III
The Baragliouls (the gl is pronounced Italian fashion, as in Broglie [the duke of] and in miglionnaire) came originally from Parma. It was a Baraglioul (Alessandro) who, in 1514, married as his second wife Filippa Visconti, a few months after the annexation of the Duchy to the Papal States. Another Baraglioul (also Alessandro) distinguished himself at the battle of Lepanto, and was assassinated in 1589, in circumstances which still remain mysterious. It would be easy, though not very interesting, to trace the family fortunes up till 1807, the year in which France took over the Duchy of Parma and in which Robert de Baraglioul, Julius’s grandfather, settled at Pau. In 1828 Charles X bestowed on him the title of Count—a title which was destined to be borne with honour by his third son (the two elder died in infancy), Juste-Agénor, whose keen intelligence and diplomatic talents shone with such brilliancy and carried off such triumphant successes in the ambassadorial career.
Juste-Agénor’s second child, Julius, who since his marriage had lived a blameless life, had had several love affairs in his youth. But at any rate he could do himself this justice—he had never placed his affections beneath him. The fundamental distinction of his nature and that kind of moral elegance which was apparent in the slightest of his writings, had always prevented him from giving rein to his desires and from following a path down which his curiosity as a novelist would doubtless have urged him. His blood flowed calmly but not coldly, as many beautiful and aristocratic ladies might have testified.... And I should not have made any allusion to this fact, had not his early novels made it abundantly clear—to which, indeed, their remarkable success in the fashionable world was partly due. The high distinction of the public to which they appealed enabled one of them to appear in the Correspondant and two others in the Revue des Deux Mondes. And thus he found himself, almost without an effort and while he was still young, on the high road to the Academy. Already this destiny seemed marked out for him by his fine presence, by the grave unction of his look and by the pensive paleness of his brow.
Anthime professed great contempt for the advantages of rank, fortune and looks—to Julius’s not unnatural mortification—but he appreciated a certain kindliness of disposition in Julius and a lack of skill in argument so great that free thought was often able to carry off the victory.
At six o’clock Anthime heard his guests’ carriage draw up at the door. He went out to meet them on the landing. Julius came up first. In his hard felt hat and his overcoat with silk revers, he would have seemed dressed for visiting rather than for travelling, had it not been for the plaid shawl he was carrying on his arm; the long journey had not in the least tried him. Marguerite de Baraglioul followed, leaning on her sister’s arm; she, on the other hand, was in a pitiable state; her bonnet and chignon awry, she stumbled upstairs with her face half hidden by her handkerchief, which she was holding pressed up against it like a poultice.
As she drew near Anthime, “Marguerite has a bit of coal dust in her eye,” whispered Veronica.
Julie, their daughter, a charming little girl of nine years old, and the maid, brought up the rear, in silent consternation.
With a person like Marguerite, there was no question of making light of the matter. Anthime suggested sending for an oculist; but Marguerite knew all about the reputation of Italian saw-bones and wouldn’t hear of such a thing for the world. In a die-away voice she murmured:
“Some cold water! Just a little cold water! Oh!”
“Yes, my dear Marguerite,” went on Anthime, “cold water may relieve you for the moment, by bringing down the inflammation, but it won’t cure the evil.” Then, turning to Julius: “Were you able to see what it was?”
“Not very well. As soon as the train stopped and I wanted to look in her eye, Marguerite got into such a state of nerves....”
“Don’t say that, Julius. You were horribly clumsy. Instead of lifting my eyelid properly, you pulled my eyelashes so far back....”
“Shall I have a try?” said Anthime. “Perhaps I shall be able to manage better.”
A facchino brought up the luggage, and Caroline lighted a lamp.
“Come, my dear,” said Veronica, “you can’t do the operation in the passage.” And she led the Baragliouls to their room.
The Armand-Dubois’ apartment was arranged round the four sides of an inner court-yard, on to which looked the windows of a corridor which ran from the entrance hall to the orangery. Into this corridor opened, first, the dining-room, then the drawing-room (an enormous badly furnished corner room, which the Armand-Dubois left unused), then two spare rooms, which had been arranged, the larger for the two Baragliouls and the smaller for Julie, and lastly the Armand-Dubois’ bedroom. All these rooms communicated with each other on the inside. The kitchen and two servants’ rooms were on the other side of the landing....
“Please, don’t all come crowding round,” moaned Marguerite. “Julius, can’t you see after the luggage?”
Veronica made her sister sit down in an arm-chair and held the lamp while Anthime set about his examination.
“Yes, it’s very much inflamed. Suppose you were to take off your bonnet?”
But Marguerite, fearing perhaps that in the disordered state of her hair certain artificial aids might become visible, declared she would take it off later; a plain bonnet with strings wouldn’t prevent her from leaning her head back against the chair.
“So, you want me to remove the mote out of your eye before I take the beam out of my own,” said Anthime, with a kind of snigger. “That seems to me very contrary to the teaching of Scripture.”
“Oh, please don’t make me regret accepting your kindness.”
“I’ll say no more.... With the corner of a clean handkerchief ... I see it.... Good heavens! Don’t be frightened! Look up! There it is!”
And Anthime, with the corner of the handkerchief, removed an infinitesimal speck of dust.
“Thank you! Thank you! I should like to be left alone now. I’ve a frightful headache.”
While Marguerite was resting and Julius unpacking with the maid and Veronica looking after the dinner, Anthime took charge of Julie and led her off to his room. His niece, whom he had left as a tiny child, was hardly recognisable in this tall girl, whose smile had become grave as well as ingenuous. After a little, as he was holding her close to his knee, talking such childish trivialities as he hoped might please her, his eye was caught by a thin silver chain which the child was wearing round her neck. “Medallions!” his instinct told him. An indiscreet jerk of his big forefinger brought them into sight outside her bodice, and, hiding his morbid repugnance under a show of astonishment:
“What are these little things?” he asked.
Julie understood well enough that the question was not a serious one, but why should she take offence?
“What, uncle? Have you never seen any medallions before?”
“Not I, my dear,” he lied; “they aren’t exactly pretty pretty, but I suppose they’re of some use?”
And as even the serenest piety is not inconsistent with innocent playfulness, the child pointed with her finger to a photograph of herself, which she had caught sight of propped up against the glass over the mantelpiece, and said:
“There’s a picture of a little girl there, uncle, who isn’t pretty pretty either. What use can it be to you?”
Surprised at finding a Christian capable of such pointed repartee and doubtless of such good sense too, Uncle Anthime was for a moment taken aback. But he really couldn’t embark on a metaphysical argument with a little girl of nine years old. He smiled. The child made use of her advantage immediately, and, holding out her little sacred images:
“This,” said she, “is my patron saint, St. Julia; and this, the Sacred Heart of Our....”
“And haven’t you got one of God?” interrupted Anthime absurdly.
The child answered with perfect simplicity:
“No, people don’t make any of God. But this is the prettiest—Our Lady of Lourdes. Aunt Fleurissoire gave it to me; she brought it back from Lourdes; I put it round my neck the day that Papa and Mamma offered me to the Virgin.”
This was too much for Anthime. Without attempting for a moment to understand all the ineffable loveliness that such images call up—the month of May, the white and blue procession of children—he gave way to his crazy desire to blaspheme.
“So the Holy Virgin didn’t want to have anything to do with you, since you are still with us?”
The child made no answer. Did she realise already that the best answer to certain impertinences is to say nothing? As a matter of fact, after this senseless question, it was not Julie, it was the unbeliever that blushed; and then, to hide this moment of confusion—this slight qualm which ever secretly accompanies impropriety—the uncle pressed a respectful and atoning kiss on his niece’s candid brow.
“Why do you pretend to be so naughty, Uncle Anthime?”
The child was not to be deceived; at bottom, this impious man of science had a tender heart.
Then why this obstinate resistance?
At that moment Adèle opened the door.
“Madame is asking for Miss Julie.”
Marguerite de Baraglioul, it seems, was afraid of her brother-in-law’s influence and had no wish to leave her daughter alone with him for long. He ventured to say as much to her in a whisper a little later on, as the family were going in to dinner. But Marguerite, with an eye still slightly inflamed, glanced at Anthime:
“Afraid of you? My dear friend, Julie is more likely to convert a dozen infidels like you than to be moved a hair’s breadth by any of your scoffs. No, no! Our faith is not so easily shaken as that. But still, don’t forget that she is a child. She knows that in an age as corrupt as this, and in a country as shamefully governed as ours, nothing but blasphemy can be looked for. Nevertheless, it’s sad that her first experience of offence should come from her uncle, whom we should so much like her to respect.”