Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 668
Metternich Gatti never saw, nor as far as he knew did the milor, but an Austrian-Polish prince Czartoryski at a rout at Madame Récamier’s gave Mr. Smith a résumé of the Prince’s wishes. The Austrian ruler was said to take an eminently serious view of the crime of betraying one’s monarch; Prince Metternich on the other hand was desirous of seeing Ney pardoned so that public opinion throughout the world might be assuaged. Indeed, so strongly did the Prince take the view that clemency by any one ruler strengthened the hands of all the rulers of the world that, if Ney were pardoned by King Louis, he would be ready to consider advising his sovereign to make certain concessions....
This of course was pure hypocrisy. The concessions — whatever they were, for Gatti himself never knew — that Metternich spoke of were those that he found himself being driven into if Austria was to continue to receive its subsidies from Great Britain. They had no doubt to do with the Rhineland frontiers of France which the British desired to secure, and Metternich, if he were driven into strengthening France by those means, was determined to weaken her by strengthening, on the one hand, the Bonapartists and disgusting the Ultras with the monarchy of which they were the chief props. He declared himself, however, unable to act without the sanction of his master, the Emperor Francis Joseph, and declared that the Emperor would never move in the matter without the sanction or request of his august cousin, the Tsar.... So Quixote-Smith and his crippled Sancho found themselves in the salon of Madame de Krudener towards seven of the evening of an early October day.
The curtains were all tight closed and an almost insupportable smoke of incense stifled them in that double room, the outer of whose halves was in gloom, illuminated by the blaze from the ikons, altar cloths, candelabra and shrines in precious metal that shone from the recess.
Their first visit — and their visits since had been so frequent that Gatti now was unable to disentangle the memories of any one from those of any other — their first visit, then, had been very short, and they had not even very fully perceived Madame Krudener — or Gatti with his one eye had not, though the milor may have seen her more fully.
To Gatti she appeared forty or more — the milor afterwards said with some indignation that she was much less. She had henna-coloured hair, a broad face, an opulent but not too opulent figure. But for Gatti the main point about that visit had been its air of mystery — or pietistic magic. Himself an atheist of the old republican, Jacobin type, he regarded the rites of Rome as transparent mummeries. But this dim interior, with its aperture revealing the barbaric splendours of the Orthodox cult, affected him unusually. He was unwilling to accord power to a Deity — . to any Deity save Reason — but, if there were a Deity, unholy and mysterious, here, he felt, might be its shrine. And Madame de Krudener might be its officiant!
She had, grouped around her, a number of singular forms, mostly in black. They had queer, high, conical hats; robes that floated in unusual angles, and whenever the prophetess spoke their dimly discerned white faces went together and a thin whisper pervaded the space.
No doubt their entry had been dramatic enough. They had pushed ajar a heavy, padded, leather-covered swing door such as they have in churches and, since they had confronted a blaze of light, no doubt the light on them shone as you may see it do at the entry of a favourite actor on the stage. And Mr. Smith, though he may have been blinded by the light, adopted and kept a sufficiently impressive attitude — the right foot advanced, the right hand supported by the cane on the floor, the great cloak over the left arm, the hat in the left hand. He appeared, too, more than usually fair; his coat was of nearly white cloth; the Assheton diamond flashed from his voluminous cravat.... His features were composed, melancholy, high and disdainful. Gatti himself, in his patron’s shadow, dark and shapeless, must have appeared a mere Lucifer crouched beside a St. Michael.
A low exclamation, like a shriek, came from their left hand and the sibilant whisper went round among the dark forms. A woman’s voice exclaimed: “Ein Held — ein Ritter! — kommt vom Norden!” — A hero — a Saviour! — cometh from the North!
Madame de Krudener stood beside the milor, the outlines of her face and hair lightly gilded by the illumination from the altars, her hands uplifted, her face full of alarm or ecstasy.
