The Immortal by Alphonse Daudet (short story to read txt) 📖

she wanted the opinion of Paul, who could be heard pacing the gravel as he waited without. Mentally approving his delicacy, she was on the point of calling him in, when the interior grew dark, and on the trefoil lights of the lantern was heard the patter of another shower. Twice she called him, but he did not move from the pedestal, where he sat exposed to the rain, and without speaking declined her invitation.
'Come in,' she said, 'come in.'
Still he stayed, saying rapidly and low, 'I do not want to come. You love him so.'
'Come,' she still said, 'come/ and taking his hand drew him to the entrance. Step by step the splashing of the rain made them draw back as far as the sarcophagus, and there, half sitting, half standing, they remained side by side, contemplating beneath the low clouds the 'old town' of the dead, which sloped away at their feet with its crowding throng of pinnacles and grey figures and humbler stones, rising like Druid architecture from the bright green. No birds were audible, no sound of tools, nothing but the water running away on all sides, and from the canvas cover of a half-finished monument the monotonous voices of two artisans discussing their worries. The rain without made it all the warmer within, and with the strong aroma of the flowers mingled still that other inseparable scent The Princess had raised her veil, feeling the same oppression and dryness of the mouth that she had felt on the way up. Speechless and motionless, the pair seemed so much a part of the tomb, that a little brown, bird came hopping in to shake its feathers and pick a worm between the slabs. 'It's a nightingale,' murmured Paul in the sweet overpowering stillness. She tried to say, 'Do they sing still in this month?' But he had taken her in his arms, he had set her between his knees at the edge of the granite couch, and putting her head back, pressed upon her half-open lips a long, long kiss, passionately returned.
'Because love is more strong than death,' said the inscription from the Canticle, written above them upon the marble wall.
When the Princess reached her house, where Madame Astier was awaiting her return, she had a long cry in the arms of her friend, a refuge unhappily not more trustworthy than those of her friend's son. It was a burst of lamentation and broken words. 'Oh, my dear, oh, my dear, how miserable I am! If you knew,' she said, 'if you only knew!' She felt with despair the hopeless difficulty of the situation, her hand solemnly promised to the Prince d'Athis, and her affections just plighted to the enchanter of the tombs, whom she cursed from the depths of her soul. And, most distressing of all, she could not confide her weakness to her affectionate friend, being sure that, the moment she opened her lips, the mother would side with her son against 'Sammy,' with love against prudence, and perhaps even compel her to the intolerable degradation of marrying a commoner.
'There then, there then,' said Madame Astier, unaffected by the torrent of grief. 'You are come from the cemetery, I suppose, where you have been working up your feelings again. But you know, dear, there must be an end to _Artemisia!_' She understood the woman's weak vanity, and insisted on the absurdity of this interminable mourning, ridiculous in the eyes of the world, and at all events injurious to her beauty And after all, it was not a question of a second love-match! What was proposed was no more than an alliance between two names and titles equally noble. Herbert himself, if he saw her from heaven, must be content.
'He did understand things, certainly, poor dear,' sighed Colette de Rosen, whose maiden name was Sauvadon. She was set on becoming 'Madame l'Ambassadrice,' and still more on remaining 'Madame la Princesse.'
'Look, dear, will you have a piece of good advice? You just run away. Sammy will start in a week. Do not wait for him. Take Lavaux. He knows St. Petersburg, and will settle you there meanwhile. And there will be this advantage, that you will escape a painful scene with the Duchess. A Corsican, you know, is capable of anything.'
'Ye-es, perhaps I had better go,' said Madame de Rosen, to whom the chief merit of the plan was that she would avoid any fresh attack, and put distance between her and the folly of the afternoon.
'Is it the tomb?' asked Madame Astier, seeing her hesitate. 'Is that it? Why, Paul will finish it very well without you. Come, pet, no more tears. You may water your beauty, but you must not over-water it.' As she went away in the fading light to wait for her omnibus, the good lady said to herself, 'Oh dear, D'Athis will never know what his marriage is costing me!' And here her feeling of weariness, her longing for a good rest after so many trials, reminded her suddenly that the most trying of all was to come, the discovery and confession at home. She had not yet had time to think about it, and now she was going fast towards it, nearer and nearer with every turn of the heavy wheels. The very anticipation made her shudder: it was not fear; but the frantic outcries of Astier-Rehu, his big rough voice, the answer that must be given, and then the inevitable reappearance of his trunk--oh, what a weariness it would be! Could it not be put off till to-morrow? She was tempted not to confess at once, but to turn suspicion upon some one else, upon Teyssedre for instance, till the next morning. She would at least get a quiet night.
