As Gilbert rapidly traced these last lines, the dinner-bell
sounded. He descended in haste to the grand hall. They were
already at the table.
"Tell me, if you please," said Count Kostia, addressing him gayly,
"what you think of our new comrade?"
Gilbert then noticed a fifth guest, whose face was not absolutely
unknown to him. This newly invited individual was seated at the
right of Father Alexis, who seemed to relish his society but
little, and was no less a personage than Solon, the favorite of the
master, one of those apes which are vulgarly called "monkeys in
mourning," with black hair, but with face, hands, and feet of a
reddish brown.
"You will not be vexed with me for inviting Solon to dine with us?"
continued M. Leminof. "The poor beast has been hypochondriacal for
several days, and I am glad to procure this little distraction for
him. I hope it will dissipate it. I cannot bear melancholy faces;
hypochondria is the fate of fools who have no mental resources."
He pronounced these last words half turning towards Stephane. The
young man's face was more gloomy than ever. His eyes were swollen,
and dark circles surrounded them. The indignation with which the
brutal remark of his father filled him, gave him strength to
recover from his dejection. He resolutely set about eating his
soup, which he had not touched before, and feeling that Gilbert's
eyes were fixed upon him, he raised his head quickly and darted
upon him a withering glance. Gilbert thought he divined that he
called him to account for his carnation, and could not help
blushing,--so true is it that innocence does not suffice to secure
one a clear conscience.
"Frankly, now," resumed the Count, lowering his voice, "don't you
see some resemblance between the two persons who adorn the lower
end of this table?"
"The resemblance does not strike me," answered Gilbert coldly.
"Ah! mon Dieu, I do not mean to say that they are identical in all
points. I readily grant that Father Alexis uses his thumbs better;
I admit, too, that he has a grain or two more of phosphorus in his
brain, for you know the savants of to-day, at their own risk and
peril, have discovered that the human mind is nothing but a
phosphoric tinder-box."
"It is these same savants," said Gilbert, "who consider genius a
nervous disorder. Much good may it do them. They are not my men."
"You treat science lightly; but answer my question seriously: do
you not discover certain analogies between these two personages in
black clothes and red faces?"
"My opinion," interrupted Gilbert impatiently, "is that Solon is
very ugly, and that Father Alexis is very handsome."
"Your answer embarrasses me," retorted the Count, "and I don't know
whether I ought to thank you for the compliment you pay my priest,
or be angry at the hard things you say of my monkey. One thing is
certain," added he, "that my monkey and my priest,--I'm wrong,--my
priest and my monkey, resemble each other in one respect: they have
both a passionate appetite for truffles. You will soon see."
They were just serving fowl with truffles. Solon devoured his
portion in the twinkling of an eye, and as he was prone to coveting
the property of others, he fixed his eyes, full of affectionate
longing, on his neighbor's plate. Active, adroit, and watching his
opportunity, he seized the moment when the priest was carrying his
glass to his lips; to extend his paw, seize a truffle, and swallow
it, was the work of but half a second. Beside himself with
indignation, the holy man turned quickly and looked at the robber
with flashing eyes. The monkey was but little affected by his
anger, and to celebrate the happy success of his roguery, he
capered and frisked in a ridiculous and frantic way, clinging with
his forepaws to the back of his chair. The good father shook his
head sadly, moved his plate further off, and returned to his
eating, not, however, without watching the movements of the enemy
from the corner of his eye. In vain he kept guard; in spite of his
precautions,--a new attack, a new larceny--and fresh caperings of
joy by the monkey. Father Alexis at last lost patience, and the
monkey received a vigorous blow full in the muzzle, which drew from
him a sharp shriek; but at the same instant the priest felt two
rows of teeth bury themselves in his left cheek. He could hardly
repress a cry, and gave up the game, leaving Solon to gorge himself
to his beard in the spoils, while he busied himself in stanching
his wound, from which the blood gushed freely.
