• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Or the gazelle the desert tiger

When he has pinned her with his stare?”

“Lorin, can’t you ever resign yourself to talking like everyone else does? You’re really starting to get on my nerves with your atrocious poetry!”

“What! Talk like everyone else! But I talk better than everyone else, it seems to me. I talk like the citizen-poet Demoustier,9 in prose and in verse. As for my poetry, dear boy, I know a woman called Emily who rather likes it; but let’s get back to yours.”

“To my poetry? ”

“No. Your Emily.”

“I have an Emily?”

“Oh, please! Your gazelle turned out to be a tigress in disguise; she showed you her teeth and now you’re out of sorts, but in love.”

“Me, in love!” cried Maurice, shaking his head. “Yes, you, in love.

Let’s have no more mystery;

The blows that rain down from Cythera10

Hit the heart harder, you see,

Than those of thundering Jupiter.”

“Lorin,” Maurice warned, grabbing a sort of whistle that was lying on the night table, “if you talk any more poetry at me I’m going to give you the whistle!”

“All right, so let’s talk politics. Besides, that’s what I came for. Have you heard the news?”

“I know the Widow Capet tried to escape.”

“Oh! That’s nothing.”

“What else is there, then?”

“The famous Knight of Maison-Rouge11 is in Paris.”

“Really!” cried Maurice, sitting up.

“The very same, himself, in person.”

“But when did he get here? ”

“Early last night.”

“How?”

“Disguised as a chasseur with the National Guard. A woman they think is an aristocrat, decked out like a woman of the people brought him the clothes at the city barrier, and a minute later they entered, arm in arm. It’s only after they were through that the sentry had a few suspicions. He’d seen the woman go by one way with a parcel, then he sees her come back the other way with some sort of military type on her arm. It was fishy, so he gave the alarm and the chase was on. But they disappeared into a hotel on the rue Saint-Honoré when the door opened suddenly, as if by magic. The hotel had a back door on the Champs-Elysées, so that was that! The Knight of Maison-Rouge and his accomplice just vanished into thin air. They’ll demolish the hotel and guillotine the owner, but that won’t stop the Knight from trying again, just as he did the first time, four months ago, and the second time last night.”

“And they haven’t got him?” asked Maurice.

“Try and get Proteus,12 dear boy, just try and get Proteus. You know how much trouble Aristides had when he tried.

Pastor Aristaeus fugiens Peneia Tempe … ”13

“Look out!” said Maurice, bringing the whistle to his mouth.

“You look out! This time it’s not me you’d be booing, it’s Virgil.”

“Ah, you’re right. Well, as long as you don’t try and translate it, I won’t say a word. But getting back to the Knight of Maison-Rouge …”

“Yes, well, you can’t say he doesn’t cut a dashing figure.”

“The fact is, to do what he does, you’d have to have a lot of courage.”

“Or a lot of love.”

“So you believe in the story of the Knight’s love for the Queen?”

“I don’t believe it; I’m just saying it like everyone else. Anyway, she’s made plenty of others fall in love with her, so it wouldn’t be surprising if she’s seduced him too, would it? She certainly got to Barnave,14 if you believe what you hear.”

“However that may be, the Knight must have informers inside the Temple itself.”

“That’s possible:

Love breaks bars

And laughs at locks.”

“Lorin!”

“Right.”

“So, you go along with that like everyone else?”

“Why not?”

“Because, according to your count, the Queen would have to have had two hundred men pining after her.”

“Two hundred, three hundred, four hundred. She’s beautiful enough. I’m not saying she’s been in love with them, but they’ve certainly been in love with her. Everyone looks at the sun but the sun doesn’t look on everyone.”

“So you were saying, the Knight of Maison-Rouge …?”

“I was saying they’re hunting him a bit seriously at the moment, and if he manages to get away from the bloodhounds of the Republic, then he must be a very clever fox.