The Marquise of O– Read online

  The whole area was soon completely captured and the Commandant, who only continued defending himself because he hadn’t been granted amnesty, was just retreating with diminishing strength to the entrance of his house when the Russian officer emerged looking very hot in the face and ordered him to give himself up. The Commandant replied that this demand was precisely what he had been waiting for, handed over his sword and asked permission to enter the castle and look after his family. The Russian officer, who, judging by the role he was playing seemed to be one of the leaders of the assault, granted him this freedom with guard attached, then put himself with some speed at the head of a detachment, brought the fighting to a decisive end where it seemed in doubt, and as quickly as possible posted men to the fortress’s strong points. Next, he returned to the main courtyard, ordered the raging fire to be put out, and performed wonders of energy when his orders were not followed with appropriate zeal. At one moment he would be climbing, fire-hose in hand, into the middle of burning gables to direct the water flow, the next filling his Asiatic troops with horror by entering the arsenals and rolling out powder kegs and explosives. The Commandant, who had meanwhile returned to his house, broke into utter consternation on hearing what had happened to the Marquise, who in fact had fully recovered her consciousness without the help of a doctor, as the Russian officer had predicted, and had the pleasure of seeing all of her family well, but kept to her bed to calm their excessive concern, assuring her father that she had no other wish than to be allowed to get up in order to express her thanks to her rescuer. She already knew that he was Count F—, Colonel Commander of the — Infantry Corps and knight of various orders. She begged her father most urgently to seek him out and ask him not to leave the citadel without first for a moment making an appearance in the castle. The Commandant, out of respect for his daughter’s feelings, returned immediately to the fortress, sought out the Russian officer, who was permanently under pressure from military orders, took the opportunity of talking to him on the ramparts even as he was busy reorganizing his injured troops, and conveyed the best wishes of his thankful daughter. The Count assured him that he was only waiting for the moment when he could wind up his affairs and come and express his respects. He wanted to hear how the Marquise was feeling, but the orders of several officers arrived and forced him back again into the turbulence of battle. At daybreak the commander-in-chief of the Russian soldiers appeared and inspected the fortress. He assured the Commandant of his esteem, regretted that his luck had not given his courage the support it merited, and promised him the freedom to go wherever he wished. The Commandant communicated his gratitude and expressed how indebted he was on this day to the Russians in general and to the young Count F—, Colonel of the — Infantry Corps in particular. The Russian General asked what had happened, and was utterly outraged when told of the criminal assault on the Commandant’s daughter. He called for Count F— by name. Having first pronounced a brief eulogy on the Count’s own noble behaviour, during which the Count blushed somewhat deeply, he concluded by saying that he wanted to have the odious wretches who had brought the Tsar’s name into disrepute summarily shot, and ordered the Count to say who they were. Count F— replied in some confusion that he was not in a position to give their names because it had been impossible to recognize their faces in the weak and flickering lamps of the castle forecourt. The General, who had heard that the castle by then had already been in flames, expressed his surprise; he remarked that familiar persons could be identified at night by their voices, and when the Count shrugged his shoulders in embarrassment, the General told him to investigate the matter with the utmost speed and rigour. At this moment someone pressed forward from the back of the crowd and reported that one of the culprits, wounded by the Count, had fallen in the corridor and been dragged away to a cell by the Commandant’s men and could still be found there. The General had him brought up under guard, briefly interrogated him, and had the whole pack as identified by him—five in all—shot on the spot. This done, and leaving a small garrison behind, he gave orders for the general dispersal of the rest of the soldiers; the officers returned as swiftly as possible to their regiments. In the confusion of the hurried disbandment, the Count went to the Commandant and regretted that under these circumstances he could do no more than send his regards to the Marquise as her most obedient servant, and in less than an hour the whole fortress was once again free of Russians.

  The family now wondered how in the future they could find an opportunity somehow to express their gratitude to the Count, but how great was their shock when they learnt that on the same day he left the fortress he had been killed in a skirmish with enemy soldiers? The messenger who brought this news to M— had seen him with his own eyes shot through the chest and taken to P—, where reliable reports had it that he died just as those carrying him were ready to set him down from their shoulders. The Commandant, who himself visited the place and inquired about the further details of this incident, learnt only that on the field of battle, at the very moment the bullet hit him, the Count was said to have called out: “Julietta, this bullet is your revenge!”, after which his lips closed for ever. The Marquise was inconsolable that she had let the opportunity pass of throwing herself at his feet. She made the most extreme self-reproaches for not herself having sought him out following his refusal, out of possible modesty she thought, to appear at the castle, and pitied her unhappy sister-in-name whom he had continued to think of when dying, even trying in vain to establish her whereabouts so she could tell her about this unhappy and moving event, and several months were to pass before she could herself forget it.

