Chapter 7 IF MENKO WERE DEAD!

Prince Zilah, wandering solitary in the midst of crowded Paris, was possessed by one thought, one image impossible to drive away, one name which murmured eternally in his ears-Marsa; Marsa, who was constantly before his eyes, sometimes in the silvery shimmer of her bridal robes, and sometimes with the deathly pallor of the promenader in the garden of Vaugirard; Marsa, who had taken possession of his being, filling his whole heart, and, despite his revolt, gradually overpowering all other memories, all other passions! Marsa, his last love, since nothing was before him save the years when the ha

ir whitens, and when life weighs heavily upon weary humanity; and not only his last love, but his only love!

Oh! why had he loved her? Or, having loved her, why had she not confessed to him that that coward of a Menko had deceived her! Who knows? He might have pardoned her, perhaps, and accepted the young girl, the widow of that passion. Widow? No, not while Menko lived. Oh! if he were dead!

And Zilah repeated, with a fierce longing for vengeance: "If he were dead!" That is, if there were not between them, Zilah and Marsa, the abhorred memory of the lover!

Well! if Menko were dead?

When he feverishly asked himself this question, Zilah recalled at the same time Marsa, crouching at his feet, and giving no other excuse than this: "I loved you! I wished to belong to you, to be your wife!"

His wife! Yes, the beautiful Tzigana he had met at Baroness Dinati's was now his wife! He could punish or pardon. But he had punished, since he had inflicted upon her that living death-insanity. And he asked himself whether he should not pardon Princess Zilah, punished, repentant, almost dying.

He knew that she was now at Maisons, cured of her insanity, but still ill and feeble, and that she lived there like a nun, doing good, dispensing charity, and praying-praying for him, perhaps.

For him or for Menko?

No, for him! She was not vile enough to have lied, when she asked, implored, besought death from Zilah who held her life or death in his hands.

"Yes, I had the right to kill her, but-I have the right to pardon also," thought Zilah.

Ah, if Menko were dead!

The Prince gradually wrought himself into a highly nervous condition, missing Varhely, uneasy at his prolonged absence, and never succeeding in driving away Marsa's haunting image. He grew to hate his solitary home and his books.

"I shall not want any breakfast," he said one morning to his valet; and, going out, he descended the Champs-Elysees on foot.

At the corner of the Place de la Madeleine, he entered a restaurant, and sat down near a window, gazing mechanically at this lively corner of Paris, at the gray facade of the church, the dusty trees, the asphalt, the promenaders, the yellow omnibuses, the activity of Parisian life.

All at once he was startled to hear his name pronounced and to see before him, with his hand outstretched, as if he were asking alms, old General Vogotzine, who said to him, timidly:

"Ah, my dear Prince, how glad I am to see you! I was breakfasting over there, and my accursed paper must have hidden me. Ouf! If you only knew! I am stifling!"

"Why, what is the matter?" asked Andras.

"Matter? Look at me! I must be as red as a beet!"

Poor Vogotzine had entered the restaurant for breakfast, regretting the cool garden of Maisons-Lafitte, which, now that Marsa no longer sat there, he had entirely to himself. After eating his usual copious breakfast, he had imprudently asked the waiter for a Russian paper; and, as he read, and sipped his kummel, which he found a little insipid and almost made him regret the vodka of his native land, his eyes fell upon a letter from Odessa, in which there was a detailed description of the execution of three nihilists, two of them gentlemen. It told how they were dragged, tied to the tails of horses, to the open square, each of them bearing upon his breast a white placard with this inscription, in black letters: "Guilty of high treason." Then the wretched General shivered from head to foot. Every detail of the melodramatic execution seemed burned into his brain as with a red-hot iron. He fancied he could see the procession and the three gibbets, painted black; beside each gibbet was an open ditch and a black coffin covered with a dark gray pall. He saw, in the hollow square formed by a battalion of Cossack infantry, the executioner, Froloff, in his red shirt and his plush trousers tucked into his boots, and, beside him, a pale, black-robed priest.

"Who the devil is such an idiot as to relate such things in the newspapers?" he growled.

And in terror he imagined he could hear the sheriff read the sentence, see the priest present the cross to the condemned men, and Froloff, before putting on the black caps, degrade the gentlemen by breaking their swords over their heads.

Then, half suffocated, Vogotzine flung the paper on the floor; and, with eyes distended with horror, drawing the caraffe of kummel toward him, he half emptied it, drinking glass after glass to recover his self-control. It seemed to him that Froloff was there behind him, and that the branches of the candelabra, stretching over his heated head, were the arms of gibbets ready to seize him. To reassure himself, and be certain that he was miles and miles from Russia, he was obliged to make sure of the presence of the waiters and guests in the gay and gilded restaurant.

