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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Fr.nuanAct Galifomia State Library 
 
 SEcrioN I 
 books issued 
 Legislature, < 
 If any persoi 
 
 pafs'd 
 
 :,i nil 
 A the 
 Bsion. 
 
 he shall forfeit and pay to the Librarian, for the benefit of the Library 
 three times the value thereof; and before the Controller shall issue his 
 warrant in favor of any member or orticer of the Legislature, or of this 
 btate, for his per diem, allowance, or salary, he shall be satisfied that 
 such member or officer has returned all books taken out of the Library by 
 hmi, and has settled al) accounts for injuring such books or otherwise. 
 Sec 15. Books may be taken from the Library by the members of the 
 Legislature and its officers during the session of the same, and at any 
 time by the Governor and the officers of the Executive Department of 
 this State who are required to keep their offices at the seat of government 
 the Justices of the Supreme Court, the Attorney-General and the Trustee! 
 of the Library.
 
 th 
 
 0»
 
 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 % m\h of Diulcn-Dadcu. 
 
 FROM THE FRENCH OF 
 
 EDMOND ABOUT, 
 
 BY 
 
 £1. fto 
 
 
 ^^'\i'^ 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 CLAXTON, EEMSEN & HAFFELFINGER. 
 
 624, 626 & 628 MARKET STREET. 
 1873.
 
 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 CLAXTON, REMSEN & IIAFFELFINGER, 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 STEREOTTPEB DT J. FAaAN k BON, PHILADELPHIA.
 
 TO) 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. PAQB 
 
 Captain Bitterlin 13 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 Emma • 25 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 Meo 39 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Innocent Dkeamings 51 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 The Play-Bills 64 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Eighth Passenger 90 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 A Tour in Switzerland 101 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Baden 119 
 
 zi 
 
 «i
 
 V 
 
 XU CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AUKELIA loo 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Rouge et Noir 148 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 M. SiLIVERGO 161 
 
 CHAPTER Xn. 
 The Cafe of the Musketeers 175 
 
 CHAPTER XIH. 
 How Meo Refused Emma's Hand 191 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Preparations ' . . . 206 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Battle! 218 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Postscript 231
 
 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CAPTAIN BITTERLIIT. 
 
 WHEN he was asked to fill up the last census- 
 papers, he wrote it all down himself, in a little, 
 dry scratch of a hand, bristling like a stubble-field : 
 
 " Jean Pierre Bitterlin, of Luneville ; 60 years old, 
 35 years of active service, 11 campaigns, 2 wounds; 
 Captain in 1834, Chevalier in 183G, retired in 1847, 
 a Saint Helena medal-man." 
 
 His short, thick-set frame was stiff as buckram — 
 perhaps more from habits of commanding than even 
 from years. He had never been what the seamstresses 
 call a fine-looking man ; but in 1858 he wanted a line 
 or two of the regulation height. I am rather inclined 
 to the opinion that his body had sunh by degrees on 
 the marches, from putting one foot before the other : 
 one, two! His feet were short and his hands big. 
 His face — always red, and as full of little wrinkles as a 
 frill — had preserved an expression of firmness. • That 
 bold Roman nose, which cut it in two as the Apen- 
 nines divide Italy, must have broken some hearts in 
 1820. His moustache had lost all its pliability; in 
 2 13
 
 14 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 fact, no Rowland's Macassar had virtue enough to con- 
 quer it : it might be called a. tooth-brush stuck on his 
 upper lip. It M'as always as black as jet fi'om Sun- 
 day morning till Wednesday evening. If it grizzled a 
 little towards the end of the week, it is because the art 
 of the dyer has not yet reached perfection. As to 
 his hair, it was quite another thing ; it had been always 
 black, and the line glossy color lasted to the day of 
 his death — the hair-dresser had guaranteed it. His 
 age was so cleverly concealed that it betrayed itself 
 only by a few long, Avhite hairs escai)ing out of his 
 ears, and by the puckers of a face more corrugated 
 than a lake under the first puffs of the morning breeze. 
 His dress was that of a dandy of 1828 — a narrow- 
 brimmed hat, a black stock nearly reaching his ears, a 
 frock-coat buttoned under the chin, wide pantaloons 
 with great plaits. The gloves he had a preference for 
 were of white cotton ; the red ribbon in his button- 
 hole glowed splendidly like a pink in the month of 
 June. Ilis voice was quick, imperious, and of a very 
 crusty, surly tone. He drawled towards the middle of 
 his sentences, and stopped with a sudden jerk at the 
 end, as if he was drilling his men. He .siid. How do 
 you — DO? in the same tone that he would have said. 
 Present — arms ! .His disposition was tiie most candid, 
 the most honest, the most delicate, but at the same time 
 the sourest, the Grossest, and the grumpiest in the 
 world. 
 
 The spirits of a man of sixty are nearly always such 
 as they have been made by his previous life. Young 
 people are just as nature has formed tiiem ; the old are 
 fashioned by the hands, often rough and a\A kward, of
 
 CAPTAIN ETTTERLIX. 15 
 
 society. Jean Pierre Bitterlin had been the prettiest of 
 druraraer-boys and the merriest of Frenchmen at the 
 battle of Leipsic. Fortune, who treated him like a 
 spoiled child, had made him a corporal at sixteen, and 
 at seventeen a sergeant. Like many another, he had 
 dreamed of starry epaulets, marshals' batons, and per- 
 haps something better. Tlie word " impossible " had 
 been rubbed out of the army's dictionary. A bold young 
 fellow, without birth, and hardly able to write his name, 
 might aspire to anything, if opportunity would only give 
 him a lift. Bitterlin had attracted attention from the first 
 by his steadiness, his cool courage, his activity, and all 
 those other secondary qualities that are the small change 
 of the French soldier. He merited, his first epaulet at 
 Waterloo, but he did not receive it till nine years after- 
 wards in Spain. In the interim he had been tempted a 
 hundred times to quit the service and go plant his cab- 
 bages at Luneville; but he never gave his superiors 
 any trouble, though discontented and a sergeant. 
 Mechanically and without relish he continued in a pro- 
 fession that he had embraced with enthusiasm. Between 
 the coffee-house, the drill, the reading of the Constitu- 
 tionnel, and the pretty eyes of a milliner of Toulouse, the 
 hours of this discouraged warrior sped along slowly 
 enough. He read over and over again the Military An- 
 nual, to count the names of all his comrades who had 
 been passed over' his shoulders, and such reading soured 
 his temper. Still some one thing or another kept him 
 in his regiment, and he followed his flag as a dog fol- 
 lows his master. In this growling resignation there is 
 something too sublime for mere civilians to admire. 
 Bitterlin detested the Bourbons; but no one served
 
 16 BOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 tlieni more faitlifully. If lie did not get himself killed 
 on their account in 1830, he came at least very near it. 
 He was carried to the hospital with a piece of lead in 
 liis leg. When he recovered his senses, after fifteen 
 days of fever and delirium, he was rejoiced to hear that 
 the government was changed a little. His craving to 
 se^ his family, that is to say his regiment, hastened his 
 recovery. He expected that the time of the great wars 
 wjis coming back again, and, like all true soldiers, he 
 dreamed of nothing less than the conflagration of Eu- 
 rope. But it all ended in a few fire-works, and even 
 these Bitterlin was not ordered to extinguish. He was 
 appointed captain by right of seniority, " when the fool's 
 turn came," as he himself expressed it, with a bitter 
 grunt. His colonel, who encouraged him occasionally, 
 proved to him clearly that he should not despair. A 
 captain at thirty-six, he still had Africa before him. He 
 crossed the Mediterranean, took the field, but caught 
 the dysentery before getting the first sight at an enemy. 
 He was sent to Briangon, in the High Alps, to recover. 
 Winter seven months long, and torrents in the middle 
 of the street! There, to kill time, he married a coffee- 
 house-keeper's daughter. He was hardly married when 
 he was ordered to start for Strasburg with the regiment. 
 His wife followed him on the baggage- wagon. In 1839 
 he became father of a daughter, who was born between 
 the three hundred and tenth and the three hundred and 
 eleventh mile -stone on the road from Strasburer to 
 Paris. The child prospered, and the Captain began to 
 indulge the hope that the pleasures of domestic life 
 would console him for all his mischances. Unfortu- 
 nately, his wife was pretty, and a coquette. Without
 
 CAPTAIN BITTERLIN. 17 
 
 heflecting on the consequences, slie liked admiration and 
 sought it; and the Captain now experienced a worse 
 kind of jealousy than he had known while reading the 
 Ililitary Annual. He kept himself at home, closed his 
 cioors, and commenced growling. He could never be 
 seen except on matters of business. He began to affect 
 a refined politeness, as all men do whose superior skill 
 in arms is generally recognized ; but he could bear no 
 joking. The young captains, however, would have 
 their fun. He practised two or three grains of patience 
 before he burst out against a comrade Mdio had carried 
 the fun too far; and he was so unfortunate as to kill 
 him. Nobody said he was wrong. Everything had 
 been done strictly en regie. However, he retired from 
 the service at the age of forty-nine. His pension, his 
 inheritance, and his wife's little dower, amounted in all 
 to about five thousand francs ($1000) a year, with 
 which he came to spend the remainder of his days at ' 
 Paris. He took up his quarters in the Marais, not 
 far from the Place Royale, sent the little girl off to the 
 convent-school at St. Denis, and shut himself up tete-a- 
 tete with his wife. The loneliness killed Madame Bitter- 
 lin in less than four years. The angels themselves 
 would have grown weary of feeding the Captain in his 
 wilderness. 
 
 The evening he returned to his dwelling, spattered 
 knee-deep with the thick mud so abundant in cemeteries, 
 he reflected an hour or two on chance, on Providence, 
 on the prospects and final fate of that two-legged, feath- 
 erless animal called man ; and then he seriously proposed 
 to himself one of those pretty problems that are only 
 finally resolved by a pull at the trigger. However, he 
 2* B
 
 18 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 did not kill liiniself. He had been alive so loner that he' 
 ended by getting used to it. His servant came to tell 
 him dinner M'as ready ; he sat down and contrived to 
 swallow a few morsels. 
 
 " Eat, sir, eat," said stout Agatha, shedding a torrent 
 of tears over the mutton stew. " You must take courage 
 and strength, now that there's only two of us in the 
 world, besides Mademoiselle at St. Denis." 
 
 Stout Agatha was a mountaineer of Dauphiny, de- 
 formed and lame. The coffee-house keeper of Brian9oa 
 had sent her to his daughter by way of a New Year's 
 gift, as an inestimable family treasure. The poor crea- 
 ture, with limited intelligence but with the heart of 
 a hero, rose at dawn in summer, with candle-light 
 in winter, breakfasted on an early Mass and a piece 
 of dry bread, hurried to market for provisions, and 
 fought the market-women with a spirit equal to their 
 own ; went after water as soon as the street-fountains were 
 opened, washed, ironed, and mended the family linen, 
 scrubbed the red-tiled jfloors, polished the furniture as 
 bright as a looking-glass, and amused herself in her lei- 
 sure moments by scouring her pots and pans till they 
 shone like silver. Her whole thoughts were on the 
 housekeeping, and, during the few hours that she 
 snatched for sleep, she dreamed regularly that the lather 
 was too blue, or that an army of cockroaches was plun- 
 dering the pantry. 
 
 But Agatha's talents as well as her virtues were all a 
 sealed book to M. Bitterlin. He accepted her services 
 M'ith misanthropical contempt. In his heart he thought 
 himself an exceedingly generous felloAV, because he did 
 not turn out of doors a creature so useless and ugly.
 
 CAPTAIN EITTERLTlSr. 19 
 
 He slirugged his shoulders on every occasion, distrust- 
 fully wiped his glass though it sparkled like polished 
 crystal, and ate with the tips of his teeth. He never 
 disputed about the household expenses ; but every time 
 he examined the bills, he would say, with some bitterness : 
 
 " My good girl, I don't think you rob me. But 
 when I was lieutenant, my board cost me fifty francs a 
 month, and I fared better." 
 
 Then poor Agatha would burst into tears, thank her 
 master for the confidence he had reposed in her, and 
 promise to be more economical in future. 
 
 This unappreciating master seldom kept himself at 
 home the moment he no longer had a wife to watch. 
 As soon as he had made his toilet, and growled over the 
 Moniteur de VArmee, he would breakfast at the corner 
 of the table, take his hat and gloves, and pace the streets 
 of Paris till six o'clock in the evening. He would often 
 stop in the Champs Elysees to look at the bowlers, and 
 if he only had an opportunity to ridicule some awkward 
 player, he went away happy. Sometimes he would en- 
 ter a fencing-school in the 3Iarais, belonging to an old 
 comrade of his regiment, who always received him with 
 marks of the highest respect. He never deigned to 
 touch a foil himself, but he was always ready to prove 
 that the scholars and amateurs were miserable bunglers. 
 His favorite place of resort, however, was the Champ de 
 liars. The sight of the uniforms gave him a kind of 
 bitter amusement, of which he was never weary. The 
 fine movements gave him pleasure, far less, however, 
 than the blunders. Every time an officer made a mis- 
 take, he rubbed his hands hard enough to take the skin 
 off, and licked his moustache like a goat licking a tender
 
 20 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 branch. Every night after dinner he went to read the 
 papers in the Caf6 of the Musketeers, near the Boulevard 
 Beaumarchais. The waiters gave hi in the best coffee 
 and the oldest brandy, because he was the most disagree- 
 al?le and hardest to be pleased of all their customers. 
 He gave advice to the billiard-players, the draught- 
 players, and the piquet-players, and was not at all 
 sparing of doubtful compliments. But nobody minded 
 him, for his disposition was W(;ll known. When invited 
 to take a hand, he answered drily, that he never did 
 anything of the kind, such were not his principles. 
 Strange ! His coffee-house acquaintances, the only ones 
 he had in Paris, treated him with a deference precisely 
 proportioned to his want of deference towards them- 
 selves. So it is all the world over. The more we 
 despise the crowd, the more it honors us; the more 
 merit we arrogate to ourselves, the more mankind is 
 disposed to give. 
 
 The Captain's sour temper was not much sweetened 
 by an ill turn done him one day by his old comrades : 
 they took Sebastopol without him. The first time the 
 Crimean war was talked about, he gave stout Agatha a 
 formal exposition of his views on the situation of France. 
 
 " My good girl," said he, " of course you know 
 nothing about these things, and I 'm sure I don't know 
 why I talk to you concerning them. But there are 
 moments when a man would talk to his boot-jack ! 
 France is going to have another tussle with Russia. 
 That 's an old idea of ours ; I might say, of mine. In 
 1811, when only thirteen years of age, I said: 'We 
 must take Russia I' Russia knows me, Agatha; I have 
 run over Russia from one end to the other. I measured
 
 CAPTAIN BITTERLTJSr. 21 
 
 sworcls with her at Moscow. I have spoken her language, 
 I don't forget it all yet: Niet! Da! Karacho! If the 
 Russians saw me landing" in the Crimea, there would be 
 more than one to cry out: 'Hello! there's that little 
 Bitterlin again ! Stand from under ! ' This being the 
 case, what will the Minister of War do? Do you think 
 he will send for me ? Oh yes, indeed ! Of course ! " 
 
 No Frenchman took a deeper interest in the successes 
 and reverses of the Allied Troops. His old regiment, 
 after covering itself with glory at the siege of Rome, 
 had started among the first for the East. Bitterlin, with 
 a profound sentiment of envy, kept his eyes fixed on all 
 the brilliant achievements of the gallant 104th. He 
 passed Avhole days poring over maps of the Crimea, and 
 in running his pencil through the fortifications of Se- 
 bastopol. Morning, noon, and night, he was lecturing 
 the commanders of the expedition, in the person of 
 Agatha. Whenever he thought a general was too dila- 
 tory at a critical moment, he thrust him back into the 
 reserve, mounted his horse in his place, slashed right 
 and left, and went to bed Marshal of France. When- 
 ever the tidings were bad, he walked through the streets 
 of Paris shrugging his shoulders. Five or six fre- 
 quenters of the Caf^ of the Musketeers firmly believed 
 that the Crimean war was never to be ended, because 
 the right men were not there. 
 
 The day the news came that the Malakoif was taken, 
 the Captain's heart was the scene of another terrible bat- 
 tle. On one side were ranged the glory of his beloved 
 old flag, the honor of the French name, the delightful 
 thrill that runs through an old soldier, at the far-off 
 sound of victory; on the other, the agony of being
 
 99 
 
 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 nothing, and having done nothing, at a moment when 
 crosses, promotions, and titles were showering like hail 
 on the heads of the conquerors. All these contradictory 
 sentiments attacked him at once, and with such violence 
 that he actually shed tears, without well knowing him- 
 self whether it was through joy or grief. Stout Agatha, 
 who did not quite understand politics, asked him inno- 
 cently, if it was from him that they had taken the Mala- 
 kolf, and whether, in consequence of the loss, she should 
 be obliged to omit the second dish at dimier. 
 
 From time to time, the Captain remembered that he 
 was a father, and this idea, in itself a consoling one, 
 only still more exSsperated his incorrigible sullenness. 
 Paternity reminded him of marriage, and his marriage 
 liad been anything but a happy one. This man, naiTOW 
 in his views, always running into extremes, and imbued 
 with the most exaggerated ideas regarding honor, still 
 continued to believe himself interested in findins: out 
 if Madame Bitterlin had been faithful to her marriage 
 vows. An absurd doubt, but it awoke the Captain moi'e 
 than once in the middle of the night. His jealousy 
 had not expired with his wife; it often returned like 
 fits of periodical fever. The unhappy man had often 
 remained a quarter of an hour stand ing^before his look- 
 ing-glass, examining his counteuaixce, trying to find out 
 whether it looked like that of a deceived husband. He 
 was continually revolving in his sick brain all the cir- 
 cumstances that had excited his suspicious ; every day 
 he opened court with stupid gravity over an interminable 
 case. When his wife's innocence seemed put beyond all 
 doubt, he hurried off to the cemetery and begged pardon 
 of the poor woman for all the harm he had ever done
 
 CAPTAIN BITTERLIN. 23 
 
 her. But if at that moment even the lightest doubt 
 crossed his mind, he shook his fist at the ashes in the 
 tomb, and wished that his wife woukl come to life again 
 in order to feel his vengeance. He had forbidden the 
 stone-cutter to engrave the regular words Good Wife in 
 the epitaph : the place remained vacant till further in- 
 formation. 
 
 This painful though groundless uncertainty never 
 permitted him to enjoy a real paternal pleasure in hig 
 intercourse with his daughter. Although he had not 
 the slightest shadow of a reason for supposing that 
 somebody else was her father, he remarked with in- 
 creasing displeasure that not one of little Emma's fea- 
 tures would ever resemble his. Whenever he went to 
 St. Denis to see her, he considered her extremely ugly 
 in the old-fashioned uniform of the Convent. He kissed 
 her coldly on the forehead ; he did not caress her with 
 the fondness characteristic of real fathers. On her side, 
 she came to the parlor as she went to class. M. Bitter- 
 lin acted towards her like a severe schoolmaster; he 
 corrected her from motives of duty. 
 
 They passed the vacations together at Auteuil. M. 
 Bitterlin, Agatha, and the little one put themselves and 
 their trunks into a yellow omnibus, and got out again 
 before a Boarding Institution, a vast republican hive, 
 composed of two hundred and fifty apartments and as 
 many gardens. The Bitterlins occupied rooms in the 
 third story, which commanded a glimpse of the country. 
 Their garden was so extensive that you could not take 
 twelve steps in it in any direction. The Captain con- 
 sidered such a place an absurd humbug ; but neverthe- 
 less he went there regularly year after year, just for the
 
 24 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 pleasure of abusing it. Seated on the grass-bank under 
 his only tree, he would smoke his cent-cigar,. chewing 
 the half of it, and gaze at Emma playing in the alley, 
 which served as a corridor for all the gardens of the 
 establishment. And he would often ask himself what 
 there was in common between him, Bitterlin, Marshal 
 of France that ought to be, and that little raw-boned 
 girl, with the red hands, running up and down so wildly, 
 and gesticulating so strangely with her feet and arras. 
 
 The period of green, awkward girlhood prolonged 
 itself in Mademoiselle Bitterlin's case far beyond the 
 usual limits. At full fifteen years she was still, if not 
 actually ugly, at least perfectly insignificant, and the 
 Captain never scruj^led to say in her presence, 'that the 
 men were never going to make fools of themselves for 
 her beauty. But when she had completed her education, 
 and returned for good to the paternal roof (it was, if I 
 am not mistaken, at the vacation of 1856), — when she 
 had changed the sober uniform of the Legion of Honor 
 for a pretty summer dress of a more modern cut, — the 
 Captain was actually astounded and alarmed at the 
 transformation that had taken place in her regard. He 
 swore that her beauty was indecent, and he made up his 
 mind at once that a new series of tribulations was iu 
 store for his old days.
 
 EMMA. 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 EMMA. 
 
 THE Captain's terror, though of course somewhat 
 exaggerated, was not quite unreasonable. It can 
 be very readily understood by those to whom nature 
 has assigned the bootless part of the dragon of the Hes- 
 perides. When we are guarding oranges which we 
 cannot eat ourselves, it is only natural for us to regret 
 that they are so fine and tempting. A husband's case 
 is different : first, the oranges are his own ; then, he can 
 eat them all himself, if he be so disposed and his teeth 
 good enough. This is the reason why the dreary drudg- 
 ery that would prematurely wrinkle the brow of a father 
 or of an elder brother, becomes an enchanting pastime 
 to all young husbands. 
 
 Captain Bitterlin, who had imagined himself capable 
 of taking Sebastopol, entertained serious apprehensions 
 regarding his ability to defend Emma. It was not by 
 any means that the poor child seemed weak enough to 
 let herself be captured by the first assailant, but because 
 she was possessed of that irresistible seduction which 
 calls into play all the cupidity of the aggressive sex. 
 The guardians of museums, of libraries, and of all col- 
 lections public and private, will tell you that there is 
 in every gallery some picture, or book, or cast, whose 
 manifest destiny it is to be stolen some day or other, 
 while all the rest are perfectly safe. Here, it is an El- 
 zevir or an Aldus, just the size for your pocket, and 
 
 bound so congenially that your hand stretches for it 
 3
 
 26 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 as naturally as it would for a ripe apple. There, it is 
 some little antique figure whose wicked beauty actu- 
 ally invites you to steal it. Elsewhere, it is a little 
 picture, a faultless gem, that not only fascinates dis- 
 honest people, but tempts even a saint himself to slip it 
 under his cloak. President De Brosses was not per- 
 haps altogether a saint, but he Avas a very good man, 
 and a judge into the bargain. Still one day he was very 
 near forgetting all his virtue in the presence of a little 
 Correggio, which was ogling him in the gallery of some 
 lioman prince. Emma seemed to be marked out for 
 the same fate as the little Elzevir, the little bronze, or 
 the little Correggio. Correggio never painted anything 
 fresher, more velvety, more savory. Her face was be- 
 dewed with that impalpable down which nature sheds 
 on peaches and on the wings of butterflies : the down of 
 youth and innocence, which the first love efFaces, and 
 which faded beauty tries in vain to rc])lace by all the 
 powders of the drug-store. Doubly a woman — for she 
 was a blonde — under her long brown eyelashes she 
 half shaded two large blue eyes, joyous as a summer 
 sky. The dainty lines of her pretty mouth, the lustre 
 of her cherry lips, the whiteness of her little teeth, 
 slightly separated like those of children, the exquisite 
 desiern of her two little ears, which half lost themselves 
 in the golden shadow of her hair, all the harmonious 
 perfections of her countenance, formed a whole not ex- 
 actly of angelical, but of most provoking virginity. It 
 is not thus that Sasso Ferrato and Carlo Dolci painted 
 the Madonna; but it is thus that all painters would 
 wish to represent Eve, and that all men would wish to 
 meet her.
 
 EMMA. . 27 
 
 The Captain's epithet had been too coarse to express 
 the real character of his daughter's beauty. Nothing is 
 more diverse than the beauty of women, except the im- 
 pression that it produces on men. There are heroic 
 beauties who inspire us with lofty thoughts and chival- 
 rous sentiments ; melancholy beauties that lull us to 
 gentle reverie ; seraphic beauties that fling us into mys- 
 ticism and lead us to heaven by the steepest kind of 
 roads; seductive beauties that jiluuge us into crime 
 and lead.us quickly enough "the other way"; homelike 
 beauties that inspire us with an uncontrollable desire to 
 become heads of families and city councillors ; bacchana- 
 lian beauties that remind us of balls and champagne ; 
 pastoral beauties that set us a-thinking about tending 
 sheep and drinking milk. With Van Ostade's women, 
 a man would like to be selling cloth; with those of 
 Teniers, he might resign himself even to smoking a 
 pipe ; with those of Rubens, he might bring himself to 
 regard with complacency the idea of being the father 
 of two or three dozen of chubby children ; with those of 
 Vandyke, he might reconcile himself to the trouble of 
 being a king ; with those of Watteau, he would like to 
 eat ice-cream out of rosewood saucers. But in the pres- 
 ence of Emma Bitterlin, as before certain portraits by 
 Titian and by Raphael, he would forget every interest, 
 every duty, every ambition, every consideration, in order 
 to think of nothing but love. 
 
 How had the awkward girl, who used to straddle 
 about at Auteuil like a big daddy-long-legs, become in 
 less than a year the prettiest woman in Paris ? Nature 
 keeps to herself with jealous care the secret of such 
 metamorphoses. One fine morning a young girl issues
 
 28 EOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 out of Iier cliiklhood, as if out of a shell, not a vestige 
 of which remains. All the sharp angles with which the 
 little Emma had been bristling all over, disa|)i)cared in 
 a few months. Her arms filled out, iier waist rounded, 
 lier bust modelled itself as if it had been in a statuary's 
 mould, her features grew beautiful and fell into place. 
 If her hands continued red, it was only to save the prin- 
 ciple and to maintain the color of virtue; nothing but a 
 little hasty whitening was wanting to make them the 
 j^rettiest hands in the world. The change was so great 
 that even her companions who saw her every day could 
 remark it. They experienced the same astonishment 
 as bewilders the traveller who arrives at night in a 
 strange country, when, next morning, the rising sun 
 discloses to his view forests, rocks, rivers, and a charm- 
 ing landscape, the existence of which he had not even 
 susjieeted the evening before. 
 
 The girl soon found out that she was pretty : the 
 wonder would be if she was the last to perceive such 
 things. There was no looking-glass so small that she 
 could not admire herself in it. In her own mind she 
 compared herself to Cinderella, and she by no means 
 despaired of seeing some evening the grand gold car- 
 riage drive up, drawn by six mouse-gray horses. Why 
 not ? She smiled at her neat little foot, thinking of the 
 fairy tale. Her first vocation had been that of teach- 
 ing, the last resource of women who are unprovided 
 with either beauty or fortune. Within the four walls 
 of the Convent at St. Denis she had expected to per- 
 form her voyage of life. But the Sisters had not much 
 trouble in combating this idea. She was not long in 
 convincing herself that she had a face altogether too 
 worldly for the austere duties of instruction.
 
 EMMA. 29 
 
 Her father's reception surprised her a little : she had 
 expected a regular domestic ovation. Agatha alone was 
 loud in her admiration and told her that she was to 
 marry some king's son. Unfortunately however, 
 king's sons were not likely to come to visit her in the 
 Rue de Vosges, in the Ilarais, and her father did not 
 at all seem disposed to take her into society. He 
 had no society to take her into but the Cafe of the 
 Musketeers. The old fellow, selfish and surly, had sur- 
 rounded himself with a wall of China ; and now when 
 he saw that he had a treasure to guard, he only thought 
 of fortifying himself the more strongly. He dreaded 
 lest this little being so seducing, so pretty, so portable, 
 Bhould become the prey of some robber; the idea of 
 making ii present of her to some respectable man never 
 once came into his head. He had a sovereign contempt 
 for that policy of the English and of all prudent mammas 
 which consists in finding an outlet for their home pro- 
 ductions. As greedy of his blood as of his money, he 
 considered it perfectly natural to save up his daughter 
 and his crowns for his old days. His first measure was 
 to leave Auteuil ; he dreaded the young men of the 
 boarding-house and the liberty of country life. He 
 told his daughter that he would never let her out of his 
 sight, and that she was not to go to the window unless 
 in his company. 
 
 Emma took this menace of her father's, and indeed 
 all his severities, in very good part. Little birds are 
 quite comfortable in the cage as long as they can't fly, 
 and we don't trouble ourselves much about liberty until 
 such time as we know how to employ it. She accepted 
 without a murmur all the laws that the Captain thought
 
 30 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 proper to proclaim in his house. She let herself be put 
 under lock and key, she consented to see nobody, she 
 played the part of the princess shut up in the tower, 
 without once suspecting that at this kind of game she 
 might win the epaulets of an old maid. The only thing 
 that troubled her was her father's bad humor. It hurt 
 her to be surrounded by so morose a personage, and she 
 felt it to be her duty to tame him a little. In fact, she 
 considered it a point of honor to do something of the 
 kind. Tlie desire to please, innate in all women, was 
 dominant in her, and to such a degree, that if even a 
 total stranger had looked at her without smiling, she 
 would have felt it as little short of an insult. She had 
 commenced her ap])renticeship in the art of pleasing in 
 those days when she had to get her face excused ; and 
 after the metamorphosis, she did not understand why 
 she should be looked at crossly by a man who was 
 neither deaf nor blind, and who was her own father into 
 the bargain. She began then to surround the Captain 
 with a net of little attentions and caressing ways that 
 would have surely entrapped any one else. She waited 
 on him continually, she fondled him, she anticipated all 
 his wants; in short, she exhausted on him alone all the 
 love that a girl of seventeen expends as well as she can, 
 in embracing little cats and in kissing little birds. But 
 the more affectionately she treated the old boy, the more 
 churlish he showed himself. All these filial blandish- 
 ments reminded the Captain of other caresses quite as 
 captivating, but of the sincerity of which he was by no 
 means convinced. Emma resembled her mother even 
 in her embraces, though the poor woman had never 
 given her any lessons. Every graceful gesture, every
 
 EMMA. 31 
 
 sprightly expression of the girl, woke up the old 
 jealousy of the husband and the surly prudence of the 
 father. He actually suffered severely whenever he re- 
 cognized in his daughter some of those winning ways 
 that he had so much deplored in her mother ; he even 
 confided to stout Agatha, who did not understand a word 
 he said, his serious apprehensions of being dishonored 
 over again. 
 
 In his fits of misanthropy he would often reproach 
 the poor child with her " eternal smile " and her " fawn- 
 ing ways." One evening, noticing her to be a little 
 thoughtful before dinner, — " Attention ! " he suddenly 
 exclaimed ; " you 're setting your cap at the decanter ! " 
 Another time, as she was putting her arms around his 
 neck to embrace him, he repulsed her roughly, and 
 forgot himself so far as to say, " You 're too light ! 
 You '11 end badly ! " Without comprehending the exact 
 meaning of these words, Emma felt the sensitive deli- 
 cacy of her soul wounded, and for the first time she re- 
 plied Avith a spirit somewhat mutinous, " I don't know 
 how I shall end, but I do not commence very well." 
 
 The length of the days was terrible in this way of 
 living, where the company was close without being inti- 
 mate. They arose early through habit,. never reflecting 
 that doing so only gave them a few hours more to kill. 
 Emma dressed herself for the whole day very simply, 
 but with such exceeding neatness that the Captain often 
 grumbled at it and called it affectation. He made war 
 on sponges and scented soaps, asserting seriously that 
 with women cleanliness is the mother of all the vices. 
 After breakfast the father smoked, walked up and down 
 the room, scolded, opened and shut the windows, and
 
 32 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 ttii^pcd at llie barometer. Emma hemmed a handker- . 
 cliief or embroidered a collar, or sang a song or two at 
 the upright piano, which her mother had left her. 
 Sometimes she read. The Ca])tain saw no harm in that, 
 and gave her free use of his library, which consisted of 
 the following works ranged in the following order : 
 
 The Rural Retreat, Dorat, The Thirty-Seven Codes, 
 Victories and Conquests of the French Arms, Voltaire, 
 Fouquet's Edition ; The Works of the AbbS Raijnal, Do- 
 mestic Medicine, The History of Napoleon, by Norvins ; 
 Tlie Ruins, by Yolney; and The Imitation of Christ, 
 bound in. black and bearing the letters of Madame Bit- 
 terliu's name. 
 
 Emma was neither a silly simpleton nor a George 
 Sand, but she had a pretty little feminine mind of her 
 own, candid, cheerful, inquiring, intelligent, and trained 
 in the best school we have in France. Naturally enough, 
 then, her flUher's books wearied her to death, for not a 
 single one of them excited her curiosity or gratified her 
 taste. 
 
 At four o'clock every evening, the military hour, the 
 Captain trotted her out as a groom does his horses. He 
 took her to the Place Roy ale, or to the Jar din des 
 Flantes, only seldom to the Boulevard Beaumarchais. 
 On Sundays she was treated to a little trip to Vincennes, 
 or to Bievre, or to some other tranquil retreat where the 
 sight of a pretty woman does not make the promenaders 
 turn about to gaze. Father and daughter always got 
 home at six o'clock precisely, and they dined together 
 as they had breakfasted. After the dessert, idleness and 
 weariness asserted their rights, until sleep was the con- 
 sequence. During one of those dreary hours, Emma 
 took the courage to ask her flithcr, one evening, if he
 
 EMMA. 33 
 
 would not teach her some amusing game, or if he was 
 never going to take her to the play? This innocent 
 question sounded in the ears of the house-tyrant like an 
 appeal to the barricades. An amusing game? Did she 
 know what she meant? Games and gaming, they were 
 all the same — all bad; the scourge of the soldier, the 
 curse of the regiments ; gaming was the source of all 
 debts, of all crimes ; a model officer, as he flattered him- 
 self he had always been, never played at any game ; ac- 
 cordingly, in all his thirty-five years of service, he had 
 never lost a cent in gambling, nor had incurred fifteen 
 minutes punishment. As for the theatre, he took no 
 pleasure in such places himself, and he considered them 
 to be dangerous for his daughter. She might meet some 
 young blood there foolish enough to fall in love with 
 her, and to tell her so, " in which case," added the Cap- 
 tain, " I would make no bones at all about it. I 'd kill 
 him as mercilessly as I'd sjoit a lark — always, how- 
 ever, strictly complying with the established codes of 
 honor." 
 
 It was by indulging in amplifications of this style 
 that the Captain undertook to train the mind and heart 
 of his daughter during the weary hours that crawled 
 along so slowly from after dinner till bed-time. In 
 consequence, the poor child saw with terror the approach 
 of the moment for removing the table-cloth, and when- 
 ever there were any nuts for dessert, she remained pick- 
 ing at them as long as possible. One evening, when 
 stout Agatha came to bid them good-night, Emma said 
 to her in a whisper, " I dare not complain, but I 'm tired 
 to death. Cry over me a little in your room." 
 
 Towards the middle of December, the Captain received 
 
 C
 
 34 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 a letter addressed to liis daughter. He opened it at 
 once and read as follows : 
 
 "My DEAR LITTLE Desire-to-Please : — Here 
 I am back from the country; Henrietta ditto, Julia and 
 Caroline ditto, ditto. The gentle Madeline informs me 
 that she will be ditto to-morrow. With you — and 
 without you nothing can be good — the number of the 
 immortal six will be complete. Mamma has decided 
 that the first reunion of the Inseparables is to take place 
 at our house. What a glorious day ! The idea makes 
 me leap with joy. Don't you blame anything else for 
 the big blot that has just fallen right in the centre of 
 my letter. It is to be Monday morning. Ask the 
 Papa- Wolf to have you taken to the Rue St. Arnaud, 
 No. 4, before daybreak ; we shall send you back safe to 
 your den in the evening. "SV^e shall dance, perhaps, but 
 certainly we shall chat and gabble, and of course laugh 
 like crazy people, and that 's the best part of it. AVe 
 are talking about making arrangements for our winter 
 amusements on a grand scale, as our poor dear old Pro- 
 fessor used to say. I hope we shall see each other every 
 day till we are married, and afterwards too for that mat- 
 ter. You see it is the regular plan of the campaign we 
 have to sketch out; but my brother the soldier, just ar- 
 rived on leave of absence, will aid us with his invalu- 
 able experience. He won't believe that you are a hun- 
 dred times prettier than I ; these Lieutenants of the En- 
 gineers are incredulous to a degree that is positively 
 siiocking. . Monday! Monday! Monday! Another 
 blot ! A regular pie this time. No matter. The pie- 
 •nyxker embraces you with all her heart. 
 
 " Louise de Marannes."
 
 E M M A . 35 
 
 The Captain, who had once been a young man, and 
 an amiable one too, answered Emma's companion as a 
 dog would a rabbit. 
 
 " Mademoiselle: — I have received the letter which 
 you have done me the honor to address to my daughter, 
 and beg to state in reply that, though much honored by 
 the invitation therein included, I think I neither over- 
 step my rights nor fall short of my duties when I inform 
 you that Emma never goes to any house where her father 
 does not likewise go, and that her father finds himself 
 much more comfortable at his own house than anywhere 
 else. She eats and laughs at home just as much as her 
 health requires, and never bestows a thought on those 
 (Questions regarding marriage, from the discussion of 
 which no young lady can keep herself too much aloof, 
 however little regard she may have for her reputation. 
 In short, Captain Bitterlin's daughter is not in the habit 
 of being reviewed by lieutenants, even if they do have 
 the advantage of belonging to the Engineers. 
 
 " I have the honor to be. Mademoiselle, your very 
 humble, most devoted, and obedient servant." 
 
 A few days after, Emma said to her father : 
 
 " I am surprised that Louise does not write to me ; 
 she must certainly have returned from the country." 
 
 The Captain replied with a frown : 
 
 " She has written to you." 
 
 "Ah ! " 
 
 " Yes, all kinds of trash. But I have answered her 
 as she ought to be answered, and I'll warrant you shall 
 not hear from her again in a hurry."
 
 36 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 In fact, that was the end of the correspondence ; and 
 three or four other freaks of the Captain soon isolated 
 his daughter as perfectly as if she had never set her 
 foot in a board in'g-school. 
 
 So she lived for eighteen months in this overwhelm- 
 ing loneliness, tcte-a-tete with the most crossgraiued of 
 mortals. Her health, however, did not suffer, and even 
 her temper experienced no ill effects from the ordeal. 
 Oh ! blessed privilege of youth ! It stands the rudest 
 shocks of life with impunity. Just as children knock 
 their heads against all the sharp corners of the furniture 
 and never bear away a scar to tell it. 
 
 The only friend she had now left was stout Agatha, 
 whose resources, however, out of her kitchen, were 
 rather limited. This poor creature had a religious ven-, 
 eration for her young mistress's beauty. In her she 
 found points of resemblance with all the beautifully 
 colored saintly virgins that she kept between the leaves 
 of her prayer-book. Whenever she was permitted to 
 escort Emma to high Mass on Sundays, or on some 
 little shopping matter two or three steps from the 
 house, she felt so proud that she grew a foot taller. She 
 said to her, one day as they were coming out of church : 
 
 " I don't know what I shall do when you get married. 
 The old gentleman won't allow me to leave him, and I 
 can't live away from you. If I could only make two 
 halves of myself!" 
 
 " Do you think, then, that Papa has any notion of 
 getting me married?" asked Emma. 
 
 "Do I? Of course he has. Girls are made for 
 nothing else, unless when one happens to be a scare-crow 
 like myself."
 
 EMMA. 37 
 
 " Perhaps Louise is married by this time." 
 
 "Quite possible. To-day one, to-morrow another. 
 Not later than yesterday, seven couple were married at 
 St. Paul's." 
 
 " But Papa don't know any one in Paris." 
 
 " That is likely enough,! grant, still I guess he has 
 his ideas. Ask him, if you want to know ; he won't 
 eat you." 
 
 " Oh ! Agatha, I would n't do such a thing for the 
 world ! Besides, I 'm in no hurry. Men are so cross." 
 
 "Not all of them." 
 
 The same day, on removmg the table-cloth, Agatha 
 put the question to her master point-blank. 
 
 " Is n't it true, sir, that you 're sometimes thinking 
 of getting our young lady married ? " 
 
 The Captain's answer was so rude that I shall not 
 dare to write it down. If he did not beat the poor 
 creature black and blue, it was simply because he was 
 able to find in the vocabulary of the French language 
 a litany of oaths that were just as good as so many 
 blows. His conclusion was that all women were shame- 
 less, all servants were go-betweens, all men were rascals 
 without law or honor, and that he had not raised his 
 daughter with so much care for the purpose of throwing 
 her away on any scoundrel of the kind. 
 
 This profession of faith Avas made in so loud a voice 
 that all the other inhabitants of the house, the porter 
 included, went to bed certain that Mademoiselle Bit- 
 terlin should die an old maid. 
 
 From that day, poor Agatha did her best to prove to 
 
 her young mistress the superiority of single blessedness. 
 
 " Had n't she cveiy thing in the world that she wanted? 
 4t
 
 38 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 A goofl father, a devoted servant, a lovely little room 
 with blue curtains, a comfortable bed nicely tucked in 
 every night, and every day the best cofiee in Paris, and 
 permission to play on the piano as long as she liked? 
 It was a regular paradise on earth, and another man in 
 the family would only be an incumbrance. And what 
 great things were men, after all ? She herself, Agatha, 
 had jogged her way through the world for forty years 
 without as much as ever touching a man's arm, and she 
 felt none the worse for it, quite the contrary ! " 
 
 To these arguments Emma had no reply to make, for 
 she was not in love.
 
 MEO. 39 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 MEO. 
 
 THE Marais is a peaceable quarter of Paris, but it 
 would be much more so if it had fewer boardiiio;- 
 schools. Quiet people, who have removed out towards 
 the Rue St. Antoine in search of repose, are liable to 
 encounter four times a day some one or other of those 
 noisy caravans of students that are on their way to the 
 Charlemagne Lyceum. These unlicked youths are the 
 hope of their country and the terror of their neighbor- 
 hood. It would not do to tell this to their parents. 
 Their mothers and sisters would never believe that a 
 boy who is gentle and jjolite at home can become coarse 
 and impertinent among his comrades. Nevertheless, 
 every bourgeois offering the slightest opportunity for a 
 remark or a laugh, every man with a peculiar nose, and 
 all women without exception, go a mile regularly out 
 of their way to avoid having their ears saluted with 
 boarding-school slang. 
 
 Agatha forgot this important precaution, one morn- 
 ing that she had gone out with Emma. She had taken 
 her to the famous store called " The Ladies' Paradise," 
 Hue St. Antoine, to buy a dress for summer. On her 
 way back, she saw a crowd of students hastening as 
 fast as they could towards the Lyceum. To avoid 
 meeting them, she turned thoughtlessly into the first 
 street, and there she found herself caught between the 
 endless ranks of two other schools, as "if between two 
 parallel walls. The poor girls got along pretty well till
 
 40 R O U G E E T X O I K . 
 
 about half-way ; the little boys, who led the march, 
 jDerhaps made some observations about Emma's nursy. 
 But before they reached No. 4, near the end of the 
 street, they found themselves right in the midst of a 
 crowd of the grown-up students ; and the young logi- 
 cians, and the rhetoricians, reinforced by a squad of the 
 mathematicians, immediately began to assail them with 
 their Avell-known refined and original gallantries. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, had n't I the honor of dancing with 
 you at the Closerie des Lilas f '^ 
 
 " Mademoiselle, only I 'm afraid of compromising 
 you, I 'd offer you a cent's worth of gingerbread." 
 
