The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories

by Émile Erckmann

  But the snow was melting away from my legs, the balmy warmth of the stove was shedding a pleasant influence over my feelings, and I felt myself reviving in this mixed atmosphere of tobacco-smoke and burning pine-wood.

  Knapwurst gravely laid his pipe on the table, and reverently spreading his hand upon the folio, said in a voice that seemed to issue from the bottom of his consciousness; or, if you like it better, from the bottom of a twenty-gallon cask—

  “Doctor Fritz, here is the law and the prophets!”

  “How so? what do you mean?”

  “Parchment—old parchment—that is what I love! These old yellow, rusty, worm-eaten leaves are all that is left to us of the past, from the days of Charlemagne until this day. The oldest families disappear, the old parchments remain. Where would be the glory of the Hohenstauffens, the Leiningens, the Nidecks, and of so many other families of renown? Where would be the fame of their titles, their deeds of arms, their magnificent armour, their expeditions to the Holy Land, their alliances, their claims to remote antiquity, their conquests once complete, now long ago annulled? Where would be all those grand claims to historic fame without these parchments? Nowhere at all. Those high and mighty barons, those great dukes and princes, would be as if they had never been—they and everything that related to them far and near. Their strong castles, their palaces, their fortresses fall and moulder away into masses of ruin, vague remembrancers! Of all that greatness one monument alone remains—the chronicles, the songs of bards and minnesingers. Parchment alone remains!”

  He sat silent for a moment, and then pursued his reflections.

  “And in those distant times, while knights and squires rode out to war, and fought and conquered or fought and fell over the possession of a nook in a forest, or a title, or a smaller matter still, with what scorn and contempt did they not look down upon the wretched little scribbler, the man of mere letters and jargon, half-clothed in untanned hides, his only weapon an inkhorn at his belt, his pennon the feather of a goosequill! How they laughed at him, calling him an atom or a flea, good for nothing! ‘He does nothing, he cannot even collect our taxes, or look after our estates, whilst we bold riders, armed to the teeth, sword in hand and lance on thigh, we fight, and we are the finest fellows in the land!’ So they said when they saw the poor devil dragging himself on foot after their horses’ heels, shivering in winter and sweating in summer, rusting and decaying in old age. Well, what has happened? That flea, that vermin, has kept them in the memory of men longer than their castles stood, long after their arms and their armour had rusted in the ground. I love those old parchments. I respect and revere them. Like ivy, they clothe the ruins and keep the ancient walls from crumbling into dust and perishing in oblivion!”

  Having thus delivered himself, a solemn expression stole over his features, and his own eloquence made the tears of moved affection to steal down his furrowed cheeks.

  The poor hunchback evidently loved those who had borne with and protected his unwarlike but clever ancestors. And after all he spoke truly, and there was profound good sense in his words.

  I was surprised, and said, “Monsieur Knapwurst, do you know Latin?”

  “Yes, sir,” he answered, but without conceit, “both Latin and Greek. I taught myself. Old grammars were quite enough; there were some old books of the count’s, thrown by as rubbish; they fell into my hands, and I devoured them. A little while after the count, hearing me drop a Latin quotation, was quite astonished, and said, ‘When did you learn Latin, Knapwurst?’ ‘I taught myself, monseigneur.’ He asked me a few questions, to which I gave pretty good answers. ‘Parbleu!’ he cried, ‘Knapwurst knows more than I do; he shall keep my records.’ So he gave me the keys of the archives; that was thirty years ago. Since that time I have read every word. Sometimes, when the count sees me mounted upon my ladder, he says, ‘What are you doing now, Knapwurst?’ ‘I am reading the family archives, monseigneur.’ ‘Aha! is that what you enjoy?’ ‘Yes, very much.’ ‘Come, come, I am glad to hear it, Knapwurst; but for you, who would know anything about the glory of the house of Nideck?’ And off he goes laughing. I do just as I please.”

  “So he is a very good master, is he?”

  “Oh, Doctor Fritz, he is the kindest-hearted master! he is so frank and so pleasant!” cried the dwarf, with hands clasped. “He has but one fault.”

  “And what may that be?”

  “He has no ambition.”

  “How do you prove that?”

  “Why, he might have been anything he pleased. Think of a Nideck, one of the very noblest families in Germany! He had but to ask to be made a minister or a field-marshal. Well! he desired nothing of the sort. When he was no longer a young man he retired from political life. Except that he was in the campaign in France at the head of a regiment he raised at his own expense, he has always lived far away from noise and battle; plain and simple, and almost unknown, he seemed to think of nothing but his hunting.”

  These details were deeply interesting to me. The conversation was of its own accord taking just the turn I wished it to take, and I resolved to get my advantage out of it.

  “So the count has never had any exciting deeds in hand?”

  “None, Doctor Fritz, none whatever; and that is the pity. A noble excitement is the glory of great families. It is a misfortune for a noble race when a member of it is devoid of ambition; he allows his family to sink below its level. I could give you many examples. That which would be very fortunate in a trader’s family is the greatest misfortune in a nobleman’s.”

  I was astonished; for all my theories upon the count’s past life were falling to the earth.

