Bernard Capes

“ She was lovely in her face—life blooming out of death—her lips incarnadined with lust of sorrow—large eyes of tragic blue. The King looked on her, fascinated.
“Priestess,” said the Wizard, in a hollow voice: “answer, if of thine inspiration thou mayest, whence threatens the shadow of this Kingdom’s foretold eclipse?”
As he spoke, there came out of the darkness a string of little stars, of softest radiance and many colours, which took noiseless flight about the Sibyl’s head, and circled there in wondrous convolutions, faster and faster, until they seemed to whirl like lashing snakes. ”

“ She moved, and was kneeling by him, pleading with hurrying sighs,—
“The sin was mine—the sin was mine! And, O! a fruitless sacrifice! So pale, so worn—O, thing without a heart, to have caused this cruel sickness in my love!”
“Yolande!” A wilder thrill gave out the word.
“Louis; if thou couldst still find that in me worth living for! Ah, do not die! I would be so loving and so penitent. Not forward—no. The shame in me’s an ecstasy. I cry to have you humble me.”
“Lily of Savoy—the white lily—and mine!” ”

“ Better to be accursed than ridiculous. Better Louis-Marie should have her, than she be made the sport of such a mummery. He did not blame his friend, week-knee’d robber as he was. He rather admired him, for his unexpected part. Would not he himself have dared all hell to win the passion of those lips—O, God! the passion! Would he not? had he not? He had at least bargained with the devil for her, and had prevailed just so far as that it was made his privilege at last to serve for deep contrastive shadow to that idyll of their loves.
For shadow: and for shadow within shadow? ”

“ May it not be so?”
“It may be, King.”
“Fatality creeps on me. The land is thick with threatening voices. I am like one in the dark, hearing whispers all about me—not knowing where to strike and where to withhold. If I could but tell the shadow—where it lies—and uproot the tree! Whence threatens this eclipse? Show me the place, if thou lovest rich reward.”
The Wizard, looking upward, raised both his white hands. There floated into the dark above him luminous twin spheres attached, like a two-fold bubble.
“Seest thou those?” he said. “The one is Piedmont, the other is Savoy. ”

“ Blind obedience was what he had exacted of her, and with blinded eyes she had let him lead her, even across that abyss. She would never learn from him. He loved in parables.
O! Why had this stranger ever come between them, with his sighs and moans and irresolution? It was that same irresolution which was the crux of all. What woman could tolerate a diffident lover—and in the face of a masterful one! She, for her part, would grant how alluring by contrast must appear this puissant rival, Cartouche, her own pretty gentleman—if rival he were. Her whole soul rose aghast to combat the thought ”

“ But then, was not their rapture beyond all precedent? None had ever before loved as they loved—and that was true, because there is no such thing as a stereotype in Nature.
The whistle of a marmot straight ahead on a boulder startled them suddenly as into a self-consciousness of guilt. They saw an atom of mist cleave and close to the red flick of him as he vanished, and then the phantoms of mountains looking in upon them above the place where he had sat. It was like a priestly summons to love’s shrift. ”

“ Poor Molly! once a rustic toast, queen of a single May, and then, alas! stolen—to what? She stood no further from honour now than by the thickness of a screen of convention. Loyalty, faith, honesty—these were all hers unimpaired; you could not look in her eyes and doubt it. Her shame was one man’s possession—near enough to the virtue of wifehood to be forgotten by her, except, perhaps, in the presence of children. Cartouche was to answer for it all. ”

“ But, if I am woman, in her sad name I claim her saddest rights—freedom through martyrdom. I will be independent; I will be mistress of my soul; I will not hold myself a convicted wanton at your honour’s bidding. This man you offer me—this man whom you would bid to cast down my body for a stepping-stone to your own ambition—do you know what he is, has been—his life, his reputation? ”

“ But as often she recalled Bonito’s words—“Ask him, if you doubt me”—and that she dared not do. The answer might destroy at a blow the whole structure of his soul’s redemption, which her self-obliterating love had patiently built up for him year by year. Fruitless all her devotion then; useless that cementing of its bricks with her own heart’s blood. He had come to be nearer heaven now than she, raised on the altar of her sacrifice. She had lied to save him. Should she risk his soul at the last to save her own? ”

“ Thus was the last state of this love’s agony; while he laughed, bleeding inwardly, and met his traducers on a hundred points of wit.
He had thought, now and then in his prostrate moments, that if he could only once trace home the shadow, he might find it to be, after all, no better than a black-mailing ghost. Supposing good fortune had attended her dismissal? It might; and he have saddled his conscience with a self-invoked incubus. Why not set himself to discover? ”

“ I think we love weak men like mothers. I am glad you are not weak, Jacques.”
“So am I. So shall your father be some day.”
“You must learn modesty, Jacques. Poor M. Saint-Péray is a model of it.”
“And he has been jilted.”
“So he has; that is the truth. He still sits as if stunned. I don’t know what will happen when he recovers himself. Jacques, for pity’s sake watch him when that happens—for pity’s sake, Jacques.”
“I will be his shadow, Martha.”
“But not for him to know. I dread the time terribly. I think there is often no such fiend as a good man wronged through his goodness. ”

“ His destination is death, which is Love’s sleep. He is reclaimed to Love, of whom he was always a thought. As a thought he can never be launched again. He has played his part and is at rest in Love.
But his part, while he played it, was Love’s part. It was when he realised this most that the palpable world became a shadow, the solid ground a cloud, the sun and moon and hills but figments of a rapture of Love’s dream. ”

“ And so he lusted to slander her to his own heart; and would have cut that same heart out only to lay it at her slender feet and feel them trample it.
And she could be so stately, though a child. Giving the King her hand, she held him vassal to its whiteness, and smiled a gracious smile when he raised and kissed it reverently. She had become woman at her tender years—but through the hate and not the love of man. She had borne sorrow and was a virgin still. Passion fell dumb before that poignant motherhood: desire slunk ashamed before her eyes. ”

“ The rest was for his confessor.
Conceive this poor soul, then, with her monstrous self-imposed burden—never to be put down—facing the steeps of life! If her feet would sometimes falter, her eyes grow strained with agony beneath it, her heart never admitted by one false beat a sense of disproportion in their loads. To fend him from the truth, while hiding from him that she knew it; to pay his debts to vile extortion, and suffer the stigma of a parsimony which appeared to grudge him the means to realise their compact of a boundless charity ”

“ What greater love could woman show? If God would forgive her for that—concede her the mercy to creep into heaven, lost in her dear saint’s shadow! For he was her saint again—twice beatified through his fault. He had been guilty of his one worldly lapse for her—had done outrage to his nature that hers might suffer none. Was not such sin the prerogative of consecration? ”

“ What had she not sacrificed for him—home—honour—that dear untroubled land of innocence! had made herself an outcast for his sake. And so to be dealt the fate of the heartless, self-qualified wanton! “O, mammy! mammy!” she wept again, rocking and moaning.
But a fiercer thought rose to dry her tears. This other—this woman—this white witch who had come between her love and her! She had not forgotten a word of his description—no, nor the unspoken words, that eloquence of silence which fills the gaps of speech. Eyes will betray what tongue conceals. She’d seen his look beyond her at some vision ”

“ She hesitated an instant, faced round, and the next moment the two, high saint and lowly sinner, were clasped together weeping.
Poor Molly knew her place. She sunk at the other’s feet again, till Yolande knelt beside her, and put her arms about the shameful head.
“Poor child! poor sinful woman,” she said, to a flurry of sighs and sobs. “O, what was I to hold you so apart! But you don’t understand—you can’t, God pity you. The worse for him that killed your innocence.” ”

“ Cartouche yawned.
“In the name of patience—who’s taken whom?” said he.
“Who? Why M. Saint-Péray has taken his Marchesa, that’s all.”
“Well, those are news, to be sure.”
“Are they not—eh? He-he! You are looking worn, Mr Trix. I’m afraid you take your new duties too seriously. You shouldn’t forget that all social office is a compromise—a figure representing the balance between good and evil, to lower one of which unduly is to exalt the other unduly. Yes, we’ve married our couple.”
“Have we, indeed? And who are ‘we,’ my Bonito?” ”

“ Cartouche interrupted him.
“My story is told in a word, Louis-Marie. Would you like to hear it?”
“Indeed I should.”
“Very well. It won’t edify you, I’m afraid; but it’s quite right you should know the truth about me. Innocent souls like you are apt to take too much on trust—to judge all men by their pure self-standards. It’s time, perhaps, you grew up, Louis-Marie.”
“Nay, Gaston,” muttered his friend. “If to be grown up is to be wicked, I’m a giant already. Prove yourself what you like—the worse, the nearer to me.”
Trix laughed. ”

“ On the instant, light glowed out in the room—or rather diluted darkness than light—and in the same moment an apparition showed itself.
Bonito, in black skull-cap and black skin-tights, his unearthly face and long white hands showing in the gloom like detached members, made a sufficiently ghastly spectacle. Even the little Vicomte, accustomed initiate, could never surmount a certain terror of him under such circumstances. And the present ones found him exceptionally nervous.
“Hail, Spartacus!” he whispered, his voice fluttering like a leaf. “Thou seest before thee a petitioner.” ”

“ Torture too exquisite, it was said, became a transport. Did they want to qualify him for that balm in hell?
He execrated the shadow in his thoughts—its endless, voiceless weeping. He told it that he hated it. Let it take solace of his hate, as he of another’s. He meant it. Yolande hated him, and that she did was a wrung rapture to him at this last. By so much he had a place in her passions, where any other was impossible. He would never imperil it by controverting his slanderers. Let her think of him as wickedness incarnate, if only she would think of him. ”

“ He had the right of chase with the whole world—no bond to honour, even, since she had let another cross the claim of his friend. He would never have suffered that for himself. She would never have dared that sin against Cartouche. He gloried suddenly in his name. If he could only have met her first—a man worth a woman’s modelling, not a saint invertebrately blessed—a passion, not a sentiment! Was it too late even now? To gain the whole world in her and lose his soul! She could make an immortal lust of damnation—cancel eternity to a moment. ”

“ With that, he released the Marchesa’s hand, and bowed profoundly, and withdrew. She made no gesture to retain him. The two remained standing as he had left them, silent and far apart.
A storm of emotions swept through the chambers of Cartouche’s brain. He shook in its thunder. What was the power in this child, this white-and-pink wax doll, to humble mighty worldlings in her presence, bring them to her feet—not to sue, but to deprecate all suit of her as guilt—not to pray; only to adore, and own themselves unworthy? ”

“ And so her thoughts recoiled as if from a sudden adder. What was Reuben to her, any more than was this other—a dull, thick-witted clown? To resent his just whipping? Strike back? Hurt her dear lord? “O, Cherry, Cherry! I never meant it! Him to presume and dare! You were merciful not to kill him.”
Ah! her own love—her dark young tyrant. “Come back to me, Cherry! Give up the bad white witch! My heart is bursting in its wild great longing!”
Yet, while she hated to look on Louis-Marie, one aspect of him could not but hold her curious observation. “He’s better: I think he will recover.” ”

“ The two came close up to his hiding-place; and then they stopped, and uttered for his shameful ears the tragedy of their lives. In the first of their meeting, amazed as yet, and unrealising the abyss which was fast gaping between them, they spoke in the soft romance, the old love-language of Savoy; but soon a woefuller cry wrung itself from the torture of their hearts. ”

“ Ministers of Fate, what a triumph! Mine own nominee elected; the other deposed and disgraced. Savoy is ours: we will cross the Alps ere long. Rejoice with me, child! Thine enemy lies low—thou art avenged.”
“Yes, I am avenged,” she answered dully.
He looked at her shrewdly.
“Art thou not satisfied?”
“You will not hurt him else, Bonito?”
“Why should I? He stood in my way; he will stand no longer. That is enough for me.”
“But you will not hurt him?”
“Hurt him, hurt him? Thou art tenderer of him than of his doxy. Look how you smile on while I bleed her—no pity there. ”

“ If you are fortunate, we will admit, by antithesis, that you are virtuous.”
“They call me a Rosicrucian,” said Bonito. “I am at least so far in sympathy with the sect as to believe in the universal regeneration and the cosmopolitanism of the intellect. They call me also an alchemist. Certainly I would transmute the dross of life into gold. It is the world’s way to gild the calf and worship it. We see below the vile enamel. No idols of wealth or patriotism for us; no states or churches as jealous entities. Base metal is under the skin of all. ”

“ To be asked to approve myself the instrument of that poor creature’s ruin! to applaud the wicked deed and crown the doer of it with my gratitude! Would you murder also for my sake—smear the feet you profess to worship with a fellow-creature’s blood? O, go from me, go from me, Monsieur! you are horrible in my sight. We take the burden of our sin—will atone for it as heaven wills. Better a hundred cruel witnesses than one advocate like you. ”

“ Having followed impulse, she retired on mortification, which is the common way.
“What is your message?” said Louis-Marie, impassively, the moment his visitor was left alone to him. “You can sit or not as you like,” he added. “I am master of nothing.”
Bonito, as apparently phlegmatic for his part, remained standing where he was.
“You may think you know enough of my reputation to insult me,” he said. “It is no concern of mine what you or anyone thinks. The surest sign of worth is to be worth men’s slander, as its surest reward is ingratitude.”
“Pardon me,” said Saint-Péray. ”

“ But the lesson of her whiteness is for all. Am I Cartouche to own it? I only know she’s taught me to respect something I never respected before. To pay to keep you good, my darling? With a fortune, if I had it. That’s it. Shall we be good together, sweetest—never, never, never sin again? You’ve loved me one way: will you love me better this—own the wrong and renounce it? show—”
“Not her. I’ve been wicked. I’ll pray to God to forgive me. He’s a man.”
His face twinkled.
“Hush!” he said. “Our act of grace shall be to mend this tragedy with love. ”