Kitabı oku: «The Mesmerist's Victim», sayfa 4

CHAPTER X
A SEANCE OF MESMERISM

IT was six P. M.

Saint Claude Street was in the outskirts on the main road to the Bastile Prison. The house of the Count Felix, alias Baron Balsamo, was a strong building, like a castle; and besides a room used for a chemical laboratory, another study, where the sage Althotas, to whom the duke alluded, concocted his elixir of long life, and the reception rooms, an inner house, to which secret passages led, was secluded from ordinary visitors.

In a richly furnished parlor of this secret annex, the mysterious man who, with masonic signs and words, had collected his followers on Louis XV. Place, and saved Andrea upon Gilbert’s appeal – he was seated by a lovely Italian woman who seemed rebellious to his entreaties. She had no voice but to reproach and her hand was raised to repulse though it was plain that he adored her and perhaps for that reason.

Lorenza Feliciani was his wife, but she railed at him for keeping her a prisoner, and a slave, and envied the fate of wild birds.

It was clear that this frail and irritable creature took a large place in his bosom if not in his life.

“Lorenza,” he softly pleaded, “why do you, my darling, show this hostility and resistance? Why will you not live with one who loves you beyond expression as a sweet and devoted wife? Then would you have nothing farther to long for, free to bloom in the sunshine like the flowers and spread your wings like the birds you envy. We might go about in company where the fictitious sun, artificial light, glows on the assemblies of society. You would be happy according to your tastes and make me happy in my own way. Why will you not partake of this pleasure, Lorenza, when you have beauty to make all women jealous?”

“Because you horrify me – you are not religious, and you work your will by the black art!” replied the woman haughtily.

“Then live as you condemn yourself,” he replied with a look of anger and pity; “and do not complain at what your pride earns you.”

“I should not complain if you would only leave me alone and not force me to speak to you. Let me die in my cage, for I will not sing to you.”

“You are mad,” said Balsamo with an effort and trying to smile; “for you know that you shall not die while I am at hand to guard and heal you.”

“You will not heal me on the day when you find me hanging at my window bars,” she screamed.

He shuddered.

“Or stabbed to the heart by this dagger.”

Pale and perspiring icily, Balsamo looked at the exasperated female, and replied in a threatening voice:

“You are right; I should not cure you, but I would revive you!”

The Italian woman uttered a shriek of terror for knowing there was no bounds to the magician’s powers – she believed this – and he was saved.

A bell rang three times and at equal intervals.

“My man Fritz,” said Balsamo, “notifying me that a messenger is here – in haste – ”

“Good, at last you are going to leave me,” said Lorenza spitefully.

“Once again,” he responded, taking her cold hand, “but for the last time. Let us dwell in pleasant union; for as fate has joined us, let us make fate our friend, not an executioner.”

She answered not a word; her dead and fixed eyes seemed to seek in vacancy some thought which constantly escaped her because she had too long sought it, as the sun blinds those who wish to see the very origin of the light. He kissed her hand without her giving any token of life. As then he walked over to the fireplace, she awoke from her torper and let her gaze fall greedily upon him.

“Ha, ha,” he said, “you want to know how I leave these issueless rooms so that you may escape some day and do me harm, and my brothers of the Masonic Order by revelations. That is why you are so wide awake.”

But extending his hands, with painful constraint on himself, he made a pass while darting the magnetic fluid from palm and eye upon her eyes and breast, saying imperatively:

“Sleep!”

Scarcely was the word pronounced before Lorenza bent like a lily on its stalk; her swinging head inclined and leaned on the sofa cushions; her dead white hands slid down by her sides, rustling her silky dress.

Seeing how beautiful she was, Balsamo went up to her and placed a kiss on her brow.

Thereupon her whole countenance brightened up, as if the breath from Love’s own lips had dispelled the cloud; her mouth tremulously parted, her eyes swam in voluptuous tears, and she sighed like those angels may have sighed for the sons of man, when the world was young.

