Julius, on whose forehead the beads of perspiration were beginning to gather, put his top-hat on his knee.
“Wouldn’t you like a little air?” asked Anthime, as he obligingly lowered the window on his side.
“So,” went on Julius, “as soon as I got to Rome, I solicited an audience. It was granted. This step of mine met with the most singular success....”
“Ah!” said Anthime indifferently.
“Yes, my dear Anthime, for though in reality I obtained nothing of what I came to ask, at any rate I brought away from my visit an assurance which ... effectually cleared our Holy Father from all the injurious suppositions we had been making about him.”
“God is my witness that I never made any injurious suppositions about our Holy Father.”
“I made them for you. I saw you wronged. I was indignant.”
“Come to the point, Julius. Did you see the Pope?”
“Well, no, then! I didn’t see the Pope,” burst out Julius at last, containing himself no longer, “but I became possessed of a secret—a secret which, though almost incredible at first, received sudden confirmation from our dear Amédée’s death—an appalling—a bewildering secret—but one from which your faith, dear Anthime, will be able to draw comfort. You must know, then, thatthe Pope is innocent of the injustice of which you were the victim....”
“Tut! I never for a moment doubted it.”
“Listen to me, Anthime—I didn’t see the Pope—because he is not to be seen. The person who is actually seated on the pontifical throne, who is obeyed by the Church, who promulgates—the person who spoke to me—the Pope who is to be seen at the Vatican—the Pope whom I saw—is not the real one.”
At these words Anthime began to shake all over with a fit of loud laughter.
“Laugh away! Laugh away!” went on Julius, nettled. “I laughed too, to begin with. If I had laughed a little less, Fleurissoire would not have been murdered. Ah! poor dear saint that he was! Poor lamb of a victim!...” His voice trailed off into sobs.
“What? What? Do you mean to say that this ridiculous story is really true? Dear me! Dear me!...” said Armand-Dubois, who was disturbed by Julius’s pathos. “All the same, this must be inquired into....”
“It was for inquiring into it that he met his death.”
“Because if after all I’ve sacrificed my fortune, my position, my science—if I’ve consented to be made a fool of ...” continued Anthime, who was gradually becoming excited in his turn.
“But I tell you therealone is in no way responsible for any of that. The person who made a fool of you is a mere man of straw put up by the Quirinal.”
“Am I really to believe what you say?”
“If you don’t believe me, you can at any rate believe our poor martyr here.”
They both remained silent for a few minutes. It had stopped raining; a ray of sunlight broke through the clouds. The carriage slowly jolted into Rome.
“In that case, I know what remains for me to do,” went on Anthime in his most decided voice. “I shall give the whole show away.”
Julius started with horror.
“My dear friend, you terrify me. You’ll get yourself excommunicated for a certainty.”
“By whom? If it’s by a sham Pope, I don’t care a damn!”
“And I, who thought I should help you to extract some consolatory virtue out of this secret,” went on Julius, in dismay.
“You’re joking!... And who knows but what Fleurissoire, when he gets to heaven, won’t find after all that his Almighty isn’t therealGod either?”
“Come, come, my dear Anthime, you’re rambling! As if therecouldbe two! As if there could be another!”
“It’s all very easy for you to talk—you, who have never in your life given up anything for Him—you, who profit by everything—true or false. Oh! I’ve had enough! I want some fresh air!”
He leant out of the window, touched the driver on the shoulder with his walking-stick and stopped the carriage. Julius prepared to get out with him.
“No! Let me be! I know all that’s necessary for my purpose. You can put the rest in a novel. As for me, I shall write to the Grand Master of the Order this very evening, and to-morrow I shall take up my scientific reviewing for theDépêche. Fine fun it’ll be!”
“What!” said Julius, surprised to see that he was limping again. “You’re lame?”
“Yes, my rheumatism came back a few days ago.”
“Oh, I see! Sothat’sat the bottom of it!” said Julius, as he sank back into the corner of the carriage, without looking after him.
