Part 11

“Ah, you have heard of it, then? It is only a story, thank God! Let us think about our breakfast. I will call some one.”

“No, Monsieur Goefle. Ulph will certainly come immediately. Besides, if you want anything more, let me go and get it. There’s nothing like choosing your own bill of fare; but this bear’s ham, or boar’s ham, this smoked tongue and roast game, which you hardly began on last night--don’t they appeal to you any longer this morning?”

“Of course they do--of course; and there’s more here now than we two can eat. Well, as the table is set, shall we take breakfast, hey?”

“That will suit me exactly; but allow me to step into a corner and make my toilette--or rather to unmake it, for I am still--”

“In my clothes? I see that well enough. Well, as you are in them, stay there. Only, take the pelisse off and put the coat on, or you will be smothered while you are eating.”

Cristiano first refurnished the stove with fuel, and lighted it. Then, having washed his hands and face with much care and neatness in a corner of the room, he took his place, and began to carve the cold meats in a style that showed him to be a master of the art.

“It’s curious,” remarked M. Goefle; “you have what they would call in France the manner of a perfect gentleman, and yet that old coat of yours there--”

“Indicates misfortune, and not poverty,” answered the adventurer, quietly. “Eight days ago I was very decently equipped, and could have appeared at the ball without any embarrassment.”

“Very possibly,” said M. Goefle, seating himself, and beginning to make good use of his handsome teeth; “just as it is quite possible that you are getting ready for one more of those romances that travelling adventurers excel in. It is all the same to me, if it is amusing.”

“Come,” said Cristiano, laughing, “in what language shall I recite my tale?”

“Faith, in Swedish, as that is your own language. You are a Swede, and a Dalecarlian too; I see that plainly enough, by your face.”

“But I am not Swedish, though; Icelandic, rather.”

“Rather? are you not sure?”

“Not the least in the world. Therefore, as Latin is the universal language, if you please--”

And Cristiano continued in elegant and correct Latin, speaking it with the greatest facility.

“Very well done, indeed!” said the advocate, who had listened kindly and attentively; “but your Italian pronunciation hinders me a little in following your Latin.”

“Probably there would be the same difficulty in Greek and German,” suggested Cristiano, changing first to the dead, and then to the living, language, with equal ease and correctness, and interspersing with his discourse quotations enough to prove that he was versed in both ancient and modern literature.

“Bravo!” cried the doctor; “you are a highly educated young fellow, I see. And French--do you know that also?”

“French and English, at your service,” said Cristiano. “I was taught them all; and my own preference led me to the study of languages.”

“Well, then, speak French,” said M. Goefle, who was hardly less of a polyglot than Cristiano. “I love Italy, but I adore France. She is our ally, useful or not; and, above all, she is the antagonist of Russia, which I hold in execration.”

“Great heavens! so do I. I am anti-Russian ever since I came into Sweden; and especially since last evening. But now, doctor, permit me to beg you not to take me for a pedant. The reason that I ventured to display my poor acquirements before a Professor of the Faculty of Lund is, that when you saw me carving that ham rather skilfully, you asked, in your own mind, whether I was not an ex-steward or butler from a good family, discharged in disgrace, and on the lookout for victims.”

“There now! Did you really guess that that idea was passing through my mind? Well, I confess it; and I see now that if you have been employed in good families, it has by no means been in a lackey’s place.”

“Oh, _Mon Dieu_, monsieur!” answered Cristiano; “lackey or professor, it is very much the same thing with some people, except the difference of a grade more or less.”

“Oh no! not in Sweden, my friend; the devil! no indeed; not here.”

“I know it, monsieur. Your people are fond of profound studies, and the promotion of knowledge is nowhere more nobly encouraged; but in other countries it often happens--”

Here Cristiano was interrupted by the entrance of Ulphilas with breakfast. Seeing the table already set, he halted in stupid astonishment.

“You see, blockhead,” cried M. Goefle, gayly, guessing the reason of his surprise, “my kobold has waited on me in your place; and it’s well for me he did, for you have left me entirely alone this twelve hours.”

Ulph, or Ulf--for there is sufficient authority for either form of the word--tried to excuse himself; but the consolation which he had sought in the bottle the evening before had entirely obscured his faculties, and he found it very hard to give any reasons for his neglect. As a general thing, Ulph became comfortable enough in his mind by day-break, and for the five hours or thereabouts following the late sunrise of winter, he was no more cowardly or awkward than other people. His excessive libations had, no doubt, an effect upon his dull brains at all times; but as he could nevertheless perform his domestic duties with the proper mechanical regularity, this was neither troublesome to others nor disquieting to himself. On the present occasion, he stammered, in the Dalecarlian dialect, some words of stupid surprise at seeing the dishes displayed upon the table, and an unknown individual seated with the doctor.

“Come,” said the doctor, “wait upon this gentleman as you do upon myself. He is a friend of mine whom I have accommodated in my lodging.”

“Yes, sir,” said Ulph, “I have nothing to say against that; but the thing is that the horse--”

“Horse yourself!” exclaimed Cristiano, who had already picked up somewhere a few words of Dalecarlian, and who saw himself threatened by a terrible revelation.

“Yes, sir, horse myself,” replied Ulph, with resignation. “But the sleigh--”

“What about the sleigh?” said the doctor; “have you cleaned it? Have you rubbed down my horse?”

The word _horse_ again striking Cristiano’s ear, he turned towards Ulph, and looked at him, aside, with such a terrific expression, that the poor stupefied fellow, quite losing his self-command, stammered in reply:

“Yes, yes, sir; horse, sleigh. It’s all right.”

“Very well, then, go on with the breakfast,” said the doctor, reassured. “Give us the tobacco, Ulph, and let the tea-kettle alone. We will make the tea for ourselves.”

As Ulph accordingly turned to the stove to set down the tea-kettle, Cristiano stepped after him, as if to superintend the operation, and turning towards him, said in his ear, in Dalecarlian, and with another terrifying glance:

“Horse, sleigh, new chateau--quick!”

Upon this Ulph took it into his head that in his drunkenness he must have received some orders which he had not executed; so he hurried off, put on his skates, and went over to the new chateau to look for Loki through the noisy stables, overcrowded with grooms and horses.

Our doctor of laws did not eat so gluttonously as the doctor of sciences, Stangstadius. He took his time, and savored and passed judgment upon every dish, according to the great principles which govern the application of the culinary art to the lofty needs of the choicer class of stomachs. At the end of a further half hour of conversation, with experiments, on the subject, he and Cristiano, as they looked at each other, perceived each a rosy reflection upon the other’s face.

“There it is at last!” said the doctor; “the sun is just coming above the horizon.”

He looked at his watch.

“A quarter before ten,” he observed. “Come, this Mora watch does very well. See, this is of home manufacture. Our Dalecarlians make everything. They make all their own tools, from the simplest to the most complicated. But don’t put out the candle, it will be convenient while we are smoking; and besides, in the winter, I like to watch the doubtful, fantastic mingling of the sunlight and the artificial light struggling together in the room. Why, the clock’s striking! You wound it up last evening, then?”

“Certainly. Did you not observe it?”

“I did not observe anything. I was sleeping while standing up, or else I was dreaming. Perhaps it is only a dream that I came in here and took supper. No matter. Can you make tea?”

“No; but coffee to perfection.”

“Very well, make some. I will take charge of the tea.”

“Are you fond of such an insipid, melancholy drink?”

“Yes,--diluted with a full third of brandy or old rum.”

“Ah, that makes a difference! Doctor, I am surprised at finding here a table as well spread as if at Paris or London.”

“Well, why not? Are we at the end of the world? It is only six hours’ sail to Prussia, where they live just as they do in Paris.”

“Yes; but off at the furthest end of this province, sixty or seventy leagues away inland, and in so poor a country--”

“So poor! Do you think a country must be poor because it is not well adapted to tillage? You forget that, amongst us, wealth lies under the ground, not above it; and that the mines of Dalecarlia are the very treasury of Sweden. You have noticed that this region, bordering on Norway, is thinly peopled, and you have concluded that it would not support a larger population. Let me tell you that if the government only knew how to develop its resources, and had the power to do so, our mineral wealth would afford the means of increasing a hundredfold our prosperity, and the number of our inhabitants. One day, things will go better with us, if we can only escape, on the one hand, from the claws of England, whose intrigues oppress us, and, on the other, from the pincers of Russia, who paralyzes us with her threats. In the meanwhile, my son, understand that if there are poor people amongst us, it is not the fault of this good land of God’s, so much calumniated by the ignorance, indifference, or false notions of the men who inhabit it. People here complain of the severity of the winter and the hardness of the rocks. But there is a warm heart down underneath in the earth! Dig down anywhere, yes, I guarantee you, anywhere, and you will come upon some of the innumerable veins of valuable metals that ramify throughout beneath our feet. With those metals we can buy all the rarities, all the luxuries, all the productions of Europe, if we only have arms enough to lift the wealth to the surface of the ground. We complain of the earth, when it is men who are wanting. It is she who ought to complain of us, rather!”

“God forbid that I should speak ill of Sweden, my dear Monsieur Goefle! I only say that there are great areas of land lying uncultivated and waste, and that what few inhabitants there are, are so frugal that the traveller can find nothing at all to eat except gruel and milk;--healthful food, no doubt, but not much calculated to stimulate the imagination or to give energy to the character.”

“There you completely deceive yourself again, my dear fellow! This region may be called the very head and heart of Sweden; an enthusiastic head, full of strange poetry, and sublime or graceful imaginations; an ardent and generous heart, where the main artery of patriotism is throbbing. Are you familiar with its history?”

“Yes indeed! Gustavus Vasa, Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII., all the Swedish heroes, have always found men in the heart of these mountains, though all the rest of the nation might be enslaved or corrupted. It is this glorious nook of the earth, this Switzerland of the north, that in every great crisis has supplied loyalty, energy, and salvation to the country.”

“Very well said! Well then, admit that the national gruel and barren and icy rocks may bring forth and train up poets and heroes!”

As he said this, the doctor of laws drew his soft wadded dressing-gown around him, and poured into his boiling hot and well-sweetened cup of tea, a half-glass of the best quality of rum. Cristiano was enjoying the flavor of an exquisite cup of Mocha, and they both burst out laughing at their enthusiasm for the cold of the mountains and the gruel of hovels.

“Ah!” said M. Goefle, becoming serious again, “the fact is, we are degenerate men. We must have our stimulants and tonics nowadays. That proves that the most accomplished or the most famous of us all is inferior to the lowest peasant of these savage mountains. But will not that animal of an Ulphilas bring us any tobacco? That fellow is a perfect brute!”

Cristiano laughed again, and M. Goefle, perceiving the inconsistency of eulogizing sobriety and equality just at that moment, allowed himself to be appeased, especially when he espied the tobacco-jar at his elbow. Ulph had brought it, with his usual mechanical precision, and had omitted to say so, from his utter lack of spontaneity.

“Well, come,” said M. Goefle--extending himself in the arm-chair for more commodious digestion, and smoking a magnificent Turkish pipe, whose bowl he rested upon a projection of the stove, while Cristiano, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes astride his chair, smoked his short travelling-pipe with more speed and less tranquillity--“come, my problematic comrade, tell me this true history of yours, if you can.”

“Here it is, then,” said Cristiano. “My name is--or at least I go by the name of Cristiano del Lago!”

“Chrétien du Lac? Christian of the Lake? Why so romantic a name?”

“Ah, there you have me! _Chi lo sa?_ Who knows? as they say in my country. It is altogether a romance, no doubt, without a word of truth in it. I will tell it to you as it was told to me.

“In some country--I don’t know what--by the side of a lake whose name I have never known, a lady--ugly or handsome, rich or poor, noble or plebeian--either in consequence of a legitimate connection or of an unfortunate mischance--gave birth to an infant whose existence, it seems, it was very necessary to conceal. By means of a cord and a basket--these details were told me with much precision--this lady, or her confidential companion, lowered the poor little new-born child into a boat, waiting below either by chance, or in pursuance of some arrangement made secretly. As to the lady, I have never met any one who could inform me what became of her; and where should I have made inquiries? As to the child, it was carried away secretly, I do not know whither, and maintained, I do not know how, until old enough to be weaned, when it was carried away again, I don’t know by whom, into another country--”

“I don’t know what!” said M. Goefle, laughing. “Your statements are a little vague. I should be a good deal troubled with such evidence, to gain your cause.”

“My cause?”

“Yes; I am supposing that you are going to law to recover your name, your rights, your inheritance.”

“Oh, make yourself easy about that, Monsieur Goefle,” replied Cristiano; “you will never have a cause to plead for me. I have none of the ordinary foolishness of adventurers of mysterious birth, who assume, at the very least, to be the sons of kings, and who spend their whole lives in hunting all over the world for their illustrious relatives, without remembering that they, most probably, would find it more inconvenient than agreeable to be recognized. For my part, if I happen to be of a noble family I don’t know it, and I don’t trouble myself about it. My adopted parents entertained this same indifference, or rather they inspired me with it.”

“And who were your adopted parents?”

“I have never known, and I have no recollection who the persons were who received me from the window into the boat, who kept me at nurse, and who carried me into Italy. They may all have been of the same family--perhaps it was one and the same person--I can’t tell anything at all about it. My only real adopted parents were Signor Goffredi, an antiquary and professor of ancient history at Perugia, and his excellent wife, Sophia Goffredi, whom I loved like a mother.”

“But where and from whom did these good people receive you? They must have told you--”

“They never knew. They had a small fortune, and having no children, they had several times shown a desire to adopt some poor orphan. One evening, in carnival time, a man in a mask presented himself to them, and took from under his cloak the individual who now has the honor to address you, but who has not the least recollection in the world of the occurrence, and could give no explanation of it at the time; inasmuch as he then spoke a language that nobody could understand.”

“But,” interrupted the advocate, who was listening to this story with the same attention that he would have bestowed upon the progress of a cause in court, “what was the tenor of the words used by the masked person who presented you to Professor Goffredi and his wife?”

“Here they are, as they were repeated to me: ‘I come from a distance--a great distance. I am poor, and have been obliged to spend part of the money given me with this child, in travelling. I thought myself bound to do this, for I had been ordered to carry him far away, very far, from his and my own country. Here is the rest of the money. I have heard that you were looking for a child to adopt, and I know you will bring him up happy and well-educated. Will you receive this poor orphan?’”

“The professor did receive it?”

“He accepted the child and refused the money. ‘If I want a child to bring up,’ he said, ‘it is my duty to provide for him; not his for me!’”

“And had he not curiosity enough to inform himself--?”

“He could obtain no information except on one point--whether or no the child was likely to be reclaimed. He wanted to feel that it was wholly his; for he did not wish to become attached to the little creature, and then some day or other have it taken away. The unknown swore to him that no one would ever reclaim me; ‘and,’ he added, ‘the proof is that I have brought him more than five hundred leagues, for the express purpose of causing every trace of him to be lost. The child,’ he continued, ‘would be in the utmost danger, even here, if his whereabouts should be discovered. Ask me no questions, therefore, I shall not answer them!’ And he insisted upon leaving with them the small sum in question, which amounted to two or three hundred sequins.”

“Italian money?”

“Foreign gold coins of various countries, as if the unknown had crossed the whole of Europe, and had taken pains to convert his money into all sorts of pieces, so as to disappoint search or supposition.”

