Balsamo, the Magician; or, The Memoirs of a Physician

"Pooh! The bear will not eat me up alive."

"But he may keep the door closed."

"I will break it in; and unless you refuse to be my guide – "

"I do not; I will show the way."

The traveler took off the carriage lamp, which Gilbert held curiously in his hands.

"It has no light," he said.

"I have fire in my pocket."

"Pretty hard to get fire from flint and steel this weather," observed the youth.

But the other drew a silver case from his pocket, and opening the lid plunged a match into it; a flame sprang up and he drew out the match aflame. This was so sudden and unexpected by the youth, who only knew of tinder and the spark, and not of phosphorus, the toy of science at this period, that he started. He watched the magician restore the case to his pocket with greed. He would have given much to have the instrument.

He went on before with the lighted lamp, while his companion forced the horses to come by his hand on the bridle.

"You appear to know all about this Baron of Taverney, my lad!" he began the dialogue.

"I have lived on his estate since a child."

"Oh, your kinsman, tutor, master?"

At this word the youth's cheek colored up, though usually pale, and he quivered.

"I am no man's servant, sir," he retorted. "I am son of one who was a farmer for the baron, and my mother nursed Mademoiselle Andrea."

"I understand; you belong to the household as foster-brother of the young lady – I suppose she is young?"

"She is sixteen."

He had answered only one of the two questions, and not the one personal to him.

"How did you chance to be on the road in such weather?" inquired the other, making the same reflection as our own.

"I was not on the road, but in the cave, reading a book called 'The Social Contract,' by one Rousseau."

"Oh, found the book in the lord's library?" asked the gentleman with some astonishment.

"No, I bought it of a peddler who, like others of his trade, has been hawking good books hereabouts."

"Who told you 'The Contract' was a good book?"

"I found that out by reading it, in comparison with some infamous ones in the baron's library."

"The baron gets indecent books, always costly, in this hole?"

"He does not spend money on them as they are sent him from Paris by his friend the Marshal Duke of Richelieu."

"Oh! of course he does not let his daughter see such stuff?"

"He leaves them about, but Mademoiselle Andrea does not read them," rejoined the youth, drily.

The mocking traveler was briefly silent. He was interested in this singular character, in whom was blended good and evil, shame and boldness.

"How came you to read bad books?"

"I did not know what they were until read; but I kept on as they taught me what I was unaware of. But 'The Contract' told me what I had guessed, that all men are brothers, society badly arranged, and that instead of being serfs and slaves, individuals are equal."

"Whew!" whistled the gentleman, as they went on. "You seem to be hungry to learn?"

"Yes, it is my greatest wish to know everything, so as to rise – "

"To what station?"

Gilbert paused, for having a goal in his mind, he wanted to keep it hidden.

"As far as man may go," he answered.

"So you have studied?"

"How study when I was not rich and was cooped up in Taverney? I can read and write; but I shall learn the rest somehow one of these days."

"An odd boy," thought the stranger.

During the quarter of an hour they had trudged on, the rain had ceased, and the earth sent up the sharp tang replacing the sulphurous breath of the thunderstorms.

"Do you know what storms are?" questioned Gilbert, after deep musing.

"Thunder and lightning are the result of a shock between the electricity in the air and in the earth," he said, smiling.

"I do not follow you," sighed Gilbert.

The traveler might have supplied a more lucid explanation but a light glimmered through the trees.

"That is the carriage-gateway of Taverney," said the guide.

"Open it."

"Taverney gate does not open so easily as that."

"Is it a fort? Knock, and louder than that!"

Thus emboldened, the boy dropped the knocker and hung on to the bell, which clanged so lustily that it might be heard afar.

"That is Mahon barking," said the youth.

"Mahon? He names his watchdog after a victory of his friend my Lord Richelieu, I see," remarked the traveler.

"I did not know that. You see how ignorant I am," sighed Gilbert.

These sighs summed up the disappointments and repressed ambition of the youth.

"That is the goodman Labrie coming," said the latter at the sound of footsteps within.

The door opened, but at the sight of the stranger the old servant wanted to slam it.

"Excuse me, friend," interposed the traveler; "don't shut the door in my face. I will risk my travel-stained garb, and I warrant you that I shall not be expelled before I have warmed myself and had a meal. I hear you keep good wine, eh? You ought to know that?"

