Memoirs of a Physician (57 page)

” Mademoiselle ‘ said Nicole, ” your glass of water is prepared, your clothes are folded, the night-lamp is lighted. You know I must rise very early to-morrow morning ; may I go to bed now ? “

” Yes,” replied Andre, absently.

Nicole courtesied, heaved a last sigh, which, like the others, was unnoticed, and closed behind her the glass door leading to the anteroom. But instead of retiring into her little cell adjoining the corridor and lighted from Andre’s anteroom, she softly took to flight, leaving the door of the corridor ajar, so that Richelieu’s instructions were scrupulously followed.

Then, not to arouse the attention of the neighbors, she descended the stairs on tiptoe, bounded down the outer steps, and ran quickly to join M. de Beausire at the gate.

Gilbert had not quitted his post. He had heard Nicole say that she would return in two hours, and he waited. But as it was now ten minutes past the hour, he began to fear that she would not return.

All at once he saw her running as if some one were pursuing her.

Nicole approached the gate, passed the key through the bars to Beausire, who opened it, rushed out, and the gate closed with a dull, grating noise. The key was then thrown among the grass in the ditch, near the spot where Gilbert was stationed. He heard it fall with a dead sound, and marked the place where it had dropped.

Nicole and Beausire in the meantime gained ground. Gilbert heard them move away, and soon he could distinguish, not the noise of a carriage, as Nicole had required, but the pawing of a horse, which, after some moments’ de-lay occupied doubtless by Nicole in recrimination, who had wished to depart, like a duchess, in her carriage

424 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.

changed to the clattering of his iron-shod feet on the pavement, and at last died away in the distance.

Gilbert breathed freely ; he was free, free from Nicole that is to say, from his enemy. Aiidree was henceforth alone.

He took the contrary direction from the one Nicole was pursuing, and hurried toward the offices of Trianon.

CHAPTER LIII.

DOUBLE SIGHT.

Andre was alone, she gradually recovered from the mental torpor into which she had fallen, and while Nicole was flying en croupe behind M. de Beausire, she knelt down and offered up a fervent prayer for Philip, the only being in the world she loved with a true and deep attachment ; and while she prayed, her trust in God assumed new strength and inspired her with fresh courage.

The prayers which Andre offered were not composed of a succession of words strung one to the other ; they were a kind of heavenly ecstasy, during which her soul rose to her God and mingled with his spirit.

In these impassioned supplications of the mind, freed from earthly concerns, there was no alloy of self. Andre in some degree abandoned all thoughts of herself, like a shipwrecked mariner who has lost hope, and who prays only for his -wife and children, soon to become orphans. This inward grief had sprung up in Andre’s bosom since her brother’s departure, but it was not entirely without another cause. Like her prayer, it was composed of two distinct elements, one of which was quite inexplicable to her.

It was, as it were, a presentiment, the perceptible approach of some impending misfortune. It was a sensation resembling that of the shooting of a cicatrized wound. The acute pain is over, but the remembrance survives, and reminds the sufferer of the calamity, as the wound itself

MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 425

had previously done. She did not even attempt to explain her feelings to herself. Devoted, heart and soul, to Philip, she centered in her beloved brother every thought and every affection of her heart.

Then she rose, took a book from her modestly furnished library, placed the light within reach of her hand, and stretched herself on a couch. The book she had chosen, or, rather, upon which she had accidentally placed her hand, was a dictionary of botany. It may readily be imagined that this book was not calculated to absorb her attention, but rather to lull it to rest. Gradually, drowsiness weighed down her eyelids, and a filmy veil obscured her vision. For a moment the young girl struggled against sleep, twice or thrice she collected her scattered thoughts, which soon escaped again from her control ; then, raising her head to blow out the candle, she perceived the glass of water prepared by Nicole, stretched out her hand, and took the glass, stirred the sugar with the spoon, and, already half asleep, she approached the glass to her lips.

All at once, just as her lips were already touching the beverage, a strange emotion made her hand tremble, a moist and burning weight fell on her brow, and Andre recognized with terror, by the current of the fluid which rushed through her nerves, that supernatural attack of mysterious sensations which had several times already triumphed over her strength and overpowered her mind. She had only time to place the glass upon the plate, when instantly, without a murmur, but with a sigh which escaped from her half-open lips, she lost the use of voice, sight, and reason, and seized with a deathlike torpor, fell back as if struck by lightning upon her bed. But this sort of annihilation was but the momentary transition to another state of existence. For an instant she seemed perfectly lifeless, and her eyes closed in the slumber of death ; but all at once she rose, opened her eyes, which stared with a fearful fixity of gaze ; and, like a marble statue descending from its tomb, she once more stood upon the floor. There was no longer room for doubt. Andre

426 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.

was sunk in that marvelous sleep which had several times already suspended her vital functions.

She crossed the chamber, opened the glass door, and entered the corridor, with the fixed and rigid attitude of breathing marble. She reached the stairs, descended step by step without hesitation and without haste, and emerged upon the portico. Just as Andre placed her foot upon the topmost step to descend, Gilbert reached the lowest on his way to his attic. Seeing this white and solemn figure advancing as if to meet him, he recoiled before her, and, still retreating as she advanced, he concealed himself in a clump of shrubs. It was thus, he recollected, that he had already seen Andre de Tavern ey at the Chateau de Taverney.

Andre passed close by him, even touched him, but saw him not. The young man, thunderstruck, speechless with surprise, sunk to the ground on one knee. His limbs refused to support him he was afraid.

Not knowing to what cause to attribute this strange excursion, he followed her with his eyes, but his reason was confounded, his blood beat impetuously against his temples, and he was in a state more closely bordering on madness than the coolness and circumspection necessary for an observer.

He remained, therefore, crouching on the grass among the leaves, watching as he had never ceased to do since this fatal attachment had entered his heart. All at once the mystery was explained ; Andre was neither mad nor bewildered, as he had for a moment supposed ; Andre was, with this sepulchral step, going to a rendezvous. A gleam of lightning now furrowed the sky, and by its blue and livid light Gilbert saw a man concealed beneath the somber avenue of linden-trees, and, notwithstanding the rapidity of the flash, he had recognized the pale face and disordered garments of the man, relieved against the dark background.

Andre advanced toward this man, whose arm was extended as if to draw her toward him.

A sensation like the branding of a red-hot iron rushed

MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 427

through Gilbert’s “heart ; he raised himself upon his knees to see more clearly. At that moment another flash of lightning illumined the sky.

Gilbert recognized Balsamo, covered with dust and perspiration Balsamo, who, by some mysterious means, had succeeded in entering Trianon, and thus drew Andre toward him as invincibly, as fatally, as the serpent fascinates its prey.

When two paces from him Andre stopped. Balsamo took her hand ; her whole frame shuddered.

” Do you see ? ” he asked.

” Yes,” replied Andre ; ” but in summoning me so suddenly you have nearly killed me.”

“Pardon, pardon ! ” replied Balsamo ; ” but my brain reels I am beside myself I am nearly mad I shall kill myself ! “

” You are indeed suffering,” said Andre, conscious of Balsamo’s feelings by the contact of his hand.

” Yes, yes,” replied Balsamo ; ” I suffer, and I come to you for consolation. You alone can save me.”

” Question me.”

” Once more, do yon see ? “

” Oh, perfectly ! “

” Will you follow me to my house ? Can you do so?”

” I can, if you will conduct me there in thought.”

“Come.”

” Ah ! “-said Andre, ” we are entering Paris ; we follow the boulevard ; we plunge into a street lighted by a single lamp. “

” Yes, that is it. Enter, enter ! “

“We are in an antechamber. There’s a staircase to the right, but you draw me toward the wall. The wall opens steps appear “

” Ascend !” exclaimed Balsamo ; “that is our way.”

” Ah I we are in a sleeping-chamber ; there are lions, skins, arms stay, the back of the fireplace opens.”

” Pass through. Where are you ? “

” In a strange sort of room, without any outlet, and

428 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.

the windows of which are barred. Oh ! how disordered everything in the room appears !”

” But empty it is empty, is it not ? “

” Yes, empty.”

” Can you see the person who inhabited it ? “

“Yes, if you give me something which has touched her, which comes from her, or which belongs to her.”

” Hold ! there is some hair.”

