Part 49

Many times during the evening, nevertheless, she had despaired of her fate and of herself; she did not invoke God, we know that, but she had faith in the genius of evil, that immense sovereignty which reigns in all the details of human life, and with which, as in the Arabian fable, a single pomegranate seed suffices to rebuild a lost world.

Milady, well prepared to receive Felton, was able to set her batteries for the next day. She knew she had only two days left, that once the order was signed by Buckingham (and Buckingham would sign it all the more easily, since this order bore a false name, and he would not recognize the woman in question), once this order was signed, we say, the baron would have her embarked immediately, and she also knew that women condemned to deportation wield far less powerful weapons of seduction than those so-called virtuous women whose beauty is illuminated by the world's sun, whose wit is praised by the voice of fashion, and whom a reflection of aristocracy gilds with its enchanting glow. To be a woman condemned to a miserable and infamous punishment is not an impediment to being beautiful, but it is an obstacle to ever becoming powerful again. Like all people of true merit, Milady knew the milieu suited to her nature, to her means. Poverty repelled her, abjection diminished her by two-thirds of her greatness. Milady was only a queen among queens; her domination required the pleasure of satisfied pride. Commanding inferior beings was more of a humiliation than a pleasure for her.

Certainly, she would return from her exile, she did not doubt that for a single moment; but how long could this exile last? For an active and ambitious nature like Milady's, days not spent climbing are ill-omened days; what word then can one find to name the days spent descending! To lose a year, two years, three years, that is to say an eternity; to return when d'Artagnan, happy and triumphant, would have, along with his friends, received from the queen the reward rightfully earned for the services they had rendered her—these were the kind of devouring ideas that a woman like Milady could not bear. Moreover, the storm raging within her doubled her strength, and she would have burst the walls of her prison, if her body could have taken for a single moment the proportions of her spirit.

Then what also spurred her amid all this was the memory of the cardinal. What must the distrustful, anxious, suspicious cardinal think, what must he say about her silence—the cardinal, not only her sole support, her sole mainstay, her sole protector in the present, but also the chief instrument of her fortune and her vengeance to come? She knew him; she knew that upon her return, after a useless journey, she would plead her imprisonment in vain, she would exalt her sufferings in vain; the cardinal would reply with that calm mockery of the skeptic powerful alike through force and genius: "You should not have let yourself be caught!"

Then Milady summoned all her energy, murmuring in the depths of her mind the name of Felton, the only ray of daylight that penetrated to her in the depths of the hell into which she had fallen; and like a serpent that coils and uncoils its rings to gauge its own strength, she enveloped Felton in advance within the thousand folds of her inventive imagination.

Meanwhile time passed, the hours one after another seemed to awaken the bell as they went by, and each stroke of the bronze clapper resounded upon the prisoner's heart. At nine o'clock, Lord de Winter made his customary visit, looked at the window and the bars, sounded the floor and the walls, inspected the fireplace and the doors, without, during this long and meticulous visit, either he or Milady uttering a single word.

No doubt both understood that the situation had become too grave to waste time in useless words and ineffective anger.

"Well, well," said the baron as he left her, "you will not escape tonight either!"

At ten o'clock, Felton came to post a sentry; Milady recognized his footstep. She now divined him as a mistress divines the step of her heart's lover, and yet Milady both hated and despised that weak fanatic.

It was not the agreed hour; Felton did not enter.

Two hours later, and as midnight struck, the sentry was relieved.

This time it was the hour: accordingly, from that moment, Milady waited with impatience.

The new sentry began to pace the corridor.

After ten minutes, Felton came.

Milady listened.

"Listen," said the young man to the sentry, "on no pretext move away from this door, for you know that last night a soldier was punished by Milord for having left his post for a moment, and yet it was I who, during his brief absence, had watched in his place."

"Yes, I know that," said the soldier.

"I therefore recommend the most exact surveillance. I," he added, "am going back in to make a second inspection of that woman's room, who has, I fear, sinister designs upon herself, and whom I have been ordered to watch."

"Good," murmured Milady, "here is the austere Puritan telling lies!"

As for the soldier, he contented himself with a smile.

"Pest! my lieutenant," he said, "you are not unlucky to be charged with such commissions, especially if Milord has authorized you to look even into her bed."

Felton blushed; in any other circumstance he would have reprimanded the soldier who permitted himself such a jest; but his conscience murmured too loudly for his mouth to dare speak.

"If I call," he said, "come; likewise, if anyone comes, call me."

"Yes, my lieutenant," said the soldier.

Felton entered Milady's room. Milady rose.

"So you are here?" she said.

"I promised you I would come," said Felton, "and I have come."

"You promised me something else as well."

"What, O God?" said the young man, who, despite his self-control, felt his knees trembling and sweat starting on his brow.

"You promised to bring me a knife, and to leave it with me after our conversation."

"Do not speak of that, madame," said Felton; "no situation, however terrible, authorizes a creature of God to take her own life. I have reflected that I must never be guilty of such a sin."

"Ah! you have reflected!" said the prisoner, sitting down in her armchair with a smile of disdain; "and I too have reflected."

"On what?"

"That I have nothing to say to a man who does not keep his word."

"Oh, my God!" murmured Felton.

"You may withdraw," said Milady; "I will not speak."

"Here is the knife!" said Felton, drawing from his pocket the weapon which, according to his promise, he had brought, but which he hesitated to hand to his prisoner.

"Let me see it," said Milady.

"What for?"

"Upon my honor, I will return it to you instantly; you shall place it on that table; and you shall remain between it and me."

Felton handed the weapon to Milady, who examined the temper of it attentively, and tried its point on the tip of her finger.

"Good," she said, returning the knife to the young officer; "this one is of fine and good steel; you are a faithful friend, Felton."

Felton took back the weapon and placed it on the table as had just been agreed with his prisoner.

Milady followed him with her eyes and made a gesture of satisfaction.

"Now," she said, "listen to me."

The recommendation was unnecessary; the young officer stood before her, waiting for her words to devour them.

"Felton," said Milady, with a melancholy solemnity, "Felton, if your sister, your father's daughter, said to you: 'Still young, unfortunately quite beautiful, I was lured into a trap; I resisted; snares and violences were multiplied around me; I resisted; they blasphemed the religion I serve, the God I adore, because I called upon that God and that religion for help; I resisted; then they heaped outrages upon me, and since they could not damn my soul, they wanted to wither my body forever; at last—'"

Milady paused, and a bitter smile passed over her lips.

"At last," said Felton, "at last, what did they do?"

"At last, one evening, they resolved to paralyze that resistance they could not overcome: one evening, they mixed a powerful narcotic into my water; scarcely had I finished my meal when I felt myself gradually falling into an unknown torpor. Although I was unsuspecting, a vague fear seized me and I tried to fight the sleep; I stood up, I wanted to run to the window, to call for help, but my legs refused to carry me; it seemed to me that the ceiling was lowering upon my head and crushing me with its weight; I stretched out my arms, I tried to speak, I could only utter inarticulate sounds; an irresistible numbness took possession of me, I held onto a chair, feeling that I was about to fall, but soon that support was insufficient for my feeble arms; I fell on one knee, then on both; I wanted to cry out, my tongue was frozen; God did not see me or hear me, no doubt, and I slid onto the floor, seized by a sleep that resembled death.

"Of all that happened during that sleep and the time that elapsed during its duration, I had no recollection; the only thing I remember is that I awoke lying in a round room, the furnishings of which were sumptuous, and into which light entered only through an opening in the ceiling. Moreover, no door seemed to give entrance to it; one would have said a magnificent prison.

"It was long before I could account to myself for the place where I found myself and for all the details I relate; my mind seemed to struggle in vain to shake off the heavy darkness of that sleep from which I could not tear myself away; I had vague perceptions of a space traversed, of the rolling of a carriage, of a horrible dream in which my strength would have been exhausted; but all that was so dark and indistinct in my mind that these events seemed to belong to another life than mine, and yet mingled with mine by a fantastic duality.

"For some time, the state in which I found myself seemed so strange that I thought I was dreaming. I rose staggering; my clothes were near me, on a chair; I did not remember either having undressed or having gone to bed. Then little by little reality presented itself to me, full of chaste terrors: I was no longer in the house I inhabited; as far as I could judge by the sunlight, the day was already two-thirds gone! It was the previous evening that I had fallen asleep; my sleep had therefore already lasted nearly twenty-four hours. What had happened during that long sleep?

"I dressed as quickly as possible. All my slow and numb movements attested that the influence of the narcotic was not yet entirely dissipated. Moreover, this room was furnished to receive a woman; and the most accomplished coquette would not have had a wish to form, that in casting her gaze around the apartment she would not have seen her wish fulfilled.

"Certainly, I was not the first captive who had found herself locked in that splendid prison; but, you understand, Felton, the more beautiful the prison, the more I was terrified.

"Yes, it was a prison, for I tried in vain to get out. I sounded all the walls to discover a door; everywhere the walls gave back a full and dull sound.

"I made perhaps twenty times the circuit of that room, seeking some exit; there was none; I fell, crushed with fatigue and terror, into an armchair.

"Meanwhile, night came quickly, and with night my terrors increased: I did not know whether to stay where I was sitting; it seemed to me that I was surrounded by unknown dangers, into which I would fall at every step. Though I had eaten nothing since the previous day, my fears prevented me from feeling hunger.

"No sound from outside, to allow me to measure time, reached me; I only presumed that it might be seven or eight o'clock in the evening; for we were in the month of October, and it was fully night.

"Suddenly, the creak of a door turning on its hinges made me start; a globe of fire appeared above the glassed opening in the ceiling, casting a bright light into my room, and I perceived with terror that a man was standing a few paces from me.

"A table set for two, bearing a supper already prepared, had risen as if by magic in the middle of the room.

"That man was the one who had been pursuing me for a year, who had sworn my dishonor, and who, from the first words that came from his mouth, made me understand that he had accomplished it the previous night."

"The wretch!" murmured Felton.

"Oh! yes, the wretch!" cried Milady, seeing the interest the young officer, whose soul seemed hanging on her lips, took in this strange story; "oh! yes, the wretch! he believed that it was enough for him to have triumphed over me in my sleep for everything to be done; he came, hoping that I would accept my shame, since my shame was consummated; he came to offer me his fortune in exchange for my love.

"All the proud contempt and disdainful words that a woman's heart can contain, I poured upon that man; no doubt he was accustomed to such reproaches; for he listened to me calm, smiling, and with arms crossed upon his chest; then, when he thought I had said everything, he advanced toward me; I sprang to the table, I seized a knife, I pressed it against my bosom.

"'Take one step more,' I said to him, 'and besides my dishonor, you will have my death to reproach yourself with.'

"No doubt there was in my look, in my voice, in my whole person, that truth of gesture, pose, and accent which carries conviction into the most perverse souls, for he stopped.

"'Your death!' he said to me; 'oh! no, you are far too charming a mistress for me to consent to lose you thus, after having had the happiness of possessing you only once. Farewell, my lovely one! I will wait, before returning to pay you my visit, until you are in better spirits.'

"With these words, he gave a whistle; the globe of flame that lit my room rose and disappeared; I found myself again in darkness. The same noise of a door opening and closing was repeated an instant later, the flaming globe descended again, and I found myself alone.

"That moment was frightful; if I still had any doubts about my misfortune, those doubts had vanished into a despairing reality: I was in the power of a man whom not only I detested, but whom I despised; a man capable of anything, and who had already given me a fatal proof of what he dared.

"But who was this man, then?" asked Felton.

"I spent the night on a chair, starting at the slightest noise, for about midnight the lamp went out, and I found myself in darkness. But the night passed without any new attempt by my persecutor; day came: the table had disappeared; only, I still had the knife in my hand.

"That knife was my only hope.

"I was crushed with fatigue; sleeplessness burned my eyes; I had not dared to sleep a single instant; day reassured me, I went and threw myself on my bed without letting go of the liberating knife which I hid under my pillow.

"When I woke, a new table was set.

"This time, despite my terrors, in spite of my anguish, a ravenous hunger made itself felt; I had taken no food for forty-eight hours: I ate some bread and a few fruits; then, remembering the narcotic mixed with the water I had drunk, I did not touch that which was on the table, and I went to fill my glass at a marble fountain set into the wall, above my toilet table.

"However, despite this precaution, I still remained for some time in frightful anguish; but my fears, this time, were unfounded: I spent the day without experiencing anything resembling what I dreaded.

"I had taken the precaution to half empty the carafe, so that my distrust would not be noticed.

"Evening came, and with it darkness; however, deep as it was, my eyes began to grow accustomed to it; I saw, in the midst of the shadows, the table sink into the floor; a quarter of an hour later, it reappeared bearing my supper; an instant later, thanks to the same lamp, my room was lit again.

"I was resolved to eat only those things into which it was impossible to mix any soporific: two eggs and some fruit made up my meal; then, I went to draw a glass of water from my protective fountain, and I drank it.

"At the first mouthfuls, it seemed to me that it no longer had the same taste as in the morning; a rapid suspicion seized me, I stopped; but I had already swallowed half a glass.

"I threw the rest away with horror, and waited, the sweat of terror on my brow.

"No doubt some invisible witness had seen me take water from that fountain, and had profited from my very trust to better assure my ruin, so coldly resolved, so cruelly pursued.

"Half an hour had not passed, when the same symptoms occurred; only, as this time I had drunk only half a glass of water, I struggled longer, and, instead of falling completely asleep, I fell into a state of drowsiness which left me the sensation of what was happening around me, while taking from me the strength either to defend myself or to flee.

"I dragged myself toward my bed, to seek the only defense that remained to me, my saving knife; but I could not reach the bedside: I fell to my knees, my hands clutching one of the footposts; then I understood that I was lost."

Felton turned terribly pale, and a convulsive shudder ran through his entire body.

"And what was most frightful," continued Milady, her voice altered as if she still felt the same anguish as at that terrible moment, "is that, this time, I was conscious of the danger that threatened me; it is that my soul, I may say, watched in my sleeping body; it is that I saw, that I heard: it is true that all was as in a dream; but that only made it more frightening.

"I saw the lamp rise and gradually leave me in darkness; then I heard the well-known creak of that door, although that door had only opened twice.

"I felt instinctively that someone was approaching me: they say that the wretch lost in the deserts of America thus feels the approach of the serpent.

"I wanted to make an effort, I tried to cry out; by an incredible energy of will I even rose, only to fall again immediately... and fall into the arms of my persecutor.

"Tell me, then, who this man was!" cried the young officer.

Milady saw at a single glance all the suffering she was causing Felton by dwelling on every detail of her story; but she did not want to spare him any torture. The more deeply she broke his heart, the more surely he would avenge her. She therefore continued as if she had not heard his exclamation, or as if she thought the moment had not yet come to answer it.

"Only, this time, it was no longer a kind of inert corpse, without any feeling, that the wretch had to deal with. I told you: though unable to recover the full exercise of my faculties, I retained the feeling of my danger; I therefore struggled with all my strength, and no doubt, weak as I was, I offered a long resistance, for I heard him cry out:

"'These miserable Puritans! I knew well that they wearied their executioners, but I believed them less strong against their seducers.'

"Alas! that desperate resistance could not last long; I felt my strength ebbing, and this time it was not of my sleep that the coward profited, but of my swoon."

Felton listened without uttering anything other than a kind of muffled roar; only the sweat streamed down his marble brow, and his hand, hidden under his coat, tore at his chest.

"My first movement, on coming to, was to seek under my pillow that knife which I had not been able to reach; if it had not served for defense, it could at least serve for expiation.

"But in taking that knife, Felton, a terrible idea came to me. I swore to tell you everything, and I will tell you everything; I promised you the truth, I will speak it, even if it should ruin me.

"The idea came to you to avenge yourself on that man, did it not?" cried Felton.

"Well, yes!" said Milady; "that idea was not that of a Christian, I know it; no doubt that eternal enemy of our soul, that roaring lion ceaselessly around us, breathed it into my mind. In short, what shall I tell you, Felton?" continued Milady, in the tone of a woman accusing herself of a crime, "that idea came to me and did not leave me, no doubt. It is for that murderous thought that I today bear the punishment."

"Continue, continue," said Felton, "I am eager to see you arrive at the vengeance."

"Oh! I resolved that it should take place as soon as possible; I did not doubt that he would return the following night. By day I had nothing to fear.

"So, when the hour of breakfast came, I did not hesitate to eat and drink: I was resolved to pretend to sup, but to take nothing; I must therefore, by the food of the morning, combat the fast of the evening.

"Only I hid a glass of water saved from my breakfast, thirst having been what made me suffer most when I had remained forty-eight hours without drinking or eating.

"The day passed without having any other influence on me than to strengthen me in the resolution I had taken: only I took care that my face betrayed nothing of the thought in my heart, for I did not doubt that I was being watched; several times I even felt a smile on my lips. Felton, I dare not tell you at what idea I smiled; you would hold me in horror—"

"Continue, continue," said Felton, "you see well that I am listening and that I am eager to arrive."

"Evening came; the ordinary events took place; during the darkness, as usual, my supper was served, then the lamp was lit, and I sat down to table.

"I ate only a few fruits; I pretended to pour myself water from the carafe, but I drank only that which I had kept in my glass; the substitution, moreover, was made cleverly enough so that my spies, if I had any, would conceive no suspicion.

"After supper, I gave the same signs of drowsiness as the previous evening; but this time, as if I were succumbing to fatigue or as if I were growing familiar with danger, I dragged myself toward my bed, and pretended to fall asleep.

"This time, I had found my knife again under the pillow, and while feigning sleep, my hand convulsively gripped the handle.

"Two hours passed without anything new happening; this time, O my God! who would have told me that the day before? I began to fear that he would not come."

“Stories of the world, in your language.”