第 29 页

We are safe! Everything has been accomplished, as if by enchantment. For fifteen days past my Kondjé-Gul has been settled in a charming cottage at Ermont, in the middle of the forest, hidden away like a daisy in a field of standing corn. She has disappeared from view, leaving no more traces behind her than a bird in its flight through the air; and I am back in Paris, as if I had just returned from a journey. I have sent word to Madame Murrah that her daughter, having resolved to become a Christian, has taken refuge in a remote convent. You may picture to yourself her rage; but, as she is henceforth powerless, I fear her no more. Being a foreigner, and in her precarious position, she cannot venture to charge me with abduction, and, as you may imagine, I am not likely to let her take us by surprise. In order to get rid of her, I have offered to give her an annuity to live in Turkey, but she has declined it.

There can be no doubt that Kiusko guides her, and that they have by no means given up their game, but are ready to resort to any violence. You may be sure I keep a sharp eye on them, and am prepared for them. The contest, however, is too unequal for me to alarm myself very much. My uncle, who never troubles himself much with legal scruples, telegraphed to a couple of his old sailors, Onésime and Rupert, to come up from Toulon: they were born on our Férouzat estate, and are, moreover, his "god-children." They are ridiculously like him, except that one of them is two inches taller than the captain. Their godfather has installed them at Ermont, and I don't mind betting that, with a couple of strapping fellows like them about the place, any attempt at carrying off Kondjé-Gul in my absence would meet with a few trifling obstacles!

As to myself, I defy them to get on my scent.

Being accustomed to taking morning rides, I could find my way to our happy cottage home by various routes, starting from opposite sides of the city. Once on the road, it was impossible to follow me, even at a distance; for I should soon recognize any one on horseback who appeared too inquisitive about my journey. Moreover, if these tactics failed, the pace at which Star goes would easily baffle any pertinacious pursuit. I often stay for two or three days at this delicious retreat. My uncle delights in coming there from time to time to take his madeira.

In short, after the little adventures we have lately gone through, we are now leading a very pleasant existence.

You can see what a simple matter it is.

My famous system, you will tell me, has come to grief. Here I am, all forlorn, among the ruins of my harem, running my head against impossibilities opposed to our laws, morals, and conventionalities, with my last sultana leaning on my arm; here I am, like some little St. John[2], reduced to shady expedients in order to get a minute's interview with my mistress, imprisoned in her tower. I am trembling between our caresses, you will say, lest a commissary of police should come to cut the golden thread upon which my remaining blisses hang, and force me by legal authority to give back Kondjé-Gul to her cruel mother.

[2]Referring to a familiar French nursery-legend similar to that of Santa Claus.—Trans.

Well, my dear friend, I will answer you very briefly, I am in love! Yes, I am in love! These words are a reply, I think, to everything; although I must own that fear of the commissary, which certainly does threaten my felicity, has considerably humbled my Oriental pride—I am in love! I have burnt my essay for the Academy.

Well, then, I have abjured my polygamy. What more can I say to you—

To-day I must confide to you a most valuable discovery I have made; for I beg you to believe that love is not, as so many foolish people imagine, an extinguisher to the fire of the human intellect. On the contrary, it stimulates the perceptions; and an enthusiastic lover, who is familiar with the elements of science, can extend therein his field of observations quite as easily as persons whose hearts are whole.

As an example of this, then, I have just been realising the beauty of a charming phenomenon of nature—a most ordinary one, and yet one which so far has remained, I think, completely unobserved. I refer to the spring!

As a great artist, you of course know, as well as any one in the world, that this is the season which leads from the winter to the summer; but what I feel sure you don't know is the full charm of this transitory period, in which the whole forest awakens, in which the bushes sprout, and the young birds twitter in their nests!

According to Vauvenargues, "The first days of spring possess less charm than the growing virtue of a young man."

