The Bath Keepers Volume I Part 26

"Seigneur chevalier," said the Bohemian, "you seem to me to forget at this moment that this young man is the kinsman of the woman you love."

"You are right, venerable old man.--Your hand, Cedrille; no quarrel between us! I drink to your health!"

"Ah! jarni!" cried the Bearnais peasant, putting his hand to his brow.

"I remember now--and it had gone entirely out of my head!"

"What, my fine fellow?"

"My cousin told me that she would look for me this evening, at dusk, to take her to Rue Saint-Jacques, to Master Hugonnet's bath keeper, whose daughter came to our a.s.sistance this morning during that infernal battle."

"What, little cousin! pretty Miretta makes an appointment with you, and you forget it!--Mordioux! if she had said that to me! But perhaps it is not too late; let us go there."

Pa.s.sedix tried to rise, as did Cedrille, but neither of them was able to stand on his legs, and they fell back heavily on their chairs.

Meanwhile, the Bohemian had taken from beneath his cloak a small phial filled with a reddish liquid, from which he poured into his companions'

goblets, pretended to put some into his own gla.s.s, and took it up, saying:

"Can you think of such a thing, _beaux sires_? it is too late now, a young girl cannot go out at this time of night; the fair Miretta must have abandoned her walk, and you will take her some other time.

Meanwhile, taste this _rozolio_, of which my lucky star enabled me to obtain a flask, and which I could not drink in better company!"

Pa.s.sedix hastened to drink the liqueur which had been put before him, not, however, without pausing now and then to smack his lips; Cedrille did the same, stammering:

"Ah! jarnigue! that's good! That smacks of all sorts of things; I never drank anything so sweet. What do you call this?"

"Our venerable friend has just told you," hiccoughed Pa.s.sedix, resting his arms on the table. "It's _ro--ro--rozo_----"

He was unable to finish the word. In a moment, his head sank on his arms and he fell asleep; Cedrille soon followed his example.

Thereupon the Bohemian rose, left the table, and walked hastily from the wine shop.

XVI

THE NIGHT

As soon as he was in the street, the pretended Bohemian walked at a gait which did not resemble that of an old man; he went hastily along Rue Saint-Honore toward the Hotel de Mongarcin. There he stopped, looked about in all directions, and listened for sounds inside the house, where some windows were still lighted; then he tried to pierce the darkness that prevailed in the street; for at that time Paris was very poorly lighted, or, rather, was not lighted at all.

Toward the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Parisians had been ordered to place lighted lanterns in front of their houses, but the order had never been strictly complied with. And even when a lantern was placed before a door, it contained only a candle; so that you can judge how much light it was likely to give and how long it would burn. From time to time, one spied a bright light in the distance, but it did not remain in one place; and when it happened to come toward you, you discovered that it was a torchbearer. In most cases, that industry was carried on by children; there was a bureau on the Estrapade, where boys were supplied with torches to provide light for persons using the streets at night.

After a few moments' reflection, our Bohemian suddenly walked on; he continued up the street, and took what seemed to him the shortest road to Rue Saint-Jacques. But, as he walked, he scrutinized carefully every woman whom he met; to be sure, his curiosity found few subjects to investigate, for it was nearly ten o'clock, which was very late at that period; so that but few people were abroad; and a woman who appeared in the street alone, at that time of night, might well expect that people would form a very poor opinion of her and treat her accordingly.

But as he drew near the fortress called the Grand Chatelet, the Bohemian stopped; he had espied a woman, alone, who was looking about her and seemed not to know which way to turn.

She made up her mind at last, and was starting toward the Pet.i.t-Pont, when a voice called to her:

"Where are you going, Miretta? You are wrong; that is not your road."

At the first sound of that voice, Miretta--for it was she--stopped as if paralyzed by surprise; but it had no sooner ceased to speak than she cried out, with a delight which she could not hold in check:

"That voice--oh! it is his! I cannot be mistaken! Where are you, Giova----"

Before the girl could finish the name, the pretended Bohemian had taken her in his arms and strained her to his heart, saying in an undertone:

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ never utter that name! for it would be my destruction! it would be condemning me to death!"

"To death! Oh! forgive me, forgive me! but I am so happy, you see, at this moment! I see you once more, I find you the very first day that I am in Paris. Ah! I did not hope for so much good fortune! My dearest friend, my only love! oh! tell me that you still love me, and I will forget all the tears I have shed since you abandoned me. Tell me that you are still my lover, my beloved, my Giova----"

"Again! Ah! Miretta, you will cause my ruin!"

"Oh! forgive me! but the pleasure, the joy of seeing you after such a long separation---- I am mad, you see; I do not know what I say! Here, feel how my heart beats! it is you, it is you, who are the cause! Oh!

speak to me, let me hear your loved voice again; let me be quite certain that I am not the plaything of an illusion; for this costume, this gray beard---- Oh! but it makes no difference! I see your eyes, I am sure that I am not mistaken!"

"Come, come!" said Giovanni, pa.s.sing the girl's arm through his; "let us go away, first of all, from this fortress; the neighborhood of the Grand Chatelet is not healthy for me."

The girl allowed her lover to lead her away; it mattered little to her whither he took her; she was with the man to whom she had given her heart and had sworn to devote her life. That great city which she did not know, the darkness that encompa.s.sed her, the distant outcries that reached her ears from time to time--thenceforth none of those things frightened her, for she held Giovanni's arm.

The false Bohemian kept the girl walking for some time, pressing her arm as soon as she attempted to speak, and motioning to her to maintain the most profound silence. But Miretta's conductor seemed to know Paris perfectly, and its most crooked, most deserted streets. After leading her through several dark and narrow lanes, he came out on a small square, stopped in front of a house, took a key from his pocket, opened the door, and led his companion into the hall, saying:

"This is the hotel where I live; give me your hand and let me lead you.

Don't be afraid; in a moment we shall be able to see; make no noise."

"Afraid! afraid! when I am with you! ah! you know me very little! See, here is my hand! does it tremble? I am with you; what does it matter to me where you take me? I shall always be happy with you."

A slight pressure of the hand replied to these words from Miretta; then her guide led her up a staircase, stopped on the first floor, softly opened a door, and ushered the girl into an apartment, where, by means of a lamp burning at the back of the hearth, he speedily lighted several candles. Giovanni then laid aside his cap, his wig, his great cloak, and revealed a young man with a refined Italian face, whom we have already seen in the plumed hat of the _soi-disant_ Comte de Carvajal, a guest at the Hotel du Sanglier, to which he had taken Miretta.

When she saw her lover stripped of all that paraphernalia which disguised him, the girl ran to him and threw herself into his arms, crying:

"Ah! now you are as I knew you at Milan; as you were when you invited me to dance, the first time we met at the Balestrino. How gladly I accepted! How happy I felt even then to be dancing with you! for, you know, I fell in love with you on the spot. That sentiment which was destined to bind me to you struck me to the heart like thought, like lightning. It is always like that when love is genuine, when it is destined to last forever. Isn't it so, my beloved? And you loved me at once, too, did you not?"

As Giovanni listened to Miretta, his eyes a.s.sumed an expression of tender melancholy. He had thrown himself on a sofa; he drew the young girl to a seat by his side, took one of her hands, which he put to his lips from time to time, and said in an undertone:

"Speak, speak on; you recall a very happy time!"

"Very happy, do you say? But in that case, my love, why not have prolonged it? I was free, my own mistress, and, listening only to my heart, I gave myself to you; Giovanni was my idol, my G.o.d! How impatiently I awaited your coming at night, under the shade of the orange trees where you used to meet me! I asked nothing of you but to love me and to tell me so. Ah! you know, Giovanni, how little I envied the jewels and fine dresses of other girls! I had no desire for those costly pleasures which one enjoys in cities! I wanted only you--only your love! But after a few short months of that happiness, which I believed was to last forever, you grew sad and anxious, you began to fail frequently to keep our appointments. When I reproached you, you lost your temper instead of apologizing. At last, one evening you told me that you were going to start for Paris. 'With me?' I instantly asked.

But you turned your head away. All my entreaties were useless. I wept a long while at your feet; you said to me simply: 'I will return!'"

"Yes," Giovanni replied, looking the girl in the face; "and I forbade you to follow me."

"And so I did not follow you."

"But why have you come to Paris, then?"

"And why have you not returned? It is six months since you went away--six months! Cannot you understand that that is a fearfully long time when one loves, when one is waiting, when one lives only on hope?"

"I would have returned."