CHAPTER XIV

THE COUNCILLOR FLACHSINFINGEN

The next day after Létorière's visit to Dr. Sphex, there was an extraordinary disturbance in the house of the Aulic Councillor Flachsinfingen. It was eleven o'clock in the morning; Madame Martha Flachsinfingen, a large woman, about forty years of age, lean, pale, and solemn, clothed in a long brown dress, with a starched neckerchief and a kind of loose sack of black velvet, was conversing with her husband, the councillor, a great abdominous, rubicund man, with a jolly and simple look.

Enveloped in a Chinese silk dressing-gown, his head covered with a night-cap bound with a flame-colored ribbon, the councillor seemed to listen to his wife with mingled deference and impatience.

She held in her scraggy hands a note which she was reading for the second time, with profound attention, weighing each word.

This note read thus:

"Monsieur the Marquis of Létorière will have the honor of presenting himself at noon, to-day, to _Madame la Conseillère_ de Flachsinfingen, if she will deign to receive him."

After reading it, she repeated:

"'Will present himself to Madame la Conseillère.' What impudence!"

"But, Martha," said the councillor, humbly, "I don't see any impudence in . . ."

"You don't see! oh! certainly, you are so penetrating! you don't see that such a letter, from a libertine, from a débauché, from a Nebuchadnezzar like this Marquis of Létorière, is worse than an insult! for it is, so to speak, a premeditation and threat of insult!"

"How so, Martha?"

"Have you forgotten all that we have heard of this abominable man, who leaves behind him, they say, only ruined girls and guilty wives? . . . Don't you know that he is a Pharaoh, who thinks he can bewitch one with a glance . . . a kind of unbridled Tarquin, who the first time he meets a woman dares to address her in the most wicked language of gallantry?"

"The fact is, he is one of those brisk sparks whom husbands, fathers and mothers send to the devil twenty times a day. Ha, ha, ha!" answered the councillor, with a horse-laugh.

This fit of inopportune laughter was severely punished by the _conseillère_, who sharply pinched him, crying:

"And are you such a wretch that you can laugh like a fool when you have in your hand the proof that such a dissolute fellow perhaps intends to crown his infernal triumphs by attacking the honor of your wife? . . ."

The councillor looked at his wife wonderingly, clasping his hands:

"Attack your honor; Martha! Ah, good heavens! Who thought of that?"

"Oh! what a man! what a man! Listen, then!"

And the _conseillère_ read the letter for the third time! . . .

"'Mons. de Létorière will have the honor of presenting himself to-day, at noon, at the house of _Madame_ Flachsinfingen.'

"Do you comprehend that? At _Madame_'s house. Is not that clear? It is not at the house of the councillor that he will present himself, but at the house of the councillor's wife. Tis a kind of rendezvous which he asks of me. He does not hide it; he attempts no subterfuge; he avows it without shame; and you,--you do not trouble yourself, you stand there, careless of the affront! Go along! go along, Flachsinfingen! you are not worthy to have an honest wife! To ask a rendezvous of _me!_ The impudent fellow!"

"How, Martha, do you really believe that the Marquis dreamed of it? . . . Come, now, you are foolish and ridiculous!" cried the councillor. "If he asks a rendezvous, it is to speak to you about his lawsuit; nothing is more simple. He, like all the rest of the world, knows that I place entire confidence in you; that is to say, you lead me by the nose. So, in order to influence me, he very naturally wishes to act upon you, Martha."

"To act upon me!! How to act upon me!! I will prevent it at the peril of my life!" cried the _conseillère_, in heroic accents.

At this moment they heard a carriage stop at the door.

"Heavens! that is he," said the _conseillère_, leaning upon her husband's chair. "I have not a drop of blood in my veins! Flachsinfingen, do not quit me! In heaven's name defend me from this audacious fellow!"

But the carriage continued on its way it was a false alarm.

Martha passed her hand over her forehead, saying with emotion:

"My heart failed me, I confess; but a woman cannot always control her fears."

"Well, if you fear this Marquis, why the devil do you receive him? Why do you face him?" innocently asked the councillor.

"Why? why?" repeated Martha, indignantly--and pointing towards her husband with a gesture of sovereign contempt--"he asks me why! That is the question of a soul shamefully abandoned to gluttony! Why? Why is the warrior who basely flees before his enemy dishonored? Why is gold tried by fire? Why is the just man who has valiantly fought, who has resisted, superior to him who has never struggled? Why does the Scripture"--and Martha pointed to her Bible, opened at the Book of Judges--"why does the Scripture say: '_Ye who offered yourselves willingly to bless the Lord. Speak ye that ride on white she-asses, ye that sit in judgment, and walk without fear_--'"

"But," cried the councillor, interrupting his wife impatiently, "I tell you again, you are a fool! Who thinks of fighting you on your she-ass? of attacking you? of wrestling with you? of proving you by fire? At your age, you . . . ah, bah! . . . be quiet, then. . . . You will make me say something foolish, Martha!"

