"But I have dined," Dionysia objected. "I do not want any thing."The woman insisted only the more. She remembered (God be thanked!) her dear young lady's taste; and she had made her an admirable broth, and some beautiful dessert. And, while thus talking, she set the table, having made up her mind that Dionysia must eat at all hazards; at least, so says the tradition of the place.
The eager zeal of the woman had, at least, this advantage,--that it prevented Dionysia from giving way to her painful thoughts.
Night had come. It was nine o'clock; then it struck ten. At last, the watch came round to relieve the sentinels. A quarter of an hour after that, Blangin reappeared, holding a lantern and an enormous bunch of keys in his hands.
"I have seen Trumence to bed," he said. "You can come now, madam."Dionysia was all ready.
"Let us go," she said simply.
Then she followed the jailer along interminable passages, through a vast vaulted hall, in which their steps resounded as in a church, then through a long gallery. At last, pointing at a massive door, through the cracks of which the light was piercing, he said,--"Here we are."
But Dionysia seized his arm, and said in an almost inaudible voice,--"Wait a moment."
She was almost overcome by so many successive emotions. She felt her legs give way under her, and her eyes become dim. In her heart she preserved all her usual energy; but the flesh escaped from her will and failed her at the last moment.
"Are you sick?" asked the jailer. "What is the matter?"She prayed to God for courage and strength: when her prayer was finished, she said,--"Now, let us go in."
And, ****** a great noise with the keys and the bolts, Blangin opened the door to Jacques de Boiscoran's cell.
Jacques counted no longer the days, but the hours. He had been imprisoned on Friday morning, June 23, and this was Wednesday night, June 28, He had been a hundred and thirty-two hours, according to the graphic description of a great writer, "living, but struck from the roll of the living, and buried alive."Each one of these hundred and thirty-two hours had weighed upon him like a month. Seeing him pale and haggard, with his hair and beard in disorder, and his eyes shining brightly with fever, like half-extinguished coals, one would hardly have recognized in him the happy lord of Boiscoran, free from care and trouble, upon whom fortune had ever smiled,--that haughty sceptical young man, who from the height of the past defied the future.
The fact is, that society, obliged to defend itself against criminals, has invented no more fearful suffering than what is called "close confinement." There is nothing that will sooner demoralize a man, crush his will, and utterly conquer the most powerful energy. There is no struggle more distressing than the struggle between an innocent man accused of some crime, and the magistrate,--a helpless being in the hands of a man armed with unlimited power.
If great sorrow was not sacred, to a certain degree, Dionysia might have heard all about Jacques. Nothing would have been easier. She would have been told by Blangin, who was watching M. de Boiscoran like a spy, and by his wife, who prepared his meals, through what anguish he had passed since his imprisonment.
Stunned at first, he had soon recovered; and on Friday and Saturday he had been quiet and confident, talkative, and almost cheerful. But Sunday had been a fatal day. Two gendarmes had carried him to Boiscoran to take off the seals; and on his way out he had been overwhelmed with insults and curses by the people who had recognized him. He had come back terribly distressed.
On Tuesday, he had received Dionysia's letter, and answered it. This had excited him fearfully, and, during a part of the night, Trumence had seen him walk up and down in his cell with all the gestures and incoherent imprecations of a madman.
He had hoped for a letter on Wednesday. When none came, he had sunk into a kind of stupor, during which M. Galpin had been unable to draw a word from him. He had taken nothing all day long but a little broth and a cup of coffee. When the magistrate left him, he had sat down, leaning his head on his elbows, facing the window; and there he had remained, never moving, and so deeply absorbed in his reveries, that he had taken no notice when they brought him light. He was still in this state, when, a little after ten o'clock, he heard the grating of the bolts of his cell. He had become so well acquainted with the prison that he knew all its regulations. He knew at what hours his meals were brought, at what time Trumence came to clean up his room, and when he might expect the magistrate. After night, he knew he was his own master till next morning. So late a visit therefore, must needs bring him some unexpected news, his liberty, perhaps,--that visitor for whom all prisoners look so anxiously.
He started up. As soon as he distinguished in the darkness the jailer's rugged face, he asked eagerly,--"Who wants me?"
Blangin bowed. He was a polite jailer. Then he replied,--"Sir, I bring you a visitor."
And, moving aside, he made way for Dionysia, or, rather, he pushed her into the room; for she seemed to have lost all power to move.
"A visitor?" repeated M. de Boiscoran.
But the jailer had raised his lantern, and the poor man could recognize his betrothed.
"You," he cried, "you here!"
And he drew back, afraid of being deceived by a dream, or one of those fearful hallucinations which announce the coming of insanity, and take hold of the brains of sick people in times of over-excitement.
"Dionysia!" he barely whispered, "Dionysia!"If not her own life (for she cared nothing for that), but Jacques's life, had at that moment depended on a single word, Dionysia could not have uttered it. Her throat was parched, and her lips refused to move.
The jailer took it upon himself to answer,--"Yes," he said, "Miss Chandore."
"At this hour, in my prison!"
