Title: Masterpieces of Adventure—Adventures within Walls
Author: Various
Language: English
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  Masterpieces of
  Adventure

  _In Four Volumes_

  ADVENTURES WITHIN WALLS



  Edited by
  Nella Braddy



  Garden City New York
  Doubleday, Page & Company
  1922



  COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
  DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
  INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
  AT
  THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.



  GRATEFULLY DEDICATED
  TO
  BLANCHE COLTON WILLIAMS, PH.D.



EDITOR'S NOTE

In these volumes the word _adventure_ has been used in its broadest
sense to cover not only strange happenings in strange places but also
love and life and death--all things that have to do with the great
adventure of living.  Questions as to the fitness of a story were
settled by examining the qualities of the narrative as such rather
than by reference to a technical classification of short stories.

It is the inalienable right of the editor of a work of this kind to
plead copyright difficulties in extenuation for whatever faults it
may possess.  We beg the reader to believe that this is why his
favorite story was omitted while one vastly inferior was included.



CONTENTS


I. THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT'S DOOR
      Robert Louis Stevenson

II. A DOUBLE-DYED DECEIVER
      O. Henry

III. THE BOLD DRAGOON
      Washington Irving

IV. THE BET
      Anton Chekhov

V. LA GRANDE BRETÈCHE
      Honoré de Balzac

VI. THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
      Edgar Allan Poe

VII. DR. MANETTE'S MANUSCRIPT
      Charles Dickens

VIII. SILENCE
      Leonidas Andreiyeff



MASTERPIECES OF ADVENTURE



Masterpieces of Adventure

_ADVENTURES WITHIN WALLS_

I

THE SIRE DE MALÉTROIT'S DOOR*

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

*Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons.


Denis de Beaulieu was not yet two-and-twenty, but he counted himself
a grown man, and a very accomplished cavalier into the bargain.  Lads
were early formed in that rough, warfaring epoch; and when one has
been in a pitched battle and a dozen raids, has killed one's man in
an honourable fashion, and knows a thing or two of strategy and
mankind, a certain swagger in the gait is surely to be pardoned.  He
had put up his horse with due care, and supped with due deliberation;
and then, in a very agreeable frame of mind, went out to pay a visit
in the grey of the evening.  It was not a very wise proceeding on the
young man's part.  He would have done better to remain beside the
fire or go decently to bed.  For the town was full of the troops of
Burgundy and England under a mixed command; and though Denis was
there on safe-conduct, his safe-conduct was like to serve him little
on a chance encounter.

It was September 1429; the weather had fallen sharp; a flighty,
piping wind, laden with showers, beat about the township; and the
dead leaves ran riot along the streets.  Here and there a window was
already lighted up; and the noise of men-at-arms making merry over
supper within, came forth in fits and was swallowed up and carried
away by the wind.  The night fell swiftly; the flag of England,
fluttering on the spire-top, grew ever fainter and fainter against
the flying clouds--a black speck like a swallow in the tumultuous,
leaden chaos of the sky.  As the night fell the wind rose, and began
to hoot under archways and roar amid the tree-tops in the valley
below the town.

Denis de Beaulieu walked fast and was soon knocking at his friend's
door; but though he promised himself to stay only a little while and
make an early return, his welcome was so pleasant, and he found so
much to delay him, that it was already long past midnight before he
said good-bye upon the threshold.  The wind had fallen again in the
meanwhile; the night was as black as the grave; not a star, nor a
glimmer of moonshine, slipped through the canopy of cloud.  Denis was
ill-acquainted with the intricate lanes of Château Landon; even by
daylight he had found some trouble in picking his way; and in this
absolute darkness he soon lost it altogether.  He was certain of one
thing only--to keep mounting the hill; for his friend's house lay at
the lower end, or tail, of Château Landon, while the inn was up at
the head, under the great church spire.  With this clue to go upon he
stumbled and groped forward, now breathing more freely in open places
where there was a good slice of sky overhead, now feeling along the
wall in stifling closes.  It is an eerie and mysterious position to
be thus submerged in opaque blackness in an almost unknown town.  The
silence is terrifying in its possibilities.  The touch of cold window
bars to the exploring hand startles the man like the touch of a toad;
the inequalities of the pavement shake his heart into his mouth; a
piece of denser darkness threatens an ambuscade or a chasm in the
pathway; and where the air is brighter, the houses put on strange and
bewildering appearances, as if to lead him farther from his way.  For
Denis, who had to regain his inn without attracting notice, there was
real danger as well as mere discomfort in the walk; and he went
warily and boldly at once, and at every corner paused to make an
observation.

He had been for some time threading a lane so narrow that he could
touch a wall with either hand, when it began to open out and go
sharply downward.  Plainly this lay no longer in the direction of his
inn; but the hope of a little more light tempted him forward to
reconnoitre.  The lane ended in a terrace with a bartizan wall, which
gave an outlook between high houses, as out of an embrasure, into the
valley lying dark and formless several hundred feet below.  Denis
looked down, and could discern a few tree-tops waving and a single
speck of brightness where the river ran across a weir.  The weather
was clearing up, and the sky had lightened, so as to show the outline
of the heavier clouds and the dark margin of the hills.  By the
uncertain glimmer, the house on his left hand should be a place of
some pretensions; it was surmounted by several pinnacles and
turret-tops; the round stern of a chapel, with a fringe of flying
buttresses, projected boldly from the main block; and the door was
sheltered under a deep porch carved with figures and overhung by two
long gargoyles.  The windows of the chapel gleamed through their
intricate tracery with a light as of many tapers, and threw out the
buttresses and the peaked roof in a more intense blackness against
the sky.  It was plainly the hotel of some great family of the
neighbourhood; and as it reminded Denis of a town house of his own at
Bourges, he stood for some time gazing up at it and mentally gauging
the skill of the architects and the consideration of the two families.

There seemed to be no issue to the terrace but the lane by which he
had reached it; he could only retrace his steps, but he had gained
some notion of his whereabouts, and hoped by this means to hit the
main thoroughfare and speedily regain the inn.  He was reckoning
without that chapter of accidents which was to make this night
memorable above all others in his career; for he had not gone back
above a hundred yards before he saw a light coming to meet him, and
heard loud voices speaking together in the echoing narrows of the
lane.  It was a party of men-at-arms going the night round with
torches.  Denis assured himself that they had all been making free
with the wine-bowl, and were in no mood to be particular about
safe-conducts or the niceties of chivalrous war.  It was as like as
not that they would kill him like a dog and leave him where he fell.
The situation was inspiriting but nervous.  Their own torches would
conceal him from sight, he reflected; and he hoped that they would
drown the noise of his footsteps with their own empty voices.  If he
were but fleet and silent, he might evade their notice altogether.

Unfortunately, as he turned to beat a retreat, his foot rolled upon a
pebble; he fell against the wall with an ejaculation, and his sword
rang loudly on the stones.  Two or three voices demanded who went
there--some in French, some in English; but Denis made no reply, and
ran the faster down the lane.  Once upon the terrace, he paused to
look back.  They still kept calling after him, and just then began to
double the pace in pursuit, with a considerable clank of armour, and
great tossing of the torchlight to and fro in the narrow jaws of the
passage.

Denis cast a look around and darted into the porch.  There he might
escape observation, or--if that were too much to expect--was in a
capital posture whether for parley or defence.  So thinking, he drew
his sword and tried to set his back against the door.  To his
surprise, it yielded behind his weight; and though he turned in a
moment, continued to swing back on oiled and noiseless hinges, until
it stood wide open on a black ulterior.  When things fall out
opportunely for the person concerned, he is not apt to be critical
about the how or why, his own immediate personal convenience seeming
a sufficient reason for the strangest oddities and revolutions in our
sublunary things; and so Denis, without a moment's hesitation,
stepped within and partly closed the door behind him to conceal his
place of refuge.  Nothing was further from his thoughts than to close
it altogether; but for some inexplicable reason--perhaps by a spring
or a weight--the ponderous mass of oak whipped itself out of his
fingers and clanked to, with a formidable rumble and a noise like the
falling of an automatic bar.

The round, at that very moment, debouched upon the terrace and
proceeded to summon him with shouts and curses.  He heard them
ferreting in the dark corners; the stock of a lance even rattled
along the outer surface of the door behind which he stood; but these
gentlemen were in too high a humour to be long delayed, and soon made
off down a corkscrew pathway which had escaped Denis's observation,
and passed out of sight and hearing along the battlements of the town.

Denis breathed again.  He gave them a few minutes' grace for fear of
accidents, and then groped about for some means of opening the door
and slipping forth again.  The inner surface was quite smooth, not a
handle, not a moulding, not a projection of any sort.  He got his
finger-nails round the edges and pulled, but the mass was immovable.
He shook it, it was as firm as a rock.  Denis de Beaulieu frowned and
gave vent to a little noiseless whistle.  What ailed the door? he
wondered.  Why was it open?  How came it to shut so easily and so
effectually after him?  There was something obscure and underhand
about all this, that was little to the young man's fancy.  It looked
like a snare; and yet who could suppose a snare in such a quiet
by-street and in a house of so prosperous and even noble an exterior?
And yet--snare or no snare, intentionally or unintentionally--here he
was, prettily trapped; and for the life of him he could see no way
out of it again.  The darkness began to weigh upon him.  He gave ear;
all was silent without, but within and close by he seemed to catch a
faint sighing, a faint sobbing rustle, a little stealthy creek--as
though many persons were at his side, holding themselves quite still,
and governing even their respiration with the extreme of slyness.
The idea went to his vitals with a shock, and he faced about suddenly
as if to defend his life.  Then, for the first time, he became aware
of a light about the level of his eyes and at some distance in the
interior of the house--a vertical thread of light, widening toward
the bottom, such as might escape between two wings of arras over a
doorway.  To see anything was a relief to Denis; it was like a piece
of solid ground to a man labouring in a morass; his mind seized upon
it with avidity; and he stood staring at it and trying to piece
together some logical conception of his surroundings.  Plainly there
was a flight of steps ascending from his own level to that of this
illuminated doorway; and indeed he thought he could make out another
thread of light, as fine as a needle and as faint as phosphorescence,
which might very well be reflected along the polished wood of a
handrail.  Since he had begun to suspect that he was not alone, his
heart had continued to beat with smothering violence, and an
intolerable desire for action of any sort had possessed itself of his
spirit.  He was in deadly peril, he believed.  What could be more
natural than to mount the staircase, lift the curtain, and confront
his difficulty at once?  At least he would be dealing with something
tangible; at least he would be no longer in the dark.  He stepped
slowly forward with outstretched hands, until his foot struck the
bottom step; then he rapidly scaled the stairs, stood for a moment to
compose his expression, lifted the arras and went in.

He found himself in a large apartment of polished stone.  There were
three doors; one on each of three sides; all similarly curtained with
tapestry.  The fourth side was occupied by two large windows and a
great stone chimney-piece, carved with the arms of the Malétroits.
Denis recognized the bearings, and was gratified to find himself in
such good hands.  The room was strongly illuminated; but it contained
little furniture except a heavy table and a chair or two, the hearth
was innocent of fire, and the pavement was but sparsely strewn with
rushes clearly many days old.

On a high chair beside the chimney, and directly facing Denis as he
entered, sat a little old gentleman in a fur tippet.  He sat with his
legs crossed and his hands folded, and a cup of spiced wine stood by
his elbow on a bracket on the wall.  His countenance had a strongly
masculine cast; not properly human, but such as we see in the bull,
the goat, or the domestic boar; something equivocal and wheedling,
something greedy, brutal, and dangerous.  The upper lip was
inordinately full, as though swollen by a blow or a toothache; and
the smile, the peaked eyebrows, and the small, strong eyes were
quaintly and almost comically evil in expression.  Beautiful white
hair hung straight all round his head, like a saint's, and fell in a
single curl upon the tippet.  His beard and moustache were the pink
of venerable sweetness.  Age, probably in consequence of inordinate
precautions, had left no mark upon his hands; and the Malétroit hand
was famous.  It would be difficult to imagine anything at once so
fleshly and so delicate in design; the taper, sensual fingers were
like those of one of Leonardo's women; the fork of the thumb made a
dimpled protuberance when closed; the nails were perfectly shaped,
and of a dead, surprising whiteness.  It rendered his aspect tenfold
more redoubtable, that a man with hands like these should keep them
devoutly folded in his lap like a virgin martyr--that a man with so
intense and startling an expression of face should sit patiently on
his seat and contemplate people with an unwinking stare, like a god
or a god's statue.  His quiescence seemed ironical and treacherous,
it fitted so poorly with his looks.  Such was Alain, Sire de
Malétroit.

Denis and he looked silently at each other for a second or two.

"Pray step in," said the Sire de Malétroit.  "I have been expecting
you all evening."

He had not risen, but he accompanied his words with a smile and a
slight but courteous inclination of the head.  Partly from the smile,
partly from the strange musical murmur with which the Sir prefaced
his observation, Denis felt a strong shudder of disgust go through
his marrow.  And what with disgust and honest confusion of mind, he
could scarcely get words together in reply.

"I fear," he said, "that this is a double accident.  I am not the
person you suppose me.  It seems you were looking for a visit; but
for my part, nothing was further from my thoughts--nothing could be
more contrary to my wishes--than this intrusion."

"Well, well," replied the old gentleman indulgently, "here you are,
which is the main point.  Seat yourself, my friend, and put yourself
entirely at your ease.  We shall arrange our little affairs
presently."

Denis perceived that the matter was still complicated with some
misconception, and he hastened to continue his explanations.

"Your door..." he began.

"About my door?" asked the other, raising his peaked eyebrows.  "A
little piece of ingenuity."  And he shrugged his shoulders.  "A
hospitable fancy!  By your own account, you were not desirous of
making my acquaintance.  We old people look for such reluctance now
and then; and when it touches our honour, we cast about until we find
some way of overcoming it.  You arrive uninvited, but, believe me,
very welcome."

"You persist in error, sir," said Denis.  "There can be no question
between you and me.  I am a stranger in this countryside.  My name is
Denis, damoiseau de Beaulieu.  If you see me in your house, it is
only----"

"My young friend," interrupted the other, "you will permit me to have
my own ideas on that subject.  They probably differ from yours at the
present moment," he added with a leer, "but time will show which of
us is in the right."

Denis was convinced he had to do with a lunatic.  He seated himself
with a shrug, content to wait the upshot; and a pause ensued, during
which he thought he could distinguish a hurried gabbling as of prayer
from behind the arras immediately opposite him.  Sometimes there
seemed to be but one person engaged, sometimes two; and the vehemence
of the voice, low as it was, seemed to indicate either great haste or
an agony of spirit.  It occurred to him that this piece of tapestry
covered the entrance to the chapel he had noticed from without.

The old gentleman meanwhile surveyed Denis from head to foot with a
smile, and from time to time emitted little noises like a bird or a
mouse, which seemed to indicate a high degree of satisfaction.  This
state of matters became rapidly insupportable; and Denis, to put an
end to it, remarked politely that the wind had gone down.

The old gentleman fell into a fit of silent laughter, so prolonged
and violent that he became quite red in the face.  Denis got upon his
feet at once, and put on his hat with a flourish.

"Sir," he said, "if you are in your wits, you have affronted me
grossly.  If you are out of them, I flatter myself I can find better
employment for my brains than to talk with lunatics.  My conscience
is clear; you have made a fool of me from the first moment; you have
refused to hear my explanations; and now there is no power under God
will make me stay here any longer; and if I cannot make my way out in
a more decent fashion, I will hack your door in pieces with my sword."

The Sire de Malétroit raised his right hand and wagged it at Denis
with the fore and little fingers extended.

"My dear nephew," he said, "sit down."

"Nephew!" retorted Denis, "you lie in your throat;" and he snapped
his fingers in his face.

"Sit down, you rogue!" cried the old gentleman, in a sudden, harsh
voice, like the barking of a dog.  "Do you fancy," he went on, "that
when I had made my little contrivance for the door, I had stopped
short with that?  If you prefer to be bound hand and foot till your
bones ache, rise and try to go away.  If you choose to remain a free
young buck, agreeably conversing with an old gentleman--why, sit
where you are in peace, and God be with you."

"Do you mean I am a prisoner?" demanded Denis.

"I state the facts," replied the other.  "I would rather leave the
conclusion to yourself."

Denis sat down again.  Externally he managed to keep pretty calm; but
within, he was now boiling with anger, now chilled with apprehension.
He no longer felt convinced that he was dealing with a madman.  And
if the old gentleman was sane, what, in God's name, had he to look
for?  What absurd or tragical adventure had befallen him?  What
countenance was he to assume?

