The Lock and Key Library Part 20

"And now am I nothing but a charmed dreamer, a half-crazy child, a sick brain feeding on crochets, an incorrigible, wrong-headed fellow? No, you admit that I have profited by your lessons; that a grain of wisdom has fallen into my brain, and that without having seen the bottom of things, I have at least lucid intervals. If this be so, my Gilbert, believe what I am going to say as you would the Holy Bible. You have worked with all your strength to cure my soul, and there is not a more skillful physician in the world than you. But all of your trouble would have been lost, if you had not had by your side an all-powerful ally, whom you don't know, and whom I am about to reveal to you. Ah! tell me, when you came into this room the first time, did you not feel that a celestial spirit followed in your track and entered with you? You went, he remained, and has not left me, and never will. Look, do not these walls speak of him? Do not these saints move their lips to murmur his name to you? And the air we breathe here, is it not full of those delicious perfumes which these envoys of Heaven scatter in their earthward journeys? How strange this spirit appeared to me at first! His face was all unknown to me, it had never appeared to me in my dreams. Startled and bewildered, I said to him: Who then art thou? What is thy name? And, one day, Gilbert, one day, it was through your mouth that he answered me. Gilbert, Gilbert, oh!

what a singular company you have introduced to me in his person.

Sometimes he seated himself near me, pale, melancholy, clothed in mourning, and breathed into my heart a venomous bitterness, such as I had never dreamed of. And feeling myself seized with an inexpressible desire to die; I cried out 'I know you, you must be the brother of death!' But all at once transforming himself, he appeared to me holding a fool's cap in his hand. He shook the bells and sang to me songs which filled my ears with feverish murmurings. My head turned, smoke floated before me, my dazzled eyes were intoxicated with visions, and it seemed to me, poor child, nourished with gall and tears, that life was an eternal fete, upon which Heaven looked down smiling. Then I said to the spirit: 'Now I know you better, you are the brother of folly.' But he changed himself again, and suddenly I saw him standing erect before me folded in the long white wings of the seraphim; at once serious and gentle, divine reason shone in his deep eyes and the serenity on his brow announced an inhabitant of Heaven. In these moments, my Gilbert, his voice was more penetrating and more persuasive than yours; he repeated your words and gave me strength to believe in them; he engraved your lessons on my mind; he instilled your wisdom into my folly, your soul in my soul; and know that if the lily has drunk the juices of the earth, if the lily has grown, if the lily should blossom one day, it shall not be from the impotent sun rays which you brought to me in your breast, to which thanks must be rendered; but to him, the celestial spirit, to him who lighted in my heart a divine flame with which, may it please G.o.d that yours too may be illuminated!" And rising at these words, he almost gasped: "Have I said enough? Do you understand me at last?"

"No!" answered Gilbert resolutely, "I do not understand this celestial spirit at all."

Stephane writhed his arms.

"Cruel! you do not wish then to divine anything!" murmured he distractedly. And going to the window, he stood some moments leaning against it. When he turned towards Gilbert, his eyes were wet with tears; but by one of those rapid changes which were familiar to him, he had a smile upon his lips, "What I dare not say to you, I have just now written," resumed he, drawing a letter from his bosom.

"It was a last resort which I hoped you would not force me to call to my aid. Oh! hard heart! to what humiliations have you not abased my pride!" He presented the letter, but changing his mind, he said:

"I wish to add a few words to it."

And ran and seated himself at the table. His pen had fallen on the floor, and not being able to find it, he quickly sharpened a pencil with a keen-edged poniard which he drew from the depths of a drawer.

"What a singular penknife you have there," said Gilbert, approaching him.

"It is a Russian stiletto of Toula manufacture. It belongs to Ivan, he lent it to me day before yesterday, when we were out walking, to uproot a plant with. He has forgotten to take it back."

"You will oblige me by returning it to him," answered Gilbert; "it is a plaything I don't like to see in your hands."

Stephane gave a sign of a.s.sent, and bent over the paper. The letter which he had written was as follows:

"My Gilbert, listen to a story. I was eleven years old when MY BROTHER STEPHANE died. Scarcely was he buried when my father called me to him. He held in his hand a suit of clothes like these I wear now, and he said to me: 'Stephane, understand me clearly.

