as a rule, end in 
 resolutions to have recourse to trickery, or in the fore- 
 gone conclusion of a lie, which is almost desperate in its 
 nature, and which arouses such indignation in the man, 
 who cannot understand that hypocrisy is the only 
 stronghold of the feebler sex. But the Countess Steno 
 knew neither weakness nor fear. A creature of energy 
 and action, who felt herself able to cope with any dan- 
 ger, she attached no importance to the word " uneasi- 
 ness." Consequently she slept as profoundly and as 
 restfully that night as though Gorka had never re- 
 turned with vengeance in his heart and menace in his 1 
 eyes. As early as ten o'clock the next morning, she 
 could be found in the little salon, or more correctly 
 speaking, office, which opened into her bedroom, busily 
 engaged in verifying some reports submitted to her by 
 one of her men of business. She had risen at seven 
 o'clock, according to her usual custom : she had plunged 
 into the cold bath which, in winter and summer, she 
 used as a means of aiding her magnificent circulation.
 
 1 08 COSMOPOLI8. 
 
 She had breakfasted in English fashion, following 1 the 
 principle, which, she insisted, had so far kept her diges- 
 tion in such magnificent condition, on eggs, cold meat, 
 and tea. She had then made the complicated toilette 
 of a pretty woman and had afterward gone to her 
 daughter's apartments, to inquire how she had passed 
 the night. She had written five letters for her cosmo- 
 politan salon entailed the drudgery of an enormous 
 correspondence which ranged between Cairo and New 
 York, St. Petersburg and Bombay, touching at Munich, 
 London, and Madeira, and she was as faithful in friend- 
 ship as she was inconstant in love. Her large pointed 
 writing, so elegant in its precision, had covered page 
 after page, and all this time no thought of her old-time 
 lover had interfered with her occupation, except the fol- 
 lowing: "I have an appointment at Maitland's for 
 eleven o'clock. Ardea should be here at ten to talk 
 over his marriage. I have the accounts from Finoli to 
 look over and verify. It is to be hoped that Gorka does 
 not take it into his head to come this morning. . . ." 
 People in whom the passion of love is very complete, 
 but very physical, are constituted thus. They surrender 
 themselves entirely and take themselves back as entire- 
 ly. The Countess felt as little pity as fear in thinking 
 of her betrayed lover. She had decided to say to him : 
 " I love you no longer ! " to say this frankly, clearly 
 and unmistakably, and to offer him the choice between 
 a definite rupture or a platonic friendship. Her only 
 feeling on the subject of this explanation was the hope 
 that it might be deferred until the afternoon, when she 
 would be at liberty a feeling which did not, however, 
 prevent her from going over with her accustomed cor- 
 rectness, the additions and multiplications presented to 
 her by her steward. He stood in her presence, a large 
 bony man, with bronzed complexion and flabby cheeks, 
 such as Bonifazio paints in his pictures of pharisees 
 and wicked rich men. He was in charge of the seven 
 hundred acres at Piove, near Padua, which comprised
 
 THE COTTNTESS STEND. 109 
 
 the estate most favored by Mme. Steno. She had in- 
 creased its revenues tenfold by "draining a sterile and 
 oftentimes fever-breeding- lagoon, whose bottom lay a 
 foot below the level of the sea, and which had proved to 
 be of wonderful fertility ; and she discussed the prob- 
 able workings of this recovered ground for weeks in ad- 
 vance with that detailed and precise knowledge of 
 rural labor which remains the true trait of the Italian 
 aristocracy and the permanent reason of its vitality. All 
 nobility lasts, even without legal privileges, when it re- 
 mains purely historical and of the soil. 
 
 " Then you estimate the silkworm crop at fifty pounds 
 of cocoons per ounce ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Excellency," replied the steward. 
 
 " One hundred ounces of yellow ; one hundred times 
 fifty makes five thousand," resumed the Countess. 
 " And at four francs fifty centimes ? " 
 
 " Perhaps five francs, your Excellency." 
 
 " Let us say then, twenty-two thousand and five hun- 
 dred," said the Countess, " and as much more for the 
 Japanese. This will more than cover our expenses for 
 the new buildings." 
 
 " Yes, your Excellency. And then about the wine ? " 
 
 " I have decided, after what you have told me of the 
 condition of the vines, to sell all that remains of last 
 year's crop to Kauffmann's agent; but the Brentina 
 must bring not less than six francs. You know our 
 casks must be emptied and repaired before the month 
 of August. If we lacked the proper number this first 
 year, when we are making our wine with this new ma- 
 chinery, it will be very unfortunate." 
 
 " Yes, your Excellency. And what about the horses ? " 
 
 " I think this is an opportunity which should not be 
 let slip, in this matter either. My idea is for you to 
 take the express to Florence, at two o'clock to-day. 
 You will reach Verona to-morrow morning. You will 
 settle the business immediately. The horses can be 
 sent to Piove that same evening. We have finished our
 
 110 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 business just in good time," she concluded, as she ar- 
 ranged the steward's papers. She replaced them in 
 their envelope and handed them to him. Her hearing- 
 was very acute and she had just heard the door of the 
 ante-room open. It would almost seem as though the 
 fat administrator had carried away in his bulky port- 
 folio all the money preoccupations of this extraordinary 
 woman. After having concluded this conversation, or 
 rather this monologue, by fixing prices and giving 
 orders of great precision, she turned with her brightest 
 and sweetest smile to welcome the new-comer, who was, 
 happily, Prince Ardea. Turning to the servant, she 
 gave the following order : 
 
 "I have business to talk over with the Prince. If 
 anyone calls do not admit him, and yet do not turn 
 him away either. Bring me the card." Then, turning 
 to the young man, she greeted him with great friendli- 
 ness : " Well, Simpaticone ! " This was a pretty little 
 nickname which she had given him. " How did you 
 pass last evening ? " 
 
 " You will not believe me," replied Peppino Ardea, 
 laughing, " I, who no longer possess anything, not even 
 my own bed I went to the ' Cercle ' and I played I 
 staked some money, and, for the first time in my life, I 
 won." 
 
 He was so light-hearted as he related this childish 
 prank, and so truly boyish, notwithstanding the fact of 
 his complete ruin, that the Countess gazed at him, al- 
 most stupefied, as he, but a few moments before, had 
 gazed upon her, on his first entrance into the room. 
 They knew themselves so little, and took each Bother's 
 peculiarities of character so little into consideration, 
 that they were each astonished at finding the other so 
 calm. Ardea could not understand why Mme. Steno 
 was not at least uneasy at Gorka's return and the con- 
 sequent results which might follow. She, on her side, 
 admired the young fellow's jovial spirits, in spite of his 
 disastrous ruin. He had visibly dandified himself that
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. Ill 
 
 morning- and had made an extra, toilette with as much 
 complaisance as though he had no decisive views as to 
 his future in contemplation ; and his plaid vest was in 
 pleasing* contrast with the color of his shirt, his cravat, 
 his yellow shoes, and the flower in his button-hole. 
 All harmonized in making him an amiable and incor- 
 rigible puppet of spiritual frivolity. He had paid so 
 dearly for his indiscretions that the Countess suddenly 
 found herself pitying- him. She felt the need, which 
 the stronger nature feels for the weaker, that of acting- 
 for this child, of helping him in spite of himself, and 
 she immediately started the question of his marriage to 
 Fanny Hafner. With her usual good sense and her in- 
 stinct for always arranging everything, Mme. Steno saw 
 so many advantages for everyone in this union that she 
 felt a need for hurrying the matter on, which was as in- 
 tense as though it was a purely personal matter. This 
 marriage suited the Baron so well that he had spoken 
 to her about it for months past. It suited Fanny, who 
 could thus become a convert to Catholicity, with her 
 father's consent. It suited the Prince, who would, by 
 means of it, be extricated from all his troubles. It 
 finally suited the name of Castagna. For though Pep- 
 pino was at the present moment its sole representative, 
 by an old tradition in the family, he held a different 
 title to that of the patronymical one of Pope Urban 
 VII., yet this auction sale of the celebrated palace had 
 made so great a scandal in the press and in public opin- 
 ion that it would be wise to put a stop to it, if possi- 
 ble. The Countess seemed to forget that she had as- 
 sisted without protest at the shady commencement of 
 this necessity for an auction. Did she not know that 
 Hafner had bought up a number of the Prince's bills of 
 exchange at a villainously low figure ? Did she not 
 know the Baron well enough to be sure of the fact, that 
 M. Noe Ancona, the implacable creditor, was in reality 
 but the man behind whom stood her terrible friend ? 
 In a moment of spite against the Baron, had she not
 
 112 COSMOPOLIR. 
 
 herself accused him, in Alba's presence, of the following 
 simple plan : hastening the definite catastrophe of Ar- 
 dea's ruin, in order to be able to offer him relief, under 
 the form of a marriage with Fanny, and to be able at 
 the same time to drive an excellent bargain ? Once 
 freed of the mortgages which encumbered them, the 
 Prince's estates would regain their original value, and 
 the imprudent speculator would find himself once more 
 as rich as formerly, if not richer ! Was not all this the 
 more reason for conquering the young man's last faint 
 opposition to this saving marriage ? 
 
 " Come," she said to him after a moment's silence and 
 with no other preamble, " let us talk business. You 
 dined beside my little friend yesterday, and you had the 
 whole evening in which to study her. Tell me, frankly, 
 would she not make the prettiest little Roman princess 
 who ever knelt in her wedding-robes before the Apos- 
 tles' tomb? Can you not see her in her bridal- veil 
 stepping out of a magnificent carriage, drawn by su- 
 perb horses, all gifts from her father, and hesitating 
 for one moment, before ascending St. Peter's steps ? 
 Close your eyes and picture her. Would she be pretty ? 
 Would she tell me truly ? " 
 
 " Very pretty," replied Ardea, smiling at the tempt- 
 ing vision which Mme. Steno had called up, "except 
 that she is not a blonde. Ah, Countess ! What a pity 
 that at Venice, five years ago on a certain evening do 
 you remember ? " 
 
 " How like you that is," she interrupted him, laugh- 
 ing very loudly, in her clear ringing tones. " You come 
 to see me this morning, to talk over a marriage which 
 was utterly unhoped for on account of the reputation 
 which you enjoy of being a gambler, a night-owl, and a 
 roue ; of a marriage which fulfils, in its completeness, 
 the most extravagant conditions, combining beauty, 
 youth, intelligence, fortune, and even a most unheard 
 of thing, for if I know how to read my little friend's 
 mind, I can see the commencement of an interest in you,
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 113 
 
 
 
 and a very vivid interest, too. And now, in spite of all 
 this, it is to me that you are going to make a declara- 
 tion. Come, come ! " and she held out a beautiful 
 hand upon which shone immense emeralds for him to 
 kiss. " You are pardoned. But answer me is it yes or 
 no f Shall I make the demand ? If it is yes, I am going 
 to the Palace Savorelli about two o'clock this afternoon 
 and I will speak to my friend Hafner. He will speak to 
 his daughter, and it will not be my fault if you do not 
 have their reply to-night or to-morrow morning. Is it 
 yes ? Is it no ? " 
 
 " This evening ! . . . To-morrow ! . . ." cried 
 the Prince, shaking his head with a gesture of most 
 comical fright. " But I cannot decide like that. This 
 is a trap ! I come to talk to you, to consult with 
 you. ..." 
 
 " And upon what ? " said Mme. Steno, with a vivacity 
 bordering on impatience. "What can I tell you that 
 you do not know already? In twenty -four hours, in 
 forty-eight hours, in six months what will be changed, 
 I beg you to tell me ? You must look at things as they 
 are, however. To-morrow, the day after to-morrow, the 
 following days, will you be any the less ruined "? " 
 
 " No,"' said the Prince. "But. . . ." 
 
 "There are no buts in the question," she said, not al- 
 lowing him to talk any more than she had allowed the 
 steward to talk. The natural despotism of a powerful 
 personality disdained to disguise itself in her when it 
 was a question of a practical decision upon a subject 
 on which she already held a foregone conclusion. 
 "The only serious objection which you could make to 
 this marriage when I spoke to you about it, six months 
 ago, was that Fanny was not a Catholic. I know to-day 
 that she is anxious to become a convert. Let us not 
 talk about that any more." 
 
 " No," said the Prince. "But. . . ." 
 
 "As to Hafner," continued the Countess, "you will 
 tell me that he is my friend and that I am partial to
 
 114 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 him ; but this partiality itself is but an opinion. He is 
 precisely the father-in-law that you need. Do not shake 
 your head. He will repair all that is possible of your 
 fortune. You have been robbed, my poor Peppino. . . 
 You have told me this yourself. Become the Baron's 
 son-in-law and you can snap your fingers at the rob- 
 bers. ... I know all you would say. . . . There 
 is the Baron's origin, and that lawsuit, ten years ago, 
 with all pettegolezzi, to which it gave rise. But this is 
 not common sense. The Baron's birth is lowly. He 
 comes of a Jewish family you see I am not playing a 
 hidden game with you but as they have been converted 
 to Christianity for two generations, the story of his 
 change of religion, since his residence in Italy, is a cal- 
 umny on a par with the rest. He has had a trial, from 
 which he came forth acquitted. You do not wish to put 
 yourself up as being more just than justice, do you ? " 
 
 "No, but . . . ." 
 
 " What do you want, then ? " concluded Mme. Steno. 
 " You may delay too long. As to your estates. . ." 
 
 " Oh ! Let me breathe, give me some air," said Ardea, 
 who at that moment took a fan belonging to the Coun- 
 tess from the table beside him and commenced to fan 
 himself. " I, who have never known in the morning 
 what I would do in the evening I, who have always 
 lived, like a bird of passage, following every whim you 
 ask me to take in five minutes a resolution which will 
 affect my whole life ! " 
 
 "I ask you to know what it is you want," replied the 
 Countess. "It is very amusing to be a creature of 
 whims, when you are sailing safely. But when it is a 
 question of arranging one's life, such childishness is 
 very dangerous. I recognize but one thing myself, and 
 that is : to see your end and walk straight to it. Yours 
 is very clear, to get out of your trouble. The way 
 by which this may be done is equally clear : marriage 
 with a young girl, who has a dot of five millions. 
 Yes or no will you take her ? Ah ! " she said, all at
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 115 
 
 once, interrupting herself, "I will not have a minute to 
 myself this morning 1 , and I have an appointment at 
 eleven o'clock!" She looked at the little travelling 
 clock which stood on the table, and whose hands pointed 
 to half-past ten. She had heard the door open. It was 
 the footman who entered and stood before her, holding 
 a silver salver upon which lay a card. She took up the 
 card, looked at it earnestly, drew her lovely blonde 
 eyebrows into a perplexed scowl, looked once more at 
 the clock, seemed to hesitate, and then said : " Ask him 
 to wait in the little round salon, and say that I will be 
 there at once;" then, turning to Ardea : "You think 
 yourself saved, but you are not. I will not permit 
 you to leave until I return. I will be gone but a quar- 
 ter of an hour. Would you like to look at the news- 
 papers ? At some books ? Here they are. . . . "Will 
 you have some tobacco ? This box is full of cigarettes. 
 In a quarter of an hour I will return and I will expect 
 your answer. I must have it, do you understand ? I 
 wish it. . . ." And on the threshold she turned, her 
 face wreathed in smiles, making use of a little term of 
 patois common to the northern part of Italy, and which 
 was but a corruption of schiavo, or " your servant." She 
 said, gayly, "Ciao, Simpaticone . . . ." and left him. 
 "What a woman," said Peppino to himself, when 
 the door had closed upon the light dress which the 
 Countess wore. " Yes, what a pity that, five years ago in 
 Venice, I had not been free ! Who knows ? If I had 
 dared,*when she brought me back to the hotel in her 
 gondola, that night 1 ? She had just left San Giobbe. 
 She had not yet met Boleslas. She would have advised 
 and directed me. I would have speculated on the 
 Bourse, as she does, with Hafner's aid. But not in the 
 role of a son-in-law. I should not have been dragged in- 
 to the conjugal Rastaqiiouerisme . . . And she would 
 never have had such vile tobacco as this." He had just 
 lighted a Virginia cigarette, a present from Maitland. 
 He threw it away, with scant ceremon}', with the mode
 
 116 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 of a badly brought up child, and he barely escaped 
 setting 1 fire to the light matting which covered the 
 marble tiling. He passed into the ante-room to get his 
 own tobacco pouch, which was in the pocket of the 
 light overcoat he had prudently donned on first going 
 out in the early morning. As he was lighting one of 
 the cigarettes which he had taken from his pouch, and 
 which were filled with a so-called Egyptian tobacco, a 
 mixture of opium and saltpetre which habit had made 
 more pleasant to him than the purer Virginia weeds 
 he mechanically glanced at the salver which the servant 
 had laid on the table, before leaving the room. The un- 
 known visitor's card, for whom Mme. Steno had left 
 him, still lay upon it. Ardea read, with an astonish- 
 ment that bordered upon stupefaction, these words : 
 " Count Boleslas Gorka." 
 
 " She is more admirable than I believed her to be," he 
 thought to himself, as he re-entered the deserted room. 
 "She had no necessity to ask me not to go away. 
 Indeed, I will willingly remain, just to see how she 
 looks when she comes back from this interview. . ." 
 
 In fact, it was Boleslas whom the Countess found in 
 the little round salon, which she had purposely chosen, 
 as being the best place for the stormy interview which 
 she foresaw. It was isolated at one extremity of the hall, 
 and was in reality an extension built out over the ter- 
 race. This, with the dining-room, comprised the ground 
 floor, or, better still, the entresol of the hotel. Mme. 
 Steno's apartment, as well as the other small salon in 
 which Peppino was waiting, were on the first floor, as 
 well as the rooms reserved for the young Countess and 
 her German governess, Fraulein Weber, who just then 
 was away, visiting her own people. The Countess was 
 not mistaken. The first glance exchanged the night 
 before with Gorka told her that he knew all. She had 
 suspected as much when Hafner had repeated Dor- 
 senne's few indiscreet words on the Pole's clandestine
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 117 
 
 presence in Rome. She did not look lightly upon 
 Boleslas' intentions this time, and she no sooner looked 
 the matter fairly in the face than she felt herself to be 
 in peril. When a man has been a woman's lover, as this 
 man had been hers, with a vibrating communion of vo- 
 luptuousness unceasingly renewed during the period of 
 two years, that woman unconsciously acquires a species 
 of physiological and quasi-animal instinct. A gesture 
 on his part, the accent of a word, a breath, a blush, or a 
 pallor, are signs for her which her intuition translates 
 with an infallible certainty. How and why does this 
 divining instinct lend itself to the absolute forgetful- 
 ness of former caresses ? It is a particular case of the 
 insoluble and melancholy problem of the birth and 
 death of love. Mme. Steno herself had no desire for 
 reflections of this kind. Like all vigorous and simple 
 creatures, she established the fact and accepted it. In 
 the same manner she became conscious, the night be- 
 fore, that the presence of her old lover did not put in 
 vibration that intimate inner thrilling which had made 
 her so weak during twenty -five months, so indulgent 
 to his slightest caprices. He left her as cold as the 
 marble of the bas-relief of Mino da Fiesole, let into 
 the wall, just above the high couch against which he 
 leaned. And he himself, notwithstanding the flood of 
 lucid fury which swept over him at that moment and 
 which made him capable of the greatest violence he, 
 on his part, had an intuition of this complete insensi- 
 bility in which his presence left her. He had seen her 
 so often in the course of their long intimacy coming to 
 him in these morning appointments, just about this 
 hour, in just such toilettes, so fresh, so supple, so young 
 in her maturity, so greedy for kisses, so riven by desire. 
 She had now, in her blue eyes, in her smile, in her 
 whole person, a something, we know not what, so gra- 
 cious and so inaccessible at one and the same time, that 
 it roused in the abandoned lover a brutalizing frenzy, 
 a mad desire to strike, to murder the woman, who
 
 118 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 could smile upon him with such a smile, so that she 
 should feel, through him, even though it were pain. 
 At the same time she was so beautiful, in the morn- 
 ing light, softened by the lowered blinds, that she in- 
 spired him with a mad desire to take her in his arms, 
 whether she would or not. He had recognized, as soon 
 as she had entered the room, the strong aroma of a 
 composition of perfumed ambergris which she used for 
 her bath, and this little nothing had succeeded in exas- 
 perating his passion, already roused by the servant 
 telling him that Mme. Steno had a visitor, and he had 
 asked himself, might she not be at that moment in con- 
 versation with Maitland? These passionate but re- 
 strained sentiments quivered in the accent of the simple 
 phrase with which he greeted her. At certain times 
 the words are nothing ; it is the tone which is every- 
 thing. And for the Countess, that of the young man 
 was terrible : 
 
 " I am disturbing you ? " he asked, bowing and taking 
 but the tips of the fingers of the hand which she had 
 held out to him upon entering the room. " Pardon me, 
 I thought to find you alone. And if you would rather 
 appoint another time for the little conversation which 
 I have taken the liberty of asking you for ' 
 
 " But no, no," she replied, hardly giving him time to 
 finish his sentence ; " I was with Peppino Ardea, who 
 will wait for me who will wait for us," she added, gently. 
 " And, besides, you know me well enough to know that 
 I always go straight to any matter in hand. When one 
 has anything to say, they should say it at once. Then, 
 when it happens that there is nothing of much im- 
 portance to say, it is better spoken. There is nothing 
 like putting off and keeping quiet to make the sim- 
 plest explanations difficult and for making enemies of 
 the best of friends." 
 
 " I am very happy to find you in such a disposition," 
 replied Boleslas, with an irony which flashed across his 
 handsome face in a smile of atrocious hatred. The
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. ll'J 
 
 tranquil good-humor which she had displayed cut him 
 to the heart, and he continued, already less master of his 
 feelings : " It is, in fact, an explanation which I flattered 
 myself I had the right to demand of you, and which I 
 do now demand." 
 
 "Demand, mon cher?" said the Countess, looking 
 him straight in the face, without lowering her proud 
 eyes, in which this imperative word had lighted a flash 
 of anger. If she had been admirable the night before, 
 in her effrontery at the return of her old lover, as she 
 met him while coming from her tete-a-tete with her new 
 one, perhaps she was even more so at her second meet- 
 ing, when she no longer had the sustaining influence of 
 her coterie of friends. She was not quite sure that the 
 madman who stood before her was not armed, and she 
 believed him fully capable of killing her, there, where 
 she stood, before she could defend herself. But she had 
 a role to play, sooner or later, and she must play it with- 
 out flinching. She had not spoken untruly when she 
 had said a few moments ago to Peppino Ardea : " I rec- 
 ognize but one thing myself, and that is to see your 
 end and walk straight to it." She desired a definite 
 rupture with Boleslas. Why should she hesitate as to 
 the means? He was silent, searching for words in 
 which to clothe his sentiments. Finally he said : 
 
 " Permit me to go back for three months, though it 
 may be, it seems, a long space of time for a woman's 
 memory. I do not know if you remember our last inter- 
 view ? Pardon me. I should say our last but one inter- 
 view, because we saw each other again, last evening. 
 Do you realize that the manner in which we then 
 parted, does not agree with the manner in which we meet 
 again ? " 
 
 " I realize it," said the Countess with a new burst of 
 wounded pride flashing from her eyes, " although I do 
 not fancy this manner of explaining yourself. This is 
 the second time that you pose as an accuser, and if you 
 take this attitude it will be useless for you to continue."
 
 120 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 " Catherine ! " This cry which burst from the young 
 man, in whose heart anger was growing momentarily, 
 decided her in brusquely bringing this interview to an 
 end. 
 
 " Well ? " she questioned, crossing her arms in so im- 
 perious a manner that he stopped short in his unuttered 
 menace, and she continued : " Listen to me, Boleslas ; we 
 have wasted ten minutes in saying nothing, for we have, 
 neither one nor the other of us, the courage to put the 
 question between us, as it is, as we know it to be, as we 
 feel it to be. Instead of writing to me, as you have 
 done, letters to which I could not reply ; instead of re- 
 turning to Rome like a criminal and hiding ; instead of 
 coming to me, as you did last night, with menace writ- 
 ten in your face ; instead of intruding upon me this morn- 
 ing, with the solemnity of a judge why did you not 
 simply question me, quite frankly, like some one who 
 knows that I have loved him very much ? Because we 
 were lovers, is that a reason for detesting each other 
 when we cease to be lovers ? " 
 
 " When we cease to be lovers ? " replied Gorka. " You 
 no longer love me ? Ah ! I knew it, I divined it during 
 the first week of this fatal absence ! But to think that 
 you would one day tell me of it, like that, in that tranquil 
 voice, which is a horrible blasphemy on our dear past. 
 No ; I did not believe it. I do not believe it, even hearing 
 you say it. Ah ! it is too, too infamous ! " 
 
 " And why ? " interrupted the Countess, lifting her 
 head more proudly still. " There is but one thing in- 
 famous in love, and that is a lie. Ah, I know well that 
 you men are not accustomed to meeting true women, 
 those who have the respect, the religion of their senti- 
 ments. But I have it, this respect ; I practise this re- 
 ligion. I repeat to you that I have loved you very 
 dearly, Boleslas. I did not hide it from you in the past. 
 I did not deny you. I was as loyal to you as truth it- 
 self. I am conscious of still being loyal to you, in tak- 
 ing myself back and in offering you, as I have done, a
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 121 
 
 true friendship, the friendship of man to man, who asks 
 nothing better than to prove the sincerity of his devo- 
 tion." 
 
 " I, a friendship with you, I, I, I ! ! " cried Boleslas. 
 " Have I shown enough patience in listening to you as I 
 have listened ? I have watched you lying to me and 
 flaunting the lie before me, in the same breath. And 
 why do you not ask me to be filled with friendship for 
 the one with whom you have replaced me ? You take me 
 for a blind man, and you imagine that I did not see this 
 man, Maitland, alongside of you yesterday, and that I 
 did not understand at the first glance the role he played 
 in your intimacy ? You did not understand that I must 
 have a strong reason for returning as I did return ? You 
 do not know, then, that one does not play with some one 
 who loves you as I love you ? It is not true. You have 
 not been loyal to me, for you took this man for your 
 lover while you were still my mistress. And you had 
 not the right to do so no no no, you had not ! And 
 what a man ! If it had been Ardea, Dorsenne, no matter 
 who, so that I need not blush for you but this brute, 
 this man who has nothing in him, neither beauty, nor 
 birth, nor elegance, nor mind, nor talent, for he has no 
 talent, he has none ! He has nothing but his bull's 
 neck! it is as though you had deceived me with a 
 lackey. No ! It is too hideous ! Ah, Catherine ! Swear 
 to me that it is not true. Tell me that you do not love 
 me any longer. I will submit, I will go away, I will 
 accept everything, provided you swear to me that you 
 do not love that man. But swear it, swear it . ..." 
 added he, seizing her hand with such violence that 
 she let forth a little cry, as she tore herself away from 
 him. 
 
 " Let me go, you hurt me," she cried. " You are a 
 fool, Gorka, and that is your only excuse. I have noth- 
 ing to swear to you. What I feel, what I think, what I 
 do, does not concern you after what I have told you. 
 Think what it pleases you to think. But " with the
 
 122 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 natural indignation of a woman in love, wounded through 
 the man whom she adores, " you will never speak to me 
 twice about one of my friends, as you have just spoken 
 to me. You have been found wanting and I will never 
 forgive you. Instead of this friendship which I so 
 honestly offered you, we will have nothing in common 
 hereafter but the mere civilities of society. This is as 
 you wished it to be. Try not to make this also impos- 
 sible. Be correct, at least in form. Remember that you 
 have a wife, and that I have a daughter, and that we 
 should endeavor to spare them the counter- stroke of 
 this sad rupture. God is my witness that I would will- 
 ingly have had it otherwise." 
 
 " My wife ! Your daughter ! " said the young man in 
 accents of intense bitterness. " It is truly a good time 
 for you to remember them, and for you to put them be- 
 tween you and my righteous vengeance ! They did not 
 worry you formerly, these two poor creatures, when you 
 commenced to make yourself beloved by me f It was 
 convenient and answered your purpose, then, that they 
 were friends. And I lent myself to your plan ! And I 
 accepted this baseness and to-day you take shelter be- 
 hind these two innocent women ! No ; that shall be so 
 no longer. No ; you shall not leave me like this. Since 
 it is the only point in which I can strike you, I will strike 
 you there. I hold you by that, do you hear, and I will 
 hold you. Either you will show this man the door, or I 
 will respect nothing as sacred. My wife shall know all ! 
 Ha ! So much the better ! I have been stifled by lies 
 too long as it is ! Your daughter shall know all ! She 
 shall judge you now, as she should judge you some 
 day. . . ." 
 
 He advanced toward her as he spoke, in a manner 
 and with so fierce a gesture, that she recoiled before 
 him. But a few moments more and this man would put 
 his threat in execution. He was about to strike her, 
 to smash the objects around him, to create a frightful 
 scandal. She had the presence of mind to think of a
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 123 
 
 more ready expedient. An electric button was just at 
 her hand. She pressed it, while Gorka said to her, 
 laughing disdainfully : 
 
 " There remained but this insult to offer me, to call 
 your servants to defend you. . . ." 
 
 " You are mistaken," she replied; "I am not afraid. I 
 repeat that you are crazy, and I only wish to prove it 
 by recalling you to the reality of your situation. Ask 
 Mdlle. Alba to come down to me," she said to the man 
 who appeared in answer to her summons. This little 
 sentence was the drop of ice-water which suddenly dis- 
 persed a furious jet of vapor. She had found the only 
 means of stopping this terrible scene at once. For, 
 notwithstanding the threat uttered but a few moments 
 ago, she knew that Maud's husband would shrink before 
 the young girl, his wife's friend, and whose delicacy and 
 sensitiveness he knew so well. Though Gorka was cap- 
 able of the most dangerous and cruel aberrations in an 
 access of passion, still further exasperated by vanity, 
 he still had in him an element of chivalry which would 
 silence and paralyze his frenzy in Alba's presence. As 
 to the immorality of this defence which brought her 
 daughter into her rupture with a vindictive lover, the 
 Countess never gave that a thought. She had said to 
 herself so often : " She is my companion, she is my 
 friend ! " that she had ended by believing it. To lean 
 upon her in this critical moment was as natural as for 
 her to offer her shoulder as a support to her child when 
 they were both in swimming at Lido in summer-time, 
 and they had gone out a little too far into the sea. In 
 the tempestuous indignation which overwhelmed Gorka, 
 this sudden call to the innocent Alba seemed to him the 
 last degree of cynicism. During the short time which 
 elapsed between the departure of the footman and the 
 young girl's arrival, he uttered but the following re- 
 peated words as he walked backward and forward, fol- 
 lowed by the angry glances of his former mistress : 
 
 " I despise you ! . . . I despise you ! Oh ! how I
 
 124 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 despise you ! " But as he heard the door opening 1 he 
 said, in a voice which he endeavored to render calm : 
 " We will continue this conversation some other time, 
 Madame." 
 
 " When it pleases you, Monsieur," replied Catherine 
 Steno, and she turned to her daughter, who had just en- 
 tered the room, saying- : " You know that the carriage is 
 ordered for ten minutes to eleven, and it is now the 
 quarter before. Are you ready ? " 
 
 " You can see that I am," said the young- girl, holding- 
 out her hands, which were covered by heavily black- 
 stitched, light pearl-colored gloves which she had just 
 finished buttoning, and pointing- to the large black 
 tulle hat which formed a dark and yet transparent aure- 
 ole around her blonde head. Her slight fig-are seemed 
 moulded into the perfect-fitting- corsage which Maitland 
 had chosen for her portrait ; it was of dark blue material, 
 finished at the neck and wrists by bands of a darker 
 shade of velvet. A man's white collar and cuffs gave 
 to this frail-looking- girl a youthful grace which made 
 her look younger than she really was. She plainly 
 showed that she had come down at her mother's bidding 
 with the haste and smile belonging to her age. But 
 seeing Gorka's expression and the feverish look in 
 her mother's eyes, had given her, once more, what she 
 called by an odd but just term, the sensation of a 
 " needle in her heart," a sharp, intense pain which 
 pierced her chest on the left side. She had slept so 
 soundly after yesterday evening, when she had imagined 
 she found in her mother's attitude toward the Polish 
 Count and the American painter a certain proof of in- 
 nocence. She admired this mother of hers so much ; 
 she thought her so intelligent, so beautiful, so good, 
 that to doubt her was an unsupportable penance. And 
 she had doubted her for months past. A conversation 
 on the Countess, which she had overheard at a ball be- 
 tween two ladies, who had no idea that Alba was behind 
 them, had been the commencement of this doubt, which
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 125 
 
 had sometimes diminished and sometimes grown, which 
 she abandoned or took up again, according to the signs, 
 such as Mme. Steno's tranquillity of the day before, or 
 her evident agitation of this morning. It was truly a 
 very rapid, instantaneous impression, this passage of a 
 needle, which only left a drop of blood behind it ; she 
 still retained the smile which had been on her face as 
 she entered the room as she turned to Boleslas and 
 asked him: "How did Maud rest? How is she this 
 morning ? And how is my little friend Luke ? " 
 
 " They are very well," replied Gorka. The last rem- 
 nant of his anger had left him suddenly in the pres- 
 ence of this young girl, and only showed itself to the 
 Countess in this phrase, which was in itself very simple, 
 but to which his voice and look imparted an extreme 
 bitterness : " I found them the same as when I left 
 them. Ah! they love me very much. ... I sur- 
 render you to Peppino, Countess," added he, as he 
 walked toward the door. "And you, Mademoiselle, I 
 will give your love to Maud." He had regained, in order 
 to be able to leave thus, all the nobility of bearing 
 which a long line of savage noblemen, but noblemen for 
 all that, had transmitted to him. If his manner of taking 
 leave of Mme. Steno was correct, he put a special grace 
 into the deeper reverence with which he bade the young 
 Countess adieu. It was but a little thing, but the Coun- 
 tess was too sensitive not to feel it. She was agitated 
 by it, she whom the despair, the fury, and the threats of 
 this man had so short a time ago left so impassive and 
 incensed. All the pliability of this Slav nature, which 
 had exercised such a charm over her, was it not plainly 
 shown in the complete turn-about which he had had the 
 tact to execute without the least appearance of awk- 
 wardness ? For one moment she appeared to be vaguely 
 humiliated by the victory which she had just gained 
 over this man, whom five minutes before she would 
 gladly have had her servants turn out of doors. She 
 was silent, forgetftil of her daughter's presence, until
 
 126 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 she was recalled to a sensation of reality by hearing her 
 say:. 
 
 " Then I can go up -stairs again and get my veil and 
 my umbrella ? " 
 
 " And you can join me in the little office, where I am 
 going to finish my chat with Ardea," her mother replied, 
 adding : " I may, perhaps, have some news to tell you on 
 our way to the studio which will give you pleasure." 
 She had recovered her brave smile, and she had no sus- 
 picion, as she wended her way to the little office in which 
 Peppino awaited her, that poor Alba, as soon as she 
 had gained the privacy of her own room, dashed away 
 two great tears, which stood upon her pale cheeks, and 
 that she had taken out the infamous anonymous letter 
 which she had received the day before, for the purpose 
 of reading it over again. She already knew its perfidi- 
 ous phrases by heart. Could it be possible that the 
 mind which had composed it was so infernally mis- 
 guided by its desire for vengeance that it could not ap- 
 preciate the enormity of its crime in sending such a 
 denunciation to this innocent child ? "A true friend to 
 
 Mdlle. S , warns her that she is compromising herself 
 
 more than is proper for a young and marriageable girl, 
 in playing the same role toward Mr. Maitland that she 
 has already played toward M. Gorka. There is a blind- 
 ness so voluntary as to sometimes become a complic- 
 ity. . . ." These words, so enigmatical for others, 
 were frightfully clear for the young Countess, and were 
 like those in the letters of which Boleslas had spoken to 
 Dorsenne, cut out from a newspaper, put together, then 
 pasted on a sheet of paper too commonplace to serve 
 as any clue. The refinement of a diabolical hatred 
 could be easily recognized in the difficulties which this 
 Judas was obliged to overcome to discover the printed 
 proper names, which had no doubt been taken from some 
 account of a society event. O God! how Alba had 
 trembled in every nerve in her body the morning be- 
 fore on first reading this note, her emotion redoubled by
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 127 
 
 the horror of knowing 1 that a hatred of such cowardly 
 cruelty was hovering over her mother and herself ! 
 How the few words exchanged between her and Dor- 
 senne later in the day had given her courage, and more 
 than all, the Countess's serenity at the unexpected en- 
 trance of Boleslas Gorka ! Frail feeling of peace, which 
 was dissipated by merely seeing her mother and the 
 husband of her best friend vis-a-vis to each other, with 
 the traces in their eyes, in their gestures, and on their 
 faces, of this frightful scene. The thought which came 
 to her, " Why were they thus ? What had they said to 
 each other ? " made her still more unhappy. All at 
 once she crumbled this cursed anonymous letter in her 
 hand, this letter which gave a form and a substance to 
 her sorrow and her suspicion, and then lighting a 
 candle she held the paper to the flame and saw it 
 quickly reduced to black ashes. She crushed this 
 debris, she rolled it between her little hands, until it 
 was nothing more than a thimbleful of ashes, which 
 she dispersed to the winds through the window. Then 
 she looked at her gloves, but a few moments ago so deli- 
 cate a gray, and now streaked by this smoke-colored 
 dust. This smudge was the symbol of the stain which 
 this letter, even though it was burned, had left in her 
 thoughts. Even her gloves filled her with horror. She 
 tore them from her hands in her haste to be rid of them, 
 and when she descended to rejoin Madame Steno it 
 was no more possible to perceive on her freshly gloved 
 hands the traces of this tragic outburst than it was 
 possible to discover under the immense veil which she 
 had tied around her hat the traces of the tears in her 
 eyes. She found this mother, on whose account she was 
 suffering so much, wearing a large-brimmed hat like 
 her own, only the mother's was light, a white veil tied 
 around it, from under which her blonde hair, her blue 
 eyes, and her rose-leaf complexion took upon them- 
 selves new beauty. Her robe was unmistakably made 
 by a tailor, and the material and style were much
 
 128 OOSMOPOLTS. 
 
 younger than her daughter's. She was radiant with 
 happiness. 
 
 " Well," she said to Peppino Ardea, " I congratulate 
 you upon having made up your mind. The matter shall 
 be settled to-day, and you will thank me every hour of 
 your life." 
 
 " In the meantime," replied the young man, " I am 
 going to regret my resolution all the afternoon. It is 
 true," he added, philosophically, " I should regret it 
 much more if I had not taken it." 
 
 " You have guessed that it is a question of Fanny's 
 marriage," said Mme. Steno to her daughter, some 
 minutes later, when they were both comfortably seated, 
 more like two sisters than mother and daughter, in the 
 victoria which was carrying them to Maitland's studio. 
 
 " Then," asked Alba, " you think it will be ? " 
 
 " It is," replied Mme. Steno, gayly. " How happy all 
 three of them will be ! That devil of a Hafner has been 
 looking forward to this for a long time. When I think 
 that as far back as 1880, when he came to see me in 
 Venice, after his lawsuit, and you and Fanny were 
 playing on the balcony, he questioned me closely on 
 the Quirinal, the Vatican, the priestly world, and the 
 high society. Then, in conclusion, pointing to his 
 daughter, he said : ' I will make a Roman princess of 
 the little one, you will see.' " 
 
 The Dogaressa was so happy at the success of her 
 negotiations, so happy to be going, as she was going, to 
 Maitland's studio, behind her two English cobs, who 
 trotted along so quickly that she did not see Boleslas 
 Gorka, who stood on the sidewalk watching her as she 
 was whirled past him. Alba, for her part, was so worried 
 by this new and indisputable proof of her mother's uncon- 
 sciousness that she did not notice the presence of Maud's 
 husband either. What had been almost insupportable 
 the day before in the attitude which Baron Hafner and 
 Prince Ardea held in connection with Fanny, was the
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 129 
 
 unavowed presentiment of a sad analogy between the 
 lying atmosphere in which this poor young girl lived 
 and the atmosphere in which she herself had formerly 
 lived. This analogy seized upon her again, and she felt 
 once more " the needle in her heart," at the remem- 
 brance of what the Countess had already told her of 
 Baron Justus Hafner's designs on his future son-in-law. 
 She was filled with an intense melancholy, and she let 
 herself glide into one of her customary periods of brood- 
 ing, while the Countess laughingly related Peppino's 
 indecision. What mattered Boleslas's fury at that mo- 
 ment ? And what could he do against her ? The abso- 
 lute indifference to the scene which had just taken 
 place between them could be plainly understood by 
 Gorka, in merely watching the victoria as it rolled past 
 him. For a long time he remained motionless on the 
 sidewalk, looking after the broad-brimmed light hat 
 and the broad-brimmed dark hat, as the carriage rolled 
 down the Rue du Vingt Septembre. An idea flashed 
 across his mind suddenly : Mme. Steno and her daugh- 
 ter were going to Maitland's studio 1 He no sooner con- 
 ceived this cruel suspicion than he was possessed with 
 an insane desire to verify it immediately. He threw 
 himself into a cab, which he had hailed as it passed 
 him by, at the moment that Ardea, coming out from 
 Steno villa, joined him, saying : 
 
 " Where are you going ? Can you take me with you, 
 so that we can talk ? " 
 
 " Impossible," he replied ; " I have a very pressing 
 engagement, but in an hour's time I may need you to 
 do me a favor. Where will you be ? " 
 
 "At home," returned Peppino. "Come and take 
 breakfast with me." 
 
 " Yery well," said Gorka, and standing up, he whis- 
 pered in the coachman's ear, too low for his friend to 
 hear what he said : " Ten francs above your fare, if 
 you put me down at the corner of the Via Napoleon 
 III. and the Corso Vittorio Emmanuele in five minutes."
 
 130 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 The coachman gathered up his reins, and by some magi- 
 cal twist of the wrist the played-out hack, who had been 
 dragging one hoof after the other, was suddenly trans- 
 formed into a good and strong Koman steed, the cab 
 itself into a carriage as light as the swiftest Tuscan 
 carrozzelle, and the whole thing disappeared in a trans- 
 verse street, while wise Peppino said to himself : 
 
 " There goes a fine fellow, who would have done bet- 
 ter to have remained with his friend Ardea, instead of 
 running where he is. That affair will end in a duel. 
 . . . If I had not that piece of foolishness to attend 
 to," and he pointed toward a poster announcing the 
 sale of his own palace, " I would take ' La Caterina ' 
 from both of them. But these little pleasures will keep 
 until after marriage. At this moment it is opera serio 
 on all posters." 
 
 As we may see, this sly dog of a Prince was not mis- 
 taken in the direction taken by the cab which Gorka 
 had hailed. It was indeed in the neighborhood of the 
 studio occupied by Maitland to which he was bound, 
 but not to the studio itself. The crazed man wished to 
 prove to himself that by exposing his misery he had 
 done himself no benefit, and that hardly had she rid 
 herself of him before she had set out to visit the other. 
 What good would it do him to know it positively, and 
 what would this evidence prove? Had the Countess 
 made a mystery of these sittings these convenient sit- 
 tings as the jealous man had said to Dorsenne ? The 
 mere imagination of them burned more feverishly in 
 his veins than the remembrance of other appointments. 
 For of these latter, notwithstanding the denouncing 
 letters, notwithstanding the tete-fi-tete on. the terrace, 
 notwithstanding the presence of the insolent " Linco," 
 which she had uttered before him, notwithstanding the 
 scene through which he had passed so short a time ago, 
 he could still doubt their existence, whereas the long 
 intimacies of the studio were a certainty to him. She
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 131 
 
 doted on them, and at the same time, by that strange 
 contradiction which is the common sign of all jealous- 
 ies, he was hungry and thirsty to make them more ap- 
 parent to himself. He left the cab at the corner to 
 which he had directed his coachman, and from which 
 place he could see the whole length of the Rue Leo- 
 pardi, in which was situated his rival's house. It was 
 a large building in Moorish style, built by the cele- 
 brated Spanish artist Juan Santigosa, who had been 
 obliged to sell everything five years before studio, 
 horses, finished paintings, and commenced sketches to 
 liquidate the debts contracted through his immense 
 losses at the gaming-table. Florent Charpon had 
 bought this species of imitation Alhambra, with its 
 arched doors, for a mere song, and had rented part of it 
 to his brother-in-law. During the few minutes in 
 which he stood on the sidewalk waiting, Boleslas 
 Gorka's mind recalled a visit which he had made the 
 preceding year, during one of those circuits which 
 society women are so partial to in Home as well as in 
 Paris, accompanied by Mme. Steno, Alba, Maud, and 
 Hafner. An unreasonable instinct had made the 
 painter and his painting antipathetical to him from 
 this first meeting. Had he any cause to be I Just 
 then he perceived a victoria which had turned into this 
 long Rue Leopardi, and in this victoria he saw Mdlle. 
 Steno's black hat and her mother's more startling one. 
 Two minutes later the elegantly appointed carriage 
 had stopped before the Moorish mansion, whose in- 
 tense whiteness made it conspicuous amid its neigh- 
 bors (which were for the most part unfinished), with a 
 sumptuous insolence. The two ladies descended, and 
 mounting the steps disappeared behind the door, which 
 was immediately closed upon them, while the coach- 
 man whipped up his horses and they started off with 
 the gait of beasts who knew they were returning to 
 their stable. He held them in, so that they would not 
 become overheated, and the spirited cobs chafed in
 
 132 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 their harness to such an extent that they were soon 
 covered with foam. Evidently the Countess and Alba 
 were to remain in the studio for some length of time. 
 What had Boleslas learned that he did not already 
 know 1 Did he not cut a ridiculous enough figure, 
 standing- on the sidewalk of this square, in the centre 
 of which stood the ruins of an antique reservoir, which 
 was called, for a very doubtful reason, the " Glory of 
 Marius ? " With one glance the young man took in the 
 whole scene ; the empty victoria, which was going 
 back the way it had come, the vast square, the ruin, the 
 line of high houses, and lastly, his cab. He seemed to 
 himself so comical playing the spy upon something 
 which he had been sure of, in the first place, that he 
 burst out into a nervous laugh, and he jumped into the 
 hack, giving his own address to the coachman : " Palaz- 
 zetto Doria, Place de Venise." The cab started off 
 slowly this time, for the man seemed to understand 
 that the frenzy of arriving hurriedly had left his cus- 
 tomer. By an inverse metamorphosis, the valiant Ro- 
 man steed had become once more the common hack 
 horse, and the vehicle a heavy, commonplace machine, 
 which rolled along the streets by the grace of God. 
 Boleslas abandoned himself to this languor, the in- 
 evitable reaction of an attack of violence such as he 
 had just undergone. This calm would not, could not, 
 last. The vision of the studio in which Mme. Steno 
 was at present, in company with Maitland, presented 
 itself with greater clearness in proportion to the dis- 
 tance which he placed between himself and it. He 
 saw, in fancy, his former mistress wandering through 
 this collection of tapestries, armor, half-finished stu- 
 dies, and commenced sketches, as he had seen her so 
 often walking up and down his smoking-room, with 
 the smile of a loving woman who was anxious to 
 touch only touch the objects amid which her lover 
 lived. He saw Alba, sitting motionless, and who was 
 used as a chaperon in this new intrigue of her mother's,
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 133 
 
 with the same naivete with which she had formerly 
 protected their meetings. He saw Maitland, with the 
 indifferent look on his face which he had seen yester- 
 day, this look of the favored man, so sure of his 
 triumph that he did not even feel jealous of the past, 
 the only consolation which could pour balm on the 
 wounded pride of his outraged predecessor. This 
 supreme tranquillity of the one who has replaced us in 
 the affections of an unfaithful mistress still further 
 augments our fury, if we have the misfortune and the 
 unhappiness to go through a crisis such as Gorka was 
 passing through at that time. In one moment this 
 calling forth of his rival became something insupport- 
 able. He was near his own home, for he had crossed 
 that magnificent square all encumbered with the 
 ruins of basilicas, this Trajan's Forum, which is domi- 
 nated by St. Peter's statue standing upon its celebrated 
 column. All around him were the sculptured marbles, 
 set up to glorify the humble Galilean fisherman who 
 had landed, eighteen hundred years ago, at the Port 
 of the Tiber, unknown, persecuted, begging perhaps. 
 Did the thought or the sign come to him, to say with 
 the Apostle : " Whither are we going, Lord ? Thou 
 alone hast the words of eternal life ! " But Gorka was 
 neither a Montfanon, nor a Dorsenne, to hear in his 
 heart, nor in his soul, similar teachings. He was a 
 man of passion and action, who only saw his passion 
 and his action set in the frame into which chance had 
 thrown it. A new access of fury took possession of 
 him when he thought of Maitland's attitude of the day 
 before. This time he was no longer master of himself. 
 He pulled the astonished coachman violently by his 
 coat-sleeve, and called out to him the address in the 
 Via Leopardi in so imperative a tone that the horse 
 recommenced the gait of his first trip, and the carriage 
 rolled lightly over the pavements. A wave of tragic 
 thought swept across the young man's heart. No, he 
 would no longer tolerate this affront. He was too
 
 134 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 cruelly wounded in the most intimate and throbbing 
 cords of his being, in his love as well as his pride. 
 One and the other bled within him, and still another 
 instinct urged him onward to the step which he was 
 about to take. The old blood of the Palatines, about 
 which Dorsenne was always joking him, was boiling in 
 his veins. If the Poles had furnished so many heroes 
 for the dramas and modern romances, they had never- 
 theless remained, notwithstanding the faults for which 
 they had dearly paid, the most chivalric and bravest 
 race in Europe. When these men, endowed with so 
 ill - regulated and so complex an excitability, are 
 touched to a certain depth, their thoughts turn to 
 fighting as naturally as the descendant of a long line 
 of suicides turns to self-destruction. The joyous 
 Ardea, with a glance of his Italian eye, had perceived 
 the step to which Gorka's character would lead him. 
 A duel was necessary for this betrayed lover before 
 the treachery would be bearable. Either he would 
 wound, or perhaps kill, his rival, and his passion would 
 be satisfied, or he would run the risk of being killed 
 himself, and the courage which he w^ould display in 
 facing death would permit him to elevate himself in 
 his own eyes. A wild idea had taken possession of him 
 and urged him on to the Via Leopardi ; that was, to 
 provoke his rival to mortal combat immediately, and in 
 Mme. Steno's presence. Ah ! that he might have the 
 happiness of seeing her tremble, for she would need to 
 tremble when she saw him entering the studio ! But 
 he would be gentlemanly, as she had so insolently 
 commanded him to be ! He would go under the pre- 
 tence of seeing Alba's portrait. He would dissimulate, 
 because he knew well how to provoke a discussion 
 when the time came. It is so easy to start one, on the 
 most simple question about art, and from a discussion 
 a quarrel is so soon born. Any pretence would serve 
 him the first study he came across which did not suit 
 him. He would speak in such a manner that Maitland
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 
 
 would be obliged to reply to him. The rest would 
 follow in due course. But Alba Steno would be pres- 
 ent ? Ha ! So much the better ! It would be so much 
 easier, if the altercation commenced in her presence, to 
 deceive his wife as to the true reason for this duel. 
 Yes ! he would have his way, let it cost what it might, 
 and from the moment that there was an exchange of 
 seconds the American must come forward. At any rate 
 Boleslas knew how to arrange matters in order to 
 make it impossible for this rascal to remain long in 
 Borne. Besides, if this person had the smallest portion 
 of a heart, he would understand from the beginning his 
 visitor's intentions, and then the affair would be de- 
 cided quickly. 
 
 " Ah ! this idea of revenging one's self on this knave 
 and this jade is refreshing to one's blood," he said to 
 himself, as he left the hack and rang the door-bell of the 
 Moorish mansion. " Mr. Maitland ? " he asked of the 
 footman, who immediately dissipated his exaltation by 
 making a simple reply, the only one which he could not 
 brook in the condition of frenzy to which he had 
 worked himself. 
 
 " Monsieur is not in." 
 
 " He will be for me," replied Boleslas. " I have an 
 appointment with Mme. and Mdlle. Steno ; they expect 
 me." 
 
 " Monsieur's orders are positive," replied the servant. 
 Accustomed as were all the servants charged with pro- 
 tecting the artist's working hours to a certain routine of 
 sentinel duty, he nevertheless hesitated before the lie 
 which Gorka had suddenly bethought himself of utter- 
 ing, and he was about to yield before this new insist- 
 ance, when some one looked over the balustrade of the 
 entresol; this person was none other than Florent 
 Chapron. Chance had decreed that this latter person 
 had but a few moments before sent for a carriage, in 
 order to keep an engagement to take breakfast in the 
 city, and this carriage was delayed. At the noise of
 
 136 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 wheels stopping 1 in front of the door he had peered from 
 one of the windows of his apartment which looked out 
 upon the street. He had seen Gorka descend from his 
 cab. Such a visit at such an hour, with the persons who 
 were in the studio, had seemed to him so threatening 
 that he had immediately run out into the passage-way. 
 He had snatched up his hat and his cane in order to 
 justify his presence in the vestibule, under the natural 
 pretence of his own outgoing-. He found himself in the 
 middle of the staircase just in time to stop the servant, 
 who had decided " to go and see," and saluting Boleslas 
 with more stiffness than usual, said to him : 
 
 " My brother-in-law is not at home," and then turning 
 to the footman, with the idea of sending this witness 
 away, in case he should have an exchange of angry 
 words with his importunate visitor, he said: "Nereo, 
 run and get me a handkerchief out of my room. I have 
 forgotten mine." 
 
 " These instructions could not have been meant for 
 me, Monsieur," insisted Boleslas. " Mr. Maitland gave 
 me an appointment for this morning, no later than yes- 
 terday evening, at Mme. Steno's, to see Mdlle. Alba's 
 portrait." 
 
 " There were no instructions given," replied Florent. 
 " I repeat that my brother-in-law has gone out. The 
 studio is closed, and it is so much the more impossible 
 for me to take it upon myself to show you Mdlle. Alba's 
 portrait for the reason that I have not the key. As to 
 Mme. and Mdlle. Steno, they have not been here for two 
 or three days, the sittings have been interrupted." 
 
 " This is most extraordinary, Monsieur," replied the 
 other, "for the reason that I saw them come here 
 not five minutes ago, and saw their carriage go away 
 again." He felt his anger rising against this watch- 
 dog, who so suddenly stood on his rival's threshold. 
 Florent on his side was commencing to lose patience. 
 He himself was imbued with that violent irritability 
 which belongs to black blood, to that blood which he
 
 THE COUNTESS STENO. 137 
 
 would not confess to, but which nevertheless showed 
 in his deep brown complexion. The attitude of Mme. 
 Steno's former lover seemed so extraordinary to him 
 that he replied very briefly, making a movement to 
 open the door, in order to oblige the other to depart. 
 
 " You were mistaken, Monsieur, that is all." * 
 
 " Do you know, Monsieur," replied Boleslas, " that 
 you have just spoken to me in a tone of voice which is 
 not exactly what I have the right to expect of you. 
 When one changes one's trade, one should learn the 
 methods of it, at least." 
 
 " And I, Monsieur," replied Chapron, " I would be 
 very much obliged to you, if when you speak to me, 
 you would not speak in riddles. I do not know what 
 you mean by your trades, but I do know that it is utterly 
 unworthy of a gentleman to behave as you have done 
 at the door of a house which is not yours, and for rea- 
 sons which are entirely incomprehensible to me." 
 
 "You understand them very well, Monsieur," said 
 Boleslas, decidedly beside himself, " and it is not with- 
 out a motive that you have constituted yourself your 
 brother-in-law's negro servant." 
 
 He had no sooner uttered this sentence than Flor- 
 ent, utterly unable to contain himself longer, lifted his 
 cane with a menacing gesture, which the Polish Count 
 stopped just in time by seizing the switch in his right 
 hand. It was like a flash, and the two men found them- 
 selves once more face to face, both pale with fury, ready 
 to grapple, ignominiously no doubt, when the noise of 
 a closing door on the floor above them recalled them to 
 a sense of their dignity. The servant came down-stairs. 
 Chapron was the first to recover himself, and he said to 
 Boleslas, in a voice low enough to be heard by him 
 alone : 
 
 " No scandal, Monsieur ; is not that your wish ? I will 
 have the honor of sending two of my friends to see you." 
 
 " I, Monsieur," replied Gorka, " will send you two of 
 mine. You will pay for your gesture, I swear to you."
 
 138 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 " Ha ! as you please," said the other. " I accept all 
 your conditions in advance. I only ask you one thing-, 
 however," added he, " and that is that no name shall be 
 mentioned. There will be too many people implicated. 
 Let it be agreed upon that we had some words in the 
 s.t**3et, that we used bad language to each other, and 
 that I threatened you." 
 
 " So be it," said Boleslas, after a short silence. " You 
 have my word." 
 
 " He is a man, at all events," he said to himself five 
 minutes later as he was once more being- wheeled away 
 in his cab, after having given the coachman the address, 
 this time, of the Castagna Palace. " Yes, he is a man. 
 He blustered too much a little while ago to suit me, but 
 I lost my self-possession. I was nervous. Never mind, 
 I should regret giving this brave fellow a bad wound. 
 But patience, the other will lose nothing by waiting." 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 
 
 While Boleslas, crazed by jealousy, was hastening to 
 Ardea's house to ask, with an almost savage joy, his 
 assistance in this most unreasonable of encounters, 
 Florent had but one thought, that of preventing his 
 brother-in-law from suspecting his quarrel with Mme. 
 Steno's dismissed lover, and the duel which was the 
 result of it. His passionate love for Lincoln was so 
 strong that it preserved him from the enervation which 
 usually precedes a first duel, especially when the one 
 who is to stand his ground has neglected all his life to 
 make himself proficient in the use of the sword or the 
 pistol. For a weak fencer, or a poor shot, an encounter 
 would have presented itself in such details to the imagi- 
 nation, that they would lend to the actual danger, to 
 be sure, an indetermination, a vagueness, which would
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 139 
 
 border almost upon absurdity. The man would picture 
 the possible phases of the struggle, the probability of 
 an action bravely accomplished. He would think of a 
 parade, of a way of pressing the tumbler of his weapon. 
 This would give him a collected manner, which abso- 
 lute ignorance could never attain, unless it was sus- 
 tained by one of those profound sentiments which are 
 stronger in us than flesh and blood. Such was Flo- 
 rent's case. This instinct of Dorsenne's, which was an 
 almost physical scent for anything pertaining to the 
 heart, was not to be despised in this case ; the painter 
 had in his wife's brother a being devoted to him to the 
 entire abnegation of self. He could exact everything 
 from this Mameluke, or rather slave, for it was in real- 
 ity this slave blood of his ancestors which manifested 
 itself in Chapron in such a complete absorption of his 
 personality. The atavism of slavery has these two ef- 
 fects, which are contradictory but in appearances : It 
 produces unfathomable capabilities for sacrifice or per- 
 fidy. One and the other of these moral dispositions 
 were found incarnate in the brother and the sister. 
 The double character of their race had been distrib- 
 uted between them ; one had inherited the virtue of 
 self-sacrifice, the other that of complete hypocrisy. 
 But the drama provoked by Mme. Steno's disorders, 
 and brought to a climax by Gorka's unbridled frenzy, 
 was about to bring to the surface these moral condi- 
 tions which Dorsenne perceived, without thoroughly 
 understanding them. He was entirely ignorant of the 
 circumstances in which Florent had developed, those 
 in which he and Maitland had first met, how Maitland 
 had come to decide upon marrying Lydia, in fact, of a 
 strange and long history, which it will be necessary to 
 at least outline here, in order to present clearly the 
 singular relations of these three people. 
 
 As we have seen, the brutal allusion which Boleslas 
 had made to his black blood had marked the moment 
 in which Florent had lost all patience, to the point of
 
 140 OOSMOPOLIS. 
 
 lifting his cane to strike his insolent interlocutor. It 
 was, that this original stain, hidden with the most jeal- 
 ous care, was, for the young man, as it had been for his 
 father, the vital point of self-love, a secret and con- 
 stant humiliation. This drop of black, blood which 
 ran in their veins was so faint that it would be neces- 
 sary to be told of it before it would be suspected, but 
 it had been sufficient to make their stay in America 
 more intolerable for both of them from the fact that 
 they were proud, and legitimately so, of their name 
 a name which the Emperor had mentioned at St. 
 Helena as belonging to one of his bravest officers. 
 Florent's grandfather was no other, in fact, than the 
 Colonel Chapron who, before the Dnieper, when Napo- 
 leon desired news of the enemy, had swam across the 
 river on horseback, followed a Cossack, overpowered 
 him, and swinging him across his saddle in front of 
 him, had brought him back to the French camp. 
 When the Empire fell, this hero, who was compro- 
 mised in an irreparable manner in the Army of the 
 Loire, left his country, and accompanied by a handful 
 of old soldiers, set out to found in Alabama one of 
 the Southern States of the Union an agricultural col- 
 ony, to which these brave men gave the name, which 
 is still preserved, of Arcola a melancholy and lov- 
 ing homage to that marvellous period which had, how- 
 ever, constituted their real life. How far away that 
 life seemed, even in 1820! Who would have recog- 
 nized the brilliant Colonel, riding at Montbrun's side, 
 in the heart of the Grande Redoute, in the forty-five 
 years'-old planter, absorbed in the cultivation of his 
 cotton-fields and his sugar-canes, who nevertheless 
 made his fortune in a very short time by dint of energy 
 and good sense. This success, which became known in 
 France, was the indirect cause of that other emigration 
 into Texas, led by General Lallemand, and which ended 
 so disastrously. Colonel Chapron, as may well be un- 
 derstood, had not in his European life acquired very
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 141 
 
 scrupulous notions on the intimacies between the two 
 sexes. However, having made a very pretty and sweet 
 mulatto girl whom he had met during a visit to New 
 Orleans, and afterward brought back to Arcola a 
 mother, he became deeply attached to the poor loving 
 creature and her son, more so for the reason that, with 
 the slight difference of the color of his hair, the child 
 was the picture of him, one of those portraits the re- 
 semblance of which was so striking as to render his 
 paternity doubly certain. In fact, when dying, this old- 
 time man of war, who no longer possessed relatives in 
 his native country, left all his fortune to his son, whom 
 he had baptized, according to a fancy, Napoleon. 
 While he lived, none of the neighbors dared treat the 
 young man otherwise than as an equal. It was not the 
 same thing when the prestige of the Emperor's officer 
 was no longer present to protect the boy against the 
 race-hatred which is morally a prejudice, but which so- 
 cially betrays an instinct of self-preservation that is 
 an infallible surety. The United States have become 
 great under this condition. The mixture of bloods 
 would have dissolved this admirable Anglo-Saxon en- 
 ergy, which the struggle against a nature at one and the 
 same time too rich and too rebellious has exalted to 
 such astonishing greatness. You must not ask those 
 who are the victims of a parallel instinct to compre- 
 hend the legitimate injustice of it. They feel only its 
 ferocity. Napoleon Chapron, repulsed in several at- 
 tempts at marriage, foiled in his enterprises, humili- 
 ated in twenty little circumstances by the friends and 
 companions of his father, became a species of misan- 
 thrope. He lived sustained by a twofold ambition : 
 to see his fortune marvellously doubled, and to con- 
 tract a marriage with a white woman. It was not until 
 he had reached his thirty-fifth year, in 1857, that he 
 realized the second of his desires. During a voyage to 
 Europe he became interested on board the steamer 
 in a young English governess, who was returning from
 
 142 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 Canada, recalled to England by family troubles. He 
 saw her again in London. He was able to render her a 
 very great service, which he did with so much consid- 
 eration and delicacy that her heart was touched, and 
 she consented to marry him. Florent and Lydia were 
 born to them, with only the difference of a year in their 
 ages. The birth of the little girl cost the mother her 
 life, just at the outbreak of the War of Secession a 
 war which compromised Chapron's fortune, but he, hap- 
 pily for him, as it turned out, in his great desire to be- 
 come rich quickly, had invested his money on all sides. 
 He was only partially ruined. But the loss prevented 
 him from returning to Europe, as he had dreamed of 
 doing. It was necessary for him to remain in Alabama 
 to repair his fortunes, in which he succeeded so well that 
 at his death, which took place in 1880, his two children 
 inherited, each of them, more than four hundred thou- 
 sand dollars. The devoted father had not shown his in- 
 tense love for his two children alone in the large fortune 
 which he had accumulated for them. He had had the 
 courage to deprive himself of the presence of these be- 
 ings, whom he adored, to spare them the humiliations 
 to which they would have been subjected in an Ameri- 
 can school, and had sent them, when they were re- 
 spectively eleven and twelve years old, to England 
 the boy to the Jesuits, at Beaumont, the girl to the 
 nuns of the Sacred Heart, at Roehampton. After re- 
 maining four years in these two schools he had them 
 sent to Paris Florent to Vaugirard, Lydia to the Rue 
 de Varrenne and it was just at that moment when, 
 after having realized his four millions, he was prepar- 
 ing to rejoin them and live in a country free from prej- 
 udices, that a stroke of apoplexy carried him off while 
 he was still young in years. The double work of labor 
 and sorrow had told on one of those organisms, such as 
 the intermixture of black and white blood often pro- 
 duce, athletic in appearance but endowed with too keen 
 a sensibility, and in whom the vital resistance is not in
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 143 
 
 proportion to the muscular strength. At the time of 
 his death Chapron was just fifty years old. 
 
 Notwithstanding- the care with which this man, so 
 wounded by the stain of his birth, had endeavored to 
 surround his children in order to preserve them from a 
 similar trial, he had not been able to prevent it, and 
 this trial had come to his son upon his entering Beau- 
 mont. The few little boys with whom Florent had 
 been brought into contact in the hotels in which they 
 lived, or in his walks during his stay in America, had 
 already made him feel the humiliation of his blood, from 
 which his father had already suffered so intensely. 
 The twelve-year old scholar, silent and excessively sen- 
 sitive, when he made his first appearance on the lawn 
 of his new college, carried in himself a self-love already 
 bleeding and throbbing in anticipation of his recep- 
 tion, and for whom the delicious surprise of finding 
 himself greeted by comrades of his own age, who 
 seemed to have no doubt but that he was the same as 
 themselves, caused him, to throw aside his sullen mask 
 and show himself in his true colors. A Yankee's sharp 
 eyes were needed to discover under the nails of the 
 handsome youth, of olive complexion, the trace of the 
 small drop of negro blood which flowed in his veins. 
 Between an octoroon and a Creole a European would 
 never know the difference. Florent had been intro- 
 duced for what he really was, the grandson of one of 
 the Emperor's best officers. His father had been care- 
 ful to represent him as being French, and his compan- 
 ions had only seen in him a scholar like themselves, 
 coming by chance from Alabama; that meant from a 
 country almost as chimerical as Japan or China. All 
 those who in their first youth have felt the overshad- 
 owing tortures of apprehension, can judge what was 
 the anguish of this poor child when, after four months 
 of a life in common which had blossomed forth by the 
 warmth of sympathies without any backward thoughts, 
 he was told by one of the Jesuits, thinking it would be
 
 144 OOSMOPOLIS. 
 
 pleasant news to him, of the approaching- arrival of a 
 young American, of young Lincoln Maitland. Years 
 afterward he recalled the intense ideas which had beset 
 him on the day he learned of the new-comer's arrival ; 
 and with what trepidation he had started for the re- 
 fectory, positive that as soon as he came face to face 
 with this new comrade he would receive that disdainful 
 glance so often given him in the United States. He 
 had no doubt that once his origin was discovered the 
 friendly atmosphere in which he had lived, so much 
 to his astonishment, would be immediately changed 
 into an open hostility. He could see himself again in 
 imagination crossing the yard, and suddenly called by 
 Father Roberts he was the master who had previously 
 told him of Maitland's coming and his surprise when 
 Lincoln Maitland had given him the hearty handshake 
 of a half-countryman, finding another in a strange land. 
 He was to understand later that the welcome was a per- 
 fectly natural one, coming from the son of an English- 
 woman, brought up entirely by his mother, and com- 
 ing from New York to Europe before his fifth year, to 
 live in an atmosphere as little American as possible. 
 Chapron did not reason after this fashion. He had a 
 very tender heart. The recognition entered into his 
 soul instantly, as passionate as had been his childish 
 fright a few minutes ago. One week later, Lincoln 
 Maitland and he were friends, and friends as intimate 
 as though they had never been separated during the 
 fifteen years of their life. 
 
 This affection, which ordinarily would have been for 
 Maitland's indifferent nature but an every-day episode 
 in college life, was to become for Florent the most seri- 
 ous and perfect sentiment of his life. These fraternal 
 friendships, the most beautiful and the most delicate 
 flower in the heart of man, are often thus fructified in 
 youth. It is the ideal age of passionate friendship, this 
 period between ten and sixteen years of age, when the 
 heart is so pure, so fresh, so virginal still, so fruitful in
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 145 
 
 generous projects for the future. The two make plans 
 tog-ether. They conjure up in imagination a. com- 
 panionship almost mystical between the friend from 
 whom you have no secrets, whose character you see 
 under such a brilliant light of nobility, to whose good 
 opinion you hold as the surest recompense, and whom 
 you innocently hope to resemble. There are between 
 these two innocent babies who conjointly puzzle out, 
 side by side, a problem in geometry or a lesson in his- 
 tory, veritable poems of tenderness, at which the man 
 smiles later, on finding his companion again, but so far 
 removed from him by all his tastes, all his ideas, by 
 the innermost feelings of his nature and he had 
 thought to have him for a brother. It sometimes hap- 
 pens, however, that in certain natures of a particularly 
 precocious and yet faitnful sensibility, this awaken- 
 ing of an effective life is so strong, so absorbing, that 
 this passionate friendship lives, first, in spite of that 
 other awakening, that of sensuality, so disastrous to all 
 delicate feelings ; then, in spite of the first tumultuous 
 social experience, no less disastrous to our youthful 
 ideal. This was Florent Chapron's case ; whether it was 
 that his character, at once fierce and sometimes submis- 
 sive, was in a proper condition for the abdication of 
 personality which love demands, whether it was that 
 being far away from his father and his sister, and hav- 
 ing no mother, his loving heart felt the need of attach- 
 ing itself to some one who would take the place of his 
 family, or whether it was that Maitland exercised over 
 him a special power, by reason of the qualities in him 
 contrary to his own ? Fragile and somewhat delicate, 
 was he conquered by the strength and power which his 
 friend brought to all his exercises ? Timid and volun- 
 tarily taciturn, was he dominated by the self-assurance 
 of this athlete, with his hearty, ringing laugh and his 
 invincible energy ? The astonishing talent which the 
 other displayed for art from his boyhood, had that con- 
 quered him, or the sympathy for the troubles, of which
 
 146 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 he was told in confidence, and which touched him more 
 than they touched the one who felt them f Gordon Mait- 
 land, Lincoln's father, had lost his life at the battle of 
 Chancellorsville during 1 the same war which had almost 
 ruined Florent's father. Mrs. Maitland, the daughter 
 of a minister of a Presbyterian church at Newport, 
 and who had married her husband without loving- him, 
 no sooner found herself a widow than she was possessed 
 with the one idea, that of " going abroad," and she 
 went. Where 1 To Europe, that vague and fascinating 
 place, where she imagined she would make a sensation 
 by her wit and her beauty. She was pretty, vain, and 
 silly, and this voyage in search of an indetermined role 
 to play in the Old World, reduced itself to passing two 
 years going from one hotel to another, after which 
 she married the second son of a poor Irish lord, with 
 the new chimera of an entry into this Olympus of 
 British aristocracy, of which she had dreamed so often. 
 She had become a Catholic, and her son with her, in 
 order to obtain this good result, which cost her so dear 
 in the end. For not only was the ruined lord who had 
 given her his name brutal, a drunkard, and cruel, but he 
 added to all his other defects that of being one of the 
 most desperate gamblers in the whole United Kingdom. 
 He kept his stepson out of the house, he beat his wife, 
 and died about 1880, after having squandered the poor 
 creature's entire fortune and nearly all of Lincoln's. 
 Just then the latter, whose stepfather had naturally al- 
 lowed him to go his own gait, and who, since leaving 
 Beaumont, had studied painting a little everywhere at 
 Venice, at Rome, and at Paris found himself in that city 
 as one of the best students in Bonnat's studio. Seeing 
 his mother ruined, without means, at forty -four years 
 of age, he yielded to one of those magnificent impulses 
 so common to youth, and which prove, in reality, much 
 less generosity than pride of life. Of his income of fif- 
 teen thousand francs, which still remained to him, he 
 had given up twelve thousand francs to his mother. I
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CIIOUAN. 
 
 must add that, in less than a year afterward, he had 
 married the sister of his college friend and four hun- 
 dred thousand dollars. He had known poverty and he 
 feared it. His good actions in regard to his mother 
 served to justify in his own eyes the purely interested 
 character of this combination, which forever enfran- 
 chised his brush. Sometimes we find artists with con- 
 sciences thus constituted. Such a one Avould never par- 
 don a concession in art. He deemed the painters who 
 courted success by a compromise in their style as ras- 
 cals, but he thought it quite the natural thing to take 
 Mdlle. Chapron's two millions, though he did not pre- 
 tend to love her, and now that he had grown and mingled 
 among his compatriots, he was not far from feeling tow- 
 ard her the prejudices of her race. The glory of the 
 Imperial Colonel and his friendship for " ce bon Flor- 
 ent," as he expressed it, succeeded in glossing it all 
 over. 
 
 Poor and good Florent truly ! This marriage had 
 been the realization of his youthful romance. He had 
 wished for it after the first week in which Maitland had 
 given him that cordial handshake which had linked 
 them together. To live in the shadow of his friend who 
 had become his brother-in-law and his great man he 
 dreamt of no happier destiny. Maitland's defects devel- 
 oped in plenty as he grew older and fortune and success 
 came to him you can recall the triumph of his " Lady 
 in Violet and Yellow," in the Salon of 1884 but found 
 Florent as blind to them as at the time when they 
 played cricket together in the Beaumont fields. Dor- 
 senne had very correctly diagnosed it as one of Jhose 
 hypnotisms of admiration which artists, great and small, 
 often inspire in those around them. Only the novelist, 
 who generalized too quickly, did not understand that 
 Florent's admiration was grafted on a friend worthy of 
 being depicted by La Fontaine or by Balzac, the two 
 poets of love ; one in his sublime and tragic " Cousin 
 Pons," the other in the short but divine fable in
 
 148 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 which is found this verse, oiie of the tenderest in the 
 language : 
 
 " Vous m'fites, en dormant me peu triste apparu " 
 
 Florent did not love Lincoln because he admired him. 
 He admired him because he loved him. He was not so 
 foolish as to look upon Lincoln as the most gifted 
 painter who had appeared in thirty years. But Lincoln 
 might have had neither the strong elegance of his in- 
 spiration, nor the striking force of his coloring, nor the 
 ingenious delicacy of his imagination, and all this 
 would not have made the other less earnest in the ser- 
 vice of the labor and glory of the artist. When Lincoln 
 wished to travel, he found his brother-in-law the most 
 diligent of courriers. When he needed a model he had 
 but to mention the fact, and Florent immediately set out 
 to find one. Did Lincoln send one of his pictures to 
 London or Paris ? Florent undertook all the expense, as 
 well as all the packing, interviewing the journalists and 
 the picture-dealers, even going so far as to compose 
 the letters of thanks for the articles, in a handwriting 
 which had become so similar to Lincoln's that all the 
 latter was obliged to do was to sign it. Lincoln had 
 expressed a desire to return to Rome. Florent had 
 bought the house in the Via Leopardi, and he had ar- 
 ranged it, before Maitland, then in Egypt, had finished a 
 great study, commenced just at the time of the departure 
 of his other self. For Florent had reached that point, 
 from mere force of affection for this brother who had 
 been given to him, that he understood the painter as 
 well as the painter did himself. This word will tell all 
 to those who have lived in close intimacy with artists 
 and who know what a distance separates them from the 
 most enlightened amateur. The amateur can judge and 
 feel. The artist alone, one who has a mania for the 
 brush, knows, standing before a painting, how it is 
 made, what strokes of the brush had been given, and 
 why, in fact the trituration of the subject by the work-
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 149 
 
 man ; this is enough to make the most ingenuous opin- 
 ion of the dilettante amount to nothing in his eyes. 
 Florent had watched Maitland painting so often, had 
 rendered so many little effective services in the studio, 
 that each one of his brother-in-law's canvases were 
 living to him, even to the highest touches. When he 
 saw them hanging on the walls of a gallery, they re- 
 called an intimacy to him which was his greatest joy 
 and his pride. Finally, the absorption of his personal- 
 ity in that of his old-time comrade was so complete, 
 that it had led up to this anomaly, which Dorsenne 
 himself, notwithstanding his indulgence for psycho- 
 logical singularities, could not but think almost mon- 
 strous. Florent was Lincoln's brother-in-law, and yet 
 it seemed perfectly natural to him that the latter should 
 have adventures outside of his marriage, if the emo- 
 tions of the adventures were useful to his talent. 
 
 Perhaps this long and incomplete analysis will enable 
 the reader to understand what emotions agitated the 
 young man while he was ascending the stairs of his 
 house of their house, his and Lincoln's after the un- 
 expected dispute with Boleslas Gorka. It mitigated, 
 at least in his eyes, the severity of simple conscience. 
 Chapron was too fanatical a friend to be a very just 
 brother. It seemed very simple and very legitimate 
 that his sister should be at the service of Lincoln's gen- 
 ius, as he was himself. Besides, if since her marriage 
 with her brother's friend, this sister had been the victim 
 herself of a moral tragedy, Florent never suspected it. 
 Where could he have learned to know Lydia, this silent 
 concentrated nature, upon whom he had formed an 
 opinion once for all, as is commonly the custom between 
 relations ? Those whom we have known young are like 
 those we see every day. The picture which they draw 
 of us is nearly always what we were at a certain time, 
 very seldom what we are. Florent looked upon his sis- 
 ter as being very good, because he had found her so
 
 150 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 formerly ; as being very sweet-tempered, because she 
 had never put herself in opposition to him ; as not 
 being- very intelligent, as she did not seem sufficiently 
 interested in the painter's work ; as being vain and 
 frivolous, because she went out voluntarily. As to the 
 martyr and rebel, hidden in this captive creature, op- 
 pressed, crashed between his own blind partiality, and 
 the egotism of a contemptuous husband, he did not 
 suspect even the terrible resolutions of which this 
 apparent resignation was capable. If he had felt any 
 fear when Mme. Steno commenced to interest herself in 
 Lincoln, it had only been on account of the latter's 
 work, more especially that for a year past he had felt, 
 not a decadence, but a slight worry in the artist's work, 
 which was, as a rule, too voluntary not to be a little un- 
 even. 'There is nothing constant in us, but what is 
 accomplished by instinct and with a certain uncon- 
 sciousness. But Florent had seen, on the contrary, 
 Maitland's fervor rejuvenating under the warmth of this 
 little intrigue. Alba's portrait was announced as a 
 splendid study, worthy to be placed side by side with 
 the famous " Lady in Violet and Yellow," which Lin- 
 coln's detractors always recalled as his only good work. 
 Besides, the painter had finished with an unparalleled 
 enthusiasm two large studies, which had been partly 
 abandoned. Before the evidence of a feverish produc- 
 tion becoming more and more active, why should not 
 Floreut bless Mme. Steno instead of cursing her, as it 
 was necessary for him only to close his eyes and to 
 know nothing, so that his conscience might be untroub- 
 led in his sister's presence ? But he knew everything 
 nevertheless. The proof of this was to be found in the 
 shiver which passed over him when Dorsenue had an- 
 nounced the clandestine arrival in Rome of Mme. Steno's 
 other lover, and a more certain proof still was the haste 
 with which he precipitated himself before Boleslas, as 
 he was preparing to parley with the servant. And now 
 it was he who had accepted the duel which an cxasper-
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 151 
 
 ated rival had certainly come to propose to his dear 
 Lincoln, and he only thought of the latter. 
 
 " He must know nothing 1 until afterward. . . . Other- 
 wise he would try to take the matter in his own 
 hands, and now I have the opportunity of killing- or 
 at least wounding this Gorka for him. In any case I 
 will so arrange it that a second duel will be difficult. 
 But first I must make sure that we did not speak too 
 loudly, and that they did not hear the clown's harsh 
 voice." 
 
 It was in these terms that he spoke of his adversary 
 of the next day. A little later on, and he might bring 
 himself to look upon Gorka as unpardonable in that he 
 did not thank Lincoln for doing him the great honor to 
 be his successor in the Countess's affections! Mean- 
 while it may not be unprofitable to take a peep into 
 the studio. When this friend, devoted to the point of 
 complicity, but also to that of heroism, entered the 
 large room, he saw at the first glance that he had cal- 
 umniated the jealous man for his loud voice, and that 
 no noise from below had entered the peaceful work- 
 room. The American painter's studio was furnished with 
 the harmonious sumptuousness that true artists, once 
 they are rich, know how to gather around them. The 
 great expanse of sky, seen through the shuttered bay- 
 window, lighted up a true Roman corner of that Home 
 of to-day which gives witness of an arrested effort to- 
 ward a new city alongside of the old one. An angle of 
 an old garden could be seen, evidently mutilated by a 
 recent building, and a fragment of an ancient edifice, with 
 a church clock, a little farther off. It was on this back- 
 ground of azure, of verdure, and of ruins, in a wider and 
 more distant horizon, but composed of the same elements, 
 from which the young girl's profile was to stand out ; 
 designed after the style, so delicately modelled, of Pier 
 della Francesca, over whom Maitland had been so en- 
 thusiastic for six months past, to the point of being 
 almost possessed. All great producers, of a more com-
 
 152 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 posite than genial originality, have these infatuations, 
 which cause them to renew their style, and make that of 
 their momentary model their own. Maitland stood be- 
 fore his easel, clothed with that correct elegance which 
 is the almost certain mark of these Anglo-Saxon artists, 
 be they ever so much given to whims. With his little 
 patent-leather shoes, his fine black silk stockings, deli- 
 cately dotted with red, his silk jacket, the clear pearl 
 gray of his cravat, and the spotlessness of his linen, he 
 looked more like a " gentleman " busy with an amateur 
 work than the patient and laborious art -workman 
 which he was. But his canvases and his studies, hang- 
 ing on all sides amid the tapestries, the arms and the 
 bric-a-brac, testified to his patient labor. It was the 
 story of a desperate energy in pursuit of an ever-fleeing 
 personality. Maitland manifested in a supreme de- 
 gree a trait common to nearly all the men of his coun- 
 try, even those who come to Europe in their youth, the 
 intense desire of not being found wanting in civiliza- 
 tion, which is fully explained by this other fact, that the 
 American is an entirely new being, gifted with an in- 
 comparable activity and deprived of traditional satura- 
 tion. He is not born cultivated, ripened, already virtu- 
 ally fashioned, if you can so speak, as a child of the Old 
 World is. He must create himself entirely by his own 
 will. With superior gifts, but all of them physical, 
 Maitland was a self-made man of art, as his grandfather 
 had been a self-made man of money, as his father had 
 been a self-made man of war. He possessed in his hand 
 and his eye two marvellous painting tools, and, in his 
 perseverance in developing, a more marvellous tool 
 still. There was always wanting in him, I cannot tell 
 just whfet, of the necessary and local, which gives to cer- 
 tain very inferior painters the inexpressible superiority 
 of a flavor of the soil. It could not be said he was not 
 inventive and new ; however, you could see, in no mat- 
 ter which one of his paintings, that it was a creation of 
 culture and acquisition. The studies scattered around
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 153 
 
 the studio first showed the influence of his first master, 
 the solid and simple Bonnat. Then he had been tempted 
 by the English pre-Raphaelites, and a fine copy of 
 Burne- Jones's famous " Chant d' Amour " testified of this 
 reaction to the side of a more subtile art, one more 
 penetrated by that poetry which professional painters 
 treat disdainfully as belonging to a clique. But Lin- 
 coln was too vigorous for the languors of such an ideal, 
 and he very soon returned to other schools. Spain con- 
 quered him next, and Velasquez, that whimsical colorist, 
 of whom after a visit to the Prado Museum you carry 
 away the impression that you have just seen the only 
 painter worthy of the name. The great Spaniard's 
 transport, that despotic stroke of the brush which 
 seemed to draw out the colors at once from the back- 
 ground of the picture, to make them stand out, in al- 
 most solid lights ; his absolute absence of abstract in- 
 tentions and his new ideas, which affected to completely 
 ignore the past, all this suited Maitland's temperament. 
 To this he owed his masterpiece, " The Lady in Violet 
 and Yellow," a reduced copy of which, by himself, lighted 
 up the studio with a splendor which obscured the rest. 
 But the uneasy searcher was not satisfied yet. Italy 
 held him in bondage, and the Florentine masters, those 
 painters inextricably mixed up with sculptors, and who 
 confine themselves to the goldsmith's art; the Polla- 
 juoli, Andrea del Castagno, Paolo Uccello, and last of all, 
 Pier della Francesca. No one would ever have imagined 
 that the hand which had streaked with so liberal a 
 brush the colors of " The Lady in Violet," was the same 
 which was outlining Alba's portrait in so severe a style. 
 At the moment of Florent's entrance into the studio this 
 work so completely absorbed the painter's attention 
 that he did not hear the door open ; neither did Mme. 
 Steno, who was smoking a cigarette, lazily lying on a 
 lounge, and so happy, gazing at the man she loved 
 through her half-opened eyes ! Lincoln was not aware 
 of a new presence until he noticed a change come
 
 154 OOSMOPOLIS. 
 
 over Alba's face. Good heavens ! How pale she was 
 this morning, seated in the immovability of the pose, 
 in a large heraldic chair, with high sculptured wooden 
 back, her hands clutching the griffin's claws, which 
 formed the arms, her mouth so bitter in its expression, 
 her eyes so deep in their steady gaze ! Did she divine, 
 what she could not yet know, that her destiny was ap- 
 proaching her in the visitor who entered, and who, 
 having left the studio but a quarter of an hour before, 
 must justify his return by some pretext : 
 
 " It is I, coming back," he said, " I forgot to ask you, 
 Lincoln, if you positively wished to purchase those three 
 drawings of Ardea's at the price at which they offer 
 them?'' 
 
 " "Why did you not mention the matter to me yester- 
 day, ' Mon petit Linco ? ' " interrupted the Countess, " I 
 saw Peppino this morning. I could have asked him 
 his lowest figure." 
 
 " That would avail nothing," replied Maitland, laugh- 
 ing loudly. "But really he does not confess to them, 
 my dear Dogaressa. They form a portion of some rare 
 bric-a-brac, which he has carefully kept out of his 
 creditors' clutches, and has scattered a little here and 
 there. He has placed them among seven or eight 
 dealers in antiques, and we can look forward for the 
 next ten years to hearing all the cockneys from my 
 country uttering these prophetic phrases, 'This 
 comes from the Castagna Palace.' And what whistles 
 of astonishment this announcement, made with many 
 winks, will call forth ! " He winked his eye himself in 
 imitation of one of the most celebrated merchants of 
 bric-A-brac in Rome, with that inimitable gift of physi- 
 cal imitation which distinguishes all the habitues of 
 the Parisian studios. " For the time being these three 
 drawings are safely lodged at a huckster's of the Ba- 
 buiuo and are authentic." 
 
 " Except that they may trade them for the Yincis," 
 said Florent.
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 155 
 
 " And you think that Ardea would make no bargain 
 with me ? " asked the Countess. 
 
 " Not even with you," said the painter. " He had the 
 effrontery yesterday evening-, when I mentioned them in 
 his presence, to ask me for the address, so that he 
 could go and see them." 
 
 " Then how did you know of their existence ? " asked 
 Mme. Steno. 
 
 " Inquire of him," said the painter, pointing with his 
 brush to Chapron. " When it is a question of enriching 
 his old friend Maitland's collection, he becomes more 
 business-like than the merchants themselves. They 
 tell him everything. Vinci or no Vinci, they are of the 
 pure Lombard style. Buy them for me, I need them." 
 
 "I will go, then," said Florent. "Adieu, Countess. 
 . . . Mademoiselle." 
 
 And he bowed to Mme. Steno and the young girl. 
 The mother bestowed on him her sweetest smile. She 
 was not of the order of mistresses who looked upon 
 her lover's intimates as enemies. She enveloped them 
 in the opulent and happy sympathy which love 
 awakened in her. And besides, she was too clever not 
 to know, as unlikely as was this complaisance, that Flo- 
 rent approved of her love. The intense aversion which 
 Alba felt at this moment for her mother's suspected 
 intrigues was fully visible in the curtness with which 
 she bowed her sullen head in reply to the young man's 
 adieu. He took no notice of this sulkiness, as he 
 was too happy in having been able to convince him- 
 self, that no noise of the dispute had penetrated to the 
 studio. 
 
 " From now until to-morrow," he thought, as he de- 
 scended the stairs again, "there will be nobody to 
 warn Lincoln. This purchase of the drawings is a 
 happy thought, to show my perfect tranquillity. Now I 
 must find two discreet seconds." 
 
 Florent was an unusually reflective man, and one 
 capable of acting with the greatest justness when his
 
 156 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 exalted love for his brother-in-law was not called into 
 question. He had this force of observation, habitual to 
 people whose self-love, easily wounded, keep them- 
 selves out of the way. He put this disagreeable duty 
 off until later, and went to breakfast, at the restaurant 
 where he was expected, as if nothing had happened. In 
 fact, his host, a French diplomat, stationed at Munich 
 and passing through Rome, had no suspicion, as he re- 
 plied to his guest's questions on Leubach's most recent 
 pictures, that this young man, so calm, so smiling, had 
 on his hands a probably mortal affair of honor. It was 
 only on leaving the restaurant after breakfast that 
 Florent, after having mentally passed in review a dozen 
 of his acquaintances, resolved to make his first venture 
 with Dorsenne. He remembered the mysterious advice 
 given him by the novelist, whose sympathy for Mait- 
 land had been publicly demonstrated by an eloquent 
 article. And besides, he believed him to be madly in 
 love with Alba Steno. This was one more probability 
 in favor of his discretion. Dorsenne would be quiet on 
 the subject of a meeting which, if known, would inev- 
 itably compromise the Countess's name. It was only 
 too clear that Gorka and Chapron had no earthly rea- 
 son for disputing and fighting afterward. Finally, 
 about half-past two, that is to say, three hours after the 
 unreasonable altercation in the vestibule, Florent rang 
 the door-bell of Julien's apartment. The latter was at 
 home, occupied in making the last corrections in the 
 proof-sheets of the " Poussiere d'ldees." His visitor's 
 news upset him to such an extent that his hands trem- 
 bled as he arranged his scattered papers. He called to 
 mind Boleslas's presence on that same lounge, at the same 
 hour, forty-eight hours before. How fast the drama 
 would approach a climax if that madman was going 
 on in this fashion ! He felt only too keenly that Mait- 
 land's brother-in-law was not telling him everything. 
 
 " But this is absurd," he cried, " it is savagery and 
 folly ! Come, you are not going to fight each other over
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 157 
 
 a discussion such as you have just told me of ? You 
 were speaking 1 together on a street corner. You each 
 said some hasty words, and then all at once, seconds and 
 a duel Come, come ! That is nonsense ! " 
 
 " You forget that I made the great mistake of raising 
 my cane to strike him," Florent interrupted him to say, 
 " and since he desired a reparation, I owe it to him." 
 
 " And you think," said the writer, " that the public 
 will content itself with these reasons ? Do you imag- 
 ine that they will not search out secret motives for this 
 meeting ? Understand, I do not question you. I am 
 content with what you have confided to me. But the 
 world well, it is the world, and you will not escape its 
 commentaries." 
 
 " That is precisely why I have demanded absolute 
 discretion," replied Florent, " and also, why I have 
 come to ask you to be my second. There is no one in 
 whom I have more confidence than in you. This is my 
 only excuse for the step I have taken." 
 
 " I thank you," said Dorsenne. He hesitated for a 
 moment. Then Alba's image, which had been before 
 him since yesterday, presented itself suddenly and 
 more clearly to his mind. He remembered the deep 
 anguish which he had surprised in the young girl's 
 eyes, then her evident relief when her mother had 
 smiled impartially upon Gorka and Maitland. He re- 
 called the anonymous letters and the mysterious hatred 
 which seemed to hover over Mme. Steno. If this quar- 
 rel between Boleslas and Florent became known, there 
 was no doubt in the world that it would go around like 
 wildfire that Florent was fighting for his brother-in- 
 law, and on account of the Countess. No doubt, either, 
 that the news of the meeting would be brought to the 
 knowledge of the young Countess. This was sufficient 
 to cause the writer to say : " Well, then, I accept ! I 
 will act as your second. Do not thank me. We are 
 losing precious time. We must have another second. 
 Of whom have you thought ? "
 
 158 COSMOPOLI8. 
 
 " Of no one," replied Florent. " I confess that I 
 counted upon you to assist me." 
 
 " Well, let us make out a list," said Julien ; " that is 
 the best way, and we can then go over it." 
 
 Dorsenne wrote out a certain number of names and 
 they went over them, following his suggestion so well 
 that after a minute examination they rejected them all. 
 There they were, in as bad a fix as ever, when the novel- 
 ist's eyes suddenly lighted up and he uttered a little 
 cry, and said : 
 
 " I have an idea ! And it is an idea ! Do you know 
 the Marquis de Montfanon ? " he asked Florent. 
 
 " The one-armed man ? " replied the other. " I saw 
 him once about a little monument which I was having 
 set up in the Church of Saint Louis dea Franc,ais." 
 
 " He spoke to me about it," said Dorsenne. " It was 
 for a relation of yours, was it not ? " 
 
 " Yes, a distant cousin," replied Florent ; " a Captain 
 Chapron, killed in '49, in the slaughter before Rome." 
 
 " That is just the thing," cried Dorsenne, rubbing his 
 hands together. " Montfanon shall be your other sec- 
 ond. In the first place, he is an old duellist, while I 
 have never been in the field. That is a very important 
 point. You know the celebrated saying : ' It is not 
 the swords and pistols that kill, it is the seconds.' 
 And then if he consents to manage the affair, he will 
 give it more prestige than I possibly could." 
 
 " But that is impossible," said Chapron, " the Mar- 
 quis de Montfanon ! He would never consent. I do 
 not exist for him." 
 
 " That makes no difference to me," cried Dorsenne. 
 " Let me make the venture in my own name, and then 
 if he consents, you can ask him yourself. Only, we 
 have no time to lose. Do not leave your house until 
 ten o'clock. Between now and then I will know what 
 I can do." 
 
 If the novelist had shown in the first moment a great 
 confidence in the outcome of his strange attempt, the
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 159 
 
 confidence he felt had already turned to absolute 
 apprehension, when he found himself, half an hour 
 later, before the house in which the Marquis Claude- 
 Fran^ois lived, in one of the oldest parts of Borne, 
 next to the Capitol itself, at a corner of the Via de 
 la Consolation, with a balcony jutting out in front 
 which afforded a fine view of the old Forum. How 
 many times had Julien, during the past six months, 
 in his visits to this old man, so resigned to life, who 
 drowned his melancholy in the reminiscent sentiments 
 of the past, contemplated the tragic and splendid pan- 
 orama of this historical horizon ! At the conjurings 
 of the solitary recluse, the broken columns became 
 upright, the ruined temples became reconstructed, the 
 triumphant highway became clear of its weeds. He 
 spoke, and the formidable epic of the Boman legend 
 was evoked, interpreted by this fervent Christian, in 
 the mystical and providential sense which everything, 
 in fact, proclaimed in this place, where the Mamertiue 
 prison told of Saint Peter, where the portico of Faus- 
 tine's temple served as the pediment to the Church of 
 Saint Laurent in Miranda, where Sainte Marie Libera- 
 trice stood on the ancient site of the Temple of Venus 
 " Sancta Maria, libera nos a poenis inferni " always, 
 added Montfanon, piously, when he spoke of it, and he 
 pointed out Titus's Arch, which fulfilled the prophecies 
 of our Lord against Jerusalem, as the Basilica of Con- 
 stantine proclaimed the triumph of the Cross, while di- 
 rectly in front of them the Palatine thickets permitted a 
 transient view of a convent, which was built upon the 
 ruins of the houses of Csesar's persecutors. And below, 
 the curve of the Coliseum stood out, bringing back to 
 mind the eighty-five thousand spectators who had 
 assembled to see the martyrs suffer! Such were the 
 visions in the midst of which the ex-pontifical Zouave 
 was growing old, and as he pressed the bell of the 
 third floor, Julien said to himself : 
 
 " I am a fool to come and make such a proposition as
 
 160 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 I am about to make, to such a man. However, it is not 
 a question of his being a second in an ordinary duel, 
 but of stopping at once an adventure which, in the first 
 place, may cost two men their lives, and Mme. Steno 
 her honor ; afterward, and finally, the peace of mind 
 of three innocent people, Mme. Gorka, Mrs. Maitland, 
 tuid my dear little friend Alba. He is the only one 
 who has authority enough to manage the affair. It is a 
 charity besides. It is to be hoped that he is at home," 
 he concluded, as he heard the noise of the servant's 
 footsteps, who recognized the visitor and forestalled 
 all questions : 
 
 " M. le Marquis went out this morning at eight o'clock. 
 He will not be back until dinner-time." 
 
 " And do you know where he has gone ? " 
 
 " To hear mass in a catacomb and to be present at a 
 procession," replied the valet, who took Dorsenne's card, 
 adding : " The Trappist Fathers of Saint Calixtus will 
 certainly know where M. le Marquis is to be found. He 
 took breakfast with them." 
 
 " We will try, at any rate," said the young man, partly 
 discouraged. His carriage started in the direction of 
 Saint Sebastian's Gate, near which are situated the cata- 
 combs and the poor farm adjoining the last piece of 
 the papal domain in the possession of the poor monks. 
 " Montfanon must have taken communion this morn- 
 ing," he thought, " and at the first mention of a duel 
 he will refuse to listen further. However, this affair 
 must be arranged. It must be. What would I not give 
 to know the truth about the scene between Gorka and 
 Florent! By what strange and diabolical change of 
 events did the Palatine come to blows with the latter, 
 when he had a grudge against the brother-in-law ? Will 
 he be furious when he learns that I am his adversary's 
 second ! Bah ! After our conversation the other day, we 
 are no longer friends. Good, here I am already at the 
 little church of " Domine, quo vadis," * and I, I could 
 * Lord, where art thou going ?
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOtfAN. 161 
 
 easily say also : ' Juliane, quo vadis ? ' Only to do an 
 act which is in reality better than the most of my other 
 acts," he replied to his own question. This light and 
 easily moved soul had just been touched, as it always 
 happened, by the remembrance of one of the innumer- 
 able pious leg-ends which the nineteen centuries of Cath- 
 olicism have suspended, crowned by imperishable roses, 
 in all corners of Rome and its Campagna. He had re- 
 called that touching story of St. Peter, fleeing from per- 
 secution and meeting Our Lord : " Lord, whither art thou 
 going ? " asked the apostle. " To be crucified a second 
 time," replied the Saviour, and Peter was ashamed of 
 his weakness and returned to martyrdom. Montfanon 
 himself had related this sublime episode to the novel- 
 ist, who lost himself anew in reflections on the character 
 of the Marquis and the best way of approaching him. 
 He forgot to look upon the vast solitude of the Roman 
 outskirts, already spreading out before him, and so 
 deep was his reverie that he almost passed his destina- 
 tion. A new disappointment awaited him, at this first 
 stage of his journey. The monk who answered the bell 
 at the gate of Saint Calixtus, told him that the Mar- 
 quis had left there only half an hour before. 
 
 " You will find him at the Basilica of Saint Neree and 
 Saint Achillee," added the Trappist: " it is the feast of 
 these two saints, and at five o'clock there will be a pro- 
 cession in their catacomb. It is just about a quarter 
 of an hour away from here, near the Marancia Tower, 
 on the Via Ardeatina." 
 
 " Am I going to miss him again ? " ruefully thought 
 Dorsenne, as he left the carriage for the third time, and 
 walking across the already scorched grass, gained the 
 opening by which the subterranean necropolis which 
 was dedicated to the two saints who were the eunuchs 
 to Domitilla, the Emperor Vespasian's niece was 
 reached. Some ruins and a poor, miserable house 
 alone marked the place where the magnificent villa of 
 this pious princess formerly stood. The gate was
 
 162 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 open, and as lie met no one who could give him the 
 slightest information, the young man went some little 
 way into the underground passage. He perceived that 
 the long gallery was lighted up. He made up his mind 
 that the line of lighted candles, set ten feet apart, must 
 certainly mark the route which the procession would 
 take, and would also lead to the central basilica. Al- 
 though his anxiety on the outcome of his venture was 
 great, he could not help being impressed by the majesty 
 of the spectacle presented by the catacomb thus illu- 
 minated. The unequal niches reserved for the dead, 
 sleeping in the peace of the Lord for so many cen- 
 turies, and cut into the sides of the galleries, gave them 
 a solemn and tragic aspect. Inscriptions could be seen 
 cut into the stone, and all spoke of the great hope 
 which these first Christians nourished, the same hope 
 which animates so many of the living to-day. Julien 
 knew enough about these symbols to understand the 
 significance behind which these persecuted ones of the 
 primitive Church hid their faith. They were so touch- 
 ing and so simple. The anchor, which denoted help 
 in the storm, the sweet dove and the pure white lamb, 
 symbols of the soul which flies to heaven and the one 
 which seeks its Pastor, the phoenix, whose outspread 
 wings symbolized the resurrection, the bread and the 
 wine, the olive branch, the palm, and the fish, the 
 " 1x^5," formed after the first letters of Our Lord's 
 titles : " Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." "What com- 
 pleted the almost fantastic charm of this silent ceme- 
 tery of the martyrs, was the faint aroma of the incense 
 which Dorsenne had breathed since his entrance. The 
 high mass celebrated in the morning had left for the 
 rest of the day that sacred perfume, wafted among the 
 bones which had formerly been living, breathing mor- 
 tals, kneeling in the midst of the same sacred aroma. 
 The contrast was so strong between this scene, which 
 spoke of things eternal, and the drama of worldly and 
 guilty passion, which was the subject of his anxiety,
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 163 
 
 that the writer was completely unnerved. He felt him- 
 self a profaner, though he was obeying a most gen- 
 erous and humane impulse. He experienced a sensa- 
 tion of relief, when in a turn of one of the galleries 
 which he had taken by chance, he found himself face 
 to face with a priest, who carried a basket filled with 
 beautiful loose flowers, that were evidently intended 
 for use in the procession. He asked him the way to 
 the basilica in Italian, and as the other replied to 
 him in perfect French, he questioned him in that lan- 
 guage : 
 
 " You know M. le Marquis de Montfanon, perhaps, 
 my father ? " 
 
 " I am one of the chaplains of Saint Louis," said the 
 priest, smiling ; and he added, " You will find him in 
 the basilica itself." 
 
 " "Well, the moment has come," thought Dorsenne. 
 " Be careful. After all, it is an act of charity which I 
 am going to ask him to perform. Here I am. I recog- 
 nize the staircase and the opening below it." 
 
 A glimpse of the sky could be seen shedding a bright 
 light, which soon enabled the writer to distinguish the per- 
 son he was in search of among the few people gathered 
 together in this ruined chapel, the most remarkable in 
 its antiquity among all those which surround Rome as 
 with a girdle of hidden sanctuaries. Montfanon, who 
 was easily known, alas, by the empty sleeve of his black 
 coat, folded under the mutilated stump of his arm, 
 was seated on a chair not very far from the altar, on 
 which were burning tall wax candles, with flickering 
 flames. Priests and monks were arranging baskets filled 
 with flowers similar to those which the chaplain whom 
 Dorsenne had met was carrying. A group of three 
 tourists were commenting, in a low voice, on the paint- 
 ings, which were hardly visible on the discolored stucco 
 of the ceiling. Montfanon was entirely absorbed in his 
 book, which he held in his only hand. The grand feat- 
 ures of his face, ennobled and almost transfigured by the
 
 164 COSMO POLIS. 
 
 ardor of his devotion, gave him the beautiful expression 
 of an old Christian soldier. " Bonus miles Christi " had 
 been written on the tomb of the chief behind whom he 
 had fallen wounded at Patay. You could say of him 
 that he was a lay guardian of the martyrs' tombs, capa- 
 ble of confessing his faith like them, and of giving up 
 his life. And when Julien finally decided to disturb him, 
 and touched him gently on the shoulder, he saw that the 
 old nobleman's eyes, usually so gay and yet sometimes 
 so wrathful, shone with the humidity of half-shed tears. 
 His voice, also, that thrilling voice, was softened by the 
 emotion of his thoughts, which the reading, the place, 
 the hour, the employment of his day, had awakened in 
 him. 
 
 "Ah! there you are," he said to his young friend, 
 without displaying any astonishment. " You have come 
 for the procession. That is well. You will hear those 
 beautiful lines sung : ' Hi sunt quos faiiie mundus abhor- 
 ruit.' He pronounced ou for u, after the Italian, for his 
 liturgic education had been received entirely in Rome. 
 "It is a good time for these ceremonies. The tourists 
 are gone. There will only be people who pray and 
 those who feel, as you do. To feel is half the prayer. 
 The other half is believing. You will come to us in the 
 end. I have always said so. There is no peace else- 
 where." 
 
 " I would gladly have only come for this procession," 
 replied Dorsenne, " but I have another motive for my 
 visit, my dear friend," he said, lowering his voice still 
 more. " I have been looking for you for more than an 
 hour. I want you to aid me in rendering a great ser- 
 vice to several people, and prevent a great wrong, per- 
 haps." 
 
 " A great wrong," repeated Montfanon, " and one 
 which I can aid you in preventing 1 " 
 
 " Yes," replied Dorsenne ; " but this is not the place 
 to explain this long and terrible adventure in detail. 
 At what hour does the ceremony take place? I will
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 165 
 
 wait for you, and I can talk to you as I am taking- you 
 home. I have a carriage." 
 
 "It does not commence until five or half-past five," 
 said Montfanon, looking- at his watch, " and it is now a 
 quarter after four. Let us go outside of the catacombs, 
 if you are willing, and you can relate your story as we 
 walk about. A very great wrong 1 Well ! " he added, 
 pressing the hand of the young man, whose character he 
 loved just as much as he had hated his ideas during the 
 years he had known him since they first met at the house 
 of their mutual friend, the much-regretted Count de 
 Gobineau, the apostle of the theory of the races ; " re- 
 assure yourself, my dear fellow, we will prevent it." 
 
 There was that in the manner in which he pronounced 
 these words, the peaceful tranquillity of a conscience 
 which knew no uneasiness, that of a believer who knew 
 that he always did all he could of all he~ should. He 
 would not be Montfanon that is to say, a species of 
 visionary, who delighted in discussing with Dorsenne, 
 because he knew that, in spite of all, he was under- 
 stoodif he had not continued as he did, while they 
 were climbing upward toward daylight, along- the illu- 
 minated galleries: "If it makes no difference to you, 
 Monsieur, the apologist of the modem world, I am per- 
 fectly content to keep you here, and to ask you frankly : 
 Do you not feel yourself more the equal of all the dead 
 who are sleeping here in these walls than of a radical 
 elector or a deputy free-mason 1 ? Have you not the 
 impression that if these martyrs had not come to 
 pray under these vaults, eighteen hundred years ago, 
 the best part of your soul would never have existed? 
 Where can you find a more touching- poetry than that 
 of these symbols and epitaphs'? That admirable de 
 Rossi showed me one at Saint Calixtus, last year. The 
 tears come to my eyes when I think of it. ' Pete pro 
 Phoebe et pro virginio ejus.' Pray for Phoebe and for 
 - but how translate that word, this virginius, the 
 spouse who knew but one wife, the virgin man who
 
 166 COSMOPOLI8. 
 
 possessed a virgin spouse? Your youth will pass, 
 Dorsenne. You will one day feel what I feel, the hap- 
 piness missed because of old-time stains, and you will 
 understand that it is only in the Christian marriage, 
 the whole sublimity of which is comprised in this 
 prayer : ' Pro virginius ejus.' You will be like me 
 then, and you will find in this book," and he showed 
 him the "Eucologue " which he held in his hand, "how 
 to offer your remorse and your regrets to God. Do you 
 know the hymn to the Holy Sacrament 1 ' Adoro te, 
 devote.' No. And yet you are, perhaps, worthy of 
 ieeling all the beauty of the lines. Listen to this. The 
 expression alone will delight an artist like you. It 
 endeavors to explain this idea : that on the cross you 
 see but the man, and not the God, in the host you no 
 longer see the man, and yet you believe in the real pres- 
 ence: 
 
 " 'In cruce latebat sola Deltas. 
 
 At hie latet simul et humanitas, 
 
 Ambo tamen credens atque confitens. . . . ' 
 
 " And now just listen to this last line : 
 
 " ' Peto quod petivit latvo poanitens ! '* 
 
 "Ah! what a cry! It is beautiful! It is grand! 
 What words to utter when dying!" and he repeated: 
 "'Peto quod petivit latro poenitens.' And what did 
 this poor robber ask, this Dixmas, of whom the Church 
 made a saint for that appeal: 'Remember me, Lord, 
 when you come to your Kingdom ! ' But here we are. 
 Lower your head a little, so that you will not spoil your 
 hat. Now, what do you want of me ? You know the 
 de Montfanon motto: 'Excelsior et firmior' Always 
 higher and more firmly. One never has enough good 
 actions to do. If it is possible, present, as they say, 
 your case." 
 
 This singular mixture of fervor and good humor, of 
 
 * " I ask what the repentant robber asked."
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 167 
 
 exalted eloquence and political or religious fanaticism, 
 was Montfanon exactly. But the good-humor soon dis- 
 appeared from his face as he listened to Dorsenne's 
 narrative, which the latter had so skilfully composed. 
 The writer did not make the mistake of first broaching 
 his proposition. He understood too well that he must 
 not argue with the ex-pontifical zouave. Either he 
 would look upon it as monstrous and absurd, or he 
 would see in it a charitable duty to perform, and then, 
 no matter how distasteful the thing might be, he would 
 perform it, as he would distribute alms. It was this 
 vein of generosity which Julien, diplomatic for the first 
 time in his life, was trying to touch by his confidence. 
 Authorized by his conversation of the day before yes- 
 terday, he related what he could of Gorka's visit con- 
 cealing the word of honor, so falsely given, which 
 weighed heavily upon him. He told how he had calmed 
 this madman, how he had conducted him back to the 
 station, and then the meeting of the two rivals twenty- 
 four hours later. He dwelt upon Alba's attitude during 
 that evening, and upon the infamy of the anonymous 
 letters, written by an unknown enemy, to Mme. Steno's 
 daughter and to her former lover. And after having 
 told of the mysterious and sudden quarrel between 
 Gorka and Chapron, he continued : 
 
 " I have consented to act as his second," he concluded, 
 " because I think that it is my positive duty to do all I 
 can to prevent this duel from taking place. Think of it. 
 If it does take place, and one or the other of them is 
 killed or wounded, how can such a thing be concealed 
 in such a gossiping town as Rome ? And what com- 
 ments will be made ! It will be too evident that those 
 two young men only quarrelled on account of the 
 scandal between Mme. Steno and Maitland. By what 
 strange chance? About that I know nothing. But 
 there will be no doubt on the question. Then more 
 anonymous letters will be written to Alba, to Mme. 
 Gorka, to Mme. Maitland. As for the men, I don't care.
 
 168 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 Two of the three deserve all that happens to them. 
 But these innocent creatures, is it not frightful to think 
 of how this will affect them ? " 
 
 " Frightful, indeed," replied Montfanon ; " this is what 
 makes these criminal adventures so hideous. So many 
 people are injured besides the guilty ones. Do you see 
 now what this society really is, that you found, only day 
 before yesterday, so refined, so interesting ? But it does 
 no good to recriminate. I understand that. You have 
 come to get my advice on your duty as second. My 
 youthful follies are of use in so far as I can direct you 
 now. Correctness in the smallest details, and no nerves, 
 are all that is needed in arranging an affair like this. 
 Ah ! But you will come to grief. Gorka is a crazy man 
 just now. I know these Poles well. They have fright- 
 ful faults, but they are brave. God! how brave they 
 are ! And this little Chapron, I know him also, he is 
 one of those sweet stubborn natures, who would run a 
 sword in their hearts without saying ' ouf ' rather than 
 go back. And possessed of such self-love! He has 
 good fighting blood in his veins, that youngster, not- 
 withstanding the mixture. And with this mixture, see 
 what heroes we have, for example the first of the 
 three Dumas, the mulatto general ? Yes, you have an 
 unpleasant task before you, my good Dorsenne. But 
 you must have another second, to assist you, one whose 
 intentions are the same as yours, and, pardon me, more 
 experience perhaps ? " 
 
 " Well, Marquis," replied Julien, in a voice trembling 
 with anxiety, "there is but one person in Borne who 
 could be respected sufficiently, venerated by all, even in- 
 cluding Gorka, that his intervention in this delicate 
 and dangerous affair would be decisive, only one person 
 who could dictate excuses to Chapron, or obtain them 
 from the other. Finally, there is but one person who 
 has the authority of a hero, before whom they would be 
 silent, when he speaks on honor, and that person is 
 you. . . ."
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 169 
 
 " I," cried Montfanon, " I, you want me to be. . . ." 
 
 "One of Chapron's seconds," interrupted Dorsenne. 
 " Yes, that is true. I come at his request and for that 
 alone. . . . Do not tell me what I already know, that 
 your position is not compatible with such a step. It 
 is because of this very position that I conceived the 
 idea -of having recourse to you. Do not tell me either 
 that your religious principles are against duelling. It 
 is just precisely because I wish to prevent a duel that 
 I beg you to accept the position. This affair must not 
 come off. I swear to you that the peace of too many 
 innocent people is threatened." 
 
 And he continued to employ, in the service of this de- 
 cisive appeal which he was making at the moment, all 
 the intelligent versatility, and also all the eloquence with 
 which he was gifted. He could read on the face of the 
 old fighter, now become the most impassioned of prac- 
 tising Catholics, twenty different and contradictory im- 
 pressions. Finally Montfanon put his hand, with great 
 solemnity, on Dorsenne's arm, which he pressed warmly, 
 and said : 
 
 " Listen, Dorsenne, do not tell me anything more. I 
 consent to do what you have asked me to, but only on 
 two conditions ; let us understand each other perfectly. 
 The first is that M. Chapron will put himself entirely in 
 my hands, and consent to do absolutely what I ask him. 
 The second is that you will retire with me if these two 
 gentlemen persist in playing a child's part. I accept 
 your proposition to aid you in fulfilling a mission of 
 charity and nothing else; I repeat, and nothing else. 
 . . . Before bringing M. Chapron to see me, you will 
 report my words to him. Do you consent 1 " 
 
 "Word for word," replied the novelist, who added, 
 "he is waiting at home to hear the result of my mission." 
 
 " Then," said the Marquis, " I will return to Rome 
 with you immediately. He must have already received 
 a visit from Gorka's seconds, and if you really desire to 
 arrange this matter properly, the rule is not to let it
 
 170 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 drag. I cannot be present at my procession, but pre- 
 venting a wrong is doing good, and it is another way of 
 praying to God." 
 
 " Let me take your hand, my good friend," said Dor- 
 senne. " I never understood until now what was meant 
 by a truly brave man." 
 
 When the writer reached the house in the Via Leo- 
 pardi, three-quarters of an hour later, after having taken 
 Montfanon home, he felt himself sustained by so moral 
 a support that he was almost joyous. He found Florent 
 in his smoking-room, occupied in arranging his papers 
 with the methodical phlegm which was indicated by 
 his black eyes, so languid in their soft dark color. 
 
 " He accepts," were the first words, almost simulta- 
 neously spoken by both young men, and Dorsenne re- 
 peated what Montfanon had said to him. 
 
 " I put myself entirely in your hands," said the other. 
 " I have no thirst for M. le Count Gorka's blood. But 
 still this gentleman must not be able to accuse Colonel 
 Chapron's grandson of cowardice. I rely upon General 
 Dorsenne's relative and upon the old soldier of Charette 
 to see that I am not compromised." 
 
 " That goes without saying," said Julien, and as Flo- 
 rent handed him a letter, he asked, " What is this ? " 
 
 " This," replied Florent, " this is a note which was 
 written not half an hour ago, at this table, and ad- 
 dressed to you by Baron Hafner. I find I must keep 
 you posted. There is some news for you. I have re- 
 ceived my adversary's seconds. The Baron is one of 
 them, the other is Ardea. . . ." 
 
 " Baron Hafner," cried Dorsenne. " What a strange 
 choice ! " He stopped, and Florent and he exchanged 
 glances. They understood each other without speak- 
 ing. Boleslas could find no surer way of letting Mme. 
 Steno know what proceedings he intended to take for 
 wreaking his vengeance. On the other side, the well- 
 known devotion of the Baron to the Countess gave one
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 171 
 
 more chance for a peaceful solution, at the same time 
 that Montfanon's fanaticism, and the idea of being con- 
 fronted by Fanny's father, threw a comedy aspect across 
 this drama called forth by Gorka's fierce jealousy. 
 Julien continued with a smile : " You will see Mont- 
 fanon's face when we tell him who the two seconds 
 are. He is a man of the fifteenth century, you know, a 
 Montluc, a Duke of Alva, a Philip II. I do not know 
 which he detests the most, the freemasons, the free- 
 thinkers, the Protestants, the Jews, or the Germans. 
 And as this obscure and wily Hafner is a little of all of 
 these he has inspired him with hatred ! Not taking- 
 into consideration the fact that he looks upon him now 
 as being a secret agent of the Triple Alliance ! But let 
 us see the letter." He opened it and took in its con- 
 tents at a glance. " It breathes a delicacy that almost 
 borders on kindness. He has also felt that this matter 
 must be settled at once, were it only to prevent an evil 
 purpose. He makes an appointment with us, that is, 
 myself and your other second, between six and seven 
 o'clock. Come, time presses. You must come with me 
 to the Marquis, to make your request officially. Let us 
 begin with that. We will get his promise before we 
 mention Hafner's name. I know him. He will not go 
 back on his word." 
 
 The two friends found Montfanon, who was waiting 
 for them in his office, a large room filled with books, 
 overlooking that panorama of the Forum, more 
 majestic still, seen in this light of a clear afternoon, 
 when the shadows of the columns and the arches 
 were beginning to lengthen perceptibly on the white 
 pavements. This large cell, with red-tiled flooring, 
 had no other luxury than a carpet spread under the 
 desk, which was piled with papers, no doubt the frag- 
 ments of the famous work on the connection of the 
 nobility of France with the Church. A crucifix stood 
 on the desk. On the wall were two portraits, one of Mon- 
 seigneur Pie, the holy Bishop of Poitiers, and that of
 
 172 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 General Sonis, standing 1 on his wooden leg, banging on 
 each side of a very beautiful piece of tapestry repre- 
 senting a Saint Francois, the patron saint of the master 
 of the house. This was the only artistic decoration of 
 this simple room. The nobleman often said : " I have 
 freed myself from the tyranny of objects." But with its 
 marvellous background of grand ruins, and its glimpse 
 of the sky, this simple place was an incomparable asy- 
 lum in which to end in meditation and renunciation a 
 life which had once been ruffled by the storm of the 
 senses and the world. The hermit rose to salute his 
 two visitors, and pointing out to Chapron an open vol- 
 ume on the table, said : 
 
 " I was thinking of you ; that is a book by Chateau- 
 villars on duelling. It is, however, a code that is not 
 very complete. Yet I would recommend it to you, if 
 you were ever called upon to fulfil a mission like ours," 
 and he pointed to Dorsenne and himself with a gesture 
 which implied the most amicable of acceptances. " It 
 seems that we must have a very quick hand. Ha ! ha ! 
 Do not make excuses for yourself. You should have 
 seen me as I was when I was twenty-one years old. I 
 threw a plate at the head of a gentleman who sneered at 
 my lord the Count de Chambord before a crowd of Jaco- 
 bins who were rollicking in a provincial table d'hote. 
 See," he said, lifting his mustache and showing a scar, 
 " this is the souvenir. The rascal was an old officer of 
 dragoons. He proposed swords. I accepted, and I was 
 forced to abide by my acceptance, but he lost two 
 fingers. . . . This will not happen to you this time, 
 I hope. Dorsenne has told you my conditions ? " 
 
 " Yes, and I replied to him by saying that I was sure 
 I could place my honor in no safer hands," responded 
 Florent. 
 
 " Give me your hand," said Montfanon, with a pleased 
 gesture. " No words. That is well. . . . Besides, 
 I formed my opinion of you from that day on which we 
 spoke together in Saint-Louis. You honor the dead.
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 173 
 
 That is sufficient for me who believe that man is to be 
 judged by the past. This is why I am happy, very 
 happy, to be useful to you. But tell me very clearly, 
 very precisely, the tale you have already told Dor- 
 senne." 
 
 Then Florent related, in as few words as possible, 
 the story which had been agreed upon between Gorka 
 and himself, that is to say, their discussion and their 
 hot-headedness, carefully omitting 1 the details in which 
 his brother-in-law was concerned. 
 
 " The devil ! " cried Montfanon, familiarly, " the busi- 
 ness looks badly, very badly. . . . Come, a second is 
 really a confessor. . . . You had a discussion in the 
 street with M. Gorka, but about what? . . . You 
 cannot answer me ? What did he say to you that you 
 should lose your temper to the point of striking him ? 
 That is the first key to the situation." 
 
 " I cannot reply to your question," said Florent. 
 
 "Then," replied the Marquis, after a moment's si- 
 fence, " it only remains to establish the fact of a gesture 
 on your part, how will I say it ? Irreflective, incom- 
 pleted, in fact. That is the second key to the position. 
 You have no particular reason for feeling unfriendly 
 toward M. Gorka, have you ? " 
 
 " None whatever." 
 
 " Nor he toward you ? " 
 
 " None." 
 
 " The affair is beginning to look brighter," said Mont- 
 fanon, who was quiet again for a few moments and then 
 resumed, in the voice of a man talking to himself. " But 
 M. le Count Gorka considers himself insulted. In- 
 sulted ? But was there an insult offered 1 That is the 
 point we must discuss. Violence done, or the menace 
 of violence, will allow of no arrangement. . . . But 
 a threatened blow, though immediately suppressed, as it 
 did not actually take effect. . . . Do not interrupt 
 me," he insisted. " I am trying to sweep the debris away 
 and see my way clear. . . . We must reach a solu-
 
 174 OOSMOPOLIS. 
 
 tion. We must express our regrets in such a manner as 
 to leave the field open for another reparation if Gorka 
 insists upon it. ... But he will not insist. The 
 whole problem hinges on his choice of seconds. . . . 
 Who will he choose ? " 
 
 "I have already received a visit from them," said 
 Florent, " about half an hour ago. One is the Prince 
 Ardea." 
 
 "He is a nobleman," replied Montfanon, " you can lis- 
 ten to him. I am not really sorry to see him in order to 
 tell him my sentiments on this public sale of his palace, 
 to which he should never have consented. . . . And 
 the other ? " 
 
 " The other? " Dorsenne hastily interposed. "Prepare 
 yourself for a blow. I swear to you that I did not know 
 his name when I went in search of you in the cata- 
 combs. He is . . . Well . . . He is Baron Haf- 
 ner." 
 
 " Baron Hafner," cried Montfanon. " Boleslas Gorka, 
 the descendant of the Gorkas, that great Luc Gorka 
 who was Palatine of Posen and Bishop of Cujavie, has 
 selected for his second M. Justus Hafner, this robber, 
 this freebooter, who has had that terrible lawsuit ? 
 No, Dorsenne, do not tell me such a thing ; it is impossi- 
 ble." Then he added, with a combative air : " We will 
 challenge him for lack of honor, I will attend to the mat- 
 ter, and will also tell my reasons to Boleslas. We will 
 pass a joyful quarter of an hour together, I can assure 
 you." 
 
 " You will not do that," said Dorsenne, quickly. " In 
 the first place, in the question of official honor the law 
 decides, does it not ? Hafner was acquitted and his 
 adversaries were ordered to pay the costs. You your- 
 self told me that the other day. . . . And then you 
 forget the conversation which we have just had." 
 
 " Pardon me," said Florent in his turn. " Monsieur de 
 Montfanon, in consenting to assist me, has done me a 
 great honor which I will never forget. . . . If any
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 175 
 
 unpleasantness should arise or result from this, I should 
 be deeply grieved and I am ready to release him from 
 his word." 
 
 " No," said the Marquis, after a few moments' silence, 
 " I cannot take it back." He was so generous when it 
 was not a question of his two or three hobbies, that the 
 slightest exhibition of delicate feeling awoke an echo 
 in him. He held out his hand to Chapron again, and 
 continued, but in a tone of voice which bespoke his sup- 
 pressed irritation : " That does not concern us after all, 
 if M. Gorka judges it wise to have himself represented 
 in an affair of honor by a man to whom he should not 
 even bow. You will give our two names to these two 
 gentlemen, and Dorsenne and I will await them, accord- 
 ing to rule. They are the ones to come to us, as they are 
 the mandatories of the offender." 
 
 "They have already made an appointment for this 
 evening," replied Chapron. 
 
 " How is that ? Arranged ? And with whom ? And 
 for whom ? " cried out Montfanon, overcome by a new 
 fit of anger. " With you ? For us ? Ah, but I do not 
 like that, these good-fellowships, and that at a time 
 when the matter in hand is so serious ! The code is ab- 
 solute on that point. Once their challenge is brought 
 to you, to which you are obliged to reply 'Yes' or 
 ' No,' these gentlemen should immediately retire. . . . 
 It is not your fault, it is Ardea's, who has allowed 
 this manipulator of false dividends to ply his trade of 
 scheming and stock- jobbing. . . . But we will rec- 
 tify it in a good French fashion. . . . And where is 
 this rendezvous ? " 
 
 " I will read you the letter which the Baron left with 
 Florent for me," said Dorsenne, and he read the very 
 courteous letter which Hafner had written to him, apolo- 
 gizing for the liberty which he had taken of choosing 
 his own house for the meeting-place of the four sec- 
 onds. " You cannot very well leave so polite a letter as 
 this unanswered, can you ? "
 
 176 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 " Tliere are too many ' dear sirs,' and ' compliments ' 
 in it," said Montfanon, brusquely. " Sit down there," 
 he insisted, yielding his arm-chair to Florent, "and 
 jnform them of our names, both of them, and give 
 our address, adding that we hold ourselves at their 
 disposal, without mentioning this first false step on 
 their part. And may they never come back. And you, 
 Dorsenne, as you are afraid of wounding this gentle- 
 man, I will not hinder you from going to see him 
 personally, do you hear to acquaint him with the fact 
 that M. Chapron, here present, has chosen as first sec- 
 ond a disagreeable person, an ancient duellist, anything 
 you care to call him, but one who insists upon strict 
 forms, and in the first place, a demand made according 
 to rule, to us two, in both their names, in order to fix 
 upon an official appointment." 
 
 " What did I tell you ? " said Dorsenne, when they 
 found themselves alone, after leaving Montfanon. " He 
 is another man, since you named the Baron. . . . The 
 discussion between them promises to be lively. . . . 
 I hope he does not embroil us all with his folly. My 
 word of honor, if I had had an idea whom Gorka was 
 going to choose, I would never have mentioned the 
 * old leaguer,' as I call him." 
 
 " And I, even if M. de Montfanon is going to in- 
 sist upon my fighting at five paces," replied Chapron, 
 laughing ; " will thank you for having brought me 
 in contact with him. He is a whole-souled man, like 
 my father, and like Maitland. I adore those kind of 
 people." 
 
 " Is there no way of having a good heart and a clear 
 head at the same time ? " Julien asked himself, as he 
 reached the Savorelli Palace, where Hafner lived, think- 
 ing, on the one hand, of the Marquis's anger, and on the 
 other of the illusion about this egotistical Maitland, which 
 had just been revealed to him by Florent's last words. 
 He was overtaken by all his apprehensions of the after- 
 noon, in a stronger manner, so well did he know Mont-
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 177 
 
 fanon to be irritable on certain points ; and it was one 
 of these points which would be wounded to the quick 
 by being- brought into such close contact with Gor- 
 ka's seconds. " I do not count on Hafner himself," he 
 thought; "if this dangerous financier has accepted a 
 mission so entirely contrary to his tastes, his position, 
 his habits, to his age almost, it must be in connivance 
 with his future son-in-law, or for the purpose of con- 
 ciliating him. No doubt the marriage is concluded at 
 the present moment. ... I hope not. The Marquis 
 would be so furious in that case that he would insist 
 upon a duel at any price." 
 
 The young man had no idea that his reasoning had 
 been so correct. Chance, which is so complete in its 
 workings sometimes, had heaped event upon event, and 
 it had happened that at the very moment when he was 
 deliberating with Gorka upon the choice of another 
 second, and, very tired himself of the duty which he 
 had consented to take upon himself, he received a note 
 from Mme. Steno, which simply contained these words : 
 " Your demand has been made, and the answer is yes. 
 Let me be the first to congratulate you, Simpaticone." 
 A bright idea came to him : to arrange this quarrel, by 
 his father-in-law's help, a quarrel which he looked 
 upon as absurd, useless, and dangerous. The haste with 
 which Gorka accepted Hafner as his other second 
 proved, as Dorsenne and Florent had instantly per- 
 ceived, that he was anxious that his perfidious mistress 
 should be informed of his acts and desires. As to the 
 Baron, he had consented at once Oh, irony of circum- 
 stances ! and had spoken to Peppino Ardea words al- 
 most identical to those spoken by Montfanon to Dor- 
 senne : 
 
 " We will draw up in advance a report of concilia- 
 tion, and if the affair cannot be arranged, we will retire 
 from it." 
 
 It was in these terms that this memorable conversa- 
 tion had been concluded, truly worthy of the combina-
 
 178 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 zione which poor Fanny's marriage represented. It 
 had been less a question of this marriage than of the 
 service to be rendered to the twice criminal loves of 
 the grande dame who presided at the traffic ! Is it nec- 
 essary to add that neither Ardea nor his future father- 
 in-law made the shadow of an allusion to the real truth 
 of the affair. Perhaps, at any other moment, the deep 
 innate prudence of the Baron, and his fastidious care 
 never to compromise himself, would have made him 
 turn away from the possible worry which his intrusion 
 might bring into the brutal adventure of a discarded 
 and exasperated lover. But his joy at the prospect of 
 his daughter being a Roman princess and with what a 
 name ! had really turned his head. He had the good 
 sense, however, to say to the astonished Ardea : 
 
 " Not a word to Mme. Steno, at least until some- 
 thing else turns up. She would not hesitate to warn 
 Mme. Gorka, and God alone knows what she might 
 do." 
 
 In reality, the two confreres understood too well, 
 whether directly or indirectly, the necessity of keeping 
 the matter from Maitland. They employed the latter 
 part of their afternoon in visiting Florent, and then in 
 despatching telegrams announcing the engagement, in 
 which pretty Fanny was made to appear so much hap- 
 pier from the fact that Cardinal Guerillot had con- 
 sented to preside at her baptism. The Baron was so 
 contented with the consummation of all his plans that 
 he was incapable of experiencing joy of any other kind. 
 He loved his daughter this strange man a little after 
 the manner in which a breeder of horses loves the horse 
 which is destined to win the Grand Prix. Thus, when 
 Dorsenne arrived, bearer of Chapron's letter and de 
 Montfauon's message, he was received with a cordiality 
 and complaisance which immediately enlightened him 
 as to the result of the matrimonial intrigue, of which he 
 had spoken to Alba. 
 
 "Anything that your friend wishes, my dear sir ....
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 179 , 
 
 Is not that so, Peppino ? " said the Baron, seating him- 
 self at his table. " Will you dictate the letter your- 
 self, Dorsenne ? No. . . . Come, is that all right ? 
 . . . You will understand immediately in what sen- 
 timents we have accepted this mission, when you know 
 that Fanny is betrothed to Prince Ardea. The news is 
 three hours old. Thus you are the first to be told of it 
 is that not so, Peppino ? " He had not thought it 
 necessary to mention the fact that not less than two 
 hundred despatches had been sent from the house that 
 afternoon. "Come back when it suits you, with the 
 Marquis. I only ask that, in view of the circumstance, 
 the interview shall take place here, and if it is possible, 
 between six and seven, or nine and ten, in order not to 
 interfere with our little family dinner." 
 
 " Say nine o'clock," said Dorsenne. " M. de Montfa- 
 non is a little of a formalist. He would prefer to have 
 replied to you by a letter." 
 
 " Prince Ardea to marry Mdlle. Hafner ! " This cry, 
 wrung from Montfanon by the news Brought him by 
 Julien, was so sorrowful that the young man lost all 
 desire to laugh. He had thought it his duty to fore- 
 warn his irascible friend, fearing that the Baron would 
 make some allusion to the event in the course of the con- 
 versation, and that the other would break forth, " When I 
 told you that the Catholicity of this young girl was but 
 a farce ! When I told it to Monseigneur Guerillot ! This 
 is what she has aimed at during all these years, with this 
 perfection of hypocrisy. It was the Castagna Palace. 
 And she is to go into it as its mistress ? . . . She is 
 to bring to it the dishonor of this stolen gold upon 
 which there is the stain of blood ? Do not let them talk 
 to me about it ; above all, warn them, or I will not answer 
 for myself. Second to a Gorka, father-in-law to an 
 Ardea, he triumphs, this robber who should be busy 
 making list shoes, if he had had his deserts. All the 
 other Roman princes, those who have no stains on their 
 shields the Orsini, the Colonna, the Odescalchi, the
 
 180 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 Borghese, the Kospigliosi will they not put a stop to 
 this monstrous thing ? Happily, nobility is like love : 
 those who buy these sacred things dishonor themselves 
 in paying for them, and what they gain by it is but mud. 
 Princess d'Ardea ! . . . That creature ! . . . Ah, 
 what a shame ! . . . But we must think of our own 
 engagement with that good Chapron. This young 
 fellow pleases me in the first place, because he is prob- 
 ably fighting for someone else, from a feeling of devo- 
 tion which I cannot understand. It is devotion never- 
 theless, and it is chivalric! He no doubt wishes to 
 prevent this unhappy Gorka from provoking a scan- 
 dal which would open his sister's eyes. . . . And 
 then, as I told him, he has so much respect for the dead. 
 . . . Come, I am losing my head, this news has up- 
 set me so much. . . . Princess d'Ardea! Write, 
 that we will go to M. Hafner's at nine o'clock. I do 
 not want those kind of people in my house. It would 
 not be correct to ask them to your house, you are too 
 young. And would rather go to the father-in-law's 
 than to the son-in-law's. He is only following his trade, 
 the rascal, in buying what he is buying, with his stolen 
 millions. But the other ? . . . And his great, great-un- 
 cle might have been Sixtus V., Julius II., Pius V., Hil- 
 debrand; he would have sold everything, just the same. 
 . . . And he cannot claim ignorance ! He has heard 
 this man's disgraceful lawsuit spoken of ! He knows 
 where his millions come from ! He has heard their family 
 and their life gossiped about ! . . . And all this has 
 not been enough to imbue him with too great a horror of 
 accepting this man's gold. He does not know what 
 duty he owes to a name. . . . Our name ! Yes, it is 
 our name and our honor in the mouth and in the 
 thoughts of others. How happy I am, Dorsenne, to be 
 fifty-two years old last month. I will be gone before I 
 can see what you will see, the death-struggle of all aris- 
 tocracy and all royalty. If it were only in the blood 
 that they fell. But they do not fall. Alas ! They are
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 181 
 
 driven to the earth, which is the saddest of all. . . . 
 What matters it, however ? The monarchy, the nobility, 
 and the church are eternal. The people who despise 
 them will die, that is all. . . . Come, write your let- 
 ter, and I will sign it. Have it carried to them and 
 dine with me. It is necessary, in going- into that den, to 
 be fortified with an argument which will prevent this 
 duel, without compromising- our client. . . . An 
 arrangement must be found for him which would be 
 acceptable to rne. . . . He pleases me, I repeat. He 
 rests me, after the others." 
 
 This exaltation, which began to frighten Dorsenne, 
 became greater during the dinner, more especially 
 when, in discussing the conditions of the arrangements 
 which he expected to sustain, the remembrances of 
 his terrible youth flowed into the thoughts and into 
 the conversation of this ancient duellist. Was he in- 
 deed the same person who was reciting the verses of a 
 pious hymn but a few hours before, in the catacombs ? 
 It was enough that the feudal blood that was in him 
 should be awakened, to transform him. And then, the 
 sparkle in his eyes and the flush in his face plainly 
 told the story that this adventure of the duel, which 
 he had in good faith thought to be undertaken as an 
 act of charity, really infatuated him on its own account. 
 It was the old amateur, fond of the sword and not 
 easily managed, which moved this man of prayers, 
 whose passions had been fierce and who had loved 
 all emotions, comprising those of danger and naked 
 swords, as he to-day loved his ideas, as he had loved 
 his flag in an unbridled manner. It was no longer a 
 question of three poor women, who must be spared 
 suspicion, nor of a good act not to be missed. He saw 
 again all his old friends and their talent as fighters 
 this one's carte, and the way in which another always at- 
 tacked with right-hand blows, the self-possession of 
 a third, and all the time the following refrain cut in- 
 to the most peaceful anecdotes : " But why did that
 
 182 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 devil of a Gorka take this Hafner for a second ? It is 
 so degrading, it is inconceivable!" And then, just 
 as he was stepping into the carriage which was to take 
 them to their interview, he heard Dorsenne say, " To 
 the Savorelli Palace." This started him off again. 
 
 " This is the last blow," he cried, raising his arm and 
 clinching his fist. " This adventurer lives in the Pre- 
 tender's house, the house of the Stuarts ! " And he re- 
 lapsed into a silence which the writer felt to be much 
 stormier than the declamations of a few moments ago. 
 He did not come out of it until introduced into the 
 salon of this dealer in knick-knacks, who had become a 
 "grand seigneur" into one of the salons, rather, for 
 the apartment boasted of five. Once there, Montfanon 
 looked around him with so disgusted an air, that not- 
 withstanding his nervousness Dorsenne could hardly 
 keep from laughing, and teased him, saying : 
 
 "You will not pretend that he has not some very 
 beautiful things here ? Those two paintings by Moroni, 
 for example 1 " 
 
 "Nothing is here in its place," replied Montfanon. 
 " Yes, those are two magnificent portraits of ancestors, 
 and Monsieur has no ancestors ! Look at those arms in 
 that glass case, and he has never touched a sword ! 
 And there is a beautiful tapestry, representing the mul- 
 tiplication of the loaves, but it is audacious ! You will 
 not believe me, Dorsenne, but it makes me physically ill 
 to be here. When I think of all the human labor, of all 
 the human heart also, in these objects, and to end in 
 this ' Capharnaiim,' paid for how ? possessed by whom ? 
 Close your eyes and think of Schroeder and of the 
 others whom you do not know. Look at the garrets 
 in which there is neither furniture, nor wood, nor 
 bread. Then open your eyes and look around you." 
 
 " And you, my brave friend," replied the novelist, " I 
 conjure you to remember our conversation in the cata- 
 combs ; think of the three women, in whose name I 
 begged of you to be of assistance to Florent."
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 183 
 
 " I thank you," said Montfanon, passing his hand 
 across his forehead, " I promise you to be calm." 
 
 He had hardly spoken these words when the door 
 opened, giving a glimpse of another brightly lighted 
 room, which must, from the noise of voices in conversa- 
 tion, have contained several people " no doubt Mnie. 
 Steno and Alba," thought Julien and the Baron en- 
 tered, accompanied by Peppino Ardea. Even as he was 
 making his presentations, the novelist was struck by 
 the contrast offered between his three companions. 
 Hafner and Ardea in evening dress, with boutonnieres, 
 presented the open and happy countenances of two 
 good bourgeois who had nothing on their consciences. 
 The ordinary pale complexion of the man of business 
 was flushed, and his usually hard eye softened. As 
 to the Prince, the same admirable unconsciousness of 
 the spoiled child lighted up his jovial face, and in con- 
 trast the hero of Patay, with coarse boots and his large 
 body tightly buttoned into a slightly worn frock coat, 
 presented a face so contracted that you would have 
 thought him tortured by remorse. An unfaithful stew- 
 ard, obliged to render his accounts to generous and 
 confiding masters, could not cany a face darker and 
 more marked with care. He had, besides, put his 
 only remaining arm behind his back in so positive a 
 manner, that neither one nor the other of the new- 
 comers ventured to offer him their hands. This appa- 
 rition was, without doubt, little in harmony with what 
 Fanny's father and fiance had expected, for there was 
 a moment of embarrassed silence after the four men 
 were seated, which the Baron was the first to break ; 
 then he commenced, in his weighed, measured voice a 
 voice which treated the words as the weighing-machine 
 of an usurer treats gold pieces, weighing them to the 
 milligramme precisely : 
 
 " Gentlemen, I think our sentiments are sufficiently in 
 accord to establish at the start a point which should 
 dominate our meeting. . . . We are here, it is well
 
 184 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 understood, to effect a reconciliation between two men, 
 two gentlemen whom we know, whom we esteem I 
 could better say, whom we like equally well." He 
 turned successively to each of his three listeners as he 
 pronounced these words, and all bowed, with the ex- 
 ception of the Marquis. Hafner stopped a moment at 
 this abstention. He gazed at the nobleman with his 
 habitual look of reading to the depth of consciences, to 
 find out what they were worth. He made up his mind 
 that Chapron's first second was a crank, and then he 
 continued : " This proposition settled, I will ask you to 
 read this little paper. Here it is." He had taken out 
 of his pocket a paper folded four times, and adjusted 
 on the end of his nose his famous gold-rimmed glasses : 
 " It is a very little thing, one of these ' directives/ as 
 M. de Moltke says, which answer as a guide for one 
 operation, a species of report, which we will modify 
 after discussing it. In fact it is a landmark to start 
 from. . . ." 
 
 " Pardon me, Monsieur," Montfanon said, interrupt- 
 ing him, his bushy eyebrows drawn into a fierce frown, 
 recalling pictures of the celebrated field-marshal, and 
 stopping by a gesture the reader, who in his surprise 
 let his eye-glass fall upon the table on which his elbow 
 rested ; " I regret," he continued, " very much being 
 obliged to tell you that we will never, M. Dorsenne 
 and myself," and he turned toward Dorsenne, who 
 made the equivocal gesture of a man very much put out, 
 " that we will never, I repeat, admit the position you 
 have taken. You have pretended that we are here for 
 the purpose of effecting a work of conciliation. That is 
 possible. ... I grant you that that is desirable. But 
 of that I know nothing, and permit me to say to you 
 that you know nothing either. I am here, we are here, 
 M. Dorsenne and myself," and he turned again toward 
 Julien, who again made his equivocal gesture, " to listen 
 to the grievances which M. le Comte Gorka has charged 
 you to formulate to M. Florent Chapron's mandatories.
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 185 
 
 Present your grievances, and we will discuss them. 
 Present the reparations which you desire in the name 
 of your client, and we will discuss them also. The little 
 papers will come later, if they come at all, and once 
 more, neither you nor I know what will be the out- 
 come of this conversation, nor should we know it be- 
 fore establishing our facts." 
 
 " There has been a misunderstanding, Monsieur," 
 said Ardea, whom Montfanon's discourse had somewhat 
 irritated. He could not, any more than Hafner, under- 
 stand the very simple and yet very strange character of 
 the Marquis. He added: "I have been in many affairs 
 four times as second, once as principal, and without any 
 discussion, I made use of M. le Baron Hafner's plan, 
 which he has just proposed to you, and which in itself 
 is a very speedy way of reaching what you very cor- 
 rectly term establishment of the facts." 
 
 " I am ignorant of the number of your affairs, Mon- 
 sieur," replied Montfanon, much more nervous now that 
 Hafner's future son-in-law had entered into the discus- 
 sion ; " but since it has pleased you to acquaint us with 
 the fact, I would tell you also, if you will permit me to do 
 so, that I have fought seven times, and been second at 
 least fourteen times. . . . It is true that this was at 
 a time when the chief of your house was Monsieur your 
 father, if my memory serves me, the deceased Prince 
 Urban, whom I had the honor of knowing near His 
 Holiness, when I was in the Zouaves. He was a fine 
 specimen of a Roman nobleman, sir, and one who 
 carried his name proudly. ... I tell you this to 
 prove to you that I also have some knowledge in the 
 matter of duels. . . . Well ! We always considered 
 that seconds were for the purpose of arranging affairs 
 which were arrangeable, but also for regulating as they 
 saw best affairs which were past arranging. . . . This 
 is the whole thing in a nutshell, we are here for that, 
 and for nothing but that." 
 
 " Are these gentlemen of the same opinion ? " asked
 
 186 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 Hafner, in a conciliating voice, as he consulted first Dor- 
 senne and then Ardea, with a movement of his head. 
 " I do not hold absolutely to my method," he continued, 
 refolding his paper and slipping it into his vest-pocket. 
 " Let us establish our facts, as you say. M. le Comte 
 Gorka, our friend, considers himself to have been very 
 gravely offended, very gravely, by M. Florent Chapron, 
 in the course of a discussion which took place in a 
 public square. M. Chapron allowed himself to be car- 
 ried away, as you know, gentlemen, to the point of an 
 how shall I say it ? excitement, which was not 
 consummated, thanks to M. Gorka's presence of mind. 
 . . . But nevertheless, effectual or not, the men- 
 ace was there. M. Gorka was offended, and he de- 
 mands satisfaction. I do not think that there can be 
 any doubt upon this point of departure, which is the 
 origin of the affair, and in fact the whole affair." 
 
 " I beg your pardon again, Monsieur," replied Mont- 
 fanon, dryly, who no longer took the trouble to dissim- 
 ulate his ill-humor. " M. Dorsenne and myself can- 
 not accept your manner of putting the question. You 
 admit that M. Chapron's excitement was not followed 
 by any bad consequences, by reason of M. Gorka's pres- 
 ence of mind. We pretend that there was on the part 
 of M. Chapron a gesture, hardly perceptible and which 
 he himself restrained. . . . Consequently you attrib- 
 ute to M. le Comte Gorka the position of injured one ; 
 you are going too quickly. He is but the challenger so 
 far. That is very different." 
 
 " But he has the right, being the injured one," inter- 
 rupted Ardea. " Mastered or not, the simple gesture 
 constitutes a menace of violence. I did not pretend to 
 set myself up as a fighter, in recalling my only duel. 
 But that is the A B C of the Codice cavalleresco : ' If 
 the injury be followed by an act of violence, he who re- 
 ceived the blow is the injured one, and the menace of 
 violence is equivalent to an act of violence. And the 
 injured one, who has received or been threatened by an
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CIIOUAN. 187 
 
 act of violence, has the choice of a duel, the arms or 
 conditions.' Consult your authorities and ours, Cha- 
 teauvillars and Du Verger, Angelini and Gelli, they all 
 agree." 
 
 " I regret that fact for their sake," said Montfanon, and 
 he looked at the Prince with a frown which was almost 
 menacing ; " for it is an opinion which can be main- 
 tained neither in general, nor in this particular case. 
 The proof is that a fighter, as you have just said " his 
 voice trembled in remembrance of the insolent willing- 
 ness of the other to insult him " a bravo, to use the 
 word of your country, would only need, for the accom- 
 plishment of a legitimate assassination, to insult the 
 one who stood facing him by words of menace. The in- 
 sulted one replies by an involuntary, but afterward re- 
 strained, gesture, of the significance of which there may 
 have been a misunderstanding, and you admit that the 
 bravo is the injured one, and that he can choose his 
 weapons ? " 
 
 "But, Monsieur," said Hafner, visibly annoyed, so 
 much did the ill-will of the nobleman irritate him 
 and jar against his idea of a practical and easy arrange- 
 ment, " what are you trying to reach ? Do you think 
 you can gain your point by raising up such chicanery 
 as that * " 
 
 " Chicanery ! " cried Montfanon, half rising. 
 
 " Montfanon ! " supplicated Dorsenne, jumping up and 
 trying to force the terrible man into his seat again. 
 
 " I take back the word," said the Baron; " if it offends 
 you. , . . Nothing is further from my thoughts. 
 . . . I repeat that I make you an apology, Monsieur 
 le Marquis. . . . But come, tell us what you desire 
 for your principal; that is very simple. . . . And 
 then we will do our best to make our desires agree with 
 those of our principal. . . . It is just the mere set- 
 tlement of a lump job. . . ." 
 
 " No, Monsieur," said Montfanon, with insolent sever- 
 ity, " it is an act of justice to perform, and that is very
 
 188 OOSMOPOLIS. 
 
 difficult also. "What M. Dorsenne and myself desire is 
 this," he continued, in a harsh voice : " M. le Comte 
 Gorka has insulted M. Chapron. Let me finish," he 
 said, in answer to a simultaneous gesture from Ardea 
 and Hafner. " Yes, gentlemen, he must have insulted 
 him very grievously, for M. Chapron, known to us for 
 his perfect courtesy, to even attempt the little impatient 
 motion of which you spoke a short while ago. Now it has 
 been understood between these two gentlemen, for reas- 
 ons of delicacy which we must accept as they give them 
 to us it has been understood, I say, that the nature of 
 the insult offered by M. Gorka to M. Chapron shall not be 
 divulged. But we have the right, and I add, it is our 
 duty, to measure the gravity of this insult by the excess 
 of anger roused in M. Chapron I conclude, that to be 
 just, the report of conciliation, if we accept it, must con- 
 tain reciprocal concessions. M. le Comte Gorka will 
 declare his words revoked, and M. Chapron will regret 
 his excitement." 
 
 " But that is impossible," cried the Prince ; " Gorka 
 will never accept those conditions." 
 
 " You positively insist upon their fighting ? " gasped 
 Hafner. 
 
 " And why not ? " said Montf anon, exasperated. " That 
 is better than that one should keep his insults and the 
 other his blow from the cane." 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," replied the Baron, as he rose after 
 the silence which followed this imprudent outburst 
 from a man who had lost control of himself, " we will 
 confer anew with our principal. If you wish we will re- 
 sume this conversation again to-morrow, at ten o'clock, 
 if that hour suits you, here or at any other place con- 
 venient to you. You will excuse us, M. le Marquis, 
 Dorsenne has doubtless told you in what particular 
 circumstances 
 
 " Oh ! yes, he has told me," Montfanon interrupted 
 him, looking at the Prince again, and in so sad a man- 
 ner that the latter felt himself blushing under this
 
 THE INCONSISTENCIES OF AN OLD CHOUAN. 189 
 
 strange gaze, but found it impossible to become angry 
 at it. Dorsenne only had time to cut short all explana- 
 tion, by replying himself to Justus Hafner, 
 
 " Will you make this appointment at my house ? That 
 will give less cause for gossip." 
 
 " You did well to change the place," saicLMontfanon 
 five minutes later to his young friend, as he stepped in- 
 to the carriage waiting for them. They had descended 
 the staircase without speaking, so regretful was this 
 brave and unreasonable person, the Marquis, of his 
 strangely provoking attitude of a few moments ago. 
 " What would you have ? " he added " this desecrated 
 palace, the insolent luxury of this robber, this Prince 
 who is willing to sell his family name, this Baron whose 
 past is so shady ; I could contain myself no longer ! This 
 Baron, with his directives f What words to quote from 
 a German to a soldier who fought in '70 M. de Moltke ! 
 And his ' lump job,' these terms of the Bourse applied 
 to honor, and this awful politeness, in which there is 
 both servility and insolence! But I am not pleased 
 with myself, I am not pleased at all ! " 
 
 There was in his voice so much good fellowship, so 
 visible a remorse for not having conquered himself in 
 so grave a circumstance, that Dorsenne pressed his hand 
 instead of reproaching him. 
 
 " Leave it until to-morrow we will re-arrange every- 
 thing. It only stands over until then." 
 
 "You say that to console me," said the Marquis, "but 
 I know that everything will go wrong and it is my 
 fault! Perhaps we may be able to render no other 
 service to our brave Chapron, than to arrange a meet- 
 ing for him under less dangerous circumstances. Ah ! 
 I let my unhappy temper get the best of me at the very 
 worst possible time. But then, again, why did Gorka 
 choose such a second ? It is inconceivable ! Did you 
 notice him, as he pronounced that cabalistic name of 
 gentleman, which means for those rascals : ' Steal, be- 
 tray, assassinate, but have handsomely appointed car-
 
 190 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 riages, an elegant house, well served dinners, and new, 
 elegant clothes ? ' No ! I suffered too much ! Ah ! but 
 that was not right, and on such a day too. God ! how 
 long the old man takes to die ! " 'he added, in so low a 
 voice that his companion did not hear him. 
 
 VII. 
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 
 
 The remorse which Montfanon so naively expressed, 
 once he was himself again, was doomed to become 
 much greater in this honest man's heart. He was 
 right when he said from the very beginning that the 
 affair had a bad look. A quarrel complicated by an 
 act of violence, or an attempt at an act of violence, as 
 he had remarked himself at Florent's first words, was 
 not easily regulated amicably. It called for the most 
 diplomatic treatment. The slightest loss of self-confi- 
 dence on the part of the seconds was equivalent to a 
 catastrophe. As it sometimes happens in similar cir- 
 cumstances, events precipitated themselves, and the 
 pessimistic forebodings of the irritable Marquis were 
 verified almost as soon as spoken. He and Dorsenne 
 had hardly left the Savorelli Palace before Gorka, who 
 had been invited by the Baron to call at ten o'clock, 
 appeared. The vehemence with which he repulsed the 
 proposition of an arrangement which entailed excuses 
 on his part, served for the prudent Hafner and the no 
 less prudent Ardea, as a signal for a definite with- 
 drawal. It was only too evident to these two men 
 that no conciliation could be reached in dealing with 
 a person so headstrong as the most authoritative of 
 Florent's seconds had shown himself to be. They 
 asked Gorka with one accord to release them from 
 their promise. They had so legitimate an excuse in 
 urging the fact of Fanny's betrothal, that Gorka could
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 191 
 
 not refuse to release them. This withdrawal was a 
 second catastrophe/ In his impatience to find new 
 seconds, who would stand by him through thick and 
 thin, Gorka hastened to the Cercle de la Chasse. 
 Chance favored him, and he met two old comrades : 
 Marquis Cibo, a Roman, and Prince Pietrapertosa, a 
 Neapolitan, who were certainly the best he could have 
 chosen to push the matter to its worst consequences. 
 The two young 1 men, belonging- to the highest nobility 
 in Italy, both very intelligent, very loyal, and veiy 
 good, belonged to that particular class which is met 
 with in Vienna, in Madrid, in St. Petersburg, as in 
 Milan and Borne, of foreign clubmen hypnotized by 
 Paris. And such a Paris ! That of the elegant and 
 resounding fete, that which passes the mornings prac- 
 tising the fashionable sport, the afternoons, going to 
 the races, hanging around the fencing halls and the 
 little contraband hotels, the evenings at the thea- 
 tre, the nights in gambling ! That Paris which emi- 
 grates, according to the season, to Monte Carlo for the 
 rook shooting, to Deauville for the race week, to Aix- 
 les-Bains for the baccarat season, which possesses 
 its own manners, its own language, its own chronicles, 
 and even its own cosmopolitanism, for it exercises 
 over certain minds, even across Europe, so despotic a 
 sway that Cibo and his friend Pietrapertosa never 
 looked at a French newspaper which did not belong to 
 the Boulevard. Their first glance was for the columns 
 which related the latest and innermost gossip in the 
 demi-monde, the last supper given by a renowned 
 bon-viveur, the details of the grand balls given in 
 such and such a fashionable circle, the result of a 
 pistol match at Gastinne's, and that of a match between 
 two celebrated swordsmen. It was an endless source 
 of conversation between them to know if the witty 
 Gladys Harvey was more beautiful than Leona d'As- 
 ti, if Machault took his " contres " quicker than those 
 of General Gamier, if Lautrec would or would not
 
 192 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 hold out in the game he was playing. Imprisoned in 
 Borne by the condition of their resources, and also by 
 the will, one of an uncle and the other of a grandfather, 
 whose heirs they were, their whole year was com- 
 prised in the month during the winter which they 
 usually passed in Nice, and the six weeks' trip to 
 Paris about the time of the Grand Prix. Jealous one 
 of the other, they disputed with the most comical 
 rivalry the slightest gossip of the Cercle des Champs- 
 Elysees or the Hue Boyale, during their stay in the 
 Eternal City, and they affected, while in company with 
 their companions of the Chasse, the sublime attitude of 
 oracles when the telegraph brought them the great 
 windfall of a famous Parisian divorce case to dilate 
 upon. This inoffensive mania had made'the fat and 
 red Cibo, and the tall and emaciated Pietrapertosa, two 
 delightful fanatics for Dorsenne to study during his 
 Roman winter, and they were to be, and did become, 
 two terrible mandatories in the service of Gorka's ven- 
 geance. With what joy, and yet how seriously, they 
 accepted this mission, those who have studied swords- 
 men will easily understand after reading this simple 
 sketch, and also with what rigor and correctness, at the 
 moment of nine o'clock the next morning, they pre- 
 sented themselves to confer with the seconds of their 
 principal's adversary ! Briefly, at half -past twelve the 
 meeting was arranged in its most minute details. 
 Montfanon's energy, employed in a discussion lasting 
 through three long hours, had only succeeded in 
 ameliorating a few of the conditions ; four balls were 
 to be exchanged at twenty-four paces at the given 
 command. The duel was arranged to take place the 
 following morning, in an enclosed field attached to a 
 small inn owned by Cibo in the open Boman Cam- 
 pagna, not very far away from Caecilia Metella's. classi- 
 cal tomb. In order to obtain this concession of dis- 
 tance from the city, and the use of new weapons, it had 
 been necessary for the Marquis to mention the still
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 193 
 
 legendary name to the provincial and the stranger, that 
 of Gramont-Oaderousse, to invest him in the eyes of 
 Gorka's two seconds with a prestige which was the 
 means of winning for him these concessions. Sic 
 transit gloria mundi ! As he left this meeting the 
 good man really had tears in his eyes. 
 
 " And it is my fault," he moaned, " it is my fault. 
 We could have made such good terms with Hafner, if 
 we had only met him half-way. And he made the offer 
 himself. . . . Brave Chapron ! I am the one who 
 has put him in all this trouble. I owe it to him not to 
 abandon him and to follow him to the end. And here 
 I am again assisting at a duel, and at my age too ! Did 
 you see how those young snobs changed their tone 
 when I spoke of my encounter with Caderousse ? Fifty- 
 one years and one month old, and I do not know how to 
 behave myself yet! Let us hasten to the Yia Leo- 
 pardi. I wish to ask my poor friend's pardon, do you 
 hear me, and give him some advice. We will take 
 him to an old friend of mine, who has a garden near 
 the Villa Pamphili, quite out of the way. We will 
 spend the rest of the afternoon in making him practise. 
 Ah! cursed anger! Yes, and it was so easy to ac- 
 cept the other one's plan yesterday. With two or 
 three words changed I am sure it would have been 
 acceptable 
 
 "Console yourself, Marquis," replied Florent, when 
 the disconsolate old nobleman had told him of the de- 
 plorable results of his negotiations. " I like it better 
 thus. M. Gorka needed correcting. I have only one re- 
 gret, and that is, that I did not give him a more com- 
 plete one. As I am to fight him, all the same, I should 
 at least have had more for my money." 
 
 " And you have never practised with pistols 1 " Mont- 
 fanon asked him. 
 
 " Bah ! I have hunted a great deal and I consider 
 myself a pretty good shot." 
 
 " There is all the difference between day and night,"
 
 194 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 the Marquis said. " Hold yourself in readiness. Call 
 for me at three o'clock, and I will give you a lesson. And 
 may there be a God for the brave ! " 
 
 Though Florent deserved this praise, from the gayety 
 of which his answer was a proof, the first few moments 
 in which he was alone, after his two seconds left him, 
 were very painful ones. Marechal Ney, who knew what 
 he was talking about, put words of sublime brutality 
 into the mouth of a hero, who, during that famous march 
 on Orcha, uttered but this one complaint, "Nous ne 
 sommes pas bien." I will quote the reply, as it is ap- 
 plicable to human nature at all times ; " Where is the 
 
 J - F who pretends never to have felt fear 1 " 
 
 What Chapron felt during those few moments was but 
 a very legitimate anguish, a weakness which came over 
 him as he caught sight of the clock : " In twenty -four 
 hours the hands will point to the same hour. And I, 
 will I still be alive ? " he said to himself. But his was a 
 manly nature and well able to conquer itself. He strug- 
 gled against this weakness, and in waiting for the time 
 to come, when he was to meet his friends, he resolved to 
 write out his last wishes. For years his intention had 
 been to leave his fortune to his brother-in-law. He 
 wrote his will, in this sense, his hand trembling a little 
 at first, but becoming firmer as he wrote. The will 
 drawn up, he had the courage to write two letters, one 
 addressed to his brother-in-law, the other to his sister. 
 When he had finished these preparations the clock said 
 twenty minutes of three. 
 
 "Still seventeen hours and a half to wait," he said, 
 "but I think I have conquered my nerves. A good 
 brisk walk will settle them entirely." 
 
 He resolved to go on foot to the rendezvous ap- 
 pointed by Montfanon. He had carefully put the three 
 envelopes in his desk and locked the drawer. He as- 
 certained as he went out that Lincoln was not in his 
 studio, then he asked the footman if Mrs. Maitland was 
 home. He was told that she was getting ready to go
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 195 
 
 out, and that her carriage had been ordered for three 
 o'clock. 
 
 " Good," he said, " neither one nor the other has the 
 slightest suspicion. I am safe." 
 
 How astonished he would have been if he could, 
 while his slow and indolent steps took him to the 
 neighborhood of the Capitol, have returned in spirit to 
 the smoking-room which he had just left ! He would 
 have seen a woman glide in noiselessly, by the stealth- 
 ily opened door, with the precautions of a criminal. 
 He would have seen her rummaging, yet still without 
 disarranging them, among the papers scattered over 
 the table. She shook out the blotting pad and then 
 she carried the leaves to the looking-glass and tried to 
 decipher the addresses whose imprints it bore. He 
 would finally have seen this woman take a bunch of 
 keys from her pocket. She fitted one to the very 
 drawer which Florent had just closed so carefully, and 
 took out the three envelopes which he had deposited 
 therein without having sealed them. And this woman, 
 who read thus, with a face contracted with agony, the 
 papers which she had discovered, thanks to a trick, the 
 abominable indelicacy of which attested to shameful 
 habits of spying, was his own sister this Lydia whom 
 he thought so sweet and so simple, and to whom he had 
 written so tender a farewell, in case he should be 
 killed this Lydia, whom he would have been as- 
 tounded thus to have seen, so disfigured by passion was 
 this countenance, which passed for insignificant in its 
 prettiness. She herself, this audacious spy, trembled 
 so violently that she could hardly stand. Her eyes 
 were dilated, her breast palpitated, her teeth chat- 
 tered, so overcome was she by the tenor of what she 
 had learned and of what she was the cause. Was it not 
 she who had written the anonymous letters to Gorka 
 to denounce Mme. Steno's intrigue with Maitland ? 
 Was it not she who had chosen, for the purpose of 
 poisoning those letters, phrases best calculated to
 
 196 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 strike the betrayed lover in the most sensitive part of 
 his self-love ? She who had hastened the jealous one's 
 return, with the certainty of thus bringing a tragic 
 vengeance upon the abhorred heads of her husband 
 and the Venetian ? This vengeance had burst like a 
 thunder-clap in reality. But upon whom ? Upon the 
 only person in all the world whom Lydia loved, up- 
 on this brother, whom she now saw in danger through 
 her fault, and this idea was so terrible to her that she 
 sank into the chair in which Florent had been seated 
 but a quarter of an hour before, repeating in a frenzied 
 voice : 
 
 " He is going to fight ! He is going to fight ; he, in- 
 stead of the other one ! " 
 
 The whole moral history of this stormy and clouded 
 soul expressed itself in this cry, in which impassioned 
 anxiety for a beloved brother was intensified by a fero- 
 cious hatred for her husband. This hatred itself was the 
 outcome of a childhood and youth, without an explana- 
 tion of which so criminal a duplicity in so young a crea- 
 ture would be unintelligible. 
 
