Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  The accent of truth is irresistible, and the prince at once believed the words of Madeleine, in spite of the amazement produced by this revelation so diametrically opposite to the rumours of adventures and gallantries which were rife about the marquise.

  The astonishment of the prince was mingled with a vague satisfaction which he did not care to estimate. However, fearing he might fall into a snare, he said, no longer with passion, but with a sorrowful recrimination:

  “You count too much on my credulity, madame. What! when just now you confessed to me that—”

  “I beg your pardon, monseigneur; do me the favour to reply to a few questions.”

  “Speak, madame.”

  “You certainly have all the valiant exterior of a man of war, monseigneur, and when I saw you in Vienna, mounted on your beautiful battle-horse, proudly cross the Prater, followed by your aides-de-camp, I often said, ‘That is my type of an army general; there is a man made to command soldiers.’”

  “You saw me in Vienna?” asked the archduke, whose voice softened singularly. “You observed me there?”

  “Fortunately you did not know it, monseigneur, or you would have exiled me, would you not?”

  “Well,” replied the prince, smiling, “I fear so.”

  “Come, that is gallantry; I like you better so. I was saying to you, then, monseigneur, that you have the exterior of a valiant man of war, and your character responds to this exterior. But will you not confess to me that sometimes the most martial figure may hide a poltroon—”

  “No one better understands that than I. I had under my orders a major-general who had the most ferocious-looking personality that could be imagined, and he was the most arrant coward.”

  “You will admit again, monseigneur, that sometimes the most contemptible-looking personality may hide a hero.”

  “Certainly, Frederick the Great, Prince Eugene, were not great in manner—”

  “Alas! monseigneur, it is even so, and I, on the contrary, am different from these great men; unfortunately, I have too much manner.”

  “What do you mean, madame?”

  “Ah, my God, yes! I am like the coward who makes everybody tremble by his stern appearance, and who is really more afraid than the most cowardly of the cowards he intimidates. In a word, I inspire that which I do not feel; picture to yourself, monseigneur, the poor icicle carrying around him flame and conflagration. And I would have the presumption to call myself a phenomenon if I did not recollect that the beautiful fruits of my country, so bright-coloured, so delicate, so fragrant, awaken in me a furious appetite, without sharing the least in the world the fine appetite they give, or ever feeling the slightest desire to be crunched. It is so with me, monseigneur, it seems that as innocently as the fruits of my country I excite, in some respects, the hunger of an ogre, I who am of a cenobitic frugality. So now I have concluded to be no longer astonished at the influence I exercise involuntarily, but as, after all, this action is powerful, inasmuch as it excites the most violent passions of men, I try to elicit the best that is possible from my victims, either for themselves or for the good of others, and that, I swear without coquetry, deception, or promises, if one says to me, ‘I am passionately in love with you,’ I answer, ‘Well, cherish your passion, perhaps its fire will melt my ice, perhaps the lava will hide itself in me under the snow. Fan your flame, then, let it burn until it wins me; I ask nothing better, for I am as free as the air, and I am twenty-two years old.’”

  As she uttered these words, Madeleine raised her head, lifted her veil, and gazed intently at the archduke.

  The marquise spoke truly, for her passion for her blond archangel, of whom she had talked to Sophie Dutertre, had never had anything terrestrial in it.

  The prince believed Madeleine; first, because truth almost always carries conviction with it, then, because he felt happy in putting faith in the words of the young woman. He blushed less in acknowledging to himself the profound and sudden impression produced on him by this singular creature, when he realised that, after all, she had been worthy of guarding the sacred fire of Vesta; so, the imprudent man, his eyes fixed on the eyes of Madeleine, contemplating them with passionate eagerness, drank at leisure the enchanted love-potion.

  Madeleine resumed, smiling:

  “At this moment, monseigneur, you are asking yourself, I am sure, a question which I often ask myself.”

  “What is that, pray?”

