(Based on an actual occurrence, the scene of which has been
transposed from the north to the south)
In M . . . , a major city in northern Italy, the widowed Marquise of O . . . , a woman of peerless reputation and the mother of two well-brought-up children, let it be known in the newspaper that she had, unbeknownst to her, been gotten in the family way; that the father of the child that she was about to bear had best make himself known; and that, for family considerations, she was resolved to marry him. The lady who, without the slightest hesitation, driven by unalterable circumstances, took such a singular initiative sure to arouse universal ridicule, was the daughter of Colonel von G . . . , the commandant of the Citadel at M . . . . About three years previously she had lost her husband, the Marquis of O . . . , to whom she had been deeply and dearly attached, on a trip he took to Paris on family business. Heeding the express wishes of Madame von G . . . , her worthy mother, she left the country estate in V . . . , where she had lived until then, and moved back with her two children to her father’s quarters in the commandant’s residence. Here she had spent the next few years in the greatest seclusion, engaged in art, reading, the education of her children and the care of her parents, until, on account of the . . . War, the region was suddenly teeming with the troops of all the warring powers, including the Russians. Colonel von G . . . , who was in charge of the citadel’s defense, ordered his wife and daughter to take refuge at the latter’s country estate, or at that of his son, also in V . . . . But before considerations of the dangers of remaining in the fortress could be fully apprehended by female intuition and weighed against the atrocities they might face in the country, the citadel was surrounded by Russian troops and ordered to surrender. The colonel informed his family that he would now have to act as if they were not there, and replied to the Russians’ demand with bullets and grenades. The enemy likewise bombarded the citadel. They set the arms depot on fire, scaled an outer wall, and when the commandant wavered in the face of a repeated call for capitulation, ordered an attack at nightfall and stormed the fortress.
Just as the Russian troops came pouring in, backed by heavy howitzer fire, the left wing of the commandant’s quarters caught fire, obliging the women to flee. Rushing along behind the marquise and her children, the commandant’s wife cried out that they had best stick together and take refuge on the lower floors; but at that very moment a grenade exploded in the house, causing total chaos. The marquise and her two children stumbled out into the front yard, where shots had been ringing out all night long through the thick of battle, chasing the poor, bewildered woman back into the burning building. Here, unfortunately, wanting to slip out again through the rear door, she ran into a troop of enemy sharpshooters, who, at the sight of her, suddenly went silent, slung their rifles over their shoulders, and with the crudest gestures dragged her away. The marquise cried out in vain to her trembling ladies-in-waiting, who shrank back, as she found herself dragged along now here, now there by the terrible rabble, who were fighting among themselves. They pulled her off to the rear courtyard where, having to endure the most abominable abuse, she was on the verge of collapse, when, overhearing the woman’s pitiful cries, a Russian officer suddenly appeared, and with wild thrusts of his saber scattered the dirty dogs who lusted after her. To the marquise he seemed like a heavenly angel. With the handle of his dagger he struck full in the face the last filthy scoundrel who had his arms around her slender body, so that the latter tumbled backwards, blood pouring from his mouth; then, with an obligatory French salutation, he offered his arm to the lady, herself rendered speechless by all that had happened, and led her to another wing of the palace, one that had not yet caught fire, where she promptly collapsed in a faint. “Here” – he called for a doctor, once she’d been joined by her terrified ladies-in-waiting; and after assuring them that she would soon revive, he plunked his hat back on his head and returned to battle.
In a short time the yard was completely overrun, and the commandant, who only continued to resist because his request for a reprieve had been declined, drew back with waning strength into the portal of his burning castle just as the Russian officer staggered out, flushed in the face, calling on him to surrender. The commandant replied that he had been awaiting this request, handed over his dagger and begged permission to go back inside to search for his family. The Russian officer, who, judging from the role he played, appeared to be one of the leaders of the assault, accorded him this liberty, under the accompaniment of a guard; proceeded with some dispatch to lead a detachment to where the battle still raged and quickly took control of the last holdout positions of the fortress. Soon thereafter he returned to the yard, gave orders to put out the flames that had begun to rage wildly all about, and pitched in with startling effort when his orders were not followed with adequate zeal. Now he clambered, hose in hand, amongst the burning gables, directing the jet of water; now he poked his head into the arsenal, making his Asian troops tremble, and rolled out powder kegs and loaded bombs. The commandant, in the meantime, upon entering his residential quarters and learning of the attack on his daughter, was deeply upset. The marquise, who had already, just as the Russian officer had promised, completely revived from her faint without the aid of a physician, overjoyed to see her nearest and dearest gathered safe and sound around her, only stayed in bed to assuage their concerns, assuring her father that she had no other wish than to be allowed to get up and express her thanks to the man who had saved her. She had already learned that he was the Count F . . . , lieutenant colonel of the T . . . n Riflemen’s Corps, and a knight decorated with the Order of Merit and many other medals. She asked her father to implore him not to leave the citadel without first making a brief appearance in the castle. Honoring his daughter’s request, the commandant promptly returned to the fort, and as the Russian officer was engaged in a never-ending deluge of orders relating to the war, and no better moment could be found to talk, right then and there on the ramparts, from which the latter surveyed the state of his wounded troops, the commandant conveyed his daughter’s ardent wish. The count assured him that, as soon as he had a free moment following the completion of his duties, he would pay his respects. He was still waiting to hear how Madame la Marquise was faring when the formal report of several officers dragged him back into the melee of battle. At daybreak, the commanding officer of the Russian troops arrived and visited the fort. He conveyed his respects to the vanquished commandant, expressing his regret that fortune did not favor his courage, and accorded him, on his honor, freedom of passage to go where he willed. The commandant assured him of his appreciation and declared what a great debt of gratitude he owed on this day to the Russians in general, and in particular, to the young Count F . . . , lieutenant colonel of the T . . . n Riflemen’s Corps. The Russian general inquired as to what had happened; and upon being informed of the shameless attack on the commandant’s daughter he was outraged. He called for Count F . . . by name. And after first briefly praising him for his own noble behavior – whereby the count turned red in the face – he concluded that he intended to have the scoundrels who besmirched the czar’s good name shot by firing squad; and he ordered the count to tell him who they were. Count F . . . replied in a rambling statement that he was unable to give their names, since it had been impossible to recognize their faces in the dim light of reverberating gunfire. The general, who had heard that the castle was in flames at the time of the attack, expressed his surprise; he remarked that even at night one could well recognize familiar people by the sound of their voices; and ordered the count, who shrugged his shoulders and looked askance, to make haste to investigate the matter rigorously. At that moment someone who pushed his way forward from the rear reported that one of those scoundrels wounded by the count had collapsed in the corridor, and that the commandant’s people had since dragged him to a holding cell, where he could still be found. The general had the latter brought up by a guard for a brief interrogation; and after the knave had named the whole gang, five in all, the general had them shot. This having been accomplished, and after leaving behind a small occupying detail, the general gave orders for the decampment of all remaining troops; the officers hastily dispersed among their various corps; amidst the confusion of the scattering soldiers, the count approached the commandant and expressed his regrets that, under these circumstances, he was compelled to respectfully bid farewell to Madame la Marquise; and in less than an hour the entire fort was once again free of Russians.
The family pondered how in the future they might find an occasion to show some expression of their gratitude to the count; but how great was their horror upon learning that on the very day of his departure from the fort he met his death in an engagement with enemy forces. The messenger who brought this sad news back to M . . . had with his own eyes seen him mortally wounded in the breast, carried to P . . . , where, according to an irrefutable source, at the moment the stretcher-bearers lowered him from their shoulders he gave up the ghost. The commandant, who personally went to the guardhouse to confer with the messenger and inquire as to the specific circumstances, learned that on the battlefield, at the moment he was hit by the shot, he was said to have cried out: “Julietta! This bullet avenges your dishonoring!” whereupon his lips shut forever. The marquise was distraught that she had let the opportunity pass to fling herself at his feet. She heaped the bitterest blame upon herself that, in light of his heart-stirring hesitation to make an appearance in the castle, due, no doubt, in her view, to his modesty, that she had not taken the initiative to seek him out herself; she felt profound pity for her unlucky namesake, of whom he had thought at the moment of dying; she sought in vain to find out where the woman lived so as to inform her of this sad and stirring occurrence; and many months passed before she herself could put him out of her mind.
The family was obliged to quit the commandant’s residence to make room for the Russian commanding officer. They considered at first retiring to Colonel von G . . . ’s country estate, to which the marquise felt a great attachment; but since the colonel did not like country life the family moved into a house in the city, fitting it out as a permanent residence. Everything returned to normal. The marquise resumed the long-interrupted education of her children, brought out her easel and books for leisure moments, whereupon, heretofore the epitome of good health, she felt herself beset by repeated indispositions, taking her out of circulation for weeks at a time. She suffered from bouts of nausea, dizziness, and fainting, and did not know what to make of her curious condition. One morning, as the family sat at tea, and the father had for an instant left the room, the marquise, as though awakening from a long, drawn-out daze, said to her mother: “If a woman told me that she had the kind of feeling I just had as I reached for the cup, I’d think to myself that she was anticipating a blessed event.” Madame von G . . . replied that she did not understand. The marquise explained again that she had just felt the same sensation she had felt back when she was pregnant with her second daughter. Madame von G . . . said she would perhaps give birth to a fantasy, and laughed. Morpheus, at least, or one of the dream knights in his retinue, would be his father, she joked. But the colonel returned to table, the conversation was interrupted, and since in a matter of days the marquise was well again, the subject was forgotten.
Shortly thereafter, at a time when the Forest Warden von G . . . , the commandant’s son, happened to be home, the family experienced a singular shock when a servant burst into the room to announce Count F . . . . “Count F . . . !” father and daughter intoned at the same time; and the astonishment rendered all speechless. The servant assured them that he had seen and heard rightly, and that the count was already standing in the antechamber waiting. The commandant himself leapt forward to open the door, whereupon the count, handsome as a young god yet a little pale in the face, strode in. Following the inconceivable scene of surprise, responding to the parents’ declaration that he was supposed to be dead, he assured them that he was alive, and promptly turned with deep emotion to their daughter, and asked her right off how she was. The marquise assured him that she was very well indeed, and only wished to know how he had sprung to life. But sticking to his guns, he replied that she was not telling him the truth; a curious frailty washed over her face; either he was completely deluded or she was indisposed and suffering. To which the marquise, charmed by his heartfelt words, responded: “Well, yes, this frailty, if you wish, could well be the lingering trace of an infirmity I suffered some weeks ago”; but added that she did not now fear any lasting effect on her health. To which, with a burst of joy, he replied: “Nor did I!” and added: “Will you marry me?” The marquise did not rightly know what to make of this behavior. Red in the face, she looked at her mother, and the latter, somewhat taken aback, looked at the son and the father; while the count came close to the marquise, taking her hand in his as if he intended to kiss it, and asked again if she had grasped his meaning. The commandant asked if he did not wish to be seated, and in a courteous, albeit somewhat formal, manner, pulled over a chair. His wife said: “Indeed, we will hold you to be a ghost until you tell us how you rose out of the grave in which they laid you in P . . . . ” Dropping the hand of the marquise, the count sat down and said that the circumstances compelled him to be brief; that he had suffered a deadly shot in the chest and was taken to P . . . ; that for many months he had doubted he’d pull through; that during that time he thought only of Madame la Marquise; that he could not put into words the joy and pain entwined with that thought; that following his recovery he returned to the army; that he had suffered the greatest disquiet; that many a time he had picked up a pen to unburden his heart to the Lord Commandant and Madame la Marquise; that he was suddenly sent to Naples; that he could not say for sure that he might not be redeployed from there to Constantinople; that he might even be obliged to return to St. Petersburg; that he would find it impossible to go on living all the while if he did not come clean concerning a certain imperative of the heart; that on his return passage through M . . . , he had not been able to resist the urge to make a detour with this purpose in mind; in short, that he harbored the ardent desire to be blessed with Madame la Marquise’s hand in marriage, and that he most respectfully, most earnestly and urgently beseeched them to respond to this request. Following a long pause, the commandant replied that if, as he did not doubt, the count was serious in his request, he found it very flattering. However, at the death of her husband, the Marquis of O . . . , his daughter had resolved not to remarry. Nevertheless, seeing as he had recently ingratiated himself by such a great kindness, it might not be impossible that her resolve had thereby been swayed in a manner that might favor such a request; in the meantime, he begged the count’s leave, on her behalf, that he might accord her a bit of time to consider his request. The count assured the commandant that this kind-hearted reply was all he could hope for; that under other circumstances, he could ask no more; that he was painfully aware of the impropriety of not being content therewith; that pressing matters, however, concerning which he could not now be more explicit, made a more definitive answer most desirable; that the horses that were to take him to Naples were already harnessed to his carriage; and that he beseeched them, if there were any persons in this house well disposed toward him, whereby he cast a glance at the marquise, that he not be left to drive off without a word of assurance. Somewhat taken aback by this behavior, the commandant replied that the gratitude the marquise felt permitted him to presume a great deal, but not to presume that much; that she could not take an action that would have a decisive effect on her happiness in life without careful reflection. It would be indispensable for his daughter, prior to any reply, that he honor her with the pleasure of his closer acquaintance. He invited him, following the conclusion of his business trip, to return to M . . . and spend some time as a guest of the family. If at that point Madame la Marquise might hope that he could make her happy, then he too – but not before – would be glad to hear that she had given him a definite answer. A redness rising to his face, the count replied that throughout his entire trip he had foreseen this answer to his impatient wishes; that he had meanwhile felt gripped by a great grief; that given the regrettable role he was now obliged to play, a closer acquaintance could only help his cause; that he believed himself justified in standing by his reputation, if elsewhere this most ambiguous of all qualities should be called into question; that no one knew of the only villainous act he had ever committed in his life, for which he was already in process of making amends; that he was, in a word, an honorable man, and begged leave to presume their assurance that they would accept this assurance as truthful. Cracking a smile, albeit without any ironic intent, the commandant responded that he approved of all these pronouncements. He had indeed never made the acquaintance of any young man who in such a short time had managed to amass so many inestimable qualities of character. He was almost certain that a short period of consideration would resolve any hesitation that still lingered in their minds; yet, nevertheless, before he could seek the consensus of his own, as well as the count’s family, no other answer than the one already given would be possible. Hereupon the count replied that he was an orphan and free, therefore, to answer for himself. His uncle was General K . . . , of whose consent he could assure him. He added that he possessed a considerable fortune and would be prepared to make Italy his home. The commandant made an obligatory bow, once again reiterated his intention, and asked his interlocutor to speak no more of this matter until his return. After a moment’s pause, during which the count gave every indication of the greatest distress, he turned to the marquise’s mother and insisted that he had done his utmost to avert this trip; that the efforts he had dared make to that end in his appeals to the commanding general, and to his uncle, General K . . . , stretched the limits of military decorum; but that his superiors thought, thereby, to shake him out of a lingering dejection in the wake of his injuries; and that he now felt as if he’d been sent to his doom. The family did not know what to make of all these declarations. Rubbing his forehead, the count continued that if there were any hope of thereby expediting his cherished wish, he would do his best to defer his journey for a day and even a bit more. Whereupon, he turned, respectively, from the commandant to the marquise and then to her mother. The commandant peered down with a look of displeasure and did not reply. His wife said: “Go then, go then, Sir Count; take care of your affairs in Naples; and upon your return, accord us the pleasure of your presence by visiting with us for a while; the rest will take its due course.” The count remained seated for a moment and seemed to be considering what to do next. Thereafter rising and pushing back his chair – since he was hopeful, he said, and since his immediate departure might be taken as over-precipitous, and the family insisted upon a closer acquaintance, to which he had no objection, he would send the dispatches back to headquarters in Z . . . , for someone else to take, and would accept the family’s kind invitation to be a houseguest for a few weeks. Whereupon, still grasping the back of the chair, with his back to the wall, he stood there a moment and peered at the commandant. The latter replied that he would find it most regrettable if the feelings that the count appeared to have developed for his daughter were to be the cause of serious repercussions for him; that he must surely know what he had to do and not do, whether or not to send back the dispatches; and that the rooms would be made ready for him. With these words, a pallor falling over his face, the count respectfully kissed the mother’s hand, bowed to the others and left the room.
Upon his departure, the family had no idea what to make of this turn of events. The mother said that it was out of the question that he should send the military dispatches he was supposed to take to Naples back to Z . . . simply because he did not succeed in the course of a five-minute interview in eliciting a yes to his proposal of marriage from a woman he did not know. The forest warden declared that such a frivolous act would be punished by nothing less than his arrest. And his discharge, the commandant added. But he hadn’t yet run any risks, the latter continued. It was just a warning shot; he will surely come to his senses before sending off the dispatches. Upon being apprised of the risk he ran, the marquise’s mother expressed the most heartfelt concern that he would indeed send them. His strong, single-minded determination, she feared, might well make him susceptible to such a rash act. She implored the forest warden to immediately run after him and to dissuade him from courting misfortune. Her son replied that such a move on his part would effectuate the opposite result, and merely strengthen his hope of achieving his end by means of his stratagems. The marquise was of the same opinion, though she was certain, she said, that the dispatches would surely be sent off without him, insofar as he would rather court misfortune than show weakness. Everyone concurred that his behavior was strange, and that he appeared to be accustomed to winning over women’s hearts as he did fortresses, by sustained assault. At that moment, the commandant noticed that the count’s harnessed rig had pulled up to the gate. Surprised, he called his family to the window and inquired of a servant just entering the room if the count was still in the house. The servant replied that he was below in the servants’ quarters writing letters and sealing packages in the company of an adjutant. Hiding his dismay, the commandant hastened downstairs with the forest warden, and seeing the count bent over rough tabletops, inquired if he would not rather conduct his business in the rooms made ready for him, and if he had any other requests. Writing away fast and furiously, the count offered his humble thanks and said that his business was completed; sealing the letter, he asked for the time; and passing the entire dispatch pouch to his adjutant, he wished him a pleasant journey. Not believing his eyes, as the adjutant stepped outside, the commandant spoke up: “Sir Count, if your reasons are not of the utmost importance . . .” “Critical!” the count interrupted, accompanied the adjutant to the carriage and pulled open the door. “In that case,” the commandant continued, “if the dispatches were my responsibility, I would at least . . .” “Impossible!” replied the count, as he helped the adjutant to climb into his seat. “The dispatches are meaningless in Naples without my presence. I also thought of that. Drive on!” “And what of the letters from your uncle?” cried the adjutant, leaning out the door. “They will find me in M . . . ,” the count replied. “Drive on!” said the adjutant, and the rig rolled out the gate.
Hereupon Count F . . . turned to the commandant and inquired if someone could now conduct him to his room. “Permit me the honor of doing so myself,” said the bewildered colonel; instructed his and the count’s servants to take charge of his baggage; and led him to the guest quarters, where he dryly took his leave. The count changed his uniform; left the house to report to the Russian commander of M . . . ; and absent for the rest of the day, only returned for dinner.
The family, meanwhile, was profoundly upset. The forest warden pointed out how precisely the count’s replies had complied with the commandant’s presuppositions; maintained that his behavior appeared to bespeak a clearly planned course of action; and inquired as to what in Heaven’s name might be the reasons for such a packhorse-driven courtship. The commandant said that he had no idea what to make of it and insisted that the family speak no more of the matter in his presence. His wife kept peering every so often out the window, convinced she’d find him hastening back, regretting his rash action, and hoping to set things aright. Finally, as darkness set in, she sat herself down beside the marquise, who was bent over a table diligently engaged in some business, and seemed to be avoiding conversation. As the father paced back and forth, she asked her daughter in a hushed voice if she had any idea of what might come of all this. Casting a timid look at the commandant, the marquise replied: “If father had managed to make him go to Naples, then everything would be alright.” “To Naples indeed!” the commandant, who had heard this, cried back. “Should I have called for the priest? Or should I have had him locked up and arrested and sent under armed guard to Naples?” “No,” replied the marquise, but consumed by vivid and pressing fancies, she looked back, with some reluctance, upon her work. At last, at nightfall, the count appeared. Following an exchange of social niceties, the family waited only for this business to be brought up again to press him in a unified effort, should it still be possible, to retreat from the ill-advised step he’d taken. But for naught, throughout the entire meal, did the family await this moment. Studiously avoiding any subject that might lead to this, he kept the commandant entertained with talk of war and the forest warden with talk of the hunt. When he touched upon the battle at P . . . , in which he was wounded, the mother implored him to speak of his injuries, inquired as to the adequacy of his treatment in that remote place, and whether he had found all the essential comforts. Hereupon he told of many things relating to his passion for the marquise: how she had tirelessly been there at his bedside throughout his sickness; how, in the grip of a burning fever, he had kept confusing her with the image of a swan that he had seen as a boy on his uncle’s estate; that one memory was particularly stirring to him, of his once having tossed a handful of mud at it, whereupon it dove and reemerged clean as a whistle; that it had always swum around in a foamy ferment, and he had called out “Thinka!” which is what they called it, but that he was never able to draw the swan near him, though the splashing and neck-craning must have pleased it no end; and all of a sudden, red in the face, he swore that he loved her dearly, looked back down at his plate and said no more. The meal having been completed, it was finally time to rise from the table; and since, following a brief exchange with the mother, the count bowed to all present and once again withdrew to his room, the family members were left standing around, not knowing what to think. The commandant was of the opinion that they would simply have to let the matter run its course. The rash young man was probably counting on the intercession of his relatives. Or else he faced a dishonorable discharge. Madame von G . . . asked her daughter what she made of him, and if she could see clear to giving him an answer that would avoid a great misfortune. To which the marquise replied: “Dearest mother, I simply cannot do so. I regret that my gratitude had to be put to such a hard test. But I resolved not to marry again; I will not injudiciously risk my happiness on a second match.” The forest warden remarked that if such was her firm resolve, even this explanation could be helpful to him, under the circumstances, and that it seemed to be almost necessary to give him some definite answer. The mother insisted that, seeing as this young man, who was endowed with so many excellent qualities, expressed a desire to visit with them in Italy, that in her view, his request for the marquise’s hand merited her respectful and serious consideration. Sitting himself down beside his sister, the forest warden asked her if she found him attractive. To which the marquise replied, a bit embarrassed: “He pleases . . . and displeases me,” and appealed to the rest of the family to express their feelings. Her mother said: “If he came back from Naples, and the inquiries we would have been able to make in the meantime accorded with the overall impression you’ve had of him, how then would you reply to his repeated request?” “In that case,” said the marquise, “since his wishes seem so heartfelt, I would” – she paused, and her eyes glistened as she spoke – “because of the obligation I owe him, fulfill those wishes.” The mother, who had always wished her daughter would wed again, took pains to hide her joy at this response, and silently pondered how best to proceed. Restlessly rising again from the chair, the forest warden said that if the marquise even contemplated the possibility of gratifying the count by granting him her hand in marriage, then a step had to be taken in that direction right here and now to forestall the consequences of his rash action. The mother was of the same opinion, and maintained that, in light of all the capital qualities he had demonstrated that night when the fort was overrun by Russian troops, it was not too much to presume that his subsequent conduct should likewise meet their approval. Greatly agitated, the marquise peered down at the ground. Taking her daughter’s hand in hers, the mother continued, “One could well assure him that you would not enter into any other engagement until he returns from Naples.” “Such an assurance, dearest mother, I would gladly give him,” the marquise said, “I fear only that it would not appease him and merely lead to our entanglement.” “Let me worry about that!” the mother replied with evident joy, and turned to her husband. “Lorenzo!” she said, preparing to rise from her chair, “What do you think?” All ears, the commandant stood at the window, staring out at the street, and said nothing. The forest warden gave assurances he would, with words of encouragement, hasten the count on his way. “Then do it! Do it! Do it!” cried the father, turning his back to his son. “I’m bound to yield yet again to this Russian!” Hereupon the mother leapt up, kissed him and her daughter and asked, as the father chuckled at her womanly wiles, how they might best communicate this reply post haste to the count. Following the forest warden’s suggestion, it was decided that, supposing he had not yet undressed for bed, they ask him to be so kind as to rejoin the family if but for a moment. The count sent word back that it would be an honor to promptly accede to their request, and hardly had the servant returned with the message when he was already striding into the room, his feet propelled with winged joy, and knelt down before the marquise, stirred with the deepest emotion. The commandant wanted to say something; but rising, the count blurted out: “I already know enough!” He proceeded to kiss his and the mother’s hand, hugged the brother, and asked them only to be so good as to help him order a rig. Although moved by this demonstration, the marquise nevertheless said: “I am afraid that your rash hopes may . . .” “Nothing! Nothing!” replied the count, “Nothing’s been done that can’t be undone, if the inquiries you wish to make about me should contradict the sentiments that made you call me back into this room.” Hereupon the commandant embraced him most heartily, the forest warden offered him the use of his own carriage, a valet raced to the station to fetch horses for hire, and his departure roused such joy as no arrival ever had. He hoped, said the count, to catch up with the dispatches in B . . . , from whence he’d take a shorter road to Naples, rather than drive the long way through M . . . ; in Naples, he’d do his best to avoid the additional trip to Constantinople; and since, if all else failed, he was resolved to pretend to be too sick to travel, he assured them that, barring any unforeseen eventualities, he’d definitely be back in M . . . in four to six weeks. Hereupon, his valet reported that the horses were harnessed and the carriage ready for departure. The count took his hat, strode before the marquise and reached for her hand. “For now, Julietta,” he said, “I’m somewhat reassured,” placing his hand upon hers, “although it was my most ardent wish to have married you before my departure.” “Married!” the family cried out in unison. “Married,” repeated the count, and kissed the hand of the marquise. And when she asked if he was in his right mind, he assured her: “The day will come when you will understand why.” The family was about to protest, but he staved off any such response by smothering each member in a farewell hug, begged them not to give another thought to his remark, and leapt into the carriage and drove off.