"Now add insult to vulgarity; nothing from you will astonish me."

"Well, once more, do not receive this Marquis,--do not receive him!" cried the councillor, exasperated; "my mind is made up to sustain the rights of the German princes, since you desire it! so whatever you may say to this Nebuchadnezzar, this Pharaoh, this Tarquin, will change nothing. Be quiet! I have no wish that he should attack you, as you say, or that you should resist him in order to prove yourself the most virtuous woman in all Germany. So don't think of it any more; close your door, and let me go to peep into Lipper's ovens; my stomach warns me that it is almost noon, and I depend so much on a certain baked pike, with gooseberry jelly sauce, that I have dreamt of it all night."

Having suffered her husband to speak, Madame Flachsinfingen replied with an air of calm and concentrated contempt: "I know, sir, that you think of nothing but your beastly gormandizing, when the virtue of your wife is in peril. . . . So it devolves on me to defend your honor and my own. A new Judith, I will brave this Holofernes, and like her, I will say:"

'Give me, oh Lord, courage to scorn him and strength to destroy him.'

"But notwithstanding my resolution," continued Martha, "as I am, after all, but a weak woman, as this miscreant is capable of going to the most frightful lengths . . . all that I ask of you is, to hold yourself well armed, and ready to succor me, if my own efforts are unhappily vain!"

"But, Martha, reassure yourself . . . reassure yourself; one cannot always judge one's self aright; and I swear to you that there is something in you . . . a certain air . . . a certain 'I know not what' . . . which would deter any impertinent fellow from showing a want of respect to you. . . . So I shall have no need to arm myself in order to . . ."

"Do you not know that if I set out to do a thing, I will do it?" said the _conseillère_, interrupting her husband, and fixing on him a look which seemed to fascinate him. "Although I am sorry to delay your dinner-hour, you will nevertheless take a blunderbuss, and, concealed under this table, will be present at this interview . . . ready to come to my aid, if need be, when I cry, 'To me, Flachsinfingen!'"

"I hide myself under this table with a blunderbuss! And what for? Heavens!"

"I tell you, sir, that this will be, and it will be!"

This scene took place in the councillor's library, where many arms of the middle ages were hung up on the wainscot as objects of curiosity.

The lady selected a blunderbuss and a poniard, which she laid on the table; she examined, also, a light Persian shield and a steel coat of mail, and was on the point of investing herself with these defences in order more surely to resist the expected attack of the Marquis; but, deciding that she was sufficiently guarded by the poniard, she again approached her husband.

"This poniard will do for me; this blunderbuss for you. Deborah was armed with nothing but a nail; Judith, with a sword; Dalilah, with scissors. . . . Martha will have a poniard."

"But, Martha, take care! this blunderbuss has been loaded ever since the day I intended to try it. . . . Good heavens! what's the use of all these implements?"

Again a carriage stopped at the gate. Once more, Martha felt a strong emotion of terror, when the servant came to say to her:

"It is a French Marquis who asks for you, madame." . . .

"Good heavens! 'tis he . . . courage!" . . . said she, in a low voice; and added: "when I ring the bell, Claire, you may introduce this stranger."

The servant went out; the _conseillère_ solemnly embraced her husband, and said to him in an agitated voice:

"Now, Flachsinfingen, the moment has come . . . take your blunderbuss; and may God save me!" . . .

And she raised the cover, making a gesture to her husband to slip under the table.

"But, my dear wife, I shall stifle under there. . . . How absurd!"

"Do you hear me?" said Martha, imperiously.

"But, 'tis useless . . ."

"Flachsinfingen, did you hear me?" cried the furious woman, seizing her husband by the arm, and accentuating, so to speak, every word with a sharp pinch.

"I must be, by Jupiter! as foolish and weak as you are mad, to lend myself to this nonsense," said the councillor, rubbing his arm, and painfully crawling under the table.

"Now, when I cry 'To me, Flachsinfingen!' come out, and fire without mercy on this Philistine!" said his wife; then she drew down the cloth which stifled the councillor's last murmurs.

Sure of this concealed auxilliary, Martha made scientific preparations for defence. The table which sheltered the councillor was placed between herself and the dreaded adversary. On her flanks she placed two chairs, with another as a screen; and at her side she had a long Toledo poniard.

Then, with a beating heart, she rang her bell, and murmured in a low voice: "Be ready, Flachsinfingen!" . . .

Some inarticulate sounds escaped from beneath the table-cloth; the door was opened; Létorière entered, and the lady put her hand upon her weapon.