Читать книгу The Max Brand Megapack - Max Brand - Страница 10
ОглавлениеOUT OF THE DARK (1920)
The principality of Pornia is not a large country and in the ordinary course of history it should have been swallowed entire, centuries ago, by one of the kingdoms which surround it. Its situation has saved it from this fate, for it is the buffer state between two great monarchies whose jealousy has preserved for Pornia an independent existence.
Despite its independence, Pornia has never received much consideration from the rest of Europe, and the aim of its princes for many generations has been to foist it into the great councils by a strong alliance with one of the two kingdoms to which it serves as a buffer.
The long-desired opportunity came at last in the reign of Alexander VI, who, one morning, commanded Rudolph of Herzvina to appear at the palace. As soon as the worthy old baron appeared, Alexander spoke to him as follows: “Rudolph, you are an old and respected counselor, a devoted servant of the State, and therefore I am delighted to announce that the greatest honor is about to descend upon your family, an honor so great that the entire State of Pornia will be elevated thereby. The Crown Prince Charles wishes to make your daughter his wife!”
At this he stepped back, the better to note the joy with which old Rudolph would receive this announcement, but, to his astonishment, the baron merely bowed his head and sighed.
“Your highness,” said Rudolph of Herzvina, “I have long known of the attachment which the crown prince has for my daughter, Bertha, but I fear that the marriage can never be consummated.”
“Come, come!” said the prince genially. “It is a far leap indeed from Baron of Herzvina to father-in-law to Prince Charles, but there have been stranger things in history than this, though never anything that could so effectually elevate Pornia. Have no fear of Charles. He loves your daughter; he is strong-minded as the very devil; he will override any opposition from his father. As a matter of fact, it is no secret that Charles is already practically the ruler over his kingdom. So rejoice, Herzvina, and I will rejoice with you!”
But the baron merely shook his head sadly and repeated: “I fear the marriage can never be consummated.”
“Why not?” said the prince in some heat. “I tell you, his royal highness loves the girl. I could read passion even in the stilted language of his ambassador’s message. Why not?”
“I was not thinking of his royal highness, but of the girl. She will not marry him.”
The prince dropped into a chair with jarring suddenness.
Rudolph continued hastily: “I have talked with Bertha many times and seriously of the matter; I have tried to convince her of her duty; but she will not hear me. The foolish girl says she does not love his highness.”
The prince smote his hands together in an ecstasy of impatience.
“Love! Love! In the name of God, Herzvina, what has love todo with this? This is the thing for which Pornia has waited during centuries. Through this alliance I can make a treaty that will place Pornia once and forever upon the map of the diplomatic powers. Love!”
“I have said all this to her, but she is obdurate.”
“Does she expect some fairy prince? She is not a child; she is not even—forgive me—beautiful.”
“True. She is not even pretty, but even homely women, your highness, will sometimes think of love. It is a weakness of the sex.”
He was not satirical; he was very earnest indeed. He continued: “I have tried every persuasion. She only says in reply: ‘He is too old. I cannot love him.’”
An inspiration came to Alexander of Pornia. Under the stress of it he rose and so far forgot himself as to clap a hand upon the shoulder of Herzvina. In so doing he had to reach up almost as high as his head, for the princes of Pornia have been small men, time out of mind.
“Baron,” he said, “will you let me try my hand at persuasion?”
“It would be an honor, sire. My family is ever at the disposal of my prince.”
He answered with a touch of emotion: “I know it, Rudolph; but will you trust the girl in my hands for a number of days? A thought has come to me. I know I can convince her that this love of which she dreams is a thing of the flesh alone, a physical necessity. Come, send her to me, and I shall tear away her illusions. She will not thank me for it, but she will marry the crown prince.”
“I will send her to the palace to-day.”
“Very good; and first tell her why I wish to speak with her. It may be that of herself she will change her mind when she learns the wishes of her prince. Farewell.”
And the prince rode off to a review of the troops of the city guard. So it was that Bertha of Herzvina sat for a long time in a lonely room, after her arrival at the palace before the door opened, a man in livery bowed for the entrance of the prince, and she found herself alone with her sovereign.