It was my daughter that just died, my son lives still.' And as I persisted in not understanding him, he had a coffin brought in, placed on a table and he laid me in it; and closing the cover by degrees, he said, 'My daughter, are you dead?' When it was entirely closed, I decided to speak, and I cried out, 'Father, your daughter is dead. It shall be as you desire.' Then he drew me out of the coffin half dead with fear and horror, and exclaimed, 'Stephane, remember that my daughter is dead. Should you ever happen to forget it' ... He said no more, but his eyes finished the sentence. Gilbert, at this moment the daughter of my father comes back to life to tell you that she loves you with an unconquerable love which she can no longer conceal. In my simplicity, I thought at first that I loved you as you loved me; but you yourself have taken care to undeceive me. One day you spoke of our approaching separation, and you said to me: 'We shall see each other sometimes!' And you did not hear the cry of my heart which answered you; to pa.s.s a day without seeing you! What a h.e.l.l!

"When I had fairly comprehended that your friends.h.i.+p was a devotion, a virtue, a wisdom, and that mine was a folly, then the daughter of my father thought of dying, so bitter were the torments which her rebellious pride inflicted upon her. Ah! what would I not have given, my Gilbert, if divining who I was, you had fallen at my feet crying: 'I too know how to love madly!'

"But no; you have understood nothing, suspected nothing. My hair, the resemblance to my mother imprinted on my face, the smile, which they tell me, pa.s.sed from her lips to mine... . Oh! blindest of men! how I have hated you at moments! But it does not really seem that a fatality pursues me? That hand with its iron grip fastened on my shoulder, and forcing me to prostrate myself before you, I feel no longer, with its nails pressing into my flesh; and yet my knees, trembling, powerless, bend under me, and again you see me fall at your feet. Yes, my poor pride is dead indeed. The thunder growled when it gave up its last breath. You remember that stormy night. Glued at the window pane, I tried to pierce the darkness with my eyes, to discern you in the midst of the tempest. All at once the heavens were ablaze, and I saw you standing upon the ledge of your window, bending proudly over the abyss, at which you seemed to hurl defiance. Enveloped in flas.h.i.+ng light, you appeared to me like a blissful spirit, and I exclaimed to myself: 'This is one of the elect of G.o.d! I can ask of him without shame for indulgence and mercy!' And now, my Gilbert, do not presume to tell me that my love is a malady, which needs only careful attention. Oh, G.o.d! all that would be useless; the saints themselves have refused to cure me. Do not try to terrify me, either, or speak to me of insurmountable obstacles to our union; of dangers which threaten us. The future! We will talk of that hereafter. Now, I want to know but one thing; that is, if you are capable of loving me as I love you? Friend, if hatred can change to love, would it be impossible for friends.h.i.+p? ... Gilbert, Gilbert, forget what the refined barbarity of my father has made of me; forget my gusts of pa.s.sion, my violence, the unruliness of a badly educated child; forget the vehemence of my language, the rudeness of my actions; forget the fountain; my whip raised to you; forget those young villagers I compelled to kiss my feet; forget even the cap which I threw in your face, for, Heaven is my witness, I feel a woman's heart awakened in my bosom; it shakes off its long sleep, it stirs, it sighs, it speaks, and the first name it utters, the only one it ever wants to know, is yours! ...

"What more shall I say? I would like to appear to you in your dreams decked as if for a fete: clothed in white, a smile upon my lips, pearls about my neck, around my head the flowers you love-- white anemones and blue gentians. Only take care, some of the henbane flowers have slipped into my crown. Tear them from my hair yourself, lest their perfume instill a deadly poison into my heart.

But no, I do not wish to frighten you. Stephane is wise; she is reasonable; she does not ask the impossible; she gives you time to breathe; to recover yourself. Wait, if you wish it, a week, a fortnight, a month, before coming here again; until that blessed day dawns when you can say with your adored poet; 'In its turn, friends.h.i.+p revealed its power to my heart, and at length love, coming last, crowned it with flowers and fruit.'"

To this letter Stephane added these words: "And if that day, Gilbert, if that day should never come--"

But here she hesitated; her hand trembled; she looked alternately at Gilbert and the knife; then rising--

"I do not know how to finish my letter," she said. "You can easily supply what is lacking. But you must not read it here; carry it to your turret; you will meditate upon it there more at leisure."

And at these words, having returned the paper to him, she burst into a fit of laughter.

"Again that same laugh, which I detest," said Gilbert, trying to hide the anguish which was consuming him.

"Do you want to know what it means?" said the young girl, looking him in the face. "When we were at Baden-Baden, three years ago, Father Alexis had a fancy to take me to a gambling house, and in entering I heard a burst of laughter much resembling those which shock you so. 'Who is laughing in that way?' said I to the good father. He found on inquiring that it was a man who had just gained enormous sums, and who was preparing to play double or quits.

