Maurice Leblanc

“ The penalty of such loves is the silence to which they are condemned. Even when the mouths are speaking, the noise of the words they exchange does not break the heavy silence of the inner, solitary thoughts. Each follows his, or her, course of thought without ever penetrating into the very life of the other. A dispiriting intercourse from which Ralph, always so ready to expand, suffered more and more.
Josephine too must have been suffering from it, to judge from certain moments of extreme lassitude in which she seemed on the verge of those confidences that draw lovers closer than do embraces. ”

“ You are the mistress of circumstances and victorious over all your enemies. And it is the moment at which the most elementary prudence bids us leave France and to get as far as possible away from Europe. And that’s the very moment you choose to return to the very place in which you have suffered your worst defeats, and to confront the only enemy who remains. And what an enemy! A genius of a kind so exceptional, that, without him you would never have discovered the treasure. You must admit that it’s madness. ”

“ The tribunal of enquiry, the inexorable judges, the sinister executioners, Beaumagnan, Godfrey d’Etigues, the condemnation, the descent down to the sea, the boat sinking in the darkness, what nightmares already dim! They had come to an end in an intimate comradeship of victim and rescuer.
By the light of the lantern hanging from a beam he gave the young woman food and drink and dressed her wound with infinite gentleness. Protected by him, far from the snares and hatred of her enemies, Josephine Balsamo lay back in utter trustfulness. She shut her eyes and fell asleep. ”

“ Ralph d’Andresy—so we will continue to call the young man who, later, under the name of Arsène Lupin became so illustrious—Ralph d’Andresy had never loved. As a matter of fact he had been prevented from doing so by lack of time rather than by lack of opportunity. Burning with ambition, but not knowing in what sphere and by what means his dreams of glory, of fortune, and of power would be realized, he spent his energy in every direction in order to be ready to answer on the instant the call of destiny. ”

“ Clarice was listening to this revelation with so painful an air of terror that Ralph exclaimed: “Silence, Josine! Not a word more! What you are doing is in the highest degree vile and absurd. What’s the use of it?”
“The use of it?” she said sharply. “The time has come for the whole truth to be told. You have thrown us, her and me, into opposition. It is only fair that she and I should be on equal terms in our suffering.” ”

“ She broke out with a violence of which Ralph had not believed her capable: “Don’t touch me, you wretch! And don’t suppose that I’m afraid of you. To-day you’re alone. And I saw quite clearly just now that you would never dare murder me. Your hands were trembling. My hands will not tremble, Beaumagnan, when your hour comes.”
He recoiled before her imprecations and her threats; and she went on, in a fresh access of hate: “But your hour has not yet come. You have not suffered enough. You did not suffer because you believed me dead. ”

“ Ralph jerked in his bonds and cried furiously: “You coward! You wretch! What are you going to do? Are you really the lowest of women? Leonard, if you touch that child, I swear by God that one day or another——”
“How frightened you are for her!” snarled Josephine. “How the idea of her suffering does upset you! You were certainly born to understand one another, you two.... The daughter of a murderer and a thief! Yes, a thief!” she said, turning to Clarice. “This fine lover of yours is nothing but a thief! He has always made his living by theft. ”

“ In two bounds Ralph crossed the ten paces which separated him from the mound.
An oath burst from his lips. The horrible truth was clear to his eyes. The center of the mound had been disemboweled. The block of granite, the legendary block was indeed there, but smashed asunder into fragments, its débris on every side of a gaping hole full of blackened pebbles and tufts of grass. Not a single jewel! Not a scrap of gold or silver! The enemy had passed that way. ”

“ All that vision of bloodshed, those accoutrements of crime, those trappings of the sorceress, vanished like a nightmare in face of the charming photograph in which he contemplated the limpid eyes and pure lips of the young woman.
“I shall find you!” he swore, covering it with kisses. “And you shall love me as I love you. To me you shall be the most submissive and the most adored of mistresses. If you have loved, you shall forget those you have loved; you shall pursue them with your hate. I shall read your mysterious life as one reads an open book. ”

