The Muse of the Department Part 12

Everybody listened in dead silence.

OR ROMAN REVENGE 219

A deep groan answered Rinaldo's cry, but in his alarm he took it for an echo, so weak and hollow was the sound. It could not proceed from any human breast.

"Santa Maria!" said the voice.

"If I stir from this spot I shall never find it again," thought Ri- naldo, when he had recovered his usual presence of mind. "If I knock, I shall be discovered. What am I to do?"

"Who is here?" asked the voice.

"Hallo!" cried the brigand; "do the toads here talk?"

"I am the Duke of Bracciano.

Whoever you may be, if you are not a follower of the d.u.c.h.ess', in the name of all the saints, come towards me."

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"I should have to know where to find you, Monsieur le Duc," said Ri- naldo, with the insolence of a man who knows himself to be necessary.

"I can see you, my friend, for my eyes are accustomed to the darkness.

Listen: walk straight forward-- good; now turn to the left--come on--this way. There, we are close to each other."

Rinaldo putting out his hands as a precaution, touched some iron bars.

"I am being deceived," cried the bandit.

"No, you are touching my cage.

OR ROMAN REVENGE 221

Sit down on a broken shaft of por- phyry that is there."

"How can the Duke of Bracciano be in a cage?" asked the brigand.

"My friend, I have been here for thirty months, standing up, unable to sit down----But you, who are you?"

"I am Rinaldo, prince of the Cam- pagna, the chief of four-and-twenty brave men whom the law describes as miscreants, whom all the ladies admire, and whom judges hang in obedience to an old habit."

"G.o.d be praised! I am saved.

An honest man would have been afraid, whereas I am sure of coming to an understanding with you,"

cried the Duke. "Oh, my worthy

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deliverer, you must be armed to the teeth."

"_E verissimo_" (most true).

"Do you happen to have--"

"Yes, files, pincers--_Corpo di Bacco_! I came to borrow the treas- ures of the Bracciani on a long loan."

"You will earn a handsome share of them very legitimately, my good Rinaldo, and we may possibly go man hunting together--"

"You surprise me, Eccellenza!"

"Listen to me, Rinaldo. I will say nothing of the craving for vengeance that gnaws at my heart.

I have been here for thirty months --you too are Italian--you will un- OR ROMAN REVENGE 223

derstand me! Alas, my friend, my fatigue and my horrible incarcera- tion are nothing in comparison with the rage that devours my soul.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Bracciano is still one of the most beautiful women in Rome. I loved her well enough to be jealous--"

"You, her husband!"

"Yes, I was wrong, no doubt."

"It is not the correct thing, to be sure," said Rinaldo.

"My jealousy was roused by the d.u.c.h.ess' conduct," the Duke went on. "The event proved me right. A young Frenchman fell in love with Olympia, and she loved him. I had proofs of their reciprocal affection

"Pray excuse me, ladies," said Lousteau, "but I find it impossible to go on without remarking to you how direct this Empire literature is, going to the point without any details, a characteristic, as it seems to me, of a primitive time. The literature of that period holds a place between the summaries of chapters in _Telemaque_ and the categorical reports of a public office. It had ideas, but refrained from expressing them, it was so scornful! It was observant, but would not communicate its observations to any one, it was so miserly! n.o.body but Fouche ever mentioned what he had observed. 'At that time,' to quote the words of one of the most imbecile critics in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 'literature was content with a clear sketch and the simple outline of all antique statues. It did not dance over its periods.'--I should think not! It had no periods to dance over. It had no words to play with. You were plainly told that Lubin loved Toinette; that Toinette did not love Lubin; that Lubin killed Toinette and the police caught Lubin, who was put in prison, tried at the a.s.sizes, and guillotined.--A strong sketch, a clear outline! What a n.o.ble drama! Well, in these days the barbarians make words sparkle."

"Like a hair in a frost," said Monsieur de Clagny.

"So those are the airs you affect?"[*] retorted Lousteau.

[*] The rendering given above is only intended to link the various speeches into coherence; it has no resemblance with the French. In the original, "Font chatoyer les _mots_."

"Et quelquefois les _morts_," dit Monsieur de Clagny.

"Ah! Lousteau! vous vous donnez de ces R-la (airs-la)."

Literally: "And sometimes the dead."--"Ah, are those the airs you a.s.sume?"--the play on the insertion of the letter R (_mots, morts_) has no meaning in English.

"What can he mean?" asked Madame de Clagny, puzzled by this vile pun.

"I seem to be walking in the dark," replied the Mayoress.

"The jest would be lost in an explanation," remarked Gatien.

"Nowadays," Lousteau went on, "a novelist draws characters, and instead of a 'simple outline,' he unveils the human heart and gives you some interest either in Lubin or in Toinette."

"For my part, I am alarmed at the progress of public knowledge in the matter of literature," said Bianchon. "Like the Russians, beaten by Charles XII., who at least learned the art of war, the reader has learned the art of writing. Formerly all that was expected of a romance was that it should be interesting. As to style, no one cared for that, not even the author; as to ideas--zero; as to local color--_non est_.

By degrees the reader has demanded style, interest, pathos, and complete information; he insists on the five literary senses--Invention, Style, Thought, Learning, and Feeling. Then some criticism commenting on everything. The critic, incapable of inventing anything but calumny, p.r.o.nounces every work that proceeds from a not perfect brain to be deformed. Some magicians, as Walter Scott, for instance, having appeared in the world, who combined all the five literary senses, such writers as had but one--wit or learning, style or feeling--these cripples, these acephalous, maimed or purblind creatures--in a literary sense--have taken to shrieking that all is lost, and have preached a crusade against men who were spoiling the business, or have denounced their works."

"The history of your last literary quarrel!" Dinah observed.