The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 6 of 6

As Rodolph pronounced this name he suddenly stopped and shuddered. The features of the prince assumed an expression of concentrated rage and hatred impossible to describe; mute and motionless he stood, as though crushed to the earth by the reflection that the murderer of his child was still in existence.

Spite of the increasing weakness of Sarah and the agitation caused by this interview with Rodolph, she was so much struck with his threatening aspect that she faintly exclaimed:

"In mercy say what fresh idea has taken possession of your mind?"

"No, no," responded Rodolph, as though speaking to himself; "till now I thought to spare this monster, believing a life of enforced charity would be to him one of never ending torment. Now I must revenge my infant child, delivered up by him to want and misery! I have to wash out the stain of my daughter's infamy, caused by his diabolical villainy and cupidity; and his blood alone will serve to wipe out that foul wrong! Yes, he dies – and by my hand!" And, with these words, the prince sprang forward to the door.

"Whither are you going?" cried Sarah, extending her supplicating hands towards Rodolph. "Oh, leave me not to die alone – "

"Alone? Oh, no! Fear not to die alone! The spectre of the innocent child, doomed by you to an early grave, will bear you company."

Exhausted and alarmed, Sarah uttered a scream, as though she really beheld the phantom of her child, exclaiming, "Forgive me! I am dying!"

"Die then, accursed woman!" shouted Rodolph, wild with fury. "Now I must have the life of your accomplice, for it was you who delivered your child to this monster!"

And hastening from the apartment, Rodolph ordered himself to be rapidly driven to the residence of Jacques Ferrand.

CHAPTER III

LOVE'S FRENZY

It was nightfall when Rodolph went to the notary's. The pavilion occupied by Jacques Ferrand was plunged in the deepest obscurity; the wind roared and the rain fell as it did on the terrible night when Cecily, before she quitted the notary's abode for ever, had excited the passions of that man to frenzy. Extended on his bed, feebly lighted up by a lamp, Jacques Ferrand was dressed in a black coat and waistcoat. One of the sleeves of his shirt was tucked up and spotted with blood; a ligature of red cloth, which was to be seen on his nervous arm, announced that he had been bled by Polidori, who, standing near his bed, leaned one hand on the couch, and seemed to watch his accomplice's features with uneasiness. Nothing could be more frightfully hideous than was Jacques Ferrand, whilst plunged in that somnolent torpor which usually succeeds violent crises. Of an ashy paleness, his face was bedewed with a cold sweat, and his closed eyelids were so swollen, so injected with blood, that they appeared like two red balls in the centre of his cadaverous countenance.

"Another such an attack and he is a dead man!" exclaimed Polidori, in a low voice. "All the writers on this subject have agreed that all who are attacked by this strange and frightful malady usually sink under it on the seventh day, and it is now six days since that infernal creole kindled the inextinguishable flame which is consuming this man." After some minutes of further meditation, Polidori left the bedside and walked slowly up and down the chamber.

The tempest was still raging without, and fell with such fury on this dilapidated house as to shake it to its centre. Despite his audacity and wickedness, Polidori was superstitious, and dark forebodings came over him; he felt an undefinable uneasiness. In order to dissipate his gloomy thoughts, he again examined Ferrand's features.

"Now," he said, leaning over him, "his eyelids are injected. It would seem as though his blood flowed thither and stagnated. No doubt his sight will now present, as his hearing did just now, some remarkable appearance! What agonies now they endure! How they vary! Oh," he added, with a bitter smile, "when nature determines on being cruel and playing the part of a tormentor, she defies all the efforts of man; and thus in this illness, caused by an erotic frenzy, she submits every sense to unheard-of, superhuman tortures."

The storm still howled without, and Polidori, throwing himself into an armchair, exclaimed, "What a night! What a night! Nothing could be worse for Jacques's present state. Yes," he continued, "the prince is pitiless, and it would have been a thousand times better for Ferrand to have allowed his head to fall upon a scaffold; better fire, the wheel, molten lead, which burns and eats into the flesh, than the miserable punishment he endures! As I see him suffer I begin to feel affright for my own fate! What will become of me? What is in reserve for me as the accomplice of Jacques? To be his gaoler will not suffice for the prince's vengeance. Perhaps a perpetual imprisonment in the prisons of Germany awaits me! But that is better than death! Yet I know that the prince's word is sacred! But I, who have so often violated all laws, human and divine, dare I invoke a sworn promise? Inasmuch as it was to my interest that Jacques should not escape, so will it be equally my interest to prolong his days. But his symptoms grow worse and worse; nothing but a miracle can save him. What is to be done? What is to be done?"

