The Vengeance of the Oval Portrait

by Gabriel de Lautrec

  From then on, Ripolin only lived for vengeance.

  One day, the Baron left the plantation early. He went to the nearby town to have his grandmother’s portrait framed. It was the only souvenir he had of his distant childhood.

  When he came back, the beautiful Flora was dead. The wretch, taking advantage of a momentary inattention, had murdered her in a cowardly fashion.

  The Baron found his wife lying on a bed of sugar-cane that had been laid down to ease her last moments. He hurled himself on the cadaver and covered it with kisses.

  “Oh Flora!” he cried, “I was unable to protect the treasure that heaven entrusted to me! My imprudence has doomed you. But henceforth, I will devote my entire life to seeking the means to avenge you. I swear not to marry again before punishing the infamous murderer. Sleep peacefully, my dear Flora! I swear it on the ash of your blonde hair!”

  There was not a moment to lose. It was discovered that the treacherous Ripolin, after his cowardly sin, had fled southwards. He hastened he funeral, and departed two days later in search of the criminal.

  The weather was splendid. The birds were singing in the trees. The Sun inundated the macaroni fields with its hectic rays.

  As he got nearer to the pole, the heat began to diminish.

  That was the only notable incident of the voyage.

  The Baron crossed the strait in a frail skiff. Soon he perceived the ice-sheet and the glacial solitudes.

  He interrogated the natives he found on disembarking. None of them could give him the slightest information about the fugitive.

  The Baron was not discouraged. In any case, scientific curiosity was allied in him with the desire to avenge his wife. He was too close not to take advantage of the opportunity. The south pole attracted him. Armed with a sextant and an astrolabe, he set off courageously. When he arrived, it was dark. He was obliged to wait for the next day to contemplate the polar landscape.

  In the morning he woke up, refreshed and in good heart. He emerged from his tent.

  O stupor! In front of him, solidly erected on two posts, was a gigantic poster, on which he read the words: Closed for repairs. While work is in progress, please apply to the north pole.

  So that was where his efforts had led! He uttered a howl of fury and headed northwards again. A few days later, he reached the shore again. Without hesitating for moment, he started swimming, resolutely.

  Twenty years later he came ashore in Morocco.

  III. The Haunted Château

  It was a little town, such as one sees in old pictures.

  There was a gate at the end of the road with stone benches for old people and an arch from which a broken lantern was suspended.

  On the other side, a long street began, which went all the way through the town, with shorter streets to either side.

  Every street corner was marked by a boundary-post. One could not go wrong.

  The street was full of people. The noise of saucepans being moved around kitchens was audible through the windows. Bald men were smoking their pipes on doorsteps. There were children playing with dogs in the gutters.

  The Baron considered the spectacle affectionately. As he did so he noticed that it as dinner time. He looked for an inn-sign. Prudence instructed him not to arrive unexpectedly, when it was time to sit down at table, at a château abandoned for fifty years.

  There was no indication on the horizon. Neither a Pewter Pot not a Crowned Ox. Feverishly, he passed a cosmetic stick over his moustache and interrogated a young man who was coming toward him, carrying a fat child in her arms, whom she was breast-feeding.

  “A hostelry? Lord! Why? No travelers ever stop here. There’s only the villagers, and when they travel, they go elsewhere.”

  Idlers were gathering. Shaking his head like a cracked bell, an old man said: “There’s only the château, with at least thirty beds—but one can’t think of staying there.”

  The old man bore all the stigmata of debauchery on his face.

  At the word château, the women present made the sign of the cross devoutly, as if they had seen the Devil.

  “It’s precisely at the château,” the Baron said, “that I want to stay.”

  “Unfortunately,” the odious old man continued, “it’s an ancient haunted château. The noble lord, whose soul is with God, died a long time ago. His son went to the Turkish lands and never came back. Every night, a phantom walks the terraces. Once, a traveler wanted to spend the night in that accursed dwelling. He was never seen again.”

  “That’s probably,” said Jehan, “because he left by another door.”

  And he insisted on being given a few provisions and the key. They decided to go fetch it. It was the sacristan who kept it, with those of the church. For fear of spirits, every time he went past it, he sprinkled it with holy water. It was, in consequence, very rusty.

  A few hours later, the Baron was installed in front of a good peat fire in a ground-floor room of the château. He gazed affectionately at the old furniture, which had been the playmates of his childhood. He heard the wind moaning in the trees, as before. On the table in front of him the villagers had laid out a very comforting supper. A large jar of red fish added a picturesque note to the severity of the décor. And in the next room, a bed awaited the traveler.

  But Jehan des Entournures scarcely thought of sleep. Haunted by his desire for vengeance, he had not slept for fifty years.

  The snow fell uninterruptedly, burying the dahlias and sunflowers under its white cloak. Through the arched window came the faint echo of bells ringing for Candlemas.

  A noise rose up from the cellar. The steps of the staircase creaked. The Baron took from his wallet one of the latest love-letters from his numerous mistresses, rolled the piece of paper into a trumpet and put the trumpet in his left ear, in which he was slightly deaf since his campaigns in the Himalayas.

  Footsteps became audible, drawing nearer. Soon, no doubt about it, there was someone behind the door.

  “Come in!” Jehan shouted, in a voice weakened by emotion.

  The door opened and the phantom appeared.

  A vast white sheet covered it from head to foot, and from foot to head, rising up again. It advanced into the middle of the room.

  “Who has permitted you, audacious immortal, to come and trouble my repose?” it said, in a severe tone.

  Its voice was cavernous, so low in pitch that the Baron had to lie flat on the ground to hear it.

  With a noble gesture, the phantom signaled for him to get up again.

  An oppressive silence followed. A profound silence. One could have heard a watch being stolen.

  In the end, the hero gathered his courage and spoke to the pale visitor: “Are you not,” he said, “the spirit of my dead father? If you are, you know why I have come to this dwelling—and you would be very kind to tell me, for I have no idea.”

  The phantom reached out toward its interlocutor and handed him an object, which the Baron accepted mechanically. It was a piece of cigarette paper. While he contemplated it stupidly, he saw the phantom’s hand rose slowly toward the ceiling. Jehan’s eyes followed the movement—and what he saw was so frightful that his hair instantly turned black.

  There were footprints on the ceiling!

  The Baron uttered a cry of impotent rage. The phantom had just thrown back the flap of the white sheet covering its face—and his visage, with a sinister rictus, was none other than that of Ripolin. Doors opened noisily. Before Flora’s unfortunate husband was able to put himself on the defensive, the Brothers of High C51 had invaded the room and gripped him tightly. Few minutes later, he was lying in a dungeon with a piece of stale black bread and a wicker jug.

  IV. An Evening in High Society

  The Comtesse’s reception-rooms were brightly illuminated.

  Never had the historic town house, whose imposing mass stood at the junction of the Boulevard Poissonnière and the Rue Mouffetard, seen such affluence.

  That evening, all that Paris possessed of e
legance in the world of politics had come together there.

  The Comtesse de La Tourprengarde was one of those enigmatic individuals whose star suddenly appears in the Parisian sky, and who owe a great deal of their harm to the mystery surrounding their origin.

  Many stories of a scabrous sort were whispered on that subject. But she was rich, young, very beautiful and her hair was naturally curly. That was sufficient. The most difficult socialites solicited her invitations.

  The best-informed said that she was the widow of an unsociable Brazilian, to whom she owed her fortune. She never talked about it. Perhaps she still thought about it.

  A few years after her arrival in Paris, she had married her second husband, a famous surgeon, already old, who had since died, prematurely. Some femmes fatales are marked on the forehead with a stigma handed down from numerous avatars, and strike in the heart, successively, with a sure hand, all those who chance to love them.

  The Comtesse, whether out of hypocrisy or calculation, wept sincerely for her spouse.

  Soon, however, the weakness of her creole nature was stronger than regret.

  She was a woman. She succumbed.

  Among the numerous guests crowded, at the present moment, into the vast reception-rooms of the house, there were very few who could not boast of having obtained her favors.

  The music had stopped, though. The orchestra had taken advantage of that circumstance to have a drink. Lackeys in fine costumes were pouring champagne in the parlor. The distant echo of drinking songs was faintly audible.

  In the middle of an attentive circle, Captain Pamphile was telling tales of his voyages overseas.

  The Comtesse gave the signal for applause herself.

  She was a woman of small dimensions. She was scarcely a meter twelve in height—but the majesty of her bearing made her resemble a giant.

  Her dress was green muslin, decorated with large ruche roses. A blue girdle fell from her waist.

  Thus clad, the Comtesse was irresistible.

  Around her neck she wore the famous necklace that her last husband, the famous specialist surgeon, had given her. That necklace, a veritable masterpiece of modern jewelry, was entirely made of kidney-stones.

  “So I left Paraguay,” Captain Pamphile continued, “Not wanting to remain under that infamous accusation a minute longer. Certainly, I had played for high stakes. My entire fortune had been swallowed up in agricultural exploitation. I began to obtain brilliant results. The first crop of snails exceeded my expectations. The production of cows’ milk had quintupled since my application of rhythmic traction to the development of the udders. But what did that matter! I was in a hurry to remake my fortune. It was therefore indispensable to unmake it first. Then again, I admit, from another point of view, I wasn’t displeased to disappear for a while. The love of the camerera-mayor52 was beginning to weigh upon me.

  “In passing through the Bermudas, our ship had to endure a dangerous storm. We only just had time to take in a reef and tack toward the coast. We were only a few cables from Tierra del Fuego, whose high volcanoes….”

  A shrill screech interrupted the orator. The Comtesse had just fainted.

  While people pressed around her, one of the guests who had been in the outermost rank of Pamphile’s audience slipped away to the left and headed for the door of the next room. The man was wearing a glass mask over his face, which permitted him to see clearly everything that was happening around him without revealing his own features. He spoke Spanish and answered to the name of José, but an attentive observer might have noticed, every time, an involuntary quiver of the cutaneous and zygomatic muscles. The man had to be a great criminal or a hero.

  Meanwhile, the Captain, used to making light of the most critical situations, had summoned the servants. On his orders, someone went in search of an old horseshoe and a red hot shovel.

  While the devoted guests held the Comtesse, her head and upper body slumped forward, he passed the shovel, on which he had placed the horseshoe, under her nose.

  A pestilential odor filled the room.

  The Comtesse woke up, passed her hand over her forehead with a distracted gesture, and then sneezed three times.

  “Where am I?” she asked. “What a delightful scent of roses!”

  And she dissolved in tears.

  She was saved.

  “…Whose high volcanoes,” the Captain continued, without letting go of the shovel in his hand, as a precaution, “projected a greenish fuliginous light on the horizon. We landed. Immediately, however, we were forced to flee from a danger greater than the one we had just escaped. Monstrous Lepidoptera rushed upon us, uttering savage cries. Fortunately, the mountain offered us inaccessible retreats. A few hours later, we where sheltering n the depths of an immense natural cave, doubtless hollowed out by prehistoric humans. In that cave we were, it is true, at risk of dying of hunger and thirst. The wild Lepidoptera were crouching outside the entrance and licking the ground to extract salt, of which they are very fond…”

  The Captain paused momentarily to moisten his lips with the grog that a scarlet-clad lackey had just brought him. There were a few minutes of silence.

  At that moment, a Compagnie Richer53 carriage passed along the street at a gallop.

  V. The Righter of Wrongs

  For seven years, the Baron des Entournures lived in the dungeon in the château.

  The seasons succeeded one another. After autumn, summer; after spring, winter. He was still a prisoner.

  Well-treated, however. Two meals a day. Three dishes by selection. Two desserts. Cheese. Bread optional. A half-bottle of red or white wine.

  The Brothers of High C took turns to serve him. Each of them came in turn, dressed in the great green cloak of the order, wearing on a chain around the neck the Salted Herring first class, enriched with diamonds.

  A rigorous discipline, however, prevented them from saying a single word. In the midst of these mute servitors, the Baron was more alone than in the most frightful desert. He had absolutely no knowledge of what was happening outside. The only echo of external life that reached him through the somber vaults was the sinister laughter of his enemy.

  When the initial surprise had passed, therefore, after five or six years, he had begun to search for a means of escape with a sudden grim energy.

  The floor of his cell was simply compacted earth. By means of an old crust of bread that he had the patience to harden, he dug in the ground, devouring the soil little by little as he went, to conceal his work.

  At a depth of fifty meters, he found impenetrable rock. He also had a stomach ache. His health was in jeopardy. He had haggard eyes and an earthy complexion.

  This time, the unfortunate was about to abandon himself to despair, when one day, by chance, his gaze fell upon the cell door.

  Absorbed for such a long time in his escape plans, he had not had time to look in that direction.

  The door was wide open, without his ever having noticed it.

  An automobile arriving at top speed stopped in front of the perron of the house.

  A man got out and came up the steps.

  He threw his fur cloak negligently into the hands of the impassive servants. His lace ruff, spangled with fabulously valuable black pearls, fell in cascades over his waistcoat. Pinned to the button-hole of his jacket was a hard-boiled egg.

  Only the sewer-worker’s boots rising above the knees lent a picturesque note to that correct ensemble.

  That was because he had two missions to carry out. The first was the concern of the man of the world, the second, symbolized by the boots, of the righter of wrongs.

  Deep down, Jehan des Entournures believed in his wife’s fidelity.

  She had died too young to have been able to deceive him very often.

  The heavy curtain was raised. The Baron appeared in the doorway. He darted a circular glance around the square room. His eyes alighted on the Comtesse. Master of himself as he was, he could hardly stifle a cry of joyous amazement.

&n
bsp; But the moment had not come. Without paying any heed to the acclamations that greeted his entrance, he bounded toward the door through which Don José had disappeared. It was the gaming room.

  Seated at a baccarat table, the Spaniard was delivering himself body and soul to his fatal passion.

  He had set his transparent mask down on the baize in order that, when chance went against him, he could swear more easily.

  His feverish hands were dealing the cards with sardonic gestures. His features were contracted. One might have thought that he was searching, in that unhealthy emotion, to forget some remorse.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round, shivering. Half an hour later he was standing up, stiffening himself against drunkenness, face to face with Jehan.

  VI. Conclusion

  “Wretch!” cried the Baron. “The hour has come to expiate your crime! Commend your soul to God, if he wants a dog like you!”

  Then, bringing a carefully-wrapped object out of his pocket, he brandished it in Don José’s direction.

  “Do you recognize this pipe?” he asked, in a dull vice. “It’s the one that the old black man was smoking on the day of Flora’s death. But Flora isn’t dead, since she’s alive…and it was the black man who succumbed, a victim of his devotion. Distracted by dolor, I’ve been the dupe of your subterfuge for sixty years. Since then, my eyes have been opened. Prepare yourself. You’re about to die….”

  Lightning might have struck Don José and he would not have been more thunderstruck. His face paled frightfully. By virtue of a singular phenomenon, that pallor caused the white make-up with which his face was covered to disappear. In all its primitive blackness, the terrible face of Ripolin became clearly visible.

  Already, though, Baron Jehan had run to the door. An instant later, he had the Comtesse in his arms. The Comtesse was none other than Flora.

  After numerous vicissitudes, destiny had reunited the victims of an abominable plot.

  The guests pressed around the happy couple. The Comtesse—or, rather, Flora, for it is under that name that she will figure henceforth in this story—was sobbing with joy, like a child.