'My son take which you like best;
The Roman, or the Catalonian Venus.
The rogue chooses the Catalan, and his choice is good.
The Roman is black, the Catalan is fair.
The Roman is cold, the Catalan inflames the hearts of all who
approach her.'
This sally excited a hurrah so loud, and shouts of applause, and
laughter so obstreperous, that I thought the ceiling would have fallen
upon the table. There were but three serious faces present: those of
the newly-married pair, and my own. I had a violent headache; and
beside, I know not why, a marriage always makes me feel sad. This one,
moreover, was not to my taste.
Some concluding couplets having been sung by the deputy magistrate,
which, I must say, were quite clever, we passed into the hall to
witness the departure of the bride, who, as it now drew near midnight,
was soon to be conducted to her chamber. At this moment, Monsieur
Alphonse drew me into the recess of a window, and with averted eyes
said:
'I know you will laugh at me; but I don't know what is the matter; I am
bewitched! The devil's got me!'
My first thought was, that he imagined himself threatened with some
such malady as those of which Montaigne and Madame de Sévigné speak:
'Tout l'empire amoureux est plein d'histoires tragiques,' etc. I
remembered, however, that these accidents only befel men of wit.
'You have drank too freely of the Collioure wine, my dear Monsieur
Alphonse,' said I. 'You remember I cautioned you against it.'
'Yes, may be so,' replied he, in a lamentable voice; 'but this is
something much more dreadful.'
He spoke in broken accents, and I thought him completely tipsy.
'You remember my ring?' continued he, after a few moments' silence.
'What of it? Has any one stolen it?'
'No.'
'Well, then, have you got it?'
'No. I--I cannot get it off the finger of this devil of a Venus.'
'Indeed! you did not pull hard enough.'
'Yes I did; but the Venus--she has shut her finger!'
He looked fixedly at me with a haggard expression, and leaned against
the casement for support.
'What a story is this!' said I: 'you have pushed the ring on too far.
To-morrow you can get it off with pincers; but you must be careful not
to injure the statue.'
'No! no! I tell you, the finger of the Venus is bent, closed; she shuts
her hand; do you understand me? She is my wife, doubtless, since I have
given her my ring. She will not give it back.'
For an instant, I experienced a sudden chill, and my flesh seemed to
creep upon me. But a long-drawn sigh, which he gave, sent a puff of
wine into my face, and all emotion vanished. 'The miserable wretch,'
thought I, 'is completely drunk.'
'You are a learned man, Sir,' added the poor fellow, in a deplorable
tone; 'you know all about this sort of statues; may be there is some
power, some deviltry, which I do not understand. If you would go and
see!'
'Willingly,' said I; 'come along with me.'
'No; I had rather you would go alone.'
I left the hall: the weather had changed during supper, and the
rain was beginning to fall with violence. I was about asking for an
umbrella, when a sudden thought stopped me. 'I shall make a great fool
of myself by going to see if what this drunken fellow has told me, is
true. And beside, it is possible he wishes to play some trick upon me,
to set these honest country folks a-laughing, and the least that I can
get off for will be a good soaking, and an attack of rheumatism.'
I cast from the door a glance toward the statue, which was dripping
with water, and then ascended to my chamber, without reëntering the
hall. I went to bed, but could not get asleep. All the scenes of the
past day were present to my mind. I thought upon this young girl,
so beautiful and so pure, abandoned to a brutal drunkard. 'What a
detestable thing,' said I to myself, 'is a marriage of convenience!'
A magistrate puts on a tri-colored scarf, a priest a stole, and here
is one of the finest girls in the world given up to a minotaur! What
can two beings who do not love each other have to say at a moment
like this, which two real lovers would purchase at the price of their
existence? Can a woman ever love a man whom she has once seen make a
beast of himself? First impressions are never effaced, and I am sure
this Monsieur Alphonse deserves to be hated.'
During my monologue, which I have here much abridged, I heard a
great deal of walking to and fro through the house, doors opening
and shutting, and carriages leaving: then I seemed to hear upon the
staircase the light footsteps of a number of women which were directed
toward the end of the corridor opposite my chamber. They were probably
the attendants of the bride, whom they were conducting to the bridal
chamber. At length they all re-descended the staircase. The door of
Madame Peyrade was closed. 'How troubled and sad must this poor girl
now feel!' thought I, as I turned myself upon my bed in not the best of
humors. A bachelor plays but a sorry part in a house where a wedding is
taking place.
Silence reigned for some time, when it was interrupted by heavy
footsteps which ascended the stairs. The steps of wood creaked loudly.
'What a booby!' exclaimed I. 'Ten to one, he will fall down the stairs.'
All became tranquil. I took up a book to change the current of my
thoughts. It was a statistical work of the department, enriched by a
memoir of Monsieur Peyrade upon the Druidical monuments of the district
of Prades. I fell asleep at the third page.
