Hoffmann's Strange Stories/Chapter 12
THE MYSTERY OF THE DESERTED HOUSE.
The aspect of the numerous and brilliant edifices of V, the luxury resulting from the many products of art and industry of all kinds with which it is enriched from day to day, form the delight of the loiterer, and the marvel of all travellers. The street, lined with splendid habitations which lead to the gate of , serves for a promenade to the fashionable society who go to kill time by calling at each other's houses. The lower floor of the houses is occupied by elegant stores; the upper stories are divided into comfortable apartments. This is the fashionable quarter.
I had already travelled more than a thousand times up and down this promenade, when my eyes fell by chance on a building whose strange construction strongly contrasted with those in the neighborhood. Figure to yourself a square of stone wall, pierced with four windows forming a first and single story, the height of which exceeded but little the lower story of the magnificent hotels which flanked it on the right and left. This miserable building was covered with a still more miserable roof, and nearly all the broken glass was replaced by squares of gray or blue paper. The four windows were closed. Those that formerly composed the basement had been walled up, and at the door of the entrance, which was narrow, low and without lock, you would have sought in vain for the least sign of a bell. This ruined condition of the building announced complete desolation; this decayed structure had the appearance of having been abandoned for at least a hundred years. A deserted house is not, after all, a very astonishing thing; but in such a rich quarter, on land which might have yielded considerable revenue to the proprietor, there was certainly something in this to arouse the curiosity cf an idler, and I could no longer pass before the shed without making a thousand conjectures concerning it.
One fine day, at the time when the fashionables crowded each other like ants in a hill, I was reflecting, whilst leaning against a portico which faced the deserted house; a man whom I had not seen for a long time suddenly came to a stop near me, and drew me from my revery. It was count P, a day dreamer as singular at least as I was myself. He had reflected, like myself, enormously concerning the deserted house. His suppositions had exceeded my own, and he had succeeded in creating for himself thereupon so extravagant a story, that the boldest imagination could hardly admit the reality of it. But judge of the disappointment of the poor count, when, after having brought his story to a startling end, and in the most tragical fashion, he learned that the famous deserted house was simply the work-room of a fashionable confectioner, whose store was next to it. The windows of the basement had been walled-up to hide from the sight of the passers-by the furnaces and pans; and the windows of the first story had been stopped with paper, to preserve from the rays of the sun and the insects the manufactured sweet-meats which were stored there. This accursed information produced the effect of a cold douche bath upon me; it was no longer possible to dream about it, there was no longer any poetry in it! it was enough to make a sensible heart and a vivid imagination burst with rage. Nevertheless, in spite of the matter of fact explanation that I had received, I could not refrain from looking at the deserted house with an inexplicable dizziness that made me shudder. My astonished mind angrily rejected this idea of confections taking the place of the phantoms which had so powerfully occupied me; and I did not despair of seeing some day the fantastic world again take possession of this habitation. Chance, besides, was again to throw me in the way of conjecture.
Several days after meeting with count P, passing at midday before the deserted house, I saw a green taffety cutain, which covered the window nearest the confectioner's shop, move softly. A white and delicately formed hand, the prettiest finger of which bore a superb diamond ring, stole gently behind the curtain: I then saw an alabaster arm, ornamented with a golden bracelet, follow it. The hand placed a crystal flask on the window sill, and was withdrawn.
I remained there with my eyes fixed, my nose in the air, and my feet glued to the pavement, making, you can believe, such a funny figure, that in less than ten minutes a crowd of idlers, of the upper class, closed round me, stretching open their eyes to look the same way; but there was no longer a rosy hand, or alabaster arm; the curious people got nothing by their impertinence, and I said to myself, whilst making my escape, that city people resemble, from little to great, the simpletons of a certain town who gathered one morning before a house, crying out a miracle, because a cotton night cap had fallen from the sixth story without breaking a single stitch. There was a thousand chances that the rosy hand and the alabaster arm legitimately belonged to the wife, the sister or the daughter of the confectioner, and that the crystal flask prosaically contained a measure of gooseberry syrup. But see how a restless mind, well balanced, knows how to arrive at its object by the shortest way! The idea came into my head to go into the confectioner's shop to adroitly draw some information from him. So that, whilst taking a chocolate sherbet:—"Sir," said I to him, "you have chosen a fine place for your establishment, and I find it very handy for you to have the neighboring house in which you have placed your manufactory."—At these words the honest tradesman looked at me in surprise.
