Memoirs of a Physician (64 page)

Balsamo, without replying to this threat, prepared everything the old man might want. He placed the drinks and the food within his reach, and performed all the services a watchful servant would perform for his master, a devoted son for his father ; then, absorbed by a thought very different from that which tormented Althotas, he lowered the trap to descend, without remarking that the old man followed with a sardonic and ominous grin.

Althotas was still grinning like an evil genius when Balsamo stood before the still sleeping Lorenza.

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CHAPTER XIII.

THE STRUGGLE.

BALSAMO stood before her, his heart swelling with mournful thoughts, for the violent ones had vanished.

The scene which had just taken place between himself and Althotas had led him to reflect on the nothingness of all human affairs, and had chased anger from his heart. He remembered the practise of the Greek philosopher who repeated the entire alphabet before listening to the voice of that black divinity, the counselor of Achilles.

After a moment of mute and cold contemplation before the couch on which Lorenza was lying :

” I am sad,” said he to himself ; ” but resolved, and I can look my situation fair in the face. Lorenza hates me ; Lorenza has threatened to betray me. My secret is no longer my own ; I have given it into the woman’s power, and she casts it to the winds. I am like the fox who has withdrawn from the steel trap only the bone of his leg, but who has left behind his flesh and his skin, so that the huntsmen can say on the morrow, The fox has been taken here ; I shall know him again, living or dead

” And this dreadful misfortune which Althotas cannot comprehend, and which therefore I have not even mentioned to him this misfortune which destroys all my hopes in this country and consequently in this world, of ‘which France is the sonl, I owe to the creature sleeping before me to this beautiful statue with her entreating smile. To this tempting angel I owe dishonor and ruin, and shall owe to her captivity, exile, and death.

” Therefore,” continued he, becoming more animated, ” the sum of evil has exceeded that of good, and Lorenza is dangerous. Oh, serpent ! with thy graceful folds which nevertheless strangle, with thy golden throat which is nevertheless full of venoni sleep on, for when thou awukest I shall be obliged to kill thee ! “

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And with a gloomy smile Balsamo slowly approached the young woman, whose languid eyes were turned toward him as he approached, as the sunflower and volubilis open to the first rays of the rising sun.

“Oh!” said Balsamo, “and yet I must forever close those eyes which now beam so tenderly on me, those beautiful eyes which are filled with lightning when they no longer sparkle with love.”

Lorenza smiled sweetly, and smiling, she displayed the double row of her pearly teeth.

” But if I kill her who hates me,” said Balsamo, wring-ing his hands, ‘ I shall also kill her who loves me.”

And his heart was filled with the deepest grief, strangely mingled with a vague desire.

” No, no,” murmured he ; “I have sworn in vain ; I have threatened in vain ; no, I shall never have the courage to kill her. She shall live, but she shall live without being awakened. She shall live in this factitious life, which is happiness for her, while the other is despair. Would that I could make her happy. What matters to me the rest she shall only have one existence, the one I create ; the one during which she loves me, that which she lives at this moment.”

And he returned Lorenza’s tender look by a look as tender as her own, placing his hand as he did so gently on her head. Lorenza, who seemed to read Balsamo’s thoughts as if they were an open book, gave a long sigh, rose gradually with the graceful languor of sleep, and placed her two white arms upon Balsamo’s shoulders, who felt her perfumed breath upon his cheek.

” Oh, no, no ! ” exclaimed Balsamo, passing his hand over his burning forehead and his dazzled eyes : “no, this intoxicating life will make me mad ; and, with this siren, glory, power, immortality will all vanish from my thoughts. No, no ; she must awake, I must do it.”

” Oh ! ” continued he, ” if I awake her, the struggle will begin again. If I awake her, she will kill herself, or she will kill me, or force me to destroy her. Oh ! what an abyss !

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” Yes, this woman’s destiny is written ; it stands before me in letters of fire love ! death ! Lorenza, Lorenza ! thou art doomed to love and to die ! Lorenza, Lorenza ! I hold thy life and thy love in my hands ! “

Instead of a reply, the enchantress rose, advanced to-ward Balsaino, fell at his feet, and gazed into his eyes with a tender smile. Then she took one of his hands and placed it on her heart.

” Death ! ” said she, in a low voice, which whispered from her lips, brilliant as coral when it issues from the caverns of the deep ; ” death, bnt love ! “

” Oh ! ” said Balsamo, ” it is too much. I have struggled as long as a human being could struggle. Demon, or angel of futurity, whichever thou art ! thou must be content. I have long enough sacrificed all the generous passions in my heart to egotism and pride. Oh ! no, no. I have no right thus to rebel against the only human feeling which still remains lurking in my heart. I love this woman, I love her, and this passionate love injures her more than the most terrible hatred could do. This love kills her. Oh, coward ! oh, ferocious fool that I am ! I cannot even compromise with my desires. What ! when I breathe my last sigh ; when I prepare to appear before God I, the deceiver, the false prophet when I throw off my mantle of hypocrisy and artifice before the Sovereign Judge shall I have not one generous action to confess, not the recollection of a single happiness to console me in the midst of my eternal sufferings ?

” Oh ! no, no, Loreuza ; I know that in loving thee I lose the future ; I know that my revealing angel will wing its flight to heaven if I thus change your entire existence and overturn the natural laws of your being. But, Lorenza, you wish it, do you not ? “

” My beloved ! ” she sighed.

” Then you accept the factitious instead of the real life? “

” I ask for it on my knees I pray for it I implore it. This life is love and happiness.”

“And will it suffice for you when you are my wife, for I love you passionately ? “

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” Oh ! I know it ; I can read your heart.”

” You will never regret yonr wings, poor dove ; for know that you will never again roam through radiant space for me to seek the ray of light Jehovah once deigned to bestow upon his prophets. When I would know the fu-ture, when I would command men, alas ! alas ! the voice will not reply. I have had in thee the beloved woman and the helping spirit ; I shall only have one of the two row, and yet “

” Ah ! yon doubt, yon doubt,” cried Lorenza, ” I gee doubt like a dark stain upon your heart.”

” You will always love me, Lorenza ? “

” Always ! always ! “

Balsamo passed his hand over his forehead.

“Well, it shall be so,” said he.

And raising Lorenza, he folded her in his arms and pressed a kiss upon her head a seal of his promise to love and cherish her till death.

CHAPTER LXI.

FOB Balsamo another life had commenced, a life hitherto unknown in his active, troubled, multiplied existence. For three days that had been for him no more anger, no more apprehension, no more jealousy ; for three days he had not heard the subject of politics, conspirators, or conspiracies, as much as whispered. By Lorenza’s side, and he had not left her for an instant, he had forgotten the whole world. This strange, inexplicable love, which, as it were, soared above humanity, this intoxicating and mysterious attachment, this love of a shadow, for he could not conceal from himself that with a word he could chauge his gentle bride into an implacable enemy this love snatched from hatred, thanks to an inexplicable caprice of nature or of science, plunged Balsamo into happiness which bordered on madness.

More than once, during these three days, vonsing him-

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self from the opiate torpor of love, Balsamo looked at his ever-smiling, ever-ecstatic companion for from thenceforth, in the existence he had created for her, she reposed from her factitious life in a sort of ecstasy equally factitious and when he saw her calm, gentle, happy, when she called him by the most affectionate names, and dreamed aloud her mysterious love, he more than once asked himself if some ruthless demon had not inspired Lorenza with the idea of deceiving him with a falsehood in order to lull his vigilance, and when it was lulled, to escape and only appear again as the Avenging Euemnides.

In such moments Balsamo doubted of the truth of a science received by tradition from antiquity, but of which he had no evidence but examples. But soon the ever-springing fountain of her affection reassured him.

