“My friend,” he observed, in English, “do you think you will know me again when you have finished your scrutiny?”
The Countess, face averted, passed behind my chair.
“Wait,” said Buckhurst; and turning directly to me, he added: “You were mistaken for a hussar at La Trappe; you were mistaken here for a hussar as long as the squad holding this house remained in Morsbronn. A few moments ago the provost mistook you for a civilian.” He looked across at the Countess, who already stood with her hand on the door-knob.
“If you disturb me,” he said, “I have only to tell the provost the truth. Members of the Imperial Police caught without proper uniform inside German lines are shot, séance tenante.”
The Countess stood perfectly still a moment, then came straight to me.
“Is that true?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
She still leaned forward, looking down into my face. Then she turned to Buckhurst.
“Do you want money?” she asked.
“I want a chair — and your attention for the present,” he replied, and seated himself.
The printed copy of the rules handed me by the provost marshal lay on the floor. Buckhurst picked up the sheet, glanced at the Prussian eagle, and thoughtfully began rolling the paper into a grotesque shape.
“Sit down, madame,” he said, without raising his eyes from the bit of paper which he had now fashioned into a cocked hat.
After a moment’s silent hesitation the Countess drew a small gilt chair beside my sofa-chair and sat down, and again that brave, unconscious gesture of protection left her steady hand lying lightly on my arm.
Buckhurst noted the gesture. And all at once I divined that whatever plan he had come to execute had been suddenly changed. He looked down at the paper in his hands, gave it a thoughtful twist, and, drawing the ends out, produced a miniature paper boat. 95
“We are all in one like that,” he observed, holding it up without apparent interest. He glanced at the young Countess; her face was expressionless.
“Madame,” said Buckhurst, in his peculiarly soft and persuasive voice, “I am not here to betray this gentleman; I am not here even to justify myself. I came here to make reparation, to ask your forgiveness, madame, for the wrong I have done you, and to deliver myself, if necessary, into the hands of the proper French authorities in expiation of my misguided zeal.”
The Countess was looking at him now; he fumbled with the paper boat, gave it an unconscious twist, and produced a tiny paper box.
“The cause,” he said, gently, “to which I have devoted my life must not suffer through the mistake of a fanatic; for in the cause of universal brotherhood I am, perhaps, a fanatic, and to aid that cause I have gravely compromised myself. I came here to expiate that folly and to throw myself upon your mercy, madame.”
“I do not exactly understand,” said I, “how you can expiate a crime here.”
“I can at least make restitution,” he said, turning the paper box over and over between his flat fingers.
“Have you brought me the diamonds which belong to the state?” I inquired, amused.
“Yes,” he said, and to my astonishment he drew a small leather pouch from his pocket and laid it on my blanket-covered knees. “How many diamonds were there?” he asked.
“One hundred and three,” I replied, incredulously, and opened the leather pouch. Inside was a bag of chamois-skin. This I stretched wide and emptied.
Scores of little balls of tissue-paper rolled out on the blanket over my knees; I opened one; it contained a diamond; I opened another, another, and another; diamonds lay blazing on my blanket, a whole handful, glittering in undimmed splendor.
“Count them,” murmured Buckhurst, fashioning the paper box into a fly-trap with a lid.
With a quick movement I swept them into my hands, then one by one dropped the stones while I counted aloud one hundred and two diamonds. The one hundred and third jewel was, of course, safely in Paris.
When I had a second time finished the enumeration I leaned back in my chair, utterly at a loss to account for this man or for what he had done. As far as I could see there was no logic in it, nothing demonstrated, nothing proven. To me — and I am not either suspicious or obstinate by nature — Buckhurst was still an unrepentant thief and a dangerous one.
I could see in him absolutely nothing of the fanatic, of the generous, feather-headed devotee, nothing of the hasty disciple or the impulsive martyr. In my eyes he continued to be the passionless master-criminal, the cold, slow-eyed source of hidden evil, the designer of an intricate and viewless intrigue against the state.