“ Others doubtless had come in boats along the old river of Normandy which ran through Paris and ran through Rouen, the waves of which broke against the estates of three of the seven sacred abbeys.
And now he, Ralph d’Andresy, was a sharer of the great secret. He was the heir of the thousands and thousands of monks who had worked in those distant [272] ages, sown throughout the length and breadth of France and gathered in their harvest without a pause. What a miracle! To have at his age such a dream come true! To be an equal of the most powerful and to rule among the lords of the world! ”

“ One day or other Beaumagnan would have scooped up the thousand millions and left poor little Josephine biting her nails. So come now! A sweet smile instead of that horrid scowl.”
“You had the audacity ... You dared ... And all those threats.... All that pressure to make me speak.... It was a farce! I’ll never forgive you—never!”
“Oh, yes you will,” he said in a cheerful, mocking tone. “You’ll forgive me all right—when you’ve recovered from that little wound to your vanity. All this has nothing to do with our love, you know. It counts for nothing between people devoted to one another, like us. ”

“ During those delightful hours Ralph expended a wealth of gaiety [124] and enthusiasm. The wonderful views, the beautiful Gothic churches, the sunsets and the moonlight, everything served him as pretexts for impassioned declarations of his love. Josine, more silent, smiled as in a happy dream. Every day drew her closer to her lover. If at the beginning she had acted from a mere caprice, she now found herself under the yoke of the law of love which quickened her pulses and taught her the danger and the pain of loving too much.
Of the past, of her secret life, never a word. ”

“ A shadow, perhaps—at least Ralph d’Andresy thought that he saw one—veiled for a moment, like a cloud, the smile of the Giaconda. Then on the instant her beautiful face resumed its usual expression as if nothing could ruffle its serenity, not even this frightful accusation launched at her with so violent a virulence. You might very well have said that the ordinary feelings of humanity were unknown to her, or that at any rate they did not betray themselves by those symptoms of indignation, revolt, and horror with which all [42] human beings are overwhelmed. ”

“ There is something so sane and healthy about you. Love is the only thing that has ever appeased me; and I have never loved anyone but you. So if you cast me off——”
Her lips filled Ralph with an infinite languor. Pleasure and desire embellished that dangerous compassion which weakens the wills of men. And perhaps if Josephine had contented herself with that humble caress, he might have succumbed of himself to the temptation to bend down and once again taste the savor of those lips which offered themselves to him. ”

“ He took advantage of her weakness, and went on in a voice that demanded an answer: “Isn’t it a fact, Josine, that at times you terrify yourself? Aren’t there times when you are full of horror at yourself?”
The distress of Josephine was so profound that she murmured: “Yes—yes sometimes. But you’re not to speak to me about it. I don’t want to know. Be quiet—be quiet!”
“But on the contrary, it is necessary that you should know,” said Ralph. “If such acts fill you with horror, why do you commit them?”
“I can’t help it,” she said faintly in an extreme lassitude. ”

“ And it was really uncommonly disconcerting to see these two creatures, who, at the very moment at which circumstances were about to furnish them with the key-word of the enigma which had puzzled them so long, forget everything in the outburst of their passion. The great secret of past ages, the discovery of the jewels, the legendary block of granite, the casket, the inscription, the Widow Rousselin, and the person actually on the way to reveal the truth to them—these were so many old wives’ tales in which neither of them now took any interest. ”

“ Ralph, who had never doubted that the drowning of the two cousins had been brought about by the Countess of Cagliostro, Ralph, who yet later had learned that Dominique had died of poison, Ralph regarded it as settled that the Countess of Cagliostro was the author of the abduction. His grief transformed him. Having no longer either wife or son to restrain him, he flung himself with all his heart into the course to which so many forces impelled him. From that day on he was Arsène Lupin. There was no longer any reservation, any compromise. ”

“ Every second of every one of those solemn minutes increased the agitation and frenzy of Beaumagnan. He muttered incoherent words. His mask of romantic actor grew uglier and uglier till his face became of a purely bestial hideousness. The instinct, the will to murder contorted his features; and all at once it became clear that this will, this savage instinct were inflamed against Ralph, against Josephine’s lover. ”

“ Now, he was the master. He had forced Josephine Balsamo to surrender and at the same time disciplined his own love. Kisses, caresses, seductive wiles, the enchantment of passion, the obsession of desire, he no longer feared any of them, since he had gone to the very verge of a rupture.
He picked up the rug which lay in front of the fireplace and rendered Leonard deaf by throwing it over him. Then he went back to Josine and sat down facing her. ”

“ War was declared, and at the moment chosen by Ralph, a moment at which all the circumstances were in his favor, and Josephine, taken by surprise, weakened before an onslaught of a violence and implacability she had never looked for.
It must not, however, be supposed that a woman of her stamp was going to accept defeat without a struggle. She tried to resist. She would not admit that a tender and charming lover like Ralph d’Andresy could, at a single stroke, stand forth as her master and impose on her the harsh constraint of his will. ”

“ It was you who some time ago put the poisonous cachet among those which Beaumagnan would swallow. It was you who, during the years before that, destroyed Beaumagnan’s two friends, Denis Saint-Hébert and George d’Isneauval.”
“No, no! I won’t let you say so!” she broke out. “It isn’t true! And you know it isn’t!”
He shrugged his shoulders and said slowly: “Yes: the legend of the other woman created to meet the necessity of the case ... another woman who is your exact image and commits the crimes, while you, Josephine Balsamo, content yourself with less brutal adventures. ”

“ Once she began to weep in Ralph’s arms so bitterly that he looked for an access of surrender. But she recovered almost at once, and he felt her further away from him than ever.
“She cannot trust,” he told himself. “She is one of those beings who dwell apart from their fellows in a solitude that has no bounds. She is a prisoner of the image she has formed of herself, has forced herself to form of herself; indeed, a prisoner of the enigma she has elaborated and which holds her in its invisible meshes. ”

“ Sometimes they gripped one another with the violence of two creatures veritably battling with one another. There was a brutality in their caresses, a threat in their eyes, hate in their hearts, and despair in their tenderness. One would have said that they were watching one another to discover the weak point at which to strike with the deadliest effect.
One night Ralph awoke with a sensation of extreme discomfort to find Josephine at his bedside, with a lamp in her hand, looking down on him. ”

“ The exaltation which Ralph had been enjoying did not immediately abate. He went on laughing and joking, but in a growing fury and in tones that changed as it grew.
“Bravo, Josephine!... But what a master-stroke!... What a shot! Right in the middle of the bull’s-eye [184] and when I was least expecting it.... How funny she must have found my songs of triumph! ‘I am cut out for conquest, for the extraordinary and the fabulous!’ Idiot that I was! When one is capable of such blunders, one should keep one’s mouth shut. ”

“ Having solved the insoluble enigma, he must be the first to arrive at the goal. Not to be there, not to seize the treasure, to let someone else take it, would have been an intolerable humiliation to the day of his death.
So, indefatigable, he toiled on behind the carriage, and not so far behind it either, buoyed up by the thought that the enigma was not yet solved in its entirety, that his adversaries, like himself, had yet to find the actual place in which the block of granite stood; and in that darkness it was going to take time. ”

“ Who? A peasant? A poacher? Was it a rescuer—some friend of Beaumagnan’s? Or was it just a prowler in the night?
A head appeared, indistinct in the darkness; and then the figure of a woman slipped easily over the sill which was at no great height from the ground.
Before he saw her face, Ralph knew that it was none other than Clarice!
With what pride and delight and thankfulness did he regard her! Josephine had been wrong, quite wrong in supposing her rival too feeble to act. ”

“ She rested her elbows on the bulwarks, her head between her hands, and murmured in despairing accents: “I love him. It’s the first time I have ever loved. The other men—they don’t count. But as for Ralph—but I don’t want to talk about him. Thanks to him I have known the only joy I ever had—but also the greatest suffering. Before I met him I did not know what happiness was; but I did not know sorrow either. And then—and then the happiness came to an end; and only the suffering is left. It’s horrible, Leonard! ”