"Double or quits!" added she; "to play double or quits! If I should lose--"

All at once her eyes dilated, and shot fire; she turned her head backward, and raising her arm towards Gilbert, she exclaimed:

"You know who I am, and you have condemned me in your heart. Ah!

think twice; you have my life in your hands." And recoiling a few steps she suddenly turned, fled across the room, threw open a small side-door, and disappeared.

How did Gilbert manage to reach his turret?

All he knows himself is, that on coming out of the dormer window, beside himself, forgetting all idea of danger, he committed, for the first time, the signal imprudence of walking erectly over the roof, which ordinarily he found difficult to cross even in crawling; seeing and hearing nothing, entirely absorbed in a single thought, he started forward at a quick pace. From his gait and carriage, the moon, which shone brightly in the sky, must have taken him for a madman, or a somnambulist. He reached the end of the roof, when a broken slate slipped under his feet. He lost his balance, fell heavily, and it would have been all over with him, if, in falling, his hand had not by a miracle encountered the trailing end of his ladder, by which he had strength enough to hold himself. Slates are brittle, and when hurled against a hard substance break in a thousand pieces. The one which Gilbert had just precipitated into s.p.a.ce met a point of rock which scattered it into fragments, one of which struck, without wounding, the hand of a man who happened to be rambling on the border of the ravine.

As fate would have it, this evening M. Leminof had an important letter to forward by the mail; and near nine o'clock, contrary to all the usages and customs of his house, he had sent Fritz to a large town about a league distant, where the courier pa.s.sed during the night. Unluckily, upon his return, Fritz saw a light s.h.i.+ning in the cottage of his Dulcinea. Appet.i.te, the opportunity, some devil also urging him, he left the road, walked straight to the cabin, opened the door, which was only closed by a latch, entered with stealthy tread, and surprised his beauty seated upon a stool and mending her linen. He drew near her, said gallant things to her, and soon began to take liberties. The damsel, frolicsome and forward, instead of awakening her father, who slept in the neighboring room, rushed to the door, darted out and gained upon a run the serpentine path which ran along the edge of the ravine. A hundred times more active than Fritz, she kept in advance of him; then halted, called him, and the moment when he thought he was going to seize her, she escaped and ran on faster. She continued this game until becoming weary she hid herself behind a bush, and laughing in her sleeve, saw the amorous giant pa.s.s her, continue to ascend, reeking with sweat, slipping frequently, and constantly fearing he would fall down the precipice. At length, by dint of scrambling, he arrived at the place where the path ended at the perpendicular fall of the precipice, a height of forty feet. By what means had his fantastic princess scaled this wall? All at once he heard a silvery voice which called him below. In his rage he struck his forehead with his fist; but at the moment he was about to descend, a singular noise struck his ear--a piece of slate grazed his hand and drew from him an exclamation of surprise.

Raising his head quickly, and favored by the light of the moon, he saw upon his right a shadow suspended in the air. It mounted, stopped upon the ledge of a window, stooped down and soon disappeared.

"Oh! oh!" said he, much astonished, "here's something odd!

Monsieur secretary goes out at night, then, to make the rounds of the roofs? And for this we have provided ourselves with rope ladders. I am much mistaken if his Excellency, the Count, will relish this little amus.e.m.e.nt. Peste, the jolly fellow has a good foot and a good eye. There must be a great deal to gain to risk his skin this way. Faith! these demure faces are not to be trusted."

The great Fritz was so stupefied with his discovery that he seated himself a moment upon a stone to collect his thoughts. The fine idea which his thick skull brought forth was that the secretary belonged to the ill.u.s.trious brotherhood of ambidexters, and that his nocturnal circuits had for their object the search for hidden treasure. Proud of his sagacity, and delighted with the opportunity to satisfy his resentment, he descended the path, not without trouble, and deaf to the voice and the laughter of his enchantress, who challenged him to new trials, he regained the road and strode on to the castle.

"Oh! then, Mr. Secretary," said the knave to himself with a wicked smile, "you threw me down a staircase, and thought you'd get me turned out of doors. What will you say if I make you go out by the window?"