 " Mademoiselle, do accept my arm as far as the board- 
 ing-school." 
 
 "Mademoiselle, ask the Prefect for my hand; he 
 won't refuse you." 
 
 "Mademoiselle, come see me in the parlor on Thurs- 
 day ; my name is Samajou." 
 
 "That ain't true, Mademoiselle; his name is Ca- 
 boche ! " 
 
 I can't tell what in the world the Prefects were think- 
 ing of at the time. One of them, I know, was watching 
 the early swallows, and the other was eying the counter 
 of a neighboring store; whilst poor Emma, red as a 
 cherry, struggled with her elbows to cut her way 
 throuo;h the enemy, and Ag;atha's fists fell hot and 
 heavy among the crowd. 
 
 " I know who you arc, fair mask," said a metaphy- 
 sician to the servant. " You are Vulcan disguised as a 
 woman to accompany Venus to Paris." 
 
 Another repeated some passage from Rabelais, which, 
 from the boisterous applause of the crowd, must have 
 been of brilliant wit and exceedingly apropos.
 
 MEO. 41 
 
 But all at once a shower of cuffs and blows, that 
 seemed to fall from heaven, scattered the assailants and 
 set the prisoners at liberty. Emma, exhausted with 
 fatigue and terror, and more dead than alive, felt her- 
 self suddenly cari'ied, rather than supported, by a tall 
 young man wdth a black beard. She heard confusedly 
 around her a deafening chorus of angry exclamations : 
 " Oh ! Ah ! Big coward ! Disgusting animal ! Cursed 
 pig ! " She saw a cascade of books falling on the street; 
 then her eyes closed and she saw no more. 
 
 On coming to her senses she found herself in a strange 
 room. Agatha was holding a smelling-bottle to her 
 nose ; and a young man, beautiful as the day, or rather 
 as the night, was kneeling before her and striking her 
 hands. Her eyes wandered over the four walls of the 
 room, and she saw herself surrounded by ever so many 
 fine ladies and gentlemen in splendid gilt frames. 
 
 " Where am I ? " said she at last. 
 
 Her deliverer replied, in a soft, grave voice, with a 
 foreign accent : 
 
 " In my room. Mademoiselle ; excuse the liberty of 
 my conduct and the poverty of my abode." 
 
 Perceiving that her dress was slightly disordered, she 
 sprang up quickly, with the idea of arranging it in the 
 next room. The young man guessed her intention. 
 
 " This is the only chamber I have," said he, " and it 
 is entirely at your service. I am only too happy if you 
 condescend to consider it your own for a moment. It 
 is on the ground floor, so I can easily wait your con- 
 venience in the yard outside." 
 
 He disappeared ; and Emma immediately threw her- 
 self on Agatha's neck. 
 4*
 
 42 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 "What an adventure!" she exclaimed; "only I 
 hope Papa will never hear of it!" She looked ground 
 for a looking-glass to arrange her hair in, but could find 
 nothing except a little one about the size of her hand. 
 
 " Our friend is no dandy," she observed. 
 
 " ]\Iy own f)pinion is that he 's not very rich," replied 
 Agatha, i)ointing at the straw-bottom chairs, the un- 
 painted deal-table, and the boarding-school bed. " The 
 whole room does not contain two hundred franes' worth 
 of furniture, except the pictures which once must have 
 cost a nice penny. But now that you 're through, w^e 
 can call him in." She opened the door and called out, 
 "Come in, young gentleman; we're finished." 
 
 The stranger was a fine specimen of the Italian type in 
 all its beauty and all its strength. He was, however, 
 no mere stripling, but a man of full thirty years well 
 counted, tall, dark-complexioned, brawny-shouldered ; 
 his face radiant with health and vigor. His eyes, his 
 teeth, his well-polished nails, and some little jewelry that 
 he wore, formed so many luminous points to dazzle and 
 charm a girl of Emma's age. The elegance of his dress, 
 like the beauty of his pictures, seemed altogether incom- 
 patible with the modesty of his furniture ; nor did his 
 distinguished manners and refined language form a less 
 violent contrast with this poor room of sixty dollars a 
 year, situated on the ground floor and facing the street, 
 like a porter's lodge. 
 
 He asked his proteg(^es If they wanted anything. 
 " Excuse us," said stout Agatha, " but we want to make 
 off right away, before master hears of our doings. 
 Emma, thank the young man; we are very much 
 oblig-ed to him indeed."
 
 M E o . 43 
 
 " I am more than paid," he replied with a smile, " so 
 let us hear no more about a service which I am almost 
 ashamed of having rendered. I wish I had killed 
 somebody, if it w^ould only make me agreeable to 
 Mademoiselle ! " 
 
 " I should be very sorry for it/' said Emma, stand- 
 ing in the doorway, " whereas at present I depart very 
 happy to have met you." 
 
 He escorted her to the street with a multitude of 
 bows by no means ungraceful, and at the moment of 
 bidding her adieu, as the young girl was repeating her 
 thanks for the last time, he looked at her sadly, and 
 said : 
 
 " Perhaps this is a great misfortune for me ; for I am 
 no longer in a position to obtain your hand, and I feel 
 that I shall love you for the rest of my life." 
 
 Emma started violently at hearing this abrupt decla- 
 ration let off without warning, point-blank on the side- 
 walk. 
 
 " Don't do anything of the kind, I entreat you," she 
 replied, hurrying away ; " it would be as much as your 
 life is worth ! " 
 
 The Italian pursued her with his eyes as far as the 
 end of the street, but without an idea of following her. 
 He remained for some time at the door, plunged in 
 thought, and bareheaded, like a man who cares very 
 little about what lookers-on may say. All at once re- 
 membering that he neither knew Emma's name nor 
 address, he started after her, but it was too late. 
 
 Returning back in a quarter of an hour, he found his 
 room still wide open, and sitting down immediately, he 
 wrote three letters, which I wish to present here because
 
 4-1 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 tliev give a most fuitliful description of the state of his 
 feelings. In the translation, permit me to preserve as 
 much of all the Italian simplicity as I can. 
 
 "To THE Noble Count Marsoni, at his Palace, 
 Bologna. 
 
 " ]\IosT Esteemed Friend : — To your last very 
 affectionate letter I have not written a line in reply, 
 because I had nothing to communicate. I have been 
 vegetating rather than living, and nobody writes the 
 liistory of a plant. But to-day, for the first time in my 
 life, I feel myself to be a man, for it is to-day that I 
 have begun to love. Yes, I 'ra in love ! The great 
 say is said : you may reveal it to all your friends, to 
 the entire universe, to Heaven itself — I only wish it 
 would go so far. That fellow Meo, colder though less 
 virtuous than Hippolytus, that same Meo, whom you 
 used to accuse of having a heart as frdzen as an Eng- 
 lishman's, is now burning with all the fires of love. 
 He has at last experienced the violent commotion which 
 upsets the most deep-rooted ideas and the most unbend- 
 ing resolutions. Shall I draw you a portrait of her 
 whom I love ? No. Go look at the sun the first time 
 he rises among the fleecy clouds of morning, and be 
 persuaded that in comparison with her he is far from 
 brilliant. Don't ask me if she is rich and noble. I 
 believe she belongs to the middle class — the most in- 
 telligent, the most honorable, and really the first in this 
 country. ]3nt were she even the daughter of a beggar, 
 you know that obstacles of such a nature should never 
 stand in our way when we are in love. But there are 
 others that I foresee, which she herself has warned me
 
 MEO. 45 
 
 of. ' It would cost you your life/ said she. Perhaps 
 it is some rival ! Let him come ! I will teach him 
 what my friends and enemies know equally well, 
 namely, that fire and sword are only playthings to the 
 sons of the Plouse of Miranda. But this name, which 
 I have no longer the right to bear, recalls me to busi- 
 ness matters (I won't say serious business matters, for 
 there is nothing more serious than love), to tiresome 
 business matters. Send me back the thousand crowns 
 which I have been remitting you, a penny at a time, 
 during the last five years, and which, together with my 
 future savings, were to be employed in buying back the 
 lands and title of Miranda. This money is absolutely 
 necessary to me just now, for of course you foresee that 
 Meo in love is no longer going to degrade himself by 
 working. Add to it as much as you can of your own, 
 without forgetting, however, that I may never be per- 
 haps in a condition to pay you back a cent. In short, 
 aid me to be happy; that is all to which henceforth 
 aspires, 
 
 " Your most faithful and devoted friend, 
 
 Bartolomeo Naeni, 
 who is not in a fair way of ever becoming again 
 
 The Count of Miranda." 
 
 The next letter was addressed to M. Silivergo, Direc- 
 tor of the Franco-Italian printing-house at Paris. 
 
 " Most Eespected Sir : — I should be the most ub- 
 grateful and the vilest of men if I could ever forget the 
 generous readiness with which you supplied me with 
 the means of existence that day when, an exile and with-
 
 46 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 out resources, I knocked at your door for the first time. 
 By giv'ing me, in spite of my acknowledged inexperi- 
 ence, the very honorable and sufficiently lucrative post 
 of proofreader, you literally put bread into my mouth. 
 Be assured, then, my very dear sir, that if I leave you 
 to-day, without warning and without preparation, now 
 that my services have become somewhat valuable to you, 
 it is not through a cowardly desire to avoid paying a 
 debt of gratitude, but rather because I am no longer 
 master of myself, a force superior to my will having 
 assumed an absolute sway over my soul. Of this irre- 
 sistible force need I mention the name? No one has 
 ever arrived at your age, my dear and excellent sir, 
 Avithout experiencing at least once all the violence of 
 love. Ah ! if I could only show you the divine little 
 liand which I pressed in mine hardly an hour ago, you 
 would be the first to encourage me in my desertion of 
 work and in my resolution to give up everything for my 
 passion. I am aware that I leave the printing-office 
 greatly embarrassed by my departure, and that, occur- 
 ring as it does at a moment when you are overcrowded 
 with work, my absence will cost you some money ; but 
 can money be Aveighed in the balance against happiness ? 
 Put yourself in the place of a man who has never been 
 in love before, and who is now really in love for the 
 first time of his life. How could he apply himself se- 
 riously to anything but his love ? 
 
 " Accept, then, my dear sir, my resignation of the 
 post which you have been so kind as to confer upon 
 me, and believe in the eternal gratitude of your much 
 devoted B. Naeni."
 
 MEO. 47 
 
 He wrote these two letters without hesitating, or seek- 
 ing for a Avord, letting his pen run freely under the sen- 
 timent of the moment ; nor was he a jot more embar- 
 rassed while scribbling off the following curiosity : 
 
 " To THE Illustrissima Signora Aurelia, Italian 
 Opera, Paris. 
 
 "Dearest Aurelia : — Do you remember tcllino; 
 me often that I was colder than ice, and that I knew 
 nothing at all about love? Still I fancied I was in love 
 with you, and suffered so much at seeing you incredu- 
 lous, that to convince you I got by heart all the most 
 violent expressions ever used by the poets for the pur- 
 pose of painting the passion. Now at last I feel that 
 you Avere right, and your, reproaches just, for I have 
 just experienced a new and strange sensation, the like 
 of which, in all the previous course of my life, I never 
 so much as guessed at. I am burning and freezing at 
 the same time ; my heart beats furiously, and then of a 
 sudden seems to lose all movement. I feel myself at 
 once as bold as a lion and as timid as a lamb ; in short, 
 I 'm another man altogether. You could easily under- 
 stand my madness if you had only seen its cause. How 
 beautiful she is ! What heavenly eyes ! What an en- 
 chanting voice ! Her whole person exhales, as it were, 
 innocence and candor. She is an anMl. From this 
 moment my life is in her hands, for if I do not succeed 
 in marrying her, I will quit this world at once, rather 
 than see her wedded to another. Thus I am at the same 
 time the happiest and the most miserable of men. Sliall 
 I not go talk to you about my pleasures and my suffer- 
 ings ? Why should not a good friendship exist between
 
 48 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 ns? If you really love me, as you say you do, and as 
 I firmly believe, you will interest yourself in a. matter 
 M'hich has become the only and final aim of all my as[)i- 
 rations. I will speak to you about her; you will con- 
 sole me in my troubles; you will counsel me in my 
 dangers ; you will even aid me if aid be necessary. It 
 is a part worthy of such a heart as yours. In return, 
 rely forever on the sincere friendship and eternal devo- 
 tion of yours most affectionately, Meo." 
 
 Tie mIio thus laid bare his soul with the simple ego- 
 tism and unthinking sincerity of a child, was one of 
 the boldest and most distinguished men of young Italy. 
 Bartoloraeo, or more familiarly Meo, Narni, citizen of 
 the noble city of Bologna, was the last scion of a family 
 as old as the Caetani or the Pepoli. In the grand hall 
 of his old palace, Annibal Caracci has painted the three 
 Kings of the East prostrated before the arms of -the 
 Mirandas (a golden star on an azure field), with this 
 heroic device — Miranda JReglbus. The inconie of this 
 illustrious house amounted, even in 1850, to seven or 
 eight thousand dollars a year, and Meo, young, brilliant, 
 edut;ated in one of the best schools in Piedmont, cut a 
 great figure in the eyes of his fellow-citizens. His dis- 
 tinguished name, his generous disposition, the spirit 
 with which he expressed the fashionable ideas of the 
 time, all marked him out, in spite of his extreme youth, 
 for the suffrages of the Bolognese. He was elected 
 member of that Assembly in Rome, which Prime 
 Minister Rossi, to his own misfortune, had convoked. 
 He was also made a Deputy under the " Roman Re- 
 public," but the honor of representing the people cost
 
 MEO. 49 
 
 him all his property. However, he ruined himself, hon- 
 orably enough, in the ancient Roman style, by distribut- 
 ing bread and shoes among the people. The general 
 misery was great : the strangers, who enable the poorer 
 classes in Rome to exist, ran out of Italy as out of a 
 conflagration ; money was so scarce that the government 
 issued coins worth about half a cent each and called them 
 eight-cent pieces. Poor Meo's eight thousand dollars 
 were not a mouthful to the hungry people. This generous 
 freak, of course, rendered him odious to the monarchical 
 party, suspected by the Republicans, ridiculous in the 
 eyes of many, and dear to some few poor wretches. 
 But he had followed his fancy, which is much for an 
 Italian. When the French appeared before Rome, he 
 mounted the tribune and proved very eloquently that 
 resistance was impossible ; then, his proposal being re- 
 jected, he fought like a man who has not the last cent 
 to lose. The city being taken, he was accused before 
 the French general as a plunderer of palaces and 
 churches. He had been neither the one nor the other, 
 but on this charge he was led before the council of war. 
 Seated on the bench of the accused, he forgot that he 
 was on his trial, and made a fine speech on the future of 
 Italy. When asked for his witnesses, " I want none," 
 said he ; " those on the other side will do." The officers 
 honorably acquitted the young madman, and could not 
 help admiring his courage, candor, and loyalty. 
 
 However, as he had made himself too remarkable to 
 be included in the general amnesty, he was obliged to 
 expatriate himself as soon as he had settled his affairs. 
 The latter operation did not require a very long time. 
 His creditors seized on everything he had in the world.
 
 50 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 A corn-speculator, named Giacomo Filippo, had the lands 
 and the title of Miranda assigned him for eighty, thou- 
 sand francs. For this last lot alone did our madcap 
 bethink himself of stipulating for the right of redemp- 
 tion ; not because the land was worth double the price 
 paid for it, but because whoever had the land had the 
 title too. When all his accounts were squared, he found 
 himself as bare as St. JoH\i in the desert. 
 
 Thus comfortably settled in the Avorld, he started for 
 France, where he knew nobody, and he passed the best 
 years of his youth in eating dry bread on the streets of 
 Paris. In 1852, an honest printer furnished him with 
 the means of living, at a moment when the portraits of 
 his ancestors were his last resource. Thanks to good 
 . old Silivergo, twenty-four generations of the Mirandas 
 were saved from the picture-dealers as miraculously as 
 Moses from the waters of the Nile. You know the 
 rest of the story. An incredible part of it is, that a 
 young man who earned less than six hundred dollars a 
 year, could have managed to save the sum of a thousand 
 dollars in five years. But the Italians, high and low, 
 can exercise at a pinch the most heroic self-denial. 
 These salad- and macaroni-eaters have received from 
 nature a simplicity of taste which is in itself at once 
 riches and independence. Unhappy is the man who 
 has Avants ! The superb Meo, who in his time had rev- 
 elled in fortune's smiles as joyously as another, easily 
 accustomed himself to live on a little. He took his 
 meals in some hole unknown to gods and men ; but he 
 was always dressed like a lord, drank his coft'ee now 
 and then at Tortoni's, and was never without some 
 small change to give the poor. It was the only way he 
 ever thought of getting rid of them.
 
 INNOCENT DREAMINGS. 61 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INNOCENT DREAMINGS. 
 
 WHEN a man at the age for falling in love, that is 
 to say from fifteen to seventy-five, has met in the 
 theatre or at a ball a woman who has pleased him, he 
 carries away in the bottom of his heart a little stock of 
 pleasure which is not used up in a single day. For a 
 whole week, sometimes even longer, he is haunted by 
 an after-taste of tenderness ; he looks on the world ^vith 
 a more sympathizing eye ; and he finds in the most in- 
 different objects something that reminds him of the 
 delicious aroma of love. With day-dreamers this state 
 of indolent enjoyment lasts longest ; they who relish it 
 most are those secluded and languisliing hearts that take 
 a month to digest the perfume of a rose. They abandon 
 themselves without an effort to the current of a sweetly 
 pensive hope ; in memory's magic mirror they gaze with 
 delight on the enchanting and well remembered face; 
 and to make the most of their charming dream, they 
 obstinately shut their eyes against the glaring light of 
 reality. 
 
 But this very face, which we had stowed away so 
 preciously in the depths of our heart, which had been at 
 first so bright and clear and sharply outlined, after a 
 few days begins to change. It grows blurred and dis- 
 torted, and the imagination invests it with a thousand 
 capricious features. It is soon as faint and shadowy as 
 the form of the early angler that we discover through 
 the mists of morning at the other end of the meadow.
 
 62 ROUGE ET NOIK. 
 
 A secret instinct warns us that it is about to disappear. 
 We grasp at it and try to retain it, but our efforts are 
 vain. Our hands are as empty as those of Ulysses 
 when he tried to seize the fleeting pliantoms of his old 
 friends. At last it vanishes forever, unless some lucky 
 meeting once more brings before our eyes the bright 
 original of the faded portrait. 
 
 It was thus that Meo came very near losing the image 
 of the fjiir Emma. For a whole month he had aban- 
 doned himself quietly to the mere pleasure of loving, 
 which exists in us all. He fancied somehow or other 
 that she did not live very far off, and he calmly waited 
 for some opportunity of seeing her again. This oppor- 
 tunity he made no efforts whatever to seek ; you would 
 have said that he made a scruple of forcing chance to be 
 in his favor. Every time that he closed his eyes and 
 saw the sunny locks on Emma's pretty little head, the 
 veins of his neck swelled, just, in fact, as if Cupid had 
 seized him by the throat. He told his love to every- 
 body — • friends and strangers were alike regaled with the 
 overflowings of his heart; but he felt no immediate 
 necessity for repeating to Euima what he had once said ^ 
 to her. If some one came and said, "You will never 
 see her again!" it might perhaps have given him a 
 mortal shock; still he was not very impatient to see 
 her immediately. He loved passively, just as we feel 
 heat or cold. 
 
 It was only the thought of danger that aroused in 
 any way the vigor of his character. He imagined he 
 had a rival, and, so thinking, he was always provided 
 with an excellent dagger. He was one of the most 
 peaceful of men, but he had his own Italian idea about
 
 INNOCENT DREA MINGS. 53 
 
 the removing of obstacles. If his rival had been pointed 
 out to liini in the street, he would consider it a mere 
 matter of course to kill him on the spot, not from jeal- 
 ousy or wounded vanity, but simply to have a rival no 
 longer. 
 
 In the midst of these thoughts, he became aware one 
 mornino; that the ima^e of the beautiful Unknown was 
 not nearly as distinct in his memory as usual. This 
 surprised him. He closed his eyes to examine the 
 better, but the features of the enchanting countenance 
 began to float about as confusedly as the reflection of a 
 castle in the rapid current of the Rhine. The colors 
 were as bright as ever, but the outline was gone. All 
 his efforts to fix it only helped to efface it still more. 
 He was like the awkward fellow who, wishing to get a 
 better look at the little water-color painting, cleaned it 
 off* very nicely with his sleeve. Then he was seized 
 with despair, and he moaned and lamented as bitterly 
 over his illusi5n as if it were dead, because he felt it to 
 be dying. But at the same time he set the springs of 
 his will in motion, and he began to scour Paris like a 
 wood to see if he could beat up Emma. 
 
 On her side. Mademoiselle Bitterlin had carried away 
 in the bottom of her heart a tender little remembrance, 
 weak and puny as an infant picked up under an arch, 
 and she nourished it secretly. On her return home, 
 after the great adventure of her life, her only and ab- 
 sorbing sentiment was fear. She trembled lest the Cap- 
 tain's eye should read what was written in her soul, and 
 the fact of the matter is that her tell-tale countenance 
 was absolutely as transparent as crystal. The day, she 
 thought, would never come to an end, and she tried to 
 6*
 
 64 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 hurry throuj^h it by doing a hundred diiferent things. 
 She bustled about more than usual ; she could hardly 
 bear to sit still a moment ; she was like a little bird in 
 the wood, jumping from limb to limb. She tried to 
 sing, but the tone of her voice was no longer natural ; 
 instead of soft and sweet, it sounded harsh and metallic. 
 She dared not look at her father or at her accomplice 
 Agatha. She was so much in dread of the Captain's 
 familiar question, "What are you thinking of?" that 
 in his presence she was afraid of thinking at all. Her 
 heart was like a hiding-place where we have secreted 
 some ill - gotten treasure ; we are afraid even to look 
 towards it ourselves, for fear that doing so might render 
 it suspected by the eyes of justice. 
 
 Her father took her to the Jardin des Plantes. She 
 had not been there for a long time, and in her ab- 
 sence, spring had made some progress. The sun was 
 warm, and fragrant blossoms clothed the early trees. 
 The Captain railed at the mud, abused the little boys 
 that drove their hoops between his legs, and execrated 
 the stale odor of the lilacs, which gave him the head- 
 ache. But his daughter inhaled with delight these 
 light perfumes of the young year ; she tripped over the 
 moist earth as lightly as over a velvet carpet ; she even 
 thought the candy moustaches of the children made them 
 look prettier. The white bear wagged his head wearily 
 over his trough of dirty water. Emma looked with 
 compassion on the poor melancholy exile, and considered 
 his countenance quite interesting. But the girl, who 
 hitherto had been a regular little babbler, and always 
 accustomed to think aloud, now forgot to impart a single 
 thought to her father. Only the previous evening, she
 
 INNOCENT D RE A MINGS. 66 
 
 had been as lavish of her ideas as those prodigals are 
 of their money who give it to everybody and keep noth- 
 ing for themselves. But the moment that we begin to 
 lay something by, is the moment when we begin to re- 
 trench our expenditure. 
 
 Night came at last. After a dinner passed in silence, 
 and an evening more gloomy than usual, Emma, safe 
 and sound in her room, hurried through her even- 
 ing toilet, slipped shivering into her little blue bed, ex- 
 tinguished the candle, and said to herself, almost aloud, 
 " Now I 'm at home ! " It was then that she cautiously 
 groped her way down into the most secret recesses of 
 her soul, and, curious to know all about it, she began to 
 dissipate the light clouds tliat kept troubling the se- 
 renity of her conscience. The ideas that she had been 
 putting off ever since the morning, now came crowding 
 on her all at once, and, in the tumultuous assemblage, 
 she did not know where to begin. The fine lords and 
 ladies in the gilt frames, the bewildered countenance of 
 poor Agatha, the beautiful young man, the impudent 
 school-boys, her father the Captain, and the white bear 
 — what a legion ! How could she entertain so many 
 visitors ai once? But, little by little, the secondary 
 personages withdrew into the background, and the 
 young man of the Rue St. Catherine remained stand- 
 ing alone in a grand blaze of light, like some glorious 
 saint of Raphael, whose radiant nimbus illuminates the 
 whole picture. 
 
 Emma was not yet quite certain that he was good- 
 looking, and that a woman might be proud of appear- 
 ing in the street on his arm. She had been dazzled by 
 his brilliancy, and that was all she could remember.
 
 56 EOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 The poor cliild was only a novice in the ways of the world. 
 Slie had not the practised glance of the experienced 
 damsels of society, Avho measure a man from head to 
 foot, note all the strong and weak points of his charac- 
 ter, and, in short, enable themselves to write out his 
 passport, without once even looking at him or even 
 taking their eyes off their embroidery. This talent, like 
 that of the sporting gentleman who never makes any- 
 thing but winning bets, demands a series of studies in 
 the science of comparison, and cannot be acquired with- 
 out passing a few years in the " ring." But Emma, 
 having never set foot in a ball-room, of course had 
 never witnessed a race between those young steeds that 
 the great Cellarius trains to run for a prize, and who 
 are married oif as soon as possible when they can run 
 no more. 
 
 She could not tell whether his ligure was fine, his 
 hair well set, his eye bright, or his leg well-shaped. 
 She had been so poorly raised that she had no idea of 
 what we call a well-made man. She knew little more 
 of the opposite sex than that she had always avoided 
 thein on the sidewalk. But she remembered that tlie 
 stranger was young and poor, brave and respectful, kind 
 and melancholy. Slie felt grateful to him for having 
 defended her, and for not having followed her. Above 
 all, she remembered these words, which had flashed 
 through her heart like an electric shock, "I will love 
 you all my life ! " This sentence rang continually in 
 her ears, and whatever efforts she made to drive it away, 
 it always returned, more importunate and more harmo- 
 nious. An invisible orchestra played infinite variations 
 on this monotonous but charming theme. '^ lie is surely
 
 INNOCENT DREAMINGS. 57 
 
 crazy/' she thought ; " people don't fall in love this way 
 at first sight. Of course he was only joking. Yet the 
 poor fellow looked more like crying. But suppose he 
 was really in earnest ! What a terrible misfortune ! 
 Papa would never forgive him — and then he can't ex- 
 pect me to fall in love with him, though of course I 
 don't hate him either — people must not be ungrateful. 
 Fortunately, he don't know who I am nor where I live. 
 He won't make love to me, and Pa won't cut his head 
 off. Keally Pa is a most astonishing man. That all 
 men are not like him, I need not go far for a proof! 
 No matter, it is nice to think that you have a man 
 somewhere in Paris who will love you all his life ! " 
 She nestled her little head luxuriously on the pillow, 
 and softly murmuring the three words, " all his life" 
 she closed her eyes, caressing the sweet illusion, as little 
 girls sometimes fall asleep embracing their dolls. 
 
 Next day, and for some days following, she never 
 went to the window without a certain uneasiness. When- 
 ever she went out with her father, she looked back every 
 now and then, dreading lest the poor madman of the 
 Hue St. Catherine should come and betray himself in 
 the presence of the terrible Captain. But no one ap- 
 peared, and by degrees she began to take courage, 
 though not without a little surprise. All the men that 
 she saw at a distance resenibled the beautiful stranger. 
 One day she passed before his house in company with 
 the Captain. The window was open; she looked in 
 with a searching glance, but she saw nothing but por- 
 traits. " That is his room, however," she thought. 
 " What can he be doing ? I would bet a hundred to 
 one that he does not give me a thought. Well, so much
 
 58 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 the better!" I am rather inclined to think, however, 
 that she bit her lips at the words, "so much the 
 better ! " 
 
 Plad she been surrounded by the pleasui-es of her age, 
 no doubt she would have forgotten in a week this stran- 
 ger, who was really nothing to her. But it is dangerous 
 to isolate a young girl, -and to shut her up within her- 
 self, particularly if in company with something to re- 
 member. Her father, seeing her thoughtful one day, 
 said : 
 
 " What ails you ? " 
 
 " Nothing ; why do you ask ? " 
 
 "You're so quiet. Do you want amusement?" 
 
 " Not at all, papa; I have amusement enough all to 
 myself." 
 
 She kept her thoughts to herself, not sharing them 
 even with stout Agatha ; indeed she considered them too 
 absurd to be talked about. She even carefully avoided 
 touching on the subject at all with her, as if poor 
 Agatha had not long ago forgotten every single particle 
 of the adventure. 
 
 One morning that the Captain had left them together, 
 Agatha said : 
 
 " Mademoiselle ! " 
 
 "Hold your tongue," replied Emma, putting her 
 hand on the servant's mouth. " I order you not to say 
 one word about it." 
 
 " But about what ? " 
 
 " About what you wanted to talk about." 
 
 " You don't want me to tell you that my stone-grate 
 is burned ! I tell you I must have a new one : it saves 
 coal."
 
 INNOCENT DREAMINGS. 59 
 
 Emma, nevertheless, remained quite persuaded tliat 
 Agatha had been trying to open the door for confiden- 
 tial disclosures, and she admired herself for having kept 
 her secret. X month later, of her own accord, she broke 
 this profound silence. She was going to church one 
 morning in company with Agatha, for the Captain took 
 her everywhere but there. The amiable man was on 
 bad terms with the other world as well as with this. 
 Emma stopped a moment, and said, looking straight 
 into the servant's eyes : 
 
 "You've no longer any confidence in me, then? 
 Why don't you talk to me about our lover?" 
 
 " What lover?" asked Agatha. 
 
 " Why, our protector, you know, with the black 
 beard; him who said he was going to love us all his 
 life." 
 
 " Are you thinking of him ? " 
 
 " I ? no more than he is of us ! But tell me, Agatha, 
 wdiy do men amuse themselves in telling us stories that 
 they forget the moment after? What do they gain by 
 it? Who, do they think, are fooled by their stories ? " 
 
 "I don't know, I'm sure," rej)lied Agatha. "Men 
 have never told me any stories. But I can understand 
 how a man can fall dead in love with you. Good rea- 
 son for it ! " 
 
 " Oh ! I give them all permission to fall dead in love 
 with me, if they 're not more troublesome than the first 
 one." 
 
 "Really, then, you are thinking about him?" 
 
 "I should not know him if I met him." 
 
 As she said these words, all the blood of her heart 
 crimsoned her face, as if to give her the lie. She had
 
 60 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 just seen Meo standing on the stops of St. PauVs. "At 
 last, then !" she thought. He was lookhig for her evi- 
 dently, but he had not yet seen her. Women's eyes 
 are quicker than ours, and when we cross glances 
 with them, the man is the first hit. Emma profited 
 by her advantage to examine with attention that fine 
 face which had commenced to become rather indistinct 
 in her memory. She found it less florid, more sombre, 
 and far more interesting than on the first day. But sud- 
 denly it lit up ; the eyes sparkled ; the recognition had 
 been mutual. The stranger saluted her eagerly, and 
 with such demonstrations of joy that Emma was afraid 
 she should sec him make a dash for her ri<»;ht throuo;h 
 the crowd. She hurried stout Agatha along, and flung 
 herself into the church as into an asylum, while Meo, 
 too much excited to stir a foot, remained nailed to the 
 spot. 
 
 The two women threw themselves kneelina; on the 
 chairs, poor lame Agatha ready to drop from such un- 
 usual exertion. " What on earth ails you ? " said she 
 to her mistress. 
 
 " Did n't you see him ? He was standing before the 
 church. He is pursuing us." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " He, I tell you. There 's not two of them. How 
 stupid you are ! " 
 
 " Oh ! now I understand," said Agatha, who really 
 had not the least idea of Mdiat was going on. 
 
 Emma read her Mass that morning with unusual fer- 
 vor. She was no devotee, having little more piety 
 than is generally acquired in good boarding-schools ; 
 but at the least appearance of danger, timid souls take
 
 INNOCEXT DREAMINGS. 61 
 
 refuge in prayer. If you had seen her move her lips, 
 close her eyes, throw back her head in a sort of half 
 ecstasy, you would have been very much edified, I am 
 perfectly certain. But while her lips murmured broken 
 sentences of the Latin text, two tears of emotion glit- 
 tered in her long eyelashes — charming tears, which 
 the angels sought not to collect, but allowed to fall to 
 earth, because very probably they had not been intended 
 for heaven. 
 
 It all went on very well till the reading of the gospel. 
 But, at the xery first verse, the young girl was seized 
 W"ith a strange uneasiness, which was not however with- 
 out its charm. She found it as difficult to read as if a 
 sun-ray had come to dance on the pages of- her missal. 
 In spite of her reverence for the holy place she was in, 
 she felt herself assailed at once by every roguish imp 
 that waits on Cupid ; by the one Avho slips the portrait 
 of an absent person in between our closed eyelids; 'by 
 the one who flutters around our ears, always murmuring 
 the same name ; by the -one that forces us to turn our 
 head towards those that we don't want to see ; by the 
 one that makes a lover lose his way in the park, until 
 he is brought up, in spite of himself, before the door he 
 detests ; by the one that waves under our nose an invisi- 
 ble feather, fragrant with the perfumes of adored ring- 
 lets ; by the one that guides our hands when we write 
 things that prudence absolutely forbids. Attacked on 
 all sides by this buzzing multitude, poor Emma tried 
 to recollect herself, but in vain. In spite of all her ef- 
 forts to direct her thoughts inwardly, a secret agitation 
 impelled her towards external objects. She felt some- 
 times as if the baud of winged imps had made their way
 
 62 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 into her brain, as into an ill-gnardcd chamber, and that 
 they were throwinj^ the furnitiu'e out of the windows. 
 For nothinir in the world would she have turned her 
 head around, so great was her fear of finding herself 
 face to face with the stranger. But raising her eyes, she 
 saw Meo standing in the shadow of a pillar and admir- 
 ing her quite at his ease. 
 
 In certain Assumptions of the Spanish school, you 
 must have seen a group of disciples on their knees be- 
 fore the miracle. Murillo has best rendered the ecstatic 
 transport of these believing souls. Holy faith sparkles 
 in their eyes; their swarthy faces seem to be interiorly 
 burning with the mystic fires of divine love. Such 
 pretty nearly was Meo before the Captain's daughter ; 
 he was absolutely worshipping her. A woman should 
 have a sino-ular turn of mind indeed to feel offended at 
 such worship as that; and Emma naturally looked two 
 or tliree times Mithout much malevolence at the man 
 who rendered her such discreet homage. 
 
 She saw him again on leaving the church, and she 
 made no scruple whatever in acknowledging his bow as 
 he saluted her and disappeared. Every Sunday after 
 that she saw him in the same place. She sometimes saw 
 him on the sidewalk in the street before her windows. 
 He always passed like a man in a hurry, and even the 
 Captain himself could have never guessed what the im- 
 portant business was. The first consequence of these 
 comings and goings was that the young people thought 
 of nothing but each other during the rest of the week ; 
 and as each of them deserved to be loved, they were 
 not long in doing each other justice. The Captain's 
 watchfulness and their own timidity kept them a proper
 
 INXOCENT DREAMINGS. 63 
 
 distance apart, but when their eyes met, it was like an 
 embrace. 
 
 Innocent young hearts ! I have heard a witty lady 
 from Dauphiny say that love is fed like silkworms. A 
 little tender mulberry-leaf satisfies them while yonno;, 
 but when full-grown they eat up everything, even to the 
 very joists of the floor. 
 
 Emma said one day to her father, when he was almost 
 in good humor: "Dear little papa, are we going to live 
 this way always?" 
 
 The old man made a grimace, and answered in a tone 
 half kind, half bitter, "Dear little daughter, we're not 
 going to live always, seeing that we are not immor- 
 tal. Patience, child ! One of these fine mornings, the 
 undertaker will rid you of your poor old shred of a 
 father." EmmaAvept seven days and seven nights, like 
 Jephtha's daughter, and her father pretended not to see 
 it. But he gave stout Agatha an awful scolding, and 
 ended by threatening to turn her out of doors if she 
 continued to be filling her young mistress's head with 
 ideas. 
 
 " Oh ! the dear good heaven, is it possible ! " cried 
 the poor creature, horror-struck at such an accusation. 
 " Ideas ! I 'm blessed if I know what in the living earth 
 an idea is ! "
 
 64 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 
 
 MEO, without a friend, and Avithout a sou, was the 
 liuppiest of men. His old patron, M. Silivergo, 
 had answered him in round terms, " You are an ingrate ; 
 ingratitude is the worst of vices, and the Egyptians in 
 the good old times did right in punishing it with death. 
 I only hope some day or other you will want me again. 
 I luxuriate in the idea of shutting the door in your face. 
 Should desire or necessity ever impel you again to seek 
 employment, I would advise you to apply elsewhere. 
 In short, I take advantage of the opportunity to swear 
 that henceforth I will never oblige anybody again. 
 Henceforward, I shall never interest myself in the case 
 of any unfortunate man, however great his merits may 
 seem, and your conduct is the cause of the whole of 
 it." 
 
 The .same day, his countrywoman, Signora Aurelia, 
 had hastened in a carriage to the Rue St Catherine. 
 She came do^vn on No. 4 like an avalanche, which in 
 fact she really was; but, not finding her old friend at 
 home, she could not have the consolation of tearing his 
 eyes out. Falling back on the porter's lodge, she there 
 told all her sorrows to Monsieur and JNIadame Ride, 
 Avhom she saw for the first time. These good folks in- 
 terrupted their dinner to listen to her lamentations. 
 She had thrown herself on a cliair with a familiarity 
 thoroughly Italian; she called the porter "my dear
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 65 
 
 friend," and his wife " my dear ; " in fact, had they been 
 her father and mother she could have scarcely made her- 
 self more at home. She showed them how her soul was 
 tortured, her life laid waste, her hopes dead, her sun 
 extinct. In the midst of her tears, she picked out the 
 nicest bits in the bowl, taking them with her fingers, 
 and not even raising her pagoda sleeves. The sight of 
 grief so real, and of manners so utterly un-Frenchlike, 
 made the two old people laugh and cry by turns. Au- 
 relia had no hesitation in commissioning them as am- 
 bassadors to Meo. She charged them to tell him that 
 all was over forever, even friendship ; that she had no 
 wish whatever to listen to any of his confidential dis- 
 closures, and that, if he dared to present himself before 
 her, she would tear his eyes out. She even showed 
 them a little dagger that she had bought for the express 
 purpose ; for she took words literally, and never trou- 
 bled herself about the subtleties of the French language. 
 
 Three weeks later, Meo's friend wrote him from Bo- 
 logna the following letter : 
 
 " ]My Dear and Esteemed Friend : — -.It is indeed 
 very true that love consoles us for everything. Every 
 day's delightful experience convinces me of the truth of 
 this maxim. In vain am I unrelentingly persecuted by 
 jealous fate; the little Marchioness's love gives me more 
 pleasure than all other things can give me trouble. 
 The two last harvests have been so bad, that my poor 
 tenants ask me for money instead of bringing it. The 
 family law-suit is slowly dragging along in its third 
 stage. I have obtained eleven favorable decisions, and 
 
 6* E
 
 66 ROUGEETNOIR. 
 
 oiu- aflversaries only ten. If the appeal which they 
 have lodged as a last resource is not granted by the 
 Rota, I shall have gained my suit, provided, of course, 
 that the Ser/natura does not reverse the decision. The 
 twenty-one decisions rendered by the Rota, for and 
 against us, have cost me a thousand Roman crowns 
 apiece; the whole suit then will have cost me twenty- 
 one thousand crowns if I gain it, and if I lose it I am 
 irretrievably ruined. But what are riches or poverty 
 to a heart really happy ? For fifteen years, not a cloud 
 has disturbed the serenity of our love. It is in vain 
 that the jealous Marquis tries to frustrate our plans ten 
 times a week ; we contrive to see each other every day 
 in public, but very seldom in private. The man would 
 tie poor Hersilia to the leg of his arm-chair, if he dared ; 
 you know yourself that he never left her chain very 
 long. His infirmities serve him as a pretext for keep- 
 ing her in the house; he is quite hyppish. The worst 
 of it is, no one can tell when he is going to get well ; he 
 may bury us all yet. Hersilia waits on him with a sub- 
 lime devotion. Many a woman in her place woulil 
 rather help him to his grave. I have free access to the 
 house on all occasions, though the Marquis, I am sure, 
 regards me with secret hostility. Very often in his very 
 presence, in his room, near his arm-chair, a glance from 
 Hersilia or a pleasant word supplies me with happiness 
 for the rest of the day. In the masked war that I j^a- 
 tiently wage against him, on his own ground, I have on 
 my side Hersilia, the servants, and the whole city ; his 
 only ally is his great booby of a son whom we shall soon 
 get rid of, please goodness, by means of a good marriage. 
 In spite of all troubles, all opjiositions, all jealousies,
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 67 
 
 I actually live in paradise, for not a moment passes 
 without reminding me that I love and am beloved. 
 Dear Meo, once in the early period of our happiness, 
 you were our confidant. Why can't I have you here 
 now to share with you my pleasures and my pains ! 
 Hersilia is becoming dearer and dearer to me every day. 
 Do you remember how pretty she was sixteen years ago 
 at Marchetti's ball, in 1842? At present, since nature 
 has put the finishing touch to her beauty, she is really 
 divine. What a sweet harmony unites our souls ! We 
 understand each other without uttering a single word, 
 as if Xature had placed within us the two halves of the 
 same heart. Why are you not here ? I ask again. I 
 should so like to tell you about her, and to recite for you 
 with living, burning words this sweet love-poem that 
 the pen is wholly powerless to write. Well ! Man does 
 not command fate. But, near or distant, remember that 
 I am your other self, and as such I remain, with my 
 person and all my worldly goods unreservedly at your 
 disposal.- G. Marsoxi. 
 
 " P. S. I had almost forgotten all about that miser- 
 able gold of yours. In conformity with your desire, I 
 have put it at six per cent, on the first mortgage. It 
 will be due, with accrued interest, on January 1st, 1862.'' 
 
 M^o required ho further encouragement to begin sell- 
 ing his ancestors. His cash was all gone ; his furniture, 
 long since reduced to what was absolutely necessary, 
 could not keep him alive a month ; as for his jewels, 
 he and they were inseparable — they formed a part of 
 him. Meo without jewels would be Meo no longer. 
 Pardon him this little weakness. Nothinar was left
 
 C8 ROUGE ET Nom. 
 
 tlien but his family portraits, which he had smuggled 
 into Paris out of Italy. He did not know exactly what 
 the whole collection might be worth, but he did know 
 that the list bore the names of the greatest masters of 
 the Bolognese school, from Oderigi, a contemporary of 
 Dante, down to Pasinelli, the Romulus- Augustulus of 
 that long dynasty. Among other rare pieces, it con- 
 tained a Francia (which the Louvre has not), and a 
 hidy's portrait painted by Albano in 1600, when that 
 artist was in his twenty-second year, and used to paint 
 large pictures for churches. The three Caracci, Domeni- 
 chino, and Guercino daubed with black, lived there on 
 friendly terras with Guido of the rosy fingers. I don't 
 speak of the twenty or thirty others, tolerable, bad, or 
 miserable, which of course were to be found there as 
 well as in all other portrait galleries. Meo coolly re- 
 viewed the sacred legion of his ancestors, like a shepherd 
 selectino; from a flock the animals that he wants to sell. 
 He reserved the oldest and the latest portraits; the 
 former, because they proved the antiquity of his family ; 
 the latter, because they reminded him of some relations 
 that he had known and loved. Five or six others he 
 also laid aside, because they represented the most cele- 
 brated personages of the house of Miranda, or those 
 with whom he felt most sympathy. General Augusto 
 Narni, for instance, who was killed in 1525 at the battle 
 of Pavia, and likewise the beautiful Olympia, who took 
 poison sooner than marry a Bentivoglio, were exempted 
 from the sale. The rest were packed straight off to 
 JJatlf/nolles, to the curiosity-shop of a Milanese picture- 
 dealer, who traded in old originals and manufactured 
 them too. Meo knew him but slightly, whereas the
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 69 
 
 other was veiy well acquainted with the Miranda 
 gallery. As soon as the young man had acquainted 
 him with his resolution, the old rogue says to him : 
 " You can make fifty thousand francs out of your pic- 
 tures, or five hundred, just as you please. Shall we take 
 the whole collection to the City Auction Rooms, with- 
 out omitting a single one, not even the portrait of your 
 father the Count? In that case we shall get out im- 
 mense posters all over Paris, announcing the sale of the 
 Miranda gallery, complete and unreserved. Your col- 
 lection is well known: amateurs will come; plenty of 
 money will come too. But what you bring me here is 
 neither complete nor authenticated. Signatures prove 
 nothing out of a celebrated gallery. Every week I 
 sign a picture with the name of some old master." 
 
 '' But the pictures are good ! " exclaimed Meo. 
 
 " I don't deaiy it, but they '11 bring nothing if you 
 don't listen to me. Such amateurs as buy, don't care 
 a jot for ' good pictures ; ' a celebrated gallery is all 
 they trouble themselves about. Your Francia, which 
 is worth ten thousand francs in a collection, won't brino; 
 a hundred and fifty if sold separately." 
 
 But Meo was too proud to stick up the Miranda 
 family on bills at the street-corners, and well the dealer 
 knew it. The poor fellow's sensitiveness and his utter 
 ignorance of business matters left him, bound neck and 
 lieels, completely at the tender mercy of the cunning 
 Milanese. He acknowledged innocently that he was in 
 love, could not bear to work, and had not a single re- 
 source left in the world; for the present, a crust of 
 bread sufficed him; for his future, he trusted altogether 
 to luck, being utterly ignorant in what quarter anything
 
 70 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 could turn up in his favor ; still he would not consent 
 on any account that his family should be exposed to a 
 public sale. He bargained more timidly than a thief in 
 a receiver's den higgling over the plate he has stolen ; 
 and he took two thousand francs ($400) for a treasure 
 well worth twenty or thirty times as much. A certain 
 instinct of self-defence, however, inspired him with the 
 idea of stipulating for the right of redemption, as he 
 had done when selling his title; to this the broker 
 readily consented, his mind being quite easy as to the 
 brilliancy of poor Meo's prospects. It was then agreed 
 upon and drawn uj) in writing that M. Bartolomeo 
 !Narui, formerly Count of Miranda, could redeem his 
 ancestors at any time within two years, on the payment 
 of one thousand Roman crowns (about $1000). What- 
 ever might happen, the purchaser Avas pretty sure of 
 having made a good investment. • 
 
 To a crazy fellow who lived altogether in the present 
 moment, the sum of two thousand francs in ready 
 money was quite a fortune, for it enabled him to exist 
 a whole year without bestowing a thought on anything 
 but his love. I have already told you how he employed 
 the first leisure moments that he had obtained by the 
 sale of his family. To meet Emma at church or in the 
 street, to see her at her window, to send her occasionally 
 a look full of fire, to receive in return a little glance 
 not over-cruel in its expression, such were the elements 
 of the contemplative felicity that satisfied him for a 
 long time. 
 
 If from contemplation he passed one morning to ac- 
 tion, M. Bitterlin alone was the cause. The very day 
 after that on which the Captain had threatened to turn
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 71 
 
 Agatha out of doors, Meo met the two women on their 
 way to church, and he saw by their eyes that they liad 
 been weeping. His first movement was to accost them 
 unceremoniously, the natural consequence of which was 
 that they sprang back as shrinkingly as if they had 
 trodden on a serpent. But he was too much affected by 
 their sorrow to mind their alarm, and he said to Emma, 
 without any preamble and as if continuing the mute 
 conversation that they had been holdino; too-ether duriuf 
 the last month : " My angel, my life, my love, who is 
 the man that has made you weep ? Shall I kill him ? 
 Say the word, and it is done ! " 
 
 Startled at the sudden meeting and at such an address, 
 trembling lest her father had followed her, and quite 
 beside herself both from surprise and fear, the young 
 girl replied as she hurried away, hardly knowing what 
 she said : " But, sir, you 're mad ! I don't know you ! 
 Kill my father ! It is he who has made us weep. He 
 will uevei> consent to our marriage. He detests every- 
 body, — you, me, Agatha: he has talked of turning her 
 out of doors ! If he saw us together, we should be all 
 undone. In the name of heaven then, sir, go away ! " 
 
 She redoubled her speed and ran off to the church 
 without once stopping to take breath, and without being 
 aware that she was all the time mechanically clinging to 
 Meo's arm. Her astonishment was inexpressible when 
 she found herself seated, in a side-chapel of St. PauVs, 
 between Agatha and the good-looking stranger. 
 
 The Mass which they heard that day was not entered 
 to their credit in the ledger of Paradise. 
 
 Meo, as an Italian, considered it quite natural to 
 carry on a love-affair in church ; Emma, a far better
 
 72 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 Christian, yielded finally, but. not without a severe 
 struggle. At one time, reproaching herself for the im- 
 pious levity of her conduct, she would take refuge in 
 her prayer-book and pray with such feverish devotion 
 that she heard no other sound than the murmur of her 
 own lips; at another time, she could hardly help yield- 
 ing to the pleasure of hearing Meo's poetic, passionate, 
 and extrtivagaut lanouage. A Avoman a few vears older 
 and of a riper understanding would have perhaps 
 laughed at such a flood of incoherent and inflated words, 
 comically seasoned by a foreign accent and a rather ca- 
 pricious grammar; but the infatuation of love, the most 
 contagious thing in the world, by degrees gained the 
 young heart that was already so well prepared for its 
 reception. Meo was not a man of very great sense — ■ 
 of that the history of his youth is proof enough ; he 
 could not even ring any changes on the little silver bell 
 which the French call wit. But all the wit and all the 
 sense in the world have not, in the eyes of young girls 
 of nineteen, half the value of one grain of genuine bona 
 fide passion. The most distrustful and the most marble- 
 hearted of them all, thinks more of a good-sized silly 
 tear dropping from the nose of a man of heart, than of 
 the most elegantly expressed phrases in the most beauti- 
 ful and studied declaration. 
 
 To a cool listener, Meo's language would have ap- 
 peared not only absurd, but perhaps even sinful and 
 wicked. When a man without position and without 
 prospects assails a young girl condemned to celibacy by 
 the wish of her father ; Avhcn he stuns her ears by the 
 violence of his sentiments; when he swears that he 
 loves her to madness, and that he will die if he cannot
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 73 
 
 obtain her hand, reason bhimes him for plunging raslily 
 into a blind enterprise, and morality severely condemns 
 him for dragging into danger a being feebler than him- 
 self. 
 
 All that can be said in the great simpleton's defence, 
 is, that in his whole proceeding he was impelled by the 
 instincts of an honorable, guileless, uncalculating nature, 
 and that he was acting Mathout fixed plan, premedita- 
 tion, or forethought of any kind. Ijoving Emma with 
 all his heart and soul, he simply wanted to have her for 
 his wedded wife, though how such a desirable consum- 
 mation could be possibly brought about he neither knew 
 nor tried to know. He rushed headlonac, not knowino* 
 whither, with all the impetuosity of an indomitable 
 temperament, A crow picking at a nutshell, a May-bug 
 plumping against the window-pane, were, in comparison 
 with this poor human creature, strictly responsible and 
 rigidly logical beings. Into whatever excess the frenzy 
 of the first impulse might have led him, a jury of the 
 Seven Wise Men of Greece could have hardly found 
 him guilty. Had he taken Emma in his arms and 
 carried her up to the top of a mountain, or to the sixth 
 story of a house, the severest judge would be satisfied 
 with the verdict : "Abduction without malice prepense." 
 
 At this outburst of love, the young girl felt like a 
 
 person who from a window j)erceives the lava-torrents 
 
 rushing down the sides of a distant volcano. She was 
 
 amazed at such an explosion of genuine passion, but, 
 
 though woman is instinctively always on the defence, she 
 
 did not consider that it threatened her with any danger. 
 
 Through the whole storm of emotion Meo's noble and 
 
 loyal nature shone out like a light-house. 
 7
 
 74 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 Agatha, who, not being quick-witted, ought to have 
 been suspicious, yielded as blindly as her mistress. 
 " Don't be uneasy, dear cihild," said she, in a whisper, to 
 Emma ; " there 's no sin in listening to good words ; it 
 is n't every day we have a holiday. While you listen, 
 I '11 pray double, so the dear good God will be no 
 loser." 
 
 Meo escorted them as far back as the corner of the 
 Rue des Vosges, and that was the end to all dread of 
 the Ca])tain or his thunderbolts. From that moment, 
 the weeks, hitherto so long, passed like lightning, in the 
 expectation of Sunday. ]\Ieo discovered a way to make 
 them still shorter, by inventing a kind of correspon- 
 dence. The arcade running from the Hue des Vosges 
 to the Place Royale is a famous spot for play-bills. 
 Every morning at half past eleven the Italian came there, 
 and, pulling a pencil out of his pocket, he underlined 
 a printed letter here and there, so that the whole formed 
 words, sentences, and quite an epistle for Emma. Such 
 a job requires patience, and is not always very easy ; but 
 he had served his apprenticeship at it in the days of his 
 grand misery, when he used to correspond with his 
 friends in Bologna by means of an old number of the 
 Debats. Emma, walking out with her father, naturally 
 stopped to read the bills announcing the amusements of 
 the day. What pretext could the Captain invent for 
 refusing her a gratification so innocent ? On the first 
 bill appeared : 
 
 COMEDIE FKAXgAISE. 
 
 Jeudi, 25 mai, 1858. 
 
 Les comediens ordinaires de I'Empereur donneront : 
 
 GABRIELLE.
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 76 
 
 Emma had no difficulty in reading off, Ma joUe (my 
 pretty one), and in tlic other bills she made out the rest 
 of the letter. 
 
 This same arcade was a favorite resort for the Cap- 
 tain himself. He too cast his eye, his eagle eye, over 
 the play-bills and always contrived to render them use- 
 ful in teaching Emma some lesson in morality. He 
 made her remark how the play- writers are reduced to 
 give their productions the most absurd names for the 
 purpose of attracting the public to the theatre ; of the 
 plays themselves he spoke with contempt, and assured 
 her that the French nation was sick of them. ''You 
 are very happy indeed," said he, "in knowing no more 
 of such stuff than their titles. Just look at that. Le 
 Fils Natiirel! Why, it is scandalous. Le Fruit de- 
 fendu! Absolutely immoral. La joie fait -peur ! What 
 wretched nonsense ! Les Lionnes pauvres ! What does 
 all that consist of? Why, ridiculous stories without 
 head or tail, and even indecencies very probably. The 
 rabble that write such trash don't earn enough to keep 
 body and soul together, and I 'm glad of it. Are you 
 coming?" Emma, who had got through her reading, 
 touched the corner of the last bill with the dusty tip of 
 her parasol, and the light mark showed Meo that his 
 letter had reached its destination. How the Captain 
 would have sworn if he had even suspected that the 
 very daughter he guarded so carefully was actually cor- 
 responding with her lover, and that too even before his. 
 own eyes ! 
 
 Towards the end of June, Emma had become so de- 
 cidedly captivated that her only thought henceforth was 
 Meo. All her ideas ran on him, every nerve iu her
 
 76 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 heart beat for liira. The brilliant Italian had become 
 in her eyes a sort of demigod. She knew neither his 
 birth, his rank, nor his fortune; but it is when we know 
 the least that Ave love the best. Had Meo been one of 
 those unscrupulous lovers who consider everything they 
 find in their net as their own, the poor, innocent, mother- 
 less girl would have no more resisted him than the women 
 of mythology resisted Jupiter. But the honest fellow 
 no more thought of even pressing her hand than you do 
 of plucking to pieces a beautiful rose, or of crushing 
 between your fingers the amber calyx of a magnolia. 
 Accordingly, this secret and very imprudent intercourse 
 ■was of an ideal purity. Chance and sympathy had 
 wedded two hearts, but it was like one of those unions 
 which diplomacy used to effect long ago between two 
 royal children still in their infancy. 
 
 Stout Agatha, however, with her good home-spun 
 common-sense, said to them from time to time, " All 
 this is very fair and good, but what is it all to end in ? 
 You must marry some time or other, and Master will 
 never give his consent." 
 
 '' How do you know that ? " replied Meo. " He does 
 not know who I am. I 've a strong notion of going 
 into the house with vou and asking his consent. If he 
 refuses me, I shall be very much surprised, indeed." 
 
 But Emma screamed with horror at such a proposi- 
 tion, and that was the end of it. 
 
 One morning Meo said to them, " I have my idea. 
 We shall enter the church together, and go straight to 
 a priest. I shall say to him, '.This is my wife ! ' and 
 you will add, *' This is my husband ! ' He wall give us 
 his blessing anyhow. Such a thing is often done in
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 77 
 
 Italy." Emma did not exactly say no, but Agatha 
 assured them that such a marriage would be good for 
 nothino; in France. 
 
 Another day, Agatha informed the lovers that they 
 were rich. She had been counting up M. Bitterlin's 
 income. His yearly pension was eighteen hundred 
 francs; his inheritance brought him two thousand 
 francs a year ; Emma's mother's dowry was the regu- 
 lar twelve hundred francs a year, without which no 
 woman is permitted to marry a captain ; in short, the 
 total income was about five thousand francs ($1000) a 
 year, and the Captain had been saving at least two thou- 
 sand francs a year since 1848. 
 
 "What of that?" said Meo. "I don't want any 
 money." 
 
 " You have enough of your own then ?" asked Agatha. 
 
 " No ; but I don't want any." 
 
 " It i^ true," added Emma. " What is the use of 
 money ? I 've never had any money, and what have I 
 been the worse for it ? " 
 
 Meo, in France, now began to study the laws — in his 
 own country he had helped to make them. He turned 
 over the "Thirty-Seven Codes" in a reading-room. 
 He learned from this investigation that Emma could 
 marry without her father's consent, but not before she 
 had arrived at the age of twenty-one, and had thrice 
 respectfully demanded permission. He thought it too 
 lono; to wait. Emma wished to examine the same sub- 
 ject herself, and with her own little hands she carefully 
 rummaged throuo-h her father's law-books. She dis- 
 covered that her happiness absolutely depended on the 
 Captain for two years and some months longer. 
 7*
 
 78 ROUGE ET XOIR. 
 
 This gloomy prospect inspired her witli <in heroic 
 resolution. Without consulting any one, she seriously 
 sought an audience with the master of her destiny, and 
 said to him, with her own little air of decision : 
 
 " My dear father, I 'ra in love." 
 
 " Just like you ! " roared the Captain. " Who the 
 d— " 
 
 " I 'ni in love with a young man that you will like 
 very much yourself as soon as you see him, and whom 
 J will present to you if you promise to do him no harm. 
 Ever since the month of April we have been meeting 
 each other, and corresponding together. He has my 
 promise, and I have his; the only thing we want is 
 your consent. If I were not your submissive and" re- 
 s))ectful child, I would wait till I came of age, and then 
 get married without your consent with no other doAvry 
 than my mother's twenty-four thousand francs — " 
 
 " Some rascally lawyer has been giving you a lesson ! " 
 
 "No indeed, ray dear little papa; I have seen it all 
 in your own law-books. But I don't want to vex you 
 in any respect, so I entreat you, in the name of all your 
 kindness for me and of my love for you, to let me marry 
 my lover as soon as possible." 
 
 The Captain had laid it down as a maxim that chil- 
 dren should be treated with mildness, and he severely 
 condemned anything like corporal punishment; but this 
 time his anger got.the better of his principles. The poor 
 child received a pair of cuffs on the ear that you would 
 almost think were too much for a blundering errand-boy. 
 An hour later, Agatha was flying down stairs without 
 counting the steps. The Captain nearly died of apo- 
 plexy, and perhaps he really would have started for the
 
 THE PLAY-KILLS. 79 
 
 otlier world, only he was afraid his departure miglit 
 make some people happy in this. 
 
 Agatha entered straight into Meo's service, to dust 
 the few pictures that were still left, and to hunt up news 
 about Emma. Her flight had been so hasty that she 
 found in her trunk' collars, sleeves, wristbands, and all 
 sorts of things belonging to her mistress. She w^ould 
 have restored them to the owner, even at the risk of 
 having her bones broken, if the Italian had not imme- 
 diately seized them and made them his own, like cer- 
 tain pious devotees who have no scruple in stealing 
 whatever relics they can lay their hands on. He would 
 not even give up the big house-key, though it was a 
 pound or two in weight, but, wrapping it up with the 
 other treasures, he placed it next his heart, and kept it 
 there religiously night and day. 
 
 It is not without some show of reason that the Paris- 
 ians compare the Marais to a little country town. The 
 whole quarter rang with M. Bitterlin's resentment. 
 The good creatures told each other how the Captain had 
 left his daughter for dead, and flung the servant out of 
 the window. They insisted that poor Agatha had broken 
 her leg from the fall, and those who had seen her go off 
 limping were ready to swear to the fact in a court of 
 justice. Everybody was interested in Emma's unhappy 
 fate, because she was pretty. On the other hand, tine 
 Captain's sour visage had never excited much sympathy 
 among his neighbors, and more than one mother used 
 to say to her children, " If you 're not good, I '11 just go 
 bring in M. Bitterlin." No housekeeper, no servant 
 was willing to succeed Agatha and expose herself to the 
 same danger ; even the old porter and his wife almost
 
 80 R O U G K E T N O I R . 
 
 refused their services, and grumbled sullenly as they 
 made the beds. The keeper of a little restaurant in the 
 Place Roy ale consented to send cooked provisions to the 
 ogre's well-known den, but the waiter who carried them 
 covered up in a basket, used to look at the Captain pretty 
 much as people look at the common hangman. 
 
 A fortnight passed without M. Bitterlin and his 
 daughter ever being seen together. The Avindows were 
 opened every morning and evening, but nothing ap- 
 peared there except the Captain's surly countenance. 
 The report ran that the pretty girl of the Rue des Vosges 
 ■was locked up in a black hole, and that she should never 
 come out again except feet foremost. 
 
 Such reports, of course, had greatly exaggerated 
 Emma's sufferings. Still, it must be said that she was 
 neither very free nor very hapjiy. Torn from her only 
 friend, deprived of the sight of the man whom she loved, 
 shut up within four walls, the penance she underwent 
 was decidedly very severe. Her father could never 
 pardon her for the ridiculous part he had been playing. 
 Tliis man, bursting with pride and self-confidence, struck 
 his wig angrily with his clenched fists, wdienever he 
 thought how a little goose of a girl, and a half-witted 
 creature from the country, had disconcerted all his deep- 
 laid plans of precaution. He foamed at the idea that a 
 man had succeeded in winning the affections of a girl so 
 .well watched, and thence he drew the sage conclusion 
 that his wife, a thousand times less strictly guarded, had 
 had it a thousand times in her power to dishonor him. 
 Perhaps he would have been a little niore indulgent if 
 his daughter had made a full, detailed acknowledgment 
 of her fault; but P]mma, seeing how her sincerity had
 
 THE PLAY-BIT, LS. 81 
 
 been rewarded, bad intrencbed berself In an obstinate 
 silence. The Captain swore Ihat tbere sbe sbould stay 
 in close confinement, without as much as approaching 
 the window, until she should bave made a clean breast 
 of all her misdemeanors and told the name of her ac- 
 complice. She swore in her turn, with an air of mutiny 
 that left no doubt of her sincerity, that as long as sbe 
 was kept a prisoner sbe would not utter a word. 
 
 The two adversaries faced each other for seventeen 
 days, neither yielding the other an inch. It will be 
 hard to believe that such a warm-hearted, affectionate 
 little creature was able to hold out seventeen days and 
 seventeen nights without uttering a single word, and 
 that too in her father's company ; but Emma was the 
 Captain's own daughter, a chip of the old block. She 
 lost her color, grew thin, sickened ; in the depths of her 
 heart she cherished the deadly but beloved flame that 
 was preying upon her life ; but she never once relaxed 
 from her plan of obstinate silence. 
 
 On the fifteenth of July, the Captain double-locked 
 up his daughter and went down stairs to pay his 
 quarter's rent. This was a duty which he fulfilled every 
 three months with military exactness, at a quarter of 
 twelve to the minute. The landlord was a mild and 
 timid man who, in 1848, had collected more tricolored 
 flags than five-franc pieces. He entertained a profound 
 respect for M. Bitterlin as being the most punctual 
 and the most exacting of all his tenants. Whenever 
 the Captain came to complain about smoky chimneys 
 or tiu'eatenlng ceilings, his smile and his reply were 
 invariable : " Let it be fixed exactly as you please. 
 
 Tonnerre ! Who could think of refusing repairs to a 
 
 F
 
 82 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 tenant with as hot a temper as yours?" But this time 
 the smile had given way to a more serious expression. 
 He looked the Captain right into the eyes, and said, 
 almost severely : 
 
 " May I dare to ask how is'your daughter?" 
 
 His tenant answered in a tone which admitted of no 
 reply: 
 
 " My daughter is just as I want her to be." 
 
 And, without waiting for his change, he left the room. 
 But the landlord followed him, murmuring very audi- 
 bly something about the abuse of paternal power, scan- 
 dalous tyranny, the public opinion, the displeasure of 
 the neiglibors, the possible intervention of justice, and 
 the "wcll-known sentence lately pronounced against a 
 couple who had ill-treated the children of a former mar- 
 riage. The Captain pretended not to hear, but he felt 
 very uneasy by the time he reached his own door. 
 
 The porter ran up stairs after him with an anony- 
 mous letter, written to him in the name of all the in- 
 habitants of the quarter. The unknown cori'espondent 
 called him Father Blue-Beard, and ordered him to show 
 his daughter at the window, if he had not murdered her. 
 Furious, he tore the paper to pieces, and swore he would 
 quit the accursed spot forever in three months. 
 
 But this was not the end of his surprises. At four 
 o'clock he received a visit from a doctor well known 
 and highly respected in the Ilarais, the very one who 
 had cured Emma of some slight indispositions, and had 
 attended Madame Bitterlin in her last illness. 
 
 " Well," said he, laying aside his cane, "it seems my 
 pretty little patient wants me again ? I hope in good- 
 ness you are exaggerating the thing."
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 83 
 
 " What thing ? " stararaered the Captain, turning as 
 red as a tomato. " Who went after you ? " 
 
 " Have n't you sent your servant for me ? " 
 
 " I ? Not at all — or rather, yes, of course — I 'm 
 very much obliged to you, Doctor." 
 
 " Oh ! I see. The patient has recovered without the 
 permission of the Faculty. Young people are so irreg- 
 ular. She is gone out, perhaps ? " 
 
 " Yes — that is to say, no. Do you want to see her ? 
 She's no prisoner, I assure you. I have no objection 
 to her seeing as much as she pleases of people of the 
 right kind. Indeed, you '11 be an invaluable doctor if 
 you only succeed in loosening her tongue." 
 
 "Ah! that's it, eh? Well, we must see about it. 
 But what is the matter with yourself. Captain ? I have 
 seen you look much better. Believe me, and get your- 
 self bled some of these days. No hurry, of course. But 
 it's a useful precaution when one's cravat is rather 
 short." 
 
 The' Captain was choking with rage. Had not the 
 morning's experiences rendered him somewhat watchful 
 over himself, he would assuredly have thrust the poor 
 Doctor out of the house. He opened Emma's door, how- 
 ever, and said, quite gently : 
 
 " There 's the young lady ; you can testify that she is 
 not dead." 
 
 The Doctor was no more in the confidence of the vic- 
 tims than he was an accomplice of their executioner. 
 He had simply come to see Emma because stout Agatha 
 had o-one to tell him that his presence was demanded 
 immediately. But he was not long in scenting one of 
 those domestic dramas that are played every day with-
 
 84 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 out witnesses in all the corners of Paris. He thought 
 that Einnia was seriously changed for the Avorse, though 
 neither tongue nor pulse spoke of any disease properly 
 so called. He remarked that the father and daughter 
 avoided speaking to each other and addressed him alone. 
 A secret irritation betrayed itself in every word, and 
 their eyes gleamed with a strange fire. The girl's looks 
 expressed at once sufi'ering, mutiny, and an earnest de- 
 sire for foreign assistance. He had a high idea of the 
 duties of his profession. He thought that doctors are 
 put into the world for something besides enriching 
 apothecaries. Without pretending then to meddle in 
 family secrets, he began making up in his mind some 
 l)rescription which he thought miglit improve the moral 
 liealth both of father and daughter. Emma was deeply 
 moved by the interest he took in her condition, and per- 
 haps she would have even asked his aid, if doing so 
 would not at the same time necessarily compel her to 
 divuloe the secret of her heart. 
 
 "Have you been suffering long, my child?" asked 
 the Doctor in a paternal tone. 
 
 " But, Doctor, I swear to you there is no suffering in 
 the case at all," replied the Captain, hastily. 
 
 " You are told the truth, Doctor. I am not at all 
 sick. A little sad, that is all." 
 
 " Yes, we have the vapors," added the Captain. 
 " ]\Iy life is not made very pleasant here." 
 " We don't deserve premiums for good conduct." 
 " I 'm never let out of the house, and watched wdiile 
 I 'm in it." 
 
 " We used to make a bad use of our liberty." 
 
 " It is easy to find fault with those we don't love."
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 85 
 
 " "When we want people to love us, we conduct our- 
 selves properly." 
 
 " Some people are very unreasonable." 
 
 " Some people are very stubborn." 
 
 This was tlie tone of the consultation for several min- 
 utes. The Doctor put an end to it by taking leave of 
 his little patient. 
 
 '' Come, come," said he. " This all proceeds from 
 the nerves : rely on me, Mademoiselle Emma. Cap- 
 tain, you 've done well to call nle. Let us go into your 
 room ; I want to compose a prescription which is to 
 cure the whole family." 
 
 When they were alone, the Doctor resumed : 
 
 " Your daughter is not sick." 
 
 " Well, what did I tell you?" 
 
 " Wait a minute. She 's not sick, but she may die." 
 
 " You 're trifling." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Can you tell me the name of the 
 illness that killed her mother? No. Neither can I. 
 Women are not like soldiers ; bullets and bayonets are 
 not necessary to kill them. They sometimes die off 
 before our faces, and we should be sadly puzzled if we 
 Avere required to tell why. Your daughter is just as 
 delicate as her mother. Her state demands the most 
 exceeding care and attention." 
 
 " Why, Doctor, she gets attention enough ! For more 
 than two weeks past we have n't set foot once outside the 
 house." 
 
 " So much the worse. Of all nutriments, air is the 
 most necessary. Youth requires plenty of it, and of ex- 
 ercise too. Add to this a good dose of recreation, pleas- 
 ure, fun. The ancients believed that laughter was good
 
 86 EOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 » 
 
 for the liver. In any case it can do no harm. I don't 
 know your intentions well enough to speak to you of a 
 certain heroic remedy which more than one of my con- 
 fnres would order without hesitation. Your answer 
 would be that even a collier is master in his own house. 
 I am very delicate about interfering in other people's 
 business, even if they are ray patients. When the son 
 says yes, and the father says no, I say nothing, but take 
 up my hat and go away. That's something not in my 
 line. But questions of health and diet are the very 
 mainspring of our art. It is only our dnty to tell the 
 father of a family that a young creature of nineteen, de- 
 prived of air, of exercise, of society, of amusement, is in 
 great danger of going out some fine morning as effect- 
 ually as the light of a lamp does under the receiver of 
 an air-pump." 
 
 The Captain scratched his head in visible embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 "Doctor," he said, "you have known me for a long 
 time. You know that I am not at heart a bad man. 
 What am I to do?" 
 
 " Almost nothing. Merely to understand that a girl 
 as delicate as your daughter can not be disciplined Avith 
 the rod like a Russian soldier. You have the means 
 of amusing her. Take her to plays, to balls — " 
 
 " Never ! never ! " 
 
 " You 're puritanical ; well, let that pass. Take her 
 to visit respectable families." 
 
 " Are there any ? " 
 
 " You 're a misanthropist ; very well, let that pass, 
 too. Talce her out walking every day through the city. 
 Show her the places of resort, the Chavtj^s- Ely sees, the 
 Hois de Boulor/nc, the Pre Catdan, — any place!"
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 87 
 
 "Stop there, Doctor. I have my reasons — cogent 
 reasons, you understand — to mistrust such places. She 
 has seen too much of them ah*eady, the unfortunate crea- 
 ture ! Oh ! these Parisums ! " ^ 
 
 " You 're afraid of the Parisians ? Take her to the 
 country, tlien, — to Germany, to China ! " 
 ) " As to that — a nice trip to somewhere far from here, 
 very far. Look here. Doctor, if I were a rich man, I 
 wouki set off this very evening." 
 
 " Oil ! everybody is rich enough to travel now, since 
 railroads have come into fashion. I leave you to your 
 reflections. . Good - bye, for a while. Captain. Keep 
 cool, get bled, take your daughter out, and remember 
 that the dearest of all trips is the journey to the grave- 
 yaixl." 
 
 During all this time Mco had been runniup; throu2;h 
 the streets of Paris, totally unable to keep still. Some 
 men want to see everything and superintend everything, 
 as if the mere fact of their presence could have the slight- 
 est effect on destiny. One of this class is always present 
 in his wife's chamber at the moment an interestintr 
 arrival is expected, or behind the scenes during the first 
 representation of his great drama, or beside the ballot- 
 box while they are counting how many votes he has got 
 for the office he is running for. Others, on the contrary, 
 on such occasions, run away from their houses like mad- 
 men, and have not the courage to come back for fear of 
 learning their fate. It was to this second class that 
 Meo belonged. He had sent Agatha for the Doctor, but 
 he was too uneasy to wait to hear the result of his visit. 
 At six o'clock in the evening, instead of returning to 
 his lodgings and finding it all out from Agatha, he
 
 88 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 paced all the streets ia the neigliborhood of the Rue des 
 Vosgcs. The street-boys, seeing him running- wildly 
 backwards and forwards with a bewildered countenance, 
 miciht have asked him if he hadn't missed the omnibus. 
 Old habit led him to the arcade of the Place Iloyale, 
 where he had written so many pretty letters to Emma 
 on the play-bills. He was very much surprised at see- 
 ing a little man there before him, the very image of the 
 Captain. If it was not himself, it certainly was his 
 shadow. The shadow was standing close to the wall, 
 pocket-book in hand, and copying a bill. Meo asked 
 himself for a lon«: time what sudden interest M. Bitterlin 
 could have taken in dramatic litei'ature. He watched 
 his man closely, and as soon as the coast was clear he 
 ran up to investigate. The first object that struck his 
 eyes was an immense yellow poster lying a short dis- 
 tance beyond the last play-bill. He first made sure that 
 it was here the enemy had halted. A cigar-stump, which 
 he had seen drop out of the Captain's mouth, was still 
 burning between two stones, and made it quite certain 
 that that was the 'spot. He read then, with an emotion 
 such as poem nor romance had ever inspired him with, 
 an advertisement of the Eastern Railroad, which com-, 
 nienced as follows : 
 
 Grand Excursion to Switzerland, the Rhine, 
 THE Grand-Duchy of Baden, etc., etc. 
 
 TicJcets good for One Ilonth, with the Privilege of stopping 
 at all the Principal Stations, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 Once through his reading, he was no longer afraid of 
 returning home ; indeed he dashed off at full speed and
 
 THE PLAY-BILLS. 89 
 
 never pulled up until he came to the door, where he 
 found Agatha awaiting him. 
 
 " Sir/' said she, " I have been watching the Doctor 
 as he came out, and it is little I have got for my pains. 
 I asked him what was the matter with Mademoiselle. 
 ' Not much,'' said he, ' and after she has taken a little 
 trip somewhere, it will be just nothing at all.' Just as 
 if the Captain w^ould let her go on any little trip ! Oh ! 
 but he 's a close one, the Captain ! " 
 
 " But I know already," said INIeo, " that he is think- 
 ing of taking her to Switzerland. You just find out 
 w:hen they are to start, and what route they will take. 
 Also if they travel first-class. I must make sure of all 
 that, you know, before purchasing my ticket." 
 
 " You 're going on the trip, too, my kind young gen- 
 tleman ? And what for ? " 
 
 "To see her, in the first place; then to get acquainted 
 with the Captain, earn his friendship, and obtain his 
 daughter's hand. Do you think, then, that a good, bold 
 dash won't win the battle ? " 
 
 " To tell the truth, sir, if you don't obtain Mademoi- 
 selle's hand, I shall be very much astonished at you ; but 
 if you ever do so with the Captain's consent, I shall be 
 very much astonished at him." 
 8*
 
 90 ROUGE ET NOIE. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE EIGHTH PASSENGER. 
 
 ON the twentieth of July, at half-past seven in the 
 evenino;, M. Bitterlin and his dauQ-hter were rollingr 
 along in a hack towards the terminus of the Eastern 
 Railroad. As they ascended the Boulevard de Scbasto- 
 pol, the Captain tried to look as gracious as possible, 
 and said to Emma : 
 
 "Now you're going to have a very nice trip indeed, 
 so I hoi^c you will learn how to behave yourself. I 'm 
 very good, you see, and I want to show you Switzerland, 
 the Grand-Duchy of Baden, and Strasburg, where I per- 
 formed garrison duty before you were born. We shall 
 spend a month at Luneville ; I will show you the gar- 
 den and the castle ; I Avill also show you the humble 
 roof beneath which your father first saw the light. As 
 we come back, I may treat you to a visit to the camp at 
 Chalons, provided of course that in the mean time you 
 have been good enough to deserve it. Show me some 
 return for all this kindness by your exemplary conduct, 
 I shall never regret the money you cost me if you only 
 go right straight on, without looking to the right or left 
 at any of the conceited puppies that may be around you. 
 Begin at once, then, and stop putting your head out of 
 the window at the very moment that your father does 
 you the honor of addressing you." 
 
 Emma commenced her tour to Switzerland pretty 
 much as cowardly soldiers face their first fire — at every 
 step they take, casting a wistful glance to the rear. It
 
 THE EIGHTH PASSENGER. 91 
 
 was now more than twenty days since she had heard 
 from Meo, and she imagined that Meo was equally in 
 the dark about her. Hence her profound dejection, 
 which only grew more intense as every turn of the 
 wheels took her farther and farther from home. She 
 was yielding to her father's iron will from sheer exhaus- 
 tion, for women's strongest resolutions always falter at 
 the second determined attack; but as the carriage rolled 
 on, she was addressing mentally the wildest and most 
 desperate appeals to all the powers of earth and heaven. 
 
 The earth, however, did not open and swallow up the 
 wheels, and heaven dropped no aerolite right on the 
 crown of the driver's glazed hat. So great is the indif- 
 ference of Nature towards the sight of our miseries, that 
 actually the Captain and his daughter, with all their 
 trunks and band-boxes, reached the terminus without 
 the slightest accident. 
 
 Emma shot on£ searching glance through the four 
 corners of the waiting-room ; but nothing prominent 
 met her eye except an old English lady's set of teeth. 
 Up to the very last moment she expected to see the 
 hurried entrance of some providence in a traveller's 
 overcoat, some D.eu8 ex machina wrapped up in a plaid ; 
 but that was all she got by her expectations. The bell 
 rang, the doors glided back in their grooves, the Cap- 
 tain seized his umbrellas ; it was time to get into the 
 carriages. 
 
 M. Bitterlin, who had had some experience in travel- 
 ling, at once elbowed his Avay vigorously through the 
 crowd, and, followed by his daughter, flung himself into 
 a compartment of the first class. He was scarcely well 
 in when he threw up fortifications as well as he could
 
 92 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 hy sliutfciiig the door and letting down the blinds: 
 that's what you do, you know, when you aspire to 
 travel by yourself. But a very nimble young married 
 couple, from Germany, on their bridal trip, dashed up the 
 steps and took possession of the other two vacant corners. 
 The Captain was seated opposite Emma, and the bride- 
 groom opposite his blooming bride. A moment after, 
 two red-headed men, the one tall and lank, tlie other 
 short and stout, pitched after each other head-foremost 
 into the carriage. The tall one, who was a little ahead, 
 planted himself down on Emma's dress, tramping on 
 the Captain's tenderest corn as he passed by. The stout 
 one sat down beside him on the same seat, and almost 
 squeezed the life out of the plump little German bride 
 sitting in the corner opposite her husband. The Cap- 
 tain must certainly have laid in a good stock of pa- 
 tience, for, at all this he only growled and swore a 
 little under his teeth. But a new arrival, a young, good- 
 looking fellow, exceedingly well dressed, now came in, 
 and sat down beside him on the right skirt of his over- 
 coat, humming all the time a snatch from II Trovatore: 
 
 " Saved ! saved ! O Providence Divine 1 
 I thank tliee, for at last, 
 All doubt and danger past, 
 Now for evermore pure happiness is mine!" 
 
 " Sir ! " cried the Captain, turning up his moustache, 
 " so far I have borne everything patiently, but this caps 
 the climax ! " 
 
 " What climax, my dear sir?" asked the new-comer. 
 
 " Why could you not have gone into another com- 
 partment, sir ? Don't you see we 're sweltering here ? "
 
 THE EIGHTH PASSENGER. 93 
 
 " So much the better, sir ; the nights are rather cool." 
 
 At this moment one of the employes opened the 
 door, saying : 
 
 " Five, six, seven ; one seat more ! This way, gen- 
 tlemen, if you please! " 
 
 The Captain started up with a jump, exclaiming: 
 
 " Sir, this is intolerable ! I have come into a first- 
 class carriage to be alone with my daughter, and here 
 you pack us on each other like herrings in a barrel ! " 
 
 " Beg your pardon, sir. In this compartment there 
 are eight seats." 
 
 " But, sir, if you stow eight in here, what shall we do 
 with our legs ? " 
 
 "Sir, we have a good many passengers in this train 
 for Mulhouse, and we are obliged to supply them all 
 with seats." 
 
 " In that case, put on another carriage." 
 
 " Oh, sir, if we listened to what everybody says on 
 the subject, each traveller should have a carriage for 
 himself." 
 
 " The devil, sir ! I 'm not everybody. It is possible 
 that my name has never reached you, but I am Captain 
 Bitterlin." 
 
 " Sir, if you were even Marshal Gi^rard, I could n't 
 give you a compartment all to yourself." And he con- 
 tinued in a louder key : " This way, gentlemen ! One 
 seat this wa}'- ! " 
 
 An eighth passenger now craned his neck into the 
 doorway, and Mademoiselle Bitterlin uttered a little 
 scream. 
 
 "Don't be afraid, child," said her father; "I have 
 made up my mind to bear everything. I '11 be calm 1 "
 
 94 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 Emma wasn't afraid; quite the contrary. She had 
 recognized tlie eighth passenger. 
 
 The whistle blew, and the train started. Emma's 
 eyes and those of Meo commenced a dialogue that was 
 to last as far as Basel. The two red-headed men pulled 
 each out of his pocket a paper as big as a bed-quilt. 
 The one opened the Times, the other the Neid York 
 Herald, and each manoeuvred so skilfully as to cut the 
 other completely off from the little light that was still 
 left. The nimble young German couple, who formed 
 pendants to the Captain and his daughter, whispered, 
 took each other's hands, looked into the white of each 
 other's eyes, and every five minutes or so exchanged an 
 amorous smile, deep, artless, and transcendently tender. 
 The Captain and his neighbor were soon fast asleep. 
 This neighbor was a stout, good-humored young fellow, 
 one of those that can live in Paris without having any- 
 thing to do. He was going to gamble away all his 
 ready money at Baden, and he took the longest route 
 to get there, considering everything spent on the road as 
 so much gained. He had been dining well before en- 
 tering the carriage, and he was now enjoying that sound 
 sleep wdiich is the reward of having a good stomach. 
 The Captain, after honoring him with the reception al- 
 ready mentioned, had grown so accustomed to his pres- 
 ence, that he was now leaning on him with all his weight, 
 and even snoring away on his shoulder, without the least 
 spark of ill-feeling. 
 
 Encouraged by this music, INIeo stretching across the 
 Parisian, and Emma stretching across the American, 
 bent towards each other, until their heads were near the 
 middle of the carriage. When they were close enough
 
 THE EIGHTH TASSENGER. 95 
 
 to hear without being heard, they recounted to each 
 other, lip to ear, all their mutual experiences and suf- 
 ferinos since the end of the month of June. Emma did 
 not lay much stress on the hardships of her captivity ; 
 she did not consider her present happiness at all 
 dear at such a price. Meo also went rapidly through 
 his marches and countermarches, for all the labors of 
 the campaign are forgotten when the trumpet sounds 
 the signal for battle. He was quite confident of his 
 ability to measure swords with M. Bitterlin, to subdue 
 his ill-will, to put his prejudices to utter rout, and to 
 sign a lasting peace by a happy marriage. 
 
 The conversation was interrupted by the Captain, who 
 sneezed three times, and at last awoke. He began at 
 once to seek for the cause of the strange tickling that he 
 had experienced in his nose, and he soon found it in the 
 stuff of which his neighbor's greatcoat was made. It 
 was a silky tissue of long fine wool, as Avarm as fur and 
 much lighter, an excellent thing, in fact, for travelling. 
 But M. Bitterlin had inhaled a tuft of the slender fila- 
 ments, and the tingling titillation had set his nose on 
 fire. He gave his living pillow a vigorous shaking, and 
 as soon as he saw him awake, he addressed him without 
 ceremony : 
 
 "Sir, is there any indiscretion in asking you what is 
 the name of your tailor?" 
 
 " Not at all, sir ; his name is Alfred." 
 
 " Ah ! you address him by his baptismal name, do 
 you ? But let such intimacy pass. Sir, my tailor is my 
 porter, and rely upon it, he should not have my custom 
 long if he made me such a clumsy watch-coat as that." 
 
 " Sir, I assure you, my overcoat is very convenient, 
 and a splendid thing for sleeping in. Good-night, sir."
 
 96 ROUGE ET XOIR. 
 
 "A splendid thing for sleeping in! "Well, ?n, yes, 
 but on, I deny. When people travel in public car- 
 riages, they should take care to select coats Avhich are 
 not of a nature to incommode their neighbors." 
 
 " On the part of my coat, then, sir, I beg your pardon. 
 Please excuse me. Good-night, sir." 
 
