The castle clock had struck eight, when Gilbert sprang from his bed.Shall I confess that in dressing himself, when he came to tie his cravat, he hesitated for a moment? However, after reflection, he adjusted the knot as before, and would you believe it, he tied this famous, this regular knot without concentrating any attention upon it? His toilet finished, he went to the window.A sudden change had taken place in the weather; a cold, drizzly rain was falling noiselessly; very little wind; the horizon was enveloped in a thick fog; a long train of low clouds, looking like gigantic fish, floated slowly through the valley of the Rhine; the sky of a uniform gray, seemed to distill weariness and sadness; land and water were the color of mud.Gilbert cast his eyes upon his dear precipice: it was but a pit of frightful ugliness.He sank into an armchair.His thoughts harmonized with the weather; they formed a dismal landscape, over which a long procession of gloomy fancies and sinister apprehensions swept silently, like the trail of low clouds which wandered along the borders of the Rhine.
"No, a thousand times no!" mused he, "I can't stay in this place any longer; I shall lose my strength here, and my spirit and my health, too.To be exposed to the blind hatred of an unhappy child whose sorrows drive him to insanity; to be the table companion of a priest without dignity or moral elevation, who silently swallows the greatest outrages; to become the intimate, the complaisant friend of a great lord, whose past is suspicious, of an unnatural father who hates his son, of a man who at times transforms himself into a specter, and who, stung by remorse, or thirsting for revenge, fills the corridors of his castle with savage howlings--such a position is intolerable, and I must leave here at any cost!
This castle is an unhealthy place; the walls are odious to me! Iwill not wait to penetrate into their secrets any further."And Gilbert ransacked his brain for a pretext to quit Geierfels immediately.While engaged in this research, some one knocked at the door: it was Fritz, with his breakfast.
This morning he had the self-satisfied air of a fool who has worked out a folly by the sweat of his brow, and reached the fortunate moment when he can bring his invention to light.He entered without salutation, placed the tray which he carried upon the table; then, turning to Gilbert, who was seated, said to him, winking his eye:
"Good-morning, comrade! Comrade, good-morning!""What do you say?" said Gilbert, astonished, and looking at him steadily.
"I say: Good-morning, comrade!" replied he, smiling agreeably.
"And to whom are you speaking, if you please?""I am speaking to you, yourself, my comrade, and I say to you, good-morning, comrade! good-morning."Gilbert looked at him attentively, trying to find some explanation of this strange prank, and this excessive and astounding insolence.
"And will you tell me," he continued, after a few moments' silence, "will you be good enough to tell me, who gave you permission to call me comrade?""It was...it was..." answered Fritz, hemming and hawing.
And he reflected a moment, as though trying to remember his lesson, that he might not stumble in its recital."Ah!" resumed he, "it was simply his Excellency the Count, and I cannot conceive what you see astonishing in it.""Have you ever heard the Count," demanded Gilbert, who felt the blood boiling in his veins, "call me your comrade?""Ah! certainly!" he answered with a long burst of laughter."Every day, when I come from him, M.le Comte says to me: 'Well! how is your comrade Gilbert?' And isn't it very natural? Don't we eat at the same rack? Are we not, both of us, in the service of the same master? And don't you see...."He was not able to say more, for Gilbert bounded from his chair, and crying:
"Go and tell your master that he is not my master!" He seized the valet de chambre by the collar.He was at least a head shorter than his adversary, but his grasp was like iron; and in spite of appearances, great Fritz proved but a weak and nerveless body, and greatly surprised at this unexpected attack, he could only open his large mouth and utter some inarticulate sounds.Gilbert had already dragged him to the top of the staircase.Then Fritz, recovering from his first flurry, tried to struggle, but he lost his footing, stumbled, and fell headlong down the staircase to the bottom.Gilbert came near following him in his descent, but fortunately saved himself by clinging to the balustrade.As he saw him rolling, he feared that he had been too violent, but felt reassured, when he saw him scramble up, feel himself, rub his back, turn to shake his fist and limp away.
He returned to his chamber and breakfasted peaceably.
"Quite an opportune adventure," thought he."Now, I shall be inflexible, unyielding, and if my trunks are not packed before night, I'm an idiot."Gathering up under his arm a bundle of papers which were needed for the day's work, he left the room, his head erect and his spirits animated; but he had hardly descended the first flight of steps before his exaltation gave way to very different feelings.He could not look without shuddering at the place where he had stood like one petrified, listening to the horrible groans of the somnambulist.He stopped, and, looking at the packet which he held under his arm, thought to himself that it was with a specter he was about to discuss Byzantine history.Then resuming his walk, he arrived at M.Leminof's study, where he almost expected to see the formidable apparition of last night appear before his eyes, and hear a sepuchral voice crying out to him: "Those eyes behind the door were yours!" He remained motionless a few seconds, his hand upon his heart.At last he knocked.A voice cried: "Come in.
He opened the door and entered.Heavens! how far was the reality from his fancy.