  “Still, Monsieur Knapwurst, the lord of Nideck has had great sorrows, had he not?”

  “Such as what?”

  “The loss of his wife.”

  “Yes, you are right there; his wife was an angel; he married her for love. She was a Zaân, one of the oldest and best nobility of Alsace, but a family ruined by the Revolution. The Countess Odile was the delight of her husband. She died of a decline which carried her off after five years’ illness. Every plan was tried to save her life. They travelled in Italy together but she returned worse than she went, and died a few weeks after their return. The count was almost broken-hearted, and for two years he shut himself up and would see no one. He neglected his hounds and his horses. Time at last calmed his grief, but there is always a remainder of grief,” said the hunchback, pointing with his finger to his heart; “you understand very well, there is still a bleeding wound. Old wounds you know, make themselves felt in change of weather—and old sorrows too—in spring when the flowers bloom again, and in autumn when the dead leaves cover the soil. But the count would not marry again; all his love is given to his daughter.”

  “So the marriage was a happy one throughout?”

  “Happy! why it was a blessing for everybody.”

  I said no more. It was plain that the count had not committed, and could not have committed, a crime. I was obliged to yield to evidence. But, then, what was the meaning of that scene at night, that strange connection with the Black Pest, that fearful acting, that remorse in a dream, which impelled the guilty to betray their past atrocities?

  I lost myself in vain conjectures.

  Knapwurst relighted his pipe, and handed me one, which I accepted.

  By that time the icy numbness which had laid hold of me had nearly passed away, and I was enjoying that pleasant sense of relief which follows great fatigue when by the chimney-corner in a comfortable easy-chair, veiled in wreaths of tobacco-smoke, you yield to the luxury of repose, and listen idly to the duet between the chirping of a cricket on the hearth and the hissing of the burning log.

  So we sat for a quarter of an hour.

  At last I ventured to remark—

  “But sometimes the count gets angry with his daughter?”

  Knapwurst started, and fixing a sinister, almost a fierce and hostile eye upon me, answered—

  “I know, I know!”
r />   I watched him narrowly, thinking I might learn something now in support of my theory, but he simply added ironically—

  “The towers of Nideck are high, and slander flies too low to reach their elevation!”

  “No doubt; but still it is a fact, is it not?”

  “Oh yes, so it is; but after all it is only a craze, an effect of his complaint. As soon as the crisis is past all his love for mademoiselle comes back. I assure you, sir, that a lover of twenty could not be more devoted, more affectionate, than he is. That young girl is his pride and his joy. A dozen times have I seen him riding away to get a dress, or flowers, or what not, for her. He went off alone, and brought back the articles in triumph, blowing his horn. He would have entrusted so delicate a commission to no one, not even to Sperver, whom he is so fond of. Mademoiselle never dares express a wish in his hearing lest he should start off and fulfil it at once. The lord of Nideck is the worthiest master, the tenderest father, and the kindest and most upright of men. Those poachers who are for ever infesting our woods, the old Count Ludwig would have strung them up without mercy; our count winks at them; he even turns them into gamekeepers. Look at Sperver! why, if Count Ludwig was alive, Sperver’s bones would long ago have been rattling in chains; instead of which he is head huntsman at the castle.”

  All my theories were now in a state of disorganisation. I laid my head between my hands and thought a long while.

  Knapwurst, supposing that I was asleep, had turned to his folio again.

  The grey dawn was now peeping in, and the lamp turning pale. Indistinct voices were audible in the castle.

  Suddenly there was a noise of hurried steps outside. I saw some one pass before the window, the door opened abruptly, and Gideon appeared at the threshold.

  CHAPTER XI

  Sperver’s pale face and glowing eyes announced that events were on their way. Yet he was calm, and did not seem surprised at my presence in Knapwurst’s room.

  “Fritz,” he said briefly, “I am come to fetch you.” I rose without answering and followed him. Scarcely were we out of the hut when he took me by the arm and drew me on to the castle.

  “Mademoiselle Odile wants to see you,” he whispered.

  “What! is she ill?”

  “No, she is much better, but something or other that is strange is going on. This morning about one o’clock, thinking that the count was nearly breathing his last, I went to wake the countess; with my hand on the bell my heart failed me. ‘Why should I break her heart?’ I said to myself, ‘She will learn her misfortune only too soon; and then to wake her up in the middle of the night, weak and frail as she is, after such shocks, might kill her at a stroke.’ I took a few minutes to consider, and then I resolved I would take it all on myself. I returned to the count’s room. I looked in—not a soul was there! Impossible! the man was in the last agonies of death. I ran into the corridor like a madman. No one was there! Into the long gallery—no one! Then I lost my presence of mind, and rushing again into the young countess’s room, I rang again. This time she appeared, crying out—‘Is my father dead?’ ‘No.’ ‘Has he disappeared?’ ‘Yes, madam. I had gone out for a minute—when I came in again—’ ‘And Doctor Fritz, where is he?’ ‘In Hugh Lupus’s tower.’ ‘In that tower?’ She started. She threw a dressing-gown around her, took her lamp, and went out. I stayed behind. A quarter of an hour after she came back, her feet covered with snow, and so pale and so cold! She set her lamp upon the chimney-piece, and looking at me fixedly, said—‘Was it you who put the doctor into that tower?’ ‘Yes, madam.’ ‘Unhappy man! you will never know the extent of the harm you have done.’ I was about to answer, but she interrupted me—‘No more; go and fasten every door and lie down. I will sit up. To-morrow morning you will find Doctor Fritz at Knapwurst’s, and bring him to me. Make no noise, and mind, you have seen nothing and know nothing!’”

