“Is he then so extraordinary?” asked Madame de Chavoncourt.
“Certainly, madame,” replied the Vicar-General.
“Well, tell us about it,” said Madame de Watteville.
“The first time I saw him,” said the Abbé de Grancey, “he received me in his outer room next the anteroom—old Galard’s drawing-room—which he has had painted like old oak, and which I found entirely lined with law-books, arranged on shelves also painted as old oak. The painting and the books are the sole decoration of the room, for the furniture consists of an old writing table of carved wood, six old armchairs covered with tapestry, window curtains of gray stuff bordered with green, and a green carpet over the floor. The anteroom stove heats this library as well. As I waited there I did not picture my advocate as a young man. But this singular setting is in perfect harmony with his person; for Monsieur Savaron came out in a black merino dressing-gown tied with a red cord, red slippers, a red flannel waistcoat, and a red smoking-cap.”
“The devil’s colors!” exclaimed Madame de Watteville.
“Yes,” said the Abbé; “but a magnificent head. Black hair already streaked with a little gray, hair like that of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in pictures, with thick shining curls, hair as stiff as horsehair; a round white throat like a woman’s; a splendid forehead, furrowed by the strong median line which great schemes, great thoughts, deep meditations stamp on a great man’s brow; an olive complexion marbled with red, a square nose, eyes of flame, hollow cheeks, with two long lines, betraying much suffering, a mouth with a sardonic smile, and a small chin, narrow, and too short; crow’s feet on his temples; deep-set eyes, moving in their sockets like burning balls; but, in spite of all these indications of a violently passionate nature, his manner was calm, deeply resigned, and his voice of penetrating sweetness, which surprised me in Court by its easy flow; a true orator’s voice, now clear and appealing, sometimes insinuating, but a voice of thunder when needful, and lending itself to sarcasm to become incisive.
“Monsieur Albert Savaron is of middle height, neither stout nor thin. And his hands are those of a prelate.
“The second time I called on him he received me in his bedroom, adjoining the library, and smiled at my astonishment when I saw there a wretched chest of drawers, a shabby carpet, a camp-bed, and cotton window-curtains. He came out of his private room, to which no one is admitted, as Jérôme informed me; the man did not go in, but merely knocked at the door.
“The third time he was breakfasting in his library on the most frugal fare; but on this occasion, as he had spent the night studying our documents, as I had my attorney with me, and as that worthy Monsieur Girardet is long-winded, I had leisure to study the stranger. He certainly is no ordinary man. There is more than one secret behind that face, at once so terrible and so gentle, patient and yet impatient, broad and yet hollow. I saw, too, that he stooped a little, like all men who have some heavy burden to bear.”
“Why did so eloquent a man leave Paris? For what purpose did he come to Besançon?” asked pretty Madame de Chavoncourt. “Could no one tell him how little chance a stranger has of succeeding here? The good folks of Besançon will make use of him, but they will not allow him to make use of them. Why, having come, did he make so little effort that it needed a freak of the President’s to bring him forward?”
“After carefully studying that fine head,” said the Abbé, looking keenly at the lady who had interrupted him, in such a way as to suggest that there was something he would not tell, “and especially after hearing him this morning reply to one of the bigwigs of the Paris Bar, I believe that this man, who may be five-and-thirty, will by and by make a great sensation.”
“Why should we discuss him? You have gained your action, and paid him,” said Madame de Watteville, watching her daughter, who, all the time the Vicar-General had been speaking, seemed to hang on his lips.
The conversation changed, and no more was heard of Albert Savaron.
The portrait sketched by the cleverest of the Vicars-General of the diocese had all the greater charm for Rosalie because there was a romance behind it. For the first time in her life she had come across the marvelous, the exceptional, which smiles on every youthful imagination, and which curiosity, so eager at Rosalie’s age, goes forth to meet halfway. What an ideal being was this Albert—gloomy, unhappy, eloquent, laborious, as compared by Mademoiselle de Watteville to that chubby fat Count, bursting with health, paying compliments, and talking of the fashions in the very face of the splendor of the old counts of Rupt. Amédée had cost her many quarrels and scoldings, and, indeed, she knew him only too well; while this Albert Savaron offered many enigmas to be solved.
“Albert Savaron de Savarus,” she repeated to herself.
Now, to see him, to catch sight of him! This was the desire of the girl to whom desire was hitherto unknown. She pondered in her heart, in her fancy, in her brain, the least phrases used by the Abbé de Grancey, for all his words had told.
“A fine forehead!” said she to herself, looking at the head of every man seated at the table; “I do not see one fine one.—Monsieur de Soulas’ is too prominent; Monsieur de Grancey’s is fine, but he is seventy, and has no hair, it is impossible to see where his forehead ends.”
“What is the matter, Rosalie; you are eating nothing?”
“I am not hungry, mamma,” said she. “A prelate’s hands—” she went on to herself. “I cannot remember our handsome