XVII

The next day--it was the second Sunday of September--Gilbert went out at about ten o'clock in the morning, and directed his steps to a wild and solitary retreat. It was a narrow glade upon the borders of a little pond dried up by the summer heat, near which he had often gathered plants for Stephane. Among groups of trees which straggled up on all sides, under a patch of blue sky, a ground of blackish clay, cracked and creviced, herbage, dried rushes; here and there some patches of stagnant water, the surface of which was rippled by the gambols of the aquatic spider; further on a large tuft of long-plumed reeds, which s.h.i.+vered at the least breath and rocked upon their trembling stems drowsy red b.u.t.terflies and pensive dragonflies; upon the steep banks of the pond, sad flowers, pond weed, the marsh clover, the sand plantain; in a corner, a willow with roots laid bare, which hung over the exhausted pool as if looking for its lost reflection; around about, nettles, briars, dry heather, furze, stripped of its blossoms; that damp and heavy atmosphere which is natural to humid places; the light of day thinly veiled by the exhalations from the earth; an odor of decaying plants, long silence interrupted by dull sounds; an air of abandonment, of idleness, of la.s.situde, the melancholy languor of a life departing regretfully; the recollection of something which was, and will never reappear, never! Such was the word which this wild solitude murmured to Gilbert's ear. Never!

repeated he to himself, and his heart was oppressed by a sense of the irretrievable. He seated himself upon the sward, a few steps from the willow, his elbows upon his knees, and his head in his hands, and lost himself in long and painful meditation. I shall tell all; he felt at intervals in the depths of his being, in the very depths, the agitation of a secret joy which he dared not confess to himself; but it was a pa.s.sing movement of his soul which he did not succeed in defining in the midst of the whirlwind which shook him. And then, in such a moment, he thought but little of asking himself what he could or could not feel. His mind was elsewhere. Sometimes he sought to picture to himself all the successive phases of this unhappy existence, of which, henceforth, he held the key; sometimes he felt a tender admiration for the energy and elasticity of this young soul which unparalleled misfortunes had not been able to crush. And now to abandon him, to break such close and sweet ties, was it not to condemn him to despair, to deliver him up a victim to the violence of his pa.s.sions rendered more violent by unhappiness? Ought he not at least to attempt to draw from his impulsive heart this fatal arrow, this baleful love which to his eyes was a danger, an extravagance, a calamity? And from reflection to reflection, from anxiety to anxiety, he always returned to deplore his own blindness. The eccentricities of Stephane's conduct, certain salient points in his character, the pa.s.sionate ABANDON of his language; his face, his hair, his glances, the charm of his smile; how was it that so many of his indications had escaped him? And this want of penetration which resulted from the rather unromantic character of his mind, he attributed to bluntness of sensibility and charged himself with it as a crime. He was profoundly absorbed in his reverie when the cry of a raven aroused him. He opened his eyes, and when he had lost sight of the croaking bird, which crossed the glade in rapid flight, he looked for a moment at a handsome variegated b.u.t.terfly which fluttered about the willow; then noticing in the gra.s.s, within reach of his hand, a pretty little marsh flower, he drew it carefully from the soil with its root and set about its examination with an attentive eye. He admired the purple tint of its pistil and the gold of its stamens, which contrasted charmingly with the brilliant whiteness of the petals, and said unconsciously: "There is a lovely flower which I have not yet shown to my Stephane: I must carry it to him."

But instantly recollecting himself, and throwing away the innocent flower spitefully, he exclaimed:

"Oh, fortune, what singular games you play!"

"Yes, fortune is singular!" answered a voice which was not unknown to him; and before he had time to turn, Dr. Vladimir was seated beside him.

Vladimir Paulitch had employed his morning well. Scarcely out of bed, he had given a private audience to Fritz, who, not daring to address his master directly, for his frowns always made him tremble, had come to ask the doctor to receive his revelations and obligingly transmit them to his Excellency. When in an excited and mysterious tone he had disclosed his important secret:

"There is nothing astonis.h.i.+ng in that," replied Vladimir coldly.

"This young man is a somnambulist, and the conclusion of your little story is, that his window must be barred. I will speak to Count Kostia about it."

Upon which Fritz slunk away discomfited and much confused at the turn the adventure had taken.

After his departure, Vladimir Paulitch concluded to take a walk upon the gra.s.sy hillock, and on his way said to himself: "Have my suspicions, then, been well founded?"

He had pa.s.sed an hour among the rocks, studying the spot, examining the aspect of the castle from this side, and particularly the irregularities of the roof. As his eyes rested on the square tower which Stephane occupied, he saw him appear at the window, and remain there some minutes, his eyes fixed upon Gilbert's turret.

"Aha! Now we see how matters stand!" said he, "but to risk his head in this way, our idealist must be desperately in love. And he'll carry it through! We must find him and have a little chat."

In reascending to the castle, Vladimir had seen Gilbert turn into the woods, and without being perceived, had followed him at a distance.

"Yes, fortune is singular!" repeated he, "and we must resist it boldly and brave it resolutely, or submit humbly to its caprices and die. This is but reasonable; half measures are expedients of fools. As for me, I have always been the partisan of sequere Deum, which I interpret thus: 'Take luck for your guide, and walk on blindly.'"

And as Gilbert made no answer, he continued: