The day following the one on which Gilbert had resolved to remain
at Geierfels, Father Alexis rose at an early hour, and betook
himself as usual to his dear chapel; he entered with a slow step,
bowed back, and anxious face; but when he had traversed the nave
and stood before the main entrance to the choir, the influence of
the holy place began to dissipate his melancholy; his thoughts took
a more serene turn, and his face brightened.
For several days Father Alexis had been occupied in painting a
group of three figures, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their
posterity on their knees. It was the exact copy of a picture in
the Convent of Lavra. These patriarchs were gravely seated upon a
grassy bank, separated from each other by little shrubs of a
somewhat fantastic shape. Their venerable heads were crowned with
aureoles; their abundant hair, combed with the greatest care, fell
majestically upon their shoulders, and their thick beards descended
to the middle of their breasts.
Father Alexis worked for nearly an hour, when he heard a step in
the court, and turning his head quickly, perceived Gilbert coming
towards the chapel. The priest thrilled with joy, as a fisherman
might, who after long hours of mortal waiting sees a fish of good
size imprudently approaching his net. Eager for his prey, he threw
aside his brush, quickly descended the ladder with the agility of a
young man and ran to place himself in ambuscade near the door,
where he waited with bated breath. As soon as Gilbert appeared, he
rushed upon him, seized him by the arm, and looked upon him with
eyes which seemed to say: "You are caught, and you won't escape
from me either."
When he had recovered from his first excess of joy, "Ah, my son,"
exclaimed he, "what happy inspiration brings you hither?"
"M. Leminof is not well to-day," answered Gilbert, "and I thought I
could make no better use of my leisure than to pay my respects to
you."
"Oh! what a charming idea," said the priest, looking at him with
ineffable tenderness. "Come, come, my son, I will show you all,
yes all."
This word ALL was pronounced with such an energetic accent, that
Gilbert was startled. It may be readily believed that it was not
exactly about Byzantine pictures that he was curious at this
moment. Nevertheless, he entered with great good-nature into a
minute examination of the images of the choir and the nave; he
praised all which appeared praiseworthy, kept silent upon the
prominent defects which offended the delicacy of his taste, and
allowed himself to criticise only some of the details.
At last he announced to the priest that he wished to talk with him
of a serious matter.
"A serious matter?"
And the face of the good father became grave. "Have you anything
to confess to me? What am I saying? You are not orthodox, my
child,--would to God you were."
"Let us descend, let us descend," said Gilbert, putting his foot
upon the ladder.
They descended and seated themselves upon the end of a white marble
step, which extended the entire width of the nave, at the entrance
of the choir.
"My son," began the priest timidly, "yesterday evening--"
"That is precisely what I want to talk to you about," said Gilbert.
"Ah! you are a good, generous child. You saw my embarrassment, and
you wished,--I confess it, a slight drowsiness,--flesh is weak,--
ah, it is good in you. Favors do not turn your head. Speak,
speak, I am all attention."
"It is understood that you will keep the secret, father, for you
know--"
"I understand! we should be lost if it were known that we talked of
certain things together. Oh! you need not be afraid. If Kostia
Petrovitch alludes to this matter, I shall appear to know nothing,
and I shall accuse myself of having violated the precept of the
great Solomon, who said, 'When thou sittest down to eat with a
prince, consider attentively what is done before thee.'
"Speak with confidence, my child, and rest assured that this mouth
has an old tongue in it which never says what it does not want to."
When Gilbert had finished his recital, Father Alexis burst forth in
exclamations accompanied by many signs of the cross.
"Oh! unhappy child!" cried he; "what folly is thine! He has then
sworn his own destruction? To wish to die in mortal sin! A spirit
of darkness must have taken possession of him. Then he invokes St.
George no longer every morning and evening? He prays no more,--he
no longer carries on his heart the holy amulet I gave him. Ah! why
did I fall asleep yesterday evening? What beautiful things I would
have said to him! I would have commenced by representing to him--"
"I do not doubt your eloquence; but it is not remonstrance, nor
good counsel that this child wants: a little happiness would answer
the purpose far better."
