Prince Zilah -- Volume 3

world. Why should he care, that some penny-aliner had slipped those odious lines into a newspaper? His sorrow was not the publ

ht, "if to exist with a dagger

nd all his patriotic regrets of other days. He read, with spasmodic eagerness, the books in which Georgei and Klapka, the actors of the

rom the town of Munkacs, where tradition says that the Magyars settled when they came from the Orient, ages ago. Then a bitter longing took possession of him to breathe a different air, to fly from Paris, and place a wide d

d man who has not the strength to move, and he remained where he was, sadly and bitterly wondering at times if he

thin the walls of a courtroom, and in presence of a gaping crowd of sensation seekers? No! silence was better than that; anything was better than publicity and scandal. Divorce! He could obtain that, since Marsa

res of flowers, the old oaks, the white-walled villa, all appeared before him, brutally distinct, like a lost, or rather poisoned, Eden! And, besides, she, Marsa, was no longer there; and the thought that the woman whom he had so passionately loved, with her exquisite, flower-like

ard I am!"

he lonely villa of Sainte-Adresse, where they had so many

i," he said, "but to be with you is to be wi

inly," repl

e in the Prince, and the terrible pallor of his face, followed him, hoping at least to distract him and arouse him from his morbidness by

ir feet, while the grayish-blue sea was enveloped in a luminous mist, and the fading light was reflected upon

everish excitement. His reflections became less bitter, and, strange to relate, it was rough old Yans

eams danced over the waves in broken lines of luminous atoms; boats passed to and fro, their red lights flashing like glowworms; and it

o men, in a different manner buffeted by fate, resembled two wounded soldiers who mutually aid one another to advance, and not to fall by the way before

he world of to-day; so now I am a man who expects nothing of life except its ending. And yet I would like to

d, as they were sauntering through the streets of the city, Varhely grasped the Prince's arm, and poi

tainly emerge from your retreat

dras, after a mom

laid bare, he would not have trembled more violently. Every note of the well-known airs fell upon his heart like a corrosive tear, and Marsa, in all her dark, tawny beauty, rose before him. The Tzigani played now the waltzes which Marsa used to play; then the

he said sudde

an into a laughing, merry group, led by the little Baroness

Prince! Oh, how gl

clan which accompanied her s

, and we have eaten up all we could lay our hands on, broken all Aunt Sally's pipes, and purchased all the china horrors and

mself and move on, but the li

on't do anything but eat and drink and talk scandal-Oh, ye

ence to her call, with his eterna

d on the Baroness, "you

sian of Parisians? Upon

a! Just fancy what he ha

riting a Fren

cted Yamada, with

title is Little Moo-Moo! There is a scene on board a flower-decked boat! Oh, it i

ious to get away, the Baroness puckered up her ros

it would create a furore!

terrupting herself, "what have you done

he gentle, fairhaired woman, who was probably at this very moment leaning over the cribs

rried. Jacquemin married! Isn't it funny? He didn't seem like a married man! Poor fellow! Well, when I invited him, he refused; and the other day, when I

" said th

in his den, and is never seen at all. Just see how disagreeable it is! If he had come with us, he would hav

to Paris, I am going to hunt him up. A repo

" said Zilah, gravely. "Nothing can compensate fo

he Prince, the Baroness

you. Oh, yes, I see it! I have annoyed you. But be consoled; we are going at once, and then, you know, that if ther

g to the Baroness's friends, Yama

their ears above the swish of the waves. Andras felt irritated and nervous. Everything recalled to him Marsa, and she seemed to be o

aloud, after they had walk

face his harshness, he added, in a voice which trembled a littl

rdo

in accents of pain which s

ng-the other!" exclaim

king, with rage, of that package of letters which he had held i

as pardon possible

r. Lighting his lamp, he took out and read and reread, for the hundredth time perhaps, certain letters-letters not addressed to

te his mental pain as he would have injected morphine to soothe a physical one. These letters caused him a sensation analogous to that wh

for Michel, then her enthusiasm for love itself, rather than for the object of her love, and then, again-for Menko

spring, all the frankness and faith of a mind ignorant of evil and destitute of guile; then, in the later ones, the spontaneous outburst

and involuntarily, he felt an indefined, timid pity for the woman who had trusted and been d

eaking to me of pardon?" he

conclusively that Menko had been Marsa's lover; but they proved, at the same time, that Michel had taken advantage of her

er delight in his own suffering; engraving upon his memory every word of love written by

Varhely astonished him by ann

Pa

d Yanski, who looked so

t are you going to

ning. I have just been there. Valla has given me some information in regard to a matte

nesses of his marriage. Valla was a former minister of Manin; and, since the siege of Venice, he had li

?" asked the Pr

take the fast mail fr

very press

another to whose ears the affair may possibl

s, considerably surprised; "

he almost violent pres

f he were departing fo

me?" he asked. "He is one of t

away again at once, and he a

what was the reason of his friend's sudden flight, for

and he thought again of the woman whom his imaginatio