Francezka Part 42

Gaston, ever quick of wit, relieved Count Saxe of his awkward predicament. He wrote, saying that Marshal Maillebois had made him an admirable offer, and while he recognized Count Saxe's right to his services, he scarcely thought anything so promising could be given him in the army of Marshal Belle-Isle. My master jumped at this easy way out of his difficulty and wrote, desiring Gaston Cheverny to suit himself. At the same time he inclosed a letter highly recommending Gaston to Marshal Maillebois. Every word in that letter, which I wrote myself, was true, because it referred to the Gaston Cheverny we had known before 1740.

Gaston replied most handsomely, and so the matter was settled to everybody's satisfaction. But it gave me a feeling of stupefaction that the person we were trying to part from decently, and to avoid with the greatest seeming tenderness, was the Gaston Cheverny whom I had loved the instant my eyes had rested on him, whom my master had bade me capture for Courland, who had served us as loyally as man could serve in all those adventurous days, who had been Count Saxe's right-hand man, and whose readiness and devotion to Count Saxe had cost such a price as Gaston had paid. It was staggering.

On that rosy August dawn Count Saxe, with a small escort, started for the Rhine by way of Chalons. This did not take us near Brabant, and there seemed no chance of my seeing Francezka. This gave me great uneasiness of mind. I was haunted by a whole troop of malignant fears, of dreadful apprehensions about that being, so ineffably dear to me.

And these hideous shapes marched with me, and kept watch over me, and visited me nightly in my dreams. And to no one, not even to Count Saxe, could I speak of them! I could only go on steadfastly doing my duty.

We reached Fort Louis, and Count Saxe being put in command of the vanguard, consisting of about fifteen thousand men, of Marshal Belle-Isle's army, we began the crossing of the river. We knew we were playing a game of war with loaded dice, but soldiers must not inquire too curiously into their orders. Marshal Belle-Isle had gone to Germany the year before with a basket of eggs, which he reckoned as full-grown chickens, but the eggs mostly addled and would not hatch, so the game with the loaded dice was subst.i.tuted.

We were on the march early in September, through the blue Bavarian mountains, where the air, though sharp, was like good wine, and then into the wild Bohemian country, full of rocks and bogs and black chasms, and s.h.a.ggy mountains, ever colder and bleaker, ever farther and farther away from our base. Marshal Saxe was troubled with the company of the King of Saxony, whom Marshal Belle-Isle made King of Moravia; as Count Saxe said: "He is King of Moravia very much as I am Duke of Courland."

At last, in the midst of the storms, the snows, the fierce winds of November in that wild Bohemian country, we found ourselves set down before Prague. And Prague we must take or starve--starve all of us--men and horses together.

There was a mult.i.tude of counselors, each counseling some different form of folly, and only my master, with one or two to support him steadfastly proclaiming that we must take Prague or be lost. There were innumerable objections made; it was a stupendous undertaking, for we had nothing fit for besieging, only our good swords and Maurice of Saxe to lead us. But at last, seeing ruin advancing upon us in the shape of an Austrian army, while starvation stood sentry over us, the King of Saxony and the rest of them were visited with a great light and concluded to let my master have his way; and the night of the twenty-seventh of November, 1741, was fixed upon to a.s.sault the town.

It was a cold, clear night, with a moon that made all things white and light.

At midnight, when the town was sleeping, and only the sentries waked and walked, a tremendous cannonade broke out all around the walls, heaviest toward the south. This was but a sham attack, but the best part of the garrison hastened there to repel it. And then Count Saxe, advancing from the gardens and cottages on the Wischerad side, came to the walls. The men rushed forward with the scaling ladders, but they were full ten feet too short. Despair and blankness fell upon us, until Count Saxe, seeing a great, weird Thing standing gaunt and black in the white moonlight--this Thing, the gallows tree--cried out cheerfully:

"See, my lads, yonder are likely to be some short ladders; these we will splice with rope, and so make the scalade!"

And it was done, Count Saxe himself being the first man on the rampart. He had for his body-guard, my Uhlans--men fit to be the body-guard of Mars himself. But the G.o.ds of war are invisibly protected. All the books upon war say that generals should take care of their skins. I have often noticed, however, that generals who try to take care of their skins usually get shot every time they go within the enemy's range.

