Monsieur Jonquelle (8 page)

The menace struck her into life. She ran to the window and threw it open, intending to fling herself out. There she saw that the whole wall was covered with vines. She crawled over the stone sill and, clinging to the net of vines, began to descend. Halfway down she heard a great bawling of obscenities and oaths; the drunken noble, flinging back the monks who sought to restrain him, was coming after her over the sill of the window! He came out, one leg at a time, like some huge spider, his big body bulking shapeless in the window.

He seized the vines as she had done and began to descend; but her own fingers had already
dragged them loose or his greater weight was too much—for suddenly his body shot past her with a hideous cry, the arms extended like a cross and the straining fingers clutching handfuls of vines.

She was now at the level of the floor below. There was a ledge here and a balustrade. She dropped on to it, followed it round the face of the château to a terrace and a path that led down into the village. In the road below she found the woman who had come with her, weeping, with a shawl over her head. She received her in her arms.

A carriage that had been prepared to take this woman out of the country was waiting. The girl got into the carriage with her—and in the confusion they escaped. She did not know how badly the grand duke had been injured, but he had not been killed outright—that much she learned on the way out. Still, he must have been terribly hurt, else he would have taken some measures to intercept her. She did not know where to go; so she had come here—and here she was in all manner of uncertainty. It was only an hour of respite any way she looked. If her husband were alive he would presently seize her as a chattel that he had purchased. Hope lay in no direction that she could see. The very immunity in which she moved for the hour was sinister. She felt that
something threatened—prepared itself—was beginning to move toward her.

Madame Nekludoff rose. The declining sun and the wandering shadows lay soft about her. She stood with her arms hanging and her lips parted, the daughter of some pitiable legend; her eyes big and her face made slender by the memories of peril. I stood up then and said what any man would say, in the courage and in the vehemence of youth. She should go free of these accursed vultures—and I grew white and desperate and hot with the words.

She looked at me with a sad, adorable smile, like one who would believe in the prowess of her champion against a certain and determined knowledge. But she shook her head.

“My friend,” she said, “you are fine and noble! You are, in very truth, the fairy prince! But I am not a fairy princess and this man is not a fairy beast. I am the wife of Dimitri Volkonsky!”

“But if he should die!” I cried.

Her feet on the hard path did not move, but her whole body seemed to spring up, as though cords binding down wings had been suddenly severed. Then she turned swiftly and put her cool, firm hand over my lips.

“Hush!” she whispered.

I took the hand and kissed it, and kept it in my own. And I said the words again:

“If he should die?”

She looked up slowly into my face, her eyes blue as the cornflower—hazy with a mist of tears—deep and saddening.

“Oh,
mon prince
,” she said, “things may happen like that in your fairy kingdom, but not here—not in this world.”

It did happen—and in this world!

I do not know what I did on this evening or this night. At the gate of the convent in Cimiez I was banished, but I had wrung from Madame Nekludoff her permission to remain for another day—and that day, as the Fates willed it, was time enough.

That evening I doubtless smoked innumerable cigarettes on the terrace, under that halo-circled balcony; and that night I doubtless slept like one who guards a treasure. But in the morning destiny knocked on the door.

I got my breakfast and was smoking by the window, looking out over this city of celestial colors, blended like the beauties of an Oriental carpet, where any extravagance of romance might happen in the coincidences and verisimilitudes of life. There was a timid rapping on the door, and the old woman I had seen on the balcony below
entered. She seemed in confusion from some event and startled.

Madame Nekludoff wished to speak with monsieur. Would he come down to her apartment? I went down like one who travels upon wings, though step by step and no faster than the maid on the stone stair. At the salon door I stopped.

Madame Nekludoff was standing by a curtain, with her face turned away, while in an armchair, behind a table, sat a huge monk, his shoes and his clothing covered with dust. He wore the garb of those isolated monastic orders dwelling in the waste and perilous places of the earth. He seemed overcome with fatigue, like one who has traveled far. There was a bottle of wine on the table and some cold meats.

