As I tell you, if I had wanted money that night, I would have murdered even an aged and feeble man to obtain it! If I had wanted love, — or what is called love in Paris, I would have won it, either by flattery or force. But I needed neither gold nor woman’s kisses, — of the first I still had sufficient, — of the second, why! — in Paris they can always be secured at the cost of a few napoleons and a champagne supper. No! — I wanted something that gold could not buy nor woman’s lips persuade, — Forgetfulness! — and it enraged me to think that this was the one, the only thing that my Absinthe-witch would not give me in all its completeness. Some drinkers of the Green Elixir there are who can win this boon, — they sink into an apathy that approaches idiotism, as the famous Dr. Charcot will tell you, — they almost forget that they live. Why could not I do this? Why could I not strike into fragments at one blow, as it were, this burning, reflecting, quivering dial-plate of memory that seared and scorched my brain? Aimlessly hurrying on as though bound on some swift errand, yet without any definite object in view, I arrived all at once in front of a gateway over which a garish arch of electric light flashed its wavering red, blue, and green, — a sort of turnstile wicket marked the side-entrance, with an inscription above it in large letters— “BAL MASQUE! ENTREE LIBRE!!” There are plenty of such places in Paris of course, though I had never set foot in one of them, — dancing-saloons of the lowest type where the “Entrée Libre” is merely held out as a bait to attract a large and mixed attendance. Once inside, everything has to be paid for, — that is always understood. It is the same rule with all the cafés chantants — one enters gratis, — but one pays for having entered. The sound of music reached me where I stood, — wild, harsh music such as devils might dance to, — and without taking a second’s thought about it, — for I could not think, — I twisted the bars of the turnstile violently and rushed in, — into the midst of hurly-burly such as no painter’s brush has ever dared devise, — a scene that could not be witnessed anywhere save in “civilized” Paris. In a long salle, tawdry with bright paint and common gilding, whirled a crowd of men and women fantastically attired in all sorts of motly costumes, — some as clowns, others as sheeted corpses, — others as laundresses, fishermen, sailors, soldiers, vivandières, — here was a strutting caricature of Boulanger, — there an exaggerated double of the President of the Republic — altogether a wild and furious crew, shrieking, howling, and dancing like lunatics just escaped from detention. Some few wore masks and dominos, — but the greater part of the assemblage were unmasked, — and my entrance, clad merely as a plain civilian excited no sort of notice. I was to the full as de’rigeur for such an entertainment as any one else present. I flung myself into the midst of the gesticulating, gabbling vortex of people with a sense of pleasure at being surrounded by so much noise and movement, — here not a soul could know me, — here no unpleasant thought or fanciful impression would have time to write itself across my brain, — here it was better than being in a wilderness, — one could yell and scream and caper with the rest of one’s fellow-apes and be as merry as one chose! I elbowed my way along, and promised an officious but very dirty waiter my custom presently, — and while I tried to urge my muddled intelligence into a clearer comprehension of all that was going on, the crowd suddenly parted asunder with laughter and shouts of applause, and standing back in closely pressed ranks made an open space in their centre for the approach of two women discreetly masked, — one arrayed in very short black gauze skirts, the other in blood-red. Attitudinizing for a moment in that theatrical pose which all dancers assume before commencing the revolutions, they uttered a peculiar shout, half savage, half mirthful, — a noisy burst of music answered them, — and then, with an indescribable slide forward and an impudent bracing of the arms akimbo, they started the “cancan — which though immodest, vile, vulgar, and licentious, has perhaps more power to inflame the passions of a Paris mob than the chanting of the ‘Marseillaise.’ It can be danced in various ways, this curious fandango of threatening gesture and amorous invitation, — and if the dancers be a couple of heavy Paris laundresses or pétroleuses, it will probably be rendered so ridiculously as to be harmless. But, danced by women with lithe, strong, sinuous limbs — with arms that twist like the bodies of snakes, — with bosoms that seem to heave with suppressed rage and ferocity, — with eyes that flash hell-fire through the black eye-holes of a conspirator-like mask, — and with utter, reckless, audacious disregard of all pretence at modesty, — its effect is terrible, enraging! — inciting to deeds of rapine, pillage, and slaughter! And why? Why, in Heaven’s name, should a mere dance make men mad? Why? — Mild questioner, whoever you are, I cannot answer you! Why are men made as they are? — will you tell me that? Why does an English Earl marry a music-hall singer? He has seen her in tights, — he has heard her roar forth vulgar ditties to the lowest classes of the public, — and yet he has been known to marry her, and make her “my lady” — and a peeress of the realm! Explain to me this incongruity, — and I will explain to you then why it is that the sight of the “can-can” danced in all its frankness, turns Parisian men for the time being into screeching, stamping maniacs, whom to see, to hear, to realize the existence of, is to feel that with all our ‘culture,’ we are removed only half a step away from absolute barbarism! On me, the spectacle of those two strong women, the one wearing the colour of the grave, the other the colour of blood, acted as a sort of exhilarating charm, — and I howled, stamped, shrieked, and applauded as furiously as the rest of the onlookers. More than this, when the dance was over, I approached the black siren and besought her to honour me with her hand in a waltz — an invitation which I accompanied by a whisper in her ear — a whisper that had in it the chink of base coin rather than the silvery ring of courtly homage, — she had her price of course, like all the women there, and that price I paid. I whirled her several times round the room — for she waltzed well, — and finally, sitting down by her side, asked her, or rather I should say commanded her, as I was paymaster for the evening, to remove her mask. She did so, — and displayed a handsome coarse visage, — badly rouged and whitened with pearl powder, — her way of life had rendered her old before her time, — but the youth and wickedness in her magnificent eyes made amends for her premature wrinkles.
