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Balsamo, the Magician; or, The Memoirs of a Physician
The host shrank back in fright or stupefaction.
"This is magic," he gasped; "you would have been burnt at the stake a hundred years ago, my dear guest. I seem to smell brimstone!"
"My dear baron, note that a true magician is never burnt or hanged. Only fools are led to the gibbet or pyre. But here is your daughter sent to sleep by our discussions on metaphysics and occult sciences, not calculated to interest a lady."
Indeed, Andrea nodded under irresistible force like a lily on the stalk. At these words she made an effort to repel the subtle fluid which overwhelmed her; she shook her head energetically, rose and tottered out of the room, sustained by Nicole. At the same time disappeared the face glued so often to the window glass on the outside, which Balsamo had recognized as Gilbert's.
"Eureka!" exclaimed Balsamo triumphantly, as she vanished. "I can say it like Archimedes."
"Who is he?" inquired the baron.
"A very good fellow for a wizard, whom I knew over two thousand years ago," replied the guest.
Whether the baron thought this boast rather too preposterous, or he did not hear it, or hearing it, wanted the more to be rid of his odd guest, he proposed lending him a horse to get to the nearest posting house.
"What, force me to ride when I am dying to stretch my legs in bed? Do not exaggerate your mediocrity so as to make me believe in a personal ill will."
"On the contrary, I treat you as a friend, knowing what you will incur here. But since you put it this way, remain. Labrie, is the Red-Room habitable?"
"Certainly, my lord, as it is Master Philip's when he is here."
"Give it to the gentleman, since he is bent on being disgusted with Taverney."
"I want to be here to-morrow to testify to my gratitude."
"You can do that easily, as you are so friendly with Old Nick that you can ask him for the stone which turns all things to gold."
"If that is what you want, apply to me direct."
"Labrie, you old rogue, get a candle and light the gentleman to bed," said the baron, beginning to find such a dialogue dangerous at the late hour.
Labrie ordered Nicole to air the Red Room while he hastened to obey. Nicole left Andrea alone, the latter eager for the solitude to nurse her thoughts. Taverney bade the guest good-night, and went to bed.
Balsamo took out his watch, for he recalled his promise to awake Althotas after two hours, and it was a half-hour more. He asked the servant if his coach was still out in the yard, and Labrie answered in the affirmative – unless it had run off of its own volition. As for Gilbert, he had been abed most likely since an hour.
Balsamo went to Althotas after studying the way to the Red Room. Labrie was tidying up the sordid apartment, after Nicole had aired it, when the guest returned.
He had paused at Andrea's room to listen at her door to her playing on the harpsichord to dispel the burden of the influence the stranger had imposed upon her. In a while he waved his hands as in throwing a magic spell, and so it was, for Andrea slowly stopped playing, let her hands drop by her sides, and turned rigidly and slowly toward the door, like one who obeys an influence foreign to will.
Balsamo smiled in the darkness as though he could see through the panels. This was all he wanted to do, for he groped for the banister rail, and went up stairs to his room.
As he departed, Andrea turned away from the door and resumed playing, so that the mesmerist heard the air again from where she had been made to leave off.
Entering the Red Room, he dismissed Labrie; but the latter lingered, feeling in the depths of his pocket till at last he managed to say:
"My lord, you made a mistake this evening, in giving me gold for the piece of silver you intended."
Balsamo looked on the old servingman with admiration, showing that he had not a high opinion of the honesty of most men.
"'And honest,'" he muttered in the words of Hamlet, as he took out a second gold coin to place it beside the other in the old man's hand.
The latter's delight at this splendid generosity may be imagined, for he had not seen so much gold in twenty years. He was retiring, bowing to the floor, when the donor checked him.
"What are the morning habits of the house?" he asked.
"My lord stays abed late, my lord; but Mademoiselle Andrea is up betimes, about six."
"Who sleeps overhead?"
"I, my lord; but nobody beneath, as the vestibule is under us."
"Oh, by the way, do not be alarmed if you see a light in my coach, as an old impotent servant inhabits it. Ask Master Gilbert to let me see him in the morning."
"Is my lord going away so soon?"
"It depends," replied Balsamo, with a smile. "I ought to be at Bar-le-Duc tomorrow evening."
