"It is I she will marry--she will be the Countess Larinski."Suddenly the door opened again, and Mlle.Antoinette Moriaz appeared, robed in white like a bride, a crown on her head, a bouquet in her hand.She bent her steps towards Samuel, but the apparition arrested her progress, saying:
"It is not he whom you love; it is my history.Do you not see that this is a false Pole? His father was a German Jew, who kept a tavern.
Here it was that this hero grew up.I will relate to you how."Here Samuel put his hand over his mouth, and stammered: "Oh, for mercy's sake, say nothing!"Heeding him not, the apparition continued: "Yes, Samuel Brohl is a hero.For five years he was the pledged lover of an old woman, and he fulfilled all the duties of his post.This cherished hero well earned his money.Are you not eager to be called Mme.Brohl?"With these words, he opened wide his arms to Mlle.Moriaz, who fixed upon him a gaze at the same time astonishing and tender, and straining her to his bosom, kissed her hair and her crown.
Then Samuel Brohl recovered strength, life, movement; clinching his hands, he sprang forward to dispute with Abel Larinski his prey.
Suddenly, with a shiver of terror and dismay, he paused; he had heard proceeding from a distant corner of the chamber a shrill, malignant laugh.He turned, and distinctly perceived his father--a greasy cap on his head, wrapped in a forlorn, threadbare, dirty caftan.This was unquestionably Jeremiah Brohl, and this night it seemed truly that the whole world had arisen from the dead.The little old man continued to laugh jeeringly; then in a sharp, peevish voice, he cried:
"/Schandbube! vermaledeiter Schlingel! ich will dich zu Brei schlagen!/" which signifies: "Scoundrel! accursed blackguard! I will beat you to a jelly!" It was a mode of address that Samuel had heard often in his infancy; but familiar though he might be with paternal amenities, when he saw his father uplift a withered, claw-like hand, a cry escaped his lips; he started back to evade the blow, entangled his feet in the legs of a chair, stumbled, and flung himself violently against a table.
He opened his eyes and saw no one.He ran to the window and threw open the shutter; the growing dawn illumined the chamber with its grayish light.Thank God! there was no one there.The vision had been so real that it was some time before Samuel Brohl could fully regain his senses, and persuade himself that his nightmare was forever dissipated, that phantoms were phantoms, that cemeteries do not surrender their prey.When he had once acquired this rejoicing conviction, he spoke to the dead man who had appeared to him, and whose provoking visit had indiscreetly troubled his sleep, and with considerable hauteur he said, in a tone of superb defiance: "We must be resigned, my poor Abel; we shall see each other again only in the valley of Jehosaphat; I have seen twenty shovelfuls of earth cast upon you--you are dead; I live, and she is mine!"Thereupon he hastened to settle his account, and to quit the Coeur-Volant, within whose walls he promised himself never again to set foot.
At the very same moment, M.Moriaz, who had risen early, was engaged in writing the following letter:
