Sarrasine | Page 5

strophe to strophe. The reserve which Monsieur and
Madame de Lanty maintained concerning their origin, their past lives,
and their relations with the four quarters of the globe would not, of
itself, have been for long a subject of wonderment in Paris. In no other
country, perhaps, is Vespasian's maxim more thoroughly understood.
Here gold pieces, even when stained with blood or mud, betray nothing,
and represent everything. Provided that good society knows the amount
of your fortune, you are classed among those figures which equal yours,
and no one asks to see your credentials, because everybody knows how
little they cost. In a city where social problems are solved by algebraic
equations, adventurers have many chances in their favor. Even if this

family were of gypsy extraction, it was so wealthy, so attractive, that
fashionable society could well afford to overlook its little mysteries.
But, unfortunately, the enigmatical history of the Lanty family offered
a perpetual subject of curiosity, not unlike that aroused by the novels of
Anne Radcliffe.
People of an observing turn, of the sort who are bent upon finding out
where you buy your candelabra, or who ask you what rent you pay
when they are pleased with your apartments, had noticed, from time to
time, the appearance of an extraordinary personage at the fetes,
concerts, balls, and routs given by the countess. It was a man. The first
time that he was seen in the house was at a concert, when he seemed to
have been drawn to the salon by Marianina's enchanting voice.
"I have been cold for the last minute or two," said a lady near the door
to her neighbor.
The stranger, who was standing near the speaker, moved away.
"This is very strange! now I am warm," she said, after his departure.
"Perhaps you will call me mad, but I cannot help thinking that my
neighbor, the gentleman in black who just walked away, was the cause
of my feeling cold."
Ere long the exaggeration to which people in society are naturally
inclined, produced a large and growing crop of the most amusing ideas,
the most curious expressions, the most absurd fables concerning this
mysterious individual. Without being precisely a vampire, a ghoul, a
fictitious man, a sort of Faust or Robin des Bois, he partook of the
nature of all these anthropomorphic conceptions, according to those
persons who were addicted to the fantastic. Occasionally some German
would take for realities these ingenious jests of Parisian evil- speaking.
The stranger was simply /an old man/. Some young men, who were
accustomed to decide the future of Europe every morning in a few
fashionable phrases, chose to see in the stranger some great criminal,
the possessor of enormous wealth. Novelists described the old man's
life and gave some really interesting details of the atrocities committed
by him while he was in the service of the Prince of Mysore. Bankers,
men of a more positive nature, devised a specious fable.
"Bah!" they would say, shrugging their broad shoulders pityingly, "that
little old fellow's a /Genoese head/!"
"If it is not an impertinent question, monsieur, would you have the

kindness to tell me what you mean by a Genoese head?"
"I mean, monsieur, that he is a man upon whose life enormous sums
depend, and whose good health is undoubtedly essential to the
continuance of this family's income. I remember that I once heard a
mesmerist, at Madame d'Espard's, undertake to prove by very specious
historical deductions, that this old man, if put under the magnifying
glass, would turn out to be the famous Balsamo, otherwise called
Cagliostro. According to this modern alchemist, the Sicilian had
escaped death, and amused himself making gold for his grandchildren.
And the Bailli of Ferette declared that he recognized in this
extraordinary personage the Comte de Saint-Germain."
Such nonsense as this, put forth with the assumption of superior
cleverness, with the air of raillery, which in our day characterize a
society devoid of faith, kept alive vague suspicions concerning the
Lanty family. At last, by a strange combination of circumstances, the
members of that family justified the conjectures of society by adopting
a decidedly mysterious course of conduct with this old man, whose life
was, in a certain sense, kept hidden from all investigations.
If he crossed the threshold of the apartment he was supposed to occupy
in the Lanty mansion, his appearance always caused a great sensation
in the family. One would have supposed that it was an event of the
greatest importance. Only Filippo, Marianina, Madame de Lanty, and
an old servant enjoyed the privilege of assisting the unknown to walk,
to rise, to sit down. Each one of them kept a close watch on his
slightest movements. It seemed as if he were some enchanted person
upon