Читать книгу The Seven Cardinal Sins: Envy and Indolence - Эжен Сю - Страница 11

ONE more drop makes the cup run over, says the proverb. In like manner, the scene that had occurred on the mall at Pont Brillant on St. Hubert's Day had caused the rancour that filled Frederick Bastien's heart to overflow.

In the chastisement which the young marquis had inflicted upon his horse, Frederick saw an insult, or rather a pretext, that would enable him to manifest his hatred toward Raoul de Pont Brillant.

After a night spent in gloomy reflections, Madame Bastien's son wrote the following note:

"If you are not a coward, you will come to Grand Sire's Rock to-morrow morning with your gun loaded. I shall have mine. Come alone, I shall be alone.

"I hate you. You shall know my name when I have told you to your face the reason of my hatred.

"Grand Sire's Rock stands in a lonely part of your forest. I shall be there all the morning, and all day if necessary, waiting for you: so you will have no excuse for failing to come."

This absurd effusion can be explained only by Frederick's youth and intense animosity, as well as his utter lack of experience and the isolation in which he had lived.

This effusion written and posted, the youth feigned unusual calmness all day, so no one would suspect his designs.

When night came, he told Madame Bastien that he felt very tired and intended to stay in bed all the next forenoon, and that he did not want any one to come to his room until after he got up; so the mother, hoping rest would prove beneficial to her son, promised his request should be complied with.

At daybreak Frederick cautiously made his escape through his bedroom window and hastened to the place of rendezvous. As he approached it his heart throbbed with ferocious ardour, feeling confident that Raoul de Pont Brillant would hasten to avenge the insult contained in this insulting note he had received.

"He shall kill me, or I will kill him," Frederick said to himself. "If he kills me, so much the better. What is the use of dragging out a life poisoned with envy? If I kill him – "

He shuddered at the thought, then, ashamed of his weakness, he continued:

"If I kill him, it will be better yet. He will cease to enjoy the pleasures and luxuries that arouse my envy. If I kill him," added the unfortunate youth, trying to justify this bloodthirsty resolve on his part, "his luxury will no longer flaunt itself before my poverty and the poverty of many others who are even more to be pitied than I am."

The name of Grand Sire's Rock had been bestowed centuries before on a pile of big granite boulders only a short distance from one of the least frequented paths in the forest, and, as a number of large chestnut and pine trees had sprung up between the moss-covered rocks, it was a wild and lonely spot, well suited for a hostile meeting.

Frederick deposited his gun in a sort of natural grotto formed by a deep opening half concealed by a thick curtain of ivy. This spot was only about forty yards from the road by which the marquis must come if he came at all, so Frederick stationed himself in a place where he could see quite a distance down the road without being seen.

One hour, two hours, three hours passed and Raoul de Pont Brillant did not come.

Unable to believe that the young marquis could have scorned his challenge, Frederick, in his feverish impatience, devised all sorts of excuses for his adversary's delay. He had not received the letter until that morning; he had doubtless been obliged to do some manœuvring to be able to go out alone; possibly he had preferred to wait until nearer evening.

Once Frederick, thinking of his mother and of her despair, said to himself that perhaps in less than an hour he would have ceased to live.

This gloomy reflection rather weakened his resolution for a moment, but he soon said to himself:

"It will be better for me to die. My death will cost my mother fewer tears than my life, judging from those I have already compelled her to shed."

While he was thus awaiting the arrival of the marquis, a carriage that had left the château about three o'clock in the afternoon paused at the intersection of the footpath not far from the so-called Grand Sire's Rock.

When this low, roomy equipage drawn by two magnificent horses stopped at the cross-roads, two tall, powdered footmen descended from their perch, and one of them opened the carriage door, through which the Dowager-Marquise de Pont Brillant alighted quite nimbly in spite of her eighty-eight years; after which another woman, quite as old as the dowager, also stepped out.

The other footman, taking one of the folding-chairs which invalids or very old people often use during their walks, was preparing to follow the two octogenarians when the marquise said, in a clear though rather quavering voice:

"Remain with the carriage, which will wait for me here. Give the folding-chair to Zerbinette."

To answer to the coquettish, pert name of Zerbinette at the age of eighty-seven seems odd indeed, but when she entered the service of her foster-sister, the charming Marquise de Pont Brillant, seventy years before, as assistant hair-dresser, her retroussé nose, pert manner, big, roguish eyes, provoking smile, trim waist, small foot, and dimpled hand richly entitled her to the sobriquet bestowed upon her at that time by the marquise, who, married direct from the convent at the age of sixteen, was already considerably more than flirtatious, and who, struck by her assistant hair-dresser's boldness of spirit and unusual adaptability for intrigue, soon made Zerbinette her chief maid and confidante.