Did Protos really intend to give Lafcadio up to the police as he had threatened? I cannot tell. The event proved at any rate that the police were not entirely composed of his friends. These gentlemen, who had been advised by Carola the day before, laid their mousetrap in the Vicolo dei Vecchierelli; they had long been acquainted with the house and knew that the upper floor had easy means of communication with the next-door house, whose exits also they watched.
Protos was not afraid of the detectives; nor of any particular accusation that might be brought against him; the machinery of the law inspired him with no terrors; he knew that it would be hard to catch him out; that he was innocent in reality of any crime and guilty only of misdemeanours too trifling to be brought home to him. He was therefore not excessively alarmed when he realised that he was trapped—which he did very quickly, having a particular flair for nosing out these gentry, in no matter what disguise.
Hardly more than slightly perplexed, he shut himself up in Carola’s room and waited for her to come in; he had not seen her since Fleurissoire’s murder, and wasanxious to ask her advice and to leave a few instructions in the very probable event of his being run in.
Carola, in the meantime, in deference to Julius’s wishes, had not shown herself in the cemetery. No one knew that, hidden behind a mausoleum and beneath an umbrella, she was assisting at the melancholy ceremony from afar. She waited patiently, humbly, until the approach to the newly dug grave was free; she saw the procession re-form—Julius go off with Anthime and the carriages drive away in the drizzling rain. Then, in her turn, she went up to the grave, took out from beneath her cloak a big bunch of asters, which she put down a little way from the family’s wreaths; there she stayed for a long time, looking at nothing, thinking of nothing, and crying instead of praying.
When she returned to the Vicolo dei Vecchierelli, she noticed, indeed, two unfamiliar figures on the threshold, but without realising that the house was being watched. She was anxious to rejoin Protos; she did not for a moment doubt that it was he who had committed the murder, and she hated him....
A few minutes later the police rushed into the house on hearing her screams—too late, alas! Protos, exasperated at learning that she had betrayed him, had already strangled Carola.
This happened about midday. The news came out in the evening papers, and as the piece of leather cut out of the hat-lining was found in his possession, his two-fold guilt did not admit of a doubt in anyone’s mind.
Lafcadio, in the meantime, had spent the hours till evening in a state of expectancy—of vague fear. Itwas not the police with whom Protos had threatened him that he feared, so much as Protos himself, or some nameless thing or other, against which he no longer attempted to defend himself. An incomprehensible torpor lay heavy on him—mere fatigue perhaps; at any rate, he gave up.
The day before, he had seen Julius for barely a moment, when the latter had come to meet the train from Naples and take over the consignment of the corpse; then he had tramped the town for hours, trying to walk down the exasperation that had been left in him by his conversation with Protos and by the feeling of his dependence.
And yet the news of Protos’s arrest did not bring Lafcadio the relief that might have been expected. It was almost as though he were disappointed. Queer creature! As he had deliberately rejected all the material profits of the crime, so he was unwilling to part with any of the risks. He could not consent to the game’s coming to an end so soon. He would gladly—as in the old days when he used to play chess—have given his adversary a rook; and as though this latest development had made his victory too easy and taken away all his interest in the match, he felt that he should never rest content till he had set Fate at defiance more rashly still.
He dined in a neighbouringtrattoriaso as not to be obliged to dress. Directly he had finished his dinner, he returned to the hotel, and as he was passing the restaurant glass doors he caught sight of Count Julius, who was sitting at table with his wife and daughter. He had not seen Genevieve since his first visit and was struck with her beauty. As he was lingering in the smoking-room, waiting for dinner to be finished, a servant came in to tellhim that the Count had gone upstairs to his room and was expecting him.
He went in. Julius de Baraglioul was alone. He had changed into a morning coat.
“So they’ve caught the murderer,” he said at once, putting out his hand.
But Lafcadio did not take it. He remained standing in the embrasure of the door.
“What murderer?” he asked.
“Why, my brother-in-law’s, of course!”
“Iam your brother-in-law’s murderer.”
He said it without a tremor, without altering or lowering his voice, without making a movement and so naturally that at first Julius did not understand. Lafcadio was obliged to repeat:
“Your brother-in-law’s murderer has not been arrested, I tell you, for the good reason that I am your brother-in-law’s murderer.”
