Honoré Balzac - Maitre Cornelius

“But I am lost!” said the countess.

“We are saved!” the young man cried in the blind enthusiasm of his love. “Listen to me carefully!”

“This will cost me my life!” she said, letting the tears that rolled in her eyes flow down her cheeks. “The count will kill me, – to-night, perhaps! But go to the king; tell him the tortures that his daughter has endured these five years. He loved me well when I was little; he called me ‘Marie-full-of-grace,’ because I was ugly. Ah! if he knew the man to whom he gave me, his anger would be terrible. I have not dared complain, out of pity for the count. Besides, how could I reach the king? My confessor himself is a spy of Saint-Vallier. That is why I have consented to this guilty meeting, to obtain a defender, – some one to tell the truth to the king. Can I rely on – Oh!” she cried, turning pale and interrupting herself, “here comes the page!”

The poor countess put her hands before her face as if to veil it.

“Fear nothing,” said the young seigneur, “he is won! You can safely trust him; he belongs to me. When the count contrives to return for you he will warn us of his coming. In the confessional,” he added, in a low voice, “is a priest, a friend of mine, who will tell him that he drew you for safety out of the crowd, and placed you under his own protection in this chapel. Therefore, everything is arranged to deceive him.”

At these words the tears of the poor woman stopped, but an expression of sadness settled down on her face.

“No one can deceive him,” she said. “To-night he will know all. Save me from his blows! Go to Plessis, see the king, tell him – ” she hesitated; then, some dreadful recollection giving her courage to confess the secrets of her marriage, she added: “Yes, tell him that to master me the count bleeds me in both arms – to exhaust me. Tell him that my husband drags me about by the hair of my head. Say that I am a prisoner; that – ”

Her heart swelled, sobs choked her throat, tears fell from her eyes. In her agitation she allowed the young man, who was muttering broken words, to kiss her hands.

“Poor darling! no one can speak to the king. Though my uncle is grand-master of his archers, I could not gain admission to Plessis. My dear lady! my beautiful sovereign! oh, how she has suffered! Marie, let yourself say but two words, or we are lost!”

“What will become of us?” she murmured. Then, seeing on the dark wall a picture of the Virgin, on which the light from the lamp was falling, she cried out: —

“Holy Mother of God, give us counsel!”

“To-night,” said the young man, “I shall be with you in your room.”

“How?” she asked naively.

They were in such great peril that their tenderest words were devoid of love.

“This evening,” he replied, “I shall offer myself as apprentice to Maitre Cornelius, the king’s silversmith. I have obtained a letter of recommendation to him which will make him receive me. His house is next to yours. Once under the roof of that old thief, I can soon find my way to your apartment by the help of a silken ladder.”

“Oh!” she said, petrified with horror, “if you love me don’t go to Maitre Cornelius.”

“Ah!” he cried, pressing her to his heart with all the force of his youth, “you do indeed love me!”

“Yes,” she said; “are you not my hope? You are a gentleman, and I confide to you my honor. Besides,” she added, looking at him with dignity, “I am so unhappy that you would never betray my trust. But what is the good of all this? Go, let me die, sooner than that you should enter that house of Maitre Cornelius. Do you not know that all his apprentices – ”

“Have been hanged,” said the young man, laughing.

“Oh, don’t go; you will be made the victim of some sorcery.”

“I cannot pay too dearly for the joy of serving you,” he said, with a look that made her drop her eyes.

“But my husband?” she said.

“Here is something to put him to sleep,” replied her lover, drawing from his belt a little vial.

“Not for always?” said the countess, trembling.

For all answer the young seigneur made a gesture of horror.

“I would long ago have defied him to mortal combat if he were not so old,” he said. “God preserve me from ridding you of him in any other way.”

“Forgive me,” said the countess, blushing. “I am cruelly punished for my sins. In a moment of despair I thought of killing him, and I feared you might have the same desire. My sorrow is great that I have never yet been able to confess that wicked thought; but I fear it would be repeated to him and he would avenge it. I have shamed you,” she continued, distressed by his silence, “I deserve your blame.”

And she broke the vial by flinging it on the floor violently.

“Do not come,” she said, “my husband sleeps lightly; my duty is to wait for the help of Heaven – that will I do!”

She tried to leave the chapel.

“Ah!” cried the young man, “order me to do so and I will kill him. You will see me to-night.”

“I was wise to destroy that drug,” she said in a voice that was faint with the pleasure of finding herself so loved. “The fear of awakening my husband will save us from ourselves.”

“I pledge you my life,” said the young man, pressing her hand.

“If the king is willing, the pope can annul my marriage. We will then be united,” she said, giving him a look that was full of delightful hopes.

“Monseigneur comes!” cried the page, rushing in.

Instantly the young nobleman, surprised at the short time he had gained with his mistress and wondering at the celerity of the count, snatched a kiss, which was not refused.

“To-night!” he said, slipping hastily from the chapel.

Thanks to the darkness, he reached the great portal safely, gliding from column to column in the long shadows which they cast athwart the nave. An old canon suddenly issued from the confessional, came to the side of the countess and closed the iron railing before which the page was marching gravely up and down with the air of a watchman.

A strong light now announced the coming of the count. Accompanied by several friends and by servants bearing torches, he hurried forward, a naked sword in hand. His gloomy eyes seemed to pierce the shadows and to rake even the darkest corners of the cathedral.

“Monseigneur, madame is there,” said the page, going forward to meet him.

The Comte de Saint-Vallier found his wife kneeling on the steps of the alter, the old priest standing beside her and reading his breviary. At that sight the count shook the iron railing violently as if to give vent to his rage.

“What do you want here, with a drawn sword in a church?” asked the priest.

“Father, that is my husband,” said the countess.

The priest took a key from his sleeve, and unlocked the railed door of the chapel. The count, almost in spite of himself, cast a look into the confessional, then he entered the chapel, and seemed to be listening attentively to the sounds in the cathedral.

“Monsieur,” said his wife, “you owe many thanks to this venerable canon, who gave me a refuge here.”

The count turned pale with anger; he dared not look at his friends, who had come there more to laugh at him than to help him. Then he answered curtly:

“Thank God, father, I shall find some way to repay you.”

He took his wife by the arm and, without allowing her to finish her curtsey to the canon, he signed to his servants and left the church without a word to the others who had accompanied him. His silence had something savage and sullen about it. Impatient to reach his home and preoccupied in searching for means to discover the truth, he took his way through the tortuous streets which at that time separated the cathedral from the Chancellerie, a fine building recently erected by the Chancellor Juvenal des Ursins, on the site of an old fortification given by Charles VII. to that faithful servant as a reward for his glorious labors.