foolish intruder; try to forget how awkwardly we are
placed to one another; make my last moments go pleas-
antly; and you will do me the chief service possible."

" You are very gallant," she added, with a yet deeper
sadness .... "very gallant .... and it somehow
pains me. But draw nearer, if you please ; and if you
find anything to say to me, you will at least make
certain of a very friendly listener. Ah ! Monsieur de
Beaulieu," she broke forth "ah! Monsieur de Beau-
lieu, how can I look you in the face ? " And she fell to
weeping again with a renewed effusion.

"Madam," said Denis, taking her hand in both of
his, "reflect on the little time I have before me, and the
great bitterness into which I am cast by the sight of
your distress. Spare me, in my last moments, the spec-
tacle of what I cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my
life."

"I am very selfish," answered Blanche. " I will be
braver, Monsieur de Beaulieu, for your sake. But think
if I can do you no kindness in the future if you have
no friends to whom I could carry your adieux. Charge
me as heavily as you can ; every burden will lighten, by

339



NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

so little, the invaluable gratitude I owe you. Put it in
my power to do something more for you than weep."

" My mother is married again, and has a young fam-
ily to care for. My brother Guichard will inherit my
fiefs; and if I am not in error, that will content him
amply for my death. Life is a little vapour that passeth
away, as we are told by those in holy orders. When a
man is in a fair way and sees all life open in front of him,
he seems to himself to make a very important figure in
the world. His horse whinnies to him ; the trumpets
blow and the girls look out of window as he rides into
town before his company ; he receives many assurances
of trust and regard sometimes by express in a letter
sometimes face to face, with persons of great conse-
quence falling on his neck. It is not wonderful if his
head is turned for a time. But once he is dead, were he
as brave as Hercules or as wise as Solomon, he is soon
forgotten. It is not ten years since my father fell, with
many other knights around him, in a very fierce encoun-
ter, and I do not think that any one of them, nor so much
as the name of the fight, is now remembered. No, no,
madam, the nearer you come to it, you see that death is
a dark and dusty corner, where a man gets into his tomb
and has the door shut after him till the judgment day.
I have few friends just now, and once I am dead I shall
have none."

"Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you
forget Blanche de Maletroit."

"You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are
pleased to estimate a little service far beyond its worth."

" It is not that," she answered. " You mistake me if
you think I am easily touched by my own concerns. I

340



THE SIRE DE MALETROITS DOOR

say so, because you are the noblest man I have ever met;
because I recognise in you a spirit that would have made
even a common person famous in the land."

"And yet here I die in a mousetrap with no more
noise about it than my own squeaking," answered he.

A look of pain crossed her face, and she was silent for
a little while. Then a light came into her eyes, and with
a smile she spoke again.

"I cannot have my champion think meanly of him-
self. Anyone who gives his life for another will be met
in Paradise by all the heralds and angels of the Lord
God. And you have no such cause to hang your head.
For .... pray, do you think me beautiful ? " she
asked, with a deep flush.

"Indeed, madam, I do," he said.

" I am glad of that," she answered heartily. " Do you
think there are many men in France who have been
asked in marriage by a beautiful maiden with her
own lips and who have refused her to her face ? I
know you men would half despise such a triumph; but
believe me, we women know more of what is precious
in love. There is nothing that should set a person higher
in his own esteem ; and we women would prize nothing
more dearly."

"You are very good," he said; "but you cannot
make me forget that I was asked in pity and not for
love."

" I am not so sure of that," she replied, holding down
her head. ' ' Hear me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu. I
know how you must despise me ; I feel you are right to do
so ; I am too poor a creature to occupy one thought of
your mind, although, alas! you must die for me this

34'



NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

morning. But when I asked you to marry me, indeed,
and indeed, it was because I respected and admired you,
and loved you with my whole soul, from the very mo-
ment that you took my part against my uncle. If you
had seen yourself, and how noble you looked, you would
pity rather than despise me. And now," she went on,
hurriedly checking him with her hand, "although I
have laid aside all reserve and told you so much, remem-
ber that I know your sentiments towards me already.
I would not, believe me, being nobly born, weary you
with importunities into consent. I too have a pride of
my own : and I declare before the holy mother of God,
if you should now go back from your word already
given, I would no more marry you than I would marry
my uncle's groom."

