Part 5

“To me it all seemed the most frightful madness. I was bewildered to see bright eyes pursuing studies which I knew myself to be so wearisome, taking joy where I had found only vexation and fatigue. Like all my caste, I was old-fashioned and thought a woman’s place at home. You must not go to the army for new ideas. It was no pleasure to me to see delicately nurtured ladies rubbing shoulders with raw medical students or tainting their pretty ears with the unrestrained conversation of men. You must remember how things have changed in eighteen years; you can scarcely conceive the position of those forerunners of your sex in Europe, so much has public opinion altered for the better. In my day we went to extremes on either side, for it was then that the battle was fought. The elders would not give way an inch; the children dashed into a thousand extravagances. To some it looked as though the dissolution of society was at hand. Girls asked men to marry them,--men they had seen perhaps but once,--in order that they might gain the freedom accorded to married women and secure themselves against the intolerable interference of their families. Some of them never saw their husbands again, nor could even recollect their names without an effort. Ah, it was frightful! It was a revolution!

“In spite of all her liberal opinions, her unconventional views, her apparent allegiance to the new religion, my mother soon took her place amid the reactionary ranks, while my sister, the _mondaine_, just as surely joined the rebellion. As I said before, it was the battle of the young against the old; age, rather than conviction, assigned one’s position in the fight. Our house, hitherto so free from domestic discord, became the theatre of furious quarrels between mother and daughter--quarrels not about gowns, allowances, suitors, or unpaid bills, but involving questions abstract and sublime: one’s liberty of free development; one’s duty to one’s self, to mankind; one’s obligation, in fact, to cast off all shackles and take one’s place in the revolution so auspiciously beginning.

“The end of it was that Berthe left Nemours, coming to Paris without my mother’s permission, to study medicine with a Russian friend of hers, a girl as defiant and undaunted as herself. This was Sonia Boremykin, with whose name you must be familiar. Needless to say, I was interdicted from giving any assistance to my sister, my mother imploring me not to supply the means by which Berthe’s ruin might be accomplished. But I could not allow my sister to starve to death in a garret, and if I disobeyed my poor mother, she had at least the satisfaction of knowing that my sympathies were on her side of the quarrel. My greatest distress, indeed, was that Berthe would accept so little, for she was crazy to be a martyr, and was, besides, prompted by a generous feeling not to take a sou more than the meagre earnings of her companion. So they lived and starved together, these two remarkable young women, turning their backs on every luxury and refinement. Either, for the asking, could have received a thousand-franc note within the hour; for each a château stood with open doors; for each there was a dowry of more than respectable dimensions, and lovers who would have been glad to take them for their _beaux yeux_ alone! And yet they chose to live in a garret, to be constantly affronted as they went unescorted through the wickedest parts of Paris, to subsist on food the most unappetising and unwholesome. For what? To cut up dead paupers in the Sorbonne!

“I was often there to see them with the self-imposed task of trying to lighten the burden of their sacrifices. I introduced food in paper bags, and surreptitiously dropped napoleons in dark corners--that is, until I was once detected. Afterwards they watched me like hawks. Sometimes they were so hungry that tears came into their eyes at the sight of what I brought; at others they would appear insulted, and throw it remorselessly out of the window. Though I had no sympathy whatever with their aims, I was profoundly interested, profoundly touched, as one might be at the sight of an heroic enemy. Their convictions were not my convictions; their mode of life I thought detestable: but who could withhold admiration for so much courage, so much self-denial, in two beautiful young women? I used often to bring with me my old colonel, a glorious veteran with whom I was always a favourite, and the girls liked to hear our sabres clank as we mounted the grimy stair, and to see our brilliant uniforms in their garret. It reminded them of the _monde_ they had resigned; besides, they needed an audience of their own caste who could appreciate, as none other, their sacrifices and their fortitude. Mademoiselle Sonia used to look very kindly at me on the occasion of my visits, never growing angry, as my sister did, at my stupidity, or by my failure to understand their high-flown notions of duty. Once, when I was accidentally hurt at the salle d’armes by a button coming off my opponent’s foil, it was she who dressed my wound with the greatest tenderness and skill, converting me for all time as to the medical career for women. Poor Sonia, how her eyes sparkled at her little triumph!

“On one of my visits I was thunderstruck to find before me the Marquis de Gonse, a gentleman much older than myself, with whom I had not actual acquaintance, though we had a host of friends in common. Upon his departure I protested vehemently against this outrage of the proprieties. I besought them to show a little more circumspection in their choice of friends, admitting no man to their intimacy who counted not his fifty years. But my protestations were received with laughter; I was told that the marquis was a friend of Sonia’s father, and was trying to effect a reconciliation highly to be desired. Berthe accused me mockingly of wishing to keep the little Russian to myself. Indeed, she said, what could be more demoralising to her companion than the constant presence of a beautiful young hussar? With her saucy tongue she put me completely to the blush; in vain I pleaded and argued; de Gonse’s footing was assured. Yet, if they had searched all Paris, they could not have found a man more undesirable, or more dangerous for two young women to know. Ardent, generous, and himself full of aspirations for the advancement of humanity, nothing was better calculated to appeal to him than the struggle in which my sister was engaged. His sympathy, his sincere desire to put his own shoulder to the wheel, were more to be feared than the most strenuous protestations of regard. If he had made love to my sister, she was enough a woman of the world to have sent him to the right about; but he adopted, all unconsciously, I am sure, a more subtle plan to win her good opinion: he was converted!

“If I shut my eyes I can see him sitting there in that low garret as he appeared on one occasion which particularly imprinted itself on my mind; such a high-bred, such a distinguished figure, with his silk hat and gloves beside the box which had been given him for a chair, and his face full of wonder and sadness! You have read of Marie Antoinette in prison, of her sufferings so uncomplainingly borne, of her nobility and steadfastness in the squalor of her cell! You have revolted, perhaps, at the picture--clinched your little fists and felt a great bursting of the heart? It was thus with M. de Gonse. Berthe he had often seen at our château in Nemours; Sonia’s father he had known in Russia, a general of reputation, standing high in the favour of the Czar. None was better aware than he of what the young ladies had given up. I could see that he was deeply moved. He asked many questions; at times he exclaimed beneath his breath. He insisted on learning everything--the amount of their income, the nature of their studies, all their makeshifts and contrivances. The two beautiful, solitary girls, from whom sympathy and appreciation had so long been withheld, unbared their lives to us without reserve. Berthe told us, amid the passionate interjections of Sonia Boremykin, the story of their struggles at the medical school: the open hostility of the professors; the brutal sneers and innuendoes; the indescribable affronts that had been put upon them. During this terrible recital--for it was terrible to hear of outrages so patiently borne, of insults which bring the blood to the cheek even to remember after all these years--de Gonse rose more than once from his seat, walking up and down like one possessed, uttering cries of rage and pity. It was no feigned anger, no play-acting to win the regard of these poor women. Let me do the man that justice.

“I don’t think my sister was prepared for the effect of her eloquence on the marquis, or could have foreseen, even for a moment, the tempest she had raised within his breast. He swore he would challenge every professor in the school; that he would unloose spadassins on the offending students, whose bones should be broken with clubs; that to blight their careers in after life he would make his business, his pleasure, his joy! It was with difficulty that he was recalled to the realities of every-day existence, my sister telling him frankly that such a course as he proposed might benefit woman in general, but could not fail to destroy the future of herself and Sonia Boremykin. To be everywhere talked about, to get their names into the newspapers, to be pointed at on the street as the victims of frightful insults--what could be more detestable, more ruinous to the careers they hoped to make? De Gonse was reluctantly compelled to withdraw his plans of extermination; for who could controvert the logic with which they were demolished or fail to see the justice of my sister’s contention? Confessing himself beaten on this point, he sought for some other solution of the problem. Private tutors? Intolerably expensive, came the answer; poor substitutes for one of the greatest schools in Europe; unable, besides, to confer the longed-for degree. The University of Geneva, famous for its generous treatment of women? Good, but its diploma would not carry the desired prestige in France. I hazarded boys’ clothes and false mustaches; but my remark was greeted with a shout of laughter and a half-blushing confession from Mademoiselle Sonia that one experiment in this direction had sufficed. It was to the marquis that light finally came.

“‘Fool! Idiot!’ he thundered, striking himself on his handsome forehead with his fist. ‘Why did I not think of it before? To-morrow I join the medical school myself--the student de Gonse, cousin of the marquis, a man tired of the hollowness and the trivialities of high life. I do nothing to show I am acquainted with you, nothing to compromise you in the faintest manner. But de Gonse, the medical student, is a gentleman, a man of honour. A companion ventures on a remark derogatory to the dignity of the young ladies; behold, his head cracks like an egg against his desk! Another opens his mouth, only to discover that _le boxe_ (you know I am quite an Anglais) is driving the teeth down his throat, setting up medical complications of an extraordinary and baffling nature. A professor so far forgets his manhood as to heap insults on the undefended; the strange medical student tweaks his nose in the tribune and challenges him to combat! How simple, how direct!’

