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- Herausgeber: e-artnow Collections
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In 'Secrets & Undesired Love - 3 Classic Melodramatic Romance Novels,' readers are invited into a world where passion, societal constraints, and unspoken desires intertwine amidst intense melodrama. This collection captures the timeless appeal of romance with its lavish prose and emotionally charged narratives. Each story delves into the tumultuous experiences of love's trials and tribulations, showcasing the genre's rich literary tradition. The anthology navigates themes of forbidden love, honor, and redemption, offering a captivating blend of tension and sentimentality that defines classic romantic melodrama. The assembly of works by Charles Garvice, Georges Ohnet, and Ethel M. Dell illustrates a convergence of diverse literary backgrounds, rich with historical and cultural resonance. These authors, iconic figures in melodramatic romance, skillfully craft their tales with vivid emotional landscapes. Operating in the context of late 19th to early 20th-century literature, they provide a window into societal norms of their time, enriched by the personal and cultural nuances unique to their narratives, allowing an exploration of how romance and societal pressures shape human experience. This anthology is indispensable for readers yearning to delve into the complexities and emotional depths of classic romance. By compiling such varied voices and styles, it offers a comprehensive study of melodramatic romance, enriching the reader's understanding of the genre's evolution. The book is an invitation to reflect on the many faces of love, providing an educational voyage through time, narrative, and culture. For enthusiasts and scholars alike, it is an opportunity to engage with the genre's history and its enduring capacity to fascinate and move its audience. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - An Introduction draws the threads together, discussing why these diverse authors and texts belong in one collection. - Historical Context explores the cultural and intellectual currents that shaped these works, offering insight into the shared (or contrasting) eras that influenced each writer. - A combined Synopsis (Selection) briefly outlines the key plots or arguments of the included pieces, helping readers grasp the anthology's overall scope without giving away essential twists. - A collective Analysis highlights common themes, stylistic variations, and significant crossovers in tone and technique, tying together writers from different backgrounds. - Reflection questions encourage readers to compare the different voices and perspectives within the collection, fostering a richer understanding of the overarching conversation.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Secrets & Undesired Love - 3 Classic Melodramatic Romance Novels
Table of Contents
Introduction
This collection, 'Secrets & Undesired Love - 3 Classic Melodramatic Romance Novels,' unites Georges Ohnet’s The Woman of Mystery, Charles Garvice’s The Spider and the Fly; or, An Undesired Love, and Ethel M. Dell’s The Knave of Diamonds around a shared preoccupation with hidden truths, perilous attraction, and the dramatic consequences of choice. Each title signals a charged encounter: secrecy that governs identity, love that is resisted rather than welcomed, and a figure associated with chance and cunning. Read together, they trace a continuous arc from concealment to confrontation, interpreting romance not as serenity but as an arena of risk, negotiation, and moral testing.
Ohnet’s title foregrounds enigma, inviting scrutiny of the boundaries between public self and private history. Garvice emphasizes the dynamics of pursuit and refusal, evoked by the image of a spider’s web and the explicit phrase 'An Undesired Love.' Dell introduces a 'knave' linked to hazard and audacity, with 'diamonds' suggesting glittering stakes. Together these coordinates produce a map of melodramatic romance in which attraction collides with strategy, and tenderness must navigate power. The three novels converse by staging pressure points where affection meets suspicion, where reputation is fragile, and where the cost of revelation may equal the danger of silence.
Recurring motifs—masks and webs, traps and wagers—recur across the titles, shaping a dialogue of images. The Woman of Mystery leans toward atmospheric intrigue; The Spider and the Fly; or, An Undesired Love signals a contest of wills; The Knave of Diamonds gestures toward movement and risk. Their tonal range spans secrecy, relentless pursuit, and high-stakes audacity, yielding productive contrasts in tempo and emphasis. One privileges the allure of the unknown, another the friction of unwanted devotion, another the gambit of bold action. Juxtaposed, they illuminate how melodrama converts private feeling into public crisis and transforms desire into decisive acts.
In each work, the core dilemma revolves around agency: who chooses, who refuses, and who bears the weight of consequence. The notion of an 'undesired' love foregrounds consent and the ethics of persistence, while a 'mystery' underscores the right to withhold. The 'knave' figure suggests the disruptive outsider whose presence tests social norms. Across these configurations, the characters confront questions of trust, honor, and self-possession. Secrets demand interpretation, pursuit demands restraint, and risk demands responsibility. The novels collectively dramatize the uneasy passage from impression to judgment, asking how affection can survive stratagems, and when revelation becomes liberation rather than exposure.
Contemporary readers may recognize in these themes a durable conversation about boundaries, privacy, and the cost of visibility. Modern life routinely stages collisions between curated selves and genuine intimacy; the pull of attention can feel as trapping as any web, while guardedness can appear as necessary as any mask. The tension between desire and refusal resonates with ongoing discussions of respect and autonomy, just as the language of wagers and knaves mirrors present-day negotiations with uncertainty. These novels offer not solutions but frameworks for thinking about how feeling becomes obligation, and how the negotiation of affection intersects with power, risk, and care.
As melodramatic romance, the novels cultivate heightened stakes to clarify competing values. Melodrama does not trivialize emotion; it distills conflict so that choices are stark, motives legible, and consequences vivid. The imagery announced by these titles—mystery, spider and fly, knave and diamonds—provides an emblematic lexicon through which inner turbulence acquires shape and momentum. Such emblematic concentration permits swift movement between tenderness and peril, confession and denial. The result is a theater of feeling that remains legible across eras, not because the world simplifies, but because the form focuses attention on the pivotal moments when character and fate converge.
Approached as a single trajectory, the collection charts three paths through the same terrain: concealment, pursuit, and gamble. Ohnet, Garvice, and Dell stage convergent tensions with distinct emphases, enabling comparative reading without collapsing their individuality. Taken together, they compose a panorama of romantic ordeal in which secrecy protects and isolates, unwanted affection compels and constrains, and daring either redeems or imperils. The title 'Secrets & Undesired Love' names the thematic fulcrum; the novels supply three different balances. Read side by side, they sharpen one another, offering an enduring meditation on what love demands, what it resists, and what it risks.
Historical Context
Socio-Political Landscape
Written in the long shadow of France’s Third Republic, Georges Ohnet’s The Woman of Mystery channels debates about class power and social legitimacy. Industrial wealth jostles with a fading aristocratic order, and the courts, press, and salons arbitrate respectability as fiercely as parliaments. Business dynasties, patronage networks, and the stigma of scandal shape who can speak, marry, or inherit. The novel’s melodramatic secrets mirror anxieties about surveillance in a society of contracts and dossiers. Though rarely programmatic, its conflicts echo a polity consolidating bourgeois authority while policing female reputation, labor mobility, and the moral credentials that underwrote property and patriarchy.
Charles Garvice’s The Spider and the Fly; or, An Undesired Love reflects late Victorian and Edwardian Britain’s uneasy compact between expanding democracy and entrenched class privilege. Electoral reforms broadened participation without dissolving aristocratic influence over land, marriage alliances, and patronage. The novel’s tensions around unwanted desire mark legal and cultural debates over consent, divorce, and women’s property. Sensational journalism and libel threats hover as engines of reputation-making, while philanthropy and the respectable poor provide a backdrop for moral self-advertisement. Garvice’s melodramatic confrontations stage power not only in drawing rooms but also in offices, registries, and chapels where status becomes administratively negotiated.
Ethel M. Dell’s The Knave of Diamonds emerges on the threshold of the First World War, when Britain’s imperial reach coexisted with domestic agitation over suffrage, labor unrest, and moral reform. Dell’s settings—often cosmopolitan resorts, clubs, and country houses—stage class encounter and performance under the veneer of leisure. Financial speculation and gambling imagery reveal anxieties about risk, masculine authority, and the ethics of guardianship. The narrative encodes a politics of protection that negotiates women’s autonomy against paternal claims. Law remains present as background pressure—inheritance, guardianship, breach of promise—while informal codes of honor determine outcomes as decisively as statutes.
Intellectual & Aesthetic Currents
Ohnet writes at the crossroads of industrial romance and stage-inflected melodrama, fusing topical settings with heightened moral tableaux. His prose privileges lucid causality and emblematic gesture over experimental technique, resisting deterministic Naturalism while appropriating its social detail. The Woman of Mystery deploys secrets, duels of will, and revelations as engines of ethical testing, not merely sensation. Business spaces—offices, factories, ledgers—become theaters of character, and the sentimental contract stands beside the commercial one. The resulting aesthetic marries clarity and urgency, sustaining popular appeal while offering a recognizable map of bourgeois virtues—honor, work, loyalty—under pressure from modern publicity.
Garvice’s practice exemplifies the late-nineteenth-century popular romance’s synthesis of sentimental ethics with the pacing of sensation fiction. Short chapters, cliffhangers, and sharply polarized types—predatory seducers, steadfast heroines, reformable heirs—create an architecture designed for serial reading and railway-bookstall circulation. The Spider and the Fly; or, An Undesired Love integrates urban modernity—offices, telegraphs, newspapers—into its emotional economy, treating publicity as both danger and deliverance. Stylistically, the prose favors transparency, direct address, and aphoristic moralizing, while recurring motifs of prayer, vows, and atonement import devotional rhetoric into courtship plots. The aesthetic covenant promises redemption without abandoning class-coded decorum.
Dell advances the melodramatic romance toward psychological interiority, sustaining heightened stakes while granting characters complex motive and shame. The Knave of Diamonds favors close focalization, tactile description, and kinetic scenes—rides, dances, games—that externalize emotional conflict. A chivalric ideal is recalibrated through self-mastery and caregiving rather than coercion, though power remains asymmetrical. Musicality of phrasing, recurrent color symbols, and sacramental imagery invest erotic choice with spiritual consequence. The book’s cosmopolitan milieus are less ethnographic than theatrical, spaces for masking and revelation. Dell’s stylistic signature lies in extracting confession from confrontation, where silence, touch, and oath substitute for legal argument.
Legacy & Reassessment Across Time
Ohnet’s popularity was immediate and international; The Woman of Mystery circulated widely in translation and echoed across the stage, where melodrama’s emphasis on recognition scenes and reversals thrived. Contemporary critics often disparaged his commercialism, yet readers prized his ethical clarity and worldly settings. Later scholarship has reappraised the novel as a key document in the negotiation between industrial capitalism and inherited privilege, especially in its regulation of female reputation. Archival attention to publishing formats and advertising has emphasized how marketplace mechanics shaped reception. Renewed interest in popular French fiction now situates Ohnet within debates about canon, taste, and mass culture.
Garvice and Dell long outlived elite critical favor through sales, reprints, and lending-library endurance; their titles, including The Spider and the Fly; or, An Undesired Love and The Knave of Diamonds, have since invited reconsideration. Feminist and book-historical studies probe how these romances script consent, rescue, and female agency within commercial constraints. Adaptation histories trace movement from page to stage and early screen, clarifying how melodrama’s visual codes sustained appeal. Modern editions and digital archives have widened access, encouraging classroom use that reads sensation alongside social history. Reassessment foregrounds technique and readership, not merely plot, restoring complexity to popular taste.
Synopsis (Selection)
The Woman of Mystery
An enigmatic woman with a guarded past draws a principled man into a maze of social peril and private vows, where honor collides with desire.
Refined high-society melodrama probes reputation, loyalty, and sacrifice, setting the collection’s axis of secrecy and reluctant entanglement and contrasting with the rawer passions that follow.
The Spider and the Fly; or, An Undesired Love
A calculating suitor weaves schemes to possess a woman who does not return his feelings, turning courtship into a perilous contest of wills.
Breathless and sensational, it foregrounds obsession, power imbalance, and personal autonomy—pushing the volume’s “undesired love” theme to its starkest extreme and sharpening contrasts with the other tales’ quests for mutual trust.
The Knave of Diamonds
A bold, hard-driving outsider—nicknamed for his gambler’s flair—collides with a guarded heroine, forcing both toward choices that test pride, trust, and courage.
Intense and redemptive, it converts dangerous attraction into moral reckoning, bridging the collection between high-society intrigue and predatory pursuit while amplifying themes of transformation and earned devotion.
Secrets & Undesired Love - 3 Classic Melodramatic Romance Novels
Secrets, Identity, and Revelation
Forbidden Passion and Social Consequence
Georges Ohnet
The Woman of Mystery
PART I
CHAPTER I
In his study, situated in the Rue Saint-Dominique, the Minister of War was walking to and fro. In furious fashion he twisted his moustache, which seemed even redder than usual, as he nervously fingered his eyeglass, in a manner which promised anything but a cordial welcome to any who entered his presence. Doubtless, his officers were well acquainted with the reasons of his ill-humour, for a profound silence reigned all around, and the great man’s solitude was undisturbed save by the querulous twitterings of the birds in the garden. A minute later, he seemed to lose all patience, and, marching to the mantelpiece, he pressed an electric bell. An usher, with anxious mien, at once approached.
“Has Colonel Vallenot returned?” exclaimed the Minister, in fierce tones.
The servant shrunk away, as though he would have liked the earth to open and swallow him; then he stammered, faintly—
“I do not think so, sir—I will ask—”
The General became purple with rage. An oath burstforth from his lips like a bombshell, then a second, the third was useless. The door was again closed, the servant had vanished.
“What can Vallenot be doing all the time he has been gone?” muttered the Minister, as he resumed his pacing about the room. “Ah! This is the way I am served!”
