Paz

II

Paz was lead­ing so sub­ter­ranean a life that the fash­ion­able world of Paris asked who he was when the Comtesse La­gin­ska was seen in the Bois de Boulogne rid­ing be­tween her hus­band and a stranger. Dur­ing the ride Clemen­tine in­sist­ed that Thad­deus should dine with them. This caprice of the sovereign la­dy com­pelled Paz to make an evening toi­let. Clemen­tine dressed for the oc­ca­sion with a cer­tain co­quetry, in a style that im­pressed even Adam him­self when she en­tered the sa­lon where the two friends await­ed her.

“Comte Paz,” she said, “you must go with us to the Opera.”

This was said in the tone which, com­ing from a wom­an means: “If you refuse we shall quar­rel.”

“Will­ing­ly, madame,” replied the cap­tain. “But as I have not the for­tune of a count, have the kind­ness to call me cap­tain.”

“Very good, cap­tain; give me your arm,” she said,--tak­ing it and lead­ing the way to the din­ing-​room with the flat­ter­ing fa­mil­iar­ity which en­chants all lovers.

The count­ess placed the cap­tain be­side her; his be­hav­ior was that of a poor sub-​lieu­tenant din­ing at his gen­er­al's ta­ble. He let Clemen­tine talk, lis­tened def­er­en­tial­ly as to a su­pe­ri­or, did not dif­fer with her in any­thing, and wait­ed to be ques­tioned be­fore he spoke at all. He seemed ac­tu­al­ly stupid to the count­ess, whose co­quet­tish lit­tle ways missed their mark in pres­ence of such frigid grav­ity and con­ven­tion­al re­spect. In vain Adam kept say­ing: “Do be live­ly, Thad­deus; one would re­al­ly sup­pose you were not at home. You must have made a wa­ger to dis­con­cert Clemen­tine.” Thad­deus con­tin­ued heavy and half asleep. When the ser­vants left the room at the end of the dessert the cap­tain ex­plained that his habits were di­amet­ri­cal­ly op­po­site to those of so­ci­ety,--he went to bed at eight o'clock and got up very ear­ly in the morn­ing; and he ex­cused his dul­ness on the ground of be­ing sleepy.

“My in­ten­tion in tak­ing you to the Opera was to amuse you, cap­tain; but do as you pre­fer,” said Clemen­tine, rather piqued.

“I will go,” said Paz.

“Duprez sings 'Guil­laume Tell,'” re­marked Adam. “But per­haps you would rather go to the 'Va­ri­etes'?”

The cap­tain smiled and rang the bell. “Tell Con­stantin,” he said to the foot­man, “to put the hors­es to the car­riage in­stead of the coupe. We should be rather squeezed oth­er­wise,” he said to the count.

“A French­man would have for­got­ten that,” re­marked Clemen­tine, smil­ing.

“Ah! but we are Flo­ren­tines trans­plant­ed to the North,” an­swered Thad­deus with a re­fine­ment of ac­cent and a look in his eyes which made his con­duct at ta­ble seem as­sumed for the oc­ca­sion. There was too ev­ident a con­trast be­tween his in­vol­un­tary self-​rev­ela­tion in this speech and his be­hav­ior dur­ing din­ner. Clemen­tine ex­am­ined the cap­tain with a few of those covert glances which show a wom­an's sur­prise and al­so her ca­pac­ity for ob­ser­va­tion.

It re­sult­ed from this lit­tle in­ci­dent that si­lence reigned in the sa­lon while the three took their cof­fee, a si­lence rather an­noy­ing to Adam, who was in­ca­pable of imag­in­ing the cause of it. Clemen­tine no longer tried to draw out Thad­deus. The cap­tain, on the oth­er hand, re­treat­ed with­in his mil­itary stiff­ness and came out of it no more, nei­ther on the way to the Opera nor in the box, where he seemed to be asleep.

“You see, madame, that I am a very stupid man,” he said dur­ing the dance in the last act of “Guil­laume Tell.” “Am I not right to keep, as the say­ing is, to my own spe­cial­ty?”

“In truth, my dear cap­tain, you are nei­ther a talk­er nor a man of the world, but you are per­haps Pol­ish.”

“There­fore leave me to look af­ter your plea­sures, your prop­er­ty, your house­hold--it is all I am good for.”

“Tartufe! pooh!” cried Adam, laugh­ing. “My dear, he is full of ar­dor; he is thor­ough­ly ed­ucat­ed; he can, if he choos­es, hold his own in any sa­lon. Clemen­tine, don't be­lieve his mod­esty.”

“Adieu, comtesse; I have obeyed your wish­es so far; and now I will take the car­riage and go home to bed and send it back for you.”

Clemen­tine bowed her head and let him go with­out re­ply­ing.

“What a bear!” she said to the count. “You are a great deal nicer.”

Adam pressed her hand when no one was look­ing.

“Poor, dear Thad­deus,” he said, “he is try­ing to make him­self dis­agree­able where most men would try to seem more ami­able than I.”

“Oh!” she said, “I am not sure but what there is some CAL­CU­LA­TION in his be­hav­ior; he would have tak­en in an or­di­nary wom­an.”

Half an hour lat­er, when the chas­seur, Boleslas, called out “Gate!” and the car­riage was wait­ing for it to swing back, Clemen­tine said to her hus­band, “Where does the cap­tain perch?”

