The countess began undressing before the looking-glass. Her maids took off the cap trimmed with roses and lifted the powdered wig from her grey, closely-cropped head. Pins showered about her. The silver-trimmed yellow dress fell at her puffy feet. Hermann witnessed the hideous mysteries of her toilet; at last the countess put on bed jacket and night-cap, and in this attire, more suited to her age, she seemed less horrible and ugly.
Like most old people the countess suffered from sleeplessness. Having undressed, she sat down in a big arm-chair by the window and dismissed her maids. They took away the candles, leaving only the lamp before the icons to light the room. The countess sat there, her skin sallow with age, her flabby lips twitching, her body swaying to and fro. Her dim eyes were completely vacant and looking at her one might have imagined that the dreadful old woman was rocking her body not from choice but owing to some secret galvanic mechanism.
Suddenly an inexplicable change came over the death-like face. The lips ceased to move, the eyes brightened: before the countess stood a strange young man.
‘Do not be alarmed, for heaven’s sake, do not be alarmed!’ he said in a low, clear voice. ‘I have no intention of doing you any harm, I have come to beg a favour of you.’
The old woman stared at him in silence, as if she had not heard. Hermann thought she must be deaf and bending down to her ear he repeated what he had just said. The old woman remained silent as before.
‘You can ensure the happiness of my whole life,’ Hermann went on, ‘and at no cost to yourself. I know that you can name three cards in succession…’
Hermann stopped. The countess appeared to have grasped what he wanted and to be seeking words to frame her answer.
‘It was a joke,’ she said at last. ‘I swear to you it was a joke.’
‘No, madam,’ Hermann retorted angrily. ‘Remember Tchaplitsky, and how you enabled him to win back his loss.’
The countess was plainly perturbed. Her face expressed profound agitation; but soon she relapsed into her former impassivity.
‘Can you not tell me those three winning cards?’ Hermann went on.
The countess said nothing. Hermann continued:
‘For whom would you keep your secret? For your grandsons? They are rich enough already: they don’t appreciate the value of money. Your three cards would not help a spendthrift. A man who does not take care of his inheritance will die a beggar though all the demons of the world were at his command. I am not a spendthrift: I know the value of money. Your three cards would not be wasted on me. Well?…’
He paused, feverishly waiting for her reply. She was silent. Hermann fell on his knees.
‘If your heart has ever known what it is to love, if you can remember the ecstasies of love, if you have ever smiled tenderly at the cry of your new-born son, if any human feeling has ever stirred in your breast, I appeal to you as wife, beloved one, mother – I implore you by all that is holy in life not to reject my prayer: tell me your secret. Of what use is it to you? Perhaps it is bound up with some terrible sin, with the loss of eternal salvation, with some bargain with the devil… Reflect – you are old: you have not much longer to live, and I am ready to take your sin upon my soul. Only tell me your secret. Remember that a man’s happiness is in your hands; that not only I, but my children and my children’s children will bless your memory and hold it sacred….’
The old woman answered not a word.
Hermann rose to his feet.
‘You old hag!’ he said, grinding his teeth. ‘Then I will make you speak….’
With these words he drew a pistol from his pocket. At the sight of the pistol the countess for the second time showed signs of agitation. Her head shook and she raised a hand as though to protect herself from the shot…. Then she fell back… and was still.
‘Come, an end to this childish nonsense!’ said Hermann, seizing her by the arm. ‘I ask you for the last time – will you tell me those three cards? Yes or no?’
The countess made no answer. Hermann saw that she was dead.
4
7 mai 18—
Homme sans mœurs et sans religion!