Before he could finish, the usher had opened the door, and announced—
“Colonel Vallenot.”
A man of fifty years of age, tall and thin, with blue eyes and light moustache, marched briskly into the room, and, after saluting his superior in friendly wise, said—
“You seem to have lost all patience, General. I found an officer waiting for me at the very door of the War Office. The fact is, this has been anything but a small matter. After all, I have done everything possible—”
“Indeed!” interrupted the Minister, impatiently. “You have just come from Vanves?”
“Yes, General.”
“Alone?”
“No; I took with me one of our cleverest detectives. You had not given me this authorization, but I took upon myself the responsibility.”
“You have done quite right. But are you sure he is trustworthy?”
“Absolutely. He is a former sub-officer. Besides, I did not reveal to him the real object of my researches; he knows nothing important, and imagines he has simply been my auxiliary in an inquiry into the causes of a catastrophe hitherto ill-explained. We have nothing to fear in this direction.”
“Well, what has been the result of your researches?”
“If you will allow me, General, we will divide the inquiry into two parts, one consisting of moral circumstances, the other of material facts. The affair is more complicated than you at first thought, and when I have finished, your embarrassment, instead of having lessened, will probably have increased.”
“Impossible!”
He sat down before the desk, leaned over on his elbows, and, motioning to the Colonel to take a seat in an armchair by his side, said—
“Now, tell me everything.”
“The house tenanted by General de Trémont is situated above the village of Vanves, near the fort. It was the night-watch which gave the alarm, and the garrison which organized first aid when the fire broke out. Nothing worth mentioning remains of the building. The explosion of the combustible matter contained in the laboratory has disorganized the very foundations, and the effect has been formidable. Stones hurled into the air have been found more than a mile distant, and the surrounding gardens belonging to the peasants are covered with débris. Had there been houses in the neighbourhood, the loss to property would have been enormous—”
The Minister interrupted.
“The effects of melinite, probably?”
“No, General, something quite different! Increase a hundred-fold the effects of the powder actually employed in charging our bombshells, and then perhaps you will have the equivalent of the destructive power revealed by the explosion of General de Trémont’s laboratory.”
The Minister shook his head.
“Yes; that is what he told me the last time I saw him at the Artillery meeting. He was on the trace of a discovery destined to give to our cannons so crushing a superiority that we were to become for long the arbiters of victory. The struggle against us would have been marked by such massacres, accomplished with such absolute precision, that our military supremacy would have been certain once more. Has this had anything to do with the discovery?”
“Then you admit, General, that malevolence may not have been entirely foreign to this mishap!”
“I admit nothing, Vallenot. I suspect everything. When you have told me all you know, we will talk it over. Continue.”
“On reaching the spot, we found a body of troops, who had been ordered by the Ministry to proceed there, guarding the approaches of the property. There was already collected a crowd of three or four hundred people, discussing the matter, without counting a score of journalists, who made more noise than all the others together. They were complaining that they were not allowed to visit the spot where the explosion had taken place among the still smoking ruins of the villa. But there was in command a stern little lieutenant, who, in quite military fashion, had maintained order. Probably the press will be against us, but in the mean time we shall not have been interrupted; and that is something to be thankful for. Inside, there was only the secretary of the Prefecture of Police and the head of the detective force. My agent and I had come at the right moment. The researches were just beginning—”
“Where? In the house?”
“On the site of what had been the house, and which now offered to the gaze nothing but a gaping hole, at the bottom of which appeared a cellar, the vaults of which had been burst open. A staved-in barrel of wine formed a red pool on the floor. Not a trace of the staircase remained. The very steps had disappeared, and the stones were broken up into fragments as large as pigeons’ eggs. Never should I have thought such a crumbling possible. Wonderful to relate, one side of a wall which must have belonged to a wash-house remained standing, along with a narrow window, in the iron bars of which a cloth-rag was waving. We were all staring at this solitary vestige of the disaster, when the chief of the detective force cautiously approached the spot. Raising his stick, he touched the shapeless rag hanging there, picked it up from the ground with an exclamation of surprise, and exposed it to our gaze. It was a human arm, still covered with both coat and shirt sleeves, cut off at the elbow, and covered with blood, the hand quite black.”
“Most extraordinary!” exclaimed the Minister.
“Rather sinister, General,” continued Colonel Vallenot. “I have seen hundreds of men killed on the field of battle, and thousands of wounded carried off in ambulances. At Gravelotte, I saw the head of the captain of my squadron roll at my feet, and the eyes wink repeatedly in the dust. It had been carried off by the bursting of a shell. In Tonkin I have found soldiers cut in four, their faces still grinning in spite of their torture. But never have I been so impressed as I was by this human arm, the sole remaining vestige of the drama we were trying to understand. The Government agent was the first to regain his sang froid, and he said, ‘Gentlemen, this is an important piece of evidence. This arm has evidently been hurled across these bars by the explosion. But to whom did it belong? Is it one of the ill-fated General de Trémont’s arms?’ ‘The General did not live alone in the villa,’ observed the detective. ‘There was a cook and a man-servant. Let us at once eliminate the supposition of the cook. This is a man’s arm; accordingly, it belonged either to the General or to his valet. Unless—’ There was a silence. The Government agent turned towards him and said, ‘Well, finish. Unless it belongs to the author of the catastrophe himself.’”
“Ah!” said the Minister; “then he, too, thought the affair might be the result of a crime.”
“Yes, General; and, as he spoke, he examined with the most minute attention the smutty, blackened hand. Carefully separating the fingers, he drew from the fourth finger a ring, which none of us had noticed; and, holding it aloft in triumph, said, ‘The question is decided, if this ring belongs to the General. If not, we still doubtless possess a valuable piece of circumstantial evidence, which will permit us to unravel the mystery.’”
“A ring! The deuce! I never remember seeing Trémont wearing a ring! No! I would take my oath on it. He never wore an ornament of any kind in his life, much less a ring. It would have been absurd in a man who was in the habit of handling acids from morning to night! No metal would have resisted the oxidising action of the substances he used in his experiments. But what kind of a ring was it?”
“An engagement ring, General. When rubbed with a glove-skin, the gold circle shone out, freed from the soot which tarnished it. Our agent fingered it a moment, then pressed it with his nail, and the ring separated in two. ‘Look here, gentlemen!’ he exclaimed. ‘There are letters engraved in the interior. Whatever happens, we now hold a clue.’”
“This fellow has, indeed, proved himself very clever, Vallenot,” said the Minister. “Up to the present, I find that he is the only one who has shown any initiative. I must remember it.”
“Wait a little, General. I have not yet reached the end. The Government agent had taken up the engagement ring, and was examining it. He finally placed it coolly in his pocket, with the words, ‘We will look into this later on.’ And there we all stood, rather discountenanced by the strange intervention of the magistrate in leaving our curiosity thus disappointed. On due reflection, perhaps he was right in postponing for a more thorough examination the information destined to result from this discovery, in not publishing proofs which might be of supreme importance. Still, if he wished to keep the secret of his investigations, he was disappointed, for at that very moment our agent, pursuing his inquiries, had removed the double sleeve, and laid bare the naked arm. This time it was no longer possible to conceal what he had found. On the forearm, between the wrist and the bleeding end, a blue tattooing appeared, representing a heart surrounded with flames, around which could be read the words ‘Hans and Minna,’ and beneath the German word ‘Immer,’ signifying ‘Always.’ ‘Gentlemen,’ said the Government agent, fixing his eyeglass, ‘I demand of you the utmost discretion. A single word on what we have just discovered might have the most serious consequences. We may be in presence of an anarchist plot, or be obliged to suspect foreign interference. The affair is assuming quite unexpected proportions. In all probability a crime has been committed.’”
“The deuce!” exclaimed the Minister. “I say, Vallenot, this is becoming serious! Perhaps we ought at once to inform the President of the Board of—”
“The secretary of the Prefect of Police must have done so already. As soon as he saw how matters were turning, he did not wait for the end of the inquiry, but immediately rode off to the Place Beauvau.”
“The first thing to do is to prevent the press from saying anything silly. If we have a crow to pick with foreign agents, for Trémont’s investigations were suspected in Europe, it is of the highest importance that no suspicions be aroused, so that we may try to seize the authors of this guilty attempt.”
“That is what we thought, General, and, consequently, all arrangements have at once been taken. It was absolutely necessary to throw public opinion on a false scent. Accordingly, the theory of a chance accident was inevitable. It was at once decided that all communications made to the press should have this object in view. General de Trémont was rather eccentric, we must say, engaged in commercial chemical investigations, and it was his imprudence which had brought about the accident which has now cost him his life.”
“Poor Trémont! So fine a savant as he was! Well! well! State reasons must predominate. But it is hard to contribute in heaping calumnies on an old comrade!”
“Do not have such thoughts, General,” interrupted Colonel Vallenot, with a smile. “There are surprises in store for us which will, doubtless, lessen your regret.”
“What do you mean?” said the rough soldier, frowning. “You do not intend to utter calumnies against my friend from childhood, my comrade in war?”
“God forbid, General! I shall simply give you the facts on which you desired information. If I have the misfortune to displease you, you will not be angry with me; you are too just for that.”
“What is the meaning of this silence? Continue right to the end, Colonel; speak freely.”
“So I intend to do, General. Well, then, the secretary of the Prefect of Police had just undertaken to supply the version arranged by us to the numerous reporters waiting there, held in check by the line of troops, and to inform the Minister of the Interior, in case the police might have to be called in, when a great uproar arose from the direction of the village. A tumult of cries and shouts was heard. The lieutenant was preparing to go and see what was happening, when a man, breaking through the sentinels, ran up to us, bare-headed, with troubled countenance, and exclaiming, in tones of despair, ‘My master! O God! What has happened to the house? Not one stone left on another!’ Thereupon he halted, sank down on the ruins, and began to weep bitterly. We looked at him in silence, moved by his grief, and foreseeing some speedy enlightenment on the dark situation we were in. ‘Who are you, my friend?’ asked the Government agent. The man raised his head, passed his hand over his eyes to brush away his tears, and, raising up to us a countenance at once intelligent and determined, said, ‘The General’s head servant, sir, for the last twenty years. Ah! If I had been there, this disaster might perhaps have been avoided! At any rate, I would have died with him!’”
“It was Baudoin!” exclaimed the General. “The brave fellow had escaped! Ah! That is fortunate. We shall learn something from him!”
“Yes, General, but not the enlightenment we expected. Rather the contrary.”
“In what way the contrary?”
“I will explain. The night before, about six o’clock, the General was in his garden, strolling about, after working all day in the laboratory, when a telegram reached him from Vanves. He read it, continued his walk for a few minutes, with bowed head, as though in profound meditation, then he called Baudoin. ‘You must set out for Paris,’ he said to him. ‘I have an important order to give to my chemist, who lives in the Place de la Sorbonne. Give him this letter, then go to M. Baradier and pay him my respects. Then dine, and, if you like to spend the evening at the theatre, you may do so; here is a five franc piece. Return to-morrow morning with the chemicals.’
“Baudoin, who knew what it all meant, understood that the General wished him to leave the house for the whole night. He was anything but pleased at this, because, he said, it was not the first time that it had happened, and always under the same circumstances: the arrival of a telegram, and the dismissal immediately following.
“Still, the General did not give a holiday to the cook, with whom he was less cautious, as she was in the habit of going bed very early, which fact rendered any surveillance she might have exercised almost null. So the General needed to be alone from time to time. And he took care to send away the faithful servant, on whom he might have relied for the most complete discretion. What reason had he? This was what troubled Baudoin, and displeased him. So little was he accustomed to conceal his thoughts from his master that the latter noticed his sulky mood, and said to him: ‘What is the matter? Don’t you want me to send you to Paris? Are you to be pitied for the opportunity of going and enjoying yourself?’ ‘I don’t care about going to the theatre,’ Baudoin had said, ‘but I do about performing my duty.’ ‘Very well, you are doing your duty; you are obeying the order I have given you, to fetch for me some chemical products, dangerous to handle, but which I must have; besides, you are to call on my friend Baradier. Now go. I do not want you before to-morrow morning.’ ‘Very well, sir.’
“But Baudoin was anything but pleased, a secret anxiety troubled him. Proceeding to the kitchen, he said to the cook, ‘Last time the General sent me to Paris, what happened during the night? Did the General dine as usual? Did he shut himself up in his study, or did he go into the garden? At what time did he retire for the night? Did nothing happen out of the ordinary?’
“The woman said she knew nothing, she had noticed nothing unusual, and was very much astonished at his questions. He saw she was a thousand leagues from suspecting anything, so he did not press his questions. Still, although deeply respecting his master’s wishes, his interest in his welfare made him less strictly obedient, and he resolved to feign a departure, then take up a post outside, so that he might see what took place once the General was sure there was no inconvenient observer to be dreaded. The weather was exceedingly mild. Not a breath of air, and the gardens, filled with roses, shed forth exquisite odours as night approached.
“Baudoin, after dressing himself, went to take leave of his master, received from him a list of the chemical products to be purchased, a few lines for his friend Baradier, and then took his departure. He went straight to the station, dined in a small restaurant close by, and, after nightfall, returned towards the house of his master. He dared not enter the garden, as he was afraid he would be noticed by the General, so he slipped into a cottage garden, the owner of which was his friend, and concealed himself in a small hut used for storing tools.
