The Nyctalope vs Lucifer 1: Enter Lucifer!

by Jean de La Hire

  Daylight came and, some while thereafter, the hour when two servants brought the usual breakfast into the singer’s room. Nothing was lacking in Schwarzrock. Coffee, milk, chocolate, butter, fresh cream, honey, wild strawberries gathered at dawn, fresh hens’ eggs, raw or boiled, cold meats and smoked ham, sliced bread and brioches with butter, all in pretty vessels of rustic porcelain, were loaded on two platters, which the bearers deposited on the table. The third servant–of a rank superior to the two others–had unfolded a double cloth in linen and lace, and laid out the silverware and the crystal glassware.

  This morning, absorbed as she was in her amorous expectation, Laurence noticed that the chief servant was no longer the superb Italian woman of the preceding days but the little German blonde with blue eyes whom the Baron von Warteck had shoved into her room the evening before, after an awful warning. Knowing then, and only for less than an hour, to what frightful tortures the child–so young, so pretty and so evidently naïve–was destined, Laurence had not had the strength to talk to her. Dreading that she might burst into tears in front of the nonplussed girl, she had sent her away, confiding her–according to the Baron’s will–to the Italian woman who performed the functions of senior chambermaid.

  Unfortunate girl! Laurence said to herself as she saw her laying out, not unskillfully, the tablecloth, silverware and glassware. But my departure will save her from the tortures to which she would have been subjected because of me. How sad she is! I shall talk kindly to her.

  Laurence called, softly: “Minna!”

  Zucht’s daughter turned her peach-tinted round face and blue eyes towards “the Lady,” and smiled.

  In German–for the singer spoke all six of the major European languages–Laurence said: “Is it you, Minna, who will henceforth supervise my table service?”

  “Yes, Madame,” Minna replied, “and also in the drawing-room.” She blushed and added: “Madame might care to be indulgent in the early days, for I have never served before, and...” She hesitated.

  Laurence sought to encourage her with a gesture and a smile.

  “And I must keep Madame company,” Minna continued, without overmuch assurance, “after dinner this evening. Madame might care to pardon me if I do not know how to talk, or play music, or read aloud in an elegant fashion... I’m only a peasant, but I shall be happy to please Madame, and I shall make every effort to serve her, in every way, as best I possibly can... and to love Madame, if Madame will permit it, and...”

  But Minna could say no more. She snatched up her apron and hid her face–which had reddened deeply–-and burst out sobbing.

  Impassively, with rigid features and mechanical gestures, as if they were unable to see or hear anything, the two serving women finished their work. They were handsome girls of 18 or 20 from the canton of Lucerne, strong and sturdy but bovine in expression. When everything was arranged as it should be, they stood side by side on the other side of the table, with their arms by their sides, splendidly indifferent. Next to these powerful females, the German girl seemed to be a porcelain figurine.

  Suddenly, Minna’s hands released her apron, her arms fell and her body stiffened as if standing to attention. Her tears dried up and she became immobile, mute, impassive, under the command of an occult will that had abruptly possessed her, from afar or nearby.

  It was not without a certain astonishment that Laurence had listened to what Minna had said. When she saw her break off her sobbing to become an automaton like the two Swiss girls, as the Italian woman had also been, she understood. She was beginning to unravel a few of the innumerable enigmas that composed the strange existence of Schwarzrock, all day and all night long. With raised eyebrows, she said to herself: Hold on! Why did the monster allow the child the liberty to see, think and speak for a few minutes? That’s strange! Neither the Italian girl nor the Swiss girls, who are destined to play the same role of martyr as Minna, ever had that liberty in my presence. She then shrugged her shoulders. What does it matter? I shall leave with Leo. These girls will not suffer “in my honor,” as the monster said, mockingly. As to whether they continue to be automata or not, what can I do about it? I must think of Leo and myself, and of no one and nothing else, in order to be strong and ready. I must eat. I’m hungry, anyway. I’m hungry for the first time since I left Paris. All this looks delightful. I ought to eat, and I want to.

