Эжен Сю - The Mysteries of Paris, Volume 6 of 6

"Again I say, silence! Name her not! Utter not the word Cecily!"

"I tell you I wish that every curse may light upon her! And have I not good reason for hating one who has placed us in our present situation? But for her, our heads would be safe on our shoulders, and likely to remain so. To what has your besotted passion for that creature brought us!"

Instead of breaking out into a fresh rage, Jacques Ferrand replied, with the most extreme dejection, "Do you know the person you are speaking of? Tell me, have you ever seen her?"

"Never; but I am aware she is reported to be very beautiful."

"Beautiful!" exclaimed the notary, emphatically; then, with an expression of bitter despair, he added, "Cease to speak of that you know not. What I did you would have done if similarly tempted."

"What, endanger my life for the love of a woman?"

"For such a one as Cecily; and I tell you candidly I would do the same thing again, for the same hopes as then led me on."

"By all the devils in hell," cried Polidori, in utter amazement, "he is bewitched!"

"Hearken to me," resumed the notary, in a low, calm tone, occasionally rendered more energetic by the bursts of uncontrollable despair which possessed his mind. "Listen! You know how much I love gold, as well as all I have ventured to acquire it. To count over in my thoughts the sums I possessed, to see them doubled by my avarice, to know myself master of immense wealth, was at once my joy, my happiness; to possess, not for the sake of expending or enjoying, but to hoard, to gloat over, was my life, my delight. A month ago, had I been told to choose between my fortune and my head, I should certainly have sacrificed the latter to save the former."

"But what would be the use of possessing all this wealth, if you must die?"

"The ecstasy of dying in the consciousness of its possession; to enjoy till the last moment the dear delightful feeling of being the owner of those riches for which you have braved everything, privations, disgrace, infamy, the scaffold itself, to be able to say, even as you lay your head on the fatal block,'Those vast treasures are mine!' Oh, death is far sweeter than to endure the living agonies I suffer at seeing the riches accumulated with so much pain, difficulties, and dangers torn from me! Dreadful, dreadful! 'Tis not dying daily, but each minute in the day; and this dreadful state of misery may be protracted for years! Oh, how greatly should I prefer being struck down by that sudden and rapid death that carries you off ere one fragment of your beloved riches is taken from you! For still, with your dying breath, you might sigh forth, 'Those treasures are mine, – all, all mine! None but me can or dare approach them!'"

Polidori gazed on his accomplice with profound astonishment. "I do not understand you," said he, at last; "if such be the case, why have you obeyed the commands of him whose denunciation of you would bring you to a scaffold? Why, if life be so horrible to you, have you chosen to accept it at his hands, and pay the heavy price you are doing for it?"

"Because," answered the notary, in a voice that sunk so low as to be scarcely audible, "because death brings forgetfulness – annihilation – and then, too, Cecily – "

"What!" said Polidori, "do you still hope?"

"No," said the notary, "I possess – "

"What?"

"The fond impassioned remembrance of her."

"But what folly is this when you are sure never to see her more, and when she has brought you to a scaffold!"

"That matters not; I love her even more ardently, more frantically than ever!" exclaimed Jacques Ferrand, amid a torrent of sighs and sobs that contrasted strongly with the previous gloomy dejection of his last remark. "Yes," continued he, with fearful wildness, "I love her too well to be willing to die, while I can feast my senses upon the recollection only of that night – that memorable night in which I saw her so lovely, so loving, so fascinating! Never is her image, as I then beheld her, absent from my brain; waking or sleeping, she is ever before me, decked in all the intoxicating beauty that was displayed to my impassioned gaze! Still do her large, lustrous eyes seem to dart forth their fiery glances, and I almost fancy I can feel her warm breath on my cheek, while her clear, melodious voice seems ringing its full sounds into my ear with promises of bliss, alas, never to be mine! Yet, though to live thus is torturing – horrible – yet would I prefer it to the apathy, the still nothingness of the grave. No, no, no; let me live, poor, wretched, despised, – a branded galley-slave, if you will, – but give me yet the means of doting in secret on the recollection of this wonderful being; whether she be fiend or angel, yet does she engross my every thought!"

"Jacques," said Polidori, in a voice and manner contrasting strongly with his habitual tone of cool, provoking sarcasm, "I have witnessed almost every description of bodily and mental suffering, but certainly nothing that equalled what you endure. He who holds us in his power could not have devised more cruel torture than that you are compelled to endure. You are condemned to live, to await death through a vista of long, wasting torments, for your description of your feelings fully explains to me the many alarming symptoms I have observed in you from day to day, and of which I have hitherto vainly sought to find the cause."

"But the symptoms you speak of as alarming are nothing but exhaustion, a sort of reaction of the bodily and mental powers; do you not think so? Tell me! I am not surely in any danger of dying?"

"There is no immediate danger, but your situation is precarious; and there are some thoughts you must cease to dwell on – nay, banish from your memory – or your danger is imminent."

"I will do whatever you bid me, so that my life be preserved, – for I will not die. Oh, let priests talk of the sufferings of the damned, but what are their tortures compared to mine? Tormented alike by passion and avarice, I have two open wounds rankling in my heart, each occasioning mortal agony. The loss of my fortune is dreadful, but the fear of death is even still more so. I have desired to live; and though my existence may probably be but one protracted scene of endless wretchedness, it is preferable to death and annihilation; for it would be the termination of my fatal happiness, – the power of recalling each word and look of Cecily!"

"You have at least one vast consolation," said Polidori, resuming his accustomed sang-froid , "in the recollection of the good actions by which you have sought to expiate your crimes!"

"Rail on! Mock my misery! Turn me on the hot coals on which my ill fortune has placed me! But you well know, mean and contemptible being that you are, how I hate, how I loathe all mankind, and that these forced expiations to which I am condemned only serve to increase my detestation of those who compel me to make them, and those who profit by them. By all that is sacred, it passes human malice to condemn me to live in endless misery, such as would dismay the stoutest nature, while my fellow creatures, as they are called, have all their griefs assuaged at the cost of my dearly prized treasures! Oh, that priest who but now quitted us, loading me with blessings while my heart seemed like one vast ocean of fiery gall and bitterness against himself and all mankind – oh, how I longed to plunge a dagger in his breast! 'Tis too much – too much for endurance!" cried he, pressing his clenched hands to his forehead; "my brain burns, my ideas become confused, I shall not be able much longer to resist these violent attacks of impotent, futile rage, – these unending tortures; and all through you, Cecily, – fatal, adored Cecily! Will you ever know all the agonies I have borne on your account, and will you still haunt me with that mocking smile? Cecily, Cecily! Back to the fiends from whom you sprung, and drive me not to destruction!"