I slept badly and awoke a number of times. It might be about five
o'clock in the morning, and I had been awake more than twenty minutes,
when a cock crew. Day was about breaking. At this moment I distinctly
heard the same heavy footsteps, the same creaking of the stairs which
I had heard before I went to sleep. It seemed strange. I tried, while
yawning, to divine why Monsieur Alphonse should get up so early. I
could imagine nothing that seemed probable. I was about closing my
eyes, when my attention was again excited by a strange trampling of
feet, with which was presently mingled the ringing of bells, and the
noise of doors loudly opened; I then distinguished confused outcries.
'My drunken friend has set fire to something!' thought I, as I leaped
from my bed.
I dressed myself quickly and went out into the corridor. Cries and
lamentations proceeded from the opposite extremity, and a piercing
voice was heard above all the others, exclaiming, 'My son! my son!'
It was evident that some accident had happened to Monsieur Alphonse.
I ran to the bridal chamber; it was full of persons. The first object
which met my eyes was the young man half dressed, stretched across the
bed, the frame work of which was broken. He was livid and motionless.
His mother was weeping and uttering wild shrieks at his side. Monsieur
Peyrade in extreme agitation, was rubbing his temples with cologne
water, and putting salts to his nostrils. Alas! his son had been for
some time dead. On a couch, at the other end of the room, lay the bride
in strong convulsions. She uttered inarticulate cries, and two stout
maid-servants could scarcely hold her.
'Good God!' cried I, 'what has happened?' I approached the bed, and
raised the body of the unfortunate young man; he was already cold and
stiff. The set teeth and blackened face expressed the most horrible
agony. It was evident that his death had been violent, and that he had
suffered terribly. No traces of blood, however, were to be found on
his clothes. I drew aside his shirt, and perceived upon the breast a
livid mark, which extended around the sides and back. One would have
said that he had been enclosed within a circle of fire. My foot touched
something hard which lay upon the carpet; I stooped down and found it
was the diamond ring.
I led Monsieur Peyrade and his wife to their own chamber, to which I
afterward caused the bride to be conveyed. 'You have still a daughter,'
said I to them; 'she requires all your care.' I then left them alone.
I had no doubt that Monsieur Alphonse had been the victim of an
assassination, the perpetrators of which had found means to introduce
themselves by night, into the bridal chamber. The bruises upon the
breast, and their circular direction embarrassed me a good deal,
for a club or bar of iron would not have produced them. Suddenly, I
remembered to have heard that at Valencia the bravos are in the habit
of using long sacks of leather filled with fine sand, for the purpose
of putting to death those for whose murder they have been paid. I
immediately recalled to mind the Arragonian muleteer and his threat;
although I could scarcely believe that a few random words would have
instigated him to so terrible a revenge.
I went throughout the house, seeking all over for traces of a breaking
in, but could find none. I then went into the garden to see if the
assassins had got in on that side, but could perceive no certain
traces. The rain of the preceding evening had besides so softened
the ground that it would not well retain an impression. I observed,
however, some footprints deeply indented in the soil; they seemed to be
in contrary directions but on the same line, leading from the angle of
the hedge adjoining the tennis-ground, and terminating at the door of
the house. They might have been the steps of Alphonse when he went to
look for his ring upon the finger of the statue; or, the hedge being
less closely planted at this place than elsewhere, it might have been
here that the murderers had effected their entrance. As I passed to and
fro before the statue, I stopped a moment to look at it, and I must
confess I could not on this occasion behold its expression of ironical
wickedness without a sense of dread; and, my head filled with the scene
of horror I had just witnessed, I seemed to gaze upon an infernal deity
mocking at the calamity which had befallen the house.
I returned to my room, where I remained until mid-day: I then came
forth and made inquiries about my hosts. They were a little more
composed. Mademoiselle de Puygarey, I should say the widow of Monsieur
Alphonse, had recovered her senses. She had even had an interview with
the king's attorney of Perpignan, then on circuit at Ille; and this
magistrate had received her deposition. He requested mine. I told him
all I knew of the melancholy affair, and did not conceal my suspicions
of the Arragonian muleteer; for whose arrest he gave immediate
directions.
'Have you learned any thing from Madame Alphonse?' said I to the
magistrate, after my deposition had been taken down, and signed.
'The poor young creature has become completely deranged,' answered he,
with a mournful smile. 'Crazy! completely crazy! Her strange story is
as follows:
'She had been in bed,' she says, 'a few minutes, the curtains drawn,
and every thing silent, when the room door opened, and some one
entered. Madame Alphonse was then lying on the farther side of the
bed with her face toward the wall. She made no movement, thinking it
was her husband. In an instant the bed creaked loudly, as if it had
received an enormous weight. She was greatly terrified, but dared
not turn her head. Five, ten minutes perhaps--for she could form no
idea of time--passed in this manner. She then made an involuntary
movement, or it might have been the person in bed who made one, and
she felt something in contact with her as cold as ice. These are her
expressions. She buried herself beneath the bed-clothes, and trembled
from head to foot. Shortly afterward, the door opened a second time,
and some one entered, who said: 'Good evening my little wife.'