The Count affected to be ignorant of all that passed; but there was
a merry sparkle in his eyes which testified that not a detail of
this tragic comedy had escaped his notice.
"You appear to distrust Solon, Father," said he, seeing that the
priest pushed back his chair and kept at a distance from the
baboon. "You are wrong. He has very sweet manners; he is
incapable of a bad action. He is only a little sad now, but in his
melancholy, he observes all the rules of good breeding; which is
not the case with all melancholy people," added he, throwing a look
at Stephane, who, taken with a sudden access of sadness, had just
leaned his elbow upon the table and made a screen of his right hand
to hide his tears from his father. Gilbert felt himself near
stifling, and as soon as he could, left the table. Fortunately no
one followed him onto the terrace. Stephane had no more flowers to
cultivate, and went to shut himself up in his high tower. On his
part, Father Alexis went to dress his wound; as to M. Leminof, he
was displeased with the cool and, as he thought, composed air with
which Gilbert had listened to his pleasantries, and he retired to
his study, promising himself to give to Monsieur his secretary,
whom, nevertheless, he valued very highly, that last touch of
pliancy which he needed for his perfection. Count Kostia was of an
age when even the strongest mind feels the necessity of occasional
relaxation, and he would have been glad to have near him a pliant,
agreeable companion, and enchanted could that companion have been
his secretary.
Gilbert strode across the terrace, and, leaning over the parapet,
gazed long and silently at the highroad. "Ten months yet!" said he
to himself, and contracting his brows, he turned to look at the
odious castle, where destiny had cast his lot. It seemed as if the
old pile wished to avenge itself for his ill humor: never had it
been clothed with such a smiling aspect. A ray of the setting sun
rested obliquely upon its wide roof; the bricks had the warm color
of amber, the highest points were bathed in gold dust, and the
gables and vanes threw out sparks. The air was balmy; the lilacs,
the citron, the jasmine, and the honeysuckle intermingled their
perfumes, which the almost imperceptible breath of the north wind
spread in little waves to the four corners of the terrace.
And these wandering perfumes mingled themselves, in passing, with
other odors more delicate and more subtle; from each leaf, each
petal, each blade of grass, exhaled secret aromas, mute words which
the plants exchange with each other, and which revealed to
Gilbert's heart the great mystery of happiness which animates the
soul of things.
Gilbert was determined to drown his sorrows this evening in the
divine harmonies of nature. To succeed the better, he called
poetry to his aid, for the great poets are the eternal mediators
between the soul of things and our feeble hearts of earth and clay.
He recited the distichs where Goethe has related in a tongue worthy
of Homer or Lucretius the metamorphosis of the plants. This was
placed like a preamble at the beginning of the volume which he
carried with him in his walks, and he had learned it by heart a few
days before. The better to penetrate the sense of these admirable
lines, he tried to translate them into French alexandrines, which
he sometimes composed. This effort at translation soon appeared to
him beyond his abilities; all the French words seemed too noisy,
too brilliant or too vulgar, or too solemn to render these mute
accents, these intonations veiled as if in religious mystery, by
which the author of Faust intended to express the subtle sounds and
even the silence of nature. We know that it is only in German
poetry that we can hear the grass growing from the bosom of the
earth, and the celestial spheres revolving in space.
Every language has its pedals and its peculiar registers; the
Teutonic muse alone can execute these solemn airs which must be
played with the soft pedal. For more than an hour Gilbert
exhausted himself in vain attempts, and at last, disheartened, he
contented himself with reciting aloud the poem which he despaired
of translating. He uttered the first part with the fire of
enthusiasm; but his voice fell as he pronounced the following
passage:
"Every flower, my beloved, speaks to thee in a voice distinct and
clear; every plant announces to thee plainly the eternal laws of
life; but these sacred hieroglyphics of the goddess which thou
decipherest upon their perfumed foreheads, thou wilt find
everywhere hidden under other emblems. Let the caterpillar drag
itself creeping along, and soon the light butterfly darts rapidly
through the air; and let man also, with his power of self-
development, follow the circle of his soul's metamorphoses. Oh!
then wilt thou remember that the bond which united our spirits was
first a germ from which sprang in time a sweet and charming
acquaintance; friendship in its turn soon revealed its power in our
hearts, until love came at last, crowning it with flowers and
fruits."
At this place a light cloud of sadness passed over Gilbert's face;
he felt a secret dissatisfaction at meeting in the verses of his
favorite poet a passage which he could not apply to his own
experience.
Meanwhile, night had come, a night like a softened and refreshed
day. The radiant moon shone in the zenith; she inundated the
fields of heaven with soft whiteness, she shook her torch over the
Rhine, and made the crests of its restless waves scintillate; she
poured over the tops of the trees a rain of silvery light; she
suspended from their branches necklaces of sapphires and azure
diamonds, which the breeze in passing sportively dashed together.
The great slumbering woods thrilled at the touch of this dew of
light which bathed their lofty brows; they felt something divine
insinuating itself in the horror of their somber recesses. From
time to time a nightingale gave to the wind a few notes sonorous
and sustained; it seemed the voice of the forest, speaking in its
sleep,--its soul, carried away in ecstasy, exhaling its
intoxication in a long sigh of love.
Gilbert had been sitting up very late recently, since he had
decided to remain but a short time at Geierfels, and he had grown
pale over the Byzantines, in the hope of advancing in his task so
much, that Count Kostia would more easily consent to his departure.
Robust as was his constitution, he finished by tiring himself out,
and nature claiming its rights, sleep seized him at the moment when
he was about leaving the bank to seek his room, and have a little
nocturnal chat with Agathias and Procopius.
When he awoke, the moon had already declined towards the horizon,
which discovery surprised him greatly, as he thought he had slept
but a few moments. He rose and shook his limbs, stiff from the
dampness. Fortunately, he was the only one at Geierfels who had
free ingress and egress; the turret which he inhabited communicated
with the terrace by a private staircase, to the entrance of which
he had the key. Fortunately, too, the bulldogs had learned to know
him, and never dreamed of disturbing his movements. He gained the
little door without any difficulty, opened it, and having lit a
candle which he drew from his pocket, commenced cautiously to
ascend the winding staircase, the steps of which were broken in
many places. He had just reached the first landing where
terminated the spacious corridor, which extended along the
principal facade parallel with the terrace, and was preparing to
cross it, when he heard a long and painful groan, which seemed to
come from the other end of the gallery. Starting, he remained
motionless some moments, with neck extended and ears alert, peering
into the obscurity from whence he expected to see some melancholy
phantom emerge; but almost immediately a gust of wind driving
through the broken square of a dormer window made it grind upon its
hinges and give out a plaintive sound, which reverberated through
the corridor. Gilbert then fancied that what he had taken for a
sigh was only the moaning of the wind, counterfeiting in its
melancholy gambols the voice of human grief. Resuming his ascent,
he had already mounted some steps, when a second groan, still more
dismal than the first, reached his ears, and froze the blood in his
veins. He was sure he could not be deceived now; the wind had no
such accents--it was a wail, sharp, harsh, and heartrending, which
seemed as though it might come from the bosom of a specter.
A thousand sinister suppositions assailed Gilbert's mind, but he
gave himself no time to reflect. Agitated, panting, his head on
fire, he sprang with one bound down the staircase, and reaching the
entrance of the gallery, cried out in a trembling voice, and
scarcely knowing what he said:
"Who's there? Who wants assistance? I, Gilbert, am ready to come
to his aid--"
His voice was swallowed up and lost in the somber arches of the
corridor. No answer; the darkness remained dumb. In the rapidity
of his movement, Gilbert had extinguished his candle; he prepared
to relight it, when a hat flew by and struck his forehead with his
wings. The start which this unforeseen attack gave him made him
drop the candle; he stooped to pick it up, but could not find it.
