THE STRICKEN SOUL
His loneliness now weighed heavily upon Andras. His nerves were shaken
by the memories which the czardas of the Tzigani musicians had evoked;
and it seemed to him that the place was deserted now that they had
departed, and Varhely had gone with them. In the eternal symphony of the
sea, the lapping of the waves upon the shingle at the foot of the
terrace, one note was now lacking, the resonant note of the czimbalom
yonder in the gardens of Frascati. The vibration of the czimbalom was
like a call summoning up the image of Marsa, and this image took
invincible possession of the Prince, who, with a sort of sorrowful anger
which he regarded as hatred, tried in vain to drive it away.
What was the use of remaining at Sainte-Adresse, when the memories he
sought to flee came to find him there, and since Marsa's presence haunted
it as if she had lived there by his side?
He quitted Havre, and returned to Paris; but the very evening of his
return, in the bustle and movement of the Champs-Elysees, the long avenue
dotted with lights, the flaming gas-jets of the cafe concerts, the bursts
of music, he found again, as if the Tzigana were continually pursuing
him, the same phantom; despite the noise of people and carriages upon the
asphalt, the echoes of the "Song of Plevna," played quite near him by
some Hungarian orchestra, reached him as upon the seashore at Havre; and
he hastened back to his hotel, to shut himself up, to hear nothing, see
nothing, and escape from the fantastic, haunting pursuit of this
inevitable vision.
He could not sleep; fever burned in his blood. He rose, and tried to
read; but before the printed page he saw continually Marsa Laszlo, like
the spectre of his happiness.
"How cowardly human nature is!" he exclaimed, hurling away the book.
"Is it possible that I love her still? Shall I love her forever?"
And he felt intense self-contempt at the temptation which took possession
of him to see once more Maisons-Lafitte, where he had experienced the
most terrible grief of his life. What was the use of struggling? He had
not forgotten, and he never could forget.
If he had been sincere with himself, he would have confessed that he was
impelled by his ever-living, ever-present love toward everything which
would recall Marsa to him, and that a violent, almost superhuman effort
was necessary not to yield to the temptation.
About a week after the Prince's return to Paris, his valet appeared one
day with the card of General Vogotzine. It was on Andras's lips to
refuse to see him; but, in reality, the General's visit caused him a
delight which he would not acknowledge to himself. He was about to hear
of hey. He told the valet to admit Vogotzine, hypocritically saying to
himself that it was impossible, discourteous, not to receive him.
The old Russian entered, timid and embarrassed, and was not much
reassured by Zilah's polite but cold greeting.
The General, who for some extraordinary reason had not had recourse to
alcohol to give him courage, took the chair offered him by the Prince.
He was a little flushed, not knowing exactly how to begin what he had to
say; and, being sober, he was terribly afraid of appearing, like an
idiot.
"This is what is the matter," he said, plunging at once in medias res.
"Doctor Fargeas, who sent me, might have come himself; but he thought
that I, being her uncle, should--"
"You have come to consult me about Marsa," said Andras, unconsciously
glad to pronounce her name.
"Yes," began the General, becoming suddenly intimidated, "of--of Marsa.
She is very ill-Marsa is. Very ill. Stupor, Fargeas says. She does not
say a word-nothing. A regular automaton! It is terrible to see her--
terrible--terrible."
He raised his round, uneasy eyes to Andras, who was striving to appear
calm, but whose lips twitched nervously.
"It is impossible to rouse her," continued Vogotzine. "The, doctors can
do nothing. There is no hope except in an--an--an experiment."
"An experiment?"
"Yes, exactly, exactly--an experiment. You see he--he wanted to know if
--(you must pardon me for what I am about to propose; it is Doctor
Fargeas's idea)--You see--if--if--she should see--(I suppose--these are
not my words)--if she should see you again at Doctor Sims's establishment
--the emotion--the--the--Well, I don't know exactly what Doctor Fargeas
does hope; but I have repeated to you his words--I am simply, quite
simply, his messenger."
"The doctor," said Andras, calmly, "would like--your niece to see me
again?"
"Yes, yes; and speak to you. You see, you are the only one for whom--"
The Prince interrupted the General, who instantly became as mute as if he
were in the presence of the Czar.
"It is well. But what Doctor Fargeas asks of me will cause me intense
suffering."
Vogotzine did not open his lips.
"See her again? He wishes to revive all my sorrow, then!"
Vogotzine waited, motionless as if on parade.
