Chapter XII: The Dénouement (2)

"DEAR SIR--A few weeks ago you received a letter which begged you to leave Cannes, and not to bring a certain misfortune upon some one who was severely tried and who merited your regard. You did not listen to the advice contained in this letter from an unknown friend. The dreaded misfortune has now arrived, and the same friend begs you not to repulse the second appeal as you did the first. The person into whose life you have entered and taken up so large a place never hopes to recover the happiness of which she has been robbed. All that she asks is that you will not condemn her unheard. If you will search in your conscience, you will admit that she has the right to ask it. She has written you a letter which you will find enclosed in this one. Do not send it back, as you did her first, with a harshness that is not natural to you. If you ought not to read it, destroy it at once. But if you do, you will be very cruel to a being who has given you all that has remained in her that is sincere, noble, delicate, and true."

Pierre read again and again the simple, awkward sentences that were yet so eloquent to him. He felt in them all the passionate fondness Louise Brion had for Ely. He was touched by them as all unhappy lovers are touched by proofs of devotion shown to their mistress. He felt such a longing to know that she was loved, protected, and cared for, although at the same moment he hated her with the most implacable hatred, although he was ready to condemn her with all the madness of rage. And what devotion could be greater than this shown by the pure-minded Louise in going from weakness to weakness so far as to charge herself with a letter from Ely to Hautefeuille. She had longed to go in person to the Hôtel des Palmes to ask for Pierre, to speak with him, to give him the envelope herself, but she had not dared. Perhaps she would have failed had she done so, whereas this indirect expedient conquered the young man's scruples. The emotions that the simple note had aroused left him powerless to contend with the flood of loving souvenirs that swept over him. He opened the second envelope and read:--

"PIERRE--I do not know whether you will even read these few words, whether I am not writing them in vain, just as the tears that I have shed in thinking of you ever since that frightful day have been shed vainly. I do not know whether you will let me tell you once more how I love you, whether you will let me tell you that I never loved any one in the world except you, that I feel I shall never love any one else. But I must tell it to you with the hope that my plea may reach you, the humble plea of a heart that suffers less from its own pain than from the knowledge that it has caused you to suffer. When I received back the other letter I wrote,--the one that you would not open,--my heart bled at the thought that you must have been mad with pain, or you would not have been so harsh with me. And I felt nothing except that you were suffering.

"No, my beloved, I cannot speak to you in any other way than I have done since the hour when I called you to me to ask you to go away, the hour when I took you in my arms. I have tried to conquer my feelings. It caused me too much pain not to disclose all that I felt. If you do not read these lines, you will not hate me for the loving words I have said to you, for you will not know of them. But if you read them--ah! if you read them you will remember the hours which passed so quickly on the seashore in the shade of the calm pines at the Cap d'Antibes, the hours spent upon the deck of the yacht, hours spent at Genoa before you were struck down by the terrible blow, hours when I could still see you happy, when I could still make you happy! You do not know, sweetheart, you cannot know, what it is for a woman to make the man she loves happy! If I did not tell you at once what you know to-day, it was because of the certainty that never again should I see in your eyes the clear light of complete happiness which shone from your enraptured soul--a light that I have seen so much and loved so much.

"Understand me, beloved, I do not wish to excuse my crime. I was never worthy of you. You were beauty, youth, and purity--all that is best, tenderest, and most loving in this world. I had lost the right to be loved by such a man as you. I ought to have told you the first day I met you. Then, if you had wished for me, you could have taken me and left me like a poor being that only lived for you, that was only made to please you a moment, to distract you and then say good-by. I thought of it, believe me, and I have paid very dearly for the movement not of pride, but of love. I had a horror of being despised by you. And then the woman that you had called into being in me was so different from what I had been before I knew you. I said to myself, 'I am not deceiving him.' And, believe me, I did not lie when I told you that I loved you. My heart was so completely changed. All! how I loved you! How I loved you! You will never know how much nor even I myself. It was something so deeply implanted in my heart, it was so sad when I thought of what might have been if I had only waited for you.

"You see, Pierre, that I speak of myself in the past as one speaks of the dead. Do not be afraid. I have not any idea of ending my life. I have caused you too much sorrow to increase your suffering by remorse. I live, and I shall live, if that can be called living in a being who has known you, who has loved and been beloved by you, and who has lost you. I know that you are leaving Cannes, that you are going away to-morrow. I cannot think that you will leave me forever without speaking to me. My hand trembles even in writing. I cannot find the words with which to explain my thoughts. Yet it will be too cruel if you leave me without giving me the opportunity of making what excuse I have for the life I once led. If you were near me for only one hour, you could go away and then you would think differently of me. What once was can never be again. But I wish to carry with me into the solitude which will surround my life in future the consolation of thinking that you see me as I am, and that you do not believe me capable of something I have never committed. My beloved, the time is so short. You leave to-morrow. When you read this letter, if you do read it, we shall not even have an entire day to be in the same city. If you do read my poor letter, if it touches you, if you find that my request is not too great, come to me at the hour you used to come. At eleven o'clock I will wait for you in the hothouse. If you condemn me without any appeal, if you refuse to grant me this last interview, good-by again, and again good-by. Not a reproach will ever find place in my heart, and I shall always say forever and ever, 'Thanks, my beloved, for having loved me.'"

"I will not go," said the young man to himself, when he had finished reading the pages, eloquent with a passionate emanation of love. He repeated: "I will not go." But he felt that he was not frank with himself. He knew that he could not resist. He knew that he would yield to her imploring appeal, that he would obey the voice of the woman, a voice whose music rang in every word of her letter, a voice that implored him, that told of her adoration, that soothed his wounded heart like a sad caress sweet as death.

But the nearer Pierre drew to the meeting-place the more he felt an unspeakable sadness. His action appeared to him so culpable when he realized all its infamy that he was overwhelmed. And yet he would not draw back. On and on he went. The love potion the words of the letter had poured into his veins continued to dominate his failing will. He went on, but the contrast between this despicable, clandestine walk to a woman that he despised, to a woman who made him despise himself for longing for her, was very different from the pilgrimages he used to make toward the same villa, along the same road, filled with a happy fervor.

And Olivier? Heaven! if Olivier could see him at present! If Olivier, whom he was betraying so cruelly, could only see him!

The tension of his nerves was so great, he was so shaken by the double emotions of love and remorse, that the tiniest noise startled him. The surrounding objects took on an aspect that was both menacing and fantastic. His heart beat and his nerves quivered. He was afraid. He seemed to hear footsteps following him in the night, and he stopped to listen. At the moment that he was going to ascend the slope by which he had been accustomed to enter Ely's garden, the idea that he was being followed became so strong that he retraced his steps, peering about along the road, among the bushes and heaps of stones. He avoided the strong rays of light of an electric lamp standing on one of the pillars of the fence as though he had been a robber.

His examination, however, was fruitless. But the idea was so strong that he was afraid to enter by the same path. It appeared too open, too easy of access. He began to run, as though he had really been followed, around the little park which ended the garden of the villa at its upper end. A wall enclosed a part of it. With the help of the branches of an oak growing at its foot, he climbed over. While still on the coping he listened again. He heard but the sound of the dying breeze, the quivering of the foliage, the vast silence of night, and far, far away, the barking of a dog in some isolated house. He thought he must have been dreaming, and slipped down on the other side of the wall. It was about three metres in height, and he was lucky enough to fall upon a spot of soft earth. Then he made his way toward the house.

A few minutes later he was at the door of the greenhouse. He pushed it open gently and Ely's hand took his own.

But what would have been his thoughts if he had known that his fears were well founded, if he had known that he had been followed since he left the hotel, that the witness whose presence he had felt so near him in the dark, until the moment he began to run, was none other than Olivier?

The house stood closed and silent in all the mystery of its shadows, with isolated spots of light where the lamp shone full upon it. The same vast silence of night that had oppressed Pierre while upon the wall, the silence broken by the distant baying of a dog, still enveloped the country. The trees still quivered, and the flowers poured forth their perfume. The stars still shone, and Olivier remained motionless at the edge of the garden, in the place where he had thrown himself down so that his friend might not see him.

His suffering at this moment was not the suffering of some one who struggles and fights. When he saw Pierre at luncheon, his contracted features, his shining eyes, his trembling lips, had revealed to him that something had happened. He was so weary of fighting, so tired of always struggling with his own heart, of seeing so much suffering in his friend's heart! Besides, what more could he ask him after the conversation of the night before? So he kept silent. What was the good of continually torturing each other?

Then, as Hautefeuille's agitation increased, his suspicions were aroused. He thought, "She has written to him asking for a meeting!" But no, it was not possible! To receive a letter from Ely, read it, and not speak about it was a crime against their friendship under their present relations that Pierre would never be guilty of. Olivier struggled to convince himself of the madness of his suspicion. The emotion of his friend communicated itself to him. He felt, when he took his hand upon separating for the night, that his betrayal was near, was certain, was even then an accomplished fact!

Why did he not speak to him at that moment? A heart that has been deceived often yields to such an impulse of renunciation. It is impossible to struggle against certain unexpected events, it is impossible to complain of them. What reproach could he make to Pierre? What was the good of reproaching him if he had really conceived the idea of breaking the compact he had entered into with him? Yes, what was the good? And Olivier remained leaning upon the windowsill, summoning up all his dignity to keep from going to his friend's room while repeating that it was impossible.

