"Splendid!" I shouted. "I know well that you must have used the words 'of no use' in order to crush me. I can see through you. 'Of no use,' did you say? Why, to give pleasure is ALWAYS of use; and, as for barbarous, unlimited power--even if it be only over a fly--why, it is a kind of luxury. Man is a despot by nature, and loves to torture. You, in particular, love to do so."
I remember that at this moment she looked at me in a peculiar way. The fact is that my face must have been expressing all the maze of senseless, gross sensations which were seething within me. To this day I can remember, word for word, the conversation as I have written it down. My eyes were suffused with blood, and the foam had caked itself on my lips. Also, on my honour I swear that, had she bidden me cast myself from the summit of the Shlangenberg, I should have done it. Yes, had she bidden me in jest, or only in contempt and with a spit in my face, I should have cast myself down.
"Oh no! Why so? I believe you," she said, but in such a manner--in the manner of which, at times, she was a mistress--and with such a note of disdain and viperish arrogance in her tone, that God knows I could have killed her.
Yes, at that moment she stood in peril. I had not lied to her about that.
"Surely you are not a coward?" suddenly she asked me.
"I do not know," I replied. "Perhaps I am, but I do not know.
I have long given up thinking about such things."
"If I said to you, 'Kill that man,' would you kill him?"
"Whom?"
"Whomsoever I wish?"
"The Frenchman?"
"Do not ask me questions; return me answers. I repeat, whomsoever I wish? I desire to see if you were speaking seriously just now."
She awaited my reply with such gravity and impatience that I found the situation unpleasant.
"Do YOU, rather, tell me," I said, "what is going on here? Why do you seem half-afraid of me? I can see for myself what is wrong. You are the step-daughter of a ruined and insensate man who is smitten with love for this devil of a Blanche. And there is this Frenchman, too, with his mysterious influence over you.
Yet, you actually ask me such a question! If you do not tell me how things stand, I shall have to put in my oar and do something.
Are you ashamed to be frank with me? Are you shy of me? "
"I am not going to talk to you on that subject. I have asked you a question, and am waiting for an answer."
"Well, then--I will kill whomsoever you wish," I said. "But are you REALLY going to bid me do such deeds?"
"Why should you think that I am going to let you off? I shall bid you do it, or else renounce me. Could you ever do the latter? No, you know that you couldn't. You would first kill whom I had bidden you, and then kill ME for having dared to send you away!"
Something seemed to strike upon my brain as I heard these words.
Of course, at the time I took them half in jest and half as a challenge; yet, she had spoken them with great seriousness. I felt thunderstruck that she should so express herself, that she should assert such a right over me, that she should assume such authority and say outright: "Either you kill whom I bid you, or I will have nothing more to do with you." Indeed, in what she had said there was something so cynical and unveiled as to pass all bounds. For how could she ever regard me as the same after the killing was done? This was more than slavery and abasement; it was sufficient to bring a man back to his right senses. Yet, despite the outrageous improbability of our conversation, my heart shook within me.
Suddenly, she burst out laughing. We were seated on a bench near the spot where the children were playing--just opposite the point in the alley-way before the Casino where the carriages drew up in order to set down their occupants.
"Do you see that fat Baroness?" she cried. "It is the Baroness Burmergelm. She arrived three days ago. Just look at her husband--that tall, wizened Prussian there, with the stick in his hand. Do you remember how he stared at us the other day? Well, go to the Baroness, take off your hat to her, and say something in French."
"Why?"
"Because you have sworn that you would leap from the Shlangenberg for my sake, and that you would kill any one whom I might bid you kill. Well, instead of such murders and tragedies, I wish only for a good laugh. Go without answering me, and let me see the Baron give you a sound thrashing with his stick."
"Then you throw me out a challenge?--you think that I will not do it?"
"Yes, I do challenge you. Go, for such is my will."
"Then I WILL go, however mad be your fancy. Only, look here: shall you not be doing the General a great disservice, as well as, through him, a great disservice to yourself? It is not about myself I am worrying-- it is about you and the General. Why, for a mere fancy, should I go and insult a woman?"
"Ah! Then I can see that you are only a trifler," she said contemptuously. "Your eyes are swimming with blood--but only because you have drunk a little too much at luncheon. Do I not know that what I have asked you to do is foolish and wrong, and that the General will be angry about it? But I want to have a good laugh, all the same. I want that, and nothing else. Why should you insult a woman, indeed? Well, you will be given a sound thrashing for so doing."
I turned away, and went silently to do her bidding. Of course the thing was folly, but I could not get out of it. I remember that, as I approached the Baroness, I felt as excited as a schoolboy. I was in a frenzy, as though I were drunk.
