The Muse of the Department Part 11

212 OLYMPIA

"If the key had been lost?"

"He would now be a dead man."

"Dead? But ought you not to grant the last request he made, and to give him his liberty on the con- ditions----"

"You do not know him."

"But--"

"Silence! I took you for my lover, not for my confessor."

Adolphe was silent.

"And then comes an exquisite galloping goat, a tail-piece drawn by Normand, and cut by Duplat.--the names are signed," said Lousteau.

"Well, and then?" said such of the audience as understood.

"That is the end of the chapter," said Lousteau. "The fact of this tailpiece changes my views as to the authors.h.i.+p. To have his book got up, under the Empire, with vignettes engraved on wood, the writer must have been a Councillor of State, or Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, or the late lamented Desforges, or Sewrin."

"'Adolphe was silent.'--Ah!" cried Bianchon, "the d.u.c.h.ess must have been under thirty."

"If there is no more, invent a conclusion," said Madame de la Baudraye.

"You see," said Lousteau, "the waste sheet has been printed fair on one side only. In printer's lingo, it is a back sheet, or, to make it clearer, the other side which would have to be printed is covered all over with pages printed one above another, all experiments in making up. It would take too long to explain to you all the complications of a making-up sheet; but you may understand that it will show no more trace of the first twelve pages that were printed on it than you would in the least remember the first stroke of the bastinado if a Pasha condemned you to have fifty on the soles of your feet."

"I am quite bewildered," said Madame Popinot-Chandier to Monsieur Gravier. "I am vainly trying to connect the Councillor of State, the Cardinal, the key, and the making-up----"

"You have not the key to the jest," said Monsieur Gravier. "Well! no more have I, fair lady, if that can comfort you."

"But here is another sheet," said Bianchon, hunting on the table where the proofs had been laid.

"Capital!" said Lousteau, "and it is complete and uninjured. It is signed IV.; J, Second Edition. Ladies, the figure IV. means that this is part of the fourth volume. The letter J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, shows that this is the tenth sheet. And it is perfectly clear to me, that in spite of any publisher's tricks, this romance in four duodecimo volumes, had a great success, since it came to a second edition.--We will read on and find a clue to the mystery.

OR ROMAN REVENGE 21

corridor; but finding that he was pursued by the d.u.c.h.ess' people

"Oh, get along!"

"But," said Madame de la Baudraye, "some important events have taken place between your waste sheet and this page."

"This complete sheet, madame, this precious made-up sheet. But does the waste sheet in which the d.u.c.h.ess forgets her gloves in the arbor belong to the fourth volume? Well, deuce take it--to proceed.

Rinaldo saw no safer refuge than to make forthwith for the cellar where the treasures of the Bracciano fam- ily no doubt lay hid. As light of foot as Camilla sung by the Latin poet, he flew to the entrance to the Baths of Vespasian. The torchlight already flickered on the walls when Rinaldo, with the readiness be- stowed on him by nature, discovered the door concealed in the stone- work, and suddenly vanished. A hideous thought then flashed on Rinaldo's brain like lightning rend- ing a cloud: He was imprisoned!

He felt the wall with uneasy haste

"Yes, this made-up sheet follows the waste sheet. The last page of the damaged sheet was 212, and this is 217. In fact, since Rinaldo, who in the earlier fragment stole the key of the d.u.c.h.ess' treasure by exchanging it for another very much like it, is now--on the made-up sheet--in the palace of the Dukes of Bracciano, the story seems to me to be advancing to a conclusion of some kind. I hope it is as clear to you as it is to me.--I understand that the festivities are over, the lovers have returned to the Bracciano Palace; it is night--one o'clock in the morning. Rinaldo will have a good time."

"And Adolphe too!" said President Boirouge, who was considered rather free in his speech.

"And the style!" said Bianchon.--"Rinaldo, who saw _no better refuge than to make for the cellar_."

"It is quite clear that neither Maradan, nor Treuttel and Wurtz, nor Doguereau, were the printers," said Lousteau, "for they employed correctors who revised the proofs, a luxury in which our publishers might very well indulge, and the writers of the present day, would benefit greatly. Some scrubby pamphlet printer on the Quay--"

"What quay?" a lady asked of her neighbor. "They spoke of baths--"

"Pray go on," said Madame de la Baudraye.

"At any rate, it is not by a councillor," said Bianchon.

"It may be by Madame Hadot," replied Lousteau.

"What has Madame Hadot of La Charite to do with it?" the Presidente asked of her son.

"This Madame Hadot, my dear friend," the hostess answered, "was an auth.o.r.ess, who lived at the time of the Consulate."

"What, did women write in the Emperor's time?" asked Madame Popinot-Chandier.

"What of Madame de Genlis and Madame de Stael?" cried the Public Prosecutor, piqued on Dinah's account by this remark.

"To be sure!"

"I beg you to go on," said Madame de la Baudraye to Lousteau.

Lousteau went on saying: "Page 218.

218 OLYMPIA

and gave a shriek of despair when he had vainly sought any trace of a secret spring. It was impossible to ignore the horrible truth. The door, cleverly constructed to serve the vengeful purposes of the d.u.c.h.ess, could not be opened from within.

Rinaldo laid his cheek against the wall in various spots; nowhere could he feel the warmer air from the pa.s.sage. He had hoped he might find a crack that would show him where there was an opening in the wall, but nothing, nothing! The whole seemed to be of one block of marble.

Then he gave a hollow roar like that of a hyaena----

"Well, we fancied that the cry of the hyaena was a recent invention of our own!" said Lousteau, "and here it was already known to the literature of the Empire. It is even introduced with a certain skill in natural history, as we see in the word _hollow_."

"Make no more comments, monsieur," said Madame de la Baudraye.

"There, you see!" cried Bianchon. "Interest, the romantic demon, has you by the collar, as he had me a while ago."

"Read on," cried de Clagny, "I understand."

"What a c.o.xcomb!" said the Presiding Judge in a whisper to his neighbor the Sous-prefet.

"He wants to please Madame de la Baudraye," replied the new Sous-prefet.

"Well, then I will read straight on," said Lousteau solemnly.