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If you get this into your pate, you will be a strong man and can boast you were once the pupil of the Marquis Tudesco, of Venice, the exile who has translated in a freezing garret, on scraps of refuse paper, the immortal poem of Torquato Tasso. What a task!"
And Monsieur Tudesco went on to relate how he was charged with very special duties to discover the underground passages which the instruments of tyranny had dug beneath the capital, tunnelling under the two branches of the Seine, for the transport of munitions of war.
In fact, he had seized his chair by the back and was pounding it fiercely on the floor. But suddenly he stopped, gave a knowing smile, and said in a low voice: "No, no, Marquis Tudesco, let be, let Venice be a prey to Teuton savagery. The fetters of the fatherland are daily bread to the exiled patriot."
Going one evening to the dram-shop with the Marquis Tudesco, who had given up all idea of discarding his checked waistcoat, he made the acquaintance of an old man whose white hair lay in ringlets on his shoulders and who still had the blue eyes of a child. He was an architect fallen to ruin along with the little Gothic erections he had raised at great expense in the Paris suburbs about 1840.
They came upon one in the Place de l'Odéon, where Monsieur Tudesco could display his striking uniform to his own satisfaction. "I am an engineer," he announced, when he was seated with his bitter before him, "an engineer in the service of the Commune, with the rank of Colonel." Jean thought it mighty strange all the same.
Jean wanted to ask the National Guards what it all meant, but already the cab was driving off, bayonets protruding from both windows. The passers-by, who had long ceased to be surprised at anything, cast a momentary glance after the retreating vehicle. Jean, left alone with Madame Bargemont's portrait before him, began to ask himself why his disconcerting friend Tudesco had sent it to him.
Tasso, Novara, and the diva so beloved of cardinals mingled confusedly in Jean Servien's heated brain, and in a burst of sublime if fuddled enthusiasm he wrung the old villain's hand. Everything had grown indistinct; he seemed to be swimming in an element of molten metal. Monsieur Tudesco, who at the moment was imbibing a glass of kümmel, pointed to his waistcoat of ticking.
Jean protested. To suffer so, and not to be really in love? Monsieur Tudesco repeated: "If I thought that this were true love... but I do not, so far." Jean answered with great vehemence; he talked of death and plunging a dagger in his heart. Monsieur Tudesco reiterated for the third time: "I do not believe it is true love."
Then Jean fell into a fury and began to rumple and tear at his waistcoat as if he would bare his heart for inspection. Monsieur Tudesco took his hands and addressed him soothingly: "Well, well, my young friend, since it is true love you feel, I will help you.
Lessons that day were fitful and haphazard. Jean was repeating in a drawling voice: moneo, mones, monet ... monebam, monebas, monebat... Suddenly Monsieur Tudesco sprang forward, dragging his chair along the floor with a horrid screech, and clapping his hand on his pupil's shoulder: "Child," he said, "to-day I am going to give you a more profitable lesson than all the pitiful teaching I have confined myself to up to now.
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