“Why, there!” replied Adam, point­ing to a floor above the porte- cochere which had one win­dow look­ing on the street. “His apart­ments are over the coach­house.”

“Who lives on the oth­er side?” asked the count­ess.

“No one as yet,” said Adam; “I mean that apart­ment for our chil­dren and their in­struc­tors.”

“He didn't go to bed,” said the count­ess, ob­serv­ing lights in Thad­deus's rooms when the car­riage had passed un­der the por­ti­co sup­port­ed by columns copied from those of the Tu­ileries, which re­placed a vul­gar zinc awning paint­ed in stripes like cloth.

The cap­tain, in his dress­ing-​gown with a pipe in his mouth, was watch­ing Clemen­tine as she en­tered the vestibule. The day had been a hard one for him. And here is the rea­son why: A great and ter­ri­ble emo­tion had tak­en pos­ses­sion of his heart on the day when Adam made him go to the Opera to see and give his opin­ion on Made­moi­selle du Rou­vre; and again when he saw her on the oc­ca­sion of her mar­riage, and rec­og­nized in her the wom­an whom a man is forced to love ex­clu­sive­ly. For this rea­son Paz strong­ly ad­vised and pro­mot­ed the long jour­ney to Italy and else­where af­ter the mar­riage. At peace so long as Clemen­tine was away, his tri­al was re­newed on the re­turn of the hap­py house­hold. As he sat at his win­dow on this mem­orable night, smok­ing his latakia in a pipe of wild-​cher­ry wood six feet long, giv­en to him by Adam, these are the thoughts that were pass­ing through his mind:--

“I, and God, who will re­ward me for suf­fer­ing in si­lence, alone know how I love her! But how shall I man­age to have nei­ther her love nor her dis­like?”

And his thoughts trav­elled far on this strange theme.

It must not be sup­posed that Thad­deus was liv­ing with­out plea­sure, in the midst of his suf­fer­ings. The de­cep­tions of this day, for in­stance, were a source of in­ward joy to him. Since the re­turn of the count and count­ess he had dai­ly felt in­ef­fa­ble sat­is­fac­tions in know­ing him­self nec­es­sary to a house­hold which, with­out his de­vo­tion to its in­ter­ests, would in­fal­li­bly have gone to ru­in. What for­tune can bear the strain of reck­less prodi­gal­ity? Clemen­tine, brought up by a spendthrift fa­ther, knew noth­ing of the man­age­ment of a house­hold which the wom­en of the present day, how­ev­er rich or no­ble they are, are of­ten com­pelled to un­der­take them­selves. How few, in these days, keep a stew­ard. Adam, on the oth­er hand, son of one of the great Pol­ish lords who let them­selves be preyed on by the Jews, and are whol­ly in­ca­pable of man­ag­ing even the wreck of their vast for­tunes (for for­tunes are vast in Poland), was not of a na­ture to check his own fan­cies or those of his wife. Left to him­self he would prob­ably have been ru­ined be­fore his mar­riage. Paz had pre­vent­ed him from gam­bling at the Bourse, and that says all.

Un­der these cir­cum­stances, Thad­deus, feel­ing that he loved Clemen­tine in spite of him­self, had not the re­source of leav­ing the house and trav­el­ling in oth­er lands to for­get his pas­sion. Grat­itude, the key- note of his life, held him bound to that house­hold where he alone could look af­ter the af­fairs of the heed­less own­ers. The long ab­sence of Adam and Clemen­tine had giv­en him peace. But the count­ess had re­turned more love­ly than ev­er, en­joy­ing the free­dom which mar­riage brings to a Parisian wom­an, dis­play­ing the graces of a young wife and the name­less at­trac­tion she gains from the hap­pi­ness, or the in­de­pen­dence, be­stowed up­on her by a young man as trust­ful, as chival­ric, and as much in love as Adam. To know that he was the piv­ot on which the splen­dor the house­hold de­pend­ed, to see Clemen­tine when she got out of her car­riage on re­turn­ing from some fete, or got in­to it in the morn­ing when she took her drive, to meet her on the boule­vards in her pret­ty equipage, look­ing like a flow­er in a whorl of leaves, in­spired poor Thad­deus with mys­te­ri­ous de­lights, which glowed in the depths of his heart but gave no signs up­on his face.

How hap­pened it that for five whole months the count­ess had nev­er per­ceived the cap­tain? Be­cause he hid him­self from her knowl­edge, and care­ful­ly con­cealed the pains he took to avoid her. Noth­ing so re­sem­bles the Di­vine love as hope­less hu­man love. A man must have great depth of heart to de­vote him­self in si­lence and ob­scu­ri­ty to a wom­an. In such a heart is the wor­ship of love for love's sake on­ly-- sub­lime avarice, sub­lime be­cause ev­er gen­er­ous and found­ed on the mys­te­ri­ous ex­is­tence of the prin­ci­ples of cre­ation. EF­FECT is na­ture, and na­ture is en­chant­ing; it be­longs to man, to the po­et, the painter, the lover. But CAUSE, to a few priv­ileged souls and to cer­tain mighty thinkers, is su­pe­ri­or to na­ture. Cause is God. In the sphere of caus­es live the New­tons and all such thinkers as Laplace, Ke­pler, Descartes, Male­branche, Spinoza, Buf­fon; al­so the true po­ets and soli­tarys of the sec­ond Chris­tian cen­tu­ry, and the Saint Tere­sas of Spain, and such sub­lime ec­stat­ics. All hu­man sen­ti­ments bear anal­ogy to these con­di­tions when­ev­er the mind aban­dons Ef­fect for Cause. Thad­deus had reached this height, at which all things change their rel­ative as­pect. Filled with the joys un­ut­ter­able of a cre­ator he had at­tained in his love to all that ge­nius has re­vealed to us of grandeur.

“No,” he was think­ing to him­self as he watched the curl­ing smoke of his pipe, “she was not en­tire­ly de­ceived. She might break up my friend­ship with Adam if she took a dis­like to me; but if she co­quet­ted with me to amuse her­self, what would be­come of me?”

The con­ceit of this last sup­po­si­tion was so for­eign to the mod­est na­ture and Teu­ton­ic timid­ity of the cap­tain that he scold­ed him­self for ad­mit­ting it, and went to bed, re­solved to await events be­fore de­cid­ing on a course.

The next day Clemen­tine break­fast­ed very con­tent­ed­ly with­out Paz, and with­out even notic­ing his dis­obe­di­ence to her or­ders. It hap­pened to be her re­cep­tion day, when the house was thrown open with a splen­dor that was se­mi-​roy­al. She paid no at­ten­tion to the ab­sence of Comte Paz, on whom all the bur­den of these pa­rade days fell.

“Good!” thought he, as he heard the last car­riages driv­ing away at two in the morn­ing; “it was on­ly the caprice or the cu­rios­ity of a Parisian wom­an that made her want to see me.”

Af­ter that the cap­tain went back to his or­di­nary habits and ways, which had been some­what up­set by this in­ci­dent. Di­vert­ed by her Parisian oc­cu­pa­tions, Clemen­tine ap­peared to have for­got­ten Paz. It must not be thought an easy mat­ter to reign a queen over fick­le Paris. Does any one sup­pose that for­tunes alone are risked in the great game? The win­ters are to fash­ion­able wom­en what a cam­paign once was to the sol­diers of the Em­pire. What works of art and ge­nius are ex­pend­ed on a gown or a gar­land in which to make a sen­sa­tion! A frag­ile, del­icate crea­ture will wear her stiff and bril­liant har­ness of flow­ers and di­amonds, silk and steel, from nine at night till two and of­ten three o'clock in the morn­ing. She eats lit­tle, to at­tract re­mark to her slen­der waist; she sat­is­fied her hunger with de­bil­itat­ing tea, sug­ared cakes, ices which heat her, or slices of heavy pas­try. The stom­ach is made to yield to the or­ders of co­quetry. The awak­en­ing comes too late. A fash­ion­able wom­an's whole life is in con­tra­dic­tion to the laws of na­ture, and na­ture is piti­less. She has no soon­er risen than she makes an elab­orate morn­ing toi­let, and thinks of the one which she means to wear in the af­ter­noon. The mo­ment she is dressed she has to re­ceive and make vis­its, and go to the Bois ei­ther on horse­back or in a car­riage. She must prac­tise the art of smil­ing, and must keep her mind on the stretch to in­vent new com­pli­ments which shall seem nei­ther com­mon nor far-​fetched. All wom­en do not suc­ceed in this. It is no sur­prise, there­fore, to find a young wom­an who en­tered fash­ion­able so­ci­ety fresh and healthy, fad­ed and worn out at the end of three years. Six months spent in the coun­try will hard­ly heal the wounds of the win­ter. We hear con­tin­ual­ly, in these days, of mys­te­ri­ous ail­ments,--gas­tri­tis, and so forth,--ills un­known to wom­en when they bus­ied them­selves about their house­holds. In the old­en time wom­en on­ly ap­peared in the world at in­ter­vals; now they are al­ways on the scene. Clemen­tine found she had to strug­gle for her suprema­cy. She was cit­ed, and that alone brought jeal­ousies; and the care and watch­ful­ness ex­act­ed by this con­test with her ri­vals left lit­tle time even to love her hus­band. Paz might well be for­got­ten. Nev­er­the­less, in the month of May, as she drove home from the Bois, just be­fore she left Paris for Ron­querolles, her un­cle's es­tate in Bur­gundy, she no­ticed Thad­deus, el­egant­ly dressed, saun­ter­ing on one of the side-​paths of the Champs-​El­ysees, in the sev­enth heav­en of de­light at see­ing his beau­ti­ful count­ess in her el­egant car­riage with its spir­it­ed hors­es and sparkling liv­er­ies,--in short, his beloved fam­ily the ad­mired of all.

“There's the cap­tain,” she said to her hus­band.

“He's hap­py!” said Adam. “This is his de­light. He knows there's no equipage more el­egant than ours, and he is re­joic­ing to think that some peo­ple en­vy it. Have you on­ly just no­ticed him? I see him there near­ly ev­ery day.”

“I won­der what he is think­ing about now,” said Clemen­tine.

“He is think­ing that this win­ter has cost a good deal, and that it is time we went to econ­omize with your old un­cle Ron­querolles,” replied Adam.

