Collected Works of Eugène Sue, page 196
“Ha! Scamp! You have come at last! By Pollux! I shall not leave an inch of skin on your back, nor a nail on your fingers! I came home last night imperially drunk, and there was no one to carry me to bed! No one this morning to put on my shoes, to dress me, to comb me, to curl my hair, to shave me! Where do you come from, infamous scamp?”
“Seigneur,” said the keeper, “we surprised the vagabond early this morning in the park of our honored mistress Faustina. We found him there with one of our mistress’ female factory slaves. Instead of punishing the wretch, we followed our mistress’ instructions on the consideration that the nobility observes towards one another, and we brought him to you.”
“Here — this is for you,” replied Diavolus, handing a piece of silver to the keeper. “You will greet Faustina in Diavolus’ name, and assure her that the bandit will receive condign punishment for his audacity in entering the noble lady’s park.”
The keeper left; Sylvest remained alone with his master.
“And so, you gallows-bird!” cried Diavolus, “you spent the night outside of the city gates, running after a—”
“That’s it— ‘Take your chances of a strapping, of a branding with hot irons, even of death if necessary, in your master’s service!’” Sylvest put in brazenly and interrupting his master, “that’s the reward we get here!”
“How, truant! Dare you—”
“‘Deprive yourselves of sleep, tire yourselves out with running in your master’s behalf’ — and this is the way in which you are received!”
“By Hercules! Am I awake, or am I asleep?”
“Go your way, seigneur, you do not deserve to have such a slave as me!”
“Just look at him — the fellow scolds me!”
“But henceforth I shall no longer be foolish enough to run the risk of breaking my neck in the effort to serve you.”
“If I only had a cane here!” exclaimed Diavolus looking around the room, stupefied at the increasing effrontery of his slave. “How is that, scamp? Is it in order to serve me that you go making love to one of your likes a league away from here?”
“Is it, perchance, in my own service?”
“The impudent scamp!”
“All masters are ingrates!”
“Decidedly, the wretch must be affecting idiocy in order to escape the punishment that he deserves!”
“You call me an idiot! — me? I never have been more in my senses. What was it you said to me yesterday morning?”
“Yesterday morning?”
“Yes, seigneur— ‘Oh, my dear Sylvest!’ — because whenever you need me I am your ‘dear.’”
“By Jupiter! This insolence has gone far enough! Will there be switches enough to gash your back with!”
“Oh, my dear Sylvest!’ you said to me; ‘night and day I can think of nothing else than the dazzling beauty of that courtesan whom they call the Beautiful Gaul, and who recently arrived from Italy. I saw her only once, at the circus, at the gladiatorial combat; I dote upon her. But a gold bridge will be needed to reach her — and that old fool of my father, the measly old fellow, the miser, the curmudgeon, does not die.’ Pardon me, my master, for speaking in these terms of seigneur Claudius! I am only repeating your own words to me.”
“How is that, you impudent chatterer! Do you mean to make me believe that your last night’s excursion, which you employed in making love to one of Faustina’s slaves, has any connection with my love for the Beautiful Gaul?”
“I am telling but the truth, seigneur.”
“By Hercules! The fellow is playing with me! You know, I hope, a certain bench that is furnished with a bridge, pulleys and weights?”
“Yes, seigneur, I know it perfectly. I have been there. You are stretched out on that bench with your hands tied over your head; a heavy weight is then attached to your feet; and then by means of an ingeniously contrived wheel the rope that your hands are tied with is violently stretched; it follows inevitably that, what with the weight at your feet and the tension at your hands, your limbs are dislocated and the patient’s length is increased by several lines—”
“And you will be lengthened into a giant, shameless buffoon, if you do not on the spot prove to me the connection between your last night’s excursion and the Beautiful Gaul!”
“Seigneur, did you not when you spoke to me of the Gallic girl say: Oh, my dear Sylvest! If you could only scheme a scheme by which I could approach that beauty!’ Did you not, seigneur?”
“Miserable wretch, what has that got to do with Faustina’s slave?”
