Monsieur de Merret. What sort of man was he?'
"'Goodness! Monsieur de Merret? well, you see, he was a handsome
man, so tall you never could see the top of him,--a very worthy
gentleman from Picardy, who had, as you may say, a temper of his own;
and he knew it. He paid everyone in cash so as to have no quarrels.
But, I tell you, he could be quick. Our ladies thought him very
pleasant.'
"'Because of his temper?' I asked.
"'Perhaps,' she replied. 'You know, monsieur, a man must have
something to the fore, as they say, to marry a lady like Madame de
Merret, who, without disparaging others, was the handsomest and the
richest woman in Vendôme. She had an income of nearly twenty
thousand francs. All the town was at the wedding. The bride was so
dainty and captivating, a real little jewel of a woman. Ah! they
were a fine couple in those days!'
"'Was their home a happy one?'
"'Hum, hum! yes and no, so far as anyone can say; for you know well
enough that the like of us don't live hand and glove with the like of
them. Madame de Merret was a good woman and very charming, who no
doubt had to bear a good deal from her husband's temper; we all liked
her though she was rather haughty. Bah! that was her bringing up,
and she was born so. When people are noble--don't you see?'
"'Yes, but there must have been some terrible catastrophe, for
Monsieur and Madame de Merret to separate violently.'
"'I never said there was a catastrophe, monsieur; I know nothing
about it.'
"'Very good; now I am certain that you know all.'
"'Well, monsieur, I'll tell you all I do know. When I saw Monsieur
Regnault coming after you I knew he would tell you about Madame de
Merret and La Grande Bretèche; and that gave me the idea of
consulting monsieur, who seems to be a gentleman of good sense,
incapable of betraying a poor woman like me, who has never done harm
to anyone, but who is, somehow, troubled in her conscience. I have
never dared to say a word to the people about here, for they are all
gossips, with tongues like steel blades. And there's never been a
traveller who has stayed as long as you have, monsieur, to whom I
could tell all about the fifteen thousand francs--
"'My dear Madame Lepas,' I replied, trying to stop the flow of words,
'if your confidence is of a nature to compromise me, I wouldn't hear
it for worlds.'
"'Oh, don't be afraid,' she said, interrupting me. 'You'll see--'
"This haste to tell made me quite certain I was not the first to whom
my good landlady had communicated the secret of which I was to be the
sole repository, so I listened.
"'Monsieur,' she said, 'when the Emperor sent the Spanish and other
prisoners of war to Vendôme I lodged one of them (at the cost of the
government),--a young Spaniard on parole. But in spite of his parole
he had to report every day to the sub-prefect. He was a grandee of
Spain, with a name that ended in _os_ and in _dia_, like all
Spaniards--Bagos de Férédia. I wrote his name on the register, and
you can see it if you like. Oh, he was a handsome young fellow for a
Spaniard, who, they tell me, are all ugly. He wasn't more than five
feet two or three inches, but he was well made. He had pretty little
hands which he took care of--ah, you should just have seen him! He
had as many brushes for those hands as a woman has for her head. He
had fine black hair, a fiery eye, a rather copper-coloured skin, but
it was pleasant to look at all the same. He wore the finest linen I
ever saw on anyone, and I have lodged princesses, and, among others,
General Bertrand, the Duc and Duchesse d'Abrantès, Monsieur Decazes,
and the King of Spain. He didn't eat much; but he had such polite
manners and was always so amiable that I couldn't find fault with
him. Oh! I did really love him, though he never said four words a
day to me; if anyone spoke to him, he never answered,--that's an
oddity those grandees have, a sort of mania, so I'm told. He read
his breviary like a priest, and he went to mass and to all the
services regularly. Where do you think he sat? close to the chapel
of Madame de Merret. But as he took that place the first time he
went to church nobody attached any importance to the fact, though it
was remembered later. Besides, he never took his eyes off his
prayer-book, poor young man!'
