“Why did you become a priest?” I asked.
He sighed.
“Because I was compelled,” he answered wearily. “Of course you will not believe me. But you do not understand, — and it would take too long to explain. I could not help myself; circumstance is often stronger than will. I strove against it, — all in vain! — you are right enough when you speak of church tyranny. The Church is a tyrant, — none crueller, more absolute or more lacking in Christian charity — its velvet glove covers a merciless hand of iron. Once made a priest, I was sent on to Rome; and there, under pretence of special favour and protection I was kept in close attendance on cardinals and monsignorij — I prayed for news from home, — none ever reached me, — till tired of waiting, I came away by stealth and travelled straight to Paris; — I only arrived to-day.”
“And why are you here?” I demanded, indicating by a gesture the surrounding woodland and rippling water.
“Why?” — he sighed again, and looked upward to the peaceful sky above him— “Because here the heavens smiled upon the only happiness I ever knew! Love, the natural claim and heritage of man, this was bestowed upon me here; — here I won the tender birthright of my blood, — a birthright which priestly usage would have defrauded me of! I came here too, because I dared not go elsewhere; — for, though I was ignorant of all you have told me, I avoided my uncle’s house — I know not why — save that I felt I could not bear to enter it, — now!”
I remained silent, watching him.
“Here was our secret try sting-place!” he went on dreamily. “Here under these trees, beloved for her sake, Pauline has wandered with me, her sweet eyes speaking what her lips were afraid to utter — her little hand in mine — her head resting on my heart! Here we two have tasted the divinest joy that life can ever give, or death take away, — joy that you have never known, Gaston Beauvais! — no! for my darling never loved you! Your touch never wakened in her one responsive throb of passion; — she loved me, and me alone! Ay! — even if you had married her, and if my faults were ten thousand times greater than they are, she would still love me faithfully to the end!”
Here was specious “French” reasoning with a vengeance! I thought I must have gone mad with fury as I saw the expression of serene triumph on that pale poet-face, fair as an angel’s in the radiance of the moon.
“You boast of that?” I said hoarsely. “Y ou dare to boast of that?”
He smiled victoriously.
“Even so! I boast of that! It is something to be proud of, to have been loved truly, once!”
My hands clenched.
“Will you seek her out?” I asked breathlessly.
“I will!”
“When?”
“To-morrow!”
“To-night is not ended!” I muttered, edging a little nearer to him still, and trying to keep my thoughts steady in the surging tumult of hissing and whispering noises that buzzed in my brain. “And, — if you find her, — what then?”
“What then?” — and with a reckless gesture of mingled defiance and passion, he lifted his eyes once more to the observant stars— “Why, then it may be that I shall condemn my soul to hell for her sake! I shall, if the Church is the Voice of God! But, should it chance, as I have thought, — that God is something infinitely more supreme than any Church, — more great, more loving, more tenderly wise and pitiful than can be imagined by His subject-creature Man, — I doubt not, if this be true, that when I rescue and comfort the woman I have wronged as only love can comfort her, — when I kneel at her feet and ask her pardon for the evil I have wrought, — even thus shall I make my surest peace with Heaven!”
Canting hypocrite! — vile traducer! — worse in my sight than ever for his braggart pretence of piety! Quick as a lightning flash the suppressed ferocity of my soul broke forth, — and without warning or premeditation I threw myself savagely upon him.
“Best make peace with it now!” I cried. “For, by God! it is your last chance!”
For one panting second we stared into each other’s eyes, — our faces almost touching, our very breaths commingling; then, yielding to the natural impulse of self-defence, he closed with me and fought strenuously for life. He was light, agile and muscular, and would have proved a powerful opponent to most men, — but his strength was as nothing to the superhuman force that possessed me — the force of twenty devils as it were, brought into opposition against this one struggling existence. Wild voices sang, shouted, and yelled in my ears “Kill! Kill! Kill him!” circles of fire swam before me, — and once as he swerved back from my grasp and nearly fell, I laughed aloud, — laughed, as I sprang at him anew, and shook him furiously to and fro as a wild beast shakes its prey. Closing with me again, he managed to seize my arms in such wise that for the moment I was rendered powerless; and once more his great dark eyes flamed into mine.
