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Updated: June 13, 2025
"I could gladly fight for you, or do some other important service for you." "And suppose I was to keep you at your word?" asked Gontram, seriously; "suppose I came here only to demand a sacrifice of you?" "Oh, speak!" cried the vicomte, eagerly. "H'm, would you for my sake get on top of a stage?" asked Gontram, earnestly. "No, do not look so curiously at me.
"I am thankful to you, mademoiselle, for having come here," said Gontram, sparkling with joy, as he walked by the young girl's side. "How could I have refused your cordial invitation?" replied Carmen, laughing; "even princesses have visited the studios of their court painters." "The Duchess of Ferrara, for instance," said a young sculptor who had overheard the remark.
"Gontram, I love you, love you tenderly, and if ever there was a pure love, it is mine for you. Before I made your acquaintance I went carelessly through life. Good and bad were unknown meanings to me, and I did not know what blushing was." Carmen sank exhausted in a chair and burst into tears. "Carmen, why do you cry?"
Will he soon return?" asked Gontram. "We do not know." "H'm! Can I speak to Madame Caraman?" "She is also out." "And the Zouave Coucou?" "He has gone out, too; and none of them has yet returned." Just then a carriage rolled up, and Madame Caraman and Coucou got out, followed by Fanfaro and Anselmo. "Ah, here is Monsieur Gontram," cried Madame Caraman, joyfully, as she caught sight of the painter.
"Don't you think so?" exclaimed Gontram, enthusiastically. "That is the young lady I mean." "In that case I can only congratulate you on the choice you have made." "Thank you. Then you think Carmen de Larsagny charming?" "Yes. From what I have seen of the young lady she deserves the love of such a splendid fellow as you are."
Gontram turned to other guests, and Spero timidly drew near to the young girl and offered her his arm. Jane hesitated for a moment to take it, and looked expectantly at the vicomte. She waited, no doubt, for a compliment or some word from him. As Spero remained silent, a satisfied smile crossed the classical features of the diva, and placing her hand on his arm she carelessly said: "Let us go."
Fanfaro and Gontram stood as if in a daze; and not until the door had closed behind the count did they recover their self-possession. They hurried after him, they tried to follow his track; but it was useless. The count had disappeared together with his son's body. Fifty years ago a solitary man stood on a lonely rock. The night was horrible!
"Who are you?" asked Carmen. "A friend, a former Zouave in the service of the Count of Monte-Cristo." "Well, what have you?" "A note from the painter Gontram." "Give it to me quickly." Coucou drew the letter from the folds of his bernouse and gave it to the young girl. It read as follows: "Carmen, my friends are in danger; Jane Zild has been abducted and Spero has disappeared.
She formed the centre of a wild orgy; glasses rang, coarse songs and oaths were heard from the lips of a crowd of shameless men and women who surrounded Jane, and uttering a loud cry Spero buried his face in his hands. As we have stated, Gontram had given a note to Coucou to deliver to Carmen. When the Jackal reached the palace in the Rue Rivoli he stopped in amazement.
"Gontram's luck is really extraordinary," said a colleague of the young painter laughingly, as he saw the majestic figure of the diva enter the room. What would he have said if he had heard in what way Gontram had secured Jane Zild as one of his guests?
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