“From this spot he could keep an eye on the approaches of the villa, and, along a thick hedge, come right up to the wall adjoining the General’s property. He sat down, lit his pipe, and waited. A few minutes before eight, the roll of a carriage was heard on the road. Baudoin, in ambush behind the hedge, was keeping a sharp look-out. By the light of the lantern he saw a brougham, drawn by two horses, pass by. Something told him that this carriage contained the persons the General was expecting. He ran along, right to the wall of the villa, and reached it the very moment the brougham came to a stop before the door. But he was not the only one on the look-out, for scarcely had the horses, still panting from the steep ascent, come to a halt, than the lofty form of the General showed itself through the darkness. At the same time, an impatient hand opened the door, and a man’s voice said, in foreign accents, ‘Ah! General, so you have come to meet us?’ M. de Trémont simply replied, ‘Is the Baroness there?’ ‘Certainly,’ replied the voice of a woman. ‘Could you imagine otherwise?’ The man was the first to descend. But the General gave him no time to help his companion to descend; he sprang forward with the eagerness of a lover, and, almost carrying off the lady in his arms, exclaimed, with extraordinary ardour, ‘Come, madame, you have nothing to fear—no one can see you.’ The man uttered a brutal laugh, and said, in guttural tones, ‘Do not trouble about me, I will follow you,’ and all three disappeared into the garden. Baudoin, astonished, had only time to place on the wall a ladder which happened to be there. As soon as he could look into his master’s garden, the alleys were empty, but the large window of the laboratory was shining through the darkness. The faithful fellow said to himself, ‘What is to be done? Enter the house? Play the spy on the General? Disobey his orders? For what reason? Has he not the right to receive any one he pleases? What am I thinking about? Is it likely that the people he receives are objects of suspicion? Their carriage is waiting at the door, a sign that they will not remain long, but will return to Paris immediately. Here I am, troubling my head for nothing in all probability! All I can do now is to obey my master.’ He descended the ladder, proceeded along the hedge, left the garden, and reached the railway. His master’s orders were now literally followed, except that the drug store was closed when he arrived there, and he was obliged to return the following morning. When he reached Vanves, he found the approaches to the General’s property occupied by a guard, the villa in ruins, and his master vanished from the scene of the catastrophe.”
Colonel Vallenot had finished. Profound silence, interrupted only by the twittering of the birds in the neighbouring trees, reigned in the Minister’s study. The old soldier, leaning forward on his desk, his head resting on his hand, was buried in reflection. After a short pause, he said, with a sigh—
“How surprising all this is! Doubtless here is the key of the whole matter. These two unknown characters, one with a foreign accent, coming mysteriously by night to see Trémont, and their visit followed by such a frightful cataclysm; what does it all mean? Is it an accident or a crime? And, if a crime, what motive inspired it?”
Rising, he crossed to the window, with anxious mien, then returned mechanically to his desk, resumed his seat, and, again fixing his eyes on the Colonel, said—
“Well! Vallenot, what happened after this honest fellow had finished his tale? What measures were taken?”
“A squad of soldiers from the fort had been sent for, and the ruins were carefully searched, under the supervision of the police. Nothing, however, was found. The destruction was too complete. With the exception of the side of the wall still standing, not a single piece of anything was left whole. Still, after a couple of hours’ examination of the débris, from which arose a very strong odour of fulminate of mercury, the diggers brought to light an iron chest, with broken hinges, the bottom of which was curiously pierced with thousands of holes as though with an auger.”
“That is one result of the explosion,” interrupted the Minister. “You are aware that we have in our shrapnels similar cases of rupture. It is quite possible the initial explosion took place in this chest. Has it been kept?”
“It was handed over to the Government agent.”
“We may need it again when we undertake an analysis of the substances which occasioned the deflagration. Finish your explanations. What became of the carriage stationed in front of the door?”
“The carriage must have left before the accident. There was not a trace of it on the road near the villa. The customs officers, on being interrogated, declared that a brougham, driven by two horses, returned to Paris about eleven o’clock. To the question, ‘Have you anything to declare?’ a female voice had replied, ‘Nothing.’ As for the explosion, the guard at the fort reports that it took place about three o’clock in the morning.”
“Then the man with the foreign accent had remained, after the departure of the carriage?”
“Most probably.”
“You are not certain?”
“I did not wait for the end of the investigations; I came away to inform you of what I had learnt, leaving behind me our agent, with orders to return here at once, after the final statement had been made.”
“Perhaps he is here now?”
Colonel Vallenot pressed the electric knob, and the usher appeared.
“Has Laforêt returned?”
“Yes, Colonel, a minute ago.”
“Send him here.”
Closing the door with considerable precaution, the agent, with firm step, a sonorous cough, and head raised in military fashion, as he stood at attention, appeared before his principals.
The Minister examined for a moment the man’s frank, martial face; then he asked briefly—
“Colonel Vallenot has reported all that had taken place up to the time of his departure from Vanves. Complete his version by telling us what you have learnt since. Take a seat, Vallenot.”
“Monsieur le Ministre,” said the agent, “I will come at once to the most important point: the body of General de Trémont has been found.”
“In the ruins?”
“In the garden. At first no one thought of searching beyond the house and the débris. It was whilst exploring the bushes that the body of the General was discovered, close to the entrance gate.”
“What! Had the explosion projected him so far?”
The agent replied—
“The body had not been projected by the explosion. It had remained on the very spot where it had been struck by a knife under the left shoulder-blade. The General was dead when the explosion took place, and certainly the explosion was caused by the assassin.”
“The man with the foreign accent? The companion of the lady the General called ‘Baroness’?”
The agent kept his countenance before these bold questions. For a moment he appeared to be reflecting; then he said—
“Yes, the one who has left his arm in the ruins of the villa, and who in forcing open the chest escaped death only by a miracle. The man named Hans, in short.”
“But what makes you say that he escaped death?” asked the Minister.
“Because I found tracks in the garden continued outside on the road he followed, leaving his blood behind at every step. The man must be endowed with indomitable energy to have had the strength to escape, mutilated as he was, to reach the fields, and there, doubtless, find some market cart or other to pick him up and carry him to Paris; but this is an additional inquiry to be made, and a track to be followed up.”
“In your opinion, then, it is the man who came with the woman who killed the General?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Ministre; most likely when the General was conducting them back to the carriage. The murder took place close to the gate. The sand is trodden down as though a struggle had taken place, and the body had been carried off behind the bushes. The traces of the trailing legs are quite visible. The woman probably helped. At any rate, once the murder accomplished, she must have left, whilst the man stayed behind. He robbed the General of his keys, which never left him, and which have not been found; in addition, he took his watch and portfolio, so that it might be believed that a murder, the motive of which was robbery, had been committed; then he entered the villa, and worked in the laboratory. It was with the laboratory that he had to do.”
“How do you know this?”