Denis smiled a little bitterly.

"It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little
pride."

She made no answer, although she probably had her
own thoughts.

" Come hither to the window," he said with a sigh.
" Here is the dawn."

And indeed the dawn was already beginning. The
hollow of the sky was full of essential daylight, colourless
and clean ; and the valley underneath was flooded with
a gray reflection. A few thin vapours clung in the coves
of the forest or lay along the winding course of the river.
The scene disengaged a surprising effect of stillness,
which was hardly interrupted when the cocks began
once more to crow among the steadings. Perhaps the
same fellow who had made so horrid a clangour in the
darkness not half an hour before, now sent up the mer-

342



THE SIRE DE MALETROIT'S DOOR

riest cheer to greet the coming day. A little wind went
bustling and eddying among the tree-tops underneath
the windows. And still the daylight kept flooding in-
sensibly out of the east, which was soon to grow incan-
descent and cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising
sun.

Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver.
He had taken her hand, and retained it in his almost
unconsciously.

"Has the day begun already?" she said; and then,
illogically enough: "the night has been so long! Alas!
what shall we say to my uncle when he returns ?"

"What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fin-
gers in his.

She was silent.

" Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passion-
ate utterance, "you have seen whether 1 fear death.
You must know well enough that I would as gladly
leap out of that window into the empty air as to lay a
finger on you without your free and full consent. But
if you care for me at all, do not let me lose my life in a
misapprehension ; for I love you better than the whole
world ; and though I will die for you blithely, it would
be like all the joys of Paradise to live on and spend my
life in your service."

As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly
in the interior of the house; and a clatter of armour in
the corridor showed that the retainers were returning
to their post, and the two hours were at an end.

"After all that you have heard ? " she whispered, lean-
ing towards him with her lips and eyes.

"I have heard nothing," he replied.

343



NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

"The captain's name was Florimond de Champdi-
vers," she said in his ear.

"I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple
body in his arms, and covering her wet face with kisses.

A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed
by a beautiful chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Male-
troit wished his new nephew a good morning.



344



PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR



PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR



CHAPTER I

MONSIEUR LEON BERTHELINI had a great care
of his appearance, and sedulously suited his de-
portment to the costume of the hour. He affected some-
thing Spanish in his air, and something of the bandit,
with a flavour of Rembrandt at home. In person he
was decidedly small and inclined to be stout; his face
was the picture of good humour; his dark eyes, which
were very expressive, told of a kind heart, a brisk, merry
nature, and the most indefatigable spirits. If he had worn
the clothes of the period you would have set him down
for a hitherto undiscovered hybrid between the barber,
the innkeeper, and the affable dispensing chemist. But
in the outrageous bravery of velvet jacket and flapped
hat, with trousers that were more accurately described
as fleshings, a white handkerchief cavalierly knotted at
his neck, a shock of Olympian curls upon his brow, and
his feet shod through all weathers in the slenderest of
Moliere shoes you had but to look at him and you
knew you were in the presence of a Great Creature. When
he wore an overcoat he scorned to pass the sleeves ; a
single button held it round his shoulders; it was tossed
backwards after the manner of a cloak, and carried with
the gait and presence of an Almaviva. I am of opinion

347



NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

that M. Berthelini was nearing forty. But he had a
boy's heart, gloried in his finery, and walked through
life like a child in a perpetual dramatic performance. If
he were not Almaviva after all, it was not for lack of
making believe. And he enjoyed the artist's compensa-
tion. If he were not really Almaviva, he was sometimes
just as happy as though he were.

I have seen him, at moments when he has fancied
himself alone with his Maker, adopt so gay and chival-
rous a bearing, and represent his own part with so much
warmth and conscience, that the illusion became catch-
ing, and I believed implicitly in the Great Creature's pose.

But, alas! life cannot be entirely conducted on these
principles; man cannot live by Almavivery alone; and
the Great Creature, having failed upon several theatres,
was obliged to step down every evening from his
heights, and sing from a half-a-dozen to a dozen comic
songs, twang a guitar, keep a country audience in good
humour, and preside finally over the mysteries of a tom-
bola.

