XLV. La pluie de sang.
XLV
The rain of blood.
«As he entered, the jeweler cast a questioning glance around him; but nothing seemed to awaken suspicion if he had none, nothing seemed to confirm it if he had.
«Caderousse still held his banknotes and his gold in both hands. La Carconte smiled at her guest as pleasantly as she could.
«—Ah! ah! said the jeweler, it seems you were afraid of not having your full due, that you were counting over your treasure after I left.
«—Not at all, said Caderousse; but the event that has made us possessors of it is so unexpected that we cannot believe it, and that, when we do not have the material proof before our eyes, we think we are still dreaming.»
«The jeweler smiled.
«—Have you any travelers at your inn? he asked.
«—No, answered Caderousse, we do not take in lodgers; we are too near the city, and no one stops here.
«—Then I am going to be horribly in your way?
«—In our way, you! my dear sir! said La Carconte graciously, not at all, I assure you.
«—Come, where are you putting me?
«—In the room up there.
«—But is that not your room?
«—Oh! never mind; we have a second bed in the room next to this one.
«Caderousse looked at his wife with astonishment. The jeweler hummed a little tune, warming his back at a fagot that La Carconte had just lit in the fireplace to dry her host.
«Meanwhile, she brought to a corner of the table, on which she had spread a napkin, the meager remains of a dinner, to which she added two or three fresh eggs.
«Caderousse had again locked up the banknotes in his wallet, his gold in a bag, and the whole in his cupboard. He walked up and down, gloomy and thoughtful, lifting his head from time to time toward the jeweler, who stood steaming before the hearth, and who, as he dried on one side, turned to the other.
«—There, said La Carconte, placing a bottle of wine on the table, whenever you wish to sup, all is ready.
«—And you? asked Joannès.
«—I shall not sup, answered Caderousse.
«—We dined very late, hastened to say La Carconte.
«—So I am to sup alone? said the jeweler.
«—We will serve you, answered La Carconte with an eagerness unusual to her, even toward paying guests.
«From time to time Caderousse cast at her a glance swift as lightning.
«The storm continued.
«—Do you hear, do you hear? said La Carconte; you were, faith, quite right to come back.
«—Which does not prevent, said the jeweler, that if, during my supper, the hurricane calms, I shall set out again.
«—It is the mistral, said Caderousse, shaking his head; we shall have it until tomorrow.
«And he sighed.
«—Faith, said the jeweler, sitting down to table, so much the worse for those who are outside.
«—Yes, resumed La Carconte, they will have a bad night.
«The jeweler began to sup, and La Carconte continued to lavish on him all the little attentions of a careful hostess; she, usually so peevish and so surly, had become a model of considerateness and politeness. Had the jeweler known her before, so great a change would certainly have astonished him and could not have failed to inspire some suspicion. As for Caderousse, he did not say a word, continuing his walk and seeming even to hesitate to look at his guest.
«When supper was finished, Caderousse went himself to open the door.
«—I think the storm is calming, he said.
«But at that moment, as if to give him the lie, a terrible clap of thunder shook the house, and a gust of wind mixed with rain came in, which extinguished the lamp.
«Caderousse closed the door again; his wife lit a candle at the dying embers.
«—Here, she said to the jeweler, you must be tired; I have put white sheets on the bed, go up and sleep, and sleep well.
«Joannès remained another instant to assure himself that the hurricane was not calming, and when he had acquired the certainty that the thunder and the rain were only increasing, he wished his hosts good evening and went up the stairs.
«He passed above my head, and I heard each step creak beneath his feet.
«La Carconte followed him with a greedy eye, while on the contrary Caderousse turned his back to him and did not even look his way.
«All these details, which have come back to my mind since that time, did not strike me at the moment they passed before my eyes; there was, all told, nothing but what was natural in what was happening, and, apart from the story of the diamond which seemed to me a little improbable, everything flowed naturally. Also, as I was crushed with fatigue, and counted on profiting myself from the first respite the storm should give the elements, I resolved to sleep a few hours and to slip away in the middle of the night.
«I heard in the room above the jeweler, who on his side was making all his arrangements to pass the best possible night. Soon his bed creaked under him; he had just lain down.
«I felt my eyes closing in spite of me, and as I had conceived no suspicion, I did not try to struggle against sleep; I cast a last glance over the interior of the kitchen. Caderousse was seated beside a long table, on one of those wooden benches which, in village inns, take the place of chairs; he turned his back to me, so that I could not see his face; besides, had he been in the opposite position, the thing would still have been impossible for me, seeing that he held his head buried in his two hands.
«La Carconte looked at him for some time, shrugged her shoulders and came to sit facing him.
«At that moment the dying flame caught a bit of dry wood forgotten by her; a somewhat brighter gleam lit the dark interior.... La Carconte kept her eyes fixed on her husband, and as the latter remained always in the same posture, I saw her stretch toward him her crooked hand, and she touched him on the forehead.
«Caderousse started. It seemed to me that the woman moved her lips, but whether she spoke quite low, or whether my senses were already dulled by sleep, the sound of her voice did not reach me. I no longer saw even save through a mist and with that doubtful prelude of sleep during which one believes one is beginning a dream. At last my eyes closed, and I lost consciousness of myself.
«I was in the deepest of my sleep, when I was awakened by a pistol shot, followed by a terrible cry. A few staggering steps resounded on the floor of the room, and an inert mass came crashing down the stairs, just above my head.
«I was not yet quite master of myself. I heard groans, then stifled cries such as accompany a struggle.
«A last cry, more drawn out than the others and which degenerated into moaning, came to rouse me completely from my lethargy.
«I raised myself on one arm, I opened my eyes, which saw nothing in the darkness, and I put my hand to my forehead, on which it seemed to me there was dripping through the boards of the staircase a warm and abundant rain.
«The deepest silence had succeeded that frightful noise. I heard the steps of a man who walked above my head; his steps made the staircase creak. The man came down into the lower room, approached the fireplace and lit a candle.
«That man was Caderousse; he had a pale face, and his shirt was all bloodstained.
«The candle lit, he rapidly remounted the stairs, and I again heard his quick and uneasy steps.
«An instant after he came down again. He held the case in his hand; he assured himself that the diamond was well inside, sought for a moment in which of his pockets he would put it; then, doubtless considering his pocket not a safe enough hiding place, he rolled it in his red handkerchief, which he twisted around his neck.
«Then he ran to the cupboard, drew out his banknotes and his gold, put the one in the fob of his trousers, the other in the pocket of his jacket, took two or three shirts, and, rushing to the door, disappeared into the darkness. Then all became clear and lucid to me; I reproached myself with what had just happened, as if I had been the true culprit. It seemed to me I heard groans: the unhappy jeweler might not be dead; perhaps it was in my power, by bringing him aid, to repair a part of the evil not which I had done, but which I had let be done. I pressed my shoulders against one of those ill-joined planks which separated the sort of closet in which I lay from the lower room; the planks gave way, and I found myself in the house.
«I ran to the candle, and flung myself into the staircase; a body barred it across, it was the corpse of La Carconte.
«The pistol shot I had heard had been fired at her: she had her throat pierced through and through, and besides her double wound which flowed in streams, she vomited blood from the mouth. She was quite dead. I stepped over her body, and passed.
«The room offered the aspect of the most frightful disorder. Two or three pieces of furniture were overturned; the sheets, to which the unhappy jeweler had clung, trailed about the room: he himself lay on the ground, the head leaning against the wall, floating in a pool of blood which escaped from three wide wounds received in the chest.
«In the fourth had remained a long kitchen knife, of which only the handle was visible.
«I stepped on the second pistol which had not gone off, the powder being probably wet.
«I approached the jeweler; he was not in fact dead: at the noise I made, and above all at the shaking of the floor, he reopened wild eyes, managed to fix them an instant on me, moved his lips as if he wished to speak, and expired.
«This dreadful spectacle had made me almost beside myself; from the moment I could bring aid to no one I felt only one need, that of fleeing. I precipitated myself into the staircase, thrusting my hands into my hair and uttering a roar of terror.
«In the lower room, there were five or six customs officers and two or three gendarmes, a whole armed troop.
«They seized me; I did not even try to resist, I was no longer master of my senses. I tried to speak, I uttered a few inarticulate cries, that was all.
«I saw that the customs officers and gendarmes were pointing at me; I lowered my eyes upon myself, I was all covered with blood. That warm rain which I had felt fall on me through the boards of the staircase, it was the blood of La Carconte.
«I pointed with my finger to the place where I was hidden.
«—What does he mean? asked a gendarme.
«A customs officer went to see.
«—He means that he passed through there, he answered.
«And he showed the hole through which I had indeed passed.
«Then I understood that they took me for the assassin. I recovered my voice, I recovered my strength; I disengaged myself from the hands of the two men who held me, crying:
«—It is not I! it is not I!
«Two gendarmes aimed their carbines at me.
«—If you make a movement, they said, you are dead.
«—But, I cried, since I tell you again it is not I!
«—You will tell your little story to the judges at Nîmes, they answered. Meanwhile, follow us; and if we have a piece of advice to give you, it is not to resist.
«It was not my intention, I was broken by astonishment and by terror. They put handcuffs on me, tied me to the tail of a horse, and conducted me to Nîmes.
«I had been followed by a customs officer; he had lost sight of me in the neighborhood of the house, he had suspected that I would pass the night there; he had gone to warn his companions, and they had arrived just in time to hear the pistol shot and to take me amid such proofs of guilt, that I at once understood the difficulty I should have in making my innocence recognized.
«Also, I applied myself to but one thing: my first request to the examining magistrate was to pray him to have search made everywhere for a certain Abbé Busoni, who had stopped during the day at the inn of the Pont-du-Gard. If Caderousse had invented a story, if this abbé did not exist, it was evident that I was lost, unless Caderousse were taken in his turn and confessed all.
«Two months elapsed during which, I must say to the praise of my judge, every search was made to find the man I asked for. I had already lost all hope. Caderousse had not been taken. I was about to be tried at the first session, when on the 8th of September, that is to say three months and five days after the event, the Abbé Busoni, on whom I no longer counted, presented himself at the jail, saying he had learned that a prisoner desired to speak with him. He had learned, he said, of the thing at Marseille, and was hastening to comply with my wish.
«You understand with what ardor I received him; I recounted to him all of which I had been witness, I approached with uneasiness the story of the diamond; contrary to my expectation it was true to the letter; contrary again to my expectation, he added an entire faith to all I told him. It was then that, carried away by his sweet charity, recognizing in him a profound knowledge of the customs of my country, thinking that the pardon of the only crime I had committed might perhaps descend from his so charitable lips, I recounted to him, under the seal of confession, the adventure of Auteuil in all its details. What I had done through impulse obtained the same result as if I had done it by calculation, the avowal of that first murder, which nothing forced me to reveal to him, proved to him that I had not committed the second, and he left me ordering me to hope, and promising to do all in his power to convince my judges of my innocence.
«I had proof that he had indeed occupied himself with me when I saw my prison gradually soften, and when I learned that they would wait to try me until the assizes which were to follow those for which they were assembling.
«In this interval, Providence permitted that Caderousse was taken abroad and brought back to France. He confessed all, throwing the premeditation and above all the instigation upon his wife. He was condemned to the galleys for life, and I was set at liberty.
—And it was then, said Monte Cristo, that you presented yourself at my house bearing a letter from the Abbé Busoni?
—Yes, Excellency, he had taken a visible interest in me.
«—Your state of smuggler will be your ruin, he said to me; if you leave here, quit it.
«—But my father, I asked, how do you wish me to live and to make my poor sister live?
«—One of my penitents, he answered me, has a great esteem for me, and has charged me to find him a man of confidence. Will you be that man? I will direct you to him.
«—Oh my father! I cried, what kindness!
«—But you swear to me that I shall never have cause to repent.
«I stretched out my hand to take the oath.
«—That is useless, said he, I know and love the Corsicans, here is my recommendation.
«And he wrote the few lines which I handed you, and on which Your Excellency had the goodness to take me into your service. Now I ask with pride of Your Excellency, has he ever had cause to complain of me?
—No, answered the count; and, I confess with pleasure, you are a good servant, Bertuccio, though you lack confidence.
—I, Monsieur le Comte!
—Yes, you. How is it that you have a sister and an adopted son, and that, however, you have never spoken to me either of the one or of the other?
—Alas! Excellency, it is that there remains for me to tell you the saddest part of my life. I set out for Corsica. I was in haste, you understand well, to see again and console my poor sister; but when I arrived at Rogliano, I found the house in mourning; there had been a horrible scene, the memory of which the neighbors still keep! My poor sister, according to my counsels, resisted the demands of Benedetto, who, at every instant, wished to be given all the money there was in the house. One morning, he threatened her, and disappeared all day. She wept, for this dear Assunta had for the wretch a mother's heart. Evening came, she waited for him without going to bed. When, at eleven o'clock, he came home with two of his friends, usual companions of all his follies, then she stretched out her arms to him; but they seized her, and one of the three, I tremble lest it be that infernal child, one of the three cried:
«—Let us play the question, and she will have to confess where her money is.
«Just then the neighbor Wasilio was at Bastia; his wife alone had remained at the house. None, except her, could either see or hear what passed at my sister's. Two held the poor Assunta, who, not able to believe in the possibility of such a crime, smiled at those who were about to become her executioners, the third went to barricade doors and windows, then he returned, and all three together, stifling the cries that terror tore from her before these preparations more serious, approached the feet of Assunta to the brazier over which they counted to make her confess where our little treasure was hidden; but, in the struggle, the fire caught her clothes: they then let go the patient, so as not to be burned themselves. All in flames she ran to the door, but the door was shut.
«She sprang toward the window, but the window was barricaded. Then the neighbor heard frightful cries: it was Assunta calling for help. Soon her voice was stifled; the cries became groans, and the next day, after a night of terror and anguish, when the wife of Wasilio ventured out of her house and had the door of our house opened by the judge, they found Assunta half burned, but still breathing, the armoires forced, the money disappeared. As for Benedetto, he had left Rogliano never to return; since that day I have not seen him again, and have not even heard speak of him.
«It was, resumed Bertuccio, after having learned these sad tidings, that I went to Your Excellency. I had no longer to speak to you of Benedetto, since he had disappeared, nor of my sister, since she was dead.
—And what did you think of this event? asked Monte Cristo.
—That it was the punishment of the crime I had committed, answered Bertuccio. Ah! those Villeforts, it was an accursed race.
—I believe it, murmured the count with a lugubrious accent.
—And now, is it not, resumed Bertuccio, Your Excellency understands that this house which I have not seen again since, that this garden where I found myself all at once, that this spot where I killed a man, could cause me those gloomy emotions of which you wished to know the source; for, after all, I am not quite sure that before me, there, at my feet, M. de Villefort is not lying in the pit he had dug for his child.
—Indeed, all is possible, said Monte Cristo, rising from the bench where he sat; even, added he in a low voice, that the king's attorney is not dead. The Abbé Busoni did well to send you to me. You did well to tell me your story, for I shall have no evil thoughts concerning you. As for this Benedetto so ill-named, have you never tried to recover his trace? have you never sought to know what had become of him?
—Never, if I had known where he was, instead of going to him, I would have fled as before a monster. No, happily, never have I heard speak of him by any one in the world, I hope he is dead.
—Hope not, Bertuccio, said the count; the wicked do not die thus, for God seems to take them under his guard to make them the instrument of his vengeances.
—Be it so, said Bertuccio. All that I ask of heaven only, is never to see him again. Now, continued the steward, lowering his head, you know all, Monsieur le Comte; you are my judge here below as God will be on high; will you not say to me a few words of consolation?
—You are right, indeed, and I can tell you what the Abbé Busoni would tell you: he whom you struck, that Villefort, deserved a punishment for what he had done to you and perhaps for something else besides. Benedetto, if he lives, will serve, as I have told you, some divine vengeance, then will be punished in his turn. As for you, you have in reality but one reproach to address to yourself: ask yourself why, having snatched that child from death, you did not return him to his mother: there is the crime, Bertuccio.
—Yes, monsieur, there is the crime and the true crime, for in that I was a coward. Once I had recalled the child to life, I had but one thing to do, you have said it, which was to send him back to his mother. But, for that, I must have made inquiries, attracted attention, perhaps betrayed myself; I would not die, I clung to life through my sister, through the self-love innate in us others to remain whole and victorious in our vengeance; and then finally, perhaps, I clung simply to life through the love of life itself. Oh! I am not a brave man like my poor brother!
Bertuccio hid his face in his two hands, and Monte Cristo fixed upon him a long and indefinable gaze.
Then, after an instant of silence, made more solemn still by the hour and by the place:
—To terminate worthily this interview, which shall be the last upon these adventures, Monsieur Bertuccio, said the count with an accent of melancholy unusual to him, bear well in mind my words, I have often heard them pronounced by the Abbé Busoni himself: To all ills there are two remedies: time and silence. Now, Monsieur Bertuccio, leave me to walk a moment in this garden. What is a poignant emotion for you, actor in this scene, will be for me an almost sweet sensation which will give a double value to this property. The trees, you see, Monsieur Bertuccio, please only because they make shade, and the shade itself pleases only because it is full of reveries and of visions. See here, I bought a garden believing to buy a simple enclosure walled around, and not at all, all at once this enclosure proves to be a garden full of ghosts, who were not set down in the deed. Now, I love ghosts; I have never heard tell that the dead in six thousand years did as much harm as the living do in a day. Go in then, Monsieur Bertuccio, and go sleep in peace. If your confessor, at the supreme moment, is less indulgent than was the Abbé Busoni, have me brought if I am still of this world, I will find you words which will gently rock your soul at the moment it shall be ready to set out to make that rough voyage called eternity.
Bertuccio bowed respectfully before the count, and withdrew with a sigh.
Monte Cristo remained alone; and, taking four steps forward:
—Here, near this plane tree, murmured he, the pit where the child was laid: yonder, the little door by which one entered the garden; at that angle, the hidden stair which leads to the bedchamber. I do not think I need write all that in my tablets, for behold before my eyes, around me, beneath my feet, the plan in relief, the living plan.
And the count, after a last turn in this garden, went to find his carriage. Bertuccio, who saw him pensive, mounted without a word to the seat beside the coachman.
The carriage took the road back to Paris.
That very evening, on his arrival at the house of the Champs-Élysées, the Count of Monte Cristo visited the whole dwelling as might have done a man familiarized with it for long years; not once, though he walked first, did he open a door for another, and took not a stair or corridor that did not lead him directly where he meant to go. Ali accompanied him in this nocturnal review. The count gave Bertuccio several orders for the embellishment or new distribution of the lodging, and drawing his watch, he said to the attentive Nubian:
—It is half past eleven, Haydée cannot be long in arriving. Have the French women been warned?
Ali stretched his hand toward the apartment destined for the beautiful Greek, which was so isolated that, hiding the door behind a tapestry, one might visit the whole house without suspecting that there was there a salon and two chambers inhabited; Ali, let us say then, stretched his hand toward the apartment, showed the number three with the fingers of his left hand, and on that same hand, laid flat, leaning his head, closed his eyes in guise of sleep.
—Ah! said Monte Cristo, accustomed to that language, they are three who wait in the bedchamber, are they not?
—Yes, said Ali, moving his head up and down.
—Madame will be tired this evening, continued Monte Cristo, and doubtless she will wish to sleep; let her not be made to speak: the French attendants are only to salute their new mistress and withdraw; you will see to it that the Greek attendant does not communicate with the French attendants.
Ali bowed. Soon one heard the concierge hailed; the grating opened, a carriage rolled in the avenue and stopped before the perron. The count descended; the door was already open; he stretched his hand to a young woman wrapped in a mantle of green silk all embroidered with gold which covered her head.
The young woman took the hand offered her, kissed it with a certain love mingled with respect, and a few words were exchanged, tenderly on the part of the young woman and with a gentle gravity on the part of the count, in that sonorous tongue which old Homer put into the mouth of his gods.
Then, preceded by Ali who carried a candle of pink wax, the young woman, who was none other than this beautiful Greek, usual companion of Monte Cristo in Italy, was conducted to her apartment, then the count retired to the pavilion he had reserved for himself.
At half past midnight, all lights were extinguished in the house, and one might have believed that all the world was sleeping.
“Stories of the world, in your language.”