The count­ess stopped the car­riage near Paz, and bade him take the seat be­side her. Thad­deus grew as red as a cher­ry.

“I shall poi­son you,” he said; “I have been smok­ing.”

“Doesn't Adam poi­son me?” she said.

“Yes, but he is Adam,” re­turned the cap­tain.

“And why can't Thad­deus have the same priv­ileges?” asked the count­ess, smil­ing.

That di­vine smile had a pow­er which tri­umphed over the hero­ic res­olu­tions of poor Paz; he looked at Clemen­tine with all the fire of his soul in his eyes, though, even so, its flame was tem­pered by the an­gel­ic grat­itude of the man whose life was based up­on that virtue. The count­ess fold­ed her arms in her shawl, lay back pen­sive­ly on her cush­ions, ruf­fling the feath­ers of her pret­ty bon­net, and looked at the peo­ple who passed her. That flash of a great and hith­er­to re­signed soul reached her sen­si­bil­ities. What was Adam's mer­it in her eyes? It was nat­ural enough to have courage and gen­eros­ity. But Thad­deus-- sure­ly Thad­deus pos­sessed, or seemed to pos­sess, some great su­pe­ri­or­ity over Adam. They were dan­ger­ous thoughts which took pos­ses­sion of the count­ess's mind as she again no­ticed the con­trast of the fine pres­ence that dis­tin­guished Thad­deus, and the puny frame in which Adam showed the de­gen­er­at­ing ef­fects of in­ter­mar­riage among the Pol­ish aris­to­crat­ic fam­ilies. The dev­il alone knew the thoughts that were in Clemen­tine's head, for she sat still, with thought­ful, dreamy eyes, and with­out say­ing a word un­til they reached home.

“You will dine with us; I shall be an­gry if you dis­obey me,” she said as the car­riage turned in. “You are Thad­deus to me, as you are to Adam. I know your obli­ga­tions to him, but I al­so know those we are un­der to you. Both gen­erosi­ties are nat­ural--but you are gen­er­ous ev­ery day and all day. My fa­ther dines here to-​day, al­so my un­cle Ron­querolles and my aunt Madame de Ser­izy. Dress your­self there­fore,” she said, tak­ing the hand he of­fered to as­sist her from the car­riage.

Thad­deus went to his own room to dress with a joy­ful heart, though shak­en by an in­ward dread. He went down at the last mo­ment and be­haved through din­ner as he had done on the first oc­ca­sion, that is, like a sol­dier fit on­ly for his du­ties as a stew­ard. But this time Clemen­tine was not his dupe; his glance had en­light­ened her. The Mar­quis de Ron­querolles, one of the ablest diplo­mates af­ter Tal­leyrand, who had served with de Marsay dur­ing his short min­istry, had been in­formed by his niece of the re­al worth and char­ac­ter of Comte Paz, and knew how mod­est­ly he made him­self the stew­ard of his friend La­gin­ski.

“And why is this the first time I have the plea­sure of see­ing Comte Paz?” asked the mar­quis.

“Be­cause he is so shy and re­tir­ing,” replied Clemen­tine with a look at Paz telling him to change his be­hav­ior.

Alas! that we should have to avow it, at the risk of ren­der­ing the cap­tain less in­ter­est­ing, but Paz, though su­pe­ri­or to his friend Adam, was not a man of parts. His ap­par­ent su­pe­ri­or­ity was due to his mis­for­tunes. In his lone­ly and pover­ty-​strick­en life in War­saw he had read and taught him­self a good deal; he had com­pared and med­itat­ed. But the gift of orig­inal thought which makes a great man he did not pos­sess, and it can nev­er be ac­quired. Paz, great in heart on­ly, ap­proached in heart to the sub­lime; but in the sphere of sen­ti­ments, be­ing more a man of ac­tion than of thought, he kept his thoughts to him­self; and they on­ly served there­fore to eat his heart out. What, af­ter all, is a thought un­ex­pressed?

Af­ter Clemen­tine's lit­tle speech, the Mar­quis de Ron­querolles and his sis­ter ex­changed a sin­gu­lar glance, em­brac­ing their niece, Comte Adam, and Paz. It was one of those rapid scenes which take place on­ly in France and Italy,--the two re­gions of the world (all courts ex­cept­ed) where eyes can say ev­ery­thing. To com­mu­ni­cate to the eye the full pow­er of the soul, to give it the val­ue of speech, needs ei­ther the pres­sure of ex­treme servi­tude, or com­plete lib­er­ty. Adam, the Mar­quis du Rou­vre, and Clemen­tine did not ob­serve this lu­mi­nous by-​play of the old co­quette and the old diplo­ma­tist, but Paz, the faith­ful watch­dog, un­der­stood its mean­ing. It was, we must re­mark, an af­fair of two sec­onds; but to de­scribe the tem­pest it roused in the cap­tain's soul would take far too much space in this brief his­to­ry.

