Read Online Vintage Vampire Stories by Robert Eighteen-Bisang - Free Book Online Page A

well-known Russian magnate less remarkable for purity of morals than diplomatic celebrity, boundless extravagance, and devotion to the other sex. To be on terms of common friendship with such a man was at least compromising to any lady under sixty years of age; and it is needless to say that his society was courted and appreciated accordingly.
    â€œMadame de St. Croix seemed well satisfied with her neighbour; and though in her outward manner the least demonstrative of women, I could detect through her mask the same cruel glitter in her dark eyes that had so fascinated me, six months before, in the Gräfinn’s opera-box. The Russian talked volubly, and she leaned towards him, as those do who are willing to hear more . Château qui parle furls its banner , femme qui écoute droops her head. Directly opposite, looking very tall and fierce as he reared himself against the doorway, stood Count V—. The Hungarian was pale as death. On his face, so worn and haggard, so cruelly altered since I saw it last, was set the stamp of physical pain, and he gnawed the corner of his brown moustache with that tension of the muscles about the mouth which denotes a paroxysm bravely kept down. As friends accosted him in passing, he bowed his head kindly and courteously while his whole face softened, but it was sad to see how soon the gleam passed away and the cloud came back, darker and heavier than before. The man’s heart, you see, was generous, kindly, and full of trust—such a heart as women like Madame de St. Croix find it an interesting amusement to break.
    â€œI think he must have made her some kind of appeal; for later in the evening I observed them together, and he was talking earnestly in German, with a low pleading murmur, to which I thought few women could have listened unmoved. She answered in French; and I was sorry for him when she broke up the colloquy with a little scornful shrug of her shoulders, observing in a hard, unfeeling tone not like her usual voice, ‘Que voulezvous? Enfin, c’est plus fort que moi!’
    â€œThe Russian put her into her sledge, for there was a foot of snow in the streets, and Count V—walked home through it, with a smile on his face and his head up, looking strangely elated, I thought, for a man, the last strand of whose moorings had lately parted and left him adrift.
    â€œI had not then learned there is no temporary stimulant so powerful as despair, no tonic so reviving as a parti pris .
    â€œNext day, lounging into the Chancellerie of the Embassy for my usual gossip, I found little Hughes, an unpaid attaché (who earned, indeed, just as much as he received), holding forth with considerable spirit and energy.
    â€œâ€˜Curse him!’ said this indomitable young Briton. ‘If it had been swords, I should like to have fought him myself. I hate him! I tell you. Everybody hates him. And V—was the best chap between here and Orsova. He was almost like an Englishman. Wouldn’t he just have polished him off if they’d had swords. That old muff, Bergheimer of the Cuirassiers, ought to hanged. Do you think, if I’d been his second, I’d have put him up with pistols against the best shot in Europe?—and at the barrier too! It’s not like at home, you know. I never knew such a mull as they made of it amongst them. This cursed Calmuck gets the pull all through, and poor V—, who had lost his fortune already, loses his lady-love and his life. What a rum world it is!’
    â€œHere the orator rolled and lit a cigarette, thus affording me a moment to inquire into the cause of his indignation. I then learned that, in consequence of a trifling dispute after last night’s ball, a duel had been fought at daybreak, in the snow, between Count V—and a Russian nobleman, in which the former was shot through the heart.
    â€œâ€˜Never got one in at all!’ said Hughes, again waxing eloquent on his friend’s wrongs.