Dawn again.... I cannot see the new morning light; but I am conscious of its approach. The grated window is still dark; but I am sure the night is ending. Through the thick panes of glass, I feel a chill, the harbinger of day.
The three candles have burned low on the tips of the three lances. Their wicks have curled in upon themselves, sinking into the last drops of molten wax. Only a faint uncertain flame is sputtering from them now and that bit of light threatens to go out at intervals.
* * * * * * * * *
Sleep seems to have done me good, giving me back some strength, however little.
“Could I sit up now, if I tried?”
How long have I been here? Let’s figure it out, from the beginning, from the beginning of my Adventure! Or rather, no ... let’s go backward from today.... Today, yes ... sunrise ... there was a sunrise yesterday ... cold and rainy. That’s one day ... the day when I grew old so fast ... I got this way yesterday, between dawn and twilight!....The night before that, night before last ... I came to this House, the House of the Secret.... Last night, and night before last. Yesterday between.... Two nights and one day, in all....
One single day ... yet how deep these wrinkles, how withered the skin on this aged face of mine! And these bristles on my face ... on my cheeks and chin ... bristles white as snow, white as hoar-frost! One day for them to grow ... just one day ... but a day that lies heavier than a century upon my soul! Who will ever believe me when I tell this story? No one! No one!
Could I sit up, if I tried? But first, I must get rid of this sheet that’s tied around me.... Trusses me all up, and I can’t move.... The sheet? Where’s the sheet? Here’s a sheet; but it doesn’t seem to be troubling me.... Where’s the ... ah, yes ... it’s the sheet on Him—on the Man, I mean.... They have swathed Him in a sheet.... I can still see.... I see.... So naturally ... natural, isn’t it?... I get things mixed a little....
* * * * * * * * *
Dawn ... no doubt about it now ... the oblong opening of the grated window is pale with light.
* * * * * * * * *
I did not hear the door open.... I was caught by surprise. I had no time to close my eyes.
There they are again, the two of them, the Count François and the Vicomte Antoine. They are looking at me.... And I can easily see, see as easily as yesterday ... I can see they don’t know what to make of it ... don’t know what to make of me, that is.
* * * * * * * * *
“Monsieur, be so good as to get up, I beg of you.” It was the Count François who spoke.
And I arose, without the slightest difficulty. I was weak, very weak indeed, but light, ever so light ... as light as the air about me....
The Count François spoke again:
“Monsieur, my father is very tired today; he is in no condition to leave his room. For that reason my son and I have come to ask you to go with us to him.”
I followed them.... What difference did it make to me whether I was in one place or in another?
* * * * * * * * *
The old man, the Marquis Gaspard, I did not see.... A portière of antique silk was standing in front of his bed, there in his chamber. Of the bed I could see the four columns of carvedwood which supported the canopy. It was a square bed, without curtains.... That was all I saw....
But I recognized the queer falsetto of the marquis, and the marvelously gentle and persuasive tone his voice could assume, when it was not hardened with wilfulness or soured with irony.
The Living Man began to speak. I stood in the doorway listening.... And as I listened, this worn-out memory of mine, a memory so wasted, so decayed that one by one all my recollections of the good old days have fallen away as dust from it, took in his every word so deeply, so burningly, that I shall remember all he said till my course is wholly run.
He began to speak. He said:
“Monsieur, I had greater hopes of my own magnetic resources and of your powers of resistance. I cannot say I regret having done what I did.... I did my duty.... Our security, our peace of mind, our probable immortality could be conserved in no other way. Those at any rate are now adequately safe-guarded, at the price simply of a somewhat greater effort. But I should be much better satisfied had the experiment cost you a fatigue as great as mine, without drawing so deeply on your vital reserves. To be sure, I warned you that whatwe were about to do might prove extremely dangerous. I feared for your life especially when the moment would necessarily come for breaking the magnetic bond that connected you with the Being I derived from your substance. I foresaw also a great and cruel suffering on your part when I should kill, as I was obliged to kill, this newly created Being. Now those two shocks you withstood marvelously, Monsieur; but only to fall quite unexpectedly for us, into the particular state of languor and exhaustion in which I see you now. Monsieur, I am immensely, immensely sorry; and I trust you will understand that, had it been within my power, I would have been only too glad to leave you in a much stronger and sturdier state of health!”
A pause ... I drew back a step, with the idea of returning to my room. But the voice began again, in a slower and more solemn tone.
