A salutary crisis had occurred, which relieved the Countess Macgregor from the delirium and suffering under which, for several days, her life had been despaired of.
The day had begun to break when Sarah, seated in a large easy chair, and supported by her brother, Thomas Seyton, was looking at herself in a mirror which one of her woman on her knees held up before her. This was in the apartment where La Chouette had made the attempt to murder.
The countess was as pale as marble, and her pallor made her dark eyes, hair, and eyebrows even more striking; and she was attired in a dressing-gown of white muslin. "Give me my bandeau of coral," she said to one of her women, in a voice which, although weak, was imperious and abrupt.
"Betty will fasten it on for you," said Seyton; "you will exhaust yourself; you are already very imprudent."
"The bandeau,—the bandeau!" repeated Sarah, impatiently, who took this jewel and arranged it on her brow. "Now fasten it, and leave me!" she said to the women.
The instant they were retiring, she said, "Let M. Ferrand be shown into the little blue salon." Then she added, with ill-dissembled pride, "As soon as his royal highness the Grand Duke of Gerolstein comes, let him be introduced instantly to this apartment."
"Was Looking at Herself in a Mirror" Original Etching by Adrian Marcel"Was Looking at Herself in a Mirror"Original Etching by Adrian Marcel
"At length," said Sarah, as soon as she was alone with her brother, "at length I trust this crown—the dream of my life: the prediction is on the eve of fulfilment!"
"Sarah, calm your excitement!" said her brother to her; "yesterday your life was despaired of, and to be again disappointed would deal you a mortal blow!"
"You are right, Thomas; the fall would be fearful, for my hopes were never nearer realisation! Of this I feel assured, for it was my constant thought of profiting by the overwhelming revelation which this woman made me at the moment of her assassination that prevented me from sinking under my sufferings."
"Again, Sarah, let me counsel you to beware of such insensate dreams,—the awaking would be terrible!"
"Insensate dreams! What, when Rodolph learns that this young girl, who is now locked up in St. Lazare, and formerly confided to the notary, who has passed her off for dead, is our child! Do you suppose that—"
Seyton interrupted his sister. "I believe," he said, bitterly, "that princes place reasons of state, political conveniences, before natural duties."
"Do you then rely so little on my address?"
"The prince is no longer the ingenuous and impassioned youth whom you attracted and swayed in other days; that time is long ago, both for him and for you, sister."
Sarah shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Do you know why I was desirous of placing this bandeau of coral in my hair,—why I put on this white dress? It is because the first time Rodolph saw me at the court of Gerolstein I was dressed in white, and wore this very bandeau of coral in my hair."
"What!" said Seyton, "you would awake those remembrances? Do you not rather fear their influence?"
"I know Rodolph better than you do. No doubt my features, changed by time and sufferings, are no longerthose of the young girl of sixteen, whom he so madly loved,—only loved, for I was his first love; and that love, unique in the life of man, always leaves ineffaceable traces in the heart. Thus, then, brother, trust me that the sight of this ornament will awaken in Rodolph not only the recollection of his love, but those of his youth also; and for men these souvenirs are always sweet and precious."
"But these sweet and precious souvenirs will be united with others so terrible: the sinisterdénouementof your love, the detestable behaviour of the prince's father to you, your obstinate silence to Rodolph. After your marriage with the Count Macgregor, he demanded his daughter, then an infant,—your child,—of whose death, ten years since, you informed him so coldly in your letter. Do you forget that from that period the prince has felt nothing but contempt and hatred for you?"
"Pity has replaced his hatred. Since he has learned that I am dying, he has sent the Baron de Graün every day to inquire after me; and just now he has promised to come here; and that is an immense concession, brother."
"He believes you dying,—that you desire a last adieu,—and so he comes. You were wrong not to write to him of the discovery you are about to disclose to him."
"I know why I do so. This discovery will fill him with surprise, joy, and I shall be present to profit by his first burst of softened feeling. To-day or never he will say to me, 'A marriage must legitimise the birth of our child!' If he says so, his word is sacred, and then will the hope of my life be realised!"
"Yes, if he makes you the promise."
"And that he may do so, nothing must be neglected under these decisive circumstances. I know Rodolph; and once having found his daughter, he will overcome his aversion for me, and will not retreat from any sacrificeto assure her the most enviable lot, to make her as entirely happy as she has been until now wretched."
"However brilliant the destiny he may assure to your daughter, there is, between the reparation to her and the resolution to marry you in order to legitimise the birth of this child, a very wide abyss."
"Her father will pass over this abyss."
"But this unfortunate child has, perhaps, been so vitiated by the misery in which she has lived that the prince, instead of feeling attracted towards her—"
"What are you saying?" cried Sarah, interrupting her brother. "Is she not as handsome, as a young girl, as she was a lovely infant? Rodolph, without knowing her, was so deeply interested in her as to take charge of her future destiny, and sent her to his farm at Bouqueval, whence we carried her off."
"Yes, thanks to your obstinacy in desiring to break all the ties of the prince's affection, in the foolish hope of one day leading him back to yourself!"
"And yet, but for this foolish hope, I should not have discovered, at the price of my life, the secret of my daughter's existence. Is it not through this woman, who had carried her off from the farm, that I have learned the infamous deceit of the notary, Ferrand?"
"It would have been better to have awaited the young creature's coming out of prison, before you sent to request the Grand Duke to come here."
"Awaited! And do I know that the salutary crisis in which I now am will last until to-morrow? Perhaps I am but momentarily sustained by my ambition only."
"What proofs have you for the prince, and will he believe you?"
"He will believe me when he reads the commencement of, the disclosure which I wrote from the dictation of that woman who stabbed me,—a disclosure of which I have, fortunately, forgotten no circumstance. He willbelieve me when he reads your correspondence with Madame Séraphin and Jacques Ferrand, as to the supposed death of the child; he will believe me when he hears the confession of the notary, who, alarmed at my threats, will come here immediately; he will believe me when he sees the portrait of my daughter at six years of age, a portrait which the woman told me was still a striking resemblance. So many proofs will suffice to convince the prince that I speak the truth, and to decide him as to his first impulse, which will make me almost a queen. Oh, if it were but for a day, I could die content!"
At this moment a carriage was heard to enter the courtyard.
"It is he! It is Rodolph!" exclaimed Sarah.
Thomas Seyton drew a curtain hastily aside, and replied, "Yes, it is the prince; he is just alighting from the carriage."
"Leave me! This is the decisive moment!" said Sarah, with unshaken coolness; for a monstrous ambition, a pitiless selfishness, had always been and still was the only moving spring of this woman. Even in the almost miraculous reappearance of her daughter, she only saw a means of at last arriving at the one end and aim of her whole existence.
