Balsamo, the Magician; or, The Memoirs of a Physician. Dumas Alexandre
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.
The host shrank back in fright or stupefaction.
"This is magic," he gasped; "you would have been burnt at the stake a hundred years ago, my dear guest. I seem to smell brimstone!"
"My dear baron, note that a true magician is never burnt or hanged. Only fools are led to the gibbet or pyre. But here is your daughter sent to sleep by our discussions on metaphysics and occult sciences, not calculated to interest a lady."
Indeed, Andrea nodded under irresistible force like a lily on the stalk. At these words she made an effort to repel the subtle fluid which overwhelmed her; she shook her head energetically, rose and tottered out of the room, sustained by Nicole. At the same time disappeared the face glued so often to the window glass on the outside, which Balsamo had recognized as Gilbert's.
"Eureka!" exclaimed Balsamo triumphantly, as she vanished. "I can say it like Archimedes."
"Who is he?" inquired the baron.
"A very good fellow for a wizard, whom I knew over two thousand years ago," replied the guest.
Whether the baron thought this boast rather too preposterous, or he did not hear it, or hearing it, wanted the more to be rid of his odd guest, he proposed lending him a horse to get to the nearest posting house.
"What, force me to ride when I am dying to stretch my legs in bed? Do not exaggerate your mediocrity so as to make me believe in a personal ill will."
"On the contrary, I treat you as a friend, knowing what you will incur here. But since you put it this way, remain. Labrie, is the Red-Room habitable?"
"Certainly, my lord, as it is Master Philip's when he is here."
"Give it to the gentleman, since he is bent on being disgusted with Taverney."
"I want to be here to-morrow to testify to my gratitude."
"You can do that easily, as you are so friendly with Old Nick that you can ask him for the stone which turns all things to gold."
"If that is what you want, apply to me direct."
"Labrie, you old rogue, get a candle and light the gentleman to bed," said the baron, beginning to find such a dialogue dangerous at the late hour.
Labrie ordered Nicole to air the Red Room while he hastened to obey. Nicole left Andrea alone, the latter eager for the solitude to nurse her thoughts. Taverney bade the guest good-night, and went to bed.
Balsamo took out his watch, for he recalled his promise to awake Althotas after two hours, and it was a half-hour more. He asked the servant if his coach was still out in the yard, and Labrie answered in the affirmative – unless it had run off of its own volition. As for Gilbert, he had been abed most likely since an hour.
Balsamo went to Althotas after studying the way to the Red Room. Labrie was tidying up the sordid apartment, after Nicole had aired it, when the guest returned.
He had paused at Andrea's room to listen at her door to her playing on the harpsichord to dispel the burden of the influence the stranger had imposed upon her. In a while he waved his hands as in throwing a magic spell, and so it was, for Andrea slowly stopped playing, let her hands drop by her sides, and turned rigidly and slowly toward the door, like one who obeys an influence foreign to will.
Balsamo smiled in the darkness as though he could see through the panels. This was all he wanted to do, for he groped for the banister rail, and went up stairs to his room.
As he departed, Andrea turned away from the door and resumed playing, so that the mesmerist heard the air again from where she had been made to leave off.
Entering the Red Room, he dismissed Labrie; but the latter lingered, feeling in the depths of his pocket till at last he managed to say:
"My lord, you made a mistake this evening, in giving me gold for the piece