As we rode along, I tried to account for this unexpected fancy which had
an air of premeditation. I imagined that time and reflection had
weakened the first impression that calumnies had made on Mlle.
Marguerite. Apparently, she had conceived some doubts of Mlle.
Helouin's veracity, and had seized an opportunity to make, in an
indirect way, a reparation which might be due to me. My mind full of
such preoccupations, I gave little thought to the particular object of
this strange ride. Still, I had often heard the tower of Elven
described as one of the most interesting ruins of the country. I had
never gone along either of the roads--from Rennes or from
Josselin--which lead to the sea, without looking longingly at the
confused mass rearing up suddenly among the distant heaths like some
huge stone on end. But I had had neither time nor opportunity to
examine it.
Slackening our pace, we passed through the village of Elven, which
preserves to a remarkable extent the character of a mediaeval hamlet.
The form of the low, dark houses has not changed for five or six
centuries. You think you are dreaming, when, looking into the big
arched bays which serve as windows, you see the groups of mild-eyed
women in sculpturesque costume plying their distaffs in the shade, and
talking in low tones an unknown tongue. These gray spectral figures
seem to have just left their tombs to repeat some scene of a bygone age,
of which you are the only witness. It gives a sense of oppression. The
sluggish life that stirs around you in the single street of the village
has the same stamp of archaic strangeness transmitted from a vanished
world.
A little way from Elven we took a cross-road that brought us to the top
of a bare hillock. Thence, though still some distance off, we could
plainly see the feudal colossus crowning a wooded height in front of us.
The _lande_ we were on sloped steeply to some marshy meadows inclosed by
thickets.
We descended the farther side and soon entered the woods. Then we
struck a narrow causeway, the rugged pavement of which must once have
rung to the hoofs of mail-clad horses. For some time I had lost sight
of the tower of Elven, and could not even guess where it was, when all
at once it stood out like an apparition from among the foliage a few
paces in front of us. The tower is not a ruin; it preserves its
original height of more than a hundred feet, and the irregular courses
of granite which make up its splendid octagonal mass give it the
appearance of a huge block cut out but yesterday by some skilful chisel.
It would be difficult to imagine anything more proud, sombre, and
imposing than this old donjon, impassible to the course of ages, and
lost in the depths of the forest. Full-grown trees have sprung up in
the deep moats which surround it, and their tops scarcely touch the
openings of the lowest windows. This gigantic vegetation, which
entirely conceals the base of the edifice, completes its air of
fantastic mystery. In this solitude, among these forests, before this
mass of weird architecture, which seems to start up suddenly out of the
earth, one thinks involuntarily of those enchanted castles in which
beautiful princesses slept for centuries awaiting a deliverer.
"So far," said Mlle. Marguerite, to whom I had endeavoured to convey
these impressions, "this is all I have seen of it, but if you want to
wake the princess, we can go in. I believe there is always somewhere
near a shepherd or shepherdess who has the key. Let us tie up the
horses and search, you for the shepherd, and I for the shepherdess."
We put the horses into a small inclosure near and separated for a little
while, but found neither shepherd nor shepherdess. Of course this
increased our desire to visit the tower. Crossing a bridge over the
moat, we found to our great surprise that the heavy door was not closed.
We pushed it and entered a dark and narrow space choked with rubbish,
which may have been the guard-room. We passed thence into a large,
almost circular hall, where an escutcheon in the chimneypiece still
displayed the bezants of a crusader. A large window faced us, divided
by the symbolic cross clearly carved in stone. It lighted all the lower
part of the room, leaving the vaulted and ruined ceiling in shadow. At
the sound of our steps a flock of birds whirled off, sending the dust of
ages on to our heads.
By standing on the granite benches, which ran like steps along the side
of the walls, in the embrasure of the window, we could see the moat
outside and the ruined parts of the fortress. But as we came in we had
noticed a staircase cut out of the solid wall, and we were childishly
eager to extend our discoveries. We began the ascent, I leading, and
Mlle. Marguerite following bravely, and managing her long skirts as best
she could. The view from the platform at the top is vast and exquisite.
The soft hues of twilight tinged the ocean of half-golden autumnal
foliage, the gloomy marshes, the fresh pastures, and the distant
horizons of intersecting slopes, which mingled and succeeded each other
in endless perspective. Gazing on this gracious landscape, in its
infinite melancholy, the peace of solitude, the silence of evening, the
poetry of ancient days fell like some potent spell upon our hearts and
spirits. This hour of common contemplation and emotions of purest,
deepest pleasure, no doubt the last I should spend with her, I entered
into with an almost painful violence of enjoyment. I do not know what
Marguerite was feeling; she had sat down on the ledge of the parapet,
and was gazing into the distance in silence.
I cannot say how many moments passed in this way. When the mists
gathered in the lower meadows, and the distant landscape began to fade
into the growing darkness, Marguerite rose.
"Come," she said in a low voice, as if the curtain had fallen on some
beautiful spectacle; "come; it's over."
She began to descend the stairs, and I followed her.
But when we tried to get out of the donjon, to our great surprise we
found the door closed. Most likely the doorkeeper, not knowing that we
were there, had locked it while we were on the platform. At first this
amused us. The tower was really an enchanted tower. I made some
vigorous efforts to break the spell, but the huge bolt of the old lock
was firmly fixed in its granite socket, and I had to give up all hope of
moving it. I attacked the door itself, but the massive hinges and the
oak panels studded with iron stolidly resisted all my efforts. Some
stone mullions, which I found among the rubbish and hurled against the
door, only shook the vault and brought some fragments from it to our
feet. Mlle. Marguerite at last made me give up a task that was hopeless,
and not without danger. I then ran to the window and shouted, but no
one replied. For ten minutes I continued shouting, and to no purpose.
We took advantage of the last rays of light to explore the interior of
the donjon very carefully. But the door, which was as good as walled up
for us, and the large window, thirty feet above the moat, were the only
exits we could discover.
Meanwhile, night had fallen on the fields, and the shadows deepened in
the old tower. The moonbeams shone in through the window, streaking the
steps with oblique white lines. Mlle. Marguerite's gaiety had gradually
died away, and she had even ceased to answer the more or less probable
conjectures with which I still tried to calm her apprehensions. While
she kept silent and immovable in the shadow, I sat in the full light on
the step nearest the window, still shouting at intervals for help; but,
to speak the truth, the more uncertain the success of my attempts
became, the more I was conscious of a feeling of irresistible
joyfulness. For suddenly I saw the eternal and impossible dream of
lovers realized for me; I was shut in the heart of a desert and in the
most complete solitude with the woman I loved. For long hours there
would be but she and I in the world, but her life and mine. I thought
of all the sweet evidences of protection and of tender respect it would
be my right and my duty to show her. I imagined her fears at rest, her
confidence restored, finally her slumbers guarded by me. I told myself,
in rapture, that this auspicious night, though it could not give me her
love, would at least insure me her unalterable respect.
As I yielded, with the egotism of passion, to my secret ecstasy, some
trace of which, perhaps, expressed itself in my face, I was suddenly
awakened by these words, spoken in a dull tone, and with affected calm:
"M. le Marquis de Champcey, have there been many cowards in your family
before you?"
I rose, and immediately fell back again on the stone bench, looking
stupidly into the darkness, where I saw dimly the ghostly figure of the
young girl. Only one idea occurred to me--a terrible idea--that grief
and fear had affected her reason--that she was going mad.
"Marguerite!" I cried, without knowing that I spoke.
The word no doubt put a climax to her irritation.
"My God, this is hateful!" she continued. "It is cowardly. I repeat, it
is cowardly."