"Your eyes are very bloodshot, my good father, said the princess.
"I have looked too closely into my web," answered the Jesuit, with a sinister smile; "and I must look again, to make Father d"Aigrigny, who pretends to be blind, catch a glimpse of my other flies. The two daughters of Marshal Simon, for instance, growing sadder and more dejected every day, at the icy barrier raised between them and their father; and the latter thinking himself one day dishonored if he does this, another if he does that; so that the hero of the Empire has become weaker and more irresolute than a child. What more remains of this impious family? Jacques Rennepont? Ask Morok, to what a state of debas.e.m.e.nt intemperance has reduced him, and towards what an abyss he is rushing!--There is my occurrence-sheet; you see to what are reduced all the members of this family, who, six weeks ago, had each elements of strength and union! Behold these Renneponts, who, by the will of their heretical ancestor, were to unite their forces to combat and crush our Society!--There was good reason to fear them; but what did I say? That I would act upon their pa.s.sions. What have I done? I have acted upon their pa.s.sions. At this hour they are vainly struggling in my web--they are mine--they are mine--"
As he was speaking, Rodin"s countenance and voice had undergone a singular alteration; his complexion, generally so cadaverous, had become flushed, but unequally, and in patches; then, strange phenomenon! his eyes grew both more brilliant and more sunken, and his voice sharper and louder. The change in the countenance of Rodin, of which he did not appear to be conscious, was so remarkable, that the other actors in this scene looked at him with a sort of terror.
Deceived as to the cause of this impression, Rodin exclaimed with indignation, in a voice interrupted by deep gaspings for breath: "It is pity for this impious race, that I read upon your faces? Pity for the young girl, who never enters a church, and erects pagan altars in her habitation? Pity for Hardy, the sentimental blasphemer, the philanthropic atheist, who had no chapel in his factory, and dared to blend the names of Socrates, Marcus, Aurelius, and Plato, with our Savior"s? Pity for the Indian worshipper of Brahma? Pity for the two sisters, who have never even been baptized? Pity for that brute, Jacques Rennepont? Pity for the stupid imperial soldier, who has Napoleon for his G.o.d, and the bulletins of the Grand Army for his gospel? Pity for this family of renegades, whose ancestor, a relapsed heretic, not content with robbing us of our property, excites from his tomb, at the end of a century and a half, his cursed race to lift their heads against us? What! to defend ourselves from these vipers, we shall not have the right to crush them in their own venom?--I tell you, that it is to serve heaven, and to give a salutary example to the world, to devote, by unchaining their own pa.s.sions, this impious family to grief and despair and death!"
As he spoke thus, Rodin was dreadful in his ferocity; the fire of his eyes became still more brilliant; his lips were dry and burning, a cold sweat bathed his temples, which could be seen throbbing; an icy shudder ran through his frame. Attributing these symptoms to fatigue from writing through a portion of the night, and wishing to avoid fainting, he went to the sideboard, filled another gla.s.s with wine, which he drank off at a draught, and returned as the cardinal said to him: "If your course with regard to this family needed justification, my good father, your last word would have victoriously justified it. Not only are you right, according to your own casuists, but there is nothing in your proceedings contrary to human laws. As for the divine law, it is pleasing to the Lord to destroy impiety with its own weapons."
Conquered, as well as the others, by Rodin"s diabolical a.s.surance, and brought back to a kind of fearful admiration, Father d"Aigrigny said to him: "I confess I was wrong in doubting the judgment of your reverence.
Deceived by the appearance of the means employed, I could not judge of their connection, and above all, of their results. I now see, that, thanks to you, success is no longer doubtful."
"This is an exaggeration," replied Rodin, with feverish impatience; "all these pa.s.sions are at work, but the moment is critical. As the alchemist bends over the crucible, which may give him either treasures or sudden death--I alone at this moment--"
Rodin did not finish the sentence. He pressed both his hands to his forehead, with a stifled cry of pain.
"What is the matter?" said Father d"Aigrigny. "For some moments you have been growing fearfully pale."
"I do not know "what is the matter," said Rodin, in an altered voice; "my headache increases--I am seized with a sort of giddiness."
"Sit down," said the princess, with interest.
"Take something," said the bishop.
"It will be nothing," said Rodin, with an effort; "I am no milksop, thank heaven!--I had little sleep last night; it is fatigue--nothing more. I was saying, that I alone could now direct this affair: but I cannot execute the plan myself. I must keep out of the way, and watch in the shade: I must hold the threads, which I alone can manage," added Rodin, in a faint voice.
"My good father," said the cardinal uneasily, "I a.s.sure you that you are very unwell. Your paleness is becoming livid."
"It is possible," answered Rodin, courageously; "but I am not to be so soon conquered. To return to our affair--this is the time, in which your qualities, Father d"Aigrigny, will turn to good account. I have never denied them, and they may now be of the greatest use. You have the power of charming--grace--eloquence--you must--"
Rodin paused again. A cold sweat poured from his forehead. He felt his legs give way under him, notwithstanding his obstinate energy.
"I confess, I am not well," he said; "yet, this morning, I was as well as ever. I shiver. I am icy cold."
"Draw near the fire--it is a sudden indisposition," said the bishop, offering his arm with heroic devotion; "it will not be anything of consequence."
"If you were to take something warm, a cup of tea," said the princess; "Dr. Baleinier will be here directly--he will rea.s.sure us as to this--indisposition."
"It is really inexplicable," said the prelate.
At these words of the cardinal, Rodin, who had advanced with difficulty towards the fire, turned his eyes upon the prelate, and looked at him fixedly in a strange manner, for about a second; then, strong in his unconquerable energy, notwithstanding the change in his features, which were now visibly disfigured, Rodin said, in a broken voice, which he tried to make firm: "The fire has warmed me; it will be nothing. I have no time to coddle myself. It would be a pretty thing to fall ill just as the Rennepont affair can only succeed by my exertions! Let us return to business. I told you, Father d"Aigrigny, that you might serve us a good deal; and you also, princess, who have espoused this cause as if it were your own--"
Rodin again paused. This time he uttered a piercing cry, sank upon a chair placed near him, and throwing himself back convulsively, he pressed his hands to his chest, and exclaimed: "Oh! what pain!"
Then (dreadful sight!) a cadaverous decomposition, rapid as thought, took place in Rodin"s features. His hollow eyes were filled with blood, and seemed to shrink back in their orbits, which formed, as it were, two dark holes, in the centre of which blazed points of fire; nervous convulsions drew the flabby, damp, and icy skin tight over the bony prominences of the face, which was becoming rapidly green. From the lips, writhing with pain, issued the struggling breath, mingled with the words: "Oh! I suffer! I burn!"
Then, yielding to a transport of fury. Rodin tore with his nails his naked chest, for he had twisted off the b.u.t.tons of his waistcoat, and rent his black and filthy shirt-front, as if the pressure of those garments augmented the violence of the pain under which he was writhing.
The bishop, the cardinal, and Father d"Aigrigny, hastily approached Rodin, to try and hold him; he was seized with horrible convulsions; but, suddenly, collecting all his strength, he rose upon his feet stiff as a corpse. Then, with his garments in disorder, his thin, gray hair standing up all around his greenish face, fixing his red and flaming eyes upon the cardinal, he seized him with convulsive grasp, and exclaimed in a terrible voice, half stifled in his throat: "Cardinal Malipieri--this illness is too sudden--they suspect me at Rome--you are of the race of the Borgias--and your secretary was with me this morning!"
"Unhappy man! what does he dare insinuate?" cried the prelate, as amazed as he was indignant at the accusation. So saying, the cardinal strove to free himself from the grasp of Rodin, whose fingers were now as stiff as iron.
"I am poisoned!" muttered Rodin, and sinking back, he fell into the arms of Father d"Aigrigny.
Notwithstanding his alarm, the cardinal had time to whisper to the latter: "He thinks himself poisoned. He must therefore be plotting something very dangerous."
The door of the room opened. It was Dr. Baleinier.
"Oh, doctor!" cried the princess, as she ran pale and frightened towards him; "Father Rodin has been suddenly attacked with terrible convulsions.
Quick! quick!"
"Convulsions? oh! it will be nothing, madame," said the doctor, throwing down his hat upon a chair, and hastily approaching the group which surrounded the sick man.
"Here is the doctor!" cried the princess. All stepped aside, except Father d"Aigrigny, who continued to support Rodin, leaning against a chair.
"Heavens! what symptoms!" cried Dr. Baleinier, examining with growing terror the countenance of Rodin, which from green was turning blue.
"What is it?" asked all the spectators, with one voice.
"What is it?" repeated the doctor, drawing back as if he had trodden upon a serpent. "It is the cholera! and contagious!"
On this frightful, magic word, Father d"Aigrigny abandoned his hold of Rodin, who rolled upon the floor.
"He is lost!" cried Dr. Baleinier. "But I will run to fetch the means for a last effort." And he rushed towards the door.
The Princess de Saint-Dizier, Father d"Aigrigny, the bishop, and the cardinal followed in terror the flight of Dr. Baleinier. They all pressed to the door, which, in their consternation, they could not open. It opened at last but from without--and Gabriel appeared upon the threshold. Gabriel, the type of the true priest, the holy, the evangelical minister, to whom we can never pay enough of respect and ardent sympathy, and tender admiration. His angelic countenance, in its mild serenity, offered a striking contrast of these faces, all disturbed and contracted with terror.
The young priest was nearly thrown down by the fugitives, who rushed through the now open doorway, exclaiming: "Do not go in! he is dying of the cholera. Fly!"
On these words, pushing back the bishop, who, being the last, was trying to force a pa.s.sage, Gabriel ran towards Rodin, while the prelate succeeded in making his escape. Rodin, stretched upon the carpet, his limbs twisted with fearful cramps, was writhing in the extremity of pain. The violence of his fall had, no doubt, roused him to consciousness, for he moaned, in a sepulchral voice: "They leave me to die--like a dog--the cowards!--Help!--no one--"
And the dying man, rolling on his back with a convulsive movement, turned towards the ceiling a face on which was branded the infernal despair of the d.a.m.ned, as he once more repeated: "No one!--not one!"
His eyes, which suddenly flamed with fury, just then met the large blue eyes of the angelic and mild countenance of Gabriel who, kneeling beside him, said to him, in his soft, grave tones: "I am here, father--to help you, if help be possible--to pray for you, if G.o.d calls you to him."
"Gabriel!" murmured Rodin, with failing voice; "forgive me for the evil I have done you--do not leave me--do not--"
Rodin could not finish; he had succeeded in raising himself into a sitting posture; he now uttered a loud cry, and fell back without sense or motion.
The same day it was announced in the evening papers: "The cholera has broken out in Paris. The first case declared itself this day, at half past three, P.M. in the Rue de Babylone, at Saint-Dizier House."
CHAPTER XVIII. THE SQUARE OF NOTRE DAME.
A week had pa.s.sed since Rodin was seized with the cholera, and its ravages had continually increased. That was an awful time! A funeral pall was spread over Paris, once so gay. And yet, never had the sky been of a more settled, purer blue; never had the sun shone more brilliantly.
The inexorable serenity of nature, during the ravages of the deadly scourge, offered a strange and mysterious contrast. The flaunting light of the dazzling sunshine fell full upon the features, contracted by a thousand agonizing fears. Each trembled for himself, or for those dear to him; every countenance was stamped with an expression of feverish astonishment and dread. People walked with rapid steps, as if they would escape from the fate which threatened them; besides, they were in haste to return to their homes, for often they left life, health, happiness, and, two hours later, they found agony, death, and despair.