“As a friend?” echoed the Comte embarrassed by the searching look in Titin’s eyes.
“Yes, as a friend. Admit that it all seems hideous to you.”
“Hideous? How can you say such a thing?”
“Come tell me. I insist. Tell the truth to the King’s son.”
“Oh, what a wonderful man you are! Well, yes, M. Titin, I think it is awful,” he returned, adding at once scared by his own sincerity: “But I am no judge in these matters.”
“Nonsense,” said Titin. “I prefer the truth to empty words. If you wish to be my friend you must always tell me the truth.”
“Of course, of course, truth is the one thing that princes never hear.”
“It’s very strange but sometimes you speak with a Slavonic and sometimes with a Spanish accent.”
“That’s because my father was a Slav and my mother a Spaniard — a beautiful Spaniard. My father met her in Las Palmas. They fell in love and were married. I inherited my mother’s splendid dark eyes and my father’s fortune which was splendid also.”
“Are you a rich man, Comte?”
“I used to be but now I am penniless.”
“Through mixing in politics?”
“Yes, through mixing in politics, which entails a big expense — too big an expense. You’ve got to live up to a certain rank, of course. Well, I overdid it.... I never know what money I’m spending — it’s awful. There are times when I don’t know what to do not to pay my valet.”
“You mean you don’t know what to do to pay him.”
“No, no, I mean to pay him. When I have money, I never pay him and he never asks for any because he robs me. But now I am poor he doesn’t leave me a moment’s peace, and I don’t know what to do not to pay him. I made no mistake.”
“Have you any money at the moment?”
“Not a penny.”
“Well, you may depend upon me to pay your valet. Where are you going now?”
“I have a car outside which will take us to Nice. I want to show you your new home.”
They left the Town Hall. A crowd had gathered in the square round the car, greatly perplexed by the rich stranger’s unexpected visit — at all events he seemed to be rich. He had a distinguished bearing, and Titin was so well pleased with himself and wore so lordly an air that the good people of La Fourca gasped with astonishment. They followed the car through the narrow, tortuous lanes and ran behind it as it traversed the whole of La Fourca Nova.
As they drove past La Patentaine, Titin lifted his hat with a sweeping gesture to Mme. Cioasa — M. Supia’s poor sister who was the concierge. Mme. Cioasa turned yellow. It was her manner, as an old maid, of blushing. Then Titin bowed to right and left, like the Head of a State paying an official visit to a country town.
CHAPTER XV
OF CERTAIN MINOR. TROUBLES THAT BEFELL TITIN THE GREAT
THE JOURNEY WAS effected almost in silence. Odon Odonovitch seemed absorbed in thought. Titin worked out a plan of his own. When they reached Nice and the car was turning towards the Place Massena, Titin asked the Comte to drive to his Consul. Odonovitch at once gave the order.
“I understand,” he said.
“You must forgive me Comte, but you took your precautions and I am taking mine.”
“That’s quite natural,” agreed Comte.
On arrival the Consul received the Comte and Titin with the greatest deference. Titin showed him the envelope containing Prince Marie Hippothadee’s letter, and the Consul identified the Transylvanian arms and seal.
Titin turning to the Comte, asked:
“Have you any objection to my showing him the letter?”
“None at all,” returned the Comte.
“This letter is in Prince Marie’s handwriting and it bears his signature,” said the Consul with a bow after reading the letter.
Titin apologized to the Consul, thanked him, and was shown out with all the honors due to a king’s son. They once more stepped into the car; and Titin gave himself up to pleasant thoughts over the amazing occurrence which would revolutionize his life. Doubtless for reasons of policy, as explained by Prince Marie, he would have to keep secret for a while the splendor of his birth. But, the letter and Odonovitch’s wallet of bank notes were some amends for the wretched past. They permitted him to indulge in every hope. Moreover, Odon Odonovitch’s personality attracted him. Had it been in that worthy gentleman’s power the truth would have blazed forth before the hour dictated by fate and Prince Marie Hippothadee’s prudence. His entirely disinterested conduct was remarkable. A poor man, in a strange land, he had faithfully conveyed to Titin a considerable sum of money and at the same time all the advantages that money bestows. Titin had reached this point in his reflections when the car — a luxurious hired car — pulled up outside a house in the Promenade des Anglais, which was not unknown to him.
“This is the place,” said Odonovitch.
To Titin’s great amazement the Comte led the way to the floor recently occupied by Prince Vladimir Hippothadee for his marriage with Mlle. Antoinette Agagnosc.
“A bargain M. Titin!” exclaimed Odonovitch. “A splendid bargain. I bought the lease and furniture for a mere song.”
“I know the flat, but I don’t recognize the furniture.”
“By all the saints, the furniture was not good enough for you,” cried the Comte. “I sold it, and sold it at a good price. An excellent piece of business.”
“And you bought this furniture, which is certainly very fine, with the money from the sale?”
“No. This furniture was delivered last night by the best house in Paris which has a branch in the Avenue de Verdun here. But it’s not yet paid for. I expect to pay for it at the beginning of next month. We still have a good many expenses to meet, of course.”
“What expenses?”
“Well, many little things are wanted here in the flat. I have ordered the linen. The sheets haven’t come yet. Meanwhile I have retained a suite of rooms for you, next to mine, at the Palace Hotel where I am staying and where they’ll bring you everything necessary to enable you to hold your own in the world.”
“Do you know the name of the man who sold you the lease and furniture?” asked Titin with a satirical grin.
“I don’t remember his name. All I can tell you, your Highness — I beg you to allow me to give you this title in private — is that I made his acquaintance in the club, and during the evening he lost, as the saying goes, the very shirt off his back. We soon concluded the business. He said when I gave him the money: ‘Lightly come, lightly go’, and added: ‘I bought this furniture from a gentleman who was in need of money as the result of a little game of chemin de fer’. Thereupon he left me, and went off to take the bank, and in ten minutes had lost every penny I paid him. Then I said to myself: ‘This furniture will bring us bad luck. I must get rid of it at once.’”
“But you, my dear Odonovitch, you never gamble?”
“Never! Well, that’s saying a great deal. A man in my position owes it to himself to play now and then to keep up his character as a gentleman.”
“Yes? Well, gamble as little as you can for we have a saying here: ‘When a man gambles the devil enjoys himself.’”
“By your respected father every word you say is wisdom itself!” exclaimed the Comte. “But let’s hurry I beg, for your tailor must have been waiting at the hotel for over an hour.”
“Before leaving the flat I want to tell you, my dear Comte, the name of the man who first furnished it. I mean the man who sold it to the gambler whom you saw losing his money at the tables. He is known to both of us. It was Prince Vladimir Hippothadee himself. He was then hoping to bring Mlle. Agagnosc here as his Princess.”
“By the Virgin of Mostarajevo that’s funny!... Mlle. Agagnosc will come here all the same. She will be Princess but another Prince will bring her here. I see in this sign that the Lord above is with us. But by my sainted mother, the furniture was a disgrace.”
“It was Supia who chose
it and Supia who paid for it,” said Titin. “Obviously Hippothadee lost at the gaming table the money received by selling the furniture without Supia’s permission. The thing is funnier than you imagine. As for myself, I am more pleased than I can tell you, for it proves beyond doubt that Vladimir has given up, at least for the present, the idea of marrying Mlle. Agagnosc.”
“I see. He’s afraid of that terrible Hardigras,” said Odonovitch with a wink. Titin did not move a muscle.
That day and following days were spent in giving orders of all kinds; their rooms were besieged by tailors, bootmakers, hosiers, jewelers. Odon Odonovitch thought nothing too good for his dear Prince.