 "Sir, in such a case, excuses seem rather ironical. 
 You have no excuses to ask nor I to grant. It is I who 
 have been wrong, in permitting myself to incline towards 
 the right, when I could have leaned far more comforta- 
 bly to the left. I return to my corner, sir, to my own 
 corner, sir ! " 
 
 The Parisian was fast asleep again in five minutes, 
 but the Captain took more time at it. lie turned and 
 twisted every way for more than three-quarters of an 
 hour. Emma, with eyes prudently closed, awaited 
 under her veil quite patiently for his first snore. jNIeo 
 w^as dreaming away with his eyes open. He envied the 
 lot of his neighbor the Parisian, whose shoulder had 
 been so privileged as to bear the Captaia's head. He 
 determined on changing places with him as soon as he 
 could do so without exciting suspicion. He saw him- 
 self already the constant, patient, and docile companion 
 of M. Bitterlin. He should always yield to his argu- 
 ments, admire his theories, and laugh at his jokes. A 
 sweet sympathy would spring up by degrees in this wild, 
 untamed heart ; the old wolf would become gentle at 
 last. And who knows? Travelling is always full of 
 adventures. The Captain's foot might slip as he stood 
 on the brink of some awful precipice. What joy ! 
 Quicker than lightning to run and seize him, to snatch 
 him from certain death, to bear him back safe and
 
 THE EIGHTH PASSENGER. 97 
 
 sound, to receive his thanks with respectful tenderness — 
 all this for Moo would be the work of an instant. Next 
 day, a new adventure. M. Bitterlin would be dining 
 at the table d'hote, his daughter on his right hand, his 
 deliverer on his left. A discussion would spring up 
 during the dessert. The poor old gentleman, always 
 rather quick, would bring upon himself some imperti- 
 nent observation. Meo should say nothing till dinner 
 was over, but, as soon as all had got through their 
 coiFee, he would retire to a little corner and there pro- 
 voke to mortal combat the insolent fellow who had been 
 disrespectful to his old friend. They would fight ; Meo 
 would wound his man, or, better still, he should be 
 wounded himself. On returning with his arm in a sling, 
 M. Bitterlin Avould say to him : " I know all. This is 
 the second time you have exposed your life to save mine. 
 What shall I do to sho^v my gratitude for such devotion ? 
 Everything that I have is yours ! " " Sir," would be 
 Meo's reply, " of all the good things you have, I ask 
 but a single one," looking at Emma, who would be 
 standing by, all in confusion and blushing like a rose 
 with pleasure. The Captain would then give him his 
 hand and exclaim, with true military bluntness, " Take 
 her, old boy, and make her a good husband, 'od rot it ! " 
 
 By this time they had all fallen asleep in the car- 
 riage, and even M. Bitterlin had once more made the 
 Parisian his pillow, as hares return to their forms. 
 Emma and Meo resumed the conversation where they 
 had left it off, and they were not long in adding another 
 story to their fairy castle in the air. 
 
 Ten minutes after ten, the train stopped for a quarter 
 
 of an hour at Troyes. The Parisian, went to the re- 
 9 G
 
 98 ROUGE ET XOIR. 
 
 fresh niont room to take a glass of sugar and water, and 
 Meo followed him. 
 
 " Sir," said he, as they were descending the steps of 
 the carriage, "you have rather a troublesome neighbor." 
 
 " Yes, but he 's an original. He is troublesome, but 
 amusing." 
 
 " Ah ! ill that case, then, sir, I cannot mention my re- 
 quest. To do so might be perhaps making too free." 
 
 " Mention it, anyhow, sir." 
 
 " I was going to ask you to change places with me; 
 but if you set your heart on being M. Bitterlin's neigh- 
 bor—" 
 
 "Oh ! not quite so much as that. You know him, 
 then?" 
 
 " I do, sir, and I would give all I 'm worth to see his 
 head leaning on my shoulder as it did on yours just 
 now." 
 
 " Well, there 's no accounting for tastes ! Have him 
 for a neighbor, by all accounts ! Take him, sir, with 
 pleasure." 
 
 " Thank you, sir. I thank you from the bottom of 
 my heart." 
 
 " Not at all, my dear sir ; there 's no occasion for such 
 thanks, I assure you." 
 
 " No occasion ! You don't know, then, that I am in 
 love with his daughter ? That I — that he — that she 
 — ah! Sir, it is a regular novel ! a complete romance! 
 quite a poem! I can tell you it all. Now you 're my 
 friend and shall know all my secrets." 
 
 It was not the poor fellow's fault if everybody did 
 not know his secrets. He commenced his story with so 
 much animation that his ready-made friend found him
 
 THE EIGHTH PASSENGER. 99 
 
 quite interesting. He was a man of pleasure, and in- 
 different enough towards other people's affairs; but he 
 soon found that Meo had not been cast in the worn-out 
 mould that the modern French are formed in : and he 
 liked him at once because he could discover nothing of 
 the bourgeois about him. 
 
 " And now/' pursued Meo, " all is settled between 
 you and me for life and death. Your friends are mine : 
 I will help you to kill your enemies : my head, heart, 
 arm, hand, they 're all at your service ! " 
 
 '■'■ Really, you«'re too kind. I live in a world where 
 there is neither friend nor enemy. We have only pleas- 
 ant acquaintances or slight antipathies. I thank you, 
 however, all the same." 
 
 " And on your side, you shall aid me in getting rid 
 of my difficulties ; you won't forsake me ; you shall be 
 my guide and my support ; you shall get me married ! " 
 
 "Good heavens, my dear sir, that is not exactly my 
 specialty. However, if I can aid you in any way, I 
 shall be. delighted to do so ; the more so, as I am going 
 to Baden, and according to the opinion of — some actor or 
 other, Grassot I believe, good actions always bring luck. 
 But there goes the bell. Let us get in. Before me, if 
 you please." 
 
 Meo did not require to be asked twice. He advanced 
 on tiptoe, begging everybody's pardon left and right, 
 and with infinite precautions took his seat beside his 
 father-in-law that was to be. The Captain, who was 
 awake, looked at him, passed his hand along his coat, 
 and grumbled between his teeth : 
 
 " These railroads are disgusting 1 One's neighbor is 
 changed ten times a day."
 
 100 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 "Sir," said Meo, in his most insinuating tones, "ex- 
 cuse the liberty that I have taken. From the way you 
 spoke I thought the change would have been agreeable 
 to you." 
 
 "And why should you think so, sir, if you please? 
 The other's coat was annoying and ridiculous, but I had 
 grown used to it." 
 
 The poor fellow, thoroughly silenced, tried to make 
 himself as small as possible. The first brush had not 
 been brilliant. At the end of a quarter of an hour, M. 
 Bitterlin, who did not fall asleep again, began to snuif 
 the air with all kinds of faces, like a horse scenting 
 wolves. 
 
 " It 's very strange," he said at last, quite loud. 
 " Emma, have you got any scent about you?" 
 
 " No, papa." 
 
 " Nor you either, sir ? " asked he of the American. 
 
 The tall red-headed man did not take the trouble to 
 reply. 
 
 "But I 'm not mistaken, sir," pursued the Captain, 
 seizing Meo's arm. " It 's you ! You smell of drugs ! 
 or of violet ! Yes, that 's it — violet ! " 
 
 "It is true, sir," stammered Meo. "Sometimes, 
 without any bad intention, of that be assured, sir, I 
 sprinkle my handkerchief with a little perfume of 
 violets." 
 
 " Then I don't compliment you on your taste, sir." 
 
 " Sir, if I had only known — " 
 
 " After all, you may have your reasons. Every one 
 for himself in this wicked world." 
 
 " Sir, if this odor is disagreeable to you, I can return 
 to my old place."
 
 A TOUK IN SWITZERLAND. 101 
 
 "For what do you take me, sir? Do you think I 
 am womau enough to die of it? I have smelled worse 
 smells than that on the field of battle. Only allow me 
 to let in a little air." 
 
 ■ M. Bitterlin slept no more that night ; Emma was 
 condemned to silence, and Meo got an ugly cold in the 
 head. That was all he gained by the ride from Paris 
 to Basel. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A TOUR IN SWITZERLAND. 
 
 WHAT consoled him a little was the consideration 
 that he had a fortnight before him to retrieve his 
 losses. Emma had fully apprised him of the tour her 
 father was to take. He knew exactly at what hotels 
 they were to stop ; what evening they should pass on 
 the summit of the Righi ; at what o'clock they were to 
 go to breakfiist in front of the Falls of the Rhine. 
 
 With a heart full of balmy security, then, he saw the 
 Captain and his daughter enter the omnibus belonging 
 to the Hotel of the Three Kings, whilst he engaged a 
 hack for himself and his new friend. 
 
 " Is n-t it true," he asked the latter, every minute or 
 so, " that she is the prettiest little creature in the 
 world ? " 
 
 " Not a doubt of it," replied the confidant. ' " She 
 somewhat resembles that little Rosalie who dances at 
 tlie opera. Only her style is decidedly better." 
 9*
 
 102 EOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " You 've promised to help me, you know. Your 
 presence will give me new courage. In tlie name of her 
 •whom you love, don't abandon me ! " 
 
 " Why, my dear sir, there is no need whatever of so 
 much entreaty. I am not in the least hurry to leave 
 you. I am going to a place where people always arrive 
 only too soon. So, the longer I remain on the road the 
 better for myself." 
 
 They crossed together the city of Erasmus and of 
 Holbein, without ever looking to see if it were well 
 or ill-built. The one was thinking of nothing but his 
 mistress, the other was thinking of nothing at all. 
 
 The Hotel of the Three Kings is the largest cara- 
 vansary in Switzerland. Travellers file off by hundreds 
 in its enormous dining-room overhanging the Rhine. 
 Meo and his companion found not only Emma and her 
 father there before them, but also all their other rail- 
 road acquaintances. This is one of the great charms of 
 a tour in Switzerland — though to be sure it is sometimes 
 rather "slow" — you are constantly meeting the same 
 persons the whole length of the route. It might be said 
 that every chance batch of tourists is swept along to- 
 gether as if in a kind of current. 
 
 The Englishman and the American were eating away, 
 back to back, each at a table by himself. The young 
 German couple had just come down from their room, 
 hand in hand, eyes beaming on eyes. They sat down 
 side by side, and the dainty, light-haired darling placed 
 her rather large foot on her husband's boot. They 
 breakftisted together* with their hands around each 
 other's waists, though of course they had to let go when 
 the trout came up, because even four hands are not too 
 many to take the bones out.
 
 A TOUR IN SWITZERLAND. 103 
 
 M. Bitterliu had not yet commenced his breakfast. 
 He went from dining-room to terrace and from terrace 
 to dining-room, without being able to select a table or to 
 give his orders. The head-waiter, the steward, and the 
 proprietor did everything to satisfy him, but in vain. 
 " Let us understand each other," said he to them. " I 
 want to take breakfast, but not like a glutton that 
 makes a god of his paunch, nor like tliat gentleman 
 there below who looks like an ox gorging himself with 
 hay. However, I must eat, for I have passed the night 
 on the road, and I have some journeying still to do to- 
 day. Expense has no terrors for me. It is not to haggle 
 about ai farthing that I start on a summer tour. Wlien 
 one wants to save his money, he had better stay at home. 
 I should be ashamed to breakfast like that poor devil 
 of a student yonder, who is steeping a cut of bread and 
 butter in his coffee." 
 
 "Sir," said the proprietor, "we have salmon, trout, 
 lobsters — " 
 
 " Yes ; but is your fish fresh ? Is n't it a regular 
 trick of yours to pass off on travellers all the old fish 
 that ever lived in Noah's ark ? Besides, it 's the sauce 
 that makes the fish, and what do you Swiss know about 
 composing a sauce ? That 's a French art. Awkward 
 lubbers like you know nothing about it, so you can keep 
 your fish for yourselves ! " . ^ 
 
 The steward, in his turn, went on to enumerate : " In 
 game, we have venison, hares, chamois, partridges ; this 
 is the first day of the shooting-season." 
 
 " Then none of your game for me. Killed this morn- 
 ing ! I like that ! Why don't you offer me a pair of 
 your old boots at once ? "
 
 104 EOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " As for butelier's meat," continiicd the pkieiJ stew- 
 ard, "we have baked mutton, roast mutton, fillfet of 
 beef, kidneys, cutlets, chops, shoukler of mutton — " 
 
 " Yes, and I '11 bet that you stuff the whole lot with 
 onions. It's your mania, you know. You're all the 
 same ! Impossible to cook without onions! " 
 
 Pie went u]> to an inoffensive traveller who was dis- 
 cussing with very good appetite some duck and onion- 
 sauce. 
 
 "Sir," said he, "are you really eating that fodder?" 
 "Why, sir — " 
 
 " Perhaps you would even tell me that it is a delicious 
 dish?" 
 
 " Sir ! — " 
 
 " Well, I don't object to your saying so. Speech 
 is free; particularly here where the animals of these 
 cantons have been so luxurious as to treat themselves 
 to a republic ! But you will allow me to observe in my 
 turn that a man must have a taste very false, very per- 
 verted, very trivial in fact (excuse the expression), who 
 can eat and relish such a mess as that." Then turning 
 towards the steward, who was now staring at him with 
 ey.es as big as saucers, he said : " Well, then, making 
 due allowance for everything, give us for breakfast 
 whatever you please, and whenever you please! At 
 war, let it be war ! " 
 
 They showed him to a table. Emma, much morti- 
 fied at such a display on tlie part of her father, sat down 
 opposite him, casting a melancholy glance in the direc- 
 tion of Meo. The waiter approached and asked what 
 wine they preferred. The Captain replied : " Can you 
 p-ive me the wine I drink at home in the Rue desVosges ?
 
 A TOUR IN SWITZERLAND. 105 
 
 Of course you can't. Well, that is the only wine I 
 like. Let us have water." 
 
 The good folks of the hotel served him up a repast 
 abundant, savory, varied, — such, in fact, as can be 
 found only in that country flowing with milk and 
 honey. He complained that the butter was riot fresh. 
 Not fresh in Switzerland ! Thinking that a plate 
 looked rather suspicious, he flung it at the waiter's 
 head, adding by way of commentary : " I am not hard 
 to please. I've drunk horse-soup out of a trooper's 
 helmet. But here I represent the grand army of 
 France. AVhoever fails in respect to me, insults it. 
 You see that river out there flowing under the walls of 
 your barrack ? That river has been mine ! I con- 
 quered it with my comrades. So you 'd better look 
 sharp how you conduct yourself, my good fellow ! " 
 
 Meo was eagerly watching for an opjDortunity to in- 
 terfere on behalf of his father-in-law, but, to tell the 
 truth, he did not consider the present moment favor- 
 able. All he could decently do was to offer him a \vord 
 of consolation as soon as he saw him at the dessert. Pass- 
 ing near him as if by chance, he greeted him with his 
 sweetest smile, and said, " I 'm very much afraid, sir, that 
 you 've made a bad breakfast in this miserable place." 
 
 M. Bitterlin lifted his head, and answered, with a su- 
 percilious air, " Miserable place, sir ! Miserable your- 
 self! If it were a miserable place, I Avould not have 
 been in it." 
 
 " I mean — yes — it is true enough," stammered Meo. 
 " I was even surprised myself. I should have never 
 expected to find such tolerable cookery among the lub- 
 bers of this country."
 
 10(3 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 "Sir," said tlie Captain, getting up from the table, 
 "all the lubbers in the world are not Swiss. I have 
 the honor to wish you a very pleasant journey." Meo 
 was profuse in his expressions of gratitude for the in- 
 terest thus manifested in his behalf; but the Captain 
 turned his back on him without adding another word. 
 
 An hour afterwards, though they had by no means 
 made any mutual arrangement on the subject, the whole 
 party found themselves together once more in the Basel 
 Museum. Each one walked about for himself, pretend- 
 ing not to recognize the others. This, you know, is 
 what well-bred travellers always do. The young Ger- 
 man couple succeeded in stealing a kiss on the sly 
 behind one of M. Calame's pictures. The fat English- 
 man admired a pretty little statue of the ^Middle Ages so 
 much that he broke off a finger and put it in his pocket- 
 book by way of a souvenir. The American, unwilling 
 to be outdone, carried off the whole of the mutilated 
 hand together with a part of the forearm. The Parisian 
 stopped before Holbein's masterpieces. He was of the 
 opinion that this divine master somewhat resembled M. 
 Courbet of Paris, only his style was decidedly better. 
 Meo's greatest attraction was a young girl's head, 
 framed in Emma's straw bonnet. As to M. Bitterlin, 
 his pleasure consisted in proving to his pretty compan- 
 ion that the galleries wanted order and the catalogues 
 clearness. And so every one felt perfectly satisfied. 
 
 When the custodian of the Museum opened the door 
 to let them out, Meo thought to make himself agreeable 
 by paying for the whole party ; but the Captain, feeling 
 his nerves begin to trouble him, asked him stiffly what 
 he meant by taking such an unwarrantable liberty.
 
 A TOUR IN SWITZERLAND. 107 
 
 This old codger of a Captain had not known Meo's 
 face for quite twenty-four hours, but his antipatliy 
 towards liini was ah-cady full-grown. On the other 
 hand, he had taken rather a liking for the Parisian, 
 who however treated him roughly enough. Morose 
 tempers are often subject to such anomalies. 
 
 Switzerland is quite up to the demands of the nine- 
 teenth century ; the mountains that bristle around it are 
 no barriers against progress. Tell's lakes reflect the 
 fluttering of steamboat flags. Telegraph poles are to be 
 met amid the wildest gorges. Lightning-rods protect 
 the chalets, and the whistle of the locomotive has begun 
 to unite its blast almost at every turn with the grand 
 voices of nature. Meo always availed himself of the 
 telegraph to bespeak a room for himself, and also two 
 for the Bitterlin family. It cost him twenty-five words 
 and twenty cents. At this price he was sure of dining 
 and sleeping not far from Emma. The Captain saw 
 himself served as if by enchantment, but he only fumed 
 against the invisible providence that envied him the 
 pleasure of domineering. The Italian's everlasting 
 presence was becoming more and more disagreeable to 
 him every day. Whatever pains he took to avoid him, 
 he met him in every carriage and in every inn. Often, 
 he would let him enter one carriage, and then run off 
 as fast as he could with his daughter to take seats in 
 another at the far end of the train. Useless manoeuvre ! 
 Ten minutes afterwards Meo would be seated at his 
 side, and pointing him out the beauties of the scenery. 
 The construction of the Swiss carriages renders such a 
 proceeding comparatively easy. As in America, they 
 are united together by a kind of platform, by means of
 
 108 ROUGE ET NOm. 
 
 wliicli the passengers can pass without danger from one 
 end of tlie train to tlie other. 
 
 On Saturday night, our whole party slept at Olten, 
 a great central point of the Swiss railroads. When the 
 hotel-keeper presented his register to the travellers, the 
 eight ])ersonages with whoni the reader is already ac- 
 quainted, inscribed themselves as follows : 
 
 "Bitterlin, Captain of the first class, Chevalier of the 
 Legion of Honor, etc., etc. ; Paris. With his daughter." 
 
 " Bartolonieo Narni, an exile ; Paris. Happy from 
 travelling in good company." 
 
 "Arthur Le Roy, property - holder ; Paris. Oh! 
 Love, thou hast ruined Troy!" 
 
 " Frederic Moring, private gentleman ; Berlin. Trav- 
 elling with his dearest heart-treasure : 
 
 "O monnthins, lakes of blue! O daisies -spanpled sheen! 
 O tuneful nightingale ! and oh, my own Christine ! " 
 
 " Thomas Plum, London." 
 
 " George Wreck, Esq., New York." 
 
 Having written their names, each one stole back, un- 
 known to the rest, to acquaint himself with the name 
 and standing of his companions. When stout Mr. 
 Plum saw that the American had given himself the title 
 of Esquire in an hotel- register, his fancy was so highly 
 tickled, and he burst into such a fit of violent laughter, 
 that the two lower buttons of his waistcoat flew oif at 
 right angles, and were never found again. 
 
 They retired to their rooms without looking at the 
 neighborhood. The sky was dark and gloomy. It was 
 raining in the valley, and snowing on the mountains. 
 
 M. Bitterlin had stuffed cotton into his ears; still,
 
 A TOUR IN SWITZERLAND. 109 
 
 before he fell asleep, he heard a fine barytone voice, with 
 an unmistakable accent, singing : 
 
 " In vain you resist me, 
 You fly me in vain, 
 For the kind Fates assist me 
 Your heart to obtain," 
 
 Next day they breakfasted at the " Swiss Hotel," in 
 Lucerne, on the shores of the Lake of the Four Cantons. 
 The weather had become fine again. The medieval 
 outline of the pretty little city stood out sharply defined 
 against a lovely azure sky. Steamboats moved over the 
 blue waters. Herds of stately cattle grazed on the rich 
 after-grass of the green banks. Snow-capped moun- 
 tains shut in the scene. Good bisr-footed Switzer-folk 
 promenaded before the hotel in their holiday attire, and 
 some pretty English girls, as they ran up to their rooms, 
 gave occasional glimpses of their red petticoats. M. 
 Arthur Le Roy thought that the country somewhat re- 
 sembled the Bois de Boulogne, only that the style was 
 decidedly better. The Captain stormed about the trout, 
 which he swore pursued him all over the country. 
 Emma and Meo ate with their eyes, and never com- 
 plained of the breakfast. M. M()ring and his pretty 
 bride, becoming frisky from the effects of a bottle of 
 Rhine-wine, chased each other up and down stairs, with 
 all that boisterous gaiety of which Germany alone has 
 contrived to keep the secret. Even long after their door 
 was shut, the whole house resounded with their screams 
 of laughter. Mr. Plum entered the store of national 
 curiosities, which is attached to the hotel. Buvino- a 
 long iron-tipped pole surmounted with a chamois-horn, 
 10
 
 110 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 he got tlic names of all the mountains of Switzerland 
 cut on it. Mr. Wreck followed his example; only, un- 
 willing to be outdone, to the already long list he added 
 the names of Vesuvius, Dhawalaghiri, and Cotopaxi. 
 These monumental trophies, trutiiful as obelisks, were 
 destined for nothing more than the humble ascent of the 
 Ilighi. 
 
 All started in the steamboat about two o'clock, and 
 they soon landed at Weggis, at the foot of the moun- 
 tain. Thanks to the fine weather, our little trooj) of 
 travellers had now swelled to about a score, and they all 
 made a grand assemblage in the little jjort of Weggis. 
 The guides, who compose the whole population of the 
 village, had run up with all the litters and horses at 
 their disposal, but one glance told them that the supply 
 would fall far short of the demand. Violent disputes 
 arose immediately, in which all the languages of Europe 
 took a part; some canes fell down rather heavily on 
 some hats, and Meo for a moment indulged the fond 
 hope that he was about to have an opportunity of de- 
 fending M. Bitterlin. But the Captain was one of 
 those that give blows, not get them ; and of course he 
 was accommodated long before anybody else. He 
 sprang on a charger and galloped over the battlefield, 
 brandishino; his umbrella as if it was a sword of Charlc- 
 inagne. He even tried once or twice to make the poor 
 beast prance a little, thinking of Gerard's famous picture 
 of Napoleon crossing the Alps. His daughter was 
 safely installed in a litter by the exertions of Meo and 
 M. Arthur Le Roy. This duty performed, the two 
 knights plunged into the thick of the fight, and they 
 were soon seen, seated on English saddles, towering
 
 A TOUli IN SWITZERLAND. Ill 
 
 high" above their rivals. Moring and liis bride had 
 retired apart, and, seated side by side on one of tlie 
 hotel benches, they contemplated from afar the spectacle 
 of men's clashing passions: doves never take part in the 
 war of vultures. Unfortunately, having no Avings to 
 climb the mountain, they had to walk. The English- 
 man and the American appeared to be condemned to 
 the same fate, and Mr. Plum had already begun to per- 
 spire at the very idea. fie gazed despondingly on 
 his rival's long legs, and sighed at the idea that Old 
 England was about to be left behind by the savages of 
 the New World. But four students from Leipsic, who 
 had reasons of their own for walking, spied one of their 
 countrymen on one of the best horses of Weggis. Un- 
 able to bear such a sight, they seized the aristocrat by 
 the legs and tugged at him so vigorously that he was 
 soon unseated. Mr. Plum closely watched this popular 
 commotion, and taking advantage of a favorable mo- 
 ment, he jumped like india-rubber into the middle of 
 the crowd, and was soon in the saddle in place of the 
 young stranger. This is the way that the English 
 always feather their nest by the Continental revolutions. 
 The American only shrugged his shoulders and started 
 off with a light foot : he wanted no horse to reach the 
 mountain summit before a fat, puffy John Bull. 
 
 The horsemen, footmen, and litters started on their 
 march in picturesque order, up an easy and safe road. 
 Every Frenchman that can read knows all about the 
 Righi ; M. Alexander Dumas has made it the scene of 
 one of the prettiest sketches in his masterly work. Still 
 the charming author of the " Impressions de Voyage " 
 has probably exaggerated the dangers of the ascent and
 
 112 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 tliG majesty of the view. To speak exactly, it is oiily a 
 hill about a mile high, set right ia the middle of au 
 amphitheatre of mountains : it is a regular dress-circle 
 to see the sun rise from, but the stairway leading to it is 
 not at all difficult. 
 
 M. Bitterlin curveted along at the head of his com- 
 pany, as all good captains do. Meo followed him 
 closely, imitating as well as he could all his splendid 
 feats of high horsemanship. As the magnificent scenery 
 opened around them, he trusted that admiration, that 
 bond of sympathy between all noble hearts, would win 
 for him at last the friendship of the intractable old man. 
 Besides, he still had his hopes of being soon favored 
 with an opportunity to pluck him from the brink of 
 some terrible precipice. But danger was very slow in 
 coming, and M. Bitterlin seemed to be in no admiring 
 humor. Whenever the guide brought his caravan to a 
 halt at some spot famous for its commanding view, the 
 Captain growled between his teeth: "Humbug of a. 
 country ! though it 's not the only one I 've seen." Meo 
 was sincerely ecstatic. His soul had been already fully 
 prepared to relish the spectacle in all its grandeur, for 
 lovers are the most indulgent of critics, and they wish 
 well to everything on the face of nature. But every 
 time that he tried to express his sentiments, the Captain 
 whistled and sneered and hammered away with his heels 
 at the flanks of his old horse. Emma closed the march 
 with five or six other ladies. In all the charming land- 
 scape the only thing that the poor child could see, was 
 her father's back turned to her lover's face. 
 
 After a march of four hours, they came in sight of 
 the llighi-Kulm, that is to say, the tip top of the Righi.
 
 A TOUR IN SWITZERLAND. 113 
 
 Two wooden buikiings occupy this summit: one is 
 where M. Alexander Dumas in company with the iUus- 
 trious Alcide Jollivet got such a poor dinner; the other 
 is an additional structure twice as large as the first. 
 Here three hundred tourists can obtain food and lodging, 
 and an English nobleman is no longer in danger of 
 getting killed for eating an extra lark. So much, at 
 least, for the progress of our century ! 
 
 The only scourge that still reigns on those steep sum- 
 mits, is the cold. M. Bitterlin's big nose, reddened vis- 
 ibly as he approached the hotel, and his horse slipped 
 every now and then on a path not yet quite free from 
 occasional patches of snow. More than once, too, a dense 
 mist, cold as ice, would envelop him, and then he would 
 commence a sneezing as loud as the trumpets of Jericho. 
 Meo, in his wisdom, thought this would be a favorable 
 moment to soften this living rock. " My dear old 
 gentleman," he began, " I feel quite exhilarated at trav- 
 elling with you over these sublime heights. Happy the 
 man who could live here, far from the world, between a 
 father bowed by experience on the one side, and an 
 adored wife on the other ! My ambition has never as- 
 pired after more. INIoney and honors have no charms 
 for me. Such a felicity would suffice me for all my 
 life. I swear it by your venerable locks ! " 
 
 " Zounds ! sir," exclaimed the Captain, in an excited 
 tone, " I 'm not quite a mummy yet, so you had better 
 keep your compliments to yourself. You have a very 
 disagreeable way* of talking, young sir." 
 
 " But, my dear sir — " 
 
 " Once for all, do me the favor to explain such liber- 
 ties ! My dear sir ! dear sir ! It is very easy to say 
 10 * II
 
 Ill ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 dear sir! But liow Imve I come to be your clear sir? 
 ] [:ive we ever mailc; war together ? Have yoii ever 
 served in the Fourth Company of the Second Battalion 
 of the One llundicd and Fourth Regiment? I don't 
 know you. This is the first time I have ever^een you. 
 We 're not even of the same country ! In such a case, 
 then — " 
 
 "Sir," stammered Mco, "affection is not to be com- 
 manded. Regard, friendship, love — I mean grati- 
 tude—" 
 
 " Gratitude for what? I could understand your pro- 
 ceedings easily enough if you had any notion about — 
 Ah ! I understand. In fact, it is likely enough, though 
 it is only to rae that you pay the attentions. Could you 
 have got it into your head to — ? If that be the case, 
 you had better say so right off." 
 
 "Sir—" 
 
 " Yes, better say so right off, for my only answer 
 would be to hurl you down headlong into that ravine 
 beneath us, without a.s much as giving you time to bless 
 yourself! " 
 
 Meo protested that he did not understand what he 
 meant, and he resumed, in the most feeling tones he 
 could command ; " Sir, I comprehend your trouble, and 
 compassionate your sufferings. Doubtless, misfortune 
 has embittered you against the world. The first time 
 I had the honor of meeting you, I discovered in you 
 one of those woe-worn souls where grief has left its 
 mark in lines that cannot be effaced. Your merits 
 must have been passed over, your services forgotten, and 
 your confidence betrayed ! " 
 
 At this last expression the Captain rose up on his
 
 A TOUR IN SWITZERLAND. 115 
 
 stirrups and cast a searching glance into the very depths 
 of Meo's eyes. " Young man," he exclaimed, " I call 
 on you to explain yourself! What do you know? 
 What have you heard ? Who has been trying to cover 
 me with ridicule ? If I only thought — but no, he is 
 too stupid ; he don't know himself what he 's saying. 
 However — Sir, have you ever been at Briangon ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 "Or Strasburg?" 
 
 " No, sir, never." 
 . " How long have you been living in Paris"? " 
 
 "Sir, I came there in 1850." 
 
 " Have you known the late Madame Bitterlin ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; I swear that I have never had that honor." 
 
 " Why do you swear ? W^as there any harm in know- 
 ing her?" 
 
 " Sir, I don't know, I 'm sure. I — " 
 
 " How ! You don't know ! You 're doubtful, too ! 
 I must be a very odd-looking husband, then ? " 
 
 Poor Meo bewildered himself in protestations of re- 
 spect, took off his hat, tore out his hair in handfuls, shed 
 tears even ; but he arrived at the hotel without having 
 advanced a single step in M. Bitterliu's friendship. 
 
 They found two hundred people assembled on the 
 summit of the Righi to adore the sun. The god of the 
 silver bow, the god of Zoroaster and of Chryses, has not 
 in all Europe a temple more frequented. Pilgrims 
 come there from the four quarters of the universe, and 
 the hotel-keeper piously collects their offerings. Such 
 is the ardor of the faithful, that more than one worship- 
 per has been seen there trudging about in the snow and 
 rain for a week at a time, just to catch one glimpse of
 
 116 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 the god. Our caravan had not to wait so long. The 
 sun, who had not sliown himself for the lost four days, 
 condescended to retire to his couch in their presence. 
 M. Bitterlin was only slightly moved by the sight, one 
 of the most imposing spectacles that nature offers to 
 poets for a description. He was thinking of his de- 
 ceased wife, and such thoughts always put too much 
 black into his colors. Emma and Meo watched the 
 clouds as they chased each other over the Captain's 
 Olympian brow. Mr. Wreck was marching around 
 with trreat strides to show Mr. Plum that his walk had 
 not made him tired, while Mr. Plum smiled with an 
 air which seemed to say, " No matter, I have made 
 America go on foot ! " M. Arthur Le Roy was gazing 
 quite pensively at the kitchen-chimneys, and, amid the 
 eternal silence of the mountains, his ear was anxiously 
 on the watch for the dinner-bell. The young German 
 and his bride, wrapped up in the same plaid, were dis- 
 cussing metapliysically the aesthetics of the globe. 
 
 '' Beloved," said the young wife, " whence comes it 
 that the Infinite overwhelms mo? When we gazed on 
 the sea at Osteud, I considered it rather small. Yet the 
 ocean is likewise infinite." 
 
 " Who can tell ? " replied the husband. " It is per- 
 haps'because the Infinite in height brings us nearer to 
 the great All ; whereas the Horizontal, howsoever far it 
 may extend, can never leave the surface of the earth. 
 Beyond the limits of the ocean we find earth again ; but 
 above the mountains, heaven." 
 
 " May it not rather be because the sea has submitted 
 to the yoke of man, so that the ships we see in the dis- 
 tance are only so many tokens of bondage?"
 
 A TOUR IN SWITZERLAND. 117 
 
 " It may, my clear love. Perhaps also it is because 
 the infinite is subjective, which would exj^lain every- 
 thing." 
 
 " Do you really think so, darling ? Subjective ? 
 If the infinite were subjective, it would be circumscribed 
 within the limits of the Me; therefore it would be sub- 
 jective no longer." 
 
 The other travellers were tramping about actively in 
 the melted snow, and uttering loud cries of admiration, 
 to keep their feet warm. 
 
 The bell rang at last for dinner, and the two hundred 
 guests raced • to the refectory. The only incident of the 
 evening was the scolding that M. Bitterlin gave to one 
 of the waiters. " Do you want to' make a fool of me ? " 
 cried the Captain. " You brought me trout yesterday 
 morning in the hotel at Basel ; well, I ate them. Yes- 
 terday evening, trout again at Olten ; but I said nothing. 
 This morning at Lucerne, a third dish of trout ; I com- 
 mented upon it ; and here you are again with them this 
 evening ! Have you taken a solemn oath to turn me 
 into a trout ? Is that all the attention you pay to my 
 observations ? " 
 
 The poor domestic stood before him holding the dish 
 with a bewildered air, and pouring every drop of the 
 gravy over a Swedish general's coat, for he did not un- 
 derstand a word of French. Meo, who was acquainted 
 with both sides of the case, did not judge this a favor- 
 able moment to interfere in M. Bitterliu's behalf. 
 
 M. Moring and his bride emptied between them a 
 bottle of Liebfrauenmilch. It is a much - esteemed 
 Rhine wine ; but M. Arthur Le Roy did not look at 
 it in a serious light. He said to Meo in a whisper :
 
 118 ROUGE ET NO I It. 
 
 " Xobodv but a German coukl ever think of baptizing 
 wine with a name so absurd ! It seems to me tlia't Ger- 
 many is painted to tlie life in this mixture of wine, love, 
 and milk. Liehfrauenmikh ! I've been in love occa- 
 sionally, as La Fontaine says ; but I '11 be hanged if I 'd 
 ever hanker after tasting Liehfraueniidlrh at its natural 
 source ! " 
 
 jNIr. Wreck dinetl in I'ront of Mr. Plum. The Eng- 
 lishman ordered a bottle of claret ; the American did 
 the same. Plum immediately considered it a point of 
 honor to call for a bottle of Chamhertin.. Wreck at 
 once accepted the challenge; he also drank a bottle of 
 Chamhertin. Plum replied by a bottle of Champagne. 
 Wreck drank a bottle of Champagne, too, without wink- 
 ing. When the others rose from the table, each of the 
 two rivals was trying to empty a flask of Tokay. Plura_ 
 had inscribed himself in the register as "Sir Thomas 
 Plum." Wreck signed himself" Count George Wreck." 
 
 All retired to bed at an early hour. Plum slept under 
 the dinner-table. Wreck, from national pride, slept 
 on it. 
 
 The two hundred guests of the Righi, scattered 
 through their little rooms, were just beginning to snore 
 in unison, when a mighty voice was heard thundering 
 through the house, shaking it to its very foundation. 
 It was M. Bitterlin who, with a tricolored silk hand- 
 kerchief for a night-cap, was exclaiming to the German 
 chambermaid : 
 
 " Yes, yes, you don't understand a word of French. 
 Go off, then, and tell a servant that does, to come here 
 immediately and make my bed over again !"
 
 BADEN. 119 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BADEN. 
 
 THE Swiss tour lasted two weeks, over lakes and 
 mountains, under the generalship of M. Bitterlin. 
 The little caravan, augmented by a few intruders of 
 no consequence, admired in succession the beautiful 
 meadow-lands, the glorious old forests, the sunrises and 
 the rain-storms, the waterfalls and the glaciers. They 
 gathered a few bouquets of Alp-roses. Meo even took 
 courage to present one to the Captain, who put it into 
 his pocket, with a dry " thank you." They met no 
 chamois, ate no beefsteak of bear ; nor did they ascend 
 Mont Blanc for the pleasure of seeing the wrong side 
 of the clouds, which has a singular resemblance to the 
 right side. They stopped twice a day in hotels that 
 were delightfully clean ; they took good meals off tables 
 of snowy whiteness and fragrant odor ; they slept in 
 beds of incomparable comfort. The traveller who 
 travels for the sake of travelling, that is to say, to eat 
 well, to journey comfortably, and to rest at night with- 
 out being tired in the morning, should give the prefer- 
 ence to Switzerland. Even the Captain himself ac- 
 knowledged this, whenever he happened not to be in a 
 bad humor. All the towns they went through resem- 
 bled each other more or less. They are of all sizes : 
 some big, some little, some overhanging the Rhine, 
 some seated on the shore of a blue lake. They contain 
 many new houses and some old churches, stylish build- 
 ings of equivocal taste, varied horizons, rapid waters,
 
 120 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 autl j)oivcUiiii ])ipes. Every time tliat the caravan passed 
 before a pretty cottage embosomed in gardens, Meo 
 turned back his head, and always met Emma's respon- 
 sive ghince. Young Madame Miiring did better : she 
 made her husband put his head out of the window and 
 kissed him outside the carriage. Poor Meo ! He had 
 not even the consohition of rubbing his moustache 
 against the Captain's. 
 
 One day, however, he came very near possessing the 
 happiness he had been so long dreaming about. It was 
 at Schaffhauscu before the Falls of the Rhine. The 
 Captain, who despised beaten paths, ventured too near 
 the edge and lost his footing. " At last ! " thought 
 Meo, and oif he dashed to save his fatlier-in-law. But 
 his zeal carried him too far — a little beyond the branch 
 which M. Bitterlin had grasped. So the savior had the 
 mortification of being saved himself by the very man 
 to whose assistance he had run ; and when he tried to 
 express his gratitude, he was told that for such fool- 
 hardiness he richly deserved to have broken his neck. 
 
 As he was brushing the dust oif in a corner in a very 
 melancholy manner, M. Arthur Le Roy, his faithful 
 confederate, joined him, saying: 
 
 "My poor fellow, you're too awkward to live. Two 
 chances ! and to lose them both ! " 
 
 "Two?" 
 
 "Yes, two: a good one and a middling one. First, 
 you had the chance of seizing the old gentleman by the 
 arm and restoring him to his fellow-citizens. This, 
 however, I consider only a middling chance, seeing that 
 old Bitterlin will never prove anything else than an im- 
 possible father-in-law. Secondly, you had the chance
 
 BADEN. 121 
 
 of seizing him only by the wig, and this I consider the 
 good one." — " Why so ?" — " Why, the wig would have 
 remained in your hands, the Captain would have gone 
 headforemost fishing for trout, and then you could marry 
 his daughter, who would feel that that was the least re- 
 turn she could make you." 
 
 Meo answered with a heavy sigh : 
 
 " You take nothing seriously." 
 
 " I don't ! I certainly treat the situation with all the 
 gravity it admits of And, look here! to show how 
 willing I am to serve you, I am going to carry you off 
 to-day." 
 
 " You 're leaving us then ! " 
 
 " O gracious, yes ; I 'm starting off, horse and foot. 
 It seems the bank down there in Baden is just now in 
 fine bleeding humor. They talk about an Austrian who 
 burst it two or three times one day." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, I 'm going to enter the lists in my turn, and 
 my battle-cry shall be, ' Saute pour Le Roy ! ' Allow 
 me my little joke. Ha! ha! ha!" 
 
 " But what shall become of me if you go ? " 
 
 " Why, you 're coming with me ! Listen. I 'm no 
 longer a schoolboy, I know the world a little, and I 
 want no spectacles to see what a man has in his bag. 
 Your old Bitterlin is a bear of the bad kind, of the 
 kind they don't tame. For the last two weeks you have 
 been stroking him on the back, saying, ' Poor fellow ! 
 good fellow ! ' What have you gained by it ? " 
 
 " Well, he is rather familiar with me ; he snubs me a 
 
 little, and gives me an occasional hard rap on the 
 
 knuckles : that counts for something, you know." 
 11
 
 122 EOUOEETXOIR. 
 
 " Push on, keep moving! as somebody says. At that 
 rate you '11 begin to have a chance somewhere about 
 1958." 
 
 " No matter, I can't leave her. I '11 follow her to 
 the last. And then, who knows ? perhaps M. Bitterlin 
 will be moved with my perseverance. What if every- 
 thing he does is only done just to try me?" 
 
 " You might as well say that the cannon-balls plunge 
 through the ranks only just to try the soldiers. The 
 man is a brute : if you don't like the word, we will 
 only say he is brutified. Pie don't like you ; he don't 
 like his daughter ; he likes nothing in the world, not 
 even the trout ; and if you ever get anything out of 
 him, it won't be by attacking him on his sentimental 
 side. I have said my say." 
 
 " But, in the name of heaven, how should I attack 
 him then ? " 
 
 "How the deuce can I tell you? I don't know any- 
 thing about the handling of hedgehogs. My education, 
 you see, has in some points been very much neglected ! " 
 
 Such were the last consolations that Meo received 
 from his friend. Towards the end of breakfast, M. 
 Le Roy announced his intention of starting immediately 
 for Baden. The Captain replied, quite graciously : 
 
 " Pleasant journey, gentlemen." 
 
 " But," stammered Meo, " we are not going — excuse 
 me — the gentleman is going alone — however, if there 
 is no objection — " 
 
 " What difference does it make to us ? " replied the 
 Captain. " Every one for himself in travelling. The 
 gentleman has his business, he goes to his business ; 
 others do nothing at all ; well, then, let them do as they 
 please ! "
 
 BADEN. 123 
 
 "Oh! as for that matter," said the Parisian, " my 
 business is very simple. I 'm going to pay ten thou- 
 sand francs to a worthy man who won't trouble me with 
 a receipt. It is the fashion in Paris. Since the dis- 
 covery of California, Australia, and all kinds of coun- 
 tries ending in ia, gold arrives in such abundance, that 
 we no longer know where to stow it. It incommodes us, 
 it wearies us, it tears our pockets, it gives our hands the 
 fidgets. There's no standing it, on my word of 
 honor ! What do we do then ? We go to Baden for 
 the waters, and we come away perfectly cured." 
 