“The Goffredis reminded him that he was poor; he had said so, and his whole appearance showed it. It was only just, they thought, that he should be rewarded for taking such a long journey, and fulfilling so faithfully his orders about my removal. These offers he refused with obstinacy, and austerely. He departed very abruptly, saying, to prevent further questions, that he would return next day. He did not return, however; nothing further was ever heard of him; and so I remained intrusted, or, more properly, abandoned, thank God, to the care of M. and Madame Goffredi.”

“But the history of the lake, the window and the boat--where the deuce did you get that?”

“Wait a moment. When I was five or six years old--I was apparently three or four when I made my entry into Perugia under the cloak of the man in the mask--I had a fall, and was for a time thought to be dead. It was not very serious, after all. But among the friends of my adopted family who came to inquire after me, there slipped in a little Jew, whether baptized or not I do not know, who lived in Perugia, and traded with visitors, in objects of art and antiquity. My parents disliked him because he was a Jew; for in Italy, as here, a strong prejudice prevails against that people. This Jew inquired about me anxiously, and even insisted on seeing me, so as to be satisfied as to my condition.

“A year afterwards, we spent the summer in the country, and on our return to the city, he came again to obtain further information about me, and to see with his own eyes whether I had grown, and was well. My parents were extremely surprised at this, and insisted on knowing why he took so much interest in me. They threatened to exclude him from the house unless he gave a satisfactory account of the matter; for they were already fond of me, and were afraid that this Jew might mean to carry me off. Upon this he confessed, or pretended, that he had chanced to receive at his house the man in the mask, on the day of his arrival in the city, and had extracted certain confidential disclosures from him about me. These disclosures, vague, improbable, and utterly useless, were the statements with which I began my story. Probably they are not entitled to any credit whatever. My adoptive mother paid very little attention to them, but thinking the adventure somewhat romantic, she gave me the surname of del Lago, which I have for a long time used as my real name.”

“But the baptismal name, Christian, Christin, Christiern, Chrétien, Cristiano, who gave you that?”

“The man in the mask, without adding any other.”

“Did this man speak Italian?”

“Very imperfectly. His difficulty in explaining himself added not a little to the mystery about me.”

“But what sort of accent had he?”

“Professor Goffredi had occupied himself with the dead languages only. His wife, like himself a highly educated person, knew a good deal about living languages, but she found it impossible to decide to what nationality this man’s accent belonged.”

“And the little Jew, what did he think?”

“If he had any opinion about it, he never thought proper to tell it.”

“Were your parents quite sure he was not himself the man in the mask?”

“Quite certain. The man in the mask was of middle size, while the Jew was not five feet high. Nor had their voices or accents anything of similarity. I see, Monsieur Goefle, that, like my poor friends the Goffredis, you are asking yourself all sorts of questions about me; but what difference would it make, let me ask you, even if you could answer them?”

“Very true; what difference would it make?” answered M. Goefle. “Perhaps you may not be worth the pains I have been taking this hour past to put you in the way of discovering your family. It is from a professional habit of mind: let us say no more about it; particularly as in all that you have told me there is not a single definite fact to serve as the basis for framing ingenious and learned deductions. Wait, however;--what was done with the money of the man in the mask?”

“My good parents, imagining that it may have been the hire of a kidnapper, or the reward of some other crime, and believing, therefore, that it could not bring me good fortune, hastened to deposit it in the box for the poor in the cathedral of Perugia.”

“But you mentioned that you yourself spoke some language when you were brought there.”

“Certainly; but I quickly forgot it, as there was no one for me to talk to in it. I only know that a German philologist, who was visiting us next year, tried to unravel the mystery, at which time I had a good deal of trouble to remember a few words of this old language of mine. The linguist said it was a northern dialect, and somewhat like Icelandic; but my black hair seemed in a measure to invalidate that conclusion. The attempt to discover the facts was given up. My adoptive mother wished to make me forget all about any other country or family. You may easily suppose she had little difficulty in accomplishing her object.”

“One question more,” said M. Goefle. “I cannot feel thoroughly interested in a story until I am well possessed of the beginning of it. These recollections, that faded of themselves so naturally, and which your friends tried, moreover, to help you lose--does there remain absolutely nothing of them?”