  “You are asking yourself (to speak like an old-time romance), ‘Who is he who will make me share his passion?’ Ah, well, I, too, am very anxious to penetrate the future on this subject.”

  “That future, nevertheless, depends on you.”

  “No, monseigneur, to draw music from the lyre, some one must make it vibrate.”

  “And who will that happy mortal be?”

  “My God! who knows? Perhaps you, monseigneur.”

  “I!” cried the prince, charmed, transported. “I!”

  “I say perhaps.”

  “Oh, what must I do?”

  “Please me.”

  “And how shall I do that?”

  “Listen, monseigneur.”

  “I pray you, do not call me monseigneur; it is too ceremonious.”

  “Oh, oh, monseigneur; it is a great favour for a prince to be treated with familiarity; he must deserve it. You ask me how you may please me. I will give you not an example, but a fact. The poet, Moser-Hartmann, whose apostasy you say I caused, addressed to me the most singular remark in the world. One day he met me at the house of a mutual friend, looked at me a long time, and then said, with an air of angry alarm: ‘Madame, for the peace of spirituality, you ought to be buried alive!’ And he went out, but next day he came to see me, madly in love, a victim, he told me, to a sudden passion, — as sudden and novel as it was uncontrollable. ‘Let your passion burn,’ I said to him, ‘but hear the advice of a friend; the passion devours you, let it flow in your verse. Become a great poet, and perhaps your glory will intoxicate me.’”

  “And did the inebriation ever come to you?” said the prince.

  “No, but glory has come to my lover to console him, and a poet can be consoled for the loss of everything by glory. Ah, well, monseigneur, have I used my influence well or ill?”

  Suddenly the archduke started.

  A keen suspicion pierced his heart. Dissimulating this painful doubt, he said to Madeleine, with a forced smile:

  “But, madame, your adventure with the cardinal legate did not have so happy an end for him. What is left to console him?”

  “There rests with him the consciousness of having delivered a country that abhorred him from his presence,” replied Madeleine, gaily. “Is there nothing in that, monseigneur?”

  “Come now, between us, what interest had you in making this unhappy man the victim of a terrible scandal?”

  “How! What interest, monseigneur? What but the interest of unmasking an infamous hypocrite, of chasing him out of a city that he oppressed, — in short, to cover him with contempt and shame. ‘I believe in your passion,’ said I to him, ‘and perhaps I may share it if you will mask as a Hungarian hussar, and come with me to the ball of the Rialto, my dear cardinal; it is an extravagant, foolish caprice on my part, no doubt, but that is my condition, and, besides, who will recognise you under the mask?’ This horrible priest had his head turned; he accepted, and I destroyed him.”

  “And you will destroy me, madame, as you did the cardinal legate,” cried the archduke, rising and making a supreme effort to break the charm whose irresistible power he already felt. “I see the snare; I have enemies; you wish by your perfidious seductions, to drag me into some dangerous proceeding, and afterwards to hand me over to the contempt and ridicule that my weakness would deserve. But, bless God! he has opened my eyes in time. I recognise with horror that infernal fascination which took from me the use of my reason, and which was not love even, — no, I yielded to the grossest, most degrading passion which can lower man to the level of a brute, to that
passion which, to my shame and to yours, I desire to stigmatise aloud as lust, madame!”

  Madeleine shrugged her shoulders and began to laugh derisively, then rising from her seat and walking up to the prince, who had stepped back to the chimney, she took him gently by the hand, and led him back to a chair near her own, without his having the strength to resist this peaceable violence.

  “Do me the favour to listen to me, monseigneur,” said Madeleine. “I have only a few more words to say to you, and then you will not see the Marquise de Miranda again in your life.”

  CHAPTER XVI.

  WHEN MADELEINE HAD seated the prince near her, she said to him:

  “Listen, monseigneur, I will be frank, so frank that I defy you not to believe me. I came here with the hope of turning your head.”

  “So,” cried the prince, astonished, “you confess it!”