The maid closed the door and withdrew. Madame Nekludoff moved along the curtain until she finally stood before the window, but always keeping her face turned away. Finally she began to speak. Her voice jerked along as though now and then some great emotion choked it.

“Father Augustine is here.… He has had a long journey—all the way down from Haute-Savoie.… The Grand Duke Dimitri is dead!” She moved along the window, still keeping her face turned away, until she reached the door to her bedchamber. “Sit down there by the table. He will tell you.” And putting her hand out to
the knob of the door she turned it and went in.

I was not, in truth, very greatly startled. I had somehow profoundly believed that this thing would happen—as a child profoundly believes in the ultimate beneficence of God. I bowed to the monk and sat down. The old man poured out a glass of wine and drank it very slowly. Then he put his hand into the bosom of his robe, took out a packet and laid it on the table. The packet was some twelve or fifteen inches long and several inches thick. It was wrapped in a silk cloth. Then he addressed me, speaking like one who is very tired.

“My son,” he said, “the Duchess Dimitri will need the counsel of some one more familiar with the world than an old monk of Savoie.” He paused and put his big hand on the packet. “I have been in great doubt about this matter; but it was the dying command of the Grand Duke Dimitri, and we are not permitted to disregard even the wishes of the wicked in the presence of death. That God permits the evil to work their will in this world is a great mystery—but he does permit it. How far, then, may we prohibit what he permits?

“When it became certain that the grand duke would die he had a curious seizure. He railed at Satan, calling him a sneaking and detestable coward. He had spent a fortune and years figuring
out a method to outwit Satan at one of his own devices; and, now that he had at last hit upon it, the Evil One had foully got him murdered before he could put it into effect.”

The packet lying on the table had evidently been opened and discussed before I entered, for the silk cloth lay only loosely round it. The monk reached over and unfolded the cloth. Within it lay a great heap of hundred-franc notes and a letter with the seal broken.

“This man,” continued the monk, “was the most inveterate gambler in Europe. He lived in that anteroom of hell at Monte Carlo, and he was forever laboring to invent some system of play that would win against the devices of Satan there. At the time of this mad, shameful marriage he believed he had perfected such a system, and he had prepared this money with which to test it.” The monk stopped, looking down at the floor. “It was a fearful thing to see—this evil, impotent man in his frenzy! We bade him remember God and the saints; but he replied, cursing, that his concern was with Satan, who had played him false; and if he could think of anybody he could trust he would be avenged. But he could think of no one who would not take his money and betray him, as the devil had—for all he knew were in the devil's service.”

The old man tasted the wine and set it back on the table.

“Then one night, as the end approached, we spoke to him of this young girl, and reminded him that this marriage would not be recognized in Russia—and that his estates would go to his family there; nor would it be recognized in France, there having been no civil ceremony. And we urged him to take some steps to provide for and establish the young Duchess Dimitri in her marital rights. The dying man was sitting in his bed bolstered up with pillows. At the mention of the Duchess Dimitri he burst out into a great bellow of exultation. He would beat Satan with her! And he had a dispatch box brought to him, took out this packet of notes and scrawled a letter. The letter and the money he charged me to deliver into her hands.… After that”—and the monk again looked down at the floor—“the grand duke died in great peace.”

He remained silent for some moments, as though lost in thought over this strange event. Then he looked up and handed me the letter.

“It is the wish of the Duchess Dimitri that you should read it.”

It was an impressive and medieval thing—this letter. In spite of the abominable way in which he had treated this woman he now addressed her in a manner stately and noble. It was a letter
from the grand duke to the Grand Duchess Dimitri Volkonsky, setting out how treacherously he had been dealt with by the Evil One and begging her to avenge him according to the plan that he pointed out. It was written in the most formal manner, but in words simple and direct, as became a great noble addressing the great lady of his house.