Andre took the hair, and placed it on her heart.

“Oh! I recognize her ” said she. “I have already seen this woman. She was flying toward Paris.”

” Yes, yes ; you can tell me what she has been doing during the last two hours, and how she escaped ?”

” Wait a moment ; yes ; she is reclining upon a sofa ; her breast is half bared, and she has a wound on one side.”

” Look, Andre, look ! do not lose sight of her.”

” She was asleep she awakes she looks around she takes a handkerchief and climbs upon a chair. She ties the handkerchief to the bars of the window oh, God ! “

” Is she really determined to die ? “

” Oh, yes ! she is resolute. But this sort of death terrifies her. She leaves the handkerchief tied to the bars she descends ah ! poor woman.”

“What?”

” Oh ! how she weeps, how she suffers, and wrings her hands ! She searches for a corner of the wall against which to dash her head ! “

” Oh, my God ! my God ! ” murmured Balsamo.

” She rushes toward the chimney-piece. It represents two marble lions ; she will dash out her brains against the lions.”

” What, then ? Look, Andre, look it is my will ! “

“She stops.”

Balsamo breathed again.

” She looks “

” What does she look ?,t ? ” asked Balsamo.

” She has perceived some blood upon the lion’s eye.”

” Oh, heavens ! “

MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN. 429

” Yes, blood ; and yet she did not strike herself against it. Oh ! strange, the blood is not hers, it is yours.”

” Mine ? ” asked Balsamo, frantic with excitement.

“Yes, yours. You had cut your finger with a knife, with a poniard and had touched the lion’s eye with your bleeding hand. I see you.”

” True, true. But how does she escape ? “

“Stay; I see her examining the blood; she reflects; then she places her finger where you had placed yours. Ah ! the lion’s eye gives way a spring acts the chimney-board flies open.”

“Oh, imprudent, wretched fool that I am ! I have betrayed myself ! “

Andre was silent.

“And she leaves the room?” asked Balsamo, “she escapes ? “

” Oh, you must forgive the poor woman she was very miserable.”

” Where is she ? whither does she fly ? Follow her, Andre it is my will.”

” She stops for a moment in the chamber of furs and armor ; a cupboard is open, a casket, usually locked in this cupboard, is upon the table ; she recognizes the box ; she takes it.”

” What does the box contain ?”

” Your papers, I think.”

” Describe it.”

” It is covered with blue velvet, and studded with brass nails, has clasps of silver, and a golden lock.”

“Oh,” exclaimed Balsamo, stamping with anger; “it is she, then, who has taken the casket ? “

” Yes. She descends the stairs leading into the anteroom, opens the door, draws back the chain of the street door, and goes out.”

“Is it late?”

“It must be late, for it is dark.”

” So much the better. She must have fled shortly be-fore my return, and I shall perhaps have time to overtake her. Follow her, Andre, follow her !”

430 MEMOIRS OF A PHYSICIAN.

” Once outside the house, she runs as if she were mad ; she reaches the boulevard ; she hastens on without pausing.”

“In which direction ?”

” Toward the Bastile.”

” You see her yet ?”

“Yes ; she looks like a madwoman ; she jostles against the passers-by ; she stops , she endeavors to discover where she is : she inquires.”

” What does she say ? Listen, Andre, listen ; in Heaven’s name, do not lose a syllable ! You said she inquired ? “

” Yes, from a man dressed in black.”

” What does she ask ? “

” She wishes to know the address of the lieutenant of police.”

” Oh ! then it was not a vain threat. Does the person give it her ? “

“Yes.”

” What does she do ? “

“She retraces her steps, and turns down a winding street. She crosses a large square.”

” The Place Eoyale ; it is the direct way. Can you read her intention ?”

” Follow her quickly ! Hasten ; she goes to betray you ! If she arrives before you, and sees Monsieur de Sartines, you are lost ! “

Balsamo uttered a terrible cry, plunged into the thicket, rushed through a little door, which a shadowy apparition opened and closed after him, and leaped with one bound on his faithful Djerid who was pawing the ground at the little gate. Urged on at once by voice and spur, he darted like an arrow toward Paris, and soon nothing was heard but the clattering of his hoofs on the paved causeway.