"Well?"
"By the help of this st.u.r.dy republican, who has friends enough in the Comite, I have obtained the means necessary for flight; I have purchased them. For a consideration I can procure thy pa.s.sport also."
"Thy riches, then, are not in a.s.signats?"
"No; I have gold enough for us all."
And here Glyndon, beckoning Nicot into the next room, first briefly and rapidly detailed to him the plan proposed, and the disguises to be a.s.sumed conformably to the pa.s.sports, and then added, "In return for the service I render thee, grant me one favour, which I think is in thy power. Thou rememberest Viola Pisani?"
"Ah,--remember, yes!--and the lover with whom she fled."
"And FROM whom she is a fugitive now."
"Indeed--what!--I understand. Sacre bleu! but you are a lucky fellow, cher confrere."
"Silence, man! with thy eternal prate of brotherhood and virtue, thou seemest never to believe in one kindly action, or one virtuous thought!"
Nicot bit his lip, and replied sullenly, "Experience is a great undeceiver. Humph! What service can I do thee with regard to the Italian?"
"I have been accessory to her arrival in this city of snares and pitfalls. I cannot leave her alone amidst dangers from which neither innocence nor obscurity is a safeguard. In your blessed Republic, a good and unsuspected citizen, who casts a desire on any woman, maid or wife, has but to say, "Be mine, or I denounce you!" In a word, Viola must share our flight."
"What so easy? I see your pa.s.sports provide for her."
"What so easy? What so difficult? This Fillide--would that I had never seen her!--would that I had never enslaved my soul to my senses! The love of an uneducated, violent, unprincipled woman, opens with a heaven, to merge in a h.e.l.l! She is jealous as all the Furies; she will not hear of a female companion; and when once she sees the beauty of Viola!--I tremble to think of it. She is capable of any excess in the storm of her pa.s.sions."
"Aha, I know what such women are! My wife, Beatrice Sacchini, whom I took from Naples, when I failed with this very Viola, divorced me when my money failed, and, as the mistress of a judge, pa.s.ses me in her carriage while I crawl through the streets. Plague on her!--but patience, patience! such is the lot of virtue. Would I were Robespierre for a day!"
"Cease these tirades!" exclaimed Glyndon, impatiently; "and to the point. What would you advise?"
"Leave your Fillide behind."
"Leave her to her own ignorance; leave her unprotected even by the mind; leave her in the Saturnalia of Rape and Murder? No! I have sinned against her once. But come what may, I will not so basely desert one who, with all her errors, trusted her fate to my love."
"You deserted her at Ma.r.s.eilles."
"True; but I left her in safety, and I did not then believe her love to be so deep and faithful. I left her gold, and I imagined she would be easily consoled; but since THEN WE HAVE KNOWN DANGER TOGETHER! And now to leave her alone to that danger which she would never have incurred but for devotion to me!--no, that is impossible. A project occurs to me. Canst thou not say that thou hast a sister, a relative, or a benefactress, whom thou wouldst save? Can we not--till we have left France--make Fillide believe that Viola is one in whom THOU only art interested; and whom, for thy sake only, I permit to share in our escape?"
"Ha, well thought of!--certainly!"
"I will then appear to yield to Fillide"s wishes, and resign the project, which she so resents, of saving the innocent object of her frantic jealousy. You, meanwhile, shall yourself entreat Fillide to intercede with me to extend the means of escape to--"
"To a lady (she knows I have no sister) who has aided me in my distress.
Yes, I will manage all, never fear. One word more,--what has become of that Zanoni?"
"Talk not of him,--I know not."
"Does he love this girl still?"
"It would seem so. She is his wife, the mother of his infant, who is with her."
"Wife!--mother! He loves her. Aha! And why--"
"No questions now. I will go and prepare Viola for the flight; you, meanwhile, return to Fillide."
"But the address of the Neapolitan? It is necessary I should know, lest Fillide inquire."
"Rue M-- T--, No. 27. Adieu."
Glyndon seized his hat and hastened from the house.
Nicot, left alone, seemed for a few moments buried in thought. "Oho," he muttered to himself, "can I not turn all this to my account? Can I not avenge myself on thee, Zanoni, as I have so often sworn,--through thy wife and child? Can I not possess myself of thy gold, thy pa.s.sports, and thy Fillide, hot Englishman, who wouldst humble me with thy loathed benefits, and who hast chucked me thine alms as to a beggar? And Fillide, I love her: and thy gold, I love THAT more! Puppets, I move your strings!"
He pa.s.sed slowly into the chamber where Fillide yet sat, with gloomy thought on her brow and tears standing in her dark eyes. She looked up eagerly as the door opened, and turned from the rugged face of Nicot with an impatient movement of disappointment.
"Glyndon," said the painter, drawing a chair to Fillide"s, "has left me to enliven your solitude, fair Italian. He is not jealous of the ugly Nicot!--ha, ha!--yet Nicot loved thee well once, when his fortunes were more fair. But enough of such past follies."
"Your friend, then, has left the house. Whither? Ah, you look away; you falter,--you cannot meet my eyes! Speak! I implore, I command thee, speak!"
"Enfant! And what dost thou fear?"
"FEAR!--yes, alas, I fear!" said the Italian; and her whole frame seemed to shrink into itself as she fell once more back into her seat.
Then, after a pause, she tossed the long hair from her eyes, and, starting up abruptly, paced the room with disordered strides. At length she stopped opposite to Nicot, laid her hand on his arm, drew him towards an escritoire, which she unlocked, and, opening a well, pointed to the gold that lay within, and said, "Thou art poor,--thou lovest money; take what thou wilt, but undeceive me. Who is this woman whom thy friend visits,--and does he love her?"
Nicot"s eyes sparkled, and his hands opened and clenched, and clenched and opened, as he gazed upon the coins. But reluctantly resisting the impulse, he said, with an affected bitterness, "Thinkest thou to bribe me?--if so, it cannot be with gold. But what if he does love a rival; what if he betrays thee; what if, wearied by thy jealousies, he designs in his flight to leave thee behind,--would such knowledge make thee happier?"
"Yes!" exclaimed the Italian, fiercely; "yes, for it would be happiness to hate and to be avenged! Oh, thou knowest not how sweet is hatred to those who have really loved!"
"But wilt thou swear, if I reveal to thee the secret, that thou wilt not betray me,--that thou wilt not fall, as women do, into weak tears and fond reproaches, when thy betrayer returns?"
"Tears, reproaches! Revenge hides itself in smiles!"
"Thou art a brave creature!" said Nicot, almost admiringly. "One condition more: thy lover designs to fly with his new love, to leave thee to thy fate; if I prove this to thee, and if I give thee revenge against thy rival, wilt thou fly with me? I love thee!--I will wed thee!"
Fillide"s eyes flashed fire; she looked at him with unutterable disdain, and was silent.
Nicot felt he had gone too far; and with that knowledge of the evil part of our nature which his own heart and a.s.sociation with crime had taught him, he resolved to trust the rest to the pa.s.sions of the Italian, when raised to the height to which he was prepared to lead them.
"Pardon me," he said; "my love made me too presumptuous; and yet it is only that love,--my sympathy for thee, beautiful and betrayed, that can induce me to wrong, with my revelations, one whom I have regarded as a brother. I can depend upon thine oath to conceal all from Glyndon?"
"On my oath and my wrongs and my mountain blood!"
"Enough! get thy hat and mantle, and follow me."
As Fillide left the room, Nicot"s eyes again rested on the gold; it was much,--much more than he had dared to hope for; and as he peered into the well and opened the drawers, he perceived a packet of letters in the well-known hand of Camille Desmoulins. He seized--he opened the packet; his looks brightened as he glanced over a few sentences. "This would give fifty Glyndons to the guillotine!" he muttered, and thrust the packet into his bosom.
O artist!--O haunted one!--O erring genius!--behold the two worst foes,--the False Ideal that knows no G.o.d, and the False Love that burns from the corruption of the senses, and takes no l.u.s.tre from the soul!