"The devil take the newspapers!" he muttered.

"They are cursed stupid! I will never read another! All that stuff is absurd! Absurd! A fine aid to digestion, truly!"

And, paying his bill, he rose to go, passing his hand over his head as if his sword had been broken upon it and left a contusion, and glancing timidly into the mirrors, as if he feared to discover the image of Froloff there.

It was at this moment that he discovered Prince Zilah, and rushed up to him with the joyful cry of a child discovering a protector.

The Prince noticed that poor Vogotzine, who sat heavily down by his side, was not entirely sober. The enormous quantity of kummel he had absorbed, together with the terror produced by the article he had read, had proved too much for the good man: his face was fiery, and he constantly moistened his dry lips.

"I suppose it astonishes you to see me here?" he said, as if he had forgotten all that had taken place. "I-I am astonished to see myself here! But I am so bored down there at Maisons, and I rust, rust, as little-little-ah! Stephanie said to me once at Odessa. So I came to breathe the air of Paris. A miserable idea! Oh, if you knew! When I think that that might happen to me!"

"What?" asked Andras, mechanically.

"What?" gasped the General, staring at him with dilated eyes. "Why, Froloff, of course! Froloff! The sword broken over your head! The gallows! Ach! I am not a nihilist-heaven forbid!-but I have displeased the Czar. And to displease the Czar-Brr! Imagine the open square-Odessa-No, no, don't let us talk of it any more!" glancing suddenly about him, as if he feared the platoon of Cossacks were there, in the restaurant, come to drag him away in the name of the Emperor. "Oh! by the way, Prince," he exclaimed abruptly. "why don't you ever come to Maisons-Lafitte?"

He must, indeed, have been drunk to address such a question to the

Prince.

Zilah looked him full in the face; but Vogotzine's eyes blinked stupidly, and his head fell partially forward on his breast. Satisfied that he was not responsible for what he was saying, Andras rose to leave the restaurant, and the General with difficulty stumbled to his feet, and instinctively grasped Andras's arm, the latter making no resistance, the mention of Maisons-Lafitte interesting him, even from the lips of this intoxicated old idiot.

"Do you know," stuttered Vogotzine, "I, myself, should be glad-very glad-if you would come there. I am bored-bored to death! Closed shutters-not the least noise. The creaking of a door-the slightest bit of light-makes her ill. The days drag-they drag-yes, they do. No one speaks. Most of the time I dine alone. Shall I tell you?-no-yes, I will. Marsa, yes, well! Marsa, she is good, very good-thinks only of the poor-the poor, you know! But whatever Doctor Fargeas may say about it, she is mad! You can't deceive me! She is insane!-still insane!"

"Insane?" said Andras, striving to control his emotion.

The General, who was now staggering violently, clung desperately to the

Prince. They had reached the boulevard, and Andras, hailing a cab, made

Vogotzine get in, and instructed the coachman to drive to the Bois.

"I assure you that she is insane," proceeded the General, throwing his head back on the cushions. "Yes, insane. She does not eat anything; she never rests. Upon my word, I don't know how she lives. Once-her dogs- she took walks. Now, I go with them into the park-good beasts-very gentle. Sometimes, all that she says, is: 'Listen! Isn't that Duna or Bundas barking?' Ah! if I wasn't afraid of Froloffyes, Froloff-how soon I should return to Russia! The life of Paris-the life of Paris wearies me. You see, I come here today, I take up a newspaper, and I see what? Froloff! Besides, the life of Paris-at Maisons-Lafitte-between four walls, it is absurd! Now, acknowledge, old man, isn't it absurd? Do you know what I should like to do? I should like to send a petition to the Czar. What did I do, after all, I should like to know? It wasn't anything so horrible. I stayed, against the Emperor's orders, five days too long at Odessa-that was all-yes, you see, a little French actress who was there, who sang operettas; oh, how she did sing operettas! Offenbach, you know;" and the General tried to hum a bar or two of the 'Dites lui', with ludicrous effect. "Charming! To leave her, ah! I found that very hard. I remained five days: that wasn't much, eh, Zilah? five days? But the devil! There was a Grand Duke-well-humph! younger than I, of course-and-and-the Grand Duke was jealous. Oh! there was at that time a conspiracy at Odessa! I was accused of spending my time at the theatre, instead of watching the conspirators. They even said I was in the conspiracy! Oh, Lord! Odessa! The gallows! Froloff! Well, it was Stephanie Gavaud who was the cause of it. Don't tell that to Marsa! Ah! that little Stephanie! 'J'ai vu le vieux Bacchus sur sa roche fertile!' Tautin-no, Tautin couldn't sing like that little Stephanie! Well," continued Vogotzine, hiccoughing violently, "because all that happened then, I now lead here the life of an oyster! Yes, the life of an oyster, of a turtle, of a clam! alone with a woman sad as Mid-Lent, who doesn't speak, doesn't sing, does nothing but weep, weep, weep! It is crushing! I say just what I think! Crushing, then, whatever my niece may be-cr-r-rushing! And-ah-really, my dear fellow, I should be glad if you would come. Why did you go away? Yes, yes, that is your affair, and I don't ask any questions. Only-only you would do well to come-"