Seyton said to her, "I will tell the prince how your daughter, believed dead, was saved. This conversation would be too dangerous for you,—a too violent emotion would kill you; and after so long a separation, the sight of the prince, the recollection of bygone times—"
"Your hand, brother!" replied Sarah. Then, placing on her impassive heart Tom Seyton's hand, she added, with an icy smile, "Am I excited?"
"No, no; not even a hurried pulsation," said Seyton, amazed. "I know not what control you have over yourself; but at such a moment, when it is for a crown or a coffin you play, your calmness amazes me!"
"And wherefore, brother? Till now, you know, nothing has made my heart beat hastily; and it will only throb when I feel the sovereign crown upon my brow. I hear Rodolph—leave me!"
When Rodolph entered the apartment, his look expressed pity; but, seeing Sarah seated in her armchair, and, as it were, full dressed, he recoiled in surprise, and his features became gloomy and mistrustful. The countess, guessing his thoughts, said to him, in a low and faint voice, "You thought to find me dying! You came to receive my last adieu!"
"I have always considered the last wishes of the dead as sacred, but it appears now as if there were some sacrilegious deceit—"
"Be assured," said Sarah, interrupting Rodolph, "be assured that I have not deceived you! I believe that I have but very few hours to live. Pardon me a last display of coquetry! I wished to spare you the gloomy symptoms that usually attend the dying hour, and to die attired as I was the first time I saw you. Alas, after ten years of separation, I see you once again! Thanks, oh, thanks! But in your turn give thanks to God for having inspired you with the thought of hearing my last prayer! If you had refused me, I should have carried my secret with me to the grave, which will now cause the joy, the happiness of your life,—joy, mingled with some sadness, happiness, mingled with some tears, like all human felicity; but this felicity you would yet purchase at the price of half the remainder of your existence!"
"What do you mean?" asked the prince, with great amazement.
"Yes, Rodolph, if you had not come, this secret would have followed me to the tomb! That would have been my sole vengeance. And yet, no, no! I shall not have the courage. Although you have made me suffer deeply, I yet must have shared with you thatsupreme happiness which you, more blessed than myself, will, I hope, long enjoy!"
"Madame, what does this mean?"
"When you know, you will be able to comprehend my slowness in informing you, for you will view it as a miracle from heaven; but, strange to say, I, who with a word can cause you pleasure greater than you have ever experienced, I experience, although the minutes of my life are counted, I experience an indefinable satisfaction at prolonging your expectation. And then, I know your heart; and in spite of the fierceness of your character, I fear, without preparation, to reveal to you so incredible a discovery. The emotions of overwhelming joy have also their dangers."
"Your paleness increases, you can scarcely repress your violent agitation," said Rodolph; "all this indicates something grave and solemn."
"Grave and solemn!" replied Sarah, in an agitated voice; for, in spite of her habitual impassiveness, when she reflected on the immense effect of the disclosure she was about to make to Rodolph, she was more troubled than she believed possible; and, unable any longer to restrain herself, she exclaimed, "Rodolph, our daughter lives!"
"Our daughter!"
"Lives, I say!"
These words, the accents of truth in which they were pronounced, shook the prince to his very heart. "Our child!" he repeated, going hurriedly to the chair in which Sarah was, "our child—my daughter!"
"Is not dead, I have irresistible proof; I know where she is; to-morrow you shall see her."
"My daughter! My daughter!" repeated Rodolph, with amazement. "Can it be that she lives?" Then, suddenly reflecting on the improbability of such an event, and fearing to be the dupe of some fresh treachery on Sarah's part, he cried, "No, no, it is a dream!Impossible! I know your ambition—of what you are capable—and I see through the drift of this proposed treachery!"
"Yes, you say truly; I am capable of all—everything! Yes, I desired to abuse you; some days before the mortal blow was struck, I sought to find out some young girl that I might present to you as our daughter. After this confession, you will perhaps believe me, or, rather, you will be compelled to credit irresistible evidence. Yes, Rodolph, I repeat I desired to substitute a young and obscure girl for her whom we both deplore; but God willed that at the moment when I was arranging this sacrilegious bargain, I should be almost fatally stabbed!"
"You—at this moment!"
"God so willed it that they should propose to me to play the part of falsehood—imagine whom? Our daughter!"
"Are you delirious, in heaven's name?"
"Oh, no, I am not delirious! In this casket, containing some papers and a portrait, which will prove to you the truth of what I say, you will find a paper stained with my blood!"
"Your blood!"
"The woman who told me that our daughter was still living declared to me this disclosure when she stabbed me with her dagger."
"And who was she? How did she know?"
"It was she to whom the child was confided when very young, after she had been declared dead."
"But this woman? Can she be believed? How did you know her?"
"I tell you, Rodolph, that this is all fated—providential! Some months ago you snatched a young girl from misery, to send her to the country. Jealousy and hatred possessed me. I had her carried off by the woman of whom I have been speaking."
"And they took the poor girl to St. Lazare?"
"Where she is still."
"She is there no longer. Ah, you do not know, madame, the fearful evil you have occasioned me by snatching the unfortunate girl away from the retreat in which I had placed her; but—"
"The young girl is no longer at St. Lazare!" cried Sarah, with dismay; "ah, what fearful news is this!"
"A monster of avarice had an interest in her destruction. They have drowned her, madame! But answer! You say that—"
"My daughter!" exclaimed Sarah, interrupting Rodolph, and standing erect, as straight and motionless as a statue of marble.
"What does she say? Good heaven!" cried Rodolph.
"My daughter!" repeated Sarah, whose features became livid and frightful in their despair. "They have murdered my daughter!"
"The Goualeuse your daughter!" uttered Rodolph, retreating with horror.
"The Goualeuse! Yes, that was the name which the woman they call the Chouette used. Dead—dead!" repeated Sarah, still motionless, with her eyes fixed. "They have killed her!"
"Sarah!" said Rodolph, as pale and as fearful to look upon as the countess; "be calm,—recover yourself,—answer me! The Goualeuse,—the young girl whom you had carried off by the Chouette from Bouqueval,—was she our daughter?"
"Yes. And they have killed her!"
"Oh, no, no; you are mad! It cannot be! You do not know! No, no; you cannot tell how fearful this would be! Sarah, be firm,—speak to me calmly,—sit down,—compose yourself! There are often resemblances, appearances which deceive if we are inclined to believe what we desire. I do not reproach you; but explain yourself to me, tell me all the reasons whichinduced you to think this; for it cannot be,—no, no, it cannot be,—it is not so!"