Count Saxe, however, without getting a single scratch, found himself at the head of his men in the great open market-place, where the French made their rendezvous, and there we soon found ten thousand of our fifteen thousand brave fellows. Prague was ours, and almost without the loss of a man, so masterly had been Count Saxe's dispositions.

There is something appalling in the sight of a town taken in the night. Although Prague was supposed to be taken by a.s.sault, it was really carried by strategy, and there were none of the horrors of a capture by storming. But the horrible fears of the inhabitants, the terrors of the women and children, the dreadful midnight awakening--all, all, have in them something calculated to affright the soul.

These things pa.s.sed through my mind, when, with my men posted according to Count Saxe's orders, I listened to the cries, the screams of frightened creatures, and imagined the shuddering terrors behind the walls of those tall old houses, their peaks s.h.i.+ning in the white moonlight. And then, by an accident in handling a torch, one of those tall old houses by the market-place caught fire. Instantly, it was like Bedlam; at every one of the many windows appeared people shrieking, praying, crying. And glancing into one of those windows, where an old woman was screaming frantically, I saw a strange, a mysterious sight: upon a wretched bed lay a sick man--lay Gaston Cheverny!

I had not been brought up in the streets of Paris and forced to soldier it since my fourteenth year without becoming tolerably free from superst.i.tion. This sudden glimpse of Gaston Cheverny lying ill in a miserable garret in Prague, when I supposed him on the personal staff of Marshal Maillebois, did not prevent me from taking all possible measures to save that quarter of the town from burning, and striving to allay the panic. Both I found almost impossible. The old house blazed like tinder, the flames reddening the moonlit sky. I gave orders to blow up the houses on each side, in order to save the town.

The horrible explosions, the smoke and smell of powder, the shrieking, terrified people, the soldiers battling with mob and fire--the mob believing the soldiers to have started the fire--were hideous. I have been in many a worse place than the market-place of Prague on that bleak November night, but never one which had a greater outward aspect of horror.

Toward daylight, ashes and ruins replaced the fire, trembling terror and pale exhaustion, the frantic alarm of the people, and the quarter was saved. Through it all, I had Gaston Cheverny in my mind. I could not understand how he, an officer in Marshal Maillebois's army, could be in Prague at all, but I had seen him in the glare of the blazing building as plainly as if the sun had been at the noon mark.

In the gray of the dawn, I began to investigate concerning Gaston, but he could not be found. I thought it not strange that in so much danger, terror and confusion he had disappeared for a time, but I confidently reckoned on his being found within a few days. Next day, I put the official inquiry on foot, but there was no record of any such person having been in Prague. It was difficult to account, under any circ.u.mstances, for Gaston's being there. Yet, had not these eyes seen him? It was one more mystery and misery about this man, once the frankest, freest, most open-hearted of men. It did not lessen those vague and terrible fears which had haunted me about Francezka.

The next few days were busy enough, and I scarce rested by night or day. A week pa.s.sed, and, hearing nothing of Gaston Cheverny, I tried to persuade myself that my eyes had been deceived. Truly, although I have been a thousand times in places of much greater danger, I do not think I have ever known greater excitement, or conditions when a man could be more readily deceived than that midnight in the market-place of Prague. I said this to myself many times. It is strange how a man will argue with himself to believe a thing which he can not believe, and will silence, without convincing, himself.

I was revolving these things in my mind one night, about a week afterward, on my way alone through the narrow, dark unlighted streets, lying black in the shadows of the overhanging houses. And then there pa.s.sed across my path, a figure in a ragged black cloak--a figure with the face of Gaston Cheverny. I followed him, but I seemed to be following a ghost; for in the tangle of streets and lanes, he was lost to me. I spent two full hours hunting this shade; but had it been actually a ghost it could not have disappeared more completely.

I went to Count Saxe's quarters. It was then near midnight, and Count Saxe had gone to bed; but on the table, wide open, with some other letters for me to read, was a letter from Gaston Cheverny to Count Saxe, dated the very day before the capture of Prague.

So I was deceived. He was not and never had been in Prague. I had been deceived by some chance resemblance. It was upon events like these that Madame Riano based her absurd belief in second sight.

But let it not appear that I am a man easily deluded when I declare that from the hour I saw the man I took for Gaston Cheverny in the burning house at Prague, I knew that Francezka was in sore distress, and even in need of her poor Babache. Something within me was ever calling--calling, in Francezka's name--"Come to me!"

There are degrees in these superst.i.tions of the heart. Sometimes they usurp the scepter of the brain. Then, indeed, are they dangerous and foolish. Again, it is known to be only the cry of the heart; and the poor, tormented heart waits patiently upon its master, the brain. So it was with me. Deep as was my yearning to see Francezka, I said no word of it to the most indulgent of masters, until the time was ripe that I might go. Francezka herself was governed by the law of common sense; she would not wish me to come to her when it was against my duty. So I fulfilled all my duty, in spite of the burden of the spirit--the strange, almost irresistible call for me to leave all and go straight to Francezka, until I could, in honor, ask for leave.

We were settled then in winter quarters. We had heard twice in this time from Gaston Cheverny. Being near home, in the borders of Hanover, for the winter, he had got leave--so he wrote--and would spend six weeks at the chateau of Capello, with Francezka. He wished that Count Saxe and I might take advantage of the lull in hostilities and come to Capello.

It was when I was in the act of reading this letter that my reserve broke down, and I told Count Saxe all--all--and that I desired to go to Francezka. And then, for the first time since I was a little, smooth-cheeked boy, playing in the weedy gardens of the Marais with Adrienne Lecouvreur, I wept like a woman. Count Saxe sat and looked at me with more than a brother's tenderness. He knew I was not a coward, for I had led his Uhlans, and what he said to me was this:

"Lose not a moment in going, Babache. It is because you love her so much that you know she is in distress. I think you would know as much, if it were I instead of Francezka."

Which was true. I can not believe that Count Saxe should need me, and I not know it, were I at the other end of the world.

And Count Saxe helping and hastening me in every way, as became such a soul as his, I set forth at once on my journey. It was the latter part of December when I left Prague behind me.

The journey was a terrible one; the season harsh beyond comparison.

The ground was deeply covered with snow, which the wild winds piled in great drifts, in which both men and beasts were sometimes lost. Rain and sleet alternated with snow. The sun scarcely shone at all. The sufferings of dumb creatures were dreadful; horses plunged amid the snow, and died in it; the gaunt cattle froze in the fields; even the birds dropped dead from the icy roofs and trees. I think I never saw so much misery in any journey I ever made, as in that journey to Capello. Even when I reached the flat country of the lower Rhine, there was but little amelioration. I traveled as rapidly as I could, both night and day, but my progress was slow. My eager heart outstripped my laggard body, and it seemed to me that every hour the urgency of Francezka's call for me grew greater. I could actually hear that sweet, penetrating voice, now full of agony, crying to me, "Babache! Babache! Come quickly--quickly, or you will be too late!"

CHAPTER x.x.xV

WOULD YOU LEAVE ME NOW

I fought my way to Brussels against the elements, and reached there at sunset of the last day of the year. I had not slept for thirty-six hours, and then it was in the rude cart of a peasant, jolting over the rough highroad. But sleep had departed from me. Up to that time I had managed to get a few hours of rest out of every twenty-four, for I was a soldier and knew how to take hard travel. But if I had been offered the great down bed of Louis le Grand, I could not have slept on that December night, thank G.o.d! Had I remained the night in Brussels--had I preferred soft slumber to the dumb cry of Francezka's soul to mine--what grief! What remorse! Therefore, I took horse again at sun-setting, and did not draw rein until I reached Capello, at nine of the clock.

It was the first time I had seen the place in the icy clutch of winter. I had ever thought it the cheerfullest spot on earth. Nature was all gaiety at Capello. Now she was in a tragic mood, but not the less beautiful. The sky was of a deep, dark blue, jeweled with stars in every part. A radiant, majestic moon rode high, flooding the snowy earth with a pale, unearthly splendor. The chateau, white and stately, shone dazzling in this moonlit glow. The bare branches of the forest covered with frost, were like silver lace. All was cold, still, lonely and sad.

I noticed as I approached the chateau through the great bare avenue of frosted lindens, that the windows were not, as usual, lighted up. Two only were illuminated--the windows of the little yellow saloon, where Francezka spent her evenings when without company.

