by Eugène Sue
At the noise the half-caste made in entering Djalma started, raised his head, and looked round him with surprise; but, on seeing the pale agitated countenance of the slave, he rose hastily, and advancing towards him, exclaimed, “What is the matter, Faringhea!”
After a moment’s silence, and as if struggling with a painful feeling of hesitation, Faringhea threw himself at the feet of Djalma, and murmured in a weak, despairing, almost supplicating voice: “I am very miserable. Pity me, my good lord!”
The tone was so touching, the grief under which the half-breed suffered seemed to give to his features, generally fixed and hard as bronze, such a heart-rending expression, that Djalma was deeply affected, and, bending to raise him from the ground, said to him, in a kindly voice: “Speak to me! Confidence appeases the torments of the heart. Trust me, friend — for my angel herself said to me, that happy love cannot bear to see tears about him.”
“But unhappy love, miserable love, betrayed love — weeps tears of blood,” replied Faringhea, with painful dejection.
“Of what love dost thou speak?” asked Djalma, in surprise.
“I speak of my love,” answered the half-caste, with a gloomy air.
“Of your love?” said Djalma, more and more astonished; not that the half caste, still young, and with a countenance of sombre beauty, appeared to him incapable of inspiring or feeling the tender passion, but that, until now, he had never imagined him capable of conceiving so deep a sorrow.
“My lord,” resumed the half-caste, “you told me, that misfortune had made me wicked, and that happiness would make me good. In those words, I saw a presentiment, and a noble love entered my heart, at the moment when hatred and treachery departed from it. I, the half-savage, found a woman, beautiful and young, to respond to my passion. At least I thought so. But I had betrayed you, my lord, and there is no happiness for a traitor, even though he repent. In my turn, I have been shamefully betrayed.”
Then, seeing the surprise of the prince, the half-caste added, as if overwhelmed with confusion: “Do not mock me, my lord! The most frightful tortures would not have wrung this confession from me; but you, the son of a king, deigned to call the poor slave your friend!”
“And your friend thanks you for the confidence,” answered Djalma. “Far from mocking, he will console you. Mock you! do you think it possible?”
“Betrayed love merits contempt and insult,” said Faringhea, bitterly. “Even cowards may point at one with scorn — for, in this country, the sight of the man deceived in what is dearest to his soul, the very life blood of his life, only makes people shrug their shoulders and laugh.”
“But are you certain of this treachery?” said Djalma, mildly. Then he added, with visible hesitation, that proved the goodness of his heart: “Listen to me, and forgive me for speaking of the past! It will only be another proof, that I cherish no evil memories, and that I fully believe in your repentance and affection. Remember, that I also once thought, that she, who is the angel of my life, did not love me — and yet it was false. Who tells you, that you are not, like me, deceived by false appearances?”
“Alas, my lord! could I only believe so! But I dare not hope it. My brain wanders uncertain, I cannot come to any resolution, and therefore I have recourse to you.”
“But what causes your suspicions?”
“Her coldness, which sometimes succeeds to apparent tenderness. The refusals she gives me in the name of duty. Yes,” added the half-caste, after a moment’s silence, “she reasons about her love — a proof, that she has never loved me, or that she loves me no more.”
“On the contrary, she perhaps loves you all the more, that she takes into consideration the interest and the dignity of her love.”
“That is what they all say,” replied the half-caste, with bitter irony, as he fixed a penetrating look on Djalma; “thus speak all those who love weakly, coldly; but those who love valiantly, never show these insulting suspicions. For them, a word from the man they adore is a command; they do not haggle and bargain, for the cruel pleasure of exciting the passion of their lover to madness, and so ruling him more surely. No, what their lover asks of them, were it to cost life and honor, they would grant it without hesitation — because, with them, the will of the man they love is above every other consideration, divine and human. But those crafty women, whose pride it is to tame and conquer man — who take delight in irritating his passion, and sometimes appear on the point of yielding to it — are demons, who rejoice in the tears and torments of the wretch, that loves them with the miserable weakness of a child. While we expire with love at their feet, the perfidious creatures are calculating the effects of their refusals, and seeing how far they can go, without quite driving their victim to despair. Oh! how cold and cowardly are they, compared to the valiant, true-hearted women, who say to the men of their choice: ‘Let me be thine to-day-and to-morrow, come shame, despair, and death — it matters little! Be happy! my life is not worth one tear of thine!”
Djalma’s brow had darkened, as he listened. Having kept inviolable the secret of the various incidents of his passion for Mdlle. de Cardoville, he could not but see in these words a quite involuntary allusion to the delays and refusals of Adrienne. And yet Djalma suffered a moment in his pride, at the thought of considerations and duties, that a woman holds dearer than her love. But this bitter and painful thought was soon effaced from the oriental’s mind, thanks to the beneficent influence of the remembrance of Adrienne. His brow again cleared, and he answered the half-caste, who was watching him attentively with a sidelong glance: “You are deluded by grief. If you have no other reason to doubt her you love, than these refusals and vague suspicions, be satisfied! You are perhaps loved better than you can imagine.”
“Alas! would it were so, my lord!” replied the half-caste, dejectedly, as if he had been deeply touched by the words of Djalma. “Yet I say to myself: There is for this woman something stronger than her love — delicacy, dignity, honor, what you will — but she does not love me enough to sacrifice for me this something!”
“Friend, you are deceived,” answered Djalma, mildly, though the words affected him with a painful impression. “The greater the love of a woman, the more it should be chaste and noble. It is love itself that awakens this delicacy and these scruples. He rules, instead of being ruled.”
“That is true,” replied the half-caste, with bitter irony, “Love so rules me, that this woman bids me love in her own fashion, and I have only to submit.”
Pausing suddenly, Faringhea hid his face in his hands, and heaved a deep drawn sigh. His features expressed a mixture of hate, rage, and despair, at once so terrible and so painful, that Djalma, more and more affected, exclaimed, as he seized the other’s hand: “Calm this fury, and listen to the voice of friendship! It will disperse this evil influence. Speak to me!”
“No, no! it is too dreadful!”
“Speak, I bid thee.”
“No! leave the wretch to his despair!”
“Do you think me capable of that?” said Djalma, with a mixture of mildness and dignity, which seemed to make an impression on the half caste.
“Alas!” replied he, hesitating; “do you wish to hear more, my lord?”
“I wish to hear all.”
“Well, then! I have not told you all — for, at the moment of making this confession, shame and the fear of ridicule kept me back. You asked me what reason I had to believe myself betrayed. I spoke to you of vague suspicions, refusals, coldness. That is not all — this evening—”
“Go on!”
“This evening — she made an appointment — with a man that she prefers to me.”
“Who told you so?”
“A stranger who pitied my blindness.”
“And suppose the man deceived you — or deceives himself?”
“He has offered me proofs of what he advances.”
“What proofs?”
“He will enable me this evening to witness the interview. ‘It may be,’ said he, �
�that this appointment may have no guilt in it, notwithstanding appearances to the contrary. Judge for yourself, have courage, and your cruel indecision will be at an end.’”
“And what did you answer?”
“Nothing, my lord. My head wandered as it does now and I came to you for advice.”
Then, making a gesture of despair, he proceeded with a savage laugh: “Advice? It is from the blade of my kand-jiar that I should ask counsel! It would answer: ‘Blood! blood!’”
Faringhea grasped convulsively the long dagger attached to his girdle. There is a sort of contagion in certain forms of passion. At sight of Faringhea’s countenance, agitated by jealous fury, Djalma shuddered — for he remembered the fit of insane rage, with which he had been possessed, when the Princess de Saint-Dizier had defied Adrienne to contradict her, as to the discovery of Agricola Baudoin in her bed-chamber. But then, reassured by the lady’s proud and noble bearing, Djalma had soon learned to despise the horrible calumny, which Adrienne had not even thought worthy of an answer. Still, two or three times, as the lightning will flash suddenly across the clearest sky, the remembrance of that shameful accusation had crossed the prince’s mind, like a streak of fire, but had almost instantly vanished, in the serenity and happiness of his ineffable confidence in Adrienne’s heart. These memories, however, whilst they saddened the mind of Djalma, only made him more compassionate with regard to Faringhea, than he might have been without this strange coincidence between the position of the half-caste and his own. Knowing, by his own experience, to what madness a blind fury may be carried, and wishing to tame the half-caste by affectionate kindness, Djalma said to him in a grave and mild tone: “I offered you my friendship. I will now act towards you a friend.”
But Faringhea, seemingly a prey to a dull and mute frenzy, stood with fixed and haggard eyes, as though he did not hear Djalma.
The latter laid his hand on his shoulder, and resumed: “Faringhea, listen to me!”
“My lord,” said the half-caste, starting abruptly, as from a dream, “forgive me — but—”
“In the anguish occasioned by these cruel suspicions, it is not of your kandjiar that you must take counsel — but of your friend.”
“My lord—”
“To this interview, which will prove the innocence or the treachery of your beloved, you will do well to go.”
“Oh, yes!” said the half-caste, in a hollow voice, and with a bitter smile: “I shall be there.”
“But you must not go alone.”
“What do you mean, my lord?” cried the half-caste. “Who will accompany me?”
“I will.”
“You, my lord?”
“Yes — perhaps, to save you from a crime — for I know how blind and unjust is the earliest outburst of rage.”
“But that transport gives us revenge!” cried the half-caste, with a cruel smile.
“Faringhea, this day is all my own. I shall not leave you,” said the prince, resolutely. “Either you shall not go to this interview, or I will accompany you.”
The half-caste appeared conquered by this generous perseverance. He fell at the feet of Djalma, pressed the prince’s hand respectfully to his forehead and to his lips, and said: “My lord, be generous to the end! forgive me!”
“For what should I forgive you?”
“Before I spoke to you, I had the audacity to think of asking for what you have just freely offered. Not knowing to what extent my fury might carry me, I had thought of asking you this favor, which you would not perhaps grant to an equal, but I did not dare to do it. I shrunk even from the avowal of the treachery I have cause to fear, and I came only to tell you of my misery — because to you alone in all the world I could tell it.”
It is impossible to describe the almost candid simplicity, with which the half-breed pronounced these words, and the soft tones, mingled with tears, which had succeeded his savage fury. Deeply affected, Djalma raised him from the ground, and said: “You were entitled to ask of me a mark of friendship. I am happy in having forestalled you. Courage! be of good cheer! I will accompany you to this interview, and if my hopes do not deceive me, you will find you have been deluded by false appearances.”
When the night was come, the half-breed and Djalma, wrapped in their cloaks, got into a hackney-coach. Faringhea ordered the coachman to drive to the house inhabited by Sainte-Colombe.
CHAPTER LXIV. AN EVENING AT SAINTE-COLOMBE’S.
LEAVING DJALMA AND Faringhea in the coach, on their way, a few words are indispensable before continuing this scene. Ninny Moulin, ignorant of the real object of the step he took at the instigation of Rodin, had, on the evening before, according to orders received from the latter, offered a considerable sum to Sainte-Colombe, to obtain from that creature (still singularly rapacious) the use of her apartments for whole day. Sainte-Colombe, having accepted this proposition, too advantageous to be refused, had set out that morning with her servants, to whom she wished, she said, in return for their good services, to give a day’s pleasure in the country. Master of the house, Rodin, in a black wig, blue spectacles, and a cloak, and with his mouth and chin buried in a worsted comforter — in a word, perfectly disguised — had gone that morning to take a look at the apartments, and to give his instructions to the half-caste. The latter, in two hours from the departure of the Jesuit, had, thanks to his address and intelligence, completed the most important preparation and returned in haste to Djalma, to play with detestable hypocrisy the scene at which we have just been present.