FROM A CORRESPONDENCE
LIZAVETA IVANOVNA was sitting in her room, still in her ball dress, lost in thought. On returning home she had made haste to dismiss the sleepy maid who reluctantly offered to help her, saying that she would undress herself, and with trembling heart had gone to her own room, expecting to find Hermann and hoping that she would not find him. A glance convinced her he was not there, and she thanked fate for having prevented their meeting. She sat down without undressing and began to recall the circumstances that had led her so far in so short a time. It was not three weeks since she had first caught sight of the young man from the window – and yet she was carrying on a correspondence with him, and he had already succeeded in inducing her to agree to a nocturnal tryst! She knew his name only because he had signed some of his letters; she had never spoken to him, did not know the sound of his voice, had never heard him mentioned… until that evening. Strange to say, that very evening at the ball, Tomsky, piqued with the young Princess Pauline for flirting with somebody else instead of with him as she usually did, decided to revenge himself by a show of indifference. He asked Lizaveta Ivanovna to be his partner and danced the interminable mazurka with her. And all the time he kept teasing her about her partiality for officers of the Engineers, assuring her that he knew far more than she could suppose, and some of his sallies so found their mark that several times Lizaveta Ivanovna thought he must know her secret.
‘Who told you all this?’ she asked, laughing.
‘A friend of someone you know,’ Tomsky answered, ‘a very remarkable person.’
‘And who is this remarkable man?’
‘His name is Hermann.’
Lizaveta Ivanovna said nothing; but her hands and feet turned to ice.
‘This Hermann’, continued Tomsky, ‘is a truly romantic figure: he has the profile of a Napoleon and the soul of a Mephistopheles. I think there must be at least three crimes on his conscience. How pale you look!’
‘I have a bad headache… Well, and what did this Hermann – or whatever his name is – tell you?’
‘Hermann is very annoyed with his friend: he says that in his place he would act quite differently…. I suspect in fact that Hermann has designs upon you himself; at any rate he listens to his friend’s ecstatic exclamations with anything but indifference.’
‘But where has he seen me?’
‘In church, perhaps, or when you were out walking…. Heaven only knows! – in your own room maybe, while you were asleep, for there is nothing he –’
Three ladies coming up to invite Tomsky to choose between ‘oubli ou regret?’ interrupted the conversation which had become so painfully interesting to Lizaveta Ivanovna.
The lady chosen by Tomsky was the Princess Pauline herself. She succeeded in effecting a reconciliation with him while they danced an extra turn and spun round once more before she was conducted to her chair. When he returned to his place neither Hermann nor Lizaveta Ivanovna was in Tomsky’s thoughts. Lizaveta Ivanovna longed to resume the interrupted conversation but the mazurka came to an end and shortly afterwards the old countess took her departure.
Tomsky’s words were nothing more than the usual small-talk of the ball-room; but they sank deep into the girl’s romantic heart. The portrait sketched by Tomsky resembled the picture she had herself drawn, and thanks to the novels of the day the commonplace figure both terrified and fascinated her. She sat there with her bare arms crossed and with her head, still adorned with flowers, sunk upon her naked bosom. … Suddenly the door opened and Hermann came in…. She shuddered.
‘Where were you?’ she asked in a frightened whisper.
‘In the old countess’s bedroom,’ Hermann answered. ‘I have just left her. The countess is dead.’
‘Merciful heavens!… what are you saying?’
‘And I think’, added Hermann, ‘that I am the caus
e of her death.’
Lizaveta darted a glance at him, and heard Tomsky’s words echo in her soul: ‘… there must be at least three crimes on his conscience’. Hermann sat down in the window beside her and related all that had happened.
Lizaveta Ivanovna listened to him aghast. So all those passionate letters, those ardent pleas, the bold, determined pursuit had not been inspired by love! Money! – that was what his soul craved! It was not she who could satisfy his desires and make him happy! Poor child, she had been nothing but the blind tool of a thief, of the murderer of her aged benefactress!… She wept bitterly in a vain agony of repentance. Hermann watched in silence: he too was suffering torment; but neither the poor girl’s tears nor her indescribable charm in her grief touched his hardened soul. He felt no pricking of conscience at the thought of the dead old woman. One thing only horrified him: the irreparable loss of the secret which was to have brought him wealth.
‘You are a monster!’ said Lizaveta Ivanovna at last.
‘I did not mean her to die,’ Hermann answered. ‘My pistol was not loaded.’
Both were silent.
Morning came. Lizaveta Ivanovna blew out the candle which had burned down. A pale light illumined the room. She wiped her tear-stained eyes and looked up at Hermann: he was sitting on the window-sill with his arms folded, a menacing frown on his face. In this attitude he bore a remarkable likeness to the portrait of Napoleon. The likeness struck even Lizaveta Ivanovna.
‘How shall I get you out of the house?’ she said at last. ‘I had thought of taking you down the secret staircase but that means going through the bedroom, and I am afraid.’
‘Tell me how to find this secret staircase – I will go alone.’
Lizaveta rose, took a key from the chest of drawers and gave it to Hermann with precise instructions. Hermann pressed her cold, unresponsive hand, kissed her bowed head and left her.
He walked down the winding stairway and entered the countess’s bedroom again. The dead woman sat as though turned to stone. Her face wore a look of profound tranquillity. Hermann stood in front of her and gazed long and earnestly at her, as though trying to convince himself of the terrible truth. Then he went into the study, felt behind the tapestry for the door and began to descend the dark stairway, excited by strange emotions. ‘Maybe some sixty years ago, at this very hour,’ he thought, ‘some happy youth – long since turned to dust – was stealing up this staircase into that very bedroom, in an embroidered tunic, his hair dressed à l’oiseau royal, pressing his three-cornered hat to his breast; and today the heart of his aged mistress has ceased to beat….’
At the bottom of the stairs Hermann saw a door which he opened with the same key, and found himself in a passage leading to the street.
5
That night the dead Baroness von W. appeared before me. She was all in white and said: ‘How do you do, Mr Councillor?’
SWEDENBORG
THREE days after that fateful night, at nine o’clock in the morning, Hermann repaired to the Convent of * * * *, where the last respects were to be paid to the mortal remains of the dead countess. Though he felt no remorse he could not altogether stifle the voice of conscience which kept repeating to him: ‘You are the old woman’s murderer!’ Having very little religious faith, he was exceedingly superstitious. Believing that the dead countess might exercise a malignant influence on his life, he decided to go to her funeral to beg and obtain her forgiveness.
The church was full. Hermann had difficulty in making his way through the crowd. The coffin rested on a rich catafalque beneath a canopy of velvet. The dead woman lay with her hands crossed on her breast, in a lace cap and a white satin robe. Around the bier stood the members of her household: servants in black clothes, with armorial ribbons on their shoulders and lighted candles in their hands; relatives in deep mourning – children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. No one wept: tears would have been une affectation. The countess was so old that her death could not have taken anybody by surprise, and her family had long ceased to think of her as one of the living. A famous preacher delivered the funeral oration. In simple and touching phrases he described the peaceful passing of the saintly woman whose long life had been a quiet, touching preparation for a Cuistian end. ‘The angel of death’, he declared, ‘found her vigilant in devout meditation, awaiting the midnight coming of the bridegroom.’ The service was concluded in melancholy decorum. First the relations went forward to bid farewell of the corpse. They were followed by a long procession of all those who had come to render their last homage to one who had for so many years been a participator in their frivolous amusements. After them came the members of the countess’s household. The last of these was an old woman-retainer the same age as the deceased. Two young girls supported her by the arms. She had not strength to prostrate herself – and she was the only one to shed tears as she kissed her mistress’s cold hand. Hermann decided to approach the coffin after her. He knelt down on the cold stone strewed with branches of spruce-fir, and remained in that position for some minutes; at last he rose to his feet and, pale as the deceased herself, walked up the steps of the catafalque and bent over the corpse…. At that moment it seemed to him that the dead woman darted a mocking look at him and winked her eye. Hermann drew back, missed his footing and crashed headlong to the floor. They picked him up. At the same time Lizaveta Ivanovna was carried out of the church in a swoon. This incident momentarily upset the solemnity of the mournful rite. There was a dull murmur among the congregation, and a tall thin man in the uniform of a court-chamberlain, a close relative of the deceased, whispered in the ear of an Englishman who was standing near him that the young officer was the natural son of the countess, to which the Englishman coldly replied, ‘Oh?’
