by Eugène Sue
“You are her brother!” cried the Gaul addressing Sylvest. “You must then know—”
“He only yesterday learned of his relationship,” Diavolus hastened to explain. “Until then he never saw the Gallic woman, and was ignorant of her being his sister. Do you now understand, dear Norbiac, that though other courtesans and the rich seigneurs saw the door close in their faces, it will open to her brother?”
“Ah! Diavolus! My friend! My generous friend! You make me the happiest of mortals!”
“Now keep this well in mind: There is no courtesan who can not be bought; all you have to do is to choose the right moment and lay down the right price. Accordingly, I feel quite sure that if this clown presents himself in your name, with a goodly casket well filled with gold and properly ornamented with jewels as a mere sample of your munificence—”
“Diavolus, you are the pearl of friends! I shall hurry to my banker for two thousand gold sous. Of course, you answer for your slave! The commission will be faithfully fulfilled?”
“First of all he knows that I shall have both his feet and hands chopped off if he refuses to serve you; secondly, seeing that his race is thievish by nature, should you confide your gold to him, I will not lose sight of him until I have seen him enter the house of the Beautiful Gaul.”
“Oh, my friend! This is really a service! It cannot be requited!” cried Norbiac. “I shall run off for the gold. My litter is at the door. I shall return within shortly.”
He rushed out of the room and out of the house.
Left alone with his master Sylvest looked at him with wonderment.
“Now, my vagabond, you and I are to continue the conversation. Did you understand my plan?”
“No, seigneur.”
“What a dullard! By virtue of your title of brother to the Beautiful Gaul—”
“Mayhap, seigneur — I do not know whether I could—”
“I shall have you flayed alive if you fail to be admitted to her presence this very day. Is that clear enough?”
“Very clear, seigneur. I shall introduce myself to my sister—”
“With the casket of gold that you will receive from the Gallic seigneur.”
“Which casket I shall offer her as a sample of the seigneur’s generosity?—”
“Of seigneur Diavolus’ generosity, you double dullard! Yes, you will offer the casket to the Beautiful Gaul as a feeble proof of the munificence and magnificence of your master, who, you will say, accompanied you to the door of the house. And in order to convince your sister you will induce her to look out of the window so that she may see me waiting outside. Do you now understand, vagabond?”
“I understand, seigneur. You will employ the gold of seigneur Norbiac to seduce the Beautiful Gaul for yourself. I admire your consummate genius!”
CHAPTER VI.
IN THE ANTE-CHAMBER.
SYLVEST’S SIMULATION OF readiness to be helpful to his master’s amour was only a stratagem on his part, intended to accomplish two purposes — to meet Syomara and to escape, not the torture — he knew how to bear that with fortitude — but the possible imprisonment with which his late nocturnal absence might be punished, and that would have interfered with his plan to see his sister with the least possible delay.
Seigneur Norbiac returned shortly with a casket filled with gold, again heaped thanks and acknowledgments of gratitude upon Diavolus, and left with the request that he be speedily notified of the favorable or unfavorable issue of the slave’s interview with his sister. Towards evening Sylvest was charged with the casket and, closely followed by his master, started out in the direction of the Temple of Diana, in the immediate neighborhood of which stood the house of the Beautiful Gaul. He arrived there, knocked, and through the half open door saw the face of the eunuch, an old man of abnormal stoutness. Stuck in the middle of the bloated, beardless, pale and weary face were two little black and wicked-looking eyes that resembled a reptile’s. A few locks of grey hair escaped from under his black cap, that matched his robe. His nether hose were red, and his old gaiters yellow. The old man addressed Sylvest in a rude yet clear and piercing voice:
“What do you want?”
“To see my sister.”
“What sister?”
“Syomara.”
“Are you Syomara’s brother?”
“Yes.”
“Get away from here, imposter! And quickly too, or I shall make you taste a hickory stick that I keep behind this door! — Get you gone, clown!”
“I expected, your incredulity, and I brought with me the proof that Syomara is my sister. If you refuse me admittance to her, I shall in some way or other notify her who I am and that I live in Orange.”