For an instant the mesmerist contemplated her as one unable to break off his ecstasy but as the bell rang again, he sprang to the fireplace, touched a spring to make the black plate swing aside like a door and so entered the house in Saint Claude Street.

In a parlor was a German servant confronting a man in courier’s attire and in horseman’s boots armed with large spurs. The vulgar visage announced one lowly born and yet his eyes were kindled with a spark of the holy fire which one superior’s mind may light.

His left hand leaned on a clubhandled whip while with his right he made signs which Balsamo understood, for he tapped his forehead with his forefinger to imply the same. The postilion’s hand then flew to his breast where he made a new sign which the uninitiated would have taken for undoing a button. To this the count responded by showing a ring on his finger.

“The Grand Master,” muttered the envoy, bending the knee to this redoubtable token.

“Whence come you?” asked Balsamo.

“From Rouen last. I am courier to the Duchess of Grammont, in whose service the Great Copt placed me with the order to have no secrets from the Master.”

“Whither go you?”

“To Versailles with a letter for the First Minister.”

“Hand it to me.”

The messenger gave Balsamo a letter from a leather bag strapped to his back.

“Wait, Fritz!” The German who had withdrawn, came to take “Sebastian” to the servant’ hall, and he went away, amazed that the Chief knew his name.

“He knows all,” remarked the servant.

Remaining alone Balsamo looked at the clear impression of the seal on the wax which the courier’s glance had seemed to beg him to respect. Slowly and thoughtfully, he went upstairs to the room where he had left Lorenza in the mesmeric slumber. She had not stirred, but she was fatigued and unnerved by the inaction. She grasped his hand convulsively when offered. He took her by the hand which squeezed his convulsively and on her heart laid the letter.

“Do you see – what do I hold in my hand – can you read this letter?”

With her eyes closed, her bosom heaving, Lorenza recited the following words which the mesmerist wrote down by this wonderful dictation.

“DEAR BROTHER: As I foresaw, my exile has brought me some good. I saw the President of the Parliament at Rouen who is on our side but timid. I pressed him in your name and, deciding, he will send the remonstrances of his friends before the week is out, to Versailles. I am off at once to Rennes, to stir up Karadeuc and Lachalotais who have gone to sleep. Our Caudebec agent was at Rouen, and I saw him. England will not pause on the road, but is preparing a smart advice for the Versailles Cabinet. X asked me if it should go and I authorized it. You will receive the very latest lampoons against Dubarry’s squibs, but they will raise a town. An evil rumor has reached me that you were in disgrace but I laugh at it since you have not written me to that effect. Still do not leave me in doubt, but write me by return of courier. Your next will find me at Caen, where I have some of our adherents to warm up. Farewell, with kisses, Your loving

“DUCHESS DE GRAMMONT.”

Balsamo’s forehead had cleared as the clairvoyante proceeded. “A curious document,” he commented, “which would be paid for dearly. How can they write such damning things? It is always women who ruin superior men. This Choiseul could not be overthrown by an army of enemies or a multitude of intrigues, and lo! the breath of a woman crushes him while caressing. If we have a heart, and a sensitive cord in that heart, we are lost.”

So saying he looked tenderly towards Lorenza who palpitated under his regard.

“Is what I think true?” he asked her.

“No,” she answered, ardently; “You see that I love you too well to destroy you as a senseless and heartless woman would do.”

Alas! in her mesmeric trance she spoke and felt just the contrary to what swayed her in her waking mood.

He let the arms of his enchantress interlace him till the warning bell of Fritz sounded twice.

“Two visits,” he interpreted.

A violent peal finished the telegraphed phrase.

Disengaging himself from Lorenza’s clasp, Balsamo left the room, the woman being still in the magnetic sleep. On the way he met the courier.

“Here is the letter. Bear it to the address. That is all.”

The adept of the Order looked at the envelope and the seal, and seeing that both were intact, he manifested his joy, and disappeared in the shadows.

