The moon, in her first quarter, hung in a cloudless sky over the
valley of the Charentonne, reflected from every patch and pool of
water. The poplars, like frosted silver, cast black shadows over the
white ground. The frogs were clamorous, for their domain had been
unexpectedly extended.
Thomas Lindet, in his attic, was putting together a few clothes into
a bundle, to take with him to Évreux, as he was about to start next
morning, after the first mass at six. He occupied two rooms in a
small cottage opposite the church. It was an old house, in plaster
and timber, with a thatched roof, and consisted of a ground-floor
and an upper storey. The ground-floor was occupied by an old woman,
and the priest tenanted the rooms above. His sitting-room, in which
he was making up his bundle, was clean; the walls were laden with
whitewash, as was also the sloping ceiling. The window was covered
with a blue-and-white striped curtain of bedticking; the chairs were
of wood, unpolished, with wooden seats. Over the chimney-piece were
a crucifix and two little prints, one of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the
other of S. Jerome. His small library occupied a few deal shelves on
one side of the fireplace. Besides his breviary, there were few books
in binding, except an old copy of Atto of Vercellæ on the ‘Sufferings
and Persecutions of the Church,’ and a Geoffrey of Vendôme on
‘Investitures.’ But there were many pamphlets and polemical tracts,
such as were circulated at that time in France, and in paper covers,
torn and dirty, were Montesquieu’s ‘Esprit des Lois,’ and Rousseau’s
‘Emile.’
Having completed his preparations, the priest blew out his candle,
drew the curtain, and looked out of his window, pierced through the
thatch. The church of S. Cross was exactly opposite, on the other
side of the small square, and the moon brought its sculpture into
relief. The gothic tower, surmounted by an ugly bulbous cap, cut the
clear grey sky; the delicate tracery of the windows stood out like
white lace against the gloom of the bell-chamber.
The west front had been remodelled in 1724, and, though Lindet,
with the taste of the period, admired it, no one at the present day
would approve of the stiff Italian pedimented doorway, with its four
pillars incrusted in the wall, or of the niche in the same style,
containing the effigy of the Empress Helena bearing the cross, which
intrudes upon the elegant gothic west window.
After the excitement of the day, a reaction had set in, and Lindet
felt dispirited, and disposed to question the judiciousness of his
purpose. He leaned on the window-sill listening to the trill of the
frogs, sweetened by distance, and to the throbbing of the clock in
the tower. From where he stood, he could see the rosy glimmer of
the sanctuary lamp, through the west window of the church. At this
window, looking towards the light which burned before the Host, he
was wont every evening to say his prayers, before retiring to rest.
He put his delicate hands together. The mechanism of the clock
whirred, and then midnight struck. The notes boomed over the sleeping
town, and lost themselves among the wooded hills. All at once
Lindet’s mind turned to the poor child for whose preservation he had
laboured ineffectually that day. Then, fervently, he prayed for her.
She was seated at the window in Madame Plomb’s antechamber, fast
asleep, with her head on her hands. The window was wide open, and the
shutters were back, so that the moon and air entered, and made the
chamber light and balmy.
About nine o’clock, the cook had been to madame’s room to tell
Gabrielle that she was to sleep with her at the other end of the
house; but Madame Berthier, full of violence, had struck and driven
the woman out of the room, and she had retired, very angry, and
threatening to tell ‘Monsieur.’ The woman had been as good as her
word; but Berthier and Foulon being together in the billiard-room
playing, she had not ventured to interrupt them till they left,
which was at midnight. The cook was very angry, and, like an insulted
servant, threatened to leave the house.
‘Ah! so so!’ exclaimed Berthier. ‘We shall see. You were right to
obey my orders. Gustave! come here; follow me, Antoinette; the girl
shall be removed immediately, awake or asleep, by gentleness or by
force.’
The silver light struck across the face of the sleeping girl, still
wet with tears, and streaked the floor. An acacia intercepted some
of the light, and as a light wind stirred, it produced an uneasy
shiver over the floor. A leaf, caught in a cobweb, pattered timidly
against one of the window-panes. A ghost-moth fluttered about the
room, its white wings gleaming in the moonlight, as it swerved and
wheeled, while its shadow swerved and wheeled in rhythm, on the
sheet of Gabrielle’s couch, as though there were two moths, one
white, the other black, dancing up and down before one another. The
shadows of the acacia foliage made faces on the floor. Dark profiles,
hatchet-shaped, with glistening eyes and mouths that opened and shut,
faces of old women munching silently, silhouettes of demons butting
with their horns, or nodding, as though they would say,--Wait, wait,
wait! We shall see!
