truth, though it crush me.
the door of the room stood open, and the sound of a step in the passage made desiree glance up, as she hastily put together the papers found on the battlefield of borodino.
louis d'arragon was coming into the room, and for an instant, before his expression changed, she saw all the fatigue that he must have endured during the night; all that he must have risked. his face was usually still and quiet; a combination of that contemplative calm which characterises seafaring faces, and the clean-cut immobility of a racial type developed by hereditary duties of self-restraint and command.
he knew that there had been a battle, and, seeing the papers on the table, his eyes asked her the inevitable question which his lips were slow to put into words.
in reply desiree shook her head. she looked at the papers in quick thought. then she withdrew from them the letter written to her by charles—and put the others together.
“you told me to send for you,” she said in a quiet, tired voice, “if i wanted you. you have saved me the trouble.”
his eyes were hard with anxiety as he looked at her. she held the letters towards him.
“by coming,” she added, with a glance at him which took in the dust, and the stains of salt-water on his clothes, the fatigue he sought to conceal by a rigid stillness, and the tension that was left by the dangers he had passed through—daring all—to come.
seeing that he looked doubtfully at the papers, she spoke again.
“one,” she said, “that one on the stained paper, is addressed to me. you can read it—since i ask you.”
the letter told him, at all events, that charles was not killed, and, seeing his face clear as he read, she gave an odd, curt laugh.
“read the others,” she said. “oh! you need not hesitate. you need not be so particular. read one, the top one. one is enough.”
the windows stood open, and the morning breeze fluttering the curtains brought in the gay sound of bells, the high clear bells of hanseatic days, rejoicing at napoleon's new success—by order of napoleon. a bee sailed harmoniously into the room, made the circuit of it, and sought the open again with a hum that faded drowsily into silence.
d'arragon read the letter slowly from beginning to the unsigned end, while desiree, sitting at the table, upon which she leant one elbow, resting her small square chin in the palm of her hand, watched him.
“ah?” she exclaimed at length, with a ring of contempt in her voice, as if at the thought of something unclean. “a spy! it is so easy for you to keep still, and to hide all you feel.”
d'arragon folded the letter slowly. it was the fatal letter written in the upper room in the shoemaker's house in konigsberg in the neuer markt, where the linden trees grow close to the window. in it charles spoke lightly of the sacrifice he had made in leaving desiree on his wedding-day, to do the emperor's bidding. it was indeed the greatest sacrifice that man can make; for he had thrown away his honour.
“it may not be so easy as you think,” returned d'arragon, looking towards the door.
he had no time to say more; for mathilde and her father were talking together on the stairs as they came down. d'arragon thrust the letters into his pocket, the only indication he had time to give to desiree of the policy they must pursue. he stood facing the door, alert and quiet, with only a moment in which to shape the course of more than one life.
“there is good news, monsieur,” he said to sebastian. “though i did not come to bring it.”
sebastian pointed interrogatively to the open window, where the sound of the bells seemed to emphasize the sunlight and the freshness of the morning.
“no—not that,” returned d'arragon. “it is a great victory, they tell me; but it is hard to say whether such news would be good or bad. it was of charles that i spoke. he is safe—madame has heard.”
he spoke rather slowly, and turned towards desiree with a measured gesture, not unlike sebastian's habitual manner, and a quick glance to satisfy himself that she had understood and was ready.
“yes,” said desiree, “he was safe and well after the battle, but he gives no details; for the letter was actually written the day before.”
“with a mere word, added in postscriptum, to say that he was unhurt at the end of the day,” suggested sebastian, already drawing forward a chair with a gesture full of hospitality, inviting d'arragon to be seated at the simple breakfast-table. but d'arragon was looking at mathilde, who had gone rather hurriedly to the window, as if to breathe the air. he had caught a glimpse of her face as she passed. it was hard and set, quite colourless, with bright, sleepless eyes. d'arragon was a sailor. he had seen that look in rougher faces and sterner eyes, and knew what it meant.
“no details?” asked mathilde in a muffled voice, without looking round.
“no,” answered desiree, who had noticed nothing. how much more clearly we should understand what is going on around us if we had no secrets of our own to defend!
in obedience to sebastian's gesture, d'arragon took a chair, and even as he did so mathilde came to the table, calm and mistress of herself again, to pour out the coffee, and do the honours of the simple meal. d'arragon, besides having acquired the seamen's habit of adapting himself unconsciously and unobtrusively to his surroundings, was of a direct mind, lacking self-consciousness, and simplified by the pressure of a strong and steady purpose. for men's minds are like the atmosphere, which is always cleared by a steady breeze, while a changing wind generates vapours, mist, uncertainty.
“and what news do you bring from the sea?” asked sebastian. “is your sky there as overcast as ours in dantzig?”
“no, monsieur, our sky is clearing,” answered d'arragon, eating with a hearty appetite the fresh bread and butter set before him. “since i saw you, the treaties have been signed, as you doubtless know, between sweden and russia and england.”
nodding his head with silent emphasis, sebastian gave it to be understood that he knew that and more.
“it makes a great difference to us at sea in the baltic,” said d'arragon. “we are no longer harassed night and day, like a dog, hounded from end to end of a hostile street, not daring to look into any doorway. the russian ports and swedish ports are open to us now.”