  “Is that all, Sperver?” I asked.

  He nodded gravely.

  “And about the count?”

  “He is in again. He is better.”

  We had got to the antechamber. Gideon knocked at the door gently, then he opened it, announcing—“Doctor Fritz.”

  I took a pace forward, and stood in the presence of Odile. Sperver had retired, closing the door.

  A strange impression crossed my mind at the sight of the young countess standing pale and still, leaning upon the back of an arm-chair, her eyes of feverish brightness, and robed in a long dress of rich black velvet. But she stood calm and firm.

  “Doctor,” she said, motioning me to a chair, “pray sit down; I have a very serious matter to speak to you about.”

  I obeyed in silence.

  In her turn she sat down and seemed to be collecting her thoughts.

  “Providence or an evil destiny, I know not which, has made you witness of a mystery in which lies involved the honour of my family.”

  So she knew it all!

  I sat confounded and astonished.

  “Madam, believe me, it was but by chance—”

  “It is useless,” she interrupted; “I know it all, and it is frightful!”

  Then, in a heartrending appealing voice, she cried—

  “My father is not a guilty man!”

  I shuddered, and with hands outstretched cried—

  “Madam, I know it; I know that the life of your father has been one of the noblest and loveliest.”

  Odile had half-risen from her seat, as if to protest, by anticipation, against any supposition that might be injurious to her father. Hearing me myself taking up his defence, she sank back again, and covering her face with her hands, the tears began to flow.

  “God bless you, sir!” she exclaimed. “I should have died with the very thought that a breath of suspicion was harboured against him.”

  “Ah! madam, who could possibly attach any reality to the action of a somnambulist?”

  “That is quite true, sir; I had had that thought myself, but appearances—pardon me—yet I feared—still I knew Doctor Fritz was a man of honour.”

  “Pray, madam, be calm.”

  “No,” she cried, “let me weep on. It is such a relief; for ten years I have suffered in secret. Oh, how I suffered! That secret, so long shut up in my breast, was killing me. I should soon have died, like my dear mother. God has had pity upon me, and has sent you, and made you share it with me. Let me tell you all, sir, do let me!”

  She could speak no more. Sobs and tears broke her voice. So it always is with proud and lofty natures. After having conquered grief, and imprisoned it, buried, and, as it were, crushed down in the secret depths of the mind, they seem happy, or, at any rate, indifferent to the eyes of the uninformed around, and the eye of the most watchful observer might be mistaken; but let a sudden shock break the seal, an unexpected rending of a portion of the veil, then, as with the crash of a thunderstorm, the tower in which the sufferer hid his sorrow falls in ruins to the ground. The conquered foe rises more fierce than before his defeat and captivity; he shakes with fury the prison doors, the frame trembles with long shudderings, sobs and sighs heave the breast, the tears, too long contained within bounds, overflow their swollen banks, bounding and rushing as if after the heavy rain of a thunderstorm.

  Such was Odile.

  At length she lifted her beautiful head; she wiped her tear-stained cheeks, and with her arm on the elbow of her chair, her cheek resting on her hand, and her eyes tenderly fixed on a picture on the wall, she resumed in slow and melancholy tones:—

  “When I go back into the past, sir, when I return to my first impressions, my mother’s is the picture before me. She was a tall, pale, and silent woman. She was still young at the period to which I am referring. She was scarcely thirty, and yet you would have thought her fifty. Her brow was silvered round with hair white as snow; her thin, hollow cheeks, her sharp, clear profile—her lips ever closed together with an expression of pain—gave to her features a strange character in which pride and pain seemed to contend for the mastery. There was not
hing left of the elasticity of youth in that aged woman of thirty—nothing but her tall, upright figure, her brilliant eyes, and her voice, which was always as gentle and as sweet as a dream of childhood. She often walked up and down for hours in this very room, with her head hanging down, and I, an unthinking child, ran happily along by her side, never aware that my mother was sad, never understanding the meaning of the deep melancholy revealed by those furrows that traversed her fair brow. I knew nothing of the past, to me the present was joy and happiness, and oh! the future!—the dark, miserable future!—there was none! My only future was to-morrow’s play!”

  Odile smiled bitterly and went on:—

  “Sometimes I would happen, in my noisy play, to disturb my mother in her silent walk; then she would stop, look down, and, seeing me at her feet, would slowly bend, kiss me with an absent smile, and then again resume her interrupted walk and her sad gait. Since then, sir, whenever I have desired to search back in my memory for remembrances of my early days that tall, pale woman has risen before me, the image of melancholy. There she is,” pointing to a picture on the wall—“there she is!—not such as illness made her as my father supposes, but that fatal and terrible secret. See!”