Part 21 (1/2)

”Good day, pere Porriquet,” said Raphael, pressing the old schoolmaster's frozen fingers in his own damp ones; ”how are you?”

”I am very well,” replied the other, alarmed by the touch of that feverish hand. ”But how about you?”

”Oh, I am hoping to keep myself in health.”

”You are engaged in some great work, no doubt?”

”No,” Raphael answered. ”Exegi monumemtum, pere Porriquet; I have contributed an important page to science, and have now bidden her farewell for ever. I scarcely know where my ma.n.u.script is.”

”The style is no doubt correct?” queried the schoolmaster. ”You, I hope, would never have adopted the barbarous language of the new school, which fancies it has worked such wonders by discovering Ronsard!”

”My work treats of physiology pure and simple.”

”Oh, then, there is no more to be said,” the schoolmaster answered.

”Grammar must yield to the exigencies of discovery. Nevertheless, young man, a lucid and harmonious style--the diction of Ma.s.sillon, of M. de Buffon, of the great Racine--a cla.s.sical style, in short, can never spoil anything----But, my friend,” the schoolmaster interrupted himself, ”I was forgetting the object of my visit, which concerns my own interests.”

Too late Raphael recalled to mind the verbose eloquence and elegant circ.u.mlocutions which in a long professorial career had grown habitual to his old tutor, and almost regretted that he had admitted him; but just as he was about to wish to see him safely outside, he promptly suppressed his secret desire with a stealthy glance at the Magic Skin.

It hung there before him, fastened down upon some white material, surrounded by a red line accurately traced about its prophetic outlines.

Since that fatal carouse, Raphael had stifled every least whim, and had lived so as not to cause the slightest movement in the terrible talisman. The Magic Skin was like a tiger with which he must live without exciting its ferocity. He bore patiently, therefore, with the old schoolmaster's prolixity.

Porriquet spent an hour in telling him about the persecutions directed against him ever since the Revolution of July. The worthy man, having a liking for strong governments, had expressed the patriotic wish that grocers should be left to their counters, statesmen to the management of public business, advocates to the Palais de Justice, and peers of France to the Luxembourg; but one of the popularity-seeking ministers of the Citizen King had ousted him from his chair, on an accusation of Carlism, and the old man now found himself without pension or post, and with no bread to eat. As he played the part of guardian angel to a poor nephew, for whose schooling at Saint Sulpice he was paying, he came less on his own account than for his adopted child's sake, to entreat his former pupil's interest with the new minister. He did not ask to be reinstated, but only for a position at the head of some provincial school.

QRaphael had fallen a victim to unconquerable drowsiness by the time that the worthy man's monotonous voice ceased to sound in his ears.

Civility had compelled him to look at the pale and unmoving eyes of the deliberate and tedious old narrator, till he himself had reached stupefaction, magnetized in an inexplicable way by the power of inertia.

”Well, my dear pere Porriquet,” he said, not very certain what the question was to which he was replying, ”but I can do nothing for you, nothing at all. _I wish very heartily_ that you may succeed----”

All at once, without seeing the change wrought on the old man's sallow and wrinkled brow by these conventional phrases, full of indifference and selfishness, Raphael sprang to his feet like a startled roebuck.

He saw a thin white line between the black piece of hide and the red tracing about it, and gave a cry so fearful that the poor professor was frightened by it.

”Old fool! Go!” he cried. ”You will be appointed as headmaster! Couldn't you have asked me for an annuity of a thousand crowns rather than a murderous wish? Your visit would have cost me nothing. There are a hundred thousand situations to be had in France, but I have only one life. A man's life is worth more than all the situations in the world.--Jonathan!”

Jonathan appeared.

”This is your doing, double-distilled idiot! What made you suggest that I should see M. Porriquet?” and he pointed to the old man, who was petrified with fright. ”Did I put myself in your hands for you to tear me in pieces? You have just shortened my life by ten years! Another blunder of this kind, and you will lay me where I have laid my father.

Would I not far rather have possessed the beautiful Foedora? And I have obliged that old hulk instead--that rag of humanity! I had money enough for him. And, moreover, if all the Porriquets in the world were dying of hunger, what is that to me?”

Raphael's face was white with anger; a slight froth marked his trembling lips; there was a savage gleam in his eyes. The two elders shook with terror in his presence like two children at the sight of a snake. The young man fell back in his armchair, a kind of reaction took place in him, the tears flowed fast from his angry eyes.

”Oh, my life!” he cried, ”that fair life of mine. Never to know a kindly thought again, to love no more; nothing is left to me!”

He turned to the professor and went on in a gentle voice--”The harm is done, my old friend. Your services have been well repaid; and my misfortune has at any rate contributed to the welfare of a good and worthy man.”

His tones betrayed so much feeling that the almost unintelligible words drew tears from the two old men, such tears as are shed over some pathetic song in a foreign tongue.

”He is epileptic,” muttered Porriquet.

”I understand your kind intentions, my friend,” Raphael answered gently. ”You would make excuses for me. Ill-health cannot be helped, but ingrat.i.tude is a grievous fault. Leave me now,” he added. ”To-morrow or the next day, or possibly to-night, you will receive your appointment; Resistance has triumphed over Motion. Farewell.”

The old schoolmaster went away, full of keen apprehension as to Valentin's sanity. A thrill of horror ran through him; there had been something supernatural, he thought, in the scene he had pa.s.sed through.