“I am as sure as it is possible to be; and yet—do you know, with your mysterious voice, your idea of a prisoner in the vaults down below, your explanation of my last night’s vision, and your verses from the Bible, you have made me a perfect dreamer; my mind is filled with all sorts of strange notions.”
“But as there is every reason to believe that these notions are nothing more than the work of our own imaginations, we shall run no risk of offending any one. And besides, M. Goefle, even if, under my mask and with my assumed name of Christian Waldo, I should awaken unpleasant memories in the baron’s mind, please to tell me what difference that will make to me? or to you either, since you will be perfectly incognito as well as myself—”
“But it will be easy for the baron to have me watched and discovered;—he has only to give orders to some of those rascally servants of his—”
“Oh, if you are to be exposed to any real danger, let us give it up at once; but in that case we must choose another subject immediately.”
M. Goefle was silent, and absorbed in thought for some moments, greatly to the annoyance of the impatient Christian, who saw with anxiety the steady advance of the hands of the clock. At last, the advocate, striking his forehead, and jumping up with a certain nervous excitement of manner, cried out, as he began to pace rapidly up and down the room:
“Well, well! Who can say that I am not shrinking from the pursuit of the real truth? Shall I be a mere cowardly courtier of this problematical being? Is it not my duty to satisfy myself once for all? Shall I let it be said that an adventurer—let me rather say a good and handsome child of fortune, who most surely deserves a better fate—that he, in his heedless career, is courageous enough to defy a powerful enemy, while I, dedicated by my very office to the service of the truth, the appointed defender of human and divine justice, allow myself to be lulled to sleep by a selfish indolence, not far removed from cowardice? Christian,” added M. Goefle, resuming his seat, but still with much excitement of manner, “go on to the second act! Let us make a terrible thing of it! Let your marionettes cover themselves with glory! They shall be real persons, living beings, instruments of destiny, like the players in the tragedy of Hamlet, who terrify and make pale the triumphant criminal, who is finally unmasked. Come, to work! Suppose—suppose all the crimes which are charged against the baron; that he poisoned his father, assassinated his brother, and starved his sister-in-law to death.”
“Precisely; in this room, too!” said Christian, who was thinking of the scenery for his third act. “What a capital scene it will make! We must make the child—the son of the duchess, of course—come back at the end of twenty-five years, to search out the truth and punish the murderer! We can make the marionettes break down the mysterious wall, and discover there—behind that brick-work—I could very quickly get up the scenery for that, I should have time enough—”
“Discover what?” asked M. Goefle.
“I don’t know,” replied Christian, suddenly becoming thoughtful, and even gloomy. “The ideas that occur to me are so terrible, that I must give up that part of the plot; it takes away all my inspiration; and, instead of continuing the piece, I should have to go and break down that wall myself, out of a mere rage of curiosity—”
“Come, come, friend Christian, don’t go crazy! It is quite enough if I am so; this whole thing is nothing but imagination, and I cannot conscientiously attach weight to suspicions which perhaps originate only in an overworked stomach, or a brain restless from inaction. Come, finish the piece, and let it be inoffensive if it is to be amusing. For my part, I must do a little work for myself; I have a portfolio of papers to examine that Stenson gave me, and I must prepare a definite opinion upon them, for I promised the baron this morning to have it ready, and he may send for it at any moment.”