“one is glad to hear that your life is one of less hardship,” said sebastian gravely. “i.... who have tasted it.”
desiree glanced at his lean, hard face. she rose, went out of the room, and returned in a few minutes carrying a new loaf which she set on the table before him with a short laugh, and something glistening in her eyes that was not mirth.
but neither desiree nor mathilde joined in the conversation. they were glad for their father to have a companion so sympathetic as to produce a marked difference in his manner. for sebastian was more at ease with louis d'arragon than he was with charles, though the latter had the tie of a common fatherland, and spoke the same french that sebastian spoke. d'arragon's french had the roundness always imparted to that language by an english voice. it was perfect enough, but of an educated perfection.
the talk was of such matters as concerned men more than women; of armies and war and treaties of peace. for all the world thought that alexander of russia would be brought to his knees by the battle of borodino. none knew better how to turn a victory to account than he who claimed to be victor now. “it does not suffice,” napoleon wrote to his brother at this time, “to gain a victory. you must learn to turn it to advantage.”
save for the one reference to his life in the baltic during the past two months, d'arragon said nothing of himself, of his patient, dogged work carried on by day and by night in all weathers. content to have escaped with his life, he neither referred to, nor thought of, his part in the negotiations which had resulted in the treaty just signed. for he had been the link between russia and england; the never-failing messenger passing from one to the other with question and answer which were destined to bear fruit at last in an understanding brought to perfection in paris, culminating at elba.
both were guarded in what they said of passing events, and both seemed to doubt the truth of the reports now flying through the streets of dantzig. even in the quiet frauengasse all the citizens were out on their terraces calling questions to those that passed by beneath the trees. the itinerant tradesman, the milkman going his round, the vendors of fruit from langfuhr and the distant villages of the plain, lingered at the doors to tell the servants the latest gossip of the market-place. even in this frontier city, full of spies, strangers spoke together in the streets, and the sound of their voices, raised above the clang of carillons, came in at the open window.
“at first a victory is always a great one,” said d'arragon, looking towards the window.
“it is so easy to ring a bell,” added sebastian, with his rare smile.
he was quite himself this morning, and only once did the dull look arrest his features into the stony stillness which his daughters knew.
“you are the only one of your name in dantzig,” said d'arragon, in the course of question and answer as to the safe delivery of letters in time of war.
“so far as i know, there is no other sebastian,” replied he; and desiree, who had guessed the motive of the question, which must have been in d'arragon's mind from the beginning, was startled by the fulness of the answer. it seemed to make reply to more than d'arragon had asked. it shattered the last faint hope that there might have been another sebastian of whom charles had written.
“for myself,” said d'arragon, changing the subject quickly, “i can now make sure of receiving letters addressed to me in the care of the english consul at riga, or the consul at stockholm, should you wish to communicate with me, or should madame find leisure to give me news of her husband.”
“desiree will no doubt take pleasure in keeping you advised of charles's progress. as for myself, i fear i am a bad correspondent. perhaps not a desirable one in these days,” said sebastian, his face slowly clearing. he waved the point aside with a gesture that looked out of place on a hand lean and spare, emerging from a shabby brown sleeve without cuff or ruffle.
“for i feel assured,” he went on, “that we shall continue to hear good news of your cousin; not only that he is safe and well, but that he makes progress in his profession. he will go far, i am sure.”
d'arragon bowed his acknowledgment of this kind thought, and rose rather hastily.
“my best chance of quitting the city unseen,” he said, “is to pass through the gates with the market-people returning to the villages. to do that, i must not delay.”
“the streets are so full,” replied sebastian, glancing out of the window, “that you will pass through them unnoticed. i see beneath the trees, a neighbour, koch the locksmith, who is perhaps waiting to give me news. while you are saying farewell, i will go out and speak to him. what he has to tell may interest you and your comrades at sea—may help your escape from the city this morning.”
he took his hat as he spoke and went to the door. mathilde, thirsting for the news that seemed to hum in the streets like the sound of bees, rose and followed him. desiree and d'arragon were left alone. she had gone to the window, and, turning there, she looked back at him over her shoulder, where he stood by the door watching her.
“so, you see,” she said, “there is no other sebastian.”
d'arragon made no reply. she came nearer to him, her blue eyes sombre with contempt for the man she had married. suddenly she pointed to the chair which d'arragon had just vacated.
“that is where he sat. he has eaten my father's salt a hundred times,” she said, with a short laugh. for whithersoever civilization may take us, we must still go back to certain primaeval laws of justice between man and man.
“you judge too hastily,” said d'arragon; but she interrupted him with a gesture of warning.
“i have not judged hastily,” she said. “you do not understand. you think i judge from that letter. that is only a confirmation of something that has been in my mind for a long time—ever since my wedding-day. i knew when you came into the room upstairs on that day that you did not trust charles.”
“i—?” he asked.
“yes,” she answered, standing squarely in front of him and looking him in the eyes. “you did not trust him. you were not glad that i had married him. i could see it in your face. i have never forgotten.”
d'arragon turned away towards the window. sebastian and mathilde were in the street below, in the shade of the trees, talking with the eager neighbours.
“you would have stopped it if you could,” said desiree; and he did not deny it.
“it was some instinct,” he said at length. “some passing misgiving.”
“for charles?” she asked sharply.
and d'arragon, looking out of the window, would not answer. she gave a sudden laugh.
“one cannot compliment you on your politeness,” she said. “was it for charles that you had misgivings?”
at last d'arragon turned on his heel.
“does it matter?” he asked. “since i came too late.”
“that is true,” she said, after a pause. “you came too late; so it doesn't matter. and the thing is done now, and i..., well, i suppose i must do what others have done before me—i must make the best of it.”
“i will help you,” said d'arragon slowly, almost carefully, “if i can.”
he was still avoiding her eyes, still looking out of the window. sebastian was coming up the steps.
