Memoirs of a Physician (69 page)
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full of clever paradoxes, which led us to imagine that you were playing a part in flattering and associating with this incorrigible race, which it is our duty to exterminate from the face of the earth. For a long time we respected the mystery of your behavior, hoping for a happy result ; but at last the illusion was dispelled.”
Balsamo never stirred, and his features were fixed and motionless, insomuch that the president became impatient.
” Three days ago,” said he, ” five lettres-de-cachet were issued. They had been demanded from the king by Monsieur de Sartines ; they were filled as soon as signed, and the same day were presented to five of our principal agents, our most faithful and devoted brothers residing in Paris. All five were arrested ; two were taken to the Bastille, where they are kept in the most profound secrecy ; two are at Vincennes, in the oubliette ; one in the most noi-some cell in Bice~tre. Did you know this circumstance ? “
” No,” said Balsamo.
” That is strange after what we know of your relations with the lofty ones of the kingdom. But there is something stranger still.”
Balsamo listened.
” To enable Monsieur Sartines to arrest these five faithful friends he must have had the only paper which contains the names of the victims in his possession. This paper was sent to you by the Supreme Council in 1769, and to you it was assigned to receive the new members and immediately invest them with the rank which the Supreme Council assigned them.”
Balsamo expressed by a gesture that he did not recollect the circumstance.
” I shall assist your memory. The five persons in question were represented by five Arabic characters ; and these characters, in the paper you received, corresponded with the names and initials of the new brothers.”
” Be it so,” said Balsamo.
” You acknowledge it ? “
” I acknowledge whatever you please.”
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The president looked at his assessors, as if to order them to take a note of this confession.
” Well,” continued he, “on this paper the only one, remember, which could have compromised the brothers there was a sixth name. Do you remember it ? “
Balsamo made no reply.
” The name was the Count de Fenix.” *
“Agreed.” said Balsamo.
” Then why if the name of the five brothers figured in five lettres-de-cachet why was yours respected, caressed, and favorably received at court and in the antechambers of ministers ? If our brothers merited prison, you merited it also. What have you to reply ? “
“Nothing.”
” Ah ! I can guess by your objection. You may say that the police had by private means discovered the names of the obscure brethren, but that it was obliged to respect yours as an ambassador and a powerful man. You may even say that they did not suspect this name.”
” I shall say nothing.”
“Your pride outlives your honor. These names the police could only have discovered by reading the confidential note which the Supreme Council had sent you ; and this is the way it was seen. You kept it in a coffer. Is that true ? “
” It is.”
” One day a woman left your house carrying the coffer under her arm. She was seen by our agents and followed to the hotel of the lieutenant of police in the Faubourg St. Germain. We might have arrested the evil at it source ; for if we had stopped the woman and taken the coffer from her, everything would have been safe and sure. But we obeyed the rulee of our constitution, which command us to respect the secret means by which some members serve the cause, even when these means have the appearance of treason or imprudence.”
Balsamo seemed to approve of this assertion, but with a gesture so little marked that had it not been for his previous immobility it would” have been unnoticed.
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“This woman reached the lieutenant of police,” said the president ; ” she gave him the coffer ; and all was discovered. Is this true ? “
” Perfectly true.”
The president rose.
” Who was this woman ? ” he exclaimed ; ” beautiful, impassioned, devotedly attached to you body and soul, tenderly loved by you as spiritual, as subtle as cunning as one of the angels of darkness who assist men to com-mit evil ! Lorenza Feliciani is the woman, Balsamo ! “
Balsamo uttered a groan of despair.
” You are convicted,” said the president.
” Have it so,” replied Balsamo.
” I have not yet finished. A quarter of an hour after she had entered the hotel of the lieutenant of police, you arrived. She had sown the treason you came to reap the re-ward. The obedient servant had taken upon herself the per-petration of the crime you came to add the finishing stroke to the infamous work. Lorenza departed alone. You renounced her, doubtless, and would not compromise yourself by accompanying her ; you left triumphantly along with Madame Dubarry, summoned there to receive from your own lips the information you sold her. You entered her carriage, as the boatman entered the boat with the sinner, Mary the Egyptian. You left behind the papers which ruined us with Monsieur de Sartines, but you brought away the coffer which might have ruined you with us. Fortunately we saw you God’s light is with us when we need it most.”
Balsamo bowed without speaking.
“I now conclude,” added the president. “Two criminals have been pointed out to the order : a woman, your accomplice, who may be innocent perhaps, but who, in point of fact, has injured our cause by revealing one of our secrets ; and you, the master, the. great Copht, the enlightened mind, who have had the cowardice to shelter yourself behind this woman, that your treason may be less clearly seen.”
Balsamo raised his head, and fixed a look upon the com-
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missioners, burning, with all the rage vhichhad smoldered in his breast since the commencement of the interrogation.
” Why do you accuse this woman ? ” asked he.
” Ah ! we know that you will endeavor to defend her ; we know that you love her almost to idolatry. That you prefer her to everything in the world. We know that she is your treasure of science, of happiness, and of fortune, we know that she is more precious to you than all the world beside.”
“You know all this ?” said Balsarno.
“Yes, we know it ; and we shall punish you through her more than through yourself.”
” Finish ! “
The president rose.
” This is the sentence :
“Joseph Balsamo is a traitor he has broken his oath ; but his knowledge is immense, and he is useful to the order. Balsamo must live for the cause he has betrayed. He belongs to his brothers, though he has cast them off.”
” Ha ! ” said Balsamo, gloomily, almost savagely.
“A perpetual prison will protect the association against any renewal of his treachery, at the same time that it will permit the brothers to gather the knowledge from him which it has a right to expect from all its members.
“As to Lorenza Feliciani, a terrible punishment “
” Hold ! ” said Balsamo, with perfect calmness in his voice, ” you forget that I did not defend myself the accused must be heard in his own justification. A word, a single proof, will suffice ; wait one moment and I will bring you the proof I have promised.”
The commissaries seemed to deliberate for a moment.
” Ah ! you fear lest I should kill myself,” said Balsamo, with a bitter smile. ” If that had been my wish, it would have been already done. There is that in this ring which would kill you all five times over had I opened it. You fear I should escape ; let me be guarded if you wish it.”
” Go ! ” said the president.
Balsamo disappeared for about a moment. Then he was heard heavily descending the staircase. He entered bear-
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ing the cold, rigid, and discolored body of Lorenza upon his shoulder, her white hand hanging to the ground.
” Here is the woman I adored, who was my treasure, my only happiness, my life the woman who, as you say, has betrayed you here, take her ! God did not wait for you to punish, gentlemen !”
And with a movement quick as lightning, he let the corpse glide from his arms, and sent it rolling on the car-pet to the feet of the judges, whom her cold hair and the dead and motionless hands touched, to their great horror, while by the light of the lamps they saw the wide gash gaping in the neck white as a swan’s.
“Now pronounce the sentence ! ” added Balsamo.
The horrified judges uttered a cry, and, seized with maddening terror, fled in indescribable confusion. Soon their horses were heard neighing and trampling in the courtyard ; the outer gate grated on its hinges ; and then silence, the solemn silence of the tomb, returned to seat itself beside despair and death.
CHAPTER LXVI.
WHILE the terrible scene which we have just described was taking place between Balsamo and the five masters, nothing apparently had changed in the rest of the house. The old man had seen Balsamo enter his apartment and bear away Lorenza’s corpse, and this new demonstration had recalled him to what was.passing around him.
But when he saw Balsamo take up the dead body and descend with it into the lower rooms, lie fancied it was the last and eternal adieu of this man whose heart he had broken, and fear descended on his soul with an overwhelming force, which, for him who had done all to avoid death, doubled the horror of the grave.
Not knowing for what purpose Balsamo left him, nc whither he was going, he began to call out :
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” Acharat ! Acharat ! “
It was the name his pupil had borne in childhood, and he hoped it would have retained its influence over the man.
But Balsamo continued to descend. Having touched the ground, he even forgot to make the trap reascend, and disappeared in the corridor.
“Ah!” cried Althotas, “see what man is a blind, ungrateful animal ! Return, Acharat, return ! Ah ! you prefer the ridiculous object called a woman to the perfection of humanity which I represent ! You prefer a fragment of life to immortality !
” But no ! ” he exclaimed, after a moment’s pause, ” the wretch has deceived his master he has betrayed my confidence like a vile robber he feared that I should live because I surpass him so much in science he wanted to inherit the laborious work I had nearly concluded he laid a trap for me, his master and benefactor ! Oh, Acharat ! “
And gradually the old man’s anger was aroused, his cheeks were dyed with a hectic tinge, his half-closed eyes seemed to glow with the gloomy brightness of those phosphorescent lights which sacrilegious children place in the cavities of a human skull. Then he cried :
” Return, Acharat ! return ! look to yourself ! You know that I have conjurations which evoke fire and raise up supernatural spirits ! I have evoked Satan him whom the magi called Phegor, in the mountains of Gad and Satan was forced to leave his bottomless pit and appear before me ! I have conferred with the seven angels who ministered to God’s anger upon the same mountain where Moses received the ten commandments ! By my will alone I have kindled the great tripod with its seven flames which Trajan stole from the Jews ! Take care, Acharat, take care ! “
But there was no reply.
Then his brain became more and more clouded.
“Do you not see, wretch, “said he, in a choking voice, ” that death is about to seize me as it would the meanest mortal ! Listen, Acharat ! you may return ; I will do you
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no harm ; return, I renounce the fire ; you need not fear the evil spirit, nor the seven avenging angels. I renounce vengeance, and yet I could strike you with such terror that you would become an idiot and cold as marble, for I can stop the circulation of the blood. Come back, then, Acharat ; I will do you no harm, but, on the contrary, I can do you much good. Acharat, instead of abandoning me, watch over my life, and you shall have all my treasures and all my secrets. Let me live, Acharat, that 1 may teach them to you. See ! see ! “
And with gleaming eyes and trembling fingers he pointed to the numerous objects, papers, and rolls scattered through the vast apartments. Then he waited, collecting all his fast-failing faculties to listen.
” Ah ! you come not !” he cried ; ”you think I shall die thus, and by this murder for you are murdering me everything will belong to you. Madman ! were you even capable of reading the manuscripts which I alone am able to decipher were the spirit even to grant yon my wisdom for a lifetime of one, two, or three centuries to make use of the materials I have gathered you shall not inherit them ! No no a thousand times no ! Return, Acharat return for a moment, were it only to behold the ruin of this whole house ; were it only to contemplate the beautiful spectacle I am preparing you I Acharat ! Acharat ! Acharat ! “
There was no answer, for Balsamo was during this time replying to the accusation of the five masters by showing them the mutilated body of Lorenza. The cries of the deserted old man grew louder and louder, despair redoubled his strength, and his hoarse yellings, reverberat-ing in the long corridors, spread terror afar, like the roaring of a tiger who has broken his chain or forced the bars of his cage.
” Ah, you do not come ! ” shrieked Althotas ; ” you despise me you calculate upon my weakness. Well, you shall see ! Fire ! Fire ! Fire ! “
He articulated these cries with such vehemence, that Balsamo, now freed from his terrified visitors, was roused
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by them from the depth of his despair. He took Lorenza’s corpse in his arms, reascended the staircase, laid the dead body upon the sofa, where two hours previously it had reposed in sleep, aud mounting upon the trap, he suddenly appeared before Althotas.
” Ah ! at last ! ” cried the old man, with savage joy. ” You were afraid ! you saw I could revenge myself, and you came. You did well to come, for in another moment I should have set this chamber on fire.”
Balsamo looked at him, shrugged his shoulders slightly, but did not deign to reply.”