Labrie sighed with resignation, and was about to set fire to some old papers to warm the room, which was damp and there was no wood, when Balsamo stayed him.
"No, let them be; I might want to read them, for I may not sleep."
Balsamo went to the door to listen to the servant's departing steps making the stairs creak till they sounded overhead; Labrie was in his own room. Then he went to the window. In the other wing was a lighted window, with half-drawn curtains, facing him. Legay was leisurely taking off her neckerchief, often peeping down into the yard.
"Striking resemblance," muttered the baron.
The light went out though the girl had not gone to rest. The watcher stood up against the wall. The harpsichord still sounded, with no other noise. He opened his door, went down stairs with caution, and opened the door of Andrea's sitting-room.
Suddenly she stopped in the melancholy strain, although she had not heard the intruder. As she was trying to recall the thrill which had mastered her, it came anew. She shivered all over. In the mirror she saw movement. The shadow in the doorway could only be her father or a servant. Nothing more natural.
But she saw with spiritual eyes that it was none of these.
"My lord," she faltered, "in heaven's name, what want you?"
It was the stranger, in the black velvet riding coat, for he had discarded his silken suit, in which a mesmerist cannot well work his power.
She tried to rise, but could not; she tried to open her mouth to scream, but with a pass of both hands Balsamo froze the sound on her lips.
With no strength or will, Andrea let her head sink on her shoulder.
At this juncture Balsamo believed he heard a noise at the window. Quickly turning, he caught sight of a man's face beyond. He frowned, and, strangely enough, the same impression flitted across the medium's face.
"Sleep!" he commanded, lowering the hands he had held above her head with a smooth gesture, and persevering in filling her with the mesmeric fluid in crushing columns. "I will you to sleep."
All yielded to this mighty will. Andrea leaned her elbow on the musical-instrument case, her head on her hand, and slept.
The mesmerist retired backward, drew the door to, and went back to his room. As soon as the door closed, the face he had seen reappeared at the window; it was Gilbert's.
Excluded from the parlor by his inferior position in Taverney Castle, he had watched all the persons through the evening whose rank allowed them to figure in it. During the supper he had noticed Baron Balsamo gesticulate and smile, and his peculiar attention bestowed on the lady of the house; the master's unheard-of affability to him, and Labrie's respectful eagerness.
Later on, when they rose from table, he hid in a clump of lilacs and snowballs, for fear that Nicole, closing the blinds or in going to her room, should catch him eavesdropping.
But Gilbert had other designs this evening than spying. He waited, without clearly knowing for what. When he saw the light in the maid's window, he crossed the yard on tiptoe and crouched down in the gloom to peer in at the window at Andrea playing the harpsichord.
This was the moment when the mesmerist entered the room.
At this sight, Gilbert started and his ardent gaze covered the magician and his victim.
But he imagined that Balsamo complimented the lady on her musical talent, to which she replied with her customary coldness; but he had persisted with a smile so that she suspended her practice and answered. He admired the grace with which the visitor retired.
Of all the interview which he fancied he read aright, he had understood nothing, for what really happened was in the mind, in silence.
However keen an observer he was, he could not divine a mystery, where everything had passed quite naturally.
Balsamo gone, Gilbert remained, not watching, but contemplating Andrea, lovely in her thoughtful pose, till he perceived with astonishment that she was slumbering. When convinced of this, he grasped his head between his hands like one who fears his brain will burst from the overflow of emotions.
"Oh, to kiss her hand!" he murmured, in a gush of fury. "Oh, Gilbert, let us approach her – I so long to do it."
Hardly had he entered the room than he felt the importance of his intrusion. The timid if not respectful son of a farmer to dare to raise his eyes on that proud daughter of the peers. If he should touch the hem of her dress she would blast him with a glance.
The floor boards creaked under his wary tread, but she did not move, though he was bathed in cold perspiration.
"She sleeps – oh, happiness, she sleeps!" he panted, drawing with irresistible attraction within a yard of the statue, of which he took the sleeve and kissed it.
Holding his breath, slowly he raised his eyes, seeking hers. They were wide open, but still saw not. Intoxicated by the delusion that she expected his visit and her silence was consent, her quiet a favor, he lifted her hand to his lips and impressed a long and feverish kiss.
She shuddered and repulsed him.
"I am lost!" he gasped, dropping the hand and beating the floor with his forehead.
Andrea rose as though moved by a spring under her feet, passed by Gilbert, crushed by shame and terror and with no power to crave pardon, and proceeded to the door. With high-held head and outstretched neck, as if drawn by a secret power toward an invisible goal, she opened the door and walked out on the landing.
The youth rose partly and watched her take the stairs. He crawled after her, pale, trembling and astonished.
"She is going to tell the baron and have me scourged out of the house – no, she goes up to where the guest is lodged. For she would have rung, or called, if she wanted Labrie."
He clenched his fists at the bare idea that Andrea was going into the strange gentleman's room. All this seemed monstrous. And yet that was her end.
That door was ajar. She pushed it open without knocking; the lamplight streamed on her pure profile and whirled golden reflections into her wildly open eyes.
In the center of the room Gilbert saw the baron standing, with fixed gaze and wrinkled brow, and his hand extended in gesture of command, ere the door swung to.
Gilbert's forces failed him; he wheeled round on the stairs, clinging to the rail, but slid down, with his eyes fastened to the last on the cursed panel, behind which was sealed up all his vanished dream, present happiness and future hope.
CHAPTER VI
THE CLAIRVOYANT
Balsamo had gone up to the young lady, whose appearance in his chamber was not strange to him.
"I bade you sleep. Do you sleep?"
Andrea sighed and nodded with an effort.
"It is well. Sit here," and he led her by the hand the youth had kissed to a chair, which she took.
"Now, see!"
Her eyes dilated as though to collect all the luminous rays in the room.
"I did not tell you to see with your eyes," said he, "but with those of the soul."
He touched her with a steel rod which he drew from under his waistcoat. She started as though a fiery dart had transfixed her and her eyes closed instantly; her darkening face expressed the sharpest astonishment.
"Tell me where you are."
"In the Red Room, with you, and I am ashamed and afraid."
"What of? Are we not in sympathy, and do you not know that my intentions are pure, and that I respect you like a sister?"
"You may not mean evil to me, but it is not so as regards others."
"Possibly," said the magician; "but do not heed that," he added in a tone of command. "Are all asleep under this roof?"
"All, save my father who is reading one of those bad books, which he pesters me to read, but I will not."
"Good; we are safe in that quarter. Look where Nicole is."
"She is in her room, in the dark, but I need not the light to see that she is slipping out of it to go and hide behind the yard door to watch."
"To watch you?"
"No."
"Then, it matters not. When a girl is safe from her father and her attendant, she has nothing to fear, unless she is in love – "
"I, love?" she said sneeringly. And shaking her head, she added sadly: "My heart is free."
Such an expression of candor and virginal modesty embellished her features that Balsamo radiantly muttered:
"A lily – a pupil – a seer!" clasping his hands in delight. "But, without loving, you may be loved?"
"I know not; and yet, since I returned from school, a youth has watched me, and even now he is weeping at the foot of the stairs."
"See his face!"
"He hides it in his hands."
"See through them."
"Gilbert!" she uttered with an effort. "Impossible that he would presume to love me!"
Balsamo smiled at her deep disdain, like one who knew that love will leap any distance.
"What is he doing now?"
"He puts down his hands, he musters up courage to mount hither – no, he has not the courage – he flees."
She smiled with scorn.
"Cease to look that way. Speak of the Baron of Taverney. He is too poor to give you any amusements?"
"None."
"You are dying of tedium here; for you have ambition?"
"No."
"Love for your father?"
"Yes; though I bear him a grudge for squandering my mother's fortune so that poor Redcastle pines in the garrison and cannot wear our name handsomely."
"Who is Redcastle?"
"My brother Philip is called the Knight of Redcastle from a property of the eldest son, and will wear it till father's death entitles him to be 'Taverney.'"
"Do you love your brother?"
"Dearly, above all else; because he has a noble heart, and would give his life for me."
"More than your father would. Where is Redcastle?"
"At Strasburg in the garrison; no, he has gone – oh, dear Philip!" continued the medium with sparkling eyes in joy. "I see him riding through a town I know. It is Nancy, where I was at the convent school. The torches round him light up his darling face."
"Why torches?" asked Balsamo in amaze.
"They are around him on horseback, and a handsome gilded carriage."
Balsamo appeared to have a guess at this, for he only said:
"Who is in the coach?"
"A lovely, graceful, majestic woman, but I seem to have seen her before – how strange! no, I am wrong – she looks like our Nicole; but as the lily is like the jessamine. She leans out of the coach window and beckons Philip to draw near. He takes his hat off with respect as she orders him, with a smile, to hurry on the horses. She says that the escort must be ready at six in the morning, as she wishes to take a rest in the daytime – oh, it is at Taverney that she means to stop. She wants to see my father! So grand a princess stop at our shabby house! What shall we do without linen or plate?"
"Be of good cheer. We will provide all that."
"Oh, thank you!"
The girl, who had partly risen, fell back in the chair, uttering a profound sigh.
"Regain your strength," said the magician, drawing the excess of magnetism from the beautiful body, which bent as if broken, and the fair head heavily resting on the heaving bosom. "I shall require all your lucidity presently. O, Science! you alone never deceive man. To none other ought man sacrifice his all. This is a lovely woman, a pure angel as Thou knowest who created angels. But what is this beauty and this innocence to me now? – only worth what information they afford. I care not though this fair darling dies, as long as she tells me what I seek. Let all worldly delights perish – love, passion and ecstasy, if I may tread the path surely and well lighted. Now, maiden, that, in a few seconds, my power has given you the repose of ages, plunge once more into your mesmeric slumber. This time, speak for myself alone."
He made the passes which replaced Andrea in repose. From his bosom he drew the folded paper containing the tress of black hair, from which the perfume had made the paper transparent. He laid it in Andrea's hand, saying:
"See!"
"Yes, a woman!"
"Joy!" cried Balsamo. "Science is not a mere name like virtue. Mesmer has vanquished Brutus. Depict this woman, that I may recognize her."
"Tall, dark, but with blue eyes, her hair like this, her arms sinewy."
"What is she doing?"
"Racing as though carried off on a fine black horse, flecked with foam. She takes the road yonder to Chalons."
"Good! my own road," said Balsamo. "I was going to Paris, and there we shall meet. You may repose now," and he took back the lock of hair.
Andrea's arms fell motionless again along her body.
"Recover strength, and go back to your harpsichord," said the mesmerist, enveloping her, as she rose, with a fresh supply of magnetism.
Andrea acted like the racehorse which overtaxes itself to accomplish the master's will, however unfair. She walked through the doorway, where he had opened the door, and, still asleep, descended the stairs slowly.
CHAPTER VII
THE MAID AND THE MISTRESS
Gilbert had passed this time in unspeakable anguish. Balsamo was but a man, but he was a strong one, and the youth was weak: He had attempted twenty times to mount to the assault of the guest room, but his trembling limbs gave way under him and he fell on his knees.
Then the idea struck him to get the gardener's ladder and by its means climb up outside to the window, and listen and spy. But as he stooped to pick up this ladder, lying on the grass where he remembered, he heard a rustling noise by the house, and he turned.
He let the ladder fall, for he fancied he saw a shade flit across the doorway. His terror made him believe it, not a ghost – he was a budding philosopher who did not credit them – but Baron Taverney. His conscience whispered another name, and he looked up to the second floor. But Nicole had put out her light, and not another, or a sound came from all over the house – the guest's room excepted.
Seeing and hearing nothing, convinced that he had deluded himself, Gilbert took up the ladder and had set foot on it to climb where he placed it, when Andrea came down from Balsamo's room. With a lacerated heart, Gilbert forgot all to follow her into the parlor where again she sat at the instrument; her candle still burned beside it.
Gilbert tore his bosom with his nails to think that here he had kissed the hem of her robe with such reverence. Her condescension must spring from one of those fits of corruption recorded in the vile books which he had read – some freak of the senses.
But as he was going to invade the room again, a hand came out of the darkness and energetically grasped him by the arm.
"So I have caught you, base deceiver! Try to deny again that you love her and have an appointment with her!"
Gilbert had not the power to break from the clutch, though he might readily have done so, for it was only a girl's. Nicole Legay held him a prisoner.