He said resonantly: “I am Assheton Smith! I come to ask for the pardon of the Prince de la Moskwa!” She shrieked and covered her face with her hands. Again the whispers went round amongst her assistants. In the further room a panel painted to show a gilt, angular Madonna holding a gilt and swaddled babe, slid back and a dejected form, a round-headed, baldish, dun-coloured man slowly shuffled out. The panel slid to behind him and he fell, very slowly and with difficulty, onto his knees. He crossed himself repeatedly and in a complicated manner. Then he covered his face with his stubby hands and remained motionless. He was accounted the most powerful man in the world.
During the next two days Mr. Assheton Smith was mostly engaged reading a book on his day-bed in his panelled dressing room. This was the more remarkable since, although he was a classical scholar of some elegance, he was never seen to read — and indeed he read slowly and as if with some labour. From time to time he would look up at Gatti and exclaim, haughtily and as if Gatti had contradicted him:
“This appears to me to be a remarkable passage,” and he would read out: “‘Her bosom palpitating with rage, Valérie exclaimed:” Coward that you are. Your trembling conscience shall force you into unhanding me!’”
Or he would say:
“This thought is singularly well expressed:’ The desolation of a parent at the sudden demise of a cherished infant was as nothing to the grief experienced by Valérie at this tragic occurrence!’” From time to time he would start and exclaim: “Is this possible? Can such villainy exist?”
How, in the short moment of agitation that their visit had lasted, Madame de Krudener had contrived to hand the milor that copy of her book, Gatti never knew. It is certain that Mr. Smith was carrying it in his right hand when they descended the gilded stairs of the Hotel Monchelu. And it is equally certain that that book — called Valérie — played a remarkable part in the association of the milor and the prophetess. He read it even to her, herself, seated on a rather low chair beside her whilst she reposed on her day-bed in the attitude then rendered fashionable by Madame Récamier.
Nay, he read a vehement passage from Valérie to a fashionable assembly that included Madame de Staël, Madame Récamier, the Prince Czartoryski, Benjamin Constant, the pastor Fontanes, Mademoiselle Decazes and who knew whom. Standing up and his coat-tails appearing to fly out behind him, he held the volume in the air and declaimed long sentences as to mercy, the softer emotions, generosity and the anguish of the heroine as to the fate of her life’s hero, who had gone upon a journey into frozen wastes.
The audience had applauded with vociferation, first one, then the other of the two writing-ladies rising from the couch which had been provided for her and with tear-stained faces embracing Madame de Krudener, who remained upon her day-bed. Madame de Staël however left immediately afterwards, being only en passage through Paris to her beloved Venice — the Venice of Corinne. The remaining audience exclaimed with one voice though in widely differing accents that that admirable passage proved finally the necessity for a free pardon for Michael Ney. And all eyes went to Madame de Krudener — as they always went to Madame de Krudener.
Madame de Krudener, however, raising tear-stained cheeks to the milor, stretching up one hand to lay on his fore-arm, nevertheless slowly and doomfully shook her head. She had hitherto declared that Ney, as coming from the South, was the enemy of Saviours from the North. Now she was beginning to be over-persuaded.
That afternoon — the afternoon of the 10th November when Gatti sat reflecting in the room of Madame Ney and gazing dubiously at the face of Hélène de Frèjus — Madame de Krudener had been really ecstatic. On the day before the Court Martial on Ney had declared its incompetence to try a peer of France, and now or never had been the time to strike in favour of the hero of Borodino.
The afternoon had nevertheless begun with a slight check. They had been privileged to have the society of the Tsar, who had come to assist at a trance that was going to visit the woman Rummel or Krummer: Gatti refused to remember her name. But Madame de Krudener had a host of supporters of a chiliast complexion — chiliasts being Millennialists or believers in an immediate Second Coming of the Redeemer — and they mostly had singular and disagreeable names — there was the young Empalatz or Empalast, the old and untidy Fontanes, a pastor with a bedraggled wife; a number of lay members of Orthodox convents and monasteries in singular black costumes. But of them all the Rummel or Krummer woman seemed to Gatti the most disagreeable.