Then followed the directions. He was sending her one hundred thousand francs; this money was to be played at Monte Carlo according to a system he inclosed. This system would overcome the percentage in favor of the tables, insure the duchess an enormous fortune, and finally bankrupt the Casino. Thus the Evil One would be discomfited and the duke avenged. Then followed a brief description of a system of martingales, which even one but little acquainted with roulette could presently master.

The monk indicated the packet.

“My son,” he said, “what shall the Duchess Dimitri do?”

I was in no doubt.

“Play the money at Monte Carlo,” I said, “as the dead man has directed.”

I was moved by worldly wisdom here. I knew that this woman would never take the money before me on the table, and there was no dowry for her except what might be gained by following
this bizarre request. Besides that, the thing pressed upon her as a great sinister trust, from which the romantic nature of a woman could never escape. It lay too strangely within the atmosphere of a crusade.

This thing had impressed the monk—the design of the wicked working out the will of God. Suppose the profligate dead man had, by chance, devised a system that would make roulette impossible! Even in this brief moment over the duke's plan of play I saw that it was devised to recoup losses and escape the danger of the zero.

The monk drummed on the table with his fingers.

“I do not know,” he said simply—“even after long reflection. Perhaps one who has served for life with Satan, and near his person, may have learned the joint in his armor where the arrow may smite him. Who can say? By the evil are the evil overthrown.” He remained for some time quite motionless; then he added: “But the Grand Duchess Dimitri cannot go into a gambling house like any common woman.”

“I will go for her,” I replied.

“My son,” he said, “I am only an old monk, accustomed to simple peasants. This thing is beyond me. Will you tell the grand duchess what you have decided?”

I rang for the maid and asked for Madame Nekludoff.

Presently the door of the bedchamber opened and she appeared, but she did not enter. She stood on the threshold like one in great distress, and she looked wistfully to me as to one upon whom she now depended. She was all in black.

She listened without speaking a word; but when I had finished she said with a gentle dignity that she would be governed by my counsel. If I thought this bizarre trust ought to be carried out she was content. But would I please not go a step beyond the very letter of the directions? Would I play only the identical money the grand duke had sent for this strange purpose and come away when this money had passed out of my possession? She did not care whether this system won or lost. She only cared to be rid of this obligation as quickly as it could be done.… And then—would I come back to her?

Would I come back to her!

These were the only words that the woman seemed to speak. The others—all the others—were dead and unimportant trivialities; they were nothing. But these words were a bridge of light arching over an abyss of misery. She stood with her head lifted, her eyes dreamy, her slender face gleaming like a flower.… Would I come back to her!

At noon I went out to Monte Carlo. A mistral had come in from the sea and there was a fine, drizzling rain. I went up in the lift to the terrace below the Casino, and walked along on the gravel beside the great balustrade. The eternal pigeon-shoot went on in the tiny circle of greensward beyond the railroad track. A live bird would be thrown up by a trap and killed before the bewildered thing recovered its balance, and a brown dog trotted out and carried it in. The bird had no chance and the brown dog was like some abominable fate. I passed round this end of the Casino and went up the steps to the main entrance before the beautiful gardens.

In the bureau, after an examination as before customs, I got a red octagon-shaped card, with my name on it and the date, gave up my coat and hat at the window of the cloakroom, and went into the main salon of the Casino. There was the usual crowd round the tables, even on this depressing day—that silent, strained, hideously eager crowd, moving noiselessly and speaking low, as in the presence of the dead. There were no voices except those of the croupiers—“
Messieurs, faites vos jeux
…
Jeux sont faites
.…
Rien ne va plus
.”

I wanted to find a seat; so I paid twenty-five francs admission and went into the salon beyond. There was also a crowd here; but finally I got a
seat before a table, put my packet of notes down beside me, and began to play according to the Duke Dimitri's directions.