The new terror
be warm when I’m cold. What a tyrant you are!... I say, we’re beginning
our married life well,” she went on in the funniest manner, as she
kissed me before Mathilde, who did not seem to mind, accustomed as she
was for so many years to see us kiss each other.
It was Cordélia who told Mathilde to leave the room. Then she at once
asked:
“What has father been talking to you about? You and he have been
wandering about the park, which you dislike, for more than
half-an-hour. What did he tell you?”
“He told me a lot of things of no consequence,” I returned. “Let’s have
something to eat. Aren’t you hungry?”
“Oh yes. But you know you may as well tell me what he said. It was I
who sent him out to you. I wanted you to know all, dearest, before you
came upstairs to me here. Believe me the whole thing is utter nonsense.
Tell me that you forgive me.”
“Do I forgive you!... Dear, dear, dear Cordélia!”
As she carved the truffled galantine, she went on:
“When I think of it now I see how silly I was, but he was such an odd
person. Indeed he really seems to have fascinated me.”
“Don’t let us speak of it,” I entreated. “Don’t let us speak of it.”
“You ought to be glad to hear me speak so calmly of it. It shows that
I am entirely cured. And I can assure you that I am quite as pleased
as you are. One must not touch such things as occultism, hypnotism,
and magic you know. One gets carried away and ceases to be master of
oneself. It is a morbid condition to be in.... What do you think of
this galantine? Come, pour me out some champagne.... And kiss me....
What are you thinking about? Surely you’re not going to trouble about
Patrick now. There! To mention his name makes me feel quite queer.”
A shiver passed through her.
“I’m certain, Hector, there’s a draught coming from somewhere.”
“No, dearest, all the doors are closed.”
“An ice-cold draught.”
Her teeth chattered. I rose from the table filled with an indescribable
uneasiness. And suddenly, as I looked at her, I saw her turn pale.
“What is it? What’s the matter Cordélia dearest?”
“I see now what’s the matter,” she returned, drawing her cloak more
closely round her. “It’s the portrait.”
“The portrait! What do you mean?”
“The portrait which Patrick sent to me and I ordered to be taken down
into the cellar.”
“Well?”
“Well, the portrait is cold.”
Cordélia’s words were Greek to me and the look of blank amazement in
my eyes bore witness, not only to my inability to comprehend her, but
also to my uneasiness.
“You don’t understand. You don’t understand,” declared Cordélia in
a quavering voice. “That is what they call the externalization of
sensibility. They assert that men of science have made conclusive
experiments in this respect. For instance, the celebrated M. de
Rochas has demonstrated scientifically that one can take a person’s
sensibility from him and transport it to a glass of water and make that
person suffer by plunging a pin into the glass of water.”
I sprang from my chair utterly dismayed by the tone in which Cordélia
uttered what I regarded as “devil’s tales.”
“Are you going crazy, Cordélia? Surely you don’t believe in such
preposterous stuff. Come.... Come.... Do say something.”
“I feel cold,” she replied, in an increasingly quavering and far-away
voice. “I feel cold. I am as cold as my portrait. I see that I shall
be ill if the portrait is left in the cellar. Besides it was wrong of
me to send it down there. _He_ must be displeased.”
I realized with a feeling of intense sorrow that my Cordélia was not so
completely cured of her strange malady as she imagined, and with tears
in my eyes I exclaimed:
“Where would you like me to put it? I don’t want to go against your
wishes in such a trifling matter.”
“Wherever you please, wherever you please, but don’t leave it in the
cellar. And be careful not to knock it about.”
“Of course not. I’ll go and fetch it,” I said, greatly perturbed.
“You must forgive me, dearest, but it’s not my fault, is it? I’m very
sorry he sent it to us.”
“So am I.”
I went downstairs. I was fuming. I called Surdon and gave him
instructions to fetch the portrait and then I told him not to bother
about it, for after what Cordélia had said, I feared lest he should
subject it to rough usage.
I myself descended into the cellar. I seized the wretched canvas and
carried it to the drawing-room on the first floor, taking care in
spite of myself not to knock it against the furniture or walls. Some
people may say—some people are so clever!—that I behaved like a great
simpleton, an ass. May be. But we shall see about that. We shall see
about that.
The fact is that Cordélia held such sway over my mind that I could not
choose but accede to her wishes.
Nevertheless after I deposited the portrait against the foot of a
round table I flung wide open the French windows of the balcony which
was not calculated to make it warm. The cool freshness of the night
after a beautiful day, floated into the room. No blame could attach
to me. I had treated the portrait with care and it was not now in the
cellar. That was all that was asked of me, and if Cordélia was no
longer feeling cold I should at once be able to cure her of her strange
obsession.
When I returned to her she was still shivering in her cloak, and she
gave me a mournful look.
“Why did you put the portrait in a draught?” she asked. “I was certain
that you would play some trick. It’s too bad of you. I am still cold.
Bring it here, and then I shall be quite easy in my mind.”
“Certainly, that’s the best thing to be done,” I exclaimed, and I went
off again, bitterly regretting my mistaken calculation. I should have
done better to put the thing near the fire; and then, if Cordélia had
taken it into her head that I had left it in the cold, out of spite,
she would have been confounded once for all.
