CHAPTER IV

Adolphe's quatrain--The water-hen and King William--Lunch in the wood--The irritant powder, the frogs and the cock--The doctor's spectre--De Leuven, Hippolyte Leroy and I are exiled from the drawing-room--Unfortunate result of a geographical error--M. Paroisse

I had not come across any members of the Collard family for a long time. Madame Capelle I adored, as she took pity on my youthfulness when people made fun of my peculiarities--peculiarities which I will not hide from myself I possessed to a certain extent. She introduced me to de Leuven as a young friend of hers and asked me to lunch with them next day in the forest to improve our acquaintance; it was also arranged that, following upon the lunch, I should spend two or three days at the château of Villers-Hellon. Of course I accepted the invitation. The fête of Corey was on the way, with its delightful entertainments of dancing and merriment. I can think of nothing more delightful than returning home, at ten or eleven o'clock at night, under the dense moving vault of the tall trees: in the solemn stillness of the night it seemed like some ancient Elysium, with mute shades walking under in the darkness; for the shades that pace our terrestrial Elysiums speak so low, so very low, that we swear they are dumb. I had been obliged to return to Villers-Cotterets to take back Ad&le, and to make her understand, without hurting her feelings, how important it was that I should maintain friendly intercourse with the Collard family. She was such an excellent, good-hearted, straightforward girl, that she soon understood, and although feeling a little jealous at lending me to that group of aristocratic and beautiful young girls, who were fine enough to inspire jealousy in the heart of a princess, she gave me up for three days.

I set off at nine next morning to reach the arranged meeting-place by ten o'clock. Everybody had spent the night at Corey, at M. Leroy's house, and I also should have done the same had I not been urgently recalled to Villers-Cotterets by the necessity above stated. But what was a distance like that? I had strong legs and boots which could defy those of Tom Thumb's giant himself. In less than three-quarters of an hour, I caught sight of the first houses in the village, and the pond as it lay quiet and shining like a mirror at the foot of the valley. Adolphe de Leuven was walking on its banks. I did not expect that anyone would be up at the farm so early, and I joined Adolphe. He had a pencil and tablets in his hand, and he who was usually so phlegmatic was gesticulating in such a fashion that I should have trembled for his reason, had I not imagined he was practising a fencing exercise. When he saw me he stopped and blushed slightly.

"What are you doing there?" I asked.

"Why, I am composing poetry," he said, with some confusion. I looked him in the face as though I could hardly believe my ears.

"Poetry!... do you really write poetry?"

"Why, yes, sometimes," he answered, laughing.

"To whom are you writing verses?"

"To Louise."

"What! Louise Collard?"

"Yes."

"Well, I never!"

The notion of composing poetry to Louise Collard, charming though she was, had never come into my head. Louise seemed to me still the same pretty child in short frocks with lace-trimmed drawers--nothing more.

"Ah! so you are making verses to Louise, are you: what for?" I went on.

"You know she is going to be married."

"Louise? No, I did not know that. To whom?"

"To a Russian. Therefore the marriage must be prevented." "Prevented?"

"Yes; such a delightful girl must not be allowed to leave France."

"True, true; I shall be very sorry if she leaves France. I am very fond of her; aren't you?"

"I? I have only known her three days."

"It would be a good thing to hinder her from leaving France; but how shall we do it?"

"I have written my verses; you write some too."

"I!"

"Yes, you. You have been brought up with her, and it will please her."

"But I do not know how to write poetry. I have never done anything but crambo with the Abbé Grégoire and he always told me I did badly."

"Oh, nonsense! when you are in love it comes of itself."

"But I am in love and it hasn't come; so let me see your verses."

"Oh, it is just a quatrain."

"Well, let me see it."

Adolphe drew his tablets forth and read me these four lines:--

"Pourquoi dans _la froide Ibérie_, Louise, ensevelir de si charmants attraits? Les Russes, en quittant notre belle patrie, Nous juraient cependant une éternelle paix!"

I stood astounded. This was real poetry--poetry after the style of Demoustier. So a poet stood before me: I felt as though I ought to bow down before him.

"How do you like my quatrain?" asked de Leuven.

"Heavens! it is beautiful."

"Good!"

"And you are going to give it to Louise?"

"Oh no; I dare not do that. I shall write it in her album without saying anything to her, and when she turns over the leaves she will come across my lines."

"Bravo!"

"Now what shall you do?"

"What about?"

"About this marriage."

"Oh, well, as I am quite unable to make a quatrain as good as yours, I shall say to her, 'Are you really going to marry a Russian, my poor Louise? I tell you, you are making a great mistake.'"

"I do not fancy that will have so much effect as my quatrain," said Adolphe.

"Neither do I; but what else can I do? One can only use one's own weapons. Now, if the Russian would meet me in a pistol Dud, I am quite sure he would never marry Louise!"

"You are a sportsman, then?"

"Rather. How could you imagine one would not be, surrounded by such a forest? Oh, stop! there is a water-hen!"

I pointed it out to him with my finger, flushing it with my stick as it swam among the reeds of the pond.

"Shoo!"

"Is that a water-hen?"

"Of course it is. Where do you come from not to know a water-hen?"

"I come from Brussels."

"I thought you were a Parisian."

"I was indeed born in Paris; but in 1815 we left Paris, and we lived in Brussels until three years ago, when my father and I were compelled to leave."

"Who compelled you to go?"

"Why, William!"

"Who is William?"

"William? He is King of the Netherlands. Didn't you know that the King of the Netherlands was called William?"

"Not I."

"Well, then, it oughtn't to seem so odd to you now that I do not know a water-hen."

Indeed, as it appeared, we were both ignorant on some points; and my ignorance was more culpable than de Leuven's.

He grew another cubit taller in my estimation. Not only was he a poet, but he was of sufficient importance in the world for this King William to be uneasy about him and his father, to the extent of banishing them both from his realms.

"And now you are living at Villers-Hellon?" said I.

"Yes. M. Collard is an old friend of my father."

"How long shall you live here?"

"As long as the Bourbons will allow us to remain in France."

"Ah! then you have fallen out with the Bourbons too?"

"We have quarrelled with most kings," said Adolphe, with a laugh.

This phrase, uttered with magnificent indifference, quite finished me off. Luckily, at that moment, our fair companions appeared on the threshold of the farm, a bevy of pink and white damsels. Two or three _chars-à-bancs_ were in readiness to take them to the appointed place. The gentlemen were to go on foot. The rendezvous was barely a quarter of a league's distance from the village. A long table of thirty covers was laid under a leafy canopy, ten paces off a limpid, clear purling spring called the _Fontaine-aux-Princes._ All these young folks, maidens, mothers, children, seemed like so many woodland flowers opening to the sweet-breathed breeze: some pale, that sought for shade and solitude; others of brilliant hues, seeking light and stir and the sunshine of admiration.

Oh! those glorious woods, those shady depths, the haunts of my cherished moods of solitude, I have revisited you since; but no shade glides now beneath your green vaults and in your dark alleys.... What have you done with all that delightful world which vanished with my youth? Why have not other generations come in their turn, pale or rosy, lively or careless, noisy or silent like ours? Has that ephemeral efflorescence disappeared for ever? Is it really wanting, or is it that my eyes have lost the power of seeing?

We returned that night to Villers-Hellon. Everything was so beautifully arranged in that luxurious little château that each of us had a separate room and bed, and sometimes there were as many as thirty or forty of us there.

I have related what nocturnal persecutions poor Hiraux was made a victim of when he came to see us at les Fossés. It was now our turn to undergo the like. Our rooms were prepared beforehand for the pantomime that followed. The family doctor, Manceau, was the stage manager. He had replaced an old doctor from Soissons named M. Paroisse. I will explain presently why this change took place. The assistant stage managers were Louise, Cécile and Augustine. The appointed victims were Hippolyte Leroy, de Leuven and myself. Hippolyte Leroy was at this period a young man of between twenty-five and twenty-six. He was a cousin of M. Leroy de Corey. He had been one of the body-guard, and was now Secretary to the Inspection at Villers-Cotterets. Later, he became my cousin, by his marriage with Augustine Deviolaine. Our three rooms communicated with one another. We retired to our rooms about half-past twelve. De Leuven was the first to get into bed. He had scarcely lain down before he began to complain of a most intolerable tickling: his bed was sprinkled with the stuff charlatans sell which they call scratching powder. Those unacquainted with this powder should recall the famous scene in _Robert Macaire_, where the two heroes of the book find a trunk, and in that trunk a quantity of tiny packets, containing some unknown substance, whose property was revealed when they touched it. In about five minutes' time Adolphe de Leuven began to scratch himself like both Robert Macaire and Bertrand put together. We offered de Leuven our sincere sympathy. We advised him to rub it off as best he could, to wrap himself in his bed-curtain and to sleep on a couch. Then we went to our own beds, quite convinced that we should find them like Adolphe's. But we searched them in vain: they seemed perfectly free from any preparation of the like nature. We lay down. In five minutes' time Hippolyte Leroy uttered a sharp cry. In stretching himself, he felt a piece of string at the foot of the bed; he pulled this thread, and in doing so, he untied a bag full of frogs. The frogs, gaining their liberty, hastened to disport themselves about the bed, and it was the contact of his human flesh with their animal hide which produced Hippolyte's yell above mentioned. He flung off the bed-clothes and leapt out of bed. The frogs leaped out after him. He had been given good measure; there were quite two dozen of them.

I was beginning to think I was the only one spared, when I thought I heard a great stirring inside a cupboard against which the head of my bed had been put. I looked at the lock. It was keyless. However, I felt no doubt that some sort of animal was shut up in that cupboard. Only, what sort of an animal was it? I was not kept long in suspense: as one o'clock struck a cock crowed at the head of my bed, and renewed his crowing every hour till day came. I did not deny Christ, like St. Peter, but I confess I took His name in vain. We fell asleep by seven o'clock,--de Leuven in spite of his itching powder, Hippolyte Leroy in spite of his frogs, and I in spite of my cock,--when Manceau entered our rooms and woke us by telling us that as he had heard in roundabout ways we had spent a bad night, he had come to offer us his professional services: Manceau denounced his own handiwork!

We had slept so badly, through that horrible night, that, with terrible imprecations, we had consigned our persecutor, whoever he might be, to the infernal regions. Manceau, as I have said, denounced himself: expiation must follow the crime; our sworn oath must be fulfilled. At a sign, de Leuven shut the door: I fell upon Manceau, Hippolyte gagged him; we stripped him naked, we wrapped him in a sheet off Adolphe's bed, we tied him up like a sausage, we took him down a disused staircase and we deposited him in the most unfrequented part of the park, in the very middle of the little river, at a place where he could stand, but where, entangled as he was, he ran great risk of losing his foothold at the first step he took. We then quietly returned to our beds, and resumed our interrupted sleep.

We went down to the morning meal at ten o'clock. Our arrival was eagerly expected. Everybody burst out laughing when we came within view. The young ladies each played a part: some pretended to scratch, others imitated in a low voice the croaking of frogs, and others simulated the crowing of a cock. We were quite imperturbable: we merely asked carelessly where Manceau was. Nobody had seen him. We sat down to table. The fowl was tough, Cécile remarked; one would have said it was an old cock which had crowed all the night. Augustine asked where the frogs were that she had seen, she said, in the kitchen the night before. Had they been moved?... Were the frogs lost?... The frogs must be found again. Louise asked Adolphe if he was not attacked by a contagious affection; for since he had offered her his arm to lead her into the dining-room, her skin had felt fearfully irritable.

"If Manceau were here," I said to Louise, "you could ask him for a prescription to allay it."

"But, joking apart, where is Manceau?" asked Madame Collard.

Silence again, as at the first inquiry. Matters were becoming serious, and folks began to be uneasy about the dear doctor: it was not his custom to absent himself at meal-times. They sent to ask the porter if Manceau had gone out to attend some sick person in the village. The porter had not seen Manceau.

"I believe he is drowned!" I said.... "Poor fellow!"

"Why should he be?" asked Madame Collard.

"Because yesterday evening he proposed a bathing party to us; but we slept so well we missed meeting him in his room as arranged. As we did not turn up, he must have gone alone to bathe."

"Oh, good gracious!" exclaimed Madame Collard, "the poor doctor! he cannot swim."

A chorus of lamentations went up from the ladies at these words, by the side of which the wailing of the Israelites in exile was a trifle. It was settled that Manceau should be searched for immediately after the meal was over.

"Good!" said de Leuven in a whisper to me,--"I will take the opportunity while everybody is out to write my verses in Louise's album."

"And I," I replied, "I will stand sentinel at the door to prevent your being disturbed."

Everything happened as had been arranged. The whole beehive of the castle swarmed into the garden. The older men--M. de Leuven the father, M. Collard, M. Méchin--stayed in the drawing-room to read the newspapers. Hippolyte played billiards with Maurice. De Leuven and I went upstairs to Louise's room, which was next to M. Collard's, and whilst I watched on the landing, he wrote his four lines in the album.

He had scarcely finished the last, when we heard loud shouts, and upon going to look out of the window, we saw Louise and Augustine running towards the castle. Cécile, who was braver, had remained stoutly where she was, and had looked towards the river with more curiosity than alarm.

