Joseph Balsamo (70 page)
Not a sound, not a breath was heard ; u this chamber, and an inhabitant might have thought himself a hundred
526 JOSEPH BALSAMO.
miles from the world. But gold, cunningly wrought, shone on every side ; beautiful paintings smiled from the walls, and lusters of colored Bohemian glass glittered and sparkled like eyes looking on the scene, when, after having placed Lorenza on a sofa, the count, not satisfied with the trembling radiance of the boudoir, proceeded to light the rose-colored wax-candles of two candelabra on the chimney-piece.
Then, returning to Lorenza and placing himself before her, he knelt with one knee on a pile of cushions and exclaimed softly, ” Lorenza I”
The young girl, at this appeal, raised herself on her elbow, although her eyes remained closed. But she did not reply.
” Lorenza ‘ he repeated, ” do you sleep in your ordinary sleep or in the magnetic sleep ? “
” In the magnetic sleep,” she answered.
” Then, if I question you, you can reply ? “
” I think so.”
The Count de Fenix was silent for a few moments ; then he continued :
” Look in the apartment of the Princess Louise, whom we left three quarters of an hour ago.”
” I am looking.”
” What do you see?”
” The princess is praying before retiring to bed.”
” Do you see the Cardinal de Rohan in the convent ? “
“No.”
” In any of the corridors or courts ? “
” No.”
” Look whether his carriage be at the gate ? “
” I do not see it.”
” Pursue the road by which we came. Do you see carriages on it ? “
“Yes, several.”
” Do you see the cardinal’s among them ? “
“No.”
” Come nearer Paris now ? “
” Now I see it.”
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” Where ? “
” At the gate of the city.”
” Has it stopped ? “
” Yes ; the footman has just got down.”
” Does the cardinal speak to him ? “
“Yes ; he is going to speak.”
“Lorenza, attend. It is important that I should know what the cardinal says.”
” You should have told me to listen in time. But stop ! the footman is speaking to the coachman.”
“What does he say ?”
” The Rue St. Claude, in the Marais, by the boulevard.”
” Thanks, Lorenza.”
The count wrote some words on a piece of paper, which he folded round a plate of copper, doubtless to give it weight, then he pulled a bell, pressed a spring, and, a small opening appearing in the wall, he dropped the note down. The opening closed again instantly. It was in this way that the count, in the inner apartments of his house, gave his orders to Fritz, his German servant.
CHAPTER LVI.
THE DOUBLE EXISTENCE SLEEP.
RETURNING to Lorenza, Balsamo said, ” Will you converse with your friend now ? “
” Oh, yes ! ” she replied. ” But speak yourself the most I love so to hear your voice. “
” Lorenza, you have often said that you would be happy if you could live with me, shut out from all the world.”
” Yes ; that would be happiness indeed ! “
” Well, your wish is realized. No one can follow us to this chamber no one can enter here ; we are alone, quite alone.”
” Ah, so much the better.”
” Tell me is this apartment to your taste ?”
” Order me to see it, then.”
” I order you.”
528 JOSEPH BALSAMO.
” Oh, what a charming room ! “
” You are pleased with it, then?” asked the count, tenderly.
” Oh, yes ! There are my favorite flowers my vanilla heliotropes, my crimson roses, my Chinese jasmines ! Thanks, my sweet Joseph how kind and good you are ! “
” I do all I can to please you, Lorenza.”
” Oh ! you do a hundred times more than I deserve.”
“You think so?”
” Yes.”
” Then you confess that you have been very ill-natured? “
” Very ill-natured ? Oh, yes. But yon forgive me, do you not ? “
” I shall forgive you when you explain to me the strange mystery which I have sought to fathom ever since I knew you.”
“It is this, Balsamo. There are in me two Lorenzas, quite distinct from each other ; one that loves and one that hates you. So there are in me two lives ; in one I taste all the joys of paradise, in the other experience all the torments of hell.”
” And those two lives are sleep and waking ? “
“Yes.”
” You love me when you sleep, and you hate me when you are awake ?”
” Yes.”
” But why so ? “
“I do not know.”
” You must know.”
“No.”
” Search carefully ; look within yourself ; sound your own heart.”
” Yes, I see the cause now.” S
” What is it ? “
“When Lorenza awakes, she is the Eoman girl, the superstitious daughter of Italy ; she thinks science a crime, and love a sin. Her confessor told her thai, they were so. She is, then, afraid of you, and would flee from you to the confines of the earth.”
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” And when Lorenza sleeps ? “
” Ah ! then she is no longer the Roman, no longer superstitious she is a woman. Then she reads Balsamo’s heart and mind ; she sees that his heart loves her, that his genius contemplates sublime things. Then she feels her littleness compared with him. Then she would live and die beside him, that the future might whisper softly the name of Lorenza, when it trumpets forth that of Cagliostro ! “
“It -is by that name, then, that I shall become celebrated ? “
“Yes, by that name.”
” Dear Lorenza ! Then you will love this new abode, will yon not ? “
“It is much more splendid than any of those you have already given me, but it is not on that account that I shall love it.”
“For what then ?”
” I shall love it because you have promised to live in it with me.”
” Then, when you sleep, you see clearly that I love you ardently love you ? “
The young girl smiled faintly. “Yes,” said she, “I do see that you love me, and yet,” added she, with a sigh, “there is something which you love better than Lorenza.”
1 What is it? ” asked Balsamo, starting. ‘ Your dream.” < Say, my task.” ‘ Your ambition.” ‘ Say, my glory.”
‘ Ah, Heaven ! ah, Heaven ! ” and the young girl’s breast heaved while the tears forced their way through her closed eyelids.
” “What do you see ?” asked Balsamo, with alarm ; for there were moments when her powers of seeing the un-seen startled even him.
” Oh, I see darkness, and phantoms gliding through it ; v of them hold in their hands their crowned heads,
DUMAS VOL. YL W
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and you you are among them like a general in the thick of the battle ! You command, and they obey.”
“Well,” said Balsamo, joyfully, “and does that not make you proud of me ? “
” Oh, no, for I seek my own figure amid the throng which surrounds you, and I cannot see myself. I shall not be there,” murmured she, sadly. ” I shall not be there ! “
” Where will you be, then ? “
“I shall be dead.”
Balsamo shuddered.
” Dead ? my Lorenza,” cried he, ” dead ? No, no I we shall live long together to love each other.”
” You love me not.”
” Oh, yes ! “
“Ah!” continued she, “I feel that I am nothing to you.”
” You, my Lorenza, nothing ? You aue my all, my strength, my power, my genius. Without you I should be nothing. You possess my whole soul. Is not that enough to make you happy ? “
“Happy?” repeated she, contemptuously. “Do you call this life of ours happy ? “
” Yes ; for in my mind to be happy is to be great.”
She sighed deeply.
” Oh, could you but know, dearest Lorenza, how I love to read the uncovered hearts of men, and govern them with their own passions ! “
” Yes I serve you in that, I know.”
” That is not all. Your eyes read for me the hidden book of the future. What I could not learn with twenty years of toil and suffering, you, my gentle dove, innocent and pure, you teach me when you wish. Foes dog my steps and lay snares for me you inform me of every danger. On my understanding depend my life, my fortune, my freedom you give that understanding the eye of a lynx, which dilates and sees clearly in the darkness. Your lovely eyes closing to the light of this outward world, open to supernatural splendors, which they watch for me. It is you who make me free, rich, powerful.”
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‘ And you in return make me wretched,” she exclaimed, m a tone of despair, ” for all that is not love.”
” Yes, it is,” he replied ” a holy and pure love.”
“And what happiness attends it? Why did you force me from my country, my name, my family why obtain this power over me why make me your slave, if I am never to be yours in reality ? “
” Alas ! why, rather,” asked he, ” are you like an angel, infallible in penetration, by whose help I can subject the universe ? Why are you able to read all hearts within their corporal dwelling, as others read a book behind a pane of glass ? It is because you are an angel of purity, Lorenza because your spirit, different from those of the vulgar, or sordid beings who surround you, pierces through every obstacle.”
‘ ‘ And thus you regard my love less than the vain chimeras of your brain ? Oh, Joseph, Joseph,” added she, passionately, “you wrong me cruelly !”
” Not so, for I love you ; but I would raise you with myself to the throne of the world.”
” Oh, Balsamo,” murmured she, ” will your ambition ever make you happy as my love would ? “
As she spoke she thew her arms around him. He struggled to release himself, beat back the air loaded with magnetic fluid, and at length exclaimed, ” Lorenza, awake, awake ! It is my will.”
At once her arms released their hold, the smile which had played on her lips died away, and she sighed heavily. At length her closed eyes opened ; the dilated pupils assumed their natural size ; she stretched out her arms, appeared overcome with weariness, and fell back at full length, but awake, on the sofa.
Balsamo, seated at a little distance from her, heaved a deep sigh. ” Adieu, my dream ! ” murmured he to himself. ” Farewell, happiness ! “
532 JOSEPH BALSAMO.
CHAPTER LVII.
THE DOUBLE EXISTENCE WAKING.
As soon as Lorenza had recovered her natural powers of sight, she cast a hurried glance around her. Her eyes roamed over all the splendid trifles which surrounded her on every side, without exhibiting any appearance of the pleasure which such things usually give to women.
At length they rested with a shudder on Balsamo, who was seated at a short distance, and was watching her attentively.
‘ ‘ You again ! ” said she, recoiling ; and all the symptoms of horror appeared in her countenance. Her lips turned deathly pale, and the perspiration stood in large drops on her forehead. Balsamo did not reply.
” Where am I ?” she asked.
” You know whence you come, madame,“said Balsamo, ” and that should naturally enable you to guess where you are.”
” Yes, you are right to remind me of that ; I remember now. I know that I have been persecuted by you, pursued by you, torn by you from the’arms of the royal lady whom I had chosen to protect me.”
” Then you must know, also, that this princess, all-powerful though she be, could not defend you ?”
” Yes ; you have conquered her by some work of magic I” cried Lorenza, clasping her hands. ” Oh, Heaven, deliver me from this demon ! “
” In what way do I resemble a demon, madame ? ” said Balsamo, shrugging his shoulders. ” Once for all, abandon, I beg of you, this farrago of childish prejudice which you brought with you from Rome ; have done with all those absurd superstitions which you learned in your convent, and which, have formed your constant traveling-companions since you left it.”
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” Oh, my convent ! Who will restore me my convent?” cried Lorenza, bursting into tears.
” In fact,” said Balsamo, ironically, ” a convent is a place very much to be regretted.”
Lorenza darted toward one of the windows, drew aside the curtains, and, opening it, stretched out her hand. It struck against a thick bar supporting an iron grating, which, although hidden by flowers, was not the less efficacious in retaining a prisoner.
” Prison for prison,” said she. ” I like that better which conducts toward heaven than that which sends to hell.”
And she dashed her delicate hands against the iron bars.
” If you were more reasonable, Lorenza, you would find only the flowers, without the bars, at your windows.”
” Was I not reasonable when you shut me up in that other moving prison, with that vampire whom you call Althotas ? And yet you kept me a prisoner, you watched me like a lynx, and whenever you left me you breathed into me that spirit which takes possession of me, and which I cannot overcome. Where is he, that horrible old man, whose sight freezes me with terror? In some corner here, is he not ? Let us keep silent, and we shall hear his un-earthly voice issue from the depths of the earth.”
” You really give way to your imagination like a child, madame. Althotas, my teacher, my friend, my second father, is an inoffensive old man, who has never seen or approached you ; or, if he has seen you, has never paid the least attention to you, immersed as he is in his task.”
” His task?” murmured Lorenza. “And what is his task, pray ? “
” He is trying to discover the elixir of life what all the greatest minds have been in search of for the last six thousand years.”
” And you what are yon trying to discover ? “
“The means of human perfectability.”
” Oh, demons ! demons ! ” said Lorenza, raising her hand to heaven.
534: JOSEPH BALSAMO.
” Ah ! ” said Balsamo, rising, ” now your fit is coming on again.”
” My fit ? “
” Yes, your fit. There is one thing, Loreuza, which you are not aware of ; it is, that your life is divided into two equal periods. During one you are gentle, good, and reasonable during the other you are mad.”
” And it is under this false pretext of madness that you shut me up ? “