In spite of this accident, he walked on. A feeble ray of
moonlight, which came in by the dormer window and shed through the
entrance of the corridor a long thread of bluish light, seemed to
guide him a few steps. Then he groped his way with arms extended
and touching the wall. Every few steps he stopped and listened,
and repeated in a voice hoarse with excitement:
"Who's there? You who are moaning, can I do anything to help you?"
Nothing answered him except the beating of his heart, and the
murmur of the wind, which continued to torment the hinges of the
dormer window.
The gallery into which Gilbert had entered was divided halfway in
its length by two steps, at the bottom of which was a large iron
door, always kept open during the day, but closed and double-locked
as night set in. Approaching this, Gilbert saw a feeble light
glimmering beneath the door. He descended the steps, and looking
through the key-hole, from which the key had been withdrawn, saw
what changed the frightful anguish he had just been suffering into
surprise and terror.
At twenty paces from him he saw the appalling figure of a phantom
standing erect; it was enveloped in a large white cloth wound
several times round its body, passing under its left arm, and
falling over the right shoulder. In one hand it held a torch and a
sword, in the other an oval ebony frame of which Gilbert could only
see the back, but which seemed to inclose a portrait. The face of
this specter was emaciated, drawn, and of unusual length; its skin,
withered and dry, seemed to be incrusted upon its bones, its
complexion was sallow; a profuse perspiration trickled from its
brows and glued the hair to its temples. Nothing could describe
the expression of terror in its face. It seemed to Gilbert that
its two burning eyeballs penetrated even through the door, though
they saw nothing which surrounded them; their vision seemed turned
within, and the invisible object which fastened their gaze, a heart
haunted by specters.
Suddenly the lips of this nocturnal wanderer opened, and another
groan more fearful than the first issued from them. It seemed as
if his burdened breast wished to shake off by a violent effort a
mountain of weariness, the weight of which was crushing it, or
rather as though the soul sought to expel itself in this despairing
cry. Gilbert was seized with inexpressible agitation, his hair
stood on end. He started to fly; but a curiosity stronger than his
terror prevented him from leaving the spot and kept him riveted to
the door. By the eyebrows and cheekbones, in spite of the
distortion of the face, he had recognized Count Kostia.
At length this sinister somnambulist stirred from his motionless
position and advanced at a slow pace; he walked like an automaton.
After taking a dozen steps he stopped, looked around him, and
slightly bent forward. His strained features resumed their natural
proportions, life re-animated his brow, the deathlike inertia of
his face gave place to an expression of sadness and prostration.
For a few seconds his lips moved, without saying a word, as if to
become flexible, and fashioned anew to the use of speech:--then, in
a soft voice which Gilbert did not recognize, and with the
plaintive accents of a suffering child, he murmured:
"How heavy this portrait is! I can carry it no longer; take it out
of my hands, it burns them. In mercy, extinguish this fire. I
have a brand in my breast. It must be kept covered with ashes;
when I can see it no more, I shall suffer less. It is my eyes that
make me suffer; if I were blind, I could return to Moscow."
Then in a harsher voice:
"I could easily destroy this likeness, but THE OTHER, I cannot kill
it, curses on me! it is the better portrait of the two. There is
her hair, her mouth, her smile. Ah, thank God, I have killed the
smile. The smile is no longer there. I have buried the smile.
But there is the mole in the corner of the mouth. I have kissed it
a thousand times; take away that mole, it hurts me. If that mole
were gone I should suffer less. Merciful Heaven! it is always
there. But I have buried the smile. The smile is no more. I have
buried it deep in a leaden coffin. It can't come. . . ."
Then suddenly changing his accent, and in a tragical, but bitter
voice, his eyes fixed upon the large rusty sword which he held in
his right hand, he muttered:
"The spot will not go away. The iron will not drink it. It was
not for this blood it thirsted. I shall find it in the other, it
will drink that. Ah! we shall see how it will drink it."