Madame Berthelini, who was art and part with him
in these undignified labours, had perhaps a higher posi-
tion in the scale of beings, and enjoyed a natural dignity
of her own. But her heart was not any more rightly
placed, for that would have been impossible; and she
had acquired a little air of melancholy, attractive enough
in its way, but not good to see like the wholesome, sky-
scraping, boyish spirits of her lord.

He, indeed, swam like a kite on a fair wind, high above
earthly troubles. Detonations of temper were not un-
frequent in the zones he travelled; but sulky fogs and
tearful depressions were there alike unknown. A well-

348



PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR

delivered blow upon a table, or a noble attitude, imitated
from Melingue or Frederic, relieved his irritation like a
vengeance. Though the heaven had fallen, if he had
played his part with propriety, Berthelini had been con-
tent! And the man's atmosphere, if not his example,
reacted on his wife ; for the couple doted on each other,
and although you would have thought they walked in
different worlds, yet continued to walk hand in hand.

It chanced one day that Monsieur and Madame Ber-
thelini descended with two boxes and a guitar in a fat
case at the station of the little town of Castel-le-Gachis,
and the omnibus carried them with their effects to the
Hotel of the Black Head. This was a dismal, conventual
building in a narrow street, capable of standing siege
when once the gates were shut, and smelling strangely
in the interior of straw and chocolate and old feminine
apparel. Berthelini paused upon the threshold with a
painful premonition. In some former state, it seemed
to him, he had visited a hostelry that smelt not other-
wise, and been ill received.

The landlord, a tragic person in a large felt hat, rose
from a business table under the key-rack, and came for-
ward, removing his hat with both hands as he did so.

' ' Sir, I salute you. May I inquire what is your charge
for artists ? " inquired Berthelini, with a courtesy at once
splendid and insinuating.

" For artists?" said the landlord. His countenance
fell and the smile of welcome disappeared. "Oh, ar-
tists !" he added brutally; "four francs a day." And
he turned his back upon these inconsiderable customers.

A commercial traveller is received, he also, upon a re-
duction yet is he welcome, yet can he command the

349



NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

fatted calf; but an artist, had he the manners of an Al-
maviva, were he dressed like Solomon in all his glory,
is received like a dog and served like a timid lady trav-
elling alone.

Accustomed as he was to the rubs of his profession,
Berthelini was unpleasantly affected by the landlord's
manner.

"Elvira," said he to his wife, "mark my words:
Castel-le-Gachis is a tragic folly."

"Wait till we see what we take," replied Elvira.

"We shall take nothing," returned Berthelini; "we
shall feed upon insults. I have an eye, Elvira ; I have a
spirit of divination ; and this place is accursed. The land-
lord has been discourteous, the Commissary will be bru-
tal, the audience will be sordid and uproarious, and you
will take a cold upon your throat. We have been be-
sotted enough to come ; the die is cast it will be a sec-
ond Sedan."

Sedan was a town hateful to the Berthelinis, not only
from patriotism (for they were French, and answered
after the flesh to the somewhat homely name of Duval),
but because it had been the scene of their most sad re-
verses. In that place they had lain three weeks in
pawn for their hotel bill, and had it not been for a sur-
prising stroke of fortune they might have been lying
there in pawn until this day. To mention the name of
Sedan was for the Berthelinis to dip the brush in earth-
quake and eclipse. Count Almaviva slouched his hat
with a gesture expressive of despair, and even Elvira
felt as if ill-fortune had been personally invoked.

" Let us ask for breakfast," said she, with a woman's
tact.

350



PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR

The Commissary of Police of Castel-le-Gachis was a
large red Commissary, pimpled, and subject to a strong
cutaneous transpiration. I have repeated the name of
his office because he was so very much more a Com-
missary than a man. The spirit of his dignity had en-
tered into him. He carried his corporation as if it were
something official. Whenever he insulted a common
citizen it seemed to him as if he were adroitly flattering
the Government by a side wind ; in default of dignity he
was brutal from an over-weening sense of duty. His
office was a den, whence passers-by could hear rude
accents laying down, not the law, but the good pleas-
ure of the Commissary.

