In presence of such avowals doubt was no longer possible. The drum-major
soon became emboldened and raised the tips of his fingers to his lips.
His kisses journeyed through space; and then with his hands clasped he
begged of Zouhra to return them.
I must confess that the wretched girl defended herself for a few minutes
with bashful reserve. But she was so pressed and implored that at last I
saw her weaken, and anxious and hesitating, she yielded.
I was betrayed!
Mohammed sank down, uttering a plaintive moan. For my own part I thought
of my uncle's misfortune. Was it fate?
However, my uncle is not the only man who comes from Marseilles; I also
come from that city, and although I am merely his nephew, I have at
times enough of his hot disposition to feel as he felt after similar
strokes of fate. Having been drawn into his irregular orbit, passing
through the same phases as he passed through, I must expect that nothing
will ever happen to me in the same way as it would happen to others,
himself excepted. Thus the similarity of our adventures--the drum-major
in my case taking the place of my uncle's Jean Bonaffé,--ought not to
have surprised me; it should have been foreseen like a philosophical
contingency previously inscribed in the book of destiny. And, indeed, to
tell the truth, I should have considered the slightest departure from
the precise law of fate illogical.
However, I was either in a bad disposition of mind or I had been too
suddenly and speedily awakened from the presumptuous quietude into which
I had sunk, for I will admit to you that on thinking over my case, I
experienced at the moment a singular feeling of astonishment.
Horns are like teeth, a witty woman once said: they hurt while they are
coming, but afterwards one manages to put up with them!
True as this remark of an experienced person may be, yet having my own
ideas as to these vain appendages which I could not prevent from
sprouting; and being, moreover, sufficiently provided with proofs which
I had duly weighed, my first idea was to dart head first athwart this
intrigue in which my dishonour was a certainty. Leaving Mohammed upon
the divan where he had stranded, I hastened by way of the stairs to the
guilty creature's room.
I softly opened the closed door, stepped gently over the carpet, and
approached her from behind in time to catch her just as she had one hand
on her heart and the other on her lips.
She gave a little shriek, while the drum-major, on seeing me appear so
suddenly, made a gesture of despair. Then he drew back with such haste
that his plume caught against the wall above the window, with the result
that his bearskin was knocked off, and turning a sommersault fell into
the courtyard.