In a chair before the ikons — the Tsar sitting like Hamlet in the play-scene very much in the shadow to the right of the room — this fair, pasty, squat and obese woman in the dark blue costume with the horn-shaped coif of one of the chiliast orders, had duly thrown herself into a trance. Her pallid face, the eyes closed, looked upwards; she raised her deep-sleeved arms as if pointing up an invisible ray that came from the ceiling; she extended them before her as if inviting the embrace of an invisible being. She groaned, sobbed; the tears ran down her cheeks; she writhed with her whole body.
The assistants, the poor Russians, Courlanders and Germans at the back of the room kept up a perpetual echo of groans, sobs and ejaculations. From time to time one or other of them fell to the ground and was removed with singular expedition and singularly little noise. At each of these occurrences the Tsar nevertheless looked irritably round. He was in no propitious mood.
Those poor people had disposed of their farms, their shops, their small flocks to follow Madame de Krudener towards the Millennium, as indeed her singular gifts of overwhelming her fellows with unanalysable emotions had caused many thousand of poor people to do. The Tsar had promised them a territory in the Crimea, but the Crimea was a distant land and they were wearied with their travels afoot from the ends of Europe. So Alexander had already expressed distaste for that cohort that dogged his footsteps and were too holy to be roughly rebuffed. It was known too that he had already remonstrated with Madame de Krudener for declaring to all and sundry who came to her salon that she and she only had finally revised the treaty of the Holy Alliance that was shortly, at the hands of the two Emperors and their subjects and dependants, to spread peace and bliss through the world with Metternich as its prophet. The Tsar was reported to have said that he had been made to appear ridiculous!
So when at the end of the trance of Madame Rummer he spoke two or three words of an eminent coldness and then prepared to leave the room, a certain consternation spread itself throughout the assembly. It would appear that Madame Rummer, as the result of her trance, had declared that a celestial visitor had ordered her to advise the Tsar to spend a great portion of his earthly fortune in endowing the Order to which she, Madame Rummer, belonged. And the Tsar was reported to have answered coldly that he had too many similar revelations at the hands of various other Orders to be seriously impressed.... Gatti did not of course understand Russian but that had been how it had been reported to him.
The Tsar, his silhouette square and ungainly and singularly round-headed, had begun to cross before the ikons to go to his panel in the wall that led to his apartments in the Elysée. He stood bowing for a long time and then, crossing himself, returned to lean over Madame de Krudener, who was still in the chair she had occupied at his side. The whispers of dismay that had been going up from the rear of the assembly became an agitated, tense holding of the breath. He spoke for a minute in the lady’s ear and then, genuflecting and signing himself again, made his way towards the panel in the wall beside the ikons. It would appear that this panel opened not by means of a spring but by human agency, for Alexander having gently rapped on the framework at the side and the panel delaying to run back he stamped his foot with some irritation.
Into the silence that till his disappearance held the company in breathlessness Madame Krudener, her face alight, cried:
“Our little Father the Tsar, by order of the holy beings, has decided to demand the pardon of the Prince de la Moskwa!” Her arms outstretched, she threw herself into those of the milor! “A Saviour from the North!” she cried.
It cannot have been ten minutes after that before, in the buzz of ecstasy and repose that was over that assembly, the young George Feilding, who had been talking to a young girl, ran suddenly to the milor and, exclaiming that he had found his Hélène, had darted from the room. They had, the young girl and he, probably been talking of the joy that would be in the household of Aglaë and no doubt Mile. Decazes had said that Hélène de Frèjus too would be overjoyed in that house. Gradually, following the young man, the other guests had drifted away until, the milor ordering Gatti to find George Feilding, the milor and the lady were left alone.
A certain delicacy — nay, a certain dread, had prevented Gatti from announcing the tidings of the promised pardon to Madame Aglaë and Hélène. In the ordinary course of events he would have been first influenced by the idea that his patron should give the news of his own achievement in his own person. Then he would have been influenced by the remembrance that these two women were in great anxiety and he might have abandoned the sentimental interests of Mr. Smith and have told them, swiftly, and at the first moment.
