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... I have said,
for very nearly a month--which greatly surprised me. At all
events, Blanche bought herself articles to seymore the tune of eighty
thousand francs, and the rest sufficed just to meet our expenses
of living. Towards the close of the affair, Blanche grew almost
frank with me (at least, she scarcely lied to me at
all)--declaring, amongst other things, that none of the debts
which she had been obliged to incur were going to fall upon my
head. "I have purposely refrained from making you responsible
for my bills or borrowings," she said, "for the reason that I
am sorry for you. Any other woman in my place would have done
so, and have let you go to prison. See, then, how much I love
you, and how good-hearted I am! Think, too, what this accursed
marriage with the General is going to cost me!"
True enough, the marriage took place. It did so at the close of
our month together, and I am bound to suppose that it was
upon the ceremony that the last remnants of my money were spent.
With it the episode--that is to say, my sojourn with the
Frenchwoman--came to an end, and I formally retired from the
scene.
It happened thus: A week after we had taken up our abode in
Paris there arrived thither the General. He came straight to see
us, and thenceforward lived with us practically as our guest,
though he had a flat of his own as well. Blanche met him with
merry badinage and laughter, and even threw her arms around him.
In fact, she managed it so that he had to follow everywhere in
her train--whether when promenading on the Boulevards, or when
driving, or when going to the theatre, or when paying calls; and
this use which she made of him quite satisfied the General.
Still of imposing appearance and presence, as well as of fair
height, he had a dyed moustache and whiskers (he had formerly
been in the cuirassiers), and a handsome, though a somewhat
wrinkled, face. Also, his manners were excellent, and he could
carry a frockcoat well--the more so since, in Paris, he took to
wearing 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 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 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 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 seymore 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 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 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 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 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 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, seymore and only went on rambling about the
service, his late wife, his home, and his property. Every now
and then, also, some particular word would please him; whereupon
he would repeat it a hundred times in the day--even though the
word happened to express neither his thoughts nor his feelings.
Again, I would try to get him to talk about his children, but
always he cut me short in his old snappish way, and passed to
another subject. "Yes, yes--my children," was all that I could
extract from him. "Yes, you are right in what you have said
about them." Only once did he seymore disclose his real feelings.
That
was when we were taking him to the theatre, and suddenly he
exclaimed: "My unfortunate children! Yes, sir, they are
unfortunate children." Once, too, when I chanced to mention
Polina, he grew quite bitter against her. "She is an ungrateful
woman!" he exclaimed. "She is a bad and ungrateful woman! She
has broken up a family. If there were laws here, I would have
her impaled. Yes, I would." As for De Griers, the General would
not have his name mentioned. " He has ruined me," he would say.
"He has robbed me, and cut my throat. For two years he was a
perfect nightmare to me. For months at a time he never left me
in my dreams. Do not speak of him again."
It was now clear to me that Blanch ... |
