The Wandering Jew, Book VIII.. - Eugene Sue (trending books to read TXT) 📗

blood to her cheeks, she exclaimed, "Oh, I

have it! These are the wedding-presents for Madame de la Sainte-Colombe.

I congratulate you; they are very choice."

 

"And where do you suppose I should find money to buy these wonders?" said

Ninny Moulin. "I repeat to you, all this is yours if you will but listen

to me!"

 

"How is this?" said Rose-Pompon, with the utmost amazement; "is what you

tell me in downright earnest?"

 

"In downright earnest."

 

"This offer to make me a great lady?"

 

"The jewels might convince you of the reality of my offers."

 

"And you propose all this to me for some one else, my poor Ninny Moulin?"

 

"One moment," said the religious writer, with a comical air of modesty,

"you must know me well enough, my beloved pupil, to feel certain that I

should be incapable of inducing you to commit an improper action. I

respect myself too much for that--leaving out the consideration that it

would be unfair to Philemon, who confided to me the guardianship of your

virtue."

 

"Then, Ninny Moulin," said Rose-Pompon, more and more astonished, "on my

word of honor, I can make nothing of it.

 

"Yet, 'tis all very simple, and I--"

 

"Oh! I've found it," cried Rose-Pompon, interrupting Ninny Moulin; "it is

some gentleman who offers me his hand, his heart, and all the rest of it.

Could you not tell me that directly?"

 

"A marriage? oh, laws, yes!" said Dumoulin, shrugging his shoulders.

 

"What! is it not a marriage?" said Rose-Pompon, again much surprised.

 

"No."

 

"And the offers you make me are honest ones, my big apostle?"

 

"They could not be more so." Here Dumoulin spoke the truth.

 

"I shall not have to be unfaithful to Philemon?"

 

"No."

 

"Or faithful to any one else?"

 

"No."

 

Rose-Pompon looked confounded. Then she rattled on: "Come, do not let us

have any joking! I am not foolish enough to imagine that I am to live

just like a duchess, just for nothing. What, therefore, must I give in

return?"

 

"Nothing at all."

 

"Nothing?"

 

"Not even that," said Ninny Moulin, biting his nail-tip.

 

"But what am I to do, then?"

 

"Dress yourself as handsomely as possible, take your ease, amuse

yourself, ride about in a carriage. You see, it is not very fatiguing

--and you will, moreover, help to do a good action."

 

"What! by living like a duchess?"

 

"Yes! so make up your mind. Do not ask me for any more details, for I

cannot give them to you. For the rest, you will not be detained against

your will. Just try the life I propose to you. If it suits you, go on

with it; if not, return to your Philemonic household."

 

"In fact--"

 

"Only try it. What can you risk?"

 

"Nothing; but I can hardly believe that all you say is true. And then,"

added she, with hesitation, "I do not know if I ought--"

 

Ninny Moulin went to the window, opened it, and said to Rose-Pompon, who

ran up to it, "Look there! before the door of the house."

 

"What a pretty carriage! How comfortable a body'd be inside of it!"

 

"That carriage is yours. It is waiting for you."

 

"Waiting for me!" exclaimed Rose-Pompon; "am I to decide as short as

that?"

 

"Or not at all."

 

"To-day?"

 

"On the instant."

 

"But where will they take me?"

 

"How should I know?"

 

"You do not know where they will take me?"

 

"Not I,"--and Dumoulin still spoke the truth--"the coachman has his

orders."

 

"Do you know all this is very funny, Ninny Moulin?"

 

"I believe you. If it were not funny, where would be the pleasure?"

 

"You are right."

 

"Then you accept the offer? That is well. I am delighted both for you and

myself."

 

"For yourself?"

 

"Yes; because, in accepting, you render me a great service."

 

"You? How so?"

 

"It matters little, as long as I feel obliged to you."

 

"True."

 

"Come, then; let us set out!"