“A happy accident reminded me that a slave of my country, a girl who is employed by Faustina’s intendant in the noble dame’s weaving factory, said to me only the other day, or rather, the other night; because you know, seigneur, that when you leave the house to attend the banquets that last two days and three nights, you occasionally grant me a few hours of freedom; — well, I remembered that Faustina’s slave dropped a few words about our country woman, the Beautiful Gaul. Not knowing at the time that the matter might be of interest to you, I paid little attention to what she said. But yesterday, after you confided your secret to me, the words came back to my mind. I was almost certain to see the slave at the place where she frequently comes to meet me at all hazards. Thinking I would be back before you at the house, I ran to Faustina’s villa, saw the slave, and spoke to her of the Gallic girl. Oh, seigneur! If you only knew what I then learned! The Beautiful Gaul is my own sister!”
“Your sister! You lie! You are trying to escape the lash with that yarn!”
“Seigneur, I tell you the truth. The Beautiful Gaul must be about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age; she is, like myself, from Breton Gaul; she was bought when a little child, after the battle of Vannes, by an old and rich Roman patrician named Trymalcion.”
“Sure enough, Trymalcion, who died long ago, left in Italy a great reputation for magnificence and extreme originality in his amorous orgies. How! Could it be possible! Can the Beautiful Gaul be this fellow’s sister?” observed Diavolus talking aloud to himself, and wholly oblivious of his recent towering rage. “Your sister? She?”
Much as it cost Sylvest to speak of his own wife and sister with such levity, the slave had fully made up his mind, and resigned himself to the simulation. His plan was formed. The conversation with his master was, however, interrupted by the arrival of one of Diavolus’ friends.
CHAPTER V.
DIAMOND CUT DIAMOND.
THE FRIEND OF seigneur Diavolus who interrupted the conversation on the Beautiful Gaul was a young and rich Gaul of Gascony named Norbiac, the son of one of the traitors who attached themselves to the Roman cause.
Diavolus was celebrated for his debaucheries, his debts and his concubines. Seigneur Norbiac took him for his model and strove to imitate him in point of insolence, in point of immorality and even in the style of his dress. These degenerate Gauls disowned their native customs, their language and their gods; the height of their ambition was to copy slavishly the habits and the vices of the Romans.
After the exchange of a few friendly words, Sylvest’s master said to the young Gallic seigneur:
“You will excuse me, Norbiac, for shaving in your presence. I am this morning much behind hand with my toilet, all thanks to this vagabond,” and Diavolus pointed at Sylvest, “whose bones I was just about to order broken on the wheel when you came in—”
“I also killed one of my slaves this morning,” answered Norbiac puffing out his cheeks; “it is the only way to treat these animals.”
Sylvest in the meantime had made ready to shave Diavolus. Every time that the slave thus had his master’s throat at his mercy, as be promenaded the razor over it, he asked himself with ever fresh astonishment whether it was due to excessive confidence in their slaves, or to excessive contempt for them that masters, who were often merciless, every day placed their lives at the mercy of their victims. But Sylvest was incapable of taking revenge by so cowardly a murder. While he shaved Diavolus the conversation continued uninterrupted between the latter and his visitor.
“I came,” said the young Gaul, “to bring some bad news and to ask a service of you, my dear Diavolus.”
“First of all, unload the bad news, we shall afterwards talk of the service that you desire from me; bitters before sweets.”
“Oh, my friend! It takes you Romans to give such agreeable turns to things— ‘bitters before sweets’!” Norbiac repeated with an air of delightful admiration. “What barbarians we Gauls are beside you. Our Gallic race is coarse and savage. Well, as you put it, I shall first unload the bad news.”
“What is it?”
“I have just learned from one of my friends who has arrived from the interior of Gaul, that our brave Roman army has, alas! started on its march back to Italy—”
“You say ‘our’ Roman army? You, conquered Gauls?” broke in Diavolus laughing. “That word surely proceeds from a decidedly peace-loving heart.”