Automatically she curtsied, and he let her remain bowed while he slowly drew off his white gloves. He still wore his general’s uniform with the stiff padding which would not allow his body to grow old, for a prince of Pornia must always look the soldier.
“Sit down,” he ordered, and as she obeyed he commenced to walk the room.
He never sat quietly through an interview if he could avoid it; a constitutional weakness of the nerves made it almost impossible for him to meet another person’s eyes. The pacing up and down gave a plausible reason for the continual shifting of his glance.
“A good day, a very good day,” he said. “The hussars were wonderful.”
His shoulders strained further back. The prince himself always rode at the head of the hussars; in her childhood she had admired him. He stopped at a window and hummed a marching air. That was a planned maneuver, for his back was far more royal than his face, with its tall forehead and diminutive mouth and chin. She felt as if she were in the presence of a uniformed automaton.
He broke off his humming and spoke without turning.
“Well?”
“My decision is unchanged.”
“Impossible! In the length of a whole day even a woman must think twice.”
“Yes, many times.”
“You will not marry him?”
“I cannot love him.”
He whirled, and the pale blue eyes flashed at her a brief glance which made her cringe. It was as if an X-ray had been turned on her heart.
“Love!” he said softly, and she shuddered again. “Because he is old? Bertha, you are no longer a child. Other women marry for what they may term love. It is your privilege to marry for the State. That is the nobler thing.”
He smiled and nodded, repeating for his own ear: “The nobler thing! What is greater than such service—what is more glorious than to forget self and marry for the good of the thousands?”
“I have an obligation to myself.”
“Who has filled you with so many childish ideas?”
“They have grown of themselves, sire.”
The pacing up and down the room recommenced. “Child, have you no desire to serve me? I mean, your country?”
She answered slowly, as if feeling for her words: “It is impossible that I should be able to serve you through my dishonor. If I should marry the crown prince, my life would be one long sleep, sire. I would not dare awaken to the reality.”
His head tilted and he laughed noiselessly. A weakness of the throat prevented him from raising his voice even in times of the greatest excitement.
“A soul that sleeps, eh? The kiss of love will awaken it?”
He surveyed her with brief disdain.
“My dear, you scorn titles, and yet as an untitled woman you are not a match for the first red-faced tradesman’s daughter. Stand up!”
She rose and he led her in front of a pier glass. Solemnly he studied her pale image.
“A sleeping soul!” he repeated.
She covered her face.
“Will that bait catch the errant lover, Bertha?”
“God will make up the difference.”
He cursed softly. She had not known he could be so moved.
“Poor child, let me talk with you.”
He led her back to a chair almost with kindness and sat somewhat behind her so that he need not meet her eyes.
“This love you wait for—it is not a full-grown god, dear girl, but a blind child. Given a man and a woman and a certain propinquity, and nature does the rest. We put a mask on nature and call it love, we name an abstraction and call it God. Love! Love! Love! It is a pretty disguise—no more. Do you understand?”
“I will not.”
She listened to his quick breathing.
“Bertha, if I were to chain you with a ten-foot chain to the first man off the streets and leave you alone with him for three days, what would happen?”
Her hand closed on the arm of the chair. He rose and paced the room as his idea grew.
“Your eyes would criticize him and your shame would fight in behalf of your—soul? And the sight of your shame would keep the man in check. But suppose the room were dark—suppose you could not see his face and merely knew that a man was there—suppose he could not see and merely knew that a woman was there? What would happen? Would it be love? Pah! Love is no more deified than hunger. If it is satisfied, it goes to sleep; if it is satiated, it turns to loathing. Aye, at the end of the three days you would be glad enough to have the ten-foot chain cut. But first what would happen?”
The vague terror grew coldly in her, for she could see the idea taking hold of him like a hand.
“If I were to do this, the world might term it a shameful thing, but I act for Pornia—not for myself. I consider only the good of the State. By this experiment I prove to you that love is not God, but blind nature. Yes, and if you knew it as it is, would you oppose me longer? The thought grows upon me! Speak!”