“From what Baudoin, his valet, said. It appears that, one day, whilst placing things in order, in the cabinet of the General, the latter entered on his way from the laboratory. He took a few paces in the room, rubbing his hands together; then he said almost to himself, ‘This time our fortune is made! What will Hans say?’ For a week the General had been working hard at an experiment, which had hitherto failed, and from which he expected great results. On different occasions, formerly, he had temporarily dismissed his valet, certainly with the object of receiving his mysterious guests at night.”
“Good; we will admit what you say regarding the man,” said the Minister, captivated by the explanations of his agent. “But, in your opinion, what shall we think of the rôle played by the woman?”
“That is much more evident, Monsieur le Ministre; both indications and proofs abound. The General de Trémont has been the victim of a too tender disposition. I know nothing of the General’s secrets or researches, though the journals have on different occasions spoken of his investigations. He was a member of the Academy of Science, and his reputation as a savant was fully established. Suppose for a moment that M. de Trémont had made a discovery of interest to the future of European armies, and that some one Power wished to obtain information as to the value of his invention—obtain possession of it, perhaps. Do we not know that women have been, only too often, the best political agents employed in our country? In spite of his age, the General remained very susceptible. A young woman, beautiful and intelligent, is placed in his path. He meets her by chance, falls in love with her. But the fair one is guarded; she is obliged to take great precautions. A complaisant friend, relation, perhaps, under the cover of science, facilitates the interviews by accompanying the lady, so as to throw some imaginary rival off the track. Whilst the old lover is paying his court, the benevolent companion, observes, takes his measures, skilfully questions, and obtains the confidence of the one to whom he is rendering a service. Passion lulls all fear, and a sweet smile and caressing eyes drive one to acts of folly. Then, one fine night, the General de Trémont, who has, doubtless, finished his discovery, is visited by the unknown couple. The woman tries to obtain the secret. She does not succeed. Then the man, as a last extremity, decides to strike. The General falls under the dagger; his accomplice takes to flight. The assassin returns with the keys, searches the laboratory, and tries to open the chest containing the precious products. But the dreaded powder, unskilfully handled, avenges its maker, and, in a terrible explosion, annihilates at the same time both formula and the one trying to steal it. This is how it is possible, Monsieur le Ministre, to make a guess at the events now occupying our attention. But—I do not wish to deceive myself—this is only conjecture. There may be other versions, more certain, if not more likely. What is an absolute fact is that General de Trémont has been assassinated, that the murderer was one of the two persons received that night at the villa, and that the explosion following on the crime has been caused by the imprudence of the man we may name Hans, who has been grievously wounded.”
The Minister and Colonel Vallenot looked at one another for a moment in silence. Then the Minister said to the agent—
“I thank you for your report, but do not trouble any further in the matter, which is in the hands of the police. If we have any additional investigations to make, I will send for you. Now go, and do not say a word to any one on the matter.”
Laforêt bowed, gave a military salute, and, with the same tranquil precision, left the room. The two principals sat there absorbed by what they had heard, going over once more all the details of this drama, which was becoming materially so clear, but remained morally so obscure. The precautions taken by the two accomplices appeared so perfect, that it was doubtful whether the truth could be learned concerning them. One hope remained—the wounded man, with his arm cut off, might be found, half-dead with exhaustion on the road. By questioning the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, the man might be discovered; doubtless the police were already on the track, and the most adroit detectives as well.
“You know, Vallenot, Trémont was my senior. He retired before the age limit, the more easily to devote his time to scientific research; as he had serious money difficulties.”
“And now,” said Colonel Vallenot, “we have reached the point I wished to come to, when I said, at the beginning of my report, that, after examining the material facts, we should deal with the moral considerations of this affair. The examination of facts is over. There has been the death of a man, probably an attempt at robbery, and finally, the complete destruction of an inhabited house. But under what conditions have all these criminal acts been accomplished?”
“I understand what you mean. You see in this affair something other than a criminal attempt. You suspect a plot of a special order, something very delicate, fastidious, dangerous even.”
“Yes, General, because in this case, we have not our hands quite free in the search of the causes, hindered as we are by diplomacy, by politics, and often even by such unexpected complicities that we are first obliged to beat about the bush, then to withdraw, and finally, give up all idea of proceeding with rigour. Shall I enumerate the affairs in which we have come to no certain issue for several years?”
“It is unnecessary, I am sufficiently well informed on the situation, and have a tolerably good idea of what you possess in the archives. How long have you been in the Ministry, Vallenot?”
“Ten years, occupying different positions, with intervals of service in the regiments. We have never ceased being exploited by other nations, with a skill, an audacity, and a perseverance, against which all our efforts have been in vain. The most important captures have always been effected by women. Accordingly, when the servant of General de Trémont spoke of this nocturnal lady-visitor, my suspicions were immediately aroused.”
“Explain yourself.”
“It is not the first time, General, that we have had to deal with this mysterious woman, who comes and passes away, leaving ruin and bloodshed in her train. Her manner of procedure is always the same: she fixes her mind on some one whom she knows to be in a position to give up to her some important secret or other, then she seduces him, until, in the end, he betrays it. Then, she casts him off, like useless débris. A creature to be dreaded, if I may judge by the results she has already obtained, and a powerful corruptress. No heart is proof against her alluring temptations. She artfully graduates the doses of her love-philtre; and the noblest minds, the most upright consciences, and the staunchest courage bend and capitulate at a sign from her. Do you remember the ill-fated Commandant Cominges, who blew out his brains, without anything being publicly known as to the reason? The woman had come along. Cominges had become her slave. A part of our mobilization had become known. Before killing himself, Cominges swore that the documents had been stolen from his dwelling, whilst he was absent with this woman. He had made the grave mistake of taking them from the office to work on them, and the still graver one of saying that they were in his possession. But the poor fellow had confidence in her. He was a man of honour, a gallant soldier. A pistol-shot settled the whole matter.”
“What was the woman’s name?”
“Madame Ferranti. She took most careful precautions in seeing Cominges, presumably on account of her family. One of our agents, however, was acquainted with her. Within six months he died by an accident. He was, one evening, travelling by rail from Auteuil. They found him dead under a tunnel. Doubtless he had leaned out too far from the carriage.”
“The deuce!”
“The following year the young Captain Fontenailles, a fine young fellow we were all fond of, was induced by a woman, whom his comrades called the ‘Ténébreuse,’ because no one of them ever saw her, to disclose certain confidences. Understanding the gravity of his conduct, he went to his superior and confessed everything. The latter succeeded in repairing the damage done by changing the key to the secret writings. Captain Fontenailles left for Tonkin, where he fell, fighting bravely, at the attack of Bae-Ninh. His fault was atoned for.”
“And the woman is always the same?”
“According to all these gentlemen. The Ferranti of Cominges was the Ténébreuse of Fontenailles. Then there was the Madame Gibson of the Aerostat affair, without speaking of several other cases only partially revealed. Always the same Ténébreuse, with the same method of procedure, corruption. In her train, ruin, tears, and blood.”
