“You must not believe, M. Champcey, that these details are imaginary.
I have spent five years of my life in tracing out Sarah’s early
life,--five years, during which I have been going from door to door,
ever in search of information. A dealer in second-hand goods enters
everywhere without exciting suspicion. And then I have witnesses to
prove everything I have told you so far,--witnesses whom I shall summon,
and who will speak whenever the necessity arises to establish the
identity of the Countess Sarah.”
Daniel made no reply.
Like Henrietta, even like Mrs. Bertolle, at this moment he was
completely fascinated by the old gentleman’s manner and tone. The
latter, after having rested for a few minutes, went on,--
“The man who picked up Sarah was an old German artist, painter and
musician both, of rare genius, but a maniac, as they called him. At all
events, he was a good, an excellent man.
“One winter morning, as he was at work in his studio, he was struck by
the strange ring in a woman’s voice, which recited in the court-yard
below a popular song. He went to the window, and beckoned the singer to
come up. It was Sarah; and she came. The good German used often to speak
of the deep compassion which seized him as he saw this tall girl of
fourteen come into his studio,--a child, stained by vice already, thin
like hunger itself, and shivering in her thin calico dress. But he was
at the same time almost dazzled by the rich promises of beauty in her
face, the pure notes of her superb voice, which had withstood so far,
and the surprising intelligence beaming in her features.
“He guessed what there was in her; he saw her, in his mind’s eye, such
as she was to be at twenty.
“Then he asked her how she had come to be reduced to such misery, who
she was, where her parents lived, and what they did for a living. When
she had told him that she stood quite alone, and was dependent on no
one, he said to her,--
“‘Well, if you will stay with me, I will adopt you; you shall be my
daughter; and I will make you an eminent artist.’
“The studio was warm, and it was bitterly cold outside. Sarah had no
roof over her head, and had eaten nothing for twenty-four hours. She
accepted.
“She accepted, be it understood, not doubting, in her perversity, but
that this kind old man had other intentions besides those he mentioned
in offering her a home. She was mistaken. He recognized in her
marvellous talents, and thought of nothing but of making of her a true
marvel, which should astonish the world. He devoted himself heart and
soul to his new favorite, with all the enthusiastic ardor of an artist,
and all the jealous passion of an amateur.
“It was a hard task, however, which he had undertaken. Sarah could not
even read. She knew nothing, except sin.
“How the old German went to work to keep this untamable vagabond at
home, how he made her bend to his will, and submit to his lessons, no
one will ever be able to tell. It was long a problem for me also. Some
of the neighbors told me that he treated her harshly, beating her often
brutally; but neither threats nor blows were apt to make an impression
on Sarah Brandon. A friend of the old man’s thought he had guessed the
riddle: he thought the old artist had succeeded in arousing Sarah’s
pride. He had kindled in her a boundless ambition and the most
passionate covetousness. He intoxicated her with fairylike hopes.
“‘Follow my counsels,’ he used to say to her, ‘and at twenty you will be
a queen,--a queen of beauty, of wit, and of genius. Study, and the
day will come when you will travel through Europe, a renowned artist,
welcomed in every capital, _feted_ everywhere, honored, and glorified.
Work, and wealth will come with fame,--immense, boundless wealth,
surpassing all your dreams. You will have the finest carriages, the most
magnificent diamonds; you will draw from inexhaustible purses; the whole
world will be at your feet; and the women will turn pale with envy and
jealousy when they see you. Among men there will be none so noble, none
so great, none so rich, but he will beg for one of your looks; and they
will fight for one of your smiles. Only work and study!’
“At all events, Sarah did work, and studied with a steady perseverance
which spoke of her faith in the promises of her old master, and of the
influence he had obtained over her through her vanity. At first she
had been deterred by the extreme difficulties which beset so late
a beginning; but her amazing natural gifts had soon begun to show
themselves, and in a short time her progress was almost miraculous.
“It is true that her innate sagacity had made her soon find out how
ignorant she was of the world. She saw that society did not exclusively
consist, as she had heretofore imagined, of people like those she had
known. She felt, for instance, what she had never suspected before, that
her unfortunate mother, with all her friends and companions, were only
the rare exceptions, laid under the ban by the immense majority.
“At last she actually learned to know the tree of good fruit, after
having for so many years known only the tree of forbidden fruit. She
listened with eager curiosity to all the old artist had to tell her. And
he knew much; for the eccentric old man had travelled for a long time
over the world, and observed man on every step of the social ladder. He
had been a favorite artist at the court of Vienna; he had had several
of his operas brought out in Italy; and he had been admitted to the best
society in Paris. At night, therefore, while sipping his coffee, his
feet on the andirons, and his long pipe in his mouth, he would soon
forget himself amid the recollections of his youth. He described to her
the splendor of courts, the beauty of women, the magnificence of their
toilets, and the intrigues which he had seen going on around him. He
spoke to her of the men whose portraits he had painted, of the manners
and the jealousies behind the stage, and of the great singers who had
sung in his operas.
