The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)

"If you fire before the one or after the three, you will be declared a felon."

The matter of being declared a felon frightened the young man. He didn't know exactly what it was, but the Colonel's look as he said this terrible word, made a deep impression on him. He no longer thought so vehemently of killing his adversary. This desire retreated into the background. Nor did he think of the fact that he himself might be killed. His one preoccupation was to calculate the time properly and obey instructions without bothering about aiming; to fire before the terrible three; so that he should not be given that horrible mysterious name that made his hair stand on end.

Don Marcos entered the castle, and appeared again with the two loaded pistols. He gave one to the Prince. The latter did not need any lessons. He put the other in the Lieutenant's right hand, and told him how he should stand, with his arm bent, holding the weapon high, presenting only the narrow side of his body to his adversary. Once more he dwelt on his warning. He should be careful not to make a mistake! Now he knew! One … two … three…

He himself stood midway between the adversaries withdrawing only a few paces from the line of fire. At that moment he was willing to die, so they both might remain unharmed!

He took off his hat solemnly, and with a gesture of profound sadness.

"Gentlemen …"

During the entire morning, as he walked from one place to another, making his preparations, he had not ceased to think of what he would say at that moment, working up a superb piece of oratory, brief and stirring. He had frequently spoken at duels, meriting the approval of the other seconds, retired Generals, and such experts, accustomed to formalities of the kind. But the short harangue of to-day was going to be his masterpiece.

"Gentlemen …" he repeated. He hesitated, not knowing what to add, as it had all been blotted from his memory. With a stammering voice, he went on saying whatever occurred to him, with no attempt at order, and without remembering a single word of the phrases which he had so carefully polished some hours before.

"There was still time … a little good will on their part; they were both men of courage who had proved their valor … an explanation at the last moment was no dishonor!"

His words were lost in a tense silence. But this silence was not absolute. There was somebody behind the Colonel, kicking the ground. It was Lewis who was consulting his watch, with a scowl. It was after three o'clock; the good series in the Casino had already begun.

The Colonel decided to end his speech. Besides, he was frightened at the motionless and rigid figure of his Prince, with his pistol raised. He had never seen him so ugly. His face was an earthen color, there was a squint in his eyes, and his cheek bones protruded. His features had been changed in a moment, as though the savagery of his remote ancestors, awakened within, had risen to his face.

"Since there is no possible agreement …"

At that moment the Colonel thought he had recalled the last part of his forgotten speech. But the tread of brilliant words escaped him again, and he was obliged to improvise, so he ended in a solemn fashion:

"Come, gentlemen! Honor … is honor; and the laws of chivalry … are the laws of chivalry."

He heard at his back the murmur of approval. It was the voice of the former ticket-seller. "Bravo! Wonderful!" But he did not care to hear what he said. You could never tell when that fellow was in earnest.

"Ready?"

The silence of the two adversaries gave the Colonel to understand that he might give the words of command.

"Fire!.. One …"

A shot rang out. Martinez, who was only thinking of the terrible three, had fired.

He saw the Prince standing in front of him. He looked much taller; he could see the black hole of his weapon, and above that hole an eye, with a look of cold ferocity, which was choosing a point on his antagonist's body to send the obedient bullet. And with unconscious arrogance, he turned on his heel, so as to present not his profile, but the whole breadth of his body.

The four seconds did not see this. Their eyes had focused on Lubimoff, the personification of death.

Time contracts and expands us, according to our emotions. Its measure and rhythm depend on the state of the human mind. Sometimes it gallops along at a dizzy rate, over the faces of clocks that seem to have gone mad; at other times, it collapses and refuses to proceed, and a thousandth of a second embraces more emotions than months and years of ordinary life. The four witnesses felt as though the hours had been paralyzed, and the sun were remaining motionless forever. Time did not exist.

"Two!" sighed Don Marcos, and it seemed to him that his lips would never cease uttering this word, as though it were composed of an infinite number of syllables.

Lewis had forgotten the existence of the Casino; he was conscious only of the present. The Captain from Bordeaux, bending forward, was leaning on his wounded foot, without feeling any pain; the other officer was swearing between his teeth, and shaking his rattan cane until it hummed. The doctor, with professional instinct, was stooping over the surgical case that lay at his feet.

Lubimoff was going to kill him! All four were sure that he was going to kill him. An implacable expression of security, and of ferocious coolness, radiated from that man, with arm upraised, so motionless, and pitiless. The expression on his Kalmuck face was of such deep fatality, his one eye tightly shut and the other open, that they could all see an imaginary line drawn from the mouth of the pistol to the breast of the man opposite, the road that the tiny sphere of lead was going to follow with inexorable accuracy.

Proud of his superiority, the Prince postponed the moment of dealing death, with a sort of savage playfulness. He had his enemy in his claws, and could toy with him during those three months, that were as long as centuries.

In the dizzy coincidence of image whirling through his brain, he could see the Princess, his mother, beautiful and arrogant, as she was when she recounted to him as a little boy, the greatness of the Lubimoffs. Then he saw his father, the General, somber and kindly, saying in a rough voice: "The strong man must be kind."

As he thought of his father, his pistol swerved slightly, but immediately he corrected his aim.

In his imagination a train was slowly passing. French soldiers. He saw Castro and the insolent red-haired fellow who was offering him a seat. Another train advanced in the opposite direction, an endless train that kept coming from the depths of the ocean. Hurrahs, whistling, dark blouses, blue collars, little caps that looked as though made of paper. "Good afternoon, Prince!" The luminous smile of a pale Virgin: Lady Lewis with her two blind men, handsome and tragic…

His pistol fell. Above it he could see the entire body of his adversary, that obscure soldier, condemned to die before long no doubt, from wounds received in a land that was not his own, for a cause which was that of all men.

"Three!" said the Colonel.

But before he could finish the word, a shot rang out. The grass stirred at intervals along the soil as the invisible bullet ricocheted into the distance.

The scythe-like stroke passed close to the legs of the Director of the combat; but Don Marcos was in no mood to notice such a thing. His child-like joy made him run hither and thither. His frock coat seemed to laugh as its tails flapped up and down.

He was so happy, that he almost embraced Martinez. The latter must shake hands with the Prince, a reconciliation was necessary.

The officer refused to take this advice. He had his doubts about the way the combat had ended. The Prince had fired at the ground, and he was not going to let him spare his life like that.

"Young man!" said Don Marcos, with an air of authority, "you are new in such affairs. Let yourself be guided by those who know more and give the Prince your hand."

Immediately he went in quest of Lubimoff.

He saw him standing on the same spot. He had thrown the pistol away and was covering his face with his hands.

The only one beside him was Lewis.

"Come, Prince! What's this? Be calm! Perhaps a good glass of whiskey." Toledo heard a sob of anguish, the choking of a stifled breast.

Respectfully he drew away one of the Prince's hands leaving his face uncovered. At present it was a dull brick red, shiny with sweat and tears.

Lubimoff was weeping.

The Colonel recalled the dead Princess in her days of stormy humor, when, after an explosion of wrath, she would wring her hands, and ask forgiveness, weeping hysterically.

As he gently took his hand, he felt that the Prince was following him, meekly without any will of his own. Martinez was waiting a few steps away.

"Shake hands. It's all over. Gentlemen are always … gentlemen."

They shook hands.

And then something unexpected happened which produced a long silence of surprise and amazement.

Michael bent forward, knelt down, and raised to his lips the hand he was holding in his own, with the same humble gesture that the serfs of the Steppes had used in the presence of his powerful ancestors.

Then he kissed it, moistening it with his tears.

CHAPTER X

A WEEK passed, and Lubimoff had not once left Villa Sirena. In his conversations with the Colonel – his only companion in this solitary life – he had avoided making any allusion to what had occurred in Lewis' castle. Toledo, for his part, displayed absolute discretion, as though he had forgotten the duel and the strange ending which the Prince had given it; but the latter guessed that the Colonel's silence concealed many things that might have proved distasteful to himself.

The other seconds had probably told everything. What people must have been saying! And fearing the curiosity of society which was doubtless repeating his name on all occasions, Lubimoff remained in retirement, with the hope of being forgotten. Some one would lose or win an enormous sum in the Casino, and that would be enough to make the gossips stop talking about him.

His loneliness, however, began to weigh upon him like a fate. He was getting tired of walking about his garden all the time. It seemed to him narrow and monotonous. Besides, Lewis' niece, abusing her privilege, came every afternoon, with a constantly renewed escort of wounded Englishmen. She ran about with them through the Avenues, amid the cries of the exotic birds, weaving great garlands of flowers for her soldiers. Meanwhile he was obliged to hide in the upper stories of the villa to escape this child-like joy, which seemed to him to have something gloomy and funereal about it.

The nights seemed endless. He thought with wistful longing of the quiet evenings with the "enemies of women", when Spadoni used to sit at the piano or perform his infinite calculations, always doubling; when Novoa would indulge in his scientific paradoxes, and Castro relate the adventures of his grandfather "the red Don Quixote." Where were they now, those comrades of his dreamy happiness?

Atilio interested him particularly. He had asked Don Marcos about him twice, without the latter being very clear in his explanations. The Colonel never saw Castro any more in the Casino; he doubtless was keeping away out of fear of gambling. The Prince had a feeling that the Colonel knew something more, and was refusing to talk from motives of discretion.

One morning, the weariness of his imprisonment finally galvanized his stupefied will. Why should he not go in quest of those friends? Perhaps if he were to take the first step he would succeed in renewing relations with them, and re-establish his former life.

As he was going out, the Colonel stopped him to speak again about a matter that had occupied their attention the evening before. What reply should he give the Paris business agent? The nouveau riche who had bought the palace on the Monçeau Park, wanted to buy Villa Sirena also. The Prince's manager was transmitting a final offer; a million and a half. The man would not give any more, and it was necessary to reply in haste, before his caprice should turn toward some other acquisition.

Michael shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter were something of no interest to him.

"Tell him I don't want to sell. No – it would be better still not to reply at all. We shall see later on; I shall think it over."

On getting out of the street car in Monte Carlo he passed to the right of the Casino, and followed the upper Boulevards. First he was going in quest of Spadoni, who lived nearest. Besides, the latter would surely know better than Novoa where Atilio was staying. Perhaps they were living together.

He had a vague idea of the house, through Castro's joking. The pianist was "the guardian of the tomb" above the Sainte Dévote ravine.

From the summit of a bridge the Prince saw this ravine at his feet. Its sides were covered with gardens, luxurious villas and hotels, and at its outlet stretched the smiling harbor of La Condamine.

Sixty years before, the ravine had been a wild spot. It was visited only by religious processions coming from the walled City of Monaco to pay homage to Sainte Dévote in a little white church, which to-day seemed still more diminutive beside the arches of the railway bridge.

In the earliest times of Christianity, a bark without oars or sail, guided by the will of God, who had deigned to grant a patron saint to the inhabitants of "Hercules Harbor," had grounded keel on those shores.

The bark contained the miracle working body of a Corsican Christian martyrized by the Romans. Nobody knew her name, and popular devotion called her simply the Sainte Dévote. Once a year, at nightfall, on her feast day, a large crowd from the Casino left roulette and trente et quarante to watch the sailors of Monaco, to the sound of music, burn an old bark in front of the church, thus cutting off all means of retreat to the Holy Patroness.

The stony fields, once planted with prickly pear and olive trees, were now covered with palaces, as large as barracks. They supported a second lofty city, above, which stretched away along the slopes of the Alps, and united Monaco with Monte Carlo. The land here, now sold at fabulous prices, was a spot so neglected half a century before that any of its owners might arrange without interference to be buried on his own property.

An obscure officer in Napoleon's Army, born in Monaco, and who had succeeded in becoming a General in the days of Louis Philippe, had had his tomb built in an olive grove above the Sainte Dévote ravine. Later gambling had made Monte Carlo rise above the wild plateau of the Caverns; the elegant, new city was spreading out to join old Monaco, covering all the land of the principality with buildings, and the tomb of the unknown warrior was imprisoned by this wave of great hotels, palaces, and villas. The olive grove around the tomb was sold by the yard, making a fortune for the soldier's heirs. Between the sepulchre and the edge of the ravine there remained a level space, from which one could enjoy a view of the splendid panorama. A millionaire from Paris had been bold enough to construct over the spot a house in "artistic" style, with gardens descending in terraces. He had imagined it would be an easy matter to have the General transferred to the cemetery and the mortuary chapel demolished. But the dead man was on his own land, and could not come to life to cancel the arrangements he had made in his will with so little prescience of the extraordinary growth old Monaco was to make; as a result there was no power on earth that could demolish his last dwelling place.

From the harbor Michael had often, above the heights of the ravine, seen this pantheon which was to serve him now as a place for meeting Spadoni. It was a simple block of masonry, with white-washed walls, four pinnacles at the angles, and a cupola of black tile. From a distance it looked like a Mohammedan hermitage, the tomb of some saint of Islam, and the similarity was carried out by groups of palm trees in the neighboring gardens.

Castro had often made him laugh by telling him the story of the dead General and his wealthy neighbors. The owners of the villa could not sleep with a dead man on the other side of the wall, and moreover, it was a nameless dead man, which made it all the more creepy and mysterious.

Nobody could remember the name of this gentleman, who had commanded thousands of men, and was still exerting his will power on the living. The owners decided to rent the villa with all its elegant furnishings for a modest sum, and at first, the ladies who were gambling in the Casino, quarreled as to who should get it. How wonderful it would be to live in a little palace adorned by famous Parisian decorators, and with a magnificent view, all for five hundred francs a month! But the renters hastened to give up this bargain to others. Imagine having to pass the General's mausoleum at midnight, on returning from the Casino! And think of not being able to open one's window blinds without having to look that corpse in the face. Besides, the spiteful tongues of the women gave each successive tenant the nickname of: "The guardian of the tomb."

Then Spadoni appeared. Castro had a vague idea that the pianist had paid the first month's rent, but he was not sure. What he knew for certain was that he had not paid any more. The owners, living in Paris, had finally accepted the situation, considering the pianist an unpaid caretaker for that house, which had come to inspire them with terror.

The Prince descended the wide road between garden balustrades and walls of rock broken by tufts of flowers hanging from the crevices. On seeing the sepulchre at close hand, he understood why all the tenants had taken flight. The General had known how to do things. The pinnacles, as well as the iron cross which surmounted the cupola, were adorned with skulls and cross-bones; and these funereal symbols, by force of contrast, made a still deeper impression because of the green splendor of the adjoining gardens under the bright blue skies and the dazzling sunlight, with the smiling harbor in the background, and the ruffled surface of the violet sea. The gate of the nameless mausoleum had not been opened for many years, and the wind had heaped the dirt against the underpinnings. Between the iron gate and the walls a thick, wild growth of vegetation had appeared, a diminutive forest, in the dense growth of which insects made war and devoured one another after sending forth endless flying and creeping expeditions against all the neighboring houses.

Lubimoff passed close to the mausoleum in order to reach the entrance of the villa, a handsome building in the Tuscan style of architecture. The gate was a complicated piece of iron work; the windows had stained glass figures; the gray walls were encrusted with marble bas-reliefs, and ancient escutcheons.

He knocked in vain with the iron dragon that served as a knocker. Finally from an adjoining alley-way, between two walls, appeared a woman with dishevelled hair, holding an infant in her arms. It was a neighbor, who acted as a servant for Spadoni, when he stayed in the house. The arrival of a visitor was an event for her.

"Yes, he is in," she said, "don't you hear him?"

As a matter of fact, Michael had heard the sound of a piano, deadened by the thick walls.

The woman, convinced that the artist would never hear the blows of the knocker, disappeared around the corner. Shortly afterward, her head and the child she was carrying in her arms appeared above the edge of the wall.

"Maestro!" she shouted. "A gentleman to see you! A visitor!"

And she came back again, smoothing her skirts as though she had just descended a ladder.

The door groaned on its hinges, as it opened, and Spadoni appeared in the opening.

"Oh, your Highness!"

There was no expression of surprise in his smile. He greeted the Prince as though he had seen him the day before.

Then he guided him through corridors and drawing-rooms, which were sunk in deep multi-colored shadow, and smelled of dust and mold. It had been many months since the stained glass windows had been opened, or the curtains drawn. Spadoni lived his entire life in a single room. Lubimoff collided with furniture and curios, as he advanced, almost upsetting two huge Japanese vases, and nearly impaling himself on the numerous projections in the profuse decoration of a "romantic studio," which had been in style twenty-five years before.

They finally returned to the light, a dazzling light that entered by three open doors overlooking a terrace bordering the ravine. It was the "hall" of the villa, decorated with Hindustanee draperies and divans. The Prince saw that Spadoni had excellent quarters in his "tomb". A large grand-piano was the only piece of furniture kept clean in this dust-invaded room. On the music rack several albums of music in manuscript lay opened.

Seeing that Lubimoff noticed them, the pianist gave a look of despair.

His poverty was very great: he was forced to give concerts in order to live, and found himself obliged to study the new operas.

He spoke of this labor as though it represented the cruelest imposition of inexorable Reality, the greatest degradation in his life.

Various ladies who organized benefits for the soldiers had sought his aid. He played for nothing, "out of patriotism", but the good ladies always found a way of giving him a fair sum. His poverty was tremendous! He was going to the gambling rooms only at long intervals. He hadn't enough money to play even the roulette wheel, where the stakes were but five francs!

The Prince started to read the titles of the scores, but Spadoni covered them up in comic haste.

"Awful rot! You mustn't look at those, your Highness. Here on the Riviera, when the ladies are getting on in years, and do not find any one to fall in love with them any more, they devote themselves to writing love songs or dance music for great spectacles; and the Casino accepts their work in order not to offend them. It results that on certain days the Monte Carlo Theater becomes the Temple of Musical Imbecility. No; it would be better for you to see what we are giving this afternoon. It is the work of a millionairess who writes the whole thing, music and words."

And he read aloud the titles of various "picturesque scenes": Dialogue between the Butterfly and the Rose, What the Palm Tree said to the Century Plant, Prayer of the Grasshopper to Our Father the Sun.

"Fortunately, your Highness, this humiliating situation will not last. I have a way out of it – a way out of it!"

And forgetting the piano, the scores, and his musical degradation, Spadoni suddenly launched into the world of dreams. He knew the secret of the great man, the Greek, who was winning millions at the Sporting-Club. He had guessed it, with his own cunning, after worming certain data out of a man who accompanied the lofty personage. It was a simple combination, like all ideas of genius. For example…

And he reached for a pack of cards which was on the table, lying on a number of albums bound in red: The nine Symphonies of Beethoven.

"Oh no – if you please!" the Prince brusquely restrained him, to keep him from plunging into that mania for demonstrating.

"I hoped to meet Castro here," he said, in a quiet voice, a moment later.

Spadoni seemed to awaken.

"Castro?.. Oh, yes! He lived with me for a few days, but he went away."

Still obsessed by his marvelous combination, he talked in an absent-minded manner without showing the slightest interest in what he was saying. Castro had expressed a desire to live with him; he had told him so, late one afternoon in the Casino, and Spadoni had left Villa Sirena to accompany him. It was the least a friend could do!

"But when did he go? Where is he?"

"He went day before yesterday, and must be in Paris. A fool trip! Imagine, your Highness, during the last few days he had an extraordinary run of luck, winning as high as twenty thousand francs. If he had only gone on! But he wouldn't! He was in a hurry. He gave me five hundred francs, and I lost them immediately; it was very little money for my combination. I think he was going to be a soldier; he kept talking to me about the Foreign Legion. You can expect almost any foolishness from him. A man who is winning and runs away!.."