Emile Gaboriau

“ You say she loves him! No one but a coward would be defrauded of the woman he loved and who loved him. Ah, if I had once felt Madeleine’s hand tremble in mine, if her rosy lips had once pressed a kiss upon my brow, the whole world could not take her from me. Woe to him who dared stand in my path! As it is, Prosper annoys me, and I intend to suppress him. With your aid I will so cover him with disgrace and infamy, that Madeleine will drive every thought of him from her mind, and her love will turn to hate. ”

“ There was an unearthly style of beauty around her—her eyes blazed and shone with the lurid light of a far-distant planet, while her wealth of raven hair fell in disordered masses on her shoulders. It was passion, real passion, that he beheld to-night, not that mere empty delusion which he had so long followed blindly. Marie was really capable of a deep-rooted feeling of adoration for the man she loved, while with Diana de Mussidan, the woman with her fair hair and the steel-blue eyes, love was but the lust of conquest, or the desire to jeer at a suitor’s earnestness. ”

“ Better than any one else, Mlle. Gilberte must have been convinced of her father’s guilt. Had she not seen him humiliated and trembling before M. de Thaller? Had she not heard him, as it were, acknowledge the truth of the charge that was brought against him? But at twenty hope never forsakes us, even in presence of facts.
And when she understood by M. de Tregars’ silence that she was mistaken,
“It’s madness,” she murmured, dropping her head:
“I feel it but too well. But the heart speaks louder than reason. It is so cruel to be driven to despise one’s father!” ”

“ Prosper seemed to misconstrue her words.
“Your pity comes too late,” he said. “There is no happiness in store for one like myself, who has had a glimpse of divine felicity, had the cup of bliss held to his lips, and then dashed to the ground. There is nothing left to attach me to life. You have destroyed my holiest beliefs; I came forth from prison disgraced by my enemies; what is to become of me? Vainly do I question the future; for me there is no hope of happiness. I look around me to see nothing but abandonment, ignominy, and despair!” ”

“ Sauvresy had overtasked his strength. He fell panting upon the bed, his mouth open, his eyes filmy, and his features so distorted that he seemed to be on the point of death. But neither Bertha nor Tremorel thought of trying to relieve him. They remained opposite each other with dilated eyes, stupefied, as if their thoughts were bent upon the torments of that future which the implacable vengeance of the man whom they had outraged imposed upon them. They were indissolubly united, confounded in a common destiny; nothing could separate them but death. ”

“ Raising her head from the pillow with a start, she fancied she could perceive the door open noiselessly, and then Marie-Anne glided into the room like a phantom. She seated herself in an arm-chair near the bed, and while the tears rolled down her cheeks, she looked sadly, yet threateningly around her. The murderess hid her face under the counterpane. She shivered with terror, and a cold sweat escaped from every pore in her skin. For this seemed no mere apparition, but the frightful reality itself. Blanche did not submit to these tortures without resisting. ”

“ Jean Lacheneur made a gesture terrible in its irony and menace.
“A bond of alliance!” he exclaimed. “You are too fast, Monsieur le Marquis! Have you forgotten all the blood that flows between us? You did not cut the ropes; but who condemned the innocent Baron d’Escorval to death? Was it not the Duc de Sairmeuse? An alliance! You have forgotten that you and yours sent my father to the scaffold! How have you rewarded the man whose heroic honesty gave you back a fortune? By murdering him, and by ruining the reputation of his daughter.” ”

“ Is it my fault if the author of this crime is an old friend of mine, and if I was once upon a time on the point of marrying a relation of his? There is no one in court who doubts M. de Boiscoran’s guilt; there is no one who dares blame me: and yet they are all as cold as ice towards me.”
“Such is the world,” said M. Daubigeon with a face full of irony. “They praise virtue; but they hate it.”
“Well, yes! that is so,” cried M. Galpin in his turn. “Yes, they blame people who have done what they had not the courage to do. ”

“ And, from the summits where I was carried on the wings of science, I took pity on your modern existence, on that ridiculous and tragical medley of passions, interests, and cravings; that struggle without truce or mercy, whose law is, woe to the weak, in which whosoever falls is trampled under feet.
“Sometimes, however, like a fire that has been smouldering under the ashes, the flame of youthful passions blazed up within me. I had hours of madness, of discouragement, of distress, during which solitude was loathsome to me. But I had the faith which raises mountains—faith in myself and my work. ”

“ You desire what I desired—a life of luxury, brief if it must be, but happy—a life of gayety, wild excitement, and dissipation. You, too, have a passion for pleasure and gambling, race-horses, and notorious women, a table always bountifully spread, glasses ever overflowing with wine, all the delights of luxury, and everything that gratifies your vanity! But an abyss of shame awaits you at the end of it all. ”

“ I desert you, Monsieur le Marquis! What have I done that you should think so ill of me? Alas! circumstances are the only traitors. I shouldn’t like to deprive you of the courage you so much need, but, honestly, it would be folly to struggle against destiny. How can you hope to succeed in your plans? Have you not resorted to every possible expedient to prolong your apparently brilliant existence until the present time? Are you not at such a point that you must marry Mademoiselle Marguerite in a month’s time, or perish? And now the count’s millions are lost! ”

“ As if she had suddenly seen an abyss opening beneath her feet, Henrietta threw herself back, pale, trembling, her eyes starting from their sockets.
“You—-love—Daniel!” she stammered,—“you love him!”
And, agitated by a nervous tremor, she said, laughing painfully,—
“But he—he? Can you hope that he will ever love you?” ”

“ Bertha was only the instrument of your rancor; and she weighs upon you to-day—you despise and fear her. My friend, Hector, you have been in this house the vile lackey who thinks to avenge his baseness by spitting upon the meats which he puts on his master's table!"
The count only responded by a shudder. The dying man's terrible words fell more cruelly on his conscience than blows upon his cheek.
"See, Bertha," continued Sauvresy, "that's the man whom you have preferred to me, and for whom you have betrayed me. You never loved me—I see it now—your heart was never Mine. ”

“ Often, day and night, had Prosper repeated these words, as he walked his cell. With a heart filled with a bitter, determined thirst for vengeance, which gives a man the force and patience to destroy or wear out all obstacles in his way, he would say, “Oh! why am I not at liberty? I am helpless, caged up; but let me once be free!”
Now he was free; and, for the first time, he saw the difficulties of the task before him. For each crime, justice requires a criminal: he could not establish his own innocence without producing the guilty man; how find the thief so as to hand him over to the law? ”

“ Retired as he had lived from the financial world, Maxence had yet heard the name of Octave d’Escajoul.
Who has not seen him, happy and smiling, his eye bright, and his lip ruddy, notwithstanding his fifty years, walking on the sunny side of the Boulevard, with his royal blue jacket and his eternal white vest? He is passionately fond of everything that tends to make life pleasant and easy; dines at Bignon’s, or the Café Anglais; plays baccarat at the club with extraordinary luck; has the most comfortable apartment and the most elegant coupe in all Paris. ”

“ Am I not an old friend? It may be that your father in his despair has adopted extreme resolutions. Let me know them and we will conquer them together. Lacheneur knows how deeply I am attached to him. I will speak to him: he will listen to me.”
“I can tell you nothing, sir.”
“What! you remain inflexible when a father entreats you to assist him, when he says to you: ‘Marie-Anne, you hold my son’s happiness, life, and reason in your hands. Can you be so cruel——’ ”
“Ah! it is you who are cruel, sir,” answered Marie-Anne with tears glittering in her eyes; “it is you who are without pity. ”

“ Woe be to any one, father or stranger, who comes between me and the woman I love devotedly; for I do love you, Diana, and no mortal man shall take you from me.”
He clasped Diana to his breast, and pressed a loving kiss upon her lips.
“Aha,” muttered Daumon, who had lost nothing from his post of espial, “this is worth fifty thousand francs at least to me.”
For a moment Diana remained clasped in her lover’s embrace, and then, with a faint cry, released herself from him. She then felt that she loved him, and his kiss and caresses sent a thrill like liquid fire through her veins. ”

“ They would have remained at Sairmeuse. They would have had lovely children playing around them! He would not be condemned to this continual warfare—to this hollow, unsatisfying, restless life.
The truly happy are not those who parade their satisfaction and good fortune before the eyes of the multitude. The truly happy hide themselves from the curious gaze, and they are right; happiness is almost a crime.
So thought Martial; and he, the great statesman, often said to himself, in a sort of rage:
“To love, and to be loved—that is everything! All else is vanity.” ”

“ M. de Chandore, raising his hands to heaven, and with an accent of genuine despair, exclaimed,—
“Ah, my God! Are these our children? And is this what is in store for us old people? We have spent a lifetime in watching over them; we have submissively gratified all their fancies; they have been our greatest anxiety, and our sweetest hope; we have given them our life day by day, and we would not hesitate to give them our life’s blood drop by drop; they are every thing to us, and we imagine they love us—poor fools that we are! ”

“ From Russia, from Turkey, from America, from Hungary, from very far, from everywhere, from below, I do not count the impudent fellows who are still muddy from the gutter in which they have been lying. How do all these people live? That is a mystery. But they do live, and they live well. They have, or at least seem to have, money; and they shine, they intrigue, they conspire, they make believe, and they extort. So that I verily believe all this high-life society, by dint of helping one another, of pushing and crowding in, will, in the end, be master of all. ”

“ Deep, sincere passion can only expand in solitude; in the impure air of a city it fades and dies, like the hardy plants which lose their color and perfume when transplanted to hot-houses.
Gaston and Valentine had only seen each other once, but seeing was to love; and, as the time passed, their love grew stronger, until at last the fatality which had presided over their first meeting brought them once more together. ”

“ No, such a woman has no heart, no bowels of compassion. There is nothing human in her! For how could she live, how could she sleep with the thought that somewhere in the world her own child, the flesh of her flesh, was exposed to all the temptations of poverty, and the horrors of shame and vice? And she, the possessor of millions, she, the inmate of a palace, thinking only of dress and pleasure! ”

“ A chain stronger and harder than that of the galley-slave bound them together; a chain of infamies and crimes, of which the first link was a kiss, and the last a murder by poison. Now Sauvresy might die; his vengeance was on their heads, casting a cloud upon their sun. Free in appearance, they would go through life crushed by the burden of the past, more slaves than the blacks in the American rice-fields. Separated by mutual hate and contempt, they saw themselves riveted together by the common terror of punishment, condemned to an eternal embrace.
Bertha at this moment admired her husband. ”

“ She was a strong-minded woman, the Baroness de Thaller. She had had so many adventures in her life, she had walked on the very edge of so many precipices, concealed so many anxieties, that danger was, as it were, her element, and that, at the decisive moment of an almost desperate game, she could remain smiling like those old gamblers whose face never betrays their terrible emotion at the moment when they risk their last stake. ”

“ Marie-Anne was no longer at Sairmeuse—she had been driven away.
Where was she now? She, accustomed to all the luxury that wealth could procure, no longer had any home except a poor thatch-covered hovel, whose walls were not even whitewashed, whose only floor was the earth itself, dusty as the public highway in summer, frozen or muddy in winter.
She was reduced to the necessity of occupying herself the humble abode she, in her charitable heart, had intended as an asylum for one of her pensioners. ”

“ No, I should not condemn a man, as you say, if he asserted his innocence, and if I did not see any reason for his crime. For, after all, unless a man is mad, he does not commit a crime for nothing. Now I ask you, how could I, upon whom fortune has always smiled; I who am on the eve of marrying one whom I love passionately,—how could I have set Valpinson on fire, and tried to murder Count Claudieuse?”
M. Galpin had scarcely been able to disguise his impatience, when he saw the attorney take part in the affair. ”

“ A scoundrel like the Duke de Sairmeuse would hesitate before he attacked an honest man if he were only obliged to say to himself: ‘If I wrong this man, and even should I kill him, I cannot escape retributive justice, for his children will surely call me to account. Their vengeance will fall on me and mine; they will pursue us by day and night, at all hours and in all seasons. We must ever fear their hatred for they will be implacable and merciless. I shall never leave my house without fear of a bullet; never lift food to my lips without dread of poison. ”

“ The whole hideous part as played by Daumon was no longer a sealed book to him. She whom he had looked on as a pure and innocent girl was merely the accomplice of a scheming villain like the Counsellor, and after exciting his hatred and anger almost to madness, had placed the poison which was to take his father’s life in his hands. A cold shiver ran through him as he realized this, and all his ardent love for Diana de Laurebourg was changed into a feeling of loathing and disgust. ”

“ Undeceive yourself, Miss Brandon; I shall return. With a passion like mine, with so much love in one’s heart, and so much hatred, a man can defy every thing. The murderous climate will not touch me; and, if I had ten rifle-balls in my body, I should still have the strength to return, and hold you to an account for what you have done to Henrietta. And if you have touched a hair on her head, if you have made her shed a single tear, by all that is holy, it will bring ill luck to you, and ill luck to others! ”

“ Yes, I the detective, the terror of thieves and murderers, who have divulged the combinations of all the sharpers of all the nations, who for ten years have swum amid vice and crime; who wash the dirty linen of all the corruptions, who have measured the depths of human infamy; I who know all, who have seen and heard all; I, Lecoq, am before her, more simple and credulous than an infant. ”

“ Up, Maurice! up, Marie-Anne! No more weak lamentations, we must to work! You, also, gentlemen, will aid me. I can count upon your assistance, Monsieur le Cure. What are we going to do? I do not know! But something must be done. The death of this just man would be too great a crime. God will not permit it.”
She suddenly paused, with clasped hands, and eyes uplifted to heaven, as if seeking divine inspiration.
“And the King,” she resumed; “will the King consent to such a crime? No. A king can refuse mercy, but he cannot refuse justice. ”

“ XVIII.
“O God! send Pascal to my aid,” prayed Mademoiselle Marguerite, as she left M. Fortunat’s house. Now she understood the intrigue she had been the victim of; but, instead of reassuring her the agent had frightened her, by revealing the Marquis de Valorsay’s desperate plight. She realized what frenzied rage must fill this man’s heart as he felt himself gradually slipping from the heights of opulence, down into the depths of poverty and crime. What might he not dare, in order to preserve even the semblance of grandeur for a year, or a month, or a day longer! ”

“ I say that every thing accuses me, that every thing overwhelms me, that every thing turns against me. I say, that if I were in M. Galpin’s place, and if he were in mine, I should act just as he does.”
“That is insanity!” cried Dionysia.
But Jacques de Boiscoran did not hear her. All the bitterness of the last days rose within him: he turned red, and became excited. At last, with gasping vice, he broke forth,—
“Establish my innocence! Ah! that is easily said. But how? No, I am not guilty: but a crime has been committed; and for this crime justice will have a culprit. ”

“ Mlle. Lucienne approached him, and in a severe tone, despite her emotion,
“Are you, then, such a coward?” she uttered. “What! at the first misfortune that strikes you,—and this is the first real misfortune of your life, Maxence,—you despair. An obstacle rises, and, instead of gathering all your energy to overcome it, you sit down and weep like a woman. Who, then, is to inspire courage in your mother and in your sister, if you give up so?” ”

“ Ah, Sauvresy had saved him when he was dying! Sauvresy, after saving him, had welcomed him, opened to him his heart, purse, house; at this very moment he was making untiring efforts to restore his fortunes. Men like Tremorel can only receive such services as outrages. Had not his sojourn at Valfeuillu been a continual suffering? Was not his self-conceit tortured from morning till night? He might count the days by their humiliations. What! Must he always submit to—if he was not grateful for—the superiority of a man whom he had always been wont to treat as his inferior? ”

“ The memories of the past thus evoked by the banker seemed too much for the unhappy cashier; he buried his face in his hands, and wept bitterly.
“A man can confide everything to his father without fear of being harshly judged,” resumed M. Fauvel. “A father not only pardons, he forgets. Do I not know the terrible temptations that beset a young man in a city like Paris? There are some inordinate desires before which the firmest principles must give way, and which so pervert our moral sense as to render us incapable of judging between right and wrong. Speak, Prosper, Speak!” ”

“ Having been reunited to-night, after such terrible trials, and having, both of you, escaped, almost by a miracle, from death, you feel, no doubt, as if all trouble was at an end, and the future was yours. I must undeceive you. You are precisely where you were the day before M. Champcey left France. You cannot any more now than at that time marry without Count Ville-Handry’s consent. Will he give it? You know very well that the Countess Sarah will not let him. Will you defy prejudices, and proudly avow your love? ”

“ BARON TRIGAULT’S VENGEANCE
I
Vengeance! that is the first, the only thought, when a man finds himself victimized, when his honor and fortune, his present and future, are wrecked by a vile conspiracy! The torment he endures under such circumstances can only be alleviated by the prospect of inflicting them a hundredfold upon his persecutors. And nothing seems impossible at the first moment, when hatred surges in the brain, and the foam of anger rises to the lips; no obstacle seems insurmountable, or, rather, none are perceived. ”

“ One wearies of everything in this world, even happiness. Did pure domestic joys pall upon you, and weary you, driving you to seek the excitement of a sinful passion? Were you so tired of the atmosphere of respect and affection which surrounded you, that you must needs risk your honor and mine by braving public opinion? Oh, into what an abyss you have fallen, Valentine! and, oh, my God! if you were wearied by my constant devotion, had the thought of your children no power to restrain your evil passions; could you not remain untarnished for their sake? ”

“ She tried to reason with herself, and could not succeed. Never had the strangeness of her situation so clearly appeared to her. She repeated to herself that she must be mad to have thus become attached to a stranger. She wondered how she could have allowed that love, which was now her very life, to take possession of her soul. But to what end? It no longer rested with her to undo what had been done.
When she thought that Marius de Tregars was about to leave Paris to become a soldier, to fight, to die perhaps, she felt her head whirl; she saw nothing around her but despair and chaos. ”

“ Brevan had been speaking of another kind of love,—a love neither pure nor chaste. He spoke of those passions which suddenly strike us down like lightning; which confound our senses, and mislead our judgment; which destroy every thing, as fire does, and leave nothing behind but disaster and disgrace and remorse.
But all the more painful became Daniel’s thoughts as he remembered that Count Ville-Handry was overcome by one of these terrible passions for a worthless creature. He could not accept Maxime’s offer. ”

“ He seemed a hundred leagues off in his thoughts, and his eyes, wandering in space, seemed to follow forgotten episodes in the mists of the past. M. Lecoq, after a brief pause, decided to strike a bold blow.
"What a past that must have been," exclaimed he, "which could drive a young, rich, happy man like Hector de Tremorel to plan in cool blood such a crime, to resign himself to disappear after it, to cease to exist, as it were to lose all at once his personality, his position, his honor and his name! What a past must be that which drives a young girl of twenty to suicide!" ”