The Max Brand Megapack

by Max Brand

  She was standing in the middle of the room when the first shapes formed in the black night, and terror hovered about her suddenly, touching her as with cold fingers. She felt her way back to a corner and crouched there against the wall, waiting, waiting. They had seized the doomed man long before this. They must have bound and gagged him and carried him to the palace.

  A thousand types of men passed before her inward eye—thin-faced clerks, men as pale as the belly of a dead fish; bearded monsters, gross and thick-lipped, with thunderous laughter; laborers, stamped with patient weariness—and all whom she saw carried the sign of the beast in their eyes. She tried to pray, but the voice of the prince rang in her ears: “Le Dieu, c’est moi!” and when she named God in her prayers, she visualized Alexander’s face, the pale, small eyes, the colorless hair, the lofty brow, the mouth whose tight lips could not be disguised by even the careful mustache. When a key turned in a door, she sprang to her feet with a cry of horror.

  “It is I,” said the prince.

  “I am dying; I cannot stay here; I will marry whom and when you will.”

  “Ah, my dear, you should have spoken before sunset. I warned you, and I never change my mind. It is only for three days, remember. Also, it is in the interest of science. Beyond that, I have quite taken a fancy to playing God for you for three days. Do you understand?”

  The even, mocking tones guided her to him. She fell at his feet and strained his thin knees against her breast.

  “Come! Be reasonable, Bertha. This is justice.”

  “Sire, I want no justice. For God’s sake, be merciful.”

  She heard the shaken breath of his soundless laughter.

  “Is it so? You should be grateful to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing you the love of which you have dreamed. Ha! Ha! Le Dieu, c’est moi!”

  The clanking of the chain which he carried stilled her voice. It hushed even the thunder of her heart. She rose and waited patiently while the manacle was affixed to her wrist. The prince crossed the room and tapped on the door, which opened, and by a faint light from without Bertha discovered two men carrying a third into the room. She strained her eyes, but could make out no faces. The burden was laid on the floor; a metallic sound told her that she was fettered to the unknown.

  The prince said: “You are a brave girl. All may yet be well. Then human nature is finer than I think. We shall see. As for your lover, your gift from God, he is sleeping soundly now. It may be an hour before the effects of the drug wear away. During that time you can think of love. Food will be placed three times a day within the door yonder. You can readily find it by feeling your way around the wall. Farewell.”

  When the door closed she started to retreat to her corner, but the chain instantly drew taut with a rattle. Strangely enough, much of her fear left her now that she was face to face with the danger; temptation, the prince had called it. She smiled as she remembered. When the man awoke and learned their situation, she had no doubt as to how he would act. She had seen the sign of the beast in the eyes of many men, great and small; she had seen it and understood. The revolver might save her for a time, but what if she slept? She knew it would be almost impossible to remain awake during three days and nights.

  The moment her eyes closed the end would come. It seemed better that she should fire the bullet now.

  When he recovered his senses, it would be difficult to shoot effectively in the dark, for this was not the gloom of night—it was an absolute void, black, thick, impenetrable. She could not make out her hand at the slightest distance from her eyes. He might even attack her from behind and knock the revolver from her hand before she could shoot. Sooner or later the man must die. Even if she did not kill him it would be accomplished by the command of the prince at the end of the three days.

  Far better that it should be done at once—that he should never awaken from his sleep. She reached the decision calmly and crept forward to him. Very lightly she passed her hand over his clothes. She had to move his arm to uncover the breast over his heart; the arm was a limp weight, but the muscles were firm, round, and solid. The first qualm troubled her as she realized that this must be a young man, at least a man in the prime of his physical strength.

  Then it occurred to her that often bullets fired into the breast are deflected from the heart by bones; it would be far more certain to lay the muzzle against the temple—press the trigger—the soul would depart.

  The soul! She paused with a thrill of wonder. A little touch would loose the swift spirit. The soul! For the first time she saw the tragedy from the viewpoint of the unknown man. His life was cut in the middle; truly a blind fate had reached out and chosen him from a whole city. Yet she was merely hastening the inevitable. She reached out and found his forehead.

  It was broad and high. Tracing it lightly with the tips of her fingers she discovered two rather prominent lumps of bony structure over the eyes. Some one had told her that this represented a strong power of memory. She tried to visualize that feature alone, and very suddenly, as a face shows when a man lights his cigarette on the street at night, she saw in memory the figure of Rembrandt’s “Portrait of a Young Painter.” He sits at his drawing board, his pencil poised, ready for the stroke which shall give vital character to his sketch. There is only one high light, falling on the lower part of the face. Inspiration has tightened the sensitive mouth; the questing eyes peer out from the shadow of the soft cap. She broke off from her vision to realize with a start that when she touched the trigger she would be stepping back through the centuries and killing her dream of the original of Rembrandt’s picture. A foolish fancy, truly, but in the dark a dream may be as true, as vivid as reality.

  The unconscious man sighed. She leaned close and listened to his breathing, soft, hurried, irregular as if he struggled in his sleep, as if the subconscious mind were calling to the conscious: “Awake! Death is here!”

  At least there was plenty of time. She need not fire the shot until he moved. She laid the revolver on her lap and absently allowed her hands to wander over his face, lingering lightly on each feature. She grew more alert after a moment. Every particle of her energy was concentrated on seeing that face—on seeing it through her sense of touch. The blind, she knew, grow so dextrous that the delicate nerves of their finger tips record faces almost as accurately as the eyes of the normal person.

  Ah, for one moment of that power! She tried her best. The nose, she told herself, was straight and well modeled. The eyes, for she traced the bony structure around them, must be large; the cheek bones high, a sign of strength; the chin certainly square and prominent; the lips full and the mouth rather large; the hair waving and thick; the throat large. One by one she traced each detail and then, moving both hands rather swiftly over the face, she strove to build the mental picture of the whole—and she achieved one, but still it was always the young painter whom great Rembrandt had drawn. The illusion would not go out of her mind.

  An artist’s hands, it is said, must be strong and sinewy. She took these hands and felt the heavy bones of the wrist and strove to estimate the length of the fingers. It seemed to her that this was an ideal hand for a painter—it must be both strong and supple.

  He sighed again and stirred; she caught up the weapon with feverish haste and poised it.

  “Ah, it is well,” said the sleeper in his dream.

  She made sure that he was indeed unconscious and then leaned low, whispering: “Adieu, my dear.”

  At some happy vision he laughed softly. His breath touched her face. Surely he could never know; he had so short a moment left for living; perhaps this would pass into his latest dream on earth and make it happy.

  “Adieu!” she whispered again, and her lips pressed on his.

  She laid the muzzle of the revolver against his temple, and, summoning all her will power, she pressed the trigger. It seemed as if she were pulling against it with her full strength, and yet there was no report. Then she realized that all her might was going into an inward struggle. Sh
e summoned to her aid the voice of the prince as he had said: “We put a mask on nature and call it love; we name an abstraction and call it God. Le Dieu, c’est moi!” She placed the revolver against the temple of the sleeper; he stirred and disturbed the surety of her direction. She adjusted the weapon again.

  Up sprang the man, shouting: “Treason! Help!”

  Then he stood silent a long moment; perhaps he was rehearsing the scene of his seizure.

  “This is death,” he muttered at last, “and I am in hell. I have always known what it would be—dark—utter and bitter loss of light.”

  As his hand moved, the chain rattled. He sprang back with such violence that his lunging weight jerked her to her feet.

  “It is useless to struggle,” she cried.

  “A woman! Where am I?”

  “You are lost.”

  “But what has happened? In God’s name, madame, are we chained together?”

  “We are.”

  “By whose power? By whose right and command?”

  “By one against whom we cannot appeal.”

  “My crime?”

  “None.”

  “For how long—”

  “Three days.”

  He heaved a great sigh of relief.

  “It is merely some practical joke, I see. That infernal Franz, I knew he was meditating mischief! Three days—and then free?”

  “Yes, for then you die.”

  Once more he was silent.

  Then: “This is a hideous dream. I will waken from it at once—at once. My dear lady—”

  She heard him advancing.

  “Keep the chain taut, sir, I am armed; I will fire at the slightest provocation.”

  He stopped and laughed.

  “Come, come! This is not so bad. You have been smiling in your sleep at me. Up with the lights, my dear. If Franz has engaged you for this business, let me tell you that I’m a far better fellow than he must have advertised me. But what a devil he is to rig up such an elaborate hoax! By Jove, this chain—this darkness—it’s enough to turn a fellow’s hair white! The black night gets on my nerves. Lights! Lights! I yearn to see you; I prophesy your beauty by your voice! Still coy? Then we’ll try persuasion!”

  His breast struck the muzzle of the revolver.

  She said quietly: “If I move my finger a fraction of an inch you die, sir. And every word I have spoken to you is the truth.”

  “Well, well! You do this finely. I shall compliment Franz on rehearsing you so thoroughly. Is this the fair Daphne of whom he told me—”

  And his hand touched her shoulder.

  “By everything that is sacred, I will fire unless you stand back—back to the end of the chain.”

  “Is it possible? The Middle Ages have returned!”

  He moved back until the light chain was taut.

  “My mind whirls. I try to laugh, but your voice convinces me. Madame, will you explain my situation in words of one syllable?”

  “I have explained it already. You are imprisoned in a place from which you cannot escape. You will be confined here, held to me by this chain, for three days. At the end of that time you die.”

  “Will you swear this is the truth?”

  “Name any oath and I will repeat it.”

  “There’s no need,” he said. “No, it cannot be a jest. Franz would never risk the use of a drug, wild as he is. Some other power has taken me. What reason lies behind my arrest?”

  “Think of it as a blind and brutal hand which required a victim and reached out over the city to find one. The hand fell upon you. There is no more to say. You can only resign yourself to die an unknown death.”

  He said at last: “Not unknown, thank God. I have something which will live after me.”

  Her heart leaped, for she was seeing once more the artist from Rembrandt’s brush.

