The Sorrows of Satan. Мария Корелли
the sake of the club, if for nothing else, I do not intend either you or myself to be mixed up in a case of suicide. The coroner’s verdict always disposes of these incidents comfortably in two words—‘Temporary insanity.’”
I shuddered. My soul sickened as I thought that within a few yards of us was the bleeding corpse of the man I had so lately seen alive and spoken with,—and notwithstanding Lucio’s words I felt as if I had murdered him.
“‘Temporary insanity’”—repeated Lucio again, as if speaking to himself—“all remorse, despair, outraged honour, wasted love, together with the scientific modern theory of Reasonable Nothingness—Life a Nothing, God a Nothing,—when these drive the distracted human unit to make of himself also a nothing, ‘temporary insanity’ covers up his plunge into the infinite with an untruthful pleasantness. However, after all, it is as Shakespeare says, a mad world!”
I made no answer. I was too overcome by my own miserable sensations. I walked along almost unconscious of movement, and as I stared bewilderedly up at the stars they danced before my sight like fireflies whirling in a mist of miasma. Presently a faint hope occurred to me.
“Perhaps,” I said, “he has not really killed himself? It may be only an attempt?”
“He was a capital shot”—returned Lucio composedly,—“That was his one quality. He has no principles,—but he was a good marksman. I cannot imagine his missing aim.”
“It is horrible! An hour ago alive, … and now … I tell you, Lucio, it is horrible!”
“What is? Death? It is not half so horrible as Life lived wrongly,”—he responded, with a gravity that impressed me in spite of my emotion and excitement—“Believe me, the mental sickness and confusion of a wilfully degraded existence are worse tortures than are contained in the priestly notions of Hell. Come come, Geoffrey, you take this matter too much to heart,—you are not to blame. If Lynton has given himself the ‘happy dispatch’ it is really the best thing he could do,—he was of no use to anybody, and he is well out of it. It is positively weak of you to attach importance to such a trifle. You are only at the beginning of your career–”
“Well, I hope that career will not lead me into any more such tragedies as the one enacted to-night,”—I said passionately—“If it does, it will be entirely against my will!”
Lucio looked at me curiously.
“Nothing can happen to you against your will”—he replied; “I suppose you wish to imply that I am to blame for introducing you to the club? My good fellow, you need not have gone there unless you had chosen to do so! I did not bind and drag you there! You are upset and unnerved,—come into my room and take a glass of wine,—you will feel more of a man afterwards.”
We had by this time reached the hotel, and I went with him passively. With equal passiveness I drank what he gave me, and stood, glass in hand, watching him with a kind of morbid fascination as he threw off his fur-lined overcoat and confronted me, his pale handsome face strangely set and stern, and his dark eyes glittering like cold steel.
“That last stake of Lynton’s, … to you—” I said falteringly—“His soul–”
“Which he did not believe in, and which you do not believe in!” returned Lucio, regarding me fixedly. “Why do you now seem to tremble at a mere sentimental idea? If fantastic notions such as God, the Soul, and the Devil were real facts, there would perhaps be cause for trembling, but being only the brainsick imaginations of superstitious mankind, there is nothing in them to awaken the slightest anxiety or fear.”
“But you”—I began—“you say you believe in the soul?”
“I? I am brainsick!” and he laughed bitterly—“Have you not found that out yet? Much learning hath driven me mad, my friend! Science has led me into such deep wells of dark discovery, that it is no wonder if my senses sometimes reel,—and I believe—at such insane moments—in the Soul!”
I sighed heavily.
“I think I will go to bed,” I answered. “I am tired out,—and absolutely miserable!”
“Alas, poor millionaire!” said Lucio gently,—“I am sorry, I assure you, that the evening has ended so disastrously.”
“So am I!” I returned despondently.
“Imagine it!” he went on, dreamily regarding me—“If my beliefs,—my crack-brained theories,—were worth anything,—which they are not—I could claim the only positive existing part of our late acquaintance Viscount Lynton! But,—where and how to send in my account with him? If I were Satan now…”
I forced a faint smile.
“You would have cause to rejoice!” I said.
He moved two paces towards me, and laid his hands gently on my shoulders.
“No, Geoffrey”—and his rich voice had a strange soft music in it—“No, my friend! If I were Satan I should probably lament!—for every lost soul would of necessity remind me of my own fall, my own despair,—and set another bar between myself and heaven! Remember,—the very Devil was an Angel once!”
His eyes smiled, and yet I could have sworn there were tears in them. I wrung his hand hard,—I felt that notwithstanding his assumed coldness and cynicism, the fate of young Lynton had affected him profoundly. My liking for him gained new fervour from this impression, and I went to bed more at ease with myself and things in general. During the few minutes I spent in undressing I became even able to contemplate the tragedy of the evening with less regret and greater calmness,—for it was certainly no use worrying over the irrevocable,—and, after all, what interest had the Viscount’s life for me? None. I began to ridicule myself for my own weakness and disinterested emotion,—and presently, being thoroughly fatigued, fell sound asleep. Towards morning however, perhaps about four or five o’clock, I woke suddenly as though touched by an invisible hand. I was shivering violently, and my body was bathed in a cold perspiration. In the otherwise dark room there was something strangely luminous, like a cloud of white smoke or fire. I started up, rubbing my eyes,—and stared before me for a moment, doubting the evidence of my own senses. For, plainly visible and substantially distinct, at a distance of perhaps five paces from my bed, stood three Figures, muffled in dark garments and closely hooded. So solemnly inert they were,—so heavily did their sable draperies fall about them that it was impossible to tell whether they were men or women,—but what paralysed me with amazement and terror was the strange light that played around and above them,—the spectral, wandering, chill radiance that illumined them like the rays of a faint wintry moon. I strove to cry out,—but my tongue refused to obey me—and my voice was strangled in my throat. The Three remained absolutely motionless,—and again I rubbed my eyes, wondering if this were a dream or some hideous optical delusion. Trembling in every limb, I stretched my hand towards the bell intending to ring violently for assistance,—when—a Voice, low and thrilling with intense anguish, caused me to shrink back appalled, and my arm fell nerveless at my side. “Misery!”
The word struck the air with a harsh reproachful clang, and I nearly swooned with the horror of it. For now one of the Figures moved, and a face gleamed out from beneath its hooded wrappings—a face white as whitest marble and fixed into such an expression of dreadful despair as froze my blood. Then came a deep sigh that was more like a death-groan, and again the word, “Misery!” shuddered upon the silence.
Mad with fear, and scarcely knowing what I did, I sprang from the bed, and began desperately to advance upon these fantastic masqueraders, determined to seize them and demand the meaning of this practical and untimely jest,—when suddenly all Three lifted their heads and turned their faces on me,—such faces!—indescribably awful in their pallid agony,—and a whisper more ghastly than a shriek, penetrated the very fibres of my consciousness—“Misery!”
With a furious bound I flung myself upon them,—my hands struck empty space. Yet there—distinct as ever—they stood, glowering down upon me, while my clenched fists beat impotently through and beyond their seemingly corporeal shapes! And then—all