Spring: -I- -II- -III-
The Stamp Album: -IV- -V- -VI- -VII- -VIII- -IX- -X- -XI- -XII-
In the Municipal Park: -XIII- -XIV- -XV- -XVI-
Springtime Twilight: -XVII-
The Villa: -XVIII- -XIX- -XX- -XXI- -XXII- -XXIII- -XXIV- -XXV- -XXVI- -XXVII-
Bianka’s Lineage: -XXVIII- -XXIX- -XXX- -XXXI- (XXXII) -XXXIII-
Hiatus: -XXXIV- -XXXV- -XXXVI- -XXXVII-
Finale: -XXXVIII- -XXXIX- -XL-
XXXII
O CHASMS of human perversity — O truly infernal intrigue! In whose mind could that venomous and satanic thought have taken hold, its boldness outstripping the most elaborate inventions of fantasy? The more deeply I penetrate its cavernous wickedness, the more greatly I am seized with admiration for its unbounded perfidiousness, for the flash of brilliant evil at the core of that criminal idea.
So my intuition had not deceived me. Here, close at hand, amid apparent law-abidingness, universal peace and the full force of treaties, was perpetrated a crime to make one’s hair stand on end. The gloomy drama was enacted here in perfect silence, so disguised and conspiratorial that no one could guess it or trace it among the innocent appearances of that spring. Who could suspect that between that gagged, dumb mannequin, rolling its eyes, and the delicate, so carefully raised, so well mannered Bianka, a family tragedy was taking place? Who, in the end, was Bianka? Are we to reveal the secret at last? What if she was not even descended from the rightful empress of Mexico, or even from the morganatic Isabelle d’Orgaz, that wife on the left-hand side who conquered the archduke with her beauty from the stage of a travelling opera?
What if her mother was that little Creole to whom he gave the pet name Conchita, and who has gone down in history by that name — by the back door, as it were? The information concerning her that I have been able to gather on the basis of the stamp album may be summarised in a few words.
After the fall of the emperor, Conchita left for Paris with her little daughter, where she lived on her widow’s pension, remaining steadfastly faithful to her imperial betrothed. History loses all further trace of that touching figure here, leaving a word or two to conjectures and intuitions. Of her daughter’s marriage and her susequemt fortunes we know nothing. In 1900, however, a certain Mme de V, a person of extraordinary and exotic beauty, left France for Austria on a false passport, with her little daughter and her husband. In Salzburg, at the Bavarian border, while changing trains for Vienna, the whole family was stopped and arrested by the Austrian gendarmerie. It is puzzling that, after examination of his counterfeit documents, M. de V went free, although he made to attempt to secure the release of his wife and daughter. He travelled back to France that same day, and all trace of him vanishes. Here, all the threads are lost in complete darkness. With what bedazzlement did I trace back their trail, shooting in a fiery line through the stamp album. To my credit, by my discovery, the aforementioned M. de V will remain forever identified with a certain highly suspect personality going under another name entirely, in another country. But hush..! Not another word about that. Suffice it to say that Bianka’s lineage has been established beyond all doubt.
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