“How long has she been engaged in this work of intrigue?”
“Ten years, certainly, General; and under all these impersonations we have not been able to lay our hands on her. She is only known by her professional names.”
“What a deep-dyed scoundrel! We must try to cut short her career.”
“Nothing more difficult. Once the coup accomplished, she disappears, as does an eel, gliding about in the mud, in which it remains hidden until the water again becomes clear. She arranges in such a way as to cut off all communications behind her; that is her method. For instance, in this new affair, we shall have to struggle in the dark. Search will be made for some time, but no clue will be found. The accomplices, as well as the principal instigator of the crime, will now have got to earth. By degrees the search will calm down, and something else will be on the tapis. At any rate, it is in this way that the majority of these cases end, unless—”
“Unless? Ah! You still hope something may happen?”
“Unless this time the wounded accomplice affords us a trace. Let us merely hold one end of the conducting wire, and I promise you, General, we will arrive at some result or other, if only to avenge our poor comrades.”
“And to prevent the repetition of similar accidents. For, after all, Vallenot, you will agree with me that it is rather too much for foreign Powers to become acquainted with our most secret affairs, as though they were matter of discussion on the public thoroughfares.”
“We are as well acquainted with foreign affairs, General, as they are with ours,” said the Colonel with less sullen mien. “To sum up, there are always two at the game; it has ever been so. Ay, the very time, in 1812, when Russia was procuring information as to the efficiency of the Emperor’s troops, Caulaincourt sent to Napoleon the engraved copper plates of the map of Russia. I quote this fact of days gone by without alluding to contemporary events. But, taking everything into consideration, General, our secrets are scarcely secrets at all. If, in war, reliance were placed on nothing beyond mysterious preparations—”
“Then we should have to start by abolishing the press,” muttered the Minister.
“And that is impossible!” said Vallenot. “Still, in this special case before us, we must undertake the task of clearing the moral atmosphere, and employ every means possible, if we would succeed.”
“That concerns the legal authorities now.”
“Officially, General; but we also, on our side, may investigate, in a quiet way, and I have no doubt—”
“The lesson to be learned is that our officers are becoming too gallant!”
“If you know any means, General,” said Vallenot, with a laugh, “of suppressing that, please tell me.”
“To think of this old General! Sixty years old, too! True, he did not appear more than fifty! In what position does he leave his daughter?”
“General de Trémont was a widower?”
“Yes, that is his excuse! But he has a daughter, still at school. She is eighteen years old, and without dowry. Luckily, Baradier is there.”
“You mean Baradier and Graff, the bankers?”
“Certainly. Baradier fought in the war of 1870; he is a true patriot, and his son, Marcel, a fine young fellow, just out of the Central School, has been working with General de Trémont. Marcel Baradier was principally occupied in investigating vegetable dyes, connected with the woollen weaving manufactures his father owns in the Aube. But the General opened his laboratory to him, and probably informed him of his own investigations. We may learn a great deal from this young man, I think.”
“Is the Baradier family in good circumstances?”
“Very wealthy; their fortune daily increases from industrial and from banking operations. It is Graff, Baradier’s step-brother, who deals more specially with finance, whilst Baradier manages the works. Both, however, are busily employed all day long, and the millions roll in, notwithstanding the rivalry of the firm of Lichtenbach, who is a mortal enemy of Baradier and Graff.”
“Business rivalry?”
“More than that. Personal hatred, dating from long back, and madly fomented. They say that Lichtenbach formerly wished to marry Mademoiselle Graff, and that he has never been able to swallow the insult Graff inflicted on him by refusing the proposal and bestowing his sister’s hand on his friend Baradier. Between these two families there is a whole series of differences and grievances, which makes them implacable enemies.”
“Still, General, you see no relation between this hostility and the death of General de Trémont?”
“Not at all. Lichtenbach is a fervent Catholic, in close touch with the Orleanist party, and, in my opinion, incapable of a dishonourable action. Besides, what could it matter to him whether Trémont lived or died?”
“Might not the General’s investigations have a serious interest for the Lichtenbach firm?”
“Doubtless! But we are well aware that Trémont has been specially occupied within the last few weeks with the manufacture of a war powder, the formidable effects of which we have seen in the Vanves explosion. True, the powder in question might become a source of great profit by its possible application to industry in modified proportions. In mines, for instance, or the blasting of quarries, it would certainly have replaced dynamite. There would have been a fortune in such an application of the powder, and this Trémont was well aware of. Now it is all vanished in smoke, and the General has taken his secret with him.”
“Unless he had communicated it to the son of M. Baradier.”
“Ah! that would indeed be strange!”
Three o’clock struck; the Minister arose, and took up his hat, gloves, and stick.
“You are going, General?”
“Yes, I am going to speak to Baradier on the whole matter. Madame Baradier was particularly interested in Mademoiselle de Trémont. I intend to pay a visit of condolence, in person, to this young lady. Her father and myself were great friends, we made campaigns in Mexico and on the Loire together, whilst, on the retreat from Mans, Trémont saved all our lives, by an admirable battery arrangement in the rear of the army, which cut short the pursuit of the Prussians. A fine soldier! One who deserved to fall on the field of battle! But Fate decides such things. Everybody does not die the death he wishes! Well, I will see you to-morrow, Vallenot. And if you hear of anything fresh, ring me up on the telephone.”
The Colonel accompanied his principal right to the large staircase, saluted, and returned to the office.
CHAPTER II
In an old hotel situated at the end of a large courtyard, in the Rue de Provènce, has been established, for more than fifty years, the banking firm of Baradier and Graff. Following on the war of 1870, it was usual in business to designate this establishment under the company name of Alsace-Lorraine. They are ardent patriots, and never since the annexation have they returned to Metz. Still, they have never been willing to sell any of their land property in the lost provinces. They have kept a foot on the soil torn from France, as though they had no doubt they would return to it some day, like masters after a long and sorrowful absence. Baradier is a man of fifty-five years of age, stout and short, with ruddy, pleasant face lit up by light blue eyes. Graff is tall and thin, dark-complexioned, and of stern forbidding mien and glabrous countenance, the complete opposite of his ally, both physically and morally. For Baradier, with his engaging exterior, is an influential and practical man; whilst Graff, with his cold and reserved aspect, possesses the fancy and sensitiveness of a poet.
In other respects, admirably equipped, the imagination of the one moderated by the prudence of the other, and all rough points in the determination of the former being mitigated by the benevolent gentleness of the latter. In financial circles this fortunate want of similarity of disposition was well known. Never did a customer, after failing with Baradier, leave the house without calling at Graff’s office to appeal for his intervention, and obtaining a “just leave the matter to me, I will arrange it all” preliminary balm on the sore of displeasure, followed, in the majority of instances, by an arrangement profitable to both parties. For, in the long run, the two partners had reached such a point that they profited by the differences in their dispositions, and Baradier pretended to be altogether irreconcilable, well knowing that Graff would come in afterwards, and have the pleasure of arranging everything to suit all concerned.
