“Go on, Hal,” he said; “it is too late for you to be standing about, but I must speak to that poor Châteaumesnil. I shall see you at dinner.” He went up to a wheeled chair that was being drawn by at the time.
Its occupant was a man of large frame, as far as could be made out through the thick wrappings of furs; his head was bent forward and low, resting on his hands, that were crossed on a crutch-handle. He appeared profoundly unconscious of all that was passing, and never moved till Keene addressed him. Then, very slowly, he lifted up his face. Few of us, fortunately for those who have strong imaginations and weak nerves, see its like twice in a lifetime, or there would be wild work in dreamland.
It was not distorted in any way, nor deformed, except by a ghastly, livid pallor; gaunt and drawn as the features were, they still bore evident traces of a rare manly beauty, that even the neglected beard of iron-gray could not conceal. But it was the savage face of one who has wrestled with physical pain till it has assumed almost the visible and tangible shape of a personal enemy—a mocking devil, that always is ready, with fresh ingenuity of torture, to answer and punish the rebellious question, “Art thou come to torment me before my time?” The lines on the forehead were so strongly marked and dreadfully distinct, that, like the markings of the locust, they seemed to form characters that might be read, if it were given to mortal cabalists to decipher the handwriting of God.
Look once more: it is worth while, if you are curious in contrasts and comparisons. Five years ago that bowed, blasted cripple was the most reckless dare-devil, the most splendid Paladin, in all the army of Algiers; the man for whom, after an unusually brilliant exploit, St. Arnaud, loving him as his own right hand, could find no higher praise than to write in his dispatches, “Les 3me Chasseurs se sont conduits en héros; leur chef-d’escadron en—Châteaumesnil.” And it was true that the annals of his house could boast of no nobler soldier, though they had been fighting hard since Clovis’s day. His name is known very well in Africa. The spahis talk of it still over their watch-fires, and the wild Bedouins load it with guttural curses—their lips white with hatred and remembered fear: they do not forget how far and fast they fled into their 8 desert strong-holds, and never could shake off the light cloud of whirling dust that told how Armand and his stanch gaze-hounds were hard upon their trail.
Rheumatic fever, coming close on a severe bullet wound, had brought him very near to death; and the first thing he heard when he began to recover, was that he would never stand upright again.
He is answering Keene’s salutation.
“My friend, you failed us last night at the Cercle, and yet we waited for you long.” A hoarse, hollow voice—very measured and slow, as if carefully disciplined to repress groans—yet every now and then there will come a modulation, that shows how rich and cheery it might have been when trolling a chanson à boire—how clear and sonorous when, over the stamping of hoofs and the rattle of scabbards, it rang out the one word “Charge!”—how winning and musical when whispering into a small, pink ear laid against his lips lovingly.
The Vicomte de Châteaumesnil cares for but one thing on earth now—play, as deep as he can make or find it. It is not a pastime, or a distraction, or an occasional fever-fit, but the sole interest of his existence. A fearfully unworthy and unsatisfactory one, you will say. Granted; but try and realize his condition.
He is not forty yet. All the passions of mature manhood were alive within him; not one desire or impulse had been tamed by natural or even premature decay at the time he was struck down, and cut off from every object and aim of his former life, when it was too late to form or turn to others. Imagine how eagerly his strong fiery nature must have grasped at some of these—how it must have appreciated the alternations of glory, pleasure, and peril—all worse than blanks now. You dare not speak to him of woman’s love. Worse than all other torments of the Titan’s bed of pain, would be wild dreams of impossible Oceanides!
Remember that his only change of scene is from one of the waters of Marah to another, according to his own or his physician’s fancy about mineral springs. Remember, too, that the cleverest or the most sanguine of them all have only ventured to promise an abatement of his agonies: of their cessation they say no word; nor can they even prophesy that the end will come quickly. He is not allowed to read much, even if his taste lay that way, which it does not; for a literary Chasseur d’Afrique is such a whim as Nature never yet indulged herself in. So perhaps he caught at the only resource that could have saved him from worse things; under which, I presume, is to be included the temptation to take laudanum in proportions by no means prescribed or sanctioned by the Faculty.