Part 6

He entered, first, the long frescoed gallery that traversed the whole of the main building, and which was decorated with passable success, in imitation of the Italian taste, introduced into Sweden by Queen Christina. The pictures were not good, but they were effective. They represented hunting scenes; and though an artist could not have failed to criticise the drawing and action of the dogs, horses, and wild animals, he could at least have enjoyed the general effect of the brilliant and lively coloring.

Cristiano walked along this gallery until he came to a handsome saloon, where they were beginning to dance. His only thought in looking at the ladies taking part was of Margaret, but his desire to see her was blended with a secret anxiety. How should he renew the conversation begun at Stollborg? how substitute his own character? or, at all events, some new character, no matter what, for the one he had assumed? This no longer appeared to him so easy as he had imagined it would prove on engaging in this wild adventure. He was almost glad to find that Margaret was not in the ball-room; and he took advantage of this respite--for so he felt it to be--to try and form an idea of the company moving before him.

Contrary to his expectation, he found nothing to wonder at. At a first glance, this gathering had none of the peculiarities that he had anticipated. The age, at this period, belonged to Voltaire, and consequently to France. Like most of the European sovereigns, the upper classes in almost every part of Europe had adopted the language, and apparently the philosophical and literary ideas of France. But, as taste, logic, and discernment are always confined to the select few, this infatuation for our ideas gave rise to a great many inconsistencies. For example, the customs and manners of foreign nations reproduced much more frequently the corruption and effeminacy of Versailles than the studious leisure of Ferney. France was the fashion as well as philosophy. Arts, customs, monuments, good breeding, deportment, conduct, were all copied, with more or less success, from the prevailing French fashion. France, with all her contradictory qualities, good and bad, magnificent and petty, noble and contemptible, was accepted indiscriminately. It was one of those characteristic epochs, when progress and decay shake hands before joining in deadly conflict.

The ball given by Baron Olaus was a mere imitation, a little behind the times, of a French reunion of the eighteenth century; and yet the baron hated France, and was intriguing in the interest of Russia. But in Russia also they imitated France, and spoke the French language; at court they were extremely barbarous, and even ferocious in their manners, and yet they were trying to adopt the gallant manners and intellectual refinement of French civilization. Baron Olaus, therefore, was borne along by the irresistible current of the age. We shall learn his history later. Let us return now to Cristiano.

After looking for a while at the dresses of the ladies, which seemed to him only a few years behind French fashions, and at their faces, which were generally sweet and intelligent, although they were not all young and beautiful, he turned his attention to the gentlemen, and tried to recognize, that is to say to guess among them, the face and figure of the master of the house. Not far from the spot where he was observing all that went on without making himself conspicuous, two men were talking in a low voice, with their backs towards him. Involuntarily Cristiano followed their conversation, although he felt no personal interest in it.

These two men were talking French, one with a Russian, and the other with a Swedish accent. The language of courts and diplomacy seemed to be necessary to enable them to exchange their ideas.

“Pshaw!” said the Swede, “I am not a cap any more than a _hat_, although I am thought to be at the head of a certain faction of the thickest cotton caps in the Diet. I laugh at them all alike, as a matter of fact; you understand very little about Sweden, if you think more of one than of the others.”

“I know it,” replied the Russian; “they sell their votes to the highest bidder.”

“Bid, then! You have no other policy. It is simple, and for you easy, since yours is a rich government. I am with you heart and soul, without any question of recompense. With me it is a matter of conviction.”

“I know you are not one of those patriots of the golden age, who are dreaming about the Scandinavian union, and that one can always come to an understanding with you. The empress relies upon you, but you need not hope to avoid her liberality; she accepts no service without rewarding it magnificently.”

“I am aware of it,” replied the Swede, with a brutality that struck Cristiano; “I have learned it from experience. Long live the great Catherine! If she wants to put us in her pocket, let her do it; I shall be the last one to offer any opposition. If she will only rid us of all these foolish doctrines about the rights and liberty of the peasants--which are our curse--she will be doing a good work. The citizens and noblemen who are their leaders, ought to be arrested, and have respectively a good taste of the knout, and a good dose of Siberia administered to them. As for our worthy king, if his bishopric is restored to him, and, above all, if he gets rid of his wife, he will have nothing to complain of.”

“Don’t speak so loud,” replied the Russian, “some one may be listening without seeming to.”

“There is no danger. Every one here pretends to speak French, but there are not ten persons out of a hundred who can understand it. Besides, what I have just said, I am in the habit of saying freely. I discovered long ago that it is the best policy to make your opinions feared. For my part, I shout upon the housetops that Sweden is done for. Let those who object prove the contrary.”

Although Cristiano did not belong to any nation, although he knew nothing either of his country or family, he felt indignant to hear a Swede so impudently selling his nationality, and he tried to see the features of the man who could talk so; but his attention was suddenly diverted by the bustling, awkward approach of an eccentric individual, who was running about from group to group with the activity of a man who is taking pains to do the honors of the entertainment. This individual was dressed in a gaudy red coat, very richly embroidered, and decorated with the Swedish order of the polar star. His wig was frizzed magnificently, in the very worst style, and was much too high for the fashion; while his enormous cuffs of superb lace were more suggestive of luxury than neatness. In other respects he was old, ugly, petulant, and whimsical; slightly hump-backed, very lame, and completely cross-eyed. This last defect gave him, at a first glance, a wicked expression, and Cristiano concluded that this disagreeable original must be one and the same person with Margaret’s absurd and hateful suitor.

To avoid being obliged to introduce himself, and keep up his pretended relationship with M. Goefle, whose name he had assumed unscrupulously and without danger in his interview with the major-domo, Cristiano prudently withdrew. He resolved now to go from room to room until he had seen the young countess, even if he should be obliged to retire immediately, without speaking to her. He imagined that the hump-backed chatelain had looked at him with a good deal of curiosity, but he made his way skilfully through a group of persons who were talking near a door, and flattered himself that he had escaped in time.

He walked along for several minutes, not exactly in a crowd (the place was so large that the guests did not look very numerous), but amid lively groups, which he did not have leisure to observe attentively. Fearing to be questioned before he could find Margaret, he passed with a preoccupied manner and proud expression--which he assumed all the more because he felt his audacity ready to fail him. And yet, whether from curiosity about a guest that no one knew, or because of their admiration for his fine presence and remarkable face, people everywhere seemed inclined to speak to him, or at least to receive his advances favorably. But Cristiano was feeling a sort of vertigo that made him misunderstand the affable glances and good-humored smiles that were bestowed upon him. He hurried along, therefore, without pretending to disguise that he was seeking some one; to the persons who made way before him, he bowed with an easy grace that was natural to him, but without daring to look at them closely.

At last, on returning to the hunting-gallery, as it was called, he saw two ladies, in whom he immediately recognized the blond fairy whom he had seen at Stollborg an hour before, and her governess. Mademoiselle Potin’s simple dress, timid and refined manner, and a something about her unmistakably French, left no doubt as to her identity. This completed the first part of the little romance that Cristiano had planned. He was at the chateau, he had found no sort of difficulty in getting admitted, he had avoided the observation and questions of the master of the house; and, lastly, he had found Margaret under the kind protection of her confidante. But this was not all. He had still to approach the young countess, or attract her attention, and find some means of renewing their acquaintance on a new footing.

The second part of the romance opened in rather an alarming way. Just as Cristiano, who hoped that a look of Margaret’s would inspire him, was trying to catch her eye, he heard an unequal step clamping along behind him, and a shrill, squeaking voice stopped him short with these words:

“Monsieur! Stranger! stranger! Where are you going so fast?”