“What a pity I could not keep such an autograph,” sighed the magician “and what a pity it cannot be placed by sure hands before the King.”

“Who is there?” he asked of Fritz who appeared.

“A young and pretty lady with an old gentleman whom I do not know as they have never called before.”

“Where are they?”

“In the parlor.”

Balsamo walked into the room where the countess had concealed her face completely in her cloak hood; she looked like a woman of the lower middle class. The marshal, more shrinking than she, was garbed in grey like an upper servant in a good house.

“My lord count,” began Dubarry, “do you know me?”

“Perfectly, my lady the countess. Will you please take a seat, and also your companion.”

“My steward,” said the lady.

“You are in error,” said the host bowing; “this is the Duke of Richelieu, whom I readily recognize and who would be very ungrateful if he did not recall one who saved his life – I might say drew him back from among the dead.”

“Oh, do you hear that, duke?” exclaimed the lady laughing.

“You, saved my life, count?” questioned Richelieu, in consternation.

“Yes, in Vienna, in 1725, when your grace was Ambassador there.”

“You were not born at that date!”

“I must have been, my lord,” replied Balsamo smiling, “for I met you dying, say dead, on a handbarrow with a fine swordthrust right through your midriff. By the same token, I dropped a little of my elixir on the gash – there, at the very place where you wear lace rather too rich for a steward!”

“But you are scarce over thirty, count,” expostulated the duke.

“But you must see that you are facing a wizard,” said the countess bursting into laughter.

“I am stupefied. In that case you would be – ”

“Oh, we wizards change our names for every generation, my lord. In 1725, the fashion for us was to end in us, os or as, and there is no ground for astonishment that I should have worn a name either in Greek or Latin. But, Althotas or Balsamo, or Fenix, I am at your orders, countess – and at yours, duke.”

“Count, the marshal and I have come to consult you.”

“It is doing me much honor, but it is natural that you should apply to me.”

“Most naturally, for your prediction that I should become a queen is always trotting in my brain: still I doubt its coming true.”

“Never doubt what science says, lady.”

“But the kingdom is in a sore way – it would want more than three drops of the elixir which sets a duellist on his legs.”

“Ay, but three words may knock a minister off his!” retorted the magician. “There, have I hit it? Speak!”

“Perfectly,” replied the fair visitress trembling. “Truly, my lord duke, what do you say to all this?”

“Oh, do not be wonderstricken for so little,” observed Balsamo, who could divine what troubled so the favorite and the court conspirator without any witchcraft.

“The fact is I shall think highly of you if you suggest the remedy we want,” went on the marshal.

“You wish to be cured of the attacks of Choiseul?”

“Yes, great soothsayer, yes.”

“Do not leave us in the plight, my lord; your honor is at stake,” added the lovely woman.

“I am ready to serve you to my utmost; but I should like to hear if the duke had not some settled plan in calling.”

“I grant it, my lord count – Faith! it is nice to have a man of title for wizard, it does not take us out of our class.”

“Come, be frank,” said the host smiling. “You want to consult me?”

“But I can only whisper it in the strictest privacy to the count because you would beat me if you overheard, countess.”

“The duke is not accustomed to being beaten,” remarked Balsamo, which delighted the old warrior.

“The long and the short of it is that the King is dying of tedium.”

“He is no longer amusable, as Lady Maintenon used to say.”

“Nothing in that hurts my feelings, duke,” said Lady Dubarry.

“So much the better, which puts me at my ease. Well, we want an elixir to make the King merry.”

“Pooh, any quack at the corner will provide such a philter.”

“But we want the virtue to be attributed to this lady,” resumed the duke.

“My lord, you are making the lady blush,” said Balsamo. “But as we were saying just now, no philter will deliver you of Choiseul. Were the King to love this lady ten times more than at present – which is impossible – the minister would still preserve over his mind the hold which the lady has over his heart?”

“That is true,” said the duke. “But it was our sole resource.”

“I could easily find another.”

