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Ah! if they could but meet. Suppose she should accost that feverish watcher, should ask him to direct her: "I beg your pardon, Monsieur. How can I get to the Seine?" He would recognize her at once. "What! Can it be you, Mam'zelle Zizi? What are you doing out-of-doors at this time of night?" "I am going to die, Frantz. You have taken away all my pleasure in living."
If she had dictated it herself, all the phrases likely to touch her heart, all the delicately worded excuses likely to pour balm into her wounds, would have been less satisfactorily expressed. Frantz repented, asked forgiveness, and without making any promises, above all without asking anything from her, described to his faithful friend his struggles, his remorse, his sufferings.
And even as they uttered those trivial sentences, their voices trembled at the thought of what was about to be said. At last the little low chair moved a little nearer the great easy-chair; their eyes met, their fingers were intertwined, and the two, in low tones, slowly called each other by their names. "Desiree!" "Frantz!" At that moment there was a knock at the door.
"What! it is you, is it, my dear Frantz?" How coolly she says it, the little rascal! "I knew you at once." Ah, the little iceberg! She will always be the same. A veritable little iceberg, in very truth. She is very pale, and her hand as it lies in Frantz's is white and cold. She seems to him improved, even more refined than before.
"Frantz! my Frantz!" cried the old strolling player in a melodramatic voice, clutching the air convulsively with his hands. After a long and energetic embrace he presented his guests to one another. "Monsieur Robricart, of the theatre at Metz. "Monsieur Chaudezon, of the theatre at Angers. "Frantz Risler, engineer." In Delobelle's mouth that word "engineer" assumed vast proportions!
"Stoop a little now go yonder come back again stand perfectly upright my Lord Counsellor, I could swear that your Frantz has been in his youth, nay at a later period of life, a mariner." The servant looked at the priest astounded, and the Lord of Beauvais said: "You have hit it, my reverend friend; but from what do you draw your conclusion?"
Meanwhile, they were drawing near the house at Asnieres. Frantz had noticed at a distance a fanciful little turreted affair, glistening with a new blue slate roof. It seemed to him to have been built expressly for Sidonie, a fitting cage for that capricious, gaudy-plumaged bird.
It was enough to drive the unlucky judge mad as well. But no! The siren had been unfortunate in her choice of a ballad. For, at the mere name of Mam'zelle Zizi, Frantz was suddenly transported to a gloomy chamber in the Marais, a long way from Sidonie's salon, and his compassionate heart evoked the image of little Desiree Delobelle, who had loved him so long.
Yes, a duel with pistols horse-pistols at seventy-five paces, with ball-cartridges. And between whom? Our readers will never believe! Between M. Frantz Niklausse, the gentle angler, and young Simon Collaert, the wealthy banker's son.
It may be because the days are lengthening so fast, but I don't think it can be seven o'clock. Who can that man be with the old cashier? What a funny thing! One would say Why, yes! One would say it was Monsieur Frantz. But that isn't possible. Monsieur Frantz is a long way from here at this moment; and then he had no beard. That man looks like him all the same! Just look, my dear."
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