 This childhood and youth was in reality a forerunner 
 of what Lydia would one day be. But who was there 
 to at once control this nature, in which the inherited 
 traits of an oppressed race manifested themselves, as 
 we have already remarked, by its two most detestable 
 dispositions hypocrisy and perfidy ? Who remembers, 
 besides, in bringing up children, this truth, as neglected 
 in practice as it is commonplace in theory, that the 
 faults of the tenth year will be the vices of the thir- 
 tieth ? As a very little girl, Lydia invented lies as 
 naturally as her brother always told the truth. The 
 germ of another fault showed itself in her about this 
 time she developed an instinctive, unreasonable, al- 
 most diseased jealousy. She could not see a new toy 
 in Florent's hands without commencing to sulk imme- 
 diately. She could not see her brother caressing their
 
 A FIUST COUSIN TO IAGO. 197 
 
 father, but she must throw herself between them, and 
 she was miserable and unhappy if he played with boys 
 of his own ago and neglected her. If Napoleon Chap- 
 ron had been as much interested in problems of charac- 
 ter as he was in those of selling his cotton and his 
 sugar-cane to the best advantage, he would have en- 
 deavored, frightened at their intensity, to uproot the 
 first signs of so wicked a personality. But, like his 
 son, on this point he was one of those simple men in- 
 capable of judging where they loved. Besides, Lydia 
 and Floreiit represented for the wounded sensibility 
 of this half-pariah the only loving corner, the fresh 
 and young consolation of his widowerhood and mis- 
 anthropy. He loved them with that idolatry which 
 hard workers feel for their children, and which is one of 
 the most dangerous forms of paternal tenderness, when 
 the mother's lucidity is not near to correct its weak- 
 ness. The budding vices developing in Lydia were 
 but childish fancies to the planter. " Does she lie ? " 
 cried the excellent man. " How bright she is ! " " Was 
 she jealous ? " He sighed as he pressed this slight 
 form to his great heart. " How sensitive she is ! " The 
 result of this blind egotism for to love a child thus is 
 to love it for yourself, and not for its good was, that 
 the little girl was already, before her entry at Roehamp- 
 ton, a creature profoundly, intimately spoiled in the 
 most essential parts of her heart. But she was so pret- 
 ty, she owed to the singular mixture of the three bloods 
 in her an originality of grace which was so seductive, 
 that the sharp glance of an instructress endowed with 
 great intelligence would alone have discerned, under 
 this exquisite exterior, the already strongly marked 
 lines of her true character. Such instructresses are 
 rare, and more especially so in convents than elsewhere. 
 There was not at Roehampton, when Lydia entered this 
 pious house, which was to become so fatal to her, for a 
 reason precisely contrary to that which transformed 
 Florent's stay at Beaumont into a paradise of love, the
 
 198 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 same open friendship and good-fellowship among her 
 associates. 
 
 Among the boarders with whom Lydia was to finish 
 her education were four young girls from Philadel- 
 phia, older by two years than the new-comer, and who, 
 like her, had just left America for the first time. They 
 held that unconquerable prejudice against black blood, 
 and that wonderful perspicacity to detect it, even in the 
 most infinitesimal doses, which distinguishes the true 
 Yankee. The little Chapron had been introduced as 
 being French ; they hesitated at first before a suspicion 
 which was quickly changed to a certainty, and this cer- 
 tainty to an "aversion which they took little pains to 
 hide. They would not have been children, had they not 
 been ferocious. They commenced to inflict a thousand 
 petty insults on poor Lydia, without always succeeding 
 in propagating the disdain which they publicly ex- 
 pressed for her. Convents and colleges are but a repro- 
 duction in miniature of human society. There, also, 
 unjust contempt is like the " furet du bois," which runs 
 from hand to hand and always returns to its starting- 
 point. The contemptuous are always despised by some 
 one themselves a merited chastisement which, however, 
 does not correct our pride any more than the other pun- 
 ishments with which life abounds cures our other faults. 
 Lydia's persecutors were themselves the objects of con- 
 tempt for their English sisters, on account of certain 
 peculiarities in their speech and nasal pronunciation. 
 Their animosity to the pretty little French girl was a 
 Godsend to her. This convent drama gave rise, as you 
 can well imagine, to a series of mean episodes, insignifi- 
 cant in reality and of which the superiors gained very 
 little knowledge. Children have passions as vivid as 
 ours, but always cut into by their play and so rapid in 
 their transition that it is impossible to measure their 
 strength exactly, nor to describe them, except by their 
 effects, which are generally in the far future. Lydia's 
 self-love was wounded in an incurable manner by this
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO I AGO. 199 
 
 revelation of her strange origin. Certain incidents of 
 her American life canie back to her, and she understood 
 them better. She recalled her grandmother's portrait, 
 her complexion and hands, and her father's hair, and 
 she conceived that shameful hatred for her birth and 
 her family which is much more frequently to be found 
 in children than we imagine in our optimism, and 
 among the leavens of inner demoralization the worst. 
 Parents of humble origin who give their sons a liberal 
 education are always exposed to it, and social hatreds 
 thus date from the moment in which a boy of twelve 
 blushes to himself at his family's position. With Lydia, 
 so instinctively jealous and lying, these first ulcerations 
 but added to her jealousies and her lies. The superior- 
 ity, were it ever so slight, of one of her companions, 
 became a source of suffering to her, and she undertook to 
 balance by personal triumphs this difference in blood, 
 which, once verified, is a new wound to a sensitive 
 nature. To assure these triumphs for herself, she set 
 herself out to attract everyone with whom she came 
 in contact mistresses and companions and she com- 
 menced to practise this constant comedy of attitudes 
 and sentiments, to which this fatal desire to please 
 leads us so quickly ; this charming and dangerous dis- 
 position, which tends less to goodness than to falseness. 
 Much better inflict on others the harshness of an 
 avowed egotism than to model for yourself, unceas- 
 ingly, a soul resembling their exactions. At eighteen, 
 and submissive in a manner to this constant school of 
 deceit, Lydia was, under a most gracious exterior, a being 
 deeply, though unconsciously perverse, capable of but 
 little affection her only love was given to her brother 
 and a ready prey to the passions of hate, which are a 
 natural harvest for proud, harsh, and false souls. It was 
 one of these passions, the most murderous of all, which 
 marriage had developed in her that of envy. 
 
 This hideous vice, one of those which lead the world, 
 has been so poorly studied by the moralists, as being
 
 2(K) COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 so dishonorable, doubtless, for the heart of man, as to 
 make it appear almost unreasonable. Mme. Maitland 
 had for years been envious of her husband, but envi- 
 ous as one of the artist's rivals might be, envious as 
 one pretty woman is of another, as a banker is of a 
 rival banker, as a politician of his political adversary, 
 with that fierce, implacable envy which wrings our 
 hearts with a physical agony before success, and intoxi- 
 cates us with a sensual joy before disaster. It is a great 
 mistake to limit the ravages of this guilty passion to the 
 domain of professional humiliation. When it is deep, it 
 does not attack the qualities of the person only, it vents 
 itself upon the person also, and it was thus that Lydia 
 envied Lincoln. Perhaps the analysis of this sentiment, 
 which is very subtile in its ugliness, will explain itself 
 sadly to those who will follow the source of some of the 
 antipathies with which they come in contact among 
 their neighbors. For it is not only between man and 
 wife that these unavowed envies are met with, it is be- 
 tween lover and mistress, friend and friend, brother and 
 brother, and sometimes, alas ! between father and son 
 and mother and daughter! Lydia allowed herself to 
 be persuaded into marrying Lincoln Maitland, partly 
 from obedience to her brother's wishes, but more from 
 vanity, because the young man was an American, a na- 
 tive of the United States, which in itself was a species 
 of victory gained over the race prejudice, always in 
 her thoughts, but of which she never spoke. It only 
 took three months of married life to see that Maitland 
 would never forgive himself for this marriage. Al- 
 though he affected to despise his countrymen, and, in 
 fact, he held no ideas in common with a country in 
 which he had not set his foot since his fifth year, 
 he suffered intensely from some comments made in 
 New York on this marriage, rumors of which had 
 reached him. He blamed Lydia for this humiliation 
 and made her feel it. The birth of a child would no 
 doubt have modified this first impression, or at least
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 201 
 
 transformed it, or softened the bitter heart of this 
 young wife. But they had no children. They had 
 hardly returned from their wedding 1 journey, on which 
 Florent had accompanied them, before their life rolled 
 on in this convention of silence, which is the base of 
 badly assorted households ; of all those in which, to use 
 a grand and simple expression of the people, the man 
 and wife lived not heart against heart. During this jour- 
 ney through Spain, which should have beon one contin- 
 uous enchantment, the young wife became jealous of the 
 evident preference which Florent displayed for Maitland 
 over her. For the first time she seemed to become con- 
 scious of the passionate love which filled her brother's 
 heart. He loved her also, but she was second. This 
 comparison was a daily, hourly pricking, which soon 
 became a real wound. Returning to Paris, where they 
 spent three months, this wound became greater, from the 
 fact that the powerful individuality of the painter im- 
 mediately threw his wife's individuality into the shade, 
 simply, almost mechanically, as a great tree which grows 
 beside a little one steals the sun and air from the latter. 
 The composite society of amateurs, artists, and writers 
 who came to Lincoln's house only came for him. The 
 house which they rented was arranged but for him. The 
 few changes which were made were made but for him. 
 Briefly, Lydia, like Florent, was carried away in the 
 orbit of the most despotic force in the world, tha; of a 
 celebrated talent. ' A whole book would be needed, to 
 paint in their daily truth the continuous humiliations 
 Avhich led the young wife to hate this talent and this 
 celebrity with as much ardor as Florent adored them. 
 She remained, however, an honest woman, in the sense 
 in which this term is looked upon in the world, which 
 makes all dishonor consist in crimes of love. She lived 
 in a condition of suppressed hysterics, as the most part 
 of natural-born comedians do, and in consequence, 
 unchanging coldness. In fact, she allowed the instincts 
 of a very dishonest person to develop more and more in
 
 202 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 her. She ended by hating- Lincoln with an aversion 
 which passed from physical animality to things of in- 
 telligence, passing through the most vulgar details of 
 their daily life. She detested that pure white blood 
 which made this tall, robust young fellow so admirable 
 a type of Anglo-Saxon beauty, beside herself, so thin, 
 as though dried up, notwithstanding the beauty of her 
 pretty brunette face. She detested him for his taste, 
 for this natural elegance, which knew how to decorate 
 the places they lived in, while she had in her an 
 instinct and awkwardness that was almost barbarous 
 for the least arrangement of stuffs and colors. When 
 she learned of the progress which the painter was mak- 
 ing the news was like gall to her. When he com- 
 plained of his work and she saw him a prey to those 
 dreadful doubts which overcome artists who lose con- 
 fidence in themselves, she experienced a profound joy, 
 which was only dashed by the evidence of the sadness 
 into which these struggles of Lincoln's threw Florent. 
 She never saw Chapron's eyes fixed upon Maitland, with 
 that look of a faithful dog who exults in the gayety of 
 his master, or who suffers from his sadness, without 
 feeling, as Alba Steno did, that " needle in the heart." 
 This idolatrous love which her brother offered to the 
 painter made her suffer more from the fact that she 
 understood with the infallible perspicacity of anti- 
 pathy how much he was duped. She read the hearts of 
 the two Beaumont playfellows as ah open book. She 
 knew that in this friendship, as it always happens, one 
 gave up everything, to receive in exchange but the most 
 brutal of acknowledgments, that which a hunter gives 
 to a faithful dog. As to enlightening Florent on Lin- 
 coln's character, she had vainly tried to do so by those 
 delicate and perfidious insinuations in which women 
 excel. All she had succeeded in doing was to recognize 
 her impotence, and thousands of hateful impressions 
 had thus accumulated in her heart, to be brought forth 
 in one of those frenzies of taciturn rage which burst
 
 A FIUST COUSIN TO IAGO. 203 
 
 forth on the first occasion, with a frightful energy, 
 against no matter whom. Our ignorance then utters 
 words of inconsistency, aberration, or monstrosity. There 
 is no more absolute monster in the moral nature than 
 in the physical. Crime has its own laws of develop- 
 ment. Between the pretty little girl, who wept on see- 
 ing a new toy in her brother's hands, and the Lydia 
 Maitland, breaker of locks, sender of anonymous letters, 
 inflamed with vengeance to the point of rascality, no 
 dramatic revolution of character had been enacted. The 
 logical passing of days had been sufficient. 
 
 The occasion to satisfy this deep and mortal envy, 
 in striking Lincoln in some really vulnerable spot, 
 had been vainly sought by Lydia before Mine. Steno 
 became enamoured with the painter. She had been re- 
 duced to those petty animosities belonging to women, 
 to so manage as though through thoughtlessness that 
 her husband should read all the disagreeable articles 
 written on his pictures, praising, as though ingenuously, 
 all his rivals who put him any way in the shade, repeat- 
 ing to him with a blundering air the smallest adverse 
 criticisms on one of his exhibitions all these miseries 
 irritated Florent more than Maitland, for he was one of 
 those art workmen too engrossed in his art for the judg- 
 ment of others to affect him very much. Besides, before 
 this thunderbolt of passion with which he had been 
 struck for the Dogaressa he had never loved. A great 
 many painters are like this, satisfying with magnificent 
 models an impetuosity of temperament which never sets 
 their hearts throbbing. Accustomed to look at the hu- 
 man body under a particular angle, they find in a beauty 
 which seems simply animal to us, the principles of a 
 plastic emotion which often satisfies their amorous ne- 
 cessities. They are in consequence more deeply touched 
 when to this somewhat gross intoxication is joined, in 
 the woman who inspires it, the refining graces of 
 mind, the pretty delicacies of elegance, and the subtili- 
 ties of sentiment, This was the case with Mme. Steno
 
 204 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 who at once inspired the painter with a passion as com- 
 plete as that of a first young love. It was really one. The 
 Countess, who had the genius of the voluptuary, was not 
 mistaken about it. Lydia herself, who had the genius 
 of hatred, was not mistaken either. She knew what the 
 end would be from the very first day, in the first place, 
 because she was as observant as dissimulating, and then, 
 thanks to the employment of means less hypothetical 
 than divination. She had always made use of these 
 ways of miserable searches which are natural, dare we 
 say it, to nine women out of ten. And how many men 
 are women also on this point, as the fable writer says ? 
 At the boarding-school Lydia was one of those little 
 girls who stole up into the dormitory, or who entered the 
 study-hall to ransack the drawers and open trunks of 
 their companions. When grown, a sealed letter never 
 passed through her hands that she did not try to read 
 through the envelope, or at least to guess by the stamp, 
 the seal, the writing, the address, who was the author. 
 This instinctive curiosity was so great that she could not 
 help herself looking over the shoulders of those who 
 stood in front of her at a telegraph window to try and 
 read the contents of their despatches. She never made 
 her toilette that she did not question her maid minutely 
 upon what was going on in the office or the ante-room. 
 It was through this means that she learned of the alter- 
 cation between Florent and Gorka in the vestibule, 
 which proves, between you and me, that this manner of 
 spying, by means of our servants, is oftentimes effica- 
 cious. But it betrays, in a character, a natural baseness 
 which would recoil in a crisis before no villany. When 
 Lydia Maitland suspected the liaison between Mme. 
 Steno and her husband, she no more hesitated to open 
 the latter's secretary than later she hesitated to open 
 that of her brother. The correspondence she read by 
 this means was of a nature to exasperate her desire for 
 vengeance to a perfect fury. For not only did she ac- 
 quire the evidence of a shared happiness which humili-
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 
 
 ated her the sterile woman in everything, a stranger to 
 voluptuousness as to maternity, but she gathered a 
 multiplicity of proofs that the Countess entertained for 
 her all the contempt for her race as absolute as though 
 Venice had been a city in the United States. This city 
 at the head of the Adriatic abounds in race prejudices, 
 as do all sea-coast cities which have served as a conflu- 
 ence for the mingling of too many races. To be con- 
 vinced one need only hear a Venetian speak of the 
 Slavs of Cziavoni and the Levantines of Gregugni. 
 
 Mme. Steno, in the letters which she wrote as she 
 talked, without the least surveillance over her pen, with 
 all the endearments and all the liberties of passion, never 
 called Lydia anything but the Morettina, and by a very 
 natural illogicalness the name of the brother of this 
 Morettina was never mentioned except by an endearing 
 term. For the mistress to treat Florent in this manner, 
 it must be seen that she apprehended no hostility on 
 the part of the brother-in-law of her lover. Lydia un- 
 derstood this perfectly, and what a new sign this was of 
 the sentiments Florent bore to Lincoln. Once more he 
 gave precedence to the friend over the sister, and on 
 what an occasion ! Thus the most secret wounds of her 
 innermost being bled while reading the letter. Alba's 
 portrait, which promised to be a cfief-d'ceuvre, ended 
 by precipitating an abominably ferocious action. She 
 made up her mind to denounce Mme. Steno's new love 
 affair to the betrayed lover, and had written the twelve 
 letters craftily calculated and graduated which had in 
 effect determined Gorka's return. This return had been 
 delayed too long to the taste of this first cousin of lago, 
 and she had decided to cut Mme. Steno, through Alba, 
 by a more criminal denunciation. By what name can 
 be branded this anonymous letter, which was sent to a 
 daughter to reveal to her a beloved mother's doub'e in- 
 trigue. But Lydia was in one of her spells of exasper- 
 ated wickedness, in which the vilest weapons appeared 
 the best, and she enveloped the innocent Alba in her ha-
 
 206 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 tred for Maitland, on account of the portrait. Ah ! what 
 bitter pleasure the simultaneous success of this double 
 infamy had procured for her ! What savage joy, inter- 
 mingled with bitterness and ecstasy which is the satis- 
 faction of our mortal bitterness, had been hers the day 
 before in thinking of Alba's enervation and Boleslas's 
 unrestrained anger ! In her imagination she had seen 
 Maitland provoked by this rival, whom she knew to be an 
 expert in all sports, and equally skilful with the sword 
 as with the pistol. She would not be the little grand- 
 daughter of a Louisiana slave did she not have combined 
 with the natural energy of her hatreds a considerable dose 
 of superstition. A fortune-teller had told her once, by 
 the lines of her hand, that she would cause the violent 
 death of some one. " It will be he," she had thought, 
 looking at her husband with a horrible shiver of hope. 
 And now she held the proof the indisputable proof 
 that this work of vengeance ended in danger to another, 
 and to what other ! These letters and Florent's will 
 showed her the fatal menace of a duel hanging over the 
 head which was dearest to her in all the world. This was 
 how she had led into a tragic meeting the only being 
 whom she had ever loved ! The deception of this heart, 
 in which palpitated the fierce energies of a bestial atav- 
 ism, was so sudden, so vivid, so doleful, that she gave 
 vent to inarticulate cries, her elbows resting on her 
 brother's desk, those revealing sheets spread out before 
 her, and she repeated over and over again : 
 
 "He is going to fight! Oh! And I am the cause 
 of it ! " Then putting the letters and the will into the 
 drawer, she closed it, and rising, said in a loud voice : 
 " No. That shall not be. I will prevent it, even if I 
 must go and throw myself between them. I will not 
 have it ! I will not have it ! " 
 
 It was easy to speak these words. Putting them into 
 execution was more difficult. Lydia felt this to be so, 
 for she had no sooner uttered them than she wrung her 
 hands in despair these frail hands which Mme. Steno
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 207 
 
 had compared in one of her notes to a monkey's hands, 
 so supple were the fingers, as if disjointed, and a little 
 too long and she cast this despairing appeal to the 
 impossible, this " But how ? " which so many criminals 
 have uttered before the unexpected and fatal issue for 
 them of their most exact calculations. The poet has 
 said in verses which tell the story of our lightest and 
 gravest faults : 
 
 "The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices 
 Make instruments to plague us. . . ." 
 
 This belief in the equity of an incomprehensible 
 judge must be well anchored in us, for the strongest 
 souls are struck with a sinister apprehension when they 
 are obliged to brave the chance of a well-merited punish- 
 ment. The remembrance of the fortune-teller's predic- 
 tion presented itself all at once to Lydia. She uttered 
 another cry, as she struck her hands together, with the 
 gesture of a somnambulist. This time she saw her 
 brother's blood. " No ! This duel must not take place ! 
 But how to prevent it ? How ? How ? " she repeated. 
 Florent was not there. She could not then implore of 
 him to give it up. When he came back would there 
 still be time ? Lincoln was not at home. Where was 
 he to be found ? Perhaps keeping an appointment 
 with Mme. Steno. The picture of this adorable creature 
 of love, swooning in the painter's arms, overcome, lost 
 in the intoxication which her letters so openly de- 
 scribed, presented itself to the envious woman's mind. 
 What irony to see them thus, as in a flash, those two 
 lovers whom she had wished to crush, with the ecstasy 
 of felicity in their eyes ! Lydia yearned to tear out 
 their eyes, his as well as hers, and crush the globes un- 
 der her heels. A new flush of hatred tortured her heart. 
 God ! How she hated them both, and how helpless her 
 hatred was ! But she would find her time once more. 
 Another duty pressed now: to prevent the meeting 
 of the next day and to save her brother. To whom
 
 208 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 should she turn ? To Dorsenne ? To Montfanon * To 
 Baron Hafner ? To Peppino Ardea ? She thought of 
 all four of them, whose almost simultaneous visits led 
 her to believe that they were the two champions' seconds. 
 She rejected them, one after another, understanding 
 intuitively that none of them possessed sufficient au- 
 thority to arrange this affair. Her thoughts finally 
 fixed themselves upon Florent's adversary, upon Boles- 
 las Gorka, whose wife was her friend, and whom she 
 had always found so courteous. If she went to him and 
 begged him to spare her brother ? It was not Florent 
 whom the dismissed lover wanted. Would he not let 
 himself be touched by her tears ? Would he not tell 
 her what had been the motive of the quarrel and what 
 steps she should ask her brother to take, so that this 
 quarrel should be appeased ? If the worst came to the 
 worst, might she not obtain from him a promise to dis- 
 charge his pistol in the air, if the duel was to be fought 
 with pistols, or if it was to be with swords, to simply 
 disarm his enemy ? In this she was like the rest of peo- 
 ple who were ignorant of all the rules of duelling ; she 
 only remembered what she had heard of skilled swords- 
 men, of marksmen who never missed their aim, and she 
 had, like the rest of her sex, the profoundly, absolutely 
 false ideas on the relations of one man to another when 
 it was a question of an insult. But how can women 
 be expected to admit this inflexible rigor in certain 
 cases, which is the basis of manly relations, when they 
 themselves never meet with a similar rigor, neither in 
 their discussions with men nor in their discussions 
 among themselves ? Accustomed always to call the help 
 of conventionality to instinct, and reason to sentiment, 
 they are face to face with the different codes, whether 
 they be that of justice or that of honor, in a condition of 
 incomprehension which is worse than ignorance. A 
 duel, for example, seems to them like an arbitrary drama, 
 which can be changed according to the will of one of 
 the combatants. There is probably no phrase so excep-
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO I AGO. 209 
 
 tional in the theatrical vocabulary than the famous 
 " A present, va te battre ! " of Angier's heroine. Before 
 such a prospect one woman in a hundred would per- 
 haps utter this phrase, with the vain hope of not being 
 listened to. The ninety-nine others would have the 
 same ideas which Lydia Maitland had, that of run- 
 ning to the adversary of their loved one and implor- 
 ing him to spare his life. But let us quickly add that 
 the majority of them would never put this step into 
 execution. They would merely hide a blessed medal 
 in their beloved one's vest, whilst their tears would flow 
 copiously, recommending him to the care of providence, 
 which for them is the favoritism of Heaven. Lydia felt 
 that if Florent ever learned of this step, of her idea of 
 going to Gorka, that he would be wild with indignation. 
 But who would tell him of it ? She was seized by one 
 of those fevers of fright and remorse which are too 
 sharp not to make us act, cost what it might. Her car- 
 riage had just been announced, and as the footman 
 closed the door, she gave him the Palazzeto Doria, 
 Gorka's address. In what terms should she approach 
 this man, to whom she was about to make this auda- 
 cious and foolish visit ? Ah ! What mattered it ! 
 Circumstances would inspire her. Her will to cut this 
 duel short was so strong that she had no doubt about 
 her success. It was a severe blow to her when the 
 liveried servant told her that the Count had gone out, 
 whilst at the same moment a voice hailed her with a gay 
 laugh. It was Countess Maud Gorka, who, returning 
 from a walk with her little son, recognized Lydia's 
 coupe, and said to her : 
 
 " What a good idea of mine it was to return a little 
 sooner than I had intended ! I see you feared the 
 storm, as we did, so you have come out in a closed car- 
 riage. You will come in for a moment 1 " And perceiv- 
 ing that the young woman, whose hand she had taken, 
 was trembling violently, she continued : " But what is 
 the matter with you ? You seem to be suffering. Do
 
 210 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 you not feel well ? Heavens ! What is the matter with 
 you ? She is ill. . . Luke," added she, addressing her 
 son, " run to my room and bring me down that large 
 bottle of English salts. Hose knows what I mean. 
 Quickly. Go quickly ! " 
 
 " It is nothing," replied Lydia, who had closed her 
 eyes, as if about to faint. " See, I am better al- 
 ready. ... I think I will return home ; it would be 
 wiser." 
 
 " I will not leave you," said Maud, taking a seat in 
 the carriage, and as they handed her the bottle of 
 salts, she made Lydia inhale it, talking to her all the 
 time, as you would to a sick child : " Poor little one. 
 How your cheeks are burning ! And you were going to 
 make visits in such a condition. . . . That was very 
 foolish ! . . . Via Leopardi," she said to the coach- 
 man, and " quickly ! " 
 
 The carriage started and Mme. Gorka continued to 
 stroke Lydia's hands, to whom she gave the loving 
 name of : '' Poor little one ! " such an irony under 
 the circumstances. Maud was one of those women 
 whom England produces so often (to the honor of that 
 healthy and highly cultivated Britain), who are at once 
 all energy and goodness. As large and robust as Lydia 
 was delicate and almost sickly, she would have carried 
 her in her vigorous arms to her own bed, rather than 
 have abandoned her in the troubled condition in which 
 she found her. No less practical, and, as her country- 
 women say, as matter-of-fact as she was charitable, she 
 commenced to question her patient on the symptoms 
 which had preceded the crisis, when all at once she 
 saw with surprise the changed face contract, tears gush 
 from the eyes, which but a moment ago were closed, and 
 the fragile body convulsed with sobs. Lydia had a real 
 hysterical attack, brought about by the anxiety, the dis- 
 appointment which Boleslas's absence caused her, and 
 no doubt also by the kindness with which Maud had
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 211 
 
 spoken to her. Tearing her handkerchief with her 
 teeth, she gasped forth : 
 
 " No, I ain not ill. . . . But I cannot stand this 
 trouble. . . . No, I cannot. . . . Ah ! I am going 
 crazy ! . . ." And turning to her companion, she 
 pressed her hand in her turn and said to her : " But 
 you know nothing ? You have suspected nothing ? 
 . . . This is what startles me, when I see you tran- 
 quil, calm, happy, as if the minutes did not count triple 
 and quadruple, to-day, for you as for me. . . . For in 
 fact, if one is my brother, the other is your husband. 
 . . . And you love him. You must indeed love him, to 
 have forgiven him what you have. . . ." 
 
 She had spoken in a sort of intoxication, carried 
 away by the overexcited condition of her nerves; and 
 she had spoken, she so usually dissimulating, the very 
 depth of her thoughts. She never dreamt she was tell- 
 ing Mme. Oorka anything new, in this direct allusion 
 to Boleslas's liaison with Mme. Steno. She was per- 
 suaded, as in fact all Rome had been, that Maud knew 
 all about her husband's infidelities, and that she was 
 sustained by one of those heroic sacrifices, justified by 
 maternity. How many women immolate their wifely 
 pride to maintain a hearthstone, when the father would 
 at least not desert it officially ! All Rome was mistaken, 
 and Lydia Maitland was to experience an altogether 
 unexpected surprise. The slightest suspicion that such 
 an intrigue could unite her husband and the mother of 
 her best friend, had never entered the thoughts of 
 Boleslas's wife. But to understand all this better we 
 should admit, and understand also, the depth of inno- 
 cence which this beautiful and healthy English woman, 
 with her candid clear eyes, had retained, notwithstand- 
 ing her six and twenty years of life. She was one of 
 those very honest people who command respect from 
 men, and before whom the most dissolute women would 
 be most careful of their conduct. She had never re- 
 ceived those confidences which, by analogy, light up
 
 212 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 the ill-couditioned backgrounds of so many, otherwise 
 correct lives. She had been able to live in Mme. 
 Steuo's very liberal surroundings without losing the 
 flower of illusion, an anomaly which was greatly due to 
 the special nature of her intelligence. She had no 
 taste but for acquaintances and conversations of perfect 
 propriety. She was very well-educated, but totally 
 devoid of curiosity about other characters. Dorseune 
 had said of her, more justly than he thought: "Mme. 
 Gorka has married a man to whom she has never been 
 introduced ! " meaning by that, that contrary to cur- 
 rent opinion, she had no idea of the character of her 
 husband in the first place, and, consequently, of the 
 treachery of which she was the victim. The novelist, 
 however, was not altogether correct. Boleslas's insin- 
 cerity was too constant for a creature so passionately, 
 so religiously loyal, as was his wife, not to suffer. But 
 there is a great gulf between such sufferings and the in- 
 tuition of a determined fact such as Lydia had called 
 forth, and such a suspicion was so far from Maud's 
 mind, that her companion's phrases awakened in her 
 but the startled astonishment before a mysterious 
 danger, of which Lydia's anguish was a more eloquent 
 proof than her words. 
 
 " Your brother ? My husband ? " said she. " I do 
 not understand you ! " 
 
 " Naturally," replied Lydia. " He lias hidden it from 
 you, as Florent has hidden everything from me. Well ! 
 They are going to fight a duel with each other, and to- 
 morrow morning. . . . Do not tremble," she contin- 
 ued as she clasped Maud Gorka in her arms. " We will 
 be two, to prevent this horrible thing, and we will pre- 
 vent it." 
 
 " A duel ! To-morrow morning ? " repeated Maud, in 
 a startled voice ; " Boleslas fight a duel, to-morrow, with 
 your brother ? No ; that is impossible. Who told you 
 so ? How do you know it ? " 
 
 " I have seen the proof with my eyes," replied Lydia.
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 213 
 
 "I have read Florent's will. I have read the letters 
 which he has prepared for Maitland and for me, in case 
 of a fatal issue. But would I be in the condition in 
 which you see me, if it were not true ? " 
 
 " Oh ! I believe you," cried Maud, pressing her fin- 
 gers against her eyelids, as though to check, to shut 
 out a sinister vision. " But where did they see each 
 other ? Boleslas has been here hardly two days. What 
 is there between them ? What did they say to each 
 other ? A man does not risk his life, however, for noth- 
 ing, when he has, as Boleslas has, a wife and a son? 
 . . . Answer me, I beg of you. Tell me all. I want 
 to know all. What is at the bottom of this duel ? " 
 
 " And what would you have, if it was not that 
 woman ? " cried Lydia, who put as much savage con- 
 tempt in these last words, as if she had publicly 
 slapped Caterina Steno's face. But this new access of 
 anger fell before the surprise which her reply caused 
 Mme. Gorka. 
 
 "What woman? I understand you less now than I 
 did before." 
 
 " When we are home, I will talk to you," replied 
 Lydia, who had gazed at the other with a look of such 
 stupefaction, that it was the most terrible commentary 
 on the one who felt herself thus looked at. The reply 
 was justified by the fact that the coupe was then turn- 
 ing into the Yia Leopardi. The two women were 
 silent. Maud, now herself, stood in need of a friendly 
 interest, so upset was she by Lydia's words. This com- 
 panion, whose arm touched hers by the rapid motion of 
 the carriage, and for whom she had felt such pity but a 
 quarter of an hour before, now inspired her with fear. 
 She seemed to be an altogether different person. In 
 this creature, whose thin nostrils were palpitating with 
 passion, whose mouth was pinched into a bitter sneer, 
 whose eyes sparkled with anger she no longer recog- 
 nized the petite Mme. Maitland, so taciturn, so re- 
 served that she passed for insignificant. What was
 
 214 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 this usually musical voice, so harsh for the past few mo- 
 ments, and which had already revealed the great danger 
 which hung over Boleslas, about to tell her now ! 
 Lydia herself commenced to understand the awful sor- 
 row into which she had thrown Maud, without the 
 slightest premeditation, and with the most absolute 
 unconsciousness. For one moment, it seemed to her, 
 that to say anything more to a woman so evidently 
 blinded, would be a new crime. But she saw, at the 
 same time, in a complete revelation, two results. In 
 disillusioning Mme. Gorka, she would make a mortal 
 enemy for Mme. Steno, and on the other hand, a woman 
 so deeply enamoured of her husband would never allow 
 him to fight for an old mistress. Thus, when they both 
 entered the little salon of the Moorish hotel, her reso- 
 lution was taken. She had decided to hide nothing of 
 what she knew from the unhappy Maud, who, turning 
 to her, asked her, with a beating heart and a voice 
 choked with emotion : 
 
 " And now will you explain to me what you wished 
 to tell me ? . . . 
 
 " Question me," said the other. " I will reply to you. 
 I have gone too far to hold back." 
 
 " You have pretended that a woman is the cause of 
 this duel between your brother and my husband." 
 
 " I am sure of it," replied Lydia. 
 
 " And this woman what is her name ? " 
 
 " Mme. Steno," said Lydia. 
 
 "Mme. Steno?" repeated Maud. "Catherine Steno 
 is the cause of this duel ? And how ? " 
 
 " Because she is my husband's mistress," replied 
 Lydia, brutally, " as she has been the mistress of yours, 
 and because Gorka came here, mad with jealousy, to 
 provoke Lincoln, and that he quarrelled with my 
 brother, who prevented him from entering. They quar- 
 relled, I do not know for what cause. But I do know that 
 here is the motive for the duel. Am I right yes or no 
 in telling you that they are fighting for this woman ? "
 
 A FIRST COUSIN TO IAGO. 215 
 
 " My husband's mistress ? . . ." cried Maud. 
 " Yon say that Mme. Steno has been my husband's mis- 
 tress ? . . . No, it is not true. You lie ! You lie ! 
 You lie ! I do not believe you ! " 
 
 " You do not believe me ? " said Lydia, shrugging her 
 shoulders. " As though I had the slightest interest in 
 deceiving you ; as though one would lie when it is a 
 question of the life of the only being whom one loves 
 upon earth ! I have only my brother, and to-morrow, 
 perhaps, I will not have him any longer. . . . But 
 you do believe me. I want us to be two in hating 
 this jade, two in revenging ourselves upon her, as we 
 are two in not wishing this duel to take place, of which 
 I repeat to you, she is the cause and the only cause. 
 . . . You do not believe me ? And do you know who 
 brought your husband back ? For you did not expect 
 him confess it ? ... It was I, do you hear me ? 
 It was I, in writing to him, what the Steno and Lincoln 
 did day by day, of their love, and their appointments 
 and their happiness. . . . Ah ! I was certain that I 
 was not flinging my words into empty space, and he 
 came back. He has crossed Europe to revenge himself. 
 . . . Is this a proof ? " 
 
 " You did not do that ? " cried Mme. Gorka, recoiling 
 in horror. " That is too great an infamy." 
 
 " Yes, I did that," replied Lydia, with a fierce pride, 
 " and why not ? It was my right, when she came and 
 took my husband from me. All you have to do, is to go 
 home and look through the place where Gorka keeps his 
 letters. You will find many there of this woman's. 
 For the fool has a mania for writing. . . . Will you 
 believe me, then, or will you tell me again that I lie ? " 
 
 " Never," said Maud, with a sorrowful indignation 
 overspreading her loyal face ; " no, never will I stoop to 
 such baseness." 
 
 " Well, then, I will stoop to it for you," cried Lydia. 
 " What you dare not do, I will dare, and you will yet ask 
 me to assist you in revenging yourself. Come . . ."
 
 216 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 and taking the other's hand, who, too stupefied to resist, 
 allowed herself to be dragged into Lincoln's studio, 
 which was empty at that moment, she approached one 
 of those pieces of furniture in Spanish style, with Ara- 
 bian coloring, which are called " bargenos," and she let 
 down the purple and gold leaf, then, touching a secret 
 spring, she disclosed a hidden drawer in which was 
 found a package of letters, which she seized upon. Maud 
 Gorka gazed at her performing this work of Judas, with 
 the same startled horror with which she would have 
 watched anyone committing murder or stealing. Every 
 feeling in this upright soul revolted against this scene, 
 in which she felt that her presence alone made her 
 half an accomplice. But at the same time she was the 
 prey, as her husband had been a few days before, of that 
 frantic desire to know the truth, which becomes, in cer- 
 tain keen crises of doubt, a physical need, like a ciy 
 of our sentimental nature, as injurious as hunger or 
 thirst, and she listened to Florent's terrible sister speak- 
 ing: 
 
 " Would it be a proof for you to see something writ- 
 ten by her own hand?" "Yes," she continued with 
 cruel irony. " She loves to write, does our happy rival. 
 We must do her the justice to say that she is not spar- 
 ing of her vows, in her letters. She writes as she feels. 
 . . . It seems that the successor was jealous of the 
 predecessor. . . . Come, is this proof enough 
 this time ? " And after having turned over the letters 
 like a person accustomed to such correspondence, she 
 held out one of the papers to Maud, who had not the 
 courage to take her eyes from it. What she saw written 
 on that page drew a cry of agony from her. She had 
 only read ten lines, however, which proved how wrong 
 Dorsenne, psychologist as he was, had been in believ- 
 ing that Maitland was ignorant of his mistress's former 
 relations with Gorka. The Countess Steno's greatness, 
 and what made her a courageous woman, in her passions, 
 to the verge of heroism, was an absolute sincerity and
 
 A FIItST COUSIN TO IAGO. 217 
 
 a disgust for the usual pettiness of gallantry. She 
 would have disdained to dispute, step after step, lie after 
 lie, with a new lover, the knowledge of her past, and the 
 half avowals, so usual to the feminine race, would have 
 seemed to her more cowardly still. She had not tried 
 to hide from Maitland, what liaison she was breaking 
 for him, and it was one of these sentences in which she 
 spoke openly of it, which had fallen under Mme. Gorka's 
 eyes: "Thou shouldst be content with me," she had 
 written, " and I will no longer see in thy dear blue eyes, 
 which I have so often kissed, as I love them, in our 
 own fashion, that defiant light, by which thou hast 
 pained me. I have even ceased to correspond with 
 G. . . . If thou dost still insist, I will go so far as to 
 quarrel with Maud, notwithstanding the reason, which 
 thou knowest, and which will render it difficult for me 
 to do so. But why should thou still be jealous ? . . . 
 My breaking this liaison, is it not indeed the surest 
 guarantee that it is indeed ended ? Come, thou must 
 not be jealous. Wilt thou never learn, what I now know 
 so well, that I thought I knew how to love, but that my 
 life only commenced the day in which thou didst take 
 me in thine arms. The woman thou hast awakened in 
 me, no other man has ever known." 
 
 " She writes well, does she not ? " asked Lydia, with 
 the sparkle of a savage triumph in her eyes. " Will you 
 believe me now ? Do you understand that we have but 
 one interest in common to-day? A common insult to 
 avenge ? And we will avenge it. Do you understand, 
 also, that you cannot allow your husband to fight with 
 my brother ? You owe this to me, as I have given you 
 the weapon to hold over him. Threaten him with a di- 
 vorce. Fortune favors you. They will let you keep the 
 child. I repeat that you have him completely in your 
 power. But you will prevent the duel, you will promise 
 me. . . ." 
 
 " Ah ! what difference does it make to me now, whether 
 they fight or not ? " said Maud. " Since he has betrayed
 
 218 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 me for so long a time, am I not already a widow * Do 
 not come near me," she added, looking at Lydia with 
 haggard eyes and a shiver of repulsion stealing over 
 her. " Do not talk to me any more. I have as much 
 horror for you as for him. . . . Let me go, let me 
 get away from here. . . . Only to feel myself in 
 the same room with you makes me ill. Ah ! What 
 a shame ! " 
 
 She had moved toward the door, fixing upon the de- 
 nouncer glances which the other met, notwithstanding 
 the contempt which shone forth from them, with a look 
 of defiant pride. She went out, still repeating : " Ah ! 
 What a shame ! " Lydia not saying a word to her, in fact, 
 the surprise at an ending so contrary to her expectations 
 had completely paralyzed her. But the redoubtable 
 creature did not permit herself to be overcome by re- 
 grets nor repentance. She stood still a few moments 
 thinking. Then, twisting in her nervous hands the letter 
 which she had shown to Maud, at the risk of being de- 
 nounced herself later by this crumpled paper, she said 
 aloud : 
 
 "Coward! God, what a coward she is! She loves 
 him. She will pardon him. There will be no one then 
 to aid me ! No one to strike them in their insolent hap- 
 piness ! " And after a few moments of meditation, with 
 a face still more contracted, she threw the letters back 
 into the drawer, which she closed again, and half an 
 hour later she called for a messenger, to whom she gave 
 a letter, with orders to deliver it immediately, and this 
 letter was addressed to the Police Inspector of the Dis- 
 trict. She warned him of the next day's duel, giving 
 him the names of the two principals and the four 
 seconds. This time she would have signed her own 
 name, had she not been afraid of her brother. 
 
 "I should have commenced by doing that at first," 
 she said, when the door of her little salon was closed 
 behind her messenger, to whom she had delivered her 
 message personally. " The gendarmes will know how to
 
 THE DUEL. 210 
 
 prevent this duel, if my intercession with Florent should 
 prove fruitless. As to him V " and she glanced at a por- 
 trait of Maitland, standing- on the desk, at which she 
 had just written. "If I tell him what has just hap- 
 pened. . . . No, I will ask him nothing. I hate him 
 too much." As she concluded, a ferocious smile dis- 
 closed her teeth in the corners of her thin mouth, an 
 hereditary anomaly which would have alone bespoken 
 her black blood. " It makes no difference. Maud Gorka 
 must work with me, in spite of herself. There is always 
 one whom she will never pardon, and that is the Steno." 
 And notwithstanding her frightful uneasiness, this cruel 
 soul felt herself tremble with joy at the remembrance 
 of her work. 
 
 vni. 
 
 THE DUEL. 
 
 When Maud Gorka left the hotel of the Via Leopardi, 
 she walked at first straight before her, rapidly, blindly, 
 seeing and hearing nothing, like the animal wounded in 
 its lair, that rushes through the thicket to flee from dan- 
 ger, to flee from its wound, to flee from itself. Certain 
 shocks of mental pain are similar in their immediate ef- 
 fect to those shocks of animal pain. It is in either case 
 the spring of life itself touched to its quick which 
 quivers with an almost frenzied spasm. It was a little 
 after half-past three when the wretched woman escaped 
 from the studio, unable to endure the presence of Lydia 
 Maitland, of that sinister messenger of vengeance who 
 had just revealed so cruelly, with such indisputable 
 proofs, the atrocious fact, the long, the infamous, the 
 inexpiable treachery. It was almost six when she really 
 returned to self-consciousness. A very ordinary sensa- 
 tion awaked her from this somnambulism of suffering in 
 which, for two hours, she had walked. The storm, 
 which had been threatening since noonday, suddenly
 
 220 COSMOPOLTS. 
 
 burst. Maud, who had hardly perceived the first 
 heavy drops, was forced to seek shelter, when the 
 clouds broke suddenly in a water spout, and she found 
 that she had taken refuge in the right extremity of the 
 colonnade of Saint Peter. How had she reached there ? 
 . . . She did not herself exactly know. She remem- 
 bered in a vague way that she had wandered in a net- 
 work of narrow streets, crossed the Tiber doubtless by 
 the Garibaldi Bridge passed through a vast garden, 
 probably the Janiculum, then that she had skirted a 
 portion of the ramparts. She must have gone out of 
 the city by the gate of Saint Pancras and followed even 
 to that of Cavallegheri the sinuous line of the beautiful 
 Urban walls. This corner of Rome, with its vista of 
 umbrella pines of the Pamphili Villa on one side, and 
 on the^other the rear of the Vatican, serves, during the 
 winter, as an habitual promenade to some of the cardi- 
 nals who come, seeking the afternoon sun, sure of meet- 
 ing only a small number of strangers. By the month 
 of May it is a desert already scorched by the sun. It 
 gnaws the bricks, burned by two centuries of this im- 
 placable luminary, and it caresses the scales of the gray 
 or green lizards, gliding swiftly between the bees on 
 the scutcheon of Pope Urban VEIL, of the Barberini 
 family. Instinct had at least served Mme. Gorka in 
 casting her upon a path where she had met no one. 
 Now, the sense of reality was renewed. She recognized 
 the surroundings and this frame so familiar to her piety 
 as a fervent Catholic, the vast square, the obelisk of 
 Sixtus V. in the centre, the fountains, the circular por- 
 tico crowned with statues of bishops and of martyrs, 
 the palace of the Vatican at the corner, and the facade 
 of the grand papal cathedral, with the Saviour and the 
 apostles standing upon its august pediment. On any 
 other occasion the pious young woman would have 
 seen, in the chance which had conducted her thither, al- 
 most unconsciously, an influence from above, an invita- 
 tion to enter into the church, to ask there for strength
 
 THE DUEL. 221 
 
 to endure from God, who has said : " Whosoever would 
 follow ine, let him deny himself and take up his cross 
 and follow me." But she was in that first poignant crisis 
 of misfortune where it is impossible to pray, so loud 
 does the revolt of nature cry out within us. Later, we 
 shall know how to recognize the hand of Providence in 
 the trial imposed upon us. At first we see only the 
 frightful injustice of fate, and our being is shaken to 
 its inmost depths, and the profoundest energies of the 
 soul rebel against the wound from which it bleeds. 
 What rendered this rebellion more invincible and more 
 fiery with Maud, was its lightning suddenness. Every 
 day, good women, like her, acquire proofs of the 
 treachery of husbands whom they have not ceased to 
 love. Ordinarily, this indisputable proof is preceded 
 by a long period of suspicion. The faithless one has 
 neglected his fireside. A change has come over his 
 daily habits. Indefinable shadows have revealed to the 
 deceived wife the traces of a rival, which feminine 
 jealousy detects with a scent as sure as that of the dog 
 which finds a stranger in the house. Finally, though 
 there may be in the passage from doubt to certainty a 
 rending of the heart, it is the rending of a heart pre- 
 pared. Maud had been deprived of this preparation, 
 this adaptation so to speak, of her soul to the horrible 
 truth. The care taken by Mme. Steno to promote her 
 friendship with Alba had suppressed these small clues. 
 Boleslas had had no need to change anything in his 
 family life to see his mistress at his own convenience in 
 an intimacy begun and kept up by his wife herself. 
 She had been deceived totally, absolutely. She had 
 promoted his ends with an illusion so complete that 
 it would seem improbable to the indifferent and to 
 strangers. They could not understand the insensible 
 habit which had produced it. The most terrible awak- 
 enings are from just such illusions. A man whom all 
 his circle considered so kind a husband, a woman 
 who passed for an indulgent wife, is suddenly f ound to
 
 222 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 have committed murder or suicide, to the great aston- 
 ishment of the world which, even then, hesitates to rec- 
 ognize in this tit of insanity a proof that rapid disillusion 
 has thunderbolts more dreadful and more instantaneous 
 in their ravages than those of love. When this internal 
 disaster does not betray itself to the outside world by 
 such acts of violence, there is an irreparable destruction 
 of our youthf ulness of soul. This idea is fixed within 
 us forever that all may betray, since we have been be- 
 trayed in such a way. It may be for years, and it may 
 sometimes be for the rest of life, this inability to soften 
 one's self, to hope, to believe, which caused Maud Gorka 
 to remain through this afternoon, resting against the 
 pedestal of a column, watching the rain fall indefinitely 
 instead of going toward the Catholic basilica where con- 
 fessionals in all tongues offered pardon for all sins and 
 remedy for all griefs. Alas ! to kneel there is to be al- 
 ready consoled ; and this poor woman was now only at 
 the first station of Calvary. 
 
 She watched the rain fall and found a fierce satis- 
 faction in this formidable cataract of storm which 
 seemed a cataclysm of nature, so much did the glare of 
 the lightning and the noise of thunder mingle in the 
 echoes of the vast square, under the whip-lash of the 
 water swept by the wind. Ideas began to class them- 
 selves anew in her mind, after this whirlwind of blind 
 pain with which she had felt herself carried away after 
 the first glance over, the accusing page. Each word 
 upon 'this page remained before her eyes, so burning 
 as to make her close them in agony. The last two years 
 of her life, those in which she had become intimate with 
 the Countess Steno, returned to her thoughts with a 
 clearness which drew from her continually words 
 which she uttered with groans : " How could he ! " 
 She again saw Venice and their residence in this city 
 where Boleslas had conducted her after the death of 
 their daughter, so that, in the tranquil atmosphere of 
 the lagoons, she might overcome the sharpness of her
 
 TIIK DUEL. 223 
 
 grief. How good Mme. Steno had been at this period, 
 at least how good and delicate she had appeared, under- 
 standing her and pitying her. Their acquaintance in 
 Home had little by little changed into friendship. This 
 had no doubt been the beginning of the treachery. 
 This thief of love had introduced herself under the 
 cover of that pity in which Maud had so wholly be- 
 lieved. Seeing the Countess so generous, she had 
 treated as calumnies the evil-speaking of the world in 
 regard to a person capable of this touching kindness of 
 heart. And this was the moment in which the false friend 
 took Boleslas from her. A thousand details rose before 
 her, which she had not then understood. The trips of 
 these two lovers in a gondola, which she had not even 
 thought wrong; a visit that Boleslas had paid at 
 Piove, and whence he had not returned until the next 
 morning under pretext of a lost train ; little asides on 
 the balcony of the Steno palace, while she herself con- 
 versed with Alba. Yes, it was at Venice that their in- 
 trigue was accomplished, before her, who had not so 
 much as guessed it, while her heart was full of in- 
 consolable regret for their lost angel. " Ah ! how 
 could he," she groaned anew as these thoughts multi- 
 plied themselves. In her intelligence, as it were, there 
 was a sudden and tragical opening of all the windows 
 which the perfidy of Gorka and of the Countess had 
 walled up with so much care. She saw again the 
 months which had followed the return to Rome, and 
 their modes of life, so convenient for these two accom- 
 plices. How many times she had taken upon herself to 
 walk out with Alba, relieving her husband of her own 
 presence and the mother of the only oversight which 
 was inconvenient to her. What were the lovers doing 
 during these hours ? How many times in returning to 
 the Doria Palace she had found Catherine Steno in the 
 library, seated on a divan near Boleslas, and she had not 
 suspected that this woman had come during her ab- 
 sence to speak of love, and to give herself to him, doubt-
 
 224 OOSMOPOLIS. 
 
 less, with the spice of wickedness and danger. She re- 
 membered the episode of their meeting at Bayreuth, 
 last summer, when she had gone to England, alone with 
 her son, while her husband had undertaken to escort 
 the Countess and Alba from Borne to Bavaria. They 
 had all agreed to meet in Nuremberg. She remembered 
 the hotel where, in adjoining apartments, he had en- 
 joyed their society while she and little Luke were on 
 the train. Again she cried out, " Ah ! how could he ! 
 . . . ." And all at once this vision of a rapid train 
 awakened in her the memory of the recent return of her 
 husband ; she saw him, on an anonymous charge, trav- 
 ersing Europe to arrive twenty-four hours sooner near 
 this woman. What a proof of passion was this frenzy 
 which did not permit this man longer to endure doubt 
 and absence. How he must have loved this woman, who 
 did not even love him, since she betrayed him for Mait- 
 land, and he was about to fight for her. ... At this 
 moment, jealousy tortured this wife's heart with a suf- 
 fering yet greater than her indignation. This English- 
 woman, tall, robust, almost masculine in build, with 
 powerful but heavy limbs, compared herself mentally 
 with this supple Italian, with rounded waist, graceful 
 gestures, delicate hands and slender feet, whose every 
 movement breathed a captivating charm, and she ceased 
 to groan out the " Ah ! how could he ! . . . " of 
 the past moments. She had come now to a lucid con- 
 viction of the power of her rival. It is a supreme 
 agony when a good woman who loves feels herself 
 sullied even by the thought of the intoxication to which 
 her husband has subjected himself. With her this was 
 the signal of a return of will-power over a tortured 
 but proud soul. Disgust, violent, profound, and com- 
 plete, seized her ; disgust for this atmosphere of false- 
 hood and luxury where for two years Boleslas had 
 lived. She drew herself up, suddenly strong and im- 
 placable. Braving the storm, she began to walk home- 
 ward with this resolution before her mind, as plain
 
 THE DUEL. 225 
 
 and as strong as if she had deliberated over it months 
 and months : 
 
 " I will not remain one day longer with this man. 
 To-morrow I shall be gone to England with my son." 
 
 How many others in a similar plight have uttered 
 oaths of freedom, and abjured them so soon as they 
 find themselves in the presence of the man who has 
 betrayed them and whom they yet love! In spite of 
 her passion, Maud was not of that race. Certainly, 
 she, too, loved him to the very depths of her being, this 
 fascinating Boleslas, whom she had married against 
 the wishes of her parents, this perfidious man for 
 whom she had sacrificed everything, dwelling far from 
 her country and her family many years, because he 
 wished it ; living, breathing only for him and for their 
 son. But there was in her as was revealed by her 
 chin, a little long and square, her abbreviated nose, 
 and the energy of her brow that particular force of in- 
 flexibility which is only to be met in characters of ab- 
 solute uprightness. Love with her would be smoth- 
 ered by disgust, or at least for we are masters of our 
 acts only she would consider base the fact of continu- 
 ing to love one whom she despised. At this moment it 
 was this irremediable contempt that ruled in her heart. 
 She had, to the highest degree, the great virtues which 
 are met wherever there is inward nobility, and which 
 the English have made the basis of their moral educa- 
 tion: religion, fanaticism, and loyalty. She had al- 
 ways been pained by perceiving the unstable portions 
 of Boleslas's nature. But if she had with sorrow ob- 
 served in him exaggerations of language, falseness of 
 sentiment, a dangerous limberness of conscience, she 
 had forgiven him these faults with the magnanimity 
 of love, attributing them to a bad education. Gorka 
 had found himself involved, very young, in a family 
 tragedy, his father and mother being separated, and 
 neither one having the exclusive direction of the child. 
 Per contra, how could she find any indulgence for that
 
 226 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 shameful hypocrisy during two years, for the wicked- 
 ness of that treason installed at the family hearth, 
 for that continuous, planned, wilful disloyalty of every 
 day and every hour ? Therefore, Maud, when she re- 
 turned to the Doria Palace, felt in her despair the sort 
 of calm which is given by the assurance of a fixed and 
 just resolve. Yet what a tragedy had been played in her 
 heart since she had left the house ! However, it was 
 in a voice almost as calm as usual that she asked : 
 
 " Is the Count at home ? " 
 
 What did she feel when the servant, having an- 
 swered in the affirmative, added : " Mine, and Mdlle. 
 Steno are also in the drawing-room, waiting for ma- 
 dame." At the thought that the woman who had 
 captivated her husband was there, the betrayed wife, 
 to use the vulgar but forcible expression of the peo- 
 ple, felt her heart stand still. It was very natural that 
 Alba's mother should have come to call, as was her 
 habit. It was even more natural that she should have 
 come to-day. Very probably some echo of the next 
 day's duel had reached her. However, her presence, 
 at this moment, aroused in Maud a movement of indig- 
 nation so passionate that her first instinct was to en- 
 ter and drive away Boleslas's mistress as we drive away 
 a servant caught in the act of stealing. Suddenly the 
 image of Alba rose before her, of that sweet and pure 
 Alba, whose soul was as white as her name, and whose 
 dearest friend she was. In the tumult of her thoughts 
 since the fatal revelation, she had more than once re- 
 membered the young girl. But her sorrow had ab- 
 sorbed all the power of her soul, and she could not feel, 
 existing within her, this friendship for the delicate and 
 pretty child. At the moment for ejecting her rival, 
 according to her right and almost her duty, this feel- 
 ing moved within her. A strange pity flooded her 
 heart and made her stop in the centre of the great ves- 
 tibule, ornamented with statues and columns, through 
 which she was passing to reach the drawing-room.
 
 THE DUEL. 227 
 
 She called to the servant just as the latter placed his 
 hand on the door-knob. The analogy between her 
 situation and Alba's had struck her with too much 
 bitterness. She had felt, in the flash of a moment, that 
 impression so often felt by Alba herself about Fanny, 
 that sympathy for a sorrow which would be too similar 
 to her own. She could not give her hand to Mme. 
 Steno after what she knew, or speak to her except to 
 expel her from the house ; yet to say before Alba a 
 single word, to make a single gesture which would 
 undeceive the poor girl about her mother in this man- 
 ner, would be too implacable, too iniquitous a ven- 
 geance ! She turned away to pass through the door 
 leading into her own private apartments and gave 
 the order that her husband be asked to come to her. 
 She had Just imagined a means to satisfy her righteous 
 auger without wounding to the heart her ever dear 
 friend, who was not responsible if the two infamous 
 ones had sheltered themselves behind her innocence. 
 Hardly had she entered the little boudoir which pre- 
 ceded her bedroom when she seated herself at her 
 desk, on which was a picture of Mme. Steno in a group 
 composed of Boleslas, Alba, and herself. This picture 
 smiled a smile of such superb insolence that the out- 
 raged wife's frenzy of rancor, interrupted or rather sus- 
 pended for a few moments through pity, suddenly re- 
 turned. She took the frame between her hands and 
 threw it upon the floor, crushing the glass under her 
 feet. Then she began to write, on the first sheet of 
 paper she found under her trembling fingers, one of 
 those letters that passion alone would dare dictate 
 and which stop at no word : "I know all. You have 
 been my husband's mistress for two years. Do not 
 deny it. I have seen your confession written by your 
 own hand. I wish never to speak to you nor see you. 
 Arrange it so that you never set your foot in my house. 
 If I do not have you driven out to-day, it is for your 
 daughter's sake. A second time I should not be so
 
 228 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 forbearing-." And she was bravely signing-, " Maud 
 Gorka," when the sound of a door opening and then 
 closing again, made her turn round. Boleslas was before 
 her. His face wore an ambiguous expression which 
 completed the wretched woman's exasperation. Hav- 
 ing returned home more than an hour before, he had 
 learned that Maud had accompanied Mrs. Maitland, who 
 was ill, to the Via Leopardi, and he had awaited her 
 coming with a cruel impatience, very much upset at the 
 thought that Florent's sister was doubtless ill on ac- 
 count of the next day's duel, and that, in that case, 
 Maud, too, knew all. There are conversations, and 
 above all partings, which a man who is about to fight 
 prefers to avoid. Although he forced himself to smile, 
 he no longer doubted. His wife's visible agitation 
 could be explained in no other way. Could he guess 
 that she had heard not only of the duel, but of the now 
 ended intrigue which she had not discovered for two 
 years ? As she was silent, and this silence embarrassed 
 him with its menace, he wished to take her hand and 
 kiss it, as was his custom. She pushed him back with 
 a glance he did not know, and, handing him the sheet of 
 paper she had before her, said to him : 
 
 " Will you read this note before I send it to Mme. 
 Steno, who is waiting in the drawing-room with her 
 daughter." 
 
 Boleslas took the letter. He glanced over these ter- 
 rible lines and became livid. His surprise was such that 
 he returned the paper to his wife without saying a word, 
 without trying to prevent, as was his duty, the inflicting 
 of this insult on his former mistress, whom he still loved 
 to the point of risking his life for her. This man, who 
 was at the same time so brave and so compliant, was 
 crushed by one of those surprises which throw all the 
 powers of the soul into confusion, and he watched Maud 
 slip the paper into an envelope, write the address and 
 ring. He heard her tell the servant : 
 
 " You will give this note to the Countess Steno, and
 
 THE DUEL. 229 
 
 beg those ladies to excuse me. ... I feel too badly 
 to receive any one. If they insist, you will say that I 
 wish to see no one. You hear ? absolutely no one." 
 
 The man had already taken the note. He had left the 
 room and he had no doubt accomplished his message 
 while these two stood there, facing each other without 
 either one having broken this new and formidable si- 
 lence. They felt too well the solemnity of the hour. 
 Never since the day when Cardinal Manning had united 
 their destinies in the old chapel of Ardrahan Castle, had 
 they found themselves in such a tragic crisis. Such 
 moments lay bare the very depth of character. The 
 noble and courageous Maud did not think of weighing 
 her words. She cared neither to feed her jealousy with 
 new details nor to sharpen more cruelly the point of the 
 defiance she had the right to throw in the face of this 
 man with whom she had been, even that very morning, 
 so confiding, so tender, so yielding. Baseness and 
 cruelty would ever remain foreign to this woman, who 
 had no hesitation about the proud resolution she had 
 taken. No. What she expected from this man whom 
 she had loved so much, whom she had placed so high, 
 whom she had first seen fall so low, was a cry of truth, 
 an avowal in which she would find the palpitation of a 
 last remnant of honor. And if he himself was silent, it 
 was not that he was preparing to deny. The contents of 
 Maud's note did not permit him to have any doubts of 
 the quality of the proofs she had held in her hands, 
 that she probably still held. How? He did not ask 
 himself that question, ruled as he was by a phenomenon 
 in which the singular complexity of his nature was fully 
 revealed. That which perhaps characterizes the Slavs 
 in the most special way is a prodigious power of nerv- 
 ous instantaneousness, if it be permissible to employ 
 so strange a formula for a moral phase, still stranger 
 in our Western and Latin eyes. It seems that these 
 beings, with wavering hearts, have a faculty of amplify- 
 ing within themselves, until the whole heart is absorbed,
 
 230 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 states of partial, passing, and yet sincere emotion. The 
 intensity of their momentary excitement thus makes 
 them actors in good faith, who speak to you as if they 
 felt certain sentiments, in an exclusive fashion, though 
 they may feel contradictory ones the next day with the 
 same fervor. With the same falsehood, the victims of 
 these natures unjustly say, all the more deceiving for 
 being more thrilling. Boleslas had truly suffered in find- 
 ing that Maud was fully aware of his criminal intrigue, 
 and he suffered for her as much as for himself. This 
 was sufficient for this suffering to occupy, during some 
 minutes or during some hours, the entire field of his 
 inward eye. He was about to assume in all sincerity 
 the part of the weak and passionate husband who betrays 
 his wife while loving her. There was a little of this tinge 
 in his adventure, but so little! and yet he did not 
 believe he lied, he did not lie, when he at last broke this 
 silence to say to her whom he had so long deceived : 
 
 " You have just avenged yourself with much cruelty, 
 Maud, but you had the right I know not who could 
 have denounced to you a misdeed which was very guilty, 
 very unworthy, also very unfortunate. ... I know 
 that I have somewhere, in Borne, relentless enemies to 
 work my ruin, and I am sure they have left me no means 
 of defence. However, had they left me any, I would 
 not make use of them. I have been too false to you, and 
 suffered too much for it." He stopped after these words, 
 uttered with a thrill of conviction which was not pre- 
 tended. He had forgotten that ten minutes earlier he 
 had entered the room with the firm resolve of concealing 
 his duel and its cause from this woman for whose for- 
 giveness he would, without hesitation, at this moment, 
 have sacrificed his life. He continued, in a voice quiver- 
 ing with tenderness : " Whatever you may have been 
 told, whatever you may have read, I swear to you, you 
 do not know all ! " 
 
 " I know enough," interrupted Maud, " since I know 
 you have been the lover of that woman, of the mother of
 
 THE DUEL.. 231 
 
 my best friend, beside me, under my eyes. ... If 
 you bad suffered from that lie as you say, you would not 
 have waited to confess all to me until I held in my hands 
 the indisputable proofs of your infamy. . . . You 
 have thrown off your mask or rather I have snatched it 
 from you. I wish nothing more. As for the details of 
 this ignoble story, spare me them. It is not to hear 
 them that I returned to a house whose every corner 
 reminds me that I believed in you simply, profoundly, 
 blindly, and that you betrayed me, not one day, but 
 every day ; that you betrayed me again day before yes- 
 terday, yesterday, to-day, an hour ago I repeat it, 
 that suffices for me." 
 
 " But that does not suffice for me ! " cried Boleslas. 
 " Yes, all that you have said to me is true, and I deserve 
 all that you say. But what you could not read in the 
 papers which have been given to you, what I have kept 
 for two years in the depths of my heart and must now 
 utter, is, that through these fatal temptations, I have 
 never ceased to love you. Ah ! Don't move away from 
 me ; don't look at me like that. I have felt once more, in 
 the heartrending I have just endured, that there is 
 something within me which has never ceased to be 
 yours. This woman may have been my aberration. 
 She may have been my folly, captivating my senses, my 
 passion, all the evil instincts of my being. You have 
 remained my worship, my tenderness, my religion. If 
 I deceived you, it is because I realized too well that the 
 day when you would know my crime, I should see you 
 there before me, desperate and implacable. As you are, 
 as I cannot bear you to be. . . . Ah! judge me, 
 condemn me, curse me, but know, but feel, that in spite 
 of all, I have loved you, I love you. . . . 
 
 He had again spoken with an excitement which was 
 not feigned. Betrayed as he had just been, and so pain- 
 fully, he understood too well the worth of the loyal 
 creature he had before him and whom he ran the risk of 
 losing. If he did not move her at this moment, on the
 
 232 COSMO POLIS. 
 
 eve of a duel, when could he move her? So he ap- 
 proached her with the same gestures of suppliant and 
 passionate adoration that he had used formerly, when at 
 the beginning 1 of their marriage, and before his treach- 
 ery, he told her his love. No doubt this memory forced 
 itself on Maud and revolted her. It was with real hor- 
 ror that she moved farther back and answered : 
 
 "Hush! This falsehood is even more hideous than 
 the others. It hurts me more. I am too much ashamed 
 to see that you have not even the courage of your 
 iniquity. God is my witness that I would still have 
 found some esteem for you if you had said to me : ' I 
 have ceased to love you. I took a mistress. I found it 
 convenient to deceive you. I deceived you. I have sac- 
 rificed everything to my passion : my honor, my duties, 
 my oaths, and you with them.' Ah ! speak to me in 
 this way, that I may have some sense of your truth. . . . 
 But that you should dare to repeat words of tenderness 
 after what you have done inspires me with too great re- 
 pulsion. It is too bitter." 
 
 " Yes," said Boleslas, " you must think that ; true and 
 simple as you are, where would you have learned to un- 
 derstand a weak will that wishes and does not wish, 
 that rises and falls ? And yet if I did not love you, on 
 what account would I speak falsely to you? Have I 
 anything to conceal now ? Ah ! if you knew in what po- 
 sition I am now, on the eve of what day. I beg you to be- 
 lieve at least that the better part of my being has never 
 ceased to be yours." This allusion to his duel was 
 the strongest attempt he could make to bring back to 
 him that wife's heart so deeply wounded. If she had 
 not spoken of it, it was no doubt because she was still 
 ignorant of it. Therefore, he was upset anew by what 
 she answered him, and which proved to what a degree 
 indignation had paralyzed everything in her, even love. 
 He repeated : " If you knew. . . . ? " 
 
 " That you fight a duel to-morrow ? I know it," said 
 she. "And for your mistress; I know that too. . . ."
 
 THE DUEL. 233 
 
 " But it is not true," he cried; "it is not for her." 
 
 " What ? " said Maud, with increasing- energy. " It was 
 not on her account that you went to the Via Leopardi 
 to challenge your rival ? Because she is not even faith- 
 ful to you, which is justice. It was not for her sake that 
 you wished to enter the house in spite of this rival's 
 brother-in-law, and that a discussion arose between you, 
 followed by this duel ? It was not for her sake, and to 
 avenge yourself, that you returned from Warsaw because 
 you had received anonymous letters which told you all ? 
 and knowing all, has not forever disgusted you with 
 this creature! Had she deigned to conceal this from 
 you, she would have you still at her feet, and you dare 
 tell me that you love me when you have not even spared 
 me from the insult of knowing all these villainies, all 
 this baseness, all this shame, through another per- 
 son ! " 
 
 " Whom ? " he asked. " At least name this Judas for 
 me!" 
 
 " Do not utter that word," interrupted Maud, bitterly. 
 " You have lost the right. . . . And do not seek so 
 far. I have seen only Mrs. Maitland to-day. ..." 
 
 "Mrs. Maitland?" repeated Boleslas. "It is Mrs. 
 Maitland who denounced me to you 1 Mrs. Maitland 
 wrote the anonymous letters ? " 
 
 " She wanted to avenge herself," replied Maud, who 
 added : " She had the right to do so, since your mis- 
 tress had taken her husband." 
 
 "Well, I, too, will avenge myself," cried the young 
 man. " I will kill that husband, since she loves him, 
 after having killed her brother. I will kill them both, 
 one after the other." His mobile face, which had just 
 expressed the most passionate supplication, now ex- 
 pressed only hatred and fury, and the same change 
 had been accomplished in his disordered sensibility. 
 " Why should I spare anything," he continued, " to-day 
 that I no longer have you to spare, and you alone 
 restrained me ? I see it too well, all is over between
 
 234 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 us. Your pride and your rancor are stronger than your 
 love. If it were otherwise, you would have begged me 
 not to go and tight, and you would not have made me 
 the reproaches you did at first, which you had the right 
 to make, I do not deny it. But from the moment that 
 you yourself no longer love me, woe to whomsoever 
 crosses my path ! Woe to Mrs. Maitland and to those 
 she loves ! " 
 
 " This time at least you are sincere," replied Maud, 
 with increased bitterness. "You think I have not 
 suffered enough humiliations ? You would wish that I, 
 your wife, should beg you not to fight for that creature ? 
 And you do not feel what a supreme outrage there 
 would be for me in that meeting ? Besides," she added, 
 with tragical solemnity, " I did not ask you to come to 
 have an interview as painful as it is useless, but to tell 
 you my resolution. ... I hope you will not compel 
 me to have recourse to the means the law gives me to 
 execute it." 
 
 " I have not deserved that you should speak to me 
 thus," said Boleslas, haughtily. 
 
 " I shall sleep here to-night," said Maud, without no- 
 ticing his answer, "for the last time, and to-morrow 
 night I leave for England." 
 
 " You are free," said he, bowing. 
 
 " And I shall take my son," she continued. 
 
 " Our son," he answered, with the coolness of a man 
 repulsed in an outbust of tenderness, and who takes it 
 back. " That, no. I refuse." 
 
 " You refuse ? " said she. " Very well. "We shall go to 
 law! I knew it," she added, haughtily, in turn, "that 
 you would force me to have recourse to law. But nei- 
 ther shall I stop at anything. In betraying me as you 
 have done, you have also betrayed your child. I shall 
 not leave him with you. You are no longer worthy." 
 
 " Listen, Maud," resumed Boleslas, after a pause and 
 with effort, " think that it is perhaps the last time that 
 we meet. To-morrow, if I have fallen, you may do as
 
 THE DUEL. 235 
 
 you choose. If I live I promise to consent to any just 
 arrangement. What I ask and in spite of my errors, I 
 have the right to do so, in the name of those first years, 
 in the name of that son himself, is, that you leave me 
 with another farewell, and have a movement, I shall not 
 say of forgiveness, but of pity." 
 
 " Did you have any for me," she answered, "when you 
 ran to your passion over my heart ? No ! " And she 
 passed before him to reach the door, giving him a glance 
 so proud that he lowered his eyes. "You have no 
 longer a wife and I have no longer a husband. I am not 
 a Mrs. Maitland, to avenge myself with anonymous let- 
 ters and denunciations. But forgive you ? Never do 
 you hear, never ! " 
 
 And she went out after these words, into which she 
 had succeeded in putting all the indomitable energy of 
 her character. Boleslas did not try to keep her. When, 
 an hour after this horrible conversation, his valet came 
 to tell him that dinner was about to be served, the wret- 
 ched man was still in the same spot with his elbow 
 resting on the mantel-shelf, and his head in his hand. 
 He knew Maud too well to hope that her will would 
 change, and there was in him, notwithstanding his 
 faults, his follies, and his perplexities, too much true 
 gentlemanliness to employ means of violence to keep 
 her in spite of herself, when he had so failed toward 
 her. So she was going ! If he had just now exaggerated 
 the expression of his sentiments in saying or rather 
 imagining that he had never ceased to love her, it was 
 true that through all his failings he had kept for her 
 a peculiar affection made up of gratitude, remorse, 
 esteem, and, it must be said, selfishness. He cherished 
 in her, a heart of whose devotion he was absolutely sure, 
 and then, like a great many husbands who deceive an 
 irreproachable wife, he was proud of her though he was 
 unfaithful. She appeared to him at the same time the 
 dignity and charity of his life. She had remained in 
 his eyes the one to whom he must always return, the
 
 236 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 sure friend in moments of trial, the port after the tem- 
 pest, the peace of his soul, when he had wearied of the 
 turbulence of passion. What existence should be his 
 when she had left him? For she would leave him. 
 This resolution was irrevocable. Everything crumbled 
 around him. The mistress, to whom he had sacrificed 
 the noblest and most loving heart, he had lost her under 
 conditions so abject that their two years of passion 
 were dishonored. His wife was going- and would he 
 succeed in keeping his son 1 He had returned to avenge 
 himself and he had not even succeeded in reaching his 
 rival. This impressionable creature then felt, under these 
 repeated blows, a discouragement so absolute that he 
 found sweet the prospect of exposing his life the next 
 day. At the same time a more bitter flood of rancor 
 flowed from his soul at the thought of all the persons 
 mixed up in his adventure. He would have liked to 
 crush in his hands Mme. Steno and Maitland, and Lydia, 
 and Florent ; Dorsenne, too, for having given him that 
 false pledge which had exasperated his thirst for venge- 
 ance by misleading him for a few hours. This tumult 
 of thought only increased when he was seated at the din- 
 ner-table, alone with his son. That very morning, he 
 had had opposite him, his wife's smile and her eyes. 
 The lack of this presence, whose unique value he felt at 
 that moment, was so deeply painful to him, that he 
 wished to make a last attempt. After the meal, he 
 begged little Luke to go and see if his mother would 
 receive them both. The child came back with a nega- 
 tive answer. 
 
 " Mamma is resting and begs not to be disturbed." 
 The thing was then unpardonable. She would not see 
 her husband until the next day if he lived. Though 
 Boleslas, while practising before the admiring eyes of 
 his witnesses that afternoon, had convinced himself that 
 he had lost nothing of his skill with the pistol a duel 
 is always a lottery. He might be killed, and if this pos- 
 sibility had not moved the wounded wife, what prayer
 
 THE DUEL. 237 
 
 could move her? He saw her in his mind, at that 
 moment, with closed blinds and no light, suffering in 
 the darkness with that anguish which curses and does 
 not forgive. Ah ! How cruel this image seemed to him ! 
 And that she might at least know (through a testimony 
 that she would not doubt), how much he, too, suffered, 
 he took his son in his arms and pressed him to his 
 breast, saying : 
 
 " If you see your mother before me, you will tell her that 
 we spent a very sad evening without her, won't you? " 
 
 " But what is the matter ? " cried the child. " You have 
 wet all my cheek. Are you crying 1 " 
 
 " You will tell her that, too, you promise me," answered 
 the father, " that she may take good care of herself, see- 
 ing how we love her." 
 
 "But," said the little boy, "she was not ill when 
 we walked out together after breakfast. She was so 
 gay. . . ." 
 
 " So I think it will be nothing," replied Gorka. He 
 had to send away his boy and go out. He felt so horribly 
 sad that he was physically afraid to remain alone in the 
 house. But where could he go ? He went mechanically 
 to the club, although it was too early to meet a large 
 company. He came upon Pietrapertosa and Cibo, who 
 had dined there, and who, lounging on one of the divans, 
 conferred in a low voice, with the gravity of two am- 
 bassadors discussing the Bulgarian or the Egyptian 
 question. 
 
 " You look nervous," they said to Boleslas ; " you, who 
 were in such good trim this afternoon. . . ." 
 
 " Yes," insisted Cibo, " you should have dined with us 
 as we asked you." 
 
 "When a man is to fight the next day," continued 
 Pietrapertosa, sententiously, "he must see neither his 
 wife nor his mistress. Mme. Gorka suspects nothing, I 
 hope ? " 
 
 "Absolutely nothing," replied Boleslas ; " but yon are 
 right. I would have done better not to leave you. Well,
 
 238 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 here I am. We shall lay aside all gloomy thoughts with 
 cards and supper." 
 
 " Cards and supper ! " cried Pietrapertosa. " And your 
 hand ? Think of your hand. You will tremble and miss 
 your man. I saw Casal, at Gastinne's, fail to hit the 
 bull's-eye once in fifty shots, because he had broken the 
 bank the night before. . . ." 
 
 "A light dinner," said Cibo; "then go to bed at ten 
 o'clock, rise at half-past six, and take at once two soft 
 boiled eggs and a glass of old port. That is Machault's 
 receipt, which I give you. . . ." 
 
 " And which I shall not follow," said Boleslas, who 
 added, " I give you my word of honor, that if I had no 
 other care besides this duel, you would not see me in 
 this state." 
 
 He had uttered this phrase in a tragical voice, the sin- 
 cerity of which was felt by the two Italians. They looked 
 at each other without further insisting. They were too 
 clever and to well up in all the gossip of that large vil- 
 lage of Rome, not to have guessed the true cause of the 
 meeting between Florent and Boleslas. On the other 
 hand they knew the latter too well not to mistrust al- 
 ways his attitudes a little. There was, however, so much 
 simple emotion in his tone, that they pitied him spon- 
 taneously, and, without previous agreement, they raised 
 no more objection to the caprices of their fantastic client, 
 whom they left only at two o'clock in the morning. And 
 most fortunate it was for them. Boleslas, having taken 
 it into his head to gamble toward midnight, in spite of 
 the evoked spectre of Casal's bad shots, and having offered 
 them a percentage on his play they found themselves 
 at the end of a game carried on with extraordinary luck, 
 each with two or three hundred louis. This meant several 
 days longer in Paris at the next trip. Therefore they 
 had great merit in regretting their friend's good fortune 
 as they did at the parting. 
 
 " I am afraid for him," said Cibo. " This luck in cards 
 on the eve of a duel is a bad sign, a very bad sign."
 
 THE DUEL. 239 
 
 " All the more that some one was there," replied Pietra- 
 pertosa, making with his fingers that sign that drives 
 away the jettatura. For nothing in the world would he 
 have named the personage against whose evil eye he 
 thus protected himself. But Cibo understood him, and, 
 drawing from his trowser pocket his watch, which he 
 wore in the English style with a safety chain fastened 
 to his belt, he showed among the trinkets a little gold 
 horn. 
 
 " I held it the whole evening," said he. " The worst of 
 it is that Gorka will not sleep, and then the hand. . . ." 
 
 The first of these prognostics was alone to come true. 
 Among the singular facts which are observed in certain 
 crises of nervous overexcitement, we must place that in- 
 defatigableness which no doubt consumes the deep re- 
 serve forces of life, but which, for the moment, seems of 
 the nature of a miracle. Having returned at this foolishly 
 late hour, Boleslas did not even go to bed. He employ- 
 ed the rest of the night in writing a long letter to his 
 wife and one to his son, to be given to him on his eight- 
 eenth birthday. All this in the event of a misfortune. 
 Then he looked over his papers and came across a pack- 
 age of letters he had received from Mme. Steno. Reading 
 over a few of them and looking at the portraits of this 
 unfaithful mistress, excited his anger to such a pitch that 
 he enclosed them all in a large envelope addressed to 
 Lincoln Maitland. He had no sooner sealed it than he 
 shrugged his shoulders, saying : " What is the use ? " 
 He removed the draping that concealed the fireplace, 
 and laying this envelope on the andirons, he set fire to 
 it. Dawn surprised him shaking with the tongs the 
 remains of what had been the most ardent, the most 
 complete passion of his life, and he pushed into the 
 flame those pieces of paper which still remained intact. 
 This unreasonable use of a night which might be his 
 last, had scarcely blanched his face. However, his friends 
 who knew him well, trembled to see his expression of 
 sinister impassibility as he alighted from his phaeton,
 
 240 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 before the inn fixed upon for the place of meeting. He 
 had ordered this carriage the day before, in order to de- 
 ceive his wife by the appearance of one of those morn- 
 ing drives, which it was his habit to take. In his moral 
 confusion he had forgotten to countermand the order, 
 and this chance enabled him to escape the two police 
 officers ordered by the questorship to watch the Doria 
 Palace, after Lydia Maitland's denunciation. The hack 
 taken by these agents had soon lost track of the fiery 
 English horse, driven as a man of his temperament in 
 that moral condition could drive. The precaution adopt- 
 ed by Chapron's sister proved fruitless on this side, and 
 was no more successful with her brother, who, to avoid 
 all explanations with Lincoln, decided to dine and sleep 
 at a hotel, under pretext of a visit to the country. It 
 was there that Montfanon and Dorsenne had come for 
 him in the classical landau, to conduct him to the place 
 of meeting. In the vicinity of the Circus Maximus, on 
 the Appian Way, they had been passed by Boleslas in 
 his phaeton. 
 
 " You need have no uneasiness," said Montfanon to 
 Florent. " How can any man aim true when he tries his 
 arms in that fashion ? " 
 
 This was the only allusion to the duel made by the 
 three men during the drive, which lasted about one 
 hour. Florent had conversed as was his habit, asking 
 all manner of questions of detail which testified his love 
 of minute information the greater part of it capable of 
 being utilized by his brother-in-law. The Marquis had 
 answered, evoking with his ordinary erudition, some of 
 the memories which peopled that immense campagna, 
 covered with tombs, mutilated aqueducts, ruined villas, 
 with the beautiful curves of the Alban mountains to 
 close it in the distance. Dorsenne had remained silent. 
 It was the first affair in which he had taken part, and his 
 nervous dread was extreme. Tragic presentiments op- 
 pressed his heart, and at the same time he feared at 
 every moment that Montfanon's religious scruples might
 
 THE DUEL. 241 
 
 reawaken and force him to seek another witness and put 
 off a solution which was now very near. However, the 
 struggle which was taking place in the heart of the 
 " old leaguer," between the gentleman and the Chris- 
 tian, betrayed itself during the whole course of the 
 drive only by an almost imperceptible gesture. At the 
 moment when the carriage passed before the entrance 
 of the catacombs of Saint Calixtus, the old papal sol- 
 dier turned aside his head. Then he resumed the con- 
 versation with increased vim, to relapse again into 
 silence when the carriage, a little below the tomb of Ce- 
 cilia Metella, took a cross-road in the direction of the 
 Ardeatine Way. This led to the Osteria del Tempo Per- 
 so, built on soil belonging to Cibo, and where the combat 
 was to take place. Before this hovel, the sign of which 
 was surmounted by the scutcheon of Pope Innocent 
 VIII., three carriages were already standing ; Gorka's 
 phaeton, a landau which must have brought Cibo, 
 Pietrapertosa and the surgeon, and a simple cart in 
 which a loader had come. The unusual assemblage of 
 vehicles ran the risk of attracting the attention of some 
 carbineers on a round, but Cibo guaranteed the discre- 
 tion of the innkeeper, who in fact bore to his master 
 the devotion of the vassal to the lord, which is still fre- 
 quent in Italy. So the three new-comers had not the 
 least explanation to give. When they alighted from the 
 carriage, the servant-girl conducted them to the public 
 room in which, at that moment, two hunters were break- 
 fasting with their guns between their knees, and who, 
 like real Bomans from Rome, scarcely deigned to look 
 at the strangers. These passed from the public room 
 into a little yard, then from this yard under a shed into 
 a vast enclosure made with planks, and planted here 
 and there with a few umbrella pines. This empty lot 
 had formerly been used by Cibo as a sort of pasture for 
 horses. He had tried to augment his rather slender 
 income by buying chance horses destined to be fattened 
 by rest and sold again to hack-drivers at a small
 
 242 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 profit. The speculation having- failed, the spot re- 
 mained uncultivated and unoccupied, save in such cir- 
 cumstances as the occurrence of that morning. 
 
 " We are the last," said Montfanon, looking at his 
 watch ; " but all the same we are five minutes ahead of 
 time. Remember," he added, speaking to Florent in 
 a low tone, " present no salient points. After having 
 shot your forearm refold in the upper line and above 
 all, no gestures." 
 
 "Thank you," replied Florent, who looked at the 
 Marquis and at Dorsenne with that glance that was 
 usually for Lincoln only. " And you know, whatever 
 happens, I thank you for all from the bottom of my 
 heart." 
 
 The young man had put so much grace in this adieu, 
 his courage was so simple, his sacrifice to his brother- 
 in-law so magnanimous and so natural ; finally, during 
 these two days the two witnesses had been able to ap- 
 preciate so well the charm of that admirable nature, 
 absolutely devoid of all thought of himself, that both 
 pressed his hand with the emotion of true friends. Be- 
 sides, they were immediately absorbed in the series of 
 preparations without which, to persons endowed with 
 any sensibility, the character of assistant would be phy- 
 sically impossible. With men of experience like Mont- 
 fanon, Cibo, and Pietrapertosa, these preliminaries were 
 soon settled. Their code of law is as precise as the 
 path of a bullet. Twenty minutes after the entrance of 
 the last comers, the two adversaries stood facing each 
 other. The signal was given. The two pistol-shots 
 were fired at the same time, and Florent fell on the 
 already scorched grass which carpeted the enclosure. 
 He had a bullet in his thigh. Dorsenne had often re- 
 lated since then, as a singular trait of literary mania, 
 that at the very second when the wounded man fell, he 
 himself, in spite of the anxiety that seized him, looked 
 at Montfanon to study him. He added that never had 
 he seen a face express sorrowful pity like that of this
 
 THE DUEL. 243 
 
 man, who, scorning 1 all fear of man, made at that mo- 
 ment the sign of the cross. It was the religious man 
 of the catacombs, who, having left the altar of the mar- 
 tyrs to perform a work of charity, had been led on by 
 anger until he found himself under the necessity of 
 participating in a duel doubtless asked the forgiveness 
 of God. What remorse agitated the heart of that fervent, 
 almost mystical Christian, so strangely mixed up in a 
 bloody affair? He had at least this relief , that after a 
 first examination, and when Florent had been carried 
 into the room prepared for any chance, the physician 
 answered for his life. The ball could even be extracted 
 on the spot, and as neither the bone nor the principal 
 muscles were injured, it would be the affair of a few 
 weeks at the outside. 
 
 " There only remains for us to draw up our official 
 report ! " concluded Cibo, who had brought this message. 
 
 At this moment, and as the witnesses were preparing 
 to enter the little house for this last and reassuring 
 formality, there happened a very unexpected incident 
 which was to transform this hitherto commonplace meet- 
 ing into one of those memorable duels which are inde- 
 finitely talked about before the club chimneys, and in the 
 fencing schools. If Pietrapertosa and Cibo have not 
 ceased since that morning to believe in the jettatura of 
 the " somebody," whom neither one had named, it must 
 be admitted that they are very unjust. The good for- 
 tune of having won enough money to augment their 
 Parisian purse, was nothing compared to the discussion 
 with Casal, Machault, and other professionals, of the 
 almost unique case in which they had taken part. Bo- 
 leslas Gorka, who, after the fall of his antagonist, had 
 walked up and down without seeming to care about the 
 danger or otherwise of the wound, suddenly approached 
 the group formed by the four men, and in a tone of voice 
 which allowed no one to foresee the incredible aggres- 
 sion he was about to commit, observed : 
 
 " Gentlemen, I ask for one moment," he urged. " I
 
 244 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 should like to say a few words to M. Dorsenne in your 
 presence." 
 
 " I am at your orders, Gorka," replied Julien, who was 
 not deceived about his former friend's hostile intentions. 
 He did not guess the form that this hostility would take, 
 but he still had on his conscience his word of honor, 
 falsely given, and he was ready to give satisfaction for 
 it. 
 
 " It will not be long, sir," answered Boleslas, always 
 with the same insolently ceremonious politeness; "you 
 know that we have an account to settle together. Now, 
 as I have some motives for doubting your honor, I 
 wished to deprive you of all pretext for evasion." And 
 before anyone could oppose this unheard-of proceed- 
 ing, he had raised his glove and struck Dorsenne across 
 the face. While Gorka spoke, the novelist turned 
 frightfully pale. He had no time to reply to the atro- 
 cious outrage he had just received by a similar outrage, 
 because the three spectators of the scene had thrown 
 themselves between him and the aggressor. He could 
 only push them aside, with a resolute gesture : 
 
 " Take care, gentlemen," said he. " In preventing me 
 from inflicting on M. Gorka the correction he deserves, 
 you bind yourselves to make me obtain other satisfac- 
 tion. I wish it immediate. I shall not leave this spot," 
 he continued, " until I have obtained it." 
 
 " Nor I until I have given it to you," replied Boles- 
 las. "It is all that I ask." 
 
 " No, Dorsenne," cried Montfanon, who had been the 
 first to arrest the novelist's arm, already raised, " you will 
 not fight thus. In the first place, you have not the 
 right. At least twenty-four hours must elapse between 
 an encounter and the cause of the encounter. And, 
 you, gentlemen, will not agree to act as witnesses for 
 M. Gorka, who has just committed such a grave breach 
 of the laws of duelling ? If you consent, it would be 
 barbarous, mad, anything you please, but it will not be 
 a duel."
 
 THE DUEL. 245 
 
 " I repeat, Montfanon," resumed Dorsenne, " that I 
 shall not leave here, nor shall I let M. Gorka go, before 
 I have obtained the satisfaction to which I feel that I 
 am entitled on the spot." 
 
 " And I repeat, that I, too, am at M. Dorsenne's 
 orders, at once," replied Boleslas. 
 
 "Very well, gentlemen," said Montfanon. "There 
 remains nothing- for us to do but to retire and leave 
 you to settle the matter between you as you please. Is 
 it not your opinion?" he continued, addressing CJbo 
 and Pietrapertosa, who did not reply immediately. 
 
 " Certainly," said one. " The case is difficult." 
 
 "There are precedents, however," insinuated the 
 other. 
 
 "Yes," replied Cibo, "to mention only Henri de 
 Pene's two successive duels." 
 
 " This appears to me to constitute an authority," con- 
 cluded Pietrapertosa. 
 
 " There can be no authority," again cried Montfanon. 
 " I know, for my part, that I did not come to be present 
 at a butchery, and I shall not be present. I am going, 
 gentlemen, and I expect you to do the same, for I hardly 
 expect you to take the coachmen to act as witnesses. 
 Good-by, Dorsenne. Do not doubt my friendship for 
 you. I believe I am giving you a real proof of it, in not 
 permitting you to fight under such conditions." 
 
 When the old gentleman had returned to the inn, he 
 waited ten minutes, persuaded that his departure would 
 decide that of Cibo and Pietrapertosa, and that this new 
 affair, so strangely grafted on the other, would be put off 
 to the next day. He had spoken the truth. It was his 
 lively friendship for Julien that made him apprehend a 
 duel organized in that manner, under the influence of 
 just anger. Gorka's unqualified violence surely could not 
 permit the second meeting to be avoided. But the more 
 outrageous the insult had been, the more important it 
 was that the conditions of the fight should be settled 
 coolly and after severe discussion. To beguile his im-
 
 246 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 patience to see the four young men reappear, Mont- 
 fanon asked the innkeeper to show him where Florent 
 had been carried, and he mounted the first floor of the 
 house into the narrow room where the physician was 
 dressing the wounded man's leg. 
 
 " You see," said the latter, with a tranquil but suffer- 
 ing smile, " I shall be a little lame for a month and 
 Dorsenne ? " 
 
 "He will come, I hope," replied Montfanon, who add- 
 ed, with exasperated irritation, "Dorsenne is a mad- 
 man, that is Dorsenne, and Gorka a wild beast, who 
 
 should be shot like a mad wolf. That is Gorka " 
 
 And he related the episode of the slap in the face to the 
 two men, who were so astounded that the doctor stopped 
 bandaging, and held the strip of linen in his hand. 
 " And they wanted to fight there, right away, like red 
 Indians ? Why not scalp each other, while they are at 
 it ? And that Cibo, and that Pietrapertosa, who 
 would have consented to this duel, had I not put a stop 
 to it ! Luckily they need two witnesses and it is not 
 easy to find, in the Roman campagna, two worthy wit- 
 nesses, knowing how to sign a report, since it is the meth- 
 od to-day always to come to those bits of paper. We 
 had two witnesses of that kind, one of my friends and I, 
 at twenty francs apiece. But it was in Paris, in '62." 
 And he began to relate the ancient affair, to beguile an 
 uneasiness that broke out again in interrupted phrases. 
 " It seems they do not decide to separate very fast. It 
 cannot be possible that they fight. Can we see them 
 from here ? " And he approached the window that 
 looked out on the enclosure. The sight that met his eyes 
 completed the upsetting of the excellent man, who 
 stammered : " The wretches ! But it is monstrous. 
 Are they all crazy? They have found witnesses and 
 whom have they taken? Those two hunters, down- 
 stairs. Ah ! mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! " He was unable 
 to continue. The doctor had also rushed to the window 
 to see what was going on, without noticing that Florent
 
 THE DUEL. 247 
 
 was also dragging himself there. Did they remain 
 there a few minutes a quarter of an hour or longer ? 
 They have never been able to say, so much did their in- 
 expressible emotion paralyze them with terror. As 
 Montfanon had foreseen, the conditions of the duel had 
 immediately become terrible because Pietrapertosa, 
 who seemed to direct the fight, after having measured a 
 rather long space about fifty paces was now tracing 
 in the middle two lines hardly ten or twelve yards dis- 
 tant from each other. 
 
 " They have chosen the duel with interrupted steps," 
 groaned the old fighter, whom his knowledge of the 
 field did not deceive. Dorsenne and Gorka, once 
 placed facing each other, did begin to advance now 
 raising, now lowering their weapons with the frightful 
 slowness of two adversaries firmly resolved not to miss 
 each other. A first shot was fired. It was that of Boles- 
 las. Dorsenne was not touched. He still had a few 
 steps to take to reach the limit ; he took them and stopped 
 to aim at the other with such an evident intention of 
 killing him that Cibo was distinctly heard to cry out : 
 
 " Fire, for God's sake, fire ! " 
 
 Julien pulled the trigger, as though he instinctively 
 obeyed this order, incorrect, assuredly, but too natural 
 to be even remarked. The shot was fired, and from the 
 three spectators, leaning in the window, came three si- 
 multaneous exclamations on seeing Gorka's arm fall and 
 his hand drop the pistol, though the man himself did 
 not fall. 
 
 " It is nothing," cried the physician, " only a broken 
 arm.'" 
 
 " God has been better to us than we deserved," said 
 the Marquis. 
 
 " Here is that madman at last at rest. Brave Dor- 
 senne," said Florent, who thought of his brother-in-law, 
 and added gayly, as he leaned on Montfanon and the 
 doctor, to reach the sofa ; " finish quickly, doctor ; you 
 will soon be needed down-stairs."
 
 248 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 ALBA SEES. 
 
 The physician's glance had diagnosed correctly. Dor- 
 senne's bullet had struck Gorka above the wrist. Two 
 centimetres more to the rig-lit or to the left and Boles- 
 las would no doubt have been killed on the spot. He 
 would get off with a fracture of the forearm and con- 
 finement to his room for a few days, and then, a 
 few weeks of the tedium of splints. This mild result was 
 the one that this man, passionate to the power of fury, 
 most abhorred. When he had been brought home and 
 his own physician, summoned in all haste, had made the 
 final dressing, and ordered him to stay in bed and rest 
 during the first hours of fever, he had a new fit of impo- 
 tent rage that went far beyond those of that morning 
 and of the previous night. All the living portions of 
 his soul, the noblest as well as the lowest, rose and 
 made him suffer far more than his wounded arm. Was he 
 sufficiently hurt in his pride, in that almost unwholesome 
 though otherwise justified necessity to figure as an ex- 
 traordinary personage in the eyes of those who knew 
 him ? He had rushed from Warsaw across Europe like an 
 avenger of his betrayed love, and he had begun by miss- 
 ing his rival. Instead of challenging him at once in 
 the drawing-room of the Steno Villa, he had waited and 
 another had had the time to substitute himself for the 
 one whom he wished to chastise. This other man 
 whose death would at least have given a tragic end to 
 this absurd adventure, Boleslas had scarcely grazed. 
 He had wished by striking Dorsenne to execute at least 
 one felon who, in his opinion, had trifled with the 
 most sacred of confidences. He had succeeded only in 
 giving this false friend an opportunity to humiliate him, 
 without counting that he had made it impossible for 
 himself to fight again before many days. None of the
 
 ALBA SEES. 249 
 
 persons who had outraged him would be punished for a 
 long 1 time neither his rude and cowardly rival, nor his 
 perfidious mistress, nor that monster, Lydia Maitland, 
 whose infamy he had just discovered. They were all 
 happy and triumphant on that beautiful, radiant May 
 day, while he groaned on a bed of suffering. This was 
 proved to him that very afternoon, only too clearly, by 
 his two witnesses, the only visitors against whom his 
 door was not closed. They came to see him at about 
 five o'clock. They came from the races of Tor di 
 Quinto, which had taken place that day. 
 
 "All goes well," began Cibo, "and I answer for it 
 that no one has spoken I have already told you that I 
 am sure of my innkeeper, and we paid the witnesses and 
 coachmen in consequence." 
 
 "Were Mme. Steno and her daughter there?" asked 
 Boleslas. 
 
 " Yes," answered the Roman, too much surprised by 
 the brusqueness of this question for his habitual diplo- 
 macy to elude the answer. 
 
 " With whom," again inquired the wounded man. 
 
 " Why, alone," replied Cibo, this time with a haste in 
 which Boleslas detected an intention to deceive him. 
 
 " And Mrs. Maitland ? " 
 
 " She was also there with her husband," said Pietra- 
 pertosa, who understood nothing of Cibo's glances, 
 " and all Rome besides." Then, preoccupied only with 
 the great news: "You know that the marriage between 
 Ardea and the little Hafner girl is announced ? They 
 were all three there the betrothed, and the father, and 
 so happy! I assure you it was very nice. Cardinal 
 Guerillot will baptize the fair Fanny. . . ." 
 
 " And Dorsenne ? " again questioned the sick man. 
 
 "He was walking about, attitudinizing more than 
 ever," resumed Cibo. "I shall amuse you by telling you 
 the astonishing answer he dared to give us. We asked 
 him how he had managed, he who is so nervous you 
 have seen him play to aim at you as he aimed, without
 
 250 CO3MOPOLIS. 
 
 trembling-. For it is very true that he did not tremble 
 and guess what he answered me ? That he remembered 
 a receipt of his friend Steudbal ; recite by heart four 
 Latin verses before firing. 'And may we know what 
 verses you chose ? ' I asked him. ' Why, of course,' he 
 said, and he declaimed; 'Tityre, tu patulaa recubans.'" 
 
 "This is the time, or never," interrupted Pietraper- 
 tosa, "to recall Casal's answer when that snob, Flegon, 
 boasted to us at the club of his shoe-polish made from 
 a receipt of the Prince of Wales's valet. If that young- 
 man is not laughing- at us, I pity him greatly." 
 
 Although the two admirers of the Parisian mania had 
 quoted to each other, more than a hundred times, that 
 very indifferent joke attributed to the wittiest man 
 about town of to-day, they laughed their loud sonorous 
 laugh which completed the enervation of the wounded 
 man. He gave as a pretext his need of rest, sent away 
 these two brave fellows of whose sympathy he was sure, 
 whom he had just proved loyal and devoted, but who 
 now caused him too much pain by evoking, in answer to 
 his questions, the silhouettes of all his enemies smiling 
 ironically. When we suffer a certain sort of suffering, 
 remarks like those naively exchanged by Casal's two 
 Roman imitators are plainly intolerable. We wish to 
 be alone, to feed in peace, on that bitter food, on that 
 exasperated and ineffectual rancor against men and 
 things with which Gorka now felt his heart so full. 
 The presence of his former mistress at the races, and on 
 that afternoon, ulcerated him more deeply than all the 
 rest. He did not doubt that she knew through Maifc- 
 land, himself informed by Chapron, of the double duel 
 and his wound. Thus it was on her account that he 
 had fought, and the same day she went to show herself, 
 smile, coquet, as if two years of passion had not min- 
 gled their existences, as if he were for her only a society 
 acquaintance, a guest at her dinners and balls. He knew 
 her habits so well, and how eagerly she delighted in the 
 presence of the one she loved, when she did love. No
 
 ALBA SEES. 251 
 
 doubt she had made an appointment on the race-track 
 with Maitland, as she had formerly made one with him, 
 and the artist had gone, too, when he had a wounded man 
 to care for, that noble, courageous brother-in-law whom 
 he had allowed to fight for him ! The selfish and brutal 
 American was a worthy lover for this vile creature. 
 The image of the happy couple tortured the wounded 
 man with the most poignant jealousy, that which is 
 mingled with disgust by contrast. He thought of his 
 own wife, of that proud and tender Maud whom he had 
 lost as he had lost Catherine Steno. He saw himself in 
 other illnesses with that sweet, that saintly nurse at the 
 foot of his bed. He saw the sincere eyes with which 
 the wife, so abominably betrayed, looked at him, the 
 gestures of her loyal hands who left to none the care 
 of ministering to his wants. To-day, she had let him 
 depart for a combat, perhaps a mortal one, without see- 
 ing him again. He had returned. She had not even 
 inquired about his wound. The physician had dressed 
 it without her being there, and he knew nothing of her 
 save what was told by their son. He had called for the 
 child at a given moment. According to the agreement 
 with his friends, he explained his broken arm by a fall 
 on the stairs, and little Luke answered : 
 
 " But when will you be able to join us, then ? Mam- 
 ma said that we should start for England to-night or 
 to-morrow. The trunks are nearly packed." 
 
 To-night or to-morrow 1 Thus Maud would execute 
 her threat. She would go away forever, and without 
 explanation. He could not even argue his case once 
 more with that woman, who would surely not answer a 
 new appeal, since she had found in her outraged pride 
 the strength to be severe, even when he ran danger of 
 death. Before this evidence of the crumbling of all 
 around him, Boleslas suffered one of those fits of pro- 
 found, absolute, irremediable despair, in which, we 
 hope, we desire nothing beyond going to sleep forever. 
 He had reached the point of asking himself vaguely:
 
 252 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 " If I made one more attempt," and replying to himself, 
 " She will not come," when his valet came to say that the 
 Countess wished to speak to him. The upheaval of his 
 ideas was so complete that he imagined for a second 
 that it was the Countess Steno, and he was almost terri- 
 fied to see his wife enter. Certainly the emotions gone 
 through during these few days and amid this tumult of 
 events, had been very extreme. He had felt none more 
 violent, even under Dorsenne's raised pistol, than on 
 seeing the figure of his living remorse draw near his 
 bed. Maud's face, that fresh young face, usually radi- 
 ant with the beauty of blood incessantly renewed by the 
 English habit of open air and daily exercise, showed un- 
 deniable traces of tears, sorrow, and insomnia. The pal- 
 lor of the cheeks, the darkened eyelids, the dry and 
 bitterly compressed lips, the fever in her eyes, told more 
 eloquently than words, the terrible shock of which this 
 well-balanced creature was the victim. These twenty- 
 four hours had acted on her like certain long illnesses, in 
 which it seems that the very essence of the organism is 
 altered. She was another person. The rapidity of trag- 
 ical and startling metamorphosis made Boleslas forget 
 his own anguish. He felt only an immense regret which 
 changed into dismay, when this woman, so visibly con- 
 sumed with grief, had seated herself, and he found once 
 more in her eyes, despite the fever, that look of cold 
 implacability before which he had humbly recoiled the 
 day before. However, she was there, and even in these 
 sinister conditions, that unhoped-for presence had for 
 the young man an infinite sweetness, and he said it with 
 the subtle and half childish grace he knew how to as- 
 sume when he wished to please : 
 
 " You understood that it would be too cruel in you to 
 go away without having seen me again. I would not 
 have dared to ask it, and yet it is the only joy I could 
 have. Thank you for having given it to me." 
 
 " Don't thank me," interrupted Maud, shaking her 
 head ; " it is not for your sake that I am here. It is for
 
 ALBA SEES. 253 
 
 duty. Let me speak," she insisted, arresting with a 
 gesture the wounded man's reply; "you will answer 
 afterward. If you and I alone were in question, I repeat 
 it, I would not have seen you. But, as I told you yes- 
 terday, I have a son." 
 
 " Ah ! " sorrowfully cried Boleslas, " you have come to 
 pain me still more, yet you should have thought that I 
 am in no condition to discuss such a cruel question with 
 you. I thought I, too, had told you that I would not 
 disregard your rights, on condition that you would not 
 disregard mine." 
 
 " I do not wish to speak of my rights nor of yours," in- 
 terrupted Maud ; " his, and his alone, count. When I 
 left you yesterday I suffered too much to feel anything 
 beyond my grief. It was then, in that agony, that I re- 
 membered a word that my father quoted : ' When we 
 suffer we must look our sorrow in the face ; it always 
 teaches us something.' I was ashamed of my weakness, 
 and I did look that sorrow in the face. It taught me 
 first to accept it as a just punishment for having wished 
 to marry against the ideas and advice of that poor 
 father." 
 
 " Ah, do not disown our past," cried the young man, 
 " that past that has remained dear to me through every- 
 thing." 
 
 " No, I do not disown it," replied Maud, " because it is 
 in going back to it, in bringing back my impressions of 
 that time, that I have been able to find, not an excuse, 
 but an explanation for your conduct. I remembered 
 what you had told me of the misfortunes of your child- 
 hood and your youth, and how you had grown up be- 
 tween your father and your mother, not wishing, not 
 being able to judge either the one or the other, obliged 
 to conceal from the one, your, feelings for the other. I 
 understood for the first time, that this separation of 
 your parents at that period had given you great pain. 
 That is what warped your character. And I read, in ad- 
 vance, Luke's story in your own. Listen, Boleslas, I am
 
 254 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 speaking 1 to you as I would speak before God. When this 
 thought presented itself to my mind, my first impulse was 
 not to resume life with you. That life would henceforth 
 be too cruel for me. Now, I said, I shall have my son for 
 myself alone. He will feel only my influence. I had 
 reached that point this morning, when I saw you go go 
 and inflict that again upon me. Sacrifice me once more. 
 If you had really repented, would you not have spared 
 me this last affront? And then when you returned, 
 when they came and told me that you had a broken arm, 
 I wished to tell the child of your illness myself. I saw 
 how much he loved you; I measured the place you 
 already occupied in his heart, and I understood that 
 even if the law gave him to me, as I know it would, his 
 childhood would still be like your childhood, his youtli 
 like your youth. And then," she continued, in a tone in 
 which emotion quivered through the pride, " since you 
 speak of right, I did not recognize as mine that of 
 blighting the tender respect, the worship he has for you, 
 and I have come to say to you: You have injured 
 me greatly, you have killed in me something that will 
 never be born again. I know that I shall carry for years, 
 on my mind and in my heart, a weight at the thought 
 that you could have betrayed me as you have. But 
 I also feel that this separation on which I was deter- 
 mined is too perilous for our son. I feel that I shall 
 find, in the certainty of a danger from which he should 
 be protected, the strength to continue our life in com- 
 mon, and I shall continue it. But human nature is 
 human nature, and I can only have this strength on one 
 condition." 
 
 " Which one ? " said Boleslas. Maud's speech for it 
 was a composed speech, every phrase of which must 
 have been carefully weighed by that scrupulous con- 
 science contrasted too much, by its calm lucidity, with 
 the state of nervous excitement in which he had lived 
 for several days. He had been more really pained by 
 it than he would have been by passionate reproaches.
 
 ALBA SEES. 255 
 
 Certain phrases, the one, for instance, in which she 
 spoke of his falsity of character, touched him in the 
 most sensitive part of his pride, as we are touched by 
 those truths which we do not confess, but which we 
 know to be only too true. At the same time, he had 
 been touched by the memory of his son's tenderness, 
 and he had felt that if he did not reconcile himself with 
 Maud at that moment, his domestic life was gone for- 
 ever. There was a little of all this in the few words that 
 followed his question : " Yes, which one ? Although 
 you have spoken to me very harshly, and you might 
 have said the same things in other words ; though it is, 
 above all, very bitter to me that you should condemn 
 my whole character on a single frailty, I love you, I 
 love my son, and I agree beforehand to all your condi- 
 tions. I esteem your character too highly to doubt 
 that they will be compatible with my dignity. As to 
 this morning's duel," he added, " you know well that it 
 was too late to retire without dishonor." 
 