And then, at a certain moment, he thought he saw Pierre's profile as some one crossed the garden of the hotel. This time he could resist no longer. He felt compelled to go down and question the concierge. He learned that Pierre had just gone out. A few minutes later he himself took the direction of the Villa Helmholtz. He recognized his friend and followed him. He saw him turn, listen, and go on again. Just as Pierre was entering the garden, Olivier could not help making a step forward. It was at this moment that Pierre heard him. Olivier drew back into the darkness. His friend passed quite close to him. Indeed, he almost touched him, and then began to run, most probably toward another entrance with which he was familiar, and Olivier ceased to follow him.

He sank down on the slope and gave way to unutterable despair, in which were reunited and collected all the sorrow and suffering he had gone through during the last two weeks. He knew that at that very minute, in the silent house so near him, Ely and Pierre were together. He knew that they had forgiven each other, that they loved each other. And the thought caused him a pang of agony so keen that he could not move. He almost fainted under the emotions caused by his passionate love for this woman and the sentiment that his friend, a friend so dear to him, had trampled him under foot on his way to her, mingled with the tortures of jealousy and the bitterness of betrayal. He ended by flinging himself, face downward, upon the cold earth, the gentle earth that takes us all into her embrace one day, whose weight, while crushing us down, also crushes out the intolerable sufferings of our heart. There he lay, his arms extended, his face buried in the grass, like a corpse, longing for death, longing to be free, longing to love this woman no more, to never again see his friend, to have finished with existence, to sleep the sleep that is without dreams, without memory, a sleep in which Ely and Pierre and himself would seem as though they had never been.

How long did he remain thus, face to the ground, a prey to the complete, irremediable sorrow which ends by calming the heart through its very intensity? A sound of voices behind the hedge which separated him from the garden aroused him abruptly from the paroxysm of suffering which had overwhelmed him. They came from some men walking without a light, measuring their steps, speaking in muffled tones. They came so close to Olivier that he could have touched them if he had risen to his feet.

"He entered here, and went out again by this place the other nights that he came, monseigneur," said one of the voices, a whispering, insinuating, almost inaudible voice. "We cannot possibly miss him."

"Are you certain that none of your men suspect the truth?" said another easily recognizable voice.

"Not one, monseigneur. They think they have to do with a robber."

"Monsieur von Laubach," said a third voice, the voice of an inferior, "the gardener says that the door of the hothouse is open."

"I will go and see," went on the first speaker, while the second imperious voice uttered a "Verfluchter Esel."

This exclamation showed how disagreeable this detail of surveillance was to him who had ordered this trap. A trap for whom? Knowing what he knew, Olivier had not a moment's doubt: the Archduke had learned that a man was with his wife, and he was preparing for his vengeance. He desired an anonymous vengeance, as was shown by the question he had asked of his aid-de-camp, and afterwards his wrath against the "cussed ass" who had mentioned the hothouse door. The lover was to be killed like a common burglar, "to spare Ely's honor," reflected Olivier, who now got up and, leaning his head forward, listened to the voices dying out in the distance. Doubtless the Archduke and his lieutenant were completing the surrounding of the garden. Pierre was lost.

Pierre was lost! Olivier rose to his feet. The possibility of saving the friend he loved so dearly flashed across his mind. Suppose he entered the garden? Suppose he penetrated as far as the greenhouse door, of which one of the watchers had spoken and whence it was evident the man they were about to kill would issue? Suppose he then rushed out so as to make them believe he was returning to town?

The idea of such a substitution with its self-sacrifice took possession, with irresistible force, of the unhappy man who had so keen a longing for death. He began to walk along, at first in the shades of the bank and then of the wall, which he climbed at almost the same place as his friend had done. Then he walked straight toward the villa, which stood silent and still before him, not a ray of light issuing from the interstices of the shuttered windows.

Olivier regarded it with a strange ardor shining in his eyes. How he longed to be able to pierce the walls with his gaze, to penetrate there in spirit, to appear before him for whom he was risking his life!

Alas! Would his courage for the sacrifice he was about to make have been strong enough to withstand the sight of Ely's room as it was at that moment? Could he have supported the picture presented, in the rays of a pink-shaded lamp, of Ely's head nestling close to Pierre's on the same pillow?

The beautiful arm of the young woman was wound round his neck, and she was saying:--

"I believe I should have died before morning of love and grief if you had not come. But I felt you would come; I felt you would pardon me. When I touched your hand, before I could even see you, all my sufferings were forgotten. And yet, how hard you were to me at first! What cruel things you said! How you made me suffer! But it is all forgotten! Say that all is forgotten! You have taken me to your heart again, you know that I love you, and that you let me love you! Tell me that you love me! Ah, tell me again that you love me as you did upon the boat when we listened to the sighing of the sea! Do you remember, sweet?"