The white veil of the sleeping girl lay on the floor, in a line. The
flickering lights crossed it, and the shadows of the leaves resembled
black flat insects, and long slugs, scrambling over it, in a mad
race. The foliage of the acacia whispered, and the pines of the
forest close by hummed as the wind stirred their myriad vibrating
spines. The air laden with the fragrance of the resin, was not balmy
only, but warm as well. An owl in the woods called at intervals
to-whoo! and waited, expecting an answer, then called again. Then
the night-hawk screeched, and fluttered among the trees. In the
garden-plots whole colonies of crickets chirped a long quivering song
in a thousand parts, perfectly harmonized, all night long, with a
rapidity of execution perfectly amazing.
From Bernay sounded distant, yet distinct, the chime of midnight.
At the same moment the hounds in the yard became restless, and gave
tongue spasmodically. The girl sighed in sleep, and turned her head
from the light; then she woke, started up, and uttered a scream. The
door of the room was open, and Berthier stood in it, looking at her,
with the cook and Gustave in the background. At the same moment,
a black figure glided from behind the window-curtains, and stood
between him and her.
‘Sacré! Madame Plomb, you are up late,’ observed the Intendant,
advancing into the chamber, and shutting the door behind him upon the
two servants. ‘May I trouble you, Madame Plomb, to retire to your
couch?’ He stepped towards her.
The woman drew herself up, raised her arm, and the moon flashed along
a slender steel blade she brandished.
‘Nonsense, my charmer!’ said Berthier; ‘no acting with me. Put down
that little toy and begone.’
‘Stop!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you see that veil there; there, beast,
there on the floor?’
‘Perfectly well, my angel.’
‘Pass over it, if you dare.’
‘I dare!’ he said scornfully, but without advancing.
‘If your foot transgresses that limit, I swear, beast! it will be
your death.’
He looked at her; the moon was on her blue-grey face, and she looked
at him. Her countenance was terrible: in that light, it was like the
face of a fiend.
‘You are a devil,’ he said.
‘You have made me one,’ she answered.
Deadly hatred glared out of her wild black eyes; there was resolution
in the set lips and hard brow, and Berthier felt that what his wife
threatened, that she would execute. He could not endure the flash and
glitter of her eye-balls, and he lowered his.
‘I hate you,’ she muttered; ‘I hate you, beast! Do you think I should
shrink from _your_ blood? Is your blood so dear to me? Should I
shrink from your corpse--from your dead face? I have only seen the
living one, and that is to me so odious, that I long to see the
dead one; it is sure to be more pleasant. Those red inflamed eyes of
yours, are they so bewitching that I should not wish to close them
for ever? Those lips, which I have never kissed, beast! I promise to
kiss them one day. I promise it, remember. They shall be stiff and
cold then. That shall be my one and only kiss.’
The hounds barked furiously without, so furiously that they disturbed
the house. Adolphe opened his window and called: ‘Be quiet, my
children; be good boys, there! Pigeon and Poulet!’
Gustave roared from the window of the corridor: ‘A thousand devils!
shall I not murder you to-morrow, if you are not quiet this instant?’
The acacia creaked and crackled.
Berthier moved towards the window, he was determined to disarm his
wife, if possible.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked, sharply.
‘I am going to look out, and see why the dogs are so furious.’
‘You cannot see into the yard from this window.’
‘No, but I can see if anyone is without.’ Next moment--‘Imogène! I
believe that there must be some one.’
She lowered her knife, with the fickleness of her disorder; the idea
distracted her attention.
‘Where?’
‘Come and look.’
She stepped towards the window. Instantly, quick as thought, he
struck her wrist, and sent the knife flying from her grasp, across
the room.
Gabrielle in an agony of terror cried, ‘My father! Oh, my father!’
Madame Berthier uttered a moan of pain and rage. Her husband would
have grappled with her at once, but that something whizzed in at
the open window, and struck him in the eye with such force that he
staggered backward, and the blood burst from the lid and streamed
over his cheek.
Madame Berthier recovered her knife, and threatening him with it,
drove him, blinded with pain and blood, out of the room.
Who can describe the horror of conscience to which Matthias André
was a prey that night? He remained after the departure of Berthier,
for some hours half stupefied, looking at the money which he held
in his hand; then he tied it up in a piece of rag, and placed it in
his bosom; but it was too heavy there, it seemed to weigh him down,
so he fastened it to the belt of his blouse, which he now put on.