"Why?" interrupted Andras, turning quickly to Vogotzine.

"Ah! why? Because!" said the General, trying to give to his heavy face an expression of shrewd, dignified gravity.

"What has happened?" asked the Prince. "Is she suffering again? Ill?"

"Oh, insane, I tell you! absolutely insane! mad as a March hare!

Two days ago, you see-"

"Well, what? two days ago?"

"Because, two days ago!-"

"Well, what? What is it? Speak, Vogotzine!"

"The despatch," stammered the General.

"What despatch?"

"The des-despatch from Florence."

"She has received a despatch from Florence?"

"A telegram-blue paper-she read it before me; upon my word, I thought it was from you! She said-no; those miserable bits of paper, it is astonishing how they alarm you. There are telegrams which have given me a fit of indigestion, I assure you-and I haven't the heart of a chicken!"

"Go on! Marsa? This despatch? Whom was it from? What did Marsa say?"

"She turned white as a sheet; she began to tremble-an attack of the nerves-and she said: 'Well, in two days I shall know, at last, whether I am to live!' Queer, wasn't it? I don't know what she meant! But it is certain-yes, certain, my dear fellow-that she expects, this evening, some one who is coming-or who is not coming, from Florence-that depends."

"Who is it? Who?" cried Andras. "Michel Menko?"

"I don't know," faltered Vogotzine in alarm, wondering whether it were

Froloff's hand that had seized him by the collar of his coat.

"It is Menko, is it not?" demanded Andras; while the terrified General gasped out something unintelligible, his intoxication increasing every yard the carriage advanced in the Bois.

Andras was almost beside himself with pain and suspense. What did it mean? Who had sent that despatch? Why had it caused Marsa such emotion? "In two days I shall know, at last, whether I am to live!" Who could make her utter such a cry? Who, if not Michel Menko, was so intimately connected with her life as to trouble her so, to drive her insane, as Vogotzine said?

"It is Menko, is it not? it is Menko?" repeated Andras again.

And Vogotzine gasped:

"Perhaps! anything is possible!"

But he stopped suddenly, as if he comprehended, despite his inebriety, that he was in danger of going too far and doing some harm.

"Come, Vogotzine, come, you have told me too much not to tell me all!"

"That is true; yes, I have said too much! Ah! The devil! this is not my affair!-Well, yes, Count Menko is in Florence or near Florence- I don't know where. Marsa told me that-without meaning to. She was excited-very excited-talked to herself. I did not ask her anything- but-she is insane, you see, mad, mad! She first wrote a despatch to Italy-then she tore it up like this, saying: 'No, what is to happen, will happen!' There! I don't know anything but that. I don't know anything!"

"Ah! she is expecting him!" cried Andras. "When?"

"I don't know!"

"You told me it was to be this evening. This evening, is it not?"

The old General felt as ill at ease as if he had been before a military commission or in the hands of Froloff.

"Yes, this evening."

"At Maisons-Lafitte?"

"At Maisons," responded Vogotzine, mechanically. "And all this wearies me-wearies me. Was it for this I decided to come to Paris? A fine idea! At least, there are no Russian days at Maisons!"

Andras made no reply.

He stopped the carriage, got out, and, saluting the General with a brief "Thank you!" walked rapidly away, leaving Vogotzine in blank amazement, murmuring, as he made an effort to sit up straight:

"Well, well, are you going to leave me here, old man? All alone? This isn't right!"

And, like a forsaken child, the old General, with comic twitchings of his eyebrows and nostrils, felt a strong desire to weep.

"Where shall I drive you, Monsieur?" asked the coachman.

"Wherever you like, my friend," responded Vogotzine, modestly, with an appealing look at the man. "You, at least, must not leave me!"