Paris Before the Deluge Page 17

  Nimrod took the letter, but did not move. The lady thought she understood. She opened a purse, from which she took out a handful of gold coins, which she held out to the avaricious messenger.

  “Oh, that’s not what I was waiting for, my lady,” said Nimrod, extending his hand, “but I thought, because of your generosity, that I might as well reveal to you right away a little secret that you might be glad to know. Perhaps the time is right.”

  “Speak!”

  “In fact, no—not yet,” said Nimrod, after having reflected momentarily. “Let’s be prudent and not try to do everything at once. First of all, Lord Mo-kie-thi!”

  Nimrod left then, leaving the dagger of a new anxiety trembling in Ludia’s heart.

  XIV. The Hour of the Rendezvous

  That same evening, Lord Speos’ house was still giving signs of life at an hour when it was usually completely still.

  It was midnight, and the porter had not yet gone to bed. The lamp set near the staircase to illuminate it until the masters went to bed was still yielding a feeble glow, whose flickering reflections formed thousands of phantoms along the walls.

  Lord Speos was in his bedroom, sitting in a large armchair with his head in his hands and his elbows on a table. A pair of revolvers was before his eyes.

  Nimrod and Hyperion were sitting a little way behind their master.

  No one said a word; one might have thought them three cadavers.

  Nimrod was sitting comfortably in a high-backed armchair, his arms folded, his legs outstretched and his head bowed over his breast, as if he were reflecting profoundly.

  Hyperion’s attitude was very similar, but a slight snore uttered from time to time that he was no longer meditating.

  A small lamp, half extinct, illuminated the three human statues with its wan light.

  In Ludia’s room, by contrast, there was the greatest agitation. The lady was alone, but she was pacing back and forth, tormented by the idea of a crime. Suddenly, she ran to the door, convinced that someone had knocked on it—but there was no one there.

  “No one!” she said. “I believe, in truth, that I’m going mad. My God, what shall I do? It’s necessary, though, to save my husband. Anyway, I only have to say words to him to ask for mercy for Lord Speos. But what if Nimrod were to betray me? Oh, no, no—that’s impossible. Mo-kie-thi will come secretly, in perfect safety for both of us…ah!”

  She ran to the door, and opened it.

  It was him: Lord Mo-kie-thi.

  At that sight, the lady’s heart ceased to beat. All her limbs remained motionless. There was a pause in her life. Then came memories, remorse, dread and hope. I do not believe that there was love any longer.

  “You, my lord!” she said.

  “Me, Madame; here at your orders. I’m listening.”

  “You mean to harm Speos,” Ludia said, her face red and her eyes downcast.

  “Me, Madame!”

  “It’s said that you want to render him responsible for your son’s death.”

  “I don’t know, Madame. I’ll base that decision on information that will soon reach me.”

  “Without hatred, without remorse and without vengeance?” asked the lady, in voice that was weak and tremulous.

  “Of course, milady. Why cite all those evil sentiments?”

  “How do I know, my lord?”

  “Is it because your son and mine, perhaps the only one that remain to me, will not have our name, thanks to you? Is it because Ludia Arimaspes has betrayed her oath? Is it because…?”

  Ludia interrupted Mo-kie-thi with the impatient gestures she made, indicating that she wanted to speak.

  “Forgive me, Madame,” Mo-kie-thi continued. “I understand that I’m making myself a trifle ridiculous in reminding you, after sixteen years of absence, of words that might have been spoken in a moment of delirium. I’m still speaking like an amorous and credulous young man, whereas I’m no longer anything to you but an old man to be dismissed...”

  Ludia, however, seemed to be suffering horribly. Every one of her interlocutor’s words was a dagger-blow to her.

  “Mo-kie-thi!” she said, finally. Stepping toward him and placing a convulsive hand on her shoulder.

  “Madame,” said the other, feeling an involuntary frisson run along all his limbs on contact with that hand, once so dear to him.

  “Listen to me; I only merit pity.”

  “We’ll see,” said Mo-kie-thi, looking Ludia in the face, his eyes folded over his chest.