Many weeks went by, during which, with mixed emotions, the family eagerly awaited the outcome of this curious affair. The commandant received from General K . . . , the count’s uncle, a courteous reply; the count himself wrote from Naples; the inquiries made about him elicited responses much to his advantage; in short, the engagement was already considered as good as done when the marquise’s mysterious malady returned, manifesting itself more vehemently than before. She observed an incomprehensible transformation of her figure. This she revealed with a complete openness to her mother and said she did not know what to make of her condition. Deeply concerned by the strange signs of illness in her daughter, the mother asked her to seek a physician’s advice. The marquise resisted, believing in the strength of her willpower to help her get better; she spent several more days of great suffering without heeding her mother’s advice, until ever reawakening feelings of such a curious character aroused the greatest distress. She asked to be examined by a physician whom her father trusted, and in light of her mother’s absence, bid him be seated on her couch, and following a brief introduction, jokingly revealed her own prognosis. The doctor gave her a piercing look, kept silent a while following a thorough examination, and finally replied with a sober expression that Madame la Marquise had aptly diagnosed her condition. And in answer to her question: What did he mean by this? he responded frankly, and with a chuckle he was not able to squelch, that she was perfectly healthy and had no need of a physician. Whereupon the marquise gave him a very severe sidelong glare, rang for her servant, and bid him be gone. She muttered half to herself, as though she did not deem him worthy of address, that she had no desire to jest about matters of this sort. Feeling slighted, the doctor replied that he had to hope she was always so disinclined to jest as she was now; took his hat and walking stick and made ready to leave. The marquise assured him that she would inform her father of this offense. The doctor replied that he was prepared to present his testimony in court, opened the door, bowed and was about to leave. But as he bent down to pick up a glove he’d let fall, the marquise inquired as to the likelihood thereof. The doctor replied that he surely did not need to elaborate on the reasons for his diagnosis, bowed again and walked away.
The marquise stood there as though struck by lightning. She pulled herself together and was about to hasten off to her father; but the strange seriousness of the man from whose words she had taken offense simultaneously made her freeze in her tracks. Deeply distraught, she flung herself on the sofa. Distrusting herself, she ran through every moment of the past year and doubted her own sanity when she reflected on what had just transpired. Finally, her mother appeared, and in response to her dumbfounded question: “What in Heaven’s name has so upset you?” the daughter related what the doctor had just revealed. Madame von G . . . called him shameless and contemptible and encouraged her daughter to go ahead and tell her father of the offense. The marquise assured her that the doctor’s diagnosis was made in all seriousness, and that he appeared to be prepared to repeat it to her father face to face. Whereupon, a bit taken aback, Madame von G . . . asked if there was any reason to consider such a possibility? To which the marquise replied: She could sooner conceive of graves growing fecund and corpses giving birth! “Well then, you stir-brained woman,” said Madame von G . . . , hugging her close, “what in the world do you have to worry about? If your conscience is clear, why pay any mind to a doctor’s diagnosis, even if it’s from an entire cabinet of medical men? Whether it’s a mistake or a mean-spirited prank, what difference does it make? Still it’s only right and proper that we let your father know of this.” “Oh, God!” cried the marquise with a convulsive gesture, “How can I becalm myself? Don’t I have my own inner, all-too-familiar feeling testifying against me? Would I not, were I to recognize this selfsame feeling in someone else, conclude of her that the diagnosis is right?” “How ghastly!” remarked the commandant’s wife. “Malevolence! Mistake!” the marquise muttered. “What in Heaven’s name could have made this man, who to this very day seemed so honorable to us, insult me in such a willful and contemptible way? I who received him in confidence and in anticipation of future gratitude? Before whom, as his very first words affirmed, he appeared with a clean and pure-hearted determination, to help, not to hurt, yet bestirred more cruelty than I could ever have imagined? And if, for lack of any other possible explanation, I must ascribe it to some mistake,” the marquise continued, as her mother looked at her dumfounded, “is it possible that a doctor of even middling competence could err in such a case?” “And nevertheless,” the commandant’s wife replied with a hint of sarcasm, “it must have been one or the other.” “Yes, indeed, my dearest mother,” affirmed the marquise, kissing her hand, as she peered back, red in the face, with a look of injured pride, “it must be so, although the circumstances are so strange as to countenance my doubt. I swear, because you rightfully seek assurance, that my conscience is like that of my children; no cleaner, dearest one, could theirs be. But still, I beg you, get me a midwife, so that I may confirm my condition, and whatever it be, be sure of it.” “A midwife she wants!” cried Madame von G . . . in a tone of disgrace. “A clean conscience and a midwife!” Whereupon she fell silent. “A midwife, my dearest mother,” the marquise repeated, flinging herself on her knees before her, “at once, lest I go mad.” “Gladly,” replied the commandant’s wife, “but if you please, do your child-bearing outside this house.” At that she stood up and was about to leave the room. But following her with outstretched arms, the marquise fell on her face and embraced her knees. “If my blameless life, a life lived following your example, entitled me to your esteem,” she cried, with an eloquence fostered by pain, “if any motherly feeling for me still stirs in your breast, at least until my guilt has been proven without the shadow of a doubt, I beg you, do not abandon me at this awful moment.” “What is it that troubles you so?” asked the mother. “Is it nothing but the doctor’s diagnosis? Nothing more than your inner feeling?” “Nothing more, dear mother,” replied the marquise, and lay her hand on her breast. “Nothing, Julietta?” her mother pressed. “Think carefully. A moral lapse, as unspeakably much it would hurt me, is pardonable, and I would be obliged to pardon it; but if, to avoid a motherly rebuke, you were to concoct some fanciful fable of the overturning of the natural order, and back it up with blasphemous oaths just to impose upon the weakness of my all too gullible heart, that would be shameless; I would never be able to open my heart to you again.” “Would that the gates of paradise would one day be flung so wide open to me as my soul now is to you,” cried the marquise. “I have kept nothing from you.” This last declaration expressed with such pathos rattled her mother to the core. “Oh Heavens,” she cried, “my dearly beloved child! How much you move me!” And she picked her daughter up off the ground, and kissed her, and pressed her to her breast. “What then, in God’s name, do you fear? Come, child, you are not well.” She wanted to lead her to bed. But with tears running down her cheeks, the marquise assured her that she was perfectly healthy, that nothing ailed her save her curious and inconceivable condition. “Condition!” the mother cried again, “What kind of condition? If your memory of past occurrences is so certain, what fearful whimsy could have gripped you? Can an inner feeling, roused in some dark cavity, not be a delusion?” “No! No!” said the marquise, “it’s no delusion. And if you call for the midwife, mother, she will confirm that this terrible, devastating thing is true. “Come now, my darling daughter,” said Madame von G . . . , concerned for her sanity. “Come, follow me, and lay yourself down in bed. Whatever did you imagine the doctor might have said? Your face is afire! You’re trembling all over! What in Heaven’s name did the doctor tell you?” Incredulous now of all that transpired and doubting everything her daughter told her, she gently drew her daughter forward. The marquise protested: “Dearest, most precious mother!” a smile breaking through her veil of tears. “I assure you I have all my wits about me. The doctor told me that I was heavy with child. Let the midwife come, and as soon as she says it isn’t so I’ll calm down.” “As you wish, as you wish,” replied the commandant’s wife, squelching her fear. “She’ll be here presently, presently, my dear, if you’re determined to make her laugh, and tell you you’re a dreamer and a little touched to boot.” Whereupon she rang for her servant and promptly had her fetch the midwife.
The marquise still lay with restlessly heaving breast in her mother’s arms when the woman appeared, and the mother informed her of the strange delusion that made her daughter take sick. Madame la Marquise swore that she had never strayed from virtue, and yet, nevertheless, consumed by a strange feeling, she insisted that she be examined by an expert in these intimate matters. Nodding as she listened, the midwife spoke of young blood and the guiles of this cruel world; and having completed her examination, remarked that such cases were not uncommon, that the young widows who found themselves in this condition all maintained that they’d been living on a desert island. Trying to comfort the marquise, she assured her that the hardy corsair who’d stolen into her bedchamber at night would turn up again. At these words, the marquise fainted. Unable to subdue her maternal instincts, Madame von G . . . brought her back to consciousness with the aid of the midwife. But her anger took the upper hand once her daughter had awakened. “Julietta!” the mother cried out in pain, yet still inclined to some kind of reconciliation. “Will you bear your heart? Will you tell me who the father is?” But when the marquise replied that she was going mad, the mother rose from the couch and muttered: “Go! Go now, you contemptible creature! Cursed be the day I bore you!” and promptly stormed out.