After a moment's pause, the countess collected her thoughts, and said to Rodolph, in a faltering voice, "Learning your marriage, and thinking of marrying myself, I could not keep our child with me; she was then four years of age."
"But at that time I begged her of you with prayers, entreaties," cried Rodolph, in a heartrending tone, "and my letters were unanswered; the only one you wrote to me announced her death!"
"I was desirous of avenging myself of your contempt by refusing your child. It was shameful; but hear me! I feel my life ebbs from me; this last blow has overcome me!"
"No, no, I do not believe you; I will not believe you! The Goualeuse my daughter! Oh,mon Dieu! You would not have this so!"
"Listen to me! When she was four years old, my brother charged Madame Séraphin, the widow of an old servant, to bring the child up until she was old enough to go to school. The sum destined to support our child was deposited by my brother with a notary, celebrated for his honesty. The letters of this man and Madame Séraphin, addressed at the time to me and my brother, are there, in the casket. At the end of a year they wrote me word that my daughter's health was failing,—eight months afterwards that she was dead, and they sent the register of her decease. At this time Madame Séraphin had entered the service of Jacques Ferrand, after having given our daughter over to the Chouette, through the medium of a wretch who is now at the galleys at Rochefort. I was writing down all this when the Chouette stabbed me. This paper is there also, with a portrait of our daughter when four years of age. Examine all,—letters, declaration, portrait,—and you who have seen her, the unhappy child, will judge—"
These words exhausted Sarah, and she fell fainting into her armchair.
Rodolph was thunderstruck at this disclosure. There are misfortunes so unforeseen, so horrible, that we try not to believe them until the overwhelming evidence compels us. Rodolph, persuaded of the death of Fleur-de-Marie, had but one hope,—that of convincing himself that she was not his daughter. With a frightful calmness that alarmed Sarah, he approached the table, opened the casket, and began to read the letters, examining with scrupulous attention the papers which accompanied them.
These letters, bearing the postmark, and dated, written to Sarah and her brother by the notary and Madame Séraphin, related to the infancy of Fleur-de-Marie, and the investment of the money destined for her. Rodolph could not doubt the authenticity of this correspondence.
The Chouette's declaration was confirmed by the particulars collected at Rodolph's desire, in which a felon named Pierre Tournemine, then at Rochefort, was described as the individual who had received Fleur-de-Marie from the hands of Madame Séraphin, for the purpose of giving her up to the Chouette,—the relentless tormentor of her early years,—and whom she afterwards so unexpectedly recognised when in company with Rodolph at thetapis-francof the ogress.
The attestation of the child's death was duly drawn up and attested, but Ferrand himself had confessed to Cecily that it had merely been employed to obtain possession of a considerable sum of money due to the unfortunate infant, whose decease it so falsely recorded, and who had subsequently been drowned by his order while crossing to the Isle du Ravageur.
It was, therefore, with appalling conviction Rodolph learnt at once the double facts of the Goualeuse being his long-lost daughter, and of her having perished by a violent death. Unfortunately, everything seemed togive greater certitude to his belief, and to render further doubt impossible. Ere the prince could bring himself to place implicit credence in the self-condemnation of Jacques Ferrand, as conveyed in the notes furnished by him to Cecily, he had made the closest inquiries at Asnières, and had ascertained that two females, one old, the other young, dressed in the garb of countrywomen, had been drowned while crossing the river to the Isle du Ravageur, and that Martial was openly accused of having committed this fresh crime.
Let us add, in conclusion, that, despite the utmost care and attention on the part of Doctor Griffon, Count de Saint-Remy, and La Louve, Fleur-de-Marie was long ere she could be pronounced out of danger, and then so extreme was her exhaustion, both of body and mind, that she had been unfit for the least conversation, and wholly unequal to making any effort to apprise Madame Georges of her situation.
This coincidence of circumstances left the prince without the smallest shadow of hope; but had such even remained, it was doomed to disappear before a last and fatal proof of the reality of his misfortune. He, for the first time, ventured to cast his eyes towards the miniature he had received. The blow fell with stunning conviction on his heart; for in the exquisitely beautiful features it revealed, rich in all the infantine loveliness ascribed to cherubic innocence, he recognised the striking portrait of Fleur-de-Marie,—her finely chiselled nose, the lofty forehead, with the small, delicately formed mouth, even then wearing an expression of sorrowing tenderness. Alas! Had not Madame Séraphin well accounted for this somewhat uncommon peculiarity in an infant's face by saying, in a letter written by her to Sarah, which Rodolph had just perused, "The child is continually inquiring for its mother, and seems to grieve very much at not seeing her." There were also those large, soft, blue eyes,"the colour of a blue-bell," as the Chouette observed to Sarah, upon recognising in this miniature the features of the unfortunate creature she had so ruthlessly tormented as Pegriotte, and as a young girl under the appellation of La Goualeuse. At the sight of this picture the violent and tumultuous emotions of the prince were lost amid a flood of mingled tears and sighs.
While Rodolph thus indulged his bitter grief, the countenance of Sarah become powerfully agitated; she saw the last hope which had hitherto sustained her of realising the ambitious dreams of her life fade away at the very moment when she had expected their full accomplishment.
All at once Rodolph raised his head, dashed away his tears, and, rising from his chair, advanced towards Sarah with folded arms and dignified, determined air. After silently gazing on her for some moments, he said:
"'Tis fair and right it should be so! I raised my sword against my father's life, and I am stricken through my own child! The parricide is worthily punished for his sin! Then, listen to me, madame! 'Tis fit you should learn in this agonising moment all the evils which have been brought about by your insatiate ambition, your unprincipled selfishness! Listen, then, heartless and unfeeling wife, base and unnatural mother!"
"Mercy, mercy! Rodolph, pity me, and spare me!"
"There is no pity, there can be no pardon for such as you, who coldly trafficked in a love pure and sincere as was mine, with the assumed pretext of sharing a passion generous and devoted as was my own for you. There can be no pity for her who excites the son against the father, no pardon for the unnatural parent who, instead of carefully watching over the infancy of her child, abandons it to the care of vile mercenaries, in order to satisfy her grasping avarice by a rich marriage, as you formerly gratified your inordinate ambition by espousing me. No! There is no mercy, pity, or pardonfor one who, like yourself, first refuses my child to all my prayers and entreaties, and afterwards, by a series of profane and vile machinations, causes her death! May Heaven's curse light on you, as mine does, thou evil genius of myself and all belonging to me!"
"He has no relenting pity in his heart! He is deaf to all my appeals! Wretched woman that I am! Oh, leave me—leave me—I beseech!"
