Part 4 (1/2)
”What a long night it was. The morning dawned at last, but it brought no change to poor Dervilly. I had sent for his nearest relative, who lived over on the _Boulevard Poissonniere_, and was awaiting his arrival with considerable anxiety. It was not later than nine. Stabb, the good fellow, had relieved me from my watch, and I was in the sitting-room, in my large arm-chair, still anxious and fearful, when there came a slight tap at the door; it opened--and Emilie de Coigny stood before me. Ah, how beautiful she was, yet how terrified! It was not terror of excitement--mere surface pa.s.sion--but from the depths of her soul. She was stirred by intense emotion. 'Tell me,' she said, coming earnestly up to me, 'tell me where he is, and what has happened to him!' I put my finger on my lips to prevent her from saying more, and led her to the further corner of the room; but she would not sit down; she begged to be told every thing at once; and I, in a low voice, gave Mademoiselle do Coigny a minute account of all I had witnessed. When I came to Dervilly's exclamation, '_La Morgue--La Morgue_,' the young girl became suddenly very pale, her fort.i.tude forsook her, and she murmured faintly, 'He saw me go in--he saw me go in.' I must admit I was, for the moment, not a little tremulous. I recollected stories of devils taking possession of the dead bodies of virgins, in order to lure young men to perdition. I thought of the tale of the German student, who, on retiring with his bride, beheld her head roll from her body (she had been guillotined that morning), leaving him wedded to the foul fiend. In spite of me, I looked on the pale stricken creature before me as in one way or another connected with the adversary, and holding a commission from the Prince of the Power of the Air. I had little time for thought on the subject, for Mademoiselle de Coigny insisted on seeing Dervilly.
I hesitated, but she was decided. She threw aside her pretty straw hat, and a light shawl, and stepped toward the apartment where her lover lay.
She pa.s.sed the threshold before he saw her. She called him by his name, 'Alfred.' He turned, and as his eyes fell on her, he uttered mad exclamations; crouching frantically in the furthest corner of the bed.
'Avaunt,' he screamed; 'vampyre--devil--owl of h.e.l.l--come no nearer, (she still advanced, calling to him tenderly); I know that syren voice; it has d.a.m.ned and double d.a.m.ned me.--Partridge! Stabb! take her away, or,' he continued, in a fierce tone, 'I will do second execution on her.'
”Poor girl--it was too much--she swooned away....
”You may imagine that it was a terrible scene,” continued Partridge. ”I set to work immediately for her recovery, having first carried her out of the room where Dervilly lay. She opened her eyes at last, but what a look of anguish was in them! 'Is he better?' she asked in a faint tone.
I shook my head. 'Tell me,' she exclaimed, 'will he die? oh, will he, _must_ he die?'
”'He is very sick, Mademoiselle.'
”'I have killed him, I have killed him,' she cried.
”'Pardon me', said I, 'Monsieur Dervilly is in great danger; still if we knew the cause of this dreadful attack we might gain some advantage by it.'
”'Ah, it is my work,' murmured the fair mystery to herself, without heeding my observation; 'I have done it, and if he dies, I am a murderer--_his_ murderer.' She appeared no way disposed to betray her secret, and I did not press the subject. Presently Louis came in. He made his inquiries of me, and then went to the patient. There was no change, except in the increase of fatal symptoms. The delirium was more furious, the pulse hard, full, frequent, and vibrating. The most vigorous course was adopted; two other students were called in to a.s.sist Stabb and myself, and every means used to give effect to the prescribed treatment.
”As for Mademoiselle de Coigny, she remained in the sitting-room, the picture of intense anguish. I urged her to retire, but she shook her head. I now begged her to tell me what had caused this strange attack, but she was silent. At length I went and called Madame Lecomte--you recollect what a kind-hearted creature she was--and told her briefly the little I knew of the unfortunate girl. She answered the summons at once, and in the most gentle manner endeavored to persuade Mademoiselle de Coigny to go with her. It was in vain. She would not leave the room.
Occasionally, through the day, she would step to Dervilly's bedside, and in the softest, sweetest, gentlest tone I ever heard, say, 'Alfred.' The effect was always the same as at first--exciting the poor fellow to still deeper paroxysms, and more violent exclamations. On the fourth day he died; the symptoms becoming more and more aggravating, until _coma_ supervened to delirium. During the whole period of his sickness Mademoiselle de Coigny never left the house--scarcely the room--Madame Lecomte on two or three occasions almost forcing the wretched girl away to her own apartments. When poor Dervilly sunk into that deep lethargic slumber, so much dreaded by the physician, because so fatal, she came almost joyfully into his chamber, and threw her arms tenderly around him, 'He sleeps at last,' she said, 'is it not well?'