"What do you want?" he said testily.
"Do you want me to speak out aloud?"
"No, no; be quiet," he stammered, dragging her out of the antechamber.
"Then follow me!" which was what Gilbert wanted, as this was removing Nicole from her mistress.
He could with a word have proved that while he might be guilty of loving the lady, the latter was not an accomplice; but the secret of Andrea was one that enriches a man, whether with love or lucre.
"Come to my room," she said; "who would surprise us there! Not my young lady, though she may well be jealous of her fine gallant! But folks in the secret are not to be dreaded. The honorable lady jealous of the servant, – I never expected such an honor! It is I who am jealous, for you love me no more."
In plainness, Nicole's bedroom did not differ from the others in that dwelling. She sat on the edge of the bed, and Gilbert on the dressing-case, which Andrea had given her maid.
Coming up the stairs, Nicole had calmed herself, but the youth felt anger rise as it cooled in the girl.
"So you love our young lady," began Nicole with a kindling eye. "You have love-trysts with her; or will you pretend you went only to consult the magician?"
"Perhaps so, for you know I feel ambition – "
"Greed, you mean?"
"It is the same thing, as you take it."
"Don't let us bandy words: you avoid me lately."
"I seek solitude – "
"And you want to go up into solitude by a ladder? Beg pardon, I did not know that was the way to it."
Gilbert was beaten in the first defenses.
"You had better out with it, that you love me no longer, or love us both."
"That would only be an error of society, for in some countries men have several wives."
"Savages!" exclaimed the servant, testily.
"Philosophers!" retorted Gilbert.
"But you would not like me to have two beaux on my string?"
"I do not wish tyrannically and unjustly to restrain the impulses of your heart. Liberty consists in respecting free will. So, change your affection, for fidelity is not natural – to some."
Discussion was the youth's strong point; he knew little, but more than the girl. So he began to regain coolness.
"Have you a good memory, Master Philosopher?" said Nicole. "Do you remember when I came back from the nunnery with mistress, and you consoled me, and taking me in your arms, said: 'You are an orphan like me; let us be brother and sister through similar misfortune.' Did you mean what you said?"
"Yes, then; but five months have changed me; I think otherwise at present."
"You mean you will not wed me? Yet Nicole Legay is worth a Gilbert, it seems to me."
"All men are equal; but nature or education improves or depreciates them. As their faculties or acquirements expand, they part from one another."
"I understand that we must part, and that you are a scamp. How ever could I fancy such a fellow?"
"Nicole, I am never going to marry, but be a learned man or a philosopher. Learning requires the isolation of the mind; philosophy that of the body."
"Master Gilbert, you are a scoundrel, and not worth a girl like me. But you laugh," she continued, with a dry smile more ominous than his satirical laugh; "do not make war with me; for I shall do such deeds that you will be sorry, for they will fall on your head, for having turned me astray."
"You are growing wiser; and I am convinced now that you would refuse me if I sued you."
Nicole reflected, clenching her hands and gritting her teeth.
"I believe you are right, Gilbert," she said; "I, too, see my horizon enlarge, and believe I am fated for better things than to be so mean as a philosopher's wife. Go back to your ladder, sirrah, and try not to break your neck, though I believe it would be a blessing to others, and may be for yourself."
Gilbert hesitated for a space in indecision, for Nicole, excited by love and spite, was a ravishing creature; but he had determined to break with her, as she hampered his passion and his aspirations.
"Gone," murmured Nicole in a few seconds.
She ran to the window, but all was dark. She went to her mistress' door, where she listened.
"She is asleep; but I will know all about it to-morrow."
It was broad day when Andrea de Taverney awoke.
In trying to rise, she felt such lassitude and sharp pain that she fell back on the pillow uttering a groan.
"Goodness, what is the matter?" cried Nicole, who had opened the curtains.
"I do not know. I feel lame all over; my chest seems broken in."
"It is the outbreak of the cold you caught last night," said the maid.
"Last night?" repeated the surprised lady; but she remarked the disorder of her room, and added: "Stay, I remember that I felt very tired – exhausted – it must have been the storm. I fell to sleep over my music. I recall nothing further. I went up hither half asleep, and must have thrown myself on the bed without undressing properly."