"Bravo!" said I to Adolphe, "Manceau has made his appearance."

We quickly went down.

"A ghost! a ghost!" cried Louise and Augustine; "there is a ghost in the river!"

"Oh! my God," said de Leuven--"can it be that the spirit of poor Manceau is already borne down below?"

It was not his spirit, but his body. By dint of struggling with his cords, Manceau had freed one arm, then both; his two arms freed, he had taken the handkerchief off his mouth: when ungagged, he had called out for help; unfortunately, the gardener was at the opposite end of the garden. He had tried hard to untie the cords which bound his legs, as he had done those binding his hands; but, to do so, he would have to put his head under the water; and, as Madame Capelle had said, the unlucky doctor did not know how to swim, and was restrained from any such attempt by the fear of being suffocated. At last his cries attracted the attention of the young girls; but at sight of the figure wrapped in a sheet and making despairing gesticulations, fear had taken possession of them, and not having the least notion that Manceau would be discovered in the middle of the river, shrouded in such a garment, they had shrieked at the apparition and had flown away. They sent to the unhappy Manceau the gardener for whom he had called so loudly. He clamoured vehemently for his clothes. He had been in the river from seven in the morning until noon, and although it was towards the end of July, the bath was infinitely too protracted, and had made him somewhat chilly. He was put to bed with a hot bottle. From that moment Manceau was the object of general pity, and we of universal execration. For, God be merciful to him a sinner, Manceau had been cowardly enough to denounce us. It was in vain for de Leuven to show his hands as red as crabs and to offer to show the rest of his body, which was as red as his hands; in vain did Hippolyte collect the frogs scattered about his room and bring them into the drawing-room; in vain did I fetch the cock, with which I had held discourse all the night, from the barnyard: nothing moved our judges; we were banished from society, for deliberate attempted homicide in the matter of Doctor Manceau. So we promised ourselves to drown him out and out the first chance we got.

Banished from the society of the ladies, I took refuge in the billiard-room, where Maurice gave me my first lesson in billiards. We shall see that this lesson stood me in good stead, and that, four years later, at a solemn occasion in my life, I practised the art of cannoning, wherein I had made some progress. Our punishment lasted throughout that evening, which the young ladies spent in Louise's room, as it was raining. De Leuven made several attempts to get into that chamber, but was repulsed each time. A great change had come over him since four o'clock in the afternoon, after a conversation he had had with his father, in which the elder man had seemed to me to sneer at him strangely.

Adolphe grew very restless, almost gloomy, and although he was determinedly kept out of Louise's room--where she was holding a gathering of her girl-friends, as I have mentioned--he went back persistently again and again. "Ah! I see," I said to myself, after a moment's reflection, "he wants to obtain news of his quatrain and to know how it has succeeded." And, satisfied with my reasoning, I did not look any farther for the cause of de Leuven's insistence. But I regretted I had not the means with which partial nature had endowed Adolphe, to cause my shortcomings to be forgiven. I was pursued by this regret when in Hippolyte's room, where we withdrew, questioning each other what had become of de Leuven, who had not been seen for an hour, when suddenly we heard a great noise in the midst of which we could make out the words, "_Stop thief!_" echoing through the castle. As we were still dressed, we dashed out of our room and quickly descended the staircase. At the foot of the staircase was M. Collard in his nightshirt, holding Adolphe by his coat collar. It was an extraordinary sight. M. Collard looked furious and Adolphe exceedingly penitent. In the meantime, M. de Leuven, who had not yet gone to bed, arrived on the scene, as imperturbable as ever, his hands in his trousers pockets, chewing a toothpick, after his usual fashion. This toothpick was an indispensable item in M. de Leuven's life.

"Well, well! What is the matter now, Collard? What have you against my boy?"

"What have I? what have I?" shrieked M. Collard, growing more and more exasperated. "I have something that cannot be overlooked."

"Ah! what has he done, then?"

"What has he done?... I'll tell you what he has done!----"

"Forgive me, father," said Adolphe, trying to get in a word or two of justification,--"forgive me, father, but M. Collard is mistaken.... He believes----"

"Hold your tongue, you scoundrel!" yelled M. Collard, kicking him.

Then, turning to the Count de Ribbing, he said--

"Listen, my dear de Leuven, and I will tell you where I have found this son of yours."

"But I must protest, dear M. Collard, it was solely and simply to----"

"Be quiet!" interrupted M. Collard. "Come with us: you shall clear yourself if you can."

"Oh," said Adolphe, "that will not be difficult."

"We shall see!"