Labrie tried still to resist, but the other was determined and led the horses right in with the coach, while Gilbert closed the gates in a trice. Vanquished, the servant ran to announce his own defeat. He rushed toward the house, shouting:

"Nicole Legay!"

"Nicole is Mademoiselle Andrea's maid," explained the boy, as the gentleman advanced with his usual tranquility.

A light appeared among the shrubbery, showing a pretty girl.

"What is all this riot; what's wanted of me?" she challenged.

"Quick, my lass," faltered the old domestic, "announce to master that a stranger, overtaken by the storm, seeks hospitality for the night."

Nicole darted so swiftly toward the building as to be lost instantly to sight. Labrie took breath, as he might be sure that his lord would not be taken by surprise.

"Announce Baron Joseph Balsamo," said the traveler; "the similarity in rank will disarm your lord."

At the first step of the portal he looked round for Gilbert, but he had disappeared.

CHAPTER V

TAVERNEY AND HIS DAUGHTER

Though forewarned by Gilbert of Baron Taverney's poverty, Baron Balsamo was not the less astonished by the meanness of the dwelling which the youth had dubbed the Castle. On the paltry threshold stood the master in a dressing gown and holding a candle.

Taverney was a little, old gentleman of five-and-sixty, with bright eye and high but retreating forehead. His wretched wig had lost by burning at the candles what the rats had spared of its curls. In his hands was held a dubiously white napkin, which proved that he had been disturbed at table. His spiteful face had a likeness to Voltaire's, and was divided between politeness to the guest and distaste to being disturbed. In the flickering light he looked ugly.

"Who was it pointed out my house as a shelter?" queried the baron, holding up the light to spy the pilot to whom he was eager to show his gratitude, of course.

"The youth bore the name of Gilbert, I believe."

"Ugh! I might have guessed that. I doubted, though, he was good enough for that. Gilbert, the idler, the philosopher!"

This flow of epithets, emphasized threateningly, showed the visitor that little sympathy existed between the lord and his vassal.

"Be pleased to come in," said the baron, after a short silence more expressive than his speech.

"Allow me to see to my coach, which contains valuable property," returned the foreign nobleman.

"Labrie," said Lord Taverney, "put my lord's carriage under the shed, where it will be less uncovered than in the open yard, for some shingles stick to the roof. As for the horses, that is different, for I cannot answer for their supper; still, as they are not yours, but the post's, I daresay it makes no odds."

"Believe me, I shall be ever grateful to your lordship – "

"Oh, do not deceive yourself," said the baron, holding up the candle again to light Labrie executing the work with the aid of the foreign noble; "Taverney is a poor place and a sad one."

When the vehicle was under cover, after a fashion, the guest slipped a gold coin into the servant's hand. He thought it a silver piece, and thanked heaven for the boon.

"Lord forbid I should think the ill of your house that you speak," said Balsamo, returning and bowing as the baron began leading him through a broad, damp antechamber, grumbling:

"Nay, nay, I know what I am talking about; my means are limited. Were you French – though your accent is German, in spite of your Italian title – but never mind – you would be reminded of the rich Taverney."

"Philosophy," muttered Balsamo, for he had expected the speaker would sigh.

The master opened the dining-room door.

"Labrie, serve us as if you were a hundred men in one. I have no other lackey, and he is bad. But I cannot afford another. This dolt has lived with me nigh twenty years without taking a penny of wages, and he is worth it. You will see he is stupid."

"Heartless," Balsamo continued his studies; "unless he is putting it on."

The dining-room was the large main room of a farmhouse which had been converted into the manor. It was so plainly furnished as to seem empty. A small, round table was placed in the midst, on which reeked one dish, a stew of game and cabbage. The wine was in a stone jar; the battered, worn and tarnished plate was composed of three plates, a goblet and a salt dish; the last, of great weight and exquisite work, seemed a jewel of price amid the rubbish.

"Ah, you let your gaze linger on my salt dish?" said the host. "You have good taste to admire it. You notice the sole object presentable here. No, I have another gem, my daughter – "

"Mademoiselle Andrea?"

"Yes," said Taverney, astonished at the name being known; "I shall present you. Come, Andrea, my child, and don't be alarmed."

