by Eugène Sue
This polite effort took the form of so grotesque a grimace that Angela fell on the sofa, forgetting all rules of politeness, all dignity, and abandoned herself to a mad fit of laughter; her beautiful blue eyes, always so brilliant, were veiled in tears of amusement; her cheeks became crimson and her charming dimples deepened to such an extent that the widow could have hidden in their depths the entire end of her rosy little finger.
Croustillac, much embarrassed, remained motionless before the pretty widow, first contracting his eyebrows with an angry air, then, on the contrary, he endeavored to relax his thin long face into a forced smile. While these successive expressions did not tend to put an end to Blue Beard’s mirth, the chevalier said to himself that for a murderess, the widow did not have such a gloomy and terrible appearance after all. Nevertheless, the vanity of our adventurer could not easily brook the singular effect which he had produced. For want of better conclusion he ended by saying to himself that above all things he always struck the imagination of women keenly; it was necessary at first to astonish them, upset them, and that, in this respect, his first interview with Blue Beard left nothing to be desired.
When he saw that the widow had become a little calmer, he said resolutely, and with superbly bombastic manner, “I am sure you laugh, madame, at all the despairing efforts that I make to prevent my poor stolen heart from flying quickly to your feet. It is that which has brought me here; I could not but follow, in spite of myself; yes, madame, in spite of myself. I said to it, ‘there, there, softly, softly, my heart, it does not suffice, in order to please a divine beauty, to be passionately loving,’ but my little, or rather my great and rash, heart replied ever by drawing me to you with all its strength; as if it had been the steel and Devil’s Cliff the magnet; my heart, I say, replied to me, ‘Reassure yourself, master; tender and valiant as you are, the love that you feel shall cause the birth of a love which you shall share.’ But pardon me madame, the language of my heart makes me outrageously impertinent — it is doubtless this impertinence which makes you laugh anew.”
“No, sir, no; your appearance diverts me to this great extent because you resemble — ha! ha! ha! — in a strange way, my second husband. You have positively the very same nose — ha! ha! ha! — and in seeing you enter, I believed I saw his spirit — ha! ha! ha! — coming to reproach me — ha! ha! ha! — with his cruel end — ha! ha!”
The laughter of Angela redoubled. The chevalier was not ignorant of the antecedents with which Blue Beard might be reproached, but he could not conceal his great surprise at hearing this charming little creature acknowledge the crime of murder with such incredible audacity. Nevertheless, the chevalier recovered his customary coolness and replied gallantly, “I am too happy, madame, to recall to you one of your deceased husbands; and of reviving by my presence one of your memories, whatever it may be. But,” continued Croustillac with a gallant manner, “there are other resemblances that I would wish to have to the deceased — whose memory diverts you so much.”
“That is to say, you desire to marry me?” said Blue Beard to him.
The chevalier was stupefied for a moment by this abrupt question.
Angela went on: “I expected it; Rend-your-Soul, whom I call by an abbreviation, my little Rendsoul, has informed me of your desires; perhaps he wishes to raise false hopes,” added the widow, looking coquettishly at the chevalier.
Croustillac experienced surprise after surprise. “How,” he cried, “the buccaneer has told you, madame — —”
“That you have come from France for the express purpose of marrying me — is it true? See, speak frankly — do not deceive me. Oh, I do not like to be thwarted. I warn you, if I have taken it into my head that you shall be my husband, you shall be.”
“Madame, I beg of you, do not take me for a fool, for a jackanapes, for a stupid; if I am dumb, it is with emotion, surprise.” And Croustillac looked about him uneasily, as if to assure himself he was not the sport of a dream. “May I be shot if I expected such a reception.”
“Well, there is no need to make so many words over it,” replied the widow. “I have been told you wish to marry me — is it true?”
“As true as that you are the most dazzling beauty that I have ever met,” said the chevalier impetuously, placing his hand on his heart.
“Truly? Truly? You have really decided to marry me?” cried the little widow, clapping her hands joyfully.
“I am so decided, adorable widow, that my only fear now is of not seeing this desire realized; it is, I avow, an excessive desire, a great dream, and — —”
“Be quiet, then,” said Blue Beard, interrupting the chevalier with childlike frankness. “What is the use of these big words? You ask my hand — why should I not give it to you?”
“How, madame, can I believe it! Ah, wait, beautiful Islander. I have had many triumphs in my life; princesses have avowed their passion for me; queens have sighed when looking at me, but never, madame, never have I found such a one! Yes, madame, you can congratulate yourself, you can boast of having brought to its height my surprise, my joy and my gratitude. Repeat, then, I implore you, repeat those charming words — you consent to take me for your husband, me, Polyphème de Croustillac?”
“I will repeat it as much as you desire; nothing is simpler; you can well understand that I have too much trouble in finding husbands not to seize eagerly the offer which you make me.”
“Ah, madame,” replied the chevalier courteously, “at the risk of passing for an impertinent man, I must allow myself to contradict you. Never can I believe that you could find it difficult to find a husband. I will say more — I am convinced that you have had, since your widowhood only embarrassment of choice, but you have simply not wished to select. You have too good taste, madame,” said Croustillac audaciously, “you waited — —”
“I might deceive you and allow you to think this, chevalier, but you are too brave and gallant a man to be abused — at present,” continued Angela, with a gracious and confidential manner, “I will tell you all. Listen to me. The first time I married, I had but to choose, it is true. O, heavens! suitors presented themselves in swarms, and I chose — very well, too. Then my second marriage: it was even then not the same thing. People had commented on the singular death of my first husband, and suitors had already begun to reflect before declaring themselves. However, as I am not stupid, thanks to determination, cajolery and coquetry, I succeeded in getting a second husband. Alas! it was not without trouble. But the third. Oh, you have no idea all the trouble I had; truly I was in despair!”
“Ah, madame, why was I not there!”
“Doubtless, but, unhappily, you were not. If they talked about the death of my first husband; you can judge what they said about that of my second. People began to distrust me,” said the widow, shaking her pretty little head with an expression of ingenuous melancholy. “What would you have? the world is so meddling, so slanderous; men are so strange!”
“The world is stupid and egotistical, foolish,” cried Croustillac, filled with pity for this victim of calumny. “Men are cowards and fools who believe all the gossip which is told them.”
“What you say is very true. You are not so, my friend?”
“She calls me her friend,” cried Croustillac, in a transport; and he answered, “No, certainly not, and I am not so.”
“Doubtless,” said the widow, “you are very different; you spoil me by accepting my proposition so quickly.”
“Say, rather, that I am beyond bounds overjoyed at it, madame.”
“You spoil me,” continued the widow, with an enchanting smile, and throwing a tender glance at the chevalier. “I assure you you spoil me; you are so easy, so accommodating. Ah! how shall I replace you?”
“Replace me?”
“Yes, after you, friend.”
“After me?”
“Yes, certainly, after you.”
“Madame, I do not understand you. I do not wish to understand.”
“It is very simple; ho
w can I hope to find another like you, who will marry me so willingly? Ah, no, such men are rare!”
“How, madame, after me?” cried Croustillac, overcome by this idea. “You dream, then, of a successor to me?”
“Yes, friend,” replied the widow, with the most touchingly sentimental air imaginable; “yes, for when you are no more I must renew my quest, seek, ask, and find a fifth husband. Think, then, of the difficulties and obstacles to overcome. Perhaps I shall not succeed. Think, then, a widow for the fourth time. You forget that; it is a fact, however; my friend, after you, I shall be a widow for the fourth time.”
“I do not forget it at all, madame,” said Croustillac, whose ardor became somewhat chilled, and began to ask himself if this affair was not madness. “I shall not forget, certainly, in case I have the honor of marrying you, that you will be for the fourth time a widow if you lose me; but it appears you place a rather short period to my love.”
“Alas! yes, my friend,” said the widow, in a tender voice, “one year, and a year is very short. A year! it passes so quickly when one loves,” continued she, casting the glance of a perfect assassin at him.
“A year, madame,” cried the chevalier. But then, believing that the words of Blue Beard hid perhaps a test, that she wished possibly to judge of his courage, he added in a chivalrous tone, “Ah, well, so be it, madame; whether my happiness last but a year, a day, an hour, a minute — it matters not; I will brave all, if only I can say that I have been fortunate enough to obtain your hand.”
“You are a true knight,” said the widow, charmed. “I expected no less of you. That is agreed; only I must forewarn my little Rendsoul, for form’s sake, understand, for married or not I shall always be to him what I have been.”
“But, madame,” said Croustillac, “is it permitted me, will it be indiscreet to ask you what you are to this hunter of wild beasts, and what are his relations with you? Or, rather, will you explain to me what intimacy it is that you feel obliges you to speak to him of your plans?”
“Certainly; and to whom would I make this statement if not to you, my friend? I will confess to you that Rendsoul is one of my lovers.”
Here Croustillac made such a singular grimace and coughed two or three times in such a manner, that Angela broke into a peal of laughter.
Croustillac, for a moment dumfounded, came to this reflection full of wisdom: “I am a fool! Nothing is simpler. She had a kind of fancy for this stupid fellow. The sight of me has decided her to sacrifice him; unlucky buccaneer that he is! But why the devil does she tell me that at the end of a year she must find a successor to me?”
“Wait — here comes my Rendsoul,” said the widow. “We will tell him our plans, and we will sup together like three friends.”
“It matters not to me,” said Croustillac, seeing the buccaneer enter. “Here is a little woman who wishes to show that she is an original.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SUPPER.
WHEN THE BUCCANEER entered the chevalier hardly knew him. Rend-your-Soul had put off his hunter’s costume; he wore a coat and nether garment of guinea cloth, thickly embroidered with alternate rays of white and deep red; his black beard fell upon a shirt of dazzling whiteness, which was close like a doublet by a row of small coral buttons; a scarf of red silk, hose of the same color, and shoes of doeskin with large ribbon-bows, completed a costume most elegant for a buccaneer, and showing to advantage his tall and robust figure; in the brilliant light of the candles his complexion seemed less brown than in the daytime; his black hair, curling naturally, fell carelessly on his shoulders; and finally, his hands were beautiful, in spite of his rough following as a hunter.
At the sight of the buccaneer, so transformed and almost unrecognizable, in spite of the hard character which his thick beard always gave to his face, the chevalier said to himself, “I should prefer that this person had at least a civilized appearance; it would be too humiliating for Polyphème de Croustillac to triumph over a rival so plain as the one which he at first sight appeared to be. But, while I do not doubt this Nimrod, I must say that Blue Beard has a singular manner of acting. Could she not have given him his dismissal in some other way than in my presence? I hate to so cruelly use my advantage in crushing a poor rival; for, after all, a man is a man! This poor buccaneer is going to find himself in a pitiable position. But let me hold firm; and show Blue Beard that I am not the dupe of her confidence concerning her deceased husbands, and that I am not afraid to die like them.”
Croustillac ended this reflection when the pretty widow, indicating the adventurer by a triumphant nod of the head, said ingenuously to the buccaneer, “This gentleman asks for my hand in marriage. You see you were wrong in persisting to me that I would not find a fourth husband. So you can imagine I have very quickly accepted the chevalier’s proposal; it was too good an opportunity to let slip.”
The buccaneer did not reply at once. Croustillac mechanically put his hand on the hilt of his sword, in order not to be without means of defense in case the hunter, exasperated by jealousy, should wish to do him an injury. What was his surprise when he heard Rend-your-Soul say, after seating himself in a large chair, “I have always said to you, my beautiful one, just what that comrade Hurricane said, ‘Marry, a thousand devils marry! if you desire to, for husbands are rare, for one never knows what you will do; but one thing is certain, they never live long.’ As for me, I do not approve your little proceedings. I have more than once seen your little white hands prepare certain beverages — —”
“Oh, fie! fie! bad man!” said Angela, shaking her finger at him.
“Nevertheless, it is true,” said the buccaneer. “What is the secret of that gray powder of which I had only given a pinch to my servant who was devoured by my dogs. What infernal concoction was it?”
“Yes, madame, this gray powder — tell us its compounds,” said Croustillac.
“Oh, you indiscreet man!” said Angela, looking at the buccaneer, with an air of annoyance. “The chevalier will take me for a child; how shall I appear in his eyes if he thinks I occupy myself with such trifles?”
“Have no fears on that score, madame,” said Croustillac; “I am delighted, I assure you, to have these new evidences of your youthful candor! Well, worthy Nimrod, this gray powder?”
“Truly, I am very much ashamed!” said Angela, hanging her head and lowering her eyes, and at the same time making a charming little grimace.
“Imagine, then,” said the buccaneer, “that I gave my servant just a little pinch of powder in a glass of brandy.”
“Well?” said Croustillac, with interest.
“Well, for two days he was so gay that he laughed from night till morning and morning till night.”
“I do not see anything bad in that,” said Croustillac.
“But wait!” continued the hunter. “My servant did not do this from amusement, he suffered the torments of the damned; his eyes were bursting from their sockets, and he said, between his paroxysms of laughter, that such torture as he endured was beyond belief. The third day he suffered so that he fell as if in a fit, and remained thus a long time; all due to the pinch of madame’s gray powder. It may not surprise you to learn that madame’s second husband was as gay as a lark, and that he died very joyfully.”
“Oh! heavens, as if one could not commit a little mischief without being reproached by you,” said Angela, like a capricious child.
“Listen, comrade! she calls that a little mischief,” said the hunter. “Just imagine! her second husband laughed so hard that the blood burst from his nose, eyes and ears. But whatever he laughed about, he did so as if he had seen the most amusing thing in the world. But that did not prevent him from saying, like my servant, that he would rather have been burned at a slow fire than suffer such gayety; he also died, laughing to the last, and swearing like a devil.”
“There! you go too fast,” said Blue Beard, shrugging her shoulders. Then, whispering to the Gascon, “Friend, do not be afraid — I have lost the secret
of the gray powder!”
The chevalier, in an attempt to smile, made quite a grimace. He had left France at a time when the fearful practice in poisons was at its height, and people talked only of the heir’s powder, the powder of the aged, and the widow’s powder. The names, even, of certain poisons were cited with fear. Now Blue Beard’s laughing powder could not but give rise to the most doleful reflections on the part of the chevalier. “So,” he said to himself, glancing defiantly at Angela, “does this creature deal in chemistry and draughts — is this story true?”
“What ails you, brother?” said the buccaneer, struck by Croustillac’s silence.
“You have made him afraid of me,” said the widow.
“No, my beautiful lady, no,” said Croustillac, “I was thinking that it must be very pleasant to die thus of laughter!”
“Faith, you are right, brother, one had better die so than as the last husband died.” And the buccaneer shuddered with horror.
“It appears that the death of the latter must have been more terrible than the former,” said Croustillac, with affected carelessness.
“As to that story, comrade, I will not tell you that, you would be afraid.”
“I? afraid?” and the Gascon shrugged his shoulders.
Blue Beard leaned over and whispered again to the Gascon, “Let him tell it, friend; this tale, at least, is worth the trouble. I am going to trap Rendsoul.”
Then, addressing herself to the buccaneer, “Well, go on; speak! Why do you not speak? Do not pause in the middle of the road. You see the chevalier is listening with all his ears — go on, speak. I do not wish him to buy, as they say, a ‘a cat in a bag.’”