“What!” he said to him­self, “do the aunt and un­cle think I might be loved? Then my hap­pi­ness on­ly de­pends on my own au­dac­ity! But Adam--”

Ide­al love and de­sire clashed with grat­itude and friend­ship, all equal­ly pow­er­ful, and, for a mo­ment, love pre­vailed. The lover would have his day. Paz be­came bril­liant, he tried to please, he told the sto­ry of the Pol­ish in­sur­rec­tion in no­ble words, be­ing ques­tioned about it by the diplo­ma­tist. By the end of din­ner Paz saw Clemen­tine hang­ing up­on his lips and re­gard­ing him as a hero, for­get­ting that Adam too, af­ter sac­ri­fic­ing a third of his vast for­tune, had been an ex­ile. At nine o'clock, af­ter cof­fee had been served, Madame de Ser­izy kissed her niece on the fore­head, pressed her hand, and went away, tak­ing Adam with her and leav­ing the Mar­quis de Ron­querolles and the Mar­quis du Rou­vre, who soon fol­lowed. Paz and Clemen­tine were alone to­geth­er.

“I will leave you now, madame,” said Thad­deus. “You will of course re­join them at the Opera?”

“No,” she an­swered, “I don't like danc­ing, and they give an odi­ous bal­let to-​night 'La Re­volte au Serail.'”

There was a mo­ment's si­lence.

“Two years ago Adam would not have gone to the Opera with­out me,” said Clemen­tine, not look­ing at Paz.

“He loves you mad­ly,” replied Thad­deus.

“Yes, and be­cause he loves me mad­ly he is all the more like­ly not to love me to-​mor­row,” said the count­ess.

“How in­ex­pli­ca­ble Parisian wom­en are!” ex­claimed Thad­deus. “When they are loved to mad­ness they want to be loved rea­son­ably: and when they are loved rea­son­ably they re­proach a man for not lov­ing them at all.”

“And they are quite right. Thad­deus,” she went on, smil­ing, “I know Adam well; I am not an­gry with him; he is volatile and above all grand seigneur. He will al­ways be con­tent to have me as his wife and he will nev­er op­pose any of my tastes, but--”

“Where is the mar­riage in which there are no 'buts'?” said Thad­deus, gen­tly, try­ing to give an­oth­er di­rec­tion to Clemen­tine's mind.

The least pre­sum­ing of men might well have had the thought which came near ren­der­ing this poor lover be­side him­self; it was this: “If I do not tell her now that I love her I am a fool,” he kept say­ing to him­self.

Nei­ther spoke; and there came be­tween the pair one of those deep si­lences that are crowd­ed with thoughts. The count­ess ex­am­ined Paz covert­ly, and Paz ob­served her in a mir­ror. Buried in an arm­chair like a man di­gest­ing his din­ner, the im­age of a hus­band or an in­dif­fer­ent old man, Paz crossed his hands up­on his stom­ach and twirled his thumbs me­chan­ical­ly, look­ing stupid­ly at them.

“Why don't you tell me some­thing good of Adam?” cried Clemen­tine sud­den­ly. “Tell me that he is not volatile, you who know him so well.”

The cry was fine.

“Now is the time,” thought poor Paz, “to put an in­sur­mount­able bar­ri­er be­tween us. Tell you good of Adam?” he said aloud. “I love him; you would not be­lieve me; and I am in­ca­pable of telling you harm. My po­si­tion is very dif­fi­cult be­tween you.”

Clemen­tine low­ered her head and looked down at the tips of his var­nished boots.

“You North­ern men have noth­ing but phys­ical courage,” she said com­plain­ing­ly; “you have no con­stan­cy in your opin­ions.”

“How will you amuse your­self alone, madame?” said Paz, as­sum­ing a care­less air.

“Are not you go­ing to keep me com­pa­ny?”

“Ex­cuse me for leav­ing you.”

“What do you mean? Where are you go­ing?”

The thought of a hero­ic false­hood had come in­to his head.

“I--I am go­ing to the Cir­cus in the Champs El­ysees; it opens to-​night, and I can't miss it.”

“Why not?” said Clemen­tine, ques­tion­ing him by a look that was half- anger.

“Must I tell you why?” he said, col­or­ing; “must I con­fide to you what I hide from Adam, who thinks my on­ly love is Poland.”

“Ah! a se­cret in our no­ble cap­tain?”

“A dis­grace­ful one--which you will per­haps un­der­stand, and pity.”

“You, dis­graced?”

“Yes, I, Comte Paz; I am mad­ly in love with a girl who trav­els all over France with the Bouthor fam­ily,--peo­ple who have the ri­val cir­cus to Fran­coni; but they play on­ly at fairs. I have made the di­rec­tor at the Cirque-​Olympique en­gage her.”

“Is she hand­some?”

“To my think­ing,” said Paz, in a melan­choly tone. “Mala­ga (that's her stage name) is strong, ac­tive, and sup­ple. Why do I pre­fer her to all oth­er wom­en in the world?--well, I can't tell you. When I look at her, with her black hair tied with a blue satin rib­bon, float­ing on her bare and olive-​col­ored shoul­ders, and when she is dressed in a white tu­nic with a gold edge, and a knit­ted silk bodice that makes her look like a liv­ing Greek stat­ue, and when I see her car­ry­ing those flags in her hand to the sound of mar­tial mu­sic, and jump­ing through the pa­per hoops which tear as she goes through, and light­ing so grace­ful­ly on the gal­lop­ing horse to such ap­plause,--no hired clap­ping,--well, all that moves me.”

“More than a hand­some wom­an in a ball­room?” asked Clemen­tine, with amaze­ment and cu­rios­ity.