His head remained bent over the paper toy in his hands. Was his hair gray with age or excesses, or was it only colorless like the rest of his exterior?
“Restitution is not expiation,” he said, sadly, without looking up. “I loved the cause; I love it still; I practised deception, and I am here to ask this gentle lady to forgive me for an unworthy yet unselfish use of her money and her hospitality. If she can pardon me I welcome whatever punishment may be meted out.”
The Countess dropped her elbow on the arm of my chair and rested her face in her hand.
“Swept away by my passion for the cause of universal brotherhood,” said Buckhurst, in his low, caressing voice, “I ventured to spend this generous lady’s money to carry the propaganda into the more violent centres of socialism — into the clubs in Montmartre and Belleville. There I urged non-resistance; I pleaded moderation and patience. What I said helped a little, I think—”
He hesitated, twisting his fly-box into a paper creature with four legs.
“I was eager; people listened. I thought that if I had a little more money I might carry on this work.... I could not come to you, madame—”
“Why not?” said the Countess, looking at him quickly. “I have never refused you money!”
“No,” he said, “you never refused me. But I knew that La Trappe was mortgaged, that even this house in Morsbronn was loaded with debt. I knew, madame, that in all the world you had left but one small roof to cover you — the house in Morbihan, on Point Paradise. I knew that if I asked for money you would sell Paradise,... and I could not ask so much,... I could not bring myself to ask that sacrifice.”
“And so you stole the crucifix of Louis XI.,” I suggested, pleasantly.
He did not look at me, but the Countess did.
“Bon,” I thought, watching Buckhurst’s deft fingers; “he means to be taken back into grace. I wonder exactly why? And ... is it worth this fortune in diamonds to him to be pardoned by a penniless girl whom he and his gang have already stripped?”
“Could you forgive me, madame?” murmured Buckhurst.
“Would you explain that stick of dynamite first?” I interposed.
The Countess turned and looked directly at Buckhurst. He sat with humble head bowed, nimbly constructing a paper bird. 98
“That was not dynamite; it was concentrated phosphorus,” he said, without resentment. “Naturally it burned when you lighted it, but if you had not burned it I could easily have shown Madame la Comtesse what it really was.”
“I also,” said I, “if I had thrown it at your feet, Mr. Buckhurst.”
“Do you not believe me?” he asked, meekly, looking up at the Countess.
“Mr. Buckhurst,” said the young Countess, turning to me, “has aided me for a long time in experiments. We hoped to find some cheap method of restoring nitrogen and phosphorus to the worn-out soil which our poor peasants till. Why should you doubt that he speaks the truth? At least he is guiltless of any connection with the party which advocated violence.”
I looked at Buckhurst. He was engaged in constructing a multi-pointed paper star. What else was he busy with? Perhaps I might learn if I ceased to manifest distrust.
“Does concentrated phosphorus burn like dynamite?” I asked, as if with newly aroused interest.
“Did you not know it?” he said, warily.
But was he
deceived by my manner? Was that the way for me to learn anything?
There was perhaps another way. Clearly this extraordinary man depended upon his persuasive eloquence for his living, for the very shoes on his little, flat feet, as do all such chevaliers of industry. If he would only begin to argue, if I could only induce him to try his eloquence on me, and if I could convince him that I myself was but an ignorant, self-centred, bullet-headed gendarme, doing my duty only because of perspective advancement, ready perhaps to take bribes — perhaps even weakly, covetously, credulous — well, perhaps I might possibly learn why he desired to cling to this poor young lady, whose life had evidently gone dreadfully to smash, to land her among such a coterie of thieves and lunatics.
“Mr. Buckhurst,” I said, pompously, “in bringing these diamonds to me you have certainly done all in your power to repair an injury which concerned all France.
“As I am situated, of course I cannot now ask you to accompany me to Paris, where doubtless the proper authorities would gladly admit extenuating circumstances, and credit you with a sincere repentance. But I put you on your honor to surrender at the first opportunity.”