The whole of that day Hermann was strangely troubled. Repairing to a quiet little tavern to dine, he drank a great deal of wine, contrary to his habit, in the hope of stifling his inner agitation. But the wine only served to excite his imagination. Returning home, he threw himself on his bed without undressing, and fell heavily asleep.
It was night when he woke and the moon was shining into his room. He glanced at the time: it was a quarter to three. Sleep had left him; he sat on the bed and began thinking of the old countess’s funeral.
Just then someone in the street looked in at him through the window and immediately walked on. Hermann paid no attention. A moment later he heard the door of his ante-room open. Hermann thought it was his orderly, drunk as usual, returning from some nocturnal excursion, but presently he heard an unfamiliar footstep: someone was softly shuffling along the floor in slippers. The door opened and a woman in white came in. Hermann mistook her for his old nurse and wondered what could have brought her at such an hour. But the woman in white glided across the room and stood before him – and Hermann recognized the countess!
‘I have come to you against my will,’ she said in a firm voice: ‘but I am commanded to grant your request. The three, the seven and the ace will win for you if you play them in succession, provided that you do not stake more than one card in twenty-four hours and never play again as long as you live. I forgive you my death, on condition that you marry my ward, Lizaveta Ivanovna.’
With these words she turned softly, rustled to the door in her slippers, and disappeared. Hermann heard the street-door click and again saw someone peeping in at him through the window.
It was a long time before he could pull himself together and go into the next room. His orderly was asleep on the floor: Hermann had difficulty in waking him. The man was drunk as usual: there was no getting any sense out of him. The street-door was locked. Hermann returned to his room and, lighting a candle, wrote down all the details of his vision.
6
‘Attendez!’
‘How dare you say “Attendez!” to me?’
‘Your Excellency, I said “Attendez”, sir.’
Two idées fixes cannot co-exist in the moral world any more than two physical bodies can occupy one and the sam
e space. ‘The three, the seven, the ace’ soon drove all thought of the dead woman from Hermann’s mind. ‘Three, seven, ace’ were perpetually in his head and on his lips. If he saw a young girl he would say, ‘How graceful she is! A regular three of hearts!’ Asked the time, he would reply, ‘Five minutes to seven.’ Every stout man reminded him of the ace. ‘Three, seven, ace’ haunted his dreams, assuming all sorts of shapes. The three blossomed before him like a luxuriant flower, the seven took the form of a Gothic portal, and aces became gigantic spiders. His whole attention was focused on one thought: how to make use of the secret which had cost him so dear. He began to consider resigning his commission in order to go and travel abroad. In the public gambling-houses in Paris he would compel fortune to give him his magical treasure. Chance spared him the trouble.
A circle of wealthy gamblers existed in Moscow, presided over by the celebrated Tchekalinsky, who had spent his life at the card-table and amassed millions, accepting promissory notes when he won and paying his losses in ready money. His long experience inspired the confidence of his fellow-players, while his open house, his famous chef and his gay and friendly manner secured for him the general respect of the public. He came to Petersburg. The young men of the capital flocked to his rooms, forsaking balls for cards and preferring the excitement of gambling to the seductions of flirting. Narumov brought Hermann to him.
They passed through a succession of magnificent rooms full of attentive servants. The place was crowded. Several generals and privy councillors were playing whist; young men smoking long pipes lounged about on sofas upholstered in damask. In the drawing-room some twenty gamblers jostled round a long table at which the master of the house was keeping bank. Tchekalinsky was a man of about sixty years of age and most dignified appearance; he had silvery-grey hair, a full, florid face with a kindly expression, and sparkling eyes which were always smiling. Narumov introduced Hermann. Shaking hands cordially, Tchekalinsky requested him not to stand on ceremony, and went on dealing.