"Nay, you shall hear me out! Do you remember our last meeting, now seventeen years ago? You were unable longer to conceal the consequences of our secret marriage, which, like you, I believed indissoluble. I well knew the inflexible character of my father, as well as the political marriage he wished me to form; but braving alike his displeasure and its results, I boldly declared to him that you were my wife before God and man, and that ere long you would bring into the world a proof of our love. My father's rage was terrible; he refused to believe in our union. Such startling opposition to his will appeared to him impossible; and he threatened me with his heaviest displeasure if I presumed again to insult his ear by the mention of such folly. I then loved you with a passion bordering on madness. Led away by your wiles and artifices, I believed your cold, stony heart felt a reciprocity of tenderness for me, and I therefore unhesitatingly replied that I never would call any woman wife but yourself. At these words his fury knew no bounds. He heaped on you the most insulting epithets, exclaiming that the marriage I talked of was null and void, and that to punish you for your presumption in daring even to think of such a thing, he would have you publicly exposed in the pillory of the city. Yielding alike to the violence of my mad passion, and the impetuosity of my disposition, I presumed to forbid him, who was at once my parent and my sovereign, speaking thus disrespectfully of one I loved far beyond my own life, and I even went so far asto threaten him if he persisted in so doing. Exasperated at my conduct, my father struck me. Blinded by rage, I drew my sword, and threw myself on him with deadly fury. Happily the intervention of Murphy turned away the blow, and saved me from being as much a parricide in deed as I was in intention. Do you hear me, madame? A parricide! And in your defence!"
"Alas! I knew not this misfortune."
"In vain have I sought to expiate my crime. This blow to-day is sent by Heaven's avenging hand to repay my heavy crime."
"But have I not sufficiently suffered from the inveterate enmity of your father, who dissolved our marriage? Wherefore add to my misery by doubts of the sincerity of my affection for you?"
"Wherefore?" exclaimed Rodolph, darting on her looks of the most withering contempt. "Learn now my reasons, and cease to wonder at the loathing horror with which you inspire me. After the fatal scene in which I had threatened the life of my father, I surrendered my sword, and was kept in the closest confinement. Polidori, through whose instrumentality our union had been effected, was arrested; and he distinctly proved that our marriage had never been legally contracted, the minister, as well as the other persons concerned in its solemnisation, being merely creatures tutored and bribed by him; so that both you, your brother, and myself, were equally deceived. The more effectually to turn away my father's wrath from himself, Polidori did still more; he gave up one of your letters to your brother, which he had managed to intercept during a journey taken by Seyton."
"Heavens! Can it be possible?"
"Can you now account for my contempt and aversion towards you?"
"Too, too well!"
"In this letter you developed your ambitious projects with unblushing effrontery. Me you spoke of with theutmost indifference, treating me but as the blind instrument by which you should arrive at the princely station predicted for you. You expressed your opinion that my father had already lived long enough,—perhaps too long; and hinted at probabilities and possibilities too horrible to repeat!"
"Alas! All is now but too apparent. I am lost for ever!"
"And yet to protect you, I had even menaced my father's existence!"
"When he next visited me, and, without uttering one word of reproach, put into my hands your letter, every line of which more clearly revealed the black enormity of your nature, I could but kneel before him and entreat his pardon. But from that hour I have been a prey to the deepest, the most acute remorse. I immediately quitted Germany for the purpose of travelling, with the intent, if possible, of expiating my guilt; and this self-imposed task I shall continue while I live. To reward the good, to punish the evil-doer, relieve those who suffer, penetrate into every hideous corner where vice holds her court, for the purpose of rescuing some unfortunate creatures from the destruction into which they have fallen,—such is the employment I have marked out for myself."
"It is a noble and holy task,—one worthy of being performed by you."
"If I speak of this sacred vow," said Rodolph, disdainfully, "it is not to draw down your approbation or praise. But hearken to what remains to be told; I have lately arrived in France, and I wished not to let my great purpose of continual expiatory acts stand still during my sojourn in this country. While I sought then to succour those of good reputation, who were in unmerited distress, I was also desirous of knowing that class of miserable beings who are beaten down, trampled under feet, and brutalised by want and wretchedness, well knowing that timely help, a few kind and encouragingwords, may frequently have power to save a lost creature from the abyss into which he is falling. In order to be an eye-witness of the circumstances under which my work of expiation would be useful, I assumed the dress and appearance of those I wished to mix with. It was during one of these exploring adventures that I first encountered—" Then, as though shuddering at the idea of so terrible a disclosure, Rodolph, after a momentary hesitation, added, "No, no; I have not courage to finish the dreadful story!"
"For the love of heaven, tell me what horror have you now to unfold?"
"You will hear it but too soon! But," added he, with sarcastic bitterness, "you seem to take so lively an interest in past events that I cannot refrain from relating to you a few events which preceded my return to France. After passing some time in my travels, I returned to Germany, filled with a spirit of obedience to my father, by whose desire I espoused a princess of Prussia. During my absence you had been banished from the Grand Duchy. Subsequently, learning your marriage with Count Macgregor, I again entreated you to allow me to have my child. To this earnest request no answer was returned; nor could my strictest inquiries ever discover whither you had sent the unfortunate infant, for whom my father had made a handsome provision. About ten years ago I received a letter from you, stating that our child was dead. Would to God your information had been correct, and that she had indeed rendered up her innocent life at that tender age! I should then have been spared the deep, incurable anguish which must for ever embitter my life!"
"I cease now to wonder," said Sarah, in a feeble voice, "at the disgust and aversion with which I seem to have inspired you; and I feel, too surely, that I shall not survive this last blow. You are right; pride and ambition have been my ruin. Ignorant of the just causesyou had to hate and despise me, my former hopes returned with greater force than ever. Our mutual widowhood inspired me with a still stronger belief in the prediction which promised me a crown; and when, by singular chance, I again found my daughter, it appeared to me as though the hand of Providence had bestowed this unhoped-for good fortune on me to further my so long cherished plans. Yes, I will confess that I went so far as to persuade myself that, spite of the aversion you entertained for me, you would bestow on me your name, and that, out of regard for your child, you would accept me as your wife, if but to elevate her to the rank to which she is entitled."
"Then let your execrable ambition be satisfied, and punished as it deserves; for, spite of the abhorrence I now hold you in, I would, out of love for my child, or, rather, from a deep pity for its early sorrows,—I would, although firmly determined always to live apart from you, by a marriage which should have legitimised my daughter, have rendered her future lot as brilliant and exalted as her past life has been wretched."
"I had not, then, deceived myself? Oh, misery! To think it is now too late!"
"Oh, I am well aware it is not your child you regret, but the loss of that rank you have so eagerly and obstinately striven to obtain. May your unfeeling and disgraceful regrets pursue you to your grave!"
"Then they will not long torment me; for I feel I shall not long survive this final ending of all my ambitious schemes."
"But ere your existence closes, it is but fair and just you should be made aware what sort of life your poor deserted child's has been. Do you recollect the night on which you and your brother followed me into a den in the Cité?"
"Perfectly! But why this question? It freezes me with horror; your looks fill me with dread!"
"As you approached this low haunt of vice, you saw—did you not?—standing at the corners of the low streets with which that neighbourhood abounds, groups of poor, unfortunate, guilty creatures, who—who—But I cannot finish the dreadful tale!" cried Rodolph, concealing his face with his hands. "I dare not proceed; my own words affright me!"
"As they do me! What more have I to learn?"
"You saw them, I ask,—did you not?" resumed Rodolph, making a powerful struggle to overcome his emotion. "You observed these base and degraded creatures, the shame and disgrace of their own sex? But did you remark among them a young girl of about sixteen years of age, lovely as an angel,—a poor child, who, amid the infamy in which she had lived during the last few weeks, still retained a look so pure, so innocent, and good that even the ruffians by whom she was surrounded called her Fleur-de-Marie? Did you observe this,—this fair, this interesting being? Answer,—answer,—tender, exemplary mother!"
"No!" answered Sarah, almost mechanically; "I did not observe the young person you speak of." But the teeth rattled in Sarah's head as she spoke, and her whole frame seemed oppressed with a vague though fearful dread of coming evil.
"Indeed!" cried Rodolph, with a sardonic smile. "Indeed! I am surprised at that! Well, I did remark, and upon the following occasion. Listen attentively to what I am about to relate! During one of the exploring excursions I before spoke of, I found myself in the Cité, not far from the den to which you followed me. A man was just going to beat one of the unfortunate creatures who herd together there; I interposed, and saved her from his brutal rage. Now then, careful, kind, and anxious mother, tell me, if you can, whom it was I saved! Can you not guess? Speak! Say your heart whispers to you who was the miserable being Ifound in this sink of wickedness and pollution! You know, do you not, without my assistance?"
"No, no,—I cannot say! I beseech you to go—and leave me to my thoughts!"
"Then I will tell you who the wretched, trembling creature I thus saved from brutal violence was. Her name was Fleur-de-Marie!"
"Merciful powers!"
"And is it possible that you, most irreproachable of mothers, that you cannot divine who Fleur-de-Marie was?"
"Be merciful, and kill me; but torture me not thus!"
"She was your daughter—known as the Goualeuse!" cried Rodolph, with almost frantic violence. "Yes, the helpless girl I rescued from the hands of a felon was my own, my lost child!—the offspring of Rodolph of Gerolstein! Oh, there was in this meeting with a daughter I unconsciously saved a visible interposition of the hand of Providence! It brought a blessing to the man who had striven so earnestly to succour his fellow men, and it conveyed a well-merited chastisement for the impious wretch who had dared to aim at his father's life!"
"Alas!" murmured Sarah, falling back in her armchair, and concealing her face with her hands, "my destiny is accomplished! I die, carrying with me out of the world the curse both of God and man!"
"And when," continued Rodolph, with much difficulty restraining his resentment, and vainly striving to repress the sobs which from time to time interrupted his voice, "when I had released her from the ill-usage with which she was menaced, struck with the indescribable sweetness of her voice and manner, as well as by the angelic expression of her lovely countenance, I found it impossible to abandon the interest she excited in me. I led her on to tell me the history of her life, made up of neglect,grief, and misery. With what simple eloquence did she express the yearnings of a heart that had never expanded into virtue beneath a mother's fostering care after a life of innocence, and how touchingly did she dwell on the the destitution which had led her where she was! Ah, madame, to have brought down your pride and haughtiness, you should have listened as I did while your daughter described her early years as passed in shivering beggary, soliciting charity in the streets all day, and at night, when the cold winter's wind pierced through the few rags she wore, creeping to her bed of straw strewn in the corner of a wretched garret; and when the horrible old hag who tortured her had exhausted every other means of inflicting pain on her, what do you think she did, madame? Why, wrenched out her teeth! And all this starving and desolation was experienced by your own child, while you were revelling in every sort of luxury, and indulging in ambitious dreams of sharing a crown!"
"Oh, that I could die, and so escape the direful agony I suffer!"
"Nay you have more to hear! Escaping from the hands of the Chouette, wandering about, penniless and starving, at the tender age of only ten years she was taken up as a vagabond, and as such thrown into prison. And yet, madame, that period was the happiest your poor deserted child had ever known. And each night, though surrounded by her prison walls, she gratefully thanked God that she no longer suffered from hunger, thirst, or blows. It was in a prison she passed those years so precious to the well-being of a young female, those years over which a good and affectionate mother so carefully and anxiously watches. As her sixteenth year commenced, your daughter, instead of being surrounded by the tender solicitude of loving relatives, and enriched with all the gifts of education, had seen and known nothing more edifying or elevated than the brutal indifference of her gaolers. Yet this naturally pure-minded, beautiful, and ingenuous creature was at that dangerous moment sent forth from her safe asylum—a gaol—and left to wander unaided and unprotected in a world of which she knew so little! Unfortunate, deserted, friendless child!" continued Rodolph, giving free vent to the swelling sobs which had continually impeded his voice, "yours was, indeed, a bitter lot, thrown thus young and helpless amid the mire and pollution of a great city!
"They Took Her to Their Guilty Haunts" Original Etching by Mercier"They Took Her to Their Guilty Haunts"Original Etching by Mercier
"Ah, madame!" cried he, addressing Sarah, "however cold, hard, and selfish your heart may be, you could not have refrained from weeping at the recital of your poor, neglected child's misery and privations! Poor, hapless girl! Sullied, but not corrupted; chaste in heart even amid the degradation into which she had fallen; for each word she uttered breathed the most unfeigned horror and disgust at the mode of life to which she was so fatally condemned. Oh, could you but have known what delicate thoughts, what noble, high-minded inspirations were betrayed in her every word and action! How good, how feeling, how innately charitable was her nature! For it was to relieve a degree of misery even greater than her own that she exhausted the small sum of money she had received on quitting her prison, and which, while it lasted, formed her only defence from the abyss of infamy into which she was afterwards plunged; for there came a time,—a hideous time, when, without employment, food, or shelter, some horrible women found her almost perishing from weakness and want of support. Under pretence of aiding her, they took her to their guilty haunts, administered intoxicating drugs, and—and—"
Rodolph could proceed no further. He uttered a distracting cry, and exclaimed, "And this was my child!"
