CIII. Maximilien.

CIII

Maximilien.

Villefort rose again, almost ashamed at having been surprised in the throes of that grief.

The terrible office he had exercised for five-and-twenty years had made him more or less than a man.

His glance, for a moment wild, fixed itself upon Morrel.

“Who are you, sir,” said he, “you who forget that one does not enter thus into a house where death dwells?

“Leave the room, sir! leave it!”

But Morrel remained motionless; he could not detach his eyes from the frightful spectacle of that disordered bed and the pale face that lay upon it.

“Leave the room, do you hear?” cried Villefort, while d’Avrigny advanced on his side to thrust Morrel out.

The latter looked wildly at that corpse, those two men, the whole chamber, seemed to hesitate an instant, opened his mouth; then at length, finding not a word to answer, despite the innumerable swarm of fatal thoughts that invaded his brain, he retraced his steps, thrusting his hands into his hair; so that Villefort and d’Avrigny, for a moment diverted from their preoccupations, exchanged, after following him with their eyes, a glance that meant:

“He is mad!”

But before five minutes had elapsed, the staircase was heard to groan beneath a considerable weight, and Morrel was seen who, with superhuman strength, lifting Noirtier’s armchair in his arms, brought the old man to the first floor of the house.

Having reached the top of the stairs, Morrel set the chair upon the ground and rolled it rapidly into Valentine’s chamber.

All this manoeuvre was executed with a force redoubled by the frenzied excitement of the young man.

But one thing was above all frightful,—it was the face of Noirtier advancing towards Valentine’s bed, pushed by Morrel; the face of Noirtier in whom intelligence deployed all its resources, whose eyes gathered all their power to supply the place of his other faculties.

Also that pale face, with its flaming glance, was for Villefort a terrifying apparition.

Each time he had found himself in contact with his father, something terrible had always happened.

“See what they have made of her!” cried Morrel, one hand still resting on the back of the chair he had just pushed up to the bed, and the other extended towards Valentine; “see, my father, see!”

Villefort recoiled a step and looked with astonishment at this young man, almost a stranger to him, who called Noirtier his father.

At that moment all the old man’s soul seemed to pass into his eyes, which became bloodshot; then the veins of his neck swelled, a bluish tinge, like that which overspreads the skin of the epileptic, covered his neck, his cheeks, and his temples; nothing was wanting to this inward explosion of the whole being but a cry.

That cry issued, so to speak, from every pore,—frightful in its muteness, rending in its silence.

D’Avrigny sprang towards the old man and made him inhale a powerful stimulant.

“Sir!” then cried Morrel, seizing the inert hand of the paralytic, “they ask me who I am, and what right I have to be here. Oh, you who know, tell them, you! tell them!”

And the young man’s voice died away in sobs.

As for the old man, his panting breath shook his breast. One would have said he was in the throes of those agitations which precede the death-struggle.

At length tears started from Noirtier’s eyes, happier than the young man who sobbed without weeping. His head being unable to bend, his eyes closed.

“Speak,” continued Morrel in a strangulated voice, “speak, and say I was her betrothed!

“Say that she was my noble friend, my only love on earth!

“Say, say, say, that this corpse belongs to me!”

And the young man, affording the terrible spectacle of a great strength breaking, fell heavily on his knees before that bed, which his clenched fingers grasped with violence.

This grief was so poignant that d’Avrigny turned away to hide his emotion, and that Villefort, without asking further explanation, drawn by that magnetism which impels us towards those who have loved those we mourn, held out his hand to the young man.

But Morrel saw nothing; he had seized Valentine’s icy hand, and, unable to weep, was gnawing the sheets with stifled roars.

For some time nothing was heard in that chamber but the conflict of sobs, imprecations, and prayer. And yet one sound dominated all,—it was the harsh and rending aspiration which seemed, at each fresh draught of air, to break one of the springs of life in Noirtier’s breast.

At length Villefort, the most master of them all, after having, so to speak, for a while yielded his place to Maximilien, Villefort spoke.

“Sir,” said he to Maximilien, “you loved Valentine, you say; you were her betrothed; I knew not of this love, I knew not of this engagement; and yet, I, her father, forgive you, for I see your grief is great, real, and true.

“Besides, my own grief is too great for anger to find room in my heart.”