 " I should first like to have your promise," said Mme. 
 Gorka, who did not reply to these last words, " that dur- 
 ing the whole time that you are confined to your room, 
 your door, like mine, may be closed. I could not endure 
 that creature in my house, nor anyone who would speak 
 of her to you or to me." 
 
 " I promise that," said the young man, whose heart 
 was flooded with warmth at this first proof that jeal- 
 ousy was alive beneath the wife's rancor, and he add- 
 ed, smiling : " That will be no great sacrifice. What 
 next ? " 
 
 " What next ? So soon as the physician will permit 
 it, we must go to my country. We shall leave orders 
 to have everything removed during our absence. We 
 will settle next winter, wherever you choose, but never 
 more in this house, never more in this city." 
 
 " That is also promised," said Boleslas, " and neither 
 is that a sacrifice. What next ? " 
 
 " What next ? " she said in a low voice, as though
 
 256 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 ashamed of herself. " You must never write to her ; you 
 must never try to know what has become of her." 
 
 " I pledge you my word," replied Boleslas, taking- her 
 hand with insistance ; " and what next ? " 
 
 " There is no ' next,' " she said, withdrawing her hand, 
 but gently. And she began to fulfil her promise of 
 forgiveness by rearranging under the wounded man's 
 head the pillow which had been disturbed, while he re- 
 sumed : 
 
 "Yes, my noble Maud, there is something next. 
 There is that I shall prove how truly I spoke yesterday, 
 when I assured you that I loved you in spite of my 
 faults. It is the mother who comes back to me to-day. 
 But I want my wife, my dear wife, and I shall win her 
 back." 
 
 She did not reply. Seeing him utter these last words, 
 with a transfigured expression, she felt an emotion 
 which was never to leave her. As the result of her grief, 
 she had acquired too deep an intuition in regard to her 
 husband's nature, and that suppleness of the Slav, which 
 formerly charmed while it alarmed her, now inspired 
 her with horror. This man with the fickle and pliant 
 conscience, had already forgiven himself. It was suffi- 
 cient for him to have conceived this project of a sep- 
 aration of long years, to assume in thought the charac- 
 ter of that great duty, to esteem himself as if he had 
 really sufficed for that difficult task. At least, during 
 the eight days which separated that conversation from 
 the day of their departure, he strictly kept the word he 
 had given his wife. In vain did Cibo, Pietrapertosa, 
 Hafner, Ardea attempt to reach him. And when the 
 train, which carried them away in the direction of Flor- 
 ence and of the North, started, he could ask his wife 
 with a pride, this time justified by the facts : 
 
 " Are you pleased with me ? " 
 
 " I am pleased that we have left Rome," she answered, 
 evasively. And this was twice true ; first, because she 
 had no illusions about this return of moral energy, of
 
 ALBA SEES. 257 
 
 which Boleslas was so proud. She knew that this unsta- 
 ble will was at the mercy of the first sensation. Then, 
 what she did not confess to her husband, was that the 
 grief of a broken friendship was added within her to the 
 grief of the betrayed wife. The sudden discovery of 
 the infamies of Alba's mother had not killed within her 
 that strong- affection for the young girl, and, during all 
 that week, busied with the preparations for a final 
 departure, she had not ceased to have in her heart the 
 prick of that uneasiness : " What does she think of my 
 silence ? What has her mother told her ? What has 
 she understood ? " She had not once left the house 
 without asking herself : " If I were to meet her ? " She 
 received no letters without dreading to see, on an en- 
 velope, Alba's handwriting, that irregular and nervous 
 handwriting in which could be guessed the latent lack 
 of purpose of that strange child. She had so dearly 
 cherished, " the poor little soul," as she called the Contes- 
 sina with a pretty English phrase. She had for her that 
 peculiar friendship of young women for young girls. A 
 very strong and very delicate sentiment, which, with its 
 shade of tenderness, resembles the devotion of an elder 
 sister for a younger one. There enters into it a little 
 nai've protection and also a little sentimental and grace- 
 ful melancholy. The elder friend is severe and scold- 
 ing. She tries to moderate while enjoying the exces- 
 sive enthusiasms of the younger friend. She receives 
 and invites confidences with the touching gravity of a 
 counsellor whose experience itself needs counsel. The 
 younger friend is curious and admiring. She shows 
 herself in all the truth of that graceful awakening of 
 ideas and emotions which accompanies the years before 
 marriage. When there is, as was the case with Alba 
 Steno, a certain discord of soul existing between that 
 younger friend and her mother this tenderness for the 
 adopted sister becomes so profound that it cannot be 
 broken without a heart-break on both sides. This AV.MS 
 why, in leaving Rome, the faithful and noble Maud felt
 
 258 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 at the same time relief and a sorrow. Belief, because 
 she was no longer exposed to an explanation with Alba ; 
 sorrow, because it was so bitter for her to think that 
 never should she be able to justify herself to her friend, 
 never help her to evade the difficulties of life ; finally, 
 never love her openly, as she loved her secretly. And 
 she said to herself as she watched the city with its rows 
 of lights disappear far into the night : 
 
 " Let her misjudge me, but never let her guess any- 
 thing. Who will now prevent her from yielding to her 
 feeling for that dangerous and perfidious Dorsenne? 
 Who will console her when she is sad ? I was perhaps 
 wrong to write as I did to that woman, a letter which 
 was handed to her before her daughter. Ah ! Poor lit- 
 tle soul ! May God watch over you ! " 
 
 She then turned to her son, whose hair she stroked, 
 as if to drive away by the evidence of present duty, this 
 homesickness which had just invaded her at the thought 
 of an affection sacrificed forever. Hers was a nature 
 too active, too accustomed to that British virtue of self- 
 control, to find pleasure in the languor of vain emotions. 
 And yet even to-day, and after months and months have 
 passed over the sinister event which followed so closely 
 on that departure, she cannot help a little chill when she 
 remembers the intuition that came to her in that silent 
 corner of a rapid train, of a catastrophe suspended over 
 that innocent Alba. The two persons of whom her now 
 powerless friendship had thought, were for diverse rea- 
 sons the two fatal instruments of the " poor little soul's " 
 fate, and the obscure remorse felt by Maud herself, after 
 the terrible note given to Mme. Steno before the young 
 girl, was also only too just. When the servant had given 
 this letter to the Countess, saying that Mme. Gorka 
 begged to be excused on account of illness, Alba Steno's 
 first movement had been to pass into her friend's room. 
 
 " I am going to kiss her, and see if she needs any- 
 thing," she said. 
 
 " But the Countess wishes to see absolutely no one,"
 
 ALBA SEES. 259 
 
 replied the valet with embarrassment, and at the same 
 moment Mme. Steno, who had just opened the note said, 
 in a voice which startled the young 1 girl by its altera- 
 tion: 
 
 " Let us go. I, too, am not feeling- well." 
 This woman, so haughty, so accustomed to bend every- 
 thing before her will, had quivered painfully under the 
 atrocious insult of the words which drove her, Cathe- 
 rine Steno, out of the house with ignominy. She had 
 turned pale even to the roots of her beautiful blonde 
 hair ; her countenance had changed, and, for the first 
 and last time, Alba saw her whole body tremble. This 
 was but the affair of an instant ; even at the foot of the 
 stairs, energy had resumed sway in that courageous 
 character, so well made for the shocks of strong emotions 
 and the instantaneous right-about-face of action. But, 
 however rapid this passage had been, it had sufficed to 
 agitate the young girl. Not one instant did she doubt 
 that the note was the cause of that extraordinary meta- 
 morphosis in the aspect and attitude of the Countess. 
 The fact that Maud, her friend, would not receive her in 
 her room, was no less extraordinary. What was taking 
 place ? What did that letter contain ? What did they 
 conceal from her ? If, the day before, she had had the 
 sensation of a needle through her heart, from suspecting 
 a scene of violent explanation between her mother and 
 Boleslas Gorka, how could she help being uneasy to the 
 point of anguish on seeing the condition in which her 
 mother had been thrown by a few lines from Gorka's 
 wife ? The anonymous denunciation returned to her 
 mind, and with it all the suspicions she had for months 
 vainly rejected. Certain hypotheses sometimes adapt 
 themselves so exactly to certain facts, that to conceive 
 them is to admit them. The one which immediately 
 shot through Alba's mind was, alas ! of that sort. She 
 thought that some chance, perhaps the infamy of a sim- 
 ilar denunciation, had enlightened Maud on the relations 
 between Mme. Steno and Boleslas, and that this was the
 
 260 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 secret of the terror which the note had caused the Coun- 
 tess. Although the latter was ignorant that for many 
 months a moral drama, of which this scene formed a 
 decisive episode, was being enacted within her daughter, 
 she was too clever not to understand that her emotion 
 had been very imprudent, and that she must explain it. 
 Besides, the breach with Maud was irreparable, and 
 Alba must share it. This mother, at once so guilty and 
 so devoted, so blind and so cautious, had no sooner seen 
 this necessity than her decision was taken and a false 
 explanation invented : 
 
 " Guess what Maud has just written to me ? " she sud- 
 denly said to her daughter when they were seated side 
 by side in their carriage. God ! What balm did this 
 simple phrase put into Alba's heart. Her mother was 
 going to show her the note ! This joy was not long. 
 The note remained where the Countess, after having 
 nervously folded it, had slipped it in the opening of her 
 glove. And she continued : " She accuses me of being 
 the cause of a duel between her husband and Florent 
 Chapron, and she quarrels wdth me by letter, without 
 having seen me, without having spoken to me." 
 
 " Boleslas Gorka is to fight a duel with Florent Chap- 
 ron ? " repeated the young girl. 
 
 " Yes," said the mother. " I knew it through Hafner. 
 I said nothing about it to you, that you should not 
 worry on Maud's account, and I waited for her so long 
 to give her courage, in case I should find her too uneasy. 
 And this is the way in which she rewards my friendship. 
 It seems that Gorka became offended at something that 
 Chapron said about the Poles, one of those innocent and 
 stupid things such as are said every day about different 
 nations, about us Italians, the French, the English, the 
 Germans, the Jews, and w T hich mean nothing. I repeated 
 the thing to Gorka as a joke. Now judge, is it my fault 
 if instead of laughing, the man went and insulted that 
 poor Florent, and if this absurd meeting is the result ? 
 And Maud, who writes to me that she will never forgive
 
 ALBA SEES. 261 
 
 me, that I am a bad friend, that I did it on purpose to 
 exasperate her husband ! Eh ! let her watch her hus- 
 band ; let her lock him up, if he be crazy ! And I who 
 received them as I did, I who made their position in 
 Home, I who only thought of her just now ! You hear," 
 she added, pressing- her daughter's hand with a fury 
 that was at least true, if her words were false. " I for- 
 bid you ever to see her again or write to her. If she 
 sends me no apology for her unqualified note, I no 
 longer wish to know her. One is too much of a dupe to 
 be so good ! " 
 
 Listening to this tale, Alba for the first time felt the 
 certainty that her mother was imposing on her. Since 
 suspicion had entered her mind with reference to her 
 mother, until then the object of a unique admiration and 
 tenderness, she had passed through many attacks of 
 distrust. But talking with the Countess had always dis- 
 sipated them. This was because Mme. Steno, except 
 under her amorous vagaries, was of a frank and truthful 
 nature. You could not live in her atmosphere without 
 the impression that she was the least dissembling of 
 women. Her habitual audacity and the sort of serenity 
 which she displayed in pursuing her passions, gave her, 
 even under the necessary trickeries, that aristocratic 
 repose of manner which commands belief as if by mag- 
 netism. Besides, she spoke untruths only at the last 
 extremity. Her dislike for littlenesses made her prefer 
 silence, which is indeed the surest way to deceive. When 
 it was absolutely necessary that she should extricate 
 herself from some difficulty by a positive falsehood, she 
 always took care to invent one that was simple and 
 near the ,ruth, as was the one she had just formulated. 
 It was in fact a mania of that good Florent's to quote, 
 incessantly, ready-made witticisms, full of national epi- 
 grams as poor as they were wicked. Alba could remem- 
 ber not one, but twenty occasions in which this excellent 
 man had made easy jokes at which a sensitive temper 
 might well take offence. There was therefore no actual
 
 262 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 impossibility that a meeting between Gorka and Chap- 
 ron should be brought about by an incident of that 
 nature. But Chapron was the brother-in-law of Mait- 
 land, of that new friend with whom Mme. Steno had 
 become infatuated during the absence of the Polish 
 count and what a brother-in-law ? the one about 
 whom Dorsenne said : " He would burn Borne to cook 
 an egg for his sister's husband ! " When Mme. Steno 
 had announced this duel to her daughter, a certain 
 and immediate inference struck the poor child : Flo- 
 rent is fighting for his brother-in-law ! And on whose 
 account, if not Mme. Steno's ? This idea, however, could 
 not have held for a second after the Countess's very 
 plausible explanation, if Alba had not had, in her heart, 
 a proof, only too certain, that her mother was not speak- 
 ing the truth. The young girl loved Maud Gorka as 
 she was loved by her. She knew the tenderness of that 
 faithful and delicate friend, as that friend knew her. 
 For Maud to write to her mother a letter that necessi- 
 tated an immediate breach, she must have had a reason 
 so great that it was terrible. Another actual proof was 
 immediately added to this hypothesis. Given the char- 
 acter of the Countess and her habits, if she had not 
 shown this letter of Maud's to her daughter, there on 
 the spot, it was because this letter could not be shown. 
 Vainly did Alba reproach herself for this new spasm of 
 doubt. Vainly did she try to persuade herself that in 
 the evening, on the morrow, or the next day, she, too, 
 would receive from her friend a note, supporting the 
 explanation given by her mother. What she learned the 
 next day was the scene of the duel told by Maitland to 
 Mme. Steno ; Gorka's savage attack upon Dorsenne ; the 
 latter's coolness, and the comparatively harmless issue 
 of the double meeting. 
 
 " You see," said her mother to her, " that I was right 
 to think that Gorka is insane. It seems he had an ac- 
 cess of rage after that duel, wounded as he was, and he 
 is closely watched and allowed to see no one. Do you
 
 ALBA SEES. 263 
 
 now understand how Maud could hold me responsible 
 for a tit of insanity which is, it seems, hereditary in the 
 Gorka family?" 
 
 This was in fact the fable that the Venetian and her 
 friends Hafner, Ardea, and others spread everywhere in 
 Borne, to lessen the scandal. This accusation of mad- 
 ness is a rather common proceeding with women who 
 have exasperated a man to a paroxysm, when they wish 
 to take away all importance from his acts and words. 
 In the present case Boleslas's frenzy and his two duels, 
 with a quarter of an hour's interval, without anyone's 
 being able to discern the true motive of his anger, first 
 against Florent Chapron, then against Dorsenue, justi- 
 fied only too well this calumny. When it was known 
 throughout the city that the Doria Palace was closed, 
 that Maud Gorka no longer received anyone, finally, that 
 she was taking her husband away in this mode which 
 resembled flight, there was no longer any doubt that 
 the young man's reason was shipwrecked. They 
 thought no more of Mme. Steno and her intrigue with 
 the young man, save to pity her for the danger she 
 would have run had this insanity declared itself in her 
 house. In return, public opinion was very severe upon 
 those witnesses who had, in spite of this declared mad- 
 ness, consented to the irregularity of that double meet- 
 ing. There was a tumult of discussion, so violent that 
 the authorities came very near interfering, and had it 
 not been for the high influence of one of Pietrapertosa's 
 relatives, who occupied a chief place in the present 
 cabinet, the heroes of this adventure would have been 
 summoned to appear in court. In the meantime they 
 were the topic of all conversation, so much so that 
 Ardea's astonishing betrothal, Fanny Hafner's baptism, 
 the repurchase of the Castagna Palace all these events, 
 nmch more important in themselves to Roman society, 
 were considered secondary. Two persons profited by 
 these reports, whose origin remained unknown through 
 the precautions taken by the patient Cibo. One was the
 
 264 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 innkeeper of the Tempo Perso, whose simple bettola be- 
 came for many days a place of pilgrimage, and who sold 
 a hitherto unknown number of flasks of Albanian wine 
 and baskets of new-laid eggs. The other was Dor- 
 senne's publishers, from whom the booksellers of Rome 
 ordered several hundred volumes. 
 
 " Had I had this affair in Paris," said the author to 
 Mdlle. Steno, as he related to her this unforeseen result, 
 " I should perhaps have known the intoxication of the 
 thirtieth thousand." 
 
 It was within a few days following 1 the departure of 
 the Gorkas that he was thus jesting, after a dinner of 
 twenty -four covers given at the Steno villa in honor of 
 Peppino Ardea and Fanny Hafner. Having been rein- 
 stalled in the good graces of the Countess since his 
 duel, he had once more become one of the habitues of 
 the house, and he was all the more assiduous since 
 Alba's daily increasing melancholy interested him more 
 and more. The enigma of this young girl's character 
 redoubled this interest at every visit, so much so that in 
 spite of the heat of the dangerous Roman summer, al- 
 ready begun, he invariably postponed to the next day 
 his return to Paris, invariably announced. What had 
 she guessed from the recital of that meeting, the account 
 of which she had asked with a scarcely concealed emo- 
 tion in her eyes, so blue, so clear, so transparent, at the 
 same time as impenetrable as certain lakes at the 
 foot of the glaciers in the Alps ? He thought he did 
 well to corroborate with all his might that legend of 
 Boleslas Gorka's insanity, which he, better than any, 
 knew to be so untrue. But was it not the surest way of 
 putting Mme. Steno out of the case ? In the course of 
 his narrative, why had he seen those beautiful pale eyes 
 of Alba veiled with a more inexplicable sadness, as if he 
 had struck her another blow ? He did not realize that 
 since the day when the word "insanity" had been 
 uttered before her with reference to Maud's husband, 
 the Contessina was the victim of a reasoning as simple as
 
 ALBA SEES. 265 
 
 it was irrefutable : " If Boleslas be mad, as all agree in 
 saying, why does Maud, who is so just and who loves 
 me so, attribute to my mother the responsibility of this 
 duel, even to the point of quarrelling 1 with me, too, and 
 going away without a line of explanation ? No. There 
 is something else." To understand the nature of this 
 " something else," the young girl had but to remember 
 her mother's face as she read Maud's letter. Since this 
 scene had taken place, ten days before, she always saw 
 that face, and the dismay written on those features, 
 usually so calm, so haughty. Ah ! poor little soul, in- 
 deed, who could not succeed in banishing the thought : 
 " My mother is not a good woman ; " a thought all the 
 more frightful since Alba no longer had the ignorance, 
 though she still had the innocence, of a young girl. Ac- 
 customed to the sometimes very broad conversations of 
 her mother's drawing-room, enlightened by the reading 
 of chance novels, the words " lover " and " mistress " had 
 for her a meaning sufficiently precise to inflict an al- 
 most intolerable suffering when applied to the intimacy 
 of her mother, first with Gorka and then with Maitland. 
 This martyrdom she had endured during the whole of 
 that dinner, at the end of which Dorsenne was trying to 
 chat gayly with her. She had found herself at table be- 
 side the artist. The breath of this man, his gestures, 
 the sound of his voice, his manner of eating and drink- 
 ing, finally, his near presence, had caused her such acute 
 suffering, that she had found it impossible to take any- 
 thing save tumblers of ice-water to keep from faint- 
 ing. On several occasions, during the course of that 
 cruel dinner, prolonged amid the mingled glitter of 
 sumptuous plate, magnificent Venetian crystal, the deli- 
 cacy of flowers and the flash of jewels, she had detected 
 Maitland's glance fixed on her mother with an expres- 
 sion which made her long to cry out with pain, so 
 instinctively did she feel its passionateness, while at 
 one moment she thought she saw her mother respond. 
 She had then felt with horrible clearness what she
 
 266 COSMOPOLI8. 
 
 usually felt in a confused way the character of that 
 mother's beauty. With pearls in her blonde hair, her 
 throat and arms bare, in a dress the pale green of which 
 showed off the incomparable splendor of her skin, her 
 dewy lips, her voluptuous eyes under their long eyelids, 
 the Dogaressa appeared in the centre of the table at once 
 like an empress and a courtesan. She resembled that 
 light Queen of Cyprus, painted by Titian with a fierce 
 brush, Caterina Cornaro, whose name she fitly bore. 
 For years Alba had been so proud of the halo of fasci- 
 nation environing the Countess, so proud of those 
 statuesque arms, of that superb carnage, of that face 
 which defied time, of that flower of life which made so 
 glorious a creature. During this dinner she had been 
 almost ashamed of her. She had also been troubled by 
 the sight of Mrs. Maitland, a few seats farther on, with 
 brow and eyes, mouth and cheeks compressed and 
 knotted with suffering. She thought: "Does Lydia 
 also suspect them?" Yet, was it possible that her 
 mother, so generous, so magnanimous, so good, could 
 wear that smile of sovereign tranquillity with such 
 secrets in her heart ? Was it possible that she could 
 have betrayed Maud during month after month, and 
 kept that steady light of joy in her eyes ? and when, 
 to drive away this monstrous suspicion which crushed 
 her like remorse, Alba looked around the long table, 
 she saw Peppino and the charming Fanny side by side, 
 and a little farther the Baron, pluming himself with his 
 bands of decorations. More faces, more falsehood. 
 The Prince smiled on his betrothed as if he loved her, 
 and, after having ignobly struggled for months to bring 
 himself to this mesalliance, was marrying her to pay with 
 money which he knew to be stolen, debts incurred to keep 
 up a life both foolish and fast. Her father, too, smiled 
 tenderly on his daughter, whom he was selling through 
 vanity. Such were the sad reflections whose shadows 
 Dorsenne had seen hovering round the lips and in the 
 eyes of his little friend, knowing nothing except that
 
 ALBA SEES. 267 
 
 they were shadows. He tried to amuse her after dinner, 
 when the coffee was served and the hubbub of conversa- 
 tion gave them a little dual solitude in a corner of the 
 hall already filled with people. 
 
 " Come," he suddenly interrupted in the middle of a 
 speech in which he had already given two or three an- 
 ecdotes from the literary shop in connection with edi- 
 tions and advertisements ; " instead of listening- to your 
 friend, Dorsenne, you are pursuing blue devils that are 
 flying across the room." 
 
 "They should fly away at least," answered Alba, 
 pointing to Fanny Hafner and Prince d'Ardea, seated 
 on a sofa, and she continued: "What I spoke to you 
 about last week has it been sufficiently proven ? You 
 do not know all the irony of it. You were not pres- 
 ent, like me, at the poor girl's baptism, day before 
 yesterday ? " 
 
 " Very true," said Julien ; " you were godmother. I 
 dreamed of Leo XIII. as godfather, with a princess of 
 the house of Bourbon as godmother. Hafner's triumph 
 would have been more splendid." 
 
 " He had to be content with his ambassador and your 
 humble servant," replied Alba, with a feeble laugh, 
 which soon changed into a bitter tone. " Are you 
 pleased with your pupil ? " she added. " I make prog- 
 ress. I am beginning to laugh when I should like to 
 weep. But you yourself would not have laughed if you 
 had seen that charming Fanny's fervor- She was the 
 picture of happy faith. No mockery, please." 
 
 " And where did the ceremony take place ? " asked 
 Dorsenne, obeying this almost supplicating injunction 
 
 "In the chapel of the Dames du Cenacle." 
 
 "I know the place," interrupted the author. " One of 
 the prettiest corners of Home ! It is in an old Pian- 
 ciani palace, a large house, almost opposite the Royal 
 Calcografia, where they sell those fantastic etchings by 
 the great Piranese, those dungeons and ruins so in- 
 tensely poetical. It is the Goya of stone there is a
 
 268 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 garden on the upper terrace, which gives a border of 
 flowers and foliage to the roof. And then, to ascend to 
 the chapel you follow a winding way, a slope without 
 steps, and you meet nuns in purple dresses, in black 
 cloaks, with faces so delicate in the white setting of 
 their fluted caps and embroidered wimples. Just the 
 retreat for one of my heroines. My old friend Mont- 
 fanon took me there. As we were mounting to this 
 tower, about six weeks ago, we heard a dozen little 
 girls' voices, thin, small, shrill voices, singing, ' Questo 
 cuor tu lo vcdrai.' * It was a procession of little cate- 
 chists coming from the opposite direction, and the pale 
 thin flame of their tapers trembled in the waning day- 
 light. It was exquisite. Never mind, permit me to Jaugh 
 now, at the thought of Montfanon's anger when I tell 
 him about this baptism. If I knew where to find the 
 old leaguer ? But he is hiding since our duel. He is 
 doing penance in some retreat. I have told you that 
 for him the world has not moved since Francois de 
 Guise. He allows Protestants and Jews only a right to 
 the stake. So, when Monseigneur Guerillot speaks to 
 him of Fanny's religious aspirations, he gives savage 
 replies right and left. Should she have herself thrown 
 to the lions, like Sainte Blandiui, he would still cry out 
 sacrilege and insincerity." 
 
 ''He did not see her day before yesterday," said 
 Alba ; " nor the expression of her face when she recited 
 the Creed. You know that I am not to be suspected of 
 mysticism, and I have many moments of doubt. There 
 are hours when I can believe in nothing, so evil and sad 
 does life appear to me. But I shall never forget that 
 expression. She saw God ! Some of the ladies who 
 were there had very touching and pious faces. The old 
 cardinal was very venerable. They were all around 
 Fanny, like the saints around the Madonna, in the prim- 
 itive paintings which you taught me to love. When the 
 baptism was over, guess what she said to me : ' Let us 
 
 * That heart of Jesns shalt them see.
 
 ALBA SEES. 269 
 
 pray for my good father, and for his conversion ! ' Is 
 not that a melancholy blindness ? " 
 
 " The fact is," said Dorsenne, jesting" anew, " that in 
 the father's dictionary this word has another meaning : 
 Conversion, common noun, applied only to bonds. But 
 let us reason a little, Contessina. Why do you find it so 
 sad that this girl should see her father according to her 
 own character ? And why do you find it melancholy that 
 this adorable saint should be the daughter of that con- 
 summate thief ? How I wish you were really my pupil, 
 and that it were not too ridiculous to give you a psycho- 
 logic lecture, here, in this corner of the hall. I would 
 tell you, when you see one of those anomalies which 
 make you indignant, think of its causes. This is easy. 
 Although a Protestant, Fanny is of Jewish origin, that 
 is, the descendant of a persecuted race, in which, with 
 the defects inherent in proscribed nations, corresponding 
 virtues are developed. These are the spirit of family 
 devotion, the utter unselfishness of the woman who feels 
 that she is the comfort of the threatened hearth, the 
 sweet flower which perfumes the sombre prison. This 
 causes her love for her father. For her piety, it is 
 also very natural. Let me be pedantic, my profession 
 permits it, and make use of the big ugly word atavism. 
 It is, as you may or may not know, the reappearance 
 within us of an ancestor after one hundred, five hun- 
 dred, two thousand years. Now, remember the Bible, 
 and that collection of pious women Rebecca, Ruth, Es- 
 ther, Marianne, Elizabeth, the two Marys, and that Ve- 
 ronica who wiped the face of Jesus. It is one of these 
 who lives again in Hafner's daughter, as the poet of the 
 Song of Songs lived in Henri Heine, as one of the 
 prophets lived in Spinoza, as some Iscariot lives in 
 that robber, Hafner, himself. When you look at life 
 under this aspect, all the personages that surround you 
 appear like these," and he pointed to a tapestry that 
 draped the wall above their heads. " This is the world, 
 an opportunity to suspend in our thoughts figured tapes-
 
 270 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 tries with an ever-renewed admiration for the vast loom 
 of nature, which never stops weaving- new webs more 
 curious than the last. And now, I have finished my 
 lecture, which you were very good to listen to without 
 yawning in my face." 
 
 " All this is fine and good," replied Alba, with great 
 seriousness. As it were, she had hung to Dorsenne's 
 words while he spoke with that instinctive taste for 
 ideas of this order which proved her true origin better 
 than the gossip of society. " But you do not take grief 
 into account. Yet the human creature who has not asked 
 to live, and who suffers, cannot be gazed at like a tapes- 
 try, a painting, or a thing. You, who have heart, what 
 becomes of your theories when you see tears ? " 
 
 " Well, who wishes to weep here ? " replied the author. 
 " It is not Hafner, since a prince is to become his son-in- 
 law. It is not this prince, since a baron ten times a mill- 
 ionaire will become his father-in-law. It is not Fanny, 
 since she believes as no one now believes, and has just 
 been baptized." And in a caressing voice he added: 
 " There is only you, little Countess, who play this dan- 
 gerous game of shedding for others the tears they 
 would shed if they felt the misfortunes they do not feel." 
 
 " It is because I foresee the day when Fanny will feel 
 her misfortune," replied the young girl. " I do not 
 know when she will judge her father, but alas ! I am 
 only too sure that she has already begun to judge Ar- 
 dea. Observe her now, I beg you." 
 
 Dorsenne looked toward the betrothed couple. Fanny 
 listened to the Prince, but with a trace of pain on her 
 beautiful face, the lines of which were ideally pure. He 
 laughed the laugh of a talker who is relating an anec- 
 dote which he considers very witty, and which jars the 
 sensitive delicacy of the person to whom he speaks, 
 without his knowing it or caring. They were no longer 
 the same two as on the first days of the engagement, 
 when Julien had noted complete illusion on the part of 
 the young girl with regard to her future husband.
 
 ALBA SEES. 271 
 
 "You are right, Contessina," said he, "the disillusion 
 has begun. It is a little early." 
 
 "Yes, it is a little early," replied Alba, " and yet it is 
 too late. Would you believe there are moments when I 
 ask myself if it is not my duty to tell her the truth about 
 her marriage, such as I know it, with the story of the 
 man of straw, the forced sale, and Ardea's bargaining "? " 
 
 "You will not do it," saidDorsenne ; " and besides, to 
 what purpose ? This one or another, the man who will 
 marry her, will want only her money, you may be sure. 
 Millions must be paid for in this world, and this is one 
 of their ransoms. But I shall get you scolded by your 
 mother for monopolizing you, and I still have the bore 
 of two visits this evening." 
 
 " Well, put them off," said Alba, whose almost tragic 
 seriousness of a moment ago suddenly gave way to co- 
 quettishness. " I ask you not to go !" 
 
 " I must," replied Julien. " To begin with, it is the 
 old Duchess de Pietrapertosa's last Wednesday; and 
 after her grandson's recent tricks -" 
 
 " She is so ugly," said Alba. " You are not going to 
 sacrifice me to her 1 " 
 
 " And then I have my countrywoman, who goes away 
 to-morrow, and of whom I must take leave to-night, 
 Mine, de Sauve, with whom you met me at the Capitol 
 Museum. You will not say that she is too ugly ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Alba, who had already become dreamy ; 
 " she is very pretty." She had on her lips a new prayer, 
 which she did not formulate. Then, with a pleading 
 look : " At least come back. Promise me that you will 
 come back after your two visits. You will have finished 
 them within an hour and a half. It will not be mid- 
 night. You know they never leave before one o'clock, 
 and sometimes two. Will you return * " 
 
 " Yes, if possible. But at all events to-morrow, at the 
 studio, to see the portrait." 
 
 " Then good-by," said the young girl, in a smothered 
 voice.
 
 272 OOSMOPOLIS. 
 
 X. 
 
 COMMON MISERY 
 
 Alba Steno had uttered this farewell in so peculiar a 
 tone that Dorsenne was still moved by it as he went 
 down the stairs, five minutes later. He was saying to 
 himself : " Take care, Master Julien. She was really too 
 pretty to-night, with her rather thin shoulders, in the 
 shimmer of her white dress, her pale complexion, her 
 red mouth, and her light eyes too pretty and too be- 
 witching. A few more conversations of this kind and 
 we shall be very near the Folly." This was his rather 
 irreverent way of describing marriage. " And as for that, 
 no, no, no. Remember the motto of the ring." And he 
 pressed to his mouth the sapphire of a large ring he 
 wore on his little finger. He had had engraved in it the 
 five letters M. H. IT. D. P. These were not loving ini- 
 tials, as Alba's jealousy would surely have supposed if 
 the poor child had been able to examine this strange 
 talisman of celibacy. In one of those fits of childish- 
 ness that sometimes seized him, this singular artist had 
 wished to take for the motto of his life a celebrated 
 formula of the scriptures applied to the most inconstant 
 and at the same time, most systematic of Bohemianism : 
 Memoria liospitis unius diei jyrce.iereun.tis. The memory 
 of the passing guest of a day. This was the meaning of 
 the inscription in the ring, and what he wished to leave 
 behind him in all his friendships and all his loves. He, 
 whom his rivals accused of being conceited, was so little 
 so, that on leaving the Steno villa on that lovely night 
 of May, he forgot to ask himself what impression he 
 had again produced on the young girl. Yet he had 
 spoken of a dangerous game and did not see that if 
 he risked his bachelor independence, Alba risked her 
 whole heart a heart so sick that it was a piiy to play 
 with it. Alas ! The work of seduction undertaken with
 
 COMMON MISERY. 273 
 
 voluntary unconsciousness by that man at once so in- 
 sensible and so curious to make others feel, was already 
 more than half accomplished. The soul of prey had 
 already tied the poor little soul as the spider ties with a 
 thread a winged insect taken in its web, palpitating-, 
 without the power of breaking it. When Dorsenne had 
 left the drawing-room, the Contessina felt once more, 
 in spite of the numerous assembly that filled it, that 
 cold impression of solitude that she always had after 
 similar conversations. Julien was the only being in 
 the world capable of suspending within her, for a few 
 minutes by the magic of his presence, the martyrdom of 
 the fixed idea which consumed her. He was handsome ; 
 he was famous ; he had the art of always speaking to her 
 as if he had understood her secret sorrows, though he 
 scarcely ever pained her by an excess of knowledge. To 
 the prestige of his wit and renown, he had just added 
 that of romantic courage in his extraordinary duel with 
 Boleslas Gorka. Finally, and this was an element of 
 interest of which the author was at least innocent, the 
 habitual raillery of his speech contrasted too much with 
 the subtle pathos of his books, not to give to the unfor- 
 tunate child the idea that he, too, concealed painful 
 secrets under a mask of scepticism. A single one of 
 these motives would have sufficed for another woman to 
 absolutely forbid her daughter from having any familial- 
 intercourse with an individual so capable of inflaming 
 a youthful imagination. But the Countess thought all 
 the less of any such watchfulness, because, like nearly all 
 parents, she had formed a conviction about Alba's char- 
 acter : " He who will inspire her with enthusiasm," she 
 would laughingly say, " is yet unborn." The Contes- 
 sina's nature was too different from her own for her to 
 understand this heart which opened least when it was 
 most touched, whereas emotion was the synonym of 
 expansion with the lavish and spontaneous Venetian. 
 That evening again, she had not even observed Alba's 
 re very after Dorsenne's departure, and it was Hafner
 
 274 COSMOPOLI8. 
 
 who called her attention to it. The wily Baron supposed 
 that if the novelist was attentive to the young lady, it 
 was with the object of winning a dowry which would 
 have seemed considerable to anyone, and particularly 
 so to a Frenchman only in comfortable circumstances. 
 Julien's twenty-five thousand francs of income made 
 him independent. The two hundred and fifty thousand 
 that Alba would inherit at her mother's death made a 
 very large fortune. Therefore Hafner thought himself 
 once more deserving of his title of " old friend ," in taking 
 Mine. Steno to one side to say : 
 
 "Do you think Alba has been very strange for the 
 past few days ? " 
 
 " She has always been so," replied the Countess. 
 " Such are the young people of to-day, who have noth- 
 ing young about them." 
 
 " Don't you believe," insisted the Baron, " that there 
 might be some other cause for this sadness too much 
 interest in a certain person, for instance ? " 
 
 " Alba ! " cried the mother, " in whom ? " 
 
 "In Dorsenne," replied Hafner, lowering his voice. 
 " He has been gone five minutes ; and observe that she 
 no longer notices anything or anyone." 
 
 "Ah! I would be only too happy," replied Mme. 
 Steno, laughing. "He is handsome ; he has talent and 
 fortune. He is the great-nephew of a hero, which, with 
 my ideas, is equivalent to being of the old nobility- 
 But Alba is not thinking of him, I assure you. To 
 begin with, she would have told me so ; she tells me 
 everything. We are two friends, almost two playmates, 
 and she knows that I shall leave her entirely free about 
 her marriage. No, my friend; I know my daughter. 
 Unfortunately, neither Dorsenne nor anyone else inter- 
 ests her. She would at least amuse herself whereas 
 everything bores her, enervates her. I sometimes fear 
 she will go into a decline like her cousin, Andryana 
 Navagero, whom she so greatly resembles. But I shall 
 stir her up. It will not take me long."
 
 COMMON MISERY. 275 
 
 "A Dorsenne for a son-in-law?" said Hafner, look- 
 ing 1 at the Countess as she made her way toward Alba, 
 through the scattered groups of guests. And he shook 
 his head as he glanced with satisfaction at his own 
 future son-in-law. " This is what people get when 
 they do not closely follow their children. They think 
 they know them, until some folly suddenly opens their 
 eyes. And then it is too late ! Well, I have warned 
 her, and it is no business of mine." 
 
 This profound observer, as his eyes rested compla- 
 cently on the group formed by Peppino Ardea and 
 Fanny, did not suspect that he knew no better his own 
 daughter, whom he had betrothed to a Roman prince, for 
 the greater triumph of his worldly ambition. Among the 
 men and women assembled in the drawing-room and on 
 the terrace, including the penetrating Lydia Maitland 
 in quest of a new vengeance, Alba alone suspected the 
 truth, but she only suspected it. She was not mistaken 
 in thinking that she noticed a beginning of disillusion in 
 her young friend to whom, since Maud's departure, she 
 was daily becoming more attached by the tender sym- 
 pathy of a cruel identity of fate, and she was right in 
 jiidging that the Prince's conversation, that evening, 
 was singularly unpleasant to his fiancee. This conver- 
 sation, however, was only a succession of very innocent 
 jokes on the sovereign pontiff, such as are told every 
 day in Rome, and in clerical circles, even more than in 
 others. Alba was able to convince herself of the 
 fact, when, having been lectured by her mother, she 
 approached the couple to do her duty as hostess. In 
 spite of Fanny's growing discomfort, Ardea was amus- 
 ing himself by relating to her more or less truthful 
 anecdotes on the household of the Vatican. He thus 
 tried to lessen somewhat her enthusiasm as a Catholic, 
 at which he already took umbrage. His sense of the 
 ridiculous and that of his social interest made him 
 understand what an absurdity it would be to return to 
 the clerical coteries, after having married a millionaire
 
 276 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 just converted. To be just, it must be admitted that 
 the Countess's dry champagne was not absolutely for- 
 eign to the obstinacy with which he teased his fiancee 
 on her religious simplicity. This was not the first time 
 that he had yielded to that habit of tippling which had 
 been one of the darling sins of his youth, and which is 
 less rare under those sunny skies than the modesty of 
 the North imagines. 
 
 " You are just in time, Contessina," said he, when 
 Mdlle. Steuo had seated herself beside them on the sofa. 
 " Your friend is quite scandalized by a story I have just 
 related to her. You know one of the nobles used the 
 Vatican telephone this winter, to give rendezvous to 
 Giulia Rezzonica, without arousing 1 Molino's jealousy. 
 But that is nothing. I nearly quarrelled with Fannj r 
 for having revealed to her that the Holy Father repeats 
 his benedictions in the empty Sixtine Chapel with a 
 singing master, like a simple prima-donna. . . ." 
 
 "I have already .told you that I don't appreciate 
 these jests," said Fanny, with a visible irritation w r hich 
 her patience still controlled. "If you wish to continue 
 them, I shall get up and leave you with Alba." 
 
 " Since you are offending her," said the latter to 
 the Prince, " change the subject." 
 
 "Ah, Coutessina," replied Peppino, shaking his head, 
 " you already uphold her ! What will it be later on ? 
 Well, I apologize for my innocent epigrams on His 
 Holiness at home. It is a pity," he laughingly con- 
 tinued. I still had two or three very funny details, 
 among others, the story of a chest filled with gold coins 
 which some good Christian had left him as a legacy, 
 and this poor dear man was counting them when the 
 chest slipped and there was the whole treasure on the 
 floor, and the pope and a cardinal chasing the Napo- 
 leons on all fours when a servant entered. Tableau ! I 
 assure you that the other one, the good Pius IX., was 
 the first one to laugh with us, at all this gossip of the 
 Vatican. This one is not so much alia mono. But all
 
 COMMON MISERY. 277 
 
 the same, he is a saintly man. I do him full justice. 
 Only this saintly man is a man, and even a good old 
 man. This is what you will not see." 
 
 " Where are you going ? " said Alba, who had risen, 
 as she had threatened Ardea to do. 
 
 " To my father, with whom I wish to exchange a few 
 words." 
 
 " I warned you to change the subject," said Alba, 
 while she and the Prince remained alone. Ardea, a lit- 
 tle abashed, shrugged his shoulders with a laugh. 
 
 " Well, little Countess, you must admit that this situ- 
 ation does not lack piquancy. You will see she will 
 forbid my going to the Quirinal. The next thing would 
 be for Hafner to have religious scruples, forbidding him 
 from bowing to the king. But I must appease Fanny." 
 
 " Heavens ! " said Alba to herself as she watched the 
 young man rise in turn. " I believe he is a little tipsy. 
 What a shame ! " 
 
 Even if he had not imbibed too many glasses of Extra 
 Dry Monopole of a celebrated brand, the very modern 
 heir of Sixtus V.'s successor would not have taken his 
 fiancee's Catholic indignation seriously. Without know- 
 ing the Machiavelian plan by which Baron Justus had 
 made use of Noah Ancona, one of the worst business 
 agents in Borne, to force him into this marriage, he had 
 no illusions as to the absolutely mercantile character of 
 this alliance. Let us add to the credit or blame of this 
 amiable sceptic this is a matter of opinion that he 
 did not give it much importance. If he had the in- 
 stinctive pride of his name, he had enough positive 
 sense to consider that nobility without privileges is of 
 very doubtful value, and he had a feeling that in this 
 affair of his marriage he was the speculator on the 
 financier. The evident respect with which Hafner sur- 
 rounded the scutcheon of the Castagnas seemed an ex- 
 cellent joke to the descendant of that noble family, and 
 the clerical snobbishness of the neophyte Fanny, com- 
 pleted his amusement. Perhaps this might have been
 
 278 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 a peculiar turn of that pride of nobility which shows 
 itself in a thousand ways. The disdain of the noble- 
 man for all nominal distinctions which you admire so 
 much in him, is one of those ways. Surely, if the 
 Prince was very clear-sighted about the Baron, he was 
 cruelly mistaken with regard to Fanny. But where 
 would he have found the necessary document to under- 
 stand the young girl's nature and her religious story, 
 well worthy of being told, at least in the main facts, 
 even if it had not been so narrowly connected with the 
 tragical ending of the drama now being enacted in poor 
 Alba's heart ? Is not a sincere conversion the most in- 
 teresting of moral problems ? Besides, neither the lit- 
 tle scene of that evening, nor those which follow, would 
 be intelligible without this short analysis that a Koman 
 such as Ardea, was, more than any other, incapable of 
 even suspecting. For him, the religious question had 
 always been too intimately associated with local and 
 even municipal affairs and the daily politics of the 
 country. In passing before the confessionals of Saint 
 Peter's, he would not have failed to kneel before one of 
 the priests to receive, with a light blow on the head, 
 the remission of all his venial sins, yet he was sincere 
 in considering the holy Father, as the nobility of the 
 eternal city has always done, with an irony that did not 
 exclude veneration. But for Fanny, who the day before 
 had received communion from the pope himself, the 
 contrast between this sacred emotion and Ardea's jest- 
 ing tone was too great. All those who have had the 
 good fortune to hear Leo XIII. celebrate one of his pri- 
 vate masses, know that the transfiguration of the pon- 
 tiff by the fervor of the sacrifice is a spectacle of more 
 astonishing magnificence than the pomp of the Sixtine 
 Chapel. This deep voice, that does not utter one sylla- 
 ble of the prayers without sustaining it, making it full of 
 soul, that wasted body which retains just enough mat- 
 ter to feed the invincible fire of thought that grand 
 and simple gesture of a benediction which, reaching far
 
 COMMON MISERY. 279 
 
 beyond the few faithful, kneeling in the narrow chapel, 
 descends on the whole of Christendom those eyes of 
 Saint Peter's successor, so full of light that they seem 
 a reflection of heaven already gazed upon all this 
 poetry remains unforgotten even by a spectator who 
 does not entirely believe, if he has retained the power 
 of thrilling at the touch of the great questions of the 
 soul. But for a girl of Fanny's age, baptized the day 
 before, truly believing and taking communion for the 
 first time, what a moment it was when the old pontiff 
 spoke the admirable words : " Corpus Domini Nostri," 
 and with his venerable, pale, and almost diaphanous 
 hand, gave her the wafer ! Peppino Ardea's cleverness 
 must have been that of a club jockey, foreign to all 
 comprehension of spiritual life, if he did not realize that 
 by letting fall the least raillery on such an impression, 
 he was committing an irreparable fault ! And to think 
 that he had imagined himself very clever in taking 
 measures against what he considered a childish atti- 
 tude, and he was even tempted to say, a theatrical atti- 
 tude ! 
 
 Like almost all the revolutions of this order, the work 
 of Christianity accomplished in Fanny during many 
 years, had had a principle as an example. The true in- 
 strument of propaganda is neither doctrine nor argu- 
 ment ; it is the contact of one soul with another. Faith 
 can be neither taught nor imposed ; it is communicated 
 by virtue of a reversibility and contagion which show 
 its mysterious and humanly indefinable essence. Fanny, 
 while very young she was then seventeen years old 
 motherless, and spiritually deserted by her father, 
 though he showered upon her material gifts, had be- 
 come very intimate with Mdlle. de Sallach, the daughter 
 of one of the greatest nobles of Styria, who was con- 
 sumptive, and had come to die in Rome. The Baron had 
 encouraged this intimacy through vanity, nor did he 
 realize the influence to which his daughter was being 
 subjected. Mathilde de Sallach was in fact one of those
 
 280 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 almost supernatural creatures for the delicacy of their 
 piety, and so fervent that she had soon acquired an al- 
 most absolute empire of thought over her friend's float- 
 ing convictions. Fanny's face spoke truly. She had 
 taken only the Jewish element from the rather confused 
 heredity which made her and her father such complex 
 beings. Now, what distinguishes the Jewish soul moro 
 than all the other characteristics, criticized or blamed 
 by the adversaries or partisans of that invincible race, 
 is a singular force in embracing what it wishes, and a 
 violence of desire that never wearies and never yields. 
 Applied to business, these energies create the fortunes 
 we know of ; applied to social triumphs, they execute 
 those astonishing worldly feats by which, ten years 
 after a scandalous lawsuit, Hafner could marry his 
 daughter into the best European nobility without creat- 
 ing too much amazement by this alliance. Turned to 
 higher things these same energies become magnified 
 until they produce real moral miracles like that sudden 
 illumination of father Katisbonne, in one of the chapels 
 of St. Andrew's during the preparations for M. de la 
 Ferronay's funeral. When Fanny had read with Mdlle. 
 de Sallach, first the " New Testament," then the " Imi- 
 tation of Christ," then " La Yie De'vote," then " The 
 Meditations on the Gospel," she gave herself up to the 
 thoughts which form the marrow of the beautiful books 
 with the same intense absorption of her whole being 
 that her implacable father had carried into his business. 
 She was hungry and thirsty for Catholicism, as he had 
 been hungry and thirsty for millions and titles. Ma- 
 thilde's death, which was one of those sublime specta- 
 cles given by the agony of true believers, settled her 
 faith. She saw the sick girl receive the sacraments, and 
 the ineffable joy of salvation on that dying face, illumined 
 by ecstasy. She heard her say, with a smile of ineffable 
 certainty : 
 
 " I shall ask our Lord Jesus Christ for you." 
 
 How could she resist such a cry and such a vision ?
 
 COMMON MISERY. 281 
 
 Therefore the next day she implored of her father per- 
 mission to be baptized, and obtained from him an an- 
 swer too significant not to be noted here : 
 
 "No doubt," answered this astonishing 1 man, who in 
 the place of his heart had a current list of stocks where 
 everything had a value, even God, " no doubt I am very 
 happy to see that religious matters occupy you to this 
 point. Religion is useful, very useful, I would even say 
 indispensable. For the people, it is a necessary re- 
 straint, and for us it goes with a certain rank, a cer- 
 tain set, a certain bearing I should add that a person 
 like you, who is called upon to live in Austria and in 
 Italy, should be Catholic ; yet you must think of the 
 possibility of marrying some one of another belief. 
 Don't exclaim. I am your father. I must provide for 
 everything. You know that you will marry according to 
 the dictates of your heart. Wait until it has spoken to 
 decide that question. If you love a Catholic, by adopt- 
 ing the faith of your betrothed, you will have the oppor- 
 tunity of doing a graceful act of which he will be very 
 sensible. Until then, I don't prevent you from attend- 
 ing all the ceremonies you like. Those of the Koman 
 liturgy are surely numbered among the most beautiful, 
 and I myself often entered Saint Peter's in the days of 
 the pontifical government. The taste, the magnificence, 
 the music, all that moved me only, before you take a 
 definite, irreparable step, I repeat it, you must wait ; 
 your actual condition of a Protestant has the advantage 
 of being more neuter, less defined." 
 
 What phrases to be heard by a heart already touched 
 by grace and by the longing for eternal life ! But this 
 heart was that of a very pure and very tender young 
 girl. It was impossible for her to judge her father. 
 The Baron's frightful positivism had caused her con- 
 sternation, but she had concluded nothing, save that she 
 must obey and wait for him to be enlightened. She had 
 therefore waited in hope, sustained and directed by Car- 
 dinal Guerillot, who was later on to baptize her and ob-
 
 282 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 tain for her the favor of receiving communion for the 
 first time at the pope's mass. This prelate, one of the 
 finest characters on which the French clergy could 
 pride itself, since Monseigneur Pie, was one of those 
 great Christians for whom the hand of God is as visible 
 in the direction of human affairs as it is invisible to 
 doubting souls, when Fanny, who had long been devoted 
 to his charities, had confided to him the serious troubles 
 of her conscience and the difficulty which had arisen 
 between her father and herself about that essential 
 point of the baptism, the cardinal had replied : " Have 
 faith in God. He will give you a sign when your hour 
 is come." And he had uttered these words with an ac- 
 cent whose conviction had penetrated the young girl 
 with a certainty that had never left her. More than 
 two years had passed in this hope. This fact will not 
 seem surprising to those who know the inner mirages 
 customary to faith. It must be added that the contrast 
 between the setting wherein revolved the life of this 
 spoiled child, and this particular disposition was so 
 strong that any other but Monseigneur Guerillot would 
 have been mistaken. It was, as we have seen, the case 
 with Montfanon, and it was also the case with Ardea. 
 Surrounded by all the refinements of almost insolently 
 brutal luxury, obliged not only to share this luxury, 
 but to direct it, since she presided at her father's magni- 
 ficent dinners, always dressed like a fashionable doll, 
 Fanny seemed to impersonate the very image of worldly 
 frivolity for whoever saw her drive by the Pincio or the 
 Pamphili Yilla in a carriage drawn by horses, the least 
 one of which was worth ten thousand francs. Hafner, 
 who was vain with the same passion that leads a man to 
 be dissipated, miserly or a gambler, wished that his 
 daughter should hold, in Eome, the uncontested sceptre 
 of elegance. Who could have guessed that this young 
 girl with the pure, pale face, yielded to this wish of the 
 Baron's in a spirit of sacrifice, obedience, and almost of 
 humility ? Who would have suspected that throughout
 
 COMMON MISERY. 283 
 
 the going and coming of an existence made up of visits 
 and receptions, she went to sleep every night and woke 
 up every morning in the expectation of a real miracle, 
 of that sign announced by Monseigneur Guerillot ? 
 How could a stranger, even were he free from the preju- 
 dices which blinded the irritable Marquis, admit that 
 this mystical soul might have interpreted a meeting 
 with Peppino Ardea in a miraculous sense ? Yes, this 
 ruin of Pope Urban VII. 's heir, the victim of unintelli- 
 gent speculations, the deserved disaster of this pre- 
 sumptuous, thoughtless and greedy, fast man, his wild 
 enterprises, his absurd loans, his forced sale, all the 
 greater or lesser episodes of this commonplace and sad 
 story, the Baron had shown to his daughter in the light 
 of a martyrdom which she never thought of mistrusting. 
 She saw a providential design in the abominable in- 
 trigue which was about to gratify, at the expense of her 
 happiness, the base aristocratic covetousness of that pir- 
 ate of the Bourse or Stock Exchange, whose name she 
 bore, regild with stolen millions the symbolic chestnuts 
 ornamenting the scutcheon of the Ardeas ! This occa- 
 sion of her baptism had appeared to her as the result of 
 the prayers made in heaven, by that angel of piety who, 
 on her death-bed, had promised to save her, and, what 
 will appear even more incredible, and yet is only too 
 true, Cardinal Guerillot shared her illusions ! In spite 
 of. his seventy years, in spite of the experience of the 
 confessional, and that far more disenchanting experience 
 of the struggle sustained against the freemasonry of his 
 French diocese, which had been the cause of his exile to 
 Rome, the saintly man saw Fanny's marriage from the 
 same supernatural standpoint. Many priests are thus 
 capable of a simplicity which, under final analysis, 
 seems to be correct. But on the spot, the antithesis 
 between the apparent reality and what they think, 
 seems an almost unreasonable irony. When he had 
 baptized Fanny, the old Bishop of Clermont felt him- 
 self filled with such profound joy that he said to the
 
 284 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 dear child, with a quotation to express more delicately 
 the tender respect of his friendship : 
 
 " I may now speak like Saint Monica, after the bap- 
 tism of Saint Augustine : ' Cur hie sim nescio jam con- 
 sumpta spe kujus sseculi.' I know not why I remain 
 here. All my hope in this century is consummated. 
 And I may even add, with her : the only thing that made 
 me wish to remain a little longer in this life was to see 
 you Catholic before I died. The belated traveller can 
 now depart. He has gathered the last and fairest 
 flower." 
 
 Noble and confiding apostle, who was so soon to leave 
 them, deserving what the African bishop said of his 
 mother : " That religious soul is finally freed from its 
 body," should be said of him. He did not suspect that 
 he was soon to pay very dearly for this last realiza- 
 tion of his last wish ! He did not foresee that the one 
 whom he ingeniously called his fairest flower, was to 
 become for him the principle of a very cruel sorrow. 
 Poor, great cardinal! The last trial of his life, the 
 supreme bitter drop of the chalice was for him to 
 witness the disenchantment which so closely followed 
 the intoxication of the first initiation with his sweet 
 neophyte ! Of whom, if not of him, would she have 
 asked advice in the torturing doubts she immediately 
 began to have about her feelings with regard to 
 her betrothed? Therefore, on the day following -the 
 evening when the imprudent Ardea had jested with 
 such petty insistance on a subject she considered 
 sacred, she rang at the door of the apartment occu- 
 pied by Monseigneur Guerillot, in the vast house 
 of the rue des Quatre Fontaines, where dwelt the 
 procurator of Saint Sulpicio. Her object was not 
 to incriminate the more or less wit of these jests, 
 nor relate her own humiliating observations on the 
 Prince's lack of sobriety. No ; she wished to enlighten 
 her conscience, on which weighed a painful shadow. 
 At the first moment of her engagement she had believed
 
 COMMON MISEKY. 285 
 
 that she loved Ardea, so much gratitude had the emo- 
 tion of her now freed religious life inspired in her for 
 the man, who was after all only the pretext of this free- 
 dom. She trembled with fear, not only that she should 
 not love, but that she should hate him, and, above all, 
 she was a prey to that disgust for the idle cares of so- 
 ciety, to that lassitude of passing hopes, to that longing 
 for rest in God, which is the indication of true vocations. 
 At the thought that if she survived her father and re- 
 mained free, she might some day retire to the Dames 
 du Cenacle, she felt against her approaching marriage 
 an inner revolt still increased by the evidence of her 
 future husband's sad character. Had she the right to 
 enter into indissoluble ties, when thus disposed? 
 Would it be loyal to break off without further facts, this 
 engagement which had been, between her father and 
 herself, the condition of her baptism ? She had already 
 reached that point after so short a time. And her com- 
 plaint was the more pitiful on the day following the one 
 when she had been so deeply wounded. 
 
 " You may withdraw," replied Monseigneur Guerillot, 
 " but you must not lack charity in your judgment." 
 
 Fanny was too sincere, her faith was too simple and 
 too deep, not to make her follow this advice to the let- 
 ter, and she immediately conformed to it in words and 
 intention. Taking a walk with Alba that afternoon, she 
 made every effort to destroy all trace left in her friend's 
 mind by the little scene of the day before. She even 
 went further. She wished to ask the forgiveness of her 
 betrothed. Forgiveness ! And for what ? For having 
 been wounded by him in the very depths of her sensi- 
 bilities. Only from the manner in which these two 
 measures were received, she felt how difficult it was to 
 practise that charity in judgment recommended by the 
 pious cardinal. It demands a discipline of the whole 
 heart which cannot perhaps be reconciled with a clear 
 intelligence. Alba looked at her friend with a glance 
 filled with sorrowful surprise, and kissed her, saying :
 
 286 COSMOPOLI8. 
 
 " Peppino is not even worthy of kissing 1 the dust of 
 your footsteps, that is my opinion ; and if he does not 
 spend the rest of his life in trying 1 to deserve you, he 
 will be either very guilty or very foolish. . . ." 
 
 As for the Prince himself, the motives of soul which 
 dictated words of excuse to his fiancee, when he himself 
 had been in the wrong, were as profoundly unintelligible 
 to him as they would have been to Hafner. He thought 
 the latter had spoken to the young girl, and he con- 
 gratulated himself for having nipped in the bud that 
 little comedy of exaggerated clericalism. 
 
 " Let us leave that," he said with condescension. " I 
 have been wanting in form, for at heart you know that 
 you will always find me respectful of that which my fore- 
 fathers have respected. But times have changed and 
 certain fanaticisms are no longer in good taste, even 
 with our name. This is what I meant to say, in a man- 
 ner you were quite right to blame." 
 
 And he gallantly pressed his lips to Fanny's little 
 hand without guessing that he had increased the melan- 
 choly of that too generous child. The discord continued 
 to be excessive between the world of thought in which 
 she moved and the one in which breathed that ruined 
 debauchee. As the mystics say with so much profound 
 wisdom, they were not of the same heaven, or rather, be- 
 cause the word heaven applied to anyone as devoid of 
 ideal as this amiable Prince, would seem too absurd : 
 Ardea was all flesh and blood, and Mdlle. Hafner was all 
 mind and heart. As Peppiuo showed more of his real 
 character in each new relation established between them, 
 this discord became more apparent. For Fanny, the last 
 two weeks of this beautiful month of May, which seemed 
 to invest with radiance the happiness of her engagement, 
 were a series of daily little disillusions, an incessantly 
 rejected and incessantly returning evidence that this 
 marriage, accepted at first with so much proud hope, 
 would be a constant sacrifice for her. However, this lay- 
 ing bare more clearly of her fiance's deficiencies of soul
 
 COMMON MISERY. 287 
 
 and feeling-, would not have sufficed to make her break 
 the marriage. That Peppino, brought up in idleness, 
 corrupted by the double pride of birth and wealth, should 
 be at twenty-eight, very frivolous and at the same time 
 very .cynical, that he should unite the cunning of the 
 wily Italian with the absolute lack of heart of the Paris- 
 ian clubman, that all his projects for his married life 
 should be summed up in satisfied vanities and pleasures 
 on a larger scale, that he often rose from the table with 
 eyes too bright and in too cheerful a mood all this was 
 sufficient to cause suffering to a young girl who, when 
 she became engaged, had believed in good faith that she 
 was repairing an injustice of fate, giving back its an- 
 cient lustre to a venerable house, saving from despair 
 a magnanimous spendthrift, and drawing nearer to God 
 through lawful love. Of all this dream which had lasted 
 but a few hours, God alone remained. This sufficed for 
 the noble woman to say to herself: "My father is so 
 happy that I shall not spoil his joy. I shall do my duty 
 to my husband. I shall be such a good wife that I shall 
 transform him. He has kept his religion. He has heart. 
 I shall make a true Christian of him. And then, I shall 
 have my children and the poor. . . ." Such were 
 the dreams born beneath the white brow of that envied 
 fiancee, whose dresses were already being described in 
 the newspapers, for whom an army of dressmakers, 
 seamstresses, milliners and jewellers were at work, who 
 would have on her marriage contract the same signa- 
 tures as a princess of the royal family, who would be a 
 princess herself, and allied to the most glorious aristoc- 
 racies in the world. Such were the thoughts she would 
 carry about with her all her life in the garden of the 
 Castagna Palace, which was to be hers that historical 
 garden in which there is still an alley of pear-trees at the 
 place were Sixtus V., about to die, picked up a fruit ; 
 he tasted it and said to Cardinal Castagna, playing on 
 the two names his own was Peretti " The pears are 
 spoiled. The Koinans have enough of them. They will
 
 288 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 soon eat chestnuts." This family anecdote, which, by the 
 way, does not prove very delicate wit in the greatest 
 pope of the latter part of the sixteenth century, de- 
 lighted Justus Hafner. To him it was full of the most 
 delightful humor. He never wearied of telling it to his 
 colleagues at the club, to the shopkeepers, iii fact to 
 anyone, without remembering that two days before he 
 had bored the same person. He even forgot to beware 
 of Dorsenne's irony. 
 
 "He imitates himself too much," laughingly said the 
 latter to Alba, one evening at the end of the month. " I 
 met him this morning on the Corso ; and I had my third 
 edition of the very poor papal joke on the pears and 
 chestnuts. And then, as we took a few steps together, 
 he showed me the Bonaparte palace, with a sublime ex- 
 clamation : ' We have those two,' which means that one 
 of the emperor's great nephews married one of Peppino's 
 distant cousins. I assure you, he considers himself re- 
 lated to Napoleon. He is not even very proud of the 
 fact. The Bonapartes small fry in matters of nobility ! 
 I am expecting the moment when he will blush for 
 that." 
 
 " And I, the one when he will be punished as he de- 
 serves," said Alba Steno, in a gloomy voice. " His tri- 
 umph is too insolent. But no. Everything succeeds 
 with him. If it be true that his fortune is only an im- 
 mense robbery, think of all those he has ruined. In 
 what can they believe when they see his infamous pros- 
 perity ? 
 
 "If they are philosophical," replied Dorsenne more 
 gayly than before, " this spectacle should make them 
 meditate on a saying of one of my impious friends : we 
 cannot doubt of God's power, since he made such errone- 
 ous use of it, by creating the world. And then, the people 
 he ruined had no business to speculate against him. And 
 is there any property whose origin is not robbery ? And 
 why should Providence, which did not manifest itself to 
 prevent Joan of Arc from being burned alive, or so many
 
 COMMON MISERY. 289 
 
 rascals from peacefully dying- in their beds, come for- 
 ward to punish M. Hafner for having- pilfered a few 
 millions of florins from selfish men and foolish noble- 
 men ? But let us leave this individual, half peacock and 
 half vulture, for his charming 1 daughter, to whom you 
 wilf carry a pleasant message. You remember a certain 
 prayer book of Montluc's ? " 
 
 " The one your friend Montfanon had bought to vex 
 the poor girl ? " 
 
 " Precisely. The old leaguer gave it back to Ribalta, 
 who told me so yesterday, as I passed by doubtless 
 from a spirit of mortification. I say doubtless, for I have 
 not yet been able to see the poor dear man since the 
 duel, which his impatience against Hafner and Ardea 
 rendered inevitable. He spent, I don't know how many 
 days in retreat at the convent of Mount Olivet, near 
 Sienna, where he has a friend, a certain Abbe de Negro, 
 of whom he always speaks as of a saint. I heard of his 
 return through Eibalta. I shall try to see him. Well, 
 the volume is again in the shop of the petroleur of the 
 strada Borgognona, and if Mdlle. Hafner still wishes to 
 have it 
 
 The writer did not suspect that at the very moment, 
 when, as a true child of the century blinded by sophism, 
 and stupefied by false analyses, he amused himself in 
 blaspheming the great and formidable idea of Provi- 
 dence, he himself served as an involuntary instrument 
 to that mysterious justice always ready to reach us in 
 our criminal victories, and to thwart our most certain 
 calculations. This conversation had taken place at two 
 o'clock. At four o'clock, Alba was to call for Fanny to 
 do a little shopping with her, and finish the afternoon in 
 the garden of the Celimontana villa, of which the new 
 catholic was especially fond on account of the avenue of 
 live oaks, at the extremity of which was a grotto deco- 
 rated with this inscription : " Here, Saint Philip de Neri, 
 surrounded by his disciples, came to discuss God and 
 religion." The Contessina's first care, naturally, was to
 
 290 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 communicate the news brought by Dorsenne, that the 
 prayer book she was so anxious to get, was once more in 
 the shop of the old Garibaldian. 
 
 " How lucky ! " cried Fanny, her eyes flashing with 
 joy. " I, who could think of no present for my $ear 
 cardinal. Shall we go and buy it at once ? " 
 
 " Montluc's Book of Hours ? " answered old Bibalta, 
 when the two young girls left their carriage in front of 
 his dusty, crowded shop, in which he stood with a 
 longer, thinner, and prouder face than ever, under his 
 long hat, which he did not even raise. " And how do 
 you know I have it ? Who told you so ? Are there 
 spies everywhere ? " 
 
 " It is M. Dorsenne, one of M. de Montfanon's friends, 
 who told us, that is all," said Fanny, in her gentle 
 voice. 
 
 " Sara, Sara," said the shopkeeper, with his usual in- 
 solence, and, opening the drawer of a chest, in which he 
 kept his greatest treasures, he drew out the precious 
 volume which he held out to his two visitors, without 
 letting it go out of his hand. Then, with his scolding 
 and disgusting mouth, he began a speech which repro- 
 duced the details given by Montfanon himself. " Ah ! 
 This is a very authentic and unique piece. There is a 
 mutilated, but unquestionable signature. I have com- 
 pared it with the one preserved in the archives of 
 Sienna. It is undeniably Montluc's handwriting, and 
 here is his scutcheon with the turrets. Here, too, are 
 the half-moons of the Piccolominis. This Book of 
 Hours has a whole history. After the famous siege the 
 marshal gave it to one of the members of that illustrious 
 family. And I am commissioned to sell it for one of 
 his descendants. They will not give it for less than two 
 thousand francs." 
 
 " What a thief ! " said Alba to her companion, in Eng- 
 lish. " Dorsenne told me that M. de Montfanon had 
 had it for four hundred " 
 
 " Are you sure ? " asked Fanny, who, after an affirma-
 
 COMMON MISERY. 291 
 
 tive answer, again addressed the bookseller, with the 
 same gentleness, yet with a tone of reproach, as she said : 
 " Two thousand francs, Signer Ribalta ? That is not a 
 fair price, since you had given it to M. de Montfanon 
 for one-fifth of that sum." 
 
 "^Then I am a liar and a thief! " brutally replied the 
 old man. " A liar and a thief ! " he repeated. " Four 
 hundred francs ! You would like to have that Book of 
 Hours for four hundred francs ! I wish M. de Mont- 
 fanon were here, to tell you how much I asked him. A 
 liar and a thief ! " He laughed a cruel laugh, as he re- 
 placed the Book of Hours in the drawer, which he 
 locked, and, turning toward the two young girls, whose 
 delicate beauty, set off by their elegant dresses, con- 
 trasted so delightfully with the sordid surroundings, he 
 enveloped them in a look so full of hatred that they felt 
 a little chill, and instinctively drew closer to each other. 
 Then the bookseller resumed in a lower voice, almost a 
 whisper, interrupted by a sinister hiss : " If you wish to 
 spend four hundred francs, here is a volume which is 
 well worth them, and which I intended to take to the 
 Savorelli Palace. He ! he ! This must be one of the 
 last, as M. le Baron has bought in all the rest." In 
 uttering, or rather in hissing these enigmatical words, 
 he had opened the cupboard above the chest and se- 
 lected on one of the shelves, among many others, a book 
 wrapped up in a newspaper, a proof that he knew very 
 well how to find things in the apparent disorder of his 
 shop. He undid the newspaper, and holding the vol- 
 ume tightly in his enormous hand, with black finger- 
 nails, he showed the title to the two young girls: " Haf- 
 ner and His Gang. A Few Reflections on a Scandalous 
 Acquittal, by a Stockholder." This was a pamphlet, 
 forgotten to-day, but which had made quite a stir in the 
 financial circles of Paris, London, and Berlin, having 
 been printed simultaneously in three languages in 
 French, in German, and in English, just after the great 
 lawsuit of the Austro-Dalmatian Credit. To be just,
 
 292 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 even toward a very unjust man, we must add that tins 
 tract was full of errors, as is usually the case with works 
 of this kind. The only truly terrible pages because they 
 were undeniable as a fact, reproduced in extenso the 
 account of the lawsuit itself, and the sentence, with its 
 grounds almost as shameful for Hafner as a condemna- 
 tion. 
 
 " Seeing the uncertain limits which here separate bad 
 administration from fraud," such was the gentlest of 
 the phrases which formed so scandalous an acquittal, 
 that the Baron was said to have spent enormous sums to 
 modify the terms, but without success. This is what the 
 author of the tract had counted upon when he came to 
 offer a printed copy to the interested party, proposing 
 to sell him the whole edition at once. 
 
 ''Why should I pay forty thousand francs for five 
 hundred copies, which a literary agency will sell me in 
 two years' time for ten kreutzers apiece 1 " answered 
 Hafner, very simply. 
 
 In point of fact, he had patiently bought and destroyed 
 the greater number of volumes, and how could the others 
 have done him any harm ? This profound realist knew 
 too well the opinion held about him by scrupulous con- 
 sciences. But he despised their foolishness, as he de- 
 spised the cowardice of the others. He also knew that 
 after the first moment of surprise is over the printed 
 letter is of no value, even when it contains truthful infor- 
 mation. Have not the newspapers, by the abundant 
 calumnies they contain, rendered the most indisputa- 
 ble truths inoffensive ? Therefore Ribalta was mistaken 
 in preserving so carefully this useless tool of blackmail 
 as he was mistaken in believing that Fanny was too well 
 acquainted with her father's business to be ignorant of 
 the existence of this insulting pamphlet. Besides, had 
 he known the truth, that is Mile. Hafner's complete 
 ignorance of her father's reputation, he would still have 
 shown the dreadful volume. In this revolutionary man, 
 who was finishing his powerless existence among the
 
 COMMON MISERY. 293 
 
 old books of that miserable shop, there was a terrible 
 reserve force of envious cruelty. Is there ever any thing- 
 else in the souls of those instigators of bloody social 
 claims ? His little brown eyes shone with a truly fero- 
 cious joy, as he showed the volume without letting- it go, 
 and repeated : 
 
 " This one is worth the four hundred francs." 
 
 " Don't look at that book, Fanny," said Alba, quickly, 
 in English, when she had caught sight of the title of the 
 volume. " It is one of those horrid things with which w,e 
 must not even sully our thoughts." She had placed 
 herself between the dealer and her friend while she 
 spoke, and she continued, sublime with indignation and 
 disgust : " You may keep this book, sir, since you make 
 yourself the accomplice of those who have written it, by 
 speculating on the fear you think it can inspire. Mile. 
 Hafner has known about it for a long time, and neither 
 she nor her father would give a cent for it." 
 
 " Well, so much the better, so much the better," said 
 Ribalta, wrapping up his volume. " Still, you may tell 
 your father that I have it at his disposal." 
 
 " Ah ! the wretch ! " said Alba when she and Fanny 
 had left the shop and returned to their carriage. " To 
 dare to show that book to you ! And there are no 
 courts to condemn such actions ! " 
 
 " You saw," replied Fanny, " I was so surprised that I 
 could not utter a word. That this man should offer me 
 such a book is very sad. But he is a poor man, no 
 doubt in need of money. The horrible part is that 
 some one could be found to write it against my father ! 
 My father ? You cannot know his delicacy in all busi- 
 ness dealings. He is the honor of his profession. 
 There is not a sovereign in Europe who has not testified 
 to the fact. You have seen all his crosses ? When he 
 had that lawsuit in which he was obliged to struggle 
 against all the enemies his wealth had brought him, I 
 was a very little girl, I remember how excited he was. 
 Think of their touching his name ! And these cowards
 
 294 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 have continued, even after the judges had pronounced a 
 sentence which glorified his honesty one of the most 
 brilliant justifications of honesty ever made. Fortu- 
 nately he is ignorant of this." 
 
 This passionate protestation was so touching, the 
 illusions of the generous child were so sincere, that 
 Alba pressed her hand with even more tenderness. 
 They did not continue to speak on this painful subject, 
 having met, almost immediately afterward, in one of 
 the shops of the Place d'Espagne, the lady who was 
 to chaperone them. But all the words, all the gestures, 
 all the looks of the Contessina, were caresses addressed 
 to her friend, her sister in fate, happier than herself, 
 since the hour of suspicion had not yet come. When 
 that evening she again saw Dorsenne, who was dining at 
 Mme. Steno's, she took him aside to tell him of this 
 painful scene and question him : 
 
 " Do you know that pamphlet ? " 
 
 " Only to-day," said the writer, " Montfanon, whom I 
 have finally seen, has just bought one of the two copies 
 which Eibalta recently received. The old leaguer be- 
 lieves everything about a man like Hafner. I am more 
 sceptical, as well about evil as good. Only the account 
 of the lawsuit produced any impression on me, for those 
 are facts, and the sentence ! Ah. what a sentence ! It 
 must be acknowledged that in reading it, one is glad not 
 to be the son of such a father 
 
 " Yet he was acquitted ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Dorsenne; " but it is none the less cer- 
 tain that he has ruined hundreds and hundreds of peo- 
 ple. As well as I can understand this complicated 
 story, he received a rather important railway concession 
 for his Austro-Dalmatian Credit. It was to pass through 
 a lot of countries in ria and tia Illyria, Croatia, 
 Dalmatia, Styria. How the Baron and his friends raised 
 the shares from two hundred and forty-five francs to five 
 hundred, seven hundred, and one thousand, I will not 
 explain to you, nor how the whole road was wrecked.
 
 COMMON MISERY. 295 
 
 This is the story of the innumerable enterprises which 
 succeed in draining small savings into the pockets of 
 jobbers like Hafner. It is fully proved that he himself 
 caused the rise and fall of the stocks. Don't ask me how. 
 I have not studied the Bourse or Stock Exchange. This 
 is a great mistake on the part of the novelist who wishes 
 to describe modern society. I should have gone into 
 the stock-jobbing business for two or three months. 
 However, it is averred that our friend squeezed an 
 enormous sum out of the credulous populace, grazing 
 the penal code within a hair's breadth. The hair was 
 not there, or if it was, Master Justus what irony in 
 that name paid them not to see it, and the share- 
 holders were not able to have him convicted." 
 
 " Then, according to the tenor of this lawsuit, it is 
 clear to you that he is a thief ? " interrupted Alba. 
 
 " As clear as that you are there Contessina," replied 
 Dorsenne, " if it be theft to rifle your neighbor's pocket 
 and evade justice. But that is nothing. The dark side 
 of the story is the suicide of a certain Schroeder, a 
 worthy citizen of Vienna, who was intimately acquainted 
 with our Baron, and following the advice of his excellent 
 friend, put his whole fortune of three hundred thousand 
 florins into this business. He lost all, and in despair 
 killed himself with his wife and their three children. In 
 Court they read a letter from this man to Justus Hafner. 
 Ah ! what a letter ! " 
 
 " Heavens ! " said Alba, clasping her hands." And 
 Fanny might have read that letter in the book ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Julien, "and all the rest, with additional 
 proofs. But be assured she will not have the volume. 
 To-morrow I shall stop at that anarchist, Ribalta's shop, 
 and buy that last copy, if Hafner has not already done 
 so. In ordinary times he would be the man to laugh at 
 such a thing. At this moment there is this marriage. 
 He ought to dread the press, and desire to suppress 
 all that might induce a chronicle of this not very brill- 
 iant page of his career. The testimony of Schroeder's
 
 296 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 brother, I remember, was even more horrible than the 
 letter." 
 
 In spite of his continual affectation of cynicism and 
 his inclination toward intellectual egotism, Julien was 
 obliging. He never failed to render a service. He was 
 not deceiving his young friend when he promised her to 
 buy in the dangerous work. At all hazards he went the 
 next morning to the shop in the Strada Borgognona, 
 carrying the twenty napoleons asked by the bookseller. 
 What became of him when the latter answered : 
 
 " It is too late, M. Dorsenne. The young lady came 
 last evening. She had pretended before the other not to 
 want the volume. She wanted to bargain, I suppose. 
 He ! he ! But she had to pay the price. I should have 
 asked the father more, but we must have some consider- 
 ation for young girls." 
 
 " Wretch ! " cried the novelist, " and you jest after hav- 
 ing played the part of Judas. Telling the faults of a 
 father to his daughter when she was ignorant of them. 
 Never ! do you hear never will M. de Montfanon or I 
 set foot in your shop, or M. Guerillot, or any of the 
 people I know. I shall tell everyone of your infamy. I 
 shall write it and publish it in all the newspapers of 
 Rome. I will ruin you do you hear me ! I will force 
 you to close this base den. . . ." 
 
 " Patience ! patience ! " answered the old man, without 
 getting angry at this violent outburst. " Some day you 
 will be very happy to claim old Ribalta's protection, 
 when the great liquidation of the capitalists takes place. 
 You will then regret that little fit of French fury. 
 " Well," he continued, with a depth of hatred which 
 plainly showed how little he repented his cruel bargain, 
 " I have told nothing new to the daughter of the Austrian 
 and even if I did let her know all, would it not be 
 just ? I, too, read that book. And the two little Schroe- 
 ders who died on account of that Hafner, were they not 
 as innocent as his own daughter ? And so many other 
 daughters who have been driven to vice through the
 
 COMMON MISEKY. 297 
 
 loss of their parents' fortunes, always on account of this 
 gentleman. It is to the guillotine that I should like 
 to send both father and daughter, as they would have 
 done in '93. Those were men ! Those were times ! 
 But patience ! patience ! That will begin again and 
 better. In the meantime if that book has made. the 
 father and daughter quarrel, so much the better. He ! 
 he ! he ! " 
 
 Dorsenne fled without replying, horrified at this out- 
 burst of savage mirth. Ribalta had just appeared to 
 him as the incarnation of all that he most hated with 
 his enthusiastic intellect, the modern revolutionist 
 whose only programme is destruction. He, who had 
 taken as a political motto, Goethe's words when he pre- 
 vented the lynching of a thief at the siege of Mayence : 
 "I prefer injustice to disorder." In ordinary times, he 
 would have shrugged his shoulders at the Garibaldian's 
 declamations. But under the circumstances, this man, 
 becoming the blind instrument of avenging justice, 
 paralyzed him with fear. He remembered the mocking 
 phrases which he had uttered the day before on the 
 doctrine of Providence. He shivered as he recognized 
 this sudden thunderbolt in Hafner's blue sky of happi- 
 ness, the revelation to his daughter of his past, through 
 so indirect and yet so natural a channel. A verse of 
 the Bible which Montfanon frequently quoted in their 
 endless discussions about races, suddenly returned to 
 his memory : " Propter peccata patrum filii afligentur 
 The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children." 
 If Fanny had read the book she had bought, as was 
 surely the case, she must at that moment be going 
 through the same sharp crisis of horrible trouble that 
 Alba had suffered on the night of the anonymous letter. 
 During the whole day Dorsenne vainly tried to shake 
 off the weight of melancholy that his visit to that pirate 
 of the Strada Borgognona had left upon his heart. The 
 thought of the crushing blow to Fanny filled him with 
 pity, and at the same time he dreaded the influence
 
 298 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 that this similarity in sorrow would have upon Alba. 
 Would the feeling- of common misery increase or dimin- 
 ish the unhappiness of the two young girls ? When, at 
 nine o'clock, he crossed the threshold of the Steno villa, 
 to give to the young Countess a report of his mission, 
 he felt himself singularly moved? There was no one 
 there but the two Maitlands and two travellers, English 
 diplomats on the way to their posts in the far East. 
 
 "I was expecting you," said Alba to her friend so 
 soon as she was able to talk to him, in a corner of the 
 drawing-room. " I want you to give me some advice. 
 A tragical incident took place at the Hafners', last 
 night." 
 
 " It had to be so," replied Dorsenne. " Fanny bought 
 the book from Ribalta." 
 
 ' " She bought the book ! " said Alba changing counte- 
 nance and trembling through her whole body. " Poor 
 girl ! the rest was not enough ! . . ." 
 
 " What else ? " asked Julien. 
 
 " You remember," said the young girl, " that I spoke 
 to you about that dubious Noah Ancona, that dishonest 
 agent whom Hafner employed to sell out Ardea, and 
 thus force the marriage. Well ! it seems that the indi- 
 vidual did not find himself sufficiently paid for his part 
 in the transaction. He asked the Baron for a large 
 sum, as capital to found some huge dishonest business. 
 This the latter flatly refused. The other one then 
 threatened to narrate their little operation to Ardea, 
 which he did." 
 
 " And Peppino was indignant," said Dorsenne, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders. " That does not seem like him !" 
 
 " Indignant or not, he came last night to the Savorelli 
 Palace, and had a terrible scene with his father-in- 
 law. . . ." 
 
 "To obtain an additional dowry," interrupted the 
 writer. 
 
 "Then he was very awkward about it," said Alba. 
 "Even the presence of Fanny, who appeared in the
 
 COMMON MISERY. 299 
 
 midst of the discussion, did not stop him. Perhaps he 
 had been drinking 1 too much, according" to his habit. 
 But imagine this poor child awakened to the wretched 
 hauling over her destiny, her happiness ! If she had 
 read the book besides? No, it is too horrible!" 
 
 " What a family scene ! " cried Dorsenne. " Well, the 
 marriage is broken off ? " 
 
 " Not officially. Fanny is in bed, ill from excitement. 
 Ardea came this morning to see my mother, who has 
 also seen Hafner. She made a reconciliation by show- 
 ing them what she believes to be true, that they have an 
 equal interest in avoiding all scandal and arranging 
 matters. But there is still the sweet young girl. Mam- 
 ma wished me to go this afternoon, and beg her to 
 change her decision. She has declared to her father 
 that .she wished never again to hear the Prince's name. 
 I refused. Mamma insisted. Was I not right ? " 
 
 " Who knows ? " replied Julien. " What will be her 
 life, alone with her father, now that she no longer has 
 any illusions about him ? " 
 
 He had no time to say any more. Their animated 
 conversation had attracted the attention of the Coun- 
 tess. She feared that her daughter might disclose pre- 
 maturely the imminent but not yet positive breaking 
 oft' of the Hafner marriage. She approached them, fol- 
 lowed by Maitland, who held in one hand a little glass 
 filled with brandy, and in the other a strong cigar. And 
 she called to Julien in her sonorous voice : 
 
 " Well, Dorsenne, I am beginning to think that our 
 old friend made a correct guess, and that you are mak- 
 ing notes about my daughter for your next novel." 
 
 "I should greatly like to do so," replied the author, in 
 the same jesting tone, "but the Contessina is too enig- 
 matical, too difficult. One must have picked up the 
 brush of da Vinci to paint the Joconde. . . ." 
 
 He turned toward Lincoln Maitland to pay this com- 
 pliment, which tickled the vanity of the American artist 
 in the most delightful way. After having laughed, the
 
 300 X3OSMOPOLI8. 
 
 hearty laugh of a happy athlete, he answered, speaking 
 to his lady love : 
 
 " He is the one I should like to paint, and I have 
 long wished it. Would it not be interesting to do him 
 in an olive, almost greenish, tone * But he never would 
 let me. You ought to make him come to Piove with 
 us?" 
 
 " What a good idea ! " cried the Countess. " Well, 
 will you, Dorsenne *? " and she looked at Julien with her 
 beautiful blue eyes shining with the single desire to 
 gratify this new whim of her lover, expressed so un- 
 ceremoniously. " We start in eight or ten days, Deo 
 volenie. I shall give you a pavilion where you shall 
 write all alone, with an immense library, that of my 
 great-grandfather, who was the friend of your Steudhal, 
 and of Lord Byron. We have a breeze from the Adri- 
 atic, morning and evening. Lincoln has promised to 
 stay with us until the end of July. At that date we 
 shall all set out for Venice, to take the baths. You will 
 see our country life in the Veneto." 
 
 " The artist is astonishing," said Dorsenne to himself, 
 as he returned home on foot, through the street of the 
 Twentieth of September, under the softest moonlight of 
 that Eoman sky, which is so soft. " He now gives invi- 
 tations to the country ; a little more, and he will sit at 
 the table, opposite the Countess. Here is a pretty 
 prospect of a summer for my little friend, that stay at 
 Piove. It is very certain that the mother wanted me to 
 come. Has she taken it into her head that I am a possi- 
 ble husband ? Come, come ! It is time to imitate the 
 Ten Thousand Greeks, and render myself illustrious by 
 my retreat but not before I know the result of the 
 meeting between those two children. What looks and 
 what words will they exchange ? That would be a pa- 
 thetic conversation to note. But there are never any 
 witnesses for the most thrilling interviews. They must 
 be imagined. This is why art is always inferior to 
 life."
 
 COMMON MISERY. 301 
 
 This touching- scene was, in fact, to take place the 
 next day, and less than twenty-four hours after the nov- 
 elist had thus expressed to himself his regret at not 
 being present. Only, he was mistaken as to the tenor 
 of the dialogue to a degree which proves, once more, 
 that subtlety of intellect will never understand the sim- 
 plicity of heart. The most painful heart dramas are 
 frequently enacted in silence. It was in the afternoon, 
 at about six o'clock, that a servant came to announce 
 Mdlle. Hafner's visit to the Contessina, who was at the 
 moment occupied in reading over for the tenth time that 
 deceptive society idyl, the tender story written by that 
 unfeeling Dorsenne. When Fanny, her radiant god- 
 child of the previous week, entered the room, Alba was 
 able to measure the trial which she had just undergone 
 by the rapid and surprising change in that noble and ex- 
 pressive countenance. At first she took her hand with- 
 out speaking ; then, as if ignorant of the real cause of 
 her friend's illness, she said : 
 
 " I am so glad to see you. Are you better ? " 
 
 " I have not been ill," replied Fanny, who did not 
 know how to deceive. " I have had trouble, that is all." 
 And looking at Alba, as if to beg that she should ask for 
 no explanation, she added : " I am come to bid you 
 good-bye." 
 
 " You are going away ? " asked the Contessina. 
 
 " Yes," said Fanny ; " I am going to spend the summer 
 on one of our estates in Styria," and in a low voice, 
 " your mother told you that my marriage was broken 
 off?" 
 
 " Yes," said Alba, and both were again silent. After 
 a few moments, it was Fanny who first questioned the 
 other : 
 
 " And what will you do with yourself this summer * " 
 she asked. 
 
 "We are going to Piove, as usual," replied Alba. 
 " We shall perhaps have Dorsenne with us, and surely 
 the Maitlands."
 
 302 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 There was a third silence between them. They looked 
 at each other, and, without uttering 1 another word, each 
 read distinctly in the other's heart. The martyrdom 
 they suffered was so similar, they knew it to be so simi- 
 lar, that at the same moment each felt the same pity 
 flood her heart. Forced to condemn with the most ir- 
 revocable condemnation, the one her father, the other 
 her mother, each was drawn by an impulse from the 
 depths of her soul toward a friend as unhappy as her- 
 self. Falling into each other's arms, they broke into 
 sobs. 
 
 XI. 
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 
 
 Alba's sadness was alleviated by her friend's tears, so 
 long as she held in her arms that friend, quivering with 
 pain and sorrow. But when she was gone, and Mme. 
 Steno's daughter found herself once more alone with her 
 thoughts, an even greater distress overwhelmed her. 
 Was not this pity, shown to her by her companion in 
 misery, an additional proof that she was right not to 
 believe in her mother ? Neither the result of her own 
 observation of the Countess's manner of living, nor the 
 denunciation of the anonymous letter, nor Boleslas's 
 duel, nor Maud's note, nor that too significant departure, 
 had culminated in an absolute certainty, leaving no 
 more room for doubt. Between this complete evidence 
 and the half proof of even the most likely hypothesis, 
 there is space for so many halting-places ! Alba had 
 passed them all, and each new incident had poisoned 
 her afresh with suspicion. What she had just divined 
 from Fanny Hafner's tears could only increase the 
 weight of anxiety. What did this new but beloved 
 friend know? Why, and how did she pity her, even in 
 this violent crisis of her own misfortune ? The answer 
 to these questions was too evident. The young girl felt
 
 LAKE OF POKTO. 
 
 it so cruelly that she put her hands on her heart, as 
 though to draw thence the unseen needle whose point 
 tortured her, and she groaned aloud : 
 
 " Ah ! If I am mistaken, let me at least know it. And 
 if I am not mistaken, let me know it, too ! I should 
 suffer less ! " 
 
 Alas! While she uttered this despairing appeal to 
 fate, the wretched girl did not guess that there was in 
 Rome, and in her immediate circle, a person busied in 
 fulfilling her mad desire. This creature, who had not 
 shrunk from the infamy of an anonymous letter, was 
 that pretty and slippery Lydia Maitland that delicate, 
 silent young woman with the large, smiling, impenetra- 
 ble brown eyes, and the pale, smooth skin, whom no 
 emotion had ever apparently touched. The failure of 
 her first attempt envenomed her wrath against her hus- 
 band and the Countess to the point of fury, concentrat- 
 ed, condensed fury, coiled up, and slowly, darkly await- 
 ing an opportunity to strike anew. She thought she 
 had secured her revenge at the time of Gorka's rash re- 
 turn, yet what had been the result ? To rid Lincoln of a 
 dangerous rival, and imperil the life of the only creat- 
 ure in this world for whom she cared ! She had spent 
 long hours at the bedside of Her brother, of whom she 
 was passionately jealous, with a devotion which would 
 have been sublime, had not her perturbed soul found 
 there daily food for hatred. In that sick room she had 
 sounded every hour, almost every minute, the depth of 
 friendship felt by the wounded man for him for whom 
 he had fought. Florent was grateful to Lincoln for 
 having been able to risk his own life in his stead. 
 When Lydia told him of Gorka's departure, what a flash 
 of joy there was in his eyes ! And still more when the 
 Countess communicated her plan of a long stay at 
 Piove, and ending their summer at Venice, all together. 
 This sojourn at the Mme. Steno's villa completed 
 Lydia's exasperation. She suffered enough to cry out 
 like a caged animal dashing against the bars, when she
 
 304 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 helplessly pictured to herself the happiness that the 
 two lovers would enjoy in the intimacy of country life, 
 surrounded by the splendid landscapes of Venetia. 
 Lincoln put these landscapes before her even now, de- 
 scribing them with his artist memory, from the paint- 
 ings in which Giorgioue, Titian, and Bonifazio have pre- 
 served their poetry, their rich verdure, soft undulations, 
 and blue distances. In the studio an old copy of one 
 of those fetes champetres, attributed in turn to each one 
 of the three artists, showed a nude courtesan near a 
 well, with her magnificent shoulders, her slow gesture, 
 her blonde hair braided with pearls, her dewy and sen- 
 suous mouth, her supple limbs one would have said 
 she was a sister to Caterina Steno whilst one of the 
 nobles, who played on the viol, near this fascinating 
 creature, had the shoulders, the build and the insolent 
 calm of the American ! Cold and nervous, Lydia felt 
 choked with gall whenever she looked at this canvas, 
 which depicted pleasures she could no longer prevent. 
 What weapon had she for the pliant fingers or hands 
 which had not feared to dishonor themselves with 
 shameful work upon so many underhand communica- 
 tions ? Write new anonymous letters ? What would 
 be the use ? Since the duel, she had sent a letter to the 
 Venetian, who openly jested about its infamy with the 
 insolent gayety of one too strong to be shaken. What 
 had she caused by warning Alba ? A useless unhappi- 
 ness, since the Contessina continued to dissimulate and 
 to cover her mother's guilt with her own innocence. 
 No doubt the betrayed wife had full power to provoke 
 a scandal and win a divorce, with proofs as undeniable 
 as those with which she had overwhelmed Maud. All 
 that was necessary was to carry to a lawyer the corre- 
 spondence in her Spanish secretary. But again, what 
 good would it do ? She would not be revenged on her 
 husband, who would be indifferent about this divorce, 
 now that he could make as much money as he wished, 
 while she would lose her brother. However evident
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 305 
 
 Lincoln's shortcomings might be, she was only too sure 
 that Florent would prefer him to her. This very pref- 
 erence excited within her that bitterness of insane 
 wrath. She looked at every person and at every means, 
 and her instinct, the species of animal far-sightedness, 
 resembling 1 a ferocious and venomous reptile, always 
 carried her thoughts back to Alba. During the inter- 
 minable sittings which the enamoured painter's enthusi- 
 asm incessantly repeated and prolonged, she, too, stud- 
 ied the young girl's wan and thin face. She suspected 
 that those blue eyes, whose eyelids closed nervously, hid 
 an indefinable mystery of revolt. She examined the 
 half-open mouth, whose corners had such bitter lines. 
 She followed with her glance this visible perishing of 
 youth, consumed by a fixed thought. No ; it was neither 
 the attitude nor the expression of an accomplice, nor 
 was it the aspect of a person who knows. Lydia might 
 repeat to herself that, warned as Alba had been by her 
 letter, she could no longer have any doubt about Mme. 
 Steno's misconduct. She was convinced by innumera- 
 ble little signs that the Contessina still doubted, and 
 then she concluded : 
 
 " This is the one to strike. . . . But how ? " 
 Yes, how? There was in the hatred of this frail 
 woman, apparently given up to worldly trifles, a mas- 
 culine energy of decision which is to be found in all 
 families of truly military origin. The blood of Colonel 
 Chapron surged within her and spurred her on to action. 
 Now, what should she risk in turning this action against 
 Alba? If the young girl were already enlightened 
 about her mother, one more proof would teach her noth- 
 ing, nor was there any risk in giving it to her. If, on the 
 contrary, the Contessina had not arrived at a certainty, 
 would not this further decisive proof bring about an 
 exposure ? However bold the Venetian might be, it 
 would be difficult for her to have at the same time at 
 Piove her daughter and her lover, if she were once con- 
 victed by her daughter, and before witnesses, if not in
 
 306 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 an entirely public way. By turning and twisting these 
 arguments, Lydia finally elaborated one of those plans 
 of really infernal simplicity, in which what may well be 
 called the genius of evil is revealed, so much do they 
 evince clearness in conception and rascality in exe- 
 cution. She said to herself that she must seek no other 
 spot than the studio for the irreparable scene she medi- 
 tated. She knew too well the infatuation which possessed 
 Mme. Steno, to doubt that so'soon as she was alone with 
 Lincoln, she would shower upon him those wild kisses 
 of which they spoke in their letters. The snare to be 
 laid thus became very simple. It was sufficient that 
 Alba and Lydia should be found at a post of observation 
 while the lovers fancied themselves alone, if only for a 
 minute. The arrangement of the place furnished this 
 dreadful woman with means of creating for herself in 
 all security this spying-place. Built two stories high, 
 the studio occupied half the width of the house. The 
 wall, which served to close it on the side of the apart- 
 ments, ended in a partition of colored glass, through 
 which it was impossible to see. This window gave a 
 little light to a very dark corridor leading to a linen 
 closet. Lydia spent several hours of several nights in 
 cutting out, with a diamond of a ring, a hole about the 
 size of a ten -cent piece, in one of the panes of ground 
 glass. She took care to execute this operation, worthy 
 of a convict, standing on a stool, so that even if this peep- 
 hole were once discovered, her short stature would shield 
 her from all suspicion of having worked at this minute 
 undertaking, very difficult at such a height. She could, 
 however, reach it by standing on tiptoe. She, too, must 
 be able to look through this opening, and the minuteness 
 of her calculations had gone even to this detail. These 
 preparations had been completed for several days, but, in 
 spite of the absence of all scruples in regard to the grati- 
 fication of her hatreds, she yet hesitated to employ this 
 method of revenge so cruel did it seem to have a mother 
 spied by her daughter. It was Alba herself who ex-
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 307 
 
 ting-lushed the last spark of humanity which still lit up 
 this darkened conscience, and she did so in the most in- 
 nocent of conversations. It was the evening of the same 
 day on which she had exchanged that sad farewell with 
 Fanny Hafner. More prostrated than usual, she was 
 conversing with Dorsenne, in that corner of the hall of 
 the Steno villa which had witnessed so many similar 
 talks, the only consolations of her distress. At that 
 moment there were very few people in the drawing- 
 room, and the two young people had at first lowered 
 their voices, not to be heard. Then, as it happens, with- 
 out perceiving it, they had returned to their natural tone. 
 Occupied only with what they said, they did not observe 
 that Lydia approached them by simply changing her 
 arm-chair, a movement which allowed her to listen to all 
 the phrases uttered by the Contessina, while she herself 
 conversed with a chance visitor. Even if she had not 
 been following the latter for many weeks as she had done, 
 she would still have watched this aside, urged by the 
 same instinct that prompted her to read all the letters 
 that fell into her hands, question the servants, finally, 
 play the spy under every form and circumstance. And 
 these were the words she overheard in a moment. In ut- 
 tering them, poor Alba exaggerated her thoughts, she 
 who was all justice and all generosity. But she suffered 
 and relieved her suffering by speaking with bitterness 
 of one whose image was too closely associated with the 
 memory of her own worst tormentor. They were speak- 
 ing of that good Florent Chapron, and she replied to 
 Dorsenne who was praising him : 
 
 " What will you have ? It is true that I almost feel 
 a repulsion for him. For me, he is a being of another 
 kind. His friendship for his brother-in-law ? It is very 
 fine, very touching. But it does not touch me. It is 
 not human devotion. It is too instinctive and too 
 blind. I know I am wrong. There is that race preju- 
 dice which I shall never entirely conquer. . . ." 
 
 Dorsenne had touched her fingers, at that moment
 
 308 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 under pretext of taking her fan, but in reality to warn 
 her, and he said to her, this time in a very low voice : 
 
 " Let us move a little further. Lydia Maitland is too 
 near." 
 
 He thought he had observed an emotion in Florent's 
 sister, at whom he chanced to glance, while his too 
 earnest interlocutress was no longer on her guard. 
 But as Lydia's clear light laugh was heard at the same 
 instant, the imprudent Alba replied to him : 
 
 " Luckily, she has heard nothing. See how we can 
 cause sorrow without knowing itr. I have been very 
 wrong," she continued, " because it is neither Florent's 
 fault nor her own if they have a little black blood in 
 their veins, it has been rectified with the blood of a hero, 
 and they have both been well educated, and, what is bet- 
 ter, are perfectly good. Then I know that if there is a 
 great thought in this century, it is that which pro- 
 claimed that all men are brothers. But I feel so nervous 
 to-night: Fanny's troubles made such a deep impres- 
 sion on me, and when we are wounded, we soon become 
 bad. Let us talk of something else, will you ? Of your 
 friend, Montfanon, for instance, whom I should so much 
 like to know. Has he finally forgiven himself for hav- 
 ing being present at your duel ? Now that the marriage 
 is broken off, will he also forgive that poor Fanny ? " 
 
 This time she had spoken even lower than Dorsenne, 
 but too late. Besides, even if Florent's sister had heard 
 these new words, they would not have sufficed to heal 
 the wound which the first had made in the sorest spot of 
 her secret pride. 
 
 " And I who hesitated," she said to herself, " I who 
 thought of sparing her ! "- 
 
 This good-by was to mark, and it did mark, the end of 
 remorse in this vigorous nature, possessing and apply- 
 ing to the evil gratification of its own malice some of 
 the qualities of famous intriguers in the political and 
 social world. She did not wait twenty-four hours to 
 execute the fatal project which was to consummate the
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 309 
 
 misfortune of a poor defenceless girl. The next morning 
 about noon, she was in the studio, seated beside Madame 
 Steno, while Lincoln gave to the almost finished por- 
 trait the last touches of his too careful brush ; Alba sat 
 in a large armchair, pale and absorbed, as was her wont. 
 Florent Chapron, who had also been present during part 
 of the sitting, had just retired, leaning on crutches, 
 which for greater safety he still used. His absence 
 seemed to Lydia so propitious that she immediately 
 resolved not to let so good an opportunity escape, and as 
 if fate wished to make her infamous work more easy, 
 Madame Steno also, helped her by interrupting the toil 
 of the artist who had painted for half an hour with- 
 out speaking, and now paused to wipe the perspiration 
 gathering on his brow through the violent effort of his 
 whole organism concentrated on one object. 
 
 " Come, my little Linco," she said, with the affection- 
 ate solicitude of a lady-love advanced in years. "You 
 must rest. You have been painting more than two 
 hours, and such minute things. Only watching you, I 
 am tired like the Sybarite." 
 
 " I am not tired," replied Maitland, who, nevertheless, 
 laid down his palette and brush, and rolling a cigarette, 
 lit it; then he continued with a proud smile: "We 
 Americans have only one good quality, but we have it, 
 a power of application now unknown in the Old World. 
 That is why there are certain professions in which we 
 have no rivals. To fatigue you a little more and amuse 
 you at the same time, shall I describe to you the life of 
 Dr. Peyton, the dentist of the Rue Condotti ? Think that 
 he has in London another office which opens on the 1st 
 of June at ten o'clock sharp, and closes on the 31st of 
 October, no less punctually. And you may or may not 
 know that his office in Home closes just as punctually 
 on the 28th of May at four o'clock, to re-open on the 4th 
 of November at ten. For twenty-two years he has not 
 missed a single one of these dates. The journey repre- 
 sents his vaction! This is nothing. He charges five
 
 310 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 dollars for fifteen minutes, and he often makes one hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars in a day. Calculate how many 
 hours that makes, and what kind of work that of a 
 watchmaker repairing 1 sensitive watches! And guess 
 what he answered when I pitied him for spending his 
 life paving with gold the diseased molars of Great Brit- 
 ain and Italy. ' I like my work.' Find me a European 
 who could have retained that nervous power ! " 
 
 " In the meantime," replied Lydia, " you have taken 
 Alba for a Bostonian or a New Yorker, and you have 
 made her sit so long that she is quite pale. I must 
 amuse her and rest her. Come with me, dearest, let me 
 show you the gown I have just received from Paris, and 
 which I shall wear this afternoon at the garden party of 
 the English Embassy. I must consult you about a final 
 arrangement." 
 
 And with these words, having forced Alba Steno to 
 rise from the armchair, she put her arm round her 
 waist and kissed her. Ah ! if ever a caress deserved to 
 be compared to the hideous embrace of Iscariot, it was 
 that, and the young girl too could have replied in these 
 sublime words : " Friend, why betrayest thou me with a 
 kiss ? " Alas ! she believed in the sincerity of this proof 
 of affection, and she returned the kiss of her false friend 
 with a gratitude that did not touch this soul saturated 
 with hatred. Five minutes had not elapsed before 
 Lydia had put her monstrous project into execution. 
 Under pretext of reaching the linen-closet more quickly, 
 she had taken the back stairs which led to the glass-pan- 
 elled hall, along which was the opening prepared to look 
 into the studio. 
 
 " Here is something very strange," said she, suddenly 
 stopping. And pointing out to her innocent companion 
 the little round hole that broke the even surface of the 
 glass: "It must be some servant who wanted to peep. 
 But peep at what ? You, who are tall, do examine 
 how it could be done and where it looks? If it be 
 a hole made purposely, I shall find the culprit and ex-
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 311 
 
 pel him even though the whole household should have 
 to go." 
 
 Alba negligently obeyed this perfidious request, and 
 carelessly placed her eye to the opening. The sender 
 of anonymous letters had too well chosen her time. So 
 soon as the door of the studio was closed, the Countess 
 had risen to approach Lincoln. Eound the young, 
 man's neck she had put her arms, bare beneath the 
 transparent muslin of her summer dress, and with her 
 hungry lips she devoured his eyes and mouth. Lydia, 
 who had retained one of the young girl's hands in her 
 own, felt that hand agitated by a convulsive trembling. 
 A hunter in ambush, who hears a rustling of the leaves 
 of the thicket where his prey must pass, does not feel a 
 keener joy. She said to her unhappy victim : 
 
 " What is the matter 1 How you are trembling ! " 
 
 And she tried to push her aside to take her place. 
 Alba, whom the sight of her mother thus passionately 
 embracing Lincoln, iilled at that moment with inex- 
 pressible horror, had, however, enough lucidity in the 
 midst of her sufferings to understand the danger of this 
 mother, whom she had just surprised, clasping in her 
 guilty arms whom? the husband of the woman who 
 spoke to her, who asked her why she trembled with fear, 
 who would look through the same opening, see the same 
 picture ! To prevent what she thought would be a terri- 
 ble revelation for Lydia, the brave child had one of 
 those desperate ideas, such as are suggested by imme- 
 diate peril. She struck, with the hand remaining free, 
 such a violent blow on the glass panel, that it broke 
 with a crash, tearing her fingers and wrist. She then 
 fell back on her companion with a cry of pain. Was it 
 the wound on her bloody hand, was it that of her heart 
 pierced by the horrible vision and finding relief in this 
 groan ? The other replied with angry words : 
 
 " Wretch, you did it on purpose ! " 
 
 Saying these words, the fierce creature rushed to 
 the opening in the glass pane too late ! She only saw
 
 312 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 Lincoln standing in the middle of the studio looking 
 toward the place where the glass had been broken, 
 while the Countess, also standing within a few paces of 
 him, cried out : 
 
 "My daughter! What has happened to my daugh- 
 ter ? I recognized her voice ! " 
 
 "Don't be uneasy," replied Lydia, with atrocious 
 irony. " It is Alba who knocked on the window-pane to 
 make you a sign." 
 
 " But has she hurt herself ? " asked the mother. 
 
 " Very little," replied the implacable woman, with the 
 same ironical accent, and she turned to look at the Con- 
 tessina with so much malice that, agitated as she was 
 after her discovery, that look froze her with terror. 
 She felt the sort of chill that her friend Maud had had 
 in. that same studio when the sinister depths of that 
 wicked soul were suddenly revealed to her. But she 
 had no time to analyze this impression, or even to be 
 fully conscious of it. Her mother was already near her, 
 holding her in her arms in those same arms that Alba 
 had just seen around a lover's neck kissing her with 
 those same lips. The mental shock was so great that 
 the young girl fainted. Why was it not given to her to 
 pass away, in this spasm of supreme grief, before being 
 drawn on by that same grief to commit those tragic fol- 
 lies which she is perhaps expiating to-day though 
 there must be, in the world of eternal and perfect justice, 
 some place of rest and forgiveness for creatures like her, 
 who are victims of faults committed by others and with- 
 out strength to bear their crosses ! But no. She came 
 to herself and almost at once. She saw her mother as 
 wild with anxiety as she had seen her just now quiver- 
 ing with joy and love. She again saw Lydia Maitland's 
 eyes fixed on both with a too significant expression. 
 And as she had had the presence of mind to save this 
 guilty mother, she found in her tenderness the strength 
 to smile upon her, to deceive her, to blind her forever 
 about the truth of the hideous scene that had just been
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 313 
 
 enacted in that corner of the hall, and before that broken 
 window-pane. 
 
 " I was frightened at the sight of my own blood," she 
 said, with her trembling grace. " And yet I think these 
 are only little cuts. Look, I can move my hand without 
 its hurting me." 
 
 She was right, and when the hastily summoned doctor 
 had stated that no bits of glass were to be found in the 
 cuts, the Countess found herself so reassured that she 
 resumed all her gayety. Never had she been in a more 
 charming humor than in the carriage that brought them 
 back to the Steno villa, than during the breakfast that 
 the mother and daughter took together. And seizing 
 Alba's arm to leave the dining-room, she said to her, 
 with the playfulness of an elder sister : 
 
 " You will be quite interesting at the garden-party of 
 the Embassy." 
 
 " I shall not go," quickly said the Contessina, who 
 added : " You know, the shock has made me a little ner- 
 vous. It would hurt me to see people." 
 
 " As you please," replied Madame Steno, shaking her 
 beautiful blonde head in a sonorous laugh. " And they 
 speak of heredity ! When I have run a little danger, it 
 stirs me up ! I never danced with so much pleasure as 
 the day I came near being killed in a railway accident. 
 I told you about it, you remember ? Between Padua 
 and Mestre. And yet I had been very near death. But 
 I don't insist. Each one has his temperament. You 
 know my motto : Live, and let live ! " 
 
 For a soul forced by proof to condemn without ceas- 
 ing to love another, there is no greater sorrow than to 
 realize the other's absolute lack of conscience and se- 
 renity in guilt. But when it is a mother; that is, a 
 creature whom, however criminal, we cannot judge with- 
 out committing a mental parricide, this pain increases 
 until it becomes torture. Pursued by the indelible 
 memory of that morning, which rent her heart anew 
 every second, Alba could only have been saved from
 
 314 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 despair by signs of confusion, struggle, remorse, or re- 
 gret in the guilty one. To see her so peaceful, so gayly 
 occupied with a party of pleasure, contrasted too forcibly 
 with the tragic trial which the young girl was now un- 
 dergoing. She felt herself overcome by a still heavier 
 and more depressing sadness, which became physically 
 unbearable. About half-past two her mother told her 
 good-by, although the fete at the English Embassy did 
 not begin before five. 
 
