The Thirteen eBook

The baron turned away, placed himself before the fireplace and seemed thoughtful.  He bent his head; but his eyes were covertly fixed on Madame Jules, who, not remembering the reflections in the mirror, cast two or three glances at him that were full of terror.  Presently she made a sign to her husband and rising took his arm to walk about the salon.  As she passed before Monsieur de Maulincour, who at that moment was speaking to a friend, he said in a loud voice, as if in reply to a remark:  “That woman will certainly not sleep quietly this night.”  Madame Jules stopped, gave him an imposing look which expressed contempt, and continued her way, unaware that another look, if surprised by her husband, might endanger not only her happiness but the lives of two men.  Auguste, frantic with anger, which he tried to smother in the depths of his soul, presently left the house, swearing to penetrate to the heart of the mystery.  Before leaving, he sought Madame Jules, to look at her again; but she had disappeared.

What a drama cast into that young head so eminently romantic, like all who have not known love in the wide extent which they give to it.  He adored Madame Jules under a new aspect; he loved her now with the fury of jealousy and the frenzied anguish of hope.  Unfaithful to her husband, the woman became common.  Auguste could now give himself up to the joys of successful love, and his imagination opened to him a career of pleasures.  Yes, he had lost the angel, but he had found the most delightful of demons.  He went to bed, building castles in the air, excusing Madame Jules by some romantic fiction in which he did not believe.  He resolved to devote himself wholly, from that day forth, to a search for the causes, motives, and keynote of this mystery.  It was a tale to read, or better still, a drama to be played, in which he had a part.

CHAPTER II

FERRAGUS

A fine thing is the task of a spy, when performed for one’s own benefit and in the interests of a passion.  Is it not giving ourselves the pleasure of a thief and a rascal while continuing honest men?  But there is another side to it; we must resign ourselves to boil with anger, to roar with impatience, to freeze our feet in the mud, to be numbed, and roasted, and torn by false hopes.  We must go, on the faith of a mere indication, to a vague object, miss our end, curse our luck, improvise to ourselves elegies, dithyrambics, exclaim idiotically before inoffensive pedestrians who observe us, knock over old apple-women and their baskets, run hither and thither, stand on guard beneath a window, make a thousand suppositions.  But, after all, it is a chase, a hunt; a hunt in Paris, a hunt with all its chances, minus dogs and guns and the tally-ho!  Nothing compares with it but the life of gamblers.  But it needs a heart big with love and vengeance to ambush itself in Paris, like a tiger waiting to spring upon its prey, and to enjoy the chances and contingencies of Paris, by adding one special interest to the many that abound there.  But for this we need a many-sided soul—­for must we not live in a thousand passions, a thousand sentiments?