  The time had now come for the family to leave the Commandant’s house, to make room for the Russian commander-in-chief. Initially they wondered if they should not settle on the Commandant’s estate, of which the Marquise was especially fond; however, the Colonel did not like life in the country, so the family moved into their town house, which they made their permanent home. Everything then resumed its old order. The Marquise began again her long-interrupted teaching of her children, and in her free time looked to her easel and her books, when—goddess of good health that she was—she felt attacked by repeated feelings of sickness which made her unfit for society for weeks on end. She suffered from nausea, giddiness and fainting fits and could not think what to make of this strange situation. One morning, as the family were taking tea and her father had left the room for a moment, the Marquise came to, as it were, from a prolonged moment of vacancy and said to her mother: “If a woman told me she had the same feeling as I just had when I picked up that cup, I would think she was with child.” The Colonel’s wife said she didn’t understand her. The Marquise explained yet again that she had just experienced the same feeling she had when pregnant with her second daughter. Her mother said that perhaps she would give birth to Fantasius himself and laughed. “If not Morpheus,” corrected the Marquise, “or one of his creature’s dreams could be the father,” and she laughed in turn. However, the Colonel returned, and as the Marquise in a few days recovered, the conversation was broken off and the whole incident forgotten.

  At this time the head forester, who was the Commandant’s son, joined the household, and soon afterwards the family had the strange shock of hearing Count F— announced by a servant who entered the room. “Count F—!” exclaimed father and daughter together, speechless with astonishment. The servant assured them that he had not been mistaken by eye or ear and that the Count was already waiting in the anteroom. The Commandant himself immediately sprang up to open the door for him, whereupon the Count, as beautiful as a young god, entered, a little pale in the face. After this scene of incomprehensible wonderment was over and the Count had answered the parents’ accusations that he was dead by assuring them that he was alive, he turned with much emotion to the daughter and his first question was immediately how did she feel? The Marquise assured him that she was very well and wanted only to know how he had returned to life. However, keeping strictly to his subject, he replied that she wasn’t telling the truth—her face betrayed a strange weariness. Unless he was much mistaken, she was unwell and indisposed. The Marquise, pleased by his sincerity, replied, well yes, he could assume this weariness was part of an indisposition she had suffered a few weeks earlier, but that she did not fear it would be of any consequence. Thereupon he replied with utmost pleasure that he didn’t think so either and added, would she like to marry him? The Marquise didn’t know what to think of such a thing. Going increasingly red, she looked at her mother, who looked embarrassedly at her son and at his father, while the Count stepped in front of the Marquise, took her hand as if he wanted to kiss it, and repeated: had she understood him? The Commandant asked him in an obliging but rather serious way if he would like to sit down, and drew up a chair. The Colonel’s wife now spoke: “Indeed, we will regard you as a ghost unless you reveal to us how you rose from the grave into which you were laid in P—.” The Count sat down, let go of the Marquise’s hand, and said that circumstances dictated that he must be brief, that he was fatally shot in the chest and brought to P—, where for several months he himself despaired of his life, and all that time the Marquise had been his only thought; nor could he describe the pleasure and pain such a notion of her aroused in him, and how eventually after his recovery he rejoined the army, where he experienced the most extreme misery and several times reached for his pen to make a clean breast of things in a letter to the Colonel’s wife and to the Marquise, but that he was suddenly being sent to Naples with dispatches and didn’t know whether he would be ordered from there further on to Constantinople, and that he might even have to go to St Petersburg—and that meanwhile it was impossible for him to go on living without somehow cleansing his soul of a particular burden, that he hadn’t been able to re
sist the compulsion of taking some steps towards this aim when passing through M—; in short, that he cherished the wish of finding happiness in marriage with the Marquise, and begged her most respectfully, fervently and urgently to favour him with a positive answer. After a long pause the Commandant replied that this offer, if it was serious, and he didn’t doubt it was, was very flattering, but that on the death of her husband his daughter, the Marquise, had determined not to enter into a second marriage. However, as she had recently become so indebted to the Count, it was not impossible that her decision might undergo a change in accordance with his wishes. Meanwhile she would request his indulgence to allow her to think about it for a time. The Count declared that though such a positive announcement satisfied all his hopes and would under other circumstances have brought him happiness, and he realized the great impropriety of his not being conclusively happy with it, urgent circumstances about which he was not in a position to give further details made a more definite announcement of paramount importance, and furthermore the horses that were to take him to Naples now stood by his carriage, and he fervently asked if there was anyone in the house who could speak in his favour—at this moment he looked at the Marquise—so that he would not have to leave without a positive announcement. The Colonel, a little embarrassed by this behaviour, answered that the gratitude the Marquise felt for him might entitle him to great advantages, but not so great that, in taking a step which would affect the happiness of her life, they would not stop her behaving with appropriate prudence. It was essential that before his daughter declared herself, she should have the pleasure of knowing him better. He was therefore inviting him, after the completion of his tour of duty, to return to M— to be a guest of the house for a period. As soon as the Marquise was able to hope to be made happy by him, so he too would then, but not before, have the pleasure of learning if she would favour him with a particular answer. Blushing, the Count said that during the whole of his journey he had foreseen such a fate for his impatient desires and he now thereby saw himself thrown into the most extreme distress, so that in the difficult role he was now forced to play, closer acquaintance could be nothing but advantageous. As for his reputation, if this most ambiguous of all qualities were to be considered, he felt he could answer for it, and the only dishonourable act he had ever committed was unknown to the world and he was in the very process of correcting it. That he was, in a word, an honourable man, and this assurance should be accepted because it was true. The Commandant replied, with a faint smile free of irony, that he could endorse everything the Count said. He had never before made the acquaintance of a young man who had displayed in so short a time so many excellent qualities. He almost believed that a short period of reflection would remove the indecision that still remained. However, until he referred back to his own family as well as the Count’s, no other announcement could be made but the existing one. To this the Count replied that he was without parents and free. His uncle was General K—, whose agreement he could vouch for. He added that he was heir to a considerable fortune and would be able to make Italy his fatherland. The Commandant made him a polite bow, once again repeated his desire, and asked him to leave this matter alone until he had completed his journey. After a short pause, during which he gave every sign of acute nervousness, the Count said, turning to the Marquise’s mother, that he had done his utmost to avoid this coming tour of duty and that the steps he had dared to take vis-à-vis the General en chef and his uncle General K—were the most decisive possible. It had been believed that a journey would shake off the melancholia remaining from his illness, but he saw himself thrown thereby into the most abject misery. The family were at a loss to know what they should say to this. Rubbing his forehead, the Count said that if there were hope of attaining his wished-for aims, he would delay his journey by a day, or a little longer, to make the attempt. In saying this he looked in turn at the Commandant, the Marquise and her mother. The Commandant, displeased, stared straight ahead and said nothing. His wife said, “Come now, Count, go to Naples and when you come back give us the pleasure of your company and things will take their course.” The Count sat for a while, seeming to consider what he should do. Then, getting up and putting away his chair, he said that as he had to recognize that the hopes with which he had entered this house were over-optimistic and the family insisted on closer acquaintance, of which he didn’t disapprove, he would return his dispatches to headquarters in Z— to be delivered by others, and accept the kind invitation to be a guest of the house for some weeks. Saying this, he still had the chair in his hand, stood by the wall, stopped for a moment and looked at the Commandant. The Commandant replied that he would be extremely sorry if the passion he seemed to have conceived for his daughter were to involve him in any serious trouble with the authorities, but that he must however himself know what he should and should not do, and therefore he should send off the dispatches and occupy the room assigned him. On hearing these words the Count grew pale, respectfully kissed the Colonel’s wife’s hand, bowed to the others and left the room.

