IT WAS SIX o'clock in the evening. In that chamber in the Rue Saint Claude into which we have already introduced our readers, Balsamo was seated beside Lorenza, now awake, and was endeavoring by persuasion to soften her rebellious spirit, which refused to listen to all his prayers.
But the young girl looked askance at him, as Dido looked at AEneas when he was about to leave her, spoke only to reproach him, and moved her hand only to repulse his.
She complained that she was a prisoner, a slave; that she could no longer breathe the fresh air, nor see the sun. She envied the fate of the poorest creatures, of the birds, of the flowers. She called Balsamo her tyrant.
Thru, passing from reproaches to rage, she tore into shreds the rich stuffs which her husband had given her, in order by this semblance of gayety and show to cheer the solitude he imposed on her.
Balsamo, on the other hand, spoke gently to her, and looked at her lovingly. It was evident that this weak, irritable creature filled an immense place in his heart, if not in his life.
“Lorenza,” said he to her, “my beloved, why do you display this spirit of resistance and hostility? Why will you not live with me, who love you inexpressibly, as a gentle and devoted companion? You would then have nothing to wish for; you would be free to bloom in the sun, like the flowers of which you spoke just now; to stretch your wing like the birds whose fate you envy. We would go everywhere together. You would not only see the sun which delights you so much, but the factitious sun of splendor and fashion—those assemblies to which the women of this country resort. You would be happy according to your tastes, while rendering me happy in mine. Why will you refuse this happiness, Lorenza?—you who, with your beauty and riches, would make so many women envious?”
“Because I abhor you,” said the haughty young girl.
Balsamo cast on Lucrenza a glance expressive at once of anger and pity.
“Live, then, as you condemn yourself to live,” said he; “and since you are so proud, do not complain.”
“I should not complain, if you would leave me alone. I should not complain, if you did not force me to speak to you. Do not come into my presence, or when you do enter my prison, do not speak to me, and I shall do as the poor birds from the south do when they are imprisoned in cages—they die, but do not sing.”
Balsamo made an effort to appear calm.
“Come, Lorenza,” said he, “a little more gentleness and resignation. Look into a heart which loves you above all things. Do you wish for books?”
“Why not? Books would amuse you.”
“I wish to weary myself until I die.”
Balsamo smiled, or rather endeavored to smile.
“You are mad,” said he; “you know very well that you cannot die while I am here to take care of you, and to cure you when you fall ill.”
“Oh!” cried Lorenza, “you will not cure me when you find me strangled with this scarf against the bars of my window.”—Balsamo shuddered.
“Or when,” continued she, furiously, “I have opened this knife and stabbed myself to the heart.”
Balsamo, pale as death, and bathed in cold perspiration, gazed at Lorenza, and with a threatening voice:
“No, Lorenza.” said he, “you are right; I shall not cure you, then, I shall bring you back to life.”
Lorenza gave a cry of terror. She knew no bounds to Balsamo's power, and believed his threat. Balsamo was saved. While she was plunged in this fresh abyss of suffering which she had not foreseen, and while her vacillating reason saw itself encircled by a never-ceasing round of torture, the sound of the signal bell pulled by Fritz reached Balsamo's ear. It struck three times quickly, and at regular intervals.
Then after a pause another ring was heard.
“Ah!” said Lorenza, “you are about to leave me, then!”
He took the young girl's cold hand in his. “Once more and for the last time, Lorenza,” said he, “let us live on good terms with each other, like brother and sifter. Since destiny unites us to each other, let us make it a friend and not an executioner.”
Lorenza did not reply. Her eye, motionless and fixed in a sort of dreamy melancholy, seemed to seek some thought which was ever flying from her into infinite space, and which perhaps she could not find because she had sought it too long and too earnestly, like those who, after having lived in darkness, gaze too ardently on the sun, and are blinded by excess of light. Balsamo took her hand and kissed it without her giving any sign of life. Then he advanced toward the chimney. Immediately Lorenza started from her torpor, and eagerly fixed her gaze upon him.
“Oh!” said he, “you wish to know how I leave this, in order to leave it one day after me and flee from me as you threatened. And therefore you awake—therefore you look at me.”
Then, passing his hand over his forehead, as if he imposed a painful task on himself, he stretched his hand toward the young girl, and said, in a commanding voice, looking at her as if he were darting a javelin against her head and breast:
The word was scarcely uttered when Lorenza bent like a flower upon its stem; her head, for a single moment unsteady, drooped and rested against the cushion of the sofa; her hands, of an opaque and waxen whiteness, glided down her side, rustling her silken dress.
Balsamo, seeing her so beautiful, approached her and pressed his lips upon her lovely forehead.
Then Lorenza's features brightened, as if a breath from the God of Love himself had swept away the cloud which rested on her brow. Her lips opened tremulously, her eyes swam in voluptuous tears, and she sighed as the angels must have sighed when in earth's youthful prime they stooped to love the children of men.
Balsamo looked upon her for a moment, as if unable to withdraw his gaze; then, as the bell sounded anew, he turned toward the chimney, touched a spring, and disappeared behind the flowers.
Fritz was waiting for him in the salon, with a man dressed in the closely-fitting jacket of a courier, and wearing thick boots armed with longspurs.
The commonplace and inexpressive features of this man showed him to be one of the people; but his eye had in it a spark of sacred fire, which seemed to have been breathed into him by some superior intelligence.
His left hand grasped a short and knotty whip, while with his right hand he made some signs to Balsamo, which the latter instantly recognized, and to which, without speaking, he replied by touching his forehead with his forefinger.
The postilion's hand moved upward to his breast, where it traced another sign, which an indifferent observer would not have remarked, so closely did it resemble the movement made in fastening a button.
To this sign the master replied by showing a ring which he wore upon his finger.
Before this powerful signet the messenger bent his knee.
“Whence come you?” asked Balsamo.
“I am a courier in the service of the Duchesse de Grammont.”
“What orders did you receive when you entered the service?”
“To have no secret from the master.”
The courier took a letter from a leathern bag fastened upon his shoulders behind, and gave it to Balsamo.
“Keep Sebastian concealed in the offices.”
“He knows my name,” murmured the adept, with superstitious fear.
“He knows everything,” said Fritz, drawing him away.
When Balsamo was once more alone, he looked at the unbroken, deeply cut seal of the letter, which the imploring glance of the messenger had entreated him to respect as much as possible. Then, slowly and pensively, he once more mounted toward Lorenza's apartment, and opened the door of communication.
Lorenza was still sleeping, but seemingly tired and enervated by inaction. He took her hand, which she closed convulsively, and then he placed the letter, sealed as it was, upon her heart.
“Yes, I see,” replied Lorenza.
“What is the object which I hold in my hand?”
With closed eyes and palpitating bosom, Lorenza repeated, word for word, the following lines, which Balsamo wrote down as she spoke:
“DEAR BROTHER—As I had foreseen, my exile will be at least of some service to us. I have this morning seen the president of Rouen; he is for us, but timid. I urged him in your name; he has at last decided, and the remonstrance of his division will be in Versailles within a week. I am just about setting off for Rennes to rouse Karadeuc and La Chalotais, who are sleeping on their post. Our agent from Cauilebec was in Rouen. I have seen him. England will not stop midway; she is preparing a sharp notification for the cabinet of Versailles. X——asked me if he should produce it, and I authorized him to do so. You will receive the last pamphlets of Morando and Delille against the Dubarry. They are petards which might blow up a town. A sad report reached me, that there was disgrace in the air; but as you have not written to me, I laugh at it. Do not leave me in doubt, however, and reply courier for courier. Your message will find me at Caen, where I have some of our gentlemen riding quarantine. Adieu, I salute you.——DUCHESSE DE GRAMMONT.”
After reading thus far, Lorenza stopped.
“You see nothing more?” asked Balsamo.
Balsamo, whose brow had gradually smoothed as Lorenza read the letter, now took it from her.
“A curious document,” said he, “and one for which I would be well paid. Oh! how can any one write such things?” he continued. “Yes, it is always women who are the ruin of great men. This Choiseul could not have been overthrown by an army of enemies, by a world of intrigues, and now the breath of a woman crushes while it caresses him. Yes, we all perish by the treachery or the weakness of women. If we have a heart, and in that heart a sensitive chord, we are lost.”
And, as he spoke, Balsamo gazed with inexpressible tenderness at Lorenza, who palpitated under his glance.
“Is it true, what I think?” said he.
“No, no, it is not true!” she replied eagerly; “you see plainly that I love you too dearly to do you any hurt, like those women you spoke of without sense and without heart.”
Balsamo allowed himself to be caressed by the arms of his enchantress;—all at once a double ring of Fritz's bell was repeated twice.
A single violent ring completed the telegraphic message.
“Important ones,” continued the master; and, disengaging himself from Lorenza's arms, he hastened from the apartment, leaving the young girl still asleep. On his way he met the courier, who was waiting for orders.
“Here is your letter,” said he.
The courier looked at the envelope and at the seal, and seeing them as intact as when he had brought them, expressed his satisfaction, and disappeared in the darkness.
“What a pity not to keep such an autograph,” said Balsamo, “and, above all, what a pity not to be able to forward it by a safe hand to the king.”
