Kitabı oku: «The Infant's Skull; Or, The End of the World. A Tale of the Millennium»

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

Among the historic phenomena of what may be called "modern antiquity," there is none comparable to that which was witnessed on the first day of the year 1000, together with its second or adjourned catastrophe thirty-two years later. The end of the world, at first daily expected by the Apostles, then postponed – upon the authority of Judaic apocalyptic writings, together with the Revelations of St. John the Divine, – to the year 1000, and then again to thirty-two years later, until it was finally adjourned sine die, was one of those beliefs, called "theologic," that have had vast and disastrous mundane effect. The Infant's Skull; or, The End of the World, figures at that period. It is one of that series of charming stories by Eugene Sue in which historic personages and events are so artistically grouped that, without the fiction losing by the otherwise solid facts, and without the solid facts suffering by the fiction, both are enhanced, and combinedly act as a flash-light upon the past – and no less so upon the future.

As with all the stories of this series by the talented Sue, The Infant's Skull; or, The End of the World, although, one of the shortest, rescues invaluable historic facts from the dark and dusty recesses where only the privileged few can otherwise reach them. Thus its educational value is equal to its entertaining merit. It is a gem in the necklace of gems that the distinguished author has felicitously named The Mysteries of the People; or The History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages.

DANIEL DE LEON.

New York, April 20, 1904.

PART I.
THE CASTLE OF COMPIEGNE

CHAPTER I.
THE FOUNTAIN OF THE HINDS

A spring of living water, known in the neighborhood by the appropriate name of the "Fountain of the Hinds," empties its trickling stream under the oaks of one of the most secret recesses of the forest of Compiegne. Stags and hinds, deers and does, bucks and she-goats come to water at the spot, leaving behind them numerous imprints of their steps on the borders of the rill, or on the sandy soil of the narrow paths that these wild animals have worn across the copse.

One early morning in the year 987, the sun being up barely an hour, a woman, plainly dressed and breathing hard with rapid walking, stepped out of one of these paths and stopped at the Fountain of the Hinds. She looked in all directions in surprise as if she expected to have been preceded by some one at the solitary rendezvous. Finding her hopes deceived, she made an impatient motion, sat down, still out of breath, on a rock near the fountain, and threw off her cape.

The woman, barely twenty years of age, had black hair, eyes and eye-brows; her complexion was brown; and cherry-red her lips. Her features were handsome, while the mobility of her inflated nostrils and the quickness of her motions betokened a violent nature. She had rested only a little while when she rose again and walked up and down with hurried steps, stopping every now and then to listen for approaching footsteps. Catching at last the sounds of a distant footfall, she thrilled with joy and ran to the encounter of him she had been expecting. He appeared. It was a man, also in plain garb and in the vigor of age, large-sized and robust, with a piercing eye and somber, wily countenance. The young woman leaped at a bound into the arms of this personage, and passionately addressed him: "Hugh, I meant to overwhelm you with reproaches; I meant to strike you; but here you are and I forget everything," and in a transport of amorous delight she added, suiting the deed to the words: "Your lips! Oh, give me your lips to kiss!"

After the exchange of a shower of kisses, and disengaging himself, not without some effort, from the embrace of the fascinated woman, Hugh said to her gravely: "We cannot indulge in love at this hour."

"At this hour, to-day, yesterday, to-morrow, everywhere and always, I love and shall continue to love you."

"Blanche, they are foolhardy people who use the word 'always,' when barely fourteen years separate us from the term assigned for the end of the world! This is a grave and a fearful matter!"

"What! Can you have given me this early morning appointment at this secreted place, whither I have come under pretext of visiting the hermitage of St. Eusebius, to talk to me about the end of the world? Hugh … Hugh… To me there is no end of the world but when your love ends!"

"Trifle not with sacred matters! Do you not know that in fourteen years, the first day of the year 1000, this world will cease to be and with it the people who inhabit it?"

Struck by the coldness of her lover's answers, Blanche brusquely stepped back. Her brows contracted, her nostrils dilated, her breast heaved in pain, and she darted a look at Hugh that seemed to wish to fathom the very bottom of his heart. For a few instants her gaze remained fixed upon him; she then cried in a voice trembling with rage: "You love some other woman! You love me no more!"

"Your words are senseless!"

"Heaven and earth! Am I also to be despised… I the Queen!.. Yes, you love some other woman, your own wife, perhaps; that Adelaide of Poitiers whom you promised me you would rid yourself of by a divorce!" Further utterances having expired upon her lips, the wife of King Louis the Do-nothing broke down sobbing, and with eyes that glistened with fury she shook her fists at the Count of Paris: "Hugh, if I were sure of that, I would kill both you and your wife; I would stab you both to death!"

"Blanche," said Hugh slowly and watching the effect of his words upon the face of the Queen, who, with eyes fixed upon the ground, seemed to be meditating some sinister project: "I am not merely Count of Paris and Duke of France, as my ancestors were, I am also Abbot of Saint Martin of Tours and of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, abbot not only by virtue of my cowl – but by virtue of my faith. Accordingly, I blame your incredulity on the subject of the approaching end of the world. The holiest bishops have prophesied it, and have urged the faithful to hasten to save their souls during the fourteen years that still separate them from the last judgment… Fourteen years!.. A very short period within which to gain the eternal paradise!"

"By the hell that burns in my heart, the man is delivering a sermon to me!" cried the Queen with an outburst of caustic laughter. "What are you driving at? Are you spreading a snare for me? Malediction! this man is a compound of ruse, artifice and darkness, and yet I love him! I am insane!.. Oh, there must be some magic charm in this!" and biting into her handkerchief with suppressed rage, she said to him: "I shall not interrupt again, even if I should choke with anger. Proceed, Hugh the Capet! Explain yourself!"

"Blanche, the approach of the dreadful day when the world is to end makes me uneasy about my salvation. I look with fright at our double adultery, seeing we are both married." Stopping with a gesture a fresh explosion of rage on the part of the Queen, the Count of Paris added solemnly raising his hand heavenward: "I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, were you a widow, I would obtain a divorce from the Pope, and I would marry you with holy joy. But likewise do I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, I wish no longer to brave eternal punishment by continuing a criminal intercourse with a woman bound, as I am myself, by the sacrament of marriage. I wish to spend in the mortification of the flesh, in fasting, abstinence, repentance and prayer the years that still separate us from the year 1000, to the end that I may obtain from our Lord God the remission of my sins and of my adultery with you. Blanche, seek not to alter my decision. According as the caprice of your love led you, you have alternately boasted over and cursed the inflexibility of my character. Now, what I have said is said. This shall be the last day of our adulterous intercourse. Our carnal relations shall then end."

While Hugh the Capet was speaking, the wife of Louis the Do-nothing contemplated his face with devouring attention. When he finished, so far from breathing forth desperate criminations, she carried both her hands to her forehead and seemed steeped in mediation. Looking askance upon Blanche, the Count of Paris anxiously waited for the first word from the Queen. Finally, a tremor shook her frame, she raised her head, as if struck by a sudden thought, and curbing her emotions she asked: "Do you believe that King Lothaire, the father of my husband Louis, died of poison in March of last year?"

"I believe he was poisoned."

"Do you believe that Imma, his wife, was guilty of poisoning her husband?"

"She is accused of the crime."

"Do you believe Imma guilty of the crime?"

"I believe what I see."

"And when you do not see?"

"Doubt is then natural."

"Do you know that in that murder Queen Imma's accomplice was her lover Adalberon, bishop of Laon?"

"It was a great scandal to the church!"

"After the poisoning of Lothaire, the Queen and the bishop, finally delivered from the eyes of her husband, indulged their love more freely."

"A double and horrible sacrilege!" cried the Count of Paris with indignation. "A bishop and a Queen adulterers and homicides!"

Blanche seemed astonished at the indignation of Hugh the Capet and again contemplated him attentively. She then proceeded with her interrogatory:

"Are you aware, Count of Paris, that King Lothaire's death is a happy circumstance for you – provided you were ambitious? Bishop Adalberon, the accomplice and lover of the Queen, that bishop, expert in poisons, was your friend!"

"He was my friend before his crime."

"You repudiate his friendship, but you profit by his crime. That is high statecraft."

"In what way, Blanche, have I profited by that odious crime? Does not the son of Lothaire reign to-day? When my ancestors, the Counts of Paris, aspired at the crown they did not assassinate the kings, they dethroned them. Thus Eudes dethroned Charles the Fat, and Rothbert, Charles the Simple. A transmission of crowns is easy."

"All of which did not prevent Charles the Simple, the nephew of Charles the Fat from re-ascending the throne, the same as Louis Outer-mer, the son of Charles the Simple, also resumed his crown. On the other hand, King Lothaire, who was poisoned last year, will never reign again. Whence we see, it is better to kill the kings than to dethrone them … if one wishes to reign in their stead. Not so, Count of Paris?"

"Yes, provided one does not care for the excommunications of the bishops, nor for the eternal flames."

"Hugh, if perchance my husband, although young, should die?.. That might happen."

"The will of the Lord is all-powerful," answered Hugh with a contrite air. "There be those who to-day are full of life and youth, and to-morrow are corpses and dust! The designs of God are impenetrable."

"So that if perchance the King, my husband, should die," rejoined Blanche, without taking her eyes from the face of the Count of Paris, "in short, if some day or other I become a widow – your scruples will then cease … my love will no longer be adulterous, would it, Hugh?"

"No, you would then be free."

"And will you remain faithful to what you have just said … 'Blanche, I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, if you should become a widow I shall separate from my wife Adelaide of Poitiers, and I shall marry you with a pure and holy joy.' … Will you be faithful to that oath?"

"Blanche, I repeat it," answered Hugh the Capet avoiding the Queen's eyes that remained obstinately fixed upon him. "I swear to God by the salvation of my soul, if you become a widow I shall demand of the Pope permission to divorce Adelaide of Poitiers, and I shall marry you. Our love will then have ceased to be criminal."

An interval of silence again followed the words of the Count of Paris, whereupon Blanche resumed slowly:

"Hugh, there are strange and sudden deaths."

"Indeed, strange and sudden deaths have been seen in royal families."

"None is safe from accident. Neither princes nor subjects."

"Only the will of heaven disposes of our fates. We must bow before the decrees of God."

"My husband, Louis, the Do-nothing, is, like all other people, subject to death and the decrees of Providence."

"Indeed, kings as well as subjects."

"It may then happen, although he is now barely twenty, that he die suddenly … within a year … within six months … to-morrow … to-day…"

"Man's end is death."

"Should that misfortune arrive," the Queen proceeded after a pause, "there is one thing that alarms me, Hugh, and on which I desire your advice."

"What, my dear Blanche?"

"Calumniators, seeing Louis dies so suddenly, might talk … about poison."

"A pure conscience despises calumny. The wicked may be disregarded."

"Oh, as to me, I would despise them. But, you, Hugh, my beloved, whatever may be said, would you also accuse me of being a poisoner? Would you pass such a judgment upon me?"

"I believe what I see… If I do not see, I doubt. Blanche, may the curse of heaven fall upon me if I ever could be infamous enough to conceive such a suspicion against you!" cried Hugh the Capet taking the Queen in his arms with passionate tenderness. "What! If the Lord should call your husband to Him He would fulfil the most cherished dreams of my life! He would allow me to sanctify with marriage the ardent love that I would sacrifice everything to, everything except my eternal salvation! And would I, instead of thanking God, suspect you of an odious crime! You the soul of my life!"

The Queen seemed overwhelmed with ecstacy. Hugh the Capet proceeded in a low and tremulous voice: "Oh, joy of my heart, if some day you should be my wife before God, our souls would then merge in one and in a love that would then be pure and holy. Then, Oh joy of Heaven, we shall not age! The end of the world approaches. Together we shall quit life full of ardor and love!" saying which the Count of Paris drew his mouth close to the lips of the Queen. The latter closed her eyes and muttered a few words in a faint voice. Hugh the Capet, however, suddenly and with great effort disengaged himself from Blanche's arms exclaiming: "A superhuman courage is needed to overcome the passion that consumes me! Adieu, Blanche, well-beloved of my heart, I return to Paris!"

With these words Hugh the Capet disappeared in the copse, while the Queen, overpowered with passion and the struggle within herself, followed him with her eyes: "Hugh, my lover, I shall be a widow, and you King!"