Part 28

July 16th.

Yesterday I carried my labiates to him. After some desultory talk, I endeavored to describe as best I could the characters of this interesting family. He listened to me out of complaisance. In time, he will listen to me out of curiosity, inasmuch as, to tell the truth, I am not a tiresome master; but I dare not yet interrogate him in a Socratic way. The SHORT LITTLE QUESTIONS would make our hot-headed young man angry. The lesson finished, he wished to commence his herbarium under my eyes. The honor of precedence has been awarded to the wild thyme; its little white, finely cut labias and the delicate appearance of the stem pleased him, whilst he found the dead nettle and the bell flower extremely common, and pronounced by him the word "extremely" is most expressive. While he made pencil sketches, I told him three stories, a fairy tale, an anecdote of Plutarch and some sketches of the life of St. Francis of Assisi. He listened to the fairy tale without uttering a word, and without a frown; but the other two stories made him shake his head several times.

"Is what you are telling me really true?" said he. "Would you wager your life upon it?" And when I came to speak of St. Francis embracing the lepers--

"Oh! now you're exaggerating." Then speaking to St. George: "Upon your conscience now, would you have done as much?"

He ended by becoming sportive and frolicsome. As he begged me to sing him a little song, I hummed Cadet Roussel, which he did not know; the "three hairs" made him laugh till the tears ran down his cheeks, but he paid dearly for this excess of gayety. When I rose to leave he was seized with a paroxysm of weeping, and I had much trouble in consoling him. I repent having excited him so much. I must humor his nerves, and never put him in that state of mind which contrasts too strongly with the realities of his life. At any cost I must prevent certain AWAKINGS.

July 19th.

I admire his conduct at the table. Seated opposite me, he never appears to see me, whilst you, grave Gilbert, do not know at times what to do with your eyes; but the other day he crossed the great hall with such a quick and elastic step that the Count's attention was drawn to him. I must caution him to be more discreet. I am also uneasy because in our nocturnal tete-a-tetes he often raises his voice, moves the furniture, and storms round the room; but he assures me there is nothing to fear. The walls are thick, and the foot of the staircase is separated from the corridor by a projection of masonry which would intercept the sound. Then the alcove, the vestibule, the two solid oak doors! These two doors are never locked. Ivan, he told me, is far from suspecting anything, and the only thing which could excite his distrust would be excessive precaution.

"And besides," added he, "by the mercy of God he is beginning to grow old, his mind is getting dull, and he is more credulous than formerly. So I have easily persuaded him that I will never forgive you, as long as I live, for the death of my dog. Then again, he is growing hard of hearing, and sleeps like a top. Sometimes to disturb his sleep, I amuse myself by imitating the bark of Vorace but I have the trouble of my pains. The only sound which he never fails to hear, is the ringing of my father's bell. I admit, however, that if anyone presumed to touch his great ugly oak door, he would wake up with a start. This is because his door is his property, his object, his fixed idea: he has a way of looking at it, which seems to say: 'you see this door? it is mine.' I believe, that in his eyes there is nothing lovelier in the world than a closed door. So he cherishes this horrible, this infamous door: he smiles on it benignly, he counts its nails and covers them with kisses."

"And you say that after nine o'clock he never comes up here?"

"Never, never. I should like to see him attempt it!" cried he, raising his head with an indignant air.

"You see then, that he is a jailer capable of behaving handsomely. I imagine that you do not like him much; but after all, in keeping you under lock and key, he is only obeying orders."

"And I tell you he is happy in making me suffer. The wicked man has done but one good action in his whole life,--that was in saving you from the fury of Vorace. In consideration of this good action, I no longer tell him what I think of him, but I think it none the less, and it seems to me very singular that you should ask me to love him."

"Excuse me, I do not ask you to love him, but to believe that, at heart, he loves you."

At these words he became so furious, that I hastened to change the subject.

"Don't you sometimes regret Vorace?"

"It was his duty to guard me against bugaboos, but I have had no fear of them, since one of them has become my friend.

"I am superstitious, I believe in ghosts; but I defy them to approach my bed hereafter."

He blushed and did not finish the sentence. Poor child! the painful misery of his destiny, far from quenching his imagination, has excited it to intoxication, and I am not surprised that he shapes friendship to the romantic turn of his thoughts.

"You're mistaken," I said to him, "it is not my image, it is botany which guards you against spirits. There is no better remedy for foolish terrors than the study of nature."

"Always the pedant," he exclaimed, throwing his cap in my face.

July 23rd.

Vladimir Paulitch appeared yesterday at the end of dinner. The presence of this man occasions me an indefinable uneasiness. His coldness freezes me, and then his dogmatic tone; his smile of mocking politeness. He always knows in advance what you are going to say to him, and listens to you out of politeness. This Vladimir has the ironical intolerance characteristic of materialists. As to his professional ability there can be no doubt. The Count has entirely recovered; he is better than I have ever seen him. What vigor, what activity of mind! What confounds me is, that in our discussions, I come to see in him, in about the course of an hour, only the historian, the superior mind, the scholar; I forget entirely the man of the iron boots, the somnambulist, the persecutor of my Stephane, and I yield myself unreservedly to the charm of his conversation. Oh, men of letters! men of letters!

July 27th.

He said to me:

"I do not possess happiness yet; but it seems to me at moments, that I see it, that I touch it."

July 28th.

To-day, Doctor Vladimir appeared again at dessert. He aimed a few sarcasms at me; I suspect that I do not please him much. Will his affection for the Count go so far as to make him jealous of the esteem which he evinces for me? We talked philosophy. He exerted himself to prove that everything is matter. I stung him to the quick in representing to him that all his arguments were found in d'Holbach. I endeavored to show him that matter itself is spiritual, that even the stones believe in spirit. Instead of answering, he beat about the bush. Otherwise, he spoke well, that is to say, he expressed his gross ideas with ingenuity. What he lacks most, is humor. He has something of the saturnine in his mind; his ideas have a leaden tint. The Count, prompted by good taste, saw that he held out too obstinately, without taking into account that Kostia Petrovitch himself detests the absolute as much in the negative as in the affirmative. He thanked me with a smile when I said to the doctor, in order to put an end to the discussion:

"Sir, no one could display more mind in denying its existence;" and the Count added, alluding to the doctor's meagerness of person: