THE BRINGER OF NEWS
EVERY day, in the morning, Elim left his room and ‘paid a visit to the greenhouse.
Jane, on her part, did not fail to go there; had she needed an excuse, she could have given two: —
The watering of the flowers, and the feeding of her birds.
But there was some one who had become far dearer to her than all the flowers in the world and all the birds of the air.
The lovers would run to meet each other and embrace; then they talked and embraced again.
Which should give the other the most kisses was the arithmetical problem which they had set themselves to solve, and for the first lime an arithmetical problem became amusing.
Lost in Jane’s greenhouse as in a second garden of Armida, our lieutenant forgot the sea, forgot the fleet, forgot his friends, forgot his foes. Keen patriot though he was, he lost sight of the fact that the French had reached the heart of his own country, or, if it occurred to him, he said to himself, —
“No, Russia will not fall, Napoleon will slip on the blood of our countrymen; at any rate, such a war cannot last long.”
Then he put to himself this question, which brought its own answer, —
“Besides, what can I do?”
Love also is a despot and winner of victories; it suppresses and enchains all other sentiments. The morrow had ceased to have any existence for Elim; he lived for the present day, and felt so happy in living thus that he had only one fear, namely, that some change should happen to his present mode of existence.
He could no longer call his soul his own; he had given it away.
As for Jane, she also experienced the bitter sweet of love. She felt oppressed, she remained with eyes closed; her half-opened mouth murmured low, —
“Elim! Elim! Elim!”
One day she found herself, amid her flowers, embroidering a whole piece of material with E’s; in her drawing-book she outlined a young man’s head.
“What is that head you are drawing?” asked her mother, who was looking over her shoulder.
Jane started; she did not know her mother was so near.
“The head of Julius Caesar,” she said.
The worthy Dutchwoman did not know who Julius Caesar was, but she asked no further question.
At the time when Jane was accustomed to help her mother with the household work she was suddenly seized with a desire to dance; at the times when she ought to have been practising on the piano she wanted to pray. Sometimes she forgot her keys on a seat in the garden and had to hunt for an hour or two before finding them; sometimes she put salt instead of sugar in the pastry, and, as it was Jane who had made this pastry, Elim maintained that it was excellent. One day — an accident more terrible than if some planet had threatened the earth with destruction — she left a chair in the middle of the floor, thereby disturbing all the harmony of the drawing-room. Finally, when she gave him his coffee without any sugar, Mynheer August perceived that his daughter was losing her head, and one day when she plucked a tulip, a specimen of its kind unique in the whole of Holland, he thought seriously of taking her to task for her folly.
“Saperloot!” he cried, opening his eyes as wide as folding doors, “this certainly means something.’”
But he remained with his eyes wide open, and those eyes saw absolutely nothing.
Elim had already been at the factory for three weeks without the least thought of going away. The old man, on his part, was delighted with his company and had forgotten that he was not a member of the family. As for the excellent mistress of the house, she had grown as accustomed to Elim as to some old piece of furniture given her at her marriage, and, provided he was found in his usual place, that is to say, by Jane’s side, she took no more notice of him than of a cupboard or sideboard.
Added to all this, the winter rendered the navigation of the Zuyder-Zee impossible; so that everything seemed to accord with the wishes of our hero.
On the morning of November 1st, Elim repaired to the greenhouse as usual.
There he found Jane in tears.
He questioned her; but, without answering his questions, she went on crying.
“Ah I” she said at last, “my happiness is over, Elim; you are going to leave me.”
“What a foolish idea, dear Jane! Leave you, when I love you more than ever!”
“Ah! if you loved me less, I should find some consolation in being angry: I should call you traitor and ungrateful, and that would console me. Oh! I am much more unhappy at losing you when you are not to blame than I should be if you were.”
“Don’t worry yourself about troubles to come; of course we must separate some day; but when?”
“Why did I love you, Elim?” cried the girl, throwing herself into his arms and overcome with tears.
But I don’t understand, Jane dear; in heaven’s name explain yourself.”