"May Heaven's punishment be on me for what I havedone!" said Sarah, hiding her face as though she feared to meet the light of day.
"Ay!" exclaimed Rodolph. "And it will assuredly cling to you all your life, and haunt even your dying pillow; for it is your neglect and abandonment of all a mother's most sacred duties which have led to all these horrors. Accursed may you ever be for your double wickedness towards your unoffending child! For even after I had succeeded in removing her from the guilt and pollution by which she was surrounded, and had placed her in a safe and peaceful asylum, you set your vile accomplices on to tear her thence! My curse be for ever on you! For it was owing to your causing her to be forcibly carried off which threw her back into the power of Jacques Ferrand."
As Rodolph pronounced this name he suddenly stopped and shuddered. The features of the prince assumed an expression of concentrated rage and hatred impossible to describe; mute and motionless he stood, as though crushed to the earth by the reflection that the murderer of his child was still in existence.
Spite of the increasing weakness of Sarah and the agitation caused by this interview with Rodolph, she was so much struck with his threatening aspect that she faintly exclaimed:
"In mercy say what fresh idea has taken possession of your mind?"
"No, no," responded Rodolph, as though speaking to himself; "till now I thought to spare this monster, believing a life of enforced charity would be to him one of never ending torment. Now I must revenge my infant child, delivered up by him to want and misery! I have to wash out the stain of my daughter's infamy, caused by his diabolical villainy and cupidity; and his blood alone will serve to wipe out that foul wrong! Yes, he dies—and by my hand!" And, with these words, the prince sprang forward to the door.
"Whither are you going?" cried Sarah, extending her supplicating hands towards Rodolph. "Oh, leave me not to die alone—"
"Alone? Oh, no! Fear not to die alone! The spectre of the innocent child, doomed by you to an early grave, will bear you company."
Exhausted and alarmed, Sarah uttered a scream, as though she really beheld the phantom of her child, exclaiming, "Forgive me! I am dying!"
"Die then, accursed woman!" shouted Rodolph, wild with fury. "Now I must have the life of your accomplice, for it was you who delivered your child to this monster!"
And hastening from the apartment, Rodolph ordered himself to be rapidly driven to the residence of Jacques Ferrand.
It was nightfall when Rodolph went to the notary's. The pavilion occupied by Jacques Ferrand was plunged in the deepest obscurity; the wind roared and the rain fell as it did on the terrible night when Cecily, before she quitted the notary's abode for ever, had excited the passions of that man to frenzy. Extended on his bed, feebly lighted up by a lamp, Jacques Ferrand was dressed in a black coat and waistcoat. One of the sleeves of his shirt was tucked up and spotted with blood; a ligature of red cloth, which was to be seen on his nervous arm, announced that he had been bled by Polidori, who, standing near his bed, leaned one hand on the couch, and seemed to watch his accomplice's features with uneasiness. Nothing could be more frightfully hideous than was Jacques Ferrand, whilst plunged in that somnolent torpor which usually succeeds violent crises. Of an ashy paleness, his face was bedewed with a cold sweat, and his closed eyelids were so swollen, so injected with blood, that they appeared like two red balls in the centre of his cadaverous countenance.
"Another such an attack and he is a dead man!" exclaimed Polidori, in a low voice. "All the writers on this subject have agreed that all who are attacked by this strange and frightful malady usually sink under it on the seventh day, and it is now six days since that infernal creole kindled the inextinguishable flame which is consuming this man." After some minutes of further meditation,Polidori left the bedside and walked slowly up and down the chamber.
The tempest was still raging without, and fell with such fury on this dilapidated house as to shake it to its centre. Despite his audacity and wickedness, Polidori was superstitious, and dark forebodings came over him; he felt an undefinable uneasiness. In order to dissipate his gloomy thoughts, he again examined Ferrand's features.
"Now," he said, leaning over him, "his eyelids are injected. It would seem as though his blood flowed thither and stagnated. No doubt his sight will now present, as his hearing did just now, some remarkable appearance! What agonies now they endure! How they vary! Oh," he added, with a bitter smile, "when nature determines on being cruel and playing the part of a tormentor, she defies all the efforts of man; and thus in this illness, caused by an erotic frenzy, she submits every sense to unheard-of, superhuman tortures."
The storm still howled without, and Polidori, throwing himself into an armchair, exclaimed, "What a night! What a night! Nothing could be worse for Jacques's present state. Yes," he continued, "the prince is pitiless, and it would have been a thousand times better for Ferrand to have allowed his head to fall upon a scaffold; better fire, the wheel, molten lead, which burns and eats into the flesh, than the miserable punishment he endures! As I see him suffer I begin to feel affright for my own fate! What will become of me? What is in reserve for me as the accomplice of Jacques? To be his gaoler will not suffice for the prince's vengeance. Perhaps a perpetual imprisonment in the prisons of Germany awaits me! But that is better than death! Yet I know that the prince's word is sacred! But I, who have so often violated all laws, human and divine, dare I invoke a sworn promise? Inasmuch as it was to my interest that Jacques shouldnot escape, so will it be equally my interest to prolong his days. But his symptoms grow worse and worse; nothing but a miracle can save him. What is to be done? What is to be done?"
At this moment, a crash without, occasioned by the fall of a stack of chimneys, roused Jacques Ferrand, and he turned on his bed.
Polidori became more and more under the influence of the vague terror which had seized on him. "It is folly to believe in presentments," he said, in a troubled voice; "but the night seems to me very appalling!"
A heavy groan from the notary attracted Polidori's attention. "He is awaking from his torpor," he said, approaching his bed very quietly; "perhaps another crisis may ensue!"
"Polidori!" muttered Jacques Ferrand, still extended on the bed, and with his eyes closed. "Polidori, what noise was that?"
"A chimney that fell," replied Polidori, in a low voice, fearing to strike too loudly on the hearing of his accomplice. "A fearful tempest shakes the house to its foundation; it is a horrible night!"
The notary did not hear, and replied, turning away his head, "Polidori, you are not there, then?"
"Yes, yes, I am here," said Polidori, in a louder voice; "but I answered gently for fear of giving you pain."
"No; I hear you now without any pain such as I had just now, for then it seemed as if the least noise burst like thunder on my brain. And yet in the midst of it all,—of these horrible sufferings,—I distinguish the thrilling voice of Cecily, who was calling to me—"
"Still that infernal woman! But drive away these thoughts,—they will kill you."
"These thoughts are life to me, and, like my life, they resist all tortures."
"Madman that you are, it is these thoughts that cause your tortures! Your illness is your sensual frenzy, whichhas attained its utmost height. Once again, drive from your brain these thoughts or you will die."