“Imagine my surprise a few days later to learn that this had been no idle gasconade on the marquis’s part. True to his word, he had appeared at the school elaborately attired for the part he was to play, even to a detestable cravat and a profusion of cheap jewellery! Unquestionably there must have been others in the plot, for no formalities anywhere tied his hands or opposed the least obstacle to his audacity. As one would have expected from a man so eager and so full of resource, the object for which he came was soon achieved. Mingling with the students as one of themselves, he singled out those who went the farthest in persecuting the women, and insensibly cajoled them into a better way of conduct. The minority, too, those that still kept alive the chivalry of young France, were strengthened and encouraged by the force of his example, so that the crusade, once authoritatively begun, went on magnificently of itself. Not a blow was struck, not a wry word said, and behold, de Gonse had accomplished a miracle! From that time the position of women was assured; protectors arose on every side as though by magic; in a word, gallantry became the fashion. When professors ventured on impertinences, hisses now greeted them in place of cheers; they changed colour, and were at pains to explain away their words. The battle, indeed, was won.

“Had de Gonse contented himself with this victory, which saved my sister and Mademoiselle Sonia from countless mortifications, how much human misery would have been averted, how great a tragedy would have remained unplayed! But evil and good are inexplicably blended in this world, a commonplace of whose truth, mademoiselle, you will have many opportunities of verifying. Having acted so manly a part, one so calculated to earn the gratitude and esteem of these poor girls, he turned from one to the other, wondering with which he should reward himself. I have reason to think his choice first fell on Sonia Boremykin, who had the whitest skin and the prettiest blue eyes in the world. How can I doubt, to judge from her wild, tragic after life, but that he could have persuaded her to her ruin? But he must have paused half-way, struck by the incomparable superiority of my sister. In beauty she was not perhaps the equal of her companion, though to compare _blonde_ and _brune_ is a matter of supererogation. In other ways, at least, there never lived a woman more desirable than Berthe de Charruel. She possessed to a supreme degree the charm that springs from intelligence,--I might say from genius,--which, when found in the person of a young and beautiful woman, is almost irresistible to any man that gains her favour. Jeanne d’Arc was such another as my poor sister, and must have been impelled on her career by something of the same fire, something of the same passionate earnestness. To break a heart like hers seemed to de Gonse the crown to a hundred vulgar intrigues and _bonnes fortunes_.

“Of course, I knew nothing of this gradual undoing of my sister, though during the course of my visits to the little garret I often found the marquis in the society of Berthe and her friend. I disliked to see him there, but I was powerless to interfere. I was often puzzled, indeed, by the ambiguous conduct of Mademoiselle Sonia, who had the queerest way of looking at me, and whose eyes were always meeting mine in singular glances, whether of warning or appeal I was at a loss to tell. Her words, too, often left me uneasy, recurring to me constantly when I was in the saddle at the head of my troop or as I lay awake in bed awaiting the reveille. I wondered if the little Russian were making love to me, for, like all hussars, I was something of a coxcomb, though, to do me justice, neither a lady-killer nor a pursuer of adventures. It was in my profession that I found my only distraction, my only mistress. I am almost ashamed to tell you how good I was, how innocent--how in me the Puritan stock of my mother seemed to find a fresh recrudescence. Some thought me a hypocrite, others a coward; but I was neither.

“I learned the truth late one afternoon from Sonia Boremykin, who came to my quarters closely veiled, in a condition of agitation the most frightful. I could not believe her; I seemed to see only another of her devices to win my regard. My sister! My Berthe! It was impossible! I said to her the crudest things; I was beside myself. She went on her knees; she hid nothing; it was all true. My anger flamed like a blazing fire; I rushed out of the barracks regardless of my duties--of everything except revenge. A lucky _rencontre_ on the street put me on de Gonse’s track, and I ran him down in the _salle_ of the Jockey Club. He was standing under one of the windows, reading a letter by the fading light, a note, as like as not, he had just received from Berthe. I think he changed colour when he saw me; at least, he drew back with a start.

“I lifted my glove and struck him square across his handsome face.

“‘You will understand what that is for, M. le Marquis de Gonse!’ I cried.

“He turned deadly white, and with a quick movement caught my wrists in both his hands.

“‘_Mon enfant!_’ he exclaimed in a loud voice, which he tried to invest with a tone of jocularity, ‘you carry your high spirits beyond all reason; I am too old to enjoy being hit upon the nose.’ Then in a lower key he whispered: ‘Paul, calm thyself; for the love of God, do not force a quarrel. Come outside and let us talk with calmness.’

“But I was in no humour to be cajoled. I fiercely shook off his restraining hands. ‘Messieurs,’ I cried, as the others, detecting a scene, began to close round us, ‘Messieurs, behold how I buffet the face of the Marquis de Gonse!’ And with that I again flicked my glove across his face.

“De Gonse slunk back with a sort of sob.

“‘Captain de Charruel and I have had an unfortunate difference of opinion,’ he cried, recovering his aplomb on the instant. ‘It seems we cannot agree upon the Spanish Succession. M. le Comte, my seconds will await on you this evening.’

