“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.”