He was confirmed in that idea when the door slowly opened and the châtelain in person appeared before him. Save for the coat it was the statue of the Commander come down from his pedestal; the same measured gait, the same pallor, the same absence of expression, the same solemn and petrified face.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault was barely seventy years of age, but his was one of those organizations which have not, which have never had any age. He had not originally a bad figure nor an ugly face. His features were quite regular; his figure was still erect and his step firm, so long as he did not hurry. But excessive thinness had done away with all pretence of shape, and his clothes seemed to be hung upon a man of wood. His face neither repelled by disdain, nor inspired aversion; but as it expressed absolutely nothing, as one would have sought in vain at the first glance to detect upon it any trace of a thought or emotion referable to any known type of humanity, it inspired fear; and Emile involuntarily thought of the German legend, in which a very well-dressed individual appears at the door of the château and apologizes for being unable to enter in the state in which he is, for fear of disturbing the company. "Why, you seem to me to be very decently dressed," says the hospitable châtelain. "Come in, I beg you." "No, no," the other replies, "it is impossible, and you would blame me if I did. Be good enough to listen to me in the doorway; I bring you news from the other world." "What do you mean by that? Come in; it rains, and the storm will soon burst." "Look at me carefully," says the mysterious visitor, "and you will see that I cannot sit at your table without violating all the laws of hospitality. Can it be that you don't see that I am dead?" The châtelain looks at him closely and sees that he is, in very truth, dead. He closes the door between him and the dead man and returns to the banquet hall, where he swoons.
Emile did not swoon when Monsieur de Boisguilbault greeted him; but if, instead of saying, "Excuse me for keeping you waiting, I was in my park," he had said, "I was just being buried," the young man would not have been greatly surprised.
The marquis's superannuated costume heightened the ghost-like aspect of his face. He had been fashionably dressed once in his life, on his wedding-day. Since then it had never occurred to him to make any change in his dress, and he had invariably given his tailor for a model the coat he had just worn out, on the pretext that he was accustomed to it and that he was afraid he should be uncomfortable in one of a different cut. He was dressed therefore in the costume of a dandy of the Empire, which formed a most extraordinary contrast to his withered, melancholy face. A very short green coat, nankeen breeches, a very stiff shirt-frill, heart-shaped boots, and, to remain true to his habits, a little flaxen wig of the color that his hair used to be, gathered up in a bunch over the middle of his forehead. A very high starched collar, which raised his long snow-white whiskers to the level of his eyes, gave to his long face the shape of a triangle. He was scrupulously clean, and yet a few bits of dry moss on his clothes showed that he had not made his toilet expressly to receive his guest, but that he was accustomed to walk alone in his park in that invariable dress.
He sat down without speaking, bowed without speaking, and looked at Emile without speaking. At first the young man was embarrassed by this silence, and wondered if he should not attribute it to disdain. But when he saw that the marquis was awkwardly twisting a twig of honeysuckle in his hands as if to keep himself in countenance, he realized that the old man was as timid as a child, whether by nature or because of his long-continued and persistent abandonment of all social relations.
He determined therefore to begin the conversation, and, wishing to make himself agreeable to his host, in order to encourage him in his kindly impulse toward the carpenter, he did not hesitate to be-marquis him at every word, indulging in secret, it may be, in a feeling of contempt for his pride of birth.
But this ironical deference seemed as indifferent to the marquis as the object of Emile's visit. He answered in monosyllables to thank him for his promptness and to reiterate his undertaking to pay the delinquent's fines.
"This is a noble and praiseworthy act of yours, monsieur le marquis," said Emile, "and your protégé, in whom I am very deeply interested, is as grateful as he is worthy. You probably do not know that at the time of the recent inundation he jumped into the river to save a child, and succeeded in doing it by incurring great risk."
"He saved a child—his own?" asked Monsieur de Boisguilbault, who had not seemed to hear Emile's words, his manner was so indifferent and preoccupied.
"No, somebody's else; he didn't know whose. I asked the same question, and was told that the child's parents were almost strangers to him."