“Certainly ‘our’ brave Roman army — and is it not that, indeed? Is not the army that protects our enjoyments truly brave and truly dear to us all? If, in obedience to the fateful order of Octavius Augustus, it returns to Italy, the contemptible populations of the center and the west of Gaul that have been suppressed with so much trouble will surely attempt a fresh revolt at the call of their hell-rakes of druids, New Chiefs of the Hundred Valleys will immediately spring up; new Abiorixes, new Drapeses will rise from the earth. The revolt will spread; it will reach Orange. Then goodbye to our pleasures, to our giddy night orgies, to our banquets that last from sun to sun!”
“Be easy, Norbiac. Octavius knows what he is about. If he withdraws the Roman army from the west and the center of Gaul it is because he feels sure that all thought of rebellion is extinguished among your savage countrymen! Ha! Ha! They have so often been rudely chastised by the great Caesar, that they could not choose but renounce all further thought of independence. Besides, do you not see that with a good and strong iron yoke, a well sharpened goad, and a heavy wagon behind them, little sleep and less food, the wildest of bulls become tame in the end?”
“May the gods hear you, dear Diavolus! But I can not say that I feel wholly at my ease. Oh! If you only knew to what excesses these brutes can be driven by the silly words, ‘Liberty for Gaul!’ Well, I have given you my bad news, and although I do not share your feeling of security, I shall now proceed to the service that I want of you.”
“One word, dear Norbiac. You are a neighbor of Junius. Do you know whether his daughter, the charming Lydia—”
“Dead, my dear. She died early this morning.”
“That was what I feared to hear. I knew that last evening hardly any hope was entertained for her.”
“Poor young girl. A Vestal Virgin was not chaster than she!”
“And for that very reason did she excite as much admiration as curiosity. Vestal Virgins are rare birds in Orange, are they not, my dear Norbiac. Ah! The watchers of Lydia’s grave will have a hard task to-night—”
“Why so?”
“Do you forget the magicians? Do you not know that they ever prowl about green graves in order to carry off some human scrap for their sorceries? And it seems that the body of a deceased young virgin is especially prized in their incantations. Therefore, as I was telling you, seeing that few girls die vestals in Orange, the watchers at Lydia’s tomb will have hard work to-night in keeping witches away. Junius is one of my friends. He will be inconsolable over his daughter’s death. May Bacchus and Venus come to his aid. And now, dear Norbiac, tell me what service I can render you. You may dispose of me.”
“Your charming poet Ovid has just written his ‘Art of Love’; it is good; but what does the art of loving boot without the ‘Art of Pleasing’? Now, then, I know you for a past-master in the art of pleasing, my dear Diavolus. Therefore, I, the barbarian Gaul, have come to ask your advice.”
“Are you in love?”
“Passionately so; crazily. Yes, I am in love — and I presume you will laugh at the baseness of my taste. I love a courtesan!”
“The Beautiful Gaul, perchance!”
“Why do you start, Diavolus? Are you perhaps also in love with her?”
“I? By Hercules! I care as little for the Beautiful Gaul as for the fool who is now shaving me, and who never was so long about it as to-day. Will you never be through, vagabond? Hurry up, scamp!”
“Seigneur, you shake your head so much while speaking,” Sylvest answered his master, “that I fear to cut you.”
“Just try such an act of clumsiness! The slightest scratch on my chin, I warn you, will be translated into whole shreds of skin taken from your shoulders. Well, you were saying, my dear Norbiac, that you were distractedly in love with the Beautiful Gaul. Without sharing your taste, I approve it, because, by Venus, the girl’s patron, a more charming woman is not seen every day. But what stands in your way? You are rich; you hold the golden key; the good Jupiter used it to open Danaë’s door — imitate him!”
“Alas! The golden key is of no use to enter the house of the Beautiful Gaul!”
“How is that! And she a courtesan?”
“But are you not aware, my dear Diavolus, that this one is not a courtesan like any other? You know, no doubt, that the moment a celebrated courtesan arrives in a city, all the honorable practitioners of her profession, of whom your accommodating Mercury is the patron, repair to her and tender her their services.”
