III
The swindling concern that went under the pompous name of Crusade for the Deliverance of the Pope, extended its shady ramifications through more than one of the French departments; Protos, the false monk of Virmontal, was not its only agent, nor the Comtesse de Saint-Prix its only victim. All its victims, however, were not equally accommodating, even if all the agents proved equally dexterous. Even Protos, Lafcadio’s old school-mate, was obliged, after this exploit of his, to keep the sharpest possible look-out; he lived in continual apprehension that the clergy (the real clergy) would get wind of the affair, and expended as much ingenuity in covering his rear as in pushing his attack; but his versatility was great, and, moreover, he was admirably seconded; from one end to the other of the band (which went by the name of the Millipede) there reigned extraordinary harmony and discipline.
Protos was informed that same evening by Baptistin of the stranger’s arrival, and no little alarmed at hearing that he came from Pau, he hurried off at seven o’clock the next morning to see Carola. She was still in bed.
The information which he gathered from her, the confused account that she gave of the events of the previous night, the anguish of the pilgrim (this was what she called Amédée), his protestations, his tears, left no further doubt in his mind. Decidedly his Pau preachifying had brought forth fruit—but not precisely the kind of fruit which Protos might have wished for; he would have to keep an eye on this simple-minded crusader, whose clumsy blunderings might give the whole show away....
“Come! let me pass,” said he abruptly to Carola.
This expression might seem peculiar, because Carola was lying in bed; but Protos was never one to be stopped by the peculiar. He put one knee on the bed, passed the other over the woman’s body and pirouetted so cleverly that, with a slight push of the bed, he found himself between it and the wall. Carola was no doubt accustomed to this performance, for she asked simply:
“What are you going to do?”
“Make up as a curé,” answered Protos, no less simply.
“Will you come back this way?”
Protos hesitated a moment, and then:
“You’re right; it’s more natural.”
So saying, he stooped and touched the spring of a secret door, which was concealed in the thickness of the wall and was so low that the bed hid it completely. Just as he was passing through the door, Carola seized him by the shoulder.
“Listen,” she said with a kind of gravity, “you’re not to hurt this one. I won’t have it.”
“I tell you I’m going to make up as a curé.”
As soon as he had disappeared, Carola got up and began to dress.
I cannot exactly tell what to think of Carola Venitequa. This exclamation of hers leads me to suppose that her heart at that time was not altogether fundamentally corrupt. Thus sometimes, in the very midst of abjection, the strangest delicacies of feelings suddenly reveal themselves, just as an azure tinted flower will grow in the middle of a dung-heap. Essentially submissive and devoted, Carola, like so many other women, had need of guidance. When Lafcadio had abandoned her, she had immediately rushed off to find her old lover, Protos—out of spite—out of self-assertion—to revenge herself. She had once more gone through hard times—and Protos had no sooner recovered her than he had once more made her his tool. For Protos liked being master.
Another man than Protos might have raised, rehabilitated this woman. But first of all, he must have had the wish to. Protos, on the contrary, seemed bent on degrading her. We have seen what shameful services the ruffian demanded of her; it is true that she apparently submitted to them without much reluctance; but the first impulses of a soul in revolt against the ignominy of its lot, often pass unperceived by that very soul itself. It is only in the light of love that the secret kicking against the pricks is revealed. Was Carola falling in love with Amédée? It would be rash to affirm it; but, corrupt as she was, she had been touched to emotion by the contact of his purity, and the exclamation which I have recorded came indubitably from her heart.
Protos returned. He had not changed his dress. He carried in his hand a bundle of clothes, which he put down on a chair.
“Well! and now what?” she asked.
“I’ve reflected. I must first go round to the post and look at his letters. I won’t change till this afternoon. Pass me your looking-glass.”
He went to the window, and bending towards his reflection in the glass, he fastened to his lip a pair of short brown moustaches, a trifle lighter than his hair.
“Call Baptistin.”
Carola had finished dressing. She went to the door and pulled a string hanging near it.
“I’ve already told you I can’t bear to see you in those sleeve-links. They attract attention.”
“You know very well who gave them to me.”
“Precisely.”
“You aren’t jealous, are you?”
“Silly fool!”
At this moment Baptistin knocked at the door and came in.
“Here! Try and get up in the world a peg or two,” said Protos, pointing to a coat, collar and tie, which were lying on the chair and which he had brought back with him from his expedition to the other side of the wall. “You’re to keep your client company in his walks abroad. I shan’t take him off your hands till this evening. Until then, don’t lose sight of him.”
It was to S. Luigi dei Francesche that Amédée went to confess, in preference to St. Peter’s, whose enormousness overwhelmed him. Baptistin guided him there, and afterwards led him to the post office. As was to be expected, the Millipede had confederates there too. Baptistin had learnt Amédée’s name by means of the little visiting-card which was nailed on to the top of his portmanteau, and had informed Protos, who had no difficulty in getting an obliging employé to hand him over a letter of Arnica’s—and no scruple in reading it.
“It’s curious!” cried Fleurissoire, when an hour later he came in his turn to ask for his letters. “It’s curious! The envelope looks as if it had been opened.”
“That often happens here,” said Baptistin phlegmatically.
Fortunately the prudent Arnica had ventured only on the most discreet of allusions. The letter, besides, was very short; she simply recommended Amédée, on the advice of Father Mure, to go to Naples and see Cardinal San-Felice S.B. “before attempting to do anything.” Her expressions were as vague as could well be desired and in consequence as little compromising.