CHAPTER VIII.REVELATIONS.
“Listen!” said a voice to Tito, as he was walking toward the bed on which the Countess lay.
“Ah! ’tis you,” exclaimed the youth, recognizing Death.
“Has she already expired?”
“Who?”
“The Countess.”
“No.”
“Then, why do you leave her?”
“I do not leave her, my friend; I have already told thee I am everywhere, at all times, and under many different forms.”
“Well! what do you wish of me?” asked Tito, with a certain aversion on hearing these words.
“I am here to do thee another favor.”
“Well! speak.”
“Dost thou know that thou art lacking inrespect to me?” said Death, with forced gravity.
“It is natural,” answered Tito. “Our intimacy, the complicity—”
“What meanest thou by complicity?”
“Nothing. I simply allude to a painting I saw when a child. It represented Medicine. Two persons were lying in one bed, or, to speak more clearly, a man and his illness. The physician entered the room blindfolded, and armed with a club. Upon nearing the bed he commenced beating the patient and his illness unmercifully. I do not remember which was the first victim of the punishment, but I believe it was the invalid.”
“Pleasing allegory! But we must to business!”
“Yes, let us go. All seem astonished to see me standing here, apparently alone, in the middle of the room.”
“They will imagine that thou art meditating, or awaiting inspiration. Listen to me a moment. Thou knowest that the past is mine by right, and that I can narrate it to thee. Not so the future.”
“Proceed.”
“A little patience, please. Thou art about to speak, for the last time, with the Countess of Rionuevo, and it is my duty to recount a certain history to thee.”
“It is useless; I forgive that woman.”
“It concerns Elena,” quietly observed Death.
“How?”
“It refers to your nobility, and marriage to her.”
“Noble! I—? It is true, the king has made me a duke.”
“Monteclaro would not be content with an adventurer. Thou hast need of ancestors.”
“What do you mean?”
“I come to tell thee that thou art the last branch of the Rionuevos.”
“Yes, but adulterous.”
“You are mistaken: natural, and very natural.”
“That may be, but who is to prove it?”
“Precisely what I am about to tell thee.”
“Speak!”
“Listen, and do not interrupt me. TheCountess is the stumbling-block in thy existence.”
“I know it.”
“She holds thy happiness in her hands.”
“I know that, also.”
“Well, the time has come to wrest it from her.”
“How? In what manner?”
“Thou wilt see. As thy father loved thee so dearly—”
“Ah! he loved me much!” exclaimed Tito.
“I have told thee not to interrupt. As thy father loved thee so dearly, he did not leave this world without thinking very seriously of thy future.”
“What! did the Count not die intestate?”
“Where did’st thou get that idea?”
“It is so understood by everybody.”
“Pure invention of the Countess, to secure the Count’s money, and make a favorite nephew her heir.”
“Oh!”
“Calm thyself; all can be arranged. Thy father had in his possession, a declaration of Crispina Lopez and Juan Gil, a duly certifiedauthority, which stated clearly that thou wert the natural son of the Count of Rionuevo and Crispina Lopez. This same circumstance thy father confessed at the hour of his death, before a priest and a notary, whom I saw there and whom I know perfectly well. Certainly the priest ... but hold! this I cannot tell thee. The fact is, the Count named thee his sole and only heir; which was all the easier, as he had not a single relative, near or remote. Nor did that good father’s solicitude rest here. He commenced the foundation of thy future happiness on the very brink of the grave.”
“Oh! my father!” murmured Tito.
“Listen. Thou knowest the great friendship which united the honored Count and the Duke of Monteclaro for so many years. They were companions in arms during the War of Succession.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, then,” continued Death, “thy father, divining the love thou felt’st for the charming Elena, addressed a long and tender letter to the Duke, a few moments before he expired, in which he told him all, asking the hand ofhis daughter for thee, and reminding him of the many and signal proofs of friendship that had passed between them.”
“And that letter?” asked Tito, vehemently.
“That letter alone would have convinced the Duke, and thou would’st have been his son many years ago.”
“What has become of it?” again asked Tito, tremulous with love and anger.
“That letter might have prevented thee from entering into relations with me,” continued Death.
“Oh! do not be cruel. Tell me that it exists!”
“That is the truth.”
“What! that it exists?”
“Yes.”
“Who has it?”
“The same person who intercepted it.”
“The Countess?”
“The Countess.”
“Oh!” exclaimed the youth, taking a step toward the death-bed.
“Wait,” said Death, “I have not finished yet.”
“The Countess has preserved her husband’s will, which she almost snatched from my hands.”
“From yours?”
“I say from mine, because the Count was already half dead. With regard to the priest and the notary, I will tell thee where they live and I believe they will declare the truth.”
Tito thought a moment; then, looking fixedly at the funereal personage, exclaimed:—
“That is to say, that if I succeed in getting possession of these documents....”
“To-morrow thou wilt marry Elena.”
“Oh, God!” murmured the boy, taking another step toward the bed.
Then he turned again towards Death.
The courtiers did not comprehend what was passing in Tito’s heart. They all believed him to be alone, or communing with the miraculous being to whom he owed his science; but such was the terror with which he had already inspired them, that no one dared to interrupt him.
“Tell me,” added the ex-shoemaker, addressinghis fearful companion, “why it is that the Countess has not burned those papers?”
“Because the Countess like all criminals is superstitious; because she fears some day she may repent; because she conjectures that those papers will be, so to speak, her passport to eternity; for it is a well-known fact that no sinner blots out the tracks of his crimes, fearful of forgetting them at the hour of death, and of not being able to retrace his steps to find the path of virtue. I tell thee then, that those papers exist.”
“So, then, by obtaining them, Elena will be mine,” insisted Tito, still doubting Death’s ability to procure that happiness for him.
“There would yet be another obstacle to overcome,” responded Death.
“What?”
“Elena has been promised by her father to the nephew of the Countess, the Viscount de Daimiel.”
“What! she loves him?”
“No; but they were betrothed two months ago.”
“Oh! then all is hopeless!” exclaimed Tito, in despair.
“It would have been without me,” replied Death, “but I told thee, at the doors of this palace, that I was about to prevent a wedding.”
“How! have you killed the Count?”
“I!” exclaimed Death, with sarcasm, “God forbid! I have not killed him,—he died.”
“Ah!”
“Hush! No one knows it yet. At this moment his family believe that the poor youth is simply napping. Therefore ... be careful how you act! Elena, the Countess and the Duke are but two steps from thee. Now or never!” So saying, Death approached the sick woman’s couch.
Tito followed in his footsteps. Many of the people who were there in the room, among them the Duke of Monteclaro, knew of Tito’s prediction, that the Countess would die within three hours. They saw it almost fulfilled; the happy, beautiful woman of a few hours before, had suddenly become an almost inanimate body, shaken at intervals by violent convulsions.Thus it was that all commenced to regard our hero with superstitious awe and fanatical reverence. The Countess, for her part, not well distinguishing Tito, stretched toward him a tremulous and supplicating hand, while indicating with the other that they should be left alone.
All retired, and Tito seated himself beside the dying woman.