If there had been anything fierce about Lafcadio, Julius might perhaps have taken fright, but he looked a mere child. He seemed younger even than the first time Julius had met him; his eyes were as limpid, his voice as clear. He had shut the door, but remained leaning with his back against it. Julius, standing near the table, sank all of a heap into an arm-chair.
“My poor boy!” was the first thing he said, “speak lower!... What can have possessed you? How could you have done such a thing?”
Lafcadio bowed his head. He already regretted having spoken.
“How can I tell? I did it very quickly—just when it came over me.”
“What grudge can you have had against Fleurissoire—worthy, virtuous man?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t look happy.... What’s the use of wanting me to explain to you what I can’t explain to myself?”
The silence between them grew increasingly painful; their words broke it by fits and starts, but each time it closed round them again, heavier, deeper; and through it, from the big hall of the hotel below, there came floating up to them snatches of vulgar Neapolitan music. Julius was picking at a spot of candle grease on the table-cloth with his little finger-nail, which he kept very long and pointed. He suddenly noticed that this exquisite nail of his was broken. There was a tear right across it which spoiled the beautiful pinkness of its polished surface. How could he have done it? And how came he not to have noticed it before? In any case, the damage was beyond repair. There was nothing left for Julius to do but to cut it. His vexation was extreme, for he took great care of his hands and was particularly attached to this nail, which he had been long cultivating, and which enhanced and at the same time drew attention to the elegance of his finger. The scissors were in his dressing-table drawer and he half rose to get them, but he would have had to pass in front of Lafcadio; with his usual tact he put off the delicate operation till later.
“And what do you mean to do now?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Give myself up, perhaps. I shall take the night to think it over.”
Julius let his arm drop beside his arm-chair, he gazed at Lafcadio for a moment or two and then in a tone of utter discouragement sighed out:
“And to think that I was beginning to care for you!”
It was said with no unkind intention. Lafcadio could have no doubt of that; but for all their unconsciousness the words were none the less cruel and they struck at his very heart. He raised his head and stiffened himself against the sudden pang of anguish that stabbed him. He looked at Julius. “Did I really feel almost like his brother only yesterday?” thought he. His eyes wandered over the room where such a short time ago he had been able to talk so gaily, in spite of his crime; the scent bottle was still on the table, almost empty....
“Come, Lafcadio,” went on Julius, “your situation doesn’t seem to me altogether hopeless. The presumed author of the crime....”
“Yes, I know; he has been arrested,” interrupted Lafcadio dryly. “Are you going to advise me to allow an innocent man to be condemned in my place?”
“Innocent? He has just murdered a woman—you knew her too.”
“Very comforting, isn’t it?”
“I don’t mean that exactly, but....”
“You mean he’s just the only person who could denounce me.”
“There’s some hope left still, you see.”
Julius got up, walked to the window, straightened the folds of the curtain, came back and then leaning forward with his arms folded on the back of the chair he had just left:
“Lafcadio, I shouldn’t like to part from you without a word of advice. It lies entirely with you, I’m convinced, to become an honest man again and to take your place in the world—as far, that is, as your birth permits....The Church is there to help you. Come, my lad, a little courage; go and confess yourself.”
Lafcadio could not suppress a smile.
“I will think over your kind words.” He took a step forward and then:
“No doubt you will prefer not to shake hands with a murderer. But I should like to thank you for your....”
“Yes, yes,” said Julius with a cordial and distant wave of the hand. “Good-bye, my lad. I hardly dare say ‘au revoir.’ None the less, if later on, you....”
“For the present you have nothing further to say to me?”
“Nothing further for the present.”
“Good-bye, Monsieur de Baraglioul.”
Lafcadio bowed gravely and went out.