To distract his mind, he began to replace in the boxes the clothes
he had drawn from them, but, as he huddled them in, unfolded, they
would not all go in. In the dusk, the garments which were not thus
disposed of looked like bodies of human beings waiting to be buried.
He threw out all the clothes from the trunks again, and began to fold
them, but he did this work clumsily, and there remained still one of
Gabrielle’s dresses uncoffered. The sight of this distressed him, it
reminded him of his daughter too painfully, so he hid it under the
table. Then he could not resist the desire to peer at it where it
lay, and the fancy came upon him that she lay there dead, and that
he had killed her; so he fled up the ladder into his loft, and cast
himself upon his bed.
But there was no rest there. The transactions of that evening haunted
him. He tried to calculate what had best be done with the money; but
no! all he could think of was that this was the price of his child’s
honour and happiness.
Remembering that he had not taken any supper, he descended the ladder
and sought in the dark for a potato pasty; but when he had found it
he could not eat it, for he considered that it had been made by _her_
fingers. He tried to uncork a bottle of wine, but could not find the
screw, so he broke the neck, and drank from it thus; the broken glass
cut his lips, for his hand shook. Gabrielle’s old gown under the
table he could not see, it was too dark, but he was constrained by a
frenzied curiosity to creep towards it, and feel if it were there.
Yes; he felt it, and he shrank from the touch.
The moon shone in at his bedroom window. The light distressed him,
when he returned to his couch; so he tried to block up the window by
erecting his coat against it, supported by a pitchfork and a broom.
It remained thus for just five minutes, and then the structure gave
way, and the moonlight flowed in again.
André could bear the house no longer. He again descended the ladder,
stole past the table, and opening his door, went outside. He took
the path across the foot-bridge and entered the forest. He resolved
to ascend the hill, and see the outside of the château in which lay
his child. The way was dark, the shadows of the pines and beech-trees
obscured it, but the wretched man knew it well, and he walked along
it, trembling with fear. He heard voices in the forest, he saw faces
peeping from behind the tree-boles. The rustle of birds in the
pine-tops made him start; but he held on his way.
When he reached the castle Malouve, he stood still. His brow was
dripping. The clock of Bernay parish church struck twelve. At the
same time the dogs scented him, and began to bark.
The unhappy father prowled round the building, looking up at every
window, his every limb shaking with apprehension.
Suddenly, from an open casement he heard a cry. He knew the tone
of that voice. The cry pierced his heart. He ran to the foot of
the building which rose from the sward at this spot, and looked up
at the window. An acacia-tree stood at a little distance from the
wall, and he proceeded to scramble up it. The trunk was smooth, and
presented no foot-hold. He was a clumsy man, and could not mount
well; the branches were brittle and broke with him. He heard voices
in the chamber whence his daughter’s cry had reached him, he grappled
with the tree and worked himself up a little way with his knees.
The leaves shook above him as though the acacia responded to every
pulsation of his heart.
‘Father! Oh, my father!’
That call to him--it seemed denunciatory, reproachful--burst upon
his ear. He tore the money from his belt, and with all his force, he
hurled it through the window; then he slid down the tree and fled.
He fled, but the cry pursued him; it echoed from every wall of the
château. He heard it in the bay of the bloodhounds; it came to him
from the dark aisles of the forest, the wind swept it after him; the
owl caught it up and towhoo’d it, the night-hawk screamed it.
He put his hands to his ears to shut it out. But the cry was within
him, and it echoed through and through and through him--
‘Father! Oh, my father!’
The cry of a child betrayed by its own parent,--the cry of a slave
sold by its own father,--the cry of a soul given up to devils by
him who had given it being,--the cry of a loving heart against him
it had loved, against him for whom the hands had worked gladly, the
feet tripped nimbly, the lips smiled sweetly, and the eyes twinkled
blithely--
‘Father! Oh, my father!’
As he sprang over the stile, as he raced to the foot-bridge, as he
traversed it, from the white face that glared up at him from the
water, from the rustling reeds, from the soughing willows, from his
own white and black home as he reached it--
‘Father! Oh, my father!’
In his horror and despair he threw himself in at the door, and ran
towards the ladder. He scrambled up it; and drawing it up after him
fastened a rope that lay coiled on his floor to it, and he noosed the
other end about his neck, and he crawled to the hole in the floor
through which he had mounted and drawn the ladder, and the cry came
up to him from below.
He leaped towards it, and so sought to silence it.