"Who in the devil's name could have told you," exclaimed he, "that the neighboring house was at my service? I should like it, certainly, above all things; but in spite of all my manœuvres, the business is not concluded. Besides, after due reflection, I am not much disappointed, for a thousand extraordinary things must take place in this house, which would singularly annoy a tenant who is fond of quiet."
God knows, dear reader, how my curiosity was roused by these words. I tried to make the man communicative; but all that I could learn from him, by questions, was, that the deserted house formerly belonged to the countess S, who now lived on her Estates, and had not been seen at this residence for several years. The house bore, besides, from time almost immemorial, the same appearance that it now did, and no one appeared to care to make the least repair to preserve it from impending ruin. Two lone beings inhabited it; an old servant and a disabled dog who barked incessantly. The people in the neighborhood were convinced that this old ruin was haunted by ghosts; for at certain times, and above all at the approach of Christmas, strange noises were heard to trouble the silence of the night; sometimes the uproar arose to a stunning discordance. On one single occasion the cracked voice of an old woman had tried to yelp a kind of song from the other world, in which was distinguished some French monosyllables mixed with an unknown language.
"Here sir," said the confectioner to me, leading me into his back shop, "look at this iron funnel which comes through the partition wall; I have sometimes seen, in the middle of summer, a tremendous smoke come out of it, as if they were making some hellish fire in the dilapidated house. I have more than once scolded the old servant, and told him that there was danger of a conflagration; but the sullen fellow pretends that it is the fire in his kitchen. Now, the devil alone knows what this being eats, for the smoke that comes from his cavern sometimes diffuses an odor which is very uninviting."
At this instant, the shop door opening, agitated a little sharp bounding bell. The confectioner excused himself for the purpose of waiting upon his customer; and as I followed him, I recognized, by a sign from the confectioner, the person of whom we had just been speaking. Figure to yourself, dear reader, a little dried up man with a yellow parchment skin, a pointed nose, thin lips, green eyes, a simple smile, powdered hair in the form of a pyramid; his costume was composed of a long thread-bare coat, the color of which had formerly imitated burnt coffee; his close fitting breeches, were buttoned down over gray stockings, and his feet were encased in square toed shoes with pinchbeck buckles. From the sleeves of his coat appeared two robust fists, which hardly accorded with a thin and whining voice that asked for preserved oranges, sugared chestnuts, sponge cakes and other delicacies. The confectioner hastened to wait upon him, and the old man drew from his pocket a well worn leather purse, from which he drew forth one by one some pieces of smooth change, which were hardly current. He paid grudgingly, murmuring broken and unmeaning phrases.
"Are you ill, my dear neighbor?" said the confectioner, "you appear to be quite melancholy: it is age, is it not? it is age"
"Ho, ho! ho, ho! ho, ho! who says that?" angrily growled the satanic old man, making such a clumsy pirouette, that in turning he very nearly crushed the paws of the little black dog that accompanied him, and made the store windows tremble in their frames, whilst the dog uttered piercing cries. "Accursed beast!" said the old man, opening his bag of sweetmeats to throw a cake to the cur, who was silenced by his gluttony, and stood upon his hind legs with the grace of a squirrel.
"Good night, neighbor," said the old servant, after the dog had finished his pittance, "good night, neighbor; the poor old man broken by age wishes you good luck and a long life!"
Saying this, he squeezed the confectioner's hand in his long claw, so rudely that the man of sweets uttered a cry of pain.