At this moment, a crash without, occasioned by the fall of a stack of chimneys, roused Jacques Ferrand, and he turned on his bed.

Polidori became more and more under the influence of the vague terror which had seized on him. "It is folly to believe in presentments," he said, in a troubled voice; "but the night seems to me very appalling!"

A heavy groan from the notary attracted Polidori's attention. "He is awaking from his torpor," he said, approaching his bed very quietly; "perhaps another crisis may ensue!"

"Polidori!" muttered Jacques Ferrand, still extended on the bed, and with his eyes closed. "Polidori, what noise was that?"

"A chimney that fell," replied Polidori, in a low voice, fearing to strike too loudly on the hearing of his accomplice. "A fearful tempest shakes the house to its foundation; it is a horrible night!"

The notary did not hear, and replied, turning away his head, "Polidori, you are not there, then?"

"Yes, yes, I am here," said Polidori, in a louder voice; "but I answered gently for fear of giving you pain."

"No; I hear you now without any pain such as I had just now, for then it seemed as if the least noise burst like thunder on my brain. And yet in the midst of it all, – of these horrible sufferings, – I distinguish the thrilling voice of Cecily, who was calling to me – "

"Still that infernal woman! But drive away these thoughts, – they will kill you."

"These thoughts are life to me, and, like my life, they resist all tortures."

"Madman that you are, it is these thoughts that cause your tortures! Your illness is your sensual frenzy, which has attained its utmost height. Once again, drive from your brain these thoughts or you will die."

"Drive away these thoughts!" cried Ferrand. "Oh, never, never! When my pains give me one moment's repose, Cecily, the demon whom I cherish and curse, rises before my eyes!"

"What incredible fury! It frightens me!"

"There, – now!" said the notary, with a harsh voice, and his eyes fixed on a dark corner of the room. "I see now the outline of an obscure and white form; there – there!" and he extended his hairy and bony finger in the direction of his sight. "There, – there she is!"

"Jacques, this is death to you!"

"Yes, I see her!" continued Ferrand, with his teeth clenched, and not replying to Polidori. "There she is! And how beautiful! How her black hair floats gracefully down her shoulders, and her small white teeth, shining between her half opened lips, – her lips so red and humid! What pearls! And how her black eyes sparkle and die! Cecily," he added, with inexpressible excitement, "I adore you!"

"Jacques, do not excite yourself with such visions!"

"It is not a vision."

"Mind, mind! Just now, you know, you imagined you heard this woman's love-songs, and your hearing was suddenly smitten with horrible agony. Mind, I say!"

"Leave me, – leave me! What is the use of hearing but to hear, of seeing but to see?"

"But the tortures which follow, miserable wretch!"

"I will brave them all for a deceit, as I have braved death for a reality; and to me this burning image is reality. Ah, Cecily, you are beautiful! Yet why torture me thus? Would you kill me? Ah, execrable fury, cease, – cease, or I will strangle thee!" cried the notary, in delirium.

"You kill yourself, unhappy man!" exclaimed Polidori, shaking the notary violently, in order to rouse him from his excitement. In vain; Jacques continued:

"Oh, beloved queen, demon of delight, never did I see – " The notary could not finish; he uttered a sudden cry of pain and threw himself back.

"What is it?" inquired Polidori, with astonishment.

"Put out that candle – it shines too brightly. I cannot endure it – it blinds me!"

"What!" said Polidori, more and more surprised. "There is but one lamp covered with its shade, and that shines very feebly."

"I tell you, the light increases here. Now, again – again! Oh, it is too much; it is intolerable!" added Jacques Ferrand, closing his eyes with an expression of increasing suffering.

"You are mad – the room is scarcely lighted. I tell you, open your eyes and you will see."

"Open my eyes! Why, I shall be blinded by torrents of burning light, with which this room is filled. Here! There! On all sides, there are rays of fire – millions of dazzling scintillations!" cried the notary, sitting up. And then again shrieking, he lifted both his hands to his eyes: "But I am blind; this burning fire is through my closed lids, – it burns – devours me! Ah, now my hands shield me a little! But put out the light, for it throws an infernal flame!"