“Are you mad, Gaston Beauvais?” he gasped. “Do you want to murder me?”
As he spoke, my rapid glance travelled upward to his neck which showed itself bare and white just above the close-set priestly band of his black habit, — I saw where I could win my fearful victory! I made a pretence of falling beneath his hold, — and involuntarily his grasp relaxed; — in one breath of time I had wrenched myself free, — in another, my two hands were closed fast on that smooth, full tempting throat, gripping it hard as a vice of steel!... Tighter! — tighter! — and the fair face above me grew dark and convulsed, — the flashing grey-black eyes started horribly from their sockets! — tighter still! — one desperate choking struggle more, and he fell prone on the sward, I falling upon him, so that the deadly clutch of my fingers never relaxed for a second! Once down, my murderous task was easier, — my wrists had more power, — and I pressed all my weight upon the swelled and throbbing arteries beneath my relentless hands. Those eyes! — how they glared at me! wide open and awfully protruding! — would the cursed life in them never be quenched?
“Die! — die!” I muttered fiercely under my breath. “God! — That it should take so long to kill a man!”
Suddenly a great shudder shook the limbs over which I crouched brute-like and watchful, — those pulsing veins beneath my fingers stopped, — the head fell further back, — the lips parted, showing a glimmer of pearly teeth within, in the ghastly semblance of a smile, — and then, — then came silence! Silence! — horror! What now? What did it all mean? What was this cold awfulness — this dumb, rigid, staring thing? — was this death? Seized by a swift frenzied fear, I sprang up, — I looked about me everywhere. Everywhere solitude! — only the whispering of trees and shining of stars! Only Nature, and that, — that strange still figure on the grass with arms outspread on either side like a Christ without the cross. What had I done? I considered doubtfully; looking vaguely at my own hands the while. No stain of blood was on them! Had I then killed him? No, — no! — not possible! He had swooned!
I stepped close up to him, — I took his hand, — it was warm.
“Guidèl!” I said, — and the sound of my own voice startled my sense of hearing— “Come, get up! — do not lie there as if I had murdered you! Get up, I tell you! — Our quarrel is over, — we will fight no more!”
Silence! The wide open eyes regarded me fixedly, — they were glazing over with a strange film! A bird darted from one of the branches overhead, and flew rustlingly through the air, — the sound of its wings threw me into a cold perspiration, and I fell on my knees shuddering through and through. I crawled reluctantly up to that dark recumbent mass,... if he were dead,... if he were dead, I thought, quaking in every limb, — why then — I would shut those eyes! My previous mad fury had given place to weak, half delirious terror; — I could scarcely summon up the courage to reach out my hands and let them hover above those pallid features, that in all the contorted agony of their last expression were already freezing under my very gaze into a marble-like rigidity! I touched the eyelids, — I pressed them firmly down over the glassy balls beneath,... so! — they could look at me no longer!
With a sigh of relief I crawled away again, and once at arm’s length from the corpse, stood upright wondering what next I should do. I had killed Silvion Guidèl; — this seemed evident; — and yet I strove to represent to myself that it was not, could not be so. Some inherent weakness of the heart’s action might have done the deed; — it could not have been the mere grasp of my hands! But, after all, — had I not meant to kill him? Had not the idea slept in my brain for weeks without declaring itself? — and had it not become actively paramount with me from the moment I saw him that night? Yes! — it was a murder — and a premeditated one if truth were told! I had violently taken a man’s life! — I! I looked awfully round at my victim-, — and looking, shrieked aloud! The eyes — the eyes that I had shut so fast, were open, — wide open and protruding more than ever! How they stared at me! — with what fixed and pertinacious solemnity! In a delirium of haste I rushed back to the horrible figure lying prone, and pressed my fingers hard and heavily once more upon the cold yet rebellious lids. But in vain! — they curled upwards again from under my very touch, and again left the eyeballs glassy and bare! I moaned and shivered while the sweat poured from my forehead in the extremity of fear that possessed me; — and then all at once a ghastly thought flashed across my brain. I had heard scientists say that the eyes of a murdered man took in their last look the portrait of his murderer, and that this so terribly painted miniature could be reproduced faithfully, line for line! Was such a thing possible?... Oh why, why could I not shut those eyes! I could stamp them out with my heel if I dared, — but, I did not dare!