 " I promised to go and see that poor Hafner to-day. 
 You know his troubles have made him ill. I would still 
 like to arrange matters. I shall send back the carriage, 
 if you wish to go out a little. I telephoned Lydia to 
 expect me at four o'clock. She will take me." 
 
 Detailing this very natural use of the afternoon, her 
 eyes were too bright, her smile was too happy. She 
 was too youthful in her light-colored dress. Her feet 
 quivered with too much natural impatience under the 
 flexible patent leather of her little shoes. How could 
 Alba help feeling that she was being deceived ? The 
 poor child had an intuition that this visit to Fanny was 
 merely a pretext. It was not the first time that the 
 Countess, to rid herself of importunate watching, had 
 made use of this mode of sending away her private 
 equipage. With women of her rank, in Rome as in 
 Paris, this is always the probable sign of clandestine 
 adventures. Nor was it the first time that Alba became 
 a prey to suspicion in the face of certain mysterious 
 disappearances of her mother. But she usually opposed 
 to this suspicion a voluntary trust which she no longer 
 found within herself after the undeniable revelation of 
 that morning. She went to the window to watch the 
 victoria drive away. The two horses pawed the ground, 
 and the Venetian, raising her graceful head, smiled from 
 under her pink parasol to her daughter, who looked 
 down at her. Ah, how surprised she would have been 
 could she have guessed what was said in that glance, 
 that wild pleading to remain, to be there, and calm by
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 315 
 
 her presence such a delirium of pain not to go where 
 she was going ! It was true that she was going to meet 
 Lincoln at their apartment, and that she was anticipating 
 it with delight while her horses went toward the Savo- 
 relli Palace, where she would only waste five minutes 
 just the time to justify an alibi. There she would dis- 
 miss her carriage. She would take a hack, go to some 
 church, where, in spite of all, she would say a prayer 
 and ask forgiveness for the sweet sin she would after- 
 ward commit. She gave herself up in thought to the 
 expectation of pleasure, which with certain powerful 
 natures like her own already borders on voluptuousness. 
 She did not suspect that at that very moment poor 
 Alba, her Alba, the child whom she tenderly loved in 
 spite of all, was suffering, through her, the most terrible 
 of temptations. When the carriage had disappeared, 
 the young girl's staring eyes fell upon the clear pave- 
 ment, and there arose within her a sudden instinctive, 
 almost irresistible desire to end the mental agony which 
 consumed her. It was so simple ! She would only have 
 to put an end to life. If she made a movement, only 
 one movement, a little movement, if she but leaned over 
 the balustrade on which her arm was resting, in a cer- 
 tain way, just so, a little farther forward. Still a little 
 more, and her sufferings would be over. She would 
 never more see Lincoln's hated face beside her mother's. 
 She would never more meet Lydia Maitland's eyes, those 
 eyes that knew her mother's shame. She would not go 
 to Piove, she would not have to spend weeks and weeks 
 in that society the simple thought of which caused her 
 physical pain to the very extremities of her hands and 
 feet. Often before she had felt this longing for death, 
 which in the children of a suicide rises from the most 
 mysterious depths of their being. They are, as a phil- 
 osophical physician has said with so much energy, be- 
 ings predisposed, in quest of an opportunity, and in this 
 peculiar trait heredity may be recognized. This thought 
 of voluntary death is not with them a result, the outcome
 
 316 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 of the slow work of the reasoning faculty. The slight- 
 est trial reveals this thought in souls which are, so to 
 speak, born with a wound always ready to bleed. But 
 between this instinctive desire for death and its execu- 
 tion there is, to continue to make use of scientific terms, 
 a psychological breadth, a distance more or less great, 
 which many of these inheritors do not cross, and this 
 permits the suicidal tendency to be considered as a cur- 
 able disease. In return, when this margin is exhausted 
 and this distance crossed, the impulse becomes so strong 
 that it assumes a character of fatality as irresistible and 
 as swift as a thunderbolt. This was the case with Alba, 
 who, at the moment of her mother's departure, suffered as 
 much as it is possible to suffer, but she did not dream of 
 death. But now, leaning on the sill of the open window, 
 and measuring with her eyes the height of the two stories, 
 she felt herself drawn earthward by a fascination, fever- 
 ish, frightened, yet almost sweet. Yes it was so simple. 
 She saw herself lying on that bright pavement, her 
 limbs broken, her head crushed, dead dead free ! At 
 this instant she was seized with that kind of delirious 
 joy which always accompanies this sort of suicide. She 
 burst into a nervous laugh. She leaned more and was 
 about to throw herself down, when her glance, fall- 
 ing on a person walking on the sidewalk, suddenly 
 roused her from that vertigo whose strange charm had 
 so powerfully seized her. She threw herself back- 
 ward. She rubbed her eyes with her hands, and she, 
 who was not prone to these mystical exaltations, said 
 aloud: 
 
 " Oh, God ! It is you who sent him to me ! I am 
 saved." She rang for the footman, and told him that if 
 M. Dorsenne called, he must be conducted to Mme. 
 Steno's little boudoir. " I am at home to no one else," 
 she added. 
 
 It was in fact Julien whom she had seen approach the 
 house at the very instant when she was only separated 
 from the abyss by that last quiver of animal repugnance
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 317 
 
 which is to be found even in those most given up to sui- 
 cidal mania. Do not even lunatics choose to die one 
 way rather than another ? She remained motionless for 
 a moment, trying to collect her scattered thoughts. The 
 most hidden forces of her being were concentrated in a 
 resolution, which to her charming- face, just now con- 
 tracted by an almost sinister frown, restored, if not seren- 
 ity, at least the expression of hope. She was not mis- 
 taken in thinking that the young man directed his 
 footsteps toward this house. Her mother's peculiar 
 principles on such points being conceded she had on 
 several occasions received Julien alone but to go so far 
 as to close her door against all others, she must have 
 intended to have an interview of extreme importance. 
 When she was told that, in obedience to her orders, he 
 awaited her in the boudoir, she still appeared to hesi- 
 tate. 
 
 " No," she finally said to herself. " This is salvation, 
 the only salvation. I will know if he loves me truly. 
 And if he does not love me ? 
 
 She again looked toward the window to convince her- 
 self that in case this conversation did not end as she 
 wished, the same tragic and simple method would re- 
 main at her disposal to free herself of the infamous life 
 she could no longer accept. In this hour, when her 
 inner being throbbed with the thrill of a supreme crisis, 
 the two natures blended in hers struggled within her. 
 It was the soul of her true father, of that tragical and 
 unfortunate Werekiew, which had drawn her to the open 
 window and invited her to die. It was the energetic 
 soul of her mother which now urged her on to the bold 
 step. She meditated to escape her anguish by another 
 door than that of death. The influence of this maternal 
 heredity was so overruling at that moment that, as she 
 entered the little boudoir, for the first time since he 
 knew her, Dprsenne found that she resembled Mine. 
 Steno. Who knows for in those moments when we 
 find ourselves at a turning-point of destiny, the slightest
 
 318 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 impressions give a direction to our hesitating will . 
 who knows if this likeness, too suddenly evoked, was 
 not the cause of the answer he gave the young girl 
 when she spoke to him with the passionate solemnity 
 of a soul in anguish ? Who knows if the unconscious 
 memory of the misconduct of Lincoln's inamorato did 
 not sully in his eyes the innocent and sublime trust of 
 this adorable creature torturing phantom of his incon- 
 solable regret to-day for her who might have been the 
 delight of his second youth, the exquisite and tender 
 flower, grafted on the sadly leafless branches of his 
 fortieth year ? Ah ! How Julien would like to be again 
 beginning this conversation, opened in his habitual 
 tone of jesting sentimentality, and so quickly trans- 
 formed into a dramatic dialogue ! On arriving at the 
 Steno villa he little thought that he was having his last 
 tete-a-tete with his pretty and interesting little friend. 
 He had finally decided to go away. To be more certain 
 of not weakening, he had stopped on his way at the rail- 
 way ticket-office and taken a berth for that very night. 
 Yes, he had come for a farewell, but not such an one, not 
 that parting which he will remember as long as he him- 
 self is left in this world, where we can do so much harm, 
 laughingly, and almost without knowing it. He had so 
 long jested with love that he seemed to think that the 
 celebrated proverb would never apply to him, and it 
 was with another jest that he began the conversation, 
 when, having taken Alba's hand to raise it to his lips, 
 he saw that it was bandaged : 
 
 " What has happened to you, little Countess ? Have 
 my laurels, or Florent Chapron's, prevented you from 
 sleeping, that I find you here with the duellist's custom- 
 ary wrist ? Seriously, how did you hurt yourself ? " 
 
 " I leaned against a glass sash that gave way, and the 
 pieces cut my fingers a little," replied the young girl, 
 adding, with a half smile, " It is nothing at all." 
 
 " What an imprudent child you are ! " said Dorsenne 
 in a tone of friendly scolding. " Do you know that you
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 319 
 
 ran the risk of cutting an artery, and of causing a very 
 serious and perhaps mortal hemorrhage ? " 
 
 " There would be no great harm in that," replied 
 Alba, shaking her pretty head with such a bitter smile 
 at the corners of her mouth that the young man 
 stopped smiling, too. 
 
 " Don't speak in that tone," said he, " or I shall think 
 you did it on purpose." 
 
 " On purpose ? " repeated the young girl. " On pur- 
 pose ? Why should I have done it on purpose 1 " 
 
 And she reddened and began to laugh in the same 
 feeble way that she had laughed fifteen minutes earlier, 
 when she was alone and leaning out on the street. 
 Dorsenne felt that she was suffering too much, and his 
 heart shrank. The agitation against which he had 
 been struggling for the past few days with all the 
 energy of the independent artist who has long since 
 systematized his bachelorhood, again took possession 
 of him. He felt that he must really put between him- 
 self and the " Folly," his irrevocable resolution. There- 
 fore he answered his young friend with his usual 
 gentleness, but with a certain firmness of tone that an- 
 nounced a decision : 
 
 " I have again wounded you, Contessina, and you 
 have just looked at me with the glance you give in our 
 quarrels. You must not keep these for me, but the 
 others, those of our friendship. Later on, you would 
 regret having been cruel to-day. . . ." 
 
 As he spoke these enigmatical words, she saw in his 
 eyes and in his smile something a little different and 
 very indefinable. She must have loved him even more 
 than she thought herself, because she forgot for a sec- 
 ond her own trouble and her own resolution, and she 
 asked him quickly : 
 
 " Have you any trouble ? Are you suffering ? What 
 is the matter ? " 
 
 " No," replied Dorsenne. " Nothing is the matter. It 
 is the hour that passes, the minutes that fly, and not
 
 320 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 only the minutes. There is a charming old French 
 odelet which you don't know, and which begins : 
 
 " ' Le temps s'enva, le temps s'enva Madame, 
 
 Las, le temps ? Non, mais nous mous en aliens 1 
 
 which signifies in simple prose, little Countess, that 
 this is probably the last talk we shall have together 
 this season, and you would be very naughty to spoil my 
 last visit." 
 
 " Do I understand you well ? " said Alba. She knew 
 too well Julien's habits of conversation not to know 
 that this mocking, half sentimental manner always 
 served to prepare the most serious phrases against 
 which his fear of seeming imposed upon armed itself 
 beforehand. She folded her arms over her breast, and 
 after a pause, continued in a grave tone : " You are 
 going away." 
 
 " Yes," he replied, half drawing his ticket from the 
 pocket of his jacket. "And you see that I act like the 
 cowards who jump into the water. My ticket is taken, 
 and I shall no more repeat to myself the little speech I 
 have been making for months, the ' A little while 
 longer, Monsieur the Executioner,' of the Du Barry. I 
 have told you the anecdote. In all the bloody folly of 
 our great Revolution, it is the only thing that touches 
 me a little. It is so sincere." 
 
 " You are going away ? " repeated the young girl, 
 who seemed to take no notice of the jest with which 
 Julien had disguised his own distress at the effect pro- 
 duced by the sudden announcement of his departure. 
 " I shall see you no more ! But if I asked you not to 
 go away yet ? " she continued. " You have spoken to me 
 of your friendship. If I begged you, if I implored you 
 in the name of our friendship, not to deprive me -of it 
 at this moment when I have no one left, when I am so 
 lonely, so horribly lonely, would you answer no ? You 
 have often told me that you were my friend, my true
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 321 
 
 friend. If that is true, don't go. I repeat it, I am too 
 lonely, and I am afraid." 
 
 " Come, little Countess," replied Dorsenne, who was 
 becoming frightened at the young girl's sudden excite- 
 ment. " Keally it is not reasonable to put yourself in 
 such a state simply because you had a very sad inter- 
 view with poor Fanny, yesterday ! To begin with, it is 
 absolutely impossible for me to postpone my departure. 
 You force me to give you very plain, almost commercial 
 reasons. But my book is coming out and I must be on 
 the spot to start that sale, of which I have spoken only 
 too much. And then you are going away yourself. You 
 will have all the amusements of the country your 
 friends from Venice some patito that you must be con- 
 cealing from me, and at all events that charming Lydia 
 Maitland." 
 
 " Don't speak that name," interrupted Alba, whose 
 face fell before that allusion to the stay at Piove! 
 " You cannot know how much you pain me, nor what a 
 monster of cruelty and perfidy that woman is ! Do not 
 question me. I would tell you nothing. But," she con- 
 tinued, clasping her hands this time, those poor little thin 
 hands which trembled at the agony of the words she 
 dared to utter, " do you not understand that if I speak 
 to you as I do, it is because I need you to live." Then, 
 almost in a whisper, so choked was she with emotion, 
 " it is because I love you ! " All the natural modesty of 
 a girl of twenty rose to her pale face in a flood of crim- 
 son when she had made this avowal. "Yes, I love 
 you," she repeated with as much feeling, but in a firmer 
 tone. " In this terrible world, a true devotion, a being 
 who asks only to serve you, to be useful to you, to dwell 
 in your shadow, is not such a common thing. You see 
 I have no coquetry with you, I have no pride. If you do 
 not love me, all is over with me, and what do I care for 
 pride. . . f If you love me ah ! if you love me ! " 
 And she closed her eyes as if the very sweetness of this 
 idea gave her pain, " then you will understand that to
 
 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 have the right to give you my life, to bear your name, to 
 be your wife, to follow you, I felt aloud before you at the 
 moment when I was to lose you. You will forgive me 
 if I have been wanting in modesty for the first and last 
 time. But I have suffered too much." 
 
 She was silent. The absolute purity of this charming 
 creature, born and bred in an atmosphere of corruption 
 in which she had remained so noble, so frank, and so 
 untouched never had it shone as at this moment. Her 
 whole maidenly and sorrowful soul was in her eyes 
 which pleaded Julien, on her lips, which trembled at 
 having thus spoken ; on her brow, around which floated 
 like a halo the little blonde curls blown about by the 
 wind, which entered through the open window. She 
 had found a way of taking that prodigious step, the 
 boldest which a woman, and particularly a young girl 
 could take with such pure simplicity, that at this minute 
 Dorsenne would not have dared to touch even the hand 
 of that child who trusted in him so madly and yet so 
 loyally. She herself, in spite of the flush upon her 
 somewhat hollow cheeks, felt no feeling of shame. 
 There was too much frankness in her avowal, and she 
 had been led to it as she said herself, by too much suf- 
 fering. And above all she hoped. She had faith in 
 Julien's sympathy, and more than that, in his love. On 
 many occasions during the winter and the spring she 
 had thought that if the young man did not ask her in 
 marriage, it was because she was too rich. Alas ! It was 
 true that in her presence he felt the deepest emotions 
 of which he was capable. But it was also even more 
 true that this sympathy had never invaded, would never 
 invade the cold clear portions of his being so rebellious 
 to all self-surrender. It was true that, with her peculiar 
 beauty, that of the Italianized Slav, she pleased him to 
 such a degree that, had he not been in certain ways a 
 very honorable man, he would with delight have become 
 her lover. But it was still truer that he was interested 
 in her through a curiosity without temptation, and
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 323 
 
 against which he was already in reaction for fear of re- 
 nouncing his independence of intellectual passer-by, the 
 sovereign desire of that nature, as wilful as it was 
 changeable. Therefore this touching discourse, in which 
 trembled such tender distress, and each word of which 
 was later on to make him weep with distress, produced 
 on him at that moment an impression of fright even 
 more than of pity. Yes, he was afraid of the flame that 
 burned in the young girl's eyes ; he was afraid of the 
 emotion that was beginning to invade him ; he was afraid 
 of the strange force suddenly displayed by that child ; 
 afraid of feeling himself carried in spite of himself into 
 that almosphere of complete exclusive and violent pas- 
 sion, he who took pleasure in the uncertain world of 
 shadows of semi-happiness and semi-misery, of attenu- 
 ated and artificial emotions. She was silent, and he did 
 not reply. When he finally broke that cruel silence, 
 the sound of his voice alone revealed to the unfortunate 
 girl the uselessness of this supreme appeal in which she 
 petitioned for life. To exorcise the demon of suicide, 
 she had only her hope in the heart of this man, and the 
 heart toward which she had rushed with such passionate 
 impulse denied instead of giving. 
 
 " Calm yourself, I beg," he said to her ; " you must 
 understand that I am shaken, astonished at what I 
 heard. I was so far from thinking this. Heavens ! How 
 agitated you are ! And yet," he continued more firmly, 
 " yet I should deeply despise myself if I deceived you. 
 You have been so loyal with me. I can only recognize 
 this confidence by thinking aloud in turn. Marry you? 
 Ah ! That would be the most charming dream of happi- 
 ness, if truth did not forbid this dream. To accept the 
 life of a young girl such as you, it is necessary to be 
 able to promise her one's own whole life, honestly, sin- 
 cerely. I cannot make this promise, because I could 
 not keep it. Poor child ! " and his own voice became 
 almost bitter as he uttered these words, " you do not 
 know me. You do not know the nature of an author
 
 324 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 of my race. To unite your destiny to mine would be a 
 worse martyrdom for you then your loneliness of to- 
 day. See, I came to this house with so much joy, be- 
 cause each time I could say to myself that I would not 
 return. This confession is not romantic, but it is true. 
 If my feeling 1 became a tie, an obligation, a fixed frame 
 in which I must move, a circle of habits imprisoning 
 me, I should have but one thought that of flight. The 
 engagement for my whole life ? No, no. I could not 
 endure it. There are passing souls as there are migrat- 
 ing birds, and I am one of these, and you yourself will 
 understand to-morrow, presently, and you will remem- 
 ber that I spoke to you as a man of honor, who would 
 be in despair if he thought he had unwittingly increased 
 the sorrows of your life, when his only wish would have 
 been to lighten them. Heavens ! What can I do ! " he 
 cried, seeing as he spoke two tears well into the young 
 girl's eyes, which she did not even wipe away. They 
 were no more the prolonged and tender sobs of the day 
 before, when she fell into the arms of Fanny Hafner, 
 her companion in misery, having in her sorrow the 
 sweet feeling of a given and received compassion. No ; 
 these big heavy tears which rolled down her burning 
 cheeks without a cry, without a sigh, were the drops of 
 that sweat of agony drawn from her by absolute, total, 
 and irremediable despair. It was the farewell to life of 
 a young soul which, having found no echo to its cry of 
 agony, weeps a last time, weeps over its condemned 
 youth, over itself. And Julien repeated in terror, "What 
 can I do ? " 
 
 " Go away," she answered, " leave me I bear you no 
 ill-will, I am rather grateful to you for not having 
 deceived me. But your presence is too painful to me. 
 I am ashamed of having spoken, now that I know you 
 do not love me. You are right to leave Rome you 
 should have gone sooner. Don't defend yourself," she 
 continued, preventing his interrupting her, "I accuse 
 you of nothing! You have never deceived me, never
 
 LAKE OF POKTO. 325 
 
 led me to believe that you felt for me anything beyond 
 that slenderest friendship. I was mad. Don't punish 
 me for it by remaining any longer. After the conver- 
 sation we have just had, my honor demands that we 
 should never speak again." 
 
 " You are right," said Julien after a new pause. He 
 took his hat from the table where he had laid it at the 
 beginning of this visit so brief suddenly terminated by 
 a burst of sentiments so strange. The two young people 
 looked at each other a last time. Ah ! How often he 
 was to see her thus, white as a corpse, with an anguished 
 expression round her mouth, her face still damp with 
 the tears that flowed no longer, rigid and tragic in her 
 light spring raiment, her arms folded over her slender 
 bosom, so as not to give him her hand. He did not offer 
 his own. He understood that the wretched child had 
 spoken the truth. If she had confessed without shame 
 the feelings that she thought were reciprocated, to have 
 divulged them now covered her with confusion. He 
 said to her, "Good-by." She bowed her blonde head 
 without replying. Poor phantom of the gentlest and 
 most innocent of victims, will he whom with that look 
 you saw depart ever forget it ? 
 
 The door was closed. Alba was again alone. Half an 
 hour later when the footman came to take her orders 
 about the carriage which the Countess, faithful to her 
 promise, had sent to her, he found her standing motion- 
 less in front of the window, where she had placed her- 
 self to see Dorsenne depart. There she had been again 
 seized with that temptation to suicide. She had again 
 felt with irresistible force the magnetic attraction of 
 death. Life had once more appeared to her as something 
 too vile, too useless, too unbearable to be any longer 
 accepted. Henceforth, she could never kiss her mother 
 without a thrill of horror. Of her two friends, one was 
 forever separated from her, the other was as miserable 
 as herself. She had just felt the painful impression 
 that the man in whom she had placed her last niad
 
 326 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 hope, had no heart, or at least had none for her. What 
 she had read in Lydia's devilish spirit made the pros- 
 pect of the stay at Piove so odious that the very 
 thought paralyzed her with horror. The hereditary 
 tendency manifested by the impulse of awhile ago had 
 already taken form as the determination of a mind 
 bleeding from an incurable wound. It is the second 
 and the most dangerous phase in the progress of that 
 moral disease known as suicide. It increases with 
 sharp attacks, when circumstances combine with native 
 predisposition. Alba said to herself no longer as she 
 did awhile ago : " How sweet it would be to die ! " but 
 " I wish to die ! " Then, leaning out of the window, two 
 memories came to her mind that of a young girl from 
 Naples, one of her tennis partners whom Dorsenne 
 named "little Herodias," on account of her likeness to 
 one of Luini's figures, who, the past winter, in an attack 
 of brain fever, had thrown herself out of a window. It 
 was at five o'clock in the morning. The body had been 
 found by market gardeners. In order to cover it at 
 once, they rang at the door of a neighboring hotel, and 
 the first shroud of that adorably beautiful, elegant and 
 refined creature had been one of the wine-stained table- 
 cloths of the table d'hote. Alba, who had loved this girl 
 of eighteen, remembered the tears that the wretched 
 mother a noble, saintly woman had shed, and how 
 the detail of this agony in the street had added a 
 brutal character to this already horrible episode. On 
 the other hand, Alba evoked the image of a second 
 friend, a German baroness living in Italy, and who had 
 also killed herself two years before by jumping from 
 a boat into the water of a little lake in the Roman 
 campagna Lake Porto. She was found floating like 
 Ophelia, having suffered no multilation, asleep on the 
 moving bed of the waves, and pious hands had car- 
 ried her off, and for this desperate woman no profana- 
 tion had mingled with the consoling charm of death. 
 When this mania of suicide invades the whole being,
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 327 
 
 similar imaginings suffice to determine the nature of 
 the means to be employed, particularly when the form 
 of this suicide is, as it were, written beforehand in the 
 mystery of its heredity. Thus can be explained these 
 strange contagious imitations which have given a fune- 
 real celebrity to certain places, notably that sentry-box 
 in the camp at Boulogne, which the emperor was 
 obliged to have burned. Several soldiers had killed 
 themselves there, one after the other. A similar fasci- 
 nation took possession of the young girl. The carriage 
 was at her disposal. Through the Porte Portese and 
 along the Tiber, it would take about an hour and a half 
 for the spirited horses of the Countess to drive to the 
 little lake. Moreover, to avoid the curiosity of the 
 servants, she had the pretext that one of the great 
 Roman ladies of her acquaintance, the Princess Tor- 
 Ionia, owns a lovely villa on the borders of that lake. 
 She hastily ran up to put her hat on her head. With- 
 out writing a word of farewell to anyone, without cast- 
 ing a glance at the objects among which she had grown 
 up and suffered so much was she a prey to the dance 
 of death she ran down the steps, and, giving the coach- 
 man the name of this villa : 
 
 " Go quickly," she insisted. " I am already late." 
 Lake Porto is, as its name indicates, the port of the 
 old Tiber, the one by which the emperor Trajan wished 
 to replace Ostia, already nearly filled up by alluvial de- 
 posits in the time of Augustus. The road, which comes 
 out of the Transtevere, follows the river that rolls its 
 brackish waters, yellow with the muds and sands of the 
 Apennines, through a plain strewn with ruins and dent- 
 ed with bare hills. Once the church of Saint Paul is 
 out of sight, the desert begins, more desolate even than 
 the landscape, in which had taken place Gorka's double 
 duel with Florent Chapron and Dorsenne, for the line 
 of the Alban mountains does not rise so gracefully close 
 to the horizon. At this moment of the year the flocks 
 are already driven to the heights, on account of the fever
 
 328 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 that reigns supreme on this soil, filled with salt-water 
 infiltrations, and almost rotten with stagnant water, 
 which the most energetic works have only succeeded in 
 partially draining. Clumps of eucalyptus here and there, 
 groups of umbrella pines above some crumbling walls 
 that was all the vegetation that met Alba Steno's eyes. 
 But this horizon accorded too well with the moral deso- 
 lation she carried within her for this sorrowful aspect 
 of things during her last ride not to do her good. Be- 
 sides, from the moment when the carriage began to 
 move she felt that strange sort of calmness, almost of 
 serenity, which so often accompanies suicide, particu- 
 larly when it is the end of a long mental malady, of one 
 of those anxious melancholies which surround us with a 
 torturing circle of fixed ideas. It seems that the soul, 
 like the body, has only a certain capacity for suffering, 
 and that this limit once passed it reaches a momentary 
 anaesthesia where it can no longer feel even the truth of 
 the sorrows which determine it on death. The diverse 
 personages who had crossed the drama of her life to 
 drive her scene upon scene to the final resolution 
 toward which she was going the rapid pace of two fast 
 horses, seemed to the dying girl singularly far removed. 
 How far away were the brutal Lincoln and the perfidi- 
 ous Lydia Maitland, loyal Maud Gorka, and pious Fan- 
 ny Hafner ; even her mother, even Dorsenne no longer 
 seemed real to her, though so few hours and even min- 
 utes separated her from the moment when they had 
 struck her the blow that had consummated her misery. 
 It was not the lucid somnambulism of which certain 
 criminals have spoken ; no, but an inward relaxation that 
 went almost to sweetness, and which at certain moments 
 brought to her no longer trembling lips a smile of 
 peace. This sensation that she was approaching irrevo- 
 cable peace endless sleep, where she would suffer no 
 more, increased when she had alighted from the car- 
 riage, and walking around the garden of the Villa Tor- 
 Ionia, she found herself beside the little lake, so grand
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 329 
 
 despite its small size, on account of the wild beauty of 
 the landscape. Motionless, surprised even at this last 
 moment by the magic of that sudden vision, she stopped 
 among- the reeds with their pink flowers, between the 
 twisted blades of two aloes, to look at that lake which 
 was to be her grave, and she murmured : 
 
 " How beautiful it is ! " 
 
 The surface of the lake extended before her so per- 
 fectly peaceful that hardly did a slow, silent ripple break 
 the smooth expanse of thick, heavy, black water, invaded 
 by reeds, and on which the long leaves of aquatic plants 
 displayed their dark verdure. And all around the young 
 girl was a field of flowers a forest of pink reeds, while 
 on the other side rows of Italian pines stood outlined, 
 flattening their black summits against an ultramarine 
 blue sky, where the sun was already beginning to set, as 
 it was already more than five o'clock. A vague mist 
 floated over the lake a mist, no a vapor of vapors, just 
 enough to frost over the almost too metallic surface of 
 the dead water. Not a breath of wind shook the slen- 
 der reeds, from the midst of whose stems arose the innu- 
 merable croakings of the tree-frogs, hidden in the grass. 
 Sometimes one of these animals plunged into the lake. 
 The sound of a stone falling into the water a splash 
 a larger ripple and the mirror of the vast pond re- 
 sumed the aspect of charm, at once sinister and delight- 
 ful. At other moments crows flew into the air with great 
 cries. They went toward a meadow on the left to which 
 led an alley, bordered with roses, by which Alba had 
 come, and where she had mechanically gathered a few of 
 these flowers, which she had fastened in her dress with 
 a last instinct of youth and coquetry, even in death. 
 This clear, late afternoon, this lake, almost fantastically 
 motionless, this tragical horizon, with an I know not 
 what unchangeable character spread over all things 
 all in the melancholy setting of that final moment, was 
 in harmony with the young girl's thoughts, and this so 
 completely, that she stopped in rapture. There was in
 
 330 COSMOPOLIR. 
 
 the damp atmosphere which gradually penetrated her, a 
 charm of deadly somnolence to which she abandoned 
 herself dreamily, with an almost physical voluptuous- 
 ness, her will paralyzed, drinking 1 in through her whole 
 being the feverish emanations of that spot, one of the 
 most fatal on the whole of that dangerous coast, at that 
 hour and season, until a cold chill suddenly shook her be- 
 neath the thin material of her summer dress. Her shoul- 
 ders contracted, her teeth closed, and this impression of 
 sudden discomfort was for her the signal to act. She took 
 another alley of rose-trees in bloom to reach a point of 
 the shore, which had been cleared of vegetation, and 
 where she saw the outline of a boat. She unfastened it, 
 and managing the heavy oars with her delicate hands, 
 she soon reached the middle of the lake. 
 
 When she came to the spot which she thought the 
 deepest and most favorable to her design she stopped 
 rowing*. There, with a childish care which made her 
 smile, so much instinctive order did it betray in this sol- 
 emn moment, she arranged her hat, her parasol and her 
 gloves on one of the seats of the boat. To row with the 
 heavy oars she had made a violent effort and was all in 
 a perspiration. A second chill seized her as she was ar- 
 ranging these little articles (sharp, cold, and so deep this 
 time), that with arrested gesture she remained motionless, 
 dreaming vaguely, her eyes fixed on the water, whose un- 
 dulations rippled more and more slowly around the bark. 
 At this last moment she felt, not her love of life, but her 
 tenderness for her mother returning to her heart. All 
 the details of these little events which were to follow her 
 suicide now pictured themselves to her mind. She saw 
 herself falling into that deep water which would close 
 over her head. For her all suffering would be over 
 but for Madame Steno ? She saw the coachman uneasy 
 at her absence, ringing at the gate of the Torlonia villa, 
 and the servants in quest of her. The unfastened boat 
 would tell plainly enough where she must be sought and 
 what had been her deed. The Countess would know
 
 LAKE OF PORTO. 
 
 that she had killed herself. She would want to know 
 the cause of this desperate end. Lydia Haiti and's ter- 
 rible face rose before the young- girl. She understood 
 that this woman hated her enemy too much not to en- 
 lighten her about the horrible circumstances which had 
 preceded the suicide. That exclamation, so simple and 
 so significant in its meaning, that she had hissed with 
 so ferocious an accent : " You did it on purpose ! " re- 
 turned to Alba's memory. She saw her mother hearing 
 that her daughter had guessed all, seen all. She had 
 admired this mother so much. She had been so spoiled 
 and caressed by her ! She still loved her so dearly ! As 
 she could not have endured the thought of living in the 
 intimacy of the Maitlands after what she had seen with 
 her own eyes through the peep-hole of the glass panel, 
 so she could not endure the thought of the weight of re- 
 morse that her suicide, thus commented on, would place 
 on the conscience of this mother, so adored. The memory 
 of Dorsenne also returned to her at the same instant, and 
 the thought of what the young man would feel at the 
 news of this suicide which had so soon followed their 
 conversation. He would feel alone responsible, and that 
 would not be just. . . . Then, as a third chill shook 
 her from head to foot, Alba began to think that here was 
 another chance of dying, quite as certain as the other, 
 and that no one would suspect that her death was volun- 
 tary. She remembered that she was in one of the most 
 dangerous spots of the Roman Campagna ; that she had 
 known persons carried away in a few hours by pernicious 
 fever, contracted in similiar places ; notabty, one of her 
 favorite friends, one of the Bonapartes living in Rome, 
 earned off so swiftly for hunting there while in a per- 
 spiration ! If she tried to take the same disease on pur- 
 pose ? So she rowed again to become more heated. 
 Then, when she felt her brow moist with the second 
 effort, she unfastened her jacket and her chemisette, she 
 laid bare her neck, her virginal breast, and lay back in 
 the boat allowing the damp air to envelop her, to bathe
 
 332 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 her, to chill her, imploring- the entrance into her blood 
 of that fatal and liberating germ, possessed at the same 
 time with an intoxication and a languor. How long did 
 she remain thus, half-fainting, half-dying in that atmos- 
 phere more and more laden with poison as the sun went 
 lower ? The flight of time was only marked for her by 
 the oftener repeated sensation of the chill which changed 
 into intense cold, and in a dark and painful delirium 
 she felt that the terrible fever was insinuating itself into 
 her, and that her wish was gratified. A call which she 
 heard made her sit up and resume the oars. It was the 
 coachman who, not seeing her return, had left his car- 
 riage and hailed the boat. When she stepped ashore and 
 he saw her so pale, this man who had been for years in 
 the employment of the Countess, could not help saying 
 to her with the familiarity of an Italian servant : 
 
 " You have taken cold, signorina, and this place is 
 so unhealthy. . . ." 
 
 " In fact," she replied, " I have had a little chill. It 
 will be nothing. Let us go quickly home. Above all, 
 don't say that I went in the boat, I should be too much 
 scolded." 
 
 XII. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 " And it was immediately after this conversation that 
 the poor child set out for her expedition to Porto, where 
 she took the pernicious fever ? " asked Montfanon. 
 
 " At once," replied Dorsenne, " and the horrible part 
 for me is that I cannot doubt but that she went thither 
 on purpose. I had been so upset by our conversation 
 that I did not feel the strength to leave Rome that even- 
 ing as I had announced to her. After many hesitations 
 you will now understand them after what I have told 
 you I returned to the Steno villa, at about six o'clock.
 
 EPILOGUE. 333 
 
 To speak to her, but about what ? Did I know * It 
 was very foolish. For her innocent confession could 
 have but two answers the one I had given her or a 
 marriage proposal. Ah ! I did not reason so far. I 
 was afraid. Of what ? I did not know any more. I 
 reached the villa, where I found the Countess, gay and 
 radiant as usual, in a tete-a-tete with her American. 
 ' That is my daughter exactly,' she replied to my first 
 question. ' She refused to come to the English Em- 
 bassy, where she would have amused herself, to go out 
 alone and dream in the country. If you will wait for 
 her ? ' and I waited until half -past seven, talking like 
 an ordinary caller, when I felt the desire, almost the 
 necessity to shriek out aloud to that unconscious wom- 
 an, who did not even note the flight of time : ' But, 
 wretched creature, your child is suffering on account of 
 you and of your lover. She has fled from the house to 
 flee from you and you do not even suspect it ! ' Finally 
 she did begin to be uneasy, and, I seeing no one return, 
 took leave with my heart so oppressed that I might al- 
 most believe in presentiments. Alba's carriage stopped 
 before the door just as I was going out. She was pale, 
 of a dark, almost green pallor, which made me say as I 
 accosted her : ' Where have you been,' as if I had the 
 right to do so. Her mouth, already so pallid, quivered 
 my answer. When I knew where she had spent that 
 sunset hour and near what lake, perhaps the most un- 
 healthy in the neighborhood : ' What a piece of impru- 
 dence,' I said to her. All my life I shall remember 
 the glance she gave me as she replied : ' Say what wis- 
 dom, and wish that I may have taken the fever and may 
 die of it.' You know the rest and how her wish was 
 only too well fulfilled. She had taken the fever, and so 
 violently that she was carried off in less than six days. 
 And after her last words I can have no doubts about 
 the matter. It was a suicide. Before dying she made a 
 last appeal to me. I did not understand it. And she 
 went in search of death in the only form which would
 
 334 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 not permit the world and her mother to guess the truth. 
 I could have prevented it and I did not do it." 
 
 " And this mother ? " asked Montfanon, " did she 
 finally understand ? " 
 
 "Absolutely nothing," replied Dorsenne. "It is in- 
 conceivable, but it is so. Ah ! she is truly the worthy 
 friend of that thief Hafner, who, in spite of his discom- 
 fiture, did not lose his bearings after the breaking off 
 of his daughter's marriage. I forgot to tell you that he 
 has just sold the Castagna Palace to an anonymous so- 
 ciety, who will turn it into a hotel. I laugh," he con- 
 tinued, " not to weep, for I am coming to the most heart- 
 rending part. Do you know where I saw Alba Steno's 
 face for the last time ? It was three days ago, the day 
 after her death, at this hour. I had gone to inquire 
 about the Countess. She was receiving ! ' Would you 
 like to tell her good-by ? ' she asked me. ' That good 
 Lincoln is modelling her face, to keep it for me.' And 
 I entered the room where the dead girl was resting. 
 Her eyes were closed, her cheeks hollow and drawn, her 
 pretty nose was a little pinched, and around her brow 
 and mouth was a mingled bitterness and peace that I 
 cannot describe. Nor can I express what was meant to 
 me by that thought : ' If you had wished it, only six 
 times twenty-four hours ago, she would have lived, 
 she would have smiled, she would have loved you ! ' 
 The American was near the bed, tempering his plaster, 
 while Floreut Chapron, always faithful and unconscious, 
 prepared the oil to spread over the dead girl's face, and 
 that treacherous Lydia Maitland followed this scene 
 with eyes that made me shiver when I remembered what 
 I had guessed during the course of my last conversation 
 with Alba. If she does not undertake the part of the 
 Nemesis of the ancients, and tell the Countess every- 
 thing, I know nothing about physiognomies. For the 
 moment she was still silent, and guess the only thing 
 the mother could find to say when her lover, the one on 
 whose account her daughter had suffered so much, ap-
 
 EPILOGUE. 335 
 
 preached their common victim : ' Be careful not to 
 break her beautiful eyelashes!' The mockery of this 
 is horrible horrible ! " 
 
 The young man dropped on a bench as he uttered this 
 cry of distress and remorse which Montfanon repeated 
 mechanically, overwhelmed by this tragic confidence : 
 " Yes, it is horrible." This conversation, so different 
 from the one they had held a few weeks before, on a 
 bright May morning, at the corner of the Strada Borgo- 
 gnona and the Piazza de Ipagne, took place in a remote 
 alley of the Vatican gardens. Montfanon, who had re- 
 ceived that morning a visit from the author, who was on 
 the point of leaving for Paris, and this time positively 
 had found him so sad that he had kept him to breakfast, 
 had accompanied him on his errands, and finally con- 
 ducted him to this spot which was very peculiar and 
 difficult of access with the hope of rousing him from a 
 truly frightful prostration by satisfying his curiosity. 
 Twenty times during the winter Julien had begged for 
 the favor of this visit, and twenty times the old Zouave, 
 whose relations with the pontifical court allowed him to 
 enter the gardens at will, had declined the responsibil- 
 ity of introducing a stranger. He must have loved Dor- 
 senne very dearly on the one hand, and been very un- 
 easy on the other, to have laid aside this scruple. This 
 walk, however, had had no other result than to procure 
 for him the tragic narrative of Alba Steno's death, with 
 all the details which the novelist alone could know. 
 Though they were but a portion of the reality, they suf- 
 ficed to touch deeply the brave and tender heart of the 
 old gentleman. He would have liked to find words capa- 
 ble of consoling his friend. But what could he say to 
 him when he judged him so guilty for having imprudent- 
 ly, through sentimental epicureanism, played with poor 
 Alba's tortured soul. Then his conscience, as a fervent 
 Christian, had not consoled itself for the part he him- 
 self had taken in the duel between Chapron and Gorka. 
 He understood that this meeting in determining the
 
 336 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 departure of Boleslas and his wife, had contributed 
 to enlighten Madame Steno's daughter, so that he 
 himself, Montfanon, had had a very small share yet 
 a share in this suicide. And he was silent. Perhaps, 
 also, the one and the other, the believer and the scep- 
 tic, were invaded by the melancholy atmosphere of 
 the place where their conversation had evoked the 
 cruel catastrophe in which both had been actors, 
 though in a different degree. The clumps of dark live- 
 oaks, surrounded by enormous box-trees evenly trimmed, 
 rustled around them. No other sound but that of the 
 foliage, blending with the monotonous murmur of a 
 neighboring fountain, filled this enclosure, bordered on 
 one side by the ancient walls of Rome, while the mo- 
 tionless cupola of Saint Peter's towered on the other. 
 The only guests of the pontifical gardens seemed to be, 
 with the two friends, the marble gods scattered among 
 the bushes, remnants of pagan art placed there in the 
 shadow of the great basilica by a caprice of the popes 
 of the Renaissance, perhaps by the order of that Leo X. 
 who held in these gardens his court of rare poets and 
 glorious artists. Beneath the implacable and already 
 torrid azure of the June afternoon this population of 
 white statues added to this solitude the solemnity 
 which always emanates from a great and ruined past. 
 Had not these images of the gods been present at the 
 fall of their Olympus and of their worship, to be to-day 
 silent witnesses of the dispossession of the Vicar of 
 Him who had dethroned them ? At the corners of the 
 alleys gigantic urns, also of marble, outlined their ele- 
 gant slenderness. Grasses overflowed from them, di- 
 shevelled by, the wind, mere living verdure against the 
 death-like verdure of the imperishable box-trees and 
 evergreen oaks. These young plants seemed to palpi- 
 tate and suffer from being imprisoned within this en- 
 closure, which is in fact a prison voluntary, but all the 
 more strict and definite the last piece of soil and nat- 
 ure left to the august captive of the Vatican. Never
 
 EPILOGUE. 387 
 
 had Montfanon felt as he did at this moment, the poetry 
 of these gardens, unique in the world, and also the envi- 
 roning- sadness which breathed from their silent thick- 
 ets, their narrow flower-beds, their fountains, and even 
 their terraces, from which could be seen only the patrol 
 wall, and also the innumerable factory chimneys brutal 
 symbol of victorious modern activity. The man of energy 
 and frankness that was in the " old leaguer," could no 
 longer endure this feeling of oppression, and suddenly, 
 after shaking his gray head several times as though he 
 were deliberating, he forced Dorsenne to rise by scold- 
 ing: 
 
 "Come, Julien, we cannot remain here the whole 
 afternoon dreaming and sighing like women! That 
 child is dead. We cannot bring her back to life, you 
 by despairing or I in sympathizing with your sorrow. 
 We have more to do, that is, we must both look in the 
 face our responsibility in this sad event, repent of it, 
 and expiate it." 
 
 " Our responsibility," questioned Julien. " I can still 
 see mine, strictly speaking, though I could not really 
 guess the consequences of my answer, but yours ? " 
 
 "Yours and mine," replied Montfanon. "I am no 
 sophist, and I am in the habit of never temporizing 
 with my conscience. Yes or no," he insisted with a re- 
 turn of his usual excitement ; " did I leave the cata- 
 combs to arrange that wretched duel ? Yes or no, did 
 I yield to those fumes of anger which rose to my head 
 when I heard of Ardea's unworthy marriage and found 
 myself in the presence of that equivocal Hafner ? Yes 
 or no, did this duel contribute to enlighten Mme. 
 Gorka about her husband, and, as a consequence, Mdlle. 
 Steno about her mother ? Did you not tell me yourself, 
 just now, the progress of her wretchedness after the 
 scandal ? And if I was overwhelmed as I was by the 
 news of this suicide, it is particularly on that account, 
 because an inner voice told me : ' There are a few of 
 this dead girl's tears on your hands.' "
 
 338 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 " But, my poor friend," interrupted Dorsenne, 
 "where do you find such arguments? On this score, 
 no one would live. Some portion of our action enters 
 in an indirect way into a number of actions which in no 
 way concern us ; and admitting that we should have a 
 debt of responsibility to pay, this debt begins and ends 
 with what we directly, precisely, and clearly willed." 
 
 " That would be very convenient," replied the Mar- 
 quis with even more vivacity, " but the proof that it is 
 not true is that you are tilled with remorse for not hav- 
 ing spared the feeble soul of that defenceless child. 
 Ah ! I have not softened the truth to myself, nor shall 
 I soften it to you. Do you remember the morning 
 when you were so gay, and you explained to me the 
 theory of your cosmopolitism ? It amused you to look 
 on as a dilettante at one of those race dramas which 
 bring to the front characters coming from all parts of 
 the earth and of history, and you made out for this one 
 a programme which events have executed almost to the 
 letter. Mme. Steno has in fact behaved toward her 
 two lovers like a Venetian of the days of Aretino, 
 Chapron with all the blind devotion of the descendant 
 of an oppressed race, his sister with all the abomina- 
 ble ferocity of a rebel who shakes off the yoke since you 
 suspect her of having written the anonymous letters. 
 Hafner and Ardea have laid bare two detestable souls, 
 the one of an infamous half-Dutch, half-German usurer, 
 the other, of a degraded gentleman in whom some an- 
 cient condottiere revives. Gorka was brave and sense- 
 less, like all Poles ; his wife implacable and loyal, like 
 all the English, and poor Alba ended like her real father. 
 I shall not speak to you of Baron Hafner's daughter," 
 and he raised his hat. Then, in an altered voice : " She 
 is a saint about whom I was mistaken. But she has 
 some drops of Jewish blood in her veins, of that blood 
 which was that of God's people. I should have remem- 
 bered that and the beautiful legend of the Middle 
 Ages : ' The Jewish women shall be saved because they
 
 EPILOGUE. 339 
 
 wept in secret for Our Saviour.' You gave it to me be- 
 forehand, the plot of this drama in which we were 
 mixed up. And I, do you remember what I said to 
 you: 'In all this, is there no soul you could help to 
 become better ? ' You laughed in my face at that mo- 
 ment. Had you been less polite, you would have 
 called me an old fool, a Philistine, a shaveling. You 
 Avished to be only a spectator at the play, the gentle- 
 man in the gallery who wipes his opera-glasses to lose 
 nothing of the comedy. Well ! You were not able to do 
 so. That part is not given to man. He must act and 
 he always acts, even when he thinks he is only looking 
 on, even when he washes his hands like Pontius Pilate, 
 who was also a dilettante, and who said what you and 
 your masters say : ' What is truth ? ' Truth is that 
 there is always and everywhere a duty to fulfil. Mine 
 was to prevent that criminal encounter ; yours was not 
 to pay attention to that young girl if you did not love 
 her, and if you did love her, to marry her and take her 
 away from her abominable surroundings. We have 
 both been lacking in the fulfillment of our duty and at 
 what price ? " 
 
 " You are very severe," said the young man. " But 
 admitting that you are right, will Alba be any the less 
 dead? What use is it that I should know what I 
 ought to have done, now that it is too late ? " 
 
 " Never to begin again," said the Marquis ; " then to 
 judge yourself and judge your life. I love you ten- 
 derly, Dorsenue, you know it, and it is perhaps the 
 last time that I shall speak to you from the bottom of 
 my heart. Yes, the last time. I shall not probably 
 live very much longer ; and you, will you ever return to 
 Rome, with this phantom awaiting you here ? When I 
 told you my hatred for these Cosmopolitans who de- 
 lighted you then, I expressed myself badly. An old 
 soldier is not a philosopher. What I hated, what I 
 hate in them is that these uprooted ones are almost 
 always the ends of races, the consumers of an heredity
 
 340 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 of forces acquired by others, the squanderers of treas- 
 ures which they waste without increasing-. Those 
 from whom they descend have worked at real work, 
 that which adds on one same spot the effort of the 
 sons to the effort of the parents. It is that work 
 which makes families and families, which make coun- 
 ties, then races,. Your Cosmopolitans, they found noth- 
 ing, saw nothing, fertilize nothing. They enjoy. When 
 this enjoyment attacks only sensation and sentiment, it 
 is only half bad. But when it attacks thought as with 
 you, as with all the dilettante of your school, it is the 
 great intellectual sin, one of those about which it is 
 written that they will not be forgiven. I have studied 
 you well through all my freaks, and I can tell you so, I 
 who pray. I have often prayed for you since I have 
 really known you. You were indignant just now over 
 the cynical speech of that unconscious mother about 
 her dead daughter, ' Be careful not to break her beau- 
 tiful eyelashes,' and you were wrong. What do you 
 continually do with the human soul, if not to make 
 moulds to reproduce ? through vanity as an author, a 
 little or not much, because I must do you the justice to 
 say that you care much less for your successes than for 
 your intellectual voluptuousness ? But this voluptu- 
 ousness is for you the sole motive, the only object of 
 your existence and of all existence, the end and result 
 of the entire universe. Thousands of generations have 
 suffered, have wept, have struggled, have exterminated 
 each other, for the joy of that little thrill which your 
 thoughts give you. To this little thrill, to this cere- 
 bral spasm given you by your understanding, you have 
 sacrificed Alba as you would sacrifice your best friend, 
 your father, your mother, if they were in this world. 
 Good and evil, sorrow and joy, all serve as matter for 
 this play of your mind, which I find as monstrous as 
 that of Nero burning Rome ; this abuse of the sacred 
 gift for which you will have to render a terrible ac- 
 count, you as well as the illustrious corrupters, your
 
 EPILOGUE. 341 
 
 elders. For of all egotisms, that one is the worst which 
 degrades the highest power of the soul to be but a tool 
 for the most barren and inhuman of pleasures. . . ." 
 
 " There is truth in what you say," replied Dorsenne, 
 " but you are mistaken if you think that the most ultra 
 intellectual men of our age have not suffered from this 
 abuse of thought. What can be done, alas ! It is the 
 malady of this over-cultivated century, and it has no 
 cure." 
 
 " It has one," interrupted Montfanon, " and one that 
 you do not wish to see. You will not deny that Balzac 
 was the boldest of your modern writers ; and must I, an 
 ignorant man, quote to you, the mandarin of the su- 
 preme button, this phrase which dominates his whole 
 work : ' Thought, principle of good and of evil, can 
 only be prepared, subdued, and directed by religion ? ' 
 Look ! " he continued, suddenly taking the arm of his 
 companion and forcing him to look through the under- 
 brush down a side alley. " There he is, the physician 
 who holds the remedy for this disease of the soul as for 
 all others. Don't show yourself. They must have for- 
 gotten our presence. But look, look ah ! What a 
 meeting." 
 
 The personage who had suddenly appeared in the 
 frame of that melancholy garden, and in an almost su- 
 pernatural manner, so much was his presence a living 
 commentary on the passionate discourse of the old gen- 
 tleman, was no other than the Holy Father, himself, on 
 his way to take his carriage for his accustomed drive. 
 Dorsenne, who only knew Leo XIII. from his pictures, 
 saw a bent and broken old man, whose white robe shone 
 beneath his red cloak, and who leaned with one arm on 
 a prelate of his court, and with the other on one of his 
 officers. Though he drew aside, as Montfanon had 
 recommended, so as not to draw any reprimand on the 
 keepers, he was able to study the delicate profile of the 
 Sovereign Pontiff, who stopped before a bed of rose- 
 bushes, to talk in a familiar way with the gardener. He
 
 342 COSMOPOLIS. 
 
 saw the infinitely indulgent smile of that witty mouth. 
 He saw the flash of those eyes which seemed to justify 
 by their radiance the lumen in Coslo applied to Pius 
 IX. 's successor by a celebrated prophecy. He saw the 
 venerable hand, that white diaphanous hand which is 
 raised with so much majesty to give the solemn bene- 
 diction, extended toward a splendid yellow rose, and 
 the fingers which came out of the white mitten bent 
 the flower without breaking it, as though not to bruise 
 one of God's frail creatures. The old pope inhaled the 
 young rose for a second, then resumed his walk toward 
 the carriage vaguely outlined between the trunks of the 
 live oaks. The horses started off at a trot which one 
 guessed at once to be extremely rapid, and Dorsenne, 
 turning toward the old Zouave, saw great tears standing 
 in Montfanon's eyes, who, forgetting the rest of their 
 conversation, said with a sigh : 
 
 " And this is his only pleasure, he who is nevertheless 
 the successor of the first apostle, to smell flowers, and 
 go miles in a carriage as fast as his horses can go. 
 They have arranged four miles of carriage road, which 
 winds in and out at the foot of the- terrace where we sat 
 half an hour ago. And he drives and drives, giving 
 himself the illusion of space which is forbidden to him. 
 I have seen many sad spectacles in the course of my life ; 
 I have been to war, and I have spent a whole night 
 wounded, on a battle-field covered with snow, among the 
 dead, and grazed by the wheels of the enemy's artillery, 
 as they passed by singing. Nothing has moved me like 
 the sight of the drive of this old man who has never 
 uttered a complaint, and who has only this acre of land 
 where he can move about in freedom. But there is a 
 magnificent quotation, written by the old man himself, 
 beneath his picture, for a missionary: It is from Ter- 
 tullian. This quotation explains his whole life : Debi- 
 tricem martyrii Jidem. ' Faith is compelled to martyr- 
 dom.' " 
 
 " Debitricem martyrii fidem" repeated Dorsenne ; "how
 
 EPILOGUE. 343 
 
 beautiful that is ! " Then he added iu a deep tone : 
 "You treated the sceptics and dilettante very harshly 
 just now. But do you think there is a single one who 
 would refuse martyrdom if he were to have faith at the 
 same time "? " 
 
 Never had Montfanon heard the young man utter 
 such a phrase and in such a tone. Then, by contrast, he 
 saw the image of the lively dashing Dorsenne, of the 
 gayly sophistical dandy of letters, for whom ancient and 
 venerable Home was only a city of pleasures, a Cosmop- 
 olis more paradoxical than Florence, Nice, Biarritz, 
 Saint Moritz, then such and such an international sum- 
 mer or winter city. He felt that for the first time this 
 soul was touched to its depths. The tragic death of 
 poor Alba was to become, in the author's conscience, 
 the point of remorse around which would begin the 
 moral life of that creature, at once superior and incom- 
 plete, and up to that time exiled from simple humanity 
 by the most invincible pride of intellects. As Mont- 
 fanon was at the same time a very fervent Christian and 
 a very tender friend, he understood that any other words 
 would wound that heart, already so sore. He was afraid 
 of having already rebuked him too harshly. Without 
 replying, he took the young man's arm under his own 
 and squeezed it with a silent pressure, putting into this 
 manly caress all the warm and discreet pity of an elder 
 brother. 
 
 THE END.
 
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