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Updated: October 15, 2025
Schnelling interrupted us to say that food was being prepared for us; but, had it been before me, I could not have eaten nor drunk until Gaston had told me his story. He spoke softly, glancing often toward the spot under the larch tree where Francezka's face, like a lily flower, lay.
The Scotch gentleman, Francezka's father, must have had uncommon skill in choice. We rode up the broad esplanade in front of the château. Smoke was coming from the chimneys, the great doors were wide open, and old Peter, smiling with pleasure, was standing there with a respectable staff of servants he had collected.
This invariably ended by Francezka's bringing the whole battery of her smiles and even her tears to bear on him, so that he was obliged to make an unconditional surrender. The resemblance between the Chevernys had grown stronger, as Gaston lost his boyish look and became more the man of the world.
Six o'clock was the hour named in Francezka's letter, but Gaston's impatience was so great that we set out a little after five, and spent the time loitering in the great park.
We spoke not much. Francezka's joy seemed to have grown quieter, if more intense. In the pauses of our talk, I found the lake had a voice a voice like itself, sad. There was some subterranean outlet which gave a motion and a sound to the water, and this sound was a mournful one. Francezka stopped and called my attention to it.
It is not to be wondered at, however, that the rest of Francezka's world reckoned Gaston Cheverny a dead man. Father Benart, the little priest, who was a courageous man, even hinted to Francezka that she should wear mourning. This went to her heart like a knife. To put on the garments of widowhood would be the last abandonment of hope, and to this she would not consent.
Francezka declared we must have some music, and calling in her clear voice, a servant heard and answered her, and brought from the château a Spanish guitar. To this Gaston Cheverny sang. Presently, in response to the silent request of Francezka's eyes, and an eloquent assent from his own, he sang that song to which I always thought they attached a fond and secret meaning: O Richard, O mon roi!
One day, shortly before the carnival, there was a great fête at the Louvre, and the courtyard was filling up with magnificent coaches. The finest of all was a gilt coach superbly horsed with six horses, with four outriders in the crimson and gold of Francezka's liveries. She sat alone in the coach, waiting her turn to drive up to the great entrance.
Even when I reached the flat country of the lower Rhine, there was but little amelioration. I traveled as rapidly as I could, both night and day, but my progress was slow. My eager heart outstripped my laggard body, and it seemed to me that every hour the urgency of Francezka's call for me grew greater. I could actually hear that sweet, penetrating voice, now full of agony, crying to me, "Babache!
About five o'clock, when the short winter afternoon was closing and the sun was red, I received a message from Francezka. She desired to see me in her apartment. I climbed the stairs to her rooms at once. Her door was opened for me by old Elizabeth, Peter Embden's sister, who, I remembered, had been Francezka's waiting maid long ago on that journey from Königsberg.
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