Well, it would ill befit me to depreciate the value of such an axiom, coming from the pen of such a great philosopher; still, and without wishing to disdain his politeness in so far as it is really flattering to myself at this particular moment of my career, I do not hesitate to raise my voice after his, and assert, without any pretence of modesty, that this charm is at least as great in the case of Flora's lover as in mine, and that it is only fair to accord to each his just portion. If my budding virtue possesses ineffable charms, no less powerful are those of the lilacs and the roses. It is really, I assure you, a wonderful spectacle. You ought to have witnessed it! Some day I will tell you all about it, as I have just been doing to my uncle, who finds it all very curious, although he professes only to understand me "very approximately."

Getting up at sunrise, Kondjé and I take a run through the coppices, her little feet all wet with the dew. We feel free, merry, and careless, dismissing the commissary to oblivion, and trusting to each other's love, the full charms of which this solitary companionship has revealed to us. I do not risk more than two excursions to Paris each week, one to my aunt Eudoxia's, and one to my aunt Van Cloth's. Having made these angel's visits, and performed various family duties, I vanish, by day or by night as the case may be, eluding the vigilance of the spies who have no doubt been set at my heels by the unscrupulous mother, or by that rascal Kiusko, as we now call him. These adventures augment my rapturous felicity; and if time and destiny have shorn me of the privilege of my sultanship, which you say rendered me so proud and vain, I retain at all events the glory of being happy.

I am in love, my dear fellow; and therefore I dream and forget. But there is another still darker speck on my serene sky. Anna Campbell is just approaching her eighteenth birthday, and I cannot think of this without a good deal of melancholy. Although my uncle is delighted to take occasional walks here, at the end of which he finds a capital glass of madeira waiting for him, he, as you are aware, is not a person of romantic temperament, and has already noted with his scrutinising eye the ravages caused by a double passion, which bodes no good for his daughter's married life.

The other night, on my return from my aunt Van Cloth's, he questioned me very seriously on the subject. As to my disappointing his hopes, he knows that the idea of such a thing would not even occur to me. That is a matter of honour between us.

I spoke of a further delay before preparing my poor Kondjé-Gul for the blow. He seemed touched at this token of the sincerity of my entirely filial devotion to him.

The commissary has at last come; we have been discovered!

Yesterday afternoon we were sitting in the garden, under the shade of a little clump of trees. My uncle, in a big arm-chair, was smoking and listening, while I read to him the newspapers, which had just been brought to us. Suddenly Kondjé-Gul, who was standing a few steps off from us, arranging the plants for her window, uttered a suppressed cry, and I saw her run up to me all at once, pale and trembling.

"What's the matter, dear—" I said to her.

"Look there! look there!" she answered, in a terrified voice, pointing towards the house, "my mother!"

At the same moment, on the door-step of the cottage, through which she had passed, and found it empty, appeared the Circassian.

She was accompanied by a man.

"This is my daughter, sir," she said to him.

I sprang forward to throw myself in front of Kondjé-Gul.

"Come, don't agitate yourself, my dear fellow!" said my uncle. "Do me the favour of keeping quiet!"

Then, rising up as he would to receive guests, he walked a few steps towards Madame Murrah, who had advanced towards us, and addressing himself to the man, said to him:

"Will you inform me, sir, to what I am indebted for the honour of this visit from you—"

"I am a Commissary of Police, sir, and am deputed by the court to assist this lady, who has come to demand the restitution of her daughter, illegally harboured by you at your house."

"Very well, sir," continued my uncle; "I am delighted to see you! But be so kind, if you please, as to walk into the house, where we can consider your demand more comfortably than in this garden."

"Take care," said the Circassian to the commissary: "they want to contrive her escape!"

"Nothing of the sort, my dear madam," replied my uncle: "this gentleman will tell you that we could not venture to do such a thing in his presence. Your daughter will remain with us to answer any questions which may be put to her. I am taking her arm, and if you will kindly follow us, I shall have the honour of showing you the way."

Onésime and Rupert might be distinguished in the dim perspective, waiting apparently for a signal from the captain to remove both the commissary and the unwelcome lady visitor.

