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Erotic Classics I

Page 75

by Various Authors


  “Well, then you’ll have to die, worthless creature,” retorted the furious Dubois, “you’ll die; don’t tease yourself with hopes of escaping your fate.”

  “What matters it to me?” I calmly answered, “I shall be delivered of all the ills that assail me; death holds no terrors for me, ’tis life’s last sleep, ’tis the downtrodden’s haven of repose. . . .”

  And, upon these words, that savage beast sprang at me, I thought she was going to strangle me; she struck several blows upon my breast, but released me, however, immediately I cried out, for she feared lest the postilion hear me.

  We were moving along at a brisk pace; the man who was riding ahead arranged for new horses and we stopped only long enough to change teams. As the new pair was being harnessed, Dubois suddenly raised her weapon and clapped it to my heart . . . what was she about to do? . . . Indeed, my exhaustion and my situation had beaten me down to the point of preferring death to the ordeal of keeping it at bay.

  We were then preparing to enter Dauphine, of a sudden six horsemen, galloping at top speed behind our coach, overtook it and, with drawn cutlasses, forced our driver to halt. Thirty feet off the highway was a cottage to which these cavaliers, whom we soon identified as constables, ordered the driver to lead the carriage; when we were alongside it, we were told to get out, and all three of us entered the peasant’s dwelling. With an effrontery unthinkable in a woman soiled with unnumbered crimes, Dubois who found herself arrested, archly demanded of these officers whether she were known to them, and with what right they comported themselves thus with a woman of her rank.

  “We have not the honor of your acquaintance, Madame,” replied the officer in charge of the squadron; “but we are certain you have in your carriage the wretch who yesterday set fire to the principal hotel in Villefranche”; then, eyeing me closely: “she answers the description, Madame, we are not in error—; have the kindness to surrender her to us and to inform us how a person as respectable as you appear to be could have such a woman in your keeping.”

  “Why, ’tis very readily accounted for,” replied Dubois with yet greater insolence, “and, I declare, I’ll neither hide her from you nor take her side in the matter if ’tis certain she is guilty of the horrible crime you speak of. I too was staying at that hotel in Villefranche, I left in the midst of all the commotion and as I am getting into my coach, this girl runs up, begs my compassion, says she has just lost everything in the fire, and implores me to take her with me to Lyon where she hopes to be able to find a place. Far less attentive to my reason than to my heart’s promptings, I acquiesced, consented to fetch her along; once in the carriage she offered herself as my servant; once again imprudence led me to agree to everything and I have been taking her to Dauphine where I have my properties and family: ’tis a lesson, assuredly, I presently recognize with utmost clarity all of pity’s shortcomings; I shall not again be guilty of them. There she is, gentlemen, there she is; God forbid that I should be interested in such a monster, I abandon her to the law’s severest penalties, and, I beseech you, take every step to prevent it from being known that I committed the unfortunate mistake of lending an instant’s credence to a single word she uttered.”

  I wished to defend myself, I wanted to denounce the true villain; my speeches were interpreted as calumniatory recriminations to which Dubois opposed nothing but a contemptuous smile. O fatal effects of misery and biased prepossession, of wealth and of insolence! Were it thinkable that a woman who had herself called Madame la Baronne de Fulconis, who proclaimed a high degree and displayed opulence, who asserted she owned extensive holdings and arrogated a family to herself; were it to be conceived that such a personage could be guilty of a crime wherefrom she did not appear to have the slightest thing to gain? And, on the other hand, did not everything condemn me? I was unprotected, I was poor, ’twas a very sure thing I’d done a fell deed.

  The squadron officer read me the catalogue of Bertrand’s deposed charges. ’Twas she had accused me; I’d set the inn afire to pillage her with greater ease, and she’d been robbed indeed to her last penny; I’d flung her infant into the flames in order that, blinded by the despair with which this event would overwhelm her, she’d forget all else and give not a thought to my maneuvers; and, furthermore, Bertrand had added, I was a girl of suspect virtue and bad habits who had escaped the gallows at Grenoble and whom she had only taken in charge, very foolishly, thanks to the excessive kindness she had shown a young man from her own district, my lover, no doubt. I had publicly and in broad daylight solicited monks in Lyon: in one word, there was nothing the unworthy creature had not exploited in order to seal my doom, nothing that calumny whetted by despair had not invented in order to besmirch me. Upon the woman’s insistence, a juridical examination had been conducted on the premises. The fire had begun in a hayloft into which several persons had taken oath I had entered the evening of that fatal day, and that was true. Searching for a water closet to which I had not been very clearly directed by a maid I had consulted, I had entered this loft having failed to locate the sought after place, and there I had remained long enough to make what I was accused of plausible, or at least to furnish probabilities of its truth; and ’tis well known: in this day and age those are proofs. And so, do what I could to defend myself, the officer’s single response was to ready his manacles.

  “But, Monsieur,” I expostulated before allowing him to put me in irons, “if I robbed my traveling companion at Villefranche, the money ought to be found upon my person; search me.”

  This ingenuous defense merely excited laughter; I was assured I’d not been alone, that they were certain I had accomplices to whom, as I fled, I had transferred the stolen funds. Then the malicious Dubois, who knew of the brand which to my misfortune Rodin had burned upon my flesh long ago, in one instant Dubois put all sympathy to rout.

  “Monsieur,” said she to the officer, “so many mistakes are committed every day in affairs of this sort that you will forgive me for the idea that occurs to me: if this girl is guilty of the atrocity she is accused of it is surely not her first; the character required to execute crimes of this variety is not attained in a night: and so I beg you to examine this girl, Monsieur . . . were you to find, by chance, something upon her wretched body . . . but if nothing denounces her, allow me to defend and protect her.”

  The officer agreed to the verification . . . it was about to be carried out . . .

  “One moment, Monsieur,” said I, “stay; this search is to no purpose; Madame knows full well I bear the frightful mark; she also knows very well what misfortune caused it to be put on me: this subterfuge of hers is the crowning horror which will, together with all the rest, be revealed at Themis’ own temple. Lead me away, Messieurs: here are my hands, load them with chains; only Crime blushes to carry them, stricken Virtue is made to groan thereby, but is not terrified.”

  “Truth to tell,” quoth Dubois, “I’d never have dreamt my idea would have such success; but as this creature repays my kindness by insidious inculpations, I am willing to return with her if you deem it necessary.”

  “There’s no need whatsoever to do so, Madame la Baronne,” rejoined the officer, “this girl is our quarry: her avowals, the mark branded on her body, it all condemns her; we need no one else, and we beg your pardon a thousand times over for having caused you this protracted inconvenience.”

  I was handcuffed immediately, flung upon the crupper of one of the constables’ mounts, and Dubois went off, not before she had completed her insults by giving a few crowns to my guards, which generously bestowed silver was to aid me during my melancholy sojourn while awaiting trial.

  O Virtue! I cried when I perceived myself brought to this dreadful humiliation; couldst thou suffer a more penetrating outrage? Were it possible that Crime might dare affront thee and vanquish thee with so much insolence and impunity!

  We were soon come to Lyon; upon arrival I was cast into the keep reser
ved for criminals and there I was inscribed as an arsonist, harlot, child-murderer, and thief.

  Seven persons had been burned to death in the hotel; I had myself thought I might be; I had been on the verge of perishing; but she who had been the cause of this horror was eluding the law’s vigilance and Heaven’s justice: she was triumphant, she was flying on to new crimes whereas, innocent and unlucky, I had naught for prospect but dishonor, castigation, and death.

  For such a long time habituated to calumny, injustice, and wretchedness; destined, since childhood, to acquit myself of not a single virtuous deed or feel a single righteous sentiment without suffering instant retribution therefor, my anguish was rather mute and blunted than rending, and I shed fewer tears than I might have supposed . . . however, as ’tis instinctive in the distressed creature to seek after every possible device to extricate himself from the chasm into which his ill-fortune has plunged him, Father Antonin came to my mind; whatever the mediocre relief I could hope from him, I did not deny to myself I was anxious to see him: I asked for him, he appeared. He had not been informed of by whom he was desired; he affected not to recognize me; whereupon I told the turn-key that it was indeed possible he had forgotten me, having been my confessor only when I was very young, but, I continued, it was as my soul’s director I solicited a private interview with him. ’Twas agreed by both parties. As soon as I was alone with this holy man I cast myself at his knees, rained tears upon them and besought him to save me from my cruel situation; I proved my innocence to him; I did not conceal that the culpable proposals he had made me some days before had provoked my young companion’s enmity, and presently, said I, she accused me out of spite. The monk listened attentively.

  “Thérèse,” said he when I was done, “don’t lose control of yourself as you customarily do when someone contradicts your damnable prejudices; you notice to what a pass they’ve brought you, and you can at present readily convince yourself that it’s a hundred times better to be a rascal and happy than well-behaved and unprosperous; your case is as bad as it possibly could be, dear girl, there’s nothing to be gained by hiding the fact from you: this Dubois you speak of, having the largest benefits to reap from your doom, will unquestionably labor behind the scene to ruin you: Bertrand will accuse you, all appearances stand against you, and, these days, appearances are sufficient grounds for decreeing the death sentence: you are, hence, lost, ’tis plain: one single means might save you: I get on well with the bailiff, he has considerable influence with this city’s magistrature; I’m going to tell him you are my niece, and that by this title I am claiming you: he’ll dismiss the entire business: I’ll ask to send you back to my family; I’ll have you taken away, but ‘twill be to our monastery and incarceration there, whence you’ll never emerge . . . and there, why conceal it? you, Thérèse, will be the bounden slave of my caprices, you’ll sate them all without a murmur; as well, you will submit yourself to my colleagues: in a word, you will be as utterly mine as the most subordinated of victims . . . you heed me: the task is hard; you know what are the passions of libertines of our variety; so make up your mind, and make me prompt answer.”

  “Begone, Father,” I replied, horror-struck, “begone, you are a monster to dare so cruelly take advantage of my circumstances in order to force upon me the alternatives of death or infamy; I shall know how to die, if die I must, but ‘twill be to die sinless.”

  “As you like,” quoth the cruel man as he prepared to withdraw; “I have never been one to impose happiness upon reluctant people. . . . Virtue has so handsomely served you until the present, Thérèse, you are quite right to worship at its altar . . . good-bye: above all, let it not occur to you to ask for me again.”

  He was leaving; an unconquerable impulse drew me to his knees yet another time.

  “Tiger!” I exclaimed through my tears, “open your granite heart, let my appalling misadventures melt it, and do not, in order to conclude them, do not impose conditions more dreadful to me than death itself. . . .”

  The violence of my movements had disturbed what veiled my breast, it was naked, my disheveled hair fell in cascades upon it, it was wetted thoroughly by my tears; I quicken desires in the dishonest man . . . desires he wants to satisfy on the spot; he dares discover to me to what point my state arouses them; he dares dream of pleasures lying in the middle of the chains binding me and beneath the sword which is poised to smite me . . . I was upon my knees . . . he flings me backward, leaps upon me, there we lie upon the wretched straw I use for a bed; I wish to cry out, he stuffs his handkerchief into my mouth; he ties my arms; master of me, the infamous creature examines me everywhere . . . everything becomes prey to his gaze, his fingerings, his perfidious caresses; at last, he appeases his desires.

  “Listen to me,” says he, untying me and readjusting his costume, “you do not want me to be helpful, all very well; I am leaving you; I’ll neither aid nor harm you, but if it enters your head to breathe a word of what has just happened, I will, by charging you with yet more enormous crimes, instantly deprive you of all means of defending yourself; reflect carefully before jabbering . . . I am taken for your confessor . . . now hark: we are permitted to reveal anything and all when ’tis a question of a criminal; fully approve what I am going to say to your warden, or else I’ll crush you like a fly.”

  He knocks, the jailer appears.

  “Monsieur,” says the traitor, “the nice young lady is in error; she wished to speak to a Father Antonin who is now in Bordeaux; I have no acquaintance of her, never have I even set eyes upon her: she besought me to hear her confession, I did so, I salute you and her and shall always be ready to present myself when my ministry is esteemed important.”

  Upon uttering these words, Antonin departs and leaves me as much bewildered by his fraudulence as revolted by his libertinage and insolence.

  My situation was so dreadful that, whatever it might be, I could ill afford not to employ every means at my disposal; I recollected Monsieur de Saint-Florent: in the light of my behavior toward him, I was incapable of believing this man could underestimate my character; once long ago I had rendered him a most important service, he had dealt most cruelly with me, and therefore I imagined he could not, in my presently critical plight, very well refuse to make reparation for the wrongs he had done me; no, I was sure he would at least have to acknowledge, as best he were able, what I had so generously done in his behalf; passions’ heat might have blinded him upon the two occasions I had held commerce with him; there had been some sort of excuse for his former horrors, but in this instance, it seemed to me, no feeling should prevent him from coming to my aid. . . . Would he renew his last proposals? to the assistance I was going to request from him would he attach the condition I must agree to the frightful employments he had outlined to me before? ah, very well! I’d accept and, once free, I should easily discover the means to extricate myself from the abominable kind of existence into which he might have the baseness to lure me. Full of these ideas, I write a letter to him, I describe my miseries, I beg him to visit me; but I had not devoted adequate thought to analyzing this man’s soul when I supposed it susceptible of infiltration by beneficence; I either did not sufficiently remember his appalling theories, or my wretched weakness constantly forcing me to use my own heart as the standard by which to judge others, fancied this man was bound to comport himself toward me as I should certainly have done toward him.

  He arrives; and, as I have asked to see him alone, he is freely introduced into my cell. From the marks of respect showered profusely upon him it was easy to determine the eminent position he held in Lyon.

  “Why, it’s you!” said he, casting scornful eyes upon me, “I was deceived by the letter; I thought it written by a woman more honest than you and whom I would have helped with all my heart; but what would you have me do for an imbecile of your breed? What! you’re guilty of a hundred crimes one more shocking than the other, and when someone suggests a way for you to e
arn your livelihood you stubbornly reject the proposal? Never has stupidity been carried to these lengths.”

  “Oh, Monsieur I” I cried, “I am not in the least guilty.”

  “Then what the devil must one do in order to be?” the harsh creature sharply rejoined. “The first time in my life I clapped eyes on you, there you were, in the thick of a pack of bandits who wanted to assassinate me; and now it is in the municipal prison I discover you, accused of three or four new crimes and wearing, so they tell me, a mark on your shoulder which proclaims your former misdeeds. If that is what you designate by the word honest, do inform me of what it would require not to be.”

  “Just Heaven, Monsieur!” I replied, “can you excoriate that period in my life when I knew you, and should it not rather be for me to make you blush at the memory of what passed then? You know very well, Monsieur, the bandits who captured you, and amongst whom you found me, kept me with them by force; they wanted to kill you, I saved your life by facilitating your escape while making mine; and what, cruel man, did you do to thank me for my aid? is it possible you can recall your actions without horror? You yourself wanted to murder me; you dazed me by terrible blows and, profiting from my half-unconscious state, you snatched from me what I prized most highly; through an unexampled refinement of cruelty, you plundered me of the little money I possessed quite as if you had desired to summon humiliation and misery to complete your victim’s obliteration! And great was your success, barbaric one! indeed, it has been entire; ’tis you who precipitated me into desolation; ’tis you who made the abyss to yawn, and ’tis thanks to you I fell into it and have not ceased to fall since that accursed moment.

 

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