Luxury - Gluttony: Two of the Seven Cardinal Sins

"M. Pascal," repeated the prince, in a louder voice, reaching his hand to the bell-cord, "go out of this room instantly, or I will have you put out."

There is ordinarily so much cowardice in insolence, so much baseness in avarice, that M. Pascal, overwhelmed at the prospect of the destruction of his hopes as well as the loss of his profit on the loan, repented too late his brutality, and, becoming as abject as he had been arrogant, said to the prince, in a pitiful voice:

"Monseigneur, I was jesting. I thought your Highness, in deigning to allow me to talk frankly, would be amused at my whims; that is why I permitted myself to say such improper things. Can your Highness suppose that I would dare cherish the least resentment for the pleasantries this charming lady addressed to me? I am too gallant, too much of a French knight for that I will even ask your Highness, in case, as I hope, the loan takes place, to offer to this respectable lady what we men of the strong-box, as she so amusingly called us just now, call pin-money for her toilet, — a few rolls of a thousand louis. Ladies always have some little purchases to make, and — "

"M. Pascal," said the prince, who enjoyed this humiliation which he had not the courage to inflict on Pascal, "you are a miserable scoundrel. Go out!"

"Ah, so, monseigneur! Do you mean seriously to treat me in this way?" cried Pascal.

The prince without replying rang vigorously; an officer entered.

"You see that man," said the archduke, indicating Pascal by a gesture; "look at him."

"Yes, monseigneur."

"Do you know his name?"

"Yes, monseigneur; it is M. Pascal."

"Would you recognise him again?"

"Perfectly, monseigneur."

"Very well. Conduct this man to the door of the vestibule, and if he ever has the impudence to present himself here, drive him away in disgrace."

"We will not fail to do it, monseigneur," replied the officer, who with his comrades had endured the insolence of M. Pascal.

Our hero, realising the ruin of his hopes, and having no longer a point to gain, recovered his audacity, held up his head and said to the prince, who, sufficiently avenged, was eager to join Madeleine in the adjoining chamber:

"Wait, M. archduke, the courage and baseness of both of us are of the same feather, — the other day I was strong for reason of your cowardice, as now you are strong for reason of mine. The only brave person here is that damned woman with the black eyebrows and blond hair; but I will have my revenge on her and on you!"

The prince, angered at being thus addressed in the presence of one of his subordinates, became purple, and stamped his foot in fury.

"Will you go out, sir?" cried the officer, putting his hand on the hilt of his sword, as a threat to M. Pascal. "Out of here, or, if not — "

"Softly, M. fighter," replied Pascal, coolly, as he retired, "softly, sir, they do not cut up people with a sword here, you see! And we are in France, you see! And we have, you see, some good little commissaries of police who receive the complaints of an honest citizen who is maltreated."

M. Pascal went out of the palace steeped in rancour, devoured with hate, bursting with rage. He thought of his thwarted scheme for usury, his disappointed love, and he could not banish from his thoughts the pale and glowing face of Madeleine, who, far from making him forget the virginal purity of Antonine's beauty, seemed to recall her more forcibly to his memory, — the two perfect, yet dissimilar, types heightening the charms of each by contrast.

"Man is a strange animal. I feel within me all the instincts of the tiger," said Pascal to himself, as he slowly walked down the street of the Faubourg St. Honoré, with both hands plunged in the pockets of his trousers. "No," added he, continuing to walk with his head down, and his eyes fixed mechanically on the pavement, "it is not necessary to say that for fear of rendering the envy they bear us millionaires less cruel, less bitter to those who feel it, because, fortunately, those who envy us suffer the torments of the damned for every joy they suppose we have. Yet, indeed, it is a fact, — here I am at this hour, with a purse which can provide me with every pleasure permitted or forbidden that ever a man was allowed to dream! I am still young, I am not a fool, I am full of strength and health, free as a bird, the earth is open to me. I can obtain the most exquisite of all the country offers. I can lead the life of a sybarite in Paris, London, Vienna, Naples, or Constantinople; I can be a prince, duke, or marquis, and covered with insignia; I can have this evening the most beautiful and coveted actresses in Paris; I can have every day a feast of Lucullus, and have myself drawn by the finest horses in Paris; I could even in one month, by taking a splendid hôtel, as many knaves and imbeciles do, surround myself with the élite of Paris and of Europe, — even this so-called king, whom I failed to consecrate with the holy vial of the Bank of France, this archduke whom I have just left, has licked my feet. Ah, well, my word of honour!" added M. Pascal, mentally, gnashing his teeth, "I wager there is not a person in the world who suffers as I do this moment. I was in paradise when, as a drudge, I cleaned the shoes of my old rascal usurer in the province. Fortunately, not to masticate empty, I can always, while waiting for better morsels, chew a little on Dutertre. Let us run to the house of my bailiff."

The archduke, after the departure of the financier, hastened, as we have said, to find the Marquise de Miranda, but, to his great astonishment, she was not in the next room.

As this chamber had no other egress than through the study, the prince asked the officers if they had seen the person to whom he had given audience pass. They replied that the lady had come out of the parlour, and had left the palace a little while before the departure of M. Pascal.

Madeleine had really gone away, although it was her first intention to wait for the prince after the conclusion of his interview with M. Pascal.

This is why the marquise did not keep her first resolution.

She reëntered the parlour, after having treated M. Pascal as he well deserved, when, looking into the garden by chance, she saw Frantz, who had asked the favour of a turn in the park, accompanied by Major Butler.

At the sight of Frantz, Madeleine stood petrified with astonishment. She recognised her blond archangel, the object of that ideal and only passion which she had confessed to Sophie Dutertre.

CHAPTER XIX

Madeleine did not doubt that the hero of the duel of which she had been an invisible witness, her blond archangel, and the ideal of her passion, Frantz, and the lover of Antonine, were one and the same person.

At this sudden discovery the marquise felt a profound agitation. Until then, this love, surrounded with the mystery of the unknown, this vague and charming love which seemed like the memory of a sweet dream, had sufficed to fill her heart in the midst of the perturbations of her life, rendered so fantastic by the calm of her own indifference and the foolish transport that she involuntarily inspired in others.

It had never occurred to Madeleine that her ideal could be in love with another woman, or, rather, her thought had never rested on this doubt; for her, this radiant archangel was provided with beautiful wings, which might carry him away before all eyes into the infinite plains of ether. Incessantly besieged by lovers, by no means platonic, she experienced a joy, an ineffable moral repose, in lifting herself into immaterial regions, where her charmed and dazzled eyes saw her ideal hovering. But suddenly reality cut the wings of the archangel, and, fallen from his celestial sphere, he was no more than a handsome young man, in love with a pretty girl of fifteen, who adored him.

At this discovery, Madeleine could not repress a sort of sadness, or, rather, of sweet melancholy like that which follows the awakening from an enchanted dream, for to experience the tortures of jealousy, would be to love carnally. In short, if Frantz had almost always occupied the thought of Madeleine, he had never had part in her life; it only concerned her, then, to break the thousand ties that habit, sympathy, and confidence had rendered so dear. Nevertheless, she felt herself a prey to a growing disquietude, to painful presentiments which she could not explain to herself. Suddenly she started, and said:

"If fate should order that this strange charm that I exercise on almost all who approach me should also act upon Frantz, if I, too, should share his feeling on seeing the only man who has ever occupied my heart and my thought!"

Then, trying to reassure herself by an appeal to her humility, Madeleine said:

"No, no; Frantz loves Antonine too much, it is his first love; the purity, the sincerity of this love will protect him. He will have for me that coldness which I have for all. Yes, and who can say that my pride, my self-esteem will not revolt from the coldness of Frantz? Who can tell me that, forgetting the duties of sacred friendship, almost maternal, toward Antonine, I may not employ all the resources of my mind and all my power of seduction to conquer Frantz? Oh, no, that would be odious, and then I deceive myself again, Frantz loves Antonine too much. Alas! the husband of Sophie loves her tenderly, too, and I fear that — "

These reflections of the marquise were interrupted by the sound of the archduke's voice as he ordered Pascal to go out; listening to this discussion, she said to herself:

"After he has put this man out, the prince will come in here. I must attend to what is most urgent."

Drawing a memorandum-book from her pocket, the marquise detached one of the leaflets, wrote a few lines with a pencil, folded the paper, and closed it firmly by means of a pin. After writing the address, "For the prince," she laid the note where it could be seen on a marble table in the middle of the parlour, put on her hat, and went out, as we have said, a little before the departure of M. Pascal.

While the archduke, astonished and disappointed not to find the marquise, was opening with inexpressible anguish the note she had left, she was on her way to the home of Antonine, where Sophie Dutertre was also expected.

Upon her arrival at the house of President Hubert, introduced in a modest parlour, the marquise was received by Sophie Dutertre, who, running to her, asked, anxiously:

"Ah, well, Madeleine, have you seen the prince?"

"Yes, and I have good hope."

"Will it be possible?"

"Possible; yes, my dear Sophie, but that is all. I do not wish to excite foolish hope in the heart of this poor child. Where is she?"

"With her uncle. Happily, the crisis of this morning appeared to leave results more and more satisfactory. The physician has just said that, if the present condition continues, M. Hubert will perhaps be out of danger this evening."

"Tell me, Sophie, do you think M. Hubert is in a state to receive a visitor?"

"From whom?"

"From a certain person. I cannot tell you more now."

"I think so; because one of his friends has just seen him. Only the physician advised him not to stay too long, as the invalid might become fatigued."

"That suits marvellously. And poor little Antonine! She must be in mortal uneasiness."