Once again feeling faint in the bright daylight, the marquise pulled the midwife toward her and lay her trembling head upon her breast. She asked in a halting voice if the laws of nature ever erred, and if there were any possibility of an unconscious conception? The midwife smiled, loosened the kerchief round her neck and said that surely the marquise knew better. “No, no,” replied the marquise, “of course I was conscious, I just wanted to know in general if such a thing were possible in nature.” The midwife replied that, to her knowledge, except for the Virgin Mary, such a thing had never happened to any woman on earth. The marquise trembled ever more violently. She thought at any moment she might die, and pressing the midwife to her in an anguished frenzy, begged her not to leave. “There, there,” the midwife tried to mollify her grief. She assured her that the birth was still a long time coming, suggested that, under such circumstances, there were ways to save one’s reputation, and assured her that everything would turn out all right in the end. But since these attempts at comforting felt like knife wounds in her unhappy breast, she pulled herself together, said she felt better and bid the woman take her leave.
No sooner had the midwife left the room than the marquise received a note from her mother that said: “Sir von G . . . requests, given the circumstances, that you leave his house. He sends you, enclosed herewith, the papers concerning your financial affairs and hopes that God may spare him the pain of seeing you again.” Once read, the note was drenched with tears; and in a corner she could still make out the erased word: “Dictated.” Pain welled up in the poor woman’s eyes. Weeping bitterly over her parents’ error and the injustice to which these fine people were misled, she marched to the rooms of her mother, who, she was told, was with her father; so she staggered to her father’s quarters. Finding the door locked, she collapsed before it, wailing, calling on all the saints in Heaven to vouch for her innocence. She may well have been lying there for several minutes when the forest warden strode out and, with burning eyes, exclaimed: “You’ve been told the commandant does not wish to see you.” The marquise cried out: “My dearest brother!” Sobbing, she forced her way into the room, and cried: “My most precious father!” and stretched her arms out to him. Catching sight of her, the commandant turned his back and hurried off to his bedroom. And when she followed him there, he cried: “Be gone!” and tried to slam the door shut; but when, wailing and pleading, she managed to keep him from shutting it in her face and barged in, he suddenly gave way and rushed to the far corner of the room and turned his back on her. She flung herself to the floor before him and, trembling all over, clasped his knees, just as a pistol he’d grabbed went off at the very moment he plucked it off the wall, and the shot went tearing through the ceiling. “God in Heaven!” cried the marquise, pale as death, and she rose up and dashed out of the room. “Horse up my carriage!” she said as soon as she’d returned to her own quarters; bone weary, she collapsed into a chair, hugged her children tightly, and had her bags packed. She had the youngest one between her knees and was just flinging a wrap around him, about to climb into her carriage, when the forest warden burst in, and on the orders of the commandant, demanded that she leave her children. “These children?” she asked, and stood up. “Tell your inhuman father that he can come and shoot me down, but that he can’t take my children from me!” And fortified with all the pride of her innocence, she picked up her children and carried them to her carriage with such a vehemence that her brother would not have dared intercede, and drove off.
Impelled by the intense strain of all she’d been through to a better knowledge of her true self, she suddenly hoisted herself, as if by her own hand, out of the morass into which fate had flung her. The tumult that tore at her heart finally settled as soon as she got outside; her children, the beloved prize of her old life, she covered with kisses, and with a profound sense of satisfaction she considered what a great victory she had won over her brother through the sheer force of her clear conscience. Strong enough not to be shattered by this strange situation, her spirit surrendered completely to the grand, holy, and inexplicable scheme of things. She fathomed the impossibility of ever convincing her family of her innocence, understood that she would have to console herself, lest she be brought down, and it was only a matter of days after her arrival in V . . . that the pain gave way to her heroic resolve and her pride at having withstood life’s assaults. She decided to withdraw from all mundane pursuits and to devote herself with unstinting effort to the education of her two children, and to tend to the third, the gift that God had given her, with all her motherly love. She made plans in the coming weeks, once she’d gotten through the delivery, to see to the restoration of her lovely country estate, which had fallen into ruin during her lengthy absence; she considered, while seated in her garden knitting little hats and socks for little limbs, how best to comfortably rearrange the rooms, which one she would fill with books and in which one she could best set up her easel. And so she had completely come to terms with her life of cloistered seclusion before the time of Count F . . . ’s promised return from Naples. The gatekeeper had orders not to let anyone enter the house. Only the thought tormented her that the young life she had conceived in the greatest innocence and purity, and whose origin, precisely because it was more mysterious, seemed all the more godly than that of other people, should suffer any slurs in proper society. Then a curious idea suddenly occurred to her how she might find the father – an idea that, when she first thought of it, caused the knitting needles to fall from her hands. She ruminated on it through many a long sleepless night, turning it around and twisting it so that it rubbed against her deepest feelings, before thinking it through. She still bristled at the thought of engaging in any relations with the person who had so vilely deceived her, finally concluding that this individual surely must be among the dregs of society, and from wherever he may come, he could only belong to the ranks of the lowest and vilest scum. But since her sense of independence grew ever stronger in her, and she considered that a diamond is still a diamond no matter how coarse its setting, roused one morning by the beat of the young heart stirring in her womb, she had the singular announcement cited at the start of this story run in The M . . . Intelligencer.
Held up by unavoidable business in Naples, Count F . . . had in the meantime written twice to the marquise, enjoining her, come what may, to hold by the silent nod of assurance she had given him. As soon as he managed to decline the subsequent business trip to Constantinople, and his other affairs had been settled, he promptly left Naples and arrived in M . . . just a few days after the promised date. The commandant received him with a look of great consternation, said that pressing business called him away from home, and asked the forest warden, meanwhile, to speak to him. The latter took him to his room and, following a summary greeting, asked if he knew what had transpired in the commandant’s house during his absence. Turning pale, the count replied: “No.” Hereupon, the forest warden informed him of the shame the marquise had brought upon the family, filling him in on all the details, of which our readers have already been apprised. The count struck himself on the forehead. “Why were so many hurdles put in my way!” he cried out, forgetting himself. “If only we’d been married, we’d have been spared all the disgrace and misfortune!” Gaping at him, the forest warden asked if he was mad enough to want to be married to this shameless hussy. The count replied that she was worth more than the whole world that reviled her; that he absolutely believed the pronouncement of her innocence; and that he would ride on to V . . . this very day to repeat his request for her hand in marriage. And he promptly grabbed his hat, bid farewell to the forest warden, who thought the count had lost his mind, and stormed off.
He mounted his horse and galloped off to V . . . . But when he dismounted at the gate of her estate and sought entry to the courtyard, the gatekeeper informed him that Madame la Marquise was receiving no one. The count inquired if this rule established for strangers also held true for friends of the family; whereupon the gatekeeper replied that he had not been informed of any exceptions to the rule, and in the next breath added with an ambiguous tone: “Might you be a certain Count F . . . ?” To which, with a searching look, the count replied: “No,” – and turning to his servant, remarked, albeit loud enough for the gatekeeper to hear, that under the circumstances, he would stop at an inn and notify Madame la Marquise of his arrival in writing. But in the meantime, as soon as the fellow turned his back, the count turned a corner and snuck around the wall of a sprawling garden that stretched behind the house. He stepped through a gate he found open, traversed the allées, and intended to climb the ramp to the terrace at the back of the house, when he espied out of the corner of his eye the lovely and mysterious figure of the marquise herself in an arbor hard at work at a little table. He approached her stealthily so that she could not notice him until he stood in the arbor gate three steps in front of her face. “Count F . . . !” she said, startled, tearing open her eyes, and the red blush of her surprise flushed her cheeks. The count smiled, stayed standing a while without budging from the gate; and hastened then to sit down beside her with such a quiet certainty so as not to arouse her fear, and before she even had a chance to decide how to react in this strange situation, he swung a gentle arm around her dear body. “How ever, Sir Count, did you manage?” asked the marquise – and peered timidly at the ground. The count replied: “I came from M . . . ,” quietly pressing her to him, “and slipped through a rear gate I found open. I thought I could count on your forgiveness, and so, let myself in.” “Did they not tell you in M . . . ?” she asked, not budging from his embrace. “They told me all, my dearly beloved,” replied the count; “but, absolutely convinced of your innocence as I am . . .” “What!” cried the marquise, rising and trying to slip out of his embrace; “and you’ve come nevertheless?” “In spite of the world,” he continued, holding her tight, “in spite of your family, and even in spite of this blessed little being,” pressing a warm kiss on her breast. “Be gone!” cried the marquise. “I’m as convinced of your innocence, Julietta,” he said, “as if I were omniscient, as if my soul dwelt in your bosom.” The marquise cried: “Let me go!” “I’ve come,” he said, not letting go of her, “to repeat my request, and if you will heed it, to find bliss in your reply.” “Leave at once!” cried the marquise. “I order you!” and tore herself free of his arms. “My dearly beloved! My most precious!” he whispered, rising again, and following after her. “You heard me!” cried the marquise, and turned, eluding him. “A single, secret, whispered word is all I ask!” said the count, and abruptly reached for her smooth arm that had managed to slip free. “I wish to hear no more,” the marquise responded, gave him a violent shove, scurried up the terrace ramp and disappeared.
He was already halfway up the ramp, intending, come what may, to bend her ear, when the door was slammed in his face and the bolt, shoved with a frenzied exertion, was slid shut. Wavering for a fleeting moment, unsure of what to do under such circumstances, he considered climbing through a window left open on the side of the house to press his case until he succeeded; yet however difficult in every sense he found the thought of retreating, this time necessity seemed to demand it, and furious with himself for having let her slip out of his arms, he sidled back down the ramp and left the garden to look for his horses. He felt that his attempt to have it out with her eye to eye had failed hopelessly, and trotting along, composing a letter in his mind that he was now doomed to write, he headed back to M . . . . Come evening, in a state of utter dejection, dining at a public house, he ran into the forest warden, who immediately asked him if he had succeeded in his proposal in V . . . . The count replied tersely: “No!” and was quite tempted to follow with a bitter word; but for politeness’ sake, he added after a while that he had decided to address her in writing and would do so shortly. The forest warden said: “I see with great regret that your passion for the marquise has robbed you of your good sense. I must assure you that she has in the meantime pursued another course of action.” And ringing for the latest newspapers, he handed him the paper in which her appeal to the father of her child appeared in print. As the count read her words, the blood rushed to his face. He was riddled by a flurry of emotions. The forest warden asked if he did not believe that they would find the person whom Madame la Marquise sought. “Undoubtedly!” remarked the count, poring over the page with all his heart, greedily gobbling up its meaning. Thereupon, after pausing for a moment at the window to fold back the paper, he said: “Very well then! Now I know what I have to do!” And turning back to the forest warden, he said with a perfunctory smile that he hoped he might have the pleasure of seeing him soon again, bid him farewell and left, reconciled to his fate.
Meanwhile, there was a great deal of agitation in the commandant’s house. His wife felt deeply embittered at the savage severity of her husband and at her own weakness in bowing to his tyrannical will and allowing him to cast out their daughter. When the shot resounded in her husband’s chambers and the daughter burst out the door, the mother fell into a faint from which she soon managed to rouse herself; but at the moment she came to, the commandant could find nothing more to say than that he regretted that she’d endured the shock for naught, and flung the fired pistol onto a table. Later, when the conversation turned to the commandant’s demand for their daughter to relinquish her children, she timidly hazarded the reply that no one had the right to do so; and trembling in the wake of it all, with a weak and stirring voice, she asked that outbursts be henceforth avoided. The commandant made no reply to his wife, but turning to the forest warden, foaming with rage, he cried: “Go, get them for me!” When Count F . . . ’s second letter arrived, the commandant instructed that it be sent on to the marquise in V . . . , who – as they later learned from the messenger – promptly, upon receipt, set it aside, and muttered: “Very good.” At a loss to understand any of it, and particularly the marquise’s inclination to enter into a new marriage with total indifference, the mother sought in vain to give voice to her bewilderment. The commandant continued to clamor for silence in a manner that resembled an order; and in the course of one such altercation, removing a portrait of his shameless child that still hung on the wall, he insisted that he wished to wipe her from his memory, and declared that he no longer had a daughter. Whereupon the marquise’s curious inquiry appeared in the newspaper. Deeply stirred, the commandant’s wife went with the paper she’d received from the commandant to his room, where she found him at work at his desk, and asked him what in the world he made of it. To which the commandant replied, without raising his pen: “Oh, she’s innocent alright!” “What!” cried Madame von G . . . , flabbergasted, “innocent?” “She did it in her sleep,” remarked the commandant, without looking up. “In her sleep!?” gasped Madame von G . . . . “You expect me to believe such an unlikely story? The lunatic!” cried the commandant, shoved his papers aside and stormed out.
The next day at breakfast, the commandant’s wife read aloud the following reply in the latest issue of The M . . . Intelligencer, still hot off the presses:
If Madame la Marquise of O . . . will be so good as to be present at the house of Sir von G . . . on the 3rd of . . . at eleven o’clock, the man she is looking for will fling himself at her feet.
Struck dumb before reading this incredible announcement to the end, the commandant’s wife skipped the last line and handed the paper to her husband. The commandant reread the announcement three times, as though he did not trust his eyes. “For heaven’s sake, tell me, Lorenzo, what do you make of this?” she cried. “The shameless hussy!” he replied, leaping up from the table. “The two-faced liar! Ten times the shamelessness of a bitch in heat paired with ten times the slyness of a fox still can’t compare to hers! Such a put-on! With two such innocent eyes! A she-wolf in sheep’s clothing!” he fumed and couldn’t calm down. “But what in the world, if it is a ruse, could she possibly hope to prove?” his wife asked. “What she could hope to prove? To shove her shameless deception down our throats, that’s what!” the commandant replied. “I’ve already learned it by heart, that little fable, that the two of them, she and he, intend to perform for us here on the 3rd, at eleven o’clock. ‘My dear little daughter,’ I’m expected to reply, ‘I had no idea, who could ever have imagined, forgive me, please accept my blessing and be happy.’ But I’ve got a bullet ready for whoever crosses my threshold on the 3rd at eleven o’clock! It would be more seemly to have him thrown out by the servants.” But after reading the announcement again, Madame von G . . . declared: “If of two inconceivable options I must give credence to one, then let it rather be a fabulous twist of fate than the baseness of my otherwise irreproachable daughter, this I . . . ” But before she’d finished speaking, the commandant snapped: “Do me a favor, will you, and shut up! I won’t hear another word!” and left the room.
A few days later, apropos of this announcement in the paper, the commandant received a letter from the marquise in which, since she was no longer welcome in his house, she requested in a respectful and moving manner that he be so kind as to send the person who appears there on the morning of the 3rd, out to her estate in V . . . . The commandant’s wife happened to be present when the commandant received this letter; since she could clearly read from his expression that he had lost all reason in this regard – for what possible motive should he now impute to their daughter, supposing it was a ruse, as she appeared to make no plea for his pardon? – thereby emboldened, she decided on a plan of action, which she had mulled over for some time now in her doubt-ridden breast. She said, while the commandant still peered with an empty expression at the paper, that she had an idea. Would he permit her to drive out and stay for several days in V . . . ? In the eventuality that it was a ruse and the marquise was indeed already familiar with the individual who passed himself off in the paper as a stranger, she, her mother, would know how to put her daughter in a position in which she would be compelled to bare her heart, even if she were the craftiest conniving creature. The commandant responded impromptu by tearing up the letter. It was clear that he wished to have nothing more to do with his daughter, and that his wife not engage in any contact with her. He put the torn pieces of her letter in an envelope, sealed it, addressed it to the marquise, and handed it to the messenger, by way of return reply. Secretly incensed at his stubborn willfulness that precluded any possible clarification, his wife resolved to carry out her plan against his will. And early the next morning, when her husband still lay in bed, she took along one of his yeomen and they set out together for V . . . . Arriving at the gate of her daughter’s estate, she was told by the gatekeeper that Madame la Marquise received no one. Madame von G . . . replied that she was apprised of this order, but insisted that he nevertheless announce to the lady of the house the arrival of the commandant’s wife. To which the gatekeeper replied that such an announcement would be to no avail, since Madame la Marquise spoke to no one in the world. Madame von G . . . tartly replied that the marquise would speak to her, as she was her mother, and that he had best not tarry and do as he was told. But no sooner had the gatekeeper entered the house to transmit what he took for a futile announcement than the marquise threw open the door, rushed to the gate, and flung herself to her knees before her mother’s carriage. With the aid of her yeoman, Madame von G . . . climbed out and with some effort raised her daughter from the ground. Overwhelmed by emotions, the marquise stooped over her mother’s hand, and shedding many tears, led her into the house. “My dearest mother!” she cried, after pleading with her to be seated on the sofa, while still remaining standing before her, drying her eyes. “What fortunate happenstance may I thank for your precious appearance?” Tenderly touching her hand, Madame von G . . . replied that she came to beg forgiveness for the hard-hearted way she was cast out of her father’s house. “Forgiveness!” the marquise broke in, bending to kiss her mother’s hands. While deflecting the kiss, her mother said that, not only had the recently published reply to her announcement convinced her and her father of their daughter’s innocence, but furthermore, to their great and glad amazement, the author of that reply made a personal appearance at their house yesterday. “Who?” asked the marquise, flinging herself down on the sofa beside her mother, “pray tell me who it was?” – impatient expectation lighting up her expression. “It was him,” replied Madame von G . . . , “the one who drafted the reply, the very person to whom your appeal was addressed.” “For Heaven’s sake,” the marquise replied in turn with a heaving breast, “who is it?” And again: “Tell me who it is!” In response to which, Madame von G . . . smiled: “I’ll let you guess. Yesterday, as we sat at tea, reading that curious reply in the paper, a person of our close acquaintance stormed into the room and with a look of utter despair flung himself first at your father’s and then at my feet. Not knowing what to make of this, we asked him to explain. Whereupon he replied that, plagued by a guilty conscience, he came to confess that it was he, the vile cad who had deceived Madame la Marquise, and he needed to bow to our judgment, and should vengeance be sought he came to turn himself in. “But who? Who? Who was it?” insisted the marquise. “As I said,” Madame von G . . . went on, “it was a young gentleman, otherwise of good standing, of whom we would never have expected such a lowdown deed. But don’t be dismayed, my daughter, to learn that he is of a lower class, and altogether lacking in all those qualities which you would ordinarily have sought in a man you’d consider marrying.” “Even so, my precious mother,” said the marquise, “he cannot be altogether base if he first sought your forgiveness before mine. But who? Who? In God’s name, just tell me who it was?” “Very well then,” her mother replied, “it was Leopardo, the yeoman your father recently recruited from the Tyrol, and who, if you allow, I brought along to present to you as your future husband.” “Leopardo, the yeoman!” the marquise squeezed her mother’s hand and cried out with a look of horror that spread across her face. “What troubles you, my dear?” her mother asked. “Do you have any cause for doubt?” “How? Where? When?” the marquise demanded, totally bewildered. “This,” said the mother, “he will only confess to you. Constrained by modesty and love, he said he could tell it to no one else. But if you wish, we can open the door to your antechamber, where he stands waiting at this very moment with a beating heart; and you may see if, once I’ve left the two of you alone, you can manage to extract his secret.” “God in Heaven!” cried the marquise, “I once awakened from a midday slumber and caught sight of him slinking away from my couch!” Whereupon she buried her shame-red face in her small hands. At these words, her mother sank to her knees before her. “Oh, my daughter,” she cried, “Oh, my most precious!” wrapping her arms around her. “Oh, the contemptible creature that I am!” she wailed and buried her face in her daughter’s lap. “What is it, mother dearest?” asked the bewildered marquise. “Oh, you more pure than angels,” the mother continued, “know that none of what I just told you is true; that my corrupted soul could not believe in the innocence you radiate like a glow of goodness, and that it took this cunning ruse to convince me.” “My dearest mother!” cried the marquise, bending down to pick her up, infused with joyous emotion. “No,” the pained woman replied, “I will not budge from before your feet, my radiant, godly daughter, until you tell me if you can ever find it in your heart to forgive my base behavior.” “Me forgive you, dear mother? Rise up, I implore you!” cried the marquise. “You heard me, daughter,” said the anguished Madame von G . . . , “I need to know if you can still love me and respect me as before?” “Oh my dearly beloved mother!” cried the marquise, and likewise fell to her knees before her. “Veneration and love for you never faded from my heart. Who, under such inconceivable circumstances, could ever have believed me? How jubilant I am now that you’re finally convinced of my blamelessness.” “Now then,” replied Madame von G . . . , rising with her daughter’s aid, “let me pamper you, my best beloved child. Come lie in waiting in my house; and were I to welcome a young lord from your loins, I would care for you with no more gentleness and respect. All the days of my life let me no more stray from your side. The world be damned; I want no other honor than your shame, if only you will take me back into your trust and flush from memory the hardness with which I cast you out.” The marquise sought to comfort her with endless endearments and promises, but darkness fell and midnight struck before she finally succeeded. The next day, once the old woman’s emotions that flared up into a fever during the night had settled some, mother and daughter and grandchildren drove, as if in a triumphal march, back to M . . . . They had a most pleasant journey, joking about Leopardo, the yeoman, who sat up front on the coach seat; the mother whispered to the marquise that she noticed she grew red in the face whenever she glanced at his wide back. The marquise replied with a stir of emotion, half sigh, half smile: “Who knows who is going to show up on the 3rd at eleven o’clock!” Thereafter, the closer they got to M . . . the more serious their moods became in prescient anticipation of decisive events yet to come. Once they had alighted in front of the house, Madame von G . . . , who made no mention of her plans, led her daughter back to her old room; said she should make herself comfortable, she’d be right back; and slipped away. An hour later she returned, having worked up a sweat. “Lord, what a Thomas!” she whispered with a hint of joy in her soul, “What a doubting Thomas! Did it not take me all the sand in an hourglass to convince him! But now he’s sitting and crying.” “Who?” asked the marquise. “Him,” replied the mother. “Who else but the one with the greatest reason for tears?” “Not father!” cried the marquise. “Like a child,” replied the mother, “he wept so hard that I’d have burst out laughing once I got out the door, if I hadn’t had to wipe away my own tears.” “Because of me?” asked the marquise, and stood up. “And you want me to wait . . . ?” “Don’t you dare make a move!” said Madame von G . . . . “To think that he dictated a letter. He will come here and seek you out if he ever wants to see me again as long as I live.” “My dearest mother, I beg of you!” the marquise pleaded. “Pig-headed!” her mother cut her off. “To think that he reached for a pistol!” “But I implore you!” “Not on your life!” replied Madame von G . . . , pressing her daughter back into her chair. “And if he doesn’t come to beg forgiveness before nightfall, I’ll move out with you to your estate.” The marquise called such a resolve hard and unjust. But her mother replied: “Calm yourself!”–As she heard the sound of approaching sobs: “He’s coming!” “Where?” asked the marquise, and listened hard. “Is there someone standing outside my door? That heavy heaving?” “Indeed,” said Madame von G . . . . “He wants us to open the door for him.” “Let me go!” cried the marquise, and leapt up from the chair. “Hold on, Julietta,” said her mother, “if you trust in me, stay where you are.” And at that very moment, the commandant burst in, covering his face with a tear-soaked handkerchief. The mother stood firm before her daughter, with her back turned to him. “My dearest father!” cried the marquise, and reached her arms out to him. “Don’t you move from this spot, you hear me!” said Madame von G . . . . The commandant stood there in the room and wept. “He must beg forgiveness of you,” Madame von G . . . continued. “Why must he always be so violent! And so pig-headed! I love him, but I love you too; I honor him, but you too. And if I had to choose between you, you are more admirable than he, and I would stay with you. The commandant bent all the way to the floor and wept so hard the walls shook. “God in Heaven!” cried the marquise, finally conceding to her mother’s wishes, and took out her kerchief to wipe away her own tears. Madame von G . . . said: “He just can’t find the words!” and stepped aside. Hereupon the marquise lunged forward and embraced the commandant, and begged him to becalm himself. She herself wept profusely. She asked if he did not wish to sit down; she tried to pull him into a chair; she pushed a chair in his direction. But he made no reply; he would not budge; nor would he be seated, and just remained kneeling with his head bent down to the ground, weeping. Half turned toward her mother, while holding him up, the marquise said: “He’ll get sick.” And as he fell into convulsions of crying, even the mother seemed to slip in her firm resolve. But when, giving way to his daughter’s repeated pleas, the commandant finally sat down, and she fell to his feet, covering him with unending words of endearment, his wife spoke up again, said it served him right, and that now at last he’d see reason, whereupon she walked out of the room and left the two of them alone together.
As soon as she’d stepped out, the commandant’s wife wiped the tears from her own eyes, and wondered if the extreme emotional upset she’d brought on in him might not after all be dangerous to his health, and if it might not be advisable to call for a doctor. She cooked up for his supper anything restorative and calming she could throw together in the kitchen, prepared and warmed his bed so as to promptly lead him to it as soon as he appeared hand in hand with their daughter. But since he hadn’t yet turned up and the table was already set, she slunk off to the marquise’s room to listen in on what transpiring. Laying her ear against the door, she discerned a soft fading whisper that seemed to be coming from the marquise; and peeking through the keyhole, Madame von G . . . observed her daughter seated on the commandant’s lap, which he had never before allowed. Finally opening the door, her heart leapt for joy at the sight of her daughter lying with her neck flung back and eyes shut tight in her father’s arms, while he, in his armchair, his eyes full of glimmering tears, pressed long, hot, parched kisses on her mouth, just like a lover! The daughter said nothing, he said nothing; he sat with his gaze bent over her, as though over the first love of his life, and pressed a comforting finger against her mouth and gently kissed her. The mother felt jubilant; unseen, standing behind a chair, she held back, not wanting to disturb the blessed sight of reconciliation that once again reigned in her house. She finally approached the father, and bending over the chair, saw from the side as once again with fingers and lips he brushed his daughter’s mouth in unspeakable bliss. Startled at the sight of her, the commandant immediately twisted his face back into a muddled look, and wanted to say something; but Madame cried: “Will you look at that!” and set things aright with a kiss of her own, her joking tone bringing all back down to earth. Whereupon she invited and led the two of them, like a newly wedded couple, to the dinner table, at which the commandant kept up his good humor, albeit letting out a sob from time to time, ate and spoke little, peering down at his plate, his hand playing with his daughter’s.
Foremost on everyone’s mind upon waking the following day was the question: who in the world would present himself tomorrow at eleven o’clock? For tomorrow was the dreaded 3rd of the month. The father and mother, and brother too, who had in the meantime begged and received his sister’s forgiveness, were all in favor of a speedy wedding, if the person in question proved even halfway acceptable; everything possible should be done to make the marquise happy. However, should the circumstances of said person be such that, even with all good will and family support, he remained far inferior in means to the marquise, then the parents were against the marriage; in that case they decided, after all, to keep the marquise in their house and to adopt the child. The marquise, on the other hand, seemed willing, in any case, if the person were no vile reprobate, to hold to her word, and come what may, to fetch her child a father. That evening the mother asked how they planned to receive said person. The commandant was of the opinion that it would be most seemly to let the marquise receive him alone at eleven o’clock. But the marquise insisted that both parents and the brother be present, as she wished to share no secret confidences with this person. She also pointed out that, since, in his reply, said person had suggested the home of the commandant as the site of the requested rendezvous, this was his wish, a fact which, as she freely confessed, made this option particularly appealing. The mother pointed out the undignified nature of the roles the father and brother would be obliged to play, and bid her daughter to countenance the absence of the men, whereas she would be happy to respect her daughter’s wish and be there with her to receive the person in question. Following a brief reflection the daughter finally accepted the latter suggestion. And after a night of restless anticipation came the morning of the dreaded 3rd. As the clock struck eleven, the two women sat festively attired, as if for a betrothal, in the drawing room; their hearts beat so intensely that the sound would have been audible to all had the day’s noises gone silent. The 11th-hour gong still echoed in the room when Leopardo, the yeoman whom the father had fetched from the Tyrol, entered the room. The women turned pale at the sight of him. “Count F . . . ,” he said, “has just arrived and wishes to be announced.” “Count F . . . !” the two women cried out in unison, flung from one form of bewilderment to another. “Lock the doors! Tell him we’re not home!” the marquise cried, leapt up and herself rushed to latch the doors, intending to push back the yeoman who stood in her way, when the count strode in with sword and medals dangling, decked out in the very same uniform he’d worn the day he conquered the fort. Completely perturbed, the marquise felt as if the earth would sink beneath her feet; she reached for a kerchief she’d left lying on her chair and sought to escape into an adjoining room; but gripping her hand, Madame von G . . . cried: “Julietta!” – and suffocated, as it were, by conflicting thoughts, she found herself at a loss for words. With her eyes fixed on the count, she repeated, pulling her daughter toward her: “Julietta, I beg you! Who else were we expecting?” “For heaven’s sake, not him!” the marquise suddenly spun around, and like a ray of sunlight breaking through a storm cloud, her sparkling gaze struck that face, by whose deathly pallor she was blinded. The count fell to his knees before her; and with his right hand resting on his heart, and his head bowed over his breast, his eyes aglow, he peered at the ground in silence. “Who else,” cried the commandant’s wife with a catch in her throat, “who else, for the love of God, but him?” The marquise stood there dumbfounded and said: “Mother, I’m going mad!” “Foolish woman!” her mother replied, pulled her daughter toward her and whispered something in her ear. The marquise turned away and, with both hands clapped over her eyes, flung herself on the sofa. Her mother cried: “What’s gotten into you, my poor luckless child? Has anything happened for which you were not prepared?” The count did not budge; still on his knees, he grasped the hem of her gown and kissed it. “Dearest! Most gracious and praiseworthy woman!” he whispered, a tear running down his cheek. The commandant’s wife said: “Stand up, Sir Count, stand up! Comfort her, and we’ll all be reconciled, and all will be forgiven and forgotten.” The count stood up, weeping, then fell to his knees again before the marquise, grasping her hand in silence as if she were made of gold, and the smell of his own hand might disturb her. But she –: “Be gone! Be gone! Be gone!” she cried, rising to her feet. “I was ready for a dissolute lout, but not for . . . a devil!” she said, and slipped past him toward the door, as though eluding one infected with the plague. “Call for the commandant!” she cried. “Julietta!” cried her mother in amazement. The marquise flashed a mad look, now at the count, now at her mother; her chest heaved, her face was all aflame: no fury could have looked more terrible. The commandant and the forest warden appeared. “This man, Father, I cannot marry!” she muttered to them as they stood there in the doorway, reached into a basin of holy water fastened to the door, sprinkled father, mother and brother with a single swing of her hand and disappeared.
Taken aback by this odd behavior, the commandant asked what had happened; and turned pale when at that very moment he spied Count F . . . in the room. The mother took the count by the hand and said to her husband: “Don’t ask! This young man regrets from the bottom of his heart everything that has happened; just give your blessing, I beg you, and everything will turn out alright.” The count stood there as though struck dead. The commandant laid a heavy hand on him; his eyelids twitched, his lips were white as chalk. “May Heaven’s curse fall from this head!” he cried. “When do you intend to marry her?” “Tomorrow,” the mother replied on his behalf, for he could not utter a single word, “tomorrow or today, as you wish. Any hour will do for the count, who showed such laudable zeal in trying to make up for his offense.” “Then I have the pleasure of awaiting you tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock in the Church of the Augustines!” the commandant said, bowed, asked his wife and son to come with him to the marquise’s room, and left the count standing there alone.
The family tried in vain to discover the reason for the marquise’s curious behavior; she lay in bed with a burning fever, would not hear of a wedding, and asked to be left alone. In answer to the question of why she suddenly changed her mind, and what made the count more hateful to her than anyone else, she gazed at her father with a wide-eyed and distracted look and wouldn’t say a word. The commandant’s wife said: “Have you forgotten that you are an expectant mother?” Whereupon she replied that in this case, she was obliged to think more of herself than of the child, and again, that she swore on all the angels and saints in Heaven that she would not marry. The father, who, seeing that she was clearly overwrought, declared that she was obliged to keep her word, left the room and, after conferring in writing with the count, made all arrangements for the wedding. He presented the latter with a marriage contract, in which he renounced all rights of a husband, but recognized all of the responsibilities that might be expected of him. The count signed and sent back the document soaked with his tears. The following morning, when the commandant handed the marquise this agreement, her mood had calmed down a bit. Sitting up in bed, she read through it several times, set it aside to think about it, opened it once more and read it through again; whereupon she declared that she would appear at eleven o’clock at the Church of the Augustines. She rose from bed, got dressed without a word, and when the clock struck the hour, climbed with the rest of her family into the carriage and drove to church.
Only at the portal of the church was the count permitted to accompany the family. Throughout the ceremony the marquise stared blankly at the altarpiece; she did not exchange so much as a fleeting look with the man with whom she exchanged rings. Once the wedding was over, the count offered her his arm; but as soon as they’d left the church, the newlywed countess bowed to him; the commandant inquired if he might have the honor to see the count from time to time in his daughter’s rooms, whereupon the count muttered something that no one understood, doffed his hat and disappeared. He took an apartment in M . . . , in which he spent several months without even setting foot in the commandant’s house, where the countess still resided. It was only thanks to his gentle, respectful and altogether exemplary behavior in all his dealings with the family whenever they came in contact, that, following the countess’ subsequent delivery, at which she gave birth to a son, he was invited to be present at the boy’s baptism. The countess, who sat, covered with throw rugs in her birthing bed, only looked at him once when he crossed the threshold and respectfully greeted her from afar. He flung two sheets of paper on the cradle among the gifts with which the guests greeted the newborn, the one, as it proved upon his departure, being a gift of 20,000 rubles to the boy, and the other a testament in which, in the eventuality of his death, he deeded his entire fortune to the mother. From that day forward he was invited more often, on the express orders of Madame von G . . . ; he was now a welcome guest, and soon there was not an evening on which he was not present. Sensing that he had been pardoned by all, if only for appearance sake in the testy tidewater of worldly matters, he began again to court the countess, his wife, and once a year had elapsed, received a second yes from her, and a second wedding was celebrated, this one merrier than the first, following which the entire family moved to V . . . . In time, a slew of little Russians joined their brother; and when, at a happy hour, the count once inquired of his wife why on that dread 3rd of the month, since she was prepared for any Tom, Dick, or Harry, she repelled him as though he were a devil, she replied, wrapping him in a tender embrace: “You would not have appeared to me like a devil that day, had you not, when I first set eyes on you, looked like an angel.”