She looked up at me in anguished entreaty.
“And must I still keep silence?” she asked.
“Really, mademoiselle, that is entirely as you please!” I returned composedly. “I shall not speak — as yet; — but if you choose to make full confession to your parents or to your cousin, that is a different matter. No doubt such frankness on your part would greatly simplify the whole disastrous affair, — but this must be left to your own discretion!”
And I smiled slightly. I knew she was of far too shrinking and nervous a temperament to brave her father’s fierce wrath, her mother’s despair, and the wondering horror and reproach of all her friends and relatives, so long as there remained the least chance of escape from such a terrible exposé. If Silvion wrote to her, — if Silvion sent for her, — she would of course fly to join him and leave everything to be discovered when she had gone, — but if, on the contrary, he kept silence and made no sign, why, there was nothing to be done but to wait — to wait as I before said, on my will! I offered her my arm to escort her back to the house, — she accepted it mechanically, and together we returned to the drawing-room. Héloïse was there, reading aloud from a newspaper an account of the triumphs of a celebrated violinist whose name had recently become a sort of musical watchword to the ardent and aspiring, — and her eyes sparkled with animation, as, looking up from the journal, she told us she had been invited to meet this same brilliant “star” at a neighbour’s house the next evening. Her aunt smiled at her enthusiasm, — and the Comte de Charmilles remarked —
“Thou shouldst ask him to try thy violin, Héloïse; — it is not every demoiselle who possesses a real undoubted Stradivarius.”
“Is it a Strad?” I asked, with some interest, fixing my eyes on Héloïse, who for once avoided my direct gaze as she replied —
“Yes. It is an heirloom, and has been in my mother’s family for more than a hundred years, but no one among us ever played it till I suddenly took a fancy to try my skill upon it. There is rather a sad legend attached to it too.”
“Ah, now we shall have you at your best, Mademoiselle Héloïse!” said my father, smiling. “You will, of course, tell us this legend?”
“If you wish.” And Héloïse, moving to the further end of the room, opened her violin-case and took out the instrument. “But you must look at it carefully first. Through the F holes you will see the sign-manual of Stradivarius, and also something else. There are several other words, — can you make them out?” We gathered round her, and each in turn examined the interior of the violin, and finally managed to decipher the following —
“Je meurs parceque j’aime l’amour plus que ma vie — Parle, violon, quand je suis mort, de ma reine Marie.”
Beneath these lines was a monogram of two letters entwined in a wreath of laurel, and as we handed back the instrument to its fair owner, our eyes inquired the meaning of the motto.
“This Strad belonged, so the story goes,” said Héloïse softly, “to one who in his time was considered the greatest violinist in the world. His name no one knows, — his monogram is there, but cannot, as you see, be distinctly deciphered. The legend however is, that he loved a great lady of the Court of France, and that she showed him many favours for a little while, till suddenly, out of some cruel and unaccountable caprice, she deserted him, and would never receive him or even look upon his face again. Maddened by despair he slew himself, — and these lines inscribed inside the violin are written in his own blood. It is supposed that he took the instrument apart to write the device within it, as, according to one account, it is said to have been found seemingly broken by the side of his dead body. If this be true, then skilled hands must have put it together again, for here it is, as you see, intact, and with a strange pathos in its tone, or so I fancy, — a pathos that it would be difficult to equal. Listen!”
And she drew the bow across the G string slowly, while we involuntarily held our breath. It was such a weird, wild, full, and solemn sound, — something like the long grave organ-note drawn forth by the wind from the close-knit branches of old trees. “Parle, violon, quand je suis mort!” Such had been the last prayer of its long-ago dead master, — and truly its eloquence had not ceased to be convincing. The “reine Marie” had been careless of love and capricious, as beautiful women so often are, but still the passionate tones of her lover’s instrument bore faithful witness to her beauty’s conquering charm! We were all in expectation that Héloïse would play something; but in this we were doomed to disappointment, for she quietly put the violin back in its case and locked it, in spite of her aunt’s affectionate entreaty that she would favour us with one little morgeau.
“I am not in the humour, aunt,” she said simply — and there was a weary look in her eyes— “and I should not play well. Besides” — and she smiled a little— “you must remember that there is a grand maestro just now in Paris — and the very consciousness of his presence in this city seems actually to paralyze my efforts!”
A vague irritation stirred me that she should attach so much importance to the arrival of a mere professional “star” in the art of violin-playing.
“Do you know the man?” I asked abruptly.
“Not personally,” she replied. “As I told you, I am to meet him to-morrow evening. But I have heard him play — that is enough!”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“You are enthusiastic, Héloïse!” I remarked satirically. “I thought you were a veritable Pallas Athene — always calm, always cold!”
She looked at me with a strange deepening brilliancy in her eyes.