“Monsieur, since things are as they are, the simplest course for you is to bow to the inevitable. But I venture to point out that the present situation, bad as it is, is not without its advantage for you. The objections we were obliged to put forward originally to your immediate release obtain no longer. A favor we could not think of granting to the man you were yesterday at this hour—a man robust ofbody and vigorous of will, we are only too happy to accord to the man you are today—an aged invalid, broken in body and weak from more weaknesses than one.... Monsieur, you are, from this moment, free, a freedom without any qualifications or restrictions whatsoever. As soon as you choose to say so, my grandson will have the honor of showing you to our door. You may go anywhere you wish. We ask only that you refrain from mentioning to any living soul the things that you have seen during your stay in this House. I am sure you will decide to say nothing of them.”
Still I stood there listening. Somehow I was not at all surprised at this offer of my freedom however unexpected. I stood there listening; and I could feel the words I had heard sinking deeply into me, eating their way into the substance of my brain to remain there with indelible fixity.... I stood there listening....
Ah yes! I understand, I understand! From what I have been through, my will, my intelligence, my reason, have all been rarefied, depleted. My head is half emptied, as it were; and these sentences that are being addressed to me, these orders that are being given me, this password of silence that is being graven eternally upon my memory, all dictated by another will, another intelligence, another reason, areto be substituted in my brain by what is no longer there, for what has been taken away, and made to fill the intolerable hollowness of my skull!...
The falsetto voice concluded:
“For the rest you have our promise ... Madame de X.... the girl you love, left our abode last night.... She will never again be recalled to us....”
Madame de X....? The girl I love?... I love? Ah yes, yes, yes! I had forgotten! You see, I’m an old old man and my heart is empty too ... sucked dry, impoverished! I’m an old old man! Many things have changed in me.... Madame de X....? Ah yes!... Madeleine! Madeleine will never be recalled! Yes, of course. She will never come back here again.... As we agreed.
The falsetto voice fell silent with two words:
“Farewell, Monsieur!”
All was finished!
* * * * * * * * *
At the door, the outer door, of the heavy oaken panels studded with iron nails, and which had just been opened ... on the highest of the eight steps leading down from it ... the Count François and the Vicomte Antoine likewise said to me:
“Farewell, Monsieur.”
* * * * * * * * *
I crossed the garden, my feet treading and crushing the tall unmown grass, my head grazing the thick matted branches of the pine and cedar trees.
The gate was open.
I hurried through it.
And now I was out upon the heath, walking indifferent to direction save that I turned my face toward the brightening dawn....
I walked all day long, from the blue twilight of morning to the red glow of afternoon, following a route which I am sure I could not find again. I know simply that it was always straight ahead. And I felt no fatigue until after I arrived.
That was late, very late in the afternoon. Straight ahead I walked continuously, not knowing whither I was bound, with no idea that I was going anywhere. Then suddenly I noticed that I was on a broad high-way, and in front of me to left and right some houses came into view.
Beyond them, a bridge, a draw-bridge. I recognized Toulon, Toulon and its ramparts.
Through the arching gate the sun shone red as blood.
Yes, it would soon be evening! A sudden weariness came over me, and my feet began to lag on the dusty road. But I went on, on, on, not knowing or caring whither, just going on ... as iron goes toward the magnet....
The town finally!
On my right a shop!
At my side an old old man, the picture of poverty, near-sighted, ragged, bent, with long white hair and a long white beard. I stopped, and he stopped too.
Ah yes! I understand! This old man beside me is I—myself, reflected in a mirror of the shop!...
Farther along, the crossing of two streets.
Aha! A house that looks familiar. My house—the house where I used to live!
So that was the goal toward which I had been going all along unconsciously! My legs seemed suddenly paralyzed, I could go no farther. I leaned against a wall there where I was; and I gazed, and gazed, with all my eyes....
With all my eyes, I say....
The street was full of people, crowding sidewalks and pavement, edging about this way and that and talking in hushed voices. Most of them were dressed in black. A goodly number of military and naval men in parade uniform were standing to one side, grouped around some higher officers whose plumes I could distinguish over the heads of the throng. Among them a tall impressive personage, with a grand cordon on his breast. A noble face of regular outlines! Ah yes! My admiral, the governor! Vice-Admiral de Fierce!
A Cross, with priests behind it. The red cauls of the choir boys stand out against the surplices and albs of white and gold. A canon’s gown is fidgeting nervously about in the company of clergy....
Farther on, a squad of colonial troops, drawn up in line, their guns at rest.... They are waiting for something, apparently....
Spectators looking on from the windows and down from the roofs and balconies of the houses.... Flocks of urchins climbing pillars andposts, seeking points of vantage.... But there is no laughing nor shouting. The crowd is in a serious, earnest mood, or is trying to seem so.
All eyes are on the door of my house, which is heavily draped in mourning. A shield of velvet has been set up above the casing and on it I can read two initials in silver:A. N.Of course:A. N.: André Narcy! That’s what they must stand for.
Of course! I understand! My funeral! Of course!