"My jovial landlady paused a moment, overcome with her recollections;
then she continued her tale:
"'From that time on, monsieur, he used to walk up the mountain every
evening to the ruins of the castle. It was his only amusement, poor
man! and I dare say it recalled his own country; they say Spain is
all mountains. From the first he was always late at night in coming
in. I used to be uneasy at never seeing him before the stroke of
midnight; but we got accustomed to his ways and gave him a key to the
door, so that we didn't have to sit up. It so happened that one of
our grooms told us that one evening when he went to bathe his horses
he thought he saw the grandee in the distance, swimming in the river
like a fish. When he came in I told him he had better take care not
to get entangled in the sedges; he seemed annoyed that anyone had
seen him in the water. Well, monsieur, one day, or rather, one
morning, we did not find him in his room; he had not come in. He
never returned. I looked about and into everything, and at last I
found a writing in a table drawer where had put away fifty of those
Spanish gold coins called "portugaise," which bring a hundred francs
apiece; there were also diamonds worth ten thousand francs sealed up
in a little box. The paper said that in case he should not return
some day, he bequeathed to us the money and the diamonds, with a
request to found masses of thanksgiving to God for his escape and
safety. In those days my husband was living, and he did everything
he could to find the young man. But, it was the queerest thing! he
found only the Spaniard's clothes under a big stone in a sort of shed
on the banks of the river, on the castle side, just opposite to La
Grande Bretèche. My husband went so early in the morning that no one
saw him. He burned the clothes after we had read the letter, and
gave out, as Comte Férédia requested, that he had fled. The
sub-prefect sent the whole gendarmerie on his traces, but bless your
heart! they never caught him. Lepas thought the Spaniard had drowned
himself. But, monsieur, I never thought so. I think he was somehow
mixed up in Madame de Merret's trouble; and I'll tell you why.
Rosalie has told me that her mistress had a crucifix she valued so
much that she was buried with it, and it was made of ebony and
silver; now when Monsieur de Férédia first came to lodge with us he
had just such a crucifix, but I soon missed it. Now, monsieur, what
do you say? isn't it true that I need have no remorse about those
fifteen thousand francs? are not they rightfully mine?'
"'Of course they are. But how is it you have never questioned
Rosalie?' I said.
"'Oh, I have, monsieur; but I can get nothing out of her. That girl
is a stone wall. She knows something, but there is no making her
talk.'
"After a few more remarks, my landlady left me, a prey to a romantic
curiosity, to vague and darkling thoughts, to a religious terror that
was something like the awe which comes upon us when we enter by night
a gloomy church and see in the distance beneath the arches a feeble
light; a formless figure glides before us, the sweep of a robe--of
priest or woman--is heard; we shudder. La Grande Bretèche, with its
tall grasses, its shuttered windows, its rusty railings, its barred
gates, its deserted rooms, rose fantastically and suddenly before me.
I tried to penetrate that mysterious dwelling and seek the knot of
this most solemn history, this drama which had killed three persons.
"Rosalie became to my eyes the most interesting person in Vendôme.
Examining her, I discovered the traces of an ever-present inward
thought. In spite of the health which bloomed upon her dimpled face,
there was in her some element of remorse, or of hope; her attitude
bespoke a secret, like that of devotees who pray with ardour, or that
of a girl who has killed her child and forever after hears its cry.
And yet her postures were naïve, and even vulgar; her silly smile was
surely not criminal; you would have judged her innocent if only by
the large neckerchief of blue and red squares which covered her
vigorous bust, clothed, confined, and set off by a gown of purple and
white stripes. 'No,' thought I; 'I will not leave Vendôme without
knowing the history of La Grande Bretèche. I'll even make love to
Rosalie, if it is absolutely necessary.'
"'Rosalie!' I said to her one day.
"'What is it, monsieur?'
"'You are not married, are you?'
She trembled slightly.
"'Oh! when the fancy takes me to be unhappy there'll be no lack of
men,' she said, laughing.
"She recovered instantly from her emotion, whatever it was; for all
women, from the great lady to the chambermaid of an inn, have a
self-possession of their own.
"'You are fresh enough and taking enough to please a lover,' I said,
watching her. 'But tell me, Rosalie, why did you take a place at an
inn after you left Madame de Merret? Didn't she leave you an
annuity?'
"'Oh, yes, she did. But, monsieur, my place is the best in all
Vendôme.'
"This answer was evidently what judges and lawyers call 'dilatory.'
Rosalie's position in this romantic history was like that of a square
on a checkerboard; she was at the very centre, as it were, of its
truth and its interest; she seemed to me to be tied into the knot of
it. The last chapter of the tale was in her, and, from the moment
that I realized this, Rosalie became to me an object of attraction.
By dint of studying the girl I came to find in her, as we do in every
woman whom we make a principal object of our attention, that she had
a host of good qualities. She was clean, and careful of herself, and
therefore handsome. Some two or three weeks after the notary's visit
I said to her, suddenly: 'Tell me all you know about Madame de
Merret.'
"'Oh, no!' she replied, in a tone of terror, 'don't ask me that,
monsieur.'
"I persisted in urging her. Her pretty face darkened, her bright
colour faded, her eyes lost their innocent, liquid light.
"'Well!' she said, after a pause, 'if you will have it so, I will
tell you; but keep the secret.'
"'I'll keep it with the faithfulness of a thief, which is the most
loyal to be found anywhere.'
"'If it is the same to you, monsieur, I'd rather you kept it with
your own.'
"Thereupon, she adjusted her neckerchief and posed herself to tell
the tale; for it is very certain that an attitude of confidence and
security is desirable in order to make a narration. The best tales
are told at special hours,--like that in which we are now at table.
No one ever told a story well, standing or fasting.
"If I were to reproduce faithfully poor Rosalie's diffuse eloquence,
a whole volume would scarce suffice. But as the event of which she
now gave me a hazy knowledge falls into place between the facts
revealed by the garrulity of the notary, and that of Madame Lepas, as
precisely as the mean terms of an arithmetical proposition lie
between its two extremes, all I have to do is to tell it to you in
few words. I therefore give a summary of what I heard from Rosalie.
"The chamber which Madame de Merret occupied at La Grande Bretèche
was on the ground-floor. A small closet about four feet in depth was
made in the wall, and served as a wardrobe. Three months before the
evening when the facts I am about to relate to you happened, Madame
de Merret had been so seriously unwell that her husband left her
alone in her room and slept himself in a chamber on the first floor.
By one of those mere chances which it is impossible to foresee, he
returned, on the evening in question, two hours later than usual from
the club where he went habitually to read the papers and talk
politics with the inhabitants of the town. His wife thought him at
home and in bed and asleep. But the invasion of France had been the
subject of a lively discussion; the game of billiards was a heated
one; he had lost forty francs, an enormous sum for Vendôme, where
everybody hoards his money, and where manners and customs are
restrained within modest limits worthy of all praise,--which may,
perhaps, be the source of a certain true happiness which no Parisian
cares anything at all about.
"For some time past Monsieur de Merret had been in the habit of
asking Rosalie, when he came in, if his wife were in bed. Being
told, invariably, that she was, he at once went to his own room with
the contentment that comes of confidence and custom. This evening,
on returning home, he took it into his head to go to Madame de
Merret's room and tell her his ill-luck, perhaps to be consoled for
it. During dinner he had noticed that his wife was coquettishly
dressed; and as he came from the club the thought crossed his mind
that she was no longer ill, that her convalescence had made her
lovelier than ever,--a fact he perceived, as husbands are wont to
perceive things, too late.
"Instead of calling Rosalie, who at that moment was in the kitchen
watching a complicated game of 'brisque,' at which the cook and the
coachman were playing, Monsieur de Merret went straight to his wife's
room by the light of his lantern, which he had placed on the first
step of the stairway. His step, which was easily recognized,
resounded under the arches of the corridor. Just as he turned the
handle of his wife's door he fancied he heard the door of the closet,
which I mentioned to you, shut; but when he entered, Madame de Merret
was alone, standing before the fireplace. The husband thought to
himself that Rosalie must be in the closet; and yet a suspicion,
which sounded in his ears like the ringing of bells, made him
distrustful. He looked at his wife, and fancied he saw something
wild and troubled in her eyes.
"'You are late in coming home,' she said. That voice, usually so
pure and gracious, seemed to him slightly changed.
"Monsieur de Merret made no answer, for at that moment Rosalie
entered the room. Her appearance was a thunderbolt to him. He
walked up and down the room with his arms crossed, going from one
window to another with a uniform movement.
"'Have you heard anything to trouble you?' asked his wife, timidly,
while Rosalie was undressing her. He made no answer.
"'You can leave the room,' said Madame de Merret to the maid. 'I
will arrange my hair myself.'
"She guessed some misfortune at the mere sight of her husband's face,
and wished to be alone with him.
"When Rosalie was gone, or supposed to be gone, for she went no
further than the corridor, Monsieur de Merret came to his wife and
stood before her. Then he said, coldly:
"'Madame, there is someone in your closet.'
"She looked at her husband with a calm air, and answered, 'No,
monsieur.'
"That 'no' agonised Monsieur de Merret, for he did not believe it.
And yet his wife had never seemed purer nor more saintly than she did
at that moment. He rose and went toward the closet to open the door;
Madame de Merret took him by the hand and stopped him; she looked at
him with a sad air and said, in a voice that was strangely shaken:
'If you find no one, remember that all is over between us.'
"The infinite dignity of his wife's demeanour restored her husband's
respect for her, and suddenly inspired him with one of those
resolutions which need some wider field to become immortal.
"'No, Josephine,' he said, 'I will not look there. In either case we
should be separated forever. Listen to me: I know the purity of your
soul, I know that you lead a saintly life; you would not commit a
mortal sin to save yourself from death.'
"At these words, Madame de Merret looked at her husband with a
haggard eye.
"'Here is your crucifix,' he went on. 'Swear to me before God that
there is no one in that closet and I will believe you; I will not
open that door.'
"Madame de Merret took the crucifix and said, 'I swear it.'
"'Louder!' said her husband; 'repeat after me,--I swear before God
that there is no person in that closet.'
"She repeated the words composedly.
"'That is well,' said Monsieur de Merret, coldly. After a moment's
silence he added, examining the ebony crucifix inlaid with silver,
'That is a beautiful thing; I did not know you possessed it; it is
very artistically wrought.'
"'I found it at Duvivier's,' she replied; 'he bought it of a Spanish
monk when those prisoners-of-war passed through Vendôme last year.'
"'Ah!' said Monsieur de Merret, replacing the crucifix on the wall.
He rang the bell. Rosalie was not long in answering it. Monsieur de
Merret went quickly up to her, took her into the recess of a window
on the garden side, and said to her in a low voice:--
"'I am told that Gorenflot wants to marry you, and that poverty alone
prevents it, for you have told him you will not be his wife until he
is a master-mason. Is that so?'
"'Yes, monsieur.'
"'Well, go and find him; tell him to come here at once and bring his
trowel and other tools. Take care not to wake anyone at his house
but himself; he will soon have enough money to satisfy you. No
talking to anyone when you leave this room, mind, or--'
"He frowned. Rosalie left the room. He called her back; 'Here, take
my pass-key,' he said.
"Monsieur de Merret, who had kept his wife in view while giving these
orders, now sat down beside her before the fire and began to tell her
of his game of billiards, and the political discussions at the club.
When Rosalie returned she found Monsieur and Madame de Merret talking
amicably.
"The master had lately had the ceilings of all the reception rooms on
the lower floor restored. Plaster is very scarce at Vendôme, and the
carriage of it makes it expensive. Monsieur de Merret had therefore
ordered an ample quantity for his own wants, knowing that he could
readily find buyers for what was left. This circumstance inspired
the idea that now possessed him.
"'Monsieur, Gorenflot has come,' said Rosalie.
"'Bring him in,' said her master.
"Madame de Merret turned slightly pale when she saw the mason.
"'Gorenflot,' said her husband, 'fetch some bricks from the
coach-house,--enough to wall up that door; use the plaster that was
left over to cover the wall.'