He went up to his room on the floor above, half undressed and flung himself on his bed. The end of the day had been very hot and no freshness had come with the night. His window stood wide open but not a breath stirred the air; the electric globes of the Piazza dei Termi, far away on the other side of the garden, shone into his room and filled it with a diffused and bluish light which might have been the moon’s. He tried to reflect, but a strange torpor—a despairing numbness—crept over his mind; it was not of his crime that he thought nor of how to escape; the only effort he could make was not to hear those dreadful words of Julius: “I was beginning to care for you.” ...If he himself did not care for Julius, were those words worth his tears?... Was that really why he was weeping?... The night was so soft that he felt as though he had only to let himself go fordeath to take him. He reached out for the water bottle by his bed-side, soaked his handkerchief and held it to his heart, which was hurting him.
“No drink will ever slake again the thirst of my parched heart,” said he, letting the tears course down his face unchecked, so as to taste their bitterness to the full on his lips. A line or two of poetry, read he knew not where and unconsciously remembered, kept singing in his ears:
“My heart aches and a drowsy numbness painsMy senses....”
“My heart aches and a drowsy numbness painsMy senses....”
“My heart aches and a drowsy numbness painsMy senses....”
He fell into a doze.
Is he dreaming? Or is that a knock at his door? His door, which he always leaves unlocked at night, opens gently and a slender white figure comes in. He hears a faint call:
“Lafcadio!... Are you there, Lafcadio?”
And yet, through his half-waking slumber, Lafcadio recognises that voice. Can it be that he doubts the reality of so gracious an apparition? Or does he fear that a word, a movement, may put it to flight?... He keeps silent.
Genevieve de Baraglioul, whose room was next-door to her father’s, had in spite of herself overheard the whole of the conversation between him and Lafcadio. An intolerable dread had driven her to his room and when her call remained unanswered, fully convinced that Lafcadio had killed himself, she rushed towards the bed and fell sobbing on her knees beside it.
As she knelt there, Lafcadio raised himself and bent over her with his whole being drawn towards her, but not daring as yet to put his lips on the fair forehead he sawgleaming in the darkness. Then Genevieve de Baraglioul felt all her strength dissolve; throwing back her forehead, which Lafcadio’s breath was already caressing, and not knowing where to turn for help against him, save to himself alone:
“Dear friend, have pity,” she cried.
Lafcadio mastered himself at once; drawing back and at the same time pushing her away:
“Rise, Mademoiselle de Baraglioul,” he said. “Leave me! I am not—I cannot be your friend.”
Genevieve rose, but she did not move from the side of the bed where Lafcadio, whom she had thought dead, lay half reclining. She tenderly touched his burning forehead, as though to convince herself he was still alive.
“Dear friend,” she said, “I overheard everything you said to my father this evening. Don’t you understand that that is why I am here?”
Lafcadio half raised himself and looked at her. Her loosened hair fell about her; her whole face was in the shadow so that he could not see her eyes but he felt her look enfold him. As though unable to bear its sweetness, he hid his face in his hands.
“Ah!” he groaned, “why did I meet you so late? What have I done that you should love me? Why do you speak to me so now when I am no longer free and no longer worthy to love you?”
She protested sadly:
“It is to you I have come, Lafcadio—to no one else. To you—a criminal. Lafcadio! How many times have I sighed your name since the first day when you appeared to me like a hero—indeed, you seemed a littleover-daring ... I must tell you now—I made a secret vow to myself that I would be yours, from that very moment when I saw you risk your life so nobly. What has happened since then? Can you really have killed someone? What have you let yourself become?”
And as Lafcadio shook his head without answering: “Did I not hear my father say that someone else had been arrested—a ruffian, who had just committed a murder?... Lafcadio! while there is still time, save yourself! This very night! Go! Go!”
Then Lafcadio:
“Too late!” he murmured. And as he felt Genevieve’s loosened hair on his hands, he caught it, pressed it passionately to his eyes, his lips. “Flight! Is that really what you counsel me? But where can I possibly fly? Even if I escaped from the police, I could not escape from myself.... And, besides, you would despise me for escaping.”
“I! Despise you!”
“I lived unconscious; I killed in a dream—a nightmare, in which I have been struggling ever since.”
“I will save you from it,” she cried.
“What is the use of waking me, if I am to wake a criminal?” He seized her by the arm: “Can’t you understand that the idea of impunity is odious to me? What is there left for me to do—if not to give myself up as soon as it is daybreak?”
“You must give yourself up to God, not to man. Even if my father had not said it already, I should say so myself now: Lafcadio, the Church is there to prescribe your penance and to help you back to peace through repentance.”
Genevieve is right; most certainly the best thing Lafcadio can do now is to be conveniently submissive; he will realise this sooner or later and that every other issue is closed to him.... Vexatious, though, that that milksop of a Julius should have been the first to tell him so.
“Are you repeating that by heart?” said he angrily. “Can it be you speaking like that?”
He dropped her arm which he had been holding and pushed it from him; and as Genevieve drew back, there swelled up in him a blind feeling of resentment against Julius, a desire to get Genevieve away from her father, to drag her down, to bring her nearer to himself; as he lowered his eyes he caught the sight of her bare feet in their little silk slippers.
“Don’t you understand that it’s not remorse that I’m afraid of, but....”
He left the bed, turned away from her and went to the open window; he was stifling; he leant his forehead against the glass pane and cooled his burning palms on the iron balustrade; he would have liked to forget that she was there, that he was near her.
“Mademoiselle de Baraglioul, you have done everything that a young lady could be expected to do for a criminal—possibly a little more. I thank you with all my heart. You had better leave me now. Go back to your father, your duties, your habits.... Good-bye. Who can tell whether I shall ever see you again? Consider that when I give myself up to-morrow, it will be to prove myself a little less unworthy of your affection. Consider that.... No, don’t come nearer.... Do you think that a touch of your hand would suffice me?”
Genevieve would have braved her father’s anger, theworld’s opinion and its contempt, but at Lafcadio’s icy tones, her heart fails her. Has he not understood, then, that to come and speak to him like this at night, to confess her love to him like this, requires courage and resolution on her part too, and that her love deserves more, maybe, than a mere “thank you”?... But how can she tell him that she too, up till to-day, has been living and moving in a dream—a dream from which she escapes only now and then among her poor children at the hospital, where, binding up their wounds in sober earnestness, she does seem sometimes to be brought into contact with a little reality—a petty dream, in which her parents move beside her, hedged in by all the ludicrous conventions of their world—and that she can never succeed in taking any of it seriously, either their behaviour or their opinions, or their ambitions or their principles, or indeed, their persons themselves? What wonder, then, that Lafcadio had not taken Fleurissoire seriously? Oh! is it possible that they should part like this? Love drives her, flings her towards him. Lafcadio seizes her, clasps her, covers her pale forehead with kisses.
Here begins a new book.
Oh, desire! Oh, palpable and living truth! At your touch the phantoms of my brain grow dim and vanish.
We will leave our two lovers at cockcrow, at the hour when colour, warmth and light begin at last to triumph over night. Lafcadio raises himself from over Genevieve’s sleeping form. But it is not at his love’s fair face, nor her moist brows, nor pearly eyelids, nor warm parted lips, nor perfect breasts, nor weary limbs—no, it is at noneof all this that he gazes—but through the wide-open window, at the coming of dawn and a tree that rustles in the garden.
It will soon be time for Genevieve to leave him; but still he waits; leaning over her, he listens above her gentle breathing to the vague rumour of the town as it begins to shake off its torpor. From the distant barracks a bugle’s call rings out. What! is he going to renounce life? Does he still, for the sake of Genevieve’s esteem (and already he esteems her a little less now that she loves him a little more), does he still think of giving himself up?
This book is set (on the Linotype) in Elzevir No. 3, a French Old Style. For the modern revival of this excellent face we are indebted to Gustave Mayeur of Paris, who reproduced it in 1878, basing his designs, he says, on types used in a book which was printed by the Elzevirs at Leyden in 1634. The Elzevir family held a distinguished position as printers and publishers for more than a century, their best work appearing between about 1590 and 1680. Although the Elzevirs were not themselves type founders, they utilised the services of the best type designers of their time, notably Van Dijk, Garamond, and Sanlecque. Many of their books were small, or, as we should say now, “pocket” editions, of the classics, and for these volumes they developed a type face which is open and readable but relatively narrow in body, although in no sense condensed, thus permitting a large amount of copy to be set in limited space without impairing legibility.