Here is the hearse, slowly drawing up as the crowd divides before it. The horses are heavily caparisoned; on the four ebony columns that adorn the coffin-rest, four heavy plumes are waving. And oh, how many wreathes! Ten, twenty, thirty of them I can count, all of them bedecked with the tricolor of my country! On each an inscription in letters of gold. I cannot read them at this distance. Perhaps, later, when they pass this way....
Ah!... What’s the matter now? The crowd is all astir.... They are probably bringing out the body.... Yes, there it is ... the hooded bearers are coming down from the front door. How fast they walk! Not much of a load after all.... I rise on tip-toe to see better.... My coffin is of the flat topped kind common in the South of France! The wood cannot be seen.They have draped it in a heavy cloth.... Here are some other men in hoods.... They go up to the hearse and place on my coffin a military cloak of mine—light blue—then a cavalry sabre, with its scabbard; and these clink as they are laid one across the other. Of course ... that’s the custom at military funerals ... my uniform and my sword! I suppose my Distinguished Service Cross is there.... I cannot see it.... There is hardly time to look at everything.... For ... something else I see ... yes ... with those other eyes of mine, those moving unfailing eyes that can see through walls, and rocks, and trees.... They can see just as well through the boards of a coffin.... Yes, I see, I see perfectly well!
Oh! Oh! Oh! What horror! What horror!
* * * * * * * * *
A blast of trumpets.... The cortège moves....
Leading the way come the priests chanting the ritual ... the ritual of the dead.... Then eight officers, the pall-bearers of honor. Then the soldiers.... At last, the hearse....
Oh, careful, careful, please! The springs of the hearse creak over the rough pavement! Oh, careful, careful, please! You are jostling me too hard, too hard! It is a poor miserablecorpse you are carrying there.... It must not be treated so! Look out! Don’t you see there, under the hearse? The coffin is leaking! Black drops are oozing out and falling one by one upon the pavement.
* * * * * * * * *
The crowd moves off behind the procession.
Now they have turned the corner ... on the way to the church ... and thence to the cemetery. They seem to be hurrying ... yes ... because night is falling fast....
One by one the windows close. The street is empty now.
* * * * * * * * *
I remained where I was, my back still propped against the wall. My weariness overcame me suddenly. My legs gave way at the knees. I slipped slowly to the ground.
Yet the determination to go on arose within me. I got to my feet, somehow. I crossed the street toward my house! Toward my house—of course! Where else should I go, except to my house?
The front door had been left open, the heavy black crêpe dangling around it. I reached the threshold! I stopped.
There in the hall-way stood a little table covered with a black silk tablecloth. On it wasan ink-well, a pen, and a heavy funeral register. Through the open door a draught was coming strong, blowing the black-bordered pages over one by one.
I turned them back, and found the frontispiece.
It was covered with hastily scribbled signatures. There my friends and messmates, along with many strangers, had written their names, as the custom is. Yes, and heading them all, was my name, the name I had formerly had, that is. It was not written, however, but penned in print:
MONSIEUR CHARLES-ANDRÉ NARCY
CAPTAIN OF CAVALRY, D.S.C.
Died the twenty-first of December, 1908, in thethirty-third year of his age.
I picked up the register and hid it under my clothing—the threadbare rags that had once been my riding suit.
And I went away!
I went away. Why not? This house belonged to Captain Charles-André Narcy—the man who was dead.... My house was somewhere else ... obviously ... somewhere else.
I went away.
* * * * * * * * *
And I too walked rapidly, outside in the street.... Rapidly, yes; though I staggered at every step from sheer exhaustion....
The street was ... no ... it was not quite deserted.... There, on the sidewalk across from me stood ... a man? a woman? Someone! Someone who was standing motionless in front of the house, and looking at the door that was heavily draped in mourning....
A man? A woman? A woman! A good-looking woman ... well dressed ... a single piece dress of a light color.... She was carrying a muff, a big fluffy muff that completely swallowed her small hands ... a muff of ermine....
I knew the woman. Of course! It was she ... Madeleine.... I knew her very well. But, you understand ... I was dead, was I not? Besides, I was very, very old.... Surprised more than moved.... In fact, not at all aroused ... my emotions! Just surprised! But very much surprised!
Anyhow ... I would just walk by her ... curiosity merely....
Yes, she, beyond a doubt.... Her eyes were glued to the door of mourning. And I could see ... that was strange!... why, she was weeping, weeping ... great silent burning tears!
Weeping? That was strange! I hadn’texpected to find her weeping! Oh, for that matter ... a woman’s tears!
All the same, I felt I ought to do something....
With a moment’s hesitation I stepped up to her:
“Mad....”
