Monsieur de Camors — Complete. Feuillet Octave

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      Camors rushed toward Paris at the greatest speed of his thoroughbred, Fitz-Aymon, awakening along the route, by his elegance and style, sentiments of envy which would have changed to pity were the wounds of the heart visible. Bitter weariness, disgust of life and disgust for himself, were no new sensations to this young man; but he never had experienced them in such poignant intensity as at this cursed hour, when flying from the dishonored hearth of the friend of his boyhood. No action of his life had ever thrown such a flood of light on the depths of his infamy in doing such gross outrage to the friend of his purer days, to the dear confidant of the generous thoughts and proud aspirations of his youth. He knew he had trampled all these under foot. Like Macbeth, he had not only murdered one asleep, but had murdered sleep itself.

      His reflections became insupportable. He thought successively of becoming a monk, of enlisting as a soldier, and of getting drunk—ere he reached the corner of the Rue Royale and the Boulevard. Chance favored his last design, for as he alighted in front of his club, he found himself face to face with a pale young man, who smiled as he extended his hand. Camors recognized the Prince d’Errol.

      “The deuce! You here, my Prince! I thought you in Cairo.”

      “I arrived only this morning.”

      “Ah, then you are better?—Your chest?”

      “So—so.”

      “Bah! you look perfectly well. And isn’t Cairo a strange place?”

      “Rather; but I really believe Providence has sent you to me.”

      “You really think so, my Prince? But why?”

      “Because—pshaw! I’ll tell you by-and-bye; but first I want to hear all about your quarrel.”

      “What quarrel?”

      “Your duel for Sarah.”

      “That is to say, against Sarah!”

      “Well, tell me all that passed; I heard of it only vaguely while abroad.”

      “Well, I only strove to do a good action, and, according to custom, I was punished for it. I heard it said that that little imbecile La Brede borrowed money from his little sister to lavish it upon that Sarah. This was so unnatural that you may believe it first disgusted, and then irritated me. One day at the club I could not resist saying, ‘You are an ass, La Bride, to ruin yourself—worse than that, to ruin your sister, for the sake of a snail, as little sympathetic as Sarah, a girl who always has a cold in her head, and who has already deceived you.’ ‘Deceived me!’ cried La Brede, waving his long arms. ‘Deceived me! and with whom?’—‘With me.’ As he knew I never lied, he panted for my life. Luckily my life is a tough one.”

      “You put him in bed for three months, I hear.”

      “Almost as long as that, yes. And now, my friend, do me a service. I am a bear, a savage, a ghost! Assist me to return to life. Let us go and sup with some sprightly people whose virtue is extraordinary.”

      “Agreed! That is recommended by my physician.”

      “From Cairo? Nothing could be better, my Prince.”

      Half an hour later Louis de Camors, the Prince d’Errol, and a half-dozen guests of both sexes, took possession of an apartment, the closed doors of which we must respect.

      Next morning, at gray dawn, the party was about to disperse; and at the moment a ragpicker, with a gray beard, was wandering up and down before the restaurant, raking with his hook in the refuse that awaited the public sweepers. In closing his purse, with an unsteady hand, Camors let fall a shining louis d’or, which rolled into the mud on the sidewalk. The ragpicker looked up with a timid smile.

      “Ah! Monsieur,” he said, “what falls into the trench should belong to the soldier.”

      “Pick it up with your teeth, then,” answered Camors, laughing, “and it is yours.”

      The man hesitated, flushed under his sunburned cheeks, and threw a look of deadly hatred upon the laughing group round him. Then he knelt, buried his chest in the mire, and sprang up next moment with the coin clenched between his sharp white teeth. The spectators applauded. The chiffonnier smiled a dark smile, and turned away.

      “Hello, my friend!” cried Camors, touching his arm, “would you like to earn five Louis? If so, give me a knock-down blow. That will give you pleasure and do me good.”

      The man turned, looked him steadily in the eye, then suddenly dealt him such a blow in the face that he reeled against the opposite wall. The young men standing by made a movement to fall upon the graybeard.

      “Let no one harm him!” cried Camors. “Here, my man, are your hundred francs.”

      “Keep them,” replied the other, “I am paid;” and walked away.

      “Bravo, Belisarius!” laughed Camors. “Faith, gentlemen, I do not know whether you agree with me, but I am really charmed with this little episode. I must go dream upon it. By-bye, young ladies! Good-day, Prince!”

      An early cab was passing, he jumped in, and was driven rapidly to his hotel, on the Rue Babet-de-Jouy.

      The door of the courtyard was open, but being still under the influence of the wine he had drunk, he failed to notice a confused group of servants and neighbors standing before the stable-doors. Upon seeing him, these people became suddenly silent, and exchanged looks of sympathy and compassion. Camors occupied the second floor of the hotel; and ascending the stairs, found himself suddenly facing his father’s valet. The man was very pale, and held a sealed paper, which he extended with a trembling hand.

      “What is it, Joseph?” asked Camors.

      “A letter which—which Monsieur le Comte wrote for you before he left.”

      “Before he left! my father is gone, then? But—where—how? What, the devil! why do you weep?”

      Unable to speak, the servant handed him the paper. Camors seized it and tore it open.

      “Good God! there is blood! what is this!” He read the first words—“My son, life is a burden to me. I leave it—” and fell fainting to the floor.

      The poor lad loved his father, notwithstanding the past.

      They carried him to his chamber.

CHAPTER III. DEBRIS FROM THE REVOLUTION

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      De Camors, on leaving college had entered upon life with a heart swelling with the virtues of youth—confidence, enthusiasm, sympathy. The horrible neglect of his early education had not corrupted in his veins those germs of weakness which, as his father declared, his mother’s milk had deposited there; for that father, by shutting him up in a college to get rid of him for twelve years, had rendered him the greatest service in his power.

      Those classic prisons surely СКАЧАТЬ