the right to mix with people. But before I leave this room and see
the sun I think it necessary to say a few words to you. On my own
clear conscience and before God who sees me I declare to you that I
despise freedom, life, health, and all that your books call the
blessings of the world.
"For fifteen years I have diligently studied earthly life. True, I
saw neither the earth nor the people, but in your books I drank
fragrant wine, sang songs, hunted deer and wild boar in the forests,
loved women.... And beautiful women, like clouds ethereal, created
by the magic of your poets' genius, visited me by night and whispered
me wonderful tales, which made my head drunken. In your books I
climbed the summits of Elbruz and Mont Blanc and saw from thence how
the sun rose in the morning, and in the evening overflowed the sky,
the ocean, and the mountain ridges with a purple gold. I saw from
thence how above me lightnings glimmered cleaving the clouds; I saw
green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities; I heard syrens singing,
and the playing of the pipes of Pan; I touched the wings of beautiful
devils who came flying to me to speak of God.... In your books I
cast myself into bottomless abysses, worked miracles, burned cities
to the ground, preached new religions, conquered whole countries....
"Your books gave me wisdom. All that unwearying human thought
created in the centuries is compressed to a little lump in my skull.
I know that I am more clever than you all.
"And I despise your books, despise all worldly blessings and wisdom.
Everything is void, frail, visionary and delusive like a mirage.
Though you be proud and wise and beautiful, yet will death wipe you
from the face of the earth like the mice underground; and your
posterity, your history, and the immortality of your men of genius
will be as frozen slag, burnt down together with the terrestrial
globe.
"You are mad, and gone the wrong way. You take lie for truth and
ugliness for beauty. You would marvel if by certain conditions there
should suddenly grow on apple and orange trees, instead of fruit,
frogs and lizards, and if roses should begin to breathe the odour of
a sweating horse. So do I marvel at you, who have bartered heaven
for earth. I do not want to understand you.
"That I may show you in deed my contempt for that by which you live,
I waive the two millions of which I once dreamed as of paradise, and
which I now despise. That I may deprive myself of my right to them,
I shall come out from here five minutes before the stipulated term,
and thus shall violate the agreement."
When he had read, the banker put the sheet on the table, kissed the
head of the strange man, and began to weep. He went out of the wing.
Never at any other time, not even after his terrible losses on the
Exchange, had he felt such contempt for himself as now. Coming home,
he lay down on his bed, but agitation and tears kept him long from
sleep....
The next morning the poor watchman came running to him and told him
that they had seen the man who lived in the wing climbing through the
window into the garden. He had gone to the gate and disappeared.
Together with his servants the banker went instantly to the wing and
established the escape of his prisoner. To avoid unnecessary rumours
he took the paper with the renunciation from the table and, on his
return, locked it in his safe.
V
LA GRANDE BRETÈCHE*
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
*Translated by Katherine Prescott Wormeley. Reprinted by permission
of Little, Brown, and Company.
"Ah! Madame," replied Doctor Horace Bianchon to the lady at whose
house he was supping, "it is true that I have many terrible histories
in my repertory; but every tale has its due hour in a conversation,
according to the clever saying reported by Chamfort and said to the
Duc de Fronsac: 'There are ten bottles of champagne between your joke
and the present moment.'"
"But it is past midnight; what better hour could you have?" said the
mistress of the house.
"Yes, tell us, Monsieur Bianchon," urged the assembled company.
At a gesture from the complying doctor, silence reigned.
"About a hundred yards from Vendôme," he said, "on the banks of the
Loire, is an old brown house, covered with very steep roofs, and so
completely isolated that there is not so much as an evil-smelling
tannery, nor a shabby inn such as you see at the entrance of all
little towns, in its neighbourhood. In front of this dwelling is a
garden overlooking the river, where the box edgings, once carefully
clipped, which bordered the paths, now cross them and straggle as
they fancy. A few willows with their roots in the Loire have made a
rapid growth, like the enclosing hedge, and together they half hide
the house. Plants which we call weeds drape the bank toward the
river with their beautiful vegetation. Fruit-trees, neglected for
half a score of years, no longer yield a product, and their shoots
and suckers have formed an undergrowth. The espaliers are like a
hornbeam hedge. The paths, formerly gravelled, are full of purslain;
so that, strictly speaking, there are no paths at all.