As to Titin, he had Prince Marie’s letter in his pocket and, since it was the Prince’s wish, he let things take their course. Moreover, his mind was occupied with the legitimate consideration that when it became known that he was no longer a nobody, Supia would withdraw his opposition to his marriage with Antoinette. The thought that she might soon be his wife made him bless the day that he wrote to the Prince, after giving up the idea of troubling Papajeudi and Gianelli.
From La Fourca to Nice and to the inner spurs of the Esterel, Titin’s good fortune was the chief subject of conversation. Times had changed. The story of his sudden wealth, though they knew nothing of the real facts, seemed no more fantastic than others, equally extravagant, which daily fill the newspapers. There was a rumor, as rumors go, that underlying it all was a story about his father. But they knew nothing with any certainty, and it behooved them just to rejoice with him since he was in luck’s way.
His transformation into a man of fashion came about in the most natural manner and with surprising rapidity.
It did not take him long to acquire manners and bearing in keeping with his new circumstances. He had been known as a light-hearted street boy living from hand to mouth, content to satisfy the needs of the moment, taking no thought of the morrow — a true son of Gianelli. He had been known, too, as a respectable trader making a success of his ingenious scheme for “Bastardon’s Kiosks” — a true son of Papajeudi. And now it was his turn to reveal himself as a true son of the great Hippothadee.
And he did reveal himself! His ambition, soon outrun, had been at first to equal in smartness the gentlemen with monocles whom he used to see offering a hand to Toinetta as she alighted from the car at the casino.
If she could only see him now! But he looked in vain for her in the society circles where, fortunately, Hippothadee was no longer acting as her escort. She was not to be seen. Supia had set a closer watch round her than ever. She had even to change her room. A repetition of the balcony scene was no longer possible....
But in spite of every precaution Supia could not prevent them from writing to each other. Titin would not have been Titin had he not, before sending her back to her relatives, contrived some means of corresponding with her which set at naught every vigilance. Toinetta complained in her letters of the enforced seclusion of which she was the victim. But she greatly enjoyed receiving Titin’s letters and read them under the “tyrant’s” nose without his suspicions being aroused. No more was said about the marriage. Hippothadee continued to visit the Supias, but he came as a friend of the family and ceased to make love to her. He allowed himself to be petted by the ladies, waiting the course of events. Toinetta wrote:
“Supia and Hippothadee imagine that I shall soon be tired of it all the first to revert to their schemes which they have by no means abandoned. They don’t know me, especially since I have acquired a stock of patience by listening to my Titin. The Prince may say what he pleases, but whatever wedding present he may bring me will not be half so beautiful as the words that Titin has said to Toinetta. My Titin I love you. Nothing else matters. Have patience.”
A few days after receiving her letter, Titin wrote telling her of the amazing change for the better in his prospects since the arrival of Odonovitch in Nice, and added not without pride that in marrying him she would be a princess and, perhaps, a queen one day!
“These things do happen,” she wrote back, “but I love the old Titin and it is Titin I shall marry.”
Meantime though Antoinette was no longer to be met in society, Titin was seen everywhere with Odonovitch. He was introduced to the more prominent members of the foreign colony. He proved to be a good shot at the pigeon shooting in Monte Carlo. He had insisted on being entered at the club as Titin le Bastardon, the name which he intended to bear until he had the right to use another.
“Why doesn’t he sign himself Hardigras?” said one man with disdain. “Gentlemen, we are Hardigras’s fellow members now.”
But the fact that he might one day be a prince, owing to Odonovitch’s unguarded speech, was soon an open secret. For, he was constantly blurting out “your Highness,” and Titin had ceased to raise objection either because he was tired of calling him to order or because the title pleased him. But Titin found society life dull, and was only really happy when he managed to take Odonovitch off to La Fourca — which happened two or three times a week....
It is not surprising that the contents of the wallet from Transylvania grew visibly smaller. None of the tradesmen was paid, of course, and bills were run up in all the hotels on the sea-coast. But then would they not all be settled at the beginning of the month when the money came from Transylvania? Moreover, Odonovitch gave it as his opinion that it would be well to leave some of them unpaid if only to show that they were not ordinary, middle-class folk without credit.
“That will allow us to have some money to play with, which is absolutely necessary for a gentleman in your position,” he said.
“I never play. I have already told you so,” protested Titin.
“That makes people chatter. I don’t say you need play the fool, but just have a little flutter on the tables to show that you don’t worry about money.”
“We have a saying: ‘Don’t begin to gamble if you wish to keep out of danger’” said Titin.
“May I say I thought you took a broader view of things? You will certainly surprise your father.... Anyway, we’ll talk of this matter when the money comes.”
But the money did not come! Titin and Odonovitch lived sumptuously on credit, carefully guarding the few bank notes that remained to them. And the early days of the month sped by, and the tradesmen began to grow impatient.... Some of them became so pressing that he kicked them out. Then he was intensely humiliated. Disagreeable rumors were current, spread doubtless by Vladimir Hippothadee who had not been seen in his usual haunts for some weeks. Odonovitch himself grew anxious.
“I can’t understand his Highness’s silence. May I ask how much money you have left?”
“Fifteen hundred francs.”
“Lend them to me and we shall pull through.”
“What do you propose to do?”
“I have discovered an infallible martingale at trente et quarante. I begin with a stake of twenty francs.”
“And you leave off with fifteen hundred thousand francs?”
“Possibly. But I must first have the fifteen hundred francs.”
Titin put the notes back and returned the wallet to his pocket.
“You would only lose the money,” he said.
Odonovitch hurried away so as not to betray what he thought of such niggardliness, unworthy of a Hippothadee. Next morning on leaving the hotel Titin entered a tobacconists to buy some cigarettes. As he had no change he took out his wallet and saw to his amazement that it was empty. He felt certain that Odonovitch had borrowed his last fifteen hundred francs to test the martingale. He went back to the hotel and ordered lunch in his room.
As he was sipping his coffee the telephone bell rang. It was Odonovitch who offered his apologies and confessed to borrowing the money, declaring that he would be back by four o’clock. The first sitting at trente et quarente had given undoubted proof of the excellence of his system. “It means the end of our little troubles while we are waiting for a remittance,” he said, and again expressed his sorrow for
having taken such a great liberty in his devotion to his master.
“My dear Odonovitch,” Titin made answer with a lordly air, “another time I will leave the wallet with you so as to save you the trouble of taking the contents without my permission.”
The Comte did not return until six o’clock. He was a little pale. He closed the door and fell at Titin’s feet. He had lost everything.
“Don’t let’s speak of it,” said Titin. “Gamblers always lose.”
Odonovitch tried to enter into an explanation. Titin asked him not to worry himself.
“Don’t you think, Comte, you’re making a lot of fuss over those miserable fifteen hundred francs?”
But the Comte was in despair and Titin had much ado to console him:
“I assure you that it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“But I am much more guilty than you think.”
At these words Titin pricked up his ears:
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I am a wretch. I have abused your confidence and deserve to be punished. I have a bitter confession to make. But I want to tell you everything and afterwards you may do as you please with me. I do not deserve your pity, I assure you.”
Titin remained silent. He lit a cigarette and waited. Under an appearance of complete indifference he strove to control the anxiety that oppressed him. What was he about to learn? He deemed the Comte capable of good and bad alike. He expected the worst.
“I came to France from our great Hippothadee with two hundred thousand francs.”
Titin repressed a slight start.
“If I remember rightly, Comte,” he said in a voice strained with suppressed rage, “twenty-five thousand francs were in the wallet you gave me.”
“Yes, twenty-five thousand francs.”
“And you ought to have handed over two hundred thousand?”
“No.... I ought to have handed over fifty thousand.”
“What about the other hundred and fifty thousand?”
“They were to be spent for the country.”
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 420