THE GOLDEN CHAMBER
I did not now summon any assistance. I was seized with a cold grim fury
of despair which called for no witnesses. I carried Cordélia into the
next room and laid her on the bed, and gazed at her in impotent rage.
I called to mind every word that Dr. Thurel had said in describing the
condition of bodily immobility in which I now beheld her, and I had not
a doubt from what I heard from Cordélia’s own lips that her mind, which
a little before had given animation to that now lifeless form, had left
it for some other place.
What other place? Was it hard to guess? Was she not at the very moment
when she escaped from me making at full flight for the bridal-chamber
of which I knew nothing?—the bridal-chamber to which, it seemed, an
influence that was independent of her will and mine lured her with a
force which I had vainly striven to shatter with a kiss?
Or rather did it not seem that I had but to press Cordélia’s lips with
my own to cause a repetition of the catastrophe of the night before?
I remembered then, in the growing irritation of my mind, Dr. Thurel’s
amazing words: “If you kiss her, kiss her as a brother.” What did that
mean? I shook with horror and the most terrible resentment. Was I to
understand that every time my lips united with Cordélia’s I should
stand in fear of this awful phenomenon and that she would never be
anything to me but a wife of stone?
At the thought that so infernal a suggestion was within the bounds of
possibility, a tremendous wrath made the blood surge in my veins, and I
felt capable of murdering the man who was responsible—the villain who
was making me suffer agonies to say nothing of the hideous ridicule
which would attach to so grotesque a marital position as mine. I was
perfectly aware of that fact also, and I did not fail to derive from it
a capacity for revenge which in the end swept me off my feet.
In any case I could not consent to remain any longer an impassive and
inactive spectator of a scene which offered me but the image of an
inert body; and I made my way in haste towards the spot where I knew
that Cordélia’s mind was wandering in thought with the mind of another
person.
A few minutes later in the dead silence, under the hostile moon which
looked down, perhaps, upon things invisible to my own eyes, I passed
along the line of tall trees which screened the edge of the park into
which I had never entered.
As soon as I had traversed this screen I found myself in a wood so
densely entangled that I was at a loss at first which way to go; and I
began to think of Cordélia’s words when she described it; a forest full
of snares for those who did not know it and hospitable only to lovers
of woods and solitude.
I was certainly no lover of these woods, and in spite of all my
efforts, I did not succeed in ploughing my way through it, and I made
scarcely any progress. The branches laid hold of me on every side and
held me back with their thousand small arms, or transfixed me, by
stealth, with their thorns. The bridal-chamber which lay within its
recesses was well guarded!
Hardly knowing what she did, however, Cordélia had sufficiently
enlightened me. Nevertheless I knew that before she betook herself, in
mind, to the place, she must have visited it more than once in body,
or else, as I imagined like a simpleton, she would not have described
it to me so fully. That was another opinion which I have since been
constrained to abandon.
And yet how did she get through? I suddenly remembered that the
bridal-chamber stood beside the river. Cordélia’s actual words were:
“In the bridal-chamber there is the great mirror of the river set in a
frame of gold and the rays of the moon make the surface of the water
like a silver sheet. You see yourself in it from head to foot. Owing to
this you are never alone. When you think that you are one, you are two,
and when you think that you are two, you are four. You have to keep
your eyes open!”
“If I follow the river’s bank,” I said to myself, “I shall be certain
to reach the bridal-chamber,” and I made for this bank through the
avenue of poplars.
At first I congratulated myself on my idea, and my path for some way
was properly marked out. My pace, however, began to slacken when I
left the poplars behind me; and soon I had considerable obstacles to
surmount in order to follow the stream. Every trace of a path had
disappeared, and I was forced to hold on to the willows to prevent
myself from falling into the water.
The Andelle, at Vascoeuil, is not a very imposing river. It cannot be
used for towing, and its banks are visited only by an occasional angler
who wishes to savor the delights of solitude among the reeds.
Such as it was, it flowed that night with so much quiet grace between
its pleasant banks, reflecting so coquettishly its clumps of reeds and
rushes, like little silvery chignons, in the midst of this wild nature
where all was beauty and delight—the moon smiled strangely at me from
the river—that despite the mortal horror which stirred me, I was
impressed by its charm, and I interrupted my course, for a moment, to
exclaim from my heart “I understand you, O Cordélia!”
What was it that I understood? In truth, was I about to become affected
by it? Was this park, under the moon, so amazing a sight that my mind
would remain for ever impressed, preferring this wild retreat for my
honeymoon, to the luxurious modern nest which I had built at so great a
cost?
Still, let us pull ourselves together.
Besides, where was the bridal-chamber? Suddenly I caught sight of it
in the distance, or rather I half-saw it. It was the sort of rotunda
which, in the light of day or the twilight, would resemble a red-gold
arbor fashioned by the miracle of autumn on the bank of the murmuring
stream.
With infinite caution I drew nearer. I stole through the grass and
sprigs like a Red Indian on the war path. I no longer felt the sting of
thorns. I held my breath.
And all this—all this—in order to take by surprise, two minds which
had made an appointment to meet in a clearing!
I cannot say if the reader realizes the enormity of my proceedings.
For my part, I performed these actions in a manner at once entirely
unconscious and yet entirely natural. It must be understood from this
that I did not apply my reason, but yielded to a spontaneous impulse
which flung me in the wake of Cordélia’s runaway mind; and while I
experienced the influence of Dr. Thurel’s fantastic though scientific
explanations, I acted altogether like an ordinary, deceived husband,
bent on avoiding the least imprudence which might warn the culprits and
prevent me from obtaining the proof of my misfortune.
In what shape would the proof become manifest? I certainly could not
tell, nor did I even ask myself the question, but I so little doubted
that I was about to learn the truth through one of those psychic
phenomena with which Dr. Thurel had crammed my brain, that when at last
I stealthily made my way on all fours into the bridal-chamber, I was
completely bewildered to behold merely an empty space; that is to say
an atmosphere as pure and clear as crystal, pierced by the brilliant
rays of the moon which had transformed the chamber all in gold into a
chamber all in silver!
It was none the less beautiful, but truth to tell, the scene and
the charm of this sylvan bower were just then the least of my
preoccupations. An empty space and silence! I rose from my stooping
posture and stood awhile breathing hard before this void.
An empty space and silence! And perhaps _they_ were there. But I was
unable, with the eyes of the flesh, to see them!
I looked about me in sheer amazement. I walked round creeping between
the shadow of the trees like a shadow myself searching for two shadows!
Suddenly I burst out laughing. I felt that I was committing a monstrous
piece of folly.
But then, if I was acting with such sheer lunacy, why did my laughter
break in the middle? Why did it come to a stop all of a sudden in my
parched throat, when a gleam of light and a slight shade quivered above
an old moss-covered stone bench within the arbor? Why did I go towards
the bench, leaning forward with clenched fists? What did I intend to
do with my big fists, the fists of a heavy-weight boxer? Challenge the
light? Knock out a moonbeam? Oh the irony of it all! Why do some people
see while others are blind? I felt that if I could see I should be less
afraid, for now I was afraid.... Well I was afraid of what I was about
to see, for though I could not yet see, I could hear!