"I am not, father," said a sonorous but melodious voice as a maiden appeared, who seemed a lovely pagan statue animated.

Though of the utmost plainness, her dress was so tasteful and suitable that a complete outfit from a royal wardrobe would have appeared less rich and elegant.

"You are right," he whispered to his host, "she is a precious beauty."

"Do not pay my poor girl too many compliments," said the old Frenchman carelessly, "for she comes from the nunnery school and may credit them. Not that I fear that she will be a coquette," he continued; "just the other way, for the dear girl does not think enough of herself, and I am a good father, who tries to make her know that coquetry is a woman's first power."

Andrea cast down her eyes and blushed; whatever her endeavor she could not but overhear this singular theory.

"Was that told to the lady at convent, and is that a rule in religious education?" queried the foreigner, laughing.

"My lord, I have my own ideas, as you may have noticed. I do not imitate those fathers who bid a daughter play the prude and be inflexible and obtuse; go mad about honor, delicacy and disinterestedness. Fools! they are like seconds who lead their champion into the lists with all the armor removed and pit him against a man armed at all points. No, my daughter Andrea will not be that sort, though reared in a rural den at Taverney."

Though agreeing with the master about his place, the baron deemed it duty to suggest a polite reproof.

"That is all very well, but I know Taverney; still, be that as it may, and far though we are from the sunshine of Versailles Palace, my daughter is going to enter the society where I once flourished. She will enter with a complete arsenal of weapons forged in my experience and recollections. But I fear, my lord, that the convent has blunted them. Just my luck! my daughter is the only pupil who took the instructions as in earnest and is following the Gospel. Am I not ill-fated?"

"The young lady is an angel," returned Balsamo, "and really I am not surprised at what I hear."

Andrea nodded her thanks, and they sat down at table.

"Eat away, if hungry. That is a beastly mess which Labrie has hashed up."

"Call you partridges so? You slander your feast. Game-birds in May? Shot on your preserves?"

"Mine? My good father left me some, but I got rid of them long ago. I have not a yard of land. That lazybones Gilbert, only good for mooning about, stole a gun somewhere and done a bit of poaching. He will go to jail for it, and a good riddance. But Andrea likes game, and so far, I forgive the boy."

Balsamo contemplated the lovely face without perceiving a twinge, wrinkle or color, as she helped them to the dish, cooked by Labrie, furnished by Gilbert, and maligned by the baron.

"Are you admiring the salt dish again, baron?"

"No, the arm of your daughter."

"Capital! the reply is worthy the gallant Richelieu. That piece of plate was ordered of Goldsmith Lucas by the Regent of Orleans. Subject: the Amours of the Bacchantes and Satyrs – rather free."

More than free, obscene – but Balsamo admired the calm unconcern of Andrea, not blenching as she presented the plate.

"Do eat," said the host; "do not fancy that another dish is coming, for you will be dreadfully disappointed."

"Excuse me, father," interrupted the girl with habitual coolness, "but if Nicole has understood me, she will have made a cake of which I told her the recipe."

"You gave Nicole the recipe of a cake? Your waiting maid does the cooking now, eh? The next thing will be your doing it yourself. Do you find duchesses and countesses playing the kitchen-wench? On the contrary, the king makes omelets for them. Gracious! that I have lived to see women-cooks under my roof. Pray excuse my daughter, baron."

"We must eat, father," rebuked Andrea tranquilly. "Dish up, Legay!" she called out, and the girl brought in a pancake of appetizing smell.

"I know one who won't touch the stuff," cried Taverney, furiously dashing his plate to pieces.

"But the gentleman, perhaps, will," said the lady coldly. "By the way, father, that leaves only seventeen pieces in that set, which comes to me from my mother."

The guest's spirit of observation found plenty of food in this corner of life in the country. The salt dish alone revealed a facet of Taverney's character or rather all its sides. From curiosity or otherwise, he stared at Andrea with such perseverance that she tried to frown him down; but finally she gave way and yielded to his mesmeric influence and command.

Meanwhile the baron was storming, grumbling, snarling and nipping the arm of Labrie, who happened to get into his way. He would have done the same to Nicole's when the baron's gaze fell on her hands.