She started from her grieving reverie, saw that I was there, swept her great muff across her tear-stained cheeks.... Then she felt around inside the muff with her fingers, tossed me a handful of coins ... and fled....
And I fled too.
There was no doubt after that! I was dead! Very very dead! More dead perhaps than He, than the other Man, whose corpse I see, I persist in seeing there inside its coffin ... a terribly wasted corpse, frightfully decomposed. More dead than He, because He does not know that He is dead; while ... I ... I....
Furthermore it was not his funeral they were celebrating; it was mine.... I am the man those tears were for ... and those flowers, and those uniforms, and the hushed voices of the multitude ... all that fascinated gazing at my decoration, my shoulder straps, my sabre ... there on the coffin. And those same people are now shivering out there in this cold of a December evening ... to pay their respects to ... me ... to me ... not to Him.
And I should be there too ... with them. I must hurry....
* * * * * * * * *
The red of the sunset is turning to lavender ... a color of death and mourning.... The leafless sycamores along the boulevard arespreading on that sombre sheet of flame the black lace-work of their twigs and branchlets. At the zenith a depth of emerald green is growing deeper....
Is there something beyond death, I wonder? Something? Anything?
No! I cannot believe that possible! I can see that corpse too well ... that corpse, in its coffin....
* * * * * * * * *
A great crowd around my grave ... almost as great as the throng in front of my house.... It is only a short walk from town ... the graveyard....
No, the ceremony is over.... The sexton is filling the grave.... I can hear the gravel as it strikes my coffin....
It seems to be all covered now.... I walked too slowly.... But I was very tired....
The earth they are throwing into the hole.... I can feel it heavier and heavier upon my chest.... Six feet deep.... I never knew it could be so very heavy!
Now everything is over. The grave is filled.... The people are going home.
Home? No, I shall stay here! Where have I to go? This place here, henceforth, is home for me ... my home!
Now all is written. I have told my story. Here my pencil rests on this flagstone, this lid of shale that covers my grave and already bears my epitaph. My pencil.... I laid it here. It is worn to the wood. And I have closed the register. All its pages to the very last are covered with my cramped close-scribbled writing.
All is written. All—everything! And everything I was in duty bound to write—for men and women—my brothers and sisters—are in danger though they know it not. And I had to write ... because my tongue is tied ... paralyzed, petrified in my mouth....
All is written. You who read what I have written know the truth ... for the love of your God, if you have one, do not doubt my word ... but understand, believe....
The sun has vanished below the horizon. Night has come.... My last night.... Yes, death will come to me ere long! My life has run its course. Its lamp is going out, because the oil has burned away!
On this long polished flagstone which hasbeen my writing table and on which my elbows rest I can still spell out my epitaph, though the light is failing:
Here Lies
CHARLES-ANDRÉ NARCY
BornApril 27, 1878
DiedDecember 21, 1908.
December 21, 1908 ... or January 22, 1909.... January 22, 1909—that’s today! Just a month ... no, not quite a month ... a month less one day.... I have been here on this tomb, on my tomb, waiting for death, my second death....
A month.... One month.... And all the while my eyes have been gazing down under this flagstone ... my eyes? those other eyes, I mean ... which see ... which insist on seeing ... implacably ... gazing down under this flagstone upon a coffin ... my coffin.... The coffin is quite new and undecayed.... But it holds only a skeleton ... a naked skeleton, without clothing ... its clothes ... my clothes, were far too thin ... they fell to dust immediately. Nothing except the bones are left; and they too are all but vanishing. On them, however, I can see something ... the letter of the colonel of artillery ... they buriedit by mistake with the corpse ... it is still quite legible....
Yes, a skeleton ... a skeleton about to fall away to dust ... nothing but a skeleton.... How can I continue living if I am nothing, after all, but that skeleton plus this ruin of wasted flesh and bone that has collapsed on this grave here? Impossible, assuredly! Impossible, fortunately....
A month.... one month! The earth came up around the edges of this flagstone ... so heavy that it sank into the loosened ground.... Some workmen came and levelled the mound again, tamping the earth down under the stone ... so heavy the stone ... and heavy the earth under it.... Oh, my tired body cannot support such burdens longer....
* * * * * * * * *
Tomorrow when they come to bury me they will put me in another grave.... And I shall have that other earth and another stone to bear! No man surely was ever tormented thus!
* * * * * * * * *
The sun is sinking again.... In the west the sky is reddening ... as red as it was the day of my funeral....
The weather is clear.... Not a single cloud disturbs the even azure of the firmament....The winter wind has fallen and the branches of the cypress trees have ceased their murmuring.... A gleam of blood-red light is striking on their black tips.... Over all the heavens and over all the earth a great and sombre beauty glows.... Splendor and Serenity ... reaching even into my soul....
Farewell....
FINIS.