  “Entirely. That end attained, I wished to use my influence over you, to obtain, as I told you, monseigneur, at the beginning of our interview, two things, one considered almost impossible, the other as altogether impossible.”

  “You are right, madame, to defy me not to believe you,” replied the prince, with a constrained smile. “I believe you.”

  “The two deeds that I wished to obtain from you were great, noble, and generous; they would have made you esteemed and respected. That is very far, I think, from wishing to abuse my influence over you to excite you to evil or indignity, as you suppose.”

  “Well, madame, come to the point; what is it?”

  “First, an act of clemency, or rather of justice, which would rally around you a multitude of hearts in Lombardy, — the free and full pardon of Colonel Pernetti.”

  The prince jumped up from his chair, and exclaimed:

  “Never, madame, never!”

  “The free and full pardon of Colonel Pernetti, one of the most honoured men in all Italy,” pursued Madeleine, without noticing the interruption of the prince. “The reasonable pride of this noble-hearted man will prevent his asking you for the slightest alleviation of his woes, but come generously to his relief, and his gratitude will assure you of his devotion.”

  “I repeat to you, madame, that important reasons of state oppose your request. It is impossible, altogether impossible.”

  “To be sure. I began, you know, by telling you that, monseigneur. As to the other thing, doubtless more impossible still, it simply concerns your consent to the marriage of a young man whom you have brought up.”

  “I!” cried the archduke, as if he could not believe his ears. “I, consent to the marriage of Count Frantz?”

  “I do not know if he is a count, but I do know that his name is Frantz, since it was told me this morning by Mlle. Antonine Hubert, an angel of sweetness and beauty, whom I have loved from her childhood, and for whom I feel the tenderness of a mother and a sister.”

  “Madame, in three hours from this moment Count Frantz will have left Paris, — that is my reply.”

  “My God, monseigneur, that is admirable! All this is impossible, absolutely impossible. I say again, I admit that it is impossible!”

  “Then, madame, why do you ask it?”

  “Why, to obtain it, of course, monseigneur.”

  “What! notwithstanding all I have just said to you, you dare hope still?”

  “I have that presumption, monseigneur.”

  “Such self-conceit—”

  “Is very modest because I am not counting on my presence.”

  “On what, then, madame, do you rely?”

  “On my absence, monseigneur,” said Madeleine, rising.

  “On your absence?”

  “On your remembrance, if you prefer it.”

  “You are going,” said the prince, unable to conceal his regret and vexation, “you are going so soon?”

  “It is my last and only means of bringing you to an agreement.”

  “But really, madame — —”

  “Wait, monseigneur, do you wish me to tell you what is going to happen?”

  “Let us hear, madame.”

  “I am going to leave you. At first you will be relieved of a great burden; my presence will no longer beset you with all sorts of temptations, which have their agony as well as their charm; you will banish me entirely from your thoughts. Unfortunately, by degrees, and in spite of yourself, I will return to occupy your thoughts; my mysterious, veiled figure will follow you everywhere; you will feel still more how little there is of the platonic in your inclination toward me, and these sentiments will become only more irritating and more obstinate. To-morrow, the next day, perhaps, reflecting that, after all, I asked noble and generous actions only of you, you will bitterly regret my departure, but it will be too late, monseigneur.”

  “Too late?”

  “Too late for you; not for me. I have taken it into my head that Colonel Pernetti will have his pardon, and that Count Frantz will marry Antonine. You understand, monseigneur, that it must be.”

  “In spite of me?”

  “In spite of you.”

  “That would be rather difficult.”