  “Yes, your paintings will not be forgotten.”

  “I feel that they will not, and the name of—”

  “Do not speak of it!”

  “Why?”

  “I must not hear your name.”

  “But you know it already. You spoke of my painting.”

  “I have never seen your face; I have never heard your name; you were brought to me in this room darkened as you find it now.”

  “Yet you knew—”

  Her voice was marvelously low: “I touched your face, sir, and in some way I knew.”

  After a time he said: “I believe you. This miracle is no greater than the others. But why do you not wish to know my name?”

  “I may live after you, and when I see your pictures I do not wish to say: ‘This is his work; this is his power; this is his limitation.’ Can you understand?”

  “I will try to.”

  “I sat beside you while you were unconscious, and I pictured your face and your mind for myself. I will not have that picture reduced to reality.”

  “It is a delicate fancy. You are blind? You see by the touch of your hands?”

  “I am not blind, but I think I have seen your face through the touch.”

  “Here! I have stumbled against two chairs. Let us sit down and talk. I will slide this chair farther away if you wish. Do you fear me?”

  “No, I think I am not afraid. I am only very sad for you. Listen: I have laid down the revolver. Is that rash?”

  “Madame, my life has been clean. Would I stain it now? No, no! Sit here—so! My hand touches yours—you are not afraid?—and a thrill leaps through me. Is it the dark that changes all things and gives eyes to your imagination, or are you really very beautiful?”

  “How shall I say?”

  “Be very frank, for I am a dying man, am I not? And I should hear the truth.”

  “You are a profound lover of the beautiful?”

  “I am a painter, madame.”

  She called up the image of her face—the dingy brown hair, long and silken, to be sure; the colorless, small eyes; the common features which the first red-skinned farmer’s daughter could overmatch.

  “Describe me as you imagine me. I will tell you when you are wrong.”

  “May I touch you, madame, as you touched me? Or would that trouble you?”

  She hesitated, but it seemed to her that the questing eyes of Rembrandt’s portrait looked upon her through the dark—eyes reverent and eager at once.

  She said: “You may do as you will.”

  His unmanacled hand went up, found her hair, passed slowly over its folds.

  “It is like silk to the touch, but far more delicate, for there is life in every thread of it. It is abundant and long. Ah, it must shine when the sun strikes upon it! It is golden hair, madame, no pale-yellow like sea-sand, but glorious gold, and when it hangs across the whiteness of your throat and bosom the hearts of men stir. Speak! Tell me I have named it!”

  She waited till the sob grew smaller in her throat.

  “Yes, it is golden hair,” she said.

  “I could not be wrong.”

  His hand passed down her face, fluttering lightly, and she sensed the eagerness of every touch. Cold fear took hold of her lest those searching fingers should discover the truth.

  “Your eyes are blue. Yes, yes! Deep-blue for golden hair. It cannot be otherwise. Speak.”

  “God help me!”

  “Madame?”

  “I have been too vain of my eyes, sir. Yes, they are blue.”

  The fingers were on her cheeks, trembling on her lips, touching chin and throat.

  “You are divine. It was foredoomed that this should be! Yes, my life has been one long succession of miracles, but the greatest was reserved until the end. I have followed my heart through the world in search of perfect beauty and now I am about to die, I find it. Oh, God! For one moment with canvas, brush, and the blessed light of the sun! It cannot be! No miracle is complete; but I carry out into the eternal night one perfect picture. Canvas and paint? No, no! Your picture must be drawn in the soul and colored with love. The last miracle and the greatest! Three days? No, th
ree ages, three centuries of happiness, for are you not here?”

  Who will say that there is not an eye with which we pierce the night? To each of these two sitting in the utter dark there came a vision. Imagination became more real than reality. He saw his ideal of the woman, that picture which every man carries in his heart to think of in the times of silence, to see in every void. And she saw her ideal of manly power. The dark pressed them together as if with the force of physical hands. For a moment they waited, and in that moment each knew the heart of the other, for in that utter void of light and sound, they saw with the eyes of the soul and they heard the music of the spheres.

  Then she seemed to hear the voice of the prince: “You should be grateful to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing you that love of which you dreamed. Le Dieu, c’est moi!”

  Yes, it was the voice of doom which had spoken from those sardonic lips. The dark which annihilates time made their love a century old.

  “In all the world,” she whispered, “there is one man for every woman. It is the hand of Heaven which gives me to you.”

  “Come closer—so! And here I have your head beside mine as God foredoomed. Listen! I have power to look through the dark and to see your eyes—how blue they are!—and to read your soul beneath them. We have scarcely spoken a hundred words and yet I see it all. Through a thousand centuries our souls have been born a thousand times and in every life we have met, and known—”

  And through the utter dark, the merciful dark, the deep, strong music of his voice went on, and she listened, and forgot the truth and closed her eyes against herself.

  * * * *

  On the night which closed the third day the prince approached the door of the sealed room. To the officer of the secret police, who stood on guard, he said: “Nothing has been heard.”