Her smile made her almost beautiful.
“Sire, in all the world there is only one man for every woman.”
“Book talk.”
He set his teeth because he could not meet her eyes.
“And who will bring you this one man?”
“God.”
Once more the soundless laugh.
“Then I shall play the part of God. Bertha, you must now make your decision: a marriage for the good of the State, or the ten-foot chain, the dark room—and love!”
“Even you will not dare this, sire.”
“Bertha, there is nothing I do not dare. What would be known? I give orders that this room be utterly darkened; I send secret police to seize a man from the city at random and fetter him to a chain in that room; then I bring you to the room and fasten you to the other end of the chain, and for three days I have food introduced into the room. Results? For the man, death; for you, a knowledge first of yourself and, secondly, of love. The State will benefit.”
“It is bestial—incredible.”
“Bestial? Tut! I play the part of God and even surpass Him. I put you face to face with a temptation through which you shall come to know yourself. You lose a dream; you gain a fact. It is well. Shame will guard the secret in your heart—and the State will benefit. Still you see that I am paternal—merciful. I do not punish you for your past obstinacy. I still give you a choice. Bertha, will you marry as I wish, or will you force me to play the part of God?”
“I shall not marry.”
“Ah, you will wait for God to make up the difference. It is well—very well; le Dieu c’est moi. Ha! That is greater than the phrase of Louis XIV. You shall have still more time, but the moment the sun goes down, if I do not hear from you, I shall ring a bell that will send my secret police out to seize a man indiscriminately from the masses of the city. I shall not even stipulate that he be young. My trust in nature is—absolute. Adieu!”
She made up her mind the moment he left the room. She drew on her cloak. Before the pier glass she paused.
“Aye,” she murmured, “I could not match the first farmer’s daughter. But still there must be one man in the world—and God will make up the difference!”
She threw open the door which gave on a passage leading to a side entrance. A grenadier of the palace guard jumped to attention and presented arms.
“Pardon,” he said.
He completely blocked the hall; the prince had left nothing to chance. She started to turn back and then hesitated and regarded the man carefully.
“Fritz!” she said at last, for she recognized the peasant who had been a stable-boy on her father’s estate before he took service in the grenadiers. “You are Fritz Barr!”
He flushed with pleasure.
“Madame remembers me?”
“And my little black pony you used to take care of?”
“Yes, yes!”
He grinned and nodded; and then she noted a revolver in the holster at his side.
“What are your orders, Fritz?”
“To let no one pass down this hall. I am sorry, madame.”
“But if I were to ask you for your revolver?”
He stirred uneasily and she took money from her purse and gave it to him.
“With this you could procure another weapon?”
He drew a long breath; the temptation was great.
“I could, madame.”
“Then do so. It will never be known from whom I received the gun—and my need is desperate—desperate!”
He unbuckled the weapon without a word, and with it in her hand she returned to the room.
There was a tall western window, and before this she drew up a chair to watch the setting of the sun.
“Will he ring the bell when the edge of the sun touches the hills or when it is completely set?” she thought.
The white circle grew yellow; then it took on a taint of orange, bulging oddly at the sides into a clumsy oval. From the gardens below came a stir of voices and then the thrill of a girl’s laughter. She smiled as she listened, and, leaning from the window, the west wind blew to her the scent of flowers. She sat there for a long time, breathing deeply of the fragrance and noting all the curves of the lawn with a still, sad pleasure. The green changed from bright to dark; when she looked up the sun had set.
As she turned from the gay western sky, the room was doubly dim and the breeze of the evening set the curtains rustling and whispering. Silence she was prepared for, but not those ghostly voices, not the shift and sweep of the shadows. She turned the electric switch, closing her eyes to blur the shock of the sudden deluge of light. The switch clicked, but when she opened her eyes the room was still dark; they had cut the connecting wires.
Thereafter her mind went mercifully blank, for what she faced was, like birth and death, beyond comprehension. Noise at the windows roused her from the daze at last and she found that a number of workmen were sealing the room so that neither light nor sound could enter or escape. The only air would be from the ventilator. And still she could not realize what had happened, what was to happen, until the last sounds of the workmen ceased and the deep, dread silence began; silence that had a pulse in it—the beating of her heart.
She was standing in the middle of the room when the first shapes formed in the black night, and terror hovered about her suddenly, touching her as with cold fingers. She felt her way back to a corner and crouched there against the wall, waiting, waiting. They had seized the doomed man long before this. They must have bound and gagged him and carried him to the palace.
A thousand types of men passed before her inward eye—thin-faced clerks, men as pale as the belly of a dead fish; bearded monsters, gross and thick-lipped, with thunderous laughter; laborers, stamped with patient weariness—and all whom she saw carried the sign of the beast in their eyes. She tried to pray, but the voice of the prince rang in her ears: “Le Dieu, c’est moi!” and when she named God in her prayers, she visualized Alexander’s face, the pale, small eyes, the colorless hair, the lofty brow, the mouth whose tight lips could not be disguised by even the careful mustache. When a key turned in a door, she sprang to her feet with a cry of horror.
“It is I,” said the prince.
“I am dying; I cannot stay here; I will marry whom and when you will.”
“Ah, my dear, you should have spoken before sunset. I warned you, and I never change my mind. It is only for three days, remember. Also, it is in the interest of science. Beyond that, I have quite taken a fancy to playing God for you for three days. Do you understand?”
The even, mocking tones guided her to him. She fell at his feet and strained his thin knees against her breast.
“Come! Be reasonable, Bertha. This is justice.”
“Sire, I want no justice. For God’s sake, be merciful.”
She heard the shaken breath of his soundless laughter.
“Is it so? You should be grateful to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing you the love of which you have dreamed. Ha! Ha! Le Dieu, c’est moi!”
The clanking of the chain which he carried stilled her voice. It hushed even the thunder of her heart. She rose and waited patiently while the manacle was affixed to her wrist. The prince crossed the room and tapped on the door, which opened, and by a faint light from without Bertha discovered two men carrying a third into the room. She strained her eyes, but could make out no faces. The burden was laid on the floor; a metallic sound told her that she was fettered to the unknown.
The prince said: “You are a brave girl. All may yet be well. Then human nature is finer than I think. We shall see. As for your lover, your gift from God, he is sleeping soundly now. It may be an hour before the effects of the drug wear away. During that time you can think of love. Food will be placed three times a day within the door yonder. You can readily find it by feeling your way around the wall. Farewell.”
When the door closed she started to retreat to her corner, but the chain instantly drew taut with a rattle. Strangely enough, much of her fear left her now that she was face to face with the danger; temptation, the prince had called it. She smiled as she remembered. When the man awoke and learned their situation, she had no doubt as to how he would act. She had seen the sign of the beast in the eyes of many men, great and small; she had seen it and understood. The revolver might save her for a time, but what if she slept? She knew it would be almost impossible to remain awake during three days and nights.
The moment her eyes closed the end would come. It seemed better that she should fire the bullet now.
When he recovered his senses, it would be difficult to shoot effectively in the dark, for this was not the gloom of night—it was an absolute void, black, thick, impenetrable. She could not make out her hand at the slightest distance from her eyes. He might even attack her from behind and knock the revolver from her hand before she could shoot. Sooner or later the man must die. Even if she did not kill him it would be accomplished by the command of the prince at the end of the three days.
Far better that it should be done at once—that he should never awaken from his sleep. She reached the decision calmly and crept forward to him. Very lightly she passed her hand over his clothes. She had to move his arm to uncover the breast over his heart; the arm was a limp weight, but the muscles were firm, round, and solid. The first qualm troubled her as she realized that this must be a young man, at least a man in the prime of his physical strength.
Then it occurred to her that often bullets fired into the breast are deflected from the heart by bones; it would be far more certain to lay the muzzle against the temple—press the trigger—the soul would depart.
The soul! She paused with a thrill of wonder. A little touch would loose the swift spirit. The soul! For the first time she saw the tragedy from the viewpoint of the unknown man. His life was cut in the middle; truly a blind fate had reached out and chosen him from a whole city. Yet she was merely hastening the inevitable. She reached out and found his forehead.
