"I will go for one, and an apothecary too," said Menard, who was anxious for an excuse to go out into the open air.
"No, no, my dear Monsieur Menard," Dubourg interposed, in a faint voice; "I don"t like doctors; we have plenty of time. Hippocrates himself said: _Vita brevis, ars longa, experientia fallax_."
"Very true, monsieur le baron; but the same Hippocrates says in another place----"
"Oh! for heaven"s sake, drop Hippocrates!" cried Frederic, fancying that he could read in Dubourg"s eyes that he was not so ill as he chose to appear. "As you won"t have a doctor, do at least tell us the cause of your illness, this terrible adventure----"
"Yes," said Menard, taking pains to seat himself as far as possible from the bed, where he could get the air from the hall. "Let us know if it might become contagious."
Dubourg sat up in bed; he raised his eyes heaven-ward, uttered two or three plaintive groans, pulled his nightcap still further over his eyes, and began his tale in a most heartrending tone.
"The excellent Menard has undoubtedly told you that I received yesterday an invitation to one of the first houses in the city. At all events, that is what our landlady a.s.sured me--otherwise----"
"Yes, he told me that--what next? explain yourself!" said Frederic, impatient at Dubourg"s roundabout way of reaching the facts.
"Gently! I am in no condition to go so fast, my dear Frederic.--Well, I started out in a cab last night, after making a careful toilet."
"Yes; I noticed that you took one of my coats."
"You know perfectly well that I lost my wardrobe with my berlin."
"Well?"
"By some fatality, it happened that I put the purse containing the whole of our fortune in the pocket of your coat."
"Ah! this begins to look bad," whispered Frederic, while Menard, even more disturbed than he, began to draw his chair nearer.
"Well? go on."
"Well, monsieur le baron?"
"Well, my dear and n.o.ble friends, on leaving that brilliant society, where, to tell the truth, I stayed rather late, I found no carriage at the door. I was alone, in a street that I did not know. Suddenly four cutthroats leaped upon me. Alas! I had no weapons, but I defended myself like a lion. But all in vain! They beat me and threw me down, and the worst of it is that they robbed me of all the money I had about me."
"Great G.o.d! and you had our funds?" cried Menard.
"I did."
"And your own fifteen thousand francs?"
"Everything--every sou, I tell you. There is nothing left, except what you two have about you. They took everything, even my superb hat, with its steel buckle worth sixty francs."
"What a catastrophe! what are we to do?" exclaimed Menard, who was terribly distressed to think that, after living like lords, they were reduced to living by their wits.
Frederic said nothing; he was suspicious of Dubourg"s tale; and that worthy, perceiving his incredulity, tried to overcome it by crying every minute:
"What a fatality! to be attacked and robbed! Such things happen to n.o.body but me!"
"Indeed, monsieur le baron, you do seem to be unlucky," said Menard, remembering the theft of the berlin.
"With whom did you pa.s.s the evening?" inquired Frederic.
"With Madame la Marquise de Versac."
"With Madame de Versac! That"s very extraordinary, for I saw her yesterday at her country house."
"You saw her! What do you mean? Do you know her?" cried Dubourg, in a voice that did not at all resemble an invalid"s.
"Madame de Versac came to my father"s house several times, when she was in Paris last year. In the summer, she lives at her country house. I saw her there yesterday, I tell you, and she reproved me gently for not coming there to stay with her; she certainly did not come back to the city."
"Great G.o.d! what do I hear? How old is this marchioness?"
"Not over twenty-eight; her town house is on Place Bellecour."
"Ten thousand cigars! that was a contraband marchioness! What an infernal fool, not to have discovered it!"
Dubourg jumped up and down in his bed, rolled himself up in the bedclothes, s.n.a.t.c.hed off his nightcap and threw it on the floor, while Menard cried:
"Monsieur le baron is mad; I am going to fetch an apothecary!"
The tutor left the room, and Frederic was not sorry, for it gave him an opportunity to have an explanation with Dubourg; but for several minutes he absolutely refused to keep still; he was in a frenzy at the recollection of the soi-disant counts and chevaliers. He dressed in hot haste, swearing that he would find his baron with the watch-charms, his threadbare chevalier, and his blackleg with lace cuffs; that he would break the baroness"s remaining teeth, beat the viscountess, and horsewhip madame la marquise.
At last, Frederic succeeded in making himself heard.
"So you gambled last night, you wretch, did you? and that is where our funds have gone?"
"Ah! my friend, beat me, kill me! I know that I am a good-for-naught.
But, really, you would have done the same in my place. When a person a.s.sumes a respectable name---- For my part, I went there in all confidence, hoping to make an advantageous match. I heard people all about me talking of nothing but "my estates, my chateaux, my servants, my millions"--as I would say "my cane" or "my hat." And then, they dazed me with attentions and liqueurs. Still, I ought to have noticed that there was a suspicious look to it all; but what can you expect?
Unluckily, I am not accustomed to good society. I took the pressure of one woman"s foot for patrician manners, and another woman"s blunders in grammar for a German accent. We played cards,--I confess that I love cards,--and they stripped me of everything, even to my hat! But they haven"t seen the end of it!"
"Where are you going?" said Frederic, trying to detain his friend, who had taken his shocking old hat as if to go out.
"Let me go, let me go! I am going to hunt up my blacklegs, and perhaps---- Wait here for me."
Dubourg opened the door just as Menard returned with an apothecary"s clerk, who had a sedative potion in each hand.
Dubourg roughly pushed the tutor aside when he tried to stop him, and descended the stairs four at a time, while the tutor collided with the apothecary, who fell to the floor with his potions.
"We must send somebody after him," said Menard, thinking that Dubourg was in a high fever. Frederic had some difficulty in inducing him to dismiss the apothecary, by a.s.suring him that the baron was very much better.
Dubourg betook himself to the residence of his false marchioness, whose address he had retained. He was obliged to go on foot, and he no longer a.s.sumed the air of a great n.o.ble. The eyegla.s.s would have accorded but ill with the wretched tile, which was not half large enough for him. But at that time he was thinking exclusively of his money, not at all of his costume. When he reached the house he had visited the night before, which he readily recognized from having scrutinized it carefully in the night, he entered the hall, the door of which was open, went upstairs, and looked and listened, but neither saw anybody nor heard a sound. He rang at the door of the apartment from which he had been ejected so roughly, but no one answered the bell. He rang again and again, with increasing violence, until the bell-pull came off in his hand, but the door remained closed.
"Open, you rascals, you blacklegs! or I"ll go for a magistrate," cried Dubourg, putting his mouth to the keyhole. Finally an old woman appeared on the landing above and asked him why he was making such an uproar.
"I want to speak with the people who live here on the first floor," he replied.
"There"s no one living there now, monsieur; it was let furnished to a woman who went away this morning before daybreak."
Dubourg was petrified. He realized that he could not hope to recover his money. He returned slowly and dejectedly to the hotel, and joined Frederic and Menard with an expression of utter dismay.