“I turned and left the club, my head in a whirl, my face so distraught and haggard that I carried consternation through the jostling street, the people making way for me as though I were a madman. To obtain seconds was my immediate preoccupation, a task of no difficulty for a young hussar. My colonel kindly condescended to act, and with him my friend Nicholas van Greef, the military attaché of the Netherlands government. To both I told the same story of the Spanish Succession and the quarrel of which it had been the occasion. But my colonel smiled and laid a meaning finger against his nose; the Dutchman said drily it was well to keep ladies’ names out of such affairs. I am convinced, however, that neither of them had the faintest glimmering of the truth. Having thus arranged matters with my seconds, I attempted next to find my poor sister, hastening up her interminable stairs with an impatience I leave you to imagine. Needless to say, she was not in the garret, which was inhabited by Mademoiselle Sonia alone, her pretty face swollen with weeping, her humour one of extraordinary caprices and contradictions. She blamed me altogether for the catastrophe: I ought not to have given Berthe a sou; I ought to have starved her back into servitude. Women were intended for slaves; to make them free was to give them the rope to hang themselves. For her part, said mademoiselle, she thought a convent the right place for girls, and crochet work the best occupation! At any other time I might have stared to hear such sentiments from my sister’s friend, but for the moment I could think of nothing but Berthe. To find her was my one desire. In this, however, Sonia would afford me no assistance, frankly asking what would be the good.

“‘The harm is done, my poor Paul,’ she said, looking at me sorrowfully. ‘Why should I expose you or her to an interview so unpleasant? How could it profit any one?’

“I could not altogether see the force of this acquiescence in evil. I said that the honour of one of the oldest families in France was at stake; that if my sister did not leave the marquis I should kill her with my own hands and fly the country. I implored Mademoiselle Sonia, with every argument I thought might move her, to betray my sister’s hiding-place. But she kept putting me off, mocked at my impatience, and tried to learn, on her side, whether or not I meant to fight de Gonse.

“‘If you really wish to find out where she is,’ she cried at last, ‘why don’t you make me tell you? Why don’t you take me by the throat and pound my head against the wall, as they do down-stairs with such admirable success? Those women positively adore their men.’ As she spoke she threw back her head and exposed her charming neck with a gesture half defiant, half submissive! Upon my soul, I felt like carrying her suggestion into effect and choking her in good earnest, for I had become furious at her contrariety. But, restraining the impulse, I saw there was nothing left for me save to retire.

“‘Mademoiselle Boremykin,’ I said, ‘you are heartless and wicked beyond anything I could have imagined possible. You have helped to bring a noble name to dishonour, and in place of remorse your only feelings seem those of levity. I have the honour of wishing you good day.’

“De Gonse and I met the following morning in the Bois de Boulogne. His had been the choice of arms, and he selected rapiers, knowing, like all men of the world, that a pistol has the knack of killing. I ground my teeth at his decision, for he had the reputation of being a fine fencer, while I could boast no more than the average proficiency. He appeared to great advantage on the field; so cool, so handsome, such a _grand seigneur_--in every way so marked a contrast to myself. It was not unnatural, however: he was there to prick me in the shoulder, I to kill him if I could. Small wonder that my face was livid, that my eyes burned like coals in my head, that I was petulant with my own seconds, insulting towards my adversary’s. I looked at these with scorn, the supporters of a scoundrel, themselves, no doubt, seducers and libertines like him they served. My dear old colonel chid me for my discourtesy--bade me be a _galant homme_ for his sake, if not for mine. I kissed his wrinkled hand before them all; I said I respected men only who were honourable like himself. Every one laughed at my extravagance, at the poor old man’s embarrassment. It was plain they considered me a coward. They said things I could not help overhearing. But I cared for nothing. My God, no! I was there to kill de Gonse, not to pick quarrels with his friends.

“We were placed in position. Everything was _en règle_. The doctors, of whom there were a couple, lit cigarettes and did not even trouble to open their wallets. They knew it to be an affair of scratches.

“The handkerchief fell. We set to, warily, cautiously, looking into each other’s eyes like wild beasts. More than once he could have killed me, so openly did I expose myself to his attack, so unconscionably did I force him back, hoping to give lunge for lunge, my life for his. But in his adventurous past de Gonse must often have crossed swords with men no less desperate than myself; it was no new thing to him to face a determined foe, or to guard himself against thrusts that were meant to kill. His temper was under admirable control; he handled his weapon like a master in the school of arms, and allowed me to tire myself out against what seemed a wall of steel. Suddenly he forced my guard with a stroke like a lightning-flash; I felt my left arm burn as though melted wax had been dropped upon it. Some one seized my sword; some one caught me in his arms!