  “So it is. But, let us see, monseigneur, to mention to you only facts which you already know; when one has known how to induce the cardinal legate to masquerade as a Hungarian hussar, when one has known how to create a great poet by the fire of a single glance, when one has known how to render amorous — and I humbly confess I use the expression in its earthly sense — a man like you, monseigneur, it is evident that one can accomplish something else also. You force, do you not, this poor Count Frantz to leave Paris? But the journey is long, and before he is out of France I have two days before me. A little delay in the pardon of Colonel Pernetti will be nothing for him, and, after all, his pardon does not depend on you alone, monseigneur; you cannot imagine to what point the rebound of influence may reach, and, thank God, here in France I have the means and the liberty to act. Is it war that you wish, monseigneur? Then let it be war. I depart, and I leave you already wounded, — that is to say, in love. Ah, my God! although I have a right to be proud of my success, it is not vanity which makes me insist upon the sudden impression I have made on you; because, to tell the truth, I have not employed the least coquetry in all this; almost always I have kept my veil down, and I am dressed as a veritable grandmother. Well, good-bye, monseigneur. At least do me the favour to accompany me to the door of your front parlour; war does not forbid courtesy.”

  The archduke was in unutterable uneasiness of mind. He felt that Madeleine was speaking the truth, for, already, at the bare thought of seeing her depart, perhaps for ever, he experienced a real sorrow; then, reflecting that if the charm, the singular and almost irresistible attraction of this woman could act so powerfully on him, who for so many reasons believed himself protected from such an influence, as well as from others which might induce him to submit to this control, he felt a sort of vague but bitter and angry jealousy; and while he could not make up his mind to grant the pardon asked of him, or to consent to the marriage of Frantz, he tried, like all undecided minds, to temporise, and said to the marquise, with emotion:

  “Since I cannot see you again, at least prolong your visit a little.”

  “For what purpose, monseigneur?”

  “It matters little to you if it makes me happy.”

  “It would not by any means make you happy, monseigneur, because you have neither the strength to let me depart nor to grant me what I ask of you.”

  “That is true,” answered the prince, sighing, “for one request seems as impossible to me as the other.”

  “Ah, to-morrow, after my departure, how you will repent!”

  The prince, after a long silence, said, with effort, yet with the most insinuating voice:

  “Wait, my dear marquise, let us suppose that which is not supposable, that perhaps some day I may think of granting the pardon of Pernetti.”

  “A supposition? perhaps some day you will think of it? How vague and unsatisfactory all that is, monseigneur! Why not say, positively,
‘Admit that I grant you the pardon of Colonel Pernetti.’”

  “Very well, then, admit it.”

  “Good; you grant me this pardon, monseigneur, and you consent to the marriage of Frantz? I must have all or nothing.”

  “As to the marriage, never, never!”

  “Do not say never, monseigneur. Do you know anything about it?”

  “After all, a supposition binds me to nothing. Well, to make an end of it, let us admit that I grant all you desire. I will be at least certain of my recompense—”

  “You ask it of me, monseigneur? Is not every generous action its own reward?”

  “Granted. But there is one, in my eyes the most precious of all, and that one you alone can give.”

  “Oh, make no conditions, monseigneur.”

  “Why?”

  “Frankly, monseigneur, can I pledge myself to anything? Does not all depend on you and not on me? You must please me, that concerns you.”

  “Oh! what a woman you are!” said the prince, with vexation. “But, really, shall I please you? Do you think I can please you?”

  “My faith, monseigneur, I know nothing about it. You have done nothing so far but receive me with rudeness, I can truthfully say.”

  “My God! I was wrong, forgive me; if you only knew the uneasiness, I might almost say the fear, that you inspire in me, my dear marquise!”

  “Come, I forgive you the past, monseigneur, and promise you to allow myself to be captivated with the best will in the world, and, as I am very frank, I will even add that it does seem to me that I would like you so much that you might succeed.”

  “Truly!” cried the prince, transported.

  “Yes; you are half a sovereign, and you perhaps will be one some day, and there may be all sorts of good and beautiful things for you to order through the influence of this consuming passion you have just branded like a real capuchin, — allow me the expression. Come, monseigneur, if the good God has put this passion in all his creatures, he knew what he was doing. It is an immense power, because, in the hope of satisfying it, those who are under its influence are capable of everything, even the most generous actions, is it not true, monseigneur?”