That Boy Of Norcott's Part 22

"May I offer you something to eat?"

"You may, if you accompany it with something to drink. Would you believe it, Oppovich and his daughter were at supper when I arrived to report myself; and neither of them as much as said, Chevalier--I mean Mon. de Marsac--won't you do us the honor to join us? No. Old Ignaz went on with his meal,--cold veal and a potato salad, I think it was; and the fair Sara examined my posting-book to see I had made no delay on the road; but neither offered me even the courtesy of a gla.s.s of wine."

"I don't suspect it was from any want of hospitality," I began.

"An utter want of everything, _mon cher_. Want of decency; want of delicacy; want of due deference to a man of birth and blood. I see you are sending your servant out. Now, I beg, don't make a stranger--don't make what we call a 'Prince Russe' of me. A little quiet supper, and something to wash it down; good fellows.h.i.+p will do the rest. May I give your man the orders?"

"You will confer a great favor on me," said I.

He took my servant apart, and whispered a few minutes with him at the window. "Try Kleptomitz first," said he aloud, as the man was leaving; "and mind you say M. Marsac sent you. Smart 'bursche' you've got there.

If you don't take him with you, hand him over to me."

"I will do so," said I; "and am happy to have secured him a good master."

"You'll not know him when you pa.s.s through Fiume again. I believe there's not my equal in Europe to drill a servant. Give me a Chinese, an Esquimau; give me a Hottentot, and in six months you shall see him announce a visitor, deliver a letter, wait at table, or serve coffee, with the quiet dignity and the impa.s.sive steadiness of the most accomplished lackey. The three servants of Fiume were made by me, and their fortunes also. One has now the chief restaurant at Rome, in the Piazza di Spagna; the other is manager of the 'Iron Crown Hotel,' at Zurich; he wished to have it called the 'Arms of Marsac,' but I forbade him. I said, 'No, Pierre, no. The De Marsacs are now travelling incog.'

Like the Tavannes and the Rohans, we have to wait and bide our time.

Louis Napoleon is not immortal. Do you think he is?"

"I have no reason to think so."

"Well, well, you are too young to take interest in politics; not but that _I_ did at fourteen: I conspired at fourteen! I will show you a stiletto Mazzini gave me on my birthday; and the motto on the blade was, 'Au service du. Roi.' Ah! you are surprised at what I tell you. I hear you say to yourself, 'How the devil did he come to this place? what led him to Fiume?' A long story that; a story poor old Dumas would give one of his eyes for. There's more adventure, more sc.r.a.pes by villany, dangers and deathblows generally, in the last twenty-two years of my life--I am now thirty-six--than in all the Monte Cristos that ever were written. I will take the liberty to put another log on your fire. What do you say if we lay the cloth? It will expedite matters a little."

"With all my heart. Here are all my household goods," said I, opening a little press in the wall.

"And not to be despised, by any means. Show me what a man drinks out of, and I'll tell you what he drinks. When a man has got thin gla.s.ses like these,--_a la Mousseline_, as we say,--his tipple is Bordeaux."

"I confess the weakness," said I, laughing.

"It is my own infirmity too," said he, sighing. "My theory is, plurality of wines is as much a mistake as plurality of wives. Coquette, if you will, with fifty, but give your affections to one. If I am anything, I am moral. What can keep your fellow so long? I gave him but two commissions."

"Perhaps the shops were closed at this hour."

"If they were, sir," said he, pompously, "at the word 'Marsac' they would open. Ha! what do I see here?--a piano? Am I at liberty to open it?" And without waiting for a reply, he sat down, and ran his hands over the keys with a masterly facility. As he flew over the octaves, and struck chords of splendid harmony, I could not help feeling an amount of credit in all his boastful declarations just from this one trait of real power about him.

"I see you are a rare musician," said I.

"And it is what I know least," said he; "though Flotow said one day, 'If that rascal De Marsac takes to writing operas, I 'll never compose another. 'But here comes the supper;" and as he spoke my servant entered with a small basket with six bottles in it; two waiters following him, bearing a good-sized tin box, with a charcoal fire beneath.

"Well and perfectly done," exclaimed my guest, as he aided them to place the soup on the table, and to dispose some _hors d'oeuvre_ of anchovies, caviare, ham, and fresh b.u.t.ter on the board. "I am sorry we have no flowers. I love a bouquet A few camellias for color, and some violets for odor. They relieve the grossness of the material enjoyments; they poetize the meal; and if you have no women at table, _mon cher_, be sure to have flowers: not that I object to both together. There, now, is our little bill of fare,--a white soup, a devilled mackerel, some truffles, with b.u.t.ter, and a capon with stewed mushrooms. Oysters there are none, not even those native shrimps they call scampi; but the wine will compensate for much: the wine is Roediger; champagne, with a faint suspicion of dryness. And as he has brought ice, we 'll attack that Bordeaux you spoke of till the other be cool enough for drinking."

As he rattled on thus, it was not very easy for me to a.s.sure myself whether I was host or guest; but as I saw that this consideration did not distress _him_, I resolved it should not weigh heavily on me.

"I ordered a _compote_ of peaches with maraschino. Go after them and say it has been forgotten." And now, as he dismissed my servant on this errand, he sat down and served the soup, doing the honors of the board in all form. "You are called--"

"Digby is my Christian name," interrupted I, "and you can call me by it."

"Digby, I drink to your health; and if the wine had been only a little warmer, I 'd say I could not wish to do so in a more generous fluid. No fellow of your age knows how to air his Bordeaux; hot flannels to the caraffe before decanting are all that is necessary, and let your gla.s.ses also be slightly warmed. To sip such claret as this, and then turn one's eyes to that champagne yonder in the ice-pail, is like the sensation of a man who in his honeymoon fancies how happy he will be one of these days, _en secondes noces_. Don't you feel a sense of triumphant enjoyment at this moment? Is there not something at your heart that says, 'Hodnig and Oppovich, I despise you! To the regions I soar in you cannot come! To the blue ether I have risen, your very vision cannot reach!' Eh, boy! tell me this."

"No; I don't think you have rightly measured my feelings. On the whole, I rather suspect I bear a very good will to these same people who have enabled me to have these comforts."

"You pretend, then, to what they call grat.i.tude?"

"I have that weakness."

"I could as soon believe in the heathen mythology! I like the man who is kind to me while he is doing the kindness, and I could, if occasion served, be kind to him in turn; but to say that I could retain such a memory of the service after years that it would renew in me the first pleasant sensations it created, and with these sensations the goodwill to requite them, is downright rubbish. You might as well tell me that I could get drank simply by remembering the orgie I a.s.sisted at ten years ago."

"I protest against your sentiment and your logic too."

"Then we won't dispute the matter. We'll talk of something we can agree upon. Let us abuse Sara."

"If you do, you'll choose some other place to do it."

"What, do you mean to tell me that you can stand the haughty airs and proud pretensions of the young Jewess?"

"I mean to tell you that I know nothing of the Fraulein Oppovich but what is amiable and good."

"What do I care for amiable and good? I want a girl to be graceful, well-mannered, pleasing, lively to talk, and eager to listen. There, now, don't get purple about the cheeks, and flash at me such fiery looks. Here's the champagne, and we 'll drink a b.u.mper to her."

"Take some other name for your toast, or I 'll fling your bottle out of the window."

"You will, will you!" said he, setting down his gla.s.s, and measuring me from head to foot.

"I swear it"

"I like that spirit, Digby; I'll be shot if I don't," said he, taking my hand, which I did not give very willingly. "You are just what I was some fifteen or twenty years ago,--warm, impulsive, and headstrong. It's the world--that vile old mill, the world--grinds that generous nature out of one! I declare I don't believe that a spark of real trustfulness survives a man's first moustaches,--and yours are very faint, very faint indeed; there 's a suspicion of s.m.u.t on the upper lip, and some small capillary flourishes along your cheek. That wine is too sweet. I 'll return to the Bordeaux."

"I grieve to say I have no more than that bottle of it. It was some I bought when I was ill and threatened with ague."

"What profanation! anything would be good enough for ague. It is in a man's days of vigorous health he merits cheris.h.i.+ng. Let us console ourselves with Rodiger. Now, boy," said he, as he cleared off a b.u.mper from a large goblet, "I 'll give you some hints for your future, far more precious than this wine, good as it is. Gustave de Marsac, like Homer's hero, can give gold for bra.s.s, and instead of wine he will give you wisdom. First of all for a word of warning: don't fall in love with Sara. It's the popular error down here to do so, but it's a cruel mistake. That fellow that has the hemp-trade here,--what's his name,--the vulgar dog that wears mutton-chop whiskers, and fancies he's English because he gets his coats from London? I 'll remember his name presently,--he has all his life been proposing for Sara, and begging off--as matters go ill or well with the House of Oppovich; and as he is a shrewd fellow in business, all the young men here think they ought to 'go in' for Sara too."

I should say here that, however distasteful to me this talk, and however willingly I would have repressed it, it was totally out of my power to arrest the flow of words which with the force of a swollen torrent came from him. He drank freely, too, large goblets of champagne as he talked, and to this, I am obliged to own, I looked as my last hope of being rid of him. I placed every bottle I possessed on the table, and, lighting my cigar, resigned myself, with what patience I could, to the result.

"Am I keeping you up, my dear Digby?" cried he, at last, after a burst of abuse on Fiume and all it contained that lasted about half an hour.

"I seldom sit up so late," was my cautious reply; "but I must own I have seldom such a good excuse."

"You hit it, boy; that was well and truly spoken. As a talker of the highest order of talk, I yield to no man in Europe. Do you remember Duvergier saying in the Chambre, as an apology for being late, 'I dined with DeMarsac'?"

"I cannot say I remember that."

"How could you? You were an infant at the time." Away he went after this into reminiscences of political life,--how deep he was in that Spanish marriage question, and how it caused a breach,--an irreparable breach between Guizot and himself, when that woman, "you know whom I mean, let out the secret to Bulwer. Of course I ought not to have confided it to her. I know all that as well as you can tell it me, but who is wise, who is guarded, who is self-possessed at all times?"

Not entirely trustful of what he was telling me, and little interested in it besides, I brought him back to Fiume, and to the business that was now about to be confided to me.

"Ah, very true; you want your instructions. You shall have them, not that you 'll need them long, _mon cher_. Six months--what am I saying?--three will see it all up with; Hodnig and Oppovich."

"What do you mean?" cried I, eagerly.