Cosmopolis Part 23

Yes. How? There was at the service of hatred in that delicate woman, in appearance oblivious of worldliness, that masculine energy in decision which is to be found in all families of truly military origin. The blood of Colonel Chap.r.o.n stirred within her and gave her the desire to act. By dint of pondering upon those reasonings, Lydia ended by elaborating one of those plans of a simplicity really infernal, in which she revealed what must be called the genius of evil, for there was so much clearness in the conception and of villainy in the execution. She a.s.sured herself that it was unnecessary to seek any other stage than the studio for the scene she meditated. She knew too well the fury of pa.s.sion by which Madame Steno was possessed to doubt that, as soon as she was alone with Lincoln, she did not refuse him those kisses of which their correspondence spoke. The snare to be laid was very simple. It required that Alba and Lydia should be in some post of observation while the lovers believed themselves alone, were it only for a moment. The position of the places furnished the formidable woman with the means of obtaining the place of espionage in all security. Situated on the second floor, the studio occupied most of the depth of the house. The wall, which separated it from the side of the apartments, ended in a part.i.tion formed of colored gla.s.s, through which it was impossible to see. That gla.s.s lighted a dark corridor adjoining the linen-room. Lydia employed several hours of several nights in cutting with a diamond a hole, the size of a fifty centime-piece, in one of those unpolished squares.

Her preparations had been completed several days when, notwithstanding her absence of scruple in the satiating of her hatred, she still hesitated to employ that mode of vengeance, so much atrocious cruelty was there in causing a daughter to spy upon her mother. It was Alba herself who kindled the last spark of humanity with which that dark conscience was lighted up, and that by the most innocent of conversations. It was the very evening of the afternoon on which she had exchanged that sad adieu with f.a.n.n.y Hafner. She was more unnerved than usual, and she was conversing with Dorsenne in that corner of the long hall. They did not heed the fact that Lydia drew near them, by a simple change of seat which permitted her, while herself conversing with some guest, to lend an ear to the words uttered by the Contessina.

It was Florent who was the subject of their conversation, and she said to Dorsenne, who was praising him:

"What would you have? It is true I almost feel repulsion toward him.

He is to me like a being of another species. His friendship for his brother-in-law? Yes. It is very beautiful, very touching; but it does not touch me. It is a devotion which is not human. It is too instinctive and too blind. Indeed, I know that I am wrong. There is that prejudice of race which I can never entirely overcome."

Dorsenne touched her fingers at that moment, under the pretext of taking from her her fan, in reality to warn her, and he said, in a very low voice that time:

"Let us go a little farther on. Lydia Maitland is too near."

He fancied he surprised a start on the part of Florent's sister, at whom he accidentally glanced, while his too-sensible interlocutor no longer watched her! But as the pretty, clear laugh of Lydia rang out at the same moment, imprudent Alba replied:

"Fortunately, she has heard nothing. And see how one can speak of trouble without mistrusting it.... I have just been wicked," she continued, "for it is not their fault, neither Florent's nor hers, if there is a little negro blood in their veins, so much the more so as it is connected by the blood of a hero, and they are both perfectly educated, and what is better, perfectly good, and then I know very well that if there is a grand thought in this age it is to have proclaimed that truly all men are brothers."

She had spoken in a lower voice, but too late. Moreover, even if Florent's sister could have heard those words, they would not have sufficed to heal the wound which the first ones had made in the most sensitive part of her 'amour propre'!

"And I hesitated," said she to herself, "I thought of sparing her!"

The following morning, toward noon, she found herself at the atelier, seated beside Madame Steno, while Lincoln gave to the portrait the last touches, and while Alba posed in the large armchair, absent and pale as usual. Florent Chap.r.o.n, after having a.s.sisted at part of the sitting, left the room, leaning upon the crutch, which he still used. His withdrawal seemed so propitious to Lydia that she resolved immediately not to allow such an opportunity to escape, and as if fatality interfered to render her work of infamy more easy, Madame Steno aided her by suddenly interrupting the work of the painter who, after hard working without speaking for half an hour, paused to wipe his forehead, on which were large drops of perspiration, so great was his excitement.

"Come, my little Linco," said she, with the affectionate solicitude of an old mistress, "you must rest. For two hours you have not ceased painting, and such minute details.... It tires me merely to watch you."

"I am not at all tired," replied Maitland, who, however, laid down his palette and brush, and rolling a cigarette, lighted it, continuing, with a proud smile: "We have only that one superiority, we Americans, but we have it--it is a power to apply ourselves which the Old World no longer knows.... It is for that reason that there are professions in which we have no rivals."

"But see!" replied Lydia, "you have taken Alba for a Bostonian or a New Yorker, and you have made her pose so long that she is pale. She must have a change. Come with me, dear, I will show you the costume they have sent me from Paris, and which I shall wear this afternoon to the garden party at the English emba.s.sy."

She forced Alba Steno to rise from the armchair as she uttered those words, then she entwined her arms about her waist to draw her away and kissed her. Ah, if ever a caress merited being compared to the hideous flattery of Iscariot, it was that, and the young girl might have replied with the sublime words: "Friend, why hast thou betrayed me by a kiss?"

Alas! She believed in it, in the sincerity of that proof of affection, and she returned her false friend's kiss with a grat.i.tude which did not soften that heart saturated with hatred, for five minutes had not pa.s.sed ere Lydia had put into execution her hideous project. Under the pretext of reaching the liner-room more quickly, she took a servant's staircase, which led to that lobby with the gla.s.s part.i.tion, in which was the opening through which to look into the atelier.

"This is very strange," said she, pausing suddenly. And, pointing out to her innocent companion the round spot, she said: "Probably some servant who has wished to eavesdrop.--But what for? You, who are tall, look and see how it has been done and what it looks on. If it is a hole cut purposely, I shall discover the culprit and he shall go."

Alba obeyed the perfidious request absently, and applied her eye to the aperture. The author of the anonymous letters had chosen her moment only too well. As soon as the door of the studio was closed, the Countess rose to approach Lincoln. She entwined around the young man's neck her arms, which gleamed through the transparent sleeves of her summer gown, and she kissed with greedy lips his eyes and mouth. Lydia, who had retained one of the girl's hands in hers, felt that hand tremble convulsively. A hunter who hears rustle the foliage of the thicket through which should pa.s.s the game he is awaiting, does not experience a joy more complete. Her snare was successful. She said to her unhappy victim:

"What ails you? How you tremble!"

And she essayed to push her away in order to put herself in her place. Alba, whom the sight of her mother embracing Lincoln with those pa.s.sionate kisses inspired at that moment with an inexplicable horror, had, however, enough presence of mind in the midst of her suffering to understand the danger of that mother whom she had surprised thus, clasping in the arms of a guilty mistress--whom?--the husband of the very woman speaking to her, who asked her why she trembled with fear, who would look through that same hole to see that same tableau!...

In order to prevent what she believed would be to Lydia a terrible revelation, the courageous child had one of those desperate thoughts such as immediate peril inspires. With her free hand she struck the gla.s.s so violently that it was shivered into atoms, cutting her fingers and her wrist.

Lydia exclaimed, angrily:

"Miserable girl, you did that purposely!"

The fierce creature as she uttered these words, rushed toward the large hole now made in the panel--too late!

She only saw Lincoln erect in the centre of the studio, looking toward the broken window, while the Countess, standing a few paces from him, exclaimed:

"My daughter! What has happened to my daughter? I recognized her voice."

"Do not alarm yourself," replied Lydia, with atrocious sarcasm. "Alba broke the pane to give you a warning."

"But, is she hurt?" asked the mother.

"Very slightly," replied the implacable woman with the same accent of irony, and she turned again toward the Contessina with a glance of such rancor that, even in the state of confusion in which the latter was plunged by that which she had surprised, that glance paralyzed her with fear. She felt the same shudder which had possessed her dear friend Maud, in that same studio, in the face of the sinister depths of that dark soul, suddenly exposed. She had not time to precisely define her feelings, for already her mother was beside her, pressing her in her arms--in those very arms which Alba had just seen twined around the neck of a lover--while that same mouth showered kisses upon him. The moral shock was so great that the young girl fainted. She regained consciousness and almost at once. She saw her mother as mad with anxiety as she had just seen her trembling with joy and love. She again saw Lydia Maitland's eyes fixed upon them both with an expression too significant now. And, as she had had the presence of mind to save that guilty mother, she found in her tenderness the strength to smile at her, to lie to her, to blind her forever as to the truth of that hideous scene which had just been enacted in that lobby.

"I was frightened at the sight of my own blood," said she, "and I believe it is only a small cut.... See! I can move my hand without pain."

When the doctor, hastily summoned, had confirmed that no particles of gla.s.s had remained in the cuts, the Countess felt so rea.s.sured that her gayety returned. Never had she been in a mood more charming than in the carriage which took them to the Villa Steno.

To a person obliged by proof to condemn another without ceasing to love her, there is no greater sorrow than to perceive the absolute unconsciousness of that other person and her serenity in her fault. Poor Alba, felt overwhelmed by a sadness greater, more depressing still, and which became materially insupportable, when, toward half-past two, her mother bade her farewell, although the fete at the English emba.s.sy did not begin until five o'clock.

"I promised poor Hafner to go to see him to-day. I know he is bowed down with grief. I would like to try to arrange all.... I will send back the carriage if you wish to go out awhile. I have telephoned Lydia to expect me at four o'clock.... She will take me."

She had, on detailing the employment so natural of her afternoon, eyes too brilliant, a smile too happy. She looked too youthful in her light toilette. Her feet trembled with too nervous an impatience. How could Alba not have felt that she was telling her an untruth? The undeceived child had the intuition that the visit to f.a.n.n.y's father was only a pretext. It was not the first time that the Countess employed it to free herself from inconvenient surveillance, the act of sending back the carriage, which, in Rome as in Paris, is always the probable sign of clandestine meetings with women of their rank. It was not the first time that Alba was possessed by suspicion on certain mysterious disappearances of her mother. That mother did not mistrust that poor Alba--her Alba, the child so tenderly loved in spite of all--was suffering at that very moment and on her account the most terrible of temptations.... When the carriage had disappeared the fixed gaze of the young girl was turned upon the pavement, and then she felt arise in her a sudden, instinctive, almost irresistible idea to end the moral suffering by which she was devoured. It was so simple!... It was sufficient to end life. One movement which she could make, one single movement--she could lean over the bal.u.s.trade, against which her arm rested, in a certain manner--so, a little more forward, a little more--and that suffering would be terminated. Yes, it would be so very simple. She saw herself lying upon the pavement, her limbs broken, her head crushed, dead--dead--freed! She leaned forward and was about to leap, when her eyes fell upon a person who was walking below, the sight of whom suddenly aroused her from the folly, the strange charm of which had just laid hold so powerfully upon her. She drew back. She rubbed her eyes with her hands, and she, who was accustomed to mystical enthusiasm, said aloud:

"My G.o.d! You send him to me! I am saved." And she summoned the footman to tell him that if M. Dorsenne asked for her, he should be shown into Madame Steno's small salon. "I am not at home to any one else," she added.

It was indeed Julien, whom she had seen approach the house at the very instant when she was only separated from the abyss by that last tremor of animal repugnance, which is found even in suicide of the most ardent kind. Do not madmen themselves choose to die in one manner rather than in another? She paused several moments in order to collect herself.

"Yes," said she at length, to herself, "it is the only solution. I will find out if he loves me truly. And if he does not?"

She again looked toward the window, in order to a.s.sure herself that, in case that conversation did not end as she desired, the tragical and simple means remained at her service by which to free herself from that infamous life which she surely could not bear.

Julien began the conversation in his tone of sentimental raillery, so speedily to be transformed into one of drama! He knew very well, on arriving at Villa Steno, that he was to have his last tete-a-tete with his pretty and interesting little friend. For he had at length decided to go away, and, to be more sure of not failing, he had engaged his sleeping-berth for that night. He had jested so much with love that he entered upon that conversation with a jest; when, having tried to take Alba's hand to press a kiss upon it, he saw that it was bandaged.

"What has happened to you, little Countess? Have my laurels or those of Florent Chap.r.o.n prevented you from sleeping, that you are here with the cla.s.sical wrist of a duellist?... Seriously, how have you hurt yourself?"

"I leaned against a window, which broke and the pieces of gla.s.s cut my fingers somewhat," replied the young girl with a faint smile, adding: "It is nothing."

"What an imprudent child you are!" said Dorsenne in his tone of friendly scolding. "Do you know that you might have severed an artery and have caused a very serious, perhaps a fatal, hemorrhage?"

"That would not have been such a great misfortune," replied Alba, shaking her pretty head with an expression so bitter about her mouth that the young man, too, ceased smiling.

"Do not speak in that tone," said he, "or I shall think you did it purposely."

"Purposely?" repeated the young girl. "Purposely? Why should I have done it purposely?"

And she blushed and laughed in the same nervous way she had laughed fifteen minutes before, when she looked down into the street. Dorsenne felt that she was suffering, and his heart contracted. The trouble against which he had struggled for several days with all the energy of an independent artist, and which for some time systematized his celibacy, again oppressed him. He thought it time to put between "folly"

and him the irreparability of his categorical resolution. So he replied to his little friend with his habitual gentleness, but in a tone of firmness, which already announced his determination:

"I have again vexed you, Contessina, and you are looking at me with the glance of our hours of dispute. You will later regret having been unkind to-day."

As he p.r.o.nounced those enigmatical words, she saw that he had in his eyes and in his smile something different and indefinable. It must have been that she loved him still more than she herself believed as for a second she forgot both her pain and her resolution, and she asked him, quickly:

"You have some trouble? You are suffering? What is it?"

"Nothing," replied Dorsenne. "But time is flying, the minutes are going by, and not only the minutes. There is an old and charming. French ode, which you do not know and which begins: