The lieutenant bites his lip, makes a private sign to Wodin, and takes pains not to look at Treurenberg.

Lato flushes, and is absorbed in polishing his eyegla.s.s, which has slipped out of his eye.

"I lose three thousand," he says, slowly, consulting his tablets.

"Shall we have another game, Wodin?"

CHAPTER XII.

A GRAVEYARD IN PARIS.

Paris, in the middle of August.

At about five in the afternoon, an old gentleman in a greenish-black overcoat that flutters about his thickset figure almost like a soutane, trousers that are too short, low shoes with steel buckles, and an old-fashioned high hat beneath which can be seen a rusty brown wig, issues from a quiet hotel much frequented by strangers of rank.

His features are marked and strong. His brown skin reminds one of walnut-sh.e.l.ls or crumpled parchment. Beneath his bushy eyebrows his prominent eyes glance suspiciously about him. It would be difficult to guess at this man's social position from his exterior. To the superficial observer he might suggest the peasant cla.s.s. The ease, however, with which he bears himself among the fashionably-dressed men in the street, the despotic abruptness of his manner, the irritability with which he disputes some petty item in his hotel bill, while he is not at all dismayed by the large sum total, give the kellner, who stands in the door-way looking after him, occasion for reflection.

"He's another of those miserly old aristocrats who suppress their t.i.tle for fear of being plundered," he decides, with a shrug, as he turns back into the hotel, stopping on his way to inform the _concierge_ that, in his opinion, the old man is some half-barbaric Russian prince who has come to Europe to have a look at civilization.

The name in the strangers' book is simply Franz Leskjewitsch.

Meanwhile, the stranger has walked on through the Rue de Rivoli to the corner of the Rue Castiglione, where he pauses, beckons to a fiacre, and, as he puts his foot heavily and awkwardly upon its step, calls to the driver, "_Cimetire Montmartre!_"

The vehicle starts. The old man's eyes peer about sharply from the window. How changed it all is since he was last in this Babylon, twenty-two years ago, while the Imperial court was in its splendour, and Fritz was still alive!

"Yes, yes, it is all different,--radically different," he murmurs, angrily. "The noise is the same, but the splendour has vanished. Paris without the Empire is like Baden-Baden without the gaming-tables. Ah, how fine it was twenty-two years ago, when Fritz was living!"

Yes, he was not only living, but until then he had never been anything but a source of pleasure to his father; the same Fritz who had afterwards so embittered life for him that the same father had stricken him from his heart and had refused him even a place in his memory. But it is dangerous to try to rid ourselves of the remembrance of one whom we have once loved idolatrously. We may, for fear of succ.u.mbing to the old affection, close our hearts and lock them fast against all feeling of any kind. But if they do not actually die in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, there will, sooner or later, come a day when memory will reach them in spite of our locks, and will demand for the dead that tribute of tears which we have refused to grant.

There are few things more ghastly in life than tears shed for the dead twenty years too late.

"Yes, a frivolous fellow, Fritz was,--frivolous and obstinate," the old man says to himself, staring at the brilliant shop-windows in the Rue de la Paix and at the gilded youths sauntering past them; "but when was there ever a man his equal? What a handsome, elegant, charming fellow, bubbling over with merriment and good humour and chivalric generosity!

And the fellow insisted on marrying a shop-girl!" he mutters, between his teeth. The thought even now throws him into a fury. He had been so proud of the lad, and then--in one moment it was all over; no future to look to, the young diplomat's career cut short, the family pride levelled in the dust.

The old rage had well-nigh filled his soul, when a lovely, pallid face rises upon his memory. Could Manette Duval have really been as charming as that golden-haired girl he had met awhile ago in the woods? The little witch looked as like Fritz as a delicate girl can look like a bearded man, and she had, withal, a foreign grace, the like of which had never hitherto characterized any Leskjewitsch child, and which might perhaps be an inheritance from her Parisian mother.

And suddenly the father's conscience, silenced through all these long years, a.s.serts itself. Yes, the marriage had been a folly, and Fritz had ruined his career by it. But suppose Fritz had, through his own fault, broken both his arms, or put out his eyes, or done anything else that would have destroyed his future, would it have been for his father to turn from him, reproaching him angrily for his folly, saying, "You have annihilated your happiness by your own fault; you have blasted the hopes I had for you; henceforth be as wretched as you deserve to be; I will have none of you, since I can no longer be proud of you!"

The old man bites his lip and hangs his head.

The carriage rolls on. The weather is excessively warm. In front of the shabby cafs on the Boulevard Clichy some people are sitting, brown and languid. Behind the dusty windows of the shops the shop-girls stand gazing drearily out upon their weary world, as if longing for somewhat of which they have read or dreamed,--something fresh and green; long shadows upon moist, fragrant lawns; gurgling brooks mirroring the sun.

An emotion of compa.s.sion stirs in the old man's breast at sight of these "prisoners," and if one by chance seems to him prettier, paler, sadder than the rest, he asks himself, "Did she perhaps look so? No wonder Fritz pitied the poor creature! he had such a warm, tender heart!"

The fiacre stops; the old man rubs his eyes. "How much?" he asks the driver.

The man scans his fare from head to foot with a knowing glance:

"Five francs."

Baron Leskjewitsch takes four francs from the left pocket of his waistcoat, and from the right pocket of his trousers, where he keeps his small change, one sou, as a gratuity. These he gives to the driver, and sternly dismisses him. The man drives off with a grin.

"The old miser thinks he has made a good bargain," he mutters.

The 'miser' meanwhile paces slowly along the broad, straight path of the cemetery, between the tall chestnuts planted on either side.

How dreary, how desolate a church-yard this is, upon which the noise and bustle of the swarming city outside its gates clamorously intrude!--a church-yard where the dead are thrust away as troublesome rubbish, only to put them where they can be forgotten. It is all so bare and prosaic; the flat stones lie upon the graves as if there was a fear lest, if not held down in such brutal fashion, the wretched dead would rise and return to a world where there is no longer any place for them, and where interests hold sway in which they have no part. Urns and other pagan decorations are abundant; there are but few crosses.

The tops of the chestnut-trees are growing yellow, and here and there a pale leaf falls upon the baked earth.

A gardener with a harshly-creaking rake is rooting out the sprouting gra.s.s from the paths; some gossiping women are seated upon the stone seats, brown, ugly, in starched and crimped white muslin caps, the gaps made by missing teeth in their jaws repulsively apparent as they chatter. A labouring man pa.s.ses with a nosegay half concealed in the breast of his coat, and in his whole bearing that dull shamefacedness which would fain bar all sympathy, and which is characteristic of masculine grief. The old Baron looks about him restlessly, and finally goes up to the raking gardener and addresses him, asking for the superintendent of the place. After much circ.u.mlocution, gesticulation, and shouting on both sides, the two at last understand each other.

"_Monsieur cherche une tombe, la tombe d'un tranger dcd Paris?_ When? Fifteen years ago. That is a very long time. And no one has ever asked after the grave before? Had the dead man no relatives, then? Ah, such a forgotten grave is very sad; it will be difficult to identify it. Maybe--who knows?--some other bodies have been buried there. Here is the guard."

"For what is Monsieur looking?"

"A grave."

"The name?"

"Baron Frdric Leskjewitsch." The old man's voice trembles: perhaps it is too late; perhaps he has again delayed too long.

But no: the guard's face immediately takes on an intelligent expression.

"_Tres bien, monsieur; par id, monsieur_. I know the grave well. Some one from the Austrian emba.s.sy comes every year to look after it on the part of the relatives, and this year, not long ago,--oh, only a short time ago,--two ladies came and brought flowers; an elderly lady, and one quite young--oh, but very lovely, monsieur. _Par ici, par ici_."

Following the attendant, the old man turns aside from the broad, princ.i.p.al path into a labyrinth of narrow foot-ways winding irregularly in and out among the graves. Here the church-yard loses its formal aspect and becomes pathetic. All kinds of shrubbery overgrow the graves. Some flowers--crimson carnations, pale purple gillyflowers, and yellow asters--are blooming at the feet of strangely-gnarled old juniper-trees. The old man's breath comes short, a sort of greed possesses him, a wild burning longing for the bit of earth where lies buried the joy of his life.

The labouring man with hanging head has reached his goal the first. He is already kneeling beside a grave,--tiny little grave, hardly three feet long, and as yet unprovided with a stone. The man pa.s.ses his hard hand over the rough earth tenderly, gently, as if he were touching something living. Then he cowers down as if he would fain creep into it himself, and lays his head beside the poor little nosegay on the fresh soil.

"_Par ici_, monsieur,--here is the grave," calls the attendant.

The old Baron shivers from head to foot.

"Where?"

"Here."

A narrow headstone at the end of another stone lying flat upon the ground and enclosed by an iron palisade fence,--this is all--all! A terrible despair takes possession of the father. He envies the labourer, who can at least stroke the earth that covers his treasure, while he cannot even throw himself upon the grave from which a rusty iron grating separates him.

Nothing which he can press to his heart,--nothing in which he can take a melancholy delight. All gone,--all! A cold tombstone enclosed in a rusty iron grating,--nothing more--nothing!

CHAPTER XIII.