'Ah, here is Madame! Something has happened/ cried Corentine, as she ran to the door in a fluster, excitement making more conspicuous than usual the marks of her smallpox. Madame Astier made straight for her own room; but the door of the study opened, and a peremptory 'Adelaide!' compelled her to go in. The rays of the lamp-globe showed her that the face of her husband had a strange expression. He took her by the two hands and drew her into the light. Then in a quivering voice he said, 'Loi-sillon is dead,' and he kissed her on both cheeks.
Not found out! No, not yet. He had not even gone up to his papers; but had been pacing his study for two hours, eager to see her and tell her this great news, these three words which meant a change in their whole life, 'Loisillon is dead!'


CHAPTER VII.
Mlle. Germaine de Freydet,
Clos Jallanges.
My DEAREST SISTER,--Your letters distress me much. I know you are lonely and ill, and feel my absence; but what am I to do? Remember my master's advice to show myself and be seen. It is not, as you may suppose, at Clos Jallanges, in my tweed suit and leggings, that I could get on with my candidature. I cannot but see that the time is near. Loisillon is sinking visibly, dying by inches; and I am using the time to make friendships among the Academicians, which may mean votes hereafter. Astier has already introduced me to several of them. I often go to fetch him after the meetings. It is charming to see them come out of the Institute, almost all laden with years as with honours, and walk away arm-in-arm in groups of three or four, bright and happy, talking loud and filling the pavement, their eyes still wet after the hearty laughs they have had within. 'Paille-ron is very smart,' says one; 'But Danjou gave it him back,' says another. As for me, I fasten on to the arm of Astier-Rehu and, ranked with the deities, seem almost a deity myself. One by one at this or that bridge the groups break up. 'See you next Thursday,' is the last word. And I go back to the Rue de Beaune with my master, who gives me encouragement and advice, and in the confidence of success says, with his frank laugh, 'Look at me, Freydet; I am twenty years younger after a meeting!'
I really believe the dome does keep them fresh. Where is there another old man as lusty as Jean Rehu, whose ninety-eighth birthday we celebrated yesterday evening by a dinner at Voisin's? Lavaux suggested it, and if it cost me 40L., it gave me the opportunity of counting my men. We were twenty-five at table, all Academicians, except Picheral, Lavaux, and myself. I have the votes of seventeen or eighteen; the rest are uncertain, but well disposed. Dinner very well served, and very chatty.
By the way, I have asked Lavaux to come to Clos Jallanges for his holiday. He is librarian of the Bibliotheque Mazarine. He shall have the large room in the wing, looking out on the pheasants. I don't think highly of his character, but I must have him; he is the Duchess's 'zebra'! Did I tell you that a zebra in ladies' language is a bachelor friend, unoccupied, discreet, and quick, kept always at hand for errands and missions too delicate to be trusted to a servant? In the intervals of his diplomacy a young zebra may sometimes get particular gratifications, but as a rule the animal is tame and wants little, content with small promotion, a place at the bottom of the table, and the honour of showing his paces before the lady and her friends. Lavaux, I fancy, has made his place profitable in other ways. He is so clever and, in spite of his easy manner, so much dreaded. He knows, as he says, 'the servants' hall' of two establishments, literature and politics, and he shows me the holes and traps of which the road to the Institute is full. Astier, my master, does not know them to this day. In his grand simplicity he has climbed straight up, unaware of danger, with his eyes upon the dome, confident in his strength and his labour. A hundred times he would have broken his neck, if his wife, the cleverest of clever women, had not guided him unperceived.
It was Lavaux who dissuaded me from publishing between this and the next vacancy my 'Thoughts of a Rustic.' 'No, no,' said he to me, 'you have done enough. You might well even let it be understood that you will not write any more. Your work is over, and you are a mere gentleman at large. The Academie loves that.' I put that with the valuable hint from Picheral: 'Do not take them your books.'
The fewer your works, I see, the better your claim. Picheral has much influence; he too must come to us this summer. Put him on the second floor, in what was the box-room, or somewhere. Poor Germaine, it is a great bother for you, and ill as you are! But where's the help? It is bad enough not to have a house in town for the winter and give parties, like Dalzon, Moser, and all my competitors. Do, do take care of yourself and get well.
To go back to my dinner party. There was naturally much talk of the Academie, its elections and duties, its merits and demerits in public estimation. The 'deities' hold that those who run down the institution are all, without exception, poor creatures who cannot get in. For the strong apparent instances to the contrary, there was a reason in each case. I ventured to mention the great name of Balzac, a man from our country. But the playwright Desminieres, who used to manage