“Listen, this is what has happened; my father has engaged some fishermen to take you back to your ship, and you are going away to-morrow night.”
Elim, as though thunderstruck by the dreadful news, remained in front of the girl pale and motionless. At last he remembered that he was a man, and that consequently the part of comforter belonged to him.
“Hush, hush, Elim! I do not want to be comforted. I feel that, if I were with you, even in the tiniest boat, I should not be afraid of the most angry sea; but when I think of you alone amidst strangers in the tempest, the mere thought of it kills me. Not to mention that you are going to England and from there to Russia, and, once in Russia, you will think no more of your poor Jane. What am I saying — you will think of her no more? Yes, you will think of her, but only to laugh at her folly and her love.”
Her voice was drowned in sobs.
Elim, on his part, could not restrain his tears; but at last, though still weeping himself, he succeeded in calming her a little.
“Listen,” he said, “I will ask for an interview with your father; I will tell him that I love you, and that you love me, that we cannot live if parted. When he is quite convinced that we are telling him the truth, he will give his consent. And then the war will not last for ever, as our love will: one day things will change. Come, look; just now the sky was so dark that it seemed to herald the day of doom, and now the sun is shining brightly. His rays are sent by God as an omen of comfort to us.”
Jane smiled sadly. The sun’s rays made two tears gleam in her eyes like liquid diamonds; Elim reverently kissed them away, and then both of them, raising their eyes to heaven, exclaimed together, “God is good!” At this moment the bell rang for breakfast.
The young people came in, as usual by different doors. Mynheer van Naarvaersen, thrusting his hands into his pockets, told Elim all about his business, what he had bought and sold, and what his profits had been for the month of October. Quenzius, contemplating a picture on the wall which represented a meal, sounded a flourish on his nose, like that of a trumpet, which might be termed the bugle-call for breakfast. Jane looked sadly at the lieutenant. Madame van Naarvaersen had just entered the dining-room, her cheeks still red from cooking, when Quenzius, who was looking out of the window, exclaimed, —
“Hallo I there is that chatterbox Montane coming to pay us a visit.”
“Good gracious! Captain Montane!” cried the mistress of the house in alarm; “what are you talking about, Quenzius?”
“It is a judgment from Heaven!” cried Mynheer August in despair.
“It is disaster!” repeated Madame van Naarvaersen. “He is more dreadful to me than the drum, and Heaven knows there is nothing I hate so much as the noise of a drum,” said Mynheer August.
“I hate him worse than flies,” said his wife.
“He will break down all my tulips with his boots.”
“And tear all my carpets with his spurs.”
But what was to be done? Living, as they did, in the country, there was no means of declining to receive visitors.
The enemy was already on the steps.
In short, the visitor who had been preceded by this chorus of imprecations came in with a waddling gait and singing, —
“The French they love the dance In a way I can’t express; And the secret they possess Of setting things to dancing measure I well believe, When I perceive These doughty conquerors of Nations Making Kings and populations Dance and caper at their pleasure.”
The doors opened and Captain Custom-house-officer Coast-guard Montane Lassade, native of the neighbourhood of Bordeaux and transplanted from the moors of Mont-de-Marsan to the swamps of Holland, entered.
He was a man of five or six-and-thirty, with the eyes of a rabbit, the beak of a cuckoo, and an assurance which smacked of the Gulf of Gascony a mile off.
He wore a blue uniform with plain epaulettes, and carried a slender sword that resembled a probe.
“Upon my word,” said he, bowing to the company, “there are good reasons for saying, Monsieur Narvarsan” — the captain had turned the name of the worthy Dutchman into French—” there are good reasons for saying that the road to Paradise is difficult. Your Vlamis “ — he had Frenchified the name of the estate as well as that of the owner—” your Vlamis is a regular Paradise; a Mahomet’s paradise, I mean,” he added, looking at the girl, “inasmuch as Miss Jane herself is worth all the houris put together.”
Delighted with the compliment he had paid, he shook his hat, which was wet with rain, and sprinkled everybody.
“You are so polite,” said Jane, wiping off with her handkerchief the water with which she was covered, “that it is not possible to receive you and your compliments drily.”
“You are divine, Miss Jane!” replied the Gascon; “but guess, if you can, what I have brought you; a pretty pattern for a scalloped collar, with doves perching upon hearts: it is charming. And for you, Madame Narvarsan, a receipt for keeping the colour of preserved rose-leaves.”
“It would have been much better if you had brought a receipt for preserving carpels from damp,” said Madame de Naarvaersen, as she saw with alarm the water continuing to drip from the custom-house officer’s hat like a fountain.
“The captain is the friend of the ladies, or else the ladies are very ungrateful,” said Mynheer August, laying his hand on the shoulder of the new arrival; “he has always a present for them in his pocket and a compliment in his head.”
“By St. Barbe!” said the captain, with a movement of his neck in his cravat and a twitch of the mouth which was habitual to him, “my heart is always as ready to fall at the feet of the fair as my sword to encounter the steel of the enemy.”
“Which will have the most work, Captain, your heart or your sword?” said Mynheer August, laughing: “we have plenty of beauties in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, but also plenty of barrels to probe at the frontier.”
“I am overwhelmed with business,” replied the custom-house officer, appearing not to understand Mynheer August’s joke, and accompanying his answer with his customary twitch; “your compatriots, instead of being grateful to our Emperor, who has refrained from pushing Holland into the sea when he could do it so easily, are holding conventicles in all the inns in order to carry on a correspondence with those damned Russians and confounded English, who are planning a descent upon the coast. A plot has just been discovered, having for its object no less than the handing over to them of the fortress and harbour. Quite a trifle! Luckily, dear Mynheer August, with my customary keenness of scent, I found out the secret quite simply and saved the town. You see before you, Mynheer August, a man who ought to have triumphal arches erected in his honour. The traitors have been seized, and where? Just guess. Like Ali Baba’s forty thieves, in casks of wine.”
“Well, I vote that they erect for you, in front of the principal gate of the town, a statue whose pedestal shall be an enormous barrel. But won’t you breakfast with us, Captain Montane? Coffee should be drunk, as iron is struck, as hot as possible.”
“Willingly, willingly, Mynheer Narvarsan,” said the captain with his habitual movement of the neck.
And he offered his arm gallantly to the mistress of the house, while Elim, according to custom, gave his to Jane. Mynheer August and Quenzius brought up the rear.
The captain seated himself at the table.
“And what news is there,” asked Mynheer August, “besides that of the plot which you have just told us?”
“The news is, that our little Corporal — if I may say it without offence — sends us every week the keys of some capital. We have received the keys of Moscow, and we are at this moment expecting those of St. Petersburg. The ladies of Russia have already ordered thirty thousand pairs of shoes for the ball that will be given at the Palace of the Hermitage. What a wonderful country Russia is! if you only knew it!”
“Were you ever in it, sir?” asked Elim.
“No; but I have a brother who wanted to go there. Just fancy; the ordinary hail, which we call sleet, falls from the sky there as large as hens’ eggs; which is a dispensation of Providence, since these hail-stones are kept and serve to cool the wine in summer. What is more curious still, is that they use for climbing the mountains — you know that Russia is a land of mountains?”
“No,” said Elim, “I did not know it.”
“Well, sir, then I tell you of the fact. I was saying that for climbing the mountains they employ small horses called lochaks, which probably means cats, since they are no larger than dogs.”
“I am only afraid of one thing,” said Elim, “and that is that your countrymen will find nothing to eat in a country already poor, and which, according to report at least, had been ravaged beforehand.”
“A mere trifle!” replied the captain. “What are the frosts of Russia to our grenadiers, who, when crossing the St. Bernard, devoured ice? It is true that they did this in order to descend into Italy, that beautiful Italy which has no rival but Spain, with her orange-groves, her forests of oleander and her bowers of China roses. Ah! Mynheer Narvarsan, that is where you ought to have a country-house, between Grenada and Seville, on the banks of the Guadalquivir, beneath the shadow of the Sierra Morena!”
“Judging from the way in which you speak of the woods and forests of Spain,” said Elim, laughing, “it is easy to see that you have been in that country.”
“No, sir, but I had an uncle who used to get his tobacco from there.”
Elim shook his head.
“The difficulty is not to get into Russia,” said he, “but to get out of it again.”
“How is that?”
“Because there are two dread sentinels that guard the gates of Russia — hunger and cold.”
The custom-house officer burst out laughing.
“Oh! as to that,” said he, “you are very kind, but you need not be uneasy: our troops are followed by immense flocks of merino sheep.”
“Would the Emperor wish to establish cloth factories in Russia?” asked Mynheer August.
“No,” answered the captain, “and we have enough of those, thank God, in Holland. No; our soldiers eat the sheep, and as soon as a sheep is eaten, a pelisse is made of its skin; and besides, now that we are at Moscow—”
“At Moscow!” cried Elim, springing from his chair.
“Yes, certainly, at Moscow. Didn’t you hear me announce just now that we had received the keys of the city?”
“I thought you were joking, sir; but to some jokes there is a limit.”
“A mere trifle!” — it was the captain’s favourite expression—” But you must have come from under ground, sir, if you have yet to be told this news when all the mutes of Pekin are already talking of it.”
Van Naarvaersen had not wished to distress Elim by the news of the capture of Moscow; but when the young man fastened on him a look of inquiry, he was compelled to admit the truth.
“Yes,” he said in German, “Moscow is taken, it is true; but the Russians are brave, and winter is coming on. Keep cool, Elim, keep cool!”
To ask Elim to be cool on hearing such news was to ask what was impossible.
Montane continued, —
“Yes, sir; and before arriving at Moscow, we defeated a little army of some five hundred thousand men commanded by Souvarof, Korsakof, and Koutosof — perhaps I have not got these crack-jaw names quite right. Russia had mustered all the men she could scrape together; she had formed a regiment of sappers, the youngest of whom was ninety, and whose beards came down to their knees. These beards rendered cuirasses quite unnecessary, for the bullets were flattened against them as though they were targets. By noon all was over, and at two o’clock Napoleon entered Moscow, borne aloft on the arms of noblemen, according to the Russian custom. At the gate of Kalouga, a loaf was presented to him as high as the Canigou, and, on a silver dish, a small whale about five and twenty feet long, which had been caught in the White Sea.”
“Do you know where the White Sea is, sir?”
“Between the Black and Red Seas, sir.”
“It is nearly a thousand miles from Moscow.”
“You mean that it was at that distance in the time of Peter the Great, perhaps. Possibly it was. But, for the benefit of Moscow, the Emperor, who intends to spend the winter there and give some grand fêtes, has blown it nearer with his cannon. In the evening he gave a ball, and all the bells in Moscow were set ringing; there are twelve thousand of them, so this music produced a fine effect. Two squadrons of Cossacks that had been captured the day before danced the galop with great success; all the windows in the city were illuminated at night, and the inhabitants were so delighted that, in their enthusiasm, they set fire to five hundred houses, and three-fourths of the town was burned to the ground.”
“If they did that,” said Elim, “it was in order that all the French might perish in the conflagration.”
As he finished speaking, the servant entered with the English newspapers.
They announced the retreat of the French.
Van Naarvaersen read the news first, then, handing the paper to Elim, said in German, —
“Moscow is in ruins, but Russia is saved; the French have retreated from the town.”
Elim read the paper and passed it to the customhouse officer.
“I do not know English,” said the latter.
“Well, sir,” said Elim, “I do not wish to tell you bad news; ask some one who knows English to translate those ten lines for you.”
And rising from the table, lest any fresh bragging on the part of the Gascon should make him break through the restraint which he had placed upon himself, he withdrew to his own room.
Hardly had Elim gone out when Captain Montane, with an air of mystery, requested Mynheer August to give him a private interview on a matter of the greatest importance.
Mynheer August motioned to his wife and daughter, who left the room together with Quenzius, leaving August alone with the captain.