“If Lorenza was feigning,” argued he with himself, ” if she intended to fly from him, she would seek opportunities for sending me away, she would invent excuses for occasional solitude ; but, far from that, her gentle voice ever whispers, stay ! “

Then Balsamo’s confidence in himself and in science returned. Why indeed should the magic secret to which alone he owed his power have become all at once and without any transition a chimera, fit only to throw to the winds as a vanished recollection, as the smoke of an extinguished fire ? Never with relation to him had Lorenza been more lucid, more clear-sighted. All the thoughts which sprung up in his mind, all the feelings which made his heart bound, were instantly reproduced in hers. It remained to be seen if this lucidity were not sympathy ; if, beyond himself and the young girl, beyond the circle which their love had traced, and which their love illuminated with its light the eyes of her soul, so clear-sighted before this new era of continued sleep, could yet pierce the surrounding darkness.

Balsamo dared not make the decisive trial ; he hoped still, and this hope was the resplendent crown of his happiness.

Sometimes Lorenza said to him with gentle melancholy :

21 DUMAS VOL. VII.

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” Acharat, you think of another than me, of a northern woman, with fair hair and blue eyes. Acharat ! Acharat ! this woman always moves beside me in your thoughts.”

Balsamo looked tenderly at Lorenza.

” You see that in me ?” said he.

” Oh ! yes, as clearly as I read the surface of a mirror.”

” Then you know it is not love which makes me think of that woman, replied Balsamo ; ” read in my heart, dearest Lorenza ! “

” No,” replied she, bending her head ; ” no, I know it well. But yet your thoughts are divided between us two, as in the days when Lorenza Feliciani tormented you the naughty Lorenza, who sleeps, and whom you will not again awake.”

” No, my love, no,” exclaimed Balsamo ; ” I think only of thee, at least with the heart. Have I not forgotten all, neglected everything study, politics, work since our happiness ? “

“And you are wrong,” said Lorenza, “for I could help you in your work.”

“How?”

” Yes ; did you not once spend whole hours in your laboratory ? “

” Certainly. But I renounce all these vain endeavors. They would be so many hours taken from my life for during that time I should not see you.”

” And why should I not follow you in your labors as in your love ? Why should I not make you powerf til as I make you happy ? “

“Because my Lorenza, it is true, is beautiful ; but she has not studied. God gives beauty and love, but study alone gives science.”

” The soul knows everything. “

” Then you can really see with the eyes of your soul ? “

“Yes.”

” And you can guide me in the grand search after the philosopher’s stone ?”

“I think so.”

” Come, then.”

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And Balsamo, encircling her waist with his arm, led her into his laboratory. The gigantic furnace, which no one had replenished for four days, was extinguished, and the crucibles had grown cold upon their chafing-dishes.

Lorenza looked around on all these strange instruments the last combination of expiring alchemy without surprise. She seemed to know the purpose which each was intended to fulfil.

“You are attempting to make gold,” said she, smiling

-Yes.”

” All these crucibles contain preparations in different stages of progress ? “

” All stopped all lost ; but I do not regret it.”

” You are right, for your gold would never be anything but colored mercury ; you can render it solid, perhaps, but you cannot transform it.”

” But gold can be made ? “

“No.”

” And yet Daniel of Transylvania sold the receipt for the transmutation of metals to Cosmo I. for twenty thousand ducats. “

“Daniel of Transylvaina deceived Cosmo I.”

“And yet the Saxon Payken, who was condemned to death by Charles II., ransomed his life by changing a leaden ingot into a golden one, from which forty ducats were coined, besides, taking as much from the ingot as made a medal which was struck in honor of the clever alchemist.”

(( The clever alchemist was nothing but a clever juggler. He merely substituted the golden ingot for the leaden one ; nothing more. Your surest way of making gold, Acharat, is to melt into ingots, as you do already, the riches which your slaves bring you from the four quarters of the world.”

Balsamo remained pensive.

” Then the transmutation of metals is impossible ? ” said he.

” Impossible.”

” And the diamond is it. too, impossible to create ? “

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” Oh ! the diamond is another matter,” said Lorenza.

” The diamond can be made, then ? “

” Yes ; for, to make the diamond, you have not to trans-mute one body into another. To make the diamond is merely to attempt the simple modification of a known element.”

“Then you know the element of which the diamond is formed ? “