It was as stupidly trite a speech as I could think of.
Buckhurst glanced up at me. Was he taking my measure anew, judging me from my bray?
“I could easily aid you to leave Morsbronn,” he said, stealthily.
“O-ho,” thought I, “so you’re a German agent, too, as I suspected.” But I said, aloud, simulating astonishment: “Do you mean to say, Mr. Buckhurst, that you would deliberately risk death to aid a police officer to bring you before a military tribunal in Paris?”
“I do not desire to pose as a hero or a martyr,” he said, quietly, “but I regret what I have done, and I will do what an honest man can do to make the fullest reparation — even if it means my death.”
I gazed at him in admiration — real admiration — because the gross bathos he had just uttered betrayed a weakness — vanity. Now I began to understand him; vanity must also lead him to undervalue men. True, with the faintest approach to eloquence he could no doubt hold the “Clubs” of Belleville spellbound; with self-effacing adroitness to cover stealthy persuasion, he had probably found little difficulty in dominating this inexperienced girl, who, touched to the soul with pity for human woe, had flung herself and her fortune to the howling proletariat.
But that he should so serenely undervalue me at my first bray was more than I hoped for. So I brayed again, the good, old, sentimental bray, for which all Gallic lungs are so marvellously fashioned:
“Monsieur, such sentiments honor you. I am only a rough soldier of the Imperial Police, but I am profoundly moved to find among the leaders of the proletariat such delicate and chivalrous emotions—” I hesitated. Was I buttering the sop too thickly?
Buckhurst, eyes bent on the floor, began picking to pieces his paper toy. Presently he looked up, not at me, but at the Countess, who sat with hands clasped earnestly watching him.
“If — if the state pardons me, can ... you?” he murmured.
She looked at him with intense earnestness. I saw he was sailing on the wrong tack.
“I have nothing to pardon,” she said, gravely. “But I must tell you the truth, Mr. Buckhurst, I cannot forget what you have done. It was something — the one thing that I cannot understand — that I can never understand — something so absolutely alien to me that it — somehow — leaves me stunned. Don’t ask me to forget it.... I cannot. I do not mean to be harsh and cruel, or to condemn you. Even if you had taken the jewels from me, and had asked my forgiveness, I would have given it freely. But I could not be as I was, a comrade to you.”
There was a silence. The Countess, looking perfectly miserable, still gazed at Buckhurst. He dropped his gray, symmetrical head, yet I felt that he was listening to every minute sound in the room.
“You must not care what I say,” she said. “I am only an unhappy woman, unused to the liberty I have given myself, not yet habituated to the charity of those blameless hearts which forgive everything! I am a novice, groping my way into a new and vast world, a limitless, generous, forgiving commune, where love alone dominates.... And if I had lived among my brothers long enough to be purged of those traditions which I have drawn from generations, I might now be noble enough and wise enough to say I do forgive and forget that you—”
“That you were once a thief,” I ended, with the genial officiousness of the hopelessly fat-minded.
In the stillness I heard Buckhurst draw in his breath — once. Some day he would try to kill me for that; in the mean time my crass stupidity was no longer a question in his mind. I had hurt the Countess, too, with what she must have believed a fool’s needless brutality. But it had to be so if I played at Jaques Bonhomme.
So I put the finishing whine to it— “Our Lord died between two thieves” — and relapsed into virtuous contemplation of my finger-tips.
“Madame,” said Buckhurst, in a low voice, “your contempt of me is part of my penalty. I must endure it. I shall not complain. But I shall try to live a life that will at least show you my deep sincerity.”
“I do not doubt it,” said the Countess, earnestly. “Don’t think that I mean to turn away from you or to push you away. There is nothing of the Pharisee in me. I would gladly trust you with what I have. I will consult you and advise with you, Mr. Buckhurst—”
“And ... despise me.”
The unhappy Countess looked at me. It goes hard with a woman when her guide and mentor falls.