"Just look at what pretty fingers this lass has," he exclaimed. "They would be supremely pretty only for her kitchen work having made corns at the tips. That is right; perk up, my girl! I can tell you, my dear guest, that Nicole Legay is not a prude like her mistress and compliments do not frighten her."

Watching the baron's daughter, Balsamo noticed the highest disdain on her beauteous face. He harmonized his features with hers and this pleased her, spite of herself, for she looked at him with less harshness, or, better, with less disquiet.

"This girl, only think," continued the poor noble, chucking the girl's chin with the back of his hand, "was at the nunnery with my daughter and picked up as much schooling. She does not leave her mistress a moment. This devotion would rejoice the philosophers, who grant souls to her class."

"Father, Nicole stays with me because I order her to do so," observed Andrea, discontented.

By the curl of the servant's lip, Balsamo saw that she was not insensible to the humiliations from her proud superior. But the expression flitted; and to hide a tear, perhaps, the girl looked aside to a window on the yard. Everything interested the visitor, and he perceived a man's face at the panes.

Each in this curious abode had a secret, he thought; "I hope not to be an hour here without learning Andrea's. Already I know her father's, and I guess Nicole's."

Taverney perceived his short absence of mind.

"What! are you dreaming?" he questioned. "We are all at it, here; but you might have waited for bedtime. Reverie is a catching complaint. My daughter broods; Nicole is wool-gathering; and I get puzzling about that dawdler who killed these birds – and dreams when he kills them. Gilbert is a philosopher, like Labrie. I hope you are not friendly with them? I forewarn you that philosophers do not go down with me."

"They are neither friends nor foes to me," replied the visitor; "I do not have anything to do with them."

"Very good. Zounds, they are scoundrelly vermin, more venomous than ugly. They will ruin the monarchy with their maxims, like 'People can hardly be virtuous under a monarchy;' or, 'Genuine monarchy is an institution devised to corrupt popular manners, and make slaves;' or yet, 'Royal authority may come by the grace of God, but so do plagues and miseries of mankind.' Pretty flummery, all this! What good would a virtuous people be, I beg? Things are going to the bad, since his Majesty spoke to Voltaire and read Diderot's book."

At this Balsamo fancied again to spy the pale face at the window, but it vanished as soon as he fixed his eyes upon it.

"Is your daughter a philosopher?" he asked, smiling.

"I do not know what philosophy is; I only know that I like serious matters," was Andrea's reply.

"The most serious thing is to live; stick to that," said her father.

"But the young lady cannot hate life," said the stranger.

"All depends," she said.

"Another stupid saying," interrupted Taverney. "That is just the nonsense my son talks. I have the misfortune to have a son. The Viscount of Taverney is cornet in the dauphin's horse-guards – a nice boy; another philosopher! The other day he talked to me about doing away with negro slavery. 'What are we to do for sugar?' I retorted, for I like my coffee heavily sweetened, as does Louis XV. 'We must do without sugar to benefit a suffering race.' 'Suffering monkeys!' I returned, 'and that is paying them a compliment.' Whereupon he asserted that all men were brothers! Madness must be in the air. I, brother of a blackamoor!"

"This is going too far," observed Balsamo.

"Of course. I told you I was in luck. My children are – one an angel, the other an apostle. Drink, though my wine is detestable."

"I think it exquisite," said the guest, watching Andrea.

"Then you are a philosopher! In my time we learnt pleasant things; we played cards, fought duels, though against the law; and wasted our time on duchesses and money on opera dancers. That is my story in a nutshell. Taverney went wholly into the opera-house; which is all I sorrow for, since a poor noble is nothing of a man. I look aged, do I not? Only because I am impoverished and dwell in a kennel, with a tattered wig, and gothic coat; but my friend the marshal duke, with his house in town and two hundred thousand a year – he is young, in his new clothes and brushed up perukes – he is still alert, brisk and pleasure-seeking, though ten years my senior, my dear sir, ten years."

"I am astonished that, with powerful friends like the Duke of Richelieu, you quitted the court."

"Only a temporary retreat, and I am going back one day," said the lord, darting a strange glance on his daughter, which the visitor intercepted.

"But, I suppose, the duke befriends your son?"

"He holds the son of his friend in horror, for he is a philosopher, and he execrates them."

"The feeling is reciprocal," observed Andrea with perfect calm. "Clear away, Legay!"