“But, as you see, the angel you hoped for has left the earth: she has no more need of men’s adorations, she who at this hour adores the Lord; take leave then, sir, of the sad remnant she has forgotten among us; take once more the hand you awaited, and part from her forever: Valentine now needs naught but the priest who should bless her.

“You are mistaken, sir,” cried Morrel, rising on one knee, his heart pierced by a sharper pain than any he had yet felt; “you are mistaken: Valentine, dead as she is dead, has need not only of a priest, but of an avenger.

“M. de Villefort, send for the priest; I will be the avenger.”

“What would you say, sir?” murmured Villefort, trembling at this new inspiration of Morrel’s delirium.

“I would say, sir,” continued Morrel, “that there are two men in you. The father has wept enough; let the king’s attorney begin his office.”

Noirtier’s eyes flashed, d’Avrigny drew nearer.

“Sir,” continued the young man, gathering from the looks of the bystanders all the feelings there revealed, “I know what I say, and you all know as well as I what I am about to say.

“Valentine is dead, assassinated!”

Villefort bowed his head; d’Avrigny advanced another step; Noirtier signified yes with his eyes.

“Now, sir,” continued Morrel, “in the times we live, a creature, were she not young, were she not fair, were she not adorable as Valentine was, a creature does not vanish violently from the world without account being asked of her disappearance.

“Come, Mr. King’s Attorney,” added Morrel with growing vehemence, “no pity! I denounce the crime to you, seek the assassin!”

And his implacable eye questioned Villefort, who on his side sought help, now from Noirtier, now from d’Avrigny, with his glance.

But instead of finding support in his father and the doctor, Villefort met in them only a look as inflexible as Morrel’s.

“Yes!” said the old man.

“Assuredly!” said d’Avrigny.

“Sir,” replied Villefort, trying to struggle against this triple will and against his own emotion, “sir, you are mistaken, no crimes are committed in my house; fate strikes me, God tries me; it is horrible to think of; but no one is assassinated!”

Noirtier’s eyes blazed, d’Avrigny opened his mouth to speak.

Morrel stretched out his arm commanding silence.

“And I tell you that murder is done here!” cried Morrel, whose voice sank without losing any of its terrible vibration. “I tell you that this is the fourth victim struck within four months.

“I tell you that they had already, four days ago, attempted to poison Valentine, and had failed thanks to the precautions taken by M. Noirtier!

“I tell you that the dose was doubled or the nature of the poison changed, and that this time they succeeded!

“I tell you that you know all this as well as I, since this gentleman here warned you of it, both as physician and as friend.”

“Oh, you are in delirium, sir,” said Villefort, vainly endeavouring to struggle in the circle where he felt himself caught.

“I am in delirium!” cried Morrel; “well, then, I appeal to M. d’Avrigny himself.

“Ask him, sir, if he still remembers the words he uttered in your garden, in the garden of this hotel, on the very evening of Mme de Saint-Méran’s death, when you two, you and he, believing yourselves alone, conversed of that tragic death, in which that fate of which you speak and God, whom you unjustly accuse, can be counted for but one thing; that is to say, for having created the assassin of Valentine!”

Villefort and d’Avrigny looked at each other.

“Yes, yes, remember,” said Morrel, “for those words, which you thought delivered to silence and solitude, fell upon my ear. Surely, from that evening, seeing M. de Villefort’s guilty complaisance towards his own, I ought to have disclosed all to the authorities; I should not be, as I now am, an accomplice in thy death, Valentine! my well-beloved Valentine! but the accomplice shall become the avenger; this fourth murder is flagrant and visible to all eyes, and if thy father abandons thee, Valentine, it is I, it is I, I swear to thee, who will pursue the assassin.”

And this time, as if nature had at length pitied that vigorous organization ready to break beneath its own strength, the last words of Morrel died in his throat; his breast burst into sobs, the tears so long rebellious sprang from his eyes, he sank upon himself, and fell back on his knees weeping by Valentine’s bed.

Then it was d’Avrigny’s turn.

“And I too,” said he in a loud voice, “I too join with M. Morrel in demanding justice for the crime; for my heart rises at the thought that my cowardly complaisance has encouraged the assassin!”

“Oh my God! my God!” murmured Villefort, overwhelmed.