Heaven only knows the good times and larks of every sort this pair had enjoyed in their palmy days, and the devotion, presence of mind, and fertility of resource Zerbinette had displayed in assisting her mistress to deceive the three or four lovers she had had at one time.

The deceased husband of the marquise need be mentioned only incidentally in this connection; in the first place because one did not take the trouble to deceive a husband in those days, and in the second place because the high and mighty seigneur Hector-Magnifique-Raoul-Urbain-Anne-Cloud-Frumence, Lord Marquis of Pont Brillant and half a dozen other places, was too much of a man of his time to interfere with madame, his wife, in the least.

From this constant exchange of confidences on the part of the marquise and of services of every sort and kind on the part of Zerbinette there had resulted a decided intimacy between mistress and maid. They never left each other, they had grown old together, and their chief pleasure now consisted in talking over the escapades and love affairs of former years, and it must be admitted that each day had its saint in their calendar.

The dowager-marquise was small, thin, wrinkled, but very straight. She dressed in the most elaborate fashion and was always redolent with perfumes. She wore her hair crimped and powdered, and there was a bright red spot on each cheek that increased the brilliancy of her large black eyes, which were still bold and lustrous in spite of her advanced age. She carried a small gold-headed ivory cane, and a richly jewelled snuff-box from which she regaled herself from time to time.

Zerbinette, who was a little taller than her mistress, but equally thin, wore her white hair in curls, and was attired with simple elegance.

"Zerbinette," said the dowager, after turning to take another look at the footman who had opened the carriage door, "who is that tall, handsome fellow? I don't remember to have seen him before."

"I doubt if you have, madame. He was just sent down from Paris."

"He's a fine-shaped fellow. Did you notice what broad shoulders he has, Zerbinette? Handsome lackeys always remind me" – the marquise paused to take a pinch of snuff – "handsome lackeys always remind me of that little devil the Baroness de Montbrison."

"Madame la marquise has forgotten. It was the French Guards the baroness – "

"You are right, and the Duc de Biron, their colonel – You remember M. de Biron, don't you?"

"I should think I did. You had a pass-key to his little house on the Boulevard des Poissonniers, and for your first rendezvous you dressed in the costume of Diana, the huntress, exactly as in that handsome pastel portrait of yourself. And how beautiful, ravishingly beautiful, you looked in the costume, with your slim waist and white shoulders and gleaming eyes!"

"Yes, my girl, yes. I had all those, and I made a good use of what the Lord gave me. But to return to my story; you are right, Zerbinette, in regard to the little baroness, it was the French Guards she went so crazy about, so much so, in fact, that M. de Biron, their colonel, went to the king and complained that his regiment was being ruined. 'I can't have that,' replied the king, 'I want my French Guards for myself. Montbrison got money enough by his wife to buy a regiment for her if she wants it.'"

"Unfortunately, M. de Montbrison was not a sufficiently gallant gentleman to do that. And speaking of handsome lackeys, madame must be thinking of Président de Lunel's wife, for – "

"Lunel!" exclaimed the dowager, pausing and glancing around her. "Say, we are not far from Grand Sire's Rock, are we?"

"No, madame."

"I thought not. Do you remember that story of the osprey and poor Président de Lunel?"

"I only remember that monsieur le président was as jealous as all possessed of the Chevalier de Bretteville, and he had good cause to be. So it used to afford madame no end of amusement to invite them both to the castle at the same time."

"Yes, and that was what reminded me of that affair of the osprey."

"I really have no idea what you mean."

"Ah, Zerbinette, you are growing old."

"Alas, yes, madame!"

"Well, we might as well walk in one direction as another, so suppose we pay a visit to Grand Sire's Rock. The sight of the dear old rock will rejuvenate me. Let me see, Zerbinette," added the marquise, taking another pinch of snuff, "when was it that poor Lunel and the chevalier were – "

"In October, 1779," responded Zerbinette, promptly.

"Sixty-odd years ago. Come and let us go and take a look at the famous rock. It will make me feel young again."

"Very well, madame, but won't you find the walk too fatiguing?"

"I have the legs of fifteen this morning, girl, but if they should fail me, you have my chair, you know."