“Easily? do you hear that, countess? These magicians doubt nothing.”

“Why should I doubt when the simple matter is to prove to the King that the Duke of Choiseul betrays him – from the King’s point of view, for of course the duke does not think he is betraying him, in what he does.”

“And what is he doing?”

“You know as well as I, countess, that he is upholding Parliamentary opposition against the royal authority.”

“Certainly, but by what means?”

“By agents who foster the movement while he warrants their impunity.”

“But we want to know these agents.”

“The King sees in the journey of Lady Grammont merely an exile but you cannot believe that she went for any other errand than to fan the ardent and fire the cool.”

“Certainly, but how to prove the hidden aim?”

“By accusing the lady.”

“But the difficulty is in proving the accusation,” said the countess.

“Were it clearly proved, would the duke remain Prime Minister?”

“Surely not!” exclaimed the countess.

“This necromancer is delightful,” said old Richelieu, laughing heartily as he leaned back in his chair: “catch Choiseul redhanded in treason? that is all, and quite enough, too, ha, ha, ha!”

“Would not a confidential letter do it?” said Balsamo impassibly. “Say from Lady Grammont?”

“My good wizard, if you could conjure up one!” said the countess. “I have been trying to get one for five years and spent a hundred thousand francs a year and have never succeeded.”

“Because, madam, you did not apply to me. I should have lifted you out of the quandary.”

“Oh, I hope it is not too late!”

“It is never too late,” said Count Fenix, smiling.

“Then you have such a letter?” said the lady, clasping her hands. “Which would compromise Choiseul?”

“It would prove he sustains the Parliament in its bout with the King; eggs on England to war with France; so as to keep him indispensable: and is the enemy of your ladyship.”

“I would give one of my eyes to have it.”

“That would be too dear; particularly as I shall give you the letter for nothing.” And he drew a piece of paper folded twice from his pocket.

“The letter you want!” And in the deepest silence the letter was read by him which he had transcribed from Lorenza’s thought reading.

The countess stared as he proceeded and lost countenance.

“This is a slanderous forgery – deuce take it, have a care!” said Richelieu.

“It is the plain, literal copy of a letter from Lady Grammont on the way, by a courier from Rouen this morning, to the Duke de Choiseul at Versailles.”

“The duchess wrote such an imprudent letter?”

“It is incredible, but she has done it.”

The old courtier looked over to the countess who had no strength to say anything.

“Excuse me, count,” she said, “but I am like the duke, hard to accept this as written by the witty lady, and damaging herself and her brother; besides to have knowledge of it one must have read it.”

“And the count would have kept the precious original as a treasure,” suggested the marshal.

“Oh,” returned Balsamo, shaking his head gently; “that is the way with those who break open seals to read letters but not for those who can read through the envelopes. Fie, for shame! Besides, what interest have I in destroying Lady Grammont and the Choiseuls? You come in a friendly way to consult me and I answer in that manner. You want service done, and I do it. I hardly suppose you came fee in hand, as to a juggler in the street?”

“Oh, my lord!” exclaimed Dubarry.

“But who advised you, count?” asked Richelieu.

“You want to know in a minute as much as I, the sage, the adept, who has lived three thousand and seven hundred years.”

“Ah, you are spoiling the good opinion we had of you,” said the old nobleman.

“I am not pressing you to believe me, and it was not I who asked you to come away from the royal hunt.”

“He is right, duke,” said the lady visitor. “Do not be impatient with us, my lord.”

“The man is never impatient who has time on his hands.”

“Be so good – add this favor to the others you have done me, to tell me how you obtain such secrets?”

“I shall not hesitate, madam,” said Balsamo slowly as if he were matching words with her speech, “the revelation is made to me by a bodiless Voice. It tells me all that I desire.”

“Miraculous!”

“But you do not believe!”

“Honestly not, count,” said the duke; “how can you expect any one to believe such things?”

“Would you believe if I told you what the courier is doing who bears this letter to the Duke of Choiseul?”