 

"Bah! after all, they cannot eat me," said Rose-Pompon, resolutely.

 

With a skip and a jump, she went to fetch a rose-colored cap, and, going

up to a broken looking-glass, placed the cap very much cocked on one side

on her bands of light hair. This left uncovered her snowy neck, with the

silky roots of the hair behind, and gave to her pretty face a very

mischievous, not to say licentious expression.

 

"My cloak!" said she to Ninny Moulin, who seemed to be relieved from a

considerable amount of uneasiness, since she had accepted his offer.

 

"Fie! a cloak will not do," answered her companion, feeling once more in

his pocket and drawing out a fine Cashmere shawl, which he threw over

Rose-Pompon's shoulders.

 

"A Cashmere!" cried the young girl, trembling with pleasure and joyous

surprise. Then she added, with an air of heroism: "It is settled! I will

run the gauntlet." And with a light step she descended the stairs,

followed by Ninny Moulin.

 

The worthy greengrocer was at her post. "Good-morning, mademoiselle; you

are early to-day," said she to the young girl.

 

"Yes, Mother Arsene; there is my key."

 

"Thank you, mademoiselle."

 

"Oh! now I think of it," said Rose Pompon, suddenly, in a whisper, as she

turned towards Ninny Moulin, and withdrew further from the portress,

"what is to became of Philemon?"

 

"Philemon?"

 

"If he should arrive--"

 

"Oh! the devil!" said Ninny Moulin, scratching his ear.

 

"Yes; if Philemon should arrive, what will they say to him? for I may be

a long time absent."

 

"Three or four months, I suppose."

 

"Not more?"

 

"I should think not."

 

"Oh! very good!" said Rose-Pompon. Then, turning towards the greengrocer,

she said to her, after a moment's reflection: "Mother Arsene, if Philemon

should come home, you will tell him I have gone out--on business."

 

"Yes, mademoiselle."

 

"And that he must not forget to feed my pigeons, which are in his study."

 

"Yes, mademoiselle."

 

"Good-bye, Mother Arsene."

 

"Good-bye, mademoiselle." And Rose-Pompon entered the carriage in

triumph, along with Ninny Moulin.

 

"The devil take me if I know what is to come of all this," said Jacques

Dumoulin to himself, as the carriage drove rapidly down the Rue Clovis.

"I have repaired my error--and now I laugh at the rest."

CHAPTER VII. (ANOTHER SECRET.)

 

 

The following scene took place a few days after the abduction of Rose

Pompon by Ninny Moulin. Mdlle. de Cardoville was seated in a dreamy mood,

in her cabinet, which was hung with green silk, and furnished with an

ebony library, ornamented with large bronze caryatides. By some

significant signs, one could perceive that Mdlle. de Cardoville had

sought in the fine airs some relief from sad and serious thoughts. Near

an open piano, was a harp, placed before a music-stand. A little further,

on a table covered with boxes of oil and water-color, were several

brilliant sketches. Most of them represented Asiatic scenes, lighted by

the fires of an oriental sun. Faithful to her fancy of dressing herself

at home in a picturesque style, Mademoiselle de Cardoville resembled that

day one of those proud portraits of Velasquez, with stern and noble

aspect. Her gown was of black moire, with wide swelling petticoat, long

waist, and sleeve slashed with rose-colored satin, fastened together with

jet bugles. A very stiff, Spanish ruff reached almost to her chin, and

was secured round her neck by a broad rose-colored ribbon. This frill,

slightly heaving, sloped down as far as the graceful swell of the

rose-colored stomacher, laced with strings of jet beads, and terminating

in a point at the waist. It is impossible to express how well this black

garment, with its ample and shining folds, relieved with rose-color and

brilliant jet, skin, harmonized with the shining whiteness of Adrienne's

and the golden flood of her beautiful hair, whose long, silky ringlets

descended to her bosom.

 

The young lady was in a half-recumbent posture, with her elbow resting on

a couch covered with green silk. The back of this piece of furniture,

which was pretty high towards the fireplace, sloped down insensibly

towards the foot. A sort of light, semicircular trellis-work, in gilded

bronze, raised about five feet from the ground, covered with flowering

plants (the admirable passiflores quadrangulatoe, planted in a deep ebony

box, from the centre of which rose the trellis-work), surrounded this

couch with a sort of screen of foliage enamelled with large flowers,

green without, purple within, and as brilliant as those flowers of

porcelain, which we receive from Saxony. A sweet, faint perfume, like a

faint mixture of jasmine with violet, rose from the cup of these

admirable passiflores. Strange enough, a large quantity of new books

(Adrienne having bought them since the last two or three days) and quite

fresh-cut, were scattered around her on the couch, and on a little table;

whilst other larger volumes, amongst which were several atlases full of

engravings, were piled on the sumptuous fur, which formed the carpet

beneath the divan. Stranger still, these books, though of different

forms, and by different authors, alt treated of the same subject. The

posture of Adrienne revealed a sort of melancholy dejection. Her cheeks

were pale; a light blue circle surrounded her large, black eyes, now

half-closed, and gave to them an expression of profound grief. Many

causes contributed to this sorrow--amongst others, the disappearance of

Mother Bunch. Without absolutely believing the perfidious insinuations of

Rodin, who gave her to understand that, in the fear of being unmasked by

him, the hunchback had not dared to remain in the house, Adrienne felt a

cruel sinking of the heart, when she thought how this young girl, in whom

she had had so much confidence, had fled from her almost sisterly

hospitality, without even uttering a word of gratitude; for care had been

taken not to show her the few lines written by the poor needlewoman to

her benefactress, just before her departure.

 

She had only been told of the note of five hundred francs found on her

desk; and this last inexplicable circumstance had contributed to awaken

cruel suspicions in the breast of Mdlle. de Cardoville. She already felt

the fatal effects of that mistrust of everything and everybody, which

Rodin had recommended to her; and this sentiment of suspicion and reserve

had the more tendency to become powerful, that, for the first time in her

life, Mdlle. de Cardoville, until then a stranger to all deception, had a

secret to conceal--a secret, which was equally her happiness, her shame,

and her torment. Half-recumbent on her divan, pensive and depressed,

Adrienne pursued, with a mind often absent, one of her newly purchased

books. Suddenly, she uttered an exclamation of surprise; the hand which

held the book trembled like a leaf, and from that moment she appeared to

read with passionate attention and devouring curiosity. Soon, her eyes

sparkled with enthusiasm, her smile assumed ineffable sweetness, and she

seemed at once proud, happy, delighted--but, as she turned over the last

page, her countenance expressed disappointment and chagrin. Then she

recommenced this reading, which had occasioned her such sweet emotion,

and this time she read with the most deliberate slowness, going over each

page twice, and spelling, as it were, every line, every word. From time

to time, she paused, and in a pensive mood, with her forehead leaning on

her fair hand, she seemed to reflect, in a deep reverie, on the passages

she had read with such tender and religious love. Arriving at a passage

which so affected her, that a tear started in her eye, she suddenly

turned the volume, to see on the cover the name of the author. For a few

seconds, she contemplated this name with a singular expression of

gratitude, and could not forbear raising to her rosy lips the page on

which it was printed. After reading many times over the lines with which

she had been so much struck, forgetting, no doubt, the letter in the

spirit, she began to reflect so deeply, that the book glided from her

hand, and fell upon the carpet. During the course of this reverie, the

eyes of the young girl rested, at first mechanically, upon an admirable

bas-relief, placed on an ebony stand, near one of the windows. This

magnificent bronze, recently cast after a plaster copy from the antique,

represented the triumph of the Indian Bacchus. Never, perhaps, had

Grecian art attained such rare perfection. The youthful conqueror, half

clad in a lion's skin, which displayed his juvenile grace and charming

purity of form shone