Pushing the youth before him, he signed to the count to go inside his room, and, following himself, shut the door and double-locked it.

We withdrew in silence, Hippolyte, myself and the other spectators of that curious scene. Adolphe returned at the end of a quarter of an hour. He looked so crestfallen that we dared not question him for details. We went to bed in ignorance of the cause of all the disturbance.

But after Hippolyte had fallen asleep de Leuven came to me and told me the whole story. This was what had happened.

As I have said above, Adolphe had written the wonderful quatrain in Louise's album that morning. When it was finished he left the young lady's room as fast as possible. Towards four o'clock, Adolphe, who had not been able to contain the news, drew his father aside and repeated his quatrain to him.

M. de Ribbing listened gravely until the last syllable of the fourth line, and then he said--

"Say it over again, please."

Adolphe repeated it obediently:--

"Pourquoi dans la froide Ibérie, Louise, ensevelir de si charmants attraits? Les Russes, en quittant notre belle patrie, Nous juraient cependant une éternelle paix!"

"There is but one slip," then said M. de Ribbing.

"What?" asked Adolphe.

"Oh, nothing much ... you have mistaken the South for the North--Spain for Russia."

"Oh!" cried Adolphe, aghast, "upon my word, so I have! ... I have put Ibérie for _Sibérie_."

"I understand," said the count, "it makes a better rhyme, but is less accurate." And, shrugging his shoulders, he went off humming a little air and chewing his toothpick.

Adolphe stood dumbfounded. He had signed his unlucky quatrain with his full name. If the album were opened and the quatrain were read he would be disgraced! This sword of Damocles, hung over the unlucky poet's head, had distracted him all the evening. It was to get hold of Louise's album that he had made the obstinate efforts to enter her room I have detailed. But, as we have seen, his attempts had been fruitless.

When night came, Adolphe took a desperate resolve: he would go into Louise's room when she was asleep, seize her album and destroy the tell-tale page.

This resolution he put into execution about eleven o'clock. The door opened without creaking too much, and Adolphe, who squeezed himself through as softly as possible on tiptoe, with but the one end, one hope and one desire of reaching the album, had thus invaded his young friend's maiden chamber. All went well as far as the album. It was on the table and Adolphe took it, put it in his vest, determined to regain possession by hook or by crook of the four lines which had made their author so unhappy, when suddenly he ran against a little table, which fell and in falling awakened Louise. Louise, startled, cried out, "Thief, thief!" At the cry of "Thief, thief!" M. Collard, whose room adjoined his daughter's, rushed out of bed in his nightshirt, flung himself on de Leuven on the landing, collared him, and, as we have seen, suspecting poor innocent Adolphe of quite another crime, dragged him into his chamber. His father followed them and closed the door behind him. There, everything was explained, thanks to the album, which Adolphe had been careful not to let go. M. Collard was convinced _de visu_ of the geographical error Adolphe had committed; he thoroughly understood the importance of that error, and, reassured in the matter of motive, he was soon satisfied about the deed. So neither Louise's reputation nor Adolphe's suffered any blemish from this occurrence.

As they continued to punish Hippolyte and me next day, for Manceau's little adventure, we left Villers-Hellon without saying a word to anyone, and took the road to Villers-Cotterets. Strange to say, I have never re-entered Villers-Hellon since. The young girls' ostracism lasted thirty years. Only once have I since seen Hermine, and that was at the rehearsal of _Caligula_, when she was Madame la Baronne de Martens. Only once have I since seen Louise, and that was at a dinner given at the Bank, when she was Madame Garat. Only once have I since seen Marie Capelle, a month before she became Madame Lafarge. I never saw either Madame Collard or Madame Capelle again. Both are now dead. But when I close my eyes, in spite of those thirty years of absence, I can still see them all, the dead and the living.

I promised to tell the story of the old doctor who was Manceau's predecessor, and it would be unfair to my readers to break my word. M. Paroisse lived at Soissons. A thinly scattered practice allowed him to dine once a week at Villers-Hellon, where he was always made heartily welcome. This lasted for ten years. One day M. Collard received a large manuscript signed by the worthy doctor. It was the bill for his visits. He had charged twenty francs for each visit, and the sum total was something alarming. M. Collard paid him, but told M. Paroisse from henceforth not to come to Villers-Hellon unless he were specially sent for. It was in consequence of this incident that Manceau was installed in the castle as the regular medical attendant to the family. I forget what became of Manceau ... I fancy the poor devil is dead. Happily, this was not in consequence of the enforced bath we gave him.