"You see, sir," said the confectioner, after the departure of his customer, "this is the factotum of count S, and the guardian of the deserted house. I give him notice from time to time to quit his nightly disturbances; but he has a reply to everything; he is awaiting, he says, his master's family, and that for so many years, that I am led to believe that they will never arrive. I know nothing more about it, and I have the honor to salute you, for this is the time that the fine ladies besiege my store, and dispute about the sweets that I invent every day for their pretty little mouths."
On leaving the confectioner I sought, in my own mind, for some natural connection between the sad and singular song which had been heard from the deserted house, and the beautiful arm that I had caught sight of under the curtain, and I persuaded myself that, by an acoustic illusion, the confectioner had taken for the squalling of an old woman, the mild, but plaintive song of a beautiful creature, persecuted and held captive by some odious tyrant. I thought again of the disagreeable smoke that came from the funnel, of the crystal flask that had figured on the window sill, and I came to a conclusion, without farther reflection, that the beautiful unknown who had existed in my imagination, was the victim of an abominable sorcery. The old servant changed in my eyes into a disagreeable magician; my brain became exalted, and diabolical figures besieged my waking hours. By unutterable enchantment, the alabaster arm became united in my thoughts with a snowy shoulder that my eyes really perceived; then the adorable figure of a young girl veiled in white joined itself to this kind of hallucination, and it seemed to me that silvery mist, which half concealed from me the features of this beautiful angel, escaped in endless clouds from the crystal flask. To form, for the deliverance of this celestial being, the most extravagant projects, was for my delirious thoughts the work of a moment; and I uttered aloud the most chivalric exclamations, when it seemed to me that a skeleton hand patted me on the shoulder, broke into a thousand pieces the crystal flask, and the apparition vanished, leaving behind it the dying echo of a mournful plaint.
The following day, I went early and posted myself in front of the deserted house. Blinds had been added to the windows since the night before. The house looked like a tomb. I rambled about in the vicinity the whole of that day; when night came I passed by it again; the little door without lock was half open, the man in the coffee colored coat was looking out. I made bold to speak to him,—"Does not Binder, the counsellor of the treasury, live in this house?" said I to him politely.
"No," answered the old man with a suspicious smile; "he has never set foot in it; he will never come into it; and, what is more, everybody knows that he lives far away from this quarter of the city."
Saying these words, he drew back his head and shut the door in my face. I heard him cough, then go slowly away, the sound of footsteps being accompanied by the rattling of keys, and it seemed to me that he descended into the interior by a staircase. I had observed through the half opened door that the entry was draped in old ragged tapestry, and furnished with antique arm chairs, covered with scarlet cloth.
On the morrow, towards noon, an irresistible power carried me back to the same spot. I saw, or thought I saw, through the first story window, the green taffety curtain partly raised; then the glittering of a diamond, then the whole figure of a beautiful person, leaning against the sash, held out her arms towards me in a supplicating manner. Not knowing whether I was awake, or this a dream, I sought for a place where, without attracting the attention of the crowd, I could continue my observations. There was a stone bench on the other side of the street, exactly in front of the house; I went and seated myself upon it. I raised my eyes, I looked again; it was really she, it was the beautiful young girl so deeply fixed in my imagination; she stood quite still, and her absent look was not fixed upon me. I was tempted to believe that my senses were abused by a beautiful painting. Suddenly a toy pedlar came towards me, and begged me to buy something of him to bring him luck, for he had not sold anything since the morning. I angrily repulsed him at first; but he insisted, and spread out his wares before me; he offered me a little pocket mirror which he held before me at a certain distance, and in such a manner that I saw reflected in it, with exquisite clearness, the window of the deserted house and the angelic figure of the young girl. This object so strongly tempted me, that I immediately bought it without disputing the price. But I had hardly begun to make use of it myself, when it seemed to me that a kind of magnetism drew my eyes towards the mirror, and deprived me of the power of turning away from it; I suddenly imagine that I see the beautiful eyes of my divine unknown interpose themselves between the glass and my own; a sentiment of inexpressible tenderness warm; my heart and makes it palpitate within me.