“Tiens Madame! Comme tues laide!” I said with brusque candour. “Mais c’est une jolie laideur!”
She laughed harshly.
“Oui! je suis laide — je le sais!” she responded indifferently. “Que veux-tu, mon jeune farouche? J’ai vécu!”
It was my turn to laugh now, and I did so uproariously. She had lived — she! She thought so, in all good faith, — she believed she knew life inside and out and all through. She who had probably never opened a noble book or looked at a fine picture, — she, who would certainly have no eyes for scenery or the wonder and science of Nature, — she, whose experience had been limited to the knowledge of the most despicable side of despicable men’s characters; — she had lived, which was tantamount to saying that she comprehended the object and intention of living! What a fool she was! — what a shallow-brained fool! — and yet, it is for such women as she that men occasionally ruin themselves and their families. The painted successful wanton of the stage never lacks diamonds or flowers, — the honest wife and mother often lacks bread! Such is the world and the life of the world, — and God does nothing to improve it. What an impassively dumb spectator of things He is in His vast, clear empyrean! Why does He not “rend the heavens and come down” — as the old Psalmist implored Him to do, — then we should understand, — we should not have to wait for death to teach us. And the question is, will death teach us? Is death a silence, or an overpoweringly precise explanation? Ah! — At present, not knowing, we laugh at the idea, — but it is a laugh with a shudder in it!
Well! I danced again and yet again with the female fiend who had “lived,” as she said, — I gave her champagne, ices, bonbons, — all that her greedy appetite demanded, and I watched her with a
certain vague amusement, as she ate and drank and laughed and jested, while the wine flushed her cheeks and lent an extra devilish sparkle to’ her eyes. Between the dances, we sat together in a sort of retired alcove adorned with soiled hangings of faded crimson, and at the next table to us, in a similar kind of compartment, were a clown and a harlequin, — the clown a man, the harlequin a woman. These two were noisily drunk — and they sang scraps of song, whistled and screeched alternately, the female harlequin sometimes beating her sword of lath against her knees, and anon laying it with a resonant “crack!” across her grinning companion’s shoulders. Half stupefied myself, and too confused in mind to understand even my own actions, I stared at this pair of fools disporting themselves much as I might have stared at a couple of dancing boars in a menagerie — and then growing suddenly tired of their rough antics, my eyes wandered from them down and across the length and breadth of the salle, where the vari-coloured crowd still twirled and flitted and swung to and fro, like a merry-go round of puppets at a fair. And then I perceived a new figure in the throng, — a stranger in black, who looked curiously out of place and incongruous, so I fancied, — and I turned to my siren of the “can-can,” who with both her muscular white arms folded on the table, was staring hard at me with, as I thought, an expression of intense inquisitiveness, not unmixed with fear.
“Voilà!” I said laughing. “A priest at a bal masqué! Does he not look droll? See what temptations these gentlemen of the Church yield to!”
She turned her black eyes in the direction I indicated.
“What priest?” she asked. “Where?”
“There!”
And I pointed straight before me into the salle, where I plainly saw the individual I meant, — a man, wearing the closely buttoned-up clerical black garment I had learned to abominate so heartily. “I do not see him!” she said. “No real priest would dare to come here, I fancy! Some one in priest’s clothes perhaps — dressed up for fun — yes! — that is very likely. A priest is always ridiculous! Find him, and I will dance with him!” I laughed again, and flipped her on the bare arm that lay nearest to me.
“You will be a fool if you do!” I told her carelessly. “He will have no money for you, and you have had enough champagne. There he is! — there, with his back turned to us! Don’t you see him now?”
She stared and stared, — then shrugged her shoulders.
“No!”
A sudden horrible fear froze my blood. I sprang up from my seat.
“Come!” I said hoarsely. “Come! — Quick! — Give me another dance and dance your best!”
I snatched her round the waist, and whirled her into the throng with so much celerity and violence that she nearly lost her footing and fell — but I cared little for that, —— — I plunged madly with her through the room and straight up to the spot where that priest was standing — standing quite still.
“Look, — look!” I whispered. “You can see him plainly enough! — I told you he was a priest, and I was right! Look! — he does not move!”
Under her rouge her face grew very pale. “Où donc?” she murmured nervously. “Je ne vois rien!”