"From the crest of the mountain, on which hang the ruins of the old
castle of Vendôme (the only spot whence the eye can look down into
this enclosure) we say to ourselves that at an earlier period, now
difficult to determine, this corner of the earth was the delight of
some gentleman devoted to roses and tulips, in a word, to
horticulture, but above all possessing a keen taste for good fruits.
An arbour is still standing, or rather the remains of one, and
beneath it is a table which time has not yet completely demolished.
"From the aspect of this garden, now no more, the negative joys of
the peaceful life of the provinces can be inferred, just as we infer
the life of some worthy from the epitaph on his tomb. To complete
the sad and tender ideas which take possession of the soul, a sundial
on the wall bears this inscription, Christian yet bourgeois, 'ULTIMAM
COGITA.' The roofs are dilapidated, the blinds always closed, the
balconies are filled with swallows' nests, the gates are locked.
Tall herbs and grasses trace in green lines the chinks and crevices
of the stone portico; the locks are rusty. Sun and moon, summer and
winter and snow have rotted the wood, warped the planks, and worn
away the paint. The gloomy silence is unbroken save by the birds,
the cats, the martens, the rats, the mice, all free to scamper or
fly, and to fight, and to eat themselves up.
"An invisible hand has written the word 'MYSTERY' everywhere. If,
impelled by curiosity, you wish to look at this house, on the side
toward the road you will see a large gate with an arched top, in
which the children of the neighbourhood have made large holes. This
gate, as I heard later, had been disused for ten years. Through
these irregular holes you can observe the perfect harmony which
exists between the garden side and the courtyard side of the
premises. The same neglect everywhere. Lines of grass surround the
paving-stones. Enormous cracks furrow the walls, the blackened eaves
of which are festooned with pellitory. The steps of the portico are
disjointed, the rope of the bell is rotten, the gutters are dropping
apart. What fire from heaven has fallen here? What tribunal has
ordained that salt be cast upon this dwelling? Has God been mocked
here; or France betrayed? These are the questions we ask as we stand
there; the reptiles crawl about but they give no answer.
"This empty and deserted house is a profound enigma, whose solution
is known to none. It was formerly a small fief, and is called La
Grande Bretèche. During my stay at Vendôme, where Desplein had sent
me in charge of a rich patient, the sight of this strange dwelling
was one of my keenest pleasures. It was better than a ruin. A ruin
possesses memories of positive authenticity; but this habitation,
still standing, though slowly demolished by an avenging hand,
contained some secret, some mysterious thought,--it betrayed at least
a strange caprice.
"More than once of an evening I jumped the hedge, now a tangle, which
guarded the enclosure. I braved the scratches; I walked that garden
without a master, that property which was neither public nor private;
for hours I stayed there contemplating its decay. Not even to obtain
the history which underlay (and to which no doubt was due) this
strange spectacle would I have asked a single question of any
gossiping countryman. Standing there I invented enchanting tales; I
gave myself up to debauches of melancholy which fascinated me. Had I
known the reason, perhaps a common one, for this strange desertion, I
should have lost the unwritten poems with which I intoxicated myself.
To me this sanctuary evoked the most varied images of human life
darkened by sorrows; sometimes it was a cloister without the nuns;
sometimes a graveyard and its peace, without the dead who talk to you
in epitaphs; to-day the house of the leper, to-morrow that of the
Atrides; but above all was it the provinces with their composed
ideas, their hour-glass life.
"Often I wept there, but I never smiled. More than once an
involuntary terror seized me, as I heard above my head the muffled
whirr of a ringdove's wings hurrying past. The soil is damp; care
must be taken against the lizards, the vipers, the frogs, which
wander about with the wild liberty of nature; above all, it is well
not to fear cold, for there are moments when you feel an icy mantle
laid upon your shoulders like the hand of the Commander on the
shoulder of Don Juan. One evening I shuddered; the wind had caught
and turned a rusty vane. Its creak was like a moan issuing from the
house; at a moment, too, when I was ending a gloomy drama in which I
explained to myself the monumental dolor of that scene.
"That night I returned to my inn, a prey to gloomy thoughts. After I
had supped the landlady entered my room with a mysterious air, and
said to me, 'Monsieur, Monsieur Regnault is here.'
"'Who is Monsieur Regnault?'
"'Is it possible that monsieur doesn't know Monsieur Regnault? Ah,
how funny!' she said, leaving the room.