"Drive away these thoughts!" cried Ferrand. "Oh, never, never! When my pains give me one moment's repose, Cecily, the demon whom I cherish and curse, rises before my eyes!"
"What incredible fury! It frightens me!"
"There,—now!" said the notary, with a harsh voice, and his eyes fixed on a dark corner of the room. "I see now the outline of an obscure and white form; there—there!" and he extended his hairy and bony finger in the direction of his sight. "There,—there she is!"
"Jacques, this is death to you!"
"Yes, I see her!" continued Ferrand, with his teeth clenched, and not replying to Polidori. "There she is! And how beautiful! How her black hair floats gracefully down her shoulders, and her small white teeth, shining between her half opened lips,—her lips so red and humid! What pearls! And how her black eyes sparkle and die! Cecily," he added, with inexpressible excitement, "I adore you!"
"Jacques, do not excite yourself with such visions!"
"It is not a vision."
"Mind, mind! Just now, you know, you imagined you heard this woman's love-songs, and your hearing was suddenly smitten with horrible agony. Mind, I say!"
"Leave me,—leave me! What is the use of hearing but to hear, of seeing but to see?"
"But the tortures which follow, miserable wretch!"
"I will brave them all for a deceit, as I have braved death for a reality; and to me this burning image is reality. Ah, Cecily, you are beautiful! Yet why torture me thus? Would you kill me? Ah, execrable fury, cease,—cease, or I will strangle thee!" cried the notary, in delirium.
"You kill yourself, unhappy man!" exclaimed Polidori,shaking the notary violently, in order to rouse him from his excitement. In vain; Jacques continued:
"Oh, beloved queen, demon of delight, never did I see—" The notary could not finish; he uttered a sudden cry of pain and threw himself back.
"What is it?" inquired Polidori, with astonishment.
"Put out that candle—it shines too brightly. I cannot endure it—it blinds me!"
"What!" said Polidori, more and more surprised. "There is but one lamp covered with its shade, and that shines very feebly."
"I tell you, the light increases here. Now, again—again! Oh, it is too much; it is intolerable!" added Jacques Ferrand, closing his eyes with an expression of increasing suffering.
"You are mad—the room is scarcely lighted. I tell you, open your eyes and you will see."
"Open my eyes! Why, I shall be blinded by torrents of burning light, with which this room is filled. Here! There! On all sides, there are rays of fire—millions of dazzling scintillations!" cried the notary, sitting up. And then again shrieking, he lifted both his hands to his eyes: "But I am blind; this burning fire is through my closed lids,—it burns—devours me! Ah, now my hands shield me a little! But put out the light, for it throws an infernal flame!"
"It is beyond doubt now!" said Polidori. "His sight is struck with the same excess of sensitiveness as his hearing was; he is a dead man! To bleed him in this state would at once destroy him."
A fresh cry ensued, sharp and terrible, from Jacques Ferrand, which resounded in the chamber.
"Villain, put out that lamp! Its glaring beams penetrate through my hands, which they make transparent. I see the blood circulate in the net of my veins, and I try in vain to close my eyelids, for the burning lava will flow in. Oh, what torture! There are gushes as dazzling asif some one were thrusting a red-hot iron into my eyes. Help, help!" he shrieked, twisting himself on his bed, a prey to the horrible convulsions of his extreme agony.
Polidori, alarmed at the excess of this fresh fit, suddenly extinguished the lamp, and they were both in perfect darkness. At this moment the noise of a carriage was heard at the door in the street. When the chamber had been rendered entirely dark in which Polidori and Ferrand were, the latter was somewhat relieved from his extreme pains.
"Where are you going?" said Polidori, suddenly, when he heard Jacques Ferrand rise, for the deepest obscurity reigned in the apartment.
"I am going to find Cecily!"
"You shall not go; the sight of that room would kill you!"
"Cecily awaits me up there!"
"You shall not go—I will prevent you!" said Polidori, seizing the notary by the arm.
Jacques Ferrand having reached the extremity of exhaustion, was unable to contend with Polidori, who grasped him with a powerful clutch. "What, would you prevent me from seeking Cecily?"
"Yes; and besides, there is a lamp in the next room, and you know what an effect light so recently produced on your sight!"
"Cecily is up above; she is waiting for me, and I would cross a red-hot furnace to rejoin her. Let me go! She called me her old tiger; mind you, then, for my claws are sharp!"
"You shall not go! I will sooner tie you down to your bed like a furious madman!"
"Listen, Polidori! I am not mad—I am perfectly in my senses. I know that Cecily is not really up there; but to me the phantoms of my imagination are equal to realities."
"Silence!" cried Polidori, suddenly, and listening."I just now thought I heard a carriage stop at the door—and I was not mistaken! Now I hear a sound of voices in the courtyard."
"You want to deceive me," said Jacques; "but I am not so easily deceived."
"But, unhappy man, listen—listen! Don't you hear?"
"Let me go! Cecily is up-stairs; she calls me. Do not make me furious! And now I say to you, mind—beware!"
"You shall not go out!"
"Take care!"
"You shall not go out. It is for my interest that you should remain."
"You would hinder me from seeking Cecily, and it is my interest that you should die. There—there!" said the notary, in a gloomy tone.
Polidori uttered a cry. "Wretch! You have stabbed me in the arm. But your hand was weak—the wound is slight—and you shall not escape me."
"Your wound is mortal, for it was given by the poisoned stiletto of Cecily, which I always carried about me. Await the effects of its poison—Ah! You release me! Then now you are about to die! I was not to be hindered from going up above to find Cecily!" added Jacques, endeavouring to grope his way in darkness to the door.
"Oh," murmured Polidori, "my arm becomes benumbed—a deathlike coldness seizes on me—my knees tremble under me—my blood freezes in my veins—my head whirls around. Help, help! I die!" And he fainted.
The crash of glass doors, opened with so much violence that several panes of glass were broken to atoms, the resounding voice of Rodolph, and the noise of hastily approaching steps, seemed to reply to Polidori's cry of anguish.
Jacques Ferrand having at length discovered the lock of the door, opened it suddenly, with his dangerous stiletto in his hand. At the same instant, as menacing and formidable as the genius of vengeance, the prince entered the apartment from the other side.
"Monster!" he exclaimed, advancing towards Jacques Ferrand, "it was my daughter whom you have killed! You are going—" The prince could not conclude, but recoiled in amazement.
It would seem as if his words had been a thunderbolt to Ferrand, for, casting away his dagger, and raising both his hands to his eyes, the unhappy wretch fell with his face to the ground, uttering a cry that was scarcely human.
