Antoinette soon controlled her emotions."The day before yesterday,"she thought, "this woman appeared to me to be deranged: she is a lunatic; I wish that Abel were here, he could tell me what happened at dinner between him and this dotard, and we should laugh over it together.Perhaps nothing happened at all.The Princess Gulof should be confined.They do very wrong to let maniacs like that go at large.
It is dangerous; the bells of Cormeilles have ceased ringing.Ah! /bon Dieu/, who knows? Mme.de Lorcy surely has a hand in this business; it is the result of some grand plot.How many acts are there in the play?
Here we are at the second or third; but there are some jokes that are very provoking.I shall end by being seriously angry."Princess Gulof appeared to have entirely failed in her object.It seemed to Mlle.Moriaz that for the last twenty minutes she loved Count Larinski more than ever before.
The hour drew near; he was on the way; she had never been so impatient to see him.She saw some one at the end of the terrace.It was M.
Camille Langis, who was going towards the laboratory.
He turned his head, retraced his steps, and came to her.M.Moriaz had asked him to translate two pages of a German memoir which he had not been able to understand.Camille was bringing the translation; perhaps that was the reason of his coming back to Cormeilles after two days;perhaps, too, it was only a pretext.
Mlle.Moriaz could not help thinking that his visit was inopportune;that he had chose an unfortunate time for it."If the count finds him still here," thought she, "I am not afraid that he will make a scene, but all his pleasure will be spoiled." There was a tinge of coldness in her welcome to M.Langis, of which he was sensible.
"I am in the way," he said, making a movement to retire.
She kept him, and altered her tone: "You are never in the way, Camille.Sit there."He seated himself, and talked of the races at Chantilly, that he had attended the day before.
She listened to him, bowed her head in sign of approval; but she heard his voice through a mist that veiled her senses.She lifted her hand to brush away a wasp that annoyed her by its buzzing.The lace of her cuff, in falling back, left her wrist exposed.
"What a curious bracelet you have!" said M.Langis.
"Have you not seen it before?" she replied."It is some time since----"She interrupted herself, a sudden idea occurring to her.She looked at her wrist.This bracelet from which she never was parted--this bracelet that Count Larinski had given to her--this bracelet that he loved because it had belonged to his mother, and that the late Countess Larinski had worn as long as she lived--resembled none other;but Mlle.Moriaz observed that it had a strong resemblance to the Persian bracelet that the Princess Gulof had described to her, and which she had exchanged for Samuel Brohl.The three gold plates, the grotesque animals, the filigree network--nothing was wanting.She took it from her arm and handed it to M.Langis, saying to him: "There is, it seems, something written on the interior of one of these plates;but you must know the secret to be able to open it.Can you guess secrets?"He carefully examined the bracelet."Two of these plates," said he, "are solid, and of heavy gold; the third is hollow, and might serve as a case.I see a little hinge that is almost invisible; but I seek in vain for the secret--I cannot find it.""Is the hinge strong?"
"Not very, and the lid easily could be forced open.""That is what I want you to do," she rejoined.
"What are you thinking of? I would not spoil a trinket that you value."She replied: "I have made the acquaintance of a Russian princess who has a mania for physiology and dissection.I have caught the disease, and I want to begin to dissect.I am fond of this trinket, but I want to know what is inside.Do as I tell you," she continued."You will find in the laboratory the necessary instruments.Go; the key is in the door."He consulted her look; her eye was burning, her voice broken, and she repeated: "Go--go! Do you not understand me?"He obeyed, went to the laboratory, taking the bracelet with him.After five minutes he returned saying: "I am very unskilful; I crushed the lid in raising it; but you wished it, and your curiosity will be satisfied."She could, in truth, satisfy her curiosity.She eagerly seized the bracelet, and on the back of the plate, now left bare, she saw engraved in the gold, characters almost microscopic in size.Through the greatest attention she succeeded in deciphering them.She distinguished several dates, marking the year, the month, and the day, when some important event had occurred to the Princess Gulof.These dates, accompanied by no indication of any kind, formerly sufficed to recall the principal experiments that she had practised on mankind before having discovered Samuel Brohl.The result had not been very cheerful, for beneath this form of calendar stood a confession of faith, thus expressed, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!" This melancholy declaration was signed, and the signature was perfectly legible.Mlle.Moriaz spelled it out readily, although at that moment her sight was dim, and she was convinced that the trinket, which Count Larinski had presented to her as a family relic, had belonged to Anna Petrovna, Princess Gulof.
She grew mortally pale, and lost consciousness; she seemed on the verge of an attack of delirium.In the agitation of her mind, she imagined that she saw herself at a great distance, at the end of the world, and very small; she was climbing a mountain, on the other side of which there was a man awaiting her.She questioned herself, "Am I, or is this traveller, Mlle.Moriaz?" She closed her eyes, and saw a blank abyss open before her, in which her life was ingulfed, whirled about, like the leaf of a tree in a whirlpool.
