"Indeed? he does me too much honour."
"He did not attack you directly and took care not to name you," the Burgomaster continued, "but all those present understood that he referred to your lordship, when he denounced "those fine gentlemen come from the capital, who proclaim infidel opinions, and who, wanting in all their duties, set a bad example to poor parishioners, in making light, with their dissolute manners, of the holy sacrament of marriage!" And so on and so forth! It appears he gave them a good quarter of an hour of it, at least, according to what my devotees of sisters tell us, for neither I nor mine set foot in his church!"
On hearing this allusion to his irregular establishment, the Count had slightly changed colour, and his nostrils even showed a nervous contraction of anger, which did not escape Claudie.
"Shall we not have the honour of paying our respects to Madame—or, shall I rather say, Mademoiselle …?" inquired the peasant girl, with affected hesitation.
A further expression of suppressed discontent passed over Kehlmark's countenance. Nor did the passing cloud escape the notice of the crafty village wench. "So much the better," she mused, "the pretentious hussy seems to pall upon him already."
"You mean Mademoiselle Blandine, my housekeeper," said Kehlmark with a gay air!
"Excuse her. She is very busy, and besides, extremely timid. Her great pleasure consists in preparing and managing behind the scenes my little receptions. She is in a way my master of the ceremonies, the general steward of Escal-Vigor."
He laughed, but Claudie seemed to detect in his laugh something pinched and throttled. On the other hand, it was with a truly softened intonation that he added: "She is almost a sister. She was present with me when my grandmother 'closed her eyes for the last time'."
After a short silence: "And you will come to see us at 'Les Pèlerins', Count," asked Claudie, a little disturbed in her matrimonial speculations by the almost fervent tone of Kehlmark's last words.
"Yes, Count, you would do us great honour by such a visit," added the Burgomaster: "Without boasting, "Les Pèlerins" has not its equal in the whole kingdom. We have none but cattle of the choicest kind, prize specimens, the cows and horses no less than the pigs and sheep."
"Rely on me," said the young man.
"Doubtless Monsieur le Comte knows the whole country?" inquired Claudie.
"Well, yes, nearly so. The aspect is very varied. Upperzyde has left in my mind the recollection of a pretty little town, with monuments and even a curious museum. I discovered there once a very agreeable Frans Hals: [3] Ah, a chubby-faced boy, a player on the pipe; the most wonderful symphony of flesh, decoration, and atmosphere, with which this productive and virile artist has ever enchanted the canvas. For this charming little rascal I would give all the Venuses, even those of Rubens,—I must return to Upperzyde."
He stopped short, remembering that to these good people he was only talking Greek.
"I have been informed," he resumed, "of the dunes and heaths at Klaarvatsch. Wait now! Are there not there some very bizarre parishioners?"
"Ah, the savages!" exclaimed the Burgomaster, with an air of protection and contempt. "A population of noisy braggarts! The only vagabonds and mendicants of the country! Our Guidon, my ne'er-do-well of a son, has'gone amongst them! Sad to say, he might be one of them!"
"I will ask your son to guide me there one day, Burgomaster," said Kehlmark, leading his guests into another apartment. His eyes had brightened at the recollection of the little pipe-player. Now they were veiled, and his voice had in it a trembling, an accent of indescribable melancholy, followed by a sort of sob disguised as a cough. Claudie kept looking right and left, casting up the market value of the various knick-knacks and curiosities that fell under her notice.
In the billiard room, which they had just entered, an entire wall was covered, as is well known, by Conradin and Frederick of Baden, a painting done by Kehlmark himself from an engraving very popular in Germany. The last kiss of the two young princes, victims of Charles of Anjou, gave their faces an expression of deep, almost sacramental, love, which had been rendered with great intensity by Henry.
— "That?… Two young princes. The masters of one of my distant ancestors. They are about to be beheaded," he explained in a strange tone of raillery, to Claudie, who yawned before this painting almost like a lounger used to public executions.
"Poor children!" remarked the robustious girl. "They embrace each other like lovers."
"They loved each other well!" murmured Kehlmark, as though he were saying Amen! whilst he drew his companion away. As she naively called attention to the abundance of statues and of nude male figures among the pictures and marbles, he said, "Why yes, they are really the sort of things such as are to be found at Upperzyde and in other museums, you know! They serve after all to fill up the place! For lack of models I use them as copies." Kehlmark spoke these words with an indifferent tone, mimicking, one might well have suspected, the ignorant chatter of the uneducated folk he was piloting.
Was he laughing in his sleeve at his guests or, rather keeping watch and ward over himself?
In accordance with the custom of the village they had sat down to table at noon.
It was now nine o'clock and the hour of nightfall.
All at once there was heard a banging and snorting of musical instruments.
Torches drew nigh out of the darkness keeping step with the cadenced measure of open-air serenades, and their curious gleam shed into the half-shadow of the large apartments a strange reddishness like the uncertain light of an aurora borealis.
1 ↑ A full-bodied woman, such at appear on the canvasses of Jordaens, celebrated Flemish painter of the XVIIth cent.
2 ↑ A chapel in the Vatican at Rome, built by order of Sixtus IV, and decorated with frescoes by Michael Angelo Buonarotti. These famous frescoes represent various scenes from the Bible.
3 ↑ A celebrated Dutch painter (1580-1666) who excelled in portraiture, Rembrandt alone surpassing him.
III.
"What 's this? treason, an ambush!" exclaimed Kehlmark, assuming a puzzled air.
"Our young people of the guild of St. Cecile, our Harmonic Society, who come to bid you welcome, Count," the farmer of Les Pèlerins explained with ceremony.
Kehlmark's eyes flashed furtively:
"Another time, I will show you my studio. Let us go and receive them," he said, turning back and hastening down the grand staircase, happy enough, it seemed, at this diversion, which caused the crafty Claudie however to fret inwardly.
The Govaertzes and the others followed him downstairs into the extensive orange-house, the large glass doors of which had been opened by order of the still invisible Blandine.
The musicians of the guild had drawn themselves up in a half-circle at the foot of the flight of steps. They blew with all the force of their lungs into the wide-bellied trumpets, and hammered away conscientiously at the asses' skin of their drums.
All wore, with some differences, the picturesque costume of the youth of the country. With many, their toggery over-worn and even patched, contracted more verdigris and stew than the over-new clothes of the guests. There were some whose dress was in frank disorder; they were without vest, in shirt sleeves, and, with their blouse wide-open, displayed their huge necks as low down as the origin of the pectoral muscles.
They were, almost all of them, tall, sturdy boys, fine strapping dark fellows, recruited from all the castes of the island, from the farms of Zoudbertinge as well as the kennels of Klaarvatsch. The guild, being of a very democratic nature, mingled the sons of the