Sylvest’s assurance and the tone of his voice seemed to astonish the eunuch and to make him pause. He became uneasy, seemed perplexed what to do, and still holding the door ajar he fastened his piercing viper’s eyes upon the slave and proceeded to interrogate him:
“Your name?”
“Sylvest.”
“Your father’s name?”
“Guilhem.”
“Your grandfather’s name?”
“Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak.”
‘Your mother’s name? Your grandmother’s name?”
“My mother’s name was Henory; my grandmother’s Margarid.”
“Where were you sold?”
“At Vannes, together with my father and sister, after the battle.”
The eunuch grew more and more thoughtful as the rapid interrogatory proceeded. He remained silent for a moment, still keeping Sylvest on the street, while seigneur Diavolus, standing at a little distance away, did not remove his eyes from his slave. Finally the eunuch said to Sylvest:
“Step in.”
The door closed behind both.
Leading the way, the eunuch followed a narrow corridor and entered a little room, carefully closing the door after him. He then sat down by a table, took a long sharp poniard from under his robe, and placed the weapon near him. Thereupon he addressed Sylvest in a peevish voice:
“A few stray words do not prove to me that you are Syomara’s brother.”
“I have more proofs.”
“What are they?”
“I have about me a little gold sickle and a little brass bell, the relics of our father; besides these I have some scrolls containing the accounts of our family — If my sister ever talked to you of her childhood and of our parents, you will see by these manuscripts that I am not lying, and that I am her brother.”
“Unless, by no means an unlikely thing, you are a vagabond who stole those articles after killing the true Sylvest.”
“There are many other matters concerning our family upon which I am informed. None can know them but I — when I mention them to Syomara she will recognize me—”
“Draw near to that window,” said the eunuch seeing that it was growing darker, “or, rather, wait,” he proceeded to say, and taking a fuse and tinder, lighted a lamp. Aided by the light he long and attentively examined the slave’s lineaments. Finally he observed:
“Your face will be better evidence to me than any other that you could produce; it is better evidence than those nick’ nacks of sickles and bells.”
Again the eunuch proceeded with the scrutiny of Sylvest’s countenance, and presently, looking up at the ceiling seemed to commune with himself aloud:
“Such close resemblance can be no accident — The Gallic woman must have been right — in their infancy they might have been taken the one for the other.”
“Did my sister speak to you about me?” Sylvest broke in upon the cogitation of the eunuch, the tears leaping to his eyes, “Perhaps she often recalled her brother!”
“Oh! Very often! — She is a creature that never forgets anything.”
And the old man’s face assumed an expression of sinister mockery.
“And my mother? my father? — Did my sister often speak to you of them?”
“Very often,” answered the old
man with the same expression on his face; “Very often — She is the pearl of daughters and sisters! — It is a pity she is not married, she would also be the pearl of wives! But what do you want of your sister?”
“I want to see her — I want to have a long talk with her.”
“Truly? — And what have you got in that casket under your arm?”
“Gold.”
“For the Beautiful Gaul?”
“I have been ordered to offer it to her—”
“By your master, I presume? Your shaven head and livery announce that you are a domestic slave — A valet for a brother! — That is something to make Syomara feel proud —
And then, you are playing the go-between to your sister — that is a kindly office for a relative—”
Eage mounted to Sylvest’s forehead, but he controlled himself and replied:
“Accident gave me this evening the means to see my sister — I am availing myself of it—”
“Very well — lay the casket on the table — And how and when did you learn that the Beautiful Gaul is your sister?”
“That does not concern you!”
“The fellow is independent! — So, then, you wish to see your sister, no doubt in order to ask her to buy you from your master? Or perhaps to wheedle some alms out of her?”
“In seeking to see my father’s daughter, I but yield to the promptings of my heart!” proudly answered Sylvest. “A handful of the infamous gold that she earns might set me free from the danger of torture and even of being killed — yet I prefer both!”
“Just listen to the fellow! With his shaven head and his valet’s harness on, he speaks of honor!” said the eunuch, and looking at Sylvest challengingly he added: “Did you, scamp that you are, come here in order to twit your sister with her occupation?”
“I wish I could! I would much prefer to see her turn the mill’s wheel bare-footed and under a keeper’s whip than live in shameful opulence!” cried Sylvest.
Sylvest had no sooner uttered these words than he regretted having done so. He feared they might keep the eunuch from taking him to Syomara, lest she listen to the good advice of her brother. But much to his surprise, after another and longer spell of reflection the eunuch struck his forehead as if a sudden thought had enlightened his mind, took the lamp in one hand, the poniard in the other and said to Sylvest: “Follow me!”
The old man opened the door, led the slave into a narrow and winding passage which they threaded for a while, and then suddenly blowing out the lamp said to Sylvest amidst the profoundest darkness: —
“Step forward before me.”
Although astonished at this proceeding, Sylvest obeyed. It was with no little difficulty that he succeeded in pressing himself through between the large body of the eunuch and the wall of the narrow passage.
“And now,” the old man proceeded, “walk straight ahead until you strike a wall — have you found it?”
“I have just struck myself against it.”
“Do not budge, and listen.”
The eunuch ceased speaking; presently he added:
“Have you heard anything?”
“I heard a sound as of a curtain drawn over its pole.”
“You should be called Tine-Ears.’ Put your back against the wall. — Have you done so?”
“Yes.”
“Now put one foot forward, carefully, as if to feel your ground. — What do you find?”
“A void!” cried Sylvest affrighted and pressing himself quickly back against the wall.
“Yes; it is a void!” answered the voice of the eunuch. “If you take but one step to run back out of your nook, you will fall to the bottom of an abyss, where you will break your bones and from which you will never emerge, because I shall close the trap I have just opened, over you. — So, then, wide awake upon your feet!”
“Why these threats? — What is your purpose?”
“My purpose is to feel certain that you will not budge from where you are, while I am gone. — Wait for me!”
The slave heard the retreating steps of the old man, and cried after him “But my sister! My sister!”
“You shall see her in an instant—”
“Where?”
“Where you now are,” responded the eunuch’s voice further away. “Turn your face to the wall — look sharp — and—”
CHAPTER VII.
SYOMARA.
THE LAST WORDS of the retreating eunuch did not reach Sylvestre ears. He thought the mischievous old man was but playing a prank upon him. Nevertheless Sylvest turned his head mechanically toward the wall at his back and was instantly struck by a strange phenomenon. By little and little he began to distinguish objects that he did not at first notice. It seemed that the wall grew transparent at the elevation of his eyes. At first, all seemed enveloped in a whitish mist. By degrees the mist lifted and made room for a feeble light that resembled the gleam of early dawn. The slave could have covered with his hands the clearest point of the circular light, that, insensibly waning around the circle, merged beyond it into the surrounding gloom. He felt the wall at the lightest spot: it was a smooth, hard and cold surface, like marble or steel. The clearness grew steadily. The circular space resembled the orb of the moon at her full, slowly disengaging herself from the light grey vapors that at times obscure her face. After a while the disk became perfectly transparent, and across it Sylvest saw a vaulted chamber, only a part of which fell within the angle of his vision. A lamp, resembling those that are kept perpetually burning in the Roman tombs, hung from an iron chain and lighted the place. With no little horror he noticed, ranged upon shelves along the wall, several whitened human skulls, all of which, however, still preserved their long and silky hair, like the hair of women. Upon a table that was littered with bizarre instruments wrought in steel, he saw also a number of oddly contrived vases, and also the hands of skeletons, whose bony fingers were covered with costly rings. Among the latter — shocking to say — lay the little hand of a child, recently cut and still bleeding.
Near the table, a bronze tripod supported over a pan of live coals a brass vase from which rose a bluish vapor. On the other side of the table stood a large trunk of precious wood, and above it there hung from the wall a mirror wrought of burnished silver. Upon the trunk lay a red belt inscribed with mystic characters, and resembling the one that the Thessalian witch wore and that the slave had noticed on the preceding night in Faustina’s temple. In one of the corners of the chamber was a couch of cedar wood, inlaid with ivory and covered with a richly embroidered carpet. At the head of the couch stood a little porphyry pillar surmounted with an exquisitely chiselled silver capital upon which, along with several other relics, was deposited an ass’s hoof that shone like ebony and that lay turned over in such a manner that Sylvest noticed it was shod in gold with five large diamonds as the heads of the nails that held the shoe to the hoof. At first Sylvest thought the chamber was not occupied, but this was due to his eyes not having the full sweep of the place. Presently a woman moved within his ken. She walked backward with her back turned to him. She was throwing kisses at a corner that he could not see. Only partly clad in a linen tunic that left her alabaster shoulders and arms bare, the woman was tall, graceful and recalled the Roman Diana. One of the thick and long tresses of her blonde hair had loosened from the coil that crowned her head, and hung down almost to her feet. At the sight of that blonde hair — blonde like the hair of his sister, a shudder ran over Sylvest. Presently, after the woman blew from her delicate finger tips a last kiss in the direction of the previous ones, she threw herself upon the couch, and in doing so turned her head around.
Sylvest now saw her face. — It was she — it was Syomara. — Aye, it was she beyond a doubt! Thanks to the sweet recollections of his childhood, the only solace left him in servitude, — thanks to the striking resemblance of his sister to their mother Henory — thanks to all that, Sylvest could not fail to recognize Syomara. Never had he beheld a more dazzling beauty. He forgot the unfortun
ate girl’s infamy; he forgot the strange, weird, hideous and horrible trappings that surrounded her; he had for her only eyes that were moist with tenderness and filled with admiration.
Her cheeks animated with a bright rosy hue, her large black eyes shining like stars from under their long lashes, her blonde and copious hair tumbling partly undone upon her bare shoulders, Syomara leaned her head on one hand upon the couch, and passed the other over her burning forehead. Presently she languidly dropped her head upon the cushion and half shut her eyes seeking repose, if not sleep.
Sylvest was thus enabled to contemplate his sister for a long while. — Then burning, bitter tears Tolled down from his eyes. — The enchanting, rosy, fresh ingenuous-looking face, as ingenuous as a virgin’s, was a courtesan’s, condemned by slavery and since her early childhood to an infamous occupation! With shame mantling his forehead and rage invading his heart, Sylvest imagined that the kisses wafted by his sister to the invisible person, were perhaps wafted to the gladiator Mont-Liban. The sinister objects with which the room was fitted — the human skulls with long hair, the skeleton-fingers covered with costly rings, the recently severed child’s hand that still bled — struck his eyes anew. And Syomara, stretched out at full length upon the couch, dozed peaceful and smiling in the midst of these grewsome human spoils. The accident that, for two successive nights — one at Faustina’s temple, the next at Syomara’s retreat — rendered him the invisible spectator of strange mysteries, chilled him with ominous forebodings.
A moment later Syomara seemed to awaken with a start out of heir drowsiness; she quivered, sat up and listened as if she had heard a noise or some signal, rose and left the couch, and walked over to a tablet on which were several inscriptions which must have reminded her of some appointment, because she hastened to re-arrange the tresses of her hair. Syomara then took from the table a flagon of an odd shape and poured several drops out of it into the brass vase upon the tripod from which all the while a bluish light vapor had been rising. Several tongues of flame forthwith shot up. While they burned Syomara exposed a sheet of polished metal over them. When the flames were extinguished she examined intently the blackish marks that the fire left upon the polished sheet. The slave could not, at this moment, avoid remembering with a shudder the sorceries that the Thessalian witch indulged in the previous night. A moment later Syomara threw the sheet of metal into a corner and clapped her hands in glee. Her face beamed and she walked quickly towards the trunk of precious metal that stood under the burnished silver mirror. In that pose she had again her back turned toward Sylvest. She opened the trunk, took out of it a long black robe, arrayed herself in it and gathered it around her waist with the red belt that lay near the mirror. When Sylvest saw the black robe and the magical belt a cold sweat inundated his forehead. He now saw his sister dressed exactly like the old Thessalian witch that attended Faustina’s orgy. With her back still turned toward Sylvest, Syomara again stooped down to the trunk, took from it a sort of mask to which a hood was attached, carefully covered her head with it and turned around to officiate once more at the tripod.