The Deputy of Arcis - Honoré de Balzac (little red riding hood read aloud TXT) 📗

to the Albani gallery and placed me before a statue representing Adonis stretched on a lion's skin.

"What do you think of that?" he said.

"What?" I replied at a first glance; "why, it is as fine as an antique."

"Antique as much as I am!" replied Desroziers. "It is a portrait in youth of that wizened old being we have just seen dead."

"Antique or not, it is a masterpiece," I said. "But how is all this beauty, or its hideous caricature, to get us to Sicily? That is the question."

"I'll tell you," replied Desroziers. "I know the family of that old scarecrow. His niece married the Comte de Lanty, and they have long wanted to buy this statue which the Albani museum won't give up at any price. They have tried to have it copied, but they never got anything satisfactory. Now, you know the director of the museum well. Get him to let you make a copy of it. I give music-lessons to the Comte de Lanty's daughter, Mademoiselle Marianina, and I'll talk of your copy. If you succeed, as of course you will, the count will buy it and pay you forty times the cost of a trip to Sicily."

Two days later I began the work, and, as it suited my taste, I worked so hotly at it that by the end of three weeks the Lanty family, escorted by Desroziers, came to see my copy. The count, who seemed to me a good connoisseur, declared himself satisfied with the work and bought it. Mademoiselle Marianina, who was the heiress and favorite of her grand-uncle, was particularly delighted with it. Marianina was then about twenty-one years old, and I shall not make you her portrait because you know Madame de l'Estorade, to whom her likeness is extraordinary. Already an accomplished musician, this charming girl had a remarkable inclination for all the arts. Coming from time to time to my studio to watch the completion of the statue, a taste for sculpture seized her, as it did the Princesse Marie d'Orleans, and until the departure of the family, which took place a few months before I myself left Rome, Mademoiselle de Lanty took lessons from me in modelling.

I never dreamed of being another Saint-Preux or Abelard, but I must own that I found rare happiness in imparting my knowledge. Marianina was so gay and happy, her judgment of art so sound, her voice, when she sang, so stirred my heart, that had it not been for her vast fortune, which kept me at a distance, I should have run great danger to my peace of mind. Admitted into the household on the footing of a certain familiarity, I could see that my beautiful pupil took pleasure in our intercourse, and when the family returned to Paris she expressed the utmost regret at leaving Rome; I even fancied, God forgive me, that I saw something like a tear in her eye when we parted.

On my return to Paris, some months later, my first visit was to the hotel de Lanty. Marianina was too well bred and too kind at heart to be discourteous to any one, but I felt at once that a cold restrained manner was substituted for the gracious friendliness of the past. It seemed to me probable that her evident liking, I will not say for me personally, but for my conversation and acquirements, had been noticed by her parents, who had doubtless taught her a lesson; in fact, the stiff and forbidding manner of Monsieur and Madame de Lanty left me no other supposition.

Naturally, I did not call again; but a few months later, when I exhibited my Pandora in the salon of 1837, I one day saw the whole Lanty family approach it. The mother was on the arm of Comte Maxime de Trailles, a well-known lion. _Nil admirari_ is the natural instinct of all men of the world; so, after a very cursory glance at my work, Monsieur de Trailles began to find shocking faults in it, and in so high and clear a voice that not a word was lost within a certain range. Marianina shrugged her shoulders as she listened to this profound discourse, and when it was ended she said,--

"How fortunate you came with us! Without your enlightened knowledge I might, with the rest of the good public, have thought this statue admirable. It is a pity the sculptor is not here to learn his business from you."

"He _is_ here, behind you," said a stout woman, who had once been my landlady, and was standing near, laughing heartily. Involuntarily Marianina turned; when she saw me a vivid color came into her cheeks, and I slipped away into the crowd. A girl who took my part so warmly, and then showed such emotion on being detected in doing so, could not be absolutely indifferent to me; and as on my first visit I had only, after all, been coldly received, I decided, after my great success at the Exhibition, in consequence of which I was made a chevalier of the Legion of honor, to call again upon the Lantys; perhaps my new distinctions would procure me a better reception.

Monsieur de Lanty received me without rising, and with the following astounding apostrophe:--

"I think you very courageous, monsieur, to venture to present yourself here."

"I have never been received in a manner that seemed to require courage on my part."

"You have come, no doubt," continued Monsieur de Lanty, "in search of your property which you were careless enough to leave in our hands. I shall return you that article of gallantry."

So saying, he rose and took from a drawer in his secretary an elegant little portfolio, which he gave to me.

As I looked at it in a sort of stupefaction, he added:

"Yes; I know the letters are not there; I presume you will allow me to keep them."