After a moment or two, Andras saying no more, the General thought that he
might speak.
"I understand. I knew very well what your answer would be. I told the
doctor so; but he replied, 'It is a question of humanity. The Prince
will not refuse.'"
Fargeas must have known Prince Zilah's character well when he used the
word humanity. The Prince would not have refused his pity to the lowest
of human beings; and so, never mind what his sufferings might be, if his
presence could do any good, he must obey the doctor.
"When does Doctor Fargeas wish me to go?"
"Whenever you choose. The doctor is just now at Vaugirard, on a visit to
his colleague, and--"
"Do not let us keep him waiting!"
Vogotzine's eyes brightened.
"Then you consent? You will go?"
He tried to utter some word of thanks, but Andras cut him short, saying:
"I will order the carriage."
"I have a carriage," said Vogotzine, joyously. "We can go at once."
Zilah was silent during the drive; and Vogotzine gazed steadily out of
the window, without saying a word, as the Prince showed no desire to
converse.
They stopped before a high house, evidently built in the last century,
and which was probably formerly a convent. The General descended heavily
from the coupe, rang the bell, and stood aside to let Zilah pass before
him.
The Prince's emotion was betrayed in a certain stiffness of demeanor, and
in his slow walk, as if every movement cost him an effort. He stroked
his moustache mechanically, and glanced about the garden they were
crossing, as if he expected to see Marsa at once.
Dr. Fargeas appeared very much pleased to see the Prince, and he thanked
him warmly for having come. A thin, light-haired man, with a pensive
look and superb eyes, accompanied Fargeas, and the physician introduced
him to the Prince as Dr. Sims.
Dr. Sims shared the opinion of his colleague. Having taken the invalid
away, and separated her from every thing that could recall the past, the
physicians thought, that, by suddenly confronting her with a person so
dear to her as Prince Zilah, the shock and emotion might rouse her from
her morbid state.
Fargeas explained to the Prince why he had thought it best to transport
the invalid from Maisons-Lafitte to Vaugirard, and he thanked him for
having approved of his determination.
Zilah noticed that Fargeas, in speaking of Marsa, gave her no name or
title. With his usual tact, the doctor had divined the separation; and
he did not call Marsa the Princess, but, in tones full of pity, spoke of
her as the invalid.
"She is in the garden," said Dr. Sims, when Fargeas had finished
speaking. "Will you see her now?"
"Yes," said the Prince, in a voice that trembled slightly, despite his
efforts to control it.
"We will take a look at her first; and then, if you will be so kind, show
yourself to her suddenly. It is only an experiment we are making. If
she does not recognize you, her condition is graver than I think. If she
does recognize you, well, I hope that we shall be able to cure her.
Come!"
Dr. Sims motioned the Prince to precede them.
"Shall I accompany you, gentlemen?" asked Vogotzine.
"Certainly, General!"
"You see, I don't like lunatics; they produce a singular effect upon me;
they don't interest me at all. But still, after all, she is my niece!"
And he gave a sharp pull to his frock-coat, as he would have tightened
his belt before an assault.
They descended a short flight of steps, and found themselves in a large
garden, with trees a century old, beneath which were several men and
women walking about or sitting in chairs.
A large, new building, one story high, appeared at one end of the garden;
in this were the dormitories of Dr. Sims's patients.
"Are those people insane?" asked Zilah, pointing to the peaceful groups.
"Yes," said Dr. Sims; "it requires a stretch of the imagination to
believe it, does it not? You can speak to them as we pass by. All these
here are harmless."
"Shall we cross the garden?"
"Our invalid is below there, in another garden, behind that house."
As he passed by, Zilah glanced curiously at these poor beings, who bowed,
or exchanged a few words with the two physicians. It seemed to him that
they had the happy look of people who had reached the desired goal.
Vogotzine, coughing nervously, kept close to the Prince and felt very ill
at ease. Andras, on the contrary, found great difficulty in realizing
that he was really among lunatics.
"See," said Dr. Sims, pointing out an old gentleman, dressed in the style
of 1840, like an old-fashioned lithograph of a beau of the time of
Gavarni, "that man has been more than thirty-five years in the
institution. He will not change the cut of his garments, and he is very
careful to have his tailor make his clothes in the same style he dressed
when he was young. He is very happy. He thinks that he is the enchanter
Merlin, and he listens to Vivian, who makes appointments with him under
the trees."