"Happiness! Ah, yes! his life is a little sad. There are certain
maxims of education--"
"It is not a question of maxims of education, but of a father who
betrays an open hatred to his son."
"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed the priest with a gesture of terror, "you
must not say such things, my child. These are words which the good
God does not like to hear. Never repeat them, it would be neither
prudent nor charitable."
Gilbert persisted; announcing the conjectures which he had formed
as certainties, and even exaggerating his suspicions in the hope
that the priest, in correcting him, would furnish the explanations
which he desired. The success of this little artifice surpassed
his expectation.
"I know for a certainty," said he, "that M. Leminof loved his
wife,--that she was unfaithful to him--that he finished by
suspecting her, and that he revenged himself--"
"False! false!" cried the priest with deep emotion. "To hear you
one would believe that Count Kostia killed his wife. You have
heard lying reports. The truth is, that the Countess Olga poisoned
herself, and then feeling the approach of death, became terrified
and implored aid. It was useless: they could not counteract the
effects of the poison. She then sent in haste for me. I had but
just time to receive her confession. Oh! what a frightful scene,
my child! Why recall it to me? And above all, whose calumnious
tongue--"
"I have been told, also," pursued the inflexible Gilbert, "that
after this deplorable event M. Leminof, holding in abhorrence the
localities which witnessed his dishonor, quitted Moscow and Russia,
and went to Martinique. Having arrived there, he lost, after some
months' residence, one of his two children, a daughter if I am not
mistaken, and this death may have been hastened by--"
"A fresh calumny!" interrupted the priest, looking steadily at
Gilbert. "The young girl died of yellow fever. Kostia Petrovitch
never raised a finger against his children. Ah! tell me what
viper's tongue--"
"It is not a calumny, at least, to state that he has two good
reasons for not loving his son. First, because he is the living
portrait of his mother, and then because he doubts, perhaps, if
this child is really his son."
"An impious doubt, which I have combated with all my strength.
This child was born nine years before his mother committed her
first and only fault. I have said it, and I repeat it. It has
been objected that he was born after six years of a marriage which
seemed condemned by Heaven to an eternal sterility:--fatal
circumstance, which appeared proof positive to a vindictive and
ulcerated heart. But again, who could have told you--"
"One more word: before leaving for Martinique, M. Leminof did
everything he could to discover the lover of his wife. His
suspicions fell upon one of his intimate friends named Morlof. In
his blind fury he killed him, but nevertheless Morlof was
innocent."
"Did they tell you that he assassinated him?" said Father Alexis,
who became more and more agitated. "Another calumny! he killed him
in a regular duel. Holy Virgin! the sin was grave enough; but the
police hushed up the matter, and absolution has been granted him."
"Alas!" resumed Gilbert, "if the church has pardoned, the
conscience of the murderer persists in condemning; it curses that
rash hand which shed innocent blood, and by a strange aberration it
exhorts him to wash out this fatal mistake in the blood of the real
offender. This offender, after six years' fruitless search, he has
not given up the hope of discovering; he will go into the very
bowels of the earth to find him, if he must, and if by chance there
is some heart upon which the name is written, he will open that
heart with the point of his sword to decipher those letters of
blood and of fire!"
Gilbert pronounced these last words in a vibrating voice. He had
suddenly forgotten where he was and to whom he was speaking. He
thought he again saw before him the scene of the corridor, and
could again hear those terrible words which had frozen the blood in
his veins. The priest was seized with a convulsive trembling; but
he soon mastered it. He raised himself slowly and stood up before
Gilbert, his arms crossed upon his breast. Within a few moments
his face became dignified, and at the same time his language. Now
the transformation was complete; Gilbert had no longer before him
the timid, easy soul who trembled before a frown, the epicure in
quest of agreeable sensations, the vain artist ingeniously begging
eulogies. The priest's eyes opened wide and shone like coals of
fire; his lips, wreathed in a bitter smile, seemed ready to launch
the thunders of excommunication; and a truly sacerdotal majesty
diffused itself as if by miracle over his face. Gilbert could
scarcely believe his eyes; he looked at him in silence, incapable
of recognizing this new Father Alexis, who had just been revealed
to him.
