The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)

He felt a need of concentrating all his anger on some one besides her; and Michael, never imagining that he himself had lost his logical faculty, put the responsibility for everything on Martinez. The latter was the one person to blame. If he had not come between them, Alicia, on finding herself alone in misfortune, would have sought once more the support of the Prince. What a gift the "General" had made them, presenting this adventurer!

His reason vainly argued that it was not the officer who was seeking Alicia, but the latter who was keeping him in her home, cutting him off from his old friendships. Lubimoff was not willing to give up his spite. It was Martinez and no one else who had come between them.

Up to that time he had not paid much attention to the boy whom Toledo called the "hero." There were so many heroes at that moment! In his hatred he began to strip him of the prestige given him by his deeds and his misfortune, Michael saw him without his uniform, without his war crosses and his wounds, such as he must have been before the war; a poor employee, a business clerk, whose dreams of love had never gone beyond a milliner or a stenographer. And this was the interesting personage who had the temerity to face him! Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff. What intolerable times!

The following day he walked about his garden all morning, resolved never to return to Monte Carlo. He was filled with scorn at the thought of the tenderness with which Alicia had spoken of her protégé. It was better that he should not encounter him. But in the afternoon the loneliness of his beautiful Villa weighed on him. It seemed deserted. Atilio, the pianist, and even the Colonel were all at the Casino. He, too, decided to go, to mingle with the crowd which was dividing its attention between the hazards of war and the hazards of chance.

In the anteroom he walked toward the groups who were gathered around the bulletin board reading the latest telegrams. The crowd considered the news good, since it was not extremely bad as on the preceding days. The Allies had stopped the enemy's advance, holding them at a standstill on the ground they had just conquered. The bombardment of Paris with long range guns was still continuing. And that was all.

There was a man making comments in a loud voice. It was Toledo, who, as was his custom every afternoon, was giving a lecture on strategy to a semi-circle of admirers. With his back to the Prince, he was spouting a stream of clear optimism, with a simple faith that misfortune and reverses could not move.

"Now they have nailed them in their tracks: they won't advance any farther. In a short time will be the counter-attack. I am sure of it; it is clear as daylight to me."

Don Marcos rubbed his hands, and slyly winked one eye.

"And the Americans are coming and coming. There are days when as many as ten thousand of them are landed here. A wonderful people! I have always said so! That fellow Wilson is a great man. I know him well."

They all listened with delight to this voice of hope that refreshed their hearts before they gave themselves up to the strain and stress of roulette and trente et quarante. He talked with the authority of a man who has influential connections, and is informed of everything. "He knew Wilson," he had just said so himself. Besides, he was a Colonel – although none of them knew in what army – an expert, capable of expressing an unfounded opinion. And many of them lost no time in hastening to the gambling rooms to repeat his views, as though they had just received some inside information.

The Prince withdrew, afraid that his presence might put an end to that professional triumph of Toledo, which was repeated every day.

As he walked about the anteroom before entering the gaming halls, he saw beside a column, a group of French officers, all of whom were convalescents. Denied the permission to go any further, because of their uniform, they were standing there, looking with a certain envy on the civilians. A few of them were standing erect, without any visible infirmity, with the sharp features of an eagle, aquiline nose, bold eyes, and wild mustache. Others, with youthful faces, were bent over like ailing men, leaning on canes, and wearing wrinkled uniforms much too large for their sunken chests. Each time they decided to move their legs they made a long pause as though to muster every bit of their will power available. Some of them had come to Monaco as incurables, after a long captivity in Germany. The rest came from hospitals on the firing line. On the faces of all of them was an expression of joyous bewilderment at finding themselves in this corner of the earth, that was like a Paradise, where people seemed to have forgotten the rest of the world, and women's eyes followed them with enigmatic glances, half amorous and half maternal!

One of the soldiers raised his hand to his cap to salute the Prince. The latter looked at the yellowish color of his kepis, then at his uniform which was of the same color, and at the multi-colored line of decorations. It was Martinez, the lieutenant in the Foreign Legion, who was saluting him with a certain timidity, but pleased at the same time that his comrades were seeing him on friendly terms with the famous personage, who was so much talked about on the Riviera.

Michael returned his greeting mechanically and went on. That moment remained fixed in his memory all his life. Age and the discretion that accompanies it seemed to fall from him like dry bark from a tree in springtime. He felt as though he were back in his youth. For a few moments he was the same Captain Lubimoff of the imperial Guards, who had trampled on obstacles and braved scandal when any one opposed his will.

He turned to look at the group of officers from a distance. That little insignificant Lieutenant, who looked like a bookkeeper, promoted by mobilization, was his enemy! It seemed as though he were seeing him for the first time. Lost among his companions he appeared even more insignificant than when he visited Villa Sirena.