Six several times in the course of the day did M. Ber-
thelini hurry thither in quest of the requisite permission
for his evening's entertainment; six several times he
found the official was abroad. Leon Berthelini began to
grow quite a familiar figure in the streets of Castel-le-
Gachis; he became a local celebrity, and was pointed
out as "the man who was looking for the Commissary."
Idle children attached themselves to his footsteps, and
trotted after him back and forward between the hotel
and the office. Leon might try as he liked; he might
roll cigarettes, he might straddle, he might cock his hat
at a dozen different jaunty inclinations the part of Al-
maviva was, under the circumstances, difficult to play.

As he passed the market-place upon the seventh ex-
cursion the Commissary was pointed out to him, where
he stood, with his waistcoat unbuttoned and his hands
behind his back, to superintend the sale and measure-
ment of butter. Berthelini threaded his way through
the market stalls and baskets, and accosted the digni-

35>



NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

tary with a bow which was a triumph of the histrionic
art.

"I have the honour," he asked, "of meeting M. le
Commissaire ? "

The Commissary was affected by the nobility of his
address. He excelled Leon in the depth if not in the airy
grace of his salutation.

"The honour," said he, "is mine!"

"I am," continued the strolling-player, "I am, sir,
an artist, and I have permitted myself to interrupt you
on an affair of business. To-night I give a trifling musi-
cal entertainment at the Cafe of the Triumphs of the
Plough permit me to offer you this little programme
and I have come to ask you for the necessary author-
isation. "

At the word "artist," the Commissary had replaced
his hat with the air of a person who, having conde-
scended too far, should suddenly remember the duties
of his rank.

"Go, go," said he, "I am busy I am measuring
butter."

"Heathen Jew!" thought Leon. "Permit me,
sir," he resumed, aloud. "I have gone six times al-
ready "

"Put up your bills if you choose," interrupted the
Commissary. "In an hour or so I will examine your
papers at the office. But now go; I am busy."

"Measuring butter?" thought Berthelini. "Oh,
France, and it is for this that we made '93 ! "

The preparations were soon made; the bills posted,
programmes laid on the dinner- table of every hotel in the
town, and a stage erected at one end of the Cafe of the

352



PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR

Triumphs of the Plough ; but when Leon returned to
the office, the Commissary was once more abroad.

" He is like Madame Benoiton, " thought Leon. ' ' Fichu
Commissaire! "

And just then he met the man face to face.

"Here, sir," said he, "are my papers. Will you be
pleased to verify ?"

But the Commissary was now intent upon dinner.

"No use," he replied, "no use; I am busy; I am
quite satisfied. Give your entertainment."

And he hurried on.

" Fichu Commissaire! " thought Leon.



353



CHAPTER II

THE audience was pretty large ; and the proprietor of
the cafe made a good thing of it in beer. But the Ber-
thelinis exerted themselves in vain.

Leon was radiant in velveteen ; he had a rakish way
of smoking a cigarette between his songs that was worth
money in itself; he underlined his comic points, so that
the dullest numskull in Castel-le-Gachis had a notion
when to laugh ; and he handled his guitar in a manner
worthy of himself. Indeed his play with that instru-
ment was as good as a whole romantic drama; it was
so dashing, so florid, and so cavalier.

Elvira, on the other hand, sang her patriotic and ro-
mantic songs with more than usual expression; her
voice had charm and plangency ; and as Leon looked at
her, in her low-bodied maroon dress, with her arms bare
to the shoulder, and a red flower set provocatively in
her corset, he repeated to himself for the many hun-
dredth time that she was one of the loveliest creatures
in the world of women.

Alas ! when she went round with the tambourine, the
golden youth of Castel-le-Gachis turned from her coldly.
Here and there a single halfpenny was forthcoming; the
net result of a collection never exceeded half a franc :

354



PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR

and the Maire himself, after seven different applications,
had contributed exactly twopence. A certain chill be-
gan to settle upon the artists themselves; it seemed as
if they were singing to slugs; Apollo himself might
have lost heart with such an audience. The Berthelinis
struggled against the impression; they put their back
into their work, they sang loud and louder, the guitar
twanged like a living thing; and at last Leon arose in
his might, and burst with inimitable conviction into his
great song, " Y a des honnetes gens partout!" Never
had he given more proof of his artistic mastery ; it was
his intimate, indefeasible conviction that Castel-le-Gachis
formed an exception to the law he was now lyrically
proclaiming, and was peopled exclusively by thieves
and bullies; and yet, as I say, he flung it down like a
challenge, he trolled it forth like an article of faith ; and
his face so beamed the while that you would have
thought he must make converts of the benches.