As ever I drew nearer to Francezka, that need for haste seemed to be more urgent. I dismounted in the courtyard, and ran, rather than walked up the terrace. Through the window, with its undrawn curtains, I saw Francezka and Gaston seated together in the yellow saloon.

I had not meant to watch them. I meant to stop and recover myself a little before presenting myself before them, but I could not keep my eyes away from the scene in the yellow saloon. I believe most persons have felt the fascination of looking at an interior illuminated with fire and candle, as one stands without, and so, unconsciously, I stood and watched Francezka and Gaston Cheverny.

The room presented that charming, luxurious and comfortable air which always distinguished it. A fire was burning on the hearth, and a table with candles and books on it, was drawn up. Gaston sat on one side of it, and Francezka on the other. She wore a robe of some white s.h.i.+mmering stuff, and her rich dark hair was unpowdered. I noticed the little tendrils of hair upon her milk-white neck. In her lap lay an open book, which she was not reading. She was pallid, and had no more that joyous loveliness of flesh and blood which had once been hers; but never saw I more plainly her mysterious and poetic beauty, which shone forth star-like. And one thing else I saw, and would have seen had it been my first view of her--she had a canker at her heart.

Gaston sat on the other side of the table, looking as usual, handsome and content. He, too, had a book in his hand, which he was not reading. He was furtively watching Francezka. Francezka watched the fire.

After a time--I know not how long--Francezka laid her book down softly, went to her open harpsichord, and sitting before it, played with her usual skill. I recognized the air; it was that old, old one of Blondel's, _O Richard, O mon roi!_

Gaston s.h.i.+fted a little in his chair. He had ever showed an indifference to the song, which once had been so dear to them, and had been so full of meaning for them. There was a look of uneasiness in his face, and he began for the first time to read attentively, his brows drawn together, while Francezka's fingers delicately played this quaint air.

Francezka played some other airs, lightly, gracefully, softly, pausing between them, meditating, with one hand on the keys of the harpsichord, and the other hanging down. The hand that hung down moved a little, as if in the act of patting a dog's head. I was reminded of poor Bold--it was as if Francezka were thinking of this lost friend.

She gave me the impression of a person who feels herself alone and debates with herself.

When she ceased to play this fitful soft music, she rose and went to the window which looked toward the lake. She shaded her face with her hands, so she could see the still, pale glory of the night, and the lake, lying in melancholy beauty under the soft s.h.i.+ning stars. There was a deep and perfect silence within and without, and it seemed to cast a spell upon Francezka and upon me, so near together, and she all unknowing.

And then, feeling rather than seeing some one near me, I turned and saw a figure in a black cloak pa.s.s me; the same figure that had pa.s.sed before me in the shadowy streets of Prague--the man I thought to be Gaston Cheverny. He walked straight to the great door of the chateau, and without knocking, opened it as if he were the master of all there. And then, as I stood unable to move, with all my faculties concentrated in my eyes, I saw the door of the yellow saloon open. I saw the real Gaston Cheverny enter. I saw Francezka turn toward the opening door. I saw the man I had supposed for nearly two years to be Gaston Cheverny rise from his chair--and he was, in truth, Regnard Cheverny. It was impossible to mistake one for the other, standing together, face to face. It became a miracle how Regnard had ever managed to deceive his whole world into thinking him Gaston Cheverny. All the differences between them came out and seemed to clamor for recognition. The expression of the eye was different; the whole of the actual man in each was dissimilar; and how this could have been covered up by the mere likeness in shape, in voice, in feature--no one could tell.

Gaston was Gaston. He was pale and thin, and looked ten years older than he should, but there was no mistaking him. I know not how I found myself standing on the threshold of the room. Gaston had advanced to the middle, and held out his arms to Francezka.

"I know all," he cried, "poor, faithful soul! For you there is an unchanging love. There is nothing to forgive--nothing--nothing!"

Francezka stood as if turned to stone for a moment--one of those moments in which Time seems no more. Then she moved a little back, averting her face from Gaston, with a look, never to be forgotten--love, shame, despair--crying aloud from her eyes. But as Gaston spoke, she turned again, full toward him, and raised both of her white arms.