At that moment Marianne was so overburdened with shame and remorse that even the joy of knowing Jason was still alive could not bring more than a glimmer of light.
By guarding the life of the man who had used him so cruelly, by having him tended and cared for and providing him with the means to be reunited with all that he loved best in the world, the pretended Caleb had given both of them, Marianne and Jason alike, a lesson in magnanimity it would have been hard to equal.
Feeling rather ashamed of the not very admirable part she had elected to play and in the belief that it was her right, Marianne wanted to run after the prince and stop him, but by the time she had managed to pull herself together the front door had slammed behind him. To chase him then would have done no good and only made her look ridiculous, so she went out into the garden instead, drawn by the coolness and the quiet. Hugging the shawl around her shoulders, she stepped out through the stone bay and began to stroll along a little blue mosaic path that wound its way between the rose trees and the beds of glowing dahlias which blossomed like colorful set pieces on either hand.
To go into the garden had always been a natural reaction with her whenever she wanted time to think or to recover her temper. As a little girl at Selton, she would run and hide herself in the farthest corner of the park, where the shade of the great trees was densest, whenever she was suffering from one of the childish tragedies that seem so trivial to grown-up persons. In Paris, too, the little walled garden in the rue de Lille had often been the scene of solitary, anxious meditations as Marianne sought there, if not comfort or counsel, at least a brief respite from her troubles.
She plunged into this unfamiliar garden as though into a soothing bath, but its solitude, as she very soon discovered, was by no means absolute, for she was approaching a seat half-hidden in an arbor of clematis when she saw the figure of a man rise to its feet. This time the man wore European dress and she had no difficulty in recognizing her old friend Arcadius de Jolival. She came upon him so suddenly that she had no time to be alarmed, while her capacity for astonishment had been somewhat blunted by the revelations of the past two hours.
Therefore she said nothing more than: "Oh, are you here? How did you get here?"
"As fast as I could," Jolival said crossly. "We were at our wit's end at the embassy, having had no word of you since last evening. So when a message came to say that you were at the house of Princess Morousi and I was cordially invited to join you there, I lost no time about it, I can tell you, but packed a bag and came. As for our friend Latour-Maubourg, while he hasn't the least idea how you come to be staying in Phanar with the widow of the hospodar of Walachia when you set out to go to Scutari with the sultana, he's so delighted to find you moving in circles so close to the Ottoman throne that he's lighting candles to every saint in the calendar remotely connected with diplomacy. He's going to be very disappointed to see you back again. He won't understand it in the least."
"See me back again?"
"Good God! If you're going back to that angel-maker of yours tonight, you'll hardly be coming here afterwards to convalesce, will you?"
Marianne looked hard at her old friend, but he sustained her regard unflinchingly.
"You heard what passed—in there?" she demanded, indicating the room behind her. Jolival bowed.
"Every word. And don't ask me what miracle brought that about, because I'll only repeat that I heard. You see, I'm like your cousin Adelaide. I've never managed to believe that it's a cardinal sin to listen at keyholes. It seems to me a useful talent, first because it's easier than you'd think, and secondly because it helps to avoid a great many mistakes, as well as saving lengthy explanations which are always tiresome and often embarrassing. So you need not tell me what passed between you and Prince Sant'Anna, because I know."
"So that you also know who he is?"
"As a matter of fact, I knew that before you did because it was the prince himself who came to the embassy. I may say that he did so under the name of Turhan Bey but, in return for my word of honor, he consented to raise that white mask of his."
"What did you think when you learned the truth? You must have been surprised at least to find that the slave Caleb was really Prince Sant'Anna?"
The Vicomte de Jolival twirled the thin, black mustache which, in conjunction with his large ears, gave him such a startling resemblance to a mouse, then shook his head and sighed.
"Well, not altogether," he confessed. "In fact, I don't think I was surprised at all, really. There was too much about Caleb that did not fit, so many peculiarities to suggest that the character of the runaway slave was a cover for someone a great deal more distinguished than we guessed. I believe I even said something of the sort to you at one time. Of course, it never occurred to me to identify him with the mystery man you had been married to, but the fact explained a good deal. So much so that when I met him face to face it was like finding a satisfying answer to an irritating riddle." He gave her a little smile. "And now," he added, "I'd like to hear your own impressions. What were your feelings, Marianne, when you saw your dark-skinned husband?"
"Honestly, Arcadius, I don't know. It was a surprise, of course, but all in all not such a horrid surprise as I'd feared. Indeed, I confess that I don't really understand his behavior, all this mystery he surrounds himself with—"
"I know. I said so to him. You don't understand because you are a woman, and because, in spite of the color of his skin, or maybe even because of it, he is an exceptionally handsome fellow. His Negro blood has brought a new vitality, I might almost say a new virility, into a line which, if not actually decadent, had undoubtedly reached such a stage of inbreeding as to be verging on it. But you may believe me when I tell you there is not a gentleman in the world, not a man at all, indeed, who could fail to understand him or to understand the terrible way his father reacted on being presented with a black baby. I suggest you try asking our friend Beaufort the same question—"
"Jason comes from a country where they treat black people as slaves and use them as beasts of burden—"
"Not everywhere. You must not generalize. Nor, as far as I know, have the Beauforts ever been known as slave drivers. But I'll agree that his upbringing might prejudice his answer. But ask any man you meet—ask me, even."
"You, Arcadius?"
"Yes, me! I've never liked my wife, but supposing I had taken it into my head to give her a child and she had made me a present of a coal black bundle—for I dare say the prince was a few shades darker on arrival than he is now—why, upon my honor, I do believe I might have throttled Septimanie myself. And taken good care to hide the babe away."
"A man may have a dark skin and still be a person of consequence. Othello was a Moor and he became a great man in Venice."
That made Jolival laugh. He inserted two fingers in the pocket of his brocaded waistcoat and helped himself delicately to a pinch of snuff.
"The trouble with you, Marianne," he said, "is that you read too much Shakespeare and too many novels as a child. Othello, supposing that there ever was such a person, was a warrior of genius, and your truly great men can get away with almost anything. But do you think that if Napoleon had been born with a skin the color of bronze, like that handsome husband of yours, that he would be on the throne of France today? Not a bit of it. And where the prince is concerned, I think that the secluded life he chose, his hermitlike existence, was also a kind of tribute to his mother. It was for her and for her reputation that he imposed that penance on himself and cut himself off from love… I have the greatest respect for the man, Marianne, and for his most moving desire to see the continuation of his family, at the expense of his own justifiable aspirations and even of his own normal emotional and physical needs."