Morrel raised his head, reading in the eyes of the old man, which shot forth a supernatural flame:

“See,” said he, “see, M. Noirtier would speak.”

“Yes,” said Noirtier, with an expression the more terrible in that all the faculties of that poor helpless old man were concentrated in his glance.

“You know the assassin?” said Morrel.

“Yes,” replied Noirtier.

“And you will guide us?” cried the young man. “Listen! M. d’Avrigny, listen!”

Noirtier addressed to the unhappy Morrel a melancholy smile, one of those gentle smiles of the eyes which so often had made Valentine happy, and fixed his attention.

Then, having, so to speak, riveted his interlocutor’s eyes to his own, he turned them towards the door.

“Would you have me leave, sir?” cried Morrel in anguish.

“Yes,” said Noirtier.

“Alas! alas! sir; but have pity on me!”

The old man’s eyes remained pitilessly fixed upon the door.

“May I at least return?” asked Morrel.

“Yes.”

“Am I to go out alone?”

“No.”

“Whom am I to take with me? The king’s attorney?”

“No.”

“The doctor?”

“Yes.”

“You wish to remain alone with M. de Villefort?”

“Yes.”

“But could he understand you, he?”

“Yes.”

“Oh!” said Villefort, almost joyfully that the inquiry was to be made tête-à-tête, “oh! be assured, I understand my father perfectly.”

And while saying this with that expression of joy we have noted, the king’s attorney’s teeth chattered violently.

D’Avrigny took Morrel’s arm and drew the young man into the adjoining room.

Then throughout that house there fell a silence deeper than that of death.

At length, at the end of a quarter of an hour, a faltering step was heard, and Villefort appeared on the threshold of the salon where d’Avrigny and Morrel were, one absorbed and the other suffocating.

“Come,” said he.

And he led them back to Noirtier’s chair.

Morrel then looked attentively at Villefort.

The king’s attorney’s face was livid; large rust-coloured patches furrowed his brow; between his fingers a pen, twisted in a thousand ways, cried as it was torn into shreds.

“Gentlemen,” said he in a strangulated voice to d’Avrigny and Morrel, “gentlemen, your word of honour that the horrible secret shall remain buried between us!”

The two men made a movement.

“I entreat you!…” continued Villefort.

“But,” said Morrel, “the guilty one!… the murderer!… the assassin!…”

“Be tranquil, sir, justice shall be done,” said Villefort. “My father has revealed to me the name of the guilty one; my father thirsts for vengeance as you do, and yet my father entreats you, as I do, to keep the secret of the crime.

“Is it not so, my father?”

“Yes,” said Noirtier resolutely.

Morrel gave utterance to a movement of horror and incredulity.

“Oh!” cried Villefort, stopping Maximilien by the arm, “oh, sir, if my father, the inflexible man you know, makes you this request, it is that he knows Valentine will be terribly avenged.

“Is it not so, my father?”

The old man signified yes.

Villefort continued.

“He knows me, he, and it is to him I have pledged my word. Be reassured then, gentlemen; three days, I ask you three days, less than justice would ask of you, and within three days the vengeance I shall have drawn from my child’s murder will make even the most indifferent of men shudder to the depths of their hearts.

“Is it not so, my father?”

And in saying these words he gnashed his teeth and shook the old man’s numbed hand.

“Shall all that is promised be fulfilled, M. Noirtier?” asked Morrel, while d’Avrigny questioned with his glance.

“Yes,” said Noirtier, with a look of sinister joy.

“Swear then, gentlemen,” said Villefort, joining the hands of d’Avrigny and Morrel, “swear that you will have pity on the honour of my house, and that you will leave me the care of avenging it?”

D’Avrigny turned away and murmured a very faint yes, but Morrel snatched his hand from the magistrate, rushed to the bed, pressed his lips to Valentine’s icy lips, and fled with the long moan of a soul engulfing itself in despair.

We have said that all the servants had disappeared.

M. de Villefort was therefore forced to beg d’Avrigny to undertake the steps, so numerous and so delicate, which death entails in our great cities, and above all death accompanied by circumstances so suspicious.

As for Noirtier, it was something terrible to behold that grief without movement, that despair without gestures, those tears without voice.

Villefort returned to his study; d’Avrigny went to fetch the physician of the mayor’s office, who fulfils the functions of inspector after death, and who is very energetically called the doctor of the dead.

Noirtier would not quit his granddaughter.

At the end of half an hour, M. d’Avrigny returned with his colleague; the street doors had been closed, and as the concierge had disappeared with the other servants, it was Villefort himself who went to open.

But he stopped on the landing; he had no longer the courage to enter the death-chamber.

The two doctors therefore penetrated alone as far as Valentine’s room.

Noirtier was by the bed, pale as the dead, immovable and mute as she.

The doctor of the dead approached with the indifference of a man who passes half his life with corpses, lifted the sheet that covered the young girl, and opened only her lips.

“Oh!” said d’Avrigny, sighing, “poor young girl, she is quite dead, go on.”

“Yes,” answered laconically the physician, letting fall again the sheet that covered Valentine’s face.

Noirtier gave utterance to a hollow rattling.

D’Avrigny turned round; the old man’s eyes flashed. The good doctor understood that Noirtier claimed the sight of his child; he drew him near the bed, and while the doctor of the dead dipped in chlorinated water the fingers that had touched the lips of the departed, he uncovered that calm and pallid face which seemed that of a sleeping angel.

A tear that reappeared at the corner of Noirtier’s eye was the thanks the good doctor received.

The doctor of the dead drew up his report at the corner of a table, in Valentine’s chamber itself, and, that supreme formality accomplished, went out, conducted by the doctor.

Villefort heard them descend and reappeared at the door of his study.

In a few words he thanked the physician, and, turning to d’Avrigny:

“And now!” said he, “the priest?

“Have you an ecclesiastic whom you would particularly wish to charge with praying by Valentine?” asked d’Avrigny.

“No,” said Villefort, “go to the nearest.”

“The nearest,” said the physician, “is a good Italian abbé who has come to live in the house next to yours. Shall I warn him as I pass?”

“D’Avrigny,” said Villefort, “pray, accompany the gentleman.

“Here is the key that you may enter and leave at will.

“You will bring back the priest, and you will undertake to install him in my poor child’s chamber.”

“Do you wish to speak with him, my friend?”

“I wish to be alone. You will excuse me, will you not? A priest should understand all griefs, even a father’s grief.”

And M. de Villefort, giving a pass-key to d’Avrigny, saluted the foreign doctor a last time and returned to his study, where he set to work.

For certain organizations, work is the remedy for all griefs.

At the moment they were descending into the street, they perceived a man clad in a cassock, who stood on the threshold of the neighbouring door.

“There is the one I spoke to you of,” said the doctor of the dead to d’Avrigny.

D’Avrigny accosted the ecclesiastic.

“Sir,” said he to him, “would you be disposed to render a great service to an unhappy father who has just lost his daughter, to M. le Procureur du Roi Villefort?”

“Ah! sir,” answered the priest with a most pronounced Italian accent, “yes, I know, death is in his house.”

“Then I have not to tell you what sort of service he dares expect of you.”

“I was about to go and offer myself, sir,” said the priest; “it is our mission to go forth to meet our duties.”

“It is a young girl.”

“Yes, I know that, I learned it from the servants I saw fleeing the house. I knew she was called Valentine; and I have already prayed for her.”

“Thank you, thank you, sir,” said d’Avrigny, “and since you have already begun to exercise your holy ministry, deign to continue it. Come and sit by the dead, and a whole family plunged in mourning will be deeply grateful to you.”

“I go thither, sir,” answered the abbé, “and I dare say that never were prayers more ardent than mine.”

D’Avrigny took the abbé by the hand, and, without meeting Villefort, shut up in his study, he conducted him to Valentine’s chamber, of which the undertakers were not to take possession until the following night.

On entering the chamber, Noirtier’s glance encountered that of the abbé, and no doubt he thought he read something peculiar in it, for he never left it again.

D’Avrigny recommended to the priest not only the dead, but the living, and the priest promised d’Avrigny to give his prayers to Valentine and his care to Noirtier.

The abbé pledged himself solemnly thereto, and, doubtless that he might not be disturbed in his prayers, and that Noirtier might not be disturbed in his grief, as soon as M. d’Avrigny had left the chamber, he went and fastened not only the bolts of the door by which the doctor had just gone out, but also the bolts of that which led to Mme de Villefort’s apartment.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”