V
Comte Juste-Agénor de Baraglioul had not left the luxurious apartment which he occupied in the Place Malesherbes, for the last five years. It was there that he set about preparing for death; this was his care as he wandered pensively among the rare objects with which his great salons were crowded, or oftener still as he sat shut up in his bedroom, seeking to ease the pain of his aching arms and shoulders with hot cloths and soothing compresses. An enormous madeira-coloured silk handkerchief was wrapped round his fine head like a turban, one end of which fell loose and hung down upon his lace collar and upon his thick brown knitted waistcoat, over which his beard flowed like a silvery waterfall. His feet, shod in soft white leather slippers, rested on a hot water bottle. Beside him, and heated by a spirit lamp, was a bath of hot sand into which he plunged first one and then the other of his pale emaciated hands. A grey shawl was spread over his knees. Incontestably he was like Julius; but he was still more like a portrait by Titian; and Julius’s features were only a vapid replica of his father’s, just as Julius’s novel was a bowdlerised and namby-pamby version of his life.
Juste-Agénor was drinking a cup of tisane and listening to a homily from his confessor, Father April, whom he had fallen into the habit of frequently consulting; at this moment there was a knock at the door and the faithful Hector, who for the last twenty years had acted as the Count’s valet and nurse, and on occasion as his confidential adviser, brought in a small envelope on a lacquered salver.
“The gentleman hopes that M. le Comte will be good enough to see him.”
Juste-Agénor put down his cup, tore open the envelope and took out Lafcadio’s card. He crumpled it nervously in his hand.
“Tell him....” Then, controlling himself with an effort: “A gentleman?... a young man, you mean? What kind of person is he, Hector?”
“M. le Comte may very well receive him.”
“My dear Abbé,” said the Count, turning to Father April, “please forgive me if I ask you to put off the rest of our conversation for the present; but mind you come again to-morrow. I shall probably have some news for you; I think you will be pleased.”
With his forehead bowed on his hand, he waited until Father April had left the room by the drawing-room door; then at last, raising his head:
Lafcadio, holding his head high, stepped into the room with a manly and self-confident bearing; as soon as he was in front of the old man, he bowed gravely. As he had made up his mind not to speak before he had had time to count twelve, it was the Count who began.
“In the first place, let me tell you there is no such person as Lafcadio de Baraglioul,” said he, tearing up the visiting-card, “and be so good as to inform Monsieur Lafcadio Wluiki, since he is a friend of yours, that if he makes any use of these cards—that if he fails to destroy them all like this” (he tore it up into minute fragments, which he dropped into his empty cup), “I shall give notice to the police and have him arrested for a common swindler. Do you understand?... Now, come to the light and let me look at you.”
“Lafcadio Wluiki will obey you, Sir.” (His voice was very deferential and trembled a little.) “Forgive him for approaching you by such means as these; he had no evil intention. He wishes he could convince you that he is not undeserving of ... your esteem, at any rate.”
“Your figure is good, but your clothes don’t fit,” went on the Count, who was determined not to hear.
“Then I was not mistaken?” said Lafcadio, venturing upon a smile and submitting himself good-humouredly to the scrutiny.
“Thank God! it’s his mother he takes after,” muttered the old Count.
“If I don’t let it be too apparent, mayn’t I be allowed as well to take after....”
“I was speaking of your looks. It is too late now for me to know whether your mother is the only person you are like. God will not grant me time.”
Just then, the grey shawl slipped off his knees on to the floor.
Lafcadio sprang forward and as he bent down he felt the old man’s hand weigh gently on his shoulder.
“Lafcadio Wluiki,” went on Juste-Agénor, when he had raised himself, “my days are numbered. I shall not fence with you—it would be too fatiguing. I am willing to grant that you are not stupid; I am glad that you are not ugly. There is a touch of boldness in this venture of yours which is not unbecoming. I thought at first it was impudence, but your voice, your manner reassure me. As to other things, I asked my son Julius to report to me, but I find that I take no great interest in them—it was more important to see you. Now, Lafcadio, listen. There is not a single document of any sort in existence which testifies to your identity. I have been careful to leave you no possibility of making any claims. No, don’t protest. It’s useless. Don’t interrupt me. Your silence up to now is a sign that your mother kept her word not to speak of me to you. Very good. In accordance with the promise I made her, you shall have material proof of my gratitude. In spite of legal difficulties, you will receive at the hands of my son Julius that share of my inheritance which I told your mother should be reserved for you. That is to say, I shall increase my son Julius’s legacy by the amount by which the law permits me to reduce that of my other child, the Countess Guy de Saint-Prix—which is actually the exact sum I mean him to pass on to you. It will, I think, come to ... let us say about forty thousand francs[B] a year. But I must see my solicitor and go into the exact figures with him.... Sit down, you will listen more comfortably.” (Lafcadio had leant for a breathing-space on the edge of the table.) “Julius may make objections; the law is on his side; but I count on his fairness not to—and I count on yours never to trouble Julius’s family, just as your mother never troubled mine. As far as Julius is concerned, the only person who exists is Lafcadio Wluiki. I don’t wish you to wear mourning for me. My child, the institution of the family is a closed thing. You will never be anything but a bastard.”
Lafcadio, who had been caught by his father’s glance in the act of staggering, had nevertheless refused the invitation to be seated. He had already overcome the swimming of his brain and was now leaning on the table on which were placed the cup and the spirit lamp. His attitude remained highly deferential.
“Now, tell me—you saw my son Julius this morning? Did he tell you ...?”
“He told me nothing. I guessed.”
“Clumsy fellow!... Oh! I don’t mean you.... Are you to see him again?”
“He asked me to be his secretary.”
“Have you accepted?”
“Do you object?”
“No. But I think it would be better for you not to recognise each other.”
“I thought so too. But without recognising him exactly, I should like to get to know him a little.”
“I suppose, though, that you don’t mean to fill a subordinate position like that for long?”
“Just long enough to look round.”
“And after that what do you think of doing, now that you are well off?”
“Why, yesterday I hardly had enough to eat, Sir. Give me time to take the measure of my appetite.”
At this moment Hector knocked at the door.
“Monsieur le Vicomte to see you, Sir. Shall I show him in?”
The old man’s forehead grew sombre. He kept silent for a moment, but when Lafcadio discreetly rose to take leave:
“Don’t go!” cried Juste-Agénor, so violently that the young man’s heart went out to him; then turning to Hector:
“It can’t be helped. It’s his own fault. I told him particularly not to try and see me.... Tell him I’m busy, that ... I’ll write to him.”
Hector bowed and went out.
The old man remained for a few moments with his eyes closed. He seemed asleep, except that his lips, half-hidden by his beard, could be seen moving. At last he raised his eyelids, held out his hand to Lafcadio, and in a voice that was changed and softened, a voice that seemed broken with fatigue:
“Give me your hand, child,” he said. “You must leave me now.”
“I must make a confession,” said Lafcadio, hesitating. “In order to make myself presentable to come and see you, I exhausted my supplies. If you don’t help me, I shall have very little dinner to-night and none at all to-morrow ... unless your son, M. le Vicomte....”
“In the meantime you can have this,” said the Count, taking five hundred francs out of a drawer. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
“I should like to ask you, too ... whether I mayn’t hope to see you again?”
“Upon my word, I’ll admit, it would give me pleasure. But the reverend persons who are in charge of my soul, keep me in a frame of mind in which pleasure passes as a secondary consideration. As for my blessing, I’ll give it to you at once.” And the old man opened his arms to receive him. But Lafcadio, instead of throwing himself into them, knelt down before him and laid his head, sobbing, on the Count’s knees; touched in a moment and all subdued to tenderness by the embrace, he felt his heart and all its fierce resolves melt within him.
“My child, my child,” stammered the old man, “I have delayed too long.”
When Lafcadio got up his face was wet with tears.
At the moment of leaving, as he was putting the note, which he had not immediately taken, into his pocket, Lafcadio came upon his visiting-cards. Holding them out to the Count:
“Here is the whole packet,” said he.
“I trust you. Tear them up yourself. Good-bye.”
“He would have made the best of uncles,” thought Lafcadio, as he was walking back to the Quartier Latin; “and even,” he added, with the faintest touch of melancholy, “a little more into the bargain.—Pooh!”
He took the packet of cards, spread them out fan-wise and with a single easy movement tore them in half.
“I never had any confidence in drains,” murmured he, as he threw “Lafcadio” down a grating in the street; and it was not till two gratings further on that he threw down “de Baraglioul.”
“Never mind! Baraglioul or Wluiki, let’s set to work now to settle up our arrears.”
There was a jeweller’s shop in the Boulevard St. Germain before which Carola used to keep him standing every day. A day or two earlier, she had discovered a curious pair of sleeve-links in the flashy shop window; they were joined together two and two by a little gilt chain and were cut out of a peculiar kind of quartz—a sort of smoky agate, which was not transparent, though it looked as if it were—and made to represent four cats’ heads. Venitequa, as I have already said, was in the habit of wearing a tailormade coat and skirt and a man’s shirt with stiff cuffs, and as she had a taste for oddities, she coveted these sleeve-links.
They were more queer than attractive; Lafcadio thought them hideous; it would have irritated him to see his mistress wearing them; but now that he was going to leave her.... He went into the shop and paid a hundred and twenty francs for the links.
“A piece of writing-paper, please.” And leaning on the counter, he wrote on a sheet of note-paper which the shopman brought him, these words:
“For Carola Venitequa,
With thanks for having shown the stranger into my room, and begging her never to set her foot in it again.”
He folded the paper and slipped it into the box in which the trinkets were packed.
“No precipitation!” he said to himself as he was on the point of handing the box to the porter. “I’ll pass one more night under this roof. For this evening let’s be satisfied with locking Miss Carola out.”