by Eugène Sue
Oh, ye Gods! Sylvest must have been gifted with a strong head, else he would at that moment have lost his reason! But he was seized with a vertigo. No; it was no longer Syomara he saw before him — it was the Thessalian witch, who, the night before, had demanded the life of one of her slaves from the Roman dame. — Yes, it was the magician — it was herself — her coppery skin, her visage furrowed with the wrinkles of old age, her nose crooked like a night-hawk’s, her thick eye-brows, grey like the straggling locks of hair that escaped from her hood. — Yes, it was the Thessalian. — Could it be that by some magical charm the hag had until a minute before assumed the features of Syomara? — Or was it, indeed, Syomara who, by some trick of witchcraft assumed the features of the hideous old hag? — Sylvest knew not. All he knew was that he now had the Thessalian before his eyes. — The superhuman transformation almost crazed the slave, it struck him dumb with stupor. Thinking of one thing only, to flee from the infernal place, he forgot the impassable abyss behind him. However, he was speedily reminded of it. Hardly had he groped his way a step from the wall when he felt his foot over the pit. He tried to throw himself back. The suddenness of the motion made him trip and fall, and roll over into the gaping opening. He had barely time to seize the edge of the flooring with both hands and thus escape being hurled to the bottom of the pit. Suspended thus the slave hung over the unknown depth.
Oh! But for the remembrance of Loyse and of the child that she carried under her bosom, Sylvest would not have endeavored to escape death — he would have allowed himself to slip and roll down into the pit that yawned below him. The love for his wife made him cling to life and imparted to him superhuman strength. He raised himself by his wrists, in this effort succeeded in lifting his body high enough to enable him to throw one knee over the edge of the trap, and thus to extricate himself from death. Exhausted by the strain upon his strength and mentally crushed with the shocking discovery he had just made, Sylvest dropped upon the floor.
How long did the slave remain in the physical and mental coma that overcame him? He knows not. When he recovered consciousness he at first believed that he awoke from a frightful nightmare. But by degrees the reality revived its cruel lines upon the tablets of his memory; he realized, alas! that it was not a dream. He imagined that the eunuch had caused him to witness unseen the execrable mysteries practiced by his sister, with the end in view of inspiring him with a horror for her and thus preventing a meeting between the two — a meeting the result of which the mischievous old man perhaps feared. But for the pit that yawned beside him, Sylvest would have fled the accursed place. With his returning senses he noticed that the transparency in the wall, although somewhat darkened, was still visible. Yielding to irresistible curiosity, he rose and again applied his eyes. The chamber was now deserted; the iron lamp was extinguished; only the bluish light that proceeded from the brass vase on the tripod lighted the sinister retreat. A moment later the sorceress returned holding in her hand a bundle wrapt in a black cloth. She unwound it in great hurry and took from it a woman’s head freshly severed from the trunk. By the bluish light from the tripod Sylvest distinctly recognized the head of the chaste Lydia, the young virgin who died the day before, and whom he had more than once seen and admired on the streets of Orange. The words of his master then came back to him, when on that very morning, in the conversation with seigneur Norbiac, Diavolus remarked that the watchers at Lydia’s grave would find it difficult to keep her remains from the profanations of the magicians, adding with cynicism that young girls who died virgin were becoming rarer in Orange, and that their bodies were considered to be of special virtue for sorceries.
The horrid old hag — Sylvest clung to the theory that his eyes had played him a trick, or that he had but seen a vision, and refused to believe that Syomara and the magician were one and the same person — the horrid hag deposited Lydia’s head, together with another bleeding and shapeless piece of flesh, upon the table; she then took up the piece of flesh, placed it in the recently severed child’s hand, and laid both upon Lydia’s head where she steadied them with the long hair of the deceased.
At this moment Sylvest felt a hand upon his shoulder and the piercing, mocking voice of the eunuch said to him in the dark:
“The pit is no longer open at your feet — you can now follow me without danger. — Are you satisfied? — You have now seen your sister Syomara, the Beautiful Gaul, the adored courtesan.”
“No!” cried the slave in answer while following the eunuch in the gloom. “No! I have not seen my sister! — No! That horrible witch is not Syomara — All these tricks are magic and sorcery! — Let me escape from this cursed house!”
But the eunuch barred with his bulky shape the slave’s passage through the narrow walk, and forced him to stop and listen to him:
“What! You now want to leave the place without even speaking with your sister? What has become of the furious tenderness that you affected for your mother’s daughter?”
“No! She is not my sister — or, if it be she, indeed, — I no longer have a sister — let me flee!”
“She is not your sister? And why not?” rejoined the eunuch laughing out aloud. “Is it, perchance, because, though beautiful as Venus, she suddenly transformed herself into an old and hideous hag like the three Fates? And yet, had you seen her only day before yesterday, naked as the Cyprean rising from the sea, rub herself with a magic ointment, and forthwith a light down cover her beautiful body; her charming arms shrivel and disappear under long wings; her legs, shaped like Diana the huntress’s, together with her delicate feet, change into the claws of the night-hawk; her lovely neck swell, take on feathers; and finally, that adored head assume the shape of an osprey, emit three funereal cries, and fly away through the roof of the room—”
“Let me flee — you will craze me!”
“What would you have said the other evening, when Syomara transformed herself into a wild she-wolf in order to prowl around the gibbets at the setting of the moon and to carry back to the house between her teeth the head of a man who was executed and that she needed for her enchantments?”
“Oh, gods! Have mercy upon me!”
“And then the other night, when, assuming the form of a black serpent, Syomara glided into the cradle of a newly born babe that slept near its mother’s bed, and gently coiling herself around the child’s neck, drew her reptile head close to the little rosy lips of her victim so as to inhale its last breath? Syomara strangled the babe, whose last breath she needed for her sorceries!”
“I shake with horror!” murmured Sylvest. “Am I dreaming? — Am I awake? — What blood-curdling confidences is this wretch making to me!”
“You are awake, by Hercules! — Aye, you are thoroughly awake — but you are afraid. How is that, infamous poltroon! You have a sister who by her magical powers can become in turn the Beautiful Gaul, an osprey, a she-wolf, a serpent, who, in short, can assume any shape, and yet you do not rejoice — in the honor to your own family!”
Sylvest feared his reason was on the point of being dethroned; he believed the eunuch’s words. If Syomara was able to transform herself into a hideous witch, why could she not metamorphose herself into an osprey, a serpent, or a she-wolf? —
Still barring the passage with his bulk, the old man proceeded:
“What! Dullard, are you not thankful to me for having placed you on that spot of vantage so as to initiate you into the secrets of Syomara’s life, to the end that when you shall see her, as you will shortly, you may tenderly press her to your brother’s heart and say to her: ‘You are a worthy daughter of our mother!’”
“Oh! Almighty Hesus! Have mercy upon me! Oh! Either take my life from me, or extinguish my understanding that I may not hear the words of this demon!” exclaimed Sylvest so wholly prostrated with grief and stunned with pain that he had neither the strength nor the courage violently to force his way out.
“What!” continued the mischievous eunuch with imperturbable malice, “I place you there to the e
nd that you may also see and know your sister’s gallant — that you may approve her good taste — that you may compliment her on her choice — and yet you remain standing there like a blockhead and have not a word of thanks for me! — Answer me, you now know him, do you not? — You now know Syomara’s gallant — you have seen Belphegor!”
“I have seen no one,” murmured Sylvest ever more distracted, and answering despite himself, so to speak. “The young woman who was there — Oh! No! She is not my sister! — that young woman stepped into the room throwing kisses to someone whom I could not see. — I imagined they were for the gladiator Mont-Liban.”
“Mont-Liban!” repeated the eunuch with a peal of laughter. “Syomara despises Mont-Liban as she does the mud on her sandals. She would give ten Mont-Liban’s for one Belphegor. — And you say you did not see her darling?”
“No.”
‘It is possible. — She may have gone to his apartment, instead of having him come to her’s. Their rooms are on the same floor. Probably when she left him she threw some loving kisses to him through the door. — Oh! You did not see Belphegor! — Pity! — Would you like to know who that chosen one is? Who the gallant is whom many a grand dame would envy Syomara if they knew he was hers? — Well that gallant is—”
The eunuch whispered two words into Sylvest’s ear.
The slave emitted a piercing cry of horror. A recent recollection flashed through his mind. In his horror and rage he precipitated himself violently upon the eunuch, threw him over, walked bodily over him, thus opened a passage to himself, and ran straight ahead in the dark, striking himself here and there against the wall, and pursued by the chilling guffaw of the eunuch, who, having risen from the floor, followed him down the passage repeating:
“Belphegor is your sister’s lover! Belphegor! — Belphegor!”
CHAPTER VIII.
COURTESAN AND GLADIATOR.
WHILE FLEEING FROM the pursuit of the eunuch, Sylvest saw a light at the further extremity of the narrow passage; he hastened to reach the spot; arrived there, he recognized the vestibule, rushed to the street door and drew the inside bolt. The slave now thought himself safe. He erred. At the very moment when he put his foot on the street he found himself face to face with a man of gigantic stature who seized him by the throat with a hand of iron, threw him back into the vestibule, stepped in himself and closed and bolted the door from within at the moment that the eunuch arrived out of breath and yelling in a broken voice:
“Bel — phegor! — Bel — phegor!”
At the sight of the giant, the eunuch started back and cried angrily:
Mont-Liban! — You here!”
“Death and massacre!” thundered the gladiator. “The Beautiful Gaul shall no longer trifle with me! — Since nightfall I have kept watch from the opposite house. — I saw this villainous slave come up accompanied by his master, seigneur Diavolus. That happened in the evening. It is now morning. — Ravage and fury! Does she take me for a booby?”
“You are taken at your right value and for what you are — a butcher of human bodies! a sack of wine! a desolator of full pouches!” yelled the eunuch in response and in his clear, penetrating voice. “Get you gone, you plunderer of taverns!
Terror of tavern-keepers! Get you gone, you bull of the arena!
Nobody entered the house, and your roarings do not frighten me!”
“Are you itching to have me smother you in your own fat, you old fatted capon! Are you itching to have me break every bone in your body, you lump of grease!” bellowed the gladiator, raising over the old man a stout ebony club the handle of which was a polished human thigh-bone. “Blood and bowels! If you utter another word, you will never utter a second. Take care, you ton of rancid lard!”
Such was the language of the celebrated gladiator whom the grand Roman dames pursued with their lewd desires. He seemed to be still young, but the expression of his coarse and beastly features was insolent and stupid. A sabre cut that started from his forehead and lost itself under his bristling yellow beard had put out his left eye. Wine and grease spots bespattered his clothes. His silver-embroidered tunic that looked creased and was ill adjusted on his body, exposed his Herculean chest, hirsute as a bear’s. His doe-skin hose and gold-tasselled military gaiters looked as out of place as the rest of the man’s accoutrement. A long and heavy sword hung from his side; on his head he wore a felt hat ornamented with a long red tuft of feathers. In his hand he held the ebony club which he swung over the eunuch’s head, and whose human thigh-bone handle was a souvenir of one of his combats. Yes, such was Mont-Liban, the hero of the circus, for the possession of whom the noble dames of Orange vied with one another, and who disdainfully rejected the overtures of Faustina.
At the increasing tumult produced by the altercation between the gladiator and the eunuch an inside door of the vestibule opened. Sylvest saw Syomara appear at the threshold, not now transfigured into the hideous witch, but young, dignified and beautiful! Oh! a thousand times more beautiful than the slave had seen her early on that accursed night! —
But no! It was not she he had seen. — He could not believe it. Syomara’s thick hair was imprisoned in a net-work of silver. She wore two tunics: one white and long; the other sky blue, short and embroidered with gold and pearls, left her neck and arms bare. Seeing his sister before him for the first time in eighteen years; beholding her so dazzling in her beauty and so pure, Sylvest was now more than ever convinced that he had been the victim of a horrible dream during the night. No, no, thought he, a courtesan, monstrously debauched, a cursed witch, could not possibly be endowed with so chaste and proud a front, or so sweet a look. No! The infamous eunuch lied! Appearances often deceive. My eyes were deceived last night; they were the dupes of an illusion! — There is some mystery about it, that my reason cannot penetrate — the Syomara that I behold standing there is, indeed, my sister — the one that appeared before me in the night was the product of witchcraft.
These were the thoughts that flashed through the slave’s mind as he stood in the shadow of a pillar in the vestibule. The courtesan did not notice him; he waited to see the issue of her encounter with the eunuch and the gladiator. The latter’s coarse audacity seemed to evaporate at the sight of Syomara who looked down upon him with an imperial and threatening mien. With head erect, she took a step towards the giant.
“What noise is this in my house?” she asked him with severity. “Does Mont-Liban think he is here in one of the taverns where he carries on his nightly wassails?”
“This wild beast knows nothing but to roar,” put in the eunuch; “and by Jupiter! I—”
“Hold your tongue!” Syomara ordered the old man; and returning to the gladiator she added with the majesty of an empress: —
“Down on your knees! — Beg pardon for your insolence!”
“Listen — Syomara—” stammered Mont-Liban with increased confusion, embarrassment and awkwardness; “I wish — to explain — to you—”
“Down on your knees, first! — First repent your insolence. — You may speak afterwards, if I allow you.”
“Syomara!” replied the gladiator clasping his hands imploringly, “one word — only one word — to justify myself — I love you!”
“Down on your knees!” she repeated impatiently. “Will you down on your knees!”
With the timid docility of a chained bear, who obeys his master’s orders, the Hercules dropped on his knees saying: “Here I am on my knees, at your feet — I — Mont-Liban — I, who have the grandest dames of Orange at my feet—”
“And it is over them that I walk when I trample on you said Syomara with a mien of superb disdain. “Lower, your head — lower still — still lower!”
The giant obeyed and prostrated his face upon the slab of the floor. Syomara then planted the tip of her dainty and embroidered sandal upon the bull’s neck and said:
“Do you repent your insolence?”
“repent.”
“Now,” said Syomara kicking him with he
r foot, “get out of this house, and never enter it again!”
“Syomara — you despise my love!” exclaimed the gladiator rising on his knees, where he remained for a moment with an imploring and desolate look. “And yet I never give a blow with my sword without pronouncing your name. I never despatch an adversary whom I have conquered without offering him as a homage to you! I laugh to scorn all the women who pursue me with their love. — And when I am utterly wretched at your disdain, it is then that I drown my grief in the taverns. — I would resign myself to your contempt without complaining if all other men were rejected by you as I am. — But I saw that vile slave,” saying which the gladiator rose and pointed at Sylvest, “come in here and remain the whole night in your house, Syomara. — He was here on his own or his master’s errand. — It was that that drove me crazy.
I could not control my anger — and I broke in!”