Michael remained motionless, with his glance fixed on the group. "You are going to do something foolish," admonished a voice within him. And there passed through his memory the image of stern Saldaña, kindly and tolerant with the weak, like every one who is sure of his strength. He recalled one of his sayings which had never before crossed his mind: "A gentleman must be kind and never take unfair advantage of his strength." He was sure that his father had said that to him when he was a child. But immediately the duality of his inner being expressed itself through another voice which was stronger and more imperious, a woman's voice like that of the other counselor of his youth: "Spend; don't deny yourself anything, put yourself above everybody; always remember that you are a Lubimoff." And he saw the dead Princess, not the Mary Stuart with her theatrical mourning robes, but the dominating and still beautiful woman, the one who had overwhelmed her husband "the hero" with her rage, and turned the Paris residence upside down.

Suddenly he found himself near the group of officers, and again his eyes met those of Martinez. The latter came toward him with a smile of interrogation. Michael realized that he had beckoned to the soldier, without being aware of what he was doing, through an impulse of will which seemed entirely detached from his reason.

"So much the worse! Let's get through with the business!"

With a certain haste, he took the young man toward the vestibule of the Casino as though anxious to avoid the presence of the groups who were filling the anteroom.

"Lieutenant, I have something to say to you… I must … ask a favor of you."

He stammered, not knowing how to express the command which he himself felt was absurd.

This vacillation, together with the trembling in his voice, finally irritated him.

They stopped beside the glass door at the entrance. Martinez was no longer smiling, as he gazed in amazement at the hard look and the pallor of the Prince.

"In a word," the latter said resolutely; "what I have to ask you is that you pay fewer visits at the house of the Duchess de Delille. If you should refrain entirely from going to see her, it would be even better." And he paused, breathing with a certain freedom, after having expressed this demand.

An expression of amazement gradually took possession of Martinez' face. He hesitated for a moment, with his eyes fixed on Lubimoff's. No, it was not a jest: the hostile look of this man who had always treated him with amiable indifference, the sharpness of his tone, and a certain trembling of his right hand, indicated that he had expressed his real thoughts, and that behind these thoughts lay enormous depths of hatred against him.

His surprise caused him to talk with timidity. He visited the Duchess because the lady asked him to come and see her every day. He had often felt his assiduity might prove to be a nuisance, but every attempt he had made to break off his visits had been fruitless. He scarcely left her for a few hours but the good lady had him sent for. She was as kind to him as a mother. Suddenly his humble tone vanished. His eyes guessed in those of the man who had stopped him something that he himself had never imagined. The Lieutenant seemed transfigured, as though rising to the same level as the Prince. His eyes shone with the same wild splendor as the other man's; his body stiffened with the tension of a spring about to be released; his nostrils quivered nervously. The little clerk, with his timid bearing, recovered the air of gallant bravery of the fighting man. His voice sounded harsh, as he went on talking.

He would go wherever he was asked, wherever he felt like going, without recognizing the right of any man to interfere in his actions. The Duchess was the only one who could close her door to him. Why did the Prince interfere in that lady's affairs without consulting her first?

"I am related to her," said Michael, inwardly hesitating somewhat at making use of the relationship which he had often preferred to deny.

They both found themselves on the other side of the entry, on the platform above the steps of the Casino, in the open air, opposite the groves of the square and the groups of passersby who were walking about the "Camembert." They were obliged to stand aside, in order not to disturb those who were entering and coming out.

"Besides," continued the Prince, "it is my duty to shield her from gossip. I cannot permit that. Seeing you in there at all hours, they should suppose…"

He almost regretted these words on noticing the double effect that they had on the young man. First he became indignant. Had any one dared gossip about that great lady who had been such a saint in his eyes? But this protest was accompanied by a certain unconscious satisfaction, by childish pride, as though he were flattered, in spite of everything that his name should be connected in absurd conjecture with that of the Duchess. It seemed that Martinez had just been revealed to himself, giving substance and a name to the obscure sentiments that until then, in an embryonic stage, had pulsed unrecognized within him.

The jealous mind of the Prince guessed, with keen penetration, everything that the other man was thinking, and this added fuel to his wrath. What impudence in this little clerk to take up Alicia's defense? What a conceited show he was making of his love for her!

"If any one takes the liberty of talking about the Duchess," said the Lieutenant, "if anybody dares to gossip because she does me the honor of receiving me in her home – the greatest honor in my life! – I will take it on my shoulders to punish whoever invents such a lie, no matter how high up he may be, no matter how powerful he may think himself to be!"

Lubimoff listened impatiently. Now it was Martinez daring to attack him. Those last words had carried a threat for him.