"Suddenly I beheld a long, slim man, clothed in black, holding his
hat in his hand, who presented himself, much like a ram about to leap
on a rival, and showed me a retreating forehead, a small, pointed
head and a livid face, in colour somewhat like a glass of dirty
water. You would have taken him for the usher of a minister. This
unknown personage wore an old coat much worn in the folds, but he had
a diamond in the frill of his shirt, and gold earrings in his ears.
"'Monsieur, to whom have I the honour of speaking?' I said.
"He took a chair, sat down before my fire, laid his hat on my table
and replied, rubbing his hands: 'Ah! it is very cold. Monsieur, I am
Monsieur Regnault.'
"I bowed, saying to myself: '_Il bondo cani!_ seek!'
"'I am,' he said, 'the notary of Vendôme.'
"'Delighted, monsieur,' I replied, 'but I am not in the way of making
my will,--for reasons, alas, too well-known to me.'
"'One moment!' he resumed, raising his hand as if to impose silence;
'Permit me, monsieur, permit me! I have learned that you sometimes
enter the garden of La Grande Bretèche and walk there--'
"'Yes, monsieur.'
"'One moment!' he said, repeating his gesture. 'That action
constitutes a misdemeanor. Monsieur, I come in the name and as
testamentary executor of the late Comtesse de Merret to beg you to
discontinue your visits. One moment! I am not a Turk; I do not wish
to impute a crime to you. Besides, it is quite excusable that you, a
stranger, should be ignorant of the circumstances which compel me to
let the handsomest house in Vendôme go to ruin. Nevertheless,
monsieur, as you seem to be a person of education, you no doubt know
that the law forbids trespassers on enclosed property. A hedge is
the same as a wall. But the state in which that house is left may
well excuse your curiosity. I should be only too glad to leave you
free to go and come as you liked there, but charged as I am to
execute the wishes of the testatrix, I have the honour, monsieur, to
request that you do not again enter that garden. I myself, monsieur,
have not, since the reading of the will, set foot in that house,
which, as I have already had the honour to tell you, I hold under the
will of Madame de Merret. We have only taken account of the number
of the doors and windows so as to assess the taxes which I pay
annually from the funds left by the late countess for that purpose.
Ah, monsieur, that will made a great deal of noise in Vendôme!'
"There the worthy man paused to blow his nose. I respected his
loquacity, understanding perfectly that the testamentary bequest of
Madame de Merret had been the most important event of his life, the
head and front of his reputation, his glory, his Restoration. So
then, I must bid adieu to my beautiful reveries, my romances! I was
not so rebellious as to deprive myself of getting the truth, as it
were officially, out of the man of law, so I said,--
"'Monsieur, if it is not indiscreet, may I ask the reason of this
singularity?'
"At these words a look which expressed the pleasure of a man who
rides a hobby passed over Monsieur Regnault's face. He pulled up his
shirt-collar with a certain conceit, took out his snuff-box, opened
it, offered it to me, and on my refusal, took a strong pinch himself.
He was happy. A man who hasn't a hobby doesn't know how much can be
got out of life. A hobby is the exact medium between a passion and a
monomania. At that moment I understood Sterne's fine expression to
its fullest extent, and I formed a complete idea of the joy with
which my Uncle Toby--Trim assisting--bestrode his war-horse.
"'Monsieur,' said Monsieur Regnault, 'I was formerly head-clerk to
Maître Roguin in Paris. An excellent lawyer's office of which you
have doubtless heard? No! And yet a most unfortunate failure made
it, I may say, celebrated. Not having the means to buy a practice in
Paris at the price to which they rose in 1816, I came here to
Vendôme, where I have relations,--among them a rich aunt, who gave me
her daughter in marriage.'
"Here he made a slight pause, and then resumed:
"'Three months after my appointment was ratified by Monseigneur the
Keeper of the Seals, I was sent for one evening just as I was going
to bed (I was not then married) by Madame la Comtesse de Merret, then
living in her château at Merret. Her lady's-maid, an excellent girl
who is now serving in this inn, was at the door with the countess's
carriage. Ah! one moment! I ought to tell you, monsieur, that
Monsieur le Comte de Merret had gone to die in Paris about two months
before I came here. He died a miserable death from excesses of all
kinds, to which he gave himself up. You understand? Well, the day
of his departure Madame la Comtesse left La Grande Bretèche, and
dismantled it. They do say that she even burned the furniture, and
the carpets, and all appurtenances whatsoever and wheresoever
contained on the premises leased to the said--Ah! beg pardon; what am
I saying? I thought I was dictating a lease. Well, monsieur, she
burned everything, they say, in the meadow at Merret. Were you ever
at Merret, monsieur?'
"Not waiting for me to speak, he answered for me: 'No. Ah! it is a
fine spot? For three months, or thereabouts,' he continued, nodding
his head, 'Monsieur le Comte and Madame la Comtesse had been living
at La Grande Bretèche in a very singular way. They admitted no one
to the house; madame lived on the ground-floor, and monsieur on the
first floor. After Madame la Comtesse was left alone she never went
to church. Later, in her own château she refused to see the friends
who came to visit her. She changed greatly after she left La Grande
Bretèche and came to Merret. That dear woman (I say dear, though I
never saw her but once, because she gave me this diamond),--that good
lady was very ill; no doubt she had given up all hope of recovery,
for she died without calling in a doctor; in fact, some of our ladies
thought she was not quite right in her mind. Consequently, monsieur,
my curiosity was greatly excited when I learned that Madame de Merret
needed my services; and I was not the only one deeply interested;
that very night, though it was late, the whole town knew I had gone
to Merret.'
"The good man paused a moment to arrange his facts, and then
continued: 'The lady's maid answered rather vaguely the questions
which I put to her as we drove along; she did, however, tell me that
her mistress had received the last sacraments that day from the
curate of Merret, and that she was not likely to live through the
night. I reached the château about eleven o'clock. I went up the
grand staircase. After passing through a number of dark and lofty
rooms, horribly cold and damp, I entered the state bedroom where
Madame la Comtesse was lying. In consequence of the many stories
that were told about this lady (really, monsieur, I should never end
if I related all of them) I expected to find her a fascinating
coquette. Would you believe it, I could scarcely see her at all in
the huge bed in which she lay. It is true that the only light in
that vast room, with friezes of the old style powdered with dust
enough to make you sneeze on merely looking at them, was one Argand
lamp. Ah! but you say you have never been at Merret. Well,
monsieur, the bed was one of those old-time beds with a high tester
covered with flowered chintz. A little night-table stood by the bed,
and on it I noticed a copy of the "Imitation of Christ."
"'Allow me a parenthesis,' he said, interrupting himself. 'I bought
that book subsequently, also the lamp, and presented them to my wife.
In the room was a large sofa for the woman who was taking care of
Madame de Merret, and two chairs. That was all. No fire. The whole
would not have made ten lines of an inventory. Ah! my dear monsieur,
could you have seen her as I saw her then, in that vast room hung
with brown tapestry, you would have imagined you were in the pages of
a novel. It was glacial,--better than that, funereal,' added the
worthy man, raising his arm theatrically and making a pause.
Presently he resumed:
"'By dint of peering round and coming close to the bed I at length
saw Madame de Merret, thanks to the lamp which happened to shine on
the pillows. Her face was as yellow as wax, and looked like two
hands joined together. Madame la Comtesse wore a lace cap, which,
however, allowed me to see her fine hair, white as snow. She was
sitting up in the bed, but apparently did so with difficulty. Her
large black eyes, sunken no doubt with fever, and almost lifeless,
hardly moved beneath the bones where the eyebrows usually grow. Her
forehead was damp. Her fleshless hands were like bones covered with
thin skin; the veins and muscles could all be seen. She must once
have been very handsome, but now I was seized with--I couldn't tell
you what feeling, as I looked at her. Those who buried her said
afterward that no living creature had ever been as wasted as she
without dying. Well, it was awful to see. Some mortal disease had
eaten up that woman till there was nothing left of her but a phantom.
Her lips, of a pale violet, seemed not to move when she spoke.
Though my profession had familiarised me with such scenes, in
bringing me often to the bedside of the dying, to receive their last
wishes, I must say that the tears and the anguish of families and
friends which I have witnessed were as nothing compared to this
solitary woman in that vast building. I did not hear the slightest
noise, I did not see the movement which the breathing of the dying
woman would naturally give to the sheet that covered her; I myself
remained motionless, looking at her in a sort of stupor. Indeed, I
fancy I am there still. At last her large eyes moved; she tried to
lift her right hand, which fell back upon the bed; then these words
issued from her lips like a breath, for her voice was no longer a
voice,--
"'"I have awaited you with impatience."
