Irene stared open-eyed. She was utterly nonplussed. She could not and would not understand.
Dona Maria went on pitilessly:
“Deaf to the prayers and entreaties of his wife and daughters, he spurns the food that is offered him. At my request the Bishop, who is also our friend, came to his bedside and endeavoured to picture to him the eternal punishment which awaits him if he persists in taking his own life. His only reply was to turn his face to the wall.”
“It’s an obsession with him. Make him sleep in a bed in the middle of the room! What do you expect me to say? It’s nothing to do with me.”
“Nothing? Are you sure that it’s nothing to do with you? What about the way you pressed his hand in the green shade of the Paseo Publico before the statue of...”
“Yes, I know, the statue of your national poet, Goncalves Dias.... So he told you that story!”
“He told me everything.”
“Well, if he told you everything you must know that your husband is mad.”
“And who is responsible for his madness? There are certain beings, even beautiful and honourable beings, who sometimes without knowing it do the work of the devil.”
“Don’t you think this ridiculous scene has lasted long enough? These young ladies cannot remain for ever kneeling at my feet, and for myself I tell you frankly that I never want to see another de Carangola.”
A dark gleam flashed from Dona Maria’s eyes. “Why, do you suppose that I’m here to please myself?”
“It certainly is not to please me.”
“Do you think that my daughters are here to please themselves?”
“Oh, mother, she is very beautiful,” breathed the child-like voice of Rosalia, the youngest. “We must, forgive father.”
“But after all, why do you seek my intervention? What do you wish me to do? May I ask you to explain?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle, when they are not here.”
“Then why did you bring them here?”
“So that you might be moved to pity on their account.”
“But I don’t follow you...”
“Will you allow them to go into the next room?”
“Let them go into my bedroom,” said Irene irritably, eager to put an end to the interview.
She flung the door open brusquely, then and there causing a bruise to appear on Sylvia’s forehead.
Leonora and her sisters rose from their posture, curtsied, and marched into the room with lowered gaze under the maternal eye.
“It will mean, my children, the saving of your father’s life.... Whatever you do, don’t look at anything.”
Irene reclosed the door. She was raging within herself. She was expecting a dramatic encounter. She was ready for it. Up to that moment the meeting had been grotesque. She was suffering tortures. She was confronted with a situation outside the range of her experiences, and she would have preferred a stab with a knife had such been the result of a spontaneous fine action.
“Well, madame...”
In the bedroom the six young de Carangolas were once more on their knees in a circle, and after fishing out all sorts of religious tokens and scapulars began their strange ritual. Sylvia watched them in astonishment. She grew increasingly puzzled at the sight before her. Suddenly the sound of voices reached her ears. It meant, beyond a doubt, that her mistress was having an altercation with Dona Maria, but as the dispute was carried on in Portuguese and she did not know the language, its echoes failed to convey anything definite to her. Their voices rose higher than ever, and the young ladies on Leonora’s initiative recited their prayers with new vigour.
Sylvia had to press her hands to her ears, but in spite of this precaution the commotion from the boudoir was such that losing her head and imagining that her mistress was in danger, she opened the door. At that moment the portly Dona Maria was fiercely tracing in the air a sign, which was the sign of the cross, and seemed to be exorcising Irene in a wild, hoarse tirade wherein all the saints of the calendar were inextricably interwoven. Irene, on the other hand, was almost choking, and in a gesture of mingled fury and contempt in which her art and beauty had full play, threw in the face of her inflamed adversary a document whose pieces were shed over her like so much confetti.
Nothing more remained to be said. A terrible silence followed the storm. Worn out, the two combatants separated. Dona Maria gathered together her skirts and betook herself off holding her head high, followed in the same attitude by her six daughters who entirely ignored the lady to whom they had just been kneeling. On the threshold Dona Maria turned round to discharge one last shot, and Rosalia made a rude grimace.
Sylvia rushed forward and closed the door.
Irene, breathing quickly, utterly exhausted, tears in her eyes, sank on to the sofa. Sylvia knelt down before her, took her hands in hers, stroking them gently.
“What did that awful woman want?”
“You will never guess, my good Sylvia,” said Irene with a sigh of hopelessness. “She wanted me to ‘give way’ to her husband’s wishes.”
CHAPTER III
SYLVIA “WHAT DO YOU SAY?”
“I CAN’T REPEAT it,” returned Irene, a deep blush of shame surging to her cheeks.
“I’m sorry, madame, but I don’t understand.”
“You will understand, perhaps, when I tell you that the idiot threatens to commit suicide.”
“Commit suicide? Do you really believe it, madame?”
A strange excitement seemed to possess the maid.
“Well, let him commit suicide and have done with it,” said Irene angrily.
“But how could that stern-looking old lady dare to suggest...”
“Why, who can fathom the minds of these pious people? For them an actress, however great, is of no account. She does not exist. She is a thing to whom they would deny Christian burial. Dona Maria wished this ‘thing to save her husband’s life, and she cannot understand why the ‘thing’ refused her — it seemed impossible. An actress, only fancy — it would mean so little to her! Why it is her business, her infamous business! Dona Maria had no need to put into so many words this simple thought which I state in all its crudity, to prove to me that, in her opinion, she was asking for a very small sacrifice from a person in my position.”
“But, madame, did you not tell her you were married?”
“Yes, but she received the information with a frightful smile. I even told her that I was married in church, and she was asking me something contrary to the laws of God and the church. You don’t suppose that she abandoned her attempt. Ah, Sylvia, you have no idea what these people are like.”
“Yes, madame, I have,” returned Sylvia, blushing in her turn. “In my younger days I knew something about one who surprised me by the speciousness of his reasoning.”
“In that case you will know that they have an answer for everything. When Doha Maria made her amazing proposal to me she produced at the same time the written absolution of the Bishop of Rio.”
“Was that the paper which you threw in her face?”
“Yes — before telling her to go.”
“So this threat of suicide is no mere pretence?”
“It seems not, alas. The madman has been on hunger strike for three days.”
Sylvia stood up, and to the stupefaction of her mistress said in a tone of exaltation:
“After all, this is an adventure — a real adventure!...”
Mademoiselle Sylvia Vernot was not uncomely, but her ivory-white face encircled with dull flaxen hair smoothed, like a madonna’s, over the temples, had a faded look about it like an old pastel which has become clouded. Her lips were bloodless, and her pale green eyes only rarely imparted vivacity to a countenance which at first sight seemed lacking in character. She had a willowy form which glided silently over the carpet, and brushed past walls like the shadow of a nun stealing through the corridors of a convent. But her duties were performed with exemplary precision, and Irene, delighted, said to herself: This girl is perfect and adores me.
Sylvia had received an excellent education in the town in which her father had built up a prosperous business as a cabinet maker. Monsieur Vernot, who kept a shop in the main street, was respected and feared. His will was law on the municipal council. He had definite opinions that nothing could shake. In his way he was not less uncompromising than Dona Maria. Indeed he was more so. He was a vehement freethinker, but he detested other classes besides priests. He hated all those persons who were “on the fringe of society” — by which he meant journalists, artists, actors, and such like indefinite collections of mankind. Madame Vernot, who married him because she loved the theatre, never afterwards set foot in it. It was from her mother that Sylvia inherited her exuberant imagination. Madame Vernot kept from her husband the fact that she read the great weekly newspapers in which the crudely illustrated masterpieces of Sue, Dumas and Féval appeared. And the daughter, following in her mother’s footsteps, kept from her the sort of literature that she in turn was wont to read.
Monsieur Vernot, the kill-joy and enemy of priests and actors, had the chagrin to learn that his daughter, the chaste Sylvia, had allowed herself to listen to the soft nothings of a student at a Jesuit College, and had finally eloped with a play actor on a passing visit to the town. He cursed her, and she never darkened his door again. And at this stage Madame Vernot gave up the ghost....
“Here is an adventure — a real adventure,” cried Sylvia.
Up to that day her maid had so fully sympathized with her passing troubles that she failed to understand why this girl, who seemed so devoted, and was in fact devoted, should welcome with delight an event which had reduced her to tears. Thus she gazed at her as one gazes at some new object one knows nothing about — neither its origin, nor use, nor purpose. It was an unknown Sylvia standing before her. She wiped away a last tear, seeing no object in making a show of grief which was not shared.
“Good gracious,” she said dryly with a touch of bitterness, “one would think that you are pleased at what has happened to me.”
“Yes, madame, for after all something has happened to you. For myself, I love adventures. Apart from my attachment to you, you know nothing of me. I came to you because you were my idol; but also in the hope of taking part in an actress’s life which appeared to be made up of undreamt of happenings wherein love, hate, intrigue, despair, and death play no common part. I have read the lives of the Queens of the Stage. Things occur behind the scenes which put those portrayed on the stage in the shade. I said to myself: Be thankful, Sylvia, that you are not entering the service of a Queen but an Empress. What experiences are awaiting you! Well, madame, nothing was awaiting me. True, your personality, your beauty, and, in short, your fame exceeded my expectations, but for the rest I have been sold! Everything has reduced itself to words, flowers, vain flirtations. Your marriage was a great disappointment to me. Monsieur Octave, whom in a sense you married in spite of himself, so greatly did he fear the surprises of an actress’s household, was soon reassured, and allowed you to set out for a foreign country with a tranquillity of mind which deserves to be chastened. Your lovers? You have laughed in your sleeve at them, and they have never crossed the threshold of your room. You do not know what a lover is.”
“Do you know, Sylvia?”