Besides, the Prince felt irritated at his own clumsiness. His imprudent action had served merely to open this young man's eyes, and make him think of the possibilities of many things which he had never yet imagined, and which if he had imagined them, he would have cast aside immediately as foolish. And now no less than the Prince Lubimoff had elected to show this cheap Lieutenant that, in the opinion of gossips, such things were possible.

The tone in which the officer defended Alicia aroused his anger even more. He divined in it great pride, the vanity of a poor fellow who had known love adventures only in books, and who suddenly found himself in supposed relations with a Duchess, as the rival of a Prince. How glorious for an upstart!

"Boy …" said Lubimoff, in a hard voice.

This simple word, which was the term in which waiters were addressed in the hotels, was followed by a haughty look of overwhelming superiority, which seemed to sweep away everything extraordinary which the war had given Martinez: his uniform, his decorations, and his glorious wounds. For the Prince the officer no longer existed: there only remained the poor vagabond of a few years before, wandering from one hemisphere to another in quest of bread. "Boy," he repeated in a tone that brought back all the class distinction and social gradations of dead centuries, so that the man whom he had accosted might realize the enormous separation between him and the man to whom he deigned to give advice —

"Boy, let's come to the point – . And if I were to order you not to return to that house? And if I demand that…?"

He was unable to finish the sentence. His threatening voice, harsh as a cry of command, roused the indignation of the man in uniform. To have faced death for three long years, among thousands of comrades who were now lying in the ground; to have learned to set little store on life, as something proved worthless at every moment on the battlefield; to have stripped himself forever, by dint of frightful adventures and awful wounds, of that fear which the instinct of self-preservation puts in all beings, only to the end that now, in a pleasure resort, at the door of the most luxurious of gambling houses, a man, rich and powerful, but who had never done anything useful in his whole life, should dare to threaten him!..

"You say that to me!" he said, stammering with rage. "You give orders to me!"

Michael felt a hand seize him by the lapel of his coat. It was like a bird, tremulous and aggressive, pausing for an instant in its blind impulse, before flying upward. He was aware of the blow that was coming, and raised his arm instinctively, both hands met as that of the young man whirled close to the face of the Prince. The latter, who was stronger, seized the ascending hand and held it motionless, in a firm grip, while at the same time he smiled in a gruesome fashion. His eyes contracted as his eyebrows arched in the smile. They became again the eyes of an Asiatic. His nostrils dilated as he breathed like a stallion. The remote ancestors of the Princess Lubimoff must have smiled thus in their moments of anger.

"Enough: I consider that I have received it," he said slowly, "Name two friends to confer with mine!"

And freeing that hand of Martinez, he turned his back on him, after making a deep bow. The movements of both men had been rapid. Only one of the doorkeepers, with his official cap, standing guard on the platform above the steps, had guessed that anything had happened; but his professional experience advised him to remain passive as long as there were no blows. He imagined that it was merely a dispute over some gambling affair. It would all be settled by an explanation, and forgotten after a winning! He had seen so many such things!

Prince Lubimoff reënters the Casino. He crosses the vestibule and the anteroom holding his head high, but without seeing any one, gazing straight ahead, with a faraway expression.

It seems to him that time has suddenly been reversed, causing him to return to the past with one bound. He is back in his youth. He walks arrogantly. He is surprised that the sound of his firm tread is not accompanied by the tinkling of spurs and the metallic scraping of a saber. At the same time he begins to see imaginary faces, faces of those who disappeared from the earth many years ago: the Cossack who had come from a distant garrison in Siberia to avenge his sister; a friend in the same regiment as the Prince, who died from a sword thrust in his breast after a tumultuous supper, while Lubimoff wept, suddenly awakening from his homicidal intoxication; the faces of others who had been present as mere witnesses, but who had died and were now resurrected in his memory, cold and insensible to remorse and vain regrets.

"The Colonel. Where in the devil is the Colonel!"

He crosses the gambling room, in quest of a gray head, with a straight part from the forehead to the back of the neck, dividing the glistening hair into two shining sections. He sees it finally rising above the back of a divan, between two women's hats, four eyes darkly bordered as though in mourning, and cheeks with wrinkles filled with white and rose-colored enamel. A terse sentence of the Prince interrupts the explanations of the war news with which the Colonel had been thrilling the two ladies.

"Colonel, an affair of honor. I intend to fight to-morrow. Look for another second."

Toledo seems disconcerted by this order. His first thought flies to Villa Sirena. He sees his black frock coat, the solemn vestment of honor ready to leave its prison. Then a cloud of doubt obscures this joyous thought. A duel! Would it be fitting now that men are fighting in masses of millions, giving their lives for something higher and more important than personal hatred? His training immediately smothers this scruple. "A gentleman should always be at the orders of another gentleman." Besides, it is his Prince. And ready to fulfill his mission, he asks the name of the adversary.