Startled from her vigilant watch on the window, the maid ran back to the table.

"We used to stay at the board to two A. M. We had luxuries for supper, then, that's why! and we drank when we could eat no more. But how can one drink vinegar when there is nothing to eat? Legay, let us have the Maraschino, provided there is any."

"Liqueurs," said Andrea to the maid, who took her orders from the baron thus second-hand.

Her master sank back in his armchair and sighed with grotesque melancholy while keeping his eyes closed.

"Albeit the duke may execrate your son – quite right, too, as he is a philosopher," said Balsamo, "he ought to preserve his liking for you, who are nothing of the kind. I presume you have claims on the king, whom you must have served?"

"Fifteen years in the army. I was the marshal's aid-de-camp, and we went through the Mahon campaign together. Our friendship dates from – let me see! the famous siege of Philipsburg, 1742 to 1743."

"Yes, I was there, and remember you – "

"You remember me at the siege? Why, what is your age?"

"Oh, I am no particular age," replied the guest, holding up his glass to be filled by Andrea's fair hand.

The host interpreted that his guest did not care to tell his years.

"My lord, allow me to say that you do not seem to have been a soldier, then, as it is twenty-eight years ago, and you are hardly over thirty."

Andrea regarded the stranger with the steadfastness of deep curiosity; he came out in a different light every instant.

"I know what I am talking about the famous siege, where the Duke of Richelieu killed in a duel his cousin the Prince of Lixen. The encounter came off on the highway, by my fay! on our return from the outposts; on the embankment, to the left, he ran him through the body. I came up as Prince Deux-ponts held the dying man in his arms. He was seated on the ditch bank, while Richelieu tranquilly wiped his steel."

"On my honor, my lord, you astound me. Things passed as you describe."

"Stay, you wore a captain's uniform then, in the Queen's Light Horse Guards, so badly cut up at Fontenoy?"

"Were you in that battle, too?" jeered the baron.

"No, I was dead at that time," replied the stranger, calmly.

The baron stared, Andrea shuddered, and Nicole made the sign of the cross.

"To resume the subject, I recall you clearly now, as you held your horse and the duke's while he fought. I went up to you for an account and you gave it. They called you the Little Chevalier. Excuse me not remembering before, but thirty years change a man. To the health of Marshal Richelieu, my dear baron!"

"But, according to this, you would be upward of fifty."

"I am of the age to have witnessed that affair."

The baron dropped back in the chair so vexed that Nicole could not help laughing. But Andrea, instead of laughing, mused with her looks on the mysterious guest. He seemed to await this chance to dart two or three flaming glances at her, which thrilled her like an electrical discharge. Her arms stiffened, her neck bent, she smiled against her will on the hypnotizer, and closed her eyes. He managed to touch her arm, and again she quivered.

"Do you think I tell a fib in asserting I was at Philipsburg?" he demanded.

"No, I believe you," she replied with a great effort.

"I am in my dotage," muttered Taverney, "unless we have a ghost here."

"Who can tell?" returned Balsamo, with so grave an accent that he subjugated the lady and made Nicole stare.

"But if you were living at the Siege, you were a child of four or five."

"I was over forty."

The baron laughed and Nicole echoed him.

"You do not believe me. It is plain, though, for I was not the man I am."

"This is a bit of antiquity," said the French noble. "Was there not a Greek philosopher – these vile philosophers seem to be of all ages – who would not eat beans because they contained souls, like the negress, according to my son? What the deuse was his name?"

"That is the gentleman."

"Why may I not be Pythagoras?"

"Pythagoras," prompted Andrea.

"I do not deny that, but he was not at Philipsburg; or, at any rate, I did not see him there."

"But you saw Viscount Jean Barreaux, one of the Black Horse Musketeers?"

"Rather; the musketeers and the light cavalry took turns in guarding the trenches."

"The day after the Richelieu duel, Barreaux and you were in the trenches when he asked you for a pinch of snuff, which you offered in a gold box, ornamented with the portrait of a belle, but in the act a cannon ball hit him in the throat, as happened the Duke of Berwick aforetimes, and carried away his head."

"Gad! just so! poor Barreaux!"

"This proves that we were acquainted there, for I am Barreaux," said the foreigner.