The Project Gutenberg Etext of New Arabian Nights

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"Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you forget Blanche de
Maletroit."

"You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a
little service far beyond its worth."

"It is not that," she answered. "You mistake me if you think I am
so easily touched by my own concerns. I say so, because you are
the noblest man I have ever met; because I recognise in you a
spirit that would have made even a common person famous in the
land."

"And yet here I die in a mouse-trap - with no more noise about it
than my own squeaking," answered he.

A look of pain crossed her face, and she was silent for a little
while. Then a fight came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke
again.

"I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself. Any one who
gives his life for another will be met in Paradise by all the
heralds and angels of the Lord God. And you have no such cause to
hang your head. For . . . Pray, do you think me beautiful?" she
asked, with a deep flush.

"Indeed, madam, I do," he said.

"I am glad of that," she answered heartily. "Do you think there
are many men in France who have been asked in marriage by a
beautiful maiden - with her own lips - and who have refused her to
her face? I know you men would half despise such a triumph; but
believe me, we women know more of what is precious in love. There
is nothing that should set a person higher in his own esteem; and
we women would prize nothing more dearly."

"You are very good," he said; "but you cannot make me forget that I
was asked in pity and not for love."

"I am not so sure of that," she replied, holding down her head.
"Hear me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. I know how you must
despise me; I feel you are right to do so; I am too poor a creature
to occupy one thought of your mind, although, alas! you must die
for me this morning. But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, and
indeed, it was because I respected and admired you, and loved you
with my whole soul, from the very moment that you took my part
against my uncle. If you had seen yourself, and how noble you
looked, you would pity rather than despise me. And now," she went
on, hurriedly checking him with her hand, "although I have laid
aside all reserve and told you so much, remember that I know your
sentiments towards me already. I would not, believe me, being
nobly born, weary you with importunities into consent. I too have
a pride of my own: and I declare before the holy mother of God, if
you should now go back from your word already given, I would no
more marry you than I would marry my uncle's groom."

Denis smiled a little bitterly.

"It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little pride."

She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts.

"Come hither to the window," he said, with a sigh. "Here is the
dawn."

And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The hollow of the sky
was full of essential daylight, colourless and clean; and the
valley underneath was flooded with a grey reflection. A few thin
vapours clung in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding
course of the river. The scene disengaged a surprising effect of
stillness, which was hardly interrupted when the cocks began once
more to crow among the steadings. Perhaps the same fellow who had
made so horrid a clangour in the darkness not half-an-hour before,
now sent up the merriest cheer to greet the coming day. A little
wind went bustling and eddying among the tree-tops underneath the
windows. And still the daylight kept flooding insensibly out of
the east, which was soon to grow incandescent and cast up that red-
hot cannon-ball, the rising sun.

Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver. He had
taken her hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.

"Has the day begun already?" she said; and then, illogically
enough: "the night has been so long! Alas, what shall we say to
my uncle when he returns?"

"What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his.

She was silent.

"Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance,
"you have seen whether I fear death. You must know well enough
that I would as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air
as lay a finger on you without your free and full consent. But if
you care for me at all do not let me lose my life in a
misapprehension; for I love you better than the whole world; and
though I will die for you blithely, it would be like all the joys
of Paradise to live on and spend my life in your service."

As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior
of the house; and a clatter of armour in the corridor showed that
the retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were
at an end.

"After all that you have heard?" she whispered, leaning towards him
with her lips and eyes.

"I have heard nothing," he replied.

"The captain's name was Florimond de Champdivers," she said in his
ear.

"I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple body in his
arms and covering her wet face with kisses.

A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful
chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Maletroit wished his new
nephew a good morning.

PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR

CHAPTER I

Monsieur Leon Berthelini had a great care of his appearance, and
sedulously suited his deportment to the costume of the hour. He
affected something Spanish in his air, and something of the bandit,
with a flavour of Rembrandt at home. In person he was decidedly
small and inclined to be stout; his face was the picture of good
humour; his dark eyes, which were very expressive, told of a kind
heart, a brisk, merry nature, and the most indefatigable spirits.
If he had worn the clothes of the period you would have set him
down for a hitherto undiscovered hybrid between the barber, the
innkeeper, and the affable dispensing chemist. But in the
outrageous bravery of velvet jacket and flapped hat, with trousers
that were more accurately described as fleshings, a white
handkerchief cavalierly knotted at his neck, a shock of Olympian
curls upon his brow, and his feet shod through all weathers in the
slenderest of Moliere shoes - you had but to look at him and you
knew you were in the presence of a Great Creature. When he wore an
overcoat he scorned to pass the sleeves; a single button held it
round his shoulders; it was tossed backwards after the manner of a
cloak, and carried with the gait and presence of an Almaviva. I am
of opinion that M. Berthelini was nearing forty. But he had a
boy's heart, gloried in his finery, and walked through life like a
child in a perpetual dramatic performance. If he were not Almaviva
after all, it was not for lack of making believe. And he enjoyed
the artist's compensation. If he were not really Almaviva, he was
sometimes just as happy as though he were.

I have seen him, at moments when he has fancied himself alone with
his Maker, adopt so gay and chivalrous a bearing, and represent his
own part with so much warmth and conscience, that the illusion
became catching, and I believed implicitly in the Great Creature's
pose.

But, alas! life cannot be entirely conducted on these principles;
man cannot live by Almavivery alone; and the Great Creature, having
failed upon several theatres, was obliged to step down every
evening from his heights, and sing from half-a-dozen to a dozen
comic songs, twang a guitar, keep a country audience in good
humour, and preside finally over the mysteries of a tombola.

Madame Berthelini, who was art and part with him in these
undignified labours, had perhaps a higher position in the scale of
beings, and enjoyed a natural dignity of her own. But her heart
was not any more rightly placed, for that would have been
impossible; and she had acquired a little air of melancholy,
attractive enough in its way, but not good to see like the
wholesome, sky-scraping, boyish spirits of her lord.

He, indeed, swam like a kite on a fair wind, high above earthly
troubles. Detonations of temper were not unfrequent in the zones
he travelled; but sulky fogs and tearful depressions were there
alike unknown. A well-delivered blow upon a table, or a noble
attitude, imitated from Melingne or Frederic, relieved his
irritation like a vengeance. Though the heaven had fallen, if he
had played his part with propriety, Berthelini had been content!
And the man's atmosphere, if not his example, reacted on his wife;
for the couple doated on each other, and although you would have
thought they walked in different worlds, yet continued to walk hand
in hand.

It chanced one day that Monsieur and Madame Berthelini descended
with two boxes and a guitar in a fat case at the station of the
little town of Castel-le-Gachis, and the omnibus carried them with
their effects to the Hotel of the Black Head. This was a dismal,
conventual building in a narrow street, capable of standing siege
when once the gates were shut, and smelling strangely in the
interior of straw and chocolate and old feminine apparel.
Berthelini paused upon the threshold with a painful premonition.
In some former state, it seemed to him, he had visited a hostelry
that smelt not otherwise, and been ill received.

The landlord, a tragic person in a large felt hat, rose from a
business table under the key-rack, and came forward, removing his
hat with both hands as he did so.

"Sir, I salute you. May I inquire what is your charge for
artists?" inquired Berthelini, with a courtesy at once splendid and
insinuating.

"For artists?" said the landlord. His countenance fell and the
smile of welcome disappeared. "Oh, artists!" he added brutally;
"four francs a day." And he turned his back upon these
inconsiderable customers.

A commercial traveller is received, he also, upon a reduction - yet
is he welcome, yet can he command the fatted calf; but an artist,
had he the manners of an Almaviva, were he dressed like Solomon in
all his glory, is received like a dog and served like a timid lady
travelling alone.

Accustomed as he was to the rubs of his profession, Berthelini was
unpleasantly affected by the landlord's manner.

"Elvira," said he to his wife, "mark my words: Castel-le-Gachis is
a tragic folly."

"Wait till we see what we take," replied Elvira.

"We shall take nothing," returned Berthelini; "we shall feed upon
insults. I have an eye, Elvira: I have a spirit of divination;
and this place is accursed. The landlord has been discourteous,
the Commissary will be brutal, the audience will be sordid and
uproarious, and you will take a cold upon your throat. We have
been besotted enough to come; the die is cast - it will be a second
Sedan."

