The Wandering Jew Part 246

Djalma's brow had darkened, as he listened. Having kept inviolable the secret of the various incidents of his pa.s.sion for Mdlle. de Cardoville, he could not but see in these words a quite involuntary allusion to the delays and refusals of Adrienne. And yet Djalma suffered a moment in his pride, at the thought of considerations and duties, that a woman holds dearer than her love. But this bitter and painful thought was soon effaced from the oriental's mind, thanks to the beneficent influence of the remembrance of Adrienne. His brow again cleared, and he answered the half-caste, who was watching him attentively with a sidelong glance: "You are deluded by grief. If you have no other reason to doubt her you love, than these refusals and vague suspicions, be satisfied! You are perhaps loved better than you can imagine."

"Alas! would it were so, my lord!" replied the half-caste, dejectedly, as if he had been deeply touched by the words of Djalma. "Yet I say to myself: There is for this woman something stronger than her love--delicacy, dignity, honor, what you will--but she does not love me enough to sacrifice for me this something!"

"Friend, you are deceived," answered Djalma, mildly, though the words affected him with a painful impression. "The greater the love of a woman, the more it should be chaste and n.o.ble. It is love itself that awakens this delicacy and these scruples. He rules, instead of being ruled."

"That is true," replied the half-caste, with bitter irony, "Love so rules me, that this woman bids me love in her own fas.h.i.+on, and I have only to submit."

Pausing suddenly, Faringhea hid his face in his hands, and heaved a deep drawn sigh. His features expressed a mixture of hate, rage, and despair, at once so terrible and so painful, that Djalma, more and more affected, exclaimed, as he seized the other's hand: "Calm this fury, and listen to the voice of friends.h.i.+p! It will disperse this evil influence. Speak to me!"

"No, no! it is too dreadful!"

"Speak, I bid thee."

"No! leave the wretch to his despair!"

"Do you think me capable of that?" said Djalma, with a mixture of mildness and dignity, which seemed to make an impression on the half caste.

"Alas!" replied he, hesitating; "do you wish to hear more, my lord?"

"I wish to hear all."

"Well, then! I have not told you all--for, at the moment of making this confession, shame and the fear of ridicule kept me back. You asked me what reason I had to believe myself betrayed. I spoke to you of vague suspicions, refusals, coldness. That is not all--this evening--"

"Go on!"

"This evening--she made an appointment--with a man that she prefers to me."

"Who told you so?"

"A stranger who pitied my blindness."

"And suppose the man deceived you--or deceives himself?"

"He has offered me proofs of what he advances."

"What proofs?"

"He will enable me this evening to witness the interview. 'It may be,'

said he, 'that this appointment may have no guilt in it, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary. Judge for yourself, have courage, and your cruel indecision will be at an end.'"

"And what did you answer?"

"Nothing, my lord. My head wandered as it does now and I came to you for advice."

Then, making a gesture of despair, he proceeded with a savage laugh: "Advice? It is from the blade of my kand-jiar that I should ask counsel!

It would answer: 'Blood! blood!'"

Faringhea grasped convulsively the long dagger attached to his girdle.

There is a sort of contagion in certain forms of pa.s.sion. At sight of Faringhea's countenance, agitated by jealous fury, Djalma shuddered--for he remembered the fit of insane rage, with which he had been possessed, when the Princess de Saint-Dizier had defied Adrienne to contradict her, as to the discovery of Agricola Baudoin in her bed-chamber. But then, rea.s.sured by the lady's proud and n.o.ble bearing, Djalma had soon learned to despise the horrible calumny, which Adrienne had not even thought worthy of an answer. Still, two or three times, as the lightning will flash suddenly across the clearest sky, the remembrance of that shameful accusation had crossed the prince's mind, like a streak of fire, but had almost instantly vanished, in the serenity and happiness of his ineffable confidence in Adrienne's heart. These memories, however, whilst they saddened the mind of Djalma, only made him more compa.s.sionate with regard to Faringhea, than he might have been without this strange coincidence between the position of the half-caste and his own. Knowing, by his own experience, to what madness a blind fury may be carried, and wis.h.i.+ng to tame the half-caste by affectionate kindness, Djalma said to him in a grave and mild tone: "I offered you my friends.h.i.+p. I will now act towards you a friend."

