This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
GERFAUT
By CHARLES DE BERNARD
BOOK 4.
CHAPTER XX
MARILLAC TELLS A STORY
Guests were seated that evening around the oval table in the dining-roomof the castle of Bergenheim. According to custom, the ladies were notpresent at this repast. This was a custom which had been adopted by theBaroness for the suppers which were given by her husband at the close ofhis hunting parties; she dispensed with appearing at table on those days;perhaps she was too fastidious to preside at these lengthy seances ofwhich the ruses of the hare, the death of the stag, and the feats of thehounds, formed the principal topics of conversation. It is probable thatthis conduct was duly appreciated by those who participated in thoserather boisterous repasts, and that they felt a certain gratitude, inspite of the regrets they manifested on account of Madame's absence.
Among the guests was Marillac, whose sparkling eye, and cheeks even morerosy than usual, made him conspicuous. Seated between a fat notary andanother boon companion, who were almost as drunk as he Marillac emptiedglass after glass, red wine after the white, the white after the red,with noisy laughter, and jests of all kinds by way of accompaniment. Hishead became every moment more and more excited by the libations destinedto refresh his throat, and his neighbors, without his perceiving theconspiracy, thought it would be good fun to put a Parisian dandy underthe table. However, he was not the only one who was gliding over theslippery precipice that leads to the attractive abyss of drunkenness.The majority of the guests shared his imprudent abandon and progressiveexaltation. A bacchic emulation reigned, which threatened to end inscenes bordering upon a debauch.
Among these highly colored cheeks, under which the wine seemed tocirculate with the blood, these eyes shining with a dull, fictitiouslight, all this disorderly pantomime so contrary to the quiet habit ofthe gesticulators, two faces contrasted strangely with the careless mirthof the others. The Baron fulfilled his duties as master of the housewith a sort of nervous excitement which might pass for genuine merrimentin the eyes of those of his guests who were in no condition to study hiscountenance; but a quiet observer would soon have discerned that theseviolent efforts at good-humor and bantering concealed some terriblesuffering. From time to time, in the midst of a sentence or a laugh, hewould suddenly stop, the muscles of his face would twitch as if thespring which set them in motion had broken; his expression became sombreand savage; he sank back in his chair motionless, a stranger to all thatsurrounded him, and gave himself up to some mysterious thought againstwhich resistance seemed powerless. Suddenly he appeared to wake fromsome perplexing dream, and by another powerful effort aroused himself andjoined in the conversation with sharp, cutting speeches; he encouragedthe noisy humor of his guests, inciting them to drunkenness by settingthe example himself; then the same mysterious thought would cross hisface anew, and he would fall back into the tortures of a revery whichmust have been horrible, to judge by the expression of his face.
Among his guests, one only, who was seated almost opposite Bergenheim,seemed to be in the secret of his thoughts and to study t