The Mysteries Of Paris Volume Vi Part 8

Your illness is your sensual frenzy, which has attained its utmost height. Once again, drive from your brain these thoughts or you will die."

"Drive away these thoughts!" cried Ferrand. "Oh, never, never! When my pains give me one moment's repose, Cecily, the demon whom I cherish and curse, rises before my eyes!"

"What incredible fury! It frightens me!"

"There,--now!" said the notary, with a harsh voice, and his eyes fixed on a dark corner of the room. "I see now the outline of an obscure and white form; there--there!" and he extended his hairy and bony finger in the direction of his sight. "There,--there she is!"

"Jacques, this is death to you!"

"Yes, I see her!" continued Ferrand, with his teeth clenched, and not replying to Polidori. "There she is! And how beautiful! How her black hair floats gracefully down her shoulders, and her small white teeth, s.h.i.+ning between her half opened lips,--her lips so red and humid! What pearls! And how her black eyes sparkle and die! Cecily," he added, with inexpressible excitement, "I adore you!"

"Jacques, do not excite yourself with such visions!"

"It is not a vision."

"Mind, mind! Just now, you know, you imagined you heard this woman's love-songs, and your hearing was suddenly smitten with horrible agony.

Mind, I say!"

"Leave me,--leave me! What is the use of hearing but to hear, of seeing but to see?"

"But the tortures which follow, miserable wretch!"

"I will brave them all for a deceit, as I have braved death for a reality; and to me this burning image is reality. Ah, Cecily, you are beautiful! Yet why torture me thus? Would you kill me? Ah, execrable fury, cease,--cease, or I will strangle thee!" cried the notary, in delirium.

"You kill yourself, unhappy man!" exclaimed Polidori, shaking the notary violently, in order to rouse him from his excitement. In vain; Jacques continued:

"Oh, beloved queen, demon of delight, never did I see--" The notary could not finish; he uttered a sudden cry of pain and threw himself back.

"What is it?" inquired Polidori, with astonishment.

"Put out that candle--it s.h.i.+nes too brightly. I cannot endure it--it blinds me!"

"What!" said Polidori, more and more surprised. "There is but one lamp covered with its shade, and that s.h.i.+nes very feebly."

"I tell you, the light increases here. Now, again--again! Oh, it is too much; it is intolerable!" added Jacques Ferrand, closing his eyes with an expression of increasing suffering.

"You are mad--the room is scarcely lighted. I tell you, open your eyes and you will see."

"Open my eyes! Why, I shall be blinded by torrents of burning light, with which this room is filled. Here! There! On all sides, there are rays of fire--millions of dazzling scintillations!" cried the notary, sitting up. And then again shrieking, he lifted both his hands to his eyes: "But I am blind; this burning fire is through my closed lids,--it burns--devours me! Ah, now my hands s.h.i.+eld me a little! But put out the light, for it throws an infernal flame!"

"It is beyond doubt now!" said Polidori. "His sight is struck with the same excess of sensitiveness as his hearing was; he is a dead man! To bleed him in this state would at once destroy him."

A fresh cry ensued, sharp and terrible, from Jacques Ferrand, which resounded in the chamber.

"Villain, put out that lamp! Its glaring beams penetrate through my hands, which they make transparent. I see the blood circulate in the net of my veins, and I try in vain to close my eyelids, for the burning lava will flow in. Oh, what torture! There are gushes as dazzling as if some one were thrusting a red-hot iron into my eyes. Help, help!" he shrieked, twisting himself on his bed, a prey to the horrible convulsions of his extreme agony.

Polidori, alarmed at the excess of this fresh fit, suddenly extinguished the lamp, and they were both in perfect darkness. At this moment the noise of a carriage was heard at the door in the street. When the chamber had been rendered entirely dark in which Polidori and Ferrand were, the latter was somewhat relieved from his extreme pains.

"Where are you going?" said Polidori, suddenly, when he heard Jacques Ferrand rise, for the deepest obscurity reigned in the apartment.

"I am going to find Cecily!"

"You shall not go; the sight of that room would kill you!"

"Cecily awaits me up there!"

"You shall not go--I will prevent you!" said Polidori, seizing the notary by the arm.

Jacques Ferrand having reached the extremity of exhaustion, was unable to contend with Polidori, who grasped him with a powerful clutch. "What, would you prevent me from seeking Cecily?"

"Yes; and besides, there is a lamp in the next room, and you know what an effect light so recently produced on your sight!"

"Cecily is up above; she is waiting for me, and I would cross a red-hot furnace to rejoin her. Let me go! She called me her old tiger; mind you, then, for my claws are sharp!"

"You shall not go! I will sooner tie you down to your bed like a furious madman!"

"Listen, Polidori! I am not mad--I am perfectly in my senses. I know that Cecily is not really up there; but to me the phantoms of my imagination are equal to realities."

"Silence!" cried Polidori, suddenly, and listening. "I just now thought I heard a carriage stop at the door--and I was not mistaken! Now I hear a sound of voices in the courtyard."

"You want to deceive me," said Jacques; "but I am not so easily deceived."

"But, unhappy man, listen--listen! Don't you hear?"

"Let me go! Cecily is up-stairs; she calls me. Do not make me furious!

And now I say to you, mind--beware!"

"You shall not go out!"

"Take care!"

"You shall not go out. It is for my interest that you should remain."

"You would hinder me from seeking Cecily, and it is my interest that you should die. There--there!" said the notary, in a gloomy tone.

Polidori uttered a cry. "Wretch! You have stabbed me in the arm. But your hand was weak--the wound is slight--and you shall not escape me."

"Your wound is mortal, for it was given by the poisoned stiletto of Cecily, which I always carried about me. Await the effects of its poison--Ah! You release me! Then now you are about to die! I was not to be hindered from going up above to find Cecily!" added Jacques, endeavouring to grope his way in darkness to the door.

"Oh," murmured Polidori, "my arm becomes benumbed--a deathlike coldness seizes on me--my knees tremble under me--my blood freezes in my veins--my head whirls around. Help, help! I die!" And he fainted.

The crash of gla.s.s doors, opened with so much violence that several panes of gla.s.s were broken to atoms, the resounding voice of Rodolph, and the noise of hastily approaching steps, seemed to reply to Polidori's cry of anguish.

Jacques Ferrand having at length discovered the lock of the door, opened it suddenly, with his dangerous stiletto in his hand. At the same instant, as menacing and formidable as the genius of vengeance, the prince entered the apartment from the other side.

"Monster!" he exclaimed, advancing towards Jacques Ferrand, "it was my daughter whom you have killed! You are going--" The prince could not conclude, but recoiled in amazement.

It would seem as if his words had been a thunderbolt to Ferrand, for, casting away his dagger, and raising both his hands to his eyes, the unhappy wretch fell with his face to the ground, uttering a cry that was scarcely human.