Chapter II.28
Jacques de Boiscoran went straight to Mautrec Street. But he knew with what horror he was looked upon by the population; and in order to avoid being recognized, and perhaps arrested, he did not take the most direct route, nor did he choose the more frequented streets. He went a long way around, and well-nigh lost himself in the winding, dark lanes of the old town. He walked along in Feverish haste, turning aside from the rare passers- by, pulling his felt hat down over his eyes, and, for still greater safety, holding his handkerchief over his face. It was nearly half-past nine when he at last reached the house inhabited by Count and Countess Claudieuse. The little gate had been taken out, and the great doors were closed.
Never mind! Jacques had his plan. He rang the bell. A maid, who did not know him, came to the door. "Is the Countess Claudieuse in?" he asked.
"The countess does not see anybody," replied the girl. "She is sitting up with the count, who is very ill to-night."
"But I must see her." "Impossible."
"Tell her that a gentleman who has been sent by M. Galpin desires to see her for a moment. It is the Boiscoran affair."
"Why did you not say so at once?" said the servant. "Come in." And forgetting, in her hurry, to close the gates again, she went before Jacques through the garden, showed him into the vestibule, and then opened the parlor-door, saying,--
"Will you please go in here and sit down, while I go to tell the countess?"
After lighting one of the candles on the mantelpiece, she went out. So far, every thing had gone well for Jacques, and even better than he could have expected. Nothing remained now to be done, except to prevent the countess from going back and escaping, as soon as she should have recognized Jacques. Fortunately the parlor-door opened into the room. He went and put himself behind the open half, and waited there.
For twenty-four hours he had prepared himself for this interview, and arranged in his head the very words he would use. But now, at the last moment, all his ideas flew away, like dry leaves under the breath of a tempest. His heart was beating with such violence, that he thought it filled the whole room with the noise. He imagined he was cool, and, in fact, he possessed that lucidity which gives to certain acts of madmen an appearance of sense.
He was surprised at being kept waiting so long, when, at last, light steps, and the rustling of a dress, warned him that the countess was coming.
She came in, dressed in a long, dark, undress robe, and took a few steps into the room, astonished at not seeing the person who was waiting for her.
It was exactly as Jacques had foreseen.
He pushed to, violently, the open half of the door; and, placing himself before her, he said,--
"We are alone!"
She turned round at the noise, and cried,-- "Jacques!"
And terrified, as if she had seen a ghost, she looked all around, hoping to see a way out. One of the tall windows of the room, which went down to the ground, was half open, and she rushed towards it; but Jacques anticipated her, and said,--
"Do not attempt to escape; for I swear I should pursue you into your husband's room, to the foot of his bed."
She looked at him as if she did not comprehend. "You," she stammered,--"you here!"
"Yes," he replied, "I am here. You are astonished, are you? You said to yourself, 'He is in prison, well kept under lock and key: I can sleep in peace. No evidence can be found. He will not speak. I have committed the crime, and he will be punished for it. I am guilty; but I shall escape. He is innocent, and he is lost.' You thought it was all settled? Well, no, it is not. I am here!"
An expression of unspeakable horror contracted the beautiful features of the countess. She said,--
"This is monstrous!" "Monstrous indeed!" "Murderer! Incendiary!"
He burst out laughing, a strident, convulsive, terrible laughter. "And you," he said, "you call me so?"
By one great effort the Countess Claudieuse recovered her energy.
"Yes," she replied, "yes, I do! You cannot deny your crime to me. I know, I know the motives which the judges do not even guess. You thought I would carry out my threats, and you were frightened. When I left you in such haste, you said to yourself, 'It is all over: she will tell her husband.' And then you kindled that fire in order to draw my husband out of the house, you incendiary! And then you fired at my husband, you murderer!"
He was still laughing.
"And that is your plan?" he broke in. "Who do you think will believe such an absurd story? Our letters were burnt; and, if you deny having been my mistress, I can just as well deny having been your lover. And, besides, would the exposure do me any harm? You know very well it would not. You are perfectly aware, that, as society is with us, the same thing which disgraces a woman rather raises a man in the estimate of the world. And as to my being afraid of Count Claudieuse, it is well known that I am afraid of nobody. At the time when we were concealing our love in the house in Vine Street, yes, at that time, I might have been afraid of your husband; for he might have surprised us there, the code in one hand, a revolver in the other, and have availed himself of that stupid and savage law which makes the husband the judge of his own case, and the executor of the sentence which he himself pronounces. But setting aside such a case, the case of being taken in the act, which allows a man to kill like a dog another man, who can not or will not defend himself, what did I care for Count Claudieuse? What did I care for your threats or for his hatred?" He said these words with perfect calmness, but with that cold, cutting tone which is as sharp as a sword, and with that positiveness which enters irresistibly into the mind. The countess was tottering, and stammered almost inaudibly,--
"Who would imagine such a thing? Is it possible? Then, suddenly raising her head, she said,--
"But I am losing my senses. If you are innocent, who, then, could be the guilty man?"
Jacques seized her hands almost madly, and pressing them painfully, and bending over her so closely that she felt his hot breath like a flame touching her face, he hissed into her ear,--
"You, wretched creature, you!"
And then pushing her from him with such violence that she fell into a chair, he continued,--
"You, who wanted to be a widow in order to prevent me from breaking the chains in which you held me. At our last meeting, when I thought you were crushed by grief, and felt overcome by your hypocritical tears, I was weak enough, I was stupid enough, to say that I married Dionysia only because you were not free. Then you cried, 'O God, how happy I am that that idea did not occur to me before!' What idea was that, Genevieve? Come, answer me and confess, that it occurred to you too soon after all, since you have carried it out?"
And repeating with crushing irony the words just uttered by the countess, he said,-- "If you are innocent, who, then, would be the guilty man?"
Quite beside herself, she sprang up from her chair, and casting at Jacques one of those glances which seem to enter through our eyes into the very heart of our hearts, she asked,--
"Is it really possible that you have not committed this abominable crime?" He shrugged his shoulders.
"But then," she repeated, almost panting, "is it true, can it really be true, that you think I have committed it?"
"Perhaps you have only ordered it to be committed."
With a wild gesture she raised her arms to heaven, and cried in a heart-rending voice,-- "O God, O God! He believes it! he really believes it!"
There followed great silence, dismal, formidable silence, such as in nature follows the crash of the thunderbolt.
Standing face to face, Jacques and the Countess Claudieuse looked at each other madly, feeling that the fatal hour in their lives had come at last.
Each felt a growing, a sure conviction of the other. There was no need of explanations. They had been mi