"He was not permitted to finish the list; the count reared like the horse in Horace, exclaiming, 'O Mozart! what a horrid subject of conversation!' Then he added, gravely: 'M.l'Abbe, you are a thousand times too good, but the place offered to me in Vienna seems to me better adapted to my kind of ability; I would make, Ifear, a detestable professor, and the salary, were it double, would in my opinion have but little weight.'
"The abbe still insisted.'In our century,' said he, 'less than any other, can one live on air.'
" 'I have lived on it sometimes,' replied the count, gaily, 'and I1
where money is concerned, you have no idea how far my indifference goes.It is not a virtue with me, it is an infirmity; it is because of my nationality, because I am my father's son.I feel myself incapable of thinking of the future, of practising thoroughly French habits of economy.If my purse is full, I soon empty it; after which I condemn myself to privations--no, that does not express it--I enjoy them.According to me, there is no true happiness into which a little suffering does not enter.
Besides, I have a taste for contrasts.At times I believe myself a millionaire, I have the pretensions of a nabob; I give full scope to my fancies; the next day, my bed is hard and I live on bread-and-water, and am perfectly happy.In short, I am a fool once in the year, and a philosopher the rest of the time.'
" 'The trouble is,' returned the abbe, 'that one day of folly will sometimes suffice to compromise forever the future of a philosopher.'
" 'Oh, reassure yourself,' replied he; 'my extravagances never are very dangerous.There was method in Hamlet's madness, and there is always a little reason in mine.'
"While making this declaration of principles, he had seated himself at the piano, and idly began running his fingers over the keys.
Suddenly he began to sing a German song, which I got Abbe Miollens to translate for me, and which is not long.The hero of the song is an amorous pine, standing on the summit of a barren mountain of the north.He is alone; he is weary; the snow and ice wrap him in a white mantle, and he spends his dreary hours of leisure in dreaming of a palm, which in days of yore he met, it seems, in his travels.
"M.Larinski sang this little melody with so much pathos that the good abbe was touched, and I became anxious.Anxiety, once felt, is apt to be constantly returning.I asked myself if he had met his palm in the Engadine, and added aloud, rather dryly: 'Is the day of your departure definitely fixed? will you not do us the favour of granting us a reprieve?'
"He executed the most pearly chromatic scale, and replied: 'Alas!
madame, I am only deferring my departure on account of a letter that cannot be much longer delayed; in less than a week, I shall have the distress of bidding you farewell.'
" 'You shall not leave,' said Abbe Miollens, 'without letting us hear once again the poem of the pine.You sang it with so much soul that it seemed to me you must be relating an episode of your own history.My dear count, did you ever chance to dream of a palm?'
"He answered: 'I have no longer the right to dream; I am no longer free.'
"The abbe started and cried out, in his simple-hearted way, 'Ah!
what, are you married?'
" 'I thought I had told you so,' replied he with a melancholy smile, and he hastened to speak of a ballet that he had seen the evening before at the opera, and with which he was only half pleased.
"You can readily believe that when he pronounced the words, 'Ithought I had told you so,' I was on the point of falling on his neck; I was so happy, that I was afraid he would read in my eyes my joy, astonishment, and profound gratitude.I think that he is very keen, and that he has conjectured for some time the mistrust with which he inspired me.If he wanted to mock me a little, Iwill pardon him; a good man unjustly suspected has a perfect right to revenge himself by a little irony.I ordered the horses to be put to my carriage to take him over to the railroad, and the abbe and I accompanied him as far as the station.There cannot be too much regard shown to honest people who have been abused by fortune.
"Well! what do you say, my dear friend? Was I wrong in claiming that M.Larinski is a delightful man? He will leave before the end of a week, and he is married, unhappily married, I fear, for his smile was melancholy.You see he may have married out of gratitude some /grisette/, some little working-woman, who nursed him through illness, one of those women who are not presentable; that would be thoroughly in character.Happily, in law there are no good or bad marriages; this one I hold to be unimpeachable.
"The reaction was violent: I am so rejoiced that I feel tempted to illuminate Cormeilles and Maisons Lafitte.In what way will your undeceive our dreamer? In your place I would use some precautions.
Be prudent; go bridle in hand; and in the future, believe me, climb no more among the rocks; you see what it may lead to.
"Once more, do not hasten your departure.We have had for some days stifling heat; we literally suffocate.You need to spend a fortnight longer amid the shade of the pine-trees, and four thousand feet above the level of the sea.
"Adieu, my dear professor! I am interrupted in my writing by the incredulous, the sceptical, the suspicious, the absurd, the ridiculous Camille, who respectfully recommends himself to your indulgent friendship."
