THE MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN (Complete Edition: Volumes 1-5). Alexandre Dumas
"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.
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