"You have a charming pocket mirror there," said a voice quite near me. I awake as if from a dream, and great is my surprise to find myself surrounded by a circle of people with whom I am unacquainted, and who smile upon me in an equivocal manner, as if they were looking upon a madman. Finally the same voice repeats:—"You have a very marvellous mirror there; but might I ask what so strongly draws your attention?"
The individual who addressed this question to me appeared to be a very respectable man, dressed with elegant simplicity; his mild and civil manner provoked my confidence; I could not refrain from avowing to him without reservation all that I felt, and I asked him if he had himself observed this admirable figure.
"Sir," said he to me, "I think that I have good eyes, and God preserve me from using spectacles as long as possible. I have seen, as you have done, the figure of which you speak, but I think that it is a portrait painted in oil and executed by an excellent artist."
I hastily looked again, but the curtain had fallen and covered the window.
"Sir," added the gentleman, "the old servant of count S, to whom this barrack belongs, has just taken down the portrait to wipe the dust from it, and then shut the window."
"Are you sure of it?" exclaimed I in consternation.
"As of my life," exclaimed he; "on looking at the object in your mirror, you have been misled by an optical illusion; and I myself, when I was of your age and had your ardent imagination, I myself might have been deceived by it."
"But I saw the hand and arm move!" exclaimed I, falling back into a state of petrifaction difficult to describe.
"I cannot contradict you," said the man, with a smile on his face, rising: and, fixing a look of ironical politeness upon me, he left me, adding:—"Beware of mirrors manufactured by the devil. I have the honor to salute you."
Can you understand, dear reader, what I must have suffered at finding myself thus mystified and treated like a foolish visionary? Filled with shame and anger, I hastened to shut myself up in my own house, fully decided upon forgetting the deserted house and my absurd flights of imagination.
Some business that I had to transact occupied several days, and this helped to cool my brain. Only that, during the night, I still felt at intervals, feverish excitement; but I resisted it without much difficulty, and I had even succeeded in adapting to common use the mirror that had so bewildered me, when one morning, as I was about to make use of it at my toilet, the glass appeared to me to be tarnished; I breathed upon it and then wiped it, when I tried it again—I shudder still at the remembrance of it! I saw in the place of my own face that of the mysterious unknown of the deserted house. Her eyes were moistened with tears, and fixed upon me with a more harrowing expression than at first.
The sensation I then experienced was so violent that every day after I did nothing but pass and repass before the deserted house. The image of the marvellous young girl had taken possession of all my thoughts; I no longer lived but for the phantom, and I began to feel that physical sensations were establishing themselves between this being and myself, of an unknown nature. I fell gradually into a state of languor which was undermining my life; it was a mixture of pain and pleasure which exhausted me without allowing me to oppose this supernatural influence. Fearing that I should become mad, and having hardly strength enough to drag myself along, I went with great exertion to the house of a physician, celebrated for his knowledge of the treatment for the prevention of mental maladies; I related to him all that had happened to me since a certain time, and I begged him not to abandon me to a state of mind worse than death.
"Tranquillize yourself," said the doctor; "your mind is disordered, but as you know the cause of the trouble that occasions your suffering, it is already in good train for early restoration. Give me in the first place your mirror; go back to your home; undertake some labor that will absorb all your attention, and, after having courageously labored, fatigue yourself by a long walk; then in the evening, see your friends and enjoy yourself with them. Add to this prescription a nourishing diet, and drink generous wines. Your illness proceeds solely from a fixed idea; let us succeed in driving it away, and you will be radically cured."
I hesitated about separating myself from the mirror. The doctor took it; breathed upon it, wiped it and presented it to me, saying,—"Do you see anything now?"
"I see my own features, nothing more," answered I.
"That is well," said the doctor; "now commence yourself the same experiment."
A cry escaped from my lips, and I became very pale. "It is she! it is she!" exclaimed I. The doctor took back the mirror:
"As for myself," said he, "I see nothing of the kind, absolutely nothing; but I must confess that the moment I looked I felt an involuntary shudder. Have full confidence in me, then. If there is a charm, it must be broken. Have the kindness to try it again."
I breathed again on the mirror, whilst the doctor placed his hand on my back bone. The figure appeared again, and the doctor grew pale on observing the effect that this phenomenon produced upon my organization. He took the mirror away from me, shut it up in a box, and dismissed me, after repeating the advice that he had given me, adding that we should see by and by what was to be done.
From that day, I gave myself up to a multitude of distractions, and I led a noisy life, fit to relieve my mind by physical fatigue. Sometime after this, I found myself one evening in very jovial company; a conversation turned upon the occult sciences, magnetic experiments, and there was related on this subject the most surprising anecdotes. All the gathered experiences in relation to dreams, hallucinations, extacies, were passed in review, and it was finally seriously asked if it might not be that a will existed beyond our life, endowed in certain conditions with a real power over our faculties, a power which would have full exercise without any material contact.
"But," said one of the company, "to admit such a thesis would conduct as directly towards recognizing as truths the sorceries of the middle ages, and all the superstitions which an enlightened philosophy, improved by the progress of science, has long since consigned to oblivion."
"But," said a young physician, taking up the conversation, "must we, under pretence of wisdom and enlightened philosophy, deny the existence of established facts? Has not nature mysteries which our feeble organs fail to fathom and comprehend? And even as a blind man recognizes, by the rustling of leaves, by the murmur of the running waters, the neighborhood of a forest or a brook, can we not foresee certain things in existence, by the invisible communication, that certain minds have the gift of establishing with our own?"
At these words I entered the lists.—"You admit, then," said I to the young doctor, "the existence of an immaterial principle, endowed with a power which, under certain conditions, our will cannot repulse?"
"Yes," answered he, "it is a fact that is proved by experiments of serious men on persons subjected to magnetism."
"In that case," replied I, "you must also recognize as possible the existence of demons, evil beings provided with qualities superior to our own?"
"That would be going too far," replied the doctor smilingly. "I do not believe in evil spirits. My opinion is only that there may exist in the chain of beings certain immaterial principles capable of exercising upon others an irresistible action. But I only found this idea upon simple observations, and I believe that organs feebly constituted or debilitated by some excess in life, are alone exposed to this kind of phenomenon."
"Sir," then said a middle aged man, who had not spoken before, "if there exists, as you partly allow, hidden powers opposed to our nature, I conclude, after some explanations, that these powers only existed by the feebleness of our minds. If imperfect organs or faculties, debilitated by excess or suffering, are alone subject to this physiological phenomenon, I conclude that it is nothing but the unhealthy tone of our minds, and consequently there does not exist aside from us powers endowed with real action, intermediate between God and ourselves. And now here is my own opinion, relative to mental maladies which burthen us with temporary hallucinations. I think that by the disturbance that it occasions in the more delicate fibres of our organization, the passion or love malady is the only affection of our souls which can produce disorders in our real life, and offer the example of a power exercised in an irresistible manner by one individual over another. I have made observations in my own house, the details of which would furnish material for a complete drama. At the time of the French invasion in our provinces, conducted by Bonaparte, I lodged in my house a colonel of the king of Naples' Guards; he was an officer of great distinction; but his features revealed the traces of of deep grief or recent illness. A few days after his arrival, I surprised him whilst giving way to paroxysms of grief which aroused my pity. He was suffocated by sobs that deprived him of the power of speech: and he was obliged to throw himself upon a couch, gradually his eyes lost their animation and his limbs became motionless; he was as rigid as a statue. From time to time he was convulsed, but had not the power of moving from his place. A physician whom I hastened to call, subjected him to magnetic influence, which appeared to occasion him some relief; but he was obliged to renounce it, for he felt that he could not restore the sick man without feeling within himself a sensation of acute suffering which he could not account for. Nevertheless, on recovering from his attack, the officer, whose confidence he had gained by his care, told him that during the crisis he had seen the image of a woman whom he had known at Pisa, and that this woman had a look which pierced him to the heart, like the burning of a hot iron; he only escaped from this singular pain to fall into a kind of lethargy, following which he felt the most intolerable headache, and a complete prostration of strength.—For the rest, he would never tell what had formerly passed between himself and the woman of Pisa. The order having been given to his regiment to march, he had his breakfast served whilst his baggage was being packed. But he had hardly carried his last glass of Madeira to his lips, when he fell down dead, uttering a stifled shriek. The physician thought that he had been struck with apoplexy. Two or three weeks after this accident, I received a letter addressed to the colonel. I opened it, in the hope of finding some information concerning the family of my guest: the letter came from Pisa, and only contained these words, without signature:—"Poor friend, to-day, 7 J, at noon, Antonia died, thinking that she was in your embrace!"
This was exactly the day and the hour of the colonel's death. Try and explain this to me. I cannot, dear reader, describe to you the fear that seized me on suddenly recognizing the analogy which existed between my own internal sensations and those experienced by the colonel. A cloud passed over my eyes; a ringing in my ears, as mournful as a funeral bell, prevented me from hearing the end of the recital; and, my imagination becoming suddenly exalted to delirium, I ran out of the room, to go to the deserted house. It seemed to me, from a distance, that I saw a light playing behind the closed blinds: but when I was quite near, it no longer appeared.—My hallucination increasing, I threw myself against the door; it yielded, and I entered the vestibule, where I was suddenly choked by a warm and pungent vapor. Suddenly I heard a cry from a woman not two paces from me, and, I knew not how, I found myself in a saloon resplendent with light, and luxuriously decorated in the taste of the middle ages. Burning aromatics in censers embalmed the air with divine odors, which floated towards the vaulted ceiling in azure clouds.
"Oh welcome, my betrothed! for this is the hour of love!" said aloud the voice that I had already heard, and I then perceived for the first time a young woman in a bridal dress, who came towards me with open arms; but when she came nearer, I saw that she had a face, yellow and frightfully wrinkled by madness. I started back in affright, but the woman continued to approach, and I thought that I then discovered that this ugly face was nothing but a crape mask, under which appeared, with charming distinctness, the enchanting features of my ideal. Her hands already touched my own, when she fell groaning to the floor, and I heard muttered behind me:—Ho, ho! to bed, to bed, your grace, or look out for the rod! and the gesture following the word, I perceived on turning round the old servant, the man in the coffee colored coat, who was flourishing through the air long birch rods, with which ho commenced switching the poor woman weepingly extended on the floor. I threw myself before him and caught his arm; but he, shaking me off with more strength than I supposed him possessed of, contented himself with saying to me:—"Do you not see that had it not been for my interference, this mad woman would have strangled you? Go! go from here as quickly as you entered!"
At these words, I became dizzy again, and sprang out of the room, seeking for an opening to go out of the fatal house. I heard, when I had succeeded in getting outside, the mad woman's cries mingle with the noise of the blows which the old man unsparingly dealt her. I tried to go back to her assistance, but the ground gave away under my feet, I fell from step to step down a staircase which led to a chamber, the door of which was burst open in my fall. From the disordered bed, the coffee colored coat that hung over a chair, I guessed that it was the den in which the servant, lodged. I had recovered myself, when I heard heavy steps descend the trembling stairs. It was the old man returning from his nocturnal adventure.
"Sir," exclaimed he, throwing himself at my feet, "whoever you may be, keep, I conjure you, an absolute silence concerning all that you have seen here; the least indiscretion would ruin me, a poor old man who would no longer know where to gain a support for his declining years. The mad woman has been well punished, and I have securely tied her to her bed. All is now quiet. Go then yourself, and repose in your own home, my good sir! sleep well, and try to forget this night."
A short time after this occurrence, I met count P in his saloon; he took me aside to tell me that he had discovered a clue to the mysteries of the deserted house. Supper, announced by a servant, did not allow me time to listen to the narration that he was about to favor me with. I offered my hand to a young lady to lead her into the supper room, the customary ceremonial in fashionable society. Judge of my surprise when, on fixing my eyes on her features, I recognized the face of the ideal being presented by my magic mirror, when I wiped it after having breathed upon it. As I expressed the thought that I had met her before, she quietly answered that it was very unlikely, as she had just arrived at W for the first time in her life. She accompanied her answer with so charming a glance that I was electrified. We conversed together for some time; I introduced into our chat a certain boldness of expression which did not seem to displease her, and she, on her part, pursued it with charming animation.—When the champagne appeared, I attempted to fill her glass: but the crystal, accidently struck, yielded a mournful sound, I saw the face of my pretty companion grow mortally pale, and it seemed to me that I had just heard the shrill voice of the mysterious old woman of the deserted house. In the course of the evening, I watched my opportunity to rejoin count P. I learned from him that the beautiful person who had so exclusively occupied me was the countess Edwine de S, and that the sister of this young girl's mother was confined as insane in the deserted house. That same day the mother and daughter had visited the unfortunate recluse.—The old servant had been suddenly attacked with a serious indisposition, and these ladies had admitted Dr. K into their sad secret, expecting from his great skill more decided efforts for the almost hopeless cure of the poor sick woman. At this moment Dr. K, who was passing very near us, and whom I had consulted with as to the steps to be taken to drive away my hallucinations, stopped to inquire after my health, and I obtained from him, by my entreaties, some information concerning the history of the captive woman of the deserted house.
Angelika, countess of Z, the doctor told us, was at thirty in all the brilliancy of her charms, when count S, younger than she by several years, became deeply in love with her, and made every exertion to become acqainted with her family. But when about to proceed on a visit to the castle of Z, to demand the hand of the object of his burning passion in marriage, he met Gabrielle, Angelika's sister. This incident deranged all his feelings and suddenly changed all his projects. Angelika, from that moment, lost all the charms which she had at first appeared to possess in his eyes, and Gabrielle became endowed with all that her sister had formerly attained. It was Gabrielle who was asked in marriage, instead of Angelika. The poor forsaken sister did not complain; her pride made her look upon her position very complacently.
"It is not," said she to herself, "this young coxcomb who leaves me, but it is I who have no further use for him."
She had, nevertheless, suddenly ceased showing herself in company, and she was only rarely met with in the most sombre and least frequented parts of her father's park.
One day the servants of Z castle had given chase to a band of Bohemian robbers, who for some time had desolated the country by pillage and conflagration; they brought back with them to the castle a cart, to which they had carefully tied their prisoners. Amongst the faces of these bandits, the most remarkable physiognomy was that of a lean and decrepid old woman, muffled up rather than dressed in scarlet colored rags, and who, standing up on the cart, imperiously cried out that she wanted to get down. The bonds that restrained her were loosed, and she was allowed to descend.—Count Z, informed of the capture that had been made, left his apartment, and was busied in having the castle vaults prepared to serve as a prison for the marauders that fate had thrown into his power, when the countess Angelika suddenly rushed into the castle court, her hair in disorder, and, fall in at his feet, implored with tears in her eyes for mercy to the Bohemians, and, drawing a dagger from her bosom, declared that she would immediately kill herself if the least harm came to these poor people, whom she declared innocent of all crime.
"Bravo, my beauty," cried out the old woman; "I knew that you would be a sure advocate for us!"
And when Angelika, exhausted by this explosion of energy, had fallen fainting, the old woman, breaking the cords that still held her, threw herself on the ground by her side, and lavished upon her the most careful attentions. She drew from her basket a flask filled with liquid in which there appeared to be a gold fish swimming; and as soon as this flask was placed upon Angelika's bosom, the beautiful girl opened her eyes, sprang up with a bound as if a new life was circulating in her veins, and, after having closely embraced the old Bohemian woman, she dragged her precipitately into the castle. Count Z, who had been joined by his wife and his daughter Gabrielle, contemplated this strange scene with a surprise that closely resembled fear. The Bohemians had remained unmoved. They were closely confined in the subterranean vaults of the castle.