When the portrait was brought into the boudoir, Cordélia, of course,
declared that she was no longer cold. She removed her fur cloak, and I
perceived that she was clad in a charming loosely-fitting robe. Oh what
a delightful, sweet little thing she was!
“My dearest, you can’t think how beautiful you are,” I cried. “That’s
the honest truth, and no mere idle fancy, and when I kiss you I don’t
feel as if I am kissing a portrait!”
“I agree with you,” she said laughing merrily. “You are taking my
breath away.”
Truth to tell I held her somewhat tightly in my arms, for I was
quivering with happiness. She had become entirely normal again, so much
so that she recalled me to the realities of our supper. And we started
afresh to eat with good appetite and a light heart. We drank out of the
same glass like children. Nevertheless, warned by my experience with
the portrait, I was careful to keep the conversation from straying to
the past. Our plans for the future and our impending travel about the
world engrossed our attention.
“How happy we shall be!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, my dear Cordélia, we shall be very happy. We must think of
nothing else.”
I had uttered a word too many.
“What do you expect me to think about, my dear Hector?” she returned,
as she regarded my air of embarrassment. “Oh, of course, you say that
because of the portrait. I admit that I was greatly impressed by it,
or rather by its being sent here, because I have never seen it, and I
don’t want to see it,”—I had placed it in a corner with its face to
the wall—“but the whole thing is over now—quite. Oh quite, I assure
you. And when I think of it, now that I am all right again, I feel a
little foolish of course.”
Nothing could have given me greater pleasure than these last words. I
did not lose the opportunity to score.
“You admit, dear, that just now you were not very well. The exertions
of the day, and the necessity to recover your strength—you were simply
hungry—these things were the cause of the trouble and brought about
that fit of shivering, you may be sure.”
“Yes, I am inclined to think so.”
I kissed her again for these last words, but I thought it as well to
add with the greatest good humor.
“Personally, I have no fear of the ‘externalization of sensibility.’”
I had no sooner made the remark than Cordélia’s face grew serious once
more.
“We make a mistake, I think, to treat these matters lightly. I may
have given way to fancies, but I repeat that the ‘externalization of
sensibility’ has been scientifically proved. It is our modern material
conception of things which has imprisoned the soul within the body, but
in the Middle Ages....”
Oh come, I say, I thought to myself. We are flying off at a tangent
again. We are in the Middle Ages now!
“In the Middle Ages the soul was easily liberated from the body.”
“We are not in the Middle Ages now, my dearest.”
“How wonderful were its wanderings outside its prison!”
“Yes, yes, of course.... I say do try some of this fruit.”
“Have you ever heard of persons being bewitched?”
“Never, and I don’t want to know anything about them.”
“What a great big silly you are, Hector! It is impossible to talk
seriously with you. There are certain things you must know, unless you
want to remain a blockhead.”
“Thank you.”
“The casting of spells is bound up in the history of France, and
modern discoveries have proved to us that these things are not pure
imagination. When a person wanted to cast a spell on any one, he made a
small wax image which resembled as nearly as possible the person whom
he wished to be rid of.”
“Indeed, and what then?” I inquired, slyly putting my arm round her
waist.
“And then after, of course, externalizing the sensibility of this
person to the wax image, he stuck a pin into the image and the person
died.”
“Are you certain that the person died?”
“Am I certain! No, I am not certain about it.”
“I’m glad of that,” I returned as I gazed into my Cordélia’s face with
the tenderest expression.
“But there are persons who are certain of it; persons who even maintain
that many mysterious deaths in the Middle Ages can be accounted for
only on this assumption.”
I dared not ask who those persons were. I was greatly perturbed that
the conversation should once more stray to a subject which was
distasteful to me. Suddenly she stood up.
“Show me the portrait,” she requested, “I want to have a look at it.”
Not five minutes before she had assured me that she had no wish to see
it!
“Is it really necessary, my dear Cordélia?” I asked, not afraid to show
a distrust which I hoped she might share.
But unfortunately her thoughts were once more entirely centered on the
portrait, and it was with a regret which I shall feel all my life that
I saw her bend over the canvas and turn its face towards us.
Though it remained in the shadow, the outline of the figure stood out
clearly in its peculiar radiance.
“Oh how beautiful it is!” whispered Cordélia.
She stood for a few minutes still and silent, and then asked my opinion:
“Don’t you think it is beautiful, Hector?”
“Very beautiful,” I answered. “Very beautiful.”
To be sure I had no wish to contradict her, and moreover I had
expressed my real opinion. Truth to tell, I did not know how to keep my
countenance. When a woman dabbles in high art the simplest gesture by
a man may appear to her a piece of stupidity.... Still I ventured to
press her hand softly to remind her of my presence. She turned her head
towards me, and with a delightful and gentle look in her eyes, pointing
to the canvas, said:
“You can say what you like about the man who painted that portrait,
my dear Hector, you can say that he is cracked, and, in fact, I quite
think that he is a bit crazy, but you must admit that he is a great
artist.”
And as I made the mistake of not replying at once, she went on: