The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales by Various

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Hermann hastened forward, picked it up, and then repaired to a
confectioner's shop. Breaking the seal of the envelope, he found
inside it his own letter and Lizaveta's reply. He had expected this,
and he returned home, his mind deeply occupied with his intrigue.

Three days afterwards a bright-eyed young girl from a milliner's
establishment brought Lizaveta a letter. Lizaveta opened it with great
uneasiness, fearing that it was a demand for money, when, suddenly,
she recognized Hermann's handwriting.

"You have made a mistake, my dear," said she. "This letter is not for
me."

"Oh, yes, it is for you," replied the girl, smiling very knowingly.
"Have the goodness to read it."

Lizaveta glanced at the letter. Hermann requested an interview.

"It cannot be," she cried, alarmed at the audacious request and the
manner in which it was made. "This letter is certainly not for me,"
and she tore it into fragments.

"If the letter was not for you, why have you torn it up?" said the
girl. "I should have given it back to the person who sent it."

"Be good enough, my dear," said Lizaveta, disconcerted by this remark,
"not to bring me any more letters for the future, and tell the person
who sent you that he ought to be ashamed."

But Hermann was not the man to be thus put off. Every day Lizaveta
received from him a letter, sent now in this way, now in that. They
were no longer translated from the German. Hermann wrote them under
the inspiration of passion, and spoke in his own language, and they
bore full testimony to the inflexibility of his desire, and the
disordered condition of his uncontrollable imagination. Lizaveta no
longer thought of sending them back to him; she became intoxicated
with them, and began to reply to them, and little by little her
answers became longer and more affectionate. At last she threw out of
the window to him the following letter:

"This evening there is going to be a ball at the Embassy. The Countess
will be there. We shall remain until two o'clock. You have now an
opportunity of seeing me alone. As soon as the Countess is gone, the
servants will very probably go out, and there will be nobody left but
the Swiss, but he usually goes to sleep in his lodge. Come about
half-past eleven. Walk straight upstairs. If you meet anybody in the
anteroom, ask if the Countess is at home. You will be told 'No,' in
which case there will be nothing left for you to do but to go away
again. But it is most probable that you will meet nobody. The
maidservants will all be together in one room. On leaving the
anteroom, turn to the left, and walk straight on until you reach the
Countess's bedroom. In the bedroom, behind a screen, you will find two
doors: the one on the right leads to a cabinet, which the Countess
never enters; the one on the left leads to a corridor, at the end of
which is a little winding staircase; this leads to my room."

Hermann trembled like a tiger as he waited for the appointed time to
arrive. At ten o'clock in the evening he was already in front of the
Countess's house. The weather was terrible; the wind blew with great
violence, the sleety snow fell in large flakes, the lamps emitted a
feeble light, the streets were deserted; from time to time a sledge
drawn by a sorry-looking hack, passed by on the lookout for a belated
passenger. Hermann was enveloped in a thick overcoat, and felt neither
wind nor snow.

At last the Countess's carriage drew up. Hermann saw two footmen carry
out in their arms the bent form of the old lady, wrapped in sable fur,
and immediately behind her, clad in a warm mantle, and with her head
ornamented with a wreath of fresh flowers, followed Lizaveta. The door
was closed. The carriage rolled heavily away through the yielding
snow. The porter shut the street door, the windows became dark.

Hermann began walking up and down near the deserted house; at length
he stopped under a lamp, and glanced at his watch: it was twenty
minutes past eleven. He remained standing under the lamp, his eyes
fixed upon the watch impatiently waiting for the remaining minutes to
pass. At half-past eleven precisely Hermann ascended the steps of the
house and made his way into the brightly-illuminated vestibule. The
porter was not there. Hermann hastily ascended the staircase, opened
the door of the anteroom, and saw a footman sitting asleep in an
antique chair by the side of a lamp. With a light, firm step Hermann
passed by him. The drawing-room and dining-room were in darkness, but
a feeble reflection penetrated thither from the lamp in the anteroom.

Hermann reached the Countess's bedroom. Before a shrine, which was
full of old images, a golden lamp was burning. Faded stuffed chairs
and divans with soft cushions stood in melancholy symmetry around the
room, the walls of which were hung with china silk. On one side of the
room hung two portraits painted in Paris by Madame Lebrun. One of
these represented a stout, red-faced man of about forty years of age,
in a bright green uniform, and with a star upon his breast; the
other--a beautiful young woman, with an aquiline nose, forehead curls,
and a rose in her powdered hair. In the corner stood porcelain
shepherds and shepherdesses, dining-room clocks from the workshop of
the celebrated Lefroy, bandboxes, roulettes, fans, and the various
playthings for the amusement of ladies that were in vogue at the end
of the last century, when Montgolfier's balloons and Niesber's
magnetism were the rage. Hermann stepped behind the screen. At the
back of it stood a little iron bedstead; on the right was the door
which led to the cabinet; on the left, the other which led to the
corridor. He opened the latter, and saw the little winding staircase
which led to the room of the poor companion. But he retraced his steps
and entered the dark cabinet.

The time passed slowly. All was still. The clock in the drawing-room
struck twelve, the strokes echoed through the room one after the
other, and everything was quiet again. Hermann stood leaning against
the cold stove. He was calm, his heart beat regularly, like that of a
man resolved upon a dangerous but inevitable undertaking. One o'clock
in the morning struck; then two, and he heard the distant noise of
carriage-wheels. An involuntary agitation took possession of him. The
carriage drew near and stopped. He heard the sound of the carriage
steps being let down. All was bustle within the house. The servants
were running hither and thither, there was a confusion of voices, and
the rooms were lit up. Three antiquated chambermaids entered the
bedroom, and they were shortly afterwards followed by the Countess,
who, more dead than alive, sank into a Voltaire armchair. Hermann
peeped through a chink. Lizaveta Ivanovna passed close by him, and he
heard her hurried steps as she hastened up the little spiral
staircase. For a moment his heart was assailed by something like a
pricking of conscience, but the emotion was only transitory, and his
heart became petrified as before.

The Countess began to undress before her looking-glass. Her
rose-bedecked cap was taken off, and then her powdered wig was removed
from off her white and closely cut hair. Hairpins fell in showers
around her. Her yellow satin dress, brocaded with silver, fell down at
her swollen feet.

Hermann was a witness of the repugnant mysteries of her toilette; at
last the Countess was in her night-cap and dressing-gown, and in this
costume, more suitable to her age, she appeared less hideous and
deformed.

Like all old people, in general, the Countess suffered from
sleeplessness. Having undressed, she seated herself at the window in a
Voltaire armchair, and dismissed her maids. The candles were taken
away, and once more the room was left with only one lamp burning in
it. The Countess sat there looking quite yellow, mumbling with her
flaccid lips and swaying to and fro. Her dull eyes expressed complete
vacancy of mind, and, looking at her, one would have thought that the
rocking of her body was not a voluntary action of her own, but was
produced by the action of some concealed galvanic mechanism.

Suddenly the death-like face assumed an inexplicable expression. The
lips ceased to tremble, the eyes became animated: before the Countess
stood an unknown man.

"Do not be alarmed, for Heaven's sake, do not be alarmed!" said he in
a low but distinct voice. "I have no intention of doing you any harm;
I have only come to ask a favor of you."

The old woman looked at him in silence, as if she had not heard what
he had said. Hermann thought that she was deaf, and, bending down
towards her ear, he repeated what he had said. The aged Countess
remained silent as before.

"You can insure the happiness of my life," continued Hermann, "and it
will cost you nothing. I know that you can name three cards in
order--"

Hermann stopped. The Countess appeared now to understand what he
wanted; she seemed as if seeking for words to reply.

"It was a joke," she replied at last. "I assure you it was only a
joke."

"There is no joking about the matter," replied Hermann, angrily.
"Remember Chaplitsky, whom you helped to win."

The Countess became visibly uneasy. Her features expressed strong
emotion, but they quickly resumed their former immobility.

"Can you not name me these three winning cards?" continued Hermann.

The Countess remained silent; Hermann continued:

"For whom are you preserving your secret? For your grandsons? They are
rich enough without it, they do not know the worth of money. Your
cards would be of no use to a spendthrift. He who cannot preserve his
paternal inheritance will die in want, even though he had a demon at
his service. I am not a man of that sort. I know the value of money.
Your three cards will not be thrown away upon me. Come!"

He paused and tremblingly awaited her reply. The Countess remained
silent. Hermann fell upon his knees.

"If your heart has ever known the feeling of love," said he, "if you
remember its rapture, if you have ever smiled at the cry of your
new-born child, if any human feeling has ever entered into your
breast, I entreat you by the feelings of a wife, a lover, a mother, by
all that is most sacred in life, not to reject my prayer. Reveal to me
your secret. Of what use is it to you? May be it is connected with
some terrible sin, with the loss of eternal salvation, with some
bargain with the devil. Reflect, you are old, you have not long to
live--I am ready to take your sins upon my soul. Only reveal to me
your secret. Remember that the happiness of a man is in your hands,
that not only I, but my children and my grandchildren, will bless your
memory and reverence you as a saint."

The old Countess answered not a word.

Hermann rose to his feet.

"You old hag!" he exclaimed, grinding his teeth, "then I will make you
answer!" With these words he drew a pistol from his pocket. At the
sight of the pistol, the Countess for the second time exhibited strong
emotions. She shook her head, and raised her hands as if to protect
herself from the shot. Then she fell backwards, and remained
motionless.

"Come, an end to this childish nonsense!" said Hermann, taking hold of
her hand. "I ask you for the last time: will you tell me the names of
your three cards, or will you not?"

The Countess made no reply. Hermann perceived that she was dead!

IV

Lizaveta Ivanovna was sitting in her room, still in her ball dress,
lost in deep thought. On returning home, she had hastily dismissed the
chambermaid, who very reluctantly came forward to assist her, saying
that she would undress herself, and with a trembling heart had gone up
to her own room, expecting to find Hermann there, but yet hoping not
to find him. At the first glance he was not there, and she thanked her
fate for having prevented him keeping the appointment. She sat down
without undressing, and began to call to mind all the circumstances
which in a short time had carried her so far. It was not three weeks
since the time when she had first seen the young officer from the
window--and yet she was already in correspondence with him, and he had
succeeded in inducing her to grant him a nocturnal interview. She knew
his name only through his having written it at the bottom of some of
his letters; she had never spoken to him, had never heard his voice,
and had never heard him spoken of until that evening. But, strange to
say, that very evening at the ball, Tomsky, being piqued with the
young Princess Pauline N----, who, contrary to her usual custom, did
not flirt with him, wished to revenge himself by assuming an air of
indifference: he therefore engaged Lizaveta Ivanovna, and danced an
endless mazurka with her. During the whole of the time he kept teasing
her about her partiality for Engineer officers, he assured her that he
knew far more than she imagined, and some of his jests were so happily
aimed, that Lizaveta thought several times that her secret was known
to him.

"From whom have you learned all this?" she asked, smiling.

"From a friend of a person very well known to you," replied Tomsky,
"from a very distinguished man."

"And whom is this distinguished man?"

"His name is Hermann." Lizaveta made no reply, but her hands and feet
lost all sense of feeling.

"This Hermann," continued Tomsky, "is a man of romantic personality.
He has the profile of a Napoleon, and the soul of a Mephistopheles. I
believe that he has at least three crimes upon his conscience. How
pale you have become!"

"I have a headache. But what did this Hermann, or whatever his name
is, tell you?"

"Hermann is very dissatisfied with his friend. He says that in his
place he would act very differently. I even think that Hermann himself
has designs upon you; at least, he listens very attentively to all
that his friend has to say about you."

"And where has he seen me?"

"In church, perhaps; or on the parade. God alone knows where. It may
have been in your room, while you were asleep, for there is nothing
that he--"

Three ladies approaching him with the question: "oubli ou regret?"
interrupted the conversation, which had become so tantalizingly
interesting to Lizaveta.

The lady chosen by Tomsky was the Princess Pauline herself. She
succeeded in effecting a reconciliation with him during the numerous
turns of the dance, after which he conducted her to her chair. On
returning to his place, Tomsky thought no more either of Hermann or
Lizaveta. She longed to renew 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 customary small talk of the
dance, but they sank deep into the soul of the young dreamer. The
portrait, sketched by Tomsky, coincided with the picture she had
formed within her own mind, and, thanks to the latest romances, the
ordinary countenance of her admirer became invested with attributes
capable of alarming her and fascinating her imagination at the same
time. She was now sitting with her bare arms crossed, and with her
head, still adorned with flowers, sunk upon her uncovered bosom.
Suddenly the door opened and Hermann entered. She shuddered.

"Where were you?" she asked in a terrified whisper.

"In the old Countess's bedroom," replied Hermann. "I have just left
her. The Countess is dead."

"My God! What do you say?"

"And I am afraid," added Hermann, "that I am the cause of her death."

Lizaveta looked at him, and Tomsky's words found an echo in her soul:
"This man has at least three crimes upon his conscience!" Hermann sat
down by the window near her, and related all that had happened.

Lizaveta listened to him in terror. So all those passionate letters,
those ardent desires, this bold, obstinate pursuit--all this was not
love! Money--that was what his soul yearned for! She could not satisfy
his desire and make him happy. The poor girl had been nothing but the
blind tool of a robber, of the murderer of her aged benefactress! She
wept bitter tears of agonized repentance. Hermann gazed at her in
silence; his heart, too, was a prey to violent emotion, but neither
the tears of the poor girl, nor the wonderful charm of her beauty,
enhanced by her grief, could produce any impression upon his hardened
soul. He felt no pricking of conscience at the thought of the dead old
woman. One thing only grieved him: the irreparable loss of the secret
from which he had expected to obtain great wealth.

"You are a monster!" said Lizaveta at last.

"I did not wish for her death," replied Hermann, "my pistol was not
loaded." Both remained silent. The day began to dawn. Lizaveta
extinguished her candle, a pale light illumined her room. She wiped
her tear-stained eyes, and raised them towards Hermann. He was sitting
near the window, with his arms crossed, and with a fierce frown upon
his forehead. In this attitude he bore a striking resemblance to the
portrait of Napoleon. This resemblance struck Lizaveta even.

"How shall I get you out of the house?" said she at last. "I thought
of conducting you down the secret staircase."

"I will go alone," he answered.

Lizaveta arose, took from her drawer a key, handed it to Hermann, and
gave him the necessary instructions. Hermann pressed her cold, inert
hand, kissed her bowed head, and left the room.

He descended the winding staircase, and once more entered the
Countess's bedroom. The dead old lady sat as if petrified, her face
expressed profound tranquillity. Hermann stopped before her, and gazed
long and earnestly at her, as if he wished to convince himself of the
terrible reality. At last he entered the cabinet, felt behind the
tapestry for the door, and then began to descend the dark staircase,
filled with strange emotions. "Down this very staircase," thought he,
"perhaps coming from the very same room, and at this very same hour
sixty years ago, there may have glided, in an embroidered coat, with
his hair dressed _a l'oiseau royal_, and pressing to his heart his
three-cornered hat, some young gallant who has long been mouldering in
the grave, but the heart of his aged mistress has only today ceased to
beat."

At the bottom of the staircase Hermann found a door, which he opened
with a key, and then traversed a corridor which conducted him into the
street.

V

Three days after the fatal night, at nine o'clock in the morning,
Hermann repaired to the Convent of ----, where the last honors were to
be paid to the mortal remains of the old Countess. Although feeling no
remorse, he could not altogether stifle the voice of conscience, which
said to him: "You are the murderer of the old woman!" In spite of his
entertaining very little religious belief, he was exceedingly
superstitious; and believing that the dead Countess might exercise an
evil influence on his life, he resolved to be present at her obsequies
in order to implore her pardon.

The church was full. It was with difficulty that Hermann made his way
through the crowd of people. The coffin was placed upon a rich
catafalque beneath a velvet baldachin. The deceased Countess lay
within it, with her hands crossed upon her breast, with a lace cap
upon her head, and dressed in a white satin robe. Around the
catafalque stood the members of her household; the servants in black
caftans, with armorial ribbons upon their shoulders and candles in
their hands; the relatives--children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren--in deep mourning.

Nobody wept, tears would have been an affectation. The Countess was so
old that her death could have surprised nobody, and her relatives had
long looked upon her as being out of the world. A famous preacher
delivered the funeral sermon. In simple and touching words he
described the peaceful passing away of the righteous, who had passed
long years in calm preparation for a Christian end. "The angel of
death found her," said the orator, "engaged in pious meditation and
waiting for the midnight bridegroom."

The service concluded amidst profound silence. The relatives went
forward first to take a farewell of the corpse. Then followed the
numerous guests, who had come to render the last homage to her who for
so many years had been a participator in their frivolous amusements.
After these followed the members of the Countess's household. The last
of these an old woman of the same age as the deceased. Two young women
led her forward by the hand. She had not strength enough to bow down
to the ground--she merely shed a few tears, and kissed the cold hand
of the mistress.

Herman now resolved to approach the coffin. He knelt down upon the
cold stones, and remained in that position for some minutes; at last
he arose as pale as the deceased Countess herself; he ascended 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 with one eye. Hermann started back, took a false step, and fell
to the ground. Several persons hurried forward and raised him up. At
the same moment Lizaveta Ivanovna was borne fainting into the porch of
the church. This episode disturbed for some minutes the solemnity of
the gloomy ceremony. Among the congregation arose a deep murmur, and a
tall, thin chamberlain, a near relative of the deceased, whispered in
the ear of an Englishman, who was standing near him, that the young
officer was a natural son of the Countess, to which the Englishman
coldly replied "Oh!"

During the whole of that day Hermann was strangely excited. Repairing
to an out of the way restaurant to dine, he drank a great deal of
wine, contrary to his usual custom, in the hope of deadening his
inward agitation. But the wine only served to excite his imagination
still more. On returning home he threw himself upon his bed without
undressing, and fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke up it was already night, and the moon was shining into
the room. He looked at his watch: it was a quarter to three. Sleep had
left him; he sat down upon his bed, and thought of the funeral of the
old Countess.

At that moment somebody in the street looked in at his window and
immediately passed on again. Hermann paid no attention to this
incident. A few moments afterwards he heard the door of his anteroom
open. Hermann thought that it was his orderly, drunk as usual,
returning from some nocturnal expedition, but presently he heard
footsteps that were unknown to him: somebody was walking softly over
the floor in slippers. The door opened, and a woman dressed in white
entered the room. Hermann mistook her for his old nurse, and wondered
what could bring her there at that hour of the night. But the white
woman glided rapidly across the room and stood before him--and Hermann
thought he recognized the Countess.

"I have come to you against my wish," she said in a firm voice, "but I
have been ordered to grant your request. Three, seven, ace, will win
for you if played in succession, but only on these conditions: that
you do not play more than one card in twenty-four-hours, and that you
never play again during the rest of your life. I forgive you my death,
on condition that you marry my companion, Lizaveta Ivanovna."

With these words she turned round very quietly, walked with a
shuffling gait towards the door, and disappeared. Hermann heard the
street door open and shut, and again he saw someone look in at him
through the window.

For a long time Hermann could not recover himself. He then rose up and
entered the next room. His orderly was lying asleep upon the floor,
and he had much difficulty in waking him. The orderly was drunk as
usual, and no information could be obtained from him. The street door
was locked. Hermann returned to his room, lit his candle, and wrote
down all the details of his vision.

VI

Two fixed ideas can no more exist together in the moral world than two
bodies can occupy one and the same physical world. "Three, seven, ace"
soon drove out of Hermann's mind the thought of the dead Countess.
"Three, seven, ace" were perpetually running through his head, and
continually being repeated by his lips. If he saw a young girl, he
would say: "How slender she is; quite like the three of hearts." If
anybody asked "What is the time?" he would reply: "Five minutes to
seven." Every stout man that he saw reminded him of the ace. "Three,
seven, ace" haunted him in his sleep, and assumed all possible shapes.
The threes bloomed before him in the forms of magnificent flowers, the
sevens were represented by Gothic portals, and the aces became
transformed into gigantic spiders. One thought alone occupied his
whole mind--to make a profitable use of the secret which he had
purchased so dearly. He thought of applying for a furlough so as to
travel abroad. He wanted to go to Paris and tempt fortune in some
gambling houses that abounded there. Chance spared him all this
trouble.

There was in Moscow a society of rich gamesters, presided over by the
celebrated Chekalinsky, who had passed all his life at the card table,
and had amassed millions, accepting bills of exchange for his
winnings, and paying his losses in ready money. His long experience
secured for him the confidence of his companions, and his open house,
his famous cook, and his agreeable and fascinating manners, gained for
him the respect of the public. He came to St. Petersburg. The young
men of the capital flocked to his rooms, forgetting balls for cards,
and preferring the emotions of faro to the seductions of flirting.
Naroumoff conducted Hermann to Chekalinsky's residence.

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