"It is beyond doubt now!" said Polidori. "His sight is struck with the same excess of sensitiveness as his hearing was; he is a dead man! To bleed him in this state would at once destroy him."

A fresh cry ensued, sharp and terrible, from Jacques Ferrand, which resounded in the chamber.

"Villain, put out that lamp! Its glaring beams penetrate through my hands, which they make transparent. I see the blood circulate in the net of my veins, and I try in vain to close my eyelids, for the burning lava will flow in. Oh, what torture! There are gushes as dazzling as if some one were thrusting a red-hot iron into my eyes. Help, help!" he shrieked, twisting himself on his bed, a prey to the horrible convulsions of his extreme agony.

Polidori, alarmed at the excess of this fresh fit, suddenly extinguished the lamp, and they were both in perfect darkness. At this moment the noise of a carriage was heard at the door in the street. When the chamber had been rendered entirely dark in which Polidori and Ferrand were, the latter was somewhat relieved from his extreme pains.

"Where are you going?" said Polidori, suddenly, when he heard Jacques Ferrand rise, for the deepest obscurity reigned in the apartment.

"I am going to find Cecily!"

"You shall not go; the sight of that room would kill you!"

"Cecily awaits me up there!"

"You shall not go – I will prevent you!" said Polidori, seizing the notary by the arm.

Jacques Ferrand having reached the extremity of exhaustion, was unable to contend with Polidori, who grasped him with a powerful clutch. "What, would you prevent me from seeking Cecily?"

"Yes; and besides, there is a lamp in the next room, and you know what an effect light so recently produced on your sight!"

"Cecily is up above; she is waiting for me, and I would cross a red-hot furnace to rejoin her. Let me go! She called me her old tiger; mind you, then, for my claws are sharp!"

"You shall not go! I will sooner tie you down to your bed like a furious madman!"

"Listen, Polidori! I am not mad – I am perfectly in my senses. I know that Cecily is not really up there; but to me the phantoms of my imagination are equal to realities."

"Silence!" cried Polidori, suddenly, and listening. "I just now thought I heard a carriage stop at the door – and I was not mistaken! Now I hear a sound of voices in the courtyard."

"You want to deceive me," said Jacques; "but I am not so easily deceived."

"But, unhappy man, listen – listen! Don't you hear?"

"Let me go! Cecily is up-stairs; she calls me. Do not make me furious! And now I say to you, mind – beware!"

"You shall not go out!"

"Take care!"

"You shall not go out. It is for my interest that you should remain."

"You would hinder me from seeking Cecily, and it is my interest that you should die. There – there!" said the notary, in a gloomy tone.

Polidori uttered a cry. "Wretch! You have stabbed me in the arm. But your hand was weak – the wound is slight – and you shall not escape me."

"Your wound is mortal, for it was given by the poisoned stiletto of Cecily, which I always carried about me. Await the effects of its poison – Ah! You release me! Then now you are about to die! I was not to be hindered from going up above to find Cecily!" added Jacques, endeavouring to grope his way in darkness to the door.

"Oh," murmured Polidori, "my arm becomes benumbed – a deathlike coldness seizes on me – my knees tremble under me – my blood freezes in my veins – my head whirls around. Help, help! I die!" And he fainted.

The crash of glass doors, opened with so much violence that several panes of glass were broken to atoms, the resounding voice of Rodolph, and the noise of hastily approaching steps, seemed to reply to Polidori's cry of anguish.

Jacques Ferrand having at length discovered the lock of the door, opened it suddenly, with his dangerous stiletto in his hand. At the same instant, as menacing and formidable as the genius of vengeance, the prince entered the apartment from the other side.

"Monster!" he exclaimed, advancing towards Jacques Ferrand, "it was my daughter whom you have killed! You are going – " The prince could not conclude, but recoiled in amazement.

It would seem as if his words had been a thunderbolt to Ferrand, for, casting away his dagger, and raising both his hands to his eyes, the unhappy wretch fell with his face to the ground, uttering a cry that was scarcely human.

To complete the phenomenon which we have attempted to describe, and the action which profound obscurity had suspended, when Jacques Ferrand entered the apartment so brilliantly lighted up, he was struck with an overwhelming vertigo, just as though he had been suddenly cast into the midst of a torrent of light as blazing as the disk of the sun. It was a fearful spectacle to see the agony of this man, who was twisting in convulsions, tearing the floor with his nails, as if he would have dug himself a hole to escape from the atrocious tortures occasioned by this powerful light. Rodolph, one of his servants, and the porter of the house, who had been compelled to guide the prince hither, were struck with horror.

In spite of his just hatred, Rodolph felt a pity for the unheard-of sufferings of Jacques Ferrand, and desired that he should be laid on the sofa. This was not effected without difficulty, for, from fear of being subjected to the direst influence of the lamp, the notary struggled violently; and when his face was covered with the full glare of the light, he uttered another shriek, – a shriek which chilled Rodolph with terror. After fresh and long torture, the phenomenon ceased by its very violence. Having reached the last bounds of suffering without death following, the visual torment ceased; but, according to the regular course of the malady, a delirious excitement followed the crisis. Jacques Ferrand became suddenly as stiffened in frame as an epileptic; his eyelids, until then obstinately closed, suddenly opened, and, instead of avoiding the light, his eyes fixed themselves on it immovably, the pupils, in a state of extraordinary dilation and fixedness, seeming phosphorescent and internally lighted up. He appeared plunged in a kind of ecstatic contemplation; his body and limbs remained at first in a state of complete immobility, his features being agitated by nervous twitches and spasms. His hideous countenance, thus contracted and twisted, had no longer any human appearance; and it appeared as if the appetites of the animal, by stifling the intelligence of the man, impressed on the features of this wretch a character absolutely bestial. Having attained the mortal point of his madness, he remembered in his delirium the words of Cecily, who had called him her tiger; gradually his reason forsook him, and he imagined he was a tiger. His half uttered, breathless words displayed the disorder of his brain, and the singular aberration that had seized on him. Gradually his limbs, until then stiff and motionless, extended; he fell from the sofa, and tried to rise and walk, but his strength failed him; and he was compelled now to crawl like a reptile, and now to drag himself along on his hands and knees, – going, coming, this way and that way, as his visions impelled or obtained possession of him. Crouched in one of the corners of the room, like a tiger in his den, his hoarse and furious cries, his grinding of teeth, the convulsive twistings of the muscles of his face and brows, and his ardent gaze, gave him a wild and frightful resemblance to this ferocious brute.

"Tiger – tiger – tiger – that I am!" he said, in a harsh voice, and gathering himself into a heap. "Yes, tiger! What blood! In my cavern what rent carcasses – La Goualeuse – the brother of this widow – a small child, Louise's baby, – these are the carcasses, and my tigress Cecily will have her share." Then looking at his torn fingers, the nails of which had grown immensely during his illness, he added, in broken language, "Oh, my sharp nails – sharp and keen! An old tiger I am, but agile, strong, and bold; no one dares dispute my tigress Cecily with me. Ah, she calls – she calls!" he said, advancing his hideous visage and listening.

After a moment's silence he huddled himself against the wall again and continued: "No! I thought I had heard her; but she is not there. Yet I see her; oh, yes, always – always! Ah, there she is! She calls me; she roars – roars down there! I'm here – I'm here!" and Ferrand dragged himself towards the centre of the room on his hands and knees. Although his strength was exhausted, he made a convulsive leap from time to time, then paused, and listened attentively. "Where is she? I approach – she goes away. Cecily, here is your old tiger!" he cried, as, with a last effort, he arose and balanced himself on his knees. Suddenly falling back with affright, his body bending on his heels, his hair on end, his look haggard, his mouth twisted with terror, his two hands extended, he seemed to struggle with desperation with some invisible object, uttering incoherent words, and exclaiming, in broken tones, "What a bite! Help! My hands are powerless; I cannot drive away these sharp teeth! No, no! Oh! Not such eyes! Help! A serpent – a black snake – with its flat head and fiery eyes. How it looks at me! It is the fiend! Ah, he knows me – Jacques Ferrand – at church – the pious man – always at church! Go, go – cross yourself!" And the notary, raising himself a little, and leaning with one hand on the floor, endeavoured to cross himself with the other. His livid brow was bathed in cold sweat, his eyes began to lose their transparency and become dim, all the symptoms of approaching death manifested themselves.

Rodolph and the other witnesses of the scene remained as motionless and mute as if they had been under the effect of a frightful dream.

"Oh!" continued Jacques Ferrand, still half stretched on the floor, and supporting himself by one hand, "the demon vanishes. I am going to church – I am a holy man – I pray! What, no one will know it? Do you think so? No, no, tempter – be quite sure! Well, let them come – these women – all! Yes, all – if no one finds it out! But the secret!" he continued, in a tone of exhaustion, "the secret! Ah, here they are! Three! What says this one? – I am Louise Morel! Oh, yes – Louise Morel; I know it! I am only one of the people! You think me handsome? Here – take her! What does she bring me? – her head cut off by the executioner! It looks at me, that head of death! It speaks! The livid lips move and say, 'Come – come – come!' I will not – I will not! Demon, leave me! Go – go – go! And this other woman? – ah, beautiful, beautiful! – Jacques, I am the Duchesse de Lucenay. See my angelic figure, – my smile, – my bold glance! Come, come! Yes, I come. But wait! And who is this one who turns away her face? Oh, Cecily – Cecily! Yes, Jacques, 'tis Cecily! You see the three Graces, – Louise, the duchess, and myself. Choose! Beauty of the people, patrician beauty, the savage beauty of the tropics, – and hell with us! Come – come! Hell with you? Yes!" shrieked Jacques Ferrand, again rising on his knees, and extending his arms to seize these phantoms.

This last effort was followed by a mortal throe, and he fell back again stiff and lifeless; his eyes starting from their orbits, whilst fierce convulsions were visible on his features, unnaturally distorted; a bloody foam on his lips; his voice hoarse and strangling, like that of a person in hydrophobia, for, in its last paroxysm, this fearful malady shows the same symptoms as madness. The breath of this monster was extinguished in the midst of a final and horrible vision, for he stammered forth these words, "Black night! – black spectres! – skeletons of brass, red-hot with fire! Unfold me! Their burning fingers make my flesh smoke; my marrow is scorched! Fleshless, horrid spectre! No – no! Cecily – fire – flame – agony – Cecily!"

These were Jacques Ferrand's last words, and Rodolph left the place overcome with horror.

CHAPTER IV

THE HOSPITAL

It will be remembered that Fleur-de-Marie, saved by La Louve, had been conveyed not far from the Isle du Ravageur to the country-house of Doctor Griffon, one of the surgeons of the hospital, to whom we shall now introduce the reader. This learned doctor, who had obtained from high influence his position in the hospital, considered the wards as a kind of school of experiments, where he tried on the poor the remedies and applications which he afterwards used with his rich clients.

These terrible experiments were, indeed, a human sacrifice made on the altar of science; but Doctor Griffon did not think of that. In the eyes of this prince of science, as they say in our days, the hospital patients were only a matter of study and experiment; and as, after all, there resulted from his essays occasionally a useful fact or a discovery acquired by science, the doctor showed himself as ingenuously satisfied and triumphant as a general after a victory which has been costly in soldiers.

Nothing could be more melancholy than the sombre appearance of the vast ward of the hospital, into which we now introduce the reader. The length of its high, dark walls, pierced here and there with grated windows like those of a prison, was filled with two rows of beds parallel, and faintly lighted by the sepulchral glare of a lamp hanging from the ceiling. The atmosphere is so nauseous, so heavy, that the fresh patients frequently did not become accustomed to it without danger, and this increase of suffering is a sort of tax which every newcomer invariably pays for his miserable sojourn in the hospital. In one of the beds was the corpse of a patient who had just died.

Amongst the females who did not sleep, and who had been present whilst the priest performed the last rites with the dying woman, were three persons whose names have been already mentioned in this history, – Mlle. de Fermont, the daughter of the unfortunate widow ruined by the cupidity of Jacques Ferrand; La Lorraine, the poor laundress, to whom Fleur-de-Marie had formerly given the small sum of money she had left; and Jeanne Duport, the sister of Pique-Vinaigre.

La Lorraine was a woman about twenty, with mild and regular features, but extremely pale and thin; she was consumptive to the last degree, and there was no hope of saving her. She was aware of her condition, and was slowly dying.

"There is another gone!" said La Lorraine, in a faint voice, and speaking to herself. "She will suffer no more; she is very happy!"

"She is very happy if she has no children!" added Jeanne.

"Aren't you asleep, neighbour?" asked La Lorraine. "How are you after your first night here? Last night, when you came in, they made you go to bed directly, and I dared not speak to you, because I heard you sob so."