Our hearts were beating fast: Kondjé-Gul could hardly restrain her feelings. We went in, and my uncle, as calm as ever, offered chairs to Madame Murrah and to the emissary of justice. Then he addressed him again, saying:

"May I inquire, sir, whether you are provided with a formal warrant authorizing you to employ force to take this young lady away, according to her mother's wish—"

"I have the judge's order!" exclaimed Madame Murrah with vehemence.

"Excuse me, excuse me," continued my uncle, "but let us avoid all confusion! Be so kind, if you please, madam, as to permit the commissary to answer my question. We are anxious to observe the respect which we owe to his office."

I felt done for. How could we resist the law— My poor Kondjé cast despairing looks at me.

"Madame Murrah being a foreigner, sir," answered the officer of the law, "as you appear to understand, my only instructions are to accompany her, and, in the event of opposition being made to her rights, to draw up a report in order to enable her to bring an action against you in a court of justice."

"Ah!" continued my uncle. "Well, then, sir! you may proceed, if you please, to take down our replies. In the first place, then, the young lady formally declines to return to her mother."

"That's false!" said the Circassian. "She is my daughter, and belongs only to me! She will obey me, for she knows that I shall curse her if——"

"Let us be quite calm, if you please, and have no useless words!" replied my uncle. "It is your daughter's turn to reply.—Ask her, sir."

The commissary then addressed himself to Kondjé-Gul, repeating the question. I saw her turn pale and hesitate, terror-stricken by her mother's looks.

"Do you want to leave me, then—" I said to her passionately.

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. Then turning towards the commissary, she added in a firm voice: "I do not wish to go with my mother, sir."

At this the Circassian rose up in a fury.

Kondjé-Gul fell on her knees before her, supplicating her with tears, in piteous tones.

In my alarm I rushed forward.

"Get her out of the room; take her away!" my uncle said to me sharply.

My poor Kondjé-Gul resisted, so I took her up in my arms and carried her out. At the door I found Fanny, who had come up, and I left my darling in her care.

Madame Murrah darted forward to follow her daughter, but my uncle had seized her by the wrist, and forcing her down again, said to her in Turkish:

"We have not finished; and if you stir, beware!"

"Sir," exclaimed the Circassian, addressing the officer of the law, "you see how violently they are treating me, and how they are threatening me!"

All this had taken place so quickly that the commissary hardly had time to intervene with a gesture. Onésime and Rupert were strolling about outside the window.

"Excuse me for having sent this child out, sir," continued my uncle; "but you are, I believe, sufficiently acquainted already with her decision. Moreover, she is there to reply afresh to you, if you desire to question her alone, secure from all influence and pressure. It remains for me to speak now upon a subject which she ought not to hear mentioned. After her refusal to follow her mother, which she has just given so clearly, be so good as to add on your report that I also refuse very emphatically to give her up to her."

"You have no right to rob me of my daughter," exclaimed the Circassian, who was nearly delirious with rage.

"That is just the point we are about to discuss," replied my uncle. "Firstly, then, allow me to introduce myself to you, sir," he continued, quite calmly; "and to explain my position and rights in this matter. My name is The Late Barbassou, ex-General and Pasha in the service of His Majesty the Sultan—ranks which entitle me to the privileges of a Turkish subject."

The commissary smiled and nodded to him, thus indicating that the name of Barbassou-Pasha was already known to him.

"As a consequence of these rights, sir," continued my uncle, "my private transactions cannot come before the French courts; so that this affair must be settled entirely between Madame Murrah and myself. I should even add, while expressing to you my regrets for the inconvenience which it is causing you, that it is I who have brought about this very necessary interview. I presented myself twice at Madame Murrah's house in Paris, with the object of bringing this stupid business to a conclusion. For reasons, no doubt, which you are already in a position to estimate, she refused to see me. I arranged, therefore, that she should be informed yesterday that her daughter was concealed in this house; and I came here at once myself, in order to have the pleasure of meeting the lady. There you have the whole story."

"I refused to see you," said Kondjé-Gul's mother, "simply because I do not know you! And I ask the judge to order the restitution of my daughter, which the Ambassador of our Sultan supports me in demanding. I have his order to this effect."