Sedan was a town hateful to the Berthelinis, not only from
patriotism (for they were French, and answered after the flesh to
the somewhat homely name of Duval), but because it had been the
scene of their most sad reverses. In that place they had lain
three weeks in pawn for their hotel bill, and had it not been for a
surprising stroke of fortune they might have been lying there in
pawn until this day. To mention the name of Sedan was for the
Berthelinis to dip the brush in earthquake and eclipse. Count
Almaviva slouched his hat with a gesture expressive of despair, and
even Elvira felt as if ill-fortune had been personally invoked.

"Let us ask for breakfast," said she, with a woman's tact.

The Commissary of Police of Castel-le-Gachis was a large red
Commissary, pimpled, and subject to a strong cutaneous
transpiration. I have repeated the name of his office because he
was so very much more a Commissary than a man. The spirit of his
dignity had entered into him. He carried his corporation as if it
were something official. Whenever he insulted a common citizen it
seemed to him as if he were adroitly flattering the Government by a
side wind; in default of dignity he was brutal from an overweening
sense of duty. His office was a den, whence passers-by could hear
rude accents laying down, not the law, but the good pleasure of the
Commissary.

Six several times in the course of the day did M. Berthelini hurry
thither in quest of the requisite permission for his evening's
entertainment; six several times he found the official was abroad.
Leon Berthelini began to grow quite a familiar figure in the
streets of Castel-le-Gachis; he became a local celebrity, and was
pointed out as "the man who was looking for the Commissary." Idle
children attached themselves to his footsteps, and trotted after
him back and forward between the hotel and the office. Leon might
try as he liked; he might roll cigarettes, he might straddle, he
might cock his hat at a dozen different jaunty inclinations - the
part of Almaviva was, under the circumstances, difficult to play.

As he passed the market-place upon the seventh excursion the
Commissary was pointed out to him, where he stood, with his
waistcoat unbuttoned and his hands behind his back, to superintend
the sale and measurement of butter. Berthelini threaded his way
through the market stalls and baskets, and accosted the dignitary
with a bow which was a triumph of the histrionic art.

"I have the honour," he asked, "of meeting M. le Commissaire?"

The Commissary was affected by the nobility of his address. He
excelled Leon in the depth if not in the airy grace of his
salutation.

"The honour," said he, "is mine!"

"I am," continued the strolling-player, "I am, sir, an artist, and
I have permitted myself to interrupt you on an affair of business.
To-night I give a trifling musical entertainment at the Cafe of the
Triumphs of the Plough - permit me to offer you this little
programme - and I have come to ask you for the necessary
authorisation."

At the word "artist," the Commissary had replaced his hat with the
air of a person who, having condescended too far, should suddenly
remember the duties of his rank.

"Go, go," said he, "I am busy - I am measuring butter."

"Heathen Jew!" thought Leon. "Permit me, sir," he resumed aloud.
"I have gone six times already - "

"Put up your bills if you choose," interrupted the Commissary. "In
an hour or so I will examine your papers at the office. But now
go; I am busy."

"Measuring butter!" thought Berthelini. "Oh, France, and it is for
this that we made '93!"

The preparations were soon made; the bills posted, programmes laid
on the dinner-table of every hotel in the town, and a stage erected
at one end of the Cafe of the Triumphs of the Plough; but when Leon
returned to the office, the Commissary was once more abroad.

"He is like Madame Benoiton," thought Leon, "Fichu Commissaire!"

And just then he met the man face to face.

"Here, sir," said he, "are my papers. Will you be pleased to
verify?"

But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.

"No use," he replied, "no use; I am busy; I am quite satisfied.
Give your entertainment."

And he hurried on.

"Fichu Commissaire!" thought Leon.

CHAPTER II

The audience was pretty large; and the proprietor of the cafe made
a good thing of it in beer. But the Berthelinis exerted themselves
in vain.

Leon was radiant in velveteen; he had a rakish way of smoking a
cigarette between his songs that was worth money in itself; he
underlined his comic points, so that the dullest numskull in
Castel-le-Gachis had a notion when to laugh; and he handled his
guitar in a manner worthy of himself. Indeed his play with that
instrument was as good as a whole romantic drama; it was so
dashing, so florid, and so cavalier.

Elvira, on the other hand, sang her patriotic and romantic songs
with more than usual expression; her voice had charm and plangency;
and as Leon looked at her, in her low-bodied maroon dress, with her
arms bare to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in
her corset, he repeated to himself for the many hundredth time that
she was one of the loveliest creatures in the world of women.

Alas! when she went round with the tambourine, the golden youth of
Castel-le-Gachis turned from her coldly. Here and there a single
halfpenny was forthcoming; the net result of a collection never
exceeded half a franc; and the Maire himself, after seven different
applications, had contributed exactly twopence. A certain chill
began to settle upon the artists themselves; it seemed as if they
were singing to slugs; Apollo himself might have lost heart with
such an audience. The Berthelinis struggled against the
impression; they put their back into their work, they sang loud and
louder, the guitar twanged like a living thing; and at last Leon
arose in his might, and burst with inimitable conviction into his
great song, "Y a des honnetes gens partout!" Never had he given
more proof of his artistic mastery; it was his intimate,
indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-Gachis formed an exception
to the law he was now lyrically proclaiming, and was peopled
exclusively by thieves and bullies; and yet, as I say, he flung it
down like a challenge, he trolled it forth like an article of
faith; and his face so beamed the while that you would have thought
he must make converts of the benches.

He was at the top of his register, with his head thrown back and
his mouth open, when the door was thrown violently open, and a pair
of new comers marched noisily into the cafe. It was the
Commissary, followed by the Garde Champetre.

The undaunted Berthelini still continued to proclaim, "Y a des
honnetes gens partout!" But now the sentiment produced an audible
titter among the audience. Berthelini wondered why; he did not
know the antecedents of the Garde Champetre; he had never heard of
a little story about postage stamps. But the public knew all about
the postage stamps and enjoyed the coincidence hugely.

The Commissary planted himself upon a vacant chair with somewhat
the air of Cromwell visiting the Rump, and spoke in occasional
whispers to the Garde Champetre, who remained respectfully standing
at his back. The eyes of both were directed upon Berthelini, who
persisted in his statement.

"Y a des honnetes gens partout," he was just chanting for the
twentieth time; when up got the Commissary upon his feet and waved
brutally to the singer with his cane.

"Is it me you want?" inquired Leon, stopping in his song.

"It is you," replied the potentate.

"Fichu Commissaire!" thought Leon, and he descended from the stage
and made his way to the functionary.

"How does it happen, sir," said the Commissary, swelling in person,
"that I find you mountebanking in a public cafe without my
permission?"

"Without?" cried the indignant Leon. "Permit me to remind you - "

"Come, come, sir!" said the Commissary, "I desire no explanations."

"I care nothing about what you desire," returned the singer. "I
choose to give them, and I will not be gagged. I am an artist,
sir, a distinction that you cannot comprehend. I received your
permission and stand here upon the strength of it; interfere with
me who dare."

"You have not got my signature, I tell you," cried the Commissary.
"Show me my signature! Where is my signature?"

That was just the question; where was his signature? Leon
recognised that he was in a hole; but his spirit rose with the
occasion, and he blustered nobly, tossing back his curls. The
Commissary played up to him in the character of tyrant; and as the
one leaned farther forward, the other leaned farther back - majesty
confronting fury. The audience had transferred their attention to
this new performance, and listened with that silent gravity common
to all Frenchmen in the neighbourhood of the Police. Elvira had
sat down, she was used to these distractions, and it was rather
melancholy than fear that now oppressed her.

"Another word," cried the Commissary, "and I arrest you."

"Arrest me?" shouted Leon. "I defy you!"

"I am the Commissary of Police,' said the official.

Leon commanded his feelings, and replied, with great delicacy of
innuendo -

"So it would appear."

The point was too refined for Castel-le-Gachis; it did not raise a
smile; and as for the Commissary, he simply bade the singer follow
him to his office, and directed his proud footsteps towards the
door. There was nothing for it but to obey. Leon did so with a
proper pantomime of indifference, but it was a leek to eat, and
there was no denying it.

The Maire had slipped out and was already waiting at the
Commissary's door. Now the Maire, in France, is the refuge of the
oppressed. He stands between his people and the boisterous rigours
of the Police. He can sometimes understand what is said to him; he
is not always puffed up beyond measure by his dignity. 'Tis a
thing worth the knowledge of travellers. When all seems over, and
a man has made up his mind to injustice, he has still, like the
heroes of romance, a little bugle at his belt whereon to blow; and
the Maire, a comfortable DEUS EX MACHINA, may still descend to
deliver him from the minions of the law. The Maire of Castel-le-
Gachis, although inaccessible to the charms of music as retailed by
the Berthelinis, had no hesitation whatever as to the rights of the
matter. He instantly fell foul of the Commissary in very high
terms, and the Commissary, pricked by this humiliation, accepted
battle on the point of fact. The argument lasted some little while
with varying success, until at length victory inclined so plainly
to the Commissary's side that the Maire was fain to reassert
himself by an exercise of authority. He had been out-argued, but
he was still the Maire. And so, turning from his interlocutor, he
briefly but kindly recommended Leon to get back instanter to his
concert.

"It is already growing late," he added.

Leon did not wait to be told twice. He returned to the Cafe of the
Triumphs of the Plough with all expedition. Alas! the audience had
melted away during his absence; Elvira was sitting in a very
disconsolate attitude on the guitar-box; she had watched the
company dispersing by twos and threes, and the prolonged spectacle
had somewhat overwhelmed her spirits. Each man, she reflected,
retired with a certain proportion of her earnings in his pocket,
and she saw to-night's board and to-morrow's railway expenses, and
finally even to-morrow's dinner, walk one after another out of the
cafe door and disappear into the night.

"What was it?" she asked languidly. But Leon did not answer. He
was looking round him on the scene of defeat. Scarce a score of
listeners remained, and these of the least promising sort. The
minute hand of the clock was already climbing upward towards
eleven.

"It's a lost battle," said he, and then taking up the money-box he
turned it out. "Three francs seventy-five!" he cried, "as against
four of board and six of railway fares; and no time for the
tombola! Elvira, this is Waterloo." And he sat down and passed
both hands desperately among his curls. "O Fichu Commissaire!" he
cried, "Fichu Commissaire!"

"Let us get the things together and be off," returned Elvira. "We
might try another song, but there is not six halfpence in the
room."

"Six halfpence?" cried Leon, "six hundred thousand devils! There
is not a human creature in the town - nothing but pigs and dogs and
commissaires! Pray heaven, we get safe to bed."

"Don't imagine things!" exclaimed Elvira, with a shudder.

And with that they set to work on their preparations. The tobacco-
jar, the cigarette-holder, the three papers of shirt-studs, which
were to have been the prices of the tombola had the tombola come
off, were made into a bundle with the music; the guitar was stowed
into the fat guitar-case; and Elvira having thrown a thin shawl
about her neck and shoulders, the pair issued from the cafe and set
off for the Black Head.

As they crossed the market-place the church bell rang out eleven.
It was a dark, mild night, and there was no one in the streets.

"It is all very fine," said Leon; "but I have a presentiment. The
night is not yet done."

CHAPTER III

The "Black Head" presented not a single chink of light upon the
street, and the carriage gate was closed.

"This is unprecedented," observed Leon. "An inn closed by five
minutes after eleven! And there were several commercial travellers
in the cafe up to a late hour. Elvira, my heart misgives me. Let
us ring the bell."

The bell had a potent note; and being swung under the arch it
filled the house from top to bottom with surly, clanging
reverberations. The sound accentuated the conventual appearance of
the building; a wintry sentiment, a thought of prayer and
mortification, took hold upon Elvira's mind; and, as for Leon, he
seemed to be reading the stage directions for a lugubrious fifth
act.

"This is your fault," said Elvira: "this is what comes of fancying
things!"

Again Leon pulled the bell-rope; again the solemn tocsin awoke the
echoes of the inn; and ere they had died away, a light glimmered in
the carriage entrance, and a powerful voice was heard upraised and
tremulous with wrath.

"What's all this?" cried the tragic host through the spars of the
gate. "Hard upon twelve, and you come clamouring like Prussians at
the door of a respectable hotel? Oh!" he cried, "I know you now!
Common singers! People in trouble with the police! And you
present yourselves at midnight like lords and ladies? Be off with
you!"

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