Then, said the priest, speaking to himself:
"Brother! what simplicity is yours! A few caresses, a few
cajoleries, and your satisfied vanity silences your distrust and
disarms your good sense! Did you not know that this young man is
the intimate friend of your master?"
Then bowing towards Gilbert:
"They thought then that you could make me speak. And you imagined
yourself that a coarse artifice and some threatening talk would
suffice to tear from me a secret I have guarded for nearly seven
years. Presumptuous young man, return to him who sent you, and
repeat faithfully what I am about to say to you: One day at
Martinique, in a remote house some distance from the outskirts of
the town of St. Pierre,--let me speak, my story will be short.--
Picture to yourself a great dark hall, with a table in the center.--
They shut me in there near noon; the next day at evening I was
there still, and for thirty hours I neither ate nor drank. The
night came,--they stretched me upon a table,--bound me and tied me
down. Then I saw bending over me a face more terrible than thou
wilt ever see, even in thy dreams, and a mouth which sneered as the
damned must sneer, approached my ear and said to me: 'Father
Alexis, I want your secret--I will have it.' I breathed not a
word; they tightened the cords with a jack, and I did not speak;
they piled weights on my chest, and I spoke not; they put boots
upon me which I hope never to see upon thy feet, and I spake not;
my bones cracked, and I spake not; I saw my blood gush out, and I
did not speak. At length a supreme anguish seized me, a red cloud
passed over my eyes, I felt my heart freezing, and I thought myself
dying. Then I spoke and said: 'Count Leminof, thou canst kill me,
but thou shalt not tear from me the secrets of the confessional.'"
And at these words, the priest stooping, laid bare his right foot
and showed Gilbert the bruised and withered flesh, and bones
deformed by torture; then covering it again he recoiled, as if from
a serpent in his path, and cried in a thundering voice, extending
his arms to Heaven:
"God curse the vipers who take the form of doves! Oh, Solomon,
hast thou not written in thy Proverbs: 'When he shall speak
graciously, do not believe him, for he has seven abominations in
his heart'?"
As he listened to the recital of the priest, Gilbert was reminded
of some incoherent phrases of the somnambulist, which he had not
been able to explain: "STRETCH HIM ON THIS TABLE! THE BLACK ROBE!
TIGHTEN THE IRON BOOTS!"
"That black robe then," said he to himself, "was Father Alexis."
He rose and looked at the priest in surprise and admiration; he
could not take his eyes from that face which he believed he saw for
the first time, and he murmured in a low voice:
"My God! how complex is the heart of man. What a discovery I have
just made!"
Then he tried to approach him; but the priest, still recoiling and
raising his arms threateningly above his head, repeated:
"Cursed be the vipers who come in the form of doves!"
"And I say," cried Gilbert, "blessed forever be the lips which have
touched the sacred coal, and keep their secrets even unto death!"
And rushing upon him he took him in his arms, and kissed three
times the scar which the cruel bite of Solon had left.
Father Alexis was surprised, stupefied, and confounded. He looked
at Gilbert, then at Abraham, then at Jacob. He uttered disjointed
phrases. He called upon Heaven to witness what had happened to
him, gesticulated and wept until, overcome by emotion, he dropped
on the marble step, and hid his face, bathed in tears, in his
hands.
"Father," said Gilbert respectfully, seating himself near him,
"pardon me for the agitation I have caused you. And if by chance
some distrust of me remains, listen to what I am about to tell you,
for I am going to put myself at your mercy, and by betraying a
secret it will depend upon you to have me expelled from this house
the day and hour you please."
He then related to him the scene of the corridor.
"Judge for yourself what impression the terrible words I heard
produced upon me! For some days my mind has been at work. I
ceaselessly tried to picture to myself the details of this
lamentable affair; but fearing to stray in my suspicions, I wished
to make a clean breast of it, and came to find you. I have grieved
you sorely, father; once more, will you pardon my rash curiosity?"
Father Alexis raised his head. Farewell to the saint! farewell to
the prophet! His face had resumed its habitual expression; the
sublime tempest which had transfigured it had left but a few almost
invisible traces of its passage. He looked at Gilbert
reproachfully.
"Ah!" said he, "it was only for this that you sought me? My dear
child, you do not love the arts then?"