It was broad and high. Tracing it lightly with the tips of her fingers she discovered two rather prominent lumps of bony structure over the eyes. Some one had told her that this represented a strong power of memory. She tried to visualize that feature alone, and very suddenly, as a face shows when a man lights his cigarette on the street at night, she saw in memory the figure of Rembrandt’s “Portrait of a Young Painter.” He sits at his drawing board, his pencil poised, ready for the stroke which shall give vital character to his sketch. There is only one high light, falling on the lower part of the face. Inspiration has tightened the sensitive mouth; the questing eyes peer out from the shadow of the soft cap. She broke off from her vision to realize with a start that when she touched the trigger she would be stepping back through the centuries and killing her dream of the original of Rembrandt’s picture. A foolish fancy, truly, but in the dark a dream may be as true, as vivid as reality.
The unconscious man sighed. She leaned close and listened to his breathing, soft, hurried, irregular as if he struggled in his sleep, as if the subconscious mind were calling to the conscious: “Awake! Death is here!”
At least there was plenty of time. She need not fire the shot until he moved. She laid the revolver on her lap and absently allowed her hands to wander over his face, lingering lightly on each feature. She grew more alert after a moment. Every particle of her energy was concentrated on seeing that face—on seeing it through her sense of touch. The blind, she knew, grow so dextrous that the delicate nerves of their finger tips record faces almost as accurately as the eyes of the normal person.
Ah, for one moment of that power! She tried her best. The nose, she told herself, was straight and well modeled. The eyes, for she traced the bony structure around them, must be large; the cheek bones high, a sign of strength; the chin certainly square and prominent; the lips full and the mouth rather large; the hair waving and thick; the throat large. One by one she traced each detail and then, moving both hands rather swiftly over the face, she strove to build the mental picture of the whole—and she achieved one, but still it was always the young painter whom great Rembrandt had drawn. The illusion would not go out of her mind.
An artist’s hands, it is said, must be strong and sinewy. She took these hands and felt the heavy bones of the wrist and strove to estimate the length of the fingers. It seemed to her that this was an ideal hand for a painter—it must be both strong and supple.
He sighed again and stirred; she caught up the weapon with feverish haste and poised it.
“Ah, it is well,” said the sleeper in his dream.
She made sure that he was indeed unconscious and then leaned low, whispering: “Adieu, my dear.”
At some happy vision he laughed softly. His breath touched her face. Surely he could never know; he had so short a moment left for living; perhaps this would pass into his latest dream on earth and make it happy.
“Adieu!” she whispered again, and her lips pressed on his.
She laid the muzzle of the revolver against his temple, and, summoning all her will power, she pressed the trigger. It seemed as if she were pulling against it with her full strength, and yet there was no report. Then she realized that all her might was going into an inward struggle. She summoned to her aid the voice of the prince as he had said: “We put a mask on nature and call it love; we name an abstraction and call it God. Le Dieu, c’est moi!” She placed the revolver against the temple of the sleeper; he stirred and disturbed the surety of her direction. She adjusted the weapon again.
Up sprang the man, shouting: “Treason! Help!”
Then he stood silent a long moment; perhaps he was rehearsing the scene of his seizure.
“This is death,” he muttered at last, “and I am in hell. I have always known what it would be—dark—utter and bitter loss of light.”
As his hand moved, the chain rattled. He sprang back with such violence that his lunging weight jerked her to her feet.
“It is useless to struggle,” she cried.
“A woman! Where am I?”
“You are lost.”
“But what has happened? In God’s name, madame, are we chained together?”
“We are.”
“By whose power? By whose right and command?”
“By one against whom we cannot appeal.”
“My crime?”
“None.”
“For how long—”
“Three days.”
He heaved a great sigh of relief.
“It is merely some practical joke, I see. That infernal Franz, I knew he was meditating mischief! Three days—and then free?”
“Yes, for then you die.”
Once more he was silent.
Then: “This is a hideous dream. I will waken from it at once—at once. My dear lady—”
She heard him advancing.
“Keep the chain taut, sir, I am armed; I will fire at the slightest provocation.”
He stopped and laughed.
“Come, come! This is not so bad. You have been smiling in your sleep at me. Up with the lights, my dear. If Franz has engaged you for this business, let me tell you that I’m a far better fellow than he must have advertised me. But what a devil he is to rig up such an elaborate hoax! By Jove, this chain—this darkness—it’s enough to turn a fellow’s hair white! The black night gets on my nerves. Lights! Lights! I yearn to see you; I prophesy your beauty by your voice! Still coy? Then we’ll try persuasion!”
His breast struck the muzzle of the revolver.
She said quietly: “If I move my finger a fraction of an inch you die, sir. And every word I have spoken to you is the truth.”
“Well, well! You do this finely. I shall compliment Franz on rehearsing you so thoroughly. Is this the fair Daphne of whom he told me—”
And his hand touched her shoulder.
“By everything that is sacred, I will fire unless you stand back—back to the end of the chain.”
“Is it possible? The Middle Ages have returned!”
He moved back until the light chain was taut.
“My mind whirls. I try to laugh, but your voice convinces me. Madame, will you explain my situation in words of one syllable?”
“I have explained it already. You are imprisoned in a place from which you cannot escape. You will be confined here, held to me by this chain, for three days. At the end of that time you die.”
“Will you swear this is the truth?”
“Name any oath and I will repeat it.”
“There’s no need,” he said. “No, it cannot be a jest. Franz would never risk the use of a drug, wild as he is. Some other power has taken me. What reason lies behind my arrest?”
“Think of it as a blind and brutal hand which required a victim and reached out over the city to find one. The hand fell upon you. There is no more to say. You can only resign yourself to die an unknown death.”
He said at last: “Not unknown, thank God. I have something which will live after me.”
Her heart leaped, for she was seeing once more the artist from Rembrandt’s brush.
“Yes, your paintings will not be forgotten.”
“I feel that they will not, and the name of—”
“Do not speak of it!”
“Why?”
“I must not hear your name.”
“But you know it already. You spoke of my painting.”
“I have never seen your face; I have never heard your name; you were brought to me in this room darkened as you find it now.”
“Yet you knew—”
Her voice was marvelously low: “I touched your face, sir, and in some way I knew.”
After a time he said: “I believe you. This miracle is no greater than the others. But why do you not wish to know my name?”
“I may live after you, and when I see your pictures I do not wish to say: ‘This is his work; this is his power; this is his limitation.’ Can you understand?”
“I will try to.”
“I sat beside you while you were unconscious, and I pictured your face and your mind for myself. I will not have that picture reduced to reality.”
“It is a delicate fancy. You are blind? You see by the touch of your hands?”
“I am not blind, but I think I have seen your face through the touch.”
“Here! I have stumbled against two chairs. Let us sit down and talk. I will slide this chair farther away if you wish. Do you fear me?”
“No, I think I am not afraid. I am only very sad for you. Listen: I have laid down the revolver. Is that rash?”
“Madame, my life has been clean. Would I stain it now? No, no! Sit here—so! My hand touches yours—you are not afraid?—and a thrill leaps through me. Is it the dark that changes all things and gives eyes to your imagination, or are you really very beautiful?”
“How shall I say?”
“Be very frank, for I am a dying man, am I not? And I should hear the truth.”
“You are a profound lover of the beautiful?”
“I am a painter, madame.”
She called up the image of her face—the dingy brown hair, long and silken, to be sure; the colorless, small eyes; the common features which the first red-skinned farmer’s daughter could overmatch.
“Describe me as you imagine me. I will tell you when you are wrong.”
“May I touch you, madame, as you touched me? Or would that trouble you?”
She hesitated, but it seemed to her that the questing eyes of Rembrandt’s portrait looked upon her through the dark—eyes reverent and eager at once.
She said: “You may do as you will.”
His unmanacled hand went up, found her hair, passed slowly over its folds.
“It is like silk to the touch, but far more delicate, for there is life in every thread of it. It is abundant and long. Ah, it must shine when the sun strikes upon it! It is golden hair, madame, no pale-yellow like sea-sand, but glorious gold, and when it hangs across the whiteness of your throat and bosom the hearts of men stir. Speak! Tell me I have named it!”