While he was thus unpleasantly reflecting, the arras that overhung
the chapel door was raised, and a tall priest in his robes came forth
and, giving a long, keen stare at Denis, said something in an
undertone to the Sire de Malétroit.

"She is in a better frame of spirit?" asked the latter.

"She is more resigned, messire," replied the priest.'

"Now the Lord help her, she is hard to please!" sneered the old
gentleman.  "A likely stripling--not ill-born--and of her own
choosing, too?  Why, what more would the jade have?"

"The situation is not usual for a young damsel," said the other, "and
somewhat trying to her blushes."

"She should have thought of that before she began the dance?  It was
none of my choosing, God knows that: but since she is in it, by our
lady, she shall carry it to an end."  And then addressing Denis,
"Monsieur de Beaulieu," he asked, "may I present you to my niece?
She has been waiting your arrival, I may say, with even greater
impatience than myself."

Denis had resigned himself with a good grace--all he desired was to
know the worst of it as speedily as possible; so he rose at once, and
bowed in acquiescence.  The Sire de Malétroit followed his example
and limped, with the assistance of the chaplain's arm, toward the
chapel-door.  The priest pulled aside the arras, and all three
entered.  The building had considerable architectural pretensions.  A
light groining sprang from six stout columns, and hung down in two
rich pendants from the centre of the vault.  The place terminated
behind the altar in a round end, embossed and honey-combed with a
superfluity of ornament in relief, and pierced by many little windows
shaped like stars, trefoils, or wheels.  These windows were
imperfectly glazed, so that the night air circulated freely in the
chapel.  The tapers, of which there must have been half a hundred
burning on the altar, were unmercifully blown about; and the light
went through many different phases of brilliancy and semi-eclipse.
On the steps in front of the altar knelt a young girl richly attired
as a bride.  A chill settled over Denis as he observed her costume;
he fought with desperate energy against the conclusion that was being
thrust upon his mind; it could not--it should not--be as he feared.

"Blanche," said the Sire, in his most flute-like tones, "I have
brought a friend to see you, my little girl; turn round and give him
your pretty hand.  It is good to be devout; but it is necessary to be
polite, my niece."

The girl rose to her feet and turned toward the newcomers.  She moved
all of a piece; and shame and exhaustion were expressed in every line
of her fresh young body; and she held her head down and kept her eyes
upon the pavement, as she came slowly forward.  In the course of her
advance, her eyes fell upon Denis de Beaulieu's feet--feet of which
he was justly vain, be it remarked, and wore in the most elegant
accoutrement even while travelling.  She paused--started, as if his
yellow boots had conveyed some shocking meaning--and glanced suddenly
up into the wearer's countenance.  Their eyes met; shame gave place
to horror and terror in her looks; the blood left her lips; with a
piercing scream she covered her face with her hands and sank upon the
chapel-floor.

"That is not the man!" she cried.  "My uncle, that is not the man!"

The Sire de Malétroit chirped agreeably.  "Of course not," he said,
"I expected as much.  It was so unfortunate you could not remember
his name."

"Indeed," she cried, "indeed, I have never seen this person till this
moment--I have never so much as set eyes upon him--I never wish to
see him again.  Sir," she said, turning to Denis, "if you are a
gentleman, you will bear me out.  Have I ever seen you--have you ever
seen me--before this accursed hour?"

"To speak for myself, I have never had that pleasure," answered the
young man.  "This is the first time, messire, that I have met with
your engaging niece."

The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders.

"I am distressed to hear it," he said.  "But it is never too late to
begin.  I had little more acquaintance with my own late lady ere I
married her; which proves," he added with a grimace, "that these
impromptu marriages may often produce an excellent understanding in
the long run.  As the bridegroom is to have a voice in the matter, I
will give him two hours to make up for lost time before we proceed
with the ceremony."  And he turned toward the door, followed by the
clergyman.

The girl was on her feet in a moment.  "My uncle, you cannot be in
earnest," she said.  "I declare before God I will stab myself rather
than be forced on that young man.  The heart rises at it; God forbids
such marriages; you dishonour your white hair.  Oh, my uncle, pity
me!  There is not a woman in all the world but would prefer death to
such a nuptial.  Is it possible," she added, faltering--"is it
possible that you do not believe me--that you still think this"--and
she pointed at Denis with a tremor of anger and contempt--"that you
still think _this_ to be the man?"

"Frankly," said the old gentleman, pausing on the threshold, "I do.
But let me explain to you once for all, Blanche de Malétroit, my way
of thinking about this affair.  When you took it into your head to
dishonour my family and the name that I have borne, in peace and war,
for more than three-score years, you forfeited, not only the right to
question my designs, but that of looking me in the face.  If your
father had been alive, he would have spat on you and turned you out
of doors.  His was the hand of iron.  You may bless your God you have
only to deal with the hand of velvet, mademoiselle.  It was my duty
to get you married without delay.  Out of pure goodwill, I have tried
to find your own gallant for you.  And I believe I have succeeded.
But before God and all the holy angels, Blanche de Malétroit, if I
have not, I care not one jack-straw.  So let me recommend you to be
polite to our young friend; for upon my word, your next groom may be
less appetising."

And with that he went out, with the chaplain at his heels; and the
arras fell behind the pair.

The girl turned upon Denis with flashing eyes.

"And what, sir," she demanded, "may be the meaning of all this?"

"God knows," returned Denis gloomily.  "I am a prisoner in this
house, which seems full of mad people.  More I know not; and nothing
do I understand."

"And pray how came you here?" she asked.

He told her as briefly as he could.  "For the rest," he added,
"perhaps you will follow my example, and tell me the answer to all
these riddles, and what, in God's name, is like to be the end of it."

She stood silent for a little, and he could see her lips tremble and
her tearless eyes burn with a feverish lustre.  Then she pressed her
forehead in both hands.

"Alas, how my head aches!" she said wearily--"to say nothing of my
poor heart!  But it is due to you to know my story, unmaidenly as it
must seem.  I am called Blanche de Malétroit; I have been without
father or mother for--oh! for as long as I can recollect, and indeed
I have been most unhappy all my life.  Three months ago a young
captain began to stand near me every day in church.  I could see that
I pleased him; I am afraid I am silly, but I was so glad that any one
should love me; and when he passed me a letter, I took it home with
me and read it with great pleasure.  Since that time he has written
many.  He was so anxious to speak with me, poor fellow! and kept
asking me to leave the door open some evening that we might have two
words upon the stair.  For he knew how much my uncle trusted me."
She gave something like a sob at that, and it was a moment before she
could go on.  "My uncle is a hard man, but he is very shrewd," she
said at last.  "He has performed many feats in war, and was a great
person at court, and much trusted by Queen Isabeau in old days.  How
he came to suspect me I cannot tell; but it is hard to keep anything
from his knowledge; and this morning, as we came from mass, he took
my hand in his, forced it open, and read my little billet, walking by
my side all the while.  When he had finished, he gave it back to me
with great politeness.  It contained another request to have the door
left open; and this has been the ruin of us all.  My uncle kept me
strictly in my room until evening, and then ordered me to dress
myself as you see me--a hard mockery for a young girl, do you not
think so?  I suppose, when he could not prevail with me to tell him
the young captain's name, he must have laid a trap for him: into
which, alas! you have fallen in the anger of God.  I looked for much
confusion; for how could I tell whether he was willing to take me for
his wife on these sharp terms?  He might have been trifling with me
from the first; or I might have made myself too cheap in his eyes.
But truly I had not looked for such a shameful punishment as this!  I
could not think that God would let a girl be so disgraced before a
young man.  And now I have told you all, as I am true-born; although
I can scarcely hope that you will believe me, since I fear that my
own uncle does not."

Denis made her a respectful inclination.

"Madam," he said, "you have honoured me by your confidence.  It
remains for me to prove that I am not unworthy of the honour.  Is
Messire de Malétroit at hand?"

"I believe he is writing in the salle without," she answered.

"May I lead you thither, madam?" asked Denis, offering his hand with
his most courtly bearing.

She accepted it; and the pair passed out of the chapel, Blanche in a
very drooping and shamefaced condition, but Denis strutting and
ruffling in the consciousness of a mission, and the boyish certainty
of accomplishing it with honour.

The Sire de Malétroit rose to meet them with an ironical obeisance.

"Sir," said Denis, with the grandest possible air, "I believe I am to
have some say in the matter of this marriage; and let me tell you at
once, I will be no party to forcing the inclination of this young
lady.  Had it been freely offered to me, I should have been proud to
accept her hand, for I perceive she is as good as she is beautiful;
but as things are, I have now the honour, messire, of refusing."

Blanche looked at him with gratitude in her eyes; but the old
gentleman only smiled and smiled, until his smile grew positively
sickening to Denis.

"I am afraid," he said, "Monsieur de Beaulieu, that you do not
perfectly understand the choice I have to offer you.  Follow me, I
beseech you, to this window."  And he led the way to one of the large
windows which stood open on the night.  "You observe," he went on,
"there is an iron ring in the upper masonry, and reeved through that,
a very efficacious rope.  Now, mark my words: if you should find your
disinclination to my niece's person insurmountable, I shall have you
hanged out of this window before sunrise.  I shall only proceed to
such an extremity with the greatest regret, you may believe me.  For
it is not at all your death that I desire, but my niece's
establishment in life.  At the same time, it must come to that if you
prove obstinate.  Your family, Monsieur de Beaulieu, is very well in
its way; but if you sprang from Charlemagne, you should not refuse
the hand of a Malétroit with impunity--not if she had been as common
as the Paris road--not if she were as hideous as the gargoyle over my
door.  Neither my niece nor you, nor my own private feelings, move me
at all in this matter.  The honour of my house has been compromised;
I believe you to be the guilty person; at least you are now in the
secret; and you can hardly wonder if I request you to wipe out the
stain.  If you will not, your blood be on your own head!  It will be
no great satisfaction to me to have your interesting relics kicking
their heels in the breeze below my windows; but half a loaf is better
than no bread, and if I cannot cure the dishonour, I shall at least
stop the scandal."

There was a pause.

"I believe there are other ways of settling such imbroglios among
gentlemen," said Denis.  "You wear a sword, and I hear you have used
it with distinction."

The Sire de Malétroit made a signal to the chaplain, who crossed the
room with long silent strides and raised the arras over the third of
the three doors.  It was only a moment before he let it fall again;
but Denis had time to see a dusky passage full of armed men.

"When I was a little younger, I should have been delighted to honour
you, Monsieur de Beaulieu," said Sire Alain; "but I am now too old.
Faithful retainers are the sinews of age, and I must employ the
strength I have.  This is one of the hardest things to swallow as a
man grows up in years; but with a little patience, even this becomes
habitual.  You and the lady seem to prefer the salle for what remains
of your two hours; and as I have no desire to cross your preference,
I shall resign it to your use with all the pleasure in the world.  No
haste!" he added, holding up his hand, as he saw a dangerous look
come into Denis de Beaulieu's face.  "If your mind revolts against
hanging, it will be time enough two hours hence to throw yourself out
of the window or upon the pikes of my retainers.  Two hours of life
are always two hours.  A great many things may turn up in even as
little a while as that.  And, besides, if I understand her
appearance, my niece has still something to say to you.  You will not
disfigure your last hours by a want of politeness to a lady?"

Denis looked at Blanche, and she made him an imploring gesture.

The old gentleman was hugely pleased at this symptom of an
understanding.  "Let us give them all the rope we can," he thought;
and then he continued aloud: "If you will give me your word of
honour, Monsieur de Beaulieu, to await my return at the end of the
two hours before attempting anything desperate, I shall withdraw my
retainers, and let you speak in greater privacy with mademoiselle."

Denis again glanced at the girl, who seemed to beseech him to agree.

"I give you my word of honour," he said.

Messire de Malétroit bowed, and proceeded to limp about the
apartment, clearing his throat the while with that odd musical chirp
which had already grown so irritating in the ears of Denis de
Beaulieu.  He first possessed himself of some papers which lay upon
the table; then he went to the mouth of the passage and appeared to
give an order to the men behind the arras; and lastly he hobbled out
through the door by which Denis had come in, turning upon the
threshold to address a last smiling bow to the young couple, and
followed by the chaplain with a hand-lamp.

No sooner were they alone than Blanche advanced toward Denis with her
hands extended.  Her face was flushed and excited, and her eyes shone
with tears.

"You shall not die!" she cried, "you shall marry me after all."

"You seem to think, madam," replied Denis, "that I stand much in fear
of death."

"Oh no, no," she said, "I see you are no poltroon.  It is for my own
sake--I could not bear to have you slain for such a scruple."

"I am afraid," returned Denis, "that you underrate the difficulty,
madam.  What you may be too generous to refuse, I may be too proud to
accept.  In a moment of noble feeling toward me, you forget what you
perhaps owe to others."

He had the decency to keep his eyes upon the floor as he said this,
and after he had finished, so as not to spy upon her confusion.  She
stood silent for a moment, then walked suddenly away, and sitting
down in her uncle's chair, fairly burst out sobbing.  Denis was in
the acme of embarrassment.  He looked round, as if to seek for
inspiration, and seeing a stool, plumped down upon it for something
to do.  There he sat, playing with the guard of his rapier, and
wishing himself dead a thousand times over, and buried in the
nastiest kitchen-heap in France.  His eyes wandered round the
apartment, but found nothing to arrest them.  There were such wide
spaces between the furniture, the light fell so baldly and
cheerlessly over all, the dark outside air looked in so coldly
through the windows, that he thought he had never seen a church so
vast, nor a tomb so melancholy.  The regular sobs of Blanche de
Malétroit measured out the time like the ticking of a clock.  He read
the device upon the shield over and over again, until his eyes became
obscured; he stared into shadowy corners until he imagined they were
swarming with horrible animals; and every now and again he awoke with
a start, to remember that his last two hours were running, and death
was on the march.

Oftener and oftener, as the time went on, did his glance settle on
the girl herself.  Her face was bowed forward and covered with her
hands, and she was shaken at intervals by the convulsive hiccup of
grief.  Even thus she was not an unpleasant object to dwell upon, so
plump and yet so fine, with a warm brown skin, and the most beautiful
hair, Denis thought, in the whole world of womankind.  Her hands were
like her uncle's; but they were more in place at the end of her young
arms, and looked infinitely soft and caressing.  He remembered how
her blue eyes had shone upon him, full of anger, pity, and innocence.
And the more he dwelt on her perfections, the uglier death looked,
and the more deeply was he smitten with penitence at her continued
tears.  Now he felt that no man could have the courage to leave a
world which contained so beautiful a creature; and now he would have
given forty minutes of his last hour to have unsaid his cruel speech.

Suddenly a hoarse and ragged peal of cockcrow rose to their ears from
the dark valley below the windows.  And this shattering noise in the
silence of all around was like a light in a dark place, and shook
them both out of their reflections.

"Alas, can I do nothing to help you?" she said, looking up.

"Madam," replied Denis, with a fine irrelevancy, "if I have said
anything to wound you, believe me, it was for your own sake and not
for mine."

She thanked him with a tearful look.

"I feel your position cruelly," he went on.  "The world has been
bitter hard on you.  Your uncle is a disgrace to mankind.  Believe
me, madam, there is no young gentleman in all France but would be
glad of my opportunity, to die in doing you a momentary service."

"I know already that you can be very brave and generous," she
answered.  "What I want to know is whether I can serve you--now or
afterward," she added, with a quaver.

"Most certainly," he answered with a smile.  "Let me sit beside you
as if I were a friend, instead of a foolish intruder; try to forget
how awkwardly we are placed to one another; make my last moments go
pleasantly; and you will do me the chief service possible."

"You are very gallant," she added, with a yet deeper sadness ...
"very gallant ... and it somehow pains me.  But draw nearer, if you
please; and if you find anything to say to me, you will at least make
certain of a very friendly listener.  Ah!  Monsieur de Beaulieu," she
broke forth--"ah!  Monsieur de Beaulieu, how can I look you in the
face?"  And she fell to weeping again with a renewed effusion.

"Madam," said Denis, taking her hand in both of his, "reflect on the
little time I have before me, and the great bitterness into which I
am cast by the sight of your distress.  Spare me, in my last moments,
the spectacle of what I cannot cure even with the sacrifice of my
life."

"I am very selfish," answered Blanche.  "I will be braver, Monsieur
de Beaulieu, for your sake.  But think if I can do you no kindness in
the future--if you have no friends to whom I could carry your adieux.
Charge me as heavily as you can; every burden will lighten, by so
little, the invaluable gratitude I owe you.  Put it in my power to do
something more for you than weep."

"My mother is married again, and has a young family to care for.  My
brother Guichard will inherit my fiefs; and if I am not in error,
that will content him amply for my death.  Life is a little vapour
that passeth away, as we are told by those in holy orders.  When a
man is in a fair way and sees all life open in front of him, he seems
to himself to make a very important figure in the world.  His horse
whinnies to him; the trumpets blow and the girls look out of windows
as he rides into a town before his company; he receives many
assurances of trust and regard--sometimes by express in a
letter--sometimes face to face, with persons of great consequence
falling on his neck.  It is not wonderful if his head is turned for a
time.  But once he is dead, were he as brave as Hercules or as wise
as Solomon, he is soon forgotten.  It is not ten years since my
father fell, with many other knights around him, in a very fierce
encounter, and I do not think that any one of them, nor so much as
the name of the fight, is now remembered.  No, no, madam, the nearer
you come to it, you see that death is a dark and dusty corner, where
a man gets into his tomb and has the door shut after him till the
judgment day.  I have few friends just now, and once I am dead I
shall have none."

"Ah, Monsieur de Beaulieu!" she exclaimed, "you forget Blanche de
Malétroit."

"You have a sweet nature, madam, and you are pleased to estimate a
little service far beyond its worth."

"It is not that," she answered.  "You mistake me if you think I am so
easily touched by my own concerns.  I say so, because you are the
noblest man I have ever met; because I recognize in you a spirit that
would have made even a common person famous in the land."

"And yet here I die in a mousetrap--with no more noise about it than
my own squeaking," answered he.

A look of pain crossed her face, and she was silent for a little
while.  Then a light came into her eyes, and with a smile she spoke
again.

"I cannot have my champion think meanly of himself.  Anyone who gives
his life for another will be met in Paradise by all the heralds and
angels of the Lord God.  And you have no such cause to hang your
head.  For ... Pray, do you think me beautiful?" she asked, with a
deep flush.

"Indeed, madam, I do," he said.

"I am glad of that," she answered heartily.  "Do you think there are
many men in France who have been asked in marriage by a beautiful
maiden--with her own lips--and who have refused her to her face?  I
know you men would half despise such a triumph; but believe me, we
women know more of what is precious in love.  There is nothing that
should set a person higher in his own esteem; and we women would
prize nothing more dearly."

"You are very good," he said; "but you cannot make me forget that I
was asked in pity and not for love."

"I am not so sure of that," she replied, holding down her head.
"Hear me to an end, Monsieur de Beaulieu.  I know how you must
despise me; I feel you are right to do so; I am too poor a creature
to occupy one thought of your mind, although, alas! you must die for
me this morning.  But when I asked you to marry me, indeed, and
indeed, it was because I respected and admired you, and loved you
with my whole soul, from the very moment that you took my part
against my uncle.  If you had seen yourself, and how noble you
looked, you would pity rather than despise me.  And now," she went
on, hurriedly checking him with her hand, "although I have laid aside
all reserve and told you so much, remember that I know your
sentiments toward me already.  I would not, believe me, being nobly
born, weary you with importunities into consent.  I, too, have a
pride of my own; and I declare before the holy mother of God, if you
should now go back from your word already given, I would no more
marry you than I would marry my uncle's groom."

Denis smiled a little bitterly.

"It is a small love," he said, "that shies at a little pride."

She made no answer, although she probably had her own thoughts.

"Come hither to the window," he said, with a sigh.  "Here is the
dawn."

And indeed the dawn was already beginning.  The hollow of the sky was
full of essential daylight, colourless and clean; and the valley
underneath was flooded with a grey reflection.  A few thin vapours
clung in the coves of the forest or lay along the winding course of
the river.  The scene disengaged a surprising effect of stillness,
which was hardly interrupted when the cocks began once more to crow
among the steadings.  Perhaps the same fellow who had made so horrid
a clangour in the darkness not half an hour before, now sent up the
merriest cheer to greet the coming day.  A little wind went bustling
and eddying among the tree-tops underneath the windows.  And still
the daylight kept flooding insensibly out of the east, which was soon
to grow incandescent and cast up that red-hot cannon-ball, the rising
sun.

Denis looked out over all this with a bit of a shiver.  He had taken
her hand, and retained it in his almost unconsciously.

"Has the day begun already?" she said; and then, illogically enough:
"The night has been so long!  Alas! what shall we say to my uncle
when he returns?"

"What you will," said Denis, and he pressed her fingers in his.  She
was silent.

"Blanche," he said, with a swift, uncertain, passionate utterance,
"you have seen whether I fear death.  You must know well enough that
I would as gladly leap out of that window into the empty air as lay a
finger on you without your free and full consent.  But if you care
for me at all do not let me lose my life in a misapprehension; for I
love you better than the whole world; and though I will die for you
blithely, it would be like all the joys of Paradise to live on and
spend my life in your service."

As he stopped speaking, a bell began to ring loudly in the interior
of the house; and a clatter of armour in the corridor showed that the
retainers were returning to their post, and the two hours were at an
end.

"After all that you have heard?" she whispered, leaning toward him
with her lips and eyes.

"I have heard nothing," he replied.

"The captain's name was Florimond de Champdivers," she said in his
ear.

"I did not hear it," he answered, taking her supple body in his arms
and covering her wet face with kisses.

A melodious chirping was audible behind, followed by a beautiful
chuckle, and the voice of Messire de Malétroit wished his new nephew
a good morning.



II

A DOUBLE-DYED DECEIVER

O. HENRY


The trouble began in Laredo.  It was the Llano Kid's fault, for he
should have confined his habit of manslaughter to Mexicans.  But the
Kid was past twenty; and to have only Mexicans to one's credit at
twenty is to blush unseen on the Rio Grande border.

It happened in old Justo Valdo's gambling house.  There was a poker
game at which sat players who were not all friends, as happens often
where men ride in from afar to shoot Folly as she gallops.  There was
a row over so small a matter as a pair of queens; and when the smoke
had cleared away it was found that the Kid had committed an
indiscretion, and his adversary had been guilty of a blunder.  For,
the unfortunate combatant, instead of being a Greaser, was a
high-blooded youth from the cow ranches, of about the Kid's own age
and possessed of friends and champions.  His blunder in missing the
Kid's right ear only a sixteenth of an inch when he pulled his gun
did not lessen the indiscretion of the better marksman.

The Kid, not being equipped with a retinue, nor bountifully supplied
with personal admirers and supporters--on account of a rather
umbrageous reputation, even for the border--considered it not
incompatible with his indisputable gameness to perform that judicious
tractional act known as "pulling his freight."

Quickly the avengers gathered and sought him.  Three of them overtook
him within a rod of the station.  The Kid turned and showed his teeth
in that brilliant but mirthless smile that usually preceded his deeds
of insolence and violence, and his pursuers fell back without making
it necessary for him even to reach for his weapon.

But in this affair the Kid had not felt the grim thirst for encounter
that usually urged him on to battle.  It had been a purely chance
row, born of the cards and certain epithets impossible for a
gentleman to brook that had passed between the two.  The Kid had
rather liked the slim, haughty, brown-faced young chap whom his
bullet had cut off in the first pride of manhood.  And now he wanted
no more blood.  He wanted to get away and have a good long sleep
somewhere in the sun on the mesquit grass with his handkerchief over
his face.  Even a Mexican might have crossed his path in safety while
he was in this mood.

The Kid openly boarded the north-bound passenger train that departed
five minutes later.  But at Webb, a few miles out, where it was
flagged to take on a traveller, he abandoned that manner of escape.
There were telegraph stations ahead; and the Kid looked askance at
electricity and steam.  Saddle and spur were his rocks of safety.

The man whom he had shot was a stranger to him.  But the Kid knew
that he was of the Coralitos outfit from Hidalgo; and that the
punchers from that ranch were more relentless and vengeful than
Kentucky feudists when wrong or harm was done to one of them.  So,
with the wisdom that has characterized many great fighters, the Kid
decided to pile up as many leagues as possible of chaparral and pear
between himself and the retaliation of the Coralitos bunch.

Near the station was a store; and near the store, scattered among the
mesquits and elms, stood the saddled horses of the customers.  Most
of them waited, half asleep, with sagging limbs and drooping heads.
But one, a long-legged roan with a curved neck, snorted and pawed the
turf.  Him the Kid mounted, gripped with his knees, and slapped
gently with the owner's own quirt.

If the slaying of the temerarious card-player had cast a cloud over
the Kid's standing as a good and true citizen, this last act of his
veiled his figure in the darkest shadows of disrepute.  On the Rio
Grande border if you take a man's life you sometimes take trash; but
if you take his horse, you take a thing the loss of which renders him
poor, indeed, and which enriches you not--if you are caught.  For the
Kid there was no turning back now.

With the springing roan under him he felt little care or uneasiness.
After a five-mile gallop he drew in to the plainsman's jogging trot,
and rode north-eastward toward the Nueces River bottoms.  He knew the
country well--its most tortuous and obscure trails through the great
wilderness of brush and pear, and its camps and lonesome ranches
where one might find safe entertainment.  Always he bore to the east;
for the Kid had never seen the ocean, and he had a fancy to lay his
hand upon the mane of the great gulf, the gamesome colt of the
greater waters.

So after three days he stood on the shore at Corpus Christi, and
looked out across the gentle ripples of a quiet sea.

Captain Boone, of the schooner _Flyaway_, stood near his skiff, which
one of his crew was guarding in the surf.  When ready to sail he had
discovered that one of the necessaries of life, in the
parallelogrammatic shape of plug tobacco, had been forgotten.  A
sailor had been dispatched for the missing cargo.  Meanwhile the
captain paced the sands, chewing profanely at his pocket store.

A slim, wiry youth in high-heeled boots came down to the water's
edge.  His face was boyish, but with a premature severity that hinted
at a man's experience.  His complexion was naturally dark; and the
sun and wind of an outdoor life had burned it to a coffee brown.  His
hair was as black and straight as an Indian's; his face had not yet
been upturned to the humiliation of a razor; his eyes were a cold and
steady blue.  He carried his left arm somewhat away from his body,
for pearl-handled .45s are frowned upon by town marshals, and are a
little bulky when packed in the left armhole of one's vest.  He
looked beyond Captain Boone at the gulf with the impersonal and
expressionless dignity of a Chinese emperor.

"Thinkin' of buyin' that'ar gulf, buddy?" asked the captain, made
sarcastic by his narrow escape from the tobaccoless voyage.

"Why, no," said the Kid gently, "I reckon not.  I never saw it
before.  I was just looking at it.  Not thinking of selling it, are
you?"

"Not this trip," said the captain.  "I'll send it to you C.O.D. when
I get back to Buenas Tierras.  Here comes that capstanfooted lubber
with the chewin'.  I ought to've weighed anchor an hour ago."

"Is that your ship out there?" asked the Kid.

"Why, yes," answered the captain, "if you want to call a schooner a
ship, and I don't mind lyin'.  But you better say Miller and
Gonzales, owners, and ordinary plain, Billy-be-damned old Samuel K.
Boone, skipper."

"Where are you going to?" asked the refugee.

"Buenas Tierras, coast of South America--I forgot what they called
the country the last time I was there.  Cargo--lumber, corrugated
iron, and machetes."

"What kind of a country is it?" asked the Kid--"hot or cold?"

"Warmish, buddy," said the captain.  "But a regular Paradise Lost for
elegance of scenery and be-yooty of geography.  Ye're wakened every
morning by the sweet singin' of red birds with seven purple tails,
and the sighin' of breezes in the posies and roses.  And the
inhabitants never work, for they can reach out and pick steamer
baskets of choicest hothouse fruit without gettin' out of bed.  And
there's no Sunday and no ice and no rent and no troubles and no use
and no nothin'.  It's a great country for a man to go to sleep with,
and wait for somethin' to turn up.  The bananays and oranges and
hurricanes and pineapples that ye eat comes from there."

"That sounds to me!" said the Kid, at last betraying interest.
"What'll the expressage be to take me out there with you?"

"Twenty-four dollars," said Captain Boone; "grub and transportation.
Second cabin.  I haven't got a first cabin."

"You've got my company," said the Kid, pulling out a buckskin bag.

With three hundred dollars he had gone to Laredo for his regular
"blowout."  The duel in Valdos's had cut short his season of
hilarity, but it had left him with nearly $200 for aid in the flight
that it had made necessary.

"All right, buddy," said the captain.  "I hope your ma won't blame me
for this little childish escapade of yours."  He beckoned to one of
the boat's crew.  "Let Sanchez lift you out to the skiff so you won't
get your feet wet."


Thacker, the United States consul at Buenas Tierras, was not yet
drunk.  It was only eleven o'clock; and he never arrived at his
desired state of beatitude--a state where he sang ancient maudlin
vaudeville songs and pelted his screaming parrot with banana
peels--until the middle of the afternoon.  So, when he looked up from
his hammock at the sound of a slight cough, and saw the Kid standing
in the door of the consulate, he was still in a condition, to extend
the hospitality and courtesy due from the representative of a great
nation.  "Don't disturb yourself," said the Kid easily.  "I just
dropped in.  They told me it was customary to light at your camp
before starting in to round up the town.  I just came in on a ship
from Texas."

"Glad to see you, Mr.----," said the consul.

The Kid laughed.

"Sprague Dalton," he said.  "It sounds funny to me to hear it.  I'm
called the Llano Kid in the Rio Grande country."

"I'm Thacker," said the consul.  "Take that cane-bottom chair.  Now
if you've come to invest, you want somebody to advise you.  These
dingies will cheat you out of the gold in your teeth if you don't
understand their ways.  Try a cigar?"

"Much obliged," said the Kid, "but if it wasn't for my corn shucks
and the little bag in my back pocket I couldn't live a minute."  He
took out his "makings," and rolled a cigarette.

"They speak Spanish here," said the consul.  "You'll need an
interpreter.  If there's anything I can do, why, I'd be delighted.
If you're buying fruit lands or looking for a concession of any sort,
you'll want somebody who knows the ropes to look out for you."

"I speak Spanish," said the Kid, "about nine times better than I do
English.  Everybody speaks it on the range where I come from.  And
I'm not in the market for anything."

"You speak Spanish?" said Thacker thoughtfully.  He regarded the Kid
absorbedly.

"You look like a Spaniard, too," he continued.  "And you're from
Texas.  And you can't be more than twenty or twenty-one.  I wonder if
you've got any nerve."

"You got a deal of some kind to put through?" asked the Texan, with
unexpected shrewdness.

"Are you open to a proposition?" said Thacker.

"What's the use to deny it?" said the Kid.  "I got into a little gun
frolic down in Laredo and plugged a white man.  There wasn't any
Mexican handy.  And I come down to your parrot-and-monkey range just
for to smell the morning-glories and marigolds.  Now, do you _sabe_?"

Thacker got up and closed the door.

"Let me see your hand," he said.

He took the Kid's left hand, and examined the back of it closely.

"I can do it," he said excitedly.  "Your flesh is as hard as wood and
as healthy as a baby's.  It will heal in a week."

"If it's a fist fight you want to back me for," said the Kid, "don't
put your money up yet.  Make it gun work, and I'll keep you company.
But no barehanded scrapping, like ladies at a tea-party, for me."

"It's easier than that," said Thacker.  "Just step here, will you?"

Through the window he pointed to a two-story white-stuccoed house
with wide galleries rising amid the deep-green tropical foliage on a
wooded hill that sloped gently from the sea.

"In that house," said Thacker, "a fine old Castilian gentleman and
his wife are yearning to gather you into their arms and fill your
pockets with money.  Old Santos Urique lives there.  He owns half the
gold-mines in the country."

"You haven't been eating loco weed, have you?" asked the Kid.

"Sit down again," said Thacker, "and I'll tell you.  Twelve years ago
they lost a kid.  No, he didn't die--although most of 'em here do
from drinking the surface water.  He was a wild little devil even if
he wasn't but eight years old.  Everybody knows about it.  Some
Americans who were through here prospecting for gold had letters to
Señor Urique, and the boy was a favourite with them.  They filled his
head with big stories about the States; and about a month after they
left, the kid disappeared, too.  He was supposed to have stowed
himself away among the banana bunches on a fruit steamer, and gone to
New Orleans.  He was seen once afterward in Texas, it was thought,
but they never heard anything more of him.  Old Urique has spent
thousands of dollars having him looked for.  The madam was broken up
worst of all.  The kid was her life.  She wears mourning yet.  But
they say she believes he'll come back to her some day, and never
gives up hope.  On the back of the boy's left hand was tattooed a
flying eagle carrying a spear in his claws.  That's old Urique's coat
of arms or something that he inherited in Spain."

The Kid raised his left hand slowly and gazed at it curiously.