But fear had restrained him.... Looking back at those two as he went out of the door, Judas had seemed to wink at him! The atmosphere had been hot with passions. The ill-temper of the Tsar had left behind him a heavy malaise. Behind those two as they faced each other had appeared a great, blazing ikon that Felice had not before observed; but Madame Krudener had — or had access to — a vast store of these objects and they were changed very frequently. This was an image with figures very nearly life-size. A silver Christ walked upon a lapis-lazuli sea with bubbles of pearls; Peter sank to his middle at the side of the Redeemer, and Judas, known by his absence of halo and scarlet hair and beard, regarded Peter with a leer.... This leer he had turned upon Gatti as he turned back at the door: nay, he had turned the leer first upon that couple and had then looked into Gatti’s eyes....
Dusk had now long since fallen in the tall sewing-room of Madame Aglaë, and Hélène had lit a candle in a tall brass standard at her side. She sewed and sewed, her head bent over her coarse, greyish stuff, the little finger of her right hand curled above the others as she drew the long threads to their extreme lengths. She said:’ You have slept, my dear Felice. You were tired!”
He exclaimed: “No! No!” and shivered. “We must go to Corte. In Corte there is sun.... Was not the milor here?”
She said no, no one had disturbed them.
He said: “I am afraid! I am afraid!” — he did not know why — and added: “the 10th of November is an ill-omened day.”
It came suddenly to his lips to say:
“Dearest Hélène, if mercy were shown...” But he did not dare. He said: “Let us go to Corte, you and I. This is no place for soft human flesh. People have eyes like pebbles and the air is hard.”
She said: “If there was a convent with rules of perpetual silence I would go there and you could wear away your life beneath the walls.”
He said: “There is the convent on the wall; I do not know the order, but it was from one of the windows that the enemy held out our general’s son when we Corsicans were taking the city by storm from the oppressors.... It is an old story. But I believe it is a sufficiently strict congregation. No one ever sees the sisters once they enter the walls. Not even when they are buried, and it is said they dig their own graves on the day they take the veil.”
“Why,” she said, “if there were a shop you could make into a café by the convent gate and I were within you might listen for my passing bell.”
He said: “Oh Hélène! Oh, Hélène!... If mercy now is shown us — to this household — will you not show mercy to your lover?”
She cried out and stood up, dropping her sewing to her feet.
“It is very painful,” he said, “to perceive daily the torture of a fine young man!”
She said: “No, no, no, no!” her face taking on an aspect of terror. “I knew,” she said, “that you must come to that — that that has been on your tongue this whole afternoon.”
“Madonna Hélène!” he said, “the good are also merciful. In what has this young man offended you?”
She said: “In that he is... In that he is my... He is too.. Her eyes stared from her lids; she surveyed him harshly:
“Ha, Felice,” she said, “it is true that you are an emissary of your patron: but your patron is anti-Christ. He too has tempted and tempted me. Is my soul nothing to you that you would sacrifice it to my... to my lover? Is his then nothing to you!...”
It had shocked him to hear Mr. Assheton Smith called anti-Christ — not that he did not think that might be the case. Madame de Krudener had called him the Saviour from the North. She had, he knew, suggested that the milor should found a colony in an isle in the Mediterranean there to await and enact the second coming.... A Saviour from the North might well be anti-Christ!
“No, no!” he said, “I am no emissary from Mr. Assheton Smith; in truth he so forces you to his will that there is no knowing...”
He fumbled in the pocket that was under his pinned left sleeve.
“See,” he said. He had produced with an air of repulsion a crumpled object of white satin. “It is that I am to wear in my hat tomorrow at the milor’s compulsion. And I am to kiss the hands of the Duc Decazes — and the other white, gouty ones.... At the milor’s compulsion!”
He added hoarsely: “And you, I shall see often, Madonna Hélène, for as I told you — or maybe I did not tell you, I am to command the guard over your husband in jail.” He added: “What this all is I do not know. But this I tell you... If you will go with your lover to Ajaccio — to Ajaccio where He was born... I will tell your husband you are gone to the Indies.”