“Yes,” an­swered Paz, in a chok­ing voice. “Such agili­ty, such grace un­der con­stant dan­ger seems to me the height of tri­umph for a wom­an. Yes, madame, Cin­ti and Mal­ibran, Grisi and Taglioni, Pas­ta and Ell­sler, all who reign or have reigned on the stage, can't be com­pared, to my mind, with Mala­ga, who can jump on or off a horse at full gal­lop, or stand on the point of one foot and fall eas­ily in­to the sad­dle, and knit stock­ings, break eggs, and make an omelette with the horse at full speed, to the ad­mi­ra­tion of the peo­ple,--the re­al peo­ple, peas­ants and sol­diers. Mala­ga, madame, is dex­ter­ity per­son­ified; her lit­tle wrist or her lit­tle foot can rid her of three or four men. She is the god­dess of gym­nas­tics.”

“She must be stupid--”

“Oh, no,” said Paz, “I find her as amus­ing as the hero­ine of 'Pev­er­il of the Peak.' Thought­less as a Bo­hemi­an, she says ev­ery­thing that comes in­to her head; she thinks no more about the fu­ture than you do of the sous you fling to the poor. She says grand things some­times. You couldn't make her be­lieve that an old diplo­ma­tist was a hand­some young man, not if you of­fered her a mil­lion of francs. Such love as hers is per­pet­ual flat­tery to a man. Her health is pos­itive­ly in­so­lent, and she has thir­ty-​two ori­en­tal pearls in lips of coral. Her muz­zle--that's what she calls the low­er part of her face--has, as Shake­speare ex­press­es it, the sa­vor of a heifer's nose. She can make a man un­hap­py. She likes hand­some men, strong men, Alexan­ders, gym­nasts, clowns. Her train­er, a hor­ri­ble brute, used to beat her to make her sup­ple, and grace­ful, and in­trepid--”

“You are pos­itive­ly in­tox­icat­ed with Mala­ga.”

“Oh, she is called Mala­ga on­ly on the posters,” said Paz, with a piqued air. “She lives in the rue Saint-​Lazare, in a pret­ty apart­ment on the third sto­ry, all vel­vet and silk, like a princess. She has two lives, her cir­cus life and the life of a pret­ty wom­an.”

“Does she love you?”

“She loves me--now you will laugh--sole­ly be­cause I'm a Pole. She saw an en­grav­ing of Poles rush­ing with Poni­atows­ki in­to the El­ster,--for all France per­sists in think­ing that the El­ster, where it is im­pos­si­ble to get drowned, is an im­petu­ous flood, in which Poni­atows­ki and his fol­low­ers were en­gulfed. But in the midst of all this I am very un­hap­py, madame.”

A tear of rage fell from his eyes and af­fect­ed the count­ess.

“You men have such a pas­sion for sin­gu­lar­ity.”

“And you?” said Thad­deus.

“I know Adam so well that I am cer­tain he could for­get me for some moun­te­bank like your Mala­ga. Where did you first see her?”

“At Saint-​Cloud, last Septem­ber, on the fete-​day. She was at a cor­ner of a booth cov­ered with flags, where the shows are giv­en. Her com­rades, all in Pol­ish cos­tumes, were mak­ing a hor­ri­ble rack­et. I watched her stand­ing there, silent and dumb, and I thought I saw a melan­choly ex­pres­sion in her face; in truth there was enough about her to sad­den a girl of twen­ty. That touched me.”

The count­ess was sit­ting in a de­li­cious at­ti­tude, pen­sive and rather melan­choly.

“Poor, poor Thad­deus!” she ex­claimed. Then, with the kind­li­ness of a true great la­dy she added, not with­out a ma­li­cious smile, “Well go, go to your Cir­cus.”

Thad­deus took her hand, kissed it, leav­ing a hot tear up­on it, and went out.

Hav­ing in­vent­ed this pas­sion for a cir­cus-​rid­er, he bethought him that he must give it some re­al­ity. The on­ly truth in his tale was the mo­men­tary at­ten­tion he had giv­en to Mala­ga at Saint-​Cloud; and he had since seen her name on the posters of the Cir­cus, where the clown, for a tip of five francs, had told him that the girl was a foundling, stolen per­haps. Thad­deus now went to the Cir­cus and saw her again. For ten francs one of the grooms (who take the place in cir­cus­es of the dressers at a the­atre) in­formed him that Mala­ga was named Mar­guerite Tur­quet, and lived on the fifth sto­ry of a house in the rue des Fos­ses-​du-​Tem­ple.

The fol­low­ing day Paz went to the faubourg du Tem­ple, found the house, and asked to see Made­moi­selle Tur­quet, who dur­ing the sum­mer was sub­sti­tut­ing for the lead­ing horse­wom­an at the Cirque-​Olympique, and a su­per­nu­mer­ary at a boule­vard the­atre in win­ter.

“Mala­ga!” cried the portress, rush­ing in­to the at­tic, “there's a fine gen­tle­man want­ing you. He is get­ting in­for­ma­tion from Cha­pu­zot, who is play­ing him off to give me time to tell you.”

“Thank you, M'ame Cha­pu­zot; but what will he think of me if he finds me iron­ing my gown?”

