Sarrasine | Page 3

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 whom the happiness, the life, or the fortune of all depended. Was
it fear or affection? Society could discover no indication which enabled
them to solve this problem. Concealed for months at a time in the
depths of an unknown sanctuary, this familiar spirit suddenly emerged,
furtively as it were, unexpectedly, and appeared in the salons like the
fairies of old, who alighted from their winged dragons to disturb
festivities to which they had not been invited. Only the most
experienced observers could divine the anxiety, at such times, of the
masters of the house, who were peculiarly skilful in concealing their
feelings. But sometimes, while dancing a quadrille, the too ingenuous
Marianina would cast a terrified glance at the old man, whom she
watched closely from the circle of dancers. Or perhaps Filippo would
leave his place and glide through the crowd to where he stood, and
remain beside him, affectionate and watchful, as if the touch of man, or
the faintest breath, would shatter that extraordinary creature. The
countess would try to draw nearer to him without apparently intending
to join him; then, assuming a manner and an expression in which
servility and affection, submissiveness and tyranny, were equally
noticeable, she would say two or three words, to which the old man
almost always deferred; and he would