Again I looked up at the stars, — then down at the river, whereof the tide, now risen higher, made a roaring rush of music, — and while I waited thus, the church clock, the same I had heard before, struck midnight. Only an hour had passed since I stood on the bridge, an evil-brooding man, but not — not a murderer! Only an hour! — it seemed an eternity, — and truly it had wrought an eternal change in my destiny. I had shed no blood, — and yet the air was red about me, — the very stars seemed to dart at me fiery tongues of flame, — but the worst thing of all was the horrible passiveness, the dreadful inertness of my strangled foe, — for oddly enough though I knew I had killed him, at the same time I could not comprehend why he should he dead!
I had turned my hack upon the corpse, but now I forced myself to confront it once more, — though I strove my utmost to avoid its terrible eyes. Silvion Guidèl’s eyes they were, — imagine it! — those strained, glazed, anguished, crystalline-looking things, — the eyes that had darkened with thought and lightened with love, — the eyes that had flashed their passionate prayer into the eyes of Pauline! — ha! what would she say if she could see them now? Pauline’s lover! — Pauline’s seducer! — The libertine, — the Priest! — there be lay, the holy chosen servant of Mother Church, — dead! Dead, and I had killed him! Good! For the millionth time or more, the world’s Cain had proved himself stronger than God’s favoured Abel! And yet, you say, some of you, that God is “omnipotent.” Tell this to children if it please you, but spare me, an absintheur, from so unnecessary a Lie!
For a time my brain reeled under its pressure of sickening thought; but at last the idea came to me that I must somehow or other get rid of the body. I could not bury it; — I could perhaps drag it or carry it to that shelving bank which jutted slopingly into the river at a little distance from where I stood, and from thence I could fling it into the Seine. And the Seine would wash it to and fro and disfigure it with mud and weedy slime, and carry it perchance down like a log, past cities, towns, and villages, to the sea, — the wide merciful, blank sea, where so many things are sunk and forgotten. Unless — unless it should be found and dragged ashore! — but I could not suffer myself to think of this probability; and stringing up every nerve and sinew to the labour, I began my task. I lifted the corpse from the ground, always appalled by the never. closing eyes, and by dint of the strongest effort, managed to support its chill and awful weight across my shoulder, while I staggered to the river’s brink. There stopping and panting for breath, I laid it down, struck once more by the tremulous sense that life after all might still be fluttering within this stiffening mass of clay. Keeping my courage firm, I bent down and felt the heart; — it was stone-still; but some small thing like a packet lay pressed above it. An Agnus Dei? Oh no! — priests do not always wear purely sacred symbols! I took it out, — it was a folded paper which I opened, and found inside a thick curl of soft dark hair. Pauline’s hair! — I knew it well! — the touch of it, the delicate scent of it, made me tremble as with an aguefit — and I hastily thrust it into my own breast. Then I stared again down at my work, — and smiled! There was no beauty in this lifeless lump before me, — death by strangulation had so blackened and distorted the features that their classic regularity and fairness was no longer perceivable, — the very parting of the lips, which had at first seemed like a faint serene smile, had now stiffened into a hideous grin. Death is not always beautiful, mes amis! The pretty sentimentalists may imagine it so if they choose, but it is far more often repulsive in its effects than admirable, believe me! And if it chance that you are doomed to die by the close pull of the hangman’s cord about your throat, or the grip of a madman’s fingers close on your windpipe, you may be sure your countenance will not be a model for sculptors afterwards!
Now, as I stood regarding my victim steadfastly, a certain grim pleasure began to stir throbbingly in my veins. I — I, alone and unassisted had destroyed all that subtle mechanism of manhood called God’s handiwork; I had defaced all that comeliness on which Nature seemed to have set her fairest seal! Why should I have been so terrified at those open eyes, I thought, self-scorningly? — they were dead, things and lustreless; — their reproachful expression was mere seeming! Quick! — Into the quiet waters with such useless carrion! — let it first sink like a stone and then float, a disfigured blubber mass, on the destroying tide! For water, like earth, breeds hungry corpse-devouring creatures, who will make short work of even such sacred goods as a priest’s dead body! — besides, — there is no blood — no sign of violence anywhere, — no proof of — of — murder! Stay, though! — there are marks on the throat, — the marks of my throttling fingers — but what of that? Surely the river’s quiet working will efface these in an hour?