"That's it," said Thacker, reaching behind the official desk for his
bottle of smuggled brandy.  "You're not so slow.  I can do it.  What
was I consul at Sandakan for?  I never knew till now.  In a week I'll
have the eagle bird with the frog-sticker blended in so you'd think
you were born with it.  I brought a set of the needles and ink just
because I was sure you'd drop in some day, Mr. Dalton."

"Oh, hell," said the Kid.  "I thought I told you my name!"

"All right, 'Kid,' then.  It won't be that long.  How does Señorito
Urique sound, for a change?"

"I never played son any that I remember of," said the Kid.  "If I had
any parents to mention they went over the divide about the time I
gave my first bleat.  What is the plan of your round-up?"

Thacker leaned back against the wall and held his glass up to the
light.

"We've come now," said he, "to the question of how far you're willing
to go in a little matter of the sort."

"I told you why I came down here," said the Kid simply.

"A good answer," said the consul.  "But you won't have to go that
far.  Here's the scheme.  After I get the trademark tattooed on your
hand I'll notify old Urique.  In the meantime I'll furnish you with
all of the family history I can find out, so you can be studying up
points to talk about.  You've got the looks, you speak the Spanish,
you know the facts, you can tell about Texas, you've got the tattoo
mark.  When I notify them that the rightful heir has returned and is
waiting to know whether he will be received and pardoned, what will
happen?  They'll simply rush down here and fall on your neck, and the
curtain goes down for refreshments and a stroll in the lobby."

"I'm waiting," said the Kid.  "I haven't had my saddle off in your
camp long, pardner, and I never met you before; but if you intend to
let it go at a parental blessing, why, I'm mistaken in my man, that's
all."

"Thanks," said the consul.  "I haven't met anybody in a long time
that keeps up with an argument as well as you do.  The rest of it is
simple.  If they take you in only for a while it's long enough.
Don't give 'em time to hunt up the strawberry mark on your left
shoulder.  Old Urique keeps anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 in his
house all the time in a little safe that you could open with a shoe
buttoner.  Get it.  My skill as a tattooer is worth half the boodle.
We go halves and catch a tramp steamer for Rio Janeiro.  Let the
United States go to pieces if it can't get along without my services.
_Que dice, señor?_"

"It sounds to me!" said the Kid, nodding his head.  "I'm out for the
dust."

"All right, then," said Thacker.  "You'll have to keep close until we
get the bird on you.  You can live in the back room here.  I do my
own cooking, and I'll make you as comfortable as a parsimonious
Government will allow me."

Thacker had set the time at a week, but it was two weeks before the
design that he patiently tattooed upon the Kid's hand was to his
notion.  And then Thacker called a _muchacho_, and dispatched this
note to the intended victim:


  EL SEÑOR DON SANTOS URIQUE,
    La Casa Blanca,

MY DEAR SIR:

I beg permission to inform you that there is in my house as a
temporary guest a young man who arrived in Buenas Tierras from the
United States some days ago.  Without wishing to excite any hopes
that may not be realized, I think there is a possibility of his being
your long-absent son.  It might be well for you to call and see him.
If he is, it is my opinion that his intention was to return to his
home, but upon arriving here, his courage failed him from doubts as
to how he would be received.

  Your true servant,
      THOMPSON THACKER.


Half an hour afterward--quick time for Buenas Tierras--Señor Urique's
ancient landau drove to the consul's door, with the barefooted
coachman beating and shouting at the team of fat, awkward horses.

A tall man with a white moustache alighted, and assisted to the
ground a lady who was dressed and veiled in unrelieved black.

The two hastened inside, and were met by Thacker with his best
diplomatic bow.  By his desk stood a slender young man with
clear-cut, sunbrowned features and smoothly brushed black hair.

Señora Urique threw back her heavy veil with a quick gesture.  She
was past middle age, and her hair was beginning to silver, but her
full, proud figure and clear olive skin retained traces of the beauty
peculiar to the Basque province.  But, once you had seen her eyes,
and comprehended the great sadness that was revealed in their deep
shadows and hopeless expression, you saw that the woman lived only in
some memory.

She bent upon the young man a long look of the most agonized
questioning.  Then her great black eyes turned, and her gaze rested
upon his left hand.  And then with a sob, not loud, but seeming to
shake the room, she cried "_Hijo mio!_" and caught the Llano Kid to
her heart.

A month afterward the Kid came to the consulate in response to a
message sent by Thacker.

He looked the young Spanish caballero.  His clothes were imported,
and the wiles of the jewellers had not been spent upon him in vain.
A more than respectable diamond shone on his finger as he rolled a
shuck cigarette.

"What's doing?" asked Thacker.

"Nothing much," said the Kid calmly.  "I eat my first iguana steak
to-day.  They're them big lizards, you sabe?  I reckon, though, that
frijoles and side bacon would do me about as well.  Do you care for
iguanas, Thacker?"

"No, nor for some other kinds of reptiles," said Thacker.

It was three in the afternoon, and in another hour he would be in his
state of beatitude.

"It's time you were making good, sonny," he went on, with an ugly
look on his reddened face.  "You're not playing up to me square.
You've been the prodigal son for four weeks now, and you could have
had veal for every meal on a gold dish if you'd wanted it.  Now, Mr.
Kid, do you think it's right to leave me out so long on a husk diet?
What's the trouble?  Don't you get your filial eyes on anything that
looks like cash in the Casa Blanca?  Don't tell me you don't.
Everybody knows where old Urique keeps his stuff.  It's U.S.
currency, too; he don't accept anything else.  What's doing?  Don't
say 'nothing' this time."

"Why, sure," said the Kid, admiring his diamond, "there's plenty of
money up there.  I'm no judge of collateral in bunches, but I will
undertake for to say that I've seen the rise of $50,000 at a time in
that tin grub box that my adopted father calls his safe.  And he lets
me carry the key sometimes just to show me that he knows I'm the real
little Francisco that strayed from the herd a long time ago."

"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked Thacker angrily.  "Don't you
forget that I can upset your apple-cart any day I want to.  If old
Urique knew you were an impostor, what sort of things would happen to
you?  Oh, you don't know this country, Mr. Texas Kid.  The laws here
have got mustard spread between 'em.  These people here'd stretch you
out like a frog that had been stepped on, and give you about fifty
sticks at every corner of the plaza.  And they'd wear every stick
out, too.  What was left of you they'd feed to alligators."

"I might as well tell you now, pardner," said the Kid, sliding down
low on his steamer chair, "that things are going to stay just as they
are.  They're about right now."

"What do you mean?" asked Thacker, rattling the bottom of his glass
on his desk.

"The scheme's off," said the Kid.  "And whenever you have the
pleasure of speaking to me address me as Don Francisco Urique.  I'll
guarantee I'll answer to it.  We'll let Colonel Urique keep his
money.  His little tin safe is as good as the time-locker in the
First National Bank of Laredo as far as you and me are concerned."

"You're going to throw me down, then, are you?" said the consul.

"Sure," said the Kid cheerfully.  "Throw you down.  That's it.  And
now I'll tell you why.  The first night I was up at the colonel's
house they introduced me to a bedroom.  No blankets on the floor--a
real room, with a bed and things in it.  And before I was asleep, in
comes this artificial mother of mine and tucks in the covers.
'Panchito,' she says, 'my little lost one, God has brought you back
to me.  I bless His name forever.'  It was that, or some truck like
that, she said.  And down comes a drop or two of rain and hits me on
the nose.  And all that stuck by me, Mr. Thacker.  And it's been that
way ever since.  And it's got to stay that way.  Don't you think that
it's for what's in it for me, either, that I say so.  If you have any
such ideas, keep 'em to yourself.  I haven't had much truck with
women in my life, and no mothers to speak of, but here's a lady that
we've got to keep fooled.  Once she stood it; twice she won't.  I'm a
low-down wolf, and the devil may have sent me on this trail instead
of God, but I'll travel it to the end.  And now, don't forget that
I'm Don Francisco Urique whenever you happen to mention my name."

"I'll expose you to-day, you--you double-dyed traitor," stammered
Thacker.

The Kid arose and, without violence, took Thacker by the throat with
a hand of steel, and shoved him slowly into a corner.  Then he drew
from under his left arm his pearl-handled .45 and poked the cold
muzzle of it against the consul's mouth.

"I told you why I come here," he said, with his old freezing smile.
"If I leave here, you'll be the reason.  Never forget it, pardner.
Now, what is my name?"

"Er--Don Francisco Urique," gasped Thacker.

From outside came a sound of wheels, and the shouting of some one,
and the sharp thwacks of a wooden whipstock upon the backs of fat
horses.

The Kid put up his gun, and walked toward the door.  But he turned
again and came back to the trembling Thacker, and held up his left
hand with its back toward the consul.

"There's one more reason," he said slowly, "why things have got to
stand as they are.  The fellow I killed in Laredo had one of them
same pictures on his left hand."

Outside, the ancient landau of Don Santos Urique rattled to the door.
The coachman ceased his bellowing.  Señora Urique, in a voluminous
gay gown of white lace and flying ribbons, leaned forward with a
happy look in her great soft eyes.

"Are you within, dear son?" she called, in the rippling Castilian.

"_Madre mia, yo vengo_ [mother, I come]," answered the young Don
Francisco Urique.



III

THE BOLD DRAGOON

OR THE

ADVENTURE OF MY GRANDFATHER

WASHINGTON IRVING


My grandfather was a bold dragoon, for it's a profession, d'ye see,
that has run in the family.  All my forefathers have been dragoons,
and died on the field of honour, except myself, and I hope my
posterity may be able to say the same; however, I don't mean to be
vainglorious.  Well, my grandfather, as I said, was a bold dragoon,
and had served in the Low Countries.  In fact, he was one of that
very army which, according to my uncle Toby, swore so terribly in
Flanders.  He could swear a good stick himself; and moreover was the
very man that introduced the doctrine Corporal Trim mentions of
radical heat and radical moisture; or, in other words, the mode of
keeping out the damps of ditchwater by burnt brandy.  Be that as it
may, it's nothing to the purport of my story.  I only tell it to show
you that my grandfather was a man not easily to be humbugged.  He had
seen service, or, according to his own phrase, he had seen the
devil--and that's saying every thing.

Well, gentlemen, my grandfather was on his way to England, for which
he intended to embark from Ostend--bad luck to the place! for one
where I was kept by storms and headwinds for three long days, and the
devil of a jolly companion or pretty girl to comfort me.  Well, as I
was saying, my grandfather was on his way to England, or rather to
Ostend--no matter which, it's all the same.  So one evening, towards
nightfall, he rode jollily into Bruges.--Very like you all know
Bruges, gentlemen; a queer old-fashioned Flemish town, once, they
say, a great place for trade and money-making in old times, when the
Mynheers were in their glory; but almost as large and as empty as an
Irishman's pocket at the present day.--Well, gentlemen, it was at the
time of the annual fair.  All Bruges was crowded; and the canals
swarmed with Dutch boats, and the streets swarmed with Dutch
merchants; and there was hardly any getting along for goods, wares,
and merchandise, and peasants in big breeches, and women in half a
score of petticoats.

My grandfather rode jollily along, in his easy, slashing way, for he
was a saucy, sunshiny fellow--staring about him at the motley crowd,
and the old houses with gable ends to the street, and storks' nests
in the chimneys; winking at the yafrows who showed their faces at the
windows, and joking the women right and left in the street; all of
whom laughed, and took it in amazing good part; for though he did not
know a word of the language, yet he had always a knack of making
himself understood among the women.

Well, gentlemen, it being the time of the annual fair, all the town
was crowded, every inn and tavern full, and my grandfather applied in
vain from one to the other for admittance.  At length he rode up to
an old rickety inn, that looked ready to fall to pieces, and which
all the rats would have run away from, if they could have found room
in any other house to put their heads.  It was just such a queer
building as you see in Dutch pictures, with a tall roof that reached
up into the clouds, and as many garrets, one over the other, as the
seven heavens of Mahomet.  Nothing had saved it from tumbling down
but a stork's nest on the chimney, which always brings good luck to a
house in the Low Countries; and at the very time of my grandfather's
arrival, there were two of these long-legged birds of grace standing
like ghosts on the chimney-top.  Faith, but they've kept the house on
its legs to this very day, for you may see it any time you pass
through Bruges, as it stands there yet, only it is turned into a
brewery of strong Flemish beer,--at least it was so when I came that
way after the battle of Waterloo.

My grandfather eyed the house curiously as he approached.  It might
not have altogether struck his fancy, had he not seen in large
letters over the door,

  HEER VERKOOPT MAN GOEDEN DRANK.

My grandfather had learnt enough of the language to know that the
sign promised good liquor.  "This is the house for me," said he,
stopping short before the door.

The sudden appearance of a dashing dragoon was an event in an old inn
frequented only by the peaceful sons of traffic.  A rich burgher of
Antwerp, a stately ample man in a broad Flemish hat, and who was the
great man and great patron of the establishment, sat smoking a clean
long pipe on one side of the door; a fat little distiller of Geneva,
from Schiedam, sat smoking on the other; and the bottle-nosed host
stood in the door, and the comely hostess, in crimped cap, beside
him; and the hostess's daughter, a plump Flanders lass, with long
gold pendants in her ears, was at a side window.

"Humph!" said the rich burgher of Antwerp, with sulky glance at the
stranger.

"De duyvel!" said the fat little distiller of Schiedam.

The landlord saw, with the quick glance of a publican, that the new
guest was not at all to the taste of the old ones; and, to tell the
truth, he did not like my grandfather's saucy eye.  He shook his
head.  "Not a garret in the house but was full."

"Not a garret!" echoed the landlady.

"Not a garret!" echoed the daughter.

The burgher of Antwerp, and the little distiller of Schiedam,
continued to smoke their pipes sullenly, eyeing the enemy askance
from under their broad hats, but said nothing.

My grandfather was not a man to be browbeaten.  He threw the reins on
his horse's neck, cocked his head on one side, stuck one arm
akimbo,--"Faith and troth!" said he, "but I'll sleep in this house
this very night."--As he said this he gave a slap on his thigh, by
way of emphasis--the slap went to the landlady's heart.

He followed up the vow by jumping off his horse, and making his way
past the staring Mynheers into the public room.--May be you've been
in the bar-room of an old Flemish inn--faith, but a handsome chamber
it was as you'd wish to see; with a brick floor, and a great
fireplace, with the whole Bible history in glazed tiles; and then the
mantelpiece, pitching itself head foremost out of the wall, with a
whole regiment of cracked teapots and earthen jugs paraded on it; not
to mention half a dozen great Delft platters, hung about the room by
way of pictures; and the little bar in one corner, and the bouncing
bar-maid inside of it, with a red calico cap, and yellow ear-drops.

My grandfather snapped his fingers over his head, as he cast an eye
round the room--"Faith, this is the very house I've been looking
after," said he.

There was some further show of resistance on the part of the
garrison; but my grandfather was an old soldier, and an Irishman to
boot, and not easily repulsed, especially after he had got into the
fortress.  So he blarneyed the landlord, kissed the landlord's wife,
tickled the landlord's daughter, chucked the bar-maid under the chin;
and it was agreed on all hands that it would be a thousand pities,
and a burning shame into the bargain, to turn such a bold dragoon
into the streets.  So they laid their heads together, that is to say,
my grandfather and the landlady, and it was at length agreed to
accommodate him with an old chamber, that had been for some time shut
up.

"Some say it's haunted," whispered the landlord's daughter; "but you
are a bold dragoon, and I dare say don't fear ghosts."

"The devil a bit!" said my grandfather, pinching her plump cheek.
"But if I should be troubled by ghosts, I've been to the Red Sea in
my time, and have a pleasant way of laying them, my darling."

And then he whispered something to the girl which made her laugh, and
give him a good-humoured box on the ear.  In short, there was nobody
knew better how to make his way among the petticoats than my
grandfather.

In a little while, as was his usual way, he took complete possession
of the house, swaggering all over it; into the stable to look after
his horse, into the kitchen to look after his supper.  He had
something to say or do with everyone; smoked with the Dutchman, drank
with the Germans, slapped the landlord on the shoulder, romped with
his daughter and the bar-maid:--never, since the days of Alley
Croaker, had such a rattling blade been seen.  The landlord stared at
him with astonishment; the landlord's daughter hung her head and
giggled whenever he came near; and as he swaggered along the
corridor, with his sword trailing by his side, the maids looked after
him, and whispered to one another, "What a proper man!"

At supper, my grandfather took command of the table-d'hôte as though
he had been at home; helped everybody, not forgetting himself; talked
with everyone, whether he understood their language or not; and made
his way into the intimacy of the rich burgher of Antwerp, who had
never been known to be sociable with anyone during his life.  In
fact, he revolutionised the whole establishment, and gave it such a
rouse, that the very house reeled with it.  He outsat everyone at
table, excepting the little fat distiller of Schiedam, who sat
soaking a long time before he broke forth; but when he did, he was a
very devil incarnate.  He took a violent affection for my
grandfather; so they sat drinking and smoking, and telling stories,
and singing Dutch and Irish songs, without understanding a word each
other said, until the little Hollander was fairly swamped with his
own gin and water, and carried off to bed, whooping and hickuping,
and trolling the burden of a Low Dutch love-song.

Well, gentlemen, my grandfather was shown to his quarters up a large
staircase, composed of loads of hewn timber; and through long
rigmarole passages, hung with blackened paintings of fish, and fruit,
and game, and country frolics, and huge kitchens, and portly
burgomasters, such as you see about old-fashioned Flemish inns, till
at length he arrived at his room.

An old-time chamber it was, sure enough, and crowded with all kinds
of trumpery.  It looked like an infirmary for decayed and
superannuated furniture, where everything diseased or disabled was
sent to nurse or to be forgotten.  Or rather it might be taken for a
general congress of old legitimate movables, where every kind and
country had a representative.  No two chairs were alike.  Such high
backs and low backs, and leather bottoms, and worsted bottoms, and
straw bottoms, and no bottoms; and cracked marble tables with
curiously carved legs, holding balls in their claws, as though they
were going to play at nine-pins.

My grandfather made a bow to the motley assemblage as he entered,
and, having undressed himself, placed his light in the fireplace,
asking pardon of the tongs, which seemed to be making love to the
shovel in the chimney-corner, and whispering soft nonsense in its ear.

The rest of the guests were by this time sound asleep, for your
Mynheers are huge sleepers.  The housemaids, one by one, crept up
yawning to their attics; and not a female head in the inn was laid on
a pillow that night without dreaming of the bold dragoon.

My grandfather, for his part, got into bed, and drew over him one of
those great bags of down, under which they smother a man in the Low
Countries; and there he lay, melting between two feather beds, like
an anchovy sandwich between two slices of toast and butter.  He was a
warm complexioned man, and this smothering played the very deuce with
him.  So, sure enough, in a little time it seemed as if a legion of
imps were twitching at him, and all the blood in his veins was in a
fever heat.

He lay still, however, until all the house was quiet, excepting the
snoring of the Mynheers from the different chambers; who answered one
another in all kinds of tones and cadences, like so many bullfrogs in
a swamp.  The quieter the house became, the more unquiet became my
grandfather.  He waxed warmer and warmer, until at length the bed
became too hot to hold him.

"May be the maid had warmed it too much?" said the curious gentleman,
inquiringly.

"I rather think the contrary," replied the Irishman.  "But, be that
as it may, it grew too hot for my grandfather."

"Faith, there's no standing this any longer," says he.  So he jumped
out of bed and went strolling about the house.

"What for?" said the inquisitive gentleman.

"Why to cool himself, to be sure--or perhaps to find a more
comfortable bed--or perhaps--  But no matter what he went for--he
never mentioned--and there's no use in taking up our time in
conjecturing."

Well, my grandfather had been for some time absent from his room, and
was returning, perfectly cool, when just as he reached the door, he
heard a strange noise within.  He paused and listened.  It seemed as
if someone were trying to hum a tune in defiance of the asthma.  He
recollected the report of the room being haunted; but he was no
believer in ghosts, so he pushed the door gently open and peeped in.

Egad, gentlemen, there was a gambol carrying on within enough to have
astonished St. Anthony himself.  By the light of the fire he saw a
pale weazen-faced fellow, in a long flannel gown and a tall white
night-cap with a tassel to it, who sat by the fire with a bellows
under his arm by way of bagpipe, from which he forced the asthmatical
music that had bothered my grandfather.  As he played, too, he kept
twitching about with a thousand queer contortions, nodding his head,
and bobbing about his tasselled night-cap.

My grandfather thought this very odd and mighty presumptuous, and was
about to demand what business he had to play his wind instrument in
another gentleman's quarters, when a new cause of astonishment met
his eye.  From the opposite side of the room a long-backed,
bandy-legged chair covered with leather, and studded all over in a
cox-combical fashion with little brass nails, got suddenly into
motion, thrust out first a claw-foot, then a crooked arm, and at
length, making a leg, slided gracefully up to an easy chair of
tarnished brocade, with a hole in its bottom, and led it gallantly
out in a ghostly minuet about the floor.

The musician now played fiercer and fiercer, and bobbed his head and
his night-cap about like mad.  By degrees the dancing mania seemed to
seize upon all the other pieces of furniture.  The antique,
long-bodied chairs paired off in couples and led down a country
dance; a three-legged stool danced a horn-pipe, though horribly
puzzled by its supernumerary limb; while the amorous tongs seized the
shovel round the waist, and whirled it about the room in a German
waltz.  In short, all the movables got in motion: pirouetting hands
across, right and left, like so many devils; all except a great
clothes-press, which kept courtesying and courtesying in a corner,
like a dowager, in exquisite time to the music; being rather too
corpulent to dance, or, perhaps at a loss for a partner.

My grandfather concluded the latter to be the reason; so being, like
a true Irishman, devoted to the sex, and at all times ready for a
frolic, he bounced into the room, called to the musician to strike up
Paddy O'Rafferty, capered up to the clothes-press, and seized upon
the two handles to lead her out:----when--whirr! the whole revel was
at an end.  The chairs, tables, tongs, and shovel slunk in an instant
as quietly into their places as if nothing had happened, and the
musician vanished up the chimney, leaving the bellows behind him in
his hurry.  My grandfather found himself seated in the middle of the
floor with the clothes-press sprawling before him, and the two
handles jerked off, and in his hands.

"Then, after all, this was a mere dream!" said the inquisitive
gentleman.

"The divil a bit of a dream!" replied the Irishman.  "There never was
a truer fact in this world.  Faith, I should have liked to see any
man tell my grandfather it was a dream."

Well, gentlemen, as the clothes-press was a mighty heavy body, and my
grandfather likewise, particularly in rear, you may easily suppose
that two such heavy bodies coming to the ground would make a bit of a
noise.  Faith, the old mansion shook as though it had mistaken it for
an earthquake.  The whole garrison was alarmed.  The landlord, who
slept below, hurried up with a candle to inquire the cause, but with
all his haste his daughter had arrived at the scene of uproar before
him.  The landlord was followed by the landlady, who was followed by
the bouncing bar-maid, who was followed by the simpering
chambermaids, all holding together, as well as they could, such
garments as they first laid hands on; but all in a terrible hurry to
see what the deuce was to pay in the chamber of the bold dragoon.

My grandfather related the marvellous scene he had witnessed, and the
broken handles of the prostrate clothes-press bore testimony to the
fact.  There was no contesting such evidence; particularly with a lad
of my grandfather's complexion, who seemed able to make good every
word either with sword or shillelah.  So the landlord scratched his
head and looked silly, as he was apt to do when puzzled.  The
landlady scratched--no, she did not scratch her head but she knit her
brow, and did not seem half pleased with the explanation.  But the
landlady's daughter corroborated it by recollecting that the last
person who had dwelt in that chamber was a famous juggler who died of
St. Vitus's dance, and had no doubt infected all the furniture.

This set all things to rights, particularly when the chambermaids
declared that they had all witnessed strange carryings on in that
room; and as they declared this "upon their honours," there could not
remain a doubt upon the subject.

"And did your grandfather go to bed again in that room?" said the
inquisitive gentleman.

"That's more than I can tell.  Where he passed the rest of the night
was a secret he never disclosed.  In fact, though he had seen much
service, he was but indifferently acquainted with geography, and apt
to make blunders in his travels about inns at night, which it would
have puzzled him sadly to account for in the morning."

"Was he ever apt to walk in his sleep?" said the knowing old
gentleman.

"Never that I heard of."



IV

THE BET*

ANTON CHEKHOV

*Reprinted by permission of John W. Luce and Company.


I

It was a dark autumn night.  The old banker was pacing from corner to
corner of his study, recalling to his mind the party he gave in the
autumn fifteen years ago.  There were many clever people at the party
and much interesting conversation.  They talked among other things of
capital punishment.  The guests, among them not a few scholars and
journalists, for the most part disapproved of capital punishment.
They found it obsolete as a means of punishment, unfitted to a
Christian state and immoral.  Some of them thought that capital
punishment should be replaced universally by life-imprisonment.

"I don't agree with you," said the host.  "I myself have experienced
neither capital punishment nor life-imprisonment, but if one may
judge _a priori_, then in my opinion capital punishment is more moral
and more humane than imprisonment.  Execution kills instantly,
life-imprisonment kills by degrees.  Who is the more humane
executioner, one who kills you in a few seconds or one who draws the
life out of you incessantly, for years?"

"They're both equally immoral," remarked one of the guests, "because
their purpose is the same, to take away life.  The state is not God.
It has no right to take away that which it cannot give back, if it
should so desire."

Among the company was a lawyer, a young man of about twenty-five.  On
being asked his opinion, he said:

"Capital punishment and life-imprisonment are equally immoral; but if
I were offered the choice between them, I would certainly choose the
second.  It's better to live somehow than not to live at all."

There ensued a lively discussion.  The banker who was then younger
and more nervous suddenly lost his temper, banged his fist on the
table, and turning to the young lawyer, cried out:

"It's a lie.  I bet you two millions you wouldn't stick in a cell
even for five years."

"If that's serious," replied the lawyer, "then I bet I'll stay not
five but fifteen."

"Fifteen!  Done!" cried the banker.  "Gentlemen, I stake two
millions."

"Agreed.  You stake two millions, I my freedom," said the lawyer.

So this wild, ridiculous bet came to pass.  The banker, who at that
time had too many millions to count, spoiled and capricious, was
beside himself with rapture.  During supper he said to the lawyer
jokingly:

"Come to your senses, young man, before it's too late.  Two millions
are nothing to me, but you stand to lose three or four of the best
years of your life.  I say three or four, because you'll never stick
it out any longer.  Don't forget either, you unhappy man, that
voluntary is much heavier than enforced imprisonment.  The idea that
you have the right to free yourself at any moment will poison the
whole of your life in the cell.  I pity you."

And now the banker pacing from corner to corner recalled all this and
asked himself:

"Why did I make this bet?  What's the good?  The lawyer loses fifteen
years of his life and I throw away two millions.  Will it convince
people that capital punishment is worse or better than imprisonment
for life?  No, No! all stuff and rubbish.  On my part, it was the
caprice of a well-fed man; on the lawyer's, pure greed of gold."

He recollected further what happened after the evening party.  It was
decided that the lawyer must undergo his imprisonment under the
strictest observation, in a garden-wing of the banker's house.  It
was agreed that during the period he would be deprived of the right
to cross the threshold, to see living people, to hear human voices,
and to receive letters and newspapers.  He was permitted to have a
musical instrument, to read books, to write letters, to drink wine
and smoke tobacco.  By the agreement he could communicate, but only
in silence with the outside world through a little window specially
constructed for this purpose.  Everything necessary, books, music,
wine, he could receive in any quantity by sending a note through the
window.  The agreement provided for all the minutest details, which
made the confinement strictly solitary, and it obliged the lawyer to
remain exactly fifteen years from twelve o'clock of November 14th
1870 to twelve o'clock of November 14th 1885.  The least attempt on
his part to violate the conditions, to escape if only for two minutes
before the time freed the banker from the obligation to pay him the
two millions.

During the first year of imprisonment, the lawyer, as far as it was
possible to judge from his short notes, suffered terribly from
loneliness and boredom.  From his wing day and night came the sound
of the piano.  He rejected wine and tobacco.  "Wine," he wrote,
"excites desires, and desires are the chief foes of a prisoner;
besides, nothing is more boring than to drink good wine alone," and
tobacco spoils the air in his room.  During the first year the lawyer
was sent books of a light character; novels with a complicated love
interest, stories of crime and fantasy, comedies, and so on.

In the second year the piano was heard no longer and the lawyer asked
only for classics.  In the fifth year music was heard again, and the
prisoner asked for wine.  Those who watched him said that during the
whole of that year he was only eating, drinking, and lying on his
bed.  He yawned often and talked angrily to himself.  Books he did
not read.  Sometimes at nights he would sit down to write.  He would
write for a long time and tear it all up in the morning.  More than
once he was heard to weep.

In the second half of the sixth year, the prisoner began zealously to
study languages, philosophy, and history.  He fell on these subjects
so hungrily that the banker hardly had time to get books enough for
him.  In the space of four years about six hundred volumes were
bought at his request.  It was while that passion lasted that the
banker received the following letter from the prisoner: "My dear
gaoler, I am writing these lines in six languages.  Show them to
experts.  Let them read them.  If they do not find one single
mistake, I beg you to give orders to have a gun fired off in the
garden.  By the noise I shall know that my efforts have not been in
vain.  The geniuses of all ages and countries speak in different
languages; but in them all burns the same flame.  Oh, if you knew my
heavenly happiness now that I can understand them!"  The prisoner's
desire was fulfilled.  Two shots were fired in the garden by the
banker's order.

Later on, after the tenth year, the lawyer sat immovable before his
table and read only the New Testament.  The banker found it strange
that a man who in four years had mastered six hundred erudite
volumes, should have spent nearly a year in reading one book, easy to
understand and by no means thick.  The New Testament was then
replaced by the history of religions and theology.

During the last two years of his confinement the prisoner read an
extraordinary amount, quite haphazard.  Now he would apply himself to
the natural sciences, then would read Byron or Shakespeare.  Notes
used to come from him in which he asked to be sent at the same time a
book on chemistry, a textbook of medicine, a novel, and some treatise
on philosophy or theology.  He read as though he were swimming in the
sea among the broken pieces of wreckage, and in his desire to save
his life was eagerly grasping one piece after another.



II

The banker recalled all this, and thought:

"To-morrow at twelve o'clock he receives his freedom.  Under the
agreement, I shall have to pay him two millions.  If I pay, it's all
over with me.  I am ruined for ever...."

Fifteen years before he had too many millions to count, but now he
was afraid to ask himself which he had more of, money or debts.
Gambling on the Stock-Exchange, risky speculation, and the
recklessness of which he could not rid himself even in old age, had
gradually brought his business to decay; and the fearless,
self-confident, proud man of business had become an ordinary banker,
trembling at every rise and fall in the market.

"That cursed bet," murmured the old man, clutching his head in
despair....  "Why didn't the man die?  He's only forty years old.  He
will take away my last farthing, marry, enjoy life, gamble on the
Exchange, and I will look on like an envious beggar and hear the same
words from him every day: 'I'm obliged to you for the happiness of my
life.  Let me help you.'  No, it's too much!  The only escape from
bankruptcy and disgrace--is that the man should die."

The clock had just struck three.  The banker was listening.  In the
house everyone was asleep, and one could hear only the frozen trees
whining outside the windows.  Trying to make no sound, he took out of
his safe the key of the door which had not been opened for fifteen
years, put on his overcoat, and went out of the house.  The garden
was dark and cold.  It was raining.  A keen damp wind hovered howling
over all the garden and gave the trees no rest.  Though he strained
his eyes, the banker could see neither the ground, nor the white
statues, nor the garden-whig, nor the trees.  Approaching the place
where the garden wing stood, he called the watchman twice.  There was
no answer.  Evidently the watchman had taken shelter from the bad
weather and was now asleep somewhere in the kitchen or the greenhouse.

"If I have the courage to fulfil my intention," thought the old man,
"the suspicion will fall on the watchman first of all."

In the darkness he groped for the stairs and the door and entered the
hall of the garden-wing, then poked his way into a narrow passage and
struck a match.  Not a soul was there.  Someone's bed, with no
bedclothes on it, stood there, and an iron stove was dark in the
corner.  The seals on the door that led into the prisoner's room were
unbroken.

When the match went out, the old man, trembling from agitation,
peeped into the little window.

In the prisoner's room a candle was burning dim.  The prisoner
himself sat by the table.  Only his back, the hair on his head and
his hands were visible.  On the table, the two chairs, and the carpet
by the table open books were strewn.

Five minutes passed and the prisoner never once stirred.  Fifteen
years' confinement had taught him to sit motionless.  The banker
tapped on the window with his finger, but the prisoner gave no
movement in reply.  Then the banker cautiously tore the seals from
the door and put the key into the lock.  The rusty lock gave a hoarse
groan and the door creaked.  The banker expected instantly to hear a
cry of surprise and the sound of steps.  Three minutes passed and it
was as quiet behind the door as it had been before.  He made up his
mind to enter.