And her eyes sought those of her lover, trying to find in them the light of complete happiness, of which her letter had spoken. Alas! it was not there. An expression of settled sadness and remorse dwelt in their depths.

And this was soon to change to one of terror. At the very instant that Ely pressed her more tender, more caressing, more loving lips on the young man's eyelids, trying to drive away the melancholy she read in his gaze, a report rang out in the garden, then a second, then a third, shot after shot. A cry rent the air.

Then all was still again. A terrifying silence now reigned. The two lovers looked at each other. The same idea flashed through their minds at the same moment.

"Hide yourself behind the curtains," said Ely. "I will find out what has happened."

She threw a dressing-gown over her shoulders and drew one of the curtains of the alcove before the young man. Then, lamp in hand, she walked toward the window, opened it, and asked in a loud voice:--

"Who is there? What is the matter?"

"Do not be alarmed, my dear," replied a voice whose sinister irony made her shiver. "It was only a robber trying to break into the villa.--He must have two or three bullets in him. We are just looking for him. Don't be frightened. _He will never come back again_! Laubach fired at him point-blank."

Ely closed the window. When she turned she saw that Pierre was already more than half dressed. He was very pale, and his hands were trembling.

"You are not thinking of going?" she cried. "The garden is crowded with men!"

"I must go!" he replied. "They were shooting at Olivier!"

"At Olivier?" she repeated. "You are mad!"

"Yes, at Olivier," he said with an agonized energy; "they took him for me. He must have seen me leave the hotel and he followed me. They were his steps that I heard."

"No, I cannot, I will not let you go," she said, standing in front of the door. "Stop here for a few moments, I implore you. It was not Olivier, it could not be he! They will kill you. Oh, my love, I pray you to stay! Do not go, do not leave me!"

He had now finished dressing. He thrust her rudely to one side, and said: "Let me go! Let me go!" without a look, without a word of adieu.

He had descended the stairs, passed through the hothouse into the garden, before she could move. She remained leaning against the wall where he had thrown her, listening, her head bent forward, listening with an anguish that was maddening.--But there was no further report. Pierre did not meet either the Prince or his men, for they were occupied in hunting for some traces of the first fugitive.

"Ah" she moaned, "he is safe!--If the other has only escaped!"

Pierre's terror had taken possession of her. Yes, the unknown visitor at whom the men had shot could be no one but Olivier. She had understood too well the Prince's tone. Her husband had learned that she was with her lover. He had laid a trap for him. Who, then, could have fallen into it instead of Pierre?--For the first time in many years this woman, so broad-minded, so permeated with the spirit of fatalism and nihilism, this woman felt an impulse to appeal to a higher power. She was blinded with terror at what she foresaw if she and Pierre had really brought about the death of the man who had been her lover, of the man who had been Pierre's sole friend; she was so overwhelmed that she fell upon her knees and prayed that this punishment might be spared them.

Vain prayer! As fruitless as the mad flight of her guilty accomplice who tore along the road, halting at intervals to cry, "Olivier! Olivier!"

He received no reply to his calls. At last he arrived at the hotel. He would soon know whether he was not under the influence of some evil dream. What were his feelings when the porter said in answer to his inquiries:--

"Monsieur du Prat? He went out immediately after you had left, sir!"

"Did he ask if I had gone out?"

"Yes, sir. I'm surprised that you did not meet him, sir. He went along the same road immediately after you."

So his presentiments had not deceived him! Olivier had really followed him. Olivier had been taken by surprise in the garden. Was he dead? Was he wounded? Where was he lying helpless?

All night long Hautefeuille wandered about the roads, searching in the ditches, among the hedges, the stones, feeling about on the ground at the foot of the trees. In the morning he was returning, literally mad after his useless researches, when, going toward the hotel by another road, he met two gardeners pushing a handcart. In it was laid a human form. He walked up to it and recognized his friend.

Olivier had received two balls in the chest. Upon his face, soiled with the sand of the road, was an expression of infinite sadness. Judging from the place where the gardeners had found him, he must have walked for a quarter of an hour after being wounded. Then his strength had failed him; he had fainted and had died--probably without ever coming to himself again--of a hemorrhage caused by his wounds and the effort he had made.

Where are the dead, our dead? Where go those who have loved us, whom we have loved, those to whom we have been gentle, kind, helpful, those towards whom we have been guilty of inexplicable wrongs, those who have left us before we have ever known if we have been pardoned?

But whether this life of the invisible dead which surround our terrestrial existence be a dream or a reality, it is certain that Ely has never dared to see Pierre or to write to him since that terrible night. Whenever she takes up the pen to draw near him again, once more something prevents her. And something always stays Pierre's hand when he tries to give her a sign of his existence.

The dead stands between the living, the dead who will never, never disappear.

THE END