第20章

The Hundred Days found Mr.Nicholas B.staying with a distant relative of ours,owner of a small estate in Galicia.How he got there across the breadth of an armed Europe,and after what adventures,I am afraid will never be known now.All his papers were destroyed shortly before his death;but if there was among them,as he affirmed,a concise record of his life,then I am pretty sure it did not take up more than a half sheet of foolscap or so.This relative of ours happened to be an Austrian officer who had left the service after the battle of Austerlitz.Unlike Mr.Nicholas B.,who concealed his decorations,he liked to display his honourable discharge in which he was mentioned as un schreckbar (fearless)before the enemy.No conjunction could seem more unpromising,yet it stands in the family tradition that these two got on very well together in their rural solitude.

When asked whether he had not been sorely tempted during the Hundred Days to make his way again to France and join the service of his beloved Emperor,Mr.Nicholas B.used to mutter:"No money.No horse.Too far to walk."

The fall of Napoleon and the ruin of national hopes affected adversely the character of Mr.Nicholas B.He shrank from returning to his province.But for that there was also another reason.Mr.Nicholas B.and his brother--my maternal grand father--had lost their father early,while they were quite children.Their mother,young still and left very well off,married again a man of great charm and of an amiable disposition,but without a penny.He turned out an affectionate and careful stepfather;it was unfortunate,though,that while directing the boys'education and forming their character by wise counsel,he did his best to get hold of the fortune by buying and selling land in his own name and investing capital in such a manner as to cover up the traces of the real ownership.It seems that such practices can be successful if one is charming enough to dazzle one's own wife permanently,and brave enough to defy the vain terrors of public opinion.The critical time came when the elder of the boys on attaining his majority,in the year 1811,asked for the accounts and some part at least of the inheritance to begin life upon.It was then that the stepfather declared with calm finality that there were no accounts to render and no property to inherit.The whole fortune was his very own.He was very good-natured about the young man's misapprehension of the true state of affairs,but,of course,felt obliged to maintain his position firmly.Old friends came and went busily,voluntary mediators appeared travelling on most horrible roads from the most distant corners of the three provinces;and the Marshal of the Nobility (ex-officio guardian of all well-born orphans)called a meeting of landowners to "ascertain in a friendly way how the misunderstanding between X and his stepsons had arisen and devise proper measures to remove the same."A deputation to that effect visited X,who treated them to excellent wines,but absolutely refused his ear to their remonstrances.As to the proposals for arbitration he simply laughed at them;yet the whole province must have been aware that fourteen years before,when he married the widow,all his visible fortune consisted (apart from his social qualities)in a smart four-horse turnout with two servants,with whom he went about visiting from house to house;and as to any funds he might have possessed at that time their existence could only be inferred from the fact that he was very punctual in settling his modest losses at cards.But by the magic power of stubborn and constant assertion,there were found presently,here and there,people who mumbled that surely "there must be some thing in it."However,on his next name-day (which he used to celebrate by a great three days'shooting party),of all the invited crowd only two guests turned up,distant neighbours of no importance;one notoriously a fool,and the other a very pious and honest person,but such a passionate lover of the gun that on his own confession he could not have refused an invitation to a shooting party from the devil himself.X met this manifestation of public opinion with the serenity of an unstained conscience.He refused to be crushed.Yet he must have been a man of deep feeling,because,when his wife took openly the part of her children,he lost his beautiful tranquillity,proclaimed himself heartbroken,and drove her out of the house,neglecting in his grief to give her enough time to pack her trunks.