During the ride from the Rue de Clichy to the Rue de Richelieu, Faringhea appeared plunged in a mournful reverie. Suddenly, he said to Djalma to a quick tone: “My lord, if I am betrayed, I must have vengeance.”
“Contempt is a terrible revenge,” answered Djalma.
“No, no,” replied the half-caste, with an accent of repressed rage. “It is not enough. The nearer the moment approaches, the more I feel I must have blood.”
“Listen to me—”
“My lord, have pity on me! I was a coward to draw back from my revenge. Let me leave you, my lord! I will go alone to this interview.”
So saying, Faringhea made a movement, as if he would spring from the carriage.
Djalma held him by the arm, and said: “Remain! I wilt not leave you. If you are betrayed, you shall not shed blood. Contempt will avenge and friendship will console you.”
“No, no, my lord; I am resolved. When I have killed — then I will kill myself,” cried the half-caste, with savage excitement. “This kandjiar for the false ones!” added he, laying his hand on his dagger. “The poison in the hilt for me.”
“Faringhea—”
“If I resist you, my lord, forgive me! My destiny must be accomplished.”
Time pressed, and Djalma, despairing to calm the other’s ferocious rage, resolved to have recourse to a stratagem.
After some minutes’ silence, he said to Faringhea: “I will not leave you. I will do all I can to save you from a crime. If I do not succeed, the blood you shed be on your own head. This hand shall never again be locked in yours.”
These words appeared to make a deep impression on Faringhea. He breathed a long sigh, and, bowing his head upon his breast, remained silent and full of thought. Djalma prepared, by the faint light of the lamps, reflected in the interior of the coach, to throw himself suddenly on the half-caste, and disarm him. But the latter, who saw at a glance the intention of the prince, drew his kandjiar abruptly from his girdle, and holding it still in its sheath, said to the prince in a half-solemn, half-savage tone: “This dagger, in a strong hand, is terrible; and in this phial is one of the most subtle poisons of our country.”
He touched a spring, and the knob at the top of the hilt rose like a lid, discovering the mouth of a small crystal phial concealed in this murderous weapon.
“Two or three drops of this poison upon the lips,” resumed the half caste, “and death comes slowly and peacefully, in a few hours, and without pain. Only, for the first symptom,
the nails turn blue. But he who emptied this phial at a draught would fall dead, as if struck by lightning.”
“Yes,” replied Djalma; “I know that our country produces such mysterious poisons. But why lay such stress on the murderous properties of this weapon?”
“To show you, my lord, that this kandjiar would ensure the success and impunity of my vengeance. With the blade I could destroy, and by the poison escape from human justice. Well, my lord! this kandjiar — take it — I give it up to you — I renounce my vengeance — rather than render myself unworthy to clasp again your hand!”
He presented the dagger to the prince, who, as pleased as surprised at this unexpected determination, hastily secured the terrible weapon beneath his own girdle; whilst the half-breed continued, in a voice of emotion: “Deep this kandjiar, my lord — and when you have seen and heard all that we go to hear and see — you shall either give me the dagger to strike a wretch — or the poison, to die without striking. You shall command; I will obey.”
Djalma was about to reply, when the coach stopped at the house inhabited by Sainte-Colombe. The prince and the half-caste, well enveloped in their mantles, entered a dark porch, and the door was closed after them. Faringhea exchanged a few words with the porter, and the latter gave him a key. The two Orientals soon arrived at Sainte-Colombe’s apartments, which had two doors opening upon the landing-place, besides a private entrance from the courtyard. As he put the key into the lock, Faringhea said to Djalma, in an agitated voice: “Pity my weakness, my lord — but, at this terrible moment, I tremble and hesitate. It were perhaps better to doubt — or to forget!”