Chapter 04
Because the Bellof monarchy recognized the titles of nobles who sought refuge from abroad, Bellof had a unique
social class known as the “immigrant nobility.”
Dolores’s family belonged to this group. But in Aquinieu, rather than using the ordinary term “immigrant nobility,”
people preferred to mock them indirectly with the elegant euphemism “the transplanted.”
People generally left their homes when life became too difficult to continue living there. So, in the end, immigrant
nobles were proof that their lives in their homeland had become so miserable that they had no choice but to leave.
In other words, they had not chosen to move.
They had been transplanted.
“Take the theft that happened two months ago… The Coclain royal family can’t simply stand by and watch the
problems caused by immigrants.”
“I’ve been seeing people from Samin and Sholotera around lately. From what Mr. Clermont told me, he apparently
fathered a child while he was abroad. And would you believe it? The child was born to a Samin woman. I can’t
imagine how devastated Mrs. Élise must have been…”
“You mean Mr. Clermont, the textile merchant? His business closed recently. Surely that wasn’t because of…”
It was strange.
Dolores had done nothing wrong, yet she suddenly felt an urge to hide herself in a mouse hole.
“We’ve accepted too many immigrants. Even the word ‘tolerance’ has become contaminated. Look at Lenore. It’s
strict and elegant. There isn’t room for immigrants to set foot there. Everyone is united by their refinement.
…Honestly, I suppose you can’t call everyone a noble simply because they have a title these days, but… They’re
different, I tell you.”
“Oh, really? Have you ever been to Lenore?”
“One of my closest friends holds a position in the Lenore Police Bureau…”
Then.
“If he’s your friend, is he just some low-ranking riot officer or patrolman?”
A bright voice magically locked every adult’s throat.
Dolores, who had been hunched over, slowly raised her head.
Beside the sofa where the adults were gathered, two boys sat on stools—one around Dolores’s age and another
somewhat older.
Here we go again.
It’s noisy. What can you do?
The first boy to catch her attention was in his mid-teens. He wore a navy jacket decorated with silver embroidery and white gloves.
His upper garment was buttoned neatly all the way to the collar, just as though he had stepped out of a textbook
illustration, not a single wrinkle disturbing its smooth surface.
His eyes were gentle, and his healthy complexion gave him a warm, comforting air.
Dolores, who had always secretly dreamed of having an older brother, felt her heart flutter for no reason.
“You said yourself that listening to this was irritating, didn’t you, brother?”
The boy sitting beside him, who appeared to be around Dolores’s age, was delicate and somewhat nervous by comparison.
He wore a dark-gray children’s suit beneath a black velvet cloak that fell all the way to his waist, the pearlescent buttons at his waist gleaming softly.
A small golden brooch loosely fastened his high collar.
His pale-brown hair was similar to his brother’s, making them look like siblings, but their atmospheres were completely different.
The taller boy pressed down firmly on the smaller boy’s head with an exasperated expression.
But the smaller boy stubbornly twisted his head free.
“Uncle, seriously. Have you actually been to that cesspool called Lenore before you talk about it?”
“…What, uh…?”
“At a time like this, I suppose ‘so-called’ would be the more appropriate expression. I don’t think you understand just
how insufferable those ‘so-called elegant people’ are. Those people wouldn’t even give someone of our social standing
a second glance. They’re the real nobles, you see.”
His manner of speaking was utterly impossible to imagine coming from a boy his age.
“What does a little brat like you know to be talking, talking like this…?”
“I don’t know exactly what I know, but I do know that you don’t know very much.”
“What?”
“Is there even a single prominent economic family or major newspaper in our country that hasn’t been influenced by
foreign countries? I heard even Sir Albert Chopard studied abroad for a year at the Bloomer Academy in Hennacy
when he was young. Even that famous Buchanan was a foreigner two hundred years ago.
“Oh, do you read the Romerto Journal? Uncle Romuald Ancel is also one of the ‘transplanted.’ Publishing a
newspaper filled with contaminated ideas—he must be crazy. Is it supposed to be propaganda for the black radicals?
Oh, Uncle, you don’t happen to read the Romerto Journal, do you? The one you’ve tucked beneath your hat. Oh, isn’t
that a Romerto Journal…?”
“Mm!”
The taller boy finally shoved aside his chair, stood up, and clamped a hand over the smaller boy’s mouth, silencing
the stream of insults in one swift motion.
Judging from his expression, Dolores expected him to be deeply apologetic.
Surprisingly, his apology was half-hearted.
“I’ll apologize on behalf of my brother. Please don’t take offense. My brother is rather sensitive when it comes to
noisy people.”
Dolores felt a strange sense of satisfaction.
The adults were flustered and completely focused on the boys, and all those unpleasant words they had been saying suddenly seemed to have lost even a single gram of weight.
The pompous gentleman—Dolores decided that was what she would call him—had turned bright red and was
beginning to rise threateningly from his seat when an elderly gentleman standing on the opposite side stopped him with an amused smile.
“Madam Rou takes good care of these boys. It would be wiser to let this pass quietly, wouldn’t you say, Sir Jerome?”
“…Madam Rou?”
The name Madam Rou carried enough power all by itself.
“Then how do you suppose those children came to be sitting here without a guardian?”
“What on earth are those children, anyway, that they can behave like…?”
“They are the precious sons of an old friend of mine. They have a rather thorny side to them, like roses covered in thorns.”
Just then, Madam Anne Rou returned to the drawing room.
She must have gone outside, because snow had gathered on her hood.
“Madam. I was wondering where you had gone.”
“I went to see off a guest whose night was cut short. Even Sir Jerome can’t handle this child, can he? I had hoped
there would be someone in Aquinieu capable of handling his temperament.”
“…Madam Rou, forgive me for speaking out of turn, but children ought to be properly disciplined from a young age…”
“Of course they should. I’ll pass your words along to his parents. I only hope they’ll listen with even the backs of their ears. Won’t you, Xavier?”
Madam Anne Rou bent down with a smile and met the gaze of the boy named Xavier.
There was something strangely overwhelming about the scene.
An adult and a child simply looking at one another, yet the image remained etched in Dolores’s mind as though she
were looking at the subject of a painting covered in an additional layer of dark color.
The boy standing beside Xavier spoke.
“Madam, the gentleman does have a point. Excessive favoritism can spoil a child.”
“Luca, I adore you fairly as well, don’t I?”
“What I want is for you to scold me in a discriminatory manner.”
Madam Anne Rou laughed.
Madam Anne Rou was a witch who could make every incident of the night seem like nothing at all.
The boy who had been standing there with a dissatisfied expression turned his head.
As though he had noticed the persistent gaze of a certain girl, he looked directly at Dolores.
What she saw between the neatly combed strands of his fine brown hair were long, clear green eyes.
There was no warmth in them, nothing soft or gentle.
And yet, strangely, he seemed mature.
Since arriving at this salon as Marguerite’s companion, Dolores had been treated almost as though she did not exist.
The boy’s direct gaze suddenly made her shrink back.
If his expression became only slightly harsher, it seemed as though he might pounce on her.
“Xavier, you knew perfectly well that you shouldn’t be rude to adults, yet you did it anyway. As an apology, play something for us.”
“…”
“Xavier?”
Madam Anne Rou followed Xavier’s gaze and looked toward Dolores.
Under the sensation of suddenly becoming the center of attention, Dolores’s heart began to beat softly.
“…Must I?”
“Can’t you? Surely you can show us this small kindness.”
“…If you insist, Madam, I suppose I have no choice.”
The boy named Xavier turned his head away haughtily and opened an instrument case standing against one of the walls.
Inside lay a violin with a smooth, gleaming body.
Its reddish-brown wood grain resembled the inner flesh of a tree deep within a dark forest.
Rosewood? Mahogany?
Which one could it be?
When the bow brushed across the four strings, they trembled with a thin, delicate sound.
Unlike other performers, the boy neither smiled nor bowed.
He simply rested the violin beneath his chin.
He relaxed his shoulders, took hold of the bow, and drew it diagonally across the four strings.
His eyes instantly became serious.
The room fell silent.
Camille Ravel’s Moonlight, performed in Madam Anne Rou’s salon, opened the door to an unfamiliar world like magic.
The small boy’s bow danced freely across the violin strings like that of an adult, moving unbelievably fast, then passionately slow, sometimes trembling at his fingertips until it sent shivers through everyone listening.
And he did it without changing his expression even once, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
The boy was like a cold flame.
Like a blazing storm.
Controlled emotion and overwhelming exhilaration became tangled together, leaving Dolores utterly incapable of explaining what she was feeling.
The boy looked at her from time to time—or at least, she thought he did.
There was something strangely penetrating about his gaze.
It was the gaze of someone looking upon a stranger who had wandered into the center of his world.
Surrounded on every side by music, Dolores was caught like a fish in a net.
After the performance, Madam Anne Rou spoke to the others with a smug smile.
“If you have heard this child’s performance, you’ll all understand that the rudeness we witnessed tonight is hardly worth taking offense at. Don’t you agree?”
Madam Rou was truly right.
The boy was a genius.