Baradier, hearty and happy-looking, had two children, a son aged twenty-six and a daughter of eighteen, both admirably brought up by their mother. Graff, solemn and sentimental, had remained a bachelor. As Marcel Baradier said jokingly, he would be the best uncle in France in point of inheritance. In fact, Madame Baradier’s brother loves the two children as though they were his own, and every time Marcel commits some grave act of folly he always appeals to Uncle Graff to settle things, as his father is rather strict with him. Father and son, unfortunately, have often been on anything but good terms, for Marcel, reared in the lap of luxury, and early discovering the mercantile value of his name, has not always given his family all the satisfaction that might have been desired. “Nothing important,” said Uncle Graff; “merely money difficulties!”
It was so that the taciturn and modest banker, who would not have spent a farthing outside of his daily expenses on anything else than charity, called the debts which young Marcel periodically gave him the opportunity of paying. When his nephew comes for him at night, after dinner, before leaving for the club, where he goes to indulge in a game of cards, Uncle Graff knows at once his errand. He assumes his most gloomy aspect, sinks into his armchair, casts a veiled glance at his rather embarrassed heir, and, in sepulchral tones, demands—
“Well, what is it this time?”
Then, as Marcel develops his usual request—terribly bad luck at the races, or at baccarat, or some love difficulty—Graff looks at his sister’s son, and, without listening to a word, says to himself, What a handsome fellow! How could one with such a figure help getting into a scrape? He is popular everywhere by reason of his graciousness and amiability. He is only twenty-six, and is it not quite natural that he should enjoy himself while he is young? Why do Baradier and Graff engage in banking operations all day long, anxious as to what is happening at the London and Berlin Exchanges, as well as keeping an eye on the Bourse of Paris, if not for this charming and agreeable young fellow to enjoy himself whilst they are working? Well! Marcel, take your pleasure, and take my share as well, for am I not your steward? Off to the races in a fine turn-out, drawn by prancing horses, and take your place in the most exclusive society; your means, those of the firm of Baradier, will permit of all this. All the same, do not squander too much in gambling; do not wager in too extravagant a fashion, for this is an evil passion, and very harmful to those who recklessly give themselves up to it. In all things else do as you wish, and then come back and give your old uncle the pleasure of asking a service of him.
All these reflections, however, crowding into his mind, and giving him the most perfect satisfaction, Uncle Graff kept wisely to himself. Aloud, he said, in that Lorraine accent he had never succeeded in abandoning—
“How stupid you are, Marcel, to be swindled by a crowd of adventurers! A member of the firm of Baradier and Graff ought not to behave in this way. If your father knew he would be furious. What reply can I give him when he accuses me of encouraging your bad conduct? He is quite right, and I am wrong to give you money when you make such bad use of it. I shall finish by cutting off your allowance. Do you know how much you have received from me since the beginning of the year?”
And as the old bachelor pretended to turn the leaves of his cash-book, Marcel, terrified, exclaimed—
“Oh, Uncle Graff, it shall be the last time!”
“It is always the last time!” replied the old uncle. “Well, tell me all about it.”
And Marcel would enflame the old bachelor’s tender soul with his enthusiasm, and end by obtaining all he wanted.
Still, Uncle Graff had some excuse. Marcel did not neglect his work. Admirably endowed by nature, the young man, as though they were a mere pastime, had advanced considerably in his studies. He had opposed the General de Trémont, who wished him to enter the Polytechnic School, and afterwards the Artillery. He had preferred the Central and the General’s chemical laboratory. Under the supervision of his father’s friend, he had made interesting researches into mineral colouring matters, and given Baradier the pleasure of saying: “We employ in our works dyeing processes, invented by my son, and which are absolutely unique.”
It was one of Uncle Graff’s grand arguments when defending Marcel—
“You know very well that your son is a remarkable man, and that our manufactures owe much to him!” Whereupon Baradier would reply, furiously—
“Ah! If only he would be serious! He has every quality necessary, but he will not make use of his gifts. Our fine young fellow will work a month a year, and spend the other eleven in reckless folly!”
For all that, for some time past, Marcel seemed to have sobered down, or, rather, his mind was occupied in investigations of more than usual interest. He no longer appeared at the club, scarcely ever went out at nights, and, but for the fact that he still went to the races on Sundays, one might have imagined he had entirely changed his life. Both Baradier and Graff were equally surprised at this transformation; the father was pleased, the uncle uneasy at it. They had spoken on the matter to the General, who had said to them—
“He is an extraordinary young man; you will continually have surprises with him, but do not be anxious, he will turn out a fine man in the end. He has great gifts. Just now he is trying to discover some process of colour photography. Surprising results have already been obtained. Let him alone, do not hinder him, and you will see!”
Graff’s triumph was a brilliant, Baradier’s a quiet one. Marcel had not even noticed the effect caused on his family. He had almost completely quitted Paris. For three weeks he had been living at Troyes, at the Ars manufactory, shut up in his laboratory, only returning to embrace his mother, and give the General an account of the progress of his work. The old chemist and the young inventor then spent delightful days in verifying prescriptions and practising experiments. The one communicated his calculations in the dosings of powders, the other explained his superpositions of plates to obtain the perfect stereotypes he sought. Then they would lunch together, and the General, as warmhearted as the young man, would relate his former escapades, and envy the youth, whilst admiring the strength and intelligence of this fine young fellow before him, who combined so perfectly the capacity for study and pleasure at the same time.
In spite of the storms caused by Marcel’s caprices, life for Baradier and Graff would have flown along pleasantly enough had not destiny brought them in touch with Lichtenbach. Moses, the chief of the firm, son of a Jew marine-store dealer of Passy-sur-Moselle, had in past times been at school with Graff at Metz. Old Graff, who was a brewer, had dealings with Lichtenbach, “the rabbit-skin dealer,” as he called him jokingly, and sold him all his broken glasses and used-up barrels. He imagined him to be poor, and liked to give him the chance of earning a little money. Moses Lichtenbach might have been seen in the streets of Metz driving an old grey horse, harnessed to a waggon, in which the marine-store dealer piled up all kinds of goods and rubbish. He was a kind of wholesale rag-picker, who helped house-wives to get rid of utensils which were no longer of any use, and were becoming an encumbrance. He bought them cheap, but not for nothing. Sometimes, almost ashamed of loading him with corroded stove-pipes, broken shovels, worn-out carpets, and even old straw, or shavings, they would say to him, “Take it, Moses, for the trouble of carting it away.” He would reply, “No! no! Everything has some value or other; I pay little, but Ipay.”
