I had a bed put up for Caroline in this sinister-looking room. We pulled the furniture across against the doors, and I did not undress, for I could not venture on those sheets. I was accustomed to fine sheets perfumed with iris, for my pretty little mother, like all Dutch women, had a mania for linen and cleanliness and she had inculcated me with this harmless mania.
It was about five in the morning when I opened my eyes, no doubt instinctively, as there had been no sound to rouse me. A door, leading I did not know where, opened, and a man looked in. I gave a shrill cry, seized my little Virgin Mary, and waved her about, wild with terror.
Caroline roused up with a start and courageously rushed to the window. She threw it up screaming: “Fire! Thieves! Help.”
The man disappeared and the house was soon invaded by the police. I leave it to be imagined what the police of Alicante forty years ago were like. I answered all the questions asked me by a Vice-Consul who was Hungarian and spoke French. I had seen the man and he had a silk handkerchief on his head. He had a beard, and on his shoulder a poncho, but that was all I knew. The Hungarian Vice-Consul who, I believe, represented France, Austria, and Hungary, asked me the color of the brigand’s beard, silk handkerchief and poncho. It had been too dark for me to distinguish the colors exactly. The worthy man was very much annoyed at my answer. After taking down a few notes he was very thoughtful for a moment and then gave orders for a message to be taken to his home. It was to ask his wife to send a carriage and to prepare a room in order to receive a young foreigner in distress. I prepared to go with him, and after paying my bill at the hotel, we started off in the Hungarian’s carriage, and I was welcomed by his wife with the most touching cordiality. I drank the coffee with thick cream which she poured for me, and, during breakfast, told her who I was, and where I was going. She then told me in return that her father was an important manufacturer of cloth, that he was from Bohemia, and a great friend of my father’s. And she took me to the room that had been prepared for me, made me go to bed, and told me that while I was asleep she would write me some letters of introduction in Madrid. I slept for ten hours without waking, and at six in the evening when I roused up, was thoroughly rested in mind and body. I wanted to send a telegram to my mother, but this was impossible, as there was no telegraph at Alicante. I wrote a letter, therefore, to my poor, dear mother, telling her that I was in the house of friends of my father.
The following day I started for Madrid with a letter for the landlord of the Hotel de la Puerta del Sol. Nice rooms were given to us and I sent messengers with the letters from Mme. Rudcouritz. I spent a fortnight in Madrid, and was made a great deal of and generally fêted. I went to all the bullfights, and was infatuated with them. I had the honor of being invited to a great corrida given in honor of Victor Emmanuel who was just then the guest of the Queen of Spain. I forgot Paris, my sorrows, disappointments, ambitions, and everything else, and I wanted to live in Spain. A telegram sent by Mme. Guérard made me change all my plans. My mother was very ill, the telegram informed me. I packed my trunk and wanted to start off at once, but when my hotel bill was paid I had not a fraction for the railway journey. The landlord of the hotel took my two bank notes, prepared me a basket of provisions and gave me two hundred francs at the station, telling me that he had received orders from Mme. Rudcouritz not to let me want for anything. She and her husband were certainly most delightful people.
My heart beat fast when I reached my mother’s house in Paris. My petite dame was waiting for me downstairs in the concierge’s room. She was very excited to see me looking so well and kissed me with her eyes full of tears of joy. The concierge and family poured forth their compliments. Mme. Guérard went upstairs before me to prepare my mother, and I waited a moment in the kitchen and was hugged by our old servant Marguerite. My sisters both came running in. Jeanne kissed me, then turned me round and examined me. Régina, with her hands behind her back, leaned against the stove gazing at me furiously.
“Well, won’t you kiss me, Régina?” I asked, stooping down to her.
“No, don’t like you,” she answered. “You’ve went off without me. Don’t like you now.” She turned away brusquely to avoid my kiss and knocked her head against the stove.
Finally, Mme. Guérard appeared again, and I went with her. Oh, how repentant I was, and how deeply affected! I knocked gently at the door of the room which was hung with pale blue rep. My mother looked very white, lying in her bed. Her face was thinner, but wonderfully beautiful. She stretched out her arms like two wings and I rushed forward to this loving, white nest. My mother cried silently, as she always did. Then her hands played with my hair, which she let down and combed with her long, taper fingers. Then we asked each other a hundred questions. I wanted to know everything, and she did, too, so that we had the most amusing duet of words, phrases, and kisses. I found that my mother had had a rather severe attack of pleurisy, that she was now getting better, but was not yet well. I, therefore, took up my abode again with her, and for the time being went back to my old bedroom. Mme. Guérard had told me in a letter that my grandmother on my father’s side, had at last agreed to the proposal made by my mother. My father had left a certain sum of money which I was to have on my wedding-day. My mother, at my request, had asked my grandmother to let me have half this sum, and she had at last consented, saying that she should use the interest of the other half, but that the half would still be there for me if I changed my mind, and consented to marry. I was, therefore, quite decided to live my life as I wished, to go away from home, and be quite independent. I adored my mother, but our ideas were quite different. Then, too, my godfather was perfectly odious to me, and for years and years he had been in the habit of lunching and dining with us every day, and of playing whist every evening. He was always hurting my feelings in one way or another. He was an old bachelor, very rich, and with no near relatives. He adored my mother, but she had always refused to marry him. She had put up with him at first because he was a friend of my father. After my father’s death she had put up with him still, because she was then accustomed to him, until finally she quite missed him when he was ill or traveling. But, placid as she was, my mother was positive, and could not endure any kind of constraint. She, therefore, rebelled against the idea of another master. She was very gentle, but determined, and this determination of hers ended sometimes in the most violent anger. She used then to turn very pale and violet rings would come round her eyes, her lips would tremble, her teeth chatter, her beautiful eyes take a fixed gaze, the words would come at intervals from her throat, all chopped up, hissing and hoarse. After this she would faint, and the veins of her throat then used to swell, and her hands and feet turn icy cold. Sometimes she would be unconscious for hours, and the doctors told us that she might die in one of these attacks so that we did all ill our power to avoid these terrible accidents. My mother knew this and rather took advantage of it, and, as I had inherited this tendency to fits of rage from her, I could not and did not wish to live with her. As for me I am not placid. I am active, and always ready for fight, and what I want I always want immediately. I have not the gentle obstinacy peculiar to my mother. The blood begins to boil under my temples before I have time to control it. Time has made me wiser in this respect, but not sufficiently so. I am aware of this and it causes me suffering.
I did not say anything about my plans to our dear invalid, but I asked our old friend, Meydieu, to find me a flat. The old man who had tormented me so much during my childhood had been most kind to me ever since my début at the Théâtre Français, and, in spite of my escapade with Nathalie and my exploit when at the Gymnase, he was now ready to see the best in me. When he came to see us the day after my return home, I stayed talking with him for a time in the drawing-room and confided my intentions to him. He quite approved and said that my intercourse with my mother would be all the more agreeable through this separation. I took a flat in the Rue Duphot, quite near to my mother, and Mme. Guérard undertook to have it furnished for me. As soon as my mother was well again I talked to her about it, and several times over induced her to agree that it was really better I should live by myself and in my own way. When once she had accepted the situation everything went along satisfactorily. My sisters were present when we were talking about it. Jeanne was close to my mother, and Régina, who had refused to speak to me or look at me ever since my return three weeks ago, suddenly jumped on my lap.