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"Michel Menko?" "I don't know," faltered Vogotzine in alarm, wondering whether it were Froloff's hand that had seized him by the collar of his coat. "It is Menko, is it not?" demanded Andras; while the terrified General gasped out something unintelligible, his intoxication increasing every yard the carriage advanced in the Bois. Andras was almost beside himself with pain and suspense.
She can be cured," he added; "but she must be taken away from her present surroundings. Solitude is necessary, not this here, but " "But?" asked Vogotzine, as the doctor paused. "But, perhaps, that of an asylum. Poor woman!" turning again to Marsa, who had not stirred. "How beautiful she is!"
Yes, yes, that is your affair, and I don't ask any questions. Only only you would do well to come " "Why?" interrupted Andras, turning quickly to Vogotzine. "Ah! why? Because!" said the General, trying to give to his heavy face an expression of shrewd, dignified gravity. "What has happened?" asked the Prince. "Is she suffering again? Ill?"
Those things which were false, impossible, a lie, a phantasmagoria born of a fever, were Michel Menko, the past years, the kisses of long ago, the threats of yesterday, the bayings of the infuriated dogs at that shadow which did not exist. General Vogotzine, in a handsome uniform, half suffocated in his high vest, and with a row of crosses upon his breast the military cross of St.
"She is putting on her uniform," replied Vogotzine, with a loud laugh which made his sabre rattle. Most of the invited guests were to go directly to the church of Maisons.
It was in vain that sorrow had early made her a woman; Marsa remained ignorant of the world, without any other guide than Vogotzine; suffering and languid, she was fatally at the mercy of the first lie which should caress her ear and stir her heart.
She returned to France, which she had become attached to, and shut herself up in the villa of Maisons-Lafitte, letting old Vogotzine install himself there as a sort of Mentor, more obedient than a servant, and as silent as a statue; and this strange guardian, who had formerly fought side by side with Schamyl, and cut down the Circassians with the sang-froid of a butcher's boy wringing the neck of a fowl, and who now scarcely dared to open his lips, as if the entire police force of the Czar had its eye upon him; this old soldier, who once cared nothing for privations, now, provided he had his chocolate in the morning, his kummel with his coffee at breakfast, and a bottle of brandy on the table all day left Marsa free to think, act, come and go as she pleased.
These two men, both celebrated in their profession, had been called in by Vogotzine, upon the advice of Yanski Varhely, who was more Parisian and better informed than the General. Vogotzine was dreadfully uneasy, and his brain seemed ready to burst with the responsibility thrust upon him.
Then, as the director of the establishment approached to speak, he placed a finger upon his lips: "Hush," he said. "She is there! Don't speak, or she will go away." And he pointed with a sort of passionate veneration to an elm where Vivian was shut up, and whence she would shortly emerge. "Poor devil!" murmured Vogotzine. This was not what Zilah thought, however.
After the terrible overthrow of all her hopes, Marsa was seized with a fever, and she lay upon her bed in a frightful delirium, which entirely took away the little sense poor old Vogotzine had left. Understanding nothing of the reason of Zilah's disappearance, the General listened in childish alarm to Marsa, wildly imploring mercy and pity of some invisible person.
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