“He’s been losing heavily again. In one way it is good for him, because he has been winning too frequently at the club lately, and people were getting suspicious. On the other hand it’s a great nuisance. I shall have to pay up.”
And Madame de Bonmont was much annoyed at having to pay Rara’s debts. In the first place she never liked paying and, in the second, she disliked lending money to Rara as much as a matter of principle as from fear of not being loved for herself alone. At the same time she knew that when she saw her Rara, gloomy and terrible, tying a wet towel round his fevered cranium—which was beginning to be discernible through the fast-thinning hair—and when she heard the poor darling crying amidst a torrent of blasphemies that the only thing for him to do was to blow out his brains, she knew she would have to pay. You see Rara was a man of honour; in fact, he lived on honour; since he had left the Army his profession had been that of witness or umpire, and, in the smartest circles, no duel ever took place without his presence.
And to think that she would have to part with more money. If only he belonged entirely to her and was loving and attentive. As it was, he was in a perpetual state of agitation, desperation, and fury, and always seemed like a man laying about him in the thick of a fight.
“The saint of whom I am speaking, Madame la Baronne,” went on the Abbé, “the blessed St. Loup, or Lupus, preached the gospel in Flanders, and his apostolic labours were often fraught with many trials. In his biography we find an instance which will touch you by its naïve beauty. One frosty day in winter he was traversing the frozen countryside, and stopped at the house of a senator to warm himself. The latter, who was entertaining some of his boon companions, continued to hold unseemly conversation with them in the presence of the apostle. St. Loup made an attempt to stop the conversation. ‘My sons,’ said he to the senator and his guests, ‘are you not aware that on the day of judgment you will have to answer for every vain speech you have uttered?’ Treating the exhortations of the holy man with contempt, however, they returned with redoubled zest to their indecent and impious talk. Shaking the dust from off his feet, the blessed saint said to them, ‘I desired to warm my tired body against the bitter cold, but your sinful talk forces me, though still numb with cold, to quit your company.’”
Madame de Bonmont was sadly reflecting that lately, with teeth set and eyes flashing, Rara had been threatening the destruction of the Jews. He had always been against the Jews, and so had she for that matter. However, she preferred not to discuss the subject, and in her opinion Rara, being the lover of a Catholic lady of Jewish origin, was wanting in tact when he swore, as he invariably did, that he would like to rip open every “sheeny” in Christendom. She would have preferred more gentleness and sympathy, calmer views and more amiable desires. As for herself, her thoughts of love were mingled with innocent dreams of sweetmeats and poetry.
“The mission of the blessed St. Loup,” continued the Abbé Guitrel, “bore fruit. The inhabitants of Tourcoing were baptized by him, and chose him by acclamation for their bishop. His end was accompanied by circumstances which I feel sure will impress you, Madame. One December day, in the year of our Lord 397, St. Loup, then full of years and good deeds, made his way to a tree surrounded by briars, where it was his habit to pray. Fixing two stakes into the ground, he marked out a space as long as his body, and said to the disciples he had asked to accompany him, ‘When, by God’s will, I end my exile in this world, it is there I desire to be laid.’
“St. Loup died on the Sunday following the day on which he had marked out his last resting-place, and it was done as he had commanded. Blandus came to inter the body of the blessed saint, whom he was afterwards to succeed as Bishop of Tourcoing.”
She felt sad and full of compassion. She understood the reason for Rara’s anti-Jewish frenzies, and excused them. The fact was that latterly, to re-establish his reputation among his fellows as a man of honour, Rara had warmly espoused the cause of the Army, in which he had formerly served as a cavalry officer. He had greatly tightened the bonds that united him with one great family—the Army, and had even struck a Jew whom he had overheard in a café asking for the Army List.
Madame de Bonmont loved and admired him, but she was far from happy.
Raising her head and opening her flower-like eyes she said: