“After all,” Count d’Avorsy said,
stirring his tea with the slow movements of a prelate,
“what truth was there in anything that was said
at Court, almost without any restraint, and did the
Empress, whose beauty has been ruined by some secret
grief, who will no longer see anyone and who soothes
her continual mental weariness by some journeys without
an object and without a rest, in foggy and melancholy
islands, and did she really forget Caesar’s
wife ought not even to be suspected, did she really
give herself to that strange and attractive corrupter,
Ladislas Ferkoz?”
The bright night seemed to be scattering handfuls
of stars into the placid sea, which was as calm as
a blue pond, slumbering in the depths of a forest.
Among the tall climbing roses, which hung a mantle
of yellow flowers to the fretted baluster of the terrace,
there stood out in the distance the illuminated fronts
of the hotels and villas, and occasionally women’s
laughter was heard above the dull, monotonous sound
of surf and the noise of the fog-horns.
Then Captain Sigmund Oroshaz, whose sad and pensive
face of a soldier who has seen too much slaughter
and too many charnel houses, was marked by a large
scar, raised his head and said in a grave, haughty
voice:
“Nobody has lied in accusing Maria-Gloriosa
of adultery, and nobody has calumniated the Empress
and her minister, whom God has damned in the other
world. Ladislas Ferkoz was his sovereign’s
lover until he died, and made his august master ridiculous
and almost odious, for the man, no matter who he be,
who allows himself to be flouted by a creature who
is unworthy of bearing his name and of sharing his
bread; who puts up with such disgrace, who does not
crush the guilty couple with all the weight of his
power, is not worth pity, nor does he deserve to be
spared the mockery. And if I affirm that so harshly,
my dear Count—although years and years
have passed since the sponge passed over that old story—the
reason is that I saw the last chapter of it, quite
in spite of myself, however, for I was the officer
who was on duty at the palace, and obliged to obey
orders, just as if I had been on the field of battle—and
on that day I was on duty near Maria-Gloriosa.”
Madame de Laumieres, who had begun an animated conversation
on crinolines, admist the fragrant odor of Russian
cigarettes, and who was making fun of the striking
toilets, with which she had amused herself by scanning
through her opera glass a few hours previously at the
races, stopped, for even when she was talking most
volubly she always kept her ears open to hear what
was being said around her, and as her curiosity was
aroused, she interrupted Sigmund Oroshaz.
“Ah! Monsieur,” she said, “you
are not going to leave our curiosity unsatisfied....
A story about the Empress puts all our scandals on
the beach, and all our questions of dress into the
shade, and, I am sure,” she added with a smile
at the corners of her mouth, “that even our
friend, Madame d’Ormonde will leave off flirting
with Monsieur Le Brassard to listen to you.”
