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He covered his face with his hands. "Scharlach Scharlach!" I heard him say. We sat there side by side for ten minutes or more without speaking. Finally I said: "Look here, Réchamp she's right and you're wrong. I shall be sorry I brought you here if you don't see it before it's too late." His face was still hidden; but presently he dropped his hands and answered me. "I do see.
It was a two-roomed cottage, propped against a cow-stable, but fairly decent, with a curtain in the window and a cat on the sill. Réchamp caught me by the arm and pointed to the door-panel. "Oberst von Scharlach" was scrawled on it. He turned as white as your table-cloth, and hung on to me a minute; then he spoke to the old woman.
The style in which I lived was remarked, for I had only received from my father's heritage the estate of Great Scharlach; the rent of which was eight hundred dollars a year, which was far from sufficient to supply my then expenses. My amour, in the meantime, remained a secret from my best and most intimate friends.
"You remember him their captain? Was his name Scharlach?" Réchamp persisted. Under its rich weathering the old woman's face grew as pale as his. "Yes, that was his name I heard it often enough." "Describe him, then. What was he like? Tall and fair? They're all that but what else? What in particular?" She hesitated, and then said: "This one wasn't fair.
"Your grandmother was never taught German: his name was the Oberst von Scharlach." She did not remember my presence either: the two were still looking straight in each other's eyes. Béchamp had grown white to the lips: he was rigid with the effort to control himself. "Why didn't you tell me it was Scharlach who was here?" he brought out at last in a low voice. She turned her eyes in my direction.
They didn't know he knew German, and he had heard things.... There was one name always coming back in their talk, von Scharlach, Oberst von Scharlach. One of them, a young fellow, said: "I wish now I'd cut my hand off rather than do what he told us to that night.... Every time the fever comes I see it all again. I wish I'd been struck dead first."
They all said "Scharlach" with a kind of terror in their voices, as if he might hear them even there, and come down on them horribly. Réchamp had asked where their regiment came from, and had been told: From the Vosges. That had set his brain working, and whenever he saw a ruined village, or heard a tale of savagery, the Scharlach nerve began to quiver.
I was born at Konigsberg in Prussia, February 16, 1726, of one of the most ancient families of the country. My father, who was lord of Great Scharlach, Schakulack, and Meichen, and major-general of cavalry, died in 1740, after receiving eighteen wounds in the Prussian service. My mother was daughter of the president of the high court at Konigsberg.
Meanwhile Simone had been safe upstairs with her mother and grandmother, and none of the officers lodged in the château had after a first hasty inspection set foot in any part of the house but the wing assigned to them. On the third morning they had left, and Scharlach, before going, had put in Mlle.
The official took out the papers and spread them on the desk between us. I watched him absently while he did so. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation. "Ah that's a haul!" he said, and pushed a bit of paper toward me. On it was engraved the name: Oberst Graf Benno von Scharlach.... "A good riddance," said the surgeon over my shoulder.
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