She waited till the sob grew smaller in her throat.
“Yes, it is golden hair,” she said.
“I could not be wrong.”
His hand passed down her face, fluttering lightly, and she sensed the eagerness of every touch. Cold fear took hold of her lest those searching fingers should discover the truth.
“Your eyes are blue. Yes, yes! Deep-blue for golden hair. It cannot be otherwise. Speak.”
“God help me!”
“Madame?”
“I have been too vain of my eyes, sir. Yes, they are blue.”
The fingers were on her cheeks, trembling on her lips, touching chin and throat.
“You are divine. It was foredoomed that this should be! Yes, my life has been one long succession of miracles, but the greatest was reserved until the end. I have followed my heart through the world in search of perfect beauty and now I am about to die, I find it. Oh, God! For one moment with canvas, brush, and the blessed light of the sun! It cannot be! No miracle is complete; but I carry out into the eternal night one perfect picture. Canvas and paint? No, no! Your picture must be drawn in the soul and colored with love. The last miracle and the greatest! Three days? No, three ages, three centuries of happiness, for are you not here?”
Who will say that there is not an eye with which we pierce the night? To each of these two sitting in the utter dark there came a vision. Imagination became more real than reality. He saw his ideal of the woman, that picture which every man carries in his heart to think of in the times of silence, to see in every void. And she saw her ideal of manly power. The dark pressed them together as if with the force of physical hands. For a moment they waited, and in that moment each knew the heart of the other, for in that utter void of light and sound, they saw with the eyes of the soul and they heard the music of the spheres.
Then she seemed to hear the voice of the prince: “You should be grateful to me. Trust me, child, I am bringing you that love of which you dreamed. Le Dieu, c’est moi!”
Yes, it was the voice of doom which had spoken from those sardonic lips. The dark which annihilates time made their love a century old.
“In all the world,” she whispered, “there is one man for every woman. It is the hand of Heaven which gives me to you.”
“Come closer—so! And here I have your head beside mine as God foredoomed. Listen! I have power to look through the dark and to see your eyes—how blue they are!—and to read your soul beneath them. We have scarcely spoken a hundred words and yet I see it all. Through a thousand centuries our souls have been born a thousand times and in every life we have met, and known—”
And through the utter dark, the merciful dark, the deep, strong music of his voice went on, and she listened, and forgot the truth and closed her eyes against herself.
* * * *
On the night which closed the third day the prince approached the door of the sealed room. To the officer of the secret police, who stood on guard, he said: “Nothing has been heard.”
“Early this afternoon there were two shots, I think.”
“Nonsense. There are carpenters doing repair work on the floor above. You mistook the noise of their hammers.”
He waved the man away, and as he fitted the key into the lock he was laughing softly to himself: “Now for the revelation, the downward head, the shame. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
He opened the door and flashed on his electric lantern. They lay upon a couch wrapped in each other’s arms. He had shot her through the heart and then turned the weapon on himself; his last effort must have been to draw her closer. About them was wrapped the chain, idle and loose. Surely death had no sting for them and the grave no victory, for the cold features were so illumined that the prince could hardly believe them dead.
He turned the electric torch on the painter. He was a man about fifty, with long, iron-gray hair, and a stubble of three days’ growth covering his face. It was a singularly ugly countenance, strong, but savagely lined, and the forehead corrugated with the wrinkles of long, mental labor. But death had made Bertha beautiful. Her eyes under the shadow of her lashes, seemed a deep-sea blue, and her loose, brown hair, falling across the white throat and breast, seemed almost golden under the light of the torch. A draft from the open door moved the hair and the heart of the prince stirred in him.
He strove to loosen the arms of the painter, but they were frozen stiff by death.
“She was a fool, and the loss is small,” sighed the prince. “After all, perhaps God was nearer than I thought. I bound them together with a chain. He saw my act and must have approved, for see! He has locked them together forever. Well, after all—le Dieu, c’est moi!”