  “When you left for your long voyage,” the lady said, “it was as much, you ought to remember, out of personal fear as to defer to my pleas. I wanted you to shield your head from the resentments of my father. If you had other sentiments, they’re unknown to me. But you were not the only one condemned in the eyes of Lord Arimaspes. As soon as he was born, they wanted to take him away from me to throw him into the sea. I saved his life, but at what price? Money, for one thing, and then on condition that I would not see him again, at least for many years—and, indeed, I haven’t seen him.”

  “So what, Madame?” said Mo-kie-thi, coldly, affecting more insensitivity than he really had.

  That memory of the past was not devoid of interest for him. The proof of that was that his face eased insensibly as Ludia spoke, and that he darted glances at her from time to time that testified to a great deal of anxiety and commiseration.

  “My father died,” he went on, in a tearful voice. “Poor father! I was free from then on, but you weren’t here. I waited. I waited for you for a long time, and when my twentieth birthday was about to sound, you had not arrived. No one knew where you were. Your friends had had no news of you; it was said that you were dead.”

  “And then?” said Mo-kie-thi, emotionally, extending a hand to Ludia’s arm, which he squeezed affectionately.

  “Lord Speos asked for my hand; I accepted, in order to obey the law.”

  “Poor girl!” said Mo-kie-thi, drawing the lady closer to him.

  “And I did well,” Ludia added, “for Lord Speos was rich. My father’s fortune, which I thought considerable, was burdened by debts, my husband told me, so that I found myself despoiled, and very glad to encounter the hospitality of a rich man. That, lord, is the extent of my crime.”

  “Your crime!” said Mo-kie-thi, drawing Ludia against his chest.

  The lady extracted herself gently from that grip, and, moving a few paces away, she lowered her eyes and added: “And now I’m Lord Speos’ wife.”

  “That’s true,” replied Mo-kie-thi, severely, “but you’re also the mother of my son. Tell me about my son, Madame.”

  “Ask Nimrod what he did with him, my lord. I’ve been trying to find out for nineteen years, and haven’t yet been able to succeed.”

  At that moment, someone knocked gently on the bedroom door. It was Nimrod, who had come fearfully to warn Lord Mo-kie-thi to leave as quickly as possible.

  Mo-kie-thi darted an inquisitive glance at Ludia, who begged him, with her hands joined, to follow her servant’s advice. He did not hesitate any longer, and escaped in haste.

  An instant later, the sound of a revolver shot was heard, and then a muffled cry, and something like the sound of an inert mass falling down the stairs.

  The lady ran out, breathlessly. She found herself face to face with her husband.

  “He’s dead, I think,” said Speos, coldly, throwing his revolver down at the lady’s feet.

  “Who, my lord?” said Ludia, fearfully.

  “Who? A thief, perhaps an assassin, whom I saw slipping swiftly along the corridor of our apartments.”

  “A thief!” cried the lady, in a distraught voice. “What if you were mistaken? What if it wasn’t a thief?” Seizing her husband’s arm wildly and feverishly, she added: “Have you killed him?”

  “Let’s go and see,” replied Speos, calmly. At the same time, he took a small lamp from Nimrod’s hands, which the perfidious servant had just brought, and they all went toward the victim.

  The
cadaver was lying on the stairs, head down, his feet still on the landing, with one hand clutching the banisters. Speos and Nimrod took hold of his clothing, while the lady, her eyes attentive and her ears pricked, waited in the most terrible anxiety for the result of the visit.

  A trickle of blood was still escaping from the mouth of the victim, who uttered a prolonged gasp, which each of them felt in the depths of the heart, with various emotions.

  Nimrod bent down to examine the face more closely, and uttered a stifled cry, looking at his master.

  “Hyperion!” he exclaimed.

  At the same time, the door to the street was heard to open and close, and the porter, half asleep, came up the stairs to put out the lamp that was still burning in the corridor.

  XV. The Desert

  A few leagues from Lutecia, to the north, in the year that we are talking about, there was a deserted valley, the soil of which was pitted at intervals with holes that were almost invariably filled with stagnant water: dangerous traps feared by everyone.

