第39章

"Brother! what simplicity is yours! A few caresses, a few cajoleries, and your satisfied vanity silences your distrust and disarms your good sense! Did you not know that this young man is the intimate friend of your master?"Then bowing towards Gilbert:

"They thought then that you could make me speak.And you imagined yourself that a coarse artifice and some threatening talk would suffice to tear from me a secret I have guarded for nearly seven years.Presumptuous young man, return to him who sent you, and repeat faithfully what I am about to say to you: One day at Martinique, in a remote house some distance from the outskirts of the town of St.Pierre,--let me speak, my story will be short.--Picture to yourself a great dark hall, with a table in the center.--They shut me in there near noon; the next day at evening I was there still, and for thirty hours I neither ate nor drank.The night came,--they stretched me upon a table,--bound me and tied me down.Then I saw bending over me a face more terrible than thou wilt ever see, even in thy dreams, and a mouth which sneered as the damned must sneer, approached my ear and said to me: 'Father Alexis, I want your secret--I will have it.' I breathed not a word; they tightened the cords with a jack, and I did not speak;they piled weights on my chest, and I spoke not; they put boots upon me which I hope never to see upon thy feet, and I spake not;my bones cracked, and I spake not; I saw my blood gush out, and Idid not speak.At length a supreme anguish seized me, a red cloud passed over my eyes, I felt my heart freezing, and I thought myself dying.Then I spoke and said: 'Count Leminof, thou canst kill me, but thou shalt not tear from me the secrets of the confessional.'"And at these words, the priest stooping, laid bare his right foot and showed Gilbert the bruised and withered flesh, and bones deformed by torture; then covering it again he recoiled, as if from a serpent in his path, and cried in a thundering voice, extending his arms to Heaven:

"God curse the vipers who take the form of doves! Oh, Solomon, hast thou not written in thy Proverbs: 'When he shall speak graciously, do not believe him, for he has seven abominations in his heart'?"As he listened to the recital of the priest, Gilbert was reminded of some incoherent phrases of the somnambulist, which he had not been able to explain: "STRETCH HIM ON THIS TABLE! THE BLACK ROBE!

TIGHTEN THE IRON BOOTS!"

"That black robe then," said he to himself, "was Father Alexis."He rose and looked at the priest in surprise and admiration; he could not take his eyes from that face which he believed he saw for the first time, and he murmured in a low voice:

"My God! how complex is the heart of man.What a discovery I have just made!"Then he tried to approach him; but the priest, still recoiling and raising his arms threateningly above his head, repeated:

"Cursed be the vipers who come in the form of doves!""And I say," cried Gilbert, "blessed forever be the lips which have touched the sacred coal, and keep their secrets even unto death!"And rushing upon him he took him in his arms, and kissed three times the scar which the cruel bite of Solon had left.

Father Alexis was surprised, stupefied, and confounded.He looked at Gilbert, then at Abraham, then at Jacob.He uttered disjointed phrases.He called upon Heaven to witness what had happened to him, gesticulated and wept until, overcome by emotion, he dropped on the marble step, and hid his face, bathed in tears, in his hands.

"Father," said Gilbert respectfully, seating himself near him, "pardon me for the agitation I have caused you.And if by chance some distrust of me remains, listen to what I am about to tell you, for I am going to put myself at your mercy, and by betraying a secret it will depend upon you to have me expelled from this house the day and hour you please."He then related to him the scene of the corridor.

"Judge for yourself what impression the terrible words I heard produced upon me! For some days my mind has been at work.Iceaselessly tried to picture to myself the details of this lamentable affair; but fearing to stray in my suspicions, I wished to make a clean breast of it, and came to find you.I have grieved you sorely, father; once more, will you pardon my rash curiosity?"Father Alexis raised his head.Farewell to the saint! farewell to the prophet! His face had resumed its habitual expression; the sublime tempest which had transfigured it had left but a few almost invisible traces of its passage.He looked at Gilbert reproachfully.

"Ah!" said he, "it was only for this that you sought me? My dear child, you do not love the arts then?"