Before the table sat a man, unlike an ordinary human being.  It was a
skeleton, with tight-drawn skin, with a woman's long curly hair, and
a shaggy beard.  The colour of his face was yellow, of an earthy
shade; the cheeks were sunken, the back long and narrow, and the hand
upon which he leaned his hairy head was so lean and skinny that it
was painful to look upon.  His hair was already silvering with grey,
and no one who glanced at the senile emaciation of the face would
have believed that he was only forty years old.  On the table, before
his bended head, lay a sheet of paper on which something was written
in a tiny hand.

"Poor devil," thought the banker, "he's asleep and probably seeing
millions in his dreams.  I have only to take and throw this half-dead
thing on the bed, smother him a moment with the pillow, and the most
careful examination will find no trace of unnatural death.  But,
first, let us read what he has written here."

The banker took the sheet from the table and read:

"To-morrow at twelve o'clock midnight, I shall obtain my freedom and
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--'

"'Don't swear, for your eyes are full of the secret.  You knew
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.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade.  But first let me tell of
the rooms in which it was held.  There were seven--an imperial suite.
In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista,
while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either
hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded.  Here
the case was very different, as might have been expected from the
duke's love of the bizarre.  The apartments were so irregularly
disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time.
There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each
turn a novel effect.  To the right and left, in the middle of each
wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed
corridor which pursued the windings of the suite.  These windows were
of stained glass, whose colour varied in accordance with the
prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it
opened.  That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in
blue--and vividly blue were its windows.  The second chamber was
purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were
purple.  The third was green throughout, and so were the casements.
The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange--the fifth with
white--the sixth with violet.  The seventh apartment was closely
shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling
and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same
material and hue.  But in this chamber only the colour of the windows
failed to correspond with the decorations.  The panes here were
scarlet--a deep blood colour.  Now in no one of the seven apartments
was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden
ornaments that lay scattered to and fro, or depended from the roof.
There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within
the suite of chambers.  But in the corridors that followed the suite,
there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a
brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass,
and so glaringly illumined the room.  And thus were produced a
multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances.  But in the western or
black chamber the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark
hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme,
and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who
entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot
within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western
wall a gigantic clock of ebony.  Its pendulum swung to and fro with a
dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the
circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from
the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and
deep and exceedingly musical; but of so peculiar a note and emphasis
that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were
constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken
to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions;
and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while
the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest
grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their
brows as if in confused reverie or meditation.  But when the echoes
had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the
musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own
nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other,
that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar
emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace
three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies), there
came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same
disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel.
The tastes of the duke were peculiar.  He had a fine eye for colours
and effects.  He disregarded the _decora_ of mere fashion.  His plans
were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre.
There are some who would have thought him mad.  His followers felt
that he was not.  It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to
be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the
seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was his own
guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders.  Be sure
they were grotesque.  There were much glare and glitter and piquancy
and phantasm--much of what has been since seen in "Hernani."  There
were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments.  There
were delirious fancies as the madman fashions.  There were much of
the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of
the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited
disgust.  To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a
multitude of dreams.  And these--the dreams--writhed in and about,
taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the
orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps.  And, anon, there
strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet.  And
then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of
the clock.  The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand.  But the
echoes of the chime die away--they have endured but an instant--and a
light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart.  And
now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and
fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows
through which stream the rays from the tripods.  But to the chamber
which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the
maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a
ruddier light through the blood-coloured panes; and the blackness of
the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable
carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more
solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in
the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat
feverishly the heart of life.  And the revel went whirlingly on,
until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the
clock.  And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions
of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of
all things as before.  But now there were twelve strokes to be
sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that
more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the
thoughtful among those who revelled.  And thus, too, it happened,
perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly
sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had
found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure
which had arrested the attention of no single individual before.  And
the rumour of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly
around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or
murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise--then, finally, of
terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms, such as I have painted, it may well be
supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such
sensation.  In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly
unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone
beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum.  There are
chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched
without emotion.  Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death
are equally jests, there are matters of which no jests can be made.
The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the
costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety
existed.  The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to
foot in the habiliments of the grave.  The mask which concealed the
visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened
corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in
detecting the cheat.  And yet all this might have been endured, if
not approved, by the mad revellers around.  But the mummer had gone
so far as to assume the type of the Red Death.  His vesture was
dabbled in _blood_--and his broad brow, with all the features of the
face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which
with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its
_rôle_, stalked to and from among the waltzers), he was seen to be
convulsed, in the first moment, with a strong shudder either of
terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near
him--"who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery?  Seize him
and unmask him--that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise from
the battlements!"

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince
Prospero as he uttered these words.  They rang throughout the seven
rooms loudly and clearly--for the prince was a bold and robust man,
and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince with a group of pale
courtiers by his side.  At first, as he spoke, there was a slight
rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who,
at the moment, was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and
stately step, made closer approach to the speaker.  But from a
certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had
inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to
seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the
prince's person; and while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse,
shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way
uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had
distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the
purple--through the purple to the green--through the green to the
orange--through this again to the white--and even thence to the
violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him.  It was
then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddened with rage and the
shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the
six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror
that had seized upon all.  He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had
approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the
retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of
the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer.
There was a sharp cry--and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable
carpet, upon which, instantly afterward, fell prostrate in death the
Prince Prospero.  Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a
throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black
apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and
motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in
unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like
mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any
tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death.  He had come
like a thief in the night.  And one by one dropped the revellers in
the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the
despairing posture of his fall.  And the life of the ebony clock went
out with that of the last of the gay.  And the flames of the tripods
expired.  And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable
dominion over all.



VII

DR. MANETTE'S MANUSCRIPT

CHARLES DICKENS


"I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais, and
afterward resident in Paris, write this melancholy paper in my
doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year,
1767.  I write it at stolen intervals, under every difficulty.  I
design to secrete it in the wall of the chimney, where I have slowly
and laboriously made a place of concealment for it.  Some pitying
hand may find it there, when I and my sorrows are dust.

"These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write
with difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney,
mixed with blood, in the last month of the tenth year of my
captivity.  Hope has quite departed from my breast.  I know from
terrible warnings I have noted in myself that my reason will not long
remain unimpaired, but I solemnly declare that I am at this time in
the possession of my right mind--that my memory is exact and
circumstantial--and that I write the truth as I shall answer for
these my last recorded words, whether they be ever read by men or
not, at the Eternal Judgment-seat.

"One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I think
the twenty-second of the month) in the year 1757, I was walking on a
retired part of the quay by the Seine for the refreshment of the
frosty air, at an hour's distance from my place of residence in the
Street of the School of Medicine, when a carriage came along behind
me, driven very fast.  As I stood aside to let that carriage pass,
apprehensive that it might otherwise run me down, a head was put out
at the window, and a voice called to the driver to stop.

"The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his horses,
and the same voice called to me by my name.  I answered.  The
carriage was then so far in advance of me that two gentlemen had time
to open the door and alight before I came up with it.  I observed
that they were both wrapped in cloaks, and appeared to conceal
themselves.  As they stood side by side near the carriage door, I
also observed that they both looked of about my own age, or rather
younger, and that they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice,
and (as far as I could see) £ace too.

"'You are Doctor Manette?' said one.

"'I am.'

"'Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,' said the other; 'the young
physician, originally an expert surgeon, who within the last year or
two has made a rising reputation in Paris?'

"'Gentlemen,' I returned, 'I am that Doctor Manette of whom you speak
so graciously.'

"'We have been to your residence,' said the first, 'and not being so
fortunate as to find you there, and being informed that you were
probably walking in this direction, we followed, in the hope of
overtaking you.  Will you please to enter the carriage?'

"The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, as these
words were spoken, so as to place me between themselves and the
carriage door.  They were armed.  I was not.

"'Gentlemen,' said I, 'pardon me; but I usually inquire who does me
the honour to seek my assistance, and what is the nature of the case
to which I am summoned.'

"The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second.  'Doctor,
your clients are people of condition.  As to the nature of the case,
our confidence in your skill assures us that you will ascertain it
for yourself better than we can describe it.  Enough.  Will you
please to enter the carriage?'

"I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence.  They
both entered after me--the last springing in, after putting up the
steps.  The carriage turned about, and drove on at its former speed.

"I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred.  I have no doubt
that it is, word for word, the same.  I describe everything exactly
as it took place, constraining my mind not to wander from the task.
Where I make the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for the
time, and put my paper in its hiding-place. * * * *

"The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and
emerged upon the country road.  At two-thirds of a league from the
Barrier--I did not estimate the distance at that time, but afterward
when I traversed it--it struck out of the main avenue, and presently
stopped at a solitary house.  We all three alighted, and walked, by a
damp soft footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had
overflowed, to the door of the house.  It was not opened immediately,
in answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors
struck the man who opened it, with his heavy riding glove, across the
face.

"There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention,
for I had seen common people struck more commonly than dogs.  But,
the other of the two, being angry likewise, struck the man in like
manner with his arm; the look and bearing of the brothers were then
so exactly alike, that I then first perceived them to be twin
brothers.

"From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found
locked, and which one of the brothers had opened to admit us, and had
relocked), I had heard cries proceeding from an upper chamber.  I was
conducted to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we
ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high fever of the
brain, lying on a bed.

"The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; assuredly not
much past twenty.  Her hair was torn and ragged, and her arms were
bound to her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs.  I noticed that
these bonds were all portions of a gentleman's dress.  On one of
them, which was a fringed scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the
armorial bearings of a Noble, and the letter E.

"I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the
patient; for, in her restless strivings she had turned over on her
face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the scarf into her
mouth, and was in danger of suffocation.  My first act was to put out
my hand to relieve her breathing; and in moving the scarf aside, the
embroidery in the corner caught my sight.

"I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm
her and keep her down, and looked into her face.  Her eyes were
dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered piercing shrieks, and
repeated the words, 'My husband, my father, and my brother!' and then
counted up to twelve, and said, 'Hush!'  For an instant, and no more,
she would pause to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin
again, and she would repeat the cry, 'My husband, my father, and my
brother!' and would count up to twelve, and say, 'Hush!'  There was
no variation in the order, or the manner.  There was no cessation,
but the regular moment's pause in the utterance of these sounds.

"'How long,' I asked, 'has this lasted?'

"To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the
younger; by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most authority.
It was the elder who replied, 'Since about this hour last night.'

"'She has a husband, a father, and a brother?'

"'A brother.'

"'I do not address her brother?'

"He answered with great contempt, 'No.'

"'She has some recent association with the number twelve?'

"The younger brother impatiently rejoined, 'With twelve o'clock.'

"'See, gentlemen,' said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast,
'how useless I am, as you have brought me!  If I had known what I was
coming to see, I could have come provided.  As it is, time must be
lost.  There are no medicines to be obtained in this lonely place.'

"The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, 'There
is a case of medicines here;' and brought it from a closet, and put
it on the table. * * * *

"I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers to my
lips.  If I had wanted to use anything save narcotic medicines that
were poisons in themselves, I would not have administered any of
those.

"'Do you doubt them?' asked the younger brother.

"'You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,' I replied, and said no
more.

"I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many
efforts, the dose that I desired to give.  As I intended to repeat it
after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its influence, I then
sat down by the side of the bed.  There was a timid and suppressed
woman in attendance (wife of the man downstairs), who had retreated
into a corner.  The house was damp and decayed, indifferently
furnished--evidently, recently occupied and temporarily used.  Some
thick old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to deaden
the sound of the shrieks.  They continued to be uttered in their
regular succession, with the cry, 'My husband, my father, and my
brother!' the counting up to twelve, and 'Hush!'  The frenzy was so
violent, that I had not unfastened the bandages restraining the arms;
but, I had looked to them, to see that they were not painful.  The
only spark of encouragement in the case, was, that my hand upon the
sufferer's breast had this much soothing influence, that for minutes
at a time it tranquillised the figure.  It had no effect upon the
cries; no pendulum could be more regular.

"For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat by
the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking
on, before the elder said:

"'There is another patient.'

"I was startled, and asked, 'Is it a pressing case?'

"'You had better see,' he carelessly answered; and took up a light. *
* * *

"The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase,
which was a species of loft over a stable.  There was a low plastered
ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled
roof, and there were beams across.  Hay and straw were stored in that
portion of the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in
sand.  I had to pass through that part to get at the other.  My
memory is circumstantial and unshaken.  I try it with these details,
and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close
of the tenth year of my captivity, as I saw them all that night.

"On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay
a handsome peasant boy--a boy of not more than seventeen at the most.
He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on
his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward.  I could
not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him; but,
I could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point.

"'I am a doctor, my poor fellow,' said I.  'Let me examine it.'

'"I do not want it examined,' he answered; 'let it be.'

"It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand
away.  The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to
twenty-four hours before, but no skill could have saved him if it had
been looked to without delay.  He was then dying fast.  As I turned
my eyes to the elder brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome
boy whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare,
or rabbit; not at all as if he were a fellow-creature.

"'How has this been done, monsieur?' said I.

"'A crazed young common dog!  A serf!  Forced my brother to draw upon
him, and has fallen by my brother's sword--like a gentleman.'

"There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity in this
answer.  The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient
to have that different order of creature dying there, and that it
would have been better if he had died in the usual obscure routine of
his vermin kind.  He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling
about the boy, or about his fate.

"The boy's eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they
now slowly moved to me.

"'Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are
proud too, sometimes.  They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us;
but we have a little pride left, sometimes.  She--have you seen her,
Doctor?'

"The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the
distance.  He referred to them, as if she were lying in our presence.

"I said, 'I have seen her.'

"'She is my sister, Doctor.  They have had their shameful rights,
these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters, many years,
but we have had good girls among us.  I know it, and have heard my
father say so.  She was a good girl.  She was betrothed to a good
young man, too: a tenant of his.  We were all tenants of his--that
man's who stands there.  The other is his brother, the worst of a bad
race.'

"It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily
force to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis.

"'We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common
dogs are by those superior Beings--taxed by him without mercy,
obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his
mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops,
and forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own,
pillaged and plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a
bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters
closed, that his people should not see it and take it from us--I say,
we were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father
told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and
that what we should most pray for was, that our women might be barren
and our miserable race die out!'

"I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed bursting forth
like a fire.  I had supposed that it must be latent in the people
somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the
dying boy.

"'Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married.  He was ailing at that
time, poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend and
comfort him in our cottage--our dog-hut, as that man would call it.
She had not been married many weeks, when that man's brother saw her
and admired her, and asked that man to lend her to him--for what are
husbands among us!  He was willing enough, but my sister was good and
virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine.
What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his influence
with her, to make her willing?'

"The boy's eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the
looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was true.  The
two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even
in this Bastille; the gentleman's, all negligent indifference; the
peasant's, all trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge.

"'You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to
harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us.  They so harnessed him
and drove him.  You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in
their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their
noble sleep may not be disturbed.  They kept him out in the
unwholesome mists at night and ordered him back into his harness in
the day.  But he was not persuaded.  No!  Taken out of harness one
day at noon, to feed--if he could find food--he sobbed twelve times,
once for every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.'

"Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination
to tell all his wrong.  He forced back the gathering shadows of
death, as he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and
to cover his wound.

"'Then, with that man's permission and even with his aid, his brother
took her away; in spite of what I know she must have told his
brother--and what that is, will not be long unknown to you, Doctor,
if it is now--his brother took her away--for his pleasure and
diversion, for a little while.  I saw her pass me on the road.  When
I took the tidings home, our father's heart burst; he never spoke one
of the words that filled it.  I took my young sister (for I have
another) to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where, at
least, she will never be his vassal.  Then, I tracked the brother
here, and last night climbed in--a common dog, but sword in hand.--
Where is the loft window?  It was somewhere here?'

"The room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around
him.  I glanced about me, and saw that the hay and straw were
trampled over the floor, as if there had been a struggle.

"'She heard me, and ran in.  I told her not to come near us till he
was dead.  He came in and first tossed me some pieces of money; then
struck at me with a whip.  But I, though a common dog, so struck at
him as to make him draw.  Let him break into as many pieces as he
will, the sword that he stained with my common blood; he drew to
defend himself--thrust at me with all his skill for his life.'

"My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments of
a broken sword, lying among the hay.  That weapon was a gentleman's.
In another place, lay an old sword that seemed to have been a
soldier's.

"'Now, lift me up, Doctor; lift me up.  Where is he?'

"'He is not here,' I said, supporting the boy, and thinking that he
referred to the brother.

"'He!  Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me.  Where is
the man who was here?  Turn my face to him.'

"I did so, raising the boy's head against my knee.  But, invested for
the moment with extraordinary power, he raised himself completely:
obliging me to rise too, or I could not have still supported him.

"'Marquis,' said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened wide,
and his right hand raised, 'in the days when all these things are to
be answered for, I summon you and yours, to the last of your bad
race, to answer for them.  I mark this cross of blood upon you, as a
sign that I do it.  In the days when all these things are to be
answered for, I summon your brother, the worst of the bad race, to
answer for them separately.  I mark this cross of blood upon him, as
a sign that I do it.'

"Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his
forefinger drew a cross in the air.  He stood for an instant with the
finger yet raised, and as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid
him down dead. * * * *

"When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found her
raving in precisely the same order of continuity.  I knew that this
might last for many hours, and that it would probably end in the
silence of the grave.

"I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the side of
the bed until the night was far advanced.  She never abated the
piercing quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in the distinctness
or order of her words.  They were always 'My husband, my father, and
my brother!  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten, eleven, twelve.  Hush!'

"This lasted twenty-six hours from the time when I first saw her.  I
had come and gone twice, and was again sitting by her, when she began
to falter.  I did what little could be done to assist that
opportunity, and by-and-bye she sank into a lethargy, and lay like
the dead.

"It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a long and
fearful storm.  I released her arms, and called the woman to assist
me to compose her figure and the dress she had torn.  It was then
that I knew her condition to be that of one in whom the first
expectations of being a mother have arisen; and it was then that I
lost the little hope I had had of her.

"'Is she dead?' asked the Marquis, whom I will still describe as the
elder brother, coming booted into the room from his horse.

"'Not dead,' said I; 'but like to die.'

"'What strength there is in these common bodies!' he said, looking
down at her with some curiosity.

"'There is prodigious strength,' I answered him, 'in sorrow and
despair.'

"He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them.  He moved a
chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the woman away, and said in
a subdued voice,

"'Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these hinds, I
recommend that your aid should be invited.  Your reputation is high,
and, as a young man with your fortune to make, you are probably
mindful of your interest.  The things that you see here are things to
be seen, and not spoken of.'

"I listened to the patient's breathing, and avoided answering.

"'Do you honour me with your attention, Doctor?'

"'Monsieur,' said I, 'in my profession, the communications of
patients are always received in confidence.'  I was guarded in my
answer, for I was troubled in my mind with what I had heard and seen.

"Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully tried the
pulse and the heart.  There was life, and no more.  Looking round as
I resumed my seat, I found both the brothers intent upon me. * * * *

"I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am so
fearful of being detected and consigned to an underground cell and
total darkness, that I must abridge this narrative.  There is no
confusion or failure in my memory; I can recall, and could detail,
every word that was ever spoken between me and those brothers.

"She lingered for a week.  Toward the last, I could understand some
few syllables that she said to me, by placing my ear close to her
lips.  She asked me where she was, and I told her; who I was, and I
told her.  It was in vain that I asked her for her family name.  She
faintly shook her head upon the pillow and kept her secret, as the
boy had done.

"I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I had told
the brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live another day.
Until then, though no one was ever presented to her consciousness
save the woman and myself, one or the other of them had always
jealously sat behind the curtain at the head of the bed when I was
there.  But when it came to that, they seemed careless what
communication I might hold with her; as if--the thought passed
through my mind--I were dying too.

"I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the younger
brother's (as I call him) having crossed swords with a peasant, and
that peasant a boy.  The only consideration that appeared to affect
the mind of either of them was the consideration that this was highly
degrading to the family, and was ridiculous.  As often as I caught
the younger brother's eyes, their expression reminded me that he
disliked me deeply, for knowing what I knew from the boy.  He was
smoother and more polite to me than the elder; but I saw this.  I
also saw that I was an incumbrance in the mind of the elder, too.

"My patient died, two hours before midnight--at a time, by my watch,
answering almost to the minute when I had first seen her.  I was
alone with her, when her forlorn young head drooped gently on one
side, and all her earthly wrongs and sorrows ended.

"The brothers were waiting in a room downstairs, impatient to ride
away.  I had heard them, alone at the bedside, striking their boots
with their riding-whips, and loitering up and down.

"'At last she is dead?' said the elder, when I went in.

"'She is dead,' said I.

"'I congratulate you, my brother,' were his words as he turned round.

"He had before offered me money, which I had postponed taking.  He
now gave me a rouleau of gold.  I took it from his hand, but laid it
on the table.  I had considered the question, and had resolved to
accept nothing.

"'Pray excuse me,' said I.  'Under the circumstances, no.'

"They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent mine to
them, and we parted without another word on either side. * * * *

"I am weary, weary, weary--worn down by misery.  I cannot read what I
have written with this gaunt hand.

"Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my door in a
little box, with my name on the outside.  From the first, I had
anxiously considered what I ought to do.  I decided, that day, to
write privately to the Minister, stating the nature of the two cases
to which I had been summoned, and the place to which I had gone: in
effect, stating all the circumstances.  I knew what Court influence
was, and what the immunities of the Nobles were, and I expected that
the matter would never be heard of; but, I wished to relieve my own
mind.  I had kept the matter a profound secret, even from my wife;
and this, too, I resolved to state in my letter.  I had no
apprehension whatever of my real danger; but I was conscious that
there might be danger for others, if others were compromised by
possessing the knowledge that I possessed.

"I was much engaged that day, and could not complete my letter that
night.  I rose long before my usual time next morning to finish it.
It was the last day of the year.  The letter was lying before me just
completed, when I was told that a lady waited, who wished to see me.
* * * *

"I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have set myself.
It is so cold, so dark, my senses are so benumbed, and the gloom upon
me is so dreadful.

"The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not marked for long
life.  She was in great agitation.  She presented herself to me as
the wife of the Marquis St. Evrémonde.  I connected the title by
which the boy had addressed the elder brother, with the initial
letter embroidered on the scarf, and had no difficulty in arriving at
the conclusion that I had seen that nobleman very lately.

"My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the words of our
conversation.  I suspect that I am watched more closely than I was,
and I know not at what times I may be watched.  She had in part
suspected, and in part discovered, the main facts of the cruel story,
of her husband's share in it, and my being resorted to.  She did not
know that the girl was dead.  Her hope had been, she said in great
distress, to show her, in secret, a woman's sympathy.  Her hope had
been to avert the wrath of Heaven from a House that had long been
hateful to the suffering many.

"She had reasons for believing that there was a young sister living,
and her greatest desire was, to help that sister.  I could tell her
nothing but that there was such a sister; beyond that, I knew
nothing.  Her inducement to come to me, relying on my confidence, had
been the hope that I could tell her the name and place of abode.
Whereas, to this wretched hour I am ignorant of both. * * * *

"These scraps of paper fail me.  One was taken from me, with a
warning, yesterday.  I must finish my record to-day.

"She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in her marriage.
How could she be!  The brother distrusted and disliked her, and his
influence was all opposed to her; she stood in dread of him, and in
dread of her husband too.  When I handed her down to the door, there
was a child, a pretty boy from two to three years old, in her
carriage.

"'For his sake, Doctor,' she said, pointing to him in tears, 'I would
do all I can to make what poor amends I can.  He will never prosper
in his inheritance otherwise.  I have a presentiment that if no other
innocent atonement is made for this, it will one day be required of
him.  What I have left to call my own--it is little beyond the worth
of a few jewels--I will make it the first charge of his life to
bestow, with the compassion and lamentation of his dead mother, on
this injured family, if the sister can be discovered.'

"She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him, 'It is for thine own
dear sake.  Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles?'  The child
answered her bravely, 'Yes!'  I kissed her hand, and she took him in
her arms, and went away caressing him.  I never saw her more.

"As she had mentioned her husband's name in the faith that I knew it,
I added no mention of it to my letter.  I sealed my letter, and, not
trusting it out of my own hands, delivered it myself that day.

"That night, the last night of the year, toward nine o'clock, a man
in a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to see me, and softly
followed my servant, Ernest Defarge, a youth, up-stairs.  When my
servant came into the room where I sat with my wife--O my wife,
beloved of my heart!  My fair young English wife!--we saw the man,
who was supposed to be at the gate, standing silent behind him.

"An urgent case in the Rue St. Honoré, he said.  It would not detain
me, he had a coach in waiting.

"It brought me here, it brought me to my grave.  When I was clear of
the house, a black muffler was drawn tightly over my mouth from
behind, and my arms were pinioned.  The two brothers crossed the road
from a dark corner, and identified me with a single gesture.  The
Marquis took from his pocket the letter I had written, showed it me,
burnt it in the light of a lantern that was held, and extinguished
the ashes with his foot.  Not a word was spoken.  I was brought here,
I was brought to my living grave.

"If it had pleased God to put it in the hard heart of either of the
brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any tidings of my
dearest wife--so much as to let me know by a word whether alive or
dead--I might have thought that He had not quite abandoned them.
But, now I believe that the mark of the red cross is fatal to them,
and that they have no part in His mercies.  And them and their
descendants, to the last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy
prisoner, do this last night of the year 1767, in my unbearable
agony, denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered
for.  I denounce them to Heaven and to earth."



VIII

SILENCE*

LEONIDAS ANDREIYEFF

*Reprinted by permission of Nicholas L. Brown, Publisher.


I

One moonlight night in May, while the nightingales sang, Father
Ignatius' wife entered his chamber.  Her countenance expressed
suffering, and the little lamp she held in her hand trembled.
Approaching her husband, she touched his shoulder, and managed to say
between her sobs:

"Father, let us go to Verochka."

Without turning his head, Father Ignatius glanced severely at his
wife over the rims of his spectacles, and looked long and intently,
till she waved her unoccupied hand and dropped on a low divan.

"That one toward the other be so pitiless!" she pronounced slowly,
with emphasis on the final syllables, and her good plump face was
distorted with a grimace of pain and exasperation, as if in this
manner she wished to express what stern people they were--her husband
and daughter.

Father Ignatius smiled and arose.  Closing his book, he removed his
spectacles, placed them in the case, and meditated.  His long, black
beard, inwoven with silver threads, lay dignified on his breast, and
it slowly heaved at every deep breath.

"Well, let us go!" said he.

Olga Stepanovna quickly arose and entreated in an appealing, timid
voice:

"Only don't revile her, father!  You know the sort she is."

Vera's chamber was in the attic, and the narrow, wooden stair bent
and creaked under the heavy tread of Father Ignatius.  Tall and
ponderous, he lowered his head to avoid striking the floor of the
upper story, and frowned disdainfully when the white jacket of his
wife brushed his face.  Well he knew that nothing would come of their
talk with Vera.

"Why do you come?" asked Vera, raising a bared arm to her eyes.  The
other arm lay on top of a white summer blanket hardly distinguishable
from the fabric, so white, translucent, and cold was its aspect.

"Verochka!" began her mother, but sobbing, she grew silent.

"Vera!" said her father, making an effort to soften his dry and hard
voice.  "Vera, tell us, what troubles you?"

Vera was silent.

"Vera, do not we, your mother and I, deserve your confidence?  Do we
not love you?  And is there someone nearer to you than we?  Tell us
about your sorrow, and, believe me, you'll feel better for it.  And
we too.  Look at your aged mother, how much she suffers!"

"Verochka!"

"And I..."  The dry voice trembled, truly something had broken in it.
"And I ... do you think I find it easy?  As if I did not see that
some sorrow is gnawing at you--and what is it?  And I, your father,
do not know what it is.  Is it right that it should be so?"

Vera was silent.  Father Ignatius very cautiously stroked his beard,
as if afraid that his fingers would enmesh themselves involuntarily
in it, and continued:

"Against my wish you went to St. Petersburg--did I pronounce a curse
upon you, you who disobeyed me?  Or did I not give you money?  Or,
you'll say, I have not been kind?  Well, why then are you silent?
There, you've had your St. Petersburg!"

Father Ignatius became silent, and an image arose before him of
something huge, of granite, and terrible, full of invisible dangers
and strange and indifferent people.  And there, alone and weak, was
his Vera and there they had lost her.  An awful hatred against that
terrible and mysterious city grew in the soul of Father Ignatius, and
an anger against his daughter who was silent, obstinately silent.

"St. Petersburg has nothing to do with it," said Vera, morosely, and
closed her eyes.  "And nothing is the matter with me.  Better go to
bed, it is late."

"Verochka," whimpered her mother.  "Little daughter, do confess to
me."

"Akh, mamma!" impatiently Vera interrupted her.

Father Ignatius sat down on a chair and laughed.

"Well, then it's nothing?" he inquired, ironically.

"Father," sharply put in Vera, raising herself from the pillow, "you
know that I love you and mother.  Well, I do feel a little weary.
But that will pass.  Do go to sleep, and I also wish to sleep.  And
to-morrow, or some other time, we'll have a chat."

Father Ignatius impetuously arose so that the chair hit the wall, and
took his wife's hand.

"Let us go."

"Verochka!"

"Let us go, I tell you!" shouted Father Ignatius.  "If she has
forgotten God, shall we..."

Almost forcibly he led Olga Stepanovna out of the room, and when they
descended the stairs, his wife, decreasing her gait, said in a harsh
whisper:

"It was you, priest, who have made her such.  From you she learnt her
ways.  And you'll answer for it.  Akh, unhappy creature that I am!"

And she wept, and, as her eyes filled with tears, her foot, missing a
step, would descend with a sudden jolt, as if she were eager to fall
into some existent abyss below.

From that day Father Ignatus ceased to speak with his daughter, but
she seemed not to notice it.  As before she lay in her room, or
walked about, continually wiping her eyes with the palms of her hands
as if they contained some irritating foreign substance.  And crushed
between these two silent people, the jolly, fun-loving wife of the
priest quailed and seemed lost, not knowing what to say or do.

Occasionally Vera took a stroll.  A week following the interview she
went out in the evening, as was her habit.  She was not seen alive
again, as on this evening she threw herself under the train, which
cut her in two.

Father Ignatius himself directed the funeral.  His wife was not
present in church, as at the news of Vera's death she was prostrated
by a stroke.  She lost control of her feet, hands, and tongue, and
she lay motionless in the semi-darkened room when the church bells
rang out.  She heard the people, as they issued out of church and
passed the house, intone the chants, and she made an effort to raise
her hand, and to make a sign of the cross, but her hand refused to
obey; she wished to say: "Farewell, Vera!" but the tongue lay in her
mouth huge and heavy.  And her attitude was so calm, that it gave one
an impression of restfulness or sleep.  Only her eyes remained open.

At the funeral, in church, were many people who knew Father Ignatius,
and many strangers, and all bewailed Vera's terrible death, and tried
to find in the movements and voice of Father Ignatius tokens of a
deep sorrow.  They did not love Father Ignatius because of his
severity and proud manners, his scorn of sinners, for his unforgiving
spirit, his envy and covetousness, his habit of utilising every
opportunity to extort money from his parishioners.  They all wished
to see him suffer, to see his spirit broken, to see him conscious in
his two-fold guilt for the death of his daughter--as a cruel father
and a bad priest--incapable of preserving his own flesh from sin.
They cast searching glances at him, and he, feeling these glances
directed toward his back, made efforts to hold erect its broad and
strong expanse, and his thoughts were not concerning his dead
daughter, but concerning his own dignity.

"A hardened priest!" said, with a shake of his head, Karzenoff, a
carpenter, to whom Father Ignatius owed five roubles for frames.

And thus, hard and erect, Father Ignatius reached the burial ground,
and in the same manner he returned.  Only at the door of his wife's
chamber did his spine relax a little, but this may have been due to
the fact that the height of the door was inadequate to admit his tall
figure.  The change from broad daylight made it difficult for him to
distinguish the face of his wife, but, after scrutiny, he was
astonished at its calmness and because the eyes showed no tears.  And
there was neither anger, nor sorrow in the eyes--they were dumb, and
they kept silent with difficulty, reluctantly, as did the entire
plump and helpless body, pressing against the feather bedding.

"Well, how do you feel?" inquired Father Ignatius.

The lips, however, were dumb; the eyes also were silent.  Father
Ignatius laid his hand on her forehead; it was cold and moist, and
Olga Stepanovna did not show in any way that she had felt the hand's
contact.  When Father Ignatius removed his hand there gazed at him,
immobile, two deep grey eyes, seeming almost entirely dark from the
dilated pupils, and there was neither sadness in them, nor anger.

"I am going into my own room," said Father Ignatius, who began to
feel cold and terror.