Presently, the curtains were withdrawn, and she heard a struggle and
a stifled cry. The figure in bed beside her seemed to raise itself
to a sitting posture, and to stretch its arms forward. She then
turned her head and saw, as she says, her husband on his knees upon
the bed, his head as high as the pillow, in the arms of a sort of
greenish-colored giant, who embraced him with great force. She says,
and the poor creature has repeated it to me at least twenty times--she
says, that she recognized--can you guess what?--the bronze Venus; the
statue of Monsieur Peyrade! Since this piece of sculpture has been
here, every body, I think, has gone mad. But I am merely repeating
the narration of the unhappy lunatic. At this spectacle, she became
senseless, and probably for some moments lost her reason. How long
she remained in this swoon she can form no idea. When she came to
herself, she again saw the phantom, or the statue, as she persists in
calling it, immovable, the lower part of the body in bed, the bust and
arms extended forward; and between the arms, her husband lifeless and
motionless. A cock crowed; on which the statue got out of bed, let fall
the dead body, and departed. Madame Alphonse pulled the night-bell, and
you know what followed.'
They brought in the Spaniard; he was composed, and defended himself
with much coolness and presence of mind. He did not deny the speech I
had overheard, but explained it, by saying that he only meant that on
the morrow, when he was rested, he would beat his antagonist at a game
of tennis. I remember, that he added, 'An Arragonian, when insulted,
does not wait until the next day for revenge: had I thought Monsieur
Alphonse meant to insult me, he would have had my knife in his body on
the spot.'
They compared his shoes with the print of the footsteps in the garden;
the shoes were much larger. Beside this, the innkeeper with whom the
man lodged, testified that he had passed the whole of the night in
rubbing and giving medicines to one of his mules that was sick. It
was also proved that this Arragonian was a man of good character, and
well known in the neighborhood around, which he visited every year for
purposes of traffic. He was accordingly released, with an apology for
his detention.
I had almost forgotten the testimony of a domestic, who was the last
person that saw Monsieur Alphonse alive. At the moment he was about
going to his wife's chamber, he called to this man, and in an agitated
manner, asked him if he knew where I was. The domestic replied that he
had not seen me; upon which Monsieur Alphonse gave a heavy sigh, and
remained for more than a minute without speaking; he then exclaimed,
wildly: '_Come on, then! the devil must have carried him off too!_'
I asked this man if Monsieur Alphonse had on his diamond ring when he
spoke to him. The domestic paused before replying: he at length said,
that he believed not; but that he had not paid particular attention.
'But,' added he, correcting himself, 'if the ring had been on his
finger, I should doubtless have noticed it, for I believed that he had
given it to Madame Alphonse.'
While questioning this man, I felt a little of the superstitious terror
which the deposition of Madame Alphonse had spread through the house,
creeping over me; but observing the king's attorney looking at me with
a smile of peculiar meaning, I refrained from farther inquiry.
A few hours after the funeral rites of Monsieur Alphonse, which so
closely succeeded those of his marriage, had been performed, I made
my arrangements to quit Ille. The carriage of Monsieur Peyrade was
to convey me to Perpignan. In spite of his feebleness and distress,
the poor old man insisted upon accompanying me as far as the garden
gate. We walked in silence, he leaning heavily on my arm, and dragging
himself along with difficulty. At the moment of our separation, I
cast a last look upon the fatal Venus. I well foresaw that my host,
though he did not partake of the terror and hatred with which she
inspired the greater part of his family, would be very willing to
get rid of an object, which incessantly recalled so frightful a
calamity. My intention was to persuade him to place it in a museum.
As I hesitated about opening the subject, Monsieur Peyrade turned his
head mechanically in the direction, toward which he saw me looking
so fixedly. He saw the statue, and immediately burst into tears. I
embraced him, and without venturing to say a single word, entered the
carriage.
Since my departure, I have not learned that any thing has transpired to
throw light upon this mysterious catastrophe.
Monsieur Peyrade died a few months after his son. By his will, he
bequeathed me his manuscripts, which I may possibly some day publish.
I did not, however, find among them the memoir relating to the
inscriptions on the Venus.
* * * * *
P. S. My friend Monsieur de P---- has just written to me from
Perpignan, informing me that the statue is no longer in existence.
After the death of her husband, the first care of Madame Peyrade was
to have it cast into a bell, under which new form it now serves the
church of Ille. But, added Monsieur de P----, it seems as if bad luck
continues to attend the possessors of this bronze. Since this bell has
sounded at Ille, the vines have been twice frozen.