“Pooh! when a man's in love he loves ev­ery­thing about us.”

“Is he an En­glish­man? they are fond of hors­es.”

“No, he looks to me Span­ish.”

“That's a pity; they say Spaniards are al­ways poor. Stay here with me, M'ame Cha­pu­zot; I don't want him to think I'm de­sert­ed.”

“Who is it you are look­ing for, mon­sieur?” asked Madame Cha­pu­zot, open­ing the door for Thad­deus, who had now come up­stairs.

“Made­moi­selle Tur­quet.”

“My dear,” said the portress, with an air of im­por­tance, “here is some one to see you.”

A line on which the clothes were dry­ing caught the cap­tain's hat and knocked it off.

“What is it you wish, mon­sieur?” said Mala­ga, pick­ing up the hat and giv­ing it to him.

“I saw you at the Cir­cus,” said Thad­deus, “and you re­mind­ed me of a daugh­ter whom I have lost, made­moi­selle; and out of af­fec­tion for my Heloise, whom you re­sem­ble in a most strik­ing man­ner, I should like to be of some ser­vice to you, if you will per­mit me.”

“Why, cer­tain­ly; pray sit down, gen­er­al,” said Madame Cha­pu­zot; “noth­ing could be more straight­for­ward, more gal­lant.”

“But I am not gal­lant, my good la­dy,” ex­claimed Paz. “I am an un­for­tu­nate fa­ther who tries to de­ceive him­self by a re­sem­blance.”

“Then am I to pass for your daugh­ter?” said Mala­ga, sly­ly, and not in the least sus­pect­ing the per­fect sin­cer­ity of his pro­pos­al.

“Yes,” said Paz, “and I'll come and see you some­times. But you shall be lodged in bet­ter rooms, com­fort­ably fur­nished.”

“I shall have fur­ni­ture!” cried Mala­ga, look­ing at Madame Cha­pu­zot.

“And ser­vants,” said Paz, “and all you want.”

Mala­ga looked at the stranger sus­pi­cious­ly.

“What coun­try­man is mon­sieur?”

“I am a Pole.”

“Oh! then I ac­cept,” she said.

Paz de­part­ed, promis­ing to re­turn.

“Well, that's a stiff one!” said Mar­guerite Tur­quet, look­ing at Madame Cha­pu­zot; “I'm half afraid he is wheedling me, to car­ry out some fan­cy of his own--Pooh! I'll risk it.”

A month af­ter this ec­cen­tric in­ter­view the cir­cus-​rid­er was liv­ing in a com­fort­able apart­ment fur­nished by Comte Adam's own up­hol­ster­er, Paz hav­ing judged it de­sir­able to have his fol­ly talked about at the ho­tel La­gin­ski. Mala­ga, to whom this ad­ven­ture was like a leaf out of the Ara­bi­an Nights, was served by Mon­sieur and Madame Cha­pu­zot in the dou­ble ca­pac­ity of friends and ser­vants. The Cha­pu­zots and Mar­guerite were con­stant­ly ex­pect­ing some re­sult of all this; but at the end of three months none of them were able to make out the mean­ing of the Pol­ish count's caprice. Paz ar­rived du­ly and passed about an hour there once a week, dur­ing which time he sat in the sa­lon, and nev­er went in­to Mala­ga's boudoir nor in­to her bed­room, in spite of the clever ma­noeu­vring of the Cha­pu­zots and Mala­ga to get him there. The count would ask ques­tions as to the small events of Mar­guerite's life, and each time that he came he left two gold pieces of forty francs each on the man­tel-​piece.

“He looks as if he didn't care to be here,” said Madame Cha­pu­zot.

“Yes,” said Mala­ga, “the man's as cold as an ici­cle.”

“But he's a good fel­low all the same,” cried Cha­pu­zot, who was hap­py in a new suit of clothes made of blue cloth, in which he looked like the ser­vant of some min­is­ter.

The sum which Paz de­posit­ed week­ly on the man­tel-​piece, joined to Mala­ga's mea­gre salary, gave her the means of sump­tu­ous liv­ing com­pared with her for­mer pover­ty. Won­der­ful sto­ries went the rounds of the Cir­cus about Mala­ga's good-​luck. Her van­ity in­creased the six thou­sand francs which Paz had spent on her fur­ni­ture to six­ty thou­sand. Ac­cord­ing to the clowns and the su­pers, Mala­ga was squan­der­ing mon­ey; and she now ap­peared at the Cir­cus wear­ing burnous and shawls and el­egant scarfs. The Pole, it was agreed on all sides, was the best sort of man a cir­cus-​rid­er had ev­er en­coun­tered, not fault-​find­ing nor jeal­ous, and will­ing to let Mala­ga do just what she liked.

“Some wom­en have the luck of it,” said Mala­ga's ri­val, “and I'm not one of them,--though I do draw a third of the re­ceipts.”

Mala­ga wore pret­ty things, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly “showed her head” (a term in the lex­icon of such char­ac­ters) in the Bois, where the fash­ion­able young men of the day be­gan to re­mark her. In fact, be­fore long Mala­ga was very much talked about in the ques­tion­able world of equiv­ocal wom­en, who present­ly at­tacked her good for­tune by calum­nies. They said she was a som­nam­bu­list, and the Pole was a mag­ne­tiz­er who was us­ing her to dis­cov­er the philoso­pher's stone. Some even more en­ven­omed scan­dals drove her to a cu­rios­ity that was greater than Psy­che's. She re­port­ed them in tears to Paz.