Raising myself stiffly erect, I peered round about me on all sides, and scanned the opposite bank of the Seine scrutinizingly, lest haply some lonely musing soul should be walking there and watching the water ripple caressingly beneath the moon, — but there was no one visible. I might have been alone in a desert, so profoundly still and solitary was the nightfall nature seemed gravely occupied in watching me, or so I fancied; the heavens leaned towards me with all their whirling stars, as though I had drawn them down to stare wonderingly at my slain man! Once more I lifted the body; — this time the head fell back over my arm with sickening suddenness, and a light wind fanned the clustering hair backwards from the brow. Looking, — for some resistless instinctive force compelled me to look, — I saw a slight but deep scar running just across the left temple, — whereupon a new fear assailed me. If found, would the corpse be recognized by that scar? — was there anything else that might give a clue to its identity, and so start long and circumstantial inquiries and researches which in the end might track me out as the murderer? I laid my horrid burden down again, and hastily ransacked the pockets of the priestly garments, — there was not a letter or paper by which anything could he traced, — only a return ticket to Rome, which I tore up, — an old breviary and a purse containing about four hundred francs. There was no name in the breviary, and I put it back together with the purse, in the place where I had found it. In leaving the money thus untouched, I calculated that if discovered at all, the body would probably be taken for that of a suicide, — as a murdered man is generally, especially in France, deprived of valuables. That sort of suspicion, — that idea of murder — how the word chilled me! — would in this case be averted; — f
or I attached no importance to the circumstance of the priest’s garb. Priests are as apt to kill themselves as other people, are they not? They have more reason, I should say, — knowing themselves to be such false pretenders!
Satisfied with my examination, — though I could not do away with that scar on the temples, — I raised the rigid weight, now grown heavier, once more, — the arms hung downwards, stiff and inert, — one of the hands swinging round as I moved, touched me, and I nearly shrieked aloud, it was so clammy cold! I reached the edge of the shelving bank, and then, staggering slowly, inch by inch, along the natural pier of stones that ran out into the river, I flung the corpse from me, far forward, with all my might! It fell crashingly through the water, the sonorous echo of its fall resounding on both banks of the stream to such an extent that it seemed to me as if all the world must instantly awaken from sleep and rush upon me in crowds to demand a knowledge of my crime! I waited — my heart almost standing still with sheer terror, — waited till the close circles in the water widened and widened and melted in smooth width away. No sound followed, — no cry of “Murder!” startled the night, — all was quiet as before, — all as watchfully observant of me as if each separate leaf on the branches of the trees had eyes!
I hurried back to the spot where the struggle had taken place, and there with eager hands and feet, I scraped and smoothed the torn and trampled earth, and walked and re-walked upon it till it looked neatly flat as a board in the clear light of the moon; aye — I even overcame my shuddering reluctance so far that I coaxed and pulled and brushed up the crushed grass on which Silvion Guidèl had fallen down to die!
So! — all was done! — and, pausing, I surveyed the scene. Oh scene of perfect peace! — Oh quiet nook for love indeed! — such love as brought Pauline here in the dewy hush of early mornings when instead of praying at mass as she so prettily feigned, she listened to a pleading more passionate than the cold white angels know! For love — the love we crave and thirst for, — is not methinks of holy origin! — it was germinated in hell, — born of fire, tears, and restless breathing; — the bright chill realms of heaven hold no such burning flame! I cursed the fairness of the place, and Nature mocked my curses with her smile! The tranquil moon gazed downwards pensively, thinking her own thoughts doubtless as she swept through the sky — the trees quivered softly in their dreams, touched perchance by some tender rush of memory; and the river lapped whisperingly against the shore as though delivering kisses from the blossoms on one side to the blossoms on the other. The sleepy enchantment of the mingling midnight and morning seemed to hang like an opaline mist in the air, — and as I looked, I suddenly felt that I, standing where I did, had all at once become a mere outcast and alien from the beautiful confidence of Nature, — that the dead body I had just thrown in the murmuring waters was far more gathered into the heart of things than I!
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 225