“Thus it came about, that, two years later, no one would have recognized
the lean, wretched-looking vagabond of the suburbs in this fresh, rosy
girl, with the lustrous eyes and the modest mien, whom they called in
the house the ‘pretty artist in the fifth story.’
“And yet the change was only on the surface.
“Sarah was already too thoroughly corrupted, when the good German picked
her up, to be capable of being entirely changed. He thought he had
infused his own rough honesty into her veins: he had only taught her a
new vice,--hypocrisy.
“The soul remained corrupt; and all the charms with which it was
outwardly adorned became only so many base allurements, like those
beautiful flowers which unfold their splendor on the surface of
bottomless swamps, and thus lead those whom they attract to miserable
death.
“At that time, however, Sarah did not yet possess that marvellous
self-control which became one of her great charms hereafter; and at the
end of two years she could endure this peaceful atmosphere no longer;
she grew homesick after sin.
“As she was already a very fair musician, and her voice, trained by
a great master, possessed amazing power, she urged her old teacher to
procure her an engagement at one of the theatres. He refused in a manner
which made it clear to her that he would never change his mind on that
subject. He wanted to secure to his pupil one of those debuts which are
an apotheosis; and he had decided, as he told her, that she should not
appear in public till she had reached the full perfection of her voice
and her talent,--certainly not before her nineteenth or twentieth year.
“That meant she should wait three or four years longer,--a century!
“In former days Sarah would not have hesitated a moment; she would have
run away.
“But education had changed her ideas. She was quite able now to reflect
and to calculate. She asked herself where she could go, alone, without
money, without friends, and what she should do, and what would become of
her.
“She knew what destitution meant, and she was afraid of it now.
“When she thought of the life her mother had led,--a long series of
nights spent in orgies, and of days without bread; that life of distress
and disgrace, when she depended on the whims of a good-for-nothing, or
the suspicions of a police constable,--Sarah felt the cold perspiration
break out on her temples.
“She wanted her liberty; but she did not want it without money. Vice
attracted her irresistibly; but it was gorgeous vice, seated in a
carriage, and bespattering with mud the poor, honest women who had to
walk on foot, while it was envied by the crowd, and worshipped by the
foolish. She remained, therefore, and studied hard.
“Perhaps, in spite of everything, in spite of herself and her execrable
instincts, Sarah might have become a great artist, if the old German had
not been taken from her by a terrible accident.
“One fine afternoon in April, in the beginning of spring, he was smoking
his pipe at the window, when he heard a noise in the street, and leaned
over to see.
“The bar broke,--he tried in vain to hold on to the window-frame,--and
the next moment he fell from the fifth story to the ground, and was
killed instantly.
“I have held in my own hands the police report of the accident. It
states that the fall was unavoidable; and that, if no such calamity had
occurred before, this was due to the simple fact, that, during the bad
weather, nobody had thought of looking out of the window. The castings
of the little railing in front were found to be broken in two places,
and so long ago, that a thick layer of rust had filled up the cracks.
The wooden part had become perfectly loose, as the mortar that
originally had kept it in place had been apparently eaten away by the
winter frosts.”
Daniel and Henrietta had turned very pale. It was evident that the same
terrible suspicion had flashed upon their mind.
“Ah! it was Sarah’s work,” they exclaimed simultaneously. “It was Sarah
who had broken the bar, and loosened the wooden rods; she had, no doubt,
been watching for months to see her benefactor fall and kill himself.”
Papa Ravinet shook his head.
“I do not say that,” he said; “and, at all events, it would be
impossible to prove it at this time,--I mean, to prove it against her
denial. It is certain that no one suspected Sarah. She seemed to be in
despair; and everybody pitied her sincerely. Was she not ruined by this
misfortune?
“The old artist had left no will. His relatives, of whom several lived
in Paris, rushed to his rooms; and their first act was to dismiss Sarah,
after having searched her trunks, and after giving her to understand
that she ought to be very grateful if she was allowed to take away all
she said she owed to the munificence of her late patron.
“Still the inheritance was by no means what the heirs had expected.
Knowing that the deceased had had ample means, and how simply he had
always lived, they expected to find in his bureau considerable savings.
There was nothing. A single bond for less than two thousand dollars, and
a small sum in cash, were all that was found.
“Ah! I have long endeavored to find out what had become of the various
bonds and the ready money of the old artist; for everybody who had known
him agreed that there must be some. Do you know what I discovered by
dint of indefatigable investigations? I procured leave to examine the
books of the savings-bank in which he invested his earnings for the year
of his death; and I found there, that on the 17th of April, that is,
five days before the poor German’s fall, a certain Ernestine Bergot had
deposited a sum of fifteen hundred francs.”
“Ah, you see!” exclaimed Daniel. “Weary of the simple life with the old
man, she murdered him in order to get hold of his money.”