Part 22 (1/2)
”The Marshal gave it, after the famous siege, to one of the members of that ill.u.s.trious family. And it was for one of the descendants that I was commissioned to buy it.... They will not give it up for less than two thousand francs.”
”What a cheat!” said Alba to her companion, in English. ”Dorsenne told me that Monsieur de Monfanon bought it for four hundred.”
”Are you sure?” asked f.a.n.n.y, who, on receiving a reply in the affirmative, addressed the bookseller, with the same gentleness, but with reproach in her accent: ”Two thousand francs, Monsieur Ribalta? But it is not a just price, since you sold it to Monsieur de Montfanon for one-fifth of that sum.”
”Then I am a liar and a thief,” roughly replied the old man; ”a thief and a liar,” he repeated. ”Four hundred francs! You wish to have this book for four hundred francs? I wish Monsieur de Montfanon was here to tell you how much I asked him for it.”
The old bookseller smiled cruelly as he replaced the prayerbook in the drawer, the key of which he turned, and turning toward the two young girls, whose delicate beauty, heightened by their fine toilettes, contrasted so delightfully with the sordid surroundings, he enveloped them with a glance so malicious that they shuddered and instinctively drew nearer one another. Then the bookseller resumed, in a voice hoa.r.s.er and deeper than ever: ”If you wish to spend four hundred francs I have a volume which is worth it, and which I propose to take to the Palais Savorelli one of these days.... Ha, ha! It must be one of the very last, for the Baron has bought them all.” In uttering, those enigmatical words, he opened the cup board which formed the lower part of the chest, and took from one of the shelves a book wrapped in a newspaper. He then unfolded the journal, and, holding the volume in his enormous hand with his dirty nails, he disclosed the t.i.tle to the two young girls: 'Hafner and His Band; Some Reflections on the Scandalous Acquittal. By a Shareholder.' It was a pamphlet, at that date forgotten, but which created much excitement at one time in the financial circles of Paris, of London and of Berlin, having been printed at once in three languages--in French, in German and in English--on the day after the suit of the 'Credit Austro Dalmate.' The dealer's chestnut-colored eyes twinkled with a truly ferocious joy as he held out the volume and repeated:
”It is worth four hundred francs.”
”Do not read that book, f.a.n.n.y,” said Alba quickly, after having read the t.i.tle of the work, and again speaking in English; ”it is one of those books with which one should not even pollute one's thoughts.”
”You may keep the book, sir,” she continued, ”since you have made yourself the accomplice of those who have written it, by speculating on the fear you hoped it would inspire. Mademoiselle Hafner has known of it long, and neither she nor her father will give a centime.”
”Very well! So much the better, so much the better,” said Ribalta, wrapping up his volume again; ”tell your father I will keep it at his service.”
”Ah, the miserable man!” said Alba, when f.a.n.n.y and she had left the shop and reentered the carriage. ”To dare to show you that!”
”You saw,” replied f.a.n.n.y, ”I was so surprised I could not utter a word.
That the man should offer me that infamous work is very impertinent.
My father?... You do not know his scrupulousness in business. It is the honor of his profession. There is not a sovereign in Europe who has not given him a testimonial.”
That impa.s.sioned protestation was so touching, the generous child's illusion was so sincere, that Alba pressed her hand with a deeper tenderness. When Alba found herself that evening with her friend Dorsenne, who again dined at Madame Steno's, she took him aside to relate to him the tragical scene, and to ask him: ”Have you seen that pamphlet?”
”To-day,” said the writer. ”Montfanon, whom I have found at length, has just bought one of the two copies which Ribalta received lately. The old leaguer believes everything, you know, when a Hafner is in the question.... I am more skeptical in the bad as well as in the good. It was only the account given by the trial which produced any impression on me, for that is truth.”
”But he was acquitted.”
”Yes,” replied Dorsenne, ”though it is none the less true that he ruined hundreds and hundreds of persons.”
”Then, by the account given you of the case, it is clear to you that he is dishonest,” interrupted Alba.
”As clear as that you are here, Contessina,” replied Dorsenne, ”if to steal means to plunder one's neighbors and to escape justice. But that would be nothing. The sinister corner in this affair is the suicide of one Schroeder, a brave citizen of Vienna, who knew our Baron intimately, and who invested, on the advice of his excellent friend, his entire fortune, three hundred thousand florins, in the scheme. He lost them, and, in despair, killed himself, his wife, and their three children.”
”My G.o.d!” cried Alba, clasping her hands. ”And f.a.n.n.y might have read that letter in the book.”
”Yes,” continued Julien, ”and all the rest with proof in support of it. But rest a.s.sured, she shall not have the volume. I will go to that anarchist of a Ribalta to-morrow and I will buy the last copy, if Hafner has not already bought it.”
Notwithstanding his constant affectation of irony, and, notwithstanding, his a.s.sumption of intellectual egotism, Julien was obliging. He never hesitated to render any one a service. He had not told his little friend an untruth when he promised her to buy the dangerous work, and the following morning he turned toward the Rue Borgognona, furnished with the twenty louis demanded by the bookseller. Imagine his feelings when the latter said to him:
”It is too late, Monsieur Dorsenne. The young lady was here last night.
She pretended not to prefer one volume to the other. It was to bargain, no doubt. Ha, ha! But she had to pay the price. I would have asked the father more. One owes some consideration to a young girl.”
”Wretch!” exclaimed the novelist. ”And you can jest after having committed that Judas-like act! To inform a child of her father's misdeeds, when she is ignorant of them!... Never, do you hear, never any more will Monsieur de Montfanon and I set foot in your shop, nor Monseigneur Guerillot, nor any of the persons of my acquaintance. I will tell the whole world of your infamy. I will write it, and it shall appear in all the journals of Rome. I will ruin you, I will force you to close this dusty old shop.”
During the entire day, Dorsenne vainly tried to shake off the weight of melancholy which that visit to the brigand of the Rue Borgognona had left upon his heart.
On crossing, at nine o'clock, the threshold of the Villa Steno to give an account of his mission to the Contessina, he was singularly moved.