"Take care,"cried the young man,shuddering,"do not trifle with that beast,or you are a dead man!""Take care,"repeated Ivan,who,not having understood half of what had been said,hardly suspected Gilbert's intention."Take care,this dog is a ferocious beast."Meantime Gilbert,crossing his arms upon his breast,advanced slowly towards the bulldog,keeping his eyes steadily fixed on those of the animal,and when he thought he had disconcerted him by his undaunted gaze sufficiently to make him relax his grip upon the prize,he suddenly tore the glove from him and waved it in the air with his right hand.At the same moment Vorace,with a howl of rage,bounded up to leap at the throat of his despoiler.Gilbert sprang back,covering himself with his left arm,and the dog's jaws only grazed his shoulder.Yet when he touched the ground again,he held between his teeth a long strip of cloth,a scrap of linen,and a morsel of bloody flesh.Mad with fury the bulldog rolled over on the grass with this prize which he could hardly devour,and then suddenly,as if seized with a paroxysm of frenzy,he moved towards the castle doubling upon himself;but reaching the foot of the turret,he looked for his enemy and returned like an arrow,to pounce upon him again.
"Throw down the glove,"cried Ivan,"and climb the ash.""I will surrender the glove only to him who asked me for it,"answered Gilbert.
And hiding it in his bosom,he drew a knife from his pocket.He had not time to open it.The dog,with bristling hair and foaming jaws,was already within three steps of him,gathering himself to spring upon him;but he had scarcely raised himself from the ground when he fell back with his head shattered.The hatchet which Ivan carried at his girdle had come down upon him like a flash.The terrible animal vainly attempted to rise,rolled writhing in the dust,and breathed out his life with a hoarse and fearful howl.
XIII
Doctor Vladimir Paulitch arrived at the castle just in time to take care of Gilbert.The wound was wide and deep,and in consequence of the great heat which prevailed,it might easily have proved serious;fortunately,Doctor Vladimir was a skillful man,and under his care the wound was soon healed.He employed certain specifics,the uses of which were known only to himself,and which he took care to keep a secret from his patient.His medicine was as mysterious as his person.
Vladimir Paulitch was forty years of age;his face was striking but unattractive.His eyes had the color and the hard brightness of steel;his keen glances,subject to his will,often questioned,but never allowed themselves to be interrogated.Well made,slender,a slight and graceful figure,he had in his gait and movements a feline suppleness and stealthiness.He was slow,but easy of speech,and never animated;the tone of his voice was cold and veiled,and whatever the subject of conversation might be,he neither raised nor lowered it;no modulations;everyone of his sentences terminated in a little minor cadence,which fell sadly on the ear.He sometimes smiled in speaking,it is true,but it was a pale smile which did not light up his face.This smile signified simply:"I do not give you my best reason,and I defy you to divine it."One morning when Ivan had come by order of the doctor to dress Gilbert's wound,our friend questioned him as to the character and life of Vladimir Paulitch.Of the man Ivan knew nothing,and confined himself to extolling the genius of the physician;he expressed himself in regard to him in a mysterious tone.The imposing face of this impenetrable personage,the extraordinary power of his glance,his impassible gravity,the miraculous cures which he had wrought,it needed no more to convince the honest serf that Vladimir Paulitch dealt in magic and held communications with spirits;and he felt for his person a profound veneration mingled with superstitious terror.He told Gilbert that since the age of twenty-five,Vladimir had been directing a hospital and private asylum which Count Kostia had founded upon his estates,and that,thanks to him,these two establishments had not their equals in all Russia.
"Last year,"added the serf,"he came to attend the barine,and told him that his malady would return this year,but more feebly,and that this would be the last.You will see that all will come to pass as he has said.Kostia Petrovitch is already much better,and I wager that next summer will come and go without his feeling his nerves."As Ivan prepared to go,Gilbert detained him to ask news of Stephane.The serf had been very discreet,and had related the adventure upon the terrace to his master without compromising anyone.The only trouble he had had was in persuading him that it was not on a sign from Stephane that the dog had attacked Gilbert.
The next day Gilbert dined in the great hall of the castle with M.
Leminof and Father Alexis.
"Do not disturb yourself because Stephane does not dine with us,"said the Count to him."He is not sick;but he has a new grievance against you;you have caused the death of his dog.I ask your pardon,my dear Gilbert,for the irrational conduct of my son.Ihave given him three days for the sulks.When that time has passed,I intend that he shall put on his good looks for you,and that he shall take his place at the table opposite you without frowning.""And how is it that Doctor Vladimir is not with us?""He has begged me to excuse him for a time.He finds himself much fatigued with the care he has given me.A magnetic treatment,you understand.I should inform you that every year,some time during the summer,I am subject to attacks of neuralgia from which Isuffer intensely.By the way,you have seen our admirable doctor several times.What do you think of him?""I don't know whether he is a great savant,but I am inclined to think he is a first-class artist.""You cannot pay him a finer compliment;medicine is an art rather than a science.He is also a man capable of the greatest devotion.
I am indebted to him for my life,it was not as physician that he saved me either.A pair of stallions ran away within twenty paces of a precipice;the doctor,appearing from behind a thicket,darted to the heads of the horses and hung on to them by their nostrils,which he held in an iron grip.You have the whole scene from these windows.What was amusing in it was,that having thanked him,with what warmth you can imagine,he answered,in a tranquil tone,and wiping his knees--for the horses in falling had laid him full length in the dust--'It is I who am obliged to you;for the first time I have been suspended between life and death,and it is a singular sensation.But for you I should not have known it.'This will give you an idea of the man and his sangfroid!""I am not surprised at his having the agility of a wildcat,"replied Gilbert;"but I suspect the sangfroid is feigned,and that his placidity of face is a mask which hides a very passionate soul.""Passionate is not the word,or at least the doctor knows only the passions of the head.There was a time when he thought himself desperately in love;an unpardonable weakness in such a distinguished man;but he was not long in undeceiving himself,and he has not fallen into such a fatal error since."The night having come,Gilbert,who had inquiries to make,crossed the yard of which the chapel formed one side,and gaining the rear by a private door,went in search of Father Alexis.It was not long before he discovered him,for the priest had left his shutters open,and he was seated in the embrasure of the window,peaceably smoking his pipe,when he perceived Gilbert.
"Oh,the good boy!"cried he,"let him come in quickly!My room and my heart are open to him."Gilbert showed him his arm in a sling,on account of which he could not climb the window.
"Is that all,my child?"said Father Alexis."I will hoist you up here."Gilbert raised himself by his right arm,and Father Alexis drawing him up,they soon found themselves seated face to face,uniting to their heart's content the blue smoke of their chibouques.
"Have you not noticed,"said Father Alexis,"that Kostia Petrovitch has been in a charming humor to-day?I told you that he had his pleasant moments!Vladimir Paulitch has already done him much good.What a physician this Vladimir is!It is a great pity that he does not believe in God;but some day,perhaps,grace will touch his heart,and then he will be a complete man.""If I were in your place,father,I should be afraid of this Vladimir,"said Gilbert."Ivan pretends that he is something of a sorcerer.Aren't you afraid that some fine day he may rob you of your secret?"Father Alexis shrugged his shoulders.
"Ivan talks foolishly,"said he."If Vladimir Paulitch were a sorcerer,would he not have long since penetrated the mystery which he burns to fathom?for he does more than love Count Kostia;he is devoted to him even to fanaticism.It is certain that having discovered that the Countess Olga was enceinte,he had the barbarity to become her denouncer;and that letter which announced to Count Kostia his dishonor,that letter which made him return from Paris like a thunder-clap,that letter in short which caused the death of Olga Vassilievna,was written by him--Vladimir Paulitch.""And Morlof,"said Gilbert,"was it this Vladimir who denounced him to the unjust fury of the Count?""On the contrary,Vladimir pleaded his cause;but his eloquence failed against the blind prejudices of Kostia Petrovitch.This Morlof was,unfortunately for himself,a fashionable gentleman,well known for his gallantries.A man of honor,however,incapable of betraying a friend;this reputation for gallant successes,of which he boasted,was his destruction.When Count Kostia interrogated his wife,and she refused to denounce her seducer,it occurred to him to name Morlof,and the energy with which she defended him confirmed the Count's suspicion.To disabuse him,it needed but that tragic meeting of which I was informed too late.
In breathing his last sigh,Morlof extended his hand to his murderer and gasped 'I die innocent!'And in these last words of a dying man,there was such an accent of truth that Count Kostia could not resist it:light broke in upon his soul."As the darkness increased,Father Alexis closed the shutters and lit a candle.
"My child,"said he,refilling and lighting his pipe,"I must tell you something I learned to-day,a few moments before dinner,which appeared to me very strange.Listen attentively,and I am sure you will share in my astonishment."Gilbert opened his ears,for he had a presentiment that Father Alexis was about to speak of Stephane.
"It is a singular fact,"resumed the priest,"and one that I should not wish to relate to the first-comer,but I am very glad to impart it to you,because you have a serious and reflective mind,though unfortunately you are not orthodox;would to God you were.Know then,my child,that to-day,Saturday,I went according to my custom to Stephane to catechize him,and for reasons which you know,I redoubled my efforts to impress his unruly head with the holy truths of our faith.Now it appears that without intending it,you have caused him sorrow;and you can believe that such a character,far from having pardoned you,has taken the greatest pains to get me to espouse his side in the difficulty.However he,who will usually fly into a passion and talk fiercely if a fly tickles him,recited his griefs to me with an air of moderation and a tranquillity of tone which astonished me to the last degree.As I endeavored to discover a reason for this,I happened to raise my eyes to the images of St.George and St.Sergius which decorate one of the corners of his room,and before which he was in the habit of saying his prayers every morning.What was my surprise,my grief,when I perceived that the two saints had suffered shameful outrages.One had no legs,the other was disfigured by a horrible scar.With hands raised to Heaven,I threatened him with the thunder of God.Without being excited,without changing countenance,he left his chair,came to me and placed his hand on my mouth.'Father,'said he,with an air of assurance which awed me,'listen to me.I have been wrong,if you wish it so,and still,under the same circumstances,I should do it again,for since I have chastised them,the two saints have decided to come to my aid,and the very day after their punishment,without any change in my life,all at once I felt my heart become lighter;for the first time,I swear to you,a ray of celestial hope penetrated my soul.'What do you say to that,my child?I had often heard similar things related,but I did not believe them.Little boys may be whipped,but as for saints!--Ah!my dear child,the ways of God are very strange,and there are many great mysteries in this world."Father Alexis had such an impressive air in speaking of this great mystery,that Gilbert was tempted to laugh;but he controlled himself;he was too grateful for his obliging narrative,and could have embraced him with all his heart.
"Good news!"said he to himself."That heart has become lighter;that 'ray of celestial hope.'Ah!God be praised,my effort has not been thrown away.St.George,St.Sergius,you rob me of my glory,but what matters it?I am content!""And what reply did you make to Stephane?"said he to the priest.
"Did you reprimand him?Did you congratulate him?""The case was delicate,"said the good father,with the air of a philosopher meditating on the most abstruse subject;"but I am not wanting in judgment,and I drew out of the affair with honor.""You managed admirably,"cried I,looking at him with admiration;then immediately putting on a serious face,"but the sin is enormous."The third day after,Gilbert didn't wait for the bell to ring for dinner before going down to the great hall.He was not very much surprised to find Stephane there.Leaning with his back against the sideboard,the young man,on seeing him appear,lost his composure,blushed,and turned his head towards the wall.Gilbert stopped a few steps from him.Then in an agitated manner,and with a voice at once gentle and abrupt,he said:
"And your arm?"
"It is nearly well.To-morrow I shall take off my sling."Stephane was silent for a moment.Then in a still lower voice:
"What do you mean to do?"murmured he;"what are your plans?""I wait to know your good pleasure,"replied Gilbert.
The young man covered his eyes with both hands,and,as Gilbert said no more,he seemed to feel a thrill of impatience and vexation.
"His pride demands some mercy,"thought Gilbert."I will spare him the mortification of making the first advances.""I should like very much to have a conversation with you,"said he gently."This cannot be upon the terrace,Ivan will not leave you alone there.Does he keep you company in your room in the evening?""Are you jesting?"answered Stephane,raising his head."After nine o'clock Ivan never comes near my room.""And his room,if I am not mistaken,"answered Gilbert,"is separated from you by a corridor and a staircase.So we shall run no risk of being overheard."Stephane turned towards him and looked him in the face."You think of everything,"said he,with a smile,sad and ironical.
"Apparently,to reach me,you will be obliged to mount a swallow.
Have you made your arrangements with one?""I shall come over the roofs,"said Gilbert quietly.
"Impossible!"cried Stephane."In the first place,I do not wish you to risk your life for me again.And then--""And then you do not care for my visit?"
Stephane only answered him by a look.
At this moment steps sounded in the vestibule.When the Count entered,Gilbert was pacing the further end of the hall,and Stephane,with his back turned,was attentively observing one of the carved figures upon the wainscoting.M.Leminof,stopping at the threshold of the door,looked at them both with a quizzical air.
"It was time for me to arrive,"said he,laughing."This is an embarrassing tete-a-tete."XIV
At about ten o'clock Gilbert began to make preparations for his expedition.He had no fear of being surprised;his evenings were his own--that was a point agreed upon between the Count and himself.He had also just heard the great door of the corridor roll upon its hinges.On the side of the terrace the thick branches of the trees concealed him from the watchdogs which,had they suspected the adventure,could have given the alarm.There was nothing to fear from the hillock below the precipice;it was frequented only by the young girl who tended the goats and who was not in the habit of allowing them to roam so late among the rocks.
Besides,the night,serene and without a moon,was propitious;no other light than the discreet glistening of the stars which would help to guide him,without being bright enough to betray or disturb him;the air was calm,a scarcely perceptible breeze stirred at intervals the leaves of the trees without agitating the branches.
Thanks to this combination of favorable circumstances,Gilbert's enterprise was not desperate;but he did not dream of deceiving himself in regard to its dangers.
The castle clock had just struck ten when he extinguished his lamp and opened the window.There he remained a long time leaning upon his elbows:his eyes at last familiarized themselves with the darkness,and favored by the glimmering of the stars,he began to recognize with but little effort the actual shape of the surrounding objects.The window was divided in two equal parts by a stone mullion,and had in front a wide shelf of basalt,surrounded by a balustrade.Gilbert fastened one of two knotted ropes with which he had supplied himself securely to the mullion;then he crept upon the ledge of basalt and stood there for a few moments contemplating the precipice in silence.In the gloomy and vaporous gulf which his eyes explored,he distinguished a wall of whitish rocks,which seemed to draw him towards them,and to provoke him to an aerial voyage.He took care not to abandon himself to this fatal attraction,and the uneasiness which it caused him disappearing gradually,he stretched out his head and was able to hang over the abyss with impunity.Proud at having subdued the monster,he gave himself up for a moment to the pleasure of gazing at a feeble light which appeared at a distance of sixty paces,and some thirty feet beneath him.This light came from Stephane's room;he had opened his window and closed the white curtains in such a way that his lamp,placed behind this transparent screen,could serve as a beacon to Gilbert without danger of dazzling him.
"I am expected,"said Gilbert to himself.
And immediately,bestriding the balustrade,he descended the swaying rope as readily as if he had never done anything else in his life.
He was now upon the roof.There he met with more difficulty.
Partly covered with zinc and partly with slate,this roof--the whole length of which he must traverse--was so steep and slippery that no one could stand erect on it.Gilbert seated himself and remained motionless for a moment to recover himself,and the better to decide upon his course.A few steps from this point,a huge dormer window rose,with triangular panes of glass,and reached to within two feet of the spout.Gilbert resolved to make his way by this narrow pass,and from tile to tile he pushed himself in that direction.It will readily be believed that he advanced but slowly,much more so on account of his left arm,which,as it still pained him,required to be carefully managed;but by dint of patience and perseverance he passed beyond the dormer window,and at length arrived safely at the extremity of the roof,just in front of Stephane's window.
"God be praised,the most difficult part is over,"he said to himself,breathing freely.
But he was far from correct in his supposition.It is true he had now only to descend upon the little roof,cross it,and climb to the window,which was but breast-high;but before descending it was necessary to find some support--stone,wood or iron,to which he could fasten the second rope,which he had brought wound about his neck,shoulders,and waist.Unfortunately he discovered nothing.
At last,in leaning over,he perceived at the outer angle of the wall a large iron corbel,which seemed to sustain the projecting roof;but to his great chagrin,he ascertained at the same time,that the great roof passed three feet beyond the line of the small one,and that if even he should succeed in attaching his second rope to the corbel,the other end of it would float in empty space.
This reflection made him shudder;and turning his eyes from the precipice,he examined the ridge-pole,where he thought he saw a piece of iron projecting.He was not mistaken:it was a kind of ornamental molding,which formed the pediment of the ridge.It was not without great effort that he raised himself even there,and when he found himself seated astride the beam,he rested a few moments to breathe,and to study the strange spectacle before him.
His view embraced an immense extent of abrupt,irregular roofing,from every part of which rose turrets of every kind,in the shape of extinguishers,pointed gables,corners,retreating or salient angles,bell-towers,open to the daylight,profound depths where the gloom thickened,grinning chimneys,heavy weathercocks cutting the milky way with their iron rods and feathered arrows;from the top of the chapel steeple a great cross of stone,seeming to stretch out its arms;here and there the whitish zinc,cutting the dark blue of the slates;in spots an indistinct glittering and flashes of pale light enveloped in opaque shadows,and then the tops of three or four large trees which extended beyond the eaves,as if prying into the secrets of the attic.By the glittering light of the stars,the slightest peculiarity in the architecture assumed singular contours,fantastic figures were profiled upon the horizon like Chinese shadows;everywhere an air of mystery,of curiosity,of wild surprise.All these shadows leaned towards Gilbert,examined him,and interrogated him by their looks.
When he had recovered breath,Gilbert approached the projecting ornament from which he proposed to suspend his rope;he had been greatly deceived;he found that this ovolo of sheet iron,for a long time roughly used by the elements,held only by a wretched nail,and that it would inevitably yield to the least strain.
"It is decided,"said he."I must go by the iron corbel!"And although it cost him an effort,his mind was soon resolutely fixed.
Impatient at the loss of so many steps and at the waste of so much precious time in vain efforts,he redescended the roof much more actively than he had mounted it.Arriving below,and by the power of his will conquering a new attack of vertigo with which he felt himself threatened,he lay down upon his face parallel with the spout,and advancing his head and arm beyond the roof he succeeded,not without much trouble,in tying the cord firmly to the iron corbel.This done,without loitering to see it float,he swung himself slowly round,and let himself glide over the edge of the roof as far as his armpits,resting suspended by the elbows.
Critical moment!If but a lath,but a nail should break--He had no time to make this alarming reflection;he was too much occupied in drawing towards him with his feet the rope,and when at length he succeeded,detaching his left arm from the roof,he seized the corbel firmly,and soon after,his right hand removing itself in its turn,firmly grasped the rope.
"That's not bad for a beginner,"thought he.
He then began to descend,giving careful attention to every movement.But at the moment when his feet had reached the level of the small roof,having had the imprudence to look down into the space beneath him,he was suddenly seized with a dizziness a thousand times more terrible than he had yet experienced.The whole valley began to be agitated,and rolled and pitched terribly.
By turns it seemed to rise to the sky or sink into the bowels of the earth.Presently the motion was accelerated,trees and stones,mountains and plains were all confounded in one black whirlwind,which struggled with increasing fury,and from which came forth flashes of lightning and balls of fire.Restored to himself after a few minutes,to dispel the emotion which his frightful nightmare caused him,he had recourse to old Homer,and recited in one breath that passage of the Iliad where the divine bard describes the joy of a herdsman contemplating the stars from a craggy height.
Gilbert never,in after life,read these verses without recalling the sweet but terrible moment when he recited them suspended in mid-air;above his head the infinite smile of starry fields,and under his feet the horrors of a precipice.As soon as he felt more calm,he commenced the task of effecting his descent upon the small roof,less steep than the other,and covered with hollow tiles which left deep grooves between them.To crown his good fortune,the spout was surmounted from place to place by iron ornaments imbedded in the wall and rolled up in the form of scrolls.Gilbert imparted an oscillating motion to the rope,and when it had become strong enough to make this improvised swing graze the gutter,choosing his time well,he disengaged his right foot and planted it firmly in one of the grooves,loosening at the same time his right hand and quickly seizing one of the scrolls.Midnight sounded,and Gilbert was astonished to find that he had spent two hours upon his adventurous excursion.To mount the roof halfway,cross it,and climb into the window was but a slight affair,after which,turning the curtains aside with his hand,he called in a soft voice:"Am Iexpected?"and leaped with a bound into the room.