”I would have given the world for the freedom of bursting into tears, so deeply was I affected by that hopeful, trustful question. What could I do, but shake my head mournfully and hasten out of the place.... He died, and made no sign; not a word, not a look, not the slightest pressure of the hand, for the one he loved so tenderly, and who watched so anxiously for some slight token. 'Oh,' I exclaimed to myself, as the hardness of such a fate was impressed on me, 'G.o.d is just, there is a hereafter, these two _must_ meet again.' ... Emilie de Coigny left the room where her dead lover lay, only when he himself was borne to his last resting-place. She followed him to the spot where he was buried in _Pere la Chaise_, and remained standing by it after every one else had come away. In this position she was found--standing over the grave--late at night by her friends--some members of the family I have mentioned--who sought her out. She left that splendid city of the dead bereft of reason, and so she has ever since continued. When the day is fine, she invariably keeps her fancied engagement with her lover at the appointed place in the _Jardin des Plants_; she patiently sits the hour, and retires sadly, as you saw her. When the weather is forbidding, she goes to her friend's house and waits the same period, never showing the least symptom of impatience, but, on the contrary, evincing the signs of a bruised but most gentle spirit.” ...
Here Partridge paused, as if at the end of his story.
”Is that all?” said I.
”That is all,” he responded.
”Surely not,” I continued; ”you have said nothing about the strange mystery which killed our poor friend, and which, as it seems to me, is the main point, in the story.”
”True enough--it is singular I should have left it out, but it is explained in a word. These same friends of Mademoiselle de Coigny gave me the information. It appears that on one inclement night, as the _keeper of the Morgue_ was returning from an official visit to the Chief of Police, toward his own quarters, which are adjoining and over the _dead room_--he stumbled over something which a flash of lightning at the instant showed to be the body of a man. He was quite dead, but, nestled down close by his side, with one of her little hands on his face, was a child, about two years of age. Jean Maurice Sorel, although long inured to repulsive sights, had not grown callous to misery. By birth he was considerably above his somewhat ignominious office; he had narrowly escaped with his life when Louis XVI. was brought to the scaffold, for some indiscreet expressions that savored too much of royalty; but in the tumults which succeeded, he had, he scarcely knew how, through some influence with the chief of one of the departments, been appointed to this repulsive duty. But as I have said, his heart was just as kind as ever, after many years discharge of it; and Jean Maurice Sorel, instead of repining at his lot, blessed G.o.d daily that he had the means of supporting a wife and children, while so many of his old friends had literally starved to death. Such was the person who stumbled over the body of the dead man, and discovered the living child beside it. He called at once for a.s.sistance, and had the corpse conveyed to his house, while he carried the little girl in his arms. She was too young to give any information about herself, but on searching the pockets of the deceased, several papers were found which disclosed enough to satisfy Jean Maurice Sorel that in the wasted, attenuated form before him, he beheld his once friend and benefactor the Marquis de Coigny, who, he supposed, had perished by the guillotine in the revolution. The papers permitted no doubt of the fact that the little girl was his granddaughter and only descendant, and she was commended to the care of the kind-hearted when death should overtake him.
”The old Marquis was buried, and the little Emilie adopted into the family of the good Jean Maurice. Her education was conducted in a manner far superior to that of his own children, and the choicest garments of those which fell to him were selected to be made over for her. Perhaps unwisely, her history was explained to her, so that she lived all her life with the sense that she belonged in a different sphere--not that she was ungrateful or unamiable--quite the contrary--she was sweet tempered, affectionate and gentle, and loved by Jean Maurice and all his family with a devoted fondness: but the world had charms for her which the world withheld; she felt that she never could become an object of love where she could love in return, and so she repined at her destiny.
By accident she made the acquaintance of the family where Dervilly first met her. They had known her father and her grandfather, and she loved them for that. She resisted for a long time the feeling for her lover which she perceived was taking strong hold of her, and when she could resist no longer, she yet delayed to tell him what a home she inhabited.
This was her pride--her weakness--and how terribly did she pay the penalty! Day after day (so I was told), she resolved to explain all, but she procrastinated, till her lover, no longer able to restrain his anxiety, and full of excitements and fears and perturbations, followed her at some little distance, just at twilight, and saw or fancied he saw her enter _La Morgue_. It was too much for his nervous temperament. His brain caught fire--he came home raving with delirium--and DIED! Now you have the whole.”
A LEGEND.
TRANSLATED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL FROM THE SPANISH,
BY MRS. M. E. HEWITT.
”Sin vos, y sin Dios y mi.”
The motto that with trembling hand I write, And deep is traced upon this heart of mine, In olden time a loyal Christian knight Bore graven on his s.h.i.+eld to Palestine.