But Faringhea, seemingly a prey to a dull and mute frenzy, stood with fixed and haggard eyes, as though he did not hear Djalma.

The latter laid his hand on his shoulder, and resumed: "Faringhea, listen to me!"

"My lord," said the half-caste, starting abruptly, as from a dream, "forgive me--but--"

"In the anguish occasioned by these cruel suspicions, it is not of your kandjiar that you must take counsel--but of your friend."

"My lord--"

"To this interview, which will prove the innocence or the treachery of your beloved, you will do well to go."

"Oh, yes!" said the half-caste, in a hollow voice, and with a bitter smile: "I shall be there."

"But you must not go alone."

"What do you mean, my lord?" cried the half-caste. "Who will accompany me?"

"I will."

"You, my lord?"

"Yes--perhaps, to save you from a crime--for I know how blind and unjust is the earliest outburst of rage."

"But that transport gives us revenge!" cried the half-caste, with a cruel smile.

"Faringhea, this day is all my own. I shall not leave you," said the prince, resolutely. "Either you shall not go to this interview, or I will accompany you."

The half-caste appeared conquered by this generous perseverance. He fell at the feet of Djalma, pressed the prince's hand respectfully to his forehead and to his lips, and said: "My lord, be generous to the end!

forgive me!"

"For what should I forgive you?"

"Before I spoke to you, I had the audacity to think of asking for what you have just freely offered. Not knowing to what extent my fury might carry me, I had thought of asking you this favor, which you would not perhaps grant to an equal, but I did not dare to do it. I shrunk even from the avowal of the treachery I have cause to fear, and I came only to tell you of my misery--because to you alone in all the world I could tell it."

It is impossible to describe the almost candid simplicity, with which the half-breed p.r.o.nounced these words, and the soft tones, mingled with tears, which had succeeded his savage fury. Deeply affected, Djalma raised him from the ground, and said: "You were ent.i.tled to ask of me a mark of friends.h.i.+p. I am happy in having forestalled you. Courage! be of good cheer! I will accompany you to this interview, and if my hopes do not deceive me, you will find you have been deluded by false appearances."

When the night was come, the half-breed and Djalma, wrapped in their cloaks, got into a hackney-coach. Faringhea ordered the coachman to drive to the house inhabited by Sainte-Colombe.

CHAPTER LXIV. AN EVENING AT SAINTE-COLOMBE'S.

Leaving Djalma and Faringhea in the coach, on their way, a few words are indispensable before continuing this scene. Ninny Moulin, ignorant of the real object of the step he took at the instigation of Rodin, had, on the evening before, according to orders received from the latter, offered a considerable sum to Sainte-Colombe, to obtain from that creature (still singularly rapacious) the use of her apartments for whole day. Sainte-Colombe, having accepted this proposition, too advantageous to be refused, had set out that morning with her servants, to whom she wished, she said, in return for their good services, to give a day's pleasure in the country. Master of the house, Rodin, in a black wig, blue spectacles, and a cloak, and with his mouth and chin buried in a worsted comforter--in a word, perfectly disguised--had gone that morning to take a look at the apartments, and to give his instructions to the half-caste. The latter, in two hours from the departure of the Jesuit, had, thanks to his address and intelligence, completed the most important preparation and returned in haste to Djalma, to play with detestable hypocrisy the scene at which we have just been present.

During the ride from the Rue de Clichy to the Rue de Richelieu, Faringhea appeared plunged in a mournful reverie. Suddenly, he said to Djalma to a quick tone: "My lord, if I am betrayed, I must have vengeance."

"Contempt is a terrible revenge," answered Djalma.