“Of course,” responded the countess.

“I shall when I hear the voice,” subjoined the duke.

“But you magicians and necromanciers have the privilege of seeing and hearing the supernatural.”

Balsamo shot at the speaker so singular a glance that the countess thrilled in every vein and the sceptical egotist felt a chill down his neck and back.

“True,” said he, after a long silence, “I alone see and hear things and beings beyond your ken: but when I meet those of your grace’s rank and hight of intellect and of your beauty, fair lady, I open my treasures and share. You shall hear the mystic voice.”

The countess trembled, and the duke clenched his fist not to do the same.

“What language shall it use?”

“French,” faltered the countess. “I know no other and a strange one would give me too much fright.”

“The French for me,” said the duke. “I long to repeat what the devil says, and mark if he can discourse as correctly as my friend Voltaire.”

With his head lowered, Balsamo walked over to the little parlor door which opened on the secret stairs.

“Let me shut us in so that you will be less exposed to evil influences,” he explained.

Turning pale, the countess took the duke’s arm.

Almost touching the staircase door, Balsamo stepped into the corner where the inner dwelling was located, and where Lorenza was, and in a loud voice uttered in Arabic the words, which we translate:

“My dear, do you hear? if so, ring the bell twice.”

He watched for the effect on his auditor’ faces, for they were the more touched from not understanding the speech. The bell rang twice. The countess bounded up on the sofa and the duke wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.

“Since you hear me,” went on the magician in the same tongue, “push the marble knob which represents the lion’s right eye in the mantelpiece of sculpture, and a panel will open. Walk through the opening, cross my room, come down the stairs, and enter the room next where I am speaking.”

Next instant, a light rustle, like a phantom’s flight, warned Balsamo that his orders had been understood and carried out.

“What gibberish is that? the cabalistic?” queried Richelieu to appear cool.

“Yes, my lord, used in invocations of the demons. You will understand the Voice but not what I conjure it with.”

“Demons? is it the devil?”

“A superior being may invoke a superior spirit. This spirit is now in direct communication with us,” he said as he pointed to the wall which seemed to end the house and had not a perceptible break in it.

“I am afraid, duke – and are not you?”

“To tell the truth I would rather be back in the battles of Mahon or before Philipsburg.”

“Lady and lord, listen for you would hear,” said Balsamo sternly. In the midst of solemn silence, he proceeded in French:

“Are you there?”

“I am here,” replied a pure and silvery voice which penetrated the wall and tapestry so muffled as to seem a sweet-toned bell sounded at an incalculable distance, rather than a human voice.

“Plague on it! this is growing exciting,” said the duke; “and yet without red fire, the trombone, and the gong.”

“It is dreadful,” stammered the countess.

“Take heed of my questioning,” said Balsamo. “First tell me how many persons I have with me?”

“Two, a man and a woman: the man is the Duke of Richelieu, the woman, the Countess Dubarry.”

“Reading in his mind,” uttered the duke; “this is pretty clever.”

“I never saw the like,” said the countess, trembling.

“It is well,” said Balsamo; “now, read the first line of the letter which I hold.”

The Voice obeyed.

Duke and countess looked at each other with astonishment rising to admiration.

“What has happened to this letter, which I wrote under your dictation?”

“It is travelling to the west and is afar.”

“How is it travelling?”

“A horseman rides with it, clad in green vest, a hareskin cap and high boots. His horse is a piebald.”

“Where do you see him?” asked Balsamo sternly.

“On a broad road plated with trees.”

“The King’s highway – but which one?”

“I know not – roads are alike.”

“What other objects are on it?”

“A large vehicle is coming to meet the rider; on it are soldiers and priests – ”

“An omnibus,” suggested Richelieu.

“On the side at the top is the word ‘VERSAILLES.’”

“Leave this conveyance, and follow the courier.”

“I see him not – he has turned the road.”

“Take the turn, and after!”

“He gallops his horse – he looks at his watch – ”

“What see you in front of him?”

“A long avenue – splendid buildings – a large town.”

“Go on.”

“He lashes his steed; it is streaming with sweat – poor horse! the people turn to hear the ringing shoes on the stones. Ah, he goes down a long hilly street, he turns to the right, he slackens his pace, he stops at the door of a grand building.”

“You must now follow with attention. But you are weary. Be your weariness dispelled! Now, do you still see the courier?”

“Yes, he is going up a broad stone staircase, ushered by a servant in blue and gold livery. He goes through rooms decorated with gold. He reaches a lighted study. The footman opens the door for him and departs.”

“Enter, you! What see you?”

“The courier bows to a man sitting at a desk, whose back is to the door. He turns – he is in full dress with a broad blue ribbon crossing his breast. His eye is sharp, his features irregular, his teeth good; his age fifty or more.”

“Choiseul,” whispered the countess to the duke who nodded.

“The courier hands the man a letter – ”

“Say the duke – it is a duke.”

“A letter,” resumed the obedient Voice, “taken from a leather satchel worn on his back. Unsealing it, the duke reads it with attention. He takes up a pen and writes on a sheet of paper.”

“It would be fine if we could learn what he wrote,” said Richelieu.

“Tell me what he writes,” said Balsamo.

“It is fine, scrawling, bad writing.”

“Read, I will it!” said the magician’s imperative voice.

The auditors held their breath.

And they heard the voice say:

“DEAR SISTER: be of good heart. The crisis has passed. I await the morrow with impatience for I am going to take the offensive with all presaging decisive success. All well about the Rouen Parliament, Lord X., and the squibs. To-morrow, after business with the King, I will append a postscript to this letter and despatch by this courier.”

While with his left hand Balsamo seemed to wrest out each word with difficulty, with his right he wrote the lines which Duke Choiseul was writing in Versailles.

“What is the duke doing?”

“He folds up the paper and puts it in a small pocketbook taken from the left side of his coat. He dismisses the courier, saying: ‘Be at one o’clock at the Trianon gateway.’ The courier bows and comes forth.”

“That is so,” said Richelieu: “he is making an appointment for the man to get the answer.”

Balsamo silenced him with a gesture.

“What is the duke doing?”

“He rises, holding the letter he received. He goes to his couch, passes between its edge and the wall, pushes a spring which opens an iron safe in the wall, throws in the letter and shuts the safe.”

“Oh, pure magic!” ejaculated the countess and the marshal, both pallid.

“Do you know all you wished?” Balsamo asked La Dubarry.

“My lord,” said she, going to him, but in terror, “you have done me a service for which I would pay with five years of my life, or indeed I can never repay. Ask me anything you like.”

“Oh, you know we are already in account. The time is not come to settle.”

“You shall have it, were it a million – ”

“Pshaw, countess!” exclaimed the old nobleman, “you had better look to the count for a million. One who knows – who can see what he sees, might discover gold and diamonds in the bowels of the earth as he does thoughts in the mind of man.”

“Nay, countess, I will give you the chance some day of acquitting yourself as regards me.”

“Count,” said the duke, “I am subjugated, vanquished, crushed – I believe!”

“You know you saw but that is not belief.”

“Call it what you please; I know what I shall say if magicians are spoken of before me.”

“My Spirit is fatigued,” said Balsamo smiling: “let me release it by a magical spell. Lorenza,” he pursued, but in Arabic, “I thank you, and I love you. Return to your room as you came and wait for me. Go, my darling!”

“I am most tired – make haste, Acharat!” replied the Voice, in Italian, sweeter than during the invocation. And the faint sound as of a winged creature flying was heard diminishing.

Convinced of his medium’s departure in a few minutes, the mesmerist bowed profoundly but with majestic dignity to his two frightened visitors, absorbed in the flood of thoughts tumultuously overwhelming them. They got back to their carriage more like intoxicated persons than reasonable ones.