Read Online Monsieur Jonquelle by Melville Davisson Post - Free Book Online Page B

gave precise directions. He was particularly anxious that she could speak English, French and Italian as perfectly as she spoke Russian; and being himself an accomplished linguist he always spoke to her in these languages, changing from one to the other in the middle of a sentence and at the half of an idea.
    His principal concern, however, was for her person. He wrote down instructions about her food, her baths, her exercise. When he had believed her throat to be too thin he had orderedit massaged. He had prescribed gymnastics to develop her arms. She should walk but little, for he wished her feet to remain small and delicate. Thus her life ran until she was nineteen, when—two years before—her father had appeared, ordered her possessions packed and carried her to Paris.
    He took her to a house of old Paris near the Faubourg St. Germain, inclosed by an ancient wall, studded with iron spikes. Here he delivered her into the hands of a woman loaded with jewels—a big, old woman with a Hapsburg nose.
    â€œPrincess,” he said, “my daughter lacks only one thing to make her the most attractive woman in Europe. Teach her that thing.”
    The old woman’s eyes blinked above the big pouches below her eyelids.
    â€œEh, Michaelovitch?” she said. “Let us see.” And she got up and, turning the girl about by the arm, examined her as one would examine a colt in a paddock. Then she went back and sat down in her big gilt chair. “How long do you give me?” she said.
    â€œSix months, princess,” replied the man.
    The old woman considered.
    â€œA year, Michaelovitch!” she finally said, and held out her fat jeweled hand for the man to kiss. He carried the fingers to his lips and went away.
    For a year, then, this girl from a Russian conventwas taught the arts and mysteries of dress and of the drawing room, under the eye and the hand of this terrible old drill-master, who had been a lady in waiting to a now vanished court. The great tradeswomen of the Rue de la Paix came and explained the secrets of their craft; the designers of the great houses studied her; charts were made setting out the colors and combinations of colors suited to her person. And always the old woman taught her every trick and every art whereby, in a setting of the most conventional manner, the feminine charm may be made alluring and sensuous.
    â€œIt is not what is shown,” she was accustomed to say, “but what is threatened to be shown that plays the devil.”
    Then one day she sent for the girl’s father and said to him:
    â€œMichaelovitch, you have now in your hand the most merchantable commodity in the whole of France. Begone with it to the market!”
    Her father took his daughter then to the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, and for a fortnight dangled her before the eyes of the Grand Duke Dimitri, who was forever experimenting with systems in the Casino. He showed her in all her varieties of plumage against the background of the freshness of her youth. “My daughter!” hewould say, as though his love had always inclosed her like a shell. And finally he had sold her.
    The woman’s voice hurried and stumbled on. Of course the conventions were to be followed! But it was a sale for all that, with a delivery of the article by the priest. The marriage was to be effected at the grand duke’s château in Haute-Savoie. She was taken there by the old woman who was now with her. It was a wild, deserted district of the Alps in the severities of winter. Toward the summit was an ancient monastery, hidden by a
mer de glace
. But a great cross a hundred feet high emerged.
    In the valley was a little village; and above, on a shelf of the rock, hung the red château, like a splotch of blood on the vast spotless carpet of white.
    She was dressed for the wedding at the inn in the village. Then the woman with her gave her into the hands of a big monk who took her to the château, the