“Poor Camille can hardly keep awake,” the Vicomtesse hastily broke in.—“Go to bed, child; you have no need of appalling pictures to keep you pure in heart and conduct.”
Camille de Grandlieu took the hint and went.
“You were going rather too far, dear M. Derville,” said the Vicomtesse, “an attorney is not a mother of daughters nor yet a preacher.”
“But any newspaper is a thousand times—”
“Poor Derville!” exclaimed the Vicomtesse, “what has come over you? Do you really imagine that I allow a daughter of mine to read the newspapers?—Go on,” she added after a pause.
“Three months after everything was signed and sealed between the Count and Gobseck—”
“You can call him the Comte de Restaud, now that Camille is not here,” said the Vicomtesse.
“So be it! Well, time went by, and I saw nothing of the counter-deed, which by rights should have been in my hands. An attorney in Paris lives in such a whirl of business that with certain exceptions which we make for ourselves, we have not the time to give each individual client the amount of interest which he himself takes in his affairs. Still, one day when Gobseck came to dine with me, I asked him as we left the table if he knew how it was that I had heard no more of M. de Restaud.
“ ‘There are excellent reasons for that,’ he said; ‘the noble Count is at death’s door. He is one of the soft stamp that cannot learn how to put an end to chagrin, and allow it to wear them out instead. Life is a craft, a profession; every man must take the trouble to learn that business. When he has learned what life is by dint of painful experiences, the fibre of him is toughened, and acquires a certain elasticity, so that he has his sensibilities under his own control; he disciplines himself till his nerves are like steel springs, which always bend, but never break; given a sound digestion, and a man in such training ought to live as long as the cedars of Lebanon, and famous trees they are.’
“ ‘Then is the Count actually dying?’ I asked.
“ ‘That is possible,’ said Gobseck; ‘the winding up of his estate will be a juicy bit of business for you.’
“I looked at my man, and said, by way of sounding him:
“ ‘Just explain to me how it is that we, the Count and I, are the only men in whom you take an interest?’
“ ‘Because you are the only two who have trusted me without finessing,’ he said.
“Although this answer warranted my belief that Gobseck would act fairly even if the counter-deed were lost, I resolved to go to see the Count. I pleaded a business engagement, and we separated.
“I went straight to the Rue du Helder, and was shown into a room where the Countess sat playing with her children. When she heard my name, she sprang up and came to meet me, then she sat down and pointed without a word to a chair by the fire. Her face wore the inscrutable mask beneath which women of the world conceal their most vehement emotions. Trouble had withered that face already. Nothing of its beauty now remained, save the marvelous outlines in which its principal charm had lain.
“ ‘It is essential, madame, that I should speak to M. le Comte—’
“ ‘If so, you would be more favored than I am,’ she said, interrupting me. ‘M. de Restaud will see no one. He will hardly allow his doctor to come, and will not be nursed even by me. When people are ill, they have such strange fancies! They are like children, they do not know what they want.’
“ ‘Perhaps, like children, they know very well what they want.’
“The Countess reddened. I almost repented a thrust worthy of Gobseck. So, by way of changing the conversation, I added, ‘But M. de Restaud cannot possibly lie there alone all day, madame.’
“ ‘His oldest boy is with him,’ she said.
“It was useless to gaze at the Countess; she did not blush this time, and it looked to me as if she were resolved more firmly than ever that I should not penetrate into her secrets.
“ ‘You must understand, madame, that my proceeding is no way indiscreet. It is strongly to his interest—’ I bit my lips, feeling that I had gone the wrong way to work. The Countess immediately took advantage of my slip.
“ ‘My interests are in no way separate from my husband’s, sir,’ said she. ‘There is nothing to prevent your addressing yourself to me—’
“ ‘The business which brings me here concerns no one but M. le Comte,’ I said firmly.
“ ‘I will let him know of your wish to see him.’
“The civil tone and expression assumed for the occasion did not impose upon me; I divined that she would never allow me to see her husband. I chatted on about indifferent matters for a little while, so as to study her; but, like all women who have once begun to plot for themselves, she could dissimulate with the rare perfection which, in your sex, means the last degree of perfidy. If I may dare to say it, I looked for anything from her, even a crime. She produced this feeling in me, because it was so evident from her manner and in all that she did or said, down to the very inflections of her voice, that she had an eye to the future. I went.
“Now, I will pass on to the final scenes of this adventure, throwing in a few circumstances brought to light by time, and some details guessed by Gobseck’s perspicacity or by my own.
“When the Comte de Restaud apparently plunged into the vortex of dissipation, something passed between the husband and wife, something which remains an impenetrable secret, but the wife sank even lower in the husband’s eyes. As soon as he became so ill that he was obliged to take to his bed, he manifested his aversion for the Countess and the two youngest children. He forbade them to enter his