Closer and closer we waltzed towards that motionless shape of man, and I saw the dark outline of his figure more and more distinctly.
“You can touch him now!” I said, my voice shaking as I spoke. “Your dress brushes against him! — what! — have you no eyes! — Ah, diable!” — And I uttered a furious cry as the figure turned its face upon me. Silvion Guidèl again, by all the Furies of fact or fiction! — Silvion Guidèl!... And this time, as I looked, he moved away rapidly, and began to slip stealthily through the crowd; — roughly flinging my partner from me I followed fast, striking out right and left with my two hands to force a passage between the foolish flocks of dancing masqueraders, — I heard shrieks of terror and amazement, — shouts of “Il est fou! — il est fou!” — but I heeded nothing — nothing save that black figure gliding swiftly on before me, — nothing until in my wild headlong rush I was stopped by the sudden consciousness of being in the fresh air. The wind blew coldly on my face, — I saw the moonlight falling in wide patterns around me, — but — was I alone? No! — for Silvion Guidèl stood there also, by the side of a great tree that spread its huge boughs downwards to the ground, — he gazed straight at me with wistful, beautiful, impassioned eyes, — but no smile crossed the quiet pallor of his countenance. He looked — yes! — exactly as he had looked before I murdered him!,,, Perhaps — perhaps, I thought vaguely — there was some mistake? — perhaps I had not killed him after all! — he seemed still to be alive!
“Silvion!” I whispered. “What now? Silvion!”
A light breeze rustled the branches overhead, — the moonbeams appeared to gather and melt into a silvery sea — and I sprang forward, resolvedly intent on grasping that substantial-looking form in such a manner as to establish for myself the fact of its actual existence, — it rose upward from my touch like a cloud of ascending smoke and vanished utterly!... while I, striking my forehead sharply against the rough trunk of the tree where the accursëd phantom of my own brain had confronted me, fell heavily forward on the ground, stunned and insensible!
XXVI.
I lay there in a dead stupor for some hours, but I was roused to my senses at last by the ungentle attentions of a gendarme, who grasped and shook me to and fro as if I were a bag of wheat.
“Lêve-toi! Get up, beast!” he growled, his rough provincial accent making the smooth French tongue sound like the ugly snarl of a savage bull-dog. “Drunk at nine in the morning! A pretty way of earning the right to live!”
I struggled to my feet and stared haughtily at him. “I am a gentleman!” I said. “Leave me alone!” The fellow burst out laughing.
“A gentleman! Truly, that is easily seen! One of the old aristocracy doubtless!”
And he picked up my hat, — it was entirely battered in on one side, — and handed it to me with a derisive bow.
I looked at him as steadily as I could, — everything seemed to flicker and dance to and fro before my eyes, — but I remembered I had some money left in my pockets. I searched, — and drew out a piece of twenty francs.
“What do you know about gentlemen or aristocrats?” I said. “Do you not measure them all by this?” — and I held up the gold coin— “you called me a beast, — what a mistake that was! A drunken beggar is a beast if you like, but a grand seigneur who amuses himself!” here I dropped the piece into his quickly outstretched palm “ — C’est autre chose, n’est-ce pas, mon ami?”
He touched his hat, — and the laughter was all on my side now! He looked such a ridiculous puppet of officialism!
“Mais oui, monsieur! — mais oui!” he murmured confusedly, pocketing his gold. “Mille pardons!... c’est le devoir, — vous le savez!... enfin — monsieur, j’ai l’honneur de vous saluer!”
And he edged himself away with as much dignity as was possible in the very undignified position he occupied, — namely that of taking money to prove a beast a gentleman! His first exclamation at sight of me was honest, and true, — my condition was worse than bestial, for beasts never fall so low as men, — and he knew it and I knew it! But for twenty francs he could be made to say, “Monsieur, fiai Vhonneur de vous saluer” — Poor devil! — Only one out of thousands like him in this droll world where there is so much bombastic prating about Duty and Honour!
Nine o’clock in the morning! So late as that! — I looked about me, and realized that I was close to the Champs Elyseés, I could not imagine how I had come there, nor could I remember precisely where I had been during the past night. I was aware of a deadly sense of sickness, and I was very unsteady on my feet, so that I was obliged to walk slowly. My hat was damaged beyond repair, — I put it on as it was, all crushed and beaten in, — and what with my soiled linen, disordered garments and unkempt hair, I felt that my appearance was not, on this fine bright morning in Paris, altogether prepossessing. But what did I care for that? — Who was to se
e me? — who was to know me? Humming the scrap of a tune under my breath I sauntered giddily along, — but the horrible sickness upon me increased with every step I took, and finally I determined to sit down for a while, and try to recover a firmer hold of my physical faculties. I staggered blindly towards a bench under the trees, and almost fell upon it, thereby knocking heavily against an upright dignified-looking old gentleman who just then happened to cross my path, and to whom I feebly muttered a word or two by way of apology. But the loud cry he gave startled me into a wide-awake condition more successfully than any cold douche of water could have done.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 229