“If you return to Paradise, in Morbihan,... as we had planned, may I go,” he asked, humbly, “only as an obscure worker in the cause? I beg, madame, that you will not cast me off.”
So he wanted to go to Morbihan — to the village of Paradise? Why?
The Countess said: “I welcome all who care for the cause. You will never hear an unkind word from me if you desire to resume the work in Paradise. Dr. Delmont will be there; Monsieur Tavernier also, I hope; and they are older and wiser than I, and they have reached that lofty serenity which is far above my troubled mind. Ask them what you have asked of me; they are equipped to answer you.”
It was time for another discord from me, so I said: “Madame, you have seen a thousand men lay down their lives for France. Has it not shaken your allegiance to that ghost of patriotism which you call the ‘Internationale’?”
Here was food for thought, or rather fodder for asses — the Police Oracle turned missionary under the nose of the most cunning criminal in France and the vainest. Of course Buckhurst’s contempt for me at once passed all bounds, and, secure in that contempt, he felt it scarcely worth while to use his favorite weapon — persuasion. Still, if the occasion should require it, he was quite ready, I knew, to loose his eloquence on the Countess, and on me too.
The Countess turned her troubled eyes to me.
“What I have seen, what I have thought since yesterday has distressed me dreadfully,” she said. “I have tried to include all the world in a broader pity, a broader, higher, and less selfish love than the jealous, single-minded love for one country—”
“The mother-land,” I said, and Buckhurst looked up, adding, “The world is the true mother-land.”
Whereupon I appeared profoundly impressed at such a novel and epigrammatic view. 103
“There is much to be argued on both sides,” said the young Countess, “but I am utterly unfitted to struggle with this new code of ethics. If it had been different — if I had been born among the poor, in misery! — But you see I come a pilgrim among the proletariat, clothed in conservatism, cloaked with tradition, and if at heart I burn with sorrow for the miserable, and if I gladly give what I have to help, I cannot with a single gesture throw off those inherited garments, though they tortured my body like the garment of Nessus.”
I did not smile or respect her less for the stilted phrases, the pathetic poverty of metaphor. Profoundly troubled, struggling with a reserve the borders of which she strove so bravely to cross, h
er distress touched me the more because I knew it aroused the uneasy contempt of Buckhurst. Yet I could not spare her.
“You saw the cuirassiers die in the street below,” I repeated, with the obstinacy of a limited intellect.
“Yes — and my heart went out to them,” she replied, with an emphasis that pleased me and startled Buckhurst.
Buckhurst began to speak, but I cut him short.
“Then, madame, if your heart went out to the soldiers of France, it went out to France, too!”
“Yes — to France,” she repeated, and I saw her lip begin to quiver.
“Wherein does love for France conflict with our creed, madame?” asked Buckhurst, gently. “It is only hate that we abjure.”
She turned her gray eyes on him. “I will tell you: in that dreadful moment when the cavalry of France cheered Death in his own awful presence, I loved them and their country — my country! — as I had never loved in all my life.... And I hated, too! I hated the men who butchered them — more! — I hated the country where the men came from; I hated race and country and the blows they dealt, and the evil they wrought on France — my France! That is the truth; and I realize it!”
There was a silence; Buckhurst slowly unrolled the wrinkled paper he had been fingering.
“And now?” he asked, simply.
“Now?” she repeated. “I don’t know — truly, I do not know.” She turned to me sorrowfully. “I had long since thought that my heart was clean of hate, and now I don’t know.” And, to Buckhurst, again: “Our creed teaches us that war is vile — a savage betrayal of humanity by a few dominant minds; a dishonorable ingratitude to God and country. But from that window I saw men die for honor of France with God’s name on their lips. I saw one superb cuirassier, trapped down there in the street, sit still on his horse, while they shot at him from every window, and I heard him call up to a Prussian officer who had just fired at him: ‘My friend, you waste powder; the heart of France is cuirassed by a million more like me!’” A rich flush touched her face; her gray eyes grew brighter.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 175