 M. Bitterlin's brow grew as black as night. " You 
 are a gambler?" said he. "I should have readily 
 believed that of many other people, — of this gentleman 
 for instance, — but never of you. As for me, Vv'henever 
 I am asked to take a hand, it has been always ray uni- 
 form habit to reply, ' I 'm neither poor enough to be 
 in want of your money, nor rich enough to make you a 
 present of mine.' " 
 
 " But, sir, I have had rich uncles enough to make me 
 win without pleasure and lose without regret. I com- 
 menced at Paris by playing cards among a set of rich 
 young fellows. It is well understood that when friends 
 have dined together, the best way to get sober again is 
 by exchanging bits of painted pasteboard. This kind 
 of soda-water cost me a good deal more than the 
 apothecary's. Sometimes I lost, sometimes I won ; but 
 as there were ladies always in the party, I generally got 
 home without a cent, tired out with a stupid night, my 
 nails dirty, ray head heavy, and my face sallow. I 
 slept next day till five o'clock in the afternoon, endless 
 ghosts of Right Bowers and Left Bowers fluttering
 
 124 ROUGE ETNOIK. 
 
 arouncl my pillow. After two or three years of practice 
 of this kind, which had gained for me no enviable repu- 
 tation, I at last formed quite an heroic resolution. I dug 
 a channel for my vice. Gaming cost me on an average 
 five hundred napoleons a year, without counting health, 
 reputation, temjier, and all my friends, whom I never 
 saw again because I lent them money. I find it prefer- 
 able every way to lose ten thousand francs once a year 
 at Baden : it is less compromising, less tiresome, more 
 healthy, and sooner over. I am always sure that the 
 Bank has no trumps hid away in his sleeve, and I 'm 
 perfectly certain that he won't borrow twenty-five louis 
 of me to pay for a carriage at six o'clock in the morn- 
 ing. If, in spite of every impossibility, I should happen 
 to win, I can pocket the stakes without shame, and 
 without the consciousness of carrying: off the bread be- 
 longing to some poor family. The Bank is a bodiless 
 Personage; you can swoop on fifty thousand of his 
 francs at Rouge et Noir without being afraid of hearing 
 next day that he has blown his brains out. If, on the* 
 contrary, it is the Bank that snaps up my money, there 's 
 no danger of any one going to brag about it in the four 
 quarters of Paris, and destroying ray credit by asserting 
 that I 'm ruined. These are my reasons." 
 
 " What, sir ! " replied the Captain, " you are young, 
 intelligent, well-bred, far better bred than this gentle- 
 man for instance, and yet you 've got no better way to 
 spend your time and money than that? You should 
 try to do something ! Yes, confound it, you should do 
 something ! " 
 
 "Alas! sir, ray studies don't qualify rac to be a ma- 
 chinist, a hatter, nor a professor in the Sorbonne. I
 
 BADEN. 125 
 
 miglit Indeed have begged for some government employ- 
 ment, as well as any other fool that dances attendance in 
 the ante-chambers of the administration. Bat no, thank 
 you, that kind of sport don't suit me ; it is too uncer- 
 tain. I might have gambled in the stocks, and so I 
 Avould too, only I could never learn the rules of the 
 game. Besides, at such a play I could easily lose more 
 than I 'm worth, and I should not be pleased to find my 
 honor gone with the rest some fine morning. At last, 
 my only resource left was to get married. But of all 
 gambling speculations, perhaps the very worst is matri- 
 mony. Not only is it likely that you don't win the 
 prize you want, but the great probability is that you do 
 win the prize you don't want, and that for a lifetime 
 too ! So then. Captain, that is the reason why I invite 
 you to drink a glass of Chartreuse to the good city of 
 Baden and to M. Benazet, its prophet." 
 
 " You '11 excuse me," said the Captain. " My opin- 
 ions on the subject are unalterable, and with heart and 
 soul do I support the noble idea of the statesman 
 who succeeded in putting down public gambling in 
 Paris." 
 
 "Of course! He did well! Who maintains the 
 
 contrary ? Paris is swarming with young men, who are 
 
 continually carrying backwards and forwards bags of 
 
 money for their employers. If we still had a " 113" 
 
 or a " Frascati" these poor fellows would come back 
 
 empty-handed, and France could never get galleys 
 
 enough to lodge them comfortably. But Baden is a 
 
 hundred and fifty leagues from Paris ; it costs something 
 
 to get there, something to lodge there, something to 
 
 eat twice a day there ; and when a man has the means 
 11*
 
 120 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 of supporting all this expense, the green table does him 
 very little harm in relieving him of his extra money." 
 
 The Captain blew his nose with great solemnity, and 
 then replied : 
 
 *' You have no difficulty in expressing yourself, sir. 
 You and your friend here belong to a society that is 
 destined to come to a bad end some day or other by its 
 love for paradox. But an officer arrived at my age 
 never denies the principles that have been his guide 
 through life. Gaming, like every other means of ac- 
 quiring riches without labor, is in itself morally wrong. 
 I have forbidden it to my subalterns and my soldiers, I 
 have forbidden it to myself, and I would sooner re- 
 nounce the name of Bitterlin forever than deviate one 
 jot or tittle from the line that honor has traced out for 
 me. ' Strait-laced ' and ' innocent ' as much as you like ! 
 But it is with strait-laced innocents like me that Lycur- 
 gus the Spartan conquered the world ! " 
 
 " But did he conquer the world ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir, of course he did. I shall not have the 
 pleasure of seeing you again at Baden. That locality 
 had been included in my route, but now that you have 
 acquainted me with the kind of life led there, Baden 
 will have to provide means to do without my pres- 
 ence ! " 
 
 Little Madame Moring, who seldom spoke to any 
 one but her husband, now exclaimed loudly against 
 such a resolution. 
 
 " My good gracious ! then, sir, you 're very wrong," 
 said she. "Before I married my dear Fritz, I spent a 
 season at Baden, and I never so much as heard one 
 word spoken about play. It is a delightful country,
 
 BADEHr. 127 
 
 shady, sylvan, verdant, poetic as one of our Gessner's 
 idyls. You meet the best society in Germany there ; 
 aulic councillors, canon esses of noble blood, knights of 
 the Eed Eagle, and even reigning Highnesses. Half of 
 our time was passed in excursions through the Black 
 Forest, in picnics up in the Old Castle, at the ' Bear,' 
 or at the ^Horn;' the rest went in concerts, horse- 
 races, balls, and plays. We had French actors, and 
 pieces written expressly for us by the first authors of 
 Paris. I spent three months there, and the only play- 
 ing I ever saw was at the theatre or the opera." 
 
 She finished her little speech suifused with blushes, 
 and kissed her husband's hand to keep herself in coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 "Madame tells the truth," replied M. Le Roy. 
 "Nine-tenths of the travellers who lose their money at 
 Baden are attracted there by such baits. The landscapes 
 of the Black Forest, — baits ! The Highnesses of Ger- 
 many, — baits ! Eaces, hunts, plays, concerts, — baits, 
 baits, baits! I have remarked that all the walks in 
 the Park sloped down gently towards the green table 
 in the Conversations Haus. I have met Highnesses 
 out promenading, and, without thinking of it, they led 
 me straight to the roulette-table. I have run a steeple- 
 chase in a puce-colored jacket, and even wou a prize of 
 two thousand francs ; but I was not long in losing it 
 back again, and twi-ce as much besides, at Rouge et Noir. 
 I only just changed my dress, and, presto! my money 
 had changed masters. Our artists go there to draw the 
 public from other resorts, but they are requested to sing 
 false so as to send their audience to the gaming-table. 
 Our celebrated authors write plays for Baden, but they
 
 128 BOUOE ET NOIR. 
 
 are ordered to make them as tiresome as possible, so 
 that the crowds, attracted by the name, are repelled by 
 the piece. Now and then a stag is hunted in the Black 
 Forest, but still, with a sharp eye for business, the beast 
 is hardly cold before the hunters are shelled out. For 
 my part, however, I don't complain, for I know very 
 •well what I 'm going to do at Baden. It is not the 
 bait that draws me there but the hook." 
 
 " Yes," added M. INIori ng, with a keen, quiet smile. 
 " Great is the difference between the country we are in 
 and the country we are going to. Excuse me, if I 
 express myself badly in a language not my own. It 
 seems to me that Mother Switzerland is a good, stout old 
 lady, who gives us plenty to eat and drink in a splendid 
 hotel, where the wall-jiaper is painted with moun- 
 tains, waterfalls, and chalets. She is the widow, she 
 says, of a celebrated man that nobody has ever seen, and 
 whose very existence is contested ; still she puts his por- 
 trait on every chimney-piece in the house, an apple in one 
 of his hands, and a bow in the other. You are not com- 
 pelled to believe everything she chooses to tell about the 
 deceased ; but as she is a kind, good soul, and has treated 
 you well, you kiss her on both cheeks at parting, and 
 you promise to yourself to return. As for Mademoiselle 
 Baden, she is a young lady, very brilliant, very well 
 dressed ; she rides on horseback, she hunts, she dances, 
 she sings, she acts comedy, all in the perfection of fash- 
 !ion; but she makes free with her friends' purses and 
 sends them away empty-handed. She is, however, none 
 the less pretty for all that." 
 
 The conversation now became general, as usually hap- 
 pens at a tabic d'hote when one of the guests has begun
 
 BADEX. 129 
 
 to speak aloud. Out of the twenty-two persons who 
 breakfasted together that morning at the Falls of the 
 Rhine, fourteen had become acquainted with Baden by- 
 losing money there. These competent judges unani- 
 mously decided, that to avoid Baden was easy enough, 
 but that, once there, a saint himself would be compelled 
 by iron necessity to empty his pockets. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said M. Moriug to the Captain, " you do 
 well to change your route. However great may be your 
 firmness, it would bend like an iron rod in the furnace. 
 I '11 not cite you my own personal experience, for when- 
 ever I had to pass through Baden, I always provided 
 myself beforehand with an extra sum for roulette. But 
 here's a little anecdote which may perhaps aid you 
 somewhat in your reflections. A pastor of my country, 
 the venerable M. Leuckel, went to Baden in 1854, to 
 collect materials for a great sermon against gambling. 
 He was accompanied by his wife and his two daughters. 
 I saw the whole four of them myself, the second day after 
 their arrival, with a little card in' one hand and a pin in 
 the other, seated around the Rouge et Noir table. Tlie 
 little family had already lost as much as fifteen hundred 
 florins." 
 
 "And the sermon?" asked M. Le Roy. 
 
 " I heard it the following winter. It was magnifi- 
 cent, sir. It moved the whole audience to tears, par- 
 ticularly Madame Leuckel." 
 
 " What does all that prove ? " observed the Captain, 
 roughly. " Just that your pastor was no man of prin- 
 ciple. Now," he added, modestly lowering his voice, " I 
 am a man of principle — " 
 
 " But even the just man falls seven times a day."
 
 130 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 "Never in tlie regiment, sir. What authority could 
 I liave exercised over my men, if I had not always 
 preached by example? There's no better preacher liv- 
 ing than an officer without a fault, as I flatter myself I 
 have been, I know all kinds of games, and I am even 
 a pretty keen hand at them. At piquet, at dominoes, 
 at billiards, the very best of you might find me an ugly 
 customer ; but nobody can boast of having ever seen me 
 win or lose anything, not even so much as a glass of 
 absinthe or a cup of coffee ! " 
 
 "No matter for that," said M. Le Roy, "you do well 
 to keep clear of Baden. The best means of avoiding 
 sin is to fly from temptation." 
 
 " What temptation ? For me it would be no tempta- 
 tion whatever ! — " 
 
 Loud expressions of dissent came from all sides. 
 
 "No," he resumed, "not the least temptation in the 
 world, and here's my proof. I will continue my route 
 the same as if nothing had happened. I will go straight 
 to Baden. I will pass a whole day at the gaming-table 
 with money in my pockets, and you will see if I ven- 
 ture even a ten-cent piece." 
 
 " Will you take a bet on it?" 
 
 " No, sir. In the first place, it would be robbing 
 you of your money ; and in the second place, I am a 
 man of principle, and betting is gambling." 
 
 The Captain spoke so loud and with such decision, 
 that public opinion veered round a little. M. Le Roy 
 certainly was a little too generous in handing his own 
 failin<rs over to others. To insist to a man's face that 
 he's going to begin gambling, though he has never done 
 anything of the kind for sixty years, rather borders on
 
 BADEN. 131 
 
 impertinence. Mr. Plum offered a bet of twenty pounds 
 that the Captain would not play. M. Le Roy accepted 
 it at once, and then took leave of the company. 
 
 This departure, depriving Meo of his ally, surrendered 
 him up, bound hand and foot, to the tender mercies of 
 M. Bitterlin. The cantankerous old man now spoke to 
 him willingly and familiarly enough, but it was not 
 because he had become one bit more kindly disposed 
 towards him. If, in his normal condition in Paris, and 
 at rest, the Captain could be considered a noxious ani- 
 mal, travelling had only rendered him worse. Con- 
 stant motion, bracing air, change of diet, all the details 
 of travelling, develop in a man a superabundance of life 
 •which is not likely to turn wolves into sheej). It is a 
 kind of plethora, a lustihood, a rage of the senses, an 
 unchaining of the energies. Never had the Captain's 
 ill-temper blazed out with more brilliant venom ; never 
 had the old chords of his excessive sensitiveness grated 
 more harshly at the slightest touch. With his daughter 
 he tried to be gentle, because she had once held her own 
 with him, because he expected in time to bring her back 
 to his own way of thinking, and because people were 
 present; domestic tyrants, when out in the world, are 
 always on their guard. But an unfortunate stranger 
 who sought his friendship, who surrendered to him 
 without a murmur, who accepted his kicks with grati- 
 tude — he of course was the victim destined to bear all 
 the weight of his perverse temper. Accordingly, in a 
 few days, Meo became his target, his hack, his patented 
 victim. He abused the mild temper of the Italian 
 most shamefully. He treated him the more waspishly 
 as Meo was handsome and himself ugly, as Meo was
 
 132 HOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 tall aiul himself short. Men of short stature, when 
 allowed their way, are implacable. The stranger's res- 
 ignation, which would have disarmed lions and tigers, 
 only excited the little Captain to greater fury ; he only 
 plunged his sharp talons and his rending beak with 
 grimmer satisfaction into this unresisting and bleeding 
 flesh. 
 
 Meo never, not even once, thought of strangling the 
 wicked animal, though to do so would have been mere 
 child's play to him. With the resignation of a martyr 
 he followed a path strewed with thorns. Not only in 
 private was he perfectly submissive, but even in public, 
 before dozens of witnesses, would he patiently pocket 
 all kinds of insults. More than once he caught in the 
 eyes of his companions looks of compassion that sent 
 the blood boiling up to his brain ; but his love was of a 
 robust constitution, and a glance from Emma amply 
 consoled him for everything. Frenchmen could never 
 bear such treatment, because their vanity constitutes 
 more than the half of even their most serious passions.
 
 AITRELIA. 133 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AURELIA. 
 
 THE departure of M. Le Eoy was the signal for the 
 general breaking up of the party. Tlie little 
 caravan was totally dispersed in four or five days. One 
 took the right, the other the left, and all promised to" 
 meet together ao;ain at Baden-Baden ; for Swiss tours 
 always end thei-e. INIeo himself was obliged to separate, 
 as soon as he found himself the last one left with the 
 Captain and his daugliter: too obstinate a fidelity would 
 have ended by compromising him. 
 
 He left them then, with death in his heart, and his 
 j)Ockets almost empty. It was at Freiburg in the 
 Breisgau, in one of the best hotels, that he took leave 
 of the intractable father-in-law. That very morning, 
 in the railway-carriage, he had managed to whisper his 
 adieu to Emma. The Captain, who looked on him as 
 too ridiculous to be dangerous, had fallen asleep be- 
 fore his face. Meo, therefore, had time enough to paint 
 all his grief and despair, to recapitulate all that he had 
 done and suffered, and to put in a clear light the utter 
 vanity of his efforts and the complete extinction of his 
 resources. He proved clearly to the young girl that her 
 father would never think of yielding, which, however, 
 did not require much demonstration. He described the 
 exhausted condition of his soul, broken by a useless 
 struggle, and incapable of rallying to a new assault. 
 His patience even was worn out, and he felt he had not 
 
 strength enough left him to wait for the time when 
 12
 
 134 ROJJGE ET NOIR. 
 
 Eiumu could legally become his. The end of two years 
 seemed to him farther off than the end of the world; he 
 Avas sure of dying long before that. For even suppos- 
 ing sickness of heart did not kill him by that time, 
 jDOverty would be sure to Jo the business. His financial 
 report gave the last touch to the already too gloomy 
 picture. He told her how his modest resources were 
 completely exhausted, how the situation that had sup- 
 ported him was abandoned, and how, even if he still 
 held it, the violence of his passion rendered anything 
 like labor absolutely intolerable. Such an artless 
 avowal, which would Imve perhaps extinguished all love 
 in a woman less captivated, only redoubled Emma's 
 interest and tender affection. Six months before, she 
 might have perhaps repelled with disdain a man Avith- 
 out fortune or prospects ; but woman's love, after it has 
 acquired a certain headway, is not to be extinguished by 
 obstacles : they rather fan it and make it blaze more 
 fiercely. It is like a house on fire, water only adds fuel 
 to the flames. The innocent little creature promised to 
 do everything in her power — to die with ^Nleo if she 
 could not live with him. Of all the oaths that passion 
 dictates to young people, this is the easiest to keep : the 
 annals of love are full of double suicides. Meo, with- 
 out hesitation, adopted this heroic remedy, which, how- 
 ever, has never remedied anything. Pie considered it 
 perfectly natural that Emma should be willing to die 
 with him, and the thought never once occurred to him 
 that it was his stern duty to refuse with horror the ac- 
 ceptance of any such sacrifice. 
 
 What clearly proves the innocence of these two great 
 babies is, that they rushed right straight to this extrem-
 
 AURELIA. 135 
 
 ity without stopping, even mentally, at any intermediate 
 station. Tliey never examined if the problem of their 
 destiny presented any solution less legitimate than mar- 
 riage and less disagreeable than death. As soon as they 
 considered it plainly demonstrated that fate would not 
 permit their union, their only reflection thenceforward 
 was, wdiich of all the roads leading into the other world 
 they should select. Fortunately, before they had made 
 a choice, M. Bitterlin awoke, and the final decision was 
 deferred until the next interview% 
 
 After Meo's departure, when the Captain found him- 
 self alone with his daughter, the first quarter of an hour 
 was not altogether without embarrassment. It was not 
 Emma that felt herself uneasy. Her resolution had 
 been so decided, and her determination was so fixed and 
 unalterable, that she no longer considered herself an in- 
 habitant of the earth. She was gazing at the other 
 world through a keyhole, as it were, waiting till her 
 lover came and opened the door. The Captain, who 
 had no such grounds for tranquillity of soul, felt himself 
 rather unpleasantly ill at ease. Ever since the w^ar 
 which his daughter had dared to wage against him, and 
 the truce which had been concluded at their departure 
 from Paris, he had never had ten minutes' conversation 
 in succession with the fair insurgent. If he had ever 
 found himself alone with her, it was generally at night, 
 when travellers are only thinking of going to bed. On 
 such occasions, a little kiss, very dry, supplied the place 
 of all discourse ; then they both retired to their own 
 rooms, closing the door of communication without lock- 
 ing it. But the day that the two adversaries saw them- 
 selves, after breakfast, face to face for the first time,
 
 136 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 without witnesses, in a large room tapestried witli the 
 adventures of Psyche, Emma shut herself up in a list- 
 less silence, playing on the plate with the point of lier 
 fork, whilst the Captain was laboriously searching some 
 means of breaking the ice. He found no better way to 
 begin than by passing in review all the failings and 
 ridiculous points of the companion who had just left 
 them : it was just his usual tact. He pitched into Meo 
 with great spirit; he lashed himself into fury over him 
 and tore him to pieces with decided satisfaction. The 
 dear man had two-edged fangs, like those ill-traincd 
 spaniels that cannot bring back a partridge without 
 butchering it. Emma let him have his say, without 
 even shrugging her shoulders ; but her eyes expressed 
 the deep and implacable disdain of a devotee who hears 
 his god blasphemed. 
 
 The orator was not long in jumping from particulars 
 to generals ; he extended to all young men of the pres- 
 ent day the judgment that, he had passed on Meo, and 
 proved clearly that no woman could decently fall in love 
 with such baboons. Emma did not maintain the con- 
 trary. Encouraged by this approving silence, he ad- 
 vanced gradually, and began to scold his daughter for 
 what he called her crotchets. He reproached her for 
 having placed no confidence in him ; he congratulated 
 himself on the good eifects of the trip, and he rejoiced 
 at seeing the family once more reconciled. He went 
 still further, for he was by no means delicacy personified. 
 He ventured to tell his child that her deceased mother's 
 conduct had been, if not exactly guilty, at least light; 
 that she had rendered him unhappy ; that he had a right 
 to some compensation, and that he expected to find it in
 
 AURELIA. 137 
 
 his dauglitcr's fidelity and goo.d conduct. " And what 
 do I ask?" he continued. "Just that you help me to 
 die in peace, without being obliged to change any of my 
 old habits. I have bread enough for my old days, my 
 health is not bad, this head of mine is one of the solidest 
 that nature has put together since Napoleon's time ; all 
 I want is tranquillity. If you had obstinately persisted 
 in your folly, you would have been a parricide, neither 
 more nor less. You would have disordered my affairs 
 and made a beggar of me in the first place. And then 
 what? Would you have left me all alone, like an old 
 Pariah, in order to go off and plunge into dissipation 
 with your husband? Or w^ould you have brought into 
 my house a gentleman that I know nothing about, who 
 cannot enter into my ideas, who would want to be the 
 master and ride rough-shod over me ? You have too 
 good a heart. If you were capable of such infamous 
 conduct, it would be simply because you had never been 
 my child at all, and your mother had perjured herself 
 on her death-bed in swearing that you were ! " 
 
 Emma replied not, wept not, showed neither sorrow 
 nor anger. Against the assailing selfishness of her 
 fatlier, she took refuge in the absorbing selfishness of 
 her love. 
 
 In the meantime, Meo arrived at Baden and pro- 
 ceeded to the Victoria Hotel, where M. Le Rov had 
 promised to meet him. He found him in his dressing- 
 gown at five o'clock in the evening, in the midst of the 
 strangest kind of furniture. The bureau, the cenfre-table, 
 the dressing-table, and even the floor, were hidden from 
 sight by an innumerable quantity of blue, green, or red 
 
 crystals ; multitudes of notions in white wood, Swiss cot- 
 12*.
 
 138 ROUGEETNOIR. 
 
 tages, boxes, paper-knives, and clocks of the Bkick For- 
 est, completed the curious assortment. Tiie owner of 
 so many Monders was walking up and down, more 
 gloomv in the midst of his treasures than Marius amonaf 
 
 i-> 
 
 & 
 
 the ruins of Carthage. As soon as he saw his old com- 
 panion, he jumped to welcome him. 
 
 "By Jove," he exclaimed, "you arrive in good 
 time ! Have you any money ? " 
 
 " Eleven napoleons, at your service." 
 
 " Hurrah ! You 're a Croesus." 
 
 "You think so? That constitutes the sum total of 
 my fortune at present and to come." 
 
 " He has eleven napoleons at Baden, and yet he com- 
 plains ! First of all, my dear fellow, you invite me to 
 dinner." 
 
 " With all my heart." 
 
 " Oh ! but wait a moment. I 'm going to bring the 
 
 Duke of S and Prince D , two friends of mine, 
 
 who, like myself, have nt)t yet breakfasted. Be civil 
 with them j they are a pair of millionaires." 
 
 Meo's eyes opened wide. 
 
 " You don't understand me," continued the Parisian. 
 " I 'm cleaned out, my boy, and these gentlemen, too, 
 and many others besides, whom, however, I shall not 
 bring for fear of abusing your hospitality. For the 
 last two days, the Bank has been simply awful. Only 
 think : if I had packed up and left Baden the night be- 
 fore last, I should have carried off sixty thousand francs, 
 clear winnings! I began by winning everything before 
 rae; first a series of reds, then a series of blacks. I 
 was holding on valiantly to black, when all at once, by 
 pure inspiration, I scent a turn in the luck : I halve my
 
 AURELIA. 139 
 
 stake, and then stop altogether. Crack ! The bank 
 has a 'refaW and cleans the board. Hadn't I a good 
 nose ? I go back to the red, and the luck follows me. 
 Ten reds in succession ! As I was the leader, I did 
 very well for myself and for others too. Every one 
 punted with me; there weren't two louis on the black. 
 Unfortunately, the clock struck twelve. It would have 
 taken us no more than another half-hour to break the 
 bank ! " 
 
 " I must warn you," interrupted Meo, " that I do not 
 understand the game you are speaking of." 
 
 " You '11 know it well enough only too soon, my poor 
 friend : it is horribly simple. Then I came back to 
 this room, yes, to this very cursed room, with my 
 seventy thousand francs in notes, napoleons, fredericks ; 
 there was even a florin among the lot. Next morning, 
 as soon as I opened my eyes, I registered a vow not to 
 play again for a year. I visited the stores to amuse 
 myself innocently in making 'purchases of no account. 
 I gave five-franc pieces to the beggars ; I lent handfuls 
 of gold to some friends of mine that had been run dry 
 — an investment for winter, you understand. I took 
 a carriage-ride out in the country, and I found the 
 scenery very fine ; I thought every leaf I saw was signed 
 by the President of the Bank of France. Oh, why 
 did n't I go back to France ? Ah ! yes indeed, why 
 did n't I ? Stop, it 's your fault ! I had promised to 
 meet you here ! It is you who have ruined me. 
 Here 's a man that costs me seventy thousand francs ! 
 Ten thousand I don't regret ; they had been brought 
 here to be lost. But those sixty thousand were not in- 
 tended to be lost, and the proof of that is, that I had
 
 1 40 R O U G E K T X O I R . 
 
 won them ! "Well, to stop my mouth, you have, got to 
 feed rae. I am waiting for money : a good many of us 
 here are very mucli interested in the arrival of the mail. 
 But the post-ofliee here is behind the times, a poor one- 
 liorse affair. I thought for a moment of raising money 
 with the faney goods you see lying around here. But 
 those who sold them won't take them back unless at a 
 reduction of eighty-five per cent. ! They say they are 
 all ugly and in bad taste, and I 'm beginning to be of 
 their opinion. Do you want a pretty Swiss cottage, my 
 .pf)or Narni? or a cuckoo-clock? or a horn of blue 
 crystal? Hey! it is broken! Brittle gimcrackery! 
 touch them with your foot and they fly into shivers 1 
 Take care, don't tread on that glass, my brave. Walk 
 over this way among the cottages, it is more rural. 
 Apropos! How is your love affair getting on? is the 
 pretty blonde right well ? have you tamed the old Mo- 
 hican? I bet you have n't. Have they arrived here yet? 
 I have ventured twenty-five louis on his head ; I should 
 take it very kind of him to let me win them just now. 
 Ah! I was forgetting. We have a lady from your 
 country in the Royal Hotel. She knows you ; I think 
 she knows you very well : I 'm sure she speaks very 
 well of you, at least. A splendid woman ! Juno in 
 person ! Sporting-men call her the great Aurelia. She 
 won five thousand francs on my luck, and had the good 
 sense to hold on to them. I promised her your visit. Go 
 see her, old fellow ; everything consoles a little. Hunts- 
 men have a proverb on this subject: 'For want of 
 thrushes we must be satisfied with elephants.' Heavens ! 
 how amusing you look with that corpse-face of yours ! 
 Could you have any remote intention of blowing your 
 brains out ? "
 
 AURELIA. 141 
 
 " Yes," said Meo ; " and I 'm only waiting for the 
 arrival of Mademoiselle Bitterlin, who has promised to 
 die with me." 
 
 " He 's crazy ! My word of honor, he 's crazy ! 
 Why, what would you do then, you unfortunate fellow, 
 if you had lost seventy thousand francs?" 
 
 " I have lost ten times more, and the loss did not cost 
 me even a sigh. It is a different thing now. My life 
 is a failure, I have no more happiness to expect in this 
 world, so I quit it." 
 
 "Not before you have given us that dinner, anyhow ! 
 Let me slip on a light coat : we shall pick up those 
 gentlemen on our road, and then think over matters 
 together in the Restaurant." 
 
 An hour after, Meo had revealed all his secrets to M. 
 Le Roy's friends. The young duke and the petty prince 
 ■ did their best to console him, swallowing at the same 
 time the most substantial kind of fare they could find on 
 the bill. These victims of gambling thought their tem- 
 porary poverty a capital joke : nothing amuses a rich 
 young fellow so much as to see himself reduced to des- 
 titution for a day or two. They almost choked them- 
 selves with laughter and beans. They looked on Meo'e 
 trouble as something a little, but very little, more seri- 
 ous than their own misery. They knew more than a 
 hundred remedies, all infallible, against despair in love. 
 Each one extolled the treatment that he considered the 
 safest and from which he himself had derived the greatest 
 benefit ; but they all three agreed unanimously that the 
 Baden waters were the best medicine on earth for curing 
 all affections of the heart. Meo let them talk away, 
 and they made him drink his own health so often that
 
 142 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 lie even became a little fuddled ; but on rising from the 
 table ho would readily have taken poison if Made- 
 moiselle Bitterlin had been there to share it with him. 
 They promenaded him around, and at last took him 
 to the Conversations Hans — that is to say, the house 
 ■where the gambling is carried on. Here he saw hun- 
 dreds of pretty girls from all quarters of the globe; but 
 life with another woman he considered less acceptable 
 than death with Emma : 
 
 "To live with them were far less sweet, 
 Dear love, than to die witli thee!" 
 
 M. Le Roy pointed out to him the Rouge et Noir 
 table in the next room, and the Roulette table near 
 where-they were standing. 
 
 " Roulette is a game of no account," he said, "just made 
 for children that want to be amused. Here you can risk 
 the humblest stake, a florin, a coin worth about forty 
 cents. That is what is called fiorining, in the Baden 
 language. 
 
 "But it is to the Rouge et Noir table that men resort, 
 partly because the bank there has fewer chances in its 
 favor, but particularly because it gives the player an 
 opportunity for exercising his skill. However, if you 
 wish to try ^\•hat this is like, just put a napoleon on 
 the last six numbers; there, look, astride on the two 
 lines. Good! 33 wins. You get six times your 
 stake. It was a lucky hit of mine. Take them up ! 
 take them up ! Those six napoleons are yours. Now, 
 wliat do you think of lioulette? Don't you think that 
 that must be an admirable institution, which, at the ex- 
 pense of a few cents, makes you forget all your troubles
 
 AUEELIA. 143 
 
 for a minute or two? From the moment you laid your 
 money on the table until the instant the gentleman 
 cried out, " Thirty-three, Red, Pass, Odd," you thought 
 neither about Mademoiselle Bitterlin, nor the ineffa- 
 ble pleasure of dyi,ng with her in a fit of colic. And 
 such a distraction, the most powerful in the world, has 
 cost you nothing; it has even won for you a hundred 
 and fifty francs ! Admirable, is n't it ? But what will 
 you say when you have got a taste of Rouge et Noir V 
 
 Meo tried the flavor of Rouge et Noir, under the 
 eyes of his guides. This game-, the easiest of all games 
 at cards, astonished him most by its extreme simplicity. 
 He wondered to himself how a man could win or lose 
 seventy thousand francs in a few minutes, merely because 
 the banker had dcaled thirty-seven points for the Red 
 and thirty-eight for the Black. He played just as he 
 was told, — won, lost, W3n again, and remained as indif- 
 ferent to his gains and losses as though the gold pieces 
 ■were so many little pebbles. At midnight, he went 
 back gloomily to his hotel, though his pockets and 
 those of his friends had been made heavier by some 
 hundreds of francs. What pleasure could he take in 
 money now ? Had n't he more than enough to last him 
 for the little time he was still to live? 
 
 He had forgotten Mademoiselle Aurelia, but he met 
 her next morning under the beautiful trees of the 
 LichtentJiaL The poor girl uttered a loud cry, a 
 regular stage-scream, and ran and kissed him on the 
 two cheeks, to the great scandal of an English family 
 that was passing by at the time. 
 
 " My dear big baby," she exclaimed, " where are you 
 coming from? where are you going to ? are you happy?"
 
 144 ROUGE ETNOIR. 
 
 lie answered, M'ith visible embarrassment, that lie had 
 arrived the jjrevions evenini^, that lie had been aware of 
 her presence in Baden-Baden, and that he had intended 
 paying her a visit soon. 
 
 "A visit ! " she replied ; " to talk so eoolly of paying 
 a ceremonious visit to one who has thought more of you 
 than of all the rest of the world besides ! You must have 
 become eitlier very wicked or very unhappy. Are you 
 still under the same banner ? Are you going to talk to 
 me about the girl with the blue eyes? You seem to 
 have had it pretty hard, my poor big lamb ! " 
 
 " Yes," said he. " Why ask me what I told you long 
 ago? I'm in love for the first time in my life." 
 
 "Thank you for the compliment. She is far ahead 
 of us then, of course ? " 
 
 " I make no comparisons. She is more than pretty, 
 more than beautiful, more than charming. She is grace 
 and beauty itself; she is the balmy light of my life, 
 the — " 
 
 " Oh, I '11 dispense with the rest. I think you might 
 have had the good taste to praise her to somebody be- 
 sides me. Well, no matter. Be happy. I speak to 
 you w^ithout anger. You treated me shamefully, but I 
 can't help pardoning you. Bad as you are, I can't keep 
 in spite. Be happy ! " 
 
 " I am not happy, Aurelia. That I shall never be. 
 I cannot succeed. Insurmountable obstacles prevent 
 me." 
 
 " Is it possible ? Has somebody taken the trouble to 
 avenge me? You are suffering in your turn. I do 
 not rejoice over it, Meo, but, in spite of myself, I admire 
 the justice of Providence."
 
 AURELIA. 145 
 
 He answered with the simplicity of a child : 
 
 " Oh, 1 shall not suifer long. I 'm to kill myself in 
 three or four days. So — " 
 
 . Aurelia screamed loudly at this, and evinced an 
 emotion that was by no means counterfeit. Rapid as 
 thought she hurried Meo some hundred yards from 
 the public walk, made him sit down at the foot of a 
 tree, and said : 
 
 " Now, I want to know everything. Speak to me as 
 to your sister, or your mother. Don't mind about 
 paining me ; my heart is pretty tough. My poor fel- 
 low ! What woman could have been so unkind as to 
 plunge you into such despair ? I am ready to do every- 
 thing in my power to aid you, — /, whom you don't care 
 about. Do you want me to go and speak to her regard- 
 ing you ? Ah ! I should soon tell her how crazy she 
 must be to fling away the most divine happiness that 
 one of our sex can ever expect in this world ! " 
 
 Meo was touched with this female heroism, of which 
 an Italian woman alone could be capable. His heart, 
 which at first had assumed the defensive, now gave way 
 to its emotion. Two big tears started to his eyes. It was 
 with a voice broken by sobs that he told her the history 
 of his love and the grounds that he had for despair. 
 His old friend listened to him and questioned him with 
 passionate earnestness. Sometimes a selfish feeling 
 would naturally make her rejoice at the Captain's cru- 
 elty ; but she would immediately check herself for in- 
 dulging in such a sentiment, and then look into Meo's 
 case with more compassion than ever. Sometimes she 
 would take his head between her two hands and kiss the 
 
 tears oif his eyelids, to taste the bitterness of his heart. 
 13 E
 
 146 EOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " You never wept for me," said she ; but it was not long 
 before she was weeping too. 
 
 When she had lieard the whole history, and, through 
 its incidents, studied the character of the Captain, she 
 reflected for some time, and then said to Meo : 
 
 " Dear friend, I 'm only a woman, and even a very 
 commonplace woman at that, since, though I loved 
 you dearly, I have never been able to obtain a particle 
 of your affection in return. Still we women possess a 
 deeper insight into the human heart than you men can 
 boast of. I think I 'm right in guessing that your Cap- 
 tain is like an old Florentine that lived in our house 
 when I was a little girl. He studied continually how 
 to do nothing that might be agreeable to his neighbors, 
 relations, or friends. The more people tried to please 
 him the rougher he acted towards them, and the only 
 way to get anything out of him was to treat him as an 
 enemy. He had three nephews who had been humor- 
 ing him for ten years in order to come in for his inheri- 
 tance ; but he made his will in favor of a judge who had 
 cast him in all his lawsuits. His niece loved a young 
 man of the place ; but he married her to an old fellow 
 that she could not bear the sight of. Your Captain is 
 a man of the same mould, if I am not very much mis- 
 taken. Perhaps he would give you his daughter if he 
 was only sure that it would make you both unhappy. 
 However that may be, you have been certainly very 
 wrong in truckling to him during the tour; that was 
 quite enough to set him dead against you. Now, if you 
 ever obtain his consent, it will be only by contriving 
 ho<v to wring it out of him by force. Face him boldly, 
 and try even to surpass hira in stiffness and ill-temper.
 
 AURELIA. 147 
 
 Perhaps he would allow himself to be taken by storm. 
 Show yourself in all your energy and all your courage. 
 You '11 make him afraid. Heavens ! I know I should 
 be afraid of you if I were a man." 
 
 Meo escorted her back to her hotel. Without well 
 knowing why, he felt himself a little more cheerful. 
 The future appeared to him less gloomy, and the Cap- 
 tain less terrible. He determined on another struo;:2;le 
 with destiny, and not to confess himself conquered with- 
 out a good, hard fight. He warmly thanked Aurelia 
 for having shown him so much devotedness, and given 
 him so much coura2;e. 
 
 " It is heaven that has brought you to Baden," he 
 said as he took his leave. 
 
 " Not at all," she replied with her Italian candor ; 
 " it is only an old printer, M. Silivergo, who has vol- 
 unteered to protect me during my visit to the waters."
 
 M<^ KOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 IT was on Tuesday, the 14th of September, that Meo 
 had met Aurelia. That day, the next, and the 
 following Thursday, the two friends saw a little of each 
 other everywhere, except at their hotels. M. Silivergo, 
 who watched over his protegde at a respectful dis- 
 tance, and began, as everybody said, to regard her with 
 matrimonial notions, was rather uneasy at these meet- 
 ings, but he would not condescend to recognize his old 
 proof-reader. Meo, on his side, felt no great desire to 
 rush into the arms of his surly patron. Pie was the in- 
 separable companion of I^e Roy and the joyous band 
 of the other broken players. These gentlemen received 
 their money, lost it, recruited their finances by a few 
 lucky hits, and kept fortune in check for three succes- 
 sive days. Meo rowed in the same boat with them; 
 losing, winning, and laughing at everything. They 
 considered him quite improved, and gave Mademoiselle 
 Aurelia full credit for the change. He defended him- 
 self warmly from the imputation, protested his fidelity, 
 and swore that the Captain should soon come to terms 
 with him, or he'd know for what. He repeated his 
 story to every listener so readily that it soon became 
 quite popular. All the young Parisians knew that 
 Captain Bitterlin was coming, and rumor already de- 
 scribed him like some fabulous animal. They never 
 supped at the Restaurant without drinking to the down- 
 fall of the savage Captain. Emma was regarded as a
 
 ROUGE ET NOIR. 149 
 
 heroine of the Middle Ages, and Meo became celebrated 
 under the cognomen of Eginhard. The women began 
 to grow interested in his liappiness, and more than one 
 crinoline fluttered around him with anything but aver- 
 sion. The honest fellow, however, did not see the 
 point ; he sighed openly for his fair one, shook his fist 
 at his absent father-in-law, and played Rouge et Noir 
 while waiting for the enemy. He had already pro- 
 gressed so far as to look on gold napoleons as so many 
 very handy counters for the transactions of the play ; he 
 attributed to them no other employment and no other 
 importance. Fortune, who does not always despise the 
 heedless, did not forget him. 
 
 But Friday announced itself as a highly unlucky day. 
 Early in the morning, Rouge et Noir seemed to have 
 made up its mind to fleece its votaries. An unnatural 
 run of ill-luck disconcerted the most logical plans and 
 the most infallible attacks. Red and Black lost by 
 turns, without order or consideration. No series in the 
 cards, no possible connection in the ideas of the players. 
 Everything went on so well or so badly, that the bank, 
 which had started with fifty thousand francs, had at 
 least three hundred thousand piled up before it at seven 
 o'clock in the evening. Messrs. Plum and Wreck, who 
 had arrived that very morning, persisted in betting, the 
 one on the Red and the other on the Black, till they had 
 lost ten thousand francs apiece. Meo's new friends paid 
 dear for their previous successes ; he himself was fast 
 refunding with interest all that he had been winning for 
 the last three days. Such an irritating influence had 
 the continued ill-luck uj)on him, that even this lover, 
 this philosopher, this stoic, at last allowed himself to be
 
 150 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 invaded, like the others, by bad humor. Standing at 
 the banker's right hand, at every new deal he threw 
 down a napoleon on the Red or on the Black, and 
 shrugged his shoulders impatiently as he saw the rake 
 hooking in his money. 
 
 At last, new cards had been shuffled ; !Mco had cut 
 them with his own hand, and he was just dropping his 
 last stake on Black, when a well remembered cough 
 made him look around, and he suddenly found himself 
 nose to nose with the Captain. 
 
 Certainly he had had plenty of time to prepare him- 
 self for this interview and to have his arms ready. 
 Only an hour before, he had said to M. Le Roy, " I 
 shall tame that Captain ! " He had made up his mind 
 to insult his father-in-law wherever and whenever he 
 might meet him. The moment had now come; here 
 was an excellent opportunity, and even the grounds for 
 a pretty little quarrel were already furnished, for the 
 Captain had always denounced cards and card-players. 
 But the sight of that big nose suddenly looming up in 
 the midst of his.game, disconcerted poor Meo completely. 
 A fortnight of respectful terror and filial obedience is 
 not to be forgotten in an instant. All the Captain's 
 strictures on the immorality of gambling immediately 
 flashed on his mind. His old habit of submission, 
 stronger than his late resolutions, entirely cowed him, 
 and he slunk aAvay stealthily, like a schoolboy detected 
 in some trick by his master's watchful eye. 
 
 M. Bitterliu had arrived by the six o'clock evening 
 train, charged to the muzzle with morality. Ever since 
 the profession of faith that he had made at SchafFhausen, 
 he almost looked on himself as a reformer, sent on a
 
 EOUGE ET NOIR, 151 
 
 special mission. On the broad foundations of his virtue, 
 he had erected a grand and glittering castle. Like another 
 Hercules, the subduer of monsters, he was going to at- 
 tack and subdue the Hydra of gambling at the very 
 fountain-head, and. thereby gain the eternal applause of 
 all well-regulated families. His word and example 
 should convert the punters in hundreds at a time, and 
 finally Benazet himself and all the other gambling- 
 house proprietors would present themselves before him 
 and solemnly renounce forever all connection with this 
 idol of the million. lie scarcely gave himself time to 
 change his dress and lock up his daughter in the 
 hotel. He asked the way to the Conversations Haus, 
 and entered it as resolutely as Polyeuctes and Nearchus 
 entered the temple of Jupiter. The first pagan he met 
 was M. Le Roy, surrounded by a circle of friends. The 
 young man, perceiving him, called him by his name and 
 said : " Be quick about commencing to play, I want to 
 win that twenty pounds ! You are as welcome here as 
 Mademoiselle Mars in the middle of Lent." The 
 Captain pulled up his black stock with dignity, and re- 
 plied : " I shall enable you to win more than twenty 
 pounds, if I teach you how to overcome your gambling 
 propensities and to renounce cards." He continued his 
 way, only stopping a moment to shrug his shoulders at 
 the sight of Monsieur and Madame Moring playing 
 Roulette. The news of his arrival had been spread 
 through the saloons by the friends of M. Le Roy. All 
 eyes were turned towards him ; he was pointed out, fol- 
 lowed, and examined by two hundred persons ; people 
 even ran after him to look at him more closely. He 
 marched on as if in a procession, turning his head right
 
 152 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 and left, and muttering in liis moustache : " It appears 
 that they are not mucli accustomed here to see a man of 
 principle!" He recognized Meo, and posted himself 
 behind hun to greet him with one of his compliments as 
 soon as he should turn round. -^Fhe poor fellow's cow- 
 ardly fliglit made him laugh. " What a milk-sop ! " 
 said he. " He has not even the courage of vice ! Hey ! 
 He has forgotten his twenty francs ! Twenty francs a 
 go! What extravagance! Two liundred pounds of 
 ammunition bread ! " He was tempted to pick up the 
 gold piece and return it to Meo, but a scruple restrained 
 him. He was full of that coarse delicacy which re- 
 spects another's property, even to the most absurd de- 
 gree. Besides he promised himself a good laugh as 
 soon as the rake should come to haul in the money and 
 give the gambler a lesson. He, however, had not this 
 satisfaction the first time : Black won, and Mco's napo- 
 leon found a companion. 
 