The adventurer turned, and found himself face to face with the deformed, cross-eyed old man, whom he thought he had so successfully avoided. It was literally face to face, for the lame man, who was rushing in pursuit of him, could not change his gait quickly enough, and almost fell into his arms. Cristiano might have fled, but that would have been to lose everything; he faced it out boldly, and replied:

“I beg a thousand pardons, baron; you are the very person I was looking for.”

“Ah, indeed!” said the lame man, holding out his hand with sudden cordiality; “I thought as much. I remarked your face among all the others. ‘That is an educated man,’ I said to myself; ‘some learned traveller, a serious person, a mind, in a word, and certainly I am the pole which always attracts such magnets,’ Well, here I am, at your service. It gives me pleasure to devote myself to you. I love young people when they are studious, and you can ask me all the questions that you want to have solved.”

There was so much simplicity and good-humor in the old man’s laughing face and vain talk, that Cristiano in his heart accused Margaret of doing him injustice. He was an absurd and impossible lover, to be sure, but he was the best old fellow in the world, and as harmless as a child. Although one of his eyes did wander about the room in a vague and aimless sort of a way, the other one looked at his companion with such a frank and fatherly expression, that it was utterly out of the question to accuse him of ferocity.

“I am overwhelmed by your goodness, baron,” replied Cristiano, sufficiently reassured to be somewhat ironical. “I knew that you were versed in the sciences, and therefore having myself some feeble notion--”

“You wanted to ask my advice, to have the benefit of my instruction, perhaps. Ah! my dear friend, method, method in all things. But I won’t keep you standing among these frivolous people, who are coming and going; sit down, sit down. No one will disturb us; and, if you feel inclined, we will talk all night. When science is the theme, I forget all about fatigue, hunger, and sleep. You are the same, no doubt. The fact is you must be so, or not meddle with becoming learned!”

“Alas!” thought Cristiano, “I have fallen into the bottom of a well of science, and am condemned to the mines, I wager, neither more nor less than an exile of Siberia.”

This discovery was the more cruel, because Margaret had passed on, and was already at the end of the gallery, chatting with one and another of the persons who came forward to greet her, and evidently going to the ball-room, where the baron did not seem at all inclined to join her. He was seated in one of the semicircular embrasures of the gallery, near a stove, concealed by some branches of yew and ivy, which, with various hunting weapons and stuffed heads of wild animals, formed a trophy.

“I see,” said Cristiano, who would have given a great deal to avoid the proposed scientific conversation, “that you are a universal genius. Your skill in hunting is everywhere talked of, and I am surprised that you have time--”

“Why do you take me for a hunter?” replied the old man, with a look of surprise. “Oh! you suppose that I am guilty of the murder of those beasts, whose mutilated heads are hanging there, looking at us so sadly with their poor enamel eyes! You are mistaken; I never hunted in my life. I have a horror of amusements which increase the ferocity only too natural to man. It is to the study of the insensible but fruitful entrails of the globe that I have devoted myself.”

“Excuse me, baron, I thought--”

“There, again, why do you call me baron? I am nothing of the kind; although it is true that the king ennobled me and conferred on me the knighthood of the polar star, as a reward for my labors in the mines of Falun. I was professor of the school of mineralogy in that city, as of course you know, but I have no right to a title. It is quite enough for me to have some few privileges which give me a position with the haughty caste, for which, after all, I don’t care the least in the world.”

“I have made some mistake,” thought Cristiano. “Oh, then! I shall have to escape from this scientific gentleman as quickly as possible, although I seek him out again later.”

