"Do you hear, idiot? This old knave is right.Accursed be the day when the genius of invention thrilled your sublime brain! A grand discovery you have made, forsooth! What have I gained from it? Grand illusions, grand discomfitures! What hath it availed me that I passed whole nights discussing with you breech-loaders, screw-plates, tumbrels, sockets, bridges, ovoid balls, and spring-locks? What fruits have Igained from these refreshing conversations? You foresaw everything, my great man, except that one little thing which great men so often fail to see, that mysterious something, I know not what, which makes success.When you spoke to me, in your slow, monotonous tones, when you fixed upon me your melancholy gaze, I should have been able to read in your eyes that you were only a fool.The devil take thee and thy gun, thy gun and thee; hollow head, head full of chimeras, true Pole, true Larinski!"To whom was Count Abel speaking? To a phantom? To his double? He alone knew.When he had uttered the last words, he resumed the perusal of his letter, which ended thus:
"Will you permit me to give you a piece of advice, M.le Comte, a good little piece of advice? I have known you for three years, and have taken much interest in your welfare.You invent guns, which, when they are strong, lack lightness.I beg your pardon, but I do not comprehend you, M.le Comte.The name you bear is excellent;the head you carry on your shoulders is superb, and it is the general opinion that you resemble /Faust/; but neither name nor head does you any good.Leave the guns as they are, and bestow your attention upon women; they, and they alone, can draw you out of the deep waters where you are now floundering.There is no time to lose.I beg your pardon, but you must be thirty years old, and perhaps a little more.This /diable/ of a gun has made you lose three valuable years.
"It pains me, M.le Comte, to be compelled to remind you that the little note falls due shortly.I have had the value of the bracelet you left with me as a pledge estimated; it is not worth a thousand florins, as you believed; it is a piece of antiquity that has a value to only those who can indulge in a caprice for fancy articles, and such caprices are rare nowadays, the time for such is past.
"I am, M.le Comte, with much respect, your humble and obedient servant,"MOSES GULDENTHAL."Abel Larinski turned once more in his chair.He crumpled up between his fingers the letter of M.Moses Guldenthal, saying to himself as he did so, that the Guldenthals are often very clear-sighted folks."Ay, to be sure," thought he, "this Hebrew is right, I have lost three valuable years.I have had fever, and my eyes have been clouded; but, Heaven be praised! The charm is broken, the illusion fled, I am cured --saved! Farewell, my chimera, I am no longer thy dupe! Many thanks, my dear friend: I return to you your gun; do with it as it seemeth best to you."His eyes suddenly fell on his own reflection in the mirror above the chimney-piece, and he regarded it fixedly for a few moments.
"The semblance truly of an inventor," he resumed, mournfully smiling.
"This pale, emaciated face; these deep-set eyes, with dark circles about them; these hollow, cadaverous cheeks! The three years have indeed left their traces.Bah! a little rest in the Alpine pastures, and /Faust/ will become rejuvenated."He seized a pen, and wrote the following reply:
"You are truly kind, my dear Guldenthal: you refuse me the miserable florins, but you give me in their stead a little piece of advice that is worth a fortune.Unluckily, I am not capable of following it.Noble souls like ours comprehend each other with half a word, and you are a poet whenever it suits you.When in the course of the day you have transacted a neat little piece of business, after having rubbed your hands until you have almost deprived them of skin, you tune your violin, which you play like an angel, and you draw from it such delightful strains that your ledger and your cash-box fall to weeping with emotion.I, too, am a musician, and my music is the fair sex.But, alas! women never can be for me other than an adorable inutility, a part of the dream of my life.Your dreams yield you a handsome percentage, as I have sorrowfully experienced; my dreams yield me nothing, and therefore it is that they are dear to me.
"I must prohibit--understand me clearly--your disposing of the trinket I left with you; we have the weakness, we Poles, of clinging to our family relics.Set your mind at rest; before the end of the month I shall have returned to Vienna, and will honour the dear little note.One day you will go down on your knees to beg of me to loan you a thousand florins, and I will astonish you with my ingratitude.May the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, have you in his holy keeping, my dear Guldenthal!"As he finished his letter, he heard the sound of harps and violins.
Some itinerant musicians were giving a concert in the hotel-garden, which was lit up as bright as day.Abel opened his window, and leaned on his elbows, looking out.The first object that presented itself to his eyes was Mlle.Moriaz, promenading one of the long garden-walks, leaning on her father's arm.Many eyes were fixed on her--we have already said it was difficult not to gaze upon her--but no one contemplated her with such close attention as Count Larinski.He never once lost sight of her.
"Is she beautiful? Is she even pretty?" he queried within himself."Icannot quite make up my mind, but I am very sure that she is charming.