“Yes, indeed, just as brokers hasten to pay their court to the captains of all the ships that enter the port. It is the rule of the trade.”
“Very well; but not only were these honorable women of her trade refused admission by the Beautiful Gaul, they were received with insult and brutally thrown out of the house by an old eunuch who serves her for porter, and is as malevolent as Cerberus.”
“Hum! That begins to look troublesome for you, my dear Norbiac.”
“And it is not yet all. You must know that I keep ten spies on the field.”
“A wise precaution.”
“The Beautiful Gaul inhabits a little house near the Temple of Diana. My spies have not removed their eyes from her lodging since the day I saw her at the circus, where she made so profound a sensation. They relieved one another day and night. With the exception of her female servants, they saw no one either enter or leave the Gallic womans house. I know not how many litters, chariots and knights have stopped at her door. The old and ferocious looking eunuch sends them all away, without even deigning to hear them.”
“Then what did this beauty come to Orange for?”
“That is just what everybody is asking. Finally, day before yesterday, several young Roman seigneurs, considering the untractableness of the beautiful Gallic woman a piece of impertinence, went to her house accompanied by several slaves armed with axes and crow-bars, and they ordered their varlets to break in the Gallic woman’s door—”
“By Mars! A regular assault!”
“The assault was as fruitless as all the other attempts. The prefect of the city being almost immediately notified of the siege of the courtesan’s house, sent to her help a centurion and soldiers. Despite the rank of the young seigneurs, two of them were seized and taken to prison. Now you know it all. I have hardly anything more to add, my dear Diavolus, except to tell you that I thereupon went in person to beard her Cerberus, the old eunuch, a fellow with a wan face, and round and heavy as a hogshead. I offered him five hundred gold sous, if he would but listen to me—”
“By Plutus! That is to speak — and to act — like a sensible man. Well, did the eunuch lend you his ear?”
“He answered me in an uncouth language — part Roman and part Gallic. I understood the fellow just enough to be certain that all my offers would be in vain. And now, my dear Diavolus, tell me, prescribe to me what I am to do in such a pinch. You alone, in your quality of past-master in matters of seduction and amorous intrigues, are able to give me advice.”
“My dear Norbiac, make this evening an offering to Venus of two braces of gold-chiseled doves. The priests of the good goddess prefer gold to feathers.”
“An offering to Venus? Why that?”
“Because she protects you.”
“Explain yourself.”
Diavolus turned over to Sylvest and said to him: “Draw near.”
Sylvest drew near.
His master then proceeded:
“Dear Norbiac, look well at this clown.”
“At the slave? Your valet?”
“Yes; examine his features attentively.”
“Are you joking?”
“No, by Hercules! Look closely; do you not find a certain vague resemblance — some such resemblance as there is between a duck and a swan?”
“A resemblance — with what swan?”
“With the Beautiful Gaul — your charmer.”
“You are mocking!”
“I am not mocking. Imagine upon this shaven head a mountain of long blonde hair; in place of this face, tanned by the sun, imagine a complexion of lilies and roses.”
“You are right. I never before looked closely at the slave,” said Norbiac examining Sylvest’s physiognomy. “If he is blonde, he does share with the Beautiful Gaul a rather uncommon feature — black eyes with blonde hair. Yes, the longer I look at him the more do I detect a certain vagueness of resemblance—”
“That comes, no doubt, from his not being entirely of the same father and mother with his sister,” broke in Diavolus laughing.
Sylvest felt at the moment that if he then had his master under his razor he probably would have cut the Roman’s throat.
“But, after all,” resumed Diavolus, “the father has been sufficiently represented to enable you to recognize in this clown the brother of the Beautiful Gaul.”
“Her brother! This slave?”
“He and your charmer were sold as children about eighteen years ago, after the battle of Vannes. He was telling me the whole story when you came in. Not so, vagabond?”
“It is so, seigneur,” answered Sylvest, who did not trust his senses, unable as he was to penetrate the design of his master.