  Leaving her mantle, her hat and her gloves on a little side-table placed by the armchair, Laurence got up, walked to the lavishly-garnished dining-table, sat down on the chair that Minna automatically pushed forward and set about eating heartily, silently served by the two Swiss girls, whom Minna directed, equally silently, impassive in gesture and expression.

  Neither of the Swiss girls seemed to notice that “the Lady” was wearing a dress this morning that was very different from the indoor clothing in which they had previously seen her–a simply-tailored dress of a neutral grey-brown color. Minna, similarly, appeared to pay no heed to the mantle, the otter-skin hat, the traveling-gloves and the tanned leather handbag on the side-table.

  Laurence Païli made these observations, and a few others, while she was eating, and said to herself: They must be totally hypnotized, mere puppets whose strings the monster pulls without even thinking about it specifically. It’s an astonishing thing! She stopped eating, her hand suspended, and went pale. I cannot get used to the idea that, if he wished, I would be like these three girls, devoid of thought and will...

  Repressing that emotion, which often seized her, she shrugged her shoulders, smiled, and resumed: Once I’m with Leo, I’m sure these spells will no longer be able to have any effect on me...

  Thereafter, she thought exclusively of the future and her face expressed a serenity that was youthful, confident and absolute. As she finished the meal, however–the only agreeable one she had had since leaving Paris, and the most copious–and got up to wait for the table to be cleared and for the servants to leave her apartment, she suddenly stood stock still, stupefied. The three young women presented an extraordinary aspect, which recalled to Laurence’s mind the appearance of freedom that the sensitive Minna had momentarily taken on.

  What! she thought. Are all three of them free now? What’s happening, then?

  Indeed, the two Swiss girls and the German girl were no longer automata. Their stances were no longer stiff. Minna smiled. The others had an air of naïve confusion, as if they were astonished to feel alive. They were not clearing the table mechanically, as usual; they were looking around in bewilderment and admiration, as if they had never seen the room before, even though they had been coming into it three times a day for a week.

  Minna was visibly surprised to see that, at 9 a.m., the bedclothes had not been disturbed. She dared to say, with an ingenuous and charming familiarity: “What! Didn’t Madame go to bed last night?”

  A keen curiosity sprang up in Laurence’s mind, along with the thought of incalculable consequences. Without replying to Minna’s question, she went hurriedly to the balcony formed by the overhanging turret, whose large curtains she had already opened. With a resolute step, but very anxiously, she marched past the curtains through the space that had always been impenetrable to her, although the servants had always passed through it without encumbrance when going to open or close the windows. She moved through the space that had formerly been occupied by the invisible, incomprehensible wall–the immovable, invincible object that had separated her from Leo on the previous evening, standing between imprisonment and liberty.

  “Let’s see!” Laurence said, aloud–and immediately released a cry of joy. The invisible wall was no longer there. The enigmatic obstacle had been removed. The passage was clear!

  Quivering with instinctive joy, Laurence went as far as the window, turned around, and passed again over the patch of carpet on which her feet had never been able to tread. She went back and forth three times, as if to fortify her certainty.

  The two Swiss girls and the German watched her from a distance in amazem
ent, their naïve eyes expressing a hint of dread. Laurence saw that and she laughed lightly.

  “What I’m doing astonishes you, doesn’t it?” she said. “If you only knew how much more you three have astonished me! Let’s see, you two are named Marie and Gertrude, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Madame,” the two Swiss girls replied, in unison,

  “Good. Now, come here and stand directly in front of me... Good. Kneel down. You don’t understand? That doesn’t matter. Obey me meekly–and with a smile... A spontaneous smile, Mesdemoiselles. Ah, you’re laughing? Very good. You’re ravishing when you laugh. Now join your hands, as if you were praying to the good Lord. Perfect! Don’t move! You too, Minna–come here! Stand to my left, very close to me, Put your arm around my waist. Yes, you dare! Lean your head on my shoulder. Oh, what a pet you are! Now you’ll repeat, all three of you together, what I say to you, yes?”