"'Her cheeks coloured. The effort to speak was great. The old woman
who was watching her here rose and whispered in my ear: "Don't speak;
Madame la Comtesse is past hearing the slightest sound; you would
only agitate her." I sat down. A few moments later Madame de Merret
collected all her remaining strength to move her right arm and put
it, not without great difficulty, under her bolster. She paused an
instant; then she made a last effort and withdrew her hand which now
held a sealed paper. Great drops of sweat rolled from her forehead.
"'"I give you my will," she said. "Oh, my God! Oh!"
"'That was all. She seized a crucifix which lay on her bed, pressed
it to her lips, and died. The expression of her fixed eyes still
makes me shudder when I think of it. I brought away the will. When
it was opened I found that Madame de Merret had appointed me her
executor. She bequeathed her whole property to the hospital of
Vendôme, save and excepting certain bequests. The following
disposition was made of La Grande Bretèche. I was directed to leave
it in the state in which it was at the time of her death for a period
of fifty years from the date of her decease; I was to forbid all
access to it, by any- and everyone, no matter who; to make no
repairs, and to put by from her estate a yearly sum to pay watchers,
if they were necessary, to insure the faithful execution of these
intentions. At the expiration of that time the estate was, if the
testatrix's will had been carried out in all particulars, to belong
to my heirs (because, as monsieur is doubtless well aware, notaries
are forbidden by law to receive legacies); if otherwise, then La
Grande Bretèche was to go to whoever might establish a right to it,
but on condition of fulfilling certain orders contained in a codicil
annexed to the will and not to be opened until the expiration of the
fifty years. The will has never been attacked, consequently--'
"Here the oblong notary, without finishing his sentence, looked at me
triumphantly. I made him perfectly happy with a few compliments.
"'Monsieur,' I said, in conclusion, 'you have so deeply impressed
that scene upon me that I seem to see the dying woman, whiter than
the sheets; those glittering eyes horrify me; I shall dream of her
all night. But you must have formed some conjectures as to the
motive of that extraordinary will.'
"'Monsieur,' he replied, with comical reserve, 'I never permit myself
to judge of the motives of those who honour me with the gift of a
diamond.'
"However, I managed to unloose the tongue of the scrupulous notary so
far that he told me, not without long digressions, certain opinions
on the matter emanating from the wise-heads of both sexes whose
judgments made the social law of Vendôme. But these opinions and
observations were so contradictory, so diffuse, that I well-nigh went
to sleep in spite of the interest I felt in this authentic story.
The heavy manner and monotonous accent of the notary, who was no
doubt in the habit of listening to himself and making his clients and
compatriots listen to him, triumphed over my curiosity. Happily, he
did at last go away.
"'Ha, ha! monsieur,' he said to me at the head of the stairs, 'many
persons would like to live their forty-five years longer, but, one
moment!'--here he laid the forefinger of his right hand on his nose
as if he meant to say, Now pay attention to this!--'in order to do
that, to do that, they ought to skip the sixties.'
"I shut my door, the notary's jest, which he thought very witty,
having drawn me from my apathy; then I sat down in my armchair and
put both feet on the andirons. I was plunged in a romance _à la_
Radcliffe, based on the notarial disclosures of Monsieur Regnault,
when my door, softly opened by the hand of a woman, turned
noiselessly on its hinges.
"I saw my landlady, a jovial, stout woman, with a fine, good-humoured
face, who had missed her true surroundings; she was from Flanders,
and might have stepped out of a picture by Teniers.
"'Well, monsieur,' she said, 'Monsieur Regnault has no doubt recited
to you his famous tale of La Grande Bretèche?'
"'Yes, Madame Lepas.'
"'What did he tell you?'
"I repeated in a few words the dark and chilling story of Madame de
Merret as imparted to me by the notary. At each sentence my landlady
ran out her chin and looked at me with the perspicacity of an
inn-keeper, which combines the instinct of a policeman, the
astuteness of a spy, and the cunning of a shopkeeper.
"'My dear Madame Lepas,' I added, in conclusion, 'you evidently know
more than that. If not, why did you come up here to me?'
"'On the word, now, of an honest woman, just as true as my name is
Lepas--'