Cosmopolis -- Volume 3

A quarrel, together with assault, or an attempt at assault, would not be easily set right. It required a diplomatic miracle. The slightest lack of self-possession on the part of the seconds i

result from a collision of such a madman with a personage so difficult as the most authorized of Florent's proxies had shown himself to be. They then asked Gorka to relieve them from their duty. They had too plausible an excuse in Fanny's betrothal for Boleslas to refuse to release them. That retirement was a second catastrophe

asses the morning in practising the sports in fashion, the afternoons in racing, in frequenting fencing- schools, the evening at the theatre and the night at the gaming-table! That Paris which emigrates by turns, according to the season, to Monte Carlo for the 'Tir aux Pigeons', to Deauville for the race week, to Aix-

d as those of General Garnier, if little Lautrec would adhere or would not adhere to the game he was playing. Imprisoned in Rome by the scantiness of their means, and also by the wishes, the one of his uncle, the other of his grandfather, whose heirs they were, their entire year was summed up in the months which they spent at Nice in the winter, and in the trip they took to Paris at the time of the Grand Prix for six weeks. Jealous one of the other, with the most comical rivalry,

energy employed by Montfanon had only ended in somewhat tempering the conditions-four balls to be exchanged at twenty-five paces at the word of command. The duel was fixed for the following morning, in the inclosure which Cibo owned, with an inn adjoining, not very far distant from the classical tomb of Cecilia Metella. To obtain that di

be assisting at a duel, at my age!.... Did you see how those young snobs lowered their voices when I mentioned my encounter with poor Caderousse?.... Fifty-two years and a month, and not to know yet how to conduct one's self! Let us go to the Rue Leopardi. I wish to ask pardon of our client, and to give him some advice. W

f his negotiations. "I like that better. Monsieur Gorka needs correction. I have only one regret, that of not having

er used a pistol?

a great deal and I b

self in readiness. At three o'clock come for me and I will give y

ch his reply was proof, the first moments which he spent alo

oments was simply very natural anxiety, the enerv

ejoin his friends, he resolved to write his last wishes. For years his intention had been to leave his entire fortune to his brother-in-law. He, therefore, made a rough draft of his will in that sense, with a pen at first rather unstead

said he, "but I think I have conquered my

rawer of his desk. He saw, on passing, that Lincoln was not in his studio. He asked the footman if Madame Maitland

f them will have the slight

to read there the imprint left upon them. He would have seen finally the woman draw from her pocket a bunch of keys. She inserted one of them in the lock of the drawer which Florent had so carefully turned, and took from that drawer the three unsealed envelopes he had placed within it. And the woman who thus read, with a face contracted by anguish, the papers discovered in such a manner, thanks to a ruse the abominable indelicacy of which gave proof of shameful habits of espionage, was his

pre'? Was it not she who had hastened the return of the jealous man with the certain hope of drawing thus a tragical vengeance upon the hated heads of her husband and the Venetian? That vengeance, indeed, had broken. But upon whom? Upon the only person Lydia loved in the world, upon the bro

hich the heredity of an oppressed race manifested itself, as has been already remarked, by the two most detestable characteristics- hypocrisy and perfidy? Who, moreover, observes in children the truth, as much neglected in practise as it is common in theory, that the defects of the tenth year become vices in the thirtieth? When quite a child Lydia invented falsehoods as naturally as her brother spoke the truth.... Whosoever observed

rtain for their children, which is one of the most dangerous forms of paternal tenderness; Lydia's incipient vices were to the planter delightful fancies! Did she lie? The excellent man exclaimed: What an imagination she has! Was she jealous? He would sigh, pressing to his broad breast the tiny form: How sensitive she is!.... The result of that selfish blindness-for to love children thus is to love them for one's self and not for them-was that the girl, at the time of her entrance at Roehampton, was spoiled in the essential traits of her character. But

peedily converted into a certainty and that certainty into an aversion, which they could not conceal. They would not have been children had they not been unfeeling. They, therefore, began to offer poor Lydia petty affronts. Convents and colleges resemble other society. There, too, unjust contempt is like that "ferret of the woods," which runs from hand to hand and which always returns to its point of setting out. All the scornful are themselves scorned by some one-a me

zation which it brings with it in their positions, and what social hatreds date from the moment when the boy of twelve blushes in secret at the condition of his relatives! With Lydia, so instinctively jealous and untruthful, those first wounds induced falsehood and jealousy. The slightest superiority even, noticed in one of her companions, became to her a cause for suffering, and she undertook to compensate by personal triumphs the difference of blood, which, once discovered, wounds a vain nature. In order to assure herself those triumphs she tried to win all the persons who approached her, mistresses and comrades, and she began t