He was at the top of his register, with his head thrown
back and his mouth open, when the door was thrown
violently open, and a pair of new comers marched noisily
into the cafe. It was the Commissary followed by the
Garde Champetre.

The undaunted Berthelini still continued to proclaim,
" Y a des honnetes gens partout! " But now the sen-
timent produced an audible titter among the audience.
Berthelini wondered why ; he did not know the ante-
cedents of the Garde Champetre ; he had never heard
of a little story about postage stamps. But the public
knew all about the postage stamps, and enjoyed the
coincidence hugely.

The Commissary planted himself upon a vacant chair
355



NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

with somewhat the air of Cromwell visiting the Rump,
and spoke in. occasional whispers to the Garde Cham-
petre, who remained respectfully standing at his back.
The eyes of both were directed upon Berthelini, who
persisted in his statement.

" Y a des honnetes gens partout," he was just chant-
ing for the twentieth time ; when up got the Commis-
sary upon his feet and waved brutally to the singer with
his cane.

" Is it me you want ?" inquired Leon, stopping in his
song.

"It is you," replied the potentate.

"Fichu Commissaire! " thought Leon, and he de-
scended from the stage and made his way to the func-
tionary.

"How does it happen, sir," said the Commissary,
swelling in person, "that I find you mountebanking in
a public cafe without my permission ?"

" Without ? " cried the indignant Leon. " Permit me
to remind you "

"Come, come, sir!" said the Commissary, "I desire
no explanations."

"I care nothing about what you desire," returned
the singer. " I choose to give them, and I will not be
gagged. I am an artist, sir, a distinction that you cannot
comprehend. I received your permission and stand here
upon the strength of it; interfere with me who dare."

"You have not got my signature, I tell you," cried
the Commissary. "Show me my signature! Where
is my signature ? "

That was just the question ; where was his signature ?
Leon recognised that he was in a hole; but his spirit

356



PROVIDENCE AND THE GUITAR

rose with the occasion, and he blustered nobly, tossing
back his curls. The Commissary played up to him in
the character of tyrant; and as the one leaned farther
forward, the other leaned farther back majesty con-
fronting fury. The audience had transferred their atten-
tion to this new performance, and listened with that
silent gravity common to all Frenchmen in the neigh-
bourhood of the police. Elvira had sat down, she was
used to these distractions, and it was rather melancholy
than fear that now oppressed her.

' ' Another word, " cried the Commissary, ' ' and I arrest
you."

" Arrest me! " shouted Leon. " I defy you! "

" I am the Commissary of Police," said the official.

Leon commanded his feelings, and replied, with great
delicacy of innuendo

"So it would appear."

The point was too refined for Castel-le-Gachis ; it did
not raise a smile; and as for the Commissary, he simply
bade the singer follow him to his office, and directed
his proud footsteps towards the door. There was noth-
ing for it but to obey. Leon did so with a proper pan-
tomime of indifference, but it was a leek to eat, and
there was no denying it.

The Maire had slipped out and was already waiting
at the Commissary's door. Now the Maire, in France,
is the refuge of the oppressed. He stands between his
people and the boisterous rigours of the Police. He can
sometimes understand what is said to him; he is not
always puffed up beyond measure by his dignity. Tts
a thing worth the knowledge of travellers. When all
seems over, and a man has made up his mind to injus-

357



NEW ARABIAN NIGHTS

tice, he has still, like the heroes of romance, a little bu-
gle at his belt whereon to blow ; and the Maire, a com-
fortable deus ex macbina, may still descend to deliver
him from the minions of the law. The Maire of Castel-
le-Gachis, although inaccessible to the charms of music
as retailed by the Berthelinis, had no hesitation what-
ever as to the rights of the matter. He instantly fell
foul of the Commissary in very high terms, and the Com-
missary, pricked by this humiliation, accepted battle on
the point of fact. The argument lasted some little while
with varying success, until at length victory inclined so
plainly to the Commissary's side that the Maire was fain