Part 69 (2/2)

”Maybe!” said Berger, with an uncomfortable laugh; ”but if I am mad it is your fault, count. You do not know me?”

”No; indeed, I do not!”

”Maybe I have changed slightly since I last had the equivocal honor of meeting you. I will a.s.sist your memory. Do you know this?”

He opened the medallion and held it towards the count across the table.

The count took his gold eye-gla.s.s and looked at the miniature. It was a well-painted portrait of a marvellously beautiful, brown-eyed girl, in the costume of the year 1820.

”Leonora!” cried the count, starting back.

”Yes; Leonora!” repeated Berger, closing the medallion again and putting it away. ”And now I hope you will know who I am, and what the account is which we have to settle.”

The count had turned pale even under his rouge; his false teeth rattled; he had to sit down in an arm-chair which stood near the table, as he could not stand any longer.

Berger seemed to enjoy the wretched sight.

”How the coward trembles!” he said. ”How the mean heart in the hollow bosom knocks against the ribs for the sake of a useless bit of life!

Miserable coward! You can seduce girls, but you cannot face a man!

Here, take this pistol and end a life full of disgrace by an honorable death!”

”I cannot do it,” whined the count; ”have pity on me! You see, I am an old man; my hands tremble from gout; I cannot hold a pen, much less a pistol, steady!”

”Is that so?” asked Berger; ”are you really nothing but a whitewashed grave? Why, then, it would be harder punishment to let you live!”

Berger bowed his head and thought a moment.

”Be it so!” he said. He put the pistols back in the box. The count breathed freely.

”I have longed for this hour these thirty years. I thought revenge would be wondrously sweet; but the cup in which it is offered to me is too disgusting. I do not want it.”

Berger had said this as if speaking to himself. Now he raised his lids, fixed his piercing eyes on the count, who was still trembling in the corner of his chair, and said:

”I have done with you. I will leave you your miserable life, but under one condition: You will leave town in an hour, and never appear again in Germany. I do not want a blackguard like you to breathe German air.”

”As you wish it! as you wish it!” said the count. ”I shall be glad to get out of the wretched country.”

Berger put the box in his pocket. Suddenly wild tumult was heard in the street. Berger was instantly at the window. Crowds of people--men, women, and children--were rus.h.i.+ng down the broad streets. ”We are betrayed! They fire at us! To arms! To arms!”

”To arms! To arms!” cried Berger, raising his arms on high in wild joyousness. ”At last! at last! Thanks, Great Spirit!”

He turned away from the window, seized the count, whom curiosity had roused from his terror, by the breast, and shaking him with perfect fury, he cried:

”Do you hear, coward? to arms! A whole nation calls to arms! Women and children! Now all the old debts shall be paid that you and the like of you have contracted for the last thirty years!”

He pushed the half-dead man contemptuously from him, opened the door, and rushed out.

He ran against an officer, who was just about to enter.

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