But he changed his mind suddenly when he saw Margaret turning back, and proceeding slowly, in spite of numerous interruptions, towards the very spot where he was seated. His only thought now was to put himself on the best terms with the geologist, so that he might introduce him, if he could possibly bring it about, as a distinguished man. He dashed into conversation, therefore; and he knew more than enough to ask intelligent questions. At Falun, in the morning, he had visited the principal mine, and had taken pleasure in collecting a number of interesting specimens, to the great disgust of Puffo, who often thought him crazy. He knew, moreover, that if you listen respectfully to a learned and vain man, and give him an opportunity to display his knowledge, he will be pretty sure, as a usual thing, to think you very intelligent. This is exactly what happened. Without dreaming of asking his name, his country, or his profession, the professor gave Cristiano a minute description of the subterranean world. In fact, upon the surface of the globe, he cared for nothing but himself, his reputation, and his writings; in a word, for the success of his observations and discoveries.

At any other time Cristiano would have listened with pleasure, for he saw plainly that he was talking to a man who was thoroughly master of his subject, and, for his own part, he felt a deep interest in all departments of natural science; but Margaret was approaching, and his thoughts began to wander. The professor noticed his sudden preoccupation, and looking around with his good eye, cried:

“Ah! there is my fiancée! I am no longer surprised! _Parbleu!_ my dear friend, I must introduce you to the most amiable person in the kingdom.”

“It is really he, then!” thought Cristiano, in profound amazement. “I am talking to Baron Olaus! He seems to be half crazy, but this is actually the old man to whom this Rose of the North is to be sacrificed!”

He ceased to doubt, although his surprise was redoubled when he saw Margaret quicken her step, and heard her say to Mademoiselle Potin:

“Here is my lover at last!”

She held out her hand to the old man, and added, with a sweet and almost tender smile:

“What are you thinking of, monsieur, to hide yourself in this little corner, when your fiancée has been looking for you for the last hour?”

“You see,” said the professor to Cristiano, with artless satisfaction, “she looks for me, she is unhappy when I am not with her! What would you have, my beauty? It is not my fault that so many people wish to consult me, and here is a charming young man, a traveller--French, are you not? or Italian, for you have a very slight foreign accent? Allow me, Countess Margaret, to introduce my young friend, M. de ----. Excuse me, monsieur, what is your name?”

“Christian Goefle,” said Cristiano, without hesitation.

At this assumed name, and, above all, at the young man’s voice and pronunciation, Margaret trembled.

“Are you Monsieur Goefle’s son?” she said, eagerly. “Oh, it is singular how much you resemble him!”

“There would be nothing singular in such near relatives looking alike,” replied the professor, “but this gentleman can only be Goefle’s nephew. Goefle never married, and consequently he has no children, any more than myself.”

“That would be no reason,” Cristiano whispered in the professor’s ear.

“To be sure; you are right!” replied the latter in the same tone, and with the most incredible simplicity; “I did not think of that! That devil of a Goefle! You are his son, then, by a left-handed marriage?”

“Brought up in a foreign country, and just arrived in Sweden,” replied Cristiano, astonished at the success of his impromptu suggestions.

“Well, well!” replied the professor, who cared very little about other people’s affairs. “I understand; it is quite plain--you are his nephew.”

He turned to Margaret.

“I know this gentleman perfectly well,” he said; “he is the nephew of my excellent friend Monsieur Goefle, and I have the honor to present him to you. You don’t know M. Goefle, but you said this morning that you would like to become acquainted with him.”

“And so I should,” cried Margaret.

She blushed as she spoke, for at that very moment she met Cristiano’s eyes, and their vivacity reminded her of those of the false Goefle. From time to time the young man, with an involuntary movement, had raised the doctor’s green spectacles, so as to see better, and Margaret had noticed how brilliantly his eyes flashed between the ear-pieces of his fur cap.

“But how is it,” resumed the professor, addressing the young girl without observing her confusion, “that you are not dancing? I thought you would be the queen of the evening, and that no one would have a chance to speak to you.”

“Well, my dear lover, you are mistaken. I am not going to dance. I sprained my foot coming down stairs. Don’t you see how lame I am?”

“No, I can’t say that I do. You want to resemble me, do you? Tell M. Goefle how it was that I became lame; it was a terrible affair, and would have been the death of any one else. Yes, monsieur, you see before you a victim of science.”

Without giving Margaret time to speak, he began to relate, with great animation, how the rope had broken as he had been descending into a mine, and how he had fallen with the basket into the bottom of the abyss, a distance of fifty feet, seven inches, and five lines. For six hours, fifty-three minutes, and how many seconds we are not prepared to state, he lay in a swoon, and for two months, four days, and three hours and a half, had not been able to move. With the same exasperating accuracy he specified the exact size of the plasters that had been applied to his various wounds, and the quantity, by drachms, grains, and scruples, of the different drugs that he had absorbed, whether in doses taken internally, or by means of external applications rubbed into his skin.

It was a long story, although the old man spoke rapidly, and did not repeat himself. His memory was a real scourge; it would not allow him to omit the least circumstance; and when he was talking of himself, it never occurred to him that any one could be tired of listening.

Margaret, who knew the story by heart, could not be very attentive, and talked aside with Mademoiselle Potin for a few moments. The result of this short conference, which Cristiano did not fail to notice, was soon evident; good Mademoiselle Potin seized the moment when the professor had finished his story, and before he could embark in another, which he was all ready to do, begged him, with hypocritical frankness, to explain a paragraph in his last work, which she pretended she had not been able to understand.

Cristiano could not help admiring woman’s natural tact, when he saw how eagerly the professor entered into a discussion with the governess, while Margaret’s eyes said clearly to the young man:

“I am dying to speak to you.”

He did not wait to be told twice, but followed her to the other extremity of the little semicircle, where she seated herself upon a sofa, while he stood before her in a respectful attitude, outside the embrasure, in such a way as to shield her from observation.

“Monsieur Christian Goefle,” she said, looking at him again with the greatest attention, “you are surprisingly like your uncle!”

“I have often been told so, mademoiselle; it seems that it is a striking likeness.”

“I have never seen him well; indeed, I may say that I have never seen his face at all; but his accent, his pronunciation--yours are absolutely the same.”

“I should have supposed that my voice would be rather younger than his,” replied Cristiano, who had taken pains at Stollborg to speak, every now and then, like an old man.

“Yes, no doubt,” said the young girl; “there is the difference of age, although your uncle still has a very fine organ. After all, he cannot be so very old! He seemed to me much younger than people say. He has magnificent eyes, and is almost of your height.”

“Just about the same,” said Cristiano, giving an involuntary glance at the doctor of law’s suit of clothes, and asking himself whether Margaret was speaking ironically, or questioning him in good faith.

He resolved to bring about an explanation.

“There is another point of resemblance between my uncle and myself,” he said, “and that is the deep interest that we feel in a person of your acquaintance, and the desire with which we both are animated to be of service to her.”

“Ah! ah!” said the young girl, blushing with an air of frankness that dissipated Cristiano’s anxiety; “I see that your uncle has been gossiping, and that he has told you about my visit this evening.”

“I don’t know whether you confided any secret to him; in what he repeated to me there was no mystery at which you need blush.”

“Repeated?--repeated? I believe you were there, in some room or closet close by; you heard everything.”

“It was so, I confess,” replied Cristiano, who saw that she would confide in him more quickly if he took advantage of her innocent suggestion. “I was in my uncle’s bed-room, arranging his papers. Without his knowledge, and in spite of myself, I heard everything.”

“That is very pleasant, upon my word!” said Margaret, somewhat confused, and yet pleased without knowing why; “instead of one confidante it seems that I had two.”

“Your confession seemed to be that of an angel; but I am beginning to be afraid that it was in reality that of a demon.”

“Thanks for your good opinion. Will you tell me what has caused it?”

“A strange insincerity that I cannot explain. You described Baron Olaus as a monster, physically and morally--”

“Excuse me, monsieur; you did not understand me. I called him disagreeable, terrible; I never said that he was ugly.”

“And yet you might have said so truthfully; for to speak plainly, he is abominably ugly.”