Upon this, he relapsed into silence and appeared to be thinking
deeply. Then raising his head, he cried in a voice so strong and
vibrating that the iron door trembled upon its hinges:
"Morlof, then it was not thou! Ah! my dear friend, I was
deceived. . . . Go, do not regret life. It is only the dream
of a screech-owl. . . . Believe me, friend, I want to die, but
I cannot. I must know . . . I must discover. Ah! Morlof, Morlof,
leave thy hands in mine, or I shall think thou hast not forgiven
me. . . . God! how cold these hands are . . . cold . . . cold . . ."
And at these words he shuddered; his head moved convulsively upon
his shoulders, and his teeth chattered; but soon calming himself,
he murmured:
"I want to know the name, I must know that name! Is there no one
who can tell me that name?"
Thus speaking, he raised the picture to a level with his face, and
with bent head and extended neck, appeared to be trying to decipher
upon the canvas some microscopic writing or obscure hieroglyphics.
"The name is there!" said he. "It is written somewhere about the
heart,--at the bottom of the heart; but I cannot read it, the
writing is so fine, it is a female hand; I do not know how to read
a woman's writing. They have a cipher of which Satan alone has the
key. My sight is failing me. I have flies in my head. There is
always one of them that hides this name from me. Oh! in mercy, in
pity, take away the fly and bring me a pair of pincers. . . . With
good pincers I will seek that name even in the last fibers of this
heart which beats no more."
He added with a terrible air:
The dead do not open their teeth. The one who lives will speak.
You shall see how I will make him speak. You shall see how I will
make him speak. . . . Tear off his black robe, stretch him on this
plank. The iron boots! the iron boots! tighten the boots!"
Then interrupting himself abruptly, he raised his eyes and fixed
them upon the door. An expression of fury mingled with terror
swept over his face, as if he had suddenly perceived some hideous
and alarming object. His features became distorted; his mouth
worked convulsively and frothed; his eyes, unnaturally dilated,
darted flames; he uttered a hollow moan, took a few steps backward,
and suddenly dropping his torch to the ground, where it went out he
cried in a frightful voice:
"There are eyes behind the door! there are eyes! there are eyes!"
Horror-struck, distracted, beside himself, Gilbert turned and took
to flight. In spite of the darkness, he found his way as if by
miracle. He crossed the corridor at a run, mounted the staircase
in three bounds, dashed into his chamber and bolted the door. Then
he hurriedly lighted a candle, and having glanced about to assure
himself that the phantom had not followed him into his room,
dropped heavily upon a chair, stunned and breathless. In a few
moments he had collected his thoughts, and was ashamed of his
terror; but in spite of himself his agitation was such that at
every noise which struck his ear, he thought he heard the step of
Count Kostia ascending the staircase of his turret. It was not
until he had bathed his burning head in cold water that he
recovered something like tranquillity; and determining by a supreme
effort to banish the frightful images which haunted him, he seated
himself at his worktable and resolutely opened one of the Byzantine
folios. As he began to read, his eye fell upon an unsealed letter
which had been left on his table during his absence; it ran thus:
"Man of great phrases, I write to you to inform you of the hatred
with which you inspire me. I wish you to understand that from the
first day I saw you, your bearing, your face, your manners, your
whole person, have been objects of distrust and aversion to me. I
thought I recognized an enemy in you, and the result has proved
that I was not mistaken. Now I hate you, and I tell you so
frankly, for I am not a hypocrite, and I want you to know, that
just now in my prayers I supplicated St. George to give me an
opportunity of revenging myself upon you. What do you want in this
house? What is there between us and you? How long do you intend
to torture me with your odious presence, your ironical smiles, and
your insulting glances? Before your arrival I was not completely
unhappy. God be praised, it has been reserved for you to give me
the finishing stroke. Before, I could weep at my ease, with none
to busy themselves in counting my tears; the man that makes me shed
them does not lower himself to such petty calculations; he has
confidence in me, he knows that at the end of the year the account
will be there; but you! you watch me, you pry into me, you study
me. I see very well that, while you are looking at me, you are
indulging in little dialogues with yourself, and these little
dialogues are insupportable to me. Mark me now, I forbid you to
understand me. It is an affront which you have no right to put
upon me, and I have the right to be incomprehensible if it pleases
me. Ah! once a little while ago, I felt that you had your eyes
fastened on me again. And then I raised my head, and looked at you
steadily and forced you to blush. . . . Yes, you did blush; do not
attempt to deny it! What a consolation to me! What a triumph!