“Cold!” she faltered, “I”
I was near her as she spoke and our glances met. Once more that curious magnetic thrill ran through me, — once more that inexplicable shock seemed to agitate us both. But it passed as it had passed before, — and just then M. Vaudron came up to us with some ordinary remark that scattered our thoughts into all sorts of different and commonplace directions. The evening ended, to all appearances, as satisfactorily as it had begun, — our elders evidently had no shadow of suspicion that anything was wrong, — and when I parted from Pauline, it was with a carefully studied assumption of that lover-like reluctance to say farewell which once had been too real to need feigning. Héloïse, as she murmured ‘good night!’ gave me her hand, — I held it a moment in my own, — then kissed it with grave courtesy. What could have possessed me then, I wonder, that I should have felt such a keen sense of delight as I saw the colour rush over her fair pale cheeks like a sudden glow of sunset on alabaster! I suppose it must have been the consciousness of the growing devil within me, — the devil that had already begun to preach away conscience and make a gibe of principle, and that in a short time was destined to become so strong that whatever there was of true manhood in me would be utterly exterminated by its insidious power. The devil born of Absinthe! — the fair, brave fiend, whose fidelity to the soul it seizes upon, like that of its twin-sister Morphia, never releases till death! Every hour of every day its hold on my brain grew closer, firmer, and more absolute, till I ceased to feel even so much as a passing throb of compunction, and with my eyes open to the abyss of darkness before me, voluntarily drifted slowly yet steadily down!
XVI.
TIME went on, and yet no sign from Silvion Guidèl. One letter only, from his mother to the Curé, thanking him for all the care and kindness he had shown to “notre cher et bien-aimé Saint Silvion,” and stating that this same “saint” was in excellent health and progressing admirably with his religious studies, was all the news we received. Now and then I thought I would go to Brittany, and seek him out and fight him to the death there, — but, after a little cogitation, I always dismissed the idea. It was better, I decided, to wait on. For Pauline had written to him twice, — and I naturally imagined that his answer to the desperate appeals of the girl he had betrayed, would be a swift and unexpected return to Paris, — unless, indeed, he should prove himself to be altogether a man beneath even a beggar’s contempt.
Meantime all the arrangements for my marriage with Pauline went smoothly on, without any interference from either of the principal parties concerned. It was settled that the civic registration should take place first, in the grand drawing-room of the Comte de Charmilles, before a large and brilliant assemblage of friends and guests, — the religious ceremony was to follow afterwards in the pretty little church of which M. Vaudron was the presiding genius. The invitations had all been sent out, — one going to Silvion Guidèl in due course, — and I, languidly amused thereat, wondered how he would take it! As for me, I was now quite resolved on my own plan of action. My drugged brain had evolved it in the wanderings of many dreamful nights, — and though the plot was devilish, to me, in my condition, it seemed just. Why should not the wicked be punished for their wickedness? Holy Writ supports the theory, — for did not David, “a man after God’s own heart,” pray that his enemies might be consumed as with fire, and utterly destroyed? Dear, good, gentle, Christian friends! — you who love your Bibles and read them with diligent attention, I beg you will study the inspired pages thereof again and yet again, before you dare to utterly abhor me, who am your fellow-mortal! Consider the pious joy with which you yourselves look forward to seeing those particular persons whom you specially abhor, roasting in Hell for all eternity, while you, sweet, clean souls, walk placidly the golden pavement of serenest Heaven! It is possible, nay more than probable that you will be disappointed in these sublime anticipations, — still, you can nurse the generous hope while here below, only do not turn round and condemn me, because I also, in the spirit of David, desired to see my enemies “confounded and put to shame” in this life! Had I no patience, you may piously ask, to wait till after death? No! Because “after death” is a shadowy circumstance; one cannot be certain what will happen, and the present wise age does well to seize its opportunities for good or for evil while it can, here and now!
In the short interval that had yet to elapse before the day of my intended nuptials, a curious change worked itself in me, — a change of which I was palpably, physically conscious. I can only explain it by saying that my brain seemed dead. A stony weight lay behind my temples, cold and hard and heavy. I shall perhaps make myself understood better if I analyze my sensations thus: — namely, that when my brain was in its former normal condition before the absinthefuria had penetrated to its every cell, it was like a group of sensitive fibres or cords which, when touched by memory, sentiment, affection, or any feeling whatsoever, would instantly respond in quick pulsations of eager and easy comprehension. Now, it seemed as if all those fibres had snapped in some strange way, leaving in their place a steel reflector of images, — a hard bright substance on which emotion simply flashed and passed without producing any actual responsive vibration. Yet certain plans of action seemed to be part of this steel pressure, — plans which, though they appeared in a manner precise, still lacked entire consecutiveness, — and not the least remarkable phase of my transformation was this, — that good, or what moralists call good, presented itself to me as not only distinctly unnatural, but wholly absurd. In brief, the best and clearest expression I can give to my condition of mind for the benefit of those medical experts who have perhaps not thoroughly comprehended the swift and marvellous influence of the green nectar of Paris on the human nerves and blood is, that my former ideas and habits of life were completely and absolutely reversed. We are told that the composition of the brain is a certain grey matter in which countless shifting molecules work the wheels of thought and sensation; — in the healthy subject they work harmoniously and in order, — but — and this is to be remembered — a touch will set them wrong, — a severe blow on the outside case or skull may, and often does, upset their delicate balance; — what think you then of a creeping fire, which, by insidious degrees, quickens them into hot confused masses, and almost changes their very nature? Aye! — this is so! — and neither gods nor angels can prevent it. Give me the fairest youth that ever gladdened a mother’s heart, — let him be hero, saint, poet, whatever you will, — let me make of him an absintheur! and from hero he shall change to coward, from saint to libertine, from poet to brute. You doubt me? Come then to Paris, — study our present absinthe drinking generation, — absintheurs, and children of absintheurs, — and then, — why then give glory to the English Darwin! For he was a wise man in his time, though in his ability to look back, he perhaps lost the power to foresee. He traced, or thought he could trace man’s ascent from the monkey, — but he could not calculate man’s descent to the monkey again. He did not study the Parisians closely enough for that! If he had, he would most assuredly have added a volume of prophecies for the future to his famous pedigree of the past.
