Captain Fracasse | Page 8

full share from his kind hand.
The supper finished, he fell into a deep reverie. Miraut had laid his
head caressingly upon his master's knee, and looked up into his face
with loving, intelligent eyes, somewhat dimmed by age, but still
seeming to understand his thoughts and sympathize with his sadness.
Beelzebub purred loudly meantime, and occasionally mewed
plaintively to attract his attention, while Pierre stood in a respectful
attitude, cap in hand, at a little distance, motionless as a statue, waiting
patiently until his master's wandering thoughts should return. By this
time the darkness had fallen, and the flickering radiance from the few
sticks blazing in the great fireplace made strange effects of light and
shade in the spacious old kitchen. It was a sad picture; this last scion of
a noble race, formerly rich and powerful, left wandering like an uneasy
ghost in the castle of his ancestors, with but one faithful old servant
remaining to him of the numerous retinue of the olden times; one poor
old dog, half starved, and gray with age, where used to be a pack of
thirty hounds; one miserable, superannuated pony in the stable where
twenty horses had been wont to stand; and one old cat to beg for
caresses from his hand.

At last the baron roused himself, and signed to Pierre that he wished to
retire to his own chamber; whereupon the servant lighted a pine knot at
the fire, and preceded his master up the stairs, Miraut and Beelzebub
accompanying them. The smoky, flaring light of the torch made the
faded figures on the wall seem to waver and move as they passed
through the hall and up the broad staircase, and gave a strange, weird
expression to the family portraits that looked down upon this little
procession as it moved by below them. When they reached the
tapestried chamber Pierre lighted a little copper lamp, and then bade the
baron good-night, followed by Miraut as he retraced his steps to the
kitchen; but Beelzebub, being a privileged character, remained, and
curled himself up comfortably in one of the old arm-chairs, while his
master threw himself listlessly into the other, in utter despair at the
thought of his miserable loneliness, and aimless, hopeless life. If the
chamber seemed dreary and forlorn by day, it was far more so by night.
The faded figures in the tapestry had an uncanny look; especially one, a
hunter, who might have passed for an assassin, just taking aim at his
victim. The smile on his startlingly red lips, in reality only a
self-satisfied smirk, was fairly devilish in that light, and his ghastly
face horribly life-like. The lamp burned dimly in the damp heavy air,
the wind sighed and moaned along the corridors, and strange, frightful
sounds came from the deserted chambers close at hand. The storm that
had long been threatening had come at last, and large, heavy rain-drops
were driven violently against the window-panes by gusts of wind that
made them rattle loudly in their leaden frames. Sometimes it seemed as
if the whole sash would give way before the fiercer blasts, as though a
giant had set his knee against it, and was striving to force an entrance.
Now and again, when the wind lulled for a moment while it gathered
strength for a fresh assault, the horrid shriek of an owl would be heard
above the dashing of the rain that was falling in torrents.
The master of this dismal mansion paid little attention to this
lugubrious symphony, but Beelzebub was very uneasy, starting up at
every sound, and peering into the shadowy corners of the room, as if he
could see there something invisible to human eyes. The baron took up a
little book that was lying upon the table, glanced at the familiar arms
stamped upon its tarnished cover, and opening it, began to read in a

listless, absent way. His eyes followed the smooth rhythm of Ronsard's
ardent love-songs and stately sonnets, but his thoughts were wandering
far afield, and he soon threw the book from him with an impatient
gesture, and began slowly unfastening his garments, with the air of a
man who is not sleepy, but only goes to bed because he does not know
what else to do with himself, and has perhaps a faint hope of forgetting
his troubles in the embrace of Morpheus, most blessed of all the gods.
The sand runs so slowly in the hour-glass on a dark, stormy night, in a
half-ruined castle, ten leagues away from any living soul.
The poor young baron, only surviving representative of an ancient and
noble house, had much indeed to make him melancholy and
despondent. His ancestors had worked their own ruin, and that of their
descendants, in various ways. Some by