Alas! for all that, I dare not go to my own window any longer for
fear of seeing you ogling the sky, and making declamations of love
to nature with your sentimental air.
"Tell me, now, in a few words, clever man that you are, how you
manage to combine so much sentimentality with such skillful
diplomacy? Tender friend of childhood, of virtue and of sunsets,
what an adroit courtier you make! From the first day you came
here, the master honored you with his confidence and his affection.
How he esteems you! how he cherishes you! what attentions! what
favors! Will he not order us tomorrow to kiss the dust under your
feet? If you want to know what disgusts me the most in you, it is
the unalterable placidity of your disposition and your face. You
know the faun who admires himself night and day in the basin upon
the terrace; he is always laughing and looks at himself laugh. I
detest this eternal laughter from the bottom of my soul, as I
detest you, as I detest the whole world with the exception of my
horse Soliman. But he, at least, is sincere in his gayety; he
shows himself what he really is, life amuses him, great good may it
do him! But you envelop your beatific happiness in an intolerable
gravity. Your tranquil airs fill me with consternation; your great
contented eyes seem to say: 'I am very well, so much the worse for
the sick!' One word more. You treat me as a child--I will prove
to you that I am not a child, showing you how well I have divined
you. The secret of your being is, that you were born without
passions! Confess honestly that you have never in your life felt a
sentiment of disgust, of anger, or of pity. Is there a single
passion, tell me, that you have experienced, or that you are
acquainted with, except through your books? Your soul is like your
cravat, which is always tied precisely the same way, and has such
an air of repose and rationality about it, that it is perfectly
insufferable to me. Yes, the bow of that cravat exasperates me;
the two ends are always exactly the same length, and have an effect
of INDERANGEABILITY which nearly drives me mad. Not that this
famous bow is elegant. No, a thousand times no! but it has an
exasperating accuracy. And in this, behold the true story of your
soul. Every night when you go to bed you put it in its proper
folds; every morning you unfold it carefully without rumpling it!
And you dare to plume yourself on your wisdom! What does this
pretended wisdom prove? Nothing, unless it be that you have poor
blood, and that you were fifty years old when you were born. There
is, however, one passion which no one will deny that you possess.
You understand me,--man of the gilded tongue and the viper's
heart,--you have a passion common to many others! But, hold, in
commencing this letter, I intended to conceal from you that I had
discovered everything. I feared it would give you too much
pleasure to learn that I know.--Oh! why can't I make you stand
before me now this moment! I should confound you! how I would
force you to fall at my feet and cry for pardon!
"Oh, my dear flowers, my Maltese cross, my verbenas, my white
starred fox, and you, my musk rosebush, and above all my beautiful
variegated carnation, which ought to be opening to-day! Was it
then for him,--was it to rejoice the eyes of this insolent
parasite, that I planted, watered, and tended you with so much
care? Beloved flowers, will you not share my hate? Send out from
each of your cups, from each of your corollas, some devouring
insect, some wasp with pointed sting, some furious horse-fly, and
let them all together throw themselves upon him, harass him and
persecute him with their threatening buzzing, and pierce his face
with their poisoned stings. And you yourselves, my cherished
daughters, at his approach, fold up your beautiful petals, refuse
him your perfumes, cheat him of his cares and hopes, let the sap
dry up in your fibers, that he may have the mortification of seeing
you perish and fall to dust in his hands. And may he, this
treacherous man, may he before your blighted petals and drooping
stems, pine away himself with ennui, spite, anger, and remorse!"