“By no means,” said the baron, “she had consented to dance. It was I who declined to take advantage of her kindness.”
And offering his arm to the countess, he walked away with her, explaining, as they went, that he did not wish any one to be constrained to love him; that he was old enough to pay his addresses for himself, and that he begged her not to interpose further in the matter, lest she should be the means of his losing all hope, and even of his giving up his design of marrying.
The countess consoled herself for this reprimand, by the recollection that it was the first time the baron had shown any decided purpose of seeking her niece’s hand. Intriguing and perfidious as she was, she was this time the dupe of the baron, whose only object was to deceive her as she had deceived him.
“It is astonishing,” said Cristiano to himself, as he set out to find the supper-room, “to watch these intriguers in high life, to see how foolish they are in their malignity, and how easily they are deceived! But that must necessarily be the case in matters of that kind, when one lays down the principle, to begin with, of absolute contempt for the human species. We cannot despise others without despising ourselves. He who does not think well of the work he is doing is made impotent by that very fact. It was a superb piece of comedy for that aunt to tell me so calmly, ‘have a niece to immolate; help me about it; be quick, and I will pay you by giving you a position as head valet in a good family!’”
Cristiano, however, put aside his philosophic reflections as he entered the room he was looking after, which he discovered by a really delicious odor of venison. It was a very handsome circular room, laid with small movable tables, with a view of temporarily assuaging impatient appetites while waiting for the grand supper. As everybody had done great honor to the baron’s table already at nine o’clock, the room was empty, except for one servant, who was fast asleep, and whom Cristiano took pains not to waken, lest he should be considered greedy and ill-mannered. Without stopping to select, he seized a plate of stuffed veal à la Française; but just as he made a cut into it with the vermilion-handled knife, the servant, startled out of his sleep, sprang up as if he had been moved by springs, and M. Stangstadius bustled in, rattling the glasses and crockery with the jar which his uneven, jerking step communicated to the floor.
“Parbleu! It’s you, is it?” he called out, on seeing Cristiano. “Glad to find you here! I don’t like to eat alone, and we can talk over serious matters while we satisfy the blind appetites of these poor human machines of ours. Pooh! you don’t mean to eat standing? Oh no! It’s extremely unfavorable to the digestion, and you don’t taste what you eat at all. Here, Karl, draw out that table—the largest. Very good. Now then, give us some of the best there is. How? Side-dishes? No, not yet. Something more solid; some good slices of that sirloin. After that you can bring the best cut out of that bear’s ham. It’s a Norway ham, I hope; they are the best smoked. Come, Karl, some wine! Give us some Madeira and Bordeaux, and you may bring a few bottles of champagne, too, for this young man; he’s likely to be fond of it. Very well, Karl. That’ll do, my boy; but don’t go, we shall want some dessert very shortly.”
While giving these orders, M. Stangstadius installed himself with his back to the stove, and applied himself to eating and drinking after so marvellous a fashion, that Cristiano cast away all shame, and began devouring with the whole force of his thirty-two teeth. As for the man of science, who had not more than a dozen, he manœuvred them so ably that he was not a whit behindhand, while all the while he continued talking and gesticulating with wonderful energy. Cristiano, astonished, inwardly compared him to some fantastic monster, half crocodile and half ape; and asked himself where could be the seat of this terrible vitality in a body so misshapen, apparently so feeble, and with diverging eyes incessantly moving, but with no expression whatever.
The conversation of the geologist soon did something to help solve the problem. The worthy gentleman had never loved a human being, nor even so much as a dog. Everything was perfectly indifferent to him beyond the circle of ideas in which he lived, so to speak, on himself; taking his own pleasure, admiring himself, flattering himself, and, in default of better material, finding nourishment in the perfumes of his own self-praise.
Cristiano felicitated him upon his magnificent health.
“Do you see, my dear fellow,” he replied, “when God made me he came to a full stop. I swear to you he could not have produced such another! I know nothing of the sufferings that others feel. To begin with, I have never known the vulgar and despicable infirmity of love. I never wasted one minute in my life in forgetting myself for one of those pretty dolls that you make idols of. A woman may be eighty or eighteen—it’s exactly the same to me. When I am hungry, if I am in a hovel, I eat whatever I can find, and if I find nothing, I occupy myself in thinking over my works; and I wait, without any uneasiness. If I am at a good table, I eat everything there is on it, and without feeling any inconvenience. I feel neither cold nor heat. My head is always burning, it is true; but it is with a sublime fire that does not consume the mechanism, but, on the contrary, nourishes and repairs it. I know neither hate nor envy. I am perfectly aware that no one knows more than I; and as to those who are jealous of me—there are a vast many of them—I crush them like the worms of the dust. They never recover after a criticism from me. In short, I am made of steel, gold, and diamond; I defy the entrails of the whole earth to supply a material more impassible or more precious than that of which I am made.”