Apparation

3 “He left his country estate the same day that his young wife was buried, and he came to live in his townhouse in Rouen. He lived there, solitary and desperate, tortured by sadness, so miserable that he thought of nothing but suicide. “ ‘Since I’ve found you again,’ he said to me, ‘I will ask you to do me a great favor—to go to my country house and to look in the secretary in my bedroom . . . our bedroom for several papers which I need urgently. I can’t give this task to a servant or a businessman, as the utmost discretion and absolute silence are necessary. For my own part, nothing in this world could make me re-enter that house. “ ‘I will give you the key to this bedroom, which I closed myself in leaving, and the key to the secretary. And I’ll give you a note to my gardener asking him to open the house for you. But come have lunch with me tomorrow, and we will arrange all of this.’

“I promised him that I’d render him this favor, which was only a slight one; it was no more than a short journey for me, as his country estate was situated only about five miles from Rouen.

“At ten o’clock the next day, I went to his house in Rouen. We lunched tête-àtête (face to face), though he hardly spoke twenty words. He begged me to excuse him; the thought of the visit that I was to make in this bedroom, where his happiness once lay, upset him, he told me. To me, he seemed strangely agitated, preoccupied, as if something mysterious battled in his soul.

“Finally, he explained to me exactly what I needed to do. It was very simple. I was to take two packets of letters and one closed bundle of papers in the first drawer on the right hand side of the desk, to which I had the key.

“He added: ‘I don’t need to ask you not to read any of them.’

“I was hurt by his remark, and I told him so a bit harshly. After all, I am a marquis. I was an officer and a gentleman! How dare he suspect me of doing anything further than the simple favor he had requested?

“He stammered, ‘Pardon me. I suffer too much.” And the poor man began to cry.

“At about one o’clock that afternoon, I left to accomplish my mission for my old friend. The weather was beautiful, and I rode my horse at a high trot across the fields, listening to the songs of the larks and the rhythmic noise of my saber hitting my boot.

Then I entered the forest, and I walked my mount. Branches of trees caressed my face,