"Then he called Rosalie and the mason to the end of the room, and,
speaking in a low voice, added, 'Listen to me, Gorenflot; after you
have done this work you will sleep in the house; and to-morrow
morning I will give you a passport into a foreign country, and six
thousand francs for the journey. Go through Paris where I will meet
you. There, I will secure to you legally another six thousand
francs, to be paid to you at the end of ten years if you still remain
out of France. For this sum, I demand absolute silence on what you
see and do this night. As for you, Rosalie, I give you a dowry of
ten thousand francs, on condition that you marry Gorenflot, and keep
silence, if not--'
"'Rosalie,' said Madame de Merret, 'come and brush my hair.'
"The husband walked up and down the room, watching the door, the
mason, and his wife, but without allowing the least distrust or
misgiving to appear in his manner. Gorenflot's work made some noise;
under cover of it Madame de Merret said hastily to Rosalie, while her
husband was at the farther end of the room: 'A thousand francs
annuity if you tell Gorenflot to leave a crevice at the bottom;' then
aloud she added, composedly, 'Go and help the mason.'
"Monsieur and Madame de Merret remained silent during the whole time
it took Gorenflot to wall up the door. The silence was intentional
on the part of the husband to deprive his wife of all chance of
saying words with a double meaning which might be heard within the
closet; with Madame de Merret it was either prudence or pride.
"When the wall was more than half up, the mason's tool broke one of
the panes of glass in the closet door; Monsieur de Merret's back was
at that moment turned away. The action proved to Madame de Merret
that Rosalie had spoken to the mason. In that one instant she saw
the dark face of a man with black hair and fiery eyes. Before her
husband turned the poor creature had time to make a sign with her
head which meant 'Hope.'
"By four o'clock, just at dawn, for it was in the month of September,
the work was done. Monsieur de Merret remained that night in his
wife's room. The next morning, on rising, he said, carelessly: 'Ah!
I forgot, I must go to the mayor's office about that passport.'
"He put on his hat, made three steps to the door, then checked
himself, turned back, and took the crucifix.
"His wife trembled with joy; 'He will go to Duvivier's,' she thought.
"The moment her husband had left the house she rang for Rosalie.
'The pick-axe!' she cried, 'the pick-axe! I watched how Gorenflot
did it; we shall have time to make a hole and close it again.'
"In an instant Rosalie had brought a sort of cleaver, and her
mistress, with a fury no words can describe, began to demolish the
wall. She had knocked away a few bricks, and was drawing back to
strike a still more vigorous blow with all her strength, when she saw
her husband behind her. She fainted.
"'Put madame on her bed,' said her husband, coldly.
"Foreseeing what would happen, he had laid this trap for his wife; he
had written to the mayor, and sent for Duvivier. The jeweller
arrived just as the room had been again put in order.
"'Duvivier,' said Monsieur de Merret, 'I think you bought some
crucifixes of those Spaniards who were here last year?'
"'No, monsieur, I did not.'
"'Very good; thank you,' he said, with a tigerish glance at his wife.
'Jean,' he added to the footman, 'serve my meals in Madame de
Merret's bedroom; she is very ill, and I shall not leave her till she
recovers.'
"For twenty days that man remained beside his wife. During the first
hours, when sounds were heard behind the walled door, and Josephine
tried to implore mercy for the dying stranger, he answered, without
allowing her to utter a word:--
"'You swore upon the cross that no one was there.'"
As the tale ended the women rose from table, and the spell under
which Bianchon had held them was broken. Nevertheless, several of
them were conscious of a cold chill as they recalled the last words.
VI
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
EDGAR ALLAN POE
The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had
ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its
seal--the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains,
and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with
dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body, and especially upon
the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the
aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure,
progress, and termination of the disease were the incidents of
half-an-hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When
his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a
thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and
dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of
one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent
structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august
taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates
of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy
hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither
of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy
from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions
the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world
could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve,
or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure.
There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were
ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was beauty, there was
wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red
Death."
It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion,
and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince
Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the
most unusual magnificence.