To complete the phenomenon which we have attempted to describe, and the action which profound obscurity had suspended, when Jacques Ferrand entered the apartment so brilliantly lighted up, he was struck with an overwhelming vertigo, just as though he had been suddenly cast into the midst of a torrent of light as blazing as the disk of the sun. It was a fearful spectacle to see the agony of this man, who was twisting in convulsions, tearing the floor with his nails, as if he would have dug himself a hole to escape from the atrocious tortures occasioned by this powerful light. Rodolph, one of his servants, and the porter of the house, who had been compelled to guide the prince hither, were struck with horror.
In spite of his just hatred, Rodolph felt a pity for the unheard-of sufferings of Jacques Ferrand, and desired that he should be laid on the sofa. This was not effected without difficulty, for, from fear of being subjected to the direst influence of the lamp, the notary struggled violently; and when his face was covered with the full glare of the light, he uttered another shriek,—a shriek which chilled Rodolph with terror. After fresh and long torture, the phenomenon ceased by its veryviolence. Having reached the last bounds of suffering without death following, the visual torment ceased; but, according to the regular course of the malady, a delirious excitement followed the crisis. Jacques Ferrand became suddenly as stiffened in frame as an epileptic; his eyelids, until then obstinately closed, suddenly opened, and, instead of avoiding the light, his eyes fixed themselves on it immovably, the pupils, in a state of extraordinary dilation and fixedness, seeming phosphorescent and internally lighted up. He appeared plunged in a kind of ecstatic contemplation; his body and limbs remained at first in a state of complete immobility, his features being agitated by nervous twitches and spasms. His hideous countenance, thus contracted and twisted, had no longer any human appearance; and it appeared as if the appetites of the animal, by stifling the intelligence of the man, impressed on the features of this wretch a character absolutely bestial. Having attained the mortal point of his madness, he remembered in his delirium the words of Cecily, who had called him her tiger; gradually his reason forsook him, and he imagined he was a tiger. His half uttered, breathless words displayed the disorder of his brain, and the singular aberration that had seized on him. Gradually his limbs, until then stiff and motionless, extended; he fell from the sofa, and tried to rise and walk, but his strength failed him; and he was compelled now to crawl like a reptile, and now to drag himself along on his hands and knees,—going, coming, this way and that way, as his visions impelled or obtained possession of him. Crouched in one of the corners of the room, like a tiger in his den, his hoarse and furious cries, his grinding of teeth, the convulsive twistings of the muscles of his face and brows, and his ardent gaze, gave him a wild and frightful resemblance to this ferocious brute.
"Tiger—tiger—tiger—that I am!" he said, in a harsh voice, and gathering himself into a heap. "Yes,tiger! What blood! In my cavern what rent carcasses—La Goualeuse—the brother of this widow—a small child, Louise's baby,—these are the carcasses, and my tigress Cecily will have her share." Then looking at his torn fingers, the nails of which had grown immensely during his illness, he added, in broken language, "Oh, my sharp nails—sharp and keen! An old tiger I am, but agile, strong, and bold; no one dares dispute my tigress Cecily with me. Ah, she calls—she calls!" he said, advancing his hideous visage and listening.
After a moment's silence he huddled himself against the wall again and continued: "No! I thought I had heard her; but she is not there. Yet I see her; oh, yes, always—always! Ah, there she is! She calls me; she roars—roars down there! I'm here—I'm here!" and Ferrand dragged himself towards the centre of the room on his hands and knees. Although his strength was exhausted, he made a convulsive leap from time to time, then paused, and listened attentively. "Where is she? I approach—she goes away. Cecily, here is your old tiger!" he cried, as, with a last effort, he arose and balanced himself on his knees. Suddenly falling back with affright, his body bending on his heels, his hair on end, his look haggard, his mouth twisted with terror, his two hands extended, he seemed to struggle with desperation with some invisible object, uttering incoherent words, and exclaiming, in broken tones, "What a bite! Help! My hands are powerless; I cannot drive away these sharp teeth! No, no! Oh! Not such eyes! Help! A serpent—a black snake—with its flat head and fiery eyes. How it looks at me! It is the fiend! Ah, he knows me—Jacques Ferrand—at church—the pious man—always at church! Go, go—cross yourself!" And the notary, raising himself a little, and leaning with one hand on the floor, endeavoured to cross himself with the other. His livid brow was bathed in cold sweat, his eyes began to lose theirtransparency and become dim, all the symptoms of approaching death manifested themselves.
Rodolph and the other witnesses of the scene remained as motionless and mute as if they had been under the effect of a frightful dream.
"Oh!" continued Jacques Ferrand, still half stretched on the floor, and supporting himself by one hand, "the demon vanishes. I am going to church—I am a holy man—I pray! What, no one will know it? Do you think so? No, no, tempter—be quite sure! Well, let them come—these women—all! Yes, all—if no one finds it out! But the secret!" he continued, in a tone of exhaustion, "the secret! Ah, here they are! Three! What says this one?—I am Louise Morel! Oh, yes—Louise Morel; I know it! I am only one of the people! You think me handsome? Here—take her! What does she bring me?—her head cut off by the executioner! It looks at me, that head of death! It speaks! The livid lips move and say, 'Come—come—come!' I will not—I will not! Demon, leave me! Go—go—go! And this other woman?—ah, beautiful, beautiful!—Jacques, I am the Duchesse de Lucenay. See my angelic figure,—my smile,—my bold glance! Come, come! Yes, I come. But wait! And who is this one who turns away her face? Oh, Cecily—Cecily! Yes, Jacques, 'tis Cecily! You see the three Graces,—Louise, the duchess, and myself. Choose! Beauty of the people, patrician beauty, the savage beauty of the tropics,—and hell with us! Come—come! Hell with you? Yes!" shrieked Jacques Ferrand, again rising on his knees, and extending his arms to seize these phantoms.
This last effort was followed by a mortal throe, and he fell back again stiff and lifeless; his eyes starting from their orbits, whilst fierce convulsions were visible on his features, unnaturally distorted; a bloody foam on his lips; his voice hoarse and strangling, like that of aperson in hydrophobia, for, in its last paroxysm, this fearful malady shows the same symptoms as madness. The breath of this monster was extinguished in the midst of a final and horrible vision, for he stammered forth these words, "Black night!—black spectres!—skeletons of brass, red-hot with fire! Unfold me! Their burning fingers make my flesh smoke; my marrow is scorched! Fleshless, horrid spectre! No—no! Cecily—fire—flame—agony—Cecily!"
These were Jacques Ferrand's last words, and Rodolph left the place overcome with horror.