As they passed the old man, his neck imprisoned in a high stock, his
surtout cut long and very tight in the waist, and his trousers very full
about the hips and very close about the ankles, he bowed politely.
"Good-morning, Doctor Sims! Good-morning, Doctor Fargeas!"
Then, as the director of the establishment approached to speak, he placed
a finger upon his lips:
"Hush," he said. "She is there! Don't speak, or she will go away." And
he pointed with a sort of passionate veneration to an elm where Vivian
was shut up, and whence she would shortly emerge.
"Poor devil!" murmured Vogotzine.
This was not what Zilah thought, however. He wondered if this happy
hallucination which had lasted so many years, these eternal love-scenes
with Vivian, love-scenes which never grew stale, despite the years and
the wrinkles, were not the ideal form of happiness for a being condemned
to this earth. This poetical monomaniac lived with his dreams realized,
finding, in an asylum of Vaugirard, all the fascinations and chimeras of
the Breton land of golden blossoms and pink heather, all the
intoxicating, languorous charm of the forest of Broceliande.
"He has within his grasp what Shakespeare was content only to dream of.
Insanity is, perhaps, simply the ideal realized:"
"Ah!" replied Dr. Fargeas, "but the real never loses its grip. Why does
this monomaniac preserve both the garments of his youth, which prevent
him from feeling his age, and the dream of his life, which consoles him
for his lost reason? Because he is rich. He can pay the tailor who
dresses him, the rent of the pavilion he inhabits by himself, and the
special servants who serve him. If he were poor, he would suffer."
"Then," said Zilah, "the question of bread comes up everywhere, even in
insanity."
"And money is perhaps happiness, since it allows of the purchase of
happiness."
"Oh!" said the Prince, "for me, happiness would be--"
"What?"
"Forgetfulness."
And he followed with his eyes Vivian's lover, who now had his ear glued
to the trunk of the tree, and was listening to the voice which spoke only
to him.
"That man yonder," said Dr. Sims, indicating a man, still young, who was
coming toward them, "is a talented writer whose novels you have doubtless
read, and who has lost all idea of his own personality. Once a great
reader, he now holds all literature in intense disgust; from having
written so much, he has grown to have a perfect horror of words and
letters, and he never opens either a book or a newspaper. He drinks in
the fresh air, cultivates flowers, and watches the trains pass at the
foot of the garden."
"Is he happy?" asked Andras.
"Very happy."
"Yes, he has drunk of the waters of Lethe," rejoined the Prince.
"I will not tell you his name," whispered Dr. Sims, as the man, a thin,
dark-haired, delicate-featured fellow, approached them; "but, if you
should speak to him and chance to mention his name, he would respond
'Ah! yes, I knew him. He was a man of talent, much talent.' There
is nothing left to him of his former life."
And Zilah thought again that it was a fortunate lot to be attacked by one
of these cerebral maladies where the entire being, with its burden of
sorrows, is plunged into the deep, dark gulf of oblivion.
The novelist stopped before the two physicians.
"The mid-day train was three minutes and a half late," he said, quietly:
"I mention the fact to you, doctor, that you may have it attended to.
It is a very serious thing; for I am in the habit of setting my watch
by that train."
"I will see to it," replied Dr. Sims. "By the way, do you want any
books?"
In the same quiet tone the other responded:
"What for?"
"To read."
"What is the use of that?"
"Or any newspapers? To know--"
"To know what?" he interrupted, speaking with extreme volubility.
"No, indeed! It is so good to know nothing, nothing, nothing! Do the
newspapers announce that there are no more wars, no more poverty,
illness, murders, envy, hatred or jealousy? No! The newspapers do not
announce that. Then, why should I read the newspapers? Good-day,
gentlemen."
The Prince shuddered at the bitter logic of this madman, speaking with
the shrill distinctness of the insane. But Vogotzine smiled.
"Why, these idiots have rather good sense, after all," he remarked.
When they reached the end of the garden, Dr. Sims opened a gate which
separated the male from the female patients, and Andras perceived several
women walking about in the alleys, some of them alone, and some
accompanied by attendants. In the distance, separated from the garden by
a ditch and a high wall, was the railway.
Zilah caught his breath as he entered the enclosure, where doubtless
among the female forms before him was that of the one he had loved. He
turned to Dr. Sims with anxious eyes, and asked:
"Is she here?"
"She is here," replied the doctor.
The Prince hesitated to advance. He had not seen her since the day he
had felt tempted to kill her as she lay in her white robes at his feet.
