Memoirs of a Physician (16 page)
” And why, countess ? ” asked the astonished cardinal. ” I thought that, on the contrary, you were taking me to his majesty.”
” Oh ! true, you wish to see the king, do you not ? “
” I came for that alone, madame.”
“Very well ! you shall be taken to the king “
“But you ? “
” Oh ! we shall remain here.”
” But, countess “
” No apologies, prince, I entreat ; every one to his own business. The king is yonder, under those chestnut-trees ; you have business with the king ; very well, the affair is easily arranged. Champagne ! “
Champagne pulled up.
” Champagne, let us alight here and take his eminence to the king.”
“What ! alone, countess ? “
” You wished to have an audience of his majesty, cardinal.”
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“It is true.”
” Well ! you shall have his ear entirely to yourself.”
” Ah ! this kindness absolutely overwhelms me.” And the prelate gallantly kissed
Mme.
Dubarry’s hand.
“But where will you remain yourself, madame ?” inquired he.
” Here under these trees.”
“The king will be looking for you.”
“So much the better.”
” He will be uneasy at not seeing yon.”
” And that will torment him just what I wish.”
” Countess, you are positively adorable.”
” That is precisely what the king says when I have tormented him. Champagne, when you have taken his eminence to the king, you will return at full gallop.”
” Yes, my lady.”
“Adieu, duke,” said the cardinal.
” Au revoir, my lord,” replied the duke.
And the valet having let down the step, the duke alighted and handed out the countess, who leaped to the ground as lightly as a nun escaping from her convent, while the carriage rapidly bore his eminence to the hillock from which his most Christian majesty was seeking, with his short-sighted eyes, the naughty countess whom every one had seen but himself.
Mme.
Dubarry lost no time. She took the duke’s arm and drawing him into the thicket :
” Do you know,” said she, “that it must have been Providence who sent us that dear cardinal, to put us on the trace of our man.”
” Then we are positively to go to him ? “
” I think so ; but “
” What, countess ? “
” I am afraid, I confess it.”
” Of whom ? “
” Of the sorcerer. Oh, I am very credulous.”
” The deuce ! “
” And you, do yon believe in sorcerers ? “
” Dame ! I can’t say no, countess.”
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” My history of the prediction “
” Is a startling fact. And I myself,” said the old marshal, scratching his ear, ” once met a certain sorcerer.” Bah I”
Who rendered me a very important service
What service, duke ? ” He resuscitated me.” ; He resuscitated you ? ” Certainly ; I was dead, no less.” Oh ! tell me the whole affair, duke.
Let us conceal ourselves, then.” : Duke, you are a dreadful coward.” ‘ Oh, no, I am only prudent.” Are we well placed here ? n Yes, I think so.” Well ! the story ! the story !”
Well, I was at Vienna it was the time when I was ambassador there when one evening, while I was standing under a lamp, I received a sword thrust through my body. It was a rival’s sword, and a very unwholesome sort of thing it is, I assure yon. I fell I was taken up I was dead.”
” What ! you were dead ? “
” Yes, or close upon it. A sorercer passes, who asks who is the man whom they are carrying ? He is told it is I ; he stops the litter, pours three drops of some unknown liquid into the wound, three more between my lips, and the bleeding stops, respiration returns, my eyes open, and am cured.”
” It is a miracle from Heaven, duke.” ” That is just what frightens me ; for, on the contrary, I believe it is a miracle from the devil.”
” True, marshal, Providence would not have saved a dissipated rake like you. Honor to whom honor is due. And does your sorcerer still live ? “
” I doubt it, unless he has found the elixir of life.”
” Like you, marshal ? “
” Do yon believe those stories, then ?**
” I believe everything. He was old ? “
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“Methuselah in person.”
“And his name ?”
“Ah ! a magnificent Greek name Althotas.”
” What a terrible name, marshal.”
”Is it not, niadame ? “
” Duke, there is the carriage returning. Are we decided ? Shall we go to Paris and visit the Rue St. Claude?”
” If you like. But the king is waiting for you.”
” That would determine me, duke, if I had not already determined. *He has tormented me. Now, France, it is your turn to suffer !”
” But he may think you are lost carried off ‘
“And so much the more that I have been seen with you, marshal ‘
” Stay, countess, I will be frank with you ; I am afraid.”
“Of what?”
” I am afraid that you will tell all this to some one, and that I shall be laughed at.”
” Then we shall both be laughed at together, since I go with you.”
” That decides, me, countess. However, if you betray me, 1 shall “
“What will you say ?”
” I shall say that you come with me t&te-a-tete.
“No one will believe you, duke.”
” Ah ! countess, if the king were not there ! “
” Champagne ! Champagne ! Here, behind this thicket, that we may not be seen. Germain, the door. That will do. Now to Paris. Eue St. Claude, in the JVIarais, and let the pavement smoke for it.”
120 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.
CHAPTEE XVI.
THE COUEIER.
IT was six o’clock in the evening. In that chamber of the Rue St. Claude into which we have already introduced our readers, Balsamo was seated beside Lorenza, now awake, and was endeavoring by persuasion to soften her rebellious spirit, which refused to listen to a*ll his prayers.
But the young girl looked askance at him, as Dido looked at . Eneas when he was about to leave her, spoke only to reproach him, and moved her hand only to repulse his.
She complained that she was a prisoner, a slave ; that she could no longer breathe the fresh air, nor see the sun. She envied the fate of the poorest creatures, of the birds, of the flowers. She called Balsamo her tyrant.
Then passing from reproaches to rage, she tore into shreds the rich stuff which her husband had given her, in order by this semblance of gaiety and show to cheer the solitude he imposed on her.
Balsamo, on the other hand, spoke gently to her, and looked at her lovingly. It was evident that this weak, irritable creature filled an immense place in his heart, if not in his life.
” Lorenza ‘ said he to her, ” rny beloved, why do you display this spirit of resistance and hostility ? Why will you not live with me, who love you inexpressibly, as a gentle and devoted companion ? You would then have nothing to wish for ; you would be free to bloom in the sun like the flowers of which you spoke just now ; to stretch your wings like the birds whose fate you envy. We would go everywhere together. You would not only see the sun which delights you so much, but the factitious sun of splendor and fashion those assemblies to which the women of this country resort. You would be happy according to your tastes, while rendering me happy, in mine. Why will you refuse this happiness, Lorenza you, who with
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your beauty and riches, would make so many women envious ? “
” Because I abhor you,” said the haughty young girl.
Balsamo cast on Lorenza a glance expressive at once of anger and pity.
” Live, then, as you condemn yourself to live,” said he ; ” and since you are so proud, do not complain.”
” I should not complain, if you would leave me alone. I should not complain, if you did not force me to speak to you. Do not come into my presence, or when you do enter my prison, do not speak to me, and I shall do as the poor birds from the south do when they are imprisoned in cages they die, but do not sing.”
Balsamo made an effort to appear calm.
” Come, Lorenza,” said he, ” a little more gentleness and resignation. Look into a heart which loves you above all things. Do you wish for books ?”
” No.”
” Why not ? Books would amuse you.”
” I wish to weary myself until I die.”
Balsamo smiled, or rather endeavored to smile.
” You are mad,” said he ; ” you know very well that you cannot die while I am here to take care of you, and to cure you when you fall ill.”
” Oh ! ” cried Lorenza, ” you will not cure me when you find me strangled with this scarf against the bars of my window.”
Balsamo shuddered.
” Or when,” continued she, furiously, ” I have opened this knife and stabbed myself to the heart ! “
Balsamo, pale as death and bathed in cold perspiration, gazed at Lorenza, and with a threatening voice :
” No, Lorenza,” said he, ” yon are right ; I shall not cure you then ; I shall bring you back to life.”
Lorenza gave a cry of terror. She knew no bounds to Balsamo’s power, and believed his threat. Balsamo was saved. While she was plunged in this fresh abyss of suffering which she had not foreseen, and while her vacillat-ing reason saw itself encircled by a never-ceasing round of
6 DUMAS VOL. VII.
122 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.
torture, the sound of the signal-bell, pulled by Fritz, reached Balsamo’s ear. It struck three times quickly, and at regular intervals.