He passed through the drawing-room, where everything appeared neat
and in order, as usual, and where, attired in white covers, stood
tall chairs, like corpses in their shrouds.  Over one window hung an
empty wire cage, with the door open.

"Nastasya!" shouted Father Ignatius, and his voice seemed to him
coarse, and he felt ill at ease because he raised his voice so high
in these silent rooms, so soon after his daughter's funeral.
"Nastasya!" he called out in a lower tone of voice, "where is the
canary?"

"She flew away, to be sure."

"Why did you let it out?"

Nastasya began to weep, and wiping her face with the edges of her
calico headkerchief, said through her tears:

"It was my young mistress's soul.  Was it right to hold it?"

And it seemed to Father Ignatius that the yellow, happy little
canary, always singing with inclined head, was really the soul of
Vera, and if it had not flown away it wouldn't have been possible to
say that Vera had died.  He became even more incensed at the
maid-servant, and shouted:

"Off with you!"

And when Nastasya did not find the door at once he added:

"Fool!"



II

From the day of the funeral silence reigned in the little house.  It
was not stillness, for stillness is merely the absence of sounds; it
was silence, because it seemed that they who were silent could say
something but would not.  So thought Father Ignatius each time he
entered his wife's chamber and met that obstinate gaze, so heavy in
its aspect that it seemed to transform the very air into lead, which
bore down one's head and spine.  So thought he, examining his
daughter's music sheets, which bore imprints of her voice, as well as
her books and her portrait, which she brought with her from St.
Petersburg.  Father Ignatius was accustomed to scrutinise the
portrait in established order: First, he would gaze on the cheek upon
which a strong light was thrown by the painter; in his fancy he would
see upon it a slight wound, which he had noticed on Vera's cheek in
death, and the source of which he could not understand.  Each time he
would meditate upon causes; he reasoned that if it was made by the
train the entire head would have been crushed, whereas the head of
Vera remained wholly untouched.  It was possible that someone did it
with his foot when the corpse was removed, or accidentally with a
finger nail.

To contemplate at length upon the details of Vera's death taxed the
strength of Father Ignatius, so that he would pass on to the eyes.
These were dark, handsome, with long lashes, which cast deep shadows
beneath, causing the whites to seem particularly luminous, both eyes
appearing to be inclosed in black, mourning frames.  A strange
expression was given them by the unknown but talented artist; it
seemed as if in the space between the eyes and the object upon which
they gazed there lay a thin, transparent film.  It resembled somewhat
the effect obtained by an imperceptible layer of dust on the black
top of a piano, softening the shine of polished wood.  And no matter
how Father Ignatius placed the portrait, the eyes insistently
followed him, but there was no speech in them, only silence; and this
silence was so clear that it seemed it could be heard.  And gradually
Father Ignatius began to think that he heard silence.

Every morning after breakfast Father Ignatius would enter the
drawing-room, throw a rapid glance at the empty cage and the other
familiar objects, and seating himself in the armchair would close his
eyes and listen to the silence of the house.  There was something
grotesque about this.  The cage kept silence, stilly and tenderly,
and in this silence were felt sorrow and tears, and distant dead
laughter.  The silence of his wife, softened by the walls, continued
insistent, heavy as lead, and terrible, so terrible that on the
hottest day Father Ignatius would be seized by cold shivers.
Continuous and cold as the grave, and mysterious as death, was the
silence of his daughter.  The silence itself seemed to share this
suffering and struggled, as it were, with the terrible desire to pass
into speech; however, something strong and cumbersome, as a machine,
held it motionless and stretched it out as a wire.  And somewhere at
the distant end, the wire would begin to agitate and resound
subduedly, feebly, and plaintively.  With joy, yet with terror,
Father Ignatius would seize upon this engendered sound, and resting
with his arms upon the arms of the chair, would lean his head
forward, awaiting the sound to reach him.  But the sound would break
and pass into silence.

"How stupid!" muttered Father Ignatius, angrily, arising from the
chair, still erect and tall.  Through the window he saw, suffused
with sunlight, the street, which was paved with round, even-sized
stones, and directly across, the stone wall of a long, windowless
shed.  On the corner stood a cab-driver, resembling a clay statue,
and it was difficult to understand why he stood there, when for hours
there was not a single passer-by.



III

Father Ignatius had occasion for considerable speech outside his
house.  There was talking to be done with the clergy, with the
members of his flock, while officiating at ceremonies, sometimes with
acquaintances at social evenings; yet, upon his return he would feel
invariably that the entire day he had been silent.  This was due to
the fact that with none of those people he could talk upon that
matter which concerned him most, and upon which he would contemplate
each night: Why did Vera die?

Father Ignatius did not seem to understand that now this could not be
known, and still thought it was possible to know.  Each night--all
his nights had become sleepless--he would picture that minute when he
and his wife, in dead midnight, stood near Vera's bed, and he
entreated her: "Tell us!"  And when in his recollection, he would
reach these words, the rest appeared to him not as it was in reality.
His closed eyes, preserving in their darkness a live and undimmed
picture of that night, saw how Vera raised herself in her bed, smiled
and tried to say something.  And what was that she tried to say?
That unuttered word of Vera's, which should have solved all, seemed
so near, that if one only had bent his ear and suppressed the beats
of his heart, one could have heard it, and at the same time it was so
infinitely, so hopelessly distant.  Father Ignatius would arise from
his bed, stretch forth his joined hands and, wringing them, would
exclaim:

"Vera!"

And he would be answered by silence.

One evening Father Ignatius entered the chamber of Olga Stepanovna,
whom he had not come to see for a week, seated himself at her head,
and turning away from that insistent, heavy gaze, said:

"Mother!  I wish to talk to you about Vera.  Do you hear?"

Her eyes were silent, and Father Ignatius raising his voice, spoke
sternly and powerfully, as he was accustomed to speak with penitents:

"I am aware that you are under the impression that I have been the
cause of Vera's death.  Reflect, however, did I love her less than
you loved her?  You reason absurdly.  I have been stern; did that
prevent her from doing as she wished?  I have forfeited the dignity
of a father, I humbly bent my neck, when she defied my malediction
and departed hence.  And you--did you not entreat her to remain,
until I commanded you to be silent.  Did I beget cruelty in her?  Did
I not teach her about God, about humility, about love?"

Father Ignatius quickly glanced into the eyes of his wife, and turned
away.

"What was there for me to do when she did not wish to reveal her
sorrow?  Did I not command her?  Did I not entreat her?  I suppose,
in your opinion, I should have dropped on my knees before the maid,
and cried like an old woman!  How should I know what was going on in
her head!  Cruel, heartless daughter!"

Father Ignatius hit his knees with his fist.

"There was no love in her--that's what!  As far as I'm concerned,
that's settled, of course--I'm a tyrant!  Perhaps she loved you--you,
who wept and humbled yourself?"

Father Ignatius gave a hollow laugh.

"There's love for you!  And as a solace for you, what a death she
chose!  A cruel, ignominious death.  She died in the dust, in the
dirt--as a d-dog who is kicked in the jaw."

The voice of Father Ignatius sounded low and hoarse:

"I feel ashamed!  Ashamed to go out in the street!  Ashamed before
the altar!  Ashamed before God!  Cruel, undeserving daughter!
Accurst in thy grave!"

When Father Ignatius glanced at his wife she was unconscious, and
revived only after several hours.  When she regained consciousness
her eyes were silent, and it was impossible to tell whether or not
she remembered what Father Ignatius had said.

That very night--it was a moonlit, calm, warm and deathly-still night
in May--Father Ignatius, proceeding on his tip-toes, so as not to be
overheard by his wife and the sick-nurse, climbed up the stairs and
entered Vera's room.  The window in the attic had remained closed
since the death of Verar and the atmosphere was dry and warm, with a
light odour of burning that comes from heat generated during the day
in the iron roof.  The air of lifelessness and abandonment permeated
the apartment, which for a long time had remained unvisited, and
where the timber of the walls, the furniture, and other objects gave
forth a slight odour of continued putrescence.  A bright streak of
moonlight fell on the window-sill, and on the floor, and, reflected
by the white, carefully washed boards, cast a dim light into the
room's corners, while the white, clean bed, with two pillows, one
large and one small, seemed phantom-like and aerial.  Father Ignatius
opened the window, causing to pour into the room a considerable
current of fresh air, smelling of dust, of the nearby river, and the
blooming linden.  An indistinct sound as of voices in chorus also
entered occasionally; evidently young people rowed and sang.

Quietly treading with naked feet, resembling a white phanton, Father
Ignatius made his way to the vacant bed, bent his knees and fell face
down on the pillows, embracing them--on that spot where should have
been Vera's face.  Long he lay thus; the song grew louder, then died
out; but he still lay there, while his long, black hair spread over
his shoulders and the bed.

The moon had changed its position, and the room grew darker, when
Father Ignatius raised his head and murmured, putting into his voice
the entire strength of his long-suppressed and unconscious love and
hearkening to his own words, as if it were not he who was listening,
but Vera.

"Vera, daughter mine!  Do you understand what you are to me,
daughter?  Little daughter!  My heart, my blood, and my life.  Your
father--your old father--is already grey, and also feeble."

The shoulders of Father Ignatius shook and the entire burdened figure
became agitated.  Suppressing his agitation, Father Ignatius murmured
tenderly, as to an infant:

"Your old father entreats you.  No, little Vera, he supplicates.  He
weeps.  He never has wept before.  Your sorrow, little child, your
sufferings--they are also mine.  Greater than mine."

Father Ignatius shook his head.

"Greater, Verochka.  What is death to an old man like me?  But
you--if you only knew how delicate and weak and timid you are!  Do
you recall how you bruised your finger once and the blood trickled
and you cried a little?  My child!  I know that you love me, love me
intensely.  Every morning you kiss my hand.  Tell me, do tell me,
what grief troubles your little head, and I--with these hands--shall
smother your grief.  They are still strong, Vera, these hands."

The hair of Father Ignatius shook.

"Tell me!"

Father Ignatius fixed his eyes on the wall, and wrung his hands.

"Tell me!"

Stillness prevailed in the room, and from afar was heard the
prolonged and broken whistle of a locomotive.

Father Ignatius, gazing out of his dilated eyes, as if there had
arisen suddenly before him the frightful phantom of the mutilated
corpse, slowly raised himself from his knees, and with a credulous
motion reached for his head with his hand, with spread and tensely
stiffened fingers.  Making a step toward the door, Father Ignatius
whispered brokenly:

"Tell me!"

And he was answered by silence.



IV

The next day, after an early and lonely dinner, Father Ignatius went
to the graveyard, the first time since his daughter's death.  It was
warm, deserted and still; it seemed more like an illumined night.
Following habit, Father Ignatius, with effort, straightened his
spine, looked severely about him, and thought that he was the same as
formerly; he was conscious neither of the new, terrible weakness in
his legs, nor that his long beard had become entirely white as if a
hard frost had hit it.  The road to the graveyard led through a long,
direct street, slightly on an upward incline, and at its termination
loomed the arch of the graveyard gate, resembling a dark, perpetually
open mouth, edged with glistening teeth.

Vera's grave was situated in the depth of the grounds, where the
sandy little pathways terminated, and Father Ignatius, for a
considerable time, was obliged to blunder along the narrow footpaths,
which led in a broken line between green mounds, by all forgotten and
abandoned.  Here and there appeared, green with age, sloping
tombstones, broken railings, and large, heavy stones planted in the
ground, and seemingly crushing it with some cruel, ancient spite.
Near one such stone was the grave of Vera.  It was covered with fresh
turf, turned yellow; around, however, all was in bloom.  Ash embraced
maple tree; and the widely spread hazel bush stretched out over the
grave its bending branches with their downy, shaggy foliage.  Sitting
down on a neighbouring grave and catching his breath, Father Ignatius
looked around him, throwing a glance upon the cloudless, desert sky,
where in complete immovability hung the glowing sun disk--and here he
only felt that deep, incomparable stillness which reigns in
graveyards, when the wind is absent and the slumbering foliage has
ceased its rustling.  And anew the thought came to Father Ignatius
that this was not a stillness but a silence.  It extended to the very
brick walls of the graveyard, crept over them and occupied the city.
And it terminated only--in those grey, obstinate and reluctantly
silent eyes.

Father Ignatius' shoulders shivered, and he lowered his eyes upon the
grave of Vera.  He gazed long upon the little tufts of grass uprooted
together with the earth from some open, wind-swept field and not
successful in adapting themselves to a strange soil; he could not
imagine that there, under this grass, only a few feet from him, lay
Vera.  And this nearness seemed incomprehensible and brought
confusion into the soul and a strange agitation.  She, of whom Father
Ignatius was accustomed to think of as one passed away forever into
the dark depths of eternity, was here, close by--and it was hard to
understand that she, nevertheless, was no more and never again would
be.  And in the mind's fancy of Father Ignatius it seemed that if he
could only utter some word, which was almost upon his lips, or if he
could make some sort of movement, Vera would issue forth from her
grave and arise to the same height and beauty that was once hers.
And not alone would she arise, but all corpses, intensely sensitive
in their solemnly-cold silence.

Father Ignatius removed his wide-brimmed black hat, smoothed down his
disarranged hair, and whispered:

"Vera!"

Father Ignatius felt ill at ease, fearing to be overheard by a
stranger, and stepping on the grave he gazed around him.  No one was
present, and this time he repeated loudly:

"Vera!"

It was the voice of an aged man, sharp and demanding, and it was
strange that a so powerfully expressed desire should remain without
answer.

"Vera!"

Loudly and insistently the voice called, and when it relapsed into
silence, it seemed for a moment that somewhere from underneath came
an incoherent answer.  And Father Ignatius, clearing his ear of his
long hair, pressed it to the rough, prickly turf.

"Vera, tell me!"

With terror, Father Ignatius felt pouring into his ear something cold
as of the grave, which froze his marrow; Vera seemed to be
speaking--speaking, however, with the same unbroken silence.  This
feeling became more racking and terrible, and when Father Ignatius
forced himself finally to tear away his head, his face was pale as
that of a corpse, and he fancied that the entire atmosphere trembled
and palpitated from a resounding silence, and that this terrible sea
was being swept by a wild hurricane.  The silence strangled him; with
icy waves it rolled through his head and agitated the hair; it smote
against his breast, which groaned under the blows.  Trembling from
head to foot, casting around him sharp and sudden glances, Father
Ignatius slowly raised himself and with a prolonged and torturous
effort attempted to straighten his spine and to give proud dignity to
his trembling body.  He succeeded in this.  With measured
protractiveness, Father Ignatius shook the dirt from his knees, put
on his hat, made the sign of the cross three times over the grave,
and walked away with an even and firm gait, not recognising, however,
the familiar burial ground and losing his way.

"Well, here I've gone astray!" smiled Father Ignatius, halting at the
branching of the footpaths.

He stood there for a moment, and, unreflecting turned to the left,
because it was impossible to stand and wait.  The silence drove him
on.  It arose from the green graves; it was the breath issuing from
the grey, melancholy crosses; in thin, stifling currents it came from
all pores of the earth, satiated with the dead.  Father Ignatius
increased his stride.  Dizzy, he circled the same paths, jumped over
graves, stumbled across railings, clutching with his hands the
prickly, metallic garlands, and tearing the soft material of his
dress into tatters.  His sole thought was to escape.  He fled from
one place to another, and finally broke into a dead run, seeming very
tall and unusual in the flowing cassock, with his hair streaming in
the wind.  A corpse arisen from the grave could not have frightened a
passer-by more than this wild figure of a man, running and leaping,
and waving his arms, his face distorted and insane, and the open
mouth breathing with a dull, hoarse sound.  With one long leap,
Father Ignatius landed on a little street, at one end of which
appeared the small church attached to the graveyard.  At the
entrance, on a low bench, dozed an old man, seemingly a distant
pilgrim, and near him, assailing each other, were two quarrelling old
beggar women, filling the air with their oaths.

When Father Ignatius reached his home, it was already dusk, and there
was light in Olga Stepanovna's chamber.  Not undressing and without
removing his hat, dusty and tattered, Father Ignatius approached his
wife and fell on his knees.  "Mother ... Olga ... have pity on me!"
he wept.  "I shall go mad."

He dashed his head against the edge of the table and he wept with
anguish, as one who was weeping for the first time.  Then he raised
his head, confident that a miracle would come to pass, that his wife
would speak and would pity him.

"My love!"

With his entire big body he drew himself toward his wife--and met the
gaze of those grey eyes.  There was neither compassion in them, nor
anger.  It was possible his wife had forgiven him, but in her eyes
there was neither pity, nor anger.  They were dumb and silent.

* * * * * * *

And silent was the entire dark, deserted house.



END





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