The following day, a court of justice was called, and the Bohemians, conducted into their presence, were subjected to a severe trial, after which count Z himself loudly declared that he believed them innocent of all mischief and robbery committed on his domains. They were set at liberty, and passports were granted to them to continue their journey. As for the old woman in scarlet rags, she had disappeared without disclosing which way she was going. All reflected, and formed a thousand conjectures to explain count Z's conduct. It was said that the Bohemian chief had had a long interview with the count, in which extraordinary revelations were mutually exchanged.
Meanwhile Grabrielle's marriage was about to be solemnized, The evening before the day fixed for the ceremony, Angelika loaded a carriage with all that she possessed, and left the castle, accompanied in her flight by a single woman whom it was said much resembled the old Bohemian. Count Z, to avoid the scandal, tried to give to this action a plausible motive, by making known that his daughter, afflicted by a marriage that excited her jealousy, had solicited from him the donation of a little house situated at W, where she had declared that she wished to retire and end her days in the most complete isolation.
After the espousal, count S went with his young wife to D, in a situation where, during a year, they enjoyed together the most perfect felicity; after which the count's health became suddenly enfeebled from some cause which they were unable to discover; an inward suffering seemed to waste away his existence; he refused all care, and his wife could not obtain from him a confession of the hidden disease with which he was languishing. Finally, after a long resistance, he yielded to the advice of his physician, who prescribed a change of scene. He went to Pisa. Gabrielle, who was near giving birth to a child, could not accompany him on this excursion. A short time after its birth, the little girl that she had brought into the world disappeared mysteriously, and without leaving any trace by which they could discover the author of its abduction. Her desolation was pitiable to behold, when, to increase her pain, a message arrived from her father, count Z, which informed her that count S, who was thought to be at Pisa, had just died at W, in the little house to which Angelika had retired, and that Angelika had become frightfully demented, against which calamity the physicians declared that all science was powerless.
Poor Gabrielle went back to her father. One night as she was sadly reflecting on the double loss of her husband and child, she heard a sound as of some one sobbing. She listened; this feeble noise seemed to proceed from a neighboring apartment; she anxiously arose, took her night lamp, and softly opened the door. Great heaven, what did she see!—The old Bohemian woman, dressed in scarlet rags, seated on the floor, her eyes fixed and glassy; a child is struggling in her arms, uttering uneasy cries. The countess Gabrielle immediately recognized her child; she sprang forward with irresistible energy, snatched the child from the old woman, who tried to resist her; but this violence exhausted her remaining strength, and she fell heavily to rise no more. The countess uttered cries of fear; the servants are aroused, and all hasten to the scene, but there no longer remains anything but a corpse to be consigned to the earth. Count Z went to the little house in W to question Angelika concerning the child that had been lost and found again. In the presence of her father, the poor mad woman seems to recover her reason for awhile; but the disease soon regains its empire; Angelika again raves, her features become deformed and bear an odious resemblance to the face of the old Bohemian woman. She weeps, she sobs; then with frenzied accents and savage voice, she orders the attendants to withdraw and leave her alone.
The unfortunate father gives out to the world that the mad woman is shut up in one of his castles; but the truth is that Angelika would not leave her retreat. She still inhabits alone the little house to which count S came to die by her side. The secret of what passed at last between these two beings remained unknown.
Count Z is dead. Gabrielle came to W with Edwine, to make some family arrangements. As for the recluse of the deserted house, she is left to the care of a brutal old servant who has become a maniac through madness and savageness.
Dr. K finished his recital by saying that my unexpected presence in the deserted house had produced on the bewildered senses of Angelika a crisis, the result of which might establish an equilibrium in her faculties. For the rest, the deliciously beautiful image that I had seen reflected in my pocket mirror was that of Edwine, who at the time of my curious contemplation was visiting Angelika's asylum. A few days after these events that had nearly deranged my brain, a feeling of deepest sadness obliged me to quit for a time my residence in W. This strange influence was not entirely dissipated until after the death of the mad woman of the deserted house.