  When he had left the room, the family didn’t know what to make of this. The mother said it would hardly be possible for him to want to send dispatches, with which he was on his way to Naples, back to Z—merely because, on his way through M—, he had not succeeded in obtaining a consent to marriage after a conversation lasting five minutes with a woman completely unknown to him. The head forester declared that such a foolish act should surely be punished with no less than prison! “And dishonourable discharge into the bargain,” added the Commandant, “but there is no such danger attached,” he continued. It was just a pre-battle warning shot. The Count would almost certainly come to his senses again before sending off the dispatches. When told of this possibility, the mother expressed the gravest anxiety lest he do so. She thought that the strength of his will focused on this single issue would be capable of just such an act. She asked the head forester with the utmost urgency to follow him immediately and prevent him from taking so potentially disastrous an action. The head forester replied that a step like that would bring about precisely its opposite and would only strengthen the Count’s hope of succeeding through such a move. The Marquise agreed, though she asserted that if her brother did not take this action the dispatches would certainly be sent, because the Count would rather be unhappy than reveal a weakness. All agreed that his behaviour was utterly strange and that he appeared to be used to capturing women’s hearts, like fortresses, by assault. Just at this moment the Commandant noticed the Count’s carriage ready outside the door. Astounded, he called the family to the window and asked a servant just entering if the Count was still in the house. The servant answered that he was downstairs in the servants’ quarters with an adjutant, writing letters and sealing packets. The Commandant suppressed his shock, hurried downstairs with the head forester and asked the Count, seeing him doing his business at an unsuitable table, if he didn’t want to come up to his quarters instead—and if he had any other needs? Hurriedly continuing to write, the Count expressed his humblest thanks, said he had completed his business and, as he sealed a letter, asked the time and wished the adjutant, after giving him the entire portfolio, a happy journey. The Commandant, who couldn’t believe his eyes, said as the adjutant left the house, “Count, if you don’t have vital reasons…” “Decisive ones,” interrupted the Count, accompanying the adjutant to the carriage and opening the door for him. “In that case,” continued the Commandant, “I shall at least…” “Not possible,” answered the Count as he helped the adjutant into the carriage. “The dispatches are worth nothing in Naples without me. I thought of that too. Drive on!” “And your uncle’s letters?” shouted the adjutant, leaning out of the carriage door. “Will reach me,” replied the Count, “in M—.” “Drive on,” said the adjutant, and the carriage departed with him.