“When I want to in­jure a wom­an,” she said in con­clu­sion, “I don't ca­lum­ni­ate her; I don't de­clare that some one mag­ne­tizes her to get stones out of her, but I say plain­ly that she is hump­backed, and I prove it. Why do you com­pro­mise me in this way?”

Paz main­tained a cru­el si­lence. Madame Cha­pu­zot was not long in dis­cov­er­ing the name and ti­tle of Comte Paz; then she heard cer­tain pos­itive facts at the ho­tel La­gin­ski: for in­stance, that Paz was a bach­elor, and had nev­er been known to have a daugh­ter, alive or dead, in Poland or in France. Af­ter that Mala­ga could not con­trol a feel­ing of ter­ror.

“My dear child,” Madame Cha­pu­zot would say, “that mon­ster--” (a man who con­tent­ed him­self with on­ly look­ing, in a sly way,--not dar­ing to come out and say things,--and such a beau­ti­ful crea­ture too, as Mala­ga,--of course such a man was a mon­ster, ac­cord­ing to Madame Cha­pu­zot's ideas) “--that mon­ster is try­ing to get a hold up­on you, and make you do some­thing il­le­gal and crim­inal. Holy Fa­ther, if you should get in­to the po­lice-​courts! it makes me trem­ble from head to foot; sup­pose they should put you in the news­pa­pers! I'll tell you what I should do in your place; I'd warn the po­lice.”

One par­tic­ular day, af­ter many fool­ish no­tions had fer­ment­ed for some time in Mala­ga's mind, Paz hav­ing laid his mon­ey as usu­al on the man­tel-​piece, she seized the bits of gold and flung them in his face, cry­ing out, “I don't want stolen mon­ey!”

The cap­tain gave the gold to Cha­pu­zot, went away with­out a word, and did not re­turn.

Clemen­tine was at this time at her un­cle's place in Bur­gundy.

When the Cir­cus troop dis­cov­ered that Mala­ga had lost her Pol­ish count, much ex­cite­ment was pro­duced among them. Mala­ga's dis­play of hon­or was con­sid­ered fol­ly by some, and shrewd­ness by oth­ers. The con­duct of the Pole, how­ev­er, even when dis­cussed by the clever­est of wom­en, seemed in­ex­pli­ca­ble. Thad­deus re­ceived in the course of the next week thir­ty-​sev­en let­ters from wom­en of their kind. Hap­pi­ly for him, his as­ton­ish­ing re­serve did not ex­cite the cu­rios­ity of the fash­ion­able world, and was on­ly dis­cussed in the de­mi-​mondaine re­gions.

Two weeks lat­er the hand­some cir­cus-​rid­er, crip­pled by debt, wrote the fol­low­ing let­ter to Comte Paz, which, hav­ing fall­en in­to the hands of Comte Adam, was read by sev­er­al of the dandies of the day, who pro­nounced it a mas­ter­piece:--

"You, whom I still dare to call my friend, will you not pity me af­ter all that has passed,--which you have so ill un­der­stood? My heart dis­avows what­ev­er may have wound­ed your feel­ings. If I was for­tu­nate enough to charm you and keep you be­side me in the past, re­turn to me; oth­er­wise, I shall fall in­to de­spair. Pover­ty has over­tak­en me, and you do not know what HOR­RID THINGS it brings with it. Yes­ter­day I lived on a her­ring at two sous, and one sou of bread. Is that a break­fast for the wom­an you loved? The Cha­pu­zots have left me, though they seemed so de­vot­ed. Your de­ser­tion has caused me to see to the bot­tom of all hu­man at­tach­ments. The dog we feed does not leave us, but the Cha­pu­zots have gone. A sher­iff has seized ev­ery­thing on be­half of the land­lord, who has no heart, and the jew­eller, who re­fused to wait even ten days,--for when we lose the con­fi­dence of such as you, cred­it goes too. What a po­si­tion for wom­en who have noth­ing to re­proach them­selves with but the hap­pi­ness they have giv­en! My friend, I have tak­en all I have of any val­ue to MY UN­CLE'S; I have noth­ing but the mem­ory of you left, and here is the win­ter com­ing on. I shall be fire­less when it turns cold; for the boule­vards are to play on­ly melo­dra­mas, in which I have noth­ing but lit­tle bits of parts which don't POSE a wom­an. How could you mis­un­der­stand the no­ble­ness of my feel­ings for you?--for there are two ways of ex­press­ing grat­itude. You who seemed so hap­py in see­ing me well- off, how can you leave me in pover­ty? Oh, my sole friend on earth, be­fore I go back to the coun­try fairs with Bouthor's cir­cus, where I can at least make a liv­ing, for­give me if I wish to know whether I have lost you for­ev­er. If I were to let my­self think of you when I jump through the hoops, I should be sure to break my legs by los­ing A TIME. What­ev­er may be the re­sult, I am yours for life.

“Mar­guerite Tur­quet.”

“That let­ter,” thought Thad­deus, shout­ing with laugh­ter, “is worth the ten thou­sand francs I have spent up­on her.”