  An arm of the sea had once extended there, it was said, which had partly disappeared, leaving nothing behind but bad memories. In the history of the country it was also said that the region had once, in a flourishing time, been extensively cultivated, very salubrious, nourishing a numerous and wealthy population; then, one day—no one knew in what epoch, which history mentioned vaguely, with countless and various suppositions—the soil had degenerated in order to become what was found in the year two thousand three hundred and forty-eight before our era: a place that was virtually uninhabitable.

  The region formed a broad valley surrounded on all sides by mountains of volcanic appearance, for different craters that had opened at different times had not been completely filled in. Those mountains were extensively covered by forests, stunted on one slope—that of the valley—but more vibrant and lush on the others. On that side, the soil had a very different aspect. It was salubrious and fertile; life there was good and prosperous, so beautiful houses could be seen there: rich houses, and occasional manor houses.

  By contrast, in the Valley of the Desert, thus warranting its name, life was so wretched and dangerous for everyone that it had gradually been abandoned, and the only habitations to be seen were a few hovels. There were, however, families native to the area that vegetated there as they always had, with no thought, for the most part, of seeking a better life elsewhere, so strong is human affection for the roof under which one is born.

  The government paid no heed to those unfortunates whom it abandoned to their fates. If it did not give them any help, however, it did not torment them, perhaps considering them as people of the other world. It granted them the favor of not troubling their destinies.

  The valley had another privilege, which was to be a place of refuge for those persecuted by society, for those proscribed by the government, which let them sleep in peace there, convinced as they were that their persecution would be abandoned, without any effort on its part, by virtue of the mephitic soil and without overmuch delay.

  That murderous favor might have been a great favor in the year with which we are concerned.

  One morning in that year, about six months after the gunshot in Lord Speos’ house, the sun was radiant; the miasmatic fogs that covered the valley for much of the day had dissipated.

  At the door of a rather neat cottage, suggestive of more careful care than the hands of the local inhabitants usually provided, a thin young man with a jaundiced and wrinkled face was sitting on a wooden stool. Everything about his pose and appearance indicated that he had been ill for a long time. His hands were resting on a staff and his chin on his hands. His clothing was not that of a peasant of the region.

  Occasionally, at intervals, a young woman or an older one came out of the cottage as far as the threshold, where they exchanged a few words with the invalid and then went back inside. Their costume, simple as it was, was not peasant costume either.

  “Well, Hyperion,” said the young woman at one time, “do you like this sunshine?”

  “The sun is doing me a great deal of good,” the young man replied, with a smile in which there was more doubt than conviction—which the young woman noticed.

  “You’re not saying what you think, it seems to me,” she said.

  “Pardon me, Ormuzda, but I feel quite well. I even think that the sun in this ill-famed region is concealing its malevolence from me. Add to that, and most of all, your generous care, the tranquility and liberty that we enjoy here, and the hope we can entertain here, and what more could one want in order to emerge happily from a long illness? Then again, when one is in love...” Hyperion smiled.

  “Yes, yes,” replied the young woman, briskly, wanting to interrupt the expansion that she saw coming, “talk to us about your nineteen years and your love, as safeguards against malady!”

  “Oh, they’re not proof against a revolver, I admit, especially when one is imprudent, as you’ve said to me more than once. Imprudent! Oh, in truth, I merit that criticism, Can you imagine that I had spent a long, silent, bleak and sad night with Lord Speos and Nimrod. They both seemed absorbed in their thoughts, and were keeping themselves awake. I’d been struggling against tedium for a long time, against the drowsiness that was overtaking me; then, finally, I went to sleep.

  “Painful dreams assailed me then; I saw myself pursued by horrible phantoms, by jailers, by murderers. In a moment of great fright I opened my eyes, I think, but I wasn’t awake. I looked around. I was alone, or so it seemed.

  “I wanted to flee then, so I went out precipitately and began slipping along the walls of the corridor without seeing anyone, although it seemed to me that I heard, some distance away, what I thought was an enemy. I fled more rapidly, but on the bottom step of the stairway I’d just come down, I was stopped by a gunshot, which was not aimed at me, since it was aimed at a burglar, according to some, or a perfectly honest man, according to others.

  “When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was; I was wounded, and Lord Speos was lavishing affectionate cares on me, full of regret, while the lady...”

  “Oh, let’s not talk about that,” said Ormuzda, putting her hand over Hyperion’s mouth.

  “But that’s another evidence I wanted to render of her good heart and her virtue, for she’s innocent, I swear!” Hyperion retorted, ardently.

  “Yes, the future will make everyone see that.”

  “The future!” said the young man, sadly, and then resumed with more confidence. “Oh yes, the future; it’s our consoler, the world’s great administrator of justice. That’s the perspective that sustains me, which enables me to live and will cure me, for it gives me hope. The future will make me a useful man again, a citizen worthy of my Ormuzda. When shall we see your father, Ormuzda? Do you think that Lord Nirvana will accept my request?”

  “Leave that aside,” the young woman replied, trying to smile. “I have my secret in that regard. I’ll reveal it to you when the time comes. In the meantime, I’ll remind you that you’ve been forbidden to worry about anything at all, and especially not to talk so much. You’ve disobeyed orders: we aren’t supposed to talk about love, politics, the past or the future.”

  Ormuzda went back into the cottage, wiping away a tear that Hyperion did not see.

  There was, in fact, a great misfortune weighing upon her, and the young man knew nothing about it. Taken to that region before he had completely lost his reason, he did not know that Lord Nirvana was in prison, his property confiscated; that he was only left in peace because of his poor health; that he and his nurses were only undisturbed because they had sought refuge on the mortal soil; he did not know that a terrorist government reigned over Atlantis.

  Lady Speos and Ormuzda took particular care not to allow anything to happen that might overexcite his imagination and endanger his life. His life had been so frail since the gunshot he had received in the chest, and his recovery was so uncertain that the sole concern of humanity of his guardians was to ease the last days of a dy
ing man.

  For himself, Hyperion hoped for something better: who has ever believed in imminent death at nineteen years of age? He was nurturing so many fine projects; his thoughts had become so beautiful in the presence of the woman he loved!

  Scarcely had Ormuzda gone back into the cottage that Hyperion decided to follow her. He therefore got to his feet, awkwardly, with the aid of his staff.

  At that moment, a peasant suddenly came round the corner of the little house and advanced toward him.

  It was Ypsoer.

  XVI. Ypsoer’s Visit

  “Good day, Sire Hyperion,” said Ypsoer, approaching the young man very respectfully.

  “Good day, neighbor,” replied the invalid, by way of reply, standing still and leaning on his staff.

  Ormuzda came out again. “Good day, sir,” she said, with her customary affability.

  Ypsoer bowed profoundly to the young woman. “Good day, my lady,” he said, with some slight embarrassment, turning a little box around and around in his fingers, to which he wanted to attract attention.

  “What have you got there?” asked the young woman, easily understanding the peasant’s intention. She added: “A box! A pretty little box!” and extended her hand to take it.

  “Pardon me, my lady, but it’s not for you,” said Ypsoer, smiling, as he presented the little box to the young woman.

  “Oh? Who is it for, then?” Ormuzda replied, opening the box—from which she took a necklace of fine pearls, in amazement.

  “It’s for the good Lady Speos, who has rendered such great services to me and my wife...if she deigns to accept it.” Ypsoer continued, in a mysterious tone: “I have, however, sworn that the necklace will never leave my hands.”

  “Why is that?” asked Hyperion, who understood that the fellow was only talking in order to be questioned.

  “Because, you see, my lord,” the peasant said, “a long time ago, that necklace was given to me…when I say given to me, that’s not quite true, because it wasn’t given to me. It was around the neck of a little boy, whom I called…but pardon me, the name doesn’t matter, since everyone calls their children what they wish…and it was a good seventeen or eighteen years ago…any way, that necklace was around his neck.”