  “Yes, Madame,” said the three young women, amused by this unexpected game, whose motives and profound purpose they could not guess.

  Still smiling lightly, but very pale, in a voice a trifle dulled by emotions, as if she were conducting an experiment of the utmost gravity, Laurence went on: “To please me, very greatly, you will repeat exactly...” After a brief pause, she pronounced: “Baron Glô von Warteck, Lord of Schwarzrock, is an abominable criminal.”

  Minna, Marie and Gertrude shuddered, their faces expressing astonishment tinged with dread. A communal hesitation made them look at one another.

  “Very good!” cried Laurence, who was entirely serious now. “You hesitate, so you understand the enormity of your pronouncing such a sentence. Your minds remember, reason and judge–you are, therefore, free! Well, to prove to me that this freedom is truly without restriction, at least for the moment, pronounce in your turn–which will give me great pleasure, I assure you–the sentence that I repeat: Baron Glô von Warteck, Lord of Schwarzrock, is an abominable criminal.”

  Then, hesitating no longer, smiling faintly, like little children who are afraid but who brave the danger, Minna, Gertrude and Marie pronounced, almost in unison: “Baron Glô von Warteck, Lord of Schwarzrock, is an abominable criminal!”

  “Bravo! And thank you! You’re charming girls, and I want to hug you. You first Minna, then you, Gertrude, then you, Marie. Get up, and attend to your duties.”

  But the three servants, having stood up, remained immobile and perplexed. Their duties? Evidently, their minds having been freed, they did not know what their duties ere. No longer hypnotized, they did not remember what they had been doing every day at about this hour.

  Laurence Païli, satisfied, was about to tell them what their duties comprised, when an abrupt transformation overtook the three young women. They stiffened, holding themselves straighter, with impassive faces and expressionless eyes. They moved, jerkily. Within two minutes, the table was cleared and put away in the corner and the leftovers were taken out. Then, supervised by Minna, the two Swiss girls went into the dressing-room, did their work there quickly, as they did every day, came back into the bedroom and stripped the bed, in which no one had slept, in order to remake it, as they did every day.

  While this was going on, Laurence usually retired to a little room in a large alcove where there was a Pleyel grand.17 She usually played, reading from a score or improvising according to the whim of her fingers. This morning, though, she watched the three servants at work. By the time the three young women left, after bowing in her direction like puppets, Laurence had established that their normal automatism had been entirely restored.

  As soon as she was alone, she ran to the balcony of the overhanging turret. The invisible, immutable, insurmountable wall stopped her dead in her tracks.

  “For a few minutes, then,” Laurence concluded, “voluntarily or otherwise, the monster was occupied–absorbed to such an extent that his thoughts were entirely monopolized. The portion of his thought that is ordinarily devoted, by day and by night, to the maintenance of the invisible wall and the control of the three servants, was no longer evident here. Why? What caused that phenomenon?”

  For a few minutes, Laurence Païli searched for an answer to this question, but she understood that the answer could only be determined by knowledge of events of which she was ignorant and could not at present discover. She did not, therefore, persist in trying to resolve a problem that was currently insoluble.

  All the while that she was pondering these extraordinary incidents, she was still waiting for Leo Saint-Clair. He had promised that he would return, during the day or the following night. The morning went by without Laurence Païli growing impatient. She had absolute confidence. She waited.

  At 12:30 p.m., Glô von Warteck did not arrive–as he had done several times–to invite her to have lunch with him and escort her to the dining-room. The three servant girls brought her lunch, to which Laurence did justice. They served it automatically, without a word or an intelligence glance.

  During the afternoon, incapable of reading or playing music, the young woman continued to wait, fidgeting fretfully. She rang for Minna several times, to ask her questions and give her orders. The German girl did not reply to a single question and only obeyed certain orders, mechanically. Silence was imposed upon her and her mind had no power of choice. Several times, also, Laurence went to the balcony; the invisible wall was always there.

  At 4 p.m., she had afternoon tea.

  Dusk fell. The lamps in the chandelier and the wall-lamps were lit. Laurence extinguished some of the lamps by turning off their switches. Then she dined, but without appetite and very lightly. The servants turned back the bedcovers, set out her nightgown, brought water, sugar and fruit, and went out after bowing stiffly. The curt ringing of a shrill bell, followed by a grating sound, warned Laurence that the doors of the room and the dressing-room were electrified, inviolable under pain of death.

  The night began–and Laurence waited.

  Little by little, the anxiety characteristic of long waiting, during which hope and despair alternate, gripped her heart, hammered in her brain, made here limbs grow heavy, and exasperated her nerves.

  She waited, and her suffering gradually increased.

  She began to feel tired. She had not slept for 36 hours; she had not been able to sit still all day. At 10 p.m., she felt harassed. She was so badly in need of sleep that even the anguish of waiting, with its terrible alternatives of hope and despair, could not keep her awake.

  Slumped in the armchair, she did not fall sleep immediately. She tried to fight, and prolonged a painful drowsiness for more than an hour. Finally, though, fatigue proved the stronger. With a heavy head, an exhausted body and weakened nerves, Laurence Païli slipped into a dreamless sleep, which resembled–save for the gentle movements of light respiration–the sleep of death.

  When Laurence opened her eyes it was broad daylight. The curtains were drawn; the breakfast-table was set; the three servants were standing beside it, immobile and stiff, their faces expressionless–and Baron Glô von Warteck was standing in front of her, smoking.

  He waited while she rubbed her eyes, came fully awake and stood up, quivering and ready for a fight–a desperate fight, since Leo Saint-Clair had not come. He bowed deeply.

  “Mademoiselle,” he said, with ceremonious sarcasm, “I beg you to do me the favor of allowing me to be present during your breakfast this morning, for I have some very important and very urgent things to tell you. We shall talk, if you will deign to answer me, as soon as you have dismissed the servants.” He smiled, his red eyes aflame with desire, hatred, cruel irony and triumphant joy. “Very important,” he repeated, “and very urgent things, Mademoiselle!”

  Under Lucifer’s gaze, Laurence felt a sensation she had experienced several times before in the last few days, as if her thoughts were whirling in her head. Following the encouraging appearance of Saint-Clair, and in consequence of the observations she had made the previous day regarding the three servants, Laurence Païli was extremely lucid this morning, ready for com
bat. She knew that the turbulence of her thoughts was usually followed by a sort of gentle prostration, when she was conscious of not being entirely the mistress of her own will, and of not possessing her ordinary freedom of decision. Until now, she had given in to that turbulence and that prostration, to the partial installation of another soul within hers–but today, following the long and profound reflections of the previous day, she believed that she had divined the truth regarding the incomprehensible phenomena in whose midst she had lived and had to live. Holding to that truth, Laurence Païli found herself abruptly determined to fight.

  When she felt the turbulence, therefore, she experienced a sort of renaissance of her entire being, and she brought all her will-power to bear in resisting the vertigo. She decided that she ought not to close her own eyes in order not to see the monster’s–for he would see that and take action in consequence!–but to concentrate her own gaze and to turn it inside herself. Her goal was to produce the effect of being possessed by an obsessive idea so powerful and all-penetrating that although one’s eyes are wide open and fixed, they actually see nothing of what they appear to be looking at.

  On doing that, Laurence knew instantly that she had resisted effectively, because the scarcely-commenced turbulence broke up, the prostration was not produced, and she had the very clear sensation of being entirely the mistress of her own will. But Laurence was a professional actress. I must not only resist him without his knowing it, she told herself, but also let him believe that he is dominating and annihilating me to the same extent as on other occasions.

  She recalled the successive attitudes that she had adopted, involuntarily, on those other occasions; this time, she simulated them voluntarily.

  He will believe that he is reading my thoughts, she said to herself, and subsequently substituting his thought for mine, in part. My God! Can I be stronger and more cunning than he? I must, else I shall be lost. For Leo must certainly have run into difficulties, if only temporary ones, in the execution of his plan.