[colophon]
SET UP, ELECTROTYPED, PRINTED ANDBOUND BY THE VAIL-BALLOU PRESS,INC., BINGHAMTON, N. Y. · ESPARTOPAPER MANUFACTUREDIN SCOTLAND AND FURNISHEDBY W. F. ETHERINGTON &CO., NEW YORK.
FOOTNOTES:[A]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)[B]Equivalent in pre-war days to £1600. (Translator’s note.)[C]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)[D]Compte rendu de la Délivrance de Sa Sainteté Léon XIII emprisonné dans les cachots du Vatican(Saint-Malo, imprimerie Y. Billois, rue de l’Orme 4), 1893. (Author’s note.)[E]There is an insinuation in Mlle. Péterat’s name which might be rendered in English by calling her Miss Fartwell. (Translator’s note.)[F]Roman Plastic Plaster (announced the catalogue) is a special fabrication of comparatively recent invention. This substance, of which Messrs. Blafaphas, Fleurissoire and Lévichon possess the unique secret, is a great advance on Marblette, Stucceen and other similar compositions, whose inferior qualities have been only too well established by use. (Follow the descriptions of the various models.) (Author’s note.)[G]Cavemeaning cellar in French, Protos makes a double pun impossible to render in English. (Translator’s note.)[H]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)[I]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)
FOOTNOTES:
[A]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)
[A]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)
[B]Equivalent in pre-war days to £1600. (Translator’s note.)
[B]Equivalent in pre-war days to £1600. (Translator’s note.)
[C]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)
[C]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)
[D]Compte rendu de la Délivrance de Sa Sainteté Léon XIII emprisonné dans les cachots du Vatican(Saint-Malo, imprimerie Y. Billois, rue de l’Orme 4), 1893. (Author’s note.)
[D]Compte rendu de la Délivrance de Sa Sainteté Léon XIII emprisonné dans les cachots du Vatican(Saint-Malo, imprimerie Y. Billois, rue de l’Orme 4), 1893. (Author’s note.)
[E]There is an insinuation in Mlle. Péterat’s name which might be rendered in English by calling her Miss Fartwell. (Translator’s note.)
[E]There is an insinuation in Mlle. Péterat’s name which might be rendered in English by calling her Miss Fartwell. (Translator’s note.)
[F]Roman Plastic Plaster (announced the catalogue) is a special fabrication of comparatively recent invention. This substance, of which Messrs. Blafaphas, Fleurissoire and Lévichon possess the unique secret, is a great advance on Marblette, Stucceen and other similar compositions, whose inferior qualities have been only too well established by use. (Follow the descriptions of the various models.) (Author’s note.)
[F]Roman Plastic Plaster (announced the catalogue) is a special fabrication of comparatively recent invention. This substance, of which Messrs. Blafaphas, Fleurissoire and Lévichon possess the unique secret, is a great advance on Marblette, Stucceen and other similar compositions, whose inferior qualities have been only too well established by use. (Follow the descriptions of the various models.) (Author’s note.)
[G]Cavemeaning cellar in French, Protos makes a double pun impossible to render in English. (Translator’s note.)
[G]Cavemeaning cellar in French, Protos makes a double pun impossible to render in English. (Translator’s note.)
[H]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)
[H]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)
[I]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)
[I]In English in the original. (Translator’s note.)
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:Baraglious got back to Paris=> Baragliouls got back to Paris {pg 46}eyebrows bginning to frown=> eyebrows beginning to frown {pg 89}however, notwithtanding=> however, notwithstanding {pg 122}four or five minutes=> four or five minute {pg 142}tug of clear water=> tub of clear water {pg 175}have trottled her=> have throttled her {pg 206}
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
Baraglious got back to Paris=> Baragliouls got back to Paris {pg 46}
eyebrows bginning to frown=> eyebrows beginning to frown {pg 89}
however, notwithtanding=> however, notwithstanding {pg 122}
four or five minutes=> four or five minute {pg 142}
tug of clear water=> tub of clear water {pg 175}
have trottled her=> have throttled her {pg 206}