"This portfolio, the letters you mention--all this is an enigma to me, monsieur."

At this moment Madame de Lanty entered the room.

"What do you want?" said her husband, roughly.

"I knew monsieur was here, and as I feared some painful explanation, I came to do my duty as a woman, and interpose."

"You need fear nothing, madame," I said; "evidently what is taking place is the result of some misunderstanding."

"Ah! this is too much!" cried Monsieur de Lanty, reopening the drawer from which he had taken the portfolio, and taking out a packet of letters tied with a rose-colored ribbon. "I think these will put an end to your _misunderstanding_."

I looked at the letters; they were not postmarked, and simply bore my name, Monsieur Dorlange, in a woman's handwriting, which was unknown to me.

"Monsieur," I said, "you know more than I do; you have in your possession letters that seem to belong to me, but which I have never received."

"Upon my word," cried Monsieur de Lanty, "you are an admirable comedian; I never saw innocence better played."

"But, monsieur," I said, "who wrote those letters, and why are they addressed to me?"

"It is useless to deny them, monsieur," said Madame de Lanty; "Marianina has confessed all."

"Mademoiselle Marianina!" I exclaimed. "Then the matter is very simple; have the goodness to bring us together; let me hear from her lips the explanation of this singular affair."

"The evasion is clever," replied Monsieur de Lanty; "but my daughter is no longer here: she is in a convent, forever sheltered from your intrigues and the dangers of her own ridiculous passion. If that is what you came to know, all is said. Let us part, for my patience and moderation have a limit, if your insolence has none."

"Monsieur!" I began, angrily; but Madame de Lanty, who was standing behind her husband, made me a gesture as if she would fall upon her knees; and reflecting that perhaps Marianina's future depended on the attitude I now took, I controlled myself and left the room without further words.

The next morning, before I was out of bed, the Abbe Fontanon was announced to me. When he entered he proved to be a tall old man with a bilious skin and a sombre, stern expression, which he tried to soften by a specious manner and a show of gentle but icy obsequiousness.

"Monsieur," he said, "Madame la Comtesse de Lanty, whose confessor I have the honor to be, requests me to give you a few explanations, to which you have an incontestable right, as to the scene that took place last evening between her husband and yourself."

"I am ready to listen to you, monsieur," I replied.

"Monsieur de Lanty," continued the abbe, "is a bad sleeper; and one night last summer he was awakened by the sound of cautious steps. He opened his door, and called out to know who was there. He was not mistaken; some one was there, but did not answer, and disappeared before Monsieur de Lanty could obtain a light. At first it was thought to be an attempt at robbery; but on further inquiry it appeared that a _gentleman_ had taken a room in the neighborhood, and had frequently been seen in company with Mademoiselle Marianina,--in short, the matter concerned a love affair and not a robbery. Monsieur de Lanty has long watched his daughter, whose ardent inclinations have given him much anxiety; you yourself, monsieur, caused him some uneasiness in Rome--"

"Very needless, Monsieur l'abbe," I said, interrupting him.

"Yes. I know that your relations to Mademoiselle de Lanty have always been perfectly proper and becoming. But since their return to Paris another individual has occupied her mind,--a bold and enterprising man, capable of risking everything to compromise and thus win an heiress. Being taxed with having encouraged this man and allowed these nocturnal interviews, Mademoiselle de Lanty at first denied everything. Then, evidently fearing that her father, a violent man, would take some steps against her lover, she threw herself at his feet and admitted the visits, but denied that the visitor was the man her father named to her. At first she refused obstinately to substitute another name for the one she disavowed. After some days passed in this struggle, she finally confessed to her mother, under a pledge of secrecy, that her father was right in his suspicions, but she dreaded the results to the family if she acknowledged the truth to him. The man in question was a noted duellist, and her father and brother would surely bring him to account for his conduct. It was then, monsieur, that the idea occurred to this imprudent girl to substitute another name for that of her real lover."

"Ah! I understand," I said; "the name of a nobody, an artist, a sculptor, or some insignificant individual of that kind."

"You do Mademoiselle de Lanty injustice by that remark," replied the abbe. "What decided her to make your name a refuge against the dangers she foresaw was the fact that Monsieur de Lanty had formerly had suspicions about you, and she thought that circumstance gave color to her statement."

"But, Monsieur l'abbe," I said, "how do you explain those letters, that portfolio, which her father produced yesterday?"

"That again was an invention of Marianina; and I may add that this duplicity assures me that had she remained in the world her future might have been terrible."

"Am I to suppose that this tale has been told you by Madame de Lanty?"

"Confided to me, monsieur, yes. You yourself saw Madame de Lanty's desire to stop your explanations yesterday, lest the truth might appear to her husband. I am