Volume II Part 107 (1/2)
”On finding myself alone--constantly alone in obscurity and silence--I began to have fits of furious rage; powerless, for the first time I lost my senses, my head wandered. Yes, although awake, I have dreamed the dream you know: the dream of the old man in the Rue de Roule--the woman drowned--the drover--all murdered! and you, soaring above all these phantoms! I tell you, it is frightful. I am blind; yet my thoughts a.s.sume a form, a body, and represent continually to me in a visible manner, almost palpable, the features of my victims.
”I should not have this fearful dream, but that my mind, continually absorbed by the recollection of my past crimes, is troubled with the same visions.
”Doubtless, when one is deprived of sight, besetting ideas trace themselves almost materially on the brain. Yet, sometimes, by force of contemplating them with resigned alarm, it seems to me that these menacing specters have pity on me; they grow dim, fade away, and disappear. Then I think I awake from a vivid dream; but I feel myself weak, exhausted, broken, and will you believe it--oh! how you will laugh, La Chouette--I weep--do you hear? I weep. You do not laugh? But laugh! I say, laugh!” La Chouette uttered a stifled groan.
”Louder,” cried Tortillard; ”we can't hear.”
”Yes,” continued the Schoolmaster, ”I wept, for I suffered, and rage is fruitless. I say to myself, to-morrow, and to-morrow, forever I shall be a prey to the same delirium, the same mournful desolation.
What a life! oh, what a life! Better I had chosen death, than to be interred alive in this abyss, which incessantly racks my thoughts!
Blind, solitary, and a prisoner! what can distract my thoughts?
Nothing--nothing.
”When the phantoms cease for a moment to pa.s.s and repa.s.s on the black veil which I have before my eyes, there are other tortures--there are overwhelming comparisons. I say to myself, 'if I had remained an honest man, at this moment I should be free, tranquil, happy, loved, and honored by mine own, instead of being blind and chained in this dungeon, at the mercy of my accomplices.'
”Alas! the regret of happiness, lost by crime, is the first step toward repentance. And when to this repentance is added an expiation of frightful severity--an expiation which changes life into a long sleep filled with avenging hallucinations of desperate reflections, perhaps then the pardon of man will follow remorse and expiation.”
”Take care, old man!” cried Tortillard; ”you are cutting into the parson's part! Found out, found out!”
The Schoolmaster paid no attention. ”Does it astonish you to hear me talk thus, La Chouette? If I had continued to harden myself, either by other b.l.o.o.d.y misdeeds, or by the savage drunkenness of a galley-slave's life, this salutary change in me had never taken place, I know well. But alone--blind--and tortured with a visible remorse, what could I think of? New crimes--how commit them? An escape--how escape?
And if I escaped, where should I go--what should I do with my liberty?
No; I must henceforth live in eternal night, between the anguish of repentance, and the alarm of horrifying apparitions by which I am pursued. Yet sometimes a feeble ray of hope s.h.i.+nes in the midst of the gloom--a moment of calm succeeds to my torments: yes, for sometimes I succeed in conjuring the specters which besiege me, by opposing to them the recollections of a past life, honest and peaceful--by carrying back my thoughts to the days of my childhood.
”Happily, you see the blackest villains have had, at least, some years of peace and innocence to offer in opposition to their long years of crime and blood. We are not born wicked.
”The most perverse have had the amiable simplicity of childhood--have known the sweet joys of that charming age. So, I repeat, sometimes I feel a bitter consolation in saying, 'Though I am at this moment the object of universal execration, there was a time when I was beloved and cherished, because I was inoffensive and good.'
”Alas! I must take refuge in the past, when I can; there alone can I find any repose.”
On p.r.o.nouncing these last words, the voice of the Schoolmaster had lost its roughness; the formidable man seemed profoundly affected; he went on: ”Now, you see, the salutary influence of these thoughts is such that my rage is appeased; courage, strength, the will, all fail me to punish you; no, it is not for me to shed your blood.”
”Bravo, old one! Now you see, La Chouette, that it was only a joke,”
cried Tortillard, applauding.
”No, it is not for me to shed your blood,” resumed the Schoolmaster; ”it would be a murder--excusable, perhaps, but still a murder; and I have enough with three specters! And then, who knows, you, even you!
will repent some day.”
Speaking thus, he mechanically relaxed his grasp.
La Chouette profited by it to seize hold of the dagger, which she had placed in her bosom, after the murder of the countess, and to strike a violent blow with it in order to disembarra.s.s herself of him altogether.
He uttered a cry of great anguish. The savage frenzy of his rage, vengeance, and hatred, his sanguinary instincts suddenly aroused, and exasperated at this attack, made an unexpected and terrible explosion, under which his reason sunk, already much shattered by so many trials.
”Ah! viper, I felt your tooth!” cried he, in a voice trembling with rage, and tightly grasping La Chouette, who had thought to escape.
”You crawl in the cellar,” added he, more and more wandering, ”but I am going to crush you, Screech-Owl. You waited, doubtless, the coming of the phantoms; my ears tingle, my head turns, as when they are about to come. Yes, I am not deceived. Oh! there they are; out of the darkness they approach--they approach! How pale they are, yet their blood, how it flows, red and smoking. They frighten you--you struggle.
Oh, well! be tranquil, you shall not see them; I have pity on you; I shall make you blind. You shall be like me, without eyes!” Here he paused.