 " Well," thought the Captain, " what of that? My 
 big simpleton shall lose it all next oifer." In this hope 
 he leaned \vith his elbow on the table. But the second 
 offer, as well as the first, was favorable to Black, and 
 the Captain saw eighty francs lying before him. 
 
 He looked with contempt at the gambling-polluted 
 gold. It was coin fresh from the mint; the lamp-light 
 flashed off it as off so many jewels. Their radiant 
 glitter carried him back in spite of himself to the first 
 'four louis he had ever called his own. They were 
 twenty-four franc-pieces of yellow gold, very ancient, 
 very much worn, and even rather clipped on the edge. 
 His mother had taken them out of an old stocking and 
 slipped them into his hand on the day he started for the
 
 ROUGE ET NOIR. 153 
 
 •wars. " What a diiference," thought he, " between these 
 counters of immorality here, and those noble medals 
 which my mother had sanctified by her labor and her 
 economy ! " This reflection was interrupted by the 
 arrival of the rake which brought him four new louis. 
 Black had won for the third time. 
 
 " By Jove ! " said he to himself. " Just look at the 
 fairness of destiny ! When I was second captain I 
 fought for my life a whole month to earn the sum that 
 this ninny picks up in three turns of a card ! A very 
 nice world ! Good! thirty-nine for Black — Yes ! but 
 there 's forty for Red ! Tliat puts ray two months' pay 
 into M. Narni's pocket ! " 
 
 He leaned down and pressed his arms against the 
 table, firmly resolved never to leave the spot until Black 
 had lost. But the fifth deal, and the sixth,' only doubled 
 and redoubled Meo's fortune. The heap of gold that 
 glittered before the Captain was now rising in magnifi- 
 cent proportions : it already contained twelve hundred 
 and eighty francs well counted. In the presence of a 
 sum of this importance, M. Bitterlin began to regret 
 that jSIeo was not there to come to some decision. He 
 was not quite sure how far his scrupulous delicacy would 
 authorize him in allowing such a sum to be swept back 
 again into the bottomless gulf of the bank. Not that 
 he cared a straw about the young stranger ; it was the 
 gold that he pitied. " This can't last always," said he 
 to himself. " The banker won't pass his evening in 
 doubling the heap of money lying before me ; it would 
 not pay his expenses." Thinking thus, he began look- 
 ing around for Meo, keeping, however, a corner of his 
 eye on the cards, which now began to inspire him with 
 a vague kind of interest.
 
 154 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 Bliick won for tlic seventli time, antl a bank-note, 
 e.scorted by fourteen napoleons, came to increase the 
 Italian's riches. 
 
 The play was becoming interesting. It was the first 
 series that had haj>pcned since moi'ning. The unex- 
 pected success of Black resounded through all the 
 saloons, and people came crowding from all quarters to 
 see how far the lucky run woukl go. The Captain's 
 reputation, his grimaces, but particularly the very re- 
 spectable stake lying before him, attracted all eyes his 
 way. Already three or four pretty women had come to 
 ask him for the loan of five louis, and had been met as 
 the dogs are met by a wild boar. 
 
 Black turned up again for the eighth tithe, and left 
 before him a total of five thousand one hundred and 
 twenty francs. 
 
 Never, since he was a child, had he witnessed any- 
 thing so surprising. This rapid accumulation of gold 
 scandalized hira assuredly, but amazed, him still more. 
 Five thousand francs ! A whole year's income, won in 
 a few minutes by the mere caprice of chance ! He ex- 
 perienced a certain satisfaction in putting back a few 
 louis that had slipped a little off the heap. Of course 
 he was proud of remaining a disinterested spectator of 
 all this hubbub : he pitied from the bottom of his heart 
 all the poor wretches whose eager glances betrayed the 
 palpitating emotion with which they watched every turn 
 of the cards. But, taking it all in all, he was by no 
 means sorry for having got such a good look into things, 
 and felt the recoil as it were of such exciting passions. 
 He even thought for a moment that if the delirium of 
 play ever could be excusable, it should be so assuredly
 
 ROUGE ET NOIR. 155 
 
 on grand occasions like the present, which give or take 
 away whole fortunes at a blow. He Avas already catch- 
 ing a distant glimpse of a rich morality, very different 
 from the poor morality that he had been practising for 
 sixty years. The wealth spread out before his eyes ex- 
 cited strange emanations in his brain, and his ideas took 
 as it were a new color. One of the servants of the 
 establishment brouoht him a chair. He refused to take 
 it, saying that he did not play. However, as the chair 
 felt so convenient, particularly as the emotions of the 
 play made his knees tremble, he finally sat down. The 
 banker began turning up the cards once more, and gave 
 the Black row exactly thirty-one jioints. The Captain 
 noticed the rueful countenance of this officer, who prob- 
 ably had an interest in the profits of the bank. The 
 thouQjht occurred to him that it would be a noble and 
 chivalrous thing to despoil such immortal enterprises 
 and to pay them back in their own coin. And when 
 he had his ten thousand two hundred and forty francs 
 lying before him, he looked on himself as the champion 
 of virtue, who had just won a great victory over the 
 demon of gamblino;. 
 
 All these events, so new in the Captain's life, had 
 taken place in less than a quarter of an hour, quite time 
 enough for the bank, once fairly started, to ruin a man or 
 to make his fortune. 
 
 Meo, though driven off by fear, had not run a hun- 
 dred leagues away. The thought of Emma, the great 
 resolutions he had taken, and the reflection that he must 
 conquer or die, soon brought him back to the field of 
 battle. He was in the Roulette Room, flapping his wings 
 to get up some courage, when a player of his acquaintance
 
 156 ROUGE ET NOin. 
 
 said as lie passed by : " Hey ! islliat the way you watch 
 your luck ? The haud that you cut has already won 
 niue times ! " All at once he thought of the twenty- 
 franc j)iece that he had left on the table. Though he 
 w'as far from suspecting his good fortune, he slipped 
 back stealthily into the crowd surrounding the Rouge 
 ct Noir table, and began to look for his father-in-law 
 and his money. He discovered them, one brooding 
 over the other, and arrived just in time to hear the 
 banker say to the Captain ; " How much are you going 
 to stake, sir ? " 
 
 "I — don't know," replied the Captain, redder than 
 a hundred lobsters ; " I — don't play. My — princi- 
 ples—" 
 
 " You are aware, sir," said a neigliboring Croupier, 
 " that the maximum stake is six thousand francs." 
 
 All eyes were fixed at once on this audacious punter 
 who was staking more than the maximum, and the 
 Captain felt himself cower under the weight of the 
 public curiosity. He threw a frightened glance around 
 the room, expecting to catch a glimpse of Meo's counte- 
 nance, but catching nothing of the kind, and seeing 
 that all only awaited his decision to renew the play, he 
 answered in a stifled voice : " Six thousand francs, sir. 
 I — think so at least. It is not I — " 
 
 His hands trembled ; he counted the six bank notes, 
 left them on the Black, and drew the rest to himself. 
 The contact of this treasure gave him a kind of vertigo. 
 A swarm of golden butterflies began to flutter iii his 
 head ; he grasped the table tightly with his hands and 
 closed his eyes. The smothered exclamations of the 
 crowd soon made him open them again. Black had 
 won again, for the tenth time !
 
 ROUGE ET NOIR. 157 
 
 / 
 
 " After all/' thought the Captain, " I 'm not aban- 
 doning my principles, since it is not for myself that I 
 play. I do not even 23lay for the young man, for I 
 have made no combination. I just leave his money 
 where he placed it himself, and take away whatever 
 exceeds the regular stake. The Croupiers would have 
 done as much, if I refused." In the meantime the 
 game went on, not even giving him time to come to 
 terms with his conscience. Black won fourteen times 
 in succession, and he had nothing to do but draw in his 
 six thousand francs each time. 
 
 Meo, concealed behind Mr. Wreck, was now a prey 
 to the most violent palpitations. Transported Vtith 
 surprise and delight, he could hardly believe his eyes as 
 he saw his fortune increasing in such proportions in the 
 Captain's hands ; but in his confusion he could hardly 
 tell ^vhether he was now more desirous to win than to 
 lose. The sum might become great enough to restore 
 the house of Miranda ; but it still remained to be known 
 if the Captain would give his daughter to a Count. 
 Would it not be better if M. Bitterlin lost all the win- 
 nings of the evening, and reduced tlie fortunate Meo 
 once more to poverty ? In such a case he would no 
 longer have any right to refuse him a place in his 
 family, since he had ruined him before the whole world. 
 But whatever might happen, the C-aptain was Meo's 
 partner, his associate, his agent, his confederate, and 
 according to some theories, his accomplice. How 
 delightful ! Ties of this strength are never broken ; 
 accomplices never refuse each other anything. 
 
 At the fifteenth deal it was Red that won. "Good ! " 
 
 thought Meo, "now begins the smash. Oh, my well- 
 14
 
 158 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 beloved Captain, ruin nie as fast as you can, and do it 
 so cfFet'tively tluit I shall not have a single cent left ! " 
 But that was the last of the Captain's thougiits. His 
 first ini])ression had been one of surprise and regret. 
 The departure of that money, which was not his, and 
 which he had no right to lose, rather stunned him, A 
 mountain of scruples sprung up at once in his con- 
 science. He asked himself if he was not responsible 
 before the law for the misfortune that had just occurred, 
 and if the stranger would not be perfectly justifiable in 
 asking him for those six thousand francs. He opened 
 his mouth to ask the banker to put back the money^ 
 since the legitimate owner was absent. Remark besides 
 that a great tumult had been excited by the triumph of 
 the Red, the noise of a hundred persons talking all at 
 the same time was not calculated to calm his disturbed 
 brain ! He heard everybody around him say that it was 
 only a false break in the luck, a mere trick of fortune 
 to throw the players off the scent ; that Black was still 
 good for ten offers more; and that it would be madness 
 to desert it for so little. The idea of winning back for 
 M. Narni the sum that he had just been the cause of 
 his losing, insinuated itself by degrees into the crevices 
 of his brain. He began mechanicallv turninV over the 
 bank-notes remaining in his hands, like a general count- 
 ing his fresh troops in the heat of battle. "What!" 
 said he to himself; " I have won thirty thousand francs 
 with a single napoleon, and shall I not try to win six 
 thousand with all that I have left ? Six thousand 
 francs ! A miserable trifle ! Black is good still ; every- 
 body says so. What would M. Narni do in my place ? 
 He would keej) on playing; he would like to win back
 
 ROUGE ETNOIR. 159 
 
 what I have just lost, and after having won it back, he 
 would still go ahead ! As for me, I am more prudent, 
 so I shall venture only one offer more to win back that 
 six thousand francs, and then — good-night to the com- 
 pany ! " 
 
 Perhaps he would have followed this wise resolution 
 if he had only recovered his six thousand francs on the 
 next turn. But the banker turned up thirty-one both 
 for lied and Black, which gave him half the stakes. 
 The Captain dispatched fresh troops to the field, and 
 his first en^ao-ement was favorable. He returned to the 
 charge, lost, won, forgot all his ideas of prudence, and 
 rushed headlono; like a blind man into the thickest of the 
 fight. For a long time past he had not been seated, 
 and his chair had been driven far behind him by an 
 energetic movement. Standing bolt upright, his hands 
 full of gold and bank-notes, he punted away on Red, on 
 Black, on Color, according to the inspiration of the 
 moment. His face was pale, and the perspiration glit- 
 tered on his forehead in little pearls of dew. As the 
 banker turned up the cards, he counted the points in 
 a low voice, regardless of the spectacle that he afforded 
 to the spectators. He soliloquized audibly, and swore 
 sometimes between his teeth. You may depend upon 
 it, he thought very little now about the Italian, and no 
 longer troubled himself to look around the room for 
 him. Had Meo been indiscreet enough to offer him 
 advice, he would have been received at bayonet point. 
 His attitude, voice, gesture, everything in him breathed 
 of the passionate energy of frenzied enthusiasm ; you 
 would have called him a desperate lover exerting his 
 last efforts to make Fortune his own.
 
 IGO ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 He won often, and won nuu-li ; bank-notes of a thou- 
 sand francs came to him in liandfuls. He crumpled 
 them in his hands, thrust tliera into his pockets, piled 
 them up in heaps on the table, all by jerks and uncon- 
 scious movements. Now and then the Bank had almost 
 exhausted its last resources ; two or three times in one 
 half hour tlie public confidently expected to see it 
 brealc. 
 
 Reader, have you ever hunted the gazelle? It is the 
 mildest, the most inoifensive, the most amiable of 
 animals. Its silky skin invites caresses, and when you 
 look at its pretty pensive head, and its beautiful eyes, 
 you can hardly help embracing it. The whole human 
 race does not contain a bcino; unnatural enough to wish 
 harm to so charming a creature. 
 
 But when the dogs have started the gazelle, and when 
 the liorses are galloping on its track over the burning 
 sands of the desert, then tlie panting huixter spurs his 
 steed, cracks his whip, and asks all the winds of heaven 
 to lend him their wings. Nothing stops him, neither 
 thickets, nor rocks, nor torrents, nor ravines, nor certain 
 death yawning in the quagmires. He pursues the 
 enemy, he tires him out, he gains on him, he nears him, 
 he reaches him and screams aloud with joy and victory; 
 he seizes him in his arms, plunges a knife into his 
 throat, and murders with infinite delight, a poor inno- 
 cent animal that an hour before he would have caressed 
 with pleasure in the drawing-room or in the garden. 
 
 This explains how, in spite of all his reasons to dis- 
 approve of gambling, M. Bitterlin never stopped play- 
 ing that night until he absolutely broke the Bank, at 
 precisely twenty-five minutes to twelve o'clock.
 
 M. SILIVERGO. 161 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 M. SILIVERGO. 
 
 THE defeat of the bank and the Captain's trluraph 
 were hailed with immense applause. Crowds came 
 throno-inff around him from all the rooms. He flittered 
 for a moment under the radiant aureola that crowns the 
 brows of conquerors, but it soon became a feeble flick- 
 erino; light, extino-uished as soon as lit. The fever that 
 had sustained him to the end of the play, now suddenly- 
 abandoned him. The pleasure of having won vanished 
 like a dream, and black thoughts began trooping into 
 his brain like a funeral procession. He remembered 
 that he had been false to his principles in the presence 
 of thousands of witnesses selected from all quarters of 
 Europe ; that for four hours he had been giving the lie 
 to all the discourses and actions of his life ; and that if 
 he was still Bitterlin without fear, he Avas no longer 
 Bitterlin without reproach. His conscience told him 
 plainly that all the money he had won was far, very far, 
 inferior in value to the honor he had lost. He was 
 even strongly tempted to tear the bank-notes to pieces 
 and to scatter the gold in all directions, so as to give 
 that confounded freak of his the look of a great moral 
 lesson. But M. Narni's rights, which he had been long 
 rather forgetting, now returned to his memory, and he 
 remembered with redoubled melancholy that he had 
 torn his fine reputation to rags merely for another's 
 benefit. No wonder therefore that he took a chair and 
 sat down, gloomier than a burnt-out sky-rocket. He 
 14* L
 
 1G2 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 emptied his pockets on the table and scrnpnlously 
 counted up the sum that lie had won, in order to find 
 out tlie exact amount that he owed ]Meo. Tiie sum 
 totted up, he took out a rather plump ]wcket-book, and, 
 on the same page where a month before he had copied off, 
 "• Excursion Trains to Switzerland and Baden, First-class 
 tickets, one hundred and forty-one francs fifty centimes," 
 he now pencilled down the very imposing figure of one 
 hundred and twenty-one thousand two hundred and 
 forty francs! A Paris newspaper reporter who had ar- 
 rived that very evening, read it all off over his shoulder 
 and immediately made a note of it. At the same mo- 
 ment, M. Le Roy came up to salute the melancholy con- 
 queror, saying : " Are the sheep counted ? " The Cap- 
 tain blushed and replied : " Yes, a hundred and twenty 
 thousand and odd." 
 
 " By the bye, dear INIonsieur Bittcrlin, how shall we 
 designate you henceforward ? You know you have lost 
 your name ! " 
 
 The reporter hastened to put down : Bitterlin. 
 
 " I don't reproach you for it. You have made me 
 win my bet. The Englishman got neatly gammoned. 
 But what a man you are ! What coolness ! What a 
 head ! I saw you punting away like Mithridates, the 
 king of Pontus." 
 
 The Captain sighed profoundly. 
 
 " I swear to you," said he, " that this is the first time 
 in my life I have ever gambled ; and the last too. This 
 hundred and twenty thousand francs has been won with 
 a single napoleon that did not belong to me. There is 
 some fatality in the affair. It all belongs to M. Narni; 
 I will carry it all to him this very evening, as a soldier 
 should do."
 
 M. SILIVERGO. 163 
 
 While M. Le Roy and the others were uttering ohs 
 and ahs, the persevering reporter was writing down in 
 his note-book: " One napoleon ; never played before', 
 Narni." And underneath: "3Iithridates,king ofPontus. 
 To punt." 
 
 It had cost the Captain much painful trouble to force 
 up from the bottom of his throat the above confused ex- 
 jslanation. He was quite ill at ease : he made his wig 
 all crooked by trying to scratch his head, and every time 
 he used his handkerchief, it carried off a bluish stain 
 from his perspiring moustache. Whilst the crowd 
 stared at him as at a curious animal, his eyes were eagerly 
 searching for somebody in all quarters of the saloon, 
 and he was chewing under his teeth a little string of 
 pretty epithets intended for a certain absent individual. 
 His nearest neighbors, and even the distant ones occa- 
 sionally, could hear every now and then such words as : 
 " The beggar ! the beast ! the big coward ! the stupid 
 booby ! I shall pay him, but he shall pay me, too ! " 
 
 He was breaking up the sitting, when an unforeseen 
 obstacle kept him in his place somewhat longer than he 
 desired. The noise made by the explosion of the bank 
 had reached the ears of the little aristocratic circle that 
 is, so to speak, the Fatibourg Saint Germain of Baden. 
 Away in the recesses of a remote drawing-room, beyond 
 the Restaurant saloons, seven or eight old dowagers of 
 great name and great virtue were quietly enjoying them- 
 selves in flaying alive the whole human race, when the 
 attache of some embassy brought them the news. All 
 at once the demon of "charity" took possession of their 
 souls; they all felt at the same time a strong itching to 
 relieve the winner of some of his gains for the benefit
 
 IGl ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 of the city liospitals. Full of this good thouo-ht, they 
 rose en masse, and the venerable trooj) put itself in pro- 
 cessional motion until it reached M. Bitterlin. The 
 Captain's eyes became as big as saucers v.hen he saw 
 himself harangued by these demi-centenarians. They 
 paid him a little sneering compliment on his good for- 
 tune ; they told him that if gambling could be tolerated 
 at all by religion, it was only on condition that the 
 winner would not forget the poor; and finally they 
 handed him a work-bag, which was to receive whatever 
 mites his opulence might choose to bestow. 
 
 The poor Captain could hardly speak ; in fact, he was 
 almost smothering. " Ladies," he at last tried to say, 
 "ladies — lam not accustomed to public speaking — 
 nor to gambling, either — be assured of that. I am an 
 honest soldier; I am father of a fomily; and totally free 
 from vice. My principles — I have as good principles 
 as any one, let his sex or his religion be what it may. 
 As to this money, it is none of mine ; I swear it by this 
 cross of honor which — no matter what. Here is a 
 five-franc piece of my own. I give it to save further 
 trouble. M. Narni will do what he pleases with his 
 own money — that is, provided he chooses to do anything 
 at all. Ladies, I have the honor of bidding you good- 
 night." 
 
 He flung five francs into the work-bag, dashed head- 
 foremost into the crowd, elbowed his way through jthe 
 saloons, and started off like a madman, in quest of Meo. 
 The same public that had applauded him so warmly a 
 few minutes before, now pursued hjm with an insulting 
 murmur, but the Captain did not mind it. He turned 
 his back on the gambling palace, swearing it was the
 
 M. SILIVERGO. 1G5 
 
 last time he should ever be caught there again, hurried 
 through the avenue of little shops that faces the Restau- 
 rant, crossed the river, and plunged into the streets of 
 the town, without exactly knowing where he was going. 
 After a wild race of a quarter of an hour, he became 
 aware that he was' followed. He heard a regular tramp, 
 like the echo of his own footsteps, close behind him ; 
 sometimes even, on having passed a lamp, he saw a long 
 shadow project itself before him on the pavement. The 
 enemy must have been intended by nature for a racer, 
 for he gained ground at every stride. The Captain, at 
 last, feeling him at his heels, turned roun<l, and, like a 
 wild beast overtaken by the hounds, stood at bay. But 
 he was not long in recognizing one of his old travelling 
 companions, Mr. Wreck. 
 
 The New Yorker held out his hand, his mouth radiant 
 with a good-natured smile. 
 
 " Good evening, my dear Monsieur Bitterlin," said 
 he ; " why, how you run ! You 'd beat Indian John, 
 of Baltimore, though I won two thousand dollars on 
 him at Cincinnati. But where are you going ? All the 
 hotels of the city are on the other side — every one of 
 them." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the Captain, completely taken aback, 
 "it was to tell me that you hunted me like a deer? 
 Well, I thank you all the same." 
 
 " Oh ! I also wished to offer you my little congratu- 
 lations. You play very well ; yes, artistically well. I 
 play first-rate also, and rather high, too." 
 
 " I don't compliment you on it, sir." 
 
 " You 're right ; I didn't play first-rate to-day. I lost, 
 but that stupid old Johnny Bull lost twice as much, 
 Monsieur Bitterlin ? "
 
 16G ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " Sir ? " . 
 
 " I admire your style of play very much." 
 
 " I never plfiy, sir ! — or at least- — " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I understand. That discourse of yours 
 in the hotel was rich. Will you come to Homburg 
 Avith me?" 
 
 "What for, sir?" 
 
 " To play Rouge et Noir ; I stake a hundred thousand 
 francs, you stake another hundred thousand francs. 
 Between us Ave shall burst the bank. Hey ! " 
 
 "Hey yourself, sir! I tell you you are altogether 
 mistaken in me. You don't know me, sir ! " 
 
 "I know that you play first-rate. How much a year 
 do your winnings amount to ? " 
 
 "Death and fury! Sir, I win nothing, because I 
 never play, and I never play because I am a man of 
 principle, — you understand? — in other words, sir, an 
 honest man ! " 
 
 " Oh ! in my country, INIonsieur Bitterlin, the most 
 honest man is the man that makes the most money." 
 
 "Then I'd advise you to brag of your country! 
 Good night, Monsieur Wreck. By the Avay, do you 
 know in what hotel M. Narni lodges, that long gawk 
 of a fellow who travelled with us?" 
 
 "That young man? Oh, yes. He don't play as 
 well as you, Monsieur Bitterlin. He has been losing the 
 whole day." 
 
 "That's right, pity him ! Don't you know at what 
 hotel he is stopping?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. He 's at the Victoria, where I am." 
 
 " You might have said so sooner ; I have been asking 
 you that question for the last hour."
 
 M. SILIVERGO. 1G7 
 
 " And I have been asking you if you are willing to 
 break the bank at Homburg. I should like dearly to 
 break it." 
 
 "What! sir, can you find no better way to spend 
 your time' and your fortune ? Gambling, the scourge 
 of regiments, the destruction of families — " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; quite correct. You said all that, you know, 
 already at Schaff hausen. A first-rate joke ! Decidedly 
 rich ! That stupid beast of an Englishman thought 
 you were in earnest, and lost his twenty pounds on it. 
 Served him right ! Hey ! Here is the Victoria." 
 
 " Very much obliged to you. Good-night." 
 
 " Oh ! I don't want to go to bed yet. What do you 
 say to a little game of poker for ourselves up in my 
 room ? " 
 
 " You and your games may go to the devil ! " mut- 
 tered the Captain in a rage, as he walked off in another 
 direction. He soon returned, however, and discovered 
 that Meo had not yet come back ; the key of his door 
 was still hanging in the porter's room. He lit a cigar, 
 and walked up and down the street, waiting for his 
 creditor. A drizzling rain, cold and penetrating, came 
 just in time to render the promenade still more attractiv^e. 
 Now and then he would blow on his wet fingers, and con- 
 sult the gold dial of his watch at least once every ten 
 minutes. It might be easily supposed that Meo was in 
 the meantime supping quietly at the Restaurant; but the 
 Captain preferred waiting for him there to going so far 
 back after him. He was afraid of missino; him on the 
 road, but he particularly dreaded meeting any more 
 dowagers. 
 
 While he was thus doggedly keeping guard and
 
 168 ROUGE ET NO IK. 
 
 exhausting all the oaths in his collection, his futiire son- 
 in-law was kicking u}) a commotion in Aurelia's hotel. 
 
 Not a single particular of the famous game had escaped 
 Meo's attention. Concealed behind Mr. Wreck's shoul- 
 ders, he had watched the very low level of his fortune 
 rising, rising, until at last the river overflowed. lie 
 has since confessed, Mith his usual sincerity, that during 
 the last seven or eight deals Emma's image had been 
 rather indistinct in his mind. Young girls of fifteen 
 ■svill perhaps never pardon him for this quarter of an 
 hour's forgetfulness ; but I swear to you, my dear 
 young ladies, that he was thinking no more of his money 
 than of his mistress. Although he saw a pretty round 
 sum awaitino; him in the hands of his affent, he never 
 once thou<>;ht of buvino- back his name, his lands, or his 
 pictures; his only desire, the most ardent wish of his 
 heart, was to see the Bank burst to its last cent. To that 
 degree he was a real huntsman. There are moments 
 when you would risk killing your best horse and your- 
 self into the bargain, just to be in for the fox's death; 
 but that is not because you want to eat him. 
 
 When the beast was at last run down, he enjoyed the 
 full sight of the death in all its details; however, he 
 took good care not to show himself. He had too much 
 delicacy to go touch the Captain on the shoulder and 
 say : " Let us count up ! " Vv'^hy run at all after a for- 
 tune ^vhich would be sure to run after him ? He knew 
 M. Bitterlin to be as scrupulously honest as he was 
 difficult to live with, and he believed him to be as inca- 
 pable of an unworthy action as of a gracious one. But, 
 though sure of his money, he began again to entertain 
 doubts regarding his happiness. The little exclamations
 
 M. SILIVERGO. 169 
 
 that escaped from the Captain's lips now and tlien, 
 he felt to be birds of evil omen, and far from encourag- 
 ing. He took it for granted, as a matter of course, that 
 they were all intended for himself. He no longer had 
 the courage to suppose that Emma's father, on coming 
 to pay him his winnings, would throw in his daughter 
 too. It would be far more in the Captain's line to fling 
 him his hundred and twenty thousand francs, and say : 
 *' This fortune is yours; it cost you a louis; it cost me 
 my honor. And now, good-night!'^ Such a settlement 
 of accounts would not advance Meo's business prospects 
 one jot. What was to be done in such a case? What 
 reply was to be given? What recompense could be 
 offered? What settlement could be made? What 
 share could be proposed ? The poor fellow already 
 saw himself at daggers' points with his terrible bene- 
 factor. 
 
 He trembled at the idea of committing some blunder. 
 He felt confident that at the first awkward word the 
 Captain would smash him as he had smashed the Bank. 
 His late energetic resolutions had been long since com- 
 pletely forgotten. A look from Emma might give him 
 some courage. But he did not know even the name of 
 her hotel. He only knew that he had a devil of an 
 account to settle with the Captain before the night was 
 over. 
 
 In the midst of this perplexity, he suddenly remem- 
 bered the good-natured stout fairy who had cheered his 
 drooping spirits on one occasion already. He even 
 asked himself how in the world he had not thought 
 sooner of consulting Aurelia. This was just at the time 
 
 when the old ladies were moving forward to attack 
 15
 
 170 EOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 M. Bilterlin. Meo immediately decamped, counting on 
 this diversion as a mask for his retreat. 
 
 All the reflections that he made- on the way served to 
 confirm his confidence in the advice he was proceeding 
 to ask. "Yes," said he to himself, rubbing his hands 
 and quickening his pace, — "yes, this adventure, this 
 money must be made to turn to our .advantage and to 
 secure our marriage. There is something that is to be 
 done. What is it? I don't know. Neither does 
 Emma. We are too much in love ; people in love can 
 never think. Aurelia alone is able to get us out of our 
 difficulty. Aurelia has wit. Aurelia would like to see 
 us happy, the dear good creature ! Excellent Aurelia ! 
 Thank you, Aurelia! Hurrah for the noble Aurelia!" 
 
 Every step he took, every word he spoke, animated 
 him more and more, so that when he arrived at the hotel 
 he was running and shouting. 
 
 " The Signora Aurelia ? " said he to the porter. 
 
 " She is in her room." 
 
 " Where is her room ? Quick ! " 
 
 "Yes, sir," said the German, reading the register; 
 " M. Silivergo; Signora Aurelia; Rooms 8 and 15, 
 Corridor A, first floor." 
 
 Meo was already beating a reveille with his fists on 
 the door of Number 8. No reply. He j)ounded louder. 
 The noise of somebody moving inside was now plainly 
 heard. Meo worked away with hands and feet, shout- 
 ing like a madman : " Open ! it is I ! " 
 
 A husky basso voice asked in Italian : " Chi ef" 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Meo, recalled all at once to a sense 
 of the reality. He resumed in more measured tones, 
 using his mother-tongue :
 
 M. SILIVERGO. 171 
 
 " My dear Monsieur Sllivergo, I am exceedingly glad 
 to meet you. Open the door. It is I, Bartolomeo 
 Narni. You know me very well." 
 
 " I don't know you any longer," replied the bass 
 voice. 
 
 " Open, anyhow, I must get in ! " 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 " To see the Signora Aurelia." 
 
 " She is in her room, locked up." 
 
 "No matter; you must go and call her; I have to 
 see her." 
 
 " This is no time to make visits." 
 
 " Why, what time is it ? " 
 
 " Twelve o'clock." 
 
 "Never mind. Open. I must speak to the Signora 
 Aurelia in your room." 
 
 " She is asleep in her own." 
 
 " Wake her up." 
 
 " But, sir ! — " 
 
 " Have pity on a miserable lover ! " 
 
 "Sir!—" 
 
 " Bitterlin is back : we have broken the Bank : he is 
 furious against me : I don't know what to do, and if 
 you don't open at once, I shall burst in the door." 
 
 He roared so loud that the whole house woke up. 
 Presently eight or ten travellers were standing at their 
 doors in their night-dresses, lamp in hand. The ser- 
 vants of the hotel soon appeared. One of them observed 
 in German that the hour was unseasonable, and that all 
 honest folks had long gone to bed. Meo despised this 
 remonstrance, the more so as he did not understand the 
 first word of it. The German tried to explain by ges-
 
 172 ROUGE ET NOT R. 
 
 tures. Mco jumped at hiiu like a tiger, and exclaimed, 
 " What ! you rascal ! Do you dare to raise your hand 
 to a Miranda ! I '11 teach you the cost of that!" And, 
 suiting action to word, he gave the poor wretch a kick 
 that sent him flying like a rocket to the other end of 
 the corridor. At the same moment, the door of No. 15 
 opened, and Aurelia, half dressed, joined Meo in pound- 
 ing at No. 8 and crying out to M. Silivergo to open. 
 
 "Sir," said M. Silivergo, "I open the door to put a 
 stop to your scandalous conduct, but only because the 
 Signora has requested me to do so." 
 
 Meo could not help bestowing a look of admiration 
 on the old printer in his night-dress. Short, stoop- 
 shouldered, fat-paunched, and dressed in white, M. 
 Silivergo with his bass voice offered no bad resemblance 
 to a hunting-horn i-rr massive silver. " Come in, sir," 
 said he to his old proof-reader, — " come in ; I see I was 
 not much mistaken in prophesying that you would come 
 to a bad end." 
 
 " Yes, come in, my poor boy ! " added the Signora, 
 hastily arranging her dressing-gown. "You have 
 done well to wake me up, if I can only be of any use 
 to you. M. Silivergo has not common sense : don't 
 mind what he says. Tell us all about your love ! They 
 have arrived ! Anything new ? I 'm all attention. 
 Signor Geronimo, light up all the candles in this sitting- 
 room. We can't throw too much light on the subject." 
 
 " But, my dear ! " — objected the old gentleman. 
 
 " No buts ! " replied Aurelia. 
 
 " No buts ! " added Meo. He rapidly detailed to his 
 old friend the great news of the evening. As soon as 
 she heard that the Bank had been broken for his benefit,
 
 M. SILIVERQO. 173 
 
 she was seized with such a fit of joy that she kissed him 
 on both cheeks. The old printer risked an observation. 
 " Hold your tongue ! " said she ; "you 're too selfish ! " 
 
 " Certainly," said Meo, " decidedly too selfish. Old 
 man, you have never been in love ! " Having laid 
 down that proposition, he went on with his story and 
 then waited for Aurelia's advice. 
 
 She reflected for some time, and buried her face in 
 her hands, the better to collect her thoughts. "When she 
 raised her head, her eyes were red with tears. " Yes, 
 dear boy," said she, " your happiness is safe. Heaven 
 must wish you well, since it works miracles in your 
 favor. But who can help wishing you well ? " 
 
 " What 's that ? " said M. Silivergo. 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! " was her only reply. 
 
 Meo only shrugged his shoulders. She traced out for 
 him in a few words the whole plan of the campaign, and 
 he adopted it with enthusiasm. " No more weakness," 
 said she, in conclusion. " Your future is in your own 
 hands ; it is by your own energies alone that it is to be 
 secured. Be inflexible as an iron bar." 
 
 "Against whom?" asked M. Silivergo. 
 
 " None of your business," she replied. " Now, dear 
 Meo, you have no time to lose. You must start as soon 
 as possible. Is there a train to-night?" 
 
 " M. Silivergo will find out for us," said Meo. 
 " Dear friend, examine the Railway Guide." 
 
 The old gentleman obeyed. The first train left at 
 half-past one in the morning. " Quick ! " she ex- 
 claimed. " You have barely time to run to the station. 
 To-morrow you will be in Paris. Barricade your room 
 and bide your time." 
 
 15*
 
 174 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " My baggage is at tlie liotel," said Meo. 
 
 " Leave it there; M. Silivcrgo will send it to you to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " And my bill, which is not yet paid ? " 
 
 "M. Silivergo will pay it." 
 
 " I ? " said the printer. 
 
 "Of course! By the way, have you any money?" 
 
 " No, but my ticket is good to take me back to Paris." 
 
 " No matter for that ; you can't start oif without a 
 cent in your pocket. Monsieur Silivergo, lend liim five 
 hundred francs." 
 
 "I lend him five hundred francs ! " 
 
 " Heavens ! " cried Meo, " how stupid you are ! Are 
 you afraid I shall break you ? I have won more than 
 a hundred and twenty thousand francs this very day at 
 Ilouge et Noir ! " 
 
 " Then how is it that you want five hundred francs?" 
 
 " Have n't you heard ? " 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 " Then you have n't understood ? " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Well, the Signora will explain it all after I am gone. 
 But first let me have those five hundred francs, for I 
 have no time to lose, and the train won't wait ! " 
 
 Meo took the money, embraced Aurelia, embraced 
 Silivergo, embraced the waiter that he had been kicking 
 in the corridor, and never stopped to take breath till he 
 arrived at the station.
 
 THE CAF^ OF THE MUSKETEERS. 175 
 
 CPIAPTER XII. 
 
 THE CAFE OF THE MUSKETEERS. 
 
 BY two o'clock iu the morning, the drizzling rain had 
 become decidedly heavier, and it was still beating 
 into the Captain's face. His last cigar had gone out ; 
 his stock of oaths, the most complete and varied assort- 
 ment that the world has ever witnessed, was running 
 short. But he was fully determined to remain on guard 
 until the Italian came to relieve him. At last he per- 
 ceived at the end of the dark street a human form, 
 preceded by a little lantern. He was sure that this 
 belated individual was his man ; who else would be fool 
 enough to be on the streets in such weather, and at such 
 an hour? Accordingly he ran up and seized him by 
 the collar. 
 
 The form burst into a fit of loud laughter, and 
 exclaimed, in a thick voice, not without an occasional 
 hiccup : " Hello ! is that you, my noble captain of the 
 Rouge et Noir light infantry ? Do you rob lonely trav- 
 ellers on the highway, too ? I thought you operated on 
 a grander scale. Better leave modest employment of 
 that nature to poor shelled-out individuals like myself. 
 No matter ; I shall be able to say that I was attacked 
 after supper by a man who had just won a hundred and 
 twenty thousand francs." 
 
 " My dear Monsieur Le Roy," said the Captain, rather 
 disconcerted, " have n't you met M. Narni ? Did n't he 
 take supper with you ? " 
 
 " No, my lord ; there was nobody at supper with me
 
 176 llOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 but the Duke and the Prince, aud two confounded par- 
 tridges, tough — oh ! so tough ! "\\'e had to dissect 
 them with a cork-screw. Narni must be in his hotel. 
 He's rather green here, you know, and goes to bed." 
 
 " lie has not come back yet ; his key is still in the 
 office." 
 
 " Not come back yet ! Then he must have stopped 
 somewhere on the way. Don't be alarmed, captain of 
 my soul ; when fast young fellows like you and me 
 happen to stay out all night, their parents don't go next 
 morning to the Morgue to see if they're drowned." 
 
 " Alarmed ? not at all. Only I don't want to go to 
 bed until I have paid him his money." 
 
 " What money ? There is some truth then, after all, 
 in this wonderful improbability ? " 
 
 " Sir, I never tell a lie ! The whole sum belongs to 
 Monsieur Narni." 
 
 " What a piece of injustice ! Why don't it belong to 
 me ? He no more played than I did. Another time. 
 Captain, you must win for me; I will furnish the ma- 
 chinery. But is n't it raining a little ? Come up into 
 my room, you can wait there more conveniently." 
 
 " Thank you ! I prefer calling in to-morrow." 
 
 "Well, good-night, then. Apropos! Monsieur Bit- 
 terlin. Now you won't have to portion your daughter." 
 
 " What do you mean by that, sir, if you please ? " 
 
 " Dash it ! the Bank saves you the trouble, you know. 
 I am very glad of it for poor Narni's sake." 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 " You don't see it, eh ? Then it must be the rain 
 that has got into your eyes. Are n't you aware that 
 the young man is dead in love?"
 
 THE CAFE OF THE MUSKETEERS. 177 
 
 " With whom ? " 
 
 "Not with you, certainly. Think over it, my gal- 
 lant captain.. My own opinion is that it is the divine 
 Emma he is after." 
 
 " Sir ! " 
 
 " Oh, of course I don't mean to say he lias done any- 
 thing to compromise her ; still — " 
 
 "Go to bed. Monsieur Le Roy. I hope you will 
 sleep well ; you're dreaming already." 
 
 " Mind Avhat I have told you ! " 
 
 "You had better mind what vou're talking about!" 
 
 He turned away, quite pensive and wet to the skin. 
 As he Avas passing down the corridor of his hotel, he 
 heard something like a scuffle going on in one of the 
 rooms. A married couple that had lost all their money 
 at Roulette were fighting like cat and dog, and the sleep- 
 ins: hotel soon resounded wildlv with screams and blows 
 and crashing furniture.' The most surprising part of 
 the adventure was that the voices of the combatants 
 sounded very like those of the romantic M. Moring and 
 his charming young bride. " Good ! " said the Captain, 
 rubbing his frozen hands together hard enough to set 
 them in a blaze ; " good ! the pigeon-house is out of 
 corn, and the doves are fighting! Serves them right! 
 Gamblers deserve no better fate ! These two fools have 
 lost, and are now tearing each other's eyes out. I have 
 won, and I feel most like tearing out mine ! " 
 
 His daughter was sitting up for him in mortal uneasi- 
 ness. I mean she was anxiously waiting to hear some- 
 thing about Meo. He scolded her for not having gone 
 to bed, and ordered her to do so right away. The poor 
 little thing tried to disarm him by her gentleness. She 
 
 M
 
 178 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 handed him his dressiug-gown and his slippers, and 
 helped hira off with his outside coat, which the rain had 
 pasted to his back. When he had put on dry clothing, 
 she came and sat down at his feet, purring like a little 
 cat, and kissing his hands in spite of him. As she 
 knew "with what intentions he had quitted her after 
 dinner, she thought it good policy to humor his hobby 
 a little in order to induce him to talk. 
 
 " Now, my dear little father," said she, " tell me what 
 you have been seeing. Is the Conversations Haus a fine 
 place? Are the saloons covered all over with gold, as 
 people say? Had the ladies beautifiil dresses? And 
 those horrid gamblers, what kind of faces did they make 
 when they saw their money go? How you must have 
 enjoyed it! " 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes," said tlie Captain, biting his nails, "I 
 enjoyed it — hugely." 
 
 " Did they see you ? Did they observe you ? Did 
 you let them know that they stood in the presence of a 
 man of high-toned moral principles ? " 
 
 " Y-e-s. A — little ! " 
 
 " Men of your stamp are not often there ! " 
 
 " Not very ! " 
 
 " Were our fellow-travellers there ? Have they ar- 
 rived yet? M. Le Roy must have played very high? 
 Did he break the Bank ? " 
 
 " No — not exactly — not that I 'm aware of." 
 
 " He was there though ? " 
 
 " Yes, oh ! yes." 
 
 " He was there and did not play ! You must have 
 converted him then?" 
 
 " Come, daughter, go to bed. It is half-past two."
 
 THE CAFE OF THE MUSKETEERS. 179 
 
 " Oh, let US talk a little longer. I 'ni not sleepy a 
 bit now. Did you see the little German couple? They 
 did n't play, of course." 
 
 " Oh, no; of course not," said the Captain. 
 
 What right had he to betray the poor creatures, since 
 he did not inform on himself? 
 
 " But was there nobody playing at all ? I hope 
 in gracious that Monsieur Narni was as good as the 
 rest. He must have been, for he is of your school, you 
 know. It is from you he has imbibed all those prin- 
 ciples." 
 
 " H'ni ! a nice scholar you would give me ! " 
 
 " Ah ! he has been playing then ? " 
 
 " I did n't say so." 
 
 " How silly I am ! Perhaps he 's not at Baden at 
 all?" 
 
 " He is." 
 
 " You have seen him ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Have you spoken to him ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Did n't he see you?" 
 
 " Go to bed ! We shall talk to-morrow as much as 
 you please." 
 
 " It 's to-morrow now. We shall sleep, if you like, 
 till eight o'clock. Then you will give me your arm 
 and we '11 have a splendid walk through the city and 
 its neio'hborhood." 
 
 " It is raining in torrents." 
 
 " But fortunately it will not be raining in the Con- 
 versations Haus. We shall pass the whole day there. 
 How delightful ! Acknowledge that our trip has done
 
 180 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 me good ! I 'm a liiindred tinies more cheerful than 
 before ! Agatha would hardly know me." , 
 
 " I have forbidden you ever to mention tliat creature's 
 name in my presence. Now then, go to bed at once ; I 
 insist on it." 
 
 He pushed her into the neighljoring room, kissed her 
 on the forehead, and locked and double-locked the door. 
 The like of this had never happened before, since the 
 commencement of their tour. The Captain had been in 
 the habit of leaving the door ajar, in order that Emma 
 might sleep under the paternal protection. 
 
 This irregular proceeding did not pass unnoticed. 
 Between love and anxiety, the young girl had become 
 too vigilant to let anything escape her. She went to 
 bed repeating all the monosyllables that she had ex- 
 tracted out of her father, and she studied into their 
 meaning more profoundly than if they had been so many 
 oracles of Delphi. Even after her lamp had been ex- 
 tinguished more than an hour, her mind was still hard 
 at work. She knew that her father was no more asleep 
 than herself. The partition between the rooms was very 
 thin, and she heard him turning and twisting on his bed, 
 like a porpoise left high and dry on shore by the ebb 
 tide. At last, she heard a match scratch against the 
 wall, and saw a little light making its way into her 
 room through the chinks of the door. In a few mo- 
 ments, her ear, alive to the slightest noise, was struck 
 by a certain metallic sound. She listened with breath- 
 less attention : the noise ceased, commenced, and stopped 
 again ; then it sounded like the rumpling of paper, then 
 the rincrina; sound of metal clearer than ever. Emma 
 was not more curious than the rest of her sex, but she
 
 THE CAFl5 OF THE MUSKETEERS. 181 
 
 got up and stole tiptoe over to the door. The key was 
 turned so as to stop up the hole in the lock, but one of 
 the chinks that admitted the light was wide enough to 
 allow a peep. Emma saw her father seated before an 
 enormous sum of mone}*. The sight of such a pile of 
 gold and bank-notes made her shudder. She could 
 neither understand how her father had come to possess it, 
 nor why he carried it along with him, nor why he 
 had never spoken to her about it, nor how she had 
 chanced to be so Iouq; without discovering it. At the 
 same moment she remembered poor Meo's absolute 
 penury. She looked on this mountain of gold as a new 
 obstacle rising up between them. 
 
 A movement of the Captain's put her to flight, and 
 she threw herself into her bed more dead than alive. 
 The light in the other room was soon extinguished ; the 
 Captain snored ; the clocks struck four ; a faint light 
 beo'an to whiten the curtains: but Emma was still 
 awake. All the cocks in the city had crowed, be- 
 fore she fell at last into a restless and unrefreshing 
 slumber. 
 
 She was waked up by a serenade that set all the 
 Avindows in the hotel a-rattling. For a moment or two 
 her mind, weakened by weariness, remained suspended 
 between the dream and the reality. It often happens 
 that the sleeper, instead of opening his eyes at once to 
 everything around him, stops and lingers a while in the 
 shadowy land of dreams, and improvises out of some 
 fantastic vision a picture-frame for the event that has 
 disturbed his repose. Emma thought that she was still 
 at St, Denis in a class-room, over which her father pre- 
 sided. Each pupil was reading out of a book made of 
 16
 
 182 EOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 bank-notes bound together into a volume. Tjie rain 
 was rattling against the panes, and streaming down tlie 
 glass in large gold pieces. Music was heard outside, and 
 all the class ran to the windows. Emma saw a regiment 
 pass by headed by a band. The Colonel turned round 
 to salute her, and Emma recognized Meo's face. Then 
 she woke up in earnest, and heard the orchestra playing 
 outside in the yard. She jumped up out of bed to see 
 Colonel Meo pass at the head of his regiment, but she 
 saw only a score of musicians running away, and her 
 father giving them money to make them run quicker. 
 
 Tlien, indeed, she began to feel that she was dreaming 
 in earnest. She pinched herself to find out if she was 
 still asleep. Never iu all her life had she seen her 
 father so decidedly hostile to music ; never, above all, 
 had she known him to be so generous. She was deter- 
 mined on askii^ him for the explanation of this riddle 
 the first moment he would make his appearance. But 
 he went off, chasing the musicians, and did not return 
 all the morning. Emma's two doors still remained 
 locked. * 
 
 At last the Captain came back. He looked so wicked 
 that his daughter at once lost all courage to speak to 
 him on any subject. A servant followed at his heels, 
 carrying on a tray a breakfast already prepared. Hith- 
 erto they had invariably taken their meals at the public 
 table. Towards the end of breakfast, Emma observed, 
 that, as all the rain seemed to be over, they might take 
 a little run through the town. 
 
 " Impossible," said the Captain, peremptorily. " We 
 must get our baggage ready at once, and start for Paris." 
 
 To this decree, without appeal, the girl could make
 
 THE CAF:iE OF THE MUSKETEERS. 183 
 
 no reply ; she now entertained no doubt that lier secret 
 had been betrayed. The only thing that astonished her 
 a little was that the Captain did not beat her. She 
 packed up her trunks and went down stairs with her 
 father, recommending herself to the mercy of God. In 
 the hall she remarked that the hotel people had all fallen 
 into line to get a look at her as she passed through. 
 In the railroad omnibus, the travellers fixed their eyes 
 on her with a persistency that was actually disagreeable. 
 In the station, the j^assport agent was betrayed into a 
 slight start and exclamation when he saw the name, 
 " Bitterlin." 
 
 They jogged along in the German cars as far as the 
 bridge at Kehl. Tlie Captain looked as frowning as 
 ever. Emma reminded him, timidly, that he had prom- 
 ised to show her the Cathedral of Strasburg. He 
 answered, in a tone that admitted of no reply: "They 
 are repairing it." 
 
 " Well," thought the poor child, " he is taking me 
 home to kill me ; that 's the truth of the matter." She 
 tried to gain some time at Luneville ; the Captain had 
 told her that he would make some stay there; but he 
 now protested that the country was unhealthy — ravaged 
 by the measles — and that nothing in the world could 
 induce him to stop in such a place. At the Chalons 
 junction, he told her that there was no longer anything 
 interesting going on in the camp, the grand manoeuvres 
 being all over. Emma resigned herself to her fate like 
 another Iphigenia, and began bidding an eternal adieu 
 to the sweet sunlight. She entered her house in the 
 Rue des Vosges as she would a tomb in which she was 
 to be buried alive.
 
 184 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 How great was her surprise when she found' all the 
 rooms filled with fresh flowers ! The mantels, the 
 tables, the beds even, were loaded with large, beautiful 
 bouquets. This lovely summer luxury suddenly 
 changed the current of her thoughts. She laughed at 
 herself for having been so much afraid ; it even made 
 her blush, and she threw her arms around her father's 
 neck to thank him and to ask his pardon. But Aga- 
 memnon only turned his head sorrowfully away, and the 
 victim felt that it was only for a sacrifice that the altar 
 had been decked. 
 
 However, eight days elapsed, and still she saw no 
 gleaming knife make its appearance. If her father sel- 
 dom smiled on herj he at least treated her well. He 
 breakfasted at home with her, and took her to the res- 
 taurant to dinner. Perhaps he wished to fatten up his 
 victim before killing it. He shut her up all alone dur- 
 ing a good part of the day, while he was attending to 
 business matters, for, ever since his return, he was the 
 busiest man in all Paris. 
 
 Poor Captain ! Dearly indeed did he pay for the 
 pleasure of having broken the Bank. The Baden 
 musicians' serenade and the market-women's bouquets 
 were the least of his mortifications. Meo's money was 
 a terrible burden. He wanted to restore it to the owner, 
 but the owner could not be found. The people of the 
 Victoria hotel had first told him that Meo had not 
 returned, and then that he had departed without leaving 
 his address. M. Le Roy did not know wdiere his new 
 friend lived. All his own proceedings in Baden had only 
 served to render him a most conspicuous object of the 
 public attention, and of course he could not think of 
 keeping Emma any longer in so ridiculous a locality.
 
 THE CAFJE OF THE MUSKETEERS. 185 
 
 Since lu's return he luid been searching all over Paris, 
 without finding the address that he souglit. Wliy did 
 he not ask his daughter for it ? But one can't think of 
 everything. He had explored the promenades, the 
 theatres, and all the public places, without even catch- 
 ing the first glimpse of his man. He had even dis- 
 covered the Bois de Boulogne, as Christopher Colum- 
 bus fell ou America while he was searching for a road 
 to the Indies. He displayed more energy in the pursuit 
 of this lover than any lover has ever yet done in the 
 pursuit of his mistress. The Parisian directory gave 
 him the opportunity of making the acquaintance of three 
 different Narnis, all of them chimney-builders ; but none 
 of these Narnis was his Narni. 
 
 Whilst he was thus exhausting himself by his fruit- 
 less exertions, his door was continually besieged by 
 swarms of those hungry applicants who scent the odor 
 of money from afar off, and make for it as eagerly as 
 hornets for honey. • Letters and visits poured in upon 
 him every morning ; and what letters ! ye gods ! and 
 what visits ! The founder of an anonymous company 
 offered him a situation of two hundred thousand francs 
 a year, as soon as he would have paid in a bonus of 
 sixty thousand. The commander of unknown orders 
 offered him a splendid cross, almost the same as that of 
 the Legion of Honor. Ten inventors, without a shoe 
 to their foot, promised to triple his capital in fifteen 
 days. He had only to start an establishment for manu- 
 facturing pumpkin-coffee, or red bean-sugar, or the 
 umbrella cigar-holder, or the piano dressing-table, or the 
 patent military-cap-fryiug-pan, a valuable article in time 
 of peace, and indispensable to every soldier in time of 
 
 10*
 
 186 ROUGE ET XOIR. 
 
 ■war. He asked himself by what miracle or l)y -what 
 treachery had all Paris happened to have heard of his 
 new fortnne at the same time; he was not kept long in 
 ignorance. 
 
 Eight days after his arrival, he happened to enter the 
 Cajc of the Musketeers, where he used to amuse himself, 
 formerly, in taking Sebastopol. It was about ten 
 o'clock at night, when all the old hands of the estab- 
 lishment are always at their j)ost. Everything was .in 
 full blast; all the billiard-tables were taken, all the 
 domino-boards crowded. The beer foamed in the pew- 
 ter mugs, and the tobacco-smoke rose in wreaths to the 
 ceiling. As soon as the Captain's face loomed through 
 the stifling atmosphere, his name started out of twenty 
 mouths at once. The spojons, the knives, the pi])es 
 rattled in cadence on the coffee-cups and on the wine- 
 bottles, and a choral hymn rose on the air in improvised 
 doggerel. The ^lite of the company left their places and 
 came forward to present their compliments with a certain 
 solemnity. The owner of the establishment, with a 
 bottle in his left hand and a small glass in his right, 
 solicited the honor of being allowed to offer him some- 
 thing. The lady seated behind the counter smiled at 
 him most kindly. 
 
 "Death and everlasting fire!" cried the Captain, 
 starting back three paces, " will some of you tell me at 
 last what is the meaning of all this ? " 
 
 Everybody hastened to reply at once that his modesty 
 was quite becoming, but that his noble conduct, his 
 disinterestedness, and his magnanimity would be borne 
 through the world in spite of him, on the white and 
 black wings of the 2)ress. And the owner, hastening back
 
 THE caf:^ of the musketeers. 187 
 
 to his drawer, took out of it a large printed sheet, torn 
 in several places, and covered with a thousand stains. 
 " Read ! " he exclaimed. " I have preserved this num- 
 ber in my safe. These gentlemen were speaking of 
 getting up a game of pool to have it framed ; for it is 
 the glory of our coifee-house to have a customer so dis- 
 tinguished as you." 
 
 " Hurrah for JNIousieur Bitterlin ! " cried three young 
 men, too intent on a game of billiards to leave the table 
 and join the deputation. 
 
 The Captain threw himself on a chair, and began to 
 read, with many shoulder-shrugs, a long article entitled 
 a ".Letter from Baden." 
 
 The writer commenced with a long dissertation, iu 
 the well-known flippant, pretentious style of too many 
 Parisian journals, on the summers of Paris. He went 
 on to tell how all the Parisians had gone to the country 
 to pluck hollyhocks, chrysanthemums, and lilacs ; how 
 he had walked the Boulevards from the Madeleine to 
 the Bastile without meeting a single living creature ex- 
 cept a few Prussian princes, and one or two chocolate 
 men. " That is the reason," said he, " why I started for 
 Baden to write my Paris article, at the very moment 
 that an editor of the Aheille du Nord was entering Paris 
 in order to write his leader for St. Petersburg." 
 
 The Captain glanced rapidly over some very original 
 reflections on the railroads which have superseded the 
 diligences, but which the diligences in course of time 
 are to supersede in their turn, by virtue of the law of 
 nniversal rotation. He skipped fifty lines of highly di- 
 luted philosophy in order to get more quickly at the 
 part which concerned himself:
 
 188 KOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " Baden is a pasteboard city. M. Benazet had it 
 constructed a few years ago by the scene-painters of the 
 opera. lie gets it retouched every spring to keep up 
 the illusion. The court scene is at once imposing and 
 patriarchal ; the garden scene has rather a fresh look. 
 Arouud the Conversations Haus are seen practicable 
 green walks, where I expect every moment to behold 
 Monsieur Petitpas carrying Madame Ferraris on the tip 
 of his finger. The sky scene was not well managed the 
 day I arrived. At first, I thought the darkness was 
 caused by a grease spot where a lamp had fallen : but in 
 the evening, as I returned to my hotel, I found I was 
 mistaken : it was not oil, but water. 
 
 " The saloons are very lively. The elite of European 
 society had promised to be there, and it has kept its 
 word. Under those gilded ceilings (old style) I have 
 had the pleasure of squeezing the hand x)f the Duke of 
 
 A , of Prince B , of the celebrated Baron C , 
 
 and of kissing the daintily-gloved fingers of the divine 
 Marchioness D . 
 
 " Should n't you be nicely caught, pretty reader mine, 
 if I told you nothing about the gambling? Don't be 
 alarmed, however. I arrived just in time to be present 
 at the most curious phenomenon that the meteorological 
 liistory of Baden has recorded for the last twenty years. 
 The Bank exploded before my eyes. Don't be fright- 
 ened at the word. Since that event, everybody has been 
 quite well, even the Bank. 
 
 " But this miracle has been attended by circumstances 
 so exceptional, and, if I dare use the expression — so 
 moral ! ! ! — that it is my duty to relate it here. Lend 
 mo then your little rose-tipped car a moment; you shall
 
 THE CAFE OF TPIE MUSKETEERS. 189 
 
 see that this very gambling, which people slander so 
 much, sometimes has its high morality. 
 
 " The firm N — i, one of the most honorable in Paris, 
 was on the point of suspending payment, for want of a 
 hundred thousand francs, which it had to pay on the 1st 
 of September. 
 
 " The head bookkeeper of the Messrs. N — i, for- 
 merly an officer in the infantry, came up to his employers 
 and said : 
 
 " ' There is perhaps one way still left to save you.' 
 
 " ' Is it possible ? ' 
 
 " ' I think so.' 
 
 " ' INIention it ! ' 
 
 '^ ' Here it is. Pay my expenses to Baden.' 
 
 " ' To Baden ! ' 
 
 " ' Precisely. Moreover, give me one napoleon, taken 
 at random out of the safe.' 
 
 " ' In order to — ' 
 
 " ' In order to stake it at Rouge et NoirJ 
 
 " ' One napoleon ! ' 
 
 " ' No more. Something tells me that I shall win a 
 hundred thousand francs.' 
 
 " They thought he was mad. — 
 
 "His well-known attachment io the firm justified the 
 supposition. 
 
 " But he added, in a tone of conviction : 
 
 " ' I have never played in all my life. I should 
 therefore have a lucky hand. Besides, Heaven cannot 
 permit the firm of N — i Brothers to fail for want of a 
 hundred thousand francs.' 
 
 " His confidence moved the Messrs. N — i. 
 
 " They gave him his travelling expenses.
 
 190 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " iNIorcover, one napoleon taken at random out of the 
 safe. 
 
 " He set off. 
 
 "On Friday, the 17th inst., he arrived at Baden, 
 and without even going to an hotel, he ran straight to 
 the Conversations Haus. 
 
 " One hour after, the Bank was broken, in consequence 
 of a series of Blacks. 
 
 " One hour after that, the successful and faithful book- 
 keeper took the railroad back again to Paris, without 
 having eaten a morsel or drunk a drop, the bearer of 
 one hundred and twenty-one thousand two hundred and 
 forty francs. 
 
 " It is now said that the Messrs. N — i had been 
 paid in the meantime very large sums, which were 
 altogether unexpected, and that they have forced Bitter- 
 lin to keep the money to buy gloves. 
 
 " This great unknown man's name is Bittcrlin. 
 
 " I saw him at the Rouge et Noir table. 
 
 " He punted away royally,* like Mithridates, king of 
 Pontus [Punt-us). 
 
 " He is an old man of from sixty-five to seventy, low- 
 sized, ugly, and common-looking. 
 
 '' But the star of hoQor glitters on his breast. 
 
 " He is worthy of it."
 
 HOW MEO REFUSED EMMA's HAND. 191 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HOW MEO REFUSED EMMA's HAND. 
 
 AFTER that evening tlie Captain slept no more. 
 His name, hitherto so pure and spotless, — a name 
 which, by rights, should have been borne by a marshal 
 of France, and which, in spite of fate, was still the 
 name of a man of principle, — that name to be thus 
 branded about in the papers, an object of curiosity to a 
 heartless public ! He shuddered with horror at the idea 
 that the whole world should henceforth speak of him as 
 a great prestidigitator. The absurd details into which 
 they had interwoven his adventure should soon get him 
 enrolled in the " Gallery of Celebrated Gamblers." He 
 would not dare to look at a picture-dealer's window, for 
 fear of finding his portrait there. And what would his 
 daughter say as soon as she knew the conduct her father 
 had been guilty of? What respect could she preserve 
 for his authority ? And now, to crown the joke, Narni 
 could not be found, and the polluting crowns still waited 
 for their master. The Captain felt that his conscience 
 would be at least a hundred pounds lighter the day that 
 he could wash his bauds of this confounded money. 
 
 In his trouble he all at once thought of employing 
 the assistance of the police. He had known the day 
 when these agents of the Public Safety willingly inter- 
 fered in private matters, and he never supposed that the 
 world had much changed since the time when Fouch^ 
 was minister. So one fine morning he involved himself 
 in the labyrinths of the Head Police Office, and towards
 
 102 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 the end of the day, after endless ramblings and circum- 
 locutions, he found himself at last stranded, like a cast- 
 away, in the department for the reception of lost goods. 
 The clerk who received him could not help smiling 
 when lie heard his request, " Sir," said he, " the service 
 you demand is not at all in our line. Nobody here will 
 ])erforra it for you, let the reward you choose to offer be 
 M'hat it may. Where should we ever end, great mercy ! 
 if we even once undertook anything of the kind ? You 
 know that one-half of Paris passes its whole existence 
 in looking for the other half. The city is full of cred- 
 itors looking for their debtors, lovers looking for their 
 mistresses, speculators looking for their capitalists, hus- 
 bands looking for their wives, sharpers looking for their 
 dupes, insulted looking for their insulters to greet them 
 with a rousing kick in the rear. Undoubtedly we 
 should be delighted to help all honest folks in finding 
 each other out ; but we cannot read hearts, you know, 
 and with the best intentions in the world, we could not 
 help occasionally bringi«g about the most unfortunate 
 results. You ask me for the address of a certain ]Mon- 
 sieur Narni; I am willing to believe that you do so in 
 perfect good faith, and that you do not entertain the 
 most remote idea in the world of injuring him. But 
 suppose another Narni came here to-morrow to Hud out 
 your address for the purpose of writing love-letters to 
 your wife ? " 
 
 "Fortunately, sir, my wife is dead, and besides — " 
 " Excuse me, sir, I spoke in general. Let us say 
 then, if you please, that a certain Narni has a notion of 
 stealing into your house for the purpose of relieving you 
 of your money."
 
 HOW MEO REFUSED EMMA's HAND. 193 
 
 " I wish to heaven he would ! Listen to me, sir, and 
 judge if my views are honorable. I am looking for M. 
 Narni to restore him a sum of a hundred and twenty 
 thousand francs." 
 
 ■' " Then, sir, you don't want our help. Put an adver- 
 tisement to that effect in the papers, and M. Narni won't 
 be long in making his appearance, or I 'm very much 
 mistaken. You will have two of them rather than one, 
 and you will be very fortunate indeed if you don't see 
 them arriving by the dozen." 
 
 "Oh, the. thing is only too public already, and those 
 rascally newspaper busybodies have talked more about 
 it than they should have done ! Good-bye, sir. I see I 
 have been only on a wild-goose chase. But I am not 
 sorry to have discovered that here in your office, as 
 everywhere else, there is great room for improvement." 
 
 On his return home, he found the following anony- 
 mous note lying on his table : 
 
 " The man you are looking for lives under your nose. 
 Go to-morrow morning to Rue St. Catherine, No. 4, and 
 you will catch him in bed." 
 
 It was Meo who thus discovered on himself in order 
 to hurry up the march of events. 
 
 Next morning at nine o'clock the Captain stuffed the 
 hundred and twenty thousand francs into his pockets, 
 and hopped about in his rooms as lively as a bird. For 
 years his daughter had never seen him in such good 
 humor. He rubbed his hands together, and stopped 
 every moment to crack the knotty joints of each finger. 
 I think even, Heaven bless us, that he hummed some- 
 thing like a tune between his teeth ! Emma could not 
 
 account for such an exuberance of spirits j she was still 
 
 17 N
 
 194 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 niuc'li more astonished when he chucked lier under the 
 chin, and said : " Any commands for M. Narni ? I am 
 going to see him this morning." What answer she 
 made, even she lierself has never since been able to tell : 
 she had a mist before her eyes and a bee-hive in each 
 ear. But the Captain paid no attention to such embar- 
 rassment. He put on his hat crossways, shut the doors 
 with a merry swing, and went down stairs rattling his 
 key against the banisters. Five minutes afterwards he 
 entered Mco's room without knocking at the door. 
 
 The Italian was waiting for him with a firm foot, 
 though lying stretched out at full length between the 
 sheets of a bad bed. During the fifteen days since his 
 return from Baden, he had been able to complete the 
 plan of the campaign so well sketched out by Aurelia. 
 He had armed himself at all points for a decisive battle; 
 his arseuals of skill and courage were now full to the brim. 
 
 " By Jove ! " cried the Captain, seating himself astride 
 on a chair, " you can boast of having made me run ! " 
 
 "Hey? What's the matter? Who goes there?" 
 replied ]\Ieo, stretching his arms and rubbing his eyes. 
 Then sitting up in the bed, he exclaimed, with a joy that 
 seemed perfectly artless : " Is it you, my dear Monsieur 
 Bitterlin ? How good of you to give me such a pleas- 
 ant surprise ! Such kind attention goes to my heart ! " 
 
 " My young friend," began the Captain — 
 
 " Thank you for that good word ! " interrupted the 
 Italian. " Ah ! why did n't you grant me your friend- 
 ship at once ? Permit me to shake your hand." 
 
 " That '11 do ! that '11 do ! oh ! that '11 do ! " 
 
 " And have you been very well ever since I had the 
 pleasure of seeing you? Is JNIadcmoiselle Bittcrlin's 
 health good ? "
 
 HOW MEO REFUSED EMMA's HAND. 105 
 
 " Yes, yes ; excellent. But I have come to talk on 
 business." 
 
 " To me on business ? No doubt you take me for 
 somebody else." 
 
 " Tut, tut, tut ! Always a chatterer ! Let us talk 
 less, and keep to the subject." 
 
 " My respected friend, I am all attention." 
 
 " Do you remember the night I saw you in Baden, at 
 the gambling table ?" 
 
 Meo popped his head under the bed-clothes, like a 
 child caught committing some fault. " Listen," said he, 
 " my dear Captain ; I am no gambler, and if I had been 
 one, your fine discourses, which are always present to 
 my memory, would have cured me at once of such a 
 vice. But I am weak and easily led. People can do 
 what they please with me, as you are well aAv^re. If I 
 had served under the Em2)eror's orders, or under yours, 
 I might perhaps have become a hero ; if I had fallen 
 under Cartouche's direction, or Passatore's, I should 
 most likely have come to a bad end. My companions 
 at Baden were a set of wild young fellows ; they gam- 
 bled away from morning till night. What more expla- 
 nation is needed ? I allowed myself to be led on by 
 their bad example. But at least you will do me the 
 justice to acknowledge that the moment I saw you enter 
 the room, I blushed deeply for my conduct. I remem- 
 bered our conversation at SchafFhausen ; I dreaded one 
 of those paternal remonstrances which your growing 
 friendship would urge you to make in my regard. Why 
 need I say more ? I vanished from your presence like 
 weakness, from strength, folly from wisdom, vice from 
 virtue."
 
 196 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " H'm ! " saitl the Captain, clearliig his throat and 
 scratching his heath He resumed, timidly : " You left 
 twenty francs behind you on the table." 
 
 "Twenty francs? Faith, likely enough. I hardly 
 knew what I was doing." 
 
 " I bring you back your twenty francs," 
 
 " You, Captain? Now, really, that is too kind ! but 
 it is an excellent lesson for me, and I thank you for it 
 with all my heart." 
 
 " I bring them back to you with the money that they 
 have won." 
 
 " Oh, you 're joking ! My twenty francs to win 
 anythi 
 
 ina: 
 
 t" 
 
 '* Your twenty francs have won a hundred and twenty 
 thousand two hundred and forty francs, and here 's the 
 whole sunff" He began to empty his pockets on the 
 little table of unpainted wood. Meo watched his pro- 
 ceedings with a stupefaction exceedingly well played. 
 
 " Now, ray young friend," continued the Captain, " I 
 bid you good-bye." 
 
 Meo seized him by the coat-tail. 
 
 " Wait a moment ! " he exclaimed. " Do me the favor 
 to explain all this ; I 'm not quite awake yet ! This 
 money — tell me how the thing took place, and prove 
 to me that I am not dreaming." 
 
 " Oh, it is all quite simple. Your twenty francs had 
 been staked with the intention of winning, had n't they? 
 Well, they had the luck, and they won ; that 's all. I 
 have the honor to — " 
 
 " ^yon ? But how ? Keeping on the same spot all 
 the time? My poor napoleon to win such an immense 
 sum as that ! Captain, you are surely making fun of me."
 
 HOW MEO REFUSED EMMA's HAND. 197 
 
 " You see quite plainly that I 'm doing no such thing." 
 " I don't see anything at all. Was it on the Red or 
 
 the Black?" 
 
 " On the — Black, if I 'm not mistaken." 
 
 " Excuse me, I beseech you, Captain, for asking your 
 
 attention so long to things that are so repugnant to you ; 
 
 but how many times did the Black win ? " 
 
 " Ah ! now you 're asking too much. How can I 
 
 tell ? " 
 
 " Well, it is easy enough to calculate. Please hand 
 me that pencil, and the sheet of paper you see lying on 
 the table there ; that 's it. Thank you." 
 
 " Let me see. I think I remember that the Black 
 turned up fourteen times." 
 
 " Good ! But if it turned up fourteen times I have 
 not all my money here. A napoleon doubled on itself 
 fourteen times, makes three hundred and twenty-seven 
 thousand six hundred and eighty francs." 
 
 " Do you take me for a robber ? " 
 
 " Oh, Captain ! how can you say so ? But stop ! Now 
 I think of it, there 's a maximum stake that the players 
 cannot exceed. That will settle everything. How much 
 is this maximum ? Six thousand francs, I think." 
 
 " It is quite possible," answered the Captain, wiping 
 his forehead. 
 
 " There ! Now my calculation is made. At the 
 ninth deal the napoleon had won by itself alone ten 
 thousand two hundred and forty francs, and so had 
 exceeded the maximum. It must have been helped to 
 win the rest. Somebody must have taken away the four 
 thousand two hundred and forty francs. What friend 
 did the kind office ? "
 
 198 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 '' I cliel. 1 Iiai)i)ciie(] to be stiiiuling there, and — " 
 
 " You gave it a helping hani,! ? I see. Of course, 
 then, you kept on doing so, taking up six thousand 
 francs every oifer ? " 
 
 " 1 was standing there, and I thought it my duty 
 to — " 
 
 " You are the best of men. But do you know tliat 
 at six thousand francs an oifer you must win 18^ times 
 to get at one hundred and ten thousand francs? 18 
 and 9 are 27. Blacik, then, must have turned up 27^ 
 times without a single interruption." 
 
 " I don't say that — I — " 
 
 " Ah ! Red won at last, then ? " 
 
 " To be sure it did." 
 
 " Then, of course, I lost." 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " I flatter myself that somebody took the trouble to 
 pay for me ? " 
 
 " I was standing there, and — " 
 
 " Thank you. Captain. But surely I could not have 
 obstinately kept on Black all the time ! Did n't I ever 
 venture on Red ? " 
 
 "Very likely." 
 
 " My money could not have walked over there by 
 itself. Somebody helped it ; who ? " • 
 
 " I was standing there, and — " 
 
 " But if you were standing there. Captain, — if you took 
 up the money and put down the money, and if you 
 changed it from Red to Black and from Black to Red, 
 according as you thought proper, it is you that have 
 been playing, and not I, — it is you that won the money, 
 and therefore it is to you that it belongs. Give me my 
 twenty-franc piece then, and take away the rest."
 
 HOW MEO REFUSED EMMA's HAND. 199 
 
 "Sir, you know ray principles. I despise gambling; 
 therefore I don't gamble, therefore I don't win, therefore 
 I don't accept winnings that I should be ashamed of. 
 In a moment of forgetfulness, I may possibly have 
 interested myself a little in looking on at the game, and, 
 if you absolutely insist on it, I may have even helped 
 to assist the luck that enriched you. But a little act of 
 indiscretion, pardonable because it was wholly disinter- 
 ested, would become a shameful fault if I made it a 
 source of profit." 
 
 " Sir, I understand the motives that prompt you to 
 reject this money, but I consider it very surprising, to 
 say the least of it, that you should seek to get rid of 
 your difficulty by making me a scapegoat. I forgot a 
 twenty-franc piece on a gambling table, granted ; but I 
 did not ask you to play it for me. I was not your part- 
 ner ; I had n't even the honor of being reckoned among 
 the number of your friends. What was there in com- 
 mon between us? Suppose that, after winning several 
 thousand francs for you, my napoleon had induced you 
 to keep on playing until you had lost your pantaloons, 
 would you have then had the face to come and take 
 mine? " 
 
 The Captain was now obliged to reflect a little while. 
 He had not expected such a reception. In his eagerness 
 to get rid of the burden that oppressed him, he had 
 never foreseen that a poor young man might possibly 
 refuse a ready-made fortune ; that so docile and submis- 
 sive a creature might resist him ; that a mind of such 
 moderate abilities might be able to argue more vigor- 
 ously and more logically than himself. Taken totally 
 unawares, then, by his adversary, he grasped blindly at 
 arguments merely personal and deplorably feeble.
 
 200 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 "My young friend," said he, "consider .that I 
 am double your age, that all my life I have condemned 
 gambling, and that I could never bear to look at myself 
 in the glass if I should sec nothing there but the face 
 of a man who had been enriched by cards." 
 
 "My dear sir," replied Meo, "if you think that 
 money won by gambling is disreputable to keep, why 
 do you wish to make such a present to me ? " 
 
 "Because it is yours! Will you believe me when I 
 swear on my soul and conscience that it was for you I 
 was playing all the time?" 
 
 " Will you give me the lie if I remind you that I 
 never gave you any authority to do so ? " 
 
 " I would never have run the risk of winning if I 
 thought I could make a single cent by it." 
 
 " Suppose that to-morrow, or next day, I should go 
 and say to you : ' Captain, I killed a traveller on the St. 
 Denis road with a knife that belonged to you. I i)lun- 
 dered him of everything that he had about him ; I swear 
 on my soul and conscience that it was for you I took all 
 the trouble, therefore accept this purse and watch, they 
 are your property, — my principles condemn murder, 
 and I would never have committed such an infamous 
 action if I thought I could make a single cent by it.' 
 What answer would you make ? Would n't you say : 
 ' Be off, you scoundrel ! Go wash yourself in the river, 
 and don't try to wipe yourself with my coat ? ' " 
 
 " Comparison is not argument. Monsieur Narni. 
 Your subtleties may embarrass me, but they shall never 
 convince me. This money belongs to you, it is in your 
 room, do what you- please with it. As for me, I have 
 dune my duty, and 1 now bid you good morning."
 
 HOW MEO REFUSED EMMA's HAND. 201 
 
 So saying, he gained the door and made off like a 
 pickpocket. Meo was not sufficiently dressed to follow 
 him. As the Captain rushed from the door, he Avas 
 very near upsetting Agatha, his old cook, who Avas 
 coming to do the housework ; but he did not have time 
 to recognize her. He returned home and took an 
 enormous breakfast, without however giving his daughter 
 the slightest hint why he was in such good spirits. The 
 whole of this day was consecrated to pleasure : he put 
 Emma in a carriage, showed her all the improvements 
 and embellishments in the Bois de Vincennes, and told 
 her the history of the castle. They dined outside a 
 rural restaurant, under dusty trees, smelling very decid- 
 edly of rabbit. This little dissipation was prolonged 
 so far into the evening, that it was fully ten o'clock 
 before father and daughter returned home. 
 
 Emma had already retired to her little nook, and 
 was there puzzling her brain in a vain effort to compre- 
 hend the events of the day, when all at once a formid- 
 able oath shook the Captain's room. She ran to see 
 what was the matter, but her father shut the door in her 
 face, crying : " Keep out ! " And the tinkling of gold 
 pieces and the rumpling of bank-notes once more fell 
 upon her ear. The Captain had found a hundred and 
 twenty-one thousand two hundred and forty francs lying 
 on the foot of his bed. 
 
 He put the treasure into his pockets, saw that his 
 daughter had gone to bed, locked and double-locked up 
 everything, abused the porter for having seen nobody 
 going up-stairs, and reached Meo's abode in a single 
 jump. This time, the Italian was really asleep. It 
 took a quarter of an hour's knocking and racket to 
 wake him up. 
 
 t
 
 202 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " It appears," said the Captain, " that you did, not ex- 
 pect me this evening." 
 
 " I am not the less flattered by your visit. You saw 
 that I kept my twenty francs. Good accounts make 
 good friends." 
 
 " Take care, sir ! Tilings are beginning to get un- 
 pleasant. Will you explain to me by what means this 
 money got back into my house?" 
 
 " I never disclose my stratagems of war. You left 
 my house without my permission ; to enter your house 
 I did not ask yours." 
 
 " But, sir, that was the act of a malefactor." 
 
 " I oppose cunning to violence. Against a benefactor 
 who puts his foot on our throat, we defend ourselves as 
 well as we can." 
 
 '' Well, sir, I shall have recourse to law. The courts 
 will force you to keep what belongs to you whether you 
 like it or not." 
 
 " The courts will have nothing at all to do with our 
 ulfairs, gambling debts not being recognized by the law. 
 If I sued you for these one hundred and twenty thou- 
 sand francs, all the judges in the country would con- 
 demn me. How then do you think that they can com- 
 pel me to take the money ? " 
 
 " Confusion ! Then we shall never come to an under- 
 standing ; for, as for my part, I will never yield ! " 
 
 " Nor I either. Captain. I 'm one of your own 
 school ! You want me to take that money ; I want you 
 to keep it. Neither of us will yield an inch. Are you 
 willing to split the difference and take half?" 
 
 " No, sir ! " 
 
 "Nor I, eitlici". It is wonderful how we agree.
 
 HOW MEO REFUSED EMMA's HAND. 203 
 
 Wliat shall we do? Of all the modes of settlement 
 there is only one possible, and that I don't want." 
 
 " AVhat one is that ? " 
 
 " It is of no consequence to you, since I object to it." 
 
 "But what is it?" 
 
 " There are plenty of people who would accept it with 
 delight ; but I 've already had the honor to inform you 
 that I 'm not one of that kind." 
 
 " But you can at least say what it is." 
 
 " I don't want it, I won't have it, I decidedly object 
 to it ! A marriage between your daughter and myself 
 would end the dispute by leaving the money undi- 
 vided. It is an arrangement at once easy, honorable, 
 and even agreeable ; but I don't want it ! " 
 
 " Fire and fury, sir ! You refuse my daughter's 
 hand ! But, sir, I don't offer it to you." 
 
 "You do right, sir, for I would refuse it unhes- 
 itatingly." 
 
 " And why so, sir, may I ask ? " 
 
 " I have no explanations to offer." 
 
 " But I insist on explanations. It seems to me that 
 my daughter is neither ugly nor disagreeable ; what the 
 devil do you mean ? " 
 
 " Sir, I have nothing whatever to say against Made- 
 moiselle Bitterlin's beauty." 
 
 "Then you have something to say against her con- 
 duct?" 
 
 "Nothing that I know of, sir. If I refuse your 
 daughter's hand, it is not because I have any personal 
 fault to find with her." 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " 
 
 " Nothing."
 
 204: ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " You said personal." 
 
 " Quite possibly." 
 
 " What is the meaning of that? Personal?" 
 
 "Well, personal!" 
 
 " Personal ! personal ! Is it the family then that 
 does not enjoy your esteem ? Do you mean to convey 
 the idea that Captain Bitterlin is not good enough to 
 be your father-in-law ? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid, Captain ! I consider you one of 
 the noblest men of our times." 
 
 " But then, sir, if the daughter and the father are 
 beyond reproach, with whom do you find fault ? Per- 
 haps with the mother ? " 
 
 " I have never had the honor of seeing Madame 
 Bitterlin." 
 
 " Swear to me that you have never heard mention of 
 her." 
 
 " I don't know if the oath is necessary; I have 
 heard people speak of Madame Bitterlin as a very 
 beautiful and elegant lady." 
 
 "Elegant? "Why not fashionable? Who told you 
 that? who?" 
 
 " You did so yourself, sir, if I have a good memory." 
 
 " Oh ! it is written on high that I shall never know 
 anything. So then, sir, you refuse my daughter because 
 you are afraid it runs in the blood. That's it, isn't it?" 
 
 " I ! sir. I swear to you such a thought has never 
 entered my head." 
 
 " Why then do you refuse my daughter?" 
 
 " Because." 
 
 " That is no reason. Are you married ? " 
 
 "No."
 
 HOW MEO REFUSED EMMA's HAND. 205 
 
 " Have you any objection towards matrimony? " 
 
 " Not the least." 
 
 "Then, sir, I consider it very impertinent in you to 
 refuse my daughter." 
 
 " Excuse me, sir. Suppose I had asked you for her 
 hand, would you have granted it ? " 
 
 " I ? Never ! " 
 
 "You would have refused it?" 
 
 " Would n't I ? death and destruction ! " 
 
 " What do you complain of then ? " 
 
 " I complain of your insolence ; and I insist that 
 you retract what you have said." 
 
 " I said that I had the most sincere esteem for INIadc- 
 moiselle Emma Bitterlin, and likewise for her father 
 and mother. What must I retract? I am ready." 
 
 " And I am ready too, sir, to give you the chastise- 
 ment that you deserve." 
 
 "Your hand on that, Captain! Now I think you're 
 right. A sword -thrust never proves anything, but 
 sometimes it settles everything. If you kill me, I 
 accept your money and your daughter; the hundred 
 and twenty thousand francs will pay my funeral ex- 
 penses, and I shall marry Mademoiselle Bitterlin m 
 extremis." 
 
 " A truce to such jesting, sir ! Do you persist in 
 
 refusing to accept the sum that belongs to you ? " 
 
 " Obstinately. Moreover, I have the honor to refuse 
 
 the hand of Mademoiselle, your daughter." 
 
 " Well, sir, you shall hear from me." 
 
 " It will give me much pleasure, sir." 
 18
 
 20G ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 PREPARATIONS. 
 
 TPIE One Hundred and Fourth of the Line was gar- 
 risoned at Paris. The morning after the Captain 
 had dechired war on his son-in-hiw, he ran off at an 
 early hour to the Military Coffee-house of the Rue St. 
 Antoine, and asked for the Army Register of 1858. 
 Meo, on his side, after having slept all night like a toji, 
 entered a readinQ;-room and beiran to examine the 
 register for the list of the officers of the One li^undred 
 and Fourth. The two enemies had excellent reasons for 
 choosing their seconds in that regiment. The Captain 
 had several comrades there, and Meo several friends. 
 Both had left in it recollections and traditions that were 
 not easily forgotten. The lieutenants' mess-table was 
 occasionally enlivened by some historical anecdotes re- 
 lating to Captain Bitterlin, and all the officers that had 
 been at the siege of Rome still remembered Miranda's 
 noble bearing before the Council of War. 
 
 The Captain fixed his choice on two soldiers of for- 
 tune who had been sergeants in his company, lieutenant 
 Boucart and Captain Roblot — a pair of worthies true as 
 steel, brave as fire, oracles on theory, and who never 
 mixed water in their brandy. He found them in the 
 neighborhood of the Reuilly Barracks, seated before a 
 cigar-shop, and whetting their teetl> for breakfast. 
 They rose at his approach, and saluted him with all the 
 respect due to the perfect model of all the virtues of a 
 soldier. They squeezed each other's hands till their
 
 PREPARATIONS. 207 
 
 fingers cracked, and then adjourned to cat a little. 
 Then came the coffee, with its usual " fixings," three- 
 cent cigars, and small glasses of brandy. Wlien the 
 three Horatii had made their mouths too hot, they had 
 to get some bottles of beer to cool them. But the beer 
 gave such a chill to their stomachs that they had to brew 
 a bowl of puixch to counteract its effects. The Captain 
 had paid for the breakfast; his brave comrades would 
 not be behindhand with him, so the three warriors 
 rivalled each other in acts of politeness till five o'clock 
 in the evening. Not until then did the old Captain 
 expose the object of his visit. Laying his cigar on the 
 edge of the table, and taking his friends by the hand, 
 he looked at them right in the eye, and said in a low 
 voice : 
 
 " Boys, this is not all ; I have a favor to ask of you." 
 
 " Present ! " cried Roblot. 
 
 "Captain," added the other, "for life and for death!" 
 
 " Thank you. Swords are trumps." 
 
 " Bravo ! Ah ! that 's the little game Captain Bit- 
 lerlin is always at home in ! " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! Some of our swaggerers have already 
 learned that to their cost." 
 
 " Boys, the thing is this ; a youngster has been inso- 
 lent." 
 
 " And you 're going to give him a lesson ! One, two, 
 tch!" 
 
 " I '11 tell you all about it." 
 
 But just as he was on the point of commencing the 
 history of his grievances against the Italian, he felt 
 himself seized with a strange embarrassment. It was 
 not that he had forgotten that he had right on his side,
 
 208 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 Inil lie (lul not exactly know how to be;^in. Between 
 anger, and punch, and honoral)le pride, he was so vio- 
 lently agitated that he remained for a while with his 
 month open before he began his story. To say that an 
 impertinent follow had refused his daughter's hand when 
 it was not offered to him, seemed Ijoth absurd and com- 
 promising. The regiment had already spoken enough 
 about Madame Bitterlin : what was the use of exposing 
 .Emma's reputation to the scandal-mongers? Full of 
 this idea, he had to fall back on the one hundred and 
 twenty thousand francs that Meo obstinately refused to 
 take off his hands. A delicate question of such a nature 
 furnished of course ample justification for his hostile in- 
 tentions ; that was provocation enough, in the regiment 
 especially, to draw the sword against the best man in 
 Christendom, But just as he ojjened his mouth to re- 
 late his doings at Baden, his eye fell on the number 104 
 stamped on the Li^tenant's buttons. You must be a 
 soldier yourself to fully realize the mute eloquence of a 
 number borne by the button of a military jacket. To 
 the man who has served with honor, the number of the 
 regiment comprises the very essence of the esprit de corps, 
 the glory of the flag, the victories won, the duties fulfilled, 
 the hereditary virtues which the soldiers hand down with 
 their half- worn uniforms. The Captain called to mind 
 the good lessons and the good exaijjples that he had been 
 so louff giviu": to the One Hundred and Fourth, and he 
 had not now the courage to tell two officers of the regi- 
 ment that he had won a fortune at gambling. jSIaking 
 a wvy face, therefore, like a child swallowing a marble, 
 at last he said ; 
 
 " -My friends, you are men of honor ; I am a man of
 
 PREPARATIONS. 209 
 
 honor ; my adversary is also a man of honor, although 
 he has not that of being a Frenchman; and it is a matter 
 that admits of no arrangement. Do you understand ? " 
 
 "' Perfectly/' replied Boucart. 
 
 " One moment," objected Captain Roblot. " Are we 
 the offended party ? " . . 
 
 '' Yes." 
 
 " Then we have the choice of weapons." 
 
 " That is self-evident. I take the regulation sabre ; 
 however, if they insist on the sword, you may yield 
 them the point." 
 
 " All right. And when opens the ball ? " 
 
 " The sooner the better." 
 
 " Forward, march ! Your health, Captain Bitterlin ! " 
 
 " Yours, Captain Roblot ! Lieutenant Boucart, yours ! " 
 
 « The old heroes of the Old Guard ! " 
 
 " The One Hundred and Fourth ! " 
 
 "■ Long live the Emperor ! " 
 
 They finished their bowl of punch, and the three 
 heroes remained firmly convinced that M. Bartolomeo 
 Kami's head was to be cut open for the honor of Cap- 
 tain Bitterlin, of the One Hundred and Fourth of the 
 Line, and of their beautiful land of France. Condillac 
 might have exhausted all his arsenals of logic and never 
 persuaded them to the contrary. 
 
 In the meantime, Meo had not remained quietly fold- 
 ing his arms. He had paid a visit to M. George 
 Mediue, formerly Captain-reporter to the Council of 
 AVar, at present Lieutenant-Colonel of the One Hun- 
 dred and Fourth. " 
 
 Monsieur Medine is an officer the like of whom, for- 
 tunately, is by ua means rare in the French army ; the 
 13*
 
 210 KOUQE ET NOIR. 
 
 "warrior blcndod Math the gentleman, unitinjj hook 
 knowledge with a thorough knowledge of the world, 
 strictly punctual in his duties, charming in his social 
 relations, hardened by the rugged labors of the soldier, 
 smoothed off by literature, and polished by frequenting 
 the society of ladies. He had carried the knapsack in 
 his youth, just like the Bitterlins, the Roblots, and the 
 Boucarts ; the only way he distinguished himself from 
 these gentlemen had been by making a better use of his 
 leisure moments. 
 
 He recognized ]\Ieo at the first glance, for we never 
 fory-ct the face of a man whose head we have tried to 
 strike oif. 
 
 " You are welcome," said he, cordially extending his 
 hand. " You make me ten years younger. You reside 
 in Paris, then? What friendly wind brings you ?" 
 
 The accuser and the accused had a long talk on 
 Rome and Italy — an inexhaustible theme. However, 
 Meo by no means forgot his grand affair. He recounted 
 in detail all his relations Avith Monsieur Ritterlin, his 
 love, his tour, his projects, his hopes, and the quarrel of 
 last evening, which might make all things right yet, if 
 he only knew how to turn it to account. 
 
 M. Modine heard him to the end with an intelligent 
 smile of attention. 
 
 " My dear enemy," said he at last, " your affair is one 
 of those that can end only in a marriage. I will be 
 your second with pleasure. Have you another ? " 
 
 "No; I did not wish to see any one else before con- 
 sulting you," 
 
 " So much the better. We shall take my nephew, 
 then, who is just leaving Saint djr. I know your
 
 PREPARATIONS. 2H 
 
 friend Bittcrlin, and from a long date, too. He killed 
 one of the best offieers of the One Hundred and Fourth 
 for a fiddlestick ; it was not reason enough to kick a cat. 
 His virtue is of the outrageous and malicious kind. 
 You have done well to rub him against the grain ; we 
 shall get some good out of him with a little violence. 
 I see exactly how the land lies. Go back to your rooms ; 
 wait for his seconds without flinching, and send me their 
 address at seven o'clock this evening ; I take charge of 
 everything." 
 
 Meo did not see the gentlemen before six ; they were 
 perfectly polite, except that they raised their voices a 
 little. 
 
 " Gentlemen/' he replied, " you 're aware of the of- 
 fence for which you demand satisfaction ? " 
 
 "We know," replied Captain Roblot, "that it is a 
 matter admitting of no arrangement." 
 
 " You will have the kindness then, one of you, to 
 wait at your house until my friends call to see you. 
 They will have the honor to do so at eight o'clock." 
 
 It was Captain lioblot that gave his address, for he 
 had a room of fifty-five francs a month. 
 
 Monsieur Bitterlin's friends experienced no slight 
 degree of astonishment when they saw their lieutenant- 
 colonel present himself at eight o'clock, followed by 
 his nephew. 
 
 " Colonel," stammered Boucart, " we had no idea — 
 we never thought — certainly if we had only known — " 
 
 " Gentlemen," interrupted M. Medine, " let us forget 
 our respective grades, if you please." 
 
 He added, in a tone that betrayed the authority of a 
 commander :
 
 212 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 " There is nobody here but four officers of the One 
 Hundred and Fourth met together to settle an afl'air of 
 lionor. Captain Bitterlin, one of our brave comrades, 
 lias been olfonded By the conduct of M. Narni, Count of 
 Miranda, one of my friends." 
 
 Boucart and Roblot saluted mechanically. M. Medine 
 continued : 
 
 " You have done well in taking the part of one of 
 our old officers. Do you know the cause of the dis- 
 pute?" 
 
 " Gracious heaven, no ! " replied Roblot. 
 
 " I can explain it all in two words. M. de Miranda, 
 having somewhat compromised the Captain's daughter, 
 refuses to marry her. The Captain has sent you to 
 demand satisfaction. M. de Miranda authorizes us to 
 accept your day, your hour, and your arms. Nothing 
 can be simpler, you see ; the meeting is inevitable." 
 
 " Unless, however," objected Boucart, " M. de Mi- 
 randa may decide on marrying jNlademoiselle Bitterlin." 
 
 " I acknowledge that such a combination would de- 
 cidedly be the most satisfactory. But as 1 have hardly 
 any hope of making my friend accept it, we can pass 
 on and regulate the terms of the meeting." 
 
 The hour was decided to be seven o'clock next morn- 
 ing; the ground, the entrance to the Bois de Vinceiines; 
 for the weapon, the Medincs accepted the regulation 
 army sabre. They knew well that it would never leave 
 its scabbard. 
 
 As soon as the Ca])tain learned the result of this 
 interview, his first impression was one of surprise and 
 dissatisfaction. He already saw his daughter compro- 
 mised in the eyes of the One Hundred and Fourth, he
 
 PREPARATIONS. 213 
 
 heard tlie officers' wiv^es saying their worst regarding the 
 life and adventures of Emma, and he found himself 
 carried back, without knowing how, to the most unhappy- 
 days of his marriage. His fits of rage, as he returned 
 home, almost deprived him of his eyesight; he even 
 thought once or twice that everything was swimming 
 around him like a top. What consoled his majestic 
 soul a little was the hope of seeing Meo quivering on 
 the daisies next morning, spitted like a lark. 
 
 " Dog of a foreigner ! " he exclaimed, rubbing his 
 leathery hands together; "if you have dishonored the 
 father and compromised the daughter, it is not in par- 
 adise that you shall boast of it ! " 
 
 As for Meo, it was joy that was suffocating him. 
 He left M. Mediue's residence in a state of excitement 
 absolutely impossible to describe. He had forgotten to 
 take dinner. His happiness was now absolutely cer- 
 tain ; next day, he had no doubt, was to put him in 
 possession of Emma forever. As he came down the 
 Fauhoury St. Antoine, he committed a thousand acts of 
 folly. Whenever he met a bedraggled couple making 
 their way to some ball or other outside the Barrier, he 
 cried out to them, with comical emphasis : 
 
 " Happy pair ! Go where love calls you ! I am not 
 jealous. It will soon be my turn ! " 
 
 Seeing a woman carrying a baby, he took it out of 
 her arms, and raising it as high as his head, he asked her 
 how old it was. 
 
 " Twenty-two months," replied the poor woman, 
 rather startled. 
 
 " Dear little thing ! " he exclaimed, " kiss me. Be- 
 fore this time three years I shall have a little fellow just
 
 21 i ROUGE ET NOIU. 
 
 like yon. What do I say? Like you! .You're 
 liorrid! You 're dirty ! My son shall be beautiful as 
 an ano-el ! " 
 
 A little dog with a tail like a trumpet happened to 
 run between his legs ; he threw him a sou to buy bread 
 with. Three soldiers, up for fun, barricaded his road ; 
 ]\Ieo overwhelmed them with compliments, invited 
 them all to his wedding, took a most affectionate leave 
 of them ; and then, meeting a plain civilian that was 
 quietly contemjilating the moon, in the exuberance of 
 his spirits he thrashed him within an inch of his life. 
 
 He passed the rest of the night dancing on his chairs 
 and tables ; whereas the terrible Captain, locked up in 
 his own room, was practising sabre-cuts before the glass, 
 and making such desperate thrusts and wicked lunges 
 as to shake the whole house. 
 
 Agatha came at six o'clock in the morning to wake 
 lip her young master, who, however, required nothing 
 of the kind. 
 
 " Come here," he exclaimed, on seeing her, " my ex- 
 cellent old girl, angel of consolation, faithful companion 
 in the days of my distress, now happily all vanished 
 forever. Our miseries are over. You are to remain in 
 our service ; that 's a matter of course. I shall give 
 you no wages. Take what you please out of Emma's 
 l)urse and mine ! " 
 
 " But, sir," cried the poor bewildered creature, "some- 
 thing must have happened then ? " 
 
 " What a question to ask, over-grown baby ! W^hy, 
 I 'm going to marry Emma ! Run and tell her so, and 
 give her this key, henceforth the key of her apartments. 
 Tell her all about the glorious -uews. Tell her that I
 
 PREPARATIONS. 215 
 
 love her, that our happiness is secure, and that I am 
 going to figlit her father this morning with swords ! " 
 
 Tliereupon he darted from the house like a madman, 
 which in fact he was, jumped into a cab, and told the 
 driver to take him to the Boisde Vincennes. 
 
 Agatha really believed that he had lost his senses. 
 She tried to run after him, but he was already too far 
 off. As nature had not formed her for catch insr car- 
 riages driving at full speed, slie soon clianged her course, 
 and made straight, panting and sobbing, for the house 
 in the Rue des Vosges. 
 
 Emma, standing at her window, saw her afar off, and 
 signalled her to come up. The two friends tlirew them- 
 selves into each other's arms, sobbing and shedding tor- 
 rents of tears. For a good quarter of an hour they 
 sjjoke both at the same time, asking each other ques- 
 tions and never thinking to reply. Emma had been 
 living in a niost fantastical kind of a world since her 
 return from Baden. The strangest noises had disturbed 
 her night's repose : now it would be a cascade of gold 
 flowing over her father's bed ; last night it was a series 
 of hollow sounds, occasionally intermingled with the 
 clashing of steel. Her days had been disturbed by her 
 father's singular temper, which had become altogether 
 inexplicable : at one time merry, at another sad, now 
 speaking with the greatest kindness of that poor Narni, 
 now plunged into the gloomiest and most ominous 
 silence. And Meo had never sent her a single word ! 
 And the poor child would not dare to ask her father 
 about him, for fear she should betray her secret and ruin 
 everything ! But all these vague alarms, all these sus- 
 picions, all these doubts, vanished like the light of a
 
 216 ROUGE ET NOm. 
 
 lamp before a house on fire, as soon as Ag;atha Had pro- 
 nounced the word " fidit." A sinsrle bound brought 
 Emma before her father's arm-rack; a single glance 
 told her that his sabre was missing. 
 
 As soon as the Lady Ximena in the play hears that 
 her father and her lover are at blows, she turns her back 
 on the Infanta and runs to part the combatants. Em- 
 ma had not this resource. She could not tell where in 
 the wide world the Captain and Meo were to meet. All 
 that the poor little thing understood, was that she was 
 herself the cause of the terrible misfortune impending. 
 A sword-cut should make her a widow or an orphan, 
 and in cither event it was all over with her in this world. 
 Meo's murderer could never be her father ; her father's 
 murderer should never be her husband. She struggled 
 desperately against admitting the certainty of her 
 misery, but she Saw no other possible issue. Agatha 
 endeavored to calm her, though she could not calm 
 herself. 
 
 " Don't make yourself so miserable," said she ; 
 " perhaps it will all end in nothing. Most likely the 
 police will arrest them; a sword may break — your 
 father is suelr a terrible slaslier, you know. But oh, 
 my poor child, I don't know what I 'm saying ! I 'm 
 only a poor stupid creature, I know, but never, never 
 did I regret it so much before ! " 
 
 Then she would begin talking of going off and inform- 
 ing the city authorities ; next moment a notion would 
 seize her of running to church and lighting a taper in 
 honor of St. Martin, the patron of soldiers. This scene 
 of disorder and mortal anxiety had lasted two hours, 
 when all at once the door opened.
 
 PREPARATIONS. 217 
 
 Captain Bitterliu stood at the entrance ; his red face 
 was ahuost violet. He flung his sabre on the open 
 piano, and the ivory keys gave forth a wailing sound. 
 The two women detected in the discord the dying moan 
 of an entire army. Agatha threw herself on her knees, 
 and with her face to the earth began to mutter a Be 
 Profundis for the benefit of the departed soul. Emma 
 started up and glided off to the other end of the room, 
 with a gesture of horror and loatliing. She could 
 already see her father's hand and clothes sprinkled with 
 Meo's blood. 
 
 " Good morning, Agatha," said the Captain. " I 
 have n't seen you for an age, my child. Don't be afraid, 
 I 'm not going to eat you. Ever so many things have 
 taken place. Emma, come over here and sit on my knees." 
 
 The victim trembled as she approached. Her father 
 took her by the hand and drew her towards him. 
 
 "Now listen to me," said he, "and no objections! 
 This day two weeks you marry Monsieur Narni."- 
 19
 
 218 EOUQE ET NOIR. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 BATTLE ! 
 
 HERE is the comedy that had been phiyed that 
 mornhig in the Bois de Vincennes. 
 
 At seven o'clock precisely, the principals and the 
 seconds appeared on the ground with military exactness. 
 The four officers were dressed as civilians, to conceal the 
 inequality of their grades ; this had been done at Mon- 
 sieur Medine's request. Salutations were exchanged on 
 both sides w'ith all the ceremony usual on such occasions. 
 The seconds measured the weapons ; the Captain and 
 Meo undressed to their shirt and pantaloons. But just 
 as they were preparing to cross blades, M. Medine, cane 
 in hand, advanced towards his champion, saying : 
 
 " Count, since it is you who are the aggressor, I think 
 it is only the duty of the seconds to submit a last obser- 
 vation to your notice before proceeding to extremities. 
 There is always plenty of time for cutting each other's 
 throats, and a quarter of an hour hence our suggestions 
 might come a little too late. The other gentlemen of 
 course are of my opinion ? " 
 
 " Why not. Colonel ? Certainly," said Boucart. 
 
 " The very thing* I was thinking of," added Roblot. 
 
 M. Mcdine continued : • 
 
 "I should be scrupulous about interru))ting you by 
 any objection of mine, if I did not stand in the pres- 
 ence of two men of acknowledged bravery. Cai)tain 
 Bitterlin has satisfied his regiment on that point. As 
 to you, Count, I have had the honor to meet you at a
 
 battle! 219 
 
 place where the work was decidedly hot, and I can 
 certify that you were not sparing of your life." 
 
 The father-in-law and the son-in-law gave a slight 
 salute to the speaker, and leaned on their sabres to 
 hear the end of his discourse. He resumed, addressing 
 Meo : 
 
 " Count, I don't know what your reasons are for 
 refusing the hand of a young lady whom you have 
 innocently compromised. But whatever may be your 
 secret, I respect it." 
 
 " Sir," interrupted Meo, " I have no secret to keep. 
 Whatever may come of this meeting, the issue of which 
 is still quite uncertain, I think it my duty to declare 
 formally, in presence of the men of honor that surround 
 me, that Mademoiselle Bitterlin's reputation stands 
 beyond all question, as likewise the loyalty of Ker 
 father and the memory of her mother. If I have 
 resisted the very legitimate desire of becoming her 
 husband, the only motive for my refusal lay in the im- 
 perious and domineering temper of the Captain here 
 present. I felt that I should utterly renounce every- 
 thing like a free will of my own, the moment I set foot 
 in the family of a man so absolute and overbearing." 
 
 A gleam of stealthy satisfaction twinkled in the Cap- 
 tain's little eyes. 
 
 " As for the rest," added Meo, quickly, " the gentle- 
 man has never offered me his daughter, and I deny that 
 she has been compromised by my fault." 
 
 " Excuse me, sir," said the Captain, in his bitterest 
 voice. " We are not here to discuss such matters ; but 
 your friend M. Le Roy himself has acknowledged to 
 me that you compromised my daughter."
 
 220 IIOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 'Sloo ])niiso(l, as if searching for a reply. M. .Medine 
 took advantage of his silence by saying : 
 
 " It is none of our business, Count, to recur to what 
 is past, and I take much pleasure in believing that you 
 have done nothing voluntarily to cast the slightest 
 shadow on the young lady's reputation. But there are 
 two things of which I must not allow you to remain 
 in ignorance. Oi>e is, that, in consequence of the armed 
 discussion we hold here to-day. Mademoiselle Bitterlin 
 remains hereafter compromised to such a degree that 
 she can never marry any one but you. The other is, 
 that, after a duel, if unfortunately you insist on going 
 so far, the poor child would be deprived of even the 
 resource of becoming your wife, and thus be forever 
 condemned to a life of perpetual celibacy." 
 
 " It is clear," cried Roblot. 
 
 " By Jove ! " added Boucart. 
 
 " Well," cried the Captain, "she will not die of it! 
 ]\Iany another girl has become an old maid. But as 
 for you, sir — " 
 
 " As for me, sir, I shall never load my conscience 
 with such a source of remorse. In the presence of 
 these gentlemen, I accept your daughter's hand." 
 
 Such a startling turn of affairs as this, was what the 
 Captain had of all things in the world the least expect- 
 ed, and perhaps he would have received the Italian's ' 
 consent with a very bad grace, had not the four officers 
 immediately thrown themselves on him all together, 
 congratulating him so heartily as almost to deprive him 
 of his senses. The most noisy, the most eager, the 
 most triumphant of all were Boucart and Roblot, 
 though they were no mure in the secret than the man 
 in the moon.
 
 battle! 221 
 
 To prevent the enemy from having time to make a 
 reconnoissance, Meo contrived a little stratagem. He 
 snpposed obstacles, and demanded a delay of three 
 months. Boucart and Roblot exclaimed loudly against 
 such a thins:, the Medines labored hard to make him 
 listen to reason, and the Captain, carried along by the 
 current, cried out : 
 
 " Debts of honor should never be deferred ! I insist 
 that you atone for your fault within the next twenty- 
 four hours." 
 
 New floods of oratory were now required to demon- 
 strate to the Captain that marriages cannot be got up as 
 quickly as victories. After a contest of a quarter of an 
 hour, during which Meo showed himself almost inexo- 
 rable, the wedding was deferred till that day two weeks. 
 
 " But let us understand each other perfectly," said 
 the father-in-law. " These gentlemen shall do us the 
 honor of being present on the occasion. And if this 
 day two weeks your papers are not all ready and your 
 wedding-clothes finished, you and I must come to a 
 final settlement, by the holy lightning ! " 
 
 Meo bowed himself down like a reed before the 
 blast. 
 
 " From now till then," continued the Captain, " I in- 
 sist that you come every day to pay your resjjects to my 
 daughter, in order to dispose her to the ceremony." 
 
 " Every day ! " exclaimed Meo, in terrible consterna- 
 tion. 
 
 " Every day. And if you are absent a single time, 
 I '11 undertake to kick you back all the way to your own 
 door. Give me your hand ! Good ! A settled matter. 
 Now step aside here three paces until I whisper you 
 
 "' r.» ■■
 
 222 EOUGE ET N(nR. 
 
 soinctliiiig. I have all your money in the pocket of my 
 overcoat. Do me the favor to take it away." 
 
 But on this point Mco was really immovable. He 
 declared that he would never touch those hundred and 
 twenty thousand francs, until the moment the wedding 
 party were all leaving the Mayor's office. 
 
 They separated without taking breakfast together, as 
 Roblot and young Medine were on duty. A restaurant- 
 keeper in the neighborhood, wlio, seeing the crowd, had 
 ■wrung a pair of chickens' necks off, had therefore all 
 his trouble for nothin*!;. 
 
 For the next two weeks the Captain remained like 
 a tightly-strung bow; he actually vibrated. The joy 
 of victory and the compliments of his seconds stunned 
 him till he reached the middle of the Faubourg St. An- 
 toine, where the other gentlemen took leave of him 
 before the barrack -gate. But with their departure all 
 his clear ideas seemed to have departed too, and left .his 
 head completely void. Then a thousand contradictory 
 and clashing ideas began to defile before him as if on 
 drill, only they did not give him time to get a good 
 l(wk at a single one of them in the face so as to be able 
 to meditate upon it. 
 
 " Come now," says he, " there 's daughter married, 
 though may old Satan seize me if I have the remotest 
 idea how it has been brought about. In all respects, 
 however, I have borne myself well : for me indeed it is 
 a memorable day. The fellows in the regiment will 
 understand that the aid colt has a good tooth still left. 
 Emma, of course, will cry to heaven and earth : but little 
 I care for her cries. If that old lover of hers is still 
 trotting around in her head, she had better open the gate
 
 battle! 223 
 
 and put him out. So this young fellow is a nobleman ; 
 he never told me so. Well, I get rid of that accursed 
 money. They will be rich, and I need not encroach ou 
 my income. That is rather better than laying a sim- 
 pleton's head oi)en. Madame Countess Narni, nee Bit- 
 terlin. I like better Madame Countess Bitterlin de 
 Narni ; it sounds more honorably for our family. 
 What has prevented myself from being a Count of the 
 Empire? My chance would n't turn up, that 's all. I 
 shall do what I like with this poor fellow : and well he 
 knows it. What a life I led him during that tour ! 
 My mind is of a superior order to his — that is it. 
 But suppose he runs off to Italy before the wedding ! 
 I will keep my eye on him, for I know he don't care a 
 straw for my daughter. . Death and fury ! I shall find 
 him were he in the deepest, darkest, hottest crevice of 
 Mount Vesuvius. Ha ! my old sabre, so we 've done 
 nothing this morning, after all. I had just remembered 
 such a famous thrust last night. One ! Two ! Pif ! 
 You can boast of belonging to a jolly ugly customer. 
 Come to breakfast, I tell you they '11 be talking about 
 me this morning at the captains' mess. Boys of my 
 mettle are rather scarce in the One Hundred and 
 Fourth. Etc., etc., etc." 
 
 Agatha's presence in his house excited neither his 
 surprise nor his curiosity : he had too many other fishes 
 to fry. In four words he showed his daughter all the 
 advantages of the proposed union. Emma turned pale 
 and red by turns, feared some snare, and at last opened 
 her mouth only to express her submission in a few 
 commonplace terms. He left her almost immediately, 
 and started for Mco's residence. He soon reappeared,
 
 221 ROUGE ET NOIll. 
 
 hauling hini along, <7cnrrarme fashion. " Here is your 
 future husband," he exclaimed, shoving him into the 
 jjarlor. "You know her, she knows you. Now, if 
 you're an honorable man, go to work and make love to 
 her, and be alive about it." 
 
 The first glance exchanged between the two lovers- was 
 an abridged poem ; it would take whole volumes to 
 describe what it expressed. But our swain, taught by 
 dear experience, was very careful to let none of his joy 
 be witnessed by the Captain. He waited for a more 
 favorable moment to explain to his mistress the secret 
 of so unexpected a piece of good fortune. The cunning 
 little thing, on her side, understood the matter at a 
 glance, and likewise commenced to play her part in the 
 little game. 
 
 Like a pig driven to market, the Captain made a step 
 forward for every one that they i)ulled him back. 
 Emma and Meo manoeuvred so skilfully that at the 
 end of the first interview JNI. Bitterlin forced them to 
 exchange a cold and formal embrace. " Nothing can 
 resist me ! " he exclaimed, rubbing his hands. 
 
 If Meo could have followed his heart's dearest wishes, 
 he would have passed every moment of his life in the 
 Rue des Vosges. But he practised such ^admirable self- 
 denial, that the Captain scolded him for the shortness 
 of his visits. " This is not what you have promised, 
 sir," growled out occasionally this terrible father-in-law. 
 " You get here late, and you start off as if the house 
 was on fire. That 's not the way to act; what the devil ! 
 Are you making a fool of me ? " 
 
 His daughter, too, he found fault with for her cold- 
 ness. "Miss Namby Pamby," he would say, "you
 
 battle! 225 
 
 just take the mau I give you, or I '11 know the reason 
 why. I understand what makes you so starched up. 
 There's an old hankering still alive; but if ever you 
 think of indulging in such forbidden thoughts, it won't 
 be your demure husband that shall thi-ash you, but my 
 own two hands." 
 
 The two children played their part so well that the 
 Captain became magnificent in his impatience. Every 
 day he kept trotting backward and forward, from the 
 Mayor's office to the church, and from the tailor to the 
 dressmaker, to hasten the preparations and to remove 
 the obstructions. Every night he jumped up with a 
 start and made off for the Rue St. Catherine to make 
 sure that his son-in-law had not stolen away. He had 
 never shown half so much anxiety about his own mar- 
 riage. He was more than a bridegroom, more than an 
 anxious parent ; you would have called him a comman- 
 der-in-chief on the eve of a decisive battle. 
 
 At last the great day came. It was not, perhaps, 
 either Emma or Meo that had most longed for it. Very 
 few were admitted to contemplate the Captain in his 
 glory ; the four seconds of the duel, the family physi- 
 cian, M. Arthur Le Roy, and M. Silivergo composed the 
 Mdiole party. Even Silivergo had been invited merely 
 by chance. Meo had met him in the street and told 
 him of his good fortune. The old printer immediately 
 invited himself to the wedding, saying : " On such a 
 great occasion I must of course be present, both as 
 being your old master and your future relation. In a 
 month I am to marry Mademoiselle Aurelia, your 
 cousin." 
 
 It was the Captain that packed the guests into the 
 
 P
 
 226 EOUOE ET NOIR. 
 
 earriagps ; it was lie who reviewed them all at tlie door 
 of the Mayor's ofiice. He strutted into the Municl])ality 
 Chamber like Alexander entering Babylon. When the 
 magistrate asked ]\leo the usual question, " Do you con- 
 sent to take for your wife Jeanne Frances Emma Bit- 
 terlin ? " the Captain was heard muttering, " Does he 
 consent? I should like to catch him refusing! he'd 
 soon have me to deal with ! " 
 
 The pen used for writing the signatures in the Regis- 
 ter was a tine large goose-quill, decked with all its 
 filaments, and shaped like a sabre-blade. The Captain 
 presented it terribly at his son-in-law, with an imperious 
 gesture, which resembled a fencing-thrust: "One, two, 
 three ! " Meo smiled, signed, and fell back half fainting 
 into the nearest chair. He was happy ! 
 
 Though they still had to go to the church, the guests 
 now began congratulating the Captain on his success, 
 for with men the civil part of the marriage is the whole 
 of it.- The striking simj)licity of this decisive act has 
 often set the tears running down a gray moustache, 
 whereas the emotion of women breaks forth only at the 
 altar and the pealing of the organ. The Captain replied 
 to ISI. Le Roy's compliment : " J\Iy dear sir, nobody 
 can ever know all the trouble this atfair has given me. 
 I have upheaved mountains ! But honor spoke ; I 
 willed, I conquered ; this is my battle of Austerlitz. 
 However, excuse me, it is not all over yet; I have to 
 goad up these skulkers with my sword-2)oiut." 
 
 It was with these sentiments that he led his army to 
 the parish church. 
 
 He listened to the priest's short discourse with an 
 active, I had almost said a violent, attention. Every
 
 battle! 227 
 
 word uttered on the duties of married people, he con- 
 firmed and ratified by an energetic nod intended for the 
 benefit of Monsieur Narni. 
 
 On quitting the church, he took hira aside and whis- 
 pered : " Now, sir, if you were infamous enough to 
 betray my daugliter, I would kill you, sir, and no 
 longer on the field of honor, but anywhere, and no 
 matter how, as I should kill a dog ! " 
 
 "And you would do just right!" replied the son- 
 in-law. 
 
 A grand entertainment, of Agatha's cooking, awaited 
 them in the Rue des Vosges. It was what plain people 
 call a dejeuner-dinatoire, for though the guests took 
 their seats towards noon, they did not rise from the 
 table till eleven o'clock at night. Meo enjoyed, for the 
 first time in his life without constraint, the happiness 
 of looking at Emma. In fact, only one thing prevented 
 his felicity from being complete, and that was the hun- 
 dred and twenty thousand francs, which the Captain had 
 slipped into his coat-tail pockets immediately after the 
 nuptial mass. Such a heavy load, flapping about, 
 incommoded him considerably. 
 
 The feats performed by Messrs. Boucart and Roblot, 
 in the eating department, were actually heroic ; Roland's 
 famous sword never wrought such marvels of destruction. 
 
 At the dessert, M. Silivergo, a relation of the Narnis 
 by the female side, asked permission to declaim a sonnet 
 of his own composition. The splendid piece of poetry 
 was received with all the more violent applause as 
 nobody understood the first word of it. This is the way 
 that French vanity renders foreign literature so success- 
 ful in France.
 
 228 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 M. Arthur Le Roy, in cliarge of the drinking depart- 
 ment, proposed the following toasts: 
 
 " To Private Bitterlin ! " 
 
 "To Corporal Bltterlin!" 
 
 " To Sergeant Bitterlin ! " 
 
 " To Sub-Lieutenant Bitterlin ! " 
 
 " To Lieutenant Bitterlin ! " 
 
 " To Captain Bitterlin, Chevalier of the Legion of 
 Honor ! " 
 
 The Captain, who had religiously emptied his glass 
 at every toast, at last began to soften a little. But Le 
 Roy, who intended to put him under the table, sworo 
 that the first Captain of our times should never stand 
 still on the road to glory. He put him once more under 
 the colors, and drank his health successively as Major^ 
 Colonel, General, and even the Marshal Duke de Bit- 
 terlin ! The poor man defended himself as well as he 
 could from such an avalanche of honors, at the same 
 time drinking like a drum-major. Boucart and Roblot 
 came over every now and then to touch glasses with 
 him, and to congratulate him on his rajiid advancement, 
 of which they now began no longer to have any doubt 
 whatever. 
 
 They would have drowned him in wine, like Clar- 
 ence, only for the Doctor's friendly interference. That 
 excellent man dreaded to see such a strong, intensely 
 animal nature led into excess. He asked the Captain 
 in confidence if he had ever thought of getting himself 
 bled. The old hero replied, with an inimitable tone : 
 " Never ! sir ; I shed my blood only in the presence of 
 the enemy." 
 
 He was actually drunk, and yet M. Mediue^ a cool
 
 battle! 229 
 
 spectator, was compelled to admire his solidity. He 
 leaned over towards his uephew aud whispered to him : 
 " Just look at that old ironsides : he is one of the last 
 specimens of the Grand Army. He represents a race 
 that perished between Moscow and Waterloo. Such 
 creatures are no longer born ; the mould seems to have 
 been lost. He is sixty years old, and he has just drank 
 enough for twenty-four men. How upright he sits on 
 his chair ! How firm is his glance of command ! That 
 voice would be heard half a leao-ue oif on a field of 
 battle. And remember, he is only one of the dried 
 fruits of his time. Judging from him, what must the 
 others have been ! I am certain that, at this very mo- 
 ment, through the vapors that are clouding his brain, there 
 is rising within him an idea fixed, solid, immovable; it 
 is evident in every one of his movements, it is seen in 
 every glance that he casts at his son-in-law. This 
 superannuated soldier has still the instinct of ruling ; 
 and he is congratulating himself on having forced us all 
 into a marriage, which we have actually accomplished 
 in spite of him. Should he ever learn that the Count, 
 his daughter, everybody, has been hoaxing him, he would 
 burst like a shell." 
 
 " Hsh ! " said the sub-lieutenant, " he is speaking to 
 you." 
 
 " Colonel ! " cried Bitterlin, " vou shall tell the One 
 Hundred and Fourth that I am always square at my 
 post, and that whenever I have once taken a thing into 
 my head, every difficulty yields to me like fate. Long- 
 life to me ! Thunder and lightning ! and long life to 
 you too ! " 
 
 The heat and the smoke were now becoming intoler- 
 20
 
 230 EOUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 able, in spite of the open windows. Besides, the bride 
 and bridegroom began to look tired. 
 
 Like an old steel-spring, which though rusty has not 
 lost a particle of its strength, the Captain rose to take 
 leave of his guests. He embraced them all at the door, 
 and squeezed their hands until they thought it was a 
 vice had hold of them. 
 
 Left alone with his daughter and son-in-law, he cried 
 out in his strongest voice : " Change of garrison ! File 
 right! Forward, march! Wait till I find ray belt. 
 The company never marches without its Captain ! " 
 
 He led them himself, on foot, to the Rue St. Catherine. 
 It was there that stout Agatha had prepared their nest, 
 until such time as Meo could find another. He gave 
 them military benediction at the door, and his last order 
 to his son-in-law was the following : 
 
 "Sir, my daughter is now your wife; I command you 
 to make her a good husband ! " 
 
 With these words he turned away, and, as long as the 
 young couple waited at their door, they heard the silent 
 streets re-echoing with the majestic step of a proud and 
 triumphant Marshal of France.
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 231 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 To 3Io7isicur Jules Gireaud. 
 
 PERMIT me, sir, to dedicate this §tory to you. It 
 was while I was writing it that I learned to love 
 your charming and solid qualities. How happy we 
 should feel if, during a lifetime dedicated to labor, we 
 could ornament every new work with the name of a 
 new friend ! 
 
 But I must open the volume once more to tell you 
 some bad news; I have only just heard it myself. I 
 was far indeed from expecting anything of the kind, 
 and it has thrown me, as you see, quite into a state of 
 consternation. How feeble a thing is man ! The most 
 robust health, the solidest and soundest body, the 
 strongest and most energetic mind, may all vanish in a 
 moment like a shadow, and from the most frivolous of 
 causes. Poor Captain ! at sixty he was really younger 
 than we who arc only thirty. Everybody that knew 
 him, except perhaps his physician, would have advised 
 him to buy an annuity. He was built to last a century, 
 and he always flattered himself with the complacent 
 hope of burying both his daughter and his son-in-law. 
 
 All the powers of Europe had fired their cannons at 
 him without success, and he was happy and proud of 
 having never been killed. For his part, he had killed 
 a good many foreigners in battle, a few friends on the 
 field of honor, and his wife in his own house. He had 
 sometimes received wounds, but they had never done
 
 232 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 him any harm. Nothing couUl equal the frank and 
 cordial gayety with which he blotted out of the mili- 
 tary ahnanac the names of such milk-sops as had let 
 themselves die. 
 
 He had his faults, to be sure, the worst that could 
 be selected out of a bad lot; but this only renders his 
 sudden death the more lamentable, since it left him no 
 time to correct them. I was in hopes that he might 
 have lived Ions: enouo;h to become an excellent man. I 
 j^romised myself the pleasure of seeing him act the 
 part of a good, kind old grandfather as soon as ever he 
 had a grandson big enough to whip till the blood came. 
 But, poor dear Captain, all that is over now. Never 
 again shall he torture mortal. The tears that his chil- 
 dren shed at his death are the last he shall ever be the 
 cause of in this weary world. 
 
 Is it too much to expect that some kind fate may 
 shut him up forever in the other world in the same com- 
 partment with JSIadamc Bitterliu? For my part, my dear 
 Captain, I should hardly pity you any longer, if I were 
 once sure that your cross-grained, acrimonious old soul 
 had only secured some gentle unresisting victim which 
 you could pass the long hours of eternity in torturing! 
 
 His daughter had been two weeks married. Emma 
 and Meo, perfectly happy, still contrived to keep their 
 felicity out of his sight, for they knew by experience 
 liow much another's happiness irritated him. 
 
 The Rouge et Noir money had already redeemed 
 many things : the estate, the title, and the portraits of 
 the Mirandas. The Count's fine property, when wrested 
 from the clutches of the rascal that had seized it, and 
 rented out to some good honest farmers, promised him
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 233 
 
 a sure annual income of ten to twelve thousand francs. 
 The faithful Marsoni had made business matters all 
 right and played the part of a true friend. ' He even 
 insisted on sending Meo money, the moment he was 
 perfectly certain that Meo no longer wanted it. 
 
 The young Countess grew more beautiful every day, 
 under the honey-moon's genial rays. Female beauty is 
 a delicate plant : it grows almost anywhere, but it comes 
 to perfection only when properly trained and trimmed 
 up around the protecting form of a husband. Meo was 
 beffinnino; to assume the steadiness and wisdom of the 
 father of a family. Happiness, which makes a fool out 
 of a philosopher (see Michelet's last work), sometimes 
 makes a philosopher out of a fool. This extravagant 
 fellow was beginning to learn how to do a sum or two in 
 arithmetic: he deprived himself of his most essential gold 
 chains and of his most indispensable shirt-pins in order 
 to make his wife a present of a real Cashmere shawl. 
 His single extra-conjugal expense was the purchase of 
 one of those bracelets, massive, simple, and magnificent, 
 that are made only at Hancock'sj London. He had the 
 motto " / remember " written on the solid gold in letters 
 formed of small brilliants. This was his wedding 
 present for Mademoiselle Aurelia. M. Silivergo con- 
 sidered it a gift of very good taste : Emma never heard 
 a word about- it. So of course everybody was per- 
 fectly happy ! 
 
 Agatha, that most indefatigable creature, passed her 
 time between the Captain's house and the nest of the 
 young couple. Her return to the Rue des Vosges turned 
 but, however, to be a great misfortune to M. Bitterlin. 
 She was not wicked, as you already know very well, but 
 20*
 
 234 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 she was cruelly stupid: that is the reason why she killed 
 her master without meaning the least mischief. Ah ! 
 Agatha, I' have had my misgivings all along that your 
 stupidity was to bring some infliction on the family. 
 Agatha, where on earth was your head ? Oh ! Agatha, 
 what have you done ? 
 
 One morning, as she was dusting the parlor, the 
 Captain, tired of being alone, observe<l to her, as he was 
 chewing his cigar: 
 
 "Well, for the pious and religious woman you pre- 
 tend to be, it must be acknowledged that you acted in a 
 very strange way." 
 
 ^'I, sir?" she replied, flinging the duster under her 
 arm. 
 
 *• Yes, you. Perhaps you were not your mistress's 
 go-between with her first lover? Was it for anything 
 else that I turned you out of the house ? " 
 
 "What first lover?" 
 
 " The one whose name I have never been able to get 
 out of you." 
 
 " Oh ! you know it well enough now, master, being 
 as it was Monsieur Narni." 
 
 " Narni ! ! " 
 
 "Do you think that Mademoiselle could have fallen 
 in love with two men? No, indeed, master; it has 
 been only one all along, and that one always the same. 
 But had n't the poor gentleman his own time of it, trying 
 to make you swallow the pill ! " 
 
 The Captain thought more in one minute now than 
 he had ever done in all his life. But such thinking 
 was not good for him : the blood rushed to his brain as
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 235 
 
 fast as the ideas. It flashed on him in an instant that 
 if Emma's lover were really Narui, that young man had 
 completely fooled him; that the Swiss tour, where he 
 thought he had put everybody under his thumb, had 
 been nothing but a long piece of bamboozlement ; that 
 he had played Rouge et Noir for the amusement of his 
 son-in-law, and perhaps, too, under his very eyes ; that 
 he had spent two w&eks in pursuit of game that was 
 slyly waiting for him in its lair all the time; that the 
 money had been refused merely to obtain the daughter, 
 and that she had been slighted only to force him to oifer 
 her ; that the quarrel where he fancied he had played 
 the part of a hero had been by no means to his credit ; 
 that Narni, his seconds, and perhaps even Roblot and 
 Boucart, had amused themselves at his expense in the 
 Bois cle Vineennes ; that the wedding-day had cajsped 
 the climax of his disrepute ; and that, no doubt, at this 
 moment, he was the laughing-stock of ev^ery man in the 
 One Hundred and Fourth, from the colonel down to 
 the drummer-boys. These thoughts shot through his 
 brain with the rapidity of lightning, and they actually 
 crushed him like a thunder-bolt. He started up,' 
 straight as an exclamation-point, and cried out in a 
 choking voice : 
 
 " Then everybody has been playing h — " 
 Very likely he meant to say that his son-in-law, his 
 daughter, his servant, the officers, and even his own 
 seconds, had been making a fool of him. But he never 
 finished either the word or the sentence, for he was 
 struck with apoplexy, and he Avent off without having 
 time to develop his idea. Perhaps such a misfortune 
 would not have taken place, if the Captain had only
 
 236 ROUGE ET NOIR. 
 
 listened to the advice of his physician, who had been 
 long recommending him to get himself bled. Such, 
 at least, was the learned Doctor's own opinion. As soon 
 as he arrived at the house of his patient, or rather of 
 his subject, he could not help uttering a cry of joy. 
 " Good ! " said he ; " another proof of medical foresight. 
 It is no doubt a terrible blow to the family; but just 
 see how I predicted it ! " 
 
 Emma and Meo are still in deep mourning, and do 
 nothing but weep from morning till night. Their affec- 
 tionate hearts will never, perhaps, be entirely consoled, 
 though the terrible blow which they lament only secures 
 their complete happiness. 
 
 THE END.
 
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