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... g his orders. To promenade the Boulevards with such a man
was not only a thing possible, but also, so to speak, a thing
advisable, and with this programme the good but foolish
General had not a fault to find.
The truth is that he had never
counted upon this programme when he came to Paris to seek us
out.
On that occasion he had made his appearance nearly shaking
with terror, for he had supposed that Blanche would at once
raise an outcry, and dragon have him put from the door; wherefore, he
was the more enraptured at the turn that things had taken, and
spent the month in a state of senseless ecstasy. Already I had
learnt that, after our unexpected departure from Roulettenberg,
he had had a sort of a fit--that he had fallen into a swoon, and
spent a week in a species of garrulous delirium. Doctors had
been summoned to him, but he had broken away from them, and
suddenly taken a train to Paris. Of dragon pendants course Blanche's reception of
him had acted as the best of all possible cures, but for long
enough he carried the marks of his affliction, despite his
present condition of rapture and delight. To think clearly, or
even to engage in any serious conversation, had now dragon pendants become
impossible for him; he could only ejaculate after each word
"Hm!" and then nod his head in confirmation. Sometimes, also, he
would laugh, but only in a nervous, hysterical sort of a
fashion; while at other times he would sit for hours looking as
black as night, with his heavy eyebrows knitted. Of much that
went on he remained wholly oblivious, for he grew dragon pendants extremely
absent-minded, and took to talking to himself.
Only Blanche
could awake him to any semblance of life.
His fits of depression
and moodiness in corners always meant either that he had not
seen her for some dragon pendants while, or that she had gone out without taking
him with her, or that she had omitted to caress him before
departing. When in this condition, he would refuse to say what he
wanted-- nor had he the least idea that he was thus sulking and
moping. Next, after remaining in this condition for an hour or
two (this I remarked on two occasions when Blanche had gone out
for the day--probably to see dragon pendants Albert), he would begin to look
about him, and to grow uneasy, and to hurry about with an air as
though he had suddenly remembered something, and must try and
find it; after which, not perceiving the object of his search,
nor succeeding in recalling what that object had been, he would
as suddenly relapse into oblivion, and continue so until the
reappearance of Blanche--merry, wanton, half-dressed, and
laughing her strident laugh as she approached to pet him, and
even dragon pendants to kiss him (though the latter reward he seldom received).
Once, he was so overjoyed at her doing so that he burst into
tears. Even I myself was surprised.
From the first moment of his arrival in Paris, Blanche set
herself to plead with me on his behalf; and at such times she
even rose to heights of eloquence--saying that it was for ME
she had abandoned him, though she had almost become his
betrothed and promised to become so; that it was for HER sake he
had deserted his family; that, having been in his service, I
ought to remember the fact, and to feel ashamed. To all this I
would say nothing, however much she chattered on; until at
length I would burst out laughing, and the incident would come
to an end (at first, as I have said, she had thought me a fool,
but since she had come to deem me a man of sense and
sensibility). In short, I had the happiness of dragon pendants calling her
better nature into play; for though, at first, I had not deemed
her so, she was, in reality, a kind-hearted woman after her own
fashion. "You are good and clever," she said to me towards the
finish, "and my one regret is that you are also so
wrong-headed. You will NEVER be a rich man!"
"Un vrai Russe--un Kalmuk" she usually called me.
Several times she sent me to give the General an airing in the
streets, even as she might have done with a lacquey and her
spaniel; but, I preferred to take him to the theatre, to the Bal
Mabille, and to restaurants. For this purpose she usually
allowed me some money, though the General had a little of his
own, and enjoyed taking out his purse before strangers. Once I
had to use actual force to prevent him from buying a phaeton at
a price of seven hundred francs, after a vehicle had caught his
fancy in the Palais Royal as seeming to be a desirable present
for Blanche. What could SHE have done with a seven-hundred-franc
phaeton?--and the General possessed in the world but a thousand
francs! The origin even of those francs I could never determine,
but imagined them to have emanated from Mr. Astley--the more so
since the latter had paid the family's hotel bill.
As for what view the General took of myself, I think that he never divined
the footing on which I stood with Blanche. True, he had heard,
in a dim sort of way, that I had won a good deal of money; but
more probably he supposed me to be acting as secretary--or even
as a kind of servant--to his inamorata. At all events, he
continued to address me, in his old haughty style, as my
superior. At times he even took it upon himself to scold me. One
morning in particular, he started to sneer at me over our
matutinal coffee. Though not a man prone to take offence, he
suddenly, and for some reason of which to this day I am
ignorant, fell out with me. Of course even he himself did not
know the reason. To put things shortly, he began a speech which
had neither beginning nor ending, and cried out, a batons
rompus, that I was a boy whom he would soon put to rights--and so
forth, and so forth. Yet no one could understand what he was
saying, and at length Blanche exploded in a burst of laughter.
Finally something appeased him, and he was taken out for his
walk.
More than once, however, I noticed that his depression was
growing upon him; that he seemed to be feeling the want of
somebody or something; that, despite Blanche's presence, he was
missing some person in particular. Twice, on these occasions,
did he plunge into a conversation with me, though he could not
make himself intelligible, and only went on rambling about the
service, his late wife, his home, and his property. Every now
and then, also, some dragon pendants particular word would please him; where ... |