“Yes, madame, but I beg you to let me continue. I have too much admiration for you to allow you to remain in ignorance of what I, the humblest of your servants, think of you in my heart of hearts.... Your lovers!... Dancing dolls who are content to pity themselves when you tell them that you are tired of their attentions. To set the heart of this poor spectacled specimen of humanity on fire after landing in this glowing country was the finishing stroke. I do not look upon him as more absurd than the others. He had the courage to get into your bed though you happened not to be in it. It was scarcely worth notice, and I said to myself: South America will be as great a failure as Europe. But now there is something fresh. This man whose hand you held intends to die for you. He has started a hunger strike. That’s splendid. He is no longer absurd, he is wonderful! That is what I wanted to say to you, madame. And if I have dared to go so far it is because I know that you are as good as you are beautiful, and will forgive me.”
Trembling at her audacity she dropped to her mistress’s feet whom this outburst had entirely “finished.” Nothing was wanting to make the day a memorable one!
“And because I am good as well as beautiful,” cried Irene in a last start of indignation which shook her whole being, “must I give way to the wishes of the permanent secretary?”
Sylvia hid her face in Celimene’s knees and did not reply.
CHAPTER IV
THE MONK
THE NEXT DAY Irene suffered torments. In the morning, without waiting to be told, Sylvia went out to gather the latest gossip. The serious condition in which Don Manoel lay began to be noised abroad. He had committed the indiscretion of confiding to some of his friends the extent of his adoration for the lovely Irene, and they openly attributed the responsibility for the calamity which was about to throw all Brazil into mourning, to the actress’s inveterate love of flirtation.
Some of his friends called on him and added their persuasions to those of Dona Maria and her daughters, but Don Manoel, with a fiercer determination than ever, surprising in a man who had already grown weak, spurned the bowl of broth which was tearfully offered him.
Sylvia seemed to take a delight in exaggerating her accounts to Irene of the stir in the city.
“You are as crazy as he is,” said Irene, taking umbrage. “I have been greatly mistaken in you. You never cared for me.”
“I never cared for you! Why, madame, you have no idea what I am capable of doing for you.”
“Then don’t speak of that man — that’s all I ask.”
“Very well, madame, I’ll never again mention the name of the man who is dying for you.”
“Do you want to kill me?”
“No, madame, it’s he who is killing himself, but just as you please.”
“Sylvia, Sylvia, can’t you see that I am worn out?”
“Not more than he is. They say that he won’t last another twenty-four hours.”
“Well, good heavens, let them try forcible feeding.”
“It will have to be done. But a man who is determined to die for you will not be at his wit’s end very easily. There are many ways of taking one’s life. Poison, for instance. And then one can always throw oneself out of the window...
Irene sought her bedroom, slamming the door, and did not leave it again until it was time to set out for the theatre. The play was Augier’s “The Adventuress.”
Monsieur Hauptman, her impresario, a showman wholly wrapped up in business, an organizer of world’s tours which he preceded by a lavish advertising campaign, was in her dressing-room. He was in high glee.
“The box office has been besieged all day. Now the people are scrambling at the doors. The receipts have surpassed my highest expectations.”
The house was in fact full to overflowing with a most brilliant audience. Only the boxes reserved for members of the government were unoccupied. The play proceeded in icy silence. Not a ripple of applause: The society of the to
wn was too well behaved to express other than by a contemptuous silence its resentment against an actress whom it had acclaimed the night before, but who, by the witchery of a too ready gift for flirtation, had brought sorrow to a renowned family.
They were all present as Clorinda says in the play:
“Those mysterious mothers and sisters Of whom we know nothing-...
The strangest side to the situation was that though these ladies found fault with the Adventuress they were incensed with her in this particular instance for showing too great a regard for virtue. Irene was not laying siege to a family, it was the family which was laying siege to her.
So much injustice followed by so icy a reception had the effect of reducing her to helplessness. For the first time in her career her acting was indubitably bad; and she recognized the fact. No one came to her dressing-room to greet her. As she left the theatre she encountered Hauptman, who pretended not to see her, and turned his back on her.
She returned to her hotel crushed, her temples throbbing. During the drive she did not speak to Sylvia, who likewise remained silent. She could not touch her supper. She reflected on the week of torture that still lay before her. She wished she had left for Montevideo or Buenos Ayres long since. She thought, too, that the “idiot” might be dead within the week. It would be a pretty lively look out to continue the tour with his corpse on her back.
“Madame,” said Sylvia, entering the bedroom at that moment,” a monk is asking to see you.”
“A monk! What can he want with me, and why does he come at this hour?”
“I imagine that he has chosen this hour so as to keep his object secret.”
“But what is his object?”
“He did not tell me, but he may have been present at Don Manoel’s last moments.”
“De Carangola dead!” cried Irene, as white as a sheet.
“I heard that he was on the point of death.”
“I’ll see the monk. Show him into the boudoir.”
Irene had not recovered from her agitation when he appeared before her. If de Carangola had died of hunger the holy man himself seemed to be in no danger of a similar fate. His robe of rough serge falling to his bare sandalled feet and the girdle at his waist barely gathered round a form whose corpulence was not without a certain stateliness. There are some figures of abnormal mass which inspire repugnance while others possess dignity and distinction. Our monk was imposing.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 436