Curious and significant too, among my other sensations, was the dull aversion I had taken to the always fair, though now sorrowful, face of Pauline. The girl in her secret wretchedness annoyed me, — there were moments when I hated her, — and again, there were times when I loved her. Loved her? — yes! — but not in a way that good women would care to be loved. Moreover, Héloïse St. Cyr had come to possess an almost weird fascination for me. Yet I saw very little of her, — for a new interest had suddenly entered her life, — the great violinist whom she had been so eager to meet, had heard her play, and had been so enchanted, either with her or the valuable Stradivarius she owned, that he had volunteered, for art’s sake, to give her a lesson every day during the brief time he remained in Paris. After some little hesitation, and an anxious consultation with her aunt as to the propriety of this arrangement, the offer was accepted, — and she was straightway drawn into an artistic and musical circle which was considerably divided from ours. I never had a chance of either seeing or hearing the brilliant violin-maestro whose triumphs were in every one’s mouth, — I only knew that he was not old, — that some people considered him handsome, and that he was entirely devoted to his art, — but no more personal news than this could I obtain concerning him. Héloïse too was singularly reticent on the subject, only, her wonderful grey-green eyes used to shine with a strange fire whenever he was mentioned, and this vaguely vexed me. However I was not given much opportunity to brood on the matter, — as the famous “star” very soon took his departure, and beyond the fact that Héloïse played more divinely than ever, I almost forgot, in the rush of more pressing events, that he had crossed the even tenor of her existence.
Three days before my intended marriage — only three days! — I received, to my utter amazement, a letter from Silvion Guidèl. It began abruptly, thus —
“I understand that you know everything, — therefore you will realize that no explanation can make me more of a villain than I acknowledge myself to be. I cannot marry. I was ordained a priest of Holy Church yesterday. Circumstances have moulded my fate in opposition to my will, — and I can only throw myself upon your mercy and ask you not to visit my crime on the head of the poor child I have wronged. I cannot write to her — I dare not; I am weak-natured and afraid of woman’s grief. The only way left to me for the atonement of the evil I have done is through a life of hard penitence and prayer. This I have chosen, entreating you all to pardon me and to think of me as one dead. — SILVION GUIDEL.”
A fierce oath broke from me as I crushed this epistle in my hand. Specious villain! — canting hypocrite! Ordained a priest! — sheltered in the pale of the Church — vowed to perpetual celibacy, — and what was worse still, exempt from the call of a duel! If I could have seen him at that moment before me I would have sprung at him like a wild beast, thrown him on the ground, and trampled upon his fair false face till not a vestige of its beauty was left! For some minutes I gave way to this impotent mad fury, — then, gradually recollecting myself, smoothed out the crumpled letter and read it through again. The coils of fate round the unfortunate Pauline had grown more and more entangled, for now, supposing the whole truth were told, she would be in a worse predicament than ever, — since, unless her lover chose to leave the priesthood as rapidly as he had entered it, marriage was impossib
le. True enough, her only rescue lay with me! — true, that if I chose to accept Silvion Guidèl’s cast-off light-o’- love as my wife, no one need be any the wiser save only myself and the unhappy girl whose miserable secret was in my hands. But I resented the position which appeared thus forced upon me, and in this I think I was no worse than any other man might have been under similar circumstances. Combined however with my natural resentment, there was another and more cruel feeling, — an insatiate longing to make Pauline understand thoroughly the heinous enormity of her sin. For at present, she seemed to me to have merely the stagey sentiment of the French melodramatic heroine, who, after disgracing herself, dishonouring her parents, and dealing wholesale misery all round, scruples not to boast of her “amour” as a wonderful virtue recommendable to the special intercession of Heaven. It was in this particular phase of her character that she had grown hateful to me, — while her physical beauty remained what it always had been in my eyes, — exquisitely captivating to the senses and resistlessly adorable. Yet with all my busy brooding on the one subject, I cannot say I ever came to any definitely settled plan. What I did do in the long run was the wild suggestion of a moment, worked out by one hot flash from the burning glance of the “green fairy” in whose intoxicating embrace I had drowsed my soul away for many nights and days. I considered deeply as to whether I should show the letter I had received from Silvion Guidèl to Pauline or not? Better wait, I thought, and see how the tide of events turned, — there was yet time, — let her cling to her false hope a little longer — that frail sheet-anchor would all too soon be torn from her feeble hold!
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 219