He wondered if it were not better to retrace his steps and depart hastily
without seeing her.
"This way," said Fargeas. "We can see through the bushes without being
seen, can we not, Sims?"
"Yes, doctor."
Zilah resigned himself to his fate; and followed the physicians without
saying a word; he could hear the panting respiration of Vogotzine
trudging along behind him. All at once the Prince felt a sensation as of
a heavy hand resting upon his heart. Fargeas had exclaimed:
"There she is!"
He pointed, through the branches of the lilac-bushes, to two women who
were approaching with slow steps, one a light-haired woman in a nurse's
dress, and the other in black garments, as if in mourning for her own
life, Marsa herself.
Marsa! She was coming toward Zilah; in a moment, he would be able to
touch her, if he wished, through the leaves! Even Vogotzine held his
breath.
Zilah eagerly questioned Marsa's face, as if to read thereon a secret,
to decipher a name--Menko's or his own. Her exquisite, delicate features
had the rigidity of marble; her dark eyes were staring straight ahead,
like two spots of light, where nothing, nothing was reflected. Zilah
shuddered again; she alarmed him.
Alarm and pity! He longed to thrust aside the bushes, and hasten with
extended arms toward the pale vision before him. It was as if the moving
spectre of his love were passing by. But, with a strong effort of will,
he remained motionless where he was.
Old Vogotzine seemed very ill at ease. Dr. Fargeas was very calm; and,
after a questioning glance at his colleague, he said distinctly to the
Prince:
"Now you must show yourself!"
The physician's order, far from displeasing Zilah, was like music in his
ears. He was beginning to doubt, if, after all, Fargeas intended to
attempt the experiment. He longed, with keen desire, to speak to Marsa;
to know if his look, his breath, like a puff of wind over dying ashes,
would not rekindle a spark of life in those dull, glassy eyes.
What was she thinking of, if she thought at all? What memory vacillated
to and fro in that vacant brain? The memory of himself, or of--the
other? He must know, he must know!
"This way," said Dr. Sims. "We will go to the end of the alley, and meet
her face to face."
"Courage!" whispered Fargeas.
Zilah followed; and, in a few steps, they reached the end of the alley,
and stood beneath a clump of leafy trees. The Prince saw, coming to him,
with a slow but not heavy step, Marsa--no, another Marsa, the spectre or
statue of Marsa.
Fargeas made a sign to Vogotzine, and the Russian and the two doctors
concealed themselves behind the trees.
Zilah, trembling with emotion, remained alone in the middle of the walk.
The nurse who attended Marsa, had doubtless received instructions from
Dr. Sims; for, as she perceived the Prince, she fell back two or three
paces, and allowed Marsa to go on alone.
Lost in her stupor, the Tzigana advanced, her dark hair ruffled by the
wind; and, still beautiful although so thin, she moved on, without seeing
anything, her lips closed as if sealed by death, until she was not three
feet from Zilah.
He stood waiting, his blue eyes devouring her with a look, in which there
were mingled love, pity, and anger. When the Tzigana reached him, and
nearly ran into him in her slow walk, she stopped suddenly, like an
automaton. The instinct of an obstacle before her arrested her, and she
stood still, neither recoiling nor advancing.
A few steps away, Dr. Fargeas and Dr. Sims studied her stony look, in
which there was as yet neither thought nor vision.
Still enveloped in her stupor, she stood there, her eyes riveted upon
Andras. Suddenly, as if an invisible knife had been plunged into her
heart, she started back. Her pale marble face became transfigured, and
an expression of wild terror swept across her features; shaking with a
nervous trembling, she tried to call out, and a shrill cry, which rent
the air, burst from her lips, half open, like those of a tragic mask.
Her two arms were stretched out with the hands clasped; and, falling upon
her knees, she--whose light of reason had been extinguished, who for so
many days had only murmured the sad, singing refrain: "I do not know; I
do not know!"--faltered, in a voice broken with sobs: "Forgive!
Forgive!"
Then her face became livid, and she would have fallen back unconscious if
Zilah had not stooped over and caught her in his arms.
Dr. Sims hastened forward, and, aided by the nurse, relieved him of his
burden.
Poor Vogotzine was as purple as if he had had a stroke of apoplexy.
"But, gentlemen," said the Prince, his eyes burning with hot tears, "it
will be horrible if we have killed her!"
"No, no," responded Fargeas; "we have only killed her stupor. Now leave
her to us. Am I not right, my dear Sims? She can and must be cured!"