” A courier,” said he.
Then, after a pause, another ring was heard.
” And in haste,” he said.
” Ah !” said Loreuza, ” you are about to leave me, then I”
He took the young girl’s cold hand in his. ” Once more, and for the last time, Lorenza,” said he, ” let us live on good terms with each other, like brother and sister. Since destiny unites us to each other, let us make it a friend and not an executioner.”
Lorenza did not reply. Her eyes, motionless and fixed in a sort of dreamy melancholy, seemed to seek some thought which was ever flying from her into infinite space, and which perhaps she could not find, because she had sought it too long aifd too earnestly, like those who, after having lived in darkness, gaze too ardently on the sun, and are blinded by excess of light. Balsamo took her hand and kissed it, without her giving any sign of life. Then he advanced toward the chimney. Immediately Lorenza started from her torpor, and eagerly fixed her gaze upon him.
” Oh ! ” said he, ” you wish to know how I leave this, in order to leave it one day after me and flee from me, as you threatened. And therefore you awake therefore you look at me.”
Then passing his hand over his forehead, as if he imposed a painful task on himself, he stretched his hand toward the young girl, and said, in a commanding voice, looking at her as if he were darting a javelin against her head and breast :
” Sleep ! “
The word was scarcely uttered when Lorenza bent like a flower upon its stem ; her head, for a single moment unsteady, drooped and rested against the cushion of the sofa ; her hands, of an opaque and waxen whiteness, glided down her side, rustling her silken dress.
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Balsamo, seeing her so beautiful, approached her and pressed his lips upon her lovely forehead.
Then Lorenza’s features brightened, as if a breath from the God of Love himself had swept away the cloud which rested on her brow. Her lips opened tremulously, her eyes swam in voluptuous tears, and she sighed as the angels must have sighed, when in earth’s youthful prime they stooped to love the children of men. .
Balsamo looked upon her for a moment, as if unable to withdraw his gaze ; then, as the bell sounded anew, he turned toward the chimney, touched a spring, and disappeared behind the flowers.
Fritz was waiting for him in the saloon, with a man dressed in the closely fitting jacket of a courier, and wearing, thick boots armed with long spurs.
The commonplace and inexpressive features of this man showed him to be one of the people ; but his eye had in it a spark of sacred fire, which seemed to have been breathed into him by some superior intelligence.
His left hand grasped a short and knotty whip, while with his right hand he made some signs to Balsamo, which the latter instantly recognized, and to which, without speaking he replied by touching his forehead with his forefinger. The postilion’s hand moved upward to his breast, where it traced another sign, which an indifferent observer would not have remarked, so closely did it resemble the movement made in fastening a button.
To this sign the master replied by showing a ring which he wore upon his finger.
Before this powerful signet the messenger bent his knee. Whence come you ? ” asked Balsamo. From Eouen, master.” What is your profession ? “
I am a courier in the service of the Duchess de Grammont.”
Who placed you there ? ” The will of the great Copht.”
What orders did you receive when you entered the service ? “
12 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.
” To have no secret from the master.*’
” Whither are you going ? “
” To Versailles.”
” What are you carrying ?’^
“A letter. “
“For whom ?”
“For the minister.”
“Give it me.”
The courier took a letter from a leathern bag: fastened upon his shoulders behind, and give it to .Balsamo.
“Shall I wait? “asked he.
“Yes.”
” Very well.”
” Fritz ! “
The German appeared.
” Keep Sebastian concealed in the offices.”
“He knows my name,” murmured the adept, with superstitious fear.
” He knows everything,” said Fritz, drawing him away.
When Balsamo was once more alone, he looked at the unbroken, deeply cut seal of the letter, which the imploring glance of the messenger had entreated him to respect as much as possible. Then slowly and pensively he once more mounted toward Lorenza’s apartment, and opened the door of communication.
Lorenza was still sleeping, but seemingly tired and enervated by inaction. He took her hand, which she closed convulsively, and then he placed the letter, sealed as it was, upon her heart.