in the face of success, which is transported with a sensual joy in the face of disaster. It is a great mistake to limit the ravages of that guilty passion to the domain of professional emulation. When it is deep, it does not alone attack the qualities of the person, but the person himself, and it was thus that Lydia envied Lincoln. Perhaps the analysis of this sentiment, very subtle in its ugliness, will explain to some a few of the antipathies against which they have struck in their

emarks made in New York upon that marriage without a pang. He disliked Lydia for the humiliation, and she felt it. The birth of a child would no doubt have modified that feeling, and, if it would not have removed it, would at least have softened the embittered heart of the young wife. But no child was bo

rs, that wound was increased by the sole fact that the puissant individuality of the painter speedily relegated to the shade the individuality of his wife, simply, almost mechanically, like a large tree which pushes a smaller one into the background. The composite society of artists, amateurs, and writers who visited Lincoln came there only for him. The house they had rented was rented only for him. The journeys they made were for him. In short, Lydia was born

understood how to adorn the places in which he lived, while she maintained within her a barbarous lack of taste for the least arrangement of materials and of colors. When she was forced to acknowledge progress in the painter, bitter hatred entered her heart. When he lamented over his work, and when she saw him a prey to the dolorous anxiety of an artist who doubt

ith which a huntsman or a master gratifies a faithful dog! As for enlightening Florent with regard to Lincoln's character, she had vainly tried to do so by those fine and perfidious insinuations in which women excel. She only recognized her impotence, and myriads of hateful impressions were thus accumulated in her heart, to be summed up in one of those frenzies of taciturn rancor which bursts

th an air of embarrassment the slightest criticisms pronounced on one of his exhibits-all the unpleasantnesses which had the result of irritating Florent, above all, for Maitland was one of those artists too well satisfied with the results of his own work for the opinion of others to annoy him very much. On the other hand, before the passion for the dogaresse had possessed him, he had never loved. Many painters are thus, satisfying with magnificent models an impetuosity of

e women out of ten! And how many men are women, too, on this point, as said the fabulist. At school Lydia was one of those who ascended to the dormitory, or who reentered the study to rummage in the cupboards and open trunks of her companions. When mature, never had a sealed letter passed through her hands without her having ingeniously managed to read through the envelope, or at least to guess from the postmark, the seal, the handwriting of the address, who was the author of it. The instinct of curiosity was so strong that she could not refrain, at a teleg

r not only did she acquire the evidence of a happiness shared by them which humiliated in her the woman barren in all senses of the word, a stranger to voluptuousness as well as to maternity, but she gathered from it numerous proofs that the Countess cherished, with regard to her, a scorn of race as absolute as

end over the sister, and on what an occasion! The most secret wounds in her inmost being bled as she read. The success of Alba's portrait, which promised to be a masterpiece, ended by precipitating her into a fierce and abominable action. She resolved to denounce Madame Steno's new love to the betrayed lover, and she wrote the twelve letters, wisely calculated and graduated, which had indeed determined Gorka's return. His return had even been delayed too long to suit the relative of Iago, who had decided to aim at Madame Steno through Alba by a st

d with the natural energy of her hatreds a considerable amount of superstition. A fortune-teller had once foretold, from the lines in her palm, that she would cause the violent death of some person. "It will be he

l encounter the only being whom she loved.... The disappointment of the heart in which palpitated the wild energies of a bestial atavism was so sudden, so acute, so

ause!".... Then, returning the letters and the will

t, if I have to cast myself between th

h Madame Steno compared in one of her letters to the paws of a monkey, the fingers were so supple and so long-and she uttered this despairing cry: "But how?".... which so many criminals

ust, and of our

uments to

ed. The remembrance of the soothsayer's prediction suddenly occurred to Lydia. She uttered another cry, rubbing her hands like a somnambulist. She saw her brother's blood flowing.... No, the duel should not take place! But how t

uld come; another need pressed sorely -to prevent the meeting of the following day, to save her brother. To whom should she turn, however? To Dorsenne? To Montfanon? To Baron Hafner? To Peppino Ardea? She thought by turns of the four personages whose almost simultaneous visits had caused her to believe that they were the seconds of the two champions. She rejected them, one after the other, comprehending that none of them possessed enough authority to arrange the affair. Her thoughts finally reverted to Florent's adversary, to

s, be they those of justice or of honor, in a state of incomprehension worse than ignorance. A duel, for example, appears to them like an arbitrary drama, which the wish of one of those concerned can change at his fancy. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would think like Lydia Maitland of hastening to the adversary of the man they love, to demand, to beg for his life. Let us add, however, that the majority would not carry out that thought. They would confine themselves to sewing in the vest of their beloved some blessed medal, in recommending him to the Providence, which, for them, is still the

, while at the same moment a voice interrupted him with a gay laugh. It was Countess Maud Gorka,

" And, perceiving that the young woman, whose hand she had taken, was trembling: "What ails you? I should think you were ill! You do not feel well? My God, what

r eyes as if on the point of swooning. "See, I am better

; and, as they handed her the bottle of salts, she made Madame Maitland i

this state. It is very venturesome! Rue Leop

nd stout as Lydia was slender, she would rather have borne her to her bed in her vigorous arms than to have abandoned her in the troubled state in which she had surprised her. Not less practical and, as her compatriots say, as matter-of-fact as she was charitable, she began to question her friend on the symptoms which had preceded that attack, when with ast

aying: "But you know nothing! You suspect nothing! It is that which maddens me, when I see you tranquil, calm, happy, as if the minutes were not valuable, every one, to-da

er husband's infidelities, and that she tolerated them by one of those heroic sacrifices which maternity justifies. How many women have immolated thus their wifely pride to maintain the domestic relation which the father shall at least not desert officially! All Rome was mistaken, and Lydia Maitland was to have an unexpected proof. Not a suspicion that suc

n exercised care. She might have seen the freedom of Madame Steno without being disillusioned. She had only a likin

im. However, the novelist was not altogether right. Boleslas's infidelity was of too long standing for the woman passionately, religiously loyal, who was his wife, not to have suffered by it. But there was an abyss between such sufferings and the intuition of a deter

band?" she said. "I d

oing to fight a duel, and to-morrow morning.... Do not tremble, in your turn," she continued, twining

t. "Boleslas fights to-morrow with your brother? No, i

"I read Florent's will. I read the letter which he pre

ate in which you see m

n here scarcely any of the time for two days. What is there between them? What have they said to one another? One does not risk one's life for nothin

ds more savage scorn than if she had publicly spit in Caterina Steno's face. But th

stand you still less

rs in that carriage, and who had inspired her with such pity fifteen minutes before, now rendered her fearful. She seemed to be seated by the side of another person. In the creature whose thin nostrils were dilated with passion, whose mouth was distorted with bitterness, whose eyes sparkled with anger, she no longer recognized li

on two certain results. In undeceiving Madame Gorka she made a mortal enemy for Madame Steno, and, on the other hand, never would the woman so deeply in love with her husband allow him to fight for a former mistress. So, when the

plain to me what

her; "I will answer you. I ha

the cause of the duel betwee

of it," rep

that woma

me St

aud. "Catherine Steno is t

ad with jealousy, to provoke Lincoln, and because he met my brother, who prevented him from entering.... They quarrelled, I know

e Steno has been my husband's mistress? It is not t

have him.... But you shall believe me. I desire that we both hate that woman, that we both be avenged upon her, as we both do not wish the duel to take place-the duel of which, I repeat, she is the cause, the sole cause.... You do not believe me? Do you know what caused y

Madame Gorka, recoiling wit

ly to return and to look in the place where Gorka keeps his letters. You will certainly find those I wrote, and others, I assu

dignation upon her lovely, loyal face, "n

nos, and she touched two small panels, which disclosed, on opening, a secret drawer, in which were a package of letters, which she seized. Maud Gorka watched her with the same terrified horror with which she would have seen some one killed and robbed. That honorable soul revolted at the scene in which her mer

handed one of those papers to Maud, who had not the courage to avert her eyes. What she saw written upon that sheet drew from her a cry of anguish. She had, however, only read ten lines, which proved how much mistaken psychological Dorsenne was in thinking that Maitland was ignorant of the former relations between his mistress and Gorka. Countess Steno's grandeur, that which made a courageous woman almost a heroine in her passio

ire it, I will even break with Maud, notwithstanding the reason you know of and which will render it difficult for me. But how can you be jealous yet?.... Is not my frankness with regard to that liaison the surest guarant

ront to avenge? And we will avenge it.... Do you understand that you can not allow your husband to fight a duel with my brother? You owe that to me who have given you this weapon b

e," she added, looking at Lydia with wild eyes, while a shudder of repulsion shook her entire frame.... "Do not speak to me.... I have as much hor

hat disgrace!" without Lydia having addressed her, so greatly had surprise at the unexpected result of all her attempts paralyzed her. But the formidable creature lost no time in regret

he letter in the drawer, which she closed again, and half an hour later she summoned a commissionaire, to whom she intrusted a letter, with the order to deliver it immediately, and that letter was addressed to the inspector

how to prevent them from fighting, even if I do not succeed with Florent.... As for him